MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - TANK DAVIS, CYBORG, HOLLOWAY VS. EDGAR | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 4 | BELOW THE BELT'

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Today's episode of Morning Kombat with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell includes Max Holloway, Cyborg, Gervonta Davis, Dillion Whyte and more. MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL, Showtime's first live digital series, spotlights the weekend’s biggest news from the world of combat sports. MORNING KOMBAT airs live every Monday at 12 PM ET / 9 AM PT. #BelowTheBelt #MorningKombat Subscribe to the BELOW THE BELT with Brendan Schaub channel: http://s.sho.com/BelowtheBelt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, Reveille, Docs. It is Monday, July 29th, 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I am the host of this program, joined by my co-host from CBS Sports, the man himself. Saw him this weekend as well, my Showtime prelims compadre, Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian.

Hey, went to Baltimore, came back alive. It's a good weekend. Barely. I've never met a man with more travel headaches in my life than this one, but somehow he finds a way to get to where he needs to go. Hey, what are we on, week four of the show? Episode four. We've made a lot of changes. I mean, we started a lone, listless breakfast table in an otherwise empty room,

but it's coming together. People have noted your 90s lyrics enthusiasm is pretty great. So a lot to get to today. There was a ton of stuff that happened over the weekend. So why don't we jump right into it if we can. The first topic of the day, let's start with UFC 240. And your winner in your main event, Max Holloway, defeating Frankie Edgar to retain his UFC featherweight title.

The way I would like to start this conversation, Brian, if I may, all the discussion is, is Max da goat? Is he the greatest of all time at featherweight? If you look at what he's done, it's pretty impressive. Now, the majority of that work in terms of the numerical wins happened prior to claiming the title. But since then, he beat Jose Aldo twice. Now, he did lose to Poirier, of course, but that was at 155.

He beat Brian Ortega. He beats Frankie Edgar, you know, for two wins over Aldo, then Ortega, then Edgar. That is quite the resume at featherweight. 14 wins in a row at featherweight. That can quite the resume. And you consider 14 wins in a row at Featherweight. That can't be left. That's pretty amazing. Here's what I would say about that, though. I think the discussion's kind of silly. The division is so young. You've got three people who have ever held the title, and one of those never even defended it. Now, his resume is

pretty good, too, right? He beat Poirier down there. He beat Max down there. He KO'd Aldo down there and a bunch of other stuff as well. He had a nice run at featherweight, too. Like, this is all to say, is Edgar's run at featherweight worthy of respect? Yes. Is Max's? Yes. Is Aldo's?

Yes. Is Conor's? Yes. But, like, greatest of all time? I'm not saying we can't. I mean, it's the hot take era. I'm not saying we can't arrange them a little bit in our mind, but we talk about the greatest of all time for a division that is, you know,

it's just so, I've been covering MMA longer than there's been a featherweight division. You nailed it. We do podcasts, we do radio shows, we do TV, and we know what it's like to fill segments, to have to have things to talk about. And we also know maybe how tiresome it's getting, especially in a sport in MMA, where it's so young, 25 plus years in women's MMA, when we're talking about Nunez is the greatest of all time, which she is, by the way, but still, it's a little bit ridiculous. The sport's been around for, what, a decade on the women's side, you know, at the highest level.

So, yes, with all that said, it is getting a little bit too hot-takey to always every week update. Well, does that make this guy the new greatest at this weight class at fights that started at 10 p.m. Eastern? No, it doesn't. But at the same time, yeah, Max has the best featherweight legacy. And what this fight ultimately did, Luke, with such a one-sided and technical and brilliant win over Frankie Edgar, who still had it at 37 despite this guy right here entering having my own doubts. Yeah, boy.

Max is freaking unflappable. All right? Freaking unflappable. You remember 2018 where people were fearing for his health. I was one of those people fearing for his health. Yep. And I feel like every time we have a question about him, he raises his game to that higher level. And we certainly had at least some question coming in coming off the Poirier loss.

So the interesting part about that, as you'll note, at the Post-Fight Press Conference, they were asking, okay, are you going to fight Volkanovsky at the show 243 down in Australia? And his answer was, look, hold your horses. I got to get some medical tests done. And I believe I'm told by his manager that he's out, I think, doing that today in Las Vegas. So here's the deal. Would that be the 13th island, by the way, though?

I know you don't like this type of talk, but... Australia? Yeah. Well, isn't Vegas ninth island and then Canada is 10th? I think Toronto is 10th. So it would be 11th. Yeah, I'm falling behind. You're adding a few islands there before you need to.

I guess the point being is, I also think, to your point, he wasn't taking his health as seriously as he should have. And I also, I thought that Max would win this, but I also thought, man, coming back from Poirier fights so soon, I didn't see a whole lot of damage. I saw nothing, Luke. Yeah? I mean, this was the potential perfect trap fight.

If you believed in Frankie, which Frankie's got, rightfully, a large army online of people that, I mean, he's one of the more beloved. I'm sure you heard from them based on your skepticism. And he's one of the more beloved fighters for a reason of these modern times with the way he fights, takes chances in there, comes back, fights over his head and weight, all that good stuff. But what I said was right. I looked at it more as, for Max, almost a borderline get well fight.

At the same time, though, if you believed in Edgar, it was a trap fight too. And then it's like, throw those narratives away. What we really saw was a guy who's still only 27. So what you're saying was, I was right last week, and you were wrong. Well, was I? A little bit. Was I? Because let's look at how it played out in the end to say was I wrong.

You said it was a get well fight for Frankie. Dude, Frank, you just now called it one-sided. I would disagree. I don't see people, I saw people out there on Twitter trying to give him two rounds, three rounds. I don't, I mean, come on. I think you could score it 50-45, but you should still be able to say the score doesn't reflect how competitive it was.

All right, and me using the word trap foot obviously gets people up in arms, but that doesn't really show you who Frankie is. It shows that in this division when you had other options like Volkanovski, when you have other guys rising, the idea of going back to Frankie in this spot, to me, was utilizing his marketability and playing it in a little bit of a get-well role. Some of that is true. Not so much taking a dump on Frankie, but to try to sit here and say I should take this L, it kind of played out exactly like I thought it would play out in the end.

I thought it was pretty competitive. And yet I still came out of there impressed with both performances. And that's the thing. This was one of those weird fights where Frankie could lose in my eyes a one-sided one and yet elevate himself in the process because he fought so well. The game plan was there. The speed was still there at 37. He just had the sort of physical disadvantages that played out huge

in the size difference. And then when it was clear he could not take Max down, he's not going to outbox him. So one of the issues that Frankie runs into is there's just a lot of tape on him. And at 37, you're not really... You can make some tweaks to how you compete, but you can't make the big ones. And his skill set

relative to Max, where Max can... I did a whole thing on this undissected you know Max can stand southpaw orthodox he can circle either direction he can build a game plan exactly as he needs to based on this incredible modularity in the striking game which frankly most people hardly any have Frankie's a very good striker and a very good wrestler but the wrestling as we saw got shut down and striking's good, but I think people have seen so much of it, they can really plan around that. And you saw the team that he has behind him, Max Holloway with Ivan Flores, they did a great job with it. But I got to say, I came out of that thinking, and this is where I want to take the

next part of this discussion, I know Frankie doesn't want to necessarily go to Bantamweight. He just seems like he's unsure about it. I think it'd be a great idea. Years ago, Brian, his coach Mark Henry, unsolicited, called into my SiriusXM radio show and said, and this was, I think he was still at 155 at the time. And he was like, you guys know he can make 135. We were like, oh, no way. I think not only he can make it at 37, he sees it as like, well, I didn't succeed at featherweight, it's a departure. No. It is a testament to that. If you can have a successful campaign at lightweight, which he did, he didn't win a title at 145, but he's been a pretty damn strong count of himself.

And going to 135 when it's hot right now, fresh matchups, you never know, it would tell me that you can be competitive against three weight classes, particularly on the lighter side. Dude, you would be doing this stuff. He's already a legend. This would be another layer to it. We learned in this fight that from an elite standpoint, he's still got it.

He's still got it very much. He just fought a Max who's, again, not to go too much on hyperbole, but it's starting to show you that he's building a case to be an all-time great. And Max is only 27, so it's mind-boggling how much he's done, how good he is. Frankie showed you he's still got it, but the idea of, well, should he go? My question is, he really has no other choice, how good he is. Frankie showed you he's still got it, but the idea of, well, should he go? My question is,

he really has no other choice, because if he stays at featherweight, he's not going to win a title, and yet he's almost still too good to enter completely into that graduation that fighters do, where you just become an old name, and you sit around, and maybe you'll get one more big fight, maybe you'll just match your old name with another old name,

and then if you hang around long enough, they start feeding you to the young guys on the way up, and that's the sort of exit system in this food chain. He's still good enough where it's sort of like, if you can make 35, do it. Because the chances he used to take at lightweight in doing that, sure, he would have the advantage of speed. But the chances that he would take relying on his toughness, you can't take at 37. And when your speed is knocked down a bit, obviously, because of age and all that, I don't know what else he's going to do. He's not going to go to lightweight where it's all killer and he's already been there. And staying around at featherweight, you're just going to be another guy in some cases.

So it's more like if you still have it, and he does, and you still want to do it, and he does. And that was a very emotional interview you gave. And it's hard not to love him 20 times over when he gives that type of emotional interview afterwards. You got to do it, bro. You got to go down to 35. There's nothing left for you. Last question. How did you score the fight?

Four rounds to one. Four rounds. Which one did you give Frankie? I gave Frankie, a lot of people were giving him the first. I didn't. I gave him the third. I thought he really sort of changed a little bit of the momentum of the fight there. Okay.

First round, I could see, I didn't give it to him, but I could see a case for it. I went back and I watched this fight probably 50 times. There is no case to give him the third round. None. Now, understand, scoring in real time is harder. Going back after the fact, looking at stats, that's not really scoring. That's just, that's not revisionist history, but it's just so much more accurate than what people have at their leisure to begin with. But you go back and look at that. He outstruck Edgar numerically, which is not the same thing

as qualitatively, but numerically, almost two to one, he rocked him in that. And you got the takedown, but he didn't do hardly anything with it. See, I thought Edgar had his longest sustained success in the third round, where the first round was a little bit even, back and forth, a lot of trading. I thought Edgar had a good minute and a half, two minutes, where he completely controlled that fight. Yeah, but there was the Max Kellerman question. Who would you rather be when the round was over? You'd much rather be Max.

I actually think no one's picking up on this. The fourth round was the one that was really dicey to me. You could very much score that for Frankie Edgar. I was surprised people didn't. But anyway, I think he'll go to bantamweight. I think his advisors will push him in that direction. And I think he'll be very competitive. And I think he'll get some big fights.

And I think he's going to get a title shot with just one or two victories down there. It's crazy for a guy to reach legend status and we've never seen him fight at what would amount to be his natural weight. We don't know if that will be his best weight, but it would be where he'd have the most physical advantages. It's interesting. All right, so now let's go to the person in the co-main event. Felicia Spencer made a strong account of herself, but it was all for naught in the end. Chris Cyborg, absolutely.

I don't want to say demolishing her because Felicia did so well in the sense of trying to fight back, trying to find a way to win the fight, cutting Cyborg for the first time in her career. But ultimately, she fell short. Chris Cyborg wins on the last fight of her deal. After the fight, Bryan, she goes into the post-fight press conference, and she says, matter of factly, yo, I do not have a good relationship with UFC, and I especially don't have a good relationship with Dana White. You know what was so funny about this weekend when

you and I were in Baltimore for the Showtime fight? It was in the Royal Farms Arena. Now, that used to be called the First Mariner Arena. And the last time I was at the First Mariner Arena, it was to cover Jones versus Teixeira. Folks may not remember this, but that was the famous scrum that Dana White did where he said Chris Cyborg reminded him of Vanderlei Silva in a dress. He says now today, I don't talk bad about her. Right. But you did for years. And that abuse sticks around. And not only do people recycle what he says, they now feel emboldened to do it to the point where Chris Cyborg is talking about her own daughter being bullied at school. We have normalized Dana White's bashing of fighters.

It's just a thing that happens during fight week. But some of this stuff sticks around, and it's incredibly toxic. So the question now is, Brian, why don't you go first? Does she go to Bellator? Does she stay with the UFC? It's a good question. And even better, should she go to Bellator? Should she stay with UFC? It comes down to what she wants most, what is most important to her.

Because you would think I could naturally just tell you she should move on. The relationship is not there. They've never done her right. They really haven't. From the beginning, the abusive comments going way back, the accusations of PED use, all that good stuff. Did I just make up another word? Yeah, you certainly did. Evolvement. Wow, evolvement. Evolvement wasn't

a real word, but yes, go ahead. But while they're not outright abusing her in that sense now, just the lack of care. I mean, Dana putting out in the media like he's doing, she doesn't want this rematch, she doesn't want this rematch. Obviously they're at some sort of intersection in terms of the negotiating for that. But why would you constantly go

public and just sort of demean somebody who's an absolute legend and pioneer? Somebody who you would think the UFC would be, which they do use her name for ticket sales and such, but you'd think they'd be playing it up more of her legend and what she's done and the people she's beaten. But yet it's a constant put down. So from that regard, it seems natural.

Go find out what your worth is, whether it's Bellator, whether it's a boxing one-off, whether it's pro wrestling one-off, whatever. But, Luke, I come back to this. The fight that means the most to her, the fight that would still do the most to help her career and legacy, the fight where she could make the most money, the fight that seems to matter the most is still within the UFC. And it's the rematch with Amanda Nunez because should she be able to right that wrong and come back and beat Nunez you really add a very giant cherry on top of the end of the career you set up a third fight and you get a chance to pull yourself back into that greatest of all time conversation that we're talking about so with that being the case why would you not come back for one more so there's a few reasons why you might not come back also you mentioned not only have they not been saying nice things about her since the word go.

Remember, her first couple of fights, they made her go down to 140 for no good reason at all. So, A, what damage was scored there? And, B, talk about getting off on the wrong foot. You're bad-mouthing somebody for years. You finally sign them, and now you're putting them in a weight class. Would they have to do extraordinary amounts of road work to get down there? Oh, and they create a weight class for her. She's not ready to fight it and they don't put her in the inaugural title fight. It's just a bunch of... I'm not saying Cyborg has always been

the easiest person to work with. I'm sure behind the scenes, and I've heard things, that she makes things difficult at times. So look, both parties probably have some culpability here, but Chris Cyborg has not said the same things about the UFC that the UFC and Dana White have said about her. That is just a fact that you have to accept moreover you ask why she might want to go here's a reality that makes things difficult for fighters there are a lot of fighters in the UFC that have completely broken relationships with the UFC the Diaz brothers are one of those now again are the Diaz brothers the easiest people to work with? No, of course not. However, how did the fight with Anthony Pettis get made? The UFC couldn't make it.

It was Nate Diaz's people reaching out to Anthony Pettis's people saying, do you want to do this? And they were like, okay, sure. Then going to the UFC and UFC signing off on it. They don't get along. They can't find a way to work. They had to go outside of that. Chris Cyborg said something this weekend that I thought was great.

She goes, every time they talk about me, they're damaging my brand. Right on. Dana White said this week, well, she wants to leave. I'm not even saying I'm mad at her because she wants to take easier fights. Now if she goes, he's already set the narrative because the MMA media just breathlessly repeats this like stenographers. So now that's going to be the prevailing wisdom. When in fact, if she went to work with Bellator or Ryzen or whatever, PFL or something, she would get somebody heavily promoting her brand. She would probably get,

I don't know if a pay bump, but something commensurate with it. And she'd be in an environment where you're wanted. Dude, you don't realize how much better it is to work at a place where you're wanted versus where you're just there. I understand your point about the Nunes fight. Honestly, Cyborg's resume to me, like maybe she's not the greatest of all time and beating Nunes, I don't know how much that changes it because of who else Nunes has beaten. To me, like you've already done your best work. Why don't you go and work at a place where people value you in the way that you want to be valued?

All right, let me counter that by saying this. She's 34. It's clear she's going me counter that by saying this. She's 34. It's clear she's going to end up in those places. She's always had a great relationship with Scott Coker. It's clear she's probably going to end up on that side of the line anyway, making money in her twilight years. It's going to happen anyway. Yeah, like she's going to be in the courthouse going to Bellator.

But here's the deal. Her physical window's closing. So what did I see Saturday night against Spencer? I saw a fun fight. Some people were like, that's the best fight in women's featherweight history. Well, what do we have to choose from here, people? I mean, it's really Cyborg and Holm was the only,

you know, whatever. But number two, it was a right fight that sort of elevated everyone. Cyborg guts it out and gets this win. Spencer shows you that she's legit, all this good stuff. But you know what I really saw in that fight? Cyborg's declining.

And not just that. You know the feels that I got? I got Fedor versus, what's the guy's name? Brett Rogers. Fedor or Brett Rogers, remember that? It was right before. It's a little unfair to Felicia, but. But no, and not to make the direct comparison of the opponent, but the idea of in that fight,

we thought Fedor was still Fedor. We had no idea what was going to come, but in that fight, you saw Fedor taking damage and you're like, whoa, whoa. I didn't think Brett Rodgers was this good. Turns out he wasn't by the way. Swung for the fences, lit up Fedor a little bit. Fedor had to pour out what was left in the jug that night to gut it out and beat him. And then the decline

happened. And then all that. I saw glimpses of that on Saturday night where we saw a cyborg doing what she had to do to get the job done. And it's nothing against Felicia Spencer, but I think she poured out what might be left. So if she still wants the idea of giant money and wants the idea of gaining back glory,

that window is right now to go back in the meta-news. Can you even negotiate with the UFC in good faith at this point? Part of the reason why Dana White's saying those things is if she leaves, he has set the narrative, and then second of all, he has now reduced her bargaining power by going out and saying, well, this is what she really wants. This is what it's really all about. No, you make a good point.

It's clear he doesn't want it. He doesn't seem to want that fight. He doesn't seem to want to help her get that fight. I don't guess he's going to sign her to a one-off and pay her a ton of money. Also, I would argue that Chris Cyborg versus Julia Budd is a legitimate fight. It's a legitimate fight. Easy, I don't know. I think you sit down at the table,

you find out what's really going on here, if you can get the money that you deserve, you go back after that Nunez rematch. If not, you're never going to get it. You just walk away for good. Right. Alright, fair enough. Now, let's shift gears. We'll come back to the UFC stuff in just a second. Let's go first to where we were over the weekend. You had Gervonta

Davis. I'll keep saying Gervonta. Gervonta Davis taking on Ricardo Nunez. In his hometown, it was a homecoming fight at Airdon Showtime. By the way, a little bit of credit here if I do say so myself, call it a second round KO. It's exactly what we got. Gervonta Davis looked pretty incredible. So Brian, you're the boxing guy here. Let's answer a two-parter if we can. Start us off here. One, how did he look to you? And two, realistically, where can he go from here? It looks to me like he's got a lot of options,

but I'm not sure which ones are the most realistic. So he looked absolutely fantastic. Let's start that off. Blew away a guy you never heard of, yes. But this guy you never heard of had sort of the wild card in the fact that he knocked out 19 of the 21 wins that he has, and he came in there trying to fight, trying to win, had a sort of the wild card. He had a little swag. And the fact that he knocked out 19 of the 21 wins that he has, and he came in there trying to fight, trying to win, had some swag, had some power.

What I saw was a very patient Gervonta Davis. You're talking about a 24-year-old. We talked about that narrative coming in. Talent through the roof, had a little bit of problems staying serious, a little bit of problems outside the ring. It seemed the narrative the last couple of fights was Gervonta Davis' toughest opponent may be himself. But you know what? He seems to put that together personally. So what I saw inside the ring was this

clinical, patient performance in a round and a half where he didn't let his hands go early. He read the defense kind of like Floyd does, not comparing them, but in that same regard, and then sort of got closer and got closer, and then when he let his hands go and finished the fight, the kid's a natural finisher. The power is so there. But this conversation

because of the opponent and the recent opponents, can't really be about how he looked. Because this Saturday night was about marketing, branding, and a star not being born because we'd seen him before, but starting to really burst. And it's not just his promoter, Floyd Mayweather, afterwards talking about, I see it. He's a pay-per-view star. It's just the idea of coming back home to Baltimore and feeling that crowd. I mean, look, we've got to pause and pour one out for the Baltimoreans.

Is that what we're going to call them? Yeah, that's right. Holy cow, did they bring it. Purple camo nation. And it's not that we hadn't seen top-ranked bring Terrence Crawford to his hometown in Omaha and see fantastic crowds, or Jose Ramirez in Fresno, and Jose Ramirez had a great win over the weekend over Mo Hooker to unify, or other, but this direction that we're going is so refreshing.

How many boxing fights have you seen in person on TV in half-filled casino arenas where people are getting free tickets and they don't know what's going on? This was an engaged crowd that treated him like a star homecoming, and I felt like he took a leap through the screen, and I felt like his brand took a through the screen and I felt like his brand took a leap here. So yes, it's true, he doesn't have that defining opponent yet.

We thought it would be Abner Maris, he hasn't faced it yet. We can throw around names like the Leo Santa Cruz's or the Gary Russell's but again, those are smaller guys who would be moving up in weight and that's sort of been the criticism for Gervonta up to this point. Hasn't faced really a top guy on his own level outside of that Pedraza fight. So what this showed me is, yes, of course, it's time to move on and face that now. But I don't hate what he's talking about, unifying against a Tevin Farmer, trying to

unify against the other champions in the division before he moves up to 135, where we all know he's going. This was about star power. And this was about having that discussion right now. Is he what Floyd Mayweather says he is? Is he showing you that he's a pay-per-view brand? Here's the thing. Partly Floyd is willing things

into existence a little bit here. He's like setting the narrative in the media. Like when he says this guy is going to be a pay-per-view star, is a pay-per-view star, I forget the exact wording. He's sort of like getting, again, the boxing media to be stenographers and tell you that's what this is all about. And then you begin to think of it that way. Also, if you just look

at the Google search trends, he was the highest searched athlete over the weekend, over Max Holloway, over Frankie Edgar, over Chris Cyborg. Over UFC itself. Over UFC itself in general. So here's the thing. Yes, I work for Showtime. People are going to accuse me of what I'm about to say for shilling, but show me what I'm about to say is wrong. We just had

Chris Cyborg talking about the fact that they're damaging my brand. Look at what Floyd Mayweather's TMT, and of course he has his own promotion, GDT, and then of course Showtime in conjunction working. When you get behind an A-side talent and you promote them like an A-side talent, even if people don't even know who the opponent is, I'm not sure how much they care to an extent. Of course, he has to now change that. But the point being is, look at how much Gervonta Davis has benefited from this kind of treatment. Go and look at all the shows that Showtime put together and all the interviews and all of the online treatment and all the things Floyd is doing. Everyone is setting the table for somebody to be something special. He has to go and

do it against a Mares or a Terremoto or a whoever or Gary Russell Jr. He has to go and do all those things. But you see the actual benefit. Take somebody who's got some talent, put the wind at his back instead of his face, and lo and behold, he can go back to freaking Old Bay Natty Bow territory, and he can sell out the joint. It's amazing to watch. Well, if he's going to do in-between fights like this one was, a mandatory opponent,

you've got to go back to it. I want that inside my veins. Whatever was going on in the air, and I did smell some of it, so I do know what was going on in the air. Baltimore gets busy with the stickiest of the Yankees. But in terms of just the feeling, I mean, rub it on my gums, put it in a 12-ounce can. I need it. In all seriousness, did you not get the feeling? You were like, yo, he can come back here.

Oh. He can absolutely. When the title fight. Borderline sold out that 12,000-seat arena. I mean, of course he did. They announced on the broadcast when I got home, 14,000. 14,000 plus. That was off.

So, look, it's opponents ultimately that make you that. But he's going to get there. And he's not afraid to move to 135. And if you look at where we are right now in boxing, if his long-term opponent, long-term, giant pay-per-view, network, network, is like a Lomachenko, he's the right guy to build in here. And it's weird that he's got Floyd in his corner, and we sort of lazily sometimes go,

well, he's the next Floyd. No, he's not. He's a completely different fighter. He doesn't have Floyd's charisma. He's completely different. But he's almost like a young Pacquiao in this sense. Who was the last small-weight fighter who actually became a pay-per-view brand? Manny Pacquiao.

How did he do it? Not with talking trash, not with charisma. Firepower. Firepower and explosion, which Gervonta Davis has in these small weight classes. The last next Floyd was Adrian Broner. Didn't have the work ethic. We know it. Gervonta seems, in this period, the last

couple years, when we wanted him to fight the big names, he wanted to fight the big names. It didn't happen. One thing that did happen, though, is at 24, he seems to have gotten some of that other stuff out of him. Yeah. He seems to be focused now, first-time father, ready. So, he's got a little bit of that Manny Pacquiao vibe. If his

long-term Floyd Mayweather Manny Pacquiao opponent is Vasily Lomachenko, that ain't bad. And in the meantime, if he's going to start taking fights that truly matter, and a unification fight with Tevin Farmer would truly matter, I don't know about Floyd saying that's a pay-per-view fight, but still, I'm ready for this.

For all the clotties that Pacquiao fought, he still fought the De La Hoyas and the Hattons and the Margaritas. So that's really what's missing from Davis at this point. We know he stumbled against Fonseca in terms of how he managed his weight in that whole week.

He also had the weirdest trunks I'd ever seen in my life. And he went for a knockout the whole fight he didn't box. It just, it was weird. But since then, he seems to have absolutely centered himself. He managed this moment in Baltimore about as perfectly as you could ask any A-side fighter to do. And now it's a question of, you got to get those names on the resume too. You got to get those big fights. So my thought is, hey, send them to New York, send them to LA, send them to Las Vegas, put them on some big cards. Because eventually you can come back to Baltimore and you can do the exact same thing. And it's genuine hometown.

There's nothing in the world like your community embracing you in the way you saw that. I alluded to on the broadcast. I was there at the Walter E. Convention Center in D.C. when Peterson fought Khan. Dude, it has a completely different feeling for everybody there when that kind of thing happens. And, you know, yeah, he fought seven of his last eight on Showtime, the other one being the Mayweather-McGregor pay-per-view,

and yeah, this is a Showtime show, but throw that out there because, like you said, there are very few actual future pay-per-view fighters in the sport right now. Right. He's by far jumping off the screen as one of them.

That matters. All right, so now we go back to UFC if we can for a second. Also a little bit of boxing here. We're talking about all the good stuff. Is Max the GOAT? Chris Cyborg has some options. Some bad stuff there too, as well, I suppose.

Is Davis the next pay-per-view star in boxing? Let's talk about some of the things that I thought were not that great. Let's start on the MMA side. BJ Penn is going to get another fight in the UFC. Dana White defending it by saying, if you're a doctor, call me. If not, mind your business. I don't even know where to start with this. Okay.

First of all, let's start with Dana White's statement. Dana, I would love to know what the phone number is that the doctors can call. I'd be happy to share it with my audience here on this show or any other show that I do, number one. Number two, the idea that if you're not a doctor, mind your business, it's like, well, if you're not a doctor and that makes you incapable of making an assessment, that actually cuts both ways. So it actually undercuts his argument as well. Also, it is the media's job to wonder about these kinds of things.

Look, here's the deal, man, and about BJ Penn. I'll put my cards on the table. When he was at his peak peak and I said this at the time and I'll repeat it now that was about as close to the perfect fighter as you're ever going to see he was hard to hurt his skin didn't even like cut bad hairline but that's about it okay bro that's about it though he had a great jab even Freddie Roach was saying he had the best jab in MMA his jiu-jitsu do I even need to say anything you couldn't take him down he was training with the Marinovich's because before it was his gas tank issue, but when they got him locked on, he was an unstoppable

force of nature. Well, now he appears to be unstoppable for a very different reason. I cannot understand how in good conscience you can say Liddell needs to retire in the way that he does or Luke Rockhold or Holly Holm, except to say, well, he's not getting viciously knocked out. I don't know how many times, Brian, I need to repeat this. Subconcussive blows cause CTE. The idea that you have to get flatlined as a reason to stop this, yes, of course, if you are getting flatlined, that is alarming. The idea that that has to be in place, first of all, is kind of ghoulish, number one. Second of all, it's not a scientifically literate position. You cannot

claim to be up to date on your understanding of brain trauma and adopt that. Now, I'm not making a diagnosis of Penn or anybody else, but what I don't want to hear is, well, he's got a right to fight. No, he doesn't. That is actually a privilege. You have to get a license to do it, which by definition means he doesn't have a right. And also, how can you inconsistently apply these standards to so many other fighters but say, well, he lobbied on his behalf on my phone? So what? What does that have to do with anything?

How about you lobby on his behalf now? How about you jump in there? I mean, like, this is a new low. This is really a new low. And when we talk about things like, hey, it's the two-year anniversary when Dana called Cyborg Vonderlay an address, sometimes we go, okay, well, that's the old days, a little bit more Wild West. Maybe our PC society things were taken as a joke more than they are. I mean, Dana said a lot of awful things, but this is now 2019 this week, and this is a new low allowing BJ Penn here.

Guess what he doesn't need now? He doesn't need a go-away fight. You've lost seven in a row. That's a UFC record. You've lost badly. You're BJ Penn. You're 40 years old. You're already in the UFC Hall of Fame and still fighting.

And even worse, and this is sometimes where people use this as excuses, he's not drawing either. He's buried almost in a we're embarrassed about this type of way on the lower preliminary cards, like he should be right now. So it's not even like, well, we can get another main event out of him. We can get another. No, we're not even at that point. We're at the point now where Dana White is doing him a major disservice. Dana White is helping an addict, if you will. A fight

addict. A guy who's still addicted to whether it's the payday or the competition or just the spotlight. You're letting him get one more when he shouldn't have the last four, if we're really being honest. Last time BJ Penn won a fight, I had a flip phone, and that's for real. That's a shoot. So this situation,

it's not take the keys away from Grandpa, it's stop giving him the drugs. Like, what are you doing in this spot? And the sad truth is, and this is something Dana White mentioned, BJ Penn probably will still fight after this. It's all he knows. Loves it. Lives for it.

It's all he knows. It shouldn't be in your organization. And if you want to actually do something for him, don't give him one more fight that you're just going to bury and feel bad about. And we do have quotes on record from Dana saying, I don't want to see him fight anymore. So now you're doubling down going, what are we doing here? You know what you should give him? How about a pension, right?

How about money? How about a job? How about those jobs you used to throw out at Liddell and Matt Hughes back in the day? Company's not hurting financially. How about something so that he doesn't have to do this if you care about him that much? Because this is sad to give him this platform to see his brand go down. But forget about the brand to see his health go down. And if we're talking about somebody who seems stable and healthy right now, it would be one thing.

But we're talking about somebody who just Google BJ Penn arrest. And over the last six months, you'll see some pretty scary stories in there. And I also, again, like he who is without sin cast the first stone. Lots of young men get in trouble in bars, okay? It's not the end of the world. But to be 40 and be on TMZ because you're drunkenly wrestling a bouncer outside of a strip club, again, by itself, it's not the end of the world. Or taking a machete to your neighbor and threatening to kill.

Let's just talk about what's on. What we're saying, even if these three or four stories are partially true there's a warning signs right now right none of that is a is none of that is uh uh where you're like well it's no big deal it's like dude when i was getting chucked out of bars my mom had just died and i was 25 and drinking to like deal with the pain i'm 40 now i i couldn't even uh 40 next week i couldn't even imagine a scenario where that would be a thing that would happen but for the fact that something else is going terribly wrong. And I'm not in a position to diagnose what that is. But if you really care about someone, how can you justify the ethics of giving them?

By the way, Nick Lentz is a good fighter. He is by no means washed. Now, is he a top tier? No. But it's kind of funny. Like, we talked about getting flatline versus not flatline. You know, the UFC gave Rashad Evans Sam Alvey in Mexico City, and it was just kind of like a Dan Kelly. And it was kind of like, ah.

Well, then they gave him Anthony Smith. And then he gets flatlined. And then you're like, oh, right, now it's time to go. I'm not suggesting that's the way to handle it. But sometimes until the UFC does, sometimes people don't get the cue. So we'll see what happens. There's no win here. Let's say if he won and pulled some...

Who wins in the end here? Even if he wins and pulls some upset, you win nothing. There's no... Sorry, it's true. There's no happy endings in combat sports. We know this. Unless maybe... St. Pierre got one.

Floyd at Girl Collection after hours, maybe. There's a few of them. But what I mean is there's no good story that ends that way this is going to end badly inevitably end it now speaking of bad and ending although not inevitably they actually made choices to end it quite poorly didn't get a lot of news in the MMA side of things but I think it should there was some boxing news Dillian White I would say he's in all kinds of trouble but I'm not sure that's true but he caused all kinds of trouble, but I'm not sure that's true, but he caused all kinds of trouble. What happened?

So he had a fight two Saturdays ago against Oscar Rivas, number one contender. In the UK. In the UK. Dillian White, who, of course, one loss as a heavyweight to Anthony Joshua, his amateur rival. He got knocked out, but he hurt Joshua in that fight. He's been wanting a rematch forever. He's been number one, ranked for a while, waiting for that, waiting to get Joshua back in there. Joshua set other suitors in front of him.

He fights Rivas, gets knocked down, gets up, wins a close, unanimous decision. Comes out after the fight that he had failed two tests. He had failed the drug for two steroids leading up to it. Wow. And that there was knowledge of it by the promoter, by the British boxing board. The promoter in this case, Eddie Hearn? Eddie Hearn, and that in the end, the BBOC, the board came together, deemed him fit to compete somehow despite the failures and never told his opponent.

Which doesn't, it just doesn't make a ton of sense. It just sounds straight up corrupt. And to see Eddie Hearn in this spot sort of defend the situation by going, well they had a hearing, it's the commission's job to do it and they did it. If he was representing Anthony Joshua and that happened and the opponent failed the drug test, would he want to find out? So that is that. And then it comes out afterwards from the Athletics' Mike Coppinger that Rivas' team

also found out last minute that Dillian White changed the gloves that were inspected for this fight. That is super fucked up. Team Rivas finds out before the fight, they asked to have the gloves taken off and inspected, the British board says no. After the fight they asked to inspect, the British board says no. So you have sort of a double jeopardy situation of just crap that happened in this case. And if I'm Andy Ruiz Jr., the heavyweight who upset Anthony Joshua to win three or four

titles, why would you go to Great Britain at this point? Well, Anthony Joshua seems like he does everything above board. Okay, but this is a major warning sign of just outright corruption, of outright what's going on here. So if I'm Andy Ruiz, and he's in a weird spot, by the way. We don't talk about this enough. Andy Ruiz stops Anthony Joshua. Big win. But in this

modern day with mandatory rematch clauses for champions, you really don't win anything unless you beat the champion twice. You have no leverage contractually. You have really no much control. So you see these interviews with Andy Ruiz and he's like, you know, I want the rematch in Mexico. I want this and that. You don't really have much say. If you don't fight Joshua,

you lose the titles. So he's sort of in a tough spot, but if there's anything he can stand on, I keep that on American soil. Very good. Now we're not done with UFC because just, what would you say, two, three path stops away Ryan Campbell's going to be UFC Newark. UFC on ESPN 5.

And in the main event, Colby Covington takes on Robbie Lawler. Colby Covington ranked, I think, two or three, somewhere around there. I think two. And then you have Robbie Lawler ranked about 11 or so. So it's a big challenge in terms of Colby Covington because he's doing the same kind of thing, Brian, that Rafael Dos Anjos

did against Leland Edwards. He was ranked 4th, and then Leland Edwards was ranked 12th, and then they almost switched positions. So it's a lot to give up. On the other hand, here's the interesting part about it. Sitting at 2, Colby Covington, being the former interim champion, and Dana White saying over the weekend, for whatever this is worth, at least saying it creates some kind of leverage for him,

that if Covington wins this weekend, he gets the title shot next ahead of Jorge Masvidal, who is ranked currently one step behind. So it's going to be interesting to see what Jorge's rooting for, because Jorge is best friends with Covington. But OK, here's the question. The question, of course, do we believe that Covington is going to get a title shot if he ends up beating Robbie Lawler? And I would have to say, it depends. It depends on probably a couple of factors. One is the fight itself. It doesn't have to finish Robbie, because by the way, finishing Robbie is not going to be easy. It's a five-rounder as well. But if Covington can look kind of the way he did against Dos Anjos, kind of the way he did against Demi and Maya,

where there's this, like, accumulated damage, so not only is the fight over where you're like, okay, there's clearly one winner here, but then the other one kind of looks like all bruised up and battered and kind of destroyed. You know, it creates a certain visual impression, right? Even when this fight was over with Max and Edgar, you look at Max's face, clean.

You look at Edgar's face, it's kind of banged up. And again, that's not even fair because some guys just take damage worse than other ones. But the point being is it just creates a lasting memory. You can build off of that. So if he goes in there and does that kind of a thing that helps his chances too, man, he's got to sell it. He's got to sell it. And you can say Covington is cringy. He doesn't know how to sell things. People never connect the dots on this. Colby Covington is the fighter that the MMA media created because of the way, let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. Because of

the way that they report the news. And I'm guilty in this as well. This is not me pointing the finger. This is me looking in the mirror, But because of the way they report the news breathlessly, and they don't challenge any things, and the more absurd things you say, the more attention you get, somebody finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together and said, I'm just going to be everything that this media system enables. And that is exactly what he does. If he continues to play off that and gets right on the horse,

calling Kamar Usman snoozeman, saying he's not getting out there fast enough, all those kinds of things, which I suspect that he will, if he plays that card, Brian, it's his title shot to lose. But he's got to do both things. I don't know if he will. He's got to win impressively, too. And that's really where we're at right now. Dominantly, which is obviously hard to do against Robbie Lawler in any era. But I think even right now, I mean is obviously hard to do against Robbie Lawler in any era. But I think even right now, I mean, this seems like a reborn Robbie Lawler. That Ben Askren fight showed us a lot, even with the weird ending. But it seems like this is a much tougher fight for Covington than I think people are even talking about.

Real quickly, did you know he's the favorite? Which I found surprising. I find that surprising as well. And look, you know, and I went back and re-watched the RDA fight before this and sort of was re-surprised, like I was that fight of how well he dominated that fight, of how well he was able to just put constant relentless pressure in every angle and every possibility. He should get the title shot if he wins and looks good doing it. Why? Because you get, I know this is entertainment and I was vowing for Masvidal, what, two weeks ago. And I still feel like if you're

going for the entertainment angle, you put Masvidal on that title shot, no matter how Colby looks. But Colby did have an interim belt. And I hate when interim belts are thrown out there haphazardly. I hate them even more when they are stripped, you know, triple haphazardly. At this point, Covington hasn't lost. He's really putting together a strong resume. If he beats Robbie Lawler, almost in any form, deservedly so, he should get the next one.

So I don't think there's as much pressure to do all of these things, but certainly he's got to win and not be controversial and look good doing it. I don't think he has to go extra far in selling it because who created him or not, he's done a good job of putting himself out there. Sounds like you don't agree with my thesis. I think that it is absolutely true that a fighter looked at what gets attention and said, I'm going to make some kind of uncomfortable, sort of like poorly constructed version of whatever that is and just pull all the levers that gets MMA media to react.

And he did. MMA media wants to say he's some kind of vandal taking advantage of them. No, he was created by you. I kind of tend to believe, okay, I get your theory there. I kind of tend to believe Dan Lambert, ATT head man created him.

Dan Lambert's a very good pro wrestling heel. I know you didn't watch his run in TNA Impact. I know, he's a belt collector too, right? Great belt collector and a fun dude to talk to as well. They created a pro wrestling

stock character, but the way in which he has gotten ahead is by taking advantage of all the things that our media enables. And again, that's not me saying it. It's everyone else and not me. I am guilty of it too. I have done it.

I'm just pointing out. We have to take another look in the mirror and be like, why is he doing and saying all these things? Because he knows we will cover it in a way where he ultimately is the benefactor. I feel like if he wins, though, we are headed toward a Jorge Colby interim title fight. You know, whether that means Usman is injured a little bit longer, they tell him to just take a rest.

I feel like that's sort of not an unsmart way, not a dumb way to kind of sort this division out right now. Put the two teammates against each other who both said, obviously, they'd fight each other for these kind of stakes. It would be very interesting. Last thing about this, the only one that's still floating out there in the ether, if you think about it, Kamara's your champion, then you've got Colby at two, Jorge at three, you've got Leon Edwards at four. Number one is still Tyron Woodley.

Now, partly that's a function of how the people who do the rankings don't understand what rankings mean. They think rankings are like, this guy just lost the title. He should be number one. When actually it's a cue to establish who has done enough work to merit the next title shot. So like putting the guy who just, like by putting, I don't understand why this is controversial for people, but by putting Tyra Woodley at number one, if you're ranking him, what you are saying is this is the most qualified candidate to fight for a title, which clearly he's not at this point.

Still, he does occupy that position. I wonder how he's going to play into all of this. I wonder if Kamara doesn't come back, do they put Woodley in the interim title shot? What is he going to be? I feel like Lawler doesn't have a whole ton of a lot to win in this case. Now, if he goes out there and dismantles and knocks out Colby Cold, that's the best way he could move into the back end of the title picture. But if he wins just in a Robbie Lawler, grind it out type of style,

and we go, okay, we saw Colby's ceiling. This was a hill he couldn't get over. I feel like Lawler just goes back into that scheduled rematch against Woodley that they talked about anyway. And having interviewed him recently, he really wants that fight still. Or they put him up against Edwards. Because I think he would jump inside the top five at that point. It would be interesting.

I'm just telling you right now, this is a very tough fight for Colby. Not just to rejuvenate with Lawler, but I feel like Colby is pressing the wrong buttons at the wrong time. You know, sometimes we talk about the idea of like, if you're going to try to trash talk somebody, maybe not trash talk the craziest guy in the room like Habib, like a Masvidal. I just did a little Luke voice there. But the thing about Robbie Lawler, he's crazy in a whole different way. He'll just lay silently.

He doesn't care about media trash talk, any of that. He just likes to train and come out and fight. And it's Colby who's spreading publicly the, you ran away from ATT like a quote-unquote bitch because we put up a framed poster of Tyron Woodley after he knocked you out in the gym and you couldn't handle it. I talked to Lawler about that. He says, all that is crap.

This guy doesn't bother me. But you're telling me Lawler isn't at the gym thinking, I'm going to end this guy. Lawler is a crazy in the, it puts the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again kind of way. I mean that in as nice a way as I can

possibly say it. He's that other kind of crazy that if you give him a reason to dip deeper into his bag of crazy, he looks reborn and rejuvenated right now. Yeah, he does. We'll see what happens on Saturday. By the way, main card starts at 3 p.m. Thank you, Jesus. This is like ABC Wild World of Sports, like old school 80s boxing feeling.

This is like, you know, this is great. All right, so we listened. You spoke to us. You're like, hey, we want a segment where the fans can ask questions and get a say, challenge us maybe on some of our views. And we have accommodated you. If you guys follow me on Instagram, Luke Thomas News, what's your Instagram? Brian C. Campbell.

Brian C. Campbell. So a couple of C's in there. We put up pictures yesterday where we said, hey, leave us some questions in the comments below. I think I put up one on Twitter as well, although I didn't really check what happened after that because Twitter is a place where souls go to die in happiness as well. In Dark Donk Forest. In any event, we did put them up. I have not seen these, Brian Campbell.

I told the folks in the back, you pull them and we'll answer them. So Brian, you'll go first. I'll read it out to you. This comes from Corey James 89. Did the UFC make a mistake booking Holloway versus Edgar and not saving Holloway for Australia in October? What say you, sir? They made a short-term decision

to have a marketable fight in Edmonton, knowing they were going to put together an in-between kind of crap card. How marketable was it, dude? I don't think it was that marketable. Not that marketable in the end, but imagine what it would have been like if they didn't have it. Imagine if that was Volkanovski, which would have been a great fight for the hardcores. Amazing fight. Did they fail in that regard?

I say no, because they have what they need to sell in Australia. They have two oceanic stars that are fighting for a title in a must-see fight. Plus, you've got Dan Hooker looking for a fight out there, too. I think they've done well in that regard. Yeah. Look, if they did, would it be awesome? No doubt about it. Do you need to burn it or co-align it just because?

No, you do not. Next. Okay, from GlassGoSmile, I think that's how you pronounce it. Does Masvidal really stand a reasonable chance against a wrestler with a heavy hands, excuse me, with the heavy hands, physical explosiveness, and deep gas tank that Usman possesses? I get giving him the title shot after his last two performances, but it honestly seems like a terrible stylistic matchup for him. So if you look at historically the ways in which Jorge Masvidal has had trouble,

it's when guys really go after the takedown considerably. And they've done it in different ways. Masvidal, when he fought Maia, Maia was looking for it. He would get stuffed, and then everyone knows Maia then goes to the sort of like baseball slide to suck you into his guard, and then he gets underneath, and then he goes for the back. That's one way. But if you look at some of the other losses that he's had, when he's constantly having to defend the takedown,

he can be offensively muted because he really has to be considerate about it. But the truth is, he has very good takedown defense. Like, to say that he doesn't would be very false. It's just that it occupies him to such a degree that the rest of his game can't come to life. It's why people say, Brian, you know, if you had fought Ben Askren and that first knee misses, what would have happened? Okay, we'll never know. And saying it seems like you're discrediting Jorge.

But I actually think you've got to be fair to Ben. The math shows us that when you spam him with takedown attempts, again, he doesn't get overwhelmed and like crushed, but he just can't come to life. It would have been interesting. Interesting. In your heart of hearts, do you have that same feeling about the way Aldo McGregor ended? That had it not been so, such a sort of freak instant occurrence that we would have seen a difference? Paulie Malignaggi has called Conor McGregor a frontrunner, and I don't think that's fair. But what I do think is fair is that every fighter gets tired over the fight, although, Max, if you look at his output, Holloway, it actually goes up typically.

Not always. I don't think it's true that McGregor's a frontrunner. What I do think is true is that he is far less the same fighter in round three and even round two than he is in round one. So the question is, if somehow Aldo doesn't get knocked out there, would it have been a different fight in rounds two and round three? I don't know how you can argue with that. And you could say, well, that's true for every fighter. They go down in rounds two. Yeah, but there's a huge drop off for him. Here's what I would say, though. You don't get to answer that question because Conor McGregor is,

and I mean this as a compliment, he might be the best first-round fighter, I'm not saying in MMA history, but in the lighter weight divisions, not many guys come out on fire. Shane Carwin brings a bell. Yeah, okay, fine. But, dude, who is their best in round one? Most fighters. Who is their peak in round one?

Conor McGregor. He is just locked in from the word go. So that's what you get. That's what you get. All right, next. This is from Jukar or Hukar3, depending on the derivation of the name. Why in MMA do people always take criticism of something, Rogan's commentary, as some form of character assassination? I have brought this up a million times, and we're going to get it on this show, too.

There is no such thing, apparently, in MMA as good faith criticism, which is to say the only reason why people would assume you criticize would be because you're jealous or because you have some kind of personal vendetta or it can't actually be that like as a professional doing your job and trying to make an assessment of things you would do it in a way where like i don't know joe as a person i couldn't possibly tell you uh i've met him one time literally i've met joe one time a lot shorter in person than you'd imagine. Yeah, but stocky. Stocky. But in any event, like, I don't know him personally. See, I wasn't taking a shot by bringing up his height there. I was just telling you.

Yeah, he's shorter in person. But, like, do I know him as a father? I do not. Do I know him as a friend? I do not. Brendan Schaub speaks highly of him. He could be all the most amazing things, but I thought in terms of his commentary on Saturday night at UFC 240, it was poor.

He was locked into these old narratives about, like, takedowns, stealing rounds. Like, dude, takedowns, stealing rounds. Like, dude, I'm sorry. Brian, there is no way to give Frankie Eggert the third round in that fight. First and fourth, maybe. But beyond that, Cyborg's tired when she's clearly not tired. Could I tell you that I was forced to watch it on a phone because ESPN Plus is maddeningly frustrating? Because I tried to open it on my laptop, and they're telling me, no, you purchased it on your phone. But you know what?

I have a theory about this. I wonder what you think about it. And I mean this sincerely the problem is that MMA for reasons that remain somewhat unclear to me it operates on an honor culture So what's there between honor culture and a dignity culture a dignity culture is I say Brian You're a terrible analyst and everyone hates you it doesn't matter what I say because you inherently have dignity It's irrelevant right especially if it's a bad faith criticism an honor culture is if I say because you inherently have dignity. It's irrelevant, right? Especially if it's a bad faith criticism. Honor culture is, if I say something about you, I have robbed you of your honor

and now you have to retaliate to get back. Literally, it's a backwards way of operating in the world. It's like 19th century dueling in the middle of the town square. But that's how MMA operates. Advice for anyone who wants to get into MMA media, be prepared for any fighter you criticize is going to hate your guts for a while.

To Aaron Burr your ass and challenge you. It's the same way in boxing. I don't know if it's because people react so softly because it's a tough, violent sport we cover that's based on the idea that, oh, you said something wrong about me? Well, we're going to go fight. So I feel like people automatically seem to take it there. You can't just be the two old guys on the Muppets sitting above the theater like we're doing right here. Yeah, it sucks.

I hate it. But if you want to cover fight media, if you want to be in fight media, this is what you're going to get. This is why Jon Jones will not answer your questions. Yours, you mean? Yeah, just mine. He answers mine. He answers yours. Although, the last couple you've asked him have been, I was watching on the live stream

being like, you're about to join the old Exile Island. You keep going down that path. All right, next. Okay, Kevin M. Dilberto. I'm sure I'm pronouncing that right. It says, on a potential high-end Garcia, wait, Ryan. Most people pronounce it Ryan. I can't see straight. I thought it was Gracie. I thought it was Gracie. Wait, wait. Ryan. Most people pronounce it Ryan. I can't see straight.

I thought it was Gracie. I thought it was Gracie. Sorry, I can't read. On a potential Ryan Garcia versus Gervonta Davis fight. Gervonta Davis. Does Ryan have the inside boxing skills to compete with the upper echelon of boxers? They can't give him cakes forever. Thanks, Luke.

What do you think? No. No. No. Gervonta would take that boy's soul and it would be gross. Look, I love Ryan Garcia. He's a fun prospect. He's got fast hands. He does a lot of shirtless Instagram pics and 2 million followers. Can't be wrong. He's got baby mama trouble. He's

pumping out kids. He takes half of the state of California to their prom. I'm sure his DMs are very sloppy. No, he ain't ready for this type of smoke. Gervonta would do bad things to him. I prom. I can't, you know, I'm sure his DMs are very sloppy. No, he ain't ready for this type of smoke. Gervonta would do bad things to him. I hope Ryan Garcia can, he's so young, go back in the gym and keep working on it. You don't need to come up this quick. All right.

Let's see. We'll keep going here. This is from Liam H.J. With Davis KO video trending on YouTube and the fact that he is number one searched currently on Google, are we looking at a future number one draw in boxing? You know, it's to your point that you made earlier. It's like he's never going to sell himself by being like, I'm Gervonta Davis, and I'm the most exciting man, and he's going to chail Sonnen you up.

But, as you indicated earlier, if he gets the right fights and he gets the right wins and he gets a reputation, it's like, dude, when I plunk down my money on this dude, like, with that run, when he beat the right fights and he gets the right wins and he gets a reputation as like, dude, when I plunked down my money on this dude, like with that run when he beat Hatton and Pacquiao, you knew if you paid for a Pacquiao fight, at least you had a strong reason to believe, that like, dude, I'm going to get my money's worth with this guy. If he can get that kind of rep, sky's the limit. Yeah, if he can get into big fights and knock people out and keep that up, you actually don't really need to talk.

I mean, he's got the tattoos, he's got the look. That sort of speaks for itself in a lot of ways. Can he become the number one draw in the sport? Which is essentially saying, can he become the new Floyd? It's tough. Canelo has replaced Floyd in that, and he can't talk. But he has Mexico behind him. Right, right.

But I will say this about Gervonta. He has a very exciting style. You and I have underestimated Gervonta's star potential a couple times on this ride up there. And then you watch his fights. One fight ago in L.A., the list of top end A-list celebrities that were there was sort of very interesting. In the worlds that Gervonta is aiming towards, the younger culture, they're there for him. They know who he is. They want to see him.

So it's really hard to put those ceilings on him. Yeah, I could see him end up being the face of the sport eventually if he can get the right matchups and do that. It'll be interesting to see if he can do that in the middle of heavyweight being super hot. And then also, I don't know if they're going to make the Canelo-Kovalev fight, but Canelo is, I mean, dude, again, Canelo's brand is you just know you're going to get power punching with that guy. Even if the fights go the distance like they did against Triple G. Well, it also may come down to how high Gervonta can ultimately rise in weight.

No one expected Pacquiao when he's running through junior featherweight, featherweight, lightweight, all that, that he was going to go up to 47, have that kind of power, get those kind of wins, fight every possible name. I'm not saying Gervonta can't become the number one in the sport if he never makes it to 140 or 147, but it would certainly help. That's where the real money is. All right. I believe that is it for the questions, so let's do odds and ends here, Brian Campbell. What are the odds? What's one thing, maybe two things we didn't mention from over the weekend that is worth

telling the audience about? I'm kind of pointing forward to next weekend, coming up here on Saturday on Fox in Brooklyn. Interesting heavyweight fight. Unbeaten Polish heavyweight, Adam Kownacki, going in there against Chris Areola. We've seen Areola a ton. He's 38 years old. He says, if I lose this fight, I'm going to retire.

It's going to be an interesting slop fest from that regard. But what's interesting about it is Kownacki's confidence. He's unbeaten. He wants Deontay Wilder very badly. And his way of getting him, because he can't get him with his mouth every time he opens it, is now he's on this run of beating the opponents Wilder's already beaten but knocking them out quicker

he's a guy you look at him bald pudgy dad bod and all that doesn't look like a ton but he's got a big audience behind him he can fight and he thinks he has the one key to beat Wilder which is he fights well on the inside and you don't see a ton of heavyweights historically fight well on the inside currently not in this era.

You've got a slick boxer in Tyson Fury. You've got some punchers in Wilder and Joshua. But Kovnatsky, very comfortable on the inside, pressuring getting up in there. I thought it was laughable the first time he called out Wilder. But having talked to him, having seen him, it would be an interesting fight. Yeah, you're getting sold on.

It would be fun to see. I would say this on the weird end of things. Will Brooks took it in stride. If you look at what he said on Twitter, he was like, if I do what I do, then this doesn't happen. These fighters, they are so accountable to themselves in ways that are over-accountable. They actually don't blame others when others need to be blamed.

There was a show, a brave show, I don't know what the number was, but shouts to the Body Lock MMA, which is something of a smaller site, but on the come up, they're doing some great reporting. They had reported a number of things. One was that, one, not affiliated with WADA code as a signatory in any capacity whatsoever, but two, related to this event with Will Brooks, he gets up against Gleason Tebow. By the way, Tebow filling in for Abel Trujillo in the last minute. So he gets guillotined against the fence.

The choke is not all the way in. It's a standing guillotine. Now, you see the hands of Brooks go limp for just a second. And the referee just kind of grabs it. And as soon as he does, you see muscular tension on the part of Brooks. Like it's not like it's flopping down like it did against a little bit of Robbie Lawler against Ben Askren. And he stops the fight. Turns out that there was a completely different, according to the Body Lock MMA, a completely different officiating crew that was supposed to be there. Last minute, they get wind that there may not be any payments for this. They pull out.

The referee they get is the guy on 24 hours notice, who clearly this was well above his pay grade. And not only do the referees apparently not get paid, but some of the fighters, if not all the fighters, didn't get paid. So go to the Body Lock MMA for more information about that. But I saw people defending it being like his arms went limp. I'm like, folks, your arms go limp for many

reasons. One of those reasons could be that you went out. But there could be many other reasons why they go. It could be strategic. It could be inadvertent. You have to actually inspect what happens to better understand if If you just grab and then stop, and then the guy, by the way, when you're grabbing is giving you muscular tension,

maybe let it go another second. Oh, by the way, the choke wasn't in all the way. No, not a defensible stoppage. Not even a defensible stoppage a little bit. That was a terrible one. So whenever I see people being like, oh, the arm went limp, my next question is, okay, and? Now what? It means several different things. You have to go to second, third level inspection to figure out what. And Will Brooks, by the way, taking such a hard fall since making his UFC debut. But real quick, did you like the Gervonta Davis stoppage against Ricardo Nunez?

I thought that could have gone a little longer. I talked to Paulie Malignaggi on Showtime afterwards. He hated it. Yeah. I liked it. Which he made a note of on the broadcast. A lot of people are saying we've had the two in-ring deaths over the last week and a half. In Maryland. The first one, Maxim Dadashev in Maryland. And I think when I watched those replays,

I saw a guy getting held up by the ropes twice. So for Harvey Dock to jump in without a count, I think he was saving him from further combat. I know people are saying, well look, you've got to at least give him that 10 count. Let's see what happens. It's still early in the fight. He was getting hit flush. I had no problem with that.

I would say that it was a defensible stoppage, but I wouldn't have, you know, look, in the greater context, these referees, they were like, a guy died here last week. Let's maybe not have that happen back to back. But at the same time, in the perfect world, maybe a little bit longer. I don't know. Quickly, I mentioned earlier, Jose Ramirez had that junior welterweight unification bout with Maurice Hooker in Dallas. And the reason why this was fun and key, you had two major promoters working together.

Bob Arum of Top Rank, who has the ESPN deal, bringing Ramirez to the zone to fight Hooker. And then the trade that they get off is we're going to see Luke Campbell against Vasily Lomachenko in England on ESPN. So this is not a new trend. It's an old trend. It's how boxing used to work. But to see networks and promoters working together for anything but a Mayweather Pacquiao, it's kind of encouraging.

All right, well, that's it for us this week. For more Brian C. Campbell on Instagram, I am LukeThomasNews on Instagram. Be sure to subscribe to the channel, like the video, spread it around, tell the other folks about it We always appreciate that when you do and until next time may all of your gains be loyal We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.