MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 254 Recap: Khabib's Goat Ranking | Whittaker-Adesanya II? | UFC's Lightweight Division | Ep. 74

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

On today's episode of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian recap a wild UFC 254 event, including Khabib retiring after his impressive win over Justin Gaethje (). Where does he stand in the all-time UFC GOAT rankings ()? Where does the UFC's lightweight division go from here ()? Plus a breakdown of Robert Whittaker's impressive win over Jared Cannonier. Should he get a rematch vs. Israel Adesanya ()? The guys discuss what other fighters stood out on UFC 254 (). Next up DM's from Donks (). Brian takes over with Have You Seen This Shit () and they close out with their odds and ends (). --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Monday October 26 2020 and it is time for our Monday post UFC 254 morning combat edition. Hello, everyone. I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. I am joined by my CBS Sports colleague on that side of the screen. He is probably going to say hashtag fired up. He's probably going to mention something about his genitals one way or the other it's brian campbell brian how are you sir well i'm doing great luke because this free 99 haircut uh kept him 100 in my bank account this morning when i went for it but number two can we just stop acting like these times are happy right now i've never seen you this melancholy or filled with infinite sadness before, Luke. What the hell's wrong with you? Well, I spent my entire weekend, Saturday and Sunday,

working, didn't hang out with my family at all, and it turns out that Saturday is not much I could do about it, right? Sunday, I spent my entire day away from my family, didn't hang out with my kid, worst father in America, and it was for nothing. And I'm really not happy about that. So, yeah, I'm not too pleased right now. I'm pretty pissed off, to put it mildly. Wow, this is going to be a great show, Luke. I can't wait until the dong video segment later.

This is going to be great. All right. You know what? I've never been more in the mood for your dong segment than i am today just what the doctor ordered i never needed poll more than i do now luke thomas there you go so actually that's couldn't arrive at a better time to be quite honest with you but speaking of saturday forget sunday which was an entire waste of my life but speaking of saturday it was not because ufc 254 took place. There's so much to get to. First, of course, housekeeping notes.

We got this sweet merch right there. Morning combat. Yes, you can see it all. Shirts, hats, beanies, tumblers, mugs. I don't know. Condoms. I don't think there's any condoms. But if there were, you should buy those, too.

We're working on those dental dams, I heard. I heard Jay's got those in production right now. The Patrice O'Neill special. You can go to store.show.com and you can check those out. Of course, this is a, partly anyway, a Showtime product. So why don't you give Showtime a try? You can do it for 30 days free, a trial. Go to showtime.com and you can see what's up.

And if you're one of our better fans, Luke, sorry to interrupt you, in England or in Australia, you're going to have to pound sand until we figure out how to send it to you internationally. Sorry, guys. All right? Maybe we'll just hire somebody, Luke, their only job. Right? Maybe if Jay gets let go, we'll rehire him at a less rate.

His only job will be to mail shit overseas. What do you think? I'm okay with that. I'm fine with that. And pay them in coupons for Mickey D's. And then, of course, give the video a thumbs up. Hit that subscribe. We've had explosive growth in the last month,

which we're really happy about. And let's just keep the train. There's no reason for us to stop. The UFC 254 was over the weekend. We still have big fights coming up this next weekend. MK is three days a week. We've got a lot going on. So, appreciate everyone's the stop. The UFC 254 was over the weekend. We still have big fights coming up this next weekend. MK is three days a week. We got a lot going on. So appreciate everyone's patronage.

Before we get into the show, Luke, can we just say that people already know this is a massive week for combat sports when you got the Gervonta Davis, Leo Santa Cruz Showtime pay-per-view on Saturday. You got Anderson Silva's retirement bout for the UFC on Saturday, Thursday night. Good God, you got one of the best Bellator MMA fights on paper that we've seen in years.

Gegard Mousasi, Douglas Lima for that vacant middleweight title. Not only are we bringing it, Luke, not only are we willing to come fist first, right? We're going to twist that once we get inside. Because can we reveal now, Luke, that you and I are going, like, we're not going tea on tea maybe until we get to 75,000 subscribers or unless you slip a roofie in my drink. But, Luke, we're going to be in proximity this week. We're going to come together right now over me and bring it. Why don't you tell them exactly what the scenario is? Look, instead of flying to the Alamo Dome.

The Beatles reference is not a 90s reference. It's just a music reference. Luke, it's timeless, okay? So instead of flying to the Alamo Dome and providing you with Showtime pay-per-view coverage on the ground, how about your MK Bros reunite somewhere in the swamps of Jersey inside that parlor of sin known as orchids of combat we're back baby on the ground yes we'll be fully vetted tested they'll stick things in our orifices

but we're gonna be back starting wednesday a live mk episode on wednesday then luke and i will be hosting on thursday the Tank Davis Leo Santa Cruz press conference stream. On Friday, we got another MK for you. Luke and I also going to do the weigh-in show for you as well for Showtime. We're going to be on the ground for CBS Sports HQ as well, setting up and knocking down Bellator. Luke, we're bringing it this week. And if that wasn't enough, Luke, what do you think? Re red shoe diaries sit up in that hotel room crack a couple cold ones you down brother you want to get inside of me yeah so we're gonna have another episode of room service diaries maybe two and if we have to which we

probably will and you want to get questions in for that there is one way to do that you have to go to apple podcasts leave us a nice review and in the review ask a question i know what you might be saying oh luke isn't that gaming the system to get a bunch of nice reviews yes yes it is it's a very easy way to game the system but we will do our part we will comb through we will pull a bunch of questions from there uh and then we make a promise to the listeners? If you send a question in a positive Apple review, I will answer your question. Is that too much to ask, Luke? I don't think it is.

I got free time. I will answer your damn question, okay? Send it this way. We want you to do that. We also want word of mouth. That's the best way to spread disease in this country. It's also the best way to get people on this MK train. So I don't know tell your friends get with my friends because we can be friends let's do this every weekend let's do this three days a week mk all day nearly every day let's twist that fist already all right let's make this luke this is a thing that cannot be contained

all right bro i know you're all angry and pissy today. The world's got you down. MK still there. Still coming, bro. Yeah, well, I just want to point out this is going to be Brian and I's on Wednesday. Anyway, this will be our first show since the first week of March. So let's see all of March, April, May, June, July, August, September. Basically eight months or so, BC. Not quite, but basically eight months. If I had told you after that last show in March when we called off subsequent shows, it was going to be the end of a Halloween, basically, before we got back into the studio,

would you have believed me? Probably not. No, I wouldn't have. No, I wouldn't have. I can't wait to see what the olds, the old digs look like. Good old orchids of combat. Plenty of happy endings to come, Luke. I am so fired up.

All right. Well, with that preamble out of the way, and we appreciate everybody who is watching, we have a lot of show to get to. All right. So let's kick it off. Our first top five topics. UFC 254. It is in the books.

Let me see if I'm supposed to go this way or the other way. I can never remember. Yes, this way. UFC 254. It is in the books. Am I supposed to go this way or the other way? I can never remember. Yes, this way. UFC 254 in the books. Khabib Nurmagomedov wins second round submission over Justin Gaethje. BC, I'm going to ask a very open-ended question. We did our review on CBS Sports immediately. We had a couple of days now to digest this.

What is the most important takeaway from habib's win over justin let's start let me let me go personally for you right from here a lot of people hit me up saying bc you know you did what luke won't do you went on the record you thought justin gaethje was going to win you picked the upset were you doing that for uh theatrical reasons or to hold on on cbs sports hq they make us do picks, which I don't like doing Your boy picked Habib I don't know what the big scandal is here anymore I actually did what I was supposed to do and I did it

Anyway, they said, you know, BC you're doing that to publicize your MK interview with him, or are you just trying to make good theater? No, I believed it Okay, I believed Justin Gaethje was that good. Here's the problem and it's not a problem for us It was for Justin Gaethje. that good here's the problem and it's not a problem for us it was for Justin Gaethje

Habib is even better he's even greater than we thought the great Larry Merchant line about Manny Pacquiao when he knocked out Miguel Cotto after moving up in weight Habib Nurmagomedov was great we knew that coming in turns out he's greater than we thought because Luke we wondered if coach Whitman could come up with

a brilliant game plan that even Habib didn't see coming you know what he did attack the legs all right we wondered if the student in front of him this block of granite Justin Gaethje was the guy who could potentially carry it out he looked like he was on his way two of the three judges gave him the first round although I didn't agree with but he was was hurting Habib. He was also landing pretty clean punches in that opening round. But Habib's intangibles are, I mean, they're just perfect. His record's perfect. His demeanor as a man and a fighter is near perfect.

His performance in the cage on Saturday was freaking perfect, Luke. He ate all the big punches Ga. He had in round one. He somehow stayed standing after those leg kicks started to pile up. And the moment it seemed like Justin was about to change the momentum by landing those three or four kicks to open the second round. That's when Habib exploded. That's when he went into end time. That's when he hit the finish button and it didn't take long before it was takedown back mount were there sat on his chest put him in the triangle choke and the fight is over and again it's not that i didn't know habib was great he was my pound for pound number one coming in

but a performance like this i don't know man i mean you talk about somebody who's so dominant in one area, yet he showed everything on Saturday. And even more than the jajuts or the wrestling or the chin. How about the fact that afterwards Dana White says three weeks ago he broke his foot and multiple toes. And now you got Javier Mendez saying that he was battling the mumps in the reach. I don't know, measles, rubella, one of those three in the recent in the past week oh yeah by the way he see how emotional he was afterwards the weight of the loss of his father was on his shoulders and even more than that luke he was keeping this secret that he knew that it was it right here this was going to be the last fight of his career he wanted to unify that title so there were no doubts and he wanted to fulfill his father's wishes. Walk away while you're still in your prime, on top,

the undoubted number one best fighter in the world. He did exactly what his dad asked of him, Luke. This was incredibly impressive, and I went back and rewatched the fight a bunch of times, not 49 times. I'm not trying to start a, you know, bro-sected franchise here. That joke gets funnier every time you tell it. Keep doing it. Every single thing I thought about Habib, he was even better on Saturday.

That's my biggest takeaway. I'm the guy who said if he wins this, we're going to start banging that drum for the goat discussion. So I'm not it's not lost on me that he's great, right, that he's an all timer. But Luke, tell me what I'm missing here. For a guy who just completed the perfect career, that was a perfect fight on Saturday given all the obstacles in front of him. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't use the word perfect, although I know what you mean by using it.

I'm not, you know, I'm sort of nitpicking, right? I mean, when I think about this performance and, you know, spent all day Sunday taking a look at it. I'm sure it was great, Luke. I'm sure it was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it's some hard drive somewhere. But the point is this.

When I looked at it, something really occurred to me. Two things really stood out to me. One, I don't think it's the worst call that Justin won the first round. And the reason why is because once the fight hit the actual mat, right? Forget about standing, forget about the transition, but okay, Justin has now been placed on the ground firmly at this point. Once it was there, my God, the skill differential was just totally, you know, Ray Charles could have seen it.

I mean, that was a massive, massive difference in submission grappling skill. But everywhere else, it was reasonably competitive. Justin landed a lot more on the feet, and that arm bar, it was kind of botched by Nurmagomedov. He kind of rushed it and then missed the leg over the face, and so he had to switch to a bicep slicer. But then he did something interesting in the second round, BC. We talked

all week long, certainly I did, and I know a lot of other people who were previewing the fight did, you know, Nurmagomedov gets his best takedowns by and large, either by pressing someone into the fence or just really along that fence line, creating motion, but you know, having them up against it. He got that back take to mount in the second round without any of it. Like that might be the best Nurmagomedov takedown I've ever seen to a back control, to a fake head and arm triangle, to a chair sit, to a S mount, to a triangle. He did it all in 22 seconds. I said it on Twitter yesterday. It's true.

That ending sequence, the fight ending sequence, belongs in the Louvre. Not merely because it was 22 seconds from the initial attempt at the takedown to the submission finish. Not merely because it was beautiful to watch. But more importantly, he goes for the double, gives up on the double just to get Gaethje to plant. When Gaethje plants, takes the back, goes to mount, fakes the head and arm triangle, and everything else. It was this kind of sequence that only somebody who has total mastery of the game can do. And he did it, BC, without any ground and pound. Not one punch, elbow, hammer fist, nothing thrown on the ground.

It was almost, I'm not going to say completely different. Habib, he's tried that sequence in other fights, including other UFC fights, and then in the regional scene. But it was like Habib was, you know, he took his time to get the takedown, in the first round anyway. But then when he decided it was time, he was rushing to get that thing over with. And because of the massive skill differential, he was able to do it in one of the most unique, brilliant, frankly unheard of ways I've ever seen in my life.

I mean, Mike Bond had this tweet yesterday from MMA Junkie, and it goes something like this. Listen to this. He is the only fighter in UFC history to win three consecutive title bouts by submission. Connor from the back, Borja from the back, Poirier from the back, and now Gaethje from first back and then mount. He is so... Honestly, there was a lot of people saying they felt sad he was leaving the game. Well, he went up a level.

He's not just walking away at the peak of his powers, Luke. If you look at those last three fights that you mentioned, he made ridiculous leaps in levels. And again, that's why some people thought Conor was going to be the one. Some people thought Poirier. That's why I thought Justin was going to be the one, not because of the power or the savagery, but the fact that Justin had shown us a new understanding of technique

and game planning and being able to execute that we had never seen before. And yet, even with that coming in and me thinking, man, he might have a legit chance, and game planning and being able to execute that we had never seen before. And yet even with that coming in and me thinking, man, he might have a legit chance. How quickly did it take for you to realize that Habib was still multiple levels above him? Not just in technique and the ability, but how about the ability to make Justin exhausted and breathing out of his mouth within like three minutes just from educated slight turns of pressure, being in the center of the cage cutting off angles i mean everything about it was brilliant it wasn't perfect because perfection would have been he didn't take one strike in return he you know whatever but every

piece of adversity he faced he reacted perfectly to overcome it which a lot of ways summarizes his entire journey and this you know as a UFC fighter it's insane and the only thing I would add to that is the one you were right is like how much better he's gotten in front of every Habib fight there was always some jamoke out there being like well T-Bow won look you can obviously make a case that T-Bow should have won or certainly should have been credited more than he was or something did anyone feel like a fight that eight years ago, anyone I should say in their right mind, that that was at all relevant for the guy we're looking at now? That dude is so much better than the one that came into the UFC who at that point was what,

24 years old or something? I mean, he has grown in leaps and bounds technically and as a man and everything else. Like he's just so much better. And got to see frankly like we'll talk about this in just a second you got to see glimpses of a guy who for the duration of his career and there's some debate to be had about how long that you know not uh how long it mattered in terms of resume comparison but his rivals weren't even really close man they just weren't even really close and honestly I don't think he had peaked I think he probably still had some levels and still has some levels he could get to. So to me, you know, Justin Gaethje, I thought earned the opportunity, thought about as well as he could have given the circumstances. You're just up against a generational talent and there's just really not much you're going to be able to do about it at that point. And it's wild because,

you know, Floyd walked away on top, but he was 38 years old and there was sort of the idea that okay he's the number one welterweight in the world after he beat Birdo number one fighter in the world but Luke we were under the idea that if he had hung around right that next generation of younger guys was going to come up and challenge him this is a little bit different than Floyd because Habib's literally walking away and not just his physical prime but at a level in which he just raised his level one more where you put it out in a tweet and you're right there's there's not another lightweight in the world anymore that that i think you can make an argument that that could beat him

that could have success against him uh did i think tony could have yes but now i watch justin beat tony and i look how easily justin went down and again, it wasn't easy. He carried out the game plan, Luke. He landed vicious leg strikes. He probably was one more big strike away from Habib folding to some degree. Yet again, the moment, it's timing. It's timing and it's expertise. The moment it could have gone south, that's when Habib hit the eject button and went to the finish. So he's walking away right now at a a spot that you know there's a handful of

athletes who ever have right i mean even rocky marciano when he retired at 49 and no luke you can make the argument he was on the other side it's like jim brown in football you know uh very few others were able to just leave it on the table and say, no, I'm done. And, you know, we're going to have this debate, but it clouds, it rightfully clouds the goat debates when somebody leaves before we could ever see them decline or, you know, have that sad period at the end that someone like Roy Jones went through. You know, I always said, what if Roy Jones retired right after winning the heavyweight title from John Ruiz? We might be arguing right now that he's the greatest ever, but we had to see him take on, you know, six, seven losses at the end.

Habib, on his own terms, in such an unforgiving sport, a sport that there's 50 ways to lose, he said, I'm done, and I believe him, and I feel like he's doing it for legitimate right reasons, and that's where the word perfection means so much more than just that zero at the end of his career, Luke. I mean, he could not have handled himself sticking to his convictions of who he is as a man, as a Muslim, as everything. I mean, he really had that one hiccup publicly when he attacked Conor's team afterwards.

Outside of that, you've seen a guy, or maybe you're big on the uh that russian guy thing but uh outside of that luke he's been um he's been a guy who donated part of his check to dustin poirier after the win and put him over and then on saturday you saw that again made it more about hey gaethje i know you're a great guy thank you so much for helping me years ago cutting weight for that freaking daryl horcher fight like like he's a he's a i got nothing i got nothing but love for him luke that's it yeah i mean as a fighter as a person it's a much more complicated mean, as a fighter, as a person, it's a much more complicated story. But as a fighter, I'll just reiterate it one more time.

If you had told me he was going to be Justin Gaethje on the ground in the second round, but here's the catch. No takedown against the fence. And then two, no ground and pound. I'm not sure. I mean, I guess I would have believed it, but I'm like, really? Seriously?

And that is exactly what happened. It was just demonstration of how many different ways people call him one dimensional boy. If that is one dimension, that is a huge, all encompassing and damn dangerous dimension. If ever there was one. Now it leads us to the second part of this conversation, BC point number two, the debate is now raging. Who is the greatest of all time? Is it Jones? Is it Silva? Is it GSP or Johnson? Or now is it Habib? So let's ask the question outright and answer it.

How you see fit is Habib the goat. To me? No, but I have no problem of anyone saying yes. And Brett Okamoto came out and said, yes, you're seeing a lot of UFC brass coming out and, you know, famous Okamoto came out and said, yes, you're seeing a lot of UFC brass coming out and, you know, famous ex-fighters coming out and saying yes.

UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby. Yeah, the advantages for Habib in this argument, look, they're huge, right? We'd seen him lost now basically two rounds in an entire 13-fight UFC career. He dominated every single opponent. And he's also, you know know not necessarily kurt cobainian because that was still pretty early but cobain allowed himself to become a songwriting rock legend that you know he could have put out a bunch of shitty albums he could have had a john and yoko period with courtney love luke where we would have been like oh god cobain just go go do it

already no habib's walking away now where his argument could not be stronger. But there is something against the argument, and that's full body of work and things that are not Khabib's fault, but they're true, Luke. He missed a full two years of his early prime during that prove-yourself stretch from 2014 to 2016 with a knee injury. In his favor, he bounced back like cage rust wasn't a thing also in his favor he always looked for the biggest fight possible and fought three all-time greats to close out his career more or less although you know we'll see what happens with the rest of their careers but you get what i'm saying um but we didn't get to see him in this historic era of depth in this division fight everyone and it's not just the t fight falling apart. It's also this, Luke. In his last four full calendar years,

he only fought one time in three of those four years. And it's bad luck with injuries, illness. He also observing Ramadan at times would make it difficult to schedule fights for him. I'm not holding that against him as his fault, but if I'm going to compare him to the guy who I think is the GOAT, Jon Jones, his recent Twitter 24 hours notwithstanding. Good God, Jon. Let Habib have a moment in time here, bro.

I will say that when you look up and down Jon's resume, he's just fought and defeated better quality competition. And it's one of those things where that's the issue with Habib walking away now. Even though he's doing it for the right reasons on his terms, and I respect that. He didn't take a lot of damage in his career. He's doing everything right. You would have liked to have seen him either face more super elites or try that, hey, let me move up a division and see what I can do.

That's not a thing you hold against him, but it's part of the argument. As things stand right now, I still think Jon Jones is the greatest fighter we've ever seen. But Habib has just parachuted like the fan man in Bo Holyfield 2 to really, Luke, no worse than 2 or 3. I mean, I don't see how, really, when you're perfect in an imperfect sport. I mean, even Jon Jones, who's near perfect, had the DQ loss, had the drug test issues, had the close calls against two fighters recently. Khabib's had nothing but domination. Strength of schedule and full resume does matter, though, Luke.

It does. It does in the end. Yeah, so, I mean, let's sort of pull this apart a little bit. If someone asks me, is Khabib the all-time greatest at lightweight, I'm going to say yes. I probably would have said yes before this fight, but now I think the case is pretty much closed. And I know folks will say, what about a prime BJ Penn? Prime BJ Penn certainly was, when I was a fan, my favorite fighter. And had this kind of aura of invincibility in a different way than Nurmagomedov.

Nurmagomedov has it in that nobody can beat his ace in the hole. BJ Penn had it at a time where it was like you couldn't cut him. He had a rock chin. He had great takedown defense when he trained with the Marinoviches. He had great cardio. And obviously he hit hard. He had, you know, phenomenal jiu-jitsu. He was just a total package.

And Habib is not that. But honestly, as you saw, I think a sort of in-your-face, take-down-pressure guy like the way Nurmagomedov is, and he's big for the weight class too, I think eventually that would have worn down and beaten BJ Penn. Which is to say, one, I think Nurmagomedov's resume just outright is better than Penn's at lightweight. Two, show me any other lightweight in the history of the sport in their prime

and make me the case that they can beat Nurmagomedov. I mean, I've seen people being like, what about Tony? I don't believe that Tony's the guy anymore. It could be wrong. It's just debate, but it could just be me. I saw people saying, what about Nate Diaz? And I'm like, how many times do people need to see the Diaz brothers fight somebody who's a capable grappler who can

move through their guard before they realize their guard is not in MMA is not the kind of threat that people make it out to be. No one's debating no disrespect to you but no one's debating whether he's the best lightweight anymore. It's really about the football. I understand. I understand.

I totally understand. I'm only pointing out that if you wanted to line them all up, it doesn't matter. There's just not a really convincing case that you can make all the way down, either the contemporaries or through the history. Now, as it relates to the other ones that you mentioned, I am in general agreement with UBC. I think that strength of schedule does matter.

And when you've got three title defenses versus nine, you know, it begins to make a, there's just too much distance. I mean, how many contemporaries did you face when you had a chance to face them? That kind of a thing. And how many did you win against? Habib doesn't have that. So I will acknowledge that I probably can't put him best at all time. But what he does have over those other fighters is a level of distance between himself and his peers that none of them could match.

Never knocked down, never cut, three submission wins back to back to back in UFC title fights, losing, I think think a couple of rounds along the way at most no one ever taking a scorecard no one ever getting a dominant physical position on him no one ever did anyone even pass his guard ever did anyone ever take his back did anyone do anything like that ever once if they did it's in the single digits. So we're talking about many ways to measure greatness. If the most important way, BC, as you indicated, is that resume in terms of here are your contemporaries, how many of them did you beat at the elite level, fine. He's a little bit short on that.

But in all the ways in which you can put distance between yourself and them, such as the resume exists, his is better than anybody else's i've ever seen at elite mma levels who's your goat jones probably jones or gsp something like that i need you to be definitive here this is a this is a debate i need you to be that i'd probably go j one, GSP two. Okay. And then I guess Silva three. I'd put Habib four. I'd put Habib ahead of him. Wow. All right.

I have a little issue with Habib four, and I want to double this up with a question I was going to ask you. When John Anik was, you know, ringing off the goats that Habib has now put himself in the same territory of, and I think obviously there's no debate for many of us, unless you're a hater, that at the very least Habib's now put himself in the same territory of. And I think obviously there's no debate for many of us, unless you're a hater that at the very least Habib's at that table. Now that includes all those names we mentioned, plus fade or Demetrius Johnson. If you think Aldo's at your table,

okay, that's fine. I don't DC is kind of a tweener there, but one thing after annex started naming all those names and he didn't mention DC, by the way, DC interrupted and was like, John,

you love bringing up all the guys with failed tests maybe you're the wrong guy to ask because you're just like let him let him but the failed test thing not part of this conversation in your opinion no it's not because uh one you'd be putting silva at the table and he's got failed tests and he fought any number of different people who I have no doubt in my mind were juicing uh you can make the same argument for John failed tests there's not a I mean we know that Vitor Belfort had extraordinarily uh elevated levels of testosterone in their fight like we know that for a fact that was that's been uh documented so like this idea that you know um that this is some kind of prohibitive factor the best heroes in mma i would argue in large part have done it it's a totally arbitrary thing that people want to point to as some kind

of like well there's the clean group and then there's the bad group folks i wish it was that simple it just isn't so for me no it is not a it is not a determining factor but habib has that asterisk that i just used against him and that's a shorter window of complete you know resume yet you can also use that as your argument and obviously as you laid out there when you when you look at the dominance it's hard to keep him off of there i do look at the resume if i'm going to be super critical do you see four super elite wins do you see McGregor Gaethje Poirier Barbosa and then maybe RDA do you see five super elite wins for Habib I'd say those yeah the RDA win and then the last three and Barbosa maybe uh the Barbosa win I would count as well the Iaquinta win I would

count as I wouldn't call it super elite but um you know he's being a top 10 top 5 guy so top 10 guy I think for the title on like an hour notice so I'll give you some leeway here yeah I mean Iaquinta took it on late notice and so did he so you know you didn't get the best of either guy there uh you know look again you mentioned the knee issue. You forgot one small issue he had along the way, which was he had a broken rib, and the pain was so bad he nearly retired. Do you remember that a long time ago? He was like, I don't know if I'm coming back.

Because, you know, a broken rib, man, depending on how you break it and how the healing goes, you can't breathe, you can't move. It's just debilitating. It's awful. He nearly quit because of that so he had a lot of problems that to your point bc i mean those other people make the argument like well of course he didn't get cut and get knocked down he didn't fight as many top guys along the way okay but it's like every time i see this dude the distance between them gets further apart not

narrowed like when those guys in GSP was going on, he had to change his style to, like, this wrestling-centric style, which was smart and dominating, but he had to do it because, like, he was taking damage along the way, and it was just not a smart way for longevity. Nurmagomedov is already there. That's already the style that he has at number one. And number two, BC, like, every time we see him,

he's crushing them easier than the time before it's like crushing cans like that lady with the big can right there um exactly so i will say this uh if john jones goes up and wins the heavyweight title i do believe he will create the necessary space between him and everyone else where this isn't a debate that's just my personal take right there i do respect anybody that still thinks gsp is the goat but i think we sort of laid it out there and nailed it um do you hold anything against habib for not going out of his weight class no no i don't it would be a little bit different again i think that the weight class jumping is going to be a different debate from 125 to 155 than it is from 170 to say 205 right which is not going to have nearly the same amount of mobility but you know going up from 125 to 135 10 pounds that's a lot

but that's not prohibitive but you know going from 155 to 170, I mean, that's a big jump, and then 170 to 185, that's a big jump, and then 185 to 205, these are huge jumps in weight, you know, and so, you know, would it have been nice, would it have been, do I think he would have done well, I think he would have done well at welterweight, how well, a little bit debatable, but I probably, you know, could he have gotten an elite win up a weight class BC? I think he probably could have, but at the same time, if you're going to make the leaps that far apart, and by the way, the argument can't be both.

Oh, you didn't fight enough of your contemporaries in your own division, and you should have gone up. It's like you need time to do both, and I guess because of the tragic nature of his father's passing, time just wasn't on his side. All right, two more quick questions regarding Khabib's legacy, then we can get out of here. But I like putting you on the hot seat, Luke, okay?

Are you ready for this one? Yeah, shoot. Tomorrow, tomorrow, Khabib for the welterweight title against Kamaru Usman. Who wins? I'd probably go Kamaru because Kamaru, I think, is just too big. Probably knows Khabib's game a little bit I think they've done some training together and too big too strong where the I think the fight might

actually suck because I think it'd be a lot of canceling each other out but you know uh I think Nurmagomedov he Nurmagomedov actually does not have the takedown defensive record that even Jon Jones has though Jon's is probably the best I've ever seen but he doesn't have it on that part on that level so I suspect over time just the size that's what I mean dude the size differential if there was a 165 division BC and they moved Welter to 175 and he didn't go up to 165 especially with his weight cutting issues I think that would have been different but you got guys who can barely make 170 and then you know coming up from 155 it's like they're not the same

size people it's just too much and we talk a lot about the time he missed out of the cage if he hadn't missed that even given that at that point 2014 to 2016 he wasn't the same fighter he is today I still don't see him having lost Luke I still think you're just going to add in the names he didn't fight he would have fought Ferguson at least once he would have probably fought McGregor twice by now he would probably you know you probably can throw in a hooker or anybody else he didn't get to but a Felder whatever but uh I think the only difference would have been instead of three title defenses he would have had you know seven what would have gotten him his father time eventually he would have stuck around too long and he wouldn't have been as quick on his level change.

He would still have some strength, but he wouldn't have the same speed. He wouldn't have the same gas tank. The weight cut might have gotten harder. He would have been forced up to 170, in which case he's now going to be a little bit outsized. That's what would have gotten him. But this version of Habib, right now, there's not a lightweight on earth who can beat that guy. Not one.

Maybe take some rounds from him. I think that's true. You're not going to beat them period. Uh, all right. So BC speaking of the rest of that lightweight division, by the way, good, I got to say to the UFC, um, good job with Michael Chandler. You know, they didn't get a chance to use him in the fights because he was just an alternate for the Gaethje and the Habib fight, but they brought him out there. They had a hype package on him. They interviewed him. It was a good job letting the world know that when he fights, it's important.

But okay, speaking of him and Ferguson and Conor and Dustin and everybody else on down the line, what is the UFC to do with the rest of the lightweight division? It is all but a foregone conclusion at this point that, you know, in the days and weeks to come, Nurmagomedov is going to hand back that title and they're going to have a vacant title in the lightweight division. BC, what should UFC do from number one contender to number eight contender?

Well, what they could do, which they won't, is make a tournament. And if they committed to it and made it a giant ordeal and put a lot of media coverage behind it, it could be the biggest thing they've ever done, right? They won't do that. So what they're probably going to do is give us really awesome fights with really big names. Look, this is a historically deep division at the moment.

There are Hall of Famers in it. There are all-timers in it, from Tony to Dustin to Connor to maybe Justin and the others and Michael Chandler dropping on top of that. Luke, look, how are you going to believe anything else that they're going to do what they have the opportunity to do right now? Do Dustin Poirier, who of all the guys, the sneaky thing, though, about what Habiba's leaving behind is a lot of guys coming off of a loss because the best faced the best here.

But the guy coming off the best win might be Poirier came back off the loss to Habib and beat Dan Hooker in a thriller. What if they go Connor Poirier, too, for the vacant title? I mean, I'm almost willing to bet my life savings they will. And Luke, if they do, this going to be a a very financially prosperous time for the UFC over the next year to two to three years in this division uh we talk about that great era before 10 years ago light heavyweight before John Jones took over it was one hall of famer after another taking turns with the belt for one fight rampage to Rashad to

Griffin to Machida to to Hua, on and on. Chuck Liddell. I mean, it was like, here you go, here you go. We very, very, very much could see that happen again. And I think you are going to make stars out of everybody who right now might be more B-sides. And I think you're going to make hellaciously great fights. Luke, you have no freaking idea who's going to be lightweight champion one year from now. And the fact that you don't

and the fact that the remaining pool there are all super elites and future Hall of Famers. I don't want to say losing Habib is one of the best things that can happen right now at the UFC because it's not. He just established himself as an all-timer and a legit brand. But they are all in some ways

potentially going to benefit oddly especially if Conor becomes champion again from an upswing in in commercially viable crossover fights that you need to see in ones Luke where you really don't know who's going to win and I think you know adding Chandler in is just a spoil of riches into the middle of that I mean Conor could be the champion for the next year Ferguson may kill everyone I cannot wait to see what happens next but tell me if I'm wrong it's got to go through Poirier and Conor next when you consider everyone coming off of a winner loss and the potential money at stake if they fight each other again and Conor wins yeah I mean if you look at the top eight this doesn't even include Michael Chandler so throw him in there but insofar as the UFC rankings right now read you've got Gaethje at one Poirier two Ferguson three McGregor four

Hooker five Oliveira who by the way is on a sick win streak at six Felder at seven and Diego Fajeda at eight although I think he's recently out of his fight that was planned um future champion Kevin Lee as well in that division yeah uh sitting 10, and I acquaint him sitting at 9. But he's injured. He's not really relevant at the moment because he's not eligible to compete. But, okay, to your point, I mean, MMA tournaments are overdone because especially when Bellator was doing them constantly, it was like I don't need a tournament every single time. But every once in a while they make sense.

They made sense for Bellator's featherweight division at the time in which the Bellator wasator was trying and obviously the pandemic got in the way a little bit and killed some of the momentum but still it made a lot of sense and still does it makes a lot of sense for 155 pounds now dana white is not the most imaginative when it comes to that kind of a thing so i don't think that's the direction they're going to go but either way they can't go wrong first if they're not even going to have, but either way, they can't go wrong. First, if they're not even going to have a formal tournament, we at least should have some kind of informal hierarchy, where we're going to give the vacant belt to another bout, so the winner of that will end

up with it, and then we're going to create an informal line of potential contenders and where they fit in this whole process. So if they're not going to do the tournament, which all indications are they just never would, there is still a way to create some idea of here's the here and now, and here are some future circumstances that you should pay attention to depending on how they play out. And you don't have to go too far down that rabbit hole, but at least set up some anticipation, right?

So folks understand, A, who's going to be fighting for the vacant title, and then who might be next, and then the next after that, in that kind of a line. I think that's important. And I'm with you, BC. Conor versus Dustin, too, is amazing for every reason you could state in combat sports. It's a big fight. It's a rematch. It's the right kind of rematch that happens years after the first one, which gives you a reason to think that even if the ultimate outcome isn't different, the fight itself could be different, and by the way, the outcome too. And now you add that the boogeyman has gone from the division, which means it's wide open at 155 pounds. Now it's for a title. Conor could get the title back. Dustin could get his revenge,

could get the title, not just the interim version, but the real one outright, this culmination of this process he's been on forever. And then after that, you got to face either Tony or Michael Chandler or Dan Hooker or Oliveira or Felder or Kevin Lee or Gaethje again, I mean, that is an embarrassment of riches for the ultimate fighting championship what a great opportunity for them if they want to play this the right way and I'm in complete lockstep with you good sir put the title up for grabs in January and let's reignite this division you know normally BC last thing on this for me normally we talk about this when the title holder hands back the belt to the rest of the division it's usually the belt to the rest of the division it's usually pretty bad and the rest of the division is kind of wide open but fans may not know who's

in line and it has to rebuild itself you know all kinds of stuff that's not the case here you have so many big names so many stars so many intriguingups. I'm not saying the division benefits from Nurmagomedov leaving. What I am saying is it's got not nearly the same disadvantage that it's up against relative to other times when divisions have had the title handed back to them like St. Pierre-Walterweight or Jones at 205.

I mean, do you think, let's have a real honest marketing talk here. Do you think Habib peaked in his commercial viability? Well, I think Saturday was a peak. If you're asking me, could it have gone higher? I think it could have gone higher. Yeah.

Yeah, he is very important to a part of the world that maybe we don't think about or feel here in North America every day. I'm not Muslim. I don't live in parts of the world where I think he has a fervent and extraordinary fan base. But I'm telling you, dude, like I told you this, you know, when my friends don't watch combat sports, when they're reaching out to me to ask me, should they bet on Habib? Isn't Habib the safest bet in MMA and blah, blah, blah. That is unusual. And they didn't do that up until

very recently. You would have to imagine like how much higher could he go? Maybe there's a ceiling ish kind of visible limit in sight, but that, that was the ultimate expression of what it could have been. I don't know. I'm skeptical of that. You're not. No, I mean,

I'm just sort of doing that debate in my head and saying, you know, he's a giant star, but look, let's be honest. If Connor wins back this belt and if he's able to keep it for at least a year, it may end up making it all worth it. Yeah, but who says...

Let me pitch it back to you, BC. Here's the thing about Conor. It's like, there's one bad aspect to this if you're a UFC. A, you just lost a major pay-per-view star. That's what he is. I guarantee the numbers are going to come back huge for this, even though it was an afternoon pay-per-view. And B, okay, Conor gets the title back. That's great. Dude, how long is he going to come back huge for this even though it was an afternoon pay-per-view and b okay connor gets the title back that's great dude how long is he going to stick around

because i gotta tell you i don't see him in this for the long haul well look it depends uh do you like you know habib had that built-in default style that was always going to be a problem for connor okay well now he's gone everyone that's left is there's certainly savages in there but are there styles that if connor is really back really back like back like the cowboy fight suggested even though there's certainly a level of fool's gold in there you know winning keeps you there sometimes right the the power the money and the fame keeps you there he could beat these guys i mean he may get dragged into hell by a Ferguson or a Gaethje, and it doesn't matter anyway,

but style-wise, if he's back to where he needs to be and he's taking that drug again of being on top, I mean, he can give you two years on top if he can beat these guys. Yeah, he could. I just don't know that he will. Between all the promotion he has to do, between all the training that's required, I tend to think if he gets the

belt back honestly the first thing he's going to be thinking about is not fighting Gaethje it's going to be okay now as UFC champion let's go fight Pacquiao let's get right back to it let's go let's build on the status that I have in MMA to go and reclaim the hills of boxing or however he wants to put it in his mind and then if he gets viciously KO'd in that fight, which, by the way, is a very real risk, what does he do then? I mean, I doubt he wants to go out that way. He probably does come back. I'm just saying this idea that you can just bank on that bus

to keep hitting the stop day after day, I am very skeptical of that. Will a UFC lightweight have two title defenses in the next two calendar years? Yeah. Yeah. But that's it. That's your absolute max right there. So you could see, and look, we don't want to discount Poirier's chance. You could see somebody like Poirier winning it, maybe beating a Gaethje and a Tony,

and then eventually getting it. Oh, wait, wait, defending it twice. So you mean winning it and then defending it two more times? So three, no. I'd take the under here. I think we're too evenly matched. I'd take the under. Yeah, I'll take the under as well.

I totally agree. Hey, either way, we're going to be fired up. We're ready, Luke. I'm so ready for this division. This is fantastic. You know, I don't want to forget about this. I feel like the whole thing got lost. But point number four, there was more than one fight on Saturday night. There was more than one important fight on Saturday night. How about Robert Whitaker

getting back to action BC? What a phenomenal win by him. Took a little bit of doing. He had a little bit of a rough moment there in the third, even though I thought he was initially cruising in the third, but he gets the win over Jared Cannoneer. All right. Did Robert Whitaker BC show you enough to merit a second fight with Israel Adesanya next? 100%. There were three things I said that were likely to happen about this fight coming in. One, it could be your fight of the night. And in a lot of ways, it was as exciting and dramatic that it could have been or should have been.

I didn't even see who got the bonus. Number two, we said Kananir is going to be a dangerous out every second this fight is going. And that was certainly true. You know, in a loss, he sort of not upped his stock, but kept it even as like, look, this guy is not a guy to be messed with. But number three, you and I were hitting that drum saying, y'all must have forgot, bro. Whitaker is still that dude, and Luke, he was. He had to survive some scary moments for sure, but that's what happens in number one contenders bouts against savage warriors like a cannoneer.

Whitaker showed chin, technique, speed, game planning. He showed you the old bag of tricks from when he was championship material. I think he's ready i don't know if he can ever be that same guy that he was at that title reign but he showed you on saturday that he's pretty damn close luke i think we're underselling how great the rematch with adesanya might end up being the first one ended quicker and in a more one-sided way than i think a lot of us imagined given that you know we had just seen adesanya in a five-round war with gastelum i think this rematch could end up being hellacious in a great great great championship fight i think

he's ready i think he deserves it i think anybody odds makers included who doubted him you know need to remember who this man is he's just better in every category across the board than most he might not be better than out of sign there we're gonna we're gonna find out in part two but uh he's gonna have his best chance luke because i'm not gonna say he lost that first fight because of what was going on around him but i will say that it played at least some part of a role and i really want to see what happens when they meet up again yeah i totally agree i mean here's the interesting part about this fight he won 29 28 i scored a 30 27 but i guess i can understand why you might give the first round to cannoneer it's a little bit debatable

in my mind but okay it doesn't matter in the end because in the 30 second they gave him the second one rounds in the second which i don't understand because he got dropped by a jab he was getting control of that round that's a weird one okay well then i guess i don't understand because he got dropped by a jab. He was getting control of that round. That's a weird one. Okay, well, then I guess I don't understand it, but it doesn't matter. The right guy won and whatever. Here's what I took away from this fight, which is that, yes, he was patient against Till and maybe too patient.

Maybe he had to be too patient because Till made him too patient. All those are things you have to consider, but when he gets enough time, it's only a 15-minute fight, he can still find his moment to be very, very devastating. He finally found an opening for that combination he'd been hitting where he was getting Kananir to slip to the wrong side and then hitting him with a head kick and then followed up moving to mount. Now, I've got to say something about Kananir very quickly. The metal he showed to survive, then stand up,

and then kind of wobble Whitaker a little bit. I feel like his stock may have gone down a little bit, but maybe even that's debatable. I thought Cannoneer showed, you know what, if people were doubting him, he was a very worthy adversary. But back to Whitaker for just a moment. To me, this was such a great performance because it showed when he needed to be patient, he could be. When he needed to turn on the gas, he could. He has devastating ability to find

important, impactful, accurate strikes in tight windows, and from there, he's got a whole range of skills to make you pay after that. He is a very complete fighter. He's an experienced fighter at this point, which I don't think a lot of folks understand. He's staying healthy. He's competed twice on Fight Island, which is more than I can say for him in the last how long. I mean, it's so good to see this guy back healthy, continuous. And there's one thing Adesanya was saying. I kept asking him during that 6-7 fight run he was on. I was like, don't you get worried about burnout?

And he was like, yeah, at some point that might be a consideration. But right now, I like staying active. I like just getting back out there, being in rotation. You hear that from so many fighters, not just Adesanya. Well, now Whitaker can benefit from that. How many times did he come back where it was like this weird thing where in this case it was a loss from Adesanya to Till, but more importantly it was just inactivity in between them?

Well, now he doesn't have to worry about that so much. He's got the right amount of experience. Since the Adesanya fight, he's gotten, what, eight rounds of experience? I mean, that's a lot of great, valuable time to get back on the horse, to get back into the swing of things. So I'm with you. I still favor Adesanya. I think he's the best middleweight on earth, but that's a fight you can put in Australia or New Zealand, and A, you can have fans. B, I think it's great for that region. You don't have to change any of the time because they like to watch UFC on Sunday morning or the afternoon out there, which fits just fine with our evening on Saturday night. So all of that works. And it's just a great fight

between two talented middleweights. By the way, this may not even be the last time that they fight each other. I could see a third fight down the road, given how talented they are and given how young both still are. So for all the reasons in the world, yes, yes, yes. Kananir should have been your next title contender, but he lost. Give it to Whitaker, Whitaker out of Sanya too, and put it somewhere in the oceanic region. Can't wait for it, BC. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it, Luke. Okay. All right. I love it. Love it. Uh, last on the top.

Sorry, Luke. I, I, you, you touched your glasses for the 47th time this episode. Sorry. People are wondering this. There was like a pool going around. Will you say BC or will you touch your glasses more? Which one will win out in this episode? Probably the glasses this time, but, you know, the night is young.

All right, last but not least, we go back to 254. So we talked about the main, a little bit of the co-main, but it was a good card overall, the co-main but it was a good card overall bc in fact it was a great card overall uh wondering if you have any other stand outs in mind if i if i may i'd like to go first on this last one bc there was one and you may know this bc you could actually verify this if you didn't want to be a total a-hole you know i did this uh cbs sports asked us for our guaranteed lock, our guaranteed blah, blah, blah. And my answer was...

Yeah, you took the biggest betting favorite on the card. I did. However, the reason why is because she's a PhD student from not too far from where I live in Norfolk, Virginia. Miranda Maverick over Liana Jojua. She looked awesome, dude, because Jojua had a right hand early on that was kind of giving her some problems, and she made the adjustments,

and once she did, with her distance getting out of the way and then that elbow up through the middle, the stoppage was kind of early, but that's not Maverick's fault. She doesn't make any of those calls. It was the doctor and then the referee who did it. She looked great. And, dude, how many times can you say, oh, hey, this fighter is a PhD student in, what is it, industrial something psychology,

something incredibly academic. I was thrilled to see her get a nice win. Yeah, and here's what I loved about it most. Not just like the toughness and the adjustments there. Unfortunately, for someone so sneaky in Jojua, she had to suffer such a vicious gash. But I love that Maverick was basically like, I'm the next big thing. I mean, look, it takes a lot of balls to say that. You got to back that up.

And she wants the smoke. She wants stardom. She wants all that. And what that shows you in a young fighter is someone who has a deep belief in what they do. And that certainly matters. And that can take you very far. Luke, she's a flyweight. Is that correct?

Correct. Okay. Well, look, that's going to be an interesting you know situation because we talk about how much that division lacks depth underneath Shevchenko with Andrade rising but to stay in that division I do want to give a shout out to Lauren Murphy she's really put it together in her late 30s Luke to come out there and just be a tough ass out with a complete game she also took to the mic and pleaded for a title opportunity basically it was like hey UFC pull Maya out of that fight or or or put Andrade in that fight and I'll fight the

winner either or I should not step into this cage again until I get a fight now I saw people sort of clowning that and saying she ain't good this division sucks well the latter of that half the latter half of that is true but Luke you know it wasn't just until four fights ago that you thought of her as an also ran as just a you know just in anyone she's really put her complete game together and anytime somebody really bites down and figures out how great they can be um you know she wouldn't have a you know would she have a chance in hell against Shevchenko not likely but I certainly like her chances better than her contemporaries who all have very obvious flaws. Yeah, and the point being is if you get four wins in a division like that, sorry, you deserve something special. Either a title shot or number one contender fight, period. Like, whatever you say about the division, whatever you want to say about any fighter in

there, they put four wins together in the way that she has. It's not her fault her opponent fell out and they had to change last minute. By the way that can derail fighters didn't derail her give her what she's owed by the way bc i mean there were so many stand-up performers uh alvarez brother alvar say again alexander volkoff had a big one at heavyweight that puts him back on track yeah how about phil hawes finally proving to be the hype that we initially thought he was casey Kenny had a great win over Nathaniel Wood. How about the dude who put a dead animal on his head? Shavkat Rachmanov getting the guillotine choke over Alex Oliveira. I was like, who is this dude?

He is awesome. Yeah, we would have shown a lot of these knockouts and have you seen this shit this week, but we couldn't. But I would have had Hawes up there, and I would have obviously had, you know, the guy who really won big was Ankalayev. Dude, he made you realize that that rematch against Kutelaba was just not necessary.

And, Luke, that's a savage KO. It's a big... Do you think at light heavyweight he's a player? Are we not talking enough about him? Oh, yeah, he's a player. I mean, it's still... There's still so much we don't know about him. But on the feet, if you watch him, he's got, it looks like he's patient and he is. And then all of a sudden the

fight just goes South all of a sudden. And sometimes it's big power, but you know what it is is he has great timing and great accuracy. And when you're as big as these guys are 205 pounds plus doesn't take much to like, you know, really began to alter the fight. He hit him with that two piece, that three, two, and that just sent Kute Laba to the land of wind and ghosts, man. That was authoritative. Who was the man? That was humbling.

Yeah, that was, that's a, and he had like that creative beard from EA sports UFC three and, but it looked, it looked nasty on him. I love this guy. I love Uncle I have, I'm going to be a, I'm going to be a big one behind him. Yeah. We had a lot of weird looking people on the card.

I guess I'll stop there before someone tries to fight me. Because I mentioned someone's name on the show last week and they jumped in my DMs and threatened my life. So why don't I chill out a little, Luke? So they definitely want to kill you. With that in mind, I have asked you questions. You have asked me questions. It's time for the viewers to ask us questions.

It is time for DMs from dogs. Alright. to ask us questions, it is time for DMs from dogs. Yeah. All right. As I spray my nostril. Okay. Let's go first to these if we can. All right.

Up first, I have from Dirk Stewart 12. Is Habib's 29-0 record padded? Oh, Jesus. Fuck. 13-0 in the UFC and MMA is incredible, but the 16-0 against regional Eastern European pro fighters seems less impressive. Also, a lot of backstory to the wins.

Over a 24-hour notice, I acquit Connor after two years boxing, cocaine hiatus. Dude, they're going to do this every time to every fighter. Oh, I look back on it. It wasn't as impressive in retrospect shut the fuck up wow you said dirk to hell right there german fan thank you uh no i mean was it as strong as other regional mma where anything can happen the cage could break it could rain in there i mean i don't know you know the couple of those came in the same night gaethje

tried to talk it all down in the build-up to this fight. It doesn't matter because even in regional MMA, where, oh, by the way, remember Valentina Shevchenko lost to Gorilla in a fight that had no cameras or television and was like under a carnival tent. And there was a nasty cut in the fight. Just the ref just stopped. I mean, you can lose 50 ways, Luke, at any point in MMA. You know, crap decision, bad stoppage, anything at any time. And to not do that at his earliest part of his career when you're most vulnerable and you're still learning the game, I almost give him more credit for that. Is there small truth to what Dirk is saying?

Maybe. But, dude, throw out the other 16 he went 13 and 0 against against you know the best competition he could face in the UFC and again you can put the Conor Poirier Gaethje wins in succession that happening once a year dude there's no cage rust with this guy like you can put that up against anybody's run I mean come on stop you know who lost on the regional scene BC Jose Aldo Chris Cyborg Amanda Nunez like you know first of all I would take the guys that Habib beat in Eastern Europe over a lot of different other regional scenes across the world and yes guys like Saint Pierre and Jones and Habib did not lose on the regional scene but

some of the very best fighters you know have. There's a lot of reasons for that, why that could be. I don't really take that as any kind of limiting factor for all the reasons you stated, because once he did jump up to the next level, he ran through them like a hot knife through butter, so no. All right. From Goodness Akalazu, I think. Do you think it was selfish for media to keep pushing Dana on the possibility of Habib coming back for one more fight? I found it very selfish and distasteful. What do you think, BC?

No, because, look, like, the media are, I mean, okay, when I say the media are just professional fans. I don't say that to disrespect my my colleagues and a lot of my colleagues are, you know, attempting to be hardcore journalists. But look, at some point you and I are entertainers, which means we're professional fans. People are watching this show because they like the shit that comes out of their mouths after we just watched the same fight they did. So we want to, you know, speculate. And number two, almost every single fighter ever who has walked away with something left in the tank or even with nothing at all have come back

because the financial woes, because the hunger, the addiction to the spotlight. I do not believe that Habib will be one of those guys. I mean, the is is uh he has real conviction the reasons seem very real he's a different dude but anyone saying um you know man what if connor comes back and wins the belt and runs the table for two years and then there'll be all the cry for this rematch to happen there could be doesn't mean he's gonna take it though i don't think it's selfish of the media to ask or say that.

At the same time, though, I do like a short period of just letting – I don't think people should ask Khabib about it. I think that crosses the line. If he says he's retiring, let him have that for now. But, you know, anyone speculating, asking the UFC president, it's fine with me, whatever. I mean, I found the incessant questions about Khabib's father a little much. I'll grant that I thought that was, they had gone too far. But about like the possibility of him coming back for one more fight,

you found that selfish and distasteful? No. Let me explain something to you. If you went back to your editor and they were like, did you ask about a next fight with St. Pierre or blah, blah, blah, and you said no, they might fire you on the spot. Like, you just have to understand that's the job. The job is not to ask questions necessarily that fans love to hear. It's to ask the questions that are the most relevant for the business. And

the most relevant question for the business is, well, wait a second, how sure are you that this guy is retired? I understand the point you're making, that this is a guy who is religious and very close with his family. And when he says that to honor his mother's request, he's not going to fight again, he probably means it. Okay, but lots of people mean lots of things at certain points in their life, and then they have a different perspective sometime later. You know, the betting odds say that maybe Habib actually does stay retired for all the reasons we've mentioned, but it's not really out of line to ask Dana, not Habib, but Dana about, that's Dana's job. Dana's job is to field those kinds of questions.

So if they had gone to Habib and harangued him about it, okay, maybe. But they asked Dana, like, you know, he makes a ton of money. Go make a ton of money answering the press's questions. What I do think wasn't great, and I referenced it earlier, was Jon Jones getting so defensive and don't forget about me that I need a 50-tweet assault about why I'm still the best. Like, dude, take a weekend off, okay? You know what I mean?

And also, the one he had that was semi-nice was where he, um, he was like, you know, until I get that heavyweight crown, you know, the, the, you know, it's, uh, the title is yours. Enjoy chip. Like he was the one who was bestowing it upon him. Like it's his call or something, you know, like he's got the keys to the garage. It's like, dude, what are you talking? It's not your call. It's not my call. It's not BC's call, but it's not your call either. You know, it's like, okay, dude. All right. Whatever. I mean, listen, you want to pick a battle with the media, pick the right one. This ain't, this ain't the hill to die on. All right. Uh, from at the underscore Wolf underscore of underscore winter Habib's retirement was one of those historical moments you remember where you uh where you were

when it happened need to conjugate the verb which other sporting moments gave you that feeling um so sport so beyond retirements we're talking about sports moments in general i'd given you my countdown a couple weeks back remember that luke of those sports moments that that that you know you'll never forget where you were kirk gib's home run, Christian Leitner's, you know, buzzer beater, the Boise State trick plays. You know where I'm, you know, Pacquiao Marquez four. That goal from Landon Donovan that time in the World Cup, you remember that one, Luke?

Yeah, I do. Okay, okay. Verdum tapping Fedor. That was a pretty big night. I remember where I was. But, yeah, those are the ones that jump out to me. Luke, for your personal fandom, what are you missing here? Real Madrid winning their back-to-back-to-back third Champions League one was a big one. But honestly, I hate to say this, and I mean this, I'm not even trying to do a bit. Most of my major sports memories memories not my fondest ones i don't mean that but like the kind where you have a moment where you can just see everything around you they're kind of like the worst ones you know like when sean taylor died when he was murdered

you know i remember all that super clearly um or when michael westbrook and stephen davis beat the crap out of each other on the practice field no no it wasn't back and forth it was just Westbrook and Steven Davis beat the crap out of each other on the practice field. No, no, no. It wasn't back and forth. It was just Westbrook handing out L's. There was no two-way traffic on that one, my man. But actually less so that. But like, you know, I remember when, was it Aaron Boone hit that huge home run?

Yes. In 03. Yeah, in 03. And I was actually living in New York City at the time. And all the cars started honking their horns when I was walking down uh uh third ave and i fucking hate the yankees so like you know what i mean like that kind of thing stands out to me a little bit i was at the bloody sock game that was you know i wasn't a fan of either team but but i was there it was it was pretty big did you know you were cheering for the future leader of q anon when you were i got no issues with Kurt Schilling.

All right. People, it's America. We can have opinions, right? You know? Yeah. You can have dumb ass opinions, too, like he does. But OK. All right.

From Ben, from at Ben Schnitzer, our verified friend, is Michael Chandler here for a long time, B.C., or a good time? Oh, yeah. I like that. Yeah. He's here for a good time. He, or a good time. Oh, yeah, I like that. Yeah, he's here for a good time. He's 34. The miles are on there. He's been in wars.

He's awesome. He may surprise us and put together some wins. He also may have a Will Brooks-like Bellator to UFC conversion. We don't know, but I think the fights are going to be fun. I do think he's capable of packaging some elite wins and maybe even getting into a title fight. But no, Luke, I do not think that he has more than two and a half years where you're credibly talking about a top 10 guy.

Is that long? Is that short? What is it, Luke? All right. Yeah, I mean, you've got three, maybe four at most elite level fights left in him. You know, if he, assuming he doesn't, okay, you might, you may or may not have more if he gets, if he wins those, like, in other words, if he goes in there and gets a first round KO, that would obviously tend to extend how much longer he'll be here. But at 34, he's got enough time for you to get some big fights out of them,

get it, and then just be done with it. There's nothing else really to say. He's not one of these guys, by the way, who's like, I feel great. I can fight until I'm 40. It's like, not in this division you can't. 34 is already getting up there. Luke, as I take down another hempen-viewed seltzer by the folks at K-Lo, wow, love that stuff.

I did want to ask you an important question while we're here DMing and donking. Did Rudy Giuliani have bad intentions when he tucked in his shirt on the bed with that suspected teenage reporter on the Borat sequel that I have yet to see? I watched it over the weekend. It's very good.

There's a scene, by the way, I won't spoil it, but there's a scene at a debutante ball. Is it as jarring as the nude scene in the first Borat movie when they were in 6ix9ine and their crumb was over? It's more and it's not even close. It is by far the... Don't spoil it.

I'm not saying a word. It goes further than any scene in either movie. But the movie is not better than the first. Just this one particular scene is the best scene in both movie. But the movie is not better than the first. Just this one particular scene is the best scene in both movies. Also, Jay, as a resident member of the tribe, it should also be noted that the guy who plays Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen, is in fact Jewish

and is also lambasting anti-Semitism the whole way through. But did you feel like he leaned into that joke more in the second movie than he did the first? Well, yes, and the second movie was also more political. But did you know Borat speaks Hebrew? So when Borat is speaking in what is supposedly a Kazakh language, it is straight Hebrew. It more or less translates to the subtitles like word for word.

Except there's sometimes and you can tell oh they probably changed that line later or oh it didn't really matter because nobody knows what he's saying and then the actress that that plays his daughter she i believe is speaking bulgarian so they're talking to each other in two completely different languages like there are so many layers to this but yeah this movie was uh much more political okay i have a few questions. One, are you in a haunted house right now? What the hell's going on there?

It is not haunted. Jay, what do you think about our new Wednesday segment, NJW No Jay Wednesdays? What are you, leaving us Monday only with you? I'm still here. I'm still here. And I'll be with you all week. You'll have me Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all day.

In person? Will you take the COVID testing? Absolutely not. I will stay here in the haunted house. Friday, all the day. In person? Will you take the COVID test? Absolutely not. I will stay here in the haunted house. Alright, one more of these, BC. One more. One more. From at moneyman underscore 53, where does Tony versus Habib rank

on the best fights we never got, BC? What do you think? It's one with a bullet. I mean, I know, okay, it's up there. It's in the discussion, I guess, of what, Randy Fedor, although I would have preferred to see Habib Tony before Tony lost. I mean, look, of the five times they tried, that fifth time was when I would have been most excited for it,

when Habib had evolved and Tony was at his angriest and the win streak was up there um do you think there are any fight off the top of your head that eclipses it that we didn't see boxing or mma for me the big like the white whale i mean this is obviously up there uh but the one before this that i always think about people say fedor couture to me the big one was always brock versus fedor that was always the one where I was like man if they could put that together Brock I know that sounds like there must be newer fans being like who cares about that one okay at the time let me tell you something folks back when what was this around 2009 or 10 or so when they could have put this together that was I mean you couldn't have

imagined that would have been probably if not for Habib versus connor that might have been the first one to break two million buys bc that could have that could have done it i really think yeah yeah i'm you can't put a ceiling on what brock could have done and you bring in this russian bad guy yeah i mean yeah it would have been it would have been perfect it really would have been uh there's you know scott coker's got a great story about that well we should have him on one time and talk about it. I'll save that. Pause that. Pause that. We certainly should. Okay, with that, BC, I hand the reins over to you, good sir.

Time for our dong jokes. Yes, all right. You will not be seeing. Oh, first, can we hit the intro? There we go. You will not be seeing UFC 254 highlights, but, you know, we scour the globe, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between in combat sports and beyond. It's time to see some ish. Hey, on that UFC 254 under, but you know, we scour the globe, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between, and combat sports and beyond. It's time to see some ish.

Hey, on that UFC 254 undercard, Luke, Tui Tui Vassa sent. Tui Tui Vassa or Ty Tui Vassa? The quarterback, Tui Vagala from Alabama. Somebody sent the skyscraper to hell, Luke, and then kicked him in the head as he tried to climb the cage, which was a funny highlight himself. But you know what Tui Vassa is known for, and he tried to do it when he jumped the cage,

and they wouldn't let him. Jay hit the damn video. They went backstage, and he had some viral video guys there spit. See, this is where I got the problem, Luke, okay? You want to drink out of a shoe? I've seen it done at bars. Like, it's gross, but but it is what it is i'd do it with you right now if we had to but the the the the bukkake-esque pass it around move i'm not in i'm just not in on that

can i just say this i love taito ivasa he seems like such a friendly and nice person you know there's always this like standard BC, you know this. Who would you vote for for president if the consideration is, who would you rather get a beer with? That's sort of an interesting way to phrase, just an easy guy to get along with. Man, Taito Iwasa, of maybe any UFC fighter,

is at the top of that list. Is he a better fighter than Habib? No. Would you rather get a beer with Habib or Taito Iwasa? I'm going to pick Taito Iwasa 10 times out of 10. I would, but do you want to drink that Kofi sandwich there? Dude, the shoeie has played the fuck out at this point. I mean, it's super played out.

We get it. You drink beer out of a shoe. I've done it. Maybe you've done it. It's fine for a couple of jokes. My point was, I'll drink it out of this man this dad slipper right now if you wanted me to but i'm not letting you spit in it that's just extra level gross hey let's flash back there's a show on the internet called behind the the below the belt with uh

with big brown check out what big beige found here of uh that time that uh tyson pedro and chewy vasa came in and uh bb delivered right they all they all urinated in the shoe and then he uh then he took it down right does that make them eskimo bros in a weird way or no yeah i mean it's just here's the thing it's like how many times you're gonna do this before we get it you drink out of a shoe i okay but it's the fluid it's the fluid share all right i don't know okay it's played out let's let's play it out then let's move on here uh let's go on hey luke over the weekend at mfp 232 watch our brother viashlav patison send this man to the to the dark land as you would say to the

to the shadow realm the land up right there get that guy a coat hanger, Luke. What is that? Is he doing the Teen Wolf look? What are we doing here? That was incredible. Hold on. You know what we should do? We should have that music from Thriller. Ba-dum-bum-bum-bum-ow.

Ba-dum-bum-bum-bum-ow. Yikes. You just created a zombie right there. That's a heck of a... Look how small that cage is, Luke. That is something like 10 by 10. It's like a WEC cage, but worse. Bach! Hold that.

He looks like those... I said this before. I saw this comedian. I can't remember who it was. He was like, when I first moved to New York, I thought everyone was doing Tai Chi in the park, and then I realized they're just heroin addicts

who don't fall over. He looked like one of those. Look, what's a grosser Andrewarthy movie plot from the 80s mannequin where he sleeps with and dates a a wooden woman that comes to life when no one's around or weekend at bernie's where he hangs out with a rich dead friend to to take all his wealth from him it's got to be mannequin because it's like guys guys i have an idea what if we take Pinocchio, but instead of a little boy, we make it a woman and the guy fucks her? Let's make that movie.

Everyone was like, yeah, that's a great idea. All right. Wow. Hey, let's get on with this. Future UFC champion Kevin Lee, we talked about. He went to the tattoo parlor. Luke, he's. Oh, sorry.

We got another coat hanger. My bad. We got coat hanger part two,ke look at this guy i don't know what organization this is but uh we're making mannequins left and right dude these guys are fighting in a smaller surface than the our regular tv or uh mk studio i mean my lord look at this did he catch a jab to hell right there yeah he did are they bare knuckle it looks like they're bare knuckle no no no no no no they're not sorry i couldn't tell i have bad vision all right i screwed up my own uh segment let's go over to kevin lee now

let's do this thing okay uh luke we had teased the idea of this insane tattoo he's getting luke this is like yeah this is um he better win the title after this luke because this is this means you mean business in life and the octagon you're not saying you're not taking no for an answer if you get tattoos like this luke well here like i said before the guy who's doing this tattoo is one of the best guys in america So he's not going cheap. He's not going bad in terms of like the skill of the tattoo artists. But I'll just say this, BC, you get one of these and I don't think Goldman Sachs or Deutsche Bank is going to be hiring you anytime soon.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that'll look nice with the championship elbow over the shoulder once he figures it out. Look, we'll see what happens on there. Is this tattoo, though, better or worse than what Alexander Volkov debuted on Saturday Night in the Cage? Is that Megatron? What is that?

So that's a samurai, like, you know, face mask. Here's the thing. Folks have forgotten this. If you look at the top, it's just a lot of heavy black over the course of his shoulders. He had wings before this. Remember that? He had wings from shoulder to shoulder. So this is something of a cover-up slash additional back piece.

I got to say, I don't like how heavy the black is, but you don't have a choice if you're going to have a cover-up. It's just the way it's going to go. For the rest of it, it's a good tattoo. It's a good tattoo. I don't know. It's bold. That's a bold-ass statement, but it kind of fits his Drago style. So, you know, if I had wings, I would fly.

Let me contemplate all that. Let's get out of this one and move on here, Luke. Let's stay with the crazy Russian theme here, though. Check out this young boy get caught in the pie-throwing crossfire here at this Russian lunchroom. What is going on here? Is this an initiation at Sweet 16 in Russia? Is this what happens?

God, that kid's takedown defense is probably incredible. How many dudes have ever shot some kind of super graphic pornography scene with 10 people in it and just caught didn't wear his gallagher hazmat suit and you know may have caught some projectiles along the way the boom mic guy is standing the boom mic guy is standing there and then he's like oh god yeah

he's having to duck and dodge like you know he's got a wild pitcher on the mound. I mean, this happened, dude. It's happened. Speaking of crazy Russian folks who we love so much, Luke, let's go over to some hockey breakdowns here at this Russian sports channel here. They're breaking down this key Stanley Cup final game, Luke. And see, you got the defender there. You got the man in the slot. I think I know where this is going.

And then what you do is we'll call that area the shaft. And then look at the czar of the telestrator here. Show us what happens at the top. So if you tease the bag, Luke. He did not do that. He did not do that. Because, you know, you got to. I slipped one through the five hole here

look at the spray on that luke what okay dude this has to be intentional by him isn't it it must be oh he's drawing ball hairs now luke it's not the first time that's happened can we go to uh saginaw michigan local abc affiliate can we get a traffic reporter in here it's our top story luke it's not the first time it's happened so here's siobhan riley showing us where the crime took place in uh in in saginaw luke so you see there's there's the there's it's a top story the perpetrator was a real dick though i'll tell you how much that is great what community is this the top story top story there's a giant dick and balls down main street this just in rocco so freddy visits saginaw michigan

uh luke let's go on to this fox local news weather man because sometimes luke the uh when you get one of those tropical storms the penetration level just you know that that's tropical storm john john holmes luke tropical storm peter north just tons of precipitation in that storm wow all right that's great stuff shout out to that um hey look let's go into the workout scheme you know unbeaten unified light heavyweight boxing champion arthur better be uh what are your thoughts on this routine here dude twisting that barbell over his hand like that is you got to have stupid forearm strength and then to do this what are those what are those uh double clap jumping push-ups good god he's a savage by the way he just pulled

out of his october fight with an injury but he is a savage luke yeah for this guy to pull out of a fight due to injury what happened he got decapitated i mean short of that what does this dude pull out of fights for dude he sent alexander vatsik to retirement when that unification fight when he knocked him out the guy was still in his prime i mean this dude this dude is a complete animal well speaking of impressive workout tricks luke is this real or fake because to pull this off you looks like you'd need incredible wrist strength as you're talking about jay can we advance the slide? So this is known as a Turkish getup. Is this some Iron Sheik bullshit?

What is this? I think those are fake weights. There's no Persian clubs. And by the way, here's a little note. But you see, that is not a normal barbell. That is something called an axle bar. So you don't think this is real? You think those are like props?

Those are probably fake weights, yeah. I don't think you could. I mean, what is that supposed to be, 400 pounds? Your thoughts on his outfit? Yeah, those are bumper plates. So that's not – how many does he have on there? One, two, three, four. So if you had four normal 45-pound plates, you're talking about 400 pounds.

He's Turkish getting upping 400 pounds? No, he's not. No, he's not. Those are less than that. That's still – no he's not no he's not those are less than that that's still whatever he's doing if it's if it's if it's over 100 or 200 pounds it's still impressive but it's just not and by the way the reason you have the axle bars because it's thicker so it's harder to grab so it tests your grip strength so it's impressive just not what you think it is all right well a man who's known uh to be very impressive in the gym is your your life hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Luke on IG, he put out after a order of valve replacement surgery. He will be back, Luke. He will get to the damn chopper. This guy was out there touring the city of Cleveland after getting surgery the next day. Do you know he's the same age as Donald Trump? Do you know that? I did not know that yeah and look i mean okay this is not the best evidence for but i would say in general you know in pretty goddamn good shape probably a good chance their eskimo bro is in the same room at the same time at some probably probably i i've heard stories all right let's go on here hey you know drinking legend ronnie deutsch you know that guy we got to get that guy on this show i let that go here's a 64 ounce pitcher of beer with a great t-shirt while his girlfriend chloe plays the

halloween theme song in the background luke on piano what do you think of this why is she not playing like that hulk hogan theme song i am a real american that's what she should be playing dude that's impressed i know we've seen a lot of this guy that's impressive and he's got a shirt on that says just the tip are you shitting me how is this guy not the third member of mk that's what i'm saying the guys in that somebody like a barstool or somebody's gonna hire this guy and give him a show and then he'll die within a year when his liver goes but it'll be a great year luke right it'll be the best year ever he's the justin gaethje of drinking and that's and and chloe might be the habib i could see her going full mount you know

as soon as they turn the camera off all right let's get out of that hey luke um street fight of the week coming up you ready for this um stuff gets weird when you start pantsing a guy and punching to the cheeks what What is this move? I'm going to... Wait, wait. So you got abuela and you've got auntie and I guess an uncle. I'm not sure what's happening here. They're just checking his prostate? There's kidney punches, but then I think he's like reaching underneath.

I think he's changing the oil, right? What is happening? He's checking. He's doing the old prostate sir fuck you and your prostate is swollen go see a doctor once a year when you're over 40 you know yeah luke i i had that check done it is it's there's no way to prepare yourself well there is a way so it's 2020 there's a way to prepare yourself i don't go that way though but uh luke it's it's hard. Well, no, sorry.

It's uncomfortable, Luke. Maybe just fight these folks. They'll get you ready for it. Luke, will you get your prostate checked? You're a 41-year-old man. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, of course. You have to do it. I'll be there with the MP cameras.

Okay. Hey, let's roll on here from our friends down under, Luke. This is our rugby hit of the week, but it might be the best rugby hit of all time what is this luke oh gee did he blow him out of his shoes and socks too jesus christ i think he buried him right there wow wow yikes hold that son love our fans from down under thank you for sending that in uh thank you for the drunken swan guy who fills my DMS with good stuff as well. Hey, let's go over to some fat fails. Check out this guy.

I'll give him credit for trying the whole skateboard thing with the helmet, but that's not the way it was supposed to end. Luke. It's like my man. I appreciate that you tried, but it's a giant fat man on a little ass scooter. You know, he got pretty far. He got air.

I'll give him credit for that. Yeah, he just didn't get enough rotation. Yeah, and he'd probably never walk again. Luke, that wasn't the worst fat fail of the week. Check out Chubb Rock on the hardwood here. He looks like he can ball, though. He's got the attitude. He's got the swagger.

But then they're like, my man, set it up for three go come up from from downtown check this out that's like you know what that is that's when we bring jay on to talk and then he says totally boring shit you know it's like all right jay it's your turn air ball all right hey luke it's the fall camping season is wrapping up but there's plenty of tricks you can play on your friends while you go camping you can also light them on fire first guy to fall asleep loses luke you down with this let me explain something to you b. If you ever do this to me, at least have the decency to film it. Yes, please.

I love that he pushes the guy right over the table, too. That's great. Also, when you're camping, you have to be aware of uninvited guests. But if they show up, Luke, at least make them a sandwich, right? What are these people doing? Do they realize how easily? All the viewers get so bitter when I mention this. Wow, what a shock they're white, BC.

You've never seen a family of Hispanic or black people feeding bears at their picnic. It's just the whiteys. No, you don't. I like that Miller light case they got right there the sweat stain on the back of that guy's uh pink uh wife peter yeah this is great yeah just nonchalantly feeding super predators i mean you know the jokes on them because that sandwich might be the appetizer but that bald dude's the main course that's gonna get bald just feeding black bears are you shitting me yeah oh my god luke i get a family of these in my yard

every other day and sometimes they flip my garbage can it's like normal in these parts do you have that in dc you don't have that you have no uh the most we've ever seen was one time i drove early in the morning to some event it was like 6 a.m so the sun's just come up i've seen some deer near rock creek park but that's it okay all right that was great you saw a deer all right well hey i got raccoons i live in a major bitch spot in area what do you want me to tell you raccoons yeah all right you do have a homeless guy asking to spot you i mean you know i don't have that in my parts i saw him the other day again but go ahead uh you want to see a paralyzation here we're winding down uh this is a pretty good uh bump this guy takes right yes it's just oh he lived he lived look he lived bc i i can't believe that he's white

i mean what a what a shocking coincidence the spine the spine and the neck are not supposed to bend like that just yo superman superman buddy all right jay don't hit the don't hit the button yet jay i gotta tee up this final one luke you know we made a mistake with the whole tip on tip thing we've had this discussion before have you seen this shit has grown to such levels people send me the grossest stuff and i say no i am drawing the line as for me and my family this is you know this is as far as we are willing to go. But so many people sent this in, Luke, that at some point it's like, look, if you're the band Loverboy, you got one hit, right? Everybody's working for the weekend.

You try to play the state fair and you try to play your new stuff. Bro, they're only there for that one song, right? Right, Luke? Okay. Let's give the people what they want then. Here we go. Hit it, Jay. Hopefully we don't get fired.

Oh, God. Ostriches are so gross, right? You need help. You need serious. I do not endorse this video. Psychological counseling. Yeah, I do not endorse it. Jay, do not play it again

i do not endorse this video but luke that's your issue of the week i hope you saw it thank you i did see it all right well with that in mind bc the only thing left to do is odds and ends good sir what do you have for odds and ends yeah you know the the little guys the super flyweights delivered again on friday night uh roman chocolate titoatito Gonzalez beat another man named Gonzalez in the co-main. Pretty decent fight. Showcased a legend. But that main event is worth finding out. It was a rematch between current champion Juan Francisco Estrada,

who's been right around that top ten of pound for pound, against all-action Carlos Cuadras. They'd fought a couple years ago. And Estrada had won won getting a knockdown. This fight was better than the first one. Estrada down in round three. And then Quadras, who keeps coming no matter the damage he takes, got dropped twice in round 11.

Got up, was still firing before he finally got stopped. Todd Grisham and Sergio Mora were on the call for DAZN, one of the most underrated boxing commentary teams in the game today. Shout out. They had a great call. Luke, this was a great fight because they tried to be skillful, but they just lured each other into a war. And the best news is this.

If you're a hardcore, if you follow the low weight classes, everybody loved that first fight between Chocolatito and Estrada back in like 2012. We'd wanted that rematch forever. It looks like we're finally going to get it. They're both champions at 115 pounds. Every time these guys fight each other, from Quadras to Source to get three, Rungvisai to Chocolatito to Estrada, it's money.

They bang. Thank you for this is, I don't know if it bested Zepeda and Baranchik from a few weeks back as your fight of the year in boxing, but it's in the discussion. Great piece of business. They delivered. Very good. I didn't love the Chuck Latuto fight before this one

against, I forget his name. I was not overly impressed by it. I was impressed seeing the legend out there throw combinations i mean he's he's one he outworked the younger guy for sure for sure yeah uh and then uh last but not least uh showtime had a triple header over the weekend the uh the close friend and training partner by the way of uh gervonta davis malik hawkins he suffered an l i think i don't know if it was his first or his second one, but he suffered a defeat.

He got stopped. He didn't quit on the stool, but he looked like he was pretty close to. The doctor waved it off because he had a huge mouse over his eye, and I think it was broken and he couldn't see. This dude, Matthias, just wiped the floor with him in the end. The big news out of it was that Sergey Lipinets and then this gentleman,

Kustyo Clayton, fought to a split draw, BC. Very surprising effort by Clayton. Came on late in the end. I think exceeded some expectations because this was supposed to be a fight between who? Lipanets and, I want to make sure I get his name right, Abderrakharov? And the guy, the latter two, couldn't get his visa,

so Clayton was kind of subbing in, former Olympian. And I think he was sort of overlooked in this one. Lipanets faded a bit down the stretch. Clayton kind of sticking it to him, even though it was a split draw. Pretty good fight. Pretty better fight than it had business being a late replacement. And Kustio Clayton, who ahead of the game, said the same things every late replacement says.

I'm going to go out there. I'm going to use my boxing. But if I have to fight, I'm going to fight him, and I'm going to show all you guys that I'm more than just a Canadian Olymp olympian and an unbeaten fighter and we're all like yeah bro lippinets is gonna fold you into a suitcase and outwork you and crush you and uh it turns out that you know that wasn't the case this was a fun little fight and afterwards i'll give um i'll give our guy lippinets credit he said i i underestimated him i didn't think he was going to be that good and he almost lost it on this night and it was close it could have gone either way ends up being a majority draw I don't

know what's going to happen now because this fight was basically a number one contender fight to get a chance at that IBF title that Errol Spence has of course he's going to fight Danny Garcia on December 5th the Fox pay-per-view but this is a little bit of a step back here for Lippin Yates who is a very good fighter puts pressure on you former champion at 140 but we gotta fight we gotta watch out for Clayton now he had his moment Luke and he and he swung big and uh I give him a lot of credit yeah so I'm changing some things uh certainly for that 140 pound weight class I think uh all right BC let's remind folks Wednesday's show is our first show in studio back at the MK bomb shelter since the pandemic. Basically, we are back just for a brief time.

Cinderella turns back into a pumpkin on Friday. It's not going to be a routine thing, but for that week, we are going to be back there. I got to tell you, I am so excited about that. I am looking forward to getting back there for a long time. I thought it was going to be 2021 before we got back there, honestly. But you know what? Here we are. Wednesday. We are. And if you don't think Wednesday's show isn't going to be 2021 before we got back there, honestly. But you know what? Here we are, Wednesday. We are.

And if you don't think Wednesday's show isn't going to be loaded, it will be. I mean, we've got to set the table for Anderson Silva's farewell, that loaded Bellator card on Thursday night with that must-see vacant middleweight title bout. And, of course, Tank Davis, Leo Santa Cruz, Showtime pay-per-view this Saturday. So check us out. Our regular live Wednesday and Friday episodes

will be as normal, but from the studio. You're going to see us Thursday. Press conference stream on Showtime's YouTube and social media channels. And Friday we'll be hosting the weigh-in stream. And look, given Drew Vontae's history, you've got to be there for that weigh-in stream. You've got to see what happens. Hopefully he can

make 130 and we'll see this super fight inside the dome. Two titles at different weight classes at stake here as they meet in the middle and look you know you and i we're gonna we're gonna crack a few cold ones with the crew shout out to showtime and malca we're gonna maybe turn on that camera and see what happens right i got my new camera that won't overheat i'm pretty excited about it so that should be fun okay maybe you and i could go for a stroll around Jersey. We'll have the cameras follow us. We'll get some bumfights going.

Whatever. Whatever you want to do, I'm down. Yeah, I'm not doing that. But if you want to do some other things like follow us on social, you certainly may. You can go to Morning Combat on YouTube. Morning Combat with a K, of course. On Twitter and on Instagram. There you have Brian is on Instagram and Twitter as well, as am I.

Morning Combat, though, consistent across. Plus, by the way, I don't know if folks know this, we have a vanity URL, youtube.com slash morningcombat. You can just go right there now, and it'll all pop up for you. So that's pretty exciting. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly may. You can go to showtime.com right now. 30-day free trial.

If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go do something else with your time, like be a loser. But that is available to you. And of course, if you want some sweet-ass merch, store.show.com. What's up, BC? I was going to say,

someone on that undercard of Showtime pay-per-view on Saturday is the Rougarou himself, Regis Progray, going in there against Unbeaten Wander Aldis. It's a big fight at 140. And I sat down with Rougarou for a very fun 30-minute chat that you can find on Morning Combat this week. Look out for it. Talking Broner, talking Conor McGregor, talking Mark Wahlberg,

a lot of interesting stuff with Rougarou there as well. Great guy. Rougarou is a legit MMA fan. He's not one of these boxing haters, so it's always good to catch up with him. We talk about that. He went down to Brazil and met Jose Aldo and did some sparring, bro. It's good.

Sweet, sweet, sweet. All right. I look forward to hearing that and everything else. Um, I think that's it for us. Like the video,

hit subscribe. The next time we see you, it will be from the studio. We are so excited, but until then, thank you to Malka. Thank you to Showtime, CBS sports,

and everyone else in between. We'll see you on Wednesday. May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.