MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Nick Diaz vs. Robbie Lawler, Bellator 266, Triller | Luke Thomas' Live chat, ep. 87

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Today on the podcast, we'll discuss the impending UFC bout between Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler, Bellator 266's upcoming fight card including the organizational debut of Yoel Romero, Triller's godawful event and how they might pivot in a new direction, best movie directors, Conor McGregor's VMAs behavior, the upcoming Anthony Smith vs. Ryan Spann bout, the return of Arman Tsarukyan and 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

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hi, everybody. I should have changed the frame rate on the camera. It doesn't really matter. Hello everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. This is episode 87 of my live chat. It is the 16th

of September, 2021. Thank you so much for joining me. Here's what I want you to do. I would like for you to subscribe. I want you to thumbs up on the video. You might hear my daughter screaming because it's just one of those days. And when I say one of those days, I mean like every day. But, you know, particularly today. She was in a great mood this morning and now she can't go to the park because it's raining and it's a whole thing. Let's see. What else?

Video thumbs up. Hit subscribe. Today we'll get to, let's see, a Bellator show this weekend. There's a UFC show this weekend. There's a lot of stories around that. There's a lot of moving parts in the world of combat sports. So anything related to that, even beyond, up to you. We'll get to it here today. Okay? All right. We'll go for about an hour and some change. And with that preamble out of the way, let's get this thing going. All right.

There we are. Let me pull up the list of questions. Okay. All right. Let me turn this thing off As you know, I put on the community section of the YouTube page So if you go to youtube.com slash morningcombat Usually on Wednesdays at some point after the regular MK show I put up a thread in the community section of the YouTube page Asking for folks to give their

questions. They fill them up and then we go here. Yeah. I get a lot of people who like email me questions. No good. You can email me like with other questions, but not for the live chat specifically. Okay. All right. First question. Let's pull this up a little bit more. You know what? I'm going to blow up the text because your boy can't see faux shit. There we go. That's better. All right. Chachri, I'm assuming he means Chachri Sityautong, was on Ariel Show today and said their December 5th show will be called One X, and it features a fight between Demetrius Johnson and Rod Tang, and a special rules bout, four-ounce gloves, 135 pounds, and four three-minute rounds. You can hear my daughter screaming at the door.

Rounds one and three will be Muay Thai. Rounds two and four will be MMA bout agreements already signed. Yeah, this happened already about 10 or so years ago. Shinya Aoki did this against... What was his name? He was like this Japanese cosplayer who was a kickboxer. He ended up winning, actually. Shinya Aoki did this against... What was his name? He was like this Japanese cosplayer who was a kickboxer. He ended up winning, actually.

I think in the MMA round. I could be getting those details wrong. I forget his name. And there even may have been a rematch with that, too. But yeah, we've seen this before. The Japanese promotions have done this. Listen, either this is your kind of thing or it's not. Rod Tang is absolutely no Muay Thai expert From what Muay Thai experts tell me

He is quite good Obviously, Demetrius coming off of a loss Still very, very, very, very, very good And you know, this is Listen, I have a lot of issues with Chachri and One As an organization that has a Seems to have a

Real big challenge with telling the truth. But when you just sort of examine what the product is that they put out, I like it. I like their product. It's a good product. It won't be for everybody. I think some U.S. fans might pull back in horror at this kind of manipulation of the rule set, but there's a precedent for this very kind of thing. And more to the point, remember, they're not really encumbered by what athletic commissions do. I think there are some benefits to having athletic commissions, but there can be some challenges with that as well.

And part of that is rule innovation. It's very, very difficult to change the rules, which isn't to say that a U.S. promotion couldn't do this. ease with which that one can sort of tinker with things year over year to address deficiencies in their product or make use of their existing roster in some kind of way that differentiates it or makes it interesting. They have real nimbleness to do that. And I actually kind of value that. I don't know that I would want every organization in the space to have unfettered ability to tinker with the rules, but it's pretty clear that the athletic commission system probably is a net benefit, especially for all the problems. Credibility, things being above board, basic protections for the fighters, that kind of a thing. But as a downside, it really hampers innovation and it hampers an organization's ability to nimbly address persistent issues.

So this might be just sort of creative play with it. But it's fine. Like, yeah, I like their product. I like it. I like it. This one doesn't have any upvotes, so I'm going to skip it. Gosh, there's a bunch of these. Like that.

Here, let me put this on off. There we go. Okay. Okay. Someone's asking, Bo Nickel's first fight. Bo Nickel was an incredible wrestler at Penn State. I think one thing I would say is he's not just going to have very dominant takedowns and the ability to extend into a takedown from a faraway place.

His mat wrestling is extremely good. So once he gets you down, assuming he's been working on the rest of the pieces of his game, it's going to be very, very difficult for anyone to do anything. He is a phenomenal mat wrestler. Very, very, very good. There's outside space wrestlers, and there's the ones who can wrestle on the mat in those kinds of scrambles, and he is next level at it. Per sources, Holyfield Belfort event totaled about 150K pay-per-view buys from linear and digital platforms. This came to us from Dan Rayfield, which would make it a massive money loser.

Yeah, about 7.5 million total on the purse. Sorry, 7.5 million total on the net gross proceeds. What am I saying? Which, you know, after you cut out the middleman, probably doesn't even cover the cost of fights. Forget everything else, right? Yeah, here, 7.5 mil. How long can Triller keep throwing money out the window? Probably a long time, if they want to. I don't really understand how the organization works on the inside. I will candidly admit to you this is a piece of information and several pieces of information that have eluded me.

Who in the company is making decisions about outside of the app getting into these kinds of events and then looking at what they're spending versus what they're returning and electing to keep doing it? That part is not so clear to me. I don't really understand that. The reason why it could happen for much longer is pretty basic, which is that they have hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding, and there are some reports that indicate that could only grow, again, based off of the relative strength or whatever you want to say about the app itself.

It's got nothing to do with the boxing business or this sort of expanded sense of things. Also, it deserves to be noted, I think they bought out the Versus thing, which does appear to actually have some real commercial appeal. So it's not clear who's making decisions allowing these kinds of things and why they're looking at just hemorrhaging of money and thinking this is a thing they can keep doing. Although, that seems to be one's business model. I think we answered a question like this last week. Someone's asking, not about him per se, but about a situation like his. Leon Edwards tweeted that he'll only accept a title fight next. Do you think waiting is the

right strategy, or is he risking getting passed by? You are always risking getting passed by if you wait around long enough, right? Let's pull up the rankings here. Get a clear sense of things, right? Alright, so if you look at welterweight, here is how it goes. Obviously, Kamaru is your champion. One is Colby. Two is Gilbert. Three is Leon. What you would have to wrestle with is,

and four is Vicente. Five is Steven. Wonderboy. So you can say Wonderboy is probably not going to get a title shot. So at that point, Colby already has one, which is upcoming in November. So then you have to ask yourself, to what extent could Vicente Luque or Gilbert Burns, if you're Leon Edwards, to what extent could they leapfrog me? Gilbert already had his and then lost, had the rebound performance against Wonderboy, but it didn't exactly blow the management's skirt up in terms of sort of exciting,

even though you and I both know that that is a very, very difficult win to come by. But okay, so he's kind of in the place where he needs to be, but I wouldn't worry too much about him leapfrogging me. And then there's Vicente, which where things could get interesting, does he take that Nate Diaz fight, as Nate seemed to express interest,

if it does, it pulls him out of the running. So let's assume that those are the two things in play. If you're Leon and that's what you're waiting for, that's a good bet to wait. That's a good bet. In part because the title fight is already booked, right? It's what? It's not quite next month because we're still in September, but it's about what? Six or seven weeks away? Something like that? Not that far. Like it's on the books. It's going to happen. I think it's the main event of that card in New York City. So you already have it on the books. You know what the result's going to be. And they're going to be asking whoever the winner is, especially if it's Kamaru,

you know, do you want to fight Leon? The part that gets interesting is, and this is where waiting can come to be a problem. One, what happens if Gilbert Burns takes another fight pretty quickly and then looks extremely impressive? Then you might have a problem on your hands. Luque potentially could get, you know, matched up with Edwards if the UFC wants to force the issue enough, although I suppose he could deny it, but he's kind of playing out there at the margins a little bit. But the problem could be if there is, this is the rematch between Usman and Covington, and it is entirely possible that Covington could win

and there would need to be a rubber match. When I say need to be, I mean there's fan demand for it. Usman could win and it could be controversial to the nth degree, in which case they might want to run it back. In other words, there are reasons to think that based on the complexion, they might have to do a third fight between Usman and Covington. In which case, if I was Leon Edwards then, then I would not wait. Then you begin to get to problems where you're going to talk about another six months later,

they're going to have a fight. You're just going to wait for all that amount of time while Luque and Burns almost certainly will take a fight during that time. That's when shit gets dicey. Now, who knows what the UFC brass is telling him. It's not that there's a hard and fast rule of wait or don't wait. It's survey the land. How long can you wait? I would say, you know, waiting up to a year is probably doable, but maybe inadvisable. Waiting six to nine months is a little bit more, I think, in the ballpark of totally acceptable.

I mean, even a year you could get away with. But then there's also problems of like, do you want to wait that long and not compete? I realize that Edwards waited longer than that and competed in one against Nate Diaz. But still, it raises additional issues that you just don't want to run into. So it's never a clean yes or no. It's what am I up against? How close am I? Who could leapfrog me?

And while the title fight is booked, these two have history. Is it possible that a third fight would be quickly broached? If a third fight is made between them, sort of back-to-back in this case, second and third back-to-back, then I would take a fight if I was him. But if not, it's a decent play to try and run that one out. Let's see. Jesus, there's a shitload of questions. Oh, here we go.

What defeat would hurt more for Woodley, you think? The Colby fight or the Jake fight? Oh, fucking Colby fight by a million miles. It might suck to lose to Jake, right? But one, it wasn't dominating in any kind of way. I think Jake was the rightful winner, but it wasn't like, you know, he was beating him like a drum, first of all. Second of all, dude, Tyron got paid. Tyron got paid. His base pay, his base for the Jake fight was two mil. All the other compensation he gets on top,

from sponsors to cuts of the pay-per-view to whatever so dude he he made out like a bandit with that he didn't make that shit for the colby fight he made a fraction of that for the colby fight and it was to a heated rival with you know a widely disparate political worldview that he promotes and you know it was a tko due to injury i mean it was every yeah you can take solace in the fact and also like that's the other part like you lost to colby, but you know, Colby's very, very good. And you could say, oh, well, losing to Jake sucks because he's not that good. Okay. But it's not your sport, you know, your, your 40 basically, and you got a shitload of money for it and you can kind of finagle the results in terms of how it's presented to the public, at least to some degree. Yeah, for sure. The Colby one, uh,

is worse. Norm Macdonald died. Can you comment if you were a fan, not please look him up? We lost a great one. Dude, Norm Macdonald was in SNL when I was in high school and college. Yeah, people are like, don't look him up. Motherfucker. Don't worry. Like people who are on TV when being on TV meant something, uh, in my youth. Um,

trust me, they're not hard to find. Yeah, dude. He, he was interesting. He was always a little bit weird. Um, I admire how much he went after OJ. I enjoyed his stint on weekend update. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did he not do a movie with Artie Lang called dirty work? I feel like that's true. Let me verify that part of that part. I cannot quite remember. Um, if so, yeah, Norm Macdonald, Jack Warden, Artie Lang, Chris Farley was in it for a time, Don Rickles,

Jesus, just fucking hammers in that whole movie. You know, dude, he had a completely unique style. He had a, he was unforgiving. He wasn't like hugely political, but you know, to the extent that it was relevant, he waded into it. But you know, I think what you could take away most from Norm is I like these guys that have these really unusual, weird kind of affects and worldviews. And they see things totally differently. And they've got a very weird logic about how they examine things.

But there's always like this sort of like stinging and sometimes uncomfortable element of truth to it. Just a very, very unique person with a very unique world, uh, uh, worldview, a very unique way of delivering comedy. Um, and you know, the, to me, it's always, this is not always true. I should, I shouldn't say always, it's almost always true to me that the ones who come from standup and then do something else, they're always much better than their peers. Always, almost always better than their peers. Um, and, And Norm was one of those kinds of guys. Just an incredible, incredible talent. And I think I saw a quote from his.

That could be false. But whoever came up with it, it's a good one. That, you know, something to the effect of people say when you die, cancer, you lost your battle with cancer. But his count, if you die, the cancer dies with it. He calls that a draw um you know him and obviously the damn about to say is very different but i put them in sort of the same universe your mitch hedberg types um even doug stanhope to an extent in terms of like sort of the uniqueness and the fierce way in which he sort of viewed the world. Doug's angrier and has much darker comedy, but Norm was of a similar ilk. Luke, why do you always refer to someone cutting their yard or

your family making noise? I can never hear it. That's because of the microphone. This type of microphone needs a lot of gain to pick up on a lot of stuff, including my voice and everything outside of it. But it's because I can hear it and it drives me nuts. Today it's raining right now, so I don't have to worry about someone mowing their yard, I don't think. Here's a good question. How did MMA Fighting get two interviews with Chachri? I didn't know they had two.

But MK didn't get any. Well, we didn't try. I should be clear. After you were chasing him for an interview years ago. Well, I chased him for a brief moment in time until I realized I was dealing with somebody who could not be trusted. Look, everything I'm about to say is my opinion, so take that for what it's worth. I would not believe, personally, a single word that comes out of, so take that for what it's worth. I would not believe, personally, a single word that comes out of Chachri Sitya Tong's mouth.

I would not. I would be extremely skeptical about anything he has to say, including for the fact that this fight is supposed to take place. I'll believe that when I see it, candidly. Listen, if I request an interview with someone and they don't want to do it, that's okay. It's totally okay. In fact, I've had fighters be like, no, I'm not interested.

Okay. Like, I'm an adult. They're an adult. Frankly, if they don't want to do it, I don't want to do it because I would rather have somebody interested. I've told you guys this before. I'd rather have somebody interested in the process. And it makes just for a better experience. You guys saw my Robert Whitaker interview.

That was supposed to be BC's. He was out, and he asked me to sub in at the last moment. It's pretty clear that for whatever reason, Whitaker didn't really want to talk to me, which is also fine, and he was just kind of going through with it to be professional, which I understand, but I'm just pointing out, you know, I think probably he and I would both agree it wasn't necessarily the best interview. I'm trying to, to the extent possible, to avoid situations like that

for whatever reason somebody may or may not want to talk to me, and, to avoid situations like that for whatever reason somebody may or may not want to talk to me. And it's okay if they don't want to. Like, I'm an adult. Just say no. They didn't say no. Him and the guy who was running PR at the time, his name is Lauren Mack, who now works at PFL.

And when I see him on the road, that's going to be an uncomfortable conversation about why he repeatedly lied to me as well. But they consistently gave me a series of totally made-up excuses rather than saying no all the time, which they should have just said from the beginning. And then, you know, you could say, well, Ariel's got the biggest platform, that's why he went on there, which I totally understand.

But then, during the time in which I was trying this, A, the platform I was on was pretty big, and B, to the other point, I would see him go on these, like, really, really small podcasts, you know, and have a fraction of my own reach. So the basic idea is that here's a man that, from my opinion, my estimation, has a very tenuous grasp on the truth. And in fact, when you look at the reporting that Bloody Elbow has done about their finances

consistently over the years, it matches none of the public rhetoric from Chaudhry. I would be extremely careful about believing anything he says. Anything. Anything. Anything at all about any topic whatsoever. He is, you know, not reliable is the way I would put it. And, you know, not very professional either to handle a situation where, you know, and listen, I was going to ask about the drug testing and everything else, which I, you know, and weight cutting and where the evidence is that they've fixed all these problems. Right. I mean, it's probably going to be an uncomfortable interview with me. So just say no. So just say no. Do the whole Nancy Reagan bit. But if you give me an excuse and you lead me down a rabbit hole, that's going nowhere. We're going to have problems.

So now we have problems. We, we, we, I have a problem with them. And when I saw PFL hired Lauren Mack, I was like, okay. If he's under the impression that changing organizations from one to PFL, I'm wiping the slate clean. No, I'm not wiping the slate clean. So I like PFL a lot, but a lot of questions that have to be answered, in my opinion. Luke, you recommended the Every Frame is a Painting channel a while back, and it's fantastic stuff. I've heard you mention movies from time to time, but to what extent are you a film fan? Not in any kind of really coordinated way. Have you watched the classics? I mean, I know what's in the Criterion

collection. I try to watch all of those. How many AFI top 100 have you seen? I'd have to look at the list. I don't know. Favorite genre? Genre would be... God, I don't know if I have a favorite genre. Favorite directors? That part's a little easier. Kurosawa would be a big one. Kubrick. I'm not as much of a Spielberg hater as some other folks. I mean, there's definite nits to pick. But I do like some of his work.

But the big one for me would for sure be Kubrick and Kurosawa. Those are my two apex predators, I think. Should I wear my BC Hawaiian shirt to the Capitol Saturday? Careful, just don't visit Pelosi's desk. Yes, I saw this one. Moreno versus Figueredo 3 in the works for December 11th. What are your initial thoughts on this? You know, this is an interesting matchup.

I don't know that this is the way I would have gone, but then when they explained that Pantoja wasn't really going to be ready, it left a situation lacking. The first thing I'd say is if they hadn't gutted the division, I don't know for a fact that they would have had a better choice. But it does seem to me that part of this is, yes, the guy who was number one contender wasn't ready. The other part might be that whatever additional resources they may have had for a fresh matchup wasn't really there. That said, and to contrast that argument, maybe that wouldn't even matter anyway. Would you rather have someone who's a little bit more meritocratically eligible, or would you rather have someone who's not really makes the most sense, but you know it's going to be reliable for action, and you can't say exactly who's going to win or lose. You probably think

Moreno's going to win. I probably think Moreno's going to win, but can you declare that for sure? Not necessarily, and to get trilogies in the flyweight division, that's fairly rare. So this reminds me of like boxing fights. You'll see a lot of boxing fights where, I mean, this is a bad example. I'm trying to think of a, you will see certain matchups, for example, like Pacquiao-Marquez. This has got a little bit of Vasquez-Marquez in it. A little bit. The title implications are a little bit different. But it makes it not quite a fair comparison.

But you'll see fights in boxing between some elite guys, and they'll match up several times, in part because of the reasons you have here. There may not be a better one. The last time they fought or however many times they fought, it's always been pretty good. Why not just run it back? See what you can do it again.

Like you find those where they're just a little bit more willing to have these like multiple permutations throughout the course of things. And this sort of falls into that category. So like, you know, is it the freshest matchup? Quite literally, it is not. Is it even the best one they could have come up with? That's debatable too. Like, where was Askar Askarov?

You know, but I don't think it's a crime. And I think there's some real ways this could turn out to be a great third fight. Could make the trilogy even better. And again, you just don't get those kinds of opportunities for history between two folks in this division as you do for some of the other ones. So I think if folks have mixed feelings about it, that's okay. But I also feel like if you're pretty excited about it, you should be. It's an interesting booking. Luke, thoughts on Joseph Benavidez's retirement and his overall career. Joseph Benavidez is going to be one of those guys who I really, really, really hope doesn't get forgotten because of the lack of hardware around his waist when it's all said and done.

I think Joseph Benavidez is just an absolutely class person. Every time I've dealt with him and had to ask him difficult questions, he doesn't shy away from them. I think that you cannot argue anything other than he fought the best of his generation and then some. And in difficult circumstances. And he probably got a couple of opportunities by virtue of... No, I don't know if that's true, actually. But what I'd say is why he's important is because, one, if you justify greatness in MMA by who has had hardware and who hasn't, you will miss out on guys like this.

There are people who became weight class champions who did not do overall what Joseph Benavidez did, and that's just a fact, right? For as long as he was competitive against, you know, for most of his career, or at least big stretches of it anyway, fighting outside of his natural weight class and for the most part having a shitload of success with it.

He happened to be at the UFC at the same time. There was just a generational talent in Demetrius Johnson. And it didn't go his way. You know, it didn't go his way. Okay, so Demetrius was better. But, you know, when you just get compared to like the relative abilities, when there's just sort of supreme talent there that is hard to match on by any measurement, so much gets lost. He fought outside of his weight class. He fought the very best that he was

offered. Um, to me, he was an early archetype of the kind, I mean, for, you know, for the sort of mid to late two thousands, even sort of like 2010s run, you know, the guys who are perfecting that wrestle boxer style out of alpha male, Male, it ran to its limits, certainly. But for a while, it was a very dominant style of fighting, a very dominant force from a dominant team. He was critical and instrumental to all of that, like bringing about this style and showing its value and, you know, showing what could be done in different parts of MMA, like how well he could scramble and what it meant where fights, where guys tried to get takedowns and couldn't and how that was sort of the bleeding edge of that at the time.

I mean, I really feel like that kind of style contributed to the overall growth of MMA, to the paradigms of MMA. And then, again, styles came along that challenged that and everything else. But, you know, did you ever see people talk a ton of shit about Joseph Benavidez? I don't really feel like that ever happened. I don't feel like that was real. You know, I don't,

I don't feel like there was a lot of folks really going after him for the way he was living his life or what he was saying in interviews, even though he remained to be a fan favorite and stayed relevant for a very, very long time. Dude, he just did a lot that's very difficult to do, even if you're a weight class champion. And there are several weight class champions who do not have, I think, the strength of a resume that he does. There are limits to it as well.

No fighter is perfect, but he had a great career. It's unfortunate in the sense that I know that the history books just don't account for folks like him in the way that they should, which I mentioned before. But I have a profound amount of respect.

His career was what I would call incredible. Truly incredible. Given the challenges he was up against and how much he advanced fighting during his time. And how he never backed off of difficult challenges. And how he made some very, very good fighters look foolish in his presence. Like, there's a lot of very good things you could say about what he did, and he should be incredibly proud. I know, again, it didn't go all the way he expected it,

but, and by the way, I also think he's bowing out at the right time. You tried. I do think the game, in terms of the best practices, have passed by the style that he brought. And while I think he could still win fights, probably, if you're not really in contention for the title and there's a real risk of further damage to your body and brain, probably it's time to call it a day.

And so Joseph, I think, is making a timely call. Maybe you could have made it after the first loss to Figueredo, but then there was the headbutt thing, and so he wanted to do it again, but... You know. He did MMA the right way, I think. I think we could learn a lot from the way he conducted himself. Would you ever invite Jimmy Smith to sub on for BC on MK?

Yeah, sure. Jimmy's the man. Who is killing it, by the way. From what I understand, he's doing well over at WWE, which is just great to hear. Rockhold recently said that he saw an opportunity for Nganou, Usman, and Izzy to get more money by joining together against Dana, since Nganou and Dana are at odds. Do you think three champs in three of the four biggest weight classes working together could get them, not all fighters, but just each other more money?

No. It would take a lot more than that. No. It would take a lot more than that. No. It is true that if you had champions, particularly these are like the all African trio, the three kings, right? You have Nganu, Usman,

and Izzy. It is true that I think they would make a bold statement, but like really rallying and labor organizing is different than that. You would need much more than that. Getting the guys who actually can benefit from the UFC pay structure, relatively speaking, to speak out against it, that is powerful.

I do agree that's powerful. But, dude, Jake Paul and others as well, they've mainstreamed the idea that UFC fighters are underpaid. Now, what is going to happen about it is very much open to debate. But, like, most people are kind of aware of the fact that UFC product is doing really well, but that maybe the fighters don't quite make what the boxers make, and the average fan would probably like to see them make more. That is fairly normalized.

That's kind of already there. Actual organizing behind that, just getting them and thinking that that's going to bring along enough of the rank and file behind them, I don't buy that. You would have to have more. You would have to have more. Ariel announced today that some, and this was, I don't know when this was written, I guess eight minutes ago, that some, quote, powerful individuals are going to announce a new MMA promotion this week

that gives athletes 50% rev share health insurance. I think there was even going to be a CBA is what I read. Do you have any info on this? No. But, you know, let's like, you know, the graveyard of people who were well capitalized with amazing connections in the industry and a giant roster with a premier broadcast partner, the graveyard that's filled with people like that is endless. So I'm not in any way suggesting that I have insight to declare that this promotion won't work. What I can tell you is I lived through Elite XC and IFL and every other permutation that happened,

Jesus, post 2004, 2003, really, the graveyard is littered with hundreds of millions of dollars and people who had great connections. So let's see. Have I listened to the new Kanye album yet? Fuck no. I don't care about that. With the news that there is a potential MMA league coming in 2023, how do you see this potentially changing MMA as a whole?

I don't. Will pay change due to pressure? Probably not. Will fighters move to this league or will the UFC still hold power over them? How are they going to move if the UFC doesn't want to let them? I mean, eventually they get rid of them, right? Contracts come up and, you know, they get cut or whatever. But, like, do I expect that rate of attrition to change?

No. And so the reason why it won't is because the UFC doesn't need to. And most of those are the rules about what keeps them in the UFC are baked into UFC contracts. Turning down fights, contracts getting extended, championship clauses, that sort of thing. I'm sure that they will find people to fill out the roster. And like PFL, what PFL has found, I think quite rightly, is that there are some folks who realize if I can just beat a tournament, maybe I won't get all the headlines and do all the interviews, but I'll get a ton of money. And that's pretty attractive to me at whatever stage of the career they're in. You might get something like that. I think that seems to me very possible. A real, to me, this is bigger news for PFL and Bellator. I don't think this has any impact for UFC. That being said, we need to see

what the details are and we'll go from there. Where has Chrome Gracie been? I do not know. I do not know. When was the last time he competed? Was it the Cub Swanson fight? Let's see. Yeah. Jesus. We're coming up on two years in October. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know what the issue is.

I don't know. He's 33 now. Like, clock's ticking. That's a good question. Let's see if I can dig around for next week. Are we at a high or low point for combat sports? I mean, it depends on your perspective, but if you're a fan, you should be very happy. Dude, you have popular and accessible via streaming services.

High-end boxing all over the world. High-end kickboxing if you want it all over the world. High-end mixed martial arts. Even low-end mixed martial arts at every various stage. You have sites devoted to the collection of this information. You have record keeping about it. You now have statistical information about it. Let me explain to you what happened when I first started watching MMA. Sites that kept records of fighters, I think Sherdog had a very, very infant fight finder, but this was not very common. It wasn't a whole lot of, and those records were very much incomplete. So you hardly had any new sites. You had almost no record keeping. You certainly had no statistics.

The streaming was, the technology was not there. You didn't have nearly as many fighters, nearly as many promotions, nearly as much money into the sport, or even, well, boxing is a little bit different, but you're asking about combat sports more generally. Dude, none of that shit existed. None of it. Like, now the things you, like, take as sort of like, oh, this must have always been there. I literally lived through the advent of it. I watched it materialize. Fight Metric is based here in DC That just didn't exist until Someone came along, Rami Ganour Who's the guy behind it Just decided to make that kind of a product

So when you add in How many fights are there How good the fights are How easily accessible they are How global the sport is Then you add in boxing and kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. By the way, god damn, jiu-jitsu. I mean, you want to talk about a revolution there

with the sort of like pro-jiu-jitsu formats and the amount of academies and the best practices. Dude, I remember when people were trading like, you know, Half Gracie manuals, physical books that they would hand out to each other. And then the advent of YouTube came along. And now you have just, you know, the Marcelo Garcia in action and the Atos library and who's number one promotion, Flo Grappling and all this kind of... This was like... This shit just didn't exist.

It just didn't exist. Not that it existed in a different form. It just was not there. Now, man, I'm not saying that there's not issues to be fixed related to fighter pay or safety or whatever. There's tons of things that could always be better, but if this isn't the high point for combat sports, when was? When could you do all the things you do now? I don't know what the answer to that is What the hell happened last live stream? My tower froze Which has never happened

But it happened this time Top three most influential MMA families today Would you still put the Gracies in there? Top three most influential MMA families today. Would you still put the Gracies in there? Families? I don't know how... The family structure is not nearly as impactful as it once was. Obviously, historically, Shamrock and Gracie. Someone says Nurmagomedov.

You're getting there with Nurmagomedov, obviously. There's been Nurmagomedov and Habib, and his father played a role in all that. Families? There's not many. Family roles are not... The dynasties are not that big. Obviously

the Gracie's are still quite relevant in many ways, but in terms of top tier prize fighting, their influence has dramatically waned in flames or dark tranquility probably in flames there's a good question. Luke was wondering what a few factors were that helped you decide if expansion of your personal brand slash online presence

was more important than, say, Bloody Elbow slash MMA fighting or whatever. Yeah. I mean, it's a couple of things is what I would say. The first thing that I began to realize was I liked doing video more. That's one. And then two, my options for doing it were pretty limited if I was going to rely on my employer at the time for opportunities. Now, that changed a little bit the later it went on, but it was still not exactly in keeping with what I wanted. So what I would say is, one, I realized that you could do the writing kind of thing,

but I just didn't enjoy it as much. I enjoyed video much more. So one, what made me happier? That was one. Two, how much do I want to do it and in what ways versus what opportunities do I have? There was an asymmetry there that I wanted to solve. And then three, it was just a little bit of self-preservation to be quite candid with you. I've made this point before. You can write in sports today and make a living, dot, dot, dot.

But it's going to be hard. You need to be an exceptional writer to have a job. Or you need to have a very important gig for a very important institution. So, for example, I read a lot of the, I subscribe to my local newspaper, which is the Washington Post, and there are writers in there that are very good, Barry Sverluga.

I was thinking about, what was this other one? Hold on, let me pull them up. Tariq al-Bashir, I think, is with NBC Washington, not The Post. I know he used to be with The Post. Let me pull them up. Let's see. So, here we go.

And then they have the guy who was local, then went national. Hang on. Let's see. Ben Summer is good. John Feinstein is a little old school, but he's pretty good. Candice Buckner does a phenomenal job covering the Wizards. Steven Goff is sort of like the in-house soccer guy. Ben Golliver does a great job with the NBA coverage.

John Clayton even does some work for them now. Adam Kilgore. There's some other ones on there as well. But the point being is some of them may or may not have any kind of – all the names I mentioned have something of a larger role in the NFL or NBA world, but they're very, very important for the post because they make the post coverage, in theory anyway, better, right? They do that kind of job. So that's a secure-ish kind

of role for that very important media outlet. But the reality is, to the extent that you can make yourself the figure that people want to see, right? And that's not easy or automatic and I have not figured every other way to do that. But if that's the case, where you can bank on your own audience that follows you, you don't need any other outlet. Or you can go to an outlet, but because you bring the audience,

now it increases your leverage. What I found, what I saw inside the MMA media business and sports business more broadly was that, dude, people who you think had cushy gigs or big names inside the sport, anything can flip that upside down. And then you have to look at them and say, okay, wait a second, how big, without any of this other stuff around them, how big is their audience? And I found that a lot of them didn't have enough of an audience following them specifically,

such that when they were on their own, they could float. And I watched a lot of them drown. And it was a bit of a wake-up call to me, which is to the extent that I am not reliant on an institution where the institution is now my name, so to speak, I'm in a much more secure and advantageous position. That is always what it has been about. Always for me, since that was the discovery. And to be candid with you, starting out was awkward as shit.

Awkward as shit, both in terms of the content sucking uh additionally just you know getting branding with your face on it like that's not that this is why i'm so clear about this like what i do is not journalism there might be individual practices that borrow from it or something like that but if you're turning the camera on yourself and you're opining all the time and it's not to say that you can't produce value there's value perhaps in another way but it's not journalism in a strict kind of sense. But it's also much more sustainable for a long-term future. I don't think that there is much of space for actual journalism inside the sport because I think it'll get you bounced from it pretty quickly. That's not entirely true, nor is that an abdication nor is that reason to abdicate i think doing the

responsible thing but to me the lesson i sort of learned here is um better to rely on yourself than others better to have something in your back pocket like you know what if you have a job and it's at a secure institution and then all of a sudden they just change the nature of your job and you can't do that kind of stuff anymore and i've said it before dude you know vox media didn't i don't think they ever really wanted me there uh and didn't really know what to do with me who who knew what i wanted to do me that's who knew nobody nobody knew what i wanted better and i gotta tell you folks the the instant I started turning the lens on myself, everything for my career changed. Everything. Everything went not overnight, but it was

absolutely the right play. And so editing websites can be good for the right person, but it's fucking exhausting. It's 24-7. You're always on the go. It just wasn't for me. It wasn't for me. And so even though I was editor-in-chief of Bloody Elbow and I had, I don't know, whatever my title was, executive editor or deputy editor or whatever, over at MMA Fighting for a time, I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to stay around

and do this for a long time, that the focus of my efforts, as sad as this is to say, they had to be me. I had to make me a priority. Why have the UFC been so reluctant to create an interim women's bantamweight title? How are people supposed to care about a division when that belt hasn't been defended in two years? And you think creating an interim women's bantamweight title is going to fix that? Luke, what is your level of excitement for Diaz Lawler 2? Pretty high.

Pretty high, actually. You know what? I feel like Robbie is probably close to the end of his career, but he's exactly how close? I'm not so sure. And who the fuck knows with Nick, man? Who knows with Nick? Who the hell knows?

I don't know. I don't know what he's going to look like. My hunch is probably pretty good, but I don't know that. Neither do you. Nobody knows. I tend to think it's probably a bad matchup for Lawler in the sense that someone who has concentrated volume and pressure can, I think, take him out of his game. And you would imagine Nick is that guy.

Plus he's got, you would think, still, accurate boxing and, you know, again, high volume, high pace, good at mixing it up, probably still has a pretty good chin. That's probably a bad matchup for Robbie. But, like, how many questions are there going into this fight? A gazillion. A gazillion fights. Or a gazillion questions.

I'm pretty excited about it, candidly. I'm not one of these guys who's like, oh, winner of this is, you know, well, what is the next for title? I mean, title shot shit is utterly irrelevant to me. But it could be interesting. I remember the first time they fought. I remember that distinctly. And that was a major shocker when he just basically jabbed him and Robbie went face forward.

That was a huge upset at the time. So, yeah, I'm excited. I'm actually pretty excited. More questions about me and Ariel. I'm going to skip those. I know that this is a good faith question. I don't mean to suggest it's not, but I can't keep doing this. I just got to move on.

I'm going to read this just because it's funny. Luke, being the compassionate man that you are, can you give a shout out to your long-suffering followers who put up with BC's lewd and puerile dribble week in and week out? Keep up the good work. It's a little strong, I feel like. But, you know, BC's a good guy, and he's very talented. Could you make a series documenting your TRT gains once you start? Yeah, dude, here's my pledge to everybody.

If and when I start TRT, probably more of a function of when than if, but I don't have any current plans. But when I do, I happily document that for everybody. Happily. Because I've always wanted someone to do that. I know some folks out there have, of course. But I'm happy to do that for others, for sure. No doubt about it. Who wins the Diaz-Lola rematch? Probably Diaz. Probably Diaz,

but like, what kind of condition is he in? What did all those years of inactivity do? I don't know. I don't. It's going to be interesting to see. Do you think proof of vaccination required to enter MSG will affect ticket sales for UFC 268? A sizable portion of MMA fans have been and are still anti-vax. But with a card this big, will their potential inability to go to the event be nullified by a casual interest in the card? Or could you see the vaccination requirement negatively impacting attendance in gate? I tend to think it won't for a couple of reasons. One, as you indicated, the card is phenomenal, right?

Just a great card. Very hard to dislike that card, number one. Number two, they're putting it in a blue state. I was there when Trump went to the BMF fight. You know, it was a lot of boos. There were some cheers as well. But, you know, it's a blue state where you're going to be drawing from Jersey, blue state, upstate New York, which is going to be, you know, a little bit different, but still a blue state. Connecticut, I think blue state as well.

You're dealing with that tri-state area that leans heavily towards the kind of people with ideological slants that have less of a vaccination issue. I think it might motivate some fans to get some. The point being is you're putting the fight in a place where I think most of the locals, if that's what you're pulling from, would be easily able to meet the demand. And the last thing I would say is, I tend to think that there probably is a strong anti-vax sentiment among the fans. But I think that that's exaggerated on social media. The people who are very, very vocal on social media, it's not that they're not representative of something.

But I tend to think that we over-represent, pardon me, what the audience actually feels like. I don't want to tell people that, oh, MMA fans are super pro-vax, because that ain't true. But given where they're putting the card, given how good the card is, given how some of those requirements might motivate somebody to, you know, get the Johnson and Johnson shot or whatever the fuck, and that there might be an over-representation from a sizable minority, but a minority just the same of fans who are very, very loud

about their anti-vax attitudes, I tend to think you'll probably get a very strong gate. Now, are you going to match even without those considerations? Like, imagine if we're in 2019. You're still not going to get, like, the Conor gate. You know, you're not going to get a $16 million gate. But I think if they do, I don't know, a few million, maybe more,

I think that would be... Do I think they can sell out MSG and have, not a record gate, but a very healthy gate, even with all these requirements? I absolutely do. And I think they think sell out MSG and have not a record gate, but a very healthy gate even with all these requirements. I absolutely do. And I think they think that as well. Do you think the proof of vaccination required to... Oh yeah, sorry. I didn't want to order that one. The Volkanovski card, the Blachowicz card, and the Usman card

are three huge cards coming up. Can we get a fight companion for at least one of these from you and BC? If not, can we get... What if we get you to 100k? You know what? I'll bring this up with him. I've said this before. BC and I...

Oh, jeez. I got like a giant-ass mosquito bite right on my tattoo. BC and I, we are in favor of doing and i we are in favor of doing one we are in favor of doing one but the usman card two things one we're either going to be at that card or we're going to be at the canelo fight almost certainly number one um the blow which card i don't know the volkanovski card we're not going to so you know i don't know if it's going to work out for these three but what i will tell you is we want to do it we have talked about it we're interested in doing it we've just not done it yet um I'm going to see him next week we're going to

be in New Jersey together we're going to be in the studio I'll talk to him about it and see what he says and then we'll come up with a plan but like I'm not doing one over zoom where he's in Connecticut and I'm here and the fight's some of the third place and like no I'm not doing one over Zoom where he's in Connecticut and I'm here and the fight's some of the third place. No, I'm not doing all that. If we're in the same place, fine. That's fine. But I'm not doing one otherwise, like in a different way. Sucks. You've said in the past that we're living in an age of failed institutions. Yes, we are. What makes you say that, and how is that we've arrived here in your estimation?

Well, partly the institutions have failed, and partly there is the perception that they cannot be trusted. But the two are intertwined. I mean, this is quite obvious, right? I would be very, very hesitant to speak about what's happening with Australia and how they are handling their various COVID challenges. But my understanding from reading Australian, what people have to say, is that, for example, the way they've handled lockdowns there, you could never do that here. I don't think you could.

I really don't think you could do that here. Not in the exact way that they've done it, but from what I understand is that while many Australians are very, very frustrated with it, and again, I am only speaking about what I have seen. I am not, if there's Australians watching this, please do not misunderstand that I am like trying to present myself as some kind of Australian COVID society expert. But from what I have seen and read and heard,

there is a large amount of frustration about it. At the same time, however, there is much more trust there relative to the United States among the average citizenry in their government. And so there's a little bit more compliance than you would get here, for example. There is just not that kind of... I mean, you can

sort of just look at the approval ratings of Congress. It's sort of in the teens or 20s, something that you might get for a lame duck president for a failed state in South America. I mean, we are talking about the lowest of the low. If you just look at the institutions, why is there less trust in them? Dude, what have they done right for a very long time? Certain parts of the basic functions of government, they get right. There are individual pieces of legislation they get correct, certainly even bipartisan or otherwise. But you just sort of look at the Senate where you can't really pass anything other than what can be moved through budget reconciliation because the filibuster has been weaponized now by both parties, although initially not that way, but now it's just

open season essentially either way. And that body can't function in the way in which it is supposed to. There are people who will tell you that is the way that it was designed. That is absolutely not true. That is very much a modern invention. It was not designed that way at all. And it doesn't function. It doesn't work. You might get policies where you could, for example, give tax credits as a way to sort of solve a problem because it matches the budget reconciliation requirements, but it's actually a very ineffective or less effective way of achieving that. And if you were not sort of tethered to that kind of style of lawmaking, it's a giant problem. You have now distrust in elections. You have the military with a 20-year failure to do anything. Again, it's not that I think that when people have legitimate good faith questions about the vaccines,

people are always like, what do you think about this about the vaccine? First thing I always tell folks is talk to your doctor. What does your doctor say? I have yet to encounter any medical professional that I have personally asked about getting a COVID vaccine that they have told me anything other than, you know, run, go get it, you will be just fine. And I had one day of fatigue and, you know, here we are. But there is a deep distrust in the amount of medicine, of modern medicine. And again, these are not altogether misplaced. Like, you look at the way in which big pharma

is certainly benefiting from the COVID vaccine as well. I mean, there could be no denying there's an incredible profit motive there. And, you know, and the way in which, this is the other part too, it's not just about the institutions, but it's about the people behind them, like the elites of society, you know.

They just don't suffer the same consequences for malfeasance that the average person does, even on a relatively sliding scale where they don't have the exact same infringements. But we live in a culture that doesn't really punish the powerful and over-punishes the weak, and people see it. People see it, and they have grown weary of it. They have grown weary of a failed Wall Street. They have grown weary of endless wars. They have grown weary of government that does nothing to address their issues while schools crumble and bridges fall apart and homeless people set up tent encampments in major cities and on and on and on and on and on. Like this just keeps going. You know, it is frustrating for me to see remnants of these

institutions that I do think still function quite well in certain ways. And that is rejected wholesale. But like, do I understand why people have questions about, um, about trusting institutions in this and expertise in this modern world? No, not, not even a little bit, not even a little bit. Um, and even in this whole thing with ivermectin, like I said either last week or two weeks ago, like obviously like what the fuck do I know about toxicology? I know nothing about this. The prevailing evidence as I understand it says this is an anti-malarial drug when it's administered for humans, quite effective in that way. But you know, there's no existing evidence that has been

fully peer-reviewed and fully studied that suggests it's good for COVID. But, you know, a couple things have happened around this, which I can understand, like these constant things about calling it horse dewormer. Obviously, it does have a veterinary effect or a veterinary version, but it is true as well that ivermectin has been used as an anti-malarial or anti-parasitic drug in humans and and safely for for many many years and this is sort of ignored but more to the point it's like dude why do you think ivermectin is popular it is because there's deep distrust of the institutions and behind the creation of vaccines and i'm not here to justify every paranoid Facebook group idea that goes out there, but I understand.

I understand that. I totally understand that. I think it's misplaced skepticism when it gets to the part about the vaccines. You guys know I'm pretty pro-vax. But like, am I in any way surprised that ivermectin has taken off? Dude, ivermectin has taken off because institutions and experts that people don't trust say it's no good. They're like, aha, it must be good. I actually don't think there's a lot of evidence that will.

I mean, we'll see. I don't know. My hunch is that we'll probably come back and say is that it has a mild to negligible impact, not much. And that, you know, for treating in COVID, there's probably other ways to go, monoclonal antibodies and everything else, or preventatively with vaccines. But the urge to go that direction is, I get it. I get it. I get it. I really get it. I totally understand. I don't support it, but I get it. And this is bad. This is all very, very bad. When you can't rely on the entities that make life functionable um and not only that when you feel like without with good reason that depending your your situation that they have prevented you from getting ahead that they have never

looked out for you that they have uh totally abdicated their responsibility, you know, where do you think that leads? You know, this is the, for any elected official, like if you want more people, this is probably simplistic analysis, I'm sure that it is, but you know, I read an article a long time ago by a guy who tried to battle Chavismo in Venezuela before the shit really collapsed. And what he was saying was, dude, you can't go to Chavez supporters and then talk them out of liking him. You're never going to get it. It doesn't work that way. He had such a command over them.

And he had done things to address poverty, at least early. I should say inequality in Venezuela that the elites there never did. And so you just couldn't go and talk to the supporters there and get them to turn on Chavez. But the way you could get them to move away from various elements of it was to have competent government. Government that collected the trash on time.

Government that passed laws that addressed their needs. Government that looked into meaningful and effective, like actual shit that worked. Police reform that worked into fair laws of taxation that looked into city maintenance that addressed real problems with homelessness. The way you fixed it was to have the government that worked.

That was it. You couldn't go and say Chavez is bad. They didn't give a shit about that. You actually had to do the job of the government, which is why, you know, I sort of, Biden is whatever, but what he's up against and what he has sort of platformed on was sort of bringing COVID under control, which is not where we are. And you can

say like, well, it's not his fault that there's so much anti-vax sentiment. Well, to an extent, that's true, right? He didn't, he didn't create all of it. He inherited a situation where there was a lot of that to overcome, but he is inheriting a world year after year, decade after decade, quite frankly, that has failed big portions of the electorate, and fixing that overnight is not going to be easy, but the only way to do it, the only way to win them back is to meaningfully address their issues in life.

That's it. That's it, bro. It's as simple as that, man. You have to actually effectively govern, which is why when you go back to some of the, at least from the federal standpoint, some of the challenges with the Senate and other procedures that happen

and executive overreach and whatnot. It's a fucking problem. It's a major, major, major, major, major problem. It is not that every institution has collapsed. It is that many have failed to do their job and therefore trust in them has collapsed, which makes the job of the things they still can do right even more difficult.

What'd you think about Khabib's comments about ring girls? Don't give a shit. Luke, can we do a thing where the longer the questions in Wheel of Death, the shorter your answer? I love that idea. Dude, that was painful yesterday. I love that idea. I'm going to tell Brian about that. I'm that idea. Dude, that was painful yesterday. I love that idea. I'm going to tell Brian about that.

I'm going to tell him about that. That's a great idea. Luke, why are Bellator events so under-marketed and promoted? I have wondered the same exact thing. I became aware of Romero fighting this weekend only after watching MK this week. Other MMA outlets didn't even mention it about it on their socials. Let's go and take a look

if we can. Fuck, you know what? I'm going to do it on my phone because something's up with my computer. I don't want to see it. Let's look at something. What if we went to the... Y'all like my...

I mean, I got the best fucking phone cover on earth. I don't give a shit. Brian Shaw probably won't like it, but... I mean, how do you not? I mean, this is just... It's just a winner. It's just a born winner. All right, so if we put in Bellator MMA into YouTube,

what do we have there for this week? So what day is it today? Thursday, right? All right. So starting this week, they have a Bellator 266 Davis vs. Yoel Romero 31-second teaser trailer. Okay. Then they have one on best debuts in Bellator history, but that doesn't have anything to do with this week. Then they have one that came out yesterday, top five opponents for Yoel Romero.

And then that's it. Listen, Bellator is a smaller operation. So, you know, you have to kind of accept that reality a little bit, but there's just not a lot of content that starts early in the week that I'm aware of that gets the ball rolling, that gets people juggling. Like no one came to me, maybe they came to Brian. I don't know, but no one came to me and offered me a UL Romero interview. Um, I don't think they came to Brian either. I could be wrong about that, but I didn't get, I didn't get an offer for it. Um, I think I haven't texted Mokikawa

like, dude, what's up with all this? He didn't know. I just don't feel like there's, I don't know if it's an operational issue relative to manpower or something else, but there's just not a lot of content created in a time-sensitive way to promote their interests. And I, on the back end, you know, I work for CBS Sports. Like, if they're not offering me interviews, who are they offering interviews to? You know what I mean? So I don't work for Bellator. I don't work at Bellator.

I'm a little bit, I tend to think that they're probably undermanned is a big part of it. But you're asking me, could they be doing a better job to get the word out about their events? Yeah. Yeah yeah they could they i don't i find it is equally surprising as you frankly and daniel white's uh we all know anthony smith is one of your boys i mean we're not friends or anything but like i have a amount a huge amount of respect for him. Same here. Why do you think he's so overlooked or, in my opinion, this person writes, disrespected? He's one of my favorite fighters to bet on because odds makers never give him respect.

Why do you think that is? I don't think he's... Yeah. He's barely favored over Spann. Well, Spann is dangerous. I mean, I did some tape study on him. He's a little bit... He's got his own issues.

No fighter is perfect, but he's dangerous. He has a long reach. He's powerful. Very good left hook. He's got good second order takedown defense. He's fought good guys. He's got very good finishing ability. I think early in fights, he makes good decisions.

That tends to be a challenge as it goes along. He's well, well, well trained with Saif Saoud out of 4th Seminoles. He's a good fighter. I can understand that to a degree. But with Smith, it's weird, man. It's like, dude, I get it if you were doing it in the Strikeforce version of Anthony Smith where

he was still very much a product of the regional scene he had barely graduated from. That's just not who he is now. You know, and he's had some losses. Fine. But he lost to Jones. He lost to Alexander Rakic.

I think Rakic is probably a future champion. He lost to Glover Teixeira, who got a title shot against John. And then, however many years, was it seven years later? Worked his way up to another one. Like, dude, he's not losing to bitches out here. He's losing to very, very good fighters. And Rakic won pretty cleanly, but it wasn't like a super dominating thing. It was just that I think there was a strength difference,

there was a wrestling difference. But, dude, Smith has excellent jiu-jitsu. He has a great jab. He is as durable as they come. You know, handing the referee your teeth. I don't think for whatever reason that the newer victories, there's still this thing like, oh, he's still the guy from Strikeforce who was sort of like the regional brawler or something. That's just not reality. It's just not at all what you're dealing with here. And that's not to say Spann couldn't win. Again, the odds are kind of close. Dude, Spann's dangerous. Like, he's very, very dangerous.

But the level of respect that Smith gets for his abilities relative to his accomplishments, I just don't think is there. And I think it's because the skeptics have tried to... You'd have to ask them. But they've not been converted with the wins. They found a reason in each of the wins to be like, well, Shogun was past it, and Rashad was past it, and so was Gustafsson, and maybe he got kind of lucky against a tired Uzdemir, or whatever

else they want to say. To me, it's like, okay, the two ones I'll give you that were not as indicative of what they should have been were probably, certainly thead one less so shogun one but even then but the uzdemir win is clean and the gustafson win that was the one that sent him packing that was clean as far as i'm concerned um and you know the last two he's put together were great like jimmy crew was fucked up from what happened and um who was the last two he's put together were great. Like, Jimmy Crute was fucked up from what happened. And who was the last one? Devin Clark. Dude, that triangle that he had on Devin Clark was textbook.

In fact, they got a mutual opponent in Devin Clark. And, you know, you don't want to play too much MMA math, but Smith went right through him like a freight train. I mean, I see it, you know. I mean, this is not something like, I'm the expert. Like, I don't think that's really the case. But, like, I've looked at the tape. I didn't know Anthony before.

Like, we don't barbecue together and shit. But if I watch enough tape on a guy and I'm like, hey, he's fucking good, I tend to want to see more of them. For some reason, some of my peers just haven't gotten the memo on that. I don't quite get it. It is hard, though. Last thing I'll say is it is hard to undo early impressions. And the other thing he kind of got screwed on was he went up to light heavyweight and

there was a sense about, oh, the division had shifted and he took advantage on like a relative scale of the division being what it is rather than you know accomplishing things you know forthrightly and fairly but like there is some truth to that there's a little bit of like the change of the division itself but just also what he shows on tape dude it's good like go back and look at that crude fight and look at his jab and then go back to the at that Crute fight and look at his jab. And then go back to the Devin Clark fight and look at his triangle. Dude, he's formidable.

He's formidable. He's very, very, very formidable. And he's smart, you know? Is he Anderson Silva? Well, no, he's not Anderson Silva, but so what? We'll do a few more of these, a couple more of these. So I was asking if I'm worried about, or not if I'm worried about, but like putting out all the YouTube channels, we're talking head of production value,

I think it's a good thing on the platform to have all these new channels popping up from established MMA figures, or will it potentially dilute the quality of the content that already exists, which is put out by those creators who put the work in over time. I'm not really worried about it. I think the stuff I have planned for my channel is pretty separate from all of that. They're going to do well because a stylebender is smart. Michael Bisping is smart.

They can afford some good help for production value and whatever. But their celebrity is going to help too. It's just a reality. It is going to help. But in the end, I'm not really worried about them taking anything from me personally. I'm not. In fact, it just lights a fire under me to do things my own way. I don't make content for everybody.

That's not what I do. I make content for a certain kind of person. And I'm not really worried that... In fact, I think people that like some of the content that I make, they might like what the other ones out there are. Again, I think Stylebenders is very interesting, but he's got his own production flair. That's going to work for some people.

It's not going to work for some others. And Michael Bisping, same thing. These sort of talking head things, how much of that can you do? The other part, too, is they want to have their own access to their audience. This was inevitable. It was inevitable that they were going to get into the space. I think some people will like what they see. They won't. They'll tune in. They'll tune out. I'm really not too worried. Can we say it's safe to assume that Triller isn't coming after streamers with some revolutionary IP

tracking technology, given the fact that all the fighters are suing them and the financial mess they are in, yeah, I wouldn't worry. I'm not here recommending piracy, but like, you know, if you did, are they going to come knocking on your door with the piracy police? No, I think you're probably all right. Let's see, is there anything else here? I'll do one more. At which weight division jump does age play the biggest factor in whether or not you'll succeed? Is it simply linear? It's never going to be geometric.

But I would say where age really starts to matter, 185 is where you begin to see it matter, although they're still pretty lenient. 170 is where it begin to see it matter. Although they're still pretty lenient. 170 is where it really matters. And then obviously at 155 and down it becomes almost a necessary condition for success. But it's right at 185

where that really begins to turn. Well, starts to turn. 70 is a big turn and after 155 and down, forget it. It's going to be almost impossible to win a UFC title at like 37 at 155 pounds. It can be done, but will be difficult.

Alright, let's bring this back up. Here we go. Subscribe. Yes. Thumbs up on the video. Everything. On this live chat next week, so one week from today, I will have an announcement about the future of this podcast. Yes, it's continuing.

It is not going away. Nothing like that. But there will be some changes, and there are going to be some big ones. And you might want to tune in for that. So next week, big announcement on this live chat. Stick around for it, okay? Alright. I appreciate you guys.

Thank you so much for watching. And until next time, stay frosty. If I can bring this up. Thank you. There we go.