MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 263 Recap: Adesanya & Moreno Win, Diaz Loses | Bellator 260 Recap | Ep 167

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

On Episode 167 of Morning Kombat Brian Campbell and Rashad Evans recap a wild UFC 263 event. Israel Adesanya gets back in the win column with a UD win over Marvin Vettori (7:50). Plus, Brandon Moreno gets the win of his career, impressing with a 2nd round submission of Deiveson Figueiredo (23:00). Also, Leon Edwards scored the UD victory over Nate Diaz (38:30). The guys also break down Bellator 260 where Yaraslav Amosov upset Douglas Lima (58:00). 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah. Creepy French-Canadian vibes abound. I'm your captain now. This is Morning Combat. It is Monday, June 14, 2021. Welcome on in to the best damn thing going in fight talk today. Brian Campbell of CBS Sports and Showtime,

and of course of BDE fame. Indeed, that is not Luke Thomas, my trusty sidekick next to me. That fine man is on a scheduled day off, a little bit of a bye day, if you will, for Luke. But, you know, we don't take a dip here when we're able to sub in this man. Always sweet, never sour. A tower of self-healing ayahuasca power he

is your ufc hall of famer former light heavyweight champion of the world from south florida with love it's sugar rashad evans my man my friend we got two bbcs in the house today i'm fired up for this what's going on bc what is going on it's been a long time, but I love the introduction, man. I need to start to have you introduce me everywhere I go, man. I need always an introduction. I'll be your Flavor Flav, Rashad, okay? This is great, you know? Maybe your fitness acumen can rub off on me because I do have a black liver at the moment.

I'm working on it, though, okay? I'm working on it, Rashad, all right? Trying to turn my life around just the same. Oh, we got a great show. A loaded show today. All the hangover from UFC 263, Bellator 260, a loaded combat weekend all around as we spin it forward. I mean, this is a, what a time to be alive. What a time to be a combat sports fan. Big time fights abound. So please like this video subscribe to what we're doing here on morning combat if you're new if if you're without a home and you're a cool cat and kitten just the same like and follow us on these

socials we're building big we're closing in on 90k trying to get to 100 trying to move this thing forward I mean you keep subscribing there's no limit to the amount masterpiece style there's really no limit to the amount. Masterpiece style. There's really no limit to the amount of content we are scheduled to bring you. So please do that. Our backbone here, of course, is the good folks at Showtime.

So why don't you go to Showtime.com and try out a 30-day free trial. It's the only place you can catch Bellator MMA in the U.S. of A. Showtime Championship Boxing returns this weekend. Jamal Charlo back in a middleweight title defense. You won't want to miss that. All the movies, docs, and love galore you can find on there.

And the award-winning Outcry doc. And, oh, good God, Rashad, are you fired up for what's going on on Showtime right now with the Kings documentary? Looking back at the four kings of the 80s, Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Durant, that's in your wheelhouse, correct? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, those guys are what really set the precedent of what boxing is. I mean, historically speaking, these guys are just amazing.

Even going back and watching these fights, it kind of makes you just lust for those days of old and just kind of really appreciate what those guys put in. Yeah, no question. There's a four-part documentary series only on Showtime, and it's about as great as it gets. These guys fought nine times against each other in ten years, and it's a fantastic look back, just the same.

Please don't ask me anything about new merch, because I have no answers for you. This is like a, you know, Rashad, when we got one of those secrets in the family that everybody knows about, like, you know, Uncle Joey did time, but we're not supposed to talk about it. That's what's going on with the new merch launch. But if you want the old shit that the people at Showtime have still yet to mail, Rashad, you can go to store.show. I'm still waiting to get mine.

I didn't want to bring it up, BC. I didn't want to be that guy that, hey, I want my morning comic here. But, hey, I mean, it's about time. Can we put a sweatshirt on Rashad's kids already, please? Store.show.com for all your well-fitting merch 1.0 needs uh and i don't think we got anything else uh rashad how's life real quick here outside of uh the fight game everything going well uh are we coming back or not rashad i ask you that every time are you if you're gonna come on rashad come on already okay

i mean look i'm my body's feeling great. I'm in the gym more and more training these guys. And, you know, there's a part of me that wants to go back and fight. I mean, it's all basically opportunity driven. If I get an opportunity and opportunity is right, then I'll take it. But right now, my focus is just, you know, helping these guys out that I have in training camp. You know, I have Greg Hardy getting ready to fight Tai Tuivasa July 10th. So just been on the grind right there, you know, pushing that big guy hardy getting ready to fight tai tuivasa july 10th so just been on the grind right there you know pushing that big guy getting in the gym with him being his training partner it makes me believe that i can do it but at the same time there's a big difference between

just training and actually getting in the fight man i'll be the first to admit that rishad there's got to be a part of you who likes money and fame although it may not be your driving force and sees tyron woodley getting a call from the paul bros to throw a little hands and is wondering hey guys i'm still in good shape here right yeah i mean look i'll be lying if i say it wasn't man there's definitely a part of me that uh would love to entertain something like that i mean at the end of the day you know it's an exhibition boxing match. And I mean, I'm pretty confident in my skills for the most part. So, you know, for me, it will be no big deal to do. But just to see these guys get the opportunity, Tywin Woodley is huge. I mean, that fight right there for Tywin, I think is going to be a tough one. But at the end of the day,

it's still a huge opportunity. Hey, Logan, you need a new dance partner okay rashad can make 190 believe that right there all right let's get into the good stuff rashad ufc 263 a loaded paper card pay-per-view card excuse me this past weekend from glendale arizona the rematch atop the bill middleweight title at stake israel adesanya we wanted to see how he would respond fresh off the March loss in a 205 title bout to Jan Blahowicz. It was a rematch with Marvin Vittori and Rashad. Three years removed from a split decision that arguably maybe should not have been split, but still a competitive fight just the same. This five-round rematch on Saturday night was anything but competitive. Adesanya from start to finish

controlling distance not getting into trouble on the ground what do you think we learned about what Izzy learned coming off his first pro MMA defeat well I mean his range uh was phenomenal and his movement was phenomenal on the outside but his fakes and faints were on another level and that to me was really the thing that kept Marvin Vittori just in the stage where he was watching the whole night and what I mean by watching is this right here every single time as a fighter you have to fight an opponent your game your team devise a game plan and you watch out for key things that your opponent do and then you learn to stop those key things that your opponent does and then you learn to see the setups for and then you recognize it when you're sparring well there's something that you can do you can go overboard with that and you can end up just watching him

set up all the time and then stopping to set up and stopping a move but then getting caught with something else and that's appeared to be like what happened to martin vittori he just got into the position where he was watching those moves that israel and Israel was doing it, but then he was switching up and doing something else. And it always just kept Martin Vittori just not really ready to commit, not feeling as if it was time for his turn to get off with the punches. And it also led to him just kind of taking shots that really weren't set up the right way. And once he got Israel to the ground, I think this is where the improvements were the most with Israel Adesanya, once he got Israel to the ground, I think this is where the improvements were the most with Israel Adesanya. Because once he got to the ground, he treated it like it was

hot fire. He was moving right away, working from the minute he got his butt to the ground, making Marvin Vittori have a hard time securing that position and locking down. And when Marvin Vittori did lock down and secure the position, he locked down and held himself so tight to Israel that it was easy for Israel to use his momentum to kind of off-balance Martin Vittori, get a scram position, and get back up to his feet. But great work by Israel because what he showed is that he made the adaptation that he needed to after that Blahowicz fight, and that was a perfect fight to do so because that fight cost him really nothing. Look, I've got to give Izzy, I mean, the world of credit. I get off on certain weird things in the MMA game, not trying to be gross here, but I love the way Izzy responded to loss the first time against Blahowicz. The attitude of the post-fight press conference, the build of this fight, I wanted to see more than anything once they finally touched gloves. And Vittori, who's giving credit,

he was in amazing shape. who's giving credit he was in amazing shape he's a pressure fighter he's aggressive he's uh he's can take a beating and keep on ticking i wanted to see all the little mechanisms and reactions from adesanya and rashad i mean it was perfect he was back to that let's say it that bde that that that big palm for pound champion energy his control of everything you mentioned from distance to the terms of the fight was absolutely brilliant. I feel like he frustrated Vittori, or if Vittori got into some good spots, including that quick choke attempt he had in round three, but just maybe wasn't equipped to do damage in the spots he was,

do you give that more credit to Adesanya getting out of a potentially dangerous situation, or Vittori maybe not executing? Because I thought the moment Adesanya got out of that choke attempt in round three, the fight was over. Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both, to be honest. I think it was great execution on Israel, being able to recognize the threat and being able to get up. But I also feel like it was a fault of Marvin Vittori of really not disguising where the threat is.

Whenever I get a guy on the ground, I have an anchor somewhere. Rather than be holding him down somewhere. That's my anchor. I cannot allow my opponent know where the true anchor is. I always have to disguise it. So I may have an anchor here and I may have another one here. And these are like kind of false anchors where he'll fight and he can break out of those. And that lets me know that, OK, now I have to really work on something else to continue to hold him down. That's my goal. But what Vittori wasn't doing was he wasn't mixing up the attack enough to disguise where the true threat was.

So Izzy was able to identify where he needed to attack and get, not really truly understanding the, I guess, the chain grappling that he would have needed to do in order to stay one step ahead of Israel and potentially put Israel in trouble to get submitted. Yeah, and look, just masterful. I mean, I thought Izzy dominated the mini mind games within the fight as well. I thought Vittori's, let's say, best stretch of pressure were rounds two and three. But Rashad, you know, this is where we said if Adesanya is not going to be controlled on the ground, which Vittori was unable to control him, take him down, yes, control him, no. Then look, Vittori's just not, you know, God bless him, he's not equipped to win a point

fight, a kickboxing fight against Adesanya. So I thought that we saw a change in the fight, not just in the third round when Adesanya got out of that choke. And then it was sort of like, okay, that was, you know, maybe Vittori's last chance. The pressure that Vittori used in rounds two and three specifically of coming forward and really putting it on him, Adesanya was able to just step aside and check hook him with the left hand and do those little things so beautifully that I think Vittori started to realize if I keep coming in on this straight line, I could get knocked cold. And I never saw the same energy put into his advancement. It was more one punch at a time or more just frustrate, come forward,

frustrate, come forward, but no wrinkles, no confidence, no big dick energy after that point. And again, for the casual eye, Rashad, and I've covered this fight with you. I was in the CBS Sports studio in Connecticut. You were at home. Some of our producers were like, man, Adesanya's cool, but he's kind of boring.

He's not going after it. He didn't have to. He controlled every element of that. He took the heart out of the lion of Vittori. I mean, that's not wrong. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And you said it correctly because, I mean, what Vittori was doing wrong when it came to striking was what he would do is he would throw his punches, but he'll throw one, two. When you're fighting somebody like Israel who does such a good job of really extending his arms out and making you have to punch with his arms but then at the same time he's pulling his body back in a position where you're not able to hit him even if you do land

or throw two punches what he needed to do was he needed a third punch or fourth punch because that way he can climb the body and go one two maybe hit the arms three maybe hit the chest and then the fourth one could be in a position where it can hit israel in the face because israel has already reached the end of his rope by pulling back and we've seen the same thing with um with with uh anderson silver when he fought chris weidman he's always leaned back and at some point there's nowhere else where you can go that's when you're able to land that shot but that sequence primarily only happens when you're able to chain together more than two

punches at a time because two punches against a guy who has great feet and has the ability to move out of range is not going to cut it you need three or four to be able to get in there rashad i want to get to what's next and the whole idea of the robert whitaker rematch in a second but real quick do you think a jan blachowicz rematch, if it were to happen, and I don't think Izzy's done the idea of eventually moving back up and trying the champ-champ thing at 205, do you think it would be different now? Do you think Izzy learned whatever he had to learn from that specifically that it could change the result? Yeah, I think it can be different, but I don't think enough time has went by.

I think one of the areas where Israel fell short was, you know, he just wasn't strong enough. And I think that's one of the things that he's going to have to do. He's going to have to improve his strength. And I've seen it, physically speaking, watching his fight. If you compare the fight from this time compared to the first time he fought Vittori, physically speaking, he's a different animal. You can look at his legs. His legs are getting a lot thicker. And then even his upper body is starting

to get more size to it. So now you're seeing this 185 pointer starting to grow into a bigger, stronger, more dominant 185 pointer who's at the bigger side of the 185 division, whereas before he was kind of like in the middle to the lower end when it came to size concern. But now that if he gets bigger, then he can compete against Jan because now he'll be able to physically impose himself whereas before he wasn't. Rashad, I know you don't get caught up in the whole distinctness of the pound for pound ranking.

Sometimes it's more of a media, keyboard warrior, basement people type objectivity lesson there. I'm doing it later today for CBS Sports. I feel like this completely reinstores reinvigorated It puts back into place where Adesanya was pound for pound wise before that loss.

It was a dare to be great, close fight, he lost it. He came back, dominated that middleweight. Personally, I think it's a race either between Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya for number one in the game today at this second who's your number one pound for pound after Saturday night it's still Kamaru Usman to me I mean when it comes to just you know the way that Kamaru was able to dominate in all facets of the

sport I still got to give it to Kamaru I mean Israel has shown great signs of being able to you know answer uh the the grappling questions that you may have if you get taken down. He's able to pass those tests with these guys that he's been able to go with. But there's another level when it comes to being a great pound for pound because you don't only have the ability to be able to get up from the ground, but you have to be able to initiate that flow of that traffic to the ground. And I just don't see him being able to dominate in that fashion yet I do see that there's a possibility in the near future where he's going to feel comfortable enough where he starts to adapt his game to start being more offensive when it comes to his grappling attacks he's going to grow in confidence but right now he's not there and because he's not there I

can't give him the pound for pound right now yeah I still got Usman most likely with number one as well when I do the the nerd math later today just the same all right rashad and i would love to see that fight they both said of course on record multiple times they want to keep both of those titles in the great country of nigeria so they will not do that rashad as it pertains to the future this fall no-brainer robert whittaker is next three fight win streak for bobbyux. All decision wins against super elite competition. Rashad, this fight is so big, certainly from the oceanic region and all that great stuff. But we're looking at two of the top ten best pound-for-pound fighters in the game today. Two of the best middleweights of all time.

Two guys from relatively the same region here. The first fight, I think, I think we can add that asterisk of hindsight in 2019 and say maybe the wear and tear mentally and physically we didn't get the full best possible robert whittaker he has evolved so beautifully since then what in the damn hell are your expectations if we see this september or october i'm not sure where given the COVID issues down under at the moment. But I mean, what are you? Tell me about your loins. Are you rock hard with emotion over this? Do you have a phoner? I got a full phone. I'm rock hard with emotion. This fight, it moves me in many ways. You know, I mean, if you look at the three fights that Robert Whitaker has had since his fight with Israel Adesanya,

each and every single one of those fights, you've seen a fighter really just fight at another level. And when it seemed as if, okay, we reached the limit, we reached the ceiling on Bobby Knuckles, no, he continues to rise and continue to show that he has another wrinkle to unfold and show us. And that's the trajectory that he's been on. So with Bobby Knuckles, he was in a plateau. He was in a place where he was just not feeling MMA anymore. And he was at a standstill, a stagnant feeling when it came to competing, when he fought Israel the first time. It's going to be interesting to see what that new energy

is like. This new energy, I should say, is like when he comes into the cage with him this time, because Israel has had his hiccups since then. Now, since that fight, he's discovered that he's mortal. He's had his first loss inside the octagon. And that does change you because when you're undefeated in a fight, you don't really understand. You don't really know what you don't know. So there's not that fear. There's not that anxiety that you have about having a performance that doesn't go your way because you have you've had them all go your way. So now that that can kind of play in the back mentals of Israel, he knows that can even happen to him. I wonder how that's going to change this fight. I mean, he is going to go into this fight confident but there's moments in the fight where you get hit where something doesn't go your way and then you think back uh-oh is it happening like it had happened before when i lost

the fight those are the thing that kind of plays in your mind once you have that in your understanding that that can happen to you once you have that loss now you know that you can loss and sometimes it does play with you so it's going to be interesting to see how this fight actually manifests i mean this is going to be i mean commercially like i mentioned it could be big obviously in certain regions it's massive but critically it is i mean it's as good as you know it's top three of best fights you can make in the whole damn entire sport and you know i wonder if bobby knuckle is going to wrestle more after he saw what you know the the success blow of it's had or or i wonder what the hell it's going to look like. They're so elite.

Whitaker's as well-rounded as anybody in this game. You know, Rashad, I am personally hoping that they have a series against each other, you know, that they do like a Pacquiao-Marquez thing, that they just keep, you know, fight forever, mofos. Come on, let's just keep it going because this could be really special. Seriously. I mean, you know, Whitaker is live as hell in this one. I mean, where would Ali be without Frazier?

You know what I'm saying? So I think that it will definitely send both of their stars into a different strategy if they do have, you know, a trilogy or something like that, one of these epic battles where it goes back and forth and, you know, the last man standing with the tiebreaker of the fights. But, I mean, at the end of the day, when you have two of these guys that are just at this level, like these guys are just some of the best martial artists to ever grace the octagon.

To be able to have them in a cage with each other to fight again for the second time is going to be amazing. I love the tribute Adesanya did after the fight to his fallen stablemate down under. He was murdered tragically. It was a very emotional scene there as well. Speaking of emotion, it might be a perfect time to transition into everything Brandon Moreno did on Saturday night. It was your co-main event, a rematch of one of the better fights, good God, of modern memory.

I think it was probably the second best fight of 2020 last December. Flyweight Championship, Davidson Figueiredo brandon moreno fought to a majority draw we ran it back on saturday and it was not competitive at friggin all rashad i want to get into everything first mexican american champion and all the great emotion we saw but x's and o's wise i just did not expect when we previewed this fight that Brandon Moreno could do anything better than he did the first time around. Where he fought is balls off, you know, energy, chin, deep reservoir of stamina. I mean, just everything, but I'm like, can he finish this guy? I would have never have guessed that he could dominate him in every single facet of the game uh did i miss something or is this guy just

getting leaps and bounds better every time he gets in there no i felt the same way you know the first time they competed i i thought i seen an athlete who wasn't at the level but rise that rose to the level because sometimes you compete at the level of your rise, that rose to the level, because sometimes you compete at the level of your competition. So I thought that's what was happening the first time. But the performance that I seen on Saturday just completely just shattered that, you know, and it really just let me just see that that performance was kind of more or less like a rest stop to see, you know, to where we are headed to with this guy because it was just a belief you know that that victory it reminded me of and it was eerily feel of a

familiar feeling the first time when when when uh the rematch when bj penn and frankie egger fought you remember that when it was just clear and just decisive that, nah, BJ, Frankie Edgar's the man right now. You know what I'm saying? And it was just that kind of performance. And the speculation can be out. Has Figueroa grown too big for the weight class and was the weight cut too big of a problem? No matter how you cut it, no matter how you dice it, the fact remains the same. Moreno is a competitor who is spreading his talent and and really growing in his division where he's separating himself from the rest of the pack and that performance was really one to highlight that fact I mean it was powerful and it was technical and those all that good stuff but just in a layman's sense it was just like confident is all hell I mean there was

an energy exuding from him that nothing was going to stop him and that he was going to have an answer for everything. His jab that knocked down Figueiredo early was a moment. It was like, oh, oh, okay, okay. His ability, when he got taken down by Figueiredo, which turned out to be sort of a last gasp, Moreno's ability to transition out of that and then get on top himself and then have the multiple

choke attempts before producing the tap I mean it was just like am I seeing what I'm seeing here this is a guy who has figured out his ceiling figured out how to unlock everything within him and obviously when you tie it in Rashad to what is a phenomenal story on so many levels but how about just this level he was cut three years ago i mean it wasn't like he lost three or four in a row he just you know got on a skid got cut but he went back to the to the you know sub elite uh areas of this world retooled himself got another phone call got back in there and damn man damn like this this, you love to see it. You love to freaking see it, bro.

Like, yes. It gave me chills, BC. It really did give me chills. It was really like those moments, you know, like because when you get caught, when you get cut from the UFC and you have to work your way back, a lot of fighters don't make their way back

just because of the fact that their road back is so tough. And then you have your own mental aspect that you may throw in there, you know, the feelings of not feeling good enough and all those things that can kind of throw you away, throw you so far away from your goal of reaching back. You know, people that you may fight with in other organizations, now you become somebody that they can you know uh have a feather in their cap if they beat you so they can go to the UFC hey I beat this guy he used to be in the UFC you know can I get a shot you know so now even the competition that you face outside of the UFC isn't even easy competition so it's really a fight to get back into the UFC and then

it's another fight entirely to even once you get back to the UFC in order to put together a campaign that makes sense enough where you can get a title shot and he did that and it was like I mean it was a true Disney moment you know what I'm saying where it was like when you wish upon a star your dreams just come true that's what it was really like I mean the other elements of what made this so feel good was the fact that this division almost went away right around that time that Moreno was cut and brought back. We saw Flywitz getting cut left and right in the aftermath of Mighty Mouse handing over the belt to Cejudo, who was a short-term celebrity champion that in some ways, you can say, saved the division in hindsight. But now we've got great parody on the top,

and now UFC has the kind of face that, Rashad, let's be honest, from a marketing sense, they have wanted not only a Mexican-American star, a Mexican-born star forever. Boxing has been sort of that thing that UFC modeled itself in the beginning when Zufa bought the company after. How do we be like boxing in the best ways, but do the things that boxing's no longer doing? That was the imprint. But even with all the great advances UFC has had globally, and it's been incredible, Mexico's boxing territory. I mean, it's the backbone

of what's left of my favorite sport. It's passionate, loyal, all that stuff. To have a Mexican-born champion and somebody who fights with huevos with that Tijuana style and that spirit, a guy who they're already using on their Spanish language broadcast. That really put like the icing on top of this really good feel good story where it's like, yeah, Viva Mexico. This was a big moment. You know, we've had Cain Velasquez as a champ, but Mexican American, but maybe didn't have that, that personality that could be like the face on the poster.

Do you feel like UFC can grab Moreno and like put him in a soccer stadium in Mexico City one day if they wanted to? Absolutely. I mean, this is what the UFC has been dreaming about ever since they started even courting the idea of having Mexican fighters. When Mexican fighters first started coming into the UFC, before they even made it to the UFC, they were in camps. They were in Jackson camps. You know, the UFC spread them out in different prominent camps to kind of get these guys on a level so they can make a splash in the UFC when they went to Mexico.

And we had a few guys come from Mexico to try to try that out at Jackson, and I was there at the time. And, you know, you kind of got an idea what the UFC was going to do. But back then, the talent gap was so far. You just never knew if these guys were going to be at that level. And now to see someone from Mexico not only be at that level, but be at that level in so many different ways. You know, this kid has the it factor. He just he looks as he looks like a star. You know, he looks like Mick Lovin from the movie Superbad.

But not only, you know, he's got he's got that he's got that charm about him, too. You know, the kind of boyish charm. But at the same time, he's super badass and he can whoop your ass, too. You know, so he's got this this dynamic, this dynamic character about his personality that just kind of makes you want to watch this guy. They got a real star in their hands, and they should be very proud of themselves, you know? Well, let me hit the final note here on the feel-good feel of this. All those things that I just mentioned,

but then on top of it, it's that personality you hit. For him to be able to not just, like, cry, and, like, look, look, look, look, here's the deal, Rashad. I get off on the pro wrestling side of this sport a lot, right? I want the fighters to be saying, F you, man. I want to kill you. I want that created feeling. Even if I know it's fake, I want that created feeling that I'm not tuning into a sporting event.

I'm tuning into the professional equivalent of a schoolyard fight. Rashad, nobody loved a schoolyard fight more than this guy right here, even though he never took part in any. There's just that energy of like, oh, you're the toughest kid in seventh grade. Oh, that new guy from across the tracks, we're going to find this out. I love that recreation, but a lot of that recreation is posturing bullshit in this game, and we know it. I may drink that artificial sweetener, but it's bullshit. What Moreno did with the tears, with the fact that he's speaking english in this interview afterwards and like dropping these swear words in like hilarious spots of just

raw emotion like fucking yes fucking yes like it's just like it was the most pure joy in a in a in a game which has a lot of posture bullshit admittedly right, right? Absolutely. Your boy BC tweeted out, you know, this might be the best feel-good moment I've ever seen. And respectfully, people replied right back with different answers of fights they preferred better. So, Rashad, I took it upon myself to put together a list of the ones, fights in UFC history that I believe are the most feel good in history and there's there's a few you know recent ones there uh Manichi if we can go to the

full screen I think Brandon Moreno's victory fits in not only with these but possibly at the top of this list now Rashad most of these it just turned out that way involve white people so I know people are gonna come after your boy BC for somehow you know put up but you know all that crap aside here we've seen it recently with charlie olives and and rose nama unis uh is it was moreno's win of the silk or maybe even better no i think it's definitely of this elk i mean you know this is why we watch the ufc you know i mean we we watch it because we want to see the fights, but at the end of the day, you want to walk away. You want to feel inspired, right? You want to feel as if like, no matter what obstacle you're facing in your life, if you apply the same mental fortitude of just toughness of not giving in, you can too. You can too overcome whatever it is that you have

in your life, you know? And when you watch Moreno win that fight it was one of those feel-good moments where you're just like you know what I can too man I can do it you know I can get over whatever obstacles in my way and and with these fights that you named out I felt that way you know when Rose Namajunas won one when she beat Weili I I felt it you know I felt emotions my it got really got really moist in my room. My eyes were kind of watering. But, hey, it was a good feeling. And this is why we watch the sport for guys like this and for moments like this.

Should I have put in there Forrest Griffin over Rampage? Rashad Evans over Forrest Griffin? What am I missing on that list? Now you're jumping out to me. No, I mean, I thought it was a pretty good list. I thought it was a pretty good list. I mean, you know, on the other

side of it, you know, you could put that, you know, even though it wasn't a moment for me, the Matt Serra and GSP, that was one of those moments. That was one of those moments. Yeah, no question about that. You know, even Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey, has some feelings of that

with the upset feel there. Rashad, I did want to close on Davidson Figueiredo, who showed in 2020 Fighter of the Year campaign 3-0-1, a finisher's attitude, the red streak in his hair, a badass. He looked like he could be the face of this division

and I don't want to necessarily count him out even though i'd love to see brandon moreno rematch uh asker askerov in the next fight if that's the direction ufc wants to go but you teased it earlier it feels like the weight cuts have caught up to him it feels like what he went through in december to keep the title in that majority draw when he was hospitalized the night before, when he basically came out in that fight and went for a finish for all 25 minutes and used every ounce of energy he had. When we saw him Friday of fight week just barely get to the scales with like two minutes to go in that two-hour window and strip down,

I got a little worried. Did you see a flat performer on Saturday night? Yeah, I seen a flat performer right out the gate. You know, he just didn't have the spring and just didn't have that normal charge that you see him have, that explosiveness, that almost accidental explosiveness that he has because he has that. You know, he's so athletic and he's so explosive and he has so many intangible tools that I didn't see any of that on saturday i didn't even see any uh any fear of that in moreno's eyes so you know if

if moreno wasn't feeling it on his end then it just really just wasn't there and um you know you've seen a fighter in figurato who was just you know like two or three steps behind. He felt like he just wasn't on game and just couldn't shake himself out of it. I have to think it was the weight cut. When you cut so much weight the next day, it does make your body feel a certain kind of way because when you're warming up for a fight right before you get out there, sometimes that could be the longest and hardest workout ever because you keep start stopping and stop start starting stopping and you don't really account for how long you're starting to stop and you just want to stay warm and at the end of the day when it comes time for you to fight if you

allow your nervous energy to take over then you could have warmed up too long and pretty much expended some of your actual fight gas tank so when you're when you're cutting so much weight you have to be very cautious of that very thing and and there's so many different factors that could have contributed to the fact when he came out there he was flat and it could have just been maybe just that you know he may have over warmed up for what he was coming into the fight with when it from the energy level i mean his body at 125 is a wonderland i don't see how he could like nutrition or do anything different so him as a bantamweight a crowded division full of killers you know if that's the only route i wonder

if he could be the same danger level finisher against bigger guys there because it seems okay it's just 10 pounds but when the smaller you get the more those 10 pounds mean i mean it's not impossible maybe he goes there and has just an abundant level of energy but i think we saw definitely a flat version of him but also a more patient version i actually liked the first two three minutes of that fight before that jab knockdown i saw figuered who, instead of trying to be that aggressive, all balls out finisher, was being a little bit more calculated and looking to counter. I wonder if he could retool and refigure out who he is at 135, Rashad. Do you have confidence

he could do that? Well, at 135 is a different kind of animal just because of the fact that he's losing the attributes that made him great at 125 you know at 125 he has this strength advantage and he and that strength advantage allows him to uh utilize his other tools really well you know his athleticism and then his his striking as well is also being able to utilize to the max because he has that that strength um at 135 you know he'll be pretty strong but he's not going to be fight dominatingly strong and then you know he's going to lose some of his speed and well he'll still have his speed but then he'll lose you know with that with the power and things like that so i don't think i don't think the 135 would be a good

choice for him i think he really needs to get a better weight cut because i think at 125 he's a world champion at 125 i think 125 cutting himself the right cutting down the right way he's way more competitive than he'll ever be at 135 and i want to give him full credit for what he did last year to turn around his career from sort of you know that that guy to that guy i mean he became a a thing so let's give him a chance to retool and make a decision here as we move forward. Rashad, topic number three, also from UFC 263. I was surprised, motherfuckers. Nate Diaz nearly after round and hit a 10-run home run in the last inning here.

What a wild five-round welterweight bout against title contender Leon Edwards, who dominated really 23 and a half of the 25 minute fight until Nate badly bloodied from a cut above his left eye from a cut on the side of his head rallied furiously to put together combinations and you felt if that fight had gone another 10 seconds let alone another minute or another round, this was Nate Diaz's fight. Rashad, a lot to deal with because of the contrasting, you know, sort of dramatic turn that the way this went.

But I want to lead off like this. How much do you think Nate, providing a very on-brand Nate Diaz moment by rallying back after such a, wow, did we lose Rashad there? Did the screen go? All right, I'm going to stay with it here. I'll put it forth myself right here. I want to celebrate this Nate Diaz moment like everybody else because we've never seen a more on-brand Nate Diaz moment. He's bloodied. He's opening up round five in almost a hapless performance, and he's calling on Leon Edwards. Was that enough to cover up for the fact, to repair, to erase the fact that for 23 and a half minutes, Nate Diaz not only got dominated in every aspect by Leon Edwards,

we almost saw Nate have to resort to performance art and turning his back to try to trick Leon which never happened or try to lure him into a brawl which really never happened I don't necessarily feel like Nate being Nate for the final 60 seconds took away the taste in my mouth that at 36 a guy I love a guy that got a hero's freaking welcome from Glendale, Arizona. You know, is anything more than an aging dude? I mean, that might be a little bit harsh. Manish, do we have Rashad back to throw this to him? Yeah, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. All right, Rashad, was the Nate theatrics enough in your eyes to be excited about Nate's future?

Because I'm still caught up on the idea that him searching out a fight with Leon feels like a bad idea in hindsight, and him wanting 25 minutes seems like a bad idea the last 60 seconds notwithstanding. You know, I think he's still there. I think he still

has it, and I say that because just forget about what he was able to do in the last minute, even though that was the most fundamental part of the fight. But for me, what makes me think that he can do it was the punishment that he took throughout the fight. When you don't have it anymore, you physically just can't take the punishment. You can't take the blow. You can't take the kicks.

You just can't take it. And you're not going to be able to sustain a four-round beating and then rally at the end of the kicks. You just can't take it. And you're not going to be able to sustain, you know, a four round beating and then rally at the end of the fight. But because he was able to rally, because he was able to handle that damage, he was able to catch a Leon Edwards who was losing steam in that fight. And he was able to, you know, really make an effort to, to really show that he's still a game fighter. What I see and what I think he needs to do is he just needs to be more competitive. And I think there's a window that he has

in order to be able to maximize where he is right now versus start to have that decline that we see happen when guys get to the upper 30 age range. He has maybe a couple of years before we start to see that deterioration, but he's got to fight. He's got to fight more. And I think if he fights more, he's going to be in the thick of things because just coming off the couch, and I hate to say come off the couch because it's not like he wasn't doing anything, but he hasn't been competing for years. Being able to compete for competing is a is a rhythm and when you're competing you're

learning the nuances of the game because they change quite often as conor mcgregor found out so if he's competing a lot more i think this nick diaz or nate nate diaz is is within the top five definitely within the top five wow top five okay see i didn't get that same feel now in full you know respect to the layoffs that you mentioned i mean it's been five. Wow, top five. Okay, see, I didn't get that same feel. Now, in full respect to the layoffs that you mentioned, I mean, it's been almost five years since the second Conor fight, and we've seen Nate active in that five-year window for about like six months, right? It was like the Pettis comeback, the Bozvedal fight, and that's it.

So, you know, at 36 and the wars add up, yeah, I did feel like he didn't start off this fight crisp. I don't want to overlook, because you made a great point about if he was washed, you know, would he be able to stand in there and take that beating for 23 and a half minutes? Would he want to? Would it all be there? You're right. He took that into his idea of street culture and the whole idea that he talked about afterwards of like, okay, cool to Leon. He

won the fight, but if this was a street fight, I'd be the winner. Cause I was about to put him away. I mean like, like that's a Nate, that's a Diaz brother. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, that's cool, bro. But we're not on the street corner. Right. I just don't feel like I can take that away and be like, all right, cool. Losses don't matter at this point anyway. And for somebody like Nate Diaz, who is a celebrity fighter at this point, it's not that they really do matter. don't necessarily this was a risk reward opportunity he was hoping to parachute into and maybe steal a title opportunity against Usman it didn't happen it almost happened though but Rashad it's hard for me to overlook that he got pieced up in every

single category timing distance wrestling I mean yes the the stubbornness and the toughness was still there but did he even have a game plan in your mind and from my critical point of view if i say okay you put him on him in that final minute could you not have put it on him earlier or did he need to wait for that one mistake from leon i don't get it, Rashad. I don't get it. Yeah, well, the problem was the fact that he got dominated in areas where he would typically, you know, that he would really be winning in. And when he got dominated in the ground area, that was something that really took the wind out of his sails and really allowed Leon to just get so ahead on the cars

because there was no safe place for Nick to go in order to try to wear Leon out. Every single place Leon went, Leon was just dominating in every position. So he did have to wait because he wasn't going to smell an opportunity any other way. He to to really you know when he came with the pressure with his hands he was able to throw those slapping combinations and when you're throwing those combinations it really gave leon something to deal with because leon wasn't able to just walk through him he really had to try to use his defense to get out of him if nate would have done that more he could have been able possibly able to possibly bring on the fatigue of Edwards earlier.

Earlier out, Edwards was sharp. I think that that's the thing. He's fighting a guy in a division in Leon Edwards who I believe is right up there with the champion. Not saying that he can beat Kamaru, but when you

look at what he's able to do from top to bottom with his striking, with his movement, with his ability to take guys down, but not only take guys down, to really implement a good heavy ground and pound grappling game, that's something that the champion is doing right now. And that's when you know you really start to you know i i had to start to really look at nate's performance differently because i recognize the fact that nate wasn't stepping in there with just a normal typical top five contender he was stepping in there with arguably one of the best guys in the division yeah i definitely want to put respect on edwards's name and look maybe i said i didn't get it maybe nate's smarter than me and he he fought for that 25 minute distance because of exactly what we saw he knew there could be a chance of out outlasting or out toughing Edwards down the stretch he almost got it Rashad do you think

there was a lot of reaction online that when Nate landed that two-punch combination with just about a minute to go and then pointed at Edwards to do a very Diaz-esque taunt. Did he miss a window to put him away? Should he have put him away there? Could he have? I think he missed the window. I think he really did miss the window, you know, and part of it was he probably was tired, you know, but that was part of, you know, that was part of his setup the whole time. So he didn't want to get too excited because he didn't want to allow Leon to let him know that, you know, he thought he was going to get him up out of there. But I mean, because he still had to watch out for a dangerous Leon, right? Leon showed him throughout the fight that he had some power, that he had enough.

So you don't want to just rush in there when a guy's been dinging you the whole fight and showing that he has power. So I can understand his reluctancy to want to just jump in there but i mean that was the opportunity that was the whole entire fight for him and he almost threw that hail mary pass and caught it you know but it just it's just something that just kind of makes the legend of nate diaz grow even more even though he didn't win that fight it's still something that you know you can't ever count him out no matter who he's fighting they're going to say, yeah, but he did land that shot.

And you've got to recognize it. I've been there. I've been there twice. I've been there twice when I fought Rampage and when I fought Tiago Silva. And it was the scariest thing of my life. The last round, the last little bit, and you get caught with a shot that your body just can't shake off. And it's probably, look, do I want a world where Nate's active and in fun, big fights?

Of course. So this is, you know, it's not lost on me. This is probably the best case scenario for that, for him to save face in that regard. I mean, it was kind of reminiscent to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in boxing back in 2012 when he lost almost every second against Sergio Martinez. Remember that fight, Rashad? Then he rallies back in the 12th round and drops him, and the crowd's going nuts, and he just runs out of time. I mean, look, it's a moment that we won't forget,

but it did at the very least seem to overshadow what we learned about Leon. You teased it just a minute ago. He showed us everything, Rashad. I mean, this is what he needed in my point of view. He needed a fight against a huge name that the world would take notice that would showcase his skills so that we weren't talking instead about what he's not doing marketing wise or that time he got punched back you know curtain against Masvidal I mean what a freaking performance from Edwards from nearly start to finish Dana White did say say afterwards, Rashad, that Covington is still next. Dana's in love with that five-round war we saw a few years back between Usman and

Covington. He wants to run it back. I know Colby's been on submission radio in the past 24 hours, and he's accusing Usman of ditching the UFC and not signing the contract. And it's always a soap opera with Colby. But Rashad, separate from from Dana's decision which seems to be in stone um I feel like at least that you know you could make a great case that Leon is more deserving at the moment because we just saw Usman rematch Masvidal in a fight we didn't necessarily need to see what the hell else does Edwards have to do he's won nine in a row he's unbeaten in 10 fights. His last loss came to the current champ back in 2015 when they were both kind of not well-known

and sort of starting off in the UFC. I get commercially what Dana's doing, but Leon just showed us for nearly five full rounds why I believe he deserves next against Kamaru. I will agree to you but then i would say i would add a ha to this and that is this right here like i i think leon is well deserving of definitely you know being up there but i don't think he's title shot ready if i was managing leon i wouldn't want him to have a title shot and i wouldn't want to have a title shot just

because he had the one fight back with against Bilal Muhammad. And that that fight got stopped short because of the eye poke. And then we had a five round war with Nate Diaz where he largely dominated. But then that last little bit, he got caught. So even though he had a great performance, you know, there still was that time in the fight where he lost concentration, got a little tired, and he got caught. And not saying that you can't get caught in a fight, but that shows me that there needs to be a little bit more time with Leon and Iatagan in order for him to be the competitor

that he needs to be to really challenge Kamaru, to really give forth an effort where you can say, you know what, he could beat Kamaru on his day. Because he's close as far as competitiveness and being able to be the guy to be able to pose some problems. But he needs a couple more, at least one more fight, another five-round fight in order to really show and really work out the kinks in his game because he has been off for a long time so if you're his team are you asking the ufc for the mazda fight oh yeah absolutely i'm asking for a mazda fight i'm asking for another fight where my opponent my my uh my fighter gets the chance to go out there and just kind of knock off some more of that ring rush, just get more in his time and get more honed in on his game.

Because like I said before, it's a rhythm. When you compete, you get in a nice rhythm, and he needs to get back into that nice rhythm again. That's an interesting strategy because you could always wait around. You could always sit by the phone, stay prime. Who knows if the Covington rematch gets announced and then there's a pullout or whatever. But then again, he could really help his

brand and certainly to the things you're saying, rebuild whatever hiccup may have been lost there in that final minute against Diaz. Firm all that up. I mean, obviously a fight with him and Masvidal with the backstory, with the style contrast, it would be huge. It would be big. But

big win for Leon Edwards, just the same. Boy, did he need that after all that bad luck. And Rashad, if he had lost that, I mean, that would have been the worst stretch of bad luck for any one man in the history of mankind. Really. I mean, it would have been, I mean, who do we compare him to

at that point? That would have been sad. It would have been sad. Yeah. Devastating, devastatingly sad. All right, Rashad. Topic four, it was a loaded UFC 263 card and people always say, you guys, you guys, I can't believe you didn't talk about this fight. You went into that stupid boxing thing you talk about all the time. So Rashad, it's your playground. 263, top to bottom, outside of those big three fights we talked about, who impressed you the most? I got to go with Riddell, man. I think Brad Riddell, you know, that fight to me, it was one where, you know, I became a bigger Riddell fan, to be honest. You know, I've always known he's a tough guy from city kickboxing

and he's a hard worker and he always brings it. But that fight to me, it showed to me that he's more than just a tough fighter. He's a competitor. He's definitely one of these guys who can potentially compete for the belt one day. And just the way he fought that fight, coming out, losing early, early out, but then finding a way to rally from behind and then really start to pull away what was impressive to me and then to do it with the heavy heart you know he's one of izzy's teammate and he's digesting that loss of a teammate too as well so you felt that energy out there and uh to to see him go out there and have a gutted performance like that in the heart of what he was dealing with,

to me just kind of, you know, kind of just made me want to clap my hands on that. And Rashad, he had to earn it because Drew Dober, who always brings it. I mean, we said before this fight card that, you know, this could be that special one. This could steal fight of the night honors. And I think it ultimately did because that was three rounds of pinball. You know, Riddell getting hurt early, the fantastic wrestling exchanges, but Riddell, you know, cementing that fight in round three. That was great theater.

I agree with you that Riddell, who was unbeaten in the UFC, is starting to carve himself as a legit top ten lightweight in the sports. You know, I always say the sports toughest division for sure, but also, look, the division's going through a mini facelift. You know, Khabib's gone. Tony Ferguson and McGregor are two big names that are coming off you know not only defeats but looking like they're going maybe in the other direction you still got some other big names but they're coming off defeats as well because really everyone fought Habib so they're all coming off defeats but uh uh you know this is a new name here in this division Riddell

who seems like he can play at this level again i don't know what they're feeding them down there at ckb it always makes luke thomas really excited but uh you know i wonder what they could do for my fatty liver disease you know if i go down there for a three-month camp right rachelle right man you might come back a different bc for sure uh lauren murphy also impressed me. That was a... Oh, the pronunciation police have hit me up in the DMs and say, BC, stop calling it JoJo Calderwood. It's Calderwood, apparently. Or Calderwood. Either way, Lauren Murphy did what she had to do

in basically a number one contenders bout. A fun three-round affair. Excuse me. Had a lot of wrestling exchanges. Some good back and forth on the feet. Both were cut and hurt. Lauren Murphy gets the nod. Rashad, I feel like she should be next,

but I do feel like we're in the same spot with Valentina Shevchenko on top. She just dominated Jessica Andrade, and she's dominated everybody else about ten times worse so far. Lauren Murphy has been consistent. She's put together wins. She does look like she's getting better. But, you know, it's probably still TKO one or sub one Shevchenko at the end of the day, right? I'm not being disrespectful here.

No, you're not. You're being absolutely honest. And that's the truth of the matter. You know, when you have a bull like that who's just completely dominating everybody in the division, I mean, you just keep on trying to keep feeding her and just hoping that you have some kind of uh somebody that rises that's able to challenge her a little bit that makes sense but you know it's just so hard i think lauren is the next contender but i mean if you're lauren you know is it just about getting a title shot or is it really about winning you know if that's the case then you know there are some

things that she needs to polish up on but But at the end of the day, I feel like Lauren Murphy has just grown so much as a competitor and she's in the right trajectory to be somebody who can definitely give the champion trouble if she's able to win in some of these positions, her grappling positions. But she's got to be able to close the distance with her hands and that seems to be the thing that is the toughest thing to deal with when you're dealing with Shevchenko and now I'm confused if I even pronounce that right Jojo Calderwood

I don't know either way heartbreaking turn for Joanne Rashad remember she had the title shot locked up then she took that stay busy with Jennifer Maya and lost and now you know she beat Jessica Ai but now she lost again. So tough turn of events there. But it's Valentina's division until we see. Well, hey, look, Tatiana Suarez said she's moving up to this weight class, Rashad. So maybe that's something we can get excited for if she can get herself into a title opportunity there against the great Valentina Shevchenko. Rashad, to close out our five topics of the week,

Bellator 260 was Friday night, and this is the first time on MK we've had a chance to react to it. I was dead wrong, dead wrong me for all the appearances I made on this show, on CBS Sports HQ, when I said, look, I love everything Yaroslav Amasov is doing at welterweight. The unbeaten record is impressive, but Douglas Lima is a different kind of elite animal on the feet and if he can stay off his back for at least three of the five rounds he's gonna out point and control distance and do all the kind of things that douglas lima does

rashad i can shut the hell up here and you can tell me how 26-0 Yaroslav Amisov is a dominant beast. It wasn't, you know, bust open your opponent and beat him, but it was consistent, technical, and one-sided. As Amisov took down Lima at will, controlled every aspect of this fight, held his own on the feet. And he's your new Bellator welterweight champion. How impressed were you? I was really impressed.

You know, unlike UBC, I kind of had a feeling like that was going to happen. I thought, like, this guy was just so dynamic going into the fight, just watching the film that I've seen on him. You know, for me, it was just his stand-up, but just his patience with the stand-up. But then, more importantly, his his groundwork his transitional work and all those different other uh attributes that adds to his game you know when i seen him just uh on film i knew this was a guy who was going to definitely separate from the pack and i felt as if like he was going to beat a diego lima who was coming down you know

after his his attempt at being up at a heavier weight class you know so it was kind of the perfect storm for him you know coming down after having a loss and cutting that weight and getting there with the guy you know like Amzloff who just was was streaking who's undefeated and just you know just a dynamic competitor in his own right you know here's the thing about it you know he's also growing Amzloff is also growing so much. He's going to get bigger. He's going to get stronger. He's going to start to pull away more

in this weight class. I was thoroughly impressed, man. I was thoroughly impressed. His wrestling wouldn't be that good if he wasn't able to hold his own on the feet and be effective. He's got the Sambo background. He seems to be mentally tough. There was sort of I don't want to say a negative side but the crowd which was um it was largely pro Amasov but yet the crowd at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut seemed to turn

on the lack of entertainment here and it did spill into the online reactions for whatever's that worth the idea that okay Amasov basically won all 25 minutes here and completely took the fighting spirit out of Lima. I mean, Lima's on his back going, you know, I don't know what else to do. Yet Lima wasn't getting his punch face, you know, his face punched in, Rashad. There were boos that it was too boring. You saw the chatter online. Is it justified, I mean, to say, hey, nice win, but that was boring? Or, you know, styles make fights,

and that's this guy's style at the end of the day. Well, I mean, he doesn't have a boring style because I've seen him fight many times, and it was thoroughly entertaining. But match-ups, match-ups sometimes makes interesting fights. I mean, it does make interesting fights. A match-up is where it's at. And sometimes you can match up with an opponent,

and they don't open up enough, and it's just a perfect storm just for a very cluttered and just kind of just a mucky fight where it's not too entertaining and the techniques are not the cleanest and it doesn't look like it's just not a fun fight to watch. That happens sometimes. But listen, he's fighting a champion. he's trying to take the belt from the champion and he only can bring his in he only can bring his end of the fight so with that said it takes two to dance and if only one person's bringing the intensity if one person's only bringing his side of the game then then he only can do what he's going to do i'm not saying diego just took the night off but at the same time, Diego wasn't what he was.

Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, Douglas was not what he was, you know? No, and Lima wasn't there to be dominant. I mean, you're not going to dominate Doug Lima. Nobody really does. But you saw the frustration in Lima's face, Rashad. Now two defeats in a row, but granted, one for the middleweight title, one for for the welterweight title does Douglas Lima have to look in the mirror and figure some things out here I think so I think you know you know he he's already kind of addressed that when we were talking um you know the pre-fight before that on Thursday he talked about him having to mentally

recalibrate himself and really have to find that goal, you know, that why am I doing this, you know? And it seems as if like he still needs to kind of assess that. And then you take, you know, the fact that he's cutting down after being up, you know, those are all the factors that kind of contribute to it as well. You know, he had some great opportunities. He's fought for so long. He's fought the who's who of the sport. And when you fight the who's who of the sport and you've had so many ups and downs in your career sometimes you do need to pull back you need to kind of just like take a step away take a take a breath of air and just kind of re-evaluate why you're doing this and where you're really at sometimes if you do not do that then the blowback from that can be very

catastrophic because you're not going to be able to understand and assess why you keep on failing tell you what i'd love to see doug lima come back in a fight with mvp i know that's not taking a step back but i'd love to see that rematch after how explosive that was before the knockout but look it's amasov's time right now let's respect him i know luke thomas is going to get back on this show whether it's wednesday or whatever and say hey guys i told you logan storley was really freaking good he fought emesov last time it was a three-round barn burner a lot of uh striking and aggressive wrestling and transitions do you feel the same that you know logan storley's probably not next but this you know he did a whole hell of a lot better against emesov than doug lima did yeah he did you know um

you know lo Logan was able to compete him in the areas where Amosov is good at with the grappling. You know, I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, Logan Storley was able to do so well. But more importantly, you know, he almost beat him and he kind of showed that, you know, there are some holes in Amosov's game that needs to work out. You know, he got him tired. And when he got him tired, you started to see the cracks in Amazon's game that could potentially be exposed later on. But,

um, you know, you gotta be able to have an athlete who's able to get them there. And primarily how you get them there is just going right into the, right into his mouth, right into the, the, the danger zone,

which is his grappling and being able to address that and pose some questions on the ground. So then when you come back up to your feet, you'll be able to at least strike with him or dominate. Hey, Belcher's doing a very good job between Vadim Nemkov, Magomed Magomedov, now Yaroslav Amisov, really putting forth some new, fresh names into the elite level. It was good to see that. In terms of what could be next for Amisov, Rashad, Friday's co-main event may have produced that. Jason, the ass-kicking machine, Jackson, who's

been on one hell of a run here at Welterweight, coming through some big names one after another. He went in there with Paul Daly. You know, I sort of had the knee-jerk reaction of, okay, great, let's bang. You know, you're going to see bombs. It wasn't bombs. This was technical striking and really technical grappling as well from Jackson

to get the unanimous decision I know you've worked out with him a lot in the past at Sanford MMA this was as mature as I've ever seen from Jackson by far it really was you know for me it was just um it was impressive for me to see because I've known Jason Jackson ever since he came to the Black Zillions and he had zero ground. His ground was so terrible you would just take him down and you can do whatever you wanted with him on the ground. He would get dominated. And to see him go from that to now being the person that's taking people down, initiating the grappling exchanges, not only initiating them, taking control, dominating them in proper position,

holding position, transition, and stand ahead of the game against very seasoned ground guys, it's impressive because he didn't have that wrinkle before. And now that he's able to utilize that wrinkle, he's able to fight smarter. He's able to fight at a different pace and different understanding than he used to. So that's very dangerous. And especially for a like jason jackson who's grown in belief and who has a stand-up ability explosiveness to really uh to be champion in his weight class it's a problem for whoever he has to fight next i mean he never let paul daly get comfortable enough to let this the the big left hook go. So this was a very strong performance, especially that Daly's been hot lately. So Scott Coker's going to have some questions to answer matchmaking-wise.

I could see Jackson getting next. I could see MVP leapfrogging that if you wanted a star-on-star type of match. Not star-on-star, but MVP against Amosov style-wise with MVP star value. I mean, it's a fun time at Bellator Welterweight at the moment. Logan Storlie coming off of the loss but looking to get back in there. We got some fun names here, Rashad. Where would you go next for Amosov? I would go with Jason Jackson.

I really would. But, you know, I like Jason Jackson's approach. Even when you talk to him about it, you know, about getting a title shot, he's very much like, look, I'll fight whoever they have next for me because I'm going to be champion. I'm going to have to fight him anyways. That's a great mindset to have. You know what I'm saying? Because it's not someone who's trying to just hurry up and get the position and then politic his way to securing a belt even longer by dictating who he fights. He's somebody saying, you know what? I'm the best and I'm so sure I'm the best. I'll wait to fight for the belt and I'll fight everybody else because when I get that title shot, I'm the best and I'm so sure I'm the best, I'll wait to fight for the belt and I'll fight

everybody else because when I get that title shot, I'm going to win. And that to me shows ultimate confidence. Yeah, I respect that a lot. Obviously, we still got Neiman Gracie, Lorenz Larkin, you know, I'm trying to think of all this. You know, it's a good welterweight division at the moment right there. Rashad, 10 seconds

here on, I didn't want to forget it, but Aaron Pico looked freaking fantastic again here against Aiden Lee. Gets the third round submission, but Rashad, for a guy who we're sometimes like, man, don't fall in love with your punch so much, wrestle more, his jiu-jitsu game was off the charts in this one.

Absolutely off the charts. I mean, his transitional game his his overall game has grown so much you know i've been watching this kid and it primarily started with his stand up you know and you know when you have the confidence in your stand up like he's growing he has now working with brandon gibson and those guys over at jackson winks you know he's completely transformed because now he's so confident with his stand-up and he knows that his stand-up is on par. It allows him to just flow so well

in every other area where he was good at before. And that's what we're seeing. Now we're just seeing the overconfidence and just, you know, in Pico's game. And I think that this is just the beginning of where we see this guy start rising. I think he's going to keep getting better and better. I think he's going to be world champion one day.

I mean, when he is not looking, when he's not relying on trying to set up that punch and is a threat to do multiple things on the ground, then the openings are going to be there for that knockout power. I mean, he's obviously an incredible boxer. He's completely well-rounding his game, but you're right. We saw reckless confidence in the past. Now we're seeing just controlled confidence, like the mind is catching up with the body with Aaron Pico.

And I don't know if they're going to keep matching him slow, given how spectacular those losses were in the past. But if I'm the guys at the top at featherweight right now, I'm looking over my shoulder because Aaron Pico is coming, Rashad. He's coming. He's coming on, bro. Oh, yeah, he's coming for sure. He's coming on for sure.

And he's got his belief with him too, and he's got a swagger about it too. I'm kind of liking his swagger. I'm kind of really digging it. I mean, could you imagine him against, you know, Emmanuel Sanchez, AJ McNeil, Pitbull. I mean, this is a fun time right now, Bellator, even though, you know, we're all ViacomCBS. Yay, Bellator. It's also a fun time for Bellator at the moment.

So shout out to what's going on over there. All right, Rashad, those are our five topics of the week. But we also like to give the people a say. So every week we hit them up, give you the floor. It is DMs from dogs. Nah. Nah. Just a reminder, every Sunday night

on Instagram, we put out the DMs for Donks Hit. You respond on Instagram at Morning Combat to that. That's how you get your questions on here. Don't DM us those questions. That's how the process works. Rashad, we'll start off with... Hit me with the horns, Maneech.

From Azad Singh, I think. Maneech, I can't read the full screen here. What's going on? I got computer issues. My computer got busted out. What was more disappointing at UFC 263? Leon Edwards holding back and not going for a statement finish or marvin vittori's game plan overall rashad i mean i wouldn't even say leon wasn't even holding back and going for the finish i think leon was going for the finish as much as

he could but i mean he had somebody in there there with Nate Diaz who was just absorbing just punishment that you can't even predict. You know, it was unprecedented some of the shots that Diaz was able to take and still keep on going. You know, most fighters would get kind of in a state of, oh, I got to hurry up and make something happen. And they start to panic when they see the blood leaking out their face like Diaz had. But that only just surged him, gave him more energy. So he was fighting an atypical fighter. So when you're fighting somebody who's not a typical fighter, you have to fight accordingly, and I think he fought accordingly to that.

Yeah, I don't want to necessarily throw the disrespect at either of those guys in this spot. I mean, I thought Leon sat down on his punches when he needed to when he needed to send a message to Nate that you're not you know going to walk me down through the first four rounds he did that in Vittoria it's like Rashad what do you want you want him to go for broke and fight like a spaz at the end the worst fighter to fight like a spaz against is Adesanya when he's coiled up and ready to counter strike. You're going to have to try to have nuances to it. Maybe at the end of the day that for now,

for this version of 27 year old Marvin Vittori, that is the best he can do. I think Rashad, I think he does have to add continued nuances to his game and be able to set up his strikes better. I really felt like he hit a wall of frustration because Adesanya is that great. He said, dude, Adesanya is a generational guy. I mean, I don't, if anyone doesn't believe that still at this point, you know, I mean, come on now, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Vittori had nothing when it came to on his feet. He wasn't able to answer that question. He wasn't able to understand why he was falling short with the stand-up. And then when it came to grappling, he really couldn't understand why he wasn't able to get Israel in positions to dominate

because Israel kept on moving. So he was just stuck in the mud no matter where he went. Yeah, indeed. Let's keep it rolling here with the questions from the people. Manich, hit me up here, bro. From atlamily underscore two. Was it weird that Adesanya did not throw a left hand all night, especially how low Vittori was keeping his right hand?

Commentators didn't say anything about it. Rashad, I don't feel like that happened. I saw that check left hook a bunch of times really sort of, you know, either tap Vittori on the chin or at least come close enough to let him know, again, that you can't just come in on me on a straight line. Did you see a difference at all from the left hand? No, I didn't. Actually, I seen the opposite. Like you said, here's the reality of the situation. You don't all the time have to throw the lead hand if you're getting him to react with the lead hand. Like if I'm able to control the

space and I'm using my fakes and feints and I'm using my pretend left hook to keep you in the range to set up my other strikes, then I don't really need to actually throw it out because even though I'm not throwing it out and hitting you with it, I'm still utilizing it. I don't need to utilize it with a strike in order to utilize it so i've seen a lot of the him using it utilizing it as just to control space and he was able to touch him because he kept marvin honest a lot with the nice one two and even with the jab sometimes yeah indeed indeed i'm with you on that sorry sorry lamely i wasn't feeling what you're putting out there, but continue to frequent us just the same. The next question from GregLeach99. If Nate Diaz had gone for the kill and was able to get that

finish against Leon Edwards in the fifth round, Rashad, where would that dramatic finish rank among the best UFC comebacks of all time in your eyes? Man, for me, I think that would be probably within, man, that probably would be within the top three. And that's up there with the Matt Serra knocking out GSP for that one. Because it was truly a one lopsided ass whooping, to be honest. And Nick was just eating it. He was just taking it.

And he was going to take it the whole night and be proud of it. But in that last final round, he was able to show why we like Nate Diaz. He was able to show why he's even in the conversation to be awarded a fight like Leon Edwards, a top three. He showed why he is that guy. So if he was able to pull that off, no doubt about it, that would have been top three in my book. I'm trying to think historically here. I mean, we all love Scott Smith's comeback against Pete Sell,

Scott Smith's comeback in Strikeforce against Kung Lee, but I don't think anything is topping Anderson Silva's submission in round five of Chelsea in their first fight, right? I mean, I know I'm probably missing some others, Rashad, but you consider the title on the line, the rivalry between the two, that winning streak Anderson Silva had, the broken rib, I mean, everything that night, right? Yeah, yeah, that was a lot going into it.

I think that one will always remain top for a while, but I would say this fight was in the conversation with that if it could have happened. Because the winner would have had an argument for a title shot. Now, if Nate had won dramatically after looking that bad early, I don't think they're subbing him in to fight Usman next. Maybe we would have seen a rematch between these two or something, but given have real given the talent level of Edwards the fact that Nate's 36 and has entered into that beloved I mean we can't I can't say enough about it Rashad the love Nate is getting now is so well deserved and like I love when the OG gets like when Tony the love Tony Ferguson got in his last fight

it was just like yeah yeah, man, yeah. You know, like, yeah. I'm sick of these guys fighting against the machine of the UFC. And, you know, I love when they get their flowers. Rashad, I just finished another painting. Give Nate his damn flowers already, all right? Come on, bro. Right, Nate?

This is for you, brother. This is for you. We love you. You're you're right man there's nothing like a fighter getting his flowers you know uh and really getting to appreciate the the fans you know and you seen it you seen it in his eyes and you've seen how much that that meant to him to to me the way that he was treated the way the fans responded to him was the victory for him. You know what I'm saying? He didn't win the fight, but I seen the look in his eyes and just how happy he was because the fans received him.

You know, he'll go out there and die on the shield and lay it all on line for these guys every single time just because he felt that love that they gave him. So, Rashad, I'm into things like the roar of the crowd. I ask fighters, I ask longtime people that have covered boxing and mixed martial arts. I always ask these kind of like, you know, curious questions. What's the greatest pop you've ever seen? In pro wrestling, you know, the pop is the thing, right? It's always like, you know, when the wrestler walks out in the entrance and the theme song hits, if it's a surprise or it's a big fight the pop of

the crowd is a thing i love that it gives me goosebumps the largest pop i ever heard i was actually not even in the arena ufc 196 mcgregor diaz won i was watching from the press room when nate turned that shit around the pop was building and then when he subbed in in connor tapped out it was like i mean the the you could feel the walls and the floor shaking and again i was next door this one would have been freaking insane i mean could you could you even imagine being in that arena if he had done that this time man i couldn't even imagine just even in my house was just what was deafening so i couldn't even imagine what it was like actually being there because it

was just truly one of the most exciting moments of the fight. The whole entire card. Let's keep the train rolling here on. We've got one more here. Manish from the people, maybe two, maybe two. All right,

let's keep it going. This one's from Tay. Jay Tay. Hosh Tay. Josh underscore X underscore X. It's a hell of a tag you got there, Tejash. Has flyweight finally become relevant enough for the casual MMA fan? Interesting wrinkle on that question.

Your thoughts, Rashad. I think so. And I think that it had to really work its way in the hearts of the fans, you know, and, and, and, and crazy as it sounds through the ordeal of almost getting rid of the weight class really just kind of made fans and, and, and, you know, more endearing of it because, you know, you have that stretch where it was going to get taken off and then you've seen some fighters getting cut and then you've Henry Cejudo win the belt and then he was able to go and go and win 135 further validating the strength of the 125 division and then you've seen Devis and Figueiredo go out there and just pretty much capture the imagination

of people with being you know such a powerful dynamic you know Mike Tyson-esque type you know fighter at the flyweight division and then you just see Moreno just go out there with a sweetheart performance and really just go out there and show, you know, when you believe you can win, you can do anything. And I think now it's really resonating and connecting with people from a heart level before anything. I agree with you on that. I mean, maybe in the past with DJ,

it was more about things were happening so quick. They're playing pinball and it's great technical skill, but it's just, you know, now you got relatable. Now you got guys, powerhouses, you got power punchers and badasses going after it. It seems a little bit more related. God darn, we never gave DJ his flowers. It was never relatable enough for the people to buy in.

I mean, what else could he do? We wanted him to finish guys. He started dramatically knocking out and subbing guys with one second to go in fights. I mean, it's too bad, Rashad. It's too bad. All right, that's the questions for the week. We appreciate your efforts there. But it's time to get into some shit, okay? And that's what we do

here. Every single Monday, I scour the globe. For the good, the bad, the ugly, the best, the worst, the in-between. In combat, sports, and beyond, it is called, Have You Seen This Shit? Alright, Rashad, buckle up for some

ridiculousness here. You'll be playing the role of Luke Thomas. We start out UFC 263 in Glendale. Lightweight Terrence McKinney, Rashad, wins his UFC debut against Matt Frivola in seven seconds. And check out the injury-producing celebration here. Climb the cage and blow out the knee. Oh, my gosh. Rashad, there's a lot to process here.

Do you know his backstory of having been tasered, bro, by the police and overdosing twice and almost dying? For him to turn that around, blown knee or not, this is special, this moment here. It really was. Seriously. No, it was. I heard about is special, this moment here. It really was. Seriously. No, it was. I heard about a story, and it was such a great story.

I looked into it after he made the comment of, you know, you need to have me on your podcast, Joe Rogan. So I checked it out, and it was a very good story. But, I mean, just, I mean, to have such an upscale performance coming in short notice and winning and then blowing your knee out. Oh, my gosh. That's so uplifting but devastating at the whole time because I had two knee surgeries, bro, and they don't come back like that. So my heart goes out to him. But, man, great fight.

Reminds me of that field goal kicking brothers from the 2000s, and one of them hit a game winner, and then he was jumping up and down celebrating, and then he busted his leg. I forgot that guy's name. You know what I about yeah grammatica thank you maniche grammatica martin grammatica i think maybe maybe there was a couple brothers i don't know let's keep it going here we talked about that great feel-good moment from figueredo i mean from uh moreno rashad do you know what doubled it figueredo's reaction after the decision was announced, for Figueiredo to be such an uncompromising badass, and then pick up Brandon Moreno and celebrate with him.

Rashad, Bushido 101 right there. That right there, that right there is what it's all about, man. Listen, listen, BC, listen, BC. Look, we go in there, we push each other, we may even talk about each other's mamas but at the end of the day it's about the respect and love that you share with your opponent when he's giving you everything that he's got and you felt it it is there's a connection there man and that's what this sport captures man that's a beautiful moment beautiful moment uh thank you figueredo that was

very beautiful all right luke good god rashad uh if you're gonna do some fat guy mma i'm gonna put it on this show did you see heavyweights carlos felipe and oh first sorry i skipped over did you see this mural in tijuana i what do they have this pre-painted for brandon moreno oh my gosh oh my gosh see that see that's that's some fandom right there. Like, right away. I mean, come on. I mean, when they do that on Sunday, I mean, that's just absolutely phenomenal panning. And that just goes to show the love they have for him.

But it also goes to show the impact that this star can make in this country. That's huge. They even got the monster can in there. Shout out to Hans Mollenkamp or whatever the hell the guy's name is uh i mentioned fat guy mma heavyweights carlos felipe and jake collier put it on each other here was john you get into this sloppy shit or what oh i love that slop i love that sloppy i love it when they go 10 toes down and you just kind of see that fat rolling you just kind of see them roll they kind of remind me of just like you know you ever see like uh. It kind of reminds me of you ever see

I like the National Geographic when you see the walruses get at it. You know what I'm saying? And you just see this fur flying. That's what I like to see. And that's what you see in that fight. A lot of just big man

tussle right there. This was the Holloway Llamas of fat guys. So shout out to that moment right there this was the uh the holloway lamas of fat guys so shout out to that moment right there all right we keep it going thursday night's pfl olbin mercier the uh canadian against fellow ufc alum marvin held check out this uh or sorry martin held check out this right hand that dropped him i think we had a little video but uh good shit there from yeah real good shit oam olivier i'll be in the mercier oh mercier mercier me look at that that hand was so it was surgical man it was surgical that was that was a great and it was sneaky too because he kind of disguised a little bit

thought it was coming one bone right over the top of another beautiful beautiful technique i've been mercy it takes the decision let's roll it on here seven division or sorry we go top rank boxing in vegas shakur stevenson rashad this was a boring ass fight stevenson who i love never really put his foot on the gas but in round four against power puncher jeremiah nakatilla check out that short little hook to bring him down from the southpaw yeah just just a little check just a little check. Just a little touch him. Just a little touch him. Look at the speed on that, right? That's super clean right there, man.

That's textbook right there. That's the kind that you would set examples for him and say, listen, if you're not doing it like this, you're not doing it right. Yeah, that's some Floyd shit right there. I love that. Seven-division women's boxing champion Amanda Serrano continued her MMA career. She went in the Icon Fighting Federation banner,

took on Valentina Garcia, and in less than 60 seconds, we've got a standing guillotine. Rashad, I guess there's more money on the other side, right? Oh, my goodness. Way more money. Look at this standing guillotine, though. Goodness gracious, that crank was just... Jeez, that elbow went all the way up, man. That's one hell of a crank

right there that was on UFC Fight Pass Garcia was making her pro debut and uh Serrano improves to 2-0-1 she's fought in combate before but she's uh she's staying busy just like Clarissa Shields more on that to come uh Rashad let's head over to the gym uh is no this isn't 1978 Rashad but what the hell's going on oh man BC he got. BC, he got your jeans on, man. Those are your pants. I know your pants when I see them. Those are your jeans. Those jeans are on your team.

Oh, show a lot of blues, bro. You made me cry. This is special. What is he smuggling under there, Rashad? Is he taking people over the border with those things? Good God. What is going on? Just the tightness at the top, though.

It's a little tight. Oh my goodness. And then just, that's terrible. Rashad, the subways are opening back up post-COVID, so your subway creature shirt of the week goes out to this guy. Can we play this video here? I mean, is he wrong, Rashad? Oh man.

Oh man. Oh my goodness. I mean, you do have to Rashad? Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, my goodness. What is he? I mean, you do have to eat clean, bro, right? Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez.

You need a balanced diet. Okay. All right. Gosh. Yeah. Okay. Hey, Rashad, I found a flashback photo of you. Can you explain this a little bit deeper?

I know we don't bring up the bad memories of you fighting Daniel Kelly in 2017, but are you reaching in right there? What are you looking for? What's going on? Is that a short grab right there? I think they call that the how's your father. I think that's what they call it. I was on the way to check his oil. That's what it was, man. trying to get a shortcut. Hey, I'm still waiting for that rematch, okay? I do not want Sam Alvey or Daniel Kelly to tell their grandkids one day that they think they beat Rashad. Oh, my gosh.

They fought an imposter, Rashad. Oh, my goodness. You ain't do shit. All right, let's check out this face-off. Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. and Hector Camacho Jr. are going to get down on Saturday night. And things got a little pushy here. Rashad, this is the same card that will have Anderson Silva against Chavez Jr.

Do you have any interest in this exhibition slop fest? No. I mean, look, I love slop. I love slop. And this is the kind of slop that I wouldn't normally eat up. But, I mean, I like to remember these guys how they were, man. You know what I mean? I mean, even just having them wrestle with each other right there could have been bad for their health.

I don't know. I'm not sold on this fight right here. I hear you. All right, let's go to regional MMA. Because, Rashad, anything can happen in regional MMA. You know this. Check out this kick. What do you call this?

Oh my gosh. It's like it was like a change up. It looked like an outside kick and then it went to an axe kick. It was a combination. How do you defend it? Oh my gosh. It looked as if it was coming like an unhinged

high kick, left kick, and then it just came down an axe mean you can't even teach that I think he was just kind of making it up in the middle I think I pulled my groin watching that happen alright let's check out this kick here this is like an accidental kick KO you gotta watch closely oh wow

that's from the Bellator archives right there Rashad dang he got stuck what was that oh my goodness I think they got a slow mo replay check that out Bellator archives right there, Rashad. Dang, he got stuck. What was that? Oh, my goodness. Wow. I think they got a slow-mo replay. Check that out. Oh, he kicked him on the way down. Oh.

Oh, that was nasty. That was nasty. Oh. Rashad, if you look close enough in nature, you'll find a lot of phallic or fallacies uh uh we've what what what what is grandma's uh cactus grandma's cactus needs a little bit more water grandma's cactus is rock hard with emotion and indeed uh let's head out to new mexico speaking of phallic objects rashad Let's head out to New Mexico.

Speaking of phallic objects, Rashad, it's always good to get in touch with nature, right? Always, always. Look at the tip. Tip to tip right there. That's the one tip to tip. Very impressive. Full mast over there in New Mexico. We like that.

All right. Rashad, I don't know if you saw in L.A. over the weekend, somebody took the time on an airplane to spend the money to spell out in the airstream above, Joe Rogan is literally five foot three. Can we just let this short man live? I mean, you sat across from him on the show. He's at least five, four. Let's put some respect on his name, right? The pettiness in this is just astronomical this is astronomical pettiness i'm like like how petty do you have to be to do something like this people are obsessed with joe rogan tight i will say it's smaller in person than i expected okay not the muscle size all right he's on it but uh but somebody went to that extreme wow all right hey right. Hey, Rashad, forget about Brendan Schaub. This is the real Food Truck Diaries.

I'd get off on this type of service, right? You? Oh, man, me too. What is this? What's going on here? She's, yes, yes, yes. Hey, see, there's always a wrinkle. There's always a wrinkle in the game, in the food industry.

And this is a good one. Nice to see you, Papa. That's a happy ending waiting to happen right there wow all right uh we see fights in the cage we see fights in the crowd check out this nba fight it got the internet going sons and nuggets and did you hear that the guy the guy was like uh notiche, what was the thing the guy yelled during this fight? Oh, oh, look at this. He said, sons in four as he delivered the right hand, Rashad. Oh, my gosh. Look at this.

Wow. There's a bunch of adults in jerseys in the crowd. That's, it's unbelievable. I mean, the striking defenses, it needs to work on that. I mean, if you're going to be out there talking and running your mouth at a basketball game, you've got to be ready to fight. Yeah, yeah, you've got to be. Wow, that Nuggets fan took it hard. So did the Nuggets, unfortunately, for the fans out there. Jokic, Jack, what the hell's going on here? We'll keep it going. We had some celebrity boxing over the weekend, and it was gross as shit. Did you see Lamar Odom against Nick Carter? Rashad, who the hell sanctioned this BS?

I mean, look, I know I just told people to watch Mayweather Paul, but this is the other end of the spectrum. Sorry, Aaron Carter. Aaron Carter. Don't dead wrong me. Aaron Carter. Yeah, I've seen some of the highlights of this. It was gross.

It was disgusting. But it was, strangely enough, kind of it was it was strangely enough kind of entertaining man it was kind of entertaining in that respect but i mean it was just pure ugliness yeah i mean nick carter's i'm sorry aaron carter the younger brother of backstreet boys nick carter has like a weird face tap but not in like the tyson cool way and then lamar odom didn't he't he have like a heart attack at the strip club? I mean, I don't know. He did. I don't want to get into this, but hey, you know who did was Chuck Liddell

was the referee for this one, Rashad. Can we get a GoFundMe so that Chuck doesn't have to work this kind of shit anymore? Please, please, Rashad. All right. All right. Hey, new invention time, Rashad. They call this one the Cobb Quickie. You want to butter your corn?

This might be the most efficient way to do it. In fact, given my training as a teenager and single man before my marriage days. Oh, man. That is phenomenal. Look at that. You could, wow. I mean, Rashad, they could just hire me, right? I mean, that's just, no.

Use my hand, please. Have you beat your corn lately? Yeah. All right. Hey, let's go to the baseball diamond. Check out this grab. The bad news is Rashad will never touch himself again, but the good news is he caught it.

Wow. Wow. Wow. That was phenomenal. Look at that stretch afterwards. I mean, look. Jeez. Woo.

Knocked the glove out of his hand, but he caught the ball. That was impressive. That was impressive. Very impressive. We close with this one, Rashad. Can somebody get out there and come get Uncle Leon and Aunt Bev? What the hell is going on here? Oh, man.

Somebody stop this. Somebody stop this. See, this is why we're in the times that we are with the Me Too movement, because guys like this. Buddy. Come on. This is. Sir, this is an Arby's. Javi, come on.

What is going on here? Can we get an undershirt on that lady, please? Oh, man. Oh, man. That was... Wow. You would have to break that out.

That's the shit of the week, Rashad. That's all we got right there. Odds and ends to close. Rashad, it was a very rough weekend for refereeing. I want to start at UFC 263. I know you saw this. To kick off the pay-per-view, light heavyweight Paul Craig went in there against

unbeaten Jamal Hill and local Arizona referee Al Guinea. Fight forever. Just bleed from this guy. Paul Craig puts Hill in the head and arm triangle and obviously bends the elbow in the other direction a badly

not broken but badly dislocated arm and then Rashad he lets the arm dangle as Paul Craig is punching him in the face in the head triangle and Paul Craig's yelling at the referee stop the fight and the guy's like no we're good we're gonna keep going here do you think it should be a hard and fast rule that if the bone breaks the fight's over the least at the least i mean it at first the referee was in kind of a hard position to see but i mean once the guy's arm is in and is dangling around i think that's a pretty good place to stop the fight and you know really good place to fight you know when they when they announce the decision after and the referee takes both of the arms of the fighters and holds them and then lets the winning guy pick up he picked up the healthy arm of jamal hill but then left

the the broken one just dangle in there it was gross i mean come on we don't need this there um unfortunately rashad that wasn't the only rough refereeing of the week. The Zone Boxing had a main event from Newcastle, England. Louis Ritson in there against a guy named Ponce. Ponce, unbeaten Argentinian, I believe. Excuse me. In round 10, Ponce is putting it on Ritson, Rashad. And Ritson's father, who's also his trainer, throws in the towel. But referee Steve Gray, which it is in the rule set that the referee does not

have to stop the fight when a towel is thrown, picked up the towel, threw it out of the ring. The problem is Louis Ritson went on to take two more knockdowns to the body, likely suffered a broken rib, and basically got another minute of ass beating that didn't seem necessary. Rashad, it's not the first time we've ever seen this before. Famously, when Miguel Cotto fought Yuri Foreman at Yankee Stadium, we saw it. We saw it in a grand mural, Michael Katsidis' fight a few years back. But if the trainer's saying, my fighter and my son's had enough,

shouldn't that be enough? 100%. I mean, the fact that he didn't stop the fight and you can wave something for one that's dangerous as hell I mean there's nobody who knows the fighter like the trainer so if the trainer is stopping the fight then without a doubt there needs to be uh the referee needs to stop the fight even if I mean that was just very poor by the referee thank god nobody got seriously hurt but that referee definitely needs to be reprimanded for that because that is not that,

that can't be suitable anywhere in combat sports. I'm like, we've got to have like, you know, it's like in the UFC thing. Like if, if I'm sorry, there's a submission in here in this game and MMA,

but if you break a fricking, but like nobody should be allowed to continue fighting with an inoperable limb. Right. I mean, I don't know what else Al Guinea, the ref, needed to see there. But in boxing, when it's allowed at any point, if the corner or the fighter says no mas, right? We don't want somebody in there who's not protecting themselves or doesn't want to be in there anymore.

A corner throwing in the towel is waving the flag of surrender. It is what it is at the end of the day. You know what I mean? That is just so, I don't know. It's very bizarre to keep that going. It's dangerous. Yeah, really. It is dangerous.

Dangerous. Tough break there. It was a number one contender's fight. The winner is going to get a title opportunity against Josh Taylor. So it was a pretty big fight. I get the referee wanting to give the fighter the best chance, but I mean, good God, it's his dad. It's his freaking dad in the corner.

Enough. Enough right there all day. Enough. Enough. What else you got for us? Well, I got a nod in there. Mine is, you know, Clarissa Shields. She had her first MMA debut, and it was a sticky one for her. I mean, you know, she was able to rally from behind

and get the victory, but what she had experienced early in the fight, it left some questions, you know, left some questions in my mind. One is, okay, she got the win, great come from behind victory, but is it still too early for her to be out there in MMA? Has she learned enough of the basic skill set to really be able to give a good account of herself just against the average child in MMA. Well, Rashad, I think this is interesting to bring up. Luke and I talked about this, I think it was Friday's show, and we overly praised her for having the guts to make the move, for showing certain intangible qualities of fighting through the trouble.

And I'm not going to lie to you, a lot of our listeners were like, I cannot believe Luke and BC were so pro shields here. She, she was remedial on the ground. She got her ass kicked. Should she have been in this main event? I'm interested to hear the other half of it. Do you, I mean, are you questioning whether she should still keep going or whether this should be, or whether she should advance this far in matchmaking and be in certainly tough match fights when she's this early in the game? I think she needs a little bit more time. I feel like when I watched that fight, there was just some things in her game that just wasn't there and didn't show any signs of just basically understanding. When she was on the ground, her ability to just recognize the threat and being able to move from

that was not one that you would expect to see at this level in the competition that she's going to be facing. So I think if anything, I think this fight was a good tester for her to kind of be like, okay, this is what I need to work on. Mike Winklejohn and Coach Greg Jackson, they're very good at being able to understand what their fighter needs. So I just hope that they slow it down enough for her to be able to catch up in the grappling exchanges because it takes a long time and just to have some concepts stick together because she's never going to be the grappler that can go out there and dominate someone who's you know pretty

seasoned on the ground but she can understand the concepts enough in order to get herself back in the position that she can or that she needs to get to in order to win the fights with her striking if you're the matchmakers at pfl and you've got somebody who's willing in shields but i mean look you can't learn this stuff in seven months right do you do you put her in there with strikers do you do a little bit of the king kimbo slice matchmaking here what do you do yeah you gotta i mean you gotta keep on throwing her lofts if she if she's not going to be able to uh compete at the highest level then if you're if you're a promotion then you have to give her those more favorable matchups you know you don't want to give her just the easy fights because then that doesn't help her at all either.

But you want to give her more favorable matchups. Get her with somebody who doesn't have great ground but at the same time has stand-up where they'll be primarily in a striking competition. Where it gives a chance for her to grow in other areas and not only grow into her grappling and stuff like that. But just the understanding of the fight and have that confidence grow as well too. Because the confidence is everything. to grow in other areas and not only grow into her grappling and stuff like that, but just the understanding of the fight and have that confidence grow as well, too. But the confidence is everything. Will be fun to watch either way. I do give her the full-on respect for going after it.

I mean, it's weird. It's like we're talking about the big monies in boxing compared to MMA, but I think, you know, for a lot of the female competitors and female box in women's boxing, we're seeing Amanda Serrano and I was seeing shields. They feel like they have to go in the other direction to kind of get the, the, you know, the money get recognized. I mean, certainly women's MMA is well far advanced where women's boxing is at the moment. I mean, that's, that's fair, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. ABC, I got one more odd for you. So, you know, Scott Coker has been talking about, you know, potentially, you know, you know, brother Paul brothers, you know, and about what they've been able to do from a promotional standpoint. He was like, listen, it might be some guy, you know, I talked to their managers about potentially getting them into MMA. Now, who knows? Maybe they may try their hand in MMA. I don't think they will because their bread is pretty buttered with the whole boxing shtick that they have going on. But does this type of, I guess, social media influence or fighting, does it have a place in mixed martial arts? And if so, do you think that they will have the same success that they've been able to have in boxing? So you're talking about Bellator grabbing a Paul brother and Logan compared to Jake does have a legitimate amateur wrestling background. I'm not sure if Jake had the same success, but putting him in obvious CM Punk level matchmaking, right? Right. I mean, yeah. I mean,

even, even if it's not the paul brothers i'm talking about the youtubers versus the the tiktokers you know there's this whole social media influencers that are now getting into combat sports now they can they can definitely be sold from a promotional standpoint but is there any room for mma you know as it has been for boxing i always say at the end of the day whether we're talking talking about the future of the Paul brothers on Showtime pay-per-view, even the fights have to have to like, if the, if the pro like the proof is in the put in as fluid would say, if the fights are entertaining at the end of the day, then it will justify the downgrade in, in matchmaking and level

of fighting you're presenting because, uh, people will want to see a personality go in there and fight. So as long as you match him with somebody where it's competitive and fun, like I'm actually excited about Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley because I don't know who's going to win. I feel like it could be a brawl. Either could win by knockout. Like it could be something fun. The issue I had with how Logan Paul and Floyd played out

was that neither guy really, you know, tried to win it, to be honest. Neither guy really tried to defiantly and dominantly win it. So I would be okay with a Paul turning MMA. Similar, let's not forget, similar to what Kimbo Slice did in Bellator and Bellator did bring him back the old guys. If it's competitive and it makes the slop worth it,

worth, you know, the interest level and all that, yes, I'd be into it, Rashad. There it is. Yeah, I mean, I can see what you're saying. And I guess from that standpoint, I will be into it too. I'm... Well, speaking of cutting off the vibe,

I think Rashad's phone just died right there. But we thank Rashad for his service. Just the same. That's Morning Combat for the week. We fought through some tech difficulties. We got it done. Luke Thomas will be back on Wednesday. Thank you so much for patronizing our patronage here.

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I'm looking at you, Krupp. Come on, let's go, bro. Let's put this shit on the street already, okay? Thank you to the folks at CBS Sports Malka Showtime for getting this show out there. Thank you for watching what we do. Big thanks for Sugar Rashad Evans. Would have liked to sign him off. I think he had his phone died on the way out there. Thank you for watching what we do. Big thanks for Sugar Rashad Evans. Would have liked to sign him off. I think his phone died on the way out there, but love when he joins what we're doing here in the MK universe. Future episodes of Storytime with Rashad to come,

with Sugar there. So check that out. For Sugar Rashad Evans and our fantastic crew, my name is Brian Campbell. This was Morning Combat. And maybe two words for you for the people for the exit we out We'll be right back. you