MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 261 Recap: Usman & Rose Score Impressive KOs, Shevchenko Rolls | Ep 148

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Luke and Brian breakdown ALL that went down during a crazy UFC 261 event. Kamaru Usman scored a vicious KO of Jorge Masvidal. Is he now the 2nd best Welterweight ever (07:20)? Plus, Rose Namajunas KO'd Weili Zhang. Is Rose the strawweight GOAT (27:20)? Also, Valentina Shevchenko dominated Jessica Andrade. Is it time for Nunes-Shevchenko 3 (40:00)? --------------------------- '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

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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. It is the 26th of April here on this Monday, and it is time for Morning Combat.

Diggity donks, hello. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports and a bunch of other places, and I am joined by the, I don't know, I don't even know what the, I don't even know what the relevant metaphors or analogies are anymore, but he's Brian Campbell. He's also from CBS Sports. He's also a host, and he's right here. Hi, Brian. How are you? I'm doing great, Luke.

Are you okay? You're looking very extra Teen Wolf father mid-transformation today. Yeah, I need to shave. My beard is just out of control. It's so stupidly long and awful. So I haven't cut it yet. Otherwise, I'm fine, BC. But did you have a good weekend? I did, Luke, because I don't know if you were watching UFC 261 on Saturday

as I gutted through second vaccine zombie apocalypse that was taking over my body at the time. This was the full money, Luke. This is why we do this thing. This is why we watch do this thing this is why we watch this sport this is why we stay up late on saturday nights for the good shit luke so i am fired the heck up for this monday morning show uh yeah man i mean what else i don't you want me to crack some jokes set the tone here i mean i'm ready to talk mma luke this is why i do this show

okay planning the show was actually pretty easy because because BC and I were talking about it yesterday and we're like, we ended up not doing it exactly this way, but if we wanted to, we have five topics. Usually we start the Monday show. We could just make each of the five fights on the main card for UFC your five topics and away you go because it was that impactful, that memorable, that violent, quite frankly,

and that's one of the better UFC shows I've seen in a long time the third shortest if you just add up the fight time itself BC what was the last time you felt like you got you went through a whole main card pay-per-view and felt as good about you know obviously we have to buy it for work but let's just say the purchasing decision to get it. That's usually like a great rubric for how satisfied you are. Yeah, sorry to cut you off there, Luke. I'm really trying to work on not doing that anymore,

but I was just so excited to tell you that it fit right up there in that pantheon that for me as a fan and journalist contains UFC 217, the triple header of title fights in MSG, UFC 205, which was such a massive MSG announcement card, and UFC 196, Lesnar versus Carwin, which had assorted fireworks from Seksayama getting tapped to Bonner getting that emotional knockout of Shishinsky. There's just those rare nights in the sport. Maybe, Luke, I could say the last two fights of 236 in Atlanta that were just so insanely

emotional and crazy, but this was a full main card of just theater or actually the full thing. Prelims, early prelims. There was some bat shit crazy in the air, Luke, in all the good ways. It was magic. Shout out to 15,000

plus people who don't feel the need to wear a mask and the soup that they concocted there of different feelings, emotions, and potential airborne viruses. It all put together, Luke, a perfect smelling batch of everything we love about this game. I was so high from this Saturday, from the, you know, this is what we do. This is what we love. This is our we love. This is our art, right? I'm inhaling this art that I was like, I will vote for Dana White for Republican

president tomorrow. I am this happy with the returns that I got here, Luke. Okay. Yeah. I won't be doing that necessarily, but I will say that the show itself, you know, we'll see what the COVID footprint looks like in a couple of weeks, but certainly for the show itself, uh, they did a tremendous job. And of course, they got tremendously lucky as well in terms of how things turned out. So let's get right into it. First things first, if you haven't already, please like the video, slam that subscribe button. We had a bunch of new ones from Saturday night. So if you are new to subscribing here, welcome.

We do this three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 11 a.m. in the East. If you would like to try Showtime, the people that make this show possible, and why wouldn't you, you can see the link right there. You can go to show.com slash Bellator MMA. You can have a 30-day free trial. And then if you're ready to take the plunge, you can go there. And for the first six months, it can be $4.99 a month for the entirety of the Showtime experience,

which includes both live TV and then everything else on demand. Let's see, BC. what else am I forgetting here? Oh, merch. If you would like to go to store.show.com, there it is. And if you live somewhere in a place where there's an Amazon warehouse near you or something like that, you're capable of getting this. If you're international, you got to wait just a little bit longer. And I think that's it, BC, to start things off. If you're ready, I'm ready. Yeah ready yeah yeah just a shout out to all of our fans around the world i hear you algerians i know that you're there for us as well so luke we're spreading this shit across all the countries you've lived in luke i

can't i cannot wait mk in india the homecoming this is doc number 18 right look we are building something here global thank you that's all i got to say. Okay. Well, with that in mind, and you can see, of course, you can follow us there on social media if you like. Let's get this party started, shall we? Topic number one. All right. So I did the post-fight show on Saturday, so everyone got to hear my initial impressions of Kamaru

Usman defeating Jorge Masvidal via second round knockout to retain his welterweight crown, and that is exactly what he did bc there are a lot of different ways to unpack this so many different stories so many different angles so let's go to you first on this with the basic one and then we'll build from there what is your biggest lesson that you learned from watching kamaru usman do what he did to retain his title on saturday night so here's what's crazy.

Here's what the lesson was kind of supposed to be. If you looked at the betting odds and you looked at, okay, here are the storylines coming in. What is the best guess for storylines coming out? I would have said that we're going to exit this rematch if Usman can stop Masvidal and do what he did to Gilbert Burns in the last fight and continue this upward trajectory under Trevor Whitman as striking coach. I felt like we were going to exit this saying, you know what? He's a pound for pound best in the world. I mean, like, let's stop teasing around the bowl. He might actually be

him. You know, John Jones is coming off some close fights. Habib retired. Izzy's coming off a loss. It's like the perfect window for him to advance forward and say, I just stopped this guy who does not get stopped. And I did it violently. You know, I'm that guy. I'm the pound for pound king. Here's the deal, Luke. You could make that case. But I think it's gone even above that to the idea, and this is something my editor, Brandon

Wise, sort of popped into my mind. Did Ousmane just become a star last night? A veritable star and a draw and a brand, so to speak. Now, look, that sounds hyperbolic because you're never going to know until you see the numbers and all that stuff. But, Luke, what else could Kamaru Usman have done, given this platform, given a second chance against a marketable guy who maybe really didn't deserve the second chance, but we're doing it because it's there, and then stepping onto the stage and over-delivering expectations-wise

in terms of what we thought he could do in the cage. So again, that's going to fulfill the pound-for-pound argument ten times over. But what do fans want? Absolute badasses who they've never seen lose walk in there and dismember people and take them out. If this is who Kamaru Usman now is, I'm telling you what, he's not going to lose for a while. That's what we're starting to get that feeling.

So Luke, he may just be able to reach a ceiling commercially that we really never thought about or talked about because he didn't get a great commercial start in his career. He had a bit of a boring style. His personality was a little bit too aw shucks than anything else. I think what I learned on Saturday night is like uh he's only getting better he's 33 and this is going to sell itself as we move forward you see I was trying to think about what really impressed me about this win and the nature of it of course is impressive no doubt not just how he did it but who he did it to right I think we'd both agree there but I was

really thinking about like all the credit Trevor Whitman was getting and I think we'd both agree there. But I was really thinking about all the credit Trevor Whitman was getting, and I think he deserves it. But let me say something first that I think is really kind of interesting about Kamaru Usman. Kamaru Usman and the fighter he was that he was building with Henry Hooft, let's not lose sight of the fact that that was a championship, not just caliber fighter, a championship winning fighter. He won that title from Tyron Woodley under the auspices of Henry Hooft. And of course, he had been there for a long time building himself. The reality is the guy who won that against Tyron Woodley probably could have won all of the other fights after that if he had never even gone to Trevor Whitman, right? Because that's

how good he was. But he actually didn't rest on that reality. He decided, even though I'm probably good enough to get the job done, we're talking about a guy who had 100 significant strikes landed and 10 takedowns in the same fight, only one of two UFC fighters to ever do that. That guy was good enough to win a title and probably good enough to maintain it. But he said, I'm not done here. Now, part of that is the circumstances that forced the split away from the camp to go to Trevor Whitman by virtue of having to fight teammate at the time, Gilbert Burns. But I'm just pointing out, dude, he actually leveled up during this process. He not only kept winning as the competition got

stiffer and stiffer, which is automatically difficult, he got better and his ceiling got higher through that process by continuing to force the process of reinvention. He didn't rest on good enough, even though his good enough was championship caliber. He decided to go to the next level. And so now we're forced to really begin to assess what the weight of all the different wins means. 14 in a row. You know, only the person ahead of him would be Silva at 16.

But more than that, we now have to reconsider Brian Campbell. His ceiling. His ceiling has gone up because he's winning these fights in ways that was not fathomable a couple of years ago. Dude, let's just put this out here. He didn't just beat Jorge Masvidal. He outstruck him cleanly and knocked him out. That was not foreseeable a couple of years ago, Brian. I really think we are dealing with somebody incredibly special. And I love that we got to this point, Luke, incrementally, right? And it was like, you know, the Woodley was a step up but still consistent to

what we had seen but you know that last one against gilbert burns was like uh oh crap could he really be this more often what if he went after it what if he bit down and tried to do things so you see the evolution of the craft which is incredible but now you're seeing just everything come together at the exact perfect time where it's like he wasn't even a finished product in this fight against masvidal did you see a couple times luke he'd finished sequences in which he'd kind of be off balance attempting a last counter strike and even joe rogan and company brought it up on the broadcast there were times it looked a little sloppy or messy that's just point to show you that he looked like that on the brightest stage right but yet he still delivered that

knockout blow so he's still a work in progress at 33. He's now in the conversation of maybe pound for pound best in the game. But to your point, I think we've got to move all the fences back in the ballpark because we're not going to be sure until it's over where this guy can actually fit in the history books. Not just in the

welterweight all-time great title picture that GSP has held that throne so tightly, but maybe even deeper than that, Usman has won 14 in a row, five defenses of his title, and now he's finishing dudes. I mean, you know, to piggyback on that point I made about the commercial side of it, if he's going to have a five-fight stretch in which two fights are against Jorge Masvidal and two are against Colby Covington, and he's winning all of those and a lot of those by stoppage. Luke, he's going to exit

that as a legitimate brand because he kind of hits all the boxes without overwhelmingly hit them commercially. He can be the good guy with the great story. He's got the global recognition coming from Nigeria and he can also talk trash. Not in maybe

the most entertaining way, but now in a very believable way. So he's ticking all the boxes right now, Luke. Cringe interview once in a while, notwithstanding. Yeah, maybe that part is still a little bit off. And, you know, he's got a little Marvin Vittori meathead in him sometimes. I think you have to acknowledge that, too. But I think we're legitimately at the point now where, and the answer's probably already a foregone conclusion in some ways,

but it's at least worth saying out loud, Kamaru Usman might be a better welterweight than Matt Hughes. Now, if you're of a certain age where you're relatively new, when I say age, I don't mean 18 versus 36, I mean how long you've been an MMA fan. Then that may not mean a lot to you. He's like the guy that is kind of like the mascot for the UFC at this point. They bring him out and everyone cheers because of what he did with his career and the exploits.

But I'm trying to tell something to you folks. Matt Hughes was considered the game-changing force in his day about what it meant to be a dominant wrestler, about what it meant to have ground and pound, who could also mix in submissions. I mean, he was the vanguard of new fighting at the time in which he was doing it. Man, you look at his resume, Matt Hughes has got some serious names on there. Again, if you don't know the history of MMA,

this won't mean much to you, but he submitted St. Pierre, finished off BJ Penn, beat Hanato Varisima, which was a jiu-jitsu coach of BJ Penn, Frank Trigg, Sean Short, Gil Castillo, Carlos Newton, Hayato Sakurai. Bro, that's a serious resume he's got there. And we're talking about Kamaru Usman now, potentially, and maybe even incontestably passing him.

Folks, you don't have to like Kamaru. Maybe you have another fighter at welterweight or any other fighter in the UFC that you like more. But if you're not respecting him at this point, holy shit, are you missing the point? Guys like this do not come around that often. And there's going to be a whole new generation of fans at some point down the line. They're going to have to be reminded of, yo, remember when Kamaru Usman knocked out Jorge Masvidal, that's going to be a huge moment in the career of a guy that's going to be probably one of the greats when it's all done.

Luke, I've got a quick series of questions for you about kind of where we go forward from here. Dana announced that Colby Covington will be next, and Colby made a lot of weird faces in that jacket standing cage side and sort of had his Colby movement, but what do you think is going through Colby Covington's head thinking that,

look, you know, it was only a few fights ago that Usman's striking was considered, you know, not remedial, but pretty basic. And Colby went five rounds, give and take, instant classic, great action fight, and lost and just barely lost to him. Now he's watching this extreme evolution of not just confidence but striking from Usman I mean if you're Colby Covington are you figuring out how am I going to wrestle this guy instead the second time around because I haven't seen Colby make those same kind of leaps outside of his very good pressure style on the feet where I'm like he's

you know he's on the level striking wise as Usman is that rematch going to look completely different because of that I think that the rematch is going to look different not merely because of that but I think that Colby's going to go the other way I don't think he's really going to do a ton of striking with him if if BC he could avoid it I think he's going to try and wrestle the guy and honestly when you think about it that may not be the worst thing in the world which which is to say, you know, putting Usman, or I should say trying to put Usman on the back foot, make, you know, he's got 100% takedown defense, but Colby didn't really test that the first time around at all. So actually,

like, let's see exactly the limits of this. And if you can get a takedown, you can hold him down. I mean, think about it. You'd be doing something to him in a fight that no one's really done. What does that do psychologically? What does that do competitively what does it mean for the how the two match up I tend to think that he's going to really press on the gas pedal really try to clinch up with him press him against the fence try and take him down make him make him answer for his own medicine a little bit now whether or not that's enough to win I guess we'll have to see but I think more than anything that's going to be the difference the next time I mean just to see what Usman just did to Masvidal and Gilbert Burns, if Colby decides to stay on the feet, I don't think it's going to end well for him.

So that does sort of raise the, I guess, the interest level for me heading into potential rematches there, that it could be contrastingly completely different, you know, styles-wise, excuse me, just a complete contrast to the first one. But still, you know, chess match-wise is going to be a fun watch. Luke, the other thing I wanted to bring up is, because we don't have any other spot for it in the show, Conor McGregor, like, instantly jumped to Twitter

and kind of went after Usman. That dude has a death wish if he wants to fight Usman. Somewhat bizarre way. I got to ask you this, because he, you know, he made fun of Usman's striking. He said, I'm going to come up to 170 after this third fight with Pwawewe, and I'm going to, you know, whatever. And even he had a back-and-forth with Dustin, where Dustin said, hey, let's going to come up to 170 after this third fight with Pwa Wee Wee, and I'm

going to, you know, whatever. And even he had a back and forth with Dustin where Dustin said, hey, let's do the third one at 170. And Conor said no. So what is Conor's angle here? Why is he picking now to go out of his way to maybe chase the toughest fight available for him? Bro, he's got a death wish, apparently. I mean, I didn't like that fight for him before usman leveled up his striking i didn't like it then you think i like it now it's like dude that is a terrible if you thought habib mangled him i mean you can only imagine what a by the way a real 170 or you know kamaru couldn't make 155 unless amputation was on the table right i mean that's how just ridiculously lean yet well muscled he is uh and has good cardio for it doesn't suffer for

it so he's got the best of both worlds he can strike his ass off and it deserves to be made a point here bc because either we're crediting henry hoofed for his great work or we're crediting trevor whitman for his great work and i're crediting Trevor Whitman for his great work. And I want to be clear. To me, sometimes the best fighters are the ones that have the best relationships with their coach. And that's true across sports. I think you would agree in jiu-jitsu, Gordon Ryan, John Danaher. Or how about MMA? George St. Pierre, Faraz Ahabi.

What you have is that, yes, Faraz Ahabi is a smart, brilliant, well-schooled trainer, but also St. Pierre is an extreme athlete with high fight IQ. We've got to say this out loud about Kamar Usman. He has the benefit of having these incredible camps and people around him, and he obviously has, I'll say, the genetic wind at his back when it comes to the physical tools necessary to win. But also, but also, dude, he makes good decisions. I know there was a couple of times in this fight where you indicated he'd gotten sloppy,

and there's no argument about it. But when you go back and you look at how many times has Kumaru been in trouble? Not a lot. And when he was in trouble, how long did it last? Not very. This dude does not really put himself in a position to get countered to to make a catastrophic error or anything like that he makes excellent decisions so when you take all those other factors with whitman with hoofed with his genetics but his

hard work and everything else and conor mcgregor wants a piece of that no you don't you definitely don't want a piece of that. Like the short-term answer to the question I asked you is obvious. Like Conor wants to be the first three-division champion and he always, I think he's sort of always keeping that lottery ticket in the back of his head knowing, you know, eventually I'm going to get that welterweight title shot. But I just don't get the timing now unless he's hoping to just one-up Usman

in the press early and start to build that road. But it doesn't show me something positive about where Conor actually sees his ability right now. And I think that's the potential scary part, Luke, because we know that to be a fighter, again, we say this all the time, you've got to be the biggest con man, the best self-help coach for yourself. You've got to constantly trick yourself into numbing the fear and doubt around you and being at your best. If this is how Conor's talking after watching Usman do that to Masvidal, I fear that the final third of Conor's career, whether we're in that final third or not, Luke, is going to be messy

and going to have a lot of ill-advised knockout losses until it's over because this just doesn't seem right. Is there any way, before we move on from this topic, because I just feel it's over because this just doesn't seem right. Is there any way before we move on from this topic? Because I just feel it's so important when you saw him not just knock Jorge Masvidal down, but when you saw that right hand and the sweat goes flying off of his head and it whips him in a circle. I mean,

he really stuck it to him and previously the right hand was landing before that. What was your level of shock right in the immediate aftermath? What went through your mind? It's a great question because it was a moment. And again, this was a card of so many moments, and it was like the cherry on top of all those moments. It wasn't as dramatic and surreal as McGregor's knockout of Jose Aldo,

which is really like the reference point for me for that. Or you could go Holly Holmes' head kick on Rousey, whichever one just knocked you over the head seeing it like, oh my God. But Luke, it was a legitimate leap in what you felt was possible for Usman. Like he had doubled up in front of you. Like you had watched him not only, you know, we see fighters who are prominent, unbeaten contenders, right? Like Adesanya, you're waiting for him to finally get that title shot to show if he's the real.

And what did Adesanya do? He stepped onto the stage like a peacock, knocked Robert Whitaker out, and showed us everything. That's rare. This was that moment, yet even more intense, Luke, because again, nobody does that to Masvidal. We just did a resume review, which may confirm or not confirm your thoughts on that coming in, but we just did one in which we uncovered, hey, like, man, Masvidal for a long time has been really technical and defensively sound in ways that maybe the character he plays doesn't suggest. Nobody does that to him, Luke.

So yes, that moment, like, it's sort of like you don't you know i've been in bed with you this whole time usman and i didn't know about your other family it was like one of those moments luke i'll just say this you're married you're married kamaru like really you know what i mean like you made promises to me bro i'll just say this to end on kamaru a little bit it's not to say that he hasn't had some fights in his career that i thought he could have done a little bit more. He said that, and to the point where he actually kind of embarrassed himself a little bit when the whole 30% remark came around. But in terms of what we know we have now, I'm not saying that every time Kamaru Usman fights, it'll guaranteed be exciting. But I got to tell you two things, BC. One, to me, he's must-see TV at this point you know again I don't

think he's as exciting as Justin Gaethje but like chances of him turning out something that's going to be pretty fun is high I think and more to the point it's like listen again I know that the the reputationally sometimes things can be a little bit overblown or undeserved but I saw how reputationally we treat Valentina Shevchenko and I'm not asking anybody to change that where it's like she's an assassin she comes out blah blah she's had some duds bro the the Karmush fight sucked the Jennifer Maya fight it also kind of sucked now she of course she's had the evil eye and then we'll get to the one today but I'm just saying it's sometimes it can be a little bit of a mixed bag okay at this point I want to see the MMA fan base treat Kamaru and the

anticipation of dominance with him the same way they might with Valentina the obviously the big difference is that Valentina is fighting what seems like competition well below her level so there's a higher expectation she'll stunt on them but you know Kamaru and what he's capable of is rare and special and I would like to see at a bare minimum some of the expectations around him being like oh he's the guy who stomps feet no he's the guy who jacks jaws and it's time to recognize that fact and to put the full bow on everything we said to start this segment if he keeps being the very best he can be in every moment and just going for it you're going to organically build up

whatever fan base wouldn't have been there from the beginning because they didn't like your style or your swagger or your tone of voice or whatever because you're doing it the most natural way of like here's how great i can be let's line them up and find out luke hell yeah bro and just to close on this card as we transition to the next topics i think luke what may have separated this from the same feels i got from 217 205 whatever your favorite ufc sort of full card magic moment was is so many people along with you know you had some horrific injuries you had some so you had some some bullet points here but you had people going out of their way to prove their greatness either under some form of doubt you know or some

form of like it was just a concurrent theme through those three title fights and it's just amazing how each one sort of trumped the other really i mean what a night what a freaking night luke thomas truly truly uh couldn't agree more all right so let's jump now to topic number two not far down the car bc just to the co-main event which we thought man did we not say this is going to be the most difficult to call this is going to be the most unpredictable this is going to be probably the closest fight on the card and it turned out to be in some ways maybe none of those things certainly not the last of them Rose Nama Eunas defeats Zhong Wai Li and does it easily. Like just blew the doors off of her. She is the first UFC women's fighter to become a champion after losing her title. So

the first one to ever reclaim it. Ioana Jacek tried, couldn't do it. Holly Holm tried, couldn't do it. Ronda Rousey tried and couldn't do it. know who did rose namajunas the question for you i'm going to frame it this way bc to orient the conversation she has a 10 and 4 record which by itself numerically i would not call exemplary and yet she might have a legitimate title however premature we are in putting these labels on things of being the strawweight goat can you be the strawweight goat with a 10 and 4 record i guess you can but what are your thoughts yeah i mean look this division is too competitive and obviously we're so early into the even the the history of uh female fighters in the ufc that it's hard to throw a goat this early it was hard to do that that for Amanda Nunes for the whole sport, right?

And regardless of division, but this is even harder because of how competitive it is. Yet you look at the facts, who else would be the goat? Joanna and Rose beat her twice, including by, you know, 71 second knockout or whatever. So when she's at her very best, that was the theme come into this fight, Luke. It was part of the dialogue between her and Pat Barry in that incredible moment. Yes, she's the best 150 pound fighter of all time, 115, when she is at her very best. Despite this insanely unique career to the record you mentioned,

God, she was six and three when she won the championship for the first time. She fought for a UFC title in her technical, technically her debut UFC fight. I mean, these are just sort of bizarre sort of ways to enter a career yeah when she's great she's she's great I mean she's incredible look I've been saying forever two things this fight is among the best you can make in the sport and I think that's why by the way even though we only got this big of a sample size that's why Dana and the post fight press conference said you what, the fight to make is to run this back. Sorry, Ioana, the fight to make. And I think he's actually right here, Luke,

because matchup-wise, this was so incredible. Current champ who looks unbeatable against former champ who can be high or low, but we have this emotional connection to for ways I'll get to in a second. And then it played out in a dramatic theatrical way of what I kind of said. I'm just trying to pat myself on the back, but what a weekend for Lithuania, Luke,

because there was one person capable of doing that to Wei Li. Did we think it would be that way, that dramatic and quick? No. No, no, no chance. Yet again, she's somebody like her moment at 217 who can just raise your expectations when she is dialed in. So, Luke, I want to make a quick statement. And I like how she even threw in the anti-communism thing to just put a bow on it at the end of her interview and just say, that wasn't my intention.

I'm trying to do good here. What Rose Namajunas let us in on this Saturday during this fight against Wei Li Zhang was a special, special sports moment. What I mean by that, she's always been a great interviewer because she allows her vulnerabilities, whether it be mental health struggles or whatever, she wears it on her sleeve. She puts it out there.

Luke, when she was in the pre-fight announcement with Buffer in her face and she's saying to herself, I'm the best over and over again, I had scared feelings like, oh, no. Rose's got to talk herself into this. When she's at her best, she's the best. But when she's not, you know, it can be a crap show. Dude, that is all of us. That was all of us in life watching Rose walk this out, knowing that there's greatness inside of her.

But having doubt, having fear, having all this stuff. And in front of millions, in front of a camera, she walked that out. She talked herself into it. She executed. She broke down in tears because it played out higher than her expectations could have been. And then that back and forth with Pat Berry. Look, we all need a Pat Berry in our life. We all need somebody who's going to get in our face and tell us what our potential is.

That was just humbling to watch, whether you're a Rose fan or not, better dead than red or not. She walked out the human journey right in front of us. How could you not connect to that? That was incredible theater. How much do you think that the damage from the fight previously with Ioanni and Jacek, how much of that did Zhong Wai Li carry into this fight? It's hard to say because you mix that with a 13-month layoff. During pandemic, Whaley wasn't able to travel here. She wasn't able to jump on Fight Island.

So could that be a factor? Yeah, maybe. Maybe that was a factor. All four of the Chinese fighters lost. Yeah, maybe that was a factor in sort of, you know, she got caught early. She got off to, let's say, a slow start, although I did like Whaley's strategy to start with the leg kicks to try to slow Rose down. I'm not

saying it couldn't have played a part. I think it's the same way as saying this, Luke. When Rose busted Ioana in their first fight, Ioana talked afterwards and was like, that was a horrifically bad wake-up for me. This was a horrible camp for me mentally, blah, blah, blah. That's kind of the worst version of her. Okay, they ran it back. They put on a classic fight.

Rose still proved that point. Rose is going to have to prove that point again before we close the chapter on the Weili Zhang thing but in terms of a one night piece of uh piece of business you could argue she won the whole night Luke I mean here the way I thought this fight was gonna go BC was we I think we were mostly in lockstep which is to say we both thought Rose was going to start strong and when she starts strong that's maybe the best straw weight on earth the question is like the Andrade fight what if that tide begins to turn a little bit late when the adjustments start settling in and you don't have the same early fight advantage? But the problem is the early fight advantage was so strong, you never got to any second, third round,

or, Jesus, second, third minute for the most part, where you could begin to test those theories. I mean, early on, Rose Nama Yunus, you know, calling her unstoppable would not be right. But that first round Nama Yunus, you know, that's the best first round fighter in that division, period. Like, not even close. She is so dangerous. And the thing is, BC, to answer the question about, you know, how much damage did Zhong Wai Li carry in from the Yun Jaeiechek fight. We just don't yet know. It could be a lot, could be a little, could be none at all. I tend to think it's probably at least some, but here's also the truth. She got outsmarted. She thought a leg kick was coming,

and Zhong Wai Li pulls her leg back, and it goes up instead and drills her right in the face. Yo, you got tricked. You got tricked, and there's just no other way to deny it. So, yes, maybe the chin's not what it was because of all of the damage, and that played a role. Okay, maybe. Maybe that's a thing you could say. But on some level, it went from a normal fight

standing across from one another to very bad for her because she got outsmarted. And that's just nothing you can ever take away from Rose Nama Yunus. And for the 10 and four thing here's what I would say to answer the question I mean we wrote it in this way just as a way to frame the question I think these talks about GOAT while someone is still in their 20s

and they're still competing it's just premature but it is interesting to me BC that she had a very unusual path to greatness she had a not many fights. This was her first double-digit win. She was nine and four before this fight. But it also shows that, we talked about it, so Marvin Vittori, from 21 to 27, 28, you're going to see if someone's actually pretty good, how much better they get. And we're getting a taste of that every single time she comes out we're talking you know just dramatically better than who she was before and by the way i saw you tweeted that you know you're my pat berry you know i don't i don't know if you're much of a you know did i tweet that yeah you know i tweeted out that i need a pat berry and i also tweeted i need a trevor whitman in my life i mean what a

night for trevor whitman right? But you responded with I'm your Pat Berry. And you know, Luke, we did get a lot of gross comments in reaction in response to that. No surprise from our fan base using terms like groomer and stuff like that. Get that crap away from me. But I don't see you as my, you know, Bundini

Brown to Ali, like hyping me up all the time. If anything, I think you get in a long line of people that just put me down Luke but that I rise up over yeah maybe that's probably true yeah yeah probably probably but were you not moved to look were you not are you not a roast thug super fan now come on don't soften up a little no I I thought this was incredible I mean I don't share necessarily to say you know I'm not as invested in her story from a fan standpoint um so i don't appreciate it on that side but just as an observer of talent she is i just can't this was interesting about her kamara's 33 so however much reinvention he has probably still some and

some that might blow us away but like with rose i mean how old is Rose exactly? Just to be clear, Rose Namajunas is 28 years old. I believe that's correct. Yeah, dude, she has like plenty of time to get better, like way better. And you would just imagine like, what does that look like? What does it look like in a world where whatever she's got now is a fraction of what's possible? You know, again, she has to do the work to get there and we'll see what happens. It's hard to know because she has to do the work to get there and we'll see what happens but it's hard to know because she's unpredictable i mean like luke when you go through the reason why she has a 10-4 record there's been such peaks and valleys i mean she was a big favorite to be

carla esparza in that tough finale because she had been the one doing the cinematic submissions why you know flying shit and then she goes out there and just gets humbled in a big step up moment in some degree the same thing happened when she was getting propped up for what would have been her first title defense. Remember when she fought Karolina Kovalkevic at 201, Luke? It got bumped up to the co-main event. That was that stretch where Pat Berry was battling substance abuse, and there was a lot of chaos in their relationship.

And, you know, Rose was largely flat in a split-decision loss. Now she, again, retooled. But, you know, I don't know if she's going to be able to keep it. It's like we talked about Masvidal. It was like he was great in 2019. He was better than we ever imagined he could be. Can you keep that up? I'm not saying I predict Rose's rollercoaster thing is going to continue,

but she seems to be someone, Luke, who fights through that. And I hope she can because there's great matchups still to be made through multiple rematches here. But, you know, I don't know if it's going to be held together. You like the idea of an immediate rematch with Zhang Weili? I do. I do. See, I don't. Tell me why. Okay, you know, sure, I love Ioana.

Do I want to see a trilogy between them even though it doesn't make a ton of sense? Probably, yeah. But I think it was so quick. quick now you can say it was clear the knockout win head kick yeah damn right it was clear and concise although I'm gonna sit here and celebrate the warrior spirit inside of Jung Whaley who argued with the referee argued in the post fight interview uh you know I love that fighting spirit in her believe me but I love it so much and believe in it that I believe she would be much competitive in a rematch. And they are the two best in this division, it seems.

And Luke, let's not be not smart to the reality of what Zhang Weili represents to UFC potentially in China. And they've got the new Performance Institute there. And if Zhang Weili can come back and win back the belt, I mean, look, it's a big boom in business. You take all of that together, Luke, and just the fact that I know the rematch is going to be a classic,

yeah, I'm all in on this. Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, I think the UFC, if they're up against the situation where they don't want Zhang Weili taking away contenders for Rose to fight by virtue of being in that contendership position,

you know, that they want to solve for that by giving her an immediate rematch, then I can sort of understand it that way. I don't think it's a scandal at the end of the world, but I'm of the view that if you lose that way, quick as it may be, like again, you got outsmarted and it was just devastating consequences as a result. I'm sure if they fought 10 times it wouldn't look like that 10 times i think it's probably you know on the lower lower end of numbers and the number of ways that would look but to me it's a little bit of like dude you got smoked you got smoked back of the line you know not all the way back in line that's not how business works but i hear you luke hey do you have the same feelings i do on okay maybe rose will fight whaley okay, maybe Rose will fight

Whaley again and maybe she'd fight Ioana again. Who knows? But her Rose versus Tatiana Suarez is the fight. Now that's a leap because I don't know if Rose could beat Whaley in the rematch. It could be a completely different fight. But Rose versus Tatiana Suarez would be a fight, Luke. That's a freaking style matchup there that I want to see for the title. Tatiana Suarez is missed. Is missed for any number of reasons, but that being a big one. I think she still, even today, is such a threat in that division

to do evil things to some of those ladies. But until she's back, you know, there's just no way to win. And the division's reloading. It's not, you know, wash Klaja hanging around as much as now we got. Mackenzie Dern is legit now, Luke. All right?

It's true. It's true. So we'll have to see what happens all right so let's move to number three here we're still in the title fight section of this uh breakdown here but topic number three valentina shivchenko retains her flyweight title over jessica andrage i'll i'll ask for your general impressions bc and then when you're done with the general impressions the question would be do they need to just make the third Nunes fight because my big takeaway from this Brian it wasn't close for two seconds Jessica Andrade got completely run over I know Lauren Murphy is owed a title

shot and she earned it the right way but I gotta tell you I don't know who's gonna beat her no and this but by the way this is the same discussion we have after every valentina fight who stays very active and busy so we have this discussion a lot but this was a complete next level demolition of the only one who on paper we thought could have a chance against her so look i'm not gonna water this wind down at all because it was insanely impressive it was like she was dave you know dana called her a determined demon afterwards who went out there and wanted to prove that there are no holes in her game and that nobody has a chance against her so yes i want to sit here and celebrate all things valentina because she is a a student of her own craft luke

at such an extreme impressive level i've interviewed her many times and when you get her talking about her craft I mean this is a schooled all time great student that we are watching play it out but maybe what also helped her is Andrade can be very vulnerable Andrade is very elite she's a former champion at 115

she was a credible 135er but she can be very vulnerable in certain key spots Lukeke she walked into oncoming traffic against um way lee and paid for it and i think here some of that vulnerability played against her and maybe that added to the surprising speed in which she was handled yet with that said you know i mean this was insanely impressive you have two schools of thought like i think valentina's actually right. She's like, I'm not even going to talk about the newness of Triple G because, you know, the stars will align it.

There will come a time soon where there's no other fights to be made, so let's make it now. It feels like that time is now, Luke, but if they let her stay busy and keep fighting every two, three months, you know, she might be able to beat Murphy and then beat whoever else is next in line and then also get Amanda sooner than we think so I think it's all going to happen Luke I think she's going to keep

adding title defenses and I think when we have this fight against Amanda Nunes who it's weird Valentina's getting better and I do believe Nunes has hit her mouth like I do believe she's leveled off okay she's the all-time greatest but i believe this is this incarnation of him of her valentina's catching up where you're gonna have people picking valentina to win luke and that's that's what you want you want that trilogy to matter historically on so many levels and you want people to not know who's going to win that that will be a special fight when we finally get it and uh it's coming luke i don't think it needs to be tomorrow, but it's coming. Let me ask a question in a couple of different ways, which is the first one.

The three favorite fighters, judging by the crowd, and I think the crowd probably to an extent represents most of what you see at home as well, the three favorites were Valentina, Rose, and Jorge. Now, Jorge didn't win, but Rose and Valentina fought before him and they not only won they won via stoppage in big very crowd-pleasing ways how good for their brand and their visibility and everything else were their performances on this pay-per-view in your mind massive massive

for both of them this was like the right time, look, like when we talk about the magic of this card, everything aligned, you know? First fight card to have everybody back in the arena, so there was a nervousness mixed with, I want to see if UFC can pull it off. Well, not only did they pull it off, but the fighters from the very opening fight, which we'll get into on Have You Seen This Shit, Luke,

people were just coming out to bring it. The crowd was raised to another level. Everything was amped up. And then we saw the performances of these elites. You're right. Perfect performance from Valentina from a commercial standpoint on this one. You know, like she had the head kick knockout of Jessica Ai, but probably didn't have as many interested eyes for that card.

Kind of forgot what main event that was linked with. This one was the perfect moment to double down on that. Perfect moment for Rose to regain and show her greatness again and show the story of her life full bore. Yes, it was perfect for everyone. And then Kamaru to finish off and prove to us he's also a destroyer on top of that. Like, this was the coming out party for everybody while Uncle Dana just sits back being like,

I told you so and deservedly so, as long as this didn't turn into some massive super spreader event that kills millions, Luke. This was a perfect night at the office for the UFC, and everybody won. Everybody. Luke, I was giddy like a schoolgirl. Everybody won this Saturday. Did you see how Tim Tebow,

Tim Tebow, what is he, 30-something at this point? And he's still having to do the gator thing, and he's just so over it, you can tell. He's just like, yeah, gator thing to do the gator thing and he's just so over it you can tell he's just like yeah gator thing yeah gator thing that's great um back to rosin or excuse me back to valentina shevchenko i actually think you make a great point which is that it's not that amanda has declined not at all uh and the level at which she has tapered off at is extremely high but you're right she has probably tapered off this is probably as good as it's going to get for her which again is extremely formidable but it won't get any worse

than what it already is and in fact as the time accrues it might decline perhaps precipitously we don't know yet the point is is that the first time Valentina fought uh Amanda it didn't go well for her early but she was putting it on her late. Second fight, I thought Valentina won. I thought the judges got it wrong, but it was close, and you have to respect it. Certainly no robbery, and you can make, obviously, a very strong case because it was close that Amanda deserves to be given her hand raised. Now I have to tell you I'm beginning to feel a little bit different about how it might go. It really is dependent on how much I do think that Valentina can mix it up because I want to be clear I don't think

Shevchenko as good as she is on the ground is she's not the black belt that Amanda is but I will say BC she's got this sort of reputation as like this striker who can do other things and it's time to recognize she really is, she can kind of do whatever she wants at this point, or at least she can really mix up her offense in a way that she could not used to. In fact, I would say she's not as good on the ground or as mixing up those elements

as she was the first two times she fought Amanda. So to me, there's a new element here in their rivalry. How much it plays a role is impossible to say, but I think if you were wondering, wow, can Shevchenko really beat Amanda Nunes? You now have even more reason to believe that that could be true. Yeah, she's leveled up considerably, and I think that, you know, we also have to take into account, though, she's leveling up against a second, I don't want to call it second-ranked competition because it's not, but it's a step down. It's not like Amanda Nunes has been cleaning up lately on all-time great bantamweights or featherweights either, but you get, you know, it was a step down, but it allowed Valentina at her own, you know, preferred weight there of 125, I think, to figure herself out offensively. And I think that's going to be the key, Luke, because if you look back, okay, the first Amanda fight, Valentina just seemed to start late. But the second one, she wasn't active enough at the end of the day.

Because at 135, she was a counter-striker. And she was a, I mean, look, watch the Holly Holm fight. That's masterpiece theater from Valentina on how to use speed, footwork, and key counter-striking to control that fight. But you can't really beat somebody who's as equal or better than you if you lean too much in that direction. And that's maybe why Pacquiao got the edge over Marquez in really close situations over the course of their career.

Valentina needs to be more offensive, but what's going to make this third fight must-see TV is she's going to have to take the lead on the exchanges to be offensive and that's going to put her more in the line of fire for amanda who even if she is aging in the other direction as valentina is rounding out her game she will have the equalizing power to to you know dissuade valentina so it's going to be such an incredible matchup but i think you're right we're going to see the best version of it now in the third meeting uh all things considered and i don't know what that does to history if valentina wins at luke i mean it's wild it's it's i can't wait i need it okay i want it now i need it now i need it now because the truth is as good as valentina's resume is in terms of

just popular celebrity there's no denying whose resume is better amanda's just has so many important names on it which is to say that's the reason to say that it's better i'm just pointing out that aspect of it celebrity of who won amanda's is just you know uh incomparable so what happens if you beat that person what does that do for you especially if you didn't do it the first two times but you finally did it on the third it's going to raise a ton of interesting questions if we get there. I tend to think that's not what's going to be next, BC. I tend to think Lauren Murphy is next, and I want to be clear,

she has earned that opportunity. MMA is crazy. You never know. But I feel like if we don't get a third Nunes versus Shevchenko fight, especially with what we know with Shevchenko now, we'll be missing out on something big for MMA history. I truly believe that. Would you do Nina Nunes versus Antonina Shevchenko in the co-main, Luke?

See, now you're just getting a little weird. I don't know how that's weird. I like good fights. I don't know what you're, you know. Yeah, you could do that. I don't know if that would be my first order of priority. All right, let's go to number four here, B. Segan. This is unfortunately not something that was part of the craziness of the night,

but maybe not the jubilation that many people were feeling, which is that the very first strike that Chris Weidman threw in his fight with Uriah Hall, it results in his tibia, essentially his shinbone, he probably broke his fibula as well, shattering, breaking. And in nearly identical, one was an inside kick, the other one was an outside, but it was basically, basically the exact same injury

that Anderson Silva suffered leg kicking Chris Weidman. The weird injury, the horrible injury, I should say. It comes full circle, BC. I mean, I don't even know what you want to say to how crazy the coincidence of that is. But listen, I want to say something about this. Obviously, obviously, everyone here on this show and at CBS Sports and at Showtime, I know, Brian, you probably feel exactly the same. If you're a human being and you're watching what happened to Chris Weidman, the first thing you

feel is, okay, is he going to be okay? Sorrow for his condition. Now, the good news is he had surgery and he's on the path to recovery and he got great medical care. So obviously, that's the most important thing. And I want to be also clear that no one here can tell the future. But it is not irresponsible, Brian, to at least question at this point, at 36, given what he was already going through and where he is going to be in the future, he turns 37 in June, what do you think is the future in the sport for Chris Weidman? It doesn't look good, Luke, and I hope for the best. But I mean, to be honest, the future I didn't think already looked great for him.

He's not the championship form he used to be. He was up to a certain level of competence, but also when he would match elite, he would lose. He lost something of six of his last nine, I think, or six of his last eight. So it was already not in a great spot where at least at that time with Anderson Silva, we hadn't seen the accrued losses pile up. So you still thought there was something on the other end if he could pull off a miraculously quick turnaround, which he did. And let's give Andy that credit.

But this was really bad, and I feel really bad for Weidman's future. I think the only person that doesn't feel bad is Mike Coppinger. You see, Ariel sent him to hell on Twitter for his thoughts regarding that. I think everybody else, Luke, is with you saying, like, I mean, I could cry for Weidman. Luke, like, I've never been a fan of the overly destructive side of this sport. You know, when we all became UFC, MMA fans, and suddenly someone's like, hey, did you see this regional one where the guy's elbow popped out through his skin and

took the other guy's eyeball out? I don't necessarily like watching that stuff, Luke, okay? Even when Jon Jones put Lyoto in the front face guillotine and choked the life out of him and let his lifeless body hit the ground and the eyeballs roll back, even that was a moment where I'm like,

damn, do I want to be around this? Is this where I want to put my name down on obviously those were just intense moments this is next level freaking intense i'm not watching that video ever ever luke dana why are you tweeting that video no whoa you know what's the worst about that video really all those situations like gokan sake when um when tyrone sprung spong broke his leg same thing it's not the break the break is bad it's not the break it's the first step they try to take after the break when it dawns on them that it's now broken and the pain shoots through the shin all the way to their brain and then you you see them just... Oh, stop!

Oh, that is... And then the leg folds. That is when... It's that first step. That's the one that gets you. First step is a doozy, yeah. I mean... Let me just say this, too. I think...

Listen. I hate the organization, but I've long grown up as a fan of, they used to be the Washington Redskins, and now it's the Washington football team. And as much as I can't stand the owner and I hate everything about him, I just can't quit him. I just can't. And so I've been paying attention to them in some kind of state.

It's like Latin women in a way, right? Yeah, a little bit. But I was there i watched uh alex smith tear his uh tibia and fibula and he had something even worse this is just a straight break what alex smith had was a spiral fracture it rotated and then sheared like you were taking spaghetti and then rotating over itself he had to get 17 surgeries to repair that, and yet, BC, he was able to get back out there and throw passes with Aaron Donald in his face.

I mean, that's one of the most, granted, miraculous comebacks ever. So I'll just say this about Chris Weidman. He's got a tough road, and by the time he gets back, it'll be at the earliest 37, maybe 38 years old, which is a hard place to be at middleweight. So I don't think, based on the nature of the injury, based on the time in which he is suffering in his career, and what the prognosis means for coming back,

that you are somehow wrong if you're skeptical that a comeback can be made at all. I don't think that that's wrong. But I would really caution folks to maybe put that a little bit in your mind on the back burner. Or to say this, I did not think it was possible

for Alex Smith to come back, and he did. And he actually did okay. Right? Not great, but he was not bad either. And certainly given the injury, he was way better

than you ever thought he could be. Chris Weidman is a driven and determined person. So while he's got an uphill climb, he has constitutionally the kinds of things that will enable him to potentially make that climb a lot easier than other folks. He deserves the benefit of that doubt. We wish him nothing but the speediest of recoveries. But make no mistake, BC, I think this is fair to say, as good as he is with constitutionally being just a driven, determined person, he's got an uphill climb.

Yeah, yeah, you said it soberly there, Luke. I mean, I'd love to see him come back and come all the way back and fight Rockhold the second time and then go out on top, Luke. I mean, sure, that'd be great, but wow. You know, you keep mentioning Alex smith but we know the smith you really want to talk about luke so go ahead bro go ahead i'll just sit back go ahead bro okay no no no hold on i want to stick it here for just a second what do you make of the fact that it's the same injury silva suffered on him i have to tell you bc we've gone over this.

I'm not a religious man, and it probably is just coincidence, Occam's razor being what it is. But that is eerie. That is super eerie, is it not? Yeah, that's super. Yeah, Mr. Play-It-Safe, you know, was afraid to fly. I mean, you know, he spent his whole damn life. Yeah, it isn't ironic, Luke.

Just, you know. Don't you think? It's like rain on your wedding day. I mean, it's a little too ironic, right? It's the free ride. BC, it's the free ride you've already paid. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, it's the good advice, Luke, that you just can't take.

You just didn't take. Could you put the camera on Luke for one second? I got to change into character for the next bit. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, all right. He has to change into character for the next bit. It's not the Anthony Smith bit.

You know that, right? It's the PFL bit. Do you know that? So wait, are you preparing for Anthony Smith or are you preparing for PFL? Luke, Luke, let's get for the reason people are really here The MK Resume review jinx is real Luke it's real

I will now jinx Vonderlei Silva he will never fight again Luke I don't know what this bit is Or why you're putting pantyhose over a Darth Vader mask It's real 6-0 Luke it's real Who's next for the mk resume review

is this how you rob liquor stores who's next for the resume review luke is this how darth vader gets into auto erotic asphyxiation welcoming all canadians to resume review uh bc what would happen if we did a resume review the same week of both fighters? Well, I think that would purposely break it, Luke. We don't want to break it, right? I mean, we want it to break itself. I mean, right now, it is its own. It's got its own mindset.

It is. We were just putting like it's like it's, you know, it becomes a gremlin at midnight. You know, it's gizmo right now i think i think the only evidence for the resume review curse is when the upset happens the upset didn't happen here so it doesn't count okay if we keep putting b-sides who are you know three to one underdogs on resume review then that's just us not caring about the curse or whatever right but we put masvidal up there and he got knocked out cold and sent to hell yes the curse is real right now luke so we do need to be careful with this you know thing we've stumbled into right here right

like you know we gotta you know we'll keep feeding it we'll keep putting it out there but it's going to do what it's going to do lu Luke. So what do we settle on? Every pay-per-view we're going to do this? I mean, I'm a little, you know. I think the bosses want us to do every pay-per-view, but I don't think that you can, at least not very effectively. Like if you're Michael Chandler and Dobronx Oliveira, are you thinking, like, do we offer MK to interview us?

We need to get on their good side. We need to get off of that program, that resume review. It's undefeated, Luke. It doesn't count for evidence if you book a guy who is the biggest underdog on the card. Okay, if you try to tease the gods and we do a two-part Chandler-Olivera, do you know what's going to happen? They're both going to get viciously KO'd? No, it's going to be a draw. That's what's going to happen.

I think what's going to happen is someone's going to get COVID and knocked out of the fight. That could be. All I'm saying, Luke, is we are not programming this beast. We are not cosmically, but it's real. It is damn real and all i gotta say is you know who next right who next who are we gonna put on that who who's

gonna put himself on that bullseye luke okay uh all right so with that in mind let's actually we'll talk about anthony smith fight later which was a good fight but um there were other pieces of mma over the weekend and on friday b, we were watching it. We were kind of texting each other while it was going on. PFL Season 3 debuted. Now, there were a couple of hiccups. There was like these green pixelated fucking things all over the screen, which was distracting. And if you watched it on TV versus ESPN+, they had the crawl underneath for ESPN2, and they had their own set of stats, which are like the dumbest fucking stats ever.

It's like, what was the speed of that punch, PFL? Look at me. Bring the camera in here just a little bit. Me and you, PFL. Ready? You got some good things going for you. This may be the best roster you've ever had. I enjoyed watching on Friday night.

Nobody gives a fuck how fast that punch was. Don't care. Don't care yesterday. Don't care now. Not going to Take yesterday. Don't care now. Not going to care tomorrow. Please quit putting that fucking shit up there. Also, accumulative strikes is kind of interesting, but I'd rather know how they match up per round because that's how the fight is scored.

You know what I'm saying? You got a lot of extraneous bullshit on the screen. Okay. That being said, BC, Clay Collard beats Anthony Pettis. And by the way, we were watching this live, not especially close. I mean, yes, at the end, Pettis hit him with that shot, which kind of upended things in the third for a second. But for the most part, for the most part, Clay Collard put it on him.

Is Anthony Pettis losing to maybe the most interesting man in combat sports, a.k.a. Clay Collard? Is that good for the PFL or is that bad for the PFL? I think it turned out good for the PFL for two reasons. First of all, he kicked the shit out of Anthony Pettis. Yeah, he did, dude. Dude, this was like, what the hell is that? What am I watching right here?

It's better because the night turned out. Look, I've been, Luke, get this pantyhose off my head. Luke, I've been very critical of the PFL. Were you trying to do a do-rag? I was doing a do-rag. Okay, there was no try. You're letting some of the praise you get from the fans go to your head a little bit. Wow.

You've got to stay humble. You've got to stay humble. You've got to stay down to earth. I don't know if I deserve that shot right there. Luke, here's what I'm going to say. I haven't been overly you know great on the pfl um last year their pr team was damn near harassing me to put people on on my podcast and interview people to the level where i'm like like leave me alone unless you got something that i'm gonna watch they got stuff

i'm gonna watch this year so i watched friday night with an open mind luke this was fun as balls so here's what I'm going to say to them this was actually probably better that collared was the upset because it wasn't the only upset Lance Palmer got beat by uh by what's his name there Luke what's the guy's name Bubba Jenkins and that was a fun fight and that was a really good upset this was the night of upsets and I think that while your point on the extended stats on the screen was a bit distracting I thought it was unique in that regard not for me but maybe for some people

maybe that's some stuff that tells them the story or they're entertained by watching it I thought the broadcast looked professional I thought it sounded professional look I don't know that play-by-play guy that was he was okay but Randy Couture is like the best maybe with the exception of Mauro Ranallo Randy Couture is the best MMA the ufc luke i love that guy i'll go to the grave

of saying that fighter turned analyst he's exceptional i liked the whole thing it made me want to tune in again to what's going on here so shout out to pfl because you know i had been i'd been very harsh and i think they won me over these were fun evenly matched fights and uh you know that main event luke was like a it was like a borderline wacky sloppy action classic almost because you felt pettis coming back at the end i mean that was a that was a wild fight that was you know good for them i would say again the it's like it was a tale of two of cities so to speak with the production which was they had this weird pixelated shit going on the screen which was annoying and again that graphic overlay was awful but in terms of like the vibrancy of the colors and the energy of the broadcast i agree with you completely i thought it was great you mentioned sean his last

name was o'connell he fought for the ufc he was hilarious um so their booth had a play-by-play guy of sean o'connell ufc vet by the way he won PFL. Then it had Kenny Florian and Randy Couture, all three UFC vets, and in the case of Couture, a champion. So even though they're filling different roles, they have the, you know, it's a very fighter-friendly kind of organization. Sean O'Connell, to me, does a great job. I didn't know he was a fighter, Luke. Yeah, dude, he won PFL, and surprisingly, he won PFL.

So we got a bunch of money from it. But he was one of these guys long ago had a career in sports radio. I think he's from Utah. So he covers a lot of college football out of that area. And it just so happens he's actually pretty good as a broadcaster. So PFL elevated him. And to me, he's done a really great job. Again, dude, there's parts of that PFL broadcast I'm like, that's legit.

Plus, you mentioned the Bubba Jenkins win. Bubba Jenkins has been something of a forgotten fighter, even though he had a ton of hype coming out of Arizona State. That was a huge win for him on Friday night, and I'm looking at this card coming up this week. They got Rory McDonald on this card. I'm like, dude, PFL, man. They're putting together... Listen, if your product can't be the ufc

you got to have just enough name value to hook folks in and your brand better be exciting it's only one show so far bc but so far so good and the reason why i say that i think the upset of pettis was actually good for them because of the style of the regular season format that they have you can lose and and very much come back and win your next few fights and still make their playoffs. So it's not the end of the world for Pettis. He does seem to have taken a fairly large step in the other direction, Luke. But how about Clay Collard?

How about Evan Korn of Top Rank Boxing is always on me to interview Clay Collard. He loves that folk hero. And I did not expect him to make the transition back to mma and have the hands looking that good but man that was a gutsy fun ass performance so yep okay pfl okay i see you now i got rory next week okay i like that fight i like that fight because clay took the fight to anthony pettis like right away and you know backed him up and was just going to work on him. But Pettis still had just enough magic left to make that interesting late when he stunned badly with, I think with that knee or the head care, I forget which one it was, Clay Collard,

and then forced him to reset and it was all the stuff. That was incredible theater to watch. Clay still managed to get it done. But for folks who may not know who didn't watch top-ranked boxing during the pandemic, Clay Collard was a UFC vet and had fought in some MMA after UFC, but had done some boxing as well. He was on ESPN for top-ranked boxing several times. Can you explain to me, or to the audience rather, what he did that was so interesting during the pandemic on top rank boxing on espn he had uh come in luke as the as sort of the b-side there against some young prospects and

one after another upset them or fought to a draw or whatever and was getting to the point where he was almost becoming a featured contender i mean we watched him go from like notable b-side hey do you know that guy fought max holloway before to like like i guess you could put him in a co-main event almost now it helped that you know during that time when top ranks just trying to roll out anything to keep the schedule moving he was ready and able to fight week after week almost it seemed but uh he took that opportunity luke made a decent name for himself in the process was becoming like a almost a dark horse, like a comeback of the year type fighter, most improved, whatever you want to sort of label that. And then he went out against Anthony Pettis,

which I thought was a good bit of matchmaking, maybe set up for Pettis to look spectacular, and he did the thing. I mean, that's a hell of a year, Luke. That's incredible. Yeah, he's had a good run of late, and God bless him because he has certainly earned it. Okay, so that is it

for us for our five main topics now it is time for the portion of the show where you get to ask us questions it is time for dms from dogs turns out it is also the portion of the day where my family decides that um you know they're going to stage a concert outside with my daughter featured as the main singer. I got a do-rag if she wants to wear it, Luke. She might. She's feeling quite festive based on the loud screaming that I'm hearing coming from the other side of the door. All right, from at is there a God?

Okay. Why do I feel like the UFC sold us wolf tickets by saying Jorge had a chance in the rematch yeah the UFC is going to say shit to sell a fight I mean it wasn't altogether untrue

right look we honestly said Friday show we're not going to pull punches this rematch is only happening because of the marketability and the built in excuse that's it yeah I mean here's the trick listen promoter this is why everyone's like oh brian stan would be great if he filled in for dana white if he ever retired i'm like no he'd be terrible at it because he constitutionally just can't lie and it's true for every promoter whether it's scott coker or dana white or bob arum or you

name it if you want to be a promoter in this business it comes with a little bit of fudging the truth it's just a reality to sell shit it wasn't altogether untrue that you probably thought Jorge would be better off with a full camp not traveling than without one I do think that is real but I tweeted BC it's not that that's not true it's just the problem is three camps later with Whitman it doesn't matter the gap at that point is just too significant. So yeah, he probably was better equipped for the challenge, but the challenge changed.

Yeah, let's not overlook his improvement. Good call. But like you said, I think Jorge's always going to lose this fight, no matter which version of that prime Usman. The all-wrestling guy probably still would have found a way to win the same way. Probably. All right, at Jonah Griff, when is MK doing the Jake Paul resume review

so that he's guaranteed to lose his next fight? I have to tell you, BC, and we'll talk about this a little bit later. Save your thunder for the end of the show, Luke. Okay, here's my sneak preview. I'm not saying I've done a 180 on jake paul because that's not true but my opinion is shifting on him rapidly rapidly i'll leave it at that how about that he's uh yeah let's leave it at that let's leave okay um so speaking of resume review luke we did the stupid bit before with the uh with the voodoo doll but uh do you are you nervous are you nervous

about who we who we green light next given this obvious curse like are you like you you know there's a lot of responsibility in this decision luke i don't want i mean do you want these guys blood on your hands um there's no curse you You know there's not. And I don't feel any pressure because I don't give a fuck about narratives that only 13-year-olds who play Magic the Gathering think is real. Wow. All right.

All right. Let's put your career up to the resume review then, Chief. Listen, I've already lost multiple times. What other L could you hand me at this point? The next chapter of Luke's career, MMA Now. I'm sitting in my house while my daughter is screaming, talking to you. Somewhere along the line, BC, I've failed quite considerably. Yeah, all right.

Fair enough. Come on now. I'm teasing. Not much. All right, a little bit. All right, here we go. At Dallin M. johnson what's more impressive gsp learning to become a great wrestler midway through his career i won't say midway but i know what you mean or usman learning to become a great

striker midway through his career now again you can't say midway i know what they mean like after the career had gotten you know pretty established GSP had always been pretty good in fact if you go and watch the Jay Heron fight GSP in the pre-fight piece on the DVD talks about training with Jay Heron for wrestling and that was a long time before that so you know it just developed that way but it's kind of interesting BC as GSP got more senior he actually got a little bit more risk averse and then went to the wrestling because it was so dominant but it was also a way to avoid getting Matt Serra coming off the ultimate fighter you know whereas it's kind of funny Usman has had such success with it he's now technically in many ways accepting more risk by adding the

striking thing so I'll actually say in terms of risk acceptance i'm more impressed by what usman has done in terms of learning the skills i'm not so sure i don't know i don't know the no i think the answer is usman across the board and it's not to overlook um that there was a time where we thought gsp was the best best you know wrestler wrestler as an mma fighter best use of wrestling in the mma game in history maybe before Habib just made that that insane leap so um but you know here here Masvidal on the post fight interview which will I'll give a lot of credit for being humble giving a lot of credit for squashing the beef with Usman and all that but he was like I just fought the dude in 2020 and he didn't hit like that he didn't hit

like that at all right so like that shows you more than anything how impressive this leap has been striking wise not just that he could finish masvidal who has an insane chin very good defense and in head movement and all that but that he stepped in there and did it like are you kidding me luke this is insane yeah it's impressive um okay we kind of answer this one but maybe we can revisit it for just a second At Elvis underscore NG Thoughts on McGregor's Comments on Usman via Twitter How much of those comments Do you think McGregor even believes

Like let me ask you this How much of that was Conor really being like Delusional but Conor Versus Conor being like oh I'm just going to say some shit To get a reaction How much of it was that I think it's a mixture of all of that because that's just who he is as a, you know, a very interesting and, you know, not difficult personality. But there's a lot going on there, Luke.

I think some of it is like maybe a drunken Saturday night when he's sitting there with the proper 12. Some of it is, watch this. You know, I'll get these guys going. I'll shit talk this but I think some of that is you know that natural machismo that's you know sometimes backed by fear and paranoia that I've got to show everyone that I am the alpha dog here and okay this guy had his moment but let me just jump on top of that moment and plant a seed in his head that I'm coming for and I'm better for them and I'm better than him I'm the the real man here and again Luke that is great when you can back it up and you're in your absolute prime but can potentially get a little scary if mcgregor is going to keep that same energy the rest of his career that's what i was kind of talking about in the beginning like

is he going to get himself into some really bad situations because of that now look this is a third title in a third weight class so there's a lot of reason for Conor to want this in some ways. But I don't think how he believes he's going to walk in there and do that, Luke. I mean, this ain't 145 and this ain't 2015, right? Like, this is a – you're going up to welterweight, dude. I mean, you're going to go face the second greatest wrestler in UFC history, maybe behind Habib, who, you know, controlled you. Or at the very least you used all

your energy to avoid being swallowed until you were swallowed so yeah I don't I almost sometimes sometimes I want to see these fights because it's like dude you know there's got to be some kind of mechanism in life for people to get the answers to, you know, the questions they asked when they were thinking the least. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I've had 10 beers. I wonder what would happen if I jumped off this roof and then their friends talk them out of it.

But what if they didn't, you know? There'd be a lot more Darwin Awards, obviously, in the greater population. But beyond that, it's like in the fight game. If you made this happen, dude, Kamar Usman would do unspeakable things to Conor McGregor. I mean, this would be a mauling of epic performance. As long as it lasted, it would be worse for Conor, quite candidly.

You almost want to see it, not because you have anything against him, but just because, like, can we just get this out of your system? You done playing kind of a thing? Are you having problems over there, BC? I see a lot of motioning and yeah i saw shots on me as you readjust things what's going on i wasn't sure if you were talking to me or connor there with that speech but yeah i was dropping shit sorry luke i did want to ask you that there's it's really the same narrative lately for ever since connor beat alvarez and took the

break it's been the same narrative every fight of essentially like is he at this teetering point where if he wins and looks good okay we're back to normal but if he loses and looks bad is this the beginning of a of a sharp decline and will he ever be the same so it's that's the narrative every fight i'm not trying to make it special for this one but how interested are you in that narrative specifically in this third dustin fight where if connor like if he doesn't win or lose in a great fight, like, do you think he's heading to, like, the future of fighting Anthony Pettis-type names in action fights just to sell pay-per-views? Like, is that, like, I mean, I think Mazvidal and, you know,

in the Nate trilogy are still two fights that Conor will probably get before he retires, but, you know, that could be the top of the pops for him if he loses this one and loses badly. I think it's a little too hard to, I think it's a little too hard to exactly map out what Conor's going to do. There's always so many choices and so many options. It's a little bit difficult. But I will say this. Based on statements like this, I thought there might be a time where Conor got out

and avoided the worst of it and left a little bit on the table like similar to what Habib was doing not not to the same degree but you know saving yourself the end there because you don't want it to look bad and now um I'm getting the feeling that like a lot of fighters Connor's gonna have to get it beaten out of him which will happen eventually if you stick around long enough and especially if you fly too close to the sun which he's done a couple of times too so i don't know what's going to happen but i feel like if you're expecting connor to have a couple of really bad losses towards the end i'd say the chances of that happening are high high but you know that could be a couple of years from now who knows true all right last but not least at ghost the ghost thord were i don't know what the

fuck this name is first r-rated movie you guys saw as a kid i know exactly what it is for me what is it for you hardware ghost hardware okay it's weird ghost hardware yes it is sorry i don't so you know i always had a a dad that was cool and would kind of let me watch anything probably too early than I should have. So I would say, let's see, 1985, I was six turning seven that year, Luke. There was a VHS store, TJ's video there in downtown Naugatuck, Connecticut, that my dad would take me to. I'd always be trying to pick up WrestleMania 1 or 2

back in those days. One day he was like, you want to pick the movie this time for all of us? Go ahead. Pick anything. I was like, rated R? He was like, yeah, go pick rated R. I was like, dad, no, I probably shouldn't, right? This is ridiculous, right? And he's like, no, go do it. I'll watch it with you. It's cool.

And I went right to... Do you remember that cult horror funny flick horror flick called ghoulies one the first ghoulies well it was like a uh horror movie that was ridiculous but i didn't realize until i re-watched it as an adult how like outright satanic it was as well well we rented that luke and we went home and watched it and it gave me ridiculous nightmares forever because there's a funny scene where the where the ghoulie comes out from the toilet to bite the guy in the ass so luke uh i had issues you know taking a dump for a while thinking there's a ghoulie coming for me so that was that was a fun experience i was

like a six-year-old watching that so how many times did you just absolutely soil your dungarees because you saw ghoulies i'm not that ghoul is not getting in my asshole there's no chance luke okay no chance bro not a chance i'm glad to hear it i'm glad to hear it the answer for me is simple uh my parents were divorced shocker because i came out so normal um and my mom was insanely restrictive. Saudi Arabia restrictive. You just couldn't do anything. But my dad was kind of hands-off.

So, you know, dad was like the one who... I think dad was also just trying to be cool because mom was so restrictive. Wait, was your dad cool? I need a Robert Thomas update. See, my dad was not cool in the sense that people were like, oh, you have a cool dad. Like, my dad had an earring and rode a motorcycle and had a big bushy mustache.

No, no, no. My dad was a nerd in that sense. He was much more likely to take us to a lecture than a bike rally. But what I mean to say is, by virtue of the permissions, you could do cooler things on his time than I could at home with my mom.

I'm not trying to besmirch my mom, but that's just the reality. She didn't want us to do fun shit. I told you the story. I always had terrible shoes, and then my dad bought us the Reebok pumps, and my mom made us send them back, and we were just absolutely despondent.

That was kind of the dynamic. So my dad, back in, this is back, if you're an old school DC guy like me, you know about Errol's Video. Errol's Video was one of the big chains in the area and my dad had a betamax at the time because he was convinced betamax was going to beat vhs true story and they had the big ass cassettes i remember that is hilarious by the way that is well betamax did win across the world but it didn't really win the united states anyway he was convinced Betamax was going to win. But if you remember, the Betamax containers, they were real big relative to the VHS ones.

And I remember I went over on a Friday one time, and he had already gone to the movie store. He had the bag, and he opened the bag, and he had Twizzlers in there, and I was super pumped for it. And then I'll never forget, because it was a huge thing, he pulled out the container the the the the betamax container and it was predator predator the movie that's the first r movie i ever saw and i saw it at his house and um i was hooked ever since what can i say luke we got a note in the chat from our producers that said have you seen this shit up next are they trying to tell you something? Yeah, they want us to move along. Okay, that's fine.

No, I wasn't done with that story, Luke. That was a great one. You watched the movie. You enjoyed it. On Betamax. Wow. I bet your dad had it. There's somebody watching this who's like 19 and on TikTok,

and they're like, what's Betamax? And I'm like, I need to die soon. I've outlived my usefulness, except for my daughter. But other than that, I have really no point to live. Okay. All right. Well, with that, BC, take over, good sir. All right.

You know what we do every week? It's really fun. We scour the globe for the highs and lows, the good and the bad. I'm looking forward to this. And in between in combat sports and beyond, by the way, it is called, Have You Seen This Shit? All right, Luke, let's start with top-ranked boxing from Kissimmee, Florida. Did you see in the main event, Emmanuel Navarrete defended his 126-pound title with a 12th-round stoppage of Christopher Diaz?

But did you see the beauty of this early leaping uppercut knockout? This was good-ass shit, Luke. Yeah, he didn't see this coming at all, and he had them all turned around in the process. Just an absolutely brilliant punch. Bob, look at that. Wow. That is a great shot. Wow. By the way, Diaz's

nickname, for folks who don't know, is Pitufo, which if you don't know what that means, that's how they say Smurf in Latin America which drives me up the fucking wall oh I never had that issue with that Luke that's interesting in isolation

there's nothing wrong with it what you begin to realize is like I'll be watching Disney with my kid they've taken Disney characters which by the way it's an American company. Sorry, it is. And they just rename all the motherfuckers. It's not Mickey and Minnie and Goofy.

Goofy is Tribilin. That's his name. Tribilin. It's like, on what planet did you get the right to just rename these motherfuckers? And the names are worse. No me gusta. The Three Caballeros. It's a classic, Luke, okay?

It's fine. All right. Hey, let's keep it going here. UFC 261 from Jacksonville. Some undercard highlights. Luke, what'd you think of Randy Brown's one-arm guillotine on Cowboy Oliveira here? Yeah, the key is here.

You watch him doing two things. One, you can see him sealing it with his chin and with his head and uh with his uh head in the head position uh the other key so it wasn't hand on hand but there was still something it wasn't just he was doing it in isolation with his arm the other part is watch how he switches hips goes to the other side just like that and you see him put his leg in between it's because he's putting twisting uh pressure on him that's enabling him to take his elbow and yank it back when he's choking because it's going and twisting in opposite directions,

which is why you see Oliveira fall like that. So the key is he has this going on at the same time he has the twisting going on and taking him off of his base like that. That's like old-school BJ Penn shit. It's just really good jiu-jitsu. Very impressive. That's a great performance from Randy Brown. Let's advance the video.

This was after the tapage. Luke, did you see how emotional Brown got when he got up in Cowboy's face? I was loving this, Luke. What is the genesis of this? What was that about? We had to go to Randy Brown's Twitch page to find out, which I never went,

but shout out to him for pushing that. But apparently Cowboy did something awful to him the other day that made it a blood war. But Luke, I was like, you know that scene in White Man Can't Jump where the guy who tried to rob the liquor store is in the crowd watching the two-on-two for Brotherly Love basketball tournament, and a fight breaks out, and that white guy's like, oh my God, we're going to lose the sponsors. And Marcus Johnson's like, yeah, yeah. That was me watching this, Luke. That was great. Okay.

Yeah, all right. Hey, let's roll on here. Check out this backstage video of a celebration between Rose Namajunas and Valentina Shevchenko. Luke, they respect each other's game. They've been sparring partners in the past. This was like a real genuine moment. I had the feels, you?

Yeah, same. Someone was saying, could Rose fight Valentina? I'm like like i don't think so man they're they're buddies and this is you know we already knew that but the if case there's any question about it proof's in the pudding right there and let's go to the aforementioned moment there where uh pat berry was the hype man in rose's face luke this was her saying i'm the best beforehand, which fired me the heck up. It got me a little nervous, but I was fired up. But it was the after the bout interaction between them on camera.

I think we're getting to that in this video. This is me in the morning except substitute worst for the best as I look into the mirror. Yes. I think this video advances or maybe I've... Oh, here we go. Here we go, Luke. This is the good shit right here, Luke. for the best as i look into the mirror yes i don't i think this video advances or i you know maybe i've oh here we go here we go luke this is the good shit right here luke you're the best motherfucker ever i am the best look that is a that is that's the best right there luke has

anyone ever talked to you that way no i think i need it i think i've never had do we got you know what we need to do we need to to take these scenes where someone gets hyped up and just reenact them for each other because otherwise no one's ever going to tell us this in our lives. I've never had a hype man, Luke. I think I need a life coach possibly to get through this. We're never going to be in a situation where someone's going to be like, you are the best motherfucker ever.

If we get to that level... BC, I want to be that for you. You're the best motherfucker ever. I could be your hero, baby. Luke, you know we need to get to the level not where we're hiring more MK cameramen and producers that Showtime's paying for MK hype men, okay? I want people to just follow us around, Luke,

and hype us the shit off. Wait, shouldn't our producers be doing this? They should. Corey, Gaff, I'm looking at you, okay? Maniche, I'm looking at you guys. Hey, what about, don't let Matt off the hook. That's true. Yeah, very V-necked Matt Snyder.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's keep this going here. There was a sighting in the Jacksonville crowd in which Dana later said there would be a meeting. Luke, did you hear how hyped the fans were for Nick Diaz? I caught feels from this once again, dude.

It felt good. He still got it. Still got it. What do you think that conversation was like after the press conference when him and Dana met backstage? You think we're getting somewhere? Probably. They probably had some ums and ahs.

You know, I remember when the Schmo asked Dana on his podcast about what the next deal was going to be nike reebok or venom and it was like venom and then it ended up being venom he also asked a question about whether kamzat shemayev would be a good fight for nick diaz or at least on the table for nick diaz and dana said yes i tend to think mr schmo was leading there with the question and that there probably is on the table interesting do you think he had intel i'm sure dude he's he goes to all these events like i'm he interviews everybody i bet he's over time develop sources yeah okay all right shout out to the schmoe we

close with this luke this was the opening 10 seconds of the first fight of the night. Luke, this shit, 261, was off the damn chain. Check out Na Liang and Aureline Camilosi. Carnilosi. Carnilosi, Cangelosi. Luke, this was intense shit, Luke. Yeah, that's nice. This is a wild fight. Did you see this thing?

You see this fight, Luke? It was insane. No, I missed this. I was napping. This entire fight was like wild, barbaric, old school theatrics. It was intense. Okay, so was the second fight. You see that war between that Chinese guy and the other guy, Luke?

That was Jeff Molina. No, I was napping for this. My daughter had her birthday earlier in the day. I was tired. All right. All right. You were wiping all the COVID off outside of your house, right? That's right.

Okay. Well, let's keep it going here, Luke. C-FFC had a spinning back kick on the regional scene on the UFC Fight Pass. Watch this. I think we saw this already, did we not? No, they just look alike. We get a lot of these. Luke, I turned down most of these because they all look the same,

but that one was violent. So, look, this is similar to the Joaquin Buckley KO. Grabs the kick. Yes. But then drops it and spins it. So the other one was the one who held it, was the one who got kicked. This one, the one who held it, drops it, but then steps across. Same thing.

There you go. Great stuff. Hey, let's go to the front yard, Luke. Check out this guy you sent him to me this has to be the end game for you working out in your front yard luke bro look at this fucking american hero i want to only lift weights with this person for the rest of my life he's got wood concrete blocks this is like like it's half inspired by the farm half by jail luke this is great but see only a ginger could do this because they're weird you know

what i mean yeah like carrot top yeah like they're crafty people but they're weird like canelo very crafty but he's got those weird tats now on his left arm right no those are good tats all right all right hey let's keep it going luke I don't know a lot about amateur wrestling, but I don't think the oil change is legal. Your thoughts? So what they're actually, well, well. Well? Well, that's.

Is that called a turkey? Is that a turkey? I've seen pornos that do less than this. Yeah. What they're supposed to be doing is grabbing the tailbone. That's what you're supposed to be doing. Not the taint bone. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. You're supposed to stay away from the Arby's section. Not the grundle area. Yes, please. You're not actually supposed to be doing things that they do to asa akira and instead only grabbing the tailbone we may have to go to the next one luke i don't think we can stay here much longer this is uh it's just replaying over and over again luke just full on

yeah that's uh wow that's that's uh okay let's keep. Hey, Rough and Rowdy 14 was this weekend brought to you by Barstool Sports. Check out this guy, Luke. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I mean, he's the worst fighter ever, but he's jacked. Yeah, he is. Do you get down for this tough man style stuff where everybody's got a funny nickname and

they all look like they've eaten paint chips as kids kids luke here's what i would say to that like i couldn't watch a whole event like this sober but it has its place yeah it does it does i mean that tough man show they used to have on when we were kids that was great that was great all right all right hey luke i got a new york city subway update for you check out this guy's T-shirt. I'm sure he's very nice, Luke. That's the least offensive thing I've ever seen on a New York City subway. I think you're right. I think you're right. I'd love to see what he's reading, though, right?

I mean, if he loves that, wow, okay. Let's keep it going here. A little accident here on the BMX scene. Very regrettable ending. BC, let me ask you a question are they white yeah well they are yeah i mean they turned that girl into a rag doll met her in a movie right hot tramp daddy's little cutie oh white betty bam bam oh black betty bang boy well oh you know get on with that cotton All right, amateur boxing time, Luke. Anything can happen on the regional scenes, as we know. But luckily, the ropes opened up just in time for an entrance to hell.

Look at this, Luke. That's his first match. Dude, the referee is... He's got some dreads there, right?s there right yeah apparently wow he just really just got yeah that's that's that's rough all right hey we talked about pfl impressing us on friday how about brendan luffinane the guy who dana white kicked off the contender series did you really just pronounce his name like that brian brendan lonanye uh luke he uh i love brendan lochnan not only did lochnan get a finish luke he yelled who's not a fucking finisher over and over again into the camera

your thoughts on this yeah so the for folks who don't know this is the guy on the contender series who despite winning and looking good the entire time ended the fight on a takedown so dana white was like you know we don't want him. And they were like, why? He's really good. He went in here and beat former UFC veteran Shaman Maraish, who was a very good fighter, and did it, as you can see, in vicious fashion. This dude, Brendan Loughnan, can fight his ass off.

Pay attention. Yeah, Brendan Loughnan. He's fantastic there, big time. Let's go back to white people. Luke, you know what they say about white people in rope swings, right? Not a match made in heaven. You know, are they sober? Is there a pickup truck involved?

Oh, this is going to go poorly, isn't it? Yeah. That's somewhere in middle America there, Luke, you know? All right. Drunken KO of the week. Oh. Oh, fella. I'm sure that had good intentions, Luke,

but you could just pour some dirt over him after that. That was full on. Full frontal. Just sprinkle some sand and walk away. I was like, listen, Sam, that was a nice attempt. Luke, you know what I always thought was stupid? You want know listen sam that was a nice attempt but look you know what i always thought was stupid like you want to take martial arts as a kid that's great but they have those like shows those recitals where they stand up and break boards it always

looked dangerous to me luke i don't i don't believe that they're actually breaking the board we can go to the next slide here i'm teasing it up thank you um but uh you know it's always i don't ever want to be the guy holding it right it's always problematic you know what i'm saying he got yeah that was me after getting the second moderna shot that's the that's the johnson and johnson version right there look wow that is that is awesome this guy in the back just absolutely runs over this motherfucker. Bow. Board intact. CTE in effect. All right.

Let's go back on the BMX. I got these all out of order this week, but they're still white. Here we go, Luke. Oh, man. I can't believe he's white. Luke, here's the deal. This is so out of character. I have a pick of about 100 of this same video every week every week right so i don't flood the market with nut shots but this is like the most violent angle of like nut on rail that you could ever imagine like i need to see the after video i need to see

documented history i don't understand bc if you just watch this i don't understand the choices he's making here now i don't know what he's attempting but there's a ramp he could just go up castration yeah well here's the thing you can go up that ramp at any point and you'd be fine he's headed towards the stairs he bails like he's trying to hurt his nuts that's how you know he's caucasian because there was nothing to this other than he was trying to do a jackass thing with his testicles baby please don't have kids yeah you know ever i mean that's that is violent as shit luke that is really wow all right hey we got a couple more for you you got to be careful with pool tricks even though it's summer season luke

everybody wants to get the biggest IG pick. Traffic. There's always a cock blocker in every friend circle, Luke, right? This guy's just trying to make his IG spectacular. And, yeah. Boom, son. All right, one more for you this week, Luke. And this maybe would be a fan submission some days,

but our own Brian Daly of Showtime, vice president of digital, we love that man, right? Maybe the patriarch of morning combat. Yes, he is. He sent me this from a New Jersey suburb over the weekend, Luke. He was driving by this landscaper, a fine gentleman, a fine American, as Luke would say, who was on lunch break and had the MK sweatshirt on backwards, Luke. Your thoughts.

Yes. Let's figure this out. What is in the cooler? Oh, God. Hooch. Definitely hooch, right? Prison wine, number one, that they made out of a toilet. And he definitely stopped at 7-Eleven this morning.

He's got a couple of taquitos in there, probably a honey bun, and I'm going to say a large pink lemonade. What do you think? In a pocket full of vape? Hopefully. Oh, he's vaping like there's no tomorrow. I think this is awesome. These are our people quite

i mean look it's not like we don't know that we've sold some merch and that we're trying to get the second line out there and that you know i i'm confident luke that this shit's gonna be flying around the world like hot cakes once the international shipping gets the the uh the plus the the hits the play button but this is like a grassroots moment of luke we made it when random landscaper is like you know what i don't wear the mk today right i'm gonna rep mk brother as i sit on the side of the road and milk this this lunch break uh this is great great those are our people luke okay that's who we want wearing it we want bill and jen in the hoodie and t-shirt standing in front of hoover dam and then going on a tour of the five utah national parks that's what we want wearing it we want bill and jen in the hoodie and t-shirt standing in front of hoover

dam and then going on a tour of the five utah national parks that's what we want those are our people luke okay sweet no um okay you don't have love for the american migrant worker here luke how do you know he's a migrant worker okay thanks thanks luke you know the first rule in improv right you never say no you never you never you never derail the conversation right you always add a little bit more pepper to the joke keep it going yeah we don't do improv here okay thanks thanks that's the shit luke thanks that's good uh okay so with that out of the way uh time for odds and ends, BC. What do you got for your odds and or ends? UFC 261 had a lot of winners, Luke, from fans, journalists, Dana, right-wingers,

Rose Namajunas, Kamaru Usman, Valentina Shevchenko. Oddly enough, do you know who is competing right with all of them for who won Saturday night? You mentioned it earlier. Jake freaking Paul. Luke, we got to examine what's actually going on here.

If we can run the DC video. So look, Jake Paul gets what you would assume is free tickets to this event, right? You got to ask yourself, why would UFC do that? Well, Jake Paul commands a large audience and could bring eyes to the pay-per-view. But DC, during the broadcast, says, oh, there's Jake Paul, I don't play around, I'm going to go have words with him, and does so off-camera to the level, Luke,

where they need to be separated. I had a lot of issues with this, Luke. Let me put it like this. Shouldn't DC be better than this? Shouldn't one of my favorite fighters of all time, a surefire Hall of all time, a surefire hall of famer and argument in the goat category, two division champion.

Shouldn't he be better than leaving the broadcast position and running and jumping in the face of a YouTuber? Unless, unless maybe he's a lot smarter than, than I'm giving him credit here. And this is some kind of long play for, for a boxing match that could give him an easy win and big time money and double his celebrity.

But even if it is that Luke shouldn't DC be better than this? Like, even if it is that shouldn't he kind of be better than this and shouldn't, you know, if it is promoting a future thriller boxing pay-per-view main event in which he fights Jake Paul, isn't that a direct conflict of interest to what UFC's trying to do with their own product? I just felt this completely weird, Luke.

And then you add this tweet from Jake Paul to Dana White, which I think is fueling what you said about, man, this guy's a real dweeb, but he's hitting the right notes in terms of being a troll. He exits a UFC event in which he got the crowd to yell, fuck Jay Paul, many, many times in which the camera zoomed in on him, in which a UFC broadcaster, an ex-champion tried to fight him. He closes with sending Dana White to hell, Luke. This is an evisceration. If you're only listening to the audio here, it's basically Jake Paul undressing Dana

about the lack of fighter pay across the board and basically saying, like, I've made three times as much money in my first three fights as any of your fighters, whatever it was, Luke. Dude, like, this is KO1. Like, this is insane. There's been no comeback from Dana White white but i exit this weekend going hey ufc you just gave jake paul the platform but maybe maybe this is a long-term angle to have a kimbo slice like ultimate fighter in which jake paul comes in and

and ends up having a cm punk like mma fight i mean it's not ridiculous right he can punch a little bit he had a high school wrestling background. But even if that's a long-term play, Luke, they gave a lot of real estate to one of the biggest pro-wrestling trolls. This felt like a WCW invasion angle. He props himself in the UFC crowd.

He starts all this shit. Dana did nothing but talk bad about Triller's pay-per-view numbers afterwards and kind of shit all over it. God, he's in their head, Luke. He kind of stole Saturday night. Am I wrong? I don't love the guy at all. No, I mean, the guy couldn't be more, you know, everything bad that people say about

him is probably true, but, you know, you go to have the crowd chanting at him. You have DC interrupting his broadcasting duties to go over there for, I mean, whatever the fuck that was. Real or staged. Embarrassing. And then, you know, okay, here's the thing. Dana did not bring it up. Dana was asked questions, but now the media is bringing it up.

So, I mean, like, who's this constant specter hanging over MMA right now? It's Jake Paul. And, you know, it's not very hard for him to do this. This happened super quickly. Now, I thought Dana's comments were actually right that like hey the guy like what they do is not what we do and he might make some money good for him but their numbers are all bullshit he's right their numbers are all bullshit but but what i will say is like what i find amazing is as long as mma fighters for various different reasons are just willing to to embarrass themselves. Jake Paul is going to keep having a career and keep being relevant. And they seem quite willing to all do the embarrassing thing.

So this is just going to continue. I mean, it's crazy. The guy's going to have a whole career of just dunking on MMA because they sign up for shit like that or they take acts that just magnify him because they think it's like the, I don't know, the manly thing. I don't know what they think, to be quite honest with you. Look, it's one thing to take over the screen on a UFC broadcast

when you're someone in the crowd and have the crowd chanting for you and they mention you on the broadcast. And it's another thing to then dunk on the president of ufc with absolutely no lies with like come not coming for him in some stupid way like hey dana let's fight or why don't you send connor my way and i'll knock him out no he's coming at dana with like you know somewhat hot button issues i mean i i see no lies in what he slung there in that in that truth um should a response be in order i mean what what happens next because he kind of just owned them well when brendan chobb did the whole eskimo brothers thing dana didn't respond to that either which is probably the right call

i think not responding to this is also the right call because if you respond to it what are you going to say you know like for as annoying as jake paul might be dude he's like and i don't even think the claim is like oh i make more make more than any other UFC fighter ever. Well, in disclosed pay, it's certainly at the higher end, but not more than anyone ever, not even close. But the general point about being underpaid is still right. Like make Francis Ngannou versus Jon Jones. That's right. Your guys want to come over to boxing because they can get bigger paydays.

That's true. So it's like if you respond to that, you automatically validate it. You just got to take the L and walk away. And that's the best way to save it, I think, in the end. We all feel like this Jake Paul experience, which I know we're not supposed to talk about anymore on the show, is like this balloon that's going to pop, right? It's like, okay, how many people can he beat until he's exposed?

And then how many more times will people want to watch him after exposure? Gun to your head. Does he ever fight in the UFC I mean who's a better fighter him or CM Punk probably you know like probably Jake Paul probably Jake Paul bro um I'll say true. I'll say true. You know, crazy. I told you. I thought Bellator should have gotten into this business. I said this earlier.

It's not that I like Jake Paul. It's that it is so obviously lucrative. He has all of these donks signing up to play all of his games, which in the end only serve him. And I'll be honest. It's amusing to watch him stunt on these people to be quite candid with you i didn't think that it would be but they keep giving him everything he wants it's funny it's funny to watch did do you agree with my sentiments that either way dc should kind of be better than this? I mean, here's the thing. If he was just there as a fan,

is it a thing I would do? No, but okay. That doesn't mean anything. But if you're actually broadcasting, I kind of feel like... Dude, if I was on a job, I've done broadcasting at very low levels. Really low levels.

The kind of places where when you're done, they pay you only in cash. You know what I mean? Here's a hot dog and a Homer. Thank you. Yeah, enjoy it. And I feel like if I had done that, I would have been fired on the spot. It's like Dan Hardy got fired for being unprofessional. And maybe he was unprofessional. I wasn't there, but that's just what the story is. How is that being unprofessional. And maybe he was unprofessional.

I wasn't there, but that's just what the story is. How is that not unprofessional? Yeah, I don't see how Dan could want that. I think on the night, he did a great job on commentary. I really mean that. But that was a weird, aberrant moment. And the little fight club that DC, Joe, and Anik are building together where it's almost like they've evolved at times

to fight companion level. We've talked about this. I love that. I love when the camera's on them and they're doing ridiculous things. I think that adds a nice sauce and flavor to the broadcast. But yeah, this felt off-brand to the level that I can't see Dana being happy with DC having done that again unless this is some kind of like

Vince McMahon double-cross long play thing of where they're already building the business plan to get Jake Paul into their sphere, which you also can never put it past them completely. We did see Kimbo and CM. It did happen. We saw James Toney. I mean, there are some things that have happened, Luke, okay? Can't take them back.

Yeah, it would not at all surprise me if they signed him for some kind of, even if it was just a Zufa boxing event on Fight Pass or something, you know. But here's the thing. As long as Jake Paul, like, as long as he's not in the stage where he needs, like, a real legitimate opponent and he can just box whoever, he doesn't need Dana. That's the thing. He only needs Dana if he wants to take it up a notch. I don't know that he does.

We'll have to see. But if he does, yeah, I think it could work. Floyd stops Logan Paul, but like the Conor fight, Logan Paul shows you enough where you're like, oh, he's not incompetent, right? Like let's say Logan Paul is quasi-competitive and then gets sent to hell by Floyd. Does Floyd Jake Paul seem inevitable after that?

Oh, yeah, dude. Because you're asking me, could Floyd win a fight and then make money? And a shitload of it? You know? Yeah, of course. Like, I mean, there's just no... I mean, it's not for me. I told you guys this at the beginning.

None of that shit is for me. I'm not the audience. But I got to tell you, dude, it did not take long for two guys who can't box to take over boxing and MMA. Isn't it fucking insane? It happened seemingly overnight on some level. It's not that I respect trolling or I find it to be like this amazing form of entertainment, but if it works on the intended audience, which is really the only thing that matters here, you,

it is, it, you got to take your hat off to them on some level. I really, truly mean that it is fucking hysterical to watch MMA fighters just trip over themselves for a guy who can't hold their jock strap. And yet he's the dominant figure here. It is hysterical.

I bet you Dylan Danis is thinking, Jake Paul, you stole everything I worked for, right? Yeah. And Danis can actually fight a little bit, you know? It's funny. Yeah. Interesting. All right, Luke, what do you got for odds and or ends?

And or ends. Our guy, Da Monster, I think he's, is he the monster in english or el monstruo i can't remember he's english he's english well he's puerto rican i mean no i'm saying he's he puts the nickname in english okay that's okay okay okay okay so edgar berlanga got back to action over the weekend and if you guys don't know he's 23 years old this was in fact his 17th fight uh but all 16 previously had ended inside the first round now this one didn't he his opponent uh demand nicholson in fact made it out of the first round in fact made it the entire distance it was a unanimous decision although bc he got dropped four times along the way and I

thought Berlanga for an eight rounder definitely some things to work on definitely some things to work on but I think also showed you a lot of good stuff when the power itself wasn't enough to send guys straight to hell great timing I thought on a lot of his punches yeah this was one of those where it's like, everyone has the same response, but I think it's true. It's like, he he's so better off for having stepped up to a level where someone can push him past the first round KO or even the early round KO limit.

And DeMond Nicholson like was the perfect opponent. Luke, he's got pop. He can box. He was proved tougher than you thought after he took some of those early knockdowns. And again, like not perfection for Edgar Belonga, but 17 fights in, he showed good boxing IQ, stamina.

Luke, those short right sort of, I mean, they're not hooks. You can't really throw a hook with the right hand from the orthodox position. But they're like short little cracking crosses. Those are a problem. Like he turned Nicholson's you know chin easy with that like he's got some very creative punches in that in that larger you know artillery of just being a big dude who punches really hard he's an athletic kid um look like you know this could have been one of those moments where he barely won and looked bad

or there's a lot more to work on or it goes disastrously and he passed the test and i think he passed it in ways where you can be more excited about who he can actually be as a fighter rather than how short term he could be as a draw built upon the first round knockout streak i think that's right so that's all i got and anthony smith won how about that which had to make you feel good luke as much as rose made me feel good about life and all that in Lithuania, I'm sure Anthony Smith just really tickled your palate, your fancy, put his hand right in your feel hole, and won the night for you by injuring that man's leg.

Well, I think he'll be okay number one and number two i don't dislike fighters just for no bad or i should say no good reason unlike you see when i hold grudges against fighters i have a reason but you don't i don't hold grudges against fighters mike perry's done some ruthless things to me i love mike perry in, we can't bring this guy on the show because he didn't equip himself with a mic. But you know our guy Maniche, one of our producers here, Luke? You know Maniche, right? The white rapper? Great guy, right?

A soulful guy, right? He was on vacation last week. And Gaff, by the way, held the fort down extensively well. But Core Dog was in Miami. And he ran into Mike Perry and Coach Latorre and Ocean. I'd love to hear that inside scoop of what it was like, Luke.

I don't have any ill will to the Perrys. I mean, it's not like Luke versus Ioana, you know, fight forever, right? No, it's not a fight forever, but I just have no reason to repair it. I don't care. Okay, well, that is us for today. We wanna thank everyone for watching, of course.

Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. We still have a big week ahead of us. There's plenty to happen, but we'll preview that at subsequent episodes on Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the East and then on Friday at 11 a.m. in the East. And you can see, of course, you want to follow us on social media.

There you go. Oh, no, wait. I need to dead wrong myself, too. I was going to wait till Friday, but I think it's important to do it today. Last week, I had said that they were going to make a Whitaker, excuse me, a Vittori versus Adesanya fight because they went to the lowest bidder rather than the appropriate choice. Now, that is true, I think, for the Derek Lewis fight as it relates to Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou, but it turns out it is not true for the way it worked.

It was actually Israel Adesanya that really wanted that date. UFC did go to Whitaker, and Whitaker just, for a lot of reasons, simply was not in a position to take it, so they went with Vittori. But Whitaker thinks it'll be like the situation between Kamaru and Jorge, where Kamaru will take one fight in between, but Jorge will only have fought, the next fight for him will be the title fight. So I want to be clear, got that wrong, and we noted on there.

Didn't Brett Okamoto's reporting on that mention that they came to Whitaker an hour after his last victory? I don't know. I don't know if I read that or not. I cannot remember. But I do know that I had misstated some of the things. I want to be clear about that.

And I'm not trying to drop the conspiracy anchor in the middle of this. I'm just saying that, like, you know, Whitaker did say I have to go through the quarantine to get back home. I want to be with my family, all that.

So it seems like the right move all things considered. But, uh... Yep. Yeah, all right. I just want to be clear. I got that wrong. So there you go.

Okay, stand up and take the L. I like this. This is a new look, right? This is great. Listen, the way to build trust with an audience is not to be mistake-free, although you should obviously try to avoid mistakes. The key to the audience is that when you make the mistakes, you own up to them. That's what we're doing.

You said, look, BC, you thought you were living on more royalties than you had there to put the do-rag on. This audience won't support that. They don't want that. I won't even call this cultural appropriation because it's more just like you have a reservoir tip on your head. Is there jizz in there? That's not nice at all, Luke. Is that a mask full of jizz?

All right. If you want to send us an email, morningcombat at gmail.com. Let's see. You can put that. There you go. For Dead Wrong, four fan submissions on Wednesday. There's that. Let's see.

If you want to try Showtime, you can. Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial. If you want to take that plunge, show.com slash Bellator MMA. $4.99 a month for the next six months. Of course, we have some merch. Store.show.com, hats, shirts, mugs, face coverings, reservoir tips, the nines there, as you can see. All right,

so for CBS Sports, for Showtime, for Malka, and for Rorschach on the other side of the screen, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. you you you