MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - PFL: Ngannou KOs Ferreira | UFC Fight Night Recap | Tim Tszyu Gets Upset

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Monday. MK. Luke and BC are coming your way to recap this weekends events. First, they start in PFL. Francis Ngannou scored a KO win in his long-awaited PFL debut over Renan Ferreira. What is the biggest takeaway from this victory? Who in either boxing or MMA could be next? The guys give a grade for the PFL staging their biggest event ever. Does Cyborg have a case as the GOAT of women’s MMA after her upset win over Larissa Pacheco? How impressive was Paul Hughes in his win over AJ McKee? Did Conor McGregor have a point about the scourge of wrestling in MMA during the Johnny Eblen-Fabian Edwards bout? IN the UFC, Anthony Hernandez dominated Michel Pereira in the main event of UFC Vegas 99. Where does this put him in the division moving forward? In boxing, Just how devastating a loss is the upset Tim Tszyu suffered at the hands of Bakrahm Murtazaliev? What is the most important factor that could determine the outcome of Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reveille Reveille Boys Look at us now tip to tip Oh Jesus Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Do you want a margarita? Yes! Fire! Oh, yeah. Monday morning. Get fired up live and direct from the Metal Ark Studios in Manhattan.

This is the best damn combat sports show period yeah it's it's morning combat here we go monday october 21st 2024 brian campbell your host luke thomas the leading analyst in all of combat sports today is my partner uh and we got a pretty damn good show for the people today would you say that who has a vape i can smoke surely one of the degenerates who works here what flavor is that ken uh watermelon what's that watermelon we might have to fight for that i don't think if you guys share the vape you might as well just kiss at that point right i mean that's where we're at do you want to kiss yeah there Yeah, there it is. There it is. A big weekend in combat

sports from not just the PFL having their biggest card in history to a UFC Apex card. How about what went down in Orlando? PBC Tim Zhu got sent down. We'll have a lot on that. We'll look ahead to 308 which is the first and last title defense in Ilya Teporia's

career. Could be. That's true. Could be. I thought I was presenting that as an attack, an insult. Yeah, I know. That's what you do. And you just shielded it. You were expecting me to bite on the feint. I don't bite on the feints. You parried the punches and rolled with it.

Did you have a nice weekend taking your wife to metal concerts? So we had re- How was the weather in Connecticut? Was it good this weekend? I don't know. I was in Orlando. Oh, that's right. You were being a bad father and husband.

I'm teasing. I'm teasing. The weather in your nation's capital was perfect. So we were outside both days. Was there those pink flowers out, or is that only in the spring? You mean the cherry blossoms? Yes, they're very famous. That's in the early kind of spring.

Okay. We're now in fall. Thank you for the update. Thank you? Yes, they're very famous. That's in the early kind of spring. Okay. Yeah. We're now in fall. Thank you for that update. Thank you. Yes, okay. But what I was going to say is we went to the Hirshhorn exhibit. There was a Banksy and Basquiat exhibit, so I took my daughter. Ooh, Matt Snyder loves Banksy.

Does he? Daniel Snyder's nephew over there? Yeah. He hasn't read a book since high school. What are you talking about? All right, well, he's a country club crypto guy. But the one I'm trying to make is we went outside and we were on the National Mall. It was great.

And then the next day, I took you to a picnic. That was awesome. Beautiful weather. We played Frisbee, took her to the creek. It was awesome. Shouts to Rock Creek Park. And then I did go to an Opeth concert. You ever heard of Opeth?

No. First of all, in the merch line for my wife. It was for her birthday. Got some MK donks who came up to me. No way. At the Opeth concert. At the Opeth concert. Swear we have dark-souled fans you think yes uh shocker white guys with beards i mean that's that's our audience definitely luke fans yeah uh and uh then we saw the show i don't know how to explain opeth they have i would call it progressive metal and but

like they've done all different stuff dude like they went on. You know how Metallica went on this journey and they kind of stopped doing thrash? Yes. Then they were playing tin pans for St. Anger. They had a similar kind of journey where they just got into melodic, progressive rock music. Not even. So you're like, you can't even kill to this music.

It's horrible. So half their fan base left them. They split on them. Now they've come back around and they do a mix of the two. So my wife kind of likes more of the early and now newer now newer stuff but dude like different metal fans do different things we talked about the guys who row on the fucking ceiling or the the floor this event was at the warner theater so it had seats like whatever everyone stood up the entire fucking time and didn't sit down so i i just sat for the whole show. And my wife's like, you're not going to stand for the show.

I'm like, I didn't pay for standing room. Wow. I paid for a fucking, they're sitting in the balcony. The only people that sit at metal shows are the ones performing abortions usually. You can stand for that. I'm just pointing out, what the fuck is the point? And by the way, I want to say something with this music.

Hold on. This kind of metal music is different kinds. This kind is not the kind you can fucking dance to there's no dancing in metal it's just a bunch of skinny nerds who if they weren't shooting up schools all right just all right they're just doing this number bitch you can do that sitting down have a fucking seat who put cocaína in your cafe i'm so fucking tired yes? I'm so fucking tired. Yes, yes. I'm so fucking tired.

That alarm went off at five this morning, and I was about to stab someone. I'm so happy that you didn't bring a Bang or Pink Monster energy drink with you today. I almost brought this, which is a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso in it. It's called a Red Eye. The lady at Starbucks didn't know that. Also, she spelled my name. Tell the audience what she spelled my name as. Andrew Luck.

Yeah. There you go, yeah. This is two times in a row with two different people at the Starbucks. Didn't know how to spell the biblical term, Luke. It's a coffee with espresso. I was going to get this plus a monster on top of it because I'm so fucking tired. But then my heart might explode and you wouldn't make comments. Well, I've got the cure to your tiredness here.

I've collected some samples from a great company called Let's Fucking Go Energy. And they send these dip packets that have no tobacco in them, but they're little bandits of healthy and clean caffeine. I brought you this orange flavor to take home with you. How does it work? You can try one right here, Luke. You put it in. It's called

LF Go, Let's Fucking Go Energy. It's just, you know, clean caffeine, good stuff And you Put that dip packet in I guess I'm the Long Island Luke too you doing right now I am not dipping right now I was just explaining to everyone These things

So but you know you're trained not to Swallow when you do dip packets in high school So here you got to swallow Luke it's a lot like pornography I don't know what kind of pornography you're watching how's it taste you got you gotta try one here so wait do you spit it out you put in your mouth and you suck on it with your tongue i'm sure we should be doing this in the middle of the fucking show hold on do you do you swallow the juice yes you swallow the juice let's fucking go. It's healthy for you.

All right? It wakes you up right away. It's like what Conor McGregor does, but without the... BC, you are aware this expired months ago, are you not? It still works, though. BC, this expired in May. We're almost in November. Not phased.

Not phased by it. Not phased. Not phased by him. Not phased. Still caffeine. Still caffeine. Still works, Luke. Holy shit, you are degenerate. Let me smell. Oh, it smells.

One out of every 10 packets has heroin in it. You know what it smells like? It smells like dehydrated, like, monster energy drink. Yeah, I'm going to have one of those. We'll lay it on the show. All right, let's f and go we got a great show for you today you can buy some merch by the way like this fantastic bomber jacket by going to morning combat dot store wow you see how perky and happy i am after one

let's f and go packet yeah so again you don't chew it you just suck on it yeah yeah like mine okay yeah thank you very much so uh uh i was trying to be like should i make that joke or will we get fired you can follow us there you go perfect timing long on luke on the socials below let's bring in the third member of our team from uh from an australian man's ball bag it is luke no cita a lot of information i didn't need of Of the main card minute. All the way from not Jersey City, but his father's nutsack. From the same town as Matt Frivola, Long Island, did you have a nice weekend with the main card minute? I had a great weekend.

We had another perfect week, four for four on the main card. Do you know what happens when he has a perfect week? No. I ripped the Tyson bong. We do a couple of dabs. I did a funnel on this shit. We got crazy on this one. But it's like a frat house.

Luke, that's a frat house. That's like a fucking methadone clinic. Well, Rob Font. I said, if Rob Font wins here as a plus 360 dog, I'll do a funnel. And he did it. I had to. I have to tell you, your call on that was good because I did think Kyler Phillips was going to win straight up. But like when you told me what the odds were, again, what was it?

Plus 360. Dude, we said it on Friday that that was out to fucking lunch. Sure enough, you nailed it. Boston Rob coming through there. That's Mike Owens Media's guy right there. He's in the camp. You know he's in Team Funk camp. Dude, so he left Tyson and Shardy.

I think they're still friends, but he worked with Faraz Zahabi for this fight. Tyson was still in his corner, but Faraz was the head coach. Okay, but they clearly is a realignment in the camp. We were saying if Rob had lost, is that the end of New England cartel? They're kind of on a huge skid between him and Cater. I don't know what Cater's up to next, but yeah, you're right. They should just fight each other at this point. Fucking get it over with.

I see you did an appearance on Doody's podcast there. She loves the gloves. Yes, yes. She's going to Abu Dhabi for the first time in her UFC. Christina, yeah. She's got a good backstory. Anyway, she's out of Georgia, and we talked about UFC 308. Obviously, the Georgians are, they downplay his Spanishness.

They should. I understand. I understand. I don't know how to navigate that either. I'm not here to say what he is or isn't. In the Georgian hierarchy with Dulidze and Murab, is marab is it toparia wonders because he's moonlighting in spain do they they put him at number two it does seem like to pour you is a little bit higher they love the shit out of marab rightfully they definitely do don't give me i don't think it's like a distant

two but i do think to pour you is like the bigger figure okay so then you got, um, to lead a three Cheyenne four. She like naturalized and naturalized Georgia very quickly. I know we're going to talk about it. The Tim zoo fight. Yeah. How many communicable diseases did you come back from Orlando? No shout out to the Caribbean Royal resort for their hospitality. It was a very fun weekend. A lot of it was an Australian pay-per-view.

So like Aussie TV was there. My guy, Ben Damon, a lot of other folks. There was a lot of Australians that travel for this event. It was an Australian pay-per-view, so Aussie TV was there, my guy Ben Damon, a lot of other folks. There was a lot of Australians that traveled for this event. It was pretty cool. Tim Zoo didn't look great. No. That was a rough night for PBC. Well, yeah, I mean, in the short term, probably, yeah.

Definitely in the short term. But it was a very good triple header, a lot of action in that one. A little fight of the year contender in the first fight. By the way, I've noticed the Brian Campbell experience. Brian, set up this card for us. By the way, you did great. You did great. I mean, there's no doubt. BC, I'll say this about BC. He is a fucking idiot. However,

you're very good at commentary. Thank you. But the one little thing I've noticed, because I've, first of all, called a couple fights with you and I've seen a million of these. If BC's on the card, promoters, if BC's on the card, he's going to tell the audience they have a fight of the year candidate on the card. Because they do.

And I'll help Willett to be one. All right. There you go. Certainly an upset of the year. No doubt about it. Might be an upset. Legitimately might be the upset of the year. What a breakthrough performance from old Bokrum Murtazali.

We have more on that to come, but let's hit it off the top with the biggest event in PFL tour slash smart cage history went down in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. Battle of the Giants was the PFL Super Fights pay-per-view offering

and one giant stood tall over the rest. Francis Ngannou, some 33 months removed from the MMA cage, seven months removed from Anthony Joshua knocking out his lights

and unfortunately just a handful of months removed from the untimely death of his 15-month old son. All of that came together for Francis in his return against Henan Fajita, the PFL heavyweight super fight championship on the line, but that wasn't the story. It took less than a round,

but good old Francis turned into Brock Lesnar against Frank Murr delivering the first round TKO an emotional uh interview afterwards Luke Thomas first and foremost here forget PFL for a second this one's about Francis what's your biggest takeaway from Saturday he had a triumphant moment I think in his return to MMA and we really only talked about what it meant that he was coming off of the terrible, tragic loss to his tragic loss, I should say, of his son. Sure. And then the terrible professional loss, not that they are equivalent, but the professional loss to Anthony Joshua. But BC, when you think about it, there was actually more than that.

I mean, really, Francis was the face of this entire thing like the only reason why it was the biggest card in PFL history is because Francis who is still the lineal heavyweight champion of MMA was on it he did most of the promotion for it he did and featured in most of the spotlight for it wherever you began to see it so there were those two things before then there's the pressure of like to what extent is this going to be an event that people care about that was on francis this was francis's first mma fight since getting knee surgery i know we'd seen him in two boxing fights but wrestling is a different kind of toll on your orthopedic joints so there was that as well and i can go and list other features all down the line still dealing with uh ufc detractors still dealing with negativity in the press still still kind of

fighting dana publicly in a sense right in a sense yes and nevertheless went in there and turned in what i would call like wasn't enough of a performance against enough of a foe to be something spectacular i can't say that but it was a clear demonstration that despite some of these difficulties hurdles accumulated pressures around him that he he is still very much the man in charge yes he is still very much capable of beating what i would call head of a good a good limited but good fighter still plenty capable of beating that and then some we'll get to his future i'm sure you're going to ask about that and we will talk about it but to be able to have a moment to get over the joshua loss to i don't know what the business returns are going to be but in terms of what he could provide the broadcast and the event i think he did just about everything he could do you could make that argument he performed

as ably as he possibly could and i think did so very very well there was a couple of details with that crab hook where he was going for the ground and pound. There were nice little details you could see in his game, especially the ground game. So you would say 33 months he wasn't not working on any MMA. No. People are asking, like, what did the value of this, what was the value of this one?

Because Fajita is limited on the ground. There is no denying that. But I would say that the answer is, even if he is limited in those spots, and he is, had Francis lost to somebody like this, it would have told you that maybe the core of his game is beginning to degrade. It is not degrading. It is not.

He is still going to beat very good fighters in the state that he's in and potentially, depending on what matchups could arrive his way, some really good ones. I don't know. But I just want to point out being able to exorcise the demons that had been following him, not that this one event does it all together, but I'm sure it will help in the healing process,

being able to finally talk more openly about your child. Sure. And in a way where he can be praised and acknowledged and adored and loved even from afar, to be able to have, again, a win, a triumphant moment that he hadn't had a winning moment in quite some time. I think all this was good for Francis. I think in general, it was quite good for PFL.

And I don't know where we go next, but it was a fun little moment in the heavyweight division's history. I mean, when we talked about the make or break elements of this card for PFL, even though we're rightfully focusing on Francis to start here, we were arguing like, is this really a make or break? Is there anything that can happen here positively or negatively that can demonstrably change i think the one thing that we said was what if francis comes in here looks good and do what we think is he's capable of and he did that he came in there didn't take any damage felt him around a little bit on the feet took him down and took

him apart at least it keeps alive the idea should PFL lean on that from a marketing sense, and they probably, as we said last week, should have, should have played up more the idea that they have the lineal heavyweight champion, the best heavyweight in the world. This still keeps alive, if they want to play that card, the idea that we have the best heavyweight champion, hey, UFC, you have the best fighter of all time who happens to be your heavyweight champion,

let's break all the rules and do a cross promotion. If Francis goes in there and loses or looks old or what have you, that conversation's off the table. At least that's still in place for whatever that's worth and wherever that can lead to. But going back to the personal story of Francis, I mean, this just proves how different he is, how special he is, that he can endure not just that incredible journey to get to france to even begin his combat sports career not just endure the ridiculous soap opera with ufc while his knees torn up and go in there and unify the championship against gone over five rounds by wrestling but can take this time off go through these setbacks and still prove when it's time he's a fucking gamer that he's still the man people i saw people on social media

say like francis you know he always comes out on top that's actually not true he doesn't always come out on top uh there are times in fact this about part of the reason why it was significant was because more recently again personally and privately things have been going very poorly yes for him but the reality is he doesn't win every time but he doesn't ever let failure setback devastation even define his circumstances that's what i would say he's still more inspiring of a character in this in these combat sports than ever before i mean it's just wild i don't think this pay-per-view card is going to sell well there might be some questions about what francis's appeal is yes in a world where he didn't

sell well. And again, he's coming off of a knockout loss. He's coming off of a horrific personal tragedy. Those are things that will hurt you and set you back and devastate your life. And yet he is still able when the time is right to take control of things and then reassert himself in a dominant way. I think that's, to me, what I got out of Saturday, at least from the Francis Ngannou side. For sure. Let me ask you a devil's advocate question because some people thought I was too harsh on Cyril Ghosn

when Jon Jones did make his heavyweight debut. No, you weren't harsh enough. And, you know, within two minutes, had him on the ground and was just putting him in peril and the fight was over. And you're like, okay, great win for Jon coming off of three years moving up and wait we're not taking that part of it away we are taking apart some element of not the value but what we learned from it because how minimal the the pushback was from gone this fight was a little different than that

but not all too different henry fajita tried to you know he had a couple calf kicks that were good he tried a couple punches that came up short, and then he got taken down, and then the fight was over. Are there any elements of this that weren't fool's gold, but it went perfectly to plan to Francis? Did we see enough or learn enough about Hennephaheta in this specific fight? I think, again, Hennephaheta's 34. He basically is who he is, but the big difference between him and Cyril Ghosn is, I mean, Ghosn is big and powerful like any big athletic heavyweight is going to be.

But he's not the puncher that Hennepin is. Not even close. No. Fajita is a better puncher for two reasons. One, he puts more into it. Right. And two, he will use it in ways that sometimes are suboptimal for other forms of defense, like wrestling defense. But what that does is if you're not really minding your P's and Q's, he's going to set you on fire.

Like, for example, what he did against Ryan Bader, who tried to close a distance without properly setting it up. And he got eaten alive for it. Francis didn't do that. 21 seconds, though. Right. Francis didn't do that. He waited for the right hand to come all the way across and then got underneath. Obviously, John did something similar similar but remember two things one francis had an opponent who stayed in his

stance so he fired his cross but he didn't bring his other hip with him fucking cyril gone switch stances motherfucking into john jones like all-time bad decision making and he's not the puncher the henna Fajita is. So I think that Fajita is a better fighter than Don. That is not what I'm saying, but I am pointing out meaningful differences between these two, between Don and Jones, and now Francis and Fajita. They are similar, but they're meaningfully different too.

Friend of the program, Brett Okamoto, on the NCAGE interviews on Saturday. Let's check in on Francis in this emotional aftermath of the victory. I don't know. I can't just think about anything that my son could be, you know. I only take this fight because of him. I wanted to fight for him. And I'm done. So I don't know. I hope I

Hope they can remember his name because without Kobe we wouldn't be here tonight. I wouldn't have fight but Thank you everyone for coming and Thank you for selling surgery beer. Thank you for react To be a great host. You're always having us here, taking good care of us. All the people here, very lovely, supporting. I think today I have more than a fan base in Saudi.

I think in Riyadh I have what I could call in another way a family. Thank you, guys. Luke, listen. Separate from the fight element of it, we're both fathers. What he went through was hell. 15-month-old son, you know, out of nowhere. To bite down and go back to your job and do what he did really, regardless of the result,

but also to go in there and dominate and devastate like he did. That's a, that's a real man. Cause when you really read Francis's quotes about the obvious nature of the emotional toll and impact, and now that he wants people to remember his son, Kobe's name, and it's so remarkable in,

in, in inspirational in a lot of ways. I don't know how he was able to get it back on track. You see those quotes where he said, you know, it would take a million years to grieve this and that wouldn't even be enough. And I could fully understand that. We know the love between a parent and a child. How do you look at him as the dad at what he went out and did on Saturday? I want to answer that, but can we see the other clip? Sure. There's a clip where Francis reflects on his toughness. Can we see that, Long Island Luke?

You know, I used to, I mean, they've been telling me that I'm tough to the point that I get to believe that I'm tough. And then I recently just find out that I wasn't tough. I wasn't that tough. Life can let you take an advance and think you're running away, and then it hits you really bad, like from the front. It's something that I never imagined. I never know how I feel. I've seen people going through it. And then out of compassion, I've been trying to understand how how I feel. I have seen people going through it and then I even out of compassion,

I have been trying to to understand like how he must feel, but never get anywhere close to how he feel exactly. Obviously, this is something you've had to think about, deal with your entire training camp. How bad or hard was it today to focus on the fight itself? It was pretty hard. You know,相手の戦いについてはどう思いますか?相手はとても難しかったです。 最初から終わるまでの時点で難しかったです。 でも、自分自身が終わることを考えるのは、 自分自身が終わることを考えることです。

自分自身が終わることは、 自分自身が終わることは、 You think he might never be over, you just might as well learn how to roll with it, to live with it because in certain cases I would have taken time to grieve, but how long would that take? I don't think there is enough time for me to do that. I don't think a lifetime would be enough to grieve. So is it just about like keep going? You know, it's a new life that I'm, new way.

Holy shit. So I want to make a point here. Like Habib and Francis kind of both have this ability where neither is a native or really even a fluent English speaker. And yet both of them in their own way have a command of the language that's beyond ours. And Francis, in his particular case, if there's a through line in his career, both from what

he says on the personal side in dealing with this, but this was how the personal side was intersecting with the professional side and how he was going to resolve those differences. And his answer was just to resolve those differences. And his answer was just to keep going, basically. But the way in which he described it, as you just heard, it will take your breath away. He has such a rich and thoughtful inner life and inner monologue and inner, I'm not religious, but I don't know what the word would be, but some kind of inner spirituality, some kind of thing like that. He shines brightly.

Some kind of sense of self, but the way in which he thinks it through and processes it and tries to understand it, he is extremely smart, extremely wise. And if you go and look at his professional decisions and now look at his personal decisions, decisions it just seems to be like no one makes them flawlessly but he makes them very considered and very adept as a consequence even amidst it's incredible fathomable loss he doesn't need to be that philosophical and and perfect in the way he presents it but um we get it he's so relatable yet unrelatable due to how miraculous his inner strength is. And the people that have the most wisdom when you meet them in life tend to be the people who have been through the most. And that's certainly been the life cycle of Francis's life.

So to deliver this performance under those circumstances is certainly remarkable. To be able to express it, like you said, in the way he did. We don't really do power rankings of our favorite people in combat sports but like i don't really get and i know a lot of people like in the dana versus francis debate and who really was right or wrong people just you know if you're a ufc loyalist you're like dana was right this guy didn't want to fight jumbo like that's all like bs when has this guy made a misstep when has he done something where we're like well i don't agree with what he just said or what he just did like it's a pretty remarkable human being and you could say we don't see that too

often in combat sports which sometimes can bring in sort of the people on the edge of society looking for a purpose or a way out in some cases in this case like i don't even think we give him enough superlatives to really say as a person what he, like it's as pure and baby face and remarkable as, I mean, how could you not, every aspect of his life is like this instructional manual on how to push through and persevere and chase your goals. And despite the pain you're going through, I mean, it is incredible. And I don't mean to tie that into how PFL is going to market him or what that means for the future.

They don't know how to market. They don't. But like, you know, we're naturally going to say, or what that means for the future. They don't know how to market. They don't. But like, you know, we're naturally going to say, OK, who should he fight next? The biggest win for PFL may have actually been that he won. And now it's Francis is that attraction. I think performances like that, that speech afterwards, bringing his personal life to the center and showing us his pain. It only makes you want to see him more.

I don't even care the level of competition. I just want to see that guy compete. I want to see him more i don't even care the level of competition i just want to see that guy compete i want to see him carry out his life story in front of me i agree i wouldn't put him up for sainthood i mean i'm not trying to go that far out of saudi blood money let's just be honest about that however i don't really care that much about it he crawled through the shawshank ufc tunnel to get he's done more he's i don't i don't really care i'm just saying no one's perfect. That's all. You're like, hold on, BC.

Is anyone in combat sports really that good of a people? Neither you nor I. Neither you nor I. None of us are really all that well suited. I do want to make a point. People are going to say, oh, PFL doesn't know how to promote him. Neither did UFC. I don't think they really ever did it all that great either.

I mean, they did it certainly well at times, for sure. But they didn't have him on Good Morning America retelling his story of coming over. They promoted him as this undeniable juggernaut of force. The Mike Tyson of MMA, is what I used to call him. Which, by the way, is a perfectly fine way to promote him at times. But I think that what all the promotions he's worked with

have kind of never really understood is, you've got a guy here who is made of something. We have been around the fight game for so long. I can count guys like this on my. I only need two fingers. Who's the giant who lost a bunch of fingers in the fireworks accident? What was his name? Who are you referring to?

I'm thinking of the football player, Jason Pierre-Paul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, JPP. I can be like JPP and I could still identify all the people. Instead, you act like Richie Incognito all the time. He's a great teammate over here. What's his favorite letter on the alphabet? I think it's the N.

I think it's the N. But anyway, I just want to point out, Francis is so full of depth. He's actually a little bit of a challenge for promotions who just need an easy hook to sell. You're right. He's got too much for them. And so they just kind of like, he's strong.

He's big battle of the giants giants. And it's like, okay, that's not nothing, but that's not the real story. I bet the smart cage came up with that. If we're going to have the conversation about what's next for John Jones, we I'm saying,

Francis, we can't not mention John Jones. Speaking of John, he tweeted about this. Let's check it out over here from Boney. What an amazing job Francis did tonight. Displayed a complete MMA game. Great kicks. Great takedowns.

It feels good to see him shine. Wow. Congratulations, champ. I see you. What does he spell Boney wrong? Period. End quote. What do you think the bony nickname references?

Because I never really got why he names himself bony. Well, he's John Bones Jones. No, yeah. Is that it? Is it just instead of Bones, it's bony? I guess. I don't quite get why it's bony. Or is he a big, like, bony acai fan?

Or, you know, whatever. Hey, maybe they're just paying him for the, you know, control of the Twitter handle. I mean, the one thing John didn't say in there is, I'd love to fight you one day. Right, that's what you say to a guy when you're wishing him bon voyage. Yes, have Don call Dana and Hunter. I was going to say that. I actually feel like what John said there was, to a degree, heartfelt. Yes, I absolutely think that.

John Jones can be a real man in person. Fair enough. However, I also feel like that was him being like, we're never fucking fighting. You know what I mean? That was how I took that. So when we talk about what's next, let's get over that hump first. Does the result of this change anything in the public pressure, court of public opinion, the business futures of TKO Global or TKO Group? Are we more likely in the TKO Group era to see something in the past was impossible, a UFC crossover with another promotion?

Does this event in a result change any of that? Or should we put this to bed and figure out what free agent heavyweight out there is going to be next for? I don't think that there is going to be a free agent and heavy heavyweight, although one never knows. I do want to point out something like people are giving Saudi Arabia a lot of credit for making fights happen and to be clear they are entitled yes to a fair amount of credit whatever else one wants to say about them who is putting up money to make many of these fights both on mma but more so certainly on the boxing side possible it is definitely the saudis we are going to get a test of their limit we're gonna we're gonna find out what their upper bound limit is.

Because they've got all the money in the world to make Jon Jones or even Tom Aspinall or whoever ends up having it, again, whoever ends up that being, versus Francis. You know Francis would be willing. You certainly know Turkey probably wants it. You certainly know he's got the resources to make it happen. What would be the only obstacle, Brian Campbell, that could potentially get in the way if you have PFL enthusiasm,

ESPN Plus support, Turkey's unlimited money, as well as his interest? What would be the only potential factor holding that up? I'll give you two initials for two words, and they are UF. Uncle Fester. I see you. If the UFC doesn't want to co-promote, even under these circumstances, there is literally nothing short of the force of

law that could ever make them. Don't go past that. If that ever did happen, because look, remember, Turkey was talking about getting Ariel and Dana together, the ultimate breaking of red. If they could get Don Davis and Peter and Murray, whatever the guy's name is, and Dana and all of them, and Ari Emanuel at the table, and they were just like, look, we're going to put so much money in your company's pocket.

This is going to be the biggest MMA event of all time. This is going to be Fedor versus Crow Cop, but in UFC form. Would it have to be a UFC pay-per-view airing on whatever UFC network it is at the time? And would PFL do that as long as he was able to come in with the PFL belt around him as PFL heavyweight champion? I think PFL would give up literally everything, including that. Just to get the money and exposure from it? And including even the ability for Francis to win the heavyweight title. So what Pride used to do at times was they would have Takanori Gomi as their lightweight champion, and he would fight for another person with the title.

Then they just book him later in a fight, and he could win or lose it. And in fact, one time he did lose it, but they never made the fight a title contest. So he never lost the belt, even though he got fucking submitted by Marcus Aurelio. I guarantee you they would give up that and everything else just to make that possible on a UFC broadcast. See if UFC's ESPN deal wasn't coming up soon, I would think that maybe we should start talking about this because if it was all under the same network anyway, and it didn't matter,

does the networks change it at all? Or you're saying it doesn't matter. It's going to be on UFC pay-per-view if it ever would happen. Yes. I know Dana would never want to under all the reasons we know. Does Ari Emanuel and others at that level with TKO trump him? Could they talk him into that? Again, we're going to get the limits of what Turkey's willing to do to make big fights happen. Okay, interesting.

If he can't make it happen as basically the guy with an ATM card to a petrol state, I don't know that it's possible. All right, if we're going to talk about possible Francis next opponents in the smart cage, we can have the same debate we did when he signed with them in 2023 and go, you know, Junior Dos Santos, who, by the way, took the game bread contract over this possibility. Derek Lewis, who re-signed with UFC. So it's slim pickings.

What about this? What about the same thing that we're trying to, to back Dana into a corner to do? Can we do that with shot trees guy and a totally Malik in one of the best heavyweights in the world? Do you think that's something that could relatively easily happen so that when we're going like, you know, maybe Francis does come back next against a washed X name and mops the floor

with them to keep, keep the money going for PFL. But is that a fight that can be built to that you think would be worth it? Because I know Malik is not a household name, but hardcore guys know that this guy's one of the biggest badasses in the world. And Francis has beaten better guys, has faced better guys, has much better punching power, but Malik is smaller, quicker and can wrestle. That's an interesting fight. Would you call Malik a gas station Fedor?

No, he's a little bit better than that. But not as an insult, as a compliment? Brian Campbell gas station Fedor, maybe. You know what I mean? So you could still eat there. Yeah, it'd be like a Wawa where you could definitely still get a lot of cool things. I think that fight can be made and should be made. And I realize it's delicate.

How do you do it where everyone can benefit, even in the event that your guy loses? There are complications related to that, but I don't think it's all that complicated in terms of finding some kind of crossover deal that is mutually beneficial, especially as one moves to a more Muay Thai model out of Thailand.

They've cut their costs. They've moved their financial headquarters. They're not in MMA as much as they used to be. Brian Campbell won't stop smirking. Because I have an idea that I know you'll shoot down, but I love the idea. Okay. So imagine if 42-year-old Cain Velasquez

gets sentenced for jail in this upcoming trial, and then he's just like, F it. Before I go in, one more time. He already lost to Francis. I know, but then he fell apart, and it wasn't a real fight. Is he still defunded? Do you think he's more situated now?

I'm just trying to think what's the biggest name you could get that's not with the UFC right now. But actually, he still is tied to the UFC, probably contractually. I would imagine he is or, you know. Okay, so that fight is a non-starter too. What's realistic then?

What's the next option? Is it anti-Daliadelia what is it i think that if they can't get malikin and even they can't get malikin that's not going to sell well on pay-per-view although that would be a very good fight who's a somewhat recently retired still in their early 40s still would have a marketable shot i think we need to just look at this reality and be like the reason why francis can't get fights is not because the PFL is not making it worth the while of a potential challenger it's because the contracts are so long yes inside the UFC and by the way other promotions play these games too but the reality is we're talking about the possible contenders he could face they are all with the UFC and those contracts are extended

and so long that there's not enough of a rotation to get them out and even when there is they find ways to kind of cleverly undercut it. He has to fight Deontay Wilder. I don't know who else he could feel. I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw,

you mean in boxing, in boxing. Oh, but the PFL won't get money in that unless they do a hybrid fight. I don't, I don't know what option PFL has. I'm going to give you two of them. And see if they're acceptable.

Okay. One is the recently knocked out Ryan Bader. Let's say he gets a two and a half. Absolutely not. Two is former Bellator light heavyweight champion who's now a heavyweight, Vadim Nemkov. Vadim Nemkov is a decent name you could go to. Yes, that is somebody. That's not going to sell a dime on pay-per-view.

But is that a legitimate fight? Yes, it's a legitimate fight. Yeah, MMA fans would not shit on that, right? They'd be like, okay, let's see it. Well, yes, they would. They would say Nemkov is not quality, blah, blah, blah. But he is quality. He is quite good. That's a tough fight. Are there any other large

light heavyweights that would fit this bill? If I was Johnny Walker, why are you fighting in the UFC? If you're going to fight in the UFC and you want to be a champion, you need to be considerably better than your peers, right? He's not that.

But he is. He's got the donk. You know, he's just gyrating his crotch at all times, kind of bit going on. He could make a splash outside the UFC, I think, much better than he could inside. It's time for him to realize what his true future is. This is also a non-starter due to contracts, but do you think Poiton would have the balls to step in there at heavyweight against him?

I think Poiton would have the balls to step in there against Thanos if you gave him an opportunity. You know what I mean? And this is what I mean. Like, Francis, if he had enough contenders, could be doing some really, really interesting things in MMA. But the reality with the PFL is they have tried to make a nice they have tried to feather a nest for a potential contender remember not just one but two million dollars to anyone who faces francis but they can't get out of their contracts so there you go if he hadn't tragically passed would rumble johnson be in this mix he would be in this mix yes interesting he would be uh let's go to topic

number two luke and it's about the pfl event as a whole, which was not just Francis. This main card, at least on paper, was strong. I don't know if it was better than the sphere, like PFL Brass was trying to tell us, but this co-main was fantastic. We'll get to the individual pieces. I want to ask you as a whole, though, having watched the entire broadcast in full, Luke Thomas, give me a grade for PFL staging, not their first pay-per-view, but their first sort of super fight, what they're trying to do to stand out and really compete with the UFC.

How do you grade the event? So I talked to Long Island Luke about this. Oh, yeah, our betting analyst. He had a higher grade than me. I think you could average them out and get somewhere probably close to the right grade. I've had my initial, I've kind of gone back and forth between five and six. I think six is a little bit better.

I could even, I could even squint and give it a seven, but that's a little high. That's a little high. Let's talk about what went right. Co-main event. Fantastic. Let's talk about main event. Wasn't super spectacular, but we just said it was a triumphant moment for a really important figure in MMA.

Wasn't boring either. Wasn't boring. Fine. So those things were great. Paul Hughes versus AJ McKee, fantastic. The Johnny Ebelin fight was terrible and then there were just two donks. What the fuck are they doing on this card? Ray Lewis was there. Stabbing him up. Was Turkey not there? Did they need to kill him? I did not

see Turkey. Cristiano Ronaldo was there. I'm not saying Turkey wasn't there, I just didn't see him. And usually Turkey likes to be seen. So I so i didn't yes that's just such a wild card ray lewis showing up but ray lewis and cristiano ronaldo it's like what okay so that was interesting there was nobody in attendance they might as well have been fighting in the fucking apex in terms of more people in that washington dc amphitheater that they played at that time, it seemed like. There was literally, I think, more people at the Anthem is what you're talking about than it was in whatever the arena was in Riyadh. I could not believe how lifeless it was.

The pacing was good. The pacing was very, very good. I think because a lot of the fights went to decision, but nevertheless, that was great. So there were some positives. Commentary team, I like a lot. In particular, Dan Hardy. Dan Hardy was an MVP of the show. Dan Hardy is excellent on those broadcasts.

I think Randy's starting to go a little bit. I hate to say that. He's starting to get old. He should have came on our show that time. We never would have told the truth. But look, Randy's one of my favorite color commentators in MMA history. But yes, it seems to be he's on the other side of the mountain. But still capable.

So I think this i think this did they provide a reasonably compelling broadcast of televised mma in a way that they were able to both entertain and then flex their muscles as the pfl somewhat is the answer somewhat there were positives that i've identified but it did not feel to me like the PFL took flight. The one time, for example, where I felt like a brand took flight off of a card and their promotion of it and it all kind of working was the first time, for example, AJ McKee fought Pitbull for Bellator. And I remember tweeting that night, if you want to know what a big night at Strikeforce felt like, it felt like that.

You remember what city that was in? I forget what city it was in, but remember AJ McKee had all of his fights in bellator yes he was rising through the ranks he finally made it to the final boss and then he wins in spectacular fashion they promoted it the right way this guy was set up the right way we were saying aj mckee should fight on free cbs after that fight like that's how big that that's how big that was that was a really well done job by everyone at bellator to really make that work. It was in Inglewood, Connecticut. That first fight. Inglewood, California.

Sorry. Connecticut. My bad. Bong hits no Cito over here. Let's go to San Diego, Rhode Island. You fucking moron. All right. All right.

That was a little harsh. He does. He does. Yeah. I'm just joking. You ever notice how like they allow his face on Friday show, but not Mondays. Yeah. They're like, get that fucking.

Go brush your teeth. All right. The point I'm trying to make here was. Friday's show, but not Mondays. Yeah, they're like, get that fucking off. Go brush your teeth. All right. The point I'm trying to make here was. He's not British. He's Australian. Dude, part of being mean to other guys is that it doesn't make any sense. You're just being mean. Holy shit.

Can I do that? All right. Lastly, I felt like it was a decent showcase of what they had to offer, as well as a showcase of what lacks in their product. And BC, we've talked about it, how they're just really a financial asset. Yes. With the no crowd thing there, I don't know what to do because he who pays the piper calls the tune. If the Saudis are footing the bill, this is just going to be what it's going to be. But there is no soul to the product.

Greed, yes. There is no core identity to the product. And I don't think that for all the good that came out of this card, and there was some good, plenty of good, actually, that never came across. Sometimes it's just the crowd energy, right? Like, for example, the PBC show we did in Orlando. I mean, that room probably had

2 000 people in it but they were fired the hell up and going nuts during those good action fights those were just real boxing fans so you were like oh my god this i wonder what this looks like on tv like this feels big in this moment they have never had that and that's probably the biggest problem is they don't care about uh ticket sales we talked talking about that nauseam at all. It seems to be only about the broadcasting deals to really fuel them. But I really wish to use that, that axiom again, that's the right word for that. They always build horizontally, build, build up, but stack your assets on top of each other. Let's start in some of that is building a fan base,

building somebody that can show up and bring excitement. I wish they had that environment there. How can you push a product if you don't know what its identity is? They keep talking like we're the duopoly in MMA. If the goal of the event was to say that, hey, if you're a UFC fan, you can watch this

and you can get an equivalent experience to watching the UFC. Did they succeed on that level? No, of course they did not. That doesn't mean they didn't have nice graphics packages. Doesn't mean that the broadcast didn't move nimbly. It did. Or that you didn't have some premier quality talent on there.

You did. First fight and last fight, plus co-main. You had some real quality, like legitimately great fights on there. But it's hard to walk away from that knowing what the pfl is what is this what they should be is let's identify our four or five biggest names that are a combination of marketing people like francis and jake people on the rise like paul hughes who we're going to talk about you know the patchy mixes the guys that you can actually make the claim that they're in the top five in their division on a global level and do a somewhat regular pay-per-view. I mean, isn't that the model of how you try to compete with the UFC?

You front load all of your biggest assets, even if some of the assets are smoke and mirror. I mean, that was arguably what Bellator was doing during the circus fight era when they were doing huge cable numbers on Paramount with Ken Shamrock at age 50 and D of 5 000 but they were getting enough commercial benefit from that that you were saying look they're not the ufc but they are a competitor of some degree because a certain nights per year they're going to put something out there that if they did go head to head they might they might win that battle so with kimbo slice they

reached not just him but he was a big feature of it. They reached enough into the mainstream where they were pulling audiences as big or bigger than UFC broadcasts in a way that you just cannot imagine what it would be like for an MMA promotion today to have the equivalent kind of mainstream reach. Now, that was before the streaming launched, so those numbers don't apply to today. But still, five and six million, they were peaking in viewers. I really wish the PFL, as we talked about, would kick away the season format. Don't take Paul Hughes and go put him on the Bellator international scene now, where maybe you do a good house in Dublin, but it's like, put your assets together. How do you succeed in MMA? It looks like they're going to need the pay-per-view model.

So let's put four or five pay-per-views out there on the schedule and let's load them up with your best fighters competing, not for multiple titles, meaning we're going to have a regular PFL season title and an intergalactic super fight title. And then there's that Bellator title. If you have more than one in the same promotion, they're meaningless. We learned this in boxing, put it all together. Because if I see Paul Hughes have a breakthrough in what I want to ask next

is who's the lightweight champion and how quickly can we make that if I happen? That's the one thing one does one championship does well to stay afloat and to put out the type of cards for the most part that we will shoehorn into our rundown and talk about because they tend to put this champion against this champion and bring them together they tend to basically take the menu items available and put them all together and say look we want you we want you to give us a chance. Let's do it. That's what PFL has to start doing.

And there were some good moments and good stories that we have to talk about. That co-main event, Chris Cyborg at, what, 39? Yes. We just all sort of said, look, it's going to catch up to her eventually. Pacheco has an iron chin and big power. This will be the time where she hands the torch off to the next Brazilian slugger. Luke, she's not done yet. Her fifth major organization, she wins a major title, taking a hard-earned unanimous decision from this new destroyer on the block.

How impressive, Luke, was Chris Cyborg in this regard to go in there against a younger, at the peak of her prime, destroyer and still show you whether it's the veteran tricks of grappling in key spots or it's still just that explosive power and overcoming vicious cuts on both eyelids. Dude, she's not done yet or close to it. I have to tell you, based on this performance and then thinking about it a little bit more, here's what I'm going to say. And this is something I could not imagine saying even a year ago.

Chris Cyborg has a case as the best women's fighter of all time. Has a real legitimate case. So not even in a, I'm Scott Coker and I'm trying to sell on my battle tour broadcast that she is already. You're saying it might actually beat her now. We all know the story where Chris and Amanda faced off and Amanda beat her relatively easily, basically. They exchanged punches and she was the more dominant puncher and she put it away. That was that is such a, you know, it's not like two people who never fought. You have to kind of compare resumes. They fought and Amanda easily basically got the better of her.

And that's really going to hurt Cyborg's argument. But allow me to make a different argument, if I may, which is I think this is indisputably true. Chris Cyborg has the most important and impressive MMA championship longevity in all of MMA history. Ready for this? 2009, she becomes the Strikeforce champion. 2013, she becomes the Invicta champion. 2017, she becomes the UFC champion. 2020, she becomes the Bellator champion.

And here it is in 2024, she becomes the PFL champion. She literally has been fighting on television since women were only allowed to fight in three-minute rounds. What she has put together, and going from all these different promotions, which you can see on the screen, cannot even be done anymore because the business model of MMA has changed such that this kind of availability doesn't even exist anymore.

And there's one more point I'd like to add to this. Please do. Yes, it is true. Amanda got the better of her. And again, I think that's going to make obviously a strong case for Amanda as well. But when Amanda lost in September of 2011, when she was in strike force, Cyborg was already champion, had been champion for two years. When Amanda Nunes lost in Invicta in 2013, later that year, Cyborg became the champion, beating, by the way, and not just beating, thrashing Marluce Coonan, who was a very, very good fighter at that time. But Cyborg was a champion while Amanda was losing. Then Amanda goes and fights Kat Zingano in 2014.

I think this is Pete Kat Zingano. And she loses there. What point am I making? Yes, at their absolute peak, Amanda reached a higher threshold. But the consistent championship level of excellence for 15 years when other fighters were losing in the same promotions while they were in the promotions at the exact same time, Cyborg was champion at all these places and all these times to do it at 39 at 45, 145 against Pacheco,

who just came off the Kayla Harrison win. And I want to say this last thing too. Everyone's like, what about the drugs? What about the drugs? Guys, she was on USADA and PFL and UFC. So right now she's supposed to be under USADA guidelines. You're the ones who have told me for years how important that is. And she didn't do it with brute power against Pacheco.

She did it with what you mentioned skills yes veteran savvy timing timing disrupting rhythm setting patterns disrupting patterns the kind of thing where you couldn't do it with pure brawn she used to be the kind of person where it'd be like you know set your clock let's see how long it takes for godzilla to eat oh she's made so many great adjustments. She's so far beyond that. So for these reasons, BC, I wonder what you make of my case. I'm not declaring to you it's ironclad. What I am saying is no one has this level of championship excellence through eras of the sport for as long and as mightily as Chris Cyborg has. I would say even before this fight, I would say you're right on that argument and say that the longevity is starting to add up

at such an extreme level that... I never thought Coker was completely wrong in making that case. I know he did it for marketing purposes and because he helped Cyborg make women's MMA a thing back in Strikeforce. But I do think you can make the argument leaning heavily on the pioneer side

and this ridiculous long uh this ridiculous consistency and longevity which only got amplified by this win but the biggest hole in your argument is also what a lot of people to believe is the strongest characteristic in a debate of what is the greatest of all time and its quality of competition and who did you beat now i know what makes cyborgs run so super special on top of everything we just said was she's going through different eras of women's MMA and adapting with it and getting better. So that's a great stamp on her. But the people that say it's laughable that you would put her above or that anyone would

put her above Amanda when not only did they go head to head and Amanda won, although I think Cyborg did deserve a rematch and got a raw deal the way her UFC run exited or ended there. Luke, the biggest pushback will be, people will say, okay, but what is Cyborg's best win? Holly Holm? Okay. But what's her second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth best win when you compare that to Amanda

who not only beat... I can answer that. But let me tell you, but not only beat, but brutally finished, literally the who's who in women's MMA history. Now, didn't finish them all, but when you go through and you've got wins over Misha Tate, Ronda Rousey, Valentina Shevchenko twice, you know, on and on,

and Holly Holm, on and on, and a lot of those were just absolutely dominant, and you knocked out a still, you know, relatively close to peak prime cyborg by knockout, it's going to just kind of shut that debate no matter how much we romanticize what Cyborg did. I'm a Cyborg superfan. I've become it over time because i have so much respect for how she carries herself and what she's doing out there but i don't think she can climb that mountain above amanda for everything i just said yeah but she also doesn't have losses to people like and she's a good fighter but not a

great one alexis davis cyborg doesn't have losses okay but how do you defend the actual she doesn't have losses to people like sarah the the delay the lelio um the point i want to make is i cannot argue that amanda amanda has a better core run that run she went on and has a higher peak that's not really up for debate i don't see how you could debate that but what i can say is you're talking about the level of competition cyborg has faced again there are some issues with that beating marlu's Coonan twice, beating Holly Holm in 2017. Julia Budd twice, I think, too. Julia Budd twice, and then now Larissa Pacheco. Dude, those are fucking

super solid. Add Arlene Blanco twice to that. Angerfist. One of my favorite fighters. Come on. I'm being serious, though. There's legit wins up and down that. I do think Amanda's got a better run and a better peak. When I say run, I mean like a core group of wins all put together.

But I cannot stress it. When Amanda was getting polished off in Strikeforce, Cyborg was a champion. But then somebody will just say, well, that's early. That's very early Amanda who was raw. But she has maintained that excellence. But the point that I countered you is saying for all of that, it's still not enough to best the head-to-head, where I think Amanda not only has an edge, like a dominant edge on head-to-head in quality of competition.

I would say she has an edge. I don't know if it's a dominant edge, but I do agree she has an edge. You can go through the history of Cyborg, notwithstanding the longevity and the respect and everything we have for her, but the quality of opposition at that time across the board. Yeah, I mean, the run you could say that is the really great run would be McMahon, Sarah McMahon, who's limited but good. Shevchenko, who maybe that's not her ideal weight class, but certainly very good. Then Tate, then Rousey, that's the big one. Back to Shevchenko, though, that was heavily disputed.

That was the split decision one. By the way, I thought Shevchenko won that fight. So did I, but she got her hand raised. But she got her hand raised. Raquel Pennington, it's a fine win. You know, Cyborg is the big one. GDR as well, you add in. I mean, there's some good wins.

GDR and Holm a little bit later, 2019. She beat her two years after Cyborg beat her. And then he gets to the Felicia Spencers and stuff like that. But what I want to make is, yes, that run there, that core run, it's a better run than what Cyborg has. What you have to ask yourself is what is more important or rather what is more impressive a consistent level of slightly less but overall greater excellence or a bigger peak and a faster run to the top it's like comparing bbls to ukrainian

women it's it's a bbls are gonna win it's dead even i'm sorry what about voluptuous women versus a bunch of lunch ladies yeah who. Who the fuck wins that battle? I don't know. BC is like, I wonder who wins in the rivalry between gazelles and fucking lions. Yeah. The lions. Just because you believe it doesn't mean it's right.

You see, I've, you have the most questionable taste I've ever seen in the opposite sex to the point where I'm not even sure if that's what you're actually into. Okay. That's rude. That's that way that I draw the line there.

That one went too far. Just to wrap up. Oh, you're okay. Go ahead. I cannot declare to you that the case for cyborg is as good or better than Amanda. I can.

It's not as, yeah, it's not as good, but it's hella impressive. Okay. At a bare minimum minimum it is worth considering how unique yes the championship longevity is of someone like cyborg and again i wanted the last point was to reiterate going through those organizations you can't even do

that anymore in mma because we just don't have the diversity of those organizations that matter in that way she's from another time in another era, only she's still really awesome. And by the way, that win over Pacheco was fucking impressive. To overcome both cuts on top of that and not let it bother her at all. But how about every time Pacheco landed a big strike, which happened at times, Cyborg would come right back with big combinations. Almost like every time Pacheco had an edge of momentum or confidence, it was like Cyborg filled that gap instantly.

That's what champions do. She won, what, 49-46 on all three? I could have lived with 3-2. Yeah. I could have lived with 3-2, but there's no way you could find three rounds. Such a great performance. One of her best wins of all time,

considering all those circumstances. I fully agree with that. That is literally one of her best wins. Well, let's go to my favorite fight on the card, and it was on paper, and it played out so thrilling, not thrilling in terms of the actual action but in terms of what we were learning Paul Hughes the 12 and 1 Irish prospect coming in against AJ McKee one of the I mean I know AJ is now 29 it's not like he's a kid walking out that

door but I don't think we've still even seen the best of AJ McKee yet they match him up together we don't know what it's going to look like. How about Paul Hughes by split decision? He rocked McKee at the end of the first round. Although they both had moments on the ground, he had the better control of grappling. He showed veteran skills in how to win a close fight. Luke, first of all, how did you score that? Were you more than fine with a 3-2 Paul Hughes win?

29-28 Paul Hughes. He clearly won round. Or not 3-2. Sorry, 3-5. 3-round fight. Yeah, yeah. 2 Paul Hughes. He clearly won round... Or not 3-2. Sorry, 3-5. 3-round fight. Yeah, yeah. 2-1. Yep.

I thought he won the first round. I thought he lost the second round. Or you can certainly make a case that he lost the second round. And I thought he did more than enough to win the third. He is so impressive. By the way, Paul Hughes, Ilya Teporia, MK, Hammer of the Month. Oh, wow. Hammers of the Month.

Both of those guys. And Aaron Blanchfield, right? And Aaron Blanchfield. Yes. All three of them were Hammers of the Month. Oh, wow. Hammer of the Month. Both of those guys. And Aaron Blanchfield, right? And Aaron Blanchfield. All three of them were Hammers of the Month here on this particular show. That was one of our best things ever. And then Moneyline's like, yo, we out. We did hate it in real time. Behind the scenes.

But we were told we had to do it. And then three months in, they're like, we out. We out. We out. But the one I wanted to make was we knew back then you could see it on tape that those guys were special. In the case of Paul Hughes, him too. too dude the composure he showed the boxing ability sticking with what weapons were working um overall good wrestling ability good decision making throughout a fight when to push when to break dude he's so good moxie first of all moxie's so

freaking good and i did think that aj mckee looked a little unusually tired once he got dropped at the end of round one with that big hook i think he was downhill for even though i thought he won round two i thought overall his overall like animal was like something you know obviously he got knocked down he got rocked like something happened in that exchange where he was never fully the same and i think hugh's confidence only continued to rise from there he was one of the top prospects in all of mma he chose pfl over ufc i think largely because of what they're probably going to do in europe and then on top of it the paycheck and i don't know what he's going to be in all of mma i don't know what kind of opportunities he's going to get but that guy is super fucking legit and

we've known it for a long time and hope now by the way i had so many people tell me oh that's too much for him against mckee and mckee obviously is not somebody you can sleep on nor should we have ever done that i'm like i think paul hughes is pretty good look at him now well paul hughes has this idea because think of how ballsy this kid is we didn't even know like if he was going to get completely sunned by aj and schooled and shown that he's not ready for this level where does he go and he wins a close fight and looks like the better fighter then he calls out bellator lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov, who is arguably, from a pound-for-pound level, the best fighter in PFL at all together.

Only he wants to up the attention level this will get. How? He knows Khabib will be in Usman's corner. He wants Conor. Do we have some media to attach to this? So Conor McGregor must have heard this. I can't can i read that luke can you read that paul my man paul my man i will go to the arena and support 100 for sure and if it kicks off i'll be there before you could even say the number of madoffs are juice head i'm not even gonna read this like he calls them inbred rats

married to their cousin i mean he's just saying horrible things your team and corner have done a tremendous job with you they will take you all the way you've got this we are with you brother bring home the gold okay so he wants connor in his corner i mean i'm i'm shocked for all the issues with connor being active that we still haven't seen islam versus connor for the welterweight title yet. Why? Because it's the closest UFC can come to milk that rivalry. Conor, you know, the McGregors versus the Nurmagomedovs. Would this get, like, the rest of, not the rest of the world, but the extended combat sports community? Would this wake them up if you had this quasi-Conor versus Habib fight?

And, oh, by the way, the fight rules. Paul, he was against Usman Nurmagomedov. I think it'd be huge. I don't know how likely or even possible it is. It's a stadium fight in Europe, right? That is a huge... I mean, they'd probably put it in Saudi Arabia because PFL doesn't know what they're doing,

but nevertheless, it's a huge monster opportunity. If they could make it happen, I don't know if they could, but could not miss if you tried to do that. But isn't that what they're probably going to do, PFL? Or actually, let me ask you this. Do you think... This is my biggest problem with PFL. They're giving out these fake pay-per-view belts in their mind we have

three you know four streams of income four different leagues we got pay-per-view regular season slash tournament bellator and around the world and then also our regional things do you think paul hughes becomes a full-time pay-per-view fighter after this or is he just going to go back to like bellator london next or something i think he goes back to bellator london yeah this is where i wish they'd combine their assets because what would I want to see on the next pay-per-view? And maybe they still can. Paul Hughes against Usman Nurmagomedov.

Only I don't want to see it for the Bellator championship. I want to see it for the PFL championship. Not the PFL Superfight championship. I want you to have one title. Stop being boxing, PFL. Combine it all. Have one title so that we can argue after the winner of that fight, is this guy better than the top seven in the UFC?

I mean, those are the arguments you want MMA fans to have. We didn't even mention this. PFL never mentioned that if you actually go back to the Francis fight, that fight with Hennepin Hedda was a unification of Pride, UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator, and PFL all on one night. Wow. That's never happened before. It was all unified under one night.

Francis did it. If Johnny Eblen enters a rematch unnecessarily against another Bellator guy and defeats him by wrestling and nobody watches it or talks about it, did it really happen? Yeah, this was not a great part of the pay-per-view. Johnny Eblen performed ably against Fabian Edwards, who also had some moments, interestingly, throughout the course of this fight.

It doesn't need to be a five-round title fight unless it's for the PFL Middleweight Championship, which is not a thing. We didn't need to see it. It did not deliver. I think both guys are good, but I don't think that either comes away from this as like, Fabian probably won't get a title shot again,

but he didn't perform poorly. Yeah. And Edwards, excuse me, Eblen remains the champion, but he didn't perform poorly. Yeah. And Edwards, excuse me, Evelyn remains the champion, but did not perform impressively. And it's like, I don't know what you got out of that.

Do you have Evelyn stores in your area? Those are like where you can find like it smells and they're really bad. And you can find though, like weird clothes that were like, you know, almost like a, a TJ Maxx Marshall's quality in that regard, but it's like a hipper, edgier place.

You mean like a Joseph A. Bank where I can take anyone on a stump? No, no, no. But they have that theme song, Eben Lenz are at it again, saving you money at Eben's. You really don't know this thing? God, you're way trash. All right. Hey, speaking of Conor loosely connected to this,

he's sick of wrestling and so am I in MMA, Luke. No, I still like the wrestling aspect. Okay, act like yous aren't fed up and over this bullshit all yous want, but I won't. It's just becoming the norm nowadays. The product is suffering because of it. If it wasn't for the brand name already well established, it would be well in the bin by now.

It is in the bin in the mainstream. That's a fact. There is no mainstream casual audience here. It needs calling out, adjusting, a full review. MMA is better than what it has become recently, in my opinion. fact there is no mainstream casual audience here it needs calling out adjusting a full review mma is better than what it has become recently is this a stance against dagastan fighters or is it a stance against wrestlers or both at the same time i is he talking about the eblin fight in particular this came out during the eblin fight where eblin was able to get like a body

lock he'd matt return edwards to the to the canvas and then he'd kind of be on a control position and you know kind of ride out the fight for a minute or two or more and it just wasn't a whole lot to it i actually really do agree with this argument um i know a lot of people are like oh connor's making that because he's got bkfc and he doesn't like wrestling to begin with blah blah blah but i'm not sure if i don't know if the eblen fight is exactly the most egregious example but i've been saying this bc i'm beating a dead horse at this point you want a ufc muay but I'm not sure if, I don't know if the Evelyn fight is exactly the most egregious example, but I've been saying this BC, I'm beating a dead horse at this point. You want a UFC Muay Thai league.

Basically that's what you want. No, I want people to weaponize wrestling. Like, and you're not always going to get it like this, but to weaponize wrestling more akin to what Anthony Hernandez was able to do to Michelle Pereira, which we'll talk about in just a moment.

So I'm just pointing out the real culprit is not wrestling per se. The real corporate is corporate. Excuse me, is how we regulate wrestling inside of MMA vis-a-vis the referees. We don't make them act more. Yes. Yes. I think I think that would solve a huge amount of the complaints that we

have about some guy just having a control position and then throwing knees to the thigh of the guy he's controlling. I just don't want to see wrestling continue to be villainized. The key part of the makeup of this sport, of the combination of it, it was always the foundation to get ahead and win. People from that side of the world are innovating it and using it dominantly. You're right, it falls on the referees to enforce these things better. But let's not take away the idea that if two guys get together and fight,

one can completely dominate the other and hold them down and he can't move. There's something to that, Luke, even if there's not a finish in the end. There is something to that. It's called some skill, some dominance, and some stalling, and we should call it that. I don't know. I don't know. Where are you on stalling this sport long island luke i mean i'm not a fan of stalling but i'm with bc that i think there's there's an admiration

for people who can wrestle that well and you gotta just it's a mixed martial art man it's one of the things can they wrestle that well or can they stall that well well what's your opinion of like marab sean luke do you think there was a lot of stalling in that? There was a significant amount of stalling in that fight, yeah. I might be biased. I was rooting for Marab. Whoever he bet for, that's where he's like, I bet my Dodge Omni on that fucking thing, and if I lost that, holy shit.

Yes, they're stalling. If you have a control position and you're doing busy work with punches or strikes where you're not really able to let go and really... look at what francis did francis had a half crab ride with a crab hook so he's flaring out the leg of henna fajita and he is fucking bombing he was in full missionary he was a full doggy wasn't he no well at the end yeah at the end but how when he was crabbing on him and then he was

dominating him with heavy punches no one was worried about the fucking wrestling there no one's worried about the control position. I heard that you were very worried about rabbit punches in that sequence. So at first, when I first came in, I'm watching it in real time. There were two punches that were very clearly on the back of the head. But then as I watched it, the replay, the result I came to was, one, this motherfucker was going to lose anyway. Hedda Fajeda wasn't coming back before that,

right. It doesn't justify getting punched in the brain. It doesn't. However, well, I think only one was gratuitous. I didn't look too bad. There was one where if you notice,

like there's like seven punches where they're all clean and then one halfway lands. And then you see Henan turn his head as the punches coming. Yes. That's not Francis's fault. So yes, we're two of the punches not clean? Ultimately, I do think so, but I really don't think that this is in any way a disputable result.

I'm with you on that. I also am not done marveling, by the way, that Paul Hughes just went in there against AJ McKee and, like, answered all the questions and figured out all the problem areas and won the fight cleanly. Close fight, competitive fight, but won the fight cleanly. Good boxing. Close fight, competitive fight. Dude. But won the fight cleanly. Strong pressure. Good boxing in the pocket. Dude, how about those knees?

Yes. Out of nowhere. Yes, but good defense. Good scrambling. Not a great promo afterwards, but he did show that he's a wild man and he's ready to fight everybody. Dude, that's a tough fucking fight he just won. Yes.

And a really tough fight. And then he called out Usman. He wants to go through that. Hammer of the month. Hammer of the month. All right, let's go to topic number three. They were back. Apparently Arnold Palmer's hammer of the month for Donald Trump.

I'm just saying. You ever see that guy's... You ever see him in the shower? Look at that strong. It's weird. Let's go over to topic three. We were back at the apex for better or worse, usually for the latter.

Fight night, main event, middleweight, trying to form a title picture here. Anthony Fluffy Hernandez answered all of our questions coming in getting a fifth round TKO over Michelle Pereira after largely dominating him outside for that early early rush from Pereira which was fun to see but didn't see much of it after that so Luke where do you believe this puts old Fluff A in the power rankings here in the in the top 10? Well, how close is he to getting a shot at gold after this step forward performance against a guy who had an eight fight winning streak coming in? So he's not close enough to get to gold where we can be is I think somewhere, again, give or take, somewhere in the seven mark inside the top ten to me is about, maybe a little bit less than that, maybe close to like eight or so,

something like that, maybe the back half of the top ten. This was an extremely impressive performance. I will say, if you look at the two losses he's had in the UFC to Marcus Perez as well as Kevin Holland, it was weakness to the body that ultimately caused him problems and sure enough in the first round pareda hits him with a uh teep up the middle to the gut and it hurts him that does appear to be a noticeable achilles heel that he has which i wonder to what extent will limit his upside interesting that aside i got the stat here you heard him mention it on the broadcast bc and i want to go to it here very quickly if I can.

Please. The previous middleweight record in terms of significant strike differential in the UFC in history was when Rich Franklin beat David Loazzo. It was a 100. Oh, you love that fight. Well, here's why that fight's important. That was the first time in MMA, in my MMA watching experience, where I saw a guy get beat down round after round after round,

and he came out of that. David the Crow Loazo, which, by the way, he had an amazing. Go look at Loazo's finish of Chainsaw Charles McCarthy. Wow. How about that name? We haven't heard that in a while. Yeah, a spinning back kick to the fucking liver that just folds him like a lawn chair. Good old Chainsaw Charlie over there.

Chainsaw Charles McCarthy was a good fighter. I remember him. He was a very good coach. But the point I wanted to make was the number there, the significant strike differential at middleweight in that fight, 106. 106 was the differential, and that fight changed David Loaizo. He was never the same afterwards. The differential on Saturday between Fluffy Hernandez and Michelle Pineda, 128.

128. Now, I'm not declaring to you that the kind of punches that Hernandez was putting on his opponent were the same as the kind of beating that Franklin gave Loazo. Yeah. But it does give you a sense of just how fucking dominant and one-sided this was, historically so, to the point where it now becomes the statistical leader in significant strike differentials between two opponents at middleweight.

That's a statement that he made there. So Pereira had success early with the striking. Hit him with a good right hand, put a flurry on him, and you were like, oh, crap, are we going to see a backflip soon? Why was Pereira, in your your eyes unable to adapt adjust or have really and too many moments after that the easy answer is cardio he simply doesn't have the capacity to labor through in the way that Hernandez does that's a big part of it and he does have some skills but I actually think that Hernandez has a lot of really important skills with not just how

much volume he can throw you how much by, by the way, he doesn't, it doesn't even seem to bother him to fail on takedown attempts, BC, because he's just going to go for another one and another one and another one and another one. And all that time he knows you're working. And if you're working, you're not punching. And if you're not punching, you're not winning. He just doesn't mind doing this. Plus he goes to, he has a whole series of rides in this particular fight particular fight, he went to leg drag a number of times and was making him work from these very...

Basically, leg drag twists your spine one way and your shoulders the other. So it immobilizes you. It makes it hard to work. And by the way, just to force it out, they come over to side control. This is what I mean. He's got an entire skill set based on making you dig yourself out of quicksand, and it never actually works. The more you dig yourself out of quicksand, and it never actually works. The more you dig, the more you simply go to the bottom on this while he can just kind of float all around the top.

I mean, the real question is, can he scale that up? Can he have that same level of control against the more elite names in the division? And if he can't, do you believe he has the striking to be able to not just get into a spot against the number three guy where a win could put him on the verge of a title but win those fights so here's what's interesting i don't know if he's got the same kind of equivalent cardio for his division as someone like marab it seems like he might although marab is pretty special but what he does have is he's a more dangerous finisher you saw in this one the damage he was doing caused the fight to be stopped ultimately in the fifth.

But he's also got great guillotines as well and doesn't mind jumping for them because he's such a devastating finisher. So what I'm pointing out is, even if you wanted to argue he doesn't have quite the motor that someone, again, different divisions, 135, 185, but the roughly middleweight equivalent,

even if he doesn't have that same kind of motor, he more than makes up for it by his ability to go for the finish. I wonder between his susceptibility to the body as well as just what the style is going to look like against an opponent who can sustain their defense and their offense for longer what that does to him i don't know i'm gonna ask you a question this is ignorant do ab muscles give you a better chance at withstanding that because he is a little dad bod around the belly for an elite fighter. That doesn't mean he doesn't have abs. That just means he has weight around the middle, and you can't spot reduce that.

But, yes, stronger abs absolutely makes a difference into your ability to withstand punches. Your entire core really would. But, yes, it can help. I don't think he's weak there. I just think some guys have certain kinds of susceptibilities. It's nothing he's not doing in training, but it could just be the way he is. But we need to see what it looks like when someone doesn't fold as quickly as someone like Pereira. He kind of folded a little bit quickly.

He gave him a round of what he had and then never really was able to do much after that. What if someone has a good three rounds of resistance? Now what does it look like? Pardon the pun here as like a booby prize for Pereira, but do you think, I mean, he really worked on those man pecs. Do you think he has the best rack in MMA, or at least men's MMA if you don't want to go down the other road? Do you think he has the-

Palau's a top competitor. I mean, I got to add Big E of WWE for sure, and Joaquin Buckley. Joaquin Buckley. Yeah. Insane tits. I mean, that man is well-packed. I mean, he's got- Pereira's well-packaged, you know?

Yeah, A-plus tits. Yeah, wow. Now let's go to the- Yeah, no steroids here. There you go. Well, in terms of what could be next for the Fluffster, I don't know if he'll get it, but he had some thoughts about a big fight.

Do you think there is anyone in your division that can keep your pace with you? No. I mean, like, I I think would be a great fight realistically would be who I see that mixes it up very well is Duplissis. He mixes it very fucking well and that's why he's champion right now you know I mean he's a tough motherfucker and he goes he looks like he's gas but he keeps pushing um I would love to fight him I'm just gonna keep climbing the ladder so I can get to him and just good job to him keep up great work, man. Israel Asani needs an opponent.

Is that someone that you'd like to throw your name in the hat and try and fight? I don't care. I'd fight him. Didn't seem like a ringing endorsement. Yeah, he didn't really slam that home, so to speak, right there. But he recognizes some of the genius of Duplicy, which is just keep working. Okay, Long Island Luke shot me down for this, but the internet seemed— A date?

No, no, no. We're both taken, all right? No, a double date. Should we... Oh, okay. But I was like, we can't make eye contact during the heat of it at all. I would really want to ask, though... Hashtag swingers.

Yeah, I don't really know what I... Oh, now I know what I want to do. He shot you down for what? I saw a lot of people on Twitter saying, hey, how about a good old Penn State guy? Bo Nickel. Bo Nickel. How about Bo Nickel? I think he's ahead of bo nickel right now i think bo needs to get a win is that a trap fight for bo nickel's progression or not yes it could be okay it could be yes absolutely because i want i i'm actually interested who you want next for bo izzy and when is bo fighting again have we put them on the list top of my head i want to say msg

i think he has a fight book. Who is his opponent? Look it up. I forget. Is it like the Hermansen level again? I cannot remember who his opponent is. It's Paul Craig. Paul Craig.

Oh, friend of the program. Again, he should not lose that. Do you think if Craig loses, he gets cut? Probably. How many in a row is that for Craig now? Plus, he's changed weight classes a bunch. Yeah. We'd let him back on.

Remember when he golfed in our hat? I was really proud of that. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, it was kind of cool. I think he's got some work to do at 185. But Fluffy, I think a Jared Cannoneer fight makes sense. Brendan Allen fight makes sense. Marvin Vittori fight makes sense.

Him and Brendan Allen fought already. Yeah, I know, but on the regionals. True. Not in UFC. A lot of people know, but on the regionals. True. Not in UFC. A lot of people want for Izzy, Kyle Baraglio. Baraglio, you could do. Baraglio, or... I think Baraglio's looking for a top five guy.

What about Imavov? Imavov's already in the top five as well, and I saw him and Izzy kind of... That's what I'm talking about, for Izzy. Oh, for Izzy, yes. Yes, you could do that. Do you think... I mean, it's been a lot of losses.

Izzy does need that level to come back and win against the first. Movov is good. I'm not saying these guys aren't good, but I'm saying he's not like waiting for the next title shot. Like you got to go back and win a big one against him. Yes, I think he has to dial it back before he can go forward. Yes, that's right. But for Fluffy, I think any of those guys, again,

six to eight or nine, something like that. Any of those. I wish we could see Izzy Strickland too. I would be interested in that. Would you? It looks like you're going to get Strickland, Dupal C2. That's going to be wonderful, too.

Which, by the way, is also going to be a close one. And the winner gets Izzy if he beats somebody else, correct? Maybe. Or are we just giving no respect to Whitaker versus Chemayev right now? Probably not much to that either, yeah. Because that's going to crash the party as well right there. All right, good stuff.

Let's keep it going on here. Let's go quickly to topic number four. It was the first non-pay-per-view card in the pbz pbc prime video era took place in orlando on saturday your boy bc on the call with brian custer and keith one-time thurman and it was tim zoo not becoming a two-time champion the opposite with his father in attendance for the first time, his Hall of Fame dad, Costa, since his pro debut in 2016. Tim Zoo, we got a lot to talk about here. Got really sent to the woodshed by unbeaten champion Bokrum Mertazaliev.

Here's the video knockdown four times. Four knockdowns in what, three and a half rounds? Yeah, by the way, he was as much as a minus 850 favorite Tim Zhu was heading into this bout plus 425 is what Murtazaliev closed at but it still shows you now to be fair Luke and we'll get into this Murtazaliev has never looked this good like this was peak performance times 10 but as you can see Tim there were a lot of problems here mechanically in terms of his attitude a lot of that they threw in the towel there in round four and they get the stoppage stoppage, by the way. First and foremost, two losses now in a row, although we talked about that first one against

Fandora with the cut and you certainly can write that loss away. But this is two damaging losses in a row in terms of physical now. What does this mean for Tim's future in your eyes? This is a disaster. We should say it as plainly as we possibly can. You can forgive the Fundora loss because it was a cut, not just on his face, but on his head, and it bled in ways that are very difficult to control. That fight was a bloodbath. Fundora's tall.

The whole thing just kind of really was a tricky moment for him, and he lost a spirited fight, by the way. It wasn't one-sided by any stretch. Fundora was the right guy to win, but okay, fine. This was the get moment for him. And he lost a spirited fight, by the way. Wasn't one-sided by any stretch. Fundor was the right guy to win, but okay, fine. This was the get-back fight. By the way, they already had a fight booked for this guy, excuse me, late December? It was going to be Erickson Lubin.

I know that because he was in the crowd and he told some bloggers after the fight that he just lost his fight. He said it was already booked for December 28th. Right, so they already were looking past this guy getting ready for a fight in Australia, I'm assuming, in late December. Now that all goes up in smoke. Now you've lost two in a row.

But really the best analysis that I saw on this came from Steven Breadman Edwards. We all love Breadman on this show. And he said this is a real big problem because Zhu had fancied himself as the kind of boxer who could take whatever was thrown at him and walk guys down because he was made of something different. That was how he approached this fight to me in a reckless way, but it's been something of he's kind of fashioned himself as a bit of a boogeyman in this particular weight class given who he is and the way he fights. Well, now he tried that against Murtazaliev, and it blew up in his face big time first of all

he took a lot of damage in this fight even though it's only two and a half rounds and then on top of it whatever illusion you had about yourself got very shattered with this so it's not just can he get a win back i'm sure he will can he reclaim his identity not to the public to himself himself. You're saying it's a deeper mental battle than even physical, and it's going to be very physical for the beating you took. How can you be a guy who walks somebody down when you tried to walk someone down in this fight and you got torn to pieces by him? Against

the guy you were heavily favored to beat, big questions ahead. He fought way too arrogantly, and I think that's not just being disrespectful. It's what happened. He wasn't setting up his punches with a jab. He,

I mean, he almost had too long of a training camp because remember he had a full training camp to fight Virgil Ortiz Jr, which would have been a hellacious fight for him in August pulled out because they didn't clear the cut. Then was going to fight Lubin in September. Lubin got hurt and pulled out. So it was a 14 week training camp.

So that's to add to what you said about bread, man. When you come in with like no excuses, the fund or fight, you had an excuse. This fight, you have physically no excuses. He actually said, I felt the, what, what made it hurt so bad was because he felt so good coming in, but I don't know if it was the added nature of his dad being there, which was such an emotional reconnection for him and his dad, by the way, I do respect, you know, turns up not when times are great, turns up after the Fundora loss,

when times were the lowest. Kind of helps build his son back up. Didn't train him, but was an on-hand mentor here. And then he loses like this in front of his dad. Now, to be clear, they threw in the towel. He got stopped on his feet, but he was dropped four times. He was going to keep fighting until he got KO'd. So it was out cold.

So it was good that they threw the towel mercilessly. But mercilessly. Mercilessly? Mercilessly. Mercilessly? Mercilessly? Mercilessly. Mercilessly.

No, them throwing the towel isn't mercilessly. They're showing mercy. Mercifulness or mercy. Okay, thank you for the lesson right there. But what I'm saying, Luke, is, and I think you can agree, when you're not setting up your punches, when you're coming recklessly at your opponent, who's, by the way, bigger, six foot tall,

like difficult junior middleweight, and then you're getting countered by the same left hand over and over and over. Unlike the last three knockdowns, this is all... Look, do you remember how he fought against Terrell Gauthier in his U.S. debut, talking about Tim Zou in Minneapolis, where he would tell me afterwards, I screwed up. Remember he got dropped in round one by Gauthier? He said, I went

into Terminator mode, not when I had my opponent hurt. He goes, I screwed up. I went into Terminator mode instantly. That's what he did this time around, Luke. Only the stakes were pretty damn high this time around, coming off that loss and going right back into a title fight. I retweeted what Dan Rayfield tweeted, and I agree. I don't like that people are dunking on him, saying,

this was the worst matchmaking decision ever. How did he not get a tune-up fight? Sergio Mora doing that. When just a few days before, we were playing up how old school he is and that he's ballsy and he didn't want a tune-up fight. He wanted to go back in. I prefer when fighters behave like this, when he believed in himself so much that he was like,

screw that fight. I'm not even going to make excuses. I don't even care what you say about it. It was a loss. I lost to the better man. I'm coming back in this one. And now Tim said this all over again. He said the right things after this one. But Luke, what was unforgivable? Tell me if I'm wrong. Was the style in which he brought in that he was going

to walk through Murtazilov like he was nothing. Turns out he was not only something, he was something on the biggest night of his life. Very, very good and dangerous. Like Murtazilov took Zeus' biggest punches, countered cleaner, got him the hell out of there. That's where the biggest fear factor is for me on Tim. Not mentally can he rebuild himself. I think he can because I think he's cut from a different cloth. Not necessarily physically how well the damage in both fights. Look, I think he needs time off.

He can't keep doing the old school thing of wanting to fight every three months after losses like this. But Luke, I think there's something to the connection here between his dad and how he performed. I'm not blaming it on his dad, but something about, I mean, remember, the dad got divorced and moved out in 2012 and started a new family. So they've been separated for a while. In fact, Tim's younger brother Nikita, who's a pro fighter, was there. It was the first time dad Costa and Nikita had seen each other in person in 10 years.

10 years, dude. It was like a prison sentence. So I know that dad was in their life from a phone call standpoint, and they seemed to speak respectful. But don't forget, what was Tim saying in interviews after some of his biggest wins, like Gautier and some of those? He was saying, what's my motherfucking name? Isn't that in some ways, it is telling people like, don judge me as costa zoo's junior but it also felt there was some defiance in that like i love my dad but where is he right now so his dad showed up and i listened to every interview that costa did he did a lot of great sit-downs this week in orlando one with

ben damon there fox sports australia and look he really talked up how between the business he owns which i believe is a restaurant in in russia and he's got a bunch of other properties. And the fact that he has two small kids in his new marriage, he says he has no time. He said he would be at both of his son's fights, but he has no time. And they had to move all of his stuff for him to be able to go to this fight. And he was just like, it's impossible. I only get three days off a year, blah, blah, blah. There's, I think there's some longing here naturally from Tim to not just have his dad around and have in the influence, but maybe even for his dad to be his trainer.

Now this is me speaking out of pocket D you know, deep dive psychology here, but don't forget his hall of fame. Dad was a very good trainer who trained Alexander Povetkin to the world title trained Dennis Lebedev at Crescent cruiserweight. I'm wondering Luke, if that's where Tim Tim should go next when we're talking about how does he rebuild himself? I don't even know if it's possible with his dad living in Russia, although in that long interview with Ben Damon, his dad was basically like, I wish he would come fight in Russia

because I have so many connections from my past and success here. We could open up so many doors for him. What do you think about that idea? He's been trained by his, I think, his uncle forever. I think you are dodging a more central question not that this result gives us an answer in fact it doesn't which is why i do think it's an important question are we overrating tim zoo well it that's a that's a conversation we should have now we overrating him a little bit? I can believe some of the things you're saying, that this unique moment in time led to results

that maybe a different set of focuses and priorities would get him to a different result. Fine, fine. Are we overrating him, though? Well, to answer the final part of that, I think he overplayed his hand in this fight because he was trying to show his dad that he can do this, that he's at that level.

So it was poor management and decision-making there, but it does bleed into your question. Are we overrating him, even from a decision-making standpoint? Well, I do think he made the wrong choice against Gauthier, but he got dropped early. He kind of fought recklessly. He wasn't using movement or much defense or setting up his shots, but he was able to still win that fight

and still be dominant in the second half of that. We're overrating him on the decision-making, but I'm not going to say that he's overrated on skill, Luke, because I still don't think we've seen the best of him in his biggest fights when he puts it all together. I think sometimes his strategy has waned a little bit. To his credit, I think he has improved over the last four or five, six fights

and keeps adding more to it, but I still think there's another level up that he can't hit. Obviously, what's built into that question is, is he made, is he have the right makeup to actually hit that? Is he actually good enough to hit that peak that we all imagine where he's a, you know, somewhat dominant defending champion, even against big names in this division? I think when he's wired right and carrying out a game plan, is he better than Terrence Crawford at 154?

No, but he's a truly elite fighter who can win a fight against anybody at any time. I will tell you, I'm less convinced of that today than I was. I mean, what happened Saturday has a physical and mental possibility to break him. There's no question. Or we can get diminished results moving forward. Did you just air biscuit? Just let it out? But, dude, I think that's the missing link to give a try of training with his dad and maybe moving his life

situation and just really buying into what's that next extra level of discipline and love that he can get from that relationship and experience handed down to him that said okay before it is too late to reinvent let's reinvent but let's do what should have always been there. But our life circumstances didn't allow. I think he needs his dad in his life on an absolutely day-to-day basis. And I wonder what that would do to him to get to that missing level and become the fighter who could go in there against a Terrence Crawford type where you would say, I think he's got a shot. I think that guy's still in him. I'll say this. I think that that is an interesting possibility that I hope it plays out so we can get a more definitive answer to this question about just how good is

Tim Zhu and who needs to be there to get that out of him. Yeah. All right. Quickly on Bokrum Mertazaliev. We almost didn't talk about him at all coming in. He delivers maybe the upset of the year and he did it so dominantly. Luke, you know know this division is fun as heck. Terrence Crawford, Errol Spence coming back, Sebastian Fundor, Jermel Charlo wants to come back and get a big fight. Israel Modradov is now legit. You also have unbeaten Virgil Ortiz Jr.

and Sergei Boachuk, who just had that great fight of the year contender with Ortiz, is now going to fight Madrimov. Where do you see Mertazaliev on the basis of that performance being careful not to overrate it given the zoo side of it is he a player against any of those names now moving forward again it's a problem with a fight like this particularly because i know he was fighting during ramadan in his last contest where he looked very 29th day of ramadan yeah i mean he looked

suboptimal is i think the nicest way you could put that but he looked more than suboptimal here he looked pretty great. However, BC, it wasn't like he did anything extra special in this contest. He had an opponent who had bad defense, and so what he did was he shut that guy out with a great left hook, but really boxing basics. I'm not saying it's easy to do what he's doing. I'm saying he had a core foundational game that was plenty good for the moment. That doesn't tell me a whole lot about

how he's going to do against the very, very best that this division has to offer if they're fighting him in more careful, concerted ways. Not like what Tim Zhu was doing, which is walking a guy down, getting, hitting, not adjusting and just keeping... Dude, if you get hit with the same fucking punch through four different knockdowns

and you don't change your strategy, what are you doing? So it's hard to rate Murdoch's power on that. Murdoch's, I'm not criticizing him because he did exactly what he was supposed to do. He shouldn't have done anything different. However, doing that doesn't tell us a lot, in my opinion, about how I fight with Virgil Ortiz might go. I mean, he's also a rock-em-sock-em guy, but I would assume he'd make some adjustments about defense. I'm just hesitant to say a lot about Murtazaliev,

except he did exactly what he was supposed to do, and he got a phenomenal win as a result. It felt good in that moment not to see Zu go through that, and then you're thinking, well, is this a setback for PBC? They had big plans for him. Obviously, Zu can still come back and make that name, but I felt good for Murtazaliyev for main events, the promo with Kathy Duva that was there.

This put his name firmly in the collection to get a big fight. It's like he was already champion, but no, he didn't prove it like this. And whether Tim came in arrogant, which he did, and walked into a lot of that, Murtazaliyev still took big shots early and just stood his ground and showed you. By the way, he averages double the middleweight average in terms of junior middleweight average of punches attempted per round.

He is a swarm of offense in your face. And I think he's a Chechen guy. Yes, he's certainly Muslim. Tough as nails, this dude. He was saying, you know, Allahu Akbar as soon as the fight was over. He was so elated. I do want to say one thing, though.

I one time had a boxing trainer explain this to me he was like you will see people get hit in boxing fights he goes but it's actually when you have really good fighters it's very very rare to see someone get hit super clean it does happen but it tends to happen as like finishing shots yes like the shot that tank finished off frank martin with that was a very clean punch yep right not only did tim zu get hit clean multiple times in this fight, he got hit cleanly multiple times in this fight with the exact same punch. This is an all-time bad performance by him, and there's really no other way to say it.

I like Tim Zhu. He's been nice to us. He certainly has action-packed fights. Jesus Christ, he fucked this fight up. Well, let's hear from Tim Zhu, and we can judge based on his voice here what we're picking out of it. But just what's going through your mind? Uh, what just happened? Like, what did I get hit with?

And couldn't regroup. I don't know, man. Shit doesn't go your way, and you just have to bounce back. I was positive after the front door, but I've got to find more answers with this one. This didn't go according to script. It was a little bit different. I felt unbelievable, I'll be honest with you.

I felt unbelievable. I had a great prep. He got me, man. And he was the better man on the snort. And we live and we learn. I give him a lot of credit for how he... He looks devastated. He does look devastated there. He put out a video today where he sounded more, you know,

a little bit more upbeat and thanked everybody and just said, look, the better man won. I know what went wrong. I want to fix it. And like my dad always told me, like, you get knocked down, you get back up. And, you know, we cheer for him. We want him, you know, we want to see any guy go through that, you know, come back from it.

But he's going to have to take some time. That's the thing. You got to take some time. And I'm telling you, dude, I think the answer is Costa. I think Costa. I think Tim's got to maybe even move there. Maybe even move to Russia, get in touch with that side and just go after it. He's got to, I mean, Tim's got to maybe even move there. Maybe even move to Russia, get in touch with that side, and just go after it. He's got to work on some things.

There's got to be more. But he shows that in other fights, though. That's the thing. That's why I'm not going to give up on him, because he's shown that, dude, his ability as a counterpuncher, his ability to game plan. I don't think he is bad. Again, we're asking how good is he?

Was he overrated? That's more about, like, media hype. Yeah. Clearly, he's talented but again bread man said this to me one time and we're not saying that tim zoo is a pound for pound guy but it's the kind of lesson he was like when bud crawford beat spence so badly he goes you just can't be a pound for pound guy and lose like that right you can't be a pound-for-pound guy and lose like that. Right. You can't do that. And so for Zuta to lose, which this was even worse than that,

against much less credentialed opposition than fucking Bud Crawford, you know what I mean? Like, it's such a bad. Dude, good boxers don't get hit very cleanly, and they definitely don't get hit cleanly with the same punch over the course of two and a half. It's just such a bad loss. Yeah. So let's see how he comes back, and then we'll get a fuller picture.

Wow, what a setback. Big time. Luke, do you know when you discover something and you just want to share it with the people you love? Yes. A binge-worthy show or a song that you're bumping on your iPod, and you just, I mean, it's just in your head. I got a new one, Show Me Love by Reef the Lost Cause.

Oh, I thought you were going to say Show Me Love by Robin. No, Reef the Lost Cause. All right. Well, were going to say Show Me Love by Robin. No, Reef the Lost Cause. All right. Well, you know, you just want people to experience how awesome it is, and we feel that way about Mint Mobile. And people are like, BC, why? Why Mint Mobile? Well, how about this?

Mint Mobile offers you premium wireless for $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan. And it's such an awesome deal that there's no way you can keep it to yourself. BC, how many times have you looked at your phone bill, your cell phone bill the next month and been like, why is this so high? Why do I have so many fees? Would you not agree? $15 a month is about as good as it's going to get in all of telecom. You can't blame that on Biden. You certainly can't. And Mint Mobile is here to give you a great deal on your phone and phone pricing. And by the way, guys, you can use your phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number with you if you got to switch from some other kind of provider, along with all, of course, your existing contacts. high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

So here's what's going to happen, guys. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash combat. That's combat with a K. That's mintmobile.com slash combat. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash combat. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at MintMobile.com slash combat. $45 upfront payment required. That's equivalent to $15 a month.

New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabyte on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. All right, Luke, quickly, let's go into... Do we have time for this or do you want to punt till friday we should punt to friday so we were going to set the stage for all things ufc 308 ilia taporia max holloway and much more but friday we have the real estate we

can go two hours ham on that card yeah i gotta tell you 308 the card knock i don't have any wood to knock on. Morning wood. I'll just knock on that. It's the best fight in MMA. The card itself, pretty great. What kind of score, Long Island Luke, on paper, would you give the main card for 308? I mean, the fact that it's an afternoon card, it's automatically an eight.

Then you look at the card itself. I'll give it a nine. Dude, I love afternoon cards love afternoon car i gotta tell you an entire month of mostly afternoon car has been awesome you saw but you sent it to me bob arum was on dan rayfield's big fight weekend podcast and he said that the saudi cards moving forward will only be in saudi so apparently though i was on vacation for this one the madrimov bud craw fight. That was a Riyadh season event in Los Angeles. Apparently, it was a financial flop. They didn't make any money. How can I guess that?

It was only a 12-hour show. It was only a 12-hour show with Eminem, and it probably didn't sell that great. And so, apparently, what Turkey is now under orders to do from his handlers is that if you're going to have a Riyadh season event, it has to be in Riyadh. No, I don't want all my combat pay-per-views to be on that side of the world because it takes away from the organic in-your-country build when you've got a big fight in Vegas or L.A. or New York and you've got press tours and you're building it up. I don't want to remove that element of it.

But if you told me, hey, BC, every fight moving forward's got to be in Saudi, but you've got a main event time start of like 5 p.m. Eastern. Yeah. Even 6 p.m., even 5 p.m. Eastern. Yeah. Even 6 p.m. Even 7 p.m. Let's go. I'm taking that 10 times out of 10.

Let's go. 10 times out of 10, I'm taking that. That's just being old pieces of shit talking, right? Dude, I just don't like going to bed at 5 a.m. Well, I don't like having to come up with my sharpest analysis when I'm writing a post if I call them at 2.33 a.m. Yeah, it's just like I'm a lot better at 6pm I prefer it

even you being a younger degenerate, you gotta support this I'm all for the earlier cards I don't love, like this one's at 2pm I like it a little later but I'm not gonna complain the boxing ones, because you only really care about the main and co-main or even just the main, and those are all like 5pm

so you get the whole day to just fuck off and then as the sun's going down or pretty close to it you know crack a crack a beer and then turn on your stream east and then go from there the tim zu card that i was a part of that was uh started the 8 p.m eastern main event done by 10 15 p.m 10 22 p.m that's not so bad it was just you know not a lot of hype packages get right you can be in bed before midnight, I think you're winning. I know. See, I know everyone's long complained about the pace, and then the Turkey era, the boxing cards have gotten even longer

with ridiculous extended pace. DAZN is very, I mean, it's showtime. You should have some long pay-per-views too. But if we could just condense it, we don't need all the preview content. Like people always say, if I bought the pay-per-view, I already know. You're not selling the pay-per-view to me now. Imagine if they just tightened all these shows and DAZN didn't need three separate announced teams

in various parts of the arena and we just cut to the core of it. Do you think over time that creates more fans and holds them, or is it more just an annoying preference for us who watch everything anyway? I think there are times to lengthen the broadcast. I think that people do it way too often. I tend to think, in general, not always, less is more. Less is more. Give us a quality product at a good pace and do that consistently,

and then when you finally get a really big one and you want to really lean into it, then you can. Is that why you were always against two-hour morning combats? Or is it just because at that point we're three days a week, so you're automatically over? I definitely feel like it's not that I was against two-hour morning combats or just because at that point we're three days a week so you're automatically over i definitely feel like it's not that i was against two hour morning combats as a rule i was against it because it was longer than it needed to be given the original format but you know here we are the people need us i think we need the paycheck you're supposed to say i think

we need them and you don't know of course we need them too but i also need to dookie needs braces yeah soon all right let's go to our next. Hey, hold on. Are you doing Halloween this year? I haven't even talked about it with my wife, nor do I know if I'm home then. I got to see what's going on. I don't have any schedule. I don't have any fights on the book now.

My daughter's five, so this is like. Yeah, I mean, my kids are 16. They already have their own plans. I always tell my wife, let's just close the house down. Let's pull the curtain. She's like, no, you got to be there. But then we get two kids anyway, so two or three kids at most. kids dude i had an asshole neighbor who would turn his sprinklers on and all his lights off are you that motherfucker no i just had the asshole neighbors who would give

you wooden nickels or would give you um fruit like my dad roy rogers yeah the popcorn balls which i think is low class my wife stands by it as being solid popcorn balls are so stale and disgusting they're okay it's a it's a it's a it's a bottom tier kind of old ladies would give you mary jane's and you know it's a mary jane that really hard butterscotch candy that like by the end of it it tastes good but you break all your teeth to get to the yeah yeah no uh well tuki is gonna go as princess peach from mario and i have to go as mario you look more like luigi in that jacket i do look more like luigi but i have a mario okay thing and then i don't know what my wife and dog are gonna do but oh you guys are really Mario. You look more like Luigi in that jacket. I do look more like Luigi, but I have a Mario thing. And then I don't know what my wife and dog are going to do.

Oh, you guys are really going all out. I mean, you're being a good dad. I'm trying to be a good dad. There you go. I appreciate that. Let's go to our next segment, which is giving the fans voice. And that's called DMs from donks. Every time, every time, I literally don't even have any interest in talking about it.

Neither does the audience, by the way. Every time I say the word pornography, BC gets really upset. I think we're past that, Luke, okay? You do get upset. We gave you the opportunity Sunday night to jump on social media on X and IG at Morning Combat. So here are your questions. Number one from Z.Firm.ESP or Z.FR.frm not like anyone cares who poses a bigger threat to john jones and ganu or aspinall because it definitely isn't that prehistoric fossil

steep dude i hope steepay gets in the best shape of his life and knocks john out i'm telling you steepay winning would be so fucking funny because i hate john jones or anything like that but i think it would be funny that uf UFC waited this long and stretched it out. And what if it flips on them in a good old firefighter? Stipe to take all of our bullshit on these podcasts. The problem is Stipe is catching a lot of strays because it's not the fight to make. And so people are going a little bit overboard with it. Imagine if he just cracks a big right.

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, nothing would be funnier than Stipe. It would be awesome if Stipe wins. What would happen next? They'd redo it. They'd redo it. No fucking way. No fucking way on earth. Okay, and then John retires if he wins the rematch?

That's right. Oh, you mother effer. That's right. No fucking way on earth. Dude, if you get wrecked by a 42-year-old off for three years, has it won in five, Stipe Miocic, there's no way John's retiring on that. Not going to happen.

And you're not going to beat fucking Tom Aspinall if you can't beat that guy. Tom keeps losing all of these scenarios, including the one I want, where Poetan just cuts the line and we do some ridiculous fight. I'm okay with that. But you're asking who has a better shot. Who is a bigger threat to John? Is it Francis or Tom? I think it's actually Francis.

I think that Tom is a threat, but there's so much unknown about him, especially if John is clever. John's clever. And if the fight needs to go along for John's benefit, he can make it that way. And whereas Francis has... Dude, we've seen Francis in five-round fights. Dude, Tom is untested against elite competition past

round two, period. Could John, who took down DC, could John take down Francis at at will i think at his peak he could have i don't know what current state john jones can do oh dude have you i'm not making this up long on long island look have you seen shirtless john jones recently he's not fat like he was against god i don't know he looks jacked i saw that he looks not as jacked as rackage did you see that picture rackage's back looks like a fucking turtle shell. Backzilla. Yes. He looks like a fucking turtle shell. So I'll say this.

We don't know because we don't know much about John because he doesn't fucking compete. He fought for like 22 seconds at heavyweight. I mean it's not his fault. Let me switch stances into the guy who's going to take me down. Yeah. Great, great, great, great decision there. Let's go over to Mohia Bro. Is this one of the best MMA comeback

stories? What other good MMA comeback stories come to mind? So he's obviously referencing Francis. We already talked about how good of a comeback story this is. Dominic Cruz coming back from all those injuries and all those knee surgeries. It's not the same. Yes. But for a professional career, that was really difficult. I didn't think he beat TJ, but when he beat TJ, I was like, oh, my God, this guy came back and did all the way back.

And his interviews afterwards saying things like, it wasn't even about the belt. I don't even care about the belt. It was about what I could prove to myself and what I could show. And he had the right mentality the whole time. That was a big one. St. Pierre coming back is a little bit of a different one. Oh, with the age and the moving up in weight, 100%. Long Island, Luke, what are we forgetting here?

Dubronks. Just turning his career around? Oh, you mean like overall turning it around? I'm talking about like one big comeback performance. Frank turning his career on? Overall turning it around? I'm talking about one big comeback performance. Frank Mir from the motorcycle? Big one, yes, because he had some shitty performances along the way. And then it was against Anthony Hardonk where he really began to turn the tide. Just Randy rebuilding himself at heavyweight against Sylvia.

Sylvia is another big one like that. One of the greatest comeback. Man, I love Randy. I wish the UFC loved him too. His story needs to be told. You know what? If anybody's story outside of Francis deserves a Man, I love Randy. I wish the UFC loved him too. His story needs to be told. You know what? If anybody's story outside of Francis deserves a movie, give me Randy. Yep.

He wasn't on the Gen 6 staircase. I don't think he was on the steps. I think he's Gen 6. I think he's Gen 6 adjacent. What do you make about the editorial he did on Twitter about Grass on the field? I mean, it's not whether I don't want to know what you prefer, because that's a little gross to me.

I want to know, did he just not realize the rest of the world was going to see that? Or in his mind, is that an acceptable conversation to have? I feel like we live in an unrestrained age where if you're the kind of person to say outrageous things, this is a good time for you. Okay. Yeah, but Randy doesn't do that normally this is just a whole right we live in an age where you can just say that stuff now and there's really very little uh consequence to it which could be good or bad depending on your perspective all right man no i would do you think if rousey would have come back under any circumstances since the Amanda fight, it would have gone poorly?

Probably. Probably. I think she's. Do you think what she's saying about too many concussions is real? Yes. If she gets hit once. A comeback story for her would be gigantic. Okay. Gigantic.

But I honestly think that she's, and I'm not trying to be disparaging. I am not. She's cooked. And Kane, you don't see any circumstance where kane fights again or should i think he could depending on what is available to him and what like what kind of sentencing i mean it seems to me i don't know how long his sentence will be but it seems to me like a foregone conclusion he will go to jail for some amount of prison i should say for some amount of I should have just came out jacked as shit. Did you ever hear what Floyd Mayweather did?

Dude, here I saw what he looked like. Remember he had let his hair grow out? No, no, no, but did you hear what he did? No, more than that. So what he would do was he would assign each, like for clubs, for diamonds, whatever. Oh, yeah, how he would do the amount. Each workout, and then he would just go through a deck.

I tried it once. It's fucking hard as shit, okay? What did he say? He did his record for push-ups in a row? He would do three decks a day. Yes. But I think he said specifically he did, was it 300 or 150 push-ups in a row or something? I don't believe that.

I wouldn't want to see that. I've seen guys do 70 plus in a go, and these were some of the most jacked motherfuckers I've ever seen in my life, so I just don't believe that. Dude, he was so big when he got out of jail. But he was definitely. He was only in there for like two months, right? But if you've never done the Floyd Mayweather deck of cards workout, just pick. Clubs is squats.

Diamonds are push-ups. Fucking whatever. Hearts are pull-ups. Whatever it is. And then do a whole deck of cards. It will fuck your shit up. Trust me. Yeah, we used to play drinking games like that, too.

It always Fs your shit up. Trust me. Yeah, we used to play drinking games like that, too. It always Fs your ass up, for sure. Let's hear from World's Worst Hero, who says, if you had to create an all-Brazil team with active MMA fighters throughout MMA in each weight class, who are you donks choosing? You have to create an all-Brazil team with active MMA fighters throughout MMA in each weight class. Okay, so who's your top Brazilian? All-time? We're talking about all-time?

Yeah, so who's your top all-time Brazilian heavyweight? It's got to be Noguera, right? Who am I forgetting? It's got to be Noguera. Yeah, I mean, how far away down do you have to go before you get Bigfoot Silva in there? Noguera had a much better career than Bigfoot Silva. I wasn't making that argument. I'm saying how far down do you have to go before Bigfoot makes our team?

Well, he had some big wins. I mean, that one over Overeem was big. Dude. Oh, he had a run. He had a run. Fucking Bigfoot Silva beat Fedor and Overeem. And didn't he fight for some form of the title twice? He stopped them both.

Yes, he fought Kane. Kane demolished him. But, yes. Light heavyweight. Vonderlei. Vonderlei's up there. I mean, you know, the honorable mention to Renato Sobral, Glover Teixeira. All-time Brazilians at light heavyweight.

I'm trying to think. Rogerio. Yes, Lil Nog, although he wasn't. Right in his brother's coattails. Yeah, Ricardo Arona, who you could throw in there as well. Vitor Belfort. Vitor Belfort, you'd throw in there. Let's see.

Shout out Maheda. At middleweight, it's obviously Anderson Silva Shogun by the way but also don't forget Shogun's there Shogun was 205 Shogun was 205

that's right that's right his brother Ninja was 185 that's right I was thinking Dan Henderson was floated

between two divisions but also don't forget inside people this is the most slept on talent I mean you want to hear the most slept on guy

wait no wait Shogun is floating between two divisions right he did but I mean really I mean he his best work is 205 by a million. Yeah, without question. Murillo Bustamante.

Murillo Bustamante, if you never saw him fight, he was a former middleweight champion in UFC, very good fighter. At welterweight, I'm trying to think, who's the best Brazilian ever at welterweight? That's a tougher one. Besides Michelle Pineda before moving up? I don't know the answer to that one off the top of my head. That's a tougher one besides michelle padeira before moving up um i don't know the answer to that one off the top of my head that's a tough one uh charles olivera 155 would be a good choice

you could go with don't forget about um jose aldo at 145 and then don't forget about henan barau at 135 and then flyweight don't forget about rda rda 155 damian maya at 170 you could go with. And then at flyweight, who's the best Brazilian ever? Pequeño Nogueira? You could go Pequeño Nogueira. Well, I also like that guy, Figueiredo, too. Figueiredo, Pantoja.

Pantoja's putting together a little bit of a run here. And then we got to add Cyborg, Amanda. Cyborg. Dude, they've got the... Brazil has the two best women's fighters ever by a considerable distance. Who are we forgetting anywhere in that list Long Island Luke I was trying to think of some straw weights right now I'm kind of blanking I bet you were

Claudia Gadelia she was a great straw weight she was ranked number two for like five years was she ever champion? no but she fought for the belt most of the people we've mentioned have been champion okay then Jessica Andrade two for like five years. Was she ever champion? No, but she fought for the belt. Okay. I mean, most of the people we've mentioned have been champion. Okay, then Jessica Andrade was a champion.

Andrade you can put up in that list. Yeah. Dude, Brazil dominates. Like, they fucking dominate. They're great. They're great. Finally, from mporter440, who are five guests you'd like to have on the RSD casting couch in 2025? Matt Snyder, upper thumb down.

Will we have an RSD couch in the calendar year of 2025? Oh, he's on the screen. He says yes. He says two thumbs up. He said yes? He did. So if RSD does make a return next year like we thought it would and are hoping or pushing.

I mean, look, we're eventually going to get our own studio and have that kind of stuff happen again. I hope. Who are five guests? We've had a gap since we've done this, so who are five people that we would love to have on the couch besides Ioana? Asa, Akira. I mean, for real here, okay?

Oh, um. Boy, I don't know. You want Ilya and you want to do it solo. Yeah, yeah. Teporia for sure. I would love to get Izzy in that setting i think it would be very interesting that's a good one not sean strickland probably not probably skip that one raw dog roy ball yes i do like roival yes she don't vera are there any women we're

forgetting and i'm being not not in a stupid sexual way but like a real way like our we're naming forgetting many yeah i mean rose i think would be so interesting nah not that interested it sounds like i'm i'm insulting them i'm not insulting them but for an rsd no no okay fiona apple eileen perez um she might twerk on the couch but that's not really what i'm going okay i wasn't going for that either. I just thought she'd have good stories. I just think that's how she like, I mean, I think on her driver's license. It's just a picture of her twerking.

Like she just, it's her party trick. She does it every room she goes into. I don't know the answer to that one. That's a tougher one. Okay. Is there any boxer that you'd love that from like a personality? Like Caleb Plant. He just was with Andre Ward.

I'd love to do it. Roley Romero. Devin Haney. Yes. No, I could skip Ro was with Andre Ward. I'd love to do that. Rolly Romero. Devin Haney. No, I could skip Rolly. Skip you. He'd be perfect. I think we'd leave you at home for that episode. No, no, no, no. Me and no Cito hosting.

Yeah, no, I'm not doing that shit. I mean, he's going to get up there and just make some comments about God only knows who. You can get Bryce Mitchell if you want, though. I'm good on that. Thank you, though. Okay. Boots Ennis, if we could get him to relax he's

a tough interview if he's not really relaxed you know doesn't want to do it um i don't know i don't know about the rest of them all right well hopefully let's get the couch first and then we'll you know yeah get the studio get the couch i got one more segment for you uh hold on we skipped the dm did we really can you, please? I'm sorry about that. Excuse me. Telvin Kipapa, Hawaii's finest, Luke. Oh, did you see the World Series is going to be Dodgers? I know.

Dude, I saw the most amazing Shohei Otani stat. Ready for this? Yeah. 10% on average of all of Japan watches his games at 9 a.m. in Japan, right? So for the last game, it was 9 a.m. on a Saturday in Japan. 10% of the entire country was watching. I think it was like 12 million people. And here it was 7 million people, which is like, you know, obviously a lot, but not really the same kind of proportion. But that's not the most impressive part. The most impressive part was the Dodgers have all kinds of ad inventory around the stadium that they can sell and they sold a

bunch to japanese companies they sold out apparently like immediately the japanese are so on top of the shohei otani thing yeah that the various japanese companies are buying ad inventory at stadiums that have a lot of games with the fucking Dodgers. Smart. When they're visiting as like the outside team because they couldn't even buy back in L.A. at all. That's how popular that guy is. He's ridiculous. Also, Yankees fans.

Are there any Yankees fans here? Yeah. Biggest pieces of shit on planet Earth. No, this team is almost more likable than the normal. Maybe because they've been gone. Every time the Yankees have been gone so long, I then go from hater to like when they won it the last years of 09. When they had the core four, they were all old as shit.

I was cheering for them that year. Fuck the Yankees and their stupid fans who are all grotesque humans, all of them, with the exception of Juan Soto, former Washington National who got away. I heard he could be a Met eventually. That's what I heard. Soto? Somebody told me that. Are the Yankees going to sign Soto, even though he sent him to the fucking World Series? When they win the World Series, they're definitely going to re-sign him.

I mean, that big home run could have changed things. Who are you cheering? Oh, so you're cheering for the Dodgers. It's a classic matchup. No, I don't like the Dodgers either. It was kind of one of those things where you just hope it's like the end of Inglourious Basterds where they all get shot from an elevated position. Oh boy.

Did you see Bob Arum said he was inspired by, um, how many of Otani fans regularly fly to the U S to see him, that that's why he's going to put, um, a new way in trying to put them in like T-Mobile arena for like a big one next year. And then they were also taught.

Dan Rayford was also talking to him about the, the, the big Japanese super fight with Bantamweight champ Junto Nakatani, who's entering pound-for-pound rankings lately. And Bob said that that's a Tokyo Dome fight. And by the way, the only fights in Tokyo Dome history are the two from Tyson in 89 and 90, including Buster Douglas, and the recent Inoue versus Luis Neri fight. I don't watch enough.

That's the only boxing in that stadium's history. That's insane. I don't watch enough baseball. How good are the Dodgers relative to the Yankees? Who's a better team? If I'm being honest, I've only really watched the playoffs. But yeah, Dodgers are in the middle of a dynasty right now. They'd be a great Padres team.

Dude, I saw Otani when he came to D.C. He played the Nats. This motherfucker hit a single, double, triple. No, he missed one of the three. He didn't hit a single, double, and a triple, but he got two of the three and a fucking home run. Like, he's ridiculous. All right, we got to get through this shit

because I got to catch a bus, Luke. I'm going to try the bus today. You're going to catch the bus? I'm actually going to try it today. From the Port Authority? Port Authority, yeah. Bitch, you're going to get a communicable disease. Well, I mean, you should see my train experience,

especially the changeover in New Haven. It's dicey. Let's go over to Have You Seen This Shit, where I collect all the weird videos of the week and try to make Luke laugh. Let's watch it. Opeth did not sound that good last time. No. Remember the 80s, Luke? They always had weird commercials and stuff

that you would never see today. Let's watch this one. With AIDS, I ate less, so the weight came off. To help keep it off when I sometimes want things loaded with calories, AIDS helps put me in control. I've tried fad diets, powders, pills. Still, my weight's been up and down like a yo-yo until the AIDS plan taught me how to take off weight and help keep it off. Let the AIDS plan teach you how to take off weight and help keep it off. Try peanut butter AIDS. Unfortunately.

Okay, that last one, try the peanut butter AIDS, that got me. I have to say, you will lose weight with AIDS. That is true. I was going to say, that's a morbid thought. Luke, do you ever wonder what it would be like if Titanic happened during Gen Z times? Look at that closer right there, Luke. Look at that guy. I'm cold. Yeah, I'm dead, but I'm happy.

That's the difference, right? I wonder what flavor that is. Luke, Brendan Schaub was in the news this week for challenging Nate Diaz's manhood after Diaz sent him to hell saying, Brendan, the big old pussy shop. We got, ooh, buddy, I probably got 20 pounds on you, so not too far off. I'll snap your neck, blah, blah, blah. He's trying to set up a grappling match and went on to say, have one of your handlers read this tweet and get back to me.

By the way, not a bad zing. I don't think Nate's going to respond by scheduling a CGI matchup. I think he's going to run up. CGI. CGI. I think he's going to run up, right? Yeah, I mean, the Nate Diaz plan is run up and get done up.

That's the whole thing. Do you think this is not? What precipitated this? I don't know. I wonder if, because remember they, do you remember they had that backstage thing? They had the beef at Mayweather-McGregor. At Mayweather-McGregor. It was 2016.

But I wonder if it was Schaub coming out for saying all the comments about Shane Carwin and getting a lot of headlines from that. I wonder if that triggered it maybe. I don't know. But I don't know. Should he be escalating this? Is this nothing a double-leg couldn't figure out in your opinion? I'll tell you what.

There's been a lot of people who have picked on him in the last few years. I thought the Carwin stuff was legitimate and him being a good person. I do too. And I do think that people underestimate. He doesn't clap back in general, but I think that some... You'd be surprised. Brendan, he's going to get over on somebody. think that people underestimate like he doesn't clap back in general but i think that some you'd be surprised brendan he's gonna get over on somebody i don't know if it's gonna be nate but you're gonna see he's gonna get over on somebody oh wow someone's gonna poke the

somebody's gonna win a truck right i mean you know it could be an employee of the show but somebody will hey let's go over to uh i'm kidding. Do you remember the double rainbow guy? Remember that guy got real high and he watched? He was like, it's a fucking rainbow. Double rainbow. It was like watching a baby born. Conor McGregor saw the Harvest Moon recently and had the same reaction. Nah, here. The phone isn't doing this justice, folks, yeah?

Can I have a look at that moon quick? Is it, what? The moon is on the bleeding low level. It's like the moon, surely the moon's gonna go up. Look at like the moon. Surely the moon's going to go up. Look at the thing. Have a look at that moon, folks. Quick.

How would you win that if you can? I don't know if I want him to quit the substance. That is the maddest. No, I think you're misunderstanding this. It's like I'm looking at the sphere, yeah? What? What am I misunderstanding? What the fuck?

He is not. I mean, I'm not saying he's not high here. What I am saying is nothing tells me. What is with these phones man? Look at that moonquake everyone yeah? Tell us. Is it going up? It's actually going up. You see the moon's up there like.

It's down there. It's at the oil level. This was the first time I've ever seen him and been like this fucking is old now. Yeah look at that moon. You should know you watch birds look. This, look at that. You should know. You watch birds, Luke. This is what I'm trying to tell you. Out of nowhere, I'm like, yo, these motherfucking birds are interesting. If you're looking at the moon and you're like, guys, have a look at the fucking moon, you are old.

Luke, are you a fan of Taco Tuesday? I love Taco Tuesday. Would you eat it here? Gynecology restaurant. Taco Tuesday. Well, um. It's only weird if you make it weird, Luke. Okay.

Yeah. I don't know if this is the kind of taco I'm going for. All right. General. You notice how no celebrities are coming out and supporting Diddy except for one. Stevie Wonder defends Diddy. I didn't see anything illegal. He only he did write songs in the key of life. I'm going to give. He may have heard or felt something illegal. He did write songs in the key of life. I'm going to give.

He may have heard or felt something illegal. I'm going to give Stevie the benefit of the doubt. Okay. Luke, head to the barber for the hottest hairstyle. They call it the cock out. Just leave this child on the side of the road he doesn't need parents uh halloween is here speaking of that cocked out look luke um what do you think about this i think this guy wins halloween in 2025 i also think we played that on like the first episode of the show's history but

it's so good this is genius i have i have played this one before that's genius and i give this a 10 out of 10 and he's got toilet paper yeah 10 out of 10. And he's got toilet paper? Yeah, 10 out of 10. All right. What do you rate this, which you can find at your local spirit? Okay. Okay. I cannot believe that that day of trauma has turned into this. If you had told me 20 years ago, however long it's been now, 23 years ago.

Yeah. That, like, you know, in September of 2024, you're going to be doing basically the equivalent of the time of a radio show, and your partner's going to be making fun of this day every single time. I think I was pointing out how awful that costume was, to be very honest with you. That too, yes. Yeah. Can't wait for September 11th.

We've heard that before on a boxing broadcast. That is your catchphrase. Hey, remember that weird lady I showed you that started eating her own body because it was made out of cake? Yeah. Watch this. I wonder what she's like, Luke, in her personal life. Send her to the gulag. You're just going to cut the fucking wall?

Made out of cake, Luke? Yeah, please. You're just going to eat shoes, baby? Just... I think over time she'll win you over and turn you on. Someone should just drown her. Oh my god. Alright, hey, shoeies are one thing. What about this? This takes it to a new level.

Is that her prosthetic? Yes. What about this? This takes it to a new level. Is that her prosthetic? Yes. You know what? BC just slipped me a note. You know what it said? It said, wood bang. Yeah. BC, that's very, you know, open to new possibilities.

Luke, time for your KOs of the week. And the first one comes from LFA. What do you know about Shamid Khan Magomedov? Not much, but that was a nice double jab right hand, and there's another one. That's two KOs in the same KO. And that referee's wearing nine shades of black. Look at this motherfucker.

Look at that. Look at him. Is that a double KO? Do you get twice the... Let's see. Bop. Nah, he's still kind of up. No, no, no. Now it is. Good lord. Alright, let's go over to rcc20 this is a caposa special they call him akmalan mobadoff yo look at that look at the gloves look at the floor of the cage yeah watch this finish here luke oh dude if they walk past you that's that's when the problems begin jeepers uh ko of the week nominee here from the skateboarding halfpipe oh that's a scorpion dude that's the that's the renee gita fucking uh kick there uh one more

nominee for ko of the week oh oh oh yo is that some kind of fucking drone what not a 9-11 joke that is awful wow that is i wasn't even thinking about 9-11 but the fact that that was top of mind for you says well unfortunately and then we have one more in this category luke this is boxing but it turned into kickboxing oh wait wait wait this was not kickboxing that is boxing he just said fuck it oh my god i think that's a dq where i come from right did you see this interaction on the anakin florian pod when they had dominant cruzan between ja and dom who i love when they work together because they always have like that high energy like they hate each other they do seem to watch this earlier we had keith peterson dominant cruise talk on this show we had a conversation

don't listen dom so domina cruz told me to do better publicly don't listen like you want to save fighters you're one of those that thinks we need to be saved you know i don't need your fucking help i I got it. Stay out of my fucking way. Let me make my fucking money. Get the fuck out of here. Stop. All of you. We need to save them from weight cuts.

Weight cuts are bad. What about fighting is healthy? What are we talking about? This is so ignorant. You're right. Save me. Leave me alone. Let me make my fucking money dude that's aggressive

but i it's also part of why i love dom because he's like half crazy and half right a lot you know if you let fighters determine the rules of fighting it would be to the death half the time you can't that's why we don't listen to them all the time sometimes sometimes but they don't get the final say but he's like a really smart fighter who had a style that didn't take a lot of damage and and all that and he's a really smart fighter and have really bad ideas but what do you think about that idea that it is america people can no i think once again if you let fighters determine the rules of fighting it would be to the death and that's not a good thing a couple more and then i can catch my bus the new england patriots have a new left tackle what do you think of old number 69 there, Luke?

I mean, just look at this fucking specimen with the Jizzcock jersey and a haircut from 1973. I give him points for trying that, all right? Do you ever play the game called, oh, did you ever do this in the elevator with your kids, Luke? And dunce, and dunce, and dunce, and dunce, and dunce. Tukey has started punching me in the crotch oh that's not funny too yeah not funny i don't i tell i don't enjoy that all right there was a hurricane that came through florida we hope everybody's okay in our viewership this guy celebrated it luke

you know what that's called a hurricane dab right there. You know what? It wasn't like he had a job to get to anyway. Looks like me after a perfect week. I'm in carbon. All right. I got two more for you, Luke. You know what I hate when putting two things together that don't belong?

Cigarettes and pregnancy. Hey, don't be smoking cigarettes if you're pregnant. What's wrong with you? I'm not pregnant. I'm fat, you fucking asshole. Okay, okay. That's fucking hilarious. And finally, Luke, you ever see one of those rock mats you can walk on that, like, give you inner peace?

I just got this mat off of TikTok because I saw some guy that was that was like enjoying it too much so we're gonna try it all right i want to try it oh okay oh That's our final episode. You have the nerve to be mad at me for shoehorning in silly pornography talk at places. And now you show me a young man squirting. But that was very subtle. The comedy made it subtle. Subtle. Yeah.

That's what subtle means to you. Made it subtle there. That's your ish. First of all, that was fucking hilarious. Yeah. But also disturbing.. That's your ish. First of all, that was fucking hilarious. Yeah. But also disturbing. I got to catch a bus. That's all the shit we got for this week.

I got tickets for the bus. I know. Well, this is an experiment. This is an experiment. See, the bus seats are tighter, so people kind of lean on you. But if there's no traffic, you can get there quicker and cheaper. You know what's weird? In the United States, if someone sits on a bus or a mass transit seat and then they get up,

you know if you sit down, it's warm, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that gross. Do you smell the seat first? No, no, no. I find that gross. But in Colombia, that's considered a prized opportunity. Oh, to get warm.

To get a warm seat that someone's been in. I want everyone to know, if you sit in the seat after me, just like this seat, I've been farting in it for a long time. you go well that's luke's bowels we want to thank long island luke nocita for his work there on the ones and twos yes thank you long island luke uh maybe you you got anything to say probably not right yeah guys go like and sub to uh my youtube channel main car perfect this week we're going perfect again next week let's go who are you taking in ilia and max it's early i'm gonna take the over under uh i think i'm gonna do alternate total rounds do over two and a half i think it's a good bet uh we will be back friday 11 a.m eastern here on these youtubes at morning combat for our

paid friday edition where we are going to hit 308 really really hard it is max versus ilia or maybe the other way around and a great card along with that. Follow us on social. Buy our merch at morningcombat.store and get 10% off right now using our code of LIVE10. Shout out to Mint Mobile, right? $45 a month, not bad. No, $15. $15 a month. That's fantastic.

You can't beat that with a stick. You can't even beat that with a bat. Hammer can't touch that. That's such a great line, right? Damn. All right, for Luke Thomas on BC. Try the peanut butter aids. Yeah, don't forget.

Get some of this Let's F'n Go, right? Put it in. You got to get it right here, right? You got to get it right here. All right, let's get out of here and go. They're actually not a sponsor, and this is expired. I like it. I like it.

We out of here. We out of here. Bye.