MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Morning Kombat Mailbag | Fan Questions | Garry vs. Prates, Sandhagen vs. Figueiredo Preview

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Luke Thomas is joined by Long Island Luke in a special mailbag episode to answer your questions! The duo also give a quick lookahead at the upcoming UFC schedule including Garry vs. Prates as well as Sandhagen vs. Figueiredo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reveille Reveille Look at us now, Timberton's hip Oh Jesus Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuhhhhhuhhhhhuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuhuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuahuah the morning combat. How you doing, folks? It's the 18th of April, 2025, here on a Friday edition. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo today, joined by my namesake from Bong Island, New York. It's Long Island, Luke.

What's up, my friend? How are you? What's up, dude? I'm sorry I'm not BC. I know everyone's probably disappointed, but we know, we're gonna have a good show here. Luke Squared taking over. Let's go, Luke. Oh, yes, indeed. Now there is no UFC event this weekend. They're taking a bit of a break after UFC 314. Of course, there was a lot of meat on that bone to chew on, but we'll discuss two of the upcoming, whether they're

Fight Night main events on the road, no less, both of them. So that's kind of fun. So we'll talk about the UFC Iowa main event. We'll talk about the UFC Kansas City main event. We'll compare them. But today, before we do all of that, it is a mailbag episode. Yes, MAIL bag episode of the show here. We're going to, we solicited all your questions. You sent them to us at morningcombat.gmail.com.

And here we are ready to talk about it. Of course, if you want to send us any further correspondence that's the place to do it you can see it on the screen a couple of housekeeping notes first and foremost thumbs up if you're watching on the video now that'd be so kind if you would do so as well as please subscribe that would also be awesome and of course you can see the socials there below oh yeah yeah i see i see you subbed out bcs i mean i didn't. Mikey did it for me. I mean, we got it. We did. You see too. So, you know, throw that up there. If everyone goes to subscribe, Brian Campbell experience. Good. BC is having a wonderful time on vacation. He has told me exactly that they're in the middle of earthquakes, uh, you know, on the

west coast and all that kind of fun stuff, but he's having an awesome time and I'm sure he'll have some. He's back on Monday, right? Yes. Yeah, you guys are both in studio Monday. I was just laughing with our producer Matt Snyder. I was like, BC sends this beautiful video to us. He's like, I'm loving San Diego. This is great. And then two minutes later we get alerts that there's been a six point whatever earthquake there. So they're doing well. They're okay. So shouts to the Campbell family. I guess the people from San Diego were, or it was another day to them. They're okay. So shots to the Campbell family. I guess the people from San Diego were or It was another day to them. They didn't seem quite bothered by it

But as East Coast people we get quite literally rattled when the earthquake start hitting Yeah, apparently average Joe didn't even flinch. Shout out average Joe. He's like we experience this all the time nothing Any other things you want to say to the dogs? No, I mean, mean, I'll be doing this is going to air on Friday. I'll be doing a full card PFL watch along on Friday. Yes. Wow. I know. Shocking. Luke, it's Friday, you know, leaving the Saturday open for the girlfriend. You got to be the best boyfriend six days out of the week. You know, you know, it's Friday this week. But yeah, so join me for that guys main

card minute me and Gaff. What time does that main card start? Ah, shit. If I knew right now, I think it's early I think it's actually pretty early this time I think the prelims start at five I want to say and they usually just like run it into one full card kind Of thing so maybe a seven o'clock main. I think it's seven But I have I have some people that I know who work there and uh, I think they told me this week was a 7 pm start east coast time. Yeah, that's a green That's not compared to the 11pm last time

Dude, that was that was a terrible card too. This card is actually good At least it has names on like each fight, you know, you know at least one guy in each fight But it's a decent card especially anything you want to shout out in particular before we get this started Ah, fuck top of my head. I know like josh silvera is on it. I know uh brent conus is on it Okay impa versus fabianian Edwards is the main event. Oh, that's a great one. Okay. Shit, there's definitely other names.

I'm just blanking on them right now, but good card. All right, there you have it. If you're an absolute degenerate, that's where you know to go. All right, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do a bit of a mail back today. As I mentioned, we solicited you guys for questions. You filled them up and the producers picked some of them. And so here we go. Let's just have a good time. Are you

ready? Bong Island. I'm ready. Let's do it. Alright, here we go. First question comes to us from William and he writes, quote, with an oversaturation of UFC events and a lack of depth in the upper weight classes combined with boxing consistently delivering the matchups fans want to see. I find myself more interested and invested in boxing than MMA right now. Is this a trend you're noticing among your current audience? Bongao and Luke, I have to tell you, here's my basic view on this. I'd be curious to get your perspective.

My basic view is that if you've got a big star in boxing or a hotly anticipated matchup, that absolutely has significant crossover audience. So for example, Mayweather Pacquiao, now that's like the most ultimate example of it, but even smaller ones like big time Canelo fights or something where you could understand Francis Ngannou fighting Tyson Fury anything where there's an MMA hook and or a big

name fighter in a really important bout that's got crossover MMA fans will watch but like how many MMA fans watch the boots Staniosas fight over the weekend. Fine, fine, I'm not, I mean, it's actually a great result, but I just don't think there's that much audience overlap. Am I wrong? No, but also in fairness to that boots fight, it was airing during UFC 314, so I don't think anyone was really gonna stop watching a pay-per-view to tune into that, but I totally agree, dude.

Even my friends who are like casual combat sports fans, they're like casually watching UFC. They're not casually watching boxing. They barely even know who the... I'm like, Oh, you see Tyson Fury's Fox? They're like, who's that? You know, like kind of wild, but I don't think... Yeah, no, it's definitely more MMA focused for sure. I always... I mean, you guys have heard me say this on the show. I always feel like, you know, BKFC, not that BKFC could like run headlong into UFC and take an audience, but against PFL, you know what I mean? Against one championship, they are at different times, but you know, I could see that because that audience has so much of the MMA audience built in.

But like the Venn diagram of people who are hardcore into MMA and hardcore into boxing, they exist, but it's not it's not big. It's just not big. Yeah. It's pretty much you and BC and, you know, yes, that's right. By the way, did you watch the Staniosis Boots fight? Did you know? Because I was doing a full card watch along to 312?

So it was during that I did have a bet on boots by decision, which I did not hit. Oh Yeah, he beat the fuck out of him. I went back and I watched it He smoked him like it was not even close for a round. I got to check it out I honestly I didn't even see highlights or anything. So corner was like we had enough halfway through I mean, I don't blame I don't blame see highlights or anything. So corner was like we had enough halfway through. I mean, I don't blame them. Boots looked awesome. Boots is nice. Yeah, we'll see what happens next.

All right. Question number two. It says Luke in BC, but I'm just going to say LNLT. How about that? Can you donks foresee a future where the TKO boxing belt becomes the most prestigious surpassing WBC, WBA, et cetera. With early talks of developing new talent, the strategy might be to focus less

on signing established boxers and focus on investing in younger fighters, knowing that by the time the TKO belt gains real significance, many of today's top fighters will be retired. That's of course what the plan is. Since quote, the UFC belt is not even real end quote, and value is subjective. Could TKO's belt eventually become the one, excuse me, the

only one that truly matters. Have you followed this story at all along? I don't look about like how they're trying to repeal portions of the Ali act. Have you followed this? Other than seeing you tweet about it? Not really, but, uh, enlighten me. So, I mean, the basic idea is as follows, right? What they're trying to do, the Aliac does many things, it doesn't just do one thing, it sets up a bunch of stuff. And, you know, one of them is, for example, you can't

be a promoter and a manager at the same time, right? Another one is contracts, you know, are onerous and whatnot, you have to keep them, They can't be too too long. And there's other stuff too. But you know that those are a couple of the main provisions. And another one is, of course, that the sanctioning bodies have to have a system for independent rankings. And then of course, the promoter cannot control their own titles. And the reason for doing this is obvious. If the if the if the boxer can retain ranking, independent of promoter whim. It gives him or her value beyond what the promoter can control. If they had their own title, if they had their own title, they can control certain forms of matchmaking.

You know, if you leave, you don't leave with the title versus if you left top rank as the WBC champion and you will sign with PBC, you retain that title. Nothing changes. Right. And so it just gives the promoter significantly more leverage and control and of course that's why they wanna do it. There's really no mystery about that. That's why they wanna repeal.

Now they don't wanna repeal the whole Aliyak, they wanna repeal, it sounds like what they're saying is they wanna repeal just that portion. I'd be curious to see what the language looks like ultimately and I'm also not one of these people who thinks that they're not gonna get it by the way. I tend to think that like I don't know. I don't know if anyone's gonna stop them to be honest with you. I mean I don't know if they have the votes in Congress but I wouldn't count against it. But to answer the question like could

the TKO belt ever have more value? Well one I mean it's a difficult question to answer because again, if it would the other belts, you can leave your promoter and then hold onto the title. Nothing changes. That is going to have more value, but what he's asking along with Lucas. Alright, what if we sign a bunch of young

guys and guys who haven't really popped yet? We left the current crop of big stars kind of age out and then will have. Will keep signing this sort of other tier that we're describing, and big stars kind of age out and then we'll have, we'll keep signing this sort of other tier that we're describing. And as they come of age, now when they hold the belts, those belts will be the most significant ones. And if you want to have the TKO belt, you got to go fight in TKO to go get it. What is your sense of how likely that is? I mean, in the boxing landscape, I don't feel,

when you word it that way, I wanna say, I don't feel like it's that likely. When I initially heard this question, I'm like, yeah, there's totally a world where the TKO belt becomes the most valuable. Cause personally, boxing is already oversaturated with belts. I don't know the difference between the WBO, WBA, as far as like how prestigious they are.

They're all just a belt to me. I don't even flinch when someone says oh I'm a champion in boxing it's like dude alright everyone's a fucking champion at this point so I do think like if everyone were to buy into the TKO belt and there was almost like one belt I love that world but based on the way you're wording it I don't see boxers giving up their leverage to go fight in TKO just for the TKO belt. It's probably going to be more of how boxing has been the last few years where the big names aren't fighting the big names because they're in different promotions

like pre-Turkey era, you know? Yeah, I don't really see it based on the way you're wording it. The other thing too is like, you know, whenever I defend the sanctioning bodies, people think I'm defending the way they do business, which is really not what I'm defending. I'm defending their existence, right? I'm just defending the notion that, because dude, they're so nakedly awful, right? Canel, dude, did you see what they did to Bival? Did you see this? Did you see this? right? Can now do. Did you see what they did to bevel? Did you see this? Did you see this? Whatever. Canelo had a man, a David Benavides mandatory mandatory at WBC for two years and

they didn't enforce it. And bevel, um, basically was going to be stripped if he didn't take the Benevides fight right away. And it was like, how is that possible? How could you let a guy slide for two years? And not can you know, of course, of course, we know the answer. But the point is, like, the job of the sanction, like the job of the promoter is to be like, I've said this before, you know, if you're a promoter in this game, MMA or boxing or kickboxing, whoever do like what, what, who wants a boy scout for a promoter? You know, if you're going to be a promoter, you got to be a little bit scummy.

I just, there's just no other way to do this. Right. Am I wrong? No, I mean, look at them all. I mean, like there's just no way to do that, you know, and be mother Teresa. It just doesn't work that way. Um, so I don't expect, I mean, like there's just no way to do that, you know, and be mother Teresa. It just doesn't work that way. Um, so I don't expect, I mean, you expect certain kind of conduct, but you know, it's around the margins, this is going to be what it's going to be. But the sanctioning bodies are the ones that are charged with actually upholding the integrity of the sport.

They're the ones that are supposed to like provide this kind of architecture in a way to force certain kinds of matchups that preserve the ranking structure and the integrity and they just regularly abdicate that responsibility so they're hard to defend but at the same time you know again dude no here's let me just end on this somebody who's been in this game for a while now one lesson that I've learned is absolutely nobody cares about the athletes. They just don't care. They don't care. Media and we're guilty of this to an extent, you know, commoditizes them. Certainly the promoters, you know, they know,

they use them, the athletic, the athletic, the athletic commissions and the, and the regulatory agencies, they don't give a fuck. I mean, here, here you have TKO working hand in hand with the association of Boxing Commissions to gut legislation designed to protect boxers. Nobody cares. So unless the boxers protect themselves in this particular case, like it's a fucking rat for them. And whether they will or not, I really don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Boxing gonna box. Boxing gonna box. All right. Question number three. Here we go from Angelo. Day one donk here. But this is my first question for y'all. Candidly, I'm fairly new to the boxing here, right? BC is the reason why my wife and I started watching regularly rather than just huge mega events.

However, being a longtime MMA fan, in some ways, it's spoiling MMA for me. Every time we watch them back to back, MMA striking does not look nearly as sophisticated. I have had this exact same problem. Okay, let me finish. One of the main questions is why don't we see a more educated jab like we see with high level boxers in MMA? I understand take downs, but if you could touch on this, I would absolutely love your commentary and education. Also BC, you really helped me to laugh no matter what and no matter how rough the days are. Thank you for everything. Okay, Long Island Luke, have you ever watched boxing

and MMA back to back and then seen the striking and MMA and been like, ooh, that's bad? Yeah, but I feel like there's a clear answer for this. Like if you're training MMA every day, you can't focus all your time on striking. Boxers have that luxury. They're boxers. They can focus on striking all day. Obviously, they're going to have a nicer looking jab and shit. Like if I got to train takedowns, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, all this shit while I'm training to be an MMA fighter, yeah, I'm not going to be as well

rounded and perfect in everything. I'm trying to be good everywhere, not great at one thing. So this is this is why this is why like, you know, a Jake Paul beating up on MMA fighters granted a bunch of them past their prime. I understand. But, you know, it wasn't really close in those cases. Kind of makes sense because he's a decent athlete and this is all he does. And, you know, again, some of these and this is all he does and you know, he's again Some of these guys are past their prime but also like their pure boxing is not good

Also something else to think about you said striking but it's really it's really much narrower than that Because remember you can't hit with the back of the fist, right? You can't spin back and there's no kicking. There's no kneeing It's literally just from the waist up forward facing. No elbows, no nothing, you can't collar tie, like you're quite constrained relative to these other striking arts. So that's a big thing too. You know, these are sports in the case of boxing with a deep, relative to MMA anyway, deep amateur system. So by the time these guys who have gone through the amateurs are 25 years old, dude, they've got a ton of experience, focusing on

movement, footwork, positioning, balance, you know, distance management, the whole nine yards. But but but the long on loop, this is where I come down on this whole thing. This is why watching boxing and MMA are fundamentally two different things. I mean, MMA borrowed, you know, Oh, 10 nine must system. Oh, we want to be regulated by the commission. So all that shit's the same or whatever. But if you're watching boxing, you're watching, you know, finesse, you're

watching very specific kinds of finesse. And you can get versions of that depending on what kind of fight you get in MMA or what kind of fight you get in MMA or what kind of fighters you get in MMA. But in MMA, what you're looking to me is more of a, you know, everyone's going to have an imbalanced skill set, but you're looking for a more like well, like a more like a varied kind of combat. If I want a more varied kind of combat, I watch MMA. If I want real precision, I think that's where you go for boxing. I agree with that. I was trying to think of like, what's another analogy for that in the real world?

In other words, two things that are similar, one chaotic, wilder, one similar to it, but not chaotic and wild in the same way, much more a refined process. God, I don't know. I feel like, let me see if this works out. I feel like MMA is one of those diners that has an endless menu. Every diner ever?

They all have an endless menu. No, dude, I've been to some diners where they didn't have much. But like a Cheesecake Factory where, okay, okay their food sucks but you know what I mean like a ton of things on the menu versus going to like a taco truck and they got like three tacos and then that's it. You know what I mean like and those tacos are fire. They're fire, but they don't they don't do like a wide menu. You know

what I mean? They focus on a few things. They do them really well and then that's it. That's a fair comparison. I like that. That's kind of how I see it. All right from four. Richard, do you think there will be more location-based events moving forward? Times Square Boxing events, Universal Studios for PFL etc. Long Island Luke, what do you think about that one? So I'm kind of confused by this question. The Universal Studios PFL thing is like a residency similar to the Apex. So is the question, are we gonna get more residencies or is the question, are we just gonna have more events on the road?

So the Times Square one, they can't sell tickets to. It's invite only. Oh, so we talking like smaller venue thing? Yeah, I think what he's trying to say is not so much like is everyone going to copy the apex, although I think that would be part of it. But are we going to get these like, you know, there's not many people in the crowd for one reason or another. We're doing this kind of in this way for that reason.

We're just not going to go to arenas. We're not going to go to stadiums. We're just going to have these, you know, for what for one reason or another, kind of white glove treatment on how the sport is presented or sports in this case. I don't see this happening more. I think it makes sense for a company like PFL because no offense to them, but they're not selling many tickets. So you go to a smaller venue, it looks packed and makes perfect sense. BKFC, they do that a lot. It makes makes a ton of sense. BKFC, they do that a lot, makes a ton of sense. Boxing in Times Square is like a spectacle, it sounds cool and I'm into it, but I don't know how many places are you really,

you're gonna go to the Pantheon and do a fight there? You know, like where do we draw the line? I just feel like sure, as a one-off every once in a while, but at the end of the day, they gotta sell tickets, dude. They need to make money. Yeah, that's the problem with the question because you're right, like the Times Square thing is a one off and the PFL thing is a residency. To me, the

question is, you know, will they do more one offs in interesting places? I hope. I hope you know, I don't need I don't need them a bunch right like you I don't I don't need it every day. But every once in a while seems cool. You know, like, didn't they have what was that? What was that basketball game they had on the aircraft carrier? Do you remember that the college basketball game? No, I don't remember. It was like it was like Michigan State and somebody I forget who it was and it was on the surface of an it was docked. Obviously, it was a docked naval aircraft carrier. And they put up they put a basketball court on top of it and they played it might have been like Michigan State versus Navy or something. I forget

who it was. But that was like a cool thing. And all the stand all the seats on like the bleachers were on the the deck, you know, it was kind of cool. How do you feel about the the residency for PFO? I think it's a smart decision. But I'm a little like, I don't know if bummed is the right word. But I like when you go to different markets, I like especially someone like PFL go to a depleted market, like go

somewhere that's UFC starved, UFC hasn't been there in years because that's where you're going to gain your fans. They have their best success in Europe because the UFC rarely goes to Europe. So like I don't know, I do kind of hate the Universal Studios aspect of it but if it's working for them and they're making money, more power to them. I'm fine with it. My thought was this. My thought was this. I didn't think they should have opened the season there. I felt like they should. And again, they didn't. The first PFL event of the year, correct me if I'm wrong, was the Usman and Rukhmetov and Paul Hughes fight, correct? Yeah, that was in January, right? So so that was their first fight of the year. OK, fine. But that was in Qatar.

I guess I'm trying to point out this. And I'd be curious to get your response, which is would it have not made a little bit more sense for them to the extent possible to start, as you pointed out, one of these mid major markets like a Lincoln, Nebraska or, or you know something even even where I was, Iowa City for crying out loud. You know if you're not like if you're at Universal Studios and you're already not selling tickets, are you really that concerned with how much money you're generating at the gate versus just kind of filling it with fans

right? Having this big sound. I felt like they should have opened with like a big boom kind of event like here where we've arrived, new rules, you know, new look, new angle and everything. Rather than going like right to a studio to start off the season, it just felt like a... it looked good on TV, it looked like it was executed well, but it felt a little flat to me. I agree. I agree 100%. Also like I'm not too familiar with Universal Studios, but isn't that at Disney? So aren't majority of the people? No, I'm not sure if they're,

no, I think those are separate facilities. Oh, all right, so maybe my point is null and void. But for example, Penn Station, Madison Square Garden's right above it. Half of the ticket sales from Nick's Rangers games, whatever are from tourists just coming through going, oh, I can see a game up here, whatever. I kind of feel like Universal Studios,

at least in my head has that vibe where it's like people on vacation and they're like, oh, there's a fight. Let's go check it out rather than actual fight fans who are like, I'm going to Universal Studios. You're going with your kids. Like that's what I'm saying. Like you're and the dad who had a couple beers at dinner is like,

I'm going to go check out these fights, babe. I'll meet you later. You know, like, so I don't think it's like the biggest diehard fans being like, oh my God, I got to see Jason Jackson at Universal Studios tonight. Like, you know, you know what the move was? They should have gone to Tachi Palace. I mean, someone's got to go. Pryde, their own. By the way, a producer is telling me it was Syracuse, should have gone to Tachi Palace. I mean, someone's gotta go. They're deprived. They're owed.

By the way, a producer's telling me it was Syracuse, San Diego State that was on that aircraft carrier game. Gotcha. That's who was there. All right, we keep it moving. From William, from William. With the UFC investing heavily in grappling,

you know, grappling sports, events like CJI offering substantial prize money and NIL deals allowing college wrestlers to earn solid income, what impact will this have on the depth of the UFC and other MMA organizations rosters? Will fewer high-level wrestlers and grapplers transition to MMA and how will this influence the sport as a whole? Can I tell you very quickly, I would love to get your perspective on this, I am terrified of this. Terrified. What do you think? I agree 100%. Look at like, who was arguably the biggest stars in their

disciplines the last, you know, 10 years, Jordan Burrows and wrestling, Gordon Ryan and jujitsu. There's a reason those guys never went to MMA. They were like, I'm getting a shitload of money to not get punched in the face and just stick to my craft. Why would I do this? They're the outliers. They're like the superstars. But if you're telling me, you know, some guy who is a D one wrestler, but you know, maybe never won a college NCAA championship, whatever the hell it's called. Like these are the guys who can now get 10s of thousands of dollars to compete in grappling or wrestling tournaments and not have to go to the UFC like they're gonna do it dude and I'm we should all be worried as fans we're not gonna get like elite

grapplers or guys from other disciplines coming over at this point if they're being paid handsomely in their own thing but at the same time good for them you know dude I interviewed Dan Gable about. I interviewed Jeff Blatnick about this. These are two guys who obviously were instrumental, you know, in the one case in the UFC world, but obviously both in the amateur wrestling world. And this was, I interviewed them at a time, I think this was like 2011, 2012,

when like the peak of crossover wrestling was happening. You know, that's when Weidman was starting to break through and Mark Munoz was already D1 national champion was there and forget about everybody else and Brock and Kane and I could just go on down the list and Cole Conrad and blah, blah, blah, just so many guys. And I remember them asking and I think they were, in the case of Gable, he didn't necessarily, I think love the idea of wrestlers going into MMA, but he definitely was very appreciative. Like hey, this is a great chance for these guys to make some real money.

And obviously, we were living with the era of Matt Hughes as well. Their success was immediate, it was obvious. And Josh Costner, and again, the list is endless of the names I could point out who are relevant during this time. But you could tell that, at least I felt, you could tell is a strong way to put it. I felt like if there was another option, they would have preferred it. You know what I mean? Like if there was a way to stay in wrestling. And by the way, USA Wrestling made a bunch of changes to how they paid Olympic athletes

and college programs were like, you know, bumping up. There's a short, it's not many guys who could be hired for a college coaching program, but I'm told that like their numbers went up and like, they just, they, they pivoted in a way to like, kind of pull some of the wrestlers back. And now with sports, you get Sue turning into something that's real. It's like, dude, you know, look at light heavyweight, bro. I make this point all the fucking time, but look at light heavyweight. We had, we had the top 10 almost fully was former D1 wrestlers and now there's just dogs.

Man. I mean, he's not D1, but you know, I mean, look, Yuri's a good athlete. He's amazing to watch. I think especially now that he's cleaning up his defense, it's like really, really great. Obviously Poetan's Poetan. Uncle Ive's a good fighter, I think could have competed in any era. And listen, I don't want to crap on Reyes.

He's turning stuff around, but you know, it's not much. It's like, you know, those guys are fine, but like it's slim pickings after that. And it did not used to be that way. At. And it did not used to be that way at all. It did not used to be that way. Scary future we're in for if they don't, uh, bro, when I, when I first got back into MMA, I mean, I watched it for a long time and then kind of got out of it during college. Then got back into it right after. I mean, I was watching a little bit in college, but not much. But then I got back into it a little bit after college. You know, this was the era of Tito beating people up and then Randy beating people up. And even folks forget about this, Bong Island. Chuck Liddell was a wrestler in college too. Was it Cal State Poly? I forget the exact university he went to. All those fucking

guys wrestled. All of them wrestled collegiately. So, you know losing That pipeline kind of being slowly turned off. I Don't know making me a little nervous. Yeah, I'm scared. All right with that in mind poly by the way Was it Cal poly? Yeah All right question number six from Brandon In terms of the present combat sports communities respect which fighters achievements, oh this is interesting, okay here we go, which fighters achievements are the most underappreciated or overblown in both MMA and boxing? I tell you what, this to me sounds like, well it sounds like a great

opportunity to do Shots Fired by Cuervo. How about that? As always brought to you by Cuervo, now's a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila. Big thanks to our friends at Cuervo. All right, what do you think Bong Island Luke? Who's got the most underappreciated or overblown in MMA or boxing? What do you think?

I feel like overblown gotta be triple C, man. I know he's not the most fan friendly, so to call him overblown sounds kind of wild. He's an Olympic champion. I'm not gonna knock the guy, but let's just talk about his UFC championship run for a second. He beats Demetrius in a fight that I thought Demetrius won, but you know, okay, but it's close. It's close. And he did get the W. Okay.

Not knocking that. Then he goes on to fight TJ, EPO TJ, who literally took one punch and crumbled under like a terrible weight cut. You can't really count that as like healthy TJ Okay, then he goes and fights Marlon Marais for the vacant Bannon weight title Marlon Marais has been knocked out in seven of his last eight fights since then You know the hindsight probably not a great win then he fights Dom Cruz and I'm not knocking Dom Cruz probably the greatest Bannon weight of all time, but

Dom Cruz was coming off a four-year layoff and like probably shouldn't have even been ranked and they gave him a title shot against the SAHUDA. So who obviously beat the brakes off of them. Then they rematch now that probably goes totally different. And you know, he comes back, you lose to Aljo Morab. I mean, those are my guys, great losses right there, but you're losing to song, you dong now, you know, it's just like S who do it totally overblown totally he'd flopped his entire career taking that time off and just looking back on it maybe a fluke championship

run I don't know and when you when he was like you know probably like after that cruise fight right who was he gonna fight maybeahn, and we missed all of that too. You know what I mean? Like, so there's like an argument, like, oh, he sat out during his prime, like, and I agree with that, like, to the point you raise, maybe he, maybe he beats Jahn, you know what I mean? Like that version of him in May of 2020,

whenever that was, or, you know, maybe he beats Jahn. Maybe he beats those guys, but the fact that he didn't, and then sat out during that time, you just missed the most relevant possible window both for financial earning as well as legacy in the end but the fact that he was an Olympic gold medalist out of high school you know I mean we're gonna look past that we're talking about his UFC I know I know I know I'm just saying he he is an elite athlete I mean that is that is but to your point you raised that that men's 2008 Olympic team from the previous

question, Askren, DC, DC, him, Andy Rovat, there's a bunch of the guys who were kind of like, you know, either either training MMA or fighting MMA or training in MMA gyms anyway. And, you know, I just don't know what's gonna happen in the subsequent Olympic teams have not turned out to be that relevant. And this sort of goes to show what we're talking about here. Um, but all right, that is, uh, that's our turn at shots fired one more time brought to you by Cuervo.

Now's a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila. Let's keep it moving. If we can't hear long Island Luke, we'll go to question number seven. This is from double move MMA. If these fights were to happen today, who would you pick? Okay, here we go. And which fight would you be the most interested in seeing? All right, so you give me your answer first. Oh my God, somebody's there. Okay. All right. Yeah, these are rough. Okay, let's name all four first and then we'll. Okay, so here's what this person is writing. The four fights. Current Jose Aldo versus current Conor McGregor, but at 155.

That's a weird one. Prime Rhonda Rousey versus they just say Giuliana Pena. I'm assuming her prime to Mighty Mouse versus Alessandra Pantoja. That's it. That's a good one. And then Sean Brady versus Prime Matt Sarah. Yeah. All right, Bong Island.

You are Europe first. What do you think ranking? I mean, there's a clear number one here. It's got to be Mighty Mouse versus Pantoja. Like 8 billion percent. Yeah, like I actually want to see that fight. And that fight does seem somewhat attainable. I know DJ retired, but like out of all these, that's kind of on the table. Prime Ronda versus Juliana is literally just prime Ronda versus anyone. Like I don't, that's basically just like saying, do you want to see Ronda

Rousey fight again in her prime? Like, sure. Do I want to see her win in two minutes? Great. Yeah. Like, all right. Uh, weirdly I want to say number two to me is current Jose Aldo versus current Connor.

Not that I'm intrigued by that fight really, but I mean, their first fight lasted what? 13 seconds. I mean, it'd be nice to see what happens now at lightweight. You were saying that is weird because Jose Aldo fights at Bantamweight now and McGregor is probably walking around at, you know, 210. But I guess that's an even playing field. You make Connor cut all the way to 55 and Jose gets to bulk up to fit. I don't know. Uh, Sean Brady, prime Matt, Sarah, no disrespect to Matt, Sarah, Long Island legend, but that fight does nothing for me. I gotta say. Also, I mean, you know,

Matt Sarah is an important figure in the history of MMA and as well as American, um, as well as the American jujitsu scene. But dude, Sean Brady annihilates him. Like how is this even a conversation? And I know it's like, oh, he beat St. Pierre. I was there when he beat St. Pierre. Believe me, I remember it. But you know, we're just talking about a St. Pierre

that took him lightly, I think. Certainly avenged it in the rematch. And then more to the point, we're just talking about a guy in Sean Brady who's got, you know, a more modern skill set with more modern best practices. I think Sean Brady makes quick work of them to be perfectly honest. Now on the feet, I think folks forget Matt Sarah had huge power, so could be kind of fun there.

But my answer is almost like yours. I'd go mouse Pantoja, then I'd go rousy Pena, then I'd go Aldo McGregor, and then I'd go Brady Sarah. Yeah. There you go. All right. Question number eight. Happy Friday to L squared. What is your quote, hear me out fight? What I mean by that is what fight do you love

that it seems like no one else does and you have to defend it? Mine is Izzy versus Silva. So many people talking negatively about that fight but I think it was a dare I say technical thriller. P.S. I was diagnosed with leukemia back in December. I'm in remission now and receiving consolidation chemo once a month, but I want to thank you guys for providing some great entertainment during the most challenging times of my life.

You guys mean a lot to a lot of people. Well, very glad to hear that things are in an improved direction. Keep it up. We support you. Long Island Luke, what do you think about this question, the Hear Me Out fight? First of all, shout out to Colin, hope you're doing well. I think it's gotta be this fight over my shoulder right here, dude. Usman versus Covington won. I don't think people really remember that fight. You read it on paper, you go, Kamaru Usman versus Colby Covington, that can't be that great, it was probably boring as shit. They didn't shoot zero takedowns that entire fight it was a back and forth stand-up war I was on the edge of my

seat the entire time. Kobe gets dropped and eventually finished in the fifth round I mean dude that was a banger back and forth fight feel like no one mentions that fight anymore. That's an interesting one. I don't know if I have a hear me out fight in the sense of like one that people like didn't like or didn't fully appreciate in that way. I have more like a bunch of forgotten fights that people just don't know about anymore. You know? Yeah. Like, you know, Chris Wyman versus Mark Munoz is actually one of my favorite contender fights. I just fucking love that fight. It was one way

traffic, but I just loved it. You know, Rampage versus Kevin Randleman is like just an amazing, amazing contest. I don't know. I don't have a good one for this one. I have more just forgotten fights in this particular case. All right from Hunter. I'm a newer UFC fan. My first card I've watched was McGregor versus cowboy. Oh, you're very new.

Is it weird that I actually like keeping up with the storylines in the drama more than the actual fights? I enjoy watching shows like MK, aerials, and just YouTube videos in general of the drama in the UFC world and predictions of the fights more than like watching the actual fights. Is this a common thing? Or am I on my own here? Long on Luke, isn't this what has happened to the modern NBA? Yeah, I mean, I guess yeah, that's not a bad call. I agree with Hunter completely though dude like not that I'm not invested if there's not a

rivalry but like rivalries and storylines drama all that shit make it so much better. I always say the most hyped I've ever been for a fight was DC Jones 2 or Jones DC 2 and the build to that was so good. They truly hated each other. You felt it. Go watch that promo. I still say BT Sport put out like the best promo I've ever seen for that fight. It's still like it'll give you chills. It's like four minutes long. It's so good. Yeah. Anytime there's a storyline and I'm way more invested. Dude, when they, when they traded Luca Donchich from the Dallas Mavericks to the LA Lakers, I've seen maybe one quarter of the LA Lakers play since then.

Yeah, same. I read every possible think piece and podcast about why the Mavericks would do something like that. So to his point, there's just a lot of people, I don't know, I don't know if it's the internet age or the way we consume media these days. I'm not sure exactly what fully explains it, but I know a lot of people are this way about the NBA, and you can definitely count me as one of them for sure, 100%. I don't watch, I mostly watch the Wizards who are real bad, and then that's really about it. You know, I didn't watch hardly, I mean, I've seen it again, about a quarter of you know Luca playing for the for the for the Lakers here we go from Joseph

okay besides pornography and combat sports what is a topic you guys know a lot about but typically keep to yourself that's an interesting one long I look why don't you give me one yeah that's a hard one man I don't really keep a lot to myself as far as my interest I feel like I know he said besides pornography and combat sports But I feel like combat sports is one of those things when I'm out with people that I keep like people don't even realize I'm like a big MMA fan and then like they'll mention like oh that guy looks like he's ready to fight and I'm like Oh, you guys see the fights last night, you know, and I start rambling and they're like, Oh, what the fuck is this

guy talking about? Uh, something else though, like beer, I'm pretty into beer, like brewing it and shit like that. And like me and my girlfriend always go to breweries and like, I dunno, I feel like I'm that guy who could tell you like, Oh, you should get this beer if you like this kind of thing or that. I don't know. So that would be something that I feel like I know a lot about that. I don't really talk. Yeah. I mean, like as a 45 year old dad, you know, I don't know. So that would be something that I feel like I know a lot about that I don't really talk about. Yeah, I mean, like as a 45 year old dad, you know, I don't know how much time I have for stuff like this, but what I would say is,

Bird watching? I don't know much about bird watching. That's the thing. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing, you know, like. When I look at them, I mean, what else is there? You have to kind of study their habits. You have to like sit in a place and like see who's there what do they do who's interacting you know

what a bird show up you see a lot I'm just saying no I don't I don't know I don't know harder what I'm looking at what I will tell you was kind of interesting is and I made this before and like here I'll show it to you do you know what this is no no it's not a sex toy it is it's a actually I think their logo was on it these are toe spacers, all right, we've heard about your toes. Yeah, correcttoes.com if you wanna get it. Dude, I have, what do I know a lot about? Well, again, what I feel like I know a lot about

is barefoot shoes. Because, understand something bro, I had divorced parents growing up, right? And I never had cool shoes growing up, never. Just it didn't exist. And then I finally, you know, get into my twenties and I finally get a little scratch in my thirties. And I'm like, you know what, man, I wanna wear the shoes

I was never able to wear growing up. That's what I wanna do. And I was, dude, when I, after I got married and stuff, I was wearing, I have so many Jordans sitting in my closet that I just fucking loved. They didn't break my feet. But what I realized was doing jujitsu and doing wrestling, I had a very, very, it was not, I didn't have a

hard time pressing off my big toe on my left foot. I could not, I could not accelerate pushing off my big toe because it was slanted in like this. And I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't know anything about like these conditions or bunions or I didn't know anything about it and so I just had to look into it and look into it and look into it and there is obviously still a lot that is unknown. There is some data that you know is undercutting to a degree of the barefoot movement. However, getting your toes to splay rather than being this or like, you know, this one being like ganked over like that

is actually very, very important for balance. Balance becomes extremely important as you get older. There's just a lot of really like valuable things. And I could, I literally could not use it to accelerate. And I would always have to tape my big toe to my secondary toe, which would kind of pull it over into place. And then I could accelerate off of it.

But you know, you have to constantly wrap before class. You have to constantly unwrap and then you might be wrapping your fingers too. It was just became, I was like, why, why, why is everyone else able to like bend their big toes like this? How am I the only one who can't do it? And it led me down this path to a place where I'm now getting barefoot shoes. And you saw the ones I had in studio. Like they're good for your feet, but the fashion sense behind them is horrendous.

So dude, I have bought barefoot shoes from Germany, Switzerland, China, the United States, various parts of the United States. I mean, I have Vivo, Lems, Feelgrounds, Bear Barracks. I mean, I just could go on down the list. I have so, Ultras. I mean, I have nothing but this at this point and what I can say is my feet feel a lot better but I would still say that one big toe

has gotten better, way better. I can accelerate off of it a little bit now but it's still messed up. Like it is, it's a, my wife thinks I got it from wearing military boots. That like, you know, that scrunch your toes together, you know? I know it's, it sounds boring, dude, but then when you get older, you're like, dude, shit starts like not working. And you have to like actively invest to make parts of your biology work that you took for granted. That's the part that you don't really

appreciate when you're too young. It you like you, you have to be on top of it. So barefoot shoes and like the barefoot movement is something I've actually read a lot about and spent a lot of time experimenting personally. So there you go. It was boring as shit. That was a great Luke Thomas answer there. I'm an expert in barefoot shoes. People are gonna love that.

I don't know anybody else like in my orbit who wears them. So like, it's just a thing that I have to kind of like, good on the rabbit hole on. All right, from Gabe, go down the rabbit hole on. All right. From Gabe, Luke Squared. Favorite and least favorite bits from the show and MMA as a whole. I feel like you got to answer this one.

Favorite and least favorite. All right, well, least favorite, I wrote this down. The best boyfriend joke, I mean, come on, that's the least favorite skit in this show. From an Australian man's nutsack is a close second. I mean, that's gotta be up there. Favorite, I mean, dude, I could go on for days. I couldn't even like think of them all, but like Whippets in an Arby's parking lot, like Joseph A. Banks. Oh yeah, brother.

You watching Max and Volk 49 times, like Duncan in high school, drinking 50 beers. You watching Max and Volk 49 times like Duncan in high school drinking 50 beers you know like there's just I could go on for days with all the good ones but uh yeah just love when you guys poke at each other with funny shit. Yeah I mean you get to a point in life you're like who am I trying to impress? Yeah exactly. Who am I trying to impress you know it doesn't matter anymore. So that's from MMA as a whole, though, or best bits. I, I, we never fully fleshed out high court. We got a little close with it, but it, the whole idea of high court, it was my idea. The whole idea of it was. Get high as shit. No, well, yes. But the plan was dress up silly act silly,

but take a topic that up silly, act silly, but take a topic that actually is a interesting question, at least in theory, right? Try to find an interesting question you could debate. Is John Jones the greatest of all time despite all our PED failures? Something like that, right? And then try and actually make a good faith argument

around it. We never quite fine tuned it enough by doing it enough. So I think it had like early promise but I think we were just scratching the surface on that but high court is one to me that I love if even though I could admit it needed much more fine-tuning you know. Best bits from like MMA characters like I feel like Tito doing the the Grave Digger after getting like like that's a that's a good like bit right that we gotta shout that out, that's a, that's a good like bit, right? That's a good one.

We got to shout that out. Uh, John's, I know it's recency, but like John Silva barking. I don't know why I fucking love that. I don't love that. I love it because he doesn't even, he doesn't win him and his team. Like he was on embedded him and his team are like putting their hands in like on three, let's go. And like, they're like, let's go. And he just does it in the gym and shit. I'm this guy is a wild man i love it i was not into that i was like okay just fight him please she weas was good too before they like totally over bro you missed paul

buentello don't fear me fear the consequences yeah i did miss that and they used to call dana blath on the internet b-l-a-f built like a fighter you ever remember that no oh they used to call Dana Blath on the Internet, BLAF, built like a fighter. You remember that? No. Oh, they used to call him Blath. BLAF, yeah, built like a fighter. There's been a bunch of these. And also like C-level Kane. Oh true. Motivated BJ kind of thing. You know, there's a bunch of those. Alright. The mustache was one-one, you know, before. Yeah, that's a good one. All right, let's keep this true. We've got a bunch bunch to get through so let's get through these if we can Abraham says looking past UFC 314 It's pretty clear that the next true event of note for the UFC is going to be International Fight Week

What those fight nights are good? We'll talk about them in the end of the show But with that in mind, what would your dream 2025 International Fight Week main card be? Feel free to base this off the potential result of booked fights, i.e. JDM versus Balal and then Defense versus Islam. I'm gonna say main event, Islam, Toporia. Now again, I would say John versus Tom, but I just don't think that's in the cards for International Fight Week at this point.

MSG. MSG, yeah. Yeah. So I don't think it's in the cards for that. So I'll say Ilya versus Islam then we'll do I saw Colby Covington leak this I have the same name and co-main because of the Colby Covington DDP versus Hamsat which is by the way if they put those two fights together on a card that is that is sick yeah that is

sick to do something like that but beyond that I don't know who they would even make available to be honest with you like I got three more for you okay we're all right third title fight Pantoja KKF because it doesn't have the most hype around it so you just throw it as the third title fight on this stacked ass card. Fight below that. I'm going the winner of Ian Gary Carlos Prates versus Sean Brady. Maybe we're killing a contender there,

but like winner of that should get the next title shot. I don't hate that. I don't hate that. And then opening your card, Charles Olivera, Patty Pimlet. Oh, right. Dude, that's a fantastic card. I don't have one better than that. That is great. Yeah, those are some bangers. What's your? What's your early thoughts on those

two for the main and co main? Islam, Ilya, I'm going Islam. I you can't bet against Islam. I do think like Ilya probably makes it the closest anyone has besides maybe Volk the first time. But yeah, like I see it go in the distance. Islam though, taking it home. DDP, Hamsad is... It's so interesting. I feel like if Hamsad can finish him in the first two rounds, obviously he'll win. Otherwise, that goes past round two.

I feel like it's DDP's fight. Like I think if he can survive 10 minutes, he can survive 15 more. You know, what's interesting is I feel like Ilya versus Islam is an interesting fight, but the co-main event is also an interesting fight. Again, assuming they make it in this way. But for like totally different reasons. Like in other words, the thing that makes Islam Ilya interesting as a fight, not so much the stakes and like who wins the title, but like just the fight itself is like completely

distinct from what makes the co-main event interesting fight, which is a one is a like super tactical, technical, you know, very careful fight that has to be fought. I'm sure it will be open up. But like, you know, you like the consequences of getting it wrong against either guy is quite dire. Whereas I feel like, I feel like the co-mate is gonna look like a three stooges sketch, you know what I mean? It's just gonna be, and this is what I mean about MMA,

it's like so open in that way, where you can get all these like wild ass kinds of different fight complexions. All right, from Abraham, if you had to pick a specific division in period of time as the best all-time What would it be this would include a combination of both the quality of fighters competing and the fights they produced for example? 2010 2011 light heavyweight when Jones made his title run. That's gonna be a good one What else would you say long? I look I miss one of st. Pierre's eras, too

He was beaten up tough guys left and right That's a good call I was gonna say like featherweight in like that 2015 16 era where you got like Jose Aldo Chad Mendes Frankie Edgar Connor max poorie a Even like cub Swanson was up there and they're all like kind of fighting each other. So that was fun. I'm gonna say heavyweight, but in particular pride circa 2003 and four and maybe even five. Um, when Fador really began to open up and, you know, beating no Garra, but you had no Garra. You had, you had crow cop, you had Fador,

you had to an extent Bob sap, you have, you had a bunch of crazy crazy. And more than that, Heath Herring and Kazuyuki Fujita and like, you know, again, this is what I mean about like forgotten fights. Have you ever seen Fedor Noguera one? Yes, like where he like they're they're amazed at his ground and pound. They never even seen ground and pound like that. You know, I remember Stephen Quadra's being like, I've never seen ground and pound like this. I've never seen somebody with submission defense like this. You forget what good heavyweights look like. That kind of thing to me is kind of lost,

but that era, the pride heavyweights, dude, the pride heavyweights were doing that when Tim Sylvia was fighting Gan McGee. You know what I mean? It's hard to judge an era in the last like 10 years to, or well, let's say like last five years to it. Like we might be going through golden eras of divisions right now, but until their careers are done,

it's hard to like really put it in perspective of where it stands. Current featherweight is. So I'm saying there's a lot of good. Unbelievably good. Yeah. Lightweight, bantamweight, they're all good. Yeah, they're all, yeah.

I don't know if those are the two, I don't know if current lightweight is like golden era. We'll see. But to your point, like all of them are good. Yeah, all of them. All right from Emilio. Hi, I'm 41 from Peru. I've been a fan of the show since episode one and long time hardcore MMA fan since UFC one.

I do find myself he says losing a bit of interest in the sport lately missing some fights skipping cards even. But my main problem is that I keep falling asleep during the main events because they are so fucking late. Do you have any advice as a fellow 40 plus for losers to stay up so late to watch the fights? I get paid to do it. So I just get caffeinated. You know what I mean? I don't know how to answer that question because here's what I'm guessing. He's drinking or smoking and then he's, know, by the time though the main event comes on I can't help you there brother. I got to be sober for these, you know You just got to keep drinking through it, you know

If you're like done drinking for the night and then plan on watching the fights, you're obviously gonna fall asleep I can't answer this because I'm not over the age of 40 yet, but uh Tune in to make our minute tune into Luke Thomas watch along. We'll keep you awake Exactly exactly into main card minute tune into Luke Thomas watch along. We'll keep you awake bro. We'll keep you awake. Right? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, people always ask me like, you know, they ask me questions that are relevant to my demo, like age, how long I've been watching the sport, blah, blah, blah.

But they ask it from the perspective of a fan. And it's like, I have a different relationship to the sport. So the things that happen around me don't happen to fans. Like in other words, I can stay up late and my wife will cover it because it's my job. So we just understand taking turns, you know, in these ways. Whereas, you know, I don't know if other marriages would be like, listen, I'm not letting you stay up 40 plus Saturdays a night or a year. And then you know, waking up at noon on Sundays, like, I don't know how that flies for a lot of families. You know what I mean? Let me pull my chair up. What's that? Exactly.

I'm in the same boat though. I mean, I could call you the best husband ever with that last quote though. So wasting Saturday night, making her do everything, just saying, Luke. Listen, listen. I paid my dues, you understand? I paid my dues.

All right, next question. Oh wait, we have something before the next question. Oh yes, sorry. Before we get to the next question I apologize. Let's do this. Let's talk about our good friends at DraftKings DraftKings Of course, as you know, the crown is yours Are you guys ready to win some cash during the basketball playoffs? You know, I wish the Wizards were playing they're not but okay Check out pick six from DraftKings when it comes to basketball payouts DraftKings pick six

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Pick six not available anywhere, including New York and Ontario. Voidware prohibited, one per new customer. Bonus awarded as non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days limited time offer see terms at pick six dot draft kings dot com slash promos alright let's fire through some of these if we can long island Luke let's do it let me is it alright if I jump around a little yeah yeah all right let me think here just let me know the number. Yeah sure.

Okay I'm gonna skip 16. Oh I like this one. How about number 17 from Eric B and Rakim. Best food scene on the East Coast that isn't NYC. Okay we got to go to the New Yorker here rolling his eyes. What do you think? I mean you got to answer this question. I feel like you're gonna have a good answer for this. I don't know if I will. I will tell you what my favorites have been. So, obviously, listen, first of all, if you go to any major city, it's not that hard to find good food. You know what I mean? Told that to Iowa and they're Mexican. Well, their Mexican food is, I mean, they're just stealing from those people. It's, it's Miami. Oh, you know

what? Our producer says Miami, I'm inclined to agree. It might be Miami. I found the food in Miami to be outrageously good. You know, and obviously depends on like your culinary preferences, you know, but like I mean, and obviously, you know, from Mexico to Argentina, Hispanic food is wildly different place to place. But in terms of like getting all of that represented in one place and you know all of it being but some of it's obviously very expensive but much of it can be quite affordable too. Miami's up there bro, Miami's is good.

I really like all Carolina barbecue. I feel like that's a big thing like we got to yeah I would say um I would say like Charleston, South Carolina I'm told has a good scene as well barbecue or in general in general Baltimore you know listen how are you on crab cakes I'll eat them if yeah I would eat them I wouldn't order them but I would yeah like they were out on a tray or people in Baltimore they lose their minds over crab cakes I like them I don't love them yeah that's right but crab cakes. I like them. I don't love them. Yeah, that's right. But if you like them, obviously Maryland and Baltimore in particular is gonna be amazing for that.

Philly, Philly has surprisingly good food. It does. But more than that though, it's got, I don't know how good the fine dining is there, but decent restaurant down, I've found to be quite plentiful. DC has got good food to eat, but I think a lot of it is quite expensive. Yeah, I think Miami is your answer.

It's definitely not Atlanta. Atlanta can go suck a dick. I'm not fuck Atlanta. Alright. Let's see. Let me pick one here. OK. How about question 19 from Mark? Let me pick one here. Okay. How about question 19 from Mark?

All right. He says from Mark, I hope this email finds you well. My question is whether Olivera is a good matchup against Patty following 314. I do not know if this would be contingent on toporia and timing to pour you having not fought since late October and Olivera late November. If one expects Olivera to beat Patty, what factors led to Patty's overwhelming technical knockout

over Chandler where Olivera went to decision with Chandler last November? So he's kind of asking you about MMA math. What is your read on that? I mean, I don't love doing MMA math. Also like, I don't know, me and Chuck, we're talking about this yesterday, this fight, possible fight, Charles versus Patty.

And like, not that I would favor Patty, but it's certainly winnable for Patty. Like, whereas I feel like Armin is not that winnable for Patty, I think you disagreed with that. But I feel like Armin runs right through Patty. But Patty, but. Patty Charles is is pretty intriguing like we've all seen Charles pre becoming a champion and I think we all still have

that in the back of our mind and it's like damn I could see a world where Patty turns him into the old Charles. So I I would mostly agree with that analysis. I mean people always ask like oh, how could you know, again, playing MMA math? First of all, remember you leave a piece of yourself every time you go into the octagon, you have like a blood and guts fight, which virtually every Chandler fight is. He left a piece of himself after that one in against Oliver and I know you're like, oh, well, you know, that wasn't the worst beating he's ever taken, but it doesn't matter.

Like the accumulative total can be quite bad so I think that's part of it. The second part is due to youth. I think people just don't understand what youth does I mean we do in intuitively But like the feeling of like you can go up against someone who's like real skilled and kind of older and maybe hang out Hang around a little bit and then you go up against someone who's not a skill but much younger and the dude like the physical Differences are it that can be overwhelming quite literally. I think that's what you saw also fucking Patty's good, dude I you know when he came to the UFC, I didn't see anything impressive about him I mean, I had good back control stuff like that, but you know, nothing like crazy impressive

Dude, he's good. Now. He's good. Now. He's a very good fighter He's a feeling that's the other part too. Those leg kicks and that mount he had where that high mount where he was high up underneath Chandler's armpits and he's raining down punishment. Dude, he's physical now. And I think that's transformed his game a little bit where if you have good back control but you're scrawny like a Mikey Musa Meche, you have to be very technical. And he is technical to be sure. But you can dial that back a little bit, a little bit to let the brawn play out if you've got it. Dude, he's got brawn.

He's got more brawn than Charles Oliveira. You can say that. I'm not saying he's, to your point, I'm not saying Patty's more skilled than him, but he's got more brawn. Now he does. Dude, it makes up for a lot. Like it makes up for a lot.

There's a lot of tough matchups for him, but if they they like do match make it right, he could definitely become a champion. But like I don't see him beating Islam I don't see him beating Ilya. I don't see him beating Armin. So like if those three are in your way, do the Armin thing Armin is physically extremely impressive and his wrestling is impressive He's only got good ground and pound when the person relents to being on their back not when they are on their knees or trying to build height and I don't see how I don't understand how people don't see this. Like that's not enough. That's not enough to win a title. It's not. Especially not at 55. Of course, you know, a big punch can land. Anything can happen. He's got big power. Okay, fine. But like you have to build

these other conditions into place in order to win. And he doesn't do that. At least not, at least he hasn't historically very well. Um, maybe he'll work on that. He's still young, right? I'm curious what his next fight is. Cause I don't think they're giving him the title shot. Nor should they. I don't, I don't think that they should I know that they did and that they're taking it back but I actually think it's in his interest to not take it yeah I could see I believe that all right from our friend Daz number 20

Aloha L and L regarding a Volks technical mastery and ability to adjust how is GSP similar or different? GSP, VULK is highly unique. There are not many guys who try to manipulate rhythm and timing and distance standing up in the way that he did. St. Pierre did it a little bit or he would faint, you know, get a reaction jab, cut an angle, like he's doing all the, he's doing all the same things as well, but not as forcefully and not as concertedly and not as often. Right. And, and the other part too is after he got walloped by Sarah, um, you know, after that he turned a bit more into a wrestler.

And so it was more about just blending the two, which of course, Volk does as well. But to me, Volk is like, who is, you know, people always think of the best strikers as the guys who have the best knockouts. And you know, getting great knockouts can obviously be a function of being a great, you know, a great striker. But another thing that makes a great striker,

I've said this before, dude, he's Mayweather. He's Mayweather. He's manipulating these guys in ways where they can't get going. They don't know what else to do to pivot out. They are subject to having their timing disrupted their rhythms and their patterns disrupted. They can't get close when they do get close to get cracked. And it just goes on like this and he never puts them away not never but you know, he

doesn't always put them away. But you know, I guess a guy like Lopez, he's just fighting underwater the entire time. St. Pierre didn't do that. St. Pierre was not like that. St.

Pierre were kind of more of a blending of the different parts while, you know, while also having fakes and faints and, you know, a great jab and all that kind of stuff, does that make sense? Am I explaining myself clearly? Yeah, I was, I pretty much missed the GSP era. You know what I mean? So I was going to let you take the lead on that anyway. But yeah, it was it was glorious, bro. I know.

He was I have a lot of respect for Kimura. He's the second best of all time. It wasn't like St. Pierre's St. Pierre's was something different, you know? Yeah. And also he was he was a groundbreaking because it was only relevant to Canada. But when he got the Under Armour sponsorship, we were like, whoa. And then he got Gatorade and we were like, holy shit, you know, and this is when, this is when everyone was wearing their T-shirts to press conferences and he's showing up in a suit and tie. It was just a different time.

He was, he was ahead of the curve for sure. You know? Uh, all right. From Michael, I've noticed that regardless of the sports, so MMA, baseball, basketball, et cetera, anytime there are two brothers who compete in the same sport, there's always one that's significantly better than the other. Why do you guys think that is?

So who would be some brothers in other sports? The Giannis and his brother in basketball. Who's the shitload in basketball? The Lopez twins, the Morris twins, the three brothers, the Grants, Jeremy Grant, the holidays, Drew Holiday and his brothers. There's a lot, but maybe because there's so many in basketball, I feel like we could like the Morris twins, they're arguably the same. Yeah, who is it? Mark, Mark Heaf and Marcus Marcus. I mean there. I'm not saying they were the same, but there's not a huge drop off between. Yeah, whereas like Brooke and Robin Lopez. Brooke was always way better kind of thing. Oh, pow and Mark Gasol. How could we forget them? They're both pretty. They were both all stars. They're both pretty good. Yeah.

No, man, I don't. Do you remember Mark Hughes, Matt Hughes' brother? No. He had a twin brother named Mark, who was also fucking, you know, built like one of these guys. He was really good. He was really good. Wayne Gretzky's brother played in the NHL.

Like, there's a lot of guys that, I don't know, I just feel like it's more of, ooh, this guy's a spectacle rather than we're brothers. One of us has to be better than the other kind of thing. But also, why would brothers be equally talented? I mean, some will be, to your point. That's what I mean, they're different people. They're different people.

They might have slightly different work ethics, slightly different focuses, slightly different genetic differences that over time just lead to different results. Also, if like one is older and you know, they're good and the younger one is like way better. The other one might just like, yeah, you know, this, oh, this is what it looks like when they're really good.

You're kind of just give it that give up, but like, you know, realize that my path is limited. But also, you know, if you and your brother make it to the NBA, something went right. True. Something went right. True. Something went right. True. All right.

From Jack, while younger than Chandler, is Aspenall similarly at risk of wasting his prime waiting around for a Jones fight that may not happen? Would he be better off fighting someone like God and further developing his skills and increasing his leverage over Jones and UFC? What do you think? I don't think the answer is fighting more, but I somewhat agree with this dude. How old's Tom Aspinall? Like 28?

28-ish, I think. Let's see. Tom Aspinall's 32. All right, a little older than I thought. Okay, but heavyweight 30s. Yeah, so he's got 10 years easily left. I don't know. Because the bummer is if it does turn out a Chandler situation and you just waited all this time and then John just retires and it's like, well, you

should have fought zero gone and whoever but like there's no clear other can there's no third guy at heavyweight. So I think I think if you're Tom right now you wait, you have to that's too big to jeopardize you have to wait.'s too big to jeopardize. You have to wait. But if it doesn't happen this year, you move on. Yeah. Uh, you have to move on. Like you cannot sit on the shelf in your prime like this and waste this kind of time. And I grant to your point, who's he going to fight? You know,

these are, these are, these are questions for the UFC to figure out, not not for you and I, but I give it this year. I give, I give Jones every opportunity. There's no reason why they can't fight this year. But if this year falls away, that's it. Move on. If we get to like July and they still haven't announced them for MSG, then I'm kind of losing hope at that point.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm still holding out. Again, I'm 50-50 on it. We'll see what happens. All right, from Max.

What do you make of a potential Drikus, oh, we just talked about this. What do you make of a potential Drikus versus Hamsat matchup? Is Hamsat's ground game too good for Drikus, or does Drikus size give him an advantage? So you mentioned that you thought that if it went past the second, it's Drikus's fight to lose.

What happens in the first two rounds? the same thing that hams out does in any fight where he just glove bell rings and he's fucking shooting on you and Maybe he doesn't get him down the first time maybe not the second time, but by the third time he's getting drick is down and The real question is hams. That's gas tank. We saw him go what three rounds with uh Usman like we've never seen him go five. He just can't trust it you can't and Drikus has fought five rounds what three fights in a row now or something so like or close to it he finished Izzy earlier but you know what I mean. Uh yeah I don't know it's it's more of a what if like I don't know. It's more of a what if, like I don't know Hamsad's gas tank past round

two. Shooting takedowns the entire, that's pretty fucking tiring. Like, I don't know. But uh, Drik is probably more well rounded. I know that feels weird to say cause Drik is doesn't really look great anywhere, but like Hamsad is definitely a one dimensional guy. Yeah. Flatline GM three, but like even that was, I don one-dimensional guy. Yeah, he flatlined GM3, but like even that was, I don't want to say fluky, but it was like the first punch he threw in that fight and it connected, you know? I don't know. What's your take? I don't know. I don't know. I don't there's there's I mean amazing that Hamzat has been the UFC all this time and we still have like deep unknowns about him, you know? Right? Because he never fights. He never fights. Dricus is a known quantity. He's unpredictable

in certain ways, but he's a known quantity at this point. You know, is he obviously no, I mean, fully known quantity, like these guys who've got, you know, that's the tough part about being a champion, we've discussed it a million times where they put there's so much tape on you. And you've had to go through so many contenders, you would just become a very known and understandable quantity. Hamsaad is not that at least not fully. I mean obviously some things are known right? But that's why this fight fucking rules bro. This fight rules. I really really

hope they make this for Internet. If they, I'm gonna say it again man, if they make Korea Islam and then this one is your co-main, I don't know what else fight fans would be expecting at that point. To be honest, I'll take one of those as just the main event. I agree. I'm getting greedy saying I would love to have both, but I would take either, yes. Yeah, equally as hype for just one. All right. From Daz. Question for Long Island Luke. Here we go. What was your most memorable betting win, money won and or fight watching experience? And what was your worst bad beat?

Great question. All right, so most memorable win had to be, I mentioned this a lot here, Dricus Duplassie over three and a half by submission over Izzy. I do this thing called a bet generator on my watch alongs where people literally just blindly vote for who's gonna win.

They don't even know who they're voting for. It ended up being Dricus. It ended up being submission. It ended up being over three and a half and it hit. It was plus 2,800. So like culmination of all those things, like it just being randomly generated ended actually hitting and how much money we won. It was dope. That was awesome. Worst bad beat. I got a couple for you here. Shevchenko Grasso 2. I can't remember who the underdog was. Let's just say it was Shevchenko. I had a bet on Shevchenko and then I took Grasso by decision. I'm sitting there going, as long as this fight goes the distance, I'm cashing one of these. And I'm like counting my money already and then it goes the distance and it's a fucking draw. I lost all the bets. So that was a bummer.

And Alex Morono, Santiago, Ponsonibio, I had the over two and a half, and Ponsonibio knocked him out with two minutes and 31 seconds left in round three. That was pretty bad. And I got to give Gaff a shout out for the Holloway-Gaychi fight. He had fucking Holloway by decision,

which Holloway was already an underdog, and he took him by decision. He was looking like a genius theey fight. He had fucking Holloway by decision, which Holloway was already an underdog and he took them by decision. He was looking like a genius the entire fight. We're like, damn Gaff, you knew Holloway was going to win this. And then he gets knocked out. We all lose our minds because that was one of the greatest knockouts in UFC history. Gaff sitting there stone faced, like probably just lost a shit load of money. But that was one of the worst bad beats ever. Four minutes, 59 seconds knockout. Like, Oh my God. Yeah. I had no idea. That's amazing. It was pretty funny, but yeah, amazing. I remember the first time I went to Vegas with work. No, no, not the first time. The first time I went to Vegas in a non Marine Corps context. So for like

my like civilian job. And I was like, I never gambled like I've done slot machines and like bullshit stuff, but I never sat at a table, you know? So I sat at a table and it was like, I think it was like Blackjack. And I was like, all right, I got 250 bucks. I'm just going to play it out. If however long it lasts is how long it lasts. It lasted 10 minutes. Yeah. It lasted 10 minutes.

It's usually what happens. And then you're like, I was like, OK, well, that was that. Yeah, that was that. All minutes. It's usually what happens and then you're like I was like, okay. Well, that was that Yeah, that was that all right. Let's do this if we can Let's talk about There's some upcoming fights that we kind of just want to lean into so obviously there's no UFC this weekend And I think there's one the week after that. Let's talk about that if we can for just a second here, Long Island Luke, which is the UFC Kansas City main event. I wanna talk about that relative to another one in just a second, but let's set this up April 26th.

It's gonna be Ian Gehry taking on Carlos Prochez. Carlos Prochez, by the way, has a YouTube channel. Did you watch that at all, by the way? No, I haven't seen it. No? He puts out a lot of training footage on there. I want to lean into the future here a little bit so let's look ahead if we can and by the way this is brought to you by our friends at Total Wireless the official wireless provider of the UFC get unlimited data that won't slow you down. Total Wireless, we thank them for their patronage here.

Let's talk about a little bit. What would you say is, what has you most hyped about that fight? Hopefully proving everyone wrong, because if you guys remember, before this fight was even booked, I said, ooh, Ian Gary versus Carlos Proctis. I think Ian Gary runs right

through Carlos Pratas and everyone gave me shit for it and sure maybe runs right through is a little harsh on my end but I do favor Ian Gary in this fight and I feel like- Let me play devil's advocate. Why are you so high on Ian Gary? What is it about him that gives you confidence? I'm not saying you're wrong I just want to hear it. It's not that I'm necessarily so high on him. You know BC likes to say his best win was the loss to Shavkat like obviously

Obviously, he's half joking when he says that but like I somewhat agree like Ian Gary stock went up for me personally after that fight Like did I ever think Ian Gary was championship material? No, but after seeing that fight I said, you know what maybe one day like he he looked damn good. Carlos Brates, similar to John Silva this past weekend, like, I just feel like you're getting all these quick knockouts. I haven't really seen you tested in your full game. I haven't seen you taken down. I haven't seen that. Like, Ian Gary's smart. He's going to game plan smart. He's going to get this fight to the ground if he needs to. I say if he needs to because for all you know, he's going to have success on the feet.

I don't know. Obviously, there's always the threat of the knockout. Gary's never been knocked out, though. I just I don't know. I favor Ian Gary in this fight a lot. Do you think if Ian Gary's runs through projects, do you think he'll become a fan favorite at that point? If he runs through to the point you, not beat him, not beat him, not scrape by him, smoke him.

I don't know. I kind of think this is a lose-lose from a fan standpoint for E.I. Gary because you're giving me that look. I mean, E.I. Gary is already not very liked and Carlos Proctis is like beloved by everyone just for the fact that he smokes cigarettes. That's how you become liked is you beat heroes people think you people think you just beat villains you smoke cigarettes yeah i know carl spartan is cool like the fact that he smokes you know menthols or whatever is fucking awesome but like this is the same thing with seporia like oh he beat valk and everyone hated him then he beat max another beloved fighter and then you notice the worm began to turn a little bit it's when you destroy the things that people hold dear. If you do it enough, then you become the thing that they hold dear. I've seen it too many times to think otherwise. I think the best arc for Ian would be,

it won't be in this fight as far as being beloved. Like he'll be protest, but if he beats Balal, fans are going to love him because people really just hate Balal at that point you know what I mean like also like it's one of those things with Volk in the same where he's talking about like you know adversity which is it I agree that like if he beats protest that won't be the deciding factor by any stretch but if he does beat protest and then let's say wins the title after that I'm just making something up people will see him you know having had to eat

all that shit and get, you know, destroyed in the media and then come back and take on tough challenges and overcome them and then achieve at the highest level. And they'll be like, wow, he persevered. He showed all those people. And then all of a sudden that's going to, I mean, people will still make jokes about him or whatever, but I think you'll see a lot of at a bare minimum, you'll see a massive drop off in the negativity, a massive drop off. But it would have to be a finish. I think if he skates by on a decision,

people are just gonna go, oh, he didn't even win that fight, protest is still, whatever, you know. Yeah, there is a risk there. Now, if protest is to win, it has to be on the feet and it has to be because he has more dynamic punching power, right?

Like I don't even know what else it would be at that point. Yeah, like again, is there a world where he knocks Ian Gary out? Sure, but I don't see that. I think he just, yeah, outstrikes him through 25 minutes. But like, even that sounds hard. When I say that out loud, I'm like, I don't know if he can do that, dude.

Let me, uh, do you have any betting on this one? All ready to go? Not yet. I mean, we're still, what, two weeks out. So, you know, gotta keep some money in the account. Oh, I've got it. Our friends at DraftKings. Ready? Yeah, hit me. Carlos Proches, minus 108. Ian Gary, minus 112. They've got it as a pick'em, brother. minus 108 Ian Gary minus 112. They've got it as a pick them brother. How do you bet pick them?

Do you just stay away from them or are you just parlay them? No, I mean, normally I would just something like this where we're two weeks out and I see it's a pick them. I'm waiting this out until someone becomes plus money because the lines are gonna fluctuate. I do have the opening. So Ian Gary opened at minus 140 and protest opened at plus 125.

So they're kind of coming together, maybe switching places. Money's coming on protests, yeah, which I'm into because I would take Ian Gary as a dog in this fight for sure. Otherwise, if it stays a pick them like this, I probably stay away from Moneyline and do like an over under. All right, if he ekes out a decision here, you don't give him a title shot, right? There's just no way. No, because you got Sean Brady sitting there, you got Shavkat sitting there. Like, no, no, you can't you can't jump on. That's why I like that Sean Brady, winner of this fight, fight, because Shavkat's waiting

in the wings anyway. We don't know what's going to happen with JDM below for all we know below loses and now Islam's coming out like there's way too much going on up top where it makes sense to kind of kill off one of the contenders with this versus Brady. Yeah, I agree. It was a bit of a bottleneck going like kind of kind of calling a little bit of the herd, at least temporarily anyway I think makes a lot of sense. Dude, I love this freaking fight. There's sometimes, I've said this before and I'll say it again, there are times, okay, your mileage may vary obviously, everyone's mileage is going to vary, but for me, formative experiences in my fandom were watching Jones as a contender surging, watching Connor as a contender. I didn't like Connor's personality. In fact, I found it really, I feel very vindicated that he's turned out to be like a horrible person because I hated his personality from the word go.

But the point is how magical was his rise. It was one of the most insane things we've ever seen. Same thing with, to an extent, not as quickly, but Ron Arousey, but Habib would be another one. I always joke about this. I did a sports radio show and this was after the sale of the UFC and they're like, who's the next big thing? And I was like, Habib Nurmagomedov.

And then I went back on the show like two years later when he was, you know, like, or maybe it was like right after the Conner fight, like three years later. And they're like, man, you really called it back then. And I was like, guys, it wasn't hard. It was not hard. It was not hard to figure that out

because one of the most interesting times in a fighter's life is when they're a contender and you just don't know exactly how good they are. Each fight is like, well, can they beat? They can't beat this guy, can they? And then they do it and then they do it and then they do it. Now obviously he lost to Rachmanov, but I still feel like he's young enough and he performed ably enough in that fight where if he wins this one, I'm not going to put him on the

level of Habib or Jones or Connor, but I'm saying I like this part of a fighter's career, the exciting surge of the contendership queue. It's, it's really fun for me. Personally. That's such a good call too. Like you don't know. I remember like Whitaker's rise and like he's fighting Jockeray and he was like a huge underdog and everyone's like, he's not beaten fucking Jockeray knocks him out. Then he's fighting Yoel Romero. Everyone's like, all right, but he's not beaten Yoel and a knocks him out then he's fighting yo, el ramiro everyone's like alright

But he's not beating yo, well, and then he beats you out twice. You know like yeah, I love that shit. It's so fun It's so fun everyone always thinks. Oh, it's not fun until they get to the title Yeah, like the title reign if they can have one is obviously you know like those these are the biggest fights They'll have but when you're discovering someone's magic piece by piece. I don't know. That's to me, that's when I get hooked on a fighter. That's how I, same thing with Seporia. I was like, oh, he's fucking awesome. Even when he got his shit rocked by Jai Herbert, I was like, oh, this guy is, this one's different.

This one's different. Now, let me ask a question, because let's compare it. So what we've got with the UFC is we got a week off coming up and then we're back at it with this fight here. This Ian Gary Carlos projects fight. But. The week after the UFC is going back to Minnesota,

they're going to go to Des Moines. I believe I am not Minnesota. Say again, you said Minnesota. No, I said Des Moines. Yeah, you said Minnesota and then you said before that. Oh, sorry, sorry. Iowa, Iowa, but Midwest. You said Minnesota. No I said Des Moines. Yeah you said Minnesota and then you said... Oh before that oh sorry sorry Iowa Iowa but Midwest you know Iowa. Same thing. Yeah it's just flyover country who cares. I'm teasing Iowa I'm teasing.

Which main event do you like better? Gary versus Proches or Sanhagen versus Figaro? Because I gotta tell you, for me, both of these main events are freaking awesome. Yeah, there's no wrong answer here. I guess like you have to say Gary versus protest is the better main event just because protest undefeated in the UFC for knockouts. Ian Gary, I think is like eight and one in the UFC.

The one loss being Shavkat. Like they're both on great cumulative 12 eight and one in the UFC, the one loss being Shavkat. They're both on great cumulative 12 and one record in the UFC. Whereas you go to the other side, you got Figi, I think is three and one at Bantamweight. Obviously he has a longer UFC career, but mostly a Flyweight. And you got Sanhagen who is coming off that loss to Umar. Sanhagen kind of loses every time he steps up to the big name, like that top three that top three and not that figgy is there anymore. I actually favor Sanhagen in this fight, but it might be a funner fight. It might be a more all action fight, but I don't think it's the better fight on paper. Like Ian Gary Carlos protest is.

I actually, so I have a, I have a weird feeling about it. First of all, I think both fights will be great. I think you agree with that. Like, you just got four talented people here. So, and one of them former champion. So there's that, um, the fight between Sanhagen and Figaro might actually end up being a better fight. It could end up being a better fight, But the stakes and the intrigue of Gary and Proches is significantly higher for me

than Sandhagen versus Figaro. So like, I think you get good fights either way, but I could see it that we're midway through, you know, or we're now into May 4th, right, the Sunday after, and we're like, you know what, that last main event was better than the one before, but I didn't care as much because of the other sort of factors involved here. Is that a fair read for you? 100% 100% agree. Also, like, I know we're not you're not asking this, but I do think

that Iowa card is better on paper than the Kansas City card. I'd have to really look at them face to face, but just the fights that I remember here like Bo' Nickel already are is the co-main on Iowa. That's so good. There's a lot that I'm looking forward to between both of these cards even if I'm gonna side with Gary. Yeah and I'm looking up odds for the the May 3rd card. Nothing yet for our friends at DraftKings so we'll have to wait on that one. Although they do have odds, DraftKings does have odds for that Bo Nickel fight. Minus 245 Bo Nickel plus 200 RDR. Are you going to take some cash on RDR? No, I actually think that's like a pretty cheap price for Bo Nickel. I might just throw

him in a parlay. Minus 245, that's not bad. Well one more time, I just want to remind everybody, this has been brought to you by Total Wireless, the official wireless provider of the UFC, Get Unlimited Data That Won't Slow You Down. And of course, this podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of the UFC. When you're streaming the fight

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or visit your local total wireless store to learn more about how total wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Monthly rate on the total base 5G unlimited plan for new subscribers applies only to the monthly rate for your plan. Additional terms apply. See website for details. Before we get out of here at Long Island Luke, very quickly, do you you bet on boxing too,

right? Yes. Did you bet on the Gervonta Davis Lamont Roach fight? Yes. I had, what did I have? I think I had Gervonta by decision, so I did not win. How would you bet the rematch? Obviously the odds are going to be dependent, but what would be an enticing bet for you given how the first one went? Yeah, again,

I gotta see the odds. Cause like if you're giving Lamont Roach is still going to be the underdog. Let's be real. Yes, he will. He'll probably be like. Pretty cheap, you know, like plus 300. I'm thinking something like pretty cheap, you know, like plus 300, I'm thinking something like that. And I would definitely take the over. It's going to go the

distance. Well, true. I was going to say I'll probably repeat my bet and do Gervonta by decision, but I'll also probably hedge it with just Lamont Roach Moneyline worth a flyer on it. Yeah, fair enough. Now our friends, where of course this is in all this smoke production here, our friends at Art of Ward, the Andre Ward show and content over on his YouTube channel. He sat down with Lamont Roach who of course has now been quite the hit. A lot of people think he won as a result of everything that happened. He sat down with Lamont Roach and it's on this week's episode of Art of War. Andre Ward, as I mentioned, sits down with Lamont Roach fresh off of his highly publicized draw with Gervonta Tank Davis. The two discuss Roach coming up in the DMV, let's go,

alongside Tank. What went right for him on Fight Night and the potential rematch? Tune into the full interview on the All the Smoke Fight YouTube channel. Let's take a look at this clip. What was your read on Jervonte going into the fight, him personally? I think he doubted so. Hell of a talent, hell of a puncher. Super, super, super good accuracy. I think that's what leads to the most of his knockouts, honestly. But he doubted himself. Why you say that?

He been doing that since a kid. Yeah. Something you know. That's just something I know. So that played a little bit into the fight. I think when, especially when there's not a lot of animosity, because you got to think a lot of people he in for it, they just have differences. They be into it or whatever the case may be.

I don't got no problem with him. He don't got no problem with him. He don't got no problem with me. So I think he was trying to find something to boost his morale or get him going or whatever the case may be. And he tried to like the bet me that he gonna knock me out and stuff like that. That didn't go too well for him. Did y'all bet?

Oh, we bet and we shook on it. He paid up? He changed his number. Yeah, I heard from him. He ain't got that shit. He ain't got that yet. He changed his number, Slim. Yeah.

So, you know, but that would be a compensation for another day. Bro, I went to this guy's number. Yeah, I went to his number. It's so funny. He changed his number. It's like you ever seen that Chris Rock sketch. It's like when I get bills, I just move. You remember that? So great. Dude, I went to Lamont's gym. I cannot overstate this to you. I was texting with his dad because I interviewed

him long before the fight like October before the fight. So months and months before. And I was texting with his dad. And his dad gave me the address of the gym and I looked it up on map quest and or whatever I'm at quest or Google Maps and I was like, alright, let me plug this in and we went and it's not far from my house Actually, it's like, you know 15 20 minute drive it's pretty it's pretty close and then we get there and it's just a Baptist Church like but not like a Huge one like a real modestly sized one, you know, know like very very very you know modest and it's on this like gigantic like gravel parking lot and I pull in and there's nobody there there's like nothing there and like you know there's like sheds and stuff with like

you know equipment or you know just they look like just detritus like it didn't look like anything and I texted his dad and I'm like yo where, where's the gym? He'll he actually texted back. Ha ha ha. And I was like, he eventually came out and pulled me in, dude, they it's a shed that has like no heating. It has electricity because they run like a giant power cord from the church like like a mile down the thing. And it you you know, like every amazing and perfect boxing gym, it smells like boxing gloves and sweat and whatever. There's duct tape on everything.

Everything's dirty. It was perfect. It was perfect. If you go into a boxing gym, that's a whole lot nicer than that, walk the fuck out. You're in the wrong place, brother. Let me just say that. And dude, they're producing world champions in this. And I asked him,

like, how do you guys stay warm in the, in the, in the winters? They have a little bit of a heating mechanism in there, but he was like, you know, we just spar out more. Yeah. We just bar and sweatshirts. I was like, fuck bro. I remember, I remember you sharing the picture of that. I think it was on your live chat or something. Yeah. Photo. It's like literally a dirt parking lot, like this warehouse in the back. You would drive by it and never in a million years think that world champions were produced there.

Like the last thing in your mind would ever be that. They're tough people, bro. Tough people. So shots to him. All right. But that is it for us today. Long Island Luke, one more time. Plug what you're doing for tonight's PFL broadcast. Tonight I'm doing the full card watch long. I don't know on top of my head what time it is guys, but you should know by now. Just go to pfl.com or pflmma.com, whatever it is. But yeah, full card watch long.

You could subscribe to me. Main card minute, follow me on social, all that good stuff. Follow Luke too, NBC. Yeah, that's right. I'm gonna be on vacation for a little bit, not too long, maybe four or five days. I'll be back. We'll have a great show for you guys on Monday.

I don't know what the fuck we're gonna talk about, but we'll figure something out. We always do. PFL, we're recapping PFL. Oh my God. What had the mighty have fallen? You know what, but the fight should be good. Well, we'll figure it out just the same.

So thanks to everyone who made the show possible here today. Thanks to our producer, Matt. Thanks to you, Long Island Luke, Shouts to BC. Shouts to all of you who sent questions. And of course you can always reach the show morningcombatatgmail.com. That's the place to go. One more time, morningcombatatgmail.com.

So thanks to all of you who made today's show possible. Thanks to all of our sponsors. We're out of here. Enjoy your weekend, folks. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.