MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Paddy Pimblett wants Ilia Topuria Next, UFC P4Ps, Jake Paul Ranked?

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

In a special Thursday edition of MK, the fellas have a loaded show. Who is next for Ilia Topuria sweepstakes? Ilia Topuria moved to the top spot in the UFC P4P rankings, But if Islam Makhachev defeats Jack Della Maddalena, doesn't he move back into that spot? Switching into boxing, after his victory over Julio Caesar Chavez, Jr., Jake Paul has been ranked no. 14 in the cruiserweight division by the World Boxing Association (WBA). Asked simply, should Paul have been ranked by WBA? Finally, there's been an update in the appeals portion of the Conor McGregor civil trial. The guys react to the latest bit of news.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Oh Yeah, oh yeah right is Friday it's a holiday you ain got shit to do. You might as well turn into the best damn combat sports show. They still got left. It's called morning combat. It's right in your face hole. And my name is Brian Campbell, suburban Connecticut's own. And the man next to me is either frozen or he's just mouth breathing. He's from DC. His name is Luke Thomas. It's Friday. I'm sorry. It's not even Friday. Yeah, I would say it's not Friday. You said it twice. It's only Thursday, Thursday, July 3rd, right? But happy fourth to all of you. Welcome into the MK Luke Thomas. Um, what,

what do you have to say for yourself? People thought we started the show late because you were commoting it. Is that a true fact? Well, not in this particular case. I can just say whether it's UBC, whether it's my wife, whether it's half the fan base, today is always a good day for me to piss off somebody. I hope not, but you never know what kind of hornets nest I'm going to walk into. But I will tell you, you know, as you can see, we'll talk about in just a second. You got something on, I got something on. And hey, it's 4th of July weekend, dude. I got to tell you, don't you agree? Three day weekends, that's what life's all about. Is it not three day weekends?

I worked every single day in June, I'm not asking for a medal. I am just saying it's nice to have a three day weekend after all of that, I'm looking forward to it. Agreed, agreed. No fights of major no. Jack Caterall's back in the box in the UK, but it is about America, it's about turning that grill on, cracking a cold one.

You know what I'm saying? Maybe even lifting weights in your front yard. Just get out there, enjoy it. Let off a firecracker in your hand. You don't need all 10 fingers, all right? That's how we do it here in this country. Welcome on in, fantastic show today. Let's, oh, first of all, like and subscribe.

Follow us on our social channels channels our extended YouTube channels as well Where you find very much MK friendly content? I will introduce our third member of the team in a second, but first big announcement today. It's July It's here and morning combat dot shop is on fire once again. Eight new items have been added to the store, including four that are only available for the month of July. The technical thriller t-shirt, the three margarita shirt,

and both the autographed and non-autographed Lucia posters are only available for the month of July or while supplies last. Do not miss your chance to grab these instant classics that will not be here the entire month. Head on over to morning combat dot shop right now. Pick your color, pick your size, pick your asshole, whatever you got to do. Shout out to average Joe Art the fantastic artist behind these two designs right here. You know, my favorite

type of fights, technical thrillers. Is this, is this me as Michael Jackson wearing the one love hat? That's just brilliant right there in the thriller video and Luke, I didn't never land ranch. Thank God. Uh, I never found McCauley attractive to be honest. Oh, Luke, you are wearing the three margaritas Sesame Street inspired art piece right there. Indeed that's right. Again, as you indicated, Average Joe Art lacing us again with some brilliance and you know the place to get it. MorningCombat.shop. Like you said, BC, they're

here now, but like the McRib, yes, they ain't going to be here for very long. At all. So go onto that website, morning combat dot shop. Also the, the regular old favorites are there, but these exclusive designs brought to you by average Joe art won't last. So get there right now and let's introduce the third member of our team. And really the muscle behind this fantastic merch site, all the proceeds go to the three of us. It's Australia's own, or at least his dad was, Long Island's own. The main card man, it's

Luke Nocita in the house. LIL, brother. I am a dual citizen. I do associate with the Aussies. All right. I got both passports. You're a dual citizen? Yeah, bro. Been for, since I was like 10 years old. If I dropped an Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, you would? I'd be like, oy, oy, then first was like 10 years old if I dropped an Aussie Aussie Aussie you would I'd be like, oh Pass the sugar remember when Joseph Hatcham said that at the World Series of poker am I the only one? Yeah, I think you're the only one. I think he was talking about the IE. Yeah Yeah, a long island. Could you say something to to the people about our merch site?

I mean, we just received the first check. We're doing a great job. And that's all because the people are out there supporting us. And we really appreciate that. Yeah, really appreciate everyone who supported the drops. I'm most hyped for these drops this year. I love both the shirts. It's been hard not to wear them the last week or two. I'm not rocking it today because I knew you guys would both be wearing them. But loving them both. Got the technical thriller in black, three margaritas and white. We also got the three Margaritas pint glass, which I didn't order yet. I think I got that because that just seems like I got to get that one. Yeah. Yeah. I got one, two, three Margaritas. Right. Look. Yeah. Hey, how about this? Cousy right here? Can

we get this on morning combat? I think I threw it in the trash. We predicted you would. We actually predicted it. No, no, I haven't. We predicted you would. We actually predicted it would come. No, no, I haven't. I haven't. Yeah, right. So check out. It's in my drawer next to all my mugs. Yeah, I have. Okay, you're a nice person.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Stop talking. Shut out to Luke Nocita. Luke, do you want to share any 4th of July plans or you're not really into that? Well, you know, we live in DC. It's always a dilemma, right?

So, I mean, the good news here is I don't know how you feel about fireworks, but they're legal here. So you can just go down and buy, you know, fucking grenades and like that the Baccarra market, you can just go by heavy artillery and mortars and claymores. That's one option you can do. The other option is you can go down to the mall and you can watch them there. But the problem with that is bro, first of all, I got a kid's party at 1pm on Saturday. Second thing is, dude, like, there are a bunch of places in the city,

both in Maryland, Virginia, and DC, like, we're on, you know, different, different spots, where like, it's amazing to watch the fireworks, but you gotta, you gotta be there all day. Like that's a commitment from the morning until the night, you just gotta be there. I don't know if I want to do that. So I'm trying to figure it out. You don't have to do that, Luke. There's other options on the fourth. I'm just going to go by the, I'm going to go to Baccarat Market and just buy

grenades and set those off, I guess. I think you should just go to the Capitol steps, right? Just ring in another. You can't, you can't get close to it? You can go to the Supreme Court steps. That's what you can do, but you can't go to the Capitol. It's all blocked off. Is that because of Pat Miltage? I don't think, I don't think it's, I don't think he's the only reason. He might be one of them. I don't think he actually smeared feces on Pelosi's desk, but I think he would have a look. No, they end up setting up a huge apparatus there and there's like a band that plays.

It's a whole thing, but you can go to the National Mall. You can go in that grassy area. But again, dude, you gotta be there like all day to get the right seat. I don't know if I want to do all that. Yeah, don't do that. You're gonna get angry and we don't, they won't like it when you're angry. True or false, we will be back in the studio this Monday. July 7th, 6th,, seventh. I can't really. Uh eighth. One of

those days. Monday. 11 AM Eastern. Whatever. We'll be back in the studio July seventh. So, check us out there. Uh nothing really going on this weekend. So, uh why don't we get into the topics that we do have? This is 911 like for everyone's dogs, right? Like every, yes, yes. Dude, this is going to be my first July 4th in 15 years that I haven't had a dog. All right, Peter's a great bro. Great one. It does. It does. It does. My wife's little dog, Sasha, the she has three of I

think the three happiest dog has three of, I think the three happiest dog brands are all inside of her Luke and, uh, the only thing she scared of in life are, uh, are as fireworks. So, um, somebody's going to have to hold her tight, but why don't we get into our new cycle, uh, the fallout from Amelia Tupori is big time when we got Connor McGregor in the police blotter again. Uh, we got all that and then some tall, pale and handsome. Let's do it. It's MK right frickin' now. Topic number one. Who in fact is next for Ilya Tuporiya? Just days removed from his breakthrough. UF 317 first round knockout of Charles Oliveira to become the 10th to division champion in UFC history, the first doing so while unbeaten at 17 and 0.

The sweepstakes to find out his next opponent have begun. Yes, we did see Patty Pimlet face off in the cage, whether that was Joe Rogan's doing or not, but let's examine each of the cases for the top two contenders. Luke Thomas, there was, tell me if I'm wrong here, cause I think I fell, I got MMA sent held again. Are we saying that that internet rumor that DDP was saying that the co-main event of USC 319 will be Patty Pimblitt versus Justin Gagey?

For the record, that's false. Correct? So yes. And well, okay. Here's what actually happened to the best of my understanding. To the best of my understanding. I'd actually, I saw the video, there is a video of DDP doing some kind of, I think he's like a car dealership

or he's in some kind of a garage near cars, and he actually says, hey, the co-main event for the card that I'm headlining against Hamzat is going to be Patty versus Justin Gaethje. And my sense is that they probably at some point, the UFC was targeting that, maybe there were initial discussions. But dude, that's not far away at this point. I mean, that's like what, six, seven weeks at most?

You know, if that's going to be the co-main event, like it's a little late in the day to get that going, especially for Patty and like his need to make weight. So there is a real basis for it, but Patty has come out and said that like, yeah, I'm not fighting on, he didn't say I'm not fighting at UFC 318, 318, no, 319.

Yeah, he said I'm not fighting at 319, but basically indicated like, yeah, I'm not making that kind of a turnaround. It's not really possible. So it doesn't seem likely at this point. Okay, well we certainly feel like we have three big time contestants in this sweepstakes at the top of the 155 pound division from the upstart, Patty Pimlet, fresh off the destruction of Michael Chandler, even though he may not have the amount of elite still in their prime

wins to compare. He certainly has big time marketing behind him. We also have the all action former interim title holder and BMF champion, Justin Gaethje. And how about the number one contender, the guy who just weighed in as the backup at UFC 317, the Armenian Hulk, Arman Sarukian. Luke, let's go through their cases one by one.

We're gonna start off with Patty Pimlet, but first we're gonna listen to a little bit of sound because Patty Pimlet stopped by. What is the name of Eric Nixik in Snapchat Randy's new podcast? Do you know verse us? Verse us you are on that they've invited me in the past We haven't been able to make it yet, but a fantastic piece of footage there We have Patty Pimblit who not only wants Ilya he's out there slinging shots. In fact shots Were fired Once Ilya, he's out there slinging shots. In fact, shots were fired.

The segment of shots fired is of course brought to you by Cuervo. Now is a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila. Let's listen in on Paddy talking about what went down Saturday with Ilya Tupori. I think It's the only fight to me. I mean, it's we haven't seen two people genuinely dislike each other since Conor Khabib Really? Everyone's always dead cordial and all right where I hate him. I Absolutely hate him. Like I I to inflict pain on his life. I'd like that fight to go four minutes, 50 seconds

into the fifth round, and I've landed 907 elbows. And I've disfigured his face. I don't want a quick knockout. I want to put him through pain. Jesus Christ. Wow, Luke, that was interesting. I'd like to get your reaction to that. And really the case here for Patty as the next opponent. So we got more Patty audio, which I think will add to some of the case that I think he and his coach are making.

I'll save it till we get to it. But dude, he's right. I mean, he's right. He's right. Like he's right. We haven't seen a real nasty rivalry. And you know, again, I'm sure part of it is manufactured. We saw them on stage at a weigh in recently, right? Kind of, you know, dapping up. And of course, there was no need for animosity. There wasn't about either of them. And so they were actually professional. Yeah, but kayfabe only guys. Come on, please. Well, I mean, I don't mind if they're not, you know, there's enough historical beef between.

Do you remember the time that they had to be separated back when Tupori was like a featherweight? Yeah. And yeah, like so like and and and honestly, Patty's saying like there's an old tweet of him saying he understands why the Georgians were I don't know if conquered or colonized was the word but essentially taken over by the Russians, you know that can't That probably is not gonna serve his interest. I'm just pointing out to say I'm not trying to mine, you know extraordinary grief and Terrible situations, but if we're just asking like, you know What the fight game prefers a guy in his 20s with a big mouth who's on a nice win streak, definitely a nice win streak, and has history with a guy to

champ and the champ you know let's be honest as I said I think all of us agree you know Ilya is either number one number two pound for pound like there's really not much of a question anymore about his ability but there is there are some you know lagging audiences to come around or at a bare minimum just a lot of people who don't know who he is yet. I fight with Patty could do a lot to raise the profile. I gotta tell you, I think Patty's case, I'm not saying it's the best one BC, but there's definitely a lot of good logic to it. And I don't really think that's very debatable. I mean, first and foremost, from the standpoint of pro wrestling style matchmaking and which, you know, if some people criticize a lot, but it's like,

I always have to remind you UFC was built upon pro wrestling style matchmaking. The very best combat sports promotion is often pro wrestling style. And we had that when they allowed them to go face to face, even if that pissed off Dana white, um, it gives you, it gives you some fields. It builds upon things to come So there's certainly a lot of heat there which would make this make very much sense So that was of course those comments shots fired brought to you by Cuervo and look before we get deeper on Patty here Just a reminder to folks that UFC 318 is right around the corner Saturday, July 19th

And we will of course be having a pregame preview ahead of UFC 318. What was the date we circled on the calendar for that? Do you remember? It was the Wednesday before, so I don't remember the date. Okay, so that is the 16th. 16th. That is Wednesday, July 16th.

Your normal Friday episode will come on that Wednesday, pregame preview 318, brought to you by Cuerv Cuervo and Luke our special guest as a third man. They've seen them before they've smelt him coming. Yeah, we're talking about Jed Meshew the second of MMA fighting. So let's have and go okay. Listen, if I ever if I end up getting deported to a torture dungeon in El Salvador, he's gonna be my lawyer which means I'm gonna end up staying in a torture dungeon in El Salvador cuz better call y'all ain't free and shit, but he's

got some decent MMA takes. So we're going to bring him back. He's not afraid to get after that tequila during the show. All right. Let's get back to Patty. You mentioned there's some talk here, which from him, from his coach about different things that will further explain why he could be a really good choice, not just marketing wise and-wise, but inside the cage.

First, we have Paddy on Olivera's game plan and why it went wrong this past weekend at UFC 317. I really liked Charles, but what the fuck was that game plan, lad? You know what I mean? Stand in front of him and get punched in the face. First 20 seconds, he did a little bit, teeped him, leg kicked,

and I was thinking, oh, we could be in for a tough night for Topori, and then Fiala's got hit once and just started swinging with him. But when he was walking outside the turn to get him and say, he looked nervous. And when Ilya walked out, he was just smiling. I don't know what, as I say, I'd love to know what their game plan was, because that was just, like, it was half embarrassing.

What are you doing just standing in the middle and swinging punches with him when he's a top class boxer And he's got power. It's just it blew my mind that I was stupid He could be after there was his 47th profile. Yeah, and he was going in there like an amateur Luke that's an interesting comment because on one hand he had success early with that pressure style on that same hand He had success early with that pressure style on that same hand. This is what he does. This is what he's known for. Did we say coming in that he can't be as reckless as normal, not against this

opponent? Yeah, we did. He ultimately found it out. But do you think that some of the things that transpired, particularly that reversal from Elia to get top position when he had already opened the cut on Charles Olivera and he's landed in that top game that that can certainly change your strategy in the midst of battle. Yeah, no question about it. I mean, to me, I think two things about Patty's comments about Charles. On the one hand, there's part of what he's saying is correct that the way in which he fought probably ushered his demise a little bit quicker than other ways to do it.

But the problem with that argument is that that's just not the way Charles fights. Like, Charles fights a certain way and that yields certain results positively and it yields certain results negatively depending on the context or the opponent. More often than not, it yields, obviously, stunning results. But against a guy like this, it's just not going to go well. That's not to say there couldn't be a couple of things he could have done differently, but you know, it's one of those things where like, I remember Connor after icing Jose Aldo, do you remember what he said? He was like, listen, you know, people are going to say that like, Oh, I beat

him so quickly and you know, what would happen if he had not been knocked out? What has survived and kept going? He's like, he wouldn't have been able to take the shots. Like eventually he would have just gone down. And you know, whether that's true or not against Connor and Aldo, it was a reasonable thing to think. And it's a reasonable thing to say. And that's kind of what I would have said here too.

Yeah, Charles could have fought a little bit longer range. He could have done things to preserve how long that fight goes. But the inevitability was gonna happen one way or the other. That's just one thing I just don't think some of these people fully appreciate. Secondly, what I'm going to say is about Patty. The one thing I do think is actually pretty interesting.

And I know we have audio from his coach to this effect. One thing that I think is really going to help Patty is a lot of the things that Patty does well are things that Charles could also do well, not to say that their games are the same. I'm just saying good at the back, good at the back. Some decent leg kicking, some decent leg kicking, right? There are some things in height advantage, height advantage, right?

Reach and reach. There's a couple of things you can look at and be like, I can definitely learn. Them looking at Charles and being like, okay, that's not the way to fight Patty, excuse me, that's not the way to fight Ilya, I actually think will help them. You can argue that they're being too dismissive of Charles,

and I think that in many ways that they are. On the other hand, having watched what happened to Charles and understanding some things that they're going to want to do, looking at this and coming up with a game plan that allows them to have more longevity, I think may make the fight go a little bit longer than some expect. Because I know Ilya thinks, oh, I'm just going to go in there and touch his chin,

and he's going to explode, and that's all it's going to be. And I have a feeling that Patty is going to be a little bit longer than some expect because I know Ilya thinks, Oh, I'm just going to go in there and touch his chin. And he's going to explode and that's what all it's going to be. And I have a feeling that Patty is going to be a little bit craftier about it. Another reason BC that actually felt like his case is kind of interesting. You had a guy who fights the way he likes to fight or Doug and does certain things he likes to do and made a bunch of fought in a way that, you know, didn't really get a chance to showcase a lot of it. They're going to learn from that. They're going to adapt. Yeah. I mean, in some ways he's right.

Charles squared up against, at close range against Deporia, got his guard split with a heavy jab that stung him, and then that set up that beautiful two punch combination that got him out of there. But unfortunately, Charles kind of does that too with everybody, cause he creates his own chaos. He normally thrives within it

This was just the wrong technician to do that against who can get you out of there Look before we hear from the coach of patty here. I just wanted to ask you who do you think? I think this is a viable topic because there are a lot of people on twitter going damn Look at the path of destruction. Elia just had And then look at the fact that j Emmett lasted 25 minutes with him. And then you got other people going, yeah, it's one thing to last 25 minutes. It's another thing to have success against him,

which Emmett really didn't. Who do you think had the best success against Elia Toporia in the UFC up to this point? Is it wrong to say Max Holloway until that fight ended? I mean, you could say Jai Herbert. Jai Herbert rocked him. You could say Yusef Zallal because Topori had to chase down takedowns and had to go the full distance in order for that fight to go the way it went.

You could argue Max because Max landed. It's weird. Ilya says Volk was his hardest fight. Well, he did lose the first round on all three judges score cards against Volk. It wasn't some route or something, but yes, Volk is. Volk's very good. I mean, right, but it's more elusive technical, but like Max was standing in there and landed some serious stuff. Max got a great jab, which we

all knew, you know, Max touched him up like look at look at the look at his face. Dude, there's a video of toporia at home with his daughter yesterday. It's a very wholesome video, but the point I'm look at look at the look at his face dude There's a video of toporia at home with his daughter yesterday It's a very wholesome video But the point i'm making is you look at his face You would never have known he was in an mma fight a few days ago Whereas after that fight with max he was he was banged up a little bit. Um for sure. So But the answer is like, you know, who did the best against ilia?

It's like I don't know who like who survived the most against a destructive hurricane like nobody Josh haven't survived the most right? He survived the most against a destructive hurricane like nobody. Josh Emmett survived the most. Right? He survived the most but that's like you get a 50-42 scorecard. Yeah right right I know it's like so you you know he got the extra CTE for no reason on there but I understand it. Let's hear from Patty's coach. What is Patty's coach's name in this case Luke? I forget I'd have to look it up. All right let's hear from some guy who represents Patty. All right, let's go. If we were off of the two fights of Ilya and Khabib, I would be more worried about the Khabib fight than the Ilya fight. If you guys were getting ready for Islam, for example, rather than getting ready for Ilya, you'd be more concerned for Islam? I'd be more concerned for the Islam fight, to be honest with you, yeah, you know what I mean? Islam, for me, is the guy in the division, the undefeated guy in the division.

Can you sort of shed some light? Why is that? What is it about Islam that sort of you believe makes him a harder challenge? His experience in the division, to be honest with you, fighting a lot more lightweights, I would say. His experience in the division, to be honest with you, fighting a lot more lightweights, I would say. He is, undeniably, the best lightweight in the world, Islam. Luke, that was coach Paul Rimmer, and he was on, of course, submission radio with our great friend, the Ukrainian-Australian behemoth

known as Dennis. What's his last name, Luke? I can't pronounce it. It's Ukrainian. Actually, I'm not sure There you go. There you go. Look. What do you make of what they're saying here that they'd be more nervous Going in there against my Hachem than they would to poria It's not like that's an unfair thing to say if you want to make the case that you still believe that Ilya is not As good as Islam or that Islam presents potentially a wider array of threats, particularly in the kind that you know, whatever vulnerabilities they have to what extent that Islam

uniquely matches up with that. Is that some crime to say I don't think it's a crime to say, but BC hearing these guys talk, and how dismissive they are over Ilja. Like, are we thinking that he just beat Volk, Max and Charles because he got lucky three times in a row or not in the same way he got lucky but that you know, oh, you got him you got you got you got Volk off of Islam, you got Max at you know, whatever stage of his career he's at and you got Charles in a similar kind of way. I'm not that guy. Okay,

you're in your 20s, or. He's pretty close to it. I mean, I get that that's different, but like they're just they're just vastly underestimating him. And I gotta say I Another reason I want to see this fight, I desperately want to see it because I think if you if you go into a fight with Ilya Toporya with this kind of attitude, it's going to go super fucking bad for you. So I would agree with you on that. What do you make of the people who are very quick? Okay. If I was going to say very quick to dismiss Patty's chances, look, everybody's going to dismiss Patty's chances. We're almost all going to expect that he will get finished here, but it's going to obviously be up to him to overachieve, not only not get finished,

but you know, when the fight. But when we start looking at Jared Gordon highlights of that fight that Patty should have lost the decision and he was getting lit up, is it as easy to say that was the old him? And if you look at the more recent run, the Bobby King, I'm sorry, the King Green finish, the destruction of Chandler, that that's really who he has evolved into. destruction of Chandler, that that's really who he has evolved into. Well, I saw Jack Slack refer to him as the British Buckley, where he's just on an unk defeating tour. And then he went up against someone who's still kind of an unk, but maybe had a little bit more than we thought. We've been over this against Usman and he was left wanting, you know, it's like the losing streak of the last three opponents, Patty B is, is not inspiring when you, when you add them together.

Yeah. But then again, but then again, this is the point I made in defensive Patty, cause I do think there's just, there's just no way to look at that and think he hasn't gotten better. He clearly has gotten better. Very good as a matter of fact. But the other point I would say is the way in which he dispatched them. I mean, I think we have a clip here where they talk about, you know, they saw

how Charles Olivera fought Michael Chandler and some of the things he did right, but some of the things he did wrong. And they wanted to fix those things, and they thought that their performance against him was evidence of that. Like they, this is what I mean about watching Charles and seeing like, oh, kind of, again, they don't, you can't look at Charles, look at Patty and think, same fighter, you wouldn't do that. But there's enough overlap between their game where I could see why the coaches would want to look at Charles, what went right, what went wrong, and what they could pick up from that and then make the adjustments. And then we all saw what happened with Patty versus Chandler. Dude, Chandler, that was the first time in my life

wherever it was like, dude, he looks old. Like Patty made him look old. So- Patty also looked a different level of confident, dominant, nasty in a sense. True. 100% true. 100% true. I'm just saying what I think is interesting about Patty and his team is that they are underestimating Toporia, but I also think it is true that people are still underestimating Patty and how smart his team are. and to me that makes this whole thing kind of fun actually

Alright, I don't think we have that video you reference by the way It's not in no not in the rundown But I want to ask you as we close up the talk on Patty in this discussion of the three big Candidate names and I'm not saying four because I got enough DMS from people that love me and the show saying Stop bringing up Connor McGregor's name We freaking hate that that that absolute loser and handler Luke and maybe today's update on his news will confirm that. I want to ask you this question. Do you think Patty would have the worst odds of the three against Emporia?

Okay, so the choices are Gagey, Saryukian and Patty who have the worst. No, I think Gagey would have the worst. Okay, okay. That is interesting. I think I think Saryukian would Patty who have the word? No, I think Gagee would have the worst. Okay. Okay. That is I think I think Sarukian would have the best relatively speaking obviously, right? Patty would be kind of in the middle and then I think Gagee would be Gagee's path to victory is slim Patty's is real Yeah, all right. Well, let's go over to Arman Sarukian who had his opportunity For the title against Islam Mahachev pulled out of course just before we were told it was an illness.

We wondered if it was related to the weight miss. Then you had Dana White saying it was just a weight miss and really sounding still angry at Arman Sarukian for missing his moment. And then you had Arman going on aerial yesterday and being like, no, it wasn't a weight miss. It was more of the former. But Luke, if you're ill trying to cut weight and you can't finish the job, then that is a weight miss, right? It's the same thing that got Nico Montano to trip.

I feel like a weight miss can be, okay, so it is a little bit of a, I'm actually glad you brought this up because I do think it's an interesting debate. The clearest example of a weight miss is if I get on the scale and I'm five pounds over, right? That's a miss. That's a clear miss. Everyone would agree. I think most people would also agree, BC.

For example, the last time I was, well, when I tried to cover, I think the second attempt at making Habib versus Tony, this was on the card where 207-209, something like that, where Woodley fought Wonder Boy. This was in Vegas. It was 209, yeah. Yeah. So Habib had a terrible weight cut and couldn't even make it to the weigh-ins. I would also consider that a weight miss. Just like, by the way, same thing happened to Nunes in the in the initial offering of the chef Chenko rematch Which then Dana said she'll never main event again because she couldn't make that I thought that was sinusitis. I

Thought it was an illness related to the weight cut I guess we'll have to go back and look well that could be related But I know in the end she was diagnosed with sinusitis Which is it can fuck you up But yeah one time to make is but is it a weight miss If yes, you don't make it to the weigh ins, but I'm going to I'm going to, I'm going to propose something because you rolled your ankle or you tweaked your back or you hurt your neck. Is that a weight miss? I, to me, that doesn't meet the spirit of it. The spirit of it should be you

didn't have your ducks in a row as it relates to the weight cut, not an injury prevented you from actually doing the weight cut or proceeding with the bout itself. To me, those are different. But don't forget, Daniel Cormier almost pulled out of UFC 230 after he sneezed too hard and pulled out his back in New York. And don't forget the first steep fight when he tripped getting up off of the day as from the press conference. But, uh, speaking of the great DC, he spoke with Armin Sarayuki. And so let's get into this on who Armin wants next in a spoiler alert. I bet you can guess.

I'm going to strike him. I'm going to kick him. I watched his first fight and he was wrestling a little bit. He got tired so much and he never never fought with wrestlers like me. Bruce Mitchell, what's his name? Bruce? Bruce? Bryce Mitchell, Bryce Mitchell.

Bryce Mitchell, he's the worst fighter in 145. He took him down and like hold him from the crazy position. I can tell he's not high level. I mean, it's not double, double. I can't wait to show everybody. You said Bryce Mitchell's the worst fighter at 145 I mean, I mean he's I mean, do you watch his fights? Did I've watched it fight his kicks like he thinks he's kicking the ball I think like soccer like soccer. Yeah

I'll send to put it back to top 15 pound for pound. For me, it's easier to fight Tapuya than Oliver. And then you can like, just go like thousand times to take him down because he's not gonna try to choke you or something, you know? Well, that Bryce Mitchell fight that you were speaking about, he won that fight by submission. Armen.

I know. submission. Armin? Armin. Bruce Mitchell also said afterwards that he was going to retire, Luke, because of the beating he took in that fight. So what do you make of a few things? One, Armin's sort of weird deadpan robot voice. Two, it looks like one of his eyes is loose and turned four.

I don't want to go full on Tevin Farmer with this, but, I'll take that back. What'd you make of that, Luke? Sorry, I thought we had fun on this show. I didn't realize things got serious. I mean, I could do the Kite Car Friends bit to ice break it if you want, alright. Wow, I didn't know we were going there with the notorious B.I.G. jokes. Okay, alright. Here's the difference for me. Obviously, the case for Patty is that it would be funner. It would be like drama involved and that Patty could surprise you and that Patty might in fact surprise you right? That's the case. That's why you do that fight. The Saryuki and fight to me has a very different case

because there's really not much manufactured beef between them and obviously Armin is working outside of his first language. It's just going to be very difficult for him. However, what he has going for him is that the meritocratic case, not that he has earned it, although you could make that case too, but that the threat he poses is the realest threat. And honestly, I don't even know how you could argue with that. There are limits to Armand's game. We've seen them, but Toporia against a guy who is going to be naturally bigger than him, maybe naturally stronger, although that really remains to be seen, but certainly can wrestle him for long periods of time whose game is limited,

but relentless in that regard. That's the difference. It's unrelenting wrestling pressure. Did I've just not seen to poria have to answer to somebody like that? Volk and Max are great strikers. Charles is you know, well rounded, but obviously wrestling is not the number one thing that he does. This is a new different real kind of threat. So for that reason, this fight to me is also perfectly acceptable for Ilya to pora in his first title defense. Dude, it's the one I want from a competition and obviously a meritocratic.

I think I nailed that. I also, by the way, have uneven eyes, Luke. So maybe I'm, you know, maybe- Yeah, I was about to say, Egg Shen, when you eat, I've seen what happens to your eye. I mean, so maybe, you know, maybe Jandroba and I are allowed to make those type of jokes, Luke, right? To be honest, right? You know what I'm saying?

It's sort of like, you can't make fun of my family, but I can. All right, anyway, back to this. Look, if you're trying to, Bill, if you're trying to take the quickest path to make Toporia literally a household name, and I have to wonder, Luke, I think a lot of us have the same story.

Since Elia won the title this past weekend, there's been people coming out of the woodwork talking about him that you never expected. My kids came home from school and were like, yeah, we're talking to our best friend. And they wanted me to ask you what you thought of that Toporia knockout. I'm like, okay, that's cool, that's cool.

I mean, it certainly was a giant moment. If you want to double down on that, you make the Patty fight, but the best matchup of this three is undoubtedly Sarukian. He's also the most deserving. I'd love to see what that physicality in this division, uh, what type of challenge that is for Ilya, because we still don't really know his power carried up his skill and delivery did but what about the physicality? What about when he's in there with

somebody who could potentially manhandle him? I'd love to see this Luke. I really would. I love this fight II would be more I'd be equally hyped for either fight, but I'd be more worried about the Saryukyan fight because of what the real threat that he poses. But the Patty fight, as I mentioned, just has jubilation or not jubilation, I should say, but what makes the drama that makes the fight game fun, just written all over it. So the question you have to ask yourself is which way is the UFC going to go?

It's weird, right? We see, Oh, Gachi says he might retire. Dana's like, well, then you might want to retire. So that's that one. Are you, John Jones said he might retire. Habib said he might retire. Dana's like, I didn't mean it for those two. Okay.

Yeah. Fuck those guys. You know, but then, okay. So, so they're like dismissing him. Then Saryuki like fills in for, you know, to be, to be the backup and cuts weight and makes it just fine. And then he's like, yeah, he's got, he's got some work to do to get back up here. Like, all right, he's out.

So they must be Patty. Then they bring Patty in the cage and Dan's like, I don't know who approved this. Well then who the fuck is it? Like, I mean, if it's not, you already said you're not going to make the Islam fight, so like, well, that lady, this lady on the post fight pod UFC podcast seemed to really be pushing Justin Gaethje. So Luke, why don't you think that she got marching orders for that? I wonder. I wonder. I don't know if it was direct marching orders. Like go push that into the lecture. Yeah. But I'm going to guess it was suggested before. But before

we get into Gaethje and his, uh, his chances here, we do have one more clip from Sarukin that's very topical. In fact, it's on how he would fight Ilya. I wanna see this, let's go. I'm just can't wait to go there and to show like who's the Arman Sarukin and why I'm number one contender and that they are gonna be a world champion. So it's not just the wrestling,

it's a I'm a well rounded fighter and I'm not gonna just try to wrestle him I'm gonna strike him I'm gonna kick him I'm gonna up kick him and you know and like try to do but yeah I'm not gonna try to box him I'm gonna try to do like a real MMA fight to show him wrestling to punch him to punch him wrestling to show him wrestling to kick him in on like clinch work. Yeah, I'd like to see some clinch work. I'd like to see that physicality and that lady in question I'm told is Mackenzie Pavovich the the recent hire for the UFC. So there you go. You see, can I give you a bit of absolutely small time but very cool breaking news? Is this about Molly Meatball signing with Metron Boxing?

No, no, no, no. I just got a... I told my wife to stop texting me during the show but she texted me. Yes. And she showed me video proof. For the first time in her life, Big Tookie rode a bicycle, no training wheels, everybody. Big Tukey, no training wheels. How about that? How? Yes. So freaking proud of her. There we go. Sorry about that. I just had to say something. There was a moment. Big moment there. Tukey's well done. Appreciate that. What age is she at? She about six

now? She was a phrase. I fucked it up because I got her one of the glide bikes or the where they had the low center of gravity, but no pedals. And then I stupidly in her next bike, I got one with training wheels, which just put her all the way back. So we had to undo the bad habits, but we did it. We got it. She's there. Indeed.

Indeed. All right. That closes out the Tsurugi inside of it. Luke, I know that Justin Gaethje is the fighter of the three. We would probably least want, but can you put on your hat and make an argument for him? What is the argument for him? Do you think his legendary name alone and the fact that he did head kick

Poirier in a BMF title win and he beat Fizeef twice in recent memory Is that enough to be in this discussion to possibly even be getting the title shot? enough to be in this discussion to possibly even be getting the title shot? I think there's a few things you could say. I would say first, if you wanted to, you could argue this guy doesn't have much time left, you know, obviously if to Poria beats him, that's still going to be good for building up to Poria. So, you know, you still have a, uh, a, a way of transferring star power, legitimacy, you know, something from the old guard to the new guard,

even though obviously Toporia is now, you know, path found number one according to the UFC rankings. But still there is a transference there that would happen. Also, it would not be a bad fight. Like it's just hard to imagine. I mean, Gachey doesn't have bad fights, right? And Toporia, I guess you could say with some of his earlier ones weren't super awesome,

but for the most part, he doesn't have bad fights either. So you could rely on that. And also there's some danger to toporia. We know Gachi is a devastating striker, a big puncher. You know, you would have to take that seriously, but it's just hard to make the case that you could really convince someone that the guy that max Holloway put face down and you know, um, from, from 45, like that, that to poor you couldn't get past him and just feel, I mean, you're playing MMA math, I like that, that Toporia couldn't get past him. It just feels, I mean you're playing MMA math,

I understand that, but it's just something you're gonna have to, from a perception standpoint, overcome. Also, the other problem is, if you give Gachie the title shot, I mean, Toporia could win it, but maybe get injured and now he's out for a little while. And so what do you do with Saryuki and what do you do with Pemblit?

Like giving one of them a title shot kinda of keeps the queue moving in the healthiest normal way possible because even like, Gachi, how much time does he have? Is Gachi going to be in the sport as a competitor in 2027? I'm not even sure if he's going to be in there in 2026, much less 2027. So, you know, giving the other guys a title shot, you know, puts, puts, you know, the, the locomotive into, into, into action. Um, you can make a case for it. It's just not a very good one. Yeah. All right.

The best choice for the sport might be Patty, the best choice for meritocracy and the answers we need of toporia in this weight class is Armin. And if it was Armin, by the way, I think Patty versus Gagey is the perfect fight to set Patty up to earn, to, you up to earn it a little bit more, right? To really beat another big time name who still brings danger yet. It is another unk. Unk. Unk?

Unk? Unk. All right. It is. I used to call my uncle Mike unk. We're French Canadian, Luke, so we're a little bit different. But here we go with that. Luke, who's your who's

your personal choice and ultimately which direction do you believe the UFC is going? I'm gonna say my personal choice is Suryukyan. I think that um if you do that then the patty fight becomes even bigger. But I think that they might end up just going with Patty because that one is promotionally the one that you I mean, just follow the money, which one can't guarantee his brand will be this big again, especially if you lose this is the next one. Totally, totally. Whereas are you can?

It's not like how do I say this? I mean, he's lost before you know what I mean? And so is Patty, but not in the UFC, obviously. So, you know, it's a little bit different. But I think I think they'll probably just follow the money. The money is the Patty fight is going to be much, much bigger. Yeah. Would you be upset if they brought in Soren Bach and forced Patty to run that one back to get the title shot? Look, Soren Bach Bellator legend Soren Bach, I believe. Yeah. Also,

Luke, I wanted to ask you this. The fight we all seem or I won't speak for we all the fight me all wants the most is Elia versus Islam. What do you believe is the quickest slash most realistic way to get there if that's what you really want as a fan. Say that again. How do we get to Elia Islam? What's the fastest way to realistically get there? He's gotta be one other person. Let's say he goes. Okay, so let's say they make the Saryukian fight, right? And let's say Ilya goes in there and just wrecks him inside three minutes knocks him out cold. Something like he did to Charles, right?

At that point, you're like, I mean, here's the reality. There is a world where Toporia could beat Saryuki and so thoroughly that you're like, I'm not even sure what the point of the patty matchup is anymore. Good point. Good point. I mean, because you're like, if you can't get him down, or if you can get him down, but barely hold him down, and then he gets viciously KO'd, you'd be like, Whoa, I don't know if Patty can do that. You know what

I mean? Like, whereas if you go Patty first, so you can still has a little bit of life on the other end. So that's not what you're asking. You're asking about it to making attractive to Islam. I think that would do it. If he goes in there and just absolutely destroys, so you can you're like, well, who the fuck else could you even fathom that could be enough of a threat to take this on?

The only answer at that point would be Islam Makachev. The only issue with that. And by the way, on the flip side, let's say he beats our Yuki in, but had some trouble was on his, was on his back at times. You, I wonder if that makes the Patty fight even bigger because it would be thought that it would be more competitive. But let's say Ilia keeps being Ilia. The only issue with that Luke is if Islam wins the championship against DDP, something that could come in November, some think October in Abu Dhabi,

either way it's going to happen next. This division is so damn bottlenecked at the top that how would the hell would you tell Shavkat, Ian, Gary, Sean, Brady, all these guys. So here's the deal guys, you got to wait for Islam to fight for the belt and then you're going to have to wait for Ilia to fight him and then one of you will get the title shot. Yeah, I mean, you can do that. I just don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I this is the problem. This is the way there's a problem on your hands because

you've got all of a sudden. See before you had just movement at 70 but now you've got movement at a sudden. See before you had just movement at 70, but now you've got movement at 70 and 55 and it's like, well, we finally have movement in both of these divisions, especially 55. Let's keep that movement going. But that doesn't create for actually what is the most interesting fight that the sport can make.

So I don't know. I don't know what they're gonna do. But you know, UFC is, this is the thing. dude, UFC is very, very good about delivering the fights. Generally, I mean, if you look at the history of the things that is true, and they're especially good at delivering the A minus fights, their record is mixed on delivering the A plus ones. Right? We obviously got Connor Habib. That's an A plus one. You know, we've got, um, you know, some other champ champ fights, BJ and George San Piero. Those I's an A plus one. You know, we've got, um, you know, some other champ champ fights, BJ and George San Piero. Those I consider that an A plus one, but we,

we've already been down the list of all the A plus ones that we missed to folk versus, uh, Islam. Don't forget was a, was it like, well, the second one was not the first one together. First one, definitely. First one, definitely. So again, I'm not saying that they don't do that. I'm saying the record, once they get to that top, top, top, top tier, it's a little more mixed up there. And so for that reason, I'm a little bit skeptical that it happens even under various harebrained schemes to produce it.

Yeah. Dicey dicey, a lot of harebrained schemes out there this day. Luke, let's transition to topic number two. If we can't get Elia versus Islam against one another in the cage right now, we can get them once against one another in a pound for pound rankings debate. And in the current UFC pound for pound top 10, Ilya Toporya moved into the top spot passing Islam Madchev. But Islam, if he defeats Jack Delamadelina in a few months, for all we know, he could

move right back into that top step. You can also make the argument that Islam should still be there right now, given the win streak that he's on. Oh, by the way, 15 consecutive wins in the UFC. And if Islam would defeat Jack Delamattalena, he not only would become the 11th two division champion, he would tie Anderson Silva's record for consecutive victories within the UFC at 16,

which is not nothing right now. That is a hell hell of a run that he's on. So Luke, you, myself, and the one known as Long Island Luke, we have all updated our top five. In fact, my top 10 you could read right now on CBS Sports dot com. How do you reorder your top five pound for pound officially after UFC 317? So I actually, for the first time in a long time, I went through and I had to like think about it, make a list, figure out what my reasoning was. And I came to a list.

Now, as everybody knows, I mean, BC, would you not agree that like anybody in the top four has a claim to one. I'm not saying that all their claims are as good as the other one. You don't think so? You don't think what he's doing is like that is in an in a world where a transcendent star like a toporia doesn't exist. What Pantoja is doing is typically good enough for power for fucking title defenses. That's historic. No, I don't think so. He's great. He deserves, you know, he's pushing for number two.

He deserves high level thing here. I'll say two and a half people have a chance. I'll say it's between Ilia and Islam. Is there a hipster argument for Marab based upon the high level of names that he's not only defeated, but largely handled on his own terms? Uh, I think there's a hipster chance for him. I don't think there's a straight up chance for anybody else. What that's mean?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm making the argument that like, in ordinary-ish times, what Pantoja is doing is extraordinary, but we've got two guys at the top who are doing extraordinary stuff. Okay. So that kind of changes the equation. All right. So number five for me was fairly straightforward. I've got Dricus Duplassis. Let me just run through it if I can, BC. So I've got Dricus Duplassis sitting at five. I think the way in which the rest of the top 10 kind of go, he's clearly better than six to 10 in my judgment, but he's definitely not better than one to four.

So it naturally puts him at five. I'm going to put a heavy emphasis on what they've done in the last two years or so. I think we're talking about pound for pound, the full record matters, but the last two-ish years tends to be the most relevant. And obviously the last year would be the most, most relevant, okay? All right, so the most most relevant. Okay. All right

So that's number five number four. We can see it again. I Struggled with this one. I did not know whether to put Marab or Alessandra Pantoja at four But I decided on Pantoja for this reason if you look at the last couple of years that Marab has fought It's nothing but former champions Nothing, but those and the Jose Aldo fight was not super impressive in the sense that he couldn't get Aldo down, but Aldo didn't do shit to him also. And then after that, it just keeps going with former champions and various Hall of Famers or in certain cases, you know, double champions. The guys, Umar is obviously the exception, but the guys who

he's had to beat and then getting better against O'Malley in short order, even after O'Malley was able to get right. This is when you're beginning to double up and lap the competition and you're facing almost nothing but top former champions. I had to rank him as number three, but Pantoja certainly sits at number four, just behind that, okay? Obviously, one more note, if I may. Pantoja struggled against Steve Ersegg which to me is like that's a guy like if Kaya Sakura is the equivalent you saw

what Pantoja did to him. He just you know he kind of ran him over a little bit. Um. Kai Cara France you mean ran over Steve Ersegg. Yeah. So what did I say? Kaya Sakura. So, I'm talking about Pantoja beating Kaya Sakura. Oh, okay, I thought you were talking about the fact that Steve Ersak then lost to Kai Carr, France by first round. So he did, but I guess I'm trying to point out

that like there is a little bit of fat in the last two years on that resume, a little bit. I mean, we're splitting hairs here. All right, and this is where the central debate comes down. How do you pick this one? Islam's record of achievement is obviously longer. Islam's record of achievement is in many ways because of that, more decorated.

But if we're treating pound for pound like a stock market and we're asking not just who is rising, but obviously what they've done to build capital accumulation here, the fact that you have toporia going up in weight and icing the guy to me is the difference maker here. That to me is a much more difficult achievement, all things being equal than beating a very good guy like that of

equivalent ability in your own weight class. Now BC, if Islam goes out there and beats Jack Dela, then we're going to have to flip these because at that point, right? Because at that point, they'll both have the higher weight achievement and then the longer record of achievement for Islam is going to take over. That's how I came to it. Let me know what you think. My top five. I was shocked. It was it's exactly the friggin' same. And I think you nailed the key debate between one and two right now. It's really fricking hard to deal with the last three fights that Toporia had and compare them to anyone else

on this list from the fact that he absolutely mutilated these guys, two of them were ranked pound for pound at the time top 10. And you add in that he moved up in weight. It's really hard to beat the run that Islam is on, but you had the replacement fight with Moikano. You had, you know, certain things happen there that weren't his fault. But yes, if he does the same thing and goes up another weight class, ties Anderson's

record there, we're looking at that same thing. I found that very interesting though, Luke, that we were aligned on there. We're rarely ever aligned on anything. Well, sometimes, sometimes BC great minds think alike. Well, let's see if the third mind here thinks exactly alike or he can make a case in another direction. Let's bring in Luke Nocita who's lucky to be here because of how horned up his dad was that time from Australia, but Luke, how do you order your top five? Uh, I just swapped the top two other than you guys.

I got Islam. Number one, man. I think people are buying into this recency bias too much with Ilya. Sure. He did go up and wait as Luke was saying, but BC, you mentioned that 15 fight win streak in the UFC, not to mention eight of his last nine by finished the outlier there was the first bulk fight he finished him the second time around, so pretty much finishing everyone he's fighting in his

last eight fights or whatever you know hold against him that poor a made it interesting is that factor into the decision at all no I don't because he ended up finishing poor a anyway also poor a former interim champion bulk former pound for pound number one one and two time champion. Down a weight class. It doesn't matter. Olivera, former champion. Actually, that's exactly what matters. He beat Armin as well, you know, and you know, we were going to get into it earlier,

but like Armin, Ilya, kind of like Armin in that fight. Just saying. Whoa! A plus money? Do you see why I have to hold Tupor is ball sack. Also, shut up. Shout out to my Rob. Number three pound for pound but should number one in our hearts. You see why I have to hold? You have to have to hold like Tupor is nuts like like Atlas carrying the the earth.

I gotta ask you, Luke Thomas. There are people in our in our uh MK universe who believe that you and Long Alan Luke are at odds right now. At odds in life. We are? Yeah, they are. They came into my live chat. You know what I mean? They're like, what's going on here? Long Allen Luke, are we at odds? Are we fighting over use of the name? No, we got heavy beef. It's not over the name, but we got beef. All right. It's related to how we drink. They let me catch you outside. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? Interesting stuff right there. It is a worthy debate right now. they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like,

they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like,

they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like,

they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, So, you know neutral ish territory basically give me the odds on that one 55 fight. I Think it'd be a pick them Straight up 115 minus 105 something like that, but I would I would take Islam in that fight I would I would bet that it would close with Ilya as a slight underdog Slight underdog. I can see that. What do you make of to close this pound-for-pound debate?

Saturday last Saturday night. They asked Dana who should be number one. And he said John Jones. Look, he said John Jones. It happened. BC, did your computer just glitch out? I saw it blinking, but my eyes were also blinking because I got this lazy eye, Luke, so I don't know. Hold on a second.

Are you telling me that Dana White said John Jones still deserves to be pound for pound number one? Is that MMA sentel? Are you getting sentel? No, no, you could argue he was trying to make some dry humor because they were like, who do you pick? And he's like, who do you guys pick? It's up to you. Who do you guys pick? He goes, you know who I'm going to pick. I'm picking John Jones. Can you imagine? I was like, who's the record of achievement? You beat Steve, Amy O'Chich. After a five year, he's got to be stick.

He's got to be carrying out. That's gotta be stick, right? It's stick. Yeah. Or maybe he just hasn't been following the sport lately. Luke. He's a busy guy. Just the heads up on that.

All right. All right. Let's transition to the topic number three on this Thursday, ahead of the holiday weekend and after his 10 round unanimous decision victory over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Saturday, cruiserweight Jake Paul is now a ranked cruiserweight. Yes, the World Boxing Association, the WBA for the record, the most heinous of the four sanctioning bodies, excuse me, known for putting out as many, as many as three to four recognized titles per weight class in a single division, which

is insane. So you know what you're dealing with here, but the WBA has issued a number 14 ranking in the world for cruiserweight for Jake Paul. Wow. Luke, now look, cruiserweight historically, not a deep division, cruiserweight historically populated by Europeans, right? You always get guys you may not have heard of, but still ranking Jake Paul as a 12-in-1 professional having beaten a former champion who's 13 years removed from relevance in Chavez may not have heard of, but still ranking Jake Paul as a 12 and one professional, having beaten a former champion who's 13 years removed from relevance and Chavez having lost the only, you know, fight he did step up, you could say against an active fighter and Tommy fury,

and then blew away those two journeymen who came out of retirement. But Luke asked simply, should Paul's ranking have happened by the WBA and maybe even more important Does it really even matter because I can't guess you're surprised over this let me just Let me do me a favor long on luke put the uh, the list of the okay. So this is the cruiserweight division now Let me just say something bc. I recognize a couple of names on here. Obviously the biggest one would be Uniel Doricos who just lost, correct? Or did he just win?

He just lost to Zerto Ramirez. Yeah, so he's a good fighter, right? And we can recognize that. And there might be like, I think Chris Billum Smith is okay. Yes, yes, he's okay. He's okay. But I don't know who any of these other people are. Dude, I'm not going to act like I do either. I know a couple of them by name only, but can I just tell you something, Luke? Yeah, please. We already know the, the, the four sanctioning bodies who, who in terms of their sins differ at times. You know, we always, I guess, favor the IBF because they actually stick to their own rules. Although sometimes their rules don't even make sense when applied. of their sins differ at times. You know, we always, I guess, favor the IBF because they actually stick

to their own rules, although sometimes their rules don't even make sense when applied. Anytime you look at the rankings in boxing, it never makes sense. Certain guys that you would expect to be ranked high might only be ranked high in one of the four sanctioning bodies and not more than one. And they're typically always filled with guys you've never heard of who end up in number one contender spots. And you're going, I've never heard of this guy. I've barely heard of the country he came from. I've never heard of anybody he fought, but yet he's the number one contender for this title. Like we literally have to pull Canelo

out of the big fight sweepstakes to fight, you know, Avni Yildirim, you know what I'm saying here? So in general, the fact that we don't recognize the names in there, it could just speak to the Cruiserweight division not being deep, but probably even more it speaks to the fact that to get ranked, promoters have been paying for decades behind the scenes to get ranked, for decades, all right?

The FBI has done investigations on this and found it out. So let's not be necessarily surprised that we've never heard of these names here, right? Fair enough. And as you indicated for folks who don't know, and this is something I had to look into as well, the WBA is like maybe the worst offender of some of this stuff where they're just giving rankings to people you've never heard of in ways that you could not imagine for reasons that don't remain clear at all whether you can accuse them of some kind of malfeasance I you know it's up to you but you know the rational explanations don't make sense so BC this to answer the question you initially asked I have mixed feelings

about it on the one hand it does not appear to me like he is being placed among. It's not like you're like, oh, let's place them on the list next to David Benavides and, you know, well-known established names. And I'm supposed to treat him as like that's his peer group. Now they're putting him among boxers that have to my knowledge for them with some exceptions we indicated, you know, no footprint whatsoever that have beaten nobody that you know whatsoever. I don't know on that level of if if if Jake being there is some kind of a scandal. However, what it also appears to me is that we've got this ancient system, the sanctioning body system, which to me is the

biggest problem actually that boxing has. These are the guys who are tasked with the integrity of the sport. And these not just them WBC and you name it But they just don't do their job these ones in particular and here comes Jake, you know, should he be ranked? No, but he didn't create this system He's just taking advantage of it and this is the inheritance that we now all have to deal with You know, it doesn't make me believe his chances of winning a title or necessarily all that great But I just think people being like oh this is you know Jake, you know It doesn't make me believe his chances of winning a title are necessarily all that great, but

I just think people being like, oh, this is Jake manipulating an honest system. And it's like, that's not the read that I get. No, this is a, that's what's interesting. I said this yesterday on my live chat. Normally when somebody gets a ranking and you're just like, there's no justification for this, the real answer is probably that somebody paid for it. This is actually the reverse. This is an indication where these sanctioning bodies are jumping over themselves to get involved in the Jake Paul sweepstakes so they can make the money. So either way, they're making the money, but it's sort of inverse in that regard. And let's not forget, Luke, how many fights ago was Tommy Fury? Was it the WBC? One of the sanctioning bodies had announced before that fight even happened,

that had if Jake would have won, he would have been ranked then. And back then, you know, he had fought even less amount of people. So Luke, to me, this is an absolute joke. To your point, I don't dunk on Jake and put it all on him. He's playing in a system that's already broken and corrupt. And you know, why did,

why was Canelo never stripped when Benavides was his mandatory for years? Because of the money because of the sanctioning fees they get when Canelo fights. So this is already a broken ridiculous system And that's the thing when when Dana White does shit on boxing and shits on the on the Sanctioning boards does that mean I think he should take over the Muhammad Ali act and take away fighters rights from it? No, but he's actually right in that regard. But the reality is Luke, like I'm not here to shit on Jake, but to me, like it's one or the other. You're either trying to beat the requisite people to get in line for a title shot or you're an attraction circus fighter. The fact that this guy's gonna go from a Mike Tyson fight to trying to get Gervonta, but then every time he talks,

it's oh, by the way, I still wanna fight for a title. Then if you wanna fight for a title, fight these other guys in front of you in the rankings that we've never heard of. That's the road to it, right? Right, that's right, that's right. And those aren't money fights, but that's what you should have to do

to be able to fight for a title. They're not money fights, but they are for all intents and purposes, real fights. That's the difference. They're real ones. And again, I don't know if those guys can all beat him. I don't know. I mean, Doritos could beat him obviously, but some of the other guys, maybe Jake beat some of those guys. I don't even know, but he's just it's an unusual path with a broken system of third party validation. And this to me looks like the intersection of two problems, not the, not the arrival

of one. Here's what I'm going to say about this, Luke. If he ends up in a title fight, I don't know if it'd be the worst thing ever. It wouldn't be great. I mean, I'd really, really want him to actually have to earn it first, but we have seen a lot of ridiculousness in this game before. I just hope if Jake Paul does fight for a world title, that it's a quote unquote real world title, that it's one of the four sanctioning bodies titles. Like, you know, it's not like the IBU title out of England, but more specifically that it's not the WBA vacant interim secondary title, right? Or the WBA regular champion as opposed to the super champion.

I don't want this guy to win some absolute bootleg belt where he's one of, not just one of four champions in a division worldwide, but one of like three WBA champions in that division. If it's gonna happen, let's do it right. And I know we did that face off with Zerto backstage afterwards, but look, I just don't think he's going to take these fights. I just don't think that Zerto would end his career. I mean, this is, there's no fucking way he takes that fight. If he does,

I would say this, if Jake Paul actually ends up taking a Zerto Ramirez fight, I'd be like, you know what? All right. all right, fair play to him. You are signing up, you're signing your own death warrant, but at least you had the balls to try this the right way. Fine, fine, but- You just signed your death certificate, Nwanda. What movie, Luke?

Come on, come on. I don't remember, which one? I'm sorry, you just signed your expulsion papers, Nwanda. Sorry, it was Dead Poets Society. Maybe the greatest movie of the 1980s. Oh, Captain Mike, Captain, I'm gonna stand on my motherfucking desk. That's what I'm talking about right there, biatch. All right, let's go to topic number four, bitches.

According to the article written by the great John S. Nash on the Uncrowned on Yahoo, wow, some superpowers coming together there, John took data from Tapology that shows that while the UFC business is certainly thriving in many ways, one of them being financially, the amount of events in MMA, including the UFC and beyond, well, they're shrinking and they're shrinking rapidly. Luke, is there anything to this data that further explains the decline of MMA? Or would you say given the UFC's place in popular culture and that financial success and the it factor that they have at the moment that this is much

ado about nothing? Well, it's hard to know exactly what it means. And it is kind of complicated. So let's just start with the baseline for folks who may not have seen it. Look, can you put the text up, not the graph itself? So let's read, there's more to the, obviously you've got to read the article, please go do that, but let's just read,

let me read through this if I can. Thanks to the data, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so the number of professional MMA bouts has come to us from data from topology, peaked in 2017 at around 20,000, just shy of 21,000. That number decreased only slightly over the next two years. Obviously after the COVID pandemic, it fell off, but it worked to rebound in 2021 after the world's economies began to reopen, but the industry never fully recovered. Instead, the second peak in MMA bouts petered out around 2023 at 18,000.

The number of matches has since decreased, falling to 16,808 in 2024, and at the current rate through May of this year, 2025 may end up only seeing 13,636 bouts. Now if you can't look at the other graphics. Now here's the other part. This is not overall bouts. These are just the top markets. USA in blue,

Brazil in red, Russia in yellow, Japan in green. Now what you might notice is Japan is steadily increasing after obviously a decline around the 2020 pandemic. Japan appears to be a bright spot. What you also might notice is that the European scene is not listed on this graph. That's a good important point to note because the European scene seems like it's on the steady incline. It's going much higher and these are all positive developments. So thank you long and I appreciate it. So let's be clear

about something. There's a couple different things happening here. One, Japan a bright spot, Europe a bright spot. It's not clear what those trend lines for those individual markets will look like over the next five or ten years. Maybe they kind of return back to the same situation we're seeing with the three dominant markets, USA, Brazil and Russia. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it just keeps going up and the polarity of MMA shifts. I've seen the MMA of polarity shift. I saw it when it was in Pride and I saw it when it was in UFC. I saw it go from Japan to the USA. It happens. All right. So something to keep in mind there. That's one thing I would point out also, and this is kind of important. There's, if you just look at the UFC

business, just the business itself, there's just absolutely no evidence whatsoever of decline. And in fact, we're on the precipice of them signing a new television deal, which is going to be probably historic for the sport and going to make them a ton of money over the next five, seven, potentially 10 years or so, right? It could be somewhere in that ballpark, so there's no way to look at the UFC's

global reach and then the performance of the business and come to some kind of conclusion that MMA is in decline. But BC. We have to ask a different question, which is, right. One, is there any evidence that the growth of the UFC leads to a broader growth of the MMA industry? I think in the sense that it pioneers new opening markets, yes. In the sense that it sustains them, absolutely not. There's just no evidence that it sustains them over the course of time. It can get a burst going. It can break down barriers. Yes. But once it gets in the door, there's not a lot of evidence that it can sustain it. More to the point, there appears to be some evidence, at least in the North American market, that as the UFC gets more financially profitable, MMA itself goes down. But there was some debate BC about whether or not like does this prove that MMA is in decline? Listen, some of the data is kind of complicated and the fact that the UFC is doing really well

makes this a little bit hard to understand. But for folks who've never just dealt with the broader industry or thought of the industry as both including the UFC but apart from it, there's absolutely no way to say anything other than that is in decline. And anyone who's lived as part of it can just tell you more to the point,

the number of big organizations that pay good money, a Bellator, a PFL, a One, these are in decline. BC, Bellator got removed from the market. That's 40 million annual in fighter pay and nothing replaced it. Nothing replaced it. I'm not on Davis for that. Just, you know, hold on. Might I also add, and this is something that folks are just not going to appreciate. Again, in North America, Bloody Elbow doesn't exist anymore. Sirius XM getting rid of all of their

fight promotion or all of their MMA programming completely. You know, obviously my old employer, CBS Sports, downsizing to a degree, Showtime getting rid of, you know, cutting and paramount cutting bait with Bellator, cutting bait with, by the way, boxing in particular. If you just look at, by the way, all the money coming in on combat sports, a lot of it is just not even coming in from the United States is It's coming in principally in many cases from the Arab world. But the point I'm trying to make is if you just look around at the state of the industry

with media contraction, event contraction, mid-major contraction, and these are happening in all three of the biggest markets, yeah, is UFC gonna be around for a while? For sure, I don't know how you could conclude otherwise. And for most people, maybe that's enough. But is MMA more broadly in decline? I don't know how you could argue otherwise, other than to say there's a couple of global bright spots that buck that trend. Is that a direct result of monopolization though? Well, you got to be careful with that. Because if actually go back to the go back to the graph if you can't long

I don't look for just a second. I mean Technically the decline in the number of events starts around 2009 ish. Okay, you know and like remember 2016 Gonna look at look at 2016, right? So in that particular case you at least have Russian MMA events on the incline modest but negligible decline with Japan modest decline with Brazil but you know substantive decline with USA do 2016 MMA was hot so like here's another thing you have to consider BC there might have to thank you long island there might have been a glut of too many MMA events that

the product couldn't sustain anyway. So like how much contraction is actually not a big deal at all. That's another part of the story that I'm perfectly willing to say explains this. But when I see mid majors get taken out, when I see the overall number of shows decline, and then companies who used to make money of shows decline and then companies who used to make money with their MMA coverage say, we can't make money from this anymore. It is very, very difficult for me to claim that the thing is growing. You're asking more broadly about UFC. I don't see how you can't look at the monopolistic practices and what that does to the industry

more broadly and say it doesn't have any effect. If other companies can't thrive because of the nature of one firm dominating the market, does that play a contributing role? I don't see how it can't. Now, that's not enough to explain the story. And in fact, that's kind of where it gets a little bit scary for me, to be honest with you, which is that even if you can explain a significant amount

of what is happening through UFC's business practices, and again, that plays a role, I don't think that explains everything either. So we'll have to see what happens, maybe Toporia and then Islam fight and this leads to a renaissance and they get Gable Stevenson and he comes through and Star Power brings it back up.

And then this is just where we are are we'll just ebb and flow and settle out to a more even place that could be exactly what happens I really don't know but I can just tell you as someone who is a trying to examine the size and health of this industry the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is it is contracting is it contracting to a healthier place that can be sustainable maybe is it contracting to a healthier place that can be sustainable? Maybe. Is it contracting to a place where this is all going to come undone? Maybe. But it's definitely contracting. Of that, I have no doubt. Yeah, Undone is a great 70s song from the Guess Who, by the way. Absolute jammer. I want to ask you something. Do you remember that great meteor that

hit the MMA media lane for a couple of years. His name was Jason from MMAI, and he had a lot of investigative YouTube videos. And one of them was looking at the regional scene of promotions that appear on UFC Fight Pass. And what the MMAI came to the conclusion of is that these promotions would not exist anymore financially if they weren't on Fight Pass, and UFC wasn't paying them directly to keep them alive.

And the reason was, of course, was to develop a low-level regional scene to provide fighters to get ready to come on to the Dana White Contender Series and then come into the UFC, particularly at a very low rate, of course. Luke, do you wonder if Dana announcing that he's going to double the Dana White Contender Series cards, does that put those promotions in jeopardy on FightPass or does that is that just further building up the regional scene to better prepare fighters for the UFC? Is there any correlation there? So I mean, let me tell you what a theory I've I don't have, but something can I tell you

something that's been rattling around my head a little bit about this? It almost makes the monopolization of TKO more understandable in the sense that, well, I mean, obviously any company that would wanna be a monopoly now's a good time, right? But more than that, maybe they see the writing on the wall. Maybe they see that MMA is undergoing a contraction that it could go much further.

And in order to stay profitable, they want to just say, okay, well, where can we just get big money fights from? Let's go into boxing. Where can we get cheap talent that is easy to produce, that there's no regulation over? You could say slap fighting, but obviously I'm gonna point to BJJ, right? They're just kind of reading the writing on the wall about MMA and then expanding the universe

because that's what it's going to take for them to sustain the profitability that they currently enjoy that's something that I've been thinking about as well it's like they kind of they might see what's ahead here you're asking about contender series that's like a first of all to your to the point that you raise a lot dude if you haven't if you Dude, if you have a regional promotion, how do you make money? Your TV deal, if you have a really feverish fan base, you could do some at the gate.

But it's very, very difficult to do. It's very difficult to be profitable doing regional MMA. It is done, there are places where it happens for sure, but it's not easy. And most of these guys who are on or most these entities That are on fight pass by the way from what I hear some of them are gonna get cut pretty soon Like some of those are just gonna go on their own way and what are they gonna do? They're gonna be done They're gonna be done. They're gonna be done. So when Dana's like, oh, we're gonna do more contender series

What I think that is everyone's like, oh they just want cheaper fights. Well, probably on some degree. That's true, right? I think the other one is, dude, they're trying to make up for a missing regional scene that they can't rely upon. And they have to just kind of prime the pump to a degree to get this out. I mean, this is the problem I'm trying to point out everyone's like, Oh, UFC did this and I'm like, I'm the first guy to be hey, we should examine their UFC is monopolistic role in producing some of these outcomes. But I think if you actually look at the broader trends,

there's something bigger potentially, potentially happening. And the UFC might be a victim of it too. That's kind of where my head is at a little bit, at least at a bare minimum, it's something I'm paying attention to, how it all plays out in the next five, 10 years. We'll have to see.

Yeah, I mean, I've been reading X and Zack on the MMA draw and it looks like that the Apex is gonna be red hot in the future, Luke, between double Dana White Contender Series cards, UFC Apex Fight Night cards, NXT, WWE Pro Wrestling, and of course, Zufa Boxing as well. So that expansion to the old Apex, Luke, course, Zufa boxing as well. So that expansion to the old apex Luke is purposeful in a lot of ways here. That keeps the costs low.

It's the in house thing right there. So I wonder if they do end up removing the costs of keeping these regional promotions alive on UFC Fight Pass by just going, we are the new minor leagues. It's called the Dana White contenders Series. I don't know. Again, I don't, I think that that is probably a plan. All I want the viewers and the listeners to pay attention to is there is information out there that is not very comfortable to view. And in fairness, we're not exactly sure where it's all headed. But I can just tell you as somebody in the, like BC, let's talk about this for just a second before we move on, I just wanna make a point.

When I first, not when I first got into the business, but halfway through, so let's say, you know, 2015-ish, something like that. Even that's not really halfway, but you know, part of the way through. You could look around at that point and you could say, hey man, there are jobs out there that like, you could do really well. And, you know, you could you had something to

aspire to up the ladder. There was a big cushy media gig working in this place or a big cushy media gig working in that place. Dude, those jobs either don't exist anymore, or are on the hot seat. And I think there's gonna be many more of them that go away. What explains that? Now part of the answer is the changes in the media business. No question about it. Never, one thing is never one thing. It's always a multitude of factors. But I'm just telling everybody out there, I have been in these fucking radio stations and in TV networks

and editorial boards. I sat in these fucking radio stations and TV networks and editorial boards. I sat in these meetings in the late 2000s and the early 10s and the pitch was very clear. This is a growing sport. There is a massive underserved audience and you can make money on content if you decide to cover it, whether you want to sell ads against it or whatever. Not only is that argument not true, media are now anyway, now media companies are looking at it and they're saying this is now a liability on our bank, on our content portfolio, we need to get rid of it. It's actually eating

into their profits rather than being a place that's either neutral or they can make money. What explains that? That's a real thing and if you're not in the media business you don't feel it. There are no more cushy gigs to go to. Maybe there's a couple left in boxing. In MMA, unless you're an MMA fighter or you're part of someone who's only ever done working through UFC, you don't have a media role that came before it, these jobs don't exist anymore. And I need folks to understand, I just new, you don't have, I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm asking noodle what that means.

And it means a couple of things, not least of which is the industry is doing that. It is. And you know, it's funny because we bring it up from time to time when you get somebody that DMs you or emails you on LinkedIn and is like, Hey, I love your work. I want to do exactly what you do.

Well, give me some advice. Where should I go? And I usually am very quick to not give that exact advice because of how quickly the business is changing. But to your point, Luke, every time I get those emails now, I sort of get sad because I don't even know what the path would be these days to end up an MMA media person who actually gets paid.

I don't know what the best path is. Is the best path to go the MMA guru lane and just sort of create your own identity online and absolutely grind and jam and hope that becomes something? You're right. What sites left have these jobs that used to be there? It's scary.

It is scary. I mean, you can do that. You can do the independent creator thing for sure. That is a path you can go. It's partly to say that like some of these jobs just moving into different roles. But I don't think people understand if once corporate media moves out of MMA,

they're taking all of that money out with it. There will be some survivors that will fact, in fact be some that thrive. But as an enterprise, that will just be either non-existent or you know, less lucrative to the point of being negligible. And I think much of that will be replaced by AI whether or not they do a good job or not. Like in other words, there's just going even if some survive

and thrive there's going to be a downgrade substantially to the industry more broadly. That doesn't happen if people feel like they can make a lot of entities feel like they can actually make a lot of money on this. They can't. They can't. They used to be able to. They can't anymore.

I mean, Kevin I always retired. Yeah, but he's in his sixties. I mean, that's very different. You know, I was just throwing that out there. Just gonna see how you're going to respond to that. There are a few ways to go, but enjoy your retirement. Big cab. Let's continue on down the rundown.

Luke, let's go to topic number five. And there's been a bit of an update in the appeals portion of the Connor McGregor civil trial of which he was found liable for sexual assault. The latest bit of news is that Connor McGregor might be in a little bit of trouble, Luke, can you break down for me in layman's terms what happened here? He had made some accusations involving the the victim in this case and her boyfriend that have now been taken back. What's the significance here? So this was extremely surprising. I'm gonna keep these very general. We're not gonna spend

a ton of time on this in part because it's not a resolved situation yet and so without the resolution I can only give you some of a heads up. We actually have, there's many people who have reported on this Irish Examiner, Mirror, you name it. Look if you can put up these two quotes that we have in order first. So okay actually you know what let me let me go back. So, I apologize. Conor McGregor gets found liable for sexual assault, we all know, against Nikita Hand, and he immediately said he was going to appeal,

and then there was this claim that they were gonna have some new evidence, including that, remember, there was this forensic evidence you have to have an answer for. Why was Nikita Hand, when she checked in to medical professionals, why did she have severe bruising, why does she have any number of other things? And there has to be an explanation for that. And the explanation by Nikita hand and her team was that she was accusing Connor of sexual assault. That was her explanation

for it. Uh, and then Connor's team, I think they were going to try through appeals to float something that they had two witnesses who, again, before yesterday's or two days ago's hearing, what they were going to claim was that, aha, they had seen that Nikita Hand's partner had put hands on her, essentially. And then this happened at court, which by the way, Conor McGregor was not present for.

Put up the quote if you can here, I'll read it to you. This is referring to the couple. This is the couple, it was a man and a woman who claimed that they had seen Nikita Han's significant other hit her. The couple had sworn affidavits claiming they had heard a row or a conflict between Mrs. Han and her then partner on the night of 9 December 2018

after the alleged rape with Mrs. O'Reilly, that's one of the people, claiming she saw the road from her bedroom in a house across the road. She claimed Mrs. Hands then boyfriend pushed her and she saw him moving his arms and hips as though he was punching and kicking her. Mr. Cummins. That's the other guy in the, uh, of the, of the, the two claiming that they saw this had claimed he was woken by screams and shouts coming from Mrs. Han's house but said

he did not see what had happened. Next one. Their claims have now been totally withdrawn by McGregor, with Mrs. Han's counsel seeking an apology from him over the ordeal. It comes after Mr. Gordon had asked the judges yesterday that the court, quote, ought to allow me to cross-examine Mrs. O'Reilly and her partner. Mr. Gordon is an attorney for a Nikita hand and Mr. Staines and then refer the matter for perjury proceedings to the director of public

prosecutions and subordination to subordination of perjury against Mr. McGregor reserving their judgment on McGregor's actual appeal. One of the main judges said she was referring the matter to the DPP. Again, the Department of Public Prosecutions. The DPP will examine whether any potential perjury has occurred and anyone found to be suspected or that could face criminal prosecution. Long story short, in other words, the people who had claimed to see this that would have offered some degree of corroboration for McGregor and his team's claims, When it came time for this appeals to happen, they just, they said, no, we're not doing it.

They withdrew. And now the matter in fact has formally been sent to the DPP. Now the one caveat BC that we have is that a spokesperson for McGregor has said that McGregor is not part of that referral. Now we've not heard that from the DPP nor the judge. That is just a McGregor spokesperson saying that. In other words, could he have been misled by these two people and he also is, you know, I'm gonna say as it pertains to being misled a victim, I understand what I'm saying here, that is possible. A lot of

folks are thinking that McGregor'm saying here. That is possible. A lot of folks are thinking that McGregor is automatically involved. There is a scenario you could imagine where he also was given bad or misleading information and now under due diligence they realized that they had to withdraw. I don't know. I don't know what best explains it. What I can say is another possible explanation, it's not the one I'm giving, but it's the one that is at least theoretically possible, was that McGregor did all this to just further antagonize the victim and had no real way of ever establishing this, and this is just another ploy for extending out

this difficult circumstance for Nikita Hand. That is one interpretation that someone could come to if they wanted to. All I can say is, Jesus Christ, this is, I mean, this was already bad for McGregor. This is, you know, beyond disgraceful at this point. And for the folks who are like, aha, there's more evidence that's going to happen. Well, I would be curious what they would have to say now. Yeah, I mean, obviously if this leads to perjury for for Connor, if it's found that way, this could be a criminal proceeding, right? Without question. Yes, again, we don't know if we even get there or or they may try to get those

the witness couple. They might say let's charge them for perjury and who knows what happens to them. We don't know what's going to happen. Okay, it's the DPP could say, you know what? We're not going to look we're just going to let this go like nothing could happen. I'm not saying that criminal charges are inevitable. It's not in any way the point I'm making, but rather that if there was a case

that Connor was going to be able to make on appeal, it has disintegrated into thin air. There's nothing, it doesn't exist. And in fact, now either he or the people who are claiming to make this, you know, affidavit are now in trouble. So he was claiming I'm trying to fully understand this that she was actually assaulted by her significant other which would mean that The claims of sexual assault and the bruising on her he he's essentially claiming it wasn't him, right?

That's right because remember Connor during the civil trial did not deny that they Were there was some degree of physical contact sexually between them. The question was whether or not it was consensual. But remember Nikita Hand shows up and these medical professionals evaluate her and they're like, wow, this is some of the worst bruising we've ever seen. That actually is what they had said. So you have to have a theory. How did that get there? How did that get there? Could it be as simple? I mean, I guess Connor would be hoping that whoever, you know, the couple that claim they saw it

are now essentially saying what, that they didn't see it or that they don't want to go to court and do this? We don't know. We don't know what they're saying. We don't know. And I won't speculate. We'll just have to see. But certainly quite terrible for the case of Connor McGregor. Mr. Cummins, the witness. That's not former barista turned Daniel Cormier opponent Patrick Cummins. I don't believe that it is, however they share a namesake certainly. They do, they do. Wow. Interesting stuff. I'll stop trying to put Conor in superfights now. Okay Luke,

can we just, you know, can we just be done? Seems like a terrible guy. Yeah, it really does. Alright, before we close the five topics Luke, I just wanted to reference that breaking news overnight. I was shocked by it. David Benavides, PBC star, it appears as if he's maybe signed with Riyadh Sissin as it's been announced that he will be making his Riyadh Sissin debut in Saudi Arabia, not against Kalam Smith like we thought for a PBC pay-per-view, but based on a tweet from Turkey Al-Ashiq, it looks like he's going to fight Anthony Yard.

This is pretty big movement, if true, Luke. Why is that surprising? Didn't he say he'd be willing to work with Turkey in that? Yeah, but then there was the report that when he went out there that he left early and the talks didn't go well. But I wonder if it's as simple as if you want to fight the winner of Better Ball, Better BFBVol3, you got to come join our team and take, better ball, better BFB ball three, you got to come join our team and take a fight with us. I don't know.

But you know, to be fair though, other PBC fighters, including David Morrell Jr. Who's going to be fighting in a couple of weeks have, have taken fights with, uh, with Riyadh season, including pit bull crews, a couple of others, uh, Carlos Adamis, what have you. So, but given the fact that Benavides is such a big pay-per-view brand for the PBC, that is pretty interesting. I guess I'm not as surprised by it, but I mean, it's just the nature. I mean, this is where we are, dude. This is where all the money in the sport is from the Middle East.

That's where all the money is. Where it's at, Luke. Two turntables, maybe even a microphone. Let's get into our fan segments here to close out this end of the week episode and morning combat at gmail.com is your portal to show Mikey or genitals and maybe even drop in a dead wrong or a fan sub. The first one is where we take the stand. Hey, not everything we say is correct. And sometimes we need to be called out for it, but you better have

timestamps and you better come original. Batch it's called Dead Wrong. Dead Wrong. All right, Luke, the first one's from my French brother and French Canadian brother, and Marc-Antoine Boussolet-Burio. He says, hello, Luke, BC, and Bong Island Luke, the B-I-L. I'd like to report a dead

wrong from our beloved Elia lover at 30 minutes and 10 seconds of the show on Monday. Luke said that it's time for Elia to fight someone in their twenties and mentions Armon and Patty as the two candidates fitting that criteria. However, Luke, Patty has been 30 since January 3rd of this year, which makes Luke in fact dead wrong. All right. Dead wrong. You know what I meant.

Someone more youthful, but fair enough. Not in his twenties. I'll take that. Yeah. I mean, he's a dad now. He's got twins. He's more maternal. You're right.

You're right. Fair point. Mark closes with thank you for the show. Love you guys. Thank you so much. We appreciate that, but fun to see Luke take the L just the same. This last one here is from Owain. Owain or is this some weird Irish name where it looks like Ciaren but it's really like Charday or some shit. You know, it's like, all right. You know, Aaron go bra. All right. I mean, I didn't know. Okay. Enough. Yeah. Enough bad Gaelic

humor Luke. You know what I mean? I mean, I don't have any other jokes, but that's fine. Hey guys, I hope you're both doing well. I'm here to dead wrong Luke during Monday show at 51 minutes and 10 seconds. He stated that the 35 and over in title wins has now been broken twice. I hate to be nitpicky, but it's now three times, not twice as the stat line was for one 70 and below. It's Muhammad Volkanovsky and Pantoja all entering the over 35 club. So did Rocky Pennington. Cheers.

Dig it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I can count the other side of a reasonable benchmark, but all right, fair enough. Fair enough. That is in fact, true. That's dead wrong. Luke is Oh for two in BC.

Just perfect. It's great. Didn't you have to eat shit last show? I didn't have any, but I always forget about it after immediately afterwards. Luke. It's great. You know, didn't you have to eat shit last show? I didn't have any. I don't know. So I always forget about it after immediately afterwards. Luke. It's great. Our final segment is when you send in pictures of your family and tight t-shirts and maybe even some fun artwork, it might end up on a t-shirt. You never know by the way, Mikey would like to let you all know that, uh, thank you for the aggressive batches that have come in. We picked the best of them

this week, but if you don't see your shit, there's always next Friday. So check it out. This one's called Fan Submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. Shout out to Gaffney Pierre right there. I love that guy. Gaffney Jim, as they call him. The first one's from Teddy. He says, day one fan right here, just wanted to show off a gold medal that I recently won at a local BJJ comp. Wow. Now before Luke downplays the achievement, I did check and the guys I beat did not happen to be Uber drivers. Anyway, I was pretty pleased considering I'm a washed dad of two girls.

Keep up the great content. OSS exclamation point, it's Teddy from Essex, England. Hey, congratulations, that's great. I'm not gonna shit on that, that's awesome. Fantastic, look at him in that black gi, right? Yep, definitely. Looks very masculine in that gi. I believe we have a second photo of his, do we or no, is that it?

No, just one for him. All right, that's it. Shout out to him, I'm sure his girls were very proud of their accomplished that I used to go with my dad to karate Practice when I was a little kid and I would play in the arcade that they had in the lobby I'd play pinball and then I'd watch him do high kicks. It was really cool. He was like a hello is a green belt I think that's less color. I have no idea how that works. Is that right above white? I Don't I genuinely don't know. I don't know how they do their belt system. I don't know. My dad was the kind of guy where like if he had beef at

work, he just instantly would be like, let's step outside and figure it out. You know what I mean? He would have done well in the Marines. I saw that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he told me I should have done in my early ESPN years. I'm like, Dad, we can't do that. Yeah, I wouldn't have lasted. Yes, I could have resolved matters that way. That's true. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Alright, let's go over to this next one from a fella named CG Luns. He says or or she, I'm not really sure. It's a typical day in combat. Luke and Brian are farting around in

the bomb shelter. Luke is distracted by BBLs gyrating on his phone. Brian, the ever mischievous trickster sneaks up, ready to launch his attack on a rear naked choke of a horned up and unaware Luke. Tune in next week, same combat time, same combat channel. All right, they're going back to the AI well, but I don't hate it, I don't hate it. That basement looks a lot like our RSD set, right?

All we need is that lava lamp. It looks like an RSD set in the middle of the woods. Yes. You know? By the way, have you noticed more podcasts are having an RSD looking set lately? I've noticed it. Yeah.

Different sports. Don't remind me, yes. All right, we used to be cool. We used to be like ahead of the game. It was really fun. But yes, CG Lunds, that's well done, Win the AI. Thank you very much. This next one is the game. It was really fun. But yes CG lungs. That's well done when the AI Thank you very much. This next one is from Jonas. He has no comment. Let's see what it is. Oh My god

Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No that and you're like, Oh, I thought it was that it's cake. It turns out it's cake. Right. You know what I mean? And then you thought it was a, uh, okay. That was cursed. The man who made those curse. Wow. Jonas, that was well done there. Wow. All right. Let's go over. Whoa. Chef Kaz. You remember him, right? Chef Kaz. Chef Kaz from Las Vegas. He is a, a chef to the stars. He also is a is a capoeira instructor,

Professor Vigante, they call him, look, all right? All right. All right. He says, just wanted to drop a quick note from your 2023 Donk of the Year Honorable Mention Chef Kaz to share something cool from last night. The absolute honor of cooking for the official after party for the new UFC double champ,

Elia Duporia, dude. No fucking way. Whoa, right after his huge win over Charles Oliveira, the energy was electric and the champ was all class. He even let me snap some photos with him as well as both of his belts. What? Whoa, and I got to rub him out? No, he didn't say that.

I've also included a few shots of the food we put together for the night. Top tier post-victory fuel. Luke, you gotta respond to this. This is huge, dude. Dude, how did he get into the Iliya Toporia party before I did? The food looks good, by the way. I know that, I know that Cass used to work with Nganu at times. He's worked with other fighters back in the day.

This is awesome. That's unbelievable, dude. Chef Cass on the fucking come up, man. Can you, I would have loved to have been there. Where was my invite, Chef Cass? Fucking holding out. Seriously. The chef says, as you guys know, I've been lucky enough to work with a bunch of pro fighters

and high level athletes, including UFC champions, Las Vegas Golden Knights, NFL, NBA, MLB pros. But this one was definitely a highlight moment, especially considered the fight had just transpired. I'm still repping MK every day and tuning in without fail. I'm hoping to host a full on upper Decker free MK watch party night here at the house. Look, did you see that upper decker free sometime soon hosted by me and Mrs. Chef Kaz y'all have an open invite anytime you're in Vegas.

Very nice of you. Keep up the incredible work. The show continues to be the best thing going and combat. I honestly think, and I'm not doing a bit. I'm not doing a bit. I'm 100% telling the truth. We should set up some kind of crowdfunding thing and however much we raise just the bare bones just enough to get to and back and whatever we need for the bare bones and we should do on the road episodes at people's homes. 100,000 fucking percent. When I tell you I'm looking right at the fucking camera when I tell you I would do it and not only would I do it

I think it would be one of the funnest things that this show could ever do, particularly in the iteration that it's in. I'm one billion percent all in on doing it if someone wants to make it. Yeah, but will you up or deck somebody's toilet like they got a guarantee? I'm going to ruin your fucking plumbing. I'm going to take a dump the size of King Kong's. You know, OK. So when we made when we brought this up a couple of weeks ago

and we're like, wow, that'd be awesome. And we mentioned, you know, hey, let's go to Mount Eneike, Nova Scotia. Let's hang out with the Paquettes. Do you know that other Paquette chef, Mark Paquette, who lives in Nova Scotia, not related to JP, but they became friends over it. He DM me and said, if you guys are serious and you're going to do this, I will cook you like the feast you've never imagined. Look, put the, put the camera on me. I'm telling you, I would do

this. I would love to do the MK home tour 2025 or 2026. Whenever home invasion tour. Yes. Home invasion tour. We come in looking like kneecap with balaclavas on our face. BC is gonna bang your wife and we're gonna podcast afterwards. tour. We come in looking like kneecap with balaclavas on our face. BC is going to bang your wife and we're going to podcast afterwards. I'm at least going to be the meat in a marriage sandwich at bedtime with you guys. It's going to be, I'm telling, but I'm being dead serious. If there's a way, Long Island Luke, I'm dead serious. If there's a way to do this, I honestly think guerrilla radio style, this would be one of the funnest things a show could do

in the iteration that it's in. A A I've been saying you guys should come to Long Island do an RSD in my living room. Okay I'm not going to Long Island I'd rather get AIDS. All right but you'll go to fucking wherever else in the world. The other thing is we could use our merch profit to fund this. Yeah I'd rather not do that but I mean you can you're right. All right then I'm out. By the way, we had made jokes, because Chef Kaz has always been very, what's the word I'm looking for? Generous.

Gracious, giving. Gracious, generous, welcoming. But we used to have that joke that, you know, him and his wife just wanted to swap partners with this married couple right here, Luke. But seriously, Chef Kaz, congratulations. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really awesome. Salute you. Well done right there.

Also, one more. One more. Put the picture up with Chef Kaz and Ilya. One more. One more. Dude, look at Ilya's face. It looks like he just woke up. Like, there's no indication that man was in a fistfight a couple of hours earlier. Zero indication. None. Nothing. Doesn't exist. Unbelievable. Shout out to Chef Kaz. That's big shit, man. I hope he continues to get referrals and more clients in that area. Well done. Let's hear from Wes right now. He says, I made this, but then the joke ended up on have you seen this shit?

And here we go. Let's see what it is. What did Cinderella do when she got to the ball? She gagged. So no fries. Sir, this is Wendy's. Now, BC, here's what I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna say anything about the race of the person taking your order. I'm not gonna say anything about it. That's unrelated to this, Luke. Come on. I, I, I, I'm not saying anything about it. I'm not saying anything about that. You just did. Wow. Um, but I will say that is fucking hilarious. And I cried when I saw that the first, I mean that I did. We,

so we never see these ahead of time unless they are like either borderline, we can't use them or they're just so funny. Mikey can't wait. He did send us that one and I was laughing until I was crying and I will say ultimately here Luke that does remind me of every interaction with DC service workers that I had many different skin colors to be fair it's very weird I know that you think everyone thinks you're funny but I keep trying to explain to you only a select few of us I'm one of them I'm one of them that's a hell of a fan sub right there at West right there fucking good. Very good. Our final entry comes from a guy who is

among the best at this. They call him Alan W. He's a great supporter of our podcast and we appreciate him. Very international man of mystery type fella. Here's what he's got. He's the first one is morning combat presents flight 11 new work transit and orange soup. Oh my God. Oh my God. What? Okay. I totally want that poster, but I really want you to have to be John Candy. I think it would work better that way. Look and maybe uncomfortable next to you, but that's brilliant. Wow. It was Steve Martin and John Candy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be Steve Martin in this sandwich. I don't really care.

And either way, although the, the use of the faces is perfect for this particular one that they did do that orange Subaru. That's literally what BC's car looks like. It's that. And you know, never forget on top of that Wow, why would you forget when we've all right on every show? I stop that. Oh the next one from L&W is called the rock Winners go home and fuck the prom queen Your best only losers whine about their best. Do you remember that line? Yes. Yeah, great movie Great when the Sean Connery turns around to Nick Cage,

he's like, your best, your best. Only losers whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen. And he goes, Carla was the prom queen. Remember that? Is that Long Island Luke on the left there, Luke? Yeah, he looks like a fucking barista murderer. That's what I know.

It's like the AI version of me again. That's a great one too. That's what I know. Like the AI version of me again. That's a great one too. That's great. The third one from Alan Dubs is DWO's Donk Pack. Donk World Order. So that's Long Island Luke. That's me looking old as shit. Oh my god, that's US Kevin Nash.

Dude Brian, you look like every man in Florida who's ever used the N-word out of Chili's. Is that me as Buff Bagwell or Scott Hall? I can't tell on the right, but on the left, that's definitely X-Pac, AKA the 123 kid, AKA a few other names there. Sean Waltman, wow, with the bong in hand and the durag.

Dude, that's great. Donk world order, shout it out. Wow, love it. Finally, choose your co-host as the final offering from Alan W. So we got glizzy BC. That's is that Zoe or who is, who is that? That's Reg.

That's Reg. He's red. Yeah. Then you got the athlete Bronstetter. Then you got me just smoking a vape, like a piece of shit. You got weird ass, Scorpion, Chuck Mendenhall. Then you just got, I mean, have you, have you seen long Island? Luke?

No, have you seen someone begging for change out of train stations? Then you've seen the other guy. Is that, oh, that Jed looking a little bit like Dan Hardy a little bit, you know, a little bit, a little bit. Wow. Well done. Alan W. Everybody. That's who you're picking there. You're picking shout out to Wes. Shout out to chef Kaz. Shout out to a Jonas CG lawns, Teddy. We appreciate you guys. Great, great fansubs and I'm told there's a lot more left for next week. Continue to send in Dead Rungs and fansubs or just reach out to the show and complain

at morningcombat at gmail.com. Tell Mikey, don't tell Mikey, show Mikey, right? There it is is there it is One more time to close the program here on this holiday weekend morning combat merch is not only back the new July Exclusives are live. I'm wearing one of them. It is the official Technical thriller shirt with BC dressed up like dead Michael Jackson in the thriller video and how about the 123 Margaritas with Luke Thomas and Sesame Street garb. Then you got the new posters. We have signed versions. We have unsigned versions of the

Lucha poster there brought to you by Average Joe R. It's more in combat dot shop. Check it out. That's a great. It's the best way to support this program. The money goes directly to us So thank you guys very very much Fantastic show Luke. We made we made a Lemonade out of shit, right? Is that the old phrase? Yes. That's the phrase makes shit lemonade Yeah, there it is. Are we really gonna go to W WWF in your house MK style this really gonna happen I mean we could we can talk about it. There's probably some

legalese we'd have to figure out but I'm I think it would be one of the best things that we could do for the show in its current state. So we'll get the grill ready in the backyard in Louisville. Alright, let's go. We'll go to chef Kaz and we'll steal his **** We'll document it and then dare him to sue us. Good stuff right there. Great show. I want to be clear, the worse your town, the better. Because then it gives us things to mock everything about

when we're doing a tour of the town. You know what I mean? Tour of Taffa. Go see Big Chicken. You can like the show, you can subscribe on YouTube. Shout out to everybody watching the DraftKings Network and of course those audio-only fans. We hear you guys too, or maybe you hear us, uh, follow our extended YouTube channels right there. Also support Long Island Luke in the main card minute LIL no fights of note this weekend.

Will you be a great boyfriend? I will holiday weekend. Happy fourth to everyone. No stream for me. I did do like a live chat kind of thing yesterday just to get something this week, but yeah, I'll be back next week with bet breakdowns. You already know. All right. What about, can I say one thing to the audience about this weekend? Yeah. Don't drink and drive. Please don't fucking do that.

No drinking and driving. Get an Uber, get a lift, ride a bike, walk, do something. You're going to go out and drink. Don't drink and drive. Please. Fall asleep in the men's room at your favorite bar before you drink and drive. That's right. Soil yourself, be a man, but don't get on the wheel of a vehicle if you've been boozing. There you go. Uh, Luke, it's our nation's birthday. You know what I mean? How many years is it? I don't know. A bunch.

All right. What's the next big one? 2076. Well, that would be three hundred years. Yeah. Oh, so is there going to be two fifty ones, two fifty. Look, next year, next year. Yeah. Wow. What's that like the Susquecentennial or some bullshit like that? I'm not sure how they would describe two fifty, but yeah.

All right. Maybe we can get to two hundred fifty thousand on YouTube subscribers. Probably not. But you know, we'll see. We're going to 250,000 on YouTube subscribers. Probably not but you know We're gonna have to show a lot more butthole. Yeah To show Cory Sanhagen the balls to get there. Um, that's the show for the week guys. Enjoy yourselves We'll be back on Monday. Look what the hell are we gonna talk about on Monday? I have no fucking idea, but we'll figure it out. We all right. That's up to us It's up to you guys to be safe. Don't blow off your digits. For L-I-L-L-T, this is B-C. Take care of you guys, okay?

Take care of yourselves. Have a great weekend. We out. This is an iHeart Podcast. This is an iHeart Podcast.