MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 241 Full Breakdown | Stipe Miocic, Nate Diaz, Cormier, Romero-Costa | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 7

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

Today's episode of Morning Kombat with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell includes a full breakdown of UFC 241, Stipe Miocic, Nate Diaz, Cormier, Romero-Costa, and more. MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL, Showtime's first live digital series, spotlights the weekend’s biggest news from the world of combat sports. MORNING KOMBAT airs live every Monday at 12 PM ET / 9 AM PT. #BelowTheBelt #MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, Reveille, Reveille, Donks. It is Monday, August 19th, 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program, joined by my co-host, you know him from CBS Sports, as well as gas stations around the Northeast, the one and only Brian Campbell. How was your weekend, Brian? Fired up. Fired up. Well caffeinated. MKUltra back in your life. Ready to brainwash the combat minds out there. Before we even get to the first topic, true or false, UFC 241 best show of the year?

No, but it had the kind of magic, if you know what I'm talking about, in the air that was very similar to the last few bouts on International Fight Week and the last two specifically in Atlanta. And if you want to go back to 2017, the last time I think we felt that was in New York for 2017. Those sort of cards I can pick out of the group that say there was something special going on. Yeah, I agree with that. I also think

someone made a point to me, you know, is the run-of-the-mill UFC card all that great? No, but the UFC pay-per-views have, with 240 notwithstanding, they've delivered a lot this year. The main event delivered a lot. Now, we're going to get to that main event, Brian. You know the steady trending theme there is people going for it. People not being afraid to lose in an effort to win.

Kind of a novel concept sometimes in combat sports. We'll circle back to that main event in just a second. Let's start where the show starts, though. And that's with Nathan Diaz. Had the top one and two trending videos on YouTube yesterday there were 2.1 million searches for UFC 241 a not an astronomical but a very healthy number for sure it looked like he had the biggest pop in the room so now the question is after defeating Anthony Pettis via unanimous decision Brian Campbell is he as big of a star

as Ronda Rousey when she was a UFC fighter? Not talking about the current state of things. Or Conor McGregor at his peak. Let me go first, if I may. The answer is no. He is not that big. At least, I don't think there's enough evidence to conclude he is that big. The answer is until he's headlining a pay-per-view as the A-side, you're never going to know that answer.

We won't know the answer. But here's what we can conclude. I think at a bare minimum, he's probably as big of a headliner as john jones now that too is also unproven to the point you just raised john has a a body of work as a headliner or various other places on the card where he clearly contributed to the pay-per-view sales we can kind of figure out exactly what he brings to the table some of that is still very much unknown about Nate Diaz, but you know as well as I do, getting a New York Times feature. I compared the UFC 239 embedded videos in terms of the traffic they did with the UFC 241. UFC 241, at first they were neck and neck with a million,

and then 239 petered out down the stretch, just million, million five, million four, million two. Daniel Kelly, basically, in terms of interest. The whole point is there was sustaining interest around him. Then he goes out there and has a huge pop with the crowd. I think absolutely delivered in terms of three years off. Like, that was a great performance. Not a perfect one by any stretch. Then he gets on there, sets up his next one against the other guy in the UFC

who's also coming off of Big Buzz. He just played everything super well. He had the whole blunt CBD thing at the workouts. It was not the most gangster moment in a positive way in UFC history. That was the coolest thing since the Just Bleed guy and the guy over his left shoulder who had the joint that people never really realized. It was so smart and so subversive, yet so clever, and actually within the rules to an extent anyway.

I guess my point being is, you're right, no doubt about it, Brian Campbell. Until we put him on that thing, until he gets the fight poster that he wants, apparently he's the only guy calling Dana White complaining about the fight poster, we'll never actually truly know. But here's what I am saying. All the available evidence indicates he is, if not the very, very top of the food chain, just one click down, he is cooking with gas. Short of pay-per-view sales, because it's unproven, just from buzz, just from people

knowing him, needing to see him, and sort of unconditionally supporting him, he's in Rousey-McGregor territory right now, which is insane to think about, because he's coming off of a three-year break. That's the insanity of it. And that's why there's so many interesting points of what happened Saturday night. This is arguably the best submission win of his career. Even bigger than submitting Conor McGregor in 2016. I know what you're going to say.

This fight went to the cards, right? I'm talking about afterwards. At the press conference when Dana White sort of sits there and reluctantly goes, yep, he moves the needle. And that moment was so poignant to me. Because here's the deal. In the history of fighters becoming monster stars, even Conor McGregor's rise, there's always going to be a chicken and the egg debate if you're the company,

the organization, when you sit down at the contract table. Similar to the, I know you don't watch wrestling, WrestleMania 19, the Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon match build, who created who, right? I will take your word for it. It's the same thing if Conor McGregor is going to sit down and negotiate with Dana. Dana can go, did you help the UFC get to this level when you were there? Or did we help you get to this level? Who created who?

The reason why this Nate Diaz situation is so different and why you saw a face from Dana at that press conference that was a face he doesn't normally give, a reluctant sort of tap-out face, is because Nate Diaz did this not with the UFC's help. He took three years off at the peak of his marketing prime. At the peak of his, I just became a pay-per-view star. I set records back-to-back with Conor as arguably the biggest B-side ever. And he walked away on his own terms.

And it's not like he's out there doing interviews every other week. I know he's got his hand in the game with the CBD market and with the whole weed culture territory. Shots to game up nutrition. And I know you see him from time to time here and there. But he's as off the radar while not fighting purposely as almost anybody else. And yet he made himself the biggest star and arguably the biggest card of the year for UFC. It's insane. That's the only way you're going to make Dana White tap. Because under any circumstance,

a success as a fighter is to a certain degree because of the unit that the UFC has built and the structure. That if you're popular and you get in our vehicle, we will drive you to the top. I know Nate became a name because of being a UFC fighter. And I know he maybe became a household name because he beat Conor once.

But he became a sort of like apocryphal legend, like a myth this weekend because of what he did standing true to his own beliefs. And I know that's been a topic that maybe got beaten down a little too much during fight week. You know, he never sold out. He's so true. But that's why he gets that love. That's why when Jorge Masvidal had that five-second moment and everything that went around that,

we were like, this guy might be the next big star because in the fight sports, in the promotion game, there's so much fake that you use in an effort to bring people in. There's so much pro wrestling that you use that when you get something that's real, something that's true currency that Nate has and that Nate stands on and that he employs, you cannot get away from it. It's so authentic. It's so real. And you cling for that.

Just like regular fans want fights to actually be fights between two people that hate each other and the reality is it's a business sometimes it's a sport neat is something that cuts right through the bullshit and he's like i am the realest mfr i'm basically that crazy dude who lives below you in your apartment building only i get to do this on pay-per-view for a living and the fact that dana white finally bought in was the biggest victory at 241 way bigger than anything stipe did in the cage tonight which by the way d the way, Dana White, after he said that, they brought that up to Nate Diaz, who spoke later in the post-war press conference, and he was like, that's a mistake to say out loud that I'm good for business. You know he's going to use that against them, however that may be in the next iteration,

which we'll talk about in just a second. But one more note should be made here, that Southern California market is sort of a weird market for MMA. On the one hand, it's a hotbed. They recruit tons of talent from there. There's tons of gyms there. You can put on and see tons of shows there, some of the smaller regional ones. But it's a little bit hard to sell out because they're so spoiled. They set a record for MMA shows in California with the gate.

And again, I'm sure that Stipe and DC played their role in that to an extent Romero and Costa but the anchor of that quite clearly from all the visible information that we could glean was Nate Diaz was the one who led that charge he helped the UFC set a record one of the hardest places to set a record again just another log on the fire that he is building. Can I double down on sort of the ridiculousness? He did this not only out of the public eye, like I mentioned, but with UFC and Dana White talking bad about him basically at every turn.

And it's crazy because he's so confident. That actually works to his benefit. In the end, it works to his benefit. He twists it. He is the guy. What is his brand? The UFC's law and order? He's the rebel. So anytime that they double down on that, he just ends up looking better in the end. Because the three-year break changed the narrative of him against the machine. Because it's people like me.

Every time I'm in front of a microphone going, UFC, when are you going to realize your next big pay-per-view star is that guy who's high sitting on the couch in Stockton right now? Like, when are you going to wake up and realize that? And it's crazy. As we cling to the anti-hero counterculture thing that he gives us as a message. It's not that he's the first to do that. You can argue maybe like Tank Abbott was the first guy to bring that in. Even Conor McGregor to a degree, Luke, on his initial

rise had sort of that trash talking, not necessarily middle finger, but you get what I'm saying. Hip hop swag. A little bit of an edge and swag that's non-conformity. For his sake, to millions of dollars, he went the route of commercial, he went the route of company man, he went down that lane, and to a degree he lost that real edge for the

fans, but that doesn't matter. When you go down the company lane and you have that edge to you, you become so polarizing that the numbers just drop from the sky on you. Pay-per-view numbers go through the roof. And even... Nate stuck true to what he did, which is insane, and that's why he never needed to compromise who he was to get to this point. And you're right, he needed the three years. He needed Dana

White to be that evil boss at the end going, nope, sorry, you're not that guy. Here's the ultimate proof of the CBD thing. Again, the value in smoking that is that it's technically legal, but there's a certain counterculture imagery to it, so it actually cuts both ways. But rather than

a fighter being a company guy and following the UFC's lead, even with the CBD thing, not so much this one, but with after UFC 205 when he was smoking it and it caused his uproar, well now the UFC is in the CBD business. He leads his own path and then drags the UFC with him. And how about his

sense of mind to puff-puff give and share with the fans? I mean, look, life is demanding, Luke, without understanding, but weekend dana white saw the sign i mean it opened up his eyes you know yeah well you are awful uh very quickly diaz versus masvidal he calls it out they showed everyone was like dana said afterwards he was like i didn't know they were going to do that dana they had two cameras ready on masvidal's face the second he said it. Trust me, you knew. But, okay, if you want to tell the media that, that's fine. But in any event, he calls out Masvidal.

Dude, this is the biggest no-brainer. I'm not saying there aren't other good fights you could make. At this point, there's a lot of good DS fights you could make. It's the same thing with Conor or Justin Gaethje. Name a Justin Gaethje fight that would suck that you could think of at the top of that division. There's basically nobody. Him against the doctor, basically. Yeah, okay.

Any other fighter, it comes out being just fine. at the top of that division. There's basically nobody. Him against a doctor, basically. Yeah, okay. Any other fighter, it comes out being just fine. So the point being is this. Okay, give me some other suggestions. I'm willing to hear them, but Brian Campbell, Diaz wants it. Masvidal wants it. You know the public wants it.

Dana White himself, even saying he wants it. Are they going to fuck it up, though? Wow. Hold on. Are they going to fuck it up, though? Wow. Hold on. Are they going to F that up and make it a three-rounder by putting it underneath a title fight when that fight, you know Brian Campbell could headline a show? Inject it, right? Rub that a little bit. What are they going to do?

Here's the deal. It sounds so good to be true because everybody wants it. It's so perfect that ultimately you may not get it. I don't want to be a harbinger of doom here. I don't want to be a negative Nancy here. Look at these two heterosexuals. But here's the deal. We're going to find out whether all that stuff I just said about Nate Diaz and finally getting ahead of Dana and getting one on him is actually true.

The proof will be in the pudding, as Floyd would say, in terms of what's next for Nate Diaz. Is Dana White and company going to treat him like a legitimate brand that he is? Dana showed you verbally with facially that he was there. But it's going to matter if they're willing to put Nate in a pay-per-view main event that does not have a forced interim title or any situation like that. If they're willing to say that

what Nate said, which is brilliant. He said, I've got this title now I want to defend it. He's talking about So smart. Same thing we kind of said on Conor's rise when it didn't even matter what division he was in. There's almost this Conor pay-per-view championship. Nate sort of has the derivative of this. Remember Eddie Alvarez was trying to put over the most violent man championship that he fought against Gaethje?

You kind of have that with Nate right now, and it's just the idea of celebrity fights. What fights can you make that are fun? Yeah, but elite, elite celebrity fights. Elite celebrity fights. If he can get that, if he gets Jorge Masvidal next, after calling it into existence, it will show you that they're ready to take advantage of what he

has left. Because honestly, between you and me here, and everybody else watching, to try to predict Nate Diaz's mind and what might be next for him would be futile. You don't have to predict. He outright said, I would like to fight Jorge Masvidal next. When I say next, I mean bigger picture. I mean, I'd love to say, okay, he's 34, he's back, he just proved in the cage

that he's still elite. Let's fight four to five more times over the next three years. I see. He may fight once more and walk away for good and get pissed off. It's something you never know at this point. Alright. Well, one person who's not going anywhere anytime soon, it looks like, we'll see, is Stipe Miocic. He reclaims his UFC heavyweight title,

defeating Daniel Cormier by TKO in the fourth round. The question for you, Brian Campbell, is, because we had a bit of a debate here, so I'll let you go first on this one. Does this win unequivocally, don't hash around, does this win unequivocally make Stipe the greatest heavyweight in the UFC of all time?

I opened my podcast on CBS Sports and State of Combat on Saturday night after the card with asking that same question. And I made the same, I don't want to say reluctant answer, but default answer that Dana did during the press conference the card with asking that same question. And I made the same I don't want to say reluctant answer, but default answer that Dana did during the press conference when they asked him the same question. And he goes, yeah, I guess it does. And my initial knee-jerk

reaction is, okay, what else does Stipe have to do to prove to us? He just went back in there against a guy who's at the upper room of the greatest fighters ever and knocked him out to regain his title. The more I look it over and do the math, I'm not really sure. I'm certainly sure it's not unequivocally. And overall, I can't tell if this bias that I sort of have against Stipe, that a lot of

fans do, to be honest, is subconsciously because there's that sort of boring side to him. There's that blue collar working like sign. We've seen him climb the ladder. We've seen him lose and bounce back before becoming champion. And there's maybe that lack of overall sexiness. Or is the proof when you lay it down? Why is his resume right now any better than Dan Ricormier, who knocked him out faster last year?

And to be really honest, and I know this kind of pushed your button when I brought it up last week. Because the Couture point is insane. No, it's not. Would you like me to tell you why it's insane? I want to bring this question up. Why, when you compare Randy Couture's resume and what he accomplished to Stipe's right now, why is Stipe so much bigger in terms of when you're trying to figure out who's the greatest heavy?

Because I know, Luke, there's a difference between a pound for pound on their greatest night, which was the argument for Kane I was trying to make. Kane didn't have the longevity to be in the real conversation, right, of who's the most decorated and the best champion in history. Why Randy Couture, with three title reigns, just as many title defenses as Stipe overall, and sort of the ability to reinvent himself constantly, and fought through three different heavyweight eras, why is he so separated from Stipe? Who are the two fighters Couture defended his title against?

Because it's only two. Pedro Hizzo. That's one. Gonzaga. And Gonzaga. Those are the only two. He beat Pedro Hizzo twice, UFC 31, UFC 34, and then Gabriel Gonzaga after he beat Tim Silvia.

Those are legitimate wins. Can I put an asterisk on that, though? First of all, the UFC 31 fight, which went the distance, truly one of the great heavyweight fights of all time. Even to this day, it's still pretty good. And remember, they thought that Hizzo was going to be the big guy. They gave him, I think it was a seven-fight contract, which was unheard of at the time. They gave him an instant rematch.

The whole thing. And then Couture goes in there and beats him twice. It's a big deal. He's one of the great guy. They gave him, I think it was a 7-5 contract, which was unheard of at the time. They gave him an instant rematch. The whole thing. And then Couture goes in there and beats him twice. It's a big deal. He's one of the greats. Don't misunderstand me. But after beating Kevin Randleman, he bounced. He went to rings.

He lost via guillotine choke to Valentine Overeem during that time. And he went down to life. Not in the UFC, though. No, not in the UFC. But then comes back, beats Hizzo twice, and then loses to Josh Barnett. And we know the whole story there.

I know he lost the vacancy. So he's one of the best ones. Sorry, dude. That doesn't hold up to Stipe's resume, and it doesn't. And I'll be like, look, I was a guy. I'm a big, look, I don't want to be, but I just get gravitated a certain way. I'm a big DC fan. I really am. I'm not much of a Stipe fan.

Stipe, shut my mouth. I'm eating humble pie all day today. Hold the DC argument. Well, hold on. Let me get back to Stipe. The point being is, if you want to say he was losing three rounds and came back and that should count against him, okay. If you want to say you got knocked out and you only beat the guy who knocked you out so it's a wash, I can even buy that.

What I cannot accept is that two wins over Hizzo and one over Gonzaga is equivalent to the title run that Stipe has been on. Beating Daniel Cormier, even from the jaws of defeat, is unbelievably impressive. When you say that about Randy, he did get stripped of a title. He did have the Barnett, which goes down as a loss. Even though Barnett was on steroids, it should have been a no contest, which means he should have kept that title and stayed defending it. So the idea of tit for tat on title defense is, look, Randy was a legend, reinvented himself many times.

Like I said, went through separate different eras. I just don't think it's that much of a gap between him and Stipe in this argument. And if we put Randy aside for a second, because I know a lot of people are going to hit up those YouTube comments and be all over me. Here's the deal, though. Why is DC's resume at heavyweight because of just this one loss of the guy he just

beat, now suddenly automatically down? And on top of that, why are we even having to crown a guy? I don't think Stipe has he's done more than everyone else because this has been a division laid with parity, but I don't think Stipe has, he's done more than everyone else because this has been a division laid with parity, but I don't think he or really anyone has had that run where it's a slam dunk. I think we were willing to

put DC there last time because he'd only lost to Jon Jones, the greatest fighter ever. I'm willing to go with the second half of that, which is we had the same debate over featherweight. Is it Aldo? Is it Max? Is it Conor? Who's the greatest featherweight of all time? My hunch is Aldo, but Max is still out there competing. It's really hard to know. We're going to have to see.

Plus, he beat Aldo twice. Yada, yada, yada. I get all that. And again, he beat DC at 40, but he beat DC at 40 when he was the champion. The only knock on Stipe beyond, I think, coming back late was then when he beat, let's see, Verdum. When he beat Arlovsky. Excuse me, not Arlovsky. It was his title fight. So when he beat Verdum, Overeem, and who was the other one? I'm not, Francis.

Are you going to go past Overeem without mentioning that he tapped at 203? There's a movement out there. Stipe tapped. There's a movement. He fought a lot of guys, Francis notwithstanding, who are just a little bit long in the tooth in terms of their age. So you have to count that as part of the overall body of work. So I'm willing to say, I think there might be a third fight between Cormier and Stipe, which that would be a much

more settling, it is a fine debate. I just want to point out, beating Daniel Cormier by stoppage, being the first person to do that at heavyweight, that is a towering achievement in the heavyweight division. So the question then becomes, Brian Campbell, are they going to do Stipe

versus Jon Jones, or a third fight with Stipe in D.C.? Here is my thought. Does Daniel retire? We'll talk about him in a second. I don't, I'm fine with the Jones versus Stipe fight. I didn't come out of that fight thinking it'd be all that competitive. Now, Jon's last two fights have not been bad, but not like the kind of marauding crusader

he had been before. But did you leave that fight afterwards thinking, wow, Stipe versus Jones. Not saying they couldn't do it. Not saying they wouldn't do it. Not saying they wouldn't even make a ton of money. But did you come out of there thinking, oh, that one is one I have to see. I didn't come out of there thinking that. It depends. I didn't come out of there thinking that because of recent comments made by Jon Jones

that, look, I never really wanted to go to heavyweight, which is false. It's been documented for years. He's sort of teasing that it was inevitable. I took that, how willing on social media he was constantly looking to take jabs at DC, including after the fight when he suddenly proclaims on Twitter that Stipe is the greatest heavyweight of all time.

End of story. I think that's all more of marketing and public negotiation moves. I think Jones is and has been always willing to go to heavyweight if the money's there. Not the pay-per-view main event money that he's lived off of for years, but the Conor McGregor, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao money, the guaranteed $25 million to fight no matter what.

That type of legitimate, if I'm going to take this chance, you're going to treat me like that true star money. If that's there, I don't see why he wouldn't fight Stipe. And again, I'm on the side of the line that says Jon Jones beats every single heavyweight in the end. I think he's that talented. I think his speed will translate so well. But I think we're going a little bit too quickly out of the DC Stipe argument because the thing that...

I want you to... We're going to get to that in a minute. But this is all related. The thing that fuels my opinions on this, ultimately, besides this thing that's in my eye, this piece of dust, this... We're live here, folks, alright? Did I spit in it? Possibly. Maybe. Possibly. Alright. Is, um...

The DC thing. No. Stipe didn't beat DC in the rematch. DC lost the rematch. Oh, you are high. And I know that there's an... You are high. I make that same argument in the Anderson Silva-Chris Weidman series, too. That ultimately Anderson Silva cost himself the first fight and then freak injury in the second Silva-Chris Weidman series, too, that ultimately Anderson Silva cost himself the first fight

and then freak injury in the second. I never got the picture that Chris Weidman was better. Another topic for another day. I think the fact that Stipe did everything right in this. He even stood on his laurels Nate Diaz-like and sat out a whole year to get the fight that he wanted. Then he came in there and weathered the storm in an absolute war. Round two, one of the greatest rounds in UFC title history

that they'll put in a vault one day. But Daniel Cormier was Daniel Cormier after the fight, which means really honest in his shortcomings. He abandoned the strategy in round one in which he dominated that fight. So in my heart of hearts, when I'm fueling the debate of who's better all time and the whole debate of what fight should be next and all this stuff, Daniel Cormier was actually the better fighter on Saturday night. He got a little bit. Was he? Was he though?

He got a little, and he's been at this in his interviews afterwards, he got a little bit too high and mighty from the idea of I knocked this guy out the first time, I'm taking his shots and walking through them now, so why shouldn't I stop? Even though obviously his corner's telling him take the fight to the ground, and anybody at home watching round one when he dominated Stipe and really left him in a confused role, you're like, why would you not go back to your strength there in wrestling? Okay. So, that's fine. But even

outside of the wrestling point, Luke, he had no respect for Stipe. He was just walking in hands down. So, he deserves to lose that fight. But I don't think Stipe is a better fighter than DC, and maybe that fuels the argument that... The better fighter doesn't always win, and you know that very, very well. That's true in boxing. I think Stipe is a better fighter than DC, and maybe that fuels the argument that... The better fighter doesn't always win, and you know that very, very well. That's true in boxing.

I think it's less true in boxing, but it can happen sometimes, especially true in MMA, where there's these wide variants in how a fight could match, two fighters can match up based on variables. Here's the point. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Cormier fought a good fight or even up to his best ability. No, far from it. Dude, I know that my radio show is behind a paywall,

and I know that as a consequence that limits some of its exposure. But on Friday's show, and you can look this up on the archives, I went out of my way to say, did anybody else watch UFC 200? When Anderson Silva went to the liver of Daniel Cormier and it hurt him bad. There was a clear and unequivocal weakness show. They're not everyone susceptible to liver shots, but some more than others, a Cerrone, a Brown kind of a situation. Cormier appeared to be one of those kinds.

I've never seen someone really get folded like that off of, I'm sure, a hard push kick, but not the kind that would normally draw that reaction. He did tell me Anderson extended his toes and curved them in, and that was a big part of adding i'm sure it also showed a weakness of the body and then when you saw stipe go over and over and over i'm not telling you this is some kind of einstein stephen hawking adjustment i am telling you after getting battered for three rounds to have the presence of mind to then go and do that and stick to it yes cormier championship level adjustment it is absolutely a championship level adjustment. It is absolutely a championship level adjustment.

So when you say Stipe didn't beat him, Cormier lost, no, Stipe beat him because Cormier, yes, opened a tiny window, but if Stipe doesn't go to the body, he loses that fight. That was the only reason he went there is because he had the presence of mind to do that sort of thing. So your point was Cormier was the better reason he went there is because he had the presence of mind to do that sort of thing. So your point was Cormier was the better fighter that night. Even fighting a dumbass strategy, he was the better fighter that night. He would have won, but for Stipe, taking that fight from him. You cannot take that away from him.

Oh, look, and I'm not trying to, but we're trying to basically compare two shiny apples and try to say which one is better looking than the other. And I think there are things that separate this. And also, I'm not convinced that DC wasn't rocked at some point early in second round, which completely mentally kind of put him in survival mode the rest of the way. He certainly wasn't listening to his corner, but he did sort of say that was more pride afterwards. And then did you hear some of the comments between rounds? You know, am I winning? What's going on?

I'm not sure what to make of those. It was hard, though. So what I'm saying is that happens in fights. That's part of it. So that could have been a big part of this equation why he didn't finish the fight as strong as he started it. Again, not taking anything away from Stipe, but I do think there is a separation between

the true greatest of all time when we're trying to argue this out. And it's like, what else does Stipe have to do? I don't know if he's really that guy though. It's like, do I think that Cormier is a better fighter still? I do. But he wasn't better that night. And that's all that matters in the end.

Now, the next question is about Daniel Cormier. He loses his heavyweight title. And he's 40 years old. And there wasn't necessarily a declaration before this fight that it was going to be his last. But he did say it could have been. Now he has lost his title, Brian Campbell. What happens next to Daniel Cormier? Yeah, I'm going to jump right in, and I'm going to walk right over. He's going to fight

again, and here's the reason why. He's still amazingly good, pound for pound, elite, top three or four, five at 40, which is insane to think about, but he's been able to get smarter as he's gotten older and all that. And at heavyweight, he's even better than he is at light heavyweight. But here's the real reason why. It's not just because he's a competitor. It's because when you get to this age and you're weighing out the price, and that's what he's doing, the risk. He's saying, I got to talk to my family and my team. I got a lot of TV effort, jobs out there. I'm getting paid very well by TV. I don't really have to do this anymore. When there's something left to fight for, and you're a true competitor, and you're not a

businessman. And DC, although he's been smart over the last year, and finally getting a taste of this elite money, $4 million to save the card last fall, he's not a businessman. He's more of a true competitor. He can, with either the third Stipe fight or the third Jones fight, in my mind, somewhat dramatically increase his all-time great standing. And when you have that opportunity, and you're still good enough to perform, DC, I know he's taking damage and all that, but we don't see him get stopped regularly. And he's certainly not a 40-year-old fighter that we're going, head trauma, should he just count his losses and go away? No, even Dana White's like,

look, he's still really damn good. If he beats Miocic in the third fight, I mean, he's your slam dunk heavyweight go. And if he beats Jon Jones in a third fight, he redeems all the losses, all the times of coming up second place, and I think really has that chance to argue that he's the best fighter we've ever seen, regardless of weight class. When you have those two opportunities right in front of you, yes, he's going to take six to nine months off. He might even announce a soft retirement first. But he's coming back, and he's coming back into either of those two fights. And if I was advising him, and I cared about his health, and I cared about all this, I think I might still say him to go after it, because he's that type of competitor,

and I think he can win both. Maybe not Jones at 205. I think heavyweight against Jones would be interesting. All right, so here's what I would say. I think you're probably right. I think he does come back. When? I don't know. Where? I don't know. But you're right. He is a born competitor in every way. Anybody who's ever talked to Daniel Cormier, got a sense of things, this is a guy where a competition like for the Diaz brothers, Nate Diaz goes on the analyst desk and they ask him how was the experience being back, and he was like, when I was in there, I hated it. I was like, why did I do this?

It was when the job was over, he felt a sense of accomplishment and relief, and that's what he was looking for, not just the relief, but a job well done. Cormier is the exact opposite. I remember one time seeing it with Kyle Dake, one of the best wrestlers in collegiate history. Did you say Kyle Dake? Kyle Dake. Only wrestler to ever win a NCAA title in a different weight class every year. Pretty impressive. I remember when he wrestled David Taylor for his national championship of his senior year, and the lights came on over the mat, and he went from having a sour face to smiling. When the lights come on for some people, Brian Campbell, they will.

And when the lights come on for others, that is when they are the happiest, when they're at their best, when they know what they are made to do. Daniel Cormier is exactly goddamn right. When those cameras roll, it's time to go. But the point being is, he told Damon Martin of MMA fighting before, he did not want to go out on his back. He has a chance where, look, it may come to the point in his career where you actually have to go out on your back, but that's not today. That's not today. He actually has a chance to make sure that the fairy tale ending of his career is something that is legitimately possible.

So you combine the fact that this is something that drives him, you combine, to your point, something to fight for, and you combine that this is not the way he wants to go out. I know he's had two stoppage losses in the last two years, so since 2017, by the way, both in that same building. That's crazy. Which is just wild so don't fucking fight stipe in the honda center okay but anywhere else look time is ticking i don't think he can wait that long i think he has to kind of get back out there i don't think in 2019 probably in first or second quarter 2020 but they're gonna do it i i think the jones fights hold on let them

last thing jones fight to me is off the table. Getting the Stipe one because you can end your career without having to worry about the Jon Jones chapters. They just are what they are. But you can end with a redemptive note. You can end with a legacy note. And you can end with the belt back in your hands. If you're Daniel Cormier, how do you turn that down? Two points real quickly. If you think it's BS my take that Stipe didn't win that fight, DC lost it. I don't think it's BS. It's just unfair.

I get it. I'm going out on a ledge and I'm standing there and I believe in it. But as DC's watching video over the next three, four months of that fight, he's going to be thinking the same thing. He's going to be thinking I gave that up. And that's going to be extra fuel. And number two, we've just talked about Jon Jones kind of at every turn taking shots

at DC, right? Yep. Wouldn't the most Jon Jones thing to do right now would be to go to heavyweight and take the belt that potentially that DC just lost in a fight that DC and me probably feel like he should have won and go out there and become that two-division champion and then take all of DC's heat, basically? This is going to be a great test to see

whether Miocic is consistent or a hypocrite with the nature of the third potential fight with Cormier because he was like, I deserve it. I was the longest reigning champion. It's got nothing to do with the fact that they had six months to prepare for that fight. He got beaten around. There was no real case for a rematch. There's not much of a case

for a rematch with Cormier other than it's a thing you want to do for a nice person. It would be kind of interesting for a trilogy fight, but usually you want trilogy fights and rematches spaced out evenly with a lot of time in between so that the third or the second one would be different than the previous one,

which you're not going to get here. There's actually not that great of a case. Now, I guess you could say again, we like Cormier. He was winning early. There are some reasons to think a third one might be different, but... Would that be a Jon Jones thing to do? To take all of DC's smoke from him? I don't think so.

I don't think he's that Machiavellian. I don't... You think so? Yeah, a little bit? No, I think he's happy to keep seeing what's happening at light heavyweight or if he went to heavyweight, maybe to fight someone else first. Real quick on the way out as well.

Can you celebrate at least the balls on these two guys on DC and Stipe? Brad's strategy or not, the action that we saw, it was a war of attrition. It was insanity. It's one of the craziest fights you'll see in heavyweight ever. We haven't seen historically in the UFC great heavyweight title bouts. I don't want to end every conversation with this. That's the greatest we've ever seen. I mean, this will go down pretty high up.

Look, to your point, when Couture came back and beat Sylvia, there was something thrilling about it. But it was mostly because he had Sylvia's back for five rounds. It wasn't really because the action, other than the initial punch, that knocked Sylvia down was all that interesting. This was back and forth. And, dude, both of their faces. The chins they showed is obscene.

And also, for Stipe Miocic, a lot of guys get KO'd. Even if they're not physically affected, they're mentally a little bit unsure of themselves. Not Stipe. He just marched on in there. And that seven punch finish, pretty violent, pretty brutal. And also, I thought he was going to stick behind the jab, maintain some distance. Nah, he kind of

got in there and just traded with him. He kind of Homer Simpson that. He kind of just warmed that thing out. Dude, I'm not much of a Miocic fan. Like, I think I respect him, but it's not like I don't gravitate to his fights. But even I can go after Saturday and be like, you know what? I was wrong. You have a hard time.

I'm not saying that. You have a hard time walking that line. I'm saying that as a joke, but I'm saying he showed tremendous resolve. He Homer Simpson'd it. He showed tremendous resolve. And Cormier lost. He didn't win. He kind of lost it.

These are powerful. I didn't have money on DC. I'm not in DC's corner. I'm just telling you what I saw. All right, so here's the fight that's getting lost in everything, which was the feature fire of the card. Not the main, not the co-main, but oh, my God. What a middleweight fight between Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa.

I did the Java Boys podcast with Brendan Schaub, and he was like, yeah, I'm kind of, I don't know how I feel about it. I'm like, Brendan, have you had too much coffee? Are you a little high, bud? This one has action written all over it. Jimmy Smith, the former UFC and Billsport commentator, SiriusXM host, he had tweeted Romero versus Costa is

going to be as close as we ever get to watching two comic book characters battle it out in real time. Yeah, it's like opening a cereal box looking for that prize, and you find sex at the bottom. It's just ridiculous. First of all, I absolutely loved, loved, loved this fight. I thought it was so interesting for so many reasons, Brian.

One was Romero showing actually technical growth. He's usually a bit of a two-way fighter, but one at a time. Block, block, block, block, block, block, parry, slip, parry, slip, block, and then explode. And you did see some of that, but he was actually slipping and throwing, which he ordinarily doesn't do. We know he's the king of the third rounders, but not typically through volume. He actually had the better cardio than Paulo Costa in the third. The chins on these two.

Just one of the great fights, really, in middleweight history for a non-title affair. Hell, yeah. For a three-rounder. So now the question is that Paulo Costa wins. By the way, very quickly, how'd you score it? I want to finish my point, though. Well, there's another. I didn't take the train through Hot Take City on the way here, but Romero won that fight 2-1.

Then hold that thought. Hold that thought. But in any event, Costa gets his hand raised, let's say, right? So now he's going to get the winner of Whitaker versus Adesanya. I would love to know your thoughts on the fight. And also, is there one direction you're leaning more towards in terms of who you'd like to see Costa fight? Because I've got to tell you

the big takeaway from this one was even if you think Romero won, and by the way he'll be back because he looked phenomenal hitting championship weight by the way. 184.75. Good for him. Costa, I think, silenced not all the doubts about him, but a metric ton of them. He

looked good and way better late than a lot of folks thought he would. There's so much to love about this fight and this situation. And I sort of mentioned that off the top about why this card was so good. Nate Diaz and Pettis fought really hard. But specifically the main event, and specifically this middleweight card, you had people fighting for their lives, fighting for it all, willing to

risk it all to win it. And I know that sounds stupid. This is the fight game. But you know what it's like. Luke, I know it happens more in boxing than in MMA, but sometimes there's a safety point. Sometimes you get to a certain point where you're more defending what you've accomplished rather than going for it. Both of these guys were going for it. And whether or not you scored it for Paolo Costa in the

end, it doesn't really matter because it wasn't a robbery. I could see why people preferred Costa because he landed the more damage overall. So if that's more of your trend on how you score a fight, that's fine. That's how you should score a fight. I don't know about that. According to unified rules, that is exactly how you should score a fight. But ultimately, he answered every question we could have had.

Stamina, chin, balls, I mean everything across the board. Abs, we already knew that. I mean if you were a fan of just chiseled male bodies, I know you are. I certainly am. This was going to be a Super Bowl for that. But from the idea of finding out how good he can be, and on top of that, Romero at 42 gave you a plus-plus performance. You're trying to ask me, in theory here, what fight do I really want to see the most? Costa against Whitaker or Costa against Adesanya? None of the above. I want Romero against Adesanya. And that just speaks to how great this division is at the top,

how both of these were elevated from this fight. I'm not really sure I've ever seen you all Romero lose. The first Whitaker fight was the closest in terms of his UFC run. But all three of those fights against the elites, he was right there. And I think he fought better in this fight in terms of strategy, and you sort of nailed it off the top, than even the two Whitaker fights. I thought he won the second one, but even in those two, you could say, okay, Romero takes rounds off at times.

He does this, he does that. He didn't do anything but go out there and give you a great performance. There's an argument that even with the losses that he's had, Whitaker, this one, and I'm forgetting some other ones that he might have had, you can make a case that he's the best middleweight in the world. You can actually do that. Now, he won't have the belts to justify it. He won't have just a clean green lighting on the side of the Wikipedia page.

There will be some pink in there. But that isn't necessarily a fair reflection of his ability. In fact, I think coming out of this, if he wants to go to 205, he can. But making the weight that he did, now maybe when he travels too far, like Perth, Australia, he can't make the weight. But if they can find a way to get him in a space where he can reliably make that weight, dude, at 42, he's as viable a contender at middleweight as he's ever been. He should absolutely be the guy that they fly in whenever Costa fights the winner of Whitaker and Adesanya

to be the guy on standby. I don't think anyone in the world would be opposed to that. If he ends up getting that slot through some kind of injury or change... So you wouldn't say it's time for Romero to transition into being more of a older celebrity fighter let's match him up with other big names in any division let's just make fun fights this is again he's got some fatal flaws too but to go out and look the the beauty of that fight was I think both guys left a piece of themselves in there a little bit which is not great but Costa 25 can afford to do that and I guess the ageless wonder Romeroero, I suppose he can do it

as well. My only point is, did you come out of that fight thinking, oh, you know, I don't know what's next for him at middleweight. You're like, dude, he can beat, on the right night, Yoel Romero can beat anybody at middleweight. It just wasn't necessarily that night for him. Well, the reason why I asked that question about the celebrity fighter thing is because he's

42, and in theory, has a short window left. Who knows? He could be one of these Randy Couture freaks who keeps going. But the point is, I don't want to see him be forced to have to go back to the middle of the top 10 and win a couple to get back in line. I almost want him to just sort of like stay in that bullpen for an availability or fight

another legend. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily love him in Anderson Silva, but those type of fights. Would you like him to go up and test it at 205 against a big name? Even against a Weidman type of guy? I guess I want the best matchups for him and the most competitive ones because I don't think that the transition to I'm doing something other than making a clear and unequivocal path to the title is something he needs to do yet. So there's different stages to the career.

One is I'm all in direct path through the thicket to the title is something he needs to do yet. So there's different stages to the career. One is I'm all in direct path through the thicket to the title. One is I don't care at all and there's a lot of shades in between. He can still be pretty close to that. I'm doing nothing else but that. Now to answer the original question, Costa, who should he fight?

Well, I mean, we'll have to see who wins. I'll tell you which one I'm more interested in, just the Adesanya one because they're still... One of the interesting parts about Romero that people are not going to appreciate is his ability to withstand the punishment of Costa in this one.

I don't know if Whitaker can. I don't know if Adesanya can, and the bad beef between Adesanya. So he's got this... He's the much more clever striker at range, but then you have this beast of a sort of boxer. He also is a bit of a kickboxer, too, but more of a boxer in Costa. To me, that's a much more interesting fight than Robert

Whitaker, who's like, aw, shucks. It doesn't work quite as well for me, but in either case, you're going to get a pretty great fight. Here's the point. Do I think Yoel Romero can beat all three on the right night? You bet your ass I do. A hundred percent, and I'm not sure, though. Even though Paul Acosta just made giant steps, I mean, that was a strong, everything-you'd-want-out-of-performance,

do you still, do you kind of echo me? I still feel like I need to see from a technical standpoint, can he outpoint those two guys that are going to be fighting? He just uses a lot of brute force, and that's typically been enough. The question's going to be what happens when it's not enough, because Romero, to an extent, obliged

that. So what happens when you get someone who doesn't oblige it? Does he have a second or third gear to get to? I don't know. But does he have a chin? Yes. Whatever the USADA issues were, did you notice any drop off in his physique? I noticed no change whatsoever. Firepower was still

not as much there, but still there late. He's got a chin himself. There was a lot to like for that performance. By the way, at 25, still has time to get better. Or 28, whatever he is. I know you don't go on social media once, and certainly not to peep things, but do you see Jon Jones constantly talking about Adesanya and saying, I'll fight him in Africa, I'll fight him here,

I'll fight him there? I catch things here or there. I don't need anything to do with that. That just seems to ruin things. I want Jon to move up. I want Adesanya to prove himself a middleweight, win the title first. Why are we doing this? He's waiting for Adesanya to be old enough middleweight, win the title first. Why are we doing this? He's waiting for Adesanya to be old enough where the move to 205 is kind of

forced upon him, and then they want to see what happens there. But that could be years away at this point, so it's not really there at the moment. Okay, so outside of the Romeros and the Costas and the Diaz's, and in your mind, I guess the Cormier's, because you don't want to give it to Stipe. Outside of those top performers, who are some other top performers at UFC 241?

Now, there's a lot of different ways you can go with this one. Brian, I'll go first. Corey Sanhagen. Yes. Boy, he looked very, very good on the prelim card beating Rafael Suncel. Why is that important? Because he had come off the Lineker win, and the Lineker fight, you know, it will test your ability to take a shot. So he answered that. I your ability to take a shot.

So he answered that. I always try to tell people this, in MMA if you see a guy who's got like five first round KOs and they're about to make their UFC debut, the one thing I always tell people is you know almost nothing about this person. You know they hit hard and probably not much else. Kind of like looking at their Tinder profile. You used to be on those fields right? Tinder was after me.

My era was like Match and stuff like that but I never got to Tinder. I've actually never seen Tinder. In any event, the point being is you don't know a lot about that person and as you get to MMA they're going to audit every single piece of you. Now I don't think Corey Sandhagen has been fully audited yet but that was a big one. A Sun Tzu is clever, he had changed teams to to rejuvenate what he was doing. He's beaten the best of the best in that division, truly. For Sanhagen to go in there and basically no-sell him was remarkable.

And the other thing about Sanhagen that folks need to recognize is it's not just that he's good in some kind of general sense. A lot of modern fighters who aren't specialists anymore, they try to add so many tools to their game that they're kind of just mediocre at all of them. He's not. He's actually very good at not only jiu-jitsu or wrestling or striking or stance switching, but at blending them all so effortlessly. So I don't know how far he goes, but hello, ladies and gentlemen, that's your new Bantamweight contender.

Yeah, you can make some kind of hipster argument that that was the strongest performance on the card in terms of making a leap forward and making a certain announcement. And what I love most about him is all that stuff he does, all the movement, all the herky-jerky, it's so strategized and it so totally disarms the opponent because it's so offensive. It's constantly in your face. There's a constant threat. Almost to the

point in that third round, I'm like, is he setting himself up to maybe get caught with something here? But it's sort of how he operates. That's where he's most dangerous and most comfortable. He certainly made the announcement, I'm ready for the elite, I'm ready for the title level. A little bit crowded, though, in this division. It's loaded. And not only is it loaded,

there's been an addition of some celebrity names. I mean, you saw Uriah Faber sitting next to Captain Cringe down there at ringside. You know, you got... By the way, is that gimmick the worst? It's the absolute worst. The fact, if you're an MMA media member and you have given any oxygen to that, you're a terrible person.

I want you to know that. If you've retweeted anything about the intergender champion, you're a sad, sad person. It makes Colby Covington look like the most PC crossover. Stop giving it. That's the last thing I'm going to say on this. Stop giving it oxygen. Okay, go ahead. I didn't even know you were talking

intergender I was just talking about his Captain Cringe fake wrestling it's all connected it's all the worst we have

we have Edgar dropping into this division we've got Faber we've got sort of named Dominic Cruz coming back

you've got sort of names that could be thrown into B-side situations that I wonder how many wins away is Sanhagen actually from a title shot

if the division was a little bit thinner, you'd be like, that's the type of win where you get catapulted. Sun Tzu had only lost to the elite. He was still kind of a destroyer in this division despite his age. Where do you think he actually fits in line, and is he the type of perfect guy that the UFC would sort of leapfrog

in an effort to rinse out what's left of names like Faber. I don't know. We're going to have to see where they put him. The matchmaking is going to be interesting. Do they give him a legend to boost him? Do they give him an Edgar, for example?

Or are they going to try and find a way to give Edgar a title shot? Are they going to do a bantamweight fight between Edgar and Faber? Because I know they fought at 145 last night. There's a lot of weird... The question is, what does the UFC have planned for him? And that's hard to know. The other strong performer, I would say, Sadiq Youssef from Washington, D.C. Dude, I called one of his amateur fights years ago.

And I remember, dude, he blew through the sky like a tornado through Kansas. It was just a wrecking... You didn't ask me who I thought had the best performance. I was assuming you were going to say that. Anyway, Sadiq Youssef, also a strong performer. What else? Derek Brunson, man.

I mean, he came out there in a fight that we all assumed he was going to lose. We wanted to find out how good Ian Hynes was. Hynes said all the right things coming in. And what did Derek Brunson do? He did a performance that's so opposite of Derek Brunson. You remember the Whitaker fight? You remember he showed up with that jar, basically, that was like, this is the amount of energy and balls that I have ready for this fight.

And he poured it over Whitaker's head at the start of that. It was just like an absolute war, and he ended up getting stopped. And it's just sort of like, bro, take a step back. His full evolution, and I know you heard Dominic Cruz talking about him finally getting a full-time coach at like the age of 34, like finally sort of trying to figure this sport out. I like how calm. I like how poised it was.

I like how strategic it was. He basically just wore Heinish out. He did everything but enter the cage with a shaved head I mean he's kind of got that ring going up there now I might want to fix that outside of that that was a spectacular performance It's spectacular from the standpoint of just doing the right things over and over again And also he Heinish came out of there like a bat out of hell He kicked him in the head and everything and he gained his composure

And then once he took away what Hynash was trying to do, Hynash never had really another gear except he was moving forward and he was trying to be in his face but he didn't have really an attack that he could go to. So just a great veteran. Derrick Brunson would have taken that bait. He would have gotten kicked in the head and you would have been like, okay it's on. Absolutely right. It was a veteran move. It's a smarter Derrick Brunson I think. He's always been physically pretty capable. This was a nice adjustment by him. Alright, we're going to go to the

questions. Yes, in the back? I believe that's right. Time now for, I think we call it DMs with donks. Look at this. How great is that? Look at that. I love that. The DMs from the donks. Have you seen Laura Sanko's DMs? She doesn't show it to me.

What are you talking about? No, she puts them on Twitter. Oh, no, no. Oh, bro. It's bad. I wouldn't even call it sexual harassment. That seems like a dignifying thing that it is. You should check that out. I hope I don't have to. Keep going.

All right. In any event, we have taken your questions, and we shall go to them first. Let's pull this up. This is from Riggins32. John Riggins, a great player for the Washington Redskins. Great drinker, too. Do you think DC having so many connections and friends in the media, commentators, etc., led to almost all the predictions being for him and Stipe's aversion to putting himself out there

led to people underestimating his chances? People love underestimating Stipe. You've got to understand that. Well, he's not a very effective lobbyist on his behalf. Seems like everyone loves and was rooting for D.C., but Stipe was weirdly written off for such an accomplished and dangerous heavyweight. I feel like you should handle this, because you kind of nailed this on your spinoff show,

Java for Jerks, there with Schaub, where you basically said D.C.'s the best politician for himself. Yeah, well, also, okay, so here's what I would say. Generally, if you have two fighters, one is very media-friendly and one is not. Let's say they're relatively commensurate in ability. Yeah, there's going to be a bias there. The media is absolutely going to do that. And it's one of the problems with having, you know, you can hear Dominic Cruz.

I don't blame him. He's his friend out there fighting. When Stipe is knuckling him to the canvas you hear him say oh no You know because that's what he's a human being like he's reacting to somebody he cares about Getting hurt and so you're gonna get these kinds of reactions, so I would say generally It's true the only problem with it in the DC and Stipe cases they fought before and DC smoked him and That there I mean that I think was a big, big, and was a champion,

and had never lost to that weight class. So is it possible that that's a thing that happens in other cases? No doubt about it. In this one, a little bit less so. I think what was overlooked by the media coming in was how much success Stipe actually had in the first round of their first fight.

And it was sort of like, oh, DC knocked him out, we're going to go that way. I mean, DC was actually the only one ahead of the fight who was saying, no, this fight could go the distance. I'm thinner for a reason in this fight. We could see where this is happening. And then, of course. I think the Stipe was winning the fight early in the first round narrative of the first fight is very overstated.

I wouldn't say winning. I was saying landing bombs. I'm saying having big success. I'm saying giving DC something to think about. A little bit. A little bit. It's overstated. I was sitting six feet away.

I was stating it just fine. I've watched it like 50 bit. It's overstated. I was sitting six feet away. I was stating it just fine. You've watched it like 50 times. It's overstated. It's not that I'm not telling you what you're saying is false. But it's overstated. It's overstated. Alright. This comes to us from ThisIs Pot You or Potu.

Rob, ask me the Patrice O'Neil bit of Tolu. How smart is Nate Diaz to book the Pettis fight on his own, then, sequential, start setting up a fight with Masvidal? I'm going to grade this grammar, boy. Don't think I'm not. We saw this Nate when he originally called out McGregor, but with the UFC forced to acknowledge his drawing power,

he has a better chance of getting what he's looking for. I think Nate will be reinvigorated with an added feeling of control with his career versus waiting for the UFC to call and offer fights he doesn't want. What do you think? He's still not the matchmaker in the end, right? So it's going to come down to how much Dana White's

willing to play ball, but he's certainly getting ahead of the game and being his own advocate in between booking the Pettis fight, which this is pot you just said, and starting and creating his own narrative. Now, after this win, it's pretty damn smart. This is how you do it.

If UFC is willing to play ball with you, this is how you do it. This is boxing. This is what an a side in boxing does. Yes. They might get pressured into mandatory defenses, or there could be enough market pressure to say, we want to see X versus Y.

But a lot of times, Brian, it's real or false. A-side looks around and says, all right, who is coming up that I could get a good fight with, that would sell, that will boost my resume, I've got a good chance of beating, a little bit safe of a choice, but one I can still get the public to buy. This is boxing A-side 101, right? That pretty much is, you know.

Want to know the rest? Hey, buy the rights, right? All right, let's move to Jamal underscore Martin 2004. I wonder what happened in 2004 that he made his name that. He may have been born. You never know here.

He's 15? He's got a beard. I don't have access to his headshot. I'm looking at it. Kane, Luke, now DC are witnessing the fall of AKA's golden era of fighters champions. And how does this factor in for Habib as the last big AKA name? Interesting. Due to fight in under a month.

I hadn't thought much about this. That is interesting, though, because you're right. For a time, man, you had Luke as the champ, Rockhold, of course. You had sort of going back and forth between Velasquez, I suppose, and DC, and then you had this one. I would say this, look, every camp is going to have a rise and fall in how many champs they have or if they have any champs at all. For one camp, and it's not a very big one by the way, for one camp to have a lightweight champ, two different heavyweight champs, and a middleweight champ, as well as a sort of sundry other good fighters. And by the

way, they had, you know, Thompson as a strike force champ and everything else. That tells you that they can do that in a replicable kind of way. They can recreate this. Now, how soon, how often, how easily, you know, there's going to be difficulty there. But to me, it's like, could there be a dip coming in their overall sort of stock? Yes. But this is a blue chip stock because they have shown an ability to do this across weight classes. And by the way, folks are going to say, well, Habib's not from Sacramento. Right.

You know this. You think Nick Saban only recruits from Tuscaloosa? You think he only goes around to like BFE Alabama? No, he's looking around, who are the best players in California? His quarterback is Hawaiian. Who are the best players in Florida? Who are the best players wherever? Who are the best players I can get?

And of course, it's a preference for the ones in Alabama as a means of a, as a consequence of being a state school. But you get the idea. Part of being a big, successful athletic program is recruitment. And they did exactly all of that. So, we'll see. Dip in the stock? Yes.

Still blue chip. By the way, shout out to Kane, unfortunately, on the loss of his mom. I don't know if you saw that Instagram post. It was very touching. And Kane, by the way, saying multiple times lately in the media that this pro wrestling thing is not ending. He's already scheduled for a few more shows for AAA when they come to the States coming up. Do you think he ever fights for the UFC heavyweight title again? I know he's still under contract with the UFC.

I know he's really enjoying this pro wrestling thing. I know the market for pro wrestling, I know you don't really want to talk about it, but it's blowing up right now. AEW's coming. WWE's got a lot of territories right now. There's a sucker born every minute. Because it's crazy that Kane lost to Ngannou because, let's say, Kane had outwrestled Ngannou.

We said this last week. Kane Stipe is the fight to sort of define this era in some ways. So it's interesting that Kane's now on the outside looking in. Also, we didn't mention it, not related to this question, but Max Holloway's post about Daniel Cormier. What a poignant message that was. If you've not seen it, please go to Max Holloway's Instagram page and have a gander.

And then please stay out of Laura Sanko's DMs. Please don't DM Laura Sanko things you'd like to do to her. Hashtag no stick pics. Because you're weird. Alright, this comes to us from Abu Sasha. Looking ahead, but why is no one talking

about how bad the UFC 242 card is? I think the card we just saw is way better. Is UFC testing what Habib can carry alone? I'll take this because UFC doesn't fill out foreign cards. Tell me the last foreign card, especially pay-per-views,

that they've loaded up. I mean, we're seeing a fight card in China this weekend that has a title fight on top and the bottom. Two weekends. Two weekends. 31st. Okay, and has the bottom. The rest of the card is the bottom. You know those first two fights that they had on Facebook back in the day? That's the rest of the card. It's actually, it's regional MMA with a UFC headlining. Exactly.

So that's what they do on their national cards. And when you have one fight that people are going to pay for, it's a very boxing move, right? To give you one big fight at the top. It almost doesn't matter after that. Good thing we have to watch all the prelims and report on them for our job. That's fun. Okay. If you and Brian Campbell

were on death row, what would be your last meal? Wow, I like the way this guy thinks, right? This is from A.E. Zaldaco. What would be my last meal? Jesus. That's not a hard question, Luke. What's your favorite meal?

You wouldn't go back to your favorite? I don't know if I have a favorite meal. Do we trust the prison to cook it, or can I order like... Oh, no. For death row, they'll get you whatever you want for death row. So I can like Uber Eats it? You can do whatever. You can fly in a family prison to cook it, or can I order like... Oh, no. For death row, they'll get you whatever you want for death row. So I can like Uber Eats it? You can do whatever. You can fly in a family member to cook it.

You can go all out here. Gosh. You go first while I ponder this one. Oh, the traditional Thanksgiving meal. I mean, come on. If you're going to die and you have one meal... Dude, Thanksgiving is the most overrated food, and that's the one you're... First of all...

Wait, wait, wait. Here's how I know what your mouth is a sewer. First of all, Thanksgiving is an American holiday. I know you grew up in Qatar, but Thanksgiving meal is the most diverse and crazy... Let me guess. You think that cranberry jelly is good? Oh, that's fantastic. But you've got to understand

that's a... You have the palate of a toddler. This is your problem. You have the palate of a toddler. That's one part of a meal that has like 50 elements. And when you add a new pie, Turkey is the most overrated. For us French Canadians, when you add in meat pie, that becomes the centerpiece. Turkey is the most overrated bird.

Well, the turkey's the actually... And I guarantee you like it dry and shit. No, first of all, I don't even really like turkey that much. I put it on my plate. Meat pie is the real center

of a true Thanksgiving dinner. But when you add all those And you take the can of like the cranberry and you just chuck it on there like a savage, don't you? It's an accessory. Like a barbarian.

It's like saying, how could you like... It's an accessory to the garbage can. Dude, it's there like a savage, don't you? It's an accessory. It's like saying, how could you like... It's an accessory to the garbage can. It's legitimately like saying, how could you watch UFC? That Face the Pain song is so bad. How could you watch UFC? I put it on mute. Exactly.

That cranberry takes up that much of my plate. But my whole point is Thanksgiving is the best holiday. You want to know why it's the best holiday? Because you're not worrying about gifts. Everybody comes home for it. It's a homecoming, so you can go out to your bar and have your you know thanksgiving eve super bowl whatever and it's the three f's bro okay football food and family that's all you need in life all right and if you don't play a backyard football game at your thing and if you don't go to your high

school's uh you know morning thanksgiving game then you didn't grow up the right way i guess i didn't grow up the right way then because i don't want to see anybody from high school. First of all. Second of all. Who were you in high school? Why are you so avoiding of going back to the past? Like, who hurt you? No, it's not about hurting. I wouldn't mind seeing my friends from high school.

But, like, dude, I grew up in, like, or I didn't grow up, but I went to high school the last two years, the school I graduated from. I grew up, I'll even say it, Marietta High School in Marietta, Georgia. It was, how do you explain this? Imagine a bunch of people from a zero place who think that that zero place is special, but they don't know it because they're zeros. It's like that. There's people who call themselves, like, I'm from old Marietta. You read at a fifth grade level. Why is that a thing?

Who cares? These are people who, look, here. Have you ever fried a turkey? No, I have not. What? You've never fried a turkey? You cares? These are people who, look, here. Have you ever fried a turkey? No, I have not. What? You've never fried a turkey? You're sitting here talking about Thanksgiving? If you've never had fried turkey, you don't know shit about turkey.

There's one way to eat turkey. Fry it or chuck it in the garbage. These morons who, I can't tell you how many homes I've been to. I'm going to go to so-and-so's Thanksgiving dinner. And they cook this bird to the point it's like this fucking drywall back here. Why would you eat this food? Because if you're going to talk about Thanksgiving dinner and lead with turkey, then you don't have good Thanksgiving dinner.

It's the centerpiece of the meal. It's a ceremonial centerpiece, like Santa Claus is the ceremonial centerpiece for people that don't celebrate the Christian side of Christmas. Then that's what it is. But the real thing is the fictions, bro. You put them together, they mish together, it becomes one big slot. Here's what we're going to do. We need to find a way to get together for Thanksgiving.

I'm going to show you how it's actually done. Can you show me how they do it in the Middle East? I would love to eat. I don't know from the Middle East, D-Bag. My dad's American. My brother and my sister opened and own a restaurant. They can cook. All right, invite me down for Thanksgiving.

Come down. I'll show you. You know what we don't eat? Fucking turkey. You got backyard football in those parts? Fucking yard birds that you're sitting there eating. You got touch football in the backyards in those parts? You and I can.

My family, they're haters on football. We'll play one on one. That's great. Alright, but we can toss it, you know what I'm saying? Did you play high school football or did you at least live in that? I played for a year but in the deep south. I don't care about that kind of stuff. Again, I'm from Old Marietta.

Please stay in Old Marietta while I go on and do things with my life. All right, odds and ends. Give me something that happened from over the weekend that a lot of folks did not see that kind of matters. Well, it was last week, and Twitter blew up on it, at least on the boxing side. Did you happen to see, Luke, Anthony Joshua gave a string of interviews on British TV, including sort of a sit-down on Sky Sports where he told the untold truth of what happened in his loss to Andrew Ruiz Jr.

And in these interviews, he gave it to a couple different outlets. It was the first time he really sat down at length and sort of debunked the myths about, did he come into that fight concussed and all that stuff. I respect him from the standpoint that he's coming clean. He's willing to sit down and address point by point what happened in these. But I think he gave too much. Some of these statements

are really itching at me. Him basically saying, Ruiz got lucky with one punch from the gods. Dude, lucky punch. You got dropped four times. So all that sportsman stuff was out the window? I only responded to the booing in round two. I didn't realize there was a fight in the crowd, and I was thinking about the

pressure on me from Wilder getting a big knockout the week before in the first round. So I came out thinking I had to fight. I'm like, no, dude, here's what you do in this spot. You come out, you take your L. You put over Ruiz to try to sell this rematch, and you don't tell people this stuff from inside your heart. You go back to the gym, and every single day you grind and come back.

The excuses that were seemingly coming out of his mouth, I would have beaten Ruiz nine out of ten times. This is just the one time. Well, yeah, dude, the one time happened. So I don't want to hear, AJ, that this was Ruiz's Super Bowl and I wasn't that fired up to face him, and I was just fine coming into the ring. You looked shell-shocked. You looked like you had deer in the headlights look.

There's a reason why after that fight your dad was attacking Eddie Hearn. Something happened in the build of the camp that wasn't right. It spilled over into fight night, and you lost. But take the L, bro. Take the damn L. Go back in that gym. Put on the Jurassic back. Come back ready to knock this fool out.

But don't be blaming Lucky Punch from the gods, all right? Like, you know, we're kind of teetering here. You get a second loss here. This is big. Let's go back and work on this. No more excuses. I'll go two things. One, you were right. I was wrong. I thought there'd be

no way on earth the UFC would ever give Jermaine Durand to me another title shot, even with narrow options. I don't see where else you're going to stand on. Who else is going to get it? They just cut Kat Zingano. I understand. It wasn't that I thought that, well, you have tons of great options. I just thought it was so nuclear that it

just wouldn't even say yes. But you're right. UFC 245, I don't know if it's going to headline, but certainly that's going to be on the card. What city is that in? I don't even know. Jermaine Durand-Ami is going to take on Amanda Nunes for the second time, which is really interesting because Jermaine Durand-Ami can beat her. I don't know that she will, but she certainly has the possibility. So it's a decent fight. If she can make that a

point fight, that could get very interesting. She can avoid the ground. On the feet, Amanda Nunes was very wary of her the first time. Second one, how about this in Rizin? So the guy, do you follow GrubacaHitman on Twitter, Kaposa? Yes. I think I do. I know who you're speaking to if I don't. I will if I don't. He brought this up to me

because I didn't realize this. Apparently, Rizin's answer to the Diasboros are two guys, I think it's called the Asakura Brothers, who are like street fighters turned MMA fighters. Well, one of them flatlined Bellator, Bantamweight, and Ryzen Bantamweight champion, Kyoji Horiguchi. Look at this.

Non-title fight, though. Boy, he went to work on him. Look at, I mean, like there's no quarter here he's given. Pow. Most destructive Risen win since Floyd knocked out that 20-year-old kickboxer. Bro, this is, attention, Asakura, wish he got a death this sweet. Wow. Most destructive risen win since Floyd knocked out that 20-year-old kickboxer? Bro, this is, attention, Asakawa, wish he got a death this sweet. Wow. Look at this.

Nice shot from him in any event. Dude, that was the guy everyone was like, he beats Darian Caldwell. Oh, he's the man. He's better than Cejudo, blah, blah, blah. He might be. It could just be a fluke loss. Things happen. Who knows how well he trained. Blah, blah, blah. We'll see. But apparently

the Asakura brothers, again, I'm new to them, I admit, apparently they're not to be trifled with. And there was nothing about that loss that looked all that fluky to me. Now we'll see what happens. I guess he wants an immediate rematch, but he doesn't even remember losing in the fight. So bit of a stock hit. Less so for Bellator because I don't think a lot of folks are going to know this.

We're bringing it up, but interesting nonetheless. Do we even have rights to this? I don't even know if that just happens. Yeah, you put it on the TV. In any event, hell of an interesting development. So there we are. Okay, so here's the truth about this. I'm going to say it on the air because I don't know what the truth is.

I might have jury duty on Monday, next Monday. No, I'm serious. I only will know on Friday. I don't know if we're on next week. Can't you just tell them straight up you're a communist? You know what? That doesn't work as well as it used to. I've tried that before.

So we're going to see. If I have jury duty, we're off next week. If not, we'll be back. So I guess we'll find out. I'll just sit in front of this camera by myself and just spit hot takes. 90s karaoke, whatever you want. It's a two-man show. Your social media channels are what? At bcampbellcbs on Twitter.

At brianccampbell. Trying to kickstart that Instagram thing there. So follow me for the laughs, the pics, all that stuff. If you want Brian Campbell, you can get that on Instagram. I'm at LukeThomasNews on Instagram and then just LThomasNews on Twitter. Take that L, yes. Take the L, yes. That should be the name of the podcast.

Take the L. Alright, we appreciate you guys tuning in. Hope you enjoyed 241 as much as we did. See what happens about next week. As appreciate you guys tuning in. I hope you enjoyed 241 as much as we did. See what happens about next week. As always, like the video, subscribe, and hey, share it around. Folks have asked, by

the way, when's the show going to be on podcast? It already is. You can go and get it on all your various platforms. Some folks have

also asked, is that Daniel Cormier or John Jones or a morphation of both back there? It's actually like, I think it's almost like a Rashad Evans.

If you actually really look at it kind of closely, he did that as well. It kind of looks like DC's beard. They're telling me in the ear that it's John Jones. I'm like, I don't really look at it kind of closely. People are going to look at that. It kind of looks like DC's beard. Okay, they're telling me in the air that it's John Jones. I'm like, I don't buy that.

I don't know. I mean, that's got to be Gervonta above him. A lot of people wondering who are these people behind him. It's Gervonta with crabs or something. Who's this dude over here behind you? Is that Deontay Wilder or is that Southpaw? That's Wilder and that's Nunes. I can't figure it out.

That's Wilder and Nunes. Ishe Smith, bare knuckle boxer for Ken Shamrock. All right, we've got to get out of here. Appreciate you guys watching. Until next time time may all of your gains be loyal We'll be right back. Outro Music