MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Scoring Albazi-Kara-France | Jim Miller | Jon Jones vs. Tyson Fury | Ep. 449

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

On episode 449 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian react to the weekend of fights. First up the guys discuss the scoring of Amir Albazi vs. Kai Kara-France. What can fighters do to fix this? The boys break down the rest of UFC Vegas 74 before discussing Dana White comments about Jon Jones vs. Tyson Fury. What is Dana trying to do here? The boys close out the show with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (13:30) - Albazi vs. Kara-France (53:30) - Jim Miller (70:00) - Rest of UFC Vegas 74 (77:30) - Jon Jones vs. Tyson Fury (85:50) - McGregor vs. Chandler (93:20) - Dm's from Donks Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. Hey, it's Monday. How you doing? Hi, everybody. It's the 5th of June, 2023, and it's time for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of the status unitos right here in Washingtonhington dc joined by my well i somewhat i would say he's beige today actually he looks i look a little pinker than he does actually that's normally normally not the case it's brian campbell my friend and yours hi brian yeah luke uh when they ask me on applications what uh skin color or race i am i always click other jaundice you know that's just some uh yeah you click other you're like i i transcend race bro yes that's some just that's just some pale wash guy humor right there hey welcome back monday we're gonna get after it luke what a wild weekend for controversy in the sports world or maybe just

in that judging in the main event of the ufc card that we will get to but luke did you have a nice weekend they like when we do really short intros but i you know i could go a full hour to lead things off right now well i let's set the table here very quickly because I like what your where your head is at but very just to set everyone up we'll get to UFC Vegas 74 results here on today's show plus a couple of controversies that come out of both of what BC is saying the judging that happened over the weekend and then more to the point some statements made by Dana White that were both in one case baffling but in another case highly intriguing and very curious we'll get to all of that plus dms from dogs have you seen the shit and a whole lot more so thumbs up if you're watching here on youtube

please hit subscribe if you haven't already bc you were asking about my weekend boy I had an interesting day yesterday a very interesting day so first of all I saw the new spider-man with my daughter she didn't love it but she was it's long it's over two hours she's four it was it's a little much for her it is an absolutely fantastic movie couldn't recommend it more strongly although it is frenetic it reminds me of like you know the safty brothers have kind of this style of direction that's all over the place yeah and there's all it's like that it eventually zooms into focus as the movie gets towards the end but uh wow there's a lot going on in that one but really really really good but bc i teased to you guys over text that i had a surprise little thing i wanted to tell you guys about you are not

going to believe this now you may not know this name you may not fully appreciate this at the time at which i say it but i was blown away yesterday there was a street festival not far from my house so i walked with my family over there and as i'm walking after we had stopped in to get a little I was blown away yesterday. There was a street festival not far from my house, so I walked with my family over there, and as I'm walking after we had stopped in to get a little bit of food, I'm walking back up this hill. A guy shouts out, is that Luke Thomas? So I turn around, and I didn't recognize the guy,

so I didn't know who he was. And then I figured, okay, well, this guy must be an MMA fan. He looked like a D.C. guy, like uh you know i figured okay well this guy must be an mma fan he you know he looked like a dc guy like you know you work in some office somewhere with a collar on most days in a tie so and what you mean is white and judgmental right yeah white and judgmental probably very far to the left although i can't say that for certain in fact probably not true in his case but he's not native to dc but he was an older guy and he was like yeah i listened to you in bc so he mentioned you by name right wasn't just the same you know from other thing i had done here maybe locally and then i i didn't recognize where he where he was from but

then he introduced himself have you ever heard of the name sean hopwood no okay fair enough this guy No. the Supreme Court to hear two different cases, one of which was on Miranda rights, twice and succeeds. Understand most lawyers at some of the high-priced firms never get one in their entire life. He got two while he was in prison, gets out, gets a law degree, gets licensed, and now is teaching law at Georgetown University. His story has been widely covered by the New York Times, CBS, 60 Minutes, Washington Post. I mean, this guy has been, President Trump had him there to commend him for something he had done related to the rights of people who are in jail. This dude is a legend in the legal firm, and he is a big MK fan.

That's awesome. And was adamant about telling us this. I was like, you got to be sh, I was like, you gotta be shitting me. This guy listens to MK. Yes, dude. He does. You know, Luke said, we always question, you know, our dick jokes for everybody. We're Sean Hopwood.

They certainly are Luke. Okay. I'm very excited about that. That's fantastic. You know what I mean? Very cool. I was really blown away by that yesterday. I also have been, you know, dealing with the stresses of life lately and looking to outlet them.

So I know it's normally a Friday thing for the arts, Luke, but I'm back in the art space. I came out of painting retirement. Do you want to see the result? I would love to see it. I would love to see it. I mean, honest takes only. It's interesting. It's interesting.

You've planted seeds somewhere. There's roots, but there's a lot of confusion about what's happening in the middle. But ultimately, it ends with the vegetation that seeks to be planted planted although there's a little bit of red blood around it i don't know that's a weird that's a weird message i mean it could be a it could be a comment a social commentary on january 6th for all i know luke i haven't yet deciphered what it means but it came directly from my heart just so you just i'll say this if sean hopwood ever ends up arguing a Jan 6 case with an MK hoodie on in the Supreme Court, I think we'll have peaked. Can I be the courtroom paint illustrator there, Luke? That'd be fantastic. Yes.

That would be amazing. All right. BC, I got to remind everyone, summer is just around the corner. And, of course, using FitBot is a great way to get in shape for the summer months. One of the New Year's resolutions we had, I got some personal help on this one, was, great way to get in shape for the summer months one of the new year's resolutions we had i got a you know i got some personal help on this one was of course getting some shape and getting in shape excuse me and i've been seeing real progress you got to know this fit bod keeps me motivated and keeps me working toward my goals bc i love how the smart technology has replaced all the old formats i don't know where you're reading this from luke

but i'd love to hear more did i get the wrong one did i get the wrong one i don't think there is i don't think we have sponsors anymore. I don't know. I think we do. It's on my rundown. You know what? Put the camera on me. I'll take this one solo. We got this, boys and girls. Do not worry. If you're looking to take your workout to the next level, check out

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Combat, by the way, with a K. All right, BC, if you're ready, let's get this party started if we can here. Topic number one, we'll start, of course, with the biggest event that happened. Well, actually, the biggest event was KSW in Europe. But let's say the most high-level relevant MMA took place at the Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. A flyweight contest between Kaikara France and Amir Al-Bazi. BC, there is a lot of controversy coming out of this. Al-Bazi wins a decision, however, quite narrowly, only by split decision.

There is a little bit of dissent in the ranks. We'll get to some of the things that his teammates, Kaikara France, have tweeted. First things first, how did you score it? Three rounds to two, Luke, appears to be the acceptable, the true scorecard. The question is in which direction. No, I stay with the home team here in terms of the collective response, which is this was Kai Carfranca's fight and his victory, three rounds to two. Specifically, I gave Kai rounds one, four, and five.

Obviously, four has turned out to be this controversial, I don't want to say swing round, but round that has fueled the controversy based on Chris Lee's scoring. We can get to that in a second. But let's be very fair and honest. Was it a good chess match, right, in the highest level of this division? Yes. Was it a fight that could have gone either way? I actually think yes, but not maybe in the sequence of rounds division? Yes. Was it a fight that could have gone either way? I actually think yes,

but not maybe in the sequence of rounds that people believe. Rounds two and three for me, that's Amir Al-Bazi. Round two was close, but I felt he got the better of the striking. Round three, when he took Kaikar France down, put in the choke attempt that you see right there, and rode his back for about three minutes. That's also clear in my mind. But I do think round one, where not much happened, Al-Bazi tried to force a clinch against the cage that got broken up and they traded shots, boxing punches from the outside. I feel like that could have gone either way. I end up scoring that round for KKF, 3-2 for him on my scorecard.

But if you wanted to make the argument that it's possible to get to 3-2 Al-Bazi I think you do have to look closer at that first round. Could you score 1-2 and 3 for him? I do think it's possible. I don't think that's the preferred scorecard. I think 4-5 in my opinion

were clear Kaikara France rounds but Luke the end of the day when you have a close fight, when it feels like it could have gone either way, sometimes that's just what it is, a close fight. I do agree with some of the crying of the controversy, though, that if we look closer at who was doing the judging and specifically how they scored it,

then I think there's a great argument that Kaikara France wasn't robbed. This isn't like a major dispute to me. I just think they got it wrong. And by they, at the end of the day, it's Chris Lee in round four. Okay. I think that's wrong. But the first round, when you scored it in real time, did you have any hesitation about scoring round one?

Did you have to think about it for a moment? No. In real time, I had round one for Cara France, round two for Al-Bazi. And I felt it was even going to the third when Al-Bazi had his biggest round. And then I thought Kai took it home. To me, it's fairly easy to score. I'm just trying to say, I don't know why I've become this guy that has to put out the flames of, hey guys, nothing to see here, not a robbery, just indifference, just, you know, ignorance or whatever.

I'm just trying to say there is a path to get to Al-Bazi 3-2. I do think round one is that instance. Luke, do you disagree or no? What do you think here? Well, I have the same score as you. I had a 3-2 Kaikara France rounds 1, 4, and 5 were the ones I had for him. 2 and 3, I think, were Al-Bazi. You know, you mentioned something about rounds 2 and 3, I think, which Elbazi. You know, you mentioned something about what rounds two and three,

I think, which is correct, namely that those are pretty clear Elbazi rounds. I would agree. I don't think there's really much debate around rounds two or three, particularly three. But I remember after the first round, I was thinking to myself, yeah, okay, I've got this one for Car of France. Let's see how this goes. And then I remember thinking at the end of round two,

excuse me, because I didn't watch it live. I'd only seen the controversy. I remember thinking at the end of round two, excuse me, because I didn't watch it live. I'd only seen the controversy. And I remember at the end of round two, I'm thinking, wow, that was a much better round for Al-Bazi. So then I actually went back after the fight was over and then watched what rounds won again. I understand that Kaikar France didn't exactly put a ton of like punishment on Al-Bazi.

And I recognize that Al-bazi didn't get anything really with the grappling anything super effective either with you know takedown attempts or you know pressing Cara France into the wall I gotta tell you I'm in a bit of a part of this debate where excuse me I've got this cold it just won't quit I have been the guy for many years who's been like well if it's close based on the way the rules go, you just kind of have to, it's like you're flipping a coin. Like you said,

in other words, even if after the fact under closer inspection, it becomes clear that one guy was just a little bit better than the other one. But then in real time, it's harder to tell. We've kind of retreated to this territory, like between the way in which we judge it and between the way in which we use this scoring criteria,

if it's close, you simply no longer can rely on the fact that you might have had a modest or very minimal advantage. And so that's the case for Elbazi. But I got to tell you, I'm not exactly sure how to word this, but thinking about that first round and then thinking about how different they looked for Elbazi in the second and the third relative to the first like I'm not really sure how strong the argument is that you could have gone either way like I understand that there was nothing incredibly dominant and so it takes a keen eye well dude these judges are supposed to have keen eyes sure they're supposed to have the ability to tell the difference between what it looks like in round one and what it looks like in round two

so I get the argument from the way which we normally make it which was it was kind of close there's just going to be a fog you're asking people to look through the fog they're going to get it wrong I don't know how much I believe that anymore this one was not so foggy to me as to be like there's a really good argument for round one Albazi not really no there's not um you know I think I think round one for Albbazi is the wrong score i guess i'm just trying to say that you know one of the three judges did score rounds one two and three for albazi so he actually stayed out of the fourth round chris lee controversy i'm just basically saying that was this fight close enough where you can use that knee-jerk reaction that

people hate when they want to believe that what they saw was a robbery or some form of corruption. And that knee-jerk thing is, hey guys, close round, could have gone either way. In the moment, because let's remember, judges don't get to watch replays. They don't get to read Twitter. They don't get to re-watch the round two, three times like we get to. I think the round one was close enough that depending on what they're looking for and then what they see and what they focus on to your point should they be as keenly focused and as expert yes that's largely our

larger issue here the recruitment the choosing of the judges the training the the penalties for bad scorecards all of that i just think one is not you know what there is a path to get there but what's not forgivable or explainable is round four with Chris Lee, where 27-5 strike differential and a late takedown for Kaikara France somehow leads to him not winning. That's the part where we've got major issues that now go in a line with the other major issues we had in boxing. The Haney Lomachenko, which I say not a robbery,

but I still feel like they got it wrong. Before that, the Rolly Lomachenko, which I say not a robbery, but I still feel like they got it wrong. Before that, the Rolly Romero situation with Tony Weeks clearly got that wrong. This is becoming more, in my opinion, of a Nevada conversation than it necessarily is boxing is broken and corrupt and dead and now mixed martial arts too, right? And I think round one's close enough, Luke, you know what i'm saying where where could a keen eye get it wrong sure but i don't think it's way wrong if they scored one round round one for all bozzy and which was feel a feely feel each other out round luke at the end of the day in which neither one really established themselves you know it's kind

of funny we don't really bring this up when we talk about there are obviously not to be too negative but there obviously are some complaints about the amount of Apex shows and people think about it as a consequence, or they think it primarily, the folks who don't like it, I should say, seem to me, from what I can tell, to be making arguments about how there's kind of like a quiet atmosphere and it just doesn't feel very big. And of course, the fight cards themselves are a little bit watered down,

but there's a bigger component here, which is is right but they still have pretty good main events and we're still in a state that seems i don't know if hostile to improvement is the word but not very open to it not very forward thinking not really trying all that hard to do a better job at least not from what we're able to tell and certainly not offering any transparency to what processes they put in place to ensure that they get better so a lot of skepticism about that it's another component to the apex shows you're dealing with an experienced commission but you're dealing with a commission that is what would you say bc unreliable is that what they are yeah yeah i mean look dana and this is not us against dana i know people are like all grown here comes another

piss on data moment but he constantly does defend Nevada, especially in relation when he's asked about PFL popping all those guys for drug use on the recent card in Nevada. And he's sort of like, well, that's, you know, come to V they're not going to be coming to Vegas anymore.

No Vegas doesn't have this, this backbone in, in, in quality and consistent reputation. They can be all over the place. Why do I always bring up this point? Because it's absurd in 2012 when the state of Nevada allowed Floyd Mayweather to move his fight date and delay

his jail sentence because they countered that his fight against Miguel Cotto would bring in so much income to the city that this should somehow play into that decision. Like, no, this is not, this is not a completely on the button, on the nose, trustworthy commission. And what makes it ultimately worse is the lack of transparency or communication after the fact. I do think this specific situation, Luke, it's getting lumped into those, all the other ones I mentioned. It makes sense because we're all in Las Vegas here, we're all in Nevada, and it's linked together. But this isn't corruption. I want to make that clear. This just feels like incompetency or a lack of oversight because that round four is inexplainable. I would much rather have this been a split decision win for Al-Bazi where we're making the argument for round one, but really we have to point back to round four here um it ain't

good lately it just ain't good at all Nevada Las Vegas um fight capital of the world but it doesn't mean things are always cleaning on the button over there Luke let's be let's be really open and honest here no certainly not I want to get back to that round one if I can be seen now the true the truth part is we're both saying rounds two and rounds three are Al-Bazi rounds without much issue. It should be noted, Cara France numerically, again, listen to what I'm saying, numerically, he outstruck Al-Bazi, Cara France did, in all five rounds. So 13-6 in round one, 16-11 in round two, 9-3, and then, of course, 27-5 in round four. That's the big one we'll talk about in just a second.

And then 34-5 in round 4, that's the big one we'll talk about in just a second and then 34-18 in round 5. BC, but getting back to the first one, so while again, Cara France outstruck Al-Bazi in those other two rounds, there was obviously a little bit more that made up for it, but I'm looking here on this he only had that one minute of control time which was just Cara France getting pushed against the fence, that didn't count

for anything, he didn't get any takedowns in that round so it's just the striking and nothing is super memorable except car france was just a little bit more active i will ask this though i wonder if you miss a lot and i remember you're 13 for 40 that means you're whiffing on what uh 27 of those so 27 shots you're just completely wide open missing and a good portion of them i, how many leg kicks did he have in the first round for Cara France? He had, yeah, he had six in the first round. So that's, you know, that's, we're talking for the first round where you only landed 13, basically half of the leg kicks. If you miss a lot and you throw a lot of leg kicks, I wonder if the judges just don't, you know how there's a conversation right now in boxing about whether the judges are valuing body work.

I know Al Bernstein has been kind of animated about that. I wonder if you throw a lot and miss, but then when you land, you land a lot to the legs. I don't know how much they value that. I really wonder. No, I mean, that's where the reeducation factor and it really needs. And then obviously the larger discussion of separating boxing scoring from MMA scoring, although they have different criterias, we're again still using the same 10, 10, nine must, you know, 10 point must system, even though MMA has longer rounds and much more variety to what's going on. Are the judges educated enough on the level considering for so long who are MMA judges,

largely people that came from the boxing judging side or the boxing refereeing side. We still see that today with a lot of crossover in there. Are they formally understanding the impact of leg strikes and what that can add? I'm not sure. Let me remind you that judges in real time do not have access to any form of punch metric or counting, you know, in the moment system. And on top of that, the main reason why we often say on here, particularly in boxing, we're talking about compu box numbers they can aid in your argument in this case when we're arguing round four and the legitimacy of chris lee's scorecard scoring it for all bozzy a 27 to 5 factor is just it aids in our argument of what the hell were you watching but i do want to counter the other point you made not that you were harping on it but hey kai car france outlanded him every round. And when you look at the disparity in punch totals after the fact, it can create to some

degree an inaccurate picture. Why? Because Al-Bazi's biggest round was round three, where he inflicted a ton of pressure and threat on the ground, not so much with strikes. And Luke, obviously here, there's a difference between a strike that has landed and a significant strike if somebody's working in a flurry of jabs or let's say light leg strikes that is going to be considered and should be considered different than when somebody steps in and lands a real meaningful shot could round two be argued for Kaikara France certainly I don't think that was

a dominant Al-Bazi round but I do think if we are looking at a difference there I did think he landed the better power shots particularly a one-two that he stepped into and landed a big right hand that sort of forced Kai Carfrance to reset and rethink for a moment. So the system's not perfect, Luke. The operators aren't perfect, but here we are every week on this show going, hey, how do we we fix this i think my issue is largely becoming now that i don't think anybody cares about fixing it you know what i'm saying like we're not seeing press releases or big summit meetings with the heads of all the state commissions going wow we have had a lot of issues lately and why should they care because of the

impropriety factor because las vegas is the fight capital of the world because betting is so tied into sports that we watch on television today you would not want that reputation hovering and lingering over you so i i just feel like even though i'm the guy who argues with you stop the robbery talk it's just this it's just indifference or or or you know ignorance can we fix the ignorance part because round four from chris lee is ignorance that's just i mean that's just straight up again the other rounds we can fine-tooth comb could you have given one round one to albazi yes could you have given round two to kkf yes but that just shows you with the could have that it could have

gone either way what about the times where it's clear it could not have gone either way luke what about those times yeah i'm not sure could not have gone either way Luke what about those times yeah I'm not sure what to say about that scorecard because the thing about me for round one Elbazi it's like am I so um blinded to the reality that a lot of judges in practice would get that wrong uh no I am not blinded to that reality I still don't think it's that hard to score for car France, but okay. In the world in which we live, I can understand how some judges might get there.

Again, I want to point this out. Even a very good judge is using a terrible process. Many don't have monitors. They don't have access to statistics and they have to make a decision almost instantaneously. You're just not going to get good decision-making that way. You're not going to get it.

It's just not possible, right? It's just a very bad way to make here. We not gonna let you review anything we're not gonna let you think about it please make a hasty decision based on what you can immediately just recall 67 year old person like you think you're going to get good judging that way but i have to say that round four uh for albazi is so incomprehensibly bad as to be disqualifying as a judge, or at least as a bare minimum, like worthy of a,

of a broader conversation. I don't, I don't know. I don't know how you like, and I'm, I'm not being facetious here, BC. I'm not asking like genuinely,

does this person have vision problems or hearing problems? Like, are they, are they, are they sensory impaired in some kind of way because i don't know how you can have a mammalian brain that functions at a reasonable level and even think about getting to a spot where you give that round to albazi absolutely incomprehensible unjustifiable no two ways about it he got that one wrong i'll go to my grave saying that well

you know it'd be great luke if we could hear from the judge himself or his supervisor and get an accurate breakdown of why. And that's why, because I have friends in the boxing judging game and because I do like to be a guardian of, hold on, our sport is broken, but it ain't that broken. So back off for a second. I do like to lean back and put some respect on the fact of the pressure that they have in that job and the fact that, like we always mentioned, they can't see all these other things we get to replay all that other stuff but damn i feel like a lot of this could be explained because judges are tied to a

scoring criteria that sometimes we are loose with at home with a beer in our hand while we're tweeting and texting people and trying to score out of the other side of our eye. These guys are letter of the law. These guys are being taught that like, so I'd rather get that explanation of, Hey guys, you know, you thought you saw that this guy should have won that round, but here's a, here's an argument in the other factor leaning on this part of the criteria. I actually believe that transparency and communication could help fix this it could help educate, it could help protect their names and their reputation, but nah we don't want transparency in judging Luke, we don't want communication

we're going to talk later in the show about Mike Mazzulli's interview with Aaron Bronstetter that touches on this and goes deep on this so I'll save that for that, but until we have that, unfortunately, it's going to lean on what Dana always tells the fighters. You don't like the judges scorecards. Don't allow them into your fight. Go out there and fight like an animal and be reckless and go for the finish. Well, look, that's not everybody.

That's not always winning MMA. That's not modern, well-rounded MMA, right? Like that's just old school of like, you don't like it, go out there and brawl and keep them out of it. Or we can talk about the issues and the problems that we have. Maybe, I don't know, we're a unified country in the United States in particular. Can we create a national commission and not a state by state one where the laws and the rules can change sometimes drastically from state to state, even in boxing where every fight we have to announce oh no no three down knockdown rule here because we're in this state but replay only in the last round because we're in this state like can we just get uniformed i know if we're going to ask for a central governing body in boxing

we're probably going to be asking for too much to take that wild west foundation and try to whip it up into something that makes a ton of sense and has credibility, right? Boxing is a Wild West and that's where it's going to stay. It just is. But do we have to have that across the board in the commissions that also control boxing, but also control MMA, where we just have no transparency or education or information or anything? Then guess what? We fill the time on this microphone talking bad about each state and talking bad about their judges. Right. Why? Because that's the only information they give us. I'm not sure what to say anymore about stuff like this. I really don't.

But, you know, I will push back a little bit like about a national commission. I'm not in favor of that either. You know, if there was a national. I mean, the whole. Well, let's think about it like what is colorado doing that is so interesting right colorado does use the unified rule so if the ufc wanted to go back there which of course they started there basically they could do so um but what they've also said is they looked into the one rule set and they also allow any promoter who wants to employ that one that they can now why is that significant well in in doing so, it has angered the UFC. It has absolutely pissed them off.

Yeah, well, big deal, UFC. Big fucking deal. Hold on, hold on. Well, okay, you can say that, but the problem is they have pledged to not take their product back there. Now, there are certain states where they absolutely just don't need UFC.

So, for example, California doesn't need UFC. Like, between the amount of smaller to mid-level promotions in MMA and then all the boxing that takes place there, that commission is so big, they're not reliant upon them in that way. But other states might be. And the UFC is imposing, in this particular case, an economic penalty to disincentivize other states to get on board with that.

The reason why I'm against a national commission, although I wouldn't be opposed to certain forms of it, but I guess here's my fear. My fear is that the only reason Colorado is able to make progress outside of this homogenized rule set is because they have that ability to do it. They have the regulatory access to do that. If we had a national commission who was, by the way, I don't trust these regulators to not favor top promoters in mma and boxing by the

way so my my worry is if you had one doing it they would be basically in bed with the promoter and you wouldn't be able to get what colorado was now giving okay i would make it a a governing national body luke so if you're going to get in bed with the promoter there's going to be certain penalties i'm not talking about the wbc and the wba who are you know all waking up in the same bed every morning and doing ridiculous things to your counter about the WBC and the WBA who are, you know, all waking up in the same bed every morning and doing ridiculous things. To your counter about the rule change sets, like, don't we allow different rules in other sports based on the league or the promotion that's there? Like, you know what I'm saying? So, like, what's the big deal about each state going, okay, if UFC comes through here, we use this rule set.

If PFL or one which has different ways of looking at certain things, then we agree to use their rule set. If PFL or one, which has different ways of looking at certain things, then we agree to use their rule set. It's not the same thing as like, if the NBA comes in, we do this. But then if tomorrow we have college basketball in the same arena, we do two halves instead of four quarters. Like it's all playing to the rules of that sport and that promotion. How is that a hard hurdle? Get over. The second part is what you're saying about the potential of UFC luring over them. And, and, you know, almost, almost like blackmailing them with the pressure of we won't come back here. It's not the same shit Vince McMahon used to do against rival promoters in the late 80s telling the cable companies if you put their pay-per-views available, we won't. Yeah, who won that?

Who won that? We won a lot. Okay, but like wouldn't that. That's the whole point. Because that's a whole lot. You're acting like Colorado. No, no, no. Back the fuck up whole lot. You're acting like Colorado. You're acting like. Back the fuck up, Luke.

All right? Because this is serious. Dude, you're acting like Colorado's bravery is just pedestrian. Dude, they're the only ones who have done that. In 50 states, they're the only ones who have taken that risk. If anything, they put themselves on the leadership there, put themselves on the chopping block just for doing that. OK, but the reason I get animated and fight you back for countering me and saying, oh, well, that's just what the UFC is going to do. Can they do that to a national commission, Luke? Can they do that to a governed body national commission?

I'm not talking about can they do that to the Nevada State Athletic Commission where, oh, by the way, Lorenzo Fertitta used to sit on the actual commission there. So everybody's still friends behind the scenes. And why wouldn't the Nevada commission support and lean into UFC and do whatever they want? Because they are based in there and bring so much business and promotion and money in there. I'm talking about a national commission that in theory could not be just bamboozled with a a threat or a loaded envelope you do not trust do you not trust that this could be possible on the national governing level luke um not if it's not i'll say this are there ways for me to imagine that if the federal government really took it up and really designed an excellent program that it could do the things you wanted to

do yes of, of course. Of course that's in play. I guess I'm just saying if they're going to punt and they tried to do something and it was on the order of what they've done with state commissions, which just essentially become little fiefdoms, then no, I would not trust it. I mean, it would be entirely a function of how they created it, basically. But why would we succumb to a fear?

Our fear is that if a state does the right thing the ufc won't come back that's our fear right now come on that's a real that's why is that a minimal fear to you that's a big one that's a big one because if we unify lock arms obviously something the ufc fighter base is not doing to protect their own future if the states unified unified, put arm in arm and said, we are going to join together to have the same rules across the board in a national commission, then the UFC wouldn't be allowed to do that. Luke, that would be again under that version of things. Absolutely. I guess what I'm saying is if there was a national commission that could oversee this process and like, to your point, kind of like force Nevada or Idaho or Georgia, whoever to be better, to look into this, like kind of act as a watchdog on them. Yes. I mean, it's hard to see, it's hard to see how a watchdog on the commissions would be bad. I mean, that could only, that could only

be good if that's actually what they did. I guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't want to lose, dude, we haven't figured out the rules of MMA and we haven't figured out a good process for changing them. We've got a decent blueprint. I feel like we've got something that works, but the one experience shows us that there are other ways to do this. I would still want good able commissions. In this case, Colorado would be an able one to be able to experiment. I wouldn't want to lose the ability to experiment with rules. I think that's been lost a little bit. I feel is an important question.

I have a fear you're going to laugh at it, but I think this is important. Why can't the change be something that we feel like we need to avoid? And what am I referencing? The UFC having their own officials, obviously nobody knee jerk wants that because of the potential for impropriety and pushing the fighter. That's better for the promotion to win through background pressure or bribery and all that.

But doesn't the NBA and the NFL have their own employees that they train, pay, discipline, correct, promote, fire, all of that, that are all working under their own rule set that obviously that gets these rules get voted on by owners. And I don't know if they involve the players association, but like there's a commitment to the rule set. There's also a commitment after the fact off season to saying, should we change this for, for, to better our sport, to better our TV product. Tell me the reasons against the idea of the UFC, which has so much power in this sport that it's almost like in, you know, weird to compare them to any other promoter, just having their own Luke and, and, and like seriously here, is that the fix rather than going state by state to like these mom and pop shops? And like, we're talking about living in active fear that if you change a rule and the UFC gets pissed off, they won't bring the traveling circus to your show anymore. Like that should not be our foundational scare.

Talk to me against breaking glass and saying, okay, UFC, you now raise up your own officials. I'm not talking about commission members eat for each state that are over going to, that are going to oversee the drug testing and the, the, side of it that's that's all separate i'm just talking about the officials why is this different than the nba um so no one trusts people in the fight game

that's where athletic commissions come from basically this is the lesson i've had to learn the hard way um a lot of the fight game is not built on polite society. And by the way, like now there is American football on the grandest terms, but the NFL certainly is much more significantly in that way. The commissions came around because you had unscrupulous people in the case, mostly promoters early on doing illegal gambling, you know, matching up their guy with someone they knew who was going to get their ass

kicked, not having money to pay these guys, and then skipping town. There was a lot of reasons why they had to get involved and have the force of law to compel them. I think it would be a very bad idea. This is true for any promoter in any part of the world. I mean, I realize that, like, you know,

pride got away with it in Japan in a different era, but I'll just say this. I would be very concerned about handing. You've identified a really good problem, or I say a really central problem, which is that we don't have a good mechanism for updating the rules of the NFL to your point. Want to, and that they've changed the kickoff rules this for this next upcoming year. They're only anticipating 30% of kickoffs are going to be run back. A lot of them are just going to be you know uh drop a knee there to start from the next uh series of downs because the NFL has the capacity to rule on these things in a way without government obstruction um the problem is I don't think anyone in the fight game

deserves that kind of trust quite candidly I don't think anyone does nobody anywhere I get that I get that but I just feel like they would allow it would allow them to align the values of the scoring system and the decision-making to the product that they're trying to put out. And as long as everybody knew all of the rules, as long as there was actual checks and balances in terms of who's a good official and who's not, let's bring in a new batch. You know what I mean? All of of that stuff is that, I don't know. I just wonder if that's, if that's better at the end of the day, because what has the NBA done very well, in my opinion, Luke, as a casual fan now, formerly a, just a gross hardcore fan. Like they have a Twitter account about the referees, right?

They come out after the fact and say, you know what? We got this wrong and here's why, or we got it right you know what, we got this wrong, and here's why. Or we got it right, even though you think it's wrong, and here's why. Couldn't the UFC do that? Oh, wait, you're right. I'm asking them to be honest and transparent. Yeah, maybe you're right.

You know what, Luke, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. I mean, I know what we're talking about. Honestly, just a serious question. Yeah, I guess maybe you're right. Hold on. I'm not even making an argument about corruption. Again, a lot of people want to go to that space,

and I don't because I think that's nearly defamatory if you don't have evidence for something like that. But what I will say is this. Do you trust the Nevada Commission? Because you watch a lot of boxing. No. Do you trust them to... How concerned are you about their incompetence and i gotta be honest my answer is

like fairly high yeah i'm fairly concerned about it yeah yeah i mean i don't i don't think they're a they're a clown show per se but uh and we can always debate all the times that we feel like wow i think i just saw corruption and some you know it's always the case. But on the day-to-day, do I trust them in the education and in the disciplining and the commitment to always making sure the best people are being trotted out? No, at this point, no, Luke. But I also think, you know, the scoring system is flawed. There's so much about this game that's flawed.

And it's sad because you could argue that this sport has the most risk physically so you know and not just physically but financially right i mean you know not just the win bonus but like you know boxing and mma it's like you are only as good as your last fight when you get the wrong end of a deal on a close decision that could that could literally cost you millions of dollars why are we not more up in arms about this to make sure we get it right? Luke, is there any responsibility on the UFC to push back against Vegas? It's like, you know, their home is Vegas. I don't see them going in the other direction.

I don't think Taichi Palace is suddenly going to get the reward that they're sitting around waiting for right now. But do you think there should be more onus on UFC to push back against Nevada publicly? Well, there's a kind of question about what kind of ownership someone should have in terms of business before the commission. So here's a great example, right? So Dana White, I think, has a license as a promoter for the UFC, which, of course, makes sense. But he also has one for PowerSnap, or at least the organization has to have one,

and he has to maintain a good relationship in either direction. So it's a little weird when you've got multiple entities you're trying to get approved before the commission because if you went super hard on them on the MMA side, let's say that's how he really felt, wouldn't that imperil your chances? I mean, let's be honest, the kind of relationship you have with the commission plays a huge role in whether or not they will agree to do something or not not the only one but a big one like should there be a rule that says if you've got business as a licensed person or you're one of your entities that you're an ownership of has a business before the commission you can't have yet another one that also has business before the commission because then you have this conflict where you're going to try and just stay in the good graces to

get as many entities as you want regulated. Now, obviously, that's more of a rule to maintain a relationship that is just doing the business itself. It's not necessarily bad that one thing got promoted or the other. I'm simply pointing out when you have these two entities in there both before the commission you have to maintain a relationship that makes that kind of open access possible are you going to get full-throated angry responses of him banging his fist down on the four mic and asking to see the manager in a case like that no you're not are you trying to make the case that when zufa bought bought UFC all these years ago and Lorenzo resigned from the Athletic Commission and then purchased it and suddenly MMA got approved in goes to show that it's like here in D.C. Like someone was a member of Congress or something like that. They finish their term or anything like whatever,

whatever how they end up leaving Congress, they lose. And then they just go join a lobbying firm or they go work at Lockheed Martin or they join a top law firm who then does lobbying back on the Hill. Like it's just a revolving door of the same kinds of people. And so there's a question about like, what kind of firewalls you want to put in place? But you see, we've got to move the conversation along. I got another important question on this. If you'd give me the time, Luke, I really don't want to, but if I don't, you're going to get mad at me. So I'm going to give it to you, but I'm going to ask you to please

hurry. Well, I'm, you know, it's in the sake of great programming. Is there an in-between answer that we're not talking about? And is that answer obviously an increased level of accountability, which we're not getting right now when there's a controversial score or disputed one, what do we get silence? And we move on. So should there be a petition system in which the fighter or even the promotion could appeal certain decisions? They could have a hearing in which a fight was investigated and rescored and a future in which a decision could be overturned or a controversy could be changed

to a no contest and we have a rematch. I'm not saying either of these proposals are helpful, but are they fair? Is there something that's not happening in the system that could help alleviate this? The only question to me is not whether or not that would be a good idea, or could you find some kind of instrument to make that idea possible? You could, but when I think about it is like, how are you going to do that?

Cause just asking the commission nicely, ain't going to do it. Yelling about it on shows like this is not going to do it. How would you do it? There's a tweet from the champion israel sonia like let's put it up here real quick there's a couple of them there's only one i want to focus on though uh leave it leave it there leave it right there he wrote start interviewing the judges after fights hold them accountable for their work end quote okay thank you so i have an idea i wonder if this would work bc and it

would only work in very limited circumstances, if at all, like a Floyd Mayweather type or, you know, a Conor McGregor type. Could Conor, he would have to petition, not just UFC, but he would have to petition the commission saying, listen, I want to fight that guy. Let's say it's a big fight. I'll fight Habib again in Nevada, but I got one rule. Now, I know that they had the weird thing where Habib jumped out of the cage, so this wouldn't work, but I'm saying two dynamic, enormous personalities. We want to bring this fight to your state. We want to make sure that you guys have the economic impact.

We like working with this commission. We just want to be here in Nevada. But here's the deal. I want to make it so that if I lose by split decision, I get to interview one of the judges who voted against me don't have to make it public but i get to talk to them i get to talk to them about why they ruled it as they did you can monitor it it can last 10 minutes and then that could be the end of it could they get that approved could a floyd mayweather type

get that approved what's the use to it if you're already establishing that only the elite can have access to it, it's not going to affect the change of it. So what you get educated as to why that guy scored it against you when no one believes that you lost. If you're going to do that, Luke, then let's go the full Monty that I bring up every time there's a bad score card of mandatory.

Either they get interviewed after the fact or a commission representative has to show up at the post-fight press conference and has to answer questions, provide education as, you know, after talking to the officials as to what happened. Like I fully understand and we'll get into this with Mazzulli,

but I fully understand why you would want to protect them immediately after the fact. But what about an hour later? What about a day later? What about a week later? Let's not concoct this just for the super elite, Luke. I mean, they already have enough. Remember when Floyd got out of using that IV against me? I mean, they've already got enough things that they can, you know, remember when they moved the whole card for Jon Jones? They already have enough advantages, Luke. You're either going to open the doors to communication and transparency fully or you're not. And even in that fully,

I'm still going to give you the chance to only have one representative speak like you would see in the White House and the government, have that spokesperson come out and address it. Look, we don't even get that. Last time we got that was after Golovkin Canelo won when boxing reporter Michael Montero was you know basically accosting Bob Bennett and kind of clowning him for the for what we're arguing here a lack of anything lack of empathy a lack of anything beyond nope that was you know like what are we doing Luke there's no in between right you can't be half pregnant we either want to fix this or we don't the The problem here is, guess what?

Nobody wants to fix it because everybody's still getting paid, Luke. They don't care. With that in mind, BC, very quickly, we have to move along. The significance of the win. What would you say? It's kind of a shame because I did think Al-Bazi showed himself to be a high-quality fighter, even if you think he didn't win. As I mentioned before, he doesn't take a lot of damage. I think you saw that.

He's got some pretty good wrestling, some pretty good grappling. I think you saw some of that as well. And this was a tough opponent, which he performed very well against. He's going to earn probably, what, a top-five position. Carfrance sitting at three, Al-Bazi sitting at seven. It's good to move into the top five, another flyweight top fighter. I have to say that this slows KKF,

but I don't think it kills him, even though I think they got it wrong. For Albazi, you nailed it. He accomplished what he was set out to do short of winning, which is proof to us that that win streak and the damage he left behind can escalate to the elite level. He just did it.

He's elite. He's absolutely a title contender in this division. I don't think he gets the next title shot that he is petitioning for, but it's possible based on how the cards fall. The in-between is Brandon Royval. What do they do with him after Pantoja gets his shot? But I think Kai Carfrance, it's going to be looked at as like almost a soft win, a moral victory, whatever. So I think he'll actually be fine, even with the back-to-back losses. Let's not forget that, yeah, he lost to Moreno, who's the full champion, but he looked good early in that one. So he's going to grow from it. Everybody will be fine. I don't think, you know, one person's going to get damaged financially or opportunistically. But, yeah, Al-Bazi, you know, that's why I don't want to go too hard in like the

negativity of what we learned from this fight on a scoring sense, because what we learned is he's a great fighter, but you know, he's got the right mentality and it seems like he's got the well rounded game to be a problem, Luke, because he had to show a lot of his striking due to the stubbornness of Kaikar Francis grappling. And I thought it shined in key moments. Fair enough. All right. Topic number two, we stay with the card, but another big winner on this one. How about Jim Miller? Jim Miller, almost 40 years old, becomes the first UFC fighter to 25 wins and BC, this is an easy one. He got it in 23 seconds. Open question.

Getting your 25th octagon win, granted against some circumstances, which we'll talk about in just a minute, but just on that level, just for Jim Miller, what does this say about him? What does this mean? It means that Jim Miller may have never become a champion, which is true, and probably won't be. And we may not have thought about him in any specific categories having super elite skill, but the sum of it all, right? The putting the complete game together mixed with longevity, toughness, stick-to-it-ness, a want to learn

and evolve and grow. It's like, it's weird. It's different than somebody who's like former champion slam dunk hall of famer. And I know there's actually a hall of fame, a lot of hall of fame talk. Dana was even asked about like, people are already sort of saying, hey, Jim Miller secured his shot in the hall of fame. I'd actually argue that, but separate from that, what did we learn here, Luke? That this is what happens when you don't give up and you keep getting better. I'm so glad that he's getting a victory lap at the end of his career, where he's setting records, and every time he's on the card,

we do this dance right here. But I have to say, he's overplaying his hand, and it's fun as shit to watch. Yes, this was a last-minute opponent making his UFC debut, but does anybody expect this out of Jim Miller? No. And there's been a few of these wins in the last three years where it's sort of like, damn, that wasn't just, oh, look at old Jim Miller. He still got it.

Like, he's coming through with some of the better performances of his career. People age differently. Some, you know, some get to 3,000 hits. Luke, yeah, I'm looking at Craig Biggio without being considered at any point like a legitimate MVP candidate or one of the greatest of all time, but they end up there. I don't like putting compilers in Hall of Fames, and I sometimes have a very harsh stance against them.

But Jim Miller is maxing out what is available to him, and that I tip my hat to. He won't go away. He's getting better. And against this level of competition in these scenarios, he's still capable of ending it in 23 seconds in violent and dominant fashion. Like tip of the cap, brother. There's different ways to end up at great.

And like I said, people are saying matter of factly that he's probably a Hall of Famer. Now, if that's true, Luke, if you agree with that, then he got there in an untraditional way, he got there by not giving up right and that there's something to that you can be great for two three years in mma but the injuries inconsistencies can either force you out or force you down to a low level he just sort of stayed at a pretty damn good level the whole time and he doesn't look like he's anywhere close to being done um we do need to stop and applaud that absolutely it felt great watching this on saturday i the i i'm with you i think putting jim miller in the hall of fame is not appropriate i mean i get that there is a warm sentiment around him which i totally support and applaud and i'm part

of frankly i get that completely and i think the fans want that to crystallize into something that they can, you know, what did this end up meaning, that we have such a strong feeling for Jim Miller, and he did so many interesting things. Where do we put that? There should be some kind of place for that. I just don't know if the Hall of Fame is the appropriate one, because I think that should be exclusive for the very highest achievers.

And in that sense, I don't think Jim Miller belongs. However, BC, I mean, let's just not talk about what he doesn't have going for him. Let's talk about what he does. Dude, Jim Miller is a martial artist. I mean, that's really what he is. He's a martial artist. Yes, he's a fighter and a very violent one on Saturday. But what do I mean when I say he's a martial artist?

This is a guy who, through the entirety of his training experience, has just sought to show up, be a part of the journey, challenge himself, get better, have fun, in this particular case, make a living. But a martial artist has sort of got this quiet everyday commitment to small habits, small changes, getting better for this accumulated wisdom that happens over time. And a lot of people can't keep that journey up, at least not for very long. But Jim Miller has, you know, for folks who are saying, well, this guy came in on 48 hours notice his opponent and he got knocked out in 23 seconds. Right. I mean, I want to have a conversation about that in just a second.

But on the other end, Jim Miller dispatched him like somebody who was at the peak of their UFC powers. 23 seconds just ran him over, almost literally ran him over. I mean, he did the kind of thing that someone at his age and his experience level in terms of all the miles shouldn't be able to do. But because he has invested in being a lifelong learner about fight sports in every way and about himself and what works and what doesn't, it has enabled him to have a level of success as he's aged, where he can make up for some of the physical differences,

BC with incredible guile, incredible experience, willingness, and all of this amazing accumulated wisdom, that commitment to being a martial artist is what has carried him to this moment. Boy, major salute to Jim Miller.

Yeah. And certainly Matt Brown's in this conversation at the moment. He's doing great stuff late in his career. 44. Did you, artist is what has carried him to this moment boy major salute to jim miller yeah and certainly matt brown's in this conversation at the moment he's doing great stuff late in his career 44 did you was it him who tweeted out luke during right after this that was like kind of the levels of understanding and striking not everybody has it even in elite mma and it feels like this is some of the things that these guys are taking advantage of, the smarts, but waiting for that big moment and reacting and making you, taking full advantage of your one mistake and making you pay for it dearly.

He's got a point there, Luke. There seems to be like, you know, there's a lot of different skills you need to have on your tool belt to be great at MMA. But I feel like the commitment to striking on a pro boxing level just isn't there comparatively to the other skill sets is that an ignorant comment pro boxing is not where now the commitment to to like true boxing technique uh in mma comparative to the other skill disciplines you need like this this kid kind of walked into it here we didn't expect this from jim miller but man he took advantage and matt brown tweeted something similar to that sort of like exposing the that that there are levels to this do you

feel like that there's some fighters that get to a very elite level that just have you know remedial striking basic and it's surprising that in 2023 we're still here in that yeah i mean i've not seen enough of i've not seen enough of jesse butler's to make a comment i mean i obviously it didn't go well for him in this contest but he's got like 20 pro fights before this i'm not super familiar with him so i can't make a broad it's not a jesse butler comment luke it's more of a comment about any young fighter that walking in here yeah yeah what i'm saying is yes it's been my experience i mean here's what i would say like If you talk to someone like an Izzy level, they've got an appreciation of detail that is almost shocking.

You just can't believe how good it is. That is not just not the norm. That is very, very rare. Matt Brown was saying you'd be surprised about the lack of overall knowledge that a lot of fighters have because, in his judgment, they get away with a lot of stuff on athleticism, which is, I think, in large part, pretty true. I mean, there's only 24 hours in a day.

There's only so much you can train. What do you want to work on that's going to narrow your choices a lot? And more to the point, how much refinement do you want to put into it? What you're seeing with Jim Miller is whatever tradeoffs he's had athletically, there's just been this incredible level of detail and refinement. And then what that buys you is shocking to people like oh my god at 39 he can you he can do these kinds of things but like you're asking about boxing specifically yeah dude it's a big problem i would say even the ones who have good boxing still haven't fully figured out how to integrate it yet right because

it makes you at least a little bit more hittable in the short run but in general i mean the guy threw i think he threw a left hook right hand left hook right hand he got countered after the at least a little bit more hittable in the short run. But in general, I mean, the guy threw, I think he threw a left hook right hand, left hook right hand. He got countered after the right hand the first time, and then he got caught in between his punches the second. So, like, how did Gervonta Davis get Leo Santa Cruz? He threw the same thing three times. Like, if you show patterns to elite guys,

they're going to eat you alive. You can't do that. You cannot show patterns to very good people. And Jim Miller alive you can't do that you cannot show patterns to very good people and jim miller saw it right away and took his soul for it pretty incredible yeah the the tweets i was referencing there from matt brown were just a stream of commentary about how even at the elite level of mma there are still practitioners that are leaning too heavily on athleticism and then you know once that slows lu, some of them end up out of the game. That's why I think it's a credit to guys like Matt Brown and Jim Miller and why they are still able to score wins like this against younger, you know,

stronger, you know, faster, whatever. Fighters because of that commitment to growth and that education and that wisdom that comes in and they can really expose that one mistake. It's an interesting dynamic to see take shape. And shout out to Jim Miller for giving us another highlight on that reel. Okay, so let's flip the equation here a little bit. Jim Miller did his job times a billion. Like, shouts to him, amazing job.

But on the other side, Jesse Butler filled in on two days' notice, now making his UFC debut against a guy with this much experience, and he gets walloped in 23 seconds so then I'll ask the question the other way BC should this fight have happened dude there the argument against the argument against right now all of the media crying that UFC matchmaking of late has been sort of like unexplainably soft is that there are a lot of fights that are falling apart and that puts a ton of pressure on the matchmakers to put, to get, you know, to save cards and save keeping fighters on the card. And I do agree that, you know, maybe we don't applaud that enough. And

maybe there were key circumstances here where that commitment level allowed this fight card to take place. But Luke, it certainly is coming at a bad time because we are seeing people that are you know that are not ready for prime time that i think even goes beyond just oh wow they looked really good in that one dana white contender series knockout when they came in hungry as heck to you know try to get paid and they and they had their big moment um yeah luke i don't have an answer or understanding to hear but no this fight probably shouldn't have. You can take that into the argument of what happened with Jared Gordon here.

Like, what is going on in this relationship of not just matchmaking and is it soft, but I think in the Jared Gordon case, it extends across to commission not understanding of where he was at and, you know, should the matchmakers deserve insults for even booking that fight? There is a bunch of,

there's like this gray cloud hanging over. How do you sort of explain it right now, Luke? Are you happy that they were able to keep it on the road? And hey, we found another hungry hung fighter who was in shape and ready, and this is his dream, so he's going to do it. Should it go on, Luke? I mean, the show must go on. I feel like the matchup should have been better to begin with,

and maybe we wouldn't have had to scramble as much. I don't really know how to. I think there's a few things that went wrong here. First thing I'd say is more than anyone else, I get why Jesse Butler wanted to do it. I get that part totally. I understand his willingness to want to step up. Okay, so I can understand him thinking that would be a good idea.

And again, you know, we've seen guys fill in on last-minute notice in so many different ways and have success or some kind of redeeming aspect to it that made it worth it so a lot of this is hindsight being 2020 but if i'm his management i don't know if i'm picking that fight for him i don't know if that makes the most sense to be honest with you i think there's a question about whether his management should have pulled the trigger on that that's the first thing i'd say the other part though is you go back like why was j was Jesse Butler filling in at all? Because Jim Miller was supposed to fight Jared Gordon. So, BC, on Friday's

show, you asked me, did the UFC and the commission not realize that Jared Gordon had been concussed from the headbutt incident with Bobby Green? And I found that so implausible that I dismissed the possibility on Friday's show, and it is exactly

what happened. So he basically, for folks who remember the Bobby Green incident, Jared Gordon bumps his head, and he goes out, and it is it is exactly what happened so he basically for folks who remember the Bobby Green incident Jared Gordon bumps his head and he goes out and it's this whole you know no contest and Bobby Green's all pissed because he didn't get all of his money right that was part of the whole thing Bobby Green got um shortchanged there a little bit as well uh but here's the reality Nevada no not only doesn't release any more purse information they don't even release medical suspensions anymore that is not even publicly available so i don't know who missed it someone in the ufc or the commission side i guess both sides in this particular case because if you just look at the timing of which he says he had the concussion and then when he got off for the

fight he would still have been under a 30-day medical suspension if one had been in place remember i told you to get those lifted you have to go and show the medical evidence that makes them lifted early and we don't know anything about this like the commission has retreated from a point of public transparency that just makes all of this very difficult to parse yeah and unfortunately so has ufc and i know we we talk about that ad nauseum but dana was asked about this after the at the press conference on saturday he threw Gordon under the bus and basically was like dude you're not a fucking doctor you know and some of this from Dana is right he's basically saying if if you had been concussed and it'd be been a problem and you didn't communicate with that at that to

us and then you're running your mouth Wednesday at the media day it's like yeah we're gonna pull you in a second because that's really bad, you know, headlines. That's really a really bad look for the commission. But where's the background accountability? I give credit. Look, we, we clown on the media a lot who, who are there every day on the regular week by week. Somebody did have a follow-up, raise their hand at the press conference and hold on Dana. It shouldn't, shouldn't some of this be on your own matchmakers knowing how that guy's fight just ended and turning this around so quickly how is it necessarily jared and gordon's fault i could argue maybe it's the commission's fault for not doing the diligence of due diligence of the

medicals although dana was again trying to make it seem like gordon was hiding it even if he was hiding it i would like to see a level of transparency and accountability from the ufc in general of why you were willing to make this fight so fast when a guy just got knocked out. Like, what is the onus on Gordon coming back so quickly? Right. Like what? Like why? Why was this necessary right now? It's not like, again, the ill-advised Michael Bisping to go to China and headline against Gastelum because they wanted a big star in the main event on the crowd, even though he just lost to GSP like three weeks earlier. Why? You know, like why for Jared Gordon?

We didn't get those answers, unfortunately, because Dana took that question and then, you know, went back and hammered on Gordon more. But the system seemed to break here to allow this to happen. Luke, who do you think is most at fault? Like who should have been the person? Is it Gordon for hiding it and then running his mouth and making everybody look bad? I still feel like,

why are you making this guy fight right now? Or why are you even offering it to him? Honestly, um, the reality is you can point the finger a few different directions. You can point them at as management. Some folks are going to say, Oh,

the fighters should know better. You know, uh, the fighters should know better, but they're going to take the fighters are going to take insane risks, right? They're going to do that. Like you, you the fighters should know better but they're gonna because the fighters are going to take insane risks right they're going to do that like you you just have to know like you don't get to be a UFC level fighter and like a good one unless somewhere along the line you took a couple of insane risks that worked out and that informs their judgment so you have to have someone on

their team I think say that to them uh I'm gonna I think that the buck stops with the commission on this one. Yes, I know a lot of people didn't like the way Dana White handled that at the press conference. I didn't love it either. But the reality is, the promoters may make errors,

even in good faith, to say nothing of whether or not they're even acting and such. The job of the commission is to get to the bottom of this. The job of the commission is to record keep in such a way that this was not even allowed. The job of the commission is to know better. Fighters

are going to conceal injuries. Remember Dillashaw before the Sterling fight and many other cases. We all know that that's going to happen. Um, but there is a real big question about whether he was on suspension. He should have been on it. No matter what they didn't do that. We don't know what the records are. It's on them. At the end of the day, the buck stops with them. This is their job. The job of the promoter is not to do stuff like this, but it is to put on fights that people want to pay money to see. The job of the commission is to check that.

They didn't. That's what falls on. Yeah, I mean, look, the fighters are always going to take risks, short-term risks, and forget about the long-term rewards. In fact, the UFC feasts on that and how they love when there's you know a company man a chris lieb and a cowboy who's willing to risk it all and come back two weeks later i just feel like more of it is on them in this case and damn why why does this show have to be all negative luke why can't we talk about the fights that were great and these up-and-coming

fighters that are unbelievable i know let's do that let's do that. Let's do that. Topic number three, BC. We'll stay with the card, but one last one. Give me somebody else on that UFC Vegas 74 card. We talked about Jim Miller doing well, and Amir Al-Bazi obviously performed well in getting his winning effort. Give me somebody else who stood out on that card for you. Well, I don't know if stood out's the right word, but it was a much-needed win for Tim Elliott. It's the second in a row, Luke,

he's coming off that very Jerry Springer-esque public ending to his marriage. And, you know, he put it out there and he got a lot of support, but it also, we know he came in here with, with some mental turmoil. He did seem to put together a complete performance that was certainly in his lane against Altamirino by, by constantly going for the takedown. But Luke, the pressure was just constant. You know, he was spamming a lot of his offense while on top to make it look like he was either busier or more effective than he actually was. And I think there is some to criticize back at that in terms of how much, you know, if the fight had been close, you would weigh that against clean punching.

But he had, you know, sort of his own thought, like he had his own personal axe to grind to come out and show that he can put a lot of the personal stuff to the side and put on a great performance. And I've always loved Tim Elliott and always thought he was one of my favorite fighters to watch because of his quirky style, the chances he takes. But, you know, man to man, Luke, it felt good to see him get this victory. And, you know, I also liked, too, during the introductions, he was loose and smiling and dancing. It can't be easy be easy right to operate at this level with a lot of the stuff going on even if he put it out there publicly but um that was a win

and i don't think he's done luke i mean he's old he's traded wins and losses a lot but he can still give anybody a tough fight on any given night and i think that's why he's one of my favorite tv fighters no doubt about it i'll go one just below. I thought it was nice to see him get a win. How about Karini Silva? Holy shit, folks. Tearing Ketlin Souza's knee to pieces with something I was pretty close to, not a full-on, but basically what's called a Z-lock, which is something I only learned about

a couple of months ago. That was nasty. That was super gross. They called it a knee bar. It was not. That was a Z-lock. And her knee went from like this to this all of a sudden. She got it in short order.

Karini Silva, we knew she was going to win. We knew there was a big disparity of ability on the ground, but she showed it right away without much issue. I would love to see her get a step up. I love seeing not so much terrible damage inflicted per se, but new submissions entering into the flow of fighting inside the UFC. And I think this is the, I don't know if this is the first Z lock in UFC,

but it's the first one I can remember. Well done to Karini Silva. Yeah. Let's see if she can have a McKenzie teen, like Ron Luke of putting people out with the same move, fight after fight. All right. Also,

I thought the fight between Eliza Zaleski, Dos Santos and Abu Bakar Nurmagomedov was pretty fun. Actually pretty fun back and forth. the same move fight after fight all right also i thought the fight between elizu zaleski dos santos and abu bakar number gamedov was pretty fun actually pretty fun back and forth i kind of thought number gamedov had maybe edged it but um good good really fun back and forth contest between those two also i enjoyed that but if we are going to talk about both strong individual performances that also were great fights, how could we skip over this co-main event that we didn't necessarily love on paper? This is one of those situations where when you see Alex Caceres and Daniel Pineda on paper,

yeah, you know it could be an action fight, but maybe we were too caught up in the, man, this card is not deep and this is our co-main event. Well, these guys deserved, at the end of the day, that co-main event billing. Any fight card could look like shit on paper and then be awesome at the end of the day. Separate from that argument, Luke, these guys had an old school flair that they were willing to fight with. And constant swings of a momentum, even until the end of the final round when Pineda, who was so hurt and so damaged and came back from so much, scores a late knockdown. And you're like, holy shit, this is not even over yet. They deserve that bonus. Dana was going nuts afterwards, rightfully so,

because it had that old school feel. The larger headline is obviously Caceres at 34 putting together a solid win streak. And now like, okay, okay, you dude, let's find out exactly what you have because this is the very best of you in this career but look this fight was a roller coaster where uh it looked like caseros was going to lose his arm for a second there bruce leroy in that arm bar how tough is panetta like holy shit what a fight bro yeah dude he's a dog but both you know what both these guys are dogs what am i even saying both of them in the end there it's hard to know with guys like this like you know what? Both these guys are dogs. What am I even saying? Both of them. In the end, it's hard to know with guys like this,

what exactly are the stakes fight over fight? It can sometimes be hard to tell. But in this particular case, we missed it. I'll say that we missed it. This was good matchmaking. This was really good matchmaking. Well done putting this one together because it worked out even better than I thought it could,

to your point. And the funny part, too, is both guys guys are just tough but they're pretty skilled in different ways too and like they're are they the best fighters in their division no but Panetta is a very skilled grappler Caceres is I think very uh underrated with some of his striking uh in terms of the changing of his timing and his rhythm and some of the combinations he can put together also he's just kind of turned out to be real tough in the end too like he can he can to that point dog it out so yeah we missed that one on friday that one was a little bit better than we should have recognized and uh good fight panetta's been around so long that he owns a loss to mike thomas brown

in the octagon like like and he was on like one of the early early bellator cards and he's had a couple ufc runs like stew's been around for a minute, Luke. Yeah, dude. Mike Thomas Brown's UFC run was not that great. Because by the time he got to the UFC, his best days were behind him. It's WEC. Mike Thomas Brown. For folks who've never checked it out, that they should go look.

So interesting that this guy's cross-section is there. Also, someone on Instagram yesterday was trying to tell me I'm pronouncing casares's name wrong i'm not i mean well i should say this i'm definitely putting gringo into it because my accent is not that great i i don't begrudge anyone of how they want to pronounce it but i did one time say casares in front of my wife she was like that's not how that that's pronounced It's Casares. Okay, but look, we have seen families change pronunciations. If the UFC announcers are calling him Casares on the regular and John Anik hasn't made a public stink about changing it. John Anik didn't call this fight.

I get that, but I have not seen like a public change. Yeah, but they didn't do a change on Yanez. It was only when I asked him about it that there was an Enyi there. He had just willfully told people not to do that. That happens all the time. Listen to Danny Segura pronounce it. Ask him if it's Caceres. Ask him.

Well, listen, I get that. It's the whole Lennox Lewis thing. He waited until after his career to remind us suddenly that his name was pronounced Lennox, which is just like, why wouldn't you have said that? We're one of the most famous heavyweight champions, you know, the last 40 years. The whole point point is luke no disrespect to your wife the family may do it differently or maybe they don't care enough to raise their hand and tell

us but it doesn't mean i think it's the latter i think it's that doesn't mean we're wrong luke out of sonia i'm not i'm not telling i'm not telling you to stop i didn't say to stop i'm just i don't like it when people when i have this experience of learning and then i hear it pronounced in other places and then people coming back to me being like, oh, that's wrong. It's like, dude, I know for a fact it's not. Like, I know for a fact it's not. So don't do that to me. All right.

Let's go to point number four, BC. Now, this is where the whole thing goes in just the weirdest direction on the weekend. I'm going to be honest, BC. I don't even know what to say. I mean, I have a couple things to say, but this one I just don't even get. At the post-fight press conference for UFC Vegas 74, Dana White was asked about Jon Jones and Tyson Fury. And in the course of answering the question, he says a lot of different things, some of which you really totally understand. Namely, he says he has a lot of respect for Tyson Fury. Me too, BC as well.

Sure, many of you do as well. MMA fans seem to like Tyson Fury. And that, he said, if you want to decide the baddest man on the planet, you could do so here against Jon Jones. It's a fight they would make. Okay, understanding that a promoter's job is to put on the fights that people want to pay money to see, people would want to pay money to see john jones versus tyson fury so i understand promoting it so far so good bc but here is where it gets a little strange number one he says we would figure out a way to pay tyson because we figured out a way to pay floyd is he implying that the ufc paid floyd because i don't understand that also can we stop rewriting history also I'll pitch to you here I'll pitch to you as a two-parter help me understand that part and then the other part BC

is didn't we just like a week or two ago or however long it was when Francis announced he was going to the PFL Dana was like we don't make basically like easy matchups for our guys here we don't do that that is very clearly what is this would be what is going on with this whole thing here right now and with this fight it seems pretty obvious to me and this is where i do get mad at the local media there how are the the media that shows up the press conference how do you not raise your hand and counteract when dana comes out and says well i think there's this big debate about baddest man on the planet there isn't number two i think it's pretty clear to everybody without question that john jones is the baddest man on the planet even if

there was that active debate beyond tyson and john going back and forth which originated on joe rogan's comment and pissed tyson fury off we get it um is it really all that clean and clear there there's still that guy francis and gano i can't believe nobody raised their hand go hey dana just just want to make sure like are you eliminating in gano from this this conversation for any specific reason yeah obviously because that's what this is all about if it's not all about francis and gano then dana is a constant liar and peddler of misinformation luke because guess what we don't do fights like that. You mean CM Punk, right? You mean James Toney versus Randy Couture? Of course we do that fight. You know, of course we don't do gimmicks like that, but we do the BMF belt, which I love by the way, the whole point is

this, this comes off as so petty. Dana doesn't care. It's his point. It's what he's doing against Ngannou. This is to try to swerve the headlines and bring Tyson Fury off the market. By the way, Tyson Fury should be doing one thing right now. He should be trying to get Alexander Usyk into the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship bout. And if Usyk has to defend against Dubois on a mandatory, then chase Anthony Joshua like Fury's been doing. Do something here. And if you want to do a gimmick, do Nganou. And I think that's, at the end of the day, clearly what this is all about. Oh, we say we don't do this. Oh no, we do do this. And if you want to settle it, we'll do it right there. And the whole comment about Floyd is also laughable. The UFC was a co-promoter to Mayweather

versus McGregor. In fact, they decided to play ball and not keep Conor away. Why? Because a stupid amount of money, reportedly 40 million coming their way for allowing that. So no, they didn't drum up money to pay Floyd. The market paid Floyd. Yes, Floyd had a ridiculously large guarantee, but he was two years removed from not just setting the pay-per-view records with the Pacquiao fight, like demolishing them. They knew what they had in Mayweather McGregor. They knew it would reach certain insane levels. Dana was not on the phone raising money with investors to find $300

million for Floyd. I mean, come on. You were a co-promoter in here who came out at the press conferences and announced Conor's name in a big exaggerated pro-wrestling way. That's the extent in this regard. But Luke, this whole song and dance suddenly about, oh, oh, touch your fear if you want to prove it, then come to the octagon, it's only about trying one more time to keep Ngannou out of

the headlines and even further say, I know that this is the real money fight that you're chasing right now before you go back to MMA and the PFL. Of course, it's Tyson Fury. If you look at the way things are playing out, Luke, it really looks like Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder could be headed toward a December showdown. Yes, there's still conversations about a stupid amount of money that would make a double header in the Middle East that would also involve Fury and Usyk. Do we think that's going to happen? No, probably not. But if you're in Ghanu, what is the biggest, most likely fight that you're probably chasing behind the scenes right now?

Fury, right? He's the one who's distanced himself from usic he's the one who's says different things every other day out of the corner of his mouth look if it's not dana being petty as shit and trying to make a big swerve and f up his plans why because of the spite for francis no because of the fear of what francis succeeding can do to the future of their business model then what is it if it's not that luke answer me that please yeah it's not it's not anything else but i do want to back up and just clarify very quickly like who actually did pay floyd was it a combination of showtime pay-per-view and pbc like because that was technically his promo i guess he was also sort of self-promoting

in a way so like the money came from there the promoters sign the fighters uh with the network and provide the guarantee the network pays into that too they pay like you know a fee to be it's all they pull that money together this was a boxing match not right this wasn't like like this was a cold promotion almost in name only like we saw ufc's role in this right yeah did they promote it on their channels yes they did a great job they helped make it this thing but they were not you know the ones behind the scenes like in this regard as like the the backbone the people who took the risk were al hayman and showtime pay-per-view but again there's no risk in this case they knew what they were getting and most of the money was paid on the back end anyway fair enough so again when he said that

i was like are they implying that the ufc figured out how to make this deal happen on the mayweather side is that what they're saying because that doesn't make any sense that's just not true right that's just matter of factly not what happened i'd love to be wrong but show me show me why i'm wrong here like no that's not what happened luke okay that's that's you know that's not also here was the other part that was you know that's not what happened here was the other part that was weird to me it's like we can we figure out how to get Floyd paid we'll figure out how to get Tyson paid it's like okay first of all that's not really

true but more to the point let's say it was true that they could figure out a way to get Tyson paid so you can pay Tyson Fury level purses now that's the thing we can do I didn't know we could do that it just comes down to like like the thing about Dana is even with you you know putting uh putting me in that video and dunking on me like i don't hate dana dude i love dana dana's brought so much joy in in in in catch

championing this brand i you know used to see him once a year when he come to espn always had great chats with him dude just be honest just be fucking honest with us. We don't actually hate you at the end of the day. It's just comically ridiculous. The, the evil, like B movie villain he's become as a public figure. That's what it is. Like the, at the end of the day, it's comical how much there's just flip-flopping and lying and deceiving. Just be honest and upfront. Like what, what's the problem here? Like, you know what I mean? If Ngannou's never going to fight again in the UFC,

and that's your stance, then leave him alone. Leave him the hell alone, and let him go figure it out. Now, suddenly we care about Tyson Fury. No, there's no debate about the baddest man on the planet. There's not actually a debate, Luke, okay? The only debate is John versus Francis, if you really want to have that debate. That's the real debate of who's the baddest man on the planet and they could co-promote

they could do it that's the thing they could do if they wanted to we don't do we don't do stuff like that except for when you did it with al hayman for the boxing match and except for when you sent chuck liddell to japan you know what i mean and except for when you sat down with fedor and tried to make it work with him and M1 and Vadim Vadami. You're right, except for those times, Luke, you know? Yeah. All right. Let's go to topic number five.

We stay with Dana White, but this time we're not going to have any sort of inspection about his comments about him, I should say. He was asked about Conor McGregor, BC. Again, at the UFC Vegas 74 post-fight press conference. And during the course of this, he was asked, you know, like, what is the future of this fight with Chandler and what's going to happen? And his answer was really interesting.

He basically had said, look, we got Conor back here. He felt good to be back in Las Vegas to be training with the guys. It got his competitive juices flowing again. But the reality is, he said, people don't understand how rich he is. And when you're that rich, he said, like Khabib, you just have different priorities in life. He didn't even answer the question about what's going to happen with Chandler. And even if that fight is happening at all,

BC, so I'm going to ask you, based on these comments, it sounds to me like there is very much no guarantee at all that a fight with michael chandler is imminent much less guaranteed to happen that that's aggressive i could understand your stance on that i think if anything it shows you that they're having trouble behind the scenes coming to a deal so what happens when we have trouble behind the scenes coming to a deal dana goes public and concocts a narrative right like what's going on with stipe and john is that more why we're having this tyson fury conversation i don't know you have to ask yourself that why are we suddenly talking about well you know connor you know waking up in silk pajamas that whole that whole you know

vibe because it appears and this is i think what happens when you roll out a big thing, which is the tough season with McGregor back, which is awesome, by the way. I'm such a proponent of it. I'm actually going to watch every episode. And yet you didn't sign a deal. So now we have to go publicly and change the narrative and change what's actually probably happening. What is probably happening is that Conor is negotiating aggressively for a very large payday that they are pushing back up

against. And here we are. Is it possible, though, that your lack of optimism in this could end up paying off down that road? Yeah, very much possible. And it's not that there's not truth to what Dana is saying at the end of the day. I think something's off about Connor. And we talked about that on Friday. And I don't know if it'll ever get back. He's just this wild card right now. But he signed up and did this reality show and apparently loved the first episode. Yeah, he wants to fight and he wants to fight Michael Chandler here. Unless there's some fight that he's really angling for behind the scenes that we don't know about, Luke. And Dana said there's a lot behind the scenes that we don't know about. Yeah, I understand that.

We're not there. But you're also not dealing in truth. When you come publicly, you are dealing in leverage and that changes the truth because you're trying to take away leverage from people. I think this is what this comes down to. What will it lead to Luke? Well, what about the USADA elephant? That's also in this room. I don't have closure on that either.

So maybe that does partner together, Luke to make the idea that maybe this fight doesn't happen possible. But I still think it is the right fight for McGregor where what's the biggest name you can fight that brings a lot of danger but still style-wise gives you the best chance to remind people who you are and elevate to something even bigger. This is still that. I think they make the fight. They just got to figure out that money shit behind the scenes. I just want it to stay behind the scenes, Luke. I'm okay to question publicly why you didn't sign this fight

before you rolled out the reality season. I think we all should question that. But in terms of these details, keep it behind the scenes and get the deal done, all right? No more fake narratives. Let me read you this, though. This is Dana White speaking. Quote, these guys got S-loads of money,

and it's hard to reel these guys back in and get them fired up to get in and fight. He continued. We have a, this is the part that was interesting to me, BC. We have a massive roster of people that want to come in and people that are ready to fight and people that want to be Conor McGregor.

And at that level for the last 20 years, everybody said, OMG, what are you guys going to do when Liddell retires? But GSP Silva, this and that, this is a professional sport. People come in here, they achieve great things and they retire. You GSP, Silva, this and that. This is a professional sport. People come in here, they achieve great things, and they retire.

You can never worry about that type of stuff. It is what it is. Part of the game, part of my job, and my job's team to find new talent and build them and take them to that level. In general, he's basically right, BC, but saying that as the answer to your question about when this fight's going to happen is a little disconcerting, no?

Yeah, it's disconcerting, again, that they didn't sign it before the reality show it's extra disconcerting that this man has not signed up for the six month usada thing and there's no update on that even though he was jacked as shit with the tightest suit possible in the first episode of tough because he's coming off a movie set in which he probably juiced up to play a larger role so we all understand what's going on here but to to always lean back it's like this bingo card of like oh how do i respond to that oh uh they thought we were going to die after liddell that's not what we're asking here we're asking for being straight up about it and telling us the truth here luke that's that's really what

we're asking to try to figure out what mcgregor's deal is um i actually feel like on this one i mean i don't know what dana is saying to what extent it reflects reality, but I have a feeling that there's not much he can say without any kind of firm commitment from Connor. And so this issue doesn't really make it about Dana specifically and more about just what Connor is going to do, what he wants to do and when the hell he's going to do. And I've said this before,

we're already in June, BC it's June 5th. Like two 91 is granted the end of next month, but next month, right? If you get Dustin Poirier or even Gaethje or whoever, whoever comes out of that BMF fight, if they get some huge applause for it and a big bump in activity and notice and their Q rating, so to speak, Conor can just change what he is aiming for at that point and nothing is here to stop him.

So I still think Conor will fight. I just don't know when. And the every day that passes against Chandler, I'm like, I don't know. It would feel like a... I mean, do you... Okay, is what you're saying... I want to get to the core of what you're really saying.

Are you really saying that the UFC doesn't care if they end up making this fight or not and kind of never did? They wanted Conor back to to bring in ratings for this show I think what they probably thought was that they could put this show there was easier to make him do the show than it was to make him do the show and the fight yeah so they just made what was easier and I think they probably thought once this gets going we can use this as a launch point to really get the negotiations hammered through. And maybe what it sounds like is they've encountered a little bit of friction in doing that along the way that they didn't anticipate.

And do you think there's any, is there any chance Dana's bringing up this Tyson Fury stuff in the same realm as a pushback against Stipe saying, if you cling too hard with the number that you're fighting for during the negotiation, we can and will take this in other directions. He's not going to bring up Pavlovich or Jalton Almeida because there's no onus for John to go out of his way to sign that deal. There might be in theory for Fury. I mean, again, it's a constant. Could you just read quickly the first sentence of that Dana quote that you just read? The last one I read?

Yeah. So the first part was, these guys have S loads of money, and it's hard to reel these guys back in and get them fired up to get in and fight. Doesn't that sound like a certain promoter? He's fired up to promote slap fighting. I'd like to see him get fired up again, meeting Dana. Despite the amounts of money he's won, I'd like to see him get fired up again meeting dana despite the amounts of money he's won i'd like to see him get fired up again creating those next connors of all those hungry people that are in line because

it feels like we have a factory system of the dana white contender series that's simply meant to fill out the undercards of low-paying fighters that's what it feels listen just pay him tyson fury money they can figure that out right figure? Give them all health insurance, Luke. Give them the whole thing, all right? All right. With that in mind, BC, that's our top five. Let's move on to the next segment. This is where you guys get to ask us questions and we answer them. It's called DMs from the Diggity Dogs. Let's get it. All right, BC, we will go to you first from basically an account called Hey Bro, quit scrolling through no quit scrolling though is what it says here though do you think the bmf belt would have been excuse me would have a more positive feeling if the fight itself had a different type of rule set such as perhaps longer

rounds oh or old school pride style rules i gotta tell you i love that idea what do you think bc well i've seen people take it even further and essentially create a modified striking only. You know what I mean? Like no wrestling or submissions as like, this is just the purity of brawling, right? This is just like all action. No, I don't think it needs any of that. I am willing to extend the pro wrestling window

large enough to welcome this into actual UFC fighting. I think it's the greatest gimmick. I think it's such a fun gimmick. They haven't handled it right. They did it once really well. I mean, I'm still shocked we ever had this. We ever had Dwayne Johnson putting the belt in Madison Square Garden around somebody's waist while we all sat in the arena for Canelo

Kovalev watching it on the big screen. I'm shocked any of that took place. But it's back. It's a great gimmick. I don't think you need anything else in terms of change of rules. I mean, maybe the pride rules as a fun thing, but that would also open up a bag of worms that commission-wise, let's just keep it closed. That's what I mean about the commissions.

Some of this stuff, you can't even think creatively like this because getting some of these rules approved would be really difficult. I would say if there was some kind of way you know to make it just a 10 minute first round uh I gotta tell you dude those 10 minute first rounds I hate though I hate this overuse of it because you always see it on Instagram and shit but it's like it hits different that 10 minute round was a bear to get through I would I'd be kind of curious to see that one brought back. BC, from Dylan Tagani, thoughts on there being a UFC card every week for the next four

months. Which fight slash fighters are you most excited to see over this time period? What do you think, BC? Yeah, I mean, the fights are easy. It's the BMF fight. It's the rematch of Gaethje and Poirier, and it's also the featherweight title unification that's headlining July 8th of Volkanovski versus Yair.

They're getting me fired up. It's like, Luke, would you rather have a fight card every week for the next four months, or would you rather have a fight card every other week that was better and loaded? I think that's actually a legitimate debate, because you have brought up a few times the thing of, like, not everybody is here to hear

these complaints. They just want MMA on their screen and they trust the UFC brand every Saturday. They have gotten us conditioned to the point that when they don't go live, yes, to support Mick Maynard's snarky tweet, we are missing it. But I want to miss it for the right reasons. I'm happy they're back. Let's do it.

But can we get out of the apex and can we put on better fight cards? Thank you. Yeah, I think getting out of the apex is pretty critical for a lot of reasons. The other thing I would say is, you know what? I would they would they would never do this. But one thing I wouldn't mind is if they had like the UFC branded shows and then, you know, some other name for like a tier down. Almost like, you know how, for example, in English football or even, you know, all over Europe have, like, if you don't make it into the certain amount into the top of the table, you can be relegated if you're at the bottom, and then you have to play in the second division. Not that I would want relegation rules per se, but that there would be a clear second division

that you kind of knew was, you know, this is a little bit more of our up-and-coming guys. You know, they used to have that. They used to have, when, when there was, when, when Showtime was watching or with the strike force, they had, they had, what was it? Strike force challengers cards that would go on there.

I actually kind of liked the breaking up of the, the two different brands in that way. So it's not so much the shows it's how they're arranged. You could argue in the larger weight classes that the WEC at some points represented that as almost like a, a feeder. Obviously eventually they, they'd focused on just having the elite in the smaller weight classes. But yeah, I mean, I think you could, and I've said this before,

I think you could actually expand the Dana White Contender Series and have it a mixture of day one hungry guys coming in and guys that are on the way out but don't necessarily need to be cut. That could either use that as a minor league refresh to then get, you know, relegated back up to the big leagues or can just provide the veteran tough out for those young guys coming up. So we actually could get a better feel of who might be ready for prime time rather than seeing two young guys come in there and bounce off of each other.

And whoever's left standing gets the win. You know, it's interesting. They could do that, Luke. And then, but you know,'s left standing gets the win you know it's interesting they could do that luke and then but you know i mean there are a few positive changes i think they can do one thing also i think is identifying the four majors and changing the the canvas color not the yellow from ufc 200 although i appreciate that experiment but like making it know that when you turn on the broadcast like oh that's a major that's a big time one i'd like to see some things like that so that so that everything doesn't just look alike across the board because that's when it loses its character and flavor and it can become boring and doldrum you know i like that by the way to answer the question like what i'm looking forward to armin saryukian's got a fight coming up

in a couple of weeks i think obviously dude ilia taporia versus josh emmett is just for me appointment viewing i mean 100 appointment viewing for that one. By the way, the return of Tom Aspinall against Marcin Tybura later in July, I believe, is going to be a big one as well. So there's a few fights that are coming up. The big one for me, certainly also, how could I leave out Volkanovski and Rodriguez?

That's going to be amazing. But for me, Teporia. Teporia is the one I've got my eye on I'm very curious to see how he handles the task of Josh Emmett alright BC let's see here question number three from

really cool really too cool six some the bullshit name recently we have heard many fighters say they have received new deals with quote bumps in pay end quote This is the UFC simply migrating fighters over to the new contract structure. No. All of these contracts are built in a way where if you keep winning, they get more through the contract. And then when you, if you did well enough in that contract, when you go to your next one, there's an automatic bump in pay. It is not necessarily significant, although in

certain circumstances it could be, really is contract dependent, but they have a basically internalized system, the UFC, in accordance with their costs and how much they pay for the fighters. They know what that's going to be, roughly, and then what it looks like at every stage of your career, whether you signed a contender series contract

or ultimate fighter contract or however they acquired you. There's these set tiers, these growth plateaus that they know and they kind of fit you into that system more or less is kind of how it works but the spirit of the question seemed to um be are that they're asking this are fighters getting paid more when they resign right now but as a way to sort of like accept the back end of it, which is how much the contracts have tightened up in terms of UFC control post Nganou exiting on the sunset clause. So I've not heard that they have just handed out

widespread bumps in pay. I think this is the thing that they're slowly rolling out, perhaps a little bit more aggressively of late. And to your point, the contracts that on the back end hey you can't participate in a um in a lawsuit uh against us you know on the on any kind of antitrust violation stuff like that um and then of course creating longer sunset clauses there might be something to that but i've not heard about anything widespread it could just be anecdotal but i do think there will be a short-term bump in the in the reaction to how the ingano thing played out i've said it before too like dude

the ufc like i don't they're gonna look at almeida's contract they're gonna look at aspen all type board they're gonna look at anybody pavlovich's contract and they're gonna look at okay how long do we have them before we have to worry about them potentially being able to leave and what kind of bump and pay could we give them that in the grand scheme of things would be quite modest, make a big deal for, let's say, Jelton Almeida to not want to walk, and now that's one more opponent that Ngannou can't have. That is very possible, very, very possible those guys can get a pay bump,

but it just goes to show when talent moves across and there's a little bit of competition, people benefit. Do you think ESPN Outside the L lines could come out with a critical piece asking critical questions about some of these elements? No. But don't they do that about the NFL which they are also a partner? It's different. People

care about malfeasance in the NFL in a way they don't care about malfeasance in this side of the game. Okay. No. I don't believe it. It'd be a big win for Rumble Sports if ESPN did though. It'd have to be, right? It'd have to a huge uh bc this is one i know that's got you really animated so i'm going to give this one i'm going to read the question and you just take it away bc i think we have video too sure from underscore is the terry and he asks or she asked potentially what do you think of mizzouli's terrible response to aaron bronstetter regarding why judges are not made available for interviews post-event.

Mike Mazzulli, by the way, is the head of the Association of Boxing Commissions. He was asked this question. Here's what he said. Would there ever be a situation where it would be considered to have someone from the commission come out at the end of the night after talking to some of the judges and referees and kind of relaying why certain things had happened, or perhaps maybe having a public hearing a couple of days after the event that people can zoom into or whatever, where a lot of the things are kind of explained after some time has passed since it's taken place in order to be able to do it in a way that is a little bit less emotional. And that way people can maybe hear out the officials and hear their methodology.

Well, that's interesting. I would say that's something we can discuss. But I would ask you this question. Have you ever reached out to an official and said, good job? Have you ever heard a commentator say, hey, that judge did a really good job tonight? Hey, it's always been controversial. It's never like, you know what? Brian Miner did a good job with that score. That was a tough round.

Or by the way, Mike Mazzulli, the commissioner, he handled that situation very well that it never happens that way. It's always negative, negative, negative, negative. I'm a Monday morning quarterback. He was wrong. I was right. Cause I sat here and I watched it five times after the event went live and after the score was done. I would love commentators to say, hey, listen, can I interview Ben Cartlidge from London, from England, and talk to him about how great of a job he did? That never happens. It's always the negative. And the negative hurts the sport.

And I can tell you, that's why I protect my officials. I've never had one person call me up and ask if they could interview someone because he did a really good job. You know, you look at Brian Miner. Has he had any controversies

in the last 12 months? Nope. Has anyone even asked to speak with him? Nope. Okay, BC, your reaction. So Aaron Brunsters shared an extended four-minute clip of his interview with Mike Mazzulli, the other head of the Mohegan Commission. And it's not that I don't understand Mazzulli's stance, but this response comes off as comical because the snarky way to receive this response, if you're a media member, is if we would all be less critical, which is our job to be critical, and if we would all be nicer, what do we win?

What do we receive, Mike? Better judging? It doesn't seem like we will receive the thing we actually want, which is transparency, communication, and competence. So is he right that we don't go publicizing the names of the judges who got it right? Yes. A, that's not our job to, that's yours of the ones you oversee. And B, it's not our fault that that's a thankless job on paper. So is a NFL kicker or punter. We only know their names when they screw up a baseball umpire. How about the guy that cleans the restroom at your office? No one's leaving out a thank you note for that guy. It's a thankless job where competence and execution is expected in which we only know

these people's names when we have an issue. We didn't define the terms of these jobs. That's not our issue. But our issue with media is asking tough questions and trying to find the basis and the roots of truth that why things are the way they are and can they be changed and improved. I don't know why the media has suddenly become the protectors and watchdogs of athletes' rights. But if you can't sit there and understand why it's important that officials get things right in combat sports, the pay structures, how much goes to the winner compared to the loser, how much leverage they lose,

the damage that they take only to then lose a fight where it doesn't make sense. And Oh, by the way, there's no understanding or explanation. Why your response in 2023 is that the media isn't polite or kind enough. Wow. Mike, I like Mike Mazzulli,

by the way, I've known him a long time. I've seen him at a million fights at the Mohegan Sun I got a lot of respect for him seen him in a lot of big circumstances and and think he's a very smart guy but this is a tone-deaf response that dodges the actual point of which is Aaron Bronstetter taking the the things that we talk about a lot on here in which Aaron asked him earlier which we didn't't show that video of where he asked Mike, why don't they talk after a fight, either in the ring, at the press conference? And Mike said, look, I want to protect my officials. And I can appreciate that too.

I'm not saying they necessarily have to be there with Jim Gray in their face afterwards. I'm not saying they have to be there up as a pinata for all us media members to throw all of our issues at. That's not what it's about. And the fact that you're leaning on that, the fact that Aaron came back a second time and said, okay, let's take the emotion out of it. We're not talking about skewering them after the fact, but we are talking about you as a commission head, reviewing the situation, interviewing everybody involved,

and then coming back with a response that essentially says to us, was that the right call? You're either going to tell us it was for these reasons and we have to understand it, or you can tell us, no, we got it wrong. We apologize, but we're going to educate. We're going to fix that. We're going to, you know, like, no, we're getting none of that. Your response is that the media is too harsh and rude.

It's not our job to be the Pied Piper when a judge gets it right. That's the nature of their job to get it right but it is our job to ask the kind of questions that nobody in power ever freaking asks in this sport it always falls on us it's not the athlete it's not the promoter why because everybody's happy and they're getting paid i don't know that's your professional public response that if the media was nicer, maybe what? The judges would perform better or you'd be more willing to have us talk to them? How about you talk to them and fix the issues that we get? And I know Mike's not the head of the Nevada Commission.

He's a commissioner. He's a very good one. But across the board, Luke, this is why I think we need the National Commission government regulated. So there's transparency, there's communication, there's education, there's accountability. Right now, there's none of that. Shout out to Aaron Bronsetter of TSN for asking the right questions and doing it in a very respectful way. But, Luke, I hate when people use the terms like soy boy. Oh, BC's just a keyboard warrior and a soy boy. He won't never get into a fight.

No, I won't. I won't, but I love covering this game, but that's a soy boy response. The media's tone, what the hell is wrong with this situation? That's a Dana White response to be very fair, Mike. That's a Dana White response. Let's avoid the actual line of questioning

and go in this other line. How about we fix the issues at hand? Come on. Dude, I know it was amazing. I i thought that response was amazing to be honest with you like everything you said i basically agree with but then on top of it like did you hear anything in there about like what we need to do to get better judging or recognition that judging is not in certain cases very good or that you know the athletes don't have any capacity to question it or get to the bottom of it or whatever like nothing in there about the job itself number one yeah look i'd love for them to tell us why we're wrong i'd love for them to tell you why you're at

home with your beer not half paying attention to the fight why you're wrong why we didn't see what we thought we saw give me letter of the law tell me me how hard that job is. I know, I know judges that hard. The job is extremely hard. You're on an Island, but it would be a lot easier if you just came out and said, I talked to the judge. Here's what he saw. And here's what you guys don't understand about this job. Please educate us on that. Also, he's just not, I mean, I'm not saying he's not telling the truth, but whatever version of the truth he has he doesn't really understand it so i'll just put my cards on the table here i talk to a lot of people who are high level judges judges of ufc fights i talk to commissioners of big states dude uh i'll say this the vast majority of them want to talk especially on the referee and judges side

the vast majority of the ones i've talked to they reach out to me privately because they're so desperate to talk they won't because the commissions and off many cases won't let them for sometimes good reasons exactly bad but it's like this idea that like oh has anyone reached out to brian minor to compliment him it's like dude is he a fucking adult can you do your job without a pat on the back number one and number two guy all those people you say don't want to talk, they talk to me a lot, homie. They won't do it on the record because people that you empower won't let them.

Tell the truth. Tell the truth. How did I become friends with judges? Because I used to reach out to them for interviews, and they told me respectfully and politely, Brian, it's not good for our jobs to talk publicly about fights or fighters. And I actually understand that. It's right.

A judge should not be previewing a fight. You know, like none of that. Right. But, you know, just. Let me just say this, too. Let me finish here with another point. What is this sport? I can't believe it.

Luke, what is combat sports at the end? Yeah, let me just say this real quickly. I just want folks to think about one thing when you hear him talk about this. I didn't hear a single thing about what the commission has to do to create a fair process. I didn't hear one thing about what the commission has to do to honor their obligation to the athletes. Nothing. Everything you heard in his response was self-referential about what the commission wants, what the individual officiants want, and what they want to do about that.

Nothing in that response indicated that I'm not saying he doesn't think this way. I'm simply saying by virtue of that response, there's nothing in there that gives you the impression he takes his role as public servant seriously. And at the end of the day, that is all that they are. They are public servants. Their job is to protect the interests of the state and therefore vis-a-vis its people. They are not there to serve their own interests or some other ideal that they particularly care about. That's not in conjunction with the aforementioned responsibilities, which is to the state and to the people first, first and foremost. And that includes trying to introduce more fairness into the process, some version of transparency. This doesn't belong to Mike Mazzulli specifically, but

individual states getting on there and not allowing medical suspensions to be public and not allowing fighter pay to be public. These fucking people, these bums that are continuing to be out there and do those sorts of things, Mike, they are not fostering trust. They are not acting in the responsibility of a public servant. And the pushback you're getting is because you guys won't do a fucking thing about it. Even when the officiants are desperate for you to do that. Yeah. Please be serious. Final comment for me is this. I get a lot of people that push back and say, man, for two clowns, they don't realize how much they owe their job to Dana White or insert anyone in power in combat

sports. Yeah. And I want to protect my job, meaning I want the business to thrive. I don't want people to stop tuning in because they think boxing and MMA are fucking clown shows, right? I don't want, you know what I mean? And I also, by the way, have a heart for the fighter, which seemingly nobody in a,

in an important role in this space team seems to, to, to lean on when, when they're making their arguments. So yeah, I actually love my job and thankful here and thankful for the success of UFC and big boxing promotions. And I want them to stay that way.

But I also want due process and safety and like unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah, pretty remarkable answer. Here's why they don't talk more, because they can't stop getting in trouble when they do. That's why they don't talk more. All right, last one, BC. I'm not even going to read this dude's name. Just't talk more all right last one bc i'm not even

gonna read this dude's name just dmps is what i'm gonna say between the four horsemen of violence poirier alvarez chandler and gaethje who has the best and worst career did none of them and i love that name for them luke you know they have been the the face of this lightweight era in terms of all-action insane fights. Poirier had the best, right? Poirier had the best, right? I think Poirier's got two wins over McGregor. He was an interim champion. Gaethje was an interim champion, but doesn't have...

Two wins over Holloway. Poirier's best wins are better, is what I would say. Yeah, two wins over Holloway doesn't hurt Poirier either. I get that he never won the full title. Alvarez was full-on weight class champion. That's the difference. And multi-time Bellator champion. I just think Poirier was the best fighter over all of the four,

and I think you can argue he's had the most success. Luke, who has had the worst career of those four? Dude, well, none of them have had bad careers no Gaethje got an interim title as well beating Ferguson which was a big deal former WSOF champion too Luke former WSOF champion uh Chandler a Bellator champion Chandler's got some weird losses so he's got the pit bull loss he's got the Pitbull loss. He's got the Will Brooks loss. By the way, Will Brooks getting another win on the regional scene looking for a bounce back to UFC. What a championship.

He's got like a seven-fight win streak or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe you could argue Chandler only because he's been a little bit more up and down and still hasn't had. He's the only one of the four that's never had any kind of UFC title. Granted, less UFC UFC time I guess you could argue Chandler but again Chandler's career has been nothing but a success so and I give Chandler credit for what he's done in the UFC from just swinging big and not fearing defeat

and I think obviously it's carried it's carried him to what a title shot big pay-per-view fights and possibly Conor McGregor so it's worked out great for him yeah oh you want to watch some shit Luke you want to get hey let's go see BC species. Let's do it. Let's close with a smile here. I scoured the globe yesterday for the, uh, you know, the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between and the world of combat sports, but you better believe we went beyond brother.

Yeah. I'm talking about, have you seen this? Oh God. Ow. All right, Luke, we start in ufc which we often do and jim miller taking souls 23 seconds but how about the growing mullet as well yeah sorry i said left hook right straight it was right straight left hook and then he catches him after it the first time and then in between the punches the second time. Watch.

So left hook, excuse me, right straight, left hook, right straight, and then he catches him before the left hook. And, yeah. I'm not a big fan of the mullet, but what I will say is the mullet had a day in the octagon. Now, the question is, would the mullet get away with that in the smart cage? I honestly can't say. I honestly can't say.

I honestly can't say. I don't like that look on Miller, but it does kind of fit his persona, although that looks like party in the front and the back. Would you agree, though, the best mullet in UFC history is still Mike Pyle? Shout out. He was the original kind of like I'll be the mullet guy in UFC, but honestly, Ricky Simone had a pretty epic mullet. That is mullet that is that is true right there all right Luke you mentioned Karini Silva uh popped the knee of Ketlin Sousa here this is tough to watch here but wow dude yeah she she wraps up the ankle which is kind of

like she's she's sitting it up like that and then she's gonna turn it over to the outside like that and there it goes yep congratulations you will never fall again ketlin souza but wow wow that's a good win there brazilian female mma luke on the rise right now all right yeah that was fucking gross but also awesome yeah hey we've unfortunately former heavyweight champion andre arlovsky was knocked out for the 12th time in his great career. I got this one wrong on our okay bet. Ah, man. And the funny part was he pre-slips. Let me go back and see it one more time. I think he actually pre-slips.

Yeah, he does pre-slip. And Arlovsky follows and then still gets countered. I was a little bit surprised that he threw that punch. But, dude, Arlovsky's been at it. Dude, he's 44, bro. Dude, that's a good knockout for Mays, though. The timing on that. That's a great knockout. That's his best win. That's 44 bro but dude that's a good knockout for maze though like the timing that's a great knockout that's his best win that's his best win by far by far we also got a brutal ko

luke from newcomer muhammad naim off against jamie malarkey did you see this luke wow yeah dude he gave i didn't see this one dude malarkey was a massive favorite heading into this one and i i don't know how to pronounce is it naimov or naimov i'm not sure how to say it but he just he catches malarkey switching stances into range with his hands down and just fucking thumps him for it violent sometimes like sometimes knockout sequences luke just just scream more violent than normal dan henderson versus hector lombard is a great choice marquardt against woodley this one isn't as destructive as those, but there was like a mean, violent spirit to how he executed that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with you. He did. That was ugly. Luke, I don't know if we have elder abuse today, but we've got a growing fun mini-segment here called NHL Jersey of the Week. Let's go out to the drunk fans. What do you think about this guy?

It's going gonna be classy my balls itch you support that right double zero of course double zero yeah yeah our next guy is only single zero luke but uh it matches up with his personality days sober zero and he's a golden knights fan too god the golden knights i gotta tell tell you, what an absolutely disreputable franchise. I can't stand how tacky they are. I hate it. Wow, dude, you just broke Kevin Aioli's heart, Luke. First of all, pick a team, Kevin.

Are you a Bruins fan? No, not Bruins. I'm sorry. Penguins? Are you a Penguins guy or are you a Vegas guy? He's like, I'm both. I'm like, you can't be. Brent Okamoto's a big night guy, too.

I mean, you know, for those Vegas weirdos. I'll tell you this much. The Las Vegas fans get busy for their nights, so shots to the Vegas fans are pretty good about it. But I can't stand their like, I just don't like Vegas. And to their credit, for a Vegas team, the Knights are like a very Vegas organization. But that's just why I hate them so much.

Also, we beat them in the 2018 stanley cup so you can scratch my balls double zero and ovechkin and uh ally afridi teamed up right with that's right that's right me and dimitri orlov there we go uh luke let's go over to the roller coaster let's listen in on this this is up your alley luke i have to believe you have tortured people in that same setup before where they can't go anywhere so you might as well just bathe in it right so i never have done the roller coaster one that one i've not done but dude i always say it if you get on if you see me on a plane yo i'm about to i'm about to crop dust i'm about to just absolutely i'm about i'm about to absolutely set every one of you on fire with my with my anus oh methane yeah all right hey luke I got an important question. Is there life after UFC?

Yep. For a few fighters, there is. You know, one of them is named Cowboy Oliveira. He was over in Serbia fighting for Titan FC. Look at this judo toss KO. Let's see. Oh, Harai Goshi. Oh, he landed on it.

Oh, he hit him with the old Harai Goshi, it looks like. You don't see this too often. He steps to the outside like that. Oh, he just landed right on his head in the turn. Damn, dude. I tell you what. That dude's got, he's like the Crow Marty of MMA. He's got like 75 kids.

But old cowboy Olivera's got, he's still a violent fuck, man. Don't lose sight of that. He will bang, Luke. We do know that for sure. Is there life after UFC for Greg Hardy, Luke? He was boxing in the team combat league, and he got sent to hell, Luke. It's over. Dude, he just looks he just looks hella washed.

By the way, I mean, you could fit five people in those trunks. I mean, what are you doing here? Dude, did I see a video? I'm wondering about this. Did I see a video of him working for a cable company at a Walmart? Is that a real thing? I think it was fake. I think it was a fake.

I don't know. I thought it was a fake. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was like he tricked us and then it wasn't. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that line of work. In fact, that's a perfectly good and actually could be quite lucrative line of work. I just wanted to know if it was real. Has he totally punted on fighting at this point?

No, he's been doing this boxing thing with the Team Combat League where they have teams based in cities, kind of like the IFL, but you all fight in the same fight. As you can see, this is round 17 of 18. You fight one round at a time in multiple fights. Oh, Jesus. By by the way look at how blacked out the crowd is there must be three people there yeah that's been going on i believe at the mohegan sun uh on and off every other every couple weeks i don't even know where it

airs luke have you heard like where is this going nowhere where people are watching i think ray flores is on the call though shout out to ray big big hasbula fan over there he is all about the has has hasbulla fucking jokes luke is there life after ufc i mean death for alexei olenek let's go to russia to find out is he in the red oh yeah he is oh no dude i gotta tell you poor rashad we didn't talk about it like uh after the machida lost the fucked up face he made they got him memed you make a face after you get knocked out it just it just you the internet will not let you sleep comfortably boxing fans know that as the curtis stevens face when triple g uh knocked him down and he got up and he was like, whoo! Like, that power is real.

Hey, Luke, I always get annoyed at that Bruce Buffer guy, and then I get even more annoyed at that Bruce Buffer imitator guy who shows up in public. But there's apparently an imitator of John Anik. Let's go to the videotape. These two fighters have dealt with substance abuse issues in the past and will relapse later tonight, likely. This fighter's mother recently died redfield in theaters this weekend saturday night this fighter's three-year-old

daughter has the most aggressive form of brain cancer known to man brought to you by the united states marine corps this fight this fighter is struggling to pay his mortgage and will likely be homeless in the following months if he doesn't get this win. Brought to you by Monster. Drink that shit. This fighter's marriage is in shambles, and if he loses this fight, his wife will probably leave him. Use code UFC for 20% off.

That's about right. That's pretty good. Yeah, it is. That is pretty good there, old J.A. getting called out. Let's go to the wedding floor, Luke. If I ever cause this much trouble at somebody's wedding, I'm definitely going to dance my way out like this guy.

Watch this. I feel like we ran this one before, but I'm happy to do it again. Dude, look at him just gyrating and cavorting on these women. Oh, just setting shit on fire. Oh, yeah, but look at the sense. Look at the, just you know is he drunk what is he doing what the fuck is he doing with his suit dude you know he he didn't pay a lot for that suit you know he didn't uh long island luke has let me know that we did run this one before but i again happy to bring that guy back into the forefront.

Biggest combat sporting event of the weekend, Luke, took place in a stadium in Poland. It's KSW Coliseum 2. Hell yeah, dude. 50,000 people, dude. You know how we played the entrance of Canelo recently, and we always talk about Anthony Joshua's entrances? How about this epic entrance from Pooja himself?

Let's go to the tape. Mariusz Pajanowski. It's like Drago and Rocky 4 show. I'm amazed by this. And they lowered him down. Oh, that fire. Like, if I was seated in the arena and this was Strikeforce, I'd be right up on the pyrotechnics, because that's how far away they put me.

Luke, his opponent is former heavyweight boxing contender Artur Spilka. His entrance wouldn't be outdone, by the way. We have still pictures of it but did you see this this was just such an incredible spectacle going on yeah they brought him out in like a like a gangster ride look at this shit with a guy singing too just badass uh luke i predicted puja would get the victory in okay bed and that's why i'm under 500 let's go to the videotape spielka sending him down to the depths yeah he breaks clench let's see so southpaw orthodox goes to the body and then right hook when he comes over bang

dude dude spielka has wins over listen to his combat sports resume he's got wins over a tomas adamic and marius puginowski like yeah i'm not saying that's the best boxer or by any stretch the best MMA fighter, but that's pretty good for a well-rounded combat sports resume, dude. Absolutely. I mean, to come in here, Luke, I thought this fight would be on the ground a lot, and then I thought maybe that would wear him out, and he's been a little punchy, old, I'm sorry, Spilka. I guess I didn't anticipate that Pugia could get so gassed in trying to hurt him.

And then the boxing took over for Artur Spilka. He made it look fairly easy once he had that separation. As they always say, BC, the best base for MMA is getting flatlined by Deontay Wilder. So there you go. But the biggest knockout from this card was another boxer former cruiserweight champion christoph glowachki made his mma debut on this card he is on the bottom being full mounted but watch this ending right once again the best base for mma is getting your ass kicked that's really look that is argue people are saying this is the ko of the year

that's one of the best KOs I've ever seen in MMA like that's ridiculous like a Hail Mary from what I can find at least on footage only two of these have ever happened ever the other there's one in Japanese MMA where a guy again same thing was sort of bombing from seated mount and the other guy just comes up and catches him with one and puts him out that's a hey two polish boxing heroes went to this massive card and won out in mma luke not bad not a bad night um elsewhere in mma this is on the road to the ufc card i don't what what is this luke i don't understand this fight card two self pause let's see no but what is this show they're just trying to get and they're just trying to make bigger inroads into east asia is essentially the answer here oh boy

that's oh damn new what nuraji i just butchered his name he just butchered his opponent that's he hit him with he hit him with the old KSI. You know what I'm talking about? He threw a bottle of Prime at him, Luke? No, he hit him with the old elbow. Oh, yeah, yeah. There you go. There you go.

And he falls down the cage. The old KSI bomb. Damn. Dude, that's brutal. Wow. Luke, a lot of people sent this to me to try to make you excited in your dungarees. Shavkat Rukmanov has a sister and I'm not trying to get you excited for, for some things you might think I'm talking about for her striking.

Look at this assault. I mean, in order for me to get excited about the ways you'd imply be implying she'd have to be from Venezuela. However, in terms of being a great fighter, she looks like she might have the goods, man. She looks vicious like her brother jesus her first name is sora s-o-r-a and this was a dominant just shellacking of some soccer mom but shot out just the same luke wow and she does by the way have some similarities to him in terms of how she fights and where uh this other girl was just getting i mean dude

what's the referee is just like? I mean, what is he like waiting? This is an honor crime. Like, what are we waiting on here, guys? Like until I see an eyeball dislodged, I am not stepping in there. But a good stop. It's just the same. Hey, Luke, there was a bunch of weird announced teams in MMA this weekend. Cage Warriors rolled out a three person team that also included Steve-O and Angela Hill.

Let's listen in yeah she kicked them right in the groin yeah and he just keeps coming back for that same ball yeah just the one you got a little time the one left side please take all of it let me have you stand right over here and uh yeah that didn't look pleasant i feel that maybe i should take the lead here in case anyone checks. Look, he keeps going after that same ball, and there was an earlier clip where Angela Hill's like, yeah, he's targeting the left testicle.

It's great shit. I popped for that. You see, the guy who got kicked in the balls there is a buddy of mine. That's Suni Imhotep. Years and years and years ago, we trained together here in D.C. He's since california as a team black house but i know suny very very well um and uh he's a great guy i hope he makes it to the big show yeah unfortunately he won't have any children luke but yes he'll only have one functioning ball but uh you know what that's all you really need uh not to be outdone titan fc rolled out this broadcast team featuring manupal and mugsy bogues luke

otherwise known as stephen struve and jose shorty torres your thoughts this this had to be intentional right plus had to be they had they had struve do the in cage interviewing so he's just looking at these people like you know he was the ring announcer he was the in the in cage ring announcer too luke yeah dude who is the uh the new prospect in the nba victor wimbayama is that his name or something like that yeah he's like seven four just walking around looking at normal humans like they're fucking crickets that's what stefan struve looked like shout out to shorty torres in that suit though luke good to see him uh getting getting that work out there uh you know who got work in eight seconds it was Roosevelt Roberts on the tough episode one of season 31 here's this finish Luke if you were interested dude Roosevelt Roberts was always pretty good he just had moments

where I think he got a little bit overwhelmed but he was a top prospect coming off contender series he actually had some real ability I'm not sure how it all fell apart for him but him doing well is not a surprise and a good good win for him to start off the season with. Yeah. Yeah. There you see coach Connor upset at the loss. Uh, the boxing award for the worst form ever is going to go to this DA zone prospect series brought to you by Jake Paul's MVP promotions. Luke, let's watch Carlos Ray Ramirez do his work with the red gloves. You know, his middle name is King. I don't know if that's fitting. Look at that form.

It is just incredible. Dude, did they get this guy? I mean, I'm not doing a bit. Did they just pay a dude off the street? Did they? Did they? Because Giovanni Lewis looks about like someone would look with like a little bit of training. You know what I mean?

Yes. He looks about ready for a four-rounder. The good news is, Luke, he'll also be driving all these fighters home on the Uber after the fights. And he's also the caterer. But, yes, they luckily stepped in there to stop that. Rugby pitch time. You know we got a lot of down-under listeners in the Aussies

in the New Zealand. Jose, Jose, Jose. Oh, I fucked it up. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I fucked it up but go ahead I'm sorry I fucked it up what what so there's a red player who got hurt and he's off the pitch and look at this game-saving tackle this is insane so he's getting medically evaluated says screw it I don't mind if I die and then then tackles this dude. Yes. Bang! With the shoulder and everything. Yeah, he'll be fighting Jim Miller next Saturday's UFC fight night card, Luke.

Okay? Ready, willing, and able. No, that dude Ray Ramirez is going to be fighting. BC, when you show that clip of the dude just boxing like a kangaroo just doesn't know what it's doing. Yeah, yeah. He's got that old-time style. Yeah, like he's got boxing gloves on, and he's trying to find the light switch somewhere in the middle of the dark is what it looks like this is when people are like dude you got to respect

everyone who gets in there and i'm like everyone everyone sure about that i don't know about that luke i don't know about that hey time for some water slide fails you into that look oh yes please all right i got a male and female one for you let's start with the ladies first here oh just hitting every jagged rock on the way down young lady that had to fucking suck oh that's nature's playground there it's a natural water slide yeah when people say that oh we'll go to these natural falls i'm like nah bitch you're gonna go to the natural falls i'm gonna go take the artificial one in the pool i think unfortunately her privates bounced across across all those jaded rocks yeah here's what they didn't show you this was also a hysterectomy so those rocks are dangerous oh that

was a good one all right let's go to the male side of it luke we do have male viewers and this might be one of them let's check check it out here. Yeah. Wow. I mean, Chinaka Tuwaka Solo Jabba. This guy, Chub Rock. Yeah, they have weight limits for a reason there. Wow. Yes.

Wow, dude. Holy fucking shit. Yikes. All right. Throw that bitch in the Sarlacc pit and call it a day. We finally found video of that white trash neighbor of yours who always mows his lawn during MK. Unbelievable, Luke. We had to park outside your house to get it, but there he is.

Look, he's a smart man, though. Very smart man. It's like, okay, I appreciate that you're mowing the grass but um what's up with the windows my guy oh that's clearly a meth house across the street from you there luke but you know that's fine it's dc it's cool it's yeah i mean there's listen first of all i mean dude people live in parts of the country there's not even a fucking sidewalk on this bumpkin town in the middle of nowhere. And this guy's got some kind of fucking flop house that just has no...

There's nothing around the windows. Yeah, that's the kind of guy you could have barbecue with in the backyard and not realize that he's got eight women chained up upstairs in the attic. Yeah, exactly. That's happened before. Nate D... I'm sorry, Nick Diaz has a new commercial, Luke. It's a bong commercial.

Shout out to this representation. Yeah, dude. Get, get yours. Right. I like how they were like, Nick,

we need you to get into character. He was like, I got you. I got you covered. Can we get them to uh represent our show luke and maybe get a couple free samples you know we have hitoki please hit us up we'd be interested in also being in commercials like this thank you very much if you have the helmet or the backpack hitoki if that is an add-on you know what i mean like the power pad for the eight

i'm looking for the death by marijuana mask that you can provide, please. Luke, one of my favorite segments in this show is MMA fighters in the wild. Let's check them out in their own element. Hey, Rampage Jackson visited Columbia. Yes, that Columbia. Oh, no. Look at the cheering section he gets. Let's go.

He spelled Columbia right. Can you just hire BBLs to the cheering section he gets let's go he spelled columbia right can you just hire bbls to chair you on while you're lifting i cannot explain this to you dude like going to the gym there is a completely different experience than going to the gym here you go to the gym here it's all sweaty dudes who are walking around with shoes and then they're open ball sacks in the in the men's bathroom and then the crowd is whatever it's usually just dudes but you know it's semi-mixed it is the exact opposite over there it is mostly women it is mostly put put the video up again you don't have to play the audio just put it up again look what they're wearing yeah you see a lot of that you see a lot of that all the time. By the way, Rampage curling, what is that?

145 on preacher curl with gloves. He's going to tear his biceps doing shit like that. But no, excuse me. That's more than that. That's 185, if I'm not mistaken. He's strong as shit. That's why he needs the gloves for support, Luke. You know, the gloves help him grip it tighter.

Yeah, but the gym there is one of my favorite places to go. Yeah. All right. Luke, we talked last week about this burgeoning friendship between Alexander Volkanovsky and Nuggets NBA Finals star Jamal Murray. That extended to the basketball court on Volkanovsky's YouTube channel. What do you think of the featherweight champion's form? Did you know he was 200,000 pounds at once played rugby?

You know, he played in the NBA at two 25. Look, look at that. Oh, nice shot. I'd say he's better than Connor and Habib in terms of his, his shooting form.

Yeah, but you know, that's not saying much. It looks like they're having a free throw contest. Similar to the one that we had with morning combat cameras that inexplicably never aired, Luke. Yeah, they just never aired it. They were like, fuck these two guys, you know? All right.

Well, Sean O'Malley's in the wild trying out his new purchase, Luke, a pink AR-15. Your thoughts? This is not how I learned. Yeah, and then he does the johnny walker bit you know johnny walker also shoots rounds while he thrusts his hip but maybe not with a pink ar-15 um yeah i don't love this part of gun culture but what are you gonna do man what are you gonna do luke what are you gonna do hey your boy izzy was in australia but he was being followed this is at the airport by one alex poetan pareda bro they got these guys traveling in the same places at the same time man that is was that a ufc pr trip luke i i saw that poetan went down

there and visited with likezy's rival rugby team. So just kind of doing those funny bits. I'm not sure exactly. I'm not sure. I would love to go to Australia, dude. I would love to go. I'd love to do a live show there in front of 1,000 Aussie donks. You know what I mean?

It'd be great. It'd be fantastic. We just elected Rampage Jackson to the Lifting Gloves Hall of Fame, but we have a new person on the ballot luke and he's your favorite entertainer sometimes he's even in the octagon it's burnt chrysler luke he's a lifting glove guy dude does this guy ever not like just put a fucking shirt on homie i mean just what are you doing that's mikey's favorite comedian back off all right back off yeah i again i've never dude i mean i just now his his his comedy better be i mean bill hicks level to justify this nonsense and mikey is trying to chiming in and saying that

burnt chrysler is also out of sonia's favorite comedian so look you better just come around already okay yeah i mean listen they can't all be great you know what i'm saying rogan likes him shop likes him right adesanya people seem to love him listen people like him a lot more than they like me this is not a fact that i am not aware of i'm just telling you i don't get what the joke is because every time i hear him speak it's just like it's not like horrible or anything but i don't it seems just very ordinary but okay okay i i'd love to go on tour though with our show our comedy show that we do luke on tour maybe we can go to europe get a bunch of dates and cancel i mean that could be something luke but let's go on over to uh pinata fails to close today's segment luke we love love these. Let's listen in.

One, two, three. I'm just kidding. Someone's about to get a fucking wallop, bro. Shoot. Oh, shoot. Okay, yeah. But the fun doesn't stop there. Let's go to the next one.

Okay, swing. but the fun doesn't stop there let's go to the next one dude these fucking dumbasses these fucking dumbasses how do they not know to put everyone away and then tell them to go not to surround the little kid i love when they spin them around they disorient them and spin them around, and then these people just go running. But it's different if you're using a little league bat, not a big deal. They got videos out there with people with full aluminum bats just running around chasing people at parties,

staggering because they're disoriented. I mean, I guess it makes for great content on this show. One more to close. It's our gym fail of the week. Enjoy it. more to close it's our gym fail of the week enjoy it oh my god what the fuck dude what i didn't even know that was possible She put her knee down on where the rolling track comes together. You ever, like, when you come down an escalator, Luke, you're always afraid if you step wrong that it'll suck you in?

That's what happened. Dude, that treadmill is a little appy. You know what I'm saying? That treadmill is a little Bill Cosby going on there. Yeah, that treadmill is named david appleton you're right you need to you need to you need to tell the hr about this thing this is uh i'll i'll like to inspect it after this fall just to be fair all right yeah i know i need to check it out with my nose for no particular reason that's your shit of the week i hope you saw it

all right what a show i didn't expect to give the people two and a half hours today. And, you know, but from my loins to their lips, Luke, it was tremendous. There's a lot going on in the sport. We had to get it off our chest. Let's remind everyone, hey, youtube.com slash morning combat. Tons of great stuff. I put up a video essay yesterday. What's the one rule if you could just change MMA with a snap of the fingers? What's one rule you would change?

We talk about that and why. So you can check that out. We'll have some more coverage for you. I believe you've got some interviews scheduled for this week. Do you not, BC? I will be talking with Amanda Nunes, the UFC 2 division champion. And Luke, sometimes I like to go up and down the menu when I'm talking to UFC PR because I know the people like when I rub my crazy against other people's crazy.

I booked Nate the Train Landwear this week. Okay. So Nate the Train and your boy BC are going to get to know each other pretty quickly here. All right. That should be pretty fun. That should be pretty fun. So we'll have tons of content for you guys. And of course, just a reminder, Saturday for the UFC 289 post fight,

I will have a show ready for you to go yeah and also uh showbox the new generation is back this friday verona new york the turning stone casino and coinciding with the international boxing hall of fame class of 2023 so if you want some uh showtime for free to try it out how about show Showtime.com? You can check out Barry Tompkins, Raul Marquez, Steve Farhood, and myself back on the job Friday night in Verona. Don't miss it. Should be really fun. All right.

So thanks to CBS Sports. Thanks to Showtime. Thanks to Malka. Excuse me, morningcombat.store. If you want to get involved with any of the merch, that's available there. And then, of course, don't forget to reach out to the show, morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's Fan Subs,

Friday's Dead Wrong. Plenty of extra content coming your way this week right here on Morning Combat. Appreciate you guys watching. We're out for today. Until next time, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. May all of your gains be loyal.