MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - MK IS BACK! | Blanchfield Hype Too Strong? | Fundora vs. Tszyu | Whittaker-Chimaev & More

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

MK is BACK! Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas break down the latest news in the combat sports world. The guys break down UFC Atlantic City, Sebastian Fundora vs. Tim Tszyu, Robert Whittaker vs. Khamzat Chiamev and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life, this is our passion

That's the spirit we bring to this show I'm Luke Thomas I'm Brian Campbell This is Morning Combat Oh, yeah The new era begins right now Morning Combat 2.0, live and direct from New York City at the Metal Ark Studios. My name is Brian Campbell.

That is Luke Thomas, and thank you, MKDonks, for being here. It's been a long time to get here, but boy are we happy. Manhattan, New York City, loaded show today. Are you ready, LT? I am ready. We have fresh off the bird from Vegas. Not quite. I got back Saturday. You got back yesterday. But it's New York, Vegas, back to New York City, loaded show today. Are you ready, LT? I am ready. We have fresh off the bird from Vegas. Not quite. I got back Saturday.

You got back yesterday. But it's New York, Vegas, back to New York, back to MK. Let's do it. Special thanks to everyone involved in launching our new era here from Metal Ark to DraftKings. You're watching us, of course, now on the DraftKings network. It's the same old show, same old attitude, a new direction, and we are ready to get at it.

Quick housekeeping note, of course, as always, you can follow like us on social and what we're doing there, Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell back as always, and you can head on over, of course, to morningcombat.store. You want to be dressed in this fantastic bomber jacket right here? How about the Factory Town MMA? We got it all, and then some tall, pale, and handsome. It is your boy, BC, but let's get out of that, and let's get into what we did.

Luke and I were in Las Vegas over the weekend, loaded combat sports. We are back with our five topics, DMs from donks to come, a little HYSTS on the back end, but we're here, we're ready, we're excited. Let's get to it. And topic number one on this Monday morning, UFC Atlantic City at the old Boardwalk Hall. And women's strawweights in the main event. They went five rounds in a number one contender fight to see who, in theory,

will face the winner of the expected trilogy this fall between champion Alexa Grasso and former champion Valentina Shevchenko. And in this one, it was Manon Faroe taking a unanimous decision from Erin Blanchfield. Wow, this was a big breakthrough. So Luke Thomas, great performance from Faroe. But for all the talk and all the hype we had coming in about unbeaten Erin Blanchfield,

what does this loss and the way that it happened say about her current stock at age 24 right now? Well, listen, I think when it comes to Blanchfield stock, there's a question about whether or not she was to a degree overhyped. And I do think based on the nature of how she lost to BC, the answer to that is yes. Now, you're asking about her stock at 24. It naturally takes a hit when you lose somewhat thoroughly in a five round main event.

But the point that you also noted at 24 somewhat mitigates that, I think, in terms of what the long-term prospect could be. She is not in her physical prime. She is not in her technical prime. It was one-sided, but she didn't take a beating. My stock for her has lowered to a degree, and I think that the nature of how frustrated she was

and incapable of making any kind of entry or to really alter her game plan in any kind of a way to threaten Fiorot. I never know how to say her last name. It looks like they're going with Fior these days, actually. I've been going incorrectly with Fiorot or Fiorot or Fiorot. Yeah, I don't know how to say it either. How about that? You like that? No, I don't. It's a terrible French accent. But nevertheless, BC, I was looking up something about this.

I have been kind of harping on a point because you can make it about to what extent Blanchfield was overhyped. Listen, when she can get her hands on you, control you, back you up, close the distance, she's a nightmare. Her plan A is unbeatable up to this point, right? Up to this point. Farrow took that away and it turned out that Blanchfield had no plan B. And more to that point, she had no ability to make Farrow second-guess anything.

There was never any level change threat. There was never any feinting threat. You could even go back and listen after the first or second round. You can hear Blanchfield go back to her corner, and her own corner is like she's timing you a mile you a mile away get the feints going get the jab going and to some extent some of that was successful a lot of it was not in the end but BC I actually want to pick up something that a little bit different I know that Furrow won this fight I understand that I know that she won it and she won it with good skill I went back and I watched this fight in good detail how many times not quite 49 but i

hate your life you are in my life yes i know it says a lot let me be serious for just a second so bc here's i did an exercise and i came up with a random somewhat random statistic or measurement and i said who are all the champions and what are all of their number one contenders like and if you actually go through and look at every champion's number one contender, she has, Fiora, because ostensibly beating Blanchfield makes her the number one contender for the winner of Shevchenko and Grasso. Of all contenders in all divisions, if you look at their last four fights, she's the only one that doesn't have a finish in her last four wins. I should say listen Let's quickly quickly go through with it ready BC. Here we go

Pantoja he's gonna be fighting or sake or sake just came off of one Sean O'Malley's gonna fight marab marab does have a finish in His last four fights Ilya to pour ya likely to fight Volkanovski. He has one against your Islam need I say more He's coming off. Of course over the Volkov. Excuse me. He's coming off of the the win over Volkanovski. The number one contender probably could be Dustin Poirier. Certainly coming off of a finish. Leon Edwards. It looks like you're forgetting the name. I am. Leon Edwards. No, that's Welterweight. Leon Edwards. Hold on.

Leon Edwards could be fighting Bilal Muhammad. Even Bilal Muhammad has that Sean Brady stoppage. Drigas Duplicy, whether it's Sean Strickland or Izzy, either way, it solves that problem. Pineda's going to be fighting Jamal Hill. He has a finish in his last four. John Jones has a finish. Excuse me, Tom Aspinall has a finish in his last four.

Then you go to women's strawweight. Jing-Wai Lee's taking on Yan Xiaonan. Yan Xiaonan has a stoppage in her last four. Okay, but there are less finishes in the female game. Grosso taking on Shevchenko has a finish in her last four. Pennington probably against Juliana Pena, although that could change. Okay, but what are you saying with this? Fiorot enters this number one contender's position as a decision machine.

Yes. It is good for the UFC that she won in terms of raising their overall prospects in France, where she could become, if she ends up winning the first undisputed French champion, Cyril Ghosn only had it as an interim status. What I'm saying is her winning it. I'm not describing it as bad or undeserved, but at a time when women's MMA really needs a face that they can get behind with a dynamic style or an interesting story here is a very talented deserving contender who doesn't have any of those things and it's like the worst time possible for women's MMA to have an ascendant figure like this who doesn't move the needle in all the other ways that the market values I get it I don't factor that necessarily

into the equation here I get that the lead story here is maybe more about with these two fighters that were unbeaten in the UFC and they cross paths at a point where you could argue that both had already achieved status of deserving of a title shot, right? But instead, we're doing it the long way. We're doing the tough coaching for Grosso and Shevchenko. We're going to do it the long way.

They fought each other. The lead story, I get because of Blanchfield's dominance, but to me, the real story is here's how good Faroe is in a lot of ways. I mean, this was a tough-ass challenge. She was the underdog coming in. She leaned on her skills. I get what you're saying for a breakthrough person.

Could it have been better that it might have been Blanchfield in that spot to finish her more aggressive, cold-blooded? Yeah. But Faroe's coming in here making the transition that Pineda had to make, that a lot of these that are coming from a different discipline in their 30s and coming to the ufc and looking to really uh turn their game into into what its full potential can be in the mma world she's done that she came in there salty almost that she already felt like she deserved that title shot she went in there against

blanchfield and humbled her i don't know she's in the right country at the right time might be a decision machine but she's got the style that's like, if you're going to solve mine, you're going to have to come through me to do that. And we just haven't seen anybody be able to break through that consistent striking attack that she has her ability to close distance. And also her stinginess on the ground. Yeah.

She was in that choke in round one. There is a sort of a Alistair felt it vibe going around. Did you see a tap? I saw the replay of the tap. It's questionable. I don't think it's enough for us to see a tap i saw the replay of the tap it's questionable i don't think it's enough for us to make a topic or argument yes but look at what she did in this fight i mean if you're gonna ask me is blanchfield stock blown up it's a bad loss in some ways i still think there's some redeemable elements to it she's 24 years old she's run through everybody with plan

b she finally leveled out and found the person where i'm sorry with plan a she finally leveled out and found the person where, I'm sorry, with plan A. She finally leveled out and found the person where plan A wasn't going to be good enough. To the point of your criticisms, did she make the necessary adjustments to come back over the top? No, she didn't. But I did like a lot of her character in this fight. Can you give her any of those sort of Aaron Blanchfield moral

victory points in the standpoint that she never stopped trying? She never looked, even though she was getting dominated at times, she never lost her focus. She had her best work, arguably in the fifth that she never stopped trying. She never looked, even though she was getting dominated at times, she never lost her focus. She had her best work arguably in the fifth round. I know she lost every round, 50 to 45 in all three scorecards. I really thought you could have made strong arguments for four and five for her.

Not to win the fight, not for any backdoor split decision. Just four and five for Blanchfield because she finally heard her corner. I think she wasted too much time around two and three banging her getting head against the wall, trying to win with plan a and to Feroz credit, just kept shutting the door down.

But in four or five, when she finally started to really push, and especially in five, letting her hands go, trying to walk for a row down, trying to land kicks, trying to land something big. I liked the fire.

I liked the focus. I liked her reaction afterwards of, of just the simple Instagram post of like, I know I let people down, but I'm going to be back and I'm going to be stronger than ever. This was sort of the humbling that she needed. She's going to have to work on that striking game, but I think she will.

I think she has exactly the type of pedigree and break. Cause remember when we had her on the room service diaries, couch and morning combat. And the first thing we said about that at that point, she was coming off the dominant victory over Molly meatball. And we're starting to set up the fights that she could have next on the path to the title. Remember what we said on camera and after of like,

she too young and naive to really realize the pressures of these situations and how it's not natural for a 20-something-year-old to walk in here and just be taking down these big names. I think what we found out, though, even with the loss, is she is wired the right way to be a future champion and will have to make changes to her game. And now she knows that for sure because it didn't work. But I don't sit here saying this was disastrous,

that she'll never be the same. There's a lot to learn in this. But Faroe is coming on, dude. And this was the performance that I didn't expect from her. I didn't think she would be this stingy, even with the fact that Blanchfield striking is not on her level. I didn't think she would be able to round out her game completely and really not make any

key mistakes that would cause her to end this fight. What do you think about her chances against the winner of Grasso and Shevchenko? Because I was never more confident in the idea that maybe Manon Barreau could be the next champion than I was after this fight. So I have a couple responses to that. I think the

first thing I would say about Blanchfield, just to quickly touch on that, because you asked her like, do you give her some bonus points for heart? Not really. Not heart, but, but,

but stick to it. Not really. Not even that. Like, I'll tell you why. It was never a question for me. I never had an issue with like, or felt uncertain about whether she was kind of a

dog or whether she got after a dude. She stood in front of Jessica Andrade, took her best punches, delivered them back, and then ended up finishing her off. I knew she would try something like that. Like that part to me, like showing it again, that's great. And yes, to your point, there's continuity over now fights where she has shown a kind of stick-to-it-ness. Fair enough. But this is high-level prize fighting. I'm much more interested in what kind of adjustments and what kind of fight IQ you can demonstrate. Now, to your point, fully agree. At age 24, the way in which she had a difficult time navigating distance

and the numerous ways in which Fiora was able to do that, either through hooks and hangers to turn her, inside pivoting, outside pivoting, sidekicks. She was strong the whole time. I won't talk about that in just a second. All of those things are going to prove to be very valuable lessons for someone at 24 years old who I still think has a high upside. Fair.

On the Fiora side, there is no question when you watch the tape that you can now look at her wins beating Rose Nama Yunus. Obviously, this one I think might even be her best one in the ufc beating caitlyn shukagian up get her new her new last name um so it's like an italian last name i think sermon are by the way you know who just jumped in our ear to drop that a little blast from the past yeah long island little long island loop back in the house here we appreciate it to firing him from this job as well did you know his dad's from australia I don't know if I ever mentioned that.

The, what I wanted to make is about Barrow. I agree with your set, with your sense that she, that was a very talented performance that she showed. And also her physical skill and her ability to use that for those lifts to get into position, to get out of position,

her good cardio. And then do when she locked up with Blanchfield, she was literally throwing her around at times. She's strong as shit. I think she's going to be much stronger than Grosso and certainly every part of Shevchenko's match, depending on which one she ends up getting. In fact, I think Fiora might be your next champion.

I really mean that. So I said that to you thinking you might go, hey, looks good, good win, doesn't get finishes. Sorry, France. But the knock on her is, dude, if you look at her first part of her career when she fought in the regional scene, she was finishing everyone in the first and second round. And she has won, I think, in the UFC. But ever since then, it's been nothing but decisions.

And my point being is when you fight that kind of style in the UFC where you're just trying to touch and go and win the round, that's a difficult thing to do because you have to balance it for the course of 25 minutes BC. But the reality is it's, uh, you are risking things the entire time you do that. The best fighters are the ones that at least on occasion put away their opponent so they can't storm back later. So they can't do some kind of where you make one tiny Leon Edwards mistake like you did

against Nate Diaz. Nate didn't win, but the whole thing could have gone up in smoke just like that. She does not appear to be fighting with that kind of intensity. And to the extent that she doesn't, she limits her upside. But this is what I mean. Walking into this position, there's no denying she's the one. She beat a ridiculously tough challenger. We have to wait to see what happens between Shevchenko and Grasso.

But Furrow is your top contender. Make no mistake about it. It kind of bums me out that a time when women's MMA is kind of suffering a little bit, no storylines, no rivalries. Celebrate her. There is a storyline. I celebrate her ability. I do not celebrate the pedestrian nature of entertainment value that her fights confer.

And there's no denying. Key question. There's no denying she does not confer high entertainment value. Were you not entertained on Saturday? By her main event? Yes. I was impressed by her skill. And I mean that legitimately. I was not entertained.

Okay. I didn't see this coming from you, LT. All right? I didn't see this. I almost feel like it's a personal attack, given that I'm at least 50% French-Canadian. Okay, that's what I'm saying first and foremost right there. It could be. I mean, if she was from Georgia and living in Spain, would the story be different? That's the question right now.

She was doing that with a different ballgame. Fior, Manon Fior, 34 years old, ready for a title now. Thought she was ready before. Even more confident now. At 24 for Blanchfield, it's obvious that we're going back to the drawing board. What first and

foremost needs the most attention is it head movement because it wasn't as if it was it wasn't there no there was some level of defense there were two major problems that I saw watching this fight BC number one her feints did not in any first of all she kind of abandoned them but to the extent she even used them it didn't trick Furo at all. So all she had to do was wait, wait, wait, and then counter whatever she wanted to use. She could see all of the entries that Blanchfield was making over and over and over again. She just timed her over and over again. So whatever distance closing mechanism you want to use, the salesmanship. You know who's really good at selling his feints? Sean'malley sure not everyone can be sean o'malley i understand

yeah not everyone can have an open marriage not everyone not everyone should what i'm just trying to point out is getting better at the salesmanship of the fake would do her a lot of good but this was the second part bc one thing that hab Nurmagomedov has been very clear about, I watched one of his seminars, is he likes to go for leg attacks and then to run people backwards and forwards on them to make them balance on one foot the whole time, because that's where all the best takedowns come from. In order to do that, a lot of times he would just pick the leg up and then just drive the person into the fence and then along the fence line take them side to side and make them balance on one leg dude she never went for any leg attack she never all her takedowns for the most part she would go for a leg once she got to the fence but it's too late so not in a variety of takedowns because she was in love with the trip takedown

but from the body lock not from not from a single leg or a double so you want the threat of an ankle pick of of as brendan shop one said it leg or a double leg. So you want the threat of an ankle pick of, as Brendan Schaub once said, it's nothing a double leg couldn't figure out. That's exactly correct. Nothing a double leg couldn't figure out. What I'm saying to you is, dude, when she locked up with the body, who was stronger? I mean, I wanted to ask you that.

I know we mentioned it earlier. Pharrell was stronger. She picked up Blanchfield and slammed her. That had to surprise the crap out of you. It surprised me big time. I mean, now looking back, I'm like, oh, right, it all makes sense. But in real time, I was like, whoa. Now, of course, she got reversed off of that attempted uh

uh guillotine choke what I'm trying to point out to you is had she level changed for a leg and then turned Furo like one of the best things Daniel Cormier does is he'll go for body locks if those don't work he'll pick up a single leg then trip if the trip doesn't work he'll run you to the fence and then go to the double from there she only had above the waist attacks never really below never really picked up a leg and by the way How often have you seen John Jones reach for a single like that? You'll even see Tom Aspinall do it and now the other person brings their hands down Farod never had to worry about that. She could always keep her hands high because there was never a threat going underneath So to me, it's like I know that Blanchfield can do single leg

attacks. Maybe she had some kind of injury. I don't know if there's a story there, by the way. That could also be a factor. But the lack of them in this fight really hurt her. Is it fair to say that Blanchfield had better striking against Andrade? Yes. She took big punches, so we already knew her chin coming in, her five-round

focus and strength, the mental focus. I thought it was all there. Again, moral victory points. But I almost feel like her striking regressed in this fight. I never considered Blanchfield anywhere close to an elite striker, but somebody, I hate to say Habib-like, but what did Habib do best? Evolved his striking to facilitate his takedowns. In a lot of ways, she does that. I felt like once she started getting tagged repeatedly,

the frustration did challenge her. And I saw regression in the striking. Maybe it's just you're fighting a more accurate, a more... Just a different one. Andrade was willing to plant and then trade. That is not what Faroe does. Faroe sticks and move, waits for you to enter,

hits you, and then exit. I mean, a big part of it, again, you're asking me, was I impressed with Faroe's skill? Yes. Inside pivoting, outside pivoting, side kicking, jabbing, hooking, all of those things she did very well, but she just did it over and over and over. And she never, she never tried to put her foot on the neck of Blanchfield. This is kind of what I'm talking about. You look at what, for example, Soporia couldn't finish Josh Emmett before the Volk fight, but you can't really say he didn't try to polish him off. He got very close several times, took mount on him. Farod just takes a comfortable lead and then just

rides it. Wouldn't be the first point fighter to reach the elite levels though? No, nor the last. But at a time for me when women's MMA is really lacking a standout figure. It's just a little bit on the disappointing side that we have somebody who is that talented yet that somewhat reserved. It's just unfortunate. I don't know if it would be the next fight, but I really want to see Blanchfield against Macy Barber. Yes, there's a lot.

Again, there is not a doubt in my mind that Blanchfield is going to come out of this one, two, three years later looking so much better. So many more details to her game. So much more sophistication. This was too much too soon. Fair enough. But skill level is still high. All right. This wasn't the only topic worth talking about from UFC Atlantic City over the weekend.

And by the way, shout out to new manza, Joaquin Buckley in that co-main event, just absolutely laying waste of Vicente Luque, reinventing himself at Walter Wade and making a big statement right there. But the fight that got a lot more attention was the fight right before that. Former middleweight champion, Chris Weidman, back at 39. His second straight fight trying to recover

from a broken leg, unfortunately for him, of what we saw against Brad Tavares last time, where he broke the other leg coming back from the disastrous break. Bruno Silva, unfortunately for him, of what we saw against Brad Tavares last time where he broke the other leg coming back from the disastrous break. Bruno Silva in front of him. And four eye pokes later, Chris Weidman won a TKO that was changed without really telling anybody to a technical decision with Weidman winning

all three rounds. Rightfully so, Twitter blew up. X, if you will. Weidman saying afterwards, hey, sorry, man. You know, in this fight X, if you will. Weidman saying afterwards, hey, sorry man, you know, in this fight game, if you get poked in the eye, you can't just fall over and crawl up. You're going to get a stoppage on you. Luke, I don't know how in the

hell this decision upheld because Weidman poked Silva in round two. Big stoppage. Poked Silva early in round three. At the same time that Silva punched him In his already open cut And the punch carried through and did touch his eye

So I guess in Weidman's eyes we're even now on pokes Even though it's really two to one And then Weidman does two eye pokes On the finishing sequence And a rabbit punch To knock him down The only thing he didn't do was bang his mom So it's like Weidman's like,

sorry, dude, this is a fight. If you get hit in the eye, you gotta keep fighting. And then Weidman celebrated like he won the Super Bowl and the Middleweight Championship on the same night. This is not a Chris Weidman hate fest, okay? The heart that he showed to get back, the stubbornness, it's why he is the All-American. But what is wrong with our rule

set in elite MMA that this could go down, even if Weidman won the first two rounds and there's no argument, although I thought Silva came back in the end of the second round. But how do you justify four eye pokes leading to a stoppage, and then you just go, whether you call it a TKO or a technical division, sorry, Bruno, we don't talk about you anymore. Yeah, I mean, there's so many problems here. I guess there's two major ones, right?

So what would the proper protocol have been? Aaron Bronstedter, our friend to the north, talked about this. They would, in a proper situation, with that eye poke, the last of which went down, they would call a timeout. Presumably, a fighter could not continue under those circumstances.

And then the fight would go to the scorecards because the third round had started. That would have been the proper protocol. But he called it initially a TKO, and then it was ruled, of course, later on, basically a different kind of decision in the end, because it went to the third round. So one problem is you just

didn't get the kind of protocol that would have been best suited for the situation. That's one. But I would actually argue the bigger problem here, while Chris Weidman did look good, I don't think you can say at least relative to how he has looked since his terrible accident. He impressed me. I expected the absolute worst. He impressed me. I'm't think you can say at least relative to how he has looked since his terrible accident. He impressed me.

I expected the absolute worst. He impressed me. I'm going to give him that. Impressed is a strong word, but he looked a lot... Okay, comparable to expectations coming in. Yes, comparable to what I thought he would be like on crutches walking out to the arena. I mean, he looked better than that. I still would like him to retire. Separate conversation.

But this is the issue to me, BC. Why would you not foul your opponent as much as you possibly could in professional mma because you're saying it's going to lead to a situation where if you're up on the scorecards and the person can't continue then you're going to get a technical decision i'm saying the reluctance of referees to ever take a point early in a fight. Sure. That's one problem. And then the second problem is the way the rules are adjudicated is Bruno can't see anymore, or at least at the bare minimum,

crumbles underneath the pressure of having both eyes raked. If you didn't see it, it's two eye rakes on the same punching sequence. Yes. Rake, rake, and then rabbit punch, and he's down. Yes, yes. My point I'm trying to make is the referees deciding to never take a point facilitate situations like this. I'm going to give you a hard warning.

That doesn't fucking mean anything. It doesn't mean anything to give someone a hard warning on the second, third attempt. You have already, and I've said this before on this show, and I'm going to say it again. The referee's like, I don't want to intervene. When you don't want to intervene. When you don't take a point after multiple eye pokes, you have already intervened.

You have already intervened on behalf of letting a guy just break the rules, inadvertently or otherwise, repeatedly. Whether it's intentional or not, it is happening. And this is another point I want to get to. Calling this, well, what's an unintentional foul. Dude, I do not care if it is i'm not saying there's not a place to understand the difference between someone going there and going versus kind of extending the hands the referee made like five separate mentions after the first eye poke in the second round of why he kept trying to stop what was referee's name the jack dude uh chris uh i'm not christian um i'll look it up here in just a second he basically kept telling because wyden's leading with the open hand

and just kind of swatting at the jabs, which inevitably leads to the eyes. What is his name? Gary Copeland. Gary Copeland knows his way around the gym, dude. He does not skip by day. No, he definitely likes creatine. Hold on. I want to finish the point.

No, I want to ask you. I want to mention that because he warned him like three or four times after the announced team before the final double poke, mentioning Weidman leading with that open hand. Dude, how many chances do you get? This is what I mean. And the lack of enforcement around it creates a new normal. And the new normal is you have at least two, potentially three fouls of the same kind you can get away with before a point is ever taken

in any point, not just with Gary Copeland, but with multiple referees out there. It has to stop. You have to get a point. But BC. I'll let you back. I just wanted to say, did you see in comparison that Rolly Romero did three fouls in one round against Pitbull Cruz and finally got a point taken away from Thomas Taylor, even though none of the fouls were related.

It's just sort of like you're following the shit out of this guy. You don't. The line is always, well, it's intentional versus not intentional. Can he continue? Can he not continue? And what I'm trying to point to you is you can have a completely unintentional foul that is still a product of neglectful action.

Yeah. And if you've been warned by the ref to not, everyone knows your fingers have to face the ceiling, not to the opponent. If you're continuing to do this, despite multiple referee warnings, it should not go to the cards when the guy can the opponent. If you're continuing to do this, despite multiple referee warnings, it should not go to the cards when the guy can't continue. It should be a no contest.

Or, I think a better situation, dude, a disqualification to me is on the table with that many eye pokes. DQ, I guess, is possible the way you laid that out. I hadn't even thought about that. At the very least, that's a no contest. Because, look, they felt they had the right there in the New Jersey Commission

to watch the replay and then change the result as a result of that. So that's legal. The only thing that's not legal is restarting a finished fight, which I think is also a bad rule because there are situations where there's a finish with a foul where I feel like if you look at the replay and see, oh, that was definitely a foul,

why can't we institute five minutes to potentially restart it? Why? And I'm not saying Silva's going to win this fight. He's down 2-0. All three judges did score the third for Weidman because they were forced to with the technical stoppage. But the whole point is like, why are you taking away that man who's been followed like crazy? Any form of complaint or miracle punch to come back?

If they took the time to watch the video, which they did, they utilize the technology of instant replay. And the result from watching that is, Oh wait, he didn't really stop him because it was a shit ton of falls on the same sequence. But you know what? Sorry,

Bruno, we're going to go to the cards. It's not one foul. It's a sequence of fouls. It was three falls on the same finishing sequence. Short of telling the referee he should have given a point earlier, how is there not educated enough people in that moment, based

on the rule set, to say the only thing that shouldn't happen here is a Weidman victory? Outside of that, we can debate it for weeks. We can have commission meetings of DQ versus no contest, but their final thing was yeah, whatever. We'll just go to the card and see what happens. Come on. How are we not advocating for the fighters better in this situation and to your point how is it not going to set up new ways to wiggle with the rules when you're potentially

losing or what have you in a fight to try to gain yourself breaks and then eventually maybe an ending of the fight i mean it's just it's it obviously plays better if you're in the lead if you're gonna if you're gonna do that and try to force an early stoppage. And I'm not saying Wideman was trying to do that. Wideman was being just a little reckless, right? Just being a little reckless, and it wasn't enforced at all, to your point. And I do think they overplayed Wideman himself. Silva's eye poke. Silva's eye poke came at the same time as Wideman's early in round three,

but Wideman's was much more reckless and deliberate. Silva's was a punch that kind of bounced off the cheek and the edge of the, the outside finger did, did touch the eye. It was, I'm not going to, you know,

I'm not going to lie there, but the fact that nobody in the post fight press conference even questioned Weidman about the idea that like, did you really earn that Victor? Whatever it was all matter of fact, Chris, great to have you back. What did this win mean compared to winning the championship law?

And I don't want to over, over, overlook the human story of that, right? Well, I've been stubborn as heck, but he keeps coming back no matter what, and he keeps getting in there. But how does the media not even ask him about it

afterwards? On the broadcast, not even saying like, I don't like that rule. I don't know, you know, why is the rule that way? Everyone's just like, yeah, matter of fact, great win, Weidman's back. Sorry, Bruno. We'll see you in the PFL next year. You know, come on. Yeah, I mean, the media at this point, they're wondering why their jobs are going away. It's pretty obvious answers because you're not doing them.

But it's not just the eye pokes. This is a smaller issue, and folks might say, oh, it's not that big a deal, but it can be, where I see, including Chris Weidman in this fight, getting your fingers inside the webbing of the fence. You can push the fence, but you can't bring your fingers inside. Same thing with the feet. You can, with your foot, press the fence.

Your webbing of your feet or your toes cannot go inside the fence to either grab or pull. He did that in this fight too. Now, he's hardly alone. Many, many fighters do that, but it goes unenforced. The biggest issue to me are, as I said before, the referees simply being, they want to be like, I'm an innocent bystander in all of this. And I'm like, no, you're the traffic cop and you need to play that.

That's exactly what you are here. And if you don't do that, we're going to get gridlock. Number one, the second part BC is it doesn't make any sense to have a fighter like Bruno Silva, who is clearly the victim in this particular situation, bearing the brunt of the outcome loss by himself. That seems to me completely insane. At the very least, give him a second chance. It's easy.

At the very least, no contest, rematch. And he is apparently going to appeal, which he should. Again, these appeals don't go very far because the limits of the appeals in mixed martial arts are basically a function of, were the rules followed by the officiating squad and to the extent that they were even if the rules are dumb you don't have a case but the rules are dumb yeah that's the issue something you said spun a question in my head we all know there's certain rules in mma that

feel outdated that the would you say that the 12-6 which might be going away but it just kind of feels outdated different time yes explain to me-6 elbow? Which might be going away. It just kind of feels outdated at a different time. Explain to me, because I think some people might hear that and say it, the whole grabbing of the fence with either the hand or the feet. In your eyes, how significant would MMA change if that was legal?

Massively. If you could grab the fence without penalty, it would reduce the amount of takedowns you get along the fence. I won't say to zero, that's not true, but it would substantially reduce the okay but wouldn't it you would also not being able to be able to defend yourself as well I understand the idea of keeping yourself up by grabbing on the fence I get that yeah I mean obviously there's going to be some trade-offs you know but in general the ability to grab the fence either with your toes to um to fully assume position or with your hands to avoid being taken down it's such an I mean dude think about it Chael Saunders one time made a point to

me he's like if you look at what's legal in MMA it's what's illegal in all the composite sports so for example you can't back fist in boxing you could do it in MMA in wrestling in American high school wrestling there's a certain part where you're not allowed to lock your hands in what's called referee's position because it's so dominant, it just stalls the action. But in MMA, you can do it whenever you want. Dude, so much is legal in MMA. When something is illegal, we should think long and hard about why that is. That is such an adaptation that allows you a dynamic, dynamic advantage that they don't allow it. And people are getting away with it because the referees just look at it

and say, well, what difference does it make? It makes all the difference, and you guys won't do your jobs. And that's why we end up in situations like this. And this Cry Me a River act that they do. Who are they? Who are the they? The officiating crews. And I don't know

if gary copeland has complained in particular but certainly every time i try to talk to anyone who is inside the officiating community they all say well the media is going to kill us no matter what i don't i don't really believe that i just think you guys are not really interested in a dialogue with the public and that's a, very different kind of value proposition. I understand that too. You have to be able to defend this. Someone from an officiating crew, give me a defense of why I routinely see fighters commit eye pokes without the slightest degree of referee officiating taking place as a consequence.

Tell me why. We don't want to affect the action. Buddy, you already did. To your point, if it's accidental or not, if you took away a point, or even a half point if they could figure out how to do that effectively, that would stop. That would force people to change the way they fight. If your natural instinct is to swat at punches,

and then when someone moves their head in, sorry, then you take away a point in round one when that happens, you're not doing that again. You're not doing that again. Do you remember when Anatoly Malikin, I think his last fighter, whoever it was who recently, no, excuse me, it was Amir Ali Akbari, and won, and he fought Arjun Buller. Arjun Buller got two yellow cards, which is a system that they used in Pride

and now won, which also includes a financial penalty. It's a little bit different for stalling. And then ultimately the referee said, you know what? It was Herb Dean. Flash the red. We're done here. That's what I want to see. I want to see a referee. People are like, I don't want the referees intervening.

I want a referee much more. Like a collegiate wrestling match. I want them on the whistle. Get involved. Force the action. Change the incentive structure and get a better sport. I think that guy, Gary, the ref, I think he wears brute cologne. What would you wear? Probably too much. There was a guy on my train today who wore too much cologne in the quiet car.

I'm like, sir, this is the quiet car, and your smell is quite loud. Your smell loud. To close on the UFC Atlantic City, Nathan Train in the UFC. Come on, man. You've got to love that. Okay? From the, what was the exact quote in the post-fight speech? It was something like, if you beat my ass, watch out.

Something along those lines. That's what happens when you beat my ass. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, beat my ass, see what happens Something along those lines. That's what happens when you beat my ass. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, beat my ass, see what happens. It's like, I think we did. He almost got knocked out, and then he pulled his own Darren the Damage Elkins and came back. Maybe he's pulling his own Nate the Train.

That's sort of who he is. I love that pocket when these guys become that TV fighter who's probably going to be the underdog in most cases, but every other fight they'll rally back after taking extensive damage and figure out how to finish you. It felt like that was a win for the people. People loved it. The people of Tennessee. The people of Tennessee loved it.

Alright, BC, let's go to question number two here if we can. Let me present it to you. So over the weekend, it was not just UFC. We'll come back to some more of those topics here in just a moment, but there was a big boxing fight. In fact, BC and I were in Las Vegas, Nevada for it. Tim Zhu taking on Sebastian Fundora. It was supposed to be Keith Thurman.

Fundora filling in on short notice. And yet, BC, he becomes a double champ, so to speak. Unified. Unified champion. He wins a split decision. I know you initially had scored for Zhu 115-113. I had it, I think, 115-113 for Fundora. Very close contest.

But BC, my question to you is this. How much did the cut on Zu's scalp affect the outcome? A lot. I'm not going to say 100%, but Luke, I'm going to say 95%. If you weren't watching this fight on Saturday, and it's very rewatchable because it was a horror movie. Did you ever see the opening scene of Carrie? I mean, I've seen it, not recently.

Any more dated references from the 70s? Sorry, the original Carrie from the 70s. It looked a lot that. Let's get to the point, though. The first two rounds, Tim Zhu was absolutely piecing up Sebastian Fundora in ways that echo the idea that even if it's a late replacement, you were originally preparing for the boxing style of Keith Thurman circling from the outside. Now you're fighting a 6'6 southpaw with a 9-inch reach advantage who's a brawler.

Even with that adjustment, Tim Zhu was piecing him up. In round two, Tim Zhu hit something like 10 consecutive right hands once he figured out that distance. Fundora came out boxing, which was obviously the antithesis of his normal style. We had asked him ourselves this week on Media Row, Radio

Row, will you make changes after that knockout loss to Brian Mendoza? Will you shore up your defense? I never expected that he would come out and actually try to use the nine inch reach advantage in box. It's ultimately what won it for him along with his own toughness. But in round two, it looked like Fundora was about two rounds away from getting knocked out. And I say two rounds because I know of his chin.

I know of his recuperative ability, but his nose was gushing blood. It was, just very quickly, he had the purple kind of blood at the center of his face there. And it gushed, obviously, for the entirety of the rest of the fight, and he showed tremendous heart.

And by the way, he's such a good person, so is his promoter, Samson Lukewitz, so it's like a feel-good story on that regard. The person who it's not a feel-good story for is Tim Zhu, because this is so heartbreaking. He's piecing Fundor up. And then that errant elbow from Fundor at the end of round two opens up a vicious hairline cut. I mean, vicious.

The rest of the fight, blood flowing like a river between his eyes. And we were all texting, tweeting, talking, whatever, going, okay, this is going to be stopped in about two rounds, right? And here's why it's such bad luck for Tim Zhu. First of all, he showed his warrior spirit and nearly gutted out a victory. I scored it 7-5 for him. I think 7-5 either way is a great scorecard. It could have gone either way. It was a very close fight because it was that

natural judging paradox the rest of the way of, are you going to favor Fundora just flicking that jab for three full minutes every round and keeping him at bay? Or was there four or five rounds where Zu did get inside, land three or four or five big right hands? Was that enough to steal the round? That was the conundrum.

But the idea of how would this fight have been different had there not been a cut? Tim Zu would have had what he thought he was walking into, his debut in Las Vegas, his American headlining pay-per-view debut, his step-through moment from being a guy who is the son of a Hall of Famer in Costa Zoo to saying, now, what's my mother effing name, which is becoming his tagline and saying,

no, I'm my own person. This was going to be it. Las Vegas, late opponent or not, knock him out, and whether it's Spence or Crawford getting up those stairs and walking into the ring, we were going to have something to build to. And now Tim Zoo takes a tough loss, but boy, did he take it like a professional and like a man?

And I'll get to that in a second. There's now no rematch clause. Samson Lukowitz, the promoter of Fundora saying it was a verbal rematch clause, which is, I don't know what that is. It means there's no one, right? Cause Sebastian, I'm sorry. Samson even said, look, there's a verbal one, but I owe it to my fighter to seek out the biggest fight possible. So that's going to mean Crawford or Spence. We'll get to that. But yeah, Luke, if Zoo doesn't get cut there, there's a verbal one, but I owe it to my fighter to seek out the biggest fight possible. So that's going to mean

Crawford or Spence will get to that. But yeah, Luke, if Zoo doesn't get cut there, it's a completely different fight. And people are saying, well, why wouldn't him or his team at some point tell the referee, look, we can't do this anymore. Because what was the change in round three? Zoo couldn't see anymore. Fundor starts lighting him up with jabs,

occasional left hands, a couple times wobbled him at certain points. If Zoo would have pulled out of that fight before round four because it was an accidental foul, it's a no contest and they probably do it again. That's a horrible turnout for PBC, for Amazon Prime. This was the first PBC pay-per-view since leaving Showtime, going to Prime Video. It would have been a horrible way to play out. I'm glad Zoo didn't do that. I'm glad he showed his warrior spirit.

But even if he gets to a point in rounds 5, 6, 7, maybe even 8, I'd have to look at the scorecards and add the math. But he was up at the middle of this fight. If he would have said, ah, you know, I'm trying, but I just can't see, they would have went to the scorecards and he probably would have won a technical decision. But instead, he fights like an absolute warrior, lives up

to the family name, nearly pulls it out in the worst case scenario. And now not only is he probably not going to get a rematch, although we can talk about where this is going, he's kind of like, you know, not out of the title picture. He said the right things afterwards. He's going to come back and fight a big name, no question. But this was absolute worst case scenario from one errant foul. Vandora did not do it on purpose. They both had to walk through hell to make,

look, it is really a credit to both men that that fight went the distance. It's unbelievable. I mean, if you saw the cut when it first happened and you saw the blood gushing from it, you would never have thought that that one was going to go the full distance. You just thought there would be no way possible.

BC, there was a video, I don't know if you saw it, Stitch Duran made a video talking about that cut. Stitch Duran, of course, guy who was never the friend of Dana White, but a legendary cut man in both MMA and boxing. And he made a point and he said, I don't know how you feel about it because Stitch seems to me like a wealth of wisdom, but take it for what it's worth. He made an argument that Zu's corner should have stopped the fight. And the reason why he says that is not that Zu wasn't mentally in it. He was. And to your point, even with all the blood in his face, it was a split decision. You had Zu winning barely in the end.

Still a doable affair. But what he said was when you get the cuts that are over here, and it wasn't just hairline, it's actually a little bit further back into the hair. I won't say the middle of the head, but sort of middle front. What he said was those cuts are hard to stop. They bleed right through. And you can see when he gets up from the stool, there's like a chunk of petroleum jelly.

And it didn't matter. It didn't matter. It would stop it for maybe a second. Both Fundor and Zu would get up off the stool every round, and as they're walking to the center of the ring, whatever they had cuts would just open up again and keep flowing. They would never stop. But the point he wanted to make was, in addition to that being hard to stop and obviously getting

in your face, it can leak a certain volume of blood that can actually be really detrimental to your health. If you have a big cut on your cheek or something, that will bleed and it's obviously quite unsightly, but you're not really going to lose a lot of blood. It wasn't dripping. It was a flow. So Stitch Duran's argument was between the amount of blood loss and then the difficulty in stopping it, so now it's getting in your eyes.

And you can see Zoo kind of like, almost like he's swatting flies the whole time trying to rub his face. It was an unwinnable affair at a risk that was too high. I have to tell you, it's not often that I listen to a cut man when they say this one should be stopped, but when Stitch says it this time, it's pretty convincing. So, I don't know if you saw in the Postify press conference, it was an interesting development where a reporter asked,

hey, they mentioned on the broadcast, Tim, that maybe your corner didn't have the proper tools or substances needed that would have stopped it. Like an end swell or something? Yeah, or whatever the specific substance they put in the cut that could slow down the flow of blood. And Zu stopped and he paused and he said, no comment.

So it's obvious that, look, I'm not saying people conspired to fail Tim Zu. Tim Zu made his own decisions in the ring. Tim Zu accepted the fight last minute. But for a guy who accepts the fight on like 10 days notice, right? With a completely different style. Fights with so much heart and will, like in a ridiculous amount, is pouring unnecessary amounts of blood,

almost wins it, and yet we just laid out the case, if it was stopped at any point, it could have been a no contest or a zoo win, and now he's maybe probably not getting the rematch because of it. So those are the breaks, kid. WBO order today. I saw a reporting before we recorded the show that Terrence Crawford has to

fight Sebastian Fundora for the WBO. Let's lay this out. So here's the deal. I want to get your take first before we lay out those scenarios of what the PBC did, because we, you and I were arguing all week and saying, look,

there was a certain amount of buzz surrounding this first pay-per-view PBC card, but maybe not an overwhelming amount. Not what you expected for the first card of the Amazon era, like tank on the top of it or something. We should be honest, it was very little. It was not a lot of buzz. But we felt it was well-matched.

There was a lot of interesting fights. Carrell Moten, Floyd's 3-0 prospect, got bumped up to the televised portion. There was a lot to like there. There were knockouts. It was fast-paced. I loved the broadcast. But we were saying all week,

look, you want to get some juice? Get Terrence Crawford or Errol Spence in here. Let him sit with the media. Let's talk it. And rightfully so, Spence tweeted out the big fish picture of the shark and said, I want the winner. I'm coming down. Right now, just so you know, Spence is an OG PBC guy. He's one of their biggest stars in brands.

I mean, obviously, there's questions about where he's going to be at moving forward post Terrence Crawford beatdown. Are you okay with him being allowed to come in when, in reality, Crawford is the number one contender at WBO because he's the WBO welterweight champion and they have that clause where the champion in one division, if they decide to move up, they're automatically the number one contender in the next division. Serhii Bochuk, who scored a very solid and thorough win over Brian Mendoza on the undercard, He's now the interim, so he's like next, next in line. But PBC wanted to put Spence out there. Now, I don't hate it because Spence versus Zoo, or what we thought that original matchup would be, and now Spence versus Fundora, to me is interesting. To me is like, Sebastian Fundora is an unlikely champion.

If that cut didn't happen, I don't think he becomes champion here. It's just what it is. Him against Spence might actually be, from a marketing-promoting PBC angle, the best way to revive Spence. It's not going to be an easy fight, but it's certainly a winnable fight because Spence has the better skill of the two and is big and durable and tough

and will be moving up in weight where he doesn't have to cut down anymore. If they go that route, you can backdoor a way to make Spence versus Crawford 2 matter. What if Spence wins the unified title from Fundor and he's back? Suddenly you bring in Crawford. Crawford is currently not signed with the PBC. He's a free agent.

And Crawford's not always easy to deal with. Did you like that move by PBC? Or are you on what a lot of people on the internet are saying of like, we love Spence. But you can't go from a beatdown in one division on the biggest fight you can make in years to then getting the unified champion in your next fight. How do you sort that out in your mind? Part of me is like, well, I'm part of boxing and I want big events. So if it's

Spence or Crawford, I'm in, I don't really care. But do you think there's some sort of like, I don't know, are other people owed more than Spence in this spot? I think if you're the, okay. so if you're a boxing purist, then you're going to want to follow procedure. Fair enough. I don't really have any argument against following procedure. In fact, I'm usually the guy that wants to follow procedure, even when there is some kind of an economic cost associated.

And by the way, I don't think that Fundora versus Bud is some kind of box office disaster, but I don't think that would do all that well in pay-per-view either hey why don't you just go juggle some bowling balls on fire i do have a cough button now so yeah watch this watch me ah very good but bc let me just say this i mean listen the first pay-per-view we'll talk about our impressions here in just a moment as we move the conversation along it's not going to sell well that event event, if that sold 50,000 pay-per-view buys, I'd be surprised.

They probably did not make money on that. I think it could go 100. I don't think there's even a shot in hell it did 100. I think it did a fraction of that. And I heard some internal estimates, by the way, which would be a fraction of that. Oh, you texted Al? I didn't text Al.

Okay, you should have checked in, yeah. He texts me sometimes. I just ignore it. I leave it on read. BC, my point is this. If they want to follow procedure, fine. I'm really not going to sit here and bellyache. But I don't think anybody can be surprised if the PBC decides that they want to get one

of their bigger names, granted, off of a terrible loss, but one of their bigger names against one of their other names, because obviously Fundor's a PBC guy as well, for two belts, up a weight class, in a bout that they feel like is setting up more for their business both reality now and a potential at least short-term future with what spence has left if you're the pbc you need to make some difficult calls sure about what fights you want to make for your own financial protection they didn't make money on Saturday. They need to make money. They will with Canelo. They will with, obviously, they do that Gervonta and David Benavidez doubleheader.

Oh, my God. Forget about it. That's going to sell to the moon. But this one, they took a bath on. I have a feeling they don't want to take any more baths if they don't have to. Okay. See, we talked about this last week. I want to give Spence a chance to reinvent himself at 54 before I'm going to join this

chorus of, oh, he's washed. He's done. We don't know that. It's washed he's done we don't know that it was a beatdown we don't know that I think Zoo versus Fundo or Zoo versus Spence I'm sorry sorry Fundora versus Spence it's a very interesting fight so I'm in if they go there there is the idea though that if they go there Fundora is going to have to give up the WBO because Terrence Crawford's the mandatory so that would create according to some journalists like Jake Donovan online, it would create Terrence Crawford versus Josh Kelly of England for the vacant WBO title. Okay, but look, let's say Crawford takes that and wins that belt. And let's say Spence fights Fundora and wins that belt, if it's only one belt he's fighting for.

Then you have a 154 unification for Spence Crawford too, right? You really want to see another one of those? I'm not saying I have to see it, but I do think it would be different at 54, especially if Spence comes back and proves that he's not gone. I don't think that's crazy. What high of an argument should there be for a zoo immediate rematch? Because he gave this guy a chance last minute. If this was MMA, it would be very high.

And the reason why is because, one, it would be a split decision, very close. And it would be one promoter involved in the whole thing. It'd be one promoter, and the guy did the promotion solid. I mean, Keith Thurman fell out. Zoo could have been like, we're done,

and then the PBC loses their very first promotional date after the end of Showtime and everything on the end of Fox and all that kind of stuff. This was their first date. Zoo could have been like, sorry, that's your problem,

not mine. And he didn't. So for that reason, again, if they give him another rematch, however it all ends up, I'd be perfectly okay with it. I just feel like what the PBC is going to do and say, hey, Tim, not a great

win. He had a good performance, but it didn't go the way he wanted it to. But not really all that damaging for his stock because of the way in which it happened. But if we can get you another big fight, we can get another big fight for Errol Spence, I think that's the way they're going to want to go. Let me move the conversation forward if I can. I do have one more question for you.

Do you think Fundora, if he decides to box from the outside with his 9-inch reach at 154, could completely reinvent himself as a fighter? No. I do think his point to us when we spoke to him in Media Day was, I looked at the Brian Mendoza loss and what really cost me about his weight being forward and about his hands being down and it looked to me like he

really tried to tighten that up and i respect that i do think he's a very talented fighter again circumstances being what they are he still fought quite well too he fought very well so you have to give him credit as well it wasn't just the cut it was the cut plus the fact that fundora got better fair enough but i think if spence is still a version of him that we understand him to be his body work We just know as being dynamite and then he just begins to you know Really build and build and build and build I just feel like you know That's still always gonna be a tough matchup for fundura are but BC the fun fight on the card It was many fun fights on the card, but maybe the best one your favorite rolly

Romero, who is something of a clown prince of boxing, takes on Isak Pitbull Cruz. BC, you were there in attendance that night. I had gone to home before. Was this a star-making performance for Cruz? And here's why I ask. I've covered many of his fights. He fought Gervonta Davis.

People respected him. They liked him. He was always visible, but he was never that guy on the night. And it felt like on Saturday beating the brakes off Roley Romero, he might have just become that guy, plus he became a champion. It was, and he moved up in weight to do that at

140 now, and he called out every possible champion afterwards, from Haney to Shakur at 135 to Gervonta. It felt like a star was born there are pops from crowds that you feel and hear at times and they can change things do you remember when we went to benavidez plant a year ago in march pay-per-view in las vegas and we were in that moment going holy crap from the way in into the fight night it was like oh mexico has decided that benavidez is their next one you know they have anointed him they love canelo but they are already grooming their next favorite fighter

i i underestimated the love for pitbull and the fact that like look luke like he's a trash talker like when him and roly are going after it when we tee him up with questions through the interpreter of like you know he can be a badass trash talker but he's kind of like that workman-like, solid, absolute badass, pitbull mask, fashions his style to some degree after early Mike Tyson, a lot of bobbin weaving. But he proved that he could box as well. I mean, he proved that against Gervonta going the distance and losing a very close decision last minute.

This was a dismantling, but it showcased in every category, from boxing to chasing Romero down to his power at 140, meaning Cruz, that it was a breakout performance. But that crowd exploded in T-Mobile like it was Canelo winning in the main event, like it was insert name. It was really good to see because what could you say negative about Pitbull Cruz? You really can't. You could say he's not dynamic on the microphone in either language, which is true.

And then you could say his style is a little bit limited, but obviously walking down Romero with his vaunted power. Well, he likes to get down, too, so Mexican fans appreciate that. I'm only arguing, are there criticisms to make of him? Yeah, of course. It was a breakout performance. I'm happy to see it. Any champion, right? If he wants to fight Devin Haney or Ryan Garcia or the loser of that fight or the winner of that fight or whatever,

Matias, Sabriel Matias at 140, this only adds to this incredible division 140 pounds where all the young stars are either in or navigating around. It's just another major player, and he has a belt. But Luke, Roley's my guy. And Roley did a lot of Roley things this week. I mean, we sat down with him on Friday with the moral technique, and he wouldn't stop talking about how Pitbullz had voiced to him some weird things during their face off about maybe some unmentionable yeah unmentionables um roly took a hard l but we did t up during fight week i think i mentioned it when we were interviewing pitbull cruz that like

there's times when boxers are just hated by the internet and they're the villains and you know adrian brunner was that and then my donna took them out. This felt like a Maidana-Broner moment in a lot of ways with the way that Pitbull Cruz went in there, shut Roley Romero up. Is Roley Romero done? Donzo? Does this fully expose that he's not ready for primetime? Yeah. Or can he still be the colorful, trash-talking slugger

that in many type of matchups, he's a problem. He's a kryptonite for people. He can get big fights. I don't think he has done improving. He showed some skill here defensively when he had to. He does have big power. That will always keep him relevant. People will want to see him for those reasons.

But he was not really ready to be a champion at 140 pounds, especially with the way 140 pounds is now. To me, this is a market correction. This is a market correction. It's not so much that there's no place for Roley. That's not what I'm arguing. What I am arguing is it makes much more sense in a world where a Subriel Matias is at the top, where a Isak Cruz is at the top, where, you know, you name it, those guys, those are

the ones that deserve to be kind of really held in high esteem. I think Roley has a little bit more proving to do. He got gifted a win over Barroso. Jackson Marinas when he won the interim title. Should not have won that one either. And that was, of course, in the bubble. And here we are now. There was nowhere to hide against Pitbull.

And he, there was a difference in skill in the bubble. A lot of people dunked on him afterwards. One of them was inadvertently Jordan Plant, the Amazon Prime in- uh amazon prime why the fuck did you lose she was put in a rough spot i'm not here to jump on her negatively but like they shouldn't have interviewed him i know he was concussed she said on twitter that roly was pushing for the interview but like what'd you think about when roly comes on and she's like you said you were gonna knock him out why didn't you knock him out and he's just like it didn't go

great i'd like to thank all my fans and then he was like happy easter no no and then he goes and like jesus i'll be back i'm like i think that's more like the terminator rolly i think it's more like the terminator all right we gotta move this along let me ask you let me ask you this is this is a comfortable pace and it feels really good it's like we're an hour in on two toppers hold on really good bc amazon pbc first one we haven't seen what they're gonna do with tank we haven't seen what they're going to do with Tank we haven't seen what they're going to do with Benavidez we haven't seen

what they're going to do with Canelo on May 4th first pay-per-view give me a grade I say B plus they over exceeded my expectations

it feels a little Showtime light there's a lot of Showtime personalities on there that we've had and seen before I'm going to give it a B plus

because the fights I feel like overachieved there were you know Erislandy Lara one punch knockout. There was like fight after fight of these breakthrough moments like, damn. And that's what you want.

You want car wreck boxing sometimes. And we got that in the main event, a bloody war. But the pacing was wonderful. Wonderful. I talked to somebody at PBC after that. And they said, look, our goal working with Amazon was we wanted no more than 10 minutes between fights. So it was like they didn't even do post-fight interviews of the first two fights on the pay-per-view card.

This was a 10.30 p.m. Eastern main event start. Thank you to the Amazon Boxing Gods. If this is the prime video era for PBC, welcome to it. It felt great in that regard. Morrow was back, Brian Custer, a lot of familiar faces. Yeah, I'll give it a B+. I will. I think B-plus is a pretty fair grade. To your point, there were accidents and whatever,

but the main and co-main certainly delivered. As you said, the pacing, fantastic. A lot of other issues that could have been brought up. I'm not exactly sure why Mares is the commentator. I don't know if he's the best choice for that role, but certainly a distinguished career. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying I don't know if he's the best choice for that role, but certainly a distinguished career. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying I don't know if he's the best guy for that role necessarily.

A couple other things they could work on, but in general, I would say B+. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe add Raul Marquez. Yeah, maybe add Raul. Maybe add it. To close on that, Luke, we said the people were dunking on Roley. Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins were dunking on Roley. Long Island Luke in the back, can we go to the videotape? Oscar would put out a second video when he returned home saying, like, you know, you mess with a promoter, this is what happens.

They're referencing, obviously, that they wanted Ryancia to fight roly romero for this fight roly told them to go pound sand basically because he's you know he had a big big fight coming up with pbc you don't justify those actions do you i think they're hilarious oh come on roly's the best dude all right let's keep the show moving we are going to put this in in third gear now with topic number three here we go luke thomas big fight got announced last week, and I am fired the heck up. The main event for the UFC on ABC in Saudi Arabia is going on down, Luke, and it's Robert Whitaker versus Hamzat Chamayev. Do you remember the date?

I didn't write it down offhand. I will get it here in just a minute. This is a big deal. UFC debut card here in Saudi Arabia, right? It's not just for the PFL, not just for boxing, not just for everyone else. It's going to be for the UFC. So Luke, is Robert Whitaker the ultimate, what would you say, fraud check moment for Chemaev's current stock as we enter into this matchup? Because I'm going to agree that universally we love it. This is a freaking, this is one of the best fights you can make on paper. Bobby Knuckles against Hamza, perfect time that they're colliding. The ex-champion, Robert Whitaker,

just showed us what he still has. So does he still have enough to essentially be the ultimate kryptonite that can stop this Chamaev ship from landing on the moon and picking up that world title, Luke? I think he is. I don't know if he will,

but I think the test that he provides is exactly as you describe it. To clarify, when is this fight going to be? Saturday, the 22nd of June in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the Kingdom Arena, for whatever that is worth. BC, to answer this question, there is no doubt in my mind that is what Robert Whitaker is assuming in this position. He'll be 33 years of age. Chemaev, by the time this fight takes place, will be 30. So that means Chimaev will be smack dab in the middle of his physical prime by the time this fight happens, and Bobby Knuckles

will not necessarily be out of it, just from an age standpoint. Moreover, BC, something to think about, like what Robert Whittaker demonstrates here, or what he presents as a challenge. Not just a former champion, but by the time Whaker was the same age as Chumayev will be in this fight, he had already won the title, lost the title, and was on the rebound campaign fighting Kelvin Gastelum, who ultimately he defeated in that one as well. Jared Cannoneer, you know the whole story, all of those guys. Now, of course, he ended up losing to DDP and then having this rebound against Paul LaCosta. What I'm trying to point out is here's a guy in Whitaker who is not out of his physical prime,

who, by the time this guy was the same age, had already won and lost the title and was already on the rebound campaign. That rebound campaign, short for one difficult moment, basically, is still going well. And in particular, who did he fight in his last outing? Paulo Costa, who was a better, more measured version of himself, but is still a guy with raw physical power who fights in a somewhat undisciplined kind of way. There is an argument that people make about Hamzat Chemaev that his output declines over time. It's actually not quite

true. If you look at his output, for example, BC, in the Gilbert Burns fight, it actually goes up over the course of the three rounds. But this will be a five-round fight, so we actually don't know what he's going to look like in rounds four and five. And if you look at his last fight against Kamaru, it was kind of up and down over the rounds. It wasn't a steady decline. What you do notice is one thing. He abandons his wrestling after the first or second round, much more so, and then is

much heavier just being content to strike. That is an interesting thing you should take a note of because it's a change in the offense, not so much an overall decline, although there's obviously a decline in the overall wrestling. But the point I wanted to make here, BC, is that four and five round mark. Understand something about Shemayev. He fought three times in 2020, two times in 2021, two times in 2022. One time in 2023, he enters a five-round contest against one of the most credentialed middleweights of our era. Living legend.

And BC, here is a guy who has changed nationality. He left his country, his adopted country anyway, in Sweden. He's now in, I believe, the UAE. He's had a lot of COVID, to be fair. He's had a terrible bout with covid he's been inconsistent he can't get to the United States to remain active there's actually a ton of unknown about Hamza chamayev and if there is anybody not a champion who is going to give us a test of that top to bottom it is robert whittaker whatever you think you know about chemayev good or bad you're gonna get the truth sure when this fight is done i agree a couple things i don't know about chemayev i don't know that he actually beat gilbert burn so i want to make sure that i

keep mentioning that a lot more i rewatched that fight a lot and like gilbert had a much stronger argument your point though about is what could whittaker be the proper kryptonite here he could be i don't want to necessarily crop dust your first class area because I think that's very disgusting but you know we just said Whitaker had a you know great performance against a refined Paulo Costa and it was but Paulo Costa don't wrestle like Chemayev but to be fair Luke not many people wrestle like Tchaimov. So I get what you're saying about the unknown of four and five

and will the need to preserve that cardio make Tchaimov less dynamic on the ground early, knowing that this could very well go five rounds because Whitaker is battle tough and all that. Yes. But can you see Whitaker keeping this fight on the feet if Tchaimov commits to that?

If he commits to spam, you think he can? Because that's where I'm going to start to question because I need to see it. The question is, will he? Well, we have no idea. Can he? Yeah, he absolutely can. He absolutely can. His defensive wrestling is excellent.

His balance is excellent. His distance management is excellent. Do I think it's going to be a tough first round where Tremayev just bulldozes any kind of fight IQ just to get a hold of someone? Yes, that is going to happen. You're going to have to have an answer for it, and a lot of guys won't. But I have a feeling Whitaker will. I have a feeling Whitaker is going to stall out the progression of that and then be able to keep it on the feet. And the question is, does he get caught with something or not? What happens to Tremayev in rounds four and five if it goes that long? There's a lot more known about Robert Whitaker not only do we know it that's one good thing about him but

the answers to what we know are pretty great yeah there's a lot we don't know about Chumayev and the answers to some of those could be good when we finally get more information they could also be real bad there's a true or false. There's a hidden fear in all of us, whether it's directly related to how reportedly bad those COVID battles that he had or not. I think there's a fear in all of us that he's never, that he might not ever be the same because of it. Is that fair?

I mean, there's other unknowns and weirdness in his story, including missing all that weight ahead of the Nate Diaz fight and, and having to, to switch the opponents. And I know he mopped up on Holland at Nate Diaz fight and, uh, and having to, to switch the opponents. And I know he mopped up on Holland at last minute, but like, yeah,

there's a lot of unanswered questions about his cardio, about his prime timeness and a super elite fight. But like, I don't know if I have that full confidence. He will ever be a five round champion stamina guy. I don't know either. I, I knew would have thought coming off fight Island and the subsequent,

you know, beating Gerald Mearsharp with one punch. You're like, Oh my Fight Island and the subsequent beating Gerald Mearshart with one punch, you're like, oh my god, this guy's destined for everything. But his progression has been, he fights in undisciplined ways against the better guys. He does have first and second round wrestling, but even with the second half of the

second round, it goes away a lot. He just resorts to striking. And it's like, dude, Whitaker has not fought anyone quite like Chimaev but Whitaker's fought some hammers the only thing I'll say about that though is this and maybe it plays into our fears of Chimaev and the idea of against better elite guys he might have to become a brawler but although Whitaker deserves all the flowers for what he did against Polacosta and kept himself in the title picture and almost felt like a rejuvenation or a resurgence at 33.

Look, he had to wear a lot of that fight in order to get through it. He had to take damage against Costa. That was hard earned to the very degree. It wasn't a war, but it was one of those where there was a lot of receipts. That's my only fear is if Chamayev looks at this and says, maybe my best chance is to muck this up, make this a war. I don't know how many more Robert Whittaker can do that. I mean, not many guys can go 10 rounds.

And his body broke down after 10 rounds with Yoel Romero. He couldn't stay in the title picture because he couldn't stay healthy. That would be my only fear heading into there, is if Chemayev looks at the calculations and goes, war is the only way. Can Robert Whittaker outgun him in a war? I don't know, Luke. DDP went right through him in ways that shocked us.

If he were 35 i'd feel a lot differently obviously the ddp loss is one even though the luke 35 and overstat does not affect above walter weight even though no no it's still 50 50 but at the same time whittaker's been at it for a while and so two more years of damage does feel like a lot considering he's not getting tune-up fights i mean these, these are difficult contests he's in. This is not me saying Chemaev has no chance. That's really not what I'm saying. What I am saying is Robert Whitaker finally presents an opportunity to get answers to questions about Chemaev that have consumed us as fans.

We just don't know, can he really become a champion? We don't really know what he looks like in the fourth and fifth round because we've never seen it. We don't know what it's going to be against a guy who is, Gilbert Burns was really good, but he wasn't a former champion. Kamaru was, but that was short notice. This isn't any of that. This is former champion, still in the physical prime,

plenty of heads up, the whole nine yards. And neither has to travel an enormous distance, obviously, to get there a little bit less, obviously, for Chermayev. But you get the idea. They're ironing out a lot of difficulties that could trip up the other guy or make what comes out of this something of an asterisk. There isn't going to be one here. Again, knock on wood.

Well, unless somebody has staff because that's the new trend. On your face or ball sack. But either way, this is what I mean. This fight is going to be incredible in that particular regard. BC, you mentioned how good the card is. Quickly, Whitaker versus Chemayev in the main event. Pavlovich versus Volkov, heavyweight contest in the co-main. Love it.

Fantastic. I could give or take Nasrat Parast against Jared Gordon. Fine fight. Johnny Walker against Vulcan Uzdemir. That's a fun one. Dude, that's a banger. Bullet, Mega Madoff. Banger, just better.

Yeah, Bullet, Mega Madoff taking on Ihor Potioria. That's the guy that beat Shogun and did the weird robot. Who let Shaq Majorey into this show? And then Kelvin Gastelum taking on Daniel Rodriguez. There'll be more added to it. So look at how good this card is, right? No title on the line. By the way, it's going to air on ABC again June 22nd.

Let's look at the previous Saudi Arabia card. Remember, Ariel Hawani reporting that the Saudis were unhappy with this card. Which Dana White said is an outright lie. Now, you can decide what's true, but look at this fight card. Mohamed Mokai versus Alex Perez. Eric Anders, Jamie Pickett, Vinicius Oliveira taking on Yanis Gamouri, Joel Alvarez versus Ludovic Klein, Javid Basharat, Ayman Zahabi, which ended up being an upset, and then Rosenstreich versus Gazi of a terrible fight.

BC, this new card is literally better fight by fight. Yes, yes. Bigger divisional stakes, bigger celebrity. And not in the apex. Not in the apex. I don't know who's telling the truth but i can't say matter of factly the new saudi car i know a lot better than the old side i want to keep hating on dana and i saw his interview with uh sage steel where she uh called him joe rogan twice

by the way that was the weirdest moment ever like an hour into their interview she didn't realize she was with somebody else but when he went on that rant against media in general about how much they're liars and their clickbaits and whatever luke the truth is i never think dana white's telling the truth ever and then you can pretty much like look these things up and check in fact check them so i'm really tired with that whole you know i can act like how i want because i don't trust the media yeah i mean it gets it gets to me here a little bit tedious. All right. What do I know? Um, BC time for topic four. Sure.

Let's do this. So George St. Pierre emerged on the podcast with Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo and was asked about how he would do, or had he ever fought Habib Nurmagomedov, who of course has since retired greatest lightweight ever, potentially greatest fighter, depending on your perspective and he gave an answer that got a lot of people talking let's hear what he had to say I think Habib could have beat me I'm not saying I would have beat Habib all the time I'm just I was confident enough to take that fight that I'm

I was thinking that if I take that fight I'm gonna beat him that day at that particular place that doesn't mean I will beat him all the time but I'm I was confident fight, I'm going to beat him that day at that particular place. That doesn't mean I will beat him all the time, but I was confident. But maybe I'm wrong. I think I would have beat him because in a way that I was going, if he would have come to put pressure on me, I would have put him down. I would have been... What he basically goes on to argue is that they have two different styles of wrestling. Habib likes you against the fence, moving you side to side, working from the back.

And he's like, I can do all my work in the center, moving you side to side, working from the back. And he's like, I can do all my work in the center, both wrestling and striking. And that would have been my advantage. BC, very basic question to you. Would George St. Pierre have beaten Habib Dermogamedov? I have questions about your question for me.

Okay. First of all, that opened with a GSP social media, I'm sorry, a Habib social media post where he said GSP would win. That happened, right? It looked like he,

every interview I've looked up ahead of this topic uh habib has been very respectful of somebody like gsp who he like looks up to and and feels they're of the same ilk so i don't feel like habib was necessarily saying that number two are we asking prime versus prime are we asking of the fight that could have happened and probably should have happened right before habib retired which is when gsp was saying i think I can make lightweight. I want to try to be a three-division champion. I want to put it on the line. So is it against old GSP at lightweight for the title?

Is it mythical matchup at welterweight? What are we doing here? So the way in which he answers it in this conversation is he says it would have been at the time that he was 38 or 39 years old. So that would have been about two plus years after he fought michael bisping okay so this is probably around when 2019 when habib was beating poirier when habib was was yeah 2019 ish gaichi ish somewhere along those lines yeah i'm still taking habib i'm still taking habib um here's the deal gsp did come from the other era the middle era in

mma history right he did and although the bisping when he gets full credit for it was in a second division and it's heroic and it was one of the greatest moments in my combat sports fan and journalism life being there and msg and seeing that um his career ended in 2013 more or less all things considered and i do think it was a big miss from the ufc even with gsp breaking dana's heart that time and lying about defending the middleweight title, that they still should have made it. They still should have made it around the time Habib was retiring. I think they should have given it to Habib when he originally wanted it so that he would have gotten it done. Because the only problem about Habib's legacy, and we did the high court debate on who's the GOAT, and I was making the for Habeeb because I think there is an argument but if he would have been able to fight GSP in any form lightweight welterweight on the way out

and have that one more name I wonder sometimes if if we would push him even further into that GOAT debate and that idea because it's one more impressive huge win but whether it was in their prime or whether it was this 38 year old uh version or not I think Habib's new school elements because he dominated in more of the third generation of MMA history, even though he had already joined the UFC at the time that Habib had his last UFC welterweight fight against Johnny Hendricks before retiring in 2013. I just think, Luke, that in GSP's side of himself in this extended interview that he believes if Habib was pushing him up to the fence,

that Habib would have a lot more opportunities than if they were in the middle with GSP's jab and all that. I just think that as great as a wrestler, as GSP is, and he's still in the argument of greatest MMA wrestler of all time, even though he didn't grow up wrestling at all. I just think that Habib's wrestling

is on an even higher level above that. And it's because of his ability to essentially take his grappling game and his ability to submit you so fast and merge them together so quickly in that regard flawlessly flow and flowing like that where yes on the feet if he could get inside that jab and really try to make it more of a clinch fight it's going to favor habib and i get that they're not the same striker and that's the area overall where gsp would have the advantage along with being arguably the most well-rounded marks mixed martial artist of all time.

But Habib doesn't make mistakes. And I know that GSP used to feast on the mistakes of others, and that was a big part of his game. He controlled every aspect of the game. I don't know how you control every aspect of the game against somebody like Habib. I think this fight would ultimately be a lot more about position, it would be long stretches of grappling, and maybe wouldn't be this great thriller.

But I still can't see Habib not winning it or finding a way in the end well don't forget gsp is bigger no matter what i mean they could be at the same weight but he's naturally bigger do you get with those people that say he'll be probably could have or should have always been a welterweight you get he certainly could have been i mean he certainly could have been whether he should have been the different question but what i will say is if the argument from gsp is that at age 38 or even 39 so 2019-ish that at that time he could beat habib no the answer is he could not sure not at that time if you wanted to say prime versus prime or but which welterweight prime because there was the predator younger gsp i would say welterweight champion and

there was the point fighting i would say somewhere around ufc 100 maybe something because he beat bj penta ufc 94 for the second time although he greased a lot fair enough but then he beat tiago alves fair and square uh at ufc 100. so somewhere around there i would say it's a different conversation that's a slightly different actually a very different conversation if the argument is also when GSP was 32 and Habib was like 23 or something, GSP I think obviously wins that one when Habib is unprepared. But at 38-39, I'm just not buying it. Yes,

against Michael Bisping at 185 pounds, he attempted four takedowns and got three, including the choke from the back. Right? All respect to Michael Bisping, but if GSP is having to come down and wait to either media to catch weight 165 whatever and now you give Habib bulk plus he's going to be the younger guy by a significant margin at that point and he can go into the later rounds and wrestle more

with without having to cut that way that that that Habib wins and I've heard guys at aka tell me I've had conversations with Javier from aka Javier Mendez who's the the master AKA tell me. I've had conversations with Javier from AKA, Javier Mendez, who's the mastermind. Tell me. I've seen him take down and submit light heavyweights. And then Luke Rockhold. Yes, Habib is a nightmare for me to deal with. He's the greatest wrestler in mixed martial arts history, Habib. Certainly one of the most effective ones.

I mean, you've got guys who are like Mark Schultz or Kevin Jackson. I'm not talking about what you did in the Olympics or in the amateurs or in college, because it's different. It's in MMA. He changed. He, along with many other guys, changed the way in which MMA wrestling even works.

That's how impactful they've been. But BC, I gotta tell you, I don't see any way that 38-39 that he wins. That that fight should have happened at least? Yes. GSP was in shape, willing? By the way, GSP in his interview is like guys i'm

past 40 it's not going to happen oh now for sure yeah i mean he wanted to be clear he's closing the door on it well habib's not coming back either from what i believe but but yes 2019 ish yes it should have really happened and i wonder do you think it could have changed habib further into the conversation i think if gsp loses to habib habib would go into like i mean you're beating it not just another pound for a guy an all-time guy we might be having a he wouldn't be the the lone goat but it might be a debate between him and jonathan yes that's right wow all right topic number five luke let's get into some ufc matchmaking there's been a lot of hullaboo about you know the apex cards and why are we still in vegas ariel hawani had a somewhat legendary rant

i think in the past week alone and we've talked about it ad nauseum. But there's some things that are really itching me lately about the overall idea. Big picture, UFC's still hitting you hard with all these big cards. We just laid out Saudi Arabia. 300's coming. I mean, no, Che, it's all going to get us. The in-betweens are getting worse and worse as this company continues to fulfill the expectations of its ESPN contract and fill out the content. But, Luke, we've got a fight night main event this week

and a card that's this Saturday at the Apex. And did you see the announcement for that upcoming St. Louis card? I did, yeah. Can we skip ahead to this? We'll get back to this in a second, to the second part. So Luke, coming up in St. Louis in a UFC fight night main event, Derek Lewis, the heavyweight we love, who has lost six of his last eight, including his last fight,

is going to fight somebody named Rodrigo Nascimento. And I say somebody disrespectfully. I mean, he's put together three, four UFC wins in a row. I felt for a moment when we go back and we're like, okay, what's the worst UFC main event in modern history? Like, is it really Calvillo versus I? Has there been something? Because there's been at least three or four in the past 12 months

that I feel like are in this debate. I always felt like Derek Lewis versus Abdul Karimov in Albany that time, like 2017, was as bad as it can get. Shamil, yeah. I feel like there's been a few lately. We can talk about the one this Saturday. Do you have a general statement on this water, not nature? Should we shut up because the big picture

is so bright right now? Let me read you some names. Here we go. I'm going to read you I think 11 names. Ready? Anderson Silva, John Jones, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Michael Bisping, BJ Penn, Frankie Edgar, GSP,

Junior Dos Santos, Lyoto Machida, and Vitor Belfort. BC, how would you characterize those names? Champ shit only. Okay, this comes to us from Andy Hickey on Twitter. Quote, in the 31-year history of the promotion, just 11 fighters, the ones I just read, have headlined on more occasions. They're all undisputed champions. The only one you can add to that list who has

also headlined more than 11 times is Derek Lewis. So you got to add Derek Lewis to the Tito Ortiz's, the Randy Couture's, the Michael Bisping's, the Edgar's, the GSP's and so forth and John Jones and whatnot. It is incomprehensible. I understand he's well liked. I understand he's always got a big punch. This is not really a commentary on Derek Lewis as a fighter. It is a commentary on him being chosen for these heavyweight main event slots that for five rounds, no one really wants to see for five. Granted this one probably won't go five, but they often do in ways that are not great. It's weird that he is being placed alongside these

other names for how many main event slots he's gotten, and BCS speaks to a larger problem with the UFC enforcing artificial scarcity at home with the Apex and with other shows so that they can go feast in certain ways on these pay-per-views, and then it's famine

the rest of the time. The Apex is a problem right now, but it's a cost-effective problem for them, and you can always argue, well, it's for the the rest of the time the apex is a problem right now but it's a cost-effective problem for them and you can always argue well it's for the hardcores and there is a problem for for what what do you what do you think so when you say the apex is a problem who is it a problem it's a problem for the fans and i think some of the fighters obviously they're you know i hear a lot of people talk about it some fighters don't care and it doesn't affect their preparation or their performance or whatever it's's a bad look, in my opinion, for where the company is at. It's in its strength.

But even if you're playing the card of these in-betweens are for the hardcore fans and they'll watch anything anyway and shut up BC and we're getting all these big events, that's fine. But Long Island, Luke, could you throw back up this Saturday's card? It's one thing to have really bad cards like this, which is this Saturday's Apex card. It's another thing to do that Derek Lewis card when you're finally out there at a crowd where they can celebrate the matchups that they're going to have to pay for. And we know how much ticket prices are jacked to the roof. Look at this card.

Brandon Allen versus Chris Curtis 2 is your main event. Look, I don't hate this fight, but this is not a main event. These are just fights. Okay, but that's not even close to a main event in my opinion. That's not even close. I'm just being honest.

Like, looking at this card, it's just a list of fights. It's not. There's no coherence to it. There's no theme to it. There's no identity to it. It's just, hey, we've got to fill this weekend with some fights. Just randomly assort them. Please throw that back up there.

Alexander Hernandez and Damon Jackson is your co-main? Yeah. The rest of that main card is an absolute joke. And then, like, you got Jermaine Durand and me coming back after pregnancy, former champion. We haven't seen her in a while, just buried on the prelims against Norma Dumas in a division that might not exist outside of the upcoming Kayla

Harrison- Two women's bantamweight fights. Heidi Holm fight, which is interesting. And we have, you know, two of them on here. If this is one card, I would do the shut up. They got to fill out their 54 weeks a year or whatever their deal is with ESPN. But this is this one. I could bring up the one from three weeks ago and it's not much better.

I could bring up the Atlantic City one to be fair for the most part was blah. It's one thing to do blah in the Apex. Now they're going to do really bad blah in St. Louis with Derek Lewis. Like, they should be better than this. They should be, Luke. Guys, this is an issue because... Take the last six fights off of UFC 300 and make those main events for the next six months of the Apex cards and I'll shut up.

But there should be a reason for me to need to see Saturday. Not want. To need to see. This Saturday, I'll be in Florida on vacation. Spoiler alert. Not going to watch. There's not a need for me to watch this Saturday's card under any circumstances as a journalist or fan. There's not a need at all.

There is no need. There is no need. I mean, listen, the reality is this, right? And people get upset when I say this. I'm not saying in a super pejorative way. I'm merely making a description about the environment in which we live. That is to say the UFC is a monopoly. And when you said, hey, going to the Apex is bad,

I asked you, who is it bad for very purposefully? Because it might be bad for the fans, depending on your view. It might be bad if you're a fighter, depending on your view. It's not bad for the UFC. Because for the UFC's purposes, they have these low-cost events at the Apex. They do a third of their calendar now in a warehouse. And they can drive scarcity whenever they go on the UFC's purposes, they have these low-cost events at the apex. They do a third of their calendar now in a warehouse, and they can drive scarcity whenever they go on the road, in particular but not exclusive to the pay-per-views.

And no one's asking them about this, by the way. Nobody is asking them about this. No one's asking them about this, by the way. It's not just that they can do higher gates. They can get tourism money, right? The Tourism Board of Australia, of Salt Lake City, brings them there. It's a way to drive up scarcity and, therefore, the overall revenue. In other words, it's the machine of the UFC arranging their product in a way to extract more wealth from it,

whether or not it is fan service, and oftentimes it is not, is irrelevant. It is financial service, which is their right to do, but this is what I mean. People keep saying it's better for the MMA world to be under one umbrella, for simplicity's sake relative to boxing, and that might be true. But the problem is when you get one firm who controls the entire market to the extent that they do.

Yes, who they lobby against their own fighters' ability to organize. What I mean to say is they're going to serve their interests because they don't have as much to worry about counting on the fans because they have nowhere to go. And I know people can just say, well,

then speak with your wallet. If the ratings aren't there, if the ticket sales don't move, but yet the ticket sales are jumping out. And I still think they're benefiting from post COVID. There's a lot of cities that haven't had them in a while. UFC brand is hot, especially in middle America.

You know, maybe they don't care, but UFC should care. It's just what I'm saying. You're, you're too, you're too, you're, you have control of the market.

You're too far ahead financially to not at the very, at the very least, give us a main event that we can't miss at the very least. Come on. This is, I mean, I've seen Dana White contender series cards. I've been way more jacked up for than this. Even those have certainly taken a hit in quality as well. This is what I mean. They're, they're arranging their product in a way that serves their interest, which is

their right to do, but because they have no competition that can force them out of this behavior they'll just keep doing it and because all those fighters took the short term money to end this uh long term you know uh class action lawsuit uh there's no need to and then bloody elbows new owners just stripped all their records you know so it's like why sorry john s nash you can't you can't change the world the long you know i mean it's frustrating it's frustrating luke but that's welcome to the rest of uh the next 10 years those are our five topics for the week that was luke now we transition into a weekly segment where we let the fans get involved a little bit right every sunday night on the morning combat socials we sound the alarm play the french horn in a creepy very creepy voice

in a way um and we say please send us your questions fans and we call this segment dms from the dogs it's always a very disturbing you know the many things we could have changed in mk2.0 the that theme song for this segment it needs to go yeah that's that's the yeah that sounds real bad whatever that donkey's doing it sounds very very bad yeah i don't i mean we might lose our sponsors here luke question number one is going to come to us from sasquatch mma oh this is more of a luke question not aimed at me not how do you answer not aimed at daniel cormier either obviously. Luke, how do you get better at tape study? How do you get better at tape study? A lot of pause, right?

Pause, rewind, a lot of zooming in. The part of the reality is you have to do it a lot, like anything else. You just have to do it a lot. And when you do it a lot, you'll begin to see what you're good at, what you're bad at, what takes you a while, what you're quick at. So I'd say partly practice is the obvious answer. Really, the reality is you have to have, you don't have to be, you know, uh, Jose Aldo in order to do tape study, but you do have to have, at least I think I personally believe BC foundational training to kind of know what you're looking for.

And also here's one thing I do like as a frame of reference, if there's a knockout, I treat the knockout like an autopsy. In other words, if this person was concussed and knocked out, what are all the factors that led up to that moment, and how do I delineate them? So you have to kind of reverse engineer and say, what matters, what led to this, what was the foot positioning, what was the defense, what was not, and then you have to get into sort of, you know,

apply the lessons that you've learned. But I do think a little bit of foundational training constant improvement in your areas of technical proficiency and then just a lot of practice um you know lee wiley the boxing voice if people don't know was a was a uk factory worker like literally had a passion for making youtube videos breaking down boxing technique got so known for that that now he's like an assistant trainer with Ben Davison, who works with Anthony Joshua. Just watch his tape. Just crush his tape.

Honest question here. You've crushed tape to the level that you've told me that certain fighters and teams have actually reached out to you for either questions or maybe, would you ever consider that as like a side hustle? Like I've got DoorDash as the side hustle and I'm proud of that. I'm not ashamed of that. You think i'm ashamed of that i'm american no luke um yeah i guess you can be a non-american still door dash yeah you definitely can would you ever do that would you ever work a camp with a fighter would you ever it would have to be for a lot of money and

it would be kind of weird too i mean i've done game plans for amateurs okay there's you know there's no there's literally no financial interest. Do you offer that service? I've done it before. I'm not saying no, I would never not help a fighter, but it would take a lot for me to be a part of a camp. Plus, you hate most fighters. You also hate most fighters, it seems.

I mean, I hate most people. Fighters are just another person. All right, second DM from Donk is going to come at us from Brendan Lynch Media. Is that our old social media guy? Yeah, it is. We should rehire that guy. How the mighty have fallen. He's like a poor man's Gordon Ryan, but he's pretty decent.

He wants to know, at UFC Atlantic City, was crowd noise slash popularity a factor in the referee ignoring the Weidman eye pokes? And would it have been a no contest had it been an Apex prelim fight? I don't know if you really get that much better officiating outside. I mean, first of all, he's saying if there was no crowd. I know, but New Jersey is typically pretty good. But you can't hear eye pokes. You got to see them. I know.

Honestly, I don't really believe so. And the reason why, BC, is because they're never fucking enforced. You can gouge a fucker's eyes out and they'll be like no contact yeah rather than just calling a disqualification through a window and dana will just be like well he got fined a lot you got by the by the police you know yeah the you know like there we looked into it and then that was all we did you see where dana claims that habib had to pay two million for karate kicking Dylan Danis by the Nevada I didn't but that's funny that's funny could they they could get a two million dollar levy against somebody presumably yes because he probably he probably made

I mean that's the biggest fight in MMA history so he probably made what do you think ten million take home Dana White has been known to be somewhat loose with the truth oh I forgot about that sometimes all right let's thank you Brendan Lynch for for that. Do you think he's on the gear? I think he's on some kind of drugs. I'll tell you that much. Let's go to Custom Props.

Juan has a question for us in the DMs where it all goes down, people. What fight on UFC 300 are you guys most excited about? I'll tell you one thing. I'm not nearly as upset about Bo Nichols' placement on the main card because I'm not a hoe. That's the biggest one, I would say. I'm not nearly as upset about Bo Nichols' placement on the main card because I'm not a hoe. That's the biggest one, I would say. I'm also a Cody Brundage fan. Yeah, listen.

He's a fairly significant underdog, but I don't hate that. I'm looking forward to the most. I'm definitely looking forward to the return of Rakic. Who's Rakic fighting? He is fighting Yerich. Oh, not Jan Yerich. Yes, yes. Which is a big one. That one's completely fine. That one He is fighting Yuriy. Oh, not Jan Yuriy. Yes, yes. Which is a big one.

That one's completely fine. That one's going to be mayhem. The answer's got to be Oliveira and Armand. That is my answer as well, Luke Thomas. I love that. I love that fight. I love that division. Damn, let's see if Armand can, he's going to have to raise his game.

I mean, he raised his game against Darius, but he's got to raise his game. This is another level. Against Olives there. Cannot wait for that. Oh, hey, remember David Appleton? Fucking weirdo. The 2023 co-at-Warning Combat Donk of the Year app. He says, what best explains BC's new jawline and high cheekbones?

Is it A, his scary personal trainer is actually real? Shout out to Darren Robinson on Instagram. Yes, he is. Two, drugs win the drug war, which Luke believes in. Yeah, but you don't have meth face, so that wouldn't be it. And three, speaking of whippets, the Arby's branch closed their Connecticut branch. There can be no other answer other than he has no parking lot in which to do whippets in and eat a tasty cheddar beef and bull sack.

Look, I know it's big in the comedy world, but no Ozempic on this guy, okay? Just hard work and hustle, okay? And stress. No, it's big in the comedy world, but no Ozempic on this guy, okay? Just hard work and hustle, okay? And stress. No, it's really just education. It's because I have a trainer and I listen to him and he's a nutritionist. Are you still lifting? I am still lifting. My nutrition sucks, but I've been lifting very well.

I mean, I'm focused more on the nutrition, but I am working out three days a week. That's pretty good. Yeah. I'm only a four or five. Dude, I'm only 45. I don't want to sound like a bm but uh if i work out consecutive days luke i'm i'm uh i'm i'm you're wrecked i'm physically wrecked physically you're still using gloves like a complete bitch no i haven't worked on gloves since i was 15 but you know my son loves them and he works out with them so i'm team if it's

good enough for ronnie coleman and my son isaac i'm not i'm usually not in favor of this it's time to bully your son that's what it's for that is so unnecessary um thank you appy for reaching out what do you think appy's up to these days crimes sex crimes okay finally uh last dm is from coiled consciousness he says what brought you the most joy during the time that you were away they're referencing the mk yeah i don't i don't know if i had much joy during the time that we were away if i could be perfect dude that was one of the worst times of my life in the last 15 years it was terrible i never assumed that it would that it would hit me as hard as it did at certain times and it hit knocked me

off my feet a couple times exactly it you know it's because obviously this is our life this is our passion this is the spirit that we bring to this show. It's because it's like anything. It's like, you know, this is what we love to do and it kind of got pulled away and the uncertainty and all that,

but door dashing did bring me joy, Luke. Okay? It brought you some routine. A little bit of cash? A little bit of cash. I was just worried about your mental state.

I would say that you're going to laugh at this, but it really is true and I thought about this several times. I don't think folks have any idea the kind of mental pressure we were under during that time. You do, obviously, because we talked a lot. Because when Showtime went away, our finances changed a lot.

Significantly. I would say you're going to laugh at me, BC, and people listening at home are going to be like, oh, that's a bullshit answer. It's not. It's the honest-to-God's truth. Dude, my wife and my kid, man, they were my rock during that time, and they brought me great joy. And not much did.

Not much did. So I got to count my blessings where I can. I'm sure your search history, though, was just absolutely disgusting. I've been watching what can only be described as appalling pornography. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, that's the DMs from Donks for the week. Luke, we have this other segment that we do every Monday. People seem to like it here.

It's where your boy BC scours the globe for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in-between. In the worlds of combat sports and beyond, very little combat sports this week because I've had such good ish loaded up for weeks and months while door dashing this one's called have you seen this shit that one i'm glad we kept it's a breakdown of your viral videos of the week uh true or false uh our our our staff had to we had to trim a couple of these

didn't know we were doing this in north korea didn't know we had chinese government censors okay okay all right i said government censors you know but uh we did our best to give the crowd what they want yes maybe if if uncle pat militich could have gotten up those steps right now, we'd be playing all these videos. Here, I'm having fun with you. Luke, here is a video of me celebrating the announcement of MK's return so that I can quit door dashing. Dude, what the fuck? This is me celebrating once I found out that we signed with Metal Ark and DraftKings, Luke.

And it says Felices Fiestas, happy parties. Happy parties, indeed. Luke, today brought us a return to your favorite place in the world, the New York City subway system. Just full of fecund with disease and rodents. Ah, here we go. Who brought the dick?

Yeah, that looks planned. Why don't you slip and slide in your own piss, guy? Oh, he went down on it, too. That guy, it looked like a DoorDash delivery guy right there. Imagine getting your food delivered down on it too that guy door it looked like a door dash delivery guy right there imagine getting your food delivered via subway ride i mean that guy you'd rather have me deliver it yeah i would first of all i'd rather have you deliver it because it would get to my house and then also i could just tip you nothing which i'm dying to do well we're also back from vegas baby and a lot of people said because they know we stayed at the mgm grand you had a nub's

room by the way oh just the worst one they're like. We've got a butthole or an armpit. Which one do you want to stay? I'm like what airline did you guys take was it spirit or frontier? Let's let Oscar explain Big titty committee. I got to say, Oscar and his significant other find themselves very humorous and no one else does. Well, Luke, big titty committee airlines also greets you on board with a specialty cake. but Luke speaking of no spears um we know that Wu Tang is for the children so is coach Craig Jones oh god the choice of a new generation, Luke. Nose beers.

I don't even like that name very much. Well, Luke, we also got a special preview of Craig Jones' parade float that's coming up for Mardi Gras. Your thoughts on this? Is that supposed to be Dylan Danis? Oh, wow, wow. Is he sydney sweeney or was that a bad uh there's no chance that zilch that would end our world that we know if he if he was i might have to just call it a day okay just donk off you know what i mean well luke we are nothing without our morning combat fans i cannot stress enough the thanks for everybody that wellness

checked us throughout the last few months for sure but no mk fan was cooler during our break than one christian daguerreau yeah daguerreau was victorious in competing for the spar star amateur featherweight title and you know want to know what he was wearing mk on the dong Magic 8 side, Carlos Shaw scores the bout 29-28 in favor of our winner. By split decision, they are the new Spartan Star Promotion featherweight champion, Christian! Yeah, he's got MK on the old dingus. You see, people tagged me in this being like, oh, it's so great that one of your fans

could wear your logo on their Twig and Berries and also that, Luke, you were there to referee it. And I was like, hey, fuck. I did get a few different amateur fighters after we shared Christian's video saying, like, where's the template? I'll do it on mine, too. I mean, we have no problem,

as long as we like the fighter, putting our logo on their ball sack. Like other promoters, we're also not into fighter pay. You know what I'm saying? Do you have a message to Christian? He came to our Three Margarita live show. He did. Congratulations on the win.

Phenomenal job. And when I say I expect more, it's because I really believe he can do so much more. So congratulations. Thank you. Shout out to Christian DeGiro. Let's follow him up the rise. One day I will coach Latore that man. Won't I?

One day. No? Okay. You're going to bang him? Or maybe I'll at-zuck him. Remember when Volkanovski did that and then lost his title? They got viciously KO'd. Luke, lots of folks are asking how we got so fit during the MK break.

This is what my trainer had me doing. Just raging out dude what the fuck is wrong with these people i think that's called the heavy bag luke that's called a bruised bag yeah i don't understand what are these guys like it's like oh i grow deformities on my testicles that makes me me tough. I'm like, this doesn't make you tough, dude. This just makes you incapable of having offspring, which in this gentleman's case is probably a great thing. Again, boys and girls, probably most of you dudes need to get a vasectomy. Yeah, I mean, previously that man had blue balls.

Now they're black and blue. Okay, get the fuck out of my life. Hey, how about some elder abuse? It's been a while. Yeah. Watch the top left corner of your screen here at this Philadelphia Phillies game. Oh, look at that old fuck. Oh, God.

Yeah, why don't you try another balancing act while holding food, Grandpa? Hey, could you tuck your shirt in more, asshole? I hope he got home in time for Matlock, Luke. Nice shorts that you could cover a fucking house with. All right. Hey, people are always saying that pro wrestling was better time for Matlock, Luke. Nice shorts that you could cover a fucking house with. All right. Hey, people are always saying that pro wrestling was better in the 1980s, Luke. Not to take your word for it. When it felt real to people.

Let's go back and see some fans from back then. Roddy Piper. Was this in Philadelphia? Imagine going to the printer in 1986, going to your local print shop. Right. So I need to say Roddy Piper has AIDS. Luke, I don't want to sound old, but it feels like barbershops were also better in the 1980s. Let's check in on today's skills. Luke, ask me if I've ever had that done pardon me i have to ask you a question

you got to get that taint trimmed up right let me just ask you how hairy is it back there that you need a professional operation to manage the kudzu like overgrowth i'd be interested in seeing just just once just to find out i'm good on that though. Oh, we got a new haircut style. Luke, who needs to buy hats these days? You know what? That fucking rules. That is pretty awesome,

right? That is what has utility. Oh, he's got the Nike swoosh available for sponsors. Okay. He's doing, he's thinking ahead. Speaking of sponsors,

dude, I tried to get at three different seven 11s this morning because I want to become the spokesman for it. The new hot dog, Seltzer Water. I wanted to christen this set with 7-Eleven Hot Dog Seltzer Water like it deserves. They didn't sell it in two different

states. They didn't even heard of it in each 7-Eleven. They looked at me like I was crazy. I'm like, you're working at 7-Eleven. I don't think they follow the internet. They're not as hopelessly addicted to online life as we are. All right. And now, Luke, an editorial about my feelings on the UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement.

All right. I mean, they had a chance to change the world, Luke. And they didn't. And they didn't. They definitely didn't. We'll skip over that one too. They're got a bunch of good ones, huh? Maybe we'll come back to them someday.

But it's time to get your kicks here. Here's your spinny shit of the week, Luke. Security being harassed. Looks like a European Walmart of some kind. Tells him to leave. You'll pay for that, sir. Bop, bop. Oh! some kind tells him to leave oh you'll pay for that sir bop bop oh i didn't know terry adam shopped there wow that is wow that is wonderful edson working security you don't mess with him

oh luke do you think soccer kicks should be legal in mma uh certain kinds. What about in soccer? Let's see. This is like futsal. Yeah. Which is a little bit different. Oh! Oh! Wow. Yo!

Yeah, right? That's a... Dude, she just punts her in the face. It happened, all right. Wow. Let's go to regional MMA where we know anything can happen. That's that Dagestani style of soccer. They don't fuck around over there. This is a double knockout. Watch this, Luke. Let's go to regional MMA where we know anything can happen. That's that Dagestani style of soccer. This is a double knockout. Watch this, Luke. There's one of them.

Oh! Oh! Dude, he steals on him twice. Dude! You know what? When you fall forward like that, like with your head, oh, you can get real injured like that. That ref, I'm telling you, dude, you fight in regional MMA,

you are taking your life into your hands that day. Oh, yeah, as a spectator, too. You never know what will happen. Luke, you've long said, true or false, that being an on-air analyst for professional strongman events on TV was one of your bucket list dreams. Yeah, it would be. All right, can you play the analyst for us

and give it a try out here on this attempt? All right, this big fat fuck here with some big ass titties is going to lift this rock sir there's a professional broadcast is it wide world the sport way too far away from all right get someone early let's see he's going to squat it down let's see he's going to put into his lap oh actually goes right to the shoulder that's actually pretty impressive strong as shit this guy right he looks like he's drunk what waist size you think he is? That's at least a 50.

Oh, look at this fucking... Look at this low-level primate. All right. Hey, March Madness is in full effect, Luke, okay? Let's go over to the Arizona game. A little overrated. I think they call this Anne 1. That wasn't overrated. it was it was unintentional all right you never see in soccer how after a game that the two guys that respect each other the most swap the jerseys not just soccer but yes they're starting to do that in the nba too let's look in on this luke

okay i mean this had to be a bit gr Grady Dick, right? A really good young player, right? First of all, this is college, not the pros, right? No, this is pros. This is pros. Who is the fucking Poindexter loser? On the left? Grady Dick. Grady Dick. Is he any good?

Yeah, he's good. He plays for the Raptors, I think. Is that a Raptors jersey, Long Island? Raptors. Then we say he plays for the Raptors. Does he average more than six points a game? Yes, he was a long-arm look. Can you look up his rookie stats for us, please?

Yes, please. All right, we'll keep it going here, Luke. Let's go. Noted basketball expert Luke Thomas. I was really upset when the Morning Combat merch site put up a Morning Hub t-shirt using the logo, but now restaurants are jumping in too, Luke. Food that will make you cum. You know what?

This is the kind of place I want to visit. Someone book me a flight to Shanghai. I've got things to do. Well, it's called Fan Hub. Luke, MK fans are always speculating what I'm doing off camera while interviewing strawweights. And I think it's very... Oh, sorry, Luke.

This was the wrong video. Sorry. Did they pull that one too? Come on. I don't know what that was. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's that would remember how I met your mother. That was how your mother got pink.

I was that clip right there. Okay, look, but MK fans always speculating. There was like, you know, pantsless BC while he's interviewing these great fighters, which is so disrespectful, Luke. But here's a, you know, related video of what actually happens the same one yeah that's the same one okay all right that's great i guess we don't have that one do we boy they cut a lot of this shit yeah it looks like they did damn well okay play what we got next i don't know where we are in this oh please just murder me okay well luke they always guys i want everyone listening right out so they can be very clear it would be perfectly acceptable to murder me this way uh this is called leave me in the sauna tent and just consume me with marijuana smoke this is the

new hot box right here luke not mike t Tyson's podcast or not the broken down car in Jeff Hurd's lawn that we used to sit in freshman year of college. I am dying to have an experience like this, quite literally. I wonder if the man inside lived. Who cares? I mean, at least he went out doing what he loves, right? Who cares? Eight points a game. Grady Dick only eight points a game?

I thought he was legit like All-American in college in a high draft pick, right? Yeah, you can be All-American in college. Have you seen the Europeans these days? Yeah, remember when Jimmer Fredette? He's scoring like 80 in China now, Jimmer Fredette. I hadn't heard that name in forever. So, Luke, we lost a few along the way, but that was the issue of the week. I hope you saw it.

We'll be seeing a little surprise for you. So over the week, I had tweeted a video, or not not a video a photo of you mouth breathing was this like the rules of friendship and ethics and morality i'll take business ethics yes um i mean if i'm mouth breathing on a plane yeah is it is it is it good is it like you know to just embarrass me and put it right you didn't even wait till we landed no i did you purchase the package i did it was 10 bucks for internet uh the people who are saw me on the plane who didn't. Did you purchase the package? I did. It was $10 for internet. The people who saw me on the plane who didn't know that I knew you taking a picture of you, they definitely

seemed creeped out by me, which actually made it even better. And then when we landed and you stood up before we even actually stopped moving. Guys, I mean, I'm getting, I mean, you know, could they make the seats smaller? I don't know. It seems like they're trying, but in any case, I put up a photo of you mouth breathing and looking like a weekend at bernie's fucking stand-in am i not allowed to

sleep on a flight i mean well it was because you had the glasses like this they didn't match and you were going like this oh so i said hey send me your photoshops of this fucking low-level primate i wasn't drooling right and let's see what he's got hey this is a pretty good one it's from the rage cover my god is that jonah vark or is that that guy the other that's from the cover of the rage uh oh yeah yeah there you go self-immolation really is what we go ahead let's keep going uh you know what bc in his natural habitat a lot of people got on me for having the uh the neck pillow not in the neck position could you hold the neck pillow more in your hands you fucking really work on planes the neck pillow is not comfortable at all i disagree disagree. But you know what? You can play some tunes.

Thanks to Aaron Bronstetter. This is great. You're kind of moaning into the microphone. Hey, could you get some more headphones from 1997? Dude, so I'm going to fall asleep with earbuds that are going to fall off and go roll under the seats. Here's BC's first apartment after college. True.

True. You know, with rack. What's his face? This is BC in his natural habitat. Smoke coming out of his mouth with the hot dogs there. There you True. There was the, you know, with Rack, what's his face? This is BC in his natural habitat. Smoke coming out of his mouth with the hot dogs there. There you go. Very good. It's just you and me having an intimate moment.

Water. Listen, this is what friends do in 2024. Fuck you. Take it. You know, this is also a strange one. So they have workout gloves on. I'm holding the MK Jerkins. I have a pacifier in my mouth.

Listen, it takes all kinds. You know, my wife bought me mouth tape the other day. Hostage tape? Yeah, because I snore so aggressively that she's now going to tape my lips. That won't necessarily fix it, depending on what you have. But we can see, hey, this is just, again, college. Look at you. Was that before our room service diaries the other night?

I like, by the way, there's a syringe on the table as well. Yeah, that went almost as far as when Glover Teixeira sat down at Room Service Diaries set for our inaugural episode, and there was that rolled-up fake $100 bill. I'm like, oh, this is a great message that we're sending. Nice hair. Oh, look, that's when I went emo during the play. I like that. Yeah.

There's that big bite hot dog flavored water you wanted. Can you go back? Imagine if my beard was actually that good and manly. Look at that. I kind of look like. They kind of AI'd you a little bit to smooth you out, but you definitely are an ugly piece of shit. Oh, that's not fair. All right, here we go.

The big bite hot dog, seltzer, water, carrying that big old thing. Dude, I can't believe that we could not access those. Here are some more snacks with the big giant doobie. And you wrote on the wall there. By the way, this lady looking like she's trying to avoid you. Her fiance was next to her. Her fiance was in first class, and she offered to the lady originally sitting next to her to switch.

The lady said yes, but you could tell she didn't want to do it, and she didn't hear them mention first class. So she found out the hard way. Someone asked me to go sit in the middle seat the whole time, and I was like, yeah, no, that's not happening. What do we got next? Your favorite. I'm too glad you slept through this fight that is talk to her you know look you know what wow oh look okay there's you on the side what are we going to review the new

roadhouse we have to do it i haven't seen it yet have you seen it yet i haven't yet maybe next week yeah maybe next week but you were there on set there's bc again it's natural habitat oh yeah can we get a sponsorship for cumberland farms you tell me this is your neck of the woods matt snyder our our you know our there's you uh dying on a plane with our schwarzenegger he's i'm dead tired as arnold said in commando yes yes that i was yeah sir morning oh wow is that the second tower that is that is you were reading my pet goat that day okay there's bernie he was freezing he was fucking freezing and then once again sleeping through polish power look at this at least you were in business class for this flight that's the best part i don't know what's going on outside but it looks like some kind of joke hey did any of your photos here get censored like my shit dude they've got a couple of good ones. All right. This one.

On the local news there in Texas for reasons that remain unclear. We had barbecue together. Remember that time you were cornering Hamzat and you just stood on top of the cage? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was my at-zuck moment right there. That was great. And then this time that Paul Acosta woke you up and told you to get your ass in gear. Give me some of that secret juice, right? Also, World Series of Poker, one of the most legendary runs you've ever had do you think if you inject the and then this lady this was actually the best i have a motherfucker back

there it's not real that is uh one of the better ones i have okay hold on luke thomas on the plane oh my god it's not necessary right now and then that time you laid down on the pfl smart cage with your hot dog water remember that who's painted that that's a And then that time you laid down in the PFL smart cage with your hot dog water. Remember that? Who's painted that? That's a good one. That's a really good one. Also, hey, talk about landing the plane like Sully Sutherland.

Oh, yeah. Look at that. You can do it with your eyes closed. And then also when you're not dead at Weekend at Bernie's. Is that Jay Aaron standing up in the back? No, that's just some fucking loser. Also, a little bit of a close talker, if I can be honest. She doesn't look too sized you

know what i mean and that ladies and gentlemen thank the dogs for that those are all dog submissions well done that was like fan submissions i don't know we're here yeah so here's the here's the deal people this is phase one of the mk relaunch it did look and taste and smell and sound a little bit like the original mk that was purposeful. But Luke, we're going to evolve week to week. We're going to grow. Yes. And dare I say, if you stay tuned, we're going to grow multiple days.

We're going to have children. Not together. No, we're not going to have children together, but we are going to have children. Yeah, we're going to grow this thing. This is just the beginning. This is just the beginning. We have a lot to do.

We have a lot of time to do it, and we have a lot of ideas that we want to put into play. And we're thankful you're along for the ride. Big shouts to DraftKings Network for having us today and every day that we're going to be on them. MetalArk, this is a great studio here in New York City. MetalArk and all the Smoke Productions and everything else. What an opportunity. So here we are.

MorningCombat.store is our merch house, this fine bomber jacket. Hey, how about Factory Town MMA gear right here? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Head on over there. Tell RJ that we sent you. Maybe he'll give you a 10% off. You never know.

You just never know. Luke, maybe this is a better question for Pacer Allen, but if I decided to finally inject myself with the secret juice, what if I, since I've survived the three needles, right? I did survive it. You do a lot of moaning about it. But if I inject it in the piece, would that,

like I want to, if I'm going to fight, I want to fight with balls. So maybe I'll just, you know. Dude, if you inject yourself with something, it shuts down your balls. You understand that, right? I'll have to shoot in there whatever McGregor's on. That should wake me up, right?

Something like that, yeah. All right. Fun time in Vegas, though. Shout out to the peeps that we ran into. Shout out to the MK World. Shout out to our new friends from Metal Ark Behind the Glass. I can't wait to learn all of their names and actually remember them. I look forward to not knowing them.

Okay. Long Island Luke on the ones and twos. Luke no Seda there. That guy is great. I'm just going to sit here until you take us home. You're done? I think I'm done. I think it was a good effort.

Good job, good effort, as they say to LeBron when he goes to the locker room. You ever seen that one, the little kid? Yes, yes I have. All right. Hey, that's BC. I'm LT. This has been MK.

We thank you guys so much for watching, and until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.