MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 265, Chad Mendes, Laurel Hubbard | Luke Thomas' Live Chat, ep. 84

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

Today on the podcast, we'll discuss UFC 265 and preview the main event between Derrick Lewis and Cyril Gane. We'll also discuss the return of former UFC featherweight Chad Mendes to combat sports at BKFC, transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard competing for New Zealand in the Olympics, Khabib Nurmagomedov's fellow villager beating Kyle Dake in wrestling and much more. 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

all right hey look at it everybody oh hi my name is Luke Thomas this is episode I think 84 of my live chat I am from Showtime I am from CBS sports and I thank you so much for joining me. Subscribe, like the video, do the whole YouTube bit. And without further ado, let's get this party started. All right, there we are. Happy Wednesday to you. Today we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about, but I'm guessing UFC 265. I think I saw a couple of Laurel Hubbard questions.

I've been doing a little bit of research about that. I watched her compete, so I have some thoughts. If you're interested, if not, that's okay. And you should know, today is my birthday. Today is my birthday. I am 42 years of age. I will candidly admit that, or maybe people do at different ages, but for me, I did a lot more reflecting this birthday than I had in previous ones about the state of my

life. And the reality is, the state is pretty good, all things considered. Things, I didn't even understand my life previously without struggle. Like to a point where struggle had become my identity. And then when things start to go right, you don't even know who you are anymore. At least I didn't. I will say that it took a lot longer for things to go right in my life than I had expected. I thought I'd be, I don't know. I guess I thought I'd be at a different place at 42.

But I'm not in a bad place. I'm in a good place. And I'm grateful for it given how uncertain life is and how difficult it can be. And how there's a lot of people who never got a lot of the opportunities that I did. And never were able to get into places that they wanted to go. And so while it's funny that at 42 things are beginning to come together for me in a way that I'm very happy with. And that while I would have liked it to happen sooner, I will not spend a moment being ungrateful for it.

And I will say, given just how rare happiness is in this world and given how rare achievement is in this world, at least with the kind of things, you know, in terms of your own personal goals, even those can be difficult. In fact, those can be the most difficult. I just want to say thanks to everybody. Thanks to everyone who watches this, who watches MK, who watches anything I've ever done. I just want to tell you I'm grateful. I'm grateful. I'm grateful. I used

to live frustrated all the time, and now I'm not nearly as, I mean, almost not at all. The only things I'm frustrated with was how things went for my physical health during the pandemic and even before that. But that's, that's nobody's fault with my own and I'm on the mend and things are getting better each day. So I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for this opportunity to talk to you. I'm grateful for everyone who watches. I'm, I'm very, very grateful. So thank you everyone. I really appreciate, uh, I don't take any one person in the audience for granted. Um,

yeah. Thank you guys. Really, sincerely, truly, you know, I hate to be like oh dreams come true i you know i don't know about all that shit but um i've i've reached a place in my life that i i i had hoped to reach and couldn't have done it without you guys so thank you thank you legitimately okay with that out of the way, let's get to some questions that you guys had for me, which I will do right here. Okay. First things first. If Colby was to become... Let me turn this off. Sorry. There we go. If Colby was to become champion, he states he would want Dustin next. Yeah, nothing tells you Dustin has made it more than that.

How do you see that fight playing out, considering they've trained with each other? Colby is not a huge welterweight, but he is bigger than Dustin. I tend to think he wants that fight for that reason. I think he would probably do really well with the wrestling and to some extent controlling Colby. It's not unwinnable for Dustin. That would not be accurate, but it would be a bit of an uphill climb for him given some of the size and slash skill disparity.

Plus, as we know, assuming that fight was at 170, I don't even know if Colby can get much further down below that. I'm sure on some level he could, I guess. But even if he says he can make lightweight, I don't think he actually could do all that well with it. But let's say it's 165, 170, something like that. I think Dustin's power would carry.

I think, again, winnable for Dustin. But going up a weight class and then trying to beat the guy who at a bare minimum, is the number one contender and could be, there's an argument for maybe he's the best guy in that division. That's a tall ask. I mean, Dustin, I think, is the best lightweight on earth, but he hasn't proven that yet. And of course, Khabib's retired, so that's the way I'm framing it.

But Dustin's still got work to do at lightweight before we even get to this. So, you know, Colby is smart in the sense that he's picking a fight where he's got a very winnable chance against an opponent who has really transformed his visibility, and there obviously is a bit of a story to tell there. But it's like, dude, before they see that shit, I would still want to see him fight Jorge. I would still want to see him fight other welterweights. I'm not pining to see Colby versus Dustin, personally. I mean, I wouldn't hate it or something, but, like, here's a list of all the fights I want to see. It's not really on it.

Luke, considering the show's success, along with the chemistry between yourself and BC, and the unique format MK has, why do you seem so uncomfortable with the talk of the podcast awards? Is it a you not wanting to get too far ahead of yourself a little bit? Or do you genuinely feel undeserving of such recognition? Someone says he's a huge fan.

It's not to be not grateful, again, for everything that has gone right or everything that is going right or to take it for granted. It's got nothing to do with that. I've just never... The the awards as they're done as they're handed out um they're handed out essentially on a popularity basis i mean you know they're setting up a voting mechanism so the fans in each of the two podcast awards we've been nominated for they've set up a voting mechanism

and you know listen what's the best way to do it it? I don't know what the best way to do it is. But the way that they've set it up is they've set it up in a way where popularity is probably going to be the thing that determines who gets ahead. It's not really about... I would make an argument that it's probably a better way to decide who actually is the best, and you would need really informed judgment to do that. Whereas instead, if you just set it up by mere voting, it's going to be,

we're going up against fucking Joe Rogan. Like, you know, I mean, BC is, God bless him. He really thinks we have a chance and I can't say he's wrong, but I don't, you know, gun to my head, I don't think that we do. I've just never been the guy who's going to win the popularity contest. It's never, never, never, never. I've never been that guy. I'm never going to be that guy. I'm not

that guy now. I was never that guy younger. But I've always felt like if what you really want to measure is quality, which admittedly is harder to measure and, you know, imprecise and in many ways subjective. You know, it's not so easy. Like there's something kind of objective about, hey, let the fans decide, right? But to the extent that quality is somewhat overlapped with popularity, but sometimes can be quite distinct, I've always felt like that's where I've shined. But that's not the place that awards go. Not typically anyway.

And so, you know, it's a weird thing to be like, I deserve this award. Like, what would I say that would be the argument? Like I deserve, like only you could make that argument. I couldn't make that argument. Do I feel that like, you know, do I feel like we're better than like Embedded or Contender Series or whatever else was in, were so different. Do I think, oh, MK's better than Joe Rogan Podcast? By what fucking measurement is that true? But at the same time, we do something really, really different. I feel like what BC and I do, I don't think there's another duo.

I don't think there's anyone else in the sport that comes close to what we're doing. And I think the people who know that, they really, really understand that. There's just nothing like MK, period. It's completely distinct from everything else. Even if we're two old-washed, you know, 40-something white dads, like, we're still doing something very, very different than the rest of the pack. And I think, you know, I can admit that.

That I can admit. But, like, when it comes to the awards, you know, on some level, what we're doing, I feel like, can That I can admit. But when it comes to the awards, on some level what we're doing, I feel like can be appreciated at scale. And on another level, either you get MK or you don't. I tend to think that the people who are wise and smart and want to have a good time, they get it. And then there's a lot of people who it's not for them.

So when it comes to like, oh, Uncomfortable Talk, a podcast awards, like it's just i'm not as long as the awards are decided based on basically like if you're more popular you're going to get more of the votes which again i you know what's the better way to do it there's nobody the fuck if i know i mean i think there probably is but you know i understand that these organizations want to figure out the easiest way to solve this problem, and so that's the one that they went to, but no voting system has got its positives and no voting system without its drawbacks, and the drawbacks here are going to be that there's a lot of people who we're nominated

against who are just significantly more popular. It's up to you guys to decide what you like more. I'm just never going to place my energy in like, I need third party validation. I need to be the most popular. I want to be all those things. The only thing I've ever tried to do, sometimes I succeeded at it, sometimes I failed at it, and that's it. But if you just focus on the product, more often than not, everything else takes care of itself. Maybe that means the awards. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

But I'm not going to focus my energy there. I've never been the guy who is like, everybody likes him. I'm never going to be that guy. But for the people who know what's up, they know MK is fucking rock solid. And that's really all that matters to me. So if they want to give us an award, if we win, dude, I would be blown away. I'd be truly blown away, you know. Because we're not supposed to win that award.

We're not. We're not like Joe Rogan. And obviously Ariel and DC's thing doesn't exist anymore. But that was very popular as well. And there's like UFC programming. We're not more popular than them. Like any of those other ones. We're not.

But I think, and again, we're completely different than most of them. But like anything else related to MMA programming, no one can touch us. And I firmly believe that. And that's all that I need to know. Since you can't be bothered to actually watch this season of Tough, I mean, why would I? Would you be willing to look at Ricky Torcios? I might be mispronouncing the name. Here's what's funny.

Like, seven or eight people have written me about him. So, yes, I'm not against any of the fighters who were on there. If the fighters who were on there needed to go on there or felt like that was what's best for them, or their manager advised it and they did it, I'm not against the fighters. Like, got nothing bad to say about them. I just don't have time or really the interest

to watch a reality show that's 20 fucking years old almost. It doesn't do anything for me. I don't derive entertainment from it. I don't find it enjoyable. The fights themselves I would be happy to watch, and everyone is telling me about this guy. Everybody. So I will absolutely look into him.

I'm sure he's talented. But acting like can't be bothered. Like, motherfucker, I got a limited amount of free time to watch shit. I would much rather watch what Russian prospects are doing in one of the shows that Kaposa, Garbaka Hitman,

hits me up about and says, pay attention to this. That seems to be much more a valuable use of my time if I'm going to be watching things outside of the normal scope of what we cover. Alright, someone asked a question and they didn't spell anything right, so I'm going to skip it. And it's political. I don't know what's all come out of that much politics on my birthday. Sorry. Here's a funny question. How long did it take you to master making YouTube videos for your personal

channel? I never did. I never got close. And by the way, I say this all the time. Everyone's like, I don't believe you. You don't have to believe me, but those are going to kick back up here soon. I really want to get MK over the 100K mark on subs, and then I want to kind of look back and work on some things. But for now, dude, I never mastered it. This is like asking any, I thought I'm some expert, but this is like asking anybody. You could ask, I would imagine, any Olympic lifter how long it'd take you to master the snatch. And I bet a good portion of them will tell you I've not mastered it. Not that I'm on the Olympic level. The Olympic level would be like MKBHD or

somebody who's got millions and millions of subs. I'm nowhere close to that. But to the extent that I got better at it and I got into a flow or something like that, how long did that take? I was uploading videos for a long time, but once I started studying best practices, like, wait a second, how do I level up? Once I made that conscious decision, about two years to get to a point where the videos weren't awful. But Master, like,

I could do... I'm not even close. Not even close. I looked at the rematch between Figuiredo and Moreno as a foregone conclusion because of how the first fight was going. Am I making the same mistake with the Sterling and Jan rematch? What do you think Sterling needs to change from the first fight to have a Moreno-type performance? I'm not sure that that's in the cards. I mean, listen, Sterling had a good first round. A really good first round, I would argue. Jan wasn't in any way out of the fight,

but he was a little bit, metaphorically, and even quite literally at times, on the back foot. The problem with Sterling's game plan was not that in the first round it was not successful. It was very successful. The problem was that it wasn't sustainable. And then once it became unsustainable, you went to a much more reduced version of what he was essentially attempting. And that's where all the problems began. So the question you have to ask yourself is, okay, you have two choices,

right? You have more than this, but they have two basic choices to think about. One is, can you do the same thing you did in round one and then just get better at reproducing it over the course of time? There might be something to that, but you would just same thing you did in round one and then just get better at reproducing it over the course of time? There might be something to that, but you would just imagine that if heavy, heavy, heavy volume is the game plan, at least part of the game plan anyway, then you would have to imagine that even the very best of these guys, they're going to fade by the time the championship rounds come around if that amount of onslaught is necessary to win, right?

In other words, if you reduced it a little bit, does its potency really just go away? There's an argument to be made there. So that's one. The other one is, okay, you can do some of that, but then you have to substitute in other things. I tend to think he's going to go more towards the second one because trying to reproduce the success of the first round another time, you're just setting yourself up for the similar kind of drop-off

before everything, you know, before he got hit in the head or whatever. I have to go back and revisit the fight. I tend to think that whatever... Here's the problem. Jan's defensive grappling slash scrambling slash like takedown defense is fucking good. It's good. Everybody focuses on his striking,

which you should because it's very, very good as well. But part of the key to that whole thing is that, dude, he's hard to hold. He's hard to hold down. He's hard to take his back dude, he's hard to hold. He's hard to hold down. He's hard to take his back. And he is happy to let you step on the gas a little bit early while he makes reads and adjustments and looks around. And then by rounds two or three, and then definitely later on in

that, that's when he begins to step on you. Look what he did to Aldo. Aldo was doing pretty good early. Aldo was doing good for a long time, but once A, some of the adjustments were made, and B, Aldo's cardio began to slip just a little bit, dude, he got annihilated. You've got to take that secondary gear. I don't think there's a whole lot, again, outside of just oppressive volume, that Sterling can do to match the striking of Jan. But if there's a way to hold him down, if there's a

way to get his back, if there's a way to find entries, does he have any tendencies in the scrambles? What does he look to do? What exits does he find? What are the nuances there? I think if you can control that, that becomes a winnable fight. But if over the course of time, you have to exchange with volume on your feet, I don't see that as a winnable path. But if you can mix in some of that with takedowns, with control, with finding the back, that seems to me very doable, but easier said than done. My man, I recall you a while ago had mentioned you would divulge, you spelled divulge wrong, the details of the time you shit your pants in the Marine Corps when MK got to 75k subs. I don't think that's right. I think it was 200k subs for my personal channel,

which I will tell, but you got to get me up there. Of course, I have to, you know, give you a reason to do that but that's what the issue is thoughts on Gon's technical ability I think it's fucking great how he matches up

against Lewis I think it's a bad fight for Lewis and also how he might fare against Ngannou Ngannou's the different one for me Gon versus Lewis

doesn't look like a great fight for Derek. Derek's had a couple fights that weren't great, and he over, I shouldn't say over-performed, he found a way to win because he has that kind of perseverant spirit. And he believes in his power, and he should. Gon versus Francis is the more intriguing one to me

because it's not that Gon, Gon's defense is the more intriguing one to me because it's not that Gon... Gon's defense is excellent. His distance management is excellent. And I don't think he can really hold down Francis for extended periods, as you can hear my daughter crying. God, who knows what the fuck is wrong? The question is for Gon is like, dude, can you really avoid the nuclear option for 25 minutes if you don't knock this guy out?

That's harder to do. Like, for all of Gon's technical ability... Oh, here we go. Okay, hold on. There's an emergency. Hang on, There's an emergency. Hang on, there's an emergency. Hang on. Give me a second, guys. Sorry, I'll be back in a minute.

A minute. Okay, sorry about that. Picking up where I left off. For all of Gon's ability in maintaining distance, in fainting, in drawing out reactions and whatever, he does have knockout ability, obviously, but he's not a domineering knockout threat. At least he hasn't proven to be yet. And his defense is spectacular, but it's not impenetrable and we all know francis doesn't need a lot to just fucking hurt people in you know for the fight

itself in irrevocable ways so like that to me is interesting a franc Francis has made massive technical leaps. But that off-button ability he has is peerless. And it's just really fucking hard to fight that guy. And, you know, I'm just not going to get really touched for as long as the fight lasts. Like, good luck with that shit.

Name some of your favorite horror movies I'm not a big horror guy, believe it or not Even though I like some of the music, that is Something you would recommend and why are they your favorite Favorite horror movie It's like a funny sort of horror movie But A Cabin in the Woods is kind of fun. It's not like all-time great horror, but it's a decent little flick. You know, you could make an argument, and I saw Red Letter Media made this argument.

You could make an argument that Predator is something of a slasher flick, because the Predator picks off the characters kind of one by one and he's sort of like this demonic is not quite the right word, but you know this sort of monstrous looking evil thing. And they show

it from his perspective too. You can kind of see how the animal, so to speak, the Predator, sees the world. it's something of a slasher flick when you think about it that way it's not designed to be a horror movie but it's got some of the horror movie stylings baked in the entire way so um i would say that you know i'm not really a giant horror fan but those are two movies that i can immediately recall that I would offer. I find it somewhat surprising that given the negative publicity Reebok received in terms of the endorsement deal and the meager amounts dispersed to fighters, that neither Venom

nor the new cryptocurrency sponsor did not stipulate a higher percentage going to the fighters. Well, we don't really know what they stipulated. I would have thought they would have also feared a similar backlash to what Reebok received. So I don't know anything about the crypto deal. My understanding of the Venom deal is that it's not even close to what Reebok paid. In fact, my understanding is UFC has to float some of the cost to even match what Reebok paid. So you know how there was the Reebok standard and then they gave them a slight pay increase? My understanding is Venom,

because dude, who would want to touch that situation with a 10-foot pole? My understanding is that Venom is paying most of that, but not all of it. UFC has to float some of it just to make it work, number one. Crypto deal, I don't know anything about. I know truly nothing about. But if you're asking about why they didn't receive a similar backlash, it's kind of like, number one, I mean, I'm not even sure. It's like for me now, too.

I'm almost like numbed out about the whole thing. There is the court case that is at a glacial pace working its way through the courts. The Ali Act got a big push, and then under the last administration and the last Congress, kind of died on the vine. It does have bipartisan support. It's got Republicans and Democrats who are in favor of it. It seems quite passable

given potentially different committees and with a different administration, but there's no guarantee with that. Who knows? But it is still alive in some capacity or the other. And no one's really stopping them from trying unions. I mean, part of the thing that happened after the Reebok deal

was there were several attempts at unionization. Like, it was such a difficult thing. And they all kind of, you know, Project Spearhead, I think, is still kind of alive in some capacity. But in general, all of them have really, they've not panned out. And again, the court case is still working its way. But I bring this up to say,

you guys need to be there when the Reebok deal was instituted. There was a time in MMA where you could credibly argue that the media did not really give enough attention to fighter pay, to fighter rights, and some of that was true, And some of that was true, a lot of that was true by the time the Reebok deal was put into place. But it was so egregious, it was such a change. Remember, part of the reason they could get away with the conversations about low fighter pay in terms of the actual salaries that UFC paid out was that these guys could get all these different sponsors and it would kind of just offset it. Not for everybody, obviously.

There's a huge variety of circumstances. But if you were on a main card, especially if you were a co-main or main or whatever, and even some other ones too, there was a lot of money, relatively speaking, to be paid to some of those folks. Hundreds of thousands in certain cases, and that's a little bit aberrant.

But still, if your check wasn't that great, but you had some great sponsors, it kind of just all worked out. Then they removed it. It was so jarring. It brought into stark relief these other efforts. And I think that, in part, has helped spur some of these other changes that you're seeing, some of these larger efforts, that even if they haven't succeeded, it gave rise to them. But now it's like, dude, everybody knows fighter pay is not what it should be. I said this on Joe Rogan's podcast. Dude, the debate is over. It's over. It's over. We know what they make. Roughly 18, sometimes less than that, but roughly, let's say, 18% of rev and not nearly the amount they should be getting. What's the solution to that? Well,

you could maybe argue for a union. Some have tried. They have failed. There's always another chance that that could happen. There's the Ali Act potentially that could get passed. We'll see what happens with this court case. There are some potential relief scenarios that can and probably will be explored at some point.

But the reason why I think they haven't got it is because, dude, everyone's like, there used to be a raging debate about it. And there's no, there are still a couple of, you know, people who like, the kind of person who like thinks Elon Musk is like a fucking, you know, is like Batman or something. Those kinds of people who are endlessly forgiving of social Darwinism. Yeah, they're supporting fighter pay. But everybody else kind of knows what the score is. But like, what are we supposed to do about it?

Media has shed as much light on this as is humanly possible. Truly. There's nothing left we could really do. None of this is new. So by the time Venom came around, first of all, their gear looks better, number one. Number two, they were endemic in the space, right? Before they even got this deal, they had to deal with Lomachenko and they made all kinds of stuff.

Like they were already in the space whereas Reebok was kind of like adjacent with CrossFit stuff. And with the crypto, it's like, you know, I don't know. I don't know how to explain the crypto part but um i haven't thought much about it but in the case of venom you know people just kind of got used to the situation being kind of what it is media has told everyone what the story is at this point

fighters themselves have explained i mean there's what like if you're not going to do anything to change it the ufc is not breaking any laws by bringing over Venom. Like, it just is what it is. So, I think people have just kind of, they know the score, they've kind of become accustomed to it. The rage and indignation, you know, it's a shame that, well, I don't know if it's a shame, but Reebok had to suffer through it in a way that perhaps the second and third actor doesn't. But yeah, there you go. Apparently, Chad Mendes might be heading to BKFC.

What are your thoughts on the situation? How do you think he fares? Hard to know exactly how he fares. We'll see how he's matched up. You know, he looked good on the pads, obviously. He's a fucking hard hitter he's got decent skills I tend to think that BKFC is a little trickier

than some of the folks realize but he'll probably do well he'll probably do well excuse me Luke I remember somewhat that during the past you've been critical of heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua relative to guys like Wilder and Fury, even though he has the best overall resume of the three. I don't agree that he has the best resume of the three. And with Wilder avoiding him for the last half decade, yeah, I don't agree with that characterization either. Is there a particular reason for this or am I reading too much into your opinion?

No, it sounds like to me like you are a Joshua fan, which is fine. Tyson Fury has fought Wilder twice and absolutely fucking demolished him one of those times. Until Joshua fights either one of those two, he's going to be back of the pack for those three for me. And also, you know, Wilder losing to Fury, it was a bad loss. And you can say whatever you want about how he redeemed himself, but Joshua losing to Ruiz, as good as Ruiz actually is,

that's pretty fucking bad. You know, and I don't think that his resume... I think beating Klitschko was pretty phenomenal, right? But Fury did it, and I don't think that his resume, I think they're beating Klitschko was pretty phenomenal. Right. But Fury did it. And he beat Wilder like, you know, the idea that his resume is better than Fury's. I know it's not. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich,'s it looks like a regular chicken sandwich but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich McSpicy consider yourself warned limited time only at

participating McDonald's in Canada uh we know you are very big on the vaccine yeah because I'm not an idiot but do you agree with vaccine passport or do you think it's too draconian? Well, here's what the situation is. I don't know what to tell y'all folks, man. Like, this is the biggest fucking, oh my God, this situation is just insane to me. I'm not going back to 2020. Okay? And everyone out there who has not taken the vaccine, you need to ask yourself a very important question. You need to get up after this live chat and go look in the mirror

and you got to ask yourself, do I want to go back to 2020? Right? Do you want to go back to 2020? I'm guessing for most people, not everybody,? I'm guessing for most people, not everybody, but I'm guessing for most people, the answer is no. Because 2020 for a lot of people sucked. It was bad for the world economy. It was bad for the local economy. It was bad for families. It was bad for deaths. We lost a lot of people. It was bad for mental health. Did you see the numbers that came out about overdoses going up by an order of magnitude? It was bad. I'm not going back to 2020.

I'm not going back. Now, the only way to go back, since most of you guys told me a long time ago, despite all the evidence, masks don't work and lockdowns don't work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, folks, you have to ask yourself a question. If you're not going to go back to 2020, by what mechanism are you going to go forward into 2021 and 2022? Even if you wanted to adopt lockdowns and masks, that doesn't really solve the problem either, does it? In totality, since people just won't listen to them and they're in elegant solutions,

essentially even at their best, right? So how is it you plan to not go back to 2020? There is one fucking answer to this question. One. And it is vaccination. That's it. That is the whole... I'm not even one of these guys

that wants to mandate mask use. I mean, here in DC, now they've made it where outdoors there's no mandate, but any place inside independent of vaccination status, you got to wear a fucking mask. Guys, this sucks.

It sucks. I don't want to do that. You know how much it blows to wear a mask at the gym? It's not fun. You want to go for a run with a mask on? You can do it. I did it, but it's not good. It's fucking terrible.

And, you know, forget about like lockdowns and 50% capacity. Like you just need to ask yourself, what is it you think you're going to do to get society at large moving forward? Because here is basically the issue. We keep using this term, public health. Fellas, ladies, what does that mean? It means on some level, some level, everyone has a role to play. Everyone has a participatory role to play in maintaining the larger social health that happens relative to this virus. Everyone has a role. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean wearing a mask?

It could mean that. Does it mean lockdowns? It could mean that. Does it mean lockdowns? It could mean that. Does it mean social distancing? It could mean that. But those are inelegant. A lot of people have told me forever that they're not going to do it. Well, folks, if you're not going to do that, your options are pretty fucking narrow at that point.

Because this whole idea like, oh, I'm just going to get COVID and spread it and everyone else is a pussy. I'm the toughest person on earth. No one believes you. No one believes you. Not this government. Not the ones in Europe. Not the ones in South America. Not the ones in Australia.

Not the ones in New Zealand. Not the ones in Asia. No one believes you. Nobody. Nobody takes that seriously. Not anyone, not any institution of any value takes that seriously. If you are actually serious about not going back to 2020, there have to be enough people who either,

with enough protections vis-a-vis the vaccination either herd immunity or you have the vaccination itself in order to make that work. It's just math. That's it. That's it. So you're asking your question, am I in favor of mandating it? No, I'm not in favor of it. I would much rather live in a society where we don't mandate it than if we did. I would rather have a situation where we offer these things for free, make them readily available, and people, because they did not get their information

from clownpenis.fart about their science education, decided, gee, this is in my interest to do this. We now have 70% of Americans who have at least one of the mRNA vaccines or a combination of that and then the Johnson & Johnson one. And none of these are perfect. None of these are perfect solutions by themselves, but they are the only solution that puts us in a place where we don't have to go back to 2020. That is it. So if you don't want to take the carrot, I'm not in favor of the sticks, but the sticks are coming. It's just the way it goes.

COVID is going to be here in one form or another for the rest of our lives. It is now what they call endemic. Now, exactly what role it will play and how big it will be and how deadly and blah, blah, blah, God only knows. But like HIV is endemic here. It's been suppressed and controlled and blah, blah, blah, but it's here. Polio is here.

Smallpox is here. It's just for most of these things you can get, hello, not all cases, but most of them, you can get vaccines. Dude, like I remember when I was in high school and in college, people and scientists were bragging, rightfully so, about the eradication of disease through vaccination. In many cases, polio, smallpox. I have seen members of my family tree above my grandfather who got fucking polio. I've seen the fucking pictures. Totally disabled.

But we don't have to worry about that now by virtue of some of the miracles of science. So this whole shit, someone tweeted me yesterday, like, don't you understand the concerns of people who don't want to get vaccinated? No, I'm sorry, I don't. Look at me right now. I want to be very clear about this. With the exception of certain people who have a distrust of institutional medicine and they have good reason for that, usually that falls along racial lines, but not exclusively. I don't know exactly what the science is around women who are pregnant. There could be potentially an argument there. Talk to your doctor about it.

There are going to be people who have various conditions, blood conditions, where perhaps, again, the vaccine is not right for them. Again, talk to your doctor about it. But for the overwhelming majority of you fucks, you're just fine if you get it. The idea that I have to take seriously someone else's conspiratorial worldview, some manufactured nonsense, I have to respect that.

No, I'm sorry, I don't. I don't. The overwhelming, demonstrable evidence, and this is really not up for debate, is that the vaccines, if they don't completely save your life, they are far and away the most effective tool. They are completely, again, for the vast majority of folks, completely safe. They are free.

They are easy to access here in the United States. No, I'm sorry. I do not respect the world view. I'm just going to stay unvaccinated because I'm young and unhealthy or whatever cockamamie excuse that somebody has. No, I don't take it seriously even a little bit. Rare exception aside, and there are some folks who are not good candidates for it. I have a buddy whose sister got diagnosed with MS. They tried to give her the vaccine and her body didn't take it. So she actually remains unvaccinated, not by choice, but because she actually, her body didn't take it. So she actually remains unvaccinated,

not by choice, but because she actually, her body simply won't accept what the vaccine's trying to do. So there are going to be people who you have to understand are not going to be able to either take this for whatever reason or another. Fine. They exist. That's real. And you have to respect it. And of course, there are certain cases where folks get the vaccine and complications happen as a result. None of these solutions are perfect, but those are exceedingly rare. I do not respect the worldview whatsoever for the vast majority of people who are like, I don't need to have the vaccine. Sorry, you are the one that is asking for lockdowns. You are the one that is asking for masks.

You are the one that is asking for masks. You are the one that is asking for vaccine mandates. You are the one that wants to live in 2020. I'm not going back to 2020. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. And there is one way to get us out of there. Good news. The solution is free. It works for the overwhelming majority of you, and it won't save everybody, but it's going to keep a shitload of us safe so we can go back to a normal society. And if you don't want to take those efforts, I don't know what to tell you because the rest of us, we ain't going back to 2020. Can you imagine having a business and you're seeing these rising cases wherever, Florida, Missouri, wherever the places are happening. And people are like, well, I don't want to get vaccinated.

Can you imagine being a restaurant owner and the fucking audacity of people to say something like that? Guys, how many Americans are there? There's 330 million Americans. 70% of them have gotten a dose of this. Your boogeyman doesn't exist. He doesn't exist. It's manufactured nonsense. Stop believing it. Stop. It's not real. And in any case, you need to make a choice. You're going to go to 2021, 22, or are you going to go to 2020? Because unless you take the vaccine or enough of us get it where you get the herd immunity protection, you're going back to 2020. And it's as simple as that. That's your choice.

So what do you want to do about it? Thoughts on Michael Chandler's comment on the vaccine? I've already said what I had to say. As well as Dana's talk about not mandating it. Well, there's a couple complications there. If they're not employees, I don't know exactly what the rules are with mandating it. Certainly, there can be ways where you can mandate it, but do you want to, and then risk messing up the independent contractor employee balance that could be affected? Remember, it's not any one thing. It's a checklist of a few of those, well not a few,

but if you can fill up many of those slots, not all of them, it doesn't have to be the same ones, but if there's a preponderance of evidence that you're an employee and you're treated like an independent contractor, you can say, hey, look, they're abandoning vaccines along with uniforms and blah, blah, blah. It could change the equation. But the only part that I don't get about UFC is like, this is what I'm talking about. I don't know what Europe's going to do. I don't know what Asia's going to do. I don't know what world governments are going to do. But here's what I do know. If you want to be an American and you want to go to Europe, by and large, I think if not exclusively anywhere in the EU territory, you got to be vaccinated. Like, is France just going to drop that at some point?

I mean, I guess if they really get a handle on it and it goes down and whatever, fine. I tend to think, folks, COVID is here. I tend to think it's going to be a long time before these governments drop their required vaccination requirements to go over there. So what? We're just going to go to Fight Island for the rest of our lives? Like, I don't understand how that's going to work. So this is my point. It's like, I would love to live in a society where enough folks did it where, leftovers, the stragglers in minimal numbers wouldn't necessarily have to get it. But if we don't have that, you tell me how we get back to normal. Because like, oh, we'll just let COVID run rampant. No, dude, nobody takes that seriously. Nobody. Nobody takes that seriously. You can't just let COVID run rampant. It doesn't work that way. You have to have a mechanism to control it. What mechanism are you choosing? Oh, we're going to go to mass.

You told me it didn't work. Oh, we're going to go to lockdown. You told me those are bad. Oh, what about social distancing? You said that shit don't work either. What about vaccines? I protect my health. Please shut the fuck up kindly. I mean, what are we... These people... And this is the best part about it. I've seen some MMA and Jiu-Jitsu gurus posting about it. And it's like, you fucking morons. What, do you think you're Thomas Paine?

Or do you think you're Patrick Henry? Give me liberty or give me... You think you're fucking freedoms? You've never cared about your actual freedoms and the expression of them, or frankly, the protection of them, maybe for most of your walking adult life. And you told me that the masks were somehow this grand imposition on you. Meanwhile, the NSA is just reading your fucking emails and you don't give the slightest fucks about it.

You know, oh, they're looking at metadata. They're looking a lot more than metadata, guy. Trust me. This totally phony notion, these guys present themselves as if they're crossing the Delaware with George Washington protecting their freedoms. You're not protecting shit. You're protecting nothing.

In fact, you're just endangering everything else. You're not Thomas Paine. You're not Patrick Henry because you bought into a conspiratorial world. You're the 13-year-old kid. Not Michael Chandler. I like Michael Chandler. He said he'll get it when they lift the FDA thing. So I'll take him at his word that when they go from emergency authorization to full, I'll take Michael at his word. But for the rest of everybody, you're acting like a teenager at dinner who's just pouting and you don't want to go along with it. Oh, I have good reasons for it. No,

the fuck you don't. No, you don't. You don't. You actually have, again, super rare circumstances aside. They exist, but they're rare. No, the fuck you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. You have almost no case whatsoever. And that you, that people brandish themselves with these like, I am doing this because I care about my freedoms and my liberty. Shut the fuck up. You think you're standing up to something when all you're doing is parading the fact that you probably did fucking terrible at science in high school.

That's what you're parading. You're not parading some values about, I take the liberty of citizenry seriously. And listen, there are conversations to have about vaccine passports. I would prefer to live in a world where we don't have them, because I do think there are some, in that particular case, some privacy concerns worth acknowledging, but I'm not going back to 2020 folks. Make a choice. What's it going to be? Do you want to go back to 2020 or not? It's as simple as that. And you're not fucking Patrick Uh-oh, kid's back. All right, let's get into this a little bit. Luke, as a relatively avid follower of the sport of powerlifting, what are your thoughts on Laurel Hubbard being the first transgender woman

to compete in powerlifting in the Olympic Games? First of all, it's not powerlifting, it's weightlifting. I don't mean to say that in a pedantic way. There are a difference between the two. So weightlifting is two lifts. It's the snatch and then it's the clean. I don't mean to say that in a pedantic way. There are a difference between the two. So weightlifting is two lifts. It's the snatch and then it's the clean and jerk. Right? Jesus, I don't know what's wrong with my kid.

The other one is, those are weightlifting. And it's regulated by USA Weightlifting and International Federations and whatnot and blah, blah, blah. The other one is powerlifting. It's three different lifts. It's bench, squat, and deadlift. Okay? And you might be asking, well, it. The other one is powerlifting. It's three different lifts. It's bench, squat,

and deadlift. You might be asking, well, it's just the different lifts. Aren't they more or less the same? Not exactly. The snatch and the clean and jerk, clean is less so, but the snatch and the jerk require, and even the clean too, require, especially the snatch, an exceedingly difficult amount of technical expertise. It's very, very hard to get that right. The other ones are a little bit more teachable, self-teachable. I'll leave it at that. There's some other differences, but those are some of the main ones. So I watched Laurel Hubbard. She competed in the plus 87 kilo category with Sarah Robles of the United States. And there was a woman from Great Britain who took silver, first one ever. And then that was third and then second. And then first was Li Wenwen out of China who had a 320 kilo total, like a fucking

animal. All right. So what did I take from this? I've not followed the entirety of Laurel Hubbard's life. I'll say this. I watched her lift. First thing I'm going to say is there's a lot of people who use this issue as like a, oh, I'm going to fucking insult transgender people. Look, man, I'm not interested in insulting her life choices. I don't give a shit about them. And if that's your ax to grind, you could take it somewhere else. If you have a question about fairness in sports, however, I might be with you. I watched her lift. She missed

on 120, 125, 125 I believe, or maybe 120, 120, 125. But either way, she had hit previously in competition, either at the Asian Games or something like that. She had hit 125 previously, so these were doable numbers for her, but she missed them.

If you miss all three of your snatch attempts, you don't even get to clean and jerk. So she didn't end up even finishing the competition. She got the very last out of both A and B groups. I saw a lot of people saying, like, doesn't this disprove all of the bigots who don't want to give credit to transgender folk? And that this says that all the advantages they retain are not real. And I'm like, it, no, I don't fucking get that at all. Sorry. I don't think that's even remotely true. It is probably true.

It is probably true that, let's assume that going from male to female in the way that she did, which is to say, in that stage of her life, confers some kind of benefit, but we don't know exactly what. It is clearly true that in the way in which she transitioned, it did not provide enough competitive benefit to medal or to just run over the world's elite in that weight class. Okay, fair enough. Even if she had made the 125 and her previous best in the clean and jerk, I don't even think she would have medaled. She would have gotten decent, maybe five or so, but she was well behind some of the other

more dominant lifters, even if she had made it. However, while we can say that's true, it did not put her in such a space where the women had no chance whatsoever. Okay, fair enough. But that's really not the question, is it? I can't. Dude, I'm six foot four. I'm 285 pounds. I can't clean and jerk the numbers that Lee Wen Wen can jerk. I can't do those things. So the idea that going from male to female and you can't match Lee Wen Wen, that doesn't really say a whole lot.

The question is, were you able to get further after transitioning than you were before? And if so, why? Now the why part, I don't really have and i don't think we there is a really clear grasp on um and even then there's a debate about to what extent was some benefit conferred she was you know average to not even remarkable whatsoever as a male lifter and then became um something of a noteworthy force on the women's side uh So the first thing I would say is the idea that like, oh, this disproves people who think that there's no fairness about it. It doesn't do that at all. Like that is such a trash argument. I don't take it seriously at all. The question is if there is a benefit conferred,

how much? There's a guy you should know about. He is a sport scientist out of South Africa. His name is Ross Tucker. You can follow him at Science of Sport. This is a guy who seems to me eminently fair. He's a college professor. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa, and he has studied this a lot. He has looked at exactly what kind of hormonal benefits

will still be existing even with suppression later in life, and blah, blah, blah. And his view is that it's pretty inarguable that there is too much of a benefit conferred with this particular kind of transitioning, which happened again later in life, obviously far beyond puberty. I don't know what the answer is. Should there be an all-transgender games? I don't know. Is there a. Should there be an all transgender games? I don't know. Is there a better way to measure some of these things?

Now, to Laurel Hubbard's defense, she followed all the rules that were set out in front of her. You could say, of course, the rules are bad. Fair enough. But it wasn't like she appealed to some committee and they overrode the rules. She was in compliance with them. It just seems to me that we have two basic problems. One, we don't have a clear handle on the amount of benefit that is conferred athletically when that transition happens, when it happens, and how specific they can measure that. And then the other problem is we don't have a clear alternative because if like if there was

a transgender games and again I don't know that that's in any way the solution but if there was she would have had an outlet if you're Laurel Hubbard and you want to compete and you followed the rules you know what is she supposed to do just sit home I know some people think that yes she should but obviously she's of a different opinion and I don't begrudge her in that sense. In that sense, she did nothing wrong. The question is, as institutions, what kind of rules and roadblocks should there be? Strongly, strongly encourage you to read Ross Tucker's Science of Sport on this. He is not interested in policing anyone's life choice.

He is not interested in misgendering people. He's not interested in any of that stuff. He's just trying to answer the question, to what extent, if any, is there athletic advantages conferred when post-puberty males transition to females? And it is his belief, if not hormonally, but with some other mechanisms as well,

that there is too much of a benefit to just simply say this category of women should allow this particular kind of competitor. It blows up the notion. And the categories have to make sense, right? The categories, someone was saying like, oh, Michael Phelps has an advantage over his male competitors,

but it's noteworthy. But in the scheme of things, at his best, he had about a half a length, body length advantage over his competitors. But compared to Katie Ledecky, he had like 10 or 11 body lengths. So you have to separate those classes because you can't really get fairness between them if you mix them. They have to stand for something independent of that. And so gender and weight class has been the ways in which we have typically of that. And so gender has been, and weight class has been the ways in

which we have typically done that. Obviously in this new world, that is not sufficient enough. I don't want to exclude people like Laurel Hubbard from competing to the best of their abilities in the appropriate format. But I watched her compete and I saw a lot of people taking like victory, like, yes, see, you see. It's not some, you know, we're going to run over. Well, no one's saying she's going to go in there and just be the most dominant lifter in the women's divisions ever. What we're saying is how much further did you get by the advantages you retained that weren't existing on the men's side? And it's hard for me to believe that there's nothing there.

And in fact, the science doesn't really tell us that. But even then, the science is A, a work in progress, and B, we need a better solution about what kind of outlet we can provide for these people. Because simply putting them in the women's category, there might be a narrow set of circumstances where someone transitioned, I don't know, really early in life or whatever, as we get better science. Maybe there's a case for that. But I don't think it was appropriate for Hubbard to, again, she played by the rules, but I did not think it was appropriate for her to be competing in the women's division. And I did not take her failure at the Olympics as any kind of evidence whatsoever that it doesn't show she carries an advantage. That seems quite silly to me, as a matter of fact. Yeah, at the Olympics she bottomed out, but what about the other previous international class tournaments

where she was fucking running over people? And this, again, as a male lifter, had none of that success. Not even approximating it. And again, he provides evidence to suggest that we should take that more seriously. All right. I don't have any thoughts on Messi leaving Barcelona because I just read that headline before the show.

So I don't know enough about it, but there you go. I can't wait to read what that's about. Would you consider a resume review for Jan Blachowicz ahead of his fight with Glevitashera? Seems like the perfect candidate to break the curse. I don't know about that. Glover Teixeira's

a bad dude. Glover Teixeira might get lit up on the feet. I think that's a real thing. I probably would favor Blachowicz to win. But I would strongly caution to not look past Glover Teixeira.

What is a good low-cost resource you'd recommend for someone looking to get into lifting free weights? When you say free weights, you mean like dumbbells, right? Like it's not on a machine or something. Guys, I can't say enough good things about the era we're living in. First of all, as a basic, basic thing, if you wanted to invest in something, it's old school, but it would work for you. You could look at the Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bodybuilding, Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding.

That's one thing you could do. Another thing you could do is forget all that. Just get on YouTube. Go to, I mean, there's so many places you can go. Kabuki Strength, Calgary Barbell, Jeff Cavalier you could go to. I mean, the list, dude, the amount of good scientists. Jeff Nippert, I can never pronounce his last name. He's great.

Omar Esau, Alan Thrall. I mean, there is just an endless array of free information out there to not just get you started. There's free programs out there. There's free deadlift programs. There's everything is free. Usually, if you're going to pay for something, you're paying for someone's app. You're paying for them to coach you. You're paying for their pre-workout that's got their name on it.

And listen, some of those apps can have value. It's not that their coaching couldn't have value. They can have value. But you're talking about getting started? Dude, there has never been a better time, especially for free, including bodyweight stuff. Dude, you know how many millions of videos there are on YouTube of like, here's a bodyweight workout for free. Including body weight stuff. Dude, you know how many millions of videos there are on YouTube? Of like, here's a body weight workout for you.

You don't need anything other than enough internet connection to go through YouTube and dig it all up. Couldn't recommend it more. It is such a good time to get into lifting weight. Really anything you want to do. But in particular, man, there is just so much free wisdom on there. Go check it out. How feasible would it be to get Chael on the show or to ask a celebrity question on Wheel of Death? Pretty feasible.

I spoke to Chael a few weeks ago on the phone, actually. About some other stuff, some other business. But I don't think it would be hard. He answers my phone calls thoughts on the breakup of the danaher death squad without knowing more about exactly why they split although i've been told some things off the record but you know i'm not verified so i don't know what the situation is but um they obviously had a major role in jujitsu in the last 10 years or so maybe a little less than that six or seven something like that um obviously almost exclusively in nogi but even then like gordon ryan really changed the do when i up, there were two arguments about why you need to train Gi and no Gi.

The first one was doing both makes you better at either. Like, oh, there's some things you can learn from no Gi you can take to Gi and vice versa. And that actually is not the worst argument. I make this one all the time. Joe Lozano talked about how he used the Gi to work on an Omoplata series because he could slow it down. You can hold the sleeve. And then he used that over time to transition to learning stuff with no Gi. That can be done.

And Gordon Ryan is obviously good in the Gi, but he made a point. He's like, it's just obviously silly to think that that's true, that you just have to train Gi to get good at no Gi. And this is one of the, obviously they did much bigger innovations around leg locks, entanglements, entries.

I mean, their whole complete game really was, if not revolutionary, it was evolutionary in a major way. Like it was a big quantum leap forward with some of the stuff that they had done. And then the wisdom they distilled and the understanding of position and whatnot. And the other one was, you know, Felipe Costa had made this.

Well, jiu-jitsu is a gi sport. There is a no-gi version, but jiu-jitsu is the gi sport. Well, maybe that's true. I still like gi jiu-jitsu to watch. But I would need to know more about why they split up and to see exactly what went wrong. But they're easily the most influential jiu-jitsu force in the last half decade, like bar none. No doubt about it. I'll do a couple more. Where does Pitbull go from here? I tend to think it's not so hard to find him a fight. I think there's a lot of fights you could do. You could do a third fight with Emmanuel Sanchez. You could do a lot of stuff.

He just needs to get right again. So that one I'm less concerned about. The McKee one is a little harder to figure out. Why can't fighters just weigh in right before they enter the cage? The problem with doing that is that what ends up happening is fighters will manipulate their weight to retain an advantage, even when it's... If you do it right before. So in jiu-jitsu, you'll see mat-side weigh-ins. And even that's not great, because you see guys compete like drained and fucked up but the threat of head trauma is not so significant that this is something you have to necessarily um prohibit in mma if you don't give guys time to rehydrate some will just

take the risk not to and then you get into problems problems. Oh, here's my daughter, hang on. It's okay, it's okay. Come here, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Come here, come here, yeah, come here. Come here, why are you crying, huh? Why are you crying? Looking like you're in the 1980s, huh? With your head thing, here.

Yeah, why are you crying? Yeah, why are you crying? No, no crying. Who's that? Who's that? Yeah, that's right. All right, let's, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Yeah! Good job! Okay, you want to practice some of, Z. Yeah. Good job. Okay, you want to practice some of your words? Yeah. Okay, say, I love you.

I love you. Say, can you say Bogota? Bogota. Yeah, that's pretty good. Huh? Yeah. Are you feeling better now yeah can you say can you say ciao YouTube okay all right well that I gotta call it a day here we go now she wants to go here we go subscribe to the channel give it a thumbs up thank

you for watching no no no no no no no no no no can you say nah yeah I love you hey I'm you want to see dinosaurs okay I'll see you some dinosaurs okay I will see you guys later for VLS