MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 248 Recap, Adesanya vs. Romero, Zhang vs Jedrzejczyk | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 33

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

On episode 33 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian break down everything that happened at UFC 248. They talk Adesanya vs. Romero and if the lack of excitement hurt Adesanya's superstar standing. The boys also discuss the absolute battle between Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk in what might have been the greatest women's UFC fight ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It is the 9th of March 2020 and it is time, Donk, for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm joined with Brian Campbell. We are the hosts of these programs. Of course, he's also, by the way, from CBS Sports. We are here to bring you the best in combat sports talk each and every Monday. We've got a lot to get to today. Let's see, UFC 248, a big heavyweight upset in boxing. We'll look ahead to UFC Brasilia, and my man is fresh off the bird from Vegas.

How was it, dear Brian Cameron? It was great. It was a fun fight week, and obviously the fight night delivered a lot of good and bad, a lot of craziness, a lot of stuff to talk about, which we're going to get into on the show today. That is two Vegas trips in three weeks, so your boy's about to break down.

Also, I noticed this. I would like to say jealous, but it wouldn't do me any good, but it's just a jealous for a status thing. Brian Campbell, I don't know if you all have noticed this. In an orchestra, who sits closest to the conductor? The first chair players, right? He has media first chair. If you look at the media rows, hold on, let me finish.

If you look at media rows, the UFC puts what they consider to be their most coveted reporters closest to the cage. Brian Campbell, first, that's your new name, first row Brian Campbell. More on that to come. No, it's good, dude. But, you know, it's a crack, and we're back, and we're standing on the rooftop shouting out that, yeah, baby, we're ready to go, but that nobody does this show, Luke. This is unique. This is the only place that you can come correct on a Monday morning and get your combat fix. Welcome to Orchids of Combat. We're ready. And by the way, before we get started, how do you like your endings? Good. Happy. Let's get to this first, though. Please do me a solid.

Don't touch me. Please do me a solid and give the video a thumbs up. And more importantly, subscribe to the channel. Hit that notification bell. The more you subscribe, the more that's possible. I know we say that a lot, Brian Campbell. We had a meeting today. Trust me when I tell you, you're going to want to subscribe. The more you do that, the more that becomes possible. The baby is growing inside the womb, right? I mean, if you want to see the head, get behind where we're going, right? I like how you made a crowning joke. Okay. No, that's for the...

Well, crown of the head is where it comes from. You're just so deeply disturbed that you think it's a poop joke. Hey, you're going to tell the people about our nice photo shoot this morning? We had a photo shoot this morning. Brian and I had to go tip to tip. It was fucking weird.

We were allowed to pick our own music. I put on like... What did you pick? I picked on some like 90s, like, you know, fashion types, run out things to get me in the mood, right? Like Vogue and shit. You put on Portion Rock. I put on In the Trenches by Dying Fetus and then Cold, Dark, and Empty by Vinny Paz.

So there you go. All right. Ready to get started? I'm ready to go. Let's do it, Brian Campbell. First up. Okay. Well, the UFC 248 main event and the entire event, of course,

is in the books. The main event, lackluster, but the results are as follows, as most people know. Israel Adesanya retains his UFC middleweight title, defeating Yoel Romero by unanimous decision. But Brian Campbell, the controversy coming out of Saturday was that if Adesanya is the winner, of course he was, fine. There's some people thinking that Romero should have won. I don't really think there's much of a case for that. But what everyone's really talking about is how boring it was, how lackluster it was, how it did not live up to expectations. Now, I did a whole thing on this for Morning Combat Dissected,

so I will give the baton to you, sir. Oh, hey, look at this. Kick things off for us. I have co-host credits on my contract. This is great. If the question is, who is to blame for the boring nature of the fight, what would you say? The blame is split here. It's more in Romero. It's just not 100% Romero like Dana White and everybody else is framing it.

They blew it collectively, right? They could have given us this, what I thought on paper was this like potential fight of the year, this all-action thing. Romero, 42 years old, his last chance, his fourth and final chance at a piece of that middleweight title. You would have thought and you would have hoped that he was going to come out and press the issue and we were going to have fun. I'll take an L on this.

I didn't think it through enough to realize two counterpunchers, what happens if one of them refuses or both of them refuse to take the lead? That's largely what happened. Adesanya deserves to win this fight because he actually made a championship adjustment in round three and four and figured out a way that's basically like, look, Romero, you're going to fight like an a-hole. I'm going to figure out how to win this fight

with the least amount of exertion and not put myself in danger. In some ways, that's a praise to him because that actually shows his well-rounded greatness. Why would he go into such ridiculous dangers when Romero who was just setting a trap basically blowing the fight to set this trap from that point I say that was smart but at the same time they're both to blame I'm not saying Adesanya had to rush and be reckless but it was pretty clear from the beginning that Romero was going to try to do this in an alternate way, right?

We thought that, I mean, there's ways to gamble. One way would have been to run in there and rush at him. He decided the alternate way. He decided he was going to set up traps and just play that game and play his sweet music. And I think through two rounds, I thought he was painting a masterpiece. It was the same equivalent how you can do in other sports, Luke. It may not be the most entertaining, but in basketball, you can hold the ball for the entire shot clock in college basketball on the corner of the floor and then shoot it with one second to go, and it can limit

the possessions. I think that's ultimately what he was trying to do. He succeeded. He disarmed Adesanya. Again, Adesanya made the right adjustments to be able to win rounds three and four, but I scored that three rounds to two for Romero. There were many journalists that scored it for Romero that I saw. Donks. That doesn't mean that he should have won. That doesn't mean that he has an argument to win, but he took a backdoor chance at doing something that you can't do, unfortunately, in MMA, which is something we've seen consistently

from Cuban boxers on the highest level in boxing. Erislandy Lara versus Canelo, where you're like, he painted. He backed up the entire like, he painted a masterpiece of slickness and defensive and counterpunching, but he did not do enough to sway the judges in the end. He did enough to have an argument, but he did not do enough. The problem is, in boxing, you can get credit for defense and ring generalship. In MMA, it's pretty much damage.

So Romero came out here with the idea, I'm going to bring out the finest wine and the high-level IPAs, but ultimately in MMA, the judges drink canned beer, and that's what the rule set is, so you can't win doing that style. I thought he won. I thought he gave himself a chance, but he deserves the most level of criticism because this was his last shot. This was what he said was a gift from God to get this fight coming off of two defeats. This was his last chance from a guy who had gone three times to the scorecards in his

biggest fights and got the wrong end of the deal. And he was going to set up to leave himself in that spot one more time. He deserves the fail for not getting it, but he did succeed. And you got to say this, he succeeded in disarming, maybe the greatest striker in UFC. And because Adesanya ultimately took the chance of saying, okay, I'm going to do just enough to survive in advance, he did take a big gamble, Luke. I'm saying, I scored it 3-2, rounds 3 and 4 in stone. Round 1 for Romero, I think in stone because he landed the only strike of note.

I thought Romero won round 5 when he pressed the action. I would not agree he won round 5. And round 2 was certainly a swing round because Romero had that one flurry of three punches in the corner, and that's, again, really the only thing that happened. So while it's rare to give rounds to people for landing one strike or two strikes, I think Adesanya took the same gamble that Jon Jones did against Thiago Santos, where it's like, all right, we'll go to the cards, we'll see what happens.

Yeah. I mean, the argument that I make in Morning Combat Dissected is, one, provide it with visual evidence, so I don't want to overly repeat things. Let me pick up on one comment you had made. This could be Adesanya's last chance. And certainly if you listen to Dana White at the Post Fight Press Conference, he seemed to give a lot of oxygen to that idea. Still, I would pump the brakes on that one. Yes, if Romero goes on a losing streak, well, then this might have been his last chance.

But let's say he keeps winning, because, by the way, he was very close in this fight, I think we can all agree, and he was close in the Paul Acosta fight, he was close in both, but especially the second Whitaker fight, he's still obviously very competitive. If he keeps winning, do I think he'll never get another title shot? I don't really buy that. Well, they would never go out of their way to do it. Like, look, he didn't deserve this title shot, but they went out of their way for... But the idea that he's now barred from title shots, if he goes out there and keeps winning,

just seems a little ridiculous to me. But certainly he did himself no favors with the way he fought this one. To me, the blame, I won't say doesn't go to Adesanya, because you could say, look, if you're a fan and you show up for an entertainment product and you pay money, there's a bit of a bargain going on, which is, yeah, there's going to be a little bit of a blood and guts kind of atmosphere. I don't want

you to go crazy necessarily with it. If you do, that's even better, but something more than what we got. I can understand that sentiment. I don't think policing fan expectations in that way is the right answer. Not everybody's Chuck Liddell. Chuck Liddell would never have had that happen, but he showed his business prowess out of Sanya to basically say, it's more important for me to protect this belt and these millions, so I'm just going to get out of here with a win. You've got a choice to make if you're Israel Adesanya. You can fight Yoel Romero and maybe win either way, but you can fight him like Robert Whitaker did, where you can take potentially lasting career-altering damage, and you can win, and you'll get plenty of applause. Or you can go

the other way, which is you're not going to get any applause, but you're going to come out of that completely unscathed. Let me finish. And you get to retain your belt. And he made a choice to go the other way. Now, you had mentioned something that I really disagree with. Yeah, what do you got, Luke? The scoring is, again, these rounds are all kind of close. It's fine, whatever.

I don't really care that much. The four rounds to one for Adesanya was a little bit unusual, but okay, still. The way I would say is you called Adesanya a counterpuncher. I don't really think that's very fair. He can do some of that. In fact, he can do a lot of it. But if I make anything clear with Morning Combat Dissected,

there were multiple times he was—multiple times. Dozens. He is trying to initiate offense. And what happens over and over again— and this is why Romero deserves most of the blame if you ask me, multiple times you see Adesanya trying to find an opening, trying to find an opening, trying to find an opening. And by that, I don't just mean fainting. I mean throwing, throwing, throwing. All different kinds of looks, all different kinds of attacks,

all different positions in the cage to get different responses from Romero. And credit to Romero, he's got incredible vision. He wasn't biting on any of the feints. His defense was out of control. It was out of control. Good. No one had ever looked at Adesanya's strikes and blocked and gotten out of the way of them like Romero had. That is incredible. But the problem is you devote so much time to that. You don't have any ability to trap Romero. You didn't shoot until what? The fourth round, third or fourth round? You only shot three different times. And shot at Adesanya's takedown defense.

Which was very good. And you could say, well, he's got good cardio, he can't shoot. That sounds like a Yoel Romero problem, not an Adesanya problem. And so my point being is this, it's not really fair to call Adesanya a counterstriker. He had to get up into a point. Oh, he's a counterstriker. He can be, yes. That is not predominantly who he was, and that's not what he was doing in this fight. He was looking to lead. He could not get a response from Romero. And so as a consequence, he had to go to the leg kicks.

While you're right on that, and I do encourage people to check out Morning Combat Dissected. Certainly not enough Campbell on that show, but you did point out some great things about what he was doing. But you can't bet that the judges will get that. That's my point on this. What do you mean? That the judges will see that. Oh, he's initiating. Now, look, in rounds three and four. I think it's the leg kicks that won it for him, right? He basically said, the only thing I can land here is leg kicks and jabs from the outside. So I'm just going to keep doing that. And if Romero is not going to come forward, that's going to be what we're going. But there's a gamble in that Luke. I said, not everybody's Chuck Liddell.

You're making a different case. We're not asking what do you need to do to be convincing to the judges? We're asking who do you blame for the fight being lackluster. Two different considerations, two different things you're measuring. More blame to Yoel, but I do believe you have to give Adesanya some blame. And not just for the lack of entertainment, but for the fact that he basically took the... Don't worry about it, guys. Just keep unloading stuff back there. By all means, make as much noise as possible.

We'll keep doing the show back over here. But he took a gamble, and I think he took this gamble, Adesanya, of not going for it because he got disciplined in round one on that looping left hand, the one that hit him in the eye. I think he realized in that spot. He lands that left multiple times through the course of the fight. Not as powerful. Yeah, because Adesanya didn't play with range. Well, here's the flip side of it.

Adesanya was blinking his eyes, covering it up. It was obviously that he was hurt. He got hit with a big shot. It didn't even swell, dude. The fact that Romero didn't rush in and try to take advantage of that is why he has no defense here with the scorecards. But what I want to fight back against is that... Here's what I want to fight back.

I got two things. Here's the question. You can clearly look at what Romero was doing, and you can say, what more could he have done? Wow, a lot, dude. A lot more times he could have thrown. A lot more takedown attempts he could have done. A lot more about cornering.

Look at the tape and show me what Adesanya could have done aside from just walking in there with his hands down. Because I honestly don't know what the answer is. I'm not saying Romero put him in a good spot. Romero put him in a very difficult spot, where it's like, if you're going to land anything against me, you're going to have to take a big chance because I'm a coiled cobra who's not going to take the lead at all. But it worked, which is why I'm saying that even though Romero

deserves the blame for honestly for being dumb, I'm going to say it right out. And I love you. Boy, I'll see you soon. I love you. But that was, to have gone down that road three times previously and to go back a fourth, that's just not smart, knowing how the fights are scored. But he disciplined him, Luke. So anyone that's coming out after watching that fight and just goes, oh, it's 100% Romero. What an idiot. He had no game

plan. No. He had a very, very detailed and smart game plan. Romero? It was obviously lacking the offense that would give him a benefit of the doubt at the scorecards. But he had a game plan, which was to take away

what Israel Adesanya does best, which is when you rush him, counter him. So he did not rush at all. He showed incredible defense, and he was ready to counter big if he frustrated Adesanya to the point where he was going to

take some chances to entertain or take some chances out of fear that he could lose his belt on a wonky decision. This is not a new Romero. It's a better version in terms of the things he's already been doing. As I mentioned, his vision and his defense was great. But go back and look at the Luke Rockhold fight. He loves to fight this kind of way where he just waits and doesn't corner. But my point on that is anyone that thinks he was doing nothing out there,

he had a game plan and he came close. Dude, what good is your game plan? What good is your, like, against Luke Rockhold, you can afford to have that kind of a game plan, which was, I'm going to sort of wait and absorb, see what they give me. But Luke Rockhold doesn't have the fainting, doesn't have the movement, doesn't have the distance control, and doesn't have the weaponry of Adesanya. So he's like, I never got a chance to throw.

Yeah, dude, because Adesanya didn't put himself in a position to get cracked very often. He was always kind of being very careful about what he was throwing. The idea of, I'm going to be just defensive, defensive, defensive, defensive, and then go into offense, that's a fine way to do it, provided you go into the offense. He didn't do enough. I get that. But anyone that's going to look at it and be like, oh, he blew it. He didn't try. What is he doing? He's stupid.

No, he had a full game plan in his head. I don't think it was stupid. That would be unfair. Again, his vision and his ability to block what Adesanya was doing, dude, he was constantly blocking his jabs, constantly blocking his team to the guts. What was stupid was not understanding the moment. That was stupid. And what was just ill-advised was to borrow soccer terms, to park the bus,

to borrow football terms, to just the bus, to borrow football terms, to just play prevent defense. You can do that for parts of a round. I think it's absolutely smart to do that. You can't adopt that as a general posture. And he also has to reconcile, one last point on this, he has to reconcile something. There were times when he had Adesanya backed up, literally walking backwards and then his back against the fence. And he does not have the skills or the energy in terms of what he could do with his back against the fence. And he does not have the skills or the energy, in terms of what he could do with his wrestling, to contain him. That is not Adesanya's fault, and that is not Adesanya's problem.

It's a Romero problem. He did put Adesanya in a spot where he had to make a tough decision, and that tough decision was win with criticism or risk it all to try to get Romero out of there. Adesanya chose the latter. There's an argument in there that that's smart, that that's being a businessman. But I'm going to say it again.

Romero succeeded in what he was trying to do, Luke. It wouldn't have been the game plan I would have picked for him, but he came close to scoring a wonky decision there by just holding the ball, by just taking Adesanya's best offense away from him, Luke. He succeeded in that. Okay, just to be clear, he made, this is Adesanya, he made his UFC debut in February of 2018.

Rob Wilkinson, performance of the night, he got a TKO there. Two fights later against Brad Tavares, performance of the night, he, of course, won that. Next one, performance of the night, Derek Brunson. Anderson Silva, fight of the night. Kelvin Gastelum, do I need to say anything? Fight of the year contender, and, of course, fight of the night. Then he beats Robert Whitaker, performance of the night.

We have, let's see, seven fights, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times. Nine times, excuse me. All but two of those, he has won a performance of the night. So you backed up my point. No, this idea that every time he needs to go out there and just dazzle everyone, the reason why he can knock out the Robert Whitakers, the reason why he can do the things against Kelvin Gastelum, is the same reason against Silva and Romero,

crafty people who sit back in the cut and wait. It's the same Adesanya. It's the stimuli he's being given there. And if they don't want to engage and he's trying to open you up, knocking on the turtle shell to get the turtle to walk, if they don't want to walk, that's trying to open you up knocking on the turtle shell to get the turtle to walk if they don't want to walk that's not his problem so just going to point out some facts for you brian yeah you backed up my point there i mean romero was the only one who succeeded in completely disarming him now again to his discredit he didn't do enough offensively fifth round you got to give him a wide disparity did put his foot down on the gas pedal i thought

he won round five on my scorecard that was was just enough in a bad fight. But he kind of succeeded at making this an ugly bad fight and he almost tricked Adesanya into losing a decision. You have to agree with that. I will definitely agree with the defensive part. Romero's defensive work here was brilliant. Truly brilliant. The problem was, that's all there was. Now...

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Terms and conditions apply. There's a question about where we go in topic two with Israel Adesanya. We talked about Romero. Will he ever get another title shot again? Doesn't look likely. Certainly not anytime soon. I would never write it off. But now the question becomes, okay, Adesanya keeps his belt. As we indicated, look at the record of achievement he's had. It's been great, Brian Campbell. We'll go to you again on this one, which is to say, to what extent, if any, and be honest here, that's what we do on this show, does this win for Adesanya hurt his stock? It's only a short-term stock herder on the idea that this guy, and this is a narrative that I played up on the way in, that this fight gives him the opportunity by picking

such a badass opponent, going out of his way to fight him when he doesn't have to, where if Adesanya was able to knock this guy out, Luke, he could have got on the rocket ship to superstardom. And I agree with that. This was his close-up, headlining his first pay-per-view in America, to be like, oh, that's the next big guy? I should probably tune in this Saturday and check it out.

You lose that in the temporary. You win that back with another badass fight, and look, Paulo Costa's going to come for that ass and honestly he's probably going to knock him out to be honest with you, and it's going to probably be spectacular and be a great fight and be hellacious and then we'll go again, oh that guy's so great there's a lot of Anderson Silva

comparisons in there, I mean yeah we hated Anderson Silva to a degree after like the Damian Maia fight those type of fights where you're just you know, but it's when a guy's coming for We, we. Those type of fights where you're just, you know. But when a guy's coming for you, it's going to bring out the best in him. In the end, we will look back at this as a Israel Adesanya survive in advance, smart move against a person, Romero, who gave him no other strategy but to do what he did.

So we mentioned Anderson Silva. Let's go back to that. He goes to the UFC. He does what he does against Chris Lieben. And that was just a marvelous performance. And, of course, Joe Rogan was like, this is a different kind of striker. Then he beats Rich Franklin, grabs the middleweight title, gets knockout of the night at the time. He fights Travis Luter. Luter takes him down and mounts him, but Anderson Silva finds a way to come back and of course, win that one as well. Then he beats Nate Marquardt. Then he fights

Rich Franklin again. Then he fights Dan Henderson, who came over from Pride. Legendary run he went on there. And then, of course, he knocked out James Irvin very quickly, up a weight class, but that was kind of expected. They were counter-programming Strikeforce, right? That's right. That's exactly what they were doing. Now he goes on the really interesting part of his career. He fights Patrick Cote, and he wins by knee injury.

But folks may not remember that. Cote was kind of seen as overmatched, and he lost via injury. But up until the injury, it was not a good fight. Then he beats Talos Laitis at UFC 97, and that fight sucked. In fact, if you go back and look at it, Dana White buried Anderson Silva for that. Now he rebounds at UFC 101 against Forrest Griffin. Oh my God, all-time high. I mean, just brilliant matchmaking. You couldn't believe it. And then goes and ruins it again at UFC 112 against Demi and Maya, where we're talking all-time low of his stock.

Yeah, but the outrage was doubled because the Middle Eastern fellas had just bought a portion of the UFC, right? Right, Flash Entertainment. So UFC going out there was to be like, look at what you bought. Here's what you got. Oh, no, it's a pile of crap. And the BJ Penn upset happened on that card as well. And then you follow that up with two more fights,

the Chael Sonnen fight at UFC 117, where he got beat up and had this incredible, iconic comeback at the very last minute. And then, lastly, UFC 126, he front kicks Vitor Belfort. This fight was the biggest fight in Brazil, I think, ever. Dana claimed late Saturday that it was the Belfort fight that finally made him a star. Right, so I'm told that that was the one in Brazil

that really launched him into Superstorm, that that was the one where folks were like, because Vitor Belfort fight that finally made him a star. Right, so I'm told that that was the one in Brazil that really launched him into Superstorm, that that was the one where folks were like, because Vitor Belfort had been on the Brazilian version of Big Brother at that point, and he was married to, I think, a Playboy playmate, and so he had a certain pop culture visibility, and then when Anderson, who I don't think was expected to beat him by casual observers, did.

Really? Yeah, I think my understanding was that the casual fans of Brazil kind of had a really high opinion of Vitor and just didn't really understand. If only Andy could have got the 2013 Mohawk TRT version of Vitor, that could have been some drama. Would have been interesting.

Nevertheless, my point being is in going through that, he had this incredible rise and these amazing performances, and then the stock really dipped. All to point out, in the middle of a stock drop, it skyrocketed again against Forrest Griffin, and then he had these two iconic performances. What are we waiting on here with Adesanya and, as you pointed out, Costa?

Not just a difficult challenge, I think we can all agree, or even a more stylistic interesting matchup, but we have bad blood, we have heated rival, we have expected animosity. It'll repair everything. If he goes in there, and if he loses, of course, all bets are off. But let's say he wins, his stock will be at an all-time high if

he wins in the traditional way that he's come to win. And if you're looking big picture, then he can win, potentially stay busy once it gets to Cannoneer or Attil, who will talk some trash, and then you're getting ready for the Jon Jones fight. That's exactly right. So did he take a hit on Saturday? Even if you believe he shouldn't have or you believe he did, he probably did to a degree. I don't think there's any way you can argue otherwise. However, the idea that it's lasting, the idea that it's especially damaging, the idea that it's irreparable harm is just totally overplayed. It was a fight that wasn't very entertaining, provided his next one is against the kind of rival that will do just the

right thing to move you up the ladder, all of this goes away. Although I will say this one more time. To the extent that Adesanya, between Silva and Romero here, as I pointed out in Morning Combat Dissected, those are the two fights where Adesanya did the highest portion of targeting of an opponent with leg kicks. To me, if he has another opponent who's very reserved offensively, you're going to get more of this.

This is not going to be the last time, but it looks like Paulo Costa, Brian, from every indication, is the opposite of that. I was sitting front row media cage side. What was he wearing on his lips? Was there anything to that? I don't know anything like that. Or they just like really red?

He jumped the barrier, but he didn't jump the barrier because of Adesanya. So here's what happened. After the fight, Romero thought he won. He had his arms up in the air the barrier because of Adesanya. So here's what happened. After the fight, Romero thought he won. He had his arms up in the air. He got in Adesanya's face. Romero tried to leave the cage to attack Costa to basically be like, I won the championship.

We're going to rematch next. Security had to hold him back. That's when Costa jumped the barrier, and security got him and pushed him to the back. It wasn't for Adesanya like Adesanya was trying to frame it afterwards. I was watching it in real time. He made the throwing feces joke, I was like. Also, I don't know if everybody caught when Ioana was in the prep pit area. That's when Brian Ortega got dragged out by security.

Oh, I did not know that. Because he got slapped. The K-pop guy? Yes. When I looked to see who was there, I saw Logan Paul. I'm like, oh, I hope he slapped Logan Paul. That'd be great. I'd pay for that on DAZN. Get to it, DAZN. Tap Halle Berry and then he slapped Logan Paul. That'd be great. I'd pay for that on DAZN. Get to it, DAZN. Tap Halle Berry and then tap

out a YouTuber. That'd be great, right? Hey, are we just going to not act like we have these fantastic mugs here? We'll do it in a minute. Let's get to the thing before Jay loses his mind back there. We are talking about the main event a lot, but really there's a big case to make that we should be mostly talking about the co-main event. Zhang Wai Li defeats

Ioanni and Jay Cech to retain her UFC strawweight title in what can only be considered, I think, Brian Campbell, the best women's fight in MMA history. I don't think it's the best strawweight fight, although it might be that. It might be the best UFC women's title fight. It might be that, too. Frankly, I think it's on the short list of best title fights, independent of gender.

It, to me, is the best women's fight in MMA history. I wonder if you feel the same way. I'd like to go first on this one. I was talking to famous internet personality, Gribaca Hitman, Capoza on Twitter, and he was compiling a list of all the best female fights. That's funny you say that, because last night I watched what I consider to be the best three female fights, bang, bang, bang, just to make sure I wasn't recency biased. Fair enough. And he made a list on there and you can look at them. It's a lot of Misha Tate, Julie Kedzie. Misha Tate, Holly Holm is another one. You can go down and look at the list. There are great fights on there. Here is the thing I think folks need to accept about this. I don't think that there's even a close second to this one. And I'll

tell you why. Number one, the strawweight division, we already knew it was good. Show me any other champion in any other women's weight class, and then match them up with any top contender, and tell me you're going to get that out of there. It's not possible. I called it a perfect storm because, Luke, it's rare enough. Hold on, let me finish. Well, you said I was going to go first, and then you- You went first on literally the first two questions. Yeah, but you teed me up. You do this thing where you're like,

I'm going to let you go first after this eight-minute breakdown. I don't give you an eight-minute breakdown. I give it an eight-second breakdown. Let me finish on this one. So the point being is you can't get that out of any other weight class. I just don't think it's possible. But more to the point, I went back and I watched... I don't know if it was considered... I would put it on the list of best female five-round

fights when Zoey LeFrasto beat Megumi Fujii in Bellator. No, no, it was a good five-round fight. Pull out the hardcore sword there. No, no, no. Megumi Fujii was the original hardcore greatest women's fighter of all time. Cyborg kind of took that from her.

You can say Nunes took it from Cyborg, whatever your view on that might be. But she was the original. She was Josh Barnett trained. And she was 20, I think, and 0, or 21 and 0 when she headed into that fight. And Zoila Frausto beat her. Now, the way she won was controversial. But here's the point. You go back and you look at that.

Dude, the technical level there of that fight is fine. It's admirable. And then you look at that one. Here's the point about women's MMA. A lot of people are like, it's not the same as men's. Well, of course it can't be, right? You don't get as many participants trying globally. It takes a long time to develop.

Well, dude, women's strawweight is here. It is on par or better than many men's divisions. I was that guy years ago standing on the corner with a sign saying, women's strawweight is the best division of all time. Please come forward. Here's my point on this one is, when you look at the list of those other fights, I don't think they match up to the technical mastery. They don't match up to the violent quotient. They don't match up to the heart quotient. They don't match up to the heart quotient. They don't match up to the drama quotient. And they can't, Brian Campbell, because they all happened in an era before the fight game on the women's side got as advanced as this.

Even more than that. And you're right. You made a great point. Skill level mixed with title, mixed with importance. It was a perfect storm. But I think the reason why the storm was so perfect is, oh my God, I can't even look at that, Luke, is tell me when you're going to find this level of determination in two people at the same time. And I say this with full respect. I'm not a fighter, Luke. All right? I'm a freaking lover, okay? But some of our fighters, some of our all-time great fighters

could not have been in a fight like that. There's been some champions who had multiple title defenses and were great and were dominant that aren't that type of dude on the inside that will fight life or death. Luke, I was six feet away from the cage during this. This was life or death. It was two people willing to base, like you said, two effing

savages. That's what you tweeted out. It was the most apt, perfect tweet. It was, Wei Lijang told me the day before the fight, this is life or death for me. And you hear that a lot. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you really want

to win it badly. No, these two came together. Former champion trying to regain glory after turning around her personal life and all that. And current champion

who might be a global superstar down the road who has the biggest country on her back and could be something. And they collided and neither were willing to take a step back.

The pace was insanity. The five-round pace was ridiculous. The toughness, the willingness to basically, Luke, alter their life in there. I mean, I know that you can make funny Star Trek memes for what Ioana's face became, but if you were sitting cage side, you were worried for her long-term health. I'm still actually upset that they allowed her to do the cage interview, then take pictures with fans outside

and basically do this big celebration. Get her to a damn hospital. That was almost all-time level damage. And by the way, Weili Zhang's face was falling apart from the second round on. The fact that Ioana took her, succeeded in taking her into deep waters,

and yet We Li Zhang found out that she actually has it on the inside and then you see the championship adjustments made when Ioana goes southpaw in round four and completely turns the fight in the other direction it is without question the greatest female fight of all time what were the other ones you said you had watched that you thought might be close contenders? The Holm Tate championship bout because of the emotion and swings of momentum. The non-title Claudia Gadelha-Jessica Andrade fight from a couple years ago is savage. Very good. Blood great.

I think Ioana rose two in Brooklyn at 223 because it was for a title, five rounds of technical brilliance. It got heated. It was back and forth. And then the other one is one a lot of people forget. From the tough season, Rocky Pennington against Jessamine Duke was three rounds of hell. And this is better than all of them.

I think the only debate here, Luke, is how high do you put it up in the ideal of greatest fight of all time? You mean irrespective of gender? Irrespective of gender. It's high. I mean, I think it's top five 100%. It's probably true. And I think it even is creeping into top three. I mean, I think it's top five, a hundred percent. Probably. And I think it even is creeping into top three.

And now look, you have to understand, people were telling me that watching it at home, it wasn't as brutal as I was trying to make it out. I don't know if you've experienced that dichotomy sometimes. Yes, that's true. It was insanely brutal in person. And there's some things when you're sitting that close that you can see that TV can't. The absorption of blows, the damage, all that. And the sound, the auditory sound.

Absolutely. I got invested into their stories. I had Dana on Friday in an interview tell me, you got to understand, this is going to be the fight of the night. This might be an all-time fight. I got so bought in on this. I was as giddy as Robert Downey Jr. I'd love to see what was in his bloodstream. So when you're that invested, you could be subject to getting too high afterwards and being caught in the moment. I'll live in this moment forever. This is a top three fight of all time. Tell me a fight that's better than this, Luke. Tell me. Lawler and McDonald too. I'll accept that. I think it's better than Jon Jones and Gustafson won. I think it's competitive. I have to go back and rewatch it.

That fight's going into the Hall of Fame. They announced it Saturday. That fight is one of those rare ones where it's never as good on rewatch. It was one of those because in the moment we didn't think it was going to be a challenge. It was so shocking. There are different fights that you can put on any point and you are right back there. Vasquez, Marquez. I don't think this will be a fight that we'll rewatch a lot, though, because of the brutality. Like, you don't rewatch Schindler's List, right? You're not going to watch that every six months.

I wouldn't compare this to the ritual murder of Jews, but nevertheless, here's one thing I will say. There's a term that, it comes from dogfighting, but it gets applied. You know, for example, Jorge Masvidal has used it for himself. It's called game bread. It's a slightly different term called gameness. And gameness is defined as pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. Boy, you want to talk about two ladies, two fighters who had unbelievable gameness

because was it the fourth or fifth round where already the, I mean, literally, let's be honest about it, Ioana got disfigured in this fight. And then on top of that, I think it was the fourth or fifth round, she caught a left hook, but she didn't catch it clean. It actually was a little bit out, and it shattered her nose and took it to the side. So she had a crooked nose, the swelling forehead, and they were still throwing down like animals. The pace was so high. They combined for an attempted almost 800 strikes between them overall.

I've never seen numbers like that. And just the leg kicks. The leg kicks. Both of their legs were just bright red the entire four years. Chael Sonnen makes a point about the brutality of five-round fights and whether we should allow them. The point is I think the toothpaste is out of the tube. There's no way to go back. We need them to decide these big contests.

But, dude, look at their pay. And it was like, what, $100,000, $200,000 for each of them? I mean, it should be. That's one of those where you throw a couple million behind the scenes. I really and truly hope that there's some kind of way to get them more money. And maybe there will be. Because that is criminal that they put out that kind of effort for that little amount of pay. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang was even tweeting about that.

Ioana has 14 UFC fights. Ten are championship bouts. Seven of them have gone the distance. And of those seven, she took heavy damage in winning in a lot of those. You remember the Kovalevich fight. You remember even the Andras fight, which was one-sided. She took some bombs late. Here's the deal, Luke. I think she should retire. And people think I'm crazy for that

because she just fought so great. She almost beat the new champion, like all that stuff. I thought she, by the way, I thought she won that fight. I thought it was 3-2 Zhang, but it was so, it was ridiculous. I don't think she can ever win a championship again. I think that this is the toughest division by far. The fact that she doesn't have elite-level power, she's been able to get around that for a long time by outgassing you, and now you saw in a fight, and look, it just may be where Wei Lishang

ends up being so special that this was just a great moment, but her superpower, if you go watch the Gadelha rematch, is I'll take all this punishment, but I will outlast you. When that becomes your calling card and you've taken five round damage for a long time, I think you just cut clean and you go. And I know people saying, that's crazy, she could beat all these people. But what

for? Unless it's for the money. Hey, cell phone's off. You got a real set of winners here today, huh? Can we turn your phones on again? How about you guys fix the AC? I am just dripping sweat right here. You guys just watch and laugh. One last point about that. I do think the Sun has... Retire or not retire, I do think the Sun has set

on her as a legitimate title contender, which is to say she'll beat good people. She always had, to your point, like, Cadelia was always physically stronger than her. Cadelia had even, you know, I would say more well-rounded in the sense she could strike a little bit, but also wrestle a lot. But now what you're you know, I would say more well-rounded in the sense she could strike a little bit but also wrestle a lot. But now what you're seeing is I do think she was,

Ioana, a little bit ahead from a technical mastery ahead of Zhang Weili but not by much. And then the physical differences for Zhang, now the gap has really

caught up and even surpassed her a little bit. Because there was a point at the end of the first round where Ioana was taking heavy damage with those big right hands. And I'm sure everyone at home

was saying what I was saying was like, if she keeps brawling with this heavier puncher, she's going to be in trouble. And the fact that she was able to turn that into a full-on brawl and survive, and, Luke, that's against the very best. Like, you're only going to go downhill from here. And for what? Again, I don't know her financial situation.

I'm just saying here's somebody who, when she was on top, was talking about getting out. I want to start a family. This 115 cut is so bad for my body. I like that she came in in such incredible shape, said she never made weight this easily. But I think it's the same spot where Paul Felder was in. Now, he didn't have the decorated background as her, but when he almost half retired before that last fight, the point was that I've gotten as far as I can go, and it's probably only downhill from here.

He's also got another gig set up. We have to move along very quickly. Robert Hellenius. Am I saying his name right? You are saying his name. Shocked, of course, the Barclays Center and the Polish Faithful. By the way, the Polish really show up at Prudential and Barclays. Oh, my God, man. We could just get more Polish boxing superstars. The crowd's just ridiculous.

It's unbelievable. Beating Adam Kownacki. Is that how you say it? Kownacki, yeah. Kownacki. Fourth round TKO stoppage in a title eliminator bout. Where are we going?

Are you on this solo cam with the menu? Jay is in my fucking ear just constantly about this. Guys, is this show live right now? What is going on? We used to have a menu on the screen.

Because you are very, very sensitive about your airtime, let's go back to you on this one. How big of an upset is this, by the way? And what does it do to the landscape of either PBC heavyweights

or heavyweight division in general? You know, long term, it doesn't do that much. It's shocking. The odds were very wide. You tweeted out the odds. What were they? He was a minus 3,000 favorite. And here's the reason why. Look, it's not that Hellenius couldn't do this or wasn't bred to do this. He was a bright heavyweight prospect five, six, seven, eight years ago. Six foot seven can punt. No, what? Get on your game, Brian Campbell. Me? Me get on my game?

Yeah, I know. Well, Jay's never on his game, but you can be on yours. Jay, this one's, all right. His career fell off. He started getting knocked out by people who shouldn't get knocked out. He never became what was. So this isn't a massive upset

from the idea of like, oh, that guy could never beat that guy. It certainly was when Adam Kovnatsky is more or less ready for a title shot, but he can't get in that picture because everyone's locked up right now. When he loses here, it's easy to say, oh, he was never that good. He never beat a top 10 heavyweight. No, he didn't. But he had enough of those.

Good Lord, Jay. He had enough of those wins packed together where you're like, this guy could be for real. Unfortunately, you saw all of the reasons why he's somewhat flawed come to the surface. Takes way too much punishment. Too willingly gets involved in brawls. Yes, he's got quick hands and he can fight on the inside. But we saw his brawl with Chris Ariel last year, which was really supposed to be a Fox nationally televised setup about to say,

this is a future Deontay Wilder opponent. And while they produced a quasi fight of the year contender, he took way, way, way too much beating in that fight. Ariella didn't really have the finishing power to get him out of there. Kovnatsky, although he can punch a little bit, doesn't really have big-time finishing power, so it became this brutal brawl. This was sort of the wrong guy to kind of have your hands down and be a little bit reckless, and he got caught in the end. Doesn't mean much in the long term. He can rebound with a win, but I think this showed you that if he ever did get into that big, wilder fight, he's got some things to work on,

specifically defense conditioning, if he wants to get the very best out of himself. Bigger upset from an odd standpoint for Fox main events would be this one. Where would you put the J-Rock upset in terms of consequential upsets? I mean, look, J-Rock was certainly capable. You know what I mean? Well, I guess there's two upsets. I mean, look, Jay Rock was certainly capable. You know what I mean? This is a... Well, I guess there's two upsets.

Jay Rock beating Hurd was an upset, and then losing... This one's bigger all the way around. Look, I mean, Kovnat... I'm sorry. Heleneus got knocked out by Gerald Washington a couple of fights ago, and that's not a great sign, but... He looked a little stiff, but then Kovnatchky was just walking into him, and he just pumped it right down the center.

He kept eating punches. You know, you wonder now, because of Kwanachki's style, if some of the brawls have added up on him or if it was just a bad night at the office. But, look, I think he can get into better shape, and I think he's got to work on some things. But the fans came out, and you did see a wild upset there. So if anybody put money on Hellenius there, it paid off. It paid off big. It certainly was shocking.

All right, let's jump to the last one here because we're short on time. We are coming off of UFC 248, but we are headed into the weekend for UFC Brasilia. By the way, sneaky, sneaky, sneaky good card. Tons of good fights on there. By the way, the return of Johnny Walker, no one's talking about that. Your co-main event, Gilbert Burns taking on Demian Maia should be a lot of fun. But your main event, of course, is really the crown jewel. Charles Oliveira faces off against Kevin Lee, a pair of elite lightweights who have had their struggles,

Brian Campbell, but look to be on the best run of form for each of them. So again, we'll go to you first, Brian Campbell. What would you say is on the line for each of them? It's a little bit similar to, this is how deep and how incredible this, guys, I can hear all your conversation in my ear. Can we really get the show on track here?

I'm not even fooling around anymore. I'm not trying to be a Luke clone here, but can you get out of my ear, please? This division is so deep that what's on track is to get to that next level. You get into that top five, and you get into basically the on-deck circle for the guys who are on deck for the title.

That's because this division is so killer. You have to love this fight, because Olivera's on, like, sneaky six-fight win streak, and Kevin Lee, and I'll say it, said it before, and I'll say it once more, Luke, he's going to be a world champion one day. He's going to wear a UFC title one day. He is that good. He hasn't fully put it together yet.

He's shown flashes. He sent Gregor Gillespie to hell in an all-time great knockout. He's getting it together. If he beats Charles Oliveira, he gets right into Dan Hooker territory, where you are the next to have next to have next. And that's kind of a shame because of how deep and crazy this division is, but it just goes to speak that we are at a historical point in this division, and this is going to be a hot freaking fire fight. And as much as I love Kevin Lee, this is a potential trap fight. Yeah, no fight is always the best fight for lifting you up. No

fight in the UFC is incredibly ruinous. Some carry more stakes than others. But for this one, two things I would say. You've got a guy in Lee outside the top five. Top five's a little crowded right now, but it puts him on that bubble spot where he could maybe enter the top five and get closer to the championship title. Which, by the way, I'd share with you,

I do think he's good enough and talented enough that one day he's going to wear a belt. In the case of Charles Oliveira, he's actually sitting outside the top 10, so this would be a good movement for him into that top 10 space. But more than that, you indicated something, which is both of these guys have been on great runs. Now, obviously, Kevin Lee just had that one fight against Gregor Gillespie, but it was such a risky fight to take. And he did so well.

And with Faraz Ahabi, you just feel like he's got all this momentum. They put him in a main event for that very reason. And I love it because Charles Oliveira is sitting a little bit further back and has had a little bit more fuck-ups, and I don't think has shown as much brilliance. No one would have guessed he is on a six-fight win streak. You never would have guessed that. In the case of Kevin Lee, I love that they said,

we're going to give you a guy who, he's got his ups, he's got his downs, but if you're not minding your P's and Q's, he will tear you to pieces. We're going to send you to his home country, where they're going to shout, uh, vaimo her at you constantly, and you still have some work to do to build yourself up here. It is such a great test for both guys to show not just the upper bound limit of their abilities, but where the floor is. Let's see, are you still that error-prone guy who can't get it together? Are you the person who hasn't developed enough skills to ward off certain kinds of threats? This to me is a great, great test for both to show

us I have tightened up deficiencies that have stopped me in the past and now because I don't have them as much, I can propel even further into the future. That's what I love about this contest. And if Kevin Lee wins this tough fight on the road, it's like congratulations, now you have to fight the hooker Poirier level. Yeah. I mean, it's out of the fire, frying pan into the fire, no doubt about it. But to me, if he goes in there and he doesn't get caught up in submissions and his jab looks better and he just blows him away, you'd say, wow, dude, Kevin Lee can really be that guy. We always knew that.

So it'd be kind of, or Charles Oliveira is just unstoppable at this point. Either way. Okay. Time now for questions, I believe, Brian Campbell. This is where we always put a Instagram post up. It's time for DMs from Donk so you can get the fucking animation. There you go. Okay. It'd be nice if I could hear the noise in my ear so I could time it better. But we're asking things from Jay. So, all right. Let's go first. Just so there's clarity on this, we put up an Instagram post. When I say we, people are always like, hey, can you put the podcast up? I'm like, you know we don't do that, right?

Like, the donks here, that's their job. We just host the show in any event. So someone posts an Instagram post on Sundays, and you can fill it up. Good shot of the donks right there. That's all of them. Okay, this comes to us from Martin1907. Brian Campbell, what do you guys think of Dana praising Izzy for his tactics, but, that's a good question actually,

bashing Tyron Woodley for the same thing after the Wonderboy fight? That's a little bit interesting, right? That's actually a great question. That is a great question, and shout out to the people, my co-host at CBS, Brandon Wise, as well, who was like, this is basically Woodley Thompson, too, this fight on Saturday night.

There were a lot of comparisons in that. I always felt like Dana had it out for Tyron Woodley. I always felt like he didn't realize the potential there. They didn't get along on a business level. It seems to make a lot of sense. Dana was all or nothing on the idea that this was Romero's fault. I know we already had that debate, and you can sort of lean different ways. But it's not new for Dana to sort of lean different ways, but it's

not new for Dana to sort of have his company mad. I know. It's like Dana's behavior is inconsistent. You're like, what? Nuh-uh. Yeah, I would just say... They did Tyron Woodley dirty during his title reign. And after the Maya fight, too, where Maya was constantly spamming him with takedown

attempts, he looked brilliant doing that. Again, he didn't put a lot of offense behind that. Some, of course. He dropped them, but not't put a lot of offense behind that. Some, of course. He dropped them, but not enough over the course of five rounds, I think, to satisfy the fans. Look, he and Dana have never seen eye-to-eye, number one. Number two, again, in defense of Israel Adesanya, I think the case is pretty strong that he did a lot more

to move that fight forward. Wasn't successful in it, but he tried. Three, there's all the larger body of work where you got six fights, or eight fights, and six of them, you got an award for how great it was. I just think he's earned himself a little bit more. Dana likes him better, in part because maybe just Dana just likes him better, but also because from a merit-based standpoint, he's done more to deserve that.

The catnip to Dana are two things. If you knock people out, Dana's going to love you. And two, if you're willing to fight anybody at any time, which can be seen as a company guy thing, or it can just be seen as an absolute badass thing. That's why Conor McGregor, Chael Sonnen, Chuck Liddell are like all-timers in Dana's mind. Tyron Woodley has a bit of a malcontent vibe, whereas Adesanya

is actually a bit of a company guy, but doesn't have the rep of being an aw shucks company guy because he just gets out there and does great interviews and just stays active. And again, the other part about this fight was he didn't have to take it. He kind of elected to. Now in the end, we're probably like,

well, maybe he should have skipped it. But just think about Dana's mind. Dana's like, this guy is willing to take on a challenge. He didn't have to. I think that kind of bought him a little bit of leeway in the end. Do you think that'll change? And when I say that'll change, even though we're pretty far're pretty far into ufc

being a legitimate sport now right we're pretty we're past 25 years we're deep into it dana still through the contender series through the idea of fight bonuses is still pushing the idea that knockouts knockouts knockouts right like everybody's got to be a badass fighter like we're not going to praise somebody if they're a point fighter right do you think that'll change when he goes or or or some the more mainstream this gets? I mean, it can't get much more mainstream than it is. I don't know. I have to think about it. It's a good question. I don't know.

You look tired, Luke. You look exhausted. Yeah, I'm very tired. At Samik089. That's Sammy Q, maybe? Sammy Q. Samik, maybe? Yeah. Tough watching Ioana do the interview after the brutal fight. Shouldn't she be rushed to the back, to the doc, or hospital to check on them asap instead of holding them off and making them do an interview uh at press row some brethren you know the mark ray mundy's the sean al shadi's

of the world they were with me like can we get her into an ambulance right now can we stop this and i think some people thought i was overboard but look i've been around boxing a long time i was there at the magomed abdus alamov fight youamah fight. You were there? Oh, yeah. When you see somebody took hellacious damage, there's no need for interviews. There's no need for any of that stuff. Get the heck out of there. I think that this, Luke,

I'm going to say it. I'm surprised they let you on a fight in the fifth round. And I don't know if that's a natural knee-jerk thing because they're females that we're automatically a little bit more protective over the amount of damage. No, that was bad. But that was like disfiguring. That wasn't Mark Hominick or Haseen Rahman with the softball.

That was complete disfigurement. I'm very shocked that she was allowed to finish the fight, and I'm triple shocked that it wasn't like let's have the lights on on the ambulance waiting with the engine running and let's get her out of here. I was with Dan Hardy at UFC 244, the BMF title. And of course, it all got stopped somewhat controversially there. And I remember him looking at me and saying, if that was Vegas, it would have kept going. Well, it wasn't Vegas. I mean, it wasn't a cut. But in terms of having a questionable kind of injury and they just let it rock, yeah, they let it rock.

For better or for worse. And then just to double down here, during the interview with Joe Rogan, I could hear parts of it in the arena. She was talking about how bad her head hurt and when it affected her in the fight and how every punch made her hurt. It's like, get her the hell out of there. So this comes to us.

Here we go, exactly. It was something great minds think alike. At Tito underscore 881518. I never understand these people with these fucking numbers. If the co-main was in New York, would they have stopped it based on JJ's hematoma? I think it was a strong case they would have done that. And you can argue, like, New York's like that.

When you were at that fight, what's his last name again? Abdul Salamov. Was there a point in the fight where you had a weird feeling? There was a point. It was a 10-round fight against Mike Perez, two unbeaten guys, it was a big fight for who might be a

future title contender, co-main event to a Triple G fight on HBO, there was a point in the middle of the 9th round where we're all looking at each other going, Abdu Swamov just does not look good, like he's taking a beating, like maybe his corner, you know, the fight was close, but not really, you knew Mike Perez was in control, and there were

points where, especially during the 10th round, where you're like, maybe we should stop this. Now, we never would have guessed what happened next, and a lot of that was with how... Medical protocol. How poorly the medical protocol was. And look, why is New York such a tough commission? Because they're paying ridiculous millions

in these type of settlements after the fact. You know what I mean? They had to tighten down, but I've seen enough in boxing to know that I was legitimately scared for both women at the end of that fight. But you know what, Luke? I don't know if that makes me soft. Do you remember the first giant Bigfoot

Silva Mark Hunt fight, which was a freaking classic bloodbath. There was a point in that fourth round where I'm like... Dude, I'm not joking. I literally watched that fight through my fingers. I was just like... I had to like... I had many moments where I'm just like throw the damn time like you know it's like Rocky 4 all over again I was like but uh Bigfoot Silver was never the same after that people I'll give it

though people around me ringside media were like keep going let's see fifth round I was uh maybe that means I'm a humanitarian Luke sure. Sure. At Scott14Y, what are your predictions for the highly anticipated British heavyweight boxing bout between Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce? This is why I love British boxing, because they match their best early.

These guys are both unbeaten right at the prospect could-be contenders, could-be pretenders level, and they're just going to bang. I'm like, that's what you want. You know what I mean? That's UFC-style matchmaking.

That's Jon Jones and Ryan Bader when they came together. Where is this going to air? Is this a DAZN fight? I think so. Don't quote me on that. I think so. Yeah, Matchroom's got one of the fighters. It's interesting.

They're both as flawed as they are exciting. Joe Joyce is a much older prospect at this point. I think Dubois is the better fighter, but it's going to be one of those proven grounds where you're going to see what happens. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. We keep talking about it, dude. British boxing right now is so fucking hot.

It's unbelievable. And this is where you've got to give Eddie Hearn credit. Whether you think Eddie Hearn has the same sins inside of him as all the other famous boxing promoters, and he does, he gives, like, they fill the undercards, you know? Like, he gives you, he puts people on top is what I'm saying. All right, this one's for you. Big time here, Brian Campbell.

Yeah, bring it. From at Aaron Bug-ee-ha. Bugasia? I don't know. Since BC loves his 90s references, what are your favorite moments from the 90s, and what do you miss about that time? Hashtag no tip to tip. Wow.

One of my favorite 90s moments? Yeah, I guess that means personally or from, I don't know. I loved my freshman year in college when I was a dirtbag commuter student and I drove a tan 85 Chevy Celebrity that had cigarette stains all over. And the tape player didn't work, so I had to listen to Radio 104 in Hartford, which is all alternative rock.

And I would cut class and just drive around and be lonely. That was a great year, Luke. That was a, you know what I used to Radio 104 in Hartford, which is all alternative rock, and I would cut class and just drive around and be lonely. That was a great year, Luke. You know what I used to call that car? No wonder you're so hard up for airtime. You've got a little daddy needs attention vibe to you. I called it the stallion because you could take the keys out of it while you're driving and just put the keys down next to you, and it would stall in really horrible moments. When you're at a crazy intersection, you have just enough time to cut by somebody.

So as you're cutting, the car would just stall, and you'd have to, in motion, get the keys back out, put it back in. Yeah, I've driven some beaters, too. I drove one where if you were driving on the highway at 60, it was fine. But if you slowed down to 15 or less, the engine would just cut off. So you had to put it in park, restart it. Notice it's always the worst young drivers who get the worst. I took the keys out because I could, Jay. So you know what I would do?

I would actually, when I got to 15, I'd throw it in neutral, and then I would brake, but then I would drive with two feet. So I would be in neutral, and I would hit the brake, but I would rev the engine with the other foot, and then slowly pump it. I would wait until the car in front of me went a little while, and I'd chuck it back and drive, and then I would kick start right back in, but it was, you know, it was tough. Can I give an old guy answer? Because the spirit of the question was, what do you miss about the 90s the most?

I mean, I certainly miss, you know, the grunge culture and the music and all that, and the movies and the OJ trial, which you have to understand was like our life for a year. It was a big deal. I remember, where were you when Vertical was announced? I was in senior year of high school in last period accounting class. Yeah, dude, I was in 10th grade. I was between classes. Yes.

And someone goes, dude, OJ's innocent. Dude, and we all chaired the shit out of OJ, not to steal the Chris Rock joke of what do we win? We didn't win anything, but we shared it because we're like, look at this outlaw. He scammed the system. No, he murdered people. Yeah, he's a murderer.

By the way, you've seen his tweets about the coronavirus. It's interesting. But you know what I miss the most? This is going to be an old guy. I'm 41 years old. No cell phones. So there are so many moments that you lived. You freaking lived it with your friends.

I don't feel like I have friendships. I dated a girl who, when I was 17, she had a cell phone. She was rich. Yeah, yeah. Some people's parents gave them like the brick cell phone. Yeah, the rich kid. I got a cell phone, I think, in 98, my sophomore year of college. But my point was, when you hung out with people, you hung out with them.

I feel like I had 100 more friends back then than I do now. Because you really had to work on the relationship. You really are a sad person, huh? No, I'm... It's called being an adult, Jason. Okay, get out of my ear. I'll say this. Look, how many special people change, right?

How many lives are living strange, right, Luke? Where were you while we were getting high? I'll say this for differences for the 90s. For me, it's the different power centers. And here's what I mean. When we were in the 90s, dude, if you were on morning radio, you were a god. Yes. And so I remember I was a kid when I was in Marietta.

The big radio station in Atlanta at the time was 99X. Dude, we listened in the morning to 99X. That was like, that was, I mean, that was, you know, you couldn't imagine a cooler job and a bigger life. And now morning radio is just not what it once was. And then you would meet those DJs at like a concert. They'd be like, go to the concert. You can meet, you know, Johnny Cool Guy. And they'd always be like the biggest overweight nerds.

Yeah, like just. And I remember. And you're like, I would give anything to be that guy. I remember when I was in high school, the morning show was Leslie Barnes and Jimmy. And it was three people in 99X in Atlanta. And they were not big fatties. But back then, that was a real thing. That was a real thing you could do.

And you could make millions in radio like that. Here's another old guy thing. Now you can't. People see like Colin Coward and Jim Rome. Imagine imagine dozens of those that's how radio used to be i missed the mb mba and nbc i missed the the john tesh theme song intro you know what i really missed the most is 90s style basketball like i don't mean to be that old guy now watching the mba but mba now it's all run the lane pitch it out because you can't hand check they took derrick harper out of the game you know what 90s basketball was?

Post up, pick and roll, like old school. The centers could have a life. Now it's everybody plays all the positions. I watch it on my kids' level. It just sucks now. Basketball sucks. Do you know what I do with my free time on the road besides go to the movie theater? Sounds like you cry.

No. I go on YouTube and I watch 90s basketball. Like, full games. Like, I was watching 1990 Final Eight. Duke UConn. Remember Leitner hit that shot at the buzzer? I was watching 1990 Final Eight, Duke-UConn. Remember Leitner hit that shot at the buzzer? I was watching...

Grant Hill had the inbound? That way you're thinking of the 1992 Final Eight Kentucky game. Oh, okay, okay, okay. That's the greatest college basketball game of all time.

I'm watching game seven of the 90 NBA playoffs. There's another one. Blazers at Spurs. Dude, back in the 90s, college basketball was the shit. The Big East was... It was the shit.

The Big East in the 90s was... You didn't even need weed. As long as you had the Big East in the 90s, it was the greatest thing ever. Dude, when Georgetown had the powerhouses of Alonzo Mourning and Patrick Ewing, oh my God. No, the Twin Towers, Mourning and Mutombo. And Mutombo too. 91 and 92.

You want a Mutombo story? This is a true story. Well, I'm told it's a true story. So my best friend went to Georgetown, and I visited him, and he was like, there's a story going around about Mutombo that apparently is like fucking legend. So if you went to Georgetown, let me know if this is right, but this is how it was told to me. So Dikembe, back then, people played four fucking years in college.

So by the time you were a senior, my God, dude, senior day was a big deal. Apparently, Dikembe, either his last day on campus or one of his last days on campus, he was a local celebrity, as you can well imagine. And he got up in the lunchroom, and he's, what, a seven-footer. And he gets up, he talks like that. Apparently, he got up and opened his arms and said, like, an announcing to the public, who wants to sex Dikembe? I've heard this story. And apparently, a lot of people wanted to sex to Kimbae that day

because I'm told he left with his own harem of women, and God knows what he did, but I'm sure it was a great time. Oh, man, 90s. The 90s were the shit. You were a big East fan, right? Were you a Georgetown fan? Yeah. I was a Georgetown fan.

Sure. And then I'd also say the last thing is, dude, you could watch football without feeling bad about brain trauma. They used to have like... That is true. they would show football highlights of people getting fucked up. And you'd be like, yeah, they're fucking each other up. Now it's like, you know, they get the blue tent and all that shit. I got a weird related 90s story. Remember Cliff Robinson?

Out of UConn, he played in the Trailblazers, Cliff Robinson? Yes, yes, yes. I covered one in his last year. He played for the Nets. It was like 02 or 03. No, it was 2007. I was working for ESPN, like a low-level job, but we went to the Nets game to cover it.

So you get to go in the locker room before the game, pretend you're like a real reporter, and you're like, oh, my God, they leave their wallets and cell phones and money right there. And you were just like, I'm going to remember these dongs the rest of my life. It's me, my coworker, and two European women, who I think were pretending to be journalists, too, that happened to be in there with blonde hair. Cliff Robinson walks in,

looks at us all with a dirty look. He's got giant jeans on. Goes from zero to dong in like three seconds. Yeah, God bless him. And the ladies turn around, and they're just like, and he just looks at me like, and dude, I mean, you know, yeah, yeah.

He was like snuffle-uffing us, right? He had a big old joint. He was like, this is where it happened, so let's do it, you know? And like, you could do you know, yeah, yeah. He was like snuffleupagus, right? He had a big old joint. He was like, this is where it happened, so let's do it, you know? And like, you could do that stuff in the 90s.

We had a fraternity brother who was, I'm kidding on that, come on, I'm kidding. We had a fraternity brother who was the biggest fucking nerd ever, and he had this incredibly hot girlfriend. When I say he was a nerd dude, I mean like,

he was a fucking super nerd. He would make MMA media look like cool jocks. He was such a nerd. But we called him snuffleupagus, because we thought, it, like, he was a fucking super nerd. He would make MMA media look like cool jocks. He was such a nerd. But we called him Snuffleupagus because we thought, it was like, dude, how did he get this girl other than for the fact that he must have had a tripod in his pants? Because he had nothing else going for him. Either that or good coke. Those are the only two ways in the 90s. So we called him Snuffleupagus.

Hey, we're going to talk about these mugs, Luke? Tell them. Tell them. You're ants in the pants about it. What do you think? What do you think? This is just the beginning. Merch season is coming.

We're very close to this, okay? How would you look with this? Do you remember when someone farted on the Chris Matthews show, Hardball, and they said that someone was dragging a mug? No. Don't you remember that? I don't remember that. I've tried to drag a bunch of mugs.

It doesn't sound like someone busting ass. Just want to point that out. Oh, 90s also. You know what the 90s were great for? High school movies. Like, no, wasn't the 80s? It was like Pretty in Pink and Breakfast Club. They don't make them like they used to, yeah. What's your favorite teen movies from the 90s? Can't Hardly Wait. Oh, that's a good one. Days of Confused. That's a good one. Half-Baked. Yeah, okay. All right. Those are good.

Half-Baked was a great one. Fuck. Dave Chappelle, Before He Was Pretentious. Four years just for weed? I mean, so good. Yeah, so good. And then the Farrelly brothers,

we talked about it before, Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin and Shallow Howl. Was Shallow Howl an aughts or not? That's an aughts. And also Hot Chicks in the mid-90s had that weird bohemian hippie phase.

Who was your 90s hit girl? Jennifer Love Hewitt. That's a good one. You can't top that. You can't top that. That's a good one. The girl next door to the nines, right? That's the John Jones of the girl next door, right?

Yeah. I've always had a thing for Salma Hayek, but she's like still. You love spice in your life. You like fiery women. I like them. As I say, I like the muchacha malas, my friend. You're not going to give us a weird TNA breakdown

like I heard you do on your live chat. Dude, they asked me a question. What am I fucking supposed to say? Dude, you're supposed to act like a man and answer it with one sentence or whatever. No, no, no. Let me give you a 40-minute breakdown on the difference between TNA and why I like it. You don't understand. Let me give you a 40-minute breakdown on the difference between TNA and why.

You don't understand. I knew if I answered that question in the way which you had said, locker room style, I was going to get torn up for it. And even the careful way in which I answered for it, I got hate mail from very sensitive. It was a little too careful. From very sensitive men. It was like, let me get out a slide rule and break this down. Yeah, no, I agree.

It was a terrible answer. But the point being was I knew I knew I was going to get in trouble for it. And sure enough, I did. I had people hitting me up about it being like, this is really a terrible thing. I can't believe people pay to ask you questions. I can text you. No, no, those are free. Those are free.

All right. I text you all the time. You never get back to me. You fucking liar. I constantly text you and you ignore them. You're trying to get me to watch your content all the time. Just the one fight story. Come on.

Oh, I still have to watch that. Speaking of your content we're now going to watch, take it away. Yeah, hey, you know what we do? Here it is. We scour the globe for the best and worst, the good, the bad, and the ugly in combat sports. It is have you seen this shit, Luke. It's fine. I can just look here.

Yeah, Luke, you've been very quiet about this. My Andy King brethren, drop the ball today. What do you mean? This show's been a train wreck. Yeah, well, I mean, dude, the budget for the show is like, showtime's like, oh, I got a stick of gum and a paper clip in my pocket. There you go. Make do.

All right, here we go. You ever hear of this promotion Crush 109? Smell the K? Yep, we're going to start out with some spinny shit. Watch Riyamu. Good Lord. Hold that with a K? Yep. We're going to start out with some spinny shit. Watch Riyamu. Good Lord. Hold that. Oh, my God.

Look at the force on that. Dude, the speed, too. My God. That's a great way to start out this shit. Look at that. I mean, that is just. Hold that. He went right into the coffin.

Did you see that, Luke? He basically was like, yep, bury me. Let's see. Did he testify? No, not quite. All right. The weirdest boxing knockout of the weekend took place in Russia. A man named Mark Canelo Ervinov.

Look at this bullshit. Look, what the hell is that? How do you get hit with that? What is this helicopter BS? How do you get? The man that got killed is Akhzal Suleyambakulu. And sorry, Russian man, you've been sent to hell. He looks like Marcelo Garcia.

Just drop him, ref. How do you fall for that shit? And by the way, why does this guy think he's called Canelo? Look at him. That's how our female listeners respond every time

the show is over. They're just like, fuck me. They don't look like Canelo. It looks like the dude from Goonies. Yeah, all right. Look at this.

This is just... Oh, have that. I guess so. So it is coronavirus season, Luke, so you got to keep your extremities clean. Even if you're at the farm, apparently. What? What? Dude, are we now just doing piss videos?

What are we doing here? Look at that. What secretion is that? Is this healthy? Are we just doing piss videos? What are we doing? Can you clean yourself with the milk? Look at the

other cow shoving into it. Dude, R. Kelly would love this. What is happening right now? No, it's the Dave Chappelle, I'm going to pee on you. Bitch, let me pee on you. Now, Luke, do you know much about farm animals? What is that? I work with

one every day. Is that milk? What is that? Does, I work with one every day. Is that milk? What is that? Does that look like milk to you, Brian Campbell? When he rubs it on his face, it's like soap. I don't get this. Yeah, well, he just loves piss. He's like, I don't know what to tell you, dude.

All right. Let's move on here. I want you to watch problems at the gas pump here, Luke. I don't know if you ever let your wife... Oh, did he just drive off? This guy's letting his wife try to... She can't get it in the... She can't find the hole.

I mean... She is nicely shaped. When it won't fit in there, here's what you... What? Now watch her husband's face. I think he just said, what the F are you doing?

What? Look, what is that? Is that like an adult movie thing? She was trying to put some lube on it. Right? That looks like Jersey. That's probably right around the corner from this.

No, Jersey, they make you pump your gas. That's true. They do that. It's like old school, yeah. You think they'd change my oil if I asked? Well, you know what? She looks like... A rim job, maybe?

Wow, bro. Oh, my God. I didn't know she spat on it. Yeah, that is not appropriate. That's not acceptable. All right, let's go back to some fight shit. Hold on, wait, wait, wait. Hold on.

He looks at her and goes, what the fuck are you doing? Roll it back. Roll it back. Start it over. Watch his face. She's a pro. I want to meet this lady. I'm married, but in another life.

Watch. She can't get it in. It's a little bit stuck. Watch this. Look at this. Look at this fucking pro. God damn, young lady. Oh, that is. Watch his face. Look at this fucking pro. Goddamn, young lady. That is...

Watch his face. What the... What the fuck are you doing? Oh. Wow. And I'm glad to be... Or proud to be an American. You want to see a dead body?

Let's roll on here. How about Daichi Mikami here in round one? Hold that. Are those superhero pants? Dude, what is he wearing? What the hell is this? I'm guessing this took place in Japan. What about Japanese anime I just can't get into?

The clown shit? Toshikiki Ishikawa is the man who lunges into death hair. Yeah, look at his hands to the side, too. Is that Robin? What is that? No, that's like, you know what? I'm just going to say it's Captain Marvel. Yeah. How are you allowed to? Is that? No, that's like, you know what? I'm just going to say it's Captain Marvel. Yeah.

How are you allowed to fight in that? It's Superman pants, Jay? I'm sorry. I'm not up on my Superman. I was going to say it's Superman pants, but Jay's dumb. Jay's a father of three. Very, very few people know that. Jay's a father of three, and he's like 20.

It's like, how is that possible, Jay? Probably because he was in a boy band. You missed last week's show. Oh. Oh, I was hoping to get in on the roast on that. Alright, let's go to Lethway where they love killing people. Check out this tornado punch. Kerry Von Erich style.

Oh my god, Luke. There's a storm coming. There's a storm coming. Quick, get in the bunker. Good god, how is this happening in a real fight, Luke? Well, I mean, they got farmers and shit fighting in this. I mean, you know. God, the people are they got farmers and shit fighting in this. I mean, you know. Oh.

God. The people are falling for some weird shit this week, right? Yeah. All right. Hey, let's go out to the streets.

Let's do a little street fight stuff. Would you consider this the Barbossa Adam of the street? God, it's over. It's over, Luke. It's over.

Take that. Wow. Dun, dun. This should be like the end of Naked Gun when, like, the. It's over. Take that. Wow. This should be like the end of Naked Gun when the plow just drives over the dead body outside. Dude, he took him off of his feet. Watch the other guy's feet. Who breaks down a street fight, Luke? Seeing that makes me want to celebrate. Makes me want to crack open a beer.

Let's go into the XFL locker room. Another guy has hands up. They do things extreme. Check out this savage, Luke. Good Lord. Is that Derek? go into the XFL locker room. They do things extreme. Check out this savage, Luke. Good lord! Is that Derek? He was a D1 scholarship athlete.

Are you not even good enough for the XFL, really? Dude, Luke, he broke the can open with his teeth. That's like some animalistic shit going on. You down with that? Yeah, that's a man. Is that Latimer from, what's that football movie in the 90s that we loved?

Remember the white guy who roided up and raped that chick? The program, yes. I saw that opening night when the guy laid on the road and there was a fight in the theater. It was fantastic, Luke. All right, can we roll the next slide? This reminded me of Teen Wolf, Luke. What a great 80s movie. God, Teen Wolf is so great.

Teen Wolf is so great. I can't believe we believed that Michael J. Fox could dunk a ball, but he did turn into a wolf. Look at this. Oh, yeah. I like how it's just like everyone in high school is like, yeah, we got this dude turned into a wolf. And then he, of course, do you think he banged Boof in storyline?

Everyone's like, you're super cool. Meanwhile, like there's no chance. I don't understand how the women fell for him as a hairy bastard. You know what I'm saying? He had that swag, bro. And probably he was like Snuffleupagus. He was like Cliff Robinson?

By the way, what is going through Cliff Robinson's mind when he does that? What is that move like? Sexual harassment. I guess that wasn't so cool. Sexual harassment. We'll take that back. All right.

Hey, let's roll on from this. Let's go to Indonesia. There's a promotion called One Fight. Have you seen this? Not the same as One Championship. No. Shout out to Grabaka Hitman for giving us this piece of business. This is the, this sure ain't Israel Adesanya with flower petals, Luke. This is a little bit more extreme. You down with this, Luke? I don't know what the hell. What's the video package of the dude just doing strongman shit? Is this like Bohemian Grove, like satanic stuff going on right here? Are these the world leaders right here meeting?

Look at this guy rise up from the ground. How do you fight? You better knock the guy out. You better have done some spinny-ass shit to knock the guy out if you're going to make us all wait through this satanic ritual here. What is happening? And the belt's a complete rip-off of the bad UFC belt, too. Yeah. Those are bad.

Those are real bad. That's funny. Yeah. Okay. Are we in a cult now, Luke? Yeah, I guess. Okay. All right.

I'm just waiting for someone else to get peed on. Let's go to Twitter over the weekend. Luke, you referenced this earlier in the show, but what the hell? Luke, what is going on here? What is really going on? Yeah. Who does this to a colleague and a friend here? Well, I was amazed.

I mean, this was... I was proud of you. You're turning this into something it's not. Once again, you love everything I say to be the most bad faith interpretation. I was actually kind of proud of you that you were sitting front row. I'm being dead serious. I was in the John Morgan position, right? I didn't even have to wear a blue shirt.

Yeah, you didn't. I do that. I was like legitimate. I was like, wow, he got first fucking shirt. All right, I thought you were pissed. I really thought that Luke Thomas was pissed. By the way, that's a great show right there. Look at how young you were.

Look at the tight jawline here, Luke. Pre-children, right? And I had no gray in my beard. Fuck, man. Oh, wow. That show, that was great. See, I thought you were doing almost like a, can we roll the next one, like a get off my lawn type thing.

No. I'm like, why does Luke so pissed, right? Dude, I was, see, again, you just don't, you want to make sure everything I say is the worst interpretation. I don't see how you can interpret that differently, but if you were praising me, Luke, then our friendship is back. Yeah, we're good. I just wanted to tell you, it's not your fault, though, Luke. It's not your fault you didn't sit there. I would love

if you could sit next to me one day, though. I would love that. It won't happen, but it's okay. I'm just wondering also, do you like apples, Luke? Because I sat in the front row, so how do you like them? Again, I like how you're insulting me, and I'm not even mad at you. Also, Luke, I have a question for you, if we could roll the next one. It may be too soon for this, but Kobe... Tell me how my ass tastes. Really, you're going to put up his Kobe insult? I thought you were going to fight me here, Luke. We're living in a

post-Kobe death world, and this is what you're going to pull out, really? All right. Tell me how my ass tastes. Maybe he was talking to Kobe Tye. Maybe that's who he was really talking to. In which case, understandable. Then she would know. Yeah, she might know that. All right. Hey, let's go to the next one here.

This is how the Dagestanis celebrate. Look, they shoot and made you look. You're a slave to a page in my rhyme book. With the old Andre Karolinko. Look at these mother effers. Now, watch this guy in the black jacket. He's hiding one. Look at him. Look at him pull that piece. Now watch this guy in the black jacket. He's hiding one. Look at him.

Look at him pull that piece out. I got to get in on this. We got to shoot some shit. These Khabib fans are great, Luke. I love that these guys go in the arena April 18th in Brooklyn, right? Yeah, they are not practicing effective weapon safety. I can assure you.

That is great. Look at all the alcohol on the table there, Luke. Look at that guy. I always say, you know what mixes really well? AK-47s and Grey Goose. Yes, yes it does. All right, Luke, we're going to close with this video. Now, I haven't seen it, but somebody DMed me and said, Luke is going to love this.

Play this for Luke. I'm not responsible for the content. Look at this old Asian master with a blow dart. Oh my god. That gives new meaning to the term blow dart, Luke. I think a booger just shot out of my nose. Look at the guy. Yes, yes.

I legitimately think a booger shot out of my nose. Oh, yeah. I did not submit that, though, because I have to. Were you in the voice cast? Did someone just rub their dick in your face? I have exited the dick trade, OK? I got too deep. You know, they calling you, okay? I got too deep.

They calling you, Luke? They calling you? I'm trying to see if my booger was. Dude, you're like that guy who's like, one more job. One more job as a bank robber. One more job as the gangster. Just one more dong. I just can't leave the dong game. All right.

Well, that in mind, having seen dicks, let's get to it. Odds and ends. What is your odds and ends for today, Brian? Some boxing to check out this weekend. Luke, are you woke on Shakur Stevenson, the featherweight champion? He's got a title defense coming up. First title defense this Saturday at the MSG Theater. I think it's an ESPN or a Plus fight. Not really sure.

But he's fighting Miguel Mariaga, the tough Filipino brawler. For all the bright young prospects in boxing, I just spit out, you're really bad. We have a lot of them, Luke, from the Devin Haney's to the Teofimo Lopez's. I don't think Shakur Stevenson gets enough play. Yes, he's a knockout threat in any parking garage in the country. But, Luke, he may end up being better than all of them. I mean, this guy has, like, legitimate quickness, hand speed. And he's got a great personality.

He's become like a little brother to Terrence Crawford. So you can imagine what that sparring's like. He named after Tupac Shakur, by the way. Yep. And I think he's going to end up being, I'm not going to say he's a Floyd, but I'm saying long term, I think a lot of these guys are going to eventually find their place. I think he's going to keep shooting. He's a 126 pounder.

126er and just has speed and he goes after it. And also, Showbox this weekend, you know who's going to get a test? Brandon Lee, 20-year-old prospect. Brandon. Brandon Lee, 20-year-old prospect at 140. This is his moment to sort of step into now tough matchmaking, and he's going to be out there on Friday night from Hinkley, Minnesota, in the main event.

Good-looking young kid, 18-0 with 16 KOs. His opponent's name is Camilio Prieto, 15-2. This is his first big test. Good-looking kid. He could bang. You know what I'm saying, Luke? Yeah, yeah. I mean, if What's-His-Name wrote a song about him, it would probably be...

He bangs. He bangs. He bangs. Yeah. That joke is just going to keep... I can get so much out of it. Speaking of 90s references, I guess. So, for my odds and ends, I'll say you were there for the Tony versus Khabib presser.

That was a little bit weird, huh? That was great. Now, you're of the impression that the way Tony was handling himself rattled Khabib. I think it got in Khabib's head. Think of all the crap that Conor did. Conor did, too. And Khabib had been stoic. What good did it do Conor?

Okay, but Khabib kicked the title, and he kind of like, you know, he went off on the whole street fight thing. No, the thing that caught me by, not surprise, or actually caught my attention was when Khabib was like, you know, or actually Tony says, I'm not even thinking about him. And Khabib's like, really? You're not even thinking about me? He's like, yeah, I take this guy seriously. I actually am thinking about him. I'm training all the way around him because I'm taking those things seriously. He didn't have much to say beyond that,

but you could tell there was a part where I was like, you're not even taking this seriously. I talked to, I interviewed Habib. I don't know if you saw Dominance MMA did like the full-on like media day, which was actually great. So shout out to Ali and them for giving us all this access. I do actually enjoy that. I asked Habib, I'm like, look,

the narrative is that Tony is the only guy who can do this, who has the chance to beat you. He's like, yeah, I'll agree with that. He's the only one. So he is taking this serious enough, realizes it's such an important fight for his legacy. You've correctly noted before that those aren't really press conferences. I think you've called them, what, pep rallies? Yeah, I mean, the media has a choice to make about how they handle this.

Dude, I'm just going to say this. Do you ask questions at these things? I try to. I mean, they usually have their people they go to right away, and then you usually get the person who doesn't deserve to be up there who asks eight questions in a row, usually about weed and just goes off the rails. I'll say this, though. You're right. Those aren't the greatest settings for journalistic representation. Shout out to Mark Ramondi for actually trying to ask the question about the coronavirus.

Shout out to Morgan Campbell that time when he got shut down at the last pay-per-view asking something. Shout out to that guy who tried to talk about mental health and Tony Ferguson told him to F off. But those are insanely fun, Luke. I don't think you can say a bad thing about them. Like they- It's your kind of fun. It's not my kind of fun. It's my kind of fun. Their goal is to hype a fight. I would have fun. Here, look. Here's my view on it. Stop having the media go. Like if you are a videographer or if you're a photographer, that's different. But you should give the questions back to the fans because there's a central tension that happens where the guy who asked the question to Tony

Ferguson fought in a war. He's an army vet. If Tony didn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to talk about it, but I thought he could have been more professional. Yeah, I mean, that wasn't a good moment. You're telling an army vet who's in touch with PTSD to fuck off because he's praising you for dealing with mental health issues seems over the line. And by the way, it doesn't even make sense. If you want it to take away from people asking about it, telling them to fuck off just brings more attention to you. So it doesn't even really work. It's not an effective strategy. But here's my point. It was the wrong time to ask it when he's trying to be crazy badass guy who has gloves and a baseball. It is the wrong time to ask.

It's not the wrong time to ask in the sense that, I'll agree with you in the sense that, at a real press conference, if it was a real press conference, it would be completely normal. The problem is they're not real. You have an audience there, and the audience is there to see their favorite fighters. They're here to see their favorite fighters talk a little shit, and they're here to see their favorite fighters talk about stuff that's in the news or their upcoming fight. They don't want to hear the other things that the media has to talk about. So give it back to the fans.

Let the fans ask the questions. I don't mind still having media up front and leading the conversation as long as there's just people that are a-holes. I get that this is your moment, so I'm going to ask about, hey, Dana, are you coming back to our area? Get those questions out of here. Let's focus on the two fighters. You can't put rules on what media can ask if you're going to have okay okay I agree you want to have media that have media there to do its job if you

don't want media to do its job I'm okay with that give it back I agree I don't want rules on questions but I've been just I've covered boxing for a long time the boxing is getting better but they still don't get it you know what I mean? How many boxing press conferences do you have two fighters that can't talk to begin with, and then we bring up the beverage general manager from MGM Grand to tell you how happy he is. You just have a lot of BS. They caught right to the core of what matters. That thing is to hype a fight. It hypes the fight every single time.

I get it. Being there, Luke, is more exciting than some fights. It's like... I understand. All I'm saying is the media are playing themselves by going to this to get humiliated.

So my point... Yeah, you're playing... At this point... Okay, I'll agree with you. At this point, you're playing yourself. You have to play along with the theme of what it is.

Right. It's not a journalistic... People always ask, why can't you ask at a different time? Well, some people get access to Khabib. Some people get access to Tony.

I don't know about the case of the guy who asked about the mental health. I don't know. But a lot of people don't. That's like their only time. So again, if you're going to invite the fans, to me, it's a fan event. If you're not going to invite the fans, it's a media event. Simple as day. That's it.

You can enjoy it, though. Allow yourself to enjoy it, all right? All right, but just to close on that, did you take anything from it that could affect the fight? I'm very excited for the fight. And I did find Tony's... I didn't understand the baseball. I didn't understand the gloves, but there's a lot. Tony, you don't understand?

He's a hit man. Is that what it was? And the baseball was so he can catch... If somebody runs from him, he can throw it at him. Oh, I see. I'm not saying that that makes sense. I'm just saying that's what... Right, that's what he was doing.

I'm incredibly excited for it. You know, to be honest, one thing I was thinking about was the coronavirus. I really hope it doesn't... My wife's in a corporate event planner and they're canceling events left and right. They canceled South by Southwest in Austin. That's pretty big. Yeah, they lost $300 million to the local economy in terms of... Look, you are a well put together, educated person.

Do you think this will lead to our economy going down the hill? It's possible. Did you see the Dow this morning? No, I don't follow that. Ten minutes to drop 2,000 points. So not great. So you're saying save your money, put it under your mattress? It depends how lasting it is,

and it depends to what extent people either don't go out, how bad it affects. You know what it's going to affect? It's going to affect service workers. Are we going to have empty arena matches? What's going to happen? I know. And you had LeBron being like,

if the fans ain't there, I'm not playing. Dude, like in Serie A in Italy, like Ronaldo is playing to empty stadiums left and right. Did you see what he did yesterday on the news? He gets off the bus and he puts his hands out like he's walking down the tunnel, like he was slapping hands with the fans. He still goes along with it.

Because, dude, do you see that almost the entire north of Italy has been quarantined? They're quarantining a quarter of the Italian population. It's so bad. Marvin Vittori should hide. I don't know that he lives in Italy right now, but okay. Last on this, speaking of the fans. Again, just give the event back to the fans.

We're going to give something to you guys, which is an opportunity. I thought you were going to rip them for booing way too early in the main event on Saturday night. They did. I mean, they're there to see entertainment. They're there for bloodlust, yeah. Here. But this isn't a real opportunity for you. So we have this sign, if we can see, of the poster behind Brian.

Yeah, and all these comments. Hold on. Let me get this out for fuck's sake. Wow, this guy's so angry. We have this thing behind Brian Campbell, the tip-to-tip thing. Now, here's the deal. We would like you guys, if you want merch, to submit some fan art. A couple of things I want you to keep in mind.

Yeah. We want to use that as inspiration which means you can literally do a tip-to-tip kind of artwork or you can do it as a bit of a mindset

like way to think about things. So what he's saying is no dongs. That's really what he's saying. All I'm saying is get creative with it and you don't have to be literal with it.

I love that we're acting like this isn't a corporate decision to get this weird stuff off the wall. It totally is. They want it off the wall but we have a chance for you out there for for fan art, to submit it to us. So send a DM to our Instagram account, at Morning Combat on Instagram.

Shoot a DM there. Get as creative as you want. We want to see shirts, hats, mugs. We've got the mug, but everything else in between. People are creative. You see our guy, Web Scream? You know that guy? Yeah, he's very creative.

He put together a video of the five stages of grief when he asked that question last week if Corona's going to take down the Tony fight. and there you can see the social on YouTube, Morning Combat, and then Instagram,

Morning Combat with a K, obviously. This is your chance. This is your chance. If you would like to submit some fan art, we would love to have it. We'd love to put it up

in the massage parlor here. We'll wear it. We'll do a whole thing. No handos, though. I don't know what financial compensation there will be. I'm guessing we're just hoarding our fans for cheap labor. We're doing a gig economy bit, but still. It's coming though. Merch is coming. Our show is evolving. You know Aaron Bronstetter from TSN? He's great. I love him. He has pitched an idea that he said I have to ask you on the air about. Which is? We close each week with a gambling

segment where you and I give a pick in combat gambling and call it tip to tip. I didn't tell him it was a winner. I said it was good. I said I'll pitch it to Luke. And maybe he'll catch it. Well, Aaron, you should be a viewer, not a producer. Oh, wow. I like Aaron. I'm teasing.

I gotta go. I've got another job. By the way, I'm interviewing a style vendor today. I can't wait till we get merch where the t-shirts say, I have another job. Or F-U-J. It doesn't have to be this way. I'm just saying it is this way because everyone wants to underpay me. So there you go. I've got to take multiple jobs.

Okay. That is Brian Campbell. You can follow him, as you saw on the social stuff, on Twitter, on Instagram, and a bunch of other places. Give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Tell your friends about it. And until next time. Thank you.