MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Tsarukyan Stop Dariush | Sean Brady Joins MK | Mike Perry | Ryan Garcia | Morning Kombat Ep 523

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

On Episode 523 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to a great weekend of fights. The guys start off with UFC Austin, Did Arman Tsarukyan make his case as the top contender? Where does Beneil Dariush go from here? Jalin Turner viciously finished Bobby Green in the first round of their co-main event. Does this win reassert him into the top 10 rankings? The guys also break down BKFC 56. Is Mike Perry the BKFC Goat? As always we close out Mondays with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:14:45) - Beneil Dariush (00:38:40) - Turner vs. Green (00:58:15) - Font vs. Figueiredo (01:10:30) - Mike Perry (01:24:50) - Ryan Garcia (01:34:00) - Sean Brady Joins MK (02:05:00) - Dm's from Donks (02:12:30) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, what's up, everybody? Yeah. Won't be many of these anymore now, will there? It's time for MK here on this...

Wouldn't say we've been missing him, right? Yeah, it's the 4thk here on this uh wouldn't say we've been missing them right you know yeah yeah it's the 4th of december 2023 and ladies and gentlemen just to just to sort of put the context out there this we cannot guarantee this we don't know this 100 but in all likelihood this is the last mk show in this studio true or false you were told not to say that before the show i was told not to say that and i flatly ignored the advice. So here we are. Now, here's what I can say. It's definitely the last Monday show in here.

I don't suspect we'll do another Monday show. You're hedging here. Yeah, no, I think this is the last time, all right? All right, and I'll likely do what it is. We may have to take home the wallpaper and that old couch with us. Yeah, and BC's been marking his territory this entire time, so we'll show you the pee stains on his side of the studio. Hi, everyone.

My name is Luke Thomas. That's Brian Campbell. We're the hosts of this program. We're called Morning Combat, and we're in our 40s and pathetic. But here we are to get you caught up on all the events that happened in combat sports over the weekend. We're going to be reacting to UFC Austin. We'll react to the BKFC Utah event where Mike Perry was crowned the ceremonial king of violence.

We're, of course, going to talk about Ryan Garcia. And how about this? Fresh off of his UFC Austin victory, Sean Brady, UFC welterweight, is going to join the show live at 1230 p.m. And since we're better together in the same space, it's going to already be off the rails to begin with. We've got shit to look at. This is going to be a great-ass show. Yeah, we's going to already be off the rails to begin with this. This we've got shit to look at. This is going to be a great ass show. Bang too. Um,

so if you were tasked not to say something, but honesty and truth had to win out, why don't we make this entire episode the kind where we just put words to things that are true. That may, that other people may not be willing to listen. There may be that they're not ready for. They're sexually defeated.

Straight truths. I'm going to give you a straight truth right now, all right? Give me a straight truth. Straight, hard truths, like men do, by the way. You touched yourself in the bathroom? Here we go. It's going to be unpopular. Are you ready?

The first Creed record still kind of bangs. I mean, it really does, right? One, oh, one, you know, right? Yeah, it does in Vegas. The only way. It still kind of does. It still does, dude. I'll tell you what I did listen to.

My Own Prison, you know that one? It's bad. It's bad. Aren't these all, like, vaguely sort of Christian theology disguised as non-Christian? Not really. I think they tried to fool people into believing they were a Christian rock band at first, but really they're just a shitty one. But that first one is...

But they were into threesomes, so they can't be that Christian. Were they? Oh, dude, you ever heard of, like, who was the guy who... Scott Stapp? Scott Stapp and then Kid Rock just doing London Bridges the whole time? Do you ever hear that story where 311 had to beat the shit out of Scott Stapp because he put his hands on one of their wives and said something? Did he? Yeah, in, like, the lobby

and he was drunk, and so the whole band just got together. He got beat up by the guys who did Amber is the Color of Energy? Yes, yes, yes. That's kind of sad. Yeah. Well, fuck him anyway. Who cares? Who cares?

Do you think, how do you think they saw the color of her energy to know that? That's the question. They were high as fuck. I mean, they were super high on drugs, right? All right. You know 311 has done their fair share of unbelievable cocaine. As I say, when their original DVD that they put out showed that they were paid in weed when they were on their come up at concerts.

Like the promoter would come over and be like, here's three bricks. Thanks for playing. You know, that was it. But that's Brian Campbell. That's kind of how we're paid here too by Deltas. How was your weekend, BC, before we get to all of the stuff? It was a rainy weekend in Connecticut. But you know what?

As I told my family yesterday when I did nothing but play Fortnite for many hours, oh, and I painted again, by the way, because I'm an artist, was that you need a day like that every once in a while. Hey, could you look more pink? You look like Brock Lesnar at UFC 200. Absolutely roided to the effing gills. Remember when Aerosmith tried to slide in that cheesy pop song called Pink Luke? You know what they were really talking about? Do you know what the P really stood for in that equation?

They were talking about Vagine. Was that what they were talking about? Yeah, I was looking for a little bit of assist here, a little bit of prop up, a little throw the lob for me, and you're just like, what did they talk about? I know, I just wanted you to sit there and hang. I just wanted to let the guilty hang there if you can. Oh, can you tell the story about you getting hit on today at the train station?

It did happen, yeah. That's why I'm still red. That's why I look rock loud. It did happen. It did happen. There's this lady who works at the train station. Don't say where. Don't say where because I don't want to get her any trouble.

Well, luckily it's not Newark. It's not Newark. So we know she does not have communicable diseases. There's a lady who works at the D.C. train station who is very friendly. I've seen her a million times. And I walked in there today. It's like 6 communicable diseases. There's a lady who works at the D.C. train station who is very friendly. I've seen her a million times. And I walked in there today. This is like 6 a.m. Now I look old and gross.

And she was like, hey, long time no see. You know, she's been flirting with me for like a long time. Flirting with you? Well, friendly in a way where you could tell it's a little bit more than friendly. But I try not to think too much about it. Just, you know, do my business. Anyway, today she tells me, hey, today's my last day. I'm going to be transferred to a different office in a different place.

And I was like, oh, well, it sounds like a promotion. Congratulations. And then she turns to her colleague next to her. So there's two of them there in the train station. And then she goes, that's Luke. And this is a verbatim quote. I'm not even saying it's truthful. Just so everybody knows.

I'm not endorsing this. Candidly, I was like, you're interested in me? You're disgusting. But she told her colleague that, quote, Luke has body for days. And I just sat there being like. Yeah. I thanked her. I said that was very kind. That was very friendly. Luke, oh, my God. Yeah. I thanked her. I said that was very kind.

That was very friendly. Luke, you were just sexually harassed. I was sexually harassed, yeah. And you loved it. Yeah. Definitely wasn't going to turn her into her boss. I can tell you that. I wasn't.

When you get to be in your 40s, someone's sexually harassing you. You're like, hey, that happened. That's pretty great. That is so similar to that story I told you from the 2005 Austin City Limits Festival on the streets of Austin when I was stumbling around drunk after a concert with my friends and my friend Ed ran into this really large African-American lady who was at the front of the pizza line and knocked her into the glass and didn't realize and he kept walking. I start to realize that she's about to kill kill him. And I jump in between them.

And I go, hold on. Hey, that's Ed. He's the best. You'd love him. He's hilarious. And he didn't mean it. I apologize. So don't hurt him.

You know what she did? She went like this. She went, all right. Then she goes, damn, I'd hit it. Then Luke, that joke tore the house down. I bet. I bet it did. I bet it did.

Well done. Anyway, so yeah. So that was my morning. It was kind of interesting, I suppose. There were no celebrities on my train today. At least I didn't see any. So that was nice. All right.

No, I had a chill weekend yourself. Just, you know, Luke, you impressed me here. You look like you lost a ton of weight. You look like your relationship with your new trainer. Yeah i am trying to lift weights i'm trying to make too big a deal about it because you know you want the progress to speak for itself yeah but yeah yeah i've been grinding i've been grinding yeah that's what i'm talking about like dj khaled because i'm out here grinding how about that son what you know about that oh jake if on amsterdam laughing at least he's conscious tristan is just hanging on to...

Yeah, I have video of Tristan falling asleep at the job. I saw him taking Z-Quil before the show, so he'll be asleep here. Isn't that a key ingredient in crystal meth? Unison. Oh, yeah, really? Okay. Let's remind everyone, if you want to follow the show, we've got socials.

You can follow us everywhere, Morning Combat at all the different places. There's BC and me for Instagram and Twitter. Let's see, you can follow the show, we've got socials. You can follow us everywhere, Morning Combat, at all the different places. There's BC and me for Instagram and Twitter. Let's see. You can email the show, morningcombat at gmail.com. The producers will see it. We will not. That is how we like to keep it, both for Wednesday's fan subs and Friday's Dead Wrong.

And then, of course, morningcombat.store. Let's see. I got this on. I got the bomber. I got this on. You didn't wear any MK merch today. And we have, of course, the mug. I'm going to change my mind.

Yeah, right. I mean, sometimes, Luke, the thing about the first Creed album is a couple of those songs, they'll penetrate you and you can't get them out. Dude, I'm not listening to Creed unless absolutely forced to Clockwork Orange style. Right. Most of their career, yes. Yeah. Go back and revisit your own prison in there, Luke.

I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I've been revisiting. I will say this. I saw Blue Beetle, which was a fine movie. It was fun. It was whatever. What the hell is that?

It's the new DC movie where a guy, you know, merges with ancient technology and becomes something, you know, more. And there's a scene where the hero you think is gone. This is his triumphant return. And in his triumphant return, he rounds the corner and they start playing Cypress Hill. I ain't going out like that. It fucking bangs. That scene was incredible.

I loved it. So if you haven't seen that, just for that scene alone, I was like, holy shit. So I went back and listened to, was it Black Sunday? The ones pre-Temples of Boom, all that stuff. The Cypress Hill album from 93. Oh, I see. I never listened to them album by album, but... Really?

Yeah. Dude, Black Sunday. I think it's called Black... It's like one of the best albums. You're saying I need to revisit from a different mindset, you know? Jake, have you ever listened to Cypress Hill's Black Sunday? Yes, the 25-year-old white kid? Exactly.

Hold on. Have you ever listened to it? I might have heard songs off it, but no. No? Dude, what they did back in the day was – they were promoting weed when it was still like not a thing you did. When it was basically Cheech and Chong. Yeah, exactly.

When it was Cheech and Chong and people going to jail for that shit. All right. Well, let's remind everyone, BC, before we get today's show started, if you're a long-time listener, you might know that BC and I, especially BC, he's been religious about it, drinking that AG1 for what, three years now? Drinking that green shit. And I'll tell you why we start drinking it daily

for any number of reasons. For digestive health, to make sure that we're getting all of our micro and macro nutrients. All the things you would need to get your day started the right way, AG1's got you covered. Yeah, when I look back, Luke,

on this positive turn, thankful of the work I've put in of late to try to turn around this black liver and try to be healthy in my mid-40s, it kind of all started with me with AG1 because I started realizing, how am I starting my day? Because it's typically how I'm ending it. So let's not start it with wasting carbs and sugars and all this BS. Let's start it with one scoop of the green powder, all the fine nutrients that I may be missing, all the vitamins and minerals that I may need that I'd be missing throughout the day.

I set that as my foundation, Luke, and look at us now. Look at me now. Look at us now. Yeah. By the way, this would be USADA approved. It's tested for 950 contaminants and is NSF certified for sport

in terms of they screen it ahead of time. But more to the point, it's good for you of they screen it ahead of time. But more to the point, it's good for you. They screen it. It's healthy. You can trust it. But the thing that I really want to make folks understand about it is it's simple, easy to use. Your likelihood of sticking with something is how much it can just naturally weave into your life. You don't have to have a gajillion pills. You don't have to have a gajillion different powders several times a day. It's one scoop, one time a day with water and or, you know, however you want to have it, but done. And that's it.

In and out, 75 high-quality vitamins and minerals, probiotics, the works. You can't go wrong. I gave a couple of the travel samples to my mom. I ended up sending some to my sister. They love it. They've become subscribers, users, sharing the AG1 way, Luke, because it's just that one scoop. Tastes great. And a lot of people talking about feeling like bursts of energy from it.

Just feeling clean, like energetic again. I like that feeling. You know what I mean? I do like that feeling. Why do we have to live with this default of always being down and having bags under our eyes and feeling crappy about ourselves? What time did you get up this morning? 6 a.m. on the dot. That's not bad.

That's not bad. 4.45 for me. Oh, wow. Yeah, 4.45. Did you get out early with a little athletic greens or what? Actually, yes. As a matter of fact, I did. I had it safe in the night before, but yes.

I can see it in your eyes. AG1 is a supplement that, of course, BC and I trust to provide our bodies daily needs, and that's why they've become a partner for so long. So if you want to take ownership of your health it starts with ag1 try ag1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin d3 k2 and five free ag1 travel packs with your first purchase go to drinkag1.com slash morning combat that's drink ag1 and if you're listening on the auto pod audio podcast it's ag and the number one. AG1.com slash Morning Combat. Check it out. BC, let's remind everyone 12.30 p.m. in the east

so in about an hour and 15 minutes, we'll be joined by UFC welterweight Sean Brady, fresh off of his UFC Austin submission. Do you think he knows that I unfortunately picked against him on OK Bet? He's about to. And in the Bilal fight, I really feel bad about it. Did you pick him against him? I mean, obviously, it worked out for you in the Bilal fight. I really feel bad about it. Did you pick him against?

I mean, obviously, it worked out for you in the Bilal fight. I was a little surprised you picked him against the year. It didn't really work out for me because my friend lost, Luke, okay? Well, we're going to talk about all of it. So let's get to it. Topic number one as we kick off the show here today. Not so much with that fight, if we can, but let's start on this camera. There we go.

Hey! They were doing bong hits. Are you clapping back at go. Hey! They were doing bong hits. Are you clapping back at Gaffey? They were doing bong hits in the back. That's what took them so long. All right, boys and girls, let's start with the main event from UFC Austin. How about this? Armin Saryukian in a little over a minute, BC, absolutely runs over Benil Dariush.

No questions about it. My question to you is this. After the fight, he said he finished Benil quicker and easier than Charles did. He wants a title shot. Did he prove to you, BC, that he is the top contender

at 155 pounds? Here's what's interesting. Did he prove it to me? No, he didn't prove to me that he's the top contender, but he may have proved it to the matchmakers, to the promotion, to the idea of a good storyline, because when you have already lost to the current champion, Islam Mahachev, earlier in your career in a competitive fight, which in this case he did,

you're always going to have that connection. But obviously in Sarukyan's case, you need the continued improvement. You need the win streak. Most importantly, you need critical wins against critically ranked fighters. And if you can do that with the explosiveness, the violence, the efficiency as what he did here against Darius, it's going to make it a lot easier for the matchmakers to look at the scene amid what we talk about a lot. This slow changing of the guard from the old action heroes of the past that are still lingering. Gaethje's owed a big fight. Poirier's never too far out of the title picture.

But really, we've been waiting. Who's coming from that next group? This is the performance from Armand Saroukian that levels up the conversations where it doesn't even matter if I or any of us actually believe he's really potentially the second best lightweight or most deserving of the moment. When you do exactly this type or most deserving of the moment when you do exactly this type of sweeping up of the dust and get people talking about it um it's eye-opening luke we

picked against him both of us vegas had it and i remember saying to you last week going okay what do they possibly know that we don't this isn't necessarily that we're idiots and that we got it wrong again this was that the younger fighter who was less experienced and less consistent put it all together in the right fight at the right time against the right name to make it look like a mismatch and literally make this Armenian Hulk look like he's ready for the next action movie. I mean, he punched a hole right through my screen. So if the promotion wants to go more in the direction,

now in a crowded title picture where Charlie Olive is the former champion, I'd be fine with him as the next shot. We saw Volkanovski come in for two fights to kind of disrupt it. You could go back to Gaethje, your BMF champion, or you can go to that next young hammer in line. What else could you have asked from him from this, Luke? I didn't think I'd be having this exact conversation. I didn't even think he'd win this fight, but I did want to see him level up and grow. This is the kind of performance where we're not even

talking about leveling up, like, has he rounded out his this or that? He walked right through a durable, tough, highly ranked opponent and made him look like a D fighter, Luke. That's eye-opening enough where, yeah, he might be in this discussion that you're talking about of who's next and who's, who's among the best in this division, because that's, was, that's not who he was two fights ago, three fights ago, right moment, right ups, you know, escalate up at the right time. I mean, I'm really excited. I'm waiting for you to yank me. Just,

just Apollo hook me and join the party of excitement because you're Armenian brethren that you bet against came back and moved his head, Edmund, right? Yes. I mean you're making a big deal out of it, but like we should discuss what we actually said, at least what I actually said. What I actually said was it's not that I didn't think he could, but I need to see it first. If you've got it in there, show it to us, and he did. He showed all of it. He did.

He certainly did. Now, BC, there is an interesting question here, not just about whether or not he'll get a title shot. I think when you've got Oliveira and Gaethje already in front of you, the answer is probably not. So the question then becomes, will he fight Dustin Poirier, Gaethje, or Oliveira, depending on between Gaethje and Oliveira who actually gets the title shot.

So you're saying it's not happening. Is that what you're saying? I don't find him to be the likeliest candidate for a title shot, no. I don't think so. I mean, you've already got Makhachev looking for an opponent now. Charles Oliveira beat Benil Dariushin,

obviously did it very well himself. And then, of course, Justin Gaethje beating Dustin Poirier via head kick. And, of course, Saryukin also beating Dariushin this way. All three of those are spectacular wins, but one guy gave two of those guys wins. But I just think the two other guys have a little bit more seniority. One came off the BMF championship to do it.

Oliveira, a previous champion, very exciting. You would just imagine that what they've put together is going to put them a little bit further ahead. However, it does seem like what's going to happen is Saryukian, because remember, Darius, where is he sitting in the rankings today? Before the updates, he's sitting at four. So this probably puts Saryukian in that top five a lot of those guys in that top five are not going to get title shots again so what it does so to say to me is saryukian is probably likely to get either poirier if that's the direction

that the ufc goes or whoever doesn't get the title shot um ultimately against makachev whether that's olivera or Gaethje, also under the condition that they will accept that contest. What helps this is I saw that somebody sourced on Instagram, put out there that Fazeev was offered Poirier and turned it down. Well, he got injured, remember. Sure. So there is an opening here.

I just never, you know, if you would ask me before the fight, is there anything, sorry, you can do in this specific matchup to like literally cut to the front of the line and almost have a say in an argument i just didn't think there was but then watching him put it together and knock out derry you should that factor in that fashion and go oh shit he might have really turned the corner here like he might have really just happened that i'm still not so sure luke he's not going to at least this is not going to be talked about in the war room in the matchmaking room but what to do next because it would be obvious that okay well you're already going to be talked about in the matchmaking room, but what to do next.

Because it would be obvious that, okay, well, you're already going to do Charles Oliveira and he's a former champion and him against Islam is great. You can just do it again. But could you say that getting injured and having to pull out forced Oliveira to sort of miss his window in that moment? And while Gaethje certainly has come up and put his head back above water in this title picture in a big way with his recent win streak. The fact that he did win the BMF title kind of allows him to be a champion of a separate silo, meaning you could run Gaethje

right into the next title shot because of that big BMF win and the totality of the comeback win streak. Or you can say that winning that almost kind of puts him in another lane, able to face other aging superheroes, able to make these ideas of this Connor versus Gaethje idea that we threw out a little bit. I wonder if you could part the seas enough. You'd have to kind of do a double screw-over job to Oliveira,

but he did have to pull out of that title opportunity, Luke. It's not like the world's going to pick it if Oliveira didn't get this next chance. I'm just wondering if there's more of a conversation being had about do we go the direction now of Sariuki, and does it tie into at all what he brings from home country as an audience? What is he actually bringing? How big of a hotbed is that?

Remember, Oliveira's coming from Brazil, one of the most important markets in the sport. Well, I'm saying that. So I'm saying to properly have this conversation, do they look at Sariuki as someone that would be worthy of giving the fast track to because of where he comes from and what that can do momentarily? I do not know what kind of domestic support he has in Armenia. He also represents Russia to an extent. I don't know to what extent he has big popularity there.

Again, Russia is sort of in the middle of an interesting situation. I don't know exactly what kind of market they're going to be for the UFC in the next five years. So some of that doesn't seem, it's not like Ilya Teporia, which to your point is such a dominant force in the Spanish market. It has turned it into a visible market to begin with. I don't know if he's quite on that level. But I do want to sort of like not throw cold water on it exactly because what did Saryukin, what was he tasked with? He was tasked with showing us something that had been lacking in previous performances,

not just finishing a guy, but showing intentionality, showing viciousness, showing a little bit of skill, actually, right? So he was able to throw that right hand that ultimately dropped Dariush that he didn't see coming by changing rhythm and changing timing. You would imagine if you actually look at the way the striking was going, he did it in between beats, right? So that was very, very clever. Great shot selection, great timing, great power, great finishing off.

I mean, everything about that was phenomenal. But here's the thing. Two things I would point out, and I want to know what you make of them. One, he points out that he did it quicker and better than Charles Oliveira. But, of course, anyone who might know the facts would say, right. But you also did it after Oliveira. In other words, here's a 34-year year old fighter coming off of a stoppage loss what kind of durability did he actually have by the time you landed that right hand on the right hand by the way looked crisp and clean dariush

never saw it coming so understand that there is obviously a big punch that was behind it nevertheless one could say that second of all you can look at other guys who have stopped dariush kiesa barboza two guys who are well liked and well respected but never reached the title level and then Alexander Hernandez who never really turned into uh much of a serious contender overall because he insulted Cowboy Daydream Daydream and Don well that that press conference cost him but my point being is can you really look at the guys who have stopped him and say oh they went on to these pronounced heights for title opportunities thereafter no you actually could not say that so given those two and i'm playing devil's advocate here a little bit but

i just want to hear what you have to say given some of those constraints on what we can actually expect from derriush in 2023 at age 34 coming off of the char Oliveira loss. Does that temper your enthusiasm for what he showed? The only thing it tempers is my idea of truly knowing exactly where, where Saryukian is at based on how small the sample size was against their use. Now to his credit, what you're saying is he did use a lot of skill to set up that finish and everything just came together perfectly. We needed to see the combination of the intentionality with the big power and he looks like a million bucks and

everything just came together perfectly but the running themes of your question seemed to be luke the whole idea of is there any element that this is fool's gold and i just i should say it doesn't matter because that is such a striking image of doing that to Darius, a guy who if he had won this fight probably would have turned the other way and went right back into title contention. And how would you have held him back given the length of that winning streak with that one loss in between against Oliveira? But he absolutely just destroyed him. So you have to ride that momentum, not only if you're a promoter in the idea of what we're talking about, was it enough to actually cut to the head of this conversation, but we've

already seen him, Luke, get to a certain point in Sarukian and have the loss or have the performance in a win that was disputed where we're like, okay, some of it looks good, but the whole picture's not there. All the categories aren't coming together whether or not this little this little bite that we had against Darius was that full graduation or not it's time anyway to find out what this guy is made of he's already gone through the tests that you have to go through when you come up and you have that early defeat like I said and you sort of have those questions about your game but yet he put it together in his biggest and toughest fight possible that I wouldn't then go back and sort of pedantically pick apart and try to figure out, well, is he everything he's showing us? Because look at what he showed us. Right.

He passed the test so brilliantly. Here's what I would say. Again, this is precisely what I was asking for on Friday. So in that sense, I do believe mission accomplished. But remember, the question I asked you was not, did he fulfill the kind of thing we were looking for? Yes, he did. Yes, he 100% did. That was so

confidence inspiring, so intentional, so physical. That is exactly what I was looking for. Like you didn't think in your mind when it happened, oh, that's a perfect storm of maybe Darius being a little bit more over the hill than we thought with this or that. You instead thought, oh shit, he might get it now like this might be the the intentionality of what he was doing again he throws the clinch misses and then before he can drop his right

foot yes he's throwing the right hook so Darius never sees it never expects it that is excellent work he deserved that KO 100 but whether or not he delivered on what we were hoping for on Friday is a separate question of whether or not the result is enough to leapfrog to a title shot. And my response to that is no, it is not. It was not enough to supersede Charles Oliveira. It's not enough in my mind to supersede Justin Gaethje. I know there's a debate to be had about that. To me, one more. One more against a proven name in this division by the way

Poirier proven Gaethje proven Oliveira proven give me him against someone who's a upper limit guy because by the way how about Dustin Poirier interim champion Gaethje interim champion slash BMF champion Oliveira previous weight class champion I want to see him up against the name or Chandler but Chandler's gonna go fight fight Conor McGregor in all likelihood. Here's the thing, though, Bob. That's what I think is missing. Here's the thing that I think. Look, he's only in this.

You got AIDS? Excuse me. Were you in the Newark train station? Excuse me, Mr. Bob. Just handing out BJs, huh? What'd she say about your bod, Luke? Body for days. Body for days.

By the way, I don't think even my wife would agree with that. Maybe she just meant there's a large circumference to get from one side to the other. Maybe she was just saying you got a fat ass. I don't know. I don't know, but she said it. All right, all right. You had set me up here. I was going to talk to you about Cyriakian.

What did you say again? To me, the issue is not that he – he is sitting, I think, currently around eight or nine in the position. He's going to probably leapfrog either to four or five, somewhere in that spot. It's one more for me. One more. Here's why I'm going to push against that because he's only in this debate of us actually having this conversation because he did it the most dramatic and – there's no question after he walked through, Dariusian knocked him out. It wasn't a lucky punch.

He set it up. He delivered. He demolished. It was like, damn, this is who he is now. So as a promotion, I believe you can already take that hot streak and just go with it and you're justified. But why would you be justified meritocrically? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Is Luke's larger question.

I also think that's why there's a large enough opening to justify this because when you look across luke this is technically a rematch if uh if sorry you can was able to to get right back get back back in there and rematch islam it's technically a rematch but it's a fresher rematch than an olivera one would be or other ones where most of these would be rematches and if you're saying okay well maybe gaethje isn't and gaethje's red hot too and he just won a big fight and he's got the bmf but Gaethje isn't, and Gaethje's red hot too, and he just won a big fight, and he's got the BMF. But Gaethje still represents to us that older generation who are a little bit more limited, but they make great action fights, and they each had their turn in the sun, Poirier and Chandler and Gaethje, to try to win some form of the full title.

And at some point, shouldn't it be about this next generation? And right now, Saryukian just happens to be, at the right moment, the most red hot of this next generation and right now Saryukian just happens to be at the right moment the most red hot of this next generation with a requisite enough win streak but with that key victory that's probably better than everyone else just recorded you can argue that is it even enough to pass Oliveira even though Oliveira beat Darius earlier which is essentially just what you're asking me I think in this circumstance given that it's a fresh name and opponent to the title level but still does bring a rematch and how much have we grown since the first fight in that whole story yeah i think it's enough overall to fully justify if the promotion wanted to do it because it's taking the it's taking the division and pausing

what can become even though we ask for a lot of these because we're fans, but a lot of times the title picture of a division can become constant rematches and constant reshuffling of old names who, oh, they've won two in a row. Let's bring them right back in here. And right now this division has a million of those names from Chandler to Poirier to Gaethje, where it's always one, two wins and we're right back in here. At some point you have to pause and allow the next generation to walk through. Gaethje is coming off of stoppage wins. Did he stop Fazeev? Either way, he rallied

and beat him. I can't remember if he stopped him anymore. But he certainly stopped Dustin Poirier. Those are two wins back-to-back better than what Armin Saryukin has. Oliveira has the same one, a win against Benil Dariush. But prior to the loss to Makachev, had stoppages of all the fighters who matter. Saryukin simply

doesn't have that kind of a resume, not right now. I think the difference is freshness. Gaethje's already been to the title level a couple times, and with the BMF strap, it almost allows him to be a separate silo where he could face anybody in a super big fight. Let me ask this. So you have to screw over Oliveira is really what it comes down to. Okay, so let me just say this.

The part I was going to ask you. If Armin Saryukian is not to get a title shot, and I'm forced to bet I don't believe that he will, which matchup actually makes the best fight? The answer, I believe, BC, has got to be Oliveira. And the reason why is because Gaethje can get taken down by Saryukian. I just don't know how competitive that ultimately is. But Oliveira is a much more difficult opponent. That's an incredibly great fight.

Right. So you can't really go to the ground in the same way. So it's the middle ground between our arguments that they just face each other and then the winner faces his son. Well, here's the kind of interesting part. I mean, I don't know what the UFC wants to do. I do think that Oliveira's case to get back there is pretty strong. But Oliveira and Saryukian finish the same guy in relatively similar ways. Gaethje has got the BMF belt and is coming off the head kick KO over Dustin Poirier, giving him a title shot against Makachev.

Now, that's not, again, that's a favorable matchup for Makachev, I do believe, just again because of the ground factor. But it's a fresh matchup, as we've talked about before. But if you put Saryukian and Poirier together, I'm okay with that. If you put Saryukian and Oliveira together, nothing in the world would make Saryukian more deserving of a title shot than passing the kind of test that Charles Oliveira could provide. That is, in every way, on the feet, on the ground, Saryukian would have to raise his game and fight very strategic,

not just athletically, in order to get there. That's the one I want to see. Okay, you're not wrong, but you do understand why it could be smart of a promotion to look and go, okay, maybe we don't actually know if Saryukin is actually that good or if that was just perfect matchup, Darius at right time, and he delivered. If they had those questions, then wouldn't you want to fast-track him right now? Because when would he ever be hotter or more of a wild card than he is right now after doing that knockout? I'm not that interested in—

Because that tease that he may have turned the corner. After one more is the answer. I don't desire to make the Makachev rematch with Saryukyan next. I need to see a little bit more before that one has the same kind of salience for me. I'm just saying, I know there are different scenarios, but

you could have said the same thing about Pineda getting kind of fast-tracked. We could have said the same thing about Ngannou getting real quickly fast-tracked from the Overeem knockout to the first steep-A shot. Sometimes it is the right time, though, to take a chance, even though the division is deep and there's a lot of players. It just might be the right time to get that next guy, you know what I mean?

Give that next guy the chance. BC, where does Benil Dariush go from here? Well, it's back to the drawing board. It's two straight defeats. It's two somewhat early finishes as well. So, look, this is unfortunately kind of disastrously bad. I mean, how disastrous? We're not asking him to retire,

but any answer I give you to that question is going to be built in some, like, unsurity and care that I would have for him as an individual that I'm not really sure. Like, could he rebound, step down in matchmaking, face a number eight or number nine guy and get a, you know, a hard-ass, hard-earned win? Yeah, of course. And he could redeem himself in some ways of where we think he is at this age.

But, Luke, I just think there's concern. Not concern that he's shot or that he's fallen apart, but concern that he's already hit the ceiling of where he is. And from here, it's going to be a straight set of diminished returns. And boy, is it harsh to even say that. But sometimes that's the reality, especially when you're getting stopped by, you know, dramatically by guys, not dramatically, but forcefully where it's like, damn. And there's been a couple of those moments here, Luke. I mean, Oliveira made it.

There was no doubt after that fight, Luke. Yeah, I mean, listen, this is, I believe, the first time he's ever been. First of all, this is the first time he's ever had back-to-back losses. Now, he had a loss against Edson Barbosa in 2017, followed by a draw with Evan Dunham, and then another loss to Alexander Hernandez. So that's probably a very difficult three-fight stretch for him. But if we're just being honest, this was a really bad loss.

And I hate to say it because he is one of the nicest guys, but you can see why. He was clear about it on Friday, or I believe last week. He was asked during media day, what do you benefit from by beating Saryukin? Because he was sitting at four in the rake in Saryukin around eight or nine. His answer was nothing. I don't really benefit.

He was right. It wouldn't have done much other than to prove that he's still a very viable top guy in this division well now that has gone away i still think he's obviously a very difficult guy to beat but i do think bc there are some questions about now having lost two times in a row for the first time ever both of them first round stoppages via strikes there is a question about his durability there is a question about what kind of favors the promotion is going to do him going forward, which means what kind of fights he's even going to be asked to enter into. Well, there's no favors, but you've got to give him a tiny step down,

but still a tough fight where he could lose or even be stopped, because you need to know, is he ready for a free fall, or is this just a reset? I don't think his best days are over, because he still is so talented. No, no, no. I think his best days are over. Sorry, what am I saying? I don't think his fighting days are over. I still think so talented. No, no, no. I think his best days are over. Sorry, what am I saying? I don't think his fighting days are over. I still think he's got some wins left in him. But to your point, I'm sorry, I misspoke.

I do think his best days are over. This was a bad loss. This was a really bad loss. And I finally came around, and now everyone's like, see, BC, you should have stuck with the, he's not, you know. I just, he was one of those guys like Bilal for a while that I'm like, you know, really tough fighter, hard out, but I don't see this guy on the title level. And both guys have been able to push somewhat, you know, past that idea with Darius didn't

get to the title shot level, but he was in number one contenders. He just fought two huge names back to back. But I did come around on believing it was possible. Darius could have done this. He was one win away from being right there. But a lot of people are saying, oh, this confirms that he was never that good to begin with. I will say this. I'm shocked by the outcome.

It was a legitimate, perfect punch that set up the finish. That happens in this game. But I am still kind of, like, shocked, concerned when you go, you know what I mean? Like, when you just kind of watch it. Like, nothing good happened for him in that fight at all. It's impossible to watch the Gamrot fight and say this guy is overrated. If you can watch three rounds of the Gamrot fight and say Benil Darius is overrated, I don't know what you're looking at. What you can say is, BC, he's been stopped now dramatically two times in a row.

But, of course, going back, he got stopped dramatically by Chiesa. He got stopped dramatically by Edson. He got stopped dramatically by Hernandez. And now Oliveira and now Saryukin. Five times he's been stopped dramatically by Edson. He got stopped dramatically by Hernandez. And now Oliveira and now Saryukin. Five times he's been stopped dramatically. He has a capacity for, I'm not going to say quick failure. That's not quite the right word. But guys who are super athletic, who have the ability to really light them up with fast strikes, powerful ones,

he kind of just gets hit a little bit more under those circumstances than a lot of other lightweights. He doesn't have the ability to tolerate it as best he should. So you see these first-round stoppages. The Chiesa one hit a little bit more under those circumstances than a lot of other lightweights. He doesn't have the ability to tolerate it as best he should. So you see these first-round stoppages. The Kia S1 is a little bit different. But the other ones I mentioned, the other four, they're all first-round stoppages. Or I think the S1 was a second-round stoppage. You get the idea. This quick strike, powerful thing has really been a very difficult situation for him to overcome.

And that does limit your upside quite clearly. I know this might sound, you know, crass and out of place, but if he desired, you know, a big not just a big comeback and a big win to do that, Luke, but maybe like remember on Cobra Kai that you didn't watch, that that one kid, he flipped the script in his personal life and got the mohawk and became Hawk and was this badass. That's what I checked out.

I was like, I don't give a fuck about the lives of dorky teenagers. You missed out a lot by the way. It's like, I don't give a fuck about the lives of dorky teenagers. You missed out a lot, by the way. It's like that. Maybe Benny should flip the script and go Shoe Pallas Black, Elvis 68 comeback style. Get rid of the salt and pepper. Don't worry about the drapes on the carpet or anything like that. I mean, I tried that, Luke, for a day in Vegas.

I mean, it was ill-timed because I went from brown and gray to jet black. You look like Wayne Newton doing the last show at the Rio where the poker chips are dirty. Here's why I deserve that. Here's why I really deserve that. I colored my hair 20 minutes before airtime. Did you fucking really? That's why I deserve that. Yeah, that's why.

I deserve it. That's why. I'm an imp. Yeah, yeah. Let's get to. You know imposter syndrome? No, I'm just an imposter, Luke, okay? Yeah, I'm not even a syndrome.

I actually am. Question number two, topic number two. Let's talk about that co-main event. Now, of course, when we discuss the co-main event, I know what everyone's going to say. What about the stoppage? We will talk about that in just a second. But first, the results of the fight.

Jalen Turner viciously finishing Bobby Green in the first round of their co-main event. I had expressed some doubts because I had to pick for my favorite segment. Yes. Sorry, underdog. And I picked Bobby Green with a plus 172. That did not pan out. You took the Golden Sombrero this weekend, which has only happened, I think, you did it once and I did it once earlier.

This is my second time. You went 0-4-5 in OK Ben. Yeah. You turn in shit cards like that. You just have to be man and just say... And I thought I went 4-1, and then you were like, you know, Beastie, you actually lost this one and this one, and I was like, oh yeah, you're right. Anyway, neither here

nor there, Beastie, as my favorite saying goes. My question is this. After what Jalen Turner did and the manner in which he did it and how good he looked doing it, do you think a win like this reasserts him into the top 10 rankings and for context you might be asking where does he currently sit he currently sits at 12

yeah if he's got 12 coming in and i'm agreeing by the way just 13 first of all in general this is right fight right timing right win right style of win outside of the aggressively vicious ending that we'll talk about but look like this fight was kind of a course correction of where kind of both guys were supposed to be at meaning Bobby Green was kind of playing with house money upsetting you know young risers with one punch knockouts and sort of belying his age as a gambler against the guy who was maybe underachieving to a certain degree in Jalen Turner with the two straight split decision defeats, the whole fiasco of taking this fight at last minute and feeling like he was forced into it.

A third loss could have been disastrous. I mean, it could have been really disastrous, especially if he would have been finished here. Yet he flipped it, did the opposite, and viciously left no doubt. Yes, this is not only a huge leap forward, not only redemptive in his name and value and critical standing, but if you're already ranked 12th coming in, considering that red-hot arrow that had been behind Bobby Green in the standings coming into here, yeah, Luke, you got to take that momentum and run with it.

He would deserve that to be in the top 10. I think it's like sometimes the knockout win like this is completely redemptive like it just allows the fighter to shake off the excess of those defeats and sometimes they can be reborn in that regard i wonder if that if that'll happen right away to turner who's going to be looking for big matchups right away here luke but he needed this and it could not have gone any more perfect for him outside of the fact that he credits bobby green coming from the same hometown as like a friend and he didn't want to have to deliver luke that fact that he credits bobby green coming from the same hometown as like a friend and he didn't want to have to deliver luke that i mean i think bobby green got

knocked out more times on saturday than he did in his entire career yeah probably so he got stopped a few times there um this win was fantastic for jalen turner and again let's go back to friday what was i sort of looking at he had made comments during media day last week, Jalen Turner did, about the psychological toll that it took on him watching Dan Hooker in the hospital and how it kind of messed with him. And remember, he initially didn't make weight, although ultimately upon a second attempt he did at 156 on short notice, which, again, was pretty surprising. I think he was above 180 pounds come fight day or fight night. But then he goes in there bc and then basically just dismantles bobby green if you go back and you watch the results he gets bobby green who puts his hands down all the time how does he get out of the way of punches it's a lot of head

movement it's a lot of distance management he was kept trying to lean over to his right and then come over the top to catch him this way and so what you ended up seeing jalen turner do was double jab to get the lean and then come with a straight punch on the inside, the right hand, to polish him off inside the looping shot of Bobby Green and nailed him exactly. He falls from there, and then the stoppage happened thereafter, which, again, we're going to get to. BC, he goes for that several times earlier, including in other stances in the fight and can't quite get there,

and then calibrated calibrated and finally scored guys that was superb from jaylen turner i don't even know bc if he's going to end up actually inside the top 10 what i can tell you is that's clearly a top 10 guy but think of the pressure in my mind think of the prep pressure on his reputation with what a loss would have meant and then the poisonise and precision that you just broke down of how he executed it that was that was hitman style that was that was that was cold-blooded i mean that was perfect and everyone's gonna say well he had a huge height advantage he had a huge reach advantage which is very true and you saw those things come to light but it is also

worth noting he took the fight on short notice he was coming off of two losses in a row remember he was saying kind of not um irresponsible things during media week but the kinds of things that in certain circumstances could get you to believe that maybe he wasn't as mentally dialed in as he needed to be and then he goes out there and performs and you're like oh no right he's actually just going through the evolution of what a growing and developing fighter naturally runs into in the course of this process and is going through it quite ably. And then to diagnose a problem, get very close with it and then ultimately succeed perfectly in how you apply

the technique to finish and to do it. So matter of fact, yeah, was phenomenal. What a redemptive win for Jalen Turner. And I hope the matchmakers reward him by giving him BC, not just a big name, but the appropriate timeframe in which to get ready for it.

And that's why this was good matchmaking, even though it was a last minute nature, because when you fight somebody with Bobby Green style, you know how dangerous he is. You've got to be at another level of, of operation. Turner was, when we talk about that poise and the way that he was able to

execute that, I mean, Bobby Green style is meant to sort of get you out of your game, get you a little bit overanxious. So given all that was against him, this was actually the right test at the right time to put it back on course and keep going in that regard. But, Luke, good old, what's the guy's name, the referee in this? Kerry Hatley.

Is Kerry Hatley going to get the Mazzagati and what's the other guy's name? Mario Yamasaki? Yamasaki. Although Yamasaki did make his return this weekend, right? He was at PFL as well. At PFL. I did sit behind Steve Mazzagati, who is, of course, now a Nevada State Commission timekeeper. He was working the showtime.

The footlocker referee. Yeah, he was working the Benavidez-Andreid fight, and I was sitting behind him. Did you buy a pair of Air Force Ones from him? I did not. I did not. But you know, Luke, he's got the white beard now. I mean, he's still getting after it in the sport, in the area that he loves, that guy. You know what I mean?

Mazzagati. I don't hate him. Yeah, I mean, they've demoted him to, like, practice squad, but he shows up for practice. He does. He does get out there. So let's talk about Kerry Hatley for a second. BC is one of the worst stoppages I've ever seen, extremely late. And let's also sort of note something here. If you just sort of divide... Bobby Green, by the way, one of the last surviving guys on the roster

who competed in Strikeforce. There's not many left. There's a few, and he's one of them. 37 years of age at 155 pounds. A stoppage that should have occurred much quicker than it actually did. The kind of stoppage that, in the much quicker than it actually did. The kind of stoppage that in the way in which it was handled could dramatically affect what time Bobby Green has left in the sport at all. Luckily, it didn't affect anything in the immediate sense where he had to go to the hospital and be reevaluated. But certainly we could have been there. But BC, Kerry Hatley is an interesting referee.

So I went back and I looked up a bunch of times where he's had issues, and I found something kind of interesting. In 2013 at Bellator 86, he refereed a bout between Ben Saunders and a guy by the name of Kofi Adzitso. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. Ben Saunders wins at 30-27, but everyone complained in real time that he was standing them up much too quick. Very quick on the draw is the point I'm trying to make.

Subsequently, in 2014 at UFCfc fight night swanson versus stevens he was refereeing the bout between johnny bedford and cody gibson and he intervenes much too quickly it was a bad stoppage there now you have situations like green versus turner you have bader versus nemkov which some people think is actually a good example of him letting a fight continue but it's certainly letting him marinate a fight. And then, of course, you could go back to Adrian Yanez, Tony Kelly. That fight, no one had any sympathy for Tony Kelly because he had said a bunch of insanely racist things in the lead-up to that contest. But if you're just judging it on when a fight should be stopped, it went too long. My point being is in the early 2010s, he appeared to have a couple of moments

where he was intervening too early. Now he's getting in too late. One little note more on Kerry Hatley. Kerry Hatley was the referee in Diego Sanchez versus Gilbert Melendez, which was an all-action brawl. And he actually never did a bad job in that one at all. In fact, he did a very commendable job. But it just seems like to me, BC, as time continues, he's trying to make up for early intervention by letting fights breathe. Congratulations.

The fights are breathing. I can appreciate that. But the level of negligence involved in this one is astonishing. Astonishing how long he let this one go. Yeah, and look, there's, so, in combat sports, referees are going to be like baseball umpires in the sense that everybody's sort of got a different strike zone, and you have to adjust your game plan and all that to that. But at least that develops referees who are consistent, meaning you'll have, like, the late Steve Smoger in boxing, who's an all-action, fighter-friendly referee

will let him go longer, or you'll have the opposite, like a Kenny Bayless in boxing who's known to break you up right away. It was like Floyd's caddy was Kenny Bayless, they used to say. Not fully true, but that's the point. But I'll respect you even if your strike zone

is outside of my tolerance window as long as you're consistent, I guess. I mean, it's saying you're inconsistent, but at least you're consistently inconsistent. But when you're inconsistent and you're a wild card like this where you're constantly course correcting, it means you're going through a rough stretch in your career and it might mean that you're actually not cut out for this elite level. And I'm never, ever, ever going to sit here and say that this job is easy. They have people's lives in their hands and they have to make split second reactions without instant replay and having to be in the right angle and, you know,

set up and all of that as part of that. But I'm surprised. And so the pressure on them is what I'm saying must be akin to like NFL field goal kicker or feel like you're, you know, somebody in the ambulance just waiting for that call to do something crazy and have to save somebody's life in that moment. I'm not going to say it's easy, but because it's so hard, I almost expect more of a turnover at the highest level. I think sometimes we do have names and I don't know if Carrie Hatley fits this, although we're starting to point out the check marks that are negative here along the way, is when you have somebody who's so wild and constantly over correcting and course correcting, you

just hope that the system in place and that the state in question has an aggressive commission in which they're trying to cycle the right people in and out of that. This fight was in Texas. In this case, we're talking about Texas, but we've seen Kerry Hatley all over, right? We tend to see the same big names now in elite MMA refereeing, just like we do in boxing judging where it's almost doesn't matter, right? It doesn't, the jurisdiction. Sometimes in boxing that has to do more doesn't matter, right? It doesn't, the jurisdiction.

Sometimes in boxing that has to do more with the sanctioning bodies that for each fight, because they have their own referees that they sort of, uh, or judges that they support or, or prefer or whatever. But my whole point is Luke, no, this is shaky. This is bad for everyone to go. This might be the worst ever. It's like, okay, well then the original question was, does he deserve now to be one of those super red flag, scarlet letter, sketchy ones? You know, just like when we see a boxing judge

put a really bad scorecard out there, and we're like, oh, crap, is that the next CJ, what was that chick's name who scored? CJ Ross. CJ Ross or Adelaide Bird. And, you know, it can soil their names, but I think we should be promoting when someone screws up this bad, or Adelaide Bird. And, you know, it can soil their names. But I think we should be promoting when someone screws up this bad because it may deserve and need a close-up

as to whether they actually should be here because we do have people's lives at stake at the end of the day, and we do have in cases like this where somebody can accrue. Bobby Green was almost knocked out three and a half more times than he needed to be. Even if you're the type of referee in this case that may have wanted to go a little bit longer, knowing Bobby Green's reputation, even if you factored that in, it's also not a title fight, not a main event fight.

And the egregious nature that it became, there's really no defense here. So if somebody is going to have a moment, this face fronting that's so bad, I hope then, Luke, that the state commission or whoever is really running the system of how these officials get appointed really has a system in place for training and retraining that doesn't just throw another person right back out in a big fight in a moment like this because it's not easy this job's not easy i hope they get paid well because the stress has to be crazy because one mistake in the shows like this, we're just tainting their name forever, right? I'm not tainting.

Listen, the commission in Texas is going to do fuck all about it whether you think they should or they shouldn't. Don't worry. They're not going to. And I don't know to what extent this is Hatley's fault or anybody else's, but the commission is not going to make him available for any kind of interview with the media to discuss what he saw and whether he sees it differently or whatever the case may be. So we're forced to bring his name into conversation. Well, Dana did say that they've talked to him and he regrets it and he knows that he did that and all that. Well, that's great. But again, what's going to happen to him?

Absolutely nothing. Here is the only thing that I think actually matters. You have to understand the personality of individual referees. What does their body of work and in particular what their work show you lately? What we have demonstrated with Kerry Hatley is he has been a little bit all over the place in terms of the broader scope of his career. But more recently, there is enough evidence to suggest he lets fights go on the long side at times that, that will benefit you. At times, for the guy who wants to make sure he's got, or lady, who's got every opportunity to fight back,

maybe Kerry Hatley is your guy. But if you're the kind of fighter who doesn't want that or you simply don't trust his judgment, fighters, in my view, BC, should exercise more discretion and input with the commission and not allow certain referees to work their bouts. Now, I know what folks might say. If they all get involved in doing this, we have chaos. Yes, exactly. That's right. That's exactly what I'm hoping for. I am hoping that

commissions are eventually faced with a reality where there are ways in which they develop, recruit, sustain, and promote talent undergoes serious changes. And the only people who I can tell have any effect of that are like heavy media pressure, but most media pressure does nothing. Or it's the fighters themselves saying, I simply refuse to have this person allowed. And by the way, the commission can overrule them. It's not a system that works in every case, but it's the only one that I know of where you have to have a knowledge

of what that referee is good or bad at, what their tendencies are, and simply decide whether or not you're willing to take those risks. Well, that's why it's dangerous if you're Hatley and you're becoming like a flip-flopper where you're kind of just course-correcting and floating. It's like trying to stay in the lane when you're driving

and you're bouncing off the sides, Luke. That's more dangerous than anything else in a spot like this. It sucks. It sucks. Sucks for Bobby Green. It's not like he gets the extra bonus of this having happened to him unnecessarily, Luke. He gets nothing. So, I mean, I just think this is where I would prefer a national commission that isn't, you

know, the problem with the state commissions is they're always looking to favor financially from keeping in line with promoters or for not changing certain ways things are set up like it's always it always seems to tail back to money right all of our conversations of why things don't change right if they've got reasons to benefit from keeping certain things going in certain ways and not changing it then wouldn't we need a national commission that isn't looking to another bureaucratic body who could also fall down on the job okay but don't you need then somebody who's not gonna just automatically lean to one side based on where the money's coming from yes i mean you basically have to redo how commissions

collect their budget a lot of states texas is one of these places a lot of what they're again a lot of it goes to other things but they are essentially tasked in such a way where they're not incentivized to allow every promoter in, but they want the biggest events possible to draw as much revenue as possible. So you can lower your standards completely. So that their particular public office can say, hey, we pull our own weight. We're valuable for the state. We help sort of make tourism a more above board regulated kind of thing and not just tourism of people but tourism of business and that sort of thing they become kind of almost like the chamber of commerce in a way you have to undo that relationship and as long as that relationship is in place

really nothing's going to happen this is sort of not really related bc but you may have noticed this um the ufc is going to be going to california i think either this week or next week to try and argue their case that they should get slap regulated there. And you have to wonder, they've not been going to California very often, in part because California imposes much higher fees on promoters that have to go into things like for boxers, their pension. MMA now has a pension as well, right? So there's just a lot more involved as a promoter you have to pay when you go to California.

Is California going to be pressured into regulating slap in order to not lose out on ufc events which of course are going to be the highest earning events that they would probably have at least on the mma side of things in the calendar year it's really it's really kind of a gross and messed up situation in terms of how the incentive structure works at a regulatory level yeah yeah i have nothing to say here luke Luke, because power slap to me is still such a slap in the face, pun intended, to like the fighters on the UFC roster who we are continually through John Nash's and others reporting of this lawsuit and the papers that are getting leaked. Luke, the emails that are getting leaked about UFC matchmakers holding fighters back so they can't get signed by rivals. Like all this stuff that's just bursting out. It's like, I mean, the fighters are one day going to have more power, Luke.

But I hope it keeps happening faster on the MMA side. The thing I want to pay attention to is how many are speaking out against it now and then when the tables will get turned, how much they'll love it and use it to their advantage. Yeah, but it's just like – I plan on noticing that. This is all connected though because when you have commissions that are going to always side with making money, which means siding with the promoter, it's just an imbalanced system. I mean you're always going to point back to the Floyd Mayweather ahead of the Cotto fight in 2012

when he was sentenced three months in jail and the state commission is like, hold on. Let's talk to the legal – the athletic commission talks with the legal system and they go, if we could just push the sentence back a month, we can fit in this fight. Look at how much the strip will get and the state will get for tourism. That's literally the conversation that was had. And they said, Floyd, you can delay your sentence. Would they do that for me, you think? That to me, when I look back on that, it's just wild.

That will always be the knee-jerk response. This is who they are. When people go, why are state commissions potentially not there? They are nominally the regulating apparatus for combat sports in the state. But in all actuality, they're an arm of the— They're promoters. They're promoters. No, they're the chamber of commerce.

They want to bring as much tourism and business to the state as possible. They're part of the promotional system. They're a key part of that. That's right. You know, they're all playing, which is great when they make a fight that you want everybody to make and everybody shows up and everything runs great. That's when it's great, except for when you need change. And in this case,

this is why we're talking about this fight, you need change, Luke, because this is bad at this level. And it's not enough to just go, all right, let's hope we never see this guy again, which is the easy knee-jerk response. But how about we clean up the system? So nothing's going to happen to Kerry Hatley, but one more reminder, Sean Brady will be here in about 30 minutes.

We'll talk to him about his win over Kelvin Gastelum. BC, let's move to topic number three, if we can. This card was stacked, actually, in the main card. Really, really great. So there's a lot to get to here, including how about Devison Figueredo? Wow. For his UFC debut at 135 pounds, kind of clean sweeping, really, Rob Font. Getting the takedowns, not whenever he wanted, but pretty consistently.

Rocking him on the feet in several rounds. Achieving a mount position. He looked phenomenal. BC, my question to you is as follows. Did he, like Armin Saryukin at 155, achieving a mount position. He looked phenomenal. BC, my question to you is as follows. Did he, like Armin Saryukin at 155, did he, to you, make his case as the top contender at 135 pounds? No, not the top contender,

although you do have to wonder what his status as multi-time former champion will do towards helping him in what will probably be a not here for a long time but here for a good time type of run because this performance shocked me. I picked against him for okay bet, put my money behind Rob Font in this regard, but I did that because I legitimately had questions of what would it look like? Would this look like an aging fighter who was maybe in some ways able to reach that super elite status in the smaller division because he was able to just barely make weight and carry certain advantages.

And how would that look going into a deeper division when you're the smaller guy and the older guy in a lot of these matchups? Now, in this matchup, he was facing a guy in 37-year-old Rob Font who's more in his age group, but yet it was Figueiredo at every turn who just looked fresher, more powerful, faster. And I wonder, Luke, after watching the broadcast and hearing what they're talking about on

there, which made a lot of sense, the idea, which we would love to hear more often, of guys fighting closer to their natural weight rather than risking so much of their long-term health by doing these extreme cuts, which maybe can get them down to where they're stronger in a lower weight class. I think this is a dumb conversation. In what way what way is it dumb guys why do fighters cut weight why do fighters cut weight to be bigger and gain advantages and smaller right because not every time but most times benefits are conferred by being bigger and that's even accounting for trade-offs with cardiovascular conditioning any kind of ability to take damage if you remove those benefits from the equation

fighters will stop doing it but it turns out it's actually very very beneficial to that point bc i can't believe we're having this conversation davison figueredo achieved a world class uh in fact frankly the highest title you can get in that weight class cutting down into his mid-30s. Where the fuck is the case for why he shouldn't have done that? It proved itself several times over. Okay. What's the problem? I mean, sometimes you take an element of the argument that isn't really being fought and you play that.

I don't disagree with what you're saying. Well, people are like, well, this is where he should have been all along. No, he shouldn't have. I mean, you play that. I don't disagree with what you're saying. Well, people are like, well, this is where he should have been all along. No, he shouldn't have. I mean, you're right. People cut down because they're chasing big wins and they're chasing money and they're chasing the fastest way to get to a title and make more money.

And you want to get those advantages, although I think they hang on too long a lot of times, Luke, and missing maybe the key of the timing of when to go to a different division. Sometimes they wait too long until their body forces that, or danger forces them out of a division. And then a lot of times it's like, how much damage did that do? I think in this case with Figueiredo, I mean, he just exploded so much

in whatever thoughts we had of being a little bit too small or with the power carry up or whatever. I mean, it just carried up perfectly. And it's like, wow, he looks alive again. I would love if more people for the overall health and safety would do that although i get why they don't because that was possible on the spot where i thought he was actually going to start going in the other direction only because this division is so deep so if the question becomes why wouldn't he be suddenly the number one contender i think it's because this division is so deep and there's so many guys on top beyond who's getting the next title shot that you could argue i'd already deserve the next title shot that you could argue had already deserved

the next title shot so look i don't think it's enough even though i respect font and thought he was like the perfect opponent for this matchup it's not enough to become number one contender but i think the question is how many more wins would he actually need as a former multi-time champion given that he is gambling here in your age category. He's over 35 below alter weight. I just want to point out something, and I know we've kind of been over this, but just to say it one more time. I am not immune to the idea that if guys cut weight less through the course of their career, there might be much longer health benefits in terms of the damage not done to the endocrine system. Yeah, how many times has it shortened careers? And we don't know that.

For sure. I understand that. But this idea that like, oh, guys should just compete closer to their natural weight, that is bad advice. That is matter of factly bad advice. So you think it's only situational based on their skill set? It is much more situational. Look at Kelvin Gastelum, who went back to 170 pounds.

Dude, he got manhandled. Okay, but he got beat by, it turned out, a better fighter whose A game was able to just dominate him. The whole point of going back to 170 is to get physical benefit. He got none. I don't think we got the answer of whether the move back down to that weight was a good or bad move for Gastelum. I think you did, actually. But we'll get to that in a little bit later. But here's the point I want to make.

For certain guys, it absolutely, especially as they get older. So here's the point I want to make. Certain fighters, especially at certain times in their career or BC, just to get a fresh set of matchups, right? There can be lots of reasons to compete closer to your natural weight. And we've seen the opposite. Paul Craig going down to 185 didn't do a whole lot for him in the end, right? But this idea like, oh, guys should just, you know, in general, it's always going to be better to be close to your natural weight is just bullshit. It's just bullshit. Okay, but if a trend started in that direction where more people did it and then we started to see a pattern of –

They're only going to do it if it doesn't confer benefits to cut a lot of weight. A pattern of longevity that sort of comes with that and rebirth because that's what it would take to sway people on to why maybe they should do it but if you did that you would be making the sport healthier in the in so we're going to have less upside at the early to middle parts of your career so you can have a longer more mediocre career dude the incentive structures about making an immediate impact and getting to the title as fast as you can i get it are always going to make it so that guys at least make a calculation about whether or not they should be cutting a lot of weight. And again, Figueiredo made it to 125 and became a champion there. What else can you fucking ask from the guy? Okay, but you don't really think he should cut the line ahead of like DeVos, Vili level.

So 135, I thought this was a phenomenal debut, right? Rob Font, battle tested, technical, great jab. Not big for the weight class but a good sized man some overwhelmed by him he was overwhelmed yeah he was overwhelmed dude figgy was all over him and this was interesting to me he couldn't keep font down although in the third round he was able to get mountain holder for a little while but even that he couldn't last font was able for the most part to get up and get away it wasn't like there was tremendous ground and pound how about figgy's power carrying he had better hand speed and was rocking him on the feet multiple times and then bc you you would imagine okay if the if the speed carries he's still gonna hit like a flyweight

no no he hit like a bantamweight i couldn't believe what i was looking at and him able to pull he was able to pull um rob font into his direction he was going and then set up knee taps from it the whole way through dude this was this was a sensational bantamweight debut by figurator now again where does this put him as it stands these are not updated heading into the fight excuse me fought with sitting at 8 so to me I apologize can we get some water for the host please

water for the host to me this puts him at roughly the similar position because Chito Vera sitting at 6 is getting a title shot this coming weekend it was supposed to be Peter Yan taking on Song Yedong and now it's Song Yedong versus Chris Gutierrez Song Yedong sitting at 7 sorry I don't think this is worth leapfrogging Song Yedong and now with Song Yedong versus Chris Gutierrez. Song Yedong sitting at seven. Sorry, I don't think this is worth leapfrogging Song Yedong.

And also, Yon's at five, Sandhagen at four. Forget about Umar, who's still out there, obviously. Suhudo at three and then Marab at one. No, this does not even come close to a title shot. But, but, this gave me so much more hope for his bantamweight campaign. I thought he would perform well because, hello he was a weight class champion and whatever but he's 35 didn't know what that was gonna mean dude he over performed big time here yes making himself a strong new entrant in an already stacked bantamweight division you know what you need you need heroes and you need villains

and i'm not saying he does behavior that's villainous but he fights like a motherfucker he like you know what i mean like you interview him on zoom in his hotel room and he'll be shirtless with the dark sunglasses on and the streak in his hair i mean he just carries that aura of like you know when i show up to your party i'm looking to drink all your beer and take your girl home right can you hand me that water please thank you you for this water, Ashley. Thank you. Remember that time you gave us all COVID? Hey, I said hosts.

I said hosts. Not for a lack of effort. We don't even have bottled water here anymore? You didn't give us COVID, but you certainly tried. You know, you certainly tried. Do we really not need more water? All right. BC, do you remember when you came back from Vegas

in, like december of 2019 and you had that mystery illness and then you had aids and you were shitting blood covid 18 and a half you had covid 18 and a half yeah i yeah that you know do you know that when i was in the uh er that day was so that was new year's eve 2019 because we had the drinking show that day remember vag? Vaguely. No, yeah, because I was late with the alcohol, and you were all pissy and mad, and we had the fun show, and we did the whole bit with Jake and all that shit.

You don't remember at all. Is this where I vomited in the sink? No, no, that was a pregame preview. This was the drinking show, the famous drinking show. I don't remember. Wow. Okay, well, anyway, Luke, oh, I debuted the picture with the two guys touching d Wow. Okay. Well, anyway, Luke. Oh, I debuted the picture with the two guys touching dicks.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. You know what I'm talking about. How could I forget? Andy King was here, too. Yes, when Luke disparaged the sponsored rum and then we had a pool. Well, no one told me it was. Anyway, where was I going with this, Luke? It's a dumbass story. I think this ends with you masturbating at a bus stop

In Jersey City The wheels fell off mid-story And I'm Rock Lobster out of shame and guilt Luke, so there you go I just needed more water You said something about coming here with an illness Yeah, so then I went to the home And then I ended up in the ER

And they told my wife, like, call his parents Tell him to fly up I'm not doing a bit. They thought for – it was like a three-hour window where they thought I had something like super like he's about to die. Don't you go dying on me. You know what? I'm still here. I'm still here representing CT right here and CTE, right?

Yes, but did you masturbate at the bus stop? No, I've never done that. I did – I did – You're like, I have masturbated in a no i've like drunkenly pissed at a bus stop with other people standing around i also have pissed on people's blankets at the uh lawns at concerts you know i've done some regrettable things really you know i've done a lot of regrettable things i told you i told you by that time my friend in in manhattan it's like 2002 he gets on the phone he pretends, it's like 9 o'clock at night outside of a bar. He's like,

sell all my stocks. What do you mean they won't sell? Put them through. And as he's arguing, he's just urinating all over the fucking thing. There's urine streaming and flying everywhere. He's like, you'll hear from my manager. I cannot believe this. Meanwhile, he's just pissed

everywhere. I'm still recovering from an illness, so don't hold any of the way I look against me, all right? She wants your cup. Oh, thank you, Ash. Ash, how come you won't... You refused to be on camera today, by the way, for the record. I did ask to get you mic'd up for this role, and they were like...

They don't... I think they're ready... This is like where, like, the marriage... Like, they don't want to be married to us anymore. Yeah, yeah, they're ready to move on. Yeah. They're ready to consummate with someone else. Okay.

Like they'll keep sleeping in the same house, but they won't have sex with us anymore, Luke. The staff. Yeah. Is that harassment? I don't know. It's a little bit. It's borderline. Just don't say she has body for days.

Okay, that would be too far. I didn't say it. I'm saying don't say it. Don't say it. Wow. Thank you, staff of this fantastic studio. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ash.

Very much. Do you think she... She absolutely spit in there. Okay. And I wouldn't blame her. All right, topic number four. Let's switch gears a little bit. We are going to talk to Sean Brady in about 20 minutes

about his win over Kelvin Gastelum. But let's talk a little bit about the king of violence. How about this guy? Holy shit. Dude, he's just, he's something else. Here's my question to you, BC. And you might say there's hyperbole baked into the question. If there is, by all means, call it out.

But let me ask the question this way. Mike Perry gets a stoppage over at Eddie Alvarez. Eddie's corner throws in the towel, basically, at the end of the second round when he had a gigantic swelling on his face. It looked almost certain that he had an orbital broken and there was enormous swelling. BC, serious question. Is Mike Perry the modern bare-knuckle goat? Yeah. Yeah, I think he is.

I mean, this is like the most we've taken bare-knuckle serious since it came out of nowhere in the last decade, got legalized, right? And there were talks and ideas of it, and it had little windows of popularity here and there. But now you've got multiple promotions in this space. You've got all these hybrid ways to combine the two sports, yet BKFC at the moment is getting a lot of the loudest attention in this space. Why? Because they have a superstar. And if winning these fights in succession against big names,

some smaller than him, some bigger than him in Luke Rockhold, but doing it the same way, the Mike Perry way of absorbing big punishment but landing equal to or even bigger and just outlasting guys in some cases like the Rockhold fight. And really physically in this fight too, even though Alvarez was more equipped to trade and have a fun war with him, it's still this last man standing. So it helps that Mike Perry physically seems to still be in some form of his prime, of his career in his early 30s when you gain all of the combat experience he has, which was a couple of pro boxing fights like long before the big UFC run.

So Mike's always been around. And Luke, whether you want to call it practice experience or not, Mike Perry has been knocking people out with bare hands on the streets for like a while. It's not just that old guy in the bar. I rewatched that one this morning. That old guy got real mouthy with him. It was that other one on New Year's Eve

and then there was like the other one and then there was the other one and then I had Mike on my show and he's like, oh, there's like four other times and he's telling me these stories. Like it just kind of works for his demeanor, his skill set. He doesn't seem to be somebody

that's having hand problems from this. His power is absolutely legit. He's adjusted to like the rule set in style in ways that are still really barbaric i mean he's not like overly boxing safe and being boring and trickery he's walking right through people he's better at street fighting which in a lot of ways by extension makes bare knuckle boxing makes you effective or not not everybody from boxing or MMA, we're finding out, is made for this or has the right skill sets to adapt to this. Mike's got enough footwork, big power,

and a willingness to take on big matchups and take on big damage. So yes, Luke, the answer is yes. He's a superstar right now. You could match him in a sort of BMF-type mindset in multiple disciplines with, like, anybody in the world. You could match him with the YouTubers as well. You can match him with almost anybody in a couple different sports. But, Luke, I don't know if you listened to the Mike Perry interviews

before and after this fight close enough. While he did give you a lot of the Mike Perry ridiculousness that you would hope for, we'll see one and have you seen this shit. It was fantastic. He also, Luke, seemed to be like almost calling out his promotion and being like, did you hear the rant he did where he wants Anthony Pettis next? But the whole rant was basically like- He's like, I want someone who can sell it.

I want someone who does big numbers on social media. I want someone who can also promote it so it's not just me. Yeah, and he's like, that has to be there. I'm no longer wanting to- So it's like him exercising now what his value actually is to the promotion. And I would say it's actually really big, his value right now to the promotion. Like whether or not they're able to actually get Conor McGregor in, just the fact that they can show footage of him facing off with their biggest star. And I know Perry called out McGregor, but like, yeah, whatever, not now, maybe down the road. But it shows the currency that this brand

has because of mike and it shows mike's currency on like this is the best version we ever could have hoped for for mike perry as a as a combat sports entity and luke i saw some stats online that it looked like that they they reported that he may have made around 1.8 million for this one fight and they're saying that he made based on what information and they're saying that he may have made around $1.8 million for this one fight. And they're saying that he may have made a combined $1.5 million his entire UFC career. Like, even if that math is even remotely true, Mike's now got sandwiched together, like three or four of these that, you know, with the last two probably being really high paid, where it's like this actually is top of the mountain, the most perfect Mike Perry could ever be from a consumer standpoint, from a value standpoint, from a, you know what, who actually could beat him in this standpoint? That's the thing.

It's like it's got to be the right person. But people can't last with him. And that's what he's looking for. Like MVP, surprisingly, Michael Venom Page, it was able to stand with him, last with him, go into a six overtime round. But what Mike was essentially telling the promoters is find somebody who's popular enough, who's got this and that, but also can challenge me. He's grimier than everybody at the end of the day, Luke. Really? He's skilled enough, famous enough, crazy enough, good promoter enough, but he's also grimy enough to be a superstar in this space. So Luke, I got to ask you, I don't hate the pettish shot,

but who should be the big time, if you're David Feldman, you're going, I got a window here to maximize this, and you're Mike Perry going, as long as the promotion's good to me, I got a window here to maximize this. Where should we be going with Mike Perry? Or should he be looking to maybe cross back into real MMA or real boxing? What do you think? I mean, first of all, he has one boxing fight on his record he lost.

It was in 2015 prior to even his UFC debut. Okay, just one, yes. Prior to his UFC debut. He lost four of his last five when he was in UFC. He lost to Vicente Luque. He lost to Jeff Neal. He got stopped by him. He beat Mickey Gall and then lost to Tim Means and D-Rod back-to-back.

He also got submitted by Donald Cerrone and a bunch of other stuff that went wrong. He does have a nice win. The Jake Ellenberger win, I think think would probably be his best win. Where's the most money for him then? Is it an influencer? I was trying to look this up and I was trying to make a sense of to answer the question that you had asked and I'll get to the answer. But bare knuckle boxing goes back to the 17th century. They have something in the late 1600s cataloging the first fight.

Some of the fights were being organized in the early 18th century and eventually they called a stop to it in 1889. That's when it stopped. And it first got back in the UK around 2015, but in this country around 2018. So here's what I can say. I asked you if he's the GOAT. Well, here's the problem with calling him the GOAT. You've got guys like Lorenzo Hunt, who's a two-weight world champion in that. I think he's middleweight and cruiserweight as both of his belts. You had Luis Palomino, who had, for a time, both the welterweight and the lightweight strap. Now just the lightweight strap. He abandoned the welterweight one. So he's not the most accomplished.

In fact, Luis Palomino was undefeated, I think, on nearly nine or ten bouts in BKFC and in bare-knuckle more generally. He has a much better resume. But what I can say about Mike Perry is he is, since the return after this nearly hundred year plus layoff, essentially from bare knuckle boxing, since the modern era of bare knuckle boxing has returned, Mike Perry is without a shadow of a doubt, its biggest breakout star, no questions asked. He's that guy. And I don't know what it means to beat an older luke rockhold and an older mvp and now an older eddie alvarez but it sure does seem to mean a hell of a lot to the fans yeah it seems to mean a lot to his brand he has absolutely elevated himself and remember what i said four of his last ufc fights he had lost and now he's four and oh in bkfc so to all to round

that all out to answer your question, I thought his call-out frankly was the best one I heard. Pettis was a good idea, but how about Jorge Masvidal? Jorge Masvidal in fact runs his own bare-knuckle MMA promotion. I don't know to what extent Jorge would entertain such an idea.

I don't know if he'd be in Dawn. I don't know exactly how that would work, but Mike's argument was pretty interesting. He's like, I grew up watching this guy fight bare knuckle on YouTube. Everything has come full circle. That's the kind of opponent that I think Mike Perry would really benefit from. There's box office in Masvidal versus Mike Perry. It sells itself.

You don't have to say much. It's unbelievable. And honestly, it could turn him into, I don't know if next level star is quite the right word, but Mike Perry is breaking all the rules about what we think a BK star could be. He is setting new levels to it every single time. A Jorge Masvidal fight would raise it to the next level. It really would. So would any type of fight involving Nate Diaz,

Conor's still the more long range pipe dream. Who knows if this will still be around by the time that would be contractually able, but is there a real boxing match with a Paul brother that, that gets Mike his biggest payday? And do you think he has wiggle room in this BKFC deal to get that? These would be good questions to find out. We would have to talk to Mike or Dave Feldman to

see what the answer would be there, but he is without, I mean... Because he's actually getting into Paul Brother territory, which means you've got to be pretty damn famous and at a certain point right now. You know what I'm saying? This isn't the, let's get us the next Tyrone Woodley now. They're escalating to higher levels now. The fact that Mike might actually be

in that discussion is wild. Yes, that is exactly correct. So let's just say it one more time. Since the dawn of modern bare-knuckle boxing, Mike Perry is your guy. That's the biggest star by a country mile. And that win over Eddie, I will say this for Eddie. Eddie was performing really well in the first. I gave him the first round. He's very game in this. But the problem was, this is the thing you may said, Eddie was right. He's like, you know, in MMA and in boxing, you can kind of athlete your way through it a little bit. You can't really athlete your way in the same way through bare-knuckle boxing. Unless you're doing it just to avoid punching.

Right. If you're trying to circle away and make a shitty fight. But to win, to take the fight to a guy, it doesn't work. You have to be a fighter. You have to be a fighter you have to be a dog mike perry is set up so well to be in his physical prime with all of the natural attributes that make him a great fit for bk taking on aging but well-respected names he is feasting right now the unofficial king of violence even though as i mentioned you've got two fighters in luis palomino and lorenzo hunt who are actually or have been double champions they don't have nearly the

same record all right i have two very quick pro wrestling questions related to this topic it's interesting that i do number one a big part of mike perry becoming this famous and this popular is of course winning these fights in the escalation of names but luke it's also like he kind of had a baby face turn of late from being like this disreputable guy that was like a car wreck and we were waiting for this big explosion at the end to kind of being like redeemed family man who's done it his own way after he left the big machine Luke do you think that's true do you think that's actually playing into his stardom this is more of the pro wrestling you know baby face heel way of looking at it but how much do you think that actually is a factor that the redemption part of this mike perry story and seeing him as like

family man with the new dream house and actually like seeing this guy kind of put his life together in front of us like that that has to be part of the equation you have to root for the guy because you feel good for his story but the part that's interesting to me is a lot of times guys get to this stage where a lot of fighters just don't want to overly generalize, but a lot of them come from fucked up backgrounds and they use fighting as a means to not really improve their life,

but to heal psychological wounds. And a lot of times I've seen fighters do that and then ultimately become, for example, I'm just going to say a little bit more religious later in life. And it actually makes them more peaceful people. They don't have the call to violence that they normally would have shown in order to get the kinds of wins against tough opponents. But Mike Perry has made no tradeoffs in that direction.

This is what I mean by him being in his prime. He has gotten happier, more sane. He's not doing like crazy shit like using the n-word all the time uh he's completely eliminated those kinds of like bad toxic behaviors and yet when he competes he looks to be as full of that dog in him so to speak as he ever has been there's no trade-off what's not to like yeah so that has to be part of it so the second and final pro wrestling thing is i saw some headline uh overnight where d where Dave Feldman said they're actually looking to bring in like retired pro wrestlers or whatever to train their athletes on how to be more marketable in interviews and in everything. Is this a good sign in your eyes or is this pushing too far into like the shitty trailer park reality side of

kind of why i like bk listen i don't even really like bk boxing i don't actually like the product i just like the presentation can i be honest i don't even really like it it's a little too fucked up for me it's like a redneck super bowl and like a weird way here's the thing it's like it's i respect it because it is so tough it is quite difficult. And so I respect what guys have to do to do it. But I don't really watch it. I just like Mike Perry's story. Mike Perry's story of taking advantage of a very narrow but important sliver in the market. At the time in which he did where this other sport comes into play.

Kind of as he's descending. He gets out of his contract with the UFC while he's still young enough. And he has all these life changes which we talked about but yet still is able to attract interesting fights he overperforms against MVP he overperforms to an extent against Rockhold and here he gets this it's like dude this story is fucking incredible it's just that bare-knuckle boxing is it's not slap fighting I'm not going to call it that because there is defense but it's fucking tough to watch I want to be his Howard Cosell to his Ali.

Do you think he would welcome me into his life like this where I was like his personal interviewer, Luke? I'd be like his caddy. I don't think you're ready for that kind of life yet. I'd be part of Team Platinum, me and Ocean. Dude, I bet you by the time Ocean becomes a teenager, we'll be bro-ing out like that. He'll be like the coolest, right?

What are you going to be? Hanging out with him. It won't be like a Michael McCulley thing, but you know what I mean? I'll be embedded into the team. You know what I mean? Yeah, I hope not. All right.

All right. Okay. Let's start with the Ryan Garcia topic. We should be joined by Sean Brady in about five or so minutes. We'll see how that goes. But BC, let's just get this going here. If we have to revisit it, we will following the interview. I'm going to ask you a true-false question about Ryan Garcia,

who does get a stoppage win in the eighth round against oscar duarte here is my true false true or false ryan garcia did not look that great against oscar duarte but maybe that doesn't even matter true or false in this case i will say true because if i if we're tasked to review Ryan Garcia's performance in totality against Oscar Duarte, these are one of those situations where it's like you can be as extreme as you want in any direction and you're probably right because this is who Ryan Garcia is. He's a work in progress who may never actually meet that full progress, yet is still going to accomplish for as long as he lasts in this game, really big things on really big stages against really big names. The problem is he's still so flawed enough in some very key areas that he may lose as many as he wins or maybe even worse scenario in the totality of these big step up fights against super elites. This was not that.

This was a tough but still sort of get well fight and a good style matchup, but against a guy who proved to be interesting and dangerous and, you know, decent in his own ways in Oscar Duarte. But this was the setup fight to try to get him to that next level. And Luke, what we learned is a complete modge podge of whatever you want to say. Like, in some ways, was it impressive? Yeah. The knockout and the finish, which kind of came out of nowhere, was exactly what makes Ryan Garcia so fun to watch. It's exactly what fuels his incredible marketing machine and social media presence. It's the fact that back against the ropes, his combination of speed, power, and beautiful technique. I mean, offensively, it's a joy to watch.

But just the same, this was a puzzling performance his audition with the shoulder roll out of nowhere last time someone effed around with the shoulder roll was andre burto against robert guerrero go re-watch that fight burto's both eyes swollen nearly shut at the end also because it was a war and the referee let guerrero just break every rule but the whole point is you only do the shoulder roll if you can do it and like one and a half people of all time can do it right this is floyd's thing people of all time can do it, right? This is Floyd's thing, and he learned it, adapted from different styles, from his Michigan roots and his great amateur history.

But, Luke, to do that thing, you've got to be able to pull it off. But the whole point was Garcia started out strong behind a jab but still showed us a couple shaky reactions to punches. But, Luke, just when it looked like it started to go good for him, suddenly Garcia didn't throw for two and a half rounds and he's just circling around in circles it looks like the end of De La Hoya training that and you're like the only problem for Duarte was Duarte wasn't busy enough to like make a huge dent on the scorecards so it's like yeah Garcia passed this test and I

don't discount the pressure that was on him with his new trainer, his third in three years, with his promotional team literally feuding with him all week. I mean, Luke, this was a shit show in a lot of ways. But he was just as impressive as he was troubling because he almost turned his head away from the action twice, which can actually get you the fight end. The referee can end the fight anytime you turn your back on the action for any reason. It basically shows that you're not defending yourself anymore and you're not responsible garcia was doing that dodging punches in questionable ways he still has the deer and headlights look in key areas where the elite punchers are going to get him the hell out of there but luke he's also dangerous enough to get you before you get him so my action to try to sum

up this performance this is what it's going to be. So buckle up. It's going to be a fun ride for as long as it lasts. It's not over yet. I don't know where we are in the chapter, but this is who Ryan Garcia is. And him calling out Roley Romero afterwards is probably the best call out he could ever think of because Romero has a title. Nobody likes him. Nobody thinks he should be in that spot. And he's got such a weird style that it may make Ryan look fantastic or it may lead to his demise. But Luke, where do you stand on after you just let me

just wave out there in the cold in a rainstorm on a coat dryer, just talking in circles until the people turn me off. Now I want to turn you on. Just not in any form that's gross or disgusting and involves both of us. Let's bang. Was I right or wrong?

He looked good and he also looked like a disaster walking at the same time. So here's what I can say on the positive side from what I can tell. I thought he showed a little bit more patience overall. I thought that his vaunted left hook was still his vaunted left hook.

Oh, he'll still fuck you up if you're in there. He was able to leverage it and use it. So, like, I didn't – I thought there were small tweaks to his offense that were better. Not in anything substantive, but enough to notice and enough to be like, that's good. I did not see significant improvement in his defense. And to your point, this thing where, dude, the commentators were talking about it endlessly, where Garcia doesn't just like shoulder roll, but then he'll almost like turn his back.

And he actually was complaining throughout the course of the fight about how many times he was being hit in the back of the head or he was being hit in the literal back. The referee was warning him, stop hitting him in the back. It's like you're doing pirouettes in the middle of the ring. I mean, it's like, dude,, it didn't result in disaster this time, but you do that against another hard puncher who can double or triple up on the hooks,

it's going to be real fucking bad, real bad. So the question I had asked you, or the statement I had put to you, was a true-false. He didn't look that great, but maybe it doesn't matter. I think that is true. He did not look substantively improved. Derek James looked like he had done something with him him and maybe we'll see how it goes he's still young the book's not closed but i will say this having a big superstar who's defensively

vulnerable might make some fun fights i mean it did for america and that's the comparison that you didn't want to make but america also Khan also won the title. Amir Khan had a fine career. He made very big fights because he had huge balls and he tried to make those huge fights and really aggressively went after him, although it was kind of poor that he never got Mayweather. Mayweather could have said yes to that multiple times. He did get Canelo. Yeah, he had to pay for it.

Also, he didn't perform ably in the Terrence Crawford fight. That's not Terrence's fault. Yeah, that was aftermarket Amir Khan. So you don't want Ryan Garcia to become that where it's like, okay. I mean, that was the equation with Amir. It was like he's going to have to get you. You want Amir to. But the thing about Amir was he didn't really have big-time finishing power,

especially not at the higher weight classes. So it was more like can Amir throw a no-hitter before he gets knocked out. In this case, Luke, Ryan Garcia is a knockout threat at 140. So how do you like his chances against somebody as unpredictable as Rowley, who is either going to be a huge knockout threat in this fight and may stop Ryan Garcia, or he could get out-skilled and stopped himself? I mean, that's the perfect matchmaking right there. Okay, so I'm talking to Sean Brady.

I'm trying to get this. Oh, you are? Yeah, they're setting him up now. They didn't tell me that. Oh, there he is. Yeah, we're getting himmaking right there. Okay, so I'm talking to Sean Brady. I'm trying to get this. Oh, you are? Yeah, they're setting him up now. They didn't tell me that. Oh, there he is. Yeah, we're getting him set up there. Okay. Sean Brady will join us here momentarily.

BC, the big fight that everyone wants. I'm sorry. I was trying to get Sean situated. He was telling me that the link was having an issue. Did you mention Roley Romero? I just set it up, and I said for as flawed as Ryan is, that might still be the next perfect big fight he can make. Roley Romero was telling folks today,

I saw Michael Benson tweeting it, that he wants to go to 147. He doesn't even want it. I'm like, dude, that would be a honestly, Roley could win that fight. He could. And Spence is not going to wait around at 147 for Roley Romero. Please be serious. Everybody wants Roley right now,

which is kind of hilarious. He's like now the hot chick at the dance because he's got a belt. Sign up for KOs. Sign up for KOs. Real. Sign up for KOs. But real quick before we get to Sean Brady is Gervonta Davis took a dunk on Ryan and basically said, like, I don't even think you'll be in this sport in two years. Basically saying what a lot of people are saying about Ryan, that as flashy and as offensively, he could be a devastator offensively. Is he really wired for this?

Luke, is Ryan Garcia still boxing in three years, four years in your eyes? Do you think he's built for this luke is ryan garcia still boxing in three years four years in your eyes do you think he's built for this i i candidly don't know i think it's actually i would have dismissed that before the fight but then seeing this one it's like because if it doesn't work now if he doesn't gain defensive techniques with derrick james if he doesn't turn the corner now it's never going to happen he's just going to be a fun knockout that's right that's right his offense his offense i think is legitimately great not great it's legitimately fun it's good it will cause problems for everyone who encounters it but he's hittable he's going to lose fights the question is how he wants to navigate that path and the right elite guys

are going to be miles ahead of him as we saw tank was. Yes. That's it. There's no doubt about it. All right, let's eat some humble pie here because Sean Brady is a – I mean we already knew he was a real man, Luke. Yeah. Turns out he was more manly than we even thought he was. You know what I mean? Yeah. Turns out he fucking ran over Kelvin Gastelum. And, you know, let's bring it, Luke.

Let's do it. Bring him in. Let me get the folks here to let them know about it on the old Twitter machine. All right, done. There we go. All right, our guest now joining us had a fantastic performance in winning and then submitting Kelvin Gastelum

in the third round at UFC Austin. It's the best tattooed man in the UFC. There he is. It's Sean Brady. Hi, Sean. How are you? I couldn't be any better, man. Monday morning after a win in flight, there's nothing like it.

I'm amazing. All right, so let's talk about it. Grade your performance in the following way. You got the submission win, so you got to be thrilled with that. In terms of what you wanted to do and then in terms of how you actually did it, give me a grade for yourself man i'd give myself a uh probably a a b minus you know um there's definitely some things obviously i can work on but um as far as sticking to the game plan and doing exactly what i thought the fight was how it was going to play out i it played out exactly kind of how i

thought i how it would i thought we would strike it played out exactly kind of how i thought i how it would i thought we would strike a little bit more um i didn't think he'd be as easy to take down so we prepared a lot like we did a lot of a lot of preparing for his in and out and getting ready for striking in the pocket and shooting off of that but it turns out he was a lot easier to take down than i thought so uh i kept it wasn broke, so I just kept going back to the well and eventually got the submission. Tell me how he felt in terms of his strength and his speed at 170 pounds. Man, I don't want to shit on the guy,

but definitely not the strongest 170-pounder. I think he might be better off at 185. Honestly, I think he probably depleted himself pretty bad getting to 170. Listen, I'm a big 70-pounder. They weighed me in the back. I was 193 in the back. Damn. So I'm a big boy.

I cut 20 pounds throughout the week. But, yeah, obviously he has that big, wide torso. So I knew getting around him for body locks, even at one point I had a body triangle. Dean Thomas was like, yo, motherfucker, your toes are turning white trying to get that body lock around him. Because it was like barely hanging on. But his legs were so small, it was super easy to wrap him up on the first takedown. And yeah, I just felt way more physical than him. And obviously it showed in the fight.

You obviously got the Kimura in the third round. Did you know the Kimura was going to be available? Like, you were hunting the rear naked choke when you had back control at times. His rear naked choke defense seemed pretty good. Did you think that the Kimura was going to be there? Yeah, so his chin was tucked really good. And I honestly wasn't even really going for it. I was kind of just trying to feel it out, like see where he was he was at defense wise and he was doing a good job keeping his chin tucked so I just kind of wanted to cook

him a little bit like I knew in the second or third round submissions would open up a lot easier and I honestly didn't even want to take his back the way I did because like we talked after my Michael Kessa fight when you're on someone's back for 15 minutes like you wind up getting tired so i kind of wanted to um i kind of went to stay on top position but the way he rolled it just i had to take his back it just made no sense not to so i didn't even really plan on staying there that long i was looking more for like arm triangles i knew guillotine would be there but my camara is one of my best submissions i did a grapple match against Ben Saunders, and I hit him with the same exact position. And yeah, Kimura's, guillotines, anacondas,

rear naked chokes, those are all my go-tos, and the Kimura was there. And yeah, it worked out perfectly. I got to ask this part. It looked to me like when you were torquing the arm, you could have gone a little harder. Were you calibrating it so that you didn't break it if you didn't have to no I was breaking that souvenir yeah

so the problem like a lot of guys do and they do it and I just don't understand why they you get when you're in side control and you have a camaro someone's come wearing you the last thing you want to do is underhook them because then i can just walk around your head like i did and it just gives you the camara you want to hug their body so i can't switch my hips and i can't step over your head as soon as i lock my hands he underhooked my my body so i literally just stepped around him and he gave it to me and i I was really just applying the pressure to where, like, I knew eventually he was going to tap. And if he didn't, it was going to break. But, yeah, I had no problem breaking his arm if I had to.

Unreal. Unreal. Sean, obviously, congratulations on such a great bounce back victory. And what's awesome for me is last time we talked to you was on our great Room Service Diaries interview where we were so happy to have you in studio. That was before the Bilal Muhammad fight. And I mean, I got to say, I took away from the time we had with you just how mentally tough it appeared you actually were. How just, you know, bred, born for this type of job and the work ethic you put in. So then when after that you go through what was what had to feel like a devastating first pro defeat in a big fight how was that journey actually for you because it wasn't just mentally of coming back from that

you had some setbacks physically and trying to schedule your comeback now you got through it you look fantastic you dominated the big name in gastelum but when you look back in the rear view what was that process like for you because you're human at the end of the day even if you're a dog you're still human yeah yeah well in the and that's the thing like in the ball fight like i just wasn't present you know and um it that's why i lost the fight uh this fight i was super present the entire time and i really truly truly wanted to be there you know and obviously i lost the fight i had two injuries i had to pull out of the Jack Della fight. So it was a rough year. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some dark times,

but I got a couple, I'm working with some really good mental coaches, guys who've worked with GSP in the past, guys who've worked with Rich Franklin. And I realized that it's not just physical. Your mind has to be as strong as your body. And mine just wasn't. And my wife, my family, everyone's just supported me throughout this time.

It was a hard fucking year. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, but I think it made me the best version of myself like you guys seen Saturday, and I think it's just going to propel me forward. Just keep doing what I'm doing, and, yeah, just it's going to look a lot like that going forward for me. All right, well, the big question you were going to have to answer in any fight coming off of that loss was how you went back and adjusted, especially with your striking game.

Now, you ended up having such continued success on the ground against Gastelum, but I did hear you mention you thought there would be more striking on the feet. I think a lot of us did. I unfortunately picked Gastelum against my good friend Sean Brady. Damn, I missed that one. Listen, he's a fucking traitor. Call him out. He's a fucking traitor. How excited were you, though? Fucking

motherfucker. I own it. I deserve it. I mean, I turn my back on the people I love. But how excited were you in that same way to show the leveling up in real time there had you needed to go into more of kickboxing mode against Gastelum? Oh, yeah. I was ready to go into the depth of hell.

I brought in Drew Dover, great southpaw. I spent a lot of time with him. I did a lot of striking on the feet, but I knew eventually I would get a takedown. I just didn't realize how easy they would be. But if he was stuffing my takedowns, we would have been striking for 15 minutes. And I feel like I would have – Kelvin's really good in and out, but I thought he was going to be a lot faster. Like everything he did, it was in slow motion,

and I could see everything he was doing. Everything was coming at me super slow. So if it would have played out like that on the feet, I felt like I would have been completely fine there too. But lucky for me, this is one of the fights where I came out with barely any – no damage. I think he hit me with like one or two good punches. And yeah, I have nothing on my – I have black eyes from training before the fight. So I came out unscathed.

But yeah, we were getting down and dirty for this one. We were ready to go in the pocket if we had to, but it didn't come to that. So I'm happy with that. All right. This is a huge win because you get the stoppage, because of the name value, because everything you've been through. So we heard you make a call out afterwards, but in terms of like currency, how big was this win for you and your current arc in showing everybody once again who you are?

I think it's huge, man. Like no one's done to Kelvin what I did to him, you know. He got submitted twice, but before that when he got submitted by Weidman, he fucking floors Weidman. And then he got heel hooked by Hermansen, and that shit can – like he just got caught. It could happen to anybody. But he took Izzy to a split decision.

He beat Jacare. He beat all these guys. If you go look at this man's record, it's very impressive. He's had like four or five main events. So for me to go in there and do what I did to him, I think it's huge. I don't know if it's going to move me up in the rankings at all, but I really don't care at this point. I got my eyes set on the winner of Vicente and Ian Gary.

I'm hoping it's Ian so I can get some payback for the MMA world to him. And, yeah, we'll see what happens. What is your biggest issue with Ian Gary? Man, like, just the way he's going about, like, the stuff with his team and, honestly, the stuff he did with Neil Magny. Like, Neil said, I'm going to beat you like I beat my kids. Like, he was joking around. Like, he was making a reference.

He made Neil seem like he's a fucking kid beater. And Neil came out and said that's causing him some problems at home. He's going through some shit. And then Ian doing that kind of put him in a bad spot. So he tried to paint Neil a certain way. I know Neil. I trained with Neil. And Neil wouldn't have heard a fucking fly. So for him to do that to him, way. I know Neal. I trained with Neal. And Neal wouldn't have heard a fucking fly.

So for him to do that to him, yeah, I just don't like it. And I think it's a perfect matchup for me. And especially if he beats Luque, which I don't know he will, it's a great name. And he's got a big following. And people are, whether it's good or bad, people are tuning in to the Ian Gary story. So I just want to steal all that hype. Yeah, I want to jump in right there because the whether it's good or bad. People are tuning in to the Ian Gary story. So I just want to steal all that hype.

Yeah, I want to jump in right there because the weather, it's good. The bad thing needs to be said. And Luke and I say it on this show. It's like there really isn't room in our show to debate if somebody's a cuck. I mean, it's just like that's the worst thing that the MMA Twitter world. You are definitely a cuck. I mean, that's the thing. The only thing I don't ever want to be a cuck to be is in our editorial.

All right, fine, deal. You old bitch. But my point is this, Sean. If your public life was put on this type of close-up the way Gary's is, whether some of that is his fault or not, and you tune into a podcast and they're debating things about your marriage, I mean, like, should we all shut the hell up and let this guy live? Like, what did you make of all this?

No, because he does it to himself. You know, like, like my wife and like, yeah, like I'm married. You'll see pictures of us on social media, but I'm not following my family with a camera. She's not doing my, all my shit, you know, like he puts her out there and they put everything they do online. So when you open up that floodgate and when you do what you do and you talk about people's families and putting people on t-shirts of mug shots and you act the way you do you're gonna you're giving it so you better be able to take it and now he's talking about like shooing uh

suing sean strickland for defamation like bro we're professional fighters and like no one hit you or anything like that like it's not like you were assaulted like you're talking about suing somebody for something they said about you which all this stuff happens to be true so um yeah i just don't like that and i know he's like i said he's rubbing people the wrong way and um yeah i just i just i'm not a fan i'm not a fan of the kid we have the same manager too so it'll be uh it'll be real easy to make that fight happen oh wow oh i didn't know that that's interesting okay so let me ask you 296 is coming up, and there's three welterweight fights worth paying attention to.

So you have the right to change your pick, and I know you do picks on an individual podcast on your own, but just for the MK viewers, very quickly, up or down, Luke A or Gary, gun to your head, who wins? Luke A. I just think he's a better overall fighter. Okay. I'm a fan of Luka, yeah.

Rachmaninoff, Wonderboy. Rachmaninoff. Okay. Jesus. You didn't even debate that one. You're like, fucking Rachmaninoff. I mean, the guy wears wolves on his head. Dude wears fucking goats on his head.

He's fucking an assassin. Colby versus Leon. I'm leaning Colby. Tell me why. Tell me why. Can you hear me? You guys broke up for a second. I got you. Tell me why you think

Colby wins. If you go back and look at the first Kamara fight, I think that Colby can implement that same game plan. As long as he stays on his P's and Q's, I think he's going to be all right. Leon could definitely get it done, but I'm leaning Colby, and I'm doing this whole thing. I'm just trying to support the Americans too,

so I'm not going against the grain. I got to support the fellow Americans. I feel like we don't do that enough and uh that's something i'm trying to do a lot more even if i'm not a fan of his personal the way he goes about shit i'm gonna i'm gonna ride with him all right let me ask about what was in your corner this weekend which was news to me i guess i hadn't noticed it before dean thomas uh dino yeah so how did you get hooked up with dean that's the first question second part is what specifically does he do for you why did you get hooked up with Dean? That's the first question. Second part is, what specifically does he do for you?

Why did you bring him in? So me and Dean hooked up after I lost to Bilal. He just seen me at one of the fights, and he was like, just tell me to keep my head up and that it's going to work out completely fine and I'm still going to go the same way everybody thought I was going to go. And we were DM back and forth, and he actually has family out in Red and PA and in Delaware so he came out one time to our team helped me out and then ever

since he he spent like a decent amount of he started helping me out for Jack De La Maddalena he came out was helping me game plan for him and he did the same thing for Kelvin called him up on the phone as soon as I got the fight and he he was like, yo, I'll be out there. And he was out to Philly at least probably four times. And then when he's not in Philly, he's taking my sparring footage, breaking it down, telling me the things I did good, telling me things I did bad. And then just helping my coach, John, game plan. So that's kind of where he came in. And Dean's a smart dude.

He's been around the game. He was in Woodley's corner for all those years. And yeah, I just think he's a great mind for MMA and he's a great guy and he fit in with our team super well. All right. So I love Dean Thomas, but here's one thing about Dean Thomas that I know really well.

He doesn't sugarcoat shit. He will tell you exactly how he feels sometimes in ways that sound abrasive. Have you had that experience with him he told me after the fight he was like he's like listen you did great but expect monday morning to have a breakdown of what you did wrong what you could have did better so but yeah everything he's told me so far i've listened to so i haven't got yelling at him yet but him and uh him and my him and my coach, John, they're going to be brutally honest with me if I need to.

Like, listen, you got to do certain things, and I'll do it. No arguing back from me. But, no, Dean's the man, and he's fitting in with our team awesome, and I hope he's there to help the other guys too. It seems like he loves helping us out. So he's going to be in my corner from now on. Sean, you know full well as a fighter how much the old adage of styles making fights works and is true. And you can dominate one guy in ways that your contemporaries may have trouble with just on the breakdown.

So when you look at this division as if it was like a wrestling bracket and you don't know who you're going to find at the end of it, who is the biggest threat in this division to your bread and butter, to the strengths that you have on the ground and what you can do? I mean, I think, I think Rachmaninoff is probably the toughest fight in the division for anybody. You know, he's, he's tall, he's long, he has really good striking and he has really good wrestling and he has good submission. So he has the overall package. I think he's, I think he's going to get through wonder boy and probably get the next title shot but um that doesn't mean i don't think i think i can beat any of these guys i think i can beat any of them as long as i go in there and um feeling the way i felt saturday night i think i can beat

all beat them all but um we have some gilbert burns we have there's there's too many good guys to name in the top ten. So there's a lot of tough fights, but I think I can get it done against any of them. All right. All right. Let's talk about some real art, though. The bod canvas that you're putting together right here, the ink, because, you know, I'm sitting next to a tattoo master who is cutthroat. He'll tell Mr. Hibas to his face that the lettering on emily whitmire's just

way off on his forearm all right uh let's gaff in the back if we can throw up more of these pictures of sean in action when you look at how the can your art canvas aesthetically is performing on camera the tattoos how the bod is flowing where are we at in the bod project is Is it finished? What do you like? What do you want to work on? Like when you go back and look at the highlights and you're looking at them just for ink purposes, what's standing out as good or bad right here? Yeah. I mean, uh, I have a lot I still have to do. I still have to cover up my whole, like that whole side on there. Like there's gotta be, um, there's a, that's a big spot.

So I can do a lot of pieces back there, but it usually like it'll be filled with like um lightning clouds like all kinds everything just has to be tied in but go back i would completely redo my entire body i didn't get into japanese until a little bit later um but i like like everything's done well but if i could go back i'd map out my entire body and have everything tied together the way like a like like this sleeve is completely tied in together like the guy did it and then piece by piece whereas when i was younger i just got tattoos and i didn't really know what i was getting but um it's coming together good i'm be fully covered, but I'm not getting another tattoo for a while. Last thing I got done was the eagle on my neck, and I have to train. So training and getting tattooed, and I don't let my tattoos heal.

I go right into the gym like an idiot because I have to train. What? But, oh, yeah. Dude, he's a badass. Wait, wait, wait. So if you get – let's say you got tattooed on your forearm right on a monday you're you're going oh you don't do you use uh saniderm or anything like that i um my we have like a bandage that we put on top of it so i put these bandages on it but

i i really i i think i've actually trained the same exact day I've got tattooed. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never – dude, every time I get a tattoo, I have to get it in the winter so I don't have to like have like sun exposure or anything. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's – my neck was bad. I did that and I was training and like obviously grappling.

People are trying to get around like starting on your – it's not not fun so i'm i'm i'm taking a break for a little bit for sure uh you two guys to me are filthy and disgusting because of your support of ass tatting like you like the full man needs all the way down gotta get that mask that's right so then why like why don't you fight in like a thong or the type of shorts that can show that off if you guys are so into this? So they won't let you because of Dennis Hallman. Dennis Hallman had the – Speedo. The Speedo.

They won't let you, yeah. He had the Speedo. And didn't he have a logo right on the crotch too? Yes, it was the training mask. Remember the training mask that people wear for a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well then let me ask the two of you this question because this is out of bounds on my decency. Do you stop at the ash cheeks?

Is the grundle off limits? Like where does this end? People get tattoos everywhere. I don't know about Sean though. Sean, what's the limit? For me, I'm doing like, I have my left, like I think I had my butt done when I seen you guys. It's still not finished because I'm like,

I don't really care. It gets pretty deep in there. I'm listen yeah that done but uh i think i have a um a horizon on my butt or a fujin i have one of the uh one of the one of the uh japanese guys but i'm like yeah bro i'm sitting on that for a while I don't need to get that uh I don't need to get that finished but um yeah it's it's not fun all right enough talk about your ass getting back to the fights here for just a little bit one I don't know if criticism is the right word but one kind of response that you could get based on your fight was okay definitely got back in the win column he submitted a guy with a great resume, all good stuff.

But he didn't show us a whole lot of stand-up. Now, I know what you might say, which is, well, I was ready to. But for folks who saw the Bilal fight, then this fight, there may still be lingering concerns about the development in the stand-up. What would you say to folks who still had those kinds of concerns? Ask anybody who has ever came to my gym, how my striking is, you know, it's definitely something I wish I'd gotten to show off more, but how our kickboxing rounds go, you know,

I had really good kickboxing, but like, if I don't, if the fight goes as easy as it did, why the fuck would I stand, stand there and strike? You know, like I I'm a jujitsu guy, I'm a grappler. So if I can get the easy takedowns I'm going to go to that every uh every single time so yeah until something else happens and guys start stuffing my takedowns but even if you go back and look at the ball fight like I was definitely way on my back foot too much but I was hitting him with a lot of shots I hit him with a lot of good kicks uh body kicks a lot of good punches so I was going him with a lot of shots. I hit him with a lot of good kicks, body kicks, a lot of good punches.

So I was going backwards too much. If I would have went forward, I would have had a lot more success. But, yeah, I mean, I think obviously I'm not a complete mixed martial arts. There's no such thing as a perfect fighter. I'm always striving to get better, and I'll just keep working on it. And I'll keep working on my ground the same way. Like guys get good at one thing and they stop getting and they stop training that like I do regular no-gi jiu-jitsu classes with my guys at movement art every every week so I'm doing the regular practices I'm doing straight

kickboxing classes um so yeah I'm always trying to be the best version of myself and there's nothing someone can say on the outside to me that I don't say to myself already like i'm my biggest critic so it's all good okay a couple more for me one did joe rogan stop you to get information about doing an interview are you going to go on the rogan show yeah i'm hoping so he said he said something about reaching out so uh i was talking to him through the cage i'm like yo joe we gotta have a combo so yeah i hopefully i'll be going back to austin texas and hopefully I'll be going back to Austin, Texas, and hopefully I'll be training with Gordon when I go out there. I know he's injured right now.

You're trying to train with Gordon? Hold on. Weren't you just at B-Team this week? Yeah, because their gym was five minutes from our house and was super close to us. But, no, me – so Gordon was just in New York, and we had Pat Sabatini fighting on the card. I DM'd him, and I'm like, hey, man, we were going to train. But I was up there for a meet and greet, and he was at the Caleb – not Caleb plant, the Caleb Walsh fight.

And he could have trained. So I was going to train with him and Steve Mako. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I've talked to him a few times. Obviously, he's a Henzo Gracie guy. I'm a Henzo Gracie black belt. So he's invited me to come to their gym whenever. So I'm hoping to get out there and train with him.

His interview he did with you was amazing. Like, the way he breaks stuff down, he's – I like Nicky Rod and all those guys. They're all cool, Craig and all that, but Gordon's the best. And I want to go there, and I definitely want to train with him. So if I get to go to Austin again, I'll be definitely training that rope out. Seeing if Gordon's healed up. I know he's hurt right now. All right.

Question, sincere one. What takes more courage, fighting in the cage or wearing an Eagles jersey the day after the Eagles got dog walked by the 49ers? Wow. Them are fighting words where he comes from. Look. Dog walk. Bro. Dog. Dog. Dog.

Dog. Dog. Dog walk. Bro, it was bad. Me and my wife were sitting there, and I was like, fuck. I'm like, we're getting our asses beat. And my strength and conditioning coach is Jalen Hurts and Lane Johnson's strength coach. No way.

So I work out at Lane's house three times a week in his barn. So, like, I was on the phone with Lane before my fight. Yeah, it was a hard one to watch, but, hey, 10-2, 10-2. It's not – we're still going to do what we need to do, but that was a rough game. There were some little scrimmages in that. They were about to start getting into it a little bit. But, yeah, Philadelphia, I won.

Eagles lost. We're 1-1 on the weekend. It's all right. All right. There it is. There it is. I love this guy, Sean Brady. Yeah, Sean, I got to say, it was real nice to see you get back to action.

It was nice to see you just do Sean Brady things. You know what I mean? Like win or lose, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like win or lose, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like fighting is tough. May the best man win. But you always want to see people do what you know they can do. And in the Bilal fight, you didn't get to see it.

You did in this one. I know you've got to be happy about it. I'm stoked. And I appreciate you reaching out before. I'm a huge fan of your guys' show. I watch it all the time. It's on my top three on my Spotify. Thanks, man.

It's you guys, Rogan, and for MMA, like, yeah, and Ariel. Like, you guys, I think you guys are the best. I was talking to Eric Nixick in the back, and I was telling him that your guys sit down, you guys deal with him. It was awesome talking about Francis and everything. I'm a huge, as much as I love MMA, I'm a huge fan of MMA, and you guys do a great job. You guys are always talking about myis and everything i'm a huge as much as i love mma i'm a huge fan of mma and you guys do a great job you guys are always talking about my boy boots so uh yeah it's um

it's so what so what happens if you guys gotta say so what happens now with him he's the champ who does he fight i don't understand how we don't know so he was he was not the regular champ and now he is the full champ yeah and he wants to wants to fight with Bud, but Bud's not going to take it because he's doing whatever the fuck he's doing. Could be Ugas, could be Keith Thurman. Really? I mean, they were rumored to be Boots' next opponents anyway, and if Boots is now the full champion,

would that be the pull for those guys to get back in? Who's older, you or Boots? Oh, me. Boots is, I met Boots when he was like 12. I was like 16. I think I'm like four years older than him but if you've ever had the privilege of being there or watching that kid in the gym it's it's actually scary like the way he goes from southpaw to orthodox and how hard he hits like i remember seeing him when he was younger now he's a man now like he's fucking he's terrifying

and he's only going to get better so i i just can't wait to see him back in action but uh yeah it was weird how he was not the champ now he's the champ and but same thing like philly we love our sports teams but then the combat sports like we don't give anybody love like eddie just fought over the weekend i fought over the weekend bruce becomes the champion not the way he wants but he's still the champ of the world and you don't hear like we don't we don't support our own the way we do so i'm always just trying to support the philly guys and especially boots he's i think he's the best in the world and i can't wait for him to show it well you're one of the best in the world as well dude congratulations on uh what a phenomenal win for you you got the stoppage you got everything

i think you were looking for in general can't wait to see what's next whether it's the ian gary fight or something else. I got it. He should celebrate with a taint tat. Yes. Yes. We got a butthole tat while you're at it in Philly. But thank you, Sean.

Thank you so much, man. Yeah. Thank you, guys. I appreciate you guys having me on. Keep killing the show, and I'll be listening. Oh, man. There he is. One of Philly's finest.

One of Philly's finest. Sean Brady. There he goes. Real one right there. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, yeah. When we're together in person, these shows are magical, Luke. Yeah. We've never fist bumped before. You want a fist bump? Yeah, it'd probably be awkward. There we are. Fist bumping. That was nice. Yeah, right. Wow. Does that mean we've had sex now? Well, in podcasting, yes.

Yeah, we've had podcast sex. Alright. It's no longer time for me and BC. Have you ever been fingered by a... Oh, wait. That's... We'll leave longer time for me and BC. Have you ever been fingered by a... Oh, wait, we'll leave that to other shows, right? Have you ever been fingered? Oh, wow. I mean, I'm hoping there's a medicinal answer to that. Are you talking in more of like a police type way? Yeah, I'm talking more about like,

have you had your prostate checked? Oh, yeah, yeah, once. It was the second worst moment of my life. Yeah, let me tell you, not a fun experience. Zero out of 10, do not recommend. Yeah, but you can't complain around your wives about that stuff because then they tell you what they go through, Luke. And, you know, it seems just not fair what they go through. Well, I'll tell you what I go through at the gym, BC, and that's hard work.

Oh, wow. Hard work. You know what I'm saying? Tell me about it. Listen to me. You know what? I found a new gym by my house. I signed up over the weekend.

My wife signed up over the weekend. But it's not really about that. We've been working and grinding at home, but we've been working and grinding at home with a plan. We've been working and grinding at home with a schedule, with not just making it up as we go, but with a direct service that's helping us get from A to B, B to C through our entire fitness journey. It's called FitBot, BC. And that's the key because your fitness journey looks different each step of the way because you change so much along the way. But what doesn't change is you need motivation, but you need education to go with that. You need to know what you're doing. You need to know what to do next. When inevitably, Luke, those plateaus will hit, those detours where maybe you don't have the same motivation or whatever. When you have an app like FitBot monitoring your progress along the way, designing new workouts to help you avoid those exact moments, it's like

having a coach in your pocket, Luke. It is like having a coach in your pocket. Listen, what do you need? You need structure. I've said this a million times. What you don't need is I'm going to go to the gym. I don't know what I'm going to do today. I don't know what I'm doing. I might go on TikTok for a little bit. Listen, maybe you work hard that day, but that's not how you get the job done. You need a goal and you need a plan that gets you there every time you do that. FitBod can get you there. Not only are you going to learn a bunch of new exercises because of all the vast array of thousands of demonstration videos that are in the app, but it's going to customize a workout to you based on what you have.

You got a full gym? Great. You got some stuff at home? Great. You got a full gym. Great. You got some stuff at home. Great. You got body weight stuff. Great. It's going to provide a plan to use all of that to hit your goals all along the way while teaching you more about yourself and more about the fitness routines. FitBot folks, you can't go wrong. And when it can intelligently monitor your muscle fatigue and help adjust your workout to you. I mean, it is, it is, it's personalized in a way that takes off a lot of the heavy lifting, so to speak, so that you can get to focusing on improving yourself on a daily basis. And that's what this journey is all about. So why don't you

take that next step toward health, happiness, and a new you ahead of a new year by going to download the FitBod app today. And Luke, if they get a head start on their fitness resolution right now, they can also get 25% off subscription with three free personalized workouts when they go to FitBod.me slash combat. That's right. 25% off and free personalized workouts at F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash combat. Combat with a K.

All right. Time now for you guys to ask us questions. It's DM. Jesus Christ. It's DM. Yeehaw. BC, we'll go right into it. Question number one from Grant's Pictures. Question.

Are occasional late stoppages just something MMA fans have to permanently deal with? Yes. Yeah, you're going to have to because there's always going to be trial and error and a little bit too soon, a little bit too far, unfortunately. I mean, it's not a perfect science, Luke. These guys are going to be prisoners of the moment where they're standing, what they're looking at at the exact moment. There's a crowd going crazy. I mean, that's an intense job.

You do have to first and foremost recognize that. I think sometimes we look at these guys as clowns and, oh, look at that guy. Look at that guy's beard. Look at that guy's gut. But they have, like, lives in their hands. It's pretty serious stuff, Luke, okay? So you're going to have swings and misses. But, man, let's regulate this shit.

Let's get the system right so you got the best in there at all times. Is it that hard? No. To make things safer? Question number two from Telvin Kipapa. Oh, from Hawaii. Hawaii. If you were the matchmaker for PFL, what would be the three,

or excuse me, the top three non-champion fights that you would make between PFL and Bellator? Who gives a shit? Oh, what are you, Dana White now? Well, I like, name three fights that have no stakes whatsoever between two smaller organizations in MMA. I don't know. Okay, well, let's entertain.

You can't just take a shit-tay on Kipapa like that. You know what I'm saying? It's just kind of a silly question. Give him a shit-kabob. So, Pico versus who? Okay, I still want to see Pico versus... Burgos? You could do Pico versus Burgos. But that still want to see Pico versus Patricio Pippo. That'd be championship.

I want to see AJ McKee against somebody from the PFL. I know that's for sure. You could do AJ versus... One of them could fight Shane Burgos. That's true. I would love to see Larissa Pacheco, Kayla Harrison, and Chris Cyborg to have a round-robin tournament, throw in Julia Bud right there. Sounds like we've got a 145 division. We're all the stars. I'll tell you what I want to see Larissa Pacheco, Kayla Harrison, and Chris Cyborg to have a round-robin tournament. Throw in Julia Bud right there.

Sounds like we've got a 145 division. We're all the stars. I'll tell you what I want to see. I want to see the champ fights. The rest of them don't interest me that much. Corey Anderson versus, let me think about that for a second. You're like, who didn't pop for drugs this season? You know, the thing is, it would be championships.

I want to see him against Impa Kasanga. Because, dude, I'd like Corey Anderson's chances to beat Impokasanga as much as his story is cool. I mean, Nemkov moving up to heavyweight is the rumor. I'd love to see him against Henen Fajeda. That's a tough fight, but that's a championship fight. He just won. Fair point. All right.

Walking on Arias asks, with so many fighters and legends wanting to fight a UFC 300, how many fighters do you think we see retire that night? You know the rumor of the super fight that Dana confirmed again that the rumor is on but that he won't mention it to anybody so that we won't know. People are trying to say, well, that's GSP versus Nick Diaz too. That better not. That better not. For all the options we could have of GSP coming back. That's not a super fight. No.

Don't do that one. That first fight sucked ass. I remember it, knowing it was going to suck ass. Why would you do that a second time? Why? Yeah, no. So a lot of people are starting to say, well, then it's got to be Ronda. Because there's rumors that Ronda was off for $15 million to come back against Misha.

And Misha had a good win over the weekend. And I don't think Ronda would come back against Holly. I don't think she would. No, I don't think she would either. But she would come back against Misha. And Misha had a good win over the weekend. And I don't think Ronda would come back against Holly. I don't think she would. No, I don't think she would either. But she would come back against Misha, I think. I mean, I don't know. Who the fuck knows? But the question here they want to know is how many fighters do we think

that we retire that night? I guess that plays into the idea of these one-off old people super fights, right? Well, I mean, if you think about UFC 200, Brock never fought again. I think Kane fought one more time, or two more times or something. Yeah. Very little. Mark Hunt, I think, fought a little bit later. Travis Brown

fought himself into... I would say, depending how they book it, maybe four or five, something like that. If you're Jim Miller, do you really want to keep going past that? I mean, maybe. Yeah, I'm sure he wants to fight at UFC 500 too, Luke. Oh my god. If I'm still watching MMA UFC 500, put a bullet in my mouth. You know,

Clay Guida will still be fighting by then. Clay Guida's in his 40s. He walked out to Pantera. I was like, it's cool that he did that because I just saw them in concert. It's also an old guy move now. It's an old guy move. Yeah, we're old, Luke. That's what it is. Do you want to do any more of these? Yeah, there's two more here. Very quick ones. Questionable question. From Sean underscore Kelly

88. How is Brian Ortega still ranked number three at featherweight despite Habib having a more recent win than him 2020? Oh, wow. That's a hell of a stat right there. Wow. Because the people who do the rankings suck the sweat off a dead man's balls. So whenever I've done rankings, when I worked at ESPN, they've always been very strict in terms of pound for pound and divisional

in terms of if you don't have a fight one year later, you don't have a fight scheduled and you're just lingering or you're hurt. You get removed from the rankings because you're not an active fighter anymore in that moment. Everybody sort of has a rule. UFC doesn't seem to have this rule at all. So that's where we're at with that. It's why John Jones is pound for pound King Luke.

Okay. It's why Yahoo sports has Juliana Pena right now as pound for pound queen, you know, I'm not kidding Anyway Luke That's a real thing Have you seen these rumors that Ortega could be fighting Yair? Right well they did in Long Island But it was like aborted

I mean yeah I'm in Listen I would be happy to see that fight There's nothing wrong with that fight It's a retread but it's a retread of something we never really got to see fully So sure Last but not least from 420 History Bird Shittiest Christmas memory wrong with that fight. It's a retread, but it's a retread of something that we never really got to see fully, so sure. True. Last but not least, from 420 History Bird, shittiest Christmas memory.

Oh, dude, I've had some of the worst gifts ever. I've had great... My parents, like, that was their thing. They committed... I had great Christmases. I gotta shout them out. No, I had a bunch of bad ones, man. Ugh. God. I'm sorry, Luke. No, it's all right.

I just remember... Do you want to share a shitty story? I think I've told this one before. It was a Christmas gift. I remember, like, when everyone had these remote-controlled cars that would go super fast, and then the steering wheel was, like, one or two joysticks that would go up and down,

and then there would actually be a literal tire on the device, and that would make it go left or right and fast or slow, and these things would whip around and blah, blah, blah. And then I got one that had a single button like a fucking thing with one button and you just hit it and it turns it right otherwise yeah that sucks and i was like what the fuck is this shit man like you know and i realized this is like the biggest first world problem ever but it did you know what it did me fucked me up man i'll tell you why it fucked me up because every time i'd go to school, like, I never had Nikes. I always had, like, whatever my mom would shop at Payless.

Like, just the most bullshit shoes, right? Just bullshit. Voight? V-O-I-T? Yeah. Oh, just the worst. Dude, I had a shoe one time in, like, third grade. I'm not kidding.

The shoe was called the winner shoe. Yeah, you're an absolute loser. You're an absolute loser if you're wearing the winner shoe. And I did. And I did. I'm really mad. So what it ended up doing to me was by the time I got out of high school or college, when I had my own money, at least a little bit of it, it made me be like, I can only buy Air Maxes.

I can only buy the nice shit. Yes. When in fact, I don't even really need some of that stuff. I mean, the Air Maxes or whatever, but some of this stuff I've had that mentality towards I've wasted money on. You've wasted a lot of money on food around me, like $78 a Taco Bell and just let it sit there on the couch. You mean Showtime paid for that shit. I didn't pay for that shit. But the point I'm trying to make here is it kind of fucked up

my decision-making on purchasing decisions. Yeah. Look how red I am. I mean, I look like Virat Povergaard in Willy Wonka when she blows up. Like, finally, you're turning violet. You look like Dana about to have a coronary. Yes, until that guru changed his life, Luke.

You mean just eating less and exercising more? Luke, I have my own guru right now, okay? He'll kick your guru's ass. Mine is just a normal dude. No, mine's Keith Jardine Jack. Yeah, I've seen him. He's intense. He's got a little drill instructor vibe.

All right. That's it for us in terms of all the other stuff. It's time for BC's Feces. Yeah, I scoured the globe. I hope you like it this week. It's a bunch of bullshit. Let's watch it. All right.

Yeah. All right. The good, the bad, the ugly, and combat sports, all that, and then some tall, pale, and handsome. Luke Dana White had the Post 5 press conference and reiterated why he thinks PFL purchasing... Hey, did anyone ask him about any of the documents that have been released showing that they purchased Pride just to be anti-competitive in the market,

which is really going to burn them if this goes to trial? They did go back to the well and asked him what he thought about PFL purchasing Bellator. But they were trying to do it in a way where they were asking that now that PFL came out and said they expect to compete head-to-head with UFC. So that's why they asked him again. It's true that Dana has always

been feisty around pointed Oh, you gotta be fucking shitting me. The fire alarm is going off here. I'm not getting out. I'm just gonna burn to death in this motherfucking place. It would be a great way to close out the set, right? Just Joan of Arc style. Just let it burn off. What I was going to say was, BC, while I'm distracted by this shit.

Yeah. You know what? Maybe it should be. They said our viewers. You know what? It should be the last show in this fucking dump. How about that? Oh, wow. Just burn it. Hey, that's my office. You know what? It should be the last show in this fucking dump. How about that? Oh, wow.

Just burn it. Hey, that's my office. Just burn it and collect the insurance money. Yeah. Remember when Ash said that? Listen, let me say this about Dana. He always was a little bit feisty when you would push him, but he used to be a little bit more willing to spar in terms of just engaging the questions to begin with.

Now he just doesn't want to engage with these questions at all. Can we play it? The PFL buying Bellator. PFL is now saying that they're the co-leader. They believe that the roster is comparable to the UFC's. So what do you make of the whole situation? I don't know. What do you think about that?

I'm asking you. No comment? You have no comment? You want me to comment? It's fucking hilarious, but yeah, good for them. I wish them all the luck in the world. Very cool. And Oscar mentioned the...

I mean, I've covered this before. You must not have heard it. One shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches buys another shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches. Sounds like a fucking winner to me, boy. Right? Woo! Go, guys.

What do you think? Well, I think they have a pretty good roster. I don't know if it's on par with the UFC's, but I think they have a solid roster. What do you think of their ticket sales? They're not running big arenas. They're not running big arenas, or any arenas at all, really. What do you think of their ticket sales? They're not running big arenas. Huh? They're not running big arenas or any arenas at all, really. What do you think of their TV ratings?

That I don't know about. The deal with the UFC. Do you cover this war? I do. I'm not sure about their ratings. That's why I didn't ask. So you knew enough about it to ask me the question, but you don't know enough to answer the question. Well, I didn't ask about the ratings.

That's why he's asking the question, Dana. I don't believe you, but okay. First of all, Dana's right. It is an organization that doesn't sell tickets buying another organization that doesn't sell tickets. They have to answer that question with their TV sales, with their pay-per-view sales, all that stuff. He's right.

Their TV ratings and their live gates are abysmal. That's very true. It was a funny response. It's just, does it change it now because they are under the same network? Like, will we actually? Okay, here's the question. Because Don Davis told Ariel that Dana's only talking about us now because we are a competition. And it's like, that's a way to jazz yourself up.

I get that. And be like, you know. In reality, though, Dana wasn't, he didn't bring it up. He was asked about it. So I'm not saying Dana went out of his way here. But Dana did seem to go out of his way to dunk, right? I mean, he could have left it at good he was asked about it, so I'm not saying Dana went out of his way here, but Dana did seem to go out of his way to dunk, right? I mean, he could have left it at good luck to you, but he came back and he dunked.

Is that going to be allowed under the same network? Will we see that spiced up more? Do you expect a Eric Bischoff versus Vince McMahon back and forth? You know, Dana is an independent spirit, whether you like him or don't. I don't, you know, he's talking about I'm not going to let sponsors dictate to me, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if this is the same kind of relationship as a sponsor, but it sounds like he'll resist any efforts at detente.

But can't they all benefit from that, though? They can kind of all benefit from it. They could make it, again, people always think if the UFC and PFL co-promoted, it would be like, you know, oh, you're going to raise PFL's profile. Well, you could co-promote. I mean, did it raise DAZN's profile when Ryan Garcia fought Tank Davis? Not really. Not really. So the point I wanted to make here, which is slightly different

because they're not promotional entities, but the point I wanted to make here is, you know, they could work together in a way that would benefit everyone. They just don't really want to. All right, let's swim deeper into this shit here. UFC Austin Luke Clay Guida warms up for a future in power slap with his brother Jason doing the pre-fight bit here.

It just feels like a poor gesture in the post-power slap area. Guys, please don't use the flag like that. To what? Wipe sweat and boogers on? Just don't do that. Alright, that happened.

Let's keep it going here. Arman Saruki. And, Luke, his celebration was badass. This was following the KO1 of Dariush. And it almost got McGregor-Aldo-like here in the Boston crowd. Yeah, I was going to say, even like Jose Aldo and Rio vibes, too. I mean, just right into the audience. He looked pumped for this win.

That's why I'm saying, I don't know if there's a limit to how they can bank this. If they wanted to rush him to the top, they could, because look at him. He looks like a freaking Hulk, Luke. You've got to ride these waves sometimes. Dude, I'm not saying one bad thing

about his performance. He looked fucking awesome. Here is his call-out, by the way, to the champion afterwards. You want to tell the champion, Islam is a hot shell. You know to tell the champion Islam Mahacho? You know, so Islam, it's a different level

fighter, but four years ago, now, I was 22 years old. Now I'm 27. So, guys, I got improved, and now next fight is going to be different one. I'm going to knock him out. That's it. I mean, the performance does change this equation.

It does. Hearing him say that after that performance, I'm like, you know, he might. He's knocking on the door. At a bare minimum, he's knocking on the door. All right. Luke, you remember that 90s hit by Onyx? Da-da-da-da-da. Slam, slam.

Drakkar close. Let the boys be boys all over Joe Silecki's temples luke dude that sounded so fucking bad that was brutal dude you could go by ufc knockouts in terms of years and you would have years where there would be like one like 10 years in a row yeah there were two just on this car consecutive fights so the next fight up was cody brundage against zach reese here's my comeuppance for picking against and oh okay beth luke takes the the golden bagel uh and so did reese dude that i mean the timing is just insane when you get picked up off a triangle i think i'm sure zach reese knows this when you get picked up off the triangle you have to underhook the leg now

interestingly it looked like Brundage grabbed it. If you notice real quickly, if they show it one more time, notice where he grabs. He grabs the right arm of Cody. See that? How he grabs it? Of Zach? And so he can't underhook. He'd have to underhook on that same side. He couldn't do it.

What a turn. That was a wild card top to bottom. A lot of knockouts. A lot of fun moments. You see that one with that Brazilian guy. What was his name? Bedetto? Oh, Bellato. Bellato with the chest hats. That dude went to hell and back like four times.

He nearly gets polished off and then came back and finished old e-whore. And even afterwards, he's like, yeah, I don't remember anything that happened. Yeah, they asked him, how'd you do it? He's like, listen, I'll be honest. I don't remember shit from this fight. Luke, BKFC 56 was in Salt Lake City. There's an amazing pre-fight interview here with mike perry and um helen yee let's listen in i'm a brick shithouse bro

so you know you throw some fiery bricks at a barn it's a barn burner and i'm trying to stuff eddie alvarez like a twinkie with my fist. You know, you can make it as gay as you want. No homo. No homo, bro. Like, it's going to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to put this thing inside of you, bro. Oh, okay. What a visual. Yeah.

I love Mike Perry. Imagine that, bro. Just right up his ass, bro. Right up, Luke. Is this an oil change he's describing, Luke? Dude, if you're literally promising to have gay sex with your opponent, I don't know if fist fighting is the sport for you. There's probably a different thing. Then this is the show for you.

I thought you were going there, Luke. Wow. Also, this is what I love. People are like, you know, listen, if you ever have a fight party and casuals come over, especially the women, they'll come over and they'll be like, oh, you know, your sport looks so gay. They're right. It is. It definitely is a homoerotic sport.

I mean, there's really no denying that. We can evolve from this conversation, can't we, Luke? It's not the guy's talking about I'm going to put this inside of you up your butthole. I was here for that, yes, yes. I actually want to buy Craig Jones merch, but it probably could be thrown off the show, Luke, right? Nose beers. All right, Luke.

On the undercard, by the way, Jeremy Stephens, the hardest-hitting 145-er, made his BKFC debut against Jimmy Rivera and finished him. Finished the Tiger Schulman product. So while we're talking about, hey, could Mike Perry do Pettis or somebody huge, if he had to fight Jeremy Stephens in between, dude, that'd be balls, right? By the way, Jeremy Stephens, another one of these guys who really might have a little bit extra in the tank in BKFC versus MMA.

He's been doing a lot of pro boxing. He boxed. I think he won on that card that was in out of Milwaukee when Pettis fought Roy Jones. He fought Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo. He lost, but he looked pretty good. He looked pretty good.

And here he is knuckling Jimmy Rivera into the canvas. So Mike Perry, in his post-fight victory interview after stopping Eddie Alvarez, calls out Conor, but focused, unfortunately, on Young Ocean, who didn't realize that Daddy's actually happy during this rant. Luke in and took it on the chin a little bit here. You got it! Let, Platinum Mike Perry! Listen, bro, one after another,

and the competition just keeps getting better and better. Who is next on the hit list for Platinum Mike Perry? Man, there's some fights out there that we want to make. There's some fights out there that the world doesn't know if we can make. Give us some names. Give us some names, champ. Conor McGregor would be a great matchup. I just beat somebody. He fought for a world title. Who's bigger than that, though? Oh, no, Ocean. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. There's no one bigger than Conor McGregor except me. Khabib ain't coming over here. These boxers don't want to take the gloves off. Derrick

Till said he doesn't want to do it with no gloves. Who wants to fight Vladimir Perry with no gloves, bro? Not Ocean, Luke. Not Ocean. I love you. The world is a mean, nasty place sometimes. I see videos.

What videos do you think he had seen, Luke? I don't. He was going to reference there. Yeah. I love you, Mike. I'm happy for you. Sorry Ocean was a little upset there. Luke, Eddie Alvarez had to tell his amazing wife to calm down after she looked like she wanted to go after Mike Perry after the fight.

He did amazing. See the deep swelling in the left eye of Eddie Alvarez. He cut in his lid. I don't like you. He's not fucking! Hey, hey, hey, stop it. I was looking at you, swollen shit. What was happening there?

So his wife, who we always know yells the entire time. She's a yeller, yep. She was like, I don't like Mike Perry. And then she yelled something at Mike Perry. And Eddie was like, yo, yo, like, stop. But then Mike Perry, or Eddie, sorry, was asked about it in the post fight press conference and I actually loved his answer look let's listen yeah do you uh attribute a lot of your toughness to your wife because uh I sat next to her during the fight and she scares the shit out of me

telling me if I had a problem she was gonna kick my ass bro I don't know how many promoters I had apologized to about my wife my I met my wife when I was 15 years old you guys are gonna make me emotional I have four children and um she um she my wife would pick me up from North Philly when I was no one and people see her yelling in the crowd and say bad things to her. But the truth is, like, when I was nobody at 15 years old, she picked me up from a terrible place and believed in me. So when she yells, let her yell, guys. She cares. And I have four kids, so let her yell.

Yeah, shut the hell up, right? Fair enough. I mean, that's a strong woman by his side. I think Sean has that going on in his life too because he shouted out his woman in the post-fight interview on set. I need the Amtrak lady to shout for me. Yeah, that guy's got bod for dinner. Look at that eye, though, Luke.

So you want to be a bare-knuckle fighter? Wow. Luke, what do you think about the implementation of art into chest hair shaving? Remember Kimbo changed the game with that spider web he had on one peck? What about this guy? Could this fucking redneck be... All right. Just gets cancer, I believe.

License plate of the week time takes us to the great state of Maine. Candidly, what else is there to do in Maine? Drink, yep. Drink and fap, obviously, Luke. Drink and just touch yourself inappropriately. Hey, let's check in on former President Donald Trump, Luke, who's back on the campaign trail. And it's autograph time, Luke.

He's just signing some tickle bitty. This is so American. I gotta say, this is the most relatable thing he's done. We're all Colby fans after this, Luke, right? I guess so. Fully, wow. All right. Hey, let's check in on things over at Golden Boy Promotions.

So, Luke, Oscar De La Hoya posted this on Instagram in his ongoing feud with Ron Garcia that he was asked not to go to Garcia's locker room to wish him well so he instead posted the entire conversation of him fluffing Oscar Duarte's bag Luke, does it feel like Oscar goes out of his way to stir this shit up a little bit more each time? Dude, I don't understand what Oscar is doing

we've talked about this before but it's like, he must love this shit because why else would you keep doing stupid stuff unless you enjoy doing the stupid stuff? Because obviously it's not going to pay any other dividends, so it must be paying... Well, I wanted to ask you this. You could take that video off for a second. I want to ask

Luke. There's always two sides to every story, so anytime we're going to do anything, like, we can sit here and say, well, maybe PFL and Bellator does have a chance to take over the world, but then we've got to tell the other side of how hard financially this actually is and in this regard luke is there any part of bernard hopkins and oscar de la joya that might see some flaws in the way garcia's arc is going and are now just trying to tough love him i'm not saying this is true and i'm not trying to get their back but is there anything that we're not

seeing because we have heard that r Ryan is hard to deal with for trainers to some degree. So is this them that's trying to get him back in line to get back fighting and that's all that matters? And maybe if they can make themselves the enemy for this fight, that'll get him more motivated and back in track? Seems like a very convoluted theory

that it doesn't strike me as particularly personal. Because if that's not true, that scenario I just created, then what is he doing? Right. What is he doing here? The simplest explanation is probably the most correct one, which is they're just making really fucked up decisions.

All right. Well, Luke, that was how we started. Here's how we finished. Here's Oscar immediately after the fight. What a spectacular performance by Ryan Oscar Duarte with game. Congratulations, Ryan. The zone with game. Congratulations, Ryan. The zone. We're back, baby.

Luke, we're back. We're back with a bang. So there we go. Everything's fixed. Speaking of Garcia's KO, here's the ringside view. What did you think of when he did get Duarte hurt and he put it together and got him out of there? I thought Duarte complaining that the ref called it too early was ridiculous. No, I actually kind of thought it was called.

Like, he got up to beat the count. So give him a chance to take a step. He got up at like nine and a half. Sorry, dude. Get up earlier. Get up earlier. All right. That's not persuasive to me.

Okay. Luke, speaking of future Golden Boy prospects, we did challenge them to who's next. Well, it looks like it's 21-year-old lightweight Floyd Schofield who improved to 16-0 with his first-round KO in a fight they thought might give him some rounds. He scored four knockdowns and then called out Gervonta and Shakur. Yeah, a little early for that,

but he does look like a genuine product that could be interesting. Interesting. 21 years old fights at 135 pounds ryan garcia's brother sean on the undercard also improved to six and oh here's him he got stopped too yep nice little check left hook right there yep nice i think he's calling himself sugar sean garcia you like that lots of sugar lots of sucrose there you go there you go luke let's go to Russian MMA. We always get crazy fights at weigh-ins.

I mean, it's not like I'm wrong, right? What the fuck? They probably still fought the next day, right? Probably. Yeah. Probably. I mean, dude, he got hit hard, dude. Yeah.

A vertical knee like that, he got hit hard. That'll rattle your teeth and shit. So, Luke, this might be the last day in the studio. So I got some ideas for new furniture for the new studio. I wanted to run them by you. I genuinely hope you get in a car. Alright. I guess those will not get approved.

Let's keep it going. Here's Touch Football Fail of the Week. Luke, you ever throw the corner post when it's getting half dark out? Back shoulder. What the fuck? No, not the ball. Oh, wow. Wow.

It's like, dude, you got to lead your receiver in a different direction there, buddy. Lead them to dinner afterwards. You know what that looked like to me? It looked to me like the Jets, the New York Jets. Oh, wow. Yeah, it kind of did. Luke, at least we know where you'll be eating dinner tonight after finding this sign. Yeah, I'm going to eat there a lot.

Would you say you're eating out, Luke, or no? Yeah, the gynecology restaurant sounds like my kind of restaurant. Okay, I think we just got fired. I do like sushi. You're Sandcastle of the Week here, Luke. Going full episode six with Jabba. That was actually me during the pandemic. What?

Bro, wait, what? Fat-ass Jabba? Oh, yeah. Okay, I didn't know if you were... The Sarlacc pit's pretty good. They've even got the little teeth coming out. They do, and the hair. It's kind of gross in there. Got a great holiday gift idea for you for Christmas, Luke,

if you're celebrating this year. I'm very vulnerable right now if any Latina would like to take advantage of me. Yeah, I need this shirt, by the way. That's a sweatshirt. I mean, I'm married, but... That's a hoodie with that written on the back. That's fantastic.

Truth in advertising. Let's go to the halfpipe. I'll call this one half pipe to hell. Man, I can't believe he's white. Oh, and unfortunately, Luke, he did not recover. Hey, you know what? Good thing he had a face that enabled him to break his fall and then skid 50 yards. Luke, do you like sports that happen inside of restaurants?

Hold on. The best part is one more time. One more time. Watch this dude. Look at this. Hold on. Show it from the beginning here very quickly if you time. One more time. Watch this dude. Look at this. Hold on. Show it from the beginning here very quickly if you can.

One more time. Watch this. Watch this. Look at him. Butt in the air. Just butt in the air. I mean, he's out cold, Luke. That's why.

He had his face out of the pavement. Just ass up, face down. That's what he's doing. Luke, you ever try to combine sports with the restrooms? You get bathroom gymnastics. Let's go to the videotape.

Oh, yeah. I hope you... Oh, wow. That is... You deserve to swim in urine, sir. That is why. You deserve. Well, he just did, so that's great.

Yeah, you deserve it, apparently. We only have one tat to rate this week, Luke, but apparently if you want to be the closest friends possible, you get this BFF tattoo. Would you get that with me? What threshold did we have to get to to where we would get a dick and balls that can be a joint and a special

secret handshake where only man packages come together? I have to tell you, there are ways I could be persuaded. Okay. Finally, Luke, it's holiday season. I think we can all agree what the best flavor of pie is for the holiday season. Pumpkin? Pump? No, close.

Pumping pie. This isn't the only pumpkin pie here tonight. I'm pumping pie. I'm going to be pumping this pie. I'm pumping. This is pumping. I'm pumping this pie. I'm going to have sex with this pie. I'm pumping. This is pumping. I'm pumping this pie. I'm going to have sex with this pie.

Hair pie? I was like, where's he going? He's going in the pie. Yeah, got it. He's going to have sex with the pie. Well, we had a whole string of movies in the early 2000s about that exact thing. That's your shit of the week.

Not my best stuff, but it did the job. That's it? It did the job, Luke. It did? It's like 3.30. We've been here for four hours. All right. Hey, Sean Brady was great.

Sean Brady was great. We should do more studio shows with more live guests in the studio. Yeah, well, we don't have a studio anymore, so. Hey, hey, look ahead to the future. All right, in the future, maybe. We'll see. But this studio was probably cooked, so... One day your ship will come in.

What's your favorite memory from this studio? Encanto? Encanto karaoke, which came immediately after the Jake von Amsterdam interview, which I still think is the funniest moment in MK history because Jake was not prepared for that, and he just stepped in, sat down, and delivered. You know what he told me before the show? What?

He is full-blown HIV. Okay, that's not like a... He 100% goes, he goes, I had HIV, I now have full-blown acquired immune deficiency syndrome. And I was like, wow, I didn't know that. I mean, big Lakers fan, so, you know. I know. He's like, what are your favorite teams?

He's like, Duke, the Lakers, and the Yankees. I'm like, you bandwagon piece of shit. All right. Luke, we've had a good run here. So this originally was the bomb shelter. Then it became Orchids of Combat. Orchids of Combat, yeah. And then now it's, what is it now?

It's awesome. It's coming to a close is what it is. Yes. It's not Columbia. It's Columbia. And the Room Service Diaries set adjoining. Is this the last time we get to be in this space? Yeah, probably.

I've left so much of myself in this space. There is a chance. I should say this. There's a chance that in a couple of weeks we could be back. We don't know. But I'm going to guess probably not. I've spilled a lot of fluids in this space, Luke. Blood, sweat, and tears.

Have you rubbed one out here? No, gross. When I said blood, sweat, and tears, that's three. I mean, come on. Right? I mean, they're all water-based, but, like, that's three, right? I've also not rubbed one out. But, you know, today might be that day.

Mikey's probably just sitting there with steam coming out of his ears. With the FCC knocking on his door like USADA, we need to remove you right now. Let's remind everyone, MK Merch, morningcombat.store. You can get it. You know what? We do need to get a hockey jersey. The next iteration,

we need a hockey jersey, for sure. morningcombat.store, you can get all that stuff. Email the the show morningcombat at gmail.com um if we stay on this health plan that i'm doing with darren robinson this guy's like a tiktok superstar for an old guy okay check it out how old is he by the way i think he's in his early 50s i think but i didn't ask my personal trainer is 25 i think oh see mine's like, much more experience than you. Yeah, he certainly does. I think by the time, you know, I reach the end of this program, maybe we'll christen the new studio. With semen?

I mean, indirectly it could happen, but I mean more like maybe that's when we reveal when we, you know, the before and then the after, Luke. And then for the first time you can show your updated chest and stomach set up because I know you have to update part of it. I do have to update part of it.

But no, that's not going to happen. So I will say this. I want to thank everyone who watched today's show. And I want to thank everyone who ever watched anything we did in the studio. Al Jermaine Sterling was once in the studio at this desk. I was not here for that, though. No, you were with chuck mendenhall uh oh yes yes yes you're right you're right yes i mean look the best interviews in all of mma have happened on that couch well that's saying

not the truth i mean that's not the truth um we have a lot of awards over here, okay? Yeah. I mean, Ryan – Can I take that one home? This one? Yeah, I want to take that one home. You can have that one. All right. And I'll tell you what. I get the –

Why don't you take that one? I get the Ryan Adams Heartbreaker Deluxe Edition. Okay, well, take that one home. Take that one home. Yeah. I'm just going to take it all home with me. Thanks, everyone. Come pick me up, right?

Hey, don't feel down. You know, for every – Actually, you right? Hey, don't feel down. Actually, you know what? You should probably feel down. This is a really low point for us. Teacher said, every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, Luke. What are you doing?

I don't know, but I got a follow on Instagram from Ryan Adams. Do you think it was because of this, Luke? Probably not, no. He consents to that. BC, any final thoughts on this? God, look at this fucking thing. Yeah, I mean, it's broken a lot of our reputations and relationships. Here's what I can say. Folks might be asking, when is the next time you're in studio if it's not in two weeks,

which it could be, but let's say this is the end in terms of the studio. I don't know how to answer that question. I do. I'll answer it right now. 2024. Yes, that's right. I don't know when to answer that question. I do. I'll answer it right now. 2024. Yes. That's right. I don't know when. When you least expect it. BC and I are working on some stuff, but that's just it.

We're just working on some stuff. I just want you guys to know the stuff we're working on is not small at all. Are you talking about taking a big dump after the show? Just brewing up a big old pile of feces it's not small at all because that's the thing luke we bring i tell you what you know how you you ever

like lift really heavy and then you know you you get a good like warm-up and and are you talking about that 45 minute shit at that gym in miami one that you took no when the when the porcelain just broke in half the last two days because i had really great days at the gym, I have been taking absolute fucking steamers. Oh, God, that's so gross. Just clean. Where you needed to shower directly after? Yes. Even in the winter?

Wow. Yes. The kind where it's like that was a religious experience. I mean, absolute, like Jeff Daniels on the toilet in Dumb and Dumber. Oh! Wow. Okay, I don't know how to top it. I don't really know where we go from here.

Thanks to everyone who made the studio what they did. Where do we go? And we'll see you when we see you in terms of the next studio. We're out of here. We'll put the Sean Brady interview out separate. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you on Wednesday.

Until then, may all of your gains be Lord.