MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 249: Gaethje Beats Ferguson, Henry Cejudo Retires, Ngannou Impresses | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 42

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Luke and Brian are back with episode 42 of Morning Kombat to break down everything that happened over the weekend at UFC 249, including Justin Gaethje's impressive win over Tony Ferguson and Henry Cejudo retiring after picking up a victory over Dominick Cruz. They also discuss Francis Ngannou's impressive KO of Jair Rozenstruik and debate if Justin Gaethje should be the next fighter to get a shot at Khabib. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Monday May 11 2020, and it is time, donks, as I F this intro up, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of this hosting duo. Jeez, I'm having a rough morning here, but actually I'm not. I'm actually feeling great. I got some great sleep last night, but the good news is I am not the only person hosting today's program. One half of the other assignment is on the other side of the screen. You know this gentleman very well from CBS Sports, among many other places where he is, cashing them checks like Tekashi69 in the new Gooba video. It is my friend and yours, Brian Campbell.

Hi, Brian. How are you, buddy? I'm doing great, Luke. I am fired up. Loves what I got. Don't start a riot. riot fights were back this weekend i was injected i am ready i am fired up i am pale and washy can't change that during the quarantine but can't change my optimistical thoughts about the future luke this show was designed as you like to often say uh to react to fights to set up, to do things around live events. It feels really good to be back where we belong. Yeah, we can fill your quarantine hole with some dick pics and stuff,

but we like doing the real thing, Luke. We certainly do. A couple of housekeeping notes, BC, before we get started. First things first, give the video a thumbs up and subscribe. If you are new to this program, and you could be because you're catching that YouTube algorithm, give us a subscribe. It's totally free. Tons of content coming your way, especially this week. You're going to want to stay tuned for that

and lots of great analysis here between BC and I. And as you mentioned, who doesn't love a round of dick pics? I don't know. That's his bit. I'll let him explain that a little bit later. One more note on this, BC, first, if I can. Speaking of free, you want to get a free trial of Showtime in, you can do that.

Go to Showtime.com right now. You can have a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can stick around. If not, you can bounce and pound sand. Either way, BC, this show, Morning Combat, is gratis. Yes, yes it is. It is free. Okay, so can you subscribe already folks all right put the

ring on it okay you've been you've been dabbling you've been you know you don't know you know you've been circling the rim for a while let's get down to business here and make this uh let's consume let's let's consummate anyway enough awkwardness i'm not here for awkwardness i'm here to excitedly react to fights and just for the record showtime did make me sign an nda that i would would not comment about any testing that they provided me for COVID heading into the show but I'm ready let's go very good all right with that in mind it's time now for topic number one as I expertly slide to the right to make room for graphics on the side of the screen here let's see them pop up there

they go first off BC you go first on this one. As you know, UFC 249 in the books. Justin Gaethje becomes the UFC interim lightweight champion, although he threw his belt on the ground immediately. Let's ask a very basic question. There's many, many to get to here about the situation. But first things first, based on what we've seen in his career, based on what we've seen in this transformation, starting with the James Vick fight, wow, I'm off today,

and then culminating with the Tony Ferguson victory on Saturday, BC, is Justin Gaethje the guy to beat Khabib Nurmagomedov? Wow, that is a loaded question, Luke. He just might be, and the reason is because this is just personally, I'm going to take the L I'm going to come out and say Justin Gaethje is a lot better of a fighter than I thought he was I wasn't sleeping on his three fight evolution to come back with those first round knockouts the the patience and the poise the added wrinkles from Trevor Whitman I saw all that right I never

thought that could be translated on the level where he could walk into hell with Tony Ferguson a guy who is ready to risk it all at any time and be the you know be the more poised fighter be the stronger fighter be the smarter fighter be everything across the board yes he is a viable target for Habib Nurmagomed. He is better than I thought he was. I'll take the L. He'll take the W. And I loved even more, Luke, our interim title debate aside from last week. People seemed to get a kick out of that. People also seemed to misrepresent or misinterpret what I was actually saying.

I absolutely love, though, Justin Gaethje basically doing what Magic Johnson did in 1990 when Sam Perkins celebrating in the locker room after they go to the finals. He goes, no, we don't celebrate Western Conference Championships on this team, right? Act like you've been here. Wait for the real thing. I love that Justin Gaethje did that. I cannot wait for this fight. This guy was supposed to be left out of this title mix. He found his entry, Luke. He kicked the damn door in. There's so much I want to say about Tony Ferguson because I love and respect him, but this is Justin's moment, and he got me.

Congratulations. Yeah, this was such an important win. I mean, I want you to think about something here very clearly, right? And by the way, I too thought Tony Ferguson was going to win. I thought it made sense if you wanted to throw some shekels

on top of Justin as a betting possible choice, but you're right. We both outright picked Tony Ferguson. We were both wrong. We both should say it out loud. Nevertheless, though, I think we both took Justin Gaethje seriously, and he showed pretty clearly why he deserves to be taken seriously. But I want to make another point about this, BC, which is there's a lot of really good fighters out there that we respect, that we like, that have nice, solid wins, impressive victories, come from behind moments, without a real signature victory. And to this point, Justin Gaethje had some really nice wins. The Cerrone win was pretty good. The Barboza win was fantastic. Getting after Vic, after Vic called him the Homer Simpson of MMA, that had to feel

pretty good. And of course, Michael Johnson was exciting. And the other fights where he lost were all exciting. But to me, he didn't have that signature win. He did not beat an A class opponent in a real way that made you say, I have to completely reevaluate this guy. I tweeted it on Saturday night. I will reiterate it here. This is not the Justin Gaethje that lost to Eddie Alvarez. This is not the Justin Gaethje that lost to Dustin Poirier. Now I'm not saying those guys couldn't get another win if there was a rematch, but they would be fighting a very, very different animal.

Justin Gaethje did not have to fight in such a way, BC, where we're really able to tell exactly how he's going to match up with Nurmagomedov, right? He didn't do really any wrestling, a couple of sprawls and some down blocking, maybe a handful of times, if that, and that was it. That doesn't really tell us if he's the guy to beat Nurmagomedov. But here's what he does tell us.

It tells us he is in the upper echelon of that division. He is one of, in my mind, either the two or three best lightweights on earth, maybe the very best. And what intrigues me about it is not only did he ascend to a level of that division that I think a lot of folks were maybe a little bit skeptical he could when he came to the UFC, but now you are excited about the possibilities. You are wondering what's there.

And what's so intriguing is that in many ways, BC, he's the opposite of Nurmagomedov. Nurmagomedov wants to strike as a function of either killing time in a round, catching his breath, changing things up a little bit, and then the wrestling is really how he wins. That is the way in which he has plied his trade. Justin Gaethje now seven UFC fights, zero submissions attempted, zero takedowns attempted. That is unheard of, especially for this division.

He is the opposite in many ways of Nurmagomedov. We know he's an A-class talent. I am sad about what's happened to Tony Ferguson. I think many of us are. I respect what he did, but the better man won that night, and I am very intrigued by the possibilities. Yeah, I don't want to get off Justin Gaethje, the topic, at this moment because I do want to double down and reinterpret.

When James Vick was calling him Homer Simpson, he was. He was Arturo Gatti, which, by the way, is not bad thing to be called that means you're you're in it for the entertainment you're in it to please the fans and regularly go out there and just show how ballsy you are and how badass gaethje is you know in that discussion of the greatest in history within that category but that doesn't get it done at the end of the day to become an elite the fact that he was able to make this evolution the way he has and raise his ceiling so dramatically like i have so much respect for tony ferguson that justin gaethje and the way he performed on saturday night i mean i i'm going from from from this level to here in my opinion and expectations of what Justin Gaethje is credible and capable of. Because I did not ever believe I could see him put on a performance where he never sacrifices the savage nature and the danger he brings to a fight.

With being able to keep it up at a high technical level. Luke, his ability to balance those two together. His ability to swing for the fences at almost every turn, yet not gas out, not get too wild, and outside of that uppercut that he was nearly stopped with to end round two, never really put himself in a spot where he had become reckless. The ability to toe that line,

I never thought it possible that Justin Gaethje could get there. Now you ask me to start this show. Does this make him a viable contender for Habib? I think we just have to go. I got to see it now because I don't know how good this guy can be. This was brilliance. The ability to take smash mouth style fighting and put it together with a smart game plan. Very few in history, Luke, have been able to do that. I love that term. And I would say this, you know who he reminds me of a little bit. The comparison will not make sense over its totality. It's not a totalizing comparison, but I will say this. Sometimes somebody comes along in a division and beats all the guys that they're not supposed to beat. Now, again, I don't know if he's going to beat Nurmagomedov.

We have to see it, but I like his chances. I think he matches up certainly at a bare minimum in an interesting way, if not outright well. And I make this comparison to Fabricio Verdum. You know, Verdum is not considered to be the greatest heavyweight of all time, but he went in there and submitted Fedor. He's not considered to be the greatest heavyweight of all time, but he submitted the greatest

submission heavyweight of all time in Noguera. Again, not considered to be the best, but he goes in there and takes the title from Cain Velasquez in Mexico. Here's this guy that just comes along and you have all these greats in your mind. You have this ranking in your mind and one guy just wipes it all out. Now, again, there's many differences, many, many differences, BC, I think we'd agree, between the careers and the division that he operates in for BC Verdum and heavyweight between Justin Gaethje and lightweight. I'm just here to say you have these rankings in your mind. Tony versus a B it's for everything and I'm sad we're not going to get to see it I

want to say one more time but that's just not the way the cookie crumbles in this sport the some guys just take the sport by the scruff of the neck and they demand you give it to them and on Saturday night Justin Gaethje was one of those guys and I want to like take a I want to just remove from the table some of the opinions i saw in the aftermath that oh maybe tony shouldn't have cut weight to 55 a couple weeks ago or oh maybe he shouldn't have taken this fight maybe he shouldn't have you know he was preparing for a wrestler in habib and then he had to change while certain kernels of that may be true um here's where i didn't jay in my ear really wanted me to move on.

I am not ready to say anything but that that was a 10 out of 10 performance from Gaethje. Because, Luke, I believe Ferguson came through with a 10 performance of his own. Meaning, you were going to have to kill him in that cage to beat him. And thankfully, Herb Deem stopped it at really the perfect moment. Because Tony is not going to go down. He took a cyborg level of shots. He took the equivalent of like 20 to 25 finishing shots and not only kept coming. That's one thing, but patiently was sort of in the fight despite getting knocked around like crazy.

So that only adds to the performance of Justin Gaethje. Like I mentioned, to never get caught into a super brawl, to never get caught in a reckless position, and to just stay the course. He had to beat a 12-fight win streak Tony Ferguson, who you can take nothing away from. Yes, I had said for a while, maybe this is too big of a gamble. I finally understood where he was coming from. He can't wait on Habib. He can't follow him around.

He had to make his own history. He took that swing against Gaethje he was really willing to risk it all he came up empty but that only adds to what Gaethje did on Saturday night full respect here last thing on this I certainly echo everything you're saying BC and the other thing I would add here is look did it help that he had to go from again Nurmagomedov to arguably Nurmagomedov's opposite it couldn't have. Did he have to cut weight three weeks out? It probably didn't help. But I just don't think if I had to say, is that the reason he lost? Or is the reason that he lost is that Justin Gaethje has utterly undergone a reformation

of extraordinary proportions and does not get credit for how smart and talented of a fighter he is. Even today, BC, people are like, oh, Trevor Whitman is a genius. And he is. I would never say anything otherwise. He has guided this young man's career to great heights. He deserves a lot of credit. Don't take credit from Justin Gaethje either.

He is smarter than he gets credit for. He makes great decisions in fights. He adhered to the game plan. He was disciplined. And he won. And it was no accident. All right. With that being said, BC, we'll go to you again on this one. If we can, there's lots to discuss on 249. We're on limited clock. So let's go to the co-main event. If we

can, Henry Cejudo. Wow, man. What a performance by him. If you told me he was going to win BC, I would not have been surprised who could be, right? He was favored to win. He goes out there and he stops Dominic Cruz in the second round with strikes, but then he retired. Let me ask you the question in this way. Let's say he is done, BC. Let's say this is not a ploy to get money, which it could be. If he's really done, he never fights again. What is Henry Cejudo's legacy?

I almost don't want to entertain that question, Luke, because he's coming back. He's not done. We got to wake up. Jon Jones's tweet illuminated it for some people, but the more you dig into the comments of Cejudo afterwards where he said, Dana knows the price, quote unquote, to get me back in there. I'll shelf that though.

I'll entertain your question. Brilliant performance, the ability to set up those leg kicks and take away the one avenue for victory that Dom Cruz may have had and then systematically take him apart he's legitimately in the discussion right now for pound for pound best in the sport I don't think he's better than Habib I still got Jon Jones right there but he is banging on that door and to see what he's done with his opportunities I'll echo it again I did not believe he deserved the opportunity to fight for a title in a second weight class at that point. I didn't think he beat Demetrius Johnson in the rematch, but with all that said, every time they've given him the ball, he has come up and

above your expectations. Knocking out Marlon Marais, he was a killer. All that we've seen, he's absolutely hit a slam dunk. It's hard to say, is he now what he says, the greatest combat athlete of all time? No. Is he in the discussion of that upper room that, you know, people like me allowed Demetrius Johnson and Daniel Cormier to get into in the last few years? That Silva, GSP, Fedor, you know, John Jones room, you know where I'm going here. No, I don't think he's there, but I'm insanely impressed. His four fight win streak right now. Now he's on a six fight win streak, but that specific think he's there, but I'm insanely impressed. His four fight win streak right now,

now he's on a six fight win streak, but that specific four pack of fights, that's Mighty Mouse, Dillashaw, Maraish, and now Dominic Cruz. I would put up there with anyone with the exception of the five fight run that Jon Jones had beginning with the Shogun fight. I'll put that up there with or above any other four fight stretch in UFC history. That's the respect I have for who he is. I don't think he's a goat though. I do think you have to separate the hall of very good and great, but I do think he's exceptional at 33. I think he's taking a very large financial stand here because he sees himself as the Conor McGregor of the small weight classes. He sees himself as the potential first legitimate Mexican-American star for the UFC.

So I think what he's trying to do is this, Luke. It's not just about pay me. I think he's so smart that he's saying to himself, if I stay at Bantamweight and I go through the gauntlet of Peter Yan, Aljamain Sterling, Corey Sanhagen, Maraisa second time, on and on and on, I may win them all, but you know, that's a lot of high risk, somewhat low reward. Do you know what retiring right now is the best thing for him in his mind? He's giving away the belt so he doesn't have to defend it. And then he can come back for the type of one-offs, whether that be a featherweight title

shot down the road, or whether that just be super fight or fight another old name to put it on your resume it's brilliant control of your career do you know who the real mvp is you're not going to want to hear this the real mvp at ufc 249 it ain't the the the covid testers it ain't dana white getting the show back on the on the it's ali abdel aziz what a freaking weekend for that guy the way he's guiding these fighters i thought the way suhudo handled this retirement was absolutely brilliant. Sure, I wouldn't be opposed to saying that. He certainly has. A lot of people want to say Ali's success is accidental. I don't think it is accidental. Again, there may be some other criticisms to make of him, but that he has been a very successful manager in MMA is not one you

could make. You have to acknowledge what he has done. So I would absolutely do that. But getting back to Henry Cejudo here for just a moment, if I may, to me, when I think about, again, if this is just some ploy to get more money in the way which you have described, it very well could be. We'll have to see.

Let's take the premise of the question for what it is. So let's say he's done. What is his is his legacy first of all it deserves to be said this is one of the better retirements in mma that i've ever seen uh it happened in a strange way it's happening in a strange time but to go out on top as you mentioned in a four fight win streak where four of those wins excuse me there are four wins but then three of them d Dillashaw on PEDs, Mourne Maraich up a weight class, Dominic Cruz up a weight class. He got those three via stoppage. That's the best four fight win streak I've seen at any weight class, 145 and down. And as you mentioned, it's in competition with some other ones in the higher weight classes as well. So to me, you have this combination between a guy really coming into his own, a great moment to retire where you're not going out of the cage on your hands and knees. You're not taking fights

you're not supposed to take. You're not in all this kind of physical and financial peril. And it feels too soon, which tells you in many ways, it could arguably be construed as being right on time. But the thing that sits out for me is when I think about this, you're right, he was going to get an Aldo, he was going to get a Cruz, and then after that he was going to have to face the buzz saws of the Yons and the Sterlings and the Sanhagans, and there's just not a lot of money in that. We talked about it before. You want to be mad at Henry Cejudo for following the very incentives

the UFC sets out for champions when they're looking for big fights and how they make money? They make money based on celebrity. They don't make money based on challenge per se. You just have to acknowledge he's doing what the UFC is setting him out to do. I'll just say this. He was really coming to his own as a fighter.

I agree he deserves to be ranked at the top of the pound for pound. Or not at the top, but certainly in that space. I really wonder what he's capable of, a world-class athlete like this. And remember, he didn't beat Dillashaw Wrestling. Marais, there was a little bit of understanding these positions to help him.

And there was good down blocking in this one as well. I think he had one minor takedown on Cruz, but he won it based on these other skills he had developed. I know he had done some boxing prior to wrestling, but a fuller array of kickboxing at this point with the leg kicks, as you saw, he could be something special if he keeps going. I mean, I know he already is, but I mean, really, really special. I really wonder now more. I don't think he could beat Volkanovski, but I got to tell you, my interest in seeing the fight went up a little bit. He's a world-class athlete. I am saddened.

I am very, I honestly, I'll'll say this i'm very sad about what happened to tony but tony was able to do something really special and so was henry but henry feels like he's cutting it short before we could see the full breadth and depth of it tony's 36 37 it just kind of kills me a little bit you know i want to ask you this if you believe what i just said about suhudo's strategy right now in terms of matchmaking what are the potential super fights that could interest you at lightweight and i'm sorry at below what lightweight in the first half of the small weight classes if suhudo is going to essentially try to become a a contract killer and only take the biggest fish available for big money are there those type of fights that interest you? Honestly, they're at 145 at this point because 135,

if you're talking about just great fights with great talents, it's such an interesting, talent-rich, youth-driven division. But these guys just haven't had a chance to assert themselves. And the one bad thing for bantamweight, we've discussed a million times now, it's always better when one fighter takes the title from another. When one champion has to just gift it back, it makes that transference of celebrity kind of hard.

And I'll say this, BC, you know what's kind of sad also about Cejudo is that I remember when he first finished the Olympics and there were rumors of him getting into, you know, starting MMA. And he was not doing well at first. He had weight cut issues of course as we saw and he had wins but they were real lackluster and he wasn't training with the right people and blah blah blah number one he ironed all that out but the fact that he got labeled and did it to himself as the king of cringe when to me he could have

been the guy who picked up the torch from cain velasquez to really draw in those latino-american fans to really bring them out if you had not seen UFC 121 you look in the audience and you just see who's there and it was a different complexion he could have been that guy he still could be that guy if he finds a way instead he became in terms of this inside the MMA bubble this sort of like the sideshow stuff which really detracts from what a fantastic talent he actually was. Yeah, very comparable to me creating the Have You Seen This Shit segment when other people are going, oh, that guy can actually pull off a real interview, too. It was probably the demise of my career, Luke, but thanks for being part of it.

That's what I'm here to do, buddy. That's what I'm here to do. All right, we go to now the other fight on the main card that was breathtaking in its own way. Although, if you were holding your breath, you didn't have to hold it for very long, BC. Francis Ngannou scores an 18-second KO in the very first round over Jairzinho,

Rosenstreich, Rosenstruck, however you want to say it. What the hell is he supposed to do now that the division is on ice? The good news, BC, is that cormier saying i'll fight him if it's if they strip stipe but i don't think they want to strip a first responder in the middle of a pandemic who is saying i'm willing to fight i just need to be in a place where hello the gym is open bc i know you don't want to revisit it but i think it's time to revisit it look the biggest reason to have granted an interim title shot between Ngannou and Rosenstreicher,

hear me out now, I didn't mind at all what Justin Gaethje said and did when he threw the belt off. It's not because I think that that guy should be considered right alongside Nurmagomedov. It's not that. What I really cared about is just getting these guys more money. And Justin Gaethje, when he fights Nurmagomedov, is going to get more money. Big Francis is not. To me, that's terribly unfair and a missed opportunity.

But at this point, dude, he had an 18-second fight. Now, I know he had a long camp. Are we really going to wait until the fall to get this guy back out here? They have some very hard decisions to make now. To be honest, I don't know what the answer is because if you strip Stipe, that is terrible press, but you could do it and you can have a fight with Cormier. That's an option, but it has really bad PR. Or you could have him fight Derek Lewis again, which is risky

and could blow up everything he's going for because I would think you would agree he's earned a title shot. I don't know how much appetite there is on either guy's end for that though, which could make that hard to make. To me, if you had given this guy a belt, I think it would have made him more patient to sit around. And if he had to defend it, he could have potentially gotten more money along the way. To me, a missed opportunity. Yeah, I have a hard time even defending my own argument. I stand by my own argument that just littering uh interim belts devalues the overall title and i do stand by that like yeah i want these guys to get paid i don't want to come at the expense of that i think ufc can be much more creative in how they figure out

the payment structure but we do have a problem right now because if they just run him against derrick lewis and put an interim title at stake i mean again it's it's kind of cheesy like like derrick lewis doesn't necessarily even deserve an interim title opportunity the only one who might is cormier and if you're cormier he said it best on the broadcast on saturday he said i want to see francis and ghanu fight for a title more than anybody i just don't want to see it against me now of course he he laughed and then rightfully said you know of course i'd fight him right i don't think he'd fight him for an interim title. So really the best thing that needs to happen is Stipe get into a camp right now.

Like the Ohio State Commission just basically says, okay, Stipe's gym can open up. And we basically start the process of Stipe DC3, which can we like realize how historic that fight actually is? I feel like we keep talking about it as an afterthought. Stipe himself is talking about it as an afterthought. The of that's the greatest heavyweight in ufc history and really right up there with fedor so can we give that fight the potential respect it deserves i know it's hard when when frank the tank is is just knocking fools out this four fight knockout

streak which is the blades rematch in like 20 seconds jds kane velasquez and now this all four in 71 seconds or less it was so freaking scary in like a in like a real organic way like remember like the first time you watch pro wrestling as a kid and you watch like a evil heel and you're like it's coming through the screen you're like oh my god like if i watch this more he might kick my ass it's the only time i've seen that kind of feeling in regular fights is the original build of mike tyson as heavyweight champion where you're like this guy is so crazy he could kill anybody that seven punch combination that nganu just basically went into and just figured you know what one of these is going to knock him out i mean that's certainly not like traditional orthodox mma but the fact that he's rebuilt himself mentally and and sort of gets the business now and

gets his role and understands what he has to do to be his very best he is such a unique attraction and how is anybody going to stand up against that yeah i watch stipe go five rounds and take a big shot early and then expose him i do not think the rematch will look like that and i can't wait to see and ghanu get that shot but i don't want to ruin what we have now so here's my here's my pitch and ghanu i know you only needed 20 seconds to give rosenstrick his first l just just stay in the gym and sit tight don't take any fight but real thing, because that's what's supposed to happen. He reminds me in many ways. And I was, I did a live show on my YouTube channel after the fight and folks were asking me about comparisons and I didn't think of it until one of my viewers brought it up. So I'll give them credit. I forget their name, but they were

asking, is he like Deontay Wilder? And in some senses, yes. Right. Uh, he doesn't have the same, obviously he's speaking in a second language so I'm telling you that's very difficult to do I give him lots of credit for how well he has already done in the second language and how much better he gets day over day first of all but but second of all like Deontay is sort of known as having all these other weaknesses but the bomb and to be clear Ngannou has a lot of weaknesses by virtue of the fact he's just not been doing this very long and he also has the bomb but his bomb i mean with the smaller gloves it just seems to have an impact more quickly you had mentioned the four white winds there i think mike bond of mma junkie had said if you add them all up it's just two minutes

and 45 seconds like dude that is shocking that is a shocking amount of power translated into fighting efficiency. I talked to people in his camp. They told me that was the wrong combination. He was supposed to finish it with a kick and instead just decided to throw a left hook on the go. And it still had that kind of an impact. Like he just improvised in the moment and it still laid this guy out completely who, by the way, had nearly 80 kickboxing fights uh it is to me it's like he's got the power of wilder he doesn't have that american bombast but i i think that there were just not there's an opportunity if they can find a way they can find a way bc to get this guy busy he is more marketable than i think a lot of folks um if not necessarily realize that we've

just produced to this point. There's more to this story here. And everyone loves a hardscrabble story, the kind that he has coming from Cameroon. Real hardcore dirt poverty. And to translate what he's translated into, and his coaches tell me, dude, you've not seen it. His ground game has gotten so much better. His cardio is better.

He can go five rounds. They're telling me he's requesting five rounds in the gym instead of three just to make sure that he's on point doesn't really matter if you're not gonna go out 18 seconds all my point is on this one is there's no easy answer i'll just say if they have to keep them on ice until the winner of dc versus stipe that is a very sub-optimal outcome given what he's ready for and how and how i think he's a 34 at this point it's not not a great of DC versus Stipe, that is a very suboptimal outcome, given what he's ready for and how, I think he's at 34 at this point. It's not a great time for him.

But an interim title bout against an opponent who doesn't deserve an interim title opportunity, and it's already a fake title, that's suboptimal. But I think that loss he had, the two losses back-to-back, Stipe and Lewis, were the absolute greatest thing that could happen to him. He is so mentally where he needs to be. Some people said, how could he not call out Stipe and Lewis were the absolute greatest thing that could happen to him. He is so mentally where he needs to be. Some people said, how could he not call out Stipe afterwards? You know, I thought he just handled it perfectly because he handled it who he is. He's basically like, I can't control UFC's title system and their opportunities.

I'm just basically going to keep knocking fools out. So I love that. You know, you mentioned his hardscrabble story. Don't forget he was homeless too in Paris living out of his car when he first moved there and tried to chase this MMA dream. All he needs is a snaggle tooth and he's basically Jewel. We love this type of story. All right. Hey, and also, and now while we're here in the nineties, it's 2020. I love that our producer Jay, who's in my ear telling me to get to the next topic. I love that he could have all this great technology sent to my house and yours, Luke, and we can make this show, by the way,

during this quarantine, the best produced show there is in the game, and it is, okay? It's way better than our competitors. Jay cannot produce the 90s counter, though. No, he's not. He's very, very bad at that. Jay's bad at most things,

unless you want to talk about unintentionally bad cover band imitations. And then he's all over it. He's got that on lock. Okay. With that, it takes us to the next topic, BC. Let's get to it. Now, UFC 249, we knew on paper it was a great card going in.

Certainly, we can both say UFC 249 as an event delivered. But it wasn't all good news. There was some bad news as well. Jacare and two of his cornermen tested positive for the coronavirus. They had to be, well, the fight with Uriah Hall and Jacare got removed from the card. And there was a lot of bad news that came out on Friday and a lot of questions that remain. By the way, a ton of press, both on the positive side for the UFC about the event. Chris Mannix over at Sports Illustrated giving it glowing remarks. And then also I saw Bloomberg writing about it negatively. I saw the New York Times writing about it negatively. I saw the Washington Post writing

about it negatively. So it was a bit of a mixed bag. Let me go to you first on this one, BC. Overall the weekend, from the Jacare news to the afterglow of the fight, what kind of response do you have to everything? What grade would you give the UFC's general effort here? Effort-wise and success rate, I'd give it right about a C plus, B minus. Because I do give Dana White and UFC a ton of credit for pulling this card off and constantly fighting. Yes, not going to dig it all back up. There were times it was completely reckless,

but joining with the state commission, doing it the right way, paying a lot of money, which I know Dana brags about that a lot to get people off his back, but it's true. They set up seemingly the right structure and protocols to make this happen. In the end, it wasn't perfect. That system is set up. It's kind of hard to be perfect. This is the unknown.

It's unprecedented. I hope and i think i've seen based on ariel hawani's subsequent reporting on twitter that the ufc learned from this jacare situation which hopefully ends up being just a great scare and what i mean by that is jacare disclosed to them ahead of time that he had been in contact with a family member who had covid and to see him allowed to kind of just you know roam that hotel and you saw of course on fabrizio verdum's Instagram live feed. I know he's wearing a mask and glove, but he's within one foot of everybody,

giving everybody the fist bump and all that. That seemed reckless when UFC hadn't yet received the results of his test. So then they find out him and his team have the COVID with asymptomatic. They put them in their own, you know, sequestering. And suddenly that press release comes out and says, we did all the right protocol. Well, you really didn't. And I'm not here necessarily to damn them for that.

I'm just saying, I hope that they learn from that moment. They tighten things up even more because somebody had to be first. There's no perfect game plan to do this. I am here to tell you, I'm happy what UFC did. They pulled this card off. I was insanely entertained just from a straight up entertainment standpoint not only did it great to feel great to

have this card back the card was freaking awesome and it's my job so i love getting an opportunity to do my job but with all that said they are one bad covid disaster in black Eye away from it all falling apart. So hopefully the Jacare situation is just a big scare in the end, Luke. The other half of it is why my grade for them comes down pretty substantially. At the end of the day, Luke, I don't read fighter contracts. I don't know what's normal. Them putting some kind of clause in a contract that says a fighter can't say something that's a lie about the COVID testing or they get fined, to me, that's between fighter and UFC. I almost don't care about it. That's their business. But to have members of the media sign things that don't just say, we're not liable if you get sick. I understand that. We're in unprecedented

situations, right? You use the restroom at the Vice Star Veterans Memorial Arena and you catch a bad thing. I understand you can't sue UFC, but if there's any element in that contract, which the media members were forced to sign, and they did, that says they could be fined for certain public comments against UFC's handling of this, this is the beginning of communism. This is unacceptable. And I heard Dana White's reaction to it at the press conference and in his interview with Kevin Aioli of Yahoo. And, you know, he sort of just tried to downplay it. So this is normal. We've seen subsequent reporting from people like John Nash on Twitter who have sort of countered that. This is going too far when you're doing things that even on the surface give the impression that you're muzzling people like us whose jobs are

to report on things that's where i'm like this is fishy and i don't like the direction of it yeah i'm with you if i go to cover a ufc event and they grant a credential and somehow through the course of it with them taking their safety precautions and everything else involved and i somehow still get covid19 that's a risk I took. I don't really have any issue with saying I'm not going to sue you or whatever the case may be because I trust them to not be dangerously negligent. I trust them to do at least some kind of a good job. And if it just happens when I'm out there, I either got in a car or got in a bus or got on a train or got on a plane knowing the risk that I was potentially undertaking. I don't have an issue with that.

I have a major issue with the other non-disparagement clause. And I know Dana White afterward, he was reacting to a guy who was, let's be honest, technically sort of our boss. I guess he's our boss. Yeah, Steven Espinosa of Showtime. And he was saying that the disparagement clause only says if you say anything untrue, that is absolutely not an accurate depiction of what non-disparagement clauses entail. It means anything that could be insulting. In fact, a lot of non-disparagement clauses, I spoke to many lawyers over the weekend about this in contract law, a lot of non-disparagement

clauses will be, they'll specify exactly what disparagement entails. This one does a little bit of that, but it leaves things so open-ended, it could be just about anything. And they say, Dana White's saying, well, only if you report things that aren't facts. Okay. If I said that they weren't doing COVID testing, that would clearly be not factual, right? But what if I said their COVID testing isn't good? Well, now we're getting to a point where we're having to interpret what that means. Is that true? Is that false? That's a very difficult question to actually kind of answer. And to me, it's just, even if they're not even going to enforce it, it's a very difficult question to actually kind of answer. And to me, even if they're not even going to enforce it, it's just a chilling message to send to media. And I want to forgive

the media here a little bit because I know how the game works. Their employers are going to say, listen, it's MMA. We don't really care about journalistic standards. Just go sign the thing and then tape the scrum and do what you got to do. I get it, dude. They're between a rock and a hard place. And I understand that. And I totally get that. But at the same time, the UFC, if they want to say, media, come cover us, COVID, you're on your own, okay, I get it. But if we are now being dictated to, or at least having to sign documents

around the type of coverage we provide, that's PR. I mean, that's not any kind of real honest media. It's not what we're here for. It's not what we're aiming to do. Okay, with that said, grading the overall weekend, I'm going to give them a B, BC. I'm going to give them a B. And the reason why is because I thought the event, in terms of its production, the tweets on the screen got a little much, but I thought the card was great.

I thought the card was great. I thought the production was phenomenal. I thought everyone there from the commentary crew to everything in between, I thought they did a great job with it. It was a home run event in terms of just the fights themselves, what they produced and how that part of it was handled. In terms of the COVID situation with Jacare, I don't want to go crazy on him. I'll just say this. I think we could all agree on something. If you're the first to do something, BC, you're going to learn by doing. So we should allow a degree, a degree of leniency with the UFC to say, we know no matter how good they try, how hard they try the first time, we know that's not what the policy is going to look like six

months down the road. They're going to figure out what works, what doesn't, what's necessary, and what's not there. The disparagement clauses kind of tell you they were trying to do a little bit of CYA, but again, we've already covered that. To me, here's the problem. When they say the system worked, they're not wrong, which is the whole idea they had was screen everybody up front, contain it, take them to the fights, and then let them be.

We can control everything in that environment. If that's what you're designed to do, as an idea, that's not bad. The problem is they haven't really filled in the blanks, which is, okay, let's say somebody tests positive on Thursday. Let's say somebody tests positive on Friday. I know they sent out a new note to fighters being like, hey, have you had any symptoms before you show up? Fighters are going to have an incentive to lie about that. Like they do everything because if they don't lie about it, they don't get to fight. If they

don't get to fight, they don't get paid. We know how many times they don't disclose having the flu, having twisted ankles, broken bones even, just so they can get to go and fight. So to me, that's not much of an effective screen. All I'm saying is what that system that they've built in needs is for them to ask themselves the question, what happens if something breaks down at every individual stage afterwards? Now, how do we handle it? Because their entire system is built with front-loading security and then just maintenance all the way through. I don't think that's enough. I don't think that's going to carry them through. They need to have other pieces where if someone hits the fire alarm halfway through a Friday, they've got other mechanisms in place

to contain that individual fire while keeping everybody else safe. So they're going to learn by doing, but there's definitely room for improvement. Yeah, and to close on this, it was unique to have the empty arena with the commentary being heard by the judges by the fighters it's going to change for as long as this lasts kind of how things are done fighters openly said i heard dc giving advice on how i could win this fight and criticism and they took it we've really never seen anything like that at the pro elite level um i'm not worried what it does to judges it's just interesting i think it adds another layer of entertainment. I don't know how they fixed that unless they put them in some kind of booth above the arena.

But this is part of, they took a chance. They put this card out. It was a huge success. Just don't mute your peeps. All right? All right? Just don't mute. Just don't mute us.

And continue to learn about your COVID policy, your protocol, and continue to improve it. Okay. Last but not least, BC. We already said it. 249 had a ton of great fights, a ton of important ones. We've talked about Big Francis. We've talked about Henry Cejudo. We've talked about Justin Gaethje.

Who have we not talked about, BC? Who is another standout performer in your mind that deserves to be shouted out on today's broadcast? Sir, give them a hand. I want to say half point. Half point toald serrani i predicted he'd get knocked out this would be his fourth consecutive loss he loses a spirited competitive

rematch with anthony pettis it was really great match making the preliminary card main event donald serrani dialed back in with the pressure off and really turned back the clock that looked like donald serrani against eddie alvarez a few years back with a game plan with toughness those two just came out there on like two and a half weeks of a camp and just banged it was fun to see i was happy for donald cerrone because you had a fear he was entering chuck liddell territory during the twilight of his career the other thing is you know it should have been the fight of the night gage g in in ferguson ended up getting the nod that was a savage fight It was a lot at stake. It wasn't the fight of the night.

Shout out to Vicente Luque and Nico Price. It got buried in the undercard. There were no fans in the arena to watch it. But Luke, that rematch between them, they put on an absolute war. I knew who Nico Price was. I'd seen him fight before. I wasn't really woke to the character

that I was dealing with. This guy's an absolute really woke to the character that I was dealing with. This guy's an absolute psychopath in every possible way that I love, Luke. You've got to follow him now every fight the rest of his career if you weren't already. These guys were insanely entertaining, and in some ways they kind of set the tone for the fun that would come the rest of the evening. I mean, to think that this fight was on the undercard, if this fight had taken place 10 years ago, or even let's say 15, 2006 or so to 14 years ago, they would call that one of the all-time classics. We just take it as prelim card, not filler exactly, but you know, minor attraction. That's how good MMA fighting has gotten. And I agree, Nico Price, an incredible

talent. Vicente Luque had a rough fight against Wonderboy, came back and rebounded against a ready Nico Price, who he'd already beaten before. I take my hat off to both gentlemen. But the gentleman I want to shout out on this card, if I may, BC, Calvin Cater. Wow, man. I talked to him about two weeks ago to see how he was doing. Like all these fighters, they were trying to do their best with a stay-at-home, shelter-in-place, whatever kind of orders that were there. They were trying to figure out the best way to train. He was supposed to fight at UFC 248, and then that got delayed to 249. Then 249 got delayed until May 9th.

He had what ended up as a 15- or 16-week camp for this, and he still did not have burnout. Took a little bit of time to get going but not as much as usual and came out there and Jeremy Stevens who I know had missed weight but Jeremy Stevens looked locked on and dialed in from the word go in this one and was landing good shots but Calvin Cater is so talented he is so smart he has some of the best boxing in all of the UFC irrespective of division and I absolutely mean the words that I'm saying right now, and then to trick him up with that Carlos Condit versus Tiago

Alves, where it looks like we're in punching range, exchanging hooks, and then I go to the elbow, that was magnificent, BC. Jeremy Stevens, I give him credit, dude. That guy's got wins and he's got losses. He's fought the best of his generation, and i want to make sure we say that but calvin cater is absolutely a contender at 145 pounds look out yeah your boy joe rogan called cater the dark horse of the division coming in and uh i think that woke a lot of people up shout out to jeremy stevens is tan by the way luke i'm going to go as far as saying that's the second best tan in ufc history behind that time stephen bonner roided up

to face Anderson Silva and got the six-pack abs. Shout out to that. Well done. Fair enough. That takes us now, BC, to where you donks out there get to ask us questions. It's time now for DMs from donks. As we wait for the two-second delay here.

Jay, you on this? We got the animation. Jay is asleep at the fucking wheel. There we go. Jay's back watching videos of that boy band, No Escape. Oh, well, they didn't run the animation, did you, Jay? You didn't run the animation, did you? That was awesome.

Well, the show was great, PC. I appreciate it. All right, well, let's get to the first question, because Jay apparently, Cat got your tongue. Boy, Jay's got a lot to say when things are going right when things are going wrong have you noticed he gets quiet as a church mouse in the ear all right BC first question for you this comes to us from ginger beard Tommy all right here we go uh let's see taking recency bias into account which is the biggest MMA fight that got away a Lesnar versus Fedor B St. Pierre versus Silva or C Khabib versus Tony that's a tough question I'm gonna pick B Luke because commercial

always seems to matter more than critical in terms of when we look back and look St. Pierre versus Silva commercially what would have been absolutely massive had it come at the end of their respective runs as the absolute elites of their own divisions i think also there were some elements that you know you could have titled that as like who's the greatest fighter of all time we're going to find out in that fight now it wouldn't have been true based on that matchup but although the other two are more important fights that we needed to see for certain hierarchies this would have been the most fun and would have drawn the most pay-per-view buys of the three of

them yeah i would agree i think that's generally correct kabhi versus tony is you know it's weird bc like i said i'm sad about it but i don't think it's fully set in what we lost you know because let me just say this the problem for tony is that he like lesnar fedor just kind of never materialized and they kind of just went on with their lives in different ways um obviously went to strike force for fedor but with this one tony lost at this moment that justin is ascending and the uniqueness of his ascension is kind of not shadowing and drowning out the loss of Khabib Tony but I mean maybe there's a little bit for me because I'm so focused on how well he's doing I haven't had time to process that loss but I would generally agree

with you about B you want to say something I was just going to say uh to add on to the heartbreaking nature like I really believe like look I don't know if Justin Gaethje can beat Habib, right? Like I said, the ceiling's now, I can't put a limit to it. I genuinely in my heart believe that outside of, like, a perfect punch from McGregor when he's at his very prime, I believe Tony Ferguson was the only lightweight capable of, you know, outside of a fluke, giving Habib a loss during this lightweight run. So it is, like, we got to take time to mourn this, right? Five times they tried to do it. Maybe we get it in some form of aftermarket version,

but it will never be the same. Tony Ferguson's 12-fight win streak was absolutely insane. I know it's not all killer on that, but to be able to keep that together, to be able to survive the injury that he had and come back in six months and do no physical therapy and just be crazy. I mean, the guys, remember that time at that uh at that uh public weigh-in he ran off the stage and gave

you like this like a crystal like some kind of like uh was that for it was it was a uh it was a grip trainer oh i thought it was some kind of like kabul like spiritual like uh black magic thing no it was just training grip. That's it. Okay. Sorry. Well, yeah. It just looked cool. All right. From Pulse Reloaded.

Question for Luke and Brian is, is prime Anthony Rumble Johnson versus current Francis in a street fight? Ooh. Who wins and would someone die? That's a morbid question. Jesus, BC. You want to tackle that one first? I don't think anyone would die, but that's an absolutely insane fight.

By the way, Rumble wants that smoke. I talked to him at that last UFC Vegas card when they did that Ali Abdelaziz media day. Rumble is still getting ready to come back at either 205 and heavy, and that's a name on his short list along with short list, along with Jon Jones, along with, you know, any of the super elites. So we may see that. Yeah, I have no idea what would happen on there. I even thought what was great about the Ngannou-Rosenstruck fight on paper is I didn't know what that was going to look like. Like, yeah, if you asked me who was going to win, Ngannou had better experience and maybe was a more well-rounded finisher in terms of his abilities.

But that's it that's oh man i mean that's like can we take the best porn star like the 70s and of the 90s and put them together in like a mythical bedroom in their primes right luke or that so that's like so so i won't say what they're famous for but if you've watched as much pornography as me you'll get this that's like sylvia saint versus asa akira right like kobe bryant and kobe tie at a colorado uh too soon too soon here's what i'd say if they ever fought in a street fight number one better not be in an actual street like please fight on grass right so someone's head doesn't bounce off the pavement number one number two i give the speed edge to Rumble, but even then, I don't know anybody that hits like Francis, dude.

I just... He's another... You cover boxing. What do you make of him as the Deontay Wilder of this heavyweight division? Yeah, no, the comparison is great. We're one punch in any kind of punch. Even kind of gradually grazing somebody can finish him. I want to just say this about that

seven punch wacky combination that he ran at rosenstruck with and basically made him go like this that's so freaking unorthodox luke and i swear if you do that against any elite fighter you may cause them to freeze in headlights and get them out of there like can you game plan for that a guy that big just rushing at you with helicopters i mean's crazy. I think you either have to get out of the way or you got to be like DC where you get underneath it and try to pick him up and drop him. Because I think if you, like here's what Rosenstruck tried to do.

If you go back and you watch the tape, he was leg kicking him and actually connecting with punches as he was backing up. I give credit to old Jairzinho, dude. He might be a crazy bastard but he's a brave one right he i mean the dude had huevos he was trying to meet fire with fire and maybe that works in kickboxing to a better degree but with those little gloves and

big francis just barreling down on you it works for about 18 seconds is the is the answer that's how long it works. Not great. No, you're right. And let me settle the spirit of this question. I think Anthony Rumble Johnson hits harder with one perfect shot, but I think Francis Ngannou can knock you cold with more types of shots. I think that's okay. All right. Next we have Alexander Z.

Shysh. Shysh. Shyshish. Shyshish? Shyshish? Shyshish? What is... Yeah, I'm not sure. Nietzsche? What is your preferred MMA crowd?

A. Drunk but energetic. B. Japanese. C. None, BC. I'm going to go with drunk but energetic. I'm down with the real thing. Of course you did. Give me the Just Bleed guy guy give me all those people who think they're dressed up really nice but really they have an affliction t-shirt under their tight

dress shirt and in the and the stylist jeans with the bedazzled ass patch give me those people who who feel like they're classy because i mean look i've been in a lot of arenas for pro wrestling mma and boxing at the highest level ufc's in arena experience is unlike anything and certainly that's because they know how to play the right song at the right time and have the video screens placed properly but it's also because that crowd comes ready to thirst for violence from from the opening second it's not a late arriving celebrity crowd like my brethren in boxing it is a we are here to see people you know potentially die in that cage in front of me and and i couldn't be happier crowd and that's that's the reality of it

that's the truth luke that's the damn truth all right uh for you i will go with b i will go with japanese uh i did not so trendy that's so they sit on their hands luke that's so trendy okay yeah thank god you sit on your hand during this show they don't act like uh primates who throw their feces at one another when they get angry yes god forbid that they act remotely civilized i don't love everything about the japanese crowds but you're asking me for a choice i'm gonna go with in those three with japan here's why when we were watching 249 bc i was so happy to not hear woos oh my god Luke you're going to have to get over the woos though it's not a big deal

it is a big deal it makes it so unpleasant it makes it absolutely awful the booing I don't like but I've just learned to live with that doesn't bother me as much but I will say this BC and this is where the part that I really miss the fans no one makes the good part

of MMA as a live experience as well as the fans do. When the fans are cheering for McGregor and they're in song together and in unison, that can't be topped. You go back to UFC Dublin where Conor beat Diego, what's his face? I forget now.

Brandao. Brandao, Luke. And to see that crowd, imagine if there was no crowd for UFC Dublin. Would UFC Dublin have been as good as it was? No, it would not have been. They were an integral piece of that puzzle, and I can acknowledge that. And yes, there's beer flying.

I don't mind that. We've all seen World Cup videos where they're showing some big park in the middle of Amsterdam, and then the Dutch score, and everyone's chucking their beer in the air dude that's great i'm all in favor of that i just can't stand the woos so much that i'd rather take a 24-hour flight to tokyo if that if that's what it required just so i wouldn't have to hear it i hate them that much luke you just hate pro wrestling which i get look i'm souring to a certain degree I don't cover it as much anymore. I love the real thing a lot more, believe me. But it's just people celebrating that they're there partying, having a good time. And I also think the average white lager drinking, just bleed stereotypical MMA crowd is a smarter crowd than we give them credit. They pick up on

the beginnings of momentum switches. And that's actually the best part, when you can feel it thundering in the arena that somebody's beginning what looks like it could be a comeback. I stand by those people. And that's nothing against the Japanese folks, but I stand by those people, okay? Dude, again, I think MMA crowds have gotten so much better in terms of the totality of the experience.

Notice I'm saying one thing. The boos, I can live with. That's not a reason to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. It's the woos, dude. It's like, dude, do we have to do this at every event in every city for no discernible reason

other than you don't feel like public space is a thing that you have an obligation to maintain in an orderly and civilized way? I just like being a good neighbor, BC. I mow my lawn on time and I pay my taxes. You know what I'm saying? That's all.

No, your neighbor actually asked you if they could landscape your yard for you because you've become such a pariah in the neighborhood and you basically told them off. So don't act like you're this friendly guy. You're also telling stories about going out in DC with PTSD guys and just knocking fools out and dragging

them by their wife beater don't give me that luke i know who you are on the inside all right yeah that's true i'm also a deranged hypocrite all right with that in mind we go to denny bond fan 007 what martial arts action stars would have done well in mma bc what do you think i okay look i'm the biggest steven seagal fan there possibly is in terms of his the cheesy the amazing cheesiness and brutality of his prime movies and that prime run was very small he went direct to dvd really quick despite having that uh that that's somewhat memorable comeback when he paired himself with uh top rappers of the moment but to see the the quickness of his aikido and you know we've seen him in a lot of

instructional videos with anderson silva and certain guys and you know i just want to see if that could actually translate to the octagon i want to see if that ability to just have insanely fast hands and redirect somebody who's charging at you can be packaged with well-rounded traditional mixed martial arts skills and see if a guy wearing a kimono with a long braid who probably touched all the females in the room illegally before he walked in could actually pull that off. That's my choice. I am old enough to remember when it was discussed heavily on what was previously MMA.TV, now MixedMartialArts.com, and then Joe Rogan made the call out during a broadcast of a UFC pay-per-view. Wesley Snipes, for those who don't know,

there was a time when it was rumored, and I think they even tried to do it, at least there was some kind of momentum towards making a Joe Rogan versus Wesley Snipes fight during a UFC event. And Joe was all in... My memory serves. I could be wrong about this. Joe was all in favor of it. We're talking about like,

you know, what Hollywood celebrity. Now, I don't know what action star. Okay, so Joe is not an action star because he's not had that kind of career, but he's been in Hollywood,

he's been on major television shows. The answer is Joe Rogan or Wesley Snipes. I would love to see that fight, or I mean, maybe not now, they're kind of older and long in the tooth, but 10,

15 years ago when they were talking about it, 15 years ago. BC, I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad older and long in the tooth. But 10, 15 years ago when they were talking about it 15 years ago, BC, I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it at all. No, Wesley Snipes had some tax issues and had a jail term coming, so I think he was fairly desperate.

But, yeah, that would have been great. I mean, anyone can say Van Damme, all these other guys, whatever. What about Michael Jai White? Remember those videos of him showing Kimball how to land sneaky punches? That could be interesting. Yes, this is the gentleman who you may not recall if folks are watching. This is the one that Mike Perry openly called the N-word on Twitter.

He has been in a bunch of movies, including a movie that I did not think they pulled off all that well, but I appreciate what they tried, which was Spawn. You ever seen the movie Spawn, which came from the Image comic books, the Spawn series, who's like a sort of Faustian deal, kind of upside-down Batman? No?

I have not seen it, Luke. Am I coming in clear? No, I think I'm having internet troubles. Can you hear me? Can you see me? I know we're live, Luke. Am I coming in clear? No, I think I'm having internet troubles. Can you hear me? Can you see me? I know we're live, Luke. I see you just fine, but is your Zoom screen super blurry like it was when we tried to watch Vasquez Marquez or whatever fight that was?

Yes, super blurry. Not a little bit blurry. Super blurry right now, all right? I think Jay is at home. Jay is doing the show that he is powering everything out of his home and I'm telling you right now, he's missing cues and the stream sucks because he is on Cam Soda

right now. I guarantee it. I guarantee it, BC. That's where he's at. Normally, I like to see Jay's... Alright, last but not least. Yeah, normally I like to see Jay's face in that tiny Zoom window. Let me say this. The last last question i would recommend fixing this dude's name underscore jack uh or jack underscore with three k's the three k's bc never a good life choice either go with the two or the four or something like that right never the three but okay

he says i mean it's on brand it's on brand for the stereotypical mma fan but i'm not into it caught a glimpse of luke thomas's forearm tattoo so want to know if you boys have any cool crazy tattoo stories i imagine marine time ones would be good bc you got any tats i do not have have any tats because there are very few things in life that I just fear, loathe, and detest. And spiders would be one of them. Black licorice would be another. And needles would also be on that list.

Luke, I don't know if you're going to hear me now. My internet's crazy. But I once had a vasectectomy and there were three needles involved so uh i'll never be getting a tattoo thank you three needles uh yeah he's referencing this one this is the one that i have it's the yeah i hear you this is the tattoo that you're talking about right here if you've not seen it before you know what that surgery entails three needles bro yeah you can no longer procreate, which, you know,

I don't think is the end of the world. Three needles. I get it. I don't have any crazy tattoo stories, but I do have some bad ones that I'm looking to get covered up. I have a good one, which is, BC, do you know what meat tags are?

No? That sounds a little spicy. No, what are meat tags, Luke? I can hear you. Meat tags are essentially. Three needles, Luke. Three of them. All right.

All right. Yeah, it is. A meat tag is essentially the information that goes on your dog tag, except you get it tattooed on your ribs, and you do it if you're combat arms in the Marine which i was so i've got meat tags uh tattooed on my ribs i've got um i've got a tattoo on my chest i've got asian characters very small ones somewhere that i'm looking to cover up because bc there was no way i was going to get out of my 20s without making some

cataclysmically stupid decisions that's one of them but i've got another tattoo on my back and uh i'm looking to get i'm looking to fill this arm up completely so we'll see how that goes i'm so lucky luke that i have this aversion to needles because I would have some really bad ones. I would really have. I'd probably have girls' names, Larry Bird's jersey on there. I'd probably have some really bad song lyrics from 90s bands that no one's heard of. It probably would have been really bad.

I still question if you can hear me right now. With that in mind, BC, I have to warn you. If you can't and this is the end of me on this show, I do want to just add three needles, bro. Three of them. Okay. Okay. With that in mind, BC,

it is time for you to take over the show with your favorite segment where we look at dicks. Go ahead, good sir. Hey, you know what we do? We scour the globe for the good, bad, and ugly, the best and worst. From Combat Sports and Beyond, Luke, it's Have You Seen This Shit? Up first is my vasectomy here.

Let's show needle number one. No, what do we got here? From one MMA, Luke, not one championship, one MMA. I got to ask you a question. Is this the best KO ever or the best celebration of a victory ever? First, you send the guy to hell. Okay, it's a good KO. And then check this out, Luke.

And then he does the whole Demetrius Johnson spinning. Oh, Jesus. It's a little gratuitous. Unless you were knocking out the guy who banged your mom. It's a little gratuitous. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

All right. Dude, this is... I can't... My feet is stuck. BC, let me say something. I can barely see what is happening because Jay is powering everything through a potato in his house.

Jay, how about that 90s counter? This is so terrible. You're so unbelievable oh what the f um so yeah shout out to that spinning head kick in ridiculous celebration the guy looked like uh the guy looked like simone biles right there all right luke all right no okay all right i don't know if we're live anymore but um we're gonna go on to number two. This is an oldie but goodie. This amateur boxing KO in which he turns this guy into Mr. Freeze. It's recirculated the past week. Luke, it's one of the greatest things that ever happened. I mean, I think he knocked the guy out two separate times. Oh, man. He stiffened him up, turned him into a mannequin, and then just pushed him over.

I mean, that's freaking brutal yeah yeah that is not great i'm having a hard time since ted williams yeah all right we're gonna go on here um skate let's check out a nice skateboarding fail let's see how this one ends here on the uh on the streets of san francisco here luke check this oh god oh god yeah i got i got a number of a good uh a good vasectomy doctor he'll finish the job for you wow that is bro it knocked him out of his shoes oh god yes that random spike in the ground has sent you to hell tony hawk yes all right oh god hey we're gonna go on uh from armenia with love uh can somebody get mama off this slip and slide we

got a little amateur wrestling match here in the community luke but as things start to heat up whoa whoa mama throw mama from the train get that babushka lady alpha there babushka's grandma uh how do you know it's armenia i have i have my sources it's written on the screen right there i know you can't see it but uh somebody get abuelita off the uh off the yellow canvas what is happening here nice hammer punch though spell the word you just used for grandma spell it a b u l e t a abuelita abuela a b u e l a so abuelita all right i'm close i was the fifth grade spelling bee champion in my town and i came in 14th place at the state tournament okay luke 14 all right thank you take that all right very good all right all right you

know my mom's Armenian. She is? Yeah, my mom is Armenian, yeah. Oh, shout out to Armenia. All right. They were refugees in Syria from the genocide that Turkey refuses to acknowledge. And then my mom was born in Aleppo and then moved to Beirut. Wow, there's still time to recognize that, though.

Shout out to the late Mrs. Thomas. I thought she was from Qatar. that's where all my comedy was coming from but uh she was an armenian national living out of beirut yeah love it love the backstory luke i love what makes you who you are luke thomas a factory town in syria yes thank you uh we're gonna go to the gym now uh check out this martial artist uh warming up and performing is he setting up for a fight luke or is he gonna molest some kids what is happening here is that steven is that wonder boy what is what's going on here dude he looks like you know he looks like he's practicing like crossing guard motions traffic this way i think that's like 50 year old wonder boy thompson yeah dude you may not appreciate this bc you may not appreciate this if you go to a regular gym and i

appreciate that like regular gyms are trying to like diversify their fitness offerings so more and more what i'm seeing bc is and this was not the case 15 years ago, you're seeing heavy bags everywhere or even speed bags. If you want to see the worst fucking boxing in your life, go to like a Gold's that has set up a heavy bag and you will see this kind of shit constantly. I mean, what is this guy preparing to like, it looks like he's setting up to chop meat at like, like, bam, like, yeah, like yeah all right no he's swatting butterflies wow all right well we're going to continue on to some uh further ridiculous workout methods check out this guy on the uh

on the elliptical machine here luke setting up for uh the coming genocide he has planned can we get to this what is happening here luke my man is just stabbing the haters fucking look at this stab stab you come out of the restroom at the gym my man brought a katana to fucking Planet Fitness so he could just stab imaginary haters. Oh, that's good. That's good stuff. I needed that. All right.

Hey, we're going to go to KSW. Ain't that in Russia, Luke? Is that Russian? Poland. Poland. Or just in a hurry. Okay, it's in Poland. Check out this ground defense.

That's how you get in a guy's guard luke okay i mean i mean you gotta give that guy in the bottom credit he was up in that ass luke you know what i'm saying oh this show is so stupid oh this is a show on earth crack kills all right hey let's go back to the gym uh you ever have a hype man luke when you're when you're set to do a deadlift and you got one of your buddies in your face like yo bro you could do this all right yo let's do this bro wait wait wait that's bradley that's bradley martin all right sometimes you gotta slap a guy oh no oh no that's not real luke is it that's real that's this is stage bradley martin now does sketches. Oh, this is staged. That's not real. Luke, is it? That's fake, right?

We don't do folks on this show. Bradley Martin now does sketches. Yeah, this is not real. All right, I got caught, Luke. I'll take the L. I got caught. All right, that's not. I didn't think that slap was enough to knock that guy cold.

No, it's not. Luke, you know what is the worst in the gym, though, when you're like 14 years old and I've been here and you go sit down on the bench and you put up your like 25s on each side and some jack dude who's wearing shorts way too small and tight comes from across the gyms like yoke you spot me and you're like bro i'm like 108 pounds i'm not gonna be able to help you get this you know 395 off your chest that you're like why do those guys do that because you're wrong you can remember they can push oh that's a max load and they can get it all halfway close to it you don't have to put

exert much force on it to get up where it needs to go you're actually wrong about that i'm intimidated by that i'm not helping anyone okay especially post-covid hey let's go to the soccer pitch look look we got some football you know what the problem with your sport here football there's a lot of floppers there's a lot of fakers check out these two guys they it looked like we were about to have like like a go at it looked like we're gonna have some drama some action and then check this out i know come on that's funny is that a double dq flop double knockout oh yeah you know what i can't even lie it is uh it's a terrible portion of the game and it actually is worse depending on which country you go to the italians are really bad about it i watched the spanish league which is worse than the premier league about it um it is

the problem is they've gotten so good at it this is a bad example but they've gotten so good that it's actually an art form now like they're like there are guys who practice it you know you know where they're not doing that shit armenia i'll tell you that much luke okay they don't mess around with that all right they're surviving genocides they would not there's no flops shouts to uh henrik mcatarian all right hey uh speaking of uh soccer and some slide tackles here's a new way to slide in a chick's DM to get her attention. What do you think about this guy's effort? Wow. I think this is domestic abuse.

I mean, you know the kids these days, they'll do anything to get a viral prom asking video, right? I think yes to a homecoming right there. Yeah. Did he get a yes? I can't remember. What is this, the caveman area where you're just clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her back?

I think he was out at the plate on that one, Luke. Yeah, wow, okay. He looks a little husky, too. I don't think he had any chance with that chick. Yeah, he's a decent athlete, though. True, but hit the gym, bro. Hit the gym, okay? Get a hype man, hit the gym.

Yeah, less sly tackling women more sit-ups uh yeah all right now it's the time in sprockets where we where we do hot dog stuff luke would you eat now look during quarantine right we're not we're not trying to leave the house we're coming up with new cooking methods would you follow this luke the more i watch this video i don't know if I'm against it. Put it on the pork cycle, take it out, right? You throw some ketchup on there, Luke, it all tastes the same. Seems like a fairly inefficient way to make hot dogs. I mean, first of all, if you boil hot dogs, you're an a-hole.

I know I told you I did the George Foreman grill thing in my apartment when I was 20, but I was real high, Luke. Come on. You know, I don't know if I'd do this, but, this, but what if you couldn't leave the house anymore because of this COVID? Luke, if I followed the measures of your Twitter account in terms of my own COVID safety, this may be how I'm cooking all my meals for the rest of the calendar year

until February 1st, 2021 when we let crowds. Bro, just throw, I mean, do you have no stove and no pan? Nothing? I mean, no microwave even i don't understand all right all right hey speaking of hot dogs check out this ad uh not a good look for your boy carson palmer the former heisman trophy winner go longer uh God. You go any longer, bro. I think that's third base if you go any longer than that.

Wow. All right, Luke. Yeah. Dude, where is this from? Shout out to the people at Morel Wieners. Dude, you love the Hoagie Farts account like no one I've ever seen in my life. Dude, Hoagie Farts brings it. Shout out to Hoagie Farts. And no one i've ever seen in my life hoagie farts brings it i

shout out and let me and let me tell you this is not uncommon there was an ad when rg3 was big in dc before he completely shredded his knees to pieces where he would have he had a big ass 12 inch uh subway sub 12 inch what luke yeah 12 inch subway sub and it was like a full 12 inches and he was on it i'm like rg3 i don't think this says what you think it says, buddy. Yeah, are you sure it wasn't a blacked raw commercial? I mean, come on, you know? Cam Soda, Jay's probably watching it now. If you know, you know.

Hey, let's go to this. Here's how you grab life by the horn, Luke. I think this is Armenian Army training videos. Whoa, what is, what do you what I don't understand what he did uh well you'll see Luke you know I sang on do what you like and if you missed it I'm the one who said just grab them in the biscuits Luke is this a proper um combat technique or is or is this how you come on to someone, Luke? I don't understand this at all. Do these guys bang each other afterwards?

I hope not. I've seen adult movies start like this. Well, not this style. Not this genre of, yeah, all right. Yeah, have you? Have you watched videos like this? Tell me how I am, BC. I have not.

I have not. See, this is where my career goes in the wrong direction, Luke. I don't advocate for this stuff. The people bring it to me. You should see my DMs. They're a mess. But speaking of tip to tip, Luke, a movement that you were a part of, one of your faithful live chat listeners sent me in this picture to close this week

on Have You Seen This Shit? Luke going T toT with another man a couple weeks back. Check that out. You got some splainin' to do, Luke. Oh, how did I get recruited? How did I decide, after I had a meeting with Showtime,

he's like, you know who I gotta call? I gotta call the guy who is obsessed with dick touching. That's the call that I need to make right now. And here we are, and I got recruited into all of this. You know what? I have no one to blame but myself, BC. That's it. I'm guilty as charged. Who's the that's the call that i need to make right now and here we are and i got recruited into all of us you know what i have no one to blame but myself bc that's it yeah i'm guilty as charged lucky guy luke that's my producer mike russo from the uh from the luke thomas show on uh sirius xm hey shout out to sirius xm luke i have very limited um exposure or access to it

but uh for mother's day and and and my anniversary and my wife's birthday which all happened with like in a week and a half like i get i get hit hard uh i got her a new car uh the other day wow i'm rocking out with that serious you know what i'm saying yeah well channel 156 hey free listening until the end of the month by the way for so yeah okay so just so so i actually know like i should know this because we're we're friends luke and i respect you as a human but channel 156 what time is your show on so I can get in the car if I'm out, you know, running in an errand and I can check it out?

Normally 3, East Coast time. This week, 1. This week, 1. What's the name of the channel? Is it like Rush or something weird like that? It was. Now it's Fight Nation. And Busted Open is on it.

It's all pro wrestling, which I know you love. All right. Thank you, Sirius. I got 30 days with it, Luke. I'll try it out. All right. Thank you. There you go.

Give it a good. Give it a run. You got any more dicks? All right. Have you seen that shit? It's over. It's over, Luke. Now we can keep going.

Very good. Okay, BC. So with that in mind, by the way, I like how after the segment, I now can see everything clearly on Zoom, which is great. Okay. With that in mind, BC, it is time for Odds and Ends. What is your odds and ends for da week? What was that, Jason?

If you're going to interrupt the show, at least speak clearly. Yeah, Jay's got all confidence now that the Zoom stream has cleaned up, but go ahead. All right, my odds and ends this week is some news that I kind of oddly became a part of, Luke. I know people hate this. They hate the Mayweather-McGregor type mythical crap. But I was talking to Oscar De La Hoya on my podcast, The State of Combat, on CBS Sports. And earlier in the episode, Rafe Bartholomew and I were like, you know, it's quarantine time. Let's make some fun fights.

I'm like, bro, how about Oscar De La Hoya at 47 today against Conor McGregor, 10 rounds, who you got? And I assumed he would be like, I would, where I'm like, you know, Conor's 31. He'll just outlast him. My boy Ray's like, no, dude, Conor, Oscar knocked that dude out in like two rounds. I'm like, I think we got a fun fight here. Now look, pre-disclosure, you know, I eat hot dogs. I, I like hashtag old guy fights.

I like the slop. Okay. I asked Oscar that question. He's like, oh, come oh come on bro I'll knock him out in two rounds you know that was the end of the conversation suddenly four days later Conor McGregor's like I accept your offer and this kind of became a thing for a couple days Luke now look I know everybody watching this is cringing their their face off at this idea and I hope I get a cut of it, by the way, when it happens. But Luke, tell me if I'm wrong. If those two, 47-year-old Oscar and Connor boxed for 10 rounds, you don't know what it would look like. Tell me that. You don't know what it would

look like. True. There's a lot of things, though, that I don't know what it would look like, that I don't have an interest in finding out what it i've never seen an actual shit sandwich fairly convinced i don't need to order one at the local you know bodega uh i think we got habib up on the screen though yeah i don't know what that's all about i will say last week was a good week for you so you had you started an international war between Mexico and Ireland, number one. Yes. And then number two, you were the only reporter, and this is true. Well, subsequently other ones asked after you, but you were the first reporter anyway

to ask Dana to what extent were Endeavor's financial woes part of the reason why they are pursuing an aggressive schedule to return. Now, he said they had no relationship. I'm skeptical of that, but he said it and you asked him so i give you credit bc you had a strong week last week well thank you thank you luke at least somebody understands no i didn't ask him hey are you and lorenzo still touching tips no i'm an actual journalist in fact you know what maybe have you seen the shit is over maybe you've seen all the shit already okay i mean how many more hoagie farts videos can i find maybe it's time to take a turn for the professional in the pot no more karate kid caps all right no more weird vests okay it's time to it's time to get real

here luke okay yes i interviewed dana white on cbs sports hq live for 12 straight minutes i asked him the hard balls luke all right so? So get off. You certainly did. Now, BC, we'd be remiss if I didn't give you my odds and ends, which is very quickly, there is a UFC event coming up this Wednesday. We've got a lot of programming on this channel. We're still trying to figure it all out, but it's going to be built around that. So stay tuned, of course. Like the video, subscribe, the whole bit.

Anthony Smith is going to be taking on the very same arena where they've been for Saturday. They're going to be here for Wednesday as well as the following Saturday. But for Wednesday's show, BC, for the UFC, Anthony Smith is going to take on Glover Teixeira. I find this to be a very interesting one because it reminds me a little bit of a heavyweight dynamic, which is to say heavyweight has a problem with younger talent pushing through because for some reason, the older guys in that division, they age out a little bit more slowly.

Like at Bantamweight, crews look to be considerably slower than a 33-year-old Henry Cejudo. And you look at the rest of the division with Sanhagen and Sterling and Jan, where everyone's about 30 or less, and you can just tell there's this youth movement coming through. Smith is certainly not super young, but he's much younger than Teixeira, who's past 40. Yet Teixeira is a very, very good fighter.

And every time they keep giving this dude, more recently anyway, younger people to push out those old guys to usher in the new ones, that old dog shows you, you could teach the other ones new tricks. It's not really going to matter a whole lot. Very, very important fight for that light heavyweight division because you got Dominic Reyes. He wants a piece of Jon Jones. By the way, Jon Jones putting up some deadlifting videos over the weekend, looking very, very strong.

And then you've got Jan Blachowicz who wants to fist him. To me, Anthony Smith, if he gets a win over Teixeira, that'll be the second win or the first win since beating uh Alexander Gustafson so he loses to Jones come back to beat Gustafson and Teixeira he might be in line for another title shot to me big doings over at light heavyweight how do you handicap that one yeah and I like how you quickly looked over that no contest and that uh that house invasion. Bad joke there. I got it. Look, I like this fight a lot, and I've been critical of Anthony Smith in the past.

He's a tough dude, okay? And I do, again, thank him for not taking that DQ title win. He's rebuilding himself nicely. The Gustafson win was great. This gives him that opportunity, especially with the continued back and forth with him and John, which kind of creates another angle and storyline there. And John took another cheap shot at him again Saturday night on Twitter. If he can get by a repackaged Glover Teixeira, who looks a little bit reborn in his age,

this is really like, yeah, this guy deserves to be right in that Dom Reyes-Blohovich conversation. I can't believe that light heavyweight is sort of repopulating itself like john jones has cleaned out this division twice i'm kind of blown away that it's starting to get fun again where at the end of the day do i think john jones should go to heavyweight and fulfill the the potential the the ceiling potential of his greatness yes but if he doesn't want to there are fun fights to make and and you know my boy majeteta he's he's going to be able to walk again one of these days too so there's there's some names there luke i saw him at ufc dc

when was that bc like october november something like that i think that's right and uh he looked to be he looked to be um not running around but he could he was mobile uh tiago santos So I would imagine by now he's in an even better state. Hard to say exactly when he's going to be fight ready. But very, very interesting moment there for that light heavyweight division. And you're right. It's like, dude, Jon Jones, if the last couple of fights have shown anything, he is still the top dog, deservedly so. But he's human.

And he's beatable. I thought Dominic Reyes did it. And Anthony Smith did not have the very best showing against him, but I'm not utterly convinced he has no shot against him either. I would like to see it if, if he can get past old man Glover Teixeira, who, by the way, I asked Glover one time, BC, I was like, who are you at the party? You're at a party.

What is Glover Teixeira doing? Are you the guy that's pulling people uncomfortably onto the dance floor are you the guy that's like you know outside the whole time or whatever he says i'm the guy with the best stories i'm the guy out back with a bottle of jameson and a cigar and i tell the best stories that's very thomas like right yeah i want there's a little thomas in there i dude i want that for morning combat. When he retires or when he's close to it, I want to go

to Cher's house, which by the way, I don't think he lives far from you, by the way. No, about 45 minutes, yeah.

I have a couple of Cuban cigars that I got from Columbia. Don't tell the U.S. government. And I'll grab a bottle of Jameson and I want Glover

to tell us stories. Wouldn't that be cool? Minden Hall lives right near there too. Maybe we get an MK Ultra party going on. I'm down with that. Yeah, bottle of jameson and i want glover to tell us stories wouldn't that be cool minden hall lives right near there too maybe we get an mk ultra party going on i'm down with that yeah we just get drunk and smoke some cigars and talk to glover about his crazy ass stories that'd be awesome yeah we'll go on uh young jay check's instagram account i'm down for this party okay um luke did you want to uh oh um marvin vittori's back as well at middleweight and uh you know he's kind of a potential dark horse so i'm interested to see he's in the main card opener i forgot who he's

fighting thank you i think he may have beaten izzy he may be he might have he didn't before we go let's get to it here very quickly did you watch the last dance the jordan documentary i think was parts what was it uh six seven and eight seven 8? 7 and 8. 6 and 7? 7 and 8. 7 and 8, Luke. I can't keep track. It's so damn good. I don't have profound sort of statements that we've had in previous weeks. I'm just starting to get that itchy feeling like I don't want it to end. Like I want to see this specific attention to detail of documenting something I love,

which is, you know, 90s hoops and Jordan's run. I just want to keep it going. I want to keep it going with this specific director and with athletes like Jordan who are literally willing to be that raw and real. I mean, the man was crying and needed a break while describing why he is the way he is, why he's such a hard ass, why that's the only way he can do it is to try to be the very best he can every single second and there's certainly something inspiring about that luke we all can't be wired that way um where all of our personalities are different but you gotta really pour one out for mj i mean even you know we've heard the story before of him going to baseball and all that but

even to see those involved in there be like the dude was working around the freaking clock on that. I mean, look, do you look in the mirror sometimes? You know what's interesting to me about this, BC, is if you are at all an NBA fan or you've been one for, let's say, some time, whatever that might mean to you, like everybody knew that Jordan was a couple of things or a few things. One, a degenerate gambler. Like sports fans,

like hardcore NBA fans knew they knew he was a vicious trash talker to opponents on the court. And they knew that he was a terrorizer of his teammates. Dude, he broke Kwame Brown during his second stint, a third stint in the NBA, essentially as a Washington wizard. And that was, that was not

the first time he had like really gone after someone it was just emblematic of what he had been like this isn't this was an open secret essentially to everyone who was paying attention I just wonder how the rest of the sporting public who's watching this documentary and did not know that now how do they perceive Mike I I'm gonna guess they're gonna be forgiving of him partly because time has passed, and because, like, what are you going to do? You're going to argue with his methods? They worked, right?

I mean, they won every time they were basically supposed to, but it's funny. It's like, it's interesting for me to watch this, but it's not exactly new information. No, not by any means, but it is going underneath it and going a little bit deeper i was so happy that they blew up that bj armstrong segment because i you know i remember that so vividly when you talk trash and you're like oh he's gonna get it he's gonna get it next

time um luke i want to ask you about this phenomenon that's happening from this film where at the end of it i feel like i i'm just sitting there with the tv off just like looking at my life from a distance going, you know, like, you know, I'm pretty good at what I do. I give it all. I mean, I feel like I give it all, but then I'm like, wait, you know, can I be MJ Colby level maniacal? Can I go even deeper on this? Do you have those same moments? Do you look in the mirror and say, you know, I've pissed people off to win before but maybe luke thomas isn't really given at all mj kind of fires you up to realize that you know he's going to turn every single practice we're talking about practice here into like life or

death um is that how luke thomas approaches his day quite the opposite uh i mean you guys you know the reality of my life dude i don't have a lot of free time. I have friends, but I don't see them very much. Like not even taking into account the pandemic, nothing like that. My life has very much become this. And I taught myself everything I know about cameras, which is not to say very much, but I taught myself. I taught myself how to make my own thumbnails, how to edit on Final Cut, how to do live streams. And I screw those up even to this day day but like no one held my hand and uh it's i've had some modest success with it so

mostly after one of these things i'm like wow i actually put in a lot of effort and i'm still a fucking loser that's really what i end up saying to myself in the mirror i don't ever have i don't ever worry about my work ethic or did i put in the effort i just wonder like when the ship is going to come in because motherfucker i've been on the docks for a while the ship has come in okay to to it's called morning combat uh to close on that with they did the great story of jordan challenging steve kerr and they had a fist fight i'd like to see you become jordan-esque to our our extended team here maybe maybe it'll take you physically fighting Jay to get him at the level that you need him to be each week.

Well, dude, listen, if Jay can beat up Uriah Hall in sparring, which he has openly claimed, I don't know what shot I really have. I don't know what shot I have, BC. If he's beating UFC middleweights cleanly, it's too tall an order for me. All right. He says

spinning back kick. He knocked Uriah Hall over with that. Wow. He hit him so hard he gave Jacare the COVID. All right. Let's do this. We have to get out of here. First things first, as always, please like the video, subscribe to the channel. They're going to put our social information below.

You can, of course, hit that notification bell so you can see all the videos that we put out all week, not just the ones on Monday. There is the information for both BCNI on Instagram as well as Twitter and, of course, Instagram and YouTube for Morning Combat. BC, this is a busy week for us. I felt today was a great show except for when Cam Sotos interrupted our feed here because Jay was busy on it. But we have a lot more in store for people this week.

Do we not? Yeah, look, people love a good spinoff, right? You forget that Family Matters Great 90s sitcom was a spinoff of Perfect Strangers, right? Carl Winslow's wife worked in the damn mailroom with Balky Bartakomus. This MK product is starting to grow some wings. You're going to start to see the fruit of that. I know we've teased it a little, but it's coming. It may come this week.

You may get a little taste. All right, last but not least, if you would like to try Showtime for free, a free trial, you may do so. Simply go to Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial. As I always tell you, if you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. The choice is yours, but you can at least give it the old test drive for 30 days without charge. Okay?

All right, we have to get out of here. The old College of William and Mary try, Luke. Oh, yes. By the way, I was supposed to tell you that Friday night, I believe they're going to air. Is it another airing Mayweather versus McGregor? Are they airing Mayweather Pacquiao too, Jay? I think it's Mayweather Maidana, right? Mayweather Maidana?

Great preparation here. I don't know, Jay. I didn't know. I didn't know. All right, here's what I do know. So they're going to air Mayweather, Maidana, and then Mayweather, McGregor on Showtime on Friday night. BC and I are going to be with you on Friday night

as we do a Classic Combat YouTube live additional stream. We're going to drink beers. We're going to talk about the fights. And they're going to air some interesting ones from Floyd Mayweather. So it should be a lot of fun. This is going to be a fun night. It's going to be money. 10 Eastern on Showtime.. So should be a lot of fun. It's going to be money. 10 Eastern on Showtime. Look, just come crack jokes with us. Okay. It's an interactive

experience. You send in your comments, your questions. We'll crack a couple of cold ones with you. It should be a fun time. All right. Well, that being said, go follow BC over at CBS Sports and everything else he's got going on for BC. I am Luke Thomas and everyone here and Malka and Showtime and the whole morning combat crew really appreciate you guys watching. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.