MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Rousey Ends Carano in 17 Seconds | McGregor vs Holloway Confirmed | UFC Vegas 117 Allen-Costa Recap

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

It took Ronda Rousey all of 17 seconds to lock Gina Carano into her signature armbar. Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall look at the fight from every angle. Then the guys go through the rest of the Netflix MVP card, plus how the production compared to what we're used to seeing with the UFC. Big news was announced with the Conor McGregor - Max Holloway main event at UFC 239. LT and Chuck discuss it all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On your marks get set and go on. We have our strengths, we have our weaknesses, but our parents did not drink when we were in utero, so we realized that Rousie Corrano was not fixed. Hello, everyone, on this 18th day of May, 26, and welcome to another episode of Morning Combat. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of Estatus of Mediz, right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my Connecticut bro, the Iceman himself, Chuck Mendenhall. Charles, how are you, sir?

I'm well. What did you call BC? He was, what, the king of Connecticut? Yes. I don't know why you have to. You're always slumming with these Connecticut dudes, man. And you know, it's kind of funny. My personal attorney is from Connecticut as well.

And I have to talk to him about various things all the time. I'm like, why am I surrounded by Jemokes from Connecticut? I don't know. And you even live near a place like Connecticut Avenue, right? Like you're kind of down there. No, Connecticut Avenue is on the other side of town. I don't look like, but I have to use it. I have to use it for sure.

Hey, did you enjoy the fights this weekend, Chuck? See, I did. And I took some heat for enjoying the fights, I guess, because a lot of people did not enjoy those fights. How about you? You've got some fucking nerve having fun, bitch. I know, man. I thought, you know, I know we're going to get into it,

but I had a good time. It was almost like a throwback to the Strike Force era. But like if you were in Strike Force and they were like, we're going to look ahead 10 years. This is what it looked like with some technology and stuff. That's what it looked like to be. It was fun. It absolutely had a lot of Strike Force vibes for sure.

Let's bring in the third member here of the show. He's our intrepid producer. He may or may not be sober, but he's ready to do the job just the same. It's Long Island Luke. Sir, how are you? I'm good. Luke, you mentioned your personal attorney lives in Connecticut. Mine lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Shout out, Jeff Michue, Esquire. Oh, shit. I mean, Howard did you get a lawyer who's been disbarred? That doesn't work. You know, I don't win many cases. We don't win many cases. But guys, I enjoyed, I felt like the, I don't, I'm not saying they did this on purpose, but the broadcasts were almost in unison as someone who was watching both at the same time.

Like doing a watch along, one fight ended. The next fight was starting. It was kind of never ending. But I enjoyed myself, man. I had fun. So I hope you guys. I'll say this for the UFC card. We looked at it on Friday, Chuck.

And there is just not much there. sink your teeth into. However, and I, you know, again, part of the issue is Dave Meltzer said that was the lowest viewed UFC event so far in the Paramount era. Take that for what it is worth. The fights, though, I will say,

in terms of being digestibly rewatchable after the fact, or watchable for the first time for me, but you know, on demand. Not so bad. Not so bad. I'm not saying they were high level or that they were amazing or anything, but they were easy to rewatch for the most part, I thought. That fight selector on Paramount is a Godson, man. You just go on there.

There's no, like, they just jump right in. They're already at the tail of the tape. You can 10 second go through where do you need to be. And it's, you know, so you can watch a five-round fight in almost just 25 minutes, right? You cut out everything between. So I love it, man. I will say, though, I'm still, do you subscribe to Fight Pass? I do, but, you know, I do it more as the archive, you know, just to go back when you need to reference a fight that you don't want to, like, dig around for on the internet.

It's just easy to go on there, punching the name and watch a fight. from 15 years ago that way. You know, it's amazing to me. I don't think they would make a lot of money doing this, but, and we'll start the show here in just a moment, but if they were ever to find a monetization model that put all their content, like live content on, like UFC live content on FightPass,

the whole, you know, Kitten Kaboodle, I would pay for that. I mean, I already pay for Fight Fast, but it would be like the happiest money I could spend because I actually love, I don't love their search functionality, but I love the presentation tools. You can slow it down to 25,

or point you to you. 0.25x, you can, you know, there's different, well, there used to be language. You could just be able to toggle corners and shit too. Yeah, I remember how it is in a lot of countries, by the way. They exclusively watch their UFC events on FightFax. Used to work for the company that streamed them up. I watch on Fight Pass all the time. I love watching them.

I love Fight Pass. This is my favorite way to watch fights, to be honest with you. You're the only one toggling between corners and doing all those bills and whistles, though. Just you, Luke. Well, you know what? You can do the corners now on Paramount, but they do like the four, it's like a four box on your screen. Is that right? I guess I haven't really messed around. The only thing I do, and especially for this show, because you're always going to miss, like, one or two fights.

There's so, like, you can't be at your TV for seven hours, but you go back on there. And I just, I just use that fight selector. That's it. But I haven't even fooled around with all the, the bells and whistles there. Yeah, it's a fun little thing. All right. Well, you know what? Maybe we'll get ratioed for our takes today, too. I guess we'll find out. Let's see how this goes. All right. Topic number one, let's get this going. We're going to start what other place could we possibly begin than with the, first anime for for Netflix, the largest streaming platform in the entire world, and they're made

in Vorge into mixed martial arts. It is done. Rhonda Rousey submits Gina Carrano in 17 seconds. It was very, very easy. Her trademark arm bar. Look, we can actually watch the full fight here, Chuck, just talking right over it. Yeah. She goes right here to Mount. I'll walk you through it. She's going to

peel this grip on the left arm. Then she's going to sit up and then slide up a little bit off this ground of pound. She's going to sit off to the side, and then that's it. It's very this is that's a wrap okay so there you have it now she confirmed she's retiring and carano looked what do you want to say chuck happy to be there almost yes so in other words it was all expected but still a bit unusual on how it all went down how are we supposed to feel about this event and was rousey's return and netflix's first push into mma was this a success well to answer

your first question i when they're selling it you know when they come on and they're saying, like, this is the most anticipated, you know, women's fight in MMA history and actually calling it one of the most anticipated fights in MMA history. And they're telling you, and I mean gaslighting a little bit in the sense of like, well, this is the fight that we never got that we've been, you know, that brings resolution to so much. I don't remember actually pining for this matchup back in the day because their careers really did not overlap. Corona was gone by 2009 when Rousey came in, what, 2011, 12? it was always one of those kind of hypotheticals, but it was not really one of those fights that you needed to see.

But on this broadcast, they were telling you these things, and the women, the principals themselves were selling it as such, especially Ronda Rousey, if you put that out there, and this is really drawing in a casual eye, like in some of the nubes that have been watching

and that's who we're bringing into the fold, it's going to feel a little manipulated, right? Like, manipulative, because you watch it, and basically it looks like one person has no resistance whatsoever in Gina Carrano and getting taken down an arm barred and somebody who literally made her name doing that exact thing. And this time she didn't even have to do a judo throw. She just kind of singly tackle, boom, takes her down, peels, gets the arm bar and it's over. I think there's going to be an anticlimatic feel to this, even if you and I know

that this is exactly what Rhonda has done in her career. But back in the day when she was doing it to you know, Katzangano or, you know, Sarah Kaufman and those types, Alexis Davis, they were viable people within their careers. They were like, they were presented as real challenges. They were trying to get, you know, titles at that moment. She was, and Rhonda was more like, you know, when they were saying she was Mike Tyson. That's what they were selling. But this one felt like, you know, it was selling something that was never going to be there.

I think you tell me too, because I, the whole time I assumed that this fight would probably not get out of the first round. So I wasn't shocked, but it was still anticlimatic because you're like, wow, Gina, that's the, that was the best you could do in this situation. The reason, like, the reason for me that the main event, I want to say overall, I am really glad that Netflix is trying this, what it's going to mean. And we don't have, as of the time of this broadcast, we don't have the numbers yet, which will really be the crucial detail in whether or not this event was successful. but you know it's kind of interesting people have rightly pointed out chuck that well hey i mean if you actually look at rousey's career she's got a bunch of like wins inside the first minute cat zangano i think 14 seconds Alexis davis maybe 16 seconds something like that and this one was 17 but you know those those fights were a little bit different i mean i will say that like yeah carano's not that

different in the sense of like Alexis davis was 16 and five before the rousy fight was a jiu jitsu black belt Karano is really not any of those things and also 44. But the thing that stands out, Chuck, is if you notice, like, in the Corano, excuse me, in the Rousy versus, let's say, Katzangano fights, and Gano rushes for a takedown, there's a scramble. Rousey has to kind of like pivot on her head to come back on top. You can see Karano, excuse, you can see Zengano try to escape, and then the far hook of Rousey catches her.

And then she sits for this spectacular kind of behind the back, arm bar or the Alexis Davis one where it's this vicious head toss and then into scarf hold where she slams into her and then just beating her from from the scarf hold position. In other words, it was still somewhat acrobatic. This was, I mean, this was literally as one of, MMA 101 as it gets where it's a double leg takedown. By the way, judo has those. It's called a Morotei Gari, but she times it, you've got an opponent charging into you and your leg kicking them. Terrible decision. there's no real ability from mount here look at her elbows wide to her body she turns over on the side which is the wrong way you want to face into ronda not away from her like like this is it's it is to

me on par with the ronda rousey experience if you were not around in 2014 or 2015 chuck it looked kind of like this but this one was a little flatter to me because gina was out of her depth brother Oh, yeah. Out of her depth. Can I say something if I may, Chuck, and I do want to pitch it back to you. You know what? Actually, I'll save it. I'll save it before.

Okay. Anyway, to me, I enjoyed the overall experience, and Rousie, I think may, we'll see what the numbers are, may have done something really great for MMA, Chuck. But at the same time, while I don't get on to the fight fixing things, I do feel like this was so pathetic that it was hard to be like, wow, the enormity and the might of Ronda Rousey like any any woman fighter could have done that you know what I mean right and I mean there's let's face it not not any

but you get when you're when you're talking about Ronda Rouse who left the sport 10 years ago with a bad taste in her mouth two losses and honestly like a deep kind of like mortification factor of having lost to come back on her terms make a couple million

dollars great great for her all this stuff but this was all designed and I think this is part of the problem especially in our misogynistic demographic like part of the problem was that you're like okay so ronda's going to get this happy ending she gets to come out and fight somebody like the only one that she'll come out and uh you know come back to fight is gina karana who she's going to obviously be a prohibitive favorite in right like she's going to be she should win this fight if they fought a hundred times she should probably win it a hundred times that was part of it and for her to just go in there and get it and then just kind of be like okay i did it and it's like a therapy couch i'm done i can put all that other stuff behind me. That was a little weird too because we're talking about a legacy. And I think there are a lot of people who are like, you know, Rhonda, if you're going to make the comeback and it was truly about competition that you probably would call out Holly home for this, like, you know,

the person who kind of debunks your whole, you know, invincibility thing and now is longer in the tooth as well, you know, older than Rhonda. Like that would have been the call. But I think that part of it was just that we all knew that Corona was out of her depth. I did see who was it It was like one of it's like a guy who usually breaks down football things And he pointed out like look at this In the backstage here's Rhonda Rousey You know doing the exact thing that she does in the fight

Did you see this by chance? Yes very very stupid people who have no idea They're looking at it But I was like you know he was talking about it like It wasn't like that she was practicing what she wanted to do But she was rehearsing And I'm like come on man I know this is what you're getting at With these fights fixes I heard a lot about this

But that's the stuff that drives me nuts. But the optics, I knew it. Did you not know it when you saw this, the optics of this, 17 seconds, there was almost no resistance that that was the next phase that we're going to be dealing with. The fix is in because all MVP main events seem to have some component of this. I mean, I think that like, I think it's fair to say, and I think all of us may have felt to some degree like this, that Rhonda being out for 10 years, plus having those terrible back to back losses to hold. and Nunes, we didn't know what we were going to get with her. And then you're like, Gina was, I mean, again, for those of us who covered, but I covered both of their careers in their primes in real time. So I can just tell you, having been around, Gina was never that good. She was goodish in certain ways for her time. She was certainly very popular for her time.

But, you know, she got fucked up by Cyborg all the way back in 2009. Anyway, I'm just trying to say, like, we knew, we didn't have high expectations. for her. But there's, the point I'm trying to say is there was this general soup of uncertainty about the whole thing, Chuck. You know what I mean? But the thing that got me as the, we got closer and closer to the fight, and I tried to be respectful of at least Corona's ability to maybe land a good shot coming in, you know, time and upper cut. It's like your leg kicking a charging opponent. Are you out of your fucking mind? But okay, put in, you know, this is, that's out there with Diego Lopez cage cutting. We got, you know what, Long Island? We got to make a list on this show of like

just dumb shit decisions or like weird inability. It's crazy that like how are you a high level fighter and your fucking leg kicking a charging opponent? Are you out of your fucking mind? Okay. But anyway. But when you say happy to be there, that's how you knew that she was just happy to be there. I'm so glad you said that because I think it's fair to be like, well, we don't really know exactly what to expect. But what I was going to say, Chuck was as we got close to the fight, Rousey's physique

was, first of all, everyone's physique on that card was kind of nuts, which is its own little story but in case of ronda at 45 because she was a 35 for most of her career she looked really really really in shape and then gina tells a story of how she was like how i'm happy she was that she had lost weight ladies and gentlemen if you are seeing a fight where the story of the fight for one of the fighters is that this was a great opportunity to lose weight there are 99.9% of the time they're going to get fucked up like this is not the biggest loser and if you treat it as such. And I'm not saying that like it's not a life achievement. Like it's a great life achievement, but that's got nothing to do with your readiness about this. I want to say this, Chuck, here's my

theory. I would love for you to tell me what you think about it. Okay. Rousey has a very in-your-face personality. And a lot of people are not going to like that. And I think that the online fan base predominantly male and not fucking a lot of chicks, but putting that aside, they got sideways with her. And And I'm not saying she also doesn't say things that naturally irritate people because she does. Right. As somebody gifted in that skill, I recognize my own people. Okay. She got sideways with them.

And as the fight got closer and closer, I just started noticing more and more people saying Ronda beat up housewives. Right. She was never any good. She couldn't, you know, showing her striking footage, which admittedly is bad. But, you know, hyper fixating on her failures. hyper fixating on the things she doesn't do well versus ignoring the fact that she's a literal in every sense of the word, world-class athlete,

who achieved one of the highest designations in a very, very difficult worldwide sport at the highest level possible. This is, this is, this is the Hulk versus a kitten in terms of the athletic pedigree we're talking about, as well as having like, you know, whose game is the most modern and whose game is the most well-developed.

but they didn't do that. So what they ended up doing was they see Gina look terrible on the ground because she has a terrible ground game. And then they say to themselves, oh, there's no way that Rhonda could have won this. The fix has to be in. And I think it came from this attempt at erasing

what Rhonda did well and then fixating on the things that she did very poorly. That is a great point. And I mean, you said that you covered both women and so did I. I was at like a couple of the Corona fights. I was at the Cyborg fight. And I was at a lot of the rousy ones and going all the way back to Strike Force and Misha Tate.

And if you remember in the Misha Tate fight, she had to weather some adversity in that one. It wasn't like, it wasn't crazy. But the tap didn't come until like late first or maybe second or I don't remember now. But it was she went through some adversity. She had to get out of some bad positions. And honestly, that's where we started to be like, okay, she's got that dog in her. But that seems to just be lost because the bulk of her career, you could, spend five minutes going on to fight pass, bringing everything back around and watching

the entirety of her fights because there was what four or five of them that ended so quickly that you could just watch the whole thing. You could watch it multiple times. And that is a bad. It's it's a it's not like a it's not a right narrative. If you want to complain that Carano herself was maybe being overhyped, that's who kind of comes across in this situation as kind of the you know the wingman or something because she, like you said, she was never very good. It culminated with the cyborg fight in 2009. But if you recall, the odds on that were ridiculous. I think any of us who followed Carano and knew who Cyborg was and knew what she'd been doing, that that was not going to go well for Carano, right?

It was one of those things you're like, this is not going to go well. Carano was just, what she did was she fought on Elite XC. She was on CBS. And a lot of that had to do with her, like, you know, having, you know, movie star type looks. And she was in a, you know in a sport where that might translate for a male demographic and all that stuff so there were factors that went into the it factor i guess that she had so she was never that good and when she got out it was like well of course now she can go make money elsewhere she was a in movies all that stuff there's just a like if you want to put you don't put it on ronda here you'd put it on that could we overhyped carano that maybe she was never as good as we thought

she was you know what i mean like i don't know if you need to go down the rousey thing The bottom line is she was a judoka who was like meddled in the Olympics. You pointed this out. This is a world class athlete. And the people who didn't pay attention, I guess, in the day and they just focused on her losses, were missing out on something because there was a moment when she really was leagues above the rest. She didn't fight cyber, but she was leagues above everybody else in her class at that moment. To the point where you're like, I'm not sure who she can fight.

Do you remember that? We'd be like, I'm not sure who you put against her at this point. Say hello to your new favorite drinks. Introducing new Mick Cafe refreshers. I see cool, undeniably refreshing, and available in three flavors. Strawberry watermelon, mango pineapple, and blackberry passion fruit. Only at McDonald's. That's true.

But I kind of want to move the conversation to now to a place of like, okay, well, what does it mean for us? And I don't mean just the sport. We'll talk about that in a minute. But I mean this fight. So let me tell you what I'm saying, Chuck. When it was over, as somebody who had lived through the rousy experience, where she was running through Bechko, hey, running through Alexis Davis,

running through Cadzingano, running through basically everyone except Misha Tate in their rematch. Everyone else, including Misha Tate in the first fight, basically running through her. It was electric. Remember, getting back to the rousy conversation where I had seen people say, oh, there's no one who ever compared her to Mike Tyson during her time.

Dude, Mike Tyson compared himself to her. Dana White, everyone did because you would see this. They would let the dinosaur out of the paddock, and then they would just feast. That's what it was for basically, again, not so much to the second date fight, but basically up until the Holly home fight. But the difference was, Chuck, MMA was a lot more,

Ronda's reach, I should say. Ronda's reach was much more mainstream, I think, at the time, like just in terms of how hot of a product she was. And there was almost this like, you know, how long can she keep this up? Like how long can Cal Ripkin, you know, get the attendance streak for showing up and being able to play games.

It was almost like you wanted to see it, keep going. People wanted to see a feeding. And they got a feeding here, but it didn't feel to me like the feedings from before. It felt to me like it looked the same, you know, it's the same kind of beginning and end. But she was trying, it looked to me, Chuck, to recreate. Hey, remember me when I was on that run?

And I was beating this person and this person. And it was like 10 seconds. It felt to me like she was trying to get back to that. And I don't begrudge her the attention. but I'm not sure it felt like that to me. I didn't say it felt awful. Oh, it was a waste of my time. But it didn't feel like her in her peak.

What about you? It felt like a vanity project in the sense, like an 824 film. They just gave her the chance to kind of go out on better terms. And I feel like part of it is just that people didn't think that she deserved that, you know? It felt like a lot of the resentment was really that Ronda did not deserve to have this kind of, you know, false, I guess, this kind of faux ending where she kind of like, oh, look, I just won. I proved everything

against Gina Krono. You know what? It's just, I feel like that was part of it. Don't you? Like, that they just, people just, there was, there's so much resentment in the space on any fight night. But like, this one felt very, like it really came out. I was, I saw so much of this type of thing. I'm like, is it just because you were like, you didn't want to see her? Like, you wanted to see her kind of like stewing forever that she, you know, that her career into that way or is it because now that she gets to rewrite history just a little bit, you know, like to kind of put a better cap on it. I mean, how much of this, I mean, when this fight was over, I was like, oh, like, don't get me wrong. Every fighter fights for themselves. Like, why else would you do it, you know? But it, like, once it was over, I'm like, okay, it seemed like there was a bit of

a trade she was making. I'm going to give you guys, at least for, you know, one, one shot at it. I'm going to get Netflix in here. And we're going to see if Netflix is interested in MMA. The tradeoff is I'm going to end my career on this vanity project you're describing the way I want. I'm going to get back. I'm not going to make the Amanda Nunes pasting the last thing that the cage will say about me. I'm going to get back that, again, that peak rousey experience. And again, I don't really begrudge her that. I just don't know how much I felt from it, you know.

It didn't feel like that. But she seemed to be quite pleased with it. But it felt inevitable too. I guess it's like one of those things if you're watching, you be in a Washington guy. If you go watch the Washington generals against the Globetrotters, you have a fairly certain idea what's going to happen there, you know what I mean?

So I think part of it was that it was like a layup. But imagine that the Washington generals had taken off 17 years. You know what I mean? I know. It's like you're going to get... Exactly. That's why we didn't talk about the fight back then those, because you're like, well, they felt like they were completely on different levels of the whole way. The only

fight the Farozy that people really pine for in the day was the cyborg fight because it was going to cast doubt on the outcome. Long Island. How did you feel about the main event once it was over? It was classic rousy, but at the same time, it just didn't,

I don't know, didn't feel like all that interesting. Yeah, I hate to say this, Luke, but I'm not sure if you've heard this. The UFC is a monopoly. And I feel like as a result,

it always, you know, it's almost like when a fighter leaves the UFC and then they go and get like a regional win. It's like, oh yeah, but you lost eight in a row on your way out. Like,

I'm always going to remember those UFC fights. Like, right. This was a grander scale, you know, it's a little different, but part of me's still going to just remember the, the Holly fight, the Amanda fight. I'm not really going to be like, yeah, remember when she finished Gina? It's like, I don't know. But, yeah, I felt a little weird about it. Well, Fador, remember when Fador lost, he got, like, kind of lost his mystique with Vardume

and, like, Dan Henderson and all that. And then he was like, Jeff Monson, you come here. Like, he took a couple of fights. He was the other guy, Maldonado, and that fight, he almost loses. You almost lost that. Yeah. I mean, but, like, he, I remember having these. thoughts then. It's like, okay, where are my layups? And, you know, these were harder than

Carrano. And I'm not, you know, trying to bash her. It's just 17 years away. And like you said, it was the weight loss thing. It felt like it was more of like, hey, this is a million bucks I can get paid. Did you also feel, and I don't mean to like jump subjects, but that she came across, I always kind of held Gina in a high light, you know, in a higher light based on her being the pioneer and kind of like, you know, fighting on CBS. And it was very much intact. I didn't know that much about her because she didn't want you to know that much about her.

Like she kind of kept her life outside of the realm of publicity. But then you get into something like this and I felt like they had to peel back layers. So she was talking about like with her husband or her boyfriend. I'm not sure if they're married. But, and just just kind of living in Vegas and like hanging around these wrong types of people, drugs and all. Did you know any of this stuff back? I don't remember knowing any side of this story, but I felt like I had a different version of Ron, of, of Gina than like in the day than I did on this presentation, which was also very bizarre for a guy who's watched the sport so long.

Did you get that sense? I did not hear these details. I mostly don't listen to fighters talk about their lives anymore. It was like a promo. It was like a promo package, you know, that they ran. And it was just kind of, it was like one of those little, you know, things. But she's like, yeah, we were on a road to know. And she mentioned that drugs, alcohol, murder.

like she mentions these things and I'm like I had no idea that this version of Gina ever existed but I mean this is this is what I'm talking about like when we talk about the difference between her and Rousey Rousey's mom was a world champion in judo like you literally come from elite genetic and you know stock essentially and more than that too like now you're in these programs from a young age like you're a lifelong world class athlete that's what Ronda is whereas with Gina to your point like her whole reason for getting in the sport was accidental to begin with. She just showed up to her. She was dating a guy who was a fighter. I think it was Kid Co. And, you know, I just happened to be at the gym to be there to, I think, you know, watch him or

maybe like to take some like cardio kickboxing classes. And then one of the trainers called her fat. Do you remember this? One of the Thai trainers. Yeah, that was part of this. This was part of this package. So what I'm saying is her relationship to athleticism and sport is almost accidental, whereas Rousey's is purposeful from the, like from the womb. Was her, and Corona, I mean, not to go on tangent, but wasn't her father, like, part of the Nevada commission or something along those lines? Or somebody, a relative of something along those lines. Yes, he's somebody that or he might be like some kind of small time casino magnate as well. So I mean, yeah, well, whatever.

In any event, the, the, that's the fight itself. That's the scoring. What is your read on what the fan base feels about it? Because you said you got some pushback. Yeah. Let's talk about that. What was the pushback that you got? So, I mean, I was, I did a post column, basically, and I was like, you know, what are you going to write about?

The things we're talking about, I was like, I'm just going to talk about the production as a whole. But obviously, you're going to include that fight in it. And I think that the two things, because it was the main event, become inseparable, like people see, you know, the end results as part of the whole production or something like that. But I said that I basically enjoy. I thought it was a fairly strong first showing for a for a promotion where you have to iron out a lot of kinks. Netflix being involved. It felt big in the sense. I really enjoyed the aesthetic, to be honest. I thought it looked pretty cool. So I kind of put that out there, but it was just too positive, I guess, by just saying it like that for most people's tastes. You know, I felt like there was like, I guess, a broader consensus that the show sucked. But in conjunction with, you know, this stuff about the fight fixing and in conjunction with the rousy hate and, you know, so I feel like there was mostly in a fan.

perception. I had a couple of people who never watch fights that were texting me throughout and they couldn't stand it. They had the thumbs down emojis and all this stuff. So I feel like there was from a fan standpoint, we're a tough crowd, man, and there were different reasons why people

hated on it. But I guess I mean, I just didn't feel that way, to be honest. I thought a couple of the fights were pretty good. The production was good. You can complain about the use of air time. Like, you know, some of the stuff they're doing at the pacing. You can complain about some of those things. Dude, they were, they were, it seems to me they were making, for example, Ariel do like 10 minute post-fight interviews. And I mean, he took a beating like in terms of like, yeah, but this is the problem with the matchmaking, right?

Chuck, you get like first round, first round, first round. You got to kill air time because they don't want to start that main event until like midnight. And also, yeah. So they're putting these people like go vamp for 30 minutes on the desk. Dude, nobody wants to hear that shit. Yeah. And not to mention, you know, the UFC was going concurrently. And I mean, was it the Ngano fight?

It was somewhere around that time still like three fights to go. The main event is on the UFC side is still wrapping up. You know, like, so to draw the biggest numbers, you kind of want the UFC to be inside for your for your co-main and your main. And so like the pacing slows down. It kind of makes sense because you want to make sure that you can draw. This is the game, right? The game is we want to blow the UFC's numbers out of the water. So how do you do that?

You wait until there's really no competition. Even with the Connor McGregor news, I know we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But I didn't feel like, I kind of pointed it out, like, it just became part of the like, oh, this is a fun evening. They're topping off the wine glasses type thing. Like, we just got, we get more fun to talk about. But it didn't, it didn't detract from anything with the fights. So in the end, I was like, I felt like, tell me what you thought too. But I'm like, I thought it wasn't a slam dunk, but it was certainly a good first show.

Like, I didn't, I didn't find any reason to be like, boy, they should just shut this thing down. Yeah, I think my, my biggest takeaway from it. all to kind of put a bow on this particular part of the conversation is that I didn't feel much about the fights for the most part once they were over. It didn't do. There just wasn't a lot of substance there. They were squash matches and as such very for the most part very predictable. And as I mentioned, I don't mind that the rousey fight ended early. I kind of expected it to end early, but that Gina looked so bad was it just didn't do much. What I will say though, what I will say is So if people didn't like the show, I get it.

I really do. I totally get it. The thing for me is, it is, I know people don't care about this. Or maybe they do, I don't know, people can care about it to however they feel. To me, to finally see a company putting resources into MMA that isn't a Middle Eastern dictatorship is a good thing. Like I don't understand how we can just look the other way. Like nobody aside from Middle Eastern dictatorships, don't you guys have noticed this, are putting money into MMA. it's basically just them and as a consequence it's having a profound effect on the sport in certain

ways positive a lot of ways negative so we don't have that my view is chuck i don't know if i felt a lot for this card when it was over i was like okay you know but i do feel like if they can get better matchups and that's a big if right but they can make them feel big and they can make them feel good and i could i could imagine myself really enjoying that if they're able to to get to that place. I agree. There's an empty calorie thing to it, right? Like, oh, I shouldn't have eaten that before bed. That was stupid. You know, there is always that feeling.

This is just MVP in general, too. You mentioned the, you know, Middle Eastern dictatorships. I mean, the people who are in my own, I keep wondering if he's got clove and hooves in terms of Jake, Jake Paul. But, like, he's, the thing that, does it bother you, I guess, that there's still a line of boxing in M. because obviously like Jake Paul has all you know he's he's central to what's happening he's centered there on this little little sidecar cage seating VIP area he's central because he's fought a couple of these guys in the boxing ring and you know there's still these rivalries they're talking to Francis and Gano you're happy to kind of see him back I don't I mean for the

most part like in MMA you know and and the first thing we're saying is are you interested in fighting Jake Paul and I'm like Jake Paul I don't want to even think about Jake Paul like I don't want to think about Jake Paul and Francis and Gano anywhere near a combat space together, to be honest, unless you know, Jake is kind of promoting the other. But I feel like this is where they were a little off was just still in combining the Jake Paul boxing element to something like this. I know he tried to kind of get out of it.

No, this is your moment. You tried to side seven. He also said that he would eventually fight an MMA. But to me, that is not the way to go about it. Like what you're saying is to you want to, you want things to matter. in some way that you're like, I got something out of that. That meant something. That guy did this or whatever that means.

And right now, I mean, on the first show, there was really, other than maybe like Parnas, like, you know, guys who you're like, there was a little bit of like that guy has a real future. There wasn't a lot of that. It was a lot of more misdirection that they were presenting, which I don't like. Yeah, Jake Paul being back there and then, like, giving his take on how many opponents he might fight, I was like, dude, get this motherfucker off.

I know. Yeah, that was, that was, that to me was tone deaf. I was like, no, no, no, this is an MMA audience. you know last thing for me on this one i want to get to the next topic chuck which is for for me there were some audio hiccups like they would interview nekisa and you could hear the house rather than hearing him speaking to the mic um so that wasn't great but i thought visually to me if there was one thing that i felt like they got really right it was the visual presentation do that walk out in the lcd tunnel is so sick the jib shots that they have so the jib shot is when they have that long arm

that can swoop in and out. Their jib shots over the, over the cage was, were phenomenal. Like the, I also thought, you know, attendance was obviously pretty light through long portions of that fight or the event. Yeah.

But the Intuit Dome itself was a really great call, I thought by Netflix. So there was a lot that went right. It's just you got to have, it's like, oh, we got the best bread for your sandwich. Okay, great. What's the meat in the middle? We got the best bread.

You're not going to believe how good this bread is. It was like that. Now, you mentioned the light thing. Now, there's such a conflicting. You know, people would take some photos. Well, I'll put that pickup on the seats. There you go. Okay. Sorry, Chuck. It's very, you know, obviously with the lighting in this building, it's an optical illusion

a little bit because you can't see, you know, the attendance, which is maybe a good thing if it is lightly attended. And you could see sometimes on the pan shots like where they would show and you're like it was lightly attended. Now, I was under the impression it was a late arriving crowd. and that by the time that the big events were happening, you know, the Co-Main and the Maine, that it was more like 85 to 90% full.

Now, I don't know for sure if that's case, but that's just what people were saying. But, you know, that arena is very interesting because I had a lot of people saying, dude, it was not, it was, you know, it was not well attended. It was almost empty, that type of thing. And I'm like, that's what they said about the NBA All-Star game

that was played there too, right? They were saying, like, events are because you can't see it. It's a bizarre thing. I actually kind of dug that. I know that's unique to the Intuit Dome, but like I dug the idea of this kind of red tent that was over the black canvas and everything with all these lights behind it. It made it look completely different. So I had no problem with it, but it might have been better attended. I didn't see the actual number. I did see somebody posted. It was 18,000. I have no idea if that's accurate, but it may not have been as lightly attended in the end or like in terms of tickets than some people are believing it to be. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the final figure was, but I do know that like when they started the 9 p.m. broadcast. And it was just the, it was L. Duncan. And then it was, I think Tyrone Woodley and Ariel, when you looked in the back, it was a shit ton of empathy.

I know. That's true. I did see that. I did see it. The other thing about your audio thing, but the real way, the, the worst part was the, the John Jones segment. Did you see that when he's sitting there and he like, it's like, what he's like, what he's like, leading over like telling him what relaying everything.

And I'm like, that stuff drives me nuts. But of course, you, you'll give him a little. leeway on that just because it's their first show. But a lot of these people have been involved in the production elements of things like this for a long time. So that part of it was a little frustrating. Don't you remember when John Jones did Fox Sports with Kurt Benefee and was

absolutely fucking terrible on the air? He was there for the first one, right? The very first one that November show. Yeah, that's not his forte. That is not his forte. All right. Let's go to the second topic now. We'll stick with the MVP MMA one card, whatever you want to call it, the Netflix

MMA card. Let's talk about really the rest of it if we can hear Chuck. All right. So Mike Perry, who. Stops Nate Diaz after two rounds. Absolutely sliced him like baloney. Chuck Mindenhall. It was insane. I've never seen a guy bleed that much over the face

and have giant splatterings of blood on their back. Yeah, I thought he cracked his head open from the back. I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't. That was an unusual amount of blood. I'm guessing you have no issue with the stoppage. but what does this result mean for? We'll talk about Perry in a minute,

and I know he's the winner. What does this mean for Nate Diaz? It was a rough look because, I mean, obviously, and again, we've watched Nate. You know that we know for fact that he's going to bleed. I think if you went up there and just kind of pressed on his forehead, you know, with a thumb, he'd start bleeding because his scar tissue is paper thin, just he bleeds if he gets hit.

This has been a fact forever. It's never a good visual for judging and stuff. like that, but I didn't think it would, I didn't, that, that was a lot. It was, it was, it was pretty macawp, man, like the whole, when it was coming down at the backside of him, and there was one point in between, was it, maybe it was before the fight stopped or it could have been between the first and second round, like, there was just a stream coming off of him, a stream of blood as he was sitting there. And I was like, I just was like, man, is he on thinner or something? Like, why is he bleeding that badly? Um, but that's kind of the, the neat experience. And I don't know,

at some point what you do from here. If he had won, obviously, you could, you know, especially if Connor McGregor wins in July, like you could have started the whole thing about like, we got to get that trilogy fight with Connor McGregor, but I'm not sure how many times I want to see Nate in there. He says he's going to go forever, but man, that's just, that's hard to watch.

And I've seen him in these types of situations before, but this one seemed particularly bad to me. He had a couple of good moments. Remember that little hip toss he did that kind of changed the momentum? for a minute, like in the first round and he had a couple moments and it looked like if you wanted to play jiu-jitsu, if he wanted to play that game, he probably would have the upper hand, but he just opts

not to do that. So it wasn't all bad, but dude, on the feet, taking those elbows and everything else, it's just, it gets hard. You know these guys. I know these guys. You've talked to them for 18 years and there's a point when you're like, I don't like seeing them get abused at some point. Man, I you know, listen, I think most people

on this show, probably everyone on the show, now that I'm saying it out loud, really likes and respects Nate Diaz. Nate has been, you know, kind to me personally, such that that matters to any of you out there. But I think it's time, Chuck. I think it's time.

I'm not getting up here to be like, oh, you know, this is a travesty. I'm human. Right. It's time. It's time. He's 42. He has, to your point,

and I'm going to say an almost unmanageable amount of scar tissue that is very, very difficult to repair. by the way this is a weird thing that he does here he puts it on his face like it's a fucking

oh my lord yeah Jake's a weird guy he's a weird guy it's got hooves I mean he's a weird guy but like Stitch Durand

did his best in that corner after a round two to stop the bleeding he couldn't get it done and as soon as you see him realize he can't stop it he turns immediately to the rest of the corner

and goes we can't send him out like he instinctively right away from all of his years of experience he knew and so like shouts to stitch duran for being a real one in this game there's not a lot of people like him he's a good he's like i don't give a fuck about nate's celebrity i don't give a fuck if he's going to be bad now Nate to his credit he admitted it was time he was like i couldn't see shit fair enough yeah he didn't like he didn't but like i just want to point out what a great job stitch durand did but dude like

i don't imagine that Nate's going to see this and then be like wow look makes great points i should really listen to that I don't think that's going to happen. But I just want to say on the record, I think he's taken an enormous amount of abuse. He's made some good money. Maybe his fans won't really care. I'm guessing that they probably won't care that too much about this loss. So it's like it's not like I'm even saying he's ineligible that MVP wants to do a rematch, but I don't want to see a rematch.

I don't think it's competitive. And I would really like to see Nate take care of the rest of his health, which right now he's not really doing. And I mean, even in the, you know, I don't know how much of the pre-fight stuff, like during the week, the press conference. It's just Nate never wanted to, you know, he's always been a little and subordinate. He doesn't want to really play the game. He wants to just do the thing he wants to do. But he just, it was like he didn't really want to be there. And you're mentioning like he's made so many fans, so much money.

He's also made clones. Like you look at Chris Avila, who basically borrows all of his mannerisms. And I remember that guy, Nick Maxik mom? Was that his name? Like, remember him? Like, he kind of had all the, the deisms, like, down to. too. It's just a bizarre thing. That's the kind of impact he's had.

He's a guy that is almost like a famous rapper or something at this point. Like he just has that kind of cult of personality, especially for Stockton and the people he's around. It's intact still. Just don't do this to yourself. And I mean that you just keep doing this. This will be what people remember in the end. This little thing right now is just a blip to his whole career.

I mean, you can go back and see all the great Nate Dia's things. but I just don't want to see him go through a series of these types of beatdowns. It's just unnecessary for him. I mean, my guess is if Connor can get out of his contract at some point, you know, or whatever. That's the one I think, yes. Yeah, or maybe, I mean, I don't know if you, is UFC going to want to sign Nate after this? I don't think that's what gets compromised. You're like, what comes.

I feel like that's what sailed. I don't think that the UFC will have interest. Why would they at this point? I just don't know why they were real bitter at him for losing to Jake Paul. And now, you know, I don't think they hate Mike Perry. in that way, but Mike Perry doesn't have the same celebrity factor relative to Jake Paul. Do you think I know that he wasn't going to do this, but like, do you think if he had just been like, you know, he got it to the ground? And there was a moment where you're like, all right,

if he does this, this is his path to victory. I mean, did you kind of see it that way? Because I was like, but you could tell that he was like, no, this isn't the fight. Because he's been talking very hard about all this. Like, he doesn't want to, it's almost the shame of his career is to have this jujitsu, like superiority on guys. He wants to stand and bang. It's just I mean, he was framing for arm bars, but they weren't really close. Mike was reading him a mile away. I mean, the other part of this story that just has to get told is, dude, Mike Perry, are you fucking kidding me? Mike Perry has beaten a guy who fought for a BMF title.

He's beaten a former UFC lightweight champion. He's beaten a former UFC middleweight champion. He's beaten MVP, one of the more interesting and certainly celebrated strikers in the sport. And you can throw on some other names there too, Jeremy Stevens as well. And now Nate Diaz, it is un-fucking believable how well it has gone for him. And I got to say, too, Chuck, it's not really accidental in this case.

Because at range, you would imagine, you know, Mike's going to be a little bit bigger, probably a little bit more powerful, maybe just a little more ready to get to action. So Nate's going to be a little bit behind the eight ball when they go just naturally. And that played out. But it was in the clinch.

I think Nate thought, because he likes to clinch up and slow fights down and then beat guys up slowly from there and then begin to press them, against the fox and about the defense and then begin to box them up but but dude he got sliced and diced yeah in the clinch it turned out that that the that really Mike Perry had a great idea I'm gonna take this place that you're gonna try if not so much to hide in the fight but to use it as like a headquarters right and I'm gonna make you suffer there the whole way he fought great

a great strategy unbelievable run he's having king king of violence and he might be one of the few guys and so much as the UFC ever has any regrets, to be honest. But like that the UFC, like the matchmakers might have been a little bit like, man, maybe we shouldn't have parted ways with him. I mean, he was, he's emerged like as the face of bare knuckle. I think bare knuckle doesn't isn't nearly as successful without him. He's emerged that way. And then he goes into these, these side realms and takes care of business.

And to me, this one of, if you, if you weren't paying attention to him outside the bubble of MMA, if you hadn't been paying attention to him, this was. this is what he does man um i think he's just willing to go in like he's one of those guys is willing to go into the meat grinder every single time and that type of mentality is almost impossible to uphold in combat sports because you'll get beat up to the point where you're losing teeth and you're having broken orbitals orbitals and like you're breaking your hands and all this stuff and eventually you're like i really don't want to go through that again but he just goes through it he'll just keep going through it this has been his uh his kind of experience but dude

There are a couple of examples now. There's a couple of more on this card, and Gano being another one, but just who really showed that outside the UFC, you can make a living, you know, and it's not easy, but if you're good enough or if you're willing enough that you can do it,

and he's certainly got to be one of the biggest examples, right? Just his career outside of has been phenomenal. Say hello to your new favorite drinks. Introducing new Mick Cafe refreshers, icy cool, undeniably refreshing, and available in three, flavors. Strawberry watermelon, mango pineapple, and blackberry passion fruit. Only at McDonald's. Let's turn our attention now to Francis Inganu. I'm going to ask you a true or false question here.

He, of course, just bludgeon Felipe Linz in the first round here. You can see him. Poor Felipe Lins. I mean, he tried, you know. Yeah. He did what he could do. At least Francis gave him his bonus, didn't he? Like, he gave him his $100,000 bonus? Allegedly, yeah. Allegedly. True or false? the fan reaction to Francis's K-O of Lins ended up being just that they saw it and said we really want him back in the UFC true or false?

I think it's true because for the most, I know there are people and it's usually guys like this, hey, go get paid elsewhere. Go make your 10-digit, whatever it is, like go make a ton of money fighting Anthony Joshua. But at the same time, the fan base itself would love to see him in the UFC

because we talk about the heavyweight division there all the time. It just lacks name. that lacks, you know, kind of like that spooky champion at the top that's going to, you know, to kind of sell tickets. He would be that guy. I have no idea, like, to what extent it would look like if he was still in there because he's been barely outside of it. It's only a second MMA fight, right, since he left the UFC.

But I think it is that. I think that it's just UFC fans that are like, why can't he be doing it in the realm that we, that we like, you know, that was my take on it. I just saw people being like, I cannot believe he's not in the UFC. see. I saw it over and over again. People just being like, oh my God. What, like, why, you know, think about how fun this would be. And it's true. Like,

I don't know how many fights Big Francis has left. I don't know if he would win them all and, you know, become champion again. I don't know. I don't know how some of that would go. But like, if he had four fights more, Chuck, maybe he would have five. Who knows? Like, dude, all of those are going to be appointment viewing. All of them, you know?

I mean, there's just not a lot of appointment viewing in that division. And you're purposely putting this guy on the outs. Like it just, it's just so dumb. You can get away with it, but it's dumb. I hate it. Well, that's an indictment on the UFC. I mean, they should have worked this out. Dane is always like, you know, he can put away grudges in the business sense, but he certainly didn't want to do that with Francis. And the more Francis shows up and does this, the more that resentment kind of grows in between. But this is, I think it's all on the UFC. They should have figured out a way to like have him on their roster. That's kind of what they did for years. And that's

what they've lost touch with in the and I guess the TKOR but even before then like the last multiple years. So they just haven't they haven't had that same kind of business plan for their stars. I won't call Diaz Perry a mismatch, although it's a little close, but it doesn't quite qualify. This one was a mismatch, right? Inganu lands, complete mismatch, main event mismatch. I think again, Chuck, one of these problems is it's like if it's a fight that you think is like real competitive on paper and then it ends up being a first round stoppage that feels way different than one you're like i don't think this one's going to go very long and then it just doesn't i know what i mean yeah yeah yeah that really hurt this card a little this had a sense of foreboding from i mean they were

of course you have to package it like what a dream opportunity for philippe lins to end up and it kind of was i mean the dude made some good money probably 10 times what he'd make fighting in the ufc for for a fight but i mean i just i couldn't figure out what his path to i unless some Francis showed up in a vastly diminished form. You know, I just didn't see how he was going to get it done. So you run with the narrative of like, okay, well, he's getting this crazy chance. Imagine if he does. And when it doesn't happen, that's, this is kind of the response, right?

Like, well, of course, he's giving up 40 pounds. He shouldn't be fighting this guy at heavyweight all this stuff. It was kind of what I expected, Luke. It was exactly what I thought would go down. This is the problem that they're going to have. Like we talked about before, like was this show of success. We'll see what the numbers are. but they can be of success if they can get the matchups.

They can't be big doing just this. Right. That's what I'm sure about. Yeah, and I don't think they can catch lightning in a bottle as, you know, this particular one, okay, you could sell the Rousey in Colorado and then you added all this dimension with these other names, but like how can you do that again and again with kind of like just whatever left, you know, pieces are out there to matchmake unless they were able to get John Jones, which we know

that is not going to happen. I mean, but that's the kind of thing that they could do, but that's going to be the struggle. It's like, how do we put together? How do we capture lightning in a bottle for another big event? How impressive was Saladin Parnasse over Kenny Cross? I thought he was really important. I mean,

Pizzi Carroll, the host of the crack has been about this guy for years. You know, so he's been throwing his name out there. And so I paid attention to him going back a little ways here. But this being his first state side showing and it was going through a little rough patch there in the early going you know that dude was

that dude was bringing and that guy he was fighting what's his name cross is that his name? I never Kenny the boss cross and the only reason I ever heard him at all is because of this the syndicate guys kind of like a little hidden secret that they're rolling out from his perspective it's like I'm 31 let's this might be in over my head but you know leap in the net will appear let's go do this

he he had a pretty good showing early but dude Perness, like he's just on a different level. He's the one guy on this card. You know, at least the one the one's really big attraction on this card that I'm like, this is a legit 28-year-old, you know, prospect who could do serious damage in the UFC if you were there or anywhere that he ends up.

He seems to me that good. What did you think, man? Because you've got a kind of a very good look at like what he's capable of here, right? I mean, people won't appreciate this win, but I had to study tape on Kenny Cross because I called two of his two fights ago. It was his last fight in XFC,

and he beat a guy Argentinian dude, and he named Lucas Gorbaji, and he blew the fucking doors off of him in like 13 seconds. You know, and I was, I thought after that, because on that card, another guy fought at heavyweight, who I did not think was very good,

and he got the call up for contender series. And I was like, Kenny, who was in the main event, who trains at Syndicate, didn't get the call. Like, it made no sense to me. I still don't know why. Yeah.

But in any case, so this was his first chance to get a big fight with in front of the public. But dude, they gave him the most unenviable task imaginable. Like Parnas is arguably the most hot or enticing prospect outside of UFC irrespective of weight class.

Like he's the guy. And the fact that he can roll through a guy like Kenny Cross that fast tells you he's real fucking good. And Kenny came out there. He was spirited. I really, to me, that was the first time I really had paid attention. Like I said, I knew of the name only from the gym. But that

in watching him, especially knowing, how good Parnasse's I was sort of impressed with him I was like look at the man he's not he's not uh you know he's not going in here lightly or scared like he went in there to win the fight it's just he was overpowered and outclass but I thought it was pretty good that body shot that he took

like there was a couple of them but that body shot was wicked like that type of shot oh yeah so if they can do something with him that would be tremendous I don't know again I don't know how the fan base will respond or if he can be a big star here just by doing this certainly I know he could be a big star I suspect he could be a big start anyway with UFC but Kenny Cross is not just an opponent

he's a good fighter and for Parnas to go through a guy like that that quickly is evidence of great skill and a and by the way just 28 years old you know yeah so he's just now entering his prime crazy and then last but not least on this main car Jesus Christ bro what are we

what are we doing with Junior Dostan this is fucking terrible dude look at this Bob, Bob, I was talking to Long Island, you know, like there's a point when you watch certain people fight. That's, that, if you want an image of my life the last three years, Chuck, it's been this. I feel you, man. But it's just, it starts to border on like you're watching, you know, an assault because it just, it just doesn't seem like a guy, because he was hurt before this, he gets crumbled here. And you know then he's just a sitting duck. And now it's a matter of time until this shot lands and that he's going to go down.

and I've seen this record I've heard this record a couple times and this is what the ninth knockout I think of JDS's career and we've paid attention to all of him because he's been in the spotlight and he's fought monsters but this

he's such a happy dude he's still got his wits about him enough I'm like I just don't want to again this is I hate to get like this because we were talking about Diaz's this way but how many more times you want to see JDS goes through that dude we're we're getting close to

Bigfoot territory here Yeah. You know, that's how bad this is getting. I mean, understand something like, you, people have told, oh, he's been K-O'd or T-K-K-Oed nine times. That's true. How about the fact that, like, he went to a decision with Velazquez, I think once. And in, in that fight, and in the the third one, he got, I mean, the shit beaten out of him. Like the shit, beaten out of him. Like, life-altering type of beating. I was there for that. Yeah. His face looked like he had been attacked by bees or something. No, no, no, not. this time, but like when, uh, when Kane

fucked him up. He also had that butcher, butchering against Miochich, right? Like he had like that, like that fight was ridiculous. Meosch stopped him though. Yeah, but he stopped him, but like they were, he took a ton of damage. Yeah. Just in that fight. I was just going back and remembering like how he looked

in that one too. Um, yeah. I mean, it's like, dude, Rebellis to Spain, like the one thing that you can say for JDS that he did well were the leg kicks. Right? Because Robelis is so flat on his feet. He literally just walks you know what i mean and he keeps his hands and it's like yeah like look look at look at the feet of robellis they're easy to they're easy to kick his legs right but obviously there's bigger problems

he's got these fast combos but you know so i thought jd s was like leg kicking him i'm like okay all right all right chop the man down and then get on top on the ground and then ground and pound him like okay that's a that's a that's a that's a great method to victory he gets tries for one take down he gets stopped he never goes back to it i'm like oh shit yeah i know here we go uh His chin is completely gone. Not that, not that the spain is not a hard puncher. He is,

but I mean, this is, this is just abuse. And again, I'm going to say it one more time, man, like, there was a mismatch in the main event.

There was a mismatch in the Ingano fight. Frankly, this one, I mean, I don't if it's a mismatch, but definitely, like, they took some risks with it.

You got fucking straight up elder abuse on this card. Yeah. Like the promotion, and I'm going to say this too, the commission, I wasn't super pleased with their ability to keep fighters safe throw by making. by making rigorous fights, you know?

I mean, in retrospect, the Rousey Corona one, like, you're like, man, like, I didn't really think of it. I think you might have mentioned this. I was like, it'd be sanctioned in a strange way. It was like, oh, yeah, I mean, that's not just an automatic, right? Like, it shouldn't have been. It should have been so serious, some thought. But yeah, man, the JDS, like, you're right.

This was just, I never felt good about it. And I hate that using that term, like, oh, I'm going to watch that one through my fingers. But again, we've covered this man for so long. how could you not? How could you not? When he got his bell wrong kind of earlier in that fight, like there was a there was a punch and you saw him kind of stagger and as you just knew at that point you're like, well, now he's just compromised. You mentioned his chin is gone. He was already compromised. And I think that's why, you know, dude showed up and like just kind of put his hands down and like stocked them flat foot is because he was like, I know I've got him now, right? Like he's hurt. He's not there. You know, the eyes are open, but nobody's home type thing.

Let's quickly take a look at these payouts if we can. Now these numbers are the disclosed payouts. These are not the full payouts. I mean, they might be full in certain cases, particularly the guys close to the bottom of the food chain here, like Brendan Jenkins, for example. But if you think Rhonda made 2.2 million, I suspect it's in great excess of that.

I mean, we know that she had sub, but close to $5 million paydays in UFC. And this was supposed to be at least commensurate or even exceeding that. So I don't think this is the sum total. And I've seen people say, Chuck, well, you know, if that's not, if this is not the sum total, then why do people kill the UFC for it. Well, for a couple of reasons. One, just because MVP, like,

one borrows a lot of the contractual stuff from UFC and they're actually, their contracts are even worse than UFC, but it's like promoters will just borrow other promoters like scams. And they might be doing that here too, right? We're just, we're just going to take the UFC. Or we might pay more, but we're going to break it up for transparency or whatever the reasons they might have. So they get, they usually gets the, the top guys will get side letters. Well, there'll be another sort of big payday. Right. It comes through that. where it could be for like promoting the fight or other ways in which they have you know there are certain ratings they could get that so this is just what's disclosed ultimately but i'm just saying chuck like people like oh we didn't having you killed the ufc for it sure i'll kill MVP for it as well but the difference is that a this is one event and the other part is chuck um they had to like the UFC has been audited financially so we know that like when they say oh there's so much more oh we pay 50 percent we know that not to be true we don't yet know if that's the case we with something like MVP MMA.

And by the way, that was there. Baderion basically said that 50%, more than 50%, right, was going to the fighters. Yes. In some way, you're almost like, why play modest with your numbers? Let them look as inflated as possible, right? Like, you want to look like you're,

you were paying them out. And the $40,000 kind of basement, like, floor pay, like, to me was, that was a big deal. That is a nice gesture. Because, you know, I'm not sure where it's at. in the UFC right now. But for the longest time, there were six and sixes all the time and eight and eights and ten and tens. I'm not

sure what the minimum is now, but it's probably either 10 and 10 or 12 and 12 and 12. Yeah, 12 and 12. So it's like, you know, I don't think that, like, that to me is still absurd. It's just you got to fly your cornerman out and all that stuff. It's just, it's too much. Part of it is they'll conceal some of the pay by the way, just to be like, you know,

hey, we don't want to give our hand away. Or we're paying Ronda $7 million. Right. On the next line, it's like, oh, you put. So again, they'll play tricks too. That's not really the question. It's one question, but the other question is, okay, but how does this, relative to the full budget and the full rev, where does this

fit? That's kind of question. Yep. So, we'll see. I guess I don't know the answer to that yet. Here's what I do know, Chuck. NBA playoffs, they're here. My wizards are not into it. Long Island, who are your Nick's playing? Cavaliers, baby, they're going down, clean sweep. Let's go.

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text hope and why. Connecticut call 888-78-9-777- or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21 plus in most states, void in Ontario restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance for additional terms and responsible gaming resources. See dkng.com slash audio limited time offer. All right, Chuck, that is our recitation of the Netflix event. Let's turn our attention now to UFC. But before we get to the fight night that took place on Saturday, we have other UFC news.

So it appears that it is now official. Connor McGregor is going to return to the UFC. This will be in July for UFC 329, International Fight Week, July 11th in Las Vegas. He is going to be fighting for the second time, a rematch from many years ago when they were very different fighters. Max Holloway, obviously, as we know, coming off that loss to, Charles Olivera. Now, Long Island, did we get it confirmed that it was at 170? The New York Post report said it is going to be at 170,

but the UFC's announcement, oh, yes, it is, welts our way about. Okay, so it's going to be at 170 as well. Here's the card, Chuck, in your co-main event, Benoit St. Denis, taking on Patty Pimbleet. Corey Sandhagen's going to have a rematch against Mario Bautista. That one might annoy the fans. Brandon Royval is going to take on Lonnie Cavino.

That's a fun one. And then the, that might be the most fun fight on the card, honestly. Dude, that is a banger. That's my favorite fight on the card by far. Yeah, that's a great one. And then Gable Steven will make his UFC debut against absolutely. I mean, listen, I'm sure he's a nice guy. Who's that chick Alicia. Elisha Ellison, probably the worst heavyweight on the roster.

You know, it's a setup fight for Gable, obviously. Okay. Very quickly, look at your prelim card. Whitaker versus Krillov on the at 205 on the prelims. Luke Riley versus Kikamaka the third, Damien Pinas versus Cesar Alameda. Cody Garbrandt, Adrian Janjuez. That's a fun one we knew about that one. Oh, yeah, baby.

That's right. Oh, yeah. Tracy Cortez, taking on Wong Tong, I think is how you pronounce it. And then Odey Osborne against Cody Durdens. It's pretty good. All right. Chuck, before we talk about the rest of the card, because that card is pretty good. Yeah.

Let's just get to this one. What can and should we expect from McGregor's return, both as a fighter and as a box office attraction. I think that the blockbuster element will stay in play, don't you? Because we were pointing this up before. One of the things that happens with Connor McGregor is he stays relevant within the bigger sense of media. Like when people are talking to Dana that are just don't usually peek in on the fight game at all, and they'll ask about Connor McGregor.

It's just what they know. This is the one thing that they know. It's either Rhonda or they know McGregor. So they'll always ask him about it. So I feel like when it comes down to it, there will be this heavy anticipation of he's finally back. Even when I was working at the ringer, you know, like in 2024, we had to do a timeline of his time off. And it was all of these outside the, you know, outside fighting law breaking things that we put together. It was like a 4,000 word piece.

And now here we are two years later and finally getting it. So I feel like when he finally shows up, it will feel like. like the moment. Oh, here we go. Now we get to see this guy again. That part will be there. But the fighter himself, I have, I fear the worst, I guess. I wonder how you feel about it. I don't think he's going to look like the Connor McGregor of old. This is 170 pounds. We'll see kind of like what he looks like. But man, you're coming back from that leg injury. This is always a tough thing. It took him five years, five years out. And this is a guy who's, we used to, I used to always point this out with your eye favor back in the day. He had so many enterprises going on there.

like how much does he have left for the fight game for training and all this i don't want to like say that connor can't find that gear to that same hunger that he had like when he was uh coming up but it's going to be super tough for him to do that long island what kind of fan response do you think this got on saturday night granted there was a lot going on saturday night including another ufc event including the netflix event but i did notice some pretty big enthusiasm for it is that your read as well i was kind of hyped for the card not the main event i i don't i really it does enough thing for me. Also, like, Ariel's been teasing it for months now. I feel like it's been

all but a confirmed thing. Luke has known Luke's been sitting on this one for a couple of months too. I remember you mentioned it like a long time ago. Yeah. I had heard a while ago they were working on this year. I remember you did say that. Yeah. But either way, I feel like the actual card though got me excited, but like I was

doing my watch along with Gaff and I'm like, yo, should like, imagine we go to Vegas for I have W? Gaff was like, man, fuck that. I'm a Gregor fight. Like, fuck that. So he was totally like fuck this fight and he loves max so obviously he's going to have a rooting yeah like i mean i i will tell you i i chuck i think that like they didn't put him on that white house card for maybe a couple reasons but definitely a big one is going to be that you know he's just

you just don't want to give that guy away at the gate you know right especially tk o who you know i mean if if dude tk o is the kind of company where if they walked by a homeless guy who had a cup with a few pennies in it they'd take it you know And they've got to grab a couple of those. Yeah. I mean, you know,

I might need a couple of these. Like, that's, that's like, their level of greed is, yeah, beyond description. So,

you know, I get, I think to your point, will he match peak McGregor fever? Probably not. I don't think that's going to happen. Will it be still really big? And then especially,

like, still much bigger than the rest of the UFC pack. And you got to notice like, dude, the UFC's been doing some, you know, there's been some decline this year. But,

you know, over the last couple of years, they've been doing huge gate numbers. I mean, we all know that. And I think Connor will definitely continue and then exceed that trend. I think the other part for me, though, I'm sorry, as a fighter, we'll talk more about the odds in a second. I'll see that up here in a few minutes. But the guy hasn't fought since 2021.

He hasn't got to win in almost, not quite, but almost seven years. Okay. And remember, Chuck, the last time we saw him, people will just forget about this. The last time we saw him, he broke his shit. shin in half. Yeah. Right. That is a catastrophic injury. And Chris Wideman was never the same after it. Anderson Silva was never the same after it. Like they were just, the whole thing was a disaster for both of them. Granted, they were older and, you know, I don't know. Well, actually, I'm not sure how old was Chris Wyden when he broke his shin, Long Island? Can you look that up? I'll look it up. How old was he? Mid-30s, but I'll look it up. But Connor was what? 32 when he broke his shin? Yeah, he was 32. Yeah. So I mean,

That's not like super old, but it's not super young either. And in other case, just a gigantic question. And I know Max looked kind of bad against Charles Olivaura, but I'll just be honest. I think Charles Olavera would beat the fuck out of Conner-Bringer today. By the way, Wyden was 36 when he broke his shin. Wow, I didn't realize it was that old. 36. Yeah.

So like, what kind of fighter are we going to get? To me, the biggest X-Factor, Chuck, is that they're going to get Holloway to go to San. 70, right? And I don't know how this power and everything is going to translate up there. That to me is an X factor. But Holloway should like this. I'll just say this.

And again, we'll talk about the odds here in just a minute. But like, dude, this is a fucking tough fight for Conner. Yeah. Make no mistake about it. Is there ever been? I had to just look this up because I was like, what year, do you remember when Connor McGregor beats Eddie Alvarez, when's the second title?

Talking about equity in the UFC is this big. In the 10 years, that was in 10 years. 2016 in those 10 years he's won that one fight against Donald Serroney that's it like at that moment i mean at that moment you're like dude the sky is like he's going to be in the stratosphere like he's going to be in he's i know he bought the you know made a ton of money all over the place but the fact that he's this relevant with one win in 10 years is just it's it's crazy when we talk about unprecedented um unparalleled exceptionalism all that stuff like this is it like he has always been that guy where it's just a completely different set of rules and different.

He sets a different precedent than anybody else. But five years, you know, he's going to come back. I feel like it'll be as big as ever, honestly, because, I mean, it's just he has that kind of aura still, you know, like, even when he's at events and stuff, like, it just kind of commands your eye to see him go to work and, like, work on the, you know, microphone and them to start to play up the first fight when Max was only 21 years old in Boston. That was the first time, by the way, that they dropped the lights in a second. in Conne McGregor's second ever UFC fight,

they dropped the lights on him on a prelim, which is just, I mean, that's the kind of, like, again, it's just such a different type of fighter we're dealing with. It's going to feel big, but it's just crazy that in 10 years, at that moment where he was just at the absolute height of the game, that he's won one time since then. If you would have told me that then, and that, like, in 10 years he would still be active and all that,

but only one fight, I would have been like, you're crazy. There's no way I would believe that. It's so true. And again, that event, the, the, the, the, the, Holloway fight. That was the debut on Fox Sports 1, was it not? I believe it was a big deal. It was the Sondon Shogun fight, right? It was

yeah, yep. And it was on the prelims to your point, as you indicated, and you know, they brought the license on. We were like, yeah, really? I remember Joe Rogan was like, whoa, I've never seen this before. He was like, kind of astonished on the, but at the time, we thought that was a good call by USC. It's like, if you think this guy's hot, make him look hot, and then he has to deliver

and then he did, you know, so it actually it was a good call by that. And that first one, like, remember he, like, tore his ACL and like the second round, I think it was. So, you know, doubly impressive that he got through that. It wasn't his best fight, but like in the end, when you kind of look back on it, you're like, wow, that was a pretty gutty performance. How is the sport going to feel about his sexual assault?

It's not a conviction because it's not criminal court, but judgment, essentially. And it's like, here's the thing, dude, if you have, you guys there haven't paid attention. Connor has apparently become radioactive in Ireland. He is very, even today, he had to file. a permit, Chuck, I read this before the show started. He had to file a permit to get, like, his house expanded on this property. And he filed paperwork with whatever the relevant, you know, the government entity was to get it done. And they just flat rejected it. They won't let them do it. You know, it was because they don't trust him to like not have parties or, you know,

just like misuse the property. Anyway, small thing. But the point I'm trying to say is, like, there's just always negative press about Connor in Ireland now. And for folks who didn't follow that, that trial, he lost very badly at it and then tried to appeal it and lost in what can almost be said as the worst way possible. Yeah. Where the day of the actual appeals hearing, they had to withdraw all of their claims and all of their evidence. And then the people who they said were going to be their evidence are now being investigated

by the court for, you know, probably lying about it. It's a bad scenario all the way around. I have a feeling, though, that like the fan basis probably, that certainly the exact, existing fan base is probably not going to care. Is the media class going to care? Is the casual public going to care? What do you think? No, they will not care. You follow the sport as much as I do. I mean, I guess the closest example would be like if you looked at, you know, Tank Davis or, I guess, Floyd, like people who've had some moments, right? Like, and how much of a factor did it play in? It just gets drowned out. In fact, people think you're hating when you bring up these things within a fight week.

they want to live in the hysteria of the moment of the fight itself and play out that. I just don't think any of this really will be a factor. It's crazy with like when you mentioned that man because in Ireland, he was that vicarious kind of greatness that everybody latched onto. Like his accomplishments was Ireland, right? And now you, and I've talked to Petey and other Irishmen out there. And they're like, he's their great shame. Like whenever his name is brought up, it's like, you know, it's something completely different.

And it's, again, it's just a juxtaposition that I would have never thought possible. I mean, you have to screw up pretty royally to have your home country turn on you like that. I think your assessment is sadly going to be the correct one. We shall see. There are some other elements, though, that I want to talk about in this rivalry, in particular how they're kind of going back and forth. And to do that, we're going to bring in our friends at Cuervo. You know the deal.

We call this. This is what we're going to. mixing up presented by quervo all right for every round keep it fun keep it quervo and you guys know that we do when we go to our studio for the pregame preview we'll be doing that again in june for the white house card but check for this one let me do the i want to do the odds first on this one show me the odds here long island if you can't so check out these odds wow right they've got holloway and i think these have come back to earth more recently but these are the opening lines man they uh they don't believe in connor mcgregor that much

it's probably a little bit of the Dustin Porrier, you know, when Porre got his second chance and his third, obviously, like, he took advantage of it. Holloway has been a guy who's been active. He's been mostly brilliant. You know, everything that came that was brilliant about him was after that fight. He's a completely different guy. And I think that you look at it and you say, like, you know, Charles Oliver did do Holloway is simply not going to happen in this fight. Connor McGregor doesn't want to have that happen, right? Like, he's going to be. to accommodate, I think, a fight that Max will thrive in. And I think that those elements with the five years, you know, off, I think that that's pretty, that's about how I'd see it. I think that he's got Connor McGregor is probably between a two and three, you know,

his odds are not, they shouldn't be good. You know, I just don't think that they should be good. We hit one win in 10 years. I mean, there's really no evidence that he's going to go in there and do the same thing to Max Holloway again when he was that hungry fighter back in the day. Bro, it's crazy because if this was boxing, Connor would be getting a, I mean, I know he had that amateur or not maybe it was an amateur he had some kind of a three-rounder boxing still with head here on in ireland in like a small gym kind of like it was kind of like a tune-up fight

but that's not really a tune-up fight I mean it's valuable to some degree but if he was in boxing he would get a straight-up tune-up fight and instead he has to fight max holloway which again I know max is coming off that loss but in general like you can see the odds brother I mean it's out of wow bro it is a tough ass fucking go to put it here. But here's the problem. Like, you can't, if you're the UFC, they don't do they don't do tune up fights

for two reasons. One, they don't typically employ the kind of fighters that allow you to have a tune up, for some exception. But the other one is like, Conner. No jobbers. Say again? No jobbers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, have you watched some of these Mayfax cards?

The problem is you can't match Connor against those guys. That's the issue. You've got to give them so name that people know. It just so happens that the name that people know. They would never do that just based on like he has two fights left right so you're not going to give him like some guy he should be and then Max Holloway because then you're done unless you can wrap him up beforehand

but yeah Long Island if this fight was Connor McGregor Nate DS3 what would be the odds ooh that's yeah that's fuck man I don't know I'd probably favor Nate but it'd be close yeah like way closer than this you know

Connor like plus one 20 now like after what we just watched yeah it's a little hard you know it is a little hard and Conner does have the age advantage. Yeah, maybe it's a pickum, dude. I don't know. I still don't think Connor would be like a true favorite. Yeah. Interesting. All right, here's the other part. Take out this Connor tweet that we have here as well to Max. You're going to put respect on my mother effing name. They were going back and forth on social media. What kind of vibe is there going to be for this fight, Chuck? Like between them, is it going to be acrimonious? Is it going to be fun? What's it going to be? Has Max ever engaged in anything that like truly like that like where he's just like it gets darker than you know or it just gets really

personally i just feel feel like he's that guy you traditionally hasn't been has he okay but wait until he gets a guy who i mean i know they fought before i but i understand like what if what if connor goes there what if he might starts talking about his wife what if connor starts talking about his kid that would be interesting because almost it's in the sense of anderson silvo back in the day are like these guys who just respected because they're o gs they've been around like max has been that guy most guys who fight him are like you know they're they're deep down reverent of the guy they're fighting. And so if he goes there, I think there'd be a, there'd be a novel thing to it. It'd be almost like Chale poking the bear with, with Anderson Silva.

I think it would, it would be unique, but I'm not sure to what extent Max will play ball. We'll see. If it gets personal, we'll see like what that brings out of him. But I certainly think that Connor is going to try that. I think he's going to try to sell the fight the best he can. Like, remember we used to always be like, what, what will he come up? Is El Chapo? this time. We have his headshay. He's going to, like, what's he going to do is, you know, the pimp in Brooklyn when he was fighting Mayweather, you know, like, what, what is he going to show up as? And that is kind of like, if you start to get back into the energy of the Connor McGregor, like, the way it used to be, you're like, what form does he show up in here? Like, and I'm talking about

pre-fight, like, what is he going to do? Is it going to be more genuine? Did he find God? You know, like, how is this going to work? So that becomes part of the subtext here. We talked about Rousy wanting to get, you know, to deliver the peak Rousy experience. like I'm just going to run through this. Do you think Connor is going to fight in a similar or prepare in a similar kind of way? Is he is he thinking about, you know, I got to get back to like what things were like in 2015 and 2016, you know, give that kind of an experience. Would you prefer, I mean, honestly, I'd like to see him return to those days in the way that you're like, he just was super focused and like had this feel to him like the Mystic Mac era when he was

like, not on my watch, man, you're not beating me, you know, that sort of thing. and not just kind of the, you know, I don't want to say coked out. But that's like crazy energy where his pupils are turning black, you know, and he's kind of frothing at the mouth. Like those type of things, I'm like, I don't really need to see that version of him, especially because of his public image at this point. We're just talking about Ireland and everything he's kind of been going through legally. I don't really want to see that version of him, man. I'd rather see that there's some baseline hunger left.

that he's bringing back to the table where he's like, man, I want to tap back into that, the original guy, the original beast that he was. I'd prefer he just retire, but I'm not going to get that. Really?

Well, maybe soon. We'll see. But yeah, I guess that's the other part too. Like if Max goes in there, it puts a beating on him. Yeah. Is this the last time you see Connor? I mean, I doubt it.

I suspect he'll try and find another way to keep this train on the tracks. But like, what if he goes in there? That's a great point. shit you know that's a great point because is he the type of personnel now he has lost and he lost devastatingly to Dustin Poria in the way you know

but there was an injury if he just gets out worked you know knocked out just out worked like can he live with that like I that's the thing I'm like is he gonna or is he gonna be like no now we're gonna see Connor turn wanna turn around and come back in there quicker you know like within months you know that type of thing because he just doesn't

want to live with that that'd be interesting to see too if it happens well that is ladies gentlemen what we are mixing up presented by Quareva for every round. Keep it fun. Keep it Quarevaux. And we'll, of course, be back with them in studio next month, getting ready for that White House card. All right. Let's change topics if we can here, Chuck.

Let's go to topic number four. And we stay with the UFC, but we go to the apex in Las Vegas. Arnold Allen rideed the ship with a, I'm going to call it, a pretty dominant performance over Milky Costa. He only lost one round on one judge's scorecard, round two, which is, I don't quite get. I thought if you were going to give around to him, it wouldn't be that one. But in any case, right guy won, and he won pretty convincingly.

His boxing looks spectacular. So what exactly is Alan able to do with a win like this, both in terms of perception, as well as future matchmaking? And I felt bad for him a little bit because it felt like he was buried on a night when people weren't going to give him the full attention with the whole MVP thing going on. It almost felt like he carried a little bit of his chip on. And also, you're getting kind of relegated to the apex. when you're a guy who I think

has kind of been a perennial player within that division for a while now so I felt like there was some insults if he wanted to find him and it did did it strike you like he was a little upset by some of this stuff because I felt like he was you know but like in terms of what this did for him

I mean it's a reminder of how good this guy is you know like when he fought like Evalev and I thought he put on a decent enough performance the fight itself I thought was actually pretty entertaining I remember Dana kind of poo pooed it. But I feel like part of what happened that night was that it wasn't just Evelove that they pushed to the side. They almost pushed Arnold Allen a little bit and said, like, we're not that

interested. He hasn't won like a performance of the night in a long time, years. And he's put on some pretty good performances. So I'm not sure he's the favorite. Like I'm not sure the UFC really loves him. But when you see a performance like this, it's hard. It's easy to kind of like start to appreciate him again and to love him again and to think that he still has a lot to say in that division in that title picture. I thought he put himself right back in there. This is a guy Costa who had won six fights in a row.

And I thought if he gets through Arnold Allen, I was like, well, we have a contender. So to be shut down 50 to 45 on my scorecard, I thought it was like a reminder, if nothing else, that Arnold Allen is right there. Yeah, I mean, put up this graphic on all-time featherweight wins, if you can. Now, Max Holloway leads with 20.

Elkins is at 18, which is why. called Cups Swanson, who's now done at 16. Volk at 13, Filiat tied for 13, and now Allen at 12, and he's, by the way, just 32, by no means done. I mean, to me, this was both great and also frustrating, right? I want to tell you why. So it was great in the sense that, like, Arnold Allen is so likable and so talented that even a guy, like, a surging Milky Costa, kind of hope. I mean, hopeless is a strong word, but he was outclass. He was definitely outclass.

The boxing in particular, I thought of Allen. That left hand brother could not miss. That thing was a missile. It was fantastic how good it was. So I really liked him going out there, stopping the bleeding. And metaphorically speaking, obviously. Right. And getting and showing quality and class.

And I thought he got to work a little bit earlier than normal. So it seems to me like he's still kind of fine-tuning. Like all of that was great. and I'm glad he's reasserted himself into the sweepstakes of what the division has to offer. Who knows? Maybe he gets the winner of Garcia and Lopez, depending on how things go on the White House card. There's still a bunch of great fights for him, which is really great to see. So I was really happy about all the things I said.

But the thing for me, though, was, I mean, Alan has got some stoppages. But like part of what has kind of held him back was in certain cases he surged too late. In certain cases, he started too slow. And again, as I indicate, he's working on. some of those things, but there's still too much of a measured force in his offensive game. And I'm not saying Costa is easy to blow through, but what I am saying is the fact that he didn't get us finish here to me is like, okay, I'm glad that you were able to reset things and there's still some exciting winnable fights. But I was kind of hoping we would see a little bit more of a

supercharge to really change his fortunes because it just felt to me like you got back to, you know, Oh, now it's deuce. You know, you took away the advantage. But you're still like, we haven't materially changed your situation. And I understand you can't change it with just a cost of fight. But I was looking for, I guess what I'm trying to say is, Chuck, I was looking for something in the cost of fight. I know what you said.

Tell me if there was like a big leap or a big change. And I just didn't see that necessarily. There's the term in hockey is like, who he's clutching the stick too tight. You know, he's not scoring goals or whatever. You know, they always say that. You wonder if this was because, I mean, he'd had some losses and i you know when he was fighting like jean silver or holloway or one of those

types of guys i felt like you know without going back i've only watched him the night of i haven't rewatched them but i felt like there was like a a little bit of a hunger there that maybe he was holding back in this one because he needed the w um it could be that i i don't i know what you're saying though i know what you're saying but i felt like if he just felt you know if he if he needed to get back on track and definitely secure a victory he had it um i would have liked to have seen him you know, there was a couple of times he dropped him, right, in the first round. Like, there was, there was an opportunity there, and it was a little too poised, you know, too poised.

You're like, where's the, where's the urgency in that situation? But maybe we start to see that again. I know he has it, though. Like, if you go back to his earlier fights, he certainly has that element, but, you know, the ratchet up stakes, the guys he's been fighting are so good, too. You know, it's like maybe that plays into it. Long Island, how did you feel about Arnold's performance? he looked good man i was like thinking the whole time maybe melky was a live dog he shut that

shit down real quick like there was i i know one judge gave melky round too but like at no point was i like oh milky's still in this by the third round it was like all right this is we're just losing to the finish here but uh also the fact that it was going head to head with mvp i was kind of like all right arnold's dominating this maybe i'll focus on MVP a little bit that was tough that was the second round by the way like wasn't very competitive I don't know where I don't know how they gave that one to cost it. Yeah, that was strange. You know what?

Now that I have it here, I'm going to look at the stats here. So let's see where. Again, these are numeric totals, not. You know, it's close. Okay, it was close-ish numerically in the striking, but every round is close. Every round is close. They were the takedowns.

I think he was seven for seven. You know, like he just took the fight wherever he wanted it. Yes. He's in the stand-up and that's the ground. He just did what he wanted. Two takedowns in round one on two attempts, one takedown on one attempt in round four, four takedowns on four attempts in round five. Yeah, he was just better basically everywhere.

So, dude, like, it's like, I'm so happy for him. If you look at the rankings, Chuck and like where he sits now, so currently he was sitting at seven, I don't know how much of a boost he's going to get. You got Jayon Silva in front of him at six. Then you got Yair at five. You got Sterling at four. I got to tell you, Arnold Allen versus Al Jermaine Sterling. Yeah, I'd take that.

I don't know if Sterling wants it, but I'd be all in favor of it. Yeah, I wonder if he would be down. I mean, that's kind of like, again, you're talking about a very quiet opponent. This is Sterling who fought Evelov. Now you're fighting a guy, you know, like this. The Yaira fight would be fun, though, too. I mean, like, he hasn't fought these guys. So I feel like those would either one of those types of matchups would be great for him.

Or Lerone Murphy. Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah, that would make a lot of sense. That would make a lot of sense, yeah. So I think he's still, I think, you know, this was him letting the UFC know, I'm still good, I'm still useful. I'm still kind of in the mix but maybe not anything

necessarily being like wow we should really reconsider him as like a top three guys and that's what I would like for him. Are we at the point though like where the apex shows because for a while you know people are like okay pandemic all this stuff and like residual it's fine it's fine just give me a fight I don't care but are we at the like this is the kids

table of UFC events like when you get relegated even to a main event of an apex card is it like I feel like these guys are showing up like Moikano recently and others are like, dude, why you put me in the warehouse? You know, I mean, I definitely think that that the UFC, if you're in a main event on the apex, the UFC still has use for you, particularly if you're on the come up. You know what I mean?

Like if Costa had won this, he was going to get a big promotion after this, right? So like it's not like there's nothing, but it's these guys who've been doing it a while, right? Like you mentioned Moycano. Yeah. They've been fighting on big cards and big arenas and big fights on. big main events or even in big cards themselves. And then they're like, yeah, you got to go fighting this IKEA. And they're like, yo, what the fuck?

Why am I? Why am I fighting inside of a staples? Like, what are we doing here? I mean, it's a thankless kind of task. You know, it's like they're putting them into a situation where it's just an event that they're not really going to promote. It's usually all about the events around the Apex shows. You know, it just, it's not a, it doesn't look fun for those types of fighters.

And we've seen multiple guys who are very, who deserve better in these spots recently. Can I be honest? I don't even know. Did they do a media day this week? I mean, they might have. I honestly don't know,

but I can say for sure, I didn't see any clips out of media day ever. I think all the press corps was in, was in Los Angeles. Yeah, I think so too. Actually, there probably had to have been something

because I saw a clip where Arnold was eating like soup or something and he was like talking. I didn't really, I mean, I saw that same clip where he had the microphone like tucked into his shirt. Yeah.

they do those like UFC news on Twitter post them all the time they're like five minutes scrums where they just you don't even hear their person ask the question it's just a five minute montage of it but they're not at a podium they're just in front of the step of repeat but again perfunctory it's like a perfunctory thing you know it's not really like an act of promotion you know yeah exactly all right and then with topic number five

let's turn our attention to the rest of that bullshit ass card all right now I say that lovingly because if I can be honest we talked starting out like what did I feel when the Carano and Rousie fight was over. Not much, you know. I felt very different about the Duhot Choy and Daniel Santos fight. This was my favorite fight all weekend, Chuck. Yeah, yeah.

Another body shot too, man. And I want to say this, man, I want to say this. I really appreciated this fight because if you didn't see it, you look at these highlights. They're like, oh, yeah, Korean Superboy did what he always does, which is technically true. However, Santos gave this motherfucker the business. He did. First round was he dominant, right? He was out there.

He, I do, when guys, listen, all you can ask, Chuck, the only thing you can ask of a fighter is give me what you got. Right. He did. He did. And it wasn't enough to win against Choi. Fair enough. But that guy went out there and fought bravely and aggressively and smartly to an extent. Yeah.

And he gave son, he could see me, he gave do Ho Choi a run for his fucking money. Shouts to Santos. But obviously, Choi. Chuck. What a delight he is, right? It was like, is it punch out the old game? One of the games where you see the guy's energy just draining down, like you're trying to get it. That's almost all fighting games,

but yeah. But it was like you're watching, yeah, you're right, you're right. That's like a lot. But it's like you're watching his, you know, the first round is just, you know, Santos, and then it goes into the second and you can just see Choi taking the fight, landing the shots. And so much of it is really beautiful to watch, is striking.

And then those body shots at the end to put him away is like high IQ stuff because he knew the dude is fading like that, give him a couple of boom, boom. I mean, they're so, so good. Like the Parnasse fly. I mean, we saw a couple of really nice body shots this weekend. But the guy's not going. I mean, I love seeing that kind of performance because it's funny.

I think some people think he's still young. He looks so boyish, right? Like he doesn't really look like he's 35 years old. But the guy's been around. He was in that Hall of Fame fight with Cub Swanson. I was sitting there for it. And this was kind of shades of that. Like I felt like we were seeing that version of him where it's just like, dude,

I can go deeper than you can here. Yeah, I really appreciated that from him. I love the boxing and he's on a win streak. Do we think he can do something with this with the time he has left in the sport? He is currently, what, 34 if memory serves, 35 now. Yeah. It's turned 35. Yeah, I mean, looking like that, I think, I mean, it's always difficult to say because

you have a good performance and you're like, you want to see them. He's been around a long time. But sometimes you're like, maybe this is his moment. You know, a guy like him, maybe it took this song for him to, put it together. Like he was getting a little bit pieced up in that first round though and I'm not sure you can survive that kind of onslaught if it's against a really really you know

top five type of guy. But we'll see. I hope so for his honestly because I've always liked him. It's he's always when you see him on a card you know you're going to get a good fight. So I would love to see him get his moment now. Juan Diaz making Malcolm Wellemakers troubles. The parley

Ripper. Man. Say hello to your new favorite drinks. Introducing new Mick Cafe refreshers. I see cool, undeniably refreshing, and available in three flavors. Strawberry watermelon, mango pineapple, and blackberry passion fruit. Only at McDonald's. I got to say, I didn't love this performance from Wellmaker beyond just the bad. I mean, look at the meme here, right? This is hilarious. I mean, it's mean, but it's funny. But the reality is he has this loss in his last fight against Ethan Ewing, but then Ewing looks like he might be

like a real deal prospect who just needed an opportunity. Yeah. And Juan Diaz was coming off the contender series. I'm not saying these guys out of Peru, like all of a sudden there's some really good fighters out of Peru. But I don't know, man. Like, man, he just fell apart too easily for me. Wellmaker did.

It was shocking in a way because I told everybody too. Like, you know, if you want a good value, take Wellmaker. He said it was like minus, a bit longer than confirmed it was like minus 220. It was something like that. And I'm like, that's good value for this guy. He just lost a bad setup, a bad circumstance fight against a guy we didn't know was really good and Ewing, but also that fight was thrown together at the 11th hour.

This will be the rebound fight. And to see him just kind of get worked the way he did in this fight was, uh, there's sometimes you get it where it's just like it's the ultimate thud. And I felt like this was his moment. Like there's just some guys like you, you can't unsee it, man. Like I, like, that's why that meme is so kind of dead on, isn't it? Like, you're like, this would have been the moment to shine. And he just couldn't get it done. I will say that Juan Diaz looked very good, too. Like, how do you want to slice it up?

Because both guys against Ewing looked very good. And then we've seen him follow that up looking really good. And now you've got Diaz. So I feel like maybe he's going against tougher opponents than we realized. But Wellmaker, I think we had the hype train was a little, you know, off the rails here a little bit, right? Yeah, people got a little too hype for him. Too hype. He had two first round knockouts, which are nice.

But if you recall, they were against Kansas. Cameron Simon. Right. And then the other one was against Chris Mutino, who's like, I mean. Yeah. Who took like 400 punches from O'Malley in that one. Yeah. It's like, dude, I mean, he's not good.

And then Ethan Ewing turns out to be actually quite good. Yeah. And then Juan Diaz, I mean, some of these guys, man, they just, I've said it a million times, Chuck. Defense is critical in MMA, but it's not more important than offense, not in this sport. And he just seemed a little, what would you say, Long Island? did Wellmaker seem tentative to you? It just seemed like Diaz had a lot more verve and go-getness in him.

I said when I broke down this fight, my bet breakdown. I said, I'm really worried about Well-Makers takedown defense. Right. Which is not existing. And subbed. It's like I, you guys were lit up on the feet too. Yeah, but you guys were saying like Ethan Ewing, you're right, turned out Tedges actually be really good.

I don't know if Juan Diaz is going to be that. I'm more concerned about Well-Maker here than I am excited about Juan Diaz. I think Diaz probably watched those, you know, three or four takedowns that Ewing didn't need to do, but he did. Like, he just to kind of keep the fight, like, balanced and he was going to, like, give him something to look at. I think he looked at that and he was like, I don't think he can stop my takedowns because he took him down like five times, right? It was like he dominated in that aspect. And every time he got near a takedown, you felt like Wellmaker was completely nullified that he was just compromised in those moments. What else on this card was of value to you, Chuck?

anything else oh man i have to even look at the card uh law island where would you come in on this as someone who is uh relentlessly ignoring their significant other watch just go over the finishes man yeah here we go ralardo supai i mean he dominated timmy quamba before finishing him he looked pretty good that fight uh also the line like supai early in the week was like minus 150 come fight time it was almost to pick him so a lot of money was coming in on timi quamba sucks for those people unfortunately. Chaos Williams with the first round knockout over Veretnikov. I mean, he had him wobbled on the feet. Yeah, I butcher that guy's and whatever. And then he knocked him the fuck out. Tommy Gant, Daniel Cormiere's roommate, you know, ground and pound finish. He did look

good. And that was a violent. Yeah. You, you always talk, Luke, like there's not that many fighters today with violent ground impound. That was some violent, fucking ground impound. Um, and then what else we got? We had, uh, Cody Brundage, a rare W for Cody Brundage. I mean, I was going to say him because he's every freaking prelim of every white card they do this year. Him and Cody Durdin, who we just saw us fighting at IFW now and he's back again. And then we have to talk about Alice

Ardellian's. That was wild. That shit was crazy. It's kind of hard to see from this photo, but Luke, did you ever see anything like that? The in step of Viana, so her left leg, right, the one that is doing the securing of the lock. It's tucked under the right thigh here of Ardalen.

And so there's different ways to do this. You can do it where it's almost like a calf slicer. You can do it where you catch it with the hip and then you push the ankle up and so it becomes an ankle lock. It's so it kind of depends on exactly how the person's doing it. But suffice to say, it will work. You got to be careful with these body triangles. They'll fuck you up. The other interesting part is you can do a body triangle like this. And actually, if you're the person on bottom, even if your foot is tucked, you can, if you're quick about it, you can get a sweep actually. You can use that. You can use that in step to help turn them over to the other side.

But she just kind of laid there and then got compressed. It was wild when she leaned out with her hands and grabbed her shoulders and like pulled and I was like, what does she do? And then you saw I had no idea what the setup was there. And then, and then you see the way. I was like I've never, I've never seen that in an MMA fight. She said she saw it on Instagram this week. That's so wild.

She just like pulled it out of her head. John Jones would like beat the shit out of people in the UFC. They'd be like, where did you learn that? He'd be like, YouTube. we got a shout out Nicole Calliari too in the curtain jerker she got an arm triangle I mean no one's going to remember this fight but you know yeah it's I mean nice

nice job but whatever okay and then Luis Garuli had by the way a pretty decent performance against Daniel Bades so there's that too all right that is it for our top five so let's roll the show on now it's a chance for you to ask us questions it is time for DMs from the digity dogs

all right first one let's roll from it's not cage fighting who is the highest ranked women's 135 or you think modern ronda could beat i saw people truck being like she couldn't win the ufc i don't think she'd be champ that's true i wish we had a graphic to look at here um i have the names i can tell you so like i'll just start i'll just start and you know where you say it doesn't work anymore so let's start at 10 carol hosa i would say ronda could beat her yeah i think so macy shazahn maybe for me, maybe. Iirene Aldana.

Rhonda could. She could also get boxed up, but she could do it. Yeah. Yana Santos. Jeez. Hard to say. Yeah. But here's one I think she could get. Number six, Eileen Perez. Yes.

She would be Eileen Perez. And she's number six. Now, after that, it's Kettlin Vieira, Norma, Jocelyn Edwards, Raquel Pennington. Dude, could she beat Raquel Pennington? Probably not, but like, is it a lock? dude juliana paina is number one i would pick ronda to beat pania i don't see it's actually a surprising amount that i think she could beat there yeah i wouldn't i would not pick rondo over juliana pania i think you guys are wild for that yeah because if ronda if all juliana pania has to not

get taken down in the first 90 seconds of that fight and she's terrible take down the fence i don't know but i still feel like i don't know that's like what you're trying to say is ronda might fall apart and then get blitzed on the feet and i'm like yeah but okay if she fought Giuliana Pena 10 times, would she win five of them? I think she would. Maybe. Like if there were odds right now,

Rhonda would be the dog, I think. That might be fair. That might be fair. That's how I was. What I'm just trying to make is, like, could she be top five? Pretty wild. Harder to say.

Top five? I think she could. Certainly top 10. Certainly top 10. It's crazy too, because she has one thing she does really well, but I think it would work against some of these names, you know?

like straight up Kayla Harrison notwithstanding because Kayla Harrison is I mean the best judoka America's ever had male or female right but like just on and I know Ronda's older

but just peak athleticism versus peak athleticism was Pena a better athlete? No. Pennington no Edwards no Dumont no Vieira no Perez no Santos no

Al Donna no Chazahn no and then 10 is Carol Hosa no Like Rhonda as a pure athlete in her prime is better than all of them. Not Kayla, not Kayla, but the rest of the media. What would you, let's say it was Holly Home again. Would you favor Holly in the rematch or would you favor Rousey? That's the harder one, right?

Like, it's like, I guess you would have to favor Holly. Yeah. But, you know, that's a tougher one. I don't know what to say about that. All right, next. From average Joe Art, the king. How many events? will MVP MMA have, if they continue,

before they create their own world titles, what would need to happen for those titles to gain any relevancy in the sport? What do you think, Chuck? I just don't think that's the model they're building. Do you? I just don't think that they... That would imply, then,

that you're filling out on some level, you know, divisions, and you're trying to have contenders and you're trying to do these things. I just don't know if that's the play. I think that what they can do is to put together these... one-offs or whatever you want to call them and just get together the wildest assemblage they can do

that's going to draw the amount of viewers and I think that that's kind of what the objective what do you think Luke I mean I feel like that that's what they're trying to do they just want to have bigger events than the UFC they're not trying to beat the UFC at their game they just want to do bigger events in the UFC okay so to answer the question of like what would it take for them to have relevancy is that if the public

recognized that the fight itself was between two people whose outcome they cared about. So, like, for example, let's just imagine that John Jones got out of his deal. I don't think that he will, but let's imagine he didn't. He fought Francis and like it was a good competitive fight. People might consider them, they just made up some belt, MVP, MMA, whatever. They might consider that to be the best heavyweight on earth. It just really is a function of who is fighting and what the fight means at this point in time.

Okay. I don't think they'll do that either. I wouldn't preclude the possibility that they might try on occasion if, they keep this going. I don't know, like some kind of belt element introduced. Maybe it's decorative. Maybe it's for like, you know, it's like a trophy, but they treat it like a belt or something like that.

They might play with it a little bit. But I'm with you. Like they're just not going to keep. They're not trying to be, oh, we're a, we're a, we're a PFL on Netflix. Right. That's not what they're trying to do. So I think it's. It's kind of smart, honestly.

At this point in time with the attention span and everything, it's smart. why would you try to be like a league, you know, and go against UFC at what they do best? It's like you got to beat them somewhere else. That's kind of why they had success here. And partnering with Netflix, they should just continue to do that. But like you're right, it has to matter. There's got to be some kind of component that's interesting on a, on a deeper level at some point than just somebody coming back after 15 years. You know, it's got to be, there's got to be something where they have the two best of something all of a sudden going to each other where it really matters.

Yeah, next. From Johnny Thump. How many buys would Rousie Carano have done if it was on pay-per-view? Boy, the belly-ache about it would have been a lot louder. Had it been a pay-per-view? I don't think it would have done that great. You know, I don't think it would have. And it's hard to tell the pay-per-view model is just so outdated.

The numbers were so down even for the UFC, 200,000? I don't know. 250? What would you say? I'd say a little higher than, that. Depend on the price too, you know. Yeah, that is a, yeah.

But I don't, like, it wouldn't have matched anything close to what she used to pull. She did 1.1 against Betch Kohia. Do you understand how fucking insane that number is? So I tried to explain this to people. Not only did she clear a million

against an opponent nobody cared about, right? Yeah. They put that fight in Brazil. So in other words, they, if you go to New York City, Chuck, and you have a big payper view there, Connor's going to fight, Eddie Alvarez, boom. All of the local media there will then tell all of their audiences about it. And these are the, the pay-per-view is predominantly an American thing. Canada does it to a degree, UK, much less, in certain cases.

But like, the vast majority of pay-per-view buys are from the United States, the overwhelming amount. So you're taking a fight out of the country where all of the press. could descend on that place much more easily to promote it to their pay-per-view buying audiences. You put that fucking thing in Brazil, and you still sold over a million with Bechko Hea? That is a monster fucking success. I was joking about, like, you know,

the fact that Ronda even had, that Alexis Davis was in a UFC main event, right? It's still wild to conclude. But these things happened because of Ronda's power. Like she, in those days, man, that's what she was. She was a transcendent superstar in the league, you know. Next.

From is he no title fights for IFW, just a Frankenstein, Connor versus Max fight. What a K. I mean, do we care that there's no title on the line? That was the one thing they could get by with, right? Like they don't have to do that.

It's Connor McGregor's return. The thing is going to be big. And honestly, in this now, I guess, post-paperview era, now that you're just doing big number events. Do you really need it on that level? You know, it's like you think that you can change your, if you're going to change your business model a little bit for the big fights like that, this would be the time, you know, because you don't need to sell something extra. You're just, you're just giving him Connor McGregor. That's big enough. I don't think, I mean, if there's one guy you don't need

a title for, it's Connor. Yeah. I mean, you just don't. And also, you know, did they, I mean, they announced a fight got made. They did. I mean, they announced a fight got made. They did didn't exactly announce a new deal. True. Maybe they did. I don't really know. I'm just saying like if he's still angling to get out, do you want to put him in a title fight?

I guess that would actually keep him there. So maybe you do. I don't know. We'll see. I don't know what their plans are. Yeah. And I saw people. I think people need to get their mind around the fact that you don't need to have

title. Because I saw people like, well, they'd have to make it for the BMF, right? Because or something on those, because basically, because if they want to make it the main event, I'm like, don't need to do any of this anywhere. That's just an old way of thinking. Yes, totally. All right, next. From MT. Bumble, if you could exist in one sitcom universe, which show would you pick?

I know my answer. You go first. Probably cheers. I mean, I would be sitting at the bar with Norman. No, this one's easy for me. Married with children. Oh, my God. That's married with children.

Dude, my dad, my dad, my dad, you have to understand something about my dad, right? So my dad thinks modern entertainment is for complete dullards in every way. Like if you took him to a modern movie, he'd be like, these people are all stupid and I do not respect them and I do not wish to be here anymore. One time my dad, one time my dad was like, can you imagine people wanting to go see a rock band in person? He's like, they're all terrible musicians. What would be the appeal? I'm like, dad, I don't know if you understand how the modern world works. but it's not what I'm trying to make is it's not just an anti-modernity thing right yeah it is partly also put the question on one more time I want to use it as reference but there has been one exception in my life to what modern life could give him which is my dad's laughter when we would because my parents were divorced so I would spend some time with my dad and so I'd spend time with my dad and it is the only American television show I have ever seen him watch other than the news.

and he would gut bust laughing when Al Bundy would insult his wife and to see the joy on my divorce dad's face when Al Bundy was talking about how miserable he was and he wanted to kill his wife it is so funny to me

in retrospect that I kind of have to pick that show you know what I mean? Christina Applegate back in the day was pretty easy on the eye too. Not for nothing you horn dog, not for nothing. You're at that age, you know? All right, that is it for our what you call it,

your DMs with donks. Now it is time for the artwork portion. You guys are going to come home like my daughter does and ask to put these on the fridge. It's time for fan submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. Okay, first of all, Chuck,

do you take anything to help you sleep? Just whiskey. No, I don't know. I mean, generally not, but there are times like, there are times now as I'm getting older that I, you know, you're like, maybe I should because there's time that I'll just sit there and, you know,

toss the turn for hours. Let me tell you how hard sleep is for me. This is every single night. The room temperature has to be very specific, 71 degrees, not a, I'll go less, but that's the, you know, that's the hottest I want. Yeah. My wife is usually fussing about that. Okay, I have to wear an eye mask,

nasal strip, and earplugs. I have to have melatonin every night, and I have to have the screen name of the next guy, which is 150, milligrams of trazadone. This is from Trazadone 150. That's a good setup right there. Yeah. So here is, he's got two memes for us. Let's take a look at these. First one is, why are you banned from Joseph A.

Banks? DeM. So this is such inside baseball. Okay, hold on. DMA means tell me. Okay. This is me as RFK Jr. because RFK Jr. was arguing with AOC recently. And then so it's basically

like my wife asking me why I'm banned from Joseph A. Banks. Well, you know what, sweetheart? It's because I took a triple flusher in there. That's why. All right. So that's one. Here's the next one. Say the line, Luke. MMA is a right wing sport.

Yay! The Simpsons meme. I know. By the way, look at the AI Simpsons of me. That's pretty good, actually. That is pretty good. I mean, you get a lot of recognition from the bigger media out there for this. I love hearing it. You know, it turns out, Chuck, if you end up being the only person talking about something, they tend to notice it, you know.

True. Those are great, by the way. Those are great. And this is first one is how I imagine Luke's home life. Yes, exactly. All right. We've got five memes from Josh. Let's see what we got here.

Right. The man with the crack. This weekend, I'll be doing the crack. How about presented by Hunter? Biden. That is fucking great. I wouldn't waste all that. Look at all that, man. Come on. By the way, your crack pipe is the size of your, of your fucking head. All right. Next. Crack man. Oh, okay. We've got a theme developing here.

Well, look at the crack pipe on this one. That is amazing. All right. Oh, baby. By the way, I like your, go back, go back. I like your mask of, uh, crack. crack like bacon soda as the mask it's great all right uh liquid aides Luke when he sees cake lady yes that's what I want to do I want to rinse my eyes out with bleach

these are three for three as far as I'm concerned Luke's contemporary art piece dude kids running around you know what I would take a dump in my hand to be like if you don't respect this art you don't know nothing about art all right and then lastly vice president Cletus, how Jed feels when he's in studio.

That is awesome. That is all. Those were great. All five of those hit. Those were great. That was good. That was good. All right.

From Colin. Now, he's got a disclaimer. He says, I'm currently inpatient at the University of Michigan for a stem cell transplant to cure my leukemia. Oh, we wish you the best, my man. Without that info, this beam is a little too niche. Thank you guys for the fun content. You're keeping me entertained during chemo and the build.

up to my transplant. We wish you nothing but the best. But he says here, when my nurses come to check my vitals and I'm watching the washed guy yelling about MMA again. Yeah, fair enough. Oh, man. I know the feeling, brother. I know the feeling. All too well. But I will say, we wish you nothing but the best of luck with your treatment and keep us posted if you can for sure. Okay. All right. Eric has a meme for us. Fighters cut after losing three in a row. Yeah, but they don't care. Oh, yeah. So it's, it's Fighters cut left losing after three in a row who get cut. And then there's Tycho Mivasa who's lost.

It's inaccurate. Yeah. Who's lost, I think all of them, maybe all of the fights. I'm not sure at this point. He's lost all of the fights. That's a great one too. So far, these have been pretty good today. Yeah.

All right. We got one from Spence. He says, in celebration of the coming White House card. He's probably thinking about other hats. And it's just you, Chuck. This one made me laugh really hard. Very specifically. You got that freedom, too,

I can get my hands on one of those. I'm going to do that. Does your wife wear a lot of hats? No. No hats. Does she wear a hat? Put this meme up one more time. Does she wear hats like someone who clearly uses meth?

She does wear that kind of hat. No, she doesn't. Gotcha, got you. All right. Saul says we've got four photos. Let me read this to you. This week I got a Google notification saying one of my favorite bands, White Chapel. I like Whitechapel.

I was going to be in town on Wednesday, so I spontaneously bought a ticket and told my wife I was going alone. I drank beers and hit my vape, just viving alone. There he is. Look with with, you know, M.K. hat on. The same night, my wife landed a huge opportunity and did a grazing table of charcutory for the governor of Kentucky, Andy Bashir. They took a selfie in front of a picture of Muhammad Ali, of course, is from Kentucky. Just wanted to brag on my wife. I'm so extremely proud of her. As you say, Luke, keep swinging that axe all day. day, MK, all day. Go back to the picture with his wife.

B.C. is going to request a copy of this. Oh, yeah. Dude, B.C.'s number one goal with this whole show. And this is a joke. I'm not being serious. But one thing we used to joke about was like what B.C. really wanted to do was like go on a tour of all of the fans' houses, which we kind of suggest we might last year. Yeah. And then just bang all of the shows, listeners' wives.

and then just be on his way. And I think Sal will probably be first on that list if Brian was stolen the show. There's no doubt about that in my mind. So, Sal, you better keep her out of Brian. It's not just an ill-air persona, by the way, for Brian. I mean, that's just how he is. That's just how he is.

He's just horny. What can I do? I can't help the man. You know what I'm saying? He likes it. By the way, thank you for all of the fans. Keep sending them. Today's were great, by the way.

Morningcombat at gmail.com. You can reach the show there if you need to. I don't check the email, so don't write it to me. But that one, you'll get there. Long Island will check it or somebody else associated with the show. We are on socials everywhere. You can find those on IG. You can find those on Twitter or wherever the fuck you find them.

And I didn't mention this at the top of the show. I apologize for that. So let's do it here very quickly. The May exclusive morning combat. Dot shop. We've got these three available for you. You've got the renegades of donk. You've got the Washington, D.C.,

DC 101 logo and then you've got Wippets in the parking lot because that's what it's really all about at the end of the day. Chuck, where can, morningcombat.shop? Chuck, where can folks get what you're doing for the rest of the week?

You can go to uncrown. I'll have some stuff up this week. Some columns, why not, and I'll be on the crack come Friday as usual. And we don't have a UFC event next week, right? Like, is one of those weekends. Correct.

There's a PFL. Benson Henderson is fighting. the main event of a PFL event in Brussels this weekend. Interesting. So, I mean, you know, I mean, kind of a quieter weekend coming ahead. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, I'm not going to watch MMA this weekend. I was going to be very clear about that.

I mean, I'll watch it before the show. But, yeah. Long Island, what's going on with you? Well, as Chuck mentioned, no UFC this weekend. So a little lighter week, I'm going to try and grind away a couple prop quiz episodes. I'm going to try and record a bunch this week so I can stock those for the next, like, month. Also, I may do a watch-al long for the PFL card because my girlfriend doesn't even get out of work till six and that main card starts at three on Saturday.

So I may just end up doing that. But TBD, I'll keep you guys posted on social. All right, very good. And of course, you can just catch all my stuff on my YouTube channels if you're so interested in all that kind of stuff. And substacking all the fun things. All right. Chuck, great job today.

Long Island, great job today. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. So for Long Island, Luke, for Chuck Mindenhall. I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you. We'll see you next time. And until then, may all of your game.

Be loyal.