MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Pacquiao vs. McGregor or Spence? | Diego Sanchez | Strawweight Division | Ep. 105

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

MK 105 is here as the boys discuss Manny Pacquiao's 2021 opponents. Pacquiao says they will be Errol Spence Jr and Conor McGregor. Do we believe this (6:05)? Plus, Diego Sanchez says his next fight will be his last (20:30). The guys discuss MMAFighting.com's article about Spencer Fisher (32:00). Also, Dana White says Weili Zhang's next fight will be either Rose Namajunas or Carla Esparza (52:25). We debut a new segment forcing Luke to answer some of BC's questions (57:43). Finally we close out the show with Fan Submissions (1:12:00).  ---------------------------- '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. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. It is Wednesday, the 13th of January 2021, and it is time, diggity donks, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? Yes, in fact, it is hump day. We will get you through this hump with a nice, fresh, piping hot edition of Morning Combat. I am from CBS Sports. I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I am joined by the gentleman with, which shirt is he wearing today? I don't know, but he can tell us. Oh, Cotto versus Canelo. Very cool. By CBS Sports bredrin, it's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. Hello, Luke. Hello. We're back. I'm fired up. it's a no J Wednesday So, you know, take the seatbelts off

You can enjoy yourself No one getting trolled today Shout out to the great Yeah, there are some There are some microphones open that need to be closed Yeah, live mics there Gaff I was set to praise you Gaff As being the anti-J

But that was a very J move right there But yes, we're back at it, Luke. Many people attempt to do what we do, Luke, which is turn on the microphones, speak into it, give opinions about combat sports, but you know what they're doing at the end of the day, Luke? Talking, right? Just bumping guns.

We are artists, okay, Luke? All right? Right? Just bumping guns. We are artists. Okay, Luke? All right? This is a lot deeper stuff going on here. Okay? I mean, what is art at the end of the day, Luke? Are we art? Is art art?

Is art art? I think you've done this joke more than a few times at this point. All right. So on the docket today, we actually have a new segment that I'm not sure how to explain. I'll let BC explain it. The topics we're going to get to today, Pacquiao and McGregor still kind of on the horizon in ways that are not dismissible, same with Pacquiao and Spence. We'll talk about that Spencer Fisher article, Diego Sanchez sort of signaling retirement is around the corner, and some women's strawweight title situation.

BC, quickly, and fan submissions and blah, blah, blah. How do you explain this new segment we're going to try well you know luke it's every every great segment is really uh bred and born off of a problem that i'm looking to fix the problem i have with this show luke is that you're very stringent opinionated uh controlling right uh not open to the ideas or thoughts of others. So I thought, well, you know, I'm sick of pitching things out in our pre-show rundown meetings and you just being like, I'm not talking about that.

No, I ain't got time for that. I will not talk about Mike Perry's son one more time, all right? I mean, come on. Give Ocean a fighting chance here. So I've decided, Luke, to create a segment in which I write the questions. Motherfucker. How many do I have to answer? In which I present to you ten categories.

Under good faith. That was your big lecture. It must be under good faith. No trap questions here, BC. And you're going to spin that damn wheel, Luke. And you're going to be forced to answer. You're going to sit in the BC hot and you're going to spin that damn wheel, Luke, and you're going to be forced to answer. You're going to sit in the BC hot seat and be forced to answer whatever comes up, Luke, okay? A little bit of Russian roulette, you know what I'm saying? If you're from Dagestan

or you're just in a hurry, and we're going to have a lot of fun with this today, so I'm looking forward. I don't know what we're going to call it. The wheel of death, spin the black circle, Luke, take the wheel, whatever, Luke. Either way, you the Black Circle, Luke Take the Wheel. Whatever, Luke. Either way, you're spinning it. All right? All right. All right. Well, that should be interesting.

I look forward to seeing that and trying it. I'm sure the questions, are they going to be about who's got the best boobs or something and I have to answer this and get us fired? I hope these questions don't lead us down a path of destruction. Do they? The only disclaimer you put was that I have to write them in good faith, Luke, okay? That's right. Okay, well, we'll see if you can adhere to that.

Okay, if you want to try Showtime, who makes this show possible, please give it a try. Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go to something else with your life. You can go to the merch store, which is, I believe, store.show.com. There it is. You can get some merch. You can get some mugs.

You can get some tumblers, which my family keeps smashing on the ground, like a Greek wedding. And I've lost all of them. I have to reorder them. It's been smashing them. I'm not sure what's happening around here. But yes, plenty of things to get done there as well. Okay?

All right. Well, with those disclaimers out of the way let's get this party started bc put this story on the staff's radar pacquiao manny pacquiao says in 2021 he's got two opponents in mind now there's a series of sub stories about this which will flesh out but let's start here the two he has in mind are errol spence obviously who just had his big win over Danny Garcia back from his layoff after his injury and Conor McGregor Conor McGregor is the other one that he mentioned and there's a lot of reasons to think that either of these are what would you say BC maybe not equally plausible but entirely entirely plausible, no? Yeah, absolutely.

Look, Manny Pacquiao's in a great spot from the standpoint that he's resurrected, you know, the effectiveness of his career. As we stand right now entering 2021, he's still, in theory, one of the elite welterweights in the sexiest division in the world and still holds much power as a legitimate pay-per-view brand and a living legend. Oh, by the way, you know, titles in eight divisions, only fighter to do that, on and on. But it's going to be interesting here, Luke,

in terms of whether these big fights get made and really what they will look like and not just how it affects Conor McGregor standing in the UFC, which we can get to in a second, but let's just start here. Matty Pacquiao just turned 42, and while his 2019 was incredible, right, blanked Adrian Broner on the scorecards in a pay-per-view bout. Came back against Keith Thurman and regained a welterweight title in a thriller of a fight.

Against an unbeaten prime, absolutely all there, Keith Thurman. We saw Pacquiao turn back the clock. Problem is, that was like 18 months ago, Luke. Pacquiao has become one of the sort of major casualties of the boxing quarantine. No large crowds, which has meant, you know, a lack of of real sort of big time star power pay-per-view fights. I like that he's interested in coming back. I was surprised as anyone that he was that good in 2019 that he's still that quick. He's still in a great spot to call his shots.

This interview came with a Filipino outlet in which he basically said, you know, they asked him about Spence, Crawford, McGregor. He wants Errol Spence. He wants McGregor. Now let's focus on the boxing half of it first, Luke. He wants Spence, and it seems like he wants it next. Errol Spence seemed like he wanted it after beating Danny Garcia to close 2020. In that interview specifically, now Manny Pacquiao is not a guy that throws insults, so you've got to put this under the guise of he probably said it very politely with a smile on his face.

But Senador Pacquiao did say, Luke, Errol Spence looks slow to me in his comeback wigan against Danny Garcia. A lot slower than Keith Thurman was the year before. Do you think, Luke Thomas, that we will get Manny Pacquiao, Errol Spence next on pay-per-view? And what's that fight going to look like, given both the resurgence comeback of Errol Spence and the fact that it's going to probably be two years at that point from Manny Pacquiao last being in the ring? It's an interesting fight, actually. I mean, all the things, it's so funny that Mayweather is out here, and I'm not a fan of the Mayweather versus you know Logan Paul

thing but if you are Mayweather it's more of an appropriate ask of his abilities at this point I mean Paulie Malignaggi was a huge supporter of Floyd and even after that Floyd versus Connor fight I had asked him like okay someone who's like a diehard for Floyd you know what would you say about Floyd's performance in terms of you of relative to how he looked in his prime? And even he was like, dude, the guy is clearly, yes, he probably needs to hang it up. I mean, he got past this with relative ease, obviously, but there's a lot of issues at play here, and he's just not what he once was, not even close.

And yet here's Pacquiao, 42. I don't know if he's exactly in his prime, but he's still a force to be reckoned with in a pretty significant way. So it's kind of funny the way the turn of the screw has gone. I actually feel like this is a perfectly legitimate fight. I like it. It's another reason why all this talk about Spence versus Crawford has to be next or boxing will implode and cease to exist.

It was never going to be next. This is much more doable. If there are no major contract hurdles, it's sellable. It's pay-per-view ready. Not only is it pay-per-view ready, it might do well on pay-per-view. It's competitive. It's for the top of the division in some ways, you could say. Well, look, the winner would have three of four welterweight titles,

so that's pretty damn big. There's plenty of... If someone said, is there a good reason to make Pacquiao versus Spence, there's a bunch of good reasons to make it. It's not a hard fight to make or to want or to even need for the division. It's not maybe the most coveted fight, but it's certainly a coveted one. So I actually feel like when they'll make this and under what circumstances, very much I don't know. I don't have any sources inside the boxing world to get an approximation of those things.

But it just feels like where Crawford versus Spence is sailing into the wind, Pacquiao versus Spence feels like it's got the wind at its back and then some, BC. Well, yeah, and this is interesting that we keep terence crawford's name in this discussion because he was also in play as a maybe potential uh manny pacquiao opponent but what we do know about crawford's current promotional situation from everything he and top rank have said in their little back and forth to close the year was that it seems like bud crawford has one more fight left on that top rank deal and if he doesn't fight pacquiao if spence gets that instead Luke, I don't know who Bud Crawford would fight for that finale,

but there is optimism to the idea that if Spence gets by Pacquiao, we would see Crawford either next or the fight after that, because Crawford would have the opportunity to go sign with PBC if that's his plan, and look, if you're backing Terrence Crawford now, I don't know how that would not be your plan if you want to get the Crawford now, I don't know how that would not be your plan if you want to get the defining fights in your career and find out how great you can be. But for Errol Spence, this Pacquiao fight, look, I love it on paper.

I think we would have talked differently about it a year and a half ago when Manny was coming off that big win over Thurman. It's not a ton of his change since then, but you do have to factor in what's Pacquiao going to look like, especially if he doesn't take a tune-up fight before that. And two southpaws, two guys who can punch, two guys who can quick, who are quick. Obviously, Manny believes he has a speed advantage here, but if you're Spence and you win this,

Luke, this is your first opportunity at being in a blockbuster. I know Spence is fresh off three pay-per-view appearances, Mikey Garcia, Sean Porter, and then Danny Garcia. All three seem to have sold well based on expectations, but the Manny one could be the first time, like you mentioned, where it actually just sells pretty damn well and really lifts him to being the legit A-side in a Spence Crawford fight when and if that fight actually gets made. But the other half of Manny's equation, Luke, is the whole idea of fighting Conor McGregor in a boxing match. And obviously this is a scenario made easier by the fact that now Manny officially has signed with Paradigm Sports and Audiotar and Conor McGregor's same management company.

So what do we do with this, Luke? Dana White's been in Fight Island this past week. All the American journalists have arrived and you're starting to see the interviews and Dana's big quotes were, you know, stuff that makes sense for Dana to say at this moment. Hey, Conor, you could get on a roll here. You could win the UFC lightweight title this calendar year. You need, you're going to be facing all killers no matter what you do you need to be fresh and consistent and all that those big boxing fights they'll still be there in 2022 he specifically said Manny Pacquiao will still be there in 2022 let's stay in the cage now Luke what happens to close this year do you see Conor going in this direction would it depend on whether he won or

lost against Poirier? How do you see that playing out? It depends how much UFC needs him, to me, is what it feels like. It depends on how much they feel like letting a Conor versus Pacquiao fight happen is in their interest, is really what I think. I mean, you have a situation here where they were willing to take a risk a lightning in a bottle situation to what is at the time it felt like one against mayweather let's see how it goes they made an absolute metric ton of money the fight turned out to be as entertaining as i thought a version of

that could have been right something that max kellerman had said i mean there's a lot of ways in which that was a big win for all the parties involved, Showtime included, of course. And then you have to say, okay, well, okay, you got it out of your system. What's next? But if there's a way for them to look at this and say, okay, listen, maybe they have a year where a bunch of headliners fall through. And this would be a way to generate a tremendous amount of income if they feel like that could do it. If they feel like this could sell 3 million buys. If they felt like Conor could do well enough to not be embarrassed. Let's say they actually make the Spence fight in relatively short order.

And Pacquiao looks kind of bad. Wow, maybe Conor could, you know, not win per se. But do well enough to get much more than just an ordinary moral victory. To the extent that that kind of money and that kind of opportunity is something that they're either willing to happen, need to happen, want to happen, they'll let that happen. But if they had a really strong 2020, as we all know, certainly after they got right with the commissions, if they can keep that up, and they're going to start the year quite strong here this month, and we'll see what happens. But

if they can keep that up, my hunch is their willingness to let that happen because, remember, they are the ones that hold the cards. They have to say and agree as his sole promoter in any combat sport, which is what those deals that fighters sign say, until it's really in their interest to do, really, truly in their interest, I would say either Conor fights in the octagon or not at all. You? It's interesting because if Conor loses to Poirier, you know, whether competitively or

one-sidedly, you can talk yourself into the idea of, well, you know, maybe he goes, okay, I just lost my spot in the lightweight title picture. Maybe I go back to boxing. Maybe I go, you know, make this, even though you can argue, you know, do the sales get heard if Conor's coming off a UFC loss going into that. But Luke, just the same. If Conor beats Poirier and if that gets him the UFC's lightweight title, or let's say he fought a second time in the first half of 20,

2021 and won the UFC's lightweight title. I could see that as being just as big of a springboard for Conor to be like, okay, pause this timeout. My star level is back. Let's go over the Mannyville and try it. As you said,

try to produce you said try to produce three million pay-per-view buys so um obviously dana has some form of leverage in this decision as you mentioned they went out of their way to make the floyd fight they cashed in on it in a year in 2017 by the way where pay-per-view you know sales were uh were just not there for the ufc with rousey going away mcregor going away, etc. But this whole scenario is going to be interesting. Attar gave an interview with a Dubai paper and basically said, you know, 2021, yes, this fight's going to happen. You know, you can understand that position of leverage for him to want that to happen. But I don't know, Luke.

I don't know. I just think that it's the same reaction we had. Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it? No, no. And it was going to tie into the point I was about to make, that it's the same reaction you and I had when this thing was first sniffed about, you know, a year and a half ago. It's like, this is not the matchup you want, Connor.

Those are not the droids you're looking for, right? Manny will send you to hell. I don't care if he's 43 by then. You know, the speed's real, and the power that comes from the speed is real. It's if you're Connor, do this out of desperation only or do this if you've run the table in 2021 and you're the the king of the lightweight mountain and you look at the landscape and go, yeah, there's no big fish at the moment. Let me go out there. But Luke, either way. OK, I don't think the senator gets enough credit from us at this point in the calendar luke i don't care uh look i'm not again i'm not going to be the baseball fan

who's watching mcguire and sosa hit home runs and try to uh just fool myself into believing that they never uh you know rub the cream or the clear on their toast in the morning and the same you know might go with pacquiao's long career but we're talking about a guy who turned pro in like 1995, Luke. We're talking about a guy who turned pro at like 106 pounds. And it's like 27 years later, do the math, whatever, 25 years later, and he's still freaking on top of this sport. And he's still in conversations for fights with guys like Errol Spence Jr., in which we can kind of like Errol Spence Jr.

in which we can kind of talk ourselves into favoring him um what you know whether those calves are jacked on their own or or there's a needle hanging out or not at any point in his career good lord this is one of the all-time great careers Luke like I don't even think the great overrated at times Manny Pacquiao gets the overrated love he deserves in this moment no um yeah I don't know with any of these situations what the truth is about what they did or did not take it's very very hard because all this is obscured and pushed underground you know there's a lot of athletes currently across sports late into their careers and everyone's like wow look how well they're doing we're having these goat debates about look how well this current person is doing you doing late into their career. Forget about packing.

Let's talk about other sports. I see it all the time in football. I see it all the time in basketball. And I'm like, y'all think this is happening because they sleep a little bit longer and they eat their Wheaties and they eat lots of asparagus and get massages more than people of their previous generations or because they're special and benighted and told by God that they're going to be the ones that really do things that others couldn't. Or maybe, just maybe, as I've tried to explain to everybody,

drugs are here. They're not going away. The most you could probably do is somewhat minimize the harm and sort of accept the reality that there's not a whole lot you can do to get rid of them. So whatever the situation is with Pacquiao, I don't know. But listen, he has to stay in compliance with the rules. He's been in compliance with the rules as far as I know. And as a consequence, he is eligible for bouts against people like Conor,

against people like Errol Spence, and maybe others if he can keep it going. So it just is what it is in the immortal words, BC, of one Max Holloway. Any final thoughts on this issue? Well, one day we'll look at that run Barry Bonds had during the obvious Royde years and just actually celebrate them for what they are. Yeah, the guy took the stuff, Luke. He also hit like 370 and intentionally walked 5,000 times in one year. I mean, it was pretty ridiculous.

If or if not, man, he's in that same category either way. It's still pretty ridiculous. We're like 26 years into this guy's freaking career. I mean, it's insane, Luke, but that's up for people to debate by the fire late night with a cold one. You know what I'm saying, Luke? I hear you, bro. I hear you.

All right, so let's go next diego sanchez to my knowledge maybe somebody could come out of retirement to change this but to my knowledge the only remaining active competitor uh from season one of the ultimate fighter he's the only one who's left has sort of signaled and i'm sort of he took to social media to basically suggest that his next fight will be his last, that he doesn't even want to have any say. He just wants the fans or the matchmakers or Dana White or whoever to pick it. First things first, before we talk about who a suitable fight would be, BC, what can you say about the career of Diego Sanchez? Love it. Legend. Legend in, in you know and I know that some people have heard me make that sort of disparaging hall of fame debate right like he's in the hall of fame

because of that fight is he an actual hall of famer well I think whether you're looking at under the normal metrics that we do in other sports or even the softer UFC metrics which allows an 11 and 7 Matt Serra into the hall of fame because in a lot of ways because of his one big moment diego sanchez is still at the very least in that conversation a guy who no never won a title uh probably lost more of his big fights than one but just a legend from the standpoint of being all action all the time a true character and a guy who at 39 luke like yeah it is time to probably hang it up he's also what like three and two in his last five i mean it's not you know it hasn't been a a complete you know train wreck down the stretch he's evolved to stay modern even though he's of the original

you know grounded pound early days and he's just an iconic figure from the freaking barking and yelling yes, which did inspire WWE's Daniel Bryan, to just having that savage character and even some of the weird turns with the whole Joshua Fabia run and the whole, you know, he's basically got those Khalil Rountree crystals and I think he's sitting on them, Luke, okay? They're giving him mystical powers and weird things to say out of his mouth. But just a savage. And one of those early icons, I almost want to say like a Tank Abbott in the sense that

he's like this early image of like this savage icon, only in reality, Tank Abbott kind of came and went. Like Sanchez has lingered forever, Luke. And that's a testament to him being a true fighter and being able to evolve and give us the fights like this one with Gil Melendez and uh so many classic ones I love that he's actually in a spot where he's saying this will be my last one I don't care who I fight Dana you know I trust Dana go make it good because that's a much better spot than being told after four losses in a row that you have to leave

so uh let's get a fun match about let's get out the Rolodex, Luke. Let's find another fun veteran who we know is going to stand with him and trade. And let's celebrate this guy one more time for what he's given the sport, you know, us on an entertainment level. I've got nothing but great things to say about him, even though I don't like people calling him a Hall of Famer because of that fight stipulation category thing. Yes. Well, I mean, like it or not, it's a reality. I mean, this is a guy who has been a blood and guts fighter from the word go. From The Ultimate Fighter, he had this aggressive in-your-face style. He was kind of mocked by his peers on that show,

or at least sort of considered and made out by the producers to be kind of weird, which is probably not much of a stretch, but it also showed that he was a student of the game, that he was trying his best with an enormous... He was MMA's Mr. Hustle, right? I mean, the current version of it, I don't know what to say, but when he was out there really doing that work, he was... Pete Rose is...

I'm not here to say that he was as accomplished in the game as what Pete Rose meant, but I mean, somebody who just in every single situation applied maximum intensity, maximum hustle. And yes, sometimes at the expense of maybe where Fight IQ could have dialed things back for a more winning way, that wasn't necessarily in him. But I think in the idea of just implying whatever matter of will you could to win, whether it was advisable or not, quite frankly, he would do that. And more often than not, it actually, I think, elevated him more than the opposite. A guy who fought the very best of his generation, a guy who dealt with a lot of adversity.

Folks don't realize he had left Jackson's for a time and went and trained with the Hibero brothers in San Diego, then went back to Jackson's. But when he went back, he had talked, I think, with Ariel Hawane, I believe this is true, about all the money he had lost through either various scams or various people in his life. So I really worry

about the next stage of his life, quite frankly. We're going to talk about Spencer Fisher. I think Diego Sanchez is probably a candidate that is worthy of examination to see what's going to happen next. But if we're going to remember him as a fighter, it's just no way to talk about him without talking about how he used that intensity at all times, I think more often than not, to really elevate him, create memorable, fun fights,

and get the most out of the fight game that he could, BC. Yeah, and you talk about a pioneer in a lot of ways. God, he turned pro in 2002 in the dinosaur stage. And just looking at his run, Luke, I mean, you forget how, like because he's become such a character this past decade, he's become more of a character. Although, again, like I said, he was still putting in wins. He never lost more than two fights in a row,

which really says something for a guy who's been around for two full decades and has fought nearly 50 times. But Luke, you look at it, he won the first 17 fights, and that was through 2006. And in that run, you got wins over frickin' Nick Diaz, Kenny Florian, John Alessio, Carl Parisian, Joe Riggs, Jorge Santiago. I mean, the guy was very much legit and probably as good as you can be during that decade without winning a UFC title

and went on to beat Joe Stevenson, Clay Guida, and et cetera. This past decade was a little more hit or miss, but I do give credit to anyone, Luke, when we had the Andrei Arlovsky discussion, for example, where you can avoid that exit, avoid that, you know, where you just have had your time and your time has come and you haven't evolved and you are just worn down. There's something special, even if it unfortunately leads to,

as you teased, a potential dark ending for guys like this who have left so much of themselves in the cage. The fact that he was able to leave that much of himself in the cage and still linger and be somewhat pretty much relevant and evolve during the second decade of his career is remarkable. I mean, there is a savage of savages inside that guy, and I respect that. I respect that a hell of a lot, you know?

Man, I hope there's happy. I think it deserves to be said, BC, he was never the biggest star, even in his prime, that the UFC had. There was always like a pay-per-view star. And even when he had earned a shot against BJ Penn, the fight obviously did not go his way. But I do think it is fair to say through the Ultimate Fighter, yes. Did he get his profile raised?

No doubt about it. But through all of those blood and guts performances, whether it was against Diaz or Parisian or Campman or Melendez I mean you could just go down the list all the times right he elevated the UFC brand he was a guy that the UFC could say this guy is what he represents everything it means to be you know an MMA fighter what we're all about and you just knew for a time anyway that when he was on that card you were going to get somebody who quite literally bit down on the mouthpiece and was looking for absolute carnage all the time that I think was really helpful for the UFC brand when

he came around when he did he was unique he was different he was intense he was focused and for a time he was really really good that that helped the, and I don't think there's two ways about it. There's a reason they never cut this guy, and they probably had some opportunities along the way. It's because he embodied what it meant to deliver the UFC product in many ways. Luke, it's really hard to be in a sport for two decades and not have a three-fight losing streak. There's so many ways to lose in this sport.

There's so many evolutions and new killers coming in, and for him to avoid that has been huge. Do you think that his, you know, I mentioned off the top in full respect, I think he's in that category of debate of whether he's a Hall of Famer. And depending on where your strike zone is on what that should mean in the sport of MMA. His resume is almost Bispingian, if you will. He didn't have the late title win like Michael Bisping had to sort of put the capstone on what was a great career. But you look up and down that record, along with being an action icon, as I mentioned

earlier, he's got some pretty damn good wins. I mean, this is one of those, you know, Craig Biggio backdoor to 3,000 hits type of career where you look at the stats and you go, oh damn, he's got a lot of good wins there. where you look at the stats and you go, oh, damn. He's got a lot of good wins there. I mean, this guy was pretty much legit despite being a character. No doubt about it. Now, it leads us to sort of the second part here. His last fight, what do you do?

I don't think it's a strain to say we're not even close to the very best kind of Diego Sanchez that we've had. You want to give him something of a soft landing, not a gimme per se, but a winnable fight. It's hard to do at, I'm guessing, what, 170? I don't know if he'd go back to 155. I don't really know what he wants at this point. What are you thinking, BC?

Just pull someone off from LFA, or is there someone in the UFC you could spotlight? No, I think the best thing to do would be to, to make it a fun fight against a fellow name somewhat in his category. And what I mean by that is being known for action, being beloved. I almost want to say, give him the winner of, you know, Carlos Conda and Matt Brown coming up. Although look, Matt Brown finished Diego San sanchez a couple years back in freaking vicious

helbo style that almost made me want to uh scream for for diego's retirement in that moment but uh what about a clay guido rematch luke you hate it does it feel a little bit too much like israel vasquez and rafael marquez four and boxing it was unnecessary it was sort of like we don't know what else to do would you be down for something like that? Diego Clay Guida too, to say goodbye? I don't have a better idea. I can say that. I don't have a better idea. I don't think, I don't think that's the, um, that's a good one. That's a good one. That's not a bad one. Cause he's falling on hard times too. Or at least, you know, I fall on hard times. They're all aging. You just age. It just is what it is, BC. I did front squats on Sunday. I can barely walk up the stairs. It's Wednesday. I'm old and pathetic. Life just comes at you fast.

You know what I mean? So it's not even like that they're declining in some kind of way where, you know, it's their fault of their own per se. I don't hate it i don't hate it that's the one that got him in the hall of fame i don't know if guida is interested or ready but that's a decent call we just lost three of four yeah they're the same age they're in the same spot i mean you could just as well do a jim miller rematch but i don't think it has the same sort of you know you know glimmer do it all i'm saying is if you're the ufc luke and this guy's been such a great soldier for you you want to reward him by making the fight like intriguing like i must see it if it was jim meller i don't know if i must see it if it was clay guida in a rematch of one of the greatest fights of all time or if it was gil melendez and they called them up and said gil you want to do

one more time if it was something like that i think that's the right road to go well we'll see what happens next it takes us to our third story here. Shouts to Steven Morocco over at MMA Fighting, working on this piece for years. Finally, it was the right time, and he had to go through a couple of different employers. And Spencer Fisher wasn't really ready to tell the story until now, but he did a huge profile on Spencer the King Fisher, who for a time in the UFC had one of the great trilogies with Sam Stout, was just a dynamite striker, heavy-handed guy who was part of that, the rise, and I guess to an extent I suppose the fall anyway, of the Miletic fighting systems. But when Miletic was hot, he was one of the guys.

And you can see the article there on the screen, The Cost of Being the King. The article deals with a number of topics, but basically the gist is this. At age 40-something now, a little bit older than me. Four, 44, Luke. 44. He is financially barely hanging on from a healthcare standpoint. He's on a ton of meds, but really is getting totally improper care. He has pretty significant brain damage.

He can still function, but he can't hold hold a job and things are only about to get worse what was your takeaway from this article bc first of all was excellent work from from morocco as you mentioned um it was a compelling long uh in-depth read so i really encourage anyone whether you remember that name and you should remember spencer fisher's name or not uh this is just a an insight into sort of what happens from the early days of we just want to get this sport noticed and he was one of those guys who brought a lot of notice with his action fights to this is the first time in this very young sport luke uh outside of those original pioneers and a lot of them had really bad endings as well but didn't get publicized enough that

we're getting an inside look at what the bad ending can look like if you leave everything you have in that cage and that's something that spencer fisher did it became his calling card it was the reason he was able to you know max himself out and have a really nice career uh my first response is this was a very sad read i mean it's it's almost meant to be in a way but it really wakes you up luke not not just in the brutal nature of what combat sports is and how unforgiving, how even at the freaking highest level, like, you know, 1%, it seems like come out of there better off than they were beforehand. But, you know, aside from the fame and the short bursts of money, and some guys are obviously able to set themselves up for

the afterlife, but just how it takes so much from you and you have to put so much of yourself into it to be that good that this was a wake-up call at how young this sport still is and what i mean by that luke is you know we're what like you know 26 27 years into the actual ufc you know not even three decades into ultimate fighting, mixed martial arts being an actual sport. There are not even close. You know, we talk about a union. There aren't even close to the proper foundational things set up to take care of these guys who entertain us, who provide us with a platform to have these jobs, who fuel the damn UFC and allow them to become a billion dollar organization and have that huge sale.

There's no pension fund, afterlife, anything. This guy just needs his medical bills paid for. It needs, you know, forget the income. I mean, this is just a sad situation. A guy who can barely work and probably won't be able to much longer was deemed that he can't work in a regular job, and you find out that he can't work in a regular job. And, uh, you know, you find out that he was one of those recipients of the sort of Dana white,

Matt Hughes, you know, Forrest Griffin, Stefan Bonner type of handshake. Thank you so much for your service. Here's 5,000 a month, uh, you know, for the next, you know, not the rest of your life until it ran out after the sale. But the sad part about that Luke is, you know not the rest of your life until it ran out after the sale but the sad part about that luke is you know morocco kind of puts in there that maybe that was my hush money maybe that was we know you can't fight anymore and you're going to be pretty much bad off so here's some money to uh to just try to get by and then eventually that money was gone it's a wake-up call luke that um let me say it like this sometimes in boxing in

particular we watch these big pay-per-view fights and they're not wars right sometimes they're not even competitive sometimes you figure out early who's the better guy and the fight just kind of plays out like that and we're like man why aren't these guys doing what the guys did in the freaking 70s and the 80s in the early 90s when i love this sport. You ever see Riddick Bowe lately? That's why they don't do it. I saw him, dude. I saw him. I saw him. I told you this.

I saw him 10 years ago now almost at the Conn Peterson weigh-ins. He looked bad, dude. I mean, and it's not just him. It's a lot of those guys, right? And it's like, you know, not everybody ends up with the money of a Sugar Ray Leonard or Muhammad Ali or whatever, but even obviously physically was was in a bad state really soon after the career ended the reason why luke you don't see as many people as you want in theory to just leave it all in the damn fighting arena is because what do you get from that this was a wake-up call to that this

is a great sport and part of of, again, the entertainment level and the reason why this brand of the UFC has gotten to this point was because of people like Spencer Fisher, who would go out there on undercards or whatever and just bleed, baby, and just leave it all out there. There doesn't seem to be any setup in boxing either, you know, for a happy ending afterwards. And it's not just financially,

it's having the means to have the care you need and the medicine and all that. This was a huge wake-up call that I think everybody should read and the reason why fighters need to band together. And this isn't meant as a rant against the UFC, although you can certainly read through the lines on this story, as I mentioned, whether it was the stuff about the UFC's doctor or whatever, and get the message that you're supposed to get from reading that story. But it's a wake-up call to the fighters more than anything, Luke. I wish every UFC fighter today would read this story, and hopefully they are. And I love that it inspired Gray Maynard to go on the campaign he's done over Twitter

in the last year to kind of put the pay disparity out there. The bad news, Luke, and we tease tease this sometimes to get the proper care for fighters financially and more than that that they deserve it might end up sacrificing some of the entertainment that we all love but they freaking deserve it this guy's 44 and he and he can't function and it's in its cte and it's in it's a shame and you know this is a guy who i mean yeah he had a blip on the radar where he was looking to be in title contention. But we're not even talking about a, you know, former champion or someone that is just at the front of your mind. In a lot of ways, it was a journeyman, lovable guy who put on really great fights and had a season where he was a legitimate contender.

But it's like they're just forgotten once they're gone. And, you know, as a media member, it can do the same thing that it does to you when you see a death in the ring or a horrible injury in boxing, and you're like, you know, recalibrates, what am I really doing here? What am I really covering? I'm not saying that because, you know, I want to take some hard moral stance and look for a way out. I just think there are more things that we can do or that the promoters can do

or that anyone can do to kind of create the right structures foundational things that the fighters need whether that's a union i don't know but you see it with the nfl guys banding together in the lawsuits and trying to get you know just their health care taken care of for the for the second half of their life um i want to see that same for the ufc fighters this is very sobering look very you know nothing go ahead no i just not to be all debbie downer here but this was this was rightfully sobering that's what you should have took from reading this yeah i mean everything can't just be happy all the time every story can't just be what a great success ufc had in 2020 or you know the next show is going to be on abc or you know we'll see what bellator has cooked up

in 2021 that is also part of the story Those are things you also should not ignore. Everything plays a role here, and every part of it deserves to be acknowledged, especially the good, but also parts of the bad. And the bad tends to reveal itself more often than not in this game because the safety protocols certainly have gotten better. It takes some time to reveal itself. The reason why the story is so important is that it took time to tell, right? You couldn't just rush out after a fight, stick a microphone in his face after his last contest and get these kinds of answers.

Things had to mature over time. And it's that longitudinal perspective where you really begin to get a clear picture of the truth, right? The short-term truth and even the long-term truths are certainly a province of the UFC, but the long-term realities for fighters, those stories are not easy to tell, but when they are told, they are critically, critically important. I have a few reactions to this. The first thing I would say is, and I was texting this to some people yesterday, there are not many things in this fight game where I feel like I have a moral imperative to cover. So for example, I'm going to cover the UFC's event this Saturday, but do I feel like I have a moral

imperative to be there Saturday to cover the results and do a post-fight, whatever? No, not necessarily. I don't feel like that's a moral obligation. It might be a professional obligation, but not a moral one. But when it comes to fighter pay, and when it comes to making sure that they have the appropriate amount of leverage, whatever that may end up being through Ali Act or various lawsuits or a union, I do feel like I have a moral imperative. A lot of people ask me, how can you cover a sport where it breaks people this way? And the answer is, I feel like it's my duty to help break them less. Because you can't really talk them out of it. There are people who come out the other side just fine. That part needs to be acknowledged as well.

But for the people who are getting broken by it, unless someone does something about it, and in the case of media, all you can really do is raise visibility for it, it's going to continue to happen. It's going to continue to happen. I feel like if you are a media member and you are not shining a light as much as reasonably possible on the reality of fighter pay and the reality of fighter leverage, you're a coward. You're just a coward and it deserves to be acknowledged as much. The second thing I would say is there's a lot of arguments that go into about who does more to make MMA work. Is it the promoter who puts up all of their money and makes the arena happen and puts up all the lights and blah, blah, blah? Or is it the fighters who go in there and fight?

And the answer is, of course, it's a shared responsibility. But a lot of times you'll see people defend it and say, well, the promoters are the only ones risking anything. Wow. Bullshit. What a ridiculous comment that is. I mean, you just go and look at what Spencer Fisher, and by the way, he is hardly alone. There's going to be many more of him coming, folks. Trust me. The idea that only the promoter is putting up something, I'm not here to diminish that they are.

Of course they are. And so many have lost a ton of money and gone bankrupt in the process. That's a real story too. But this is a real story and this is an ongoing story and it's not an isolated one. Don't ever forget the cost that these people have to pay to put themselves in this position. And I think the last thing BC just sort of worth focusing on here is it is true that these fighters also bear some responsibility for their own plight i think that part is true right well they know what they're getting into right like we're not going to be where you and i are not naive right now this is freaking punching people in the head and you know what you're

getting into so yeah and on top of that i mean you know listen um well even that's well that's a slippery slope too a little bit, BC. I mean, yes, there's no denying that punching in the head is bad for you. Okay, but like what does that mean when the rubber meets the road? Here's my point. Did they know at the time of military fighting systems that the kind of hazing they were doing as training would result in lives like they have today?

Probably not. They probably did not think it would result in where they are today, where Tim Sylvia is on GoFundMe to pay for surgery. Obviously, Matt Hughes' situation is a little bit different because he had a traumatic accident with a train. But a lot of these guys are ending up just by hook or by crook in these really bad, awful positions. So best practices are getting better. And to that extent, fighters have responsibility to investigate them. But I just feel like as much as the blame should be put on them for understanding what they're getting into, these are people, BC, who think that every day when they wake up, they're the best candidate to win the lottery. That's the kind of mentality you have to have if you want to be a prize fighter.

Any shred of doubt, anything to derail you from getting through that workout, that sparring session, and ultimately that fight is going to do exactly that. So they shut it all out as a means of success. All I'm pointing out is it's going to be very hard to get these guys to accept risk when they're 25 years old, especially if they they're doing well all the more reason to have something after they're done to take care of the ones who desperately need it whether it's health care or financial resources or some combination the reason why i think the the spencer fisher story this specific story being told the way it was is important luke because look like not every fighter that's ever stepped foot in the octagon is going to deserve this type of treatment. But Fisher's a guy who, you know, like came, came as close as you can come to being a legitimate title contender

and being an action guy and a fun guy, but then sort of just disappeared when his career was over and you don't hear him talk about a lot, but that guy was one of the key cogs who bled to, to get, to keep the UFCfc going during important time so there probably should be some kind of tier system luke you know some type of merit that has to be reached whether amount of fights or wins or something that allows you to say to yourself i know the risks this is not safe this is not a safe sport and if i fight the way i love fighting that fans love that the promoter loves, it's going to be double as risky.

But I will take that chance because that's the way I'm wired. I'm opportunistic. I love to fight, blah, blah, blah. Because I know that there is at least something at the end of the road that will take care of my family and I, right? And by the way, this is not some chump.

He had wins. I mean, if you're new to MMA, this won't mean anything to you. But if you know anything about it, it should. He had wins over Josh Neer, Tiago Alves, Aaron Riley, Matt Wyman, Dan Lozon, Sam Stout, Cal Uno, Jeremy Stevens. And a fight of the night guy, like a fight of the night guy waiting to happen, right? Dude, he was a very good fighter.

Now, in the end, it petered out. He lost one, two, three, four, five, five of his last six. And most of those, no, those were mostly by decision. But still, you know, yes, at the end, he faded quite badly. But he was a, I mean, he couldn't beat the very best BC, but he beat the rest. But here's the deal. Like, we talk about this a lot. The culture Dana White creates.

Look at the Dana White Contender Series. The culture is about, we're going to put four or five fights out there on this broadcast and if you win it doesn't mean you're part of our organization it's whoever impresses us the most with your savagery it's it's a setup with the bonus system that is set up to try to create Godi Ward every fight every night how many times do we see Dana upset at people Yoel Romero after the Adesanya fight you know uh for not going after it. Well, look, there's got to be something for them, Luke. And I'm not in a fantasy world that everybody's going to be covered with a huge pension for life.

But look, the same reason why there's this giant lawsuit right now against the UFC that was probably modeled after the giant lawsuit against the NFL. Because if you're going to be the soldiers in this war to help the to help the boss you know win and keep business going and you're watching this company gets sold for billions and all these great things are happening and you got nothing to show for it the only way we're really going to make a change Luke is if the fighters band together and create whatever non-Bjorn Rebny run foundational, almost union like thing they can do to start hearing their voice heard. Because if they don't,

then yes, they are replaceable cogs in this engine. And we all tune in hoping they will give away the rest of the good years of their life on one night in the cage for our entertainment. And, uh, you, we've said this a few times it's the

media's responsibility in some ways to bring light to it but it's going to be the fighters responsibilities to band together the ones who have leverage the ones who are maybe are right in the middle of their prime now and can easily have the same attitude that spencer fisher had in his prime of thinking oh that won't happen to me you know whatever i mean look in the story it showed fisher's trying to hide you know illnesses and. I mean, look, in the story it shows Fisher's trying to hide, you know, illnesses and things. I mean, he's just trying to get back into fights to make money. We don't want to be in a system where that has to be the way, right?

So hopefully stories like this will be the right wake-up call, not only to the UFC and other promoters, Bellator included, to take great care of their athletes or the best that they financially can, but really for the fighters, Luke, to build something to support themselves and the guys that are going to come after them. And that's why unions happen, Luke, right? I mean, that's, you know, that's, this is just the stakes are a lot higher. This isn't working down at the factory, right?

This is pretty bad. What are your thoughts on probably the juiciest part of the story, the comments about the UFC doctor who in the end reached back out to the Fisher family and basically surmised after talking to them that maybe Spencer Fisher was exaggerating his symptoms and that the CTE isn't really CTE and it might not have been caused by fighting and oh, by the way, blah, blah, blah. And you saw the comments from that same doctor in another podcast who basically said the people that are fighters they would probably be in crime if they didn't pick fighting so all this damage they they have they they save them i mean this is the

biggest like like uh uh remember that movie sleepers do you remember when uh kevin bacon at the end after explaining his rapes of young children was like I made you tough right I'm tough I learned I learned this lesson really vividly in 2000 was it 2012 I can't remember when it was it was when RG3 had the game the quarterback then for the Redskins now the Washington football team when he was already had a banged up knee and then Mike Shanahan sent him back out there and his knee just got torn to absolute pieces. He tore his PCL, his MCL, his ACL, everything else. And you'll recall that the team doctors were interviewed about it

and they were like, you know, we felt like with a couple shots of cortisone we could just send him back out there, no problem. And then you had that huge investigation the Washington Post did where team doctors were just forcing prescription narcotics on their players over and over again, creating all kinds of chemical dependencies. I've long learned that I don't give a damn if a doctor takes the Hippocratic Oath. If any doctor out there, not any, but in many cases, I should say, in many cases, what I have found is if you see like team doctor for various NFL or sports team or doctor in-house for this promotion or that promotion, they may very well do a good job, but you should at least take a second look

because what often ends up happening is they do their job for healthcare in the service of the people paying them for it. Well, in this case, the fighters aren't per se paying them or RG3 wasn't paying that particular doctor for their healthcare. It was the team that was who was really signing the checks. So whoever is signing the checks is going to get healthcare in accordance with those needs sometimes. Now, again, I'm sure that there are many scrupulous doctors who do get checks from teams or other sports organizations, and that's not the deal. But I have become extremely skeptical about any doctor

who fulfills that kind of role. And if you watch enough sports, you'll see this thing over and over and over again, by the way, BC, especially at the collegiate level. Oh, it's so bad over there. Yeah, this is bad. And I'm also not naive to something I teased earlier that we've talked about, Luke, that the safer we try to make this sport,

and again, we're just over 25 years into it. These are the prehistoric days, Luke. We look at UFC 1 through 10 as the prehistoric days when guys with one glove fought guys in a gi. No, this is still the prehistoric days in terms of how fighters are cared for but to clean it up luke and to help the fighters you'll probably see less of the guida versus diego sanchez types fights you know on a whole um there's going to come a point luke where you're going to look at it and go is it worth it right

certainly will uh all right uh we did the interest interest of time, because Mikey is killing us behind the scenes here, BC, let's get to our last topic before we get to some of the fun stuff here today. UFC president Dana White has suggested, kind of interestingly if you ask me, that the strawweight champion, Zhang Wai Li's next fight will either be against Rose or Carla, but BC, this is the part that kind of got my attention, unless you have a particular angle there. Obviously, it should be against Rose, and Rose and Carla, by the way, I believe have the same manager, so there might be something to that, but to me, the bigger one, BC, was that they want to do it in Asia. That's where they want to put this one. Now, Dana White previously was saying, hey, if we can't have all

fans, I don't want any fans. Obviously, they've rolled that back. We're going to see some fans at UFC 257. So that should be kind of fun, blah, blah, blah. Now, BC, I don't know if China is going to blow up and be this huge market for the UFC. It's just so hard to tell at this juncture. There's plenty of reasons to think that it could, but I've also seen UFC go out there and say Mexico is the new Brazil. Yeah, not exactly. Not exactly. It's going to take some time. And I don't know and say Mexico is the new Brazil yeah not exactly not exactly it's going to take some time and I don't know if anybody can be the new Brazil not even uh you know long-standing powerhouses in the MMA community that being said you gotta love the call for the growth of the UFC and Asian MMA for the UFC to take their champion who is quite good and put her back there for a

title defense yeah absolutely and i think that look like let's not be naive when that whole scenario happened of dana floating out i don't think rose wants a title shot next you know blah blah and then you find out that was not true at all uh it led us to believe look are we trying to set the champ waley zhong is going to be coming off a year layoff after one of the hardest fights anyone could ever have, are we looking to give her a softer title shot, a title opportunity to defend on home soil, increase the brand and grow? I still think they're trying to do that. And it's not a huge amount of disrespect against Carlos Esparza,

the inaugural UFC strawweight champion, who at 33 is riding a four-fight win streak, has won six out of her last eight. But look, of those four wins, all by decision, two split decisions, some really coin flips there in that regard. Is that an easier matchup for Weili? Yeah, of course it is. Look, I'd favor Rose against Weili.

I think Nama Yunus and Zhang Weili is, I mean, one of the two or three best fights you can make this year in the whole sport, Luke. I love this matchup. I love it. I think Rose is i love this matchup i love it i think rose is a bad style matchup for her uh yet wayley is very much the real deal and looks like she has a bright bright future this could be an absolute you know mixture of of a war mixed with just technical brilliance um if the ufc is smart though you you kind of want to give somebody, considering the situation, the huge brawl, the layoff, a soft-er. You know, you bill it as the former champ coming in on a four-fight win streak.

It just looks too good, Luke. It looks too good on paper. So I have no confidence that Rose will be next, but Rose Wei Li should happen this calendar year and needs to be next after that, Luke, if they don't go in that direction. Hopefully they can do it safely. Put some fans in there. Look, I have no idea what 2021 is going to look like.

I mean, it's already out of control, you know, with your friends over there in D.C. But, you know, my friends. Yes. Quarantine wise. I mean, I just don't I just don't know anymore, Luke. I mean, you know, I just don't know. Here's what's kind of amazing about this fight, BC. I mean, let's not put the car before the horse

because there's so much great action to come in this next year. But it's not inconceivable that Zhang Wai Li, who was one half of the equation of the Fight of the Year winner in 2020, her versus Rose, I mean, I don't know how that fight's going to go, but I could see a lot of scenarios where they win 2021 fight of the year. I mean, that's how good that fight is on paper. That's how competitive and fun and interesting. And again, of course it could be just, you know, ordinarily good, not spectacularly good, and it would still be just fine. I'm just

sort of pointing out like, it's just, that is one of those fights that is basically impossible to miss on, at least so we can tell. And for that reason, they may skip it because Esparza, I think, is a great fighter. But I don't know that she's up to the task of Zhang Weili, and they put her in Asia as well. That's just a tough road to hoe. They may want to give her, you know, the people sort of massage or something when she's back in. Well, they didn't say China, but let's assume they put her in China. You know, we'll see about that.

But it is such a tantalizing prospect to get Zhang Wai Li in a fight with Rose Nama Yunus in Asia, in the moon, anywhere. It's that good. That's a lot of things to say about it. Look, are we being too harsh on Carla here? Or do we just know her ceiling?

No, I think she's, listen, Carla is a very good fighter. She will beat a lot of people that folks don't expect. She has really worked on her striking. She trains with Colin Oyama. She's got a lot of people that folks don't expect. She has really worked on her striking. She trains with Colin Oyama. She's got wrestling in her back pocket. The thing is, it's like, is she the best wrestler in that division? No, Tatiana Suarez is. She's a good striker. Is she the best one there? No, not necessarily. So she'll take rounds from folks and fights from

folks when they don't necessarily expect it. But against people of this caliber, the Zhang Wailis, they don't make a ton of mistakes, man. They don't put themselves out of position too much, and they are well-rounded too. The ace in the hole that you normally rely on, I just don't think will be there. Yeah, I think that's fair, and that's no disrespect. Love the Cookie Monster, but warning track power, Luke.

All right, so from there, BC, where do we go? You want to do your segment now? How does work let's let's spin the wheel of doom let's do this thing luke as you know we're just trying to kick the you know we're figuring it out we had sjw for a bit we're going to try to figure out some fun segments to see where they land so quickly here's the premise luke i pick the categories 10 each week you spin the wheel five times, and you must, as I must in giving you a good-natured faith question, provide our listeners and me with a good faith answer. Some of these will make you think. I thought we had an actual wheel.

Do we have a wheel? We do. We'll get to that shortly. We're about to spin the black circle of death here, Luke. Just a full disclosure luke has not seen any of these questions no and i do not know how these are going to land here we're going to spin and find out so luke let's uh jesus take the wheel of my life luke kick the wheel of this show your 10 categories as we debut this week are You Cringy Bastard Used Car Salesman

Money Never Sleeps The Tracks of My Tears WrestleMania The Airing of the Grievances The Irish Curse Butt Stuff Heavy Metal and Comet Ping Pong

Luke, would you step up? And would you spin the wheel, Luke? Gaff, why are we doing this? I'm told we had a wheel, Gaff. Where the fuck is the wheel? All right, well, there's your cue. There we go. Okay, all right, let's see this.

Let's spin this bitch. Now, are you going to spin it and end up on something or do i have a say nope the irish curse luke all right here we go all right here is your question luke this is ironically the only trivia i have in this and it's trivia time here on the irish curse luke throughout seven trips to the octagon as a pay-per-view headliner, which fight with a reported 825,000 pay-per-view buys was Conor McGregor's poorest selling main event to date on the pay-per-view level? He's had seven trips. All right, so let's think about this.

So it wouldn't be Alvarez. It wouldn't be the two Diazes. It wouldn't be Khabib. He's had seven, right? Not counting Floyd Mayweather. He's had seven trips to the pay-per-view main event level in the UFC. As the headliner. Okay.

So I'm trying to think here. So you take those out. You still have Mendes out there, which was supposed to be Aldo. You have Aldo. So you have just one more that I'm thinking of that I'm missing. I'm not sure what it is. I'm going to go with Mendez only because that was supposed to be Aldo. And then last minute they switched it up out of nowhere, but it's probably the one I'm actually not thinking of. Is it Aldo or is it not? Oh, and then Cerrone would be the other one. Yeah, I'll go with, I'll go with Mendez. Is it Mendez?

Ding, ding, ding. 825 000 buys 2015 luke correct well done to start off this show let's go back to the wheel of death and see what you got all right spin that spin that fucker let's see by the way it's bullshit that i don't get to spin it i just want to point that out yeah we got to figure things out here all right i don't know how we're going to make this work we're not even in the same area luke okay heavy oh heavy metal okay all right here we go luke hey luke no one hates intelligently predicting mma's future more than luke thomas luckily no one loves making luke thomas more uncomfortable than this guy the beige one the bbc so luke look into your heavyweight crystal ball and tell me every man who will hold the UFC's heavyweight championship

between now and January 1st, 2024. Every man. So I can skip the women's side of the game, right? Yeah, I don't think the women have a heavyweight division at the moment in the UFC. Give it time. Give it time. Okay. So let's go.

Who's going to hold the belt at Flyweight? That's a three-year window, Luke. The next three years, who will hold a piece of that UFC heavyweight championship? Okay. Oh, just a heavyweight. All right. Are we counting interim titles or no? No, let's assume in a perfect world it's all it's all the

full thing so steep a because he sort of already qualifies um i think john will hold one i think um oh jesus fuck well that's john that is john right there that's a yeah's like, how could you even hesitate? I'll give a wide, I'll give a bit of an outside answer. I'm going to say Cyril gone. I think he might end up holding some. Cyril gone, good Lord. Okay, he's got three years to do it, Luke. And I think beyond that, I don't know who else is coming up

that would show me that they've got the thing going on. So you don't think Frank Ngannou gets one time somebody one time and holds that belt? I think he gets hosed along the way is what I think. I think he should have already had an interim title. I think he should have been defending it. But I think they're going to find a way to not let that happen. So I'll say no

but i mean that's again this is bullshit and no one should listen to a word i'm saying about this so okay so luke's final answer is stipe miocic john jones and cyril gone all right i would have gone with only john jones myself luke and i was really looking to see if you were going to bite the adesanya bullet and say hey hey, I'll give you three years. No, I'm not ready for that. I mean, he's got to beat Ole Blachowicz first. All right. All right, Luke, let's step up and take your third spin on the wheel of death.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. We need music for when this thing spins. Yeah, we need a lot more, you know. Who the fuck? Should I answer this live on the air it's probably some yes you should it's probably some canadian journalist yeah it's fine okay go ahead bronstetter why are you calling me all right luke you cringy bastard this question is about the cringiest man in all of mixed martial arts luke which realistic fight and when i say realistic i mean a guy at a weight class he would realistically accept a fight against

offers henry suhudo should he return from retirement the biggest opportunity to sell pay-per-views on one night if the fight happened this year it would have been jose aldo um realistic is 145 realistic or no if you think he can realistically go there and you think he realistically would go there then yes it is i think that if max holloway beats volkanovski, Holloway versus Cejudo is big. I also feel like if TJ Dillashaw... I'll say this. If TJ Dillashaw can get right at 135 and reclaim his throne, him in a rematch with Cejudo is big.

Really big. You know, big enough anyway. You know, all Henry is playing the same game at home, looking at the landscape, trying to figure out who he would come back against. The Cody Garbrandt one could be big, but he's a little bit too inactive. Although he had a sweet win this past year.

Yeah, I'm going to go. My answers are Holloway or a rematch with Dillashaw, provided that they both can reclaim a little bit of what's lost. All right. Fair enough. Two more spins left, Luke. You never know what's lost. All right. Fair enough. Two more spins left, Luke. You never know what you're going to get. There's a lot of wild ones still out there.

Let's go back. I'm hoping for butt stuff. I really am curious to see what you cooked up with that fucking category. Spin it. Spin it. Let's go. Spin number four on the wheel of death. Here we go.

Hey, come comment ping pong everyone's favorite place to get the uh sandusky sausage special luke uh don't even you fuck don't even it's an awesome establishment you're an asshole no luke this is not about the mishandling of children this is about pizza if i told you that after today's show, you were headed to the electric chair, but we could order, Luke, on the way, one large pizza from any pizza place in the world that you have been to, National Chain or Mom and Pop Shop, where are we stopping on the way to killing your ass? Now, I don't know if they're still around but back when i lived in new york the best pizza i had was bleaker street pizza bleaker they're around they

are around in a big way yes they are so bleaker i'm not saying it's the best because i've never here's the thing bc everyone's like oh so and so is the best so and so is the best you got to really try to like look around and see what's out there and i'm sure there's some new yorker watching me like fuck you luke bleaker street ain't shit okay well then it ain't shit i'm just telling you what i ate at the time imagine your fans in doha they're like come on luke respect brother what i'll say is bleaker street pizza was just i mean the most tremendous slice never too greasy crust perfect. Just the right amount of ingredients for perfect balance. They were relatively quick, too. It didn't take long to get your food.

Bleeker Street Pizza. Shouts to those folks. They made a killer pie. So I had it for the first time 2019. Fantastic. Fan-freaking-tat. Up there. Up there in the conversation.

That whole area, by the way, in Manhattan has tremendous Italian restaurants, if you ever get the chance. All right, Luke. Six categories remain, but you only have one more spin. Here we go. Let's end it on a high note. Let's head back to the Wheel of Death.

I feel like going forward, I should get to pick the last one. Interesting. Interesting. Hey, look at this. It's the earring of the grievances. Luke, we are 17 months into this mk experiment so aside from new york city's transit causing your boy bc to be late to the infamous

drinking episode on december 30th 2019 in which you got all kinds of bitchy and pissy luke because you had another job to get to or something that I got was late coming in, you know, whatever. When and why were you the most angry or annoyed so far since we started Morning Combat with this guy, your co-host? That was pretty much number one. Are you saying outside of that? I'm saying aside from that very infamous day, Luke, when you were a little bitch.

Right? Well, you were also just totally unprofessional. But what can I do about it? When were you the most angry or annoyed with this guy? Look, I can take it. Okay? I can take it. Man, that one stands out so much.

I mean, I've been annoyed with you here or there at times but that one i was just i wanted to fucking strangle you um how about the jma may disaster luke which one was that when i when i uh when i got uh andre sukamath after me when i got uh kai asakura tweeting at you yeah but i but I was mad, but I more pitied you than anything else. I'll tell you this. I don't like your framing of the sauce shit, because I still feel like you fundamentally misunderstand what makes us work.

I love that it's so ambiguous you never know if I'm being real. Well, here's the thing. Now I've sort of made peace with it. It's kind of funny. What am I going to do? I'm going to talk you out of it. You're going to do what you're going to do. But when you first started doing that, I found it a little bit annoying.

But, you know, not that. Dude, I'll just say this. Like Sinead O'Connor, nothing compares to you when you were late for that drinking episode and I wanted to fucking kill you. So short of that there's not been a major incident oh i thought it was good as you were going to say that one time i asked if uh abuela and rob thomas had any chemistry because that was oh yes yeah you see i'm here's the thing i can't even remember all of your asshole indiscretions they are so few i'm sorry

sorry they're so frequent rather that they are hard get. Your asshole indiscretions are like Trump's lies. It's just like you lost track of the one from Monday because he's got five new ones from today. It's kind of like that. All right. Well, Luke, that would be the wheel of death for week one. Hey, you know, we'll see if butt stuff can make a comeback next week. Thank you. All right.

Very good. I like this. Some things we got to work on, but I kind of like this segment. I think it's pretty cool. All right right that takes us now to fan submissions bc let's roll on through oh crap i forgot i'm not prepared for this you asked what my time was i was most fucking annoyed by you it's right now and meanwhile i have to meanwhile i have to look at this excellent gentleman with a plate the size of a fucking asteroid

with a mullet, and he's wearing an MK sweatshirt. I don't know who this gentleman is, but God bless him. He is a fine American, provided he didn't storm the Capitol last weekend. Yeah, hold on. Oh, I got it now. I got it now. Mikey, I'm good.

Thank you very much. Alright, Luke. Saul A. Is that Saul Alvarez? He starts off with us this week, Luke, on our fan submission. God, that looks like Canelo's seventh bastardized brother. He says, the only tip to tip around here are these beef tips. Sundays

are for mid-tier Mexican food. Fast, cheap, and always okay to good. How about Saul? You know how you can tell it's mid-tier? Because they do what every mid-tier Mexican food. Fast, cheap, and always okay to good. How about Saúl? You know how you can tell it's mid-tier? Because they do what every mid-tier restaurant does. By the way, mid-tier, one of my favorites. This is not me telling you I'm above it, but they've got that little

of cheese on top of the refried beans, and then the lettuce is just shredded iceberg with like a big-ass sliced tomato on top. That's how you know it's mid-tier Mexican, but you know what mid-tier mexican is it's all right by me i'm down with mid-tier mexican any day of the week our second submission is from chance m he says wearing my cool morning combat t-shirt with my beautiful wife of 27 years and going tip to tip in public at the kilted mermaid in varro beach florida Florida. Shout out to this fine American, Luke, as you would say.

But, bro, I cannot fathom what it's like to go to a bar indoors with no mask. I haven't done that. Florida, they don't have rules. They don't have cares. But can we shout out a couple things here? That looks like a fantastic brew that him and his wife are sharing. He looks fit and fantastic in that MKT shirt for probably being an old bastard. And, you know, his wife's kind of sneaky 27 years into this, right?

You got to give old Chancey a high five, right? And, you know, they're like, COVID, come at me, bro. So, you know what? They're living life pretty great. They might as well start promoting fights on Fight Island. Yeah, all right. Hey, we move on this week, Luke, to Jerry O. He says, what's the first thing you do when your wife tells you she's in labor with your first child?

Obviously, you grab your MK hoodie. Shout out to my wife for not only bringing our little girl into this world, but also listening to you donks as background noise. I've watched all of your videos since day one. It's MK all day. Well done, Jerry and his beautiful wife. That is congratulations right there. Congratulations, bro. You're going to need that hoodie because you're never going to shower frequently or sleep normally ever again. So thank you very much. There you go. All right. I'd love to see one day Jerry's offspring against

Ocean Michael Perry in the octagon. We'll see what happens. Don't do it. Don't get yourself killed. All right. Here we go. To hear Stevie B is back. Steve B says, this is from my home office. Wow. Can we blow this up, Gaff, by any chance?

Jesus. Oh, nice. So he's got an MK mug. Is that a Todd Duffy cardboard stand up back there, Luke? Or is that Stone Cold Steve Austin? What is that? Doesn't Stone Cold have tattoos? Yeah, like on his leg.

I don't know. Who is that? Is that Val Venus? Now I want to read this fucker's email. Oh, it's Stone Cold Steve Austin. All right. Well, look, shout out to Steve B for, one, having a quality office there, Luke, with some nice memorabilia, but having the MK mug right in the middle of the action.

I love that. No doubt about it. Looking great. All right. Will A is coming at us with some merch he purchased. Stick out this nice Tumblr, and he says, if you want some awesome New England IPAs, Bald Birds Brewing is where it's at, BC. Pairs well with gas station hoagies.

I will look them up and look out for that, Will. And you can drink them out of this fine morning combat tumbler, store.show.com. All right. Hey, Luke, let's go out west with our very good friends, Bill and Jen's RV Adventure on Instagram. They sold their house, as we know. They're living in the RV.

They are currently right now, it looks at Big Sur in California on the coast. Check out that handsome gentleman, Bill, there with the MK hat, standing in front of the ocean, the rocks, the cliffs, Luke. And as we advance the slide, oh, yeah, look at him right there looking good. Do we know how they make money? Are they retired? I think his wife works, and he might work, work too out of the RV online. I'm not really sure.

I didn't delve that close. But I'm convinced Bill might have three pairs of clothing and two of them are MK related. And I can respect that, Luke. Okay. All right. Not too far from what I'm doing these days. Not too far. And there is Bill and Jen and their adorable box inside the RV.

These people, follow them if you want to see some beautiful nature pics. A great, fine couple and followers of this show as well. So thank you, Bill and Jen, for all you have done. Luke, let's skip that. Okay, let's roll on. This is from at 8BitImaginations on Instagram. It's a Star Wars comic inspired by MK, Luke. Wait, are you? I'm Han MK, Luke. Wait, are you...

I'm Han Solo, sort of. What are you? I think I'm Princess Leia. And we're both on Tatooine, Luke. Your homeland of Doha. Yes, alright. That is... You know what? I appreciate the spirit of this, but it didn't quite work.

Yeah. Matt S. is here, and he says um the matt thomas family barbecue king of the hill style and not pictured as matt scrolling past bc's dms luke this is so for folks who may not know oh my god he's gonna get so fucking mad this is my brother this is my brother matt thomas not the most flattering pick and or photoshop cheese stuffed burgers for dinner what's that what's the other part say peace pipe for peace pipe for dessert luke this is great so you're telling me that mad ass whoever that is found a picture of your brother online and created this meme this is yeah that's my brother my brother as you can see

i have like as gray as i am my brother is only a year and a half older than me. Look how gray he is. I mean, it's almost 100. He's like Anderson Cooper gray. That is fucking. Dude, I've got to send that to him. That is so goddamn funny. Look, what are the odds we could get?

Rob Thomas never coming on this show, never watching the show. Could we ever get Matt Thomas on the show? Would he care? Would he be into it like a drinking episode where we tell old thomas stories anything uh possible i think that's not very not very easy to do but possible my dad is impossible like he would my dad would sooner would sooner disown me than do that yeah if your dad ever met ever met me, he'd be like, okay, where's my car? Here's the ticket. Here's the valet ticket. Yeah. No, sir.

I'm the co-host of your son's show. Yeah. Okay. Great. Luke, this is from Cam Newton with a K underscore underscore. Oh, we are skipping that one. Okay. Let's go on to the next one from Alan W.

With two movie posters. First is to Dana White, thanks for everything. Is this supposed to be to Wong Fu? Yeah, to Wong Fu, thanks for everything, Julie. Dude, that's a super 90s reference that our audience is not going to get. This is good, though. So when I saw Showgirls on first run, first showing, on a Friday night in Waterbury, Connecticut in the fall of 1995, Luke,

I told my parents that I went to see Too Wong Fu. And I remember coming back from that and my dad sort of interrogating me as I walked through the door, checking to see if I had been drinking or not. I had to, I remember feeling like he was like, so what movie you see? I was like, oh, we saw that Wesley Snipes Too Wong Fu thing. And I remember the disappointment in his face was so extreme that I was probably

better off being like, oh yeah, dude, we saw Showgirls. It was fantastic. Yeah. All right. So shout out to that. Jay Aaron in the car there.

Nice. He doesn't need to be in the trunk. Alan W's got one more and he says, back to the bomb shelter for this Back to the Future

Part 3 inspired COVID poster, Luke. Now that's pretty good. Post-COVID, they will finally go tip to tip to tip. CBS presents Back to the Bomb Shelter, a Jason Aaron film. Very well done there. I love that. Yeah, that means no one's going to watch it.

Jose A. is back with a Dead Wrong image, Luke. Everybody hates Dead Wrong, only on Mario Kart. uh jose a is back with a dead wrong image luke everybody hates dead wrong only by the way i meant to tell you this so you remember how last week's dead wrong someone was like oh you got the time of uh mf doom's death wrong it was uh you know you said it was new year's eve it was halloween they sent me a time stamp literally when I announced that MF Doom had died in it I said he passed around Halloween they announced it on New Year's Eve they keep trying to do me dirty on Dead Wrong and they keep failing BC why I don't understand yeah picture them riding dirty we picture that every week these this is a failed segment because the people have made it fail Luke all right uh Steve B is back with another one with uh tip to tip bros here Luke let's see what we got We picture that every week. This is a failed segment because the people have made it fail, Luke. All right.

Steve B is back with another one with tip-to-tip bros here, Luke. Let's see what we got going on here. Look, I didn't put this on Have You Seen This Shit? because people are sending me this picture like, if I get a picture sent to me 78 times, Luke, I'm like, okay, it's probably jumped the shark. But he's added a little bit of language there to make a meme out of it. Making Dana White angry.

I know that. All right. For you streamers out there, language there to make a meme out of it. Making Dana White angry. I know that. Alright, for you streamers out there, let's go on to Richard A. Luke. He was having some fun with the Reface app instead of six edits for, wow, he got six clips on this show? Who's editing this show?

The first is of the Addams Family. Is that you and me? That's Dana? That's you? That's Jon Jones. Good God. Okay. That was...

Richard's next is... Uncomfortable. Oh, God. Oh, God. Was that from, what, Staying Alive or something? No, the echo is killing me. Can you turn the sound off between clips because it's fucking killing us? Thank you. Dude, that was you at the bus stop.

The third is Luke Thomas here as Forrest Gump. I like how I get to be the mentally challenged of the two. Meanwhile, BC gets to be the guy who fucks. That's great. Next up is BC in Pulp Fiction, apparently. I mean, do you think that God came down from heaven and stopped... I don with a pulse. I don't mean disrespect, okay? I respect you. We happy. I can pull that off. You've been Travolta twice now.

Next up is Luke Thomas in this Pop star music video. Every character I look like looks like the ugliest version of themselves this is really not doing much for my self-esteem i have to tell you oh get ready for this richard a closes with bcs takashi 69 luke that fits far too naturally luke the my face on that body i don't i don't i don't know all right let's roll on because apparently we've got 4 000 of these luke um at joel at joel joggy on twitter he says he can't properly screw his mic stand in i don't believe a professional like bc could like BC could mess that up. You can squat, apparently. On a bar, Luke.

Is that going inside my... Oh, God. I didn't even notice that. Can we go to the next one? Yeah. All right. This is from the Combat Hour on Instagram. They made a meme of Canelo learning from the boys over at Morning Combat on the origins of the Clembuterol taco.

Don't buy the beef local, you don't. Not bad. Taco prep for dummies. Alright, I'm with it. Alright, Matt S. has a colonoscopy inspired meme for us. Oh, God. Yeah, no, please. Next slide, please.

Jose A. is back, taking into consideration Brian's love for women's strawweight fights and apparent hate for JMMA, don't worry. I'm aware it was a joke, BC, but I had to make this meme. Pretty good. Pretty good. Is that me on Drake's body, Luke? Yes, that's you on old Canada Dry.

All right, Kevin L. sliding in with two. First up, BC finishes reading the Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, Luke. That's a good ending, right? It's very happy ending. You've been working out, BC. Look at that shit. God damn. And second up is after the Ryzen controversy,

Brian decides to expand his cultural horizons with some authentic Asian cuisine, Luke. Dude, you would go to pf chang's and start like yeah with egg rolls in your hand fucking double gun pointing at everyone around there all right couple more to go here james has a night at the museum insurrection bc and lt storming the capital by the way if you notice the guy who you're supposed to be over there on the right holding the flag if you look below his right hand holding the flag that is his actual work badge this fucking idiot he worked in it or something this fucking idiot wore his work badge to the insurrection and they promptly fired his ass so look is your guy going tip to tip right there i think he's probably making

some white power thing who the fuck knows what these morons yikes all right uh the next one we got from at daydream comics they caught luke thomas protesting here at this uh uh well you know luke i mean you know it was the same city i know i haven't seen you and this guy at the same time in the same place right you think i'd be caught dead among those vermin without a mask no less come on now uh scott m rizzo a regular in these parts has two for us first up is luke getting caught enjoying nancy pelosi's office at the capitol i smeared feces on all the door handles for a left and the second up is uh bc uh found somewhere else on security cameras inside the old Capitol. You got this, Kev?

Oh, they arrested that fuck, too. That was great. That's Nancy Pelosi's lectern. Luke, we close with dickles, and he's got two of them. First up, an MK remix of Army of the Pharaohs, Heavy Lies the Crown. And he says, if possible, pass this message along to Luke. See if he catches the song references from the album. Heavy Lies the Crown, when you sit upon the throne of MMA media,

the hate and the blame for delivering the facts, can make you feel like you've been fed to the lions this is the king's curse conjure the legions of donks and ready the war machine that is morning that is that is uh so this is the uh as you can see heavy lies the crown is the album from army of the pharaohs which he has reinterpreted and all those song titles are from the album that is uh that is good work that is good work and finally dick calls it has uh brian reviews the interview let's let's let's check this out all right back to your husband's naked body for a second you know as husbands and wives do we're

just naked and walking around our house doing our thing and um and i got to the garage and he's doing pull-ups like butt naked i was like i have an idea and so i got our tripod out and took you know we staged that photo No, no, no, Luke, no. What is your favorite video on RedTube? No, no, no. Thank you very much. Those are great. Those are great.

They did a great job with those, as they always do. Well done, peeps. We do have to wrap early today because we've got some big interviews this week, Luke. I'm looking forward to them, getting people fired up for all things UFC on MK. We certainly do. Just a couple of housekeeping notes, as always. If you want to follow us on social media, lots of different ways to do it.

We are on Twitter, we are on Instagram. Our names differ there a little bit, but it's consistently Morning Combat, as you can see there on the screen, all the way through. So please give us a follow. You want to turn in a morning submission or something for Dead Wrong, provided it is even remotely accurate, one place to do that,

morningcombat at gmail.com is the email. Of course, Showtime is the label that pays us. So go to showtime.com for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go to something else in your life. And of course, all that merch that you saw on the fan submissions is available at store.show.com. Any parting thoughts, BC?

You know, wear your masks. I want to be back at fights. I want fights to have big crowds, Luke. Can we stop going out to the bar in Florida? Can we beat this thing, Luke? No? Maybe? Maybe? Maybe.

All right, well, with that in mind, let's do this. For BC, for Malka, Showtime, CBS Sports, and everybody else, we'll be back Friday with a preview of UFC and ABC1. And until next time, wear your mask, donks, and may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.