MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Sean Strickland Dominates Fluffy | Should He Get Chimaev Title Shot? | Ryan Garcia Redeems Himself

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

It was an eventful UFC Fight Night in Texas with Sean Strickland coming out on top over Anthony Fluffy Hernandez. Luke Thomas, Chuck Mindenhall and the MK crew break the fight down, plus Strickland's post-fight interview. There's more to go over from Saturday night's UFC card including exciting finishes. Plus Ryan Garcia's stellar performance against Mario Barrios.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Revely. Look at this now. Oh, Jesus. It's what 11 a. m. Combat.

Oh, that's really. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a margarita? Yeah. You is to be, two, three, two, three. It's a section. Your marks get set and go on. F, yeah.

I got a new intro, baby. Hell yeah. Yeah, brother. Is it the first time you're seeing that? That's the first time I'm seeing it. I was actually going to start the show today, talk around just to kind of emulate the Brian Campbell voice over there. Well, that's cool.

No need for that. No need for that. They have switched it up. Hello, everyone. Hello on this 23rd day of February, 2026. Welcome to Morning Combat. I am merely one half of your very, very cold and frozen duo. I join you from the capital of Estados.

We need us right here in Washington, D.C., joined by a man who's got it much worse. than me who I think this is a live stream as you indicated on the pre-show chuck uh from planet hawth you know in star wars universe that's what it feels like man we have like an eight-foot plow drift like by my garage here from previous plows that hadn't even gone down a little bit from the previous heavy snowfall and there's basically a trench in our driveway from the snow now that's completely filled in it looks like it's it's there's no the weird thing about this man It's like a muted earth right now. There's no cars on the road out here.

It's a completely just quiet wonderland. But, dude, it's still coming down. And I think we've got about 12, 12, 14 inches already. It's, this is a bad one. Wow. Well, we did not get it that bad in terms of the snow at all. I think we got maybe, you know, three, maybe four inches or something like that. Most of it didn't stick to the ground because the temperature of the earth here, at least is still pretty warm.

So I had to kind of like push a little bit of like snow. cover off the ground. It wasn't really any of me shoveling. It is going to be cold today. It's going to be cold tomorrow. But we didn't get like you guys. You got off lightly this time, Luke. I did. Just be glad, man. Long Island got smoked. And then Boston and then like the, the, the, the, Massachusetts area more generally, dude, they got freaking destroyed. Yeah, it was like horizontal, right? Like, I was looking at some wind factors over there. Like, we didn't really get that. If it happened, it was like early in the morning. But I was half expecting snow drifts over the windows, the way they were talking about it. None of that, but dude, it is a heavy snowfall.

Well, nevertheless, we made it. Everyone made it. Everyone on the show here made it. So we're glad to have you here, Chuck. We have a lot to get to today. We're going to be reacting, of course, to the UFC show in Houston, where Sean Strickland got certainly one of the very best. We'll talk about exactly how good it was, but certainly one of the very best victories of his career, as well as everything else down the line in that card. Plus, we'll be talking, of course, about Ryan Garcia's a pretty big win, pretty easy win, to be honest with you. over Mario Barrios and a whole lot more. We'll do DMs. I think we're going to do a bit of a game. We got a lot to get to.

Before we're going to further, very quickly, let's bring in the third member of the show here. He also got smoked by this weather storm here. Not as bad as Jeff Neal. Ayo. Yeah, but dude, I got like a foot and a half. It's bad up there. Also, I have a covered front porch.

So, like, I shouldn't, I normally don't get any snow on my front porch. I had to shovel, like, a foot of snow off my front porch. Just from the wind bringing it up there. But not great. out there. Fun card this weekend, though, boys. Are you supposed to get more snow today? It's currently snowing right now.

It's not like heavy snow, but it's snowing right now. However, though, can see pavement on my street. So they're doing a good job plowing right now, but I've got to go shovel after this. It's going to go. All right. Very good. Let's set the table here. If you want to follow us on the socials, we're pretty much everywhere on the

MK universe. You know where to catch me. I'm on also pretty much everything in the social media universe, and you can find Chuck over at Instagram. well as X. Don't forget we have great merch, which by the way, this is the last week for it. This is it. This is the February exclusive, the Army of Dawkinsness. It'll be only available until the end of Saturday, basically, during UFC Mexico. By the way, we'll talk about that in just a second. And of course, you can get the poster as well. Plus, we have the two new evergreen items,

the morning combat graffiti logo, and then the MK letters with the DC flag design in the background. Very quickly, Chuck, I'm sure you saw, I mean, I don't know if there will be any change, but there was obviously, how do we say this? The Mexican government killed a cartel leader, and the cartel then lashed out and set ablaze portions of Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. Now, the event is scheduled for Mexico City, and I would imagine that the security potential in Mexico City is still pretty good. I don't know what that will mean for them, but something to keep an eye on. Yeah. When is that car? That card's coming up.

Saturday. That's this Saturday. That's this Saturday. Yeah, that's crazy, man. Yeah, I've been seeing all that footage coming out of Porta Viard DeBan. What a crazy thing. Yeah, we'll see. Also, if you want to reach the show, four dead wrongs, for fan subs, or just to talk to the

producers, Morning Kombat at gmail.com. I don't know if I'm forgetting anything. I don't believe that I am. So, if that is out of the way, let's get this party started. Topic number one, let's talk about it. So in the main event of UFC Houston, in my opinion, well, first of all, as a matter of fact, Sean Strickland scores a third round stoppage over Anthony Fluffy Hernandez, and he was a surging contender. He was riding an eight-fight win streak.

But this is my question. I thought that Sean Strickland barely got touched. I rewatched the fight, Chuck. I couldn't believe just how little in the end, even numerically it might have been more, but just visually watching how little Anthony Hernandez could. really ever get going. You can't argue that Sean Strickland beating Izzy taking his title is anything other than his most important and, you know, certainly most consequential win of his career. I don't think this win is as good as that win for those reasons. But my question to you, Chuck,

is this. While it's not his most important victory, was this the best performance of Sean Strickland's career. I think it might have been. And, you know, part of that is on Fluffy too, right? Because I didn't feel like at any point that Fluffy came to life in that fight. You know, his, his corner was kind of imploring him basically to go in there and put him on his back foot a little bit, at least follow up the one shots with something more. And you could see the kind of, you know, you're mentioning he didn't really, he didn't really hit Strickland. The couple times he did, there was a flurry in the first round. And it was, you know, I remember when Imova fought, uh, you know, you know, I remember when I'm Strickland, he kind of had some success with this too, which was kind of just moving in very quickly and surging forward and landing those shots. There were a couple of moments like that, but for the most part, I felt like Fluffy really wasn't there. Like he just, he let Sean basically get comfortable from range and got sniped, you know, that whole fight. So if you're looking at it strictly from that, like I thought the poise, the composure that Sean Strickland showed in a fight where maybe his back was a little more against the wall than it had.

been was certainly there. But it's tough, man, because like if you're looking at it, I think that's a good, it's relevant to bring up the Izzy Adasania fight because it was kind of out of nowhere. But at that time, there was something like, I remember kind of going on, you know, writing about this and saying, like, does he have the kind of mental makeup, I guess, to win a championship and to, you know, to kind of carry that because he was one of these guys who, like, you wondered about his own self-loathing and things like this, things that you would never think about with other fighters. Would he have that psychology?

This one, it just felt like he was so dialed in, and he just kind of, he never was really in danger, controlled the, you know, controlled the fight from as long as it lasted. And every time there was blood in the water, man, he smelled it and he pounced. So I thought it was certainly next to Izzy

as far as his best performances. Yeah, I mean, I need to say this, because just two basic points I want to make here. So you weren't here for Friday's MK, but on Friday's MK, my assessment was I've been waiting for Sean's game, which was a little bit more defensively oriented than it was offensively oriented.

And I was waiting for that to kind of turn a corner because it was kind of holding him back in fights that maybe he should have won. The Kenoneer one is kind of like the preeminent example of that. Obviously, I know he had better wins past it, but I'm just saying it kind of, it exemplified to me some of the problems. And of course, he lost twice to DDP.

but before the second loss of DDP, my problem was I was kind of waiting for him to turn a corner. It's like, all right, you beat Polo Costa kind of barely. Are we going to get this thing dialed into a place where it's got a little bit more offensive potency? And you can't just change your style. You have to kind of be who you are. But there are some things you can add to it?

And after the first DDP fight, and then that kind of not so great, but he won, but against Polo Costa wasn't that great. And then he really looked bad against DDP in the second fight, again, with some mitigating circumstances. I kind of thought, okay, no, we're not going to get that. And then he comes out here in this one. And I thought he did exactly that.

Now, obviously the jab was the most important weapon that he did, or sorry, that he used, but there was more than that. He was putting combinations together and he was using, I mean, it is so fucking unbelievable to me. I want to make this point. Look at how, for example, I'm not putting Sean Strickland on the level of a guy like Volk. I mean, both were champions, but Volk is, you know,

a higher level kind of champion. However, what I'm going to say is, Chuck, it doesn't not blow your mind. The difference between guys and in both the Volk case and in this case, largely on the back foot, how if you are able to methodically use movement and space, you can make guys who are actually pretty good, pretty dangerous, on some pretty hot wind streaks, you can make them look absolutely pedestrian. The people who know how to move surgically, thoughtfully,

continuously, dude, they mop up their competition. Do they not? It's crazy. Yeah. You know, you say the word surgical. That's what it was, right? Like, he was, the way he was kind of sniping in this fight. It reminded me a little bit of, remember Machita in his day would be on that back foot?

And like, he would kind of be that backward leaning posture and, like, he would just kind of punish him. He'd move out of the way. Yeah, it was, it was very, like, there was a little, there was some shades of that, right? Like where you're watching him, and I fully agree with you, he is fairly elusive, man. You take away like the Pereira fight, right? Like something like that where he just gets caught right away. He generally doesn't.

Sean Strickland is one of those guys who avoids big damage on whole, and especially if he can get into a rhythm. And I thought that that's what he did here. And part of it, like we were talking about, man, this is always such a, it's such a funny thing because we were talking about who would be. be the better challenge between these between fluffy and strickland to go against shemaiah and i was basically making the point that the dog the dog and if you look at fluffy like the dog that's in him and his aggression that's probably the more interesting of the two but you saw it shut down and

nullified in this fight like he was almost like he was second guessing himself by the by the late first round all the way through the second about how to even approach it and a lot of that man is just what you're saying because he was he was he was getting those leg kicks the jab was finding it was just hitting him i don't think he knew how to close i think he only had like one takedown uh you know the one takedown i think attempt through that whole fight they credit him with one take yeah attempt but i don't even i mean it was so he was just shut down like you're saying when you use the word pedestrian that's exactly how it looked to me it never looked like sean strickland was in danger so that so that was the one point that i wanted to make was

simply that i actually a few points one the weaponization of movement i just want everyone to pay attention main events, the people who can use movement effectively against if they're matched up with people who can't, it is an enormous advantage. That's one. Two, I thought that, you know, again, DDP loss number one, kind of a languid performance against Polo Costa, looked even worse than the DDP rematch. I was like, okay, well, he's not going to turn a corner here. And then he was able to look, I thought, pretty offensively potent, in part because he didn't have huge retreats. He was able to put combination punching together, that little opportune knee, obviously that closed the show or at least close the beginning of the end of the show, so to speak.

That was really, really nice. But the other thing that I wanted to say, Chuck, and this is the kind of point I wanted to really harp on here. Man, dude, it is amazing to me watching this happen like all the time now, where younger guys who are surging through the ranks encounter someone who's not necessarily over the hill, but certainly a little more senior in the division, and they just can't breakthrough. They just can't break through. I don't know, you know, usually you can look at a matchup, and I think this is large, you know, we look at like the total expanse of who wins more

fights, younger guys, obviously on balance, it's probably going to be younger guys. But like the number of memorable situations where we're watching someone who is younger on a hot streak offensively. I mean, you can say what you want about Anthony Hernandez in general, Saturday notwithstanding, pretty offensively potent, and they absolutely look like lesser than. They simply cannot break through. And I don't know how new this phenomenon is, Chuck, but it feels a little,

not new as in like, oh, it didn't exist before and now it does. No, but it feels like the volume on that was maybe out of four, and now it's closer to a six, maybe even seven, where you're just watching young contenders who you think might be,

oh, this might be ready to make a breakout moment. no these old dogs in these various divisions dude they are proven to be super resilient yeah man and i mean we saw that a little bit with diego lopez right because he comes in and we we identified that he needed to do i know this drove you crazy like uh you know cutting the cage a little better like the things he wasn't doing but it's like he comes in there and it's uh it's like he got no education from that first fight but if you just look at the whole thing as a whole it felt like he was never going to, you know, kind of outwily, you know, Volcanovsky. And just every time he made even a little bit of adjustment, you know, Volkinovsky had something for him. It was like he couldn't come up with a

plan B. I don't know if that's exactly the case, but it felt a little like that in this fight because you could almost feel and you could hear the corner kind of talking to Hernandez and basically say, hey, man, you got to do these things. If you're not going to do that, we're not going to win this fight, but you could see him in real time trying to figure this out, and he had no answers for this. You know, the thing that, like, you look at guys like Sean Strickland, a lot of times we, like, we think we identify his ceiling because we've seen him do this thing. Like you're saying, he has, some people accuse him as being a boring fighter, maybe too defensive like we were mentioning, but he's been in 24, like, it's crazy. He's been in 24 fights. This was his 24th

UFC fight. The guy has stood in there against so many people. He trains with, you know, monsters in Vegas. He has like Eric Nixick, right, like who has been working with him. These guys, man, they are so prepared in general for most of anything that they'll see that you, and also just like, you know, what would you say like the urgency of it, right? Like just kind of making sure that you understand the moment and you're taking advantage of that. Like I feel like we underestimate some of these guys for just the experience they have, you know, and I think Strickland's definitely, I didn't realize, I had to go look at this that he had 24 fights. I would have guessed he had more like 15 or 18 fights.

I didn't realize he'd been in the UFC quite that long. Yeah, no, there's no doubt about it. And again, it's like in the case of, so for example, I made the calculation for the UFC 324 main event that the young, not that I thought the ultimate upside of Gaichi had obviously been higher than the ultimate upside of what we'd seen to that point than Patty, but Patty was so much younger. I thought Gaetia was kind of on the down swing. And I thought that would have made a difference.

No, it didn't. Now, I did pick Volk ahead of Diego, but that one, was like, you know, one guy had such a glaring weakness. Right. You know what I mean? We're like, uh, fluffy didn't seem to me to be like exactly of that way. Yet, Sean, yeah, I'm not comparing I'm exactly too, Volk, but what I am saying is, there was, there were similar-ish kind of shades of it where a guy is using movement and

another guy can't keep up. And really, here's the story of this fight too, Chuck. First round was, you know, reasonably competitive. I thought in the end, Sean got the, the better of it, maybe to get the 10-9. But, you know, it was, you know, numerically, it was pretty similar. in terms of the stat totals. And again, a round for Sean, but fine, like no big issue. Fight gets away from Fluffy in round two.

That's a very clear Sean Strickland round. And then Fluffy comes out in round three and tries to do this bit rather, because by the way, he did a poor job cutting him off. That was one thing in real time. I thought he, a lot of guys, Chuck, a lot of guys, and I've seen this in MMA, Diego Lopez did the exact same thing. They don't do a good job of cage cutting. So what they do to make.

up for it is they try to just play what I call hurry up offense. I borrowed the term obviously from from basketball. They'll play a bit of a hurry up or no, sorry, football. We'll use both. Yeah. But what they're trying to do is they're trying to, they'll just stand a little bit closer and they'll throw a little bit more, but it's not strategic. It's almost designed to force a mistake by inducing panic or a set of quick responses that, you know, elicit a mistake in the process, right? You're just you're just answering so often. you can't get it right. But that doesn't work against good guys either

because Sean has a way of just defining the terms of the fight. Like what did that fight look like to you? Did it look like a fluffy fight or did it look like a Sean Strickland fight? It looked like a Sean Strickland fight from the beginning to the end. Let me put this quote up on the card on the screen rather. This was fluffy after the fight. You guys might have heard this. He said, quote, I got sloppy, got caught with an effing knee up the center.

It's all right. I'm going to go back to the drawing board. I'm going to get better. You've seen what happened when I lost last time. I made big jumps. It's just time to get back to work. Fair enough, it's the right attitude, and I hope that he does. But the point I'm trying to make, Chuck, is he couldn't get anything going in round one, not much.

He got even less going in round two and just decided, I'm going to play a hurry-up style of offense and then got finished for it. Not ready for a guy as skilled as Sean Strickland, not even close, it turned out. No, and did you get the feeling like when he says, why got caught with that body shot? I mean, and it was, it was a great body shot, but did you get any sense that the, that the, that the, tables could be turning at any point in this fight like that's always the thing right like you just see a guy being outclassed um and so then then you see kind of like okay at least he had i guess when you say something like hurry up offense um you know maybe that's what's required sometimes because there was absolutely no disruption to what uh to what he was doing and sean strickland was just doing what he wanted

i think he he doubled him and this is when he's at his very best is when he can kind of double you up on strikes and just kind of keep hitting you with the jab and keep you at range and like he was able to keep doing that i give i guess in some way fluffy credit for saying like well let's just see if i just go in with with a little more abandoned if i might be able to disrupt the rhythm of what he's got going on and see if something might happen but obviously um that did not work because that was like the one moment he came forward right like that that that body shot was him coming forward and trying to do that and and that was effectively at the end of the fight it's weird fluffy has a pretty good chin, but his

durability to the body is he, there's now, this is my, by my count, at least the fourth fight where he's been rocked by a body shot. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. You're at this point now where yeah, can he, you'll notice, there was that one exchange in round one where Sean

put that combination together and got the better of Fluffy in a brief moment. Fluffy just smiled and walked into him. Yeah. But then you get hit to the body and then it closes the show. And I think you have to give Strickland a little bit of credit here. Again, I sort of my point out by saying this at the top,

which was for a guy, in MMA, in boxing, you can have a style that's a little bit more defensive based and be really well. I think that that is a limit. There's a limit to that in MMA in ways that it's not true in boxing. So you need to be more offensive than you are defensive. And to me, what this fight showed was Strickland still has a little bit of some tricks up his sleeve

where he is still kind of fine. tuning the process to be able to deliver more offense off of an inherently defensive style in ways that honestly he hasn't really done that. I mean, again, this is his, to me, this is his best stoppage win. This is his best stoppage win. For sure, it's his best stoppage win. But the way in which he looked so languid in the last three fights and then look so potent here, you have to give him credit.

You really do. Yeah. Who was it? I think it might have been D.C. He was trying to point out, like, if this version of Sean Strickland shows up to the cage. He can compete with anybody, including Shemaya. I mean, I know we're going to talk about that in a minute, but like, that is

a question, right? Because you're always like, where's this guy's head? You know, a lot of times, and even in this, as particular in this one, like he goes to Houston, what does he do? He makes all these headlines for all the wrong reasons. He puts a very strange kind of vibe to the fight and almost like an expectation

that it's going to be hard to live up to. He, you know, he kind of did this with the easy fight too. And then he goes in there he puts all that aside and just like puts on that show that's you know it's it's been very it's adventurous with him in that sense like you just don't know what you're getting from fight to fight and i do believe he's one of those head cases that you know i know we're talking about ryan garcia later on like you know it's like one of those guys that you the unpredictability is just that you're

not sure where his head is you know what i mean like when he goes into a fight in this particular one it looked like he was so dialed in that you're like yeah that that version of sean strickland would be fun to contemplate against anybody it's incredible to watch. I kind of want to put this topic to bed as we move on. We'll talk about the what's next for the division. Actually, you know what? Before we do that, very quickly, I got to, I got to be, okay, so as I mentioned, I'm making these mistakes where I, nor, ordinarily you can kind of rely on youth to begin to really surge through and they're having a tough time breaking through in MMA. But we also got to be careful on the other end, Chuck, which is, again, Diego Lopez had like no

cage cutting in the first fight and they make him fight him again without a ton of time necessarily to work into that. Now he also looked like he didn't put any effort into fixing what was wrong, which is a different problem. But the point I want to make is if we're going to posit that the younger guys and Fluffy's not super young, he's 32 and I think Sean 35 or something like that,

about 34 maybe, but you know, certainly more experienced and then they're longer. If we're going to posit that the young guys can't break through, it also is kind of going to be true in many cases that we have to wait for the younger guys to also maybe become kind of old guys themselves or at least, you know, war horses before we can really conclude what their ultimate upside would be. I mean, he, it might just be Hernandez just needs a little bit more time, which is crazy

to say at 32. Yeah. But, but it really might just be the case. I'm not ready to bury him. Yeah. And sometimes it's like when we're talking about a guy like Fluffy, it's the fresh blood, not necessarily like the young gun, but like a fresh blood who hasn't really been. been in the big fights and he's like now you're finally getting to see him in the big things because

like Rafael Fiziv for instance like going against Justin Gachi I remember I was like that he's going against the guy who's on his way out and this guy's on his way up and in Fiziv and they fight twice in both times Gachi wins this fight you almost understood Fizzi like I feel like that that established like his baseline are okay we understand now that maybe he's not cut out for the top it really was informative and then when you look at a guy like Benoit St. Denis, who took on, you know, Dustin Poria in that fight, and you see him kind of falter and all of a sudden gas himself out. And all of a sudden, he's getting beat. Like, he's not the youngest guy, but, like, he's the fresh face, the guy who's coming up.

He has way less experience and way less fights in the UFC. And you feel like they hit these markers and you're like, okay, now we gauge them for real. Like, we find out, is this guy really ready for the upper echelon? And that's kind of what we're at with this one, man. And just like in all those cases, I felt, and especially the Volcanowski case, Strickland held court. You know what I mean? And that's one of those things when you see it.

You're like, hey, man, you can think of what you want about a guy like that. But as a fighter, it's very validating to kind of show at 34 years old to show up and put on that performance. Now, one of my rules is that when a fighter wins, you know, it's their turn to say what they want to say. Before the fight, I'm a little bit less interested in that. But certainly after the fight, if you win, it's your turn to talk. Interestingly enough, they cut his mic at the post-fight press conference. Let's take a look at this. You got Colby, like, the pretend, you know, the pretend Republican, but like, who's really, like, entertaining?

You got Chimai of the fucking go fucker. Like, who's really, who's really entertaining in this division? Nobody. So, that's a wrap. Anyway. This straight-up cut his mic. They should have done that in the pre-fight. Here's my reaction to this, which is two things.

One, people were like, oh, no way UFC would do this. Paramount did this. No chance. not a chance on earth that the UFC gets told to cut a fighter's mic by the media partner. If you know anything about the UFC, especially the O.C. Yeah, you know that that is not even something you could contemplate, not a chance that's happening. Number one. Number two, Chuck, I think that there actually might be a little bit more going on here.

In other words, Dana made comments and we'll look at those in just a second, where he was saying, oh, you know, it's a nightmare to deal with, and he blames the media. We'll take a look at it in just a second. But the bigger point is he was going after one of the coaches, Jim West, who was the head corner there for Fluffy Hernandez. And I guess he, I don't follow the personal lives of anyone in MMA in any capacity. No. So this was news to me that I guess he's dating Aspen Lad,

or they had at some point in a romantic relationship. And then Sean makes it an accusations against him, which I'm not even going to repeat. But the point I'm trying to make is it's at least worth consistent. considering the UFC because it was just before this clip he was doing it, then he gets into the Chimaev part and then they cut it. It's at least worth considering that maybe they cut it a little late, yes, but to protect them from him being sued potentially or the UFC from being named in a suit for Jim West from Jim West.

I'm not saying that Jim West is going to do it. I'm saying that might have been preventative on that side rather than, hey, we're just tired of his speech and we're going to cut it. What's your read on the situation? Yeah. I mean, dude, I, like, I've talked to the UFC back, you know, a long time ago before he ever got a title shot and he was being, you know, he was kind of working his way up and I'm like, is there hesitation to kind of put him in this spot because you have a loose cannon essentially on the microphone who's going to offend a lot of people. And they're like, yes, they were basically like, yes, this is a concern of ours. So this isn't something new. And, you know, do you remember UFC 100? Brock Lesnar, right? Like Brock Lesnar, he comes in, he gets the big victory of Frank MeraVing's the previous loss. He gets up there and he says, he gets up there and he says, start it's a bud light was their connection to the rest of the sporting world bud light was the

most legitimate thing in the ufc at that time other than making it to that hallmark event right and he says i'm gonna go drink some cores light because bud light don't pay me and he says this whole spiel remember this and it was like you can say anything you can say anything but when you start going at the money man Dana white had to track him down backstage uh three you know whatever he was 285 300 pound man go in his face and get in his face and basically yell at him like uh and reprimand him about that. And this was a big deal at that time because, you know, Bud Light being what it is.

Sean Strickland and the pre, like when Dana's pissed off, he's probably pissed off only at the Paramount Plus, really when he's like Paramount Plus and he was like, yeah, man, they ruined Halo and, and, you know, he starts going on about fuck them and all this stuff.

And I'm like, that's the shit that will really piss Dane off is when you go at the money men, the people, you know, especially this early in the relationship. I feel like all the rest of that stuff, they try to live with, but that's the stuff that really gets it.

them. Can I tell you? I don't believe it actually bothers them. They might say that to you. I'm not telling you. You're lying. But then they use it promotionally. Then Connor does insane stuff. Like Connor gets it, Connor gets found liable for sexual assault in Ireland. And their responses, why would you even ask me a question about that? I know, it's popular guy. I just. Why would I? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know enough about that. You know, he just says, yeah. What is that? I don't listen to our hip hop. You know, it's like what? And so, you know, it's like, and then when they. And then when they. And then when they. And then. And then. And then. And then. And then. And. And then. And then. And. And. And then. And. And then. And. And then. And. And then. And. And then. And. And. And. And. And. And. And when Sean was in Australia, they turned it into a thing they wanted to promote, like, oh, come see this guy get, you know, messed up. They took the front page of the Australian media reacting to Sean. I don't know what the evidence would be that they're actually bothered by it. Again, this one to me is interesting because I'm guessing that it's lawsuit related, but I don't know that either. Could be. But I just don't actually buy that they're sick of his speech. I really don't.

I'm sorry to tell you that. But do you think that like the paramount, like, I mean, I feel like that's the piece. I'm sure Paramount is like, what the fuck is this? Right. But it's like, dude, you all paid $7.7.7 billion for this. This was not the first time Strickland has done this. You know what I mean? It was like, it's like fucking tons of tape on this.

It's not like, and each time it's crazier and crazier, right? Like in the Toronto thing, it was like, it was out of hand. But yeah. Here's Dana blaming us. Yeah, if you, if you ask dumb questions. I don't think a lot of people expected Strickland to look as good as he did tonight. I know the answer to this, but right, when you look at Strickland and what comes next to him, you know, he's calling for a hamzat fight, stuff like that.

There's no, like, what he says during media day and things like that. That doesn't affect your booking of him, right? You are still happy to put him in those. It's a nightmare. It's, I mean, but you guys don't help. Asking them dumb shit, you know, ask dumb shit, you're going to get dumb shit. Would you think of bad buddy? What did you think of the Super Bowl?

What the fuck out of here? You fucking kidding me? Yeah. So when you talk about what Strickland says, you guys like to push the buttons. enough Chuck your reaction did the media bring a bad bunny I'm asking you did they bring a bad bunny so my understanding is my understanding is some of it was brought up that he went into but a lot of it was also just Sean taking liberties yeah yeah it just kind of the point right because even in other situations you'll ask him like hey here's a standard question about so-and-so and then

he'll answer it and then just go on a tangent you know what I mean yeah I mean the bottom line is we work in the media and everybody knows how it works. You're going to ask questions that get, you know, that provoke a response and especially with a guy like that, you're going to set him up. You're going to let him trip over himself if he needs to, like, they're going to do that. But to reprimand the, like, it's like you can't do an equal reprimand on this. It's like the, you know, you have a guy, an independent contract, not employee, but like you have a guy that is representing your company. And if you're going to reprimand anybody, it's got to be him, right? Like it's, you got to say, hey, man, tone it down.

I know they've had this discussion with him in the past, but it's, it seems funny because it's almost like, guys, don't ask him question. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? Like, don't ask him questions where it might be a trigger for him to go off on a tangent. That's just, it's like, it's like, it's an impossible standard. It's an impossible. It's impossible, you know? And it's like, it's not the media's fault that he is a loose cannon.

I mean, it's just the dude's going to say it anyway. Even if you didn't ask him something directly that, you know, you're trying to get some crazy response. He's going to take it there. He's done it a million times. Can I tell you how many times I've talked to media members at major outlets who've done interviews with him during five weeks? This is like not a new thing at all. And then they do the interview and then they can't use it because he would go off on tangents about Muslims or something like that. And they're like, well, we can't use any of this. This is happening. I've heard this kind of story from people who work in major media outlets for years at this point. It is hardly new.

But it's not even the point. My point is just. this. It's like, it's like, Dana, what is it that you expect from the class of media that you have curried favor with and or rejected? What is it you expect? I mean, I'm not defending all the questions that they asked. I think a lot of them are stupid and useless and otherwise a waste of time, but the ones who don't do that, you guys have mutumboed for years at this point. Like, this is just what you have left yourself with. You know, and another part two is it's like, okay, well, then if you ask other kinds of good questions that are questioning of power. They don't like that.

You know what I mean? It's like what they just basically, look, listen, here's a reality. And this is, this is to me like why partly I stopped going to events, but also definitely stop going to press conferences, which is what they want the media to do and a press conference is like a perfect example. A press conference does not, I mean, on occasion it can. But in general, it is not designed to have the fans there. And my point is, I don't even have a problem with the fans being there.

but it doesn't become a press conference at that point. It becomes a pep rally or some other kind of performative act for the public. And if that's what you want to do, I swear to God, I have no opposition to that. It's totally fine. But if you want the media to interview the fighters in a way that generates anything worth a shit of actual interest, it has to be one or the other. And what they want the media to do is to be perform. You ever seen the volleyball?

You get like what, three hits a side. You get one to catch it, one to push the ball over, and then one for the guy to spike the rest of three hits aside. What they want you to do is be the guy that pushes the ball up so then the other guy can come and smack it. They want you to serve as a de facto piece of the UFC PR machine rather than what your job is. And if you go either on the frivolous side, Chuck, or hey, hey, Sean, we think about bad money. I admit, it is a stupid question. I certainly invite.

But you know you're going to get. Yeah, but on the other side, if you go even the other way where you're challenging power, well, then you also, your job to them is to play a very, very narrow role of helping them advance their interests. Anything to the contrary of that, they lose their mind. Well, they whittle away everything like you said and they keep what they consider the arm of their own brand, right? Like they just wanted to kind of stand. I can remember going to, you know, UFC's in the 100s, you know, like before UFC 150, say. and the UFC people, they were very chummy and they would come up and they'd be, hey, can you, can you ask, you know, John Fitch a question. Can you? Because nobody's, by the way, military did this too. Right, right. They want you to, they want you to participate. And I get all that. I get all that. But like, there's nothing to say that they're not going to be like, hey, can we, you know, there's an expectation in place at some point to kind of make it more of an entertainment thing, right? Like, so, especially with the live crowd. So the way it's devolved is not surprising is all I'm trying to say, you know? And also when Dana said, dude, do you ever see?

see Pulp Fiction when Samuel Jackson was like, if my answer is frightened you, Vincent, maybe you should cease, ask, and scary questions. Do you remember that?

It's like, some reason I heard that when he's talking about that, I'm like, dude, it's just not the way it works. You know, it's not the way it works. You have like,

you have a guy and it's almost, he's almost like this momentum. Like, it's almost like a comedy where somebody, like they mortify themselves more and more, the more, the more they talk. And they're like,

oh my God, why am I saying that? But he never has that moment of self-reflection. Or if he does, you know, he's, Then he's becoming like that tryhard type of guy who's just going to roll it out as long as far as it can. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's the best part is like, you know, the issue is not necessarily what Strickland said, but that someone asked him. It's like, I don't, I don't think that's how personal responsibility works, but what do I know? All right. Question number two. Let's talk about what might be next for the winner and also Hernandez, too, to an extent. But let's focus on Strickland. So now that Strickland has bested Hernandez and did so with authority, Chuck, the question for you is,

What should the UFC do with the matchmaking for the middleweight title? So here's the issue. Nassarini Mavov has won five fights in a row, while Strickland is coming off of certainly a very excellent win, but it is numerically, technically speaking, it's on a one-fight win streak. It's not even a streak. You've got to win two.

That didn't want to be a streak. So should UFC, not will, not could? The question is, Chuck, should, should the UFC grant Strickland a title shot. I'm Dylan Playfair. And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness. in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship.

This is bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charm Diamond Centers, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love stories and bromances for over 50 years. And you can find Bromance on the IHeartRadio Network or wherever you get your podcast. The should part, right?

Like, no. I feel like Imov has put himself in that position. I know he has the loss, and I guess if you want to do the strict math, like he has that loss, but it did come out of 205 pounds, right? Like that was a different time, different weight class. Strickland did beat him. So I guess you could point that out if you're trying to justify it.

But generally speaking, if you're just looking at what's been happening over the last couple years within the division, Imovov has put himself in that position. The problem is that you now have two guys, and I guess this isn't really a problem. Like you have two guys who are competing for the same space. The UFC is going to have to make a decision, but it's like, Sean Strickland's concerns are actually legit on this one, and that Shimaev doesn't really fight all that often.

He started off fighting a lot. But now that he's the champion, I don't get the sense that he wants to fight more than maybe once a year. He's got a lot of different, obviously he had his visa issues. Hopefully those are resolved with what's going on in our presidency and all that. Like he's got that result. But, you know, he's one of those guys. He's the Ramadan thing.

He's got a lot of, he's frequently injured or dealing with something. So to get him in there and whoever gets that shot, you know, it's going to be, you better make the most. of it, right? Like, you better make the most of it. And Imov has put himself in that spot. I'm just like, if you're saying the should and the meritocracy sense, he's the guy. But I don't, I don't, I know the UFC doesn't operate. So they don't operate off a should, right? Like, we saw that in the first couple of paper views or numbered cards to start the year. Here's, here's the issue for me. It's like, again, on paper, whose resume? I mean, Sean's got a better resume because he was a champion, obviously. But I'm

saying in terms of, okay, we're asking who has put together the requisite amount and type of wins in the middleweight division to be the most deserving of a title shot. If we're asking that question, the answer is only EMOVoff. Right. But here's the problem for me, Chuck. This is the issue. Number one, we've kind of talked about the fact that the UFC really is looking around the American landscape and they're saying to themselves, it's a little barren out here. We've got to do something to promote some of the interests of the of the american market to to you know for any number of reasons and so that's obviously going to benefit Sean the fact number two that they have a history together training beefing with one another you know whereas imovov and and homzad i think are not

not well they've been chummy at times but you know they're not it's you're certainly not going to get the heated rivalry that you are with frickland but here's the other problem i have with with imawv know if I would pick either Strickland or Imovov to beat Chimayev, but if I had to pick one of them to beat Chimayev, it's definitely Strickland. Yeah, I know that is weird. Yeah. I just don't believe Imovov can beat them. And the problem with that logic, Chuck, and this is a really why the situation is so sticky is that like, you got to be as a matchmaker and a promoter. Your job is to put on the fights that people want to pay money to see. That's the job. But you have to honor some level of meritocracy to kind of keep the whole thing together. But of course,

you can go outside of that all the time. This is a weird situation, Chuck, because they didn't give it to Armandser Yuki, and they gave an opportunity to Patty, and that was outside the meritocratic system. Same thing at 145 on this one. But if they went with the guy who was the most meritocratic, to me, it's the least suspenseful. However, you can't award title shots based on what you think all the time anyway, oh, this will just be more fun. Like, a champion's got to defend at some level against the most deserving guy. So, like, don't get me wrong. If they put Strickland in that fight, I'm being like, well, this is a much better fight.

Sure. I mean, at least in theory, it's a much better fight. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know what, they can't solve both of their problems at once. They can't solve a problem of like, we got to be down the line with matchmaking or we got to make the fights that are the most compelling. This one, they're, I think, in direct contradiction with each other. 100% man and you know what if they're going to make him above wouldn't they already be like when they already kind of be making it like wouldn't they like i feel like they're waiting to see now maybe it was from a fluffy um from that perspective of like a fluffy gets through whatever but when a guy comes through like this and we know the recency bias obviously of the the UFC and the fan base like if he gets through on a fight like this suddenly you know people are talking about you again this version of sean strickland is very fun to think about but i do

I think if you're looking at straight from like blood feud, and I point this out, and I don't know if it's just me, like a figment of my imagination, but the Paramount Plus thing seems like they're bringing more, like it's more cinematic. It's almost like they're trying to kind of have, it wouldn't go so far as they like the WWE storyline, but they love these feuds, right?

I feel like this is what they're embracing. And if you're doing that, then the Sean Strickland, I mean, it is fun to think if you take out all the hatred and misogyny and all that. It's fun to think of him just focusing on a guy like Shemayov and, you know, the levels of irritation and disrespect that he would do. That's fun because right now you have a guy who looks invincible in that division. So if you put those two things together in terms of a hype package, I think that that would be the seller, right?

Let's go to our friend Long Island Luke here for just a second. Long Island Luke, how do you solve this problem? How do you figure out a way? What is the right answer to, on the one hand, one guy is from the traditional ways in which we measure eligibility, one guy has got a better case than the other. But the guy who's got the worst case has a much better case for a bigger fight and a better fight

in the end. I kind of disagree with you. I don't think it's going to be a better fight than Imavov. Like I think Amavov is kind of underrated. I'm not giving either guy a chance against Chimaya. That's just the reality. I think Strickland's going to get his ass kicked. And I think Amavov's going to get his ass kicked.

And when I say ass kicked, he might just get laid on for 25 minutes. But you know what I mean? I don't favor either guy. that. So like, I'm of the old belief, give it to him of off. He deserves it. Sean doesn't fucking deserve it off a one win. I put a poll in the chat. Who does everyone think Sean should fight next? It's overwhelmingly Hamzot. But personally, I think it should be winner of RDR Boholio. Get another solid win in that. And then that's the right for me. I mean, I can't even argue with

the logic of it. I just can't, Chuck. You know what I mean? I can't say anything. Like, yes, that probably would make more sense. But I disagree with Long Island. Like, I don't. I don't. don't see Chamae of laying on Strickland for 25 minutes. I can see him laying on on on himov off for 25 minutes. I don't see it that way. Because you think Strickland would put up too much of a resistance like he would not be or do you think he would fight a different fight? I think what I think is could I see a world where he is largely controlled through that so that, you know, he doesn't get enough offense for it to really even matter. Sure.

But like flat on his back like you saw his DDP? No. I don't. I just don't buy that. Whereas Imovov, dude, Mavov's been taken down a lot, has been held down a lot.

Like, yeah, I don't buy that at all. Let's put up some of these. Let's put up, you know what? Let's talk about this a little bit. Let's talk about Strickland on,

on potentially facing EMO because remember, Strickland's got to win over EMAVor. Right. What if Strickland has to fight him again for whatever? Here's the question. If Hamzat's not ready, then what they might end up doing is, a rematch between Strickland and Imovov for the interim title. Strictlin kind of talks not so much

about the interim title per se, but the rematch. There's a tweet, an interesting tweet that came out from your pal, Mr. Nassadine Amov. He says, my dream, bring me the clown for the crown. Listen, dude, I've moved past you. You know, I beat you, relax. Either you get the belt or I get the belt. Once you get the bell, I'll take it from you. Once I get you, once I get you, once I get you, get the belt you'll loose to me. Not that interested in it. Fair enough. Yeah.

But here is now Sean talking about training with Hamzot. Said he tapped you out. That's why you hate him. Bro, I made him quit training. Witnesses in the audience. Where, where's Eric? I made him quit. We're doing positional grappling.

All right, start on my back. And I was like first round. I let him fucking choke me because it's like, like no one gives a fuck. Let me tell you about this little bitch. I'll tell you. When I walk into a gym, do you think that I go find the little weakest man?

and I say, let's spar. I say, no, I go find the biggest, baddest motherfucker. I'm like, hey, I want to spar you. Every time Chamaev would walk in the gym, he would pick the smallest, lowest level pro and say, but, oh, he looks like my opponent. You're beating the fuck out of it. And this is a true story.

You guys could back me up, my team. Chameh's a fucking bully. And if you notice what he does in the division, he just runs and fucking hides. Oh, now I want to go to 205 and fight fucking Yuri. He was not even the fucking champ, dude. You're just running fucking high. hide. You did it when you train with us and you're doing the fucking division.

Now, I don't know if that's true, but that's a lot more interesting. Yeah. Than the pitch for Naserdini Marvel. You know what I mean? It's just, it's just inherently far more interesting to me. And this of course is Shumai's response. Habibi, calm down. I destroyed the guy who beat you twice, American bitch, which is also true. He also was way better than the guy that Sean Shirkland went 10 rounds with and could not defeat. I don't know. Like, this is. I don't know, I don't know what they're going to do, Chuck. This is why this is my problem, Chuck. This is my problem.

This is why when in a lesser situation, when you have a chance to give a title shot to a guy, you should do it because here you have a situation where a guy is very deserving of it, but the guy who's not as deserving of it is such an obviously better choice for the fight. But now it just doubles down on the mistakes they've been making in other divisions to give guys title shots. that they didn't deserve. So it feels like a little bit of continuity there in the end. But I don't think the fans would care. I really don't.

I understand that. I totally get it. Of the three that we're talking about, Shemaya, Mavov and Strickland, which one do you think that the UFC is like we most want to be in business with? You know what I'm saying? Because you get Strickland, he moves the needle, but it's like it comes with such a bag of asterisk, right?

Like you're like, oh my God, this guy. Like he does all these things. You have Hamzot, which I think is like he carries that mystique. that weird what if, but also he's, he doesn't fight often, you know what I mean? Like, it's just, it feels like it's kind of, he dies on the vine a little bit by the time that goes by. And then he move off,

who's just really has the, you know, he has been very good. Like that Israel had a sonya fight when he knocked him out with the right hand, or he hit him with that right hand. Should have delivered him then, man. He's had some good fights, but he doesn't really move the needle in that way, right?

And they're kind of trying to move away. Like, that's what, otherwise Arm and Sarucan would have had the shot. But like, in your mind, what's the, like, so out of that three, they want to be with Shemaya, right? They want him to retain no matter what. Probably. But I mean, dude, there's a problem.

Each way you look here, it's a problem for the U.S.C. And also an opportunity, but a problem. So as you indicated, Strickland, who is American, certainly, you know, I think among the audience of Edge Lord donks that the U.S. has been courting the last six or seven years, he certainly is, you know, I think they love him. So there's obviously attraction to the fan base.

And as we mentioned, rivalry with Shemayev, you know, I think stands a better chance. Not a great chance, but a better chance, certainly, than Imov. But, you know, there's baggage, let's put it that way. Then with Imovov doesn't move the needle at all. It would be important for the French market, but I don't know exactly how important that is in the broader scope of things. And then Shemayev, Chimayev has got this electricity around him, dot, dot, dot, when he's around. Right. I mean, when is that going to be?

You know what I mean? So it's just a really, really difficult situation. Strickland is largely reliable in that way, too, in the sense of, you know, being ready to go compete. You know, I guess now he'll do less of that. But historically, anyway, he's been pretty good about like. I was going to say that Shemayev would be the guy to out heal him. American bitch, the American part of that is hilarious. Right.

Like American bitch. But it's like he's not, he's not afraid to play the heel. But, you know, it's funny because Strickland, we in a, in a strict sense of like looking at it, you'd be like, well, he's a pretty good heel himself in terms of like just making. But did you hear them chanting? like his name in Houston, man. I mean, like, every time he actually gets in there, remember this happened with Izzy Adasanya too, where like all of a sudden,

the crowd's rooting for him, it's a confusing situation, man. So if anybody's going to turn him into like a baby face, it might be Shemayev. Shemayev would absolutely, especially if he went the, you know, again, he's not going to be like the iron chic, but if you went like anti-immigrant,

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minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.com slash audio limited time offer. I didn't mention this, Chuck. This is what I was forgetting at the top of the show. I meant to mention it.

We are going to be in studio next week, if my memory serves. Yes, finally. Finally. going to be back in studio. So Long Island, it's going to be me, Chuck, and Jed. Is that right? Correct.

Pregame preview this. Beautiful. All together. Let's go. It'll be fun, man. I got to tell you, it's been nice to not be on Amtrak as much. And I got to say, I've also, the winter here was terrible, but it was even worse in New York. I'm glad that I missed the worst of it.

But it'll be nice to get back. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's been a minute. But the Acela train, I think they fixed all the problems, man. You're going to be pleasantly surprised. I don't. I think I think you'll be surprised. I think

Amtrak is doing this bit where they're rolling out all these new trains. Yeah. And I love that you just mercilessly go at them on social media. I love it. Let me just say this. I have sources. This is, I'm not exaggerating. I have sources within the rail industry, let's call it. and by rail, Chuck, I don't mean pornography. I mean the actual. Yes.

Oh, fuck off. My joke was good. Get that ready. What I was going to say is they tell me my sources that the new trains break down constantly, perhaps as much or even more than the fleet of trains that they were replacing. Now, the one big benefit is that your electrical outlet, you don't have to reach across the person next to you to plug it in each seat has one okay that's an upgrade but the seat itself the back of the seat it doesn't recline the bottom of the seat just slides forward so you'll sit like this

and then the recline is just putting your butt forward and now your chin is all like i was like whose idea was it to not recline seats what the fuck they recline seats on on spirit airlines and they don't recline seats on that's bad when you're making that comparison so you know fuck ham track how about yeah all right let's talk about the rest of topic number three of that UFC Fight Night, Strickland Hernandez, main card. We will get to the prelim card, I assure you.

However, the main card did to me, the prelim card was dreadful beyond words. The main card to me, certainly the main event delivered, and there were some other great highlights along the way. I, in general, did not have much of a problem with the main card. I think, yeah, like I said, in general, it delivered. So let's talk about some of the

interesting parts about this. So my question to you, Chuck, in this co-main event, I don't know what to say about the career of Jeff Neal. He gave a tough fight to Rachmanov. He gave a tough fight to Gary. He's giving guys a lot of tough fights, even in situations where he's lost, and he's been a dynamic puncher,

certainly through the majority of his career. But now we're talking about back to back, not just losses, not just stoppage losses, vicious CO losses. In fact, I think we've got this one where he got the literal snot knocked out of him. Just a terrible look. You got to feel bad for the guy.

but you know while a nice win for medich certainly he did what medich always does my question is is this the end of the line for jeff neal what do you think yeah man i think it might be in the sense like two this was a guy who you know he was working as a as a waiter up and i don't know if he was still doing it i mean he was doing it for the big portion of his career like he just didn't give it up in the dallas area there and you know you'd talk to him and i felt like he um you know, he would admit, like, at some point, like, I'm probably not taking the fighting as seriously as I should have. I'm probably, you know, partying a little too much. And I know he went public with this. So it really came down to, like, when he starts losing, because he'd lost a couple of fights. They weren't, they weren't vicious knockouts. But like a couple of fights, he had a nice victory, I think, against RDA.

But then that knockout that you're mentioning and then followed by this, you kind of run out of those, you know, those kind of excuses, I think. But it's also the shot that floored him, man, like sometimes you see a guy get knocked out. And it's like, I don't know how to explain it. They look so vicious. Like their brain is just shutting down at the first, you know, the first feel of that. And I just at some point, man, you do worry about a guy like that. And I think that we've seen kind of, I don't, I don't, you tell me too. Like I, I, there was a moment maybe a few years ago where I was like, well, maybe Jeff Neal can be a player in this division.

But I'm not sure what his, I'm not sure he, I think he's. perfectly kind of situated in the just below the top 10 or like maybe from eight to to whatever somewhere in that range like in that division but like he never he never struck me as a guy who's going to be a title holder and so it's just hard man because you see a guy like that i've remember talking to him a bunch of times early on in his career after that kamachio fight especially where he had kicked him um and just thinking like what a what a fun fighter but when you see guys getting knocked out like that it's tough dude it is tough that was a bad one and we had a couple of them on this card, but that one was tough to watch.

And it was a nice punch from Medich, for sure, but it didn't seem like the kind that would have that reaction. I mean, I guess I'm not... He seemed almost surprised a little bit. Like he was like, oh, wow, that was it, huh? I don't think the power was super crazy, but the power was certainly sufficient, obviously.

Yeah. It was a little location. It was right in the side of that, like, like, kind of, not quite in the temple, but just a little bit on that sort of softer edge right here. He kind of hit him right there, and that was enough to close the show. 35, by the way, it'll be 36, in August. Right. You remember you remember when I forget what UFC it was but it was like the one where Franklin and

Liddell's last UFC fight he breaks his he breaks his left hand I think it was right because he was a Southpaw and at the end of that round he kind of hits him with the right hand and the way Liddle goes out it's just like his brain was like nope I'm not dealing with any more of this that's kind of what it reminded me of and I'm not saying

that he's like been he's definitely not been to the amount of wars as Lidel but that's what it reminded me of it's just like the kind of punch where you're like well that probably shouldn't have knocked him out, you know? It was like he got, remember that scene in the matrix where switch and Apoc get unplugged? Yes. And they're like, not like this. Yes, exactly. You know, they just implode almost. It's kind of, kind of like that. Nice win by Erosh Medich, certainly, um, he earned himself a big opportunity. Great win. He did what he was supposed to do. I just wonder about what's next,

what's for Jeff Neal. Um, we got to match by the way, like, is not like all of his victories have been by TK or K. O like all of his, I think all eight of his vigues. It's crazy, man. The dude's bringing it. He will live or he will die on that sword. He admits it, so that's good. Melchie Costa, dude, this guy had a tremendous 2025 and becomes now the first guy to, I think, certainly in the UFC anyway, to stop Dan Igay with strikes in his biggest win to date. What exactly this spinning backkick right to the sort of jaw slash face? I'm not exactly sure how far I got up his face, but just tremendous. And again, dealing with pressure really well.

Chuck, your reaction to this phenomenal run that Melchie Costa appears to be on. Well, we were talking about, I don't know his age. How old is he? Like, he's not like, he's not a super, like he's another one of these guys who's coming up. He's young. Yeah, he's young. So it's like he's another one of those instances where the young guy gets by the litmus test of a guy who's kind of a veteran. Yeah.

So he got, that's, this is what you kind of want to see, right? Like you get a surging prospect or how do you want to say a blue chip guy who's coming up and you know he should be able to make a run at it. He gets a guy like Danny Gay and he does what he's supposed to do. that was a beautiful, that kick was beautiful, man. And I, you know, it's like, it's one of those performances that you, what is it, that you kind of establish yourself, right, that you belong in the conversation. Because Dan Iga has stayed up there for a long time, a big portion of his career. He was still hovering in that top 10 space.

So I feel like it's that, it's that moment and he shined in it, you know, in the biggest possible way. Yeah, I thought he looked absolutely tremendous, throwing a lot of kicks and then switching it up the way he did against a guy like Dan I said it was, I wasn't sure if it was first in the UFC or not. First ever, first person in general, whether it was crazy. It's crazy. Or submission to stop him. And that guy has fought, you know, a hooves, who of fighters. Really, really incredible work by Moki Costa.

You've got to love the trajectory he's been on. I think now he'll be a ranked fighter going forward after this. Chuck, what can you say about Jacoby Smith? He gets taken down and then uses what can only be described as just great timing, yes, but insane athleticism. and then drills Josiah Harrell into the freaking mat. This is what I mean.

I want guys who can do exciting, interesting shit. And Jacoby Smith appears to be very much one of them. Yeah, man. We were pointing out like all week, basically, that Jacoby Smith is one of those guys you keep your eye on because he's got that pedigree, you know, the Oklahoma State thing. It's trained, like, obviously, like he's one of D.C.'s guys. But he's just got like, there's something about him when you watch him.

you're like this guy's really explosive and so far he's been able to do that who was his last fight was because he was a huge favorite he was a huge favorite in his last fight and he kind of had to put up with a little adversity through that fight but then he's when he settled in it was like boom he did the same thing i i think he's definitely one of those guys that we've seen enough tape on him now where he can kind of you know he can handle the expectations a little bit like which is always something you got to watch uh he can he you know the vagus odds makers want to like make him a big favorite he can handle that a little bit. So I feel like he's kind of now primed for whatever his next fight is going to be to really kind of take off.

Like he's definitely on there, man. That knockout was insane. But what did you think about the stoppage on this? Oh, dude, the stoppage. It was pretty bad, right? I mean, guys, welcome to Texas, where everything is bigger in Texas, including the failures. We used to have this conversation like all the time when they're in Texas, right? Like all the time.

Go ahead. People don't understand. There's guys that used to be in rotation that are still in rotation. on like regional shows but ufc has been like just absolutely fucking not steem ozegaddy was one of them but another guy you might not know who used to be a main fixture in texas and you'll still see him on occasion uh john shorley john shorley is one of the worst ones i've ever seen just absolutely horrendous carry hatley's not as bad as those guys but he's not great carrie hatley does this real half i mean guys you've got jacoboby smith in the middle of a fist fight hit hammer fisting

an opponent right there and carry hatley just kind of lightly puts his arm in to stop. And it's like, yes, should Jacobi Smith have stopped, that's true. However, your job is to make him stop. And this is why you actually have to be a little bit physically fit and be able to move and not just understand the rules and timing, but you have to be a little bit physically spry to do it. Because remember, in boxing, you've got to be with it as well,

but everyone's still standing. So it's a little bit easier to use your legs to get into places and put your hands in and whatnot. But on the ground, you have to kind of get. in there. Right. He does a really half-ass job of getting in there. So Smith just kind of keeps going. So then, you know,

Hattley has to push him off. It was reminiscent of a guy. He died, Chuck. It was a UFC fighter back in the early days. I want to say UFC 20-ish. His name was something like Brian Johnson or Brian Johnston, where Big John McCarthy overcorrected

on a stoppage. You guys may not know this. Big John went like diving in on a stop. I remember this, yeah. And broke Brian, again, I can't remember his name, broke his nose. And it was so by the time that guy gets up, there's blood spewing everywhere off his face. He was actually bitter at Big John for doing that. Yeah. But I'm like, I'll take that over just a guy with brain surgery getting driven.

That's the problem too, man. There's the aesthetic. They're showing this whole package of like this guy overcame this. They're showing the scar on his head, you know, when his head was shaved. And you're looking at this and you're like, oh, man, you know, there's something about trauma. to a brain that's already had like a problem right and then like you see that he is out and i i would say that five of those shots at least came after he was out or it looked like he was definitely out um that's a tough aesthetic but yes you're right man hardly comes in there he just i mean you could

see that smith now i saw people actually getting mad at smith for not heeding when he felt the referee come in he still delivered another shot but it was so you're right he came in there so passively and you're here in that moment it's hard to blame the fight for you're you know, you're supposed to do that. Nevertheless, you know, Texas, baby. Texas, yeah. I don't know what to say about this. So most of the on, not most,

let's say a decent portion of the online chatter about Sergei Spivok versus Antiglia was pretty positive. Can I just be honest? I didn't, I wasn't super impressed with this fight. I didn't really, where were you on this one? No, I was with you the same. Maybe, maybe it was a little bit because we've been talking about heavy weights And it was like, oh, here we go again.

A heavyweight card right in the middle of a, you know, of a card where it's not at the apex, right? And by the standards of what we've watched so far this year, this was a great fight. You know, it was like these guys actually were competitive and neither one was like gassing out to the point where they couldn't throw a punch at the end. But it was just a mediocre fight. You know what I mean? There was nothing really, there was nothing about it that really like, you know, there was no moment where you're like, oh my God, this guy came back from that. anything like that. It was just a typical lightweight fight, but I think, I mean lightweight, heavyweight fight, but I think that somehow maybe we've moved the, uh, the expectation line

a little bit on this. Because I did see the same thing. I saw people, maybe as people who are trying to overcorrect us for saying that they should just shudder the damn thing. Yeah. I mean, seriously, I heard a lot about that. Like, everybody's like, well, these guys wanted to, uh, to close down the heavyweight division. I, and so suddenly you get a fight that's at least a little competitive, right? Like, I feel like people are just going over the top of this. You heard people bitter at us for suggesting. I did, yes. Yes, I heard a couple people. But what? You don't have to say names, but like, I mean, just like, you know, I wouldn't go so far as to like what you guys were talking about, you know, that sort of thing. Like, where you shut it up and they, you know, just kind of

offering solutions. It was all kind of in good conversation. It wasn't like they're calling us idiots. But, you know, we took it. I felt like we took it to its natural extreme, which is sort of like, why did it was anybody want to watch this? You know, why would you want to watch this. First of all, we didn't actually say the division should be eliminated. We're going to say what's the point of keeping it around if you're not going to institute fixes to it? It's a very different

claim than, I don't care if there are fixes, we're done. That's a completely different point, you know, to go to. All right, but the other point is Long Island Luke, where were you on this fight? Because I think your pulse is probably going to be closer to maybe what I saw online. You like this fight? No, I fucking hated it, but I had different reasons

that I hated it. And, you know, they're betting related but you know i had the fight to not go the distance and i could just tell like the minute it started i was like this fight's fucking gone 15 minutes yeah and heavyweight overs are back all right guys you know no longer bet fight does not go the distance always bet the over on a heavyweight fight on heavyweight fight on heavyweight this year man that was a thing a few years ago shout out jed mishu he coined it like heavyweight overs it was like every heavyweight fight was going at least over one and a half over two and a half and then it kind of they're all good finishes i feel like heavyweight overs are back so yeah i just feel like people are starved for any

kind of decent heavyweight action and this that's what I think this fight was not crap I'm not like looking at this fight being like oh it was some kind of disaster it was not a disaster ain't like that but like did I think it was a good fight no I did not think it was a good fight and I mean you know good for Spivoc like you get a guy like that he's been he's kind of been a woodwork guy like in the terms of like he's not really and he's just been in the heavyweight division he's fought a lot of guys but you know he's mentioning like his father passing um with that kind of motivation and you feel good for a guy like that who needed the victory and for morale and all that um but in terms of a fight. It was just a fight. Yeah. Well, I'll just say this. I also don't have much to say about the

Michelle Pareda Zachary's fight. It was perhaps the less said about it the better. Yeah, just a fight. All right. Let's talk about that preliminary card. Jesus Christ. This one was not that great. As I mentioned, main event totally delivered or largely delivered anyway. Main card largely delivered. Some real bright spots. Mokie Costa looked great. Orish Medich looked great. Jacoby Smith, you know, look great. Like a bunch of these guys looked amazing. No, no harm, no file. But that prelim card was absolutely atrocious. And here's it, I want to give you the floor on this, Chuck, because we kind of discussed this ahead of time. Now, you got to be careful. Because if you see online chatter, particularly on Twitter, that's just not real life. There are a lot of people

who are overly positive about the UFC in a weird way. There's a lot of people who are overly negative about the UFC in a way that just doesn't match what the broader reality speaks to. But if you can say anything about the online chatter, was that it was pretty universal. universally negative, including a lot of fans that I know who are very, very pro UFC. Even they were like, ugh, this was not that much. What was your read on why that preliminary card felt? Because on paper, I did feel like it had potential. I do feel that way.

It just didn't materialize. Why? Oh, man. Part of it is, you know, John Anick was on, like, he was on some podcast a couple weeks ago, and he basically said, like, one of the fixes the UFC could do is just reducing the amount of fights on cards. and getting it back to more in that 10-11 range that we were used to back in the day, this particular card had 14 fights.

There were eight on the prelims, right? And that's a lot. It feels like a marathon when you start to, like Long Island just pointed out that heavyweight fight where you see the first minute, you kind of know it's going the distance. There was way too much of that, man. There was way too much of like you start a fight.

You can see the process of almost nullification facing off with each other. And at that point, you start to be like, this is going the distance. My problem with it is I kept having this thing where I'm like, you're watching the fight. You mean to kind of be, you know, involved and see what, you know, who's doing what here? And I would just daydream. And pretty soon I'm like, dude, I don't even know who won those last two rounds.

I just don't even know. And that's, this is a problem. Like, you should, like it should feel more compelling that. It didn't help that Houston looked like a very late arriving crowd there. I don't know if you notice that, but like it, the building was dead too. It was just, it felt very, I don't know. It felt very like rehearsals or something and through big portions of that. but I when you have that many fights man and like the parody of today's fighters and like everything

that's going on man it was just it just doesn't hold the tension you know what I mean like it was just one of those things you're like there's also this thing dude like you see if you had an annoying friend like you'd always see him or whatever and he starts to tell you whatever and at some point you're like you know man I'm always at the bar and I'm always talking this guy and I'm just sick of it because why do I want to be why do I want this in my life like you get that feeling sometimes you're watching like O'Day Osborne or something you're like I don't why can I keep seeing O'D you know I'm not trying to throw him under the bus specifically but he's been in a lot of these fights and you're like why do I keep having to watch this you know where you're like watching

guys that they just aren't like moving you know they're not moving in it but they're just perpetually on a prelim you know what I mean it's just I don't know there was a lot going on there but it wasn't holding my attention too well this is where I come down to were there some strong performers on this prelim card sure we'll talk about them just a second but I had it was so funny when you said this in the pre-show because the exact response I have would I be watching the fights, door closed to my office, there's no one in the room,

I'm not being distracted. I mean, my daughter came in a couple times in different moments, but in general, you're just utterly unimpeded to watch. And then I'd just be kind of looking at the screen, and then before I know it, it's like 2.35 in the rounds. I'm like, dude, what the fuck happened in the last minute and two and a half minutes?

And I caught myself doing this over and over again. Now, part of it was the fights were well matched in a lot of cases. For example, like Punhele Soriano versus Ramiz Brahimai, those are not bad fighters. And they give a, I think they gave what they had. But the way it just kind of worked out. Soriano did enough to get the win, obviously, but it just couldn't get enough going to really be, you know, memorable. I think is the way I would put it.

It just felt like a lot of white noise, you know? I don't know how else to say it. I mean, there's just things that you drift off on like that. It's just you got to look at it from UFC standpoint. I think that that's what they hated about old boxing model, right? Like they just didn't want to have too much. But boxing a lot of times will, on its undercards, will basically stack it up with mismatches so that you see knockouts.

You know what I mean? These days, I don't know if it's just because if it's matchmaking or if it's just that you've reached a spot where a lot of people have similar skill sets. So they kind of offset each other. You get this. Seven of the eight fights go the distance and none of them were really compelling. You know what I mean?

All right. There were a couple of bright spots, I thought, on the prelim card. The biggest one to me would be Jocelyn L. Edwards, defeating Nora Cornole. I'm not sure if you pronounce her name. Please forgive me. I think it's just Cornel. Yeah. Cornole?

Yeah. And she obviously, Matt returns her, which you can see in the above picture. It injures her, and then she gets the choke. I will say this to you, Chuck. When she first got to the UFC, so she's been in the UFC for a little while now, she got there all the way back in, wow, 2021. She fought Yanan Wu and then Carol Hosa and then Jessica Rose Clark. She lost two of the three of those.

And I thought, wow, she looked really terrible. I thought they were just trying to sign fighters from, you know, Latin American territories to fill out their roster. But dude, she is on a four-fight win streak. She did lose to Eileen Perez back in 2024. Since then, she's beating Tamirez Vidal, Chelsea Chandler, Priscilla Kachua, which was a pretty good one. She finished her off. And then Nora Cornola, as you mentioned, all of those ones. wins via stoppage.

She actually is 30 years old now. Yeah. Dude, she's she was. She was impressive. I mean, I think she was the only one of this new like era of the $25,000 finish that actually got paid on the prelum. So by default, she's going to do that. But man, that's slam.

How cool was that, man? I thought the fight was over off of that. She obviously got the choke a little, you know, a few seconds later. But I agree with you, man. And she, this was like this was a rematch too, right? Like, because she was avenging her one of her. losses. So I feel like, yeah, she's definitely one to watch. 30 years old sometimes

and from Panama, like I'm not sure off the top of my head. Can you think of who's come from Panama? Like, I can't even think of a single UFC fighter right this second. Well, how about Roberto Duran motherfucker? Well, yeah. Yeah, I know. Monos de Piedra. That's right. What I'm saying? Yeah. Well, in the UFC,

but I mean, that's kind of a boon. Like, I like that when you've got a new representative and she's flourishing. So she was one of the lone bright spots for sure on that. Yeah. And by the she lost to Nora back in 2023. Look at the change. Yeah.

The change. Pretty, pretty dramatic. You got to be impressed by that. I also got to give Long Island credit. I didn't watch Ultimate Fighter, so I wasn't super familiar with her game, but Carly Judas, Judice, however you say her name. Dude, she didn't get the finish against Juliana Miller, but I didn't hate this fight at all because her striking,

she's got Long Island, come back. She's got a few things to tighten up. And to me, she motions too much rather than thinking about what she needs to do in a more slightly reduced way. But dude, her striking looks legit. I was super impressed by her. That was also her first win by decision.

All of her wins had been by knockout before that. And she put it on Miller. And she also looked pretty bad on the ground in that fight a few times. I was like, oh shit, Juliana Miller's going to finish her. That fight was way better than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a one-sided Carly just piecing her up. Juliana actually made it interesting.

But dude, the prelims just took a dive. I rarely say this. I love doing my watch alone. I was going to say you're like a prelim fetish. I literally chuck like five fights in. I literally said this is the worst card like by far that I like this is so boring. This is the worst card. So yeah, it was bad.

But if you just watch the main card, it was actually like besides the old Michelle. The main car was fine. It was actually. Yeah. Jordan, Jordan Levitt. By the way, Yadier Del Valle on my timeline. So he loses. Jordan Levitt wins.

He spanks him, which by the way Couture did to Tito Ortiz at UFC 44. And then everyone on my timeline was like arrest Isaac. I know. I saw a lot of that too. People were tagging the FBI and shit. Because he looked terrible. I know. Not Leavitt. Levin looks fine, but Del Valle looked just out of this level.

And that's an incriminating. It is, though. It's like, it's just, that doesn't make any sense, right? And then lastly, Loboszno Yanni, he got the winner of Phil Roe. You know, it was dispirited back and forth, but it just, one of these fights that just didn't capture your attention. Same thing with

Alden, Correa. He put in a good effort against Luis Gourouli. I'm not sure what it means. And then I'll leave, I don't have to say it, Idris or Idiris against Odi Osborne, another one of these fights where it's like, what happened in that one? I saw it and I can't tell you what I know. I know, I know that Idiris got the takedown. Other than that, I'm not sure.

And it looked like just generally he was in control of that fight. But again, yeah. I was like the same way. In fairness, Carlos Leal tried to put it on Chey Di Angi-Cawani. So Leal to me, Leal and Edwards. with the two bright spots, certainly on that card. And Judice looked good, but, you know, it was, you know, couldn't quite get over the home.

All right, that's that part of the card. Let's talk about what happened in the squared circle, so to speak. So over on DeZone in the boxing ring. I'm Dylan Playfair. And I'm Tyler Smith. We're putting loneliness in the penalty box by talking to some of our favorite athletes about the importance of friendship.

This is Bromance. Bromance is brought to you by Charmed Diamond Center, proudly Canadian-owned and operator. Charm has been part of your love. stories and bromances for over 50 years and you can find bromance on the iheart radio network or wherever you get your podcast well we weren't sure what we were going to get with ryan garcia but now we know ryan garcia returned to what could only be described as top form and then easily beat mario barrios via unanimous decision um chuck he dropped him in the first round

he never looked back from there look at some of these highlights here this is the first round where he drops them just right there this was less than 30 seconds in to round number one. Look at the time on the ring. 234. He's already down and up. Crazy, man. And it didn't get much better for Boreos from there, to be honest with you. So with this win, Ryan Garcia

finally becomes a world champion. What would you say this did for Ryan Garcia's stock? Well, dude, we were like talking about, is this do or die for him? Right? Like, so these are the stakes when you really think about it, like, that you're like, you know, a loss here,

and I think that he loses kind of the thread or with this vitality thing that we have with this guy of being that when you you know because he's compelled honestly he's compelled the boxing audience to pay attention him from the beginning just going back to the amateurs like just what he's been able to do if he loses this fight it was that big like maybe he starts to slip off and i don't know if you come back if you do it's going to be a long time but he's still a young guy but you win this fight and not just that but like everybody's like okay wait a minute he's realized this potential where that like personally i was like where was that right hand during the Raleigh-Rameral fight that I was sitting ringside?

I was like all of a sudden he shows up with a, you know, with a right hand to go on with a speed. The speed factor looked like he was like double, like, you know, and fast forward against Barrios. It looked like he just had every advantage possible and to kind of showcase other than putting him away at some point in the fight, probably the best you can look, right? And if anything that this did, it showed people again, reminded people again, the magnet. of what Ryan Garcia, like, at that level, because even when the Devin Haney fight happened, right, like when that happened, it was like, oh, my God, this guy, obviously it took on a dark cloud in the aftermath and before, but the performance itself, coming out of fight night, we were like, oh, my God, this dude. And it was like, he's such a, he is such a star in that sense.

People really compelled to pay attention to him. We were right back there, man. And now all of a sudden you're setting the stage for, like, really big fights. That's a crazy, like, this was a crazy swing of fate. If he loses, he slips off if he wins, he's got these huge fights coming up. Big time performance, man. The scores were 118, 118, 109, 119, 19108, and then

120107, all for Ryan Garcia, meaning he won all of them on one judge's scorecard, all but won on one judge's scorecard. How did you have it? Did you have him winning all of them? I had him winning every single one. Same here. I did not have a single round for Mario Mario's, and I thought it was frankly, but ridiculous that some people

did, although I guess, you know, whatever. It didn't really matter in the end. Yeah. But that was, dude, I'm so glad you brought this up because we were like, well, what's Mario's going to do with the guy's got a good left hook? We'll see if he can solve that problem. Turned out that was not his problem. Turned out that was one problem that he had among many problems.

And as you rightly indicated, Chuck, that right hand showed the stoppage. Oh, sorry, not stoppage. I'm sorry, the dropping one more time if you can't. Look, is right hand to the body, right hand over the top. It was the right hand all night, round three rounds, 10, over and over again. you get these punctuated moments where Barrios just couldn't get anything going. And it was because Ryan finally had diversified offense. The left hook is famous.

We saw it in the Devin Haney fight. But there was not much of a right hand to speak of in that contest. It was everywhere and virtually every round again, some moments more punctuated than other ones. And this is a testament to I think, you know, it's kind of funny, Chuck. It was a bit of a side story. He had left Joe Gousin and then Mario Barrios had gone. to Joe Goosin. And so Joe Goosin, a little bit here on the line. And I don't know what Gus and Barrios were working on. I actually like Joe. I've met him a few times. He's a real

nice, I think pretty bright guy. But I'm not saying he didn't do the right things for Mario Barrios. I'm saying even if he did, Chuck, it didn't land. It didn't take. Nothing took. They, he survived in there. I mean, he wasn't getting dropped every round in that sense. But like, Varios's offense maybe got out of first gear a handful of times. And even that is saying it, saying it a little too nicely. This is my point I want to say, did Ryan Garcia look really good, Chuck? Did he add new weapons? There's simply no denying.

On the other hand, I do think part of the story as we talked about it, Ryan came in off getting dropped and losing to Roli Romero and got gifted a title shot. He shouldn't have got it. and then on top of it, Barrios entered this contest off back-to-back draws. I know, man. The reality is, like Garcia looked great, and he's a world champion.

But that has to be one of the easiest paths to a world title I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I mean, that does factor. It's always like this. But, you know, the truth of the matter is, we just didn't know. Like, even the line reflected this. Garcia probably should.

He was like a minus 250. I'm sure long as the exact, but it was something like that. he was, if it was, if everybody kind of knew this going in, it should have been like minus 1,000, right? That's the kind of fight it was. It just shows that when the guy is dialed in. So it depends on which lens you want to look through it. But I'm like, I thought that Garcia had something to go in there and prove. I thought he proved that. But there was also this element of we saw, you saw the Mario Barra's when he's fighting a, you know, Paci-year-old Paciow and he's just not looking very good in that fight either. He didn't look great in a couple of his previous fights. So like when you look at all of that and you start to put it together, like, okay, well, Garcia was leaps and bounds of this guy. But there's sometimes where you just have to see it to fully understand that. I felt like that was this moment. So both guys, so Garcia's stock rises, but I also think that, you know, that Barris's like his stock plummets a little bit because now it looks, I don't want to say smoke and mirrors.

Like, dudes put themselves in those positions, but it definitely looks like he's maybe shouldn't be a, maybe shouldn't have been a champion. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, not maybe. definitely. Do you think he's, is he among, like, I know that people, this was the, like, you always get this sort of thing where it's like, that dude's the worst champion in history, you know, that sort of thing. Like, how far do you go on this line for Mario?

One of the least championship contender guys during my professional career. Yeah. Who had a title. Like, I can't speak all time or anything like that. And there's definitely, we should be clear. There's definitely been guys who were like interim or super. or not even super in like a regular kind of way, like some sanctioning body bullshit-ass title,

but I'm talking like full weight class jam. Yeah. I just don't know if I can recall one this easily. Yeah, I mean, you not, yeah, definitely not an hour. Well, that's what I'm saying. I guess in our era. I mean, if you go back, there's always those dudes who were like the Tony Tucker's who held belts for, you know what I mean?

Like in times where you're like, whoa, how the hell did that guy end up with a belt during that time period and stuff like that? But yeah. But I mean, it all works out. I just, it's fun when it happens because I think he was considered, Ryan Garcia was considered one of the four horsemen of that, you know, time and all that. And all of a sudden, he's there finally, right? Like, I feel like he's inserted himself into that space. Barrios look terrible. I just want to point that one more time. Now, let's talk about the road ahead if we can here for just a second, Chuck. So here are the list of current welterweight champions. And for folks who may not know, Walterweight in boxing 147, as you can see up there, you got Ryan Garcia, Roli Romero, Roli just beat Rob. And then you got Lewis Crocker and then you've got Devin Haney. So keep that in mind. Now what I want to show is Ryan.

You know what? Let's go through this a little bit. Ryan and Devin, excuse me, Ryan says Devin. No, wait, wait, what the fuck? Sorry. Shakur and Haney suggest Ryan's on PED. Take a look at this. So, by the way, I looked at the replies in Devin Haney's tweets in that particular tweet.

me dude i mean unkind to devon would be uh let me go back because i want to read it to the uh to the on to the audio audience but let me just say the reply so devon hayney tweets ryan off that good juice which by the way he's you know i don't know what happened is the truth chuck but like would i be the least bit surprised if garcia was using again hello the guy is a right proven cheater uh and then chakur stevenson retweets that and then writes or quote tweets it anyway i said that in round one

But I just want to point this out. So there's that. Then there's the Connor Ben tweet. Connor Ben puts this out and says, congratulations, champ. See you later this year. Make sure you keep my belt warm. And of course,

a big signing that happened on Friday. We didn't really discuss it today because we're sort of focusing on MMA Moore, Chuck, is that you had Connor Ben going over to Zupa boxing on a one fight reported, one fight $15 million deal, which no, UFC fighter has ever gotten for a UFC fight. I mean, Connor got something like that for boxing for a one-off, but like within the UFC itself, that's absolutely never happened, not even close. And it was this, it's, Connor Ben is not good, Chuck. He's not very good. But the symbol,

the symbolism of it is obviously significant, right? Because you're taking one of Eddie's top guys. Yes. But he's not very good. Here's the point I'm trying to make. You've got Connor Ben who wants a piece of him. You got Devin Haney, who's out there saying things about him. Shaker Stevenson. How do you know this was redemptive for Ryan Garcia's career, Chuck? Because they all want a piece. And the end, that's how you know how big of a star he really is, too. Like we've seen this in the UFC a million times when a guy has that juice, right? Like, and all of a sudden, everybody wants a piece of him.

That means he does business. I mean, that's the great thing about a Ryan Garcia. And we've seen it a couple of times where he's kind of swelled up into this, you know, into this moment where, like, he becomes this guy. now there should be concerns dude when he came into this fight you're looking at him like during fight week and you see what tremendous shape he's in man and you know that's kind of secondary to his mindset because everybody was like well how's he how's he doing like and it you know we were talking about his hyper religious kind of like swing where he's doing this but he seemed

more grounded and rooted so you're focusing more on his mental space but there was something like you're looking at his physique you know like okay this dude looks really good heading into this fight there's going to be, this is the cross you bear, man. Like, it's like when you, when you get popped and you've bust, you've been busted for it, that's going to stay on you forever. That's a stain on your career. It's just, I, I would be, I'd be disappointed if people didn't say it. But your hope is, honestly, that there is no kind of asterisk or on this.

There's not any kind of thing that comes out of this because from a, from a boxing perspective, if it's a guy who like, and I know you like it too, man, like, when you watch boxing, boxing as best is when you have stars like this. And you're like, you just ran down. these potential fights. I want to see them, man. I don't want to have a guy who's like, oh, yeah, he got in trouble again, and, you know, then all of a sudden he has a checkered career. I'd rather see the big fights, you know? Yeah, here's Ryan's response to Devin. Let's take a look at this. When my hand heals, I'll be looking for that opportunity for sure. And Devin, he don't

want that. He's terrified. He has PTSD. I just want to beat Devin Haney's ass bad. Dude, I don't know what Ryan Garcia loves more, Chuck, the limelight or the N-word, but he loves them both. You know what I'm saying? I think it's the latter. But like when you, like, when you, when you, uh, when, when you look at like Devin Haney's performance, the one at Times Square against, uh, was it, who did he fight there? Ramirez was that the, I'm trying to remember. Like he, but his fight was, it did seem like he had that.

It almost felt like you're watching these two guys in the same room. You're like, why aren't they facing you? Especially in a venue like that. We're like, dude, they should be having their rematch. This is crazy. So it was like this blue ball special almost watching both guys walk out for different fights. but he did seem like that. It seemed like he was

afraid to throw, man. Like it was very strange. So there might be actually something to that. But dude, that's one of the big fights. If they could make that fight now, I think that's a huge fight. Obviously, the Shakur fight is ridiculous. But like that fight...

This is the reality about Garcia. I think all of them are big. Even the Connor Ben won is kind of big, to be honest. Well, it'd be super big now too with the, with this whole Zufu, like all of a sudden this, everything going on with that, man. that would so what's your reaction to that to that to the connor ben signing by zupa boxing my immediate reaction was this is going to sit well with all of the other zufa like the like all

of the ufc and everybody else within that realm right because we didn't i mean 15 million came out like they just said eight figures right at first but 15 million is just the is such a seismic golf and like when you're also talking about a 7.7 billion dollar paramount plus it just seems like there's a lot of money, you know, be out there being spent, but not on the UFC fighters. And so that was my first thing is just to go to the defense or like to whatever you want to call it of the UFC's perspective of it. But it also kind of, I mean, there's a lot of contradictions in play like from what the way the Dana's handled his own business. And you wonder like obviously with Turkey like what in terms of like how this influenced it. And, you know, if this is just a strategic play, right?

if it's a strategic play to do somewhere to flex or if this is a, if it's a, uh, strictly an Eddie Hearn like, fuck you type thing. I mean, I think it's a little bit all of that. But man,

it is unprecedented. I just, the UFC, like the Zufa owned UFC never operated this way. And honestly, Dana White has never operated that way. So it's, it's telling,

right? Like, it's telling in the sense like, that they're trying to do something. Maybe they're trying to fly into flight a little bit with the boxing realm. I don't, my view, is that these purses are not going to last.

Now, they may last a little while longer, but they've got a shelf life. I think the basic idea is, again, Connor Ben's not very good. He can't be, like he definitely can't beat Devin Haney or, and he sure as hell can't beat Shakur. Ryan Garcia, I guess we'll have to see. I don't know what that's going to look like.

But the point I'm trying to make is, you know, you're not signing Connor, Ben, because he's the best guy in the world. You're signing him because it's a symbolic blow to Eddie in a pretty substantial way. And it also kind of indicates, like, we can get whoever we want, whenever we want kind of an attitude you know

but people thinking like oh they're going to just spend a bunch of money on boxing long term no the fuck they're not everything they're going to do like the UFC is the model there's no other place for the UFC to conquer than what they've already got I mean you know some shows can be bigger than others they're going to have big one-off events

sphere White House you name it but and I'm not saying those two are equivalent but you get the idea like they'll have big events time to time but yeah that that model is everything that Zufa boxing wants to copy that's why they want to change federal legislation. They want to get as close to that as possible.

They're going to have these big signings. You're going to see them. But the goal is going to eventually be, if you want to fight these guys, you've got to come to us to do it. And then what you're going to see is the same thing that they do. You're going to see like a contender series for boxing. You're going to see it where they're going to start funneling guys in through that.

Contracts are going to get, you know, more tightly controlled in terms of how pay goes. You know, those guys with the expensive deals are going to eventually age out. And so they'll eventually be this process where, yes, some guys at the top will mix of good money, of course. But this idea like, oh, one fight, 15 million. This is a temporary thing, which is why I kind of understand Connor taking it, to be honest with you.

Because it's like, sure. You're not going to get a check like that again. You know what I mean? It's hard. I mean, people were coming after him so hard for like Eddie Huron's thing, you know, standing by him through the hard parts of his career and kind of resurrecting him. Eddie Hearn ate. I know.

I remember in the middle of Connor Benamy, like, I ate too many fucking eggs. And that was how I popped positive. And Eddie Hearns mentions, dude, for weeks. Oh, my God. For weeks. We're just filled with you fucking low-life cheating piece of shit, scum, fuck, you know? Yeah, you nailed it. I think it was you who put out like a tweet you said, this is what it looks like when

Dana finally gets involved in competing. You said something along these lines. Yeah. This is what it looks like. Whiplash watching it. Yeah. Yes. It's like that.

And it's so true. It's so true. And don't underestimate when Dana. feels like he needs to make a statement. That's when he'll do something. You know, like a lot of times, I feel like he was just kind of taken, you know, even just before this,

you know, you got Oscar to La Jolla going to doing one of his clapbacks, whatever his thing is where he's like going at Dana. And I felt like it was just, it was just kind of like the, you know, this was like his kind of answer to everybody right in the moment. So we'll see. I agree with you 100% though.

This is not sustainable. That's not how they do business. So we'll see how it plays out and kind of like what they mean this. for, but there you have it. Those are our top five topics. All right, let's switch gears here if we can. Me and Chuck have been going back and forth, but now it's a chance for you guys to ask us questions. The way this works is we put up a thread every Sunday on IG, on Instagram. You can go morning combat on Instagram. And then we, the producers, I should say, we don't do it, but the producers pick five of the best or the most interesting, and then we answer them. It's time for DMs from dogs.

that's how I whisper in my wife's ear, you know what I'm saying? All right. Let's go to question number one here. All right, from Ryan, triple six, but now it seems like a very normal human being. All right, when are we going to get a fighter who realizes the way to be a heel in the UFC these days and get cheap heat is by being an exaggerated woke lib or radical Marxist stereotype, a reverse Covington. It's so true, dude. That is so true.

Chuck, do you remember this guy? And the reason I know this guy is because, you know, I don't pay attention to pro wrestling. I don't hate it anymore, but I don't pay attention, you know. But my producer is when I was on serious X-Sem, they were in my ear. Like, you've got to see this guy. You got to see this guy. We've got to get him on the show. He was an indie pro wrestler who was like super pro-lib to the point where he would get on the

mic and be like, you MAGA losers, you're just jealous. You're not as smart and success. as Hillary Clinton and they'd be somewhere Alabama and I'd be like boo this fucking guy. Oh my God. And I asked him if he'd ever like experienced violence. He told me he'd been threatened a gazillion times. But you know, it worked on. I don't know what happened to him.

I don't know if he ever went anywhere. But I do agree. I think it would work. I know, dude. I had not really thought about this, but there's been a couple of times. And I'm not like, I'm not some extreme left. You know, like the like, you know what I mean? But like sometimes people accuse you being Cuck Mindenhall or whatever because of your.

or like some take of what's going on. And if you return fire like, you libtard, like to them, like, and that confuses the hell out of them, right? Like when used their own language against them. It's like so, but I mean, if you just, if you think about that, that's, I mean, especially with the UFC going and doing a White House card. I mean, dude, that is the perfect deal.

Like, that was, that's an, I had not really thought about that directly, but that is, that is a great shout, man. You imagine that? You imagine going here and being like, I think AOC, should be our next president. Oh my God, dude. It would be a lot of fun. All right. Second question.

What do we got here? Okay, from MJ Silverfang, good guy here. He goes, he says, did Jalton Almeida fumble the bag by not signing with MVP? Good question. To fight JDS on the rousy Carrano undercard, or did he just not want to get starched by fellow Brazilian in front of millions of people? So if you didn't see this, it was reported. Jalton Almeida signed with ACA, which is sort of like,

a Kederov semi-aligned promotion. But they do, the interesting part is they actually do, like, it is legitimate MMA there, like very, in certain cases, really legitimate. It's actually, it's a weird kind of contrast. It's got a weird association, but at the same time, it does a lot of good work. Okay. Put it in that to the side for just a moment. He signed with them.

And it was reported that MVP wanted Al-Madea to fight Jr. Dos Santos, so I've seen out there kind of putting out training videos. I know he's been looking for a fight. and he's trying to get a Jake Paul fight, for example, and they say he passed on it. What do you think, Chuck? Did it make sense to pass on it? If so, why?

I would feel like, this is all news to me, by the way, but in Almeida's case, I feel like, especially in jolting the UFC, who just got rid of you when you're 8 and 3 in their promotion, like it would have been to go to MVP because that's where that's happening, right? And that's also going to be just a huge business venture because it's going to draw, it's going to probably, I don't know if it will break records,

but it's going to be huge business for Netflix, right? So I don't know. Maybe not in the long term, but in the short term, I feel like that, and especially JDS, right? Because now you're, I think that an old JDS,

I mean, if it, Jelden and maybe is going to show up and do something, that would be maybe a guy that you could do that against. So, yeah, I would say, always had really good takedown defense.

He did. Even when Kane got him down, he was pretty, for the most, I mean, he would get abused on the way up, but he was pretty good about resisting the takedown.

and carwin couldn't do shit to him really for the most part um uh so my thought is it's like i don't i can't believe i'm saying this i don't know if it's a good matchup for jaltine alameda you know how old is jd s he's got to be he's got to be up there man so i mean that's and the other one like somebody brought this up to me they're like why not get cane velasquez now that he's out and i was like that's such a crazy it's such a crazy thought right because this dude has just been in like dealing with this prison thing um for up until now and all of a sudden you would have like imagine how compelling that would be if he was in the fight shape and he was going to come back judah dos Santos just turned 42 okay that's not too

bad i thought he was a little older than that so um yeah i mean he had the shoulder injury what was his last fight his that was the eagle fc one no he had two game bred bare knuckles he split decision fabricio in 2023 and then he had one in 2024 where he k o'd alan belcher he won the in not inaugural game bred bare knuckle MMA heavyweight championship. That apparently is not a title in heavy rotation. I mean, I don't, it really just comes down to what he was being offered. But if he was trying to get a fight where he could look good,

you might say, oh, a 42-year-old JDS. I got to be honest. I'm not so sure. I'm actually not so sure. Yeah. All right. They're saying that my connection is a little weird. So I'm going to, Luke, you handle this one.

I'm going to click back out and come back in. All right. Sounds good. All right. Question number three. from John Winklefred. Out of potential opponents for Garcia, oh, good question.

How would you rank in terms of difficulty for him? Easy. Easy. All right. So the choices are Connor Ben, Sikor, Liam Paro, and then Haney rematch. I'd put Liam Paro at the bottom of the list.

I'd put Connor slightly above that. Actually, I'm not sure about that. Maybe Connor at the bottom, then Liam above that. You could maybe replace those two. Haney next, and then Shakur at the top. I kind of feel like Shakur is far and away the most difficult test. What do you think? Toughest fight is Shakur, then Haney, and then what?

Okay, let's see here. Let's see. I agree with you. I think that's in that order. Yep. And so for that reason, people like, oh, the Shakur fight should be next. I just don't think it would be next. I mean, maybe they find a way to make it next, but I don't think so.

I think he's going to take something of an easier fight along. the way, you know, before we get, we get to something like that. Is he going to end up with a Lewis Crocker? Like, he's going to end up with the other. When nobody's mentioning. You might. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's go to the next question.

From Telfiki Papa, the Hawaiian fucking legend. Best doctor. Erosh Medich, Anthony Fauci, Dr. Dre, Dr. J. Oh, shit. Dr. Pepper. Or Luke's favorite, Dr. Angela White.

She's actually not my favorite, but I just like bringing them up because it's funny. Do you know who Angela White is, Chuck? I don't. She's the one who eats cake? You fucking liar. Yes, you do. I know you do. You need your pants around your ankles.

Got a favorite doctor. Of those. I might go Dr. Dre. I was going to say, like Dr. Dre pops out. Dr. Jay was cool, though. It's between those. Also, I do love a good Dr. Pepper. I'll be honest about that.

Are you a soda drinker? occasionally, man. I try to stay away from it. It's just a certain age. You're like, that's no good for me, you know. But I do like it every day. Look at that. What is that?

A diet? Yeah. Zero sugar, root beer. No caffeine, no calories. I do like root beer. Perfect. I do like root beer. All right.

I think we got at least maybe two more, maybe. Declan Beetson. A witch has come and cursed M.K. Both hosts now have to look the same. Does Luke shave the beard and put on a hat? or does Chuck grow in the beard and take off the hat? Those rules strictly apply. How is the show moving forward?

I don't think I can grow that kind of beard, man. You've got a nice lush beard there. I don't know if I could do that. It doesn't grow in as well. I look like a wild animal. Dude, I don't know. How do you, what's left on your head? How do you trim it?

Do you just shave like a? Oh, I just got like a. clippers, you know, and you just take off all, you know, you just shave the, yeah, you just kind of run it over your head. Yeah, it takes like two minutes. Long Island, long island, when you get a haircut, how does it work? What's, what's your process? Oh, I need a haircut. What do you do? I go to the barber and I call them. Do you do like you make an appointment? Yeah, I go walk in. I go walk in because I'm a freelance. So, you know, most people are at work nine to five during the week. I just go on like a Tuesday at 11 a.m. No one's there. You know,

and there's, I don't, I'm not picky. There's like one good barber there. that everyone likes and then there's like two guys on the side i'll take the guys on the side i don't give fun so that's my yeah it shows it shows yeah you uh i was gonna say you look like you spent some money on yours no oh i used to spend a bunch of money and now i spend far far less i mean it's hard to get like i don't know where you would go for a haircut in the city for less than 50 bucks i don't know i just don't even know where that would be but i got one a guy who does it for like 50 depending on what i get 50 or 60 uh but there's a process to it he puts it up like he doesn't allow walking and what he does is it's like in my neighborhood so it's like it's cheap it's in my neighborhood and i like

like it does a good job so like i just can't abandon the process but what he does is he just creates he's got all his appointments on an app and he opens them all up on sundays at noon and so you just got to be like one of the first people to get it otherwise you you have to go at like a weird time or you just missed the whole fucking week right so like you know on weeks where i need it i'll be like I'll look at the clock and it'll be like two in the afternoon. I'm like, oh, fuck. And I'll go check and all the appointments are all booked up for the week. Man, that guy's in demand it.

Yeah. So then I have to end up, I can't, I guess there's not a natural way for me to do it. So then I end up having these spots where like, you can see, look at this shit hanging off. Look at this. I need some help. You know, well, there you go. All right. That is it for DMs from donks.

What are we doing for the rest of this part? I don't even know. We're doing higher or lower. Everyone's favorite game. Guys, I just say every game is everyone's favorite game. But I'll give you guys a scenario you tell me if you're taking the higher or lower. LT. You're up first.

You just mentioned earlier. We were talking about getting rid of heavyweight earlier. You know, it's barely hanging on. Women's Bannonweight, obviously also barely hanging on, even though the lone finish on the three limbs of it would come in a woman's band and weight fight. But, you know, either way, I feel like there's arguably a few divisions you could argue getting rid of. So my question to you, Luke, is higher or lower than two and a half. the amount of U of U.S.C. divisions that you would abolish right now if you were in charge.

So I'm going to take the under. And the reason why is because I believe in being some, okay, I mean, I don't think getting rid of divisions is a conservative act. I don't mean politically. I mean like I'm not going over to a crazy amount. What I'm saying is I could see a case for more, but I think to start you just formally, officially closed 45.

I know it's basically closed anyway, but I'm just saying you're like make it official. We're done in the 45 business. And then, you know, I would probably get rid of heavyweight too, at least temporarily, you know.

Again, I've seen UFC get rid of divisions. I saw them get rid of lightway and bring it back. Like you can bring divisions back. But for the time being, I'm not sure what the point is unless they make changes, right? Unless they make changes,

so too. Chuck, you're taking the under as well? Yeah. I mean, the 145 should have been long gone because what are they? doing with it. But I'm at the exact same

the exact same thing. I don't know if I would pull the plug on, ultimately pull the plug on heavyweight, but I agree. You've got to do something with it because right now it's a hopeless wasteland. Yeah. All right, Chuck, well, over to you. Brandon Moreno is headlining UFC Mexico City

this weekend. And we also just got official word that Josh Van is defending his title against Tatsuro Taira at UFC 327. Moreno, obviously, just lost to Tyra, but he still hasn't fought Josh Van, Manel Kiojeehoraguchi to name a few contenders. So given how the division could play out for the next year or so, my question to you is higher or lower than a one half, so one,

the amount of times Brandon Moreno will fight for a UFC title for the remainder of his career. That's tough, man. Right, because a lot of things could happen. Didn't say he'd win it, just fight for it. Yeah, yeah. I would go over that. He's so good, man. and he's not that old.

Like you feel like he's because he's been around for a while, but he's really not that old. So I will say over, but it's going to be a bit because, I mean, unless some circumstances intervene, I just, I feel like with Joshua Van Pantosia,

obviously, like, is going to come back. You still have Horguchi. So it's going to be a minute, but he's also, you notice he gets a big pop, man. Like,

every time they show him, like, he's really developed into a bigger star that I think people understand. But if you're in the building and they show him, like, he gets a big pop. So I feel like the UFC likes him. So I'll say over.

LT? I'll take the under. I mean... Do you think he loses this weekend? He's a big favorite. No, I don't think he loses this weekend. Certainly he shouldn't. I mean, I think we can all agree there.

I guess what I would say is, dude, MMA, I found it to be so weird and so strange where you think guys, you know, oh, they'll hold certain. to borrow from the terminology that the tennis terminology that Chuck used earlier where it's like, you know, they'll be back there and then they never get back there.

I've seen it in times that just totally surprised me. So I'll say I'll take the under. All right. Fair enough. LT. We know you're a diehard TKO fan. You'll follow the brand regardless of which venture. I'm wearing their cologne right now on my ball. We're talking power slap. We're talking UFC

fragrances and we're especially talking Zufa boxing. So my question to you, of their 24 total bouts. Higher or lower than 5 and a half, the amount of Zufa boxing fights that you've watched live. Oh,

over the over if the over under is 5 and a half, it's over. I watched almost the entire first card live. Wow. Okay. See, I knew Chuck had watched some of the other ones live too. I was hostage there. I had to watch it. Yeah, I know. I guess my question for Chuck then is Chuck since that first card in the next

two. I'll put the over under at like two and a half. Have you watched any of those live? No, not live. I've caught up. They had the one card, what was it, the third card, where they had some knockouts. Pretty good one through that uppercut. So I saw, like, I went back and watched those, but like, no, not live. Okay. That was the only card

that I actually caught live. I caught those, like, three knockouts live, but that's all I really wanted. That was their best event so far, I guess. For sure. Chuck, Jack Hughes, let's go. America scored the OT game winner for the USA Men's Olympic hockey team yesterday. First gold medal,

in 46 years. A whole tournament was really fun to watch. It was great to see our boy, Chuck, Islanders, and Avalanche legend, Brock Nelson, get that whole medal. My question to you is, higher or lower than three and a half? The amount of men's Olympic hockey games

that you watched. It's lower. Did you think it would be higher? I thought you'd be all over it, honestly. I thought you'd be into it. I have a hard time with the Olympics. Some of it is because of the times, like, you know,

We got kids. Yeah, it's tough. It is tough to, like, carve it out. Chuck has grown kids. Chuck's kids are adults, bro. Yeah, but there's still, but no, man, it was definitely. I think I watched, I mean, so basically,

really won. I mean, the only one, if you look at just the full way through, it was just the last one. So I did watch that. That game was epic. I woke up early for it, hungover, shit.

It was a good time. Yeah, that was fun. LT. We talked about Connor Ben, getting 15 million a fight. that surely has to upset a lot of UFC fighters. But we all know they're all reluctant to speak up. They're not going to do shit about it.

In fear of upsetting the baby beater in charge. So my question to you is higher or lower than 0.5, the amount of UFC fighters that will receive a raise as a result of the Connor Benz sign. What's that scene from the Godfather? I think it was Godfather 2, where he was like, my offer is nothing. Remember that? Yes. Yeah.

That's that's going to be Nick con Nick con by the way deserves a lot of credit for the signing, but it's going to be Nick con and dan and they're like well I want more money. I saw what you guys are giving out for Connor and they're going to be like right my offer is nothing zero nothing. It will do nothing and we'll accept it. Thank you. And it'll be like you know what? I like the way you bargain. I think they're going to hook up people they like and when I say hook up it's going to be so minuscule in the grand scheme but the fighters are going to think like they're going to be like we'll give you an extra 50k next time and they're going to be like fuck yeah I'm getting an extra 50. Like the people they like.

I'm talking like Patty and shit. You know, like fighters, they are clearly on board. The thing is, how would you disentangle that from what you could attribute to the paramount money? You know what I mean? It's the same thing.

They probably all got a little bump. I know like, who's a fucking Izzy's manager? He's all the like Aussie guys managers. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Tim Simpson. Tim Simpson.

He, he mentioned like, or one of his fighters mentioned like, I got a raise for the paramount thing. and then they were like shout out tim like i'm sure all tim's fighters got raises they're all he's in good stand you know what i mean like he's a good man john didn't strickland yeah well he ain't represented about tim there you know but uh i'm just saying i feel like some guys are going to get hooked up but it's not going to be anything and they're going to think they're getting hooked up again

from the paramount money i could see a raise certainly from just what connor ben got oh because of connor ben no no yeah all right all right fair enough they're still begging begging for the bonuses after their fights man it's crazy true yeah chuck storyline this week was Dan Igay changing his nickname from 50k to 100 grand and everyone was debating which one sounded better this reminded me of when ilia changed his nickname for a day and then took it back uh it got me thinking of other iconic nicknames in the sport like the man in the hat for example and how weird it would be if you just decided one day you're changing it so hire a lower than fifty thousand dollars the amount of money it would cost you to change your nickname to chuck 50k mindenhall I mean, at this point, like, I mean, by the way, like these are names, like Luke calls me Iceman. I mean, it's just,

these are names bestowed on you. It's not like I chose them. The man would cost me as a, I mean, I guess, you gotta take that money, right? Yeah, just take the money, right? Like, it's just, why not? I don't mind being 50K Mendon Hall.

That's what works? What's the minimum you would take to be called? And then the middle of the name, your nickname becomes that. So, like, Chuck 10. Well, I have integrity. 50K is the line, man. I mean, that's where it's,

bad, you know, so. Fair enough. Yeah. LT, how much would it cost you to just go by a nickname other than, like something's embarrassing, something you hate? 10 bucks. 10 bucks? Next live chat.

Someone could look 10 bucks. We're calling him something. Yeah, my new name is a D blower, uh, or extreme, you know. That's actually our next DM from, um, at Luke. Uh, Luke, we know you trained in your 20s and 30s, which would have arguably been your athletic prime with the state of heavyweight. and how bad some of the top 15 guys have looked. My question to you is higher or lower than 0.5,

the amount of current top 10 or sorry, top 15 heavyweights, you could beat every one out of 10 times in your athletic prime. So you just got to beat them once. So if I was in my prime and I fought the current roster will through a time machine. 10 times each. And I had 10 times to fight them. How many wins could I get? could you get at least one win

if you fought every top 15 heavyway right now? Look at the rankings. I mean, the answer is almost certainly no, but man, I feel like I spard with scarier people in my time than we have the roster who's on the roster. Who took the 15 spot now that Jalton's out? Mick Parkin, Walter Walker,

Shemil Gazziav. Trade with him, yeah. I mean, probably not. Probably zero. You know, but I might take a couple rounds here and there. I'll tell you that. I was hoping you'd be cocky with this. and be like fucking over way over. I used to spar with guys that had, I mean, so fucking,

I remember, oh my God, I remember the first time I went to like a, the pro fighters class and they were doing sparring in one of these fucking boxing rings. And there was a dude in there who literally before it was my turn to go spar him, he viciously caoed the guy in front of me. And I was like,

oh my fucking God. And he didn't make it very far on the regional scene at all. Like he kind of, I mean, it wasn't his primary occupation, but he didn't. He didn't make it very far. So I'm going to give these guys a little bit of respect.

But, you know, there's been a decline. Let's put it that way. Chuck, I know your fellow crackhead, Peecey Carroll, loves his Guinness. And you've been known to throw a few back on. Most overrated beer on earth, by the way. It's a good beer and I like it. Hold on, hold on, all right. IPAs I don't even like.

Okay. Just straight up don't like them. Guinness, I actually like. But people talk about Guinness. Okay, I got you. Like, you know, some angel dipped his balls in him and all of a sudden this is what it tastes like to me yeah yeah all right well speaking of uh how many times has ptze dipped his no i'm just kidding uh my question you chuck

is higher or lower than eight and a half the average number of guineas you consume you personally on a night out with ptzee carol eight and a half i just feel like he's got to be pounding him all night right like i'm thinking we're at we're in the wait is this is this so ptzy plus chuck or just No, this is like, all right, maybe like when Chuck's out with PT, how many is PT drinking? And if we're drinking Guinness, but I would assume on a minute. He puts him away. Like eight and a half, that seems like a big number, but it would be over, I'm sure, because he, like he talks about, you know, a dozen of those things. Like, he can, he can put them away.

So I'm guessing if you were trying to hang out with him. And they did something like this last time in New York, they did some kind of pub crawl. And he went over that number. So I feel, I feel like if you were keeping pace with him, I don't know if I could, to be honest, but it would be. be over that number. All right. Hell yeah. That's what I want to do.

You know what? I got to say this. I fucking love day drinking. Day drinking truly might be one of my favorite things, but it's such loser behavior for the most part. That's nice. On a Sunday. I've engaged in plenty of it, though, in my life.

Listen, listen, tailgating is fucking great. Yeah. Pub crawling. I've done a million of them. I had a great time every time. I mean, I thought this is the contradiction of my life. I love those things, but it's dub tea. Make no mistake.

about it true uh luke you mentioned on your watch along on saturday that you're considering getting rid of some of your tattoos yes i am wow okay we know bc was obsessed with the naval tat so naturally i just have to ask is that one of the ones you're considering no no it's a different one okay uh my real question though is higher or lower than two and a half the amount of tattoos you were considering getting rid of higher wow how many do you have total right now uh good questions let me think one two three four, five, six,

seven, eight, nine, ten. I'm going to get rid of at least a third of them? I was thinking three. Okay. Yeah.

I've got one on my back. I don't like. I've got one on my chest. I was going to get this one covered up, but now I'm like, I don't know if I want to get it covered up. I don't know if I want. Dude,

I've had like a bit of a midlife crisis. I mean, I'm dead fucking serious about this. Where I don't know what I like anymore. That happens. And this is like, like, not even just professionally or whatever, like, do I like the same music? What about the foods?

What, I mean, like, I've had to. I come blood just isn't hitting as hard as it used to. Say again? I come blood isn't hitting as hard as it used to. You know, you're like, do I like this music anymore? Well, I still kind of like that. But even that I don't listen. The thing about that kind of music is you just can't listen to it regularly.

Like, I do like it. But I can't listen to it every day. It's just too much. But what I mean to say is like I've been looking at my tattoos and I'm like I don't like these anymore You know and so you have a choice when that happened you have a choice you can do nothing and just the guy who cares Which a lot of people do two you can get it removed or three you can get it covered up and I'm like well if the issue is I don't like the tattooed Do I want to just get littered with more tattoos? No, I think I want to erase some of them and then keep the ones I like That I've gotten more recently and put a little more money into but dude I got like I got a tattoo on my chest here. I hate and I got it when I was I got it when I was 19

at Red Dragon tattoo in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's like, what the fuck am I keeping that around for? LT, my other question of you about tattoos real quick is of the three you're getting rid of, what number tattoos were those? So you're at 10 right now. That's a good question. So that's a good question.

So the one on my chest would be number, the second one I ever got, so that's number two. The one on my back I'm thinking about getting rid of would be either three or four. And then there's another one that would be one. So two, three and four. I'm not sure exactly the order in which three and four go, but it wouldn't be the first one and it wouldn't be five on.

That makes sense. Three and four. Yeah. If you were trying to get rid of ones you got more later in life, I'd be like, well, why do you? No, no, those ones, this, the one I got, I will tell you this. I'll show it to you. So this one I got of the DC flag, I'm going to keep it, but I actually, I think I'm going to get a recolored.

I'm going to get it colored black. Oh, because the, the, This was designed to look like a stamp rather than an imprint. But the coloring that the guy used, again, I didn't know much about tattooing at the time. The coloring the guy used has faded and it's not worked as intended. And also, it's a different red than the red here, than the red here, and then the red here. So I'm thinking about just making it the same color as this one to create a more consistent color profile. But I don't have any plans of removing that one.

All right. It's expensive to get a tattoo removed. Yes. I'm about to find out. All right. I'm about to find out. I'm pretty sure you go for like 20 sessions. I know that much.

And each session is... I think it depends on how this this tattoo I have here is not very big. And I don't think it would take 20 sessions to remove. Oh, maybe not. Yeah, maybe it depends on the size. All right. Chuck, we once put up a lower for you during pregame preview that said,

from Colorado, but doesn't smoke weed. And to this day, I still don't even know if that's true. So with how acceptable weed is nowadays, it feels inevitable that you would have been in a situation where at least if you didn't have some, someone you know had some. So my question to you is higher or lower than 0.5, the amount of times you've consumed cannabis in the last 365 days. It's under because I haven't done it. But I've done plenty in my life.

What did you say? I said, put him on the spot. Yeah, well, I mean, I have no. It's the show where you go to Destroy your future opportunities. This is what this show is all about. You know, to this day, like if it just, you know, the circles you run and it's not like, I mean,

there's people eating the gummies and stuff more than than doing that. But at the same time, like, It's been a while, man. But I'm like, you know, but I am from Colorado, man. And, you know. Bro, that Colorado weed. You Colorado, man.

Yes. They are not fucking around out there. no ben do want to go though Luke had a good time with Gloria at one night I do recall that yeah I mean that's

god damn uh LT you've mentioned that he sends you a bunch and I've seen some of it in our own group cat with BC we know he loves sending conspiracy theories oh dude right

let me let me stop there stop there you might ruin the over under listen to me for a second if you're a fan of Brian Campbell you need to engage in a well a digital wellness check on this man my guy this morning is sending me conspiracy theories all day yesterday and today all weekend brian campbell he my guy loves conspiracies as much as he like straw weights i'm just

going to put it that way okay oh my god i'm like that all right well i have a feeling i made this over under way too low but my question to you is a higher or lower than 19 and a half the amount of conspiracy theory related content that Brian Campbell has sent you in the last... Dude, you should have done 19 and a half to the 19th and a half power to even get close to the number. This is

a gross undercount. What do we talk about? Triple digits? Seven days, seven days. Could easily be. Yeah, honestly could easily be. Like, it's, whatever you think it is, it's 10x that amount. Yeah, and part of that is because his number for the marijuana thing is, uh, over

It is a little higher, yeah. Also, in fairness to him and Chuck, you'll appreciate this. He's right about this because we were, we were, I was talking to, I was chatting with him yesterday and we were talking and I was like, dude, this weather has fucking, this winter has been terrible. This was a terrible winter because I, I don't know how you guys feel. We had, you guys, I think you guys had it too. Well, I think y'all streets may have been cleared better, but we had the snow crete here.

I've been talking about that. Oh, yeah. We didn't get much snow, but then it instantly froze and just sat in the road. I felt more trapped here during the last month than I ever felt during the pandemic. Because most of that time, because you remember, the pandemic didn't really kick into high gear until like late February March or whatever. So by that point, you're kind of already outside. And again, I'm not saying that the pandemic didn't have a lot of like negative effects

for people. Of course, it did. I'm just trying to point out, I felt, I personally felt less constrained by that at that time. I have felt like I've got cabin fever to the degree. And B.C. was also admitting that the, that the, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, the cold weather and then everything was not his favorite let's put it that way. Yeah, it was affecting him. Yes. It's affected me too. I've been going crazy.

It's bad, dude. Well, that's why it sucks that we just got this storm. I'm like, the snow was finally warm this week. It was starting to go away. And then it just saw it. It's brutal. Do you don't the fuck your head up for sure. Yeah. All right. Chuck, last one for you. All right. Was already stupid. Sorry. Headed into 2026, I thought women's band and weight had the opportunity. I won't say it was a guarantee. But for a bit of a resurgence.

You know, we had Amanda versus Kayla booked. It seems like, okay, we're going to see some fun fights here possibly. Then Kayla gets the next surgery. A whole division just goes back to complete irrelevance. I don't even know if there's more than 15 women's band and weight on the roster or if the top 15 is just the 15 women's bandam weight. That's all. Through four cards so far in 2026, we have had two women's band and weight fights already.

So my question to you is, including those two, higher or lower than nine and a half, the amount of women's ban and weight fights. The UFC puts on this entire calendar year. Wow. And you know, I do like the rankings at Yahoo. And what you realize, because you have to kind of write this blurbage to like, oh, this is what they're doing. And how many of them are just inactive for large periods of time?

I'd still put it over. This would be an interesting to revisit, though, because I hadn't really thought about, I haven't really thought about that. But, like, you're right. It's not exactly like the cupboards are. full right now with these women phantom weights. I'd still put it over though, just I think that I'd have to look up the number, but I feel like there's enough

like if they even got like one fight apiece, you know, type of thing. It'd be in that range. We'll see that, all right, so we've had two already. There is one this weekend, Macy Chasson versus Eileen Perez. But I feel like the division's just going to go stale after those fights. I don't think they're booking Jocelyn Edwards versus

the winner of that tomorrow. I don't know. But either way women's band and weight in shambles guys that was higher or lower hope you enjoyed it it was fun long island why don't you plug what you got going on for the rest of the week until friday anyway i got my ufc mexico city bet breakdown

coming out tomorrow i'll have a new prop quiz on friday and then full card watch along on saturday let's go and as a reminder we're all going to be in studio give me the hip hop horn for this one we're all going to be in studio next monday it'll be a drinking show on monday it'll be a drinking show yeah so bring your drinking cap chuckman i will I will bring that. Very good.

Let's remind everyone, if you haven't already, we're everywhere on the socials. You can find us all there. And as we indicated, if you want to get those questions in for DMs with donks, Sunday on IG is going to be, of course, your best and only bet to that point. Morningcombat.shop.

Morningcombat.combat.shop is going to be your place to get what's left of these. They go away after Saturday. Saturday is going to be your last day this week to get these, the Army of Dawkins' poster and or shirt. and then of course we've got the evergreen content, the graffiti logo, and then the MKDC lettering there as well.

Reach the show, MorningC Kombat at gmail.com. Chuck, before we go, anything to plug, good sir. Well, I'll definitely have some writing coming up this week. I got a Cheeto Vera I'll be talking to and have some columns. So those are coming out this week on Uncrowned, and I believe I'm scheduled to be back on the crack on Friday with Pizzie Carroll. Nice. Plenty of Mendenhall to go around.

Are we, well, I'll talk about this. other stuff. We'll talk about next week next week. Okay. Okay. Very good. Yeah. Well, as we mentioned, we won't have Chuck on Friday, but he'll be back on Monday. We'll be in studio on Monday, inshalla. And yeah, should be a good time. So for Long Island, for the Iceman himself, and for all of you out there, thank you so much for watching. We're out of here. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.

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