MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - My JRE Appearance, Adesanya vs. Jan, Jon Jones | Live Chat, ep. 53 | Luke Thomas

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

Today on the podcast, we'll talk about my appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Israel Adesanya vs. Jan Blachowicz, Jon Jones at heavyweight, Tito Ortiz being elected to city council, Derrick Lewis vs. Anthony Johnson, the first female color commentator, how T.J. Dillashaw looks versus the rest of the bantamweight division, PED use in MMA and much more. --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

you hear that paid and done that's the sound of bills being paid on time but with the bimo eclipse rise visa card paying your bills could sound like this yes earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month rise to rewards with the bimo Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Okay. Hi, everybody. It is Thursday, the 5th of November, 2020. And this is episode 53 of the Luke Thomas Live Chat right here on the Morning Combat channel. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas.

You guys know me from this place, from a lot of other places. Blibbity, blibbity, blabbity, blabbity. I'm from Showtime, CBS Sports. You guys know the whole deal. Thank you so much for joining me. All right, a lot to get to. Been a busy week for a lot of people. Still some fights tonight.

There are some fights on Saturday. There's sort of like news and notes within the sport. There's a lot to get to. So thumbs up, yes? Hit that sub button, trying to drive them subs to 100k as soon as we can. And yeah. So without further ado, let us get this party started. Shall we? Where is it? Okay. And it is... Jesus, where is this fucking thing? Oh, here we have it. Let's see if I can throw this up here.

See if that works. Nope, sure doesn't. Hold on. There we go, that might work better. Yes. Yeah, hit that sub button, subscribe, do all the fun things that you need to do. Thanks everyone. Who's tuned in. I'm a little disheveled because, uh, like a maniac and a moron, I continue to lift weights in my front yard. No homeless man appearance, by the way, a lot of folks are like, Oh, you should lift weight with him, lift weights with him. First of all, if you saw the guy, I don't think you would necessarily be as adamant about that position. Number one, I have no idea

if he has COVID number two, he is routinely hammered or, you know, under the substance of something. Not exactly like, you know, the best spotter I've ever potentially seen in the world. So, you know, there's a couple of reasons to maybe dial back the enthusiasm for that. But, you know, I'm not opposed to just lifting weights with the average donk. You know, let me turn this up a little bit. There we go. A little bit better there. Should be a little bit better there. You know what? A little bit more. Okay. That should be better. Yeah. That's a lot better, I think. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm not opposed to like lifting with like the average person, but you know, I don't know if you have COVID and I don't know, you're not exactly sober. You know, I'm not going to be responsible for your

health outcomes. That's just the way it's going to go folks. Okay. So the way this works is that the, about 24 hours before this, I post a thread on the community tab right here on the morning combat channel. People fill it up, and then I'll pick from that. We will go for about an hour and some change. So with that in mind, let's pull up the Morning Combat channel, and we will get this party started. By the way, the Morning Combat channel now has a vanity URL,

so you can just go to youtube.com slash morningcombat. It's up and ready to go. Okay. Good return on responses here. All right. First question. I really enjoyed you on JRE. Was there anything, like this is the Joe Rogan experience,

was there anything you wish you could have spoken about in more detail or topics that you didn't get to discuss? Well, we went for three and a half hours. I mean, that's more time. That's like almost twice as much time as Roy Jones Jr. got. I don't think I'm really in a position to be like, gee, I really deserved a little bit more of an audience there. Let me make sure everything's cool. All right, everything says I sound good. All right.

Okay, good. You know, it's not like I can complain. I got, you know, that's almost like two Joe Rogan appearances, depending on how you want to look at it. So, you know, we got to a lot of stuff. Is there a bunch of stuff we did not get to? I know he wanted to talk about Diego. We didn't get a chance to do that. You know, I know it's not necessarily a thing that a lot of people want to delve into, but when you really begin to unpack

the reality of anti-doping and the history of it and how we got here, there's a ton we didn't get to there. But you know, how much appetite is there for that?'m not entirely sure so i'll say that what we got to was at least i think uh here's my read on this and maybe i'm wrong but it feels like most people seem to like it maybe i'm reading from sources that uh are you know biased in one direction or the other but you, I dug around the comments a little bit. I looked on some of the forums, people seem for the most part to like it, I think. Um, so, you know, is there a lot where we could have gotten into? Yeah. Yes, of course. I could go and talk to him for a lifetime and I'm probably wouldn't get to enough stuff, but

you know, for a first time appearance, three and a half hours covered a lot of different bases, got to get to a lot of different fun topics. And by the way, I didn't, I had like, before I went there, I'd had like a muffin for breakfast and a cup of coffee and a glass of water, you know, and I, we, and that was at like nine in the morning. And then I met, I went to the studios cause you have to show up early and get COVID tested and blah, blah, blah. So I got there around like 1215. He was a little bit late, got there at like 1245. Uh, we all got COVID tested and everyone in the room has to get tested. So, you know, it takes a little bit of time. And then, uh, we got started, I don't know, one ish one, something like that. And then when I got out, my phone was like 4 32 and i was like

fuck we went for a while like oh my god and uh i hadn't eaten and i we had we i drank a fair not a fair amount but enough we're on an empty stomach i was feeling a little bit so you know i'm pretty pleased with how the whole thing went you know generally speaking there's a couple things i would like to do over. You know, there's a couple things that I don't feel like I really explained all that well, but, you know, maybe there'll be another time, maybe they won't, but for what it was, it was pretty good. It was great. All right, Israel Adesanya stated that he doesn't need to put on weight to fight at

light heavyweight or heavyweight in the UFC because he doesn't need to put on weight To fight at light heavyweight or heavyweight in the UFC Because he didn't need to in kickboxing Do those dynamics change at all Since grappling is a factor in MMA Well grappling to an extent can be a factor Depending on the rule set in kickboxing Like to the extent you can clinch And you can throw

And you can trip out somebody It can matter And to the extent they can press into you, it can matter. You hear sometimes commentators talk about how strong someone is. They don't necessarily mean just their punch. They might mean the way they sort of physically can find ways to manipulate an opponent. I would challenge it a little bit and understand it. I'm not a coach.

I'm not a strength and conditioning guy. I think Adesanya is probably right that at the weight he's at with less cutting on top of that, he's probably going to be in a good spot, especially a light heavyweight without being overly impacted. You know, and it's also going to depend on who he fights. You know, if he fights Jan Blachowicz, Jan can wrestle, but typically prefers not to. So I don't know how relevant it would be there if you're not cutting weight. You're probably just fine in that case. If you were going up against Curtis Blades

and you didn't put on a little bit of weight, you know, there was a little... I mean, again, you don't want to mess with what you got too much. You kind of want to adjust a little bit and realize that, like, what are your advantages if. You kind of want to adjust a little bit and realize that, what are your advantages if you're out of sign? Length, speed,

the ability to sort of manipulate your weight where he can do those leans and stuff like that. If you put on a bunch of weight, you're going to really impact that. I mean, look at Luke Rockhold, right? I say it all the time. I think either my first or my second dissected ever for morning combat back in the Jersey studios, I think it was even the first one I did. I think either my first or my second dissected ever for morning combat back in the

Jersey studios. I think it was even the first one I did. I can't remember, but one of the very, very early ones I did was, and it's called what's ailing Luke Rockhold. And if you go back and you watch the first Michael Bisping fight with Luke Rockhold, which took place in Australia, Rockhold wins via one arm guillotine, but that's really not what's important. What you'll notice is that Rockhold had a certain style where he would be just outside his opponent's range, and he would have that Tyson Fury sort of italic A-frame stance where he's leaning to one side. So he's, from his feet, he's just out of range, but if he wants to get into range, he's not too far. He can lean to get out of the way, and he was very good about moving his feet, and he was kind of light on his feet go back and

then just watch that one fight if you're a fight pass subscriber then go over and watch the Blachowicz fight and look at how flat-footed he is to me he put on a ton of muscle and he looked awesome I mean he looked imposing don't get me wrong but I don't know how much functional value all that extra weight had when your style of defense at your best was predicated on body manipulation and then a lot of footwork. Luke Rockhold is not much of a slipper. He doesn't do a lot of that. He's not that kind of guy or rotating through with trunk movement. He doesn't do a lot of that. He does a lot of work with his feet, but you got to have your feet under you and you got to be light on it. I mean, you ever seen like a really good 300 pound dancer? You know, most of these dancers, if they're men, they're pretty lean because you need to be not as lean as possible, but you need to be pretty

lean, I suppose, to be able to do the kinds of things that the footwork requires. And yes, I know someone's going to be like, oh, here's some big fat breakdancing dude from, I don't know. You ever seen those South Korean guys? They're amazing at breakdancing. But I'm sure there's an exception here or there. But I think if Adesanya is saying, I don't want to do that, he's absolutely right. Putting on no weight difference, depending on your opponent,

I'm a little bit skeptical of that. I think he's generally got the right idea. He's got good, smart people around him to understand it. My hunch is that if he fought at heavyweight, depending on the opponent, he might add a little bit, but you don't want to mess with what you're good at. Keep what you're good at

and just find ways to maybe fortify it a little bit for the individual challenge as it relates to the opponent and the weight class. The boys at Submission Radio. Love those boys. By the way, they're killing it. Have you guys noticed that recently? They're killing it.

You go to their webpage, which is, I think they might even have a vanity URL as well. But if you go to Submission Radio, let me pull this up here. Submission Radio. And I'm not just saying this because they're nice guys, which they are nice guys. But look at their last few videos. So they had Carlos Ulberg, who won last night, they had a preview with him. They did a video with Adesanya, and I think they were first, 200207K. Tony Ferguson, $200K. Javier Mendez, almost $420K. Laura Sanko, $100K.

There's a little bit of drop-off there and some other places. But in general, they have been absolutely smashing it of late. So good for them because it's a couple of guys who just keep their head down and just work. And you always like seeing that in the business. So good for them because it's a couple of guys who just keep their head down and just work. And you always like seeing that in the business. So good for them. All right. If you could have a chance to be humiliated during a lifting session with somebody, who would it be? Hafthor, which is the guy from Game of Thrones. Eddie Hall, who is nearly 400 pounds and has abs.

Brian Shaw, The Rock. Prime Arnie, Prime Tyson. He wasn't much of a lifter, though. Prime Sly, Kariakos, Larry Wheels, or Jujimufu, who is this sort of stunt lifter. Larry Wheels, to an extent, too, is a bit of a stunt lifter. It's got to be, okay, number one would be Prime Arnold Schwarzenegger okay i don't want to pull it out but i have a giant poster uh not even a poster i have a framed canvas of arnold uh when he won his last uh mr olympia sort of like you know spreading his arms and you could see just how fucking ripped he was arnold schwarzenegger has

been a lifelong hero from of, and I think many dudes my age. So Arnie would have to be number one. That's my interview white whale. That's the one that I want. I've been super lucky in my career. I've got to do basically everything you can do in this business, not as consistently or as high profile as others, but like, you know, you like, were you on national TV? Check. Were you on pay-per-view? Check. You know, how about this week? Did you go on Joe Rogan's podcast? Check. Like I've got to do a bunch of shit. You know, I can't really complain and I can't complain about this either. But the one, the one thing missing for me is a chance to sit down with like basically a guy I've idolized for 35 years, you know.

Number two would be Brian Shaw, the American multiple time world's strongest man. And I would especially want to do stuff around grip training. That fucker's grip is, you know, superhero strong. I mean, he is out of control strong i would love to go in the gym and just be like how the fuck is that possible it's covered in chalk you know uh all right i mean lifting with any of them would be great uh the one person you didn't put on there but i couldn't really live with him because i can't do the kind of stuff he can do. I can clean, but I don't know how to snatch properly. I mean, I could do a fucked up version of it, but I've never been properly coached on how to snatch.

Is Lashet El-Hadzi, who has a case for being the actually strongest person in the world. Not just a title from a competition. He's your gold medalist a couple of times over, I think from, uh, from Georgia, uh, and he has the highest weightlifting total ever and the highest snatch ever. I think his snatch is what? 220, 221 kilos. It's pretty ridiculous. And there's my daughter banging on the front door here. Well, let's see what happens if I let her in. Hang on. Hola. Yeah, you want to say hi to everybody? You want to say hi? You want to say hi? Say hi. Say hi, everybody. We learned a new word yesterday.

We learned the word owl. Can you say owl? Owl. Yeah, very good. How about apple? Apple. Yeah. Apple.

You're so smart. Apple. Apple. Can you say ball? Bee. Close enough. Getting there. Can you say Coco?

Coco. Yeah, you're so smart. You're covered in food, too. Baby. Yep, baby. You can say baby. Can you say dada? Dada.

Can you say papa? Papa. Can you say mama? Quack, quack. Quack, quack means she wants to see ducks on the screen. That's what she wants to see. No, you don't want to. Who goes whoo, whoo?

Who does that? Quack quack. No, not quite. We're pretty close. Lore? Porfa? Porfa? All right.

Very good. Gracias. Gracias. Okay. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, it's okay. There you have it. All right.

Assuming TJ Dillashaw is at his best, if not better, in his return, how do you think he matches up against the current division, and can he become champion and stay champion again? Boy, isn't this the million-dollar question? I don't know, right? Because remember what he said when he initially was busted. He said that he'd only used the EPO very late. I think even just that one fight in his career. So there's a lot of factors. Remember, there's just so many things working here. One, is that true? Two, to the extent he got a benefit from it, and I'm imagining that he did,

how much of a benefit, right? So how much would not taking it ostensibly reduce his performance? It's hard to say. Could be a lot, could be some, but not end of the world level, right? So we're going to have to see that. Two, time off.

Like, you just haven't been competing for two years. Not everyone gets affected by ring rust, but to the extent that ring rust is a factor, we have to at least consider the possibility. Three, remember, I think he had, like, double labrum surgery. I think he had surgery on both of his... He at least had surgery on one of his shoulders. He might have had it on both.

Now, he has been training consistently. He's been cornering fighters at Bellator and blah, blah, blah. He's been out there sort of staying busy. I follow Juan Archuleta on Instagram and TJ's in basically every other photo because they're out there training pretty hardcore together. So he's been in the gym. Let's not lose sight of that fact. But between the time off, the injury, and the repair, to what extent he had had a long usage of EPO or a short one. Also, here's something else that folks just haven't considered. The division in his absence has gotten way better.

Way better. And I know he's not been gone forever, but you've had the ascendancy of so many fighters who were kind of bubbling beneath the surface a little bit, and now they're all there. TJ had a redemptive win over Rafael Sonsal at UFC 200. Sonsal, I'm not going to say he's not a factor at Bantamweight, but he's not even close to the same factor that he was. Garbrandt is back. We'll see what happens if he goes to 125.

But you've got Sanhagen. Aljamain Sterling is just surging. Hello, Peter Jan. The list goes on from there. The talent has moved along. So when someone can declare to me they know exactly how well he will do, to me you are assessing with certainty a variety of variables you couldn't possibly assess.

So, you know, I know it's not the answer that you want to hear. You probably want some kind of certainty. Dude, there's a lot of ways this could go. I will say that if he can take time off surgery, you know, and win back to the level he was winning before, you know, either champion or championship the level he was winning before, you know, either champion or championship level, I think that would be pretty remarkable. I will say that.

That would be very impressive and probably, I don't know if proof of what he was saying about, I only took it for the last fight, but it would lend some credence to that theory, I suppose, or that claim. Were you surprised at the openness of Joe to talk about the controversial topics you discussed, or did you expect that attitude from him? I was not surprised. I don't think...

You know, it's always unfortunate because if you go in there and you talk about this stuff, I said it on the podcast and I mean it. You know, I used to be one of these people who would be like, fire and brimstone, UFC does all this stuff. I said it on the podcast and I mean it. You know, I used to be one of these people who would be like fire and brimstone UFC does all this stuff that we really need to, you know, criticize them for. And I'm not suggesting that there's no room. I mean, they're above reproach or something. Nobody is me, Bellator, UFC, any of you, we're all, you know, none of us are perfect or, you know, always acting in the most ethical manner. But on some level, listen, they haven't broken the law.

They've just taken advantage of what the laws are. Now, part of that has been lobbying, but okay, that's legal too. You can be mad at them, and I understand some of the claims as it relates to the rankings or fighter pay. I said what I said, which is they're just a business, man. And they're going to do what the laws allow them to do. And they're not just regular old businessmen. They're very, very shrewd and adept and smart businessmen. They're very, very capable, hardworking, forward-thinking, risk-taking.

Not crazy risk-taking, though, but like calculate. Like, dude, they're not accidentally successful. And so, you know, I mean it, but it's just unfortunate that when you go on a podcast like Joe's, he sort of ends up unfortunately in this position where he has to defend them. And I don't, I didn't, you know, I didn't really want to put him in that position. I just kind of want to like state how I feel about it. And you know, if you want to disagree, he could, if he didn't, we just move on on. It wasn't like a thing like, I'm saying this, now what's your response? I didn't feel that way about it. Because it's not his job to defend them. You can work for them. A bunch of us have worked for places we probably, on some level,

didn't want to defend or couldn't or just didn't care or whatever. I've worked for scumbags. I've worked for corporations I thought did, you know, bad things. I'm sure many of you feel the exact same way, you know. So, or you didn't feel like they were bad, but you didn't feel like it was your job to defend them. It's not Joe's job to defend them, you know. So I felt like I had to, not pump the brakes, but I wanted to be clear, like when I made the arguments, these are my opinion. You can like it. You can not, you can agree. You can not, but no, I don't find that. I, uh, I mean, partly I sort of took the bull by the horns there a little bit and I inserted those talking points to make sure that we had that kind of conversation,

but I don't think Joe, you know, I don't think he shies away from this stuff too much. Listen, I mean, I think he's probably got a lot of love for the UFC. If you're Joe, wouldn't you? You made a guy's dreams come true. I would imagine you're going to have... And you made MMA successful. There's a lot of nice things you can say about the UFC and what the UFC has done for Joe and vice versa.

It's not hard to imagine good things in that entire relationship. But, you know, that's not how I look at it. At least that's not the – the point I was trying to make for folks who may still not have seen it is the following. I'll make it quick, which is that I don't think you can do the job that I do or any kind of similar job in media. He called me a journalist. Again, you guys know I don't really self-identify that way anymore. But media, certainly I think I would call myself. And I don't think you can do the job effectively. I really don't, whether you're a journalist or not.

If you have a job at MMA media, you cannot do the job effectively and accurately if you don't fully grasp the idea that the fighters, while they bring problems on themselves and they are the only ones who can save themselves in the end, it is also true that they are uniquely disadvantaged relative to the other power structures in the sport. You cannot do the job correctly without it. And so when we began to unpack some of those things and go into them more, it was when some of the stuff got brought up. But dude, if you can't talk about these kinds of issues on Joe Rogan's podcast, which is the forum for all kinds of different...

I mean, who preceded me in the week that I was on? Or I guess the week before. It was like Gad... I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Saad? Saad? I don't know how to pronounce it. But he's sort of like a...

Something of a, I'm familiar with his work more than the proper pronunciation of his name, sort of one of these iconoclastic academics, Glenn Greenwald, who is nothing, I mean, I have a deep admiration for the work that Glenn Greenwald has done. You know, and Tristan Harris, who was a digital ethicist. I knew of Tristan Harris from his work years ago when Ezra Klein interviewed him. You know, he's been out there, just been an acolyte for all these kinds of things. I mean, these are people that are sharing.

These are very much people that in a number of ways go against the grain. And yes, Joe doesn't necessarily have, you know, a direct relationship to Google or The Intercept or academia per se, but it's a place and it's a platform for people who are supposed to be able to share, you know, funny stories, but interesting ideas. And I don't know how interesting my ideas are, but they're a little bit outside the norm, I think, in MMA, you know, or at least these are viewpoints that don't get heard enough. He hadn't even heard very much about the Ali Act or whatever. So it's a place to share viewpoints like that. What has been the biggest MMA behind-the-scenes moment of your career

if you were able to share without pissing someone off? Were you witnessed or overheard something that never has or probably never will be discussed openly. I had a UFC fighter, I won't say who, and this was a while ago, so nobody current, who told me that they were addicted to painkillers and used marijuana to get off of it. That's not the most amazing story. I'm imagining that there's probably several stories kind of like that. But that was one of those moments where it was like, you know, or, you know, I've seen UFC

fighters get drunk and, you know, say off the cuff stuff. But that was one of those moments where it was like, that was like a real, that was a real, um, how do I say it? That was, it was very personal in the way he shared it. I'll put it that way. Wada was defeated in court today by soccer player Mamadou Sakho, Crystal Palace FC in the EPL. It took four years. He had lost his place in the French national team for the Euros and was transferred out of Liverpool. He had the money to go to court for four years and win, although he has been playing soccer

in the intervening four. He will win a huge payout. It wouldn't be possible for fighters to win something like this. Their careers would have been over. Right. So, I mean, the fighters are in an interesting position because the ones who have more money, like a Jones or, you know, if it came to it, Adesanya or something, or, you know, somebody who's a champion or championship level who's headlined pay-per-view and gotten some

pretty big fat checks, they actually do have the money to challenge it. And in fact, you know, part of the thing, the reason why USADA, and this is for WADA, and I've not kept up with this case, so I, I mean, I've read a couple of articles about it, but I don't know the details in any kind of expert way. But one of the things about anti-doping scholarship, and I told Joe this, it's pretty clear. Two things have happened. One, so the more you have like these open, heavy punishments, four years, eight years, the more that if the athlete really wanted to challenge it, the burden of proof to really hammer that kind of punishment home, the harder it becomes.

It's not impossible. You've seen some examples of it where it was challenged in court, but it becomes oftentimes they get the fees reduced because there's all kinds of sort of due process ways to undermine what has happened. And that's the other part, too. It's like, yeah, it's one thing if you go and hammer some Olympic athlete who doesn't have a lot of money, but when USADA wants to take money, I mean, part of the reason, like, why does USADA do what they do with UFC?

Treat them as a client. Because USADA's annual budget is only $20 million. Now, that sounds like a lot. That's not. That's very low. They don't have the resources. If someone really wanted to hammer them and really wanted to take them to court, you know, and there's an arbitration process, but if they really want to find other ways to

go after them, they don't have the resources to combat a lot of that. So if you have these heavy-handed punishments and you've got rich athletes, those rich athletes are probably going to find a lot of ways to fight it. And I think John is a pretty clear example of that. Whether you think he's guilty or not, you know, they're going to find any number of ways to fight it. And I think John is a pretty clear example of that. Whether you think he's guilty or not, you know, they're going to find any number of ways to challenge the process. Speaking of John, should he take, excuse me, should he look to take a fight before he fights for the belt to avoid ring rust? I don't think he's been a ring rust kind of guy. You know, he can take time off from fights, come back, and he looks like a million bucks. He's not one of my top figures for concerns related to that.

And what's the best matchup for John in heavyweight if the fight is not for the title? The Curtis Blades fight, to me, is kind of interesting. I could be wrong about that. Obviously, Francis is a big one. Obviously Francis is a big one. Stipe is a big one. I still would have wanted to have seen DC up at heavyweight, but maybe that wouldn't have been that different.

But those are the three I have my eye on. After the insane knockout on Halloween, what are your thoughts on Gervonta's chances if he went up against Loma in a fight next year? Well, first of all, Gervonta, I saw a report. I don't know if it's been confirmed that he was involved in a hit and run. I don't know how true that is. So if it's not true, then listen to what I'm saying.

Double check what I am saying. If it is true, it's like, dude, what on earth are you? I mean, get it together, guy. Jesus Christ. All right. I don't know how true that is. So you're asking about against Loma. I think Loma beats him right now.

Loma has big – I think Loma is the best guy at that weight, personally. That's my – I mean, I just feel like Gervonta is probably the heaviest puncher. And I think Ryan Garcia is a big step behind all these guys. Devin Haney is good, but a big step behind. Shakur Stevenson, jury's still out a little bit. But to me, Gervonta, and then Loma's still floating out there as well. But, you know, Gervonta is the heaviest puncher and a very good boxer between them.

But for me, oh, he went against Loma. Sorry, I was thinking about Lopez. Excuse me. Lopez is the one who I think is the best. If you're asking about Lopez, even Lomachenko I think might beat Gervonta right now. In a year or two. Remember, Gervonta is only, what, 25? In a year or two, that won't be the case.

Right now, I mean, Gervonta just made his move to pay-per-view. Leo Santa Cruz was his first real no-BS elite-level opponent. Excuse me, I misunderstood the question. I apologize. So no, I think he still has, from a developmental standpoint, I think he still has some work to do. And even Lopez, I think, beats him. Because Lopez, this is what folks missed in the early going, not when the fight, but just when the fight was announced.

Lopez's decision-making is extraordinary. It is so good, both in terms of his strategic approach, his fight IQ. Lopez's fight IQ is excellent. Excellent. Very, very good. And almost in a way where like, you know, Lomachenko has phenomenal fight IQ as well, but he has sort of like a sort of series of patterns that he goes to, which he should.

He's developed them over the years. And his fluidity within them is just beyond description. But Lopez doesn't quite have that but what he does have is the reactive decision making my god he is brilliant at it I have not seen evidence that Gervonta is on that level yet who will be the UFC's first female color commentator Laura Sanko Angela Hill fighting experience for Angie makes me want to bet on her. She's a good, she's a good candidate. I'd like to see Laura get an opportunity at it. Um, obviously I think she's done it for, uh, Invicta. Angela Hill would be a good one. I mean, they need to try more out is the answer because beyond those two, I know Misha Tate was making the rounds when she was

still with the UFC, but she's over with one. And so I think that's off the table. I don't have a good grasp on who else it might be because we just don't rotate them in very often. But Laura Sanko, my personal opinion, I think her analysis is as good as anybody's in the sport. Very, very sharp, understands. And I think she gets pigeonholed into these roles where she's sideline reporter. She can do that job. She's good at it. I don't know that that's like the full...

I don't know that that's maximizing her talents. And Angela Hill, I think, has rapidly gotten good at broadcasting. Angela Hill, I think, has rapidly gotten good at broadcasting. You know, Angela Hill is funny. We did this symposium with Professor Nancy Kidder from American University at UFC DC. So about a year ago, when the UFC came here, that was the Overeem-Rosenstreich fight. And we had a panel, I think the day before, where it was me, and it was Dan Stupp and Esther Lynn and, um, and Karen Bryant. And there was some other folks on there as well. Charles DiGisco and, and Josh Rosenblatt. There's

some other ones. And, uh, Angela just sort of showed up. She just came as like an audience member with her mom, by the way, her mom, sweetest lady in the world. Couldn't be nicer. And, uh, Angela was like, you know, they were asking her questions, you know, UFC fighter shows lady in the world. Couldn't be nicer. And Angela was like, you know, they were asking her questions, you know, UFC fighter shows up in the audience. They're going to want to talk to her too. You can imagine. And I thought her answers, whether I agreed or disagreed, you could tell they were thoughtful, right? You could tell that she had, you know, she had considered pieces of evidence as it appeared to her and tried to make sense of it and had some ideas about the world. I think she, like anybody else,

they need some more practice. I've been doing it for 15 years and I'm still barely okay at it. Some are obviously going to get better quicker than I am, but I'm just saying she clearly has some ability, but probably some more opportunities at that analyst desk. And sky's the limit.

But I would like to see more tried out because I don't know who else is a candidate. Now, Valentina Shevchenko might actually already be the answer to your question. Because Valentina has done it in Spanish for the Spanish broadcast. So Valentina was a color commentator for the last UFC pay-per-view and did it in Espanol, I don't think without much issue. So I guess what you're saying is first English language? Because Valentina has already crossed that threshold. Who would you like to see, What would you like to see more? Derek Lewis versus Anthony Rumble Johnson at heavyweight?

Or... Paulo Costa versus Anthony Johnson at middle or light heavyweight, assuming Rumble can still make the dramatic cuts and Paulo moves up. Lewis versus Johnson? I would prefer to see that. You stated you weren't upset in not seeing a GSP versus Habib fight, but are you upset at the fact we didn't see Habib against an Usman or Colby who provide an offensive wrestling style that Habib had not faced yet in UFC, or even

a Masvidal for a BMF title someone who's very difficult to hold down maybe a little bit yeah yeah uh I still think that some more time spent at lightweight would have been fun to see. And I'm the first one to believe that. I don't think there's a lightweight alive who could have beaten him. But that's just my opinion. I don't know that. So a Chandler fight, a rematch with Conor,

maybe finding a way to make a Ferguson fight depending on how he looks, all of these things to me would have been kind of interesting. But you're right. Yeah, somebody who's a natural 170er. And Colby's not a huge 170er, although he is bigger than Khabib. That would have been interesting, right? Because for all the reasons you articulated, how would he deal with the pressure from them and how successful his pressure be on

them um although somebody messaged me i don't know how true it is and apparently like sort of gaethje was um uh oh you know what i don't even want to repeat it because i don't know how real it is so but suffice to say khabib's you know uh strong uh, strong as shit for one 55. Is that true for one 70? Yeah. I would have liked to have seen that. Have you used any of the virtual reality headsets? I was wondering if there'd ever be a way where you could watch UFC pay-per-view events at home while wearing your VR headset with a cage side seat, which is the thought thought if I had after they announced no fans in the arena. I don't know much about that. I know what you're meaning.

Like, you put on one of those, like, Oculus Rift headsets, and then you can kind of look around and, you know, see everything. It'd be cool if they can give... Listen, man, all this stuff is cool if you can pull off the technology. Can they pull it off? Like, the only reason you would want to do that is if it really enhanced the experience if you couldn't be there you know okay you can't be there

but for I want to make up something for a hundred bucks you can get a VR seat and you can watch from you know with your oculus rift headset and you know you put it on you're like holy shit this is amazing you can see so much more here and it's you know

it really brings to life the experience in a way that short of being there that's the next best thing is the technology there on this kind of stuff you know maybe the gamers would know better than me but i don't think that it is but as an idea yeah i love the idea that's cool someone asked here again did you get to cover all you wanted to with rogan did you like the experience i can listen to you two talk all day about fights. It was fun, man. You know, you don't get a lot of opportunities to have fun having conversations. The whiskey he gave me was good.

It was really good. I'd have to text him and see if he can tell me what it was. I'd love to have it again. It was delicious. He had great whiskey, which kind of loosened me up. To go back to the first part, again, is there other things we could have discussed? A million things, but I'm not going to complain.

And did I enjoy the experience? Yeah, it was a little bit nerve-wracking at first, but it was fun. It was really, really fun. And you know, man, I've been grinding. You guys know. I mean, it's so funny. I've seen, you know, God, Jesus Christ, man,

people have not been this nice to me since like my kid was born or my wedding day. I mean, I've got to tell you, to everyone who has sent a nice note, Jesus, thank you. I've been overwhelmed. I mean, I've got, honestly, 400 DMs I haven't even gone through yet. Email after email after email after email after email. I'm like, I've been inundated. And I had, dude, when I got home off the flight from D.C.,

I landed in D.C. local time at 4 p.m. And I fired my phone back up. I must have had 100 text messages. I mean, it was shocking how much people have reached out. They have been so nice. I had, it was shocking how much like people have reached out. They have been so nice. Um, I had old friends from college. I had, you know, uh, you know what? I'll even give him credit. You know, who actually said something nice to me. He actually reached out and I'll give him credit for it. And I, and I told him I appreciated it. You know, uh, we didn't bury

the hatchet or anything, but Ali reached out to me. Even he texted me something nice. So, Ali, if you're watching this, thank you. I appreciate that. I legitimately appreciate that. Like, I couldn't, I was just, it still is completely overwhelming. So, you know, when you've been in the trenches as long as I have, and you've seen a lot of your colleagues get opportunities that you felt like you were competitive for and you just never got the chance.

I mean, I've said it before, man. You guys know I've never been – for some reason, I always make really, really – not with the Joe Rogan thing, but in the totality of my career, I usually make really bad first impressions and then I have to slowly win back over time. And that's really been the key to my success is this ability over time to rope people back in who may have gotten a bad first impression. And that's nobody's fault but my own. I've been doing this kind of stuff since I was 25. I'm 41. I'm 41. And honestly, I never thought it was going to come my way ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. And honestly, here's a piece of advice for some folks in their careers. It wasn't until I let it go that it all kind of came. There was a real

moment of, I can't pinpoint it exactly, a few years ago where I basically thought, okay, there was a window for me where if some of this stuff was going to happen, it would have happened by now. And, you know, it didn't. So I'm not going to pity myself. I feel like I can still do fun, impactful work that people might enjoy, but I'm going to do it on my terms is when I really started to invest in this space. And I was like, I can find fulfillment somewhere else. And I just let it all go. I let go of all those ambitions about wanting to be on this and trying to do that and have this kind of an audience or blah, blah, blah. It was not until I let it all go that it all started to happen. And I know that sounds kind of weird and almost cliche to a degree.

When I say let it all go, what I mean to say is you can't manufacture a design. People are always like, how do you quit smoking? I smoked for a couple of years in my early, early 20s or something,, you know, a quarter of a pack a day or something. Uh, maybe at most a half a pack when I was, uh, in, in the field to try to just stay awake at night. And I always tell people like, how'd you quit? It's like, when I quit, I actually wanted to quit. I like legitimately did not want to smoke anymore. And I just stopped. And that was it. It was, it wasn't hard for me. I had gotten to a point where I had just been tired of the disappointing way in which I thought my career was going. And so I had gotten to a point where I had just been tired of the disappointing way in which I thought my career was going. And so I just decided to let like all those things that kept disappointing me,

I just let it go. And I just said, you know what, I'm going to find fulfillment somewhere else. And once I did that and I began to showcase myself in the way that I thought I should have been showcased, That's when everything happened into overdrive. Anyway, to get back to the point about, you know, did you have fun? It was an experience and everyone being nice. It's funny, man. I get a lot of emails and DMS from folks and they're like, I've been following since the promotional practice live chat. And you know, what's funny, that was like the second or third act of my career. I mean, I had this long run as the editor in chief ofchief of Bloody Elbow,

and for a while on SBNation.com after that. MMA fighting was only like, it came around later, and no one, I mean, I'm sure there's some people that have been following since then, but hardly anyone who has reached out has been around that long, which tells you like, A, there's fan turnover, and B, you're going to toil in obscurity for a long, long, long time. Anyway, if there's a lesson to anybody, it's like, I've said it before, man, you guys know, you guys know how I feel about this. You've got to understand why people like you. You got to understand why people hate you. I believe it or not. There are not, I have some reason to believe I have a grasp of both. Not in totality, but at least a decent understanding of it.

But more importantly, you got to understand what you like, what makes you tick, and how you want to be showcased to the world. And I always thought, I've said it before, dude. The places where you work and your editors and your bosses, maybe they understand you. Maybe they do. Maybe the producer who works on a TV show understands what's what. Chances are they're real fucking bad at it. Most humans are very, very, very, very bad, maybe even including me, at talent identification. They're not good at it. And you have to believe in yourself a little bit. And you have to understand, you may not get the opportunity to showcase that unless you just take matters into your own hands. And that's what I did. And that's why all of it like it wasn't until i just decided i'm gonna do that where

everything just turned you know uh it's just it's comical you know i wish i'd have figured this dumb shit out a lot earlier uh but i didn't you know because you hold on to these aspirations and then you just get tired of it letting you down. But you can't pity yourself, and no one can take pity on you. You're not asking for pity. You've got to pick yourself up. You've got to dust yourself off. You've got to figure it out. And if you're right about yourself,

if you're right that the world has not understood your value, and that maybe even you didn't understand the full breadth of your value and how much more you could be doing in the right kind of thing and how much more there was all these avenues you didn't explore. That responsibility doesn't fall on anybody else. It falls on you. That's who it falls on. Always remember that. Your boss may not realize who you are. Your people around you may not realize who you are. No one can fix that except you. That's a long way to answer a question that was not asking about that. So sorry about that.

Even though we don't know it now. Could Zabit and Yair become the next Tony and Khabib? Khabib. In terms of wanting. Everyone wanting to see the fight. But it keeps falling through. A little bit. A little bit.

But also that fight meant something different. Because you're talking about the two, but it keeps falling through. A little bit. A little bit. But also, that fight meant something different, because you're talking about the two best, or it was assumed, the two best lightweights. That's not what you have with Zabit and Yoyoyor, not yet anyway. As you want to censor fighters' speech, it's amazing how much of my critics have absolutely the worst listening comprehension skills imaginable okay as you want to censor fighters speech what are your thoughts

on israel spelled wrong constantly mentioning john jones spelled wrong dead mum is that the equivalent to what connor and colby have said first of all here's the point that i have made it is not that i desire to get up in the morning and censor the speech. It's that at some point you have to ask yourself, is there nothing that anyone can say that would ever be worth reprimand? And not really reprimand, but action from an organization. Understand, the UFC already used to do this kind of stuff, and then they dialed it back.

And the only reason, in my opinion, that they dialed it back because the code of conduct still exists on the books is because the more you enforce that, the more you begin to blur the lines between independent contractor and employee, and they don't want to really go down that road. So them backing off is not some Madisonian appreciation for the need to have free speech in society, it is a calculated business move to preserve their long-term interests.

Okay. So you can, y'all, y'all can believe that this is some kind of, wow, we really, you know, you know,

uh, we, we, uh, pre we appreciate, uh, what was the French magazine that got in all kinds of trouble? Um,

Charlie Hebdo, like, wow, we really appreciate what Charlie Hebdo is doing in challenging certain religious practices that preclude free speech. It's got nothing to do with it, number one. Number two, I mean, just ask yourself.

Your answer might be different on this. I don't know that there is a right answer, but I think it's certainly worth having a conversation. Should a fighter get up there and be able to, you know, call a black opponent on stage at an event? The N-word? Forget about social media like Mike Perry does. Face-to-face, on mic, and no one should be able to say it. I mean, maybe your answer is yes. I would tend to think that that would fall badly on all the different kinds of relationships,

if you're the UFC, that you're trying to maintain. I don't know. I mean, ESPN is going to be pretty hands-off. That might even be a line that they begin to cross. And so at some point, yeah, preserving your business interests might be kind of good. Also, what kind of message do you want to send to the world if there is no top-down pressure to be decent? Now, to your point, his comments about the dead mom, this is nothing I would ever say ever in a million years. As someone who has a mother who has been, who has deceased,

doesn't feel too good when people make comments about it. You know, I could, you know, it hurts to even talk about it. So I heard what he said, which is that, you know, John brought up all this other stuff first. And so this is kind of a response and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. These guys are going to say mean, nasty things to each other. This is probably at the limit of or beyond the limit of tastefulness but I don't know that it's worth you only want to pull that card. Again, when we're talking about limits on speech, we're talking about like the very

least you could do. The absolute, like when you only have to get involved. Do you have to get involved for something that is tasteless and awful maybe not uh it's when it starts to get to a really poisonous territory where you know when connor and habib are going back and forth it's like if there's an audience this is obviously pre-pandemic is there going to be violence because of the things that they have said? You have to really kind of worry about that a little bit.

That's when it begins to say, when you have to begin to really recognize, I mean, guys, you can say what you want. Even the Supreme Court has noted that there are wide swaths of speech that are totally legitimate, but even they have put some limits on it. And, of course, that's a different consideration than what a private entity might make about its independent contractor talent. But even then, these are questions worth thinking about. But this idea to get up and be like, well, here's the right thing to say,

here's the wrong thing to say. Dude, I'm granting them wide latitude. I'm merely saying maybe it's not true that they can literally say anything that they want to each other and it'd be good to live in that world. I don't know how controversial that actually is. I mean, these are people who read super shitty, low-quality news that sort of center around preformed ideas, preformed identities. And then they try and shove everything in that because that's the conduit by which they understand the world. Rather than sort of the complexity of, is there nothing out of bounds?

Really, truly nothing? And maybe you feel that way, but then we should state that. That there's literally nothing out of bounds really truly nothing and maybe you feel that way but then we should state that that there's literally nothing out of bounds uh luke what are your thoughts on tito ortiz getting elected for huntington beach city council and by the way even the ufc i guarantee would start i mean can you imagine if a fighter got up there and just started railing on dana and Dana and not like I'm talking like mentioning his stuff with this lawsuit where he was extorted and just going on and Dana into his

face about that. You don't think that they would say something to him about that later or whoever ended up doing that. So this whole, again, it's free speech as a function of business interest, which is okay. You got to preserve them.

Just understand it for what it is. God, we believe, and you're playing Lee Greenwood in the background, proud to be an American. You think that's what this is? Come on, y'all. Don't be so naive. All right. Luke, what are your thoughts on Tito Ortiz getting elected for

Huntington Beach City Council what are the odds he actually sees through the term when he realizes all the boring shit you have to do that has nothing to do with all the dumb you know ridiculous brain damaged deranged QAnon things he's been floating forever. What happens when he realizes that 99% of the work has nothing to do with that? You know, I don't know. Does he actually make it the full term? I kind of wonder, number one. Number two, it's like there's a lot of people in this world

who can't quite tell the difference between, um, somebody who actually wants to and can do something versus somebody who can self promote them in a way that makes it look like they want to and can do something. And I think there's a lot of people, I mean, Tito is very good in self promotion. You know, he has a million stumbles with words. Um, you know, I don't million stumbles with words. You know, I don't know if he's got some kind of condition or something, but, you know, he's not an especially articulate speaker. I don't think that's very controversial to say,

but, you know, you underestimate Tito if you think he's not good at capturing people's attention one way or the other. And he's very nihilistic about it too. You like me, you hate me, whatever, as long as you're tuning in. He's always been kind of good about that. He's been a self promoter for what, 30 years, 25 years, something like that. I mean, he's been doing this a long time. He sort of got it down to a science about what to say and where to go and what to do to get people's attention and to varying degrees of success. But it's not, I sort of get it. It's like, how fucking dumb do you have to be

to hear his ideas about the world and be like, yes, check. So he's probably running on to a degree on celebrity, star power. I would imagine that the area in which he lives has a degree of... He has aligned himself with a certain political identity. There's probably some people, not a totally insignificant number of people who align with that, and so he probably got some votes from that.

But most people like this. It's like when you actually see what the world of government looks like, and it's way more boring than you imagined, and way more difficult and glacial in its approach to any kind of change and bureaucratic. You know, when you really see how the sausage is made, you see all of these like on both sides. These like these spirited go-getters. I'm going to go and change Washington. Man, you ain't going to do shit.

You know, or there's other people who are like, oh, Washington is run in this kind of a way. I realize this is just city council, but I'm sort of making a different point. And then you see them get there and they're like, oh, right. This is not even close to what I thought it would actually be. Okay, all right. But then they use the platform for other things, which is book deals when they get out, some gig on cable news for both parties. There's a lot of people who just want the shine that comes with running for office and

even winning it, but not actually doing the work that goes into what it means, which is often tedious and boring and unfulfilling and difficult. Tito getting elected one time I don't think is all that surprising. Whether he finishes the term or gets re-elected or elected anything else, I think that would really be surprising. look why don't you think the habib and artem incident isn't talked about enough in relation to the bitterness and anger mcgregor has towards habib i'm not saying connor was a victim but didn't habib started by doing what he did to artem we're gonna legislate this again everyone everyone acted inappropriately it's like do you fly on a fucking plane

i'm gonna defend my friend's honor. Like, what are you, 15? If Izzy beats Jan and goes on to fight Jones, okay, it seems whatever the outcome could cause some issues. What happens to A, Izzy, if Jones wins that fight? And what happens to the 205 division if Jones likely moves straight up to heavyweight? I mean, there's a lot of questions here. Let's go one at a time.

If John, if Jan loses to Izzy at 205, Izzy will likely drop one belt. I don't know which one. And I'm guessing they're going to make the heavyweight fight after that, but at that point, those two titles won't be relevant anymore. And I doubt they let him go title fight to title fight to title fight, although you never know. I guess we'll see.

Question, did you read Trent Rainsmith's, Rainsmith's, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, his article on Greg Hardy's post-fight press or people in commentators? Seem like they may be finally trying to dismiss his past. I did not. I did not. I saw that Greg Hardy was like, no one's ever found me guilty, blah, blah, blah. Well, they did find him guilty. And then later on, the whole thing came undone

by virtue of him challenging various parts of it. And then the victim or the alleged victim, or I don't even know how you label it anymore. If he got guilty, was it victim or alleged? I don't know. Not essentially cooperating with the judicial process, and so the whole thing eventually came undone. But was there an act in time where he was found guilty?

Yes, absolutely. That is 1,000% true. Would you rather take Brian out for a nice seafood dinner, dressed as a woman, or take a fight with Francis? I'll take Brian out for a nice seafood dinner dressed as a woman or take a fight with Francis? I'll take Brian out dressed as a woman because then I can just totally mock him. How nervous were you with the podcast with Joe? A little bit nervous beforehand, but it went away pretty quick. And have you seen a rise in your numbers across the platforms? Yeah, I added about 1,000 subs on YouTube, about 3,000 on Insta, a few hundred on Twitter, not too much there.

Stuff like that. Problem is, the one thing I think I did a really bad job on, I was very bad about plugging anything. And it might look intentional, and in a way it was, but not the way it might sound. Like, I was like, I don't know if I should plug anything, because I didn't want to be that guy who goes on there and just like, you know, I don't know. It felt unseemly to go on there and be like, and so I'm going to insert the word morning combat and youtube.com slash Luke Thomas into every conversation. And I just didn't want to do that. But in retrospect, I probably went too far the other way. Joe threw me a bone in the comment, in the description of

the video, he tags me and he tags this channel. So, you know, in the all's well, that kind of ends well. And, you know, I do think that it brought, I mean, again, a lot of people saw that shit. I was amazed at how many people saw it. Except my dad. My dad didn't even know I was on. But I probably could have done a better job. If I ever get the chance to go back on, I will do a better job. I felt a little bit bad about it.

But I also just, I don't know. You go on there and people just plug the shit out of your stuff. It makes you feel like a whore. I've had it happen to me. Where people just go on there and like just plug the shit out of your stuff. It makes you feel like a whore. I've had it happen to me. Where people just go on there and like, I'm going to plug this and plug that. And they just do it endlessly. And you're like, fucking A. I get how it goes.

But stop. How does a basement Biden affect the UFC? This was so funny about this election. I got to tell you, I don't know what y'all did on election night. You know what I did? I went to bed early. I went to every other election night I've been there. So in 2016, I was in a hotel room in New York City

because the day after the election, we had the media day for UFC 205, I think, right? Because that was when Conor fought Eddie. So I think I had to talk to Habib the next day. And I remember asking him, I forget what I asked him, because this was like when Trump was still doing the whole Muslim ban thing, which never happened. I'm just saying he was talking about it or whatever.

And I had asked Habib about it. He was like, I don't care about Donald Trump or other stuff. It was kind of funny. And then the 2012, which was what? Obama, Romney. I was at a party. And then election party because, hello, I live in Washington, D.C. And then 2008, I was also at an election party as well. And I went to an election party.

I'll never forget this. I went to an election party when, who was the guy who used the slur macaque? George Allen? When he ran against Jim Webb? I was a big fan of Jim Webb. This is a true story. Jim Webb ran as a Democrat, but this was a guy who was a lifelong military man,

served in high offices in government, in the Department of Defense, served in Vietnam, had wide bipartisan respect. I don't know why he ultimately ran as a Democrat. I don't quite recall. Beat Harris Miller locally in a runoff for senator, and then obviously won beating George Allen. And you'll recall, I remember election night in Virginia,

everyone's like, why are they calling it for Biden when all the votes that have come in so far, and it's a pretty fair amount, they all lean Trump. It's because the Hampton Roads area, the Richmond area, and then more importantly, the Northern Virginia area, to an extent Roanoke as well. These are sort of your major metropolitan areas. They lean heavily blue, and those are always the votes that come in last. Anyway, I was a big Jim Webb supporter and I

remember the first time I ever saw Barack Obama was from me to this camera in terms of distance because Jim Webb was speaking downtown Alexandria near the water. Anyone knows the Virginia area. And again, Jim Webb had my utmost respect. And Jim Webb was great because a lot of my Republican friends liked him too. And Jim Webb was speaking, and I saw I had an alert. It was like, oh, Jim Webb is going to be speaking downtown. I was working in Old Town Alexandria at the time, and I went down there, and Barack Obama was stumping for the guy.

I didn't even know who Barack Obama was, or I'd barely heard of him or something. You know, I mean, I had passing familiarity with him. It was like for me to this camera, I couldn't believe it. I was like, do you get the fuck off stage? I don't care about you. I want to hear from Jim Webb. And then Jim was not a very good public speaker, uh, which was kind of, kind of funny anyway. Um, but when he ran against George Allen, I remember George was fucking kicking his ass. I actually went to bed thinking, fuck, man. Jim Webb lost. And then I was, where was I that night?

I was at an old girlfriend's house. And she woke me up in the middle of the night. She's like, fucking Jim Webb won. And I couldn't believe it because all those votes come in at the very end. Anyway, I went to bed early. I went to bed early. I was like, fuck this shit. I'm not paying attention because here's what's going to happen. Y'all know I'm no big fan of Trump. So either he's going to win or Biden's going to win. But if Biden wins, it's going to be McConnell in the Senate. He's not going to get shit done. So either way, I'm not going to be, and I don't like Biden.

Y'all know I don't like Biden. I've been very clear I don't like him. I don't think highly of him at all. I just think less shitty of him than I do Trump, but barely. And so I was like, either way, this is going to go terribly. I mean, we don't win. I was like, fuck this. And I knew it was going to take a while too, right. I mean, if Biden had taken Florida, well then Trump

had no realistic path to victory, but he won it. Right. And he was killing with the, uh, with the Latino vote in a lot of places. And I was like, oh, this is going to go on forever. So I went to bed, man. We still don't fucking know. I was a little brought about way of saying that was the best decision I made. Not paying attention. I'm barely paying attention now. It looks like Biden may eke it out. And again, he's going to face McConnell in the Senate, and they're not getting anything done. So that's going to be funny.

But how would a win affect the UFC? Well, it might, might, might give life to the Ali Act. There have been a lot of efforts within Congress through lobbying efforts to get... By the way, the guy who is promoting it, Representative Mark Wayne Mullen, is a Republican, to be 100% clear about that. He's the main sponsor of the bill. I think the author of it. I've been led to believe by folks who have been working on that on Capitol Hill that the lobbying efforts from the UFC have undercut it and that Trump would veto it. I don't think Biden would veto it. But the question at this point is,

okay, you get it passed out of the House. Isn't it just going to die in the Senate? I mean, probably, right? So assuming you could get it out of the House, which maybe you could, and assuming you could get it past the Senate, which I don't think you could, but let's say you could, would Biden probably sign it? Yeah, he probably would. Andrew Yang, who's talked about being part of a Biden administration, has made this claim explicitly. But, you know, I'm very skeptical of any kind of legislative agenda. Here's the good news.

If you guys are big Trump supporters, Biden ain't going to get shit done. The only thing he's going to get done is, you know, they're not probably, they're probably not going to default on the national debt. There'll be big money for the military and other farm subsidies, I'm guessing, and anything Biden can do by virtue of executive decree. Other than that, they're going to stonewall this guy. So I know a lot of people might be disheartened by the nature of how this election and the count is going. I'm not telling you if your guy doesn't get elected, you don't have a right to feel bad about it or something because it's just natural.

I wouldn't worry too much, honestly. Biden is going to get nothing done. Absolutely nothing. So, you know, don't fret too hard. I was just wondering if you could go into detail about your discussion regarding PED use in MMA and testing being theater for the uninformed. No, not uninformed.

It is theater for low information fans. I don't doubt the truth in the argument, given your experience in the MMA media game, but what is your evidence for the claim that most elite talents are juicing? It's not the argument. I don't know if most are. I mean, if I told you 30% of top 10 guys were using, would you consider that a lot? I would. I would consider that a lot. Maybe you don't, but that would be a case where 70% wouldn't, right? So I don't know that most are. I think

the point that I'm trying to make is I don't know that it's actually the most. In fact, it doesn't even need to be. You can make a claim that relative to what, I said this on Joe's podcast, you can make a claim that relative to what athletic commissions were doing, the introduction of USADA has overall depressed the amount of use that has gone on. I don't think that that's, they have not presented evidence for their claims,

but I don't think that that's implausible. I think it's a plausible reality. But the other part about it is if you've done that, that the people who are good at avoiding detection, which tend to be correlated with the ones who either have more know-how chemically or in places where it's easier to get access to these kind of chemicals, which overseas, for example, South America, Latin America in particular, or just have the money

to find a chemist who is willing to come up with some kind of proprietary blend for which there is no testing or rather easily avoids detection, you are entrenching the already existing advantages that they have by virtue of their money. That's the argument. Not that if you lifted the lid, are you democratizing use of PEDs, but that advantage that they would hold would be somewhat, maybe perhaps even significantly undercut. You can say, oh, we have less usage. Right, but the folks who are able to get it now not only have the access to it, they have access to it versus a population that has no real other means to challenge all the extra advantages. You've taken the advantages

that they had before and you've ramped it up to a significantly higher degree by virtue of this. So you might have less use, but the folks who have the capability to avoid detection, which is not necessarily as difficult as folks might imagine, they're going to be even more privileged than before. So you kind of have to ask yourself, what system is better for you? The one claim that I wasn't sure I was able to make as effectively as possible is, and I'll leave it alone after this because I know some people get, you know, a little bit sick of this conversation. So I'll just say this.

It's like, I had a friend text me, you know, here's the thing, man. This is not an argument I expect to win today. It's not an argument I expect to, or effort. There may have been some kind of issue there. I'm not sure what happened. Are we still fucking live? Yeah, I think we're good. I think we're doing fine.

This is going to be something that takes a lot of time to do. And understand for me, I said it on Joe's podcast. I used to have monthly conversations with Travis Tiger. I do not think he is a bad person. I disagree significantly with his worldview, but he was accessible. He was friendly. He's not stupid. He's quite bright. It's just that the more I dug into the research to verify the claims that all these anti-doping folks were making, I couldn't do it.

I kept running into these roadblocks being like, well, wait a second, this doesn't match that reality at all. And then I went further and further and further and not onto YouTube like I was watching Dr. Dick and Balls on YouTube and he said steroids are great. That's not what happened here, man. These are tenured professors at hallowed academic institutions or researchers at various other

sporting institutions themselves. And these are people who have advanced degrees and have spent a lifetime researching this. And not one of these academics who's like, I think there's a hundred genders. I'm not here to weigh in on that debate. I'm here to weigh in on the ones like, what about the guys who are, you know, long tenured math professors? We're going to undercut the value of academia there. I don't think that we are. So to that end, you know, you just go over this

information. Here's what I would say to everybody, please, please, this, how many times have you heard USADA say this please do not take my word for it do not take my word for it read on your own and not any old bullshit place the places I recommended you can of course by all means explore the topic in the way you best see fit

but what I'm telling you is confront the literature the academic researched literature on this and see if you best see fit, but what I'm telling you is confront the literature, the academic researched literature on this, and see if you don't come away with maybe not the conclusions that I drew. I don't think I can necessarily get people there, at least not right away, but can I get the needle to move in my direction?

I guarantee I could do that. I fucking guarantee I could do that. There is no way an honest broker can read what I have read over the last five years and come to the position that what we have with USADA in the UFC and in the Olympics is the best way to do it. Not possible. Cannot do it. The amount of things wrong with what we're doing is so far from the best situation or frankly the most honest and realistic one that some kind of reform is necessary. And I don't think you can have a conversation

about reform until you understand the complexity of the situation. I'm not saying that I'm an expert, but I've at least gone, you know, I've spent a lot of time trying to understand the nuances as best that I can. We do not have a complete understanding of what is happening here and all the forces at play. How media hysteria and moral panics drive all of this. What they've said about PEDs and their harms, simply not true. Totally not true year over year. Year over year over year over year over year.

And you have government propaganda feeding into all of it. I said to Joe, show me a drug in the United States who has had its reputation not sullied, an illicit drug anyway, by government propaganda. All of them. And some of them are certainly quite dangerous.

And steroids have dangers as well. So does fucking Tylenol. The question is to what extent is the risk involved? And yes, of course, steroids probably involve significantly more risk than Tylenol, especially to people who are less than 18 or prepubescent. There are a series of harms you should know, but relative to the claims that are made, the weight of evidence does not support it. And I sound like a madman. I get it for folks who are

not familiar with it. If you had played this video for me, to me personally, look, we're going to fast forward five years. We're going to show you this. I'd have been like, what the fuck? What did I become? Because you just feel like you have this thing figured out, or at least you have a clear sort of lay of the land, and you just don't realize, dude, there is a broad debate about what is happening. And anti-doping globally is a unequivocal, dramatic failure in every way. It is a failure. So shouldn't we take the lessons that come from that

and use that to inform our judgment to maybe find a better way? And the last thing I would say on this is, I have friends being like, I'm really against steroids. I'm like, are you a fan of the NFL? Are you a fan of Major League Baseball or the NBA? You're talking about a sports

league where drugs are i mean you can't watch the nba the modern nba doesn't exist in my judgment in my opinion without the significant degree of performance and drug use that goes undetected same with the NFL. And the unions help out in that capacity. And these guys have a shitload of money to hire chemists and form stuff that no one's ever heard of or developed. And this just goes on and on. And nobody cares. Oh, look, what about the health outcomes?

What about the health outcomes? Because the NFL is the exact same way. And that's leaving people crippled and brain damaged, paralyzed and dead, and fans don't care. And in MMA, people leave the UFC and then go and compete in some organization where you can juice while you're on the fucking scales. And all of the arguments about how important and necessary it is, they just completely fall away. I understand if folks want to compete clean, there should be a place for them.

There should be a place where people who don't want to compete clean can also compete. And by the way, the word clean is just moralizing bullshit too. So there's that. All right. Enough. Let's see. Oh, good question. Not long ago, I believe on the live chat, I recall you saying you thought GSP was the goat

and that the argument wasn't particularly close. More recently than MK and then Rogan, you cite Jon Jones as the goat. Has your opinion changed? Yes. I have gone back and forth on this, probably to a degree that has fluctuated too much, for which I apologize. There are times when I look at GSP's resume and the level of dominance, and then you add in the extra weight class, and it's like, ugh. Now, folks want to bring up oh well what about you know

he never tested positive that means nothing to me absolutely nothing I'm not in any way suggesting he was using I have zero evidence for that but you know as like oh well he didn't you know anyone who competed in that era and then didn't test positive you know that means

that doesn't mean anything who cares and also you know again in that era and then didn't test positive, that doesn't mean anything. Who cares? And also, again, I'm sure that GSP seems like the kind of guy where he would never do something like that. I mean, I don't know, but it seems like that's not the kind of guy that he is. But would I personally blame him if he did, given the era that he was in? No, I wouldn't. same with anderson and for a large extent none of that stuff affects me at all i'm not one of these guys who thinks you can

draw a demarcation line and some people here and some people are there it means nothing to me but if you look at his resume it's pretty goddamn impressive and he's got that extra he's got that extra weight class right that's the one that's interesting john doesn't have that at least not yet and he may not even get it at a championship level so like does that matter for folks you know I go back and forth right now it's like for me when I look at John's resume and the length and then the accumulation of wins

it's just hard for me to overlook that you know could I go back to GSP at some point maybe but I definitely have gone back and forth on that for for sure. Lastly, I'll do this one. Who has better feints, Conor or Trevin Giles? That's a stupid question. Is Bryce Mitchell versus Ryan Hall the fight to make? You know what? I'd like to see it. I don't think that would go too well for Bryce.

Maybe he could strike on the feet, although Ryan's pretty crafty. Krohn is the only guy at Featherweight who I think gives Ryan a run for his money there. And that's it. And that is it. I don't think anybody else gets close. So it'd be fun to watch,

but I don't like Mitchell's chances in that sense. All right. It's 420, which means I need to go and pretend I'm going to smoke marijuana, but instead be a dad. Uh, let's see. Let's do this. Like the video, hit that subscribe button. Uh, let's see. Morning combat tomorrow, 11.m we'll preview the weekend's fights we will react to tonight's bellator and everything else yeah so appreciate you guys watching this will go on the podcast and until next time