MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Sean Strickland Shocks the World | UFC 293 Recap | Volkov-Tuivasa | Ep 487

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

On Episode 487 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell break down UFC 293. How did Sean Strickland pull off this upset? Is this the biggest upset in UFC history? Should there be an immediate rematch? The guys also break down Tai Tuivasa vs. Alexander Volkov and any other fighters that stood out on the card. As always we close out monday's with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:10:00) - Strickland Upsets Adesanya (00:40:00) - Biggest upset in UFC History? (00:52:10) - Strickland-Adesanya Immediate rematch (01:07:00) - Alexander Volkov vs. Tai Tuivasa (01:15:40) - Rest of UFC 293 (01:25:30) - Dm's from Donks (01:37:40) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, happy 9-11. I mean, it's not really happy unless you're Brian Campbell, but nevertheless, it is 9-11. Hi, everyone. It is the 11th of September, 2023, and it is time for episode 487 here of Morning Combat, on the heels of a historic weekend in UFC history, quite frankly, which we were not expecting. Did you say the word historic? What was historic about it, Luke? Well, if it really is the biggest upset in UFC championship history, that is historic. That's decently historic.

All right, just trying to give you an area to get past that 9-11. I mean, you were challenging me on Friday about, like, Nick Sick's, like, place in the sport, and all he really did was make it even better. Well, everything – I thought you were a little too bold on your Nick Sickikinsenko praise. I know, it turned out I was totally right. Yeah, it turns out it worked out well for you, so there you go.

Nevertheless, welcome everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of the status of news right here in Washington, D.C., joined by the gentleman who's got a nice price for something. It's my friend and yours. It's BC. What's up, BC?

Yeah, everybody knows Nice Price Books and Records, Raleigh, North Carolina, right across the street from NC State. They've been doing great work for a while over there. But, Luke, I'm back with a bang on this Monday, as you are, to really kind of look back. How the hell did this happen over the weekend? What a wild turn of events. Look, you have to admit, we got plenty of time to get into the specifics,

but you have to admit, what happened Saturday night, in the end, is what we freaking love about this sport because you know how whole home it would have been to come in here if Adesanya had won a five-round decision from the outside the card was boring and not deep and all this stuff no Luke instead our world just got turned upside down in ways we never ever could have imagined wow I wish your wi-fi would got turned upside down in ways we never ever could have imagined wow i wish your wi-fi would get turned upside down like since you're borrowing it from mcdonald's but nevertheless i agree if it had been like another iteration of the yoel romero fight we'd be like well we would just be like all the goodwill that izzy built up from the revenge win essentially over Pereira all of that

would have gone up in smoke but that's not where we are that's not where we are we're in a very different place because he didn't just lose BC he lost decisively I mean it really is one of the most amazing things and the good news is we were predicting that all along we were we were very very sharp and in tune with what was going to happen and today gets to be a victory lap to our crowning achievements of prediction i'm very glad that we get we get an opportunity to do that you know yeah yeah i heard somebody one of our youtube commenters write that you can put izzy in the dog but you can't put the i don't know what the joke was but it was pretty funny in the moment luke i don't know whatever we're still doing the dog but you can't put the i don't know what the joke was but it was pretty funny in the moment luke i don't know whatever we're still doing the dog bit really oh sorry sorry sorry let's just put it behind us luke but you know uh a solemn day here 9 11 here luke let's honor the uh let's honor

the victims and the heroes from that day uh the best way we know how luke yeah we do i know it's a solemn day and what you're saying but we know it's actually a day that you look forward to very much mikey if you could play the video so folks know just how much brian campbell loves 9-11 can't wait for september 11th congratulations wow wow wow all right it's here your favorite day vc it's here yeah yeah yeah did you got any box cutters or anything all right all right i mean really really i mean for all the ways we could accidentally get this show shut down looks like how about we try this way all right i will say this i've actually never asked you where and it was a solemn day i'll never forget where i was i was in my

fraternity house and when i went downstairs my fraternity brother was like, dude, a plane landed in the World Trade Center. I was like, what? And then when I turned on the news, I was watching Peter Jennings, who is now deceased, and I watched the buildings collapse. Where were you when everything went down? I didn't think the he was now deceased comment was necessary there, Luke. You could have let Peter Jennings' name stand on its own. But no, I went to Monday Night Football the night before

at a bar called Maggie McFly's in Middlebury, Connecticut, and got wasted with Scott Hurd watching a Saints game. So the next morning I was hung over AF Luke, and I woke up to my roommate, George Crowdell Jr. screaming at the top of his lungs. And then we watched the, I arrived right after the first plane to the TV set. And like most people, Luke, I was never the same. I worked for a really bad weekly newspaper at the time as the sports editor. And I wrote a very ill-advised column afterwards that, like, you know, defense wins championships, so we need to defend this egregious act military-wise. Who would have allowed a 22-year-old sports editor to write that type of column in a newspaper?

I don't even understand, Luke, but that's what happened. All right. Well, you've gone from that to where we are. By the way, Mikey was saying he was in the fifth grade in 9-11. Dude, I was a junior in college, junior or senior? I think a senior. Yeah, I was a senior in college. Yeah, you were a senior in college.

I was a dropout living the full-time life, Luke, but that's what happened. All right. That's, that's my story. Yeah. But you know, we're all touched by it, Luke, my best friend's college roommate perished, you know, in that, and you know, everybody's got a connection to it, obviously a solemn day, but we, we rise again, Luke, as a nation and we honor those who were left behind there, but great little bit with me that time in that Stephen Fulton Jr. Brandon Figueroa interview. I still can't believe that came out of my mouth. But, you know, whatever, whatever.

Hey, let's remind everyone about some good news. How about that? Let's get some good news going. Morningcombat.store. You can get shirts like this. They're up. They're ready. They're for sale.

The collab is official and live. You can go to morningcombat.store. morningcombat.store. I'm wearing my Super Wash Dad's Average Joe art shirt. Actually, no, this is not that one. This is the other one. This is the Ninja Turtle one. Mikey, take that thing.

There we go. There we go. Look at this. Huh? Pretty great. So lots of fun stuff you can get. morningcombat.store. It's official right there. Let's see. stuff you can get. MorningCombat.store. It's official right there.

Let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Well, don't be past the merch thing, okay? I know you had to get the message out, and that shirt looks great on you, and I'm wearing the hat.

But this Average Joe collaboration crossover is producing big results. Our donks are showing up for this. If you want more Average Joe in your life, along with RJ Gangbanger, keep buying this limited edition set. Let's buy it. Let's sell it out. Let's, you know, until it lasts. And, you know, maybe there's a bright future ahead for more incredible designs

because that is some high quality work from one Average Joe. And'm uh i'm proud to see it on our shirts luke fantastic stuff and i'm told that the sales are insane so good job everyone we appreciate it keep it going and uh they they feel and look pretty cool so i'm happy with it uh last but not least morning combat at gmail.com is the place to reach the show wednesdays fan subs subs Fridays did wrong or anything else. We don't read it, but Mikey probably will. So there you go. Um,

last piece of thing to recommend or put on your radar. Number one, if you didn't catch it, you can catch my post fight show. That was live afterwards. Morning. Sorry, youtube.com slash morning comment.

Probably where you're watching this now, if you're watching. And then as well, you got to vote for us. Go vote for us go vote for us now world mma awards you can put your phone scan the qr code you can go vote or you can go to world mma awards.com we're looking for the three pete and i hope we can get it yeah and if you don't vote you know this this vote doesn't decide our future our future is going to be looking great

luke but will this vote help our future it doesn't hurt it sure don't hurt if we can keep making big waves like this and again it's not us folks it's you thank you very much for for uh cheating the system and telling people that you love us that much thank you yes that is exactly what we need and prefer we are whores for your votes so there you go all right bc if you're, I got a chance to wait on this. I know you did CBS sports HQ, but the MQ MK fans have not. So with that in mind, let's start with topic number one. I'm going to just sort of lay this out in the broadest terms that I can possibly think of BC. It goes just like this. Here's my question to you and you take it from here. How the hell did Sean Strickland pull that off I mean look I'm as shocked as anybody I'm still shocked today I mean I went to ufc.com slash

rankings looking to see the picture of Sean Strickland's face with champion under it just to make sure I wasn't dreaming on Saturday and well they haven't updated the website so that didn't confirm anything but here's the deal how did Sean Strickland do it? The old boxing cliche of styles make fights. I mean, it's exactly what happened here. Only if you would have told me in advance that Strickland was not going to shoot for a takedown, he was not going to land a lucky punch to knock Adesanya out, that there wouldn't be a big mistake like Shevchenko made against Grasso or anything like that. That Strickland would walk into the space that Adesanya is arguably, as Joe Rogan often says, arguably the greatest striker in UFC history, whether you believe that or not.

He's an all-time great fighter. Only Strickland walked into the space in which Izzy is the strongest and beat him at his own game. So how did he do it, Luke? He did it with this incredible combination of two almost contrasting things at the same time at the highest level. And that's constant forward pressure mixed with absolutely incredible defense.

The head movement, the trunk movement, the very active guard with the hands. Ultimately, Luke, Izzy is an incredible counterpuncher, as we know. He loves when people come after him because he can create that spider web and he can stun them, discipline them, heck, even knock them out as he did Pineda in their MMA rematch with clean shots. Strickland was not there to be hit, but yet he was there the whole time,

never allowing Izzy to feel comfortable, never allowing him to get set, to start to get in the flow, to start to take advantage offensively and push forward. And Luke, we're as shocked as anyone at, I guess you want to say Izzy's response to this, the trouble that he did have, but that's because of what Strickland did. He went out there and painted a masterpiece. This was a no hitter. This was a perfect game. I know he won four rounds to one on all three scorecards, and I do believe Adesanya deserved round two, and I do believe there was another round that was very close,

although I scored it for Strickland. Round three. Round three. But the deal was, not only did he land the most important punches of the fight, the punches that moved Adesanya, knocked him down in round one, he never wavered. Strickland never had an error. He not like it was a perfect performance. And I want to say this about Strickland because it's hard right

now. It's hard to deal with the fact that he's champion. And I don't mean this in some like PC way. Like it's hard to celebrate this champion who says stupid shit. I'm just saying it's hard to balance the emotions of here's a guy who like literally goes out of his way to insult everybody and make people uncomfortable with the comments he makes. But at the same time, he had the ultimate baby face turn, the ultimate sort of, you know, his post-fight interview of, I never thought this was possible. You know, I don't belong here.

What is this bell? I don't know. It was, it moved me. It touched me. It touched a lot of people. It felt like the everyman who was counted out completely stepped up there and, you know, hit a grand slam in the ninth inning and was the big hero. Only Luke, I wonder if what helped this was that the one sort of secret superpower Strickland

has is the way he looks at this game. Yes, he did look nervous on the walk to the cage. And yes, he said afterwards, you know, he was, he was overwhelmed, nervous. He assumed in some ways, even admitted it, he assumed he was going to get concussed and that, you know, Izzy was probably going to win. I wonder if the fact that Strickland doesn't look at this in the same way we expect fighters to, he even said afterwards, you know, did the Dom Cruz belt bit, this belt is not going to define me. It doesn't make me happy. I'm already over. I mean, it's part of his shtick, but the whole idea was, I think what helped him pull this off in the end was that it was almost like he wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't supposed to win.

And although he looked a little bit nervous on the walkup, he executed in such a emotionless, perfect manner. I still can't believe it happened, but this was no fluke. And that's the craziest part, Luke. There was nothing fluky about it. He'd be Adesanya at his own game. Holy shit balls, as Luke Thomas would say. Yeah, holy shit balls indeed. I had the exact same feeling that you did. I think by round four, I was like,

there isn't going to be a rabbit pulled out of the hat at this point. And honestly, like something we haven't brought up, and I didn't talk about it on Saturday night, but how about the ending of the fifth when Sean, I went back and I looked at the clock, BC. Do you remember when Sean at the end of the fifth round started going berserk and was like screaming in his face and all that stuff?

Well, we have that. Have you seen this shit i wonder if mikey can pull that earlier if that's too hard i'm not sure how this show works okay if you can great if not i understand but the point being is there was 21 seconds on the clock this is much later izzy has open season on the guy and he's just really not like slinging it he just kind of keeps doing the same things he'd been doing and then eats the final big punch there on the way out. You know, and to me, what's really kind of interesting about that is the body language. Yeah, I mean, as he probably knew at that point he had lost, but that he wasn't going for it.

He did not have the same level of intensity that perhaps, you know, this was just a radical departure from the guy who showed up to fight Pineda the second time. You know, who was like so dialed in. The guy from the guy who showed up to fight uh pareda the second time you know who was like so the guy from the gas alum fight luke the guy who said i'm willing to die in here one of the greatest moments that i've ever witnessed in combat sports history to start round five that guy wasn't here so so can i spin it back on to you and please and ask you this why do you believe because people are having fun with it they're making memes there's you know i sent you the meme actually that said you know they showed izzy against Gaslum saying I'm willing to die in here. And now they show him walking out of the cage against Strickland going no longer willing to die in here.

I'm not saying you have to be willing to die in there. I'm just saying, Luke, was it him getting caught in the first round? Did that remind him of the Pereira knockout? Like, what do you think really happened that Izzy was never willing to bite down, go for broke.

I'm not saying he was resigned to lose, but there was enough. It looked like he couldn't figure out the problem. But Izzy was never willing to bite down, go for broke. I'm not saying he was resigned to lose, but it looked like he couldn't figure out the problem, and the time just ran out on him, and that's what it was. So there's probably a few theories, right? One was he did get dropped, and I thought round two was Izzy's best round. If he won any one, it would be that one, right? So, like, he had a strong rebound from getting dropped.

I didn't think he showed a lack of urgency there. No, he won round two. He won round two. He bounced back from getting dropped nicely. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like, it wasn't like he just laid down at that point. Like, he bounced back pretty strong, I thought.

But then by round three, again, that was kind of like a, you know, maybe go either way. But certainly in rounds four and five, he lost outright five was like starting to look bad as it as time went war on I've you know I've heard theories from people because you know we haven't we don't know we haven't talked to Eugene Barron we haven't talked to is he hasn't spoken about it so we don't really know but I think some people have surmised or suggested maybe anyway that well couldn't it be that this guy was having you know difficulties with his ex who i know there's some kind of they're being sued and there's this financial dispute and could that be distracting could not know about that right could the trappings of that

life be distracting you know after a big celebratory you know this monster appreciation that he got after beating pareda you know could it have gone to his head a little bit or whatever it's hard to say um i think that might you know could play it have gone to his head a little bit or whatever? It's hard to say. I think that might, you know, could play a role. I would point to a couple of things, though. One, you know, I didn't hear everything, obviously, that the corner was saying to him. So I want to be very careful about my analysis here. I don't know the full extent of what they said.

But based on what I did hear, I did not hear very convincing strategies being suggested to him. There was a lot of continuation about him going back to the overhand, uh, among some other things. And he would do that and it just didn't work. So like, I think he was trying to like, there was, there was a lack,

you know what, I know what I noticed. There was a real lack of connection between himself and his corner in this fight, which is very unusual. They kept trying to like say, say things to him. And some of it I thought was, you know, again, I couldn't hear all of it. Some of what I did hear, I did not think was like the best eye strategy that late into the fight, but they just didn't seem to be gelling on that night. And for whatever reason, I don't really know, but I will say this, you know, folks were

asking me on Saturday night, Hey, did Sean win or did Izzy just, you know, lose? No, no. Sean won. Sean won. Fair and square. And here's what I really believe. Dude, Izzy's striking game is based like, how do I say this? It's like building Legos on top of each other.

And what I mean by that is he has to connect with something and then he builds on top of it, either other strikes in combination or some other kind of setup or whatever, but it all builds. If he can't ever lay the foundation, and by the way, this was the biggest striking differential in a negative way that Izzy's ever faced. He had 97 significant strikes landed. Sean Strickland, 134. 134.

There's never been a gap that wide ever, win or lose for him. But he could never lay a foundation, BC. He couldn't get a jab going. Couldn't get a front kick going. Couldn't get a head kick going. Couldn't get a combination going. He could not get anything built so that the rest of his game could be constructed and he could have this broader repertoire.

And it was all the things that you mentioned, the cutting the pressure the the blocking the rolling the parrying everything Izzy just could not get out of second gear and I think it just kind of put him in an emotional competitive place where he was also just stuck in second gear I honestly believe the biggest reason is not outside the cage it's credit to Sean Strickland. It's inside the cage. Yeah, I agree with you. I think the lack of urgency, if you can explain it in any form, it was that Izzy was waiting for that big one punch,

not the one punch that ends the fight, but the one punch that turns the momentum in his favor for like what you're saying, to start to build on it and start to build toward getting him out of there. And I wonder if he didn't panic after getting dropped early, winning the second round. Okay. Maybe lost the third. All right. Let's see what we do in the fourth. I obviously would have loved for him to come out guns blazing in the fifth

and be more in touch with what was really happening. But I think frustration played a monster part. He was literally unable to get off and, and build shots together and really start to get into a flow. And obviously it's that, it is that perfect combination of what Strickland juggled, the defense mixed with the pressure. Look, kind of remind me of when your Dennis Ugas, the great Cuban boxer is at his best. He can stand right in front of you in punching range, but can work behind the high guard, can be hard to hit and can be close enough

where he can pick you apart with shots. I mean, this was brilliant from Strickland, but it's not one reason why a fight gets won or lost, meaning it's more dominant that like the prevailing reason of why this result happened, in my opinion, was that Strickland pitched a perfect game. He took what he does very well. He raised it to another level and maybe again maybe it's the weird way he's wired he never until the last 10 seconds when he put his hands down started screaming like a maniac he never got too emotional he never made a mistake but i do believe there are other elements and there are people talking about well lizzie's been like the most active champion we talk about you know especially when we're talking about somebody like mcgregor that you

need to be active look what canelo did when he was crazy active a couple of years ago because it builds momentum. You always stay sharp. There is, though, a price to pay physically when you are that active, and if you're revealing some elements of outside the cage for Izzy that may have had him not as focused as he needs to be, then I've got to do a major mea culpa here on a couple points. Number one, Luke, when we tried to make the Bisping Rockhold two comparison,

what was, what was I saying? Response is he's not Rockhold. Rockhold made a very arrogant mistake, had his hands down. We didn't think Bisping could knock him out. And one of the craziest moments happened ever at UFC one 99. I didn't expect Izzy to fall victim to, to let's say having his eye off the ball in some level. And I don't know if that's fully true, but I do wonder if the comedown and my, you know mikey shot us out here in in the chat to mention

it to the come down from like you said the big moment of knocking out potato the build toward ddp and and all of that and then suddenly oh wait ddp's not ready hamzat's coming but he's still got to get get past costa so in betweenzy, we need you to go to Australia. We need you to headline, and we're going to bring in a guy that nobody believes has a chance and nobody believes can knock you out. Turns out, Luke, sometimes somebody can play. This wasn't him playing to his level of competition because Strickland just outclassed him. But sometimes there's levels to motivation.

Obviously, the motivation that Izzy got himself into to avenge the loss to Pineda was Izzy at like a 12 out of 10, right? You do wonder, did he come in here not overlooking Strickland, not underestimating him, but just not being completely where he needed to be? That matters. That's why it's impossible in this sport at the elite level, I always say it, to do what people like GSP, Anderson Silva, John Jones, Amanda Nunes have done. Habib too, to go on those runs of consecutive victories, fighting different styles, different circumstances. It's really hard to be great at the top level that Izzy has done for such a long time that it feels inevitable. And Luke, quickly, the other mea culpa I want to give you, and I should have learned this lesson after Peña Nunez won. I should have learned this lesson after DDP Robert Whitaker.

There's no such thing in UFC, in MMA, as a sure thing. There's just not. We always say there's so many ways to lose in this game, and it's true. But, Luke, finally, I'm a changed person after watching what strickland did again not a fluke he went in there and beat adesanya at what adesanya does best anybody can win any given night this is a crazy ass sport and i know the odds sometimes sway us into believing well that guy doesn't have any power but look do you see the videos going around right now of strickland and potato training a few months ago and Poetan

teaching Strickland using Glover as the translator on how to sit down on his punches? Dude, Strickland leveled up just enough through a perfect game, and Izzy had nothing in response. I mean, this is what I said to Hakeem Dermott on CBS Sports HQ after the fight. What do you want me to say about it? I know I just rambled a long time, so I said a lot, but you can take everything I just said and throw it out, Luke. Sometimes it just doesn't matter. Anything can happen in that freaking cage, and it reminds me again why I love this game. I'll add something to this that I think needs to be said as someone who's been a close observer of Izzy's game. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I pay as much attention as I can to the developments of everything. I'm just going to say this because I think it's true because

I hope people don't think that I'm trying to make some kind of personal comment, which is not in any way what this is. Far from it. In fact, it's the exact opposite. But here's the reality. Most champions in combat sports start out with some kind of unique advantage over their contemporaries which allows them to have great success and the special ones have pretty big advantages but over time those advantages erode i'm going to say it out loud because i know at this point it is true i don't think that the division has like lapped izzy i don't think that's quite true but the gap that he enjoyed by virtue of his striking game and the way in which he was unique and and different at the time

he came around the gap has shrunk dramatically dramatically like they the the rest of the division has again whether you think they've passed them is a little bit different but have they caught up a significant distance yes they have i have. I mean, it's kind of funny, right? Like you see these people like here, we had our pregame go out yesterday because this Saturday is UFC Noche. And of course, who is in the main event? Valentina Shevchenko, who's trying to reclaim her title. And we said this about her, and it's true about Izzy as well. She went in with a bunch of advantages, physical advantages, technical advantages, you know, you name it. And she was able to get some great wins. And of course had a very significant title run at 125, but the division is slowly catching up with her and you can just simply see it.

We look at fighters who have these long reigns as these institutions and the longer they reign, we like, Oh, I mean, they've been raining so long that we'll just keep going as if there's like inertia to it. When in fact, we should be looking at it like a stopwatch because the longer like, oh, I mean, they've been raining so long that we'll just keep going as if there's like inertia to it. When in fact we should be looking at it like a stopwatch because the longer it goes like that, eventually there's too much tape on them. Guys get too many cracks at it. Some coach is going to help figure them out, which I do believe Eric Nixick deserves at least some credit here in terms of not Sean has his own game. It's very much his own individual lifestyle, but tightening up some of the problems,

like for example, following potato versus cage, cutting Izzy played a huge role, but let's be honest. The division has made significant, significant ground on guys like Robert Whitaker on guys like Israel. They have really put up a huge amount of progress, and you're looking at the results.

So I had folks to me saying on Saturday night, what about 205? We'll talk about rematches and stuff later. And it's not to say that do I think Izzy can make some adjustments and win again. I think it'd be foolish to count him out, but this is what I'm talking about. The division has massively massively massively caught up you

can only hold on to those advantages for so long before everyone else has them and now what do you have and it's also i mean this wasn't a case of like you know a 23 year old beating a 38 year old you know but is he's 34 it is a young man's game a young woman's game eventually that plays a part too but it would be hard for me to say is the overall lack of evolution to izzy's game meaning he is focused so much on the striking and he's brilliant at it it'd be it's hard for me to ask that question when he didn't get out wrestled here and we're like well maybe he should really work on the rest i disagree he hold on he got beaten in his own game but is there something to that idea that for as great as Izzy is in first gear doing what he does best is even he the great champion and really all-time

great, not as evolved as he should be with how quickly the sports moving and how talented the up and comers seem to be. I don't agree with that that analysis but i agree that you're on to something here's what i mean izzy and the whole ckb guys part of the reason why i was so enamored and i still am i have great respect for all of them and i mean people are like oh well is he's not going to overtake anderson silva as the greatest middleweight of all time okay no but he's number two by a considerable distance i mean number three and four is not even close you're looking at at worst the second best middleweight of all time. That's pretty fucking great.

When people say, hey, Prime Weidman, who beat Silva, would have wrestled him into the ground, you say, not so fast, my friend. Yeah, I say not so fast. I mean, it's possible. It's possible. But again, we're also looking at their title reigns, like what they did in their title reigns, and Izzy just did a lot more and a lot better. But okay, neither here nor there. The point I'm trying to make is this about Izzy. One of the ways in which

Sean would defend himself, you would see if he'd throw his hands up, he'd raise his lead leg to absorb whatever Izzy was doing, right? Leg kicking and then kind of throwing traffic and interference in between. You know, it's kind of funny. Izzy would not do exactly that, but you know how Izzy will lean back and then throw hooks to invite pressure up close, and he still has accuracy even when he's off balance. He did that against Jan Blachowicz, but Jan Blachowicz just took him down.

In other words, he could have done that to Sean Strickland. He could have got Sean to balance on one leg, lean back the way he does, and then shoot in for a double. But he just doesn't have either that gear or that belief in his own ability or the mental wherewithal to want to shoot in that way. It's a limit of his game in that sense. So when folks are like, oh, there was no wrestling, it didn't matter. My point is that actually would have been a good exit ramp to take to get him out of this mess. And it's one he either couldn't or just exit ramp to take to get him out of this mess. And it's one he either

couldn't or just chose not to take. Again, as someone who spent a lot of time studying his game, I think that is a fair criticism of it. But what I would say to defend Izzy is like, look, man, the guy's 34. He's had how many kickboxing bouts? Something like 100. He's had a bunch of pro boxing bouts. He's had all these MMA bouts. I mean, the guy is incredibly seasoned. You're just not going to get much better at age 33, 34 as a technical Marvel. But what he did do and what those CKB guys did was they took that faint, heavy movement based set up very precise style that Izzy is, I think the greatest exemplar of, and they showed the entire MMA world. You should be doing more of this, dude. I cannot tell you should be doing more of this dude I cannot

tell you how many coaches I have talked to that credit that team with opening their eyes to how important it is but the problem that that team faces is they're now a victim of their own success because now everybody's doing it everybody's got some kind of not so much Sean Strickland in this particular about but like the industry is a copycat industry, and everybody copies everyone else when they see something that works. How do you get another gear beyond that? It's very difficult for even the very best guys to do that. Look at Hoyce Gracie and the first-generation fighters

that dominated with BJJ before anybody even realized what that was, and then look at the wave of wrestlers that came in after that, and that was overwhelming. The sport is just constantly moving and evolving. And you're right. There are periods where you can be ahead of the game. I wanted to credit that guy's joke that I buried in our comment section. Look, it was Danny boy, two, five, seven.

He said, you can put Izzy in the dog. You can't put the dog in Izzy. Ha ha ha. Back to serious comments, Luke. I want to talk this about Strickland and give him some props because the biggest gripe I had about this fight and Strickland being in here. And I think it's a fair gripe, even with the idea that is he had cleaned out the division and that DDP

wasn't ready was that Strickland hadn't beaten, in my opinion, like the requisite sort of number one contender that normally allows you entry at the title level. It's not that I didn't think he, he was close, but when he stepped up twice, once against Alex potato, once against Jared Pineda, once against Jared Kananir in back-to-back fights that really are those type of defining fights that puts you in position, he lost both. But here's where I got to give Strickland and obviously by extension,

Eric Nixick and that incredible team there at Extreme Couture, look at the lessons learned from those two losses. Against Poiton, Strickland was too wild in his pressure pursuit, and he paid for that viciously. And against Kananir, Lukeland was too wild in his pressure pursuit, and he paid for that viciously. And against Cannoneer, Luke, while he was the busier fighter, he didn't land the telling shots enough to sway the judges in a split decision loss. This was Strickland learning from past mistakes and then leveling up to a level where this is the reason why we are this shocked. Luke, we can throw so much praise, and we should, on Sean, on Eric Nixick, on everybody.

But is this a sustainable level up from Strickland in your eyes? Like, is this the great aberration, the best night of his career? Or has he figured out how to operate at a high gear that's going to take a little bit for the rest of the people to figure out? I mean, he lost a Cannoneer nine months ago. Now, granted, it was split and it was close, but he just lost to Cannoneer nine months ago. This is the thing, and I really hate questions like this. Not that they're unfair, but on a Monday following a massive win, you really want to give the guy who rightfully earned it all the praise.

And I hope I did that on the post-fight show and even on today's show. But like, you know, do I think that this guy's going to have five or six title defenses? I mean, maybe, maybe. He does have very good takedown defense. And this style of this pressure style I think is going to beat a lot of guys, but I just don't know that it's like the, I don't know that he has a massive advantage over the field in order to have what is he enjoyed circa 2019 or whenever he got the belt. I mean, I'm not talking about that level. I'm just,

I'm just really asking, is this who he is moving forward? Did he improve that much in the last couple of fights in front of So, I mean, one of the things that was just so big, as I mentioned it before was the cage cutting. I cannot encourage people to go and watch the potato fight

more. It doesn't last very long, just a couple of minutes, but just go look at the difference. Sean is just barreling into the guy, and so he just naturally, when you're that heavy on the front foot, and you're not careful enough, of course, you're just going to walk into shit, which is exactly what I, you're going to literally walk into it,

and he does, and so when you watch this contest, I want to give Sean credit for the real improvements. Again, cage cutting, where he would walk right up to the line and then kind of get out of the way of it, throw interference the whole nine yards. That is a clear tweak that they put into the game, and it paid massive dividends.

At the same time, the point you raised previously, you just have to wonder how much of that is style make fights. I mean, yeah, he's going to beat the, of course, he's going to beat the Abus Megamedovs into the world, no problem, and a bunch of other good fighters too. Like, he's obviously a very good fighter, but is it like a dominant thing to beat all the other middleweights? It's a tough thing to beat.

I guess, to answer the question, I guess I just don't know because there's going to be other strikers who are just going to take more risk, right? They're just going to take more risk. They're going to, Marvin Vittori is going to take more punches on his way in, you know? And so when that happens, I think it changes the equation in kind of unpredictable ways. Also, let's see what Hamzat Shumayev looks like after this Paulo Costa fight because now you have to deal with a wrestling uh quotient that's not even relevant in a match like this you know a very different set of considerations right indeed all right so um can we talk quickly

about the Nixick thing one last thing on this how much credit do you give him how much what what do you want to say about a coach like that following a win by one of his premier students? Well, obviously a huge amount of credit because his stock just seems to be rising. And he had a, as I tweeted out, I mean, he had an incredible night in general in the corner from the advice he gave Manel Kopp to try to calm him down against Dos Santos

to a lot of those great soundbites we heard to motivate and keep Strickland in line. So I want to give him, I agree with you, he's a brilliant mind and he's coming into his own and sort of having his prime moment and I couldn't be happier for him because he's such a great dude. But look, didn't he reveal afterwards that the game plan was to wrestle and that Strickland kind of just went rogue, but perfectly went rogue. I mean, that's sort of an interesting wrinkle to add in here.

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Here's my take on that, which is, that's hilarious, number one. I mean, that's sort of an interesting wrinkle to add in here. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Here's my take on that, which is that's hilarious. Number one, I mean, just amazing. But two, like, listen, fights are unpredictable. Did they think that they were going to, did they, did they game plan? Cause they probably, they probably didn't plan to wrestle right away. And if you look in the first round, he keeps much more distance than he normally does, but then he dropped him at the end of the first, right? Well, okay, if you dropped him, why would you wrestle? You know what I mean? Like part of it was just the circumstances

of what happened in the fight that you have to go in a different direction. And I want to go back to it on BJJ Fanatics. Eric Nixick has an entire like multi-part cage cutting tutorial. And then you can see in this fight, the improvement from the Panetta fight, which was not that long so yes of course Sean was just being Sean and it's a lot of his unique weird style that a lot of guys don't have like I mean he gets the credit here no doubt

about it but I just can't look at something like that and be like oh Nixick played no role there he most certainly did even in a game plan that went the opposite direction than they had intended. But to be honest, coaching is not just game planning. It's that corner work I talked about. And Sean said in the Post Fight Press Conference that the value that Eric brings to him on a day-to-day basis in camp to sort of constantly keep his focus and help keep him emotionally in the slot he needs to be. I mean, coaching Luke is, is X's and O's. It's also big brother counseling. It's, it's, there's a lot of stuff going on in there and Eric seems to be coming into his own. And by the way, great week

that my buddy over there at MMAI analytics on YouTube put out a, a whole tutorial video at what makes Eric Nick's system so great. He put that out the week of the fight, and boy, did that kind of come to a head right here. Luke, hopefully we're going to talk to Eric soon. He's been on our show before. Is this, from a coaching standpoint, and obviously the coach doesn't win the fight, the fighter wins the fight, as you said, but is this upset, Strickland beating Adesanya,

a bigger coaching win for Nixick than an injured Nganou out-wrestling Gan to unify the title a couple years back? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. That one is impressive. I mean, that one is impressive. Like the Nganou one where his knee was all banged up and he was able to wrestle. But that was based off of a guy's deficiencies. Right? Cyril Gan's's ground game which is just at that it's better now but certainly at that time was like very far behind where I would say the common

standard of excellence that is demanded of the elite of any division heavyweight included he was just way behind and so Francis doing that injured is amazing. But, dude, that's not what you got here. You got Izzy. You had to go to his part of the world, not quite, but pretty goddamn close. And you had to stand with him for 25 fucking minutes. And you beat him at that? Shit, dude. Like, that is, that's very, very, I mean, extremely impressive.

There's just no, there's no other way to describe that. That's a harder thing to do in my mind. Now, I'll tell you this much. If Francis goes in there and knocks out Tyson Fury, which, of course, I do not expect in any way, but I'll say that. BC, if he pulls that off, I mean, you know, he might already have Coach of the Year locked up. That'd be a Coach of the Decade moment.

Mike Tyson's the head trainer here, Luke. Can we be fair with that? Oh, that's right. Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. All right, let's go to topic number two. We stay with this fight, but let's talk about some other wrinkles related to it. In this way in particular.

BC, question for you. Is this win by Sean Strickland the biggest championship upset in UFC history? It's difficult to answer. But what I wrote Saturday in my takeaways piece is there's a strong case to be made. And I think sometimes it comes down to, like, what are you looking for from that upset, right? The old guard is always going to say how unbeatable GSP was at the time Matt Serra pulled that off. And by the way, that one win, like Bisping's knockout of Rockhold, was the reason Serra ends up in the Hall of Fame.

And, you know, despite an 11-7 record, it was such a monster moment. And obviously, you know, Rousey Holm is different because in hindsight, we should have seen a lot of that coming. But that was like a cultural movement upset. Like, I remember where I was, we believed one thing coming in and we believed one thing coming out. But I think because this upset is so particular, specifically unique, there is a strong case. And what that unique strong case, in my opinion, is every other upset on the short list, whether you loved Leon Edwards' head kick knockout of Usman after getting dominated in their first fight, or, you know, Peña Nunes, where we find out after the fact it was an injury to Nunes who didn't get the right training, and then, you know, to Peña's credit, she fought through hell and outlasted her. In a lot of these upsets, to my opinion, there's a justifiable

excuse, right? To some level, like, okay, Rockhold should have beaten Bisping. He did two years earlier. He was too arrogant. He had his hands down. He got caught. GSP, we saw what happened in the rematch with Sarah. That was one bad night at the top, at the highest level. He got caught. Like I said, even Nunes, you can make legitimate excuses. And what did she do in the rematch? She told you what's up and what the true score was none of these upsets maybe with the exception of home but again like rousey was never a striker the only people that believed rousey was a good striker were her and edmund with the head movement and the you know whatever and and the ring magazine yeah well yeah exactly and everybody who was starting to talk

about the idea of rousey defeating floyd mayather. This is separate from all of those, in my opinion, because of what we laid out at the top. It wasn't a fluke, and Strickland went into the area in which Adesanya is arguably the best of all time and beat him specifically in that area. You add into this equation that Strickland is not known as a knockout puncher or a big puncher even where we were sort of looking at this matchup going, there's just no chance. He's not going to out

point or outclass Adesanya. Yes, he could catch him with an errant shot like Bisping did perfectly on the chin, but is that likely? I think when you look at it under that lens, it's the most improbable upset I've ever seen because of that. Same thing after Nunes Peña won. We all rightfully celebrated Juliana in the triumph of the human spirit. But a lot of us were like, hey, man, there was something obviously wrong with Nunes. And I'm not going to say there wasn't. Again, we laid it out earlier, something wrong with Adesanya that maybe helped this, but Strickland went into Adesanya's strength and beat him there decisively. You just don't see that in major upsets. You don't. You don't see that. The fifth round head kick from Leon Edwards was perfect, but it was certainly not

a fluke because he went back and won the rematch, but there's a fluky element to it. Even Pineda with so little MMA fights going in there against his rival and knocking out Adesanya late. There are elements to that that help you understand why or how that could have happened. I don't understand how this happened, Luke. So I am fully fine if anybody wants to say, forget these specific betting odds, even though they were wide. I know Rouseyousey home was wider yeah this might actually be the biggest upset in ufc title history and the fact that it's sean strickland that did it is what is making it impossible and not because i hate him do i think he goes way over the line yes look we saw that tweet from peter rosenberg a guy who i used to do and rg3 guy i love he's making a

stance that while extreme in one direction, you get it. They're playing old, RG3 tweeted out an old Strickland soundbite saying, you know, women shouldn't this or that. I know Strickland tries to stir the pot. I know he tries to go overboard. But the fact that this guy turned in that babyface humbling performance, and now I'm starting to recalibrate how I look and see at him because I'm so compelled by the underdog nature of what he did. Yeah, it just might be the most craziest, ridiculous upset in UFC history. It just might be. I've been trying to think this through.

So here's the way I've been looking at it, BC. And I have to credit Sean Sheehan from Severe MMA who kind of articulated it first. Although even then it's still debatable, but it's a better way to look at it holly holm beating ronda shook the sports world didn't just shake mma or combat sports like it shook everything around it it was an earthquake in all of sports i mean people who never cared about mma or ufc were like gobsmacked by it and talking about it. It led all of the stupid shows with talking heads like me and BC, but in other sports, it was much, much bigger. And for those reasons, I still think that's the biggest one I've certainly ever seen. It felt bigger at the time. It had a much bigger ripple effect. The odds were bigger.

That one's the biggest for me. But where it gets a little bit more interesting is if you say, okay, biggest UFC title upset in a fight that went to a decision. Well, now you're starting to get something kind of interesting because I think this is bigger than Bisping and Rockhold. Bisping had a more aspirational story. I mean, well, that's not quite right because I guess a lot of the fans like Sean Strickland. I still find Strickland's worldview odious,

and I can't even, I don't want anything to do with that part of his identity. But in terms of a fighter, I guess you would say there is something kind of similar between he and Bisping, but Bisping had lost before, and so I don't know exactly how that would go, and of course he finished him off in the second one, but for ones that went to a decision, to me, it's a little bit closer to like Randy and Tim Sylvia. So Randy had been viciously KO'd by Chuck Liddell. He retired from the sport. He came back and was gifted a title fight against Tim Sylvia. I'll never forget it.

And all of us were like, dude, what is Randy doing? He's going to get his ass kicked. Like we didn't think Tim was like the best head weight of all time but he was a tough guy to beat you know he was he was sturdy and um you know was we thought in his prime and Randy came out there leg kicked him dropped him and then out wrestled him and took his back for five rounds in Ohio the crowd went absolutely batshit you just couldn't believe it. But here's the difference. Randy was also a champion previously. I mean, what makes this so remarkable for Sean Strickland is his humble origins. We all respected him as a good fighter. I'm glad we at least said that on the pregame. I'm glad we said that before. We knew he wasn't a scrub. He was never a scrub. But BC, what makes this so remarkable is he had no elite pedigree, right? He wasn't a national champion wrestler. He wasn't, in Izzy's case, a decorated kickboxer. He wasn't a guy, a blue chip prospect that everyone had pegged from day one, like, that's going to be the guy. Like, wait until you see him. He's going to take over. He was just never that guy. He was just a really good guy who had his limits

and changed weight classes and said outrageous shit and got good wins, but nothing that ever amazed you. I mean, people were clowning this dude in 2022 for his boring apex fights. And then he goes in there and does this against a guy who changed him and his team, changed the industry in terms of leveling up the striking game and beat him at that holy shit man i do think this is bigger than randy beating tim

sylvia i really do i don't think it's bigger than ronda get losing but it's right behind it like could we have when bisping did it it was the timing of doing it on short notice late in his career but we all knew bisping had the pedigree we all knew Randy had the pedigree you knew to some degree that while while young into her MMA career that Holly Holm was she good enough to do I think we all thought you know it's not impossible obviously Ronda looked it looked like she was unbeatable at that moment but I never Luke even though I respected Strickland as being you know a solid top 10 contender and you know he beat a solid string of guys before that lost to potato. Dude, I never imagined him winning a championship.

And Luke, what makes this almost endearing in the end, if you can separate Strickland's worldview, as you said, was that he never believed it either. I loved his post-fight interview. Like I love the video of him walking back, high five in the crowd and being like, who, where am I? Like, what is this? Like he never believed it either. That's a great point on his, him not having the pedigree. You know what he has though? Dogged determination and hard work. He said it afterwards and everything he says, you got to give a grain of salt, but he did say at the post-war press conference, I only fight because I love training and I love the lifestyle. He's

addicted to training, sparring, getting in there. He loves being a fighter. Hates the fights almost to some degree. Again, I said it earlier. I wonder if that helped him. I wonder if that mindset allowed him to do the impossible and pull it off without overthinking it. There's something to that, Luke. We always think of law of attraction and focusing and goals and

and and you know vision boards how about somebody who's just like yeah whatever you do remove a certain element of the pressure when you say what the f right look at tom cruise and risky business i was gonna say you know people were like how could you guys you know discount him and i'm like well we definitely i mean we definitely did and you know, discount him? And I'm like, well, we definitely, I mean, we definitely did. And, you know. Stop sitting on your Aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one.

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limited time only at participating mcdonald's in canada epically wrong for it but the funny part is what you said dude we weren't the only ones sean strickland dude i remember when he was walking out on saturday night i was like damn dude this fucking guy looks shook right i was like this is gonna go real badly for him and of course you know he wins the title but even sean strickland admitting he was doubting himself fight week sean strickland himself being like i don't i don't know about this one did you see that interview he did uh with the with the weigh-in show after making weight and he could barely talk and he was like that extra pound is just championship weight is just death watching that i didn't see that live watching that now i would have bet the house again for out of sight

like holy crap dude i do want to say one thing because i forgot to say it at the top it's not so much about this championship upset as it is just about some of the factors that got him right okay so the only two things i got right pre-fight i mean i got everything else wrong everything else wrong but the only ones i got where I thought Nick Sick would be a big factor to the extent he had any success. And then the other one was, dude, that Abus Magomedov fight. We gotta say something about that. That was

a tune-up fight. And you don't get tune-up fights in the UFC. And I think it did him a world of good. Training with sparring, obviously, is an even more important quotient for him. Because he stays fresh he stays ready he stays in his system but getting that look against a guy he was much better than who still provided some early resistance but then you know collapsed under the weight of everything

Sean Strickland does dude that was so beneficial to him and I even made the point the two big boxing fights we've seen this year Tank Ryan and spence crawford both winners in those contests took tune-up fights before taking the big one and they looked much better and ready for the opportunity as a result you don't get tune-up fights in the ufc but when you do look out because that fucking guy's coming hell yeah i mean are you can i be a strong sean strickland fan moving forward i don't't know, Luke. I'm torn with this. I respect his game. I respect his game. I have to.

Again, if he ran for office, I would donate money to his opposition candidate. But in terms of his fighting ability, he more than earned my respect. He earned almost my admiration. And I don't hand that out too easily. Now, we do have one more question about this fight, BC, to get to. Topic number three. So I'm going to pitch it to you like a true-false. And you tell me where you come down on this.

Here we go. Topic number three. True or false, there should be an immediate rematch between Sean Strickland and Izzy. True or false? Dude, false. Big time. Big time false. Tell me why.

I can't believe that there are this many people that are on the other side of this argument. And it's not that I don't understand the argument of big star, like big momentum from this fight. Wouldn't you want to cash it in? But let's be very honest about Adesanya here, okay?

In general, are we giving too many champions immediate rematches when they lose? Yes. In the past, you try to reserve that to somebody who had been champion for a long time. Like when BJ Penn lost to Frankie Edgar, you understood an immediate rematch there. This is being over abused. Like, you know, I could argue that Shevchenko, even with the, she arguably had the most dominant run as champion any division had seen in a while. Yet because she was finished in that fight submitted uh in the division so hot behind

her i didn't like that pick let's be honest about izzy right here he just had the immediate rematch respect that you give to a long-reigning champion when he was knocked out by potato and the facts are this that are not great in izzy's direction for the argument for a rematch. He has now lost the championship twice in the past 10 months. He is just four and three in his last seven fights. And yeah, you can say, look, that Blachowicz fight from two years ago in a different division shouldn't be penalized against him. And maybe it shouldn't, but no, he does not deserve an immediate rematch, especially when, when somebody reigns on top for so long, This is the only reason Strickland got this title shot, because Adesanya has cleaned out the division. But the rare times that you can

get a switch, that it gets flipped upside down, it resets the division. Suddenly, everybody who was out of the title picture, because they'd already lost to the champion once or sometimes twice, gets a new chance. But it's not just just let's give the other guys a chance who has already lost to Izzy. We have two guys in particular, Drakus Duplassie and Hamza Chamaev if he beats Costa, who have not only not faced Izzy, but really feel like they're coming on and they are overdue and it's time. Luke, the reality is what Dana said is probably going to stand true.

He will. And I don't think it's just because, well, he's this big star who fights all the time and does the company solid and they want to reward that. I think it has also a lot to do with the UFC's financial business strategy at the moment, which is to go to areas in which the main eventer is from to make the main event fight a big fight, kind of mail in the undercard

and jack up ticket prices to the roof. I mean, the pre-sale started for UFC 295 at Madison Square Garden, John Jones, Stipe Miocic, without a co-main event announced. And during the pre-sale, people I know were like, the cheapest ticket is $900 for the nosebleeds.

People from Australia DM me and said, the ticket prices for 293 were six times that of the last time UFC came to that area. I personally think it's about that exactly. Adesanya is a proven headliner. Yes, you have the momentum of the shocking Strickland loss and the idea of can he do it again? I'm not dumb. I get why Dana is leaning into this, but it's not the right move. It's not the right move for meritocracy. And like, I love Izzy. He's an all time great. He lost the title twice in 10 months, that enough. And the fact that you've got a division that's ready to start a new chapter behind him. No, Charles Oliveira didn't get the immediate rematch. He had to go back and earn it

and beat somebody. Izzy at the very least should have to beat DDP. Heck, how about Izzy and Robert Whitaker for a third time? And the winner gets to go back into the side of the picture. Something's got to happen here, Luke. I'm really, really, really against it. And it has nothing to do with Izzy personally. But I think I understand why Dana was like matter of fact. I think that's the fight to make.

I mean, Luke, do I sound naive to the business side? I'm not. I just think that there's too many, there's too many things against that idea where knee jerk, you're like, yeah, let's do it again. Dude, he got audited in his own space. This wasn't an injury really result. This wasn't a cut. This wasn't a lucky punch. He got solved right in front of our eyes you don't get rewarded for that i don't care who you are maybe let me ask let me ask this question or brock maybe right but this ain't that this ain't that luke so let me ask this question and i'll tell you tell you my take but it would go the question would be like this would you be okay if the ufc said this our next fight is going

to be dracus duplicy versus Sean Strickland. Izzy gets the winner. Of course I'd be okay with it. Well, does he get the win? No, I don't know. Luke, I'd actually, that's a better scenario, but why, what's the case for Izzy not having to fight somebody else who isn't the champion? How many more times do you need to see him lose the title?

Like what's the case here, Luke? I don't, I'm not here luke i don't i'm not making it i i don't think he should get uh an immediate rematch and again i know this may be surprising to people who think i've been like unfairly positive towards him but i i just don't ever i never thought that criticism was very fair i just thought i was very positive when he deserved very positive things and not that i'm trying to act punitively, but we just have to be fair to the process as best we can. If you're losing two title fights out of three, you know, I don't understand what the case would be to get yet another immediate rematch. I mean, here's the thing, right? He lost two out of three title fights.

Okay, he redeemed himself big time in the second one. I think we can all agree that was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. All right, fair enough but i don't think the stoppage in the first fight was bad but it did involve referee discretion in ending it is he certainly disputes it to some extent whatever dude there's there's just none of that here there's no place to go to in this fight to be like oh it was it was competitive enough uh this time around to say run it back like you would want to run it back when like the judges get it wrong or the ref fucks it up or there's some kind of other you know factor you can clearly determine that makes you

think like okay we didn't get the satisfactory thing from this that we needed to the clear resolution of who's better well dude on that night Sean was clearly better it's not in dispute there's no question about it now of course if they fought again who's to say but on that night Jesus Christ like there's just not a debate about it and because of that when you combine I saw people being like oh but look how long he's been fighting at the top and look how many times he's done the UFC Assault. I get that they might want to do it from a business consideration. In fact, for that reason, I suspect that they will go in that direction. But the thing that you have to do is you've got to stop drawing long inferences

about someone's career. If they're the greatest of all time, then they automatically get it. These are not actual titles people got. These are just things that we say about them in the media. It's not a real thing. And if you continue to look at the broad expanse of someone's career, especially someone very decorated, then you'll just have immediate rematches forever. You do have to look at what they did more recently. And if you lost two title fights, one by stoppage, again, he disputes it, but it was a fair one. But but okay there were some

referee discretion but dude this one you just got beat he just got beat that's the that's the whole fucking story he got beat by a better guy that night and if that's the case there isn't one for an immediate rematch he has to get back in line bc he has to win what one more to get back something like that one more is fine you do have to obviously show him some level of respect that he's you know basically on the verge of being an all-time great and was a decorated champion who won back his title he's got a you know five title defenses yeah give him that respect but i have two questions associated the short ones i want to get your answer uh one am i right about the idea of the cards are a little bit watered down. The main events tend to matter more.

They're jacking up the ticket prices. Strickland versus DDP, Luke, is not going to be a pay-per-view main event that's going to cross over and get a ton of sales unless you maybe put that in South Africa. So is this more about that? Is this more about, well, we're going to need Izzy in the main event to sell it? Dude, it takes a long time to turn a guy into a star. Look how long it took Izzy to get all the love he got after beating Potato.

It takes a long time, and then he loses his next fight. This is the problem with the pay-per-view model. So there's no doubt in my mind that an Izzy – dude, Izzy Sean 2 does way more than Sean DDP does, even if it doesn't have the same level of meritocracy. All right. Would you be, is this, okay. We are both agreeing that the idea of Izzy Strickland 2 next is a bad idea.

Is my next idea better or worse than that idea? Izzy versus Alex Pineda for the vacant 205 title. Is that better or worse? i hadn't thought about that that's funny that's funny um um you can't do that you can't do that because he's got the one fight up and he lost it like if he had gone up there one time and beaten someone in the top 15 like real bad you know you'd be like all right okay we could we could entertain it but he just you can argue that that beating Blahovich puts Podeta in position to potentially get the title and the last person to beat Podeta is Izzy by knockout so you could argue there are elements where you could argue it but boy would that suck for the other light heavyweights looking to get their moment here. Yeah, that would suck big time.

Yeah. But going back to Blachowicz, like we talked about, like the game catching up with him, the Blachowicz loss, I think a lot of folks looked at what was important there, checking kicks. If you can check kicks and not give up position against Izzy and you can march into him, it changes his offense dramatically. He checked the kicks right from the start luke you know what do you take what do you make on what mikey's trying to argue here in our in our live chat here

about the idea that strickland's youtube and social numbers post fight his post fight interview the press or all that are peeking through the roof i'm not saying he's an overnight star but do you necessarily need to go in the direction of Adesanya I mean he's not ready yet to be like a star that that that you can sell tickets at a hundred dollars each for the nosebleeds no he's not there yet no I mean I will Mikey is right so yesterday I checked on YouTube trending I haven't looked this morning but again YouTube trending people like oh it's different for every person no it is not it not. It's the, it's the same for every, each country has their own trending. So like the UK chart will be different than the U S one, but in the U S yesterday, there were two videos in the top, uh, four for, uh, Sean Strickland. There was

three inside the top 15. And then there were four or five inside the top 20, all for Sean Strickland. So his life is different now. He may say, oh, the belt doesn't define me, blah, blah, blah. No, you have taken a star turn. I don't think he's, you know, there's levels to star turns, but he took a big one. Still, you do that versus Drikus Duplicy, like the fans, the casual fans don't know him

as well as they know Izzy. So what it tells you is if you did a rematch, it would just do way more numbers than the opposite. But BC, it's like, dude, you know, if you pick the right city and you put Izzy versus Sean too, at the top of it, even if the card is watered down, I can see the UFC selling very expensive tickets for that. Not that I'm justifying it, but I can see that.

I cannot see that. I cannot see them doing that with Sean versus Drikus. Like, we're just going to go to LA and we're going to sell outrageous ticket prices for this? It doesn't work that way. But with Izzy, you could do it. You could do it. All right, what about Izzy, Whitaker 3 in the co-main event, Sean versus DDP in the main event?

Hey, how about Jon Jones versus Robert Whitaker, the real fight-main event, Sean versus DDP in the main event. Hey, how about John Jones versus Robert Whitaker? The real fight that people want to see. Yeah, let's get off of this topic. All right. Uh, in any event, I don't think there should be an immediate rematch, but in all likelihood there probably will be. So that's where we are. All right. Let's talk about something else that happened on this fight card. If we can topic. I got one more thing. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I know you hate this, but I think this is important. Should we be criticizing Izzy for his response now

after both title defeats? I know he did show up at the press conference and at least give a speech that I'm okay. I give credit to Strickland. And it's not that I'm going to overlook what Izzy did in the cage.

He raised Strickland's arm. He was very, put him over, very respectful. I mean, that's, by the way, that's what champions do. I respect that, but didn't address the media afterwards in terms of taking questions,

sent Eugene Barrowman in and did put a video of himself in the car ride with his family and say, I need me time. Now I need to be with my family. While we understand that, is that acceptable for somebody in his, in his stature? I mean, could he have just sat there and fielded a few questions? How did you see that? I didn't see any problem with that at all. I i mean of all the criticisms you could make of him that's about the least of them in my view he he he is you know people kind of like mock the idea of protecting your peace dude you have to do it and he's all about this you know respond don't react

and if this is what is a better for him so he doesn't make some kind of verbal gaffe in the media that they all eat him up for later. Yeah. Or just more, more importantly, processing a very, listen, that was probably a difficult thing for him to go through.

Like I'm sure he's sad. I'm sure that that is like disappointing and any number of other things. And, you know, listen, I respect the guys who do come to the media. The way I always look at it is like, you know,

fighting with an injury. I don't expect them to, but if they do, I, I, they have my listen, I respect the guys who do come to the media. The way I always look at it is like, you know, fighting with an injury. I don't expect them to, but if they do, I, I, they have my respect. I didn't, if he did, that would have been tremendous, but I don't think he owes that quite candidly. And, um, I'm actually glad he's taken the more healthy and full, uh, you know, person first kind of approach to this. Okay. I'm torn on that.

Luke, I get, I respect that, especially from a mental health standpoint. I respect everything you just said, but I don't see why they couldn't have interviewed him in the cage afterwards. I don't see why he couldn't have answered two questions from Rogan about, did you expect Strickland to be this good? Whatever. Like he wasn't knocked out. He actually was, you know,

he showed himself in the video afterwards. It wasn't that he had a swell die and a cut lip, but that was it. I don't know. I think we got on Rousey hardcore for that yeah but dude she did that's not what he did she did a complete media blackout wouldn't even look at us like we were vermin totally different totally different all right all right let's go on let's move on thank you yeah uh and by the way he did a bunch of pre-fight media she wouldn't even do pre-fight media like forget about post-fight she wouldn't even do pre-fight you know it was a completely i mean to me not even Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Luke that was her cat yeah they had a thing that her and Ramona Shelburne i don't quite

understand it but there it is all right topic number four what do you want to say about this one great win for Alexander Volkov another setback for Tai Tuivasa. BC, my question is as follows. He came up short. He gets Ezekiel choked from mount in the second round. Is it fair, and maybe it's not, but is it fair to say the Tuivasa contender experiment is for the time being over?

It's close. It's really close. Yeah, as a contender, yeah. Yeah, it is. This is three straight defeats, three straight stoppage losses. And we talked about the 10 or 11-month layoff, which set up this fight, which I thought could have given him an opportunity to really grow his game and reset mentally and physically.

Luke, he didn't really come in in that much better shape. The only thing he really grew out was his hair. And although he didn't fight horribly, he's not evolving. He's basically content with drinking beer out of a shoe, celebrating win or loss, coming there to have a good time, and basically being Derek Lewis 2.0. And that's not a horrible thing. He's an entertainer.

Dana talked positively afterwards that he'll be fine. He'll bounce back. We love him. We all love him, Luke. But how about working on a little bit of wrestling, not just takedown defense? How about, you know, like there is a window here. Heavyweight, even with the heavyweight is loaded right now at the top in terms of big names, although John and Stipe could be exiting.

But heavyweight's never that deep. He's young. He's athletic. He can bang. He's never out of a fight. Imagine if he just leveled up just a little bit. Luke, I don't think I'm asking too much. He's already gotten himself to a pretty high level. He scored some really big wins,

but what we saw again on Saturday was kind of just not ready for prime time, ready for prime time from the, the viral, you know, let me have fun memes and moments, but he's leaving me wanting more. And I think the question comes down to, am I asking too much of him? Is there more in there? Or is he just not at the point where he's ready to capitalize on that and may never be? I'm a little torn.

I'm not really sure, Luke. But what I saw there did not look like a contender. It looked okay, looked dangerous. Not a contender though. No, no. I mean, first things first, they got to dial back the competition. I mean, first things first.

And, you know, people might say, oh, he can beat these guys. Maybe he can, but he should be fighting the Jairzinho Rosenstruks, the Marcin Tybura's of the world until he can do it. Say again? Harry Humbuckler or whatever that is. No, Harry Hunsucker. Harry Hamburglar, Parker Porter. Let's line them up, Luke.

He'll knock him down okay you you laugh that's that's what that's where i mean i'm a parker porter but like that's where he should be fighting that's who he should be fighting right now they've given him baby yep they gave him cyril gone who was you know very tough they gave him pavlovich who obviously we know is a you know terminator and now they've given him volkov who was sitting at six and he got stopped by all three he didn't just lose he got stopped by all three he is not ready for the upper end of this division period period he is not period so at 30 years of age what i would say though is it would be very stupid to be like oh well that must be the end of this whole thing he must be

done no no no no no no no but he is major, major need of a recalculation, not just around competitive grounds, but around getting back to his core fundamentals and working on his game. He has the wind at his back in one way. He probably doesn't feel this way because he's got now all these losses accumulated. And this one, you know, getting Ezekiel Choke from out

can't be great no but by the way i was talking to uh our joe gilpin who is uh i think he's a black belt but he was no he may still be a brown belt he works for a flow grappling he was telling me if you look real closely it wasn't just the ezekiel choke with the fist in the throat but that volkov was kind of on top of him so it was the fist and the throat mixed with chest on mouth asphyxiation. You know, that's a tough way to go. Dude, Volkov's a big MF-er. I mean, just a big deal.

Also, I was noticing his mouth's pretty good. Like, he is very good at maintaining where his hips should be and his weight. Like, you know, keeping mount is a bit of a lost art, especially at heavyweight. He did a really good job with it. But this is what I'm talking about. Like, if you're going to be this vulnerable against these kinds of guys, you're just not ready for that.

You're just not ready for it. So Ty does have a lot of good attributes. He's game. He's powerful. He can take a shot. I think that some of his striking is great. He can be explosive. There are parts of it that are salvageable useful and quite good but there's just too many other things and i'll

say one more thing about it like you're pointing out some of the other deficiencies how about this one like his distance closing volkov saw him coming in every time every time i'm doing with that that that right cross that he just kept timing him with was just perfect all night yeah i mean it bloodied him up it like shook him it like it it destroyed his confidence you know and this is the other part too like we're talking about izzy and sean strickland you know what had happened he took a leg kick he was able to catch it and then get on top with it this is what i mean about is he not having that other gear to go to to now make it a ground battle with the like

with the with the well-roundedness and obviously that was a very different fight here but uh that was available to Volkov in this particular contest he's I mean dude Volkov people like oh he has a lot of physical advantages well he's very big and he's tall but he has learned how to fight tall Stefan Struve never did that and it cost him big time but the thing about volkov i mentioned it before he's kind of slow he has slow feet but he has really worked on the technical aspects of his game he to me has maximized a lot of that in ways that has been very surprising and you see the results of technical development ty just has to spend more time doing that working on the nuts and bolts of his game and I think with you know in two years time you dial everything back and he works his way back hey I think that the Tai Tuivasa experiment in that sense still has a lot of life left in it but the current version

of it take the take the take the blueprint of it you know crumple it up and throw it in the garbage a new plan is needed. A new course. Chart that one, not the old one. Yeah, Ty's calf kicking was great. This is why I like to see him mix a little bit of wrestling in, because I think, you know, he could be a ground-and-pound machine, Luke. You know, he's quick, he's powerful, but it's not there yet. For Volkov, Luke, on that flip side that you were mentioning,

I'd like to see more kicking. I mean, his body kicks to Ivasa were strong. I know there's a speed issue at times against the elite heavyweights for Volkov, but I'd like to see him continue to work that kicking game more. I can't see him winning a title, Luke. I could see him putting away all the second tier guys, but do you think Volkov gets to a title shot eventually, given the lack of depth consistently in this division? So that's what I was going to ask because the question that comes up, and I did not have a good answer for it on Saturday. I might spin it back to you after I sort of riff here for just a moment,

which is like, what do you do with him? Because, all right, you've got Gahn, you've got Pavlovich, and you've got Aspinall, like the three musketeers of the next-gen heavyweights because we might get a double retirement in November, so we're going to have to figure out what the hell is going there like do I you know Volkov already lost to Aspinall Volkov already lost did he fight gone I think he had gone already beat him if I'm not mistaken I can't even remember anymore how everyone's gone fought um I don't think didn't gone beat Volkov I think he did I think he did yeah I'm pretty sure he did yeah he did um 2021 yeah got it yeah

so you're like, well, okay, could he beat Pavlovich? Maybe I, you know, I guess we'll have to see. But, you know, I really, the thing is, dude, I really actually do very, I remember when Volkov was in Bellator, getting his ass handed to him by Czech Congo. I mean, we're a long way from that, dude, a really long way. So I have a lot of respect for the journey and the development he's been on. But to answer your question, like, do I see him fighting for a title that's that's a possibility winning one i know that i just don't know and by the way for folks asking well if he's not so fast how was he able to to beat to evasa to the punch he has good timing that's how great time he's long as

shit too dude he's real long too on top of top of that. I know UFC and Dana kind of alluded to the idea that they're going to wait to see the fallout of Jones Stipe before assessing a number one contender fight, but I would still love to see Aspinall versus Gahn and maybe Volkov fight the winner of Curtis Blades and Joutz and Almeida. Aren't they fighting, or did I just make that up? I think they're fighting.

No, Curtis Blades and Almeida are fighting soon, as a matter of fact. That's coming up. That'd be a great, the winner against Volkov. I know Blades beat Volkov, but Volkov kind of rallied there at the end when Blades tired. So that could be interesting. Okay. All right.

And last but not least, BC, I'll go to you first on this. Let's talk about any other storyline from the card, any other performances or storylines from UFC 293 that stand out for you. Yeah. Homophobia. No, just kidding, Luke.

I'll say this. Although I will. Let's say one thing about that and put it to bed very quickly. for you yeah uh homophobia no just kidding luke um i'll say this uh although i well let's let's say one thing about that and put it to bed very quickly i just i just you know i don't even know what to say anymore it's like people like well what's the big deal with saying it it's like dude this isn't 1998 anymore like you know because let he we grew up on that word i mean we grew up on that word but the reality is uh people being like oh it's not a gay slur yes it is it's like please fucking stop and be like you know i don't want to be told what to say dude you guys can say whatever but the reality is uh people being like oh it's not a gay slur yes it is it's like please fucking stop and be like well you know i don't want to be told what to say dude you guys can say whatever

you want you just don't get to be in the circle of people who are in anything uh out like you only get to be on the warped end of society like do you just so just pick where you want to be that's it yeah yeah we did see apologies from charles radke and i think uh i think oscar willis forced manel cop to apologize the post-fight press conference i felt like he was spoon fitting feeding him an opportunity i don't know dana's response was kind of wishy-washy whatever for a second dana called anyone who spoke uh without uh speaking on the record to loretta hunt one of those before so oh yeah oh yeah he doesn't have a lot of ground to stand on. He did allude to that, though, that he's made mistakes, too.

As much as I want to tell you that Manel Cop, you know, want to look, Manel Cop's coming on. I thought overall this was a good breakthrough and a good victory for him. And I want to see him against the super elite here at Flyweight. I think he's going to get that chance. Even with the with the post-fight interview, he wants the smoke and a fight with him and Kaikara France will finally be a nice, intense fight. But the story, the answer to your question, I think is Felipe Dos Santos, Luke, the youngster who was going to be on the Dana White Contender Series and then got elevated to this opportunity.

He ends up losing a unanimous decision, 29-28 on two of the scorecards and 30-27 on the third. But you can argue that of anybody that didn't win on Saturday especially, but even among everybody, this kid stood out as somebody to watch. He trains with Dobronk's Luke. He looks like a mini Charles Oliveira. And what you saw for somebody so young was he embraced the idea of, I'm going to go in there and eat big shots and land even bigger ones. He never backed down an ounce.

Yes, he's going to continue to grow, and there's going to be adjustments to his game. But did you hear the ringing endorsement Dana gave him afterwards? I did not, actually. Oh, Dana's basically being like, we love this kid. He's going to be just fine from this defeat. I believe he's going to be a problem moving forward. I got those same vibes from him.

He's going to have to work on a couple different things. But, dude, he stood up to an intimidating dude in cop and went punch for punch. And there were moments in rounds two or three where it kind of looked like he was backing cop up and that the momentum was maybe shifting. I know he ate a lot of shots, but he was game as shit. Yeah, the flatweight division needs this guy to to sort of be the next you know the next gen on the way up it's gonna be fun to watch him rise yeah dude i couldn't believe how sturdy his chin was i was dude cop was unloading on him and remember i bet on okay

bet so i fucked this one up but i you know i thought it was a good bet like betting that one by ko shit dude came close a bunch of times but that kid was tough as nails so he absolutely earned my respect with that one for me okay bet i got that carlos olberg sub after they they let it go the distance and then they went to instant replay i got the sub i forgot about that that's great i believe that i went three and two this week and that you went two and three so i could be like one or two behind you in this yeah yeah i've slept on you this entire time and i've really paid for it so you know there you go uh okay but back to storylines how about laura senko how about laura senko i said on this show and other places she's the best color commentator in the ufc already you know i have

great respect for everyone else i think there's you can pick your favorites some people like paul felder or dom cruz or michpinger. They're all good. DC as well. They're all good. But I think the very best one among them is Laura Sanko. Dude, she didn't miss a fucking beat on Saturday and had the kind of analysis talking about like the bladed stance or usually the bladed setup of Sean Strickland's stance, but yet being more square with it and how unusual it was.

I'm sorry, but the rest of the commentators probably would not have said something like that i cannot imagine they would have had that level of um detail at least you know on their mind verbally ready to go to share those kinds of insights she is uh more than deserving of this opportunity you have ufc is shooting themselves in the foot by not using her more and i think anybody who may have been like on the fence or she's good for contender series, but not much more. Nope. She can do the biggest events, the most high profile ones. And in my judgment, she does it better than anybody else. And I'm glad everyone else got a chance to see that. Yeah.

She's amazing. Obviously, you know, we're friendly with her and I have a lot of respect for her game. I just thought you were a little bit ahead of the game and saying that she's outright the best, but look, that performance on Saturday was solid. And what I love about her most Luke is not a lot of BS. Like she's quick. She gets in and out and it's all useful stuff. And I got to shout out Sean Alshadi who had a really nice post fight on MMA fighting column about this. He really nailed, I think, the part of it

that made her stand out the most is it's not just the analysis that, look, we do announce it, we do broadcasting. It's my favorite thing in the world, calling boxing fights and trying to get better every day, trying to get more opportunities, but it's not just the info you deliver. Obviously, it's how you deliver it,

but Luke, even more than that, it's the chemistry of the broadcast. Sean Alshadi pointed out this fact. She makes Cormier better because he doesn't go off the rails like he does with Rogan. She checks him, too. And when Daniel Cormier just sharpens up a little bit and mixes the personality and character with solid analysis, then you get to see the very best of him. I think when he's with Rogan, although we get some fun moments, it can be too much like a fight companion. I got to shout out Sean for that. And obviously I got to shout out Senko. And afterwards, I don't know if you heard Dana at

the post-fight press conference said she's an absolute rock star. We absolutely plan on using her more moving forward. So it was really nice to see her rise to the occasion when you get that moment, Luke, that, that mom spaghetti moment, right? She got her one shot. She got a couple of times. She said like breakthrough historic moments one after another in terms of like you know first lady since since uh who's the original one luke kathy long on us yes so she sort of had these moments of like contender series fight night now pay-per-view and we got to be honest she's rising to the occasion every single time and i think the fact that she's efficient in and out, it really builds that chemistry on there. And I, and I'd have to believe it's,

she's easy to work with in that regard. And remember producers originally had her pegged for like sideline reporter. And I was saying years ago, this was a complete waste of her time. This is not what she should be doing. And now you can see that also her story and Nick sick story gives me a little bit of hope nixix never fought in ufc uh you know senko never fought but beyond just the one invicta fight never fought ufc and yet here they are thriving with their ability to help others in mma um you know i don't put myself on their level i think i'm pretty far from it but they give me hope that yes you know without even without that experience i can meaningfully contribute in my own role so

there you go i i'm still a dom cruise guy felder's a riser i don't know it's great i love michael bisping love his personality love you know him as a podcast i don't love him as a as a infight analyst i like a more studio personality work i think sometimes it just depends on what you're looking for if you're looking for. If you're looking for X's and O's, he is a little bit more like heat of the moment kind of thing. And I like the X's and O's thing, which is why I think that Laura

Senko is the best. So it's kind of, it's a bit of a preference call there, but I do agree. I do agree that her and DC, DC was roped in. She was the sheepdog, right? Roping in the sheep there, kind of keeping everybody in line. Obviously, John Anik does that as well in his role in play-by-play, but it worked.

Saturday night worked really, really well. So good for Laura Senko. Congratulations to her. All right. With that in mind, we have to talk about our next sponsor, BC FitBod, who's going to transform how you work out this coming fall. FitBod workouts fit into my routine, keep me motivated, and I'm seeing progress already. Yeah, we already know that smart technology is all around us and you wouldn't use

a printed map when you have your phone's GPS. Am I right? How about using technology to improve your workout? It's the same thing with FitBod's technology. It improves my workout by creating routines that I can stick to. No doubt about it. If you're looking to push your limits at the gym or even just jumpstart your fitness routine, FitBod can help. Yeah. And the FitBod app creates customized workouts based on your goals, your fitness level, the available equipment you have. Here's the thing. It learns from your previous workouts and adapts as you improve. It's the perfect companion to help you crush your fitness goals this summer. All right. So FitBot's powerful technology understands your strength training ability,

studies your past workouts, and adapts to your available gym equipment. Dudes, this keeps your gym sessions fresh and fun, and it mixes up your workouts. Yeah, dudes. You can easily keep track of your achievements and personal bests with FitBod's progress tracking charts. Learn the new movements right away with over 1,000 demonstration videos. And Luke, you know, I once worked out with you in Miami. I need a little help with my technique. No doubt about it. It's not too late to crush your fall fitness goals try fit bod today and you can get 25 off your subscription or you can try the app for free here's the website we want you to go to fitbod.me

slash combat and as always you know combat it's with a k that's fitbod.me slash combat as bc said combat with a K. All right, let's get to it. It's time for DMs from dogs. All right, BC, question number one from Real Kempe. He or she asks, were you surprised at the lack of urgency, motivation, and coaching in Izzy's corner before the fifth round?

Stark contrast with Sean's team, who were great all night, and then calling the other corner seasuckers. I mean, it was a whole thing on Saturday night. But certainly in Nixick's corner, dude, they were cracking the whip. They were like, no, no, no, no, go get this guy. This guy's a cocksucker. This guy's right nipple is hanging low. This guy sticks it to dogs.

I mean, Nixick was on fire, Luke. I don think he said that but but like then you look at eugene's corner and again every corner is gonna have a different vibe but it didn't seem like they were aware yes i don't know how would you explain what happened i think they were bamboozled i think they were as shocked in the moment as we were it's not that you know and we only have quick access to those corner bites as they're juggling between both corners. So we didn't get the whole picture, but it looked like almost like they were all waiting for the real Izzy to awaken. And that Izzy, Luke, wasn't there that night.

No, he just wasn't. I think, again, people are like, oh, did Izzy lose or did Sean win? Guys. Sean won. Sean won, dude. Sean won. Sean fucking won.

Sean fucking won. There's no denying it. And I think they were all just didn't know what to do about it. All right. Question number two from Travel Craft Enthusiast. What is your favorite corner coach performance in combat sports? Now, that opens up a wide history of boxing and others. What do you think bc it's like are you looking for them saying the right thing at the right moment you know leon edwards's team before that fifth

round you know could bring a tear to your eye watching it in the usman rematch when leading to the head kick um i'm partial to to pat berry's uh you know you're the mother f and best with rose after the head kick against Whaley, although that was after the fact, sort of a celebratory moment. In boxing, Luke, I think the go-to is always going to be what Teddy Atlas did in the corner of Michael Moore, particularly in the George Foreman fight and in the fights around that, where, I mean, he actually went a little too far at times. He would sit on the stool, make Michael Moore stand up,

but he would just will him to break out of his shell and bring the performance out of him, referencing his children and all this stuff. Sometimes those are the moments, Luke. And also that time, Mark Montoya, when we're called Pennington, was like, I had enough. He's like, no, you can go out there in the fifth round. That's fine.

I don't think that was Mark Montoya. Did we say worst moments or best moments? Sorry. Again, to be fair to him, I don't think that was Mark Montoya. Mark Montoya is at a factory X. Then who sent Pennington back into the fifth round against Nunes? I forget his name, but it wasn't Mark Montoya. Then if I'm slandering Luke for the sake

of comedy, I need to take a step back. Well, it is 9-11, your favorite day. I mean, you just can't be relied upon to be can't wait for september 11th congratulations really this is our new bit this is our new thing this is what we're doing now okay great great great i mean come on it's funny dude it's funny you said it on national tv uh all right so favorite coach in combat did uh let me ask you this Look, it was Montoya, but thank you. Thank you very much. It was?

Yes. Really? Yes. She was a factory ex? I think I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong. I think I'm right. It looks like it's saying the internet's telling me that.

I'll have to do better research after. All right. Again, I could be dead wronging myself. I don't remember with clarity anymore. Uh, BC question for you on this one. Did Goosen and are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments.

Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Corrales have any moment before his major comeback against Castillo. Great, great point.

That should have probably been an even more automatic one than the Teddy Atlas, Michael Moore one, which was also really big, right? When he willed him to that victory against Holyfield to win the title, not George Foreman. Sorry, obviously dead wrong. Michael Moore got knocked out by George Foreman. He willed him to victory against Holyfield to win the title. Yes. Joe Goosen in the corner of Diego Corrales after the second knockdown

when he spit out the mouthpiece to get extra time. Joe shoves in the mouthpiece and goes, you better fucking get inside on him now. You know what I mean? That's just like, and he did it with such a disappointed dad. Like, come on, dude, what are you doing? And then what is, you know,

what does Corrales do? Comes back from hell to stop Castillo on his feet in probably the greatest boxing match of all time. Really, probably the greatest one ever. Yeah, right. But yeah, look, it comes down to that motivation, right? That's what's special. Game planning is huge.

X's and O's are huge. But do you have a close enough relationship with that pupil that's almost like family where you can press that button at the right time and get them to the next level? Sometimes that's almost like family where you can press that button at the right time and get them to the next level sometimes that's more important than anything else when when these fights are decided by that much dude i one time i had a drill instructor yell in my ear to get me to finish something and it worked he he yelled it but he didn't really yell it like he was you know they normally just scream at the top of their lungs but he just kind of said it loudly in front of everyone he's like if you don't finish this you're

gonna leave here the same piece of shit that you arrived wow and i was like fuck he's right so i was actually able to finish uh the task and uh that one's always stuck with me he's like you're just gonna leave here the same piece of shit that you arrived my junior year in high school luke i was playing rec basketball and in my town that was we had like 14 team league it was like serious people cared about it and we were in this big game at the end of the year to clinch a playoff spot and i'm one of the worst free throw shooters in the history of life luke and i got followed late and we were we were there's a tie game and i had a chance to put us over with under a minute to go and my two teammates todd corbin and cory evans were like they they were standing on the free

throw line while i got the ball, and they were like, which wasn't the DDP or Jay-Z sign. It was, don't be a vagine. And you know what I did, Luke? I banked in both shots, and we won the game. Yeah, dude, yeah. Dude, if they didn't do this to me, then, you know, but that kind of speech

doesn't work anymore. One of my friends who I saw over the weekend, he coaches his son's baseball team. And I was like, my friend played college baseball. He wasn't good enough for the pros, but he was good enough to get a slot in college. He played catcher. So he's pretty good.

And I asked him, I was like, how good is your son? He's like, dude, he's the worst player on the team. And I'm like, well, you're just being harsh because you were okay at it. He's like, no, no, no, no no no no here's how bad he is they were in a game and the their team the son's team the team he's coaching was rallying and it was they were at two outs and it was then ultimately his son's turn to go at bat and when the rest of the team realized it was his son's turn he goes multiple kids let out an audible groan i was like dude your son must be terrible so does this have a happy ending did it lead with his son getting

the breakthrough hit because the dad encouraged him or no no no he struck out no they lost oh that's a horrible story that's the worst thing i've ever heard uh mikey is saying uh coach latore and mike perry would be a great example. That's a top combo, but I want to call it like in all of combat sports history. Yeah. All right. Question number three here from Eve Goss. Evo G's.

If you were a matchmaker, how would you arrange the next fights at 185 near the top of the division? Next title shot, DDP, Izzy, Whitaker, et cetera. What do you got on that? If we weren't doing Izzy, Strickland, too, if meritocracy won out, we know we have Hamzat versus Costa, which is a big one. What do you do? What do you do?

If that winner is decisive, the winner gets probably a title shot, right? But it's decisive. Like if one of them ekes by, I think they have to fight another one. Well, the key question here is, did Duplicy lose his title shot by not accepting this one? I don't think he should have. Whether he will or not is a separate question, but if I was matchmaking in fairness or whatever,

I would make Sean DDP. Okay. Maybe winner of Costa Hamzat gets Izzy. Let's not forget Cannoneer, who's in a good spot. He weighed in on Saturday, too, just in case. Right. Cannoneer's out there as well. So maybe the winner of Homzat and Costa gets Cannoneer.

Would you do – okay, if Izzy's not going to get the title shot but wants another middleweight fight, what is that fight similar to Dobronk's facing... What's his name? Just recently... Islam? No, he recently beat... Oh, Darius. Benny Darius.

Would you give him Kananir in a rematch? No one would be interested in that, but what do you do with him? I mean, that fight's not very... The problem that Izzy has is like he's beating a lot of these guys you know so like the fresh blood you would want to see him against something like that again oh i got it bow nickel i got it luke i got it yeah all right the bow nickel one already yeah all right maybe not okay maybe not uh all right from the nifty guy i mean that dude just touches himself at the bus stop all right out of the new first time

allegedly ufc champions of 2023 grosso pantoja o'malley strickland who do you think will have the most title defenses oh that's a great that's a fantastic question wow what do you think all right let's play it the other way who's least likely first who is least likely to hold on to this belt sean strickland unfortunately is the answer right he might be i mean you could say o'malley but uh because bantamweight's tough as shit that's true but pantoja's in a division where there's so much parity that it's hard to imagine him defending it a few times as well that's right that's right i gotta tell you i don't see long-term title reigns in any of these cases except maybe o'malley

yeah i think o'malley's the answer it could be grasso right like we're not like because she rose to the occasion so so well against shevchenko and obviously moving up to this weight class has raised her game that jim is on fire could she beat valentina again yes could she beat blanchfield or faro yeah yeah could. But O'Malley's probably the answer, Luke. Unless he fights Marab. Unless he fights Marab, dude. Unless he fights Marab and then he's curtains, probably.

But he might get knocked out. You never know. All right, and last but not least, BC, from O'Reilly7402, with The Pleasure Man more than likely going to be, yeah, more than likely going to be released. Who has the best or worst nickname in the UFC? Yeah, boy, it didn't go, it wasn't very pleasurable for The Pleasure Man more than likely going to be released, who has the best or worst nickname in the UFC? Yeah, boy, it wasn't very pleasurable for the Pleasure Man. Yes, yes.

He got viciously put down. Do you know what's an underrated name? The Black Country Banger. Is that what the guy's name is? Is that Jai Herbert? Who's the Black Country Banger, Luke? Did I just make that up? It's possible. Are you just inserting black in places where it's actually not like his nickname is actually just the country

banger you're like you know fuck that he's the black country no jai herbert the black country banger dude that is a great nickname that's a pretty great nickname i mean i will always be partial to he's not currently on the roster obviously but the axe murderer for vanderlei silva yes andre touchy feely is always a first-team all-name. Touchy-Feely is a good one. You know, it's a little... But it's good. A little cheeky, yeah.

Who's got the worst? Oh, Beast in 25-8 is always going to be the worst. Who is that? Who is that? Corey Anderson. Oh, before he became OT? Yeah, Beast in 25-8. That's right. We talked to him on that on the RSD. I remember now. Okay, yeah, that's he became OT. Yeah, Beaston 25-8. That's right.

We talked to him on that on the RSD. I remember now. Okay, yeah, that's a rough one. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't think that one through. Yeah. But he changed it. Were we missing one, Mikey?

What are we missing here? We're missing a big one, right? Who's got the worst name right now? Oh, Miranda Maverick. Miranda Fear The. Yeah. Yeah, that's bad. Yeah. That's bad. You know who doesn't fear the Maverick? Jasmine Jaz fear the. Yeah. Yeah, that's bad. Yeah.

That's bad. You know who doesn't fear the Maverick? Jasmine Jazdavisius, Luke. I see that. Why would she? You know? Why would she? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think if she beats Tracy Cortez, she gets Brian Ortega or no? Sorry, that's crossover matchmaking right there. Sorry. Okay. On to the next one, please. Is that it? That's the last of them.

All right. We got some shit to get to. I scoured the globe yesterday for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between, the combat sports, and beyond. We call this BC's Feces. Here we go. Dude, that is epic. I love that shit.

That is so much better. So much better. UFC 293 from Sydney. Luke, how about Featherweight Chepe Mariscal? Did I butcher that? Probably. He broke the arm and the soul of Jack Jenkins. Luke, this was gnarly, bro.

Yeah, steps across Hirai Goshi. He braces on his arm. And then when he comes around, he knees the messed up arm. Oh, yeah, yeah. That is a wonderful. And, dude, Jack Jenkins was winning this contest. Yeah, he was. But, dude, you got to practice your break falls, kids, you know?

Whew. All right. Let's go to Tyson Pedro. What do you think of this KO celebration after he pleasured the pleasure man? It was a little Adesanya-esque, but it was pretty cool just no dude he did the old samurai slashing thing and then he sheathed the sword i guess what i'm saying is izzy had the celebration like so well timed and so ready that i feel like he's going to inspire more people to do that i know tito always had an exaggerated one but like that was like right there for pedro the second the fight was over he had it ready Luke also I gotta say these um these uh Samoan slash like Maori guys

they've got the best tattoos in the game boy let me tell you they look sharp do you believe in Tyson Pedro now uh I mean I would say beating Turkali doesn't tell me much but it was a nice win it looked good yep uh here's that that clip we showed earlier i wanted to ask you a question about this this is the final 10 seconds of the fight dude i felt like strickland like in this moment realized he was going to win and then let out all the anger and hate inside of him right there it was like yeah scary to watch and then i also was afraid he was going to get caught with an errant punch and get knocked out you know what i mean hey listen on a night where multiple anti-anti-gay slurs were dropped it was sean strickland who had the the the presence of mind to not do it so i was with you dude like he was you know what it was man like that was

i wouldn't call fist fighting therapy i don't think that's quite right but yes he had a moment there where something came out of him that he had been holding inside for a long time. And on that level, I do feel good for him, for sure. He did say after the fight that he called him a China man a bunch of times during that rant. So normally we might have talked about how wrong that was, except for everybody used the F word instead. But the other F word, and that's where we were. Hey, let's go to this. Eric Nixick, friend of the show.

What a huge, huge night for him. Let's listen into his on point, uh, in between rounds, encouragement to Strickland. Hey, listen up.

Okay. All right, let's go. We got two rounds of this. I don't want to lose some fucking boring ass decision here. Hey, we didn't come all this way to lose a fucking point fest. Get on this motherfucker.

Let's go. Dude. He had, he just like knows the way strickland is wired and knows like i said what buttons to press that was impressive luke listen sometimes they it's the horse that needs that switch you know i need that good coach i got married yeah yeah indeed uh also though nick sick had a nice hilarious moment here uh let's listen to what he called Izzy. We can beat this cocksucker.

You got to go, motherfucker. This is what BC says to me every time Ariel's nominated for best MMA programming. I don't use the word seasucker, but yeah, we can beat that guy, Luke. And I believed we could, and we did twice. Can we do it three times? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Why don't I ever get nominated for best MMAma journalist luke i would do like a full campaign against ariel if they actually nominated me i got nominated once and uh never again i would like to be nominated for best mma analyst but i guess people don't care about my shit so there you go they don't they don't look uh i got one more from nixick did you see the celebratory post-fight dance by media row? I did not actually. Oh, that is all dude. I got to tell you if you, I mean, how happy must he be?

Right. I mean, what have your, one of your pupils who's been with you for a long time, who is obviously, let's say at a lightning rod for controversy, uh, much of it deserved,

but nevertheless, a guy you've just been training for a long time and he overcomes in a moment like that? Holy shit, man. Luke, I'm ready to induct another person into the Lifting Gloves Hall of Fame. This is Big Baller Brand's LiAngelo Ball, but I want you to rate his form here.

Oh, I mean, this is the worst shit I have ever seen in my fucking life. Is that better or worse than Schaob's bench that time when you had to talk to him in Miami? Much worse. Much worse. Dude, why is he...

Go play it one more time, please. Why is he wearing batting gloves? Why is his grip stupidly narrow for no reason? Why is he using... He's like a push press slash behind the back skull crusher type movement. It doesn't make any sense. And why are his weights that he stole from a flea market in 1987 all put there on the bar? I mean, everything about it screams fuckhead, really.

Okay, that was aggressive. Let's go to Jacksonville. Game bread, bare knuckle MMA. Brandon Jenkins landing a spinning back elbow on Anthony Njokani. Luke, did you like this? I'll say this. Bare knuckle boxing is just, I mean, it's just CTE for sport, you know? Yeah.

But bare knuckle MMA, you don't see it in this clip, but it does. The lack of gloves changes the grappling a little bit. It makes it more grappling friendly. And it's an interesting little twist. I don't think it's necessary now. I get that that was the start of the sport. I just don't think it's necessary now.

But that's not going to stop me from playing highlights from this card on Friday. Luke, here's Juan Alvarez. I'll play you the whole fight. He took care of Christopher Wingate in 13 seconds watch this Luke these guys look like they'll be working at Chipotle later after this fight right he'll hook see what I mean about the gloves yeah dude just like that right my man just stepped up in there to outside ashi and was like suck it indeed indeed uh here's the soundbite of the night kayla harrison is the interviewer joel bauman who put it on maki patolo kicked his ass uh he had an interesting call out afterwards

hey zuckerberg i'm shadow band god This is the hashtag that I'm using Because you keep censoring me and suppressing me Very interesting How you censor and suppress me But Instagram boosted A pedophile network on your platform Very interesting You condone that?

You condone that Dana? You condone that? Well I fight I fight. I fight to eradicate childhood malnutrition from the planet. That's what I do. That's why I fight. I fight for kids. I don't condone that.

Also, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, I'm the influencer to influencers. If you want to fight someone, then let's fight to eradicate childhood malnutrition from the planet. Ladies and gentlemen, your winner, Joel Bauman. I mean, at least he's got a proper platform, Luke. You know what I mean? It wouldn't be MMA if someone wasn't promoting the, you know, the internet's right-wing fever swamps. But here we are. Well, I mean, you know, childhood malnutrition is a serious thing, Luke.

Hey, that's great. No, no, no. That's great. I applaud that. That's great. I'm happy he came after dana zuck and the paul brothers with his time but hey kayla look great i'm glad to see her getting that broadcasting work over there speaking of kayla luke let's listen to her commentary on maybe the craziest 30 seconds in mma we've seen in a while edgy northrop to just explode with violence through his toughness. Cody Herbert's toughness. Oh my God! Oh my God!

He's still in it. He's still in it. No way! No way! Flying knee punches. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh my gosh. Cody Herbert with the sweep and gets back up.

Where is this guy from? What is he made of? He's from Wyoming. Oh, corn fed. They make them like this in Wyoming. Oh, that's how they build them. Oh, Cody, no. I got to go to my homie.

That was pretty wild, right? That was pretty fun. Yeah, not bad. The commentary team seemed into it. We got one more, of course, in the main event. Junior Dos Santos took a split decision over Fabrizio Verdum god damn and let's bring in mike goldberg here so you want to be a bare knuckle mma fighter luke look at that right that is insane jesus the fight wasn't great though luke you know uh jds was trying to protect his hands and verdum was trying to pull guard i don't

know maybe we didn't need it after all maybe i shouldn't have gotten you mean a guy who's nearly 50 wasn't like in top fighting condition i don't know what's going on anymore those supplements though he did look good i'll tell you that much all right look great he look as they say on the uh on the um uh co-main event podcast he looked great giving off the bus you know what i'm saying saying? Yes, indeed. Hey, let's go to downtown Denver. Somebody had fun with the street sign. Luke, your thoughts. You know what? I've always loved Denver. I've always. All right. We're going to go to the university of Indiana football tailgate. Somebody. Hey, real quickly. Do you remember it? Was it tied to Ivasa who walked out to john denver

on saturday night yeah dc was like man this track is banging who's this and then a minute later he's like no i don't like this anymore that was weird that whole thing why is is john denver big in australia or something i don't think it was too that walked out to that right wasn't somebody else maybe it was tyson pedro or something somebody who was aussie walked out to it and i was like what are they doing that for? Country roads is a universal theme, Luke, even though there's West Virginia, Mountain Mama. Mountain Mama, West Virginia.

I don't think it's quite universal, but okay. All right. Well, Luke, fight of the week took place at the IU football tailgate. Watch somebody's mom take on all comers here in the white, male or female. Ooh. Ooh. Damn. Dude, I wonder what they're fighting over. Karen's got a good right hand, right?

Yo, Karen's vicious with it. She's going to pick up and throw something. You know it. She's not done. She's not done. Oh, she's just hitting randos. Dude, I watched this about 50 times. She hits guys, girls, old guys, young women. She's just going. Oh, she's just hitting randos. Dude, I watched this about 50 times. She hits guys, girls, old guys, young women.

She's just going off right here. You think she is hitting them so she has the right to say the six-letter F word? Oh, so how dare you? Hey, it's county fair, Ciz, and let's keep this going here. They're still fighting. Luke, you ever see those slides? You ever take Tukey on those slides? You ever think you can stand up and try to surf down it on the mat let's watch this lady try

no that's a real bad idea yeah yeah you get what you pay for there all right fail season continues let's go to the fire pit, Luke. That's a bad idea. Yeah, pretty bad. Turns out pretty bad idea. Yeah, it's a bad idea, my guy. Here we go. There we go.

Yep. He probably got tattooed from that fire, Luke. But speaking of that, it's time to rate that tat. Let's go to the girl with the dragon ear tattoo. What do you think of this? Sorry, it's a boy. What do you think of this, Luke? That is excellent.

Really? That is very good. Okay. I don't like the design or the placement, but you think the craft is good. The craft is. I mean, look at how good the shading is on the scales and the belly. And that takes a lot of time and precision. Yeah, that's very, very good. What's your score out of 10?

I want you to score each one. What's your score out of of 10 here that's an eight and a half or a nine that's that's a very good tattoo yeah all right let's see this next leg tat tattoo that we'll just call tattoo yeah this is a zero this is a zero that looks like they lost a bet yeah oh that's a zero that's a negative 50 billion is what that is all right uh what if woody from toy story was a real man luke let's look at this tattoo next i mean just end it just end your life okay no score needed there's no need to continue living at this point you ever show up at a potluck dinner with this tattoo luke you may eat for free your thoughts again um i don't know if the state this gentleman lives in has assisted suicide but it would be something i consider listen jack

kvorky we got one more for you i know you're always against me wearing the american flag nwo shirt luke because i'm disgracing it what do you think of this tat though oh he's got the marine corps eagle globe and anchor on his forearm just like i do um that's what i've got here that's good technique right that's that's good that's good uh well i'll say yeah i mean i'll say this the tattoo itself is extremely well done like that is in a very very very expensive tattoo to get somebody who can do that kind of quality but uh you know i'm just not big on flag desecration it's not a thing for me how dare you they're not desecrate they're celebrating it please inform yourself of the u.s flag code and then shut your civilian pig mouth thank you rick monday always with that bullshit let's go to the punch machine luke violence always happens here this is not the one we've run oh god this poor fucking kid's about to get wasted yeah how did i know get the kids away from the punch machine you fucks oh boy uh luke what do you think of uh of uh

morning combat social media guy brendan lynch uh he's a good dude why yeah good dude he just got some crime he no not yet he just got a brown belt Luke and Jujutsu look at this guy hey congratulations to Brendan Lynch almost there man almost there he's kind of like a poor man's uh Gordon Ryan we've established but he's a you know he's a good dude jacked his shit shit. Good for him. Good for him. Here he is, getting promoted. Pretty amazing. Well done, Brendan. Well done. Let's go. Let's keep it moving here. Let's go to the... Luke, you ever try

to bring something home and it can't fit in your car? Bro. Dude, I see shit like this all the time in south america all the time yeah i didn't tell you so like we on my last trip we were driving from cartagena to barranquilla and like when you leave cartagena you know you see it's just country between the two cities right and then you so you leave the city it's everyone's on motorbikes motorbikes motorbikes and then like bicycles bicycles bicycles dude we got like an hour outside of Cartagena and I'm not doing a bit everyone in this village was riding donkeys in and out in and out swear to god I had never seen that before like the whole village was riding donkeys I was like wow man you don't have

to drive very far to see uh oh did I yeah you Yeah, you blacked out, Luke. You blacked out. I blacked out? Yeah, let me fix that. I don't know what happened there. Let me see what happened. Can you hear me? My savior rode a donkey into the city, too. Just a heads up right there. I can still hear you. Can you guys hear me or not? We can hear you, but no camera at the moment. Give me a second. I'll take a look at it. Hang on one second.

All right. Well, we play a lot of elder abuse on this show. Luke, do you still have access to look at the screen? Because I've got the opposite of elder abuse coming up next, Mikey, if you want to hit it. About time one of these oldies scored a big win on this show right there uh do we get an update on luke's blackout usually when luke blacks out he pisses himself and eats a sloppy cheeseburger like prime hasselhoff look your camera is back but i don't hear you. Tell him I can't hear him. All right.

Well, we're going to just continue this rough. Well, let's find it. Mikey, are we good? Are we good here? Just continue it. All right. We'll just keep going here. It's a rough week for the big white ladies, but, you know, somebody's got to play the videos on this show.

Oh, boy. Yes. Yes. I believe she can fly too yep wow that serves her right i mean they mess with these bowls they pull on their bag and they you know give me a second guys i can get a fix just hang on one second all right back he's we're close we're i think we almost have him here i'm being told i'm being told in my ear hole it's great content great tv just a reminder folks right bc loves you thank you uh continue to purchase our merch there at morningcombat.store get the average joke collection put it on your skin there you go right there you see the lower third morningcombat.store ah two washed dads just it's looking great though i mean you look great in this hat bomber jacket sizz Susan, it's the fall, right?

You want to show up to those County fairs. You want to be wearing the red, I'm sorry, the green or the black of the old bomb bear. Do we have him now? I believe we have him Luke. Yeah, I guess I'll just freestyle. Right. You know what I mean? Just, you know, just continue to sit here and, you know, talk some ass, right? Just keep it going. Oh, this week. Hey, guys, Showbox, the new generation.

Friday night, San Antonio Tejas, your boy. BC will be there 9.30 p.m. Eastern this Friday. We got a bunch of great prospects on the rise and, of course, on the call. Hall of Famer Barry Tompkins. Hall of Famer Steve Farhood. The great El Diamante Raul Marquez and myself, your boy BC. Also, Lupe Contreras, one of the best ring announcers in this game, will be back with us.

Great to see that handsome salt-and-pepper gentleman right there. Luke, his camera is back, and we should have him on audio very shortly. It would not be an episode of the award-winning morning combat, unless we lost something, including our dignity and potentially our jobs. And maybe if there's not a quality control and have you seen this, somebody could lose their virginity on the show too. You never know, right? We have shown dong before, but do we have him now? Do we have him? All right. Well, Hey, how about about this how about this great gift from jay

paquette shout out to the paquettes there in nova scotia uh luke is close we're close to reconnecting him okay i'm there i'm there it's gonna look like trash because i had to set up everything crooked you can show the thing it looks crooked as hell i mean it's it's not much of you know it's not much of a step down from how you already already look luke but i was establishing here that this is a rough week for white women. Did you see that lady get thrown over the fence by the bull? That was wild, Luke. I did not.

I did not. Mikey, you want to play Big Z's one more time? Dude, big country got lifted. Yes, she did. Yes, she did. She got high. She got high indeed. Let's keep it going.

Let's go to the pool, Lukeke you ever play chicken in a pool oh why do you got big bertha up there oh wow wow bertha took us yo yo shamu that was like was that look like sea world good segue Speaking of dolphins. Got two more for you here. Mike said that's a shark. Mikey said it's not a dolphin. That's a shark. Yes, we got two more for you. Let's do it, Mikey. White seems so out of character, you know? Yep. And Luke, you know, we love the Spider-Man meme, just like when you meet santa at the mall and you have to tell your kids that he may not be the

real one but he does work for santa not every spider-man has those same skills are you spider-man sir can you like shoot white stuff out of your hands uh no can you shoot white stuff out of down there all right you can leave now bye dude when i was in high school that's the only thing i used to do was exactly stuff like that luke just just just the worst public stunts like that all the time i can't believe you were an underachiever it seems yeah that's all the shit that will fit this week. Thank you to Mikey. Thank you, Luke, for holding the show together, Luke.

Yeah, I already gave the bit about merch and all that. I don't know what else you want to say. Well, my camera is off. Sorry about that, everyone. I had to switch camera systems, and I couldn't finish setting it up on the tripod, so it's all messed up. Thanks, everyone who watched today.

We really appreciate it. Let's remind everyone, hey, here we go merch merch merch merch there you go morningcombat.store morningcombat.store to get the merch it's all available all this this stuff and everything else from average joe art so go take a look at it showtime.com is the label that pays showtime.com 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it can keep it. If not, you can bounce. MorningCombat at gmail.com is available for you to email the show. We will have more stuff for you on Wednesday and Friday, and of course, some interviews between now and then, and a whole lot more.

That is Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Check out the post-fight show from Saturday if you want more analysis from Saturday night, and I guess we're done. So until then, thank you guys so much for watching. We're out of here. We'll catch you guys on Wednesday, and until then thank you guys so much for watching we're out of here we'll catch you guys on wednesday and until then may all of your games be loyal