MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Showtime Boxing Schedule | Tyson-Jones | UFC Fight Island 3 | Bellator 242 | MORNING KOMBAT Extra

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

Luke and Brian are back with a special Morning Kombat Extra to break down Showtime's recently announced return to boxing schedule that spans the rest of the year. The boys also preview Bellator's return to the MMA world this weekend.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Friday the 24th of July 2020 2020, and it is time, Donks, for Morning Combat Extra. Hi, everyone. I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I am joined by the gentleman on the other side of the screen, the conspiracy to my theory. He is the man in combat sports over at CBS Sports, Connecticut's own raccoon dumpster, I don't know, searcher, eater, guy who just roams through the garbage for food. It's my friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian.

How are you? Very well, Luke. I'm a man who knows what I want and what I like. Okay, Luke? All right. A show so nice we had to do it twice this week. And can we take that fourth wall and just remove it for a second Luke because people were in virtual upheaval over what they

thought was a womp womp a little bait and switch a little fight island part two sort of we're gonna give you the palm tree no we're not we're gonna put it in an arena the big surprise on monday show it wasn't supposed to be jay okay okay all right jay filled in for that big surprise okay the big surprise is what came after what we're going to get into today that boxing's back in a big way with pbc and showtime so uh all people ready to uh raise jake up on a jay on a stake here and let him uh hang for our sins. He tried his best. I know it sounded like he was coming in from an airplane hangar,

but he tried his best, all right? Yeah, so two responses to that. One, you're right. The big announcement was supposed to be we were going to debut the Showtime boxing schedule, but then the announcement got pushed to Wednesday. And then the other part was, oh, my God, they were so bitter at Jay. I didn't hear the hissing of that ac window unit he has until i went back and watched the video afterwards bc and i wanted to die i couldn't believe how awful it sounded so good news today there's no jay on the show today i'm sure our listeners and

viewers bc will find a way to carry on they will sleep through the night tonight yeah and he had that weird Inspector Gadget bad guy camera over his shoulder. I felt like I was watching ladies undress on a sneaky bathroom camera, something gross like that. But hey, we're past that period. Will Jay return at the normal Monday show?

We'll have to wait and see. But for now, we got a big extra show planned, Luke. A lot of fights this weekend, a lot of fight news. What about a guest? Do you want to do a guest? Yeah, so we're going to do our first. I mean, we had Aljamain Sterling, but he was a guest slash host because you weren't there.

It was me, Chuck, and Aljamain. So I guess this is our first live. Was that show live? I don't know. Maybe this is our second guest. It's the first time we've ever done it in this way, and me together having a guest on but showtimes let me make sure i get this guy this guy's got a longer title than like the duke of essex in uh the royal family he is the president and sports excuse me the president of sports and events programming

steven espinosa he's the guy in charge of showtime's boxing business, but not just that. He covers basically who's the guy in charge of sports at Showtime. It's Steven Espinosa. He'll be here around 1130. Will you call that fucking weasel what he is to his face? Will you, Luke? Will you have the balls? I never thought he was a weasel.

Even before I worked at Showtime, you can go back and look this up. So he gave me like a 30-minute interview at Mayweather Pacquiao when i was covering it for sb nation i've always had a pretty good relationship with steven in fact i'm pretty sure i wouldn't have this job if i if i hadn't previously had a pretty good relationship with steven but we're gonna ask him today about the huge announcement uh showtime basically laid out their entire boxing schedule for the rest of 2020 we'll get to the future of bellator because everyone's asking about that and hello they have a show tonight at the mohegan sun uh so we'll talk to him about that as well uh the future what's up with floyd mayweather i don't know stuff like that bc uh and he's a great he's a great guy and an even better guest so we're excited to do that uh you

know shout out to the viacom cbs family here but we're gonna bring it we're gonna sling it and bring it and like i mentioned i know we got into some of the headlines storylines heading into this weekend on the Monday show but uh good week for fights right we got boxing we got two different MMA promotions going at it it should be fun yeah very quickly I didn't I wanted to start with UFC but I just have to get your opinion if we can by the way of course give the video a thumbs up subscribe to the channel If you want to try Showtime, you can. You can go to Showtime.com. You can try it free for 30 days. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. And obviously, you want to get MK merchandise, and of course

you do. Store.show.com. Okay, BC, with that in mind, very quickly, because I want to talk about UFC before Steven gets here. I reacted to it yesterday on my radio show. I'll just give you the floor here. Tyson versus Roy Jones Jr. was announced, and for folks who may have missed it, it is an exhibition. It is for eight rounds. They won't wear headgear. Andy Foster, the head of the California State Athletic Commission, promising that they would not go for the KO. They're just going to move around a little bit we'll talk about jake paul being on the undercard which makes me just want to die but let's just sort of stick to the scenario in the main event 54 years old versus 51 years old what do you think uh it's it's a really hard topic to get into because one thing it's on brand for me

right hash guy hashtag old guy fights that's the promotion i'm trying to get off uh off the ground and on the street and i mean could this be a better matchup for that in some ways it's great because it's an exhibition so if you're fearful of of you know mike tyson and uh what getting back into fighting can do at this age at least he's doing it against another old guy right roy jones jr who you, his career kind of went on too long and he was fighting pro as recently as 2018. I'd rather see that than Mike fight a real fighter, a contender, or even, you know, some, some schlub they, they, they padded up to, for him, you know, another McNeely type or equivalent at this point. But at the same time, you know, I don't know, I'm not feeling a lot of it. I'm not feeling the, hey, let's come out front and say we're not going to go after each other. This will be a

showcase of skills. Okay, so this is a sparring match and it would be different maybe if I didn't already still have the stain, you know, on my clothing from that 2006 pay-per-view. I don't think a lot of people remember. Tyson retired in 2005, right? Showtime pay-per-view. I don't think a lot of people remember Tyson retired in 2005, right? Showtime pay-per-view with Kevin McBride. He kind of just sat down and quit and was like, I'm done. That's, that's fine, Mike. But then he came back a year later and wanted to do this sparring world tour where he would put on pay-per-view cards in every city and they tried one and they put real fights, quote unquote, on the undercard. and then he sparred Corey T-Rex Sanders wearing a t-shirt and headgear in the quote-unquote main event and it was sloppy and it was gross and

it was sparring and the pay-per-view idea got shut down right after that so um I don't want any kind of exhibition that's just crap and a waste of our time I've got further issues Luke could you pick a worse date than Canelo Alvarez's return and possibly a big fight against Callum Smith and also a UFC fight night in Vegas? Yeah, yeah. I mean, come on, you guys. And the third thing is this. Mike's linked his name. And again, let me just preface this by saying it's hard not to love and protect Mike Tyson if you've lived his journey as a super fan along with him at this point it's like we're more protective of him than anything he's been screwed over by you know many

of people business-wise and financially and made some rough turns I mean even his boxing promotional business a few years ago went up in flames quick uh it seemed like this announcement was more about an infomercial for some app that the fight can be streamed on than it was for let's celebrate mike he's going to get back in there oh and he's going to fight roy jones oh my god what's this going to look like what if mike bites down hard and goes for the ko and turns crazy yeah there's some elements of carnival intrigue in that but overall it it's there's something that's uh that's extra gross about it that even i can't stop like questioning and pushing away like look we you know you you like to watch people make a love on camera luke i know that but then then r kelly jumps in you're like well okay this you know i'm not into the goal

here this is going too far all right take the gold away from me um this feels like that right now yeah i wouldn't say that the sex i watch on camera is romantic but i i get your point just the same the thing that's for me bc is like i don't know how to feel about this because i totally thought that the mayweather tension naskawa thing was going to be a scam and then mayweather went in there just bulldozed the guy and i was like what went wrong here for the Japanese you know by the way nobody told tension or Floyd that that wasn't that was an exhibition so I was like okay well I got that one wrong so I don't want to be you know I gotta I have to be informed by how wrong I

was on that experience at the same time though Floyd while certainly at the end of his uh career there he was I think about 40 at the time it was just not this was not long ago intention I mean it was me the first times in a long time where i was like wow floyd is way bigger than this guy usually it's the total opposite you know so okay that's a little bit different but this is 54 versus 51 so that's weird uh you know yes tyson hasn't taken a lot of damage because he's not been fighting since he retired on the stool that day in my hometown all right but Roy Jones I mean he's been fighting since up to 2018 uh and he's had a few really bad knockouts like where he got stretched along the way and so I you know I've had two reactions from fans about this BC one is uh my reaction my initial reaction and I don't know if it's right I'm just telling you how I feel which is I don't quite get it right because you can to me it's like if they're gonna have eight rounds

okay no headgear but they're just gonna be moving around let's say that's true they're making it safe enough but then it's just boring well okay what most fans want is for it to not be safe they kind of want to see you know a little bit of action but the problem is it's like do you really feel good about a 54 or a 51 year old man getting knocked out like and you're paying money for this in an exhibition when they're not i mean it's like heads we lose tails we also lose somehow i don't yeah the proposition is not clear there's a best case scenario middle ground that i've seen a lot of casual fans, who, by the way, this will attract in droves in theory.

They've been really excited about it. I mean, my mom texted me this morning and said, you flying to LA for this Tyson fight? I'm like, well, no. No chance. But look, people love the idea that if they go in there and, okay, it's supposed to be an exhibition, blah, blah, blah, but there's no headgear, and Tyson hits pretty hard,

and Roy Jones has had some comments toward this tail end of his career when interviewed and asked about hanging on too long, that he's like, you know, I'm willing to die in there, and that might be my destiny. I mean, we've heard comments like that in the past. So this could, best case, kind of turn into an interesting fight where Roy's fought heavyweight before. He's been at the cruiserweight limit in recent years when active he's going to have potentially speed and stamina advantages that could be dramatic and then you offset that with mike's absurd power

oh my god what's this going to look like okay for a round or two it might be sneaky fun out of nowhere but if it becomes like a war, it's going to get sad quick, Luke. It feels to me, I was going to say, it feels to me like you ever go out to drink and you get like really drunk, but you're okay. And then you have that one last shot and you're like, we'll have one more, one more will really do us good. And that was the one where you just went and you hit the tipping point into nausea vomiting in the back of a cab you know you wake up with a slop fest yeah you know we've been there luke we've been there that's what it feels like to me people might counter and say like bc what the hell are you talking about right you eat you eat out of a gas station this

is everything you would want okay if it plays out the perfect scenario it's intriguing it's interesting a critic of me might say hey didn't you watch kimbo versus ken shamrock and kind of sneaky love it it was short nobody got extremely hurt there were you know ebbs and flows of momentum uh dada 505 didn't have a heart attack like yeah that was actually maybe not a bad piece of business in the end. Okay, maybe this could be that. But I hate eight rounds exhibition. I hate, you know, what the California Commission is saying.

I don't know if that's the only way you can get this sanctioned. Didn't Pat Miletic just have a professional kickboxing fight last weekend? I don't know how the world works anymore, Luke. But I'm going to go into it with easy caution and probably end up being entertained in some form in the end. The last thing I say about this, because I want to get to some UFC talk before Steven gets here. It's really quite simple, which is I cannot stand these people being like, oh, what's your problem with Jake Paul? If he's really training hard, what's the problem?

I'm like everything. Jake Paul is able to have a career doing this nonsense because our economy is totally broken and provides for the most perverse incentives. I mean, listen. Whoa, whoa, look. No YouTube on YouTube crime. You've made your career off the same platform that the Paul brothers have. Right, but I don't charge

I don't charge people to go watch me do mediocre weightlifting. That's the difference. I stick to what my area of expertise is which by the way i didn't get on youtube until after 10 years in the game uh or more of just you know being in the trenches and working it's not the same more to the point it's like listen if people want to pay money for something that they see value in though that's just the american that's any economy fine i don't care and I get that it doesn't hurt boxing I'm not one

of these old fuddy-duddies that's so out of touch that I recognize it's damaging for the sport I don't but the one thing I just don't want to see if you want to buy it buy it if you don't don't whatever it's all up to you I don't care the one argument I just don't want to see trotted out is that we have to like dignify it or that we have to say that this is good for boxing because it's going to bring in new fans shut the fuck up no it is not it did not back then it's not going to now it is such a load of bullshit that people just trot out there to get you to buy into something that obviously doesn't speak to most people's rational expectations so i get it bc hands in the air i'm old they're cool whatever i'm just telling you don't bring that argument around mk because it

ain't it ain't got no life around here hey how about nate robinson getting involved though i can i can be in on that uh also um it was a little weird that commercial tyson put out of like mike tyson's legends league i mean what do you give that 17 days before it days before it goes under? I mean, what the hell is that? What the hell is that? Yeah, I don't give it much. Very quickly, if we can, let's get into this card for this weekend. We talked a little bit about Till and Whitaker. I want to revisit it, if we can, very quickly, BC.

I had a thought. I actually spoke. Did you speak to either of the main event headliners this week? I did not. I got a chance briefly to speak to Darren Till. He was in a great mood. He's funny. I had asked him. I was like, dude, I've noticed you've been a lot like, I did not. that the loss really made him change his perspective because he wasn't having fun. But the thing about it, when I just think about it stylistically beyond just sort of like the mental posture

that both of them are bringing into this one, BC, which one do you think is more likely? Till said that Whitaker's problem against Adesanya was that Adesanya is a brilliant counterpuncher and Rob just kept trying to crash into him. And so eventually he was going to go down, right? It was just a matter of time because it was a bad game plan. And I was like, but why would he be any different for you?

You are also a bigger counter fighter. In this particular case from the Southpaw position, won't he do that to you? And he's like, well, I'm expecting him to adjust. But I'm like, which way? He didn't really have a good answer. Obviously, he's keeping some of that concealed. But in terms of how Rob will fight what do you think will be different from the Adesanya fight probably a little bit more patient giving everything in this circumstance but I think

you know eventually he'll settle it this is Whitaker he'll settle into a flow where it's activity that's going to win him this fight I mean look what's the biggest criticism of Till at times he just doesn't do enough right like you know i'm sorry the stephen thompson fight was close i know i always harp on that but god he didn't deserve to win that in my eyes and he's pretty darn good at each of his step-ups but has there been a darren till win outside of again you know too busy cowboy running into his fists where you're like man that was a thorough beat down this guy's ready no he always leaves a little bit too much on the table and there's an opening there for Whitaker to just do what he does best to pressure you not recklessly but to show you the

full well-rounded game I'm interested in seeing if this fight goes to the ground Luke and that's where it's ultimately decided that's interesting so who do you think takes it there rob you know what what flaw does whittaker have none except for the questions coming in about you know i guess everything not necessarily his heart and his fighting spirit but the questions about the the toll mentally and physically that that you know his top end run as champion has taken on him and his body falling apart. As long as he corrects that, I'm telling you, this has the potential to be a one-sided fight.

And I know there's a lot of TIL fans who are like, dude, stop hating on the guy. I love him. He's got a great personality. He's driving Mike Perry crazy right now. But if Whitaker, again, is 80%, he wins this fight cleanly. That's interesting. I don't know what to make of it because, on the one hand, I think Till's fought Gastelum so smart and clever and patient

in the way you're describing how Whitaker might be here. I think that's probably true, too. I think Whitaker will. I mean, if this was a three-round fight, I think it'd be a different fight because you kind of have to step on it a little bit, especially when Till is such a strong starter and then not that great of a finisher. At five, you can kind of bleed him out a little bit.

The thing I just can't get past is, like, on the one hand, as I think Till rightly noted, Whitaker had a bad game plan against Adesanya now that hindsight being 20-20. But Masvidal knocked out Till in a similar kind of way that kind of switch stance blitz you know you don't know what's coming or going you eat a huge shot it's like if I'm not saying Masvidal and Whitaker are both very capable strikers in that regard so that also seems like something to me that could be a problem for him it's an interesting one I

think the winner gets a title shot the bigger question is what do you think happens to the loser till loses whitaker loses it's bad is it catastrophic no it's not catastrophic and and uh you know mp we got roasted by people for our takes on uh gastelum last week oh how can you say he's not elite didn't you see him push Adesanya? Well, look, when you have three losses in a row, though, that's a different category here. It's not catastrophic.

I'm wondering, though, if we see a completely relaxed Robert Whitaker, maybe for the first time, maybe a big part of his problems. Maybe he was just running on fumes against Adesanya and was more worried about, I've got to get back in the cage. I've got to be healthy. I keep having these issues that are pulling me away. Oddly enough, you remember when Rose got slammed on her head and the first thing she said was, you know, I'm relieved. I mean, there's pressure being the king. It drove George St. Pierre out of the sport to a certain degree. So I wonder if we're going to get a relaxed Robert Whitaker and if that makes him

extra dangerous. But to your point, you'll your point, either one will take a step back. Both have pretty strong name value, though. You know, I mean, even higher than Gaslam, I think, in terms of their UFC brand value, where they'll be back in it. They'll have to win one or two, but they'll be there. Let me ask you about this one. I did a couple of segments on my radio show this week. When Gustafson came back out of retirement or at least announced that he was and saying he was going to go to heavyweight everyone was so interested and I feel like the interest has kind of died down I don't really know why maybe it's just fatigue or the world's gone crazy and people just can't concentrate or maybe I'm just misreading

it it could be but I would love to know what you make about gustafson going out against verdun because my whole thought was be like oh how's he going to look at heavyweight and i'm like well he can't really change too much of what made him great at light heavyweight which was great jab great footwork um you know ton of different weapons well-rounded good takedown defense good takedowns when he needed it like that blachowicz win for him when he had to wrestle the guy it's kind of aged pretty well actually given how Blachowicz has done so he's he can do it all we know he weighed 240 pounds and Verdum is 242 BC is he going to be fleet of foot in the way that he needs to be you hope to be I saw the picture of him on the scale and it was a bit surprising I do think this whole storyline you're right it's it's fallen under the radar how will gustafson look at

heavyweight i think there's there's like bright potential here above just okay can he extend his career it's a curiosity let's see how he looks he's fighting a you know a big name in verdun but he's fighting the guy at the right time coming off of you know two bad losses in in the uh in a the inactivity between the two of them and all that where it's weird luke that gap between i say all the time the gap between light heavyweight and heavyweight can be the widest in in some situations given your skill set where at 33 when he walked away from from 205 we were like okay you've been through the wars it's probably never going to get better than this you You're probably never going to be able to beat a Jones or a Reyes or whatever,

and you'll just be a tough out. And yet suddenly now, if you really look at it, you're like, what's going to stop this guy from having a Ryan Bader type situation in a new weight class? And I know Bader was a little bit more fresh, certainly, and in a better spot in wins and losses when he took the chance and moved up into that tournament. And I know he

fought different level of competition potentially than gustafson will face here but the whole idea of a guy who's still young enough is going to have an inherent speed advantage is such a detailed striker and oh by the way has really good size at 6'4 and you know you mentioned the blahowich 6'5 he's not 6'4 that aged well i I just went back and watched the Daniel Cormier title loss two days ago. That's aged extremely well in terms of a great performance. He took DC down. He stuffed takedowns. I mean, that was the full game.

That may have been the last time we've seen him at his five-star ultra elite level. There is a lot of potential because you can use those advantages at heavyweight against older, slower guys, and your age is not an issue. And when you have, like Jon Jones, which is why I've made a long case that Jones could go unbeaten for a stretch at heavyweight, if you have got the size to go with it and you can stop the takedown and take people down, it's a different story. I'm not saying Gustin's going to walk in there overnight and be a new fighter, but he has the skill set to do that. I mean, even Alir Latifi moved up, and I know it wasn't the best fight, but you're like, he may have found an avenue for a longer career here

if he focuses on wrestling as a heavyweight. This is very interesting, Luke. The size, he's going to have to prove to us that it doesn't matter, that it's just extra blob on him. I mean, didn't work for John Volante as much, but we'll see'll see what happens well here's the thing for folks i mean i realized i looked at the tail of tape at least with verdum and verdum is a huge guy um gustafson 65 to his 64 79 inch reach to verdum 77 so like in terms of the frame anyway he's got the frame we'll see how the size does again he was so light on his feet and sticking and moving at light heavyweight.

He's going to have to retain some of that. But you brought up some great points. 33 at heavyweight is in no way, shape, or form old. Not even close. It might even be on the younger side, to be quite honest with you. He may have the time to learn and adjust and grow and figure out the best heavyweight version of him. It's that early in the process right so that's the question is does his game to what extent is

his game at heavyweight his game at light heavyweight for Daniel Cormier it was pretty similar they had basically the same game but sometimes when guys move up they change it just a little bit so I'm curious to see what happens there with him um but the part for me that I can't get out of my head BC and I wonder what you make of this part too is let's say he goes up and does well now there's a big question about how well he will do because do I think he can beat the Shamil Abdur-Rakimovs of the world yes I certainly do I think he can make it inside the top 10 although we'll see you know how things go this weekend but it seems plausible in theory he could do that. You start getting up to the JDSs and the Francis's, and then I just don't know what to make of that. But I'll say

this, if Gustafson goes up and looks good this weekend, and then he gets another good win at heavyweight against a ranked, sort of well-known name, do you think that that makes it a little bit more likely that Jon Jones comes back which we know his beef is about fighter pay and about the principle of the matter and he doesn't need it in the way that Gustafson badly needs a rebrand here I understand but how could John Jones look around and see wow DC got to be a champ champ here's the other guy I've vanquished twice and now he's up there kicking ass like maybe I should just come back and just make the best of it because it's just it makes more sense in the end for what is available

to me given the circumstances yeah I think that's a great point on on look like that will only speed up John coming there if Gustafson's able to go in there against Verdum outbox him completely and and you know and and if he can control him and stay out of trouble on the ground certainly and look great, that could be a tip in the cap of John thinking he can do the same. And also, let's not forget, when John took that stance publicly about the pay, that was when we had no live

gates. We still have no live gates, but we have deep pockets in our friends at the UAE. So that could also fuel John's return the same. I think ultimately final point on Gustavson is going to come down to his punch resistance, Luke. I mean, he's been in there with heavyweight level punchers when you're talking about like a Rumble Johnson

and a DC and for the most part, although I know he got blitzed in that one fight, but for the most part he's incredibly sturdy and has great punch resistance, so we'll see if that can hold up. For sure. We're waiting on Steven Espinosa. He should be here here any minute but for the time remaining jesus christ dude i can't be the only one who looks at this co-main between shogun and little nog it's like it's the

trilogy and i'm like it's the sadness is what it is dude i hate to say this because i you know i'm certainly no doctor i can't make a claim like this it would be absolutely the biggest surprise of my career if both of these guys end up with no long-term ill effects from brain trauma and I'm not saying this as some kind of joke or punch line it's not I'm legitimately worried about them both I'm not as worried right now based on the recent signs they've shown I mean if you look at Shogun Hua's record, it's like actually sneaky really good in the past five years. I didn't say he was bad. I just said he's taking a lot of abuse.

See, the problem for him, and even Little Nog to a certain degree, although he's 44 and it's a different story, is they got old early to where we can go, okay, they're not the same title version, meaning 32 years old, 33 years old, yet they were still great enough as what their role became as a gatekeeper that they never suffered enough damaging losses to really speed up their exit.

And it's allowed them to linger. And yes, this is a sloppy trilogy. They might as well go eight rounds with no headgear and promise not to knock each other out, Luke. But, you know, maybe it'll it'll be sneaky good i don't know i don't hate it as much as most people i hate it i hate it i don't know we're gonna prove here we're not even on brazilian soil so there's a lot there's a lot not to love here but would you rather see these two fight each other than some young horse that's gonna walk in there and and wallop them yes luke you would the other part is like shogun ended up actually becoming a UFC fan

favorite because he still had enough left in the tank to become a champion while he was here. Whereas Little Nog was, first of all, never as good as his brother, number one. Or at least that's successful anyway. And number two, dude, this is an old Brazilian top team versus shoe-to-box rivalry. Are either of these teams still around? It's like, what anachronistic vibe are we going for here?

Yeah, I mean, look, it may be the matchmakers just going, you know, why are we going to get either of these guys hurt right now? If they fight each other, the old school crowd will care. I mean, there's a market for it. I love that shit, alright? There is a market for it. Alright, well, let's go to our guest. Now, we've never had a guest live on the air like this with you and me, BC. It's pretty special. He is, well, he's the man

who signs the checks, BC. He is the president of sports and events programming. When you ask, hey, who is in charge of sports at Showtime? It is our next guest. It is the one and only Harvard alum, Mr. Steven Espinosa. Hi, Steven. How are you? Welcome to the show. Do you get that question a lot? Who over there is in charge of Showtime Sports? Is it like that tone of disbelief that you just asked it with?

They're like, is that the guy that was feuding with Connor? I'm like, it's the guy that was feuding with Connor. Steve, Ivy League? I didn't know about this side of the game. All right. Yeah, Stanford, actually. Harvard about this side of the game. Stanford, actually. Harvard's the Stanford of the East.

That's right. Sorry. There's only one Harvard. My mistake. Okay, well, that in mind, Stephen, thank you for making some time for us. We appreciate it. Let's get right to it with the boxing schedule that got announced on Wednesday. So it seemed to me quite deliberate, right? You had Top Rank coming back and they were kind of piecemealing the rollout in terms of what

fights were coming. Some dribbles of announcements from Golden Boy and Matchroom. You guys decided to come out and say, we're just going to give you the entire rest of the schedule for the rest of the year. It seemed quite deliberate. Talk to me about the strategy there. What were you looking for in making that kind of an announcement in that particular way? It definitely quite deliberate. Talk to me about the strategy there. What were you looking for in making that kind of an announcement in that particular way? It definitely was deliberate. We said early on that we weren't going to be the first ones back for several reasons. Nor were we going to be the last ones back. But one thing we wanted to do is to come back with a high-quality schedule of meaningful fights. Sure, we could have come back

earlier with you know with fights that that didn't quite have the same impact um but that's just not wasn't interesting to us um you know that wasn't the way we're going to go um and you know we like the idea of trying to impose a little bit of logic and predictability on boxing. I know those are things that don't go with combat sports, but, you know, whenever we can, being able to set out a schedule of five or six months, it's a pain in the butt, but it is absolutely worth it because, you know, it just signals that boxing doesn't have to be sort of ad hoc, case by case, fight by fight. We can do this in an organized way that looks like the other major professional sports. I think that's a big advancement for the sport.

If we can start acting like a professional organized sport, this is one part of it. So the big question for me is inside the ufc there's a lot of reasons why they've been able to have their premier talent compete and we could delineate them but for lack of a better description essentially they just have more control over that kind of a thing you've been hearing from a lot of high-end boxers not all of them but a lot of them that like if there's no gate i'm not going to compete now i've not heard that specifically from the charlo twins but they're of that level of the if there's no gate, I'm not going to compete. Now I've not heard that specifically from the Charlo twins, but they're of that level of the other kinds of boxers who have been saying

that. So I guess my question is you see top rank again, they're out there rolling shows. I commend them for it, but they don't have their premier product. How are you able to like, what is the economic mechanism that got the sort of a listers to be able to compete, including Gervonta Davis and others? I think what it is, is really just a mindset more than anything else. And that is, look, we don't know what the future holds. We don't know if we're going to be back in crowds, you know, October, November, December, or whether we'll be doing fan lists, you know, into 2021.

So in light of that uncertainty uncertainty everybody in the sport has one of two choices either you can sort of say look i'm gonna hang around and and wait uh until some undetermined date you know and i'm not gonna do big fights until we can have crowds back um and and i understand there are some of those you know wild, wilder fury, you know, you're not going to walk away from $10 million plus at the gate. But, you know, short of that, what you've seen from everybody on our schedule, and particularly the pay-per-view fights, is, you know, they're saying, look, we don't know what the future holds, but we're not going to wait. We're not going to be sidelined, waiting indefinitely. It's not good for the sport. You know, it's not good for the sport you know it's not good for

these guys careers so they're saying look um if we need to take a little bit of a hit you know we're going to better to continue to proceed your career than to put it on hold indefinitely waiting for a day where we can be in front of fans which who knows when that's going to be uh steven there's a theme ongoing theme of this show we remove the fourth wall we you know we don't protect anybody we bring it and knowing you personally that's also your style your twitter account always riding the edge of probably getting you suspended and i love that about you uh look the uh the boxing media one year ago they were they were writing your obituary from the standpoint of,

we love Showtime, great announce team, great production, but they're on the way of becoming the next HBO and getting out of it. And you've heard Bob Arum of Topric many times say, you know, cable, premier boxing, you know, boxing and premier cable homes, it doesn't work anymore. It works better on big sports networks. And, of course, we pbc splits time with fox this announcement though i mean i think under the guise of a quarantine it's an a plus i think even without that it is so strong because it's competitive there's variety there's a lot of

good stuff here uh does this say like y'all must have forgot showtime boxing the best in the business at this moment i mean you had to like a like a little bit of a, you know, two words for you when you drop this. The reality, it wasn't the primary focus or the objective here was to answer that. But, you know, sure, this sort of removes any questions. And to be clear, the questions really or the doubts or the rumors of our demise were coming from two sources and two sources who weren't particularly objective. They have their own interests in building boxing elsewhere. But neither of those two sources have any visibility into our business. So for them to be able to generalize and say, look, you know, the business isn't working for Showtime, that's that's not a decision.

It's not a judgment you can make from outside so yes look is there a little bit of personal satisfaction in doing a schedule this big in doing a schedule that is more comprehensive more meaningful um i think higher quality than what anyone's done in boxing before um you know in this current environment yeah yes you know that is job one um but also saying look you know for all this current environment, yes, you know, that is job one. But also saying, look, you know, for all those that you doubted, there's a reason we've been here 35 years where we're not going anywhere. We're as committed and enthusiastic and we know the sport better than anybody. So, you know, we're not going to answer every sort of criticism.

We'll just continue to do what we do and let our work speak for ourselves. The modern boxing game as we speak right now in 2020, Stephen, look, we know the promoters are very tied to their exclusive network. It's created almost like a separate group of leagues. Yes, we do see some crossover at the very highest level. We do see it sometimes at the lowest level in terms of promoters sharing fighters and all that pbc is in a unique spot with two major networks as i mentioned showtime and fox what is that conversation like ahead of this launch between you and al haim and the pbc founder in terms of what fighters are right for

showtime what fighters are right for fox because i almost fighters are right for Fox, because I almost see right now that, you know, there's a focused look at certain divisions in the Showtime rollout, and like I mentioned, competitive fights that seem to have, hey, if this guy wins this, he may be fighting this guy down the road on Showtime. Look, the dynamic is really clear, you know, at Showtime, we want all the best fights, I'm sure they feel the same way at Fox. And it's the same situation with the NFL. CBS wants all the best NFL games, wants to have a better schedule than NBC and ESPN. The reality is there's good events, and they can be spread out everywhere. I'm really happy at the quality of our schedule top to bottom, not just the headliners. The headliners are in tough fights, but top to bottom,

they're competitive fights and more importantly, meaningful fights. And I think that is what's necessary right now. I am, you know, in this whole era of the pandemic in those sports, I'm sort of a contrarian. I don't think that there's pent up demand. I don't think that that's what is going on right now. If anything, it's the opposite. You know, our audience has pretty much figured out how to exist without us for several months. You never want your audience to get used to not having you around. So we need to come out strong and remind people why they love this sport and remind people of the best this sports to offer. Coming out with a schedule of four, six and eight rounders that aren't particularly meaningful isn't the way to bring sports fans back to the sport after a period of inactivity.

Steven, I want to focus in on the two crown jewel events of the schedule that were announced. It's two pay-per-views. The first is the 26th, as I mentioned. It's going to be a pay-per-view doubleheader with both Jermall Charlo and Jermell Charlo. What was the genesis of this idea I love it because I actually went through and I was searching every boxing online forum I could find and it was a consistent theme

with this event one it was the totality of it like oh we're going to get both Charlo brothers okay two it was they both got real fights on their hands and then three that the card was sort of filled out all the way down it wasn't it was they both got real fights on their hands. And then three, that the card was sort of filled out all the way down. It wasn't, this was the one that they highlighted on the Showtime schedule as being the most stacked. So why go so heavy on the 26 with the two brothers in this way?

Part of it is an acknowledgement of the economic conditions that we're in. You know, look, employment is at record numbers. There's a lot of financial stresses. And, you know, they really want to deliver value for someone who's going to put down their hard-earned money on this pay-per-view. You know, and the other aspect is, you know, this is an important fight for the sport. It's an important fight for the Charlos in particular. And we wanted to make it feel big do is have one Charlo on Friday night, one Charlo on Saturday night, one pay-per-view prize for two evenings of entertainment.

We ran into the same problem that WWE did, which is that there are technical challenges to doing that with cable and satellite companies that I won't bore you with the reasons. It has to do with keeping the pay-per-view window open for more than 24 hours. So once we figured out that that couldn't happen, the next best thing, let's turn it into a doubleheader. We see doubleheader NFL games, doubleheader NBA games, baseball games. We've never seen really a doubleheader boxing event. So here, we just, knowing the financial challenges a lot of people are under,

we want to make sure that this one is over-delivered in terms of value during this particular time. And then the other one, of course, is the Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz fight. I believe that's scheduled for October 24th, also a pay-per-view. I mean, so there's sort of like a big story about Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz fight. I believe that's scheduled for October 24th. Also a pay-per-view. I mean, so there's sort of like a big story about Gervonta, right? The good side, obviously, is I'll never forget when he fought Gamboa in Atlanta at the end of the year. I was actually out with some friends, Stephen, and I was going down 8th Street Northeast in D.C. And every single sports bar had on the fight. I was kind of amazed.

I was like, wow, this guy's about to break through. And this is the fight that can help him really enter that next level. Still, he has been getting into a bit of trouble. I think it's not a thing we can ignore. We talked about it a little bit on Morning Combat. Now, he's been, I guess, out of the headlines more recently, which is great, but still, some of the video was a little bit upsetting. I wonder what your response is to what all has been happening around him. Look, it was certainly upsetting to us as well. And we, you know, Gervonta is somebody I have a personal relationship with, you know, and we've talked about that incident and similar issues, issues extensively and I am confident that he is remorseful and he's committed to do better. Now he knows he's not going to get many more chances at this point and only time will tell in

terms of whether he's able to avoid those sorts of situations and temptations and, you know, and those kinds of conflicts. But, you know, if he is, the sky's the limit for him. with stories about unfulfilled potential and distractions and other problems which sort of take promising young fighters on a path that they didn't expect. If he can, you know, stay on the straight and narrow, he has proven that he can resonate with casual fans. You know, and he's got that it factor that just can't quantify that draws people to him. He is a charismatic young fighter. I think he's got the world ahead of him if he can sort of stay on the right path.

The other thing that I found about the fight that's really interesting, Stephen, if I may, I don't quite know how this works. It's going to be for the super featherweight title and the lightweight title. So two different weight classes at once. How does that work? Pound title and Leo's got the 130 pound title. So in order to defend your 135 pound title, all you have to do is weigh in under 135. So if you're fighting actually for the 130 pound title as well, weighing under 130 will satisfy the weight limits for both titles. So the fight will be contested really at 130 pounds, but the 135 pound title will also

be at stake. I think the last time it's been done was Sugar Ray Leonard so it's been a while but it's a you know it's interesting twist on the fight it brings it to much higher stakes not just two titles but two titles in different divisions are at stake in that fight Steve I don't want to jump in and nerd you out on Showtime trivia, but let's not forget the Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana pay-per-view rematch in 2014. They did the same thing, putting Floyd's 54 title on. Nice little trick there. Certainly adds to the stakes.

I want to double back quickly on the Charlos, though. They did a double bill main event with Fox in 2018 and flipped a coin to see who would go on last. The reason why I bring this up is what I love about these guys, they are so insanely competitive that any interview with them at any time can go off the damn rails. They've sent me to hell on my own podcast. It is what it is in the end. How the hell are you going to take these two brothers

who are competitive against each other and just say, you two figure it out, who's going on last? That's exactly what we're going to have to do you probably saw it on the uh on on the zoom uh you could already see them angling you know staking out their their their territories in terms of of who goes uh who goes in the late slot you know jermell clearly hasn't forgotten that he lost the coin toss uh last time around look i'm not going to get in the middle of it. They are insanely competitive.

I don't think it matters all that much. You know, if, you know, the second game of an NFL doubleheader isn't necessarily any lower in stature than the first game. I think here you've got, you've got two really great events. You've got four world titles on one pay-per-view card. So I think I'll let them. I'm sure they've, whether it's rock, paper, scissors, or arm wrestling, or whatever they do in the Charlo house to settle the disputes, this certainly won't be the first one or the last between those two guys. Love those guys.

Indeed. I mentioned Floyd in passing before. He's still, you know, the biggest brand in the sport whenever he wants to be. And he's got a great relationship with you guys at Showtime. And we know that if I'm looking at, you know,

if I'm playing Showtime matchmaker in the near future, I still feel like Floyd Connor too, is the biggest fight you could possibly make. In general, what are your conversations with Floyd? Do you believe he'll fight again and fight, you know, on Showtime pay-per-view in a blockbuster? I would love for him to do it. You know, and trust me, we've been pressuring him, cajoling him, every verb you can think of in terms of getting him back, whether it's against another Pacquiao fighter, McGregor fighter, or something else.

I think the sport is better off when he's around. He brings a level of visibility and awareness that really uh i think rises it's the tide that lifts all boats um so i think it would be great not just for our business and for floyd's you know pocketbook but i i think the sports benefits from you know from that mainstream visibility i having said that you know other than the last first six months, I don't get the sense that he's actually been that close to coming back. Sure, he's flirted with it and things like that, but at the end of the day, what more can he achieve? I mean, yes, he loves to do big events and there are big opportunities there, but when you've devoted your entire life to something you know including you know 20

years of being a professional boxer look at a certain point you probably deserve to be left alone so yeah so I've backed off in terms of that I'm hoping that he still comes back but there's part of me that's also hoping, you know, let him be happy on his own. He's doing a lot of training. He's still in the gym. He's raising his kids. You know, let him have a life outside the sport. And he's at an age in his early 40s where, you know, he's done enough.

We've seen enough yet. Still close enough to greatness that he could pull it off. Other guys, though, Stephen, have people worried, like 54-year-old Mike Tyson and 51-year-old Roy Jones Jr. Did Showtime pass on this fight? Now I think it's going to appear on some app here. You got any thoughts on this, Stephen, this eight round exhibition? We talked to Mike and Kiki and their representatives early on. And we, you know, given the relationship with Mike and his appeal, you know, we certainly were interested in the event. You know, I think they felt like, you know, the financial opportunities might be better somewhere else.

You know, I don't think it's fully established yet. But, you know, the reality, they had, you know, people offering them, you know, tens of millions of dollars to get this done. And, you know, I think if there's that level of interest on a guaranteed sum, then I'd say more power to him. Yes, it is a bit of a freak show, but it is Mike Tyson. He's a phenomenon unlike any other. I don't think anyone's going into this expecting this to be the biggest and most skilled boxing event they've ever seen, you know, it's a way to enjoy some of the greats again, you know, it's very clearly an exhibition. I don't put it in the same category as sort of, you know, the

elite fights of today in the sport, but I'm also not going to say that they're not entitled to do it. If they want to come out and entertain and it's done in a safe way, then more power to them. Steven, you mentioned something I thought was kind of interesting, which was that the audience had just kind of been managing without boxing for a time and you wanted to kind of snap them out of it. And intuitively, that sounds quite right. But the UFC seems to have a bit of the opposite belief that they have really benefited from the absence essentially of alternatives so which is it are they coasting to a higher sort of

tide as it were because they don't have to worry about football or boxing or anything else or how do you how do you like reconcile those two different competing visions? Look, there's certainly a general benefit from not having to compete for attention in a very busy sports calendar. I think there is some benefit to that. And I think they were able to come back relatively early, and I'm sure the fan base appreciates that. But I think it comes down to quality fights um and i don't think that i think there are some that think that look just come back with anything and people will be so thankful to have it and so desperate that you'll get a pass that you'll get get by and i guess what I'm really ranting against

more than anything else is that sort of expectation. I think as combat sports fans, we should have better expectations for our sport. We shouldn't just be thankful that it's there and say, well, I give them credit for doing something. No, it's fair to request meaningful, to expect meaningful, competitive fights, high-quality fights, and to not watch it if you're not getting that. And I think, you know, there have been some UFC events that did great.

There have been some that did, you know, below what they've been doing pre-pandemic. So I think, you know, it really goes to the quality of the events. If you're doing quality events, people will come. I don't think that even at this time, you're going to get a pass for doing events that no one really cares about. Even if they're desperate, I think at a certain point, you're just, it's not going to resonate no matter how desperate the fan base is. I do want to talk very quickly, if we can, about the COVID safety protocol that you guys are going to have at the Mohegan Sun.

By the way, Bellator will be there tonight. And of course, I guess their August 7th show will be there as well. Can you give us a bit of a detail about that? I recall early in the UFC's run, I think this was during the Jacksonville shows in May, where it became news that they had to sign this waiver. I guess the UFC has really walked that back.

But there's no waivers anybody has to sign to get into the Mohegan Sun, right? Like, what are you guys doing to keep people safe? And what are the – how did you come up with those protocols? It's one of the reasons why we waited a little bit longer is so we could see what UFC did, what Top Rank did, what the NBA was doing that's really been in a leadership position on all this, and see all these other plans. We've probably got a dozen different league's plans here and want to see how they played out.

So, look, I'm not saying our plan is better, our structure is better. I do think that we learned and made adjustments based on what we've seen in other plans and in other events um one thing i think that that we're prioritizing the promoters are prioritizing is more pre-fight testing among fighters um because the worst thing in all of this is to get those last minute cancellations um so you know whether it's the day before a couple days before you know it it's terrible for the fighter to do all that work uh it's bad for the audience you know and then it's bad for the network as well because we can't really we don't have time for uh to find a replacement

so when i look at the guys the main event the guys from our august one card they've uh the fighters themselves and their camps have been already tested at least five times i think you know main event has been tested six you know and we tested at least two more times during fight week so you know as as long as as we're able to do that with, you know, and it holds with the testing demand, I think that's the biggest difference is, you know, testing on a weekly basis starting four or five weeks before the fight so that, you know, we can catch hopefully a positive before fight week and have the greatest chance to get the best quality fights on during this whole pandemic. Steven, quickly before we go, the ViacomCBS merger has made a lot of us closer. Bellator is under the hood now.

This show, of course, is as well. We're all related now in some form. Sort of. Sort of. Sort of. From the waist up, at least. Steven, fans have seen, you know, Bellator back tonight will not be on DAZN. We'll be on the Paramount Network, which is also in the family. We know that you oversee Bellator. What can you tell us about any future potential?

We've seen Strikeforce have a great run on Showtime in the past. To see MMA back on Showtime. I think that is the goal long term. You know, we certainly not going to put Bellator in a position of, you know, breaching their contractual agreement. So when the opportunity rises, you know, I'd love to see the event, the events back on Showtime, you know, as well as across the Viacom company. And I think what's interesting, at least from the combat sports nerd element of this, is we've set a pattern here of how we can collaborate with sort of our affiliated company. You know, we are setting up, you know, one time and staying there for a couple of months.

We may extend, we may not, depends on what the situation is. But there's no one else in there. It's same protocols, same lighting grid, same set, same everything. We're just switching out a ring for a cage basically every other week. But I think this will lead to, I think, more synergies with part of the two. We've talked about, you know, events on the same night and maybe, you know, intermingled events. I think it's all possible once you're dealing with an affiliated company. And I think there's a lot that we can do to further expand and elevate the Bellator fan base. Steven, last question before you... Oh, sorry.

Sorry, DC. Go ahead, buddy. Yeah, in closing here, and we've been great chatting with you. Appreciate your time for sure. I got to ask for the boxing hardcore here. This quarantine has been hard on a lot of us. It's opened up opportunities. My wife has had me cleaning out the garage, all right?

You find some old things. you rekindle old relationships. You look like you're in your office right now at Showtime headquarters in NYC. It's seven years later. You know, the people need to know, Stephen, Floyd Mayweather, Robert Guerrero. Did you find the pay-per-view numbers? Did we break a million or not? I think the statue of limitations is passed. We can be honest now. OK, this is, you know, as we get back to the office and I haven't been in the office since March 12th, 13th, whatever that that was, you basically have to go through a an NSA security check and review in order to be let back in the office, not to mention any number of tests.

So I will, as we get back into the work environment, I will make sure everybody looks in all the crooks and the crevices and maybe we'll turn up an accounting report and we'll let you guys break it. Thank you. Can we get heraldo rivera involved in this please thank you yes yes gotta open up all the tombs uh very quickly before you go uh steven i i wouldn't want to end on a sour note but i wouldn't want to forget it either

uh it was reported just before the show that nazim richardson the legendary boxing trainer had passed away trainer to mosley even in the kickboxing world, Badr Hari and some other folks, Bernard Hopkins. I wonder what you made of that and any comments about the life and the career of Nassim Richardson. You know, I knew Nassim, a really good guy, very thoughtful guy as a trainer and as a man. You know, he suffered a stroke a while back, and a lot of people thought that that might be the end of him training. And it turned out that he continued on. He fought through it and continued to have a lot more successful years. I think he's one of the most thoughtful, underappreciated, and undervalued guys in the sport. Just a really well-rounded guy who cared about

his fighters in and out of the ring. And so his loss will definitely be felt. I'll probably always associate him most with Bernard Hopkins. And the part that i remember about nazim is you know he had a a you know a set of code words as a lot of trainers do um but his were always really colorful um you know he when he's yelling out to bernard hopkins he's saying you know um you know he's yelling at him he's like pop that chain, pop that chain, swim without getting wet. And all of that meant something to Bernard. And you can try and guess it, but it was just his manner of speaking and expressing himself. It was always colorful. It was entertaining. And it meant something to the fighter. So that's probably what I'll remember about him most in connection with boxing.

Well, Steven, it's the first time we've had you on the show. First time that Brian and I have had a live guest, you know, maybe the last time, depending on how things go, but we appreciate your candor.

Congratulations on the debut of the boxing schedule. Can't wait to see it. Quite honestly. I mean that genuinely it's been, it's been a long winter, so to speak. And it seems like it's going to long uh a winter so to speak and it seems like it's going to fall out a little bit so thank you so much and hopefully we'll talk soon

we're gonna have to start to do maybe we'll do a reveal show on morning combat we can do it like the ncaa tournament where we're we're taking names off the board and you know and revealing things let's make this like a six-hour announcement i love it listen i love it steven we are pathetic uh careerist uh social climbers if ever there were some anything you want to debut on the show it's a yes okay good to know guys there he is steven espinosa thank you so much all right all right very good uh bc uh let's get to this here just a little bit first of all appreciate steven coming on you think we're going to get fired for some of those questions i'm just wondering probably not right no no it

was great it was great steven always always deals with the fastballs very well and uh here's the thing that like here's the thing that like fans don't appreciate who just come from mma boxing promoters slash like high level folks in boxing, they're much more willing to spar over topics than like in MMA, right? In MMA, you, they don't want to do that at all. Yeah,

indeed. Indeed. You know, but no, Steven's got a great personality. People will, people get on them sometimes because McGregor got off ball in that ass, but,

but a great leader as well. It's good to chat with him. Look, let's hit it. Let's hit the showtime schedule. It's strong. It's good to chat with him. Look, let's hit it. Let's hit the Showtime schedule. It's strong. It's really strong, okay? You mentioned those two big pay-per-views,

but there are some really sneaky, great matchups across the board, Luke. And I really think Showtime has potential here, PBC in general. That 154 division is so freaking jacked up. You really could do a 8, 12, 16 man tournament right now and you just look at that september 19th on showtime fight erickson lubin and terrell gaucher winner no doubt going to get elevated to the title level and then as we mentioned one half of that september 26th charlo on charlo pay-per-view when jermell charlo brings his one of four junior middleweight titles in against Jason Bananas Rosario,

who has two of the four after his upset knockout of J-Rock Williams earlier this year. Luke, that's going to be a huge fight for power and control in this division when you consider the winner will have three of the four major belts, and you consider that everyone else in the division of note is pbc friendly you can see julian williams back in the mix jared heard you can see erislandy lara tony harrison there are so many great names right now uh brian castagno where i can't wait to see where this plays out and you know if steven and company play their cards right this could be a you know a nice uh there could be some synergy here in storyline to get behind on showtime so let's play a little bit of a game i'm going to play curious but clueless

mma fan i'm being typecast uh you play boxing insider i'm going to ask you about some of the sort of the top line things that they might be interested in tell me what to look forward to so first of all you mentioned the 26 which is the pay-per-view. You've got Charlo against Derevyanchenko. Now, Derevyanchenko, he gave Triple G basically everything he could handle. How competitive is that fight for the WBC middleweight crown? He gave him hell. Look, Sergey Derevyanchenko is 13-2 with 10 KOs.

He's gone after it in his pro career. And both of those losses were at the title level to the elite to daniel jacobs to ganadi golovkin and he had an outside claim of winning both he had a much stronger claim against golovkin last year for that vacant middleweight title to many people it was the fight of the year all action all the time he gets in you he's a southpaw they call him the technician because he's got craft but he is tough as balls. Jamal Charlo needs this type of challenge. He had been on a bit of a middleweight island. You've got to look at the politics in boxing, Luke, if you're a casual fan and understand it.

The Golovkins, the Canellos, all those other guys were not PBC friendly. Jamal finally has a big name he can fight now in Derevyanchenko. If he wins this, and by the way, this is the toughest matchup to date in his career by far. He's legit I liked what the two Charlo brothers said when they were asked on that zoom call on Wednesday with Steven Espinoza about you know What are people gonna be saying after this pay-per-view? Both of those guys want critical pound-for-pound recognition and think they can get it in either of these matchups into a degree I think they're right on they've got extreme talent and this is a look of the fights in boxing that have been announced i think jamal charlo sergey derivinchenko is the best fight on paper right now uh yes we

think we're getting loma chenko tayo fema lopez which would probably be a little bit better or on par and then look wilder fury 3 excites us in a lot of different ways. But this Charlo Derevyanchenko fight is absolutely fantastic. And then Jermel Charlo against a big puncher in Bananas Rosario. Wow. Let me do it. Let me do it. Jason Rosario, by the way, he's Latin because it's spelled J-E-I-S-O-N.

Obviously, Rosario too. But the whole point is he kind of came out of nowhere, right? He was not supposed to beat J-Rock, who was not supposed to beat Jarrett Hurd. And here he is 21 and one. Like what kind of fighter is Rosario that no one seemed to see him coming and that now he's in a very good fight with Jermell Charlo? He's an opportunist because he got an opportunity to leap through the screen with his power and his aggressiveness and ended up backing up everything he had said ahead of that fight. And it's like weird because, you know, we've seen J-Rock lose and then come back in a big way and beat Jared Hurd for two of the four belts and remind us, by the way, in boxing that you can

take a loss and you can come back and be better. And then out of nowhere, Rosario comes in and blasts him through the ring. So this is a big puncher this is a huge test for jermell charlo who's coming off luke a fantastic uh win to regain his title over tony harrison it was an absolute brawl in december it was in the argument for fight of the year uh he's on the verge of stardom both charlos are we got to be honest 30 years old they can box they can punch can punch. They're quick. They're strong. They're all that. And I think even more important, Luke, they know how to market themselves. They do the lines only bit. They're edgy and angry on the

mic at times. They go after people. They just need the big competition and this pay-per-view card is giving them that. So again, you know, I can wave the Showtime flag because they pay me. I can also tell you as a boxing hardcore that these fights really matter. So then you have the October 24th card, Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz.

Leo Santa Cruz, known as El Terremoto, which means earthquake, doesn't quite look like that thing. He's very thin, but 37 and 1 and 1, 19 KOs. Gervonta Davis, we kind of know, right? Big power. They call him Tank. Kind of takes his time a little bit early. He has a huge punch. What about Leo Santa Cruz? What kind of fighter is he?

Full-on excitement all the time. May not have, let's say, one-punch knockout power on the elite level, but he makes up for that with almost an old-school Chavez Sr.-like ability to effing get inside on you, to get in your kitchen and just throw punches all night long the thing is though he's not just an aggressive come forward fighter we saw that in his two fights against carl frampton at the featherweight title level both fight of the year candidates themselves that this guy is absolutely great craft he can adjust on the fly his two fights with abner mara show this that as well the key to this fight Luke whether you believe Gervonta Davis is ready for the pay-per-view level or not from a you know pay-per-view buy

standpoint and again you're never going to know until you are Floyd Mayweather didn't know until he fought Arturo Gatti that he could move the product it's a similar launch in that situation but you want him in there against a guy he can lose against and the fact that this fight is going to be at 130 really evens the stakes if it was at 135 you'd start to say to yourself Leo's going to be over his head potentially in terms of power and taking a punch Leo has won titles in four divisions Luke including just recently that vacant title at 130 over Moises Flores which will be on the line in this one and the fact that it's at 130 and Gervonta's got to come back down should even the stakes a bit

look what Gervonta does not do well right the flaws we can say against him he's got all the talent in the world there's been times where there's been um a gap in showing that maybe he doesn't throw enough punches maybe he headhunts too much at times also the weight cut the weight cut the professionalism in the weight cut, all those areas come into play. He's a great boxer. He just never really gets the chance to show that he is. Well, he's going to have to show a lot against the guy who,

if Gervonta doesn't get a knockout or if Gervonta doesn't come ready to box, you know, Leo is going to outwork him. It's a fact. And the judges may end up favoring that. That's what makes this fight. Great. Obviously there's bigger storylines from the star standpoint. They call Gervonta tank, the Mike Tyson of the lower weight classes. You know, it's a bit, that's a big statement,

but it's not that big when he watches highlights, he absolutely can punch through people. So this is really a great fight to see where he's at brand wise to also finally give him a big name. Look, I mean, he's, he's had some great wins, right? But sometimes he's had trouble lowering those big names. This is a big name. This is a big fish. We're going to see. All right, so then last but not least,

and it doesn't have to be a headlining fight, BC. It doesn't have to be that. But if you're a fan, you're going to give Showtime a try. You're going to go to Showtime.com. I'm going to give it a 30-day free trial. What would be the one fight that's going to air on Showtime? And again, main event, co-main event, whatever, that you've really got your eye on.

And I'm not even telling you it's the best one. I'm saying it's the BC special. It's the one where you go to the gas station. You're like, I don't want this hot dog in the front. I want that one in the back. That's the one that I want. Which one is it? Can you just serve that in my hand with a palm full of with a palm full of ketchup please yeah um look there's a few i talked to you how i like

the lubin gauche fight in terms of i don't know who's going to win styles but you want to see people bang sergey lippinets is an underrated name at welterweight remember uh you know he moved up from 140 remember he lost his title to mikey garcia but he knocked mikey down he pushed him late in that fight sergey lippinets gets up that ass, if we can say that out loud, Luke, okay? He's got to fight October 10th on Showtime against an unbeaten guy, 15-0, Kudratilio Abduhakarov. He comes from one of those countries, Luke, where they bang, okay? They bang. There interim there's an interim title at stake and you know the business at welterweight luke we're overflowing with big names 95 of them are under the pbc banner i think this is going to be a fight of the year contender and i think lippinets has a chance to

really break into that overall category and just one more thing how about that last one in december um december 12th nonito donare legend, Donair, won titles in so many divisions, former pound-for-pound number two. He's coming off the fight of the year last year against Neyewa Inoue in the finals of that Bantamweight tournament, the World Boxing Super Series. The old guy pushed the young guy to the limit and broke his jaw and all that good stuff. He's back to going for another title at 118 here against Nordin Ubali, who's unbeaten himself. That's a sneaky great fight.

Also kind of interesting that stablemate of Gervonta, Malik Hawkins, fighting on that Lipinitz card as well. The one thing that I'm looking at that I've circled BC that we actually don't have an opponent for yet is going to be the return of Jaron, or Jaron, I don't remember how to pronounce his first name. Ennis who's 25-0. Yeah. King Tug is on that card

and then it's Lubin and Gausha on the September 19th as the main event. Let's not confuse though King Tug with you freshman year in the dorms at William & Mary because that's very applicable. But Luke it's time.

Anybody who's been following Showbox, anybody who's been following the undercards that we've been a part of doing the kickoff show, there are some good young prospects and names, a lot of them affiliated with Gervonta, same camp that's come up with them that are ready to leap off, and they're getting key co-main event spots on a lot of these cards. So look out for those names, the Richardson Hitchens, the Malik Hawkins, as you mentioned.

And then, obviously, as each of these fights get closer, we'll preview all of them and all the cards as well. We'll go into great detail. And I wouldn't mind working some of those events, BC, but we'll see how things go. All right, before we get out of here. You had a good chance there to puff up Espinoza, and you didn't do it, right?

I know. I asked him about Gervonta. What are you going to do gonna do uh it's just who i am endlessly self-sabotaging all right so we do have bellator tonight again at the mohegan sun by the way i've never been to the mohegan sun is it nice oh yeah i love the mohegan so that so there there's the foxwoods resort uh down the road about 20 minutes that's the bigger one that's the one that at many times has had the largest casino in the world but i've always been more of a mohegan sun fan you know uh it's yeah it's very very welcome what's the what's the vegas equivalent if like if i don't know if uh foxwoods is the um what's the luxury tower at the venetian i forget um well foxwoods is nice they're not super elite Vegas nice.

They're East Coast nice. No, it's like maybe they're like a less glitzy Aria. Oh, that's okay. As long as it's not Excalibur, then I'm fine. Yeah, no, they're not seedy. You want to go seedy? Go cover a boxing fight at a casino in the middle of upstate New York or something. You'll find seedy okay yeah well have you been to the mgm and uh here outside of dc and in oxen hill i have

not the national heart is really nice actually the national heart i know it's oxen hill maryland i used to live there fucking jay jay correcting me on my neighborhood fuck you jay all right why don't you go why don't you get a louder air conditioner, Jay? What is that, a jet engine behind you or a fucking 1940s refrigerant? All right. Main event for Bellator tonight, Ricky Bendejas taking on Sergio Pettis. Bendejas is the guy that gave the comeuppance to the SBG sort of – people call him the Conor clone, but anyway, neither here nor there. Pettis has had an interesting run.

He actually has a win over Joe B. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I thought James Gallagher. Yes, I like James, though. cologne but um anyway neither here nor there pettis has had an interesting run he actually has a win over joe b yeah james gallagher yes i like james though but uh he had one fight in bellator against alfred cash cash kyan uh just a guy with that uh wikipedia entry his last win the ufc was against tyson nam he kind of fell short against the better ones in that division the guys like henry cejudo and Formiga and Font. Bandejas is good and talented. And Pettis has a tendency to let fights go longer than they should. But I suspect he'll win here.

And I did like the move for Pettis, still only sitting at 26 years old to go to Bellator. Oh, yeah. I mean, he could become a star there. And also, by the way, whether you're talking Bantamweight,amweight featherweight belt or you know world class and stocked in terms of those i mean we're seeing a giant grand prix breakout recently for a reason in that um i like this fight a lot because if pettis has a offish night or isn't as tuned in bandejas can come in there and finish you he's coming off of two early knockout wins you know following those two losses

after the gallagher win. This is really good matchmaking. I think it's the right fight. I think you should favor Sergio Pettis. He's got much better experience and technique, I think. But Bandejas is a live body. I like it. I talked to Big John McCarthy on the podcast this week.

He got me all kinds of fired up for it, Luke. All right? Very good. Jason Jackson taking on Jordan Meehan, the Canadian. Should be an interesting fight. He's fighting at lightweight, which is interesting, because I think most of his career has been, if I'm not mistaken, has largely been at welter.

I want to make sure that's true. Yeah, mostly he's been at welterweight, so he's going to be dropping down to weight class, which is kind of interesting. But the other one that really matters here, Taiwan Claxton, taking on J.J. Wilson. Taiwan Claxton, sort of a standout wrestler. But the bigger one, BC, is the return of Aaron Pico.

He's taking on a donk by the name of Solo Hatley. Couldn't tell you much about him. I don't think he has a particularly distinguished record, but I'm not saying he's a scrub. I can tell you some things. Well, here's my view on this. I've seen a lot of people be like, oh, he should be fighting someone better at this point.

No, he shouldn't. First of all, he's 5-3. His last fight was in January, which wasn't forever ago, but he is still very much in need of experience. All of the fights that they can take somebody who's zero and zero and give them an appropriate level of experience and they're doing that with dylan danis everyone wants to rush him but i feel like they're doing that actually just right but they went a little bit too fast with this guy and he was so much hype on him and i know he beat leandro ego and that was like oh my god it's amazing but he clearly is just not quite ready

for the next level which means he won't be ready ever it's just take your time with this guy he's young he's talented he's with Brandon Gibson and the guys at Jackson Wink he should win this what I'm looking for him is patience execution calmness strategy that's think, the key for me tonight, BC. What about you? Yeah, I talked to him a couple months ago in the midst of the quarantine, and I really liked what I heard. You know, the move to Jackson Wink, moved everything down there, is embracing the culture. He's got horses on the ranch there. I mean, he's living the life, and he's saying, Luke, for the first time, he's not just reacting physically. He's not just thinking, okay, you know, I'm a better boxer, wrestler, and athlete

than all these people, so I'm just going to come in and flash that. He's listening to his coaches and understanding why they're implementing a certain game plan and why it makes sense. So this has been the best thing he's needed, this humbling, it seems. Obviously, it wasn't ideal for a guy that Brett Okamoto once said on ESPN is the brightest prospect in MMA history, And I think he was right at that point, given the, you know, the amateur, you know, accreditations that, well, how about that word, that he has had. But look, he's got to go wrestling first, Luke.

You know what I mean? He can finish you, especially after using the shoot as a threat. But he's got to go wrestling first and build off of that he's got to play it safer he's got a better defense even in that knockout win in january i thought he got hit a little too much hopefully he can get there um in terms of his opponent solo hatley he's eight and two and big john mccarthy did tell me he's going to have a massive speed advantage over pico in fact he's got world-class elite level speed although he obviously doesn't have the experience and he's certainly the right opponent at the right time for Pico.

It's going to be an interesting fight to see where he's at. It's more about not making mistakes, I think, than anything else, and utilizing all the strengths that he brings to the table. But it's reality TV every single time Aaron Pico fights from here on out. And obviously it would be at featherweight. And from the prelim card card nothing really of note they did just announce before the show chandler and benson henderson is official for 243 august 7th also at mohegan sun matt mitrione against timothy johnson for those who are interested in

the curtis millinder i'm taking on sabah homasi i think we covered just about everything bc what did we miss today well we touched briefly on on Nazeem's passing. Obviously, that's a big hit to the boxing game and a legend. And I loved the run he had as Bernard Hopkins is almost like wise Yoda during that run, where Bernard in those late 40s was winning the light heavyweight title. And I had so many great one-on-one talks with brother nazim like in the gym and philly and stuff like that guy just lived it and has such a funny way of looking at the sport you know he told me after i'll never forget in montreal deep in the locker room after uh bernard hopkins had beat john pascal in the rematch and set the record as the oldest champion

of boxing history i'm like nazim like you're not a guy that wants to see people get hurt. How much longer can Bernard do this? And he looked at me and he's like, man, until I can look at the top 10 and not see six guys Bernard can beat, I'm never telling him to leave and walk away. And he just had a quirky way about him. And he was a smart guy, obviously, and did a lot of things with big name fighters. So tough to see. Thank you, brother Nazeem. A career in this sport a lifer loved it yeah and uh if you ever watch any for me as a guy who missed a lot of years in boxing due to like MMA coverage um

I still recall like one thing that stands out to me about him is yes he was good in interviews but his uh corner advice between rounds was always so clear and so obvious and when his fighters were in trouble he did not pull punches either so to speak right like you need to show me something or this is going to be the end of it or you know he just had a certain like ease with boxing about when to push when to pull when when to break, when to gas, and sort of what it all meant. Brilliant, brilliant guy. Philly-owned from the day he was born until obviously today. A real tragedy for the game, but a life well-lived in many respects,

I think is an important thing here. Remember, Luke, changing subjects quickly, remember mid-quarantine we were like, man, there's no fights, but if everybody comes back at the same time in the second half of the year and loads up these schedules it's gonna be a wild final six months to the year we kind of have that potential between the showtime boxing announcement obviously pbc is going to come back on fox top rank reloading for some big cards the zones back bellator ufc um this could be a a great time to be to be subscribed to the morning for some big cards. The Zone's back. Bellator. UFC.

This could be a great time to be subscribed to the Morning Combat podcast. We're going to have to do, you know, more than one episode on the regular, I would have to assume. Probably.

Although, you did get one thing wrong in the Espinoza interview. It was true that when the fight was first announced that The Zone was not covering tonight's fight.

They are tonight. They actually are. But, you know, we'll see how long that lasts. Did you know that? Interesting. I did not hear that. That is very interesting. Last minute change yesterday. DAZN said they were going to air it.

Shout out to Days In on that one. Days In. Old Howard Johnson. Luke, you want to update the people on what they should expect in the near future because tomorrow i'm 42 years old i'm out of here on vacation brother all right that's right happy birthday what are you doing for your birthday you old piece of shit my wife bought me a peloton by the way i think she's a little nervous about my lack of fitness or mental positive mental health so uh yeah get on the bike you fat fuck happy birthday i may have to

broadcast this show from the bike a few days a week uh moving forward um yeah so i'm gonna be getting in shape a little i know i'm like i'm gonna be on a lake house we're gonna have a good time uh you know bc's gonna get fat drink lot of beer, look at the sunsets. What are you going to do? You're going to put on a show next week? So what we'll do is there will definitely be a dissected from the weekend. We're toying with ideas. If folks would like to see like a Monday kind of live chat show where they just get to ask questions in real time and then I'll just go

for like an hour and sort of cover all of the weekend stories that way I can do that if they have another idea and folks like oh why can't we just have something like Chuck on now we love Chuck but this setup requires a certain amount of technology that we have to ship out to people and there's just no way to do that right now with him so it can only be me or BC and if BC can't be here then it can only be me and vice versa so if you've got any ideas we're kind of open LukeThomasNews at gmail.com What about the people that will email

and say what about Jay the director, the producer I'm sorry I can't hear him because of the stealth bomber that's fucking flying right next to his ear sorry jay you were only coming through in waves your lips move but i can't hear what you say i know it's like jay why is your podcast studio at cape carnavral where net where nasa is launching fucking spacex shit into orbit why are you doing that i had no

idea what you were doing that for that That makes no sense. Just saying. All I know is if I come back next week and the damn schmo replaced me, you know, we're going to have problems, alright? I'll say this though. People ask me what your favorite holiday is or your favorite day of the year. And when you're a kid, it's usually either Christmas

or your birthday or something, right? But now that I'm a dad, I've got to tell you Father's Day is better than my birthday. But now that I'm a dad, I got to tell you, Father's Day is better than my birthday because now that I'm over the hill and over 40 like you, I'll be 41 in just a couple of weeks, people are always like, you old-ass bitch, aren't your balls dragging on the ground, you old-ass hoe? And then on Father's Day, everyone's like,

wow, Luke, cheers to you for being such a great dad. Everyone's all happy, apparently, about my contributions, whereas I get nothing but insulted on my birthday. I think Father's Day better than birthdays, BC. Yeah, it is pretty incredible. Mother's Day in my house is a monster holiday. I can't hear BC. What happens?

Did he just die on us? BC, we can't hear you, fucker. Whereas Father's Day, it comes a month later. Is it just me, or we can't hear BC? is a monster holiday where it's treated like Christmas and birthdays put together, whereas Father's Day comes a month later. Is it just me, or we can't hear BC? It's more like, let's just leave that alone. All right, well, I can't. I'm a master. I can't.

BC. Thank you. Thank you. Are we frozen? What the hell is happening here? Okay, I'm going to wait for his lips to stop moving. BC, I cannot. What is happening?

BC, I cannot hear you. I cannot hear you. All right. All right, here we go. I cannot hear you. All right. All right. Here we go. I cannot hear you, so I'm going to get out of here. We have to get out of here anyway. I have another job.

That's the sort of way this thing goes. All right. By the way, of course, give us a thumbs up on the video. Subscribe to the channel. As always, we are available on social media as well. Morning Combat on Insta. Morning Combat on YouTube. We'll be back Monday

with some kind of coverage let us know what you guys want to see in the comment section below or of course you can email me as well for BC I'm Luke thanks to Steven Espinosa as well until next time may all of your gains be loyal We'll be right back.