MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 256: Figueiredo vs. Moreno, Ferguson vs. Oliveira | Bellator 254 Recap | Ep. 93

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

Luke returns for episode 93 of MK as he and Brian preview this weekend's UFC 256 event. Deiveson Figueiredo fights for his 2nd time in weeks as he takes on Brandon Moreno and Tony Ferguson returns vs. Charles Oliveira. The boys also recap Bellator 254 and previewssome boxing including Anthony Joshua vs. Kubrat Pulev and Shakur Stevenson vs. Toka Kahn Clary. --------------------------------- '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

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. at all actually my name is brian campbell that beige bastard one half of course of this fine mk duo it's friday we got the graphic orange background there you got bc as your host cbs sports and beyond and that guy on the left side of the screen i can't say enough great things about him he's a native of india he's big and hairy he is one half of my life at the moment my editorial partner in all things marriage and beyond c CBS Sports' own Luke Thomas. He brings producer credits, a large audience. Luke, great to have you back where you belong on this show. Although much love, of course, to Sugar Rashad Evans.

Sugar Rashad Evans did a wonderful job on Wednesday. I heard the show. Great analysis of Anthony Rumble Johnson, as you could well imagine. But I am happy to be back in the chair that I belong in happy to be today your sidekick as you host the program I'm ready to get things going big big fights this weekend

pretty damn loaded weekend here for December we're going to close the year with a bang and speaking of that bang this is what MK gives it to you guys if you don't know if you're new to this part live shows three times a week Monday Wednesdayiday and really the best bonus content going so please like this video subscribe to our morning combat youtube channel uh luke do i have to run down the murderer's row of uh of great interview guests we've had this week in addition to your

live chat and the other bonuses we give them uh look, here's what I can say. You can run down the names if you want, but it's pretty simple. Anybody who is anybody in combat sports, maybe with the exception of Joshua or something, we had him on the channel this week, largely due to Brian. Go check it out. Lots and lots and lots of solid ass interviews.

Tony Ferguson in particular. You want Kayla Harrison? You want Tony Ferguson, Dustin Poirier the week before, big names in boxing, get all that. And also, I want to see you outfitted in exactly what Luke Thomas is wearing right now. No, no, not quite.

This is my Jedi mind tricks. Sorry, don't wear that shit, okay? Especially if you live outside of the U.S., you won't be wearing anything. Although, Luke, I hope you saw in fan submissions on Wednesday where that fella from overseas took a Morning Combat bumper sticker and put it on his chest.

But look, if you live in the fine U.S. and you want to wear these great clothes for Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa season, head on over to store.show.com. Get your fix, MK style. You won't be disappointed. Also, please, you want 30 days free of Showtime?

Why the heck wouldn't you? We got boxing the next two weekends, next two Saturday nights on Showtime. We got the Comedy Store documentary series, Camacho the Doc. We got a lot of great stuff going on from our partners and friends here. So head on over to Showtime.com. Get your 30 days for free. Try it. You might just love it, okay?

You don't need to pound sand, all right? Whatever. All right, that that's all the crap luke i think that i've got ahead of time how was your uh vasectomy on wednesday all good three i do not have a vasectomy everything is fine people like did you have a job interview i'm like trust me i am quite happy at cbs sports i'm doing quite well no no it was uh i had to get some work done for my pet actually you don't need to tell me anything i was the one who floated the job interview rumor okay look i was having a little ridiculous but that's you but no uh and my pet is fine by the way so all's well that ends well back in the saddle again ready to ride yeah i love moco by the way it was my dog but yes but she's fine too yeah what's his name fr name, Francois? What's the guy's name? Moco? Oh, you mean the two dogs?

The dogs are Lola and Barbas. Yes, yes. Great, great. Some of my favorite Thomas members along with Abuela. All right, let's get out of this. Let's get into what matters this weekend. Oh, last thing on this. Abuela and my brother-in-law are back from Colombia.

My mother-in-law has been there a long time. My brother-in-law has been there. He lives here, but he has been there over a year and a half. True or false? He's known around your house as Uncle Peepy. True or false? Say again? He is known around your house as Uncle Peepy.

It's more Pepe, but yes, that's fairly close, Gringo. Okay. All right. Oh, and by the way, speaking of bonus content and shouting out our brothers in this fight, okay, how about you check out below the bell for that great uh left coast west coast brother series called java jerks you you and brendan schaub this week mixing it up what can the fans enjoy in that little piece of business luke uh well even though you are uh you know uh homeless caddish that was actually a very fun conversation we set up ufc 256 we sort of talk about the paul brothers i

didn't realize it was hilarious i slandered the paul brothers to his face only for him to tell me after the fact that he's good for good friends with logan so that was kind of fun uh but you know just sort of standard yeah just sort of standard uh fight talk stuff between you know um a good buddy and me that's it you guys are magic together on the microphone. A lot of people wondering, Luke, will there ever be a collaboration between the Big Brown and the Big Beige? There already was, folks, okay? Go check it out in the archives of Below the Belt

when your boy BC touched hips with Brendan, okay? It already happened, guys. Live it, love it. Thank you very much. Alright, let's put that to bed. Let's set the stage for this great weekend of fights to come. And the biggest one, Saturday night. Well, we got Showtime Boxing on Saturday night.

Don't forget that. Also, they're going to do this little MMA piece of business in Las Vegas. It's called UFC 256. The flyweights are going to rule again atop the marquee three weeks after Devison Figueredo defended his 125 title with another stoppage win, he's going to go for 4-0 this calendar year when he takes on the very red-hot Brandon Moreno. Luke, we talked about this recently.

I don't know if there's ever been a guy to headline a pay-per-view twice in the same month. And if Devison Figueredo wins, that's 4-0. Could be four stoppages. He could be your breakout fighter of the year. He might as well be your damn fighter of the year. What are your expectations for this very good-looking main event here on Saturday night? Yeah, I mean, this is one of the things I had a conversation with Brendan about. He was like, what did you think it would do for his popularity to make this kind of a turnaround?

Now, we're assuming a world where he wins. And I want to be clear, I think you would probably agree, BC, Brandon Moreno's a live dog, very live dog. I do not want to overlook him, and I'm sure we'll get to it. But for the moment, let's imagine a world where Figueiredo wins, and he wins impressively. What would that mean for him, and what can we say about that? I don't think that it would affect the popularity of the flyweight division, and it would give a very mild boost, I think, to Figueredo, because, you know, it's not a celebrated division. This is not the best part

of the UFC's overall roster in terms of popularity. Moreno is not a popular figure, so beating him doesn't really transfer a whole lot to you. So in terms of the Q rating, the sort of rating that is a sort of a loose way of measuring popularity, I don't think it means a whole lot to you. So in terms of the Q rating, the sort of rating that is a sort of a loose way of measuring popularity, I don't think it means a whole lot. But my expectations are nothing to do with that. My expectations are Moreno is the number one contender at flyweight in the UFC's division.

Figueiredo might be your new boss at this weight class. We'll see if he wins on Saturday. But I'm expecting absolute fireworks, dude. I'm expecting high-level flyweights. I'm expecting Vigorado to dictate large parts of it. I'm expecting Moreno to absolutely answer the challenge over and over and over again through scrambles, through exchanges, through will, through everything. I don't know if that'll be enough to get the job done but i i think you would be in agreement bc and tell me if i'm wrong whatever you want to say about the popularity

whatever you want to say about how the ufc ends this year whatever you want to say about covid and blah blah blah this is going to be a sensational main event for the ufc to end their pay-per-view calendar year on absolutely and look they're in this spot meaning figueredo getting this type of shine in the division in general, obviously because three title fights that were earmarked for this at different that, who knows. But look, you could not be, if you're the flyweight division in general and if you're a figurehead, you could not ask for a better chance though to reintroduce the division to the public

who maybe only have known it from Mighty Mouse or the short season where the Triple C saved it and was sort of the face. And I do like that all the guys, and I've interviewed them all ahead of these fights, including Moreno this week on Morning Combat, they give Cejudo that credit. He may have saved this.

Well, they have a great opportunity, not just for Figueiredo, to become a star. I don't know if it can happen. And star is a, there's levels to stardom. He doesn't speak English, but he's got incredible swag. His fights are fun. If he goes 4-0 with four stoppages, good God, he's your fighter of the year. I mean, this is a great opportunity for for him but for the division as a whole obviously it got a bad rap through the years because of mighty

mouse's dominance which is also let's be honest i know he didn't move product but dana never endorsed this guy it was very short season luke that dana would come out and be like mighty mouse is an all-time great i mean he gave more love trying to sell hen and brow to us back in the day you know than he ever did to mighty mouse And certainly I think the temperature of the audience sometimes depends. It starts at the top. You don't see Dana going out of his way to overblow these guys, but they are certainly right now giving them an opportunistic platform. I have no doubt they'll deliver, but here's the deal. And I want to ask you this question. I asked it to Rashad on Wednesday, and I think it's very interesting. Figueiredo, of course, missed weight in the first of his four fights this calendar year,

had to beat Benavidez a second time to win the title. Luke, he seemed to just freaking barely make weight the last time three weeks ago. The short turnaround of three weeks, Rashad believes physically that will help him in terms of staying on weight. Do you see this playing any factor on Saturday? Yeah, I mean, Rashad would probably know better, but I do think it's worth entertaining the idea that it could go either way. Perhaps not in equal levels of probability,

but I mean, just sort of think about it this way. When you look at a fighter on the weigh-ins, on weigh-in day, boxing or MMA typically, they look a little bit drained, and then come fight day, especially in MMA where they cut more weight, they look a little bit filled out. You know, you look at, I mean, we've got the slides up here.

Look at Figueiredo on fight day, BC. That dude doesn't have an ounce of fat on him. There is almost no room to give. And so my thought is basically, well, if you can maintain some kind of working weight such that when you need to cut it again three weeks later, you're able to do it without issue, great. And according to, I think it was Damon Martin tweeted this yesterday from MMA Fighting, or maybe it was two days ago, that roughly midweek or so, Figueredo was only 132 and

Barreiro was 130, which is, for folks who don't know about weight cutting, seven pounds out, that should be pretty doable. That's the kind of distance you want getting close to weigh-in time. Okay, great. So I tend to think that, you know, maintaining that little bit of, that weight for three weeks, right,

where you can't eat a whole lot, you have to train a whole lot to keep the weight down, it's probably better than trying to do it over the course of 12 weeks. But with 12 weeks, you have time to make a few errors and get right again. You have time to put the roadwork in and get it down again. With three, all I'm saying is you have much less room for margin of error. So if he knows what he's doing, there's less suffering. If he makes any mistake, there's not any room to fix it. We're going to see, I

guess today in a matter of hours, actually, you know what? Weigh-in should have started right now. We're going to see which one of those two it is. Yeah. Stay with us, please, though. Keep watching the show live. We'll give you the results. If anybody misses, we'll tell you. Look, I love what the future could bring if Figueredo wins, obviously, because you got

guys like Askar Askarov who can make fun as balls fights. Cody Garbrandt could be back. Who knows if so? Who would pick up the phone again if this can go on a run for Devis and Figueroa, but obviously he's got to win this fight first, so let's close by talking about the damn fight, Luke. Figueroa, I think rightfully, is your favorite. Moreno's a live

dog because he's so freaking hungry and he goes after it, and I love his story that he told Luke of, you know, getting cut two years ago, going to LFA and winning that championship, and coming back and just really going for it, trying to find out how great he could be he's figured it out he's 3-0-1 in his last four that one draw was that war with Askarov that could have gone either way but when I am asked for CBS Sports and I'm sure you are asked a lot to sort of who's going to win this you know what's the

difference between the two there's a cliche I sometimes reach for luke and i'm going to use it this time around i love moreno but everything he does well i kind of feel like figueredo does a little bit better or a lot a bit better depending on the category which can certainly close potential avenues for victory uh i love figueredo in this one i don't know if he can get as quick a finish as he's done three times already this year but talk me into a Moreno upset here please Luke please well frankly I sort of agree well no I'm not sort of I definitely agree with you I mean they don't it's not true to say that they're the exact same fighter because that's not accurate but you're right it's like okay what are some of the strengths I mean you could say maybe Moreno has higher output I think that might

be kind of true I mean the interesting part about Figueiredo is if you look at older tape on him, the reason why he's only now getting the recognition that he deserves is he's always been good, but he's been somewhat of a very much a development project, sort of coming around. I mean, the interesting part about like, for example, the guillotine on Perez is how not just the angle which he hit it, but sort of how quickly once it went to the ground, he was able to do that. Or when he needed to take the back of Benavidez and bow him out and choke him out, how violent and quick and sudden it all was. It's like getting pounced upon by a tiger.

You're like, Jesus, this ended not only badly, but rapidly. The fact is, he didn't used to be that way. In fact, he would take people down, and he was not an aggressive guard passer. He was not necessarily all that. I mean, we would get to it, but he was not all that aggressive about getting to the back. But he has slowly found ways to just understand, where am I going with this? What do I want to do? And let's find some tricky ways to get there or some efficient ways at a bare minimum.

And so in that sense, he's still kind of patient-ish, but not like he used to be. So you could say that Moreno has slightly more volume. I think that's probably fair to say. But in terms of power punching, he can't match. In terms of the ground jiu-jitsu, I think he's a fantastic scrambler. But Figueiredo is absolutely vicious down there. And as I mentioned, really cleaned up his game. Not looking for takedowns so much and to lay on top of you.

Looking for the back, right? You know, looking for unique entries into quick positions, latching onto submissions very, very fast rather than, you know, slowly take you down, pass guard, move to side, move to mount, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't have that same game anymore. It's a different kind of game. So if Moreno is going to win, I think he's got to make Figueiredo work, but he's got to make him work by backing him up, but then clinch breaking, right? Because Figueiredo, if you notice where he stands, he stands way outside, and a lot of times he'll use kicking game and then leaping into range to get control. You've got to keep the fight just inside of that, inside of your boxing range.

You've got to stick the jab in his face, and when he tries to clinch up with you or whatever, you have to break it immediately. So you have to find this kind of homeostasis sort of in the fight where you're not too far away kicking range, you're close enough to have your jab there, but you're also far enough away where when he shoots or tries to clinch, you can stop it immediately. A little bit Holly Holmish in that way. Is that doable? That's a hard way to fight you know yeah by the way shout

out to this show talking about uh cage fighting and dropping homeostasis into the middle of it as only luke thomas could do that's a hell of an education he got in college uh quickly to close if moreno was a little bit more of a knockout threat luke i might like his chances more and by the way when i interviewed him this week i sort of incorrectly was like brandon i love this fight two guys that finish that go for it he's like hold on hold on i'm not a finisher i have many decisions and i was like okay you know that's that's your words but you might be right luke under any other circumstance moreno figueredo would probably be your uh clubhouse leader in terms of what will be your fight of the night on a ufc pay-per-view card but this co-main event um it bangs you know somebody get ricky martin up in the bullpen it bangs luke uh it is a lightweight bout three rounds tony ferguson charles do bronx

olivera uh maybe luke maybe maybe this is a de facto number one contender about maybe the winner will fight the winner of Poirier McGregor January 23rd for the title but talking to Tony Ferguson this week as I did on MK uh he don't care about that Luke that's the big headline he basically told the UFC that they can pound sand to promise him had dangle the carrot he's got that old interim title on his mantle that's the only title that matters to him. I know you watched that interview, and I don't tee you up with this to pat me on the back or pat our download stats, but every Tony Ferguson interview is wild. Can you please be the Dr. Joyce Brothers here and try to get in the man's head? Does he sound safe, Happy? Encouraged?

Motivated? CTE'd? Where'd you get out of that? Because it was a wild ride, Luke. Yeah, that was one of the more unique interviews because I came away being like, I can't tell if he's over all of that, like that eight-year campaign to get the respect, to get to the title,

which was supposed to be the Habib fight, ended up being Gaethje, blah, blah, blah. That was a huge and maybe the most important chapter in his career. And he's clearly on the other side of it, right? You could just tell from the way he talks, that part of his professional life is over. Now, that doesn't mean that the ambitions are over. That's not what I'm suggesting. But that chapter and everything that it represented and everything it built to, he's on the other side of it. The question is, being on the other side of it, are you now calm and in control and understanding there are different goals you have and you're ready to go and absolutely murder people for them? Or are you over them in a way where you

don't quite have that same burning motivation, that momentum that everyone was building to after a bad beating at the hands of Gaethje. I honestly could read either interpretation into it. The only thing I could take away was he definitely turned the chapter, or turned the page, I should say, and entered a new chapter after the Gaethje fight. The very nature of it, BC, and you're the one who interviewed him, did you come away with new chapter as in rejuvenated new goals new identity still same tony or new chapter new identity maybe not the same tony uh i don't know luke i don't

really know what to take from that interview the fact that twice he had to uh interrupt me to be like what was the question again oh look i i get that he was playing video games yeah and i get that he did tony things which is i don't care about the narrative that you have coming into this interview i'm not going to be labeled under you know i'm not ufc is not in control of my future meaning they're going to make me chase certain things i'm just coming out here to fight for my family i respect respect that. I certainly respect Luke, his absurd mental and physical recuperative abilities, whether it was, you know,

coming back from that knee injury that he suffered in that TV studio and fighting like four months later, or even what he's going to try to prove this Saturday, that that beating, which was savage that he took against Justin Gaethje, that it is not going to have a physical or mental effect on him. We don't know that, Luke, okay? He went four and a half rounds of freaking hell, got beaten.

But, you know, he seems to think it's fine, it doesn't matter. He gave a very weird story about being in the hospital and just deciding mentally that, you know, I'm going to start the recovery process right now because I don't want my wife to see me like this. And, you know, he claims that things just started healing. Look, I don't know. This guy, is he a shaman?

Is he a weirdo? He's incredible. I'll tell you that's what he is, okay? Will this mean anything? If there's one guy you cannot count out from the standpoint of trying to guess what he's going to look like, it's certainly Tony Ferguson. He's a slight favorite here comfortable but slight and um i think that's the right call the key is you know does he really care

about chasing the title because there is a potential opportunity here at 36 was that eight that run that you talked about the 12 fight win streak putting it on the line to freaking finally get to habib does he lose part of his fighting spirit by never getting that i don't know i don't know i want to talk to you more about what the hell these three rounds are going to actually look like because we're right you know we're talking all things el kukui right now but charles olivera is on a freaking seven fight win streak and he's already got the UFC submission record by like three over Damian Maya this man is 31 reborn there were two times Luke in the past decade I counted them out are we not talking enough about all the various chances here because you texted me

and I gave you the response that that that you felt in your heart that I don't know it's for Ferguson could run through this guy or this could be you know the beginning of the end for Tony's run. I mean, this punch you see here from Jared Gordon, Jared Gordon was trying to close the distance on him. He was trying to double jab, right? So one, two, and then throw the right. He got hit with the first jab, and then in the second one,

Oliveira slipped off the side, head off the center line, and then crashed into him with his own punch and dropped Gordon there and then followed up with one more shot and ended the fight within a minute and a half of the first round. Something like that. Don't get me wrong for it. Pretty close to the beginning of the round. It did not go very far. We talked about this with Marvin Vittori, BC. The guy entered the UFC at 23. At 27, he's a much different talent. Dude, Charles Oliveira has been here how long? I mean, you can't even recall how long. He's 31 years old. 31.

I mean, it is shocking that, you know, yes, you have an impression of a guy based on what they show you. It's hard to get one based on any other thing unless you just want to imagine it. But part of, I think, being fair to these guys is if they come into the UFC very, very young, early 20s, let's say pre-25, if they stick around long enough, chances are they might be a lot different by age 27 or 30. In this case, 31. And so I had an impression for years, and I'll give the fight fans credit.

They were way ahead of me on this one with Charles Oliveira. I always knew he was a pretty good threat, but I thought he was kind of flaky. You know, like his neck being all jacked up, for example, in the Max Holloway fight, or Paul Felder going right into his guard when he wasn't supposed to and then hammering him out. I kind of thought, you know,

the lesser competition, he'll pick them off, but he won't beat anybody who's really, really good. Now, Ferguson is by far his toughest challenge, but the reality is you cannot watch tape

on Charles Oliveira from even 2015 and think that that bears a ton of relevance to the guy he is today. He is, in many ways, a little bit like Figueiredo. Different setups, different ways of applying their game, but they're patient when they need to be, and they are all gas and go when they need to be as well. And because they can be so deadly, and because they can wait so deadly and because they

can wait for their right moment and they have a good eye at finding it, dude, they're a hard guy to beat. Oliveira goes to the body a lot. He does a lot of leg kicks. He's not a headhunter. I think that might service him a little bit in terms of landing, getting out of position or landing and then following as we saw with Justin Gaethje when he fought Tony Ferguson. Obviously, if he goes to the ground, I don't know what's going to happen, but at a bare minimum, BC, you like him to hold his own against Tony Ferguson, right? And so I was looking at the stat. I could be wrong about this, too.

I'll double-check. Again, I don't think this guy has been to a decision win or lose, I think, in six years, BC. Six years. This guy is a finisher. His average fight time is around seven minutes look it was 2014 2014 jeremy stevens who would have thought against jeremy yeah that's wild yeah so anyway i'll just wrap up on that so to your point this is a guy that i have always thought was good but not great

and then in his last fight bc we saw him take a massive turn in the gordon fight disposed of him like he was nothing and that's a good fighter too. Again, I think we'd agree, Ferguson, a very different challenge. But if anyone is ready for a step up at this time, given their development all these years, it's Dobronks. I think he is as live a dog as they come in combat sports. Yeah. Uptown baby, uptown on Dobronks there. Let me correct a dead wrong there. Not a comfortable favorite. Tony Ferguson, according to William Hill, minus 161, plus 130 to Oliveira. Let me play quick devil's advocate with you, though, Luke, because there are

people who go, okay, you guys talk up. I made a comment in the Tony Ferguson interview, and I believe it. I made two comments. One, that I think Ferguson's one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of this era. In some ways, an uncrowned champion, although he had the interim belt for that short season, and one of the best lightweights fighters of this era in some ways an uncrowned champion although he had the interim belt for that short season and one of the best lightweights of all time now there are sort of devil's advocate to that luke who people say dude 12 fight win streak yes

but how many of those against top five guys blah blah blah i don't want you to do that argument okay because i respect that 12 fight run and there are some very good names on there but i want to hit you to do the same argument talking about olivera though yes seven fights in a row yes he doesn't go to the scorecards yes he'll submit anybody at any time but luke outside of that win against future ufc champion kevin lee in march of this, there are a lot of Jim Millers, Wash Clay Guidas, Christos Guiagos, David Tamers on that record. There are levels to this game. Is the 7-0 version of Charles Oliveira ready for this level, which is Tony freaking Ferguson?

Right, but this is what essentially the fight boils down to. You're asking, is there anything on the record that definitively tells you Charles Oliveira can beat Tony Ferguson? And in terms of what's on the ledger, the answer is quite obviously no. There's nothing on there. The question is, is what he has shown more recently and through the long stages of his development, is that enough for you to believe that he can rise to the occasion and then make this the signature win? I mean, what did Vittori have on his resume before he fought Hermansen that told you that he was capable of beating a top five guy? Did he have any wins over other top five guys? No, he did not. And then he goes in there and does what he does because at that point, he was ready to make the leap. If

you're banking on Oliveira, you're not banking on what he's done per se. You're banking on that what he has shown is enough to make you believe that when he has to take a step up, then he'll have that scalp hanging in the, whatever, they hung scalps, which is a very obviously awful metaphor. But you know what I'm trying to say. Once the trophy is on the case, he doesn't have the trophy yet, you're banking on the idea that now there is enough reason to believe he can get there.

And also that Ferguson at 37, coming off of a bad beating, not really chasing titles, is he in the right space as well? Is there a coming and going moment there? It's for the people out there to decide, but that's what you'd be looking at. Yeah, why don't you just throw trash on the ground

and make the Indian cry here, Luke? I mean, seriously. You got any more references that anyone in their 20s would never understand? Yeah, it's a fair point. It's a fair point. So, look, I like Ferguson at the end of the day. I don't know what it's going to look like besides a wild track meet

of constant scrambles and, and changes of momentum. Three rounds is going to be interesting here. Uh, there's a short window that they got to do. They got to do some action. Cause there's a lot potentially, like I said, on the line, I think there's certainly more on the line for Ferguson to get a monster fight. And Luke, I do believe that there is some payback for him. He has been a guy who suffered some bad luck.

He was a company guy with the UFC for taking that Gaethje fight through the quarantine last minute, tough challenge, not the full title on the line. There are multiple times. I believe Luke that Ferguson in the last two years could have sat out rather than came back because he had already achieved securing the Habib fight, right? He'd already gotten to the mountaintop. It just didn't come together. I wonder if that reward will be there for him if he wins, meaning he's not going to get Chandler next in a non-title fight. If he wins this fight, everything moving forward, his next opportunity will have to be massive.

Luke, it will freaking have to be. Yes, although what specifically is a little bit hard to tell. One last point I'd like to make on this. I wonder if this might just come down to chins. Because Tony, even if he is damaged from the last fight, one thing that a little bit gets lost, everyone's like, oh, he's wild, he does this, he does that. Okay, all that stuff's true,

but here's just the reality about Tony. He hits hard. He hits very hard for 155. He always has been a hard hitter. And Oliveira will sometimes play some games a little bit and get hit in ways that, you know, he got dropped by Tamer, for example, right? It might come down to that, in which case,

advantage Ferguson. To me, it's going to be who fights almost a little, I don't want to say more disciplined, but I just wonder if they're trading a little bit, that's probably going to be an advantage for Tony. Can Tony just sort of use suppressive fire on the guy to keep him at bay? We're going to have to see. Luke, I did sort of go bout by bout with Rashad on Wednesday, so I don't want to rehash that and we got to move on topics here.

But there are a lot of interesting storylines on this undercard, whether it be the pay-per-view main card or the preliminaries. Which one do you care about the most? A lot of good ones. The Gavin Tucker, Billy Quarantillo is good. Mackenzie Dern, Virna Jandaroba is good. But I'm going to go with the fight that's actually below this one. Maybe that's a cliched way to go about it, but it is the one I care about the most.

Rafael Fazaev taking on Hanato Moikano. Moikano was a big stud at 145, but he kind of ran into some buzz saws at the top of the division, moved to 155. And Fazaev, we saw him at Fight Island. This was the guy that had sort of the lean back to get out of the way of the kick. At a Tiger Muay Thai, excellent decorated Thai boxer. And now he has made the transition to MMA and just has all these tools and tricks, not merely defensive ones, but feints and angles

and blah, blah, blah. That should be a hell of a contest. And to that point, Moikano, slight underdog, plus 125 to Fazaev around minus 140. I really am curious to see what Fazaev can do. Azerbaijan, the guy, really, really tough. Fazaev did do the Rock away that time. He also called out Conor McGregor today on Twitter. I'm not sure what's

behind that. But, Luke, I have talked myself into believing that, you know, plus 400 underdog or whatever he is, that JDS will be the truth one more time. And, you know, there is that argument to make that Junior Dos Santos maybe could get caught if he loses four in a row and if it's four by knockout.

But let's remember, those other three in a row by knockout were against absolute killers in Rosenstruik, Blades, and in Ghanu. I respect Cyril Gane, Goner, certainly. But I have seen JDS reinvent himself, Luke, when he needs to. And when he reinvents himself himself it's fighting a little bit safer and relying on his boxing focusing more on movement and the jab and defense and getting in and out than looking to go out there and slug I mean we all know his chin cannot hold up anymore against the super elite sluggers I mean am I crazy to think that there's an avenue here if he just bites down works to just save his

job and keep alive that his skills and experience can be enough against the raw but good looking Frenchman here yes it's the same kind of game not the same it's a similar kind of game I think to what Moreno needs to play a little bit which is stick and move angles jab you know on your horse the whole time uh but the difference is he likes to do it for three rounds versus five which is to his favor but the other difference is that if moreno takes a shot you know he has a hell of a chin jds just has no or very little ability at this point to accept damage and particularly from a guy as big as strong as that fucking frenchman he's fighting so it's possible i don't think it's a crazy thought at all but it's he's got his work cut out for him i like the way he boxed that time against Ben Rothwell

and really made that a boring fight to keep the chains moving. Yeah, but how long ago was that? Was that four years ago at this point? Yeah, that was. But I love JDS. Don't get me going on that. All right, great. Look, for a card that doesn't have a main event

that's going to sell a million pay-per-view buys, a lot of fun storylines. Looking forward, I'm going to be checking in early. Hopefully, by the time fight night happens, we don't lose the whole prelim card to covid luke because i do want to see chase hooper and company i'll quickly i'm going to order off the menu here but um you're a good guy to talk about this because you follow it closely there was a ufc lawsuit update in the past sort of 24 36 hours on twitter are we going to see that thing in court now with kung lee and john fitch and company? What do you know about that? It really depends on what the UFC tries to do here. So for

folks who may not know, the judge in the case offered them bout certification, not identity certification. So what that means is it is a class action lawsuit. It will go forward. And of the two between bout and identity, that was the one that offered significantly more compensation and damages well into over a billion dollars, potentially multiples of that depending on how things shake out. Now, you might be asking what the difference was. Bout certification was merely did you fight in the UFC at a certain time, which they had identified as the range of dates.

And the identification one was were the fighters mistreated and not properly compensated for use of their identity and likeness rights. The judge tossed that, but he kept the ballot certification. So very much alive and alive in a very prominent way. The question now becomes, is the UFC going to appeal that ruling? They are. It will go to the Ninth Circuit. Now, the reason this is interesting is, BC, ordinarily, if it was class certification

and someone was challenging it, in most courts, there would be a mandatory requirement for the circuit court to review it. The 9th, for whatever reason, does not necessarily have to. So the 9th could say, we're not even going to review it. At that point, now you have a choice to make if you're UFC. And what the law experts who spoke to the New York Times said was, if that thing continues, right, so the classification holds, the UFC is going to be heavily incentivized to settle. They do not want that to go to trial because a lot of bad things could happen to them and, frankly, to the industry if it goes to trial. One thing that the article made really interesting, which I didn't quite realize, was there's a fair amount of case law on monopoly. There's not a whole lot on monopsony. In fact,

very little. And there's a concern that if this case goes to trial, and let's say the plaintiffs win, it could redefine all kinds of industries by virtue of the case law that this would set a precedent on. For example, the plaintiffs are arguing that they deserve wage share, right? We don't get 50% of the total revenue. We get 20%. We believe we deserve a higher share. Would that extend beyond sports and just to industries generally? Telecom, service industries, banking, whatever. How would that change employee-employer relationships? Now, some lawyers disagree it would have that kind of an effect, but here's the point, PC. Nobody knows.

Nobody knows exactly what would happen. And UFC also could get to a point where, if they lose at trial, you're on the hook, let's say, for $1.6, $1.8 billion. A lot of times, when these kind of cases go to trial and the defendants lose, there could be multiples of that handed out. So the UFC, I mean, there's a real possibility where, A, if the UFC loses, they could change the way in which case law defines monopsony power for all kinds of industries. Two, they could be on the hook for $5 billion. So the idea is if you settle, you have to settle for a lot less than you're being sued for,

how much, no one knows. So let's see what happens with the Ninth Circuit. Let's see what happens with that process. But if that doesn't go forward and what the judge said yesterday stands, there is a very strong likelihood that they will try to settle. And that will be interesting in and of itself. Wow, wow. I'm looking forward to see where that goes.

And by the way, your predatory control of all things, producer credits, show IP for MK, is very monopsilopsical, Luke, so I'm very much against that as well. Final point on UFC, again, ordering off the menu. Dana White did an interview with Aaron Bronstetter of TSN yesterday. We love that Canadian fellow, by the way. Dan Rayfield loved that interview, huh? Yeah, Dan Rayfield said AB to hell,

and I'm not talking about Broner on Twitter. But look, it looks like Zufa Boxing, Dana White's finally throwing in the white towel here, Luke, and saying, you know, boxing is so corrupt it won't let me in. I just want to give you a quick 30-second take on that. About time Dana realized this. I was never cheering against Dana to enter this space. In fact, Luke, when those Twitter rumors came out a couple times that he might try to join forces with Al

Heyman and buy the PBC and bring UFC Fight Pass in and try to develop their own league, dude, I was all for it. Shake up this way of doing business in boxing, right? Do something different. But for Dana to come out and just blame boxing after making so many

teases and promises of big things, it's like, dude, you were very naive. You were very naive to think you can just walk in to this, you know, wild west here of sheriffs and stuff. And I'm not defending the way boxing is done business-wise. Certainly not, because nobody chastises the things that are wrong with my favorite sport than me, by the way. But it's just like, come on, Dana, you had to know better than this. Luke, he has a certain level of control, and maybe this ties into the lawsuit argument,

I mean, that you just can't get in sports. Forget combat sports, any. And that's because Zufa rescued this sport ofma at a time when it couldn't get on tv and was dead they bought the freaking ufc for what two million dollars and built it into a league in which they are promoter matchmaker you know everything across the board and they've done great on it but you don't have that kind of control in the damn nba you know what i mean like there's no there's like to think that you can walk into the most unstructured sport in all of sports and think you're just going to throw your ball back around and walk

in. It's like, dude, everyone that has tried this, who wasn't a gangster and wasn't willing to long-term lose a lot of money to make some has bowed out from Jay Z to everyone. Everyone's tried to do this and they failed like to just think that because you're dana white you're going to do any differently it's like come on dude you know yeah the

entrepreneurial arrogance here is sort of interesting i mean just state it plainly like why can't dana white for folks who may not understand why couldn't dana white and maybe not right away but let's say even over time do in boxing what he did in MMA. Why couldn't he do that? And the answer is, it's not legal. There are literally laws preventing the kind of situation that exists in MMA. Now, I'm not telling you that MMA is some kind of illegal, shady underworld.

No, no. It's just that there are certain laws in boxing that do not apply to MMA. Those laws have not been extended to MMA that create certain mechanisms where with the Ali Act, where the promoter not only has to show the fighter what the financial compensation realities are, but that the promoter does not have control of the titles. The rankings are independent. You can be free from a contract depending on, the contracts are shorter. They're

not as restrictive, right? There's all kinds of ways. And there are other incentives in boxing, too, that change things a little bit. I'm not saying there's no ability to shake it up at all, but that concentration of elite talent, it's just not possible. You couldn't do it. You can't have a UFC belt equivalent inside boxing. It's literally against the law. And so I think he took a look around and was like, okay, well, what can I do within that? And there's not much you can really do. I mean, here's the reality. I'll give Daniel a little bit of credit. There's two things I think that deserve to be acknowledged about what he said as well. One was, has boxing done a good enough job

to attract younger audiences? I don't know how you could argue that it could. I'm not saying it's a calamity, but could they do better? Yeah, they could do a lot better. We'll see what happens as Shakur Stevenson and Teofimo Lopez and, and, you know, Tank Davis get a little bit older. Maybe they bring some people along with them, but okay. Fair point. And the other one that folks need to wrap their head around is I'm not, it sounds like I shill on behalf of the Ali Act. I'm not really sold on the Ali Act, right? I'm actually much more in favor of unionization. And the reason why is because the only thing I want MMA fighters to have from boxing are their purses. I don't want the rest of boxing, right? In other words, there is a real alignment between the UFC's interest and the UFC's consumer's interest. And they're able to make those things work because of some of the

lack of restrictions over them. What I want are still some protections for the fighter, a union, health insurance, retirement, better pay. But what I don't want is the broken system necessarily and the sort of splintered loose confederation of nonsense that you have in boxing. But Dana, thinking that you could go into that situation and you know just round everybody up and make it work you can't like it does not work that way so I actually prefer what the UFC is able to do in certain ways I would just like to see them get paid a little bit more yeah and it doesn't work that way especially right now when so many promoters are getting you know 70% of their finances from these network TV deals which makes each channel almost its own promoter.

There's no room for Dana to walk in. And again, unless he's going to purchase, right. You know, a large group of fighters at one time, you just can't do it. It's like walking into the saloon in the wild West and saying,

I'm the new sheriff in town. Only the music didn't stop. Nobody cared. They're like, yeah, yeah, right, buddy.

That's fine. But I would like to wear a Zufa boxing shirt. Maybe I can get it for four 99 on a UFC store. store one of these days looking forward to that luke uh as well all right topic three uh let's recap what happened last night thursday night on the cbs sports network it was bellator 254 luke and we had a changing of the guard at women's flyweight and i'll be honest coming in this matchup didn't you know light my fire but the more we researched it and looked into it and sort of figured out who Juliana Velasquez is the more I got excited about it in the final 24 hours I'm not here to tell you this fight was overly exciting I

am here to tell you I'm impressed that Juliana Velasquez what is what uh-0, 12-0 now, and she is the new sheriff in town at 125 in Bellator with a pretty thorough five-round unanimous decision over the only champion Bellator has known, Alimale McFarlane. Luke, she was poised, patient, strong, bigger. She really did everything perfectly from a slow start to really never opening up an avenue of victory for a lima lay and i gotta give her a lot of credit even though these aren't the right highlights guys don't we own bellator can we get the right damn highlights in here uh this was a hell of a victory

for velasquez yeah that's not a lima lay although that was juliana velasquez it was kind of interesting right i mean a lima lay is the uh was the first champion at flyweight for Bellator. Just from an odds perspective, given the growth of the sport and the growth of that division and everything else, was she going to be the best ever flyweight that Bellator ever had? Probably not. And she had a nice long reign, and she did a lot with it. She was in Hawaii, and she had these incredible walkouts,

and she was very media savvy. She's done some work for them in terms of analysis work at the desk. But Velasquez, to your point, BC was just bigger. She was better. She had an answer for essentially everything except for maybe a couple of takedowns. That isn't to say that it wasn't close at times. And that isn't to say that I think Alimala McFarlane with a better game plan couldn't have made it even much closer than she did. She seemed to realize later, I'm able to charge this person and then back them up a lot more easily than I thought I could. And by that point, it was too little too late.

You could have given her the fourth and fifth round or just one of those rounds. But either way, Velasquez, strong, no real glaring weaknesses. That isn't to say she's good at everything, but I mean to say, it's not like she has the worst chin or, you know, doesn't know how to do any good throws or doesn't understand the value of an underhook or doesn't have good footwork. She's got sort of all those T's crossed

and all those I's dotted at least enough. And that was way too much for McFarlane. She had no real jab in this one. You saw her staying way outside and then having to charge in constantly. And she was doing what's called a dart and she couldn't really make a whole lot of use out of it. In fact, Velasquez was taking it away from her later. So to me, it's the maturation of the women's division. It's the maturation of the women's game. This kind of turnover is expected. McFarlane was a

great champion for them. Maybe she'll be a champion again, but either way, this was a bit of a torch passing that tells you a broader story about the women's MMA game and then that division in particular. Yeah. And you can see the size difference in the video. Shout out to our producer Maniche for getting it up there. That Velasquez was bigger and stronger. Here's the thing though, Luke.

Velasquez was surprisingly in some ways, not after we saw the results of the fight, the betting favorite coming in, despite the fact that Alimale was what 10 and 0 and was on the verge of breaking bellator's uh entire promotion record for consecutive title defenses with her fifth she didn't get there but the reason why i picked against velasquez was i don't think she does enough luke has she wait no there's no quiz it's kaz she there's no quiz what am i doing here yeah it's's the last case the last case okay sorry i was uh yeah i was very uh sharding her there saying um luke she doesn't do enough meaning she leaves the door open for a busier opponent to uh to rally against her and look the reason why you saw those scorecards closer than it looked on your eyes is because there was no action in the first two

rounds in some ways you could flip the coin on who won both and i thought elima lay rallied in that fourth round to get that takedown and kind of steal that round late but to velasquez's credit by limiting her output she made elima lay come to her to try to at least make some action happen and i think that's where velasquez did her best work as that upright poise counter puncher and landed the bigger shots. And that cut seemed to be a big key to sort of change the momentum there. So it's a strong win. She's 34.

She trains with the, the Nog brothers and, and, and Anderson Silva. I love the story of her late brother. And she's got the tattoo of his face on the inside of her arm. She wants to be a champion outside the cage. She seems like a good person overall. This was a nice

win, but I'm not going to bury the truth here. This division is still growing. Really, this division worldwide, Luke, is still growing. It's Valentina Shevchenko and almost nobody else in the UFC. Ali Malay was not beating world beaters.

I think this was the first really stiff challenge she fought. She was outgunned. She was humble afterwards. But I could see a rematch between these two a couple fights from now, and I think it'll be different. A little bit different. Josh Thompson made a good point on the broadcast.

One, Alima Leigh McFarlane has been very tight and good friends with Liz Karmouche for a long time. They did not train together for this one. I guess now that they're in the same organization and the same division, she would have been a good training partner. Liz Karmush also might be a tough-ass challenge for Velazquez. Now, Velazquez is a lot bigger in frame, but somebody like Liz Karmush, Gorilla, is strong as shit. There are a lot in experience too. Now, her last fight against Shevchenko probably didn't inspire a ton of confidence, but this is not Shevchenko. So to me, is she a potential live dog?

I guess we'll have to see, but I'm curious to see how that goes. Absolutely. And that co-main event quickly here, Magomed Magomedov, the Russian, made his Bellator debut and absolutely dominant in a rag-dolling performance over Matus Matos, something like that, the Brazilian guy. You know, the guy, the guy. I thought it was interesting coming in that they both...

Matus Matos. They both had lost to Peter Jan for their only loss, but of course the hook was that Magomedov defeated Peotre Jan for his only defeat in ACB. But Luke, there was a little bit of bad blood coming in between them, and I saw some people saying boring on Twitter. I'm not going to echo the boring chant here.

It wasn't thrilling, but I was very impressed by Magomed Magomedov. And Maniche, the producer, if you can replay him slamming Matus on his head, Luke, that's one of the scarier freaking moments I have ever seen in MMA. I'm not even sure. Honestly, I'm being dead serious. I don't know if that was legal. I don't know how he's not paralyzed. Luke, how is this man not paralyzed? That was vicious, bro.

Him and Kevin Randleman. Kevin Randleman, well, I should say Fedor, getting slammed by Kevin Randleman. I don't know. I said this on CBS Sports HQ last night, BC, and I wonder what you think of it. You know how this goes. Everyone who's got, every white know, I said this on CBS Sports HQ last night, BC, and I wonder what you think of it. You know how this goes. Everyone who's got a, every white dude, look at this throw.

Wow. Oh my God. Oh God, Luke. Have you seen that shit? Wow. Wow. Okay. So, so here's the deal.

Every white guy who's got a Amish beard and a Z and a V in his name, you know, everyone wants to compare them to Habib. And there are some obviously commonalities in the way that they look. There's some commonalities in their backgrounds. There's some obviously commonalities in the way that they look. There's some commonalities in their backgrounds. There's some commonalities even in the way that they fight. And I'm not here to tell you that Magomedov is just like Nurmagomedov. There are meaningful differences. But what I will say is along the fence line, once you're there,

he did have a lot of Khabib's game. Getting you to wrestle to your hands, hip riding, waiting to find cross wrist, then taking half of the back, not necessarily full, only when he takes you backwards the other direction away from your hands does he then go for the back and then trying it from there. Doesn't have the same ground and pound exactly, was still wrestling a little bit more positional control, so he's a little bit more as a beat in that way, but still, the comparisons in that sense I don't think are far apart.

But the real takeaway is this, BC. They're asking, like, what is next for him? Well, I don't know if he gets a title shot off of that, but I know this. He ain't far from one. They might give him one more fight in front of that and see what we can do. And if he wins that one, I mean, dude, Mateus Matos was never in this, not for a second. He put up a valiant effort in trying to see his way through it, but he never had any real offense. So my thought is, they're either going to give that guy, Magomedov, a title shot next, or he's pretty close to it. And either way, he is going to be a force at Bantamweight. And last point, BC, you know a weight class is good when you can go all

across the world, in every every time they're 135 or they're 155 division whatever whatever division it is there's hammers every time you know that is a worldwide deep ass weight class you've got that at 135 now in velator and you know a region is good when you can grab just any random dude from the caucus and you know we can wrestle and look if you think that's boring i don't care i believe you can do that for five rounds and i believe juan archuleta your recently crowned uh you know vacant bantamweight champion needs to needs to be careful here because this guy has a motor and he's got the same exact facial hair luke i had at 19 when i was hanging out in smoke-filled rooms in people's basements so shout out to him

luke it's a weird name. Magomed Magomedoff. It reminded me I went to high school with David Davidson. So shout out to that kid. Do you know George H.W. Bush's granddaughter, Lauren, married a guy with the last name Lauren? So it's Lauren. Lauren? Do you know that?

Who was the guy from American Idol? Yeah, yeah. I know exactly. I'm sure Maniche knows it. Maniche is a rising star in the R&B singing white guy circuit. Maniche, is it Phillips Phillips, Luke? Yeah, no. It's like Phil Phillips.

Something like that, right? Yeah. Also, there's a, I think he's South Korean, a former table tennis star whose name is Dong Dong, Luke. That's a hell of a name. How is he not the official spokesman for the show? I don't know the answer to that. Wow.

I know there's Sirhan Sirhan, and, you know, that's very, you know, yeah. Okay. All right. Enough of that weird stuff there. Shout out to Magomed off there. Luke, I didn't get your take on Rumble Johnson going to Bellator. This came like out of freaking nowhere. I liked his interview with Goldie.

Well, I liked Rumble's part of that interview with Goldie on the broadcast where he basically says, you know what I do, right? I swing for the fences. I take souls more or less. He wants to focus on 205, but he'd fight at heavyweight. This is certainly a big coup for bellator to have another tough out for vadim nemkov but um luke i don't spread conspiracy theories right but i listen to them i listen to them uh this ain't a drug testing thing right this is more

of a financial move from ufc let him go right right right uh yeah i i mean who knows you know who knows with these guys it's very very hard to say but uh well if it was drug testing and he accepted a sanction then it would become public i think that's right i'm not sure how that goes anymore um but i love the move i love the signing though yeah the move the move is phenomenal it's a great pickup for bellator at this point you know i'm sure you guys went over this him Him, Phil Davis, Nemkov, Bader if he sticks around, Corey Anderson, there's some other names

you can throw in there. That's a very legitimate. Machida. Yeah, that's a legitimate 205 pound division by any measurement. So that's great. He's got wins

over the number one contender in UFC. Knocked his teeth out in 13 seconds. There's a bit of an open question after three years what he looks like, how good he can be.

But it's probably a good gamble. He's exciting. He's an action fighter. He's must-see TV because you just never know when he's going to sleep someone. You know, I can understand why Bellator would want to pick him up. And, you know, Yoel, we'll see what happens with him. But at 44, maybe there's a different calculation for them because Rumble at 36 is still a little bit old, but not so old that he's not capable of fun-filled action and attention. So it's a great signing by them, I think, by both parties.

Yeah, can't wait to see it. That's the deal on that. All right, let's move over to England this Saturday, Luke. Big time boxing, whether you're ready or not. On to Zone 3 of the four recognized world heavyweight championship titles will be at stake when anthony joshua returns from a one-year layoff to take on the mandatory opponent 38 year old kubra pulev they were supposed to fight mandatorily luke back in 2017 a shoulder injury to pulev forced him out carlos Tackham took his place. A lot has happened since then, including Anthony Joshua losing his titles by an upset knockout

to Andy Ruiz and then being criticized for winning them back in a very safe boxing outside performance against a very fat man. Luke, it's going to go down in Wembley Arena in front of a thousand fans on Saturday. Joshua, the rightful favorite. But how much should his critics or his fans fear the fact that he's in there against a live puncher and AJ's chin is what it is, Luke? Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things you have to sort of – this is, to me, what this hinges on. One, if Andy Ruiz –

I'm not saying he's not some kind of puncher to take seriously, but I'm saying if Andy Ruiz can do what he did to Joshua, at least the first time, in terms of if you land, what effect does it have? Granted, he wasn't able to do that the second time, I understand. We're just talking about the first one. Can Pulev do that? I don't see how you can argue he couldn't.

He very much can have the same kind of an effect, assuming he can land. But of course, that leads now to the second point, which is, are you going to get the Joshua who was blood and guts and maybe, you know, got out in front of his skis in the first one, but you know, the same one who got off the canvas in the Klitschko fight and managed to win it, that same kind of AJ? Or are you going to get the AJ in the rematch? The one who was very careful, very measured, very good boxing. I thought that fight was dreadful and boring,

but super tactical, super smart, and exactly what he needed to do coming off of that devastating loss to his career. This is entirely what it hinges on because if you ask yourself if Pulev lands, can he have a devastating impact on Joshua whose chin is not exemplary? Of course he can.

And if that's the case, then that dude is in trouble. But I also feel like AJ, if he chooses to do this, and my hunch is the case then the dude is in trouble but I also feel like AJ if he chooses to do this and my hunch is it's more the latter BC my hunch is that the one you saw against Ruiz I'm not saying you're going to see that necessarily every time but when he needs to pull it out and here where there's still these lingering questions about who he is and blah blah blah you're absolutely going to see it a thousand fans in Wemy are going to be treated to it so uh that's sort of what i'm expecting i think you're going to get a andy ruiz two version not an andy ruiz one version oh that's interesting uh so here's the deal look like performances that challenge your chin can change a guy watch the hector camacho

great documentary on showtime you'll see that edwin Rosario fight, sort of that mountaintop of his prime run. Even though he won it, it changed Camacho. He didn't go after people anymore. He got defensive and passive. This isn't the first time, though, Joshua's chin had been checked before, right? Dillian White had rocked him in their fight, and obviously Klitschko had dropped him. And even Carlos Takum in the first couple rounds kind of surprised him and pushed the pace um here's the deal though so Pulev is very dangerous and he's also six four and a half so he's a big dude he's a Bulgarian look he has just one career loss it came against

Vladimir Klitschko in their 2014 title fight and if you don't remember that fight Pulev went after it that was a time when we were seeing Klitschko out jab random European guy after random European guy. And we were just like, man, if somebody just comes for Klitschko's chin, it could be different. Well, Pulev tried his best, man. I give him credit. He got knocked down three times in, or in round six, I believe it was. He got sent to fricking hell by Klitschko with a beautiful knockout on a left hook. Oddly enough, AJ was in Klitschko's camp at that time, just a few fights into his career, helping Vlad prepare for Pulev.

Since that loss to Klitschko, Pulev's like 8-0, and I'll give him that credit. But, Luke, it's not murderers. Against mostly numbers. Again, not murderers row. I mean, he's outboxed a Derek Chisora. He outboxed Tyson Fury's cousin, Huey, who's a decent fighter. But there's not Killer on there.

So I believe that this fight will probably look a lot like that Klitschko fight in 2014. Really? Because Pulev's going to come out looking to go for the knockout. He's going to come out being wild, maybe. Because AJ has the reach and size advantage along with the speed luke i believe to outbox him from distance if he wants to and i'll do it fairly safely i think pula is going to have to step up the pace get inside try to have his moment roll the dice go for broke but luke like klitschko was able to do Klitschko also had a size in power advantage he was able to

keep him on the outside catch him coming in and knock him the hell out I think this fight could be fun in the first couple rounds but I really like AJ to be forced Luke forced into not being the guy he was in the Ruiz rematch where he was able to box from the outside because Ruiz ate a lot of pizza, right? Ate a lot of chicken wings heading in. I think Pulev's going to try to cross that line and come in. And let's not forget one thing. AJ's a great finisher, dude.

He can do it with both hands. He has great combinations. He's got a beautiful uppercut inside. If you run in on him and you challenge him, Pulev does not have the hand speed that Andy Ruiz did. He does not have that same level of technique. He's a very good fighter. He's a credible out here, but I like AJ to, um, survive in advance and maybe look really

good doing so. And Luke, here's the, here's the future timeline here. This is one mandatory. AJ also has another against former cruiserweight undisputed champion, Alexander Usyk. Um, Tyson Fury has a mandatory coming up against the winner of the Dillian White Alexander Povetkin rematch. It's not out of the question, Luke, that we get the heavyweight fight that everybody really wants. Not Fury Wilder 3. AJ, Tyson Fury, all four belts, an undisputed champion. They'll probably do it in front of 3 million people stuck inside a Wembley Stadium.

They might do it on the moon for all I know if kovat's still going on luke you and fauci can buy it on pay-per-view but that's the biggest fight you can make in boxing right now worldwide i think we have a chance to get there either the end of 2021 if people are very busy or early 2022 there's no guarantee both guys get there luke with their titles intact but we don't get there unless aj knocks this guy out and i think he will on saturday you look very angry luke what's going on well good news breaking news devison figueredo makes 124 and a half on the scale so he did it no problem made weight with a little bit of room to spare on top of it so that's the good news the bad news is like dude it's like your optimism about boxing i'm not saying

it's misplaced i think probably your horizons are even correct we'll get it at such and such a date year or whatever but it's like god dude you have to wait so it's like going to the fucking dmv to be a boxing fan you know it's like you have to just wait for your number it's like waiting on chinese democracy by guns and roses' Roses, Luke. Okay, we're still waiting. All right. Are we still waiting on that album? It's so off-putting.

Yeah, it really is. But heavyweight boxing is still fun. I'm here for it. I'll be watching on DAZN. I believe that's a 2 p.m. Eastern main card start. I don't know, 5 p.m. main event, something, whatever. Speaking of DAZN, did you see this? The Bellator is not on it anymore? Yes did see that i did i don't know what that means but it

means something yeah there's been a lot of a lot of a lot of weird stuff going on lately luke all right but um i love that uh i don't know what i love anymore i'm rambling all right luke let's get into boxing this weekend as well we do want to shout out our folks at Showtime. They've got an interesting card this Saturday night from the Mohegan Sun bubble. That is 9 p.m. Eastern, Luke. We're going to get Chris Primetime Colbert. I like to call him Chris Colbert. Luke, he's going for the, he's to be defending his interim WBA super featherweight champion. That's 130 pounds.

He has had some fantastic knockouts including one in which i think ray flores the pbc announcer nearly nearly shot his wad on the call there luke had a ray raygasm it was so spectacular he'll be taking on hard-hitting jamie arboleda in this main event should be fun action triple header uh ronald ellis missed weight just a few minutes ago by the way by something like six pounds but he's still looking to face Matt Korobov in the opener of this Showtime Boxing Special Edition Tripleheader. I will be checking it out. Our friends Moe Ranallo and company there.

Luke, also this Saturday, ESPN going to give us a guy we had on MK this week, Shakur Stevenson. You're unbeaten silver medalist in the Olympics a couple years back. Won a title at featherweight, has moved up to 130. He's going to take on somewhat of a live dog here in toka conclari but the whole is he a live dog let's talk about that for a second but go ahead well the whole storyline here is that you know

shakur looks great survives in advances he could be facing the winner of the carl frampton jamelle herring title fight at 130 that's going to happen in jan. He could be facing Lomachenko, for all we know, because Vasily, some rumors say he wants to move back down to 130. Stevenson gave a stern warning on this podcast this week saying, don't do it, brother. Don't come down. I'll finish you quicker than Teo did. Either way, Luke, you hear me talk about the,

I don't know what we're going to call them. They're not the Four Kings, but they're the five young studs who are lifting up the future of the sport right now, right? Teo Fimo lopez gervonta davis ryan garcia devin haney you best believe shaker stevenson is in that group of five and i've said it for a long time i think he is going to be the best of them from a pound for pound standpoint there are some floyd things floyd mayweather things to like about this young fighter, Luke. He can knock people out in a parking garage, oh, by the way, too.

Shout out to that moment. But I know you don't love Toko Conclari, but I do love Shakur Stevenson, and he's back, Luke. Yeah, Stevenson's great. Here's the problem with my enthusiasm for this, and I realize you're doing what you can if you're Bob Arum, but calling him a live dog. Of all of the fights on the calendar at Pro Boxing Odds,

which were December 11th, 12th, let's see, 13th, 16th, 19th, 31st, January 1st, January 2nd, and then even future events, which would include Tyson Fury and Agit or Agit Kabayel, he is the biggest underdog of all of them in any possible permutation. And by that, oh no, sorry, there's one that's more. Just one. It's the donk-fighting Edgar Berlanga, the guy who's got absolute fists of steel. Toka Khan Clary is a plus 3,000 underdog,

and some places have Shakur Stevenson, and I'm not exaggerating, as high as minus 7,000. I don't think I've ever seen that in an MMA fight. I literally don't think I've ever. Now, Berlanga is as high as minus 10,000 against Ulysses Sierra. So boxing, everybody. Ulysses Sierra. So boxing, everybody. Ulysses S. Grant.

Might as well be Grant's tomb. Yeah, all right. So Tokakon Cleary's not going to win. But, Luke, I like the guy. He's been a fun fighter. He's had Freddie Roach at some times as his trainer. He lives in Rhode Island. He comes to fight.

But Stevenson's the real deal. Maybe this will be a showcase. Stay busy. By the way, there are a lot of top-ranked prospects on this card, including who you mentioned, Berlanga, the super middleweight, I believe, prospect who's, what, like 18-0 with 18 first-round KOs. And he's got, like, Snoop Dogg and Fat Joe on his side too, Luke. He's something like a phenomenon there.

Also, Felix Verdejo, a lot of young guys on there. So we'll see what happens. But, Luke, you could get moved to the idea of shaker stevenson against um loma against maybe teo one day i mean of course it's like it's dude here's the problem it's not that i don't want to see these guys fight at all it's it's just how much filler and nonsense you have to go through to get anything yeah that's boxing look it's not gonna work for everyone okay that's boxing luke all right it's not going to work for everyone, okay? That's boxing, Luke, alright? It is what it is. By the way, Terrence Crawford tweeted two days ago,

F it, I'll move back down to 135. That's him being frustrated with the system, Luke. I don't think he could make that weight class again, but good God, there's a lot of big business to be had at 35, 40, 47. If they could ever make these fights, Luke, this boxing fan would be fired.

Well, you know what? Good luck. You're going to get him in 2034, so stick around. All right. Remember how long that gap was? I know we get Star Wars movies every year now, Luke. Do you remember how freaking long that gap was

between The Return of the Jedi and that Phantom Menace BS? That was like 30 years, it felt like. You know? That's what boxing does. Now it's like they've you know we got we got a uh side jar jar binks project where he goes and fucks everyone's mom that'll be out on disney plus in the fall you're like god damn man reprise that shit is that an adult movie

that you've been watching luke what are you talking about here wow all right misa banks out to mama yeah misa uh misa love you a long time oh that's that's triple racist luke um that i was dead wrong for that luke i was dead wrong for that joke so speaking of why don't we get into your favorite subjects yes let's see let's see what the donks have done this time let's see yeah when we take hard l's for our mistakes, Luke. Sorry, no social justice this week. Hopefully the reverend or the honorable, sorry, Luke Bader Ginsburg can be back next week. Dead wrong this week, Luke. While talking about Kayla Harrison,

who will be making another return fight before the PFL starts coming up soon under the, what the hell flag is she gonna fight under now luke uh well she was in pfl and then invicta yeah but she's good she's got a fight coming up in uh uh in affliction bodog one of those yeah some some shit i don't even know anyway i had said that she had fought out of the pfl a couple months back in lfa turns out out I was wrong. It was in VICTA FC, Luke. So yes, I will take that L in mid-motion. I screwed that up.

But Luke, that's not the only L I will take this week, Luke. In talking about Brandon Moreno's interest this weekend in winning the UFC flyweight title for Mexico, the Tijuana native Luke trying to do what UFC has never been able to do.

Take a Mexican-born or Mexican-American superstar, put a title on them, and really have them change to a degree the culture in Mexico, which is such a boxing-based culture, and get it into MMA. It did not work with Cain Velasquez, Luke. Brown pride.

Okay? And it did not work with... Eric Silva no I was dead wrong there Luke Eric Silva's from Brazil I was talking about Eric Perez who used to wear yeah he used to wear the luchador mask he fought for UFC and then Bellator and basically everybody else including wherever Kayla Harrison's fighting next um Luke, there was a short season, I don't know if you remember, where he was like, maybe UFC's got something here, a Mexican-born dude who can bring in the fans, right? Yeah, it turns out he wasn't.

I could be wrong about this. I think he's, again, I'm telling you I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure he's in Combate Americas. I think he's around there or someplace. Okay, that's fine. Hanging out. Yeah, maybe. I'm pretty sure he's in Combate Americas. I think he's around there or someplace. Okay. That's fine. Hanging out. Yeah.

Maybe. All right. Luke, we got one more L this week, and it's from you. Luke, you mentioned that great Twitter exchange in which Dana wrongfully sent you to hell and then as a reward for being wrong, did come on your radio show, right? You had mentioned that it happened in 2006. Luke, I don't even think MMA was around in 2006. I know Twitter certainly wasn't.

You were talking about a 2014 exchange between yourself and the UFC president. No, that is not correct. That is not correct. I would have guessed 2011, right? Right, here's why that's, okay, this is why this segment is letting me down consistently it is true that Dana went after me Dana has been telling me for 15 years he doesn't care about my opinion it's like do you not care or do you care the most

I think it's the latter but in the case of the 2014 one he just lashed out at me but there was no interview that came from it now I don't think it was in 2006 i think it was closer to 2008 or 9 bc back when my original handle was at mma nation that was my first uh like twitter name he went after me there for misreading a comment and i was the reason why this is relevant is because the show he came on was my very first radio show on 106.7 the fan wjfk here in wasC. But that show ended in 2012, and it was very early on in the run where he came on. So definitely not 2014 and probably not 2006 either, probably 2008 or 2009. But he didn't apologize for the one in 2014. He just wrote it out.

The one he apologized for was that first one back when I was running Bloody Elbow because he misinterpreted what I said and it was actually Bo Doerr who worked at USA Today that intervened on my behalf that got him to apologize and then he came on but in 2014 he just sent me to hell and that was the end of it so once again the listeners

just letting me down well I got two things to say one it's very possible Luke that this segment is a sham and just a setup to get you angry, which I'm all for. Number two, I have done a little Twitter research. June 15, 2010, at 9.46 p.m., Dana White tweeted at MMA Nation and L. Thomas News and said, Yes, since I was a dick by mistake contact Jen Wenke did you contact the Wenke Luke

I did well Jen Wenke I did contact Jen Wenke who still works in the industry who was who Jen Wenke every time I had a business dealing with her went out of her way to be as awful as possible to me although she did manage to set

this interview up and actually the interview i did with dana at the time was great it was actually a great interview um i think that's the last time i've had an interview with him it's been about 10 years so there you go oh i see it luke so it was that same day june 15, 2010. You tweeted, how is the most successful MMA promoter on the planet inept? And Dana thought you were calling him inept. And he said, you shouldn't even respond to this douche who doesn't know shit about the sport. MMA nation? What the F?

And then, Luke, you had a legion of people come out to defend you. Wow, this was the old Wild Wild West on Twitter. Okay. Yeah, this was back in the day. So that's what happened. He misread it, and it led to that opportunity which was fine um but you know four years later you know dana and i have never quite seen eye to eye he doesn't quite understand the role of semi-adversarial media but that's okay i've had my fun bc i've had my day and now it's time for someone else to get sent to hell luke who do you think Wank's favorite table tennis star is?

There's going to be a... Is it Dong Dong? Sorry, not table tennis. Trampoline gymnastics, Luke. Do you think it's a Chinese trampoline gymnast, Dong Dong, who was an Olympian, by the way, Luke? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. All right, this show is off the rails. Back in the day, folks don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right. This show is off the rails. Back in the day, folks don't realize this. The UFC PR people now, BC, I think we can agree to this. I have found them to be very friendly, very accommodating, hardworking. And I'm not just doing a bit here. They really are. Chris Costello is great.

I don't know a lot of the other ones on a very close level. Nobby's the best. Come on. Big Nobby guy. She's great is great. I don't know a lot of the other ones on a very close level. Nobby's the best. Come on. Big Nobby guy. She's great as well. She's awesome. It didn't used to be that way. Back in the days when Jen Wink was working there, it was not great to deal with them.

And there was another one. Her initials were DB. I won't say her name. Who was absolutely the most awful person in America when she worked there. She doesn't work there anymore um db but at the time wow they were not fun shout out to dave lockett as well not a db at all it's great yes dave lockett things were different in the dong dong era but uh speaking of tips luke it's time for our uh fun weekly segment that we close Fridays with, my friend. It's called Tip to Tip. Just the tip.

Just for a second. Just to see how it feels. So, Luke, here's the idea of this segment, if you don't know. It's us just giving a recommendation, a shout-out, advice, a tip of the cap to someone or something in combat sports and beyond. Luke, do you want to go first here, friend? Sure, I will go first. So if you guys haven't been paying attention,

and this happens to have bipartisan, I won't say consensus, but certainly bipartisan momentum, there is a lot of interest in breaking up big tech. And I think that's going to extend beyond just big tech. But you have seen the Justice Department, who is now going to be suing, they are suing Google, Facebook

as well. There was a big suit that was announced about it. There's a ton of interest in breaking them all up. And I thought to myself, well, what's a good thing to read that's not too long? It's only, let's see, about 140 pages or so, very, very small, and help you understand. I've recommended this before, but I want to re-recommend it because folks always ask me, what's a good thing to read to help us understand why

you would want to break some of these things up? By the way, UFC has certainly been getting class action sued against them, although I don't think they're threatening to break it up, but certainly change the business. In any event, here's a great book to read. This is The Curse of Bigness. I'll put it here. You're sure that's not the

Rocco's autobiography, Luke? No. The Curse of Bigness by Tim Wu. Tim Wu was a former Supreme Court clerk. This is the guy that invented the term net neutrality. He's a professor at the law school in Columbia University. He just understands the nature of industry consolidation and then what it means to break it all up. I read a couple of his previous books, but the one more important than this one for that was The Master Switch, where he essentially talked about in technology,

there's always this new medium that is invented, radio, television, internet. And when it happens, there's this massive boom of innovation and all these players in the marketplace. And it's great for consumers. But over time, there happens to be consolidation. The only way to repair that and get back to a state that is much more innovative, friendly, and better for the consumers is when it gets too consolidated to break it up.

This is not about tech per se, but about industry consolidation more importantly, more specifically, I should say. But if you're trying to understand where it appears bipartisan consensus is headed on not just big tech, but industry consolidation in the world in which we live, where there's only a handful of industry or airlines or telecom companies or you name it, this will help you get there. The Curse of Bigness by Tim Wu. Go read it.

Wow, this guy Tim Wu talking about Borafil. Okay, I'll check it out, Luke. Maybe I can get woke to things like Monopska Keys and Park Place and Boardwalk and all that stuff alright hey Luke you know my kids always ask me it's the holiday season and they love themselves

some Elf some Home Alone they're always like dad what's your favorite Christmas movie and Luke I don't have like a go to like I really like you know those claymation favorites like the Rudolph one that we all love and, and, uh, Jack Frost, the clay version. I always thought that was a very, uh, one, you know, good one, but I don't have that like die hard or that go-to one. So I started really thinking about it and I'm going to come out of the closet on a guilty pleasure. It might be my favorite Christmas movie of all time.

And you might laugh at me, Luke, but I'm nostalgic and I don't care. 2007's romantic comedy called Holiday in Handcuffs. I don't know if you've ever seen this piece of holiday business. It debuted on, I believe it was called ABC Family back then. I remember the first year watching it with my wife when we were newlyweds. It stars A.C. Slater and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. And, Luke, it's a freaking hilarious holiday Christmas movie, and I don't care what you think about it.

I want you, Abuela, your lovely wife, Uncle PP, everybody to gather around the TV and celebrate and watch it this year. It's hilarious. I show it to my family members, and they laugh out loud. It's just a feel-good annual Campbell family tradition. Do we have any pictures? Maniche, do we have any footage here?

No, no? We got any footage of your do we have any footage here no no we got any footage of your rap oh no footage sorry sorry good thing i gave this in advance so that we can grab the footage from it um luke uh it's a very fun holiday movie and look i mean ac slater's involved you know there's a you know he gets kidnapped i mean it's it's know, all right. That's my tip. Did you see that he's in a KFC-inspired, like, romance movie? Yes. Yes, I have. Mario Lopez? I have not looked too deep into that,

and I have not watched the Saved by the Bell reboot series yet. Have you, Luke? Luke, have you? No. I'll say, in my house, when Christmas is on, the two movies that get the widest rotation are Elf and Bad Santa. Those are our two go-tos here. Not bad.

Not bad. I watched Christmas Vacation with the kids for the first time the other night. It was a rousing success, Luke. Hard to go wrong with Chevy Chase. Yeah. I mean, come on. It's automatic there. Luke, I wanted to shout out.

I found this weird t-shirt here. Greetings from Tatooine in my drawer this morning, Luke, okay? And I've been thinking, Luke, you know me, Luke. I come from a factory town. I come from Naugatuck, Connecticut, which is, you know, in a lot of ways, the industrial armpit of this rich and snobby state. It's the Tatooine, Luke, right? You know what I mean? Like the Bible said, what good could come from nazareth besides the savior of the world luke i feel like morning combat was kind of like the tatooine of this solar system to start off right and now it's kind of like this desert you know band of

scoundrels here at uh most wisely spaceport is the place to be out of nowhere luke i feel good about wearing this right i don't think that's the right analogy at all. We didn't start out as Tatooine. Like, we had... Dude, like, I've been in Tatooine in my career in places. Morning Combat ain't that. Like, our bosses liked us. They cared about our success.

They wanted to promote us. That ain't Tatooine, bro. That's more like the Endor Moon. Well, Luke, speaking of that, Luke, why do you look like my father, Luke? There is an absolute 100% chance you have tried to bang a girl with that on. My father was not from Doha. Luke, come with me, and together we can rule the combat sports galaxy

as father and co-host. How big is that helmet that your fucking melon fits in there? Luke, you look like my father all right that's it that's it that's it that's it i got i don't have any more props that's it all right that's fucking great where'd you get that i want one of those my kids you know we buy we spend all this money on toys for the kids they never use them they end up in my office luke every single every single one of them all right that's what it's about i buy my daughter all this stuff and she just cares about the she's like my cat it's like oh i like the box that it came in it's like okay exactly you know if it's not fortnight these days luke what is it right you know uh by the way breaking news

brandon moreno also makes weight 124.5 your main, assuming no one has COVID, is official. There we go, buddy. I'm in. There we go. I'm down. Please check out all of our content on the Morning Combat YouTube channel. Please like this video, subscribe, all that good stuff. Shout out to it. It's a holiday season, Luke, whatever you're celebrating, right?

Jay and his tribe, shout out to them for Hanukkah. No doubt. Enjoy the holiday. Be safe, guys, okay? Check us out on social. There's our handles. Of course, the morningcombat at gmail.com is where you can send your fan submissions, your artwork, your all that stuff.

Luke, we had some fan-freaking-tastic fan submissions on Wednesday. Follow us on social media. Let's take care. Let's take care of our brain. Luke, I heard a very good interview. I want to shout it out. Mauro Ranallo, who we love from Showtime,

was on the Showtime Boxing Podcast with Raskin and Mulvaney this past week, and they did a long thing on mental health and hanging in there through the quarantine. It was inspiring. It was great stuff. So a shout-out to those guys. Luke, even you, a pillar of strength and individualism even you need to check yourself once in a while make sure you're doing okay it's tough times out there luke okay it certainly is

but i have nothing to complain about um again that was so funny it was like people were like oh did you go to a job interview i'm like you know what man for the first time in my career i've said this too i said this yesterday in my chat this is the first time in my career bc since i graduated college i've had one job this is my first time as an adult i've had one job and it's so far been maybe the best one i've had on top of it uh so i don't have any desire to go anywhere i'm trying to build this thing and make it i want to make it uh uh you know what's the best place to be in the in the star wars universe i don't even know the answer to that, but wherever that is. No, no, let's hit that right there. Corellia?

Look, the green moon of Endor is, I mean, you can go to an Ewok party. It's fantastic, right? And they burn their dead too, which is interesting. I always thought, where was that place that Padme grew up on? It was just lush and beautiful, right?

Yeah. Yeah, Corellia was the shitty one that Han grew up on, so forget that. Yeah, that's where he got that ship. Was Coruscant pretty good no that's coruscant was like the government center very beautiful big buildings there was that uh at the end of the phantom menace there was that uh gungan party that you know they had and they rocked out oh right right right i forgot the name of where padme was from that was like rolling hills remember they went in the grass and in that dirt hole uh anakin

you know how the know how did he get her luke i mean seriously in storyline like come on right well when you're darth vader you know we've always said on my radio show that existed darth vader is probably more likely to cuck all the neighbors than any other person in him and you know human history so you know i'm not the least bit surprised that he did some dirt hole things like that but uh yeah dude like i i have nothing to complain about i have nothing to complain about so i wonder except my hair being you know a disaster and uh everything else but i can't do anything that's not that's not mk's fault and mk can't fix that so that's what it is darth wasn't corellian uh yeah because anakin grew up in tatooine luke i wonder if though if anakin was very uh sephredian

and that's why it was a you why he was able to secure government royalty like Padme so easily, Luke, right? Oh, Padme's planet was Naboo? Was it Naboo? Naboo. Naboo is that. Naboo is basically like Washington State. Luke, my dream is to go to Washington State.

I follow Bill and Jen's RV Adventure on Instagram. Big fans of our show. They're just dropping beautiful... Luke, the Pacific Northwest, that's Naboo. I want to be there, okay? I feel you. I've never been out to Seattle or Oregon, but I hear it's phenomenal. And you can go whale watching, breath of fresh

air in the forest, get a good cup of Joe, maybe go fight... You can spark a J, Luke. Yeah. Yeah, it's great, you know? Anything else you want to shout out here, Luke? We're just, you know, we're just, we're just lingering. Okay. Uh, we will have USC two 56 coverage tomorrow. We're not exactly sure what format it will take,

but be on the lookout for that. So yeah. Tons of stuff coming your way this weekend. Don't go anywhere. All right. Uh, wear a mask, wash your frigging hands. And, um, thank you to Showtime, Malco, CBS Sports. And thank you to you folks. We don't have anything without you. OK, so thank you for following our work. I know this sometimes this relationship is very give.

Right. And you receive. But your subscriptions, your likes, all that, it gives back to us in so many ways. So thank you for wearing our merch and all that. All that. And then some tall pale and handsome it's your boy bc signing off for the great luke thomas who i come on you know we we sling jokes left and right but who am i without luke thomas's fan base and his uh you know will you stop will you stop will you stop it's a mutual effort it's a it's a it's a you know it's a zero and a one the binary code you got to have both for it to work. Luke, I'm kind of the sweater to your Cosby, right?

No. No, you are none of those things. We are two pant legs. The roofie to your Cosby? You might be that. You might be that. All right. For Luke Thomas and all of his loyal gains, I'm Brian Campbell signing off.

This is Morning Combat, and we got two words for you, folks. We out. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.