MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Pettis stops Horiguchi | Jose Aldo | Davis Beats Cruz | Haney Wins | EP 237

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

On Episode 237 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell recap a massive weekend in combat sports. They breakdown Bellator 272 and Sergio Pettis insane KO of the year contender victory over Horiguchi. Plus, Jose Aldo keeps winning. In boxing, Gervonta Davis takes down Isaac Cruz in a thriller and Devin Haney beats JoJo Diaz. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It was a weekend of chills, thrills, spills, and probably pills. Hello, everyone. It is time for Morning Combat. I am one half of your hosting duo. I am Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports, sports and sometimes showtime i join you from the capital and los estados unidos with my partner in crime the

crown prince of ct the crown prince of cte as well believe that it is my coming soon coming soon yeah it is it is my friend and yours it's brian camel what's's up, BC? I mean, can I get CTE from years of shitty dieting? Probably, Luke. I've got a black liver from it. Feels great to be back. Luke, I may not have been able to watch everything live this weekend due to family stuff at a wedding, had my parents, my sister come stay with me. But what a weekend of action once I caught up.

I don't always prefer not to have a social life and to have fights on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. But if you were a fight fan this weekend, Luke, you were rock hard with emotion as the real Jake Hager was. Yeah, if you last for longer than four hours, call a doctor. But this is one of those weekends where Friday you had something pretty special. Saturday you had something pretty special. And then the big uh boxing fight uh yesterday they used to call that a freaking weekend where i come from you know what i'm saying i understand uh we'll get to all of that and then some plus we have some breaking news but first things first remind everyone if you're watching on youtube

thumbs up on the video hit subscribe if you have not done so yet please reminder on wednesday we have fan subs friday we have Dead Wrong. Shoot us an email. MorningCombat at gmail.com. That'll be the place to get that in. Of course, if you were watching Bellator on Showtime, that means you probably have Showtime. But if you don't, you can go to Showtime.com right now

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Let us protect your jewels this holiday season. It is MK all day. But, BC, it wouldn't be anything if we didn't mention that for MK, DK, back in the house, Draft Kings, is back with us here. Yeah, look who's coming mention that for MK DK back in the house, draft Kings is back with us here. 0 1. Yeah. Look, who's coming to dinner. They're back. They're back with a bang Luke. And what a great week for them to be back when I don't know, UFC 2 6 9, this coming Saturday, a loaded

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In fact, Hammer can't touch that. So here's the deal, folks. You want to support what we're doing on MK and the great folks of DK. And let's break out of the prohibition period, all right? Luke's got a medical license for certain things. It's time to start enjoying watching sports again. So here's what you're going to do. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now,

but use our promo code that That's combat with a K. So you can throw down at least $1 on the main event of UFC 269 to see if the future hall of famer, Dustin Poirier can finally climb that mountaintop. If you put $1 down, if somebody lands a strike, a punch, you're going to get $100 in free beds. As Luke mentioned right there. That's combat with a K, our specific code. You're going to need that DraftKings Sportsbook. It's the official betting partner of what? NFL, UFC, anything that's fun to watch on TV. You want to watch a little action on Saturday?

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Just one more reminder on that. You can download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Use the code COMBAT as BC indicated. COMBAT with a K. And you throw down just one dollar on the UFC 269 main event and you can win a hundred dollars in free bets if Oliveira or Poirier land a punch that's code combat is Saturday at DraftKings Sportsbook the official sports betting partner of the UFC and by the way if you if you're like I don't know about this I've never done this guys it is fun as shit you can do in fight in game bets you can you can bet a lot of fun stuff on there so check it out tell them BC If you're like, I don't know about this, I've never done this, guys, it is fun as shit. You can do in-fight, in-game bets.

You can bet a lot of fun stuff on there. So check it out. Tell them BC sent you. You won't be disappointed. All right. Well, there you have it right there. BC, we do have the five topics to get to. But first, we actually have a very quick round of breaking news.

So about 30 minutes ago, yeah, roughly 30 minutes ago, it was revealed by Jake Paul, who of course fights this weekend on Showtime paper. Oh no, excuse me, next weekend. I'm sorry, not this coming one, but the following. So in about two weeks, Jake Paul fights on Showtime pay-per-view. It was supposed to be against Tommy Fury. Jake Paul has announced Tommy Fury has an injury and Tyron Woodley has stepped in. Now he put out a message on social media about it. We actually have the video. Let's roll it, and then we'll react to it.

It's official. Tommy Fury is boxing's biggest bitch. He has pulled out of the fight. The Furies have pulled out of the fight due to a medical condition. Who knows what the fuck is going on in that camp? I think he has a bad case of prosciitis. I couldn't believe the news at first. It still doesn't even seem real. He fumbled the biggest bag of his life. Now he will be watching at home, paying me $60 instead of getting paid millions of dollars to

fight me. I fought with a broken nose. I fought sick. Get the fuck over it. This is boxing. It's official. He was scared. I think the pressure got to him. The shit talk got to him. That's the bad news, guys. The good news is, is that Mr. Tyron Woodley, we called him up. We were like, hey, you want to take the fight? He has been training. He's going, sure, I'll take the fight. Let's do the rematch. Run it back.

I'm giving him $500,000 extra if he can knock me out. Jake Paul versus Tyron Woodley, too. Leave no doubt. I didn't knock him out the first time. I'm coming back, and I'm getting that crazy W, the crazy highlight, real knockout. December 18th, the show must go on. I'll see you guys there. Is official, Tommy Fury is boxing's biggest...

All right, so there you have it. BC, your reaction. Jake, you know, you could probably get a little tinsel, maybe some ornaments on that Christmas tree behind you. A little one-note that tree, right? Yeah, a little bit, a little bit one-dimensional. Here's the deal. A little one-note that tree, right? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit one-dimensional. Here's the deal, though.

This is obviously rough news. We wanted to see Tommy Fury involved. The big personality is brother Tyson Fury. But as far as late replacements go on two-week notice, kind of fired up for this, Luke. Let me say it like this. We remember their first fight in October in Cleveland. It was pretty exciting.

It ended up being an eight-round split decision. Maybe had Jake Paul, when he got hit with that right hand in the fourth round, and he stumbled into the ropes. The referee could have ruled that a knockdown. You wonder how much that would have skewed the scoring of the fight. My point, their first fight was very competitive, although both acted more as boxers than fighters.

I think you have to believe that Tyron Woodley, who didn't think he was going to get this rematch, has spent a lot of time rewatching that first fight, realizing how close he was. Maybe had he put on a little bit more pressure, you've already got Jake Paul guaranteeing a knockout. I think we see a lot more action. This is going to be very interesting on short notice

since Jake Paul has not been preparing for Tyron Woodley exactly what this fight could look like we know Woodley's been ringside at a bunch of different fights the last few weeks we know he's in shape and ready this could get interesting Luke why would what would make you believe that you would actually I'm not saying you're wrong or just asking you to flesh it out a little bit what would make you believe that you would see more action this time I guess I'm not sure I understand that argument. I believe Tyron Woodley was more focused in his pro debut in that first fight in October on making sure he had the stamina to go eight rounds so he didn't end up costing himself due to fatigue and end up getting stopped.

I think there were key moments where he had Jake Paul hurt and could have either getting the edge on the scorecards by being more active or maybe even put some extra punches on him to drop him or stop him. I think Woodley, when you look back on that, he was much more competitive than a lot of us maybe assumed he would be given his lack of specific boxing experience and the fact that Jake was the bigger, younger guy.

I think if you're Tyron Woodley, you go, you know, I get on my bicycle, I make sure I have the cardio, and I let my hands go. I think he feels he can get to Jake Paul's chin and again I think we're going to see fireworks sometimes Luke you see an exciting first fight you see the rematch be a little bit more tactical I can feel the inversion in this one coming well I gotta say the fact that there was a bit of a life after the first fight in terms of the controversy and the tattoo and everything else is servicing this reality quite well because Fury's out I guess my understanding is you know I we we got a candidly we got a phone call about this yesterday to sort of you know give us a heads up on this um my understanding Fury's been out for

a few days so like if it's about a two-week window in which he's been pulled out I don't know who they could have gotten as a replacement that would have done more for the fight itself than Tyron Woodley. They had the first fight, then they had this kind of after-fight life where it was maybe he's going to fight him again, maybe he's not. And then he ultimately doesn't. I have sort of mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I'm kind of excited about it because I think some of the points you raise are pretty good. I don't know commercially what this will mean because everything is switching on a dime. That does change the equation a little bit.

And some people were left with a bit of a sour taste in their mouth the first time around. Yeah, a little bit of that actually was around. At the same time, though, if you're Jake Paul, you have to like your chances here. You tasted everything Tyron more or less had to offer the first time around. You should be more than ready the second time. I guess I'm actually thinking that Jake might do a little bit more here. Am I off on that one? Look, look, when Tyron Woodley let his hands go,

he had success in that first fight. He overcame the reach and size advantage in the youth, and his right hand seemed to be the biggest weapon of the fight. Now, credit to Jake, he boxed well, he stood behind his jab, and I had him close but comfortably ahead at the end of those eight rounds, but it was a very close fight. One judge had it in favor of Woodley. Woodley already knows he can hurt Paul.

The only difference there was I don't think Woodley believed in his cardio enough to let those hands go. If I'm Tyron Woodley, I'm not thinking about a decision in this rematch. I'm thinking about cutting this eight-round fight into maybe a four-round preparation mentally and make this a brawl and a war. Tyron Woodley has much more hand-to-hand combat experience, as we know overall, than a Jake Paul who's very new to the boxing game, although he has adjusted nicely in terms of being able to control the level of competition he's faced. Tyrone Woodley, though, the better athlete Luke,

the better history in fighting, I feel like he has much more room to gain and grow in his performance on the first one than even Jake does. Yeah, the only thing that still kind of makes me wonder about it all, again, I don't know what else Jake Paul was supposed to do. It's either call it off and then reschedule with Fury down the road or just make this happen on schedule and see what you can do. In that sense, Tyron Woodley is probably by far the best option with regards to that. The only thing is Tyron has just sort of, remember what Dan Hardy was calling him, the frozen one instead of the chosen one?

Because he's still in that fight, even the UFC fight subsequent to it, but also the Jake Paul boxing match. There were just times where he did not throw and did not throw and did not throw. We keep expecting him to not do that. We keep expecting him to throw more. Well, look, Luke. Let me finish. Real quickly, this is why I go back.

I think Jake actually is the one that has more adjustments to make here, which is good news for him because he is the younger one. should be the I don't know if the better athlete but you know maybe the quicker one or the one with the better boxing timing anyway it's up to him I think to raise the bar on this well I'm going to be fair I agree with that sentiment because I think the moment that Jake tasted uh the best of Tyron Woodley's power and that wasn't the fourth round when he got rocked and nearly dropped that he got a little bit more safer in the second half of that fight and looked a little bit more to box and just kind of control with that jab from the outside. And again, not to beat a dead horse, but the prevailing theory, I went back and read my recap from the first fight for CBS Sports,

the prevailing message was, hey, you're Tyron Woodley, you're going to look back on this fight years from now and say, okay, I got a payday to close my UFC career, but I left other amounts of money on the table. Even with Tyron Woodley's recent failure to launch, failure to let his hands go in some of these fights, which has brought into question, is he physically in huge decline or is it maybe a little bit more mental? Is there a blockage there? This is a gift for Tyron Woodley to get this rematch. He did go the length of getting that tattoo on his middle finger to try to secure it. That whole bit was a little comical on both ends, to be fair.

But this is a gift for him that this fight fell apart. He wants to continue on in boxing and make some more paydays. Luke, I don't know how he can go into this two-week camp and not be thinking one thing. Knock this guy out. Leave no doubt. And in that regard that raises the potential for entertainment value they promoted the heck out of this first fight

using bad blood and track trash talk but i think we saw enough of a appetizer the first time around to believe that both guys have a lot of reason to go out there and not mess around to end this fight so we'll see if tyron woodley can create some new life for his brand here and try to derail everything jake's done because it's always pressure on the a side who accepts the last minute opponent to try to keep everything going and keep the fight you know keep the show going i give jake credit for that but tyron woodley's got a chance to be a very dangerous uh b side here i hope he takes advantage of that yeah two more thoughts on this and i guess we can move along this actually might again again, Tommy Fury was a better opponent

given where Jake Paul is at this stage of his career, right? Because he's already beaten Tyron. Again, I know that he tried to make a claim that this was controversial the first time, the scoring. I did not find the scoring to be controversial. I thought that Jake had won cleanly. But what I will say is there might be an argument, and I guess we'll have to see what the returns look like,

but there might be an argument, and I guess we'll have to see what the returns look like, but there might be an argument that it's actually better for sales in a certain respect, which is to say Tyron is probably going to be better at grabbing the MMA audience's attention than Tommy Fury might be. That's somewhat debatable, I suppose, but I think there actually might be some merit to that. The other thing we should keep in mind, you know, we're sitting here saying like, oh, Jake could raise the bar, Tyron could raise the bar. They could both lower the bar too we have to acknowledge that there is a real possibility that both guys in the sense of tyron having these ongoing problems pulling the trigger and with jake he doesn't want to fuck this up at all both might retreat to an even more boring

normal you know or to a safe place to make sure that they guide through these waters which can be challenging. Again, late notices are always dicey. Is the sky falling too, Chicken Little? I mean, come on. No, no, no, no, no. Dude, you cannot go into a fight. You cannot go into a last-minute replacement and be like,

oh, this is clearly always going to be a scenario where both guys give more. In fact, it is even just as likely where both guys could give less. This is Tyra Woodley's last chance to be in something big that matters with this many eyes. That doesn't mean jack shit. That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean a damn thing, dude. If I'm Woodley, Luke, he didn't have a jab the first time around.

I'm not jabbing. I'm not looking to box. I'm not looking to win rounds. I'm looking to fight this guy. Dude, why hasn't he done that the last four fights then i mean it's not like this is like this is something he's been able to solve it's been an ongoing problem listen i'm not declaring that that's the way that will go but we've seen these exhibition exhibition fights this is a pro contest but we've seen these kind of youtube

generated fights whatever you want to call this at this point and sometimes they're good but a lot of times they're a little bit ho-hum this one with the late notice i'm just saying it's hard to know exactly what to expect the scenarios you present i in no way can say that that's wrong but i also don't want to get out in front of our skis and be like oh this is going to be better than the first one let's wait and see let's wait and see what these guys tell us there's a good chance that your microphone probably hasn't been working this whole show and you've been talking in silence. But I don't sit by waiting for that to fall apart. Listen, you've heard me, and that's all that matters. That's all that matters.

All right. With that out of the way, that'll be in two weeks, a little bit less than. We still have to get to what happened over this past weekend. So let's get into the top five if we can here. BC, we'll start with, in my view view and i think you probably agree with this i think this was the most interesting fight result over the weekend bar none in the main event of bellator 272 kyoji horiguchi for about 18 minutes wasn't just winning every round brian campbell he was winning every minute of every round sergio pettis looked to be in a particularly hopeless situation,

or so we thought. And then there was a slight change in the way they were fighting, and the whole thing changed like that. So, Sergio Pettis retains his bantamweight title. What is the real story of the fight, BC? The slight switch in adjustments? Let me ask the question bc for fuck's sake luke i'm gonna answer yes i i know you will that's fine i don't mind that but just

let me ask the question what is the real story of the fight that sergio pettis could pull a rabbit out of his hat or the 18 minutes that came first i think neither i think the story of the fight is that combat sports can be and often is the best theater because of results like this, because you can hit a 10 run, you know, a 10 run home run in the final inning. Although this was the fourth round and not the fifth, you get the point. Luke, there are very rare fights like this, like, you know, Chael Sonnen versus Anderson Silva one or Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, where one person is completely dominating the fight. And then it's over just like that. This, I mean, the shift in,

in, in narrative was so stark and dramatic because Kyoji Horiguchi was that sort of hipster hidden product product who had been fighting off of American TV and rising. And you were making that case like like everyone else was. Maybe this guy really is the best Bantamweight in the world. And for four and a quarter rounds, he looked like the best Bantamweight in the world. Everything he did was precise and technical and hard. Look, everything he landed was heavy. He looked like a million dollars. In fact, he made Sergio Pettis really look like a second-class citizen in comparison to him. It sort of made, you know, Bellator look almost downgraded. Like, okay, Pettis looked great beating Archuleta, but did we overrate that?

And then just like that, Pettis flips the script. So what do I learn from that? I learn from that, again, another lesson that this sport is heartbreaking and brutal and unpredictable and amazing that this can happen, that this was possible. And I think the statements you echoed on Twitter and others as well, especially the guys who have been in this game, it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't a, you know, it was more of a fluke. Yair Rodriguez with the reverse elbow with one second to go. This was not a fluke. This was a well-timed set-up strike that is in his arsenal, and the speed in which he recovered from dodging the head kick

and then throwing and landing that. Wow. Wow, Luke. So for Sergio Pettis, you saved everything with one strike. And the fact, Luke, and of course we're going to get into it in a second, but the fact that Bellator the timing of this that they announced the eight-man world grand prix full filled with heavy hitters right before this fight happened that's going to start in early 2022 the fact that this is your your you know your setup yourizer, your cliffhanger to show you how dynamic this weight class is globally, how deep the Bellator roster is, and how unpredictable this is.

We have no idea from Magomed Magomedov to Ralfion Stotz to any of these eight names who's coming out of this tournament. This main event on Friday night was like the perfect example that these guys are so well-matched, you never know what's going to happen. I came out of this. I can't wait to see Coyote Horiguchi again. I can't

wait to see the damn Gooch because Luke for for for freaking 15 minutes, he looked like a like the best in the world. And then it was over like that. He's on a stretcher. So I can't really answer your question. Was this more about a freak ending or more about? No, I don't know, Luke, because Pettis seemed like he was waiting for that moment for a while. And to Pettis' credit, Luke, he never showed visible frustration, even though he was getting beat in every aspect of the game across the board. I think the only thing Pettis did right while falling behind was that he never started to

gamble too much. He actually stayed within himself and stayed coiled and stayed poised, even to his detriment, meaning I'm watching going, dude, let your hands go. I mean, get this guy out of your head and at least go down swinging. Oh, he went down swinging, Luke, but he set that shit up perfectly. So I don't know how you want me to answer your question beyond telling you I love this shit.

This is why we watch these fights, Luke. Sign me up front row seat for this tournament moving forward. Well, I mean, here's a couple of thoughts that I had. First of all, I think you're right about the, we'll talk about the Bellator bantamweight tournament that was announced, but I actually feel like this result sets up the tournament in the most interesting kind of ways. Not that Horiguchi winning would not have made it all so interesting, but it's even more interesting now, given that dynamic. We'll see where they end up putting Horiguchi and Pettis in the brackets and how often they may, or how soon they may face off depending on if they move along. But getting back to the fight itself, the question was like, you know, what was the true story of the fight, the first 18 minutes

or the result? And I have to tell you, it's actually going to be a little bit of both. Like while what happened was improbable in the sense that title fights rarely end in that kind of a way and especially after the guy who won was getting his ass kicked for 18 minutes that is so unusual at the same time here's what's kind of interesting if they fight again I do think you just rationally have to look at the case for Horiguchi and think he can repeat this probably without the same result. You would like his chances to do that given how much of the clock he had controlled and how much of the, frankly, the real estate in the octagon he had controlled. But go back to our Friday preview of this. I said

this explicitly because it's not that hard to figure out. To the extent that Kyoji Horiguchi has room, he's going to be a fucking handful. And to the extent that he doesn't, it doesn't mean he's some kind of, you know, collapsing on himself, but it's a different fight. Go and look at what Pettis did in this contest right before the end of the result. First of all, he was looking for that spinning back fist a few times earlier, but didn't really set it up all that well. This time, he actually ended up clinching with Horiguchi, pushing him back towards the fence line, and then going into this kind of combination. Why is that important? Dude, as long as Horiguchi has lateral movement and he can blitz and everything else, he's going to be almost impossible to beat. His speed was ridiculous. His level

changing was ridiculous. His timing was perfect. Sergio Pettis was getting eaten alive trying to play Matador with this bull. It was a terrible scenario for him but when you close the space and you make it a phone booth fight and you force a guy backed up against the fence line to exit one way or the other you know which way they're going to go you're forcing them into a choice well then it becomes a different fight now all of a sudden you are exchanging here as opposed to just waiting for a car to zoom past you constantly. That played a result in the ending. If you're Sergio Pettis, next time you fight, you know, you know, you know, you know, you cannot give this guy any space. And if you don't, your chances of landing something of significance fucking skyrocket. Despite the fact, BC, that Sergio pettis for sure got his ass kicked for 18 minutes the way he

was able to adjust at the end and the reason why he landed actually makes me even more excited for the rematch even if i still favor horiguchi as the more well-rounded fighter of the two i love this fight i love what happened luke i haven't seen any betting odds but gun to your head who should be the betting favorite entering this eight-man tournament? And just for anybody that hadn't heard it, you're going to get the champion Sergio Pettis. You're going to get Horiguchi, former champ Juan Archuleta, Rafael Stotz, who's red hot and deserves a title shot

off that win over Magomed Magomedov, former title challenger Pachy Mix, Leandro Alter-Higo, and James Gallagher, fresh off that loss to Apache Mix. Who should be the betting favorite coming in? I'll say either the top three guys in the tournament, because probably Horiguchi, probably Horiguchi, but I'll say this, dude. By the way, he got knocked out by Kai Asakura in their first meeting and then totally avenged himself in the second one. So,

you know, very foolish to think that Horiguchi, even though this was a bad result and that kind of knockout could scar a person, you know, hard to imagine he can't rally a little bit. I'll say Horiguchi number one. After that, dude, I might say Stotz number two. And that's, I know that's like, oh, that's so disrespectful to Sergio Pettis, the champion. I don't mean it to be, but I got to call what we see. That win was legit for Sergio Pettis. But the body of work from Horiguchi can't be overlooked, and Ralphie on Stotts is coming like a freight train up the rankings. I think those two guys, and Sergio Pettis certainly is the champion,

those are going to be the guys to watch. What about you? I agree with you. I think Horiguchi's got to be the betting favorite. I'm not counting out Magomed Magomedov, even though I thought he lost cleanly in a very fun fight to watch against Stotts. He got out-wrestled when that's

his bag, baby. I also look at him as a potential dark horse in the same way I did Corey Anderson in this light heavyweight Grand Prix that's still ongoing. Luke, I love this tournament. I think the timing is perfect. In fact, I've got 86 great things to say about it. The only bad thing, tell me if you agree with me. Tell me if you think I'm being perfect. In fact, I've got 86 great things to say about it.

The only bad thing, tell me if you agree with me. Tell me if you think I'm being greedy. Ever since Patricio Pitbull said, I can make 135, I want to try to become a three-division champion, and then gave up his title at lightweight for his brother to get a chance at it, considering he already lost the featherweight belt to AJ McKee. Although, if he wants to chase that rematch, I'm down for that too. Are you disappointed that this tournament, which is already great,

it's basically the top seven fighters plus Horiguchi in their rankings, you would have added Patricio Pitbull to that? Oh, my God, Luke. You know? Are you with me or no? That would have been amazing. That would have been amazing. And maybe there still is an opportunity, probably unlikely. One never knows.

It seems like his business is going to be sorted with a, he wants a rematch obviously with AJ McKee. So we'll have to see, but I agree. You put that guy as the eighth slot. I think they might end up being Josh Hill or somebody else with an eighth slot. I'm not sure who it is,

but yeah, that would have been, that would have been tremendous. I read the eight names. I thought you were, did you read? Yeah, they didn't read seven.

No, I read eight. I said, there's seven plus Horiguchi who's not in the rankings until this week. The one thing, they're going to name alternates. They're going to name locations and dates and all that. So we'll see what happens. But obviously, look, the way that Patricio lost to McKee, how almost freak, well, it was not a freak. It was dominant. But how quickly, given his history, you'd like a rematch there. Maybe that's where he's going. But, Luke, top to bottom, this is a strong tournament. I think of all their recent Grand Prixs, which have been very strong,

including the 16-man featherweight one, this is where I think, you know, you've got three, four, five guys that can win this whole tournament. So I'm really excited about that part of it. You want to see if Patchy Mix or James Gallagher can get hot and figure their game out and get on the run you know and you've got tough outs like he go that this is going to be fun to see no doubt about it and it's you know it's kind of interesting I like that I like this tournament call from from Scott Coker and from Bellator here partly for this division because it's just a great way

for the fans to get a clear sense of the hierarchy in the division not that the results in that was what tournament by themselves are like ironclad forever but for the hierarchy in the division. Not that the results in the tournament by themselves are like ironclad forever, but for the moment in time, they're good for sorting. And also, dude, it's a great way for them to compete with IFL, excuse me, not IFL, with PFL for talent, because they're having their own million-dollar tournament as well inside of the organization.

So you still get some of the PFL trimmings, a great way to get the division noticed and you get to keep your matchmaker model along the way it's a smart play and you get a chance presumably to fight for the title before the championship round because as we always talk about the bellator champion in this case sergio pettis gets no i mean maybe outside of getting the number one seed is going to get no preference you're going to have to you know defend your title in a five round bout every single time. So you could end up becoming the champion after a first-round matchup here.

It is a nice way to keep it going. And, Luke, it keeps the legacy and spirit of one Bjorn Rebny alive. Yeah. For folks who may have missed it, his tournaments were a little bit different. I know you're not making this point, but I'm just saying for the audience's sake. Which is that, if you guys don't remember, if you were in one of his tournaments, you had to stay healthy. You had to fight once a month for three months. So you had to be really, really careful in your training.

And by the time those guys reached the third fight in the cycle, they were broken and beaten down. I tend to think that the career of Pat Curran was kind of hastened to a close by virtue of all the tournaments that he had to go through. So this is a bit of a different model. The fan base is in a bit of a different space, but it's great. One last point on this that you made that I just want to echo one more time if we can. You know, you can say what you want about the shift in strategy and what Sergio Pettis did, but I think the point that you raised is really the one worth underscoring here,

which is part of the reason why he won here is that despite losing literally every minute of this fight up until he won, he didn't quit. He didn't lay down. He didn't kind of give in to the, what seemed like the inevitable. He just kept fighting the best he could. He tried to switch things up the best he could, and it found the mark. Will it work a second time? Obviously, that's going to be a bit of an uphill climb again but you have got to see here in sergio pettis he is not an elite level fighter by accident down in every way but fighting like he is up in every way you have to love the commitment you have to love the intensity and you have to love what he brings champion or otherwise into this bellator bantamweight tournament in 2022 i agree with you and quickly i i gotta you know give scott coker a shout out this is a great

free agent pick up a guy who fought in the organization once and beat darren callbell two years ago darian callbook excuse me but luke there's a lot of talk of like damn horiguchi's this great we kind of knew he was this great how the hell the ufc ever give this guy up are you in that same sort of hindsight major mistake uh mode like i mean the UFC ever give this guy up are you in that same sort of hindsight major mistake uh mode like I mean why did they give this guy up I I wonder about that you have to imagine if they really cared about nurturing the Japanese market that he would have been front of the line I mean but you also have to kind of look at what Scott Coker and Bellator did here right Kyoji Horiguchi is as talented as they come, and he may end up

being champion in 2022. I think if you're Sergio Pettis, you have to have a look in the mirror and be like, okay, you know, you got the win fair and square, but whenever that second match comes, if and when it does, it's going to be just as tough as the first one, probably, and maybe worse. They went back to Mohegan Sun, though, because I don't think that Kyoji Horiguchi as it stands today is a draw I think a lot of people who are casual MMA fans are absolutely unaware of who he is I think Scott Coker recognizes that and so the hope is that you can build up whoever the champion ends up being Horiguchi or otherwise with this tournament taking them on the road showing them to the fan base maybe the UFC felt like they didn't want to do that. Maybe his asking price was too much.

It's hard to know exactly. But even Scott Coker, you can tell, recognizes that as a development for the market, there's some work to be done with Kyoji Horiguchi. Sergio Pettis, too, by the way. All right. With that out of the way, I kind of wanted to ask, you know, very quickly, Scott Coker was asked about Kevin Lee, BC. He seemed to indicate he had no interest.

Are you surprised by that? Yeah, I am. And there's been a couple of those reactions from Scott in the past, you know, two years when somebody from the UFC gets let go. And, you know, to be fair, he's also shown no interest and then immediately signed Rumble Johnson and Yoel Romero. So, you know, we'll see what happens. This is a public negotiation ploy that doesn't typically seem to be Scott's way of handling things.

But I would guess from my point of view that Kevin Lee, because guys like us believe there's still so much left under there, if he can get right, would be the perfect guy for Bellator to, you know, refresh and rebrand and see if they can get that spark out of him. But, you know, Scott Coker's a successful businessman can get that spark out of him but uh you know Scott Coker's a successful businessman in a lot of ways for a reason Luke but yeah I would stand on the side that would say Scott what the heck's going on here get this guy yeah I don't quite understand it either other than I guess they feel like he had such a you know a languid exit in terms of

his overall performance that maybe they want to see if he can get right first. But I guess we'll see. All right, we move on to topic number two, but we stay in the Bantamweight division, BC. Jose Aldo, I won't say turn back the clock, but he just continued his winning ways, basically outclassing a game but overmatched Rob Font. BC, simple question.

How important was this win for Aldo and what does it say about the state of his career in 2021 heading into 2022? This was a huge win. This was a huge win. Luke had he stopped him and he looked close to stopping Font earlier. I don't even think it would have been as impressive as a thorough five-round performance actually turned out to be. Jose Aldo at 35 is not going anywhere. Although I predicted he would defeat and stop Font, I felt like Rob Font had a great run,

but had showed me enough to show me there's levels to this. He's not of this level. I don't think I could have guessed that it would have been this thorough from Aldo that he would still show us, Luke, that when he says, I want to fight for the damn title, even though we saw him get destroyed by Jan, it's possible. It's still possible. I love that he called out TJ Dillashaw afterwards.

That's a fight that all of us fans would pop for. But I said coming in that if Aldo can do this again, if he can win his third straight, he's got this weird period of his twilight, but it's not really a twilight. It's becoming more of a second half to his career where he's so this weird period of his twilight but it's not really a twilight it's becoming more of a second half to his career where he's so damn lovable because here's just an old legend who is giving you know some guys get to this age luke they rely on the one easy skill if they're a power puncher or whatever you know i always thought aldo would be the kind of guy who would spend his

twilight up at lightweight where he's giving up the size and power advantages and just taking big fights and just, you mix with that experience that technique and the fact that he's still so freaking hungry and still getting better dude he is a dangerous fighter this was so fun to watch luke that i think and you know okay we're journalists we're objective but we're all fans luke that's why we have this passion and we you know we all have our favorites right for luke it's like anthony smith and ckb fighters 1 through 17 but you know your boy bc over here luke loves him some kevin lee yoana rose giant bliss miss i gotta push those aside and put the king of real a guy who i always respected but you never had that super fan feeling just this is such an enjoyable ride to see somebody who loves his

craft this much and he's still getting better Luke yes we watched him hit what we thought was a ceiling at the time against Piotr Jan but I think he's a better fighter today than he was at that point and it's a tribute to his hunger because I said coming in could we see some grappling from Aldo you and I both didn't really see it coming. His wrestling, his top control was as important to this fight as his boxing and the fact that everything he threw and landed was so much heavier than font. I could give you analysis about what this means, Luke, but I'd rather spend this time on camera just saying, Jose Aldo, I love you. I love you. Look, this is so much fun to watch. I love Bantamweight Jose Aldo.

I'm sorry. People say, ABC, you're crazy. You always say there's five people at that upper room in that go table in MMA history. Where's Jose? Oh, he's second class? He's right below that? Look, if he keeps getting wins like this,

the King of Rio is the king of my heart right now. I love this guy. You know, it was amazing to watch. Rob Font came out like a house on fire for the first four and a half plus minutes of the first round and then Jose Aldo kind of settled into a bit of a rhythm a little bit late and then lands that one two or at least the right hand that sat him down and basically never looked back even after Rob Font's kind of steady work shut his eye his right eye you still saw Aldo slipping and

countering to your point he was not only good on the ground he was passing to mount and forcing Rob Font even if he was able to recapture half guard you know it's a lot of work to push someone out of mount into half guard over and over and over again you have to constantly switch your hips you have to constantly kind of shrimp and use your core. And it's a lot of work. And dude, he was just on him like white on rice. And by the time the fight ended, he had basically outclassed him. I still stand by one of my pieces of analysis, which is Jose Aldo going to bantamweight. It didn't re-alter his fortunes in the sense of where he was fitting in the title picture in his respective weight class. He doesn't seem to be able to beat Peter Jan. I mean, we'll see. And maybe he's a little bit under the one and top two guy.

In that sense, it's sort of the same was at featherweight. But to your point, and to what everyone else has watched here, the fact that he can beat a guy as good as Rob Font, who everybody can see is a quality fighter, I mean, a very high-level fighter, at this stage in his career, maybe he didn't like completely change his fortunes, but just to be able to extend your life as a top competitor against a guy this good,

who by the way, Rob Font is very much at the, maybe he still has a little bit of room to go, but in terms of what he has shown us, this has, this is his peak. He has never been as good as he is today. And for Jose Aldo to do that at this stage in his career at 34 years of age, to go down a weight class and beat guys like this that thoroughly, it is unbelievable to see something like this. It is so rare. We're so fortunate that he cares as much as he does. Dude, in many ways, if you watch Jose Aldo against Korean Zombie or Jose Aldo against Frankie Edgar the first time they fought, there were some people who had some sour taste in their mouth about Jose

not really giving it all that he could or kind of being a little bit nonchalant about his challengers. Dude, now he takes them as seriously, as seemingly as he ever has. He cares as much, maybe more than he ever has, and you can see it in the way in which he tries. And I think that's all anyone ever wanted out of Aldo besides all the greatness that he provided. Dude, it's humbling to watch a guy this good this late in his career care this much and

get the results that he's getting. Super humbling. I want to ask you a question because I heard a little something there. You said what I thought coming in, which is like, okay, we kind of know his ceiling. We saw Aldo against Jan, who's the top of the pops at the moment. Okay, he was competitive to a certain point and then not at all. But this looks to me, now I get there's levels and is Rob Font and Jan the same? No, but it looked like Jose Aldo looked in the mirror and said,

if I do want to continue being a title contender in this division, because let's not remember, let's not forget. Last week, I was saying I'd much kind of rather see him against other old names in fun fights, Dominic Cruz, right? Faber for all I care, anyone like that. And he's like, no, guys, I'm not done competing for a title. Do you think he went back to the lab, looked in the mirror, saw the issues that he showed against Jan that he doesn't have at this age,

particularly five round hard stamina, and maybe fix that? Would you say that we don't know, first of all, if Jan's still going to be the champion one fight from now because this division's so great. I'm not sure Aldo's done competing for titles, Luke. And, you know, it'd be another conversation what his legacy could become if he became a two division champion and did it so late in his career but are you still dismissing the the idea of him competing for against the very best of this division because I think he's changing my opinion I'll say that it would be foolish of me to be like oh he can't win a title obviously if you know Jan is the champion and continues to be informed the way that he has been.

I do think I'm skeptical of Aldo's chances. But to the point you're raising, I mean, he gets criticized, Aldo, for abandoning the leg kicks. And there's sort of a complex set of reasons about it. But, for example, in this fight, showing the takedowns and top control that he had, I thought was not necessarily a new wrinkle, but showing an overall willingness to go to different forms of offense to make sure he secured the win would be top control be the thing that he needed against Peter Yon. It remains to be seen, but I like that.

He's got all these gears. He's got such a vast array of experience. This guy's been doing this since my wife was my girlfriend. You know what I mean? I have a kid with her now and he's over here doing all of this shit like this. It's unbelievable. So when you think about all the experience, all the tools, all the training, bringing some of that back around, giving it some new life to get ahead of some of these young guys

like Rob Font, who, again, is still climbing the ladder, reaching his peak. It is impressive to see. So I'll say, am I a little bit skeptical that he can become a champion in 2022 of the Bantamweight division? Yes, I am skeptical, but can I write off his chances to A, get back there or B, win? Absolutely not. I cannot. It would be foolish to get on here and say, well, he can't win a title. I don't like the chances per se, BC, but you got to respect the respect the effort you gotta respect how viable a contender he is and you gotta respect all the things he brings to the table because of what he's done

he's better now than he was a year or two years ago it's just fact that's what i saw on saturday luke do you think dillashaw is the fight to make although we've it has already looked like tj dillashaw has come back and earned a title shot but you know how quickly things change and we do have a bottleneck atop this division is that the fight for UFC to make next so let's do this let's use that question to jump to question number three which is I want to talk about how we match make here a little bit but just let's put the conversation together point number three we had what we knew coming in was going to be a bantamweight showcase between bellator on friday and now ufc on saturday so question number three here bc as we roll on here in our top five after

saturday i should say after the weekend of action who in your mind are the top five bantamweights in the world in order in order if you have to yes okay my my worldwide pound for pound bantam weight top five looks like this number one peyote or yon okay number two he would you horiguchi tell me i'm wrong look pause right here tell me i'm wrong brother he did get viciously ko'd over the weekend he did i saw it it did happen it did happen but Gucci, tell me I'm wrong, Luke. Pause right here. Tell me I'm wrong, brother. He did get viciously KO'd over the weekend. He did. I saw it.

It did happen. It did happen, but it's not a meritocracy here. I'm just talking about ability right now in the moment, Luke, okay? Okay, keep going. That's two. Okay, okay. All right. Number three.

TJ Dillashaw. Okay, all right. I'm with it, okay. Number four, Aljamain Sterling. Number five, Jose Aldo. Oh, you just got one Bellator guy in the top five one and as you walk away from your own court sergio pettis number six don't hate me that's a walk off right there all right i'm gonna go i'll go yon number one i will go see here's the thing if you want to talk like who's more talented versus whose record of achievement

allows us to rank them appropriately then you could put horiguchi number two otherwise you couldn't um okay i i want you to go on more on head to head who would you favor so that's part of the pound for pound discussion when you rank right it's part of what they've accomplished to get here but it's also i test their their exact value as a fighter and ability this second i get horiguchi just got knocked out i mean i'm not you know dumb to this but luke you know who do you think is the best in the world ability wise at this moment top five in a row right now that's how you got to answer it all right so we're talking just ability one i'd put yawn two i would put i might put dillashaw to be honest with you i might put dillashaw just in terms of raw ability that's a little debatable i can recognize that's pretty debatable three i'd put again

just on ability i'd put the gooch four i'd put the Gooch. Four, I'd put maybe Sterling. There's part of you that wants to keep Sterling out of the top five. I could see it in your eyes. You want to keep him out of the top five. I'm happy to put him in the top five. And then for five, I got to tell you, to me, that one's harder to call because there's Sanhagen floating out there. There's Aldo floating out there.

There I do. I'm telling you guys, if you don't believe me now, you will eventually Ralphie on stats might be the best bantamweight in, in Bellator. I think he's that good. We got to put respect on Sergio Pettis, his name,

Luke and Sergio Pettis, obviously is a fucking bad guy, bad motherfucker as well. So that, that five slots a little hard for me, but dude, if you combine Bellator and ufc's bantamweight division there isn't another division in the sport that comes as close as that one dude

it's an all-star squad versus another all-star squad it is very hard to rank the top 10 you're damn right uh the only wild card here remains sugar sean o'malley luke he youth i mean he doesn't have the he's got to beat better guys before you can rank them because he's ahead of him okay and we did see something in the marlin verified along with an injury that that should pause this this type of conversation you know we did like i mean just just think about like this dude could sean o'malley's body take as much of a beating as what Jose Aldo has been through? The answer might be yes, but I'm a little bit skeptical that he is as durable. Dude, part of the reason, I always say it, man.

I've been to a lot of regional level fights, and you see some good fighters on there who just don't have durability or chins, and it's not their fault. They're just built a certain way, and they can't excel through the ranks even though from a technical perspective they're quite talented one thing people just don't really understand is a lot of these guys who make it to the top like your yawns and your aldos yes they are unbelievably talented but they have a built-in level of durability that we take for granted that shouldn't necessarily be there we just kind of assume it but don't. Guys like that are very, very special in terms of how much their bodies can absorb

in terms of this very, very difficult thing. So matchmake for me. Top five. Two quick questions, because I don't feel the need to rush through this, Luke. The MMA fans like this type of shit, even if they think my list is hipster. Real quick, we're right to not have Corey Sanhagen in the top five because we just saw him lose to three of the elites in the world. But he's also competitive against the very elites in the world.

Is there a case for him in this top five just on pure ability alone or no? To me, you guys know I've been very high on Corey Sanhagen. I remain very high on Corey Sanhagen. But it is obvious that there are a few parts of his game that are in need of some tweaks. He, he, over the course of those three fights, we saw him tweak it in terms of his defensive wrestling, not really playing from guard for too long, but he still is a little bit hittable. You know, there's still some things that he just needs to work on, but he is also in his twenties and we'll just have to see. So I think he is from a talent perspective he could end up being number one here I really I think of him that highly

but given that he is at this sort of rebuilding stage a bit of his career still while elite maybe maybe a little bit outside the top five right now not only does he look exactly like our producer Corey Minici in these photos right here but he's also becoming the Dan Hooker of this division and every division needs a guy who tends to lose against the very best because now you can't win every fight finally luke before we get into your matchmaking part there's going to be some marab davala shilly super fans going guys you're missing this he's really number five at the moment he needs to beat better opposition before we can put him in the top five at Bantamweight.

I mean, that is, you gotta be real special to get up there. He might listen from a talent perspective. He might get there, but he's got to beat someone a little bit better than who he has, which is not his fault. Like who he's been given.

He's done quite well against, but let's see it against one more, two more, maybe high level guys. And we can put them in there in that top five space he's right he's knocking on the door i'm much more likely to fall for the flashy packaging of somebody who has yet to actually earn it than you are okay all right so let's talk about that top five there peter yon is your champ of your interim champ he might face sterling here pretty soon tj dillashaw is in need of a fight san hagen's in need of a fight rob font just lost Dillashaw's in need of a fight Sanhagen's in need of a fight Rob Font just lost Jose Aldo's in need of a fight you have Merab sitting at six

Garbrandt probably is going to fly away at seven and after that it's not really all that relevant match make for me after the weekend who should Dillashaw fight next Sanhagen fight next and then Aldo and Font you got to do Aldo I'm sorry you have to do the champ versus the former champ Jan and Sterling so we'll put that up there. I did think there was a window, obviously, where TJ Dillashaw fresh off that Sanhagen one could have got the next title shot. Injuries have slowed him. And again, Luke, things move so fast in these divisions

that have so much talent that you miss out. Jose Aldo versus TJ Dillashaw really feels like the fight to make. So if that happens, it kind of leaves a corey sanhagen coming off another loss but still being elite against a marab davala shilly who needs that level of name to prove that he belongs look could you imagine the style clash in that one that'd be fantastic i'd also say you could do san hagen versus font and i think by the way ufc was looking for that uh and in previous iterations where you've got font coming off of a loss you've got sandhagen coming off of a loss they're sitting at three

versus four right now maybe you don't want to burn that maybe you want to have sandhagen fight someone outside of that top five and font someone outside of that top five to push them up the food chain or you know resort things to your point marab is probably due for a big big one of those but that's another option you could go to as well. So I like Aldo versus Dillashaw too, dude. I think as well, I should say. I think that's the fight to make. All right, Song Yudong is coming.

I just want you to remember that, okay? He's sitting at 14, though. He's got some work to do. He's coming. He'll be there. I'm telling you. All right, let's go back to boxing for a second if we can, BC, because last night on pay-per-view,

Gervonta Davis had, I would argue, his toughest fight to date, quite honestly, against Isak Cruz. Now, he gets the, I think it was majority decision. I think one fight had it a draw. Well, excuse me, one judge had it a draw, and then two had it. It was a unanimous decision. It was unanimous? Sorry, I can't keep it straight anymore.

In any case, yeah, that's right, because it was 115-113. There was 116-112. I believe that's right. Two of those.3 there was 116 112 I believe that's right two of those anyway 115 113 correct so so you get the idea there it was close but in the end if you just add up who won more rounds the judges believe that Gervonta won my question for you is as follows did Isak Cruz relative to the casual fan exceed expectations or did Gervonta underperform? How would you assess why this fight ended up being as close as it was? This was such a, like the questions you asked, there's a few different hooks. Depending on how you watched it, you could really take any of those

lanes and maybe not be wrong. But here's how I watched it. Now, they said a star is born in Isak Cruz. That seems a bit much, but certainly he raised his stock incredibly. Did you hear that crowd? Did you hear that L.A., Mexican-American crowd just go nuts for him? He fought over his head. Isak Cruz should get nothing but big fights moving forward because he proved himself on the highest level. But I can't sit here and downgrade Gervonta without, you know, bringing up, dude, his money go punch is his left hand. He's knocked out 24 of 25 guys coming in and his left hand, we don't know the medical result yet, appeared to be broken at some point midway through the fight.

So Luke, I believe the injury to Gervonta did open the door for Isak Cruz to have more success than he would have had. And the reason why I'm confident in saying that is because at the beginning of the second half of this fight, round six, seven, eight, I started to notice that Isak's early success was wavering. Gervonta had figured him out and he was sitting in there putting it on him. That was around the time that Gervonta hurt his hand and that it started to become a problem, and by rounds nine and ten, Gervonta's not throwing the left hand at all. I think he would have stopped Nisak Cruz in the second half of this fight, which was the prediction of both of us, and I think that allowed for Cruz to have more success. Now, let's give Cruz full credit, Luke.

He's raw. I thought he was going to have to make this a brawl to succeed. He found a way to, now look, it was raw, but he found a way to box to stay in this fight that you even had some people in a very close fight, 7-5, 7-5, and 8-4, the judges had it. I had it 8-4, Gervonta. Sergio Moura on Twitter thought Cruz won. I won i mean you know the crowd thought cruise won he fought great but he did it as al bernstein was keen enough to realize by not jabbing he threw what he landed seven jabs

overall in the fight he realized that gervonta was way too quick as a counter puncher that had he jabbed he was leaving himself way too open for those cross those left crosses that he did a great job hiding behind his high guard getting inside i thought he slowed gervonta down with body shots and i think overall cruz showed a hell of a chin at age 23 luke he is going to be a problem he may not be a one punch knockout guy but he's durable he gets inside on you he's got a huge motor in the end. He's got a huge motor. In the end, I think this was a huge win-win for the division as a whole. Gervonta survives in advances and showed toughness. Again, you could have watched it a certain way and you can criticize him, but his money punch was taken away from him and he still figured out a way with one hand to win

this fight. Two, Cruz raises his game. And three, this division's already on fire with Cambosis pulling the upset, Haney getting the win on Saturday, which we're going to talk about, that I think, you know, the future is going to be a lot more fun that all of these fighters are starting to look, rather than each of them looking dominant,

not fighting each other, they're starting to look a little bit more even. So whether Gervonta Davis not blowing this guy away was more of what he didn't do or Cruz did more than we thought or whether it was because of the injury, he looked for the first time, Luke, a little bit more human, and I think that's better for the division. It's going to help the other guys on the outside looking in go, oh, I can hang with Gervonta.

I just saw Isak Cruz do that and I think it has a chance of helping us make the the better fights moving forward but I don't take anything away from Gervonta having watched this closely Luke this was a tough guy who overachieved in front of him and he fought through an injury to get his hand raised I gotta tell you I find the Gervonta criticisms misplaced here now anytime we compliment someone who is a Showtime fighter it is inevitable that there's going to be a portion of the audience that says we are doing this to do Showtime a favor despite the fact that we routinely don't compliment Showtime fighters or have criticisms of Bellator so like whatever I say here if people want to dismiss it because of whatever presumed

conflicts of interest they're allowed to do that I'm just going to tell you how I feel I don't understand their Gervonta criticisms now a couple a couple of things here. Dude, look at the record on this. When BC and I were told of the story that Rolando Romero was out and Isak Cruz was in, our song had been the same since the beginning. We did think that Gervonta was going to win, and we did think Gervonta was going to stop him we both were unequivocal in saying we thought it was going to be a much tougher fight for Gervonta Davis lo and behold that is exactly what you got that should not have been a surprise whatsoever and frankly it was Gervonta's toughest fight I would actually argue he's ever had certainly in the professional ranks

I mean you could have argued he may have been in other fights where you know he looked a little bit more languid and the fight was a little bit less inspiring and maybe he kind of eked one out. But in terms of hard-fought fights, this was his hardest one to date. And then you add in the fact that he may have had an injury, we'll see, to his left hand, his dominant punching hand. Lord only knows what could have happened there. The fact that he boxed as well as he did was pretty impressive. Dude, this is what it was for me.

One of the criticisms of Gervonta Davis previously had been commitment, had been sometimes making weight. The guy lost his fucking belt on the scales previously, not in this contest, but in other ones. He didn't take any time off in this one, and he had to move a lot because of what Isak Cruz was doing. To me, Gervonta Davis was able to stick and move, took him a couple of rounds to figure out exactly how to find that space. But once he did, and especially in that seventh round BC, I thought he looked really, really good all things considered. It just so happens that Isak Cruz at 23 years old is a fucking fire hydrant with his defense. He has a great chin. He is quite durable and he was in it to win it.

It's just that Gervonta, his ability to get underneath the hooks and reset position and pour on that uppercut, that counter uppercut right hook. That was just a thing of beauty. I don't understand the argument while I grant that Isak Cruz performed quite ably and is very deserving of a lot of praise. And at 23 23 years old who knows how good he's going to be at 25 26 28 years old or something like that i don't understand the argument that you can look at that fight and pick seven rounds that he won i don't see seven rounds i see four maybe five if you wanted to be generous i can see five maybe but that was the overall slicker more damaging operator there was pretty clearly Gervonta Davis.

He had to earn it, and I like the effort, BC, that he showed from rounds 1 to round 12. I think you're right. Not only did Gervonta outland him overall, so you couldn't use the punch stats as an argument, his percentage was great. Gervonta is always a very efficient power puncher. But as you mentioned, Gervonta did figure him out

in the second half of that fight, and I, Gervonta did figure him out in the second half of that fight. And I thought Gervonta did a great job digging in and, in flurrying to the body and really landing the type of shots that get other guys out of there. So again, maybe it was the injury to the hand. Maybe it was that Cruz just showed an above average chin in the biggest fights of his career.

And sometimes that happens because sometimes when you're in there with somebody who can finish you at any time, you've got to be sharper and you've got to be raise it. You've got to raise it. So Luke, I've been a Gervonta protector of late from his ability. I'll do that in this fight. I'll do that in the overall conversation that people don't give him the pound for pound love and respect that he deserves. Now, again, I think they harp too much on his competition. Maybe it's the arrest outside of the ring, or maybe, look, he's aligned with Floyd and people love hating on Floyd.

I ain't gonna hate on that. Here's what I will call him out and his team on. I don't like their reaction to the future and to future matchmaking. Gervonta is a massive star, but to constantly dismiss the guys on the other side of the street and not even publicly look like

you want to make fights with them is ridiculous to me. So Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, had a comment after the fight in which he was asked, could Gervonta be interested in fighting? You know, Ryan Garcia, Devin Hady, George Kambosis, the other big names in this division. His response was, quote, we're not going to go out there and overpay a fighter just because y'all say he's a big name fighter. We're not in the business of fucking off money like other promoters, end quote. I do want to point out there that it came in the midst of Leonard Ellerby talking shit about Eddie Hearn, who brings up his name a lot,

and Leonard actually said, look, I don't play. If Eddie Hearn won't stop bringing up my name, I'm going to slap the shit out of him in public. Whatever with that. My point is this. George Kambosis just flipped the division upside down and got three of the four major titles, including the super champion in the WBC. So you can almost argue that he has all four. Gervonta still has a secondary belt in this

division, the WBA regular title. I'm not saying you have to offer Cambosis 25 million to fight you, but to act like this is not something you're interested in when Gervonta, I mean, if I'm PBC and Eleanor Ellerbe, I'm going above and beyond in that post-fight interview and saying, Cambosos, forget Haney. How about you fight us? We're the money ticket in this division. We're the big dog.

If you're Gervonta, even though Cambosos fought his ass off against Teofimo, that's a compromised Teofimo, right, to a lot of different reasons. You got to believe that you can beat that. I hate this attitude that we're the money player. We're not chasing anybody. We're not paying anybody. Look, we want to see Gervonta against the very best. And unless his future really is at 140, to fight the biggest names at lightweight, you're

going to have to open up the door to business and do stuff with people across the street. The good news in boxing, finally, is that in the Tyson Fury, De'Veon Wilder fights, in the Sean Porter, Terrence Crawford fight of late, we've seen it happen. We've seen guys cross the street at the highest levels. I love Gervonta's response of calling them easy work. That's funny. That's cool. But if your team is not actively trying to get those guys into fights, when Luke, although Haney looked great, we're going to talk about that on Saturday,

you could almost favor Gervonta against all these guys. Why wouldn't you welcome it? Why wouldn't you want to prove to everybody that not only are you the best lightweight in the world in an era filled with young superstars, but that you're potentially among the pound-for-pound best? I think Gervonta's got that goods. I think you should flaunt it. Enough of this money in standing behind the gates and saying, oh, they're not,

they don't make as much as me. They're not worthy. No, the best fight the best. That's how people became all time greats. So that part, I will criticize Luke because I want to see Gervonta against Garcia, Haney, Lopez, Lomachenko, everybody. I want to see them show up at least even in lip service that they're wanting and willing to do it. I think that's right. Because also the other part, dude, just as a fan, it's like, dude, don't you want me to get excited about Gervonta's next fight? I mean, I realize he just fought.

You got to give the guy, any guy in that particular situation a break. But it's like if you're setting up the future, don't you want us to be excited about it? I'm not saying that they can't find, you know, it has to be Devin Haney or it has to be George Kambosis. It doesn't have to be any of those necessarily, but you got to put us in a position to be excited about it. Moreover, I mean, this is the thing we'll talk about Devin Haney in just a minute BC, and maybe you agree, maybe you don't, but this is what was so interesting to me about this fight. Dude, Gervonta Davis boxed really well. He's a much harder puncher than

Devin Haney. I don't think that's very debatable. And he had a lot of trouble keeping Isak Cruz off of him. I'm not sure Devin Haney can do that. I'm not saying Devin Haney can't beat Isak Cruz. That's not the claim that I'm making. But dude, the way in which Gervonta was able to land on him, even if it was somewhat blocked or partially rolled with or whatever, they're still thudding shots before his hand ever got hurt. That is not the kind of power Devin Haney has. He might be a slickster. He definitely is. He's a very talented boxer.

But dude, do you like Isak Cruz's chances if he had a healthy situation, if he was in camp for a while and he was really prepared for Devin Haney? Do you like his chances to beat Devin Haney again maybe you pick Devin Haney but I don't think Devin Haney has some of the same tools to beat Isak Cruz the way Gervonta did and all I'm saying is George Kambosis is no one's easy fight but you gotta like Gervonta's chances at this moment in time to claim them now you're the pay-per-view star and you have all the belts man you're playing with house fucking money at that point I think that's a misstep and and you know it's where we're at in this era unfortunately but you know i believe gervonta is the goods i want to see him against everybody

let's do it i saw rugaroo our boy regis progray who fights at 140 sort of tweet out you know yeah gervonta can say that he wants everybody but if we see him next spring against roly romero on pay-per-view we'll you, we'll know what's up. And I think to a degree, Luke, he might be right. Roley had his minute and it didn't happen. I want to see Gervonta continue to do what he's done of late, move up and fight Mario Barrios, take on whoever's the toughest and able to make the fight. Well, go out of your way to try to make the fights because then there's no doubt.

What did Sugar Ray Leonard do when he was the rising young welterweight he fought unbeaten thomas hearns in a unification fight look i know it was different circumstances back then but that's what the freaking greats do by the way that's what young floyd did too took on unbeaten diego corrales on pay-per-view and knocked him down five times and finished him that's what the greats do no doubt about it and again i think the real lesson is from that fight is that we knew Gervonta Davis was the power puncher in that weight class. I think the skill he showed in boxing needs to be taken seriously. He's a real threat. He didn't take his foot off the gas. He just appears to be finally dialing in in the way that he needs to be. All right. So let's go to number five, BC. Let's stay with Devin Haney. Devin Haney looked

impressive. I am not going to say otherwise, BC, but I want to pitch the question to you as follows. This kid can box. He can box his ass off. He outclassed Jojo Diaz on Saturday night in the zone. No question about it. But here's sort of the way I want to look at this. We had talked before about, you know, does he maybe have a chin issue? I actually don't think he has a chin issue. I don't think he's got like the world's best chin or like the most durability I've ever seen, but I don't think it's some Achilles heel either. Here is where my question is. While he outclassed Jojo Diaz, no question about it, I wonder at this point, having seen a few Devin Haney fights for whatever that is worth, he doesn't seem to show very often that he has that extra gear to go to to put away guys who

might be overmatched they kind of hang around a little bit and he keeps the lead on him but he doesn't put the stamp on him did you feel or do you feel like that's a fair criticism after how well he boxed against Diaz on Saturday it's tough a little bit in theory yes but here's the deal you know he had a much worse criticism in the past when he fought Yuri Ogis Kanboa and it's like dude you you can dominate that guy and you're sort of content to jab from the outside so what we saw on Saturday night against Jojo Diaz to me was an improvement from that type of performance but he just may not be that go get it type of guy could that could that hurt his marketing moving forward for sure could that hurt

him luke in a huge fight when he's down on the scorecards and it's do or die time you got to rally back and go for it yes but let's give him the chance we haven't seen him in that spot yet to know if that true dog is in him i want to say this i really enjoyed this fight jojo diaz luke is my favorite type of fighter. He realizes that he can compete with all the elites, and whether he wins or loses, he wants to fight them all. And he wants his legacy and reputation to be that he fought them all and he fought the best of his ability.

He made this a fun fight by figuring out how to get inside on Haney. But you know what? Haney was longer, better. He was using some of that Philly shell Floyd shoulder roll at times. He was jabbing and landed big shots. And I thought Haney put aside the chinny issues that you mentioned that we saw against Linares. He, Jojo Diaz is not a big time knockout puncher, but he took big shots and he stood in the pocket and delivered them. It was a fun fight. It was aer, but he took big shots, and he stood in the pocket and delivered them. It was a fun fight.

It was a close, not really that close. I mean, what was it, 8-4, 9-3? It was a competitive. I had a 9-3. A competitive yet clear win for Haney that, Luke, I got really nothing bad to say about it. I get your point that if you are this much better than some of these guys, do we want you to go out there

and try to finish them yeah yeah we do we do and if you don't if that's not your style your personality it's going to cost you in terms of dollars but this just may be who he is and luke as fun as that little exercise we just did in mma across the bantamweight division we might want to do that right now in boxing at 135 because we saw Cambosos and Lopez last week. We got Lomachenko coming up in another couple weeks, or maybe it's this weekend, against Richard Comey. And we saw Gervonta and we saw Devin Haney. Luke, if you had to give right now, and also consider Ryan Garcia,

obviously, in this as well, your top five pound-for-pound lightweight boxers in the world number one is hard right now this is a discussion we need to have who you got luke you know before the okay before the cambosis fight i would have said lopez number one and now we'll talk about lopez a little bit later the show. He does have a very legitimate medical excuse. I know folks are like, oh, that's not an excuse. It is, but he's still lost, and there are other questions about his preparation. He's a mess right now.

Ooh, okay, I'll put Gervonta number one, and I don't know. Oh, you're a fucking showtime guy. I'm not saying that's ironclad. I'm just going to put him there. Number two, I might put Kambosis just based on what he did. Oh, dude, come on. I got Haney number one. I'm telling you right now. Okay, all right.

I'll tell you what. I'll give Haney two. I'll give Haney two. I don't know about three. That's where I get. Fuck, it's tough. You're better at this than me. Okay, it's tough.

It's really tough. I think the battle for number one is clear. Haney or Gervonta. I had been a Gervonta, or I'd been a Teo guy. Then I became a Gervonta guy. I think right now in this moment we can only go by what we just saw. I think Haney, because he's longer and bigger, potentially could have a chance at dodging Gervonta's power,

although Gervonta's a hell of a boxer. And once again, Luke, the fact I'm having this debate is why we need to see these fights. But right now, I got Haney by a slight edge in terms of just not accomplishments, but pound-for-pound ability. I got Gervonta right there, 1B or 2A. Number three.

People are going to say I'm hating on Cambosos, bro. I still got Teofimo. OK, number four. I got Ryan Garcia. I'm not saying he's not flawed. I'm not saying an elite guy will not flatline him. Luke, that's coming. It's going to happen. But until that happens, Ryan Garcia is going to knock some people the hell out with that speed and that aggressiveness. And I got Ryan Garcia at five, Loma at four, Cambosos at six. Boy, Australia is going to be coming for me, Luke. But argue me off of that stance, Luke. I think it's a little bit disrespectful to Cambosos. I mean, again, it's sort of two different rankings in one list

which is one is who do you think is the most talented and two whose record of accomplishment deserves them to be ranked ahead of the others and so those two don't produce the same list if you ask me here's my issue with haney being number one bc again dude like he looked good it's just no denying it but i feel like as long as Haney is tasked with having somebody boxing more or less at the end of his punches. And again, Diaz was able to get inside at times and take some rounds from him. No doubt about it. But more or less, if he can just sort of play the boxing game at range, he's fairly hard to beat. To me, I don't know if you want to put Isaacak Cruz on the level of Jojo Diaz, but in the style that he brought and the kind of heat and pressure

that Cruz makes you work under, that's a different kind of challenge I've not really seen Haney have to answer for yet at a more elite level. That's fair. That's very fair. So for those reasons, I've got to go Gervonta number one. If Linares, who is not a puncher, was able to do that to Haney and hurt him, you can very easily say Gervonta, who, by the way, again, I had pound for pound number 10 coming in, and I still believe in him.

You know me, though, Luke. I tend to be more in a great matchup of boxer versus puncher, although Gervonta can also box like hell to favor the boxer. I love Haney's length. Again, this is why we need to see it. I would have Isak Cruz at number seven. And before Australia comes knocking on my door, guys, you got to prove it.

And Cambosos did that night against Tao, but we have a lot of questions that are viable. Cambosos is going to have to come out and prove that again. And I hope it's against Haney. I love that DAZN had Cambosos on their broadcast. I love that they're wanting to do this in Australia and that Haney's in on it. George is in on it.

Lou DiBella and company. Let's do it, okay? Let's find out. But, Luke, if we were doing a Bellator Grand Prix and boxing at lightweight right here, you wouldn't have Cambosos favored. You wouldn't have him that high. That's just what it is. We've got to see it from him.

I'm glad that Isak Cruz joins this list. I don't want anybody to forget about Lomachenko because he looked great against Nakatani in that bounce-back fight. He was that close to beating Teofimo to begin with, so let's keep some respect on his name. But, Luke, how fun is lightweight right now? We just got to get these guys against one another. Can we get somebody who has like $200 million to just create a tournament and throw all the money in there, Luke, please?

Let me ask you a bit of a different question. In your mind, are there good reasons to explain it, or is it just somewhat coincidental that we have this surge of talent in MMA at 135, and then this surge of also young, not just talent, but young talent at 135 pounds in boxing? Is there something to this? I don't know. I didn't think about that what is that what does that say about people this size what is that what is that there's a lot of them who can fight their ass off why in women's mma are the best fighters without a question historically around 115 why is that i tend to think it's just the sweet spot of the racket so to speak right it's the exact point where you

get a lot of people of a certain size who have the makeup of being good fighters, right? They're fast, they're athletic, but they're still strong. They can hit hard, right? So they can do all the things that you would want a fighter to do in the nimble ways that fighters are asked of doing it. But there's just also a lot of them in number. So they have a certain athletic profile that's great,

and they're just plentiful in number because if you're 115 or 135 male female you know pro sports especially on the male side are going to be a lot out of reach it's going to be obviously some exceptions here or there and you know take there for what it's worth but like there's just such a rich amount of talent it's just kind of funny at the same time 135 pounds is just putting a stamp on combat sports whether it's 12 ounce gloves or four kind of interesting very interesting indeed luke let's let's make the best fight the best can't wait wow it's fun to be a lightweight boxing fan at the moment let's keep the show rolling all right let's keep it going all right well with that in mind it is time now for where the donks get to

ask us questions it's time for dms from dogs uh there you go get the graphic rolling there sal by the way could i look pinker i mean i look like a piggly wiggly hot dog today what's up with my white balance hey shout out to sally running the show today by the way who needs uh as a reminder every sunday we put up a post on instagram morning combat is on instagram and then you ask us questions our producers pick them we go to them now all right BC uh let's see let me pull up my notes here uh okay first one from Philly Dent Philly underscore Dent would you have ever imagined that Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor would be in the positions they are in right now in their respective careers after that 13 second KO back in 2015.

Fuck no. No. What about UBC? I would have guessed they would have fought each other a second time though, Luke. And I had wanted that, I guess that lightweight for a while when it looked like Conor was going to, you know, once Conor was done with featherweight, dude, I just always assumed Jose would get old and move up and then finally get that last payday against Connor and maybe get stopped because the size difference, but they are on such different paths this exact second right now in terms of

what they've accomplished since then, the direction they seem to be going, how much higher Aldo will be ranked historically, even though obviously Connor has achieved certain things that, that make him unique. No question about that, you know, marketing wise, pay-per-view wise, make him unique. No question about that. You know, marketing-wise, pay-per-view-wise, and then being the first simultaneous double champ.

But, yeah, man, you know, it's wild, their fortunes, how different it's been. Luke, I mean, will we – you know how we always, you know, like rightfully so, we look at Jon Jones and we say, okay, well, what if he hadn't been that reckless in his personal life? Who could he be right now as a fighter? Would he be, you know, the greatest of all time by a huge, wide margin and a two-division champion and have never been touched? Do you think we'll look back at where Conor McGregor was

after the Eddie Alvarez fight in 2016, before the long layoff, the boxing adventure, the whiskey, the riches that led to the party lifestyle and the arrests and all that and do the same type of what if i think it depends how his comeback goes i think if he gets there will always be that i think there's when you have that many distractions in the case of mcgregor both good and bad right the bad is the run-ins with the law the good is that he made an absolute fortune in the whiskey business and in the fight game itself and broke some boundaries getting to fight with Mayweather and whatnot there was always going to be those kinds of

counterfactual what-ifs yeah maybe not with the same kind of resignation that goes along with John Jones's endless rap sheet but pretty similar yeah pretty similar but to answer the question like about Jose Aldo McGregor again dude, dude, going back, go back and watch the, go back and watch the post-fight interviews after he beat Korean Zombie and then the first Edgar fight. And you'll see a guy who was like kind of close fights, very competitive. He was very nonchalant. You just thought after a loss like that, he would kind of make a slow exit. In fact, you know, Habib is taking some shit because he was like, oh, Jose Aldo's in the stage of his career, you know, where he's just, you know, he doesn't need to be out there basically just sort of chasing fights for money and blah, blah, blah.

He's going to get hurt. It's just not really all that true. Habib is wrong here. Jose Aldo has a renewed commitment. And I'll just say, man, the fight game, two years in the fight game, three years, four years especially, is a lifetime, man, is a lifetime. There are guys right now who are amateurs who in four or five years might be UFC champions that's not an exaggeration so um did I see this coming in

2015 when they had the 13 second KO not even a little bit not even a little bit all right yeah yeah oh Luke real quick there is some to add to the breaking news of of fury versus paul being off and now tyron woodley sliding in for december 18th tyron tommy fury has put out a statement can i read it luke sure i'm absolutely heartbroken that i've been forced to withdraw from my fight with jake paul due to a bacterial chest infection and broken rib i really do hope we can get this fight rescheduled in the new year i want this fight to still happen more than anything. If those are true medically, Luke, then obviously those are viable reasons. But don't we have a video of Tyson Fury?

And maybe this is how the rib broke. Do we have that, Sally? I think we do. I think I was told we did. We were definitely told we did. Shout out to Staten Island's Sally running the ones and twos right here. You know, Luke? We do. I think I was told we did. We were definitely told we did. I can hear the fumbling. That's a Staten Island Sally running the ones and twos right here. You know, Luke?

Fumbling in the back looking for a clip. Maybe she can find it. Yeah, there's a Fury video. There's like a big ball. We're ready. Hit it. We're ready. Play it. We were ready. Play it live TV right here. I mean, I mean, I can't tell you that's where it got broke Luke, but you know, I mean, this is not, I'm not going to, this is not uncommon training.

I'm not saying that he didn't go too hard or that this is where it happened or whatever, but like dudes getting medicine balls to their sternum and their core is as common as it comes from their six foot nine brother. Yeah. I mean, it happens. Okay. It happens. Listen, it's the fight game, bro.

The injuries happen. All right. Uh, number two here from ksp underscore king hi luke and bc how do you guys feel about sean o'malley on the main card of ufc 269 fighting another unranked opponent while we have two ranked fights on the prelims two ranked fighters i think was one of the fights being dom cruz there might be another one as well what do you think yeah look there was once a successful cable TV comedian who said, what are we doing here, Luke? And I think right now we're asking ourselves, what's the end game here? Is the end game for Sean O'Malley to run his contract out against every man

so we can then find out his value on the market? Because if not, Luke, what are we doing here? Why are we not matching him against top ten talent to find out how great on the market? Because if not, Luke, what are we doing here? Why are we not matching him against top 10 talent to find out how great he can be? I get his comments about money. No one here discounts whether these guys are paid correctly. But what do you think is really happening behind the scenes, Luke Thompson? I don't understand why this question is all that complex.

Why did the UFC put a fighter that fans really care about versus two fighters or whatever the case may be that they don't care as much about in a more visible slot gee I can't figure it out you see why would they do that but it's like there's a lot of those for Sean lately after the the step up against Vera correct are you more complaining about the fight or the fight placement given the fight? I'm not complaining ever about somebody with star value getting softer matchmaking or high placement with softer matchmaking. But given his comments about I'm not going to step up and face these guys for the same amount of money,

what are we doing here, Luke? Is he just trying to fight as often as he can to get out of his deal i mean is he trying to test the open market what because hey i'd love to add him to the bellator grand prix tournament if they got an open slot here bro i mean i think he's his complaint is if you want me to fight tougher guys pay me more i don't think that will end up working but they do have to pay him and offer him fights three times a year. He can take who he wants by the rules, and they don't want to cut him, obviously. They want to keep him because he is quite popular. It's why he's opening up the main card.

There should be no mystery there. Your question is a good one, which is, where does all of this go? And that part I can't tell, because eventually you would imagine he's going to have to fight tougher guys and probably for not much more money. So something here is going to have to give we're just in a stage now where his placement should be obvious about why he's on the card but these kinds of fights where Paiva is a you know UFC level fighter I give him that credit in that respect

but to your point a ranked opponent like a big name or a name that folks care about he's gonna have to eventually get there i just don't know when and under what circumstances that's the hard part to figure out luke well let me present to you a a potential life situation scenario that i hope doesn't happen it's hypothetical at best but let's say dana white ufc president who once put me at the centerpiece of a four-minute video just slashing my credibility. Yes, which he mysteriously deleted. Yeah, let's say he just started watching Morning Combat, and he was like, man, these guys sometimes take shots at me, although I think we're just having fun and or telling the real truth about fighter pay.

And let's say he said, you know what? You know what, man? Fuck these two guys, these old white dads. Fuck those guys, right? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull their credentials, and I'm going to get them fired from their jobs. I'm not saying he wants to do that. It's going to happen.

But let's say it happened. And then you and me, Luke, got on the phone with each other. Did you get fired, too? Yeah, I got fired. Oh, my God. How did we get here? What do we do? How do we pay the bills?

And you said, you know what, BC? I'm going to get this motherfucker back. You and I, we're going gonna start a fighters union we're gonna be the ceos who do we assemble not bjorn revney who do we assemble as our dream team to make this happen and to be able to pay our mortgages do we get john s nash as cfo luke i think we go and find somewhere to drink bleach quietly with Kool-Aid and then just do a ritual suicide. That would be a smarter thing than trying to start an MMA union with people who have Stockholm Syndrome and seemingly no interest despite its overwhelming value in working together. So that would be what I would do. I would just sort of commit, you know, seppuku and call it a day.

All right. Yeah, all right. I guess it's me and John Nash. Let's do it, bro. All right. From a lot of underscores here. I don't know why people do that. It's stupid, but they do it.

From Jimmy underscore Reed. How do you both see Cody performing at Flyweight? He's taking on Kaikara France at UFC 269. One of his test cut photos looked scarily sucked in. I worry it'll go very similar to TJ's attempt. What do you think? I don't wish this upon him. In fact, I've always loved watching Cody Garbrandt fight. I think it's going to go very poorly, Luke. I think he's going to end up back at Bantamweight. And I still think he can win big fights, but I think the toothpaste is out of the tube, Luke. I don't think we'll ever see him, that same performance we saw against Dominic Cruz,

that fantastic performance. You know, he's still got the power. He's still young enough. But, Luke, he's taken big damage. He's had some hiccups. This seems like a horrifically bad idea to do to your body. I can't see him having huge punch resistance at this weight class. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Jose Aldo just proved us wrong. But, Luke, I see this ending this ending bad yeah my view is this like why would he go down well partly because things advance away had kind of stalled out for him in a bad way but more than that i do imagine his power might carry down to 125 even though he's sort of like you know reducing size and i still think his speed might be good enough for the weight class we will see I don't know those things but I could imagine they got pocket rockets down there they got some quick m effort yeah fair enough I don't I'm not saying he'd be the quickest but I think his speed would be fine more or less at 125 but to your point which I

think is the real central one you know he didn't have great punch resistance at 135. You're going to drain yourself even more to get down to 125. Whatever gifts you inherit by going down that weight class, they might just be canceled out by virtue of the fact that you've got lightning-quick punchers on the other side of 125, and you're depleting yourself pretty badly. Maybe he beats Kaikara France. I don't know. But do I really believe at 125 he can make a title run? Stranger things have happened, but I'm skeptical.

You know what I'd like to do off topic when we open up our new set in Jersey City, which I think is close to being ready? Aren't we going to christen it for the new year? We're going to break a champagne bottle against the boat? I think we should do a blind taste test and have proper 12 Arby's vodka and Tiger Thick whiskey and then just, you know, blindly tell the world who's the best, Luke. Okay. I don't know what the fuck that has to do with this question, but okay. All right. From at St. John, St. Gene, Kevin, it's not exactly my

style, but Gervonta's Baltimore in all caps back tattoo looks pretty badass what'd you think of the old back tattoo that said Baltimore on there that's a lot of Baltimore and that said badass on that lower third not pretty bad uh I thought it was pretty bad look Luke again I have to agree with Kevin St. Gene here overall Gervonta's tats are not my style, but, Luke, what he's done with the beard, the beard tat, and the whole, like, and now the lettering and the shading on that Baltimore, it's pretty cool, Luke. He's got a pretty cool presentation, all things considered right now. I can't speak to the technical brilliance of the styling

because you fancy yourself, you know. Yeah, you got it. The tattoo itself is very good. it's two-tone negative space so the baltimore is just his own skin color but if you notice the top and the bottom had like two different shades of uh shading on it two different gradients of shading on it and so it actually is really well done i don't know why you would want to rep Baltimore that hard on your back. You know, it's a fun town. There's the guy with the D.C. tat on his damn forearm, Luke. I don't look at D.C. as like heaven, just so you know from the outside looking in. Yeah, but you know absolutely nothing about D.C.

You're hopelessly ignorant to the point of stupid about it. I know a lot about Baltimore. Been there a lot. Was there just a couple of weeks ago. I've been there for a long time. Hey, I been there a long time wire all right yeah exactly exactly it's a good but see here's the problem with gervonta's tattoos and here's one thing you realize as you get older you're not you can do it people do it all the time but you're not really supposed to mix and match all different kinds of styles all over your body like if you get japanese traditional you kind of got to carry that out if you get black and gray you kind of got to carry it out if you get new school

you can reinvent it looks it looks dude like tiger like like for example look at conor mcgregor he's got this amazing sort of traditional piece on his chest and then he's got like you know portrait realism on his stomach it kind of clashes in weird ways but i guess i'll say this if you look at gervonta's newer tattoos the baltimore one and some other ones he's got on his arm and his legs they're fucking good they're really really good but he's got some old ones that are pretty bad so you know it's a nice mix like baltimore if you by the way shouts to all the purple camo nation out there with uh old bay under their fingernails all right right. From Telvin Kapapa.

Yeah, Telvin Kapapa from Hawaii. The guy sends in DMs every week. You act like you never heard of him. I've never heard of him. Great guy. Never met him. All right. Favorite Christmas movie.

And if you fucking say Die Hard, you're fired. I always love this debate. All right. My favorite Christmas movie of all time, and my wife and kids heckled me is jack frost the claymation one from like you are a stupid stupid man you love that piece of shit diorama i love that movie okay do i in modern movies do i love elf like everybody else yes of course i do um you know i even love it's a wonderful life if you're going old school but jack Frost is my favorite. But Luke, you know what has become my modern favorite also to the non-love of my wife

and kids? Did you ever see Holiday in Handcuffs, Luke? I don't know. I always talk about that. I think it was a tip last Christmas on my Friday episode. It's with A.C. Slater and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, where she kidnaps him and makes him pretend to be her fiance. I don't know, Luke. It's with AC Slater and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, where she kidnaps him and makes him pretend to be her fiance. I don't know, Luke. It was like an ABC family movie. It's funny as heck, and it just makes me feel good about the holidays. I'm all in on holiday and handcuffs. That's probably my second favorite behind Jack Frost. But no, no Die Hard, nothing like that. I don't mind if, I'm not one of these guys it's like oh die hard is or isn't a christmas movie i mostly find the debate just boring so like if you want to count that as a christmas movie i don't

care but uh i would say that i grew up feeling like um as a kid this is not the way i feel now as a kid what's the one where you'll shoot your eye out a christmas story yeah as a kid i like that one well as a kid it's the best movie ever but they ruined it by playing it for 24 hours a day every year they ruined it luke i'll say honestly like i have two traditions in the house we watch elf when we put up the tree and then on christmas eve i watch bad santa i fucking love bad santa it's such a great movie bill Billy Bob Thornton is... What? You've never seen Bad Santa?

I haven't seen it. Dude, he is your perfect American dirtbag. It's Joe Exotic, only more pathetic, if that's even imaginable. I like good messages in my Christmas movies, Luke. You know, I mean, you know, a holiday in Hanford. There is a good message when he protects the little fat kid, which you have to see. So, Bad Santa is where I'll go. The Tim Allen trilogy, the Santa Claus.

My wife loves those. I'm not really that into them. I saw the Santa Claus for the first time. I mean, it's fine if you've been hit in the head with a hammer. You know? Oh, dude, the one with Sinbad and Arnold where he's trying to get, you know the one I'm talking about. I love that movie.

Jingle All The Way or whatever it's called. I stand by Jingle All The Way. That's a solid Christmas movie. You know, I'm a Schwarzenegger guy, but even that one is not for me. Oh, come on. It's a little bit shitty, that movie. It's a little bit shitty. Bad Santa. Bad Santa. Much better. Luke, do you have

an extra credit coming out today? You mean like a odds it ends? No, an MK extra credit. Well, I don't think so because our producer is a little bit hung out to dry, but it'll either be out tonight or tomorrow morning. All right. I just wanted to make sure. I just wanted to promote it for you, okay?

I appreciate that. All right. With that in mind, BC, it's time for your shit. Let's see it. Yeah, that's what we do. The highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in-between. In combat sports and beyond, it's have you seen this shit we start in vegas ufc fight night luke light heavyweight jamal hill needed just 48 seconds to send jimmy crew to the other side of the uh of the pillow so to speak luke talk about this knockout brother yeah poor Jimmy Crute I've been

I've been of the belief and I've been having a debate with uh Michael Chiesa on Twitter I don't think mullets make your power as a fighter better I think there's a bit of a you know the mullet thing you know I just don't quite get it um but he got you know he just hit with a check hook here like Hill has tremendous ability to catch you between punches, and he did. Let's go to the picture of the aftermath. Not only was it a horrible night at the office, a bad hair night, but Jimmy Crew had a fractured eye and a fractured nose from that shot. Luke, just 48 seconds into the fight.

Ouch, babe. Yeah, that's a tough one, man. That's a really tough one. I feel bad. Let's go over to the ESPN analyst desk. Here's UFC analyst and fine coach Dean Thomas dressed like Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island. Luke, you down with this?

Yeah, I don't know what Dean was doing there. He looks like he needs Farnsworth Bentley to hold his Burberry umbrella over his head when it gets too sunny. But, you know, he's rocking it. Well, Luke, hopefully your MK Extra credit this week will focus a lot on Rafael Fiziev's KO of one. What the hell is the guy's name? Oh, your guy from CKB, Brad Riddell.

But given the microphone, let's go to the sound here. Here's who rafael called out have one i don't hear anything he won't fight with me yeah yeah yeah his name and i still don't hear anything vince vaughn you want to fight vince vaughn yeah i love him well this worked out well my man what a call out ladies and gentlemen give it up for rafael fazeev and if we could air it he's down yeah vince is ready for it i have one legend here maybe he won't fight with me vegas Luke uh Raphael's pretty funny he has called out Hasbulla before after a fight this time he calls out the quote legend Vince Vaughn your thoughts um I guess that's funny all right you can hear more of Luke's fine analysis on this fight probably

on MK extra credit coming to youtube.com slash yeah all right let's keep it going to zone boxing from las vegas luke remember junior welterweight montana love he won he was repping this dog all week look at him stretching before the fight the dog between the legs the lady on the shoulders i mean it's probably pretty good to be montana love right now Bro, that dog is chilling. Dude, he was at the weigh-in. The French Bulldog. The press conference, the dog came into the ring

like this guy was Dynamite Kid and the British Bulldog. This was great. All right. That's a well-taken-care-of dog. I'm happy to see it. Yeah, he ended up getting a stoppage win. By the way, Montana Love looked great. Let's keep it going from that same card.

Here's junior lightweight Ronaldo Solis getting sent to hell by Mark Castro's right hand. Good Lord on this one. Oh, that was clean as a whistle, that right hand. He ate every part of that. Yeah, they called it there. Wave that shit off. That was in Las Vegas. The zone was also in France.

I'm sorry, Spain. They were in Spain and Bilbao and famous rat tailed junior middleweight Luke Herman. Look at what he did to Jack Flatley here. Oh, oh, and he got had the rat tail too, man. those were big when we were kids remember that oh yeah lucas matisse had a great rat tail but kirk kerman's been rocking that one for years rave bartholomew's favorite fighter shout out to rape on that one also on this undercard luke campbell hatton the son of hall of famer ricky hatton finally gets his first stoppage win in his fifth pro fight about damn time show me some pop, little man, right?

Listen, it takes some time to get the game under you. It looked pretty good in this one. All right, there you go. Campbell Hatton, well-named fighter. Let's keep it going. T-shirts of the week time, Luke. Here's number one. Can we go full screen?

Luke, you want to read that? Last night is a blur I remember sucking titties and then shitting myself oh yeah Luke that I you know in a different life I could see you wearing that shirt and showing up at a pizza place there Luke that's pretty good but here's

the best t-shirt of the week we'll fuck for chicken wings. That's fair. That's fair. If chicken wings are good, who wouldn't want to fuck for them? You get to fuck, and then you have chicken wings. Yeah.

All right, it's rugby time. Here's Sia Kholis. After scoring a goal to help South Africa defeat Scotland, autographing a happy fan look. That's disturbing. Oh, whoa, we gave him a little how's your father on the way out there, Luke. All right. That's a little disturbing.

I could have done without this. Yeah, okay. What do you think Sally's thinking right now running all these videos, Luke? You know, she probably put in her two weeks five minutes ago. Who could blame her? I think I'm going to have to start that union after all. All right, let's go to the college soccer pitch. Luke, big goal here by UCLA against Duke.

If we could check this out. What a little bit of excessive celebration in the Duke defender. Taking them out. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Ho-ass bitch. Not on. Yes. Yeah, get. Ho ass bitch. Not on our pitch. Fuck your mama.

Bitch, yeah, yeah. Love this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here come the soccer dorks pushing and shoving. Listen, either you're going to swing on him or you're not going to swing on him. Yeah, don't act tough in this life. Let me see this one more time.

Let me see him get bodied one more time. I thought we had the goal, but I guess not. Bop. Yeah, there we go. That's great. That is great. Hey, Luke, NBA fashion is getting out of control. Can you check your Washington Wizards friend Kyle Kuzma here?

What the hell is going on? Bro, this is what my daughter looks like when she wears my clothes. Yeah, I don't get it. I think he's trying to keep up with uh former wizards point guard russell westbrook luke your thoughts on this look like daphne of uh of the scooby gang luke i know it's like it's like he he left a halloween party and stripped off just half the costume yeah all right well hey he's got style that's what all the girls say. Let's go over to grandpa. Look, normally we do elder abuse, but check out this move. Can we zoom in from

this old man on a swing? Oh God. Is he going to fucking die? Oh shit. Old man. Oh, look at that walk off right there. It's like, okay, well if you're this way then why do i have to hold your hand so you can go to the bathroom i mean let's just you know figure this out but i gotta say that's a nice little dismount from old gramps not bad there grampy all right let's go back to the subway where luke and i may end up one day if this omnitron gets over with check out this guy you know luke last minute you try to squeeze between the door? Is that DC as

well? It looks like it. Oh my god. I don't know about the new cars, but the floor there. Yeah, dude, those things don't give a fuck about you, man. No, they don't. You know what the best job in the world is, BC? You ever seen those guys in Tokyo who dress up like American gladiators

and they have the giant pads? And when it's time, they gotta stuff everyone inside the fucking Tokyo subway cars and they have the giant pads and when it's time they gotta stuff everyone inside the fucking Tokyo subway cars and they beat the shit out of those patrons oh he's up that has to be the greatest job on earth I agree with that

let's see if he can stay up Luke no there's a pipe bar down alright Luke that's the subway. Let's go out to the Tour de Cité, Luke. Check out this innocent bystander. Wow, she gets motherfucking punished. Dude, you know what this looks like to me?

I mean, why would you walk out, you fucking jackass? Number one, like, fuck that old lady. I don't have any sympathy for her, number one. Oh, wow, elderabuse.com. I mean, why would you why would you walk out like why why would you do that you're a fucking moron and you're and she and she's looking look look at her she's looking hey my name is stupid this is what happens to me uh you won't you know what you know you know what it looks like there's every time i take my daughter to the park and i put her on the swing there's always these idiot kids whose parents have never explained to them

you shouldn't play in front of the swings because you're going to get fucking drilled in the head. And every time, man, every time, it's the same kids who run out. This lady somehow is that at age 1,000, whatever she is. Good riddance to her. Fuck that lady. Speaking of your daughter, you took her to Disney. You know how they always have those hidden Mickeys everywhere? It's like an Easter egg. You got to find them all over the park

and in the wallpaper. You ever hear of a hidden dong Luke? Oh, Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. That is a fully Luke. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Who did this? Who did this? Yeah. All right.

That is well done. Permanent marker. That is well done. All right. Let's go over the golf course. Luke, you can find a hidden Mickey there, too. I don't quite get it. Oh, God. There's a little bit of jizz on it, too. You don't quite get it oh god there's a little bit of jizz on it too you don't quite get it you get it now luke all right that's fucking gross yeah you gotta watch out for the

rough right there look i believe that's called a shank is that what happens luke when you when you you know the shaft when you and you yeah okay let's keep it going hey luke your favorite segment it's time to rate that tat. You remember Julian Lane of Let Me Bang Bro fame, Luke? You remember that guy? Yeah, yeah. Of the BKFC? Well, he's taken his catchphrase to a whole new level.

Let's let this tattoo artist bang, and let's see the results here. What's up, everybody? What's up, everybody? It's Let Me Bang. I'm out here at Lost Galleries in Newport, Ritchie, Florida. My man Jubal, come out and holla at him. Get some fresh ink. Let me bang. What's up everybody, it's Let Me Bang. i'm out here at lost galleries and uh luke can you rate that tat on the uh can we go go back to that first go save that sled

can you rate that tat right there and i'm not talking about the tattoo artist's face it's not good it's not good the lettering is bad and um it's covering up some worse tattoos luke right which is fine i don't care about that part uh saturation's nice i guess but it's not good but theme and composition you're not with it yeah No, no. And the execution, frankly. Let's see some good tats. Luke, you may not know this guy, but there's a boxing journalist of sorts, a CompuBox operator named Aris Pina, a guy I respect a lot. Let's blow this up. Check out his latest work on

his left arm. He's got a tattoo artist in Brooklyn. What do you think about this? That's well done. Again, I'm not sure how much I like the tattoo itself in terms of the artistic theme, but in terms of like the the the artistic theme but in terms of the technical application that's extremely good yes he's got some good shit on his right arm as well if we can advance the slide luke little miles davis action some vig on the top level i can't quite see what it is oh is he blowing the smoke he miles davis

blowing into the trumpet yeah these are okay i like the other one actually a little bit better the color saturate this one this one's again when you get a lot of heavy heavy coloring like that um it does fade over time but it doesn't necessarily look all that good but the other one looked pretty good the coloring the other one was excellent to eris pina on the boxing uh history podcast there with with the beard patrick connor love those guys uh luke one more tattoo to get uh this is uh yeah this guy got a wolf on his face well I don't mind if you got a wolf on your face but you should get a wolf that looks like a toddler didn't draw it um what does this say about you it's like if you know if you show up in line at

the bank and you've got this on your face what does it say what does it say i'll tell you what he says when he goes to the bank which is probably put all the money in the bag before i blow your head off what else is this guy gonna do yeah this guy's lost all cares there's no doubt about it oh look big time fight announcement too bad it's about eight years too late uh washed welterweights amir khan and kel brook to face off. They are chatty, are they not? Yep, and they nearly got into it. Luke, this fight would have been one of the best you could make in the sport back in, like, 2014, remember? Yeah, Khan is talking.

I've been watching this one. Khan is getting it. I mean, these two are selling it as best they can. You've got to give them that. All right, all right. Luke, the only thing you hate more than a public gender reveal is when there's a proposal involved so why don't we combine them together it looks like they're having a boy luke

and uh what what what miscreant are they going to? I'm going to guess this is a shotgun marriage. I mean, the good news is you're having a boy. The bad news is you've been ingested all of those fumes from the dude. The only I know it's like my wife is six months pregnant. Hey, can we have her inhale carbon monoxide from the back of this fucked up toyota truck or whatever it is uh also you know what you know what's missing from this is just not nearly enough camouflage and rebel flags on this fucking thing i mean where are we middle america indeed all right uh luke we love phone booth fighting right these fight promoters took it to a new level your thoughts

it's a little literal oh is this cam soda do cam soda will do dumb shit like this i love it they will oh yeah that's uh nowhere to run luke nowhere to hide well you know what they were bound to do something so here we are all right uh luke uh you may have experienced this oh wait you don't step foot into a church you're out of fear of that you'll melt. But check out this priest's handiwork here during this christening. Oh, my God. I mean, what are we doing? I mean, what are we doing? Yeah, that's it.

Look at his face, too. He's kind of, like, enjoying it. He's like, oh, sorry, guys. Yeah, all right. Yeah. Okay. Mark. Yeah.

Luke, I got two more for you. Here's why you should never text and bike. Check out this kid. Yeah, go fuck yourself, kid. Go fuck yourself. In the face, Luke. In the face. Just, why don't you, I mean, go explain this one to mom you fucking moron

so i'm back can you imagine going home it's like let me get this straight you were on a wide open road there were no cars there and you not only hit the parked car you sent your forehead through it so you shattered the back windshield is that is that a fair assessment of how fucking stupid you are yeah the covid mask on at least luke that probably prevented any lacerations i hope he got covid from this fuck this kid i don't think you can contract that through glass i'll have to call dr joe rogan to find out all right luke one more for you here we're always trying to see who can one up the the smoke inhalation experience here's what they call bong jousting let's zoom in on this so this is this is what i need to be doing with my life bc i'm dead serious i want everyone to do this for me for the

rest of my life i don't want to do anything else other than this i don't know if you can i mean can you stay standing after this look i hope not dude i need i need this weapon I need someone to hold it in my face and then just wake me up for my daughter's graduation and wedding I just I just want to inhale I want to inhale enough marijuana smoke that I'm in a coma for the next 17 years that's really what I'm looking

for yeah that's great stuff that's like the movie click with Adam Sandler remember that one where he fastforwarded through all his life events and missed out so he could focus on work, Luke? I've not seen that piece of shit movie. Oh, my God, I cried at the end of that movie. My wife still makes fun of me today. It's a great movie.

Great flick, you know? All right, speaking of – Luke Sandler's got some good ones. Like, don't ever watch The Cobbler. You'll hate yourself. But Sandler can surprise you once in a while. I actually think that his best movie is not even really his kind of movie have you ever seen punch drunk love i've never seen it i know of it yeah he's amazing in that movie like he's legitimately incredible

in that movie um so that's my favorite uh all right bc time for odds and or ends what do you got for us uh look i'm sure you want to talk about anything else but this, but your boy Conor McGregor, he's been in the gym, Luke, posting jacked pics of his new 190-pound frame. I want to get your reaction. Is this in preparation for a move up to welterweight, Luke? I guess. He looks like Rafael Fazeev. Yeah, he does. I mean mean it's crazy how big he is

here's the thing about this it's like i mean for folks who may not understand this it's hard to put on muscle especially if you're an advanced athlete if you're in a caloric deficit now i don't think he would be in one he would still be you know um he's not like in a dieting phase but the point i'm trying to make here is the opposite is true if you really want to put on a ton of muscle you kind of have to bulk up all at once and then cut the fat off so you bulk and then cut bulk and then cut it looks to me bc like he's bulking up for something else maybe a more permanent move to 170 but dude i gotta tell you like all that extra muscle for him even when he leans out he's gonna

look fucking jacked as shit. Good for him. I'm not hating, but I don't know what kind of, I don't know what that does for him to be candid. What if I, now he says in terms of his timeline that he can start like, you know, training in terms of like sparring and all that in April. What if I told you his timeline in 2022 was two ufc fights at 170 pounds nate diaz followed by kamaru usman what would you say let's see how he looks against nate let's see how he looks against nate i think that's a big i just don't understand what we're going to get from him we could get the guy who came back from the acl tear uh after the holloway fight and you know

was out for a short time it looks great or you know this is just going to hasten the beginning of the end like we we've always agreed i still think mcgregor is before he's all done is going to beat some good fighters at least one more good fighter i really believe that but i just kind of got to see what it looks like man i really don't even know what to expect anymore. He looked fucking huge there. Yeah, he's jacked as shit. What, the 400 was a problem for you? That was great. Remember that from the documentary?

That was a great moment. I haven't seen the documentary of him. No, I'm talking about MK documentary number four. I don't know if I've seen that one either. When we were in Miami and you were talking about Brendan's form, and he's like, oh, was the 400 a problem for you? You're talking shit, Luke. Apparently that bruised your ego more than I can even remember.

Dude, I love the documentary so much. In fact, today, Luke, happy birthday goes out to our MK documentarian, less than Jake Rosenbag. I love that guy, Luke. i hope that you love that guy happy birthday jake the documentarian we love you in these parts brother i used to love him and then he just decided he would rather work for all access than us so fuck that guy all right um all right for my odds and ends this is one anytime you bring like a dude somebody could have been stabbed at some point in the middle of a fight and if they brought it up afterwards people are going to be like are you just making up bullshit dude ESPN did some follow-up on Teofimo

Lopez's condition after the fight and what they found was that he should have never been cleared. I want to explain something here very quickly. In this article, you have multiple board certified physicians, not merely agreeing that the condition that he had was serious, but with near unanimity expressing serious alarm over the potential lethality over what he had this comes to us from mark creagle over at espn quote it's from the doctor talking about teofimo lopez he could have died for sure said linda doll and otar analogist ent with surgical privileges at three prestigious manhattan hospitals how he breathed i can't even explain to you, she wrote. It's like somebody tied a 300-pound set of weights to his chest, like his neck and chest were in a vice. That's how he fought. Another doctor, Peter Constantino, executive director of the New York Head and Neck Institute. He is lucky, talking about Teofimo Lopez, he's not dead. I mean,

really lucky. According to Lopez's medical records, the 24-year-old undisputed champion, former undisputed champion, was diagnosed with pneumomediastium, somewhere over the fuck that is, I'm mispronouncing, with, quote, extensive air in the retrofarenegial space by emergency room doctors during his post-fight visit to Bellevue Hospital. The air was surrounding his chest wall and his heart and his neck, places where air is not supposed to be, said Dahl, who has worked as a ringside physician for the State Athletic Commission. If he was hit in the neck or the chest a certain way in a certain place, he could have developed pneumothorax, a collapsed lung.

He would have instantly been down and unable to breathe, needing a chest tube. BC, does this change your perspective of what happened when he fought cambosis i mean it seems pretty dangerous if i'm gonna be you know devil's advocate cynical you know you could have died in the boxing ring at any point and number two i think the rightful cynical response is you know it didn't seem all that dangerous when he was doing that backflip for no reason in the middle of the ring after the loss. Obviously, though, Luke, I take the, you know, the advice. I mean, look, if you're super cynical, you're going to say, OK, the story was produced by ESPN, the network that will air Teofimo moving forward. Do they want to protect their asset for ratings? That's if you're super cynical. I tend to care about people's health. So I'm going to say,

yeah, Luke, that seems like among the many many many issues teofimo had mentally coming in horrible strategy all the stuff we talked about now physically on top of this like this is scary this is very scary luke um everyone in australia will be doubled down with a you know anger that i not only rank cambosis the sixth best lightweight in the game right now but that we continue to pile on the reasons why teo should have beaten him but didn't um i don't know luke this seems really bad uh is this a health concern moving forward how do you get lung air in your chest like that luke to begin with i mean those guys with the with the with the bong jousting must have a shit in front of that right well they might but the for folks like oh how did he clear a medical exam because the

routine pre-five medical wouldn't necessarily have picked that up um it would have had to they would have had to call for more invasive thorough testing which they didn't have and so as a consequence i gotta switch earphones here um they didn't pick it up it would have they would have had to have known he had a condition in order to find it to begin with. Oh, Jesus Christ, I got to fix my fucking screen now. So there's a couple of reasons why I obviously didn't get picked up. But to me, it's super serious. Again, dude, this is not an argument about whether George Kambosis boxed well. Dude, George Kambosis boxed really well. But I'm sorry if you've been watching tape on Lopez, he didn't look the same in this

one as he had even in his own moments where he's had some not so great fights. It certainly didn't look even close to his peak. That doesn't mean George can't or won't beat him in a rematch. It just means that night sorry, that was not the guy that we saw against Lomachenko. It just wasn't. I'm sorry, Australia.

Okay? I loved Paul Hogan, right? Crocodile night sorry that was not the guy that we saw against Lomachenko it just wasn't Australia okay I loved Paul Hogan right Crocodile on Dundee the first one even the second one was great that no that's a knife right like that shit was great but I can't back this side of the argument though Luke all right all right Boses is not Floyd Mayweather all right I'm sorry. Well, let's remind everyone that we love him. And let's remind everyone that MK and DK back in partnerships. Of course, the long-awaited battle between Oliveira and Poirier is this Saturday, UFC 269. Look, I'll be there.

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Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Luke was right on all those things. Use our code COMBAT with a K. The DK app is fun as heck. I love it, Luke, okay? I mean, don't bet your mortgage on it, but I love it, okay? That's right. If you're going to go out, by the way, ufc 269 you should go out with some merch go to

morningcombat.storebc all kinds of good stuff including i don't know about the drug rugs but we've got shirts hats fanny packs factory town mma my stupid face holiday stuff our stupid faces on your underwear there you go morningcombat.store i just want to remind you of something, Luke. I know your level of faith and optimism on certain topics is, you know, it is what it is, Luke. Okay? You're a grown-ass man, and I respect you. I love you. Okay?

But I just wanted to remind you that Friday night is the night when the what are those guys? The Fighters Only magazine? They got the World MMA Awards. Yes, Fighters Only World MMA Awards. I know we lost all those other podcast awards we were up for luke but we are up for best mma programming this friday against heavy hitters like ariel and dc against short but heavy hitters like joe rogan and luke we have a chance at least to stand head and shoulders above them now us against joe at least height wise we already

got that going on but show wise that's, that's a tough hill to climb. So, you know. Well, as you know, I don't believe that good things ever really happen to me, so I'm probably skeptical about our chances, but we will see. We will see. Remember the Alamo. Things have happened in life, okay?

People who are at the Alamo lost that battle, just so that's clear. Just remember it. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I'll remember it. Also, if you want to try Showtime, you can. Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, pound sand.

Morningcombat at gmail.com for your fan subs on Wednesday for Friday's Dead Wrong. And what am I missing, BC? That looks like it's everything, right? No, Luke, you did a great job today. It was a huge weekend. We did a two-hour show. There were no technical errors. Sally it's everything, right? No, Luke, you did a great job today. It was a huge weekend. We did a two-hour show. There were no technical errors. Sally was fantastic today, okay?

Gaff and Maniche, you know, maybe take a walk, all right? Yeah, a long walk off a short pier. Ba-da-bomp, ba-da-bomp. Hey, go find Jay and hang out together, all right? I know. Now they're bitter at us. All right, well, that is it for Brian Campbell and I will be back on Wednesday stay tuned for my extra credit podcast which will be out either later today or first thing tomorrow we'll see and uh yeah that's it that's Brian

Campbell I'm Luke Thomas thanks to Malka thanks to CBS Sports thanks to Showtime thanks to all of you we'll talk to you soon and until then may all of your gains be loyal