MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou | UFC Vegas 77 | Fight Announcements | Ep 463

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

On Episode 463 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian break down Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou. What are the guys thoughts on this fight? The guys also preview UFC Vegas 77 before breaking down some recent fight announcements. As always we close out Wednesday with fan submissions. (00:10:30) - Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou (00:52:00) - UFC Vegas 77 Preview (01:11:00) - Fight Announcements (01:15:40) - Kevin Lee Retires (01:27:00) - PFL Hires USADA (01:32:30) - Fan Submissions Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher 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

Hey, it's the 12th of the month. Cash your checks and get up, everyone. Hi, it's a Wednesday edition of the Some Kind of Combat Sports Show. It's Some Kind of Combat Sports Show. It's hosted by two guys who are in their 40s who are washed as shit, but we do like watching fights. Maybe you'll join us to talk about it. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of the Saddle's Needles right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my friend and compatriot. He was mowing lawns yesterday, and no, that's not a euphemism for anything else. He was actually mowing lawns. It's Brian Campbell.

Hi, Brian. Yeah, you're like, does that mean he was hanging out with Coach Craig? No, not necessarily, Luke. I was, hey, my wife gifted me a new riding mower. Mine, mine broke last year, Luke. And I just assumed I'd, I'd use the push mower until it died too, because I'm a cheap bastard. But I, uh, a new rider arrived Luke and I took it for a spin yesterday and got a little rock lobster. You know, that's, that's a day off in suburban America, apparently. Yeah. Listen, if you're like, people think day off when you're in your forties means like laying

around, I guess for some people it does, but not if you're married, not if you're married to a normal woman. A normal woman simply will not tolerate this tomfoolery. You got to go do shit. So, yeah, she doesn't tolerate my lack of, you know, go out. Something breaks, go out and buy a new one. I'm like, yeah, whatever. We'll figure it out. You know what I mean?

She doesn't really tolerate that too often, Luke. But that's the day to day life of a wife and husband in 2023. Luke, can we start on a serious note real quick? Please. Apparently, I'm a big racist now. So I did want to address that quickly. And it's not from the typical reaction hate we would get to saying anything. It was from trusted listeners that I've spoken to before and respect who are greatly disappointed from me in the fallout of the Izzy DDP incident. And one

thing I just want to say, Luke, is, you know, I brought an opinion of a lot of our viewers to the table, mostly Luke, for you to get a chance to address. And you did. And at the end of you addressing that, I sort of went to myself and said, you know what? Yeah, you make good points, Luke. All right, Luke Thomas. All right. And that was communicated to the public as me being completely against every idea that you brought to the table and thus a full-on racist. Luke, unfortunately, you and I play such a weird role in the show where we talk about serious stuff one second and then joke around about poop the next second and there had been a running joke from you in this show that bc's you know the factory town guy out of touch with culture and a huge racist and you know i wanted to push against

back against that by saying hey luke if this wasn't izzy who this happened to would you have had the same reaction and to your credit you addressed the situation and you gave it back and you answered it. And I thought it was a fair answer across the board. I was trying to bring nuance in conversation because I don't, you know, I've been accused in the last couple of days of a lot of bad things, including being a fence sitter. But Luke, you know what? I rarely find the truth, the real answers in life, especially from a political standpoint to be just left or just right. It is largely in

the middle. There's nuances in this case. Your boy BC, not a big racist, doesn't like the N-word getting thrown around the cage, understands the root of why some of this activity may or may not have been caused. And I'm not here to clear either fighter completely in this. I was trying to have a nuanced debate and hear both sides of the story to not be a show luke necessarily that only believes one thing and can't see the other side of the street through that if i let people down and trying to have that conversation i do apologize but just that it was a conversation and a topic that look is there a gray area in racism to me no there's not that's that's you, black or white, not intended on skin

color there, but other aspects, Luke of important topics. There can be nuances. There can be things worthy of talking about. We tried that. And apparently I failed in presenting anything else to the audience, but you're a raging POS. Um, okay. Okay. Folks. Uh, I love you. Apologies. If that came off wrong, Luke, I think to some degree, like the Anthony Smith fun and joke situation, and unfortunately, like the Risen debacle, sometimes I can get so caught up in one-upping you and staying consistent in our beliefs and saying, hey, Luke, if I'm a racist for this, what are you?

That unfortunately have bled into a topic that was probably too important to have non you know, non-drawn out takes on. I don't necessarily going to sit here and necessarily know or believe that DDP is some evil person or had evil intentions. He might have. And if that spurred a response from Izzy and Usman before that, look, they're in different shoes than me. I can't, you know, I can't speak of their lives and what they went through. What I was really saying was Adesanya's performance just in that cage. Didn't love it. Didn't love it. And I'll stand by that Luke, anything else people are putting words in my mouth. Thank you. Yeah. All right. I mean, I think that's pretty fair. I didn't know you were going to do this, so I appreciate your candor. I mean, I would just say two things very quickly.

If you've never done a job like this, you may not understand that sometimes it can be your, and by the, again, I want to be clear. I no idea brian was going to do this so he sprung it on me like he sprung it on you but i'm glad he did um but bc i would say two things one if you've never hosted a show like this or been in a kind of role where you're on camera and you're forced to facilitate conversation sometimes either the producer or just you just know your job as a host is not to necessarily echo views you don't agree with or just you know say crazy things to say crazy things but to make sure that you're not just getting one like if everyone just agrees all the time you're not really getting a better show you have you have to try and find ways to air other perspectives and of course that could lead you into some directions you don't want to end up

going but i could just tell you that's what brian was doing i just know for a fact i've been working with brian for a long time i've been working with Brian for a long time. I've been working with Brian. Remember Brian and I working together predates MK, right? I've been working with Brian for a long time. There's just no doubt in my mind. That's exactly what you were doing. And number two, BC, I've known this about you. You are uncultured swine. You know what I'm saying? Like I, I totally get, but here's the difference. Here's the difference. While you are a peasant, you do have a heart of gold. I know for a fact that is true. I know deep down. It's just not what you're trying. You don't live your life that way in any capacity that I can recognize whatsoever. And, uh, and you know, I'm an uptight,

you know, uh, DC fucking left-wing douchebag. I mean, I'm the worst of the worst. And even I don't detect that from you at all. So I appreciate your candor. I appreciate you, uh, you know, doing this, but honestly, dude, just let everyone know you're a fucking idiot. You're a fucking idiot. And that's what happens. Well, I play one on TV, Luke, you can argue or that, or that either way. It's a job. It's not whatever it is. It's where you are, but you're a good dude. You're a good dude. The way I was raised. Thank you very much. Love you all. You people, uh uh we can have disagreeing uh beliefs by the way though if someone yelling the n-word in the cage was cool or not look we can have that debate okay i actually feel like i actually feel like of all the things that you could have said that's the most reasonable one you know what i

mean like yeah i i personally thought it was funny but i completely recognize how somebody could be like dude this is gross this is off putting i i don't i don't i don't understand what's objectionable about that you know like yeah and i thought i thought bronceter brought a really nice you know side of that debate earlier in the show as well and you know we we heard both sides we disagreed on part of it i think we both agree at the end luke that uh that you know there's good and bad in this world i lean on the good people okay thank you very much. All right. With that in mind, I mean, that brings us to today's show. So let me just run through

this very, very quickly so we can get to the topics because it leads very closely into what topic number one is. So very quickly, thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Hey, why wouldn't you want to subscribe? It's free. Doesn't cost you a damn thing. Click that subscribe button. If you're listening to your favorite podcast platform, do leave us a nice review. We greatly appreciate it. Of course. Let's see. Showtime favorite podcast platform, do leave us a nice review. We greatly appreciate it. Of course, let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com 30-day free trial. If you like it,

you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. It's all up to you. There you go. There is the marker below. How about this? MorningCombat.store. MorningCombat.store for all your fun, good merch. Blah, blah, blah. Yep, yep. There he goes. BC's got it all going on right there. And Mikey, one more time if you could,

if you don't know if you have it ready, the slate for our social media there. There we go. Very good. Morning Combat is everywhere. By the way, I've noticed a little bit more activity these days, BC, on TikTok. TikTok picking up a little bit.

Wow. So the South African MMA fan base, by the way, ravaged me and ravaged both of us for our DDP pre-fight takes for the UFC 290 pre-game preview but we had it coming we had it coming we just gotta take that L yeah we deserve that Luke across the board there's no question about it yeah all right all right with that in mind let's go topic number one let's get right into it BC what else oh else? Oh, wait. We have to do the bonus photo from Alan W.? Yes, we do.

Oh, let's do it. What do we got? Wow. Oh, Jesus. So it's John Morant as Francis Ngannou, I see, huh? Yes. Alan W.? An unarmed Francis Ngannou look, I did want to point out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There

we go. Let's get into it. That was hilarious by the way. Topic number one, BC, I did a 15 minute video on this. Everyone has heard my initial reaction. Let me just set it up and go right to you on this massive news for better or for worse, depending on your perspective, but massive news, just the same Tyson Fury is set to box former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Yes, it was announced yesterday by all the parties. It will take place October 28th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The full rule set they say is full-on boxing, but we don't believe that it's going to be for 12 rounds because we don't believe that the WBC title will be up for grabs. It's not clear if it's going to be exhibition with KOs or just a regular boxing match that's

exempt from championship rules. Part of that remains unclear, BC. People have had reactions in every different direction. The floor is yours. What do you think? Just to add to that, Dan Rayfield of Fight Freaks Unite did report, Luke, through sources that it will be a 10-round bout, which obviously means it would not be a 12-round title bout. So your point on the WBC title not being at stake is true. WBC also came out yesterday, Mauricio Suleiman Jr., the president, and saying Tyson Fury would be given a one-fight exemption to take this fight, which means he will not be stripped due to inactivity. What's my baseline reaction to this? I'm disappointed, but it is, again, a lot of answers in life.

Luke, have that gray area. It's a nuanced take. Will this be a big event? Yeah, yeah, I think it will be. Will it be a big event that no matter where you lean right now on whether we should do this, we shouldn't do this, well, what the heck about who's sick? Shouldn't that fury fight have happened? All that stuff.

When it comes to the night, will we all tune in watch of course we will it's a very unique event you know arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of this era against arguably the greatest heavyweight in mma of this era or whatever you can you can extend that any way you want and there will be a side of the road have to pull over and watch kind of idea of what happens even though they're in full boxing gloves which in paper obviously is going to favor fury exactly what this might look like but when you take into account the full nature of what this is and maybe what it could have been oh there's definitely room for criticism does this sort of hit from a combat sports sense right i said it

from an oddity sense it hits yes does it hit good from a combat sports sense? I think the answer is not really a lot of that. We laid out ahead of time, but first and foremost, Hey, Tyson Fury, why are we not fighting Usyk for all four belts right now? I know Usyk was the one who ultimately pulled out of the negotiations earlier this year,

but that was after accepting a 70, 30 per speed. And after Tyson kept going back to the bank with more provisions that finally, when it came to that rematch clause and the fact that if Usyk had won their first fight, he still was only going to get 30% of the rematch purse. He finally had enough. What did that look like to us? That Fury was going to offer as many complications as it could to get Usyk to pull out of this fight. So first and foremost, as a boxing fan,

it's disappointed. We already knew this fight wasn't going to happen now. Anyway, Usyk is in the favor of his mandatory against Daniel Dubois. He's going in that direction in August. The other side of it is this, and I think it's pretty clear. What does this fight mean? I think there's two ways that this fight, Fury versus Ngannou, could have actually meant a lot more. And it's pretty clear. One is to have done four-ounce gloves and done like a boxing match, either in a ring or a cage under some idea of look, this isn't for a boxing heavyweight title,

but it is an interesting oddity in a rare space in time. Not the perfect storm that may where the McGregor was, but something interesting. What if we mend the rules together to make it more competitive? Big fail that that didn't happen considering the other extreme didn't happen. And that's making this a 12 round real boxing contest for the wbc heavyweight championship there's some issues in there of arguing like could francis deserve this could even get cleared for this like what is this how could a

guy just walk in on day one but like conor mcgregor allowing to get a real fight against floyd mayweather that went on floyd's record. Does Francis have the prerequisite combat experience and the willingness signing on the paper? Yeah. You could have done this for the heavyweight championship. And as weird as it sounds, if they had, at least there'd be something at stake. At least there'd be the idea of, okay, statistics will tell you that the MMA guy moving into boxing is going to get handled. But what if he doesn't't what if there's a cut what if it's tim zilvia versus ray mercer times a thousand here and we have this moment wouldn't that moment i don't know wouldn't wouldn't it feel a lot more juiced up if the real title was at stake i think

you can argue that but luke at the end of the day it's going to happen it all appears to be headed toward whether exhibition or not non-title fight just sort of a one-off thing that appeared. Will we tune in? Yes. I have to say, though, very disappointed in the particulars, in the circumstances. But that is separate from the idea of did Francis finally get his bag? Did he not fumble it? Yes.

Ariel can fill social media with pro-Francis material, and I do support him. Big moment for Francis Ngannou. Even after it seemed Dana White was trying to make this non-existent Jon Jones Fury fight happen just to stiff-arm Francis. Hey, guys, Francis still broke through. But, Luke, it's hard to get over the particulars here. I want this to kind of matter and mean something. It's kind of meaningless.

Yeah, it's hard to explain to MMA fans who are happy for Francis and not, not all of them are by the way, but to the ones that are, it's hard to explain to them. Hey man, on the boxing side, this looks real different. This looks really different. It looks like the most important heavyweight fight in a long time won't get made. So the guy who looks like he has at least maybe has a case for being the best ever in Tyson Fury, or, you know, somebody who you thought could, you know, make history truly is instead going to fight a MMA fighter. Who's not even in the UFC. I mean, I can, I can understand how a boxing fan would look at them. Like, dude, what on earth are you doing? Like

if you're a boxing fan, this fight is very, very hard to justify because Tyson Fury has already had some major paydays and you would at least think in theory, it's not competitive. And like, what do you care about Francis Ngannou's story? Everyone's hard luck from that perspective. It's a, it's a giant waste of time, but I think for the purposes of the show, BC, we do have have to air that but then also begin to ask some questions on the on the mma side i was thinking about this i didn't bring this up in my video yesterday but like we've had three of these sort of ones where champions were involved at least in the headlines one was may mac which actually happened right and we all had our takes at the time and then remember kamaru usman tried to make the Canelo one happen and it

failed. And then Francis made this one or was part of this one, obviously. And it appears to have worked at least when they have made the fight and each one drew a separate reaction. I was way down on the one with Canelo and Kamaru in part, because I just didn't feel like it would be even like, you know, it would be less than competitive relative to May Mac.

But more than that, he was in the UFC at the time. There were challengers for him to fight. Francis is not even in the UFC. Like, he's not wasting any UFC heavyweights time. Then when you add in this kind of like Francis versus the powers that be narrative, it really does change the perspective. But the truth is it's a meaningless, you know, fairly worthless fight other than as just whatever fun you might have

watching it. Right. It's, we've got this weird juxtaposition. And it could have been more. And again, it's not that Francis chose this over Usyk, even though he really did,

but like not in this exact second, in this moment, it seemed like fury. I'm sorry. Fury choosing this over Usyk, even though he really did, but like not in this exact second, in this moment, uh, it seemed like Fury, I'm sorry, Fury choosing this over Usyk. It seemed like Fury was willing to fight Anthony Joshua was willing to fight others. All of his options fell apart. And he just said, okay, what's my best chance to make money in a fight that I'm probably going to win and look great doing it. I mean, you never know Luke, right? If you're gone, there's a live body, but all of those elements do matter. They do come together. We will pull up side of the road, but Luke, what do you, I don't know, should I even

bring this up here? Did you see the Kevin Ioli reaction? I did. I did. Uh, Kevin took a much, much opposite take that he had for Mayweather McGregor and dropped a big deuce on it. Um, it's not that I don't think you, this is some elements of this event. You know, they are worth a little bit of deuce droppage, but that felt like, you know, that was a very pro Zufa take, but you know, that's where we're at, Luke. I mean, it's like, it's like, where was the outrage when Dana was trying to shove

Jones versus Fury down our throat just a month and a half ago, right? Where was that? He's trying to make Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg happen. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't even understand what... You can only do that if you're completely bereft of shame. There's no other way to do that.

But BC, I want to ask you a question that I think is pretty important to this conversation, if I may, rather than the proxies. Because, by the way, I don't know if you saw this. Daniel Cormier on his show DCNRC apologized to Francis. So at least some of the folks were like, you know, Francis needs to go back and beg to the UFC to get his job back. At least Daniel was like, you know what? I was wrong. I really appreciate that from him. I respect that a lot, actually.

You know, when you're wrong, you just got to own it as best you can anyway. So good for him. But the thing I wanted to focus in on, BC, was this. Very basic question, but when you think about it, it's a tougher question to answer. Namely, should MMA fans be happy about this, or do they have a right to be upset at the fight? Should they be happy that Francis has achieved

what appeared to be impossible maybe six months ago, or are they allowed to say, dude, this fight fucking sucks. I don't care about this. I don't want to see MMA fighters box. I would rather see him fight Jones. Why am I supposed to care about this? Which one is the right perspective? i mean look to be fair you you're paying customer you can have any feeling you want or maybe you can choose not to pay and

that's the decision and feeling you made uh what should they respond to look again there's enough elements of this fight not being as cool or big as it could have been with certain stipulations that it warrants criticism but if you're going to criticize it from an MMA standpoint only because maybe you're you're super pro UFC and think Francis you know jumbled the bag no matter what happens or or maybe you're like well I would have liked him in the cage this year he wasn't going to fight in the cage this year anyway because a big part of Francis crawling through the Shawshank shit tunnels to get through that gone fight and get out of his deal was to do exactly this, call his own shots. So that's why it's really hard to echo anything else related to Francis, the person, as this is a big win, he wasn't going to be in the PFL

heavyweight tournament. If he didn't get the Francis fight, he wasn't necessarily, although maybe they could have come back to close the year on PFL pay-per-view and the championship one and fight somebody else just for fun. You know, probably not. He needed to get this out of his system. I'm happier for Francis that it's Fury rather than like Derek to sore again, which wouldn't have meant a lot, but look, it's like this. Um, and I'm sure this, this setup, they don't hate this idea, but like, do you feel like the title's not on the line because Fury said it was, didn't want it to. So in that regard, if Francis did the impossible, he'd then have to do it twice, right?

It's just, it's weird in that regard. But to close your question, yeah, I mean, MMA fans can feel what they want, but Luke, Francis wasn't going to fight anyway. So this is just sort of, let's let him have his moment. You can tune in and watch if you care and buy the pay-per-view. And if not, you have more than, you know know enough rights to not do it in that direction but um man i'm trying to get past the title or the gloves luke and i can't this just feels like in in the reason why i can't is because if there was no other fight on the horizon you can be like taishan fury do whatever the hell you want i guess i can't get over the fact that he is ducking alexander usik straight up and i love Fury the fighter so much that I hate that I have

to keep coming out here on the microphone and reminding us that this is why we're here. It makes no sense except for this, Luke. I've heard some people say this. What does Tyson Fury say in interviews when he is speaking the truth is the toughest fight of his career? Do you know what answer he gives every time, Luke? Basically, he was saying speedy dudes who are smaller right something like that he's saying Steve Cunningham the former cruiserweight champion who moved up the heavyweight Francis or uh Fury fought him in what was Fury's U.S. debut it was at the theater at Madison Square Garden I believe he got 13 or 14 dude he got dropped it like shook the whole arena he got dropped by a non-puncher who was a cruiserweight moving up in weight and basically

what he said, and Francis went on to knock Cunningham out a few rounds later, even though he leaned in with a forearm strike to set up the knockout punch. But what he said was because of the quickness, the good boxing ability of Steve Cunningham, and the fact that Steve put that together to land that big punch, it, that was the hardest fight for Tyson.

Usyk's not only that Luke, but he's also a softball and much better. So if that's the reasoning why he's avoiding this, considering his power position, this does bring a stain over this fight. It's hard as a boxing fan to get past that. You brought up MMA fans, though, Luke. I think their reaction is going to come down to where they align themselves in the Francis versus Dana war, whatever that still means.

I would like to say this. I think your point is well taken. It's, this is a bitter pill for boxing fans. And it's really hard to look past that because of the reasons that you state, but there's some other things like I see people on Twitter being, cause you know, I think there are a few of us who are like kind of happy for Francis on a personal level.

I mean this, I don't know him personally. I think I've interviewed him like one or two times, but on a personal level, sure I am happy for his success. This is a guy, independent of what you want to say about his battles with UFC, a guy was working in sand mines at age 10. I mean, to go from that to where he is today, how could you have anything but happiness for him, given those circumstances?

That's the first thing I'd say. But it really is, folks have asked, hey, as an MMA fan, do I have to like this fight? And the answer is of course you do not. You do not. I do not expect anyone to like this. Now, for reasons I've said, it's not the same as Kamaru being in the UFC with contenders around him and wanting to fight Canelo and especially under the UFC preventing that like that, that was just seemed like a big waste of time. But you know, this may be a big waste of time, depending on your perspective, whether or not Francis is in the UFC. I would also add, on top of that, these guys are being

paid, according to the reporting of Kareem Zidane, that they're basically being paid as essentially, you know, de facto ambassadors of the Saudi Tourism Board. This is sports washing. You know, when we call out other people for sports washing, we can't not discuss it when discussing discussing fighters that we like who I think have sympathetic cases. I do like Francis as a person. I think this is a sympathetic case. I understand why he's taking the money, but we should be honest about where that money is coming from, and we should say it out loud, here we are doing that. But rather, I don't expect anyone to like the fight. What I do expect, though, is finally some acknowledgement about what is happening here in the larger fighter economy and the way in which it works. If we didn't get so

much resistance from the media to the larger, wider public about the state of fighter pay and why it is the way that it is, I'd be less concerned about this, but it is impossible for me, BC, to be sitting downstream from all of these things and then complain about what's at the end of the stream versus what is causing it at the very top. That is my issue. It's okay to not like the fight, like what you like. Life is short and it is a kind of a silly ass fight. However, don't resist conversations about why fighters keep fucking doing this. Dude, it is insane when you think about it, BC. The thing that an MMA fighter can do to get the richest they can through fighting is to confuse the public into thinking they have a chance against a boxer.

That is fucking insane. It's like selling, not selling their soul necessarily, but it's like they're selling their, they have very little chance to win. Right. And they're, they're selling that to make career changing money. And, and look, just, I want to put it back to you, but if you're against Francis in general, in the Francis versus Dana debate to me underneath it all separate from, well, I'm a UFC loyalist. It just means that you don't actually want a future where fights, where fighters have real rights, where fighters have real flexibility, where fighters have real options.

You want them stuck under draconian contracts so they can keep filling out your Saturday nights against one another for low pay. That's what it means to me for anybody who's, who's upset at Francis for this. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I just want some recognition about what is happening here rather than us constantly having to talk to the public, you know, and then be like, well, why is, you know,

at some point, I mean, here's another thing to consider, BC. How about this? What if this fight, we expect it to do really well, right? We don't know what that is, but we expect it to do really well. Now, I don't think it's going to do May Mack well. I don't think it's even going to come close but let's say i'm wrong what if this thing does like three million pay-per-view buys if nothing changes i know i know i understand that but if nothing changes in the way in which mma fighters are paid they're going to keep trying to do this this is what i'm sort of pointing out oh yeah they will but by the way

it does well i want you to answer this question in three scenarios i want you to take this fight under three lenses one the way it's being presented now even though we don't really have full clarification on that which is interesting that everybody would announce this and not clarify that two this is a four ounce glove fight in an MMA cage in the damn smart cage. Three. It's a boxing. It's a boxing match with the heavyweight title at stake. So three scenarios here, Luke, the one we have now, the MMA four ounce glove boxing one and the real heavyweight championship boxing match. How different do you think the pay-per-view buys are across all three scenarios?

Oh, that's a great question. Because if you want to get to that 3 million thing you threw out there as, hey, what if it overachieved miraculously? It's only going to overachieve miraculously if the heavyweight championship is at stake. True or false? Probably true. Probably true. Unless they have some crazy press tour and God only knows what happens and blah, blah, blah. There's a couple different ways where they could drum up some interest.

Yes, I mean, I would say, OK, so so personally speaking, I don't know about the MMA cage part, but I always thought four ounces made more sense than having a boxing fight. I mean, this is sort of the funny part about it, BC. On some you have to serve a lot of different masters when you make a crossover fight like this and what it should look like on TV. Who is this for? What are they expecting? Because it's basically a scam, right? I mean, they're scamming the public into thinking Francis has a great chance. And, of course, he could win.

He could win. We've been wrong about other fighters very recently. But you get the point. The chances are low. But they have to kind of sell it in a way where it's still got the um ordinariness of boxing but you have now elevated this guy's chances in a way that is unrealistic that probably is what's best for pay-per-view personally speaking bc i was never one of these guys who was like oh four ounces i wouldn't want to watch it dude they had four ounce gloves i

don't want to watch it more to me that makes it way more competitive even if there's no takedowns or kicks or anything like that just the four ounce gloves to me makes it vastly more competitive i would love to see something like that so i think that's probably where they came down on this i i think the scenario it's cooked up to right now the the the realistic ceiling is tell me if i'm wrong in a streaming era eight to nine hundred,000, which is not nothing. It's more than the wilder fights for fury, right? It's not nothing,

but I don't think it is what it could have been, but you know what, Luke, it's in Saudi Arabia. We're all assuming there is a shit ton of money fueled in guaranteed. It doesn't. Yeah. And it doesn't really matter in that regard. Mikey says,

casuals will buy it. He's right. I want to, I want you to address this one question from Mikey, our great producer at CBS sports. He says, looking back, did you think Mayweather had a better chance versus Floyd coming in?

Then you would give Francis to upset fury. You mean McGregor? Did I think McGregor had a better chance versus Floyd coming in? Then we would give Francis to upset fury. I mean, I don't think either of them have a shot. Let me think that through Francis to upset Fury I mean I don't think either of them have a shot uh let me think that through for just a second well don't think it through it's easy Francis has a much bigger shot because he does have even though Connor was noted as a you know one punch threat in the MMA sense Francis has like life-shattering power yeah but

I wonder what that's going to look like after a few rounds when his hands are heavy. Oh, sure. And he's through the bike. This is why the four-ounce gloves to me is so different because, again, if you've never ever put on boxing gloves and they've done it for like several rounds, they can get, depending on what you have, they can get heavier.

Obviously, your muscles fatigue. Just holding them up becomes a very, if you've never done it, try holding boxing gloves up and you don't even have to punch for three, three-minute rounds. Your shoulders, if you've never done it, are going to be up, and you don't even have to punch for three three-minute rounds. Your shoulders, if you've never done it, are going to be on fire. They're going to be on fire. Okay, but he sparred with full boxing gloves before, Luke. That's not going to be an issue for Francis here.

You want to bet? I bet you if it goes 10, his hands are way down by his waist. I don't believe that at all. It's actually much harder than it looks. I'm not saying that's what it's going to live or die on. I'm just pointing out the four ounces to me in terms of hand speed we like you know you like for me it was a wake-up call when connor's pan uh power didn't transfer i was like oh i was actually kind of surprised by that i thought it wouldn't be as good but it wasn't

nearly as good right it was like i was like whoa francis is obviously going to be able to thump in the big gloves but you just know he can thump in the little ones like there's no doubt about it at all all he has to do is touch you a little bit and your ass is like waking up looking at the lights to me that makes it vastly more competitive and exciting you know yeah like you mentioned fury's been dropped a few times we have seen that right yes we've seen it while they're in while they're dropped in it against while they're a few times look i want to spin the question there in the topic this direction and this way now. When this fight was just rumored to be announced soon last Friday when Ariel tweeted it, suddenly the UFC announced Stipe versus Jones.

Whether that's related or not, I think we all assume greatly related. When this got announced yesterday, we didn't get Dana coming out with the special edition surprise breaking news. We did get Michael Chandler tweeting a Christmas tree emoji, which does lead you to believe he's teasing the idea that he may or may not have just signed to fight Conor McGregor in December in the final pay-per-view of the year, which is normally that second weekend of the month in Las Vegas now under this ESPN deal. Are we to believe that the two are connected?

Um, I'll say this. I mean, they didn't have anything ready to go, right? That they, even if they wanted to counteract that, um, they didn't have it. Here's the thing you have to think about, right? So it's like, okay. Um, two things. One, they didn't have an announcement ready to go. Connor, I saw the tweet from Michael Chandler. having here's the thing you have to think about right so it's like okay um two things one they

didn't have an announcement ready to go connor i saw the tweet from michael chandler it was interesting but hard to know exactly what that means but the bigger question would be this bc like if you're the ufc you have a couple choices to make old ufc when i say old i don't mean seg era i mean like you know 2008 to 2011 ish ufc they would want to counter program October 28th. Would Connor be ready on October 28th? Also remember if the fight is in Saudi Arabia, it's going to be over before any UFC pay-per-view starts. Would they want to put Connor on that day to get MMA fans not to buy, knowing that boxing fans, hardcore ones anyway, wouldn't want to buy it, which in case if you wanted to do that, of course you have to utterly utterly bypass usada which we'll talk about a little bit later with pfl it it really depends

on that i mean just announcing that they have connor chandler at a later date would be impressive because i thought that they wouldn't be able to get to this point but it wouldn't have much to do with october 28th specifically well let me ask it under this ground, then this fight was announced that it will be on pay-per-view, but the details were, were curiously not connected to it. Top rank, which is the co-promoter of Tyson Fury alongside of Frank Warren in the UK and top rank being aligned with ESPN means that ESPN is the, I guess what North American home of Tyson Fury in terms of boxing uh television wise if this ends up being or or i guess the question is do you think this ends up being an espn plus pay-per-view it was again the press release went out yesterday it was very cryptically written but top rank did put out a press release about this yesterday does that mean that this pay-per-view ends up on espn plus and if so what does that change your idea of ufc potentially counter programming can you do two pay-per-views in one day on the same platform? Not the same sport, but you get that there's crossover there.

Wow. I don't know. Boy, that's a great question. Dana couldn't love it. I have to believe that Dana's got to be on the phone to Disney and be like, hey, cool that Fury and Francis are doing this, but not on ESPN, brother. I would bet everything that I own that if that's true, cool that that fury and francis are doing this but not on espn brother not on you know i bet i i would bet everything that i own that they if that's true if they are trying to put this pay-per-view on espn plus which would make sense right because you've already got a lot of boxing and mma fans who already are paying for the service um that would probably drive ufc and dana white crazy you know

what i mean that would drive them up the wall i would imagine they would be upset about that. But if you're ESPN, you stand to make an absolute ton of money. You wouldn't want to say no to that necessarily either. So that part to me will be very interesting to see how that plays out. That part will be highly unique. Do you think the PFL should have tried to align themselves in this in some way or could have, or is that? No,

it couldn't remember his deal was separate. His deal with the PFL is for MMA. Anything else? That's the, because remember folks, you've never seen a UFC contract in all UFC contracts. It States that they are their, your sole promoter,

no matter what kind of combat sport you want to try. MMA, boxing, kickboxing, even jujitsu. They're your sole promoter. And if you want to work outside of that, you got to get their permission francis cut that one off before it ever got started they are his mma promoter fair enough that's it no more no less i didn't think that part

was really all that relevant mikey brought up an interesting point in the press releases it mentions that francis has a promotional company yeah it's all in capital letters g-i-m-i-k which i guess means gimmick what's that all about i don't know that part i don't know bc you hate this fight a little bit more than i thought you would yeah but it's the bot it's not the you know francis versus dana and me it's the boxing fan in me and look it's not again it's not that i would be jumping through hoops to see an mma guy get a championship fight in his boxing day pro boxing debut that's not that I would be jumping through hoops to see an MMA guy get a championship fight in his boxing pro boxing debut. That's not necessarily what I'm arguing for. I'm just arguing for this to matter more.

It's like if we can't get Fury versus Usyk and Fury keeps pissing me off with the fact that we can't get it, then at least let this be for the title. Make us care more and at least tell us if you're Fury, which I know he wouldn't, that, okay, guys, I'm doing this because it's here right now. The opportunity is there to do this thing that settle this debate that everybody's having. Like Dana said, there's a debate on who's the baddest man. There's no debates, guys. There's no debates. Nobody's out there trying to debate who's really the best heavyweight

combat sports, okay? It's a money grab. But if you're going to do it that way, there are ways to get me more interested. Final question here, Luke. You think Daniel Kinahan is involved in this at all i hadn't thought about it i mean fury still can't fight in the states because of his allegiances right yeah so uh but that could be from that doesn't mean that he's currently involved with him we know for a fact he used to be um that part is harder to say and the other part too is it's like okay they're in saudi arabia and of course daniel kingham is

believed to be in you know the middle in the middle east and so you're like is he facilitating a deal but like would you need him to facilitate a deal necessarily like i i don't know but he is he is fury's advisor in the same way that al hayman is the advisor to the pbc fighters so you have to feel like he's involved in this, you know? Maybe. There could be. Again, it's hard to say one way definitively or the other. But I will say this, BC.

The one thing that I remember when I was skeptical, they're like, oh, Saudi Arabia is going to put on this fight. Plus Deontay versus AJ all on the same night. And I was like, they might do those fights. They ain't doing them on the same night. And I was like, they might do those fights. They ain't doing them on the same night. Surely you realize like that, that means the level of heavy lifting that that would require is basically impossible. Yeah. But still,

even though he won't do it. And even though you can argue, he doesn't have to damn what I love Tyson Fury to get on the mic and be like, Hey fans, I'm getting the bag right now. Right. Debate over who's the real heavyweight best in the world or not,

but i will fight usic it may not be till december it may not be till next year we might do it on on on the planet uh saturn for a stupid amount of money but i will do it we're not getting that out of him luke so that's why i will remain a salty box okay how many times is he gonna call francis a sausage or a dosser i don't know i don't that's gonna be interesting because francis is not a trash talker right francis is is a gentleman and they see i don't know but look we do have video of uh tyson fury directing a shot back at alexander usik's team who petitioned yesterday to try to get him stripped of the WBC title for entertaining this fight.

Let's see what Francis had to say right here. I don't have a mandatory. When I do have a mandatory, it'll be dealt with, just like every other mandatory I've ever had. Until then, keep on hating, motherfuckers! And enjoy the little, little, little, little, tiny bit of money that you guys are making while the big G's in the house! Yeah, look, the big G don't care. I obviously said Francis, I meant Fury. The big G don't care. He's cash in that case. BC, BC, I gotta ask you.

Put your hat on. You have a clearer sense about purses, particularly purses in Saudi Arabia. What kind of purses are we in the ballpark talking about for Francis and for Tyson Fury here? What did Ruiz and AJ make? I don't remember what Ruiz made, but it was, like, substantial. Anthony Joshua received an 85 million guarantee to come fight him which is you know the only thing I've ever heard more the only thing I've

ever heard bigger than that was the 100 million guarantee that Floyd got to fight Pacquiao because he flashed the check at the press conference afterwards and Floyd says he made upwards of 300 million per that event hard to follow the receipts but he may have who knows luke with that in mind i do feel like fury will get paid more would you agree with that he's uh he's the champion here is the a side yes fury is the a side yes okay dude fury's got to be right around 75 million i mean could you see 75 million for fury 50 for for ingano or you think it's more um wait say that one more time what about this this is bigger than the than the aj ruiz fight but also this fight is bigger than the aj ruiz fight i'm saying what about fury 75 million and gano 40 to 50 million? How about that?

I don't think that's crazy. I was thinking, I'm looking at Ruiz and Joshua too. It's not clear about Ruiz, but Joshua made at least for the rematch, I think a guarantee of 75 million in some places that I'm reading. I mean, just insane money. And they say he made up, basically they say he made, yeah, you're right. He made a guarantee of 75 and then they're saying he made an additional 10 and other or so or something something like that but the point i see other places saying 66 million guarantee him and

up but the point is he made a fucking astronomical amount i was thinking somewhere for for francis somewhere in the 30 maybe 40 million range 50 seems a little high um if i could be honest but i think 30 to 40 40 maybe 40 plus ish i think that's definitely in the ball i mean he's gonna make more let's be clear about this he's gonna make more in this one fight that he ever made in all of his fights combined in ufc probably by a couple of multiples of that and the reason why i'm offering a guest that's so high is because look there's a shit ton of money over there. There is a larger design the last couple of years. Call it sports washing if you want.

A lot of elements of it are sports washing. But the idea is to make Saudi Arabia a hub for all sports. Look, this is the centerpiece of what they call Riyadh season out there, which is like a big multi-day celebration to kind of, I don't know, to kind of advertise to the world that that place may not be what you think it is. Come check it out. I think this is the type of event that, especially considering they have launched their Saudi Arabia as a country has launched their own boxing promotional company.

I feel like this is sort of like a big kickoff type event. Yeah. They're going to put a lot of money into this. A lot. Look at, look at what was WWE making something like 55 million per event from them. And they were doing like two to three per year. Yeah.

They can afford this Luke. They can afford this. There's no question. No doubt about it. It's an insane amount of money. Let's quickly just roll. I just want to play this. We don't have to play the whole thing, but we'll play some of this.

Francis put out an announcement yesterday with his own hype video. And I, I thought it was kind of brilliant to be honest. Like it doesn't make me think he's gonna win for shit but i haven't seen it yet i'm excited here it is let's take a look No more to a drinkin' whiskey and rye. Singin' this will be the day that I die. What? This will be the day that I die. Tyson Fury, Branson, Ngannou. Do you want to see that fight?

Ngannou does have the nuclear option, though. He really does. One of his knockouts is Alistair Overeem. It was one of the most terrifying knockouts I've ever seen in my life. Tyson Fury's the best at what he does. Garnu's the best at what he does. They're putting him in a ring. I can't see them both being like, hey, let's take it easy. I think it's going to be good.

You don't think it's actually going to be good? If Francis wins that fight, he is solidified as the baddest man on the planet. Francis Ngannou, I know you're out of contract with the UFC. You want to earn some big boy money? Come see the Gypsy King. Apparently, that emperor is pretty good and, like, bouncing here and there. I don't know exactly, but I'm here and I want to fight. I'm going to find out who is the baddest motherfucker on the planet.

Never underestimate a man with open feet. I've been here. I've been ready. If you see your reaction. I mean, it was well produced and well put together. I don't know if we have the rights to run Don McLean's version there of American Pie at the end like we did, but did you find it

purposeful that the video opened with Fury singing American Pie to the tune of this will be the day that I die? Is that Francis's? I mean, that's Francis's way of saying here's what's interesting. They spelled it out in this teaser. They also spelled it out purposefully in every single press release that came out about this, that these two fighters plan to meet in the center of the ring. It's almost like they were like, I know you guys think this might be some boring sparring session, but no, we've agreed to actually fight. I don't know if that's necessary, Luke.

Well, I will say this. The marketing of lineal heavyweight champion versus lineal MMA UFC champion is kind of an interesting one. They've never met before, of course. They're now meeting here. It's not to decide the baddest man on the planet whatever that is but that is a unique moment in time that this is this kind of crossover in that way um is happening and i saw dan rayfield tweet luke uh uh just

referencing him as one of the more respected names over the last couple decades that he believes that fury's lineal status which is already again a mythical title and some could argue that some have argued that Fury should have lost it when he was retired for nearly four years after the Klitschko fight, but he retained it somehow that he should lose it for not fight for not defending the title here and taking this fight. It's interesting. But yeah, that's another way to sell it. The whole idea of the lineal baddest man, the guy who beat the guy. Final question on this, Luke, because again, i try to present all sides of an argument i got a couple dms of people saying man if you and luke

thomas shit on this fight y'all a bunch of insert uh insult here because if this got announced tomorrow on showtime pay-per-view you guys would be hyping this shit up luke thomas your reaction i mean what do you want to say it me to say? It's a stupid fight? It's a stupid fight. And I'm not getting paid to cover it. Fine. But like, I'm not angry at the fight. I find...

Again, to me, it's a little different than the Kamaru Canelo one for a lot of different reasons. And dude, I mean, here's the thing. I will say this. Let's talk about where we feel positively and negatively about it we kind of already have but to remind folks like on the legitimacy side of it there's just nothing to this fight like just zero to this fight on the positive side though Francis took on the industry folks I mean here's just the reality the UFC is the MMA industry to

the point where we've talked about this before. The other promotions in play don't even make money. They don't even make money. I mean, profit. They obviously generate revenue, but they don't make any money. Like, not only is that a frightening prospect and people think, oh, is that just because the UFC is better? No, it's because it's not magic, folks. It's monopoly. It's not magic.

I mean, they do a good job. Yes. No doubt about it. 290 was incredible, but they also control the industry. And so if you want to get sideways with them, whether you're media, whether you're fighter, you are getting sideways with basically the entire industry. And Francis took on that. And again, we were very clear on this show, BC. We admired his courage and we talked about the potential upsides.

And he, I mean, I got to say, BC, Francis has made this look way easier than it actually is, right? Getting a huge PFL deal and then a fight with Tyson Fury, what? He has made it look incredible. But we were both very clear the risks associated with this were enormous. It is hard for me as a human being, if I could just be honest with the audience for a moment, it is very difficult for me as a human being to look at what Francis has done and not have a profound

amount of admiration for his self-belief and courage. Cause I don't think I have courage like that. And I don't think I have self-belief like that. And to see someone who does and to see the risk that they took and for it to work out, it is, I just would be lying to the audience if I thought that wasn't anything other than admirable, but BC you're an adult. I'm an adult. We're both idiots, but this we're adults. The fight silly the fight is stupid it doesn't mean anything it could be fun it could be terrible we don't know but on that other side bc i'd be lying if i said i didn't have uh great feelings for francis in that regard indeed indeed and and maybe i was unfair in some regards in mentioning the the aioli column earlier and just automatically looping it

into like oh dana called in and they wrote the column because the the the general tenor of kevin aioli's yahoo piece was just that look boxer versus mma in a boxing ring we've seen it it's played out i don't disagree with that mayweather mcgregor was the perfect storm of perfect storms when we were against the idea of Usman Canelo is because it was so unnecessary. It was just Usman trying to ultimately flex the peak of his earning power and celebrity. And look, he's not even known as a striker necessarily in the cage. Why would I buy that fight? I do think Francis brings different elements to make this fight still something. It's why I'm not like outright dunking on it and shitting on it. Although I am

to some degree. And that's because it was Francis's dream to be a boxer from the beginning. That's what fueled his remarkable story to leave Africa, get detained in a European jail and end up homeless in France where he fell into a gym and ended up switching to MMA. And when you mix that with the ridiculous power and you mix that with the whole idea of like, this is a rare combat sports athlete, one in a million here. And look at what he just did business-wise to get here. Yes, it does hold it together to make it not a debacle. I think it sells well. And like we started off the show saying when the night comes, Luke, we'll be watching. So they win. Oh yeah, they do. We'll be there. I mean, I'm not going to Saudi Arabia cause I'm trying to come back. Uh,

but tell me right now, which media members go across all across the board. Anyone who's willing to take a check for it. 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.

Oh, you don't think people just will go for, you don't think their outlet will pay the way and they'll go? To go to Saudi Arabia? Some will. Some will. Some will. Definitely some will. Like you think like, like Shmoe?

Shmoe and Helen. I don't know. I don't know their economics of their business but for example like bt sport would pay for their guys to go or whatever that would make sense yeah but mike bone always ends up at places like that he'll probably be there luke i mean he'll take a check from just about anybody oscar willis you know that another another whore for a check oscar well come on that guy will kick any media members ass in the cage yep nowadays nowadays all right well that in mind bc uh we go from ufc 290 to francis versus tyson to wait are you gonna let mikey's comment slide right there about what does he say nice long flight for mike to have

mikey with the zingers like the zingers all right all right very good hey bc let's talk about the fights this weekend they're fucking terrible uh all right i mean i'm i'm not being serious but read the stat read that stat that everybody's talking about please i believe it's i believe it's the kirk mikey what's the stat again i forgot i think it's the first eight fighters uh yeah so the first seven excuse me the think it's the first eight fighters. Yeah. So the first seven, excuse me, the first 17 of the first 18 fighters on this card are all coming off of a loss.

So isn't there like only three fighters on it? And two of them were just recently bumped up at the last minute, which leads you to believe they did that to avoid us reading these types of stats, right? I'm not sure about that part, but that was four ranked fighters that he says four ranked fighters um all right bc i don't know what you want to say about it listen this is what i mean listen okay ufc let me just say this dude because i know we're about to kill this card and i don't want the fans to feel like we don't

like or respect a lot of times what the ufc does do uf 290 felt, let me just say it one more time before we go in on this. UFC 290 felt so fun. I was a kid again that day and I'm dead inside and I was a kid again, you know? Like it was just great. And we have said it on the show a million times when the UFC does that, there's just nobody who can touch them.

Okay, all right. That's one end of their product. Here is the other end of their product. BC, what would you like to say? All right. I'm going to echo exactly what you just said right there. We're coming off one of the best pay-per-view cards in a while. And like, I mean, one of the best all time, seriously, there was that much magic. It turned everything, everything turned out great. We have to expect a hangover, but even for the recent hangover of apex forced in between fight night cards that have a scarce amount of lack of depth or maybe i screwed up words there it's just no depth at all

luke you get the point this feels extra extra bad like really this feels like the type of card you can make the argument in the modern era here is one of the worst they've ever rolled out and my biggest issue luke to be fair does surround not only the storyline of the main event, but the fallout of Amanda Nunes' retirement, which while it did come a month ago, this is where I go like, hey, Dana, can we slow down on Power Slap and figure out what we're doing here? Is there going to be a featherweight division? Luke, there appears not to be a women's featherweight division. You also could argue conspiratorially that there never actually was or rankings, but what do we have on this card? Norma Dubon versus Nick Diaz,

army member, Chelsea Chandler in a women's featherweight bout. Where's that lead in Luke? I think that ties into the main event, which is Holly Holm against Myra Bueno Silva, that not only feels like it has zero stakes, there's no champion in this division. Even if you wanted to make this the vacant championship fight, it's a better scenario here, even though it's not the right two fighters for it, than just rolling out a women's bantamweight main event

with no connective tissue. Announce for me, please announce that if Holly Holm wins she fights juliana pena for the vacant title announce something i feel like luke in the aftermath of amanda retiring which is forcing them to shit or get off the pot with these two divisions and decide what they're doing i don't think they're creating women's heaven weight and signing kayla harrison tomorrow i don't think that's happening but the fact that they're just gonna roll this out and not even like tell you what this is about. I feel like the moment Amanda retired,

they should have pulled Holly off of this card. I know you're saying BC, what do you pull Holly off? What do we have left? It would pull Holly off. You already have nothing left to begin with, but what does this main event even mean, dude?

What are we doing here? That part gets me upset because it's the same reason why pulled out of stopped covering wwe and ultimately stopped watching pro wrestling they had a rut there where nothing made sense this feels like nothing makes sense here tell me i'm wrong smarten me up luke defend the ufc i don't here's the thing you know it's kind of funny you look at the odds on this one bc they're remarkable every and not just this fight but this card it's plus or minus 100 in every direction of course we're coming off of this card where it was perceived mismatches and it was upset crazy fight central but the point i'm trying to make here is like what you would normally want out of a promoter

is to make competitive fights and in general that's what they have done but bc not only can i add to what you're saying although i'm not so much about pulling hollyholm off the card what i can say is like here's's the interesting part about this main event. Myra Bueno Silva is actually a pretty good fighter. She's very good on the ground, particularly her back. She's got one, she has an arm bar from the guard and a knee bar from basically guard.

When someone was trying to do a leg entry, you know, she's very talented. She'll fight in the clinch. She has a less of a reach, blah, blah, blah.

My point I'm trying to make is there's reasons you could think of to believe that she might be Holly Holm, but Holly Holm is slightly favored. And the point is this. The likeliest scenario is that Holm ekes out a win, right? Where she doesn't even like, the contender doesn't break through. Holly Holm doesn't like dominate and like reassert I'm the lady in this division or whatever.

She actually just kind of squeaks by someone who is talented, but not quite physical enough against an opponent like this, where you end up getting like a really unsatisfying, but kind of clear conclusion on top of the other problems that are already there to this division. It's like, you'll get a decent answer probably on Saturday night, but not one that is satisfying in any way.

They're in a bad spot with this one. That part's disappointing. It really is. Seriously, you want the fights to feel like they matter and go in the direction. I really wish that they could have taken that last month and figured out who's fighting for the vacant title. Let's try to lay out a roadmap.

Do we still? I mean, look, if this is just to give these women's featherweights enough fights to fight out their contracts and be done, again, i kind of like honesty in those segments to sort of tell us because if not it's largely meaningless fights i it just it feels really weird this is a weird extreme hangover i mean look when you look at this main card it's like do you favor heavyweight walt harris on a three fight losing streak or do you favor josh par Parisian who's lost three of his last five I mean I don't know what to do with these fights Luke I mean the significance of those I mean the reality is this those guys are on the roster the UFC owes them a certain amount of fights that this is them finding a place for it back in the day these kinds of apex events didn't

exist and so sometimes I know this should be I know this for a fact is what the UFC would do they would sometimes you'd see cards with like 15 fights on them. You're like, God damn, 15 fights in one night? It's because at the very beginning, Joe Silva would throw them there because he had no other place to put them, right? And now they have a whole other place just to leave. This is truly like, I'm not here to say that the fights carry no value to anybody. Obviously, it carries a lot of value for the individual fighter's career,

and they got to this level, and I respect that. But this is, in terms of the UFC's product, this is the overflow, right? This is the extra stuff that they got to find something to do with, but doesn't really have a more clear place. Now, with that being said, BC, there are a couple of fights, maybe three or four, worth paying attention to outside of the main event, which I want to circle back to. But I do want to circle back to but i do

want to say norma dumont kind of interesting fight against chelsea chandler worth paying attention to atman azaitar the the azaitar brothers have been written up in the economist for apparently there is some belief in the country of morocco that they have influenced the king there like i'm not doing a bit but they have influenced the king there to Like, I'm not doing a bit, but they have influenced the king there to bend to their wills and what they want. Almost like an Arrest Sputin kind of way. Weird story there. Terrence McKinney's on it.

Local guy out of ground control in Baltimore. Tucker Lutz taking on Milsyk Bagdasarian. I do like that fight. Also, BC, Jack de la Maddalena, who was supposed to fight at UFC 290, is on this card. He's taking on Basel Hafez. If you don't know who Hafez is, I believe he is the, I want to say,

CFFC welterweight champion. Let me verify that very quickly. He had his last fight. Yeah, Fury FC. Excuse me. He's the Fury FC welterweight champion. Coming in on short notice, but off two wins in a row, including one that was a redemption.

He stopped the guy he had previously lost to. Key question. Jack de la Madalena against anyone right now is not i want to call it must see but it's yeah let me find out what time and i'm going to tune in because we have a rising stud who looks to be like he could be a problem and i get the run of fine try just trying to find anybody to fight him should they move this up to like basically the co-main event considering because right now wikipedia not an official but they tend to be on it for the co-main event considering, because right now Wikipedia, not an official, but they tend to be on it for the most part in terms of fight order.

This feels this right now is buried on the prelims. Do you think it ends up being bumped up to like co-main event? That's got, you have to, right? Don't you have to? Yeah. I would, I would say that unless you have some very specific reason, you cannot, why wouldn't you like, why wouldn't you? Like, why wouldn't you? Seriously, showcase the guy, right? Yeah, and that's what this is. He's supposed to be the next big thing.

Showcase him. BC, getting back to the main event, it's a 135-pound fight, as we indicated, between Holly Holm and Mayra Bueno Silva. The odds are close, as we indicated. Our friends at Caesars have Holly Holm minus 170, Bueno Silva sitting at plus 145, as I mentioned. Bueno Silva's a go-getter. You know, she is a go-getter, BC.

She'll get in your face. She likes to fight in the clinch. As I mentioned before, very good on the ground. If I was her team, I would be looking to put the fight there. Holly Holm does have pretty sturdy, these days, takedown defense. She's always been a very good athlete, even in her advanced age. But we should remind everyone, Holly Holm, believe it or not, I cannot, but it's really true. Holly Holm is 41 years of age bc i've been waiting for her to fall off a

cliff and she has not remarkable actually oh i want to ask you a key question related to that because i think look her longevity is amazing considering the physical toll that a hall of fame boxing career you know may have or may not have had. I mean, she's been knocked out cold in boxing and come out and redeem that and won rematches. But consider like her, her, her longevity is like incredible. Her consistency is incredible. But how much of that Luke does need to be mentioned that once Amanda took over this division and once the Rousey Tate era fell away, like it got shallow pretty quickly. How much, how much does that part of it play into the fact that she's been able to look,

I just mentioned, they probably should have pulled her off and set her up for a vacant title fight because of her name, but also for the fact that she's still no worse than like the second, you know, best fighter in this division at the moment. How much of that is just because there's nobody else. Yeah. The division hasn't matured in ways that the other ones have. Like you think about the, obviously, 115 took off like a rocket and continues to be quite deep.

125 has made massive improvement. 135 has just regressed. It's hard to know exactly what the reasons for that could end up being. It feels somewhat similar to the path that 205 took in early UFCs. 205 was the kingmaker division back in the day. This is to an extent, I mean, that's not quite right with the way it's split up, but you know, Frank Shamrock into Tito Ortiz, into Chuck Liddell, into Randy Couture.

These were the guys. And then of course you can add Vitor and Vandalee and Rampage and Alistair. And there's so many different directions you can go where Shogun and Lyoto and Rashad, like 205 was the kingmaker division. It was its marquee one. And now it's like one of the ones that's probably closer to the bottom of the list,

and it just hasn't been able to regroup. John Jones facilitated that kind of exit of that previous generation. But even since his exit, it hasn't really come back to life. I don't have a good answer for you at 135 on the women's division, except to say it feels like that where it's this leading edge of everything and then when the rest of the sport catches up you see the kind of quality that it actually has all right look based on the fact that this fight is happening home versus bueno silva main event saturday what role do you think the outcome of this fight plays to the title

future of the women's band and weight division if we are assuming that women's featherweight will, I guess, be shut down once everybody's contract runs out. Yeah, or yeah, we'll see what the hell is going to happen with that. They've still got Amanda Nunes as the featherweight champion, by the way, at UFC.com slash rankings. So as it stands, because I do think we have to talk about the rankings, Holly Holm is sitting at three, and Mayra Bueno Silva is sitting at ten. Number one is Juliana Pena pena so she is probably going to

be in the sweepstakes somewhere two is raquel pennington uh i think that they they have a fight coming up or something i forget bc if you could look up raquel pennington's next fight because i believe there's something i don't think she has one so i don't think they have decided well they clearly haven't publicly announced who's fighting for the vacant title i guess my question to you ultimately is does this fight still going on right now with no clear-cut title implications, meaning Holm and Buenasilva, suggest that Rocky Pennington versus Pena

is the likely vacant title fight to replace Amanda? Or do you think the winner of this fight could have a say in that argument? Could have a say is likely number one contender because if it's holly holm it can get complicated because she's got one of the bigger names in the division um you know you could make that work against pena you could make that work against painting although they're how many times they even fought their first fight sucked um they fought twice we don't need a third

one look we don't we don't need a third one so there's that so what i'm saying though is if bueno silva wins i think she sets herself up as number one contender to what happens between Pena and Pennington in all likelihood. But BC, you know as well as I do, that could all get shuffled around in a few different permutations. If they had done the ultimate casual move here and just put Holm and Tate in a rematch for the vacant belt, would you have protested?

On this night or different general in general if they had just said you know what amanda's retirement changes everything let's put two big names out there in a rematch of a great fight sure you guys could fight for the vacant title it wouldn't have been the meritocris rule luke yeah meritocratic yeah well i i'll go with more of the Greek origin on that. Yeah. You know, is this word a Latin origin? Big fan of their yogurt, Luke. By the way, you know who makes the best pizza in this world? Little known pro tip here. Greek people make the best pizza, Luke. Greek pizzeria. So here's the deal. Even though I grew up 18 miles from New Haven, Connecticut, the pizza capital of the North America.

And even though, Luke, I respect and enjoy the thin crust New Haven style. I grew up on Mike's Pizza Palace in Alcatraz, Connecticut, which is Greek people making Italian pizza. Luke, when Greek people make it, you get more cheese, a lot more, a lot more. Like, look, if your favorite topping isn't grease, I know what type of pizza you were raised on, right? It's just a lot of everything. The Greeks make the best pizza. Thank you.

I will tell you, when I went to Athens a few years ago, you know, usually when I hear a foreign language, you can kind of pick out like how it sounds. It has a certain sound to you. Greek was so incomprehensible it never ever sounded the same between two different speakers it's like the weirdest language ever very strange but uh that's neither here nor there luke baklava is greasy and it gives me indigestion i do like baklava it's very very tasty all right quickly quickly i gotta ask you this question mikey just

posed something that's similar to this he's a a poser. He poses things to us, Luke. I don't know if you're following it. I know you're not. There's like this pro wrestling rumor that Ronda Rousey is done is just about done with WWE. There's no, there's nothing aligning with Amanda Nunes is exit, right? Like you at this point,

what, what are the, what are the chances? And it's not that I care or I'm pushing for it, but if Ronda Rousey came back and if they somehow worked it into a title scenario, that still means blockbuster ratings. It still does.

It still means like a big deal. Not a shadow of a doubt. Is it possible in your eyes? Like as much as you feel like you might know the person inside that brain, and she's been very successful in WWE, I'm not here to rag on her, even if her mic skills are abhorrent. There's no way she's coming back and rematching Holly for the title, right?

Like, it's not happening, right? I hadn't heard this. I didn't know this was, I didn't know that. You're dropping a bomb on me. Okay, here's the thing. Let's think this through. Certainly, as long as Amanda was there, you know, it was, I mean,

that's always going to be a bad matchup for Ronda. Okay, you take her out of the equation. All right, but BC, the other part is Holm is still there. And remember, that was so traumatic, I guess, for Ronda. I'm not even trying to minimize that, but it seemed genuinely traumatic for her that those highlight reels played ad infinitum you know um i'll just say this if they did another fight with misha the third one

i guess at this point whatever it would be wouldn't that sell a shit ton i feel like it would you know right but would you make that a main event without a title would you i mean you could just put it for the title. Like who gives a shit? So you're now you're talking about, forget Holly, forget Julianna. Now you're talking about me, Misha versus Rhonda three for the title.

We're just throwing. Tell me the downside. Tell me the downside. Right. I understand. Oh, these other ones are more meritocratic. It's like merit.

Okay. Like technically that's true. Would the fans revolt? Never. Would you tell me she couldn't Would the fans revolt? Never. Would you tell me she couldn't beat those other fighters? Never. I mean, the home one, I don't know.

That one is still very, who the hell knows about that one? But, you know, we've seen her beat Misha. Like, we know she can do that. And even with the time off. She was a different person back then. I don't know how she's evolved emotionally as it relates to MMA since then. I don't know. I don't know how she's evolved emotionally as it as it relates to mma since then i don't know i don't have yeah i mean if she's like fully changed as a person then there's no going back no matter what but i'm just trying to point out like this division has absolutely zero electricity running through it nothing yeah ronda rousey for whatever else she is would be probably we think there's at least a

chance to believe she would be a supercharger for electricity into this division in ways that it just does not have you know okay in the streaming era in this calendar year if rousey came back and fought for a vacant bantamweight title against anybody how big how big is it how big i guess it would have to be rematches with home or tate yeah really gotta be, that's right. Got to be a big name, blah, blah, blah.

Some history. I'll tell you this much. I don't know how much the Tate one sells, but it sells well. The Holm one, dude, Rousey Holm two. Shit,

dude, that's a huge fight. That's a huge fight. Yeah. You know, and I never thought rock was going to come back from diverticulitis and look at him. He came back, roided to the motherfucking gills,

but he came back, you know, it's all about perseverance. BC. It's all at him. He came back, roided to the motherfucking gills, but he came back, you know, it's all about perseverance. BC. It's all about perseverance. He came back, he was on roids, but it was okay.

Cause he, cause he persevered. Um, you see anything else on this card? I mean, very quickly, uh, you know,

Albert dry of taking on junior on park, junior parks has actually put together a pretty decent record. Duraev has underperformed wildly against expectations but that's where we are um yeah and then no I gotta say you know some of this is theatrical I'm not here to fully rag on the UFC last weekend was everything and more and by the way this is a month in which we're getting two badass pay-per-views so you're forgiven hall pass given luke i'm not i'm not actually upset with that said will you watch live on saturday so i mean only if uh only if tuki goes to bed early or something you're like it you're like if my wife happens to leave me during dinner on saturday yes

i'll watch it right if i happen to get divorced at 5 p.m., there's a chance. There's a chance. I'm not even trying to do a bit like, I'm so cool I don't watch, but it's just like, honestly, is it worth my time? You know, it's just, I mean, the main event's worth my time because obviously some other things will be worth my time the next day. I can pick out the

pieces, but like the entirety of the experience, I just don't have time like that. I just don't. BC, let's go quickly if we can to topic three we kind of already mentioned one of these but it's some fight announcements as on this card for ufc vegas 77 july 15th jack de la madalena taking on basel hafez de la madalena should win bc but i'm glad he got an opponent i'm glad he didn't fly to the united states for nothing you You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, this one I actually feel like is great. I love this announcement. How about Matthew Semelsberger, uh, semi the Jedi out of, uh, I think Rockville, Maryland. So just North of DC taking on Yodo Shmedich UFC 291,

July 29th, BC, I swear to God, July 29th between spence crawford and ufc 291 having some seriously good fights on it it is going to be a legendary day for people who actually like boxing don't forget bellator versus risen luke rising we'll get to that in just a second yep yep same day yes i'm about to read here how about this one tofik musaev taking on akira okada super rising two and your kid now they call that july 30, but that's going to happen so far in advance. It's basically the same day for us. That's another big one. Huge, huge day in combat sports.

BC, how about this one? UFC 292. This will be August 19th. Chito Vera taking on Pedro Munoz, the Battle of the Leg Kickers in this one. Do you like it? I mean, as a replacement for Cejudo pulling out with a shoulder injury, it's not awful, Luke. I mean, I'd like to keep Cheeto on that card.

I'd like to keep this division moving. But there's no conspiracy theory behind that Cejudo pullout, right? From all aspects, it looks to be a real injury? He's 36, dude. He's got a shoulder injury. That looks as real as... All right. Yeah, fight i like this fight yeah definitely um okay how about this one tai tuivasa let's bang taking on alexander volkov ufc 293 this is set for september 9th gotta love that do you not yeah i like that one a lot and here's what's really interesting is don't forget Tai Tuivasa came back last time Luke and sort of rushed another fight unnecessarily brought on

more damage sort of admitted I just wanted more money for my daughter for the holidays there's got to be one more chance he gives himself to go all in and take this sport super serious take his training super serious and not just be thedrinking guy who's always down for a good time and will brawl anybody. Do you think there's still a version of him that comes out that can be the best version of Tai Tuivasa that we've ever seen? Because I will say what he was able to lure Cyril Ghosn into, never thought it would happen, and he showed me that on any given night

he could accidentally become an elite fighter due to that crazy will i just don't think he's fully figured out his style and i want him to preserve himself a little bit so he can get there that's my only concern is not that you know do i ever think he's going to be the best in the world okay i'll be candid and say i'm a little bit skeptical of that but do i think he can be really good and he's already very good but i mean a much better version of what he is i do i do think that um i just feel like he has to lean into the technical side and i feel like he's having you know with any fighter who comes out a little bit more of a especially the heavyweight division kind of like a come forward brawler bruiser type it's a little bit hard for them to dial that back and then be more thoughtful in other ways in which they used

to react more forcefully um but you know force doesn't win fights against the very best in the world unless it's very very strategic and so he's got a lot of things you would really like in a heavy weight even if they're not optimal conditions but i don't know if he's fully optimizing them volkov is a tough fight he can win he can win if he's either lucky or strategic. And I would rather him be the latter than the former. Yes. It just taken that Pavlovich fight. So soon after the brutal gone knockout and then getting dusted in 54 seconds, it's like outside of the big payday. I really just question how you're navigating your career, but you know, again, that people are in this sport for different reasons and people plan out their matchmaking. I mean,

or sorry, Donald Cerrone used to always outright say, I'm trying to fight literally as many times as they would let me per year because I love going out on my jet skis and boats and having a lot of fun with my toys like that. I mean, he was straight up about it, Luke. I just,

I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm asking Ty to have also to be somebody that he never would be. So he's just going out there and saying, F it let's bang. And he's banging Luke. there and saying eff it let's bang and he's banging luke well you know what i'm glad we we are talking about this fight because it leads into our next topic and i want to tie the two together which is that a lot of times you can want something for a

prospect and you can see certain flashes but then they don't necessarily turn out the way you would hope although sometimes they do but not every time. So it leads us to now topic number four, I believe, which is Kevin Lee. Kevin Lee has officially retired. I don't know if he's put in his paperwork yet. I don't know if the UFC has removed him from the roster, but he took to social media and he put out a message. BC, here's what I'd like to do. I believe we have the message queued up. We have a portion of his retirement clip. He took to Instagram and he released a message. Let's play a little bit of that and then I want to get your reaction. Here's Kevin Lee.

Okay. To make a long story short, I'm deciding to retire from MMA and the UFC. It's been 12 years, 12 long years of me being the best fighter that I can be. And a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication for me to try to be the best fighter in the world. When I look back on it, I had a hell of a career. I fought a lot of tough guys. Some of the toughest guys in the world i always put up a great fight i never back down and always challenge myself to do things that i didn't think that i was capable of doing um the last three years have been rough, especially on my body. It's been a lot of injuries. And

honestly, that that's one of the main factors of me making this decision. Um, I'm in need of another surgery after that last fight. Um, I'm proud that I went out on my shield. I'm proud that I stood up in there and went out on my own terms. But at this point, I've got to think about more than just myself. And I think that my skills and the time and the energy that I've put into this sport, I can put into something else. And God willing and subhanAllah and all glory to God. And he's going to lead me down a different path, the right path, to where I can use my skills to help people.

I think if I dedicate myself and I'm going to give just as much hard work to doing something else, the sky's the limit. Okay, there you have it bc your reaction love the guy hard hard to see it go down like this but you know rather than potentially getting cut which is probably what could have happened after how one-sided and disastrous that lost to fuck reknikov was him announcing this on his own terms i certainly respect it i've enjoyed watching him i've always you know we've always talked about how the the the how much we respected his upper bound limits and whether or not he was able to achieve that in this case he wasn't the things he just talked about and the things he was proud of his career in my opinion

are legit you know such a hard worker to get himself back here especially with all of the injuries and some of the politics he believes that he had to go through to get back here. But what is his legacy? Always tried to face the best in certain big moments, was able to distill that flashes of greatness that showed us. But, you know, he is at a point here at 30, if he does decide to walk away and stay away, that look at the success, look at the unlikely success of what his younger brother, Keith has been able to do transitioning from Bellator fighter to now influencer slash, you know, food critics slash helping so many people. And, and, and, you know,

I've watched Keith's journey and I am talking to Kevin ahead of this last fight. He seemed very touched by that. What does that lead for Kevin? Could, you know, it's almost sounded like he was thinking of maybe putting his energy into training. I could pick out of there if I'm picking closely. But Luke, one thing that's interesting, though, is like the only surprising and not surprised he walked away. I mean, he's hit a few different walls. And again, this disastrous one sided loss was a big wall he ran into.

But he is only 30 and he has been, as he mentioned, they're ravaged by injuries and needs another surgery. I do wonder, and you know, anytime a 30 year old is going to walk away, you do wonder if the situation changes and they feel differently. They wake up one day. I wonder if he takes enough time off to, to really heal and get healthy and isn't constantly forcing himself to rush back and re-event. Does he wake up 18 months from and and reboot it and try it again in some form and you know it's like i don't i don't want to see him showing up on bkfc in a year and a half but maybe he does and maybe he gets paid big for it but i think he's making the right decision right now because whichever way he goes or ends up stopping now letting his mind and body heal and taking stock of his life and one thing I liked about what I asked him in the interview ahead of that last fight was the whole idea about like how high, one thing I specifically asked him, and I think this is interesting for all of us,

not just as fighters, but Luke, it's like one thing I deal with a lot as a man is like, you know, I've got the successful career right now and it's so much fun, but it's easy to give all of my thoughts and energy to this career and growing it to like the detriment of my family or my own identity. And one thing I asked him was, you know, how hard when he got cut by the UFC that time and went to Eagle FC and was kind of in no man's land was the mental side of that. The whole fear we all have. What if our job tomorrow is taken away?

And it's not just the financial fear of what if we're laid off, but you know, how much of my self identity is tied into being into who I feel I am and my career. And I felt like he had good answers to that. Uh, good answers to the idea of, you know, all the adversity he had went through started to open up his eyes into that, into that, that next level realization, that epiphany to the idea of that he does have so much more to give this world beyond just being a fighter. So I set that up to say, I feel like he sort of felt this already had the mind going that this could be the direction he would go based on the result of this fight. While this fight was disastrous, I can only wish him well moving forward, Luke. And I hope that the recent success and the unlikely breakout success of his brother could also influence

Kevin to find his true calling in life. And, you know, maybe that is as a coach or maybe that's anything, but getting out now rather than just keep going back to the, to the drawing board and keep trying to reinvent yourself amid all the physical difficulties and the toll of the sport takes is the right decision. Anytime someone's going out on their own terms, whether or not you believe they'll stay out, you got to stand up and applaud. Luke, he didn't max out his ability in an accomplishment sense with titles and defenses and pay-per-view payouts and all that.

But he never stopped trying to be the best he could be. So I got a lot of respect for Kevin Lee on the way out here. Yeah. It's like we said after the fight with Fokretdinov. When I watched that fight, do yourself a favor. Go back and watch the Mustafaya fight is the one I kind of go back to where I thought Kevin Lee looked great. You can go to the Gregor Gillespie fight. And look at how mobile and athletic and capable he looked physically.

He could physically move in certain ways. And again, that's not to say that I don't think he tried hard. Remember, I saw him training with Phil DeRue. I know Phil was doing the very best. I'm sure he put in all of it. Phil and Kevin and everyone else put in all of the work that they could. But the reality is his body, to me, looked ravaged by injuries for athletic career purposes. He cannot move the same way he once did. He cannot act physically in the way that he once did. And in a sport as dangerous as MMA, you know, that's just, that's a recipe to get very, very hurt. And so what I feel like is, it's not, you know, on this job, BC, you know this as well as I do, like it's very sensitive

around the time where you say to guys, hey, you should retire, especially when they're 30 years of age. But when I saw him at that Fokretdinov fight, and after the way he lost, and he looked, truly, I mean this, and I'm not saying this to be insulting, because you and I have been, you know, we have been driving that Kevin Lee train as far as we could take it. And we were big believers, both of us were big believers in him. But the reality is, after I watched that Fokretdinov fight, the only thing I thought was he has to stop.

This is going to go really, really poorly for him. I don't know who he could beat, honestly, at this point on that UFC roster. Granted, they didn't do him any favors with that Fokretdinov fight. But the old Kevin Lee would have given that guy a tough fight, even if he would have lost. He gave him nothing. He gave him absolutely nothing. So I'm with UBC.

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe he comes back out. This is a difficult scenario. But this is the first time, like, either, this is what always bugged me about Kevin Lee. It's like, he was so athletic. He was so good on the mic. He was funny.

He was an engaging personality. He had great wrestling. He had great ground and pound. He had an awesome ground game. There was a lot I liked about what he was offering. One of the things that always kind of bugged me was he never really moved his head the way he needed to. His boxing defense always kind of looked off for different reasons, even though he had good trainers. And it cost him to get rocked and lose fights all the time. He never, ever worked on it. And now now it's like i don't even know if he physically could you know what i mean i don't even know if he physically could even get there versus just not and once you've gotten to that point it's time to call it a day i'm glad he is making a decision based on his health and i wish him nothing but great things uh there's so much life after 30 i wish him nothing but great great things in that

yeah we used to make the joke the future champion kevin lee joke when times went bad for him in the cage and say well does it count if he becomes pfl champ or bkfc champ or whatever how about just champion of his own life luke i wish him like i said uh very well on on taking that step now forward you know like that this was an identity for some time what's the night what's the rest of kevin lee's life look like he's he's going to figure that out and i and i and i support that luke uh maybe maybe one chest staff um what was that what did he have luke a staff he had a staff infection on his chest on the tony ferguson fight maybe one staff infection away from being an interim ufc champion maybe don't forget he beat tony ferguson's ass in that round you know what you know what he did he did rebound and within that big losing streak against big names he did remind us on that one

and you know any given sunday luke how about that one given night yeah i'm talking about november 2nd 2019 ufc 244 madison square garden let's look back one more time at the knockout of the year damn Luke go home that's that that will remain one of the best knockouts you ever see I mean you just got to be kidding me stepping in hard with the jab he comes over the top with the right like that and then finishes him off with a head kick on the way out, son. That is, you know what I mean? That Kevin Lee is amazing. I still believe that Kevin Lee could do great things. If I wasn't such a shitty painter, Luke,

I mean, right now, this is the best I can give you, okay? That's about it. I would say, Luke, I would draw, I would paint a picture of that knockout of Gregor Gillespie, like a massive canvas and mail it to Kevin Lee and have him put it up in the living room luke because that's what he gave us let's end on a high note thank you kevin all right with that in mind we go to our last topic there's really not much to say about this bc

but we will bring it up uh topic number five the pfl i mean just you i mean good lord now i hope they don't buy bellator if i can be honest with you. The PFL has hired USADA. You'll recall that however many months ago they went to Vegas and literally half the roster popped because, of course, they did. That's what happens in regional or sub-UFC MMA where these guys' careers are hanging on by a thread. They're going to do everything they can to make it work where drugs are quite rampant

and uh anyway you get the idea bc do you have any reaction to pfl foolishly doing this and impacting their ability to put on a product but i guess that's where we are um well luke drugs win the drug war as your t-shirt has often reminded me. Yeah, someone tell the PFL that. They haven't learned that lesson yet, apparently. I just feel like, I mean, does USADA have the greatest reputation, Luke? So it's like the smart cage was sitting around. Sorry, no, no. The Ask Jeeves cage. Let's get it right.

The Geocities.blogspot cage, Luke, was just probably sitting around with the corporate leaders and all their celebrity investors and was like, what do we need to fix this situation? You know what I mean? And then, you know, how about no drug testing? Now we must get USADA. All right, well, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what to say. We can laugh about it. I mean, I guess, you know.

The only thing we can say, BC, is this. It's the pattern that repeats itself. These guys, anti-doping, nothing is better for their business than moral panics. I mean, wow. They can't wait for overwrought media coverage and the hand-wringing, which, by the way, there was never any about the fights, just about the news of what these guys were doing to make the fights. So I'll point that out.

And they get all this bad press. And I'm guessing what's happening is they're either trying to raise funds to buy Bellator or whatever, so they need to, like, they got to get this catastrophe insurance, this good PR that you get from doing this, probably to enable business deals on the back end. The last thing I'd say, though, here at SBC, aside from the moral panic standpoint, is, you know,

they call themselves fighter first and they even put that in the language for the release or whatever Mark Ramondi from ESPN had reported, being like, you know, because we're a fighter first, we care about safety, even though, of course, it will not make the product safer in any real way. They put that in the language. My thought is, what happened

to this, like, global advisory board that Francis was supposed to sit on as, like, the athlete representative? What the fuck does that bit that board even do because what i can tell you didn't happen here was that nobody asked the fighters if they actually wanted this right no one even bothered to be like hey is this a thing you guys would be interested in one more time anti-doping feeds off of moral panics for big business that just need catastrophe insurance to shore up good PR. That's what it exists for. No more, no less. That's what it, that's what it feels like at the end of the day. I mean, when you have that system in place, I mean, I don't know, Luke,

it just, I feel like if you, I still, I still feel like everybody's using anyway. And when you get caught, it just means you did it wrong. And and but does establishing a usada system in the end make it harder or easier to get away with it uh it will make it harder because here's the thing you're it makes it hard if you're sloppy right but not right it makes it harder if you're poor and it makes it harder if you're sloppy if you have money and you're clever it actually makes it easier because what what they're again this is this is true across sports where they've measured it. What ends up happening is the either teams or countries or athletes who have resources, they are able to meaningfully skirt the system. And the poorer

ones who have less sophisticated means or drugs are simply not able to, I just want to point out something like we haven't thought this through. It's one thing to lose two years on a UFC contract. Those could be 10 and 10 or whatever, but I'm just pointing out. It's one thing to lose two years on a UFC contract. Even those could be 10 and 10 or whatever, but I'm just pointing out. It's one thing to lose that. Can you imagine being two years on a PFL contract and stuck and you can't go fight for another promoter? Are they out of their fucking minds? That is like, you're going to end careers before they ever get started. Even if you're pro anti-doping and a guy just makes a mistake, right? This is somebody who, yeah, they used but they learned their lesson they didn't want to do it again they regretted it right like actually

people who meaningfully do feel bad about it you're going to put that guy on ice for two years in and he hasn't even made it to the ufc level that seems almost evil when you think about it what a ridiculous thing to do yeah i agree with you on that, Luke. Well, you know, what do you want me to say? Here's what we know, BC. No one, I have learned something in 15 years. Whether I am right or whether I am wrong, and they've happened to whatever degree you want to say they do, no one gives a fuck what I have to say.

Yeah. Like, I am the least convincing person in the entire sport it doesn't matter at all how right or wrong i am utterly irrelevant doesn't matter yeah people don't really want your takes on anything involving life luke they just want you to preview and review every single ufc fight on the card and if you do that i'm not sure they do i'm not sure they want to do that you are a p1 sensation you are the the uh yeah anyway let's roll on luke let's actually hear from our fans we do this segment every week where we offer you an email address morning combat at gmail.com mikey more miles cbs sports is at the end of that tunnel uh he's ready

ready to receive your artwork your tight t-shirt pics your pictures of your wife and your bad cable management we call this fan submissions you've got mail viewers look we have cameron from massachusetts or cam as he calls himself hey luke in bc making it look easy i'm a day one donk and in honor of the great victory at 290 i wanted to share a picture of myself in mk 1.0 gear with the great alex volkanovsky this was taken in nyc ahead of 281 izzy versus padeta in a at a shameless howler head promo event when i approached alex he acknowledged the sweatshirt saying morning combat a and quote and he signed a bottle of howler head for me. P.S. Please do a live show in Boston ahead of two 92. The fans need it.

I promise to not pull an Appy and keep my underwear on the inside of my pants. Keep up the great work. Cam from Massachusetts. Luke, there's a lot to respond to you there, including that howler head bottle shamelessly positioned. Dude. Volkanovski was like mk all right bro that's a knife no oh no that's a knife you know what i mean yeah that's what i'm talking about

yeah yeah that's nice to see uh i guess our our uh listener here on the show is a very short person because volkanovski is also a very short person really by the way do you see rogan towering over volkanovski how's is that possible, Luke? Maybe he had those things in his shoes or whatever. Platform shoes, those risers. Good to see 1.0 merch still in circulation that you can still buy on the Showtime merch site, by the way. Also, Luke, I'll be on Facebook. Have you had Howlerhead?

No, I don't do stuff like that, Luke. By the way, we've got to try Howlerhead. We also need to try i guess i didn't realize this bruce buffer has one called puncher's chance something like i don't think we need to try that luke sorry don't really think we need to try that but as mikey pointed out the other day when i said hey guys cameron from massachusetts is right even though i haven't read this until now we should do do a live show in Boston. Mikey was like, aren't you on vacation that week? Sorry, Luke.

I got a family to take care of. I would have liked to have been there live show, right? I mean, it would have been great. What do you like more, Boston or New York City? Boston. Oh, okay. Okay. New York. I grew up being a New York guy. Who do you like more, Boston or New York City? Boston. Oh, okay, okay, okay. New York. I grew up being a New York guy.

Grew up 90 minutes away. Went a million times. I've grown to love Boston, all right? Like, really have grown to love it. Because of the racism? Wow. I got one. I got one.

I get one. I get one. To be fair, it's because have you been to the North End, which is the Italian section, Luke? Have you been there? I don't think so. It's not that far from the garden, and it is some of the best food, pastries. They basically have this one main street, Luke, that has a million mom and pop Italian joints. But if you go around the corner down the alley, there's backup streets that have backup mom and pop, old world places boston is a tremendous visit i only live two hours away but no new york's

you know i mean la is my favorite city in the world luke but la i have l dude i love la oh my god i love la and i know and i i even love how how gross it is i just love la it's like that california dream that's injected into you as a little kid. Like my dream is still to get in a, get in a convertible Luke and drive across country. Like that's my dream in life. But dude, New York city, you've said it before New York city. It's incredible. It's incredible. New York smokes LA. I mean, I mean, I will say this LA, you know, LA has got LA has top tier Mexican food. Top tier. Dude. even if you go to the staples center i don't call it crypto and you go to one of those mom and pop places on the side of the road where like some grandma is cooking like hot dogs cooking bacon like everything that they do street food or not

yeah but no it's look it's the ocean it's the mountains it's i like the weather i like the weather i there's parts of la that are obviously awesome and charming and they're great. And I do like it, but the fact that it's a car culture place and you have to drive everywhere. It's awful. It makes it really hard. The traffic is, is just unbearable.

It's yeah. There's a lot to not like about it, but I try to only visit there for work and I get really excited about it. Anyway. Thank you, Cameron for wearing that. She at in meeting Volk.

I mean, look, Volk was like, yeah, I know MK. Did you know that? Did you know that about Volk? I mean, look, Volk was like, yeah, I know MK. Did you know that? Did you know that about Volk? I mean, I've interviewed him for MK.

I just never know if these guys ever, I mean, you know, when Izzy called it, was it Combat Corner or some shit? Yeah. We should have changed the name right then. We're like, yes, we are now called. Well, no, there is one called Combat Corner. So I think that's why you got confused. Yes, I heard there is.

Okay, let's go to Kimmy. Wow, a female listener, Luke. Hey, guys, i know you already saw the video of cheeto's instagram but hey this is uh i think this is something no drunky something like that yes she says here is my before during and after pics from this weekend you already know as one of the rare latina donks i had to show out in the mk gear both days of ufcx also i'm personally taking credit for lukito loquito correcting his pronunciation of yasmin horror guy's name it's not horror guy since he basically quoted my dm verbatim the other day so hold on thanks guys let me let me say this let me say this uh I do recall her, I believe, sending me a note. After I fucked up the pronunciation,

my phone lit up like a Christmas tree from everybody who watches the show who speaks Spanish that I've ever had any community. I'm not doing a bit. I must have had nearly 20 DMs or texts from people being like, yeah, you're pronouncing that wrong. It's how it eggy uh so she did i will give her credit i believe but she was not alone she was not after that performance against gomez it's horror guy now luke okay i mean no i don't mean that

disrespectful because the word whores and i'm not i'm not misogynistic and racist luke i will say that uh kimmy may have sent more photos we only have one of them but we can show that one more time the photo that made the rounds this week was her in the yellow morning combat shirt with you and i getting the tattoo on her arm of cheetos autograph which is aggressive luke but she's a big fan but look at her in the tie-dye as well love to see our female big fan. Yeah. Big fan. Awesome. Yes. Luke loves Latina donks the most. That's right. I mean, that is a fair statement. Did you see a picture of Sophia Vergara in her one piece? I did not, but you sent me a picture of Salma Hayek in her, uh, yeah. And you sent that 10 out

of 10. Yeah. But sent that 10 out of 10. Yeah. But who did I send you a picture of? And then you responded with like BC. I don't care about that female at all. I don't remember. I don't remember, but whatever it was,

it wasn't what I sent you. I can, I can tell you that. Yeah. Whoever I sent you as a future waitress, but Luke, we, we need them.

We need them. You know what I mean? We need them. We need them. Luke. All right. Hey, Luke,

next guy sending something in is, uh, you know, Rajiv from Las Vegas. Remember we met him at the live show or you don't care about people. I do care. Let me see. He's a Las Vegas doctor, Luke. He says, what's up, fellas? It's Rajiv again. Don't mind my goofy face in this washed middle-aged MK hat.

I stood in line at the UFC Expo for one fighter and one fighter only. JJ says she's ready to squash the beef and come on the RSD couch. The one stipulation is BC has to keep his pants on. Be easy, Raji. Raji, if you're serious with that last comment, Luke, do you think he actually uttered the phrase MKRSD while wearing that hat to you on a champion and said, come on the damn couch. Yes, I bet he did. And I bet she was like, I have no idea who those people are. I guarantee. All right. One day, one day we will get you on a champion on the couch, Luke.

No, one day you will. I won't be present for that. Luke, she's, she's a, will you at least respect that she's an absolute savage fighter who's given us so many fun fights through the years? Yes. Yes, she's a tremendous talent and is worthy of all the admiration that the fight game keeps upon her. She just whored a guy that I know, this guy on the air, and it was an awful moment that was 1,000% her fault. So, yeah.

Luke, I've forgiven you a lot in our time together. Luke, can you forgive? an awful moment that was 1000% her fault. I've forgiven you a lot in our time together, Luke. Can you forgive? I mean, look at what Japan has done to me. Forgiven me. Will you forgive her? There would be conditions under which I would consider it, but we don't live in any of those. So, it's pointless.

Her and Jon Jones. Her and Jon Jones, I mean, it's very different scenarios. I don't expect them to care they're never, I don't, I don't expect them to care about my life. I don't expect them to care about whether I live or die. So it would be very foolish of me to sit here and wait for an apology, even though that I am owed one. So it doesn't matter.

It's never going to happen. So you know, you can, you can lay down the, the, the firearm and just move on. No, no, I can't no i can't all right i don't i don't i like it to me dude like i mean i've told you this but like that year what year was that 2018 2019 where i was doing the mma hour it was like one of the most difficult years of my life in part because like at the time mma

fighting was just crumbling and I was one of the last of the Mohicans and there's a whole story there but I needed like every time we were trying to book guests it was just always this weird pushback about what we could get and what we couldn't get and then it would all I've gone through the whole story a million times and then to pull that in the way that she did was to me like one of the most damaging things she could have done at one of the most important parts of my career and the fact that she did was to me like one of the most damaging things she could have done at one of the most important parts of my career and the fact that it was treated so nonchalantly that like i'm that motherfucker to steal on no i will not look the other way no like that's not possible i don't

have i don't have that in me i guess every man has standards luke every man has a code right you drew that line in the sand and you plenty of fighters have actually done some things that were like really unprofessional but that remains one of the ones that was uniquely damaging to me so yeah look at where mike perry and i am at right now luke after our rough start yeah well mike you know mike is i think uh mike has chilled out a lot. African-American? Yeah. It never gets old, does it? It never gets old. No, it doesn't. By the way, congratulations again to him and Coach Latorre on the marriage over the weekend.

Luke, Mikey just reminded me that he was wrong and I'm wrong. 292 in Boston is August 19th. I will not be on vacation during that time. Luke, I think you are. That's right. I think you might be. I might be, I think. Maybe I'll do a one-man show in Boston.

Maybe we'll get JJ on there. Maybe you will. BC and JJ in Boston? How about that, Luke? No? BC and JJ? No? Power couple?

All right. Power couple. Is that going to be the new name of MK after you just ax me? Yeah. Luke, let's hear from this is from Alex and Gary. They say, hi, Luke and Brian, longtime viewers and loyal donks. Alex and Gary Carpentier representing MK on reporting day for indoctrination in the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, Long Island. Shout out to Long Island, Luke, they say, by the way.

Luke Noseda, our guy behind the scenes. Alex will study marine engineering and will earn credentials to become a strategic sea lift command officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and operate any unlimited tonnage vessel of any horsepower as a merchant marine officer. Alex's crew team at dc powerhouse gonzaga college high school had another spectacular year with a hard-fought fourth place finish in the scholastic rowing association of america championship

i'm trying to read this fast alex was honored as a 20 2023 uh washington post first team all metropolitan rower oh Oh, shit. He was recruited for the Mariners at Kings Point. I don't know what any of this means. Let me close by saying, he said, we are a family of public servants, and there's no higher calling than to serve your country. Shout out to Luke, and Alex is ready to recruit his midshipmen to become part of the MK family.

MK is the number one destination for combat sports. Keep up the good work. Acta non verba. It's Alex and Gary. Look, are they father and son? Is that what we're supposed to believe here? Yeah, I believe that's right. And Duke Gonzaga is a, you've heard of Gonzaga, I'm sure.

Like you drive by their campus. It's right on North Capitol Street. For folks who don't know, it literally bisects the big Capitol building you always see on like movies and whatever, the dome with the Freedom Tower on top, the statue. It literally is right in front of that on North Capitol, across the street, basically, from Union Station or almost like Catacorner.

It's off of H in North Capitol. And it's got this giant football field. It's just this academic and sporting powerhouse. I think it's an all-boys school. I don't ever see dudes going into it and they, they dominate them and DeMatha and a couple other ones in the area are some of the big, big,

big powerhouses. Shout out to the RIP Morgan Wooten, Luke, right? Morgan Wooten. Yes. Great Dutch name. No,

DeMatha's. I mean that he was the coach for like 50 years, right? No, I know. But like the, I think the term, the name Wooten has origins in Dutch.

That's what I'm saying. Okay. I'm sure Victor Wooten was Dutch too, Luke. I'm sure. What do you think about this guy as a... Luke, what is the... Okay. What is a U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and why is this guy going into the Navy?

I don't get how those two are... I am not... The Merchant Marines have nothing to do with the Marine Corps. It's a separate thing. I don't know who they really are. I think they have, because of the way shipping works internationally and the way in which the waterways work, that there has not really like, they're not war fighters in that way. They're more, um, supply logistics, but that can be, obviously have, you know, security implications as well. Um, but yeah, like it's, you know, being an officer of the Naval reserve, you do that for 20 years, man, you're going to be, you're going to be in good shape by the end of that in terms of the rest of your life.

Uh, so yeah, good for him. Congratulations, kick ass and go help the United States. Thank you, uh, Alex and Gary for and Gary for sharing your love of this show with the rest of the Merchant Marines there we appreciate it and best of luck Gary or Alex whichever one of you was younger go get them man go out there okay an MK spirit right rock out with your C out

there we go hey let's hear from Anthony is that little Anthony yes yes by the way a normal sized person is well past the top of the letters i just okay we're gonna do height jokes now on one of the nicest fans we have luke uh it's anthony and v i think it's luke how would you pronounce vi is it v or vi i'm miss spell it vi the letter v the letter i that's it yeah i mean obviously it's short probably for like vivian or something right so it's probably v it'd be like like for example my my daughter

like the gringo way to say it is violetta but that's not how you pronounce it it's violetta okay so hey it's anthony and v checking in from ifw one year later we came back to the scene of the crime but we were sad that there were no margaritas. There was not only no margaritas, there were no real Sauls, no beer chugging challenges, and no listening difficulties for those in attendance. Stay well, boys. MK for life. Look, these people are so nice. Yes, they are wonderful people.

I actually believe they would allow us to be present. Maybe not with dong cameras filming for the, for the conception and delivery of their baby Luke. Cause they're going to have MK's first baby. These two, I believe they will. Which means that's, I don't even know which one. I mean,

that's a very weird way to put how intimate the relationship between them and us is. I will just say this BC. I'm feeling these margaritas. Little Anthony, a great dude, Luke, great guy. I'm sorry about the short jokes. I'm just these margaritas by a camel. Little Anthony, a great dude, Luke. Great guy. Have met him.

I'm sorry about the short jokes. I'm just doing a bit. I'm just doing a bit. I'm not in any way trying to be at all serious. Please. Is this a shot taken, Luke? This is a roast culture. We live in here, people.

Okay, thank you. Some people get that. Some people don't. Yeah. Oh, Luke, I got called out for misogyny over the last couple of days, too. I've been hurting a lot of people by accident luke shitty comedy gets us in trouble here a lot i guess you know what i mean i mean isn't it obvious i love women luke isn't that obvious well the question is not whether you love women the question is for what reasons and in what way

you can love women and still not be great to them but i know what you mean i love one woman luke thank you let's hear from jeff he says hey gents with all the restrictions you can put on your and still not be great to them. But I know what you mean. I love one woman, Luke. Thank you. Let's hear from Jeff. He says, hey, gents, with all the restrictions you can put on your social media feeds, how come we have yet to have a power slap filter? I follow the UFC for UFC content, not to see at Nina Marie Daniels promote the CTE Slapdick League.

All the best, Jeff. Wow, this is great. Dude, that is so funny. That's what I keep trying to explain to people. It's like, yo, if you don't want to watch it, don't. And I'm like, guys, I'm literally trying very hard, like very difficult for me to apparently get this to stop. And on the media side, you guys don't even get it.

It's like, dude, I get like the bare bones amounts of emails from UFC PR staff about announcements. I get all of of them all of them for power slap man it's oh yeah crazy how much they push that into my inbox in a way they don't push any of their other content let me assure you yeah i i um i'm sick of it luke i'm really see would power slap make this weekend's card better or worse? I don't want to talk about Power Slap anymore, okay? Okay. I really don't. I really don't. I'm good with that.

I mean, for how much it kills on social, Luke, and it does do better traffic than all the other sports combined, they do a lot of shoving of it down the, well, hey, you got to max it out. Hey, let's hear from brian he says i love mk and i've been a listener for years the show is insightful smart and entertaining and they have you seen the shit segment is one of my favorites but i gotta be honest having luke make mouth fart noises into a microphone to transition into that segment is lazy and it kind of sucks ass so i decided decided to compose, perform, record, mix,

and send y'all a short but absurd piece of music for that transition. You can find a WAV file attached below. Please let me know if you have trouble uploading, blah, blah, blah. The music is royalty free and you can use it for perpetuity. Luke, this is an attempt at Donk Brian

making a new theme song for Have You Seen This Shit? Let's listen to it. Sold. If we don't turn it to that, the show should be canceled tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Brian, sold. You got me. me you got it you got it right there that's the new one that's the new one make a note on this day at this time we now have a new thing for the intro there you go look what do you do you deem to be our greatest song related contribution in mk history is it is it look in bc make it look easy or is it when damo ohana wrote and record the uh you can dance if i asked you to dance will you laugh at all my dick jokes tell me this yeah it's probably that one will you watch vol holloway and vulcan i mean look that song is so good right

it is very good it's well done that's the ending of donkumentary number two i don't know if we'll ever see another donkumentary but we had a good run there we have footage we have footage yeah here's melissa she says just thought this was funny not sure if luke or bc saw it he's packing a hog too what is going on in this luke i don't understand this okay so let me just just just before you take this the thing down just look at the bottom what andre feely wrote true story the best striking coach in mma he's packing a hog too basically what had happened was on my live chat someone asked me about like a coach and i've been i explained that like i've been very lucky to interview almost all the biggest coaches in MMA,

several times, in fact. I've been very lucky. But one of them I haven't interviewed is a guy who goes by the name of Kieran Fitzgibbons, who runs what you see there, CSA Gym. So someone, he took the video of me talking about him and then said, hey, if anybody knows him, I'd be happy to chat with him. We've actually connected since then. And then somewhere in the comments, Andre Feely just tells everyone he's got a big ass haul. So.

Okay. That's fantastic. That is great. It's a roundabout way of saying that. Well, I know you also saw that coach Craig Jones took our took our flowers we've sent at him at the 290 post fight show and put it up but left in the no spears comment luke this guy's like you know hey he's the best i'm here to party man dude i do like when he wears that fox catcher t-shirt and does uh does his podcast look he is he is something else man and i do i've said this before if you look at the names of his instructionals, BC, I swear to God, they're all power bottom.

The whole instructional is about... The title is crazy, but then the instructional is actually about how to work your guard or whatever. He's got all these names. Another one is for takedown defense, just stand up. Just stand up. Jiu-j, just stand up. Just stand up. Like jujitsu doesn't work. Just stand up.

He's got this real weird sense, but I'm telling you folks, if you go and you watch what he actually has to say when he's being serious, it will blow your mind. Blow your mind truly. All right. Let's hear from Mike. He says, hello, MK. It's one thing for Luke to defend Izzy.

It's a whole other thing to bathe with him though. Feeling fresh, Luke. Feeling feeling real clean manscaped i don't quite get this but um okay i think people i think this is the basis of the debate we had the other day that got that got me labeled luke is i don't understand how someone can watch what izzy did I get being like it's gross And I don't want any part of it I understand that What I don't understand is Why can't people also understand why I found it fucking hilarious

Because I cannot be the only one who found it hilarious Yeah I mean that's why I called it out To sort of challenge your One-sided Izzy super fandom To sort of poke at you because the fans wanted it But what I don't like Luke is I get a lot of tweets saying if you're a white guy and you didn't like what Izzy said, then you're outing yourself as a racist.

No, that's not true. That's not true. Really? Yeah, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true. But I also feel like it's like if you also found it funny that he's sitting there calling a white guy the N-word,

it's like, sorry, it's kind of absurd. It's funny. By the way, in front of Mel Gibson, donald trump dana white and guy fieri yeah yeah that's the whole thing is like what you know yeah it's just comical it really is uh samuel says long time first time is it just me or is professor salt and pepper slowly morphing into teen wolf's dad before our eyes. Thanks for all the entertainment. And they're using the famous office meme of they're the same picture. Luke, this would not be the first time someone has made that joke.

And didn't a pro fighter make that joke about you one time? I don't know. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I will say, Luke, you and I i you know we we got fat and happy off of our early success and when you go back and look at donkey mentories number two and three we're just fat pieces of crap back then when you really let yourself go there was a resemblance but you've done the work luke you're back to you're beyond dodge omni days now you are beyond i'm past dodge

omni i'm up to dodge neon that's really where I've gotten. Hey, I drove a brand new Dodge Neon. I bet you did, you fuck. Yeah. By the way, that's such a great zing, and I feel so terrible that I have no comeback other than, Jesus, I'm ugly. But yes, it's a very good zing. Oh, stop that, Luke.

I'm sure you're a very good-looking man to women. 20 years ago, I had a day, and that day has passed. That day has passed. L&W's got a big one. I think we've got to women that watch 20 years ago i had i had a day and that day has passed a day has passed uh alan w's got a big one i think we got to run that on uh next week uh thank you though for everyone sending in a morning combat at gmail.com oh what is this mikey do a and b from alan okay okay uh we got at least partially here from Alan. The look Luke gives BC after eating Taco Bell and being trapped in a confined space. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. We did drive to Atlantic City together in row eight.

I don't remember the flatulence attack, though. I think you held back. Luke, it was nice of you. You're right, I did. I waited till we got out of the car. And just, just, yeah, yeah, that was great. And then Luke Easton. Here's what Alan says.

He says, I'm not calling Luke Fatman. And while he's washed and out of shape, there's a significance to the name. He's talking about the bombs. Fatman and Little Boy. Yeah. He says, I hope you're as excited as I am, Senor Luke Thomas, to see Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer film. That's great, Alan.

That is amazing. Wow. Thank you. MorningCombat at gmail.com. That's it, right, Mikey? We're good? That's it? That's it.

One more, he says. Oh, he says that. Oh, no, we're done. Okay, there we go. All right. Thank you very much. That's all I got for you today. This is probably the best two hours of the week anyone's had, probably, right here. Probably. Probably. okay there we go all right uh thank you very much that's all i got for you today what this probably the best two hours of the week anyone's had probably right here probably probably uh maybe

francis had a better two hours this week than this one but you know other than that not really uh let's remind everyone hey um friday we're back we'll do some okay bet um yeah i don't know what else is going on it's a bit of a quiet, well, a bit of a quiet coming weekend after some craziness from last week. But there you have it. Reminder, youtube.com slash morningcombat where you can get all of your extra coverage. Give us a nice review on your favorite podcast platform. Thumbs up, hit subscribe.

Give us the social graphic one more time, Mikey, if you can. Let the folks see this on social. Again, I've noticed some uptick on TikTok. That's where a little bit of extra action is happening. So you can go check us out on tiktok right down there of course you can follow me nbc showtime morningcombat.store all that good stuff uh email the show for dead wrongs morningcombat at gmail.com morningcombat at gmail.com bc any final thoughts no that's about it i gotta go to the bathroom really bad thanks Thanks for watching. All right. Well, for Captain, oh, by the way, hold on. BC, before you go, BC.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Listen, listen. I was showing Violetta some footage of us on MK, and she pointed at the screen and said, Uncle Gringo. Oh, yes, yes. That actually happened. That really happened. Yes, Uncle Gringo.

So you have now a title. There you go. For Uncle Gringo, a.k.a. That really happened. Yes, Uncle Gringo. So you have now a title. There you go. For Uncle Gringo, a.k.a. Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thanks to Mikey Morms on the ones and twos CBS Sports. We appreciate you, and we're out. We'll see you guys on Friday. Until next time, may all of your gains.