MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 264 Results: Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor 3 | Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

At UFC 264, Dustin Poirier will face Conor McGregor for the third time. The former interim lightweight champion faces the former featherweight and lightweight double champ in the fight that will decide who wins the trilogy. Also on the fight card from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas is a welterweight bout between Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson and Gilbert Burns as well as Greg Hardy vs. Tai Tuivasa, Sean O'Malley vs. Kris Moutinho and more UFC 264 results and analysis. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. All right. Hi, everybody. It is, let's see, 938 West Coast time right here, Saturday, July 10th. My name is Luke Thomas. I am from CBS Sports and Showtime. I am one half of the Morning Combat Duo. I am live in Las Vegas.

I'm actually in Las Vegas. I'm actually in my hotel room. You can see the, not quite the strip behind me, but you can see parts of the, well, right by the strip anyway. Here's my credential. I actually got this earlier. I had to go in. There's no place for me to do this show in T-Mobile,

so Brian Campbell is over in T-Mobile. He will be doing some of the other stuff that we need to do for CBS, but I will be here taking you through for the next hour for everything UFC 264 related, which is now in the book. So if you don't want spoilers, now you got to go. Is there a lower third up? All right. So first things first, before we go any further, if you're new here, uh anybody like the video but if you're new here hit subscribe now morning combat has been on the ground here in las vegas all the suits at cbs sports are paying attention you guys have been unbelievably supportive i think you've liked the the coverage that we've provided a subscription today which is absolutely free is a big deal for

all the suits so please please please please please subscribe to what we're doing at Morning Combat. I promise you will not be disappointed. Okay? All right. I like the video as well. We're going to go for about an hour. I have put a question on my Twitter thread. You should have seen the lower thirds for my Twitter, at LThomasNews.

If you want to leave a question for me there, you can. There are some folks monitoring the chat, but I don't know if we're actually going to get to the chat on YouTube itself. All right? Okay. Well, UFC 264 is in the books. A lot to say about that, I think. Okay. I'm going to pull up the results, and again, if you're here at this point, I'm assuming you want the spoilers.

Okay? So let's get to it. UFC 264, which is taking place just across the street over there at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise. Well, actually Las Vegas, Nevada. Well, actually Paradise, but Las Vegas, Nevada. Let's start with your main event, man. This is a... If I move in, is it

okay? I actually have a producer, a couple producers, a few producers for this show, if you can believe it. Okay. Let's talk about this. There's a lot to get into here. Dustin Poirier defeats Conor McGregor via TKO doctor stoppage after the first round, Conor McGregor, it appeared on camera to visibly break his shin of, I think, his left leg, which was his rear leg in the stance he was at the time, which of course will be his standard southpaw stance. And it wasn't directly from any kind of impact that we could see. It

seemed to happen on the turn or the planting of weight. But he survived the round after he collapsed in agony from the shin breaking in slow motion. It looked like it was nearly going to pop through the skin. It did not pop through the skin. And it was wrapped immediately when Joe Rogan went to talk to him afterwards. But then after the first round, there was no way that the doctors could let that fight continue. It would be unethical at that point. So they had to waive it. So the question is, what happened before that?

I had thought all this week that Conor McGregor had a really weird energy in Las Vegas, that he was really kind of angry at Dustin. And I get why you would be, but he didn't have the same, it just did not seem believable. it seemed like he was trying to find something that wasn't necessarily there but then tonight I thought he came out walked out loose looking ready to go uh he certainly had a different game plan right from the top not only was he active he threw I think two turning back kicks in a row from the moment the bell rang uh putting it on Dustin right away. Dustin, it looked to me like Dustin knew he was going to get that kind of a response from Conor, at least early, like there was going to be a bit of a storm to weather. There was a couple of problems, though, that I noticed with that particular style, which

was, one, first of all, that was not a, and maybe that was the right call, but that was not a style built for longevity. The amount of activity he was doing combined with how taxing it is to throw those particular kinds of kicks, he was not setting himself up for a fight down the stretch, which again, maybe that was the right call depending on your viewpoint. Obviously, over the long haul, a guy like Dustin is going to be, he's obviously more battle-tested and has proven to be a much more dangerous commodity in those third, fourth, and fifth rounds than I think Conor has, certainly in the late anyway. So that's less a problem because that's a debatable idea.

But what's really not debatable is that I think that in trying to get that much going early he forced contact and I have to go back to the tape I can't be sure of this but it looked like because of the way which he had initiated contact it ended up being Poirier who took him down but that Connor had initiated the close quarters to allow for that so like a he either went for the takedown first but I need to double check that but even if he didn't he approached the game in a way that facilitated the kind of close contact that Poirier needed. And here is really the big takeaway for me. I want to caution everyone to not make a huge deal out of the results.

They mean something. They happen. We have to interpret them. I will do my best to do that today. But there is not a ton of information there to necessarily make the broadest or deepest conclusions. That being said, here's what I picked up on. I thought it was smarter of Conor to at least be a little bit more active. Really, you can debate about whether or not it was a little bit too much, but I didn't like that he allowed for close quarters. I didn't like that he allowed for a gunfight, even though he can win most of those. And the biggest takeaway I have from that first round is that, folks, if Poirier was the better striker in the second fight, we didn't really get a clear sense of who was the better striker in the

third. Conor started hot early, or at least active early. But Poirier was the better grappler in the third. When those two guys were on the ground, there was one dude who was a lot better than the other one. Now, Conor wasn't completely out of his element. He was doing a pretty consistent job of getting the feet and the hips to prevent any potential pass. He was threatening with the guillotine, although Poirier had to resort to this acrobatic trick where, for folks who don't know, if someone tries to lock up a guillotine,

it doesn't matter what side it is, the automatic defense to a guillotine is to jump to the other side of the body. So if someone tries to wrap a guillotine here, the defense to it is to jump across body with someone. So their head is here, and then the top of their body, and then legs go that way. That's what he was trying to do. And he had to go inverted, where he was head down, feet up, but it was enough where the choke was not there a couple times he went to re-establish it but there was never really a threat but he did keep Dustin from passing although weirdly I noticed that Dustin at first looked to me like he was attempting to threaten the pass at least when he got to his feet for folks who don't know it's a lot you can do it but it's a lot harder to pass on your knees than it is

on your feet. So when someone goes to their feet, they might be looking to do ground and pound. They might be looking to drive their hips in just to put weight on someone who's putting their feet back on them. They could be looking to set up a pass. But usually your best kinds of passing happens when you're on your feet. So at first I was like, oh, that's what he's doing. But then I noticed, again, all this stuff I have to double check. But I noticed that maybe a minute or so into him being on top,

he was actually scooping Conor's foot out of his hip and then bringing it behind him so he could go back into guard. I think he felt like there was no submission threat from there, that he could keep the guy pinned from there, or at least, you know, reasonably controlled. Maybe pin's a strong word. Land savage ground and pound and win the round. And Conor, I thought, again, did a decent job at preventing the pass.

I thought Conor had a few strikes underneath that were pretty good, so some of those elbows I thought were pretty good. But in general, that was one-way traffic. That was one-way traffic on the ground. On the ground, that was one-way traffic. That was one-way traffic on the ground. On the ground, that was one-way traffic. And that was control. That was easy going to be a 10-9 round for Poirier. I mean, up until that point, maybe you could have given it to Conor,

but there just wasn't enough there to really say. Obviously, the ground action was really what defined the complexity of the round itself. And that was all Dustin Poirier. The submission threat was okay, but not really there. Again, he didn't get overwhelmed positionally. Connor was, or I should say Poirier looked to me like he was electing to go back into the guard. But he was doing so. Remember, Poirier, for folks who don't know, black belt in jiu-jitsu himself, right?

And has been one for quite some time at this point. And has been one in the gi out of ATT. I don't know if he's a laborio black belt or not, but he is a legit one. And those elbows, he was landing the slashing one, standing up, the punches on top. Now, Conor got up when about, I think, 15 or 20 seconds or so left in the round, whatever it was. I don't have the timing on that. But he stood up and immediately started to throw punches and to get back in it.

Like, he was not out of it by any stretch, but that was a round he was losing. So now you're left with, well, what does it all mean? I don't know in many ways what it means. I can say that, again, the better fighter on the ground early in round one, or all of round one, really, Dustin Poirier. I said before all about Conor striking. I don't know what they're going to do as it relates to the future.

I don't really have any clear sense about which direction they want to move. In terms of the leg injury for Conor, I can see a scenario where this can be explained as a series of accidents. And so it's not the fight that everyone wanted, but there could be room for a fourth. You'd have to talk to the Conor McGregor believers to see where they're at on that. They might agree that that's the case. And if there's enough of them, they can kind of will Connor into all of these unique positions that would not necessarily be afforded to a fighter in a similar circumstance. But at the same time, you know, I don't know that, I think it'd be strong to say a guy like Dustin Poirier has Conor's number,

but I do think that there's enough evidence, and maybe we'll get more with the fourth fight, but it seems like there's enough evidence for me to conclude that, one, Poirier's defensive liabilities are not what they used to be. Even on that shot where he got cracked, he rolled with it, and you can see this is what I mean or what everyone means when they say, oh, he doesn't mind getting hit. Or people like to say, oh, well, so-and-so doesn't like getting hit. Yeah, Poirier doesn't like getting hit either, but what's the difference? He doesn't lose his composure. He just keeps going. He has an ability to remain calm and strategic and thoughtful in those particular

moments. And that saved him there in addition to sort of getting off and leaning. By the way, that right-hand counter from the second fight where he's timing off the cross of Conor, that landed perfectly too. Yeah, off the cross of Conor, that's right. His right hand over the top is absolutely devastating there, and he had his timing on that early. The kick from Conor. That's right. His right hand over the top is absolutely devastating there, and he had his timing on that early. The kick from Conor, or I should say the situation with Conor, I don't know what to make of it. Poirier said it was from a check. Certainly again, at the moment at which it breaks

breaks, where we saw it on camera, where Conor was at least affected by it, nothing hit him. It could have been the weight planting of that leg. Hard to say. My thought is that all the kicking he was doing with that leg, whether it was checked or not, softened up that bone and any kind of pressure he put on it at that final moment was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

The bulk of the work had been done previously. Now, where it happened, we're going to have to go back over the evidence of the tape and get a clearer sense of things. But to be clear, that's the best information that we have at the moment. You know, does that say that Conor is frail? No. We're seeing a lot more of these leg breaks. I think the more that leg kicking and checking, particularly when you're doing it against someone with a different stance than you, which is not necessarily the case here, although there were a couple of times that Conor changed the stance on him for wrestling purposes, which, by the way, Adesanya did to Vittori in the second fight and no one picked up on,

or at least not many people picked up on it. You saw a little bit of that here as well. But the thing for me, the two takeaways I'm trying to think of in my mind, like what stood out to me the most, againirier skill differential on top Connor really had no ability to I mean it's weird I thought he showed more defensive wrestling against Habib especially in the first round than he did against Poirier now Habib was really just trying to out wrestle him out wrestle him and not so much do any ground and pound. And so that was a much different approach than what you saw from Poirier. Also, Habib doesn't necessarily want to play too much from guard.

He likes to let people turtle over, or he likes to get to the back, or something like that, or he likes to have a three-quarter mount, sometimes even a half mount, depending on what you want to call a half mount. But he doesn't mind necessarily moving past full guard. It was an interesting strategy for Poirier to go back into full guard and keep Conor there. And I wonder if that is a big reason, in addition to the grounder pound, some of the other things he may have been doing, why Conor stayed there.

That's going to be something to really pore over in the coming days and weeks. Also, I noticed from Conor that he had blood when he stood up in his left ear raining down. I tweeted about it at the presser on Thursday. And I tweeted about it today. I found a picture of Connor looking to his left this way. And you could see he had previously had his ear drained, which is not the biggest deal. You're getting out most of the stuff. But what you also have to remember is if someone's ear is having to be drained, it naturally could fill up again pretty quick.

And if it gets busted, it wasn't really a factor here, obviously. But remember when Leslie Smith's ear kind of came off? If you don't drain that thing properly, and even if you do, it's obviously the tissue can be loosened. It can be weakened. It can be scar tissue a lot. You can get punched there, and then the whole shit can come out. I don't know to what extent Poirier was targeting it, but that looked like a role to me as well.

You know, while I have you guys here, let me see if I can pull up the fight metric numbers. I believe these are official already. I would love to see what we have from here today. Okay, Poirier-McGregor 3. Wow. Hmm. All right, let's take a look at this.

So Dustin Poirier landed 36 of 66 in the first round. Conor landed 27 of 38. Let's compare that with the last fight. What did Conor land in the first round? Conor landed 29 in the first round, so he was more or less on par with that one. But in the first fight, Poirier only landed

in the first round. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Both guys doing a whole lot more. Please don't... I botched that for a second. One more time. Overall, in tonight's fight, Poirier, 36 total strikes,

significant ones. McGregor, 27. That's in one round. Okay? McGregor and Poirier from the second fight. This is the one in January. Just 17 for Poirier,

15 for Conor in the first, 31 for Poirier in the second, 15 for Conor in the first, 31 for Poirier in the second, 14 for Conor. So Conor had numerically anyway, and I would say a little bit more than that. I mean, some of those shots were landing very hard, including many of those leg kicks, doubling his output. To me, it's like a little bit of the Goldilocks scenario.

If you want to say january was too little agreed it seemed to me like there was more of this one i'm a little bit debating on because depending on your viewpoint you either think he should have gone that hard knowing he couldn't last into the later rounds or you think he still should have managed it a little bit in case it did go that late to give yourself the best possible chance you know pour it on a little bit early if you can but save some in the gas tank to hold on if the guy does that. But I'll just say this, man. Beating him, beating a guy.

I mean, this thing about doing that with Poirier, you know, trying to go after his legs, man. It's like, I'm not saying it's the wrong strategy, but it has to be part of a much, much wider repertoire. Dude, go back and watch the Gaethje fight. I thought Gaethje was going to basically turn Poirier into a paraplegic, man. I mean, he was getting absolutely shellacked in that fight by Justin Gaethje. And he just kind of hung on, and he never really checked him.

I don't know if Dustin Poirier is going to have leg problems later. I don't know if he just has an otherworldly ability to tolerate that kind of punishment. I don't know. I think has an otherworldly ability to tolerate that kind of punishment. I don't know. I think it's smart to go after him. I just feel like, man, you've got to have a really, really, really comprehensive strategy for that guy because just the sort of singular focus on them or just spamming him with too many attempts, I don't know that it leads you to the places that you think it's going to take you. You've got to really beat that guy down over the course of rounds.

Or in the case of Habib, obviously use whatever grappling differential is there to take advantage of it. And I don't know. I thought Conor's approach definitely better than the one in – he lasted longer technically in January. But I would say this approach tonight I liked a lot more than the one in January. I just thought it was my read on it folks for what it's worth and again this is in the immediate aftermath what we still have to get Brian Campbell's take we still have to do a whole other show as we think about it but my immediate take was that he got the Goldilocks part of this wrong he was too cold in January looked to me like he was too hot

tonight there's a bit of a bit better happier medium somewhere in the middle that I think would give him a little bit better of a chance of success. But I don't really know what the hell the UFC is going to do here with this. With bone breaks, they're actually, I'm told, a little bit better than ligament damage. Ligament damage can sometimes take a long time to heal. Obviously, Conor's going to have to get probably some kind of surgery tonight even. You know, it's funny.

He was talking about his after party. I'm like, bro, I don't know what after party you're going to unless they're going to have it at the er uh although you know what maybe that you know let me say something nice about conor mcgregor dude that guy had a shattered fucking shin and he is sitting there being like your wife's in my dms i mean that dude's a savage you got to give him credit. His fucking mind is, you know, he was all in. I'll give him credit. He was all in tonight. But I think he was a little bit too, from my tastes, and what I thought would have got him the best chance of victory.

I thought he was a little bit too all in. But what was the central question before this fight? What was the central question? The central question was, there's many of them, but we'll start with one. Who is the better fighter of the two? Now, if you want to argue, we did not get a definitive answer here. In many ways, we never got a definitive answer between Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva, right? You never got the definitive answer.

You had the weird knockout in the first one, and then you had the terrible, terrible injury in the second. But you didn't get the answer like is Chris Wyden better it just sort of felt like the universe moved on and then anointed one and then that was it um I think that Dustin Poirier is the better fighter I think between what you saw in the second fight and what you saw on top in the first round that leads me to believe that he's got more skills at this point and more ways to win. But folks, whether you support Poirier or whether you don't, and whether you support McGregor or whether you don't, the idea that you got conclusive proof tonight that Poirier is better,

again, I believe that he's better. I think it's what the evidence tells us. But that you got conclusive proof of that I don't think is actually true. There is probably still a little bit left to reach that conclusive level where we're using the NFL replay style of evidentiary basis. It has to be unequivocal for you to say otherwise. To me, what you got was not necessarily unequivocal. There's plenty of room to think that Connor could have had a very strong second round or you know landed a big shot and and who the hell knows right so you did not get conclusive proof but i do think between i mean how many rounds have they fought

now so it was one round the first time a little bit less it was a round and a half the second time so about two rounds so you got a third round here okay so you got roughly three rounds between them who was the better of the three? Dustin clearly won this one. Clearly won the second round of their first meeting. Some people had Conor winning the first. Well, you know what? That would bring you back to a tie. They might do another one. They might do another one. I got three producers here. Who wants to see a fourth fight between them? You want to see a fourth fight? Show of hands. No? Down? No? No? There's not a lot of uh you know but these

guys aren't conor mcgregor fans so you know take that with a grain of salt they're not going to move the market in that way but um to me dustin's the better guy and no matter if they make a fourth one or not you know it'd be weird to make a fourth one and then dustin goes out there and if you beat him again it's like you won three of three of these fucking things like you know if this one had ended in some kind of disqualification I could see the reason for a fourth but like you were getting beat up before the fight went terribly wrong and it went terribly wrong because the best evidence that we have and again we'll have to see is that you threw all those kicks and then he checked them or they got checked and that as a consequence it compromised the integrity of the shin and then that's that so so getting back to

the central questions who's the better one for me the evidence suggests it's Dustin Poirier at least at this stage although I admit not conclusive second um what does this do to Conor McGregor's legacy I want to be very careful about that. Let me say something about this. Losing to Dustin Poirier, I don't want to say it's not a big deal because this was a big fight and big fights carry big stakes.

But I also think you got to be a little bit fair. Dude, Dustin Poirier might be the best lightweight in the world. I understand that Charles Oliveira holds the belt and I recognize that. He is the champion. They put him in a fight with Mike Chandler and he won it fair and square. He deserves to be treated as the champion. He will be addressed as the champion and until such time,

that's just what it is. But I don't know if he's going to beat Dustin Poirier. In fact, I'd probably like Poirier to win that contest. And even if you don't agree with that, it's not hard to make the argument that Dustin Poirier is at least arguably, arguably the best lightweight in the world. So Conor lost a round before a catastrophic injury, or a very bad injury anyway, to maybe the best lightweight in the world does that mean what does that mean well to the best of my ability what I think it means is that I don't

consider Connor certainly in the top three maybe you could argue a space for top five but that's I think also at least questionable listen to my words questionable there's going to be a range of opinions here and I know with Connor dude I my words. Questionable. There's going to be a range of opinions here. And I know with Conor, dude, I know what you guys are thinking. There's going to be Conor haters looking at this right now being like, oh my God, Luke's just saving this guy because he likes him, as if I've ever been accused of being a Conor McGregor fan. And there's going to be Conor McGregor fans being like,

this guy doesn't want to give him any fucking credit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can't win in ever assessing Conor McGregor because the two sides who weigh in on what you have to say are so diametrically opposed. There's never any consensus over it. But in terms of his legacy, it's not the final thing to me where you could point to him and be like, okay, man, you just can't deny anymore Conor's lost a step. Well, maybe you can. I'm trying to think this through in real time. Maybe you can say that.

Yeah, you know what? I do think Conor's lost a step. This is not the guy who buzzsawed through Eddie Alvarez in 2016. I think we've already known that Conor lost a step. I think it's debatable how much of a step he's lost. I think that part is not exactly clear. But what is clear is he's not the best lightweight on Earth even without Nurmagomedov being there.

You cannot say that right now about Dustin Poirier. Right? With Nurmagomedov there, okay, daddy's home. But when he's gone, who's the best? It ain't Conor. It ain't Conor. And I don't know where he falls in that space afterwards. I thought if he could have won tonight,

and you go and you fight against Oliveira, again, I think Oliveira had a decent chance of finishing him. I think Conor had a decent chance of finishing Oliveira. I thought that was going to be a competitive fight if they ended up making it. And for Conor, if he had gone back and won another title, I mean, we're talking about, he already has reached immortality. We're talking next fucking level immortality.

Truly one of the greater feats that you would have ever seen in mixed martial arts to go back through a division with all the time off that he's had and get a title. That would have been incredible, but it's not in the cards. And I got to say, man,

I'm going to go back to this. Dude, people see Floyd Mayweather take time off. I mean, he's retired now. And if you don't like Floyd, fine, I'm not here to talk you into it. But Floyd would take long stretches of his career off and come back and then still demolish some people. You could say, oh, he picked some people pre-prime and post-prime, and in his last chapter of his career, he absolutely did that, but at the same time, dude, he would take long

stretches of time off and come back and beat world-class guys. Now, Conor needs to fight someone else other than Dustin Poirier for us to get a better sense of where exactly he is. Okay, two cracks at maybe the very best guy in his weight class, and you lose, doesn't tell you that the guy's a scrub, but it tells you he can't be that guy.

So where does he fall in between? I guess I don't know what the answer is. And so for that, I think the legacy will be that I don't think anyone could look at what he did tonight and say he fell off a cliff in terms of talent. But it looks to me like he's not quite as in tune with himself and the game to bring about the talents that he does have in the best way. I don't think he's, I think the evidence for this is pretty strong, I don't think he's the best lightweight. And so I think it will definitely solidify some of the pre-fight themes of,

you know, this guy had a window for all those great moments and that window's probably closed. I think it's probably fair to say that Conor's best days, not could he win in the future? Very much so. But his best days,

the time of his greatest accomplishments, I think those are over. think i mean let me just say something about this like dude connor already won right i mean okay floyd got rich and kept going and some other boxers have kept rich and got going but understand something connor was on fucking welfare in in ireland when he was when he made it to the UFC, he had a raggedy-ass haircut, you know, the whole nine yards. He had all the gusto and all the gumption

that you need to do what he ended up doing. But, you know, this was just a working-class, poor guy from part of Dublin. And, you know, look at him how many years later. Not even, what is it, six or seven years? A little more than that, seven or eight years? And the dude is wealthy beyond all imagination, not just from fighting, but selling a proper 12 and making however much of the $600 million.

Dude, you beat the game. You beat the game. You beat every guy they could put in front of you for a time. For a time. You got multiple weight class titles. You did something with those titles that heretofore, up to that point, no other guy had done. You made an absolute fuck ton of money. You became a worldwide celebrity.

Like, dude, he fucking won the game. He won. Hold on. Okay. Dana White tells ESPN, this is fresh from Mike Coppinger from previously The Athletic, now on ESPN. Dana White tells ESPN Conor McGregor will get a rematch with Dustin Poirier after he's healed from that left ankle injury, which could be a while.

So according to Mike Coppinger of ESPN, he says UFC president Dana White told him Conor McGregor will get a rematch with Dustin Poirier after he's healed from that left ankle injury. Again, the timeline on that, God only knows. All right, well, that changes things a little bit. That's interesting. A fourth one. God, Jesus, they're going to do this again? Dustin Poirier is going to end up fighting Conor for like two years fucking straight? Is that what we're going to do this again? Dustin Poirier is going to end up fighting Conor for like two years fucking straight.

Is that what we're going to do? Maybe they'll keep him. I mean, here's the thing, though. Does that even make sense? Because Oliveira needs a challenge. So he's got to defend that title. Who would it be against if it's... Dude, are they really going to circumvent Dustin again?

That's crazy. I don't even understand how that would work. Let me look at the rankings here. Where are the rankings on this? Very quickly. And again, if you're watching this, please, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Appreciate everyone who does that.

This is the rankings as it stands at lightweight right now, right, as we speak. Charles Oliveira is unranked because he's a champion one is Poirier two is Gaethje Gaethje still hasn't had a win since losing to Habib if if memory serves Benil Dariush is up there okay Chandler just lost he's at four and McGregor's at five who you giving a title shot to Benil Dariush not saying that um Charles Oliveira versus Benil Dariush is the worst fight I've ever seen in my life or anything. It's two very high-level fighters,

but that doesn't make a lot of sense. Jesus, seriously? They're going to do that? Wow, that's shocking. That's legitimately shocking. I'm not sure how you even would set up a scenario like that. You know what? Here's the thing.

I guess if Poirier wants it, then they'll do it, right? Because Poirier was supposed to get a title shot before elected to take this. I guess if he elects to take it again, what could they say? What could they say? That is going to be interesting because what they're going to do with Oliveira, I guess they might have him fight fucking – I guess they might have him fight Gaethje or Benil Dariush. I don't even know.

Ferguson sitting at six, Dos Anjos at seven, Hooker at eight, Makachev who fights next week at nine, and then Gregor Gillespie at ten. Yeah, I don't even know how the hell you're going to do that. That's going to be unbelievable. So big questions coming in. What does it mean for the trilogy? I guess that means that it continues.

We'll have to see. Who's the better fighter? I think the evidence is pretty clear at this point that it's Dustin, but Conor's going to get another crack anyway at some point, and I guess we can't really write off a whole lot about legacies

until we get some kind of resolution about this. If this is the end, which I guess it won't be, we'll have to see, then the only part is you just can't take away from what Conor's done. Becoming the first fighter to win two titles and hold belts simultaneously in two weight classes, I mean, this is just unheard of shit that a guy can do,

at least at the point at which he had done it. And a loss here certainly does not add to his resume, but I don't know that it meaningfully detracts from it, except that I think it just is a bit of a wake-up call about where he is. I mean, here's the other problem too, right? Part of the reason why this fight was so interesting was that it was the first time in years, years, that Conor had an MMA fight that didn't have a year or two space in between.

It was from January to July. So he had this time to get ready here in a way that he hadn't done previously. Okay, well, now with this injury, granted, he came back from AC. Remember, he had ACL surgery after the Max Holloway fight. He tore his ACL in the Max Holloway fight and then fought it out and still beat Max Holloway. That's a good win. That lasted. That aged well on his resume.

But at a bare minimum. He was out like what. 10 or 11 months. He's going to have to sit out another. Like I don't know how long this is going to be. Granted the bones. I'm told. Even the break like that.

Heal quicker than. Ligament damage. But even then. Like. Jesus man. That's going to be another long time. I don't know how they're going to do that. I really wonder how they're gonna do that because if i don't know just poirier fight for the title and if he wins they just give connor a title shot when connor's ready at that

point i don't even know how that would work all right we'll come back to that fight obviously the stakes are there i know you guys have a bunch of questions. I put up a tweet about it. You can put them up there, and I will get to it. My producers will tell me if there's any other interesting news that I need to know about in the meantime. All right, let's take a look at some of the other results here. We'll talk about that co-main event very, very briefly if we can. I'll get back to the main event when we get to the questions. Gilbert Burns beating Wonderboy Thompson.

He wins 29-28 in all three scorecards. Thompson, I thought, he had moments. I thought he was a little bit better late, at least early in the third, than early in the fight. I wouldn't say he was too hesitant. I thought Gilbert Burns really did a great job. He did a great job of, for the most part, avoiding damage. He did a great job of for the most part avoiding damage he did a great part uh great

great job excuse me for the most part um giving a lot of different looks uh distance closing obviously on the ground his game is tremendous i thought that he found unique ways to to um you know the switch stance overhand right was a really nice thing for him, the right hook there that he had. So not overhand, but a right hook. He just did a really good job about staying disciplined, both in terms of how do I have enough pressure to break this guy down and get close enough to him where I can take him down.

That's one. Two, how do I stay far enough away from him where I avoid any kind of blitz or getting timed or you know anything like that where the guy's creating angles on me how do I avoid all of that and I thought he thread that needle pretty pretty well I thought you could give around to Thompson I don't know where you could get two from that would be way too hard now where it leads the welterweight division is to a kind of a bad, not a bad place. It's not bad, but you know,

it's funny. Like, a lot of times there could have been a guy who won that would have been a fresh matchup in here, and then they keep losing. Like, Diaz could have beat Leon Edwards, and I don't know if he would have gotten a title shot from it, but it would have been a fresh matchup for Kamaru. Leon is not. I thought you know, Colby beating Kamaru, if he had done it,

would have created a bunch of fresh matchups, but he couldn't do it for the first time out. Jorge couldn't do it the second time out. And so now Wonderboy would have been like one of the last guys left in that space who would have given him a fresh matchup, and that's gone too. So, you know, listen, the best guy deserves to win. The best guy between them in this particular exchange, it was Gilbert Burns. I don't know if he's going to get a title shot from it.

I think he's going to do something a little bit more impressive than that. But definitely, I mean, it looked to me like this week, Wonderboy probably has a nicer, you know, not nicer, but more of an easier, happy-go-lucky kind of demeanor relative to Kamaru, or relative to, excuse me, Gilbert, right? He just seems to take it very easily. And Gilbert looked to me like he was feeling the pressure of the week a lot coming off that Kamaru Usman loss.

So, you know, there was a lot riding on his shoulders, but he handled the pressure well. I thought it was impressive in how comprehensive it was. And I got to tell you, man, do you guys follow BJJ Fanatics or Striking Fanatics? It's the site that does all these instructionals with famous grapplers or strikers. They don't tend to have a ton of MMA fighters on there, but they do have some. But I just saw they had Habib in there and Habib did a sit down and a demonstration with Bernardo Faria

who was this guy out of Marcellos for a long time I think he's a multiple time world champion maybe the nicest human on earth and Habib was explaining his whole style of just wrestling with his legs so his hands can be free and what are the demands as you pass position and what it requires from you to hold it and what the benefits are of your hands being free man you

saw a lot of that from gilbert burns you know it's funny mike goldberg used to incorrectly call half guard a turk and what you saw this time was a turk is like a leg ride that you can use in traditional wrestling where you turn someone, turn their hips over, usually to maybe a series of positions, but because you want to turn them, it could be for some kind of control, not so much a pin, although maybe you could use it for a pin,

but a lot of times to turn people over, sorry, a pin where they're facing down, but a pin off their back. Yes, you can do it for a lot of reasons where a Turk could be helpful in that way, but half guard is not exactly a Turk unless you use it in that particular way. And actually, again, I need to go back and check the tape, but there was a moment I think in the first or second round

where Burns had a half guard which he kept and he had leg triangled, and he, I think, done that so he could elevate the leg of Thompson so he couldn't suck it back underneath himself. So he was actually using it sort of like a Turk in that particular way. Not exactly because it wasn't turning him, but he was holding it and elevating it. Maybe more like a shelf. He was shelving it in that way. But that was clever. That was

clever. That was really good. He knew riding time was either going to open up either a pass or more ground and pound or give the round to him. It got a little stalled out a little bit early. I would have liked to have seen a greater intervention from Mark Goddard. I know there's a wide array of opinions on referee intervention. I tend to be of the belief that they're better for us.

But I recognize that's not necessarily always the consensus opinion. And I did think that in the end you know right at the last like 10 seconds he threw like a flurry of totally illegal shots to the back of the head and neck now you know whether he just lost discipline or they were intentional i'll let somebody else decide but he definitely did it um you know i don't know if it's worth taking a point or not i don't i don't know what the referee should have done in that case but you but not the way it should have ended at the end. The right guy won. The right guy won, but that was a little bit

weird. I didn't care for that so much. But Gilbert Burns, the more talented of the two, the better game plan, the guy who had more ways to win leaned on that. By the way, they traded at times too. It should be noted. There were a couple times where they were hammering each other.

I was very impressed that Gilbert would put that kind of pressure on him, and that was risky to do. Risky for both guys because he landed on Thompson too. He landed some hard shots on Thompson standing. Just a risky proposition for both guys, but I thought that they – I thought the three rounds and the approach that Gilbert had where you really have to be close enough to threaten, far enough away to stay out of trouble,

and then all the different angles and weird things you've got to do to get into that space, I thought he had a pretty good handle on that. And then obviously on the ground, he's just going to be too much for just about anyone to handle in that particular case. Oh, listen to this. Scorecards came out, and two judges gave Dustin the first round as a 10-8. Oh, man. Hang on just a second.

Here's BC texting me. Hey, can you text BC that we're – you're texting him? Okay. Yeah, just text him we're gonna meet him everyone everyone's asking me like hey man when's bc coming on here so bc is this is a true story bc is across the street so we split up duties one person has to do the hq hit when we're all done and one person has to do the live show he's been doing hq hits forever i've been doing live shows forever so that's just how we split it and there's no place to really do this in the media tent which is outside by the way it was 117 degrees today in

las vegas which i'm told is a las vegas fucking record so if you guys think i'm going to be in a heat uh heated tent melting with my equipment yeah no i'm not doing that i'm going to be in this uh hotel room but okay neither here nor there yeah 10 8s yeah i don't i don't have any problem with that being a 10 8 he hammered him he hammered him for a good long while so that's i think that's reasonable um all right let's get back to some of these results here tai tuivasa defeating greg hardy 107 of the third round excuse me the first round greg hardy man i said this on twitter i wasn't even trying to be all that disparaging. It's just true. This guy gets main card placement after main card placement after main card placement. He came out.

He gets booed everywhere he goes. And then when the media is like, hey, what about you leaning into your role as a villain? He's like incredulous at the idea that anyone would ever consider him a villain. Then he called Derek Lewis an ex-con. And I'm like, dude, you got to read the fucking room, man. What are you doing? But I will say this. I do think Greg Hardy is athletic and I think that he hits hard

and I think that he's well trained and that should be taken seriously, but he doesn't have a single win right now over anyone else currently in the UFC. If you look at his wins, here are the wins of Greg Hardy. I'm not saying that those guys are all necessarily chumps. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that those guys are all necessarily chumps. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just saying that, like, of the relevant heavyweight competition that they've given you, you can't beat them. He has wins over Dmitry Smolikov, who got cut, like, that night. He has a win over Juan Adams, who I still believe is a good fighter, but that wasn't a great fight for him. He has a win over Jorgen DeCastro, cut. And he has a win over Maurice Green, cut. His losses are to Alan Crowder, which was a DQ, but he wouldn't be in the UFC either.

The Volkov thing was a no contest, so, you know, also Sassoli, not in the UFC. The losses are to Volkov. Okay, Volkov's tough. That's fine. And then Marcin Tybura. Tybura's tough, but, you know, he should be able to beat guys like that if you want to do something in the division.

And then Taito Iwasa put his lights out in 67 seconds. Like, dude, every time they give him somebody who is a relevant figure at heavyweight in the UFC, granted, those guys are good. I'm not saying that they're bad fighters. They're very good fighters, but he can't beat them to this point. And the other interesting part here is

I think that Greg Hardy's stand-up is pretty good. What has ailed him to this point has been terrible cardio, a little bit of undisciplined fighting at times, and then a very bad ground game. None of those are a factor here, except the undisciplined part. Chasing down Taito Iwasa. He hit him with a huge shot okay fine I know Greg Hardy believes in his power but you're going up against another guy who is just

I mean the dude drinks beer out of a shoe you want to run up on him yeah you better do it with brass knuckles and a and a blackjack man like dude that's a that's a guy you have to be very careful about in your end-stage engagement. You cannot run on him. And sure enough, Taito Iwasa threw a one-two at the guy, or I should say maybe a right and a left. I don't know if it was a jab cross per se, but a two-punch combination that you can see.

Go look at the replay. This one I remember distinctly. You got Taito Iwasa. He can see Greg Hardy coming at him a mile away, a mile away, and then misses with the right. But at that point, Greg Hardy had moved over, and so the left, he didn't even see coming. And it's the punches you don't see coming,

obviously, that land the hardest. Folks, let me just set up something for you. If you are a fighter, okay, and you're shoulders, and you face this way, and you have your opponent where this is, imagine the screen is their face, and they're looking at you. That's a decent angle. I mean, it's 50-50 angle to have on them. Okay, now they face this way, not quite in front of you, off to an angle. That's better for you. A little bit more, that's even better for you if they're perpendicular with you dude who do

you think is going to win that exchange the guy facing the other person or the person facing away right this is the this is a i mean this is almost a dominant angle as you'll ever see between two prize fighters you almost never see the one i mean yes if they're grappling from behind but not standing up it's very hard to actually get behind an elite fighter that way. Taito Iwasa had Greg Hardy like this. He had him just like that. Dude, if they got you like that, you're going to be donezo. I mean, you cannot allow someone to have that kind of a differential

in spacing and angling on you. And he ran right into, I think it was the left hand, and from that point on ty tuivasa is gonna do what he does but dude you rock a guy like tuivasa he's not gonna just lay down for you man you know you have to really put it on that guy methodically you're gonna have to have a methodical smart urgent fine you rocked him it has to be urgent but you got to have just a lot more sense about it and what he was doing just you know running up on a guy like that um you know i don't know what the case is to keep greg hardy around quite candidly he's got some wins but over nobody quite literally relevant in the ufc today um he's shown growth fine but not

like a spectacular amount pretty okay he's okay um and you know is he any kind of a real draw i don't i don't know what the numbers say about that to have a clear sense but from what i can tell he's on from digital perspectives like there was a window where he could draw uh uh you know i'm not a crowd so much but um people cared enough to see what he was up to with the UFC experiment. But the UFC experiment, I mean, this is just what I have to say about it. The UFC experiment is just boring with Greg Hardy right now. So whether you want to cut him or not or whether the appropriate action is, I don't know what their plans are for heavyweight.

I don't know what they want to do. But the dude is not killing it at heavyweight. What's up? Got another tweet here. What the fuck? Right, this is what I was just saying, right? All right, so this is from Dana White at the UFC Presser. Quote, or not quote, but Dana White says at the UFC Presser

that Poirier versus Oliveira will be next, and then once McGregor is healed, they'll do a rematch. You're going to give Conor McGregor a title shot off of that? The leg break's not his fault, or whatever. I mean, it could be that the kicks played a role. We don't really know. We need to see more. But dude, off a 10-8?

Dude, it was a 10-8 before that. It was a 10-8 or a bare minimum of a clear 10-9 before that. He's going to get a title shot off of that? That's some Uriah Hall magicianship right there. Not Uriah Hall, excuse me, Uriah Faber magicianship. Anyway, but as it relates to heavyweight, man, I'm just bored by the Greg Hardy. I'm not even mad at the guy.

I'm sure he's trying hard, and it can't be easy to have the known world think you're a terrible person. I don't know. But, dude, either you can beat guys at this level or you can't, man. And, you know, okay, he's at 12 fights total. It's not a ton. All right. But he's been in the UFC since 2019, so we're now at two and a half years in.

All right, you can maybe give it a little bit longer. But, you know, after three years, you should kind of know whether he's been in the UFC since 2019, so we're now at two and a half years in. All right, you can maybe give it a little bit longer. But after three years, you should kind of know whether he's coming or going. And certainly at this point, I don't know why they've got to put him on main cards. I don't think he's the draw that maybe the UFC imagines that he is. Maybe he's good for putting heavyweight action on there. Because the UFC sort of likes to put big heavyweight slobber knockers on cards as like a way to and main cards in particular as kind of a way to like round them out and give fans you know a decent guarantee of some kind of a finish in the event

that the other ones don't turn out that way fine I guess maybe on that particular consideration you consideration, you could give him a title shot, but for the rest of them, you know, I don't know. And then lastly here, pull this back, you know, I want to go back and say something about Dustin Poirier in a minute, I will, but let me finish this off. Irene Aldana taking on

Yana Kunitskaya defeats her at 435 of the first round. This was academic. She missed weight by a lot. I'm told she's still struggling with some of the effects of COVID, which is why she may have missed weight. I don't think she has COVID, but I think COVID, like apparently COVID ran through her gym in a really bad way. A bunch of people, even in their 20s, got really, really sick.

And so I'm told that she is still dealing with the damage. Again, she doesn't actively have COVID, but the damage that COVID did going through her body. I don't know if they're going to make her go up a weight class or not because whatever your situation is, and I certainly am sympathetic for people who had a deadly pathogen or whatever, a damaging one at the bare minimum, I'm sympathetic for that. But you can't – either you can make 135 or you can't.

Missing by three and a half is not okay. It's got to be more than that. Less than that, excuse me. You got to do better than that. So, okay, that aside, I thought it was a great performance from her. Kunitskaya came right out the gate, trying to get in her face and push her around. Aldana had, dude, she's so good at clinch breaking.

She's so good at making sure her back never touches the fence. And when it does, she can force separations pretty easily. She's got great lateral footwork. Phenomenal jab. And I'll tell you what, on top she had sniper-like ground and pound. Really, really good shots. She was picking her shots. She wasn't spamming them.

She was being very considerate yet at the same time very frequent and very accurate. And then just closed the show. I don't know how that fight would have gone if she had gone to the third round, right, where she had to really dig deep into her cardio. It ended up being in the first. So you got the best of what she had to offer. But I'll say this, man. I thought that that was just a real clinical performance where she showed a wide array

of skills, both offensive and defensive. She showed spatial awareness. And these things sound like, oh, all fighters should be this way, but they're just not. They're not really that way. She showed great spatial awareness. She showed great timing, great shot selection, and just the ability to land meaningful offense

in all different kinds of scenarios. And, you know, we're going to fight on my terms, not on yours. Oh, you want to push me against the fence? I'm going to deny it to you, but then I'm going to jab when I get your timing right and your distance right. That's kind of the way she approached this fight, and her success is not an accident as a consequence. Great, great win by

Aldana, but whatever her situation is, you got to make weight. You cannot keep missing weight by three and a half pounds, and if you do, you got to go up into the weight class, and that's just how it goes. So hopefully she can get that locked in. And then Sean O'Malley taking on Chris Moutinho. I mean, Jesus Christ, man. I don't even know what you want to say about that.

O'Malley hit this guy with the fucking kitchen sink. The big story coming out of this was the stoppage. So Chris Moutinho showing an absolutely insane chin. Was the stoppage good? Was it bad? I think I'll say this. If you watch a lot of boxing, you don't think that stoppage is bad. You see a lot of stoppages just like that in boxing.

I've seen a lot of people say, well, he had 30 seconds left in the round. You got to let it go. Two reasons why that's wrong. Number one, the referee is not only not told, like there's no rule about the referee having to look at the timing. Okay. Not only that, they are, so the timing of the round as it relates to a referee stoppage. Now, I know folks think there are other reasons why the fight should have kept going. But I'm just addressing the timing argument.

There is literally nothing, nothing written into the language that the referees need to be deferential towards time when considering a stoppage. And the reason why is something I know most of you can agree with. You can disagree with a stoppage, but if you have a rule in place where the referees can now look at the time to decide whether or not they're going to stop it, which means they can let it go if they want, you're going to get people seriously fucking hurt or killed. That's why that rule is in place because the rule should be, and it is everywhere in all 50 states, anywhere the unified rules exist, the referee makes a judgment call based on how the fight is going, not based on how the fight is going at whatever time it's going. You want the referees, when it's justified again you can disagree but

when you would you would i think most people would agree you want a rule on the books that empowers a referee to intervene at the time in which they believe intervening is necessary not at the time in which it is convenient for the fans or the action or the losing fighter so that's number one the people have been like oh there's only 30 seconds left. That is not an argument that anyone has to listen to either now or ever. So then you could say, okay, well, he had taken a bunch of damage. What difference does the last 30 seconds make? Well, first of all, I think Herb Dean could have stepped in a lot sooner, number one. Number two, it is true that Moutinho was on his feet and moving forward.

I give that guy all the credit in the world. But there is just another reality you have to accept. We are two and a half rounds plus. What time was the time of the stoppage? 4.33. I mean, Jesus Christ. You're 14 minutes plus into one-way traffic. Couple of shots Moutinho had landed here or there.

They had no impact whatsoever. And he was getting his face turned into ground hamburger. God only knows how much brain damage he took in a fight like this. You can tough your way through it. That doesn't mean your brain toughs your way through it. He was barely throwing back, and when he was, Moutinho, it was hardly at all landing. It was not meaningful. He had no realistic path to victory, and he was absorbing a shit ton of damage. That is a clean stoppage by Herb Dean. And I know some folks don't want to hear that. They're not going to, they're not going to like it. They're going to be all enraged, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sorry. I have zero

problem with that stoppage. If a referee is seeing a, it was a mismatch. I'm not even mad at UFC dude. They had to get, they wanted to keep Sean O'Malley on the card. He wanted to stay 135. This kid was game. He put up with a val valiant effort I hope he gets a four fight deal and a great pay raise and maybe they throw him a nice little locker room bonus as well dude Chris Moutinho has my respect 100 but that was a mismatch if for no other reason than the circumstances last minute notice blah blah blah and that dude was getting worked like a summer job. The referee felt like he had seen enough damage accumulate without any real response from this guy to warrant stepping in. The fact that his 30 seconds left is immaterial,

and the fact that he took it that long, yeah, I think he could have stepped in sooner. But you could certainly not argue that it was too premature. If anything, it was a little late um when you have a mismatch like that dude you got to protect those guys you're not used to seeing it if you're a UFC fan because the UFC only recruits like the highest level guys you don't get a lot of these prospect dudes or you know even if they're coming off the regional scene sometime you'll see guys with 25s before they even hit the UFC that's not necessarily necessarily altogether uncommon, so you don't feel that as much.

But I personally, I don't know what the argument would be. I see what the argument is. Oh, these guys, he deserved to have it go the full distance. Dude, no one is owed anything. Where in the rules does it say anyone is owed a full beating for a moral victory? Dude, if you start training referees to hand out moral victories and whatever else, you're going to end up with a lot of fucked up fighters.

That's where you're going to end up. That's the same thing that everyone killed Mario Yamasaki for when he allowed the Priscilla Cachoeira fight to continue against Valentina Shevchenko. He even openly stated, I want to let her go out in his shield, and they fucking removed him from his job for that. That's not the job of the referee. You want to go out in your shield, you've got to give the referee a reason to let you go out on your shield.

And just getting fucking lit on fire by Sean O'Malley for 14-plus minutes, that ain't that. There's other things you can say about that, that Chris Bottino's got a chin like I've never seen, that he's as tough as shit. Whatever else you want to say, that's fine. But you can't say that that fight was competitive, and you can't say that that fight had a meaningful chance of getting turned around.

And the fact that there's 30 seconds left is utterly irrelevant. It means nothing to the way referees are trained and taught and instructed by the actual bylaws written in the Nevada State Athletic Commission's rulebook. It doesn't exist anywhere. Max Griffin defeating Carlos Condit. I thought Carlos Condit had a decent effort, but he's just not the same fighter he used to be. Michelle Pereira defeating Nico

Price. I missed that because I was in transit. I apologize. Ilioto Puria defeating Ryan Hall, 447. Ryan was trying these weird entries that were not, at first, Iminari rolls. It looked like to me he was rolling almost like at first over his shoulder and then granby rolling at certain times to find unique angles to i guess rather than

trying to spin your way into a leg lock almost spin underneath into letting them have um top uh side control and then just sort of fight your way through there underneath you could either invert for a leg lock or you could go back to guard, or you could even stand, depending on what you wanted to do. It looked to me like that's what he was trying at first. Again, I need to go back and review the tape. And then he eventually switched to a couple of inventory rolls. They didn't go anywhere. But this was the problem with the strategy.

Ryan Hall, I have known him for a long time. I do consider him a friend. It was hard to watch him get hit like that. But the thing he was up against was you know I don't know if the two years off made a difference or not but I don't I personally feel like there's a lot of evidence to conclude that if competitors are active they're going to be better more often than not you know that just that doesn't seem all that crazy to me but the other problem was I did not think that Teporia was being fooled enough with some of the rolls that he was stopped on.

There were times where Hall would roll and Teporia would follow, and at first he couldn't get a whole lot out of it. Like he would kind of like try to hold position and then back out and maybe land a punch or something, but, you know, not enough. And that gave, I think, a guy like Hall a little bit too much confidence because he kept going back to it and going back to it and going back to it. Okay. And going back to it and going back to it. And then you begin to notice that the ground and pound from Teporia picked up and picked up and picked up and picked up and picked up.

And by the time he had a nice control of it, he found a seatbelt and then the punches came from it. And that was all she wrote. I mean, Teporia, dude, that kid is a fucking hammer. We're saying it all week, man. 24 black belt himself. This dude comes from a tough place. He's had a tough upbringing. He trains at MMA Masters. I mean, he is a handful for anyone in that division. That guy ran towards the guy that a lot of people want nothing to do with. I have a ton of respect for, obviously, Ryan Hall, yes, and I think he'll be back and he'll get some great wins.

But for Toporia, that is a phenomenal win. Drikus Duplessis defeating Trevin Giles. He got pushed back a little bit, then came back with a beautiful 1-2 shot by himself. Sat Giles down. Great job by him. Jennifer Maia defeating Jessica Ai. Jessica Ai, by the way, no longer with Extreme Couture. I don't even know who she's with anymore. She loses 2-29, 28-1,

30-27. Tavares beating Akhmadov. That was phenomenal by him. I did not think that was a split decision, but he wins just the same on 29-28s. And then Zalgis Zumagulov defeating Jerome Rivera via submission guillotine choke, and it was a power guillotine, which means you go underneath and it's the bicep grip. Pretty impressive just to consider that.

All right, let me say something about Dustin Poirier, and then I'm going to look at your questions, and then we'll probably call it a day for this. Again, if you're still watching, thumbs up on the broadcast. Please hit subscribe if you haven't already. Dude, Dustin Poirier has... Everything's going to be about McGregor here because his leg broke and he's the superstar.

But, dude, Dustin Poirier looked to me like he's had enough of everybody's shit this whole thing. Even after the second fight, even into this one, a lot of doubts about Poirier. A lot of like, oh, you are who you used to be and nothing more than that. Dude, Dustin Poirier's whole existence is about proving who you were yesterday has no bearing on who you can be tomorrow. This accumulated sense of greatness. He did not get shot out of a cannon like Conor. Conor got better quicker.

That's just a reality. And to oversimplify, it's a bit of a torto like Conor. Conor got better quicker. That's just a reality. And to oversimplify, it's a bit of a tortoise and the hare scenario. A guy like Dustin Poirier, he just put his head down and got better and better and better, and then began to beat guys he was not supposed to beat, began to get wins he was not supposed to get, began to get accolades that you didn't think he was capable of. And even then, he just kept going back to the process. The people who go the furthest in this life are not the people who start the fastest. It's the people who have a sense of just, I understand that excellence at my occupation comes from repetition, repetition of the training,

repetition of the technique, repetition of the activity, repetition of your month, repetition of your year. And you put enough of those years together, and they began to add up into something pretty special. And it transformed him, and it turned him into something that he did not necessarily used to be. Maybe it was always kind of inside, but he had to mold and shape and build it and bring it out, and that was not going to happen automatically and doesn't happen for most people.

Dude, he always has been talented, of course. He's always been a special talent. But to see what he has really become, maybe the best lightweight on earth, maybe the next champion, I guess we'll have to see. But either way, all the story is going to be about what Conor did and what he looked like and whoever wants to define out or into the conversation, whatever is there. But do not lose sight of what Dustin Poirier has done.

He had the exact same amount of time since the last time they fought in January to get ready for this one. He looked to me very much in control of what he needed to be in control of. And when I went to the ground, he showed you he was better there too anyway. You know, can't take that lightly. Special, special, special, special guy. Special guy. All right, let's take a look at your questions here

and see what you have to say. Special, special guy. Special guy. All right, let's take a look at your questions here. Let's see what you have to say. Are we getting to the point where Dustin Poirier can transcend the belt? Instead of Doe Bronx, could we get a Nate fight? No, that's not the scenario. Do you think that Dustin should get a title shot as Connor Heels? No doubt about it. Do you agree with Poirier?

Did he get broken when he checked? We'll have to see. Burns' approach went over Aldana's next opponent. That's a good question. What would we say about Aldana's next opponent? I would say, if you look at women's bantam weight, Aldana is currently sitting at four. You've got Aspen Ladd and Holly Holman, Duran Dami. Maybe Duran to me. That'd be a fun one, right? I don't know if that would work out or not, but that'd be a fun one. Is Conor's MMA future in jeopardy with this injury?

It's already been jeopardized. I'm wondering, is Conor's support more rooted in the casual fight fan demographic? He certainly has, I'll say this. There's only a finite amount of hardcore fans. And Conor's going to have whatever portion of them he's got. There's the biggest portion of, remember something. The biggest section of MMA fans are casual fans. Now they come and they go.

But when they're there, they're much bigger in number than the hardcores are. So he's going to have more of them. Even probably if they have another fight, he'll probably have more of them than Dustin does. But Dustin, boy, he was all out of patience for people this week, and I can understand that. Connor limped out of the octagon after the second DS fight because of leg kicks. Was on crutches after the second Dustin fight, and now this. Is he just not made for leg kicks, or on crutches after the second Dustin fight, and now this. Is he just not made for leg kicks, or is it a lack of consistent training? It could be that he doesn't have the body hardening that has to go into the legs that is required

in order to... You'll see these kids, these Thai kids, and what you'll see is they'll roll glass up and down their shins when they're young because they just want to deaden all the nerves in their shins, and then they're used to taking all this punishment. It seems to me that there could be an issue with that, but beyond that, I don't know.

Is it ironic that McGregor predicted Dustin was going to go out in a stretcher and then he goes out on a stretcher? Yeah, I guess a little. Was this the best of both worlds? Dustin finally gets notoriety for beating connor twice and eating a and eating a legit title shot and connor gets to say i only lost to a broken ankle not really i don't know what people take from that like connor looked different i think you could take that away could you really say that connor looked like awesome

you have to squint to say that does this injury affect connor's confidence in throwing those kicks in future matchups You have to squint to say that. Does this injury affect Conor's confidence in throwing those kicks in future matchups? They're going to put a rod in there, so probably not, but we'll see. What does the UFC do with Greg Hardy? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Keep him around a little bit, but it's whatever.

I enjoy hearing Teddy Atlas and Kellerman's point of view of an MMA fight, but they should do it separately and partner up with an MMA analyst. Yeah, I like him. Well, Stephen A. Smith I can do without. He just says dumb shit. But I like Max Kellerman. He says dumb shit too on occasion, but I do like Kellerman a lot for the most part. And Teddy Atlas, I met his co-host on his podcast. He's also like his producer.

Great guy. How many rounds do you think the main event would have gone if not for the stoppage? Three. I think it would have gone about three. Mikey, what do you think? About three? What do you guys think? About three rounds?

If it had not ended in the first, what do you think? That was a hard pace they were going, dude. That was not built for the long haul at all. Where does Dustin's walkout rank? Pay the cost to be the boss, little James Brown? Pretty fucking high. Poirier is going to get... I can't

even read this one. I can't even read this one. You fucks are naughty. As a big fan of the UFC's recent promotional decisions, are we in agreement that they should hire Stormy Daniels to ask the tough questions? Yes. Yes, I am. Did we see Conor exposed in his post-fight feelings

because he was physically unable to make an exit? I think he's been revealing his feelings one way or the other long before tonight. I know. Someone's asking, if Dustin beats Dobronks, are they going to give Conor a title shot? Dude, how the fuck do they justify that? Here's my thing about this.

I've said it before. UFC does a pretty good job of maintaining the integrity of their actual weight class title, so your actual welterweight champion or whatever. And then they just use the interim titles as like the way the boxing community uses, you know, like super fucking bantamweight regular champion. Just to get whatever value they can get out of it

for whatever business need that they have. But they protect their ordinary weight class titles pretty well. Dude, this subverts all of that. If Conor gets a title shot off of this, I don't like that at all. Someone says the prelims were better. I thought the main car was pretty good. The fight, the main event ended anticlimactically,

but I thought overall it was pretty good. Fight of the night. My fight of the night would be, oh, good question. I'll go... Fight of the night. Maybe Brad Tavares? He looked pretty good.

Fight of the night. It's got to be a little bit of back and forth. There's a lot of one-sided beatings a little bit. A co-main event. Could you see Dana White not even watching the fight and looking down at his phone for most of the match? He almost never watches the fight itself. He watches the screen.

Would you say that both men lost here? No, I would not. Luke, aren't you being really disrespectful to Charles Oliveira by saying Conor will get a title shot after the Dustin Oliveira fight? It isn't a given that Dustin will win that. No, it's not a given. I tend to think he will, but you're right. You know, Conor could get a fight off of Dustin

when Dustin's coming off of a loss, and that would make a lot more sense. Fair point, and I certainly have no idea if he will beat Dobronks. Dobronks is, you know, a tough guy to beat. I tend to think very highly of Poirier's abilities, but it's a fair point. How come no one in the broadcast has mentioned the guillotine attempt, absurd move by Conor McGregor?

Yeah, I need to go back and look at it, but that would be bad. Given his cardio track record, Conor losing round one is a bad sign of how the fight may have continued. Conor has never lost a round one standing in the UFC. He has lost rounds in the first round when he gets taken down.

Do you think Ryan Hall got exposed tonight? No, I think that everyone kind of knew what the holes in his game were. They're just hard to take advantage of. Topria was able to do that. Do you think that O'Malley gets a fight with Font or Cruz? I hope, because he needs a better one. What happened to Conor's character after the first Poirier loss?

In that night, he seemed like a good loser taking it well, but at some point, they hate each other now. I mean, that's pretty obvious. Conor only has one win in the lightweight division, right? He has been overrated as a lightweight. I think we need to fight someone other than Dustin Poirier to get a clearer sense of things. The win over Alvarez is pretty great,

but yeah, since then, it's not been so great. There's no way Conor gets a rematch. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Was this Thompson's last opportunity to make a run for the belt? Yeah. there's no way Conor gets a rematch. Was this Thompson's last opportunity to make a run for the belt? Yeah. What they didn't say on the broadcast was, you heard Joe Rogan be like, oh, well, Gleffer Teixeira's 42,

or maybe it was Daniel Cormier who said, I don't remember. But it's like, yeah, dude, at light heavyweight, at light heavyweight, you can be 41, 42. Couture was what, 40 fucking seven or something before he retired? Yeah, you can be in your 40s light heavyweight, you can be 41, 42. Couture was, what, 40-fucking-7 or something before he retired? Yeah, you can be in your 40s at light heavyweight. Show me a guy in his 40s who's winning at an elite level at 170 pounds. You know, that's hard to do.

That's really hard to do. So, no, it's going to be pretty tough. Is T-Mobile arena best for MMA events? I fucking hate it for MMA events because there's no place for us to work, so I have to come to my hotel and do this, but you guys don't care about that, so whatever. How long do you think Conor takes until he fights again? I'm going to say nine months.

Nine months. Four straight pay-per-views, four injured limbs. A little bit, how do you think Oliveira matches up with Dustin, I think he matches up, you know, that's going to be one of those guys, there's no way that one goes the distance, a guy like Oliveira with his Muay Thai is going to be deadly, obviously on the ground, he's going to be a fucking handful, and a guy like Poirier is going to be super mindful of that, but Poirier hits hard, and I think he could land on a guy like Dobronks.

But either way, whoever wins, they're putting the other guy out. There's just no doubt about it in my mind. Why would they interview Conor after that? Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about that. It's like you don't like interviewing guys who have been knocked out afterwards. What are you getting out of interviewing Conor? I get it.

You want to hear what he has to say, but, you know, that dude was like his brain was on adrenaline to the nth degree, which you could understand. What do we got? Oh, here we go. Gate, 16.76 million. That's a huge gate. Attendance, 20,000. Taito Iwasa and Dricus Duplessis, excuse me, win performances of the night.

Oh, I guess fine. They went to Sean O'Malley and Chris Moutinho. Yes, that's a better call than mine. Fine. And everyone got 75K. So 75K went to Chris Moutinho. Good. Very glad to see that. Tied to Ivasa, Drickus Duplessis, and yeah, that's it.

About $16 million to $17 million. Gave that bitch. That's a nice night for the UFC. I saw someone joke after Conor lost. You know, Conor's like, after Floyd, he's like, oh yeah, but come to MMA, like, don't count boxing. And then after you lose to Habib, you're like, yeah, but take out the wrestling.

And then he lost to Dustin the first time, and everyone's like, okay, but take out the leg kicks. There's always something to take out. And then I saw someone tweet being like, I guess doctor stoppages are no longer losses. How about that quote from Dustin? Karma isn't a bitch, it's a mirror. That's an interesting, that's a cold ass line.

How highly do you rate McGregor's actual defense? His striking offense is obviously incredible and his defense range is great. He seems to get hit clean a lot in those exchanges. Dude, I think Dustin's timing is very good. I think his accuracy is very good. And I did not think Conor had a spatially disciplined game plan today, allowing close contact for low-reward shots, high risk. Why are boxing commentators all over this pay-per-view?

Well, as a guy who's mostly implied his trade in MMA, who's trying to get on boxing broadcasts, I'll just say, you know, lead the way, folks. Do you think McGregor will fight again? I do. I do think he will fight again. Do you think McGregor knew something was wrong with his leg?

No. No, I don't. Alright. I think that's it. I think that's it for us. How long have we been going? Hour and what? Okay, we're done here. Alright, folks. That's it for us how long have we been going hour and what okay we're done here alright folks that's it for me these are my immediate reactions morning combat

Monday Wednesday Friday 11 a.m. in the east we're going to go meet BC we're going to see what he thought about everything but we won't hear from him until Monday

I'm going to re-watch all the fights and give you a fresh take say again oh yeah there's a lower third there you can see everything it's got like how to reach us on twitter on instagram morning combat for everything twitter.com slash morning combat instagram morning combat and on youtube youtube.com slash morning combat please give the video a thumbs up hit that subscribe button that's what

we need from you folks tonight and um yeah man there's still a lot to talk about here. We're barely just getting started, but we're done for the night. We hope you enjoyed UFC 264. I want to thank everyone who watched all of our coverage this week. I know I speak for BC when I say thank you so much. We couldn't have done it without you. So thanks to Malka, Showtime, and of course CBS Sports and CBS Sports HQ for sending us out here. We were happy to do it, but the fights are over and we're done.

We're tired. Okay. For all the crew, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, get some sleep.