MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - RECAP: Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter | UFC Fight Night: Vieira-Tate | EP 231

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

On episode 232 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas is joined by Oscar Willis of @TheMacLife to break down Terence Crawford's win over Shawn Porter. Now that Terence is a free agent what are the chances he actually fights Errol Spence Jr.. next up the guys talk Ketlen Vieira vs. Miesha Tate. What did we learn from this fight? The guys also discuss Sean Brady's win over Michael Chiesa. Who else stood our from this card? The guys close out the show with Dm's from Donks and Odds & Ends.  (5:50) - Crawford stops Porter (21:50) - Is Spence next for Crawford? (30:50) - Vieira defeats a game Tate (48:20) - Brady gets the decision over Chiesa (56:00) - Everything else MMA (61:00) - Dm's from Donks Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It is the 22nd of November, 2021. And it is time, everybody, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. You might know me from CBS Sports and Showtime.

I am coming to you live from the capital, Los Estados Unidos, right here in Washington, D.C. And you'll notice Brian has either lost weight or dyed his hair again, or maybe it's actually not Brian. Say hello to our guest host for today. He is the man behind basically everything you really see on the video side and probably a whole lot more. For the Mac Life, it's Oscar Willis. What's up, Oscar? How are you?

Very well, man. Thank you very much for having me. I was a bit surprised to get the call, but I understand you needed to swap one degenerate for another. So here I am, slot in as a nice simple swap. Well, after some of your revelations in your podcast with Dan Hooker about little people, I thought, well, he's actually quite perfect for the show, is he not? So how would you describe your work over at the MacLife? Tell the folks what you do over there.

Man, like I said, if you see it on the YouTube, it's probably me. I would handle most of the social media stuff as well. And I'm the guy who asks Dana White annoying questions at the post-fight press conference, which really is the best part of the job, just slowly but surely turning him redder and redder. Now, you have been to the Apex a million times, right? Like, you were at the Apex for Saturday's Tate and Vieira fight. Do you like the fights at the Apex? At this point, it's become so routine, and I think you'll probably agree with this,

where when you're covering events, you're travelling to different cities, it can feel like different every week. When it's at the apex every week it's slowly but surely becoming a bit like an office job. I feel like I should just leave my stuff there and just go back every day and set up. I do like it, but I will say when it's every Saturday and you get a card that perhaps doesn't have as many exciting fights as others, you can certainly be sure you want to kill yourself in there for sure. It can get pretty boring.

Yeah, the card this weekend, not super money. But luckily there's actually a little bit to talk about. Plus there was some stuff on the boxing side. And you live in Las Vegas, so that will be helpful for our analysis as well. Alright, first things first. Give a follow, or subscribe rather I should say, to Morning Combat YouTube channel or any other places there. You can see we got Oscar Willis' Twitter and Instagram.

It's the same everywhere like it is for Morning Combat. Brian and I are stupid and we keep changing our names between, or I should say among the outlets. But give us a like, give us a follow, give us a subscribe on YouTube, do all that fun stuff there. Merch, morningcombat.store if you want it. Drug Rugs, I think, are going to be out soon, if not already, and we have other popular items for you to peruse there, like including this, my face on my shirt. You can see there the Dead Luke tee, the classic comfy MK tee, and the Orchids of Combat tee,

which of course is the favorite of Oscar. He loves the orchids of combat tea just live morning combat yeah morning combat dot store leave a place for that if you want showtime because by the way ufc doesn't come back till december 4th but showtime will have boxing this weekend yes ladies and gentlemen the train rolls on so go to showtime get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce but if you want to watch some boxing this weekend with, by the way, Cool Boy Steph, it's going to be a great, great fight. Go to Showtime.com. 30-day free trial there. Reminder, help us scam the algorithm for Apple and leave us a phony but nice review with

a five stars. That way we can be much higher up in searches and rankings than we deserve to be. And then last but certainly not least, give us an email. What am I saying, actually? It's morningcombat at gmail.com. That'll be Wednesday's fan subs and then Friday's Dead Wrong. Now, as a bit of a programming note, Friday we're going to have a mailbag show, so we won't get to Dead Wrongs this week, but we still want them because Brian is going to be due for about three weeks of those by the time he comes back,

and I can't wait for the avalanche of L's to rain down upon him. But there you go, just the same. All right, Oscar, are you ready? Yes, I am. All right, there he is. Very terse, but ready to go. All right, topic number one. We start with boxing if we can.

Terrence Crawford defeats Sean Porter on Saturday, and he becomes the first man to stop him. TKO's him along the way. Eventually, Sean Porter would retire. We'll talk about that in just a second. Oscar, you live in Las Vegas. You watch the fight. I will go to you first on this. A, what grade would you give the performance of Terrence Crawford? And then B, did he make his case for being the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport by virtue of the win? I think it's an incredible performance, to be honest. When you get to be a level like Crawford or with Canelo and stuff, he kind of has this aura of invincibility.

And the only time we can really appreciate their greatness is when they're tested. On Saturday night, he actually was in a real fight. It was a good dogfight. And I think slowly but surely we saw Porter start to go in Crawford's favor because that's the difference between a top-tier fighter and an elite fighter. So I thought his performance was incredible. I thought he... I'm not going to give it an A because he did get clipped a few times,

but he did comb through that adversity. So I'll give him a solid B+,, I'm not going to give it an A because he did get clipped a few times, but he did comb through that adversity. So I'll give him a solid B plus because I'm a generous guy and it's early morning and I'm feeling fresh for the day. Yeah, and it just,

it was a great fight in terms of, remind me of your second question just there. Yeah, just what, did you, was that the kind of performance

for you that was like, okay, he's the best fighter in the sport? The best fighter in the sport? No. I still think Canelo holds that throne just because of the way he's going through the weights. And unfortunately, like, combat sports is an entertainment show. It is the way it is.

So you kind of have to have a little bit of an X factor outside the ring to really start getting those accolades. That's unfair, but I just deal with it. So I don't think he's the pound-for-pound best. In that division, I would say he's the guy who's on top. All right. Here's the way I would look at this. I'm going to say for the grade,

I'm going to give him an a minus. I'm with you. He did get hit enough where I couldn't give it an a plus, but I don't want to go down to a B Oscar. And I'll tell you why, or even B plus, not that a minus and B plus are all that far apart. But the reason why is because in the end yes the father stopped the fight and we'll

talk about that for just a second but the reason why I'm going to give him an A minus is because one while he did get hit somewhat and that counts against the perfect performance he ultimately got the stoppage and even if his father didn't save him that was going in the wrong direction really fast in round 10 in fact I was texting with Brian this morning because he hasn't seen the fight yet he knows the results but he hasn't seen the fight and he was like would you give Porter a strong account dude in the first six rounds I gave Porter four of them I had it four to two heading into the seventh but to to me, that was where it turned. Now, I think seven, eight.

Yeah, I think six, seven, and eight. There's a lot of close rounds, but definitely seven and eight, six, seven, and eight. Probably could have gone either way. I'm telling you my scorecard. I had Porter four rounds to two through six. And then around seven, eight, I had it. You could probably go either way if you wanted to. But I had them all for Crawford.

By round nine, dude, he was operating. Round nine was clearly, no doubt about it, Crawford's round, if you want to say some of the other ones were a bit of a toss-up. And then round 10, of course, he gets the stoppage, drops him twice. And that was fairly early in the round. I think a minute and some change had passed. He probably was going to put him away in that round, if not the next one. Again, we don't know that for sure, but it seemed that likely. So for those reasons, his ability, to your mind, I think you kind of alluded to it, his adapting over the course of the fight, especially through the second half of it,

was so masterful. I don't want to say that that's not an A-level performance, even if I grant there's some other factors here. But the second part, I think, is the more interesting question. Was he top pound for pound? See, here's the thing. If you want to argue that a guy like Bud Crawford is the most talented boxer in the sport, we can certainly debate that. But if we're going to talk about pound for pound, Oscar,

and this is true in MMA, it's true in boxing, it's what's on the resume. And you cannot blame Bud Crawford entirely for the, you know, Amir Khan fights that he had that were big names or interesting challenges, but not really up to the level of what like, dude, like what Canelo is doing in terms of the names on the resume as he plods through. The level of achievement, Oscar, it's just not what Bud has. But if you wanted to argue separately, he's a a more talented boxer I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that but I think it is a separate question and I think you could reasonably come up with Bud as your number one on that level I can understand that and I think technically you're probably you're probably right I think he is there are certain guys who get into a groove I think Kamaru Usman in MMA is kind of one of those guys at the moment where there just seems to be like an air of inevitability about their fights you know they're going to go in there

now on saturday porter came at him which i think you have to do against this sort of guys don't let these guys set their rhythm set their tone make it their fight from the off i think you have to be very aggressive very early and i think porter did that with some success but there's just an air about them and because the air comes from their technical ability right his ability to find the counter uppercut in such a tight space where porter was closing the distance so quickly and he was able to fire off those counter shots um with with accuracy i thought it was tremendous he really is he's operating at a fantastic level right now and to your point around the resume that's unfortunately the sport of boxing a lot of these guys could have better resumes if it wasn't for the just air of politics around

every single move they make right so a lot of times that might fall on the fighter sometimes fighters get a bit picky and choosy with who and when they fight old floyd famous for it but um i think there's some shame um some blame to be shared perhaps with Crawford and his promoters but yeah it's not entirely his fault right that there are fights that he could have that would put him on a higher regard amongst fans and he just hasn't had those yet let me ask you which American boxers I know you've been living in the states for some time now but Bob Aaron made a claim we'll talk about what might be next for either guy Bob was saying yes I would love for Crawford to come back because he could go back to 140

and we could put him versus Josh Taylor on in the UK. He said sell 70,000 seats, do a big pay-per-view over there. Now, I believe that if they did put a fight there with those two, it would do well at the box office. 70,000, I don't know, but let's say a handsome gate receipt. And I do believe it would do well on pay-per-view there in the uk as well but he said something that's interesting he goes terence is quite popular in the uk as well is that true yeah in fact the uk uh i would argue that as a sport and this is probably where i'm going to get loads of slack for this but i'd argue as a sport boxing is sort of

more popular than it is over in America. You know, there's so many other sports in America that boxing gets diluted. And the percentage of hardcores amongst the general fan base is lesser than I think in the UK. I think people like Crawford and Canelo would be recognized more going down the street than they would here. Canelo, maybe not. But certainly until recently, Deontay Wilder would have been the same. Deontay Wilder could have walked down the street in America and likely not been recognised before those three fights.

But he would have been recognised in the UK. There is something to that. What Bob wants? I don't know. I suspect old Bob has seen AJ walking out in front of that many people and thought to himself, that's a lovely gate receipt right there. I don't think Horford's selling out those sort of stadiums. I think have to be very... Fury and Joshua

are essentially those two people who can do that and Bob has a weird sort of relationship with the UK where I think he he seems to view it as some sort of untapped market at all times he's always touting that he can bring this guy over because he knows the Brits kind of get out to back their own and he can sell tickets. For example I felt for a long time the reason why and this was probably not the case but i had my conspiracy hat on and thought the reason why fury wilder 3 was maybe postponed was because they couldn't get any brits through the door because of the travel ban and maybe that's why they pushed it back i was probably wrong i'd

probably been smoking too much of what joe rogan smokes who knows but um yeah i'm always a bit curious of what bob's angle is but certainly i think Crawford has a level of fan base over there that he might not do here. Interesting okay getting back to the fight itself I like what you said about Porter I thought you know everything's going to get lost here because now we're going to transition in just a moment to something else but Porter I thought made a really strong account of himself again I thought he won the first four of the two rounds I love that he had that stance that was lowered at first, and then he would switch and have the bouncy kind of stance and blitzing sort of thing. He gave the strongest account of himself that I thought he could have, at least of the first half of the fight. But then Bud Crawford switching the southpaw, shutting down the jab, and then welcoming the blitz to a degree

by creating distance and then framing off of him. That's ultimately how he closed the show. How impressed were you this time with Porter? I thought he was overmatched by the time the 10th round came along. But if someone asked you what could he, given his skill set, what could he have done differently? I'm not sure the answer is anything. Yeah, and I know we're going to get to his father in a little bit. I thought Porter gave it a fantastic account of himself he lost to crawford okay you lost to literally one of the best in the sport there's no shame in that and in fact just being able to give him a dogged performance and like you said he came very aggressively now crawford was able to make adjustments let's note they clashed heads a number of times that could have affected them it didn't seem to too much but there was it was a

gritty fight. And from Porter's account, I felt that was probably, you know, we often say in this sport when these guys fight people way above their level, like, oh, they've got to turn this one into a fight. You know, they've got to turn this one into a brawl, get the boxing out of it and turn it into a fight.

That's what he did. He did what was asked of him by what people usually say. And I thought he gave a great account of himself. He should be very proud. And that's why, and again, we're going to to get into this i think the retirement talk maybe came from emotional play it's not an actual logical one all right so he did in fact say at the post-fight press conference sean porter did that this was his last one now there's a couple of things here let's back up a step let's go talk about the stoppage because that probably has something

to do perhaps with the way it all kind of ended his dad just hangs him out to fucking dry on the pay-per-view broadcast and says you know uh he didn't prepare adequately and i know what i saw and whatnot now there's two competing schools here uh oscar one school his dad has been with him since the amateurs he knows him better than anyone often when we're worried about dads and corners it's because they're doing the opposite of, he knows him better than anyone. Often when we're worried about dads in corners, it's because they're doing the opposite of what he did here, which is just letting the shit go. He didn't.

He actually called it quite early. And so, you know, who are we to say that we know better than his father, who has been with him for such a long time? He may have seen something, especially when he was pounding his fist on the mat after he got knocked down the second time, right? He was losing his bearing there a little bit. On the other hand, it's like, dude, okay, maybe

it was justified. Maybe you know better. But dude, why are you hanging your son out to fucking dry on the pay-per-view broadcast? Seemed a little weird. Yeah, I completely agree. I actually thought he was completely out of line. He didn't prepare enough. Well, he did alright. He got

too late in the fight and he gave him a good go. I don't know what the fuck you were expecting to see. I did think the pounding on the canvas was a little bit weird. I wondered if maybe he had seen something in that that was concerning him because you don't usually see boxers do that, just complete frustration. So at first I thought the stoppage was a little early because I watched the UFC and we don't believe in stopping fights until they're dead. But I thought it was a little bit early. watched the UFC and we don't believe in stopping fights until they're dead but I thought that um I thought it was a little bit early but then after a while you

realize like actually no that's probably a good corner that's what we actually want to see someone because he was going to get knocked out right eventually so I let him take more punishment get him out of there early but then to you know when Chris White had been lost and his dad's like this is still my boy it's like his dad was trying to give him up for adoption on live live tv it's insane he just didn't want him there it's I don dad was trying to give him up for adoption on live live tv it's insane he just didn't want him there it's i don't understand it i understand that he's been with him for ages and so he might know better than us but i don't i don't know what he was expecting to see and if he didn't prepare well i i don't know how much more he could have prepared to get a

better account of himself you know i don't think him doing a couple more miles in the morning was going to make the difference in that fight so again maybe the emotions were running high maybe his father knew that this was such a big fight for him and so to see him lose was just like almost too much frustration to bear but you know you don't have to you know spank okay but as for the call itself i mean i was like but imagine afterwards he had not said that he had said you know i know much my son and this was not his night and blah, blah, blah. But imagine he hadn't hung him out to dry. What about the call itself?

Do you have an issue with the call? No, no, I think it was fair. I mean, at first I was a little bit surprised. I wasn't frustrated or annoyed by it. I was just surprised because we don't usually see people step in that early. But, I mean, at that point of of the fight the momentum was very clearly slipping into one direction right and Crawford being what he is when he smells the finish he's one of those guys that he's going to hunt you down and continue to land and the more hurt Porter gets the more

easy it is for Crawford to find those shots right so I think it was a fair stoppage it was a little bit sort of weird it was like he didn't actually throw the towel in. He just kind of stood. It was a little bit strange, and it kind of took me a few seconds to sort of understand what had happened. Porter certainly looked like he could continue. You know, he looked pretty lucid, but I think it was a fair stoppage. Yeah, I mean, I guess the way I would look at it is,

you know, have we seen fights go longer? I mean, yeah, we've seen a lot of fights go longer when guys get that hurt. At the same time, the way I scored it, again, first half of the fight was Porter's as far as I'm concerned. Second half was all Crawford. I had him 7, 8, 9. 9 again, utterly undeniable it was his round.

And then round 10, he gets the two knockdowns. And the second knockdown came pretty quickly. And again, it came pretty early in the fight. Like, was it a little bit early? Maybe little bit early but here's the thing man you know this you alluded to it i mean how many times in mma have we seen a corner just let their guy go out there and take a fucking super unnecessary beating then they lose and you're like right here we are maybe this was on the early side but i gotta tell you as a general orientation for me if we're on the side of preserving someone's humanity and their ability by the way sean

already has a career as a broadcaster he's doing that now you see him on pbc on fox you see him doing all kinds of stuff he worked with brian Campbell on NBC Sports. Maybe he wanted to preserve his brain health. And like, if you're going to err on the side of caution, and then maybe he knew also it was his last fight,

I guess I don't have an issue with it. In the end, I just thought it could have been handled a little bit more delicately. It also depends, right? If, let's say,

the fight was still razor close at that point, and he threw in the towel after two knockdowns, well, then you're denying your fighter the chance to get back in there and, you know, show some grit and heart. But the fight was still razor close at that point. And he threw in the towel after two knockdowns. Well, then you're denying your fighter the chance to get back in there and, you know, show some grit and heart. But the fight was starting to slip away from him. So when it's like that, when Che always sort of think, you know, you don't pull them out when they don't have a chance to win or something like that. Whatever Che else says, I don't know, he says a lot.

But, you know, you basically pull them out when they don't have a route to victory anymore. And I felt at that point, it's fair to assume he probably did not have a route to win at that fight anymore it should have been handled better um as you said earlier you know if he had just thrown the towel in and not you know decided to abandon his child after the fight no one would have said anything it would have just been like yeah okay because because we saw with wilder right in the second fight the way that was handled from the fighter's perspective i think everyone walks away from that being like man we should actually respect coaches who want to get involved and want to protect their guy more than we should respect the ones who sort of look at their watch as the

brains are coming out of their ears on the canvas you know all right fair enough well I'll give you the final word on that topic let's talk about the second topic so now we move forward with this Sean Porter has retired. Again, I thought some people were saying it was a Hall of Fame career. I'm not so sure about that, but let's put that to the side. Let's talk about what might be next. Everything in the fight game is what happened and then what's next. Here's the what's next part.

We are, at least in theory, much closer to a showdown between the top welterweights, that's 147 pounds in boxing, between Crawford and now Errol Spence, who, by the way, was in attendance of the fights, so he said he would never be for a Crawford fight. Oscar, I keep calling you. I'm getting ready to call you BC every time. I've got to stop doing that. Well, that's just insulting. It really is.

It's the worst. You could be high on meth, and that would be insulting still. All right. And he often wins. Yeah, which he often is. That was the last fight on the contract for top rank with Bud Crawford. He is technically a free agent. We know Errol Spence is with PBC.

In your mind, Oscar, everyone wants to see it, but reasonably speaking, how close do you think we are? We are closer than ever because of what you just said, the fact he's no longer with top rank. It's a massive deal, I think. Boxing has kind of especially old bob they love to play the manny floyd game right well let's just leave it as long as possible let's string out as many fights as we can from both guys and then eventually when we've really run out of everything else we'll do that fight we'll still make a killing because people will still want to watch it uh they love doing that it's very annoying that

they do that fury and joshua has disappeared probably because they like to do that um so i think now he's out of the way and there's room for negotiations i mean what a position crawford's in by the way to be a free agent in this marketplace it's a pretty good deal for him i think he's potentially going to make it's not even about the money i can imagine it's not necessarily about the money for crawford i would probably like to sign with the guy who didn't publicly essentially shit on me and say oh i could build a house in beverly hills and stuff like that doesn't really speak to a great working relationship um so i think we're closer than ever i just have been burnt so many times by boxing that it's hard for me to say it's definitely happening next i'm just gonna have to wait and see i can imagine they

give spence one first and then you know then he has to have a first one on his new contract and so on and so forth. So I'm not ready to say we're going to see it next, but I do believe we've taken a very necessary and important step to get there. I think that Bud Crawford should do, well, A, he should do what's best for him. And I think he will probably make a call to do that. I think he should play the Canelo game personally. Canelo has reached a point in his career, he can sign one, two fight deals, and he can bounce from promoter to whoever has this stable of fighters and that stable of fighters. He has totally freed himself, and he has the leverage to do it, because everybody wants to be in the Canelo business.

Now, I don't know if all those same kind of people want to be in the Bud Crawford business to the same degree, but yeah, dude, virtually every promoter in this space is going to want to be in the Bud Crawford business if they can help it. Your dominant force there is probably going to be PBC. They have had a lock on 147 in a way that no other promoter has, and in fact, part of the reason why Spence being with PBC and, of course, Crawford being with top rank, that fight didn't happen was you get it, uh, sort of a sanctioning body demanding it or some other intervening factor. We were probably never going to get it as a consequence of that. Well, now that impediment is totally out of the way. He could go and sign

with PBC and Al Heyman and everybody else. He could fight freaking Spence on Showtime for all we know, or CBS or Fox or whatever. He would have tons of opportunity there and not just Spence on Showtime, for all we know, or CBS or Fox or whatever, he would have tons of opportunity there and not just Spence, but the other welterweights there. Now, I want to give a shout out to two different people who I thought made great points about this already. First, Scott Crist over at Bad Left Hook, which is a great boxing website, he argued something that I think is unimpeachably true. Namely, there have always been times at 147 where you could have uh bud or spence have a bigger fight right i'll give you an example it wasn't the fight that made the most sense but it could make sense it was decent and then the other guy had a big name spence for example was supposed to take on

pacquiao now spence got his eye messed up and the fight fell through and ugas went in there and we all know the story but the point being was you got around Spence versus Crawford by just giving Spence to Pacquiao because, hey, big name, big fight, big sales, whatever. Pacquiao is now gone. And if you just look at the rest of the division, Ugas has one title, but he didn't get a blown-up name from fighting Pacquiao. So at 147, this is the first time in history, and you get in the free agent component, it adds into this exponentially, but just in terms of like the big names, each guy

is the biggest name they could fight for each other. There's no bigger fight you can literally make. Now there's a couple of ways you can get around it. Bob was saying, oh, go back to 140, 141, go fight Josh Taylor in the UK, that would be big. Okay, but is Bud Crawford going to sign with top rank again? He was stone cold, no-selling Bob to his fucking face at the post-fight press conference, being like, if he couldn't secure me a fight with Spence when I was with him, what the fuck's he going to do when I'm without him? Number one. Number two, what are you going you gonna do you could go if you're if you're Crawford he may have to go to 154 Oscar and maybe fight a Charlo and that's a big fight but that's

not gonna be bigger than fighting Errol Spence dude when has there ever been a time where the biggest fight for Crawford is Spence the biggest fight for Spence is Crawford never now is that time yeah I mean to be honest the the only answer to Bob saying, oh, he could drop that, just fuck off, Bob. You don't get to talk about this anymore. You just shut up. I think you're absolutely right. I think now also, Charlie fight is big.

I'll grant you that. But I think we're reaching the point now where if they don't fight, fans are going to call bullshit. They're going to say, okay, you guys are starting to take a piss. You guys are are going to call bullshit you know they're going to say okay you guys are starting to take a piss you guys are never going to fight each other i think the manny factor being taken out is probably more massive than we can realize because he was any name like that is just available to play city buggers in negotiations oh well i don't need to fight you i can fight this guy make loads of money and then that turns into an ego game and dick measuring contest which boxing loves and no one ever wins in those you

know really except for Floyd but um so yeah I think you're absolutely right hit the nail on the head I think this is the time it just makes sense I feel like that fights like the one on Saturday put a bit of momentum to the fight we want to see right we haven't just seen these like dull drubbings of this guy comes in, dominates and everyone goes home feeling a little bit robbed of their money. That was a great fight. Now's the time to capitalize on that and get it as book, get it booked as soon as possible.

Let's not have a really prolonged year of negotiations in which everyone just could sort of seize the headline for the sixth time and goes, Oh God, here we go. Capitalize on what you've achieved and make the fight as soon as possible yeah i mean i've saw some people being like okay here's what happened here's what should happen crawford he would sign with pbc which would be great let's have crawford fight ugas first so then he would have two titles i think spence would have the other two titles

and then you would get this undisputed meeting, which I grant I don't like, but just knowing the way boxing works, I feel might be inevitable, but you could, at a bare minimum, at a bare minimum, you could not credibly make the argument that Crawford versus Ugas is in any way bigger than Crawford versus Spence, which you could argue is that Crawford versus Ugas, assuming Crawford wins, makes Crawford versus Spence an already big fight truly the biggest it could be.

I got to say, I still don't give a fuck. I have no interest in Crawford versus Ugas right now. No, well, I mean, let's be honest. Ugas could drive a lot of people to the arena in an uber and they wouldn't realize he was the guy fighting um that's really mean but that's just his popularity is not where it could be in terms of spence and crawford i will say that fighting for the so both guys having two titles to meet up for an undisputed fight in theory sounds to me sounds great okay all the everything's on the line perfect undpeedy champion i love it what will happen is both guys will hold two titles and then think well i'm not fucking risking these two for him and then they'll

fight mandatories and then the whole thing will just be drawn out even longer capitalize now win the third dart if you want later on fair enough last thing on this i mentioned i had two people i wanted to shout out one was scott chris the bad left hook that'll be chris manix i thought made a good point we kind of talked about it earlier just sort of briefly I wanted to add if you add in uh what Canelo is doing right just sort of picking his spots where he can because he has the leverage to do that Bud is 34 if like a you mentioned I think quite rightly there's momentum behind this plus he's 34 plus he's a free agent and then you look at Miguel Cotto as Chris Mannix had pointed out Miguel Cotto

did the same thing at a senior stage in his career he just began to pick and choose as a free agent where he wanted to go it's a great model for the right fighter at the right time Bud Crawford either has a claim to or being near the best proud found fighter in the sport he just beat his toughest test to date and he's a free agent if you're gonna pull that trigger I think now's the time all right before our audience by audience, by the way, commits mutiny, let's transition over to MMA if we can. Point number three, Oscar. I'm going to call you BC anyway because fuck you.

Boston. All right. Ketlin Vieira defeats Misha Tate in the main event of UFC Vegas 43. Our co-host was there at the apex. All right, Oscar. The question is as follows. Similar kind of thing. First, how impressive was Ketlyn Vieira? How would you rate her performance overall, even though she got

the clear win? And then secondly, is she the rightful challenger to the winner of Nunes versus Peña? Well, I'll say this about her performance. I felt that while Misha was always in the fight, and while you could maybe look at that fight and score the rounds in a certain way to give Misha some, I felt it seemed like Vieira's fight pretty much threw out. You know there were moments for Misha but Vieira I felt won that fight pretty dominantly really. She never looked like she even had to get into third gear. My issue with the performance is that she never went into third gear.

You know Daniel Cormier came under fire for critic her on the commentary, but I actually very much agreed with him during that. I felt that she just, it almost seemed like she was a bit overawed by Misha. You know, maybe just that this is someone she's looked up to for a long time. She mentioned that after the fight that she was nervous about it. And I could, in one of those moments, you could see that sort of playing out, right? She could land punches. Misha's tape was a bloody mess by the end of it and she just never really seemed to hunt her down and go for it personally I was at the apex on Saturday and I wanted to go out and get a drink and her dragging this fight into the fifth round was really upsetting to me because I had other things to do but you know I can't really hold that bias against her I just will say I think

the performance was good a little bit it wasn't the sort of performance like Izzy versus Brunson where you go wow look at this person like what a force they're going to be I think a fight like that doesn't necessarily that's not a fight I think title shot you know that's not a performance I think gets a title shot now the depth of that division means maybe it could be right it depends on time it depends what I'm at the winner of Amanda Pena but let's say that's Amanda uh it depends how often she wants to fight what she's feeling that month so she could sort of get pushed to a title shot it just wasn't the one for me that makes me want to see it next you know all right in terms of the performance like let me ask this question

because this is always the existential one i'm going to respond to something you said i'm not even saying you're wrong that she didn't go to third gear. She kind of was in first, second, you know, and that was really all about it was, and it was enough to get the win, which kind of says not great things necessarily about Misha Tate, which we'll talk about in just a second. But for Ketlin Vieira, here's the argument. If she's winning in first and second gear, why does she need third gear, especially if by the time you escalate the gears you escalate the risk i would argue that as we mentioned before uh combat sports is unfortunately like it or not an entertainment based sport so why does she need to go into third gear well she doesn't need to if she wants to win she might need to she wants to get a title shot that's the difference right she

can win and sort of get through the fight and and not put herself at risk she might need to do is she wants to get a title shot. That's the difference, right? She can win and sort of get through the fight and not put herself at risk. The smart thing to do if this is a sport-based system on meritocracy. If you want a title shot, maybe you need a little bit of a wow factor. Was she really in contention? I was thinking about this too. Was she really in contention for a title shot? I mean, Kunitskaya is ahead of her, and Kunitskaya already beat her, granted somewhat controversially, but still beat her. And then you have Aldana ahead of her as well.

I think Aldana beat her as well. It's like beating Tate was good for beating a name. There's simply no denying. But I'm not sure what it got her. Even if she had finished Tate, let's say this. Let's say she had finished Tate inside the third, right? Knocked her down, polished her off, boom. Would she still leapfrog the people in front of her who have wins over her?

I guess that's where I'm a little bit skeptical. I think before people said after the fact, like, okay, does she get the title shot now? I had actually not even thought about the winner of this fight going for a title. Misha maybe. And let's be honest, if the UFC wanted to sell more pay-per-views, Misha versus Amanda too probably still does more than Vieira Nunes too. Just because of the name value, right? So you're right in saying that, well, she beat a great name.

And that's a great name to have on her resume. But for those fights where you find a name and you want to sort of take some of that shine with you, you kind of have to do a little bit more we saw with leon edwards versus nate diaz i think leon's the only guy in the last like five years that granted there haven't been many who could fight nate and not come out with a bit of rub because of what happened in the fifth round you kind of have to really stamp your moment on those fights and she just didn't um so i don't think she should leapfrog the other two aldana knocks knocked her out. And actually, I wonder if her more conservative style has come from that knockout where she thinks, oh, God, I don't want to get put to sleep again.

Maybe that's part of it. But, yeah, I just don't, you know, it would be one of those fights, no disrespect to Megan Anderson, but when she got booked against Amanda, I think most people sort of had an idea of how that fight would go. And then it kind of went that way, right? I feel if we do that with Vieira it's going to be similar I just think people are going to kind of collectively shrug at it interesting here's my read on this I think you're right about the Aldana fight right because it wasn't like before that she didn't have decisions she had many of them including some splits but she had the arm triangle on Sarah McMahon and obviously earlier in her

career she had a series of stoppages as well. Since that loss to Aldana, it's been nothing but decisions. It's been up and down. She decisioned Eubanks. She lost one to Kunitskaya, which I thought was pretty close, but still she lost. And then she had this one, which was not very close, but in the end, there wasn't a huge gap between them either. That might have informed her judgment.

I also feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe this is the first time she's ever been in a main event. And so I tend to think that like, she was playing a game of, I don't want to ruin everything I've gotten to get to this point. And so, you know, the argument to me,

like was she somewhat conservative, I think is true. But for me, I'm not nearly as harsh on her about it as the commentary or perhaps some other folks. Just because I feel like, even if you got this win, now granted, I'm not nearly as harsh on her about it as the commentary or perhaps some other folks. Just because I feel like even if you got this win, now granted, I'm with you. If she had gotten some kind of dramatic win, hard to know exactly what would have happened. Maybe she could have rocketed to the top.

It's certainly possible, right? But even with a win, I still feel like she knows and the UFC knows it's not going to be enough to get it done. Especially with Aldano having the win and being ahead of her. They want to be enough to get it done especially with Aldano having the win and being ahead of her they want to develop that Mexican market if at all possible Aldano has been a staple of that for some time they probably would have gone in another direction so she this was a this was a super important win but not the not the one where she's on the precipice of something truly special and so for those reasons I don't I don't hate the calculus like for example I hate the calculus.

Like, for example, I hated the calculus that St. Pierre made in his fight with Dan Hardy when he would constantly get the takedown. He went for a couple of very, very deep submissions, but he was acting like at that time, Hardy's guard threat was so enormous, he could only keep him chest to chest and had difficulty really raining down ground and pound. To me, that was not a reasonable call in terms of assessing risk. But also, he was burned out at that point, and Dan Hardy was obviously a very, very tough challenge. What I'm saying is, as long as they're careful relative to what they're up against, I don't mind it.

It's when they're careful and the situation doesn't necessarily call for it. In this case, case first time main event former champion you're coming off of a loss i don't know man maybe being conservative is not the worst call in the world it's fair to say and there is an argument and i'm more open to hearing it after what you just said but i do think that okay it's a former champion it's a former champion who has retired for a while until very recently you know if you're going to fight a former champion who has retired for a while until very recently. If you're going to fight a former champion in a main event, that's a pretty nice position to get put in, especially since I wouldn't say you have a lot of name value amongst the fans.

That's a pretty big opportunity for yourself. So okay, yes, it's risk versus reward, but I would argue that the risk she was facing in that fight was outweighed by the reward she could have got if she'd have got the knockout and as well you mentioned about aldana and the mexican um territory they want to build i also think knowing dana white they are going to want to try and do an international event soon just as some sort of like flagpole like oh look we got to go and do an international event i told you motherfuckers and i feel like time i don't know about the situation but timing is everything i reckon they would like to see maybe just to feel the waters about if they could even go to brazil maybe sometime later next year if they

did brazil versus brazil in the main event i think that's an opportunity right there that could have happened if she'd got to finish now i don't so. Let me ask a serious question because for folks who may not know, how many times have you been to Fight Island? Every time. Every time. Every time. Jesus, that is... That is... I'm sorry.

Five weeks. Five weeks in a hotel room, baby. Jesus. You're single, right? You must be. Yeah. Slinging dick like a champion. Let me ask you this serious question

people can like the rules, they can hate the rules but they are what they are can the UFC do an international event with all the vaccination requirements outside of Fight Island seriously I think they'll try and do London London

yeah because I think there's so much COVID news these days, it's kind of like just flies past my face. I don't even know what's the current news. But I believe that in England they were looking at maybe instead of it being you can be vaccinated and then your quarantine and retirement are less. But if you're not vaccinated, as long as you show like multiple negative tests, I think you can still go in. So think they could try to do london especially they have like a roster that they can fill out that card internationally right so i think they can i think it depends

i think like canada just made it you have to be vaccinated so i think you're more likely to pull off an international event in england right now than you're in canada are the rules within i realize that uk is no longer in the eu but still still, is it easier, let me ask you this, is it easier to get to the UK, just in terms of the rules, from the United States or from other countries in Europe, like from France and Spain and Germany? Is there any different standard?

I believe it's a little bit easier in terms of the testing requirements once you get there, right? So when I fly home for Christmas, I have to take a test, even though I'm vaccinated, take a test before I fly, little bit easier in terms of uh the testing requirements once you get there right so when i fly home for christmas i have to take a test even though i'm vaccinated take a test before i fly and then i have to quarantine for two days over there and then take another test i believe if you're traveling into europe despite the fact we decided to leave them behind and tell them to fuck off um i think you can you don't have to do that second test once you arrive so i believe if

they were sending fighters there i could be completely wrong on this so don't have to do that second test once you arrive. So I believe if they were sending fighters there, I could be completely wrong on this, so don't crucify me if I am, but I believe they could send fighters there without having to put them in a hotel room for days. Fair enough. All right, let's talk about Misha Tate. Let's get back to the story at hand.

So she fell short here in her endeavors. Now, the scores were 149-46 and then 24 48-47s, if memory serves. I don't have the notes in front of me here for that, but I believe that's correct, which means she won a couple of rounds, right? By two judges thought she won a couple. She at least won one on all the judges' scorecards. How do you assess where she's at? She made a coaching switch. I'm not sure what benefit was conferred from her. I'm not saying there isn't one, but it's just hard to detect what it was. And she is, I think, with 34 now or so. I'll double-check that as well.

Like, in terms of getting back to the title, inside that top five space, obviously this was a setback. I guess my question for you is, how much of one? I think the shallowness of that division will always keep her near the top. Her and Holly Holm, I always feel, they're never more than two wins away from a title shot, really,

just because of the name value they've got over the years. So it probably isn't the biggest setback. You know, we were just talking about risk versus reward. It would have been a bigger setback for Vieira if she'd lost, right, than it has been for Tate. In terms of the performance, Misha Tate showed she was tough, durable and never willing to quit in a fight. But we kind of knew that already, right? Everyone points to her Holly Holm win as like her defining moment. And so we knew that about her anyway.

So I don't really feel like we saw much other than, you know, this sport evolves very, very quickly, even to this day and athletes taking a prolonged like years-long absence it's very very hard to overcome the differences that have happened in that sport since you've been away and she and i really like misha so i don't mean this disrespectfully but she comes from a time where she was at the top as a division was sort of forming right the skill sets back then much has made ronda's like ability to have one sort of real ability to win fights the skill sets back then amongst that division were a little bit more limited and a little bit more specialist. And she was always in that sort of vein. I wonder now if the sport has got to a point where she'll ever really be able to evolve and adapt and get new skills that are required to get her the wins that she'll need.

See, here's where I'm at on this one, man. And I think it's good news and it's bad news, right? Here's the good news. If you go back and you watch, I'm glad you referenced it. I would also argue, even though she lost this fight, Misha Tate versus that version of Kat Zingano, that was a hell of a scrap. And Kat Zingano put a beating on her and Tate never, I mean, she lost, but she never backed down. Like she was in that one to win it. But you're right about the, about the Holly Holm performance. She was at the end of her punches for four and a half rounds

just until she wasn't. The reason why she got the win, if you go back and you look at it, she was able to duck under, I think it was the cross of Holly Holm, so it would have been the right hand. She had to wait until the backhanded punch was moving forward at her for her to get underneath, and that's why it took her so long to win, because you had a very judicious Holly Holm, who knew how to, has great lateral movement,

is kind of on her feet all the time. She was taken down previously in that contest. But, you know, she was keeping Misha to take the end of her punches. Misha had to wait for just the narrowest of windows to find something, and she did. Credit to her, because she was a championship-level fighter at that time. Here, what I noticed was, she found a lot more windows to find something and she did credit to her because she was a championship level fighter at that time here what I noticed was she found a lot more opportunities to strike she wasn't and I was and obviously she was looking for the takedown there but what I mean to say was

she had a lot more clever entries a lot more understanding of position there were a couple of feints later on in the fight that were doing some good work not so much early on so what I'm trying to say is like clearly even with that time, if you want to reflect on what kind of fighter she was as a striker in the Holly Holm fight versus the Ketlin Vieira fight, she's much better. She's much better than she was. There's no denying that. But let me correct the record here. Number one, she's 35, not 34. 35 is not young. I grant with her name and the division, there's still obviously a lot for her to do there. But I guess the point I'm trying to make here is, Oscar, I can grant that she got better as a striker since that time.

How much is certainly debatable. It wasn't enough on Saturday, but she got better. The problem is the division also got better, and it looks like it has either maintained or kept the striking lead on her the entire time yeah it's a tough one as well right because what we're talking about here is can Misha get a title shot I'm sure Misha doesn't want a title shot she wants a title but the problem is as with the 125 pound division the champion is so dominant so you could argue

that okay her striking has evolved which I grant you I think it has too but even if her striking was still sort of acceptable amongst her peers Amanda's striking is just so far advanced that you can think like well is the victory her getting a title shot because surely she wants the championship right she wants a chance at redemption she wants to get that back but I think both you and I are talking as if like the title shot is the goal because we both know realistically that fight is likely going to go one way but then then it becomes a sort of thing like well if the title shot's the goal and not the championship itself why even come out of retirement i understand she's obviously enjoying it she wants to sort of you know have an experience without her previous relationship and stuff but it was sort of almost limiting her goals already based on what we saw of her skills on Saturday yeah yeah I think she did get

the one takedown but she couldn't do a whole lot with it so I was I was glad to see she chased it down I mean I said this on my post fight reaction immediately it's like did you see I in either case in either case did you see a fighter who was gonna beat Amanda Nunes and that's not exactly fair because you know Ketlin Vieira was fighting in a way I don't think

she would ever fight Amanda Nunes I think she would either try to get the takedown or probably just get knocked out along the way versus this one she was happy to work

behind her striking but that's sort of what I mean when you were talking about the stakes earlier it's like dude no matter who won here you were never going to be like

there's the person there's no Hamzat Shemayev at Women's bantamweight you know what I mean there's no boogeyman there storming through the ranks along the way so I guess we'll see last thing I'll ask you about this was the coaching change again it's I think our first time with this new coach for the fight so any kind of improvement might take some time what'd you make of it I didn't I I don't I don't i didn't see like an obvious upgrade but maybe that takes time yeah i didn't see an obvious upgrade i was a little bit surprised right um because so usually she was with eric nixick right from extreme couture and i would argue he's one of

the best coaches in the game right now obviously i don't know their personal situation maybe they had a falling out i don't know but i i was surprised to see that change i didn't see not to sort of limit the answer but i didn't really see any evidence of pro or negative you know he seemed to give solid corner advice but nothing that i thought was ever missing from her before um curious change probably one that she wanted to make personally um but yeah i didn't see any benefits but i didn't really see any takeaways either all right let's move to topic number four if we can let's talk about the co-main event Sean Brady gets a win over Michael Chiesa he gets it via unanimous decision 29-28 across the board but it got dicey along the way he had two eye pokes he had to suffer from Sean Brady did in the first round then he got his nose clipped it looked like him broken along the, but he still was able to get

back control in two of the three rounds. Here is my question for you. We'll talk about Michael Chiesa in just a second, but first, Sean Brady. This was his big sort of debut, right? Not his UFC debut, but here he was fighting a name, top-ranked opponent. By the way, I think if I remember this correctly, Chiesa was ranked somewhere like fifth or sixth in the division. Brady ranked 14th. Talk about a huge leap he might make. Tell me about the good and the bad you saw from Sean Brady. So I thought it was, there are certain guys who, if you fight, Chiesa's one of them. I think Neil Magny's probably one of them, where even if you win, it doesn't mean you're going to look very good while doing it. Just their styles tend to lead towards grueling fights that you need to really grit through and get a decision now for a younger guy like Sean Brady and you mentioned it was 16 to 14 to 6 I believe the jump

that's that's he mentioned post fight he felt the nerves he admitted that the media attention on this fight was much more he noted he was looking into the rankings and thinking man this is a big jump you know sort of having that imposter syndrome um so from that just getting the win in any shape or form is very good and something that he should feel very happy with the bad there was some talk before this fight of oh why is this the co-main event not the main event i would argue if that was a five round fight we'd be talking about a different winner the fight even towards the end i felt kiea was coming on stronger, and Sean was starting to tire. You know, listen, he's young, he's learning.

But I felt the fight was in the balance at the very least, right? So very important victory for him. One, I think he'll take a lot of lessons from and learn from, and a win over Chiesa is a very, very big deal to a guy at this stage of his career. I'm curious, however, if they then whip him up the rankings, he's going to be fighting very tough guys in that division whose styles might not help him out as much in terms of how he can match up against them. I'm reminded of, and not to the same degree, right, but I'm reminded when Darren Till fought at welterweight, right, they threw him up the rankings to a point where he probably wasn't

ready to fight those guys at the time he was fighting them. He still needs to improve. I wonder if they might sort of match Brady up with someone who won't get him the win, you know? It would be a step too far too soon. Yeah, I'm worried about that as well. So for me, here was the good. I was shocked at how well he could handle himself on the floor with michael

kiesa like i knew he was good don't get me wrong i thought here was what i thought ahead of time i thought i was so fucking wrong about this like i knew brady could win i've been high on sean brady for a long time but i thought what would happen was it would be a really close battle on the ground and like you know whoever just kind of edged it late would get it that was wrong because sean brady was like way better on the ground than michael kiesa which was shocking to me because kiesa was bigger he's fucking dude how he ever made 155 is i do not know right so that was shocking here was the other part that was shocking they were southpaw versus orthodox and like bud crawford against sean

porter obviously the lower level you had michael kiesa shutting down the jab from his right-handed stance, just constantly hand-fighting the front-lead hand of Sean Brady. Sean Brady couldn't get his striking going, and as a consequence, it was actually Michael Chiesa who, even against Neil Magny, had very, like, what do you want to say? Just the right kind of striking to facilitate wrestling and not get knocked out, right? But against Sean Brady, he kind of opened up, and he was landing on him I couldn't believe it so the bad for me was Sean Brady against um like Court McGee you go back and watch towards the end of that fight he had a little bit of an issue too so there's one issue where Brady has kind of faded in third rounds a little bit something to watch for the other part was I do think he's a good striker and overall maybe maybe a better one than Kiesa but the way that Chiesa matched him up and shut down that jab dude like on the one hand Chiesa

lost this fight that's two in a row on the other hand his striking appears to be way better than I thought it was so that's how I size these two up what about Michael Chiesa for you good and bad yeah and you actually hit the nail on the head this is going to be a loss that I don't think Chiesa should be too disheartened by. You know, Kieksa, for me, has always been kind of a bit of a one-dimensional fighter. You hit the nail on the head. Striking, good enough to facilitate the grinding sort of wrestling abilities. This fight, I thought he looked great.

He looked aggressive. He looked like he wanted to finish very, very strong with the striking. That's not something you usually see out of him. I think any time you can see an evolution of a fighter, it's a positive, even if they lost. I think he should, Sean Brady might be very, very good, you know. I do think he's got some things to work on, but he looks like a real prospect.

So, you know, maybe in a few years' time, of course, Kiersey lost to him. Why wouldn't he? Sean Brady's a motherfucker, you know. But I don't think Kiersey should be too disheartened, even if it is two in a row, you know? I think he'll drop down the rankings. He'll probably have to fight his way back up. But I see technical abilities in him now on his feet where I think that's,

for someone who's never shown anything like that, to be able to parry a jab, to be able to work on the feet and feel confident, he seemed comfortable on the feet, right? That's something I don't think I've ever really seen where he's just like, yeah, we'll stand and bang. I felt like he seemed comfortable on the feet. That's good for him.

So I think he should, a loss but positives in it. No doubt about it. And to your point, I think you were there for the post-fight presser. They were asking Sean Brady who he might want next. And he was like, oh, the winner of Wonderboy versus Bilal. Man, talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. Again, maybe he wins those fights.

I'm not here to say that he can't or that he won't. Jesus Christ, dude, that's a tall order for Sean Brady, is it not? Yeah, well, that's one of the things, right, where at bantamweight, for example, I would argue that anyone in the top 25 against anyone else in the top 25, to certain degrees, but basically any matchup, are crazy matchups. That division is so deep. So even if you're fighting your way up the rankings,

you're fighting against very good guys. So you're learning on the job a little bit quicker. Welterweight is a bit more top heavy, right? So he's just got to win over a very, very good guy. And now the only, like, you know, I don't know anyone who wants to fight Steven Wonderboy Thompson. You know, his style is so awkward and stuff like that.

And I think maybe Brady thinks there's a wrestling advantage there, which of course there is. But yeah, like you said, frying pan into the fire, I think. They've got to be very careful with him because he's a great prospect. And I don't, like, I saw people calling, like DC was desperate for him to call out a name. he was going to call out hamza i don't think

we should do that fight for a while you know let's let's leave that alone so i think he just just be careful learn lessons that others haven't managed the career to a little bit better just take do the tom aspinall route take your time work your way up find your skills as you progress yeah i like the Aspinall comparison. If I'm Sean Brady, I'm taking some fights against guys ranked 8, 9, and 10, not 5, 6, and 7 because as good as he was, if a guy like Michael Chiesa who hasn't shown a ton of ability, granted, I give it to him here, he did, but previously had not.

If he's shutting down your jab and getting the best of you, and in the Court McGee fight and in this fight, third round was a little bit, again, first two rounds he looked phenomenal, but in the third round of both of those fights he had some, I don't know if they were gas tank issues or what, but they were not strong rounds for him, and that is going to be something as you enter the top five, top six, seven space, you know, they're going to be absolutely unforgiving at that level.

There's going to be no mulligan there, so we'll have to see how it goes. All right, last topic, but certainly not least, Oscar, you were there in attendance. Who stood out to you in the weekend of MMA action who we have not yet discussed? Yeah, I know you wanted to talk about him, but I did want to give him a shout out. Adrian Yannis and the David Grant fight, it was the fight of the fight of the night right I mean they didn't have a lot of competition but I did think it was it was pretty good you know I thought that uh again man that division's just great but the other one I wanted to talk about was Talia Santos against Jojo Wood not Calderwood anymore Joanne Wood um you know things seem to have just not been clicking for Jojo for a while. So in that respect, you know, I really like her, so I don't want to, like, shit on her.

But I think when she loses, I'm not like, I can't believe she just lost. You know, she can find a way to lose sometimes. But for Sandoz, I mean, what a performance, right? She came out, did what? On a card where there's, like, zero finishes, to just get a finish means you stand out, right? So just to stand out, that's the thing that matters to me. So it's tough, right? Because I wouldn't say

the card was something that we're going to go and tell our grandchildren about, other than maybe to say don't ever watch that one or I'll hit you. But I think it was something that we can... That one to me was the one that stood out the most. Tyler Santos is a fucking hammer. She's a hammer

she looks like she's in great shape number one and then number two she kept finding a home for that right hand through the course of that fight she was going high she was going low and then once she had wood rocked it was you could see her she was on her like white on rice the devastating finish and then interestingly started to choke over the jaw and then cinched it under the neck at the final uh pull of it she definitely looked like a contender to pay attention to with Calderwood I don't know what to say exactly I don't know where she is at in her career obviously she just got married and changed her name and everything so that's great from the personal side of things John what a great coach over at Syndicate. But I don't know if that title shot's ever going to happen for her.

Yeah, it's funny because I feel like there's certain people on the roster who they want to give a title shot to. For whatever reason, they have it in their head, they want to give a title shot to. I feel like she's one of those girls where she's got a bit of a name, she's got a bit of a fan following. So why not let's get her in a title shot against a dominant champion? We don't have anyone else.

And I feel like they've always sort of been waiting to give her that opportunity. And for whatever reason, usually because she kind of loses that last fight, it's never really happened for her. And at this point, you kind of wonder, you know, you just got beat by another contender. Pretty, pretty one-sided affair. And in fact, if we look at this fight and how Santos performed versus the main event, I think we see the difference between like, okay, you're now a title contender we can discuss and

here we can't discuss right um but yeah as far as her career personally she seems to be thriving seems to be loving life uh something's missing on the fight side i don't think she needs to change coaches i think syndica is a great team i think her coach is great but um yeah man maybe she just found her ceiling maybe she found her level, you know? It's certainly possible. Women's flyweight, finally. I don't know if Santos is the person to beat Valentina Shevchenko, but she at least looks like an interesting, in-shape, sturdy contender.

We'll see what she can do to rise up the ranks. I'm going to go, by the way, shouts to Hanna Yaya. I tweeted this on Saturday night. Yes. Everyone's like, jiu-jitsu ain't shit in MMA. And I'm like, okay, well, its influence has certainly waned relative to how it started. But, dude, you get guys like Hanayaya and Demian Maya who, for basically almost decades, Hanayaya made his WEC debut in 2007.

So in the aughts he was fighting fighting in the 2010s. He was fighting. Here we are in the 2020s. This motherfucker is still fighting and beating UFC level fighters. Now he's not close to a title shot or anything like that. And he's never going to be, but dude, for all the talk about, Oh, jujitsu ain't shit in MMA. Fucking Yaya, who granted is special. Maya, very special. Both those guys are very special. They're still competing and winning on more or less jujitsu alone. So for them, maybe jujitsu is pretty important. Yeah, I think also, you know, you mentioned he's not close to a title shot,

but that doesn't, a title shot is not a bust or like you either get it or it's a bust for a career. So I think to even fight for that period of time in a sport that is relentless about giving people losses, to even be still around, still be fighting UFC caliber fighters and still winning fights, that is a great career in fighting. That is a living you've made off fighting.

Not everyone gets to go out there and be Jose Aldo or some legend or Habib or Conor or anyone. You know, some people are just the middle of the road guys who win and lose. But to do that for a consistent period of time like he has, or Conor, or anyone. You know, some people are just the middle-of-the-road guys who win and lose. But to do that for a consistent period of time like he has, that's something to be proud of.

No doubt about it. And also, we'll talk about Adrian Yanez and Pat Sabatini on the extra podcast that I do, Morning Combat Extra Credit. All right, that is our top five topics. It is now time, Oscar, for us to hear what the fans have to say. It is time for DMs from donks. Let me pull up my donks here. Did they send them to me? Hee-haw, as Brian would say.

Hee-haw. Sorry, Alfin. Yeah, here we go. I think they sent them to me somewhere. Just throw them up on the screen. I'll read that shit. I don't need to see it. Here, throw it up on the screen.

Donks. All right, from TheRealKCarter. somewhere just throw them up on the screen I'll read that shit I don't need to see it here throw it up on the screen donks all right from the real k carter is terrence crawford the most poorly managed slash promoted boxer of the last 25 years let me answer this one if I may first oscar normally I pitch to you but I want to take this one I actually don't think he is poorly promoted managed maybe but there is some blame on him to go around on this one so here's what i mean dude top rank did not do a great job of ultimately finding the highest level opponents he could face in the most meaningful bouts like you would agree amir khan at one time quite a big name amir khan sucked in that fight he got hit once kind of low and then he just quit he just quit and i like amir khan i, but that was a terrible showing by him. You know, that's not going to do much for Bud Crawford.

But, dude, top-ranking ESPN, they made him look pretty good in terms of promoting fights, given what they had available to them. I do think that is true. Also, you could argue, why did Crawford two, three years ago, three, four years ago maybe actually somewhere around the three-year mark he signed with top rank back then so he was already in his 30s he could have gone to PBC which even then we knew had the best welterweights and he decided to go with top rank instead so like he has some some some blame to go around I don't think he was poorly

promoted maybe poorly managed Oscar but that's not that's not entirely someone else's fault yeah i think a lot of you hit the nail on the head for me i think a lot of people are going to look at how it ended and sort of think that was consistent throughout the whole relationship but you're right top rank tried i think crawford actually has to be acknowledged as he's not exactly like i don't he's not uh not interested in media he seems to actively hate it well in a sport where you kind of have to do a bit of self-promotion as well that's hard to work with i'm sure it's really difficult for them when he doesn't want to do stuff and he just you know kind of feels like i'm the best so i should just be considered the best

i'm sure it wasn't wasn't easy for them too so i think there's some blame to go around and as far as like is he the worst in 25 years uh i mean the names don't come to mind but you can pick any boxer and usually they've been treated like shit somewhere so he might not be the worst one but there are probably others but i think i would agree with you that that's not that's not a blameless scenario he's put himself in no certainly not uh you could also argue you know to what extent is demetrius andre who won over the weekend is he poorly promoted slash managed and whatever else but dude in boxing there's a lot of hands in the pot if someone went wrong it's usually the fault of a few different entities sorry just to compare you know then you look at like someone like amir khan who had no business

being in those fights on ability, but he's been able to manufacture and promote his way into them. That came from himself. I don't really think he had this massive team behind him as much as he just was like, I want a medal. That's pretty cool. That's basically all he dined out for years. Right.

That's a good point. All right. From Khalid Badun, who I'm sure I'm mispronouncing. Man, this is a tough one. Analyze and pick Terrence Crawford versus Floyd Mayweather, but from their primes at 147. So you've got an offensive genius versus a defensive genius in their primes at 147. I don't even know where to start with this one.

You want to take a crack at it? I mean, I will take a crack at it. I think Crawford is very, very good. I think he's going to be considered a generational talent. I think people forget, you know. Floyd, I was always curious about Floyd's legacy once he retired because I wondered if maybe absence would make the heart grow fonder. And then he just never went away.

He liked to stick around and fight Logan Paul and stuff. So maybe that's why 9's really sort of elevated him to this you know absolute legend like may uh like muhammad ali or someone like that you know because of unability wise i think floyd's one of the best of all time in any way ever i think he's just fantastic um he's not a very likable guy so maybe that's part of it but i think there's some recency bias here i think i think mayweather to this day i mean is the most defensively sound boxer best defensively sound boxer i've ever seen or know of and i think he would still win that fight i think people are kind of forgetting just how good he was in his career and i think a lot of that is based on recency bias and based on the

fact he's a bit of a twat. I don't know. I'm trying to think this through. Guys who gave him trouble with speed elements, which to an extent Crawford has, because he came up from lightweight even before even getting to welterweight. So he could match him in speed. Actually, I don't know about that. He would be formidable with speed. Would he be Zab Judah level? I don't know about that he would be formidable with speed

like would he be zab judah level i don't know about that but he would be formidable dude that's a i don't know that's a really tough call i because crawford crawford has so many different tools in the tool uh set or chest or whatever metaphor you want to pick that he can go to that it's really hard to know like what would Floyd show him constantly that he couldn't overcome I'm not sure I know the answer to that it's a great it's a phenomenal question and you're right dude people people people sleep on Floyd a little bit because they don't either don't like him or the shit he did or you know whatever this fight in that fight they paid for pay-per-view and it wasn't super action-packed or you know whatever the issue may be um but dude in his prime he was

fucking good he was yeah i think it's one of those ones as well with floyd's a funny one because yeah i remember during his sort of peak you know you tune in the fight would be what it was because floyd kind of just defensively did enough where he was never in trouble and he would do the sport of boxing right hit not get hit didn't give a shit if the fans left pissed off probably preferred it in fact um but he also had this sort of unique ability to basically show like you just sort of mentioned there he showed the opponents just what they needed for him to win right against Canelo he completely defensively shut him out just counted and just sort of let this young guy burn himself out and just was a master class I don't know what he shows Crawford

but if I could pick anyone to say that he'll have something in his locker that would suit that fight to get him to win mayweather's that guy who can produce it the one thing I'll say is Crawford gets hit a bit people were saying I argued on Saturday night he doesn't get hit clean very often which I do maintain is true but people do make contact with him a fair bit Floyd could give him trouble there because he could defensively roll change up the looks and then tag him enough to win rounds

but dude any fight between them you know is going the distance and you know it's going to be close it's going to be really close the real answer is they would never have fought in their prime because they wouldn't have done it. So there you go. I think in his prime, Floyd took some decent chances and some risks,

but I do think late prime, post prime, he was definitely handpicking. All right, from DootNStrong, whatever the fuck that is, who wins in a grappling match between Gordon Ryan and Habib, submission only? Let me think. Man, it's a tough one, right? Because there's MMA grappling

and then there's grappling, grappling, right? Maybe this is controversial. You're more up to speed and smarter than me about the grappling side of things but for me it's just very hard to imagine khabib looks monstrously strong right there's just something about him even for his weight at 155 although he rarely fought at that you know even for his weight he he looks like the sort of guy who's so dense and strong he could out muscle like a middleweight or a light heavyweight even you know he looks crazy strong and it's hard for me i remember when tony khabib was a factor people

thought that tony's active guard would somehow get khabib in trouble i don't know if khabib has ever given anyone enough breathing space to let those sort of attacks happen so for me i don't know how it goes but i find it hard to imagine habib on top being able to be manipulated when he's so strong and so adept at just holding people in place see i have a i have a different read on this i mean again they the good news is any type of rule set is going to change the equation to a degree right so if they had mma rules and they were grappling on the mat if there was submission only which he articulates here or points or whatever. The rule set is going to dictate who

is going to have a little bit more luck than the other in certain cases. But in this particular case, and even maybe without it, I'm going to pick Gordon Ryan to win and I'm going to pick him quite handily. I'll say this for Habib. I watched his tutorial that he put out on BJJ Fanatics, which of course

is merely a tiny little window into his overall ability. And it was interesting, but a lot of what he does is incredible. But a lot of what he does is also a function of feel from day one. Here's what I mean. He likes to wrestle with his legs against someone else's legs. We've all seen him kind of sit in a mount where his opponent's back is along the the fence and their legs are stretched out in front of him and Habib is on top. He did it to Conor, right? Where he would kind of lace the legs together. One of the things he talks about is he has a few guides to how to control that position. But what he basically also says is

I've been sitting in this position for two decades. Basically, I've been doing this for forever. I've got a certain kind of muscular feel of this position that I've just mastered over time that he basically says, like, you're not going to get there unless you just spend time working in this position. That's dominant, especially for MMA when you're like, you know, the threat of getting punched is so, like, immediate that you have to use your hands to react to it in a submission only grappling match you know you're asking me a Gordon Ryan is significantly bigger he's going to be well into the 200s number one and number two dude like dude Gordon Ryan is telling the world in hour hour hours long he did I think eight hours just on half guard entries into like sweeps or something. And he is putting

the blueprint out for his game. He put out just an instructional video on all of his ADCC matches from the last ADCC and how he went through and beat all of them. Danaher is also putting out all this new wave stuff. These guys are literally releasing the blueprint to their contemporaries and they still can't do shit to them. It's kind of unbelievable to watch. There was a recent video on Bernard O'Farrill's channel on Gordon Ryan, how to get out of the body triangle. Dude, the level of technical ability and understanding that he shows is far beyond what I've ever seen, at least in Nogi, from anybody else. It's not even close.

And I know Gordon Ryan has a lot of views that a lot of people don't like, and that's fine, but that has nothing to do with what the question is here, operatively assessing just how good Gordon Ryan is. So I'm going to say, between the size factor, which I think even you would agree would be a big thing for Habib to overcome, or at least an important factor anyway, and then I think the level of technical specificity that he employs relative to the muscular

kind of position hold that Habib employs, I think Gordon Ryan would, I think he would crush him, actually. I think it comes down to what you said as well. It's a rule set, right? And this one was defined for us. But once you start adding punches and things, things can change.

But I would grant you, I will stand myself convinced and say in a submission only thing you're probably right all right let's move on it'll be fun to watch let's go to it's not cage fighting they ask this is a better question for you because your job requires that you be there for these shits i can just punt if i want to but okay at it's not cage fighting are weak fight nights similar to viera versus tate running the risk of diluting the ufc product running the risk they've been doing that forever what's up what do you think i'll tell you when you're sitting in there it feels like it's fucking deleted um well it goes two ways right i think i would argue that the reason the pay-per-views currently feel so special are because they're the only one with fans, right? So they feel different. And some of that difference comes from not seeing it regularly. When they do fights every Saturday, yeah, man, like, I'll say this from a person who covers these fights, and maybe this is condemnation of myself, sometimes, like, people will get on the scale and i'll be like wait who's this fucking guy again like if it's

early prelims and stuff like this is just so much of it so often so frequent it can almost be hard to cover um sometimes so with that said i would say yes their product has been diluted the flip side of that is i think they quite like their products being diluted. The more of it, the more consistent, the stronger the brand becomes over the individual fighters. I don't know who I'm watching on Saturday. I'm watching the UFC, though. That sort of thing, right? So I think I would argue their product has been diluted. But I think it's almost they would rather it get to the point where it's basically every weekend, just so they have consistent momentum.

That, listen, like it or not, Dana managed to get going during the pandemic. And I would suspect the relationship with ESPN is incredibly strong because of that. And I think they're just constant, like, here's content, here's content, here's content. It's not great for building a wow factor, a special factor. Like, heavyweight boxing fights feel big because they never happen between the guys we want to see them against. UFC's on every Saturday.

I do think it dilutes the product, but I think that's a situation they're almost happy with. It's a weird situation. I think the building of the Apex has been way more impactful than we've ever really discussed, right? So for one, it was a bit of the alamo situation in las vegas during the pandemic it's weird now right because during the pandemic they had the

pandemic's not over but you know what i mean like when it was quarantines and shit like that here in the united states um it's interesting right because now you watch sports and everyone's back in full or semi-full arenas everywhere, UFC's still at the apex or Fight Island. And as you mentioned, you have the occasional pay-per-view that they venture out to, but they haven't done that a whole lot. And also what's kind of interesting is you combine the fact that they have this facility where they control the production. They can pump out a fight card nearly every weekend. One, it always puts the competitor on the media back foot because even if the whole card is weak they can usually at least still preserve

an a level or semi a level name for the main event and that by itself kind of hurts bellator or whoever else is trying to put out content and also you're right like they'll have these weak ass cards but then the pay-per-views are these fucking extreme, you know, 267 and 268 on back-to-back weeks. I mean, answer the question, dude. Name another promoter who could even do that. There isn't even another promoter in the space that could match that on their best day, and they know it. So why the fuck do they care? Especially when they've been a huge leader for ESPN plus they're constantly putting content on there for him it's always fresh you're always if you if you missed it you have to go back and check in the ESPN plus app or whatever it's a it's in every way the apex has been a giant win for them

other than don't you find it weird that they're dude the UFC used to be like the road machine like that was what they did now Now they're the home team. It's a bit of a switch. Well, I think there's another factor about the Apex, right? Is they don't have to sell tickets there. So if they're getting paid by ESPN to provide them content, they can headline with a Jessica I, Cynthia Calvillo, because they don't need to rely on the game ticket sales

that they would have to get. You have to put on a strong main event. If you go to like fucking bumfuck wherever, you have to put on something that's going to get people through the door so i think they've probably realized like well for some cards it's better for us to save our travel costs and you know it's a massive machine moving it anywhere right it's huge it's a lot of expense in that and i wonder if maybe they've worked out sort of an algorithm where they think this card we can expect to make this much revenue from traveling versus if we keep it here, we get to do it like this. You know, I think the apex, you're right.

Talk about the timing on that, man. Like, you know, they build a building they could put fights on and then they shut the world shut down. So that was the only place they could do it. I mean, tremendous by luck or whatever, like working the way that worked out for them. Yeah, I think the the apex it's curious right because dane has always wanted to get back on the road and now you can tell he clearly doesn't whether that's just because he can just drive down the street to work or not i'm not sure but i wonder if they've reached a point now where it's sort of um we don't need to travel we can stay here

dude i mean espn that two of the most insignificant changes for UFC, it appears to me, or the pandemic forced some of this, right? But the Apex building and the ESPN deal, and this is overly simplifying the matters. I'm just identifying two things among other factors. I also think that other promoters aren't as powerful in the space as they used to be. Like, Bellator is not as powerful as Strikeforce. So you have greater control of the market. You are aligned with the, if not the, the top brand in all of sports basically. Like covering tennis, covering soccer, covering everything.

And then on top of it you have this facility where you can in this deal obviously with espn with this facility where you have all this ability where you don't have to go on the road you can still go on the road for big pay-per-views but even then you don't necessarily have to your cash flush because of this espn deal it's been a reward for them because you already had a digitally native audience dude like they don't need to do hardly any of the same shit they ever did because the ESPN deal has elevated their brand. I mean, for folks who are watching MMA Now who maybe didn't watch a few years ago,

it was not like this with Fox Sports, and I can assure you it was not like this with Spike TV. The brand has never been hotter, and they're doing far less work to get there. Why wouldn't they just stick around yeah i also think there's a there's a this is going to be an oversimplification but to me mixed martial arts is pre-espn deal and post-espn deal to me the sport feels so different since they got that deal that it's i don't know if you feel the same certainly working as a leech on this beautiful

sport of ours i felt my numbers go up since that deal it's just more available to more people and as and i think another sort of very important factor is their ability to go through the pandemic when very few others were and their ability to go through the pandemic i mean at the beginning of the pandemic people were betting on marble racing. That's how much people were starved for content. The fact that the UFC managed to get going during that, get consistent, I think that combined with the way ESPN has pushed them

means the sport is almost unrecognizably more popular than it was perhaps even five, seven years ago. Yeah, there's no... Dude, 20... So let's say seven years ago, you know? Yeah, there's no, dude, 20, so let's say seven years ago. So 2014, 2014 was when the UFC was doing, and I'm not making this up, they were doing shows in Brazil in a place called Uberlandia.

Uberlandia is how it's kind of spelled if you say it in English. You know, they're never fucking going back there. That was at the time, you know what I mean? They were trying to stoke that Brazilian market. They were constantly on the road and blah, blah, blah. That shit is fucking over these days. It's an interesting time. Last but not least here from Timmy Tux.

This is a question to me, but I'll reframe it for you in a way. Luke, you have mentioned watching fights on mute, yes. But have you ever tried watching them in Spanish? Last night was my first time and I felt I was more able to focus on the action while also experiencing the sound effects and some commentary so I've talked to

Danny Segura about this he listens to the Spanish commentary pretty consistently and he loves it he actually feels like he gets a lot out of it that way my Spanish is okay but I would be concentrating so much on what they're saying to understand it that I probably wouldn't be able to dig into the fight.

Here's the basic argument I've made, though, about the commentary. Let's talk about Daniel Cormier here for a second here, Oscar, if we can. This is my problem with the commentary. People misunderstand my argument a little bit. This is not me bashing commentary to say I could do a better job. In fact, quite the opposite. I don't know of anyone out there who could do, at least event to event, a better job. In fact, quite the opposite. I don't know of anyone out there who could do, at least event to event, a better job than who they've got. They've got

Daniel freaking Cormier. They've got Michael Bisping. They've got Paul Felder. These fuckers know what they're doing. I think they're a little bit hamstrung with the UFC not wanting them to criticize certain things, but in terms of their knowledge of MMA, what is anyone else going to say that they don't already know? That's not the issue. The issue for me is, one, they tend to get like, sometimes they start talking like it's a podcast, where they're just kind of having these free-flowing conversations independent of the fight, which is fine, but can get weird over time.

The other problem is, it's nothing they can fix. Dude, MMA is so fast and so difficult to uncover that during the course of a fight, what these guys say oftentimes bears little resemblance to what actually influenced the result. And people think when I say that, I'm saying I could do better. No, I would do much worse. But what I'm saying is if even the very top guys have difficulty identifying the actual factors that contributed to it, like something you can only get with tape study after the fact. There's a question about how much value you're getting

from the commentary overall. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it seems to me more so than it has been in a long while, the topic of the commentary has come up more and more. People seem to be, almost every event having an issue. Daniel Cormier last Saturday for example, was criticized heavily for some of his commentary.

I like, for the most part, I like their commentary. But I wonder if, related to what we just spoke about, if it's overexposure. We have to hear these guys every single week. And then slowly over time, their perhaps less strong abilities of their commentary become more obvious flaws. And because we hear it so often it's like oh he's doing that thing again like right away and it become immediately more annoying than perhaps it was a while ago i will say that cormier i really like cormier so this is not necessarily a massive criticism of him i do think that sometimes maybe on an event like last

saturday where some of the fights are a little bit rougher i can see his interest kind of wane throughout the event and i think if he has a partner like a Joe Rogan Joe Rogan was different because he's only pay-per-views but if he has a partner like Michael Bisping or Paul Felder it can sort of turn into like you know I'm not really watching this I'm just fucking around with my friend here which in in in spaces like I can find that quite fun to listen to I can find the back and forth entertaining I think it's quite unique to listen to. I can find the back and forth entertaining. I think it's quite unique to MMA in a certain respect that we have some guys just screaming

and sort of bro-ing down with their friends. I think it's just when you have to hear it all the time that it starts to, you know... Daniel Cormier has never been more visible than he is now because of all of his duties, all of his shows, and because of his regular status as commentator. And I wonder if maybe it's sort of like Cormier fatigue that's pissing people off rather than how bad he actually is.

If he did one show a month, I wonder if he would get shit on as much as he does. Yeah, Michael Bisping, I don't feel like, gets nearly as much criticism. And Paul Felder, I don't think he... Yeah, I would say that the guy who tends to get the most criticism, well, Rogan tends to get the most criticism, well, Rogan tends to get the most, but for a lot of other reasons.

But DC number two, but to your point, DC is more ubiquitous. And also, like, DC, he does actually what a commentator, I think, is supposed to do. Now, you can like the version of it that they give, or you can dislike it, but he's trying to give... You know, he's trying to influence the audience in the way in which he sees the sport. Like that's what he was hired to do. I think a lot of times people are like, oh, I don't like his views rather than understanding him. Him delivering these views is the objective and they get, they confuse one challenge with the other. That's all I'll say on that.

Yeah, I think it's also a weird one, right? I feel with Rogan, a lot of the criticism is he finds a narrative to a fight, and then will stick to that, like, you know, his theories and his views on the world. He'll just stick to them and never change. But I think he'll stay on that, and I think that can be really annoying as a listener.

When he was, the one that comes to mind is Adesanya versus Jan Blakovic, he was ignoring on that and i think that can be really annoying as a listener when he was the one that comes to mind is adesanya versus jan blakovich he was ignoring everything that jan does because he went into the fight thinking adesanya is this elite level striker he's amazing his feint work is so good that that was all he was seeing he wasn't actually seeing how the fight was really going with cormier well he does that if rogan's there because i get i get the sense that cormier wants like rogan to really like him. And you can actually hear sometimes their dynamic, like Cormier will backtrack on something if Rogan disagrees with him. I think he wants Rogan to like him.

But sometimes when DC's not with Rogan, he's saying stuff that you might disagree with. But at the end of the day, I suspect most of the people disagreeing with him aren't former world champions. To some degree, you kind of have to trust that the commentator might be seeing something you're not. I suspect most of the people disagreeing with him aren't former world champions so you can't to some degree you kind of have to trust in the commentators might be seeing something you're not also we have better angles we're more relaxed you know we're not doing a hundred things at once we don't have someone in our ear it's not an easy job you point it to yourself it's not an easy job so I think Cormier gets a lot of criticism that I don't think is necessarily always fair I do think sometimes he can sort of

get a bit on the rogan train but i think cormier is uh almost underappreciated i think cormier is pretty pretty a good considering his way when he came on and started he was such a great addition i just think people have sort of forgotten that actually you know that there has been worse put it that way yeah my only complaint about cormier aside from, you know, do I always agree with his ideas about MMA? No, but he's paid to give them, so that's fine. The only thing I have an issue with is when you mentioned some of the chumminess. Like there are times when he and Rogan are together and it's a giggle fest. And it's like this is highly distracting.

I like Dominic Cruz and Rogan because Cruz, is he as bubbly and vibrant as DC no he's not but one I think his analysis is incisive number one and number two because he's kind of like he's a he's a bitter old man in a young man's body kind of you know he kind of uh he he checks Rogan a lot like he's like no that's not true like no look at this blah blah blah so he acts as like a countervailing force there and he doesn't try to play the chum chum game either to me it works out better well we might just be sort of cynics who enjoy that sort of stuff but sometimes when it's him and rogan or even cruising cormier it's a bit like being at someone else's dinner party and you realize the hosts have been arguing in the kitchen you know you're just like listening oh i think

there's a bit of tenseness i enjoy it but um i think if that i also think if that was regular like if that was every week i would sort of get a bit annoyed at just like this uh sudden frosty comment followed by seconds of dead air and then someone goes nice jab and they sort of try and carry on as if they're not clearly like bickering um so maybe i'd get bored of that too. I just think it's a, like we, like we said, Matt, it's every weekend.

It's, it's the same sort of stuff every time. No wonder people get bored of it. All right. Well that we have one last segment to get to. It is odds and ends. Oscar Willis, give me something that's happening in the fight game or something else we just didn't get to that is worthy of a quick mention.

What do you have for me for odds and ends? Well, I sort of just really paid attention this morning, but I'm going to point out Jon Jones, a guy who's rarely in the news. He's really usually just completely forgotten about. Jon, he said that it's been 60 days sober. And then I think our friend Mike Bond said, well, the incident happened 58 days ago. I think Cormier even responded sort of laughing at it.

And it was the same weekend, ironically enough, that John Jones announced he was having a grappling match with Bellator heavyweight Jake Hager, who then said, no, we aren't. I've not been told about this. And then John since deleted that tweet, as he likes to do, deleted the tweet announcing that grappling thing. My overall arcing point is that John, for someone who would benefit from not being heard about for a while

and sort of, you know, I don't know how much Fonda is really applicable here, but the old term absence makes the heart go Fonda. I mean, for someone who could benefit from that a lot, he really tries his utmost to never let that happen. And, you know, he just has a weird thing with tweets. I mean, a while ago, he did the the big tweet storm after after the gym kicked him out. And, you know, he said some very personal things in there that he immediately deletes. And I can't really comment on those until you actually speak to the guy

about it. But he, he, it's almost like John Jones is just a massive overshare at all times. And I don't really know why I think, I don't know why either. He has this desire for us to know what his narrative of events are, which is,

you know, you can make of that what you will. I, to me, it's like like let me know when the ufc announces something with what he's doing because anything else he says to me is i'm not saying it's false i don't know if it's false but it's utterly unreliable and doesn't mean much um so it's always done to paint him in a better light you know so it's not like it's not 60 days since this pretty obviously horrific incident it's 60 days since i became a better person well you know let's see about that all

right yeah yeah yeah uh for me it was simple one i kind of teased it on friday over the weekend and then it happened uh hamzat shemayev had a grappling match with fellow ufc well hamzat can do middle weight and welterweight so i'll call him fellow UFC middleweight, Jack Hermansen. I believe this was in Sweden, somewhere in Europe, and it was weird. You can see it here. Chemayev comes up on top. They had wrestling shoes, but it was kind of no-gi. I had a buddy of mine score it.

Some people said it was a shutout for Chemayev. It wasn't. It was closer to like eight four eight points to four but either way chamaya won against her manson but here's the bigger takeaway i had from this obviously it's not mma you know be careful what you're reading to it but dude for a guy who can make welterweight and beat people's ass there him muscling jack her manson around who is a big middleweight and a strong grappler himself pretty fucking alarm pretty fucking alarming dude i think i think these these welterweights i don't know how far maybe all the way to the title i don't know

but i think there's a bunch of welterweights who are in trouble dude i think finally we're seeing a bit and by the way i will say this as the match wore on her manson made a bunch much better account of himself so we'll see if chamayev when he gets pushed into the third and fourth round, what he looks like. But for him to be this good, this competitive, pretty fucking amazing. Yeah, and I mean, just what a specimen of a, you know, the guy's fucking huge and he looks like he wrestles bears and oxes and shit. For me, he just, you mentioned it and I saw you put it on Twitter as well.

If you could survive the onslaught that comes at you from the... They started wrestling before the people had left the cage. That's how quick he wants to get into shit. I don't think Hamza Shamayev is happier than when he's attacking someone. I feel like that's his happy place.

He has to go out and beat people's fucking shit in to get a good kick that day he his onslaught is so crazy it's it's almost i want to say unlike anything i've seen for a long long time in mma just the relentlessness the chain wrestling just the ability to be on you from the moment it starts we'll see what happens after that fades it'll be interesting i don't really know how many people i could count who i could reliably say i expect them to last it you know interesting i don't really know how many people i could count who i could reliably say i expect them to last it you know well i'll say this it actually reminds me a little

bit of connor people folks will be like what connor hear me out for a second hear me out for a second in every there are meaningful differences uh in part because i don't think connor would start fights shot out of a cannon in the way that Hamzat is. I mean, what I tweeted was, listen, either you can match this intensity or opponents will try, or you can't and you'll play a rope-a-dope. But like whoever fights Hamzat Chermayev, you got to figure out what to do with an opponent who is going to start the round at maximum intensity. And he's going to keep it there, by the way, for some time.

Maximum intensity. Conor didn't have maximum intensity. And he's going to keep it there, by the way, for some time. Maximum intensity. Conor didn't have maximum intensity. But what I will say is, and I actually have a video on my personal YouTube channel about it, Conor would start the first round, and we're talking about not the current version, but the one that, say, fought Eddie Alvarez, right? Let's be generous about it for a second.

He would start that fight with the intensity and focus of, I know you've been in America for a while now, a batter going to the batter's box, bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded. You need to be, this is it. You need to be dialed in. He always had, or I think I wrote what he had was he had game seven intensity. Right?

So best of seven series. One team wins three. Another team wins three. You're now in the seventh game. Dude, if you're going to win that game, you know, you already can tell both teams are, you know, roughly evenly matched. It's about who wants it more. Dude, he would always fucking start those fights dialed in.

And as you could tell, his opponents were taking some time to kind of get into it, which is natural, right? A lot, most fighters do that. but there are certain fighters in different ways in different ways and folks like oh my god he compared Hamzat to Connor what I am saying is there are certain guys Hamzat is insanely intense but there are certain fighters who can start with a higher level of intensity and focus and it causes problems you see it in the fight game to an extent Connor's one of those guys as well. And probably related, and this is a bit more of a hippie way of saying this,

but there are certain guys who we talk about momentum in fighting a lot, but intensity, right, where you can just sort of feel their presence in the cage. Certainly when Conor was rising up, he just had this aura about him of inevitability. He was going to come out, and you were going to fight. You know, he could lose the fight, but you knew he was going to start like a present.

Hamza is exactly the same way. I mean, him picking up Li Jing, sorry, butchering his name, him picking up the last guy in his fight,

walking over to Dana. Yeah, Li Jing. When he walked over to Dana screaming and shouting while holding a man man above his head, probably the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. It was literally just terrifying.

The crowd's roaring. He's going, get me Brock Lesnar. It's like, shit, this guy's a problem. Amazing. Well, that is it for us. We normally do have you seen this shit, but that's such a Brian Campbell special that we're going to leave it off for today.

Oscar, tell the good folks how they can find your work please uh i'm on instagram and twitter oscar s willis i started a weekly show with dan hooker called pub talk that's on the mac life youtube um i get drunk and talk about banging little people usually um so it's good it's family friendly watch it with the kids and yeah that's basically me i want to say luke thank you very much for having me on the show man i really appreciate it real quickly before the dan hooker thing how did that come about because why he is he stuck in the states is that it well the bastard actually just got back into new zealand so he's killed it before it's even got started but um no we were we were in abu dhabi and uh i just walked past him in the corridor and i

was just like dan you're in vegas right he said yes i'm in the corridor and I was just like, Dan, you're in Vegas, right? He said, yes, I'm in Vegas for the foreseeable future. I said, do you want to do a show in a pub every week? And he said, yeah, I've got fuck all else to do. And that was the end of that. And actually what people don't realize is Dan and I do not talk until he sits down and put the mic on. We don't talk about it before the show. We don't talk about it after the show. He gets up and just walks out the moment it's done. We have no discussion, no prep time or anything. So it's what you see is essentially us talking apart from I email him saying this time

this date and he says okay we have no discussion outside that show it's pretty weird but it seems to work that's interesting

give me before you go give me a story from Fight Island doesn't have to be with fighters per se but give me a sense of Fight Island

what it was like there's a few stories that I won't be I don't want to get a call from the ufc about so i can't really reveal them but maybe one time over a beer i'll share with you stuff it was uh it was a little bit like summer camp as kids you know where it started off it was exciting and it was cool and then you know four and five weeks being around the same people you know i don't even like being around my parents for four or five weeks being around these people

that you're kind of just shoved into a situation and there's no escape you're in for the lot for the uh for one of them we weren't allowed to leave the hotel we'd have to go out the hotel onto a bus to the arena onto the bus back to the hotel you weren't allowed to be exposed to the outside world uh so when you're around a lot of people for that length of time, it was fucking brutal. They did. And then for the first few, they had drink specials at the bar where it was either buy one, get one free. Or for soccer games, they would have you pay $20 at the beginning of the game. And for 90 minutes, you could drink all you want. Well, when you have nothing else to do, that's a very dangerous drink special to give me and John Morgan.

And we relentlessly took that drink special to the point where they had to cancel it for the entire Fight Island. They canceled the drink special because of me and John Morgan. Nice. That's what I'm talking about. Dude, if you're not getting thrown out of bars, go fuck yourself. That's my answer. That's how you should leave bars.

But I'll tell you what, true story. The last time we left the bar, John and I, the people working stood up and applauded that we were leaving that's true that is awesome uh well i don't know what my next mma show will be but i are you going to go to um i know you were at the first one are you going to go to jake paul tommy fury no i would like to but unfortunately i booked my ticket home and then two hours later they announced it and then i couldn't it, and then I couldn't change the ticket. So instead of being $800 out of pocket, I'm going to give myself one week off for the entire year.

So I will not be going, but I would like to have gone. All right. Well, I'm going to be down there in Tampa for you, so I'll send you a note. Throw the graphic up one more time there, Gaff, if you can, so folks can follow all of his stuff. Obviously at the Mac Life as well, you can go there on the youtube channel and then give oscar a follow on instagram or twitter and then you can see morning combat there as well reminder merch morningcombat.store gift cards are available bestsellers are available all kinds of stuff's available go check that out there if you want showtime go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not go

to something else but remember showtime does have a fight this weekend. So if you're like, what am I going to watch on Thanksgiving weekend? We got you covered over there. Apple Podcasts, help us scam the algorithm, leave us a five-star review. We're going to pick out some of the winners and pay you guys for helping us scam. And then don't forget, morningcombat.gmail.com for dead wrongs, which we'll get to. And of course, fan subs as well. All right. For CBS Sports, for Showtime, for Malka, for the Maclifes, Oscar Willis, I'm Luke Thomas. Brian Campbell's on vacation back on Wednesday.

And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.