MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 261 | Welterweight Division | Whittaker-Gastelum | Chandler-Gaethje? | Ep. 131

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

The boys are back to break down the latest news in the combat sports world. Kamaru Usman will be defending his title against Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261. That is one of three title fights on that card. The guys discuss the welterweight division and who is potentially up next/how to matchmake the top of the division. Paulo Costa was pulled from his bout with Robert Whittaker on April 17th, but don't worry guys Kelvin Gastelum is stepping up to take Costa's spot. Next up Brian and Luke discuss the idea of Open scoring systems and break down some reports of a potential matchup between Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler. The guys close out the show with the Wheel of Death and Fan submissions. --------------------------- '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

Hi everyone, it is Wednesday, the 17th of March, 2021. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. Usually it's a day of absolute amateurs getting drunk and making a fool of themselves. Actually, it sounds pretty appropriate, BC. I won't be doing any drinking, but perhaps we can do the latter. This is Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. Over on the other side of the screen is Brian Campbell, and and we are from cbs sports hello bc how are you i'm doing great luke i wore this green t-shirt to celebrate my people although you may typically represent me as a french canadian lithuanian mix don't forget

luke i'm one eighth irish so uh aaron go bra indeed in fact, Aaron lose the brah already, if you know what I'm saying, right? And hopefully all us Irish folks this fine day will be drinking, slurring our Gaelic, all that great stuff. Hey, my great grandmother was a Brady who married a Bolton, Luke. Okay, it's in my blood, bro. You represent like every white person on earth. You have every nationality of whites is all represented inside you. You know what I mean? Yeah, they love me in Puerto Rico.

Believe me. Believe me. Especially when you belittle them at a car rental places when you're angry. They love that. We have a great show today. Actually, a stacked show in terms of topics. UFC 261 got announced. We'll talk about the card and the location and why that's all important we got sort of a welterweight title mix-up to get to

we'll talk about some news related to open scoring we now have some data to either support or attack the idea that open scoring should be in mma plus the let's see wheel of death we've got uh fan submissions we got a lot going on today. So please, get the video. And look, most importantly, even with the Fury Joshua news, we have no boxing on today's show. So 99% of our audience will be pleased. They love it when we don't talk about a thing we're supposed to talk about. But hey, it is life. Okay. So if you would be so kind, thumbs up on the video.

Hit subscribe. Let's see. If you would like to get some, try Showtime. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30 day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not,

you can pound sand. And then by the way, look at the URL there, show.com slash Bellator MMA. If you go there and you sign up, I am told your first six months will be just $5.99 for the entirety of the Showtime experience. So there you can't avoid this deal.

I know we sound like shills here because this is the label that pays us, Luke, but it's exclusive right now, Bellator MMA on Showtime. So April 2nd, we are kicking off Pitbull Sanchez 2, the light heavyweight tournament to follow that. Where else the hell are you going to watch Rumble Romero, Luke, right here on Showtime, okay? Well, I don't know, BC, but I know I'm going to watch it for $10 that month because I don't get this deal. Your boy has to pay for Showtime at

not this price. So if you want to get in on the goods, there's your role. You could get a free stream, but I'm not sure CBS Sports recognizes your employment, Luke. Hey, by the way, I didn't announce this publicly, but just yesterday I re-signed for a bunch more years with the folks at CBS Sports. So Luke, you and I, we're going to be brethren. We're going to stay in this sexless marriage. So congratulations to you on that. Let's keep

it that way. Okay, if you would be so kind as to maybe try out some MK merch, you can go to store.show.com. There's a bunch of merch there. Hats, mugs, yada, yada, yada. All good stuff. And then I think that's about it for right now, BC. Would you like to get the show started?

Oh, one quick cheap plug. I'm obviously in Puerto Rico. I know none of you have heard that yet. I haven't announced that publicly yet. But Thursday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, please check out on NBC Sports Network what me and the good folks are doing, Ring City USA. Look, it's Mexico versus Puerto Rico night. So there is going to be some legendary rivalry celebrated

and hopefully some legendary fisticuffs exchanged inside the ring, another outdoor venue. I can't wait to come, you know, full frontal with the island. So let's do it. Is there going to be a crowd? No, but last time people were watching from their rooftops in the neighborhood, so it got a little Wrigley Field-esque. I loved it, you know? All right, that's fun.

All right, well, let's get this party started if we can. Let's start with the biggest news that we have yet to talk about. Probably the biggest news in the sport, at least for right now. UFC 261 was formally announced by UFC President Dana White and then the organization sometime later. Here are the details, and there's a lot to unpack here. April 24th, and this will be the UFC's first show outside of either Vegas or Fight Island since that initial show for the Ferguson and Gaethje bout. I forget which UFC it was, whatever, 250-something, 249, whatever, in Jacksonville,

Florida. In fact fact they're going to be back there so april 24th back at the same arena in jacksonville florida which by the way will house about 15k fans yes it is going to be apparently so we are told at this point full house indoors okay look can i pause you there can i pause you there before you even get into how stack this card is so double salute to dana and company um we had our bet i said february 1st 2021 we'd see full arenas in combat sports or pro sports in general again uh i you know i didn't hedge on that bet but i acknowledged during this weird journey the past year that I was probably going to be wrong because of how shut down shit was. I got to get your reaction first and foremost.

I wasn't far off here. April 24th, we're going to see a full damn arena from your Dr. Luke Fauci position of concern for the world. Is this the right move right now? Now, really, pick your words carefully, because I could see you starring in a four-minute video after this, but be careful. No, I don't think so. I mean, people were begging me to react to this,

thinking I was going to flip out, but I don't. So, look, what day is it today? It's the 17th of March. Let's start with this. Where are we going to be on April 24th? Where is COVID going to be in Florida, in Duval County, which is where Jacksonville is, in five weeks or so? So the question there is it could be in a much better place.

Currently, I think 11% of Florida is at least single vaccinated, 9% or 10% double. So maybe that number will be significantly higher in five weeks. Maybe, by the way, we haven't heard the UFC announce what their protocol is going to be. Are they going to require masks? Are they going to require negative tests or nothing? Or NDAs for the media? What are they going to require?

Right. So we don't know anything about that yet. They've not said that. Because you've got to imagine, UFC doesn't want to have a super spreader event on their hands. That doesn't mean they won't cause one, but they're at least probably thinking that might be a bad look. So listen, there's a reason to think that maybe come April 24th,

it may not be that bad. It may not be that good, but it may not be like some kind of disaster. Like, you know, there's a way to say, let's see what happens once we get there. But the thing that I probably would say is we see like, dude, 500,000 Americans have died. And the entire time there have been a number of folks in this community who may comply with what a private business or a government ordinance might ask of them. They're not out there making a show of their fake rebellion, but they never took the pandemic seriously. They did what they were supposed to, to make things move, but they thought it was all excess. They didn't care. They thought it was anti-science,

even though, of course, that's the most ridiculous fucking position imaginable. And all of my hectoring all during that time, you know, if you didn't get the message before, what am I, what the fuck could I possibly say now? So listen, do I think it's prudent to go to Florida in April? No, I think what would be prudent is to wait until we reach certain benchmarks in terms of what reopening should really be dictated by by CDC data. Once we get there, yeah. Then when the government decides to lift various restrictions and UFC announces we're going to have masks, whatever, then I think that's the time. So i'm not guaranteeing to ubc it's going to be some kind of disaster but it is imprudent seems a little hasty it but if 5 000 dead americans doesn't convince you to act on the side of prudence what the fuck could i say well you know look this is

far from the tai chi palace disaster this is far from a lot of things because not only has florida luke i don't think ever really recognized that there isn't a covid pandemic going on first of all but uh number two you know we are seeing other states completely open up you know love it or hate it texas mississippi on and on so um dana white and ufc have been very bold obviously this whole process over the past year public health officials that are saying this is a good idea? Because I can tell you what. Well, here's my thing, Luke. I've heard from a lot of government officials that this is a good idea for economic activity, and that's probably true.

I've not heard any real public health officials come to the defense of the idea that what Texas is doing, which, by the way, Governor Greg Abbott has a whole shit show in his hands because of that electricity grid. I think that the two events are related. And Ron DeSantis, I think, has been unfairly maligned at times in Florida. But it's hard to argue that this opening is a function of scientific consensus. That's clearly not true. Well, look, somebody's got to be first. we know that and this is where obviously you know me being the subject of that four minute video was a little bit or sorry a lot of it off base in december because you know after the initial outrage of tachi palace we've been rightfully saying look somebody's got to be first dana and company are taking the right steps and to their

credit they pulled it off and had a monster 2020 and they are ready to kick off an insanely monster 2021 so under the guise luke of somebody having to be first and all the other states starting to slowly open up business we've already having 15 000 and giant arenas separated if someone's going to be the the the guinea pig the test that you know incubator to try this, I say, why not it be? Why not it be? I say, why? Yeah, Luke, I say, why not it be Dana White and UFC? They've had success of doing this successfully. They've done it responsibly.

I think it's time, Luke. You know, could there be a little bit of a negative fall from this in terms of numbers? There might be. But at some point, Luke, and I'm not trying to go extreme in the other direction, but at some point, we do have to intermingle among each other a lot of people are vaccinated we do have to sort of uh start to live again luke i want to live okay i mean we just

all we're doing is having listen we're just having the same debate over and over okay well then why don't we move past this debate pandemic is over when the virus tells us it's over not when i say it's over not when you say it's over nothing it's when the virus tells us it's over. Not when I say it's over, not when you say it's over, nothing. It's when the virus essentially is brought to heel. We are engaging in public interaction, in this case, pretty significant one, without that fact being a part of the conversation. The virus is not brought to heel. Whatever else you want to say about it, and we're still going to go out there and do this. So listen, think it's the the best idea in the world no am i guaranteeing that this will result in calamity no i'm not doing that either it's just it's hasty it's imprudent and maybe that's the listen bc maybe that's the actual worst i could say about it that's hasty that's

imprudent all right well would you be okay worst thing in the world you know all right i want to linger here obviously and let's get into how great this fight card looks in a second, but would you have felt better if the UFC took that in-between step of doing the outdoor stadium first? Oh, 100%. 100%. I know the Rangers are going to... How did the Super Bowl avoid calamity?

You have to ask yourself that. How did that happen? Because the arena wasn't full, but there were tens of thousands of people there. Now, a huge portion of them were first responders who had already been vaccinated. But still, dude, that's a lot of moving parts. You've been to... Anyone who's ever been to a game, look how many people there are, people who are working in concessions, and then there's staff for the teams, and then they're getting water

bottles, and there's doctors And then there's staff for the teams. And then they're getting water bottles. And there's doctors. And there's cameramen. It's just a shit ton of people. And they were able to successfully mitigate some of that. I think in part, dude. And then the Canelo fight too with 15,000 people. Outdoors would be a big deal.

Listen. Listen. I'm not going to cry about it. I've said what I've had to say. I've been saying what I've had to say for a year. Either these things as a way of guiding society matter to you or they don't and yeah stop crying you old bitch i mean you think this is going to stop the schmo from going to this show or john morgan's blue shirt here's the real question would you go as media i would i

would now not just because i love this card but because i believe they'll be taking the right steps and i know everyone's going to say, BC, you're just trying to get off of that video and on good. No, I'm trying to get on with our lives and our careers. Luke, our producers are telling us that there are people in the comments believing that this show is prerecorded. It's live, okay? 11.15 is live.

All right. So get off our bags on that one. All right. Luke, let's get into this. They are going big. Go big or go home. They're going big, bro. So we'll see.

So we'll see what happens on the 24th. Might be fine. You know, either way, you're an adult. Make a good choice about it. Okay, so here is the card itself. All right, pretty goddamn stack. They're coming out swinging, UFC. UFC welterweight championship will be on the line.

Kamaru Usman is going to take on Jorge Masvidal. The flyweight championship is going to be on the line. Valentina Shevchenko versus Jessica Andrade. The strawweight championship will be up for grabs. Wei Li Zhang versus Zhang versus Rose Namajunas. And then up and down the card, Uriah Hall versus Chris Weidman. Anthony Smith versus Jimmy Crute. That's a hell of a fight.

Brendan Allen versus Karl Roberson. And it goes on and on from there. BC, your reaction to, forget about the stuff about being indoors, whatever. The card itself, what do you have to say about it? Look, I'm serious right now. How can you say anything negative about Dana and company, about what the best type of foot they're putting forward? They're trying to come back in a big way, as they did with 249 in Jacksonville, when they gave us, Luke, one of the sickest cards you know top to bottom in terms of depth that we've seen in a long time this one's hitting us over the head with three title fights and a fight in Usman Masvidal too that yes could our cynical critical side be

like well this could be a long Russell fuck maybe I don't know but this is also personality wise and marketing wise the type of fight you could have done an ultimate fighter for to really bang that drum and instead they're like you know what we're just going to give it to you now uh this is UFC coming off an incredibly successful year already starting this one huge and almost kind of doubling down on saying you know right now we think we're the premier sporting you know a league in the world from the standpoint of getting out there letting you back in our buildings and giving you the best possible fights we can look this is a 10 out of a 10 from the standpoint of doing that i've told you a million times zhang nomi uh

waley zhang nomi nama unis is is my super bowl but when you mix it with those other two fights and you know obviously a solid undercard, this almost, like I said, like we just argued a minute ago, this makes me want to get on the plane, strap on the mask, get in line behind Schmo and Bob Barstool and figure out where my place is in line, Luke, because I got to see this shit, all right? I mean, this, you know, let's be clear about this. This card is phenomenal.

I mean, it's pretty spectacular spectacular here's how good it is we'll talk about the merits bc of usman and masvidal getting rematched because there's a whole lot to unpack there but you can't really argue that the fight will be bad it might be anticlimactic relative to expectations like the first one or like the first one light so to speak but sorry they're gonna sell That's a heated rivalry. That's a Florida rivalry. That makes all the sense in the world if you're going to go to Florida

to put that fight on the card. Easy, easy call. And, dude, the co-main and then the feature fight, Valentin Shevchenko and Andrade and then Zhang and Nama Yunus, to your point. Dude, this is, I mean, you could say so many different things about this. You couldn't ask, you couldn't,

it'd be hard to, I'll say this, it'd be hard to find a hardcore fan who would tell you that the main event will be more entertaining than either the co-main or the feature fight. Like, just from an entertainment standpoint, those boys have a lot of work to do. There's going to be big shoes to fill by the time they get on stage

and they might get upstaged by the ladies. Damn right. They've got the best in two await classes there. And while one of them is a little bit shallow, has an all-time great maybe at the top in Valentina Shevchenko. Plus, to your point, BC, Jang versus Nama Yunus is just everything you could want as an MMA fan. You get three of these title fights on this card.

Obviously, you get a little more bang for your buck. We'll see what they charge. But it's a showcase of women's MMA. It's a showcase of UFC strength. It's a showcase of the internationalization of MMA. It's a super, super show. It's a damn showcase. Luke, I apologize. Your daughter and abuela are outside having a quinceanilla with a car alarm outside my window here.

But hopefully people aren't hearing that so well. I will say, Luke, that we can almost underplay how good Shevchenko-Andraja is going to be because it fits between two maybe sexier fights, but if anyone's going to push the great Valentina Shevchenko for five rounds and have that puncher's chance, it's shaved head Andraja coming in there with the tattoos

looking to knock her the hell out. I cannot wait. Damn. Luke, I'm excited about the fights, the interviews leading up to the fights the storylines everything about this well done people hope nobody catches COVID now let's talk about the Usman Masvidal fight do you like the idea of the and by the way a quick turnaround you know from the last fight with Gilbert Burns he's right back in there should the UFC have done Masvidal or should the UFC have actually you know what for just a second forget about the what rest of the title picture because

that's actually our second point let me spit it to you like this best part about this rematch worst part about this rematch uh well look the best part about it is that it's the rich getting richer from the standpoint of you could have put on the same card with those two women's fights and i would have been super excited and now you're just dropping monster personality on top of there look it makes me wonder whether they uh have a better plan for tough you know tough will never die we know it's coming back it's fun that they can put a fun matchup in there whether it's I don't know John Jones against the winner of Stipe Francis they, this tells you they have big plans for that, that they're not going to delay this.

And obviously, look, Masvidal secured for himself somewhat of a get out of jail free card with the standpoint that you can only give him so much criticism for how he fought against Kamaru the first time because he took the fight on extreme last minute. Now we get to see, does he really have that puncher's chance to go in there with aggressive striking and make Usman fight the type of fight he doesn't want to uh or is this just always going to be a trap matchup for him I can't wait to see the fact that they're kind of rushing it and giving to us now again it's gravy on top of an already sauced up meal and I should know a lot about dropping the sauce on a you know damn piece of meat there uh from that standpoint I love it give me a

negative because I cannot really find one right now. Luke, please, give me something. Be critical. I don't think the result's going to be any different. I think what you got the first time is... I mean, that's not a prediction, but I don't know what you saw aside from, yes, the cardio did fade of Jorge Masvidal, but what did you see between that fight and then the subsequent update from

Kumar Usman and his last fight against Gilbert Burns that gives you reason to think that this is a winnable fight for Jorge? I know what the answer might be. I, you know, he's a good striker. Obviously he's highly experienced. He knows what he's up against.

Right. But some of the things that plagued him in that fight, he was already well credentialed before he went into it. They reappear. These are like ongoing. Granted, the amount of weakness there is fading over time in some respects, but they're still the same ones. There's continuity over the course of his career.

If you can spam a guy like that with takedowns and you're big and strong like Kamaru Usman is, it's just a really bad matchup for Jorge Masvidal. Does Jorge Luke have a Conor versus habib type uphill climb here or do you think he has a better or less chance of of getting the upset than connor had i think he's got more of a chance i mean it's weird right because usman has far less liability on the feet i think usman is a much more significant threat on the feet than how number gamedman is a much more significant threat on the feet than Nurmagomedov is. At the same time, Jorge is super well-rounded, doesn't have bad cardio. He did in that first fight because he was short notice, but typically doesn't have bad cardio. So I'd say, I would say

that, uh, that's a tough one. Um, Khabib has more known weaknesses, but I think that beating Jorge, it's pretty special to do that, especially this version of him. And Usman's, at this point, his stock is way higher than it was entering the first fight. You can argue and say, well, is it really way higher, BC? Yeah, I think Usman's got an argument

to be the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world right now so i don't know if they put out odds already luke in the past 24 hours but i wonder if uh usman will be fairly you know higher than you think because obviously full camp mozavell is going to have a better chance and certainly i hope he's going to be willing to take the risk of getting knocked out to try to win this fight but good lord this is an uphill battle, all things considered. Yeah, Kamaru Usman is at William Hill, where we get our odds from. He's a minus 400. I think that's right.

I mean, that's still high. I mean, that still makes a good bet on Jorge Maslow at plus 300. Yeah, that's a great bet to take, especially if you really like the guy. But I do think that if it goes the way it went the first time around, I'll say this. If it goes the way it went the first time around BC, I don't think folks should be surprised. I think you should have expected that a little bit.

But that's just the negative case. The positive case is it's going to be huge for business. It's in Florida. There's demand for it. You never know with Jorge Masvidal. He is skilled enough where it's worth taking seriously his chances, whatever the odds makers may say. Yeah, it's a good fight. It's a great fight. Now, BC, that brings us to topic number two, which is the rest of the welterweight title picture. So we know when the

title is going to be up for grabs next. Again, April 24th, UFC 261. Okay. But from there, it's not exactly so clear what's supposed to happen. Wonderboy has looked for a shot because he says Leon Edwards didn't earn anything. Leon Edwards thinks, listen, the Bahamut thing was fine for what it was, but I'm ready to move on. You got Colby sitting out there. Colby doesn't want to fight Leon Edwards. Colby doesn't even want to fight Wonderboy Thompson, who he called 40-year-old virgin or something. Whatever the case. So there's a lack of clarity here. If Kamaru Usman wins, BC, let's answer the question. We'll do the same for Jorge Masvidal, but I think you might get another trilogy.

But if Kamaru wins, who would be next at that point? That's interesting. Somebody's going to have to get a win before then if we did colby covington versus gilbert burns luke which is not a bad idea and certainly not a bad fight at all even with gilbert coming off the loss uh basically i think it should be colby covington next but i would like to see him defeat somebody first now look he's coming off of a win right who did he just destroy who what am i who colby colby beat uh tyron yes yes um i'd like him to fight once more sort of in parallel with this fight and i think colby covington should get the next shot if he wins that it's nothing against steven thompson look i've looked at the comments that thompson made that you referenced to leon edwards

you know basically saying uh you got to go through me. Why don't we do that? What's stopping us, Luke? People have shat openly on my idea that we still aim to do Edwards versus Chemayev. with everybody saying, sorry, Bilal, you did have a bad luck scenario here, but this is another level class. Do you like Thompson against Edwards and Colby versus Gilbert Burns as sort of like a final four here to see who could be next? Sort of. Sort of. I mean, you could go a bunch of different directions. For me, you could go Colby straight up giving him a shot next if you wanted to. I mean, here's the thing.

It's like, oh, we can't give Leon Edwards the fight for whatever reason. He's been out forever. And then the guy you gave it to was the guy who kind of handily lost the first time. I mean, taking that fight the way Jorge did was brilliant, right? Because he not only got a fight with a title so he got you know obviously the rewards that come with that but because he performed okay enough and he had the cardio to not go the distance there was enough intrigue where they just said fuck it we'll just do it again with these two right away like seven months later what it was he didn't win

anything else he just got a like that that fight to me would not be a case for an immediate rematch the first time around i see why they did it but that's not it's not a textbook case by any stretch of the imagination so it creates these complicating factors i i don't know that like gilbert burns with one more win is back in the conversation dude that was a thorough beating he took and if camaro yeah that's a fair point you're talking me out of that why are we shoving him to the front of the line all of a sudden all right look that what i'm about to say is going to leave leon edwards on the outside looking in again luke and you can argue whether there's merit here given that he was warned and then he lost the last fight on a foul last weekend do we just do colby versus wonder boy next winner faces the winner of Usman Masvidal too.

I like that a lot more. I like that a lot more. I think it's a tough test either way. I think it's a fight Colby should win, but one never knows. And I realize when he doesn't want to, he thinks... Here's the problem that Wonderboy has, BC. All the top contenders want to pretend that Wonderboy is old news because oh he had his shot against Tyron Woodley it didn't go that's it for you and he's kind of doing the Glover to share a

thing which is knock knock knock not quite done with you bitches yet you know what I mean and no one really wants to tangle with him because it's a tough fight to win he's still kind of good but you kind of don't want to pretend that he's a relevant contender uh it's a it's a weird space for Wonderboy I would like to see honestly I still go back to it I still think the fight to make is good, but you kind of don't want to pretend that he's a relevant contender. It's a weird space for Wonderboy. I would like to see, honestly, I still go back to it. I still think the fight to make is Leon Edwards versus Wonderboy. I still think that's the one. Both of those guys are kind of in the same position. You can't quite give the shot to Leon. He's sitting at five. You can't quite give the shot to Wonderboy. One of those dudes needs to fight each other, and either Colby's

next, or Colby can fight the winner of those two and we can go from there you do understand though that marketing marketing tends to win in the end right commercial viability tends to win in the end when it comes to ufc booking title fights and you know putting who's next in line uh nobody loved usman versus covington more than dana white you have to believe if usman gets backman gets past Masvidal in the rematch like the odds tell you he will, that that's got to be next, Luke. The only question is, would Dana and company make Colby have to earn it one more time? You could argue, why would they when he's coming off of a win and he's a viable brand? But they're making Robert Whitaker, Luke, which is something we're going to get into shortly,

they're making him continue to take on tough fights before he can get back to the title picture. I mean, how many more guys does that guy have to beat? So that's probably the best case scenario. Put Colby in a fight. Yeah, he's going to be the favorite, whether it's Thompson, whether it's Burns. Hell, why not Colby versus Edwards? Look, any of those matches we're throwing out there work in the end, Luke. Colby's got next, it seems.

It seems. I think that's right. You can go with any permutation you can argue I'm not saying they're all the same some have more virtue than others but there's not a substantial difference between these permutations the Gilbert Burns one gets a little bit dicey because of the way he lost but for the rest of them between Edwards and Colby and Wonderboy there's a lot of different ways you could do that and I think they're all pretty good.

The thing I would ask you, the last thing on this before we move on to the next topic, BC, in terms of Colby getting a title shot without having to fight anyone else, what is the better outcome for him? Kamaru winning or Jorge winning? And let's say the answer is no split decision, like it's decisive. I think it's kamaru winning

i'm not saying by any means that kamaru is an easier win for him i just think there's a lot of potential you'd go into a trilogy fight if masvidal has this type of fight luke where he's you know down on the ground and losing for a lot of it against usman but he finds an opening he rallies he gets a you know a flash stoppage out of nowhere we're going back to a, you know, a flash stoppage out of nowhere. We're going back to a trilogy. You know that. And it would have to be a, it would have to be a dominant early knockout for, for Masvidal where you'd basically say, okay, he can go defend it against who's next. Usman has put together such an incredible run. I know there's only a handful of title defenses, but when you look at he's, you know, he's unbeaten here. He's in this, in this stretch, he's been incredible. It's easier for Covington to get back into a title shot if Usman wins.

And look, Covington did by far, by far the best against Usman than any of these other top contenders have fared. So, you know, he has that one piece of kryptonite that at least in that first bout gave Kamaru a reason not to try to take him down. The idea that they would cancel each other out and just exhaust each other. I don't know if the rematch would be contested like a Rocky movie again and just be straight boxing. But I think if you're Colby, you want Marty from Nebraska a second time. All right, fair enough. I think that's a pretty good analysis. All right, let's move on to topic number three. You mentioned Robert Whittaker.

So he was supposed to fight on April 17th, Paulo Costa. Costa is out, and the substitute is now Kelvin Gastelum. He's going to go from one to the other. Now, you'll recall they were supposed to fight, was it UFC 234 or something like that? That was the car that Adesanya fought Silva on.

That was the original co-main. Got bumped to the main win the day of the fight. Hours before the fight, it got called off. The one between Whitaker and then Gastelum. Gastelum ended up fighting Adesanya after that, losing and so forth. He did just defeat Ian Heinisch. Let me ask the question this way. I like the fight, BC. Robert Whitaker versus Kelvin Gastelum. I like it. You can tell me that's on a card. Wow, that's one I'm circling and saying I want to watch. However, what's interesting is I don't know that I like it for Whitaker, and there are ways in which you could like it for Gastelum, but on short notice, I don't know. Do you like this for each of them?

I don't like this. So I like the fight itself. I liked it the first time around when Whitaker was champion and we were building toward it. But at this point, Luke, again, what else would Robert Whitaker have to do to prove to you that he's back and that he's deserving of a title shot? He won two very difficult fights on paper. One against Darren Till in which he had to go to his chess game and completely just outthink him and out point him and then obviously going in there against a killer and cannon near he had to you know uh he was he was strong throughout most of it then he had to withstand a final surge that to me given Whitaker's track record a former champion one of the most complete fighters in this game a star in his own right in his corner of the globe, why the hell are we not just saying it's time for Whitaker

Adesanya too? It's a monster fight down there. In fact, maybe we make them the tough coaches. I know Adesanya is coming off a loss that does a certain amount of muting to how hot his brand was, but giving him the close-up of the tough in the storyline between the two and where they're from and where they represent i mean that just seems like it's a no-brainer to me luke i feel like this is a little bit of a waste of time and i i think that you know if it's only to save this card then i guess i understand it but uh wouldn't you be a little upset if you're whitaker guys have had to go through shorter paths after losing a championship following a strong run to get back into another opportunity. Now, granted, I do think it is worth noting all

the things we have noted before, which is, yes, he had fought Yoel Romero for 10 rounds prior to the fight, and he may have been not shop-worn, but a little bit still weathered by the whole experience. But Adesanya did win decisively the idea to me I'd be okay with him getting a title shot after beating Cannoneer I really would but I'll say this dude uh with Adesanya losing and now if Whitaker comes out and beats uh Till, Cannoneer, and Gaslam back to back to back it to me sets up such a brilliant rematch between these two. I got to tell you, I am looking forward to it. It's already set up, Luke. It's already set up, bro.

What does he gain from this? He only gains a little bit of tread coming off the tire. Well, it's different for me advising him. It's like, oh, if I was a strategist in his corner, would I tell him to go do this? Probably not. But if you wanted to fight, you wanted to stay active, and you really wanted to just nail you know that the the coffin shut and he beats Gastelum dude it is that is you

don't you don't give him any more choice there's no Paulo Costa coming back and interrupting thing there's no nothing at that point you have to give it to him um we'll see what obviously happens with Darren Till as well but I still think that would be the run of all runs at this point, given what's available, obviously, to get to that point. So I do like it in that sense, but it's a weird, risky one because, to your point, Whitaker's kind of already in that spot. He's just taking this kind of as, not a luxury, but like, do you really have to have this? Probably not. And Gastelum, dude, on short notice, you ask yourself, what did Gastelum show you in the Heinish fight that would lead you to believe, with the losses too, but with that victory, that he would give Whitaker a really hard time? And there are a couple things you could point to, but still,

that's an uphill climb for him, I feel like. That's not the easiest thing to win. Wouldn't you want a full camp for it? But they're taking the risk, dude. Yeah, I mean, look, and for Gastelum, who can be so hit or miss on giving you the very best that he has, it's a great opportunity for him, because should he find a way to win this fight, Luke, he might go right into the rematch without a sign for the championship, given how sellable from their first fight, which was such a fun, instant classic.

It's interesting, Luke. I do want to not skip over the Paulo Costa situation. We certainly wish him well. He's having lingering symptoms from his own battle with COVID. I haven't read too deeply. I don't think it's the extreme level of a Hamza Chamayev at this point, but certainly something we want to watch close. I do think, though, Luke, the more Costa delays his return,

although obviously he's not purposely doing that, mixed with all these negative headlines, all the excuses he's making, the damn Pino controversy. Luke, he's going to have to come back against whoever he comes back with, and he's going to have to be the Paulo Costa from the Romero fight, the all-man, all-the-time, chip on my shoulder. I have a lot of machismo to regain, so I'm going to just drip it all over the cage. I fear for whoever is in the front of him in the first round of his comeback fight, because there will be a lot of pressure on his shoulders to come back with a bang and remind us that all of this was a regrettable hiccup or aberration or what have you, because his stock, Luke, it's going in the wrong direction right now.

It's been weird since he lost. People defending him being like, oh, something must have been wrong with his arm. They kind of hinted at it, but they never really stuck to that because he didn't throw from his power side the way he was supposed to. They never really stuck with that,

and they went to a million other excuses, some of which just seemed to be, if true, with true or false ludicrous things to do uh and now we have a situation where obviously covid i don't think i don't know to what kind of measures he took to protect himself but it's not his fault per se so you don't wish any ill upon him my goodness and it wasn't clear to me like did he get covid and the flu or like are they just calling it the flu and it was a long bout with COVID I didn't quite understand exactly what he had suffered but either way you know it's not been a comfortable ride it's been a bumpy fucking landing since that fight and so I think it's also worth considering BC he might come out like a house on fire there also might be lingering issues there also might be some hesitancy he has to kind of work through.

Remember, Francis Ngannou, he got back on the horse, but against Derek Lewis, it didn't really go his way. So we'll see what happens with Costa. Certainly we'll have a lot of eyes on him to see how he looks when he returns. Luke, I know Marvin Vittori is looking like he's going to be the main event of that ABC card against Darren Till. Would you like the winner of that against Costa once he's fully healthy? I mean, could you imagine the freaking fireworks in Vittori Costa? Good Lord.

Yeah, dude, I am happy. I am happy to do that. Happy, happy, happy, happy to see that. Excuse me. I would love, absolutely love, because I know that there was like, oh, we don't want to fight Robert again. We want to fight somebody new. And I understand all that. The team wants to do it out of Sonia and his coach. know that there was like oh we don't want to fight robert again we want to fight somebody new and i

understand all that the team wants to do adesanya and his coach and obviously you know make your call but to me like what's more interesting adesanya versus till which is interesting or adesanya versus whittaker too i don't know man it feels like the whittaker rematch is way more interesting to me even though he got finished the way he did the first time yeah absolutely and let's not forget jared cannoneer should they do cannoneer costa oh look whoo yeah where we got to watch that fight together you're gonna have to put a seat belt on me luke all right i'm gonna turn into you reacting to poirier during that one luke wow way probably. Okay. Let's take a look now at this topic number four, BC, and I made some notes for this.

So open scoring is a thing that fans, observers, officiants, anyone really in the community will debate time to time about whether we should have it. Certain combat sports promotions like Glory have adopted it at times. Open scoring, for folks who may not know, is the opposite of what we do. After a round is over, the judges do not publicly reveal what their scores were as the rounds progress so by the time you get to a decision there's some guesswork involved in who may have won you will see that people in various broadcasts rest in peace um uh is it not larry merchant it was uh what's his name? From HBO Boxing.

Okay, Jim. What was his name? Harold Letterman. Harold Letterman, yes. So he used to do it. Four rounds to three, Aris, Slandy, Lara. Jim, I gotta tell you something.

I can't believe it. He's getting inside on him. That's it. That's the guy. Rest in peace to that goat. And then of course, Eddie Bravo used to do it for UFC, but those are unofficial. So it's just somebody trying to guess what probably is going on there.

Open scoring is the belief that if you give those numbers to the fighters, this is a good idea. Now, there's a lot built into that because there's different arguments people make, BC. Some argue that it's on principle something you should do for the fighters. There was actually an informal survey that The Athletic had done, and they found that four out of five fighters, so 80% of fighters, were in favor of open scoring. But there's a question of whether it's right or wrong on principle is a different question, which is, is it good for MMA? Does it make the sport more enjoyable, or does it do some of the things that detractors had suggested,

where if someone is up two rounds, they just might coast? My view up to this point, BC, had been somewhat agnostic. I'm willing to believe either argument, but we didn't really have any data. Now we have some data. You love data. Let's just put that, can we cement that in stone, Luke? I can't present you any sort of conspiracy

talking about 9-11 or bohemian grove without you saying where's the data luke they don't keep data for that it's under wraps it's in a mountain hole somewhere okay that's what you're not dumb and that's what dumb people say uh yes i like data people like to issue opinions in the world without having any evidence to corroborate them i don't know why they like that, but okay. In this particular case, the Kansas Athletic Commission, here's what they did, BC. They looked at 92 fights with open scoring from 14 events, which included LFA, Invicta, and then some regional ones.

They compared that to 72 fights that did not use open scoring from LFA, Invicta, and UFC. They found four different things. that did not use open scoring from LFA and VICTA and UFC. They found four different things. Here we go. Ready, BC, and I want to get your reaction to this. We'll go piece by piece, and then we'll kind of circle back. Does open scoring, and you can see there's a video here from Combat Culture, they put all this together, lead to fighters who are ahead coasting into the third round?

What they found was that 72.4% of fighters, so 21 of 29 29 up by at least two points on at least two judges scorecards went on to win the third round when they didn't have open scoring it was just 61.5 third round finishes also went up a little bit 13.3 before to 14.5 with open scoring bc your reaction to those two data points so here's it's interesting Luke as I've always been against it but more from a boxing standpoint there had been times that I believe it was the WBC had implemented it for certain fights we all remember Canelo Alvarez Austin Trout a fight where when it was revealed that the fourth and eighth round they reveal it and in the eighth round we found out we thought it was a close fight but no you know one Texas judge had Canelo up eight to nothing and basically Tr Trout, not a big puncher, had no chance to win that fight, Luke. And as a fan, you're like, oh, crap. So it's always been for me, like, I don't want to see the end of the movie. No spoilers, bro. You know, let me, let me live this experience in real time i have to say i expected to on this video but really focusing

in on the data it does seem to make a lot of sense you you won't have you probably won't have what dana's biggest fear is which is fighters who are ahead going into that third round or the fifth round or whatever uh coasting lay and pray whatever giving away the round not trying i think what you're finding out if anything is it in it emboldens them to know they're ahead and they don't want to lose that. So, you know, they're sort of stepping up their game anyway. I think my issues, Luke, the more I thought about it watching this video, have a lot more to do selfishly with my entertainment value watching a fight.

I don't want to know necessarily. I, and again, this is going to sound shitty, but when you're a boxing fan, as long as I have been Luke and you're in the business as a journalist, some of the corrupt shit that you deal with, it becomes part of the fabric. It becomes, you know,

the cigarette stains on the wallpaper. I kind of like, even after a fight i watched that wasn't great that you know what you never really know who's gonna win till you hear those scorecards because it's always that extra level of suspense i may have thought i saw what i saw but those three a-holes ringside whether they're good people or they got stuffed envelopes full of cash in their back pocket they're going to have the final say for better or for worse. I'm not sure as a fan it will improve our entertainment value watching it. But if your argument or the argument of this video is that it will make a better product

if the fighters and their corners know, I have to say after watching that video, I can't disagree, Luke. I think it actually would help in the end and in a fight where somebody let's say thought they were winning comfortably and then they go to find out oh crap I'm not winning comfortably that judge is not credibly scoring the damage I'm landing or the control I'm having on the ground oh man I gotta step up my game you inevitably I think Luke will have more exciting finishes and outcomes because of that. Do you think if this was a step that was taken

at the highest level, UFC, Bellator, and beyond, that the fans should know as well? Does that matter to you? Or should it only be something where the corner is able to instruct the fighter? I encourage everyone to go look at this video that the B-roll here we had shown. Let me give a couple more data points and I'll answer your question You don't have to react to these but the finishing rate from with the data they had went up They had 10.4 percent increase from when it was implemented

They second round finishes went up from twenty three point three percent to thirty two point one thirty one point two percent And then they had a finish in the second round after losing the first. That went from 28.5% to 40%, 6 of 15. Now, 0 who lost the first two came back to get the finish. That makes sense. You're probably outclassed. But third round finishes when it was a tie, so they're heading into the third round knowing that it's one apiece. They went from 0% to 28.6%, 2 of 7. Okay, here's what I would say about this data.

This data is on the good side. If you are an open scoring fan, it is, for now, very persuasive that some of the arguments against it don't really hold true. What I would caution everyone to appreciate and understand is this is exceptionally limited data. It's very limited data. You have very small sample size, and moreover, some of the key questions BC are not answered, which is, how does this break out by gender? How does this break out by age? How does this break out by tenure in the organization? How does this break out by division? We may find that, in fact, you don't see any evidence of this in, let's say, the lighter side of the women's game. But in the heavy side of the men's game, some of these bad effects tend to appear.

Moreover, here's what we don't have. We don't have open scoring changing strategies over time. Which is to say, what does it look like when an organization has had open scoring for five, six years? That's the data set you kind of need to really make bold conclusions. So to answer your question, BC, would I want to see UFC adopt changes based just on this data? No.

No, I would not. It's way too limited in scope. But I would argue, and I've been agnostic about open scoring, the early findings, pretty strong. Pretty strong so far. To answer your question about should the fans like it,

there's a question to be had here, BC. What do we owe the fighters? What responsibility do we have to the fans? Because if the fans tune out in the product, you don't have a for-profit sport as much as you had before, or maybe at all. And then what do we do to make MMA better? Sometimes there's intersection on those three questions,

and sometimes there's not. We're going to have to figure out what we want to do and for who. And I'm not saying it would be easy to keep that knowledge to the fighters and corners and not portray it on the broadcast and whether fans would even agree with me in not wanting to know and wanting to retain the romanticism of the suspense of not knowing how the fight is going. I know you can argue that basically every other sport but gymnastics and figure skating, you know where the scores are at. There's a scoreboard.

You know whether you're winning and losing up to that point. Fighting is one of those rare ones where it's judge-based. Where if you don't get a finish, you don't know until the end. You know, maybe this is just something that I'm clinging to of the old way. That if it would change, Luke, if there was a scoreboard in the arena in boxing and MMA that showed you full-on who's winning and who's not, over time, would that not change time would that would that uh not change the love that we have for it would it only increase it i could be swayed into believing that long term despite my misgivings it's it's the natural progression of combat sports and also i would say that you know be careful about who it works for like these are regional level fighters

with a little bit of ufc mixed mixed in. Do UFC fighters compete differently over time with these rules than regional level fighters? I mean, they are working with a different set of incentives and there's often a significant amount of difference in professional experience there. Sometimes there can be overlap, but obviously there can be a lot of difference too.

And the thing I would also caution folks against is I can buy BC, the reality, that maybe open scoring, maybe it works in MMA let's say maybe we don't know yet but let's say it's possible I could believe you could live in that world and that open scoring doesn't work in boxing or vice versa we may find that some sport uh is more suited for it inside the combat sports space striking arts anyway than other ones uh so I do think we need to keep an open mind that it's, I don't know that it's going to be one size fits all,

which is kind of the problem with it. It's like, oh, it's going to be good for every sport in every division, in every weight class, in every organization. Maybe that's not true. You know, we'll have to wait and see. Look, I'm wondering, you know, two quick things. I'm wondering if there's a negative for TV executives saying, could this hurt our ratings? If fans are watching a fight, they know someone's largely ahead.

I'm going to tune out. Probably not a big deal in the end because a fight could still, you know, a finish could happen anytime, regardless of who's up or down on the cards. But do you think it'll have any negative effect or maybe a positive effect on the in in the moment accountability for judges would that change anything because i've always said that for all the issues we have with scoring in both boxing or mma if you made the judges in or referees too when they have to make a split decision split second call which could be controversial if you made them have to be accountable if they had to show up at a press conference and explain in front of the media when asked, why did you score it this way?

I always think that's a long-term net positive that would sort of force them out of the shadows and out of the protection of like a Bob Bennett of the Nevada commission, who every time he's cornered after a bad scorecard is like, no, no, no, this judge is great. You know, they just had a bad night. Well, it's like, no, I want to hear from the judge. I want to find out why What's-Her-Face gave Canelo that 1-10, you know, 1-18, 1-10 scorecard against Triple G. Do you think that there's any negative net result

from having this for the judging standpoint? My view on this tends to be that in order for there to be accountability, did we lose BC? Did we lose his, is he there where is he i can hear you i don't know if i'm hearing you through zoom what's the deal man each all right so let me answer his question while we get bc back on his mcdonald's wi-fi um in terms of the judges i believe that if you want accountability there, they have to have a more public profile. That by itself wouldn't solve it. For example, the referees have public profiles.

John McCarthy has moved into a commentary gig. Herb Dean is well known to audiences. The list kind of goes on. And that doesn't absolve them from criticism. In fact, it kind of enhances it, but the power structure that they are enabled by never, I'm not going to say never, but doesn't appear to be as responsive to these criticisms as perhaps they should be. Think about, this is sort of a silly example, but think about something like American Idol, where you know who the judges are. They're on camera. They talk to you.

It's Ar again. When they have that kind of visible awareness, then I think the pressure can be applied to them and there can be scrutiny about their decisions and maybe bad calls would result in their lack of employment or retraining or some combination of the two. But just announcing more bad scores, or at least the scores periodically over time, you still have the same kind of relationship where they're not on camera, no one's talking to them, they don't release any statements,

and you don't really know who they are. Plus, there's a lot of people who still think the UFC employs their own judges or that the boxers hire their own judges and this is all some kind of inside job. And obviously, generally speaking, that obviously is not going to be true. And so open scoring as a solution to that seems like a far reach i don't really accept that

uh cbc is back on zoom do we have him back on there he is look yeah you got me sorry uh my camera luke wasn't plugged in this is not a jay erin error this was manual error the battery ran out this wasn't wi-fi this is what happens luke when you let me be the tech editor you know my dad was all my dad was always uh quite cheap i mean don't get me wrong he you know he paid for things that we really needed but when it came to like stuff that you know you didn't really need nice but it would have been nice like nice shoes do you really need nice shoes not really but it'd be nice to have them uh i would tell him that you know daddy's shoes suck and he would always say things like a poor carpenter blames his tools that was his famous phrase we see dad i

can't be in these la gears anymore the people the kids are making fun of me okay la gear would have been a luxury my dad i don't remember i think I told you a story about the pumps, but I remembered the other shoe that I had. My mom would literally take me to Payless, and the shoe was called, I used to get made fun of like crazy for this, the shoe was called, BC, the winner shoe. The winner shoe.

Only losers. Yeah, only losers would wear a shoe called the winner shoe. No one ever achieved orgasm with another person while wearing winner shoes. Luke, never. You never hit second base wearing. You never probably hit first base wearing the winner shoes. No. All right.

Last but not least, BC, we go to a fight that. Hold on. Maneech, can you make me less jaundicey with the color here? I know I'm screwing up the broadcast that's fine type that into the chat we'll keep going here oh sorry luke oh sorry big guy all right here we go let's move i know let's move your mcdonald's wi-fi along bc this is a fight that i would not have requested but now that it appears to be in the works i am just dying to see it and when i say i wouldn't have requested it only because of what else was

available, but according to a report, or at least I think some statements from Ariel Helwani on ESPN, he said the UFC is looking into making a Michael Chandler and Justin Gaethje fight. And I think it's official, including location or date, according to this

write-up from Bloody Elbow, that seems to be the direction UFC matchmakers are at least leaning. BC, what do you think about a possible chandler versus gaethje lightweight fight chef's kiss luke uh sent please send me location where i can put my fluids uh luke this is because we know that we know that d's going the direction of the Poirier-Connor trilogy. We know for all the reasons why we're against it. We know how much we hate the idea that no one's wearing the lightweight championship of the world at the moment. Although the UFC says Habib is. But good God, Luke, this is a fantastic matchup under any or every circumstance.

And it seems like the next best move for Chandler. Nobody has had a better debut, right? To walk in there and knock out Dan Hooker the way he did. But if he can't get the title next, I mean, look, in fair sport, Luke, if sport was fair, he'd be fighting Dustin right now for the championship, but he can't. So he's going to have to earn his stripes a second time with a man who can take him to the sub basement of hell and i'm sure chandler's gonna be willing to go there with him and luke we will all win out because of this this has the making to be a freaking spectacular night at the office yeah i mean this one is special right and the reason why i said i

was like i wasn't sure that I wanted it was because of just the circumstances at play. I kind of feel like Chandler should be fighting Poirier and that should be for the UFC title. Actually, I think that Dustin Poirier should already be champion and that should be him defending his belt, but that's not the world that we live in. They're going to make Conor

and Dustin three. We don't know when, but that seems to be the order of things. And the title picture, God only knows what the fuck's going on there. So in the absence of that, what is one of the best fights you could make? And more than that, what is one fight that you would imagine would be on your, let's say, top three list when Chandler crossed over that you would say, give me three fights that are the ones he has to have if he only has three fights in the UFC. You'd probably put the Gaethje one on there,

or at least it's going to be in rotation. For me, it would be in rotation. This is not the fight that I think should be happening, given the circumstances, as you turn bright getting hit by a nuclear blast over in Puerto Rico. But BC, I think you would agree. This is one of those ones that just kind of has to happen for the division.

If you don't go dying on me here as you enter the gates of heaven. Right? Do you agree? Yes. Yes, I do, Luke. Yes, I am. By the way, them adjusting the fucking whatever they're adjusting in New Jersey. That was me.

I didn't realize that my light unplugged when I had that fiasco before. Only a little distracting as i try to make my point but by all means please hijack the show more dr galakowicz yes i am yeah yeah no seriously though don't you feel like when he came over if you had to say okay if he's only going to get three which three should they be go a lot of different directions obviously this is going to be on people's list yeah this is a fantastic fight shout out to that canadian fella for breaking the news luke all right and i would also say you know i again i

think chandler should be fighting for it chandler almost fought for a title right away i think he should be fighting for a title now but there are some people like oh he's got to earn it well let me explain something to you you beat dan hooker and then you beat justin gaethje buddy you've earned a ufc title shot when those are your first two fights and let's say he does it in you know michael chandler fashion how could you possibly deny him at that point it would be a y'all can't deny it he's an effing rider luke you know what i'm saying uh yes no i understand okay well i see you're kind of fading out and losing steam i thought you were going to bring that energy today but you know what are you what do you what the what the hell is your are you talking about luke i'm here bro i'm ready i got nothing else to do in this

island okay they don't let me outside by the way you guys can create a pool to compete against your friends or fill out your bracket for the chance to win a nissan rogue and a trip to the 2022 final four you can play on the cbs sports app or at cbssports.com slash brackets join our podcast group morning combat brackets winner of our bracket will get a prize bc on a scale of zero to one, what is your level of interest in college basketball? I'm going to put mine at a firm zero. I don't. Yeah.

Now that I re-signed with the company, am I allowed to tell you? No. No, of course you want to watch Marsh Madness, and you can only watch that, Luke, on CBS. So join our podcast challenge bracket board and win some prizes. Yeah. Dude. How many, let me ask you something.

Cause by the way we asked, we tried to tell the people who are like, I don't think our audience demographically, they're the kind of audience you would want for a March madness promotion. You know, it's young men, youngish men kind of thing, tech savvy for the most part. But they're not gonna care too much about march madness although it is obviously huge uh and they were like we know and they were like if you want to make fun of that you can so here's what i'm doing i'm making fun of that i don't i don't think there's going to be anyone from the morning combat brackets who's going to win this

thing bc that's just me out on a limb huh maybe luke what is your favorite one shining moment i mean you had to have a time in your life where you loved and lived for this shit so what was that one shot that moment that game you know i mean lindner in philadelphia thomas isaiah thomas 10 years ago playing for washington hitting the buzzer beater against, was it Kansas? It was one of the big programs. Did you lose your shit watching that, Luke? Yes. That was a good one.

And by the way, that was one of Gus Johnson, former Showtime employee, I think. Yes. I don't think it went too well for him in MMA, but he is the guy, I think, for March Madness with the buckets and fuego and all that shit. Yeah, he did a great job. Yeah, remember when he called that Adam Morrison Gonzaga run? He was on fire back then, Luke, okay? All right.

Do you have a one shining moment? I'll never forget after passing around a hookah among five guys in Jeff Hurd's garage, we watched Bryce Drew hit that shot for Valpo, Luke. That was a time in our life. You know what I mean? Wow. Talk about overkill with the deep cuts. Yeah, there was this one time where Rutgers put out this power forward whose last name was Schembechel,

and he really, really hit it well in the playing field. Hit snoggle? Is that where you're going with that, Luke? Yeah, yeah. I'm more of an early 90s fan of the old school. Yeah, who cares? I don't think you're a fan of the 90s. I think you still wish it was the 90s. You know, I wish I could go back to the 90s and be as cool as I am now, Luke, back then.

Don't you ever wish that? You're not cool. Just want to make that clear. You're not cool. I'm not cool either. All right, Luke. You know what segment is back this week? A very cool one, Luke.

The most requested one we have. Every Wednesday, I get to put together 10 incredible categories and forcing you to spin the wheel five times. You get what you get. You must answer with a good faith response. It's called the wheel of death. Bullshit that I don't get to spin it, but you know, it is what it is. Spin, spin, spin the black circle.

Luke, your categories for this week's wheel of death are as follows. Henry's cringy balls. Canadian Knicks fans. March Madness. Kickstart Dada's Heart. Izzy's Areolas. Dating Copenhaver. Ooh, good. Ride On Cowboy.

Let's Get Sensual. Ooh. Yeah. Maniche's Honky Soul Music. Yes. Or MK all freaking day. Luke, will you spin that damn wheel?

Let's do it. Let's spin this hoe. See what comes up. Spin it. There we go. All right. Let's see. Get what you get, Luke.

Oh, yeah. Henry's cringy balls. Luke, you know former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo. He's got very cringy balls, but I'll give him this credit, Luke. Triple C has big ones, though, okay? He checked in with ESPN's Brett Okamoto this week, saying, Luke, that no 135-pound matchup interests him enough to come out of retirement unless UFC would allow him to fight Aljamain Sterling and Piotr Jan in the same fight, alternating rounds against them. Luke, that's not going to happen, okay?

But Cejudo did say something interesting about a fight that could hold his interest. Former featherweight King Max Holloway. Here's the quote. I never called Holloway out to fight. Even when he had the belt, I never called him. I feel like in the future, I would love to fight him. People wouldn't believe I could beat him. He's so tall and with what he's been able to accomplish, I love that challenge. I love the fact that people don't think they can beat it. The hell is he talking about? He's taller than me and has inflicted more damage on different people, but I feel like I'm too smart and too skilled. Luke, imagine a world, this is Henry talking,

which Cejudo and Holloway fought in 2021 at 145 pounds. Imagine that world, Luke, okay? Here's my question to you. What would be the most realistic betting odds for that fight? And I want you to create a realistic path to victory for Triple C in a featherweight fight against Max Holloway. Realistic? Yeah. I would say something of the Volkanovski game plan. realistic. Yeah. I would say something of the Volkanovski game plan, in and out, at angles, tons of fainting,

tons of leg kicks, and then constant lateral movement, constant angular movement. That does seem doable because he'll have the speed advantage, he'll have the explosivity advantage, and probably could mimic some of that in and out work does seem doable because he'll have the speed advantage. He'll have the explosivity advantage and, you know,

probably couldn't mimic some of that in and out work that kind of froze max for a little bit. I don't, you know, when you say realistic, I mean, I think you could do that. I think it was going to be very hard to win,

but that seems like something he could at least try to successfully employ. Um, I don't know. Nobody takes max down, but Henry's an Olympic wrestling champion. Could he do this? I don't think so.

I think Max's reach, I think Max's ability to spread his base, the strength differential is going to be way too much. Could be wrong about that, obviously, but I tend to think that's true. Max is barely making 145. That's a big dude. So, no. The odds I would have Max as a firm favorite, minus 500, something like that, minus 400.

Wow. Yeah. What do you think about Cejudo saying, I feel like I'm too smart and too skilled that even though Max has put damage on other people, he essentially, you know, wouldn't be able to land as cleanly or as accurately or as quickly as against a Cejudo

due to the speed disadvantage. I love the self-belief of somebody like henry sahudo i truly mean that but you know for a guy who does everything behind his jab and he's got a great jab and you're coming up basically basically two weight classes you know no i don't i don't it's a bad idea it's a bad idea okay i wonder though luke if max can get back in there against volkanovski after ortega or or or if max can just get the belt back in any form whether that is a fight we would see luke oh um i don't know i'm bored with this question can we move on hey spin the wheel you j cole go? Hey, spin the wheel, you J. Cole. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Spin the wheel, Luke. I hope you get something very uncomfortable, Luke. Hey, look at that, Luke. Look at that. It's on point for this month on CBS. Luke, NCAA tourney time is upon us, as we talked about. While most people are filling out their brackets and tuning into CBS, I want you to imagine if UFC chose to honor the excitement of the NCAA basketball tournament

by announcing it would promote its own 64-fighter open weight tournament as a nod to the throwback days of UFC's infancy, which featured no weight classes and you know made the best man win luke imagine if they did this tournament 64 men three round fights you can weigh in whatever you want which four fighters do you think would deserve to be the tournament's number one seeds based upon you know their their most likely chance to survive in advance and win this thing. So you mean among active fighters? Among active fighters.

Who are the number one seeds? Jon Jones. Jon Jones, okay. Stipe Miocic. Let's see. Are we just talking UFC fighters or anybody? UFC, Luke. Who else would I put there?

Top O of that list. I would put... Jesus, that's where it kind of gets hard. I would put... I mean, whoever the heaviest champion and top contenders are. So you might go to light heavyweight with Jan and then maybe Francis or something like that, but I just don't. Well, look, it's interesting.

So back in the day, as you know, the people that won most of these tournaments when they were open weight weren't always the biggest weight or pure heavyweights. Obviously, the game was at such an infancy do you do you not think it could happen today if we actually did it where somebody could think okay i got a three round fight here i've got to avoid the big punch but i can outpoint these guys with my speed and elusiveness i mean tell me if i'm wrong we would have made would you have had Adesanya as a number one seed before the Jan fight?

Probably. Or, you know, if not number one, two or three. Certainly a top player in that bracket. But obviously some rethinking has to be done on that. I don't know who the fourth one would be. Fill in the fourth for me. Well, I think you've got to have Francis in there. You've got to have Francis in there. You've got to have Francis. But, Luke, how realistic would it be for a smaller man

to win a fight against a bigger man these days? Could Habib out-wrestle a heavyweight and just control the action on the ground and avoid the big shot? Not a good one. Not a good one. So we're talking about number one seeds. I mean, he could maybe beat a couple of people outside of his weight class, but eventually all that's going to come. I mean, this is why you

have weight classes. It's not to say that Stipe is, oh, he's so much better of a fighter than Habib. Obviously, in certain respects he is, but in certain respects he's not. You're not evaluating that. There's such a differential in size and how much they could absorb punishment and what they could stuff.

The heavier guys are in almost all likelihood going to win. A couple of exceptions. You might get some 14s over some 3s in the tournament, so to speak, BC. Some 12s over some 5s, but not much more than that. When you said outside of UFC, were you considering putting Rumble and or Romero in this? Yeah, I was just trying to think to what extent is Vadim Nemkov in this conversation?

To what extent is... Pitbull's too small, but, you know, you have to at least think about it for a second. Gegard Mousasi, Luke? As a number one seed? No. No. Okay. All right, that's fair. All right, Luke, all right. Well, you know, we'll try to spin it a third time.

Maybe I'll find something that makes you happy. You know, you never know, Luke. Okay. Let's spin. This is painful. third time maybe I'll find something that makes you happy you know you never know Luke okay let's spin this is painful it's like pulling Luke's teeth out of his mouth while he's alive all right I'm cowboy yes Luke Donald Cerrone currently holds the UFC record for victories inside the octagon with 23 luke okay trivia time wow luke nine other fighters beyond cowboy have recorded as many as 19 career ufc wins can you name at least five of them without getting one wrong do you want a hint i got a hint for you sure five of the nine are former UFC champs one of the nine is a former interim champ okay there are nine other men besides who recorded 19 or more UFC wins so I

can't count cowboy is no say again Holloway cowboy is number one with 23. There's nine other guys who have at least 19, Luke. Can you name five of them without getting any wrong? All right, Holloway? Fuck, really? We had a good run there, Luke, okay? Let me just go through some other names, see if I get them. Is Jim Miller on that list? Yes.

Yes, he is, Luke. He's in second place. How about Anthony Pettis? Poirier? Yes. Yes, he is, Luke. He's in second place. How about Anthony Pettis? Poirier? Yes. Who are some... Robbie Lawler? No, no, no.

Fuck. I don't know. Who are they? Luke, we were looking for Demian Maya, Michael Bisping, GSP, John Jones. Is he active? I was going to say him, but is he active? No, I didn't say active. Andre Arlovsky, Diego Sanchez, RDA

Luke. Alright, alright. This is the worst day we've ever had. Probably the last time we'll ever spin the wheel. But Luke, you got two more times. You got to let me spin the motherfucking wheel, man. That's the problem with this segment. Well, Luke, what do you want me to do? Put my hand through the screen here? Here, Luke with this segment well look what do you want me to do put my hand through the the screen here here luke spin the wheel what do you want me to do here luke okay you want to come down to puerto rico i want to spin the wheel i want there to be a way to spin it okay all right you get what you get look okay

i mean what do you want me to do? This is ridiculous. Oh, yes, Luke. Let's get sensual, Luke. We're talking about the senses here. Imagine a scenario, Luke, in which you were forced to part for the rest of your life with one of the following senses. Sight, hearing, or the ability to speak. And forced to live the rest of your life without it which one would you do without taking keep in mind luke your career your family keep in mind everything which of these three would you give up right now sight i give up sight i think hearing to me is a little too disorienting obviously Obviously, if I lose my ability to speak, I don't have a way to make money.

Hey, Luke, if you can't see the damn fights, you can't make any money, bro. Can you wake up here, Luke? Yeah, but you can do that Braille thing where someone can describe it to you and shit. You can get by on some stuff. So what would I do? Would I lose hearing? I guess I could lose hearing. No, you'd have to lose speech and change careers, right?

Or become a writer, which you don't want to do. That's fine. Or, Luke, you'd have to... Wait, wait, wait. If I'm going to give up sight, which means I'd give up my career, why would I not give up sight and then also give up my career? You could just kill yourself. That's the fourth option, Luke.

How about instead you give up hearing, and then you can still do a one-man solo YouTube show after watching the fights, right? Yeah, I could do that. That's right. But if you're asking me, like, independent of that, what I would rather give up, I'd rather hear than see. Okay.

All right. Wow, what a joke. I just can't wait for this segment to end. This is the worst idea we've ever had. Last spin, Luke. Here we go. Dude, because your questions are weird. They should they should be something like hard for me to answer like uh you know personal or or something like that but these are like if 64 fighters jacked off in each other's faces who

would jack off first i was like i don't know i mean how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin fucking how do you talk to an angel right How do you hold her close to where you are, right? I mean, come on, Luke. Alright, give me the last spin here, the last time we'll ever screw around with this bullshit. It's supposed to be hard to answer. They're just weird. Oh, hey, MK, all freaking day.

Hey, Luke, even your pessimistic and grumpy ass must admit that 20 months into this morning combat experiment, you and I are a lot further than either of us would have imagined, right? Given that we've reached 80,000 YouTube subscribers, we've expanded to three days a week, you got hired by CBS Sports even though they don't know about it yet, and we've even hosted everything from a Showtime boxing pay-per-view halftime show to the Bellator MMA on Showtime

announcement stream, Luke. Granted, I'm liable to say something any given episode that will offend half of Asia and our little program will be cancelled for good. But Luke, let's say that doesn't happen tomorrow. Given our consistent growth

and where we are 20 months into it, what do you think is the best case scenario to where Morning Combat and you and I are 20 more months from now in November of 2022? That's a great question. How far can this brand realistically grow? Don't know about numbers, but do think um i do think by november 2022 i do think at that point dude we're gonna have been on the road significant not significant well maybe significantly we'll have done a lot of the other things that we haven't done yet with this brand

i i honestly feel like the next 20 months can be twice what we had the first 20 months the first 20 months the first 20 months was just laying the groundwork. And we had a quarantine. We had a damn quarantine too, Luke. Yeah, exactly. And even then we were limited, but we were still building foundational elements of what it could be. Now is the time to build on top of that.

Now is the time to take all that groundwork that we laid and begin to stack it a little bit. And so I think that you're asking where we could be in in november of 2022 i would say 2x what we are now and maybe even more than that plus having filled out the breadth and depth of what we can do post fight shows on location you know uh live within the audience podcasts all kinds of shit so i i all right miss miss cleo put up miss cleo put on your uh your your your future site here i'm gonna ask you a couple critical questions just answer them yes or no will we reach 200 000 subscribers on youtube in 20 months oh yes absolutely wow will jay aaron ever become a daily producer of the show by 20 months from now? Yes.

Okay. I believe that. Will we win an award for best digital MMA series between now and then? Fuck no. We are not the types that are going to win awards. It doesn't matter what kind of quality we put out. Will we ever make up with our enemies and have either Joanna or any prominent Canadian journalists as guests on the show? Probably not.

Will you and I last as friends and coworkers and colleagues by November 2022? It'll be a sexless marriage. You know what I'm saying? Okay. All right. 22 it'll be a sexless marriage you know what i'm saying okay all right uh do you think we'll ever play maniche's music on the air here one of these days uh hope not he's like a poor man's jt right i don't know what he is i've only heard samples of his music and it seems nice uh lonely angeles has got me grooving i love that man all man. All right. All right. That's it, Luke. It's the last time you got to spin that shit. I'm sorry.

All right. What else you want to do here? What else? You got to do fan submissions, guy. All right. I have not previewed or reviewed these. I'm trusting Mikey Mormyle, our producer, that he picked the good ones this week. You know what to do. Every week, morningcombat at gmail.com, or you can slide into my DMs and present your

artwork, your pictures have your say it's time for fan submissions we've got mail all right look our first one is from omar r he says to honor the goat of hip-hop tech nine and the goat of Combat shows for UFC 259. I salute you. What is this going to be? Maneej, could you stop mixing records and get it? There you go. Okay.

Don Q. Don Quixote? What is this? It's a little Don Q 151 proof mixed with some Malibu and pineapple juice in the MK tumbler to honor the two goats, Tech 9 and Morning Combat. That's all I got, Luke. I don't know. All right.

Well, you know what? I appreciate that you bought the tumbler. And I see you put a dent in that Don Q player. Keep going. Yeah. You don't have any Courvoisier? Yeah. Okay.

Luke 1M is here. It's not very good probably not no i finally got around to watching the new documentary in my home theater and i have to say i agree with luke here it was meh whoa doesn't matter i still watched can't wait for bc does dc and p.s i like my well done steak with a side of a1 sauce come at me luke all the best juan from new hampshire wow luke well i don't know what juan from new hampshire does for 11 but my man is balling out of control look at this place look at the speakers the chairs bc look on to the to the our to the left of the screen but our our right, the first. Is that J-Lo, or is that Elizabeth Shue from the

semi-porno? That looks like Flashdance or something, and then we got a Stormtrooper there. Is that Rey in the third pick? I think that's right, yeah. Dude, my guy is balling out of control here. He's got sick

cash. You think he's ever uh had a had a woman clothe list next to him in that chair luke oh i am sure dude he is doing all right for himself and go back to the picture real quickly i want to point out a big difference not only does this dude have money he's got good cable management no cables see that'd be seen yeah very nicely done i like to step up seating in his theater there as well i'd hang out there in new hampshire luke i don't you know we can go up there and let's we gotta have a we we should do podcasts from viewers homes but only yeah like wwf in your house yeah you if you win the contest we come to your house we will urinate in your toilet yes

let's do that luke all right right. Hey, Saul A has two for us. The first one is a daily reminder to eat your veggies. Oh, no, we had them in the wrong order. Luke, this one is Saul saying, spent the afternoon at the Louisville Zoo. And of course, like any public outing, I'm out here repping the best MMA show in the world. This is a silverback gorilla. I think BC could get him in the sleeper hold. Luke, I don't know where Saul's going with these jokes, but he looks good in that MK hoodie. He does, although it looks like he has a mullet,

or is that my imagination? Oh, that's the hoodie-less sweatshirt. Yeah, he does have a little bit of a, not a mullet, but he's got a little bit of like, I may drive a 18-wheeler for a living. I like rock music, right? Yeah, I may or may not wheeler for a living. I like rock music. Right? Yeah, I may or may not have stormed the Capitol January 6.

All right, Saul. Yeah, thank you. And here's his second one, Luke. Oh, no, he definitely has a mullet. Oh, wow. Yeah, he's rocking the party in the back there. Saul. All right, so we'll Canelo over here. I like that. I think we screwed up the descriptions here. But yeah, thank you, Saul, for joining our little experiment here. Hey, Philip D has two of them. Luke, here's hello from your biggest fan here in the great mountain state of West Virginia. Before we go any further, I will have you know that I have never kissed any of my sisters.

However, I did in fact go to a school with a classroom next to the boiler room. So thank you, Philip D. Luke, that's a very picture. People don't realize, Luke, that West Virginia is gorgeous. It is. It is gorgeous. It's just got a lot of bad. Oh, I think we lost him again.

This is awesome. BC, I love. I hear you on Zoom. Do do we lose bc maniche right don't panic i can't control that the camera turns itself off all right i can't i can't control that he's back he's back okay uh well i'm not sure what's i'm not sure what's shittier your infrastructure there or West Virginia. Hard to say. I'll tell you what, this is a Jay Aaron production, even though he's not with us anymore, Luke. His fingerprints are still all over this shitty equipment.

And here's Philip D's second pick, Luke. He says, with that out of the way, I wanted to send you some pictures of the recent hike my wife and I took our dog Gideon on. I repped the MK sweatshirt all through nature. This view is located at Cooper's Rock State Forest. It's a particular overlook called Raven Rock, which is about a two-mile hike from the main trail. How much you want to bet

old Dana would be scared to strike a pose like mine. Hope you enjoy the pics. I try to spread the gospel of MK everywhere I go. Love the show. Keep up the good work, Donks. Hey, Luke, Philip D's getting it done in life, right? Good looking pooch. Happy family.

Wife seems pleasant. Nice nature. You're like, wife seems pleasant and homely enough. Well done out there in West Virginia. All right, Philip. This is nice. I like this guy, Phil. Fill her up indeed.

I bet he did. All right, Luke. Joshua D says, hey, fellas. Fill her up indeed. I bet he did. All right, Luke. Joshua D. says, hey, fellas, really enjoy the show. Here's a quick fan sub of Brian eating the horse's heart from Game of Thrones. Yikes. Did you watch Game of Thrones? I did not.

I did not. But if they sell this at Cumberland Farms. So I don't get the reference. Yeah. If they sell it at my gas station, I would try it once, Luke, but no. As you might be able to hear, my daughter has returned from playing, so if a wall gets smashed down or someone turns on the car alarm, that's what it is. All right, Richard A. says, BC is acting a fool with this video. Why is there a dick on your shirt?

I don't know where this is going. Dick busters? Oh, come on. No, this is off-brand. Enough of this bullshit. All right. Off-brand? This is your brand.

All right. Hey, a man named Alan W. Luke has three of them here. Puchki is a Polish donut. Here's Egg Campbell. Oh, shit. Egg Shen is going to defeat Lopan. Look at this fucking hero. Oh, God.

Look at this heterosexual. Can you believe this guy has mated? That is very, very well done, Alan. Thank you very much that's really really really good alan also has a blood sport reference here luke no no no it's the same thing it's luke it's low pan from big trouble in little china oh right i was thinking that was blood sport my bad i gotta re-watch all those movies luke oh that is really good wow dude that is really good. Wow, dude. That is really, really good. Really good. That's how I channel you, Luke.

Luke Pan, by eating and my eye goes to weird places. I thought I did have a... I need to go with the green eyes. Our viewers did point out that I vowed never to eat on camera, so I did break that vow, Luke. It's not pleasant, all right? Here's the third from LNW. It's a Black Sheep sequel.

Can we blow this up, Maneej? That's pretty good. Yeah. Kill Whitey. Indeed, Luke. Yes. Yes. All right. Our final fan submission of the week comes from Wilfredo. He says, hey, a couple weeks ago Luke was asked about

what type of podcast would he venture into if the opportunity presented itself? Well, with his upcoming trip to Colombia, the writing is on the wall. Introducing K. Culazzo, an hourly Latina booty podcast coming in August. Live from Colombia, Luke. That is hysterical. That is, wow.

Dude, that is funny. Don't you think that's a really good one? What does culazo mean? I don't know that it actually means anything. It's from que go laso, which is obviously like, what a goal. So this is like culo, so like, you know, what an ass. But it's like culazo. What a hole.

Yes, yes, Luke. What an ass. Yeah, dude, they don't. It's fun down there. It's fun. You're like, it's fun when I walk around with my wife and my daughter and I just look at ass cheeks the whole time. Well, dude, I mean, it's everywhere.

So, like, you know. I will tell you, Luke, when my family and I went on a cruise two years ago and one of the stops was in Mexico and we took an excursion to, what the hell is that place called, Luke? Where? You know, the place, the place. It's Dominican Republic? Iscaret. Iscaret. It's a like nature theme. There's a theme park with like nature elements. There's animals all around around you can like go in like the river

tunnels and snorkel underneath luke there was regular folk just walking around in like um thongs i mean just ridiculous i mean regular folk luke just yeah like it's it was by default people would wear just you know my kids are walking around i was trying to cover their eyes it was my wife's covering my eyes lu Luke it was a it was a real trip you know you should I mean it'll never happen but one of the things that really surprised me is when you go to gyms down there like I don't know how to explain it if you went to like their version of I don't know crunch or equinox or any kind of like chain gym it's like decent it's it's not many dudes working out it's very few it's mostly women and they're

they're wearing things that are certainly fine for public consumption in the sense that they're covered but the kind of like skin tight showiness that you just don't see from a lot of places here and maybe that's people's bags maybe it's not but it's my bag so going to the gym is really fun um you're like it's my ball bag actually yeah luke do they just have more of the sex in latin america is that what happens luke i don't i don't know how to explain it first of all they don't have the same kind of social taboos around certain things also like people don't want to admit this but it really is true it's It's a heavily macho culture. And so there's a big premium placed culturally on the beauty of women, much more so than here. Again, my wife told me there's no such thing as an ugly girl in Columbia,

just a poor one, because they have so much culture around beauty and surgery and blah, blah, blah, and pageants. And yeah, I mean, they have beauty pageants. The more beauty pageants take place in Columbia than any other place on Earth. They have them as young as six, which I don't think is necessarily a good thing. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing, but it just sort of tells you what kind of emphasis is placed on appearance.

Yeah, that's very interesting, Luke. When are you going? Is this official? Are you going to work from Columbia? No, no,'s not official at all i've there's a bunch of stuff we have to work because if i did the show there i'd have to get good internet you can get good internet there but it's like if you go to one of these airbnbs they don't put good internet in there they put good enough for like getting and reading the news and checking email but not for like streaming um because you know people come and go so you don't need you don't need to have like the world's best internet.

But there's tons of WeWork-type facilities down there. Not WeWork specifically, but kinds of things like that. So we've actually been calling around and lining them up to see what they've got, and they're ready to go, but it's just a lot of other moving parts that we have to figure out. Luke, don't forget I'm going to be on vacation in April. Hold on, my lunch is here, Luke, all right? Hold on, Luke. Show us the bird feed that you're eating.

Oh, yeah, bro. Thank you. Thank you. Bro, they go to dumpsters to get your food. It's unbundled. Oh, yeah, Luke. I think it's a Cubano, bro. Can you hear me?

All right, yeah. Is it a Cubano or is it a Cubano? Which one is it? Luke, I don't really know. You know, I got a little Caesar action going on here. I'm excited. No eggske though okay so uh so uh so luke i'm going on vacation in april as you already know so you gotta find a co-host for a week maybe you'll do it solo i don't know we'll we'll see okay we're working on some names to line up already so we should be good though some celebrity names maybe maybe we'll see all right any canadians um no i don't think so i don't think

so one never knows but i don't think so all right all right did you see who just tweeted morning combat and me no metal blade records who are the people behind cannibal corpse and they wrote to me hey nice shirt oh wow luke yeah metal blade records look i love when everything i love when the music industry luke crosses over and touches us luke all right yeah me too me too i'm dying to get corpse grinder on this show maybe he will be my co-host that week bc you don't know uh if you want to follow morning combat all over social media it's morning combat same name everywhere uh our names on instagram and twitter vary so please take a screenshot and just follow us so you can get all kinds of different stuff again if you want to email the show morningcombat at gmail.com you can do it for fan submissions

you can do it for dead wrong you need to reach the show whatever you can do it uh let's see what else if you want to try showtime you can 30 days for free go to showtime.com and then particularly the link is there show.com slash bellator mma for the first six months you get 4.99 you want to get merch store.show.com hats mugs tumblers t-shirts blah blah blah that sort of a thing and uh yeah that's it bc you'll be on tv tomorrow are you gonna be on tv this time guy what's going on yeah i will be i will be luke and i i got a uh i got some new uh some new clothes for it so luke i'm looking to show off my fashion sense so check me out thursday night 9 p.m eastern nbc sports network when ring city usa returns alberto Machado in the main event.

It's going to be Mexico versus Puerto Rico for most of these matchups, Luke. It's going to be a fun thing. And also, check out what just flashed on the bottom of the screen, Luke. We did another episode of the critical smash. That is Storytime with Sugar Rashad Evans, where this week

him and I went back. Luke, do you remember where you were? november ufc 78 rashad evans versus michael biz pink look that is a forgotten fight that as rashad and i talk about when i went back to rewatch it it's a damn good fight it ends in split decision it's a it's a fun little piece of business there yeah it certainly is oh dude i'll never forget that win i'll never forget the win over chuck most importantly when he fought him in atlanta and he had the place quiet as a church um that was kind of interesting that was that was really spectacular that'll be our next episode his win over uh sean salmon i i screamed out i did the same thing i did when poirier beat um mc because it was so in your face and emphatic.

You had a brogasm. This just happened to have cameras following you. Yeah, same thing. All right, well, BC, I wish you luck not getting food poisoning or whatever's going to happen to you in that roach motel you have rented. So good luck. We'll see you on TV tomorrow. Live chat tomorrow, obviously, right here.

And we'll have a show on Friday. Get you ready for the fights. And we did no boxing talk today, BC. How about that? People got to be thrilled for that, huh? Yeah, I don't understand why all of our MMA fans are such jerks. Such absolute D-bags, Luke. Oh, wait.

That's most of our audience. I probably shouldn't say that. That's probably you and me as well. So, you know, Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. All right. Do you know what well. So, you know, Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. All right. Well, you know what makes me feel good, Luke? When people DM me on Instagram like they did last night and said, BC, you're getting me so deep into box lately.

Give me some recent classic fights. I need to go rewatch. I love that feeling, Luke. Okay. The best way to get into boxing is just let BC give you recommendations week to week. Check those out and it will start to just grow. All we lost him fuck this all right um thanks to Brian Campbell thanks to CBS Sports Showtime Malka I'm Luke Thomas we will be back tomorrow and Friday and until next time all of your gains be loyal nice camera work fuck face