MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 267 Recap: Teixeira, Yan, Chimaev Win | Canelo vs Plant | Jaron Ennis | EP 223

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

A big episode 223 of Morning Kombat is here! Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell recap UFC 267, as Glover Teixeira became the oldest UFC champ in history. Plus, Petr Yan and Khamzat Chimaev earn impressive victories. Also, Jaron Ennis turned in an awesome performance this weekend, is it fair to say Ennis matches the hype? It's Canelo vs. Plant fight week on SHOWTIME PPV. The guys preview the storylines. 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:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Reveille, reveveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. You're in the presence of divine science. Me and BC do not ascribe to y'all's theory of nonviolence. Welcome, everyone. It is the first of November. It's the first of the month, Bone Thugs and Harmony style, and it is time for MK Morning Combat. How are you doing? Welcome, welcome.

Top of the morning to you, and if you're BC and you're in a hotel room on the left coast-ish, not quite quiet but pretty close it's uh it's a really early morning so let's say hi to him now he's the king of connecticut he's my friend and yours it's brian campbell what's up bc i might have to be uh more like the prince of connecticut or the connecticut court jester after what we saw from the great glover to share uh keeping us old guys in Connecticut inspired this weekend. But, Luke, I am in Sin City, Las Vegas.

Hey, by the way, it's great to be here when it's not 119 degrees every day like it was for Connor Pauiway III. I am on the grounds. I know you will be joining me shortly, but on the grounds for all things Canelo, Caleb Plant, this Saturday night's Showtime pay-per-view. Luke, I know you will be joining me shortly, but on the grounds for all things Canelo, Caleb Plant, this Saturday night Showtime pay-per-view. Luke, I can feel it. I can feel it. You know what I'm saying? I can feel it coming in the air tonight as well, BC. I'm good to see that you're in good health. There were great fights over the weekend at Showtime. You got to see them. They were fun, huh?

Hey, I was ringside to check out the Boots Ennis show and the Boots High Ennis show, which I'm sure we'll get into later. Very fun triple header from Showtime Boxing there at the old Mandalay Bay. So that was great to see. Look, this feels big this week, Luke. Not going to lie. You and I have a lot of fun opportunities on the ground to help in the overall coverage here for Showtime and what we do for CBS Sports.

So I could not be more excited to be here, fired up. It's day three of a 10-day Vegas bender. So let's see how I look on the back end, Luke. But for now, you know, happy, healthy, doing good. 10 days on the Vegas strip is, that's, your liver might be, what's blacker than black? Your liver is the answer, is what it's going to be. So we'll have to see how this goes.

All right, first things first, though. Housekeeping notes and rules of order, all that good stuff. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe if you are new as a subscriber. You came from UFC 267 coverage post-fight. Welcome. We do this three times a week, 11 a.m. in the east, although that will change a little bit this week

once I make contact on the ground in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning. Yeah, can we talk? People love our long and, you know, very overly dramatic intros, but can we talk that we've not only got, I mean, look, this is one of the better fight weeks of all time to be a combat sports fan when you've got a massive historic Canelo fight with bad blood and you've got UFC 268 from MSG this week. So, Luke, you and I may be on the ground in Vegas this week,

but we are going to be pumping more than once that coverage out to you from both sides of the line. We just launched on YouTube.com slash Morning Combat yesterday another one of them pregame previews. Luke, it might be the worst name ever for a segment that's so damn good. But as you guys already know, you want Mendenhall? You want real talk like men do? Check out our 268 preview from the rooftop there in JC, where even the neighbors got involved with a little extracurriculars to help us out. Yeah, people were asking me, were they actually watching pornography?

Yes. Yes, they were. Yeah, on a big screen. It was wild. All right, so check that out. If you're listening on the audio podcast, youtube.com slash morningcombat. I believe they're going to put out the discussion

with Chuck on podcast if they haven't already, but either way, youtube.com slash morningcombat, and you can go check out me, Chuck, and BC. We're going to have a resume review Canelo Alvarez this week that you're not going to want to miss looking back at an incredible run to get to this fight to this point. And we also have a great surprise. If you love what we're doing with these pregame previews, we've got another great surprise to check in on later in the week there. I hope I didn't break my whole setup here. On the ground in Las Vegas, we're going to have one ready for you guys. Yes deal with me today folks okay i got the hotel room gimmick again so just deal with me

if the shit falls apart i'll do my best to keep the train on their tracks all right all right so there you have that um of course for wednesday and for friday morning combat uh at gmail.com is going to be your place to go and send us any of your fan subs, any of your dead wrongs. By the way, if you're in Las Vegas this week, we know most of our fans tend to be more MMA fans than boxing fans. We're working to fix that. But if you are going to be on the ground in Las Vegas this week, we'll have some opportunities to come say hi. So stick around for some details on that, I think. And then beyond that, BC um we should tell folks if

they want to try showtime you had a chance to watch it over the weekend with some great night of fights but there's still going to be many more great weekends to come canelo will be on pay-per-view but there's plenty of fights on showtime proper so you can go to showtime.com and you can get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can go do something else with your life bc we are we are very honest with the people, look, if there's great shit to be watched on there, like Billions, like these documentaries, check that shit out. If you're not watching all excess episodes one and two, Canelo, Kayla Plant. So good. Guys, check that shit out, okay?

Get your 30 days free now. This is the goods. This is the goods right now it's getting look you know a great pre-fight documentary series is well done when it's like making you want to hit that upset pick button because they've done such a good job telling the other guy's story and that's what they're doing here with caleb plant and and i'm fired up here um and also like i have a zone customer i'm not hating on the zone but if you get the zone you just have a library of fights which is great but if you get showtime you get all of their entertainment stuff with the app as well,

on demand in the whole nine yards. So just keep that in mind in terms of a value proposition. As well, we have merch. MorningCombat.store is the place to go. And I hear from our producer, they might keep BC. I got this from our CBS producer. He's telling me that they decided to keep the My Face thing, the Dia de los Muertos shirt, will be available for the foreseeable future.

And the holiday line is in the works. We have some awesome stuff coming down the pipe. You know, December is holiday season in many faiths and walks of life. And we're going to have you covered there on Morning Combat's merch. The drug rugs, I know they sold out in about a half hour. Launch 2 is being in the works now in some sweatshop. They're getting those things ready. We're very excited about that.

And look, that Luke shirt has been selling so well that they wanted to go full-time with it. So head on over to morningcombat.store. Get yours, okay? Got to get mine because Markyy Mark's gotta get his. So please, do that shit. Shout out to all our great people wearing it every Wednesday showing us up

on fan submissions there. Thank you. Thank you for supporting us. That's all I got, Luke. I told you this before, BC. My wife, without saying a word to me, bought one, and then my sister was visiting,

and she saw my wife wearing one, and then she said, hey, can I get a free one? So we almost got two orders out of it. Luke, that's damn near close to support right there. I like that. That's support adjacent. I have to say, that's pretty close.

That's pretty close. All right. But the biggest news, BC, before we even get to the top five topics, is guess who's back like a bad habit. It's MKBC plus DK. Yes, DraftKings. five topics is guess who's back like a bad habit it's mkbc plus dk yes draft kings like people are like are you guys y'all out here having a kardashian chris humphries marriage with them are you going the real deal luke the prenups are getting signed the shit's coming together what a marriage between draft kings and morning combat and how much we can get you guys going

you like to sprinkle a little action on top of your action? Boy, do we got a setup for you today, Luke. Can you tell the people about this? Well, obviously, as you know, DraftKings has brought their expertise to legal sports betting. It's a legitimate sportsbook based right here in Los Estados Unidos, so your funds are totally secure. DraftKings, which is America's top-rated sportsbook app, by the way, safe, secure, and reliable.

You can deposit and withdraw your money at your convenience. We want you to use the promo code KOMBAT, K-O-M-B-A-T. Why? Because DraftKings is offering all new customers a deposit bonus up to $1,000 in free credits. You must make a deposit in order to be eligible to receive a deposit bonus up to $1,000 in free credits. So you go to the DraftKings Sportsbook app right now, check out all they have to offer, including, by the way, props for players, live betting, futures betting, and so much more.

And by the way, BC, we have Canelo coming up this weekend. We have UFC coming up this weekend, which I think will appeal more to the fight fans. But the reality is this, dude, NBA is in full swing. NFL is in full swing. There's a lot of different directions to go if getting in on some of the sports betting action is your cup of tea. Yeah. And if you're not, you know, sports betting savvy, this app is very easy to use. And you're going to find out quickly, this ain't just betting which team wins. You know, you want to bet LeBron on the over-under on 17.5 points? I mean, they got those type of individual prop bets, parlays.

Jump right in. You know, look at that UFC card this weekend. Package a couple together. There's a lot of ways you can have fun and make some cash as well, but you're going to need our offer code. That's COMBATWITHAK. That promo code will unlock your savings. As a reminder, if you live in a state

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Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or an Indiana 1-800-9 with it. All right, BC, it's been 12 minutes since the start of the show, more or less. We've got to get this thing rolling. You ready? Yeah, how's my cat? Whoa, Gaff, you're killing me here. It keeps moving on me.

You keep moving it, and that's the problem. Your hand's coming up and touching. Leave it. Leave it. That's it. That's your winner. Don't touch it. You're like a kid with a hot stove.

Don't touch it. Spalding, get your foot off the boat. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes. All right. Here we go.

Let's start with UFC 267 which by the way I would just sort of put up there for topic number one as this is one of the better if not one of the if not the best free card that UFC has ever put together I would actually add on top of it as a general way to look at things UFC 267 is about as good as MMA gets when it's free I realize in certain parts of the world like Canada they still had to pay but the United States is the number one pay-per-view market. We don't often get reprieves here. We got one and it was well-deserved and I think it was well-received as well. Let's talk about the main event. Glover Teixeira at 42 years of age, can you believe it, captures the UFC light heavyweight title by submitting Jan Blachowicz. And by the

way, hardly his most difficult fight, all right, BC, at 42 years of age, when we both thought Jan was probably going to win. We were both wrong. We should say that out loud. Is it surprising that Glover got this, again, relatively speaking, kind of easily? Yeah yeah that was surprising look the way jan blachowicz won the vacant title against dominic reyes and just kind of pounded him out those hard body kicks and really warmed down and then it was over you were like wow just like that this seemed even easier obviously look look this is one of the best feel-good stories combat sports can create can create we love uh the underdog. We love the old guy. When you package that together and you have somebody who's such a student of the craft

and a model citizen in Glover Teixeira, this really felt good. I mean, wait till I have you seen the shit. It's just a deck. It's all the hugs and real recognizing real. Everyone wanted to be in on this and enjoy this. i don't think any of us could have imagined it could have been done that easy luke the narrative coming in was that glover stayed in great shape through this second half of his career but never stopped trying to get better and dipped back into his fundamentals particularly his ground game and just kept swinging that axe at the tree like you like to say and found himself in a big opportunity and rose to the occasion. Luke, I want to make this like 80-20,

meaning I don't want to do anything to take away from Glover's performance because he just went out there and seized the day. It just really seemed like a flat Jan Blachowicz, though, from the opening second. And maybe it was the fact that Glover got that first takedown so easy, and maybe it was that can opener, as you can see in the picture, and the way that Glover used the smarts to wear Jan down, but Jan was never in this. So Luke, should we stay on the 80-20 ratio and give all the credit to Glover? Let's talk

about that, because you're not the only person to bring that up, and it is worth having a discussion about. We're going to refocus the conversation on Glover for just a second, but let's address that if we can, BC. I think the argument might be true. It might be true that he came out flat. Now, I also think that Glover getting the takedown within, what, 30 seconds? He was awarded by Fightmetric four minutes and 30 seconds of control, so I think he got it right away, and then he used that hard can opener to really kind of, you know, pull on his neck, and they're not fun to have those. You know, maybe that actually contributed to what you saw more of in the second round it's hard to say but this is the point i always like to make and i said it on the post fight show bc which was i interviewed

matt brown prior to his fight with wonderboy thompson in atlanta this was the john jones versus rashad evans card and i had asked him what did you make matt brown of of wonderboy's kickboxing career because he didn't face the best names but he was completely undefeated over like almost 60 fights. And I thought Matt Brown's answer was very illuminating. It has stuck with me all this years. His argument was, I don't know who he beat, but here's what I do know. It is not possible to show up for 59 kickboxing fights and every time you feel good and every time you feel motivated and every time you're injury free or your mom is sick or what it's not possible to have that many fights and every time everything just worked out the way it was supposed to sometimes you you are impacted by those things and in the case of Wonderboy

he was able to overcome them maybe it's true maybe it's true that that Jan didn't look the best we've ever seen him at the same time dude like there's no excuses this is the fight game if you showed up flat well then you showed up flat you're still supposed to be able to when your game kind of falls apart and it goes back to its more basic general level that's still the thing that's supposed to carry you through it didn't this time and and that's just the way the fight game goes as far as i'm concerned no that's well said and i certainly don't say that to take anything away from glover uh but you know he he he disarmed and took away some of those intangibles

from Jan early, by the way, that he jumped out there, as you said, and took the takedown and dominated. I mean, it felt so good. It's an inspiration to anyone who's, you know, looking at their age and trying to get something done. Just for any of us to get out of bed in the morning and say, man, I want to start running and losing some weight. It was an inspiring performance to see somebody not give up on their dreams and not stop giving 100% of themselves. Because Luke, I think that's a thing. I mean, everybody's journey and their careers are different and you face different challenges mentally and physically at different times. But to be able to consistently get the best out of yourself, how many times have we seen someone get to the point where Glover did?

It may have been seven years ago when he finally got a title shot, but he was 35. So at the time, it looked like that was his big opportunity through the nearly six years of visa issues to finally get into the UFC. It looked like the Jones fight was going to be his only chance. A lot of people in his spot, Luke, would have lost that fight, fought a few more times, and then, you know, sort of just faded away because maybe they figured, look, I had my chance. I missed it. Why am I going to keep giving 100% and keep evolving and keep trying to find ways to be the best? It's inspiring in our day-to-day life, Luke, to look at our life differently and realize that, you know, anything's possible when you give it, when you give yourself to it. And

Glover's a student of this game. He doesn't stop bringing in younger guys to get better. And it all came together in the absolute perfect storm in which he was able to keep the fight completely on his own terms, dictate the pace, dictate everything. And good God, I don't want to belabor it, but it feels good as a fan, as a journalist, to see somebody, one of the good guys, get a big win. It feels really good, Luke. But I did send you a text the second after that fight ended. It's not that I want to go to war with our listeners,

but you and I got a lot of hate for saying, hey, Jan's story is great. The Adesanya win, we take nothing away from it. It was smart. It was big. But I'm not sure he's absolutely without question the best 205-pound champion in the world. I thought he would be a transitional champion. He surprised me. This was, tell me if I'm wrong, this's a big win for Glover Teixeira. It may have been a big

win for Vadim Emkov and the idea that we're not really sure right now who the best light heavy weight in the world is. I think that's completely reasonable on your part. I mean, listen, I like, I like the fans, but you know, they're fans. You mean like we're not infallible. Hell, we both thought Jan was going to win. Like we're completely wrong. But you got to just be as fair to the facts as you can reasonably ascertain them. Dude, Corey Anderson, okay, he got caught by a big punch in the Blachowicz rematch. But after what you saw with Glover in this fight, are you going to tell me that's a game plan that Corey couldn't follow? Corey couldn't do those exact same things that Glover did?

Now, Glover passed him out and whatnot. Maybe Corey is not exactly that kind of a guy. But I got to tell you, dude, the ease with which Glover got the takedowns surprised me. Really surprised me. Glover's never been bad at takedowns. But he's never been exactly like the overwhelming guy with that. And a lot of times, he gets tuned up by his opponents chasing them down. Didn't happen this time.

And to your point, Corey's got wins over Glover and Jan. Again, Jan avenged one of those, so they're one and one. We'll see what he does against Vadim Nemkov at a bare minimum, at a bare minimum. It is very, you can claim Vadim Nemkov is the best light heavyweight. Maybe Corey Anderson will be. Maybe it's somebody in that Bellator stable, blah, blah, blah. The whole idea is like the idea that Jan was unimpeachably number one was never true and it's definitely not true now and i don't see how anyone could really argue with that yeah i love when people like oh luke's just trying to you know protect bellator and showtime do you know luke yeah you guys just you should ask yeah you should ask bellator if they feel like i'm protecting them

i guarantee you you won't get that response. Trust me. But anyway, so to your point, yes, it's something of a good news for Bellator because I do think Scott Coker has assembled a very commendable division at 205 pounds. BC, I want to ask a separate question. I want to lean on your boxing knowledge here. Where does Teixeira's capture of this title, seven years after Jon Jones sent him packing at age 35, now 42,

to what extent at all, and maybe it doesn't, to what extent at all does it compare to Foreman in his 40s recapturing the heavyweight title? You know, age-wise, it's going to draw an applicable comparison, although obviously Foreman a little older was 45. But I think Foreman's situation was much more unique in the fact that he took 10 years off of his career, retired

to become a preacher, when he complete opposite direction and then just makes this comeback and no one wants to believe in him and they think it's only for money. He actually lost. Foreman didn't just walk back into boxing and knock out Michael Moore. He had title shots against Evander Holyfield,

which he fought well and lost. He had some wins and losses and then took that Moore fight and, you know, was a big underdog and lost every second of that fight until he won it by knockout. So there was an extra level of drama mixed with that, that that for now is always going to be the thing you point to for an old guy or the thing you point to for that inspiring turnaround. But it's not that far away it's you know it's it's the second oldest

UFC champion besides behind Randy Couture who was what 43 the last time he secured the UFC heavyweight title um it's probably most unlikely or unique from Foreman because Foreman going away for a decade made it more dramatic when he came back. But Glover didn't go away. He just kept grinding. It just took us a long time to the idea that this was going to be possible for him. To some people, Luke, I don't even know if they thought it was going to be possible once they touched gloves on Saturday. So it's not as dramatic, but it's unique within its own right.

And I think it's just as inspiring for its own reasons. I'll just say this, too. I tweeted this, and I think it's just as inspiring for its own reasons. I'll just say this too. I tweeted this and I think it's worth one more mention here. I don't think any fighter can achieve what Glover Teixeira has done unless you do what Glover Teixeira did, which is you have to just commit your life to the martial arts. You have to commit your life to showing up to practice when you don't feel like it. That's more than just being an athlete and more than being a prize fighter.

It's about having humility. It's about leaving your ego at the door when you step on the mats. It's about constant introspection and trying to live a life of character. You've never heard a bad word in the industry about Glover. You've never seen him get sideways with people even on pre-fight weeks when they were trashing him. He just doesn't live that life. And so because of the way in which he has taken on challenges and then accepted that growth process that can only come with accepting not just the challenge itself, but certain kinds of character traits that have to be honed and

developed and accepted. It's that confluence together over time that has produced this. Anyone else, I think, without having this kind of way of life that is defined by the martial arts, they probably would have quit long ago or who knows, but they wouldn't be here. Glover is the rare type of guy that shows you martial arts and prize fighting can be distinct, but when they unite, sometimes they can bring something together pretty special. Yeah. And something we didn't talk about, but that got kind of revealed for the first time in Glover's career was the story, sort of origin story of how he left Brazil and, you know, and tried to come to the U S and failed and had to sit through that, that long visa way. I mean, he's had a hell of a journey, Luke. I mean, again, you know, I, I made the joke this

last week about, you know, your run through MMA media and the highs and lows. It's comparable to Glover. And I think that's part of, you know, what you and I have been able to bond quickly in building our own chemistry for this show is the fact that, you know, we feel like we've been long suffering in this business and maybe not picked out of the group early and never gave up and and i i can't say how inspiring this was and in in uh damn what a freaking moment i mean i know like you know we want we're supposed to talk about yuri prohotska now and he was in the crowd and for all we know he may do very bad things to this great old guy but uh i'm actually somehow a year older than glover to share we're both

connecticut residents i mean does he look like he's about 15 years older than me, Luke? He's about light years more mature than me. But, you know, fighting is sort of like smoking as an occupation. It's going to age you. Very good point. And again, dude, I don't know how long Glover's going to hold this title. You know, realistically speaking, like you mentioned,

Yuri Prochocka's up there. We'll talk about it on MK Extra Credit. Magomed Ankhalaev is coming. Like, you know, there's some really, really tough challenges. But just that for a moment in time, he kept his focus. He kept his work ethic. He kept living his values. And finally, one of the doors began to open for him. It is a great moment. And dude, did you also notice, just like, who in MMA dislikes Glover Teixeira I can't find anybody I could find disappointed Jan Blachowicz fans yes I could those existed but like who are the people that

are like man fuck Glover like they don't I don't think anyone is as universally liked in MMA as maybe Glover Teixeira fair enough yeah fuck Glover am I right yeah yeah no no I fully I fully agree with you and if I'm Jan Blachowicz I take that rope that he grabbed from the hanging forest, I burn it. Enough with that gimmick, okay? That's always bothered you, the dead man thing. Why is that? I think it's because I don't like it. I don't like it, okay?

I live by it. I'm a man of, you know, I live by a creed, a code, Luke. That goes against that, okay? All right? Yeah. If you're going to touch yourself on buses, you put a jacket over the top, is that your thing? Yeah.

I mean, have some class, right? Have some dignity here. All right. We go to topic number two. By the way, there's so much that could be said about all of these things. If you want more, you can check out my live reaction on youtube.com slash morningcomment. But for topic number two, we had another belt that was awarded. Maybe an interim belt, but see, here's the difference between what Glover did and what Pewter Jan did.

Jan, to me, looks like the unassailable best bantamweight on earth. He defeated Corey Sanhagen 49-46 across the board. Looked pretty good for Sanhagen in the first round. I think most folks gave him that round, but after that, it was more or less the Pewter-Yon show. OK, BC, does this win prove he is the best bantamweight in the division, even if the title says interim before? Yeah, people picketing outside of Morning Combat Studios last week

telling us we're Yon haters. Probably going to do the same this week telling us we're Sterling haters somehow. No, we are seekers, soothers, and presenters of the truth, Luke. And the truth is, Piotr Jan is a bad man. He was one of the 10 pound for pound best in this game. He solidified that statement, cemented it with that performance. Yes, he's the best Bantamweight in the world.

Luke, I was so happy that this lived really completely up to its expectations coming in. I wanted to get super excited and say this is one of the best fights you can make, interim, full, or no title at all in the sport, in the deepest division, two of the most talented guys in their prime. Luke, they gave us some incredible theater. I didn't want to go as far as Michael Chandler tweeting out, was that the greatest title fight in UFC history? It wasn't, but that was an incredible fight. Both guys kept an insanely high motor. They made great adjustments at the highest level. But it was Peyote or Jan's adjustments after that opening round in which he let

Sanhagen kind of get off and switch stances and show the full package. Really, you know, was taking notes and downloading the situation. And when he adjusted at round two to figure out how to time Sanhagen with counter shots, everything Jan throws is powerful. And when he's going to have the success he had in this fight in terms of accuracy, it's going to win out. Sanhagen got to certain points where you're like, damn, he's going to have to do something dramatic. I know I predicted him by submission, and it looked like there were moments on the ground

where you thought he could put something together. But the other thing I said, Luke, I didn't pick Jan, and he proved to me that he's better than I thought he was. But the one thing I said that made it difficult picking against Jan is I really can't find the distinct hole in his game that you go after. And boy, did he showcase that completely well-rounded game. I mean, play that gif right now of him landing the punch, the spinning back fist, and then adding a kick. There's the end of it right there, right? I mean, some of these combinations he put out was just killer.

His defense was sound. He was tough as nails. This was a great showcase of what this division offers. Jan, okay, if we got to do the Sterling rematch next, that's fine. But I want to see Jan against TJ Dillashaw. I want to see Jan against Henry Cejudo, to be really fair with you. This guy is legit, Luke. And it may take more time for him to get that full title back.

But what a freaking fight. What a performance from the champion. I mean, think about this, BC. Corey Sandhagen, in many ways, has almost the completely opposite style of Jose Aldo Jose Aldo is much more of a plant and counter guy not a whole lot I mean some lateral movement of course you know he definitely has slip punches and whatnot and so there are some similarities to be sure but there's many many many important differences versus Corey Sandhagen who is you saw in the first round just constantly moving.

Motion is essential to everything. And in both cases, he just took pieces from them over time to the point where by the fourth round, didn't he finish Jose in the fourth round? I have to go back and double-check that. Maybe it was the fifth. I try to forget those rabbit punches to the head as Jose bled. I try to forget that ever happened.

Okay, some of that got a little far, and that fight could have been stopped a little bit earlier. I agree. But in general, the point still stands that this guy systemically took two guys apart who were top contenders in that division, and they have very dissimilar styles. To your point about what's the obvious gaping hole in his game,

I don't know. I don't know. The one thing you could maybe argue was three round fights versus five because he tends to give away the first in the five round fights. Maybe he might do something similar in the first, but like that's not even relevant anymore because either he's going to have the belt or he's going to be in, you know, main event slots where the fights are going to be five rounds any goddamn way. So that's out the door. Dude, this is a guy, I think you would agree with me, and this is something we're watching a lot of boxing will really impact your judgment.

And I mentioned this on Saturday night. You know this as well as I do. The best boxers in the game are the ones that don't necessarily, although sometimes, but don't necessarily come out and just blow you away like a Jerron Ennis, although they can do that. But at the highest, highest level, they just slowly take pieces from your game round over round so by around seven or eight all the that you thought was gonna work your a and your b plan is completely out the window and you're left just kind of hunting something and chasing ghosts that aren't there dude peter jan does that plus he's stronger than most of his opponents by the way we should talk about what a good athlete he is plus he can anti-wrestle maybe the best in that division.

His takedown defense was a story in this fight, Luke. Dude, his takedown defense and not just... I noticed it in the Aldo fight, too. Dude, his takedown defense and his scrambling is maybe the best in that division. Everyone was talking about Cejudo versus Volkanovski. Man, take that shit somewhere else. Y'all were just bored in September, and were willing to entertain that. But Cejudo versus...

I take that personally, Luke. Okay, I'm still ready to entertain that. Okay, okay. But hear me obviously. Cejudo versus Jan, that is... Sign me the fuck up for that. That is... I'm all in on that one.

I think that makes a lot of sense. And dude, this is a great time to be a fan of the Bantamweight division. And the best part about Peyote or Jan when he watches a fan is, is, you know, he's got that nasty, almost villainous edge to him. You know, he's violent, but normally guys like that tend to lean too hard into that. And it opens up holes in their games. The fact that he carries enough patience to be able to sort of dynamically do almost that, you know, poor man's Floyd Mayweather of sort of looking at the situation and making on-the-fly adjustments. He's way smarter than just, you know, painting him as the foreign villain could ever, you know, indicate.

And he's nasty. He's freaking nasty in there. So he's going to be fun to watch against everybody. He's coming to his own completely it was good to see him get the redemption that that was needed after the the mistake he made against sterling and the way that fight ended uh yeah he still got some more work to do to get that full title back but shout out shout out to peyote and we got to see danny rube's hairline there in the picture luke which is always a plus it is certainly always a plus so let's switch the uh the story here to cory Sanhagen.

Now, he got blown out by Aljamain Sterling with that quick choke from the back. Okay. And he had a war with TJ Dillashaw. In fairness, I thought he won that, but the judges disagreed, so he technically lost that one. And this one, no controversy about it.

Jan was clearly the better fighter, even Sanhagen himself admitting he was just better tonight. Where has Sanhagen gone wrong, and where does he go right? Because I think you would agree, the guy's still in his 20s. There's plenty of reason to think he's going to be back in a title fight probably before too long, but you want to make things different for him. How do you diagnose his situation? I mean, it's tough because once he knew he was unable to get this fight to the ground consistently,

and once he probably became aware that he was down on the cards, we needed him to be dramatic. And I don't think, Luke, he's found yet in his game that ability to be dramatic with heavy damage. It's not that, you know, he's got knockouts, some that, you know, against Frank Jaeger that, well, damn. And that's possible, but I think there's still some more fine-tuning to his game. Once he was down, I just didn't see an avenue for him to come back against somebody that great. And Sanhaken has world title ability, and he's so close, and you almost hate to see somebody that works that hard, that's that gritty, that smart, to come up empty now against the three best fighters in the division. But, you know, they say, you know, in movies, you can't really have a great hero unless

you have a great villain. In historically deep eras for certain divisions, you can't have these great fighters unless you have other great fighters that lose to them at the highest level. And right now, Sanhagen's the guy on the outside looking in in this conversation. We can, you know, we can come we can diagnose his his game a little and say do this don't do that or try to add this but how great are the guys that beat him luke and you know oh you guys you're shot on sterling now you're gonna pray i've never shot on sterling okay i just thought jan showed us enough in that fight that he was the better one and was you know

unfortunate the way it came together but um cory faced the very best Luke and and and there's no shame in coming up short against those guys but he's gonna have to figure some other out to to have a shot at the in these fights I don't know what it is you're the doctor let me see what you think of my diagnosis here real quickly first thing I would say is you took this month fight on a month's notice which I get because it's a it's for an interim title but more importantly it's against Jan who I think most people including me think is the best bantamweight in that division you know Sterling holds that title but I thought Jan was on the way to win that pretty cleanly and we'll see what happens the next time they go out there just my opinion so what needs to be different dude the motion style that he has I think is right either

for certain moments in a fight or certain fighters completely. It was not right for Peter Jan. You've got to put something in his face that he respects, that he must acknowledge to slow down the adjustments he's making and the reads he's making and his willingness to close distance. And there was just, some of the leg kicks were nice. The left hooks to the body he was throwing, he was digging those. those those were great but if you're going to be motioning so much and not really sitting down on the punches Jan is going to be able to just kind of block and roll

with that and then still keep doing what he's doing is the first one I also thought his takedown defense to me looked infinitely better than we had seen previously but dude here's one thing that like all the bantamweights are going to have to contend with peter yan peter yan whatever he might be the strongest most physical athlete in that division dude he is hard to take down he is hard to hold down when he clinches he moves his opponents around relatively easily and when he lands he just lands with significantly more authority than his peers we'll see how things go against tj dillashaw but I just feel like dude take some time to muscle up a little bit if you can because if not dude Jan is just too much of a quite literal he's so smart and so talented he's also a physical powerhouse and I don't think folks have really wrapped their head around that fully yet Luke Sanhagen's got a good ground game

do you think he needs to get to even higher levels of of of grappling and jiu-jitsu so that he's more of a submission threat and that might offset the fact that you know he's not always a big knockout threat and and and you know he kind of needs to control the terms of the fight to have the great amount of success so yes and no i don't think ultimately if he if he didn't if he did nothing but like you know just sort of continually through training improve his ground game, but not like in a hyper-focused way, just sort of a normal way, but then really hyper-focus some of these other changes around what kind of style would best be implemented for beating opponents like, you know, Jan, I think he would be fine. But let's say he really did want to focus in on his ground game.

Yes and no. Like when he went for that one sort of heel hook off the transition, I would have rather him pass guard than sit for the heel hook. You know what I mean? Like sit for that heel hook is very low percentage. You have to have a quick bite on it and it's just not going to be that easy rather than passing guard and showing those forms of physical control. It would actually, to me, and this might be debatable, but to me, I actually think if he would pass versus sitting for the heel hook, that would have showed a greater level of ground game. I would say if he's going to focus on his ground game, which I don't think is in any way bad, it's quite good,

I just think you've got to make it a little less gimmicky. And it sounds unfair. It's not full-on gimmicky. It's not what I mean. What I mean to say is rather than sitting for the heel hook, find a game like what Demi and Maya does. Demi and Maya is looking for your back. He is hunting the back every time. Dude, he is looking to get to the back.

And it's very hard to stop him once he gets you down. Super hard. That's the kind of thing I would be focusing on. Let me just find ways to make one version of this ground game. The totality is quite good, but let me get one ace in the hole about chasing the back. Even if you don't get it, just that threat and what it means to folks and whatnot can really change up things. Plus, if you get it, God knows what you could do from there.

But again, that could meaningfully help him. Dude, his ground game is good. He sits underneath. His hips are active. He wrestles with his legs. He's good. He sits underneath. His hips are active. He wrestles with his legs. He's good. To me, it's the stand-up that is not bad, but it's quite formidable. He's the future of fighting. So was Jan. But there's a certain physicality element. He couldn't get Jan off of him. Jan was just on him like rain in Seattle. And there was not much of an umbrella to be found that day. So that's what I think is missing. Yeah, yeah. Well said. And what a time,

as we always mention, the gratuitous nature of how many great Bantamweights there are. I want to see Sugar Sean eventually climb the ladder. There's some veterans lingering around. I get fired up just thinking about Jan Cejudo and Jan Dillashaw, as we mentioned. But, you know, that performance from Corey may have been good enough on some nights to win the title. It's just, God, Jan is great. He's freaking great. He's super great. I mean, he's great.

He's great. And he's got a big mouth, too. Like, that's the other part. I mean, if this kid learns even a little bit of English, he's going to tear through this country as a popular and polarizing star. So that should be a lot of fun. All right. We're going to talk about, on extra credit, Islam Makachev taking on Dan Hooker.

So I know a lot of folks want to hear a lot about that. We're going to save it for that. Because, BC, we have got to talk about the return of Hamzat Shemaev. Or however you, Hamzat, I don't know how to pronounce it. We'll just call him Chemaev. He returned to the octagon and absolutely obliterated Li Jianglang in the first round. Is this the most impressive first four fight run in UFC history, which for context, he has outstruck his opponents in total strikes 254 to 200 and some change to one significant strikes in four fights, literally never been done before. I mean, you know, has anyone had a better UFC debut in early stretch than like an Anderson

Silva? Maybe not, but but this is this feels historically significant for a guy you know three four fights ago we hadn't heard of then to come in then to have that two-month stretch he had in 2020 but then to have legitimate questions from the layoff the COVID battles everything into this fight and then look not to hit a home run to hit like I don't even know what the sports equivalent is for the way in which he exceeded. I mean, he was such a big betting favorite that we're like, oh God, man, let's put some plus money on the Leach. I mean, this fight could be great. There's things we need to learn. I mean, it wasn't freaking close, but it's even deeper than that. When he picked up Leach, Jean Leon, and went over

to Dane on the corner, and we know, you know, talking shit and held him up in the air before slamming him down. I mean, he's playing with his food. Nobody does that to the Leach, okay? This guy came out to make a statement, and he literally made the loudest possible statement you could. Did not get touched with a strike, ducked the first punch Leach, Gianleon, thrown, and then instantly dominated and wore him down to the point that he put him to sleep. This was a fight

that we thought would be a war that would have to teach us certain things. It only taught us, Luke, that it's not a, you know, it's not an if he's going to fight for the title and it's when. And I'm not even sure, well, I don't even know. He's fought twice in the middleweight division in the UFC. I'm not even sure which weight class will end up being best for him. But good freaking Lord, Luke, if somebody said to you, we're going to stop our original plans and Kamaru Usman's not going to fight Colby Covington on Saturday, he's going to fight Shemayev instead, you'd have to really think about that betting line and where it's going to be because I don't think any of us could have

expected him to look this good. He looks like a fricking alien right now. He looks like you, like I have no idea where to put the, the, the terms in the, in the, in the ceiling. And yes, we need to see certain things about him. But when have you seen someone this brash and make it look this freaking easy before the all sports need flashes of brilliance like this. Sometimes they don't pan out. Sometimes like a Bo Jackson, they leave too early. This feels like something very special, Luke. Holy shit. Talk about putting the division or a sport on notice. What do you want me to say right now, Luke? What the fuck do you want me to say right now? So in many ways, Silva's first four fights are better because they were higher profile to begin with. So for example, in the UFC debut of

Anderson Silva was against Chris Lieben UFC fight night five. I mean, think about that in June of 2006. Um, and he KO'd him inside of a round. Everyone knows then he KO'd Rich Franklin inside of a round. Then he, uh, beat Travis Luter TKO, and then he KO'd Nate Marquardt. So he wins all of those via stoppage. But there's a couple of things to consider. One, Travis Luter had him mounted, right? So he won that one. Travis Luter missed weight for that fight, so he couldn't have won the title even if he had won.

But he had Silva mounted. He didn't get to do much with it, but he did. So in the sense of, you know, it's not apples to apples, but in the sense of you know it's not apples to apples but in the sense of just being untouchable through your first four fights maybe Silva's run is more impressive given what he was up against in the stage in which he was competing which is you know near title contender immediately Chamayev is not that but otherwise everything about what Chamayev is doing is without precedent McGregor's first four fights, not like that. Jon Jones' first four fights, not like that.

GSP's, not like that. Gaudet-Cormier, not like that. It doesn't matter who you pick. They're not like this. Now, there are still some questions that remain, BC. Like, what happens if he gets tired? What happens when, and I think you would agree, the wrestling as he moves up the division is going to get exponentially better when he hits the Gilbert Burns' and the Covington's.

Eventually, maybe Usman will see how things go. No one knows exactly what the future holds in terms of those. You're not dealing with the leech level of wrestling there or even submission threats in the case of Gilbert Burns, a literal black belt world champion in every sense of the word. I do think there are still some questions, but this is the difference between pre-fight and post-fight. Before it's like, okay, is he legit? We still need some information. We know he's good. We need someone to really get us there. Okay, we got there. So if you're ready to have belief in his upside, I think you're allowed to with some managed expectations. And now it's not about,

you know, let's see what happens against this guy or that guy. Now it's about, dude, this exciting moment where you're just, you don't even know where his ceiling could be. Could he do this to top contenders? Could he do this on the way and capture the title and in a feat of brilliance that we've never seen before? I think you should be allowed to imagine and get excited about that because what he has done is so utterly without precedent. It would be foolish not to consider that at this point. Yes. And it's not like we haven't seen, I mean, even when Johnny Walker arrived on the scene, it was like, holy shit. Oh God. Okay. That too. I mean, there are guys who come on the scene and do that, but once they raise their level of competition, you find the holes. And then there's

guys like a Conor McGregor who make these kind of runs out of nowhere and you're almost doubting him and betting against him the whole time maybe because you see the holes in his game and he doesn't look like the part but he keeps escalating his performances this is not that this is a guy who is doing it at such a dominant level with such cocksure that's an actual word luke you know did they teach you cocksure at William & Mary? They taught me that in middle school. It's the embodiment of the BDE, Luke. I mean, he is cocksure at a level that is just, it's not frightening, but it's sort of like, oh shit, the forces is extra prevalent in this one.

I mean, there's no question he wants the smoke. So my question to you is when they go back in that war room and it's Dana, it's Mick, it's Sean. I don't know. Sometimes I believe they still get, you know, what's his name? Lorenzo on the speaker once in a while. That's just what

I believe, okay? Do they break all glass in case of emergency? Do they go, you know what? We haven't seen, you know, we haven't seen a spirit like this in a long time. And you know, everything Chamayev does, although the comment about I've got a gun and I come here to kill you all was a little frightening in the after breath in the post-fight interview, but he embodies like all the Zufa values, right? Fight anybody at any time on short notice

and go in there and dominate and talk shit while doing it. Do they literally get him ready for a title shot now, Luke? I know Dana was asked about Nate Diaz's last fight, and Dana kind of gave a chuckle that made you think, are they really going to try to make T Chemaev star off of an exiting Nate? You never know. Real quick, if you manage Nate, if you're Nate's manager, and I know him, if you're him, and they call and say, okay, Chemaev, January card, you want it? What do you say?

Are you going to pay me $10 million or not? Because if not, hell no. Hell the frick no. Sorry, guys. Unless you are paying me A-side championship Conor McGregor-level money to show up, not going to do it. So, Luke, do they literally get him ready

for the winner of Covington Usman 2? And I know you're going to get a lot of people watching going, what are you, freaking crazy? Luke, they love fast-tracking the special ones. This guy's as special as anyone we have seen. We just compared his opening statements to that of Anderson Silva. That tells you this guy is freaking next-level special. What do you do with him next? So I couldn't, well, at first I couldn't believe this, but then I could believe it just thinking about it just for a second. Do you know who called Sh Chemaev out? Maybe you don't. I saw this.

Neil Magny wants the smoke. Neil Magny's like, I'm ready for him. Now, Li Zhengleng was ranked 11th before this fight. No, hold on. Let me make the case here. You've got Magny at eight. Now, your point might be, well, you could fast track him to a title shot. You could. In fairness, there are still a couple of, well, more than a couple him to a title shot. You could. In fairness, there are still a couple of, well, more than a couple, there are still some big unknowns about him. It is obvious this guy is championship caliber. And I think that part we can affirmatively conclude at this point. You don't do what he did to the leech unless you are extraordinarily good. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean we understand the full totality of his game

when he gets pushed and the rule about the UFC is someone is eventually going to put it on you and how you respond is really what that tells us we just haven't reached that point yet we may never with the current slate of welterweights we'll see but dude Neil Magny represents a clear step up he beat I think the leech as well and I don't think it was especially close when he did he wants the smoke he's sitting at eight i like that fight you don't like that fight i'm not saying neil magny isn't the right test of what we don't know about him i'm saying that doesn't do anything from the the sex factor and the idea of of marketing momentum and and the idea that you know the leech ain't no one's bitch. And Shemaev didn't take a strike from him and put him to sleep.

So, yeah, you can still accomplish what you're trying to do, which is build him to be the next big thing while finding out what he's actually made of with a magnify. Or, Luke, you can look back to maybe the last time somebody arrived on the scene with this type of next-level catnip for the casuals flair one francis and gano and didn't they fast track him to the shit out of the title luke two months after he sent over him to hell and like the most brutal one punch knockout in elite level ufc history he went in there and fought for the damn title i'm just saying that this type of buzz around someone is extra special

you can go the slower route and and and build his brand while finding out what he's made of or you can basically say let's find out if he's the the new hope the chosen one so we're not going to full jedi academy here okay okay so hold on so So hold on. So he's like the good version of Anakin or some shit. Hear me out on this. I mean, Anakin's a bitch, Luke. We do have to put that out there in the world, okay? Gilbert Burns is looking for an opponent, but I think you could do that fight.

You could pull the trigger on the Gilbert Burns fight unless he has something else locked up. But as far as I know, he's open, right? Or whatever. You could go that route, him sitting at two, and if Chimaev wins that one, forget about it. The other route you could go is, what about Leon Edwards? Let me ask you.

Forget about whether or not you make that fight. Let's say that they did. They made that fight for January. Who wins? Chemaev or Edwards? Remember, they were supposed to have met before. Yes. I would rather have the Leon Edwards fight than the Magni fight.

But isn't Leon Edwards, Corey Mosvital happening, Luke? Oh yeah, okay, well just say for a second that it wasn't. Just for a moment, they pulled Jorge from it. If they made Edwards versus Shemaev, tell me how it goes. Yes, I'd be okay with that because of where Edwards is ranked, but tell me how it goes. I think that's why I'm making the case to fast track this guy. I have no idea how it goes, and when you are in a spot where you have somebody who's just, I mean, they're not just buzzing and on fire. There's things, liquids leaking out of them. That's to my stock right now.

Imagine an urn that's just buzzing and I mean, Luke, you kind of got to throw it at the wall and find it. The fact that we don't know is the cell. That's the theater, the special. Look, why do we end up seeing once in a blue moon, a 14 year old tennis phenom who goes pro because you're not going to tell that tennis phenom. You're not going to tell 13 year old Jennifer Capriati. Uh, well, I'm dating myself with this reference, you know, sorry, go finish high school and college first. Then we'll see your pro no you're gonna put him in there luke okay lebron at like 18 taking over the nba sometimes you just let him go luke okay

doogie hauser you just let him go just gotta i'm not you know you know there's people that need saving here i'm not gonna wait doogie until you get armpit hair we need you to perform heart surgery right now. Luke, he may be that type of special thing. You just... Luke, am I high on this guy? You're high on this guy, which is not wrong. At this point, it's not wrong to be high on him. The jury, I'm not saying it's fully in. Again, we haven't seen him against elite, elite competition.

But against everyone else, he's just making them look bad. So he's obviously going to do special things in the sport as long as he can keep competing and stay healthy. But let me just say this. I feel like when the best... You want this guy... He's got a ton of hype, but he had to... Remember, there was not as much buzz for this fight

as we thought that there would have been. I think coming out of it is going to be a lot. You need one more fight. You need one more fight that this guy can be in against a credible challenger on a big card, let's say a Conor McGregor card or something like that, where you could be like, okay, man, even if you favor Tremayev to win, what this will do for his star power is so important, we can't fast track past that. I think that's sort of the thing that I'm looking at. Now, it's not clear who that guy might be,

but let me throw out another name, BC. He's off of a loss but in terms of you know what the fight would mean on a big card right let's say it's a Conor McGregor card what about Hamzat Shemya versus Michael Chiesa yeah so if they make the decision to not do the the crazy ridiculous reactionary thing that was done to Nganou, it was done to Anderson Silva after one fight against Lieben, just give him the damn title shot, let's see now, yes, I would be okay with a Chimaia fight, I mean, a Chiesa fight, the same way I would with the Leon Edwards, heavily placed in terms of its push that, like, look, this may be the last test before the top, because if this guy's that good, then do it to this level, okay, if you're going to go that way, yes, I like those

better than Magni, this isn't a Neil Magni hate show, but I do need some type of edge to this opponent, Luke. I do need to feel like we are reaching above, you know, to find out how great somebody can be. I kind of need a little more extra on that. I mean, if Jorge wasn't, let's say Jorge wasn't all right, well, you'd have to change the narrative. Jorge can't do this coming off a one punch KO loss. Let me take him out of there. You can't do that., you'd have to change the narrative. Jorge can't do this coming off a one-punch KO loss. Let me take him out of there. You can't do that. But you need somebody that he's not only proving himself

in that fight, he's also taking their star value and adding it to his and just moving forward, Luke. Fair enough. For all the other UFC 267 fights, check out MK Extra Credit. We're going to be going into them. Should be a lot of fun. Be on the lookout for that. Heard it's a great show, Luke.

You won't catch me dead watching it, but I heard it's great. Much like me in boxing hardcores. Great show. Never watched it. Okay. Now that's the audience. Alright. Okay, here we go. In fairness, Extra Credit has got some work to do. Okay, let's talk about

number four, BC. You're already there. I will meet you there Wednesday morning. We are heading into now Canelo versus Plant Fight Week. By the way, you let the cat out of the bag and just told everyone we've done a Canelo Alvarez resume review. That'll be out later today. Well, we already told them on this show three separate episodes. Luke, come on.

Get right with history. We didn't tell them Canelo. We just told them it was coming that we had picked somebody. No, we straight up told them Canelo. We did a whole bit on it. Come on, Luke. Don't be like this. I don't know if we ever explicitly told him.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. You said, go ahead, BC. Tell the people like five episodes ago. And I told them. And then everybody was tweeting at us. We said, hey, maybe we'll tell Canelo on that workout we hosted. I don't sleep much.

Just cut me a break. Okay. But neither here nor there. It's Canelo versus Plant Fight Week. By the way, as you indicated, if you're an MMA fan watching this and you want to know a little bit more about these guys and the fight itself, cannot recommend it enough. On YouTube right now, you can go to the Showtime Sports YouTube channel.

All access, episodes one and two. They're only about 25 minutes apiece. They are fucking awesome. They are super well made. It's embedded on steroids. There's fewer of them, but they're really well done. Can't recommend it enough. It's similar to what UFC used to do called, what was it called?

Primetime. It's like 24-7 in a way, almost. A little bit different. Okay, BC. Of all the different angles to pay attention to, what is the one angle right now on this fight and about the hoopla around it that you're most paying attention to and why? It's tied into the bad blood. It's tied into the September 22nd press conference, which, you know, wherever you land on that, whether you thought Plant was acting like a clown or you felt like something happened there, you have to admit

that helped hype the fight. But it's based on this idea. And I think the All Access episodes, as you mentioned, do a great job of, you know, really sharing the backstory of both fighters, how they got there, what's motivating them. The biggest storyline for me is his plant's mental toughness really setting him up to overperform

the expectations that the betting oddsmen think, that us insiders naturally think because Canelo is really just that good that look he's going to be a monster favorite against everybody is Caleb Plant a live bird dog than most of us even realize even me who's been giving him a lot of credit because he is that mentally tough sometimes Luke and it kind of plays into the Chimaev argument of, if you really look that good, let's find out today. When you look at Caleb Plant's resume, it's not Canelo level.

It's not even, you know, the level that you would want it to be of somebody who's at this level. He won a hard-earned title win over Uz Katagi, and that's his best win. He's had sort of three showcase title defenses since then. He doesn't have that deep. There's no question about it. This is who he is. But that also means we don't know everything about him. Is he going to make a leap in this fight, win or lose,

that's going to make it much more competitive than we thought? And then is he going to use this bad blood fuel to do what it accomplishes, to get Canelo Alvarez just a bit off of his initial game plan and to try to find an opening to make this fight close. Is Plant's speed, footwork, and combination ability going to be even more than Canelo thinks it is? That's what I'm most interested in. And none of this may matter in the end, Luke.

Caleb Plant could win every press conference, every media event this week, could say the right thing in the microphone every time, and half the people may laugh at him. And it may not matter anyway because Canelo's that great, and he could get knocked out in the third, fourth round just because that's what we're setting up here. But there's something about Caleb Plant that I can't just go,

nope, they're right, minus, you know, plus 800. Yep, that's about right. There's something extra on him will that matter will that come full bloom in the fight that's what's got me looking at this and not looking at the betting odds and just looking at two men who this is their this is a big moment to both of them yeah it's because of the titles at stake and the platform and the money but there's two hungry ass guys going at it this saturday and that's making me fired the hell up luke how let me let me i'll give you mine here just a second how far do you

think this fight goes how many rounds the whole thing it's hard to say because if plant over achieves right and what i mean by that if plant does better than we if plants better than we all think he is and that he needed you know to step step up to somebody of Canelo's class to bring that out of him in ways that maybe he couldn't against other opponents. I know it's a little bit of a reach, but sometimes we see guys, you know, grow in front of your eyes on this level. Does that mean we automatically go 12 because it's going to be this great chess match? Or does that mean he speeds up his own demise? I'm not really sure, Luke, because it's going to be this great chess match? Or does that mean he speeds up his own demise? I'm not really sure, Luke, because there's going to be such a tight rope to walk for Plant

to be able to try to pull this off. What does pull this off mean? To me, it means have a shot at edging Canelo after 12 rounds on the scorecards, right? Are the odds against him in that? Of course. But to have that shot, he's got to be in the line of fire and take chances. Is that only going to speed up his exit? Luke, I don't know that.

And to me, that's the intriguing part. Because for Caleb Plant to be successful and be competitive, he's got to welcome a lot of danger, Luke. Talk about swim and not get wet. He's got to go right into that fire. So, you know, he could come out flat or he could come out great. And again, it still may end up with one punch knockout by Canelo on the perfect counter shot. So I don't really know how to answer that. I'm going to tell you where my head is at on this. And it sounds

like I'm being, and probably I am, probably I am being too premature, but it's just something that's been on my mind, like Inception, as if somebody had planted it deep in the recesses there and I can't shake it. I am perfectly willing to believe, Brian, that Canelo could still win, but Caleb Plant could overperform. I think Caleb Plant winning outright would definitely surprise me. Not to say impossible, but just my personal expectations. That would surprise me if he won, but that he would overperform or do quite well, I think we have to take that seriously. You watch these all-access things and you get a real appreciation for Caleb Plant. Never had it easy.

Never was the guy who was the promoter's favorite. Just kind of took the game by the scruff of the neck and whatever he has, he claimed rightfully. And it's hard to not appreciate that story still. I will tell you where my head is at. My head is at, I want to see what this means. And the answer could be nothing. But to what extent does this fight set up or tell us about possibilities for a showdown at 175 with Baterbia?

Because he, Canelo, and his trainer, Eddie Reynoso, have been super clear, not at all ambiguous, that they have that fight slotted at something that they are interested in that we don't have a time frame. Who the hell knows when that would be and blah, blah, blah. Would it ever happen? I don't know. But I got to tell you, that to me is so crazy, so out of the realm of things you would even think would be possible, I wonder if he goes in there and Caleb Plant doesn't overperform, Brian,

but he actually gets dusted and Canelo looks amazing. Is the showdown at 175 with that Russian hammer inevitable? It just might be. It just might be because, God, Canelo has been so perfect of late in his stewardship of the responsibility that comes with being the rare pound for pound king and biggest pay-per-view draw at the same time, right? Where there's responsibility there. Some have used that leverage it creates to their own good financially and more power to them but his ability to just keep walking into danger despite those advantages and being as active as he is and going from network to network as a free agent good god is it is it means that we can't we can't say he won't do that now could he get even bigger pay-per-view

opportunities at 168 against the jamal charlo or against the David Benavidez. We'll be back on Showtime coming up against a replacement opponent. Sure. But do you know how freaking badass it is that we're even talking about the idea that he can move back up into a weight class in which he kind of cherry-picked a belt, although I give him so much credit for what he did to Kovalev. But to say no, I don't want just that. I want the unified, unbeaten champion whose quasi-pound-for-pound ranked

has really no level of markability outside of Montreal, where he's based, from Russia, of course. And I want to go there and unify belts there and prove everybody. I mean, that's, like, the balls on that, Luke? Is nuts. That's insane. I mean, seriously, Baterbiev is a machine he's he's like 15 and 0 with 15 KOs only he can box too right yeah and he's I mean and he fills out 175

about as muscular as you're ever going to see so if that's true I almost want to add into this narrative I don't know if people care about this but there's a point in someone's star rise where you start to go, like, not only do we have something really special here historically, but I think we need to start savoring it now and enjoying it now rather than enjoying it later. I mean, look, Canelo might really, I mean, we already know this is his era. We already know he's, you know, an all-time great who's close to making an argument even for best mexican fighter of all time which means a lot when you're talking about chavez senior as the guy who's atop that throne um like this might be even more special of a reign and a run for one fighter than we are even putting to words here seriously and that's

when you just look at every time out whether it's a yildirim mandatory or it is for all four belts like let's appreciate this and stop and and and you know and what we're getting here this guy's fucking all-time great right here and uh it's wild that that we're even at this point that we're talking about bigger fights than this um and to your points luke and to my points mixed together Plant may over exceed expectations and still get dusted because this guy's that good yeah I mean I'm just trying to think of a world like there's definitely a world where Caleb Plant gives him a ton of problems again winning is possible but I think unlikely but plenty where it's like okay maybe Canelo has kind of reached his limit

with 168 and we should maybe call it a day there, and he'll fight a Charlo, or who knows from that point. But you pump the brakes on ever going back to 175, but I'm like, well, wait a second, fellas. While I take that possibility super seriously, I'm not looking past Caleb Plant at all. I'm just imagining, I'm imagining theoretically, what if the opposite happens, and Canelo goes in there and has his way.

Dude, every question at the post-fight press conference is going to be, so wait, 175, it's just inevitable. You know it's going to happen. And that's kind of what I'm thinking about as we head into fight week here starting today. I'm super, super excited. Final points to transition off of. And we've said this before, and I don't know if it'll ever happen, but if Andre Ward decided to get up in the bullpen, Luke, after, you know,

four or five years off. You're all on the Andre Ward decided to get up in the bullpen, Luke, after, you know, four or five years off. You're all on the Andre Ward idea. At 37, the unbeaten former pound-for-pound king retired on his own terms. If he got up in the bullpen and we built to that, look, again, like, I don't even know if that fight sells more, you know, demonstrably more than this. Because Ward's never been a big draw on,'t always get the the the full salute he deserved but that fight would intrigue me as a fan and historian more than any other canelo can make so that's interesting if we ever got there but let's focus on the today it's a hungry caleb plant and uh these media events should be fun this week luke should be very should be super fun they're super All right, last but not least for our top five here. I mean, we're just leaving so much on the cutting room floor

because of the time constraints, but let's get to it now. Dude, we're not even talking about the main event on the Showtime card, which, by the way, was phenomenal between James and Butaev. But let's talk about the co-main because this dude, we have been singing his – the first time I saw him, I was like, and Brian, you can back me up. I don't claim to have especially good boxing knowledge. I'm okay at best. I do what I can.

I'm trying to catch up for all the years that I missed. But I laid eyes on this guy the first time, and I was like, whoa, he is good. Well, how about this? Jerron Ennis, absolutely fucking obliterated. Thomas Dulorme, inside of a round, switching stances. I don't think he even made it to the two-minute mark, if I'm not mistaken. He couldn't last 120 seconds with Ennis. BC, at this point, is it fair to say all the hype around Ennis, like Chimaev,

is being proven to be not just hype, but facts about how good he is? Facts. I'm always going to butcher that Larry Merchant line after Pacquiao knocked out Cotto, but we thought he was good. He's better than we thought he was. I mean, I saw boxing Twitter, undefeated, always clever, always cynical, always angry. Somebody on boxing Twitter was like, Boots is so good he's going to make Spence and Crawford fight each other, right, to avoid him.

I mean, that sums it up, Luke, you know? It's a joke, but that sums it up. And, like, this is one of those performances where it's like, man, F the cynical. If there's some cynical haters, I saw a couple tweets, oh, DeLorme's always been washed. No, he hasn't. Let's look at DeLorme's recent run. Did he ever live up to his own potential hype? No. But it had been six

years since he'd been knocked out, and that was against Terence Crawford, by the way, at 140 for the title. He'd gone the full 12-round distance in close fights against, you know, gritty performances against a Yordenis Ugas, against that unbeaten Lithuanian

Stenios just recently. You know, he's durable. And what we were hoping to learn about this fight is, you know, how good is Boots really? But can we get somebody to push Boots past six rounds maybe? I thought DeLorme was going to be that guy. This was his second fight with Ismael Salas, the Cuban trainer, who does a really good job at sort of reinventing guys. Not Trevor Whitman level, but a very smart coach. And I like the aggression that he put into DeLorme's game.

Only we never got a chance to even see this. We never got a chance to even, I mean, what I had said coming into this fight was, okay, DeLorme hadn't been stopped in six years. He goes rounds. He's tough. He's better laid. He dropped Vargas in the final round to preserve that draw.

I mean, he can do some things. Imagine if Boots stopped him. That'd be a statement. How about imagine if Boots came in there in the first minute and just mopped the floor with him? And I know that first punt, some people saying it was back of the head. I talked to people on DeLorme's team afterwards that said it even left like a bump on his head.

It was so quick, I don't even think the referee could on his head it was so quick i don't even think the referee could have seen if it was in the side or back of his head or not that's the point how do you prepare for this guy he switches stances he's got power in both hands he has dynamic speed and he's got when he wants to use it that sort of roy jones rare fast twitch fiber it's maybe it's not roy jones level because who the hell ever was Roy Jones level, but that sort of thing where he can go from the orthodox to the, I didn't think that was possible, like that.

How the hell do you prepare for that? You don't, Luke. There's certain wins, and maybe Chamayev just had his on Saturday, that change a narrative in a guy's arc. Where it's not that Boots wasn't brilliant before this. I mean, he obliterated Sergey Lipinets in his last fight, where you're just like, holy shit.

But it usually takes that viral moment like this to have them jump through and everyone else to take notice. You may have been a day one-ish guy on Boots Ennis, but still a lot of people a little slow coming around. This seems like that turning point moment where it's like, he'll never be the co-main again after this and he probably won't ever fight for for anything but a title bout after this because at 24 years old he has a next level poise and humility where you know he obliterated lip and that's and he and he said this week in the fighter meetings that you know i give

myself a c or a d i really hung out in front of him too long in the last two rounds and took damage that I didn't need to. I mean, this guy is as critical about his own game as everyone else. Luke, if you were 24 and you had his skill set, you'd probably be a cocky asshole on the verge of, you know, throwing it away with arrests and stuff. Yet this guy grew up in a gym and he just has that it factor of being willing and able to shoulder the responsibility that comes with this. It's not a joke to say that he's a live dog against every single welterweight out there. I mean, this is something special here. It's just rare to see from my perspective, for whatever that is worth, but it is rare for me to have seen a boxer with this many tools and yet easy command of switching back between them not just stances but all the

different kinds of punches and reads and attacks and strategies he can employ he can easily and quickly move just between them whenever he wants so he's got this giant repertoire that he has access to at all times you You're fighting a fucking computer, in the words of Fernan Lopez, when you're fighting a guy like Jerron Ennis. Dude, if you're an MMA fan, and by the way, I want to ask you about this, BC, because in the main and the co-main event, we saw guys have, less so with Butaev, but still some, lots of stance switching. But Jerron Ennis, I've said this to MMA fans, if you're looking for a guy, I'm not saying he boxes like an MMA fighter would, because he's just infinitely better, but he has I'm not saying he boxes like an MMA fighter would because he's just infinitely better but he has some of it almost looks like an MMA fighter with the stance

switching and all the different looks and how he does it but I have did a little bit of that is that newer to boxing or is that my imagination it's not that it's never been race of it it's not that it's never been seen before but the the embracing of of feint in general and I mean look at what Tyson Fury's done with his active guard and how well, especially in that first fight under Ben Davidson, they did to disarm Wilder. It was a strategic, you know, aim of getting there and taking away his jab by being busy. Again, not a skill that's just been made up out of thin air, but to see this many people, especially those with the dynamic athleticism in it,

you know, make it a staple of their game. That's the future. I mean, that's some Lomachenko stuff right there too. I mean, that that's the future of where we're going. And let's give Butaya of a lot of credit,

the unbeaten Russian from Dagestan who came out in the papaha, the, the, the Habib head headgear and Luke, he put it on Jamal James in the main event there for that secondary WBA title. Jamal James is a tough out. I never thought he was truly next-level elite. But Butaya put out a performance that you could not have guessed coming in, Luke,

because he's a brawler who tests the edge of what's legal by his style, yet he's got 400 amateur fights and he's got this footwork. He's a new, interesting player in this welterweight division, Luke. I mean, I don't want to matchmake in the moment here and tell you I love you, but I kind of want to see Boots Ennis next against Butaev. I'm kind of hoping that, why? Because it's for a secondary belt. It would put Boots in a position to fight Ugas, potentially,

to unify that WBA belt and get rid of these secondary ones and then you know if you get a belt on boots luke these guys are not going to be able to avoid him the only thing i you know boots is not a pbc guy like the others i hope that doesn't hold him up politics wise but um that would be an interesting style contrast how impressed were you by the way with boot i have because that that was some some some wrinkles He was constantly switching stances. I didn't love the stoppage. I thought it was a little bit early for me. I don't know. I was ringside.

James was done, dude. He was done. All the commentators complained about it, too. I mean, maybe it was how it looked on TV versus how it looked in person because, as you know, sometimes they don't look the same. Dude, I mean, don't get me wrong. He was getting beat up, and his corner was like, dude, you got to stick and move. But he was trying to stick and move.

And that was the ninth round for the first part of it. But then Butaev just kind of overwhelmed him. I mean, don't get me wrong. Butaev was going to win that fight. And he was going to win it impressively. And you can definitely make the argument that the referee saved him a little bit of beating. I didn't think it was the cleanest stoppage. It was a little early for my, you know, sensibilities.

But, okay, either way, either way, how did he look? I didn't think it was the cleanest stoppage. It was a little early for my sensibilities. But okay, either way, either way, how did he look? Dude, he looked like a fucking warhammer is what he looked like. He didn't take a ton of damage in the way that a lot of these forward pressure, high guard guys tend to do. Although some of the body work and some of the uppercuts, he was there for, which you can see here. But later on in this fight, just past this round, right around the fifth or sixth, he he began to turn it on and this is where he was switching stances and getting James up against

the rope I still think Ennis does evil shit to a guy like Butaev but you're right he is he is a fresh face and this was a very impressive performance I just feel like Ennis dude he's gonna be a weight class champion inevitably and he's probably to be a weight class champion inevitably, and he's probably going to be a weight class champion across several different weight classes. He is extraordinarily talented. I'd love to see him against Akeem Thurman. That was a fight that Ennis' father and manager Boza was going after. Thurman didn't want it.

While I can certainly question whether the Thurman types are going to want to fight this guy if there's not major belts at stake, yeah, for sure. But, Luke, I agree with you what he would do to Butaev, but I think it's a style matchup I'd love to see. Like Chemaev, we can only know so much about boots, but legitimately, if I told you tomorrow he's fighting a Spence or a Crawford, you'd have a hard time.

If you made him the underdog, which you probably should, you'd have a hard time making it too big, Luke. You really would. Luke Pettit Yeah, I think he beats Spence. I would pick him to beat Spence. The Crawford one, only because Ennis hasn't been on that really big stage in the way that Crawford has. You know, Crawford fought Khan at MSG, which is like this giant spectacle.

You know, a 24-year... I think that's what it was at MSG. You know, so there's been bigger arenas, bigger moments, bigger names, sort of that kind of thing. And what does it do to you? But I will tell you this. I think Crawford is in his mid to late 30s, something like that. And Ennis is 24. In two years, I don't know who the fuck beats him.

I think that's why that Sean Porter fight next month is important, to see if Crawford's still on that level. We haven't seen him against a super elite, but I think you're right. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald'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. Are you crushing your bills?

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The kid is good. The kid is freaking good. Showtime and PBC have something super duper special. PBC doesn't. So he's the rare guy featured in these parts that is not an Al Heyman guy. I don't know. Who is he with? I didn't know that. His father is his manager.

So it's interesting. Could that slow his advance in getting fights against these PBC welterweights? I don't know. I don't know how that politics works. but, you know, we'll see. All right, so that's enough for our top five. Now is where we answer your questions, which you leave for us on Instagram every Sunday. It's time for DMs from dongs.

Hee-haw. Hee-haw. Once again, MMA fans not understanding what the Hall of Fame is supposed to look like. Okay. At GregLeach99, Did Glover Teixeira punch himself a ticket to the UFC Hall of Fame? How on earth would he have done that? With this title win and the run he had to go on in order to get here?

No. No. Not even close. BC? You don't think he punched himself a ticket to the Hall of Fame? With this win? Glover Teixeira? No. No, I definitely don't think he punched himself a ticket to the hall of fame with this with lover to share a, no, no, I definitely don't. Are you kidding?

This is, this is biz pink's career again, Luke dude. He just won the title, uh, which is from a character standpoint, what he had to do to get here from a talent standpoint, what he had to do to get here from a talent standpoint what he had to do to get here

is all impressive. What the fuck does that have to do with the highest level of dominance available among the game? He's not even in that conversation. Which criteria are we talking? The UFC's Hall of Fame? Are we talking like UFC Hall of Fame

where they'll just let in anybody? Then yeah, he's in there. Are we talking like a Hall of Fame where there's some standards and practices here? No, he doesn't get in. All right, well let's do this respectfully if the ufc had had re had the same type of credibility in their in their selection process that a major league base you know that a cooperstown has that uh that a football hall of fame has that at times boxing has

would you think that biz ping got over that hump with the rock hold win for hall of fame yes again for the ufc sure but this is i mean just think of it this way dude is glover to share in the top 10 of the best light heavyweights in ufc history the answer is maybe but even then he's at the very back of it, dude. I mean, you're talking about Chuck Liddell, Rampage, Vanderlei, Vitor, Tito. And the list goes on and on and on and on from there. There are way more accomplished light heavyweights that aren't even sniffing the top 10. What Glover did is remarkable, but it's not worthy of entering into the Hall of Fame. What goes against Glover is, like Bis you know, the constant losses in step-up

fights, even after the Jones fight. He lost to Phil Davidson the next one, you know, and then he had the two knockout losses to Rumble and Gustafson when they were step-up moments, and then even the decision loss to Corey Anderson. So when you look up and down at what Glover has done in terms of names,

do you give him credit for the 2013 Rampage win that's that's pre-complete wash right yeah i mean yeah um knocked out baiter okay submitted okay but baiter's not in the list of the top two again baiter's not even close to top 10 heavy knocked out a very wash for shod he's got a cannon near win cirkinoff win a kute laba i mean like hall this is hall of fame i i mean yeah okay okay i'll tell you what i'll tell you what there have been others who who you may think are on his level but like like guys like rockhold and wyden for example you start looking up and down they got more wins than you realize against big names pocketed together the glover

thing is a little bit more spread out, and you tend to have lost more step-up fights. Yeah, Luke, okay, I don't think you're as crazy as I thought. If we were using the same standards that we've seen applied in the best practices in Sports Hall of Fames, just being a champion doesn't automatically mean, you know, somebody can win multiple World Series and win 250 games on the mound, and it doesn't necessarily mean automatically that they're

Hall of Famer. Yeah, I think you're right. Glover can fall short now. But do you think Bisping crossed that line? No, you're saying then. I mean, I like Glover and I like Bisping a lot. I have a lot of respect for both of them. I don't know if those runs qualify for Hall of Fame.

What about Faber? What about Faber, bro? No. No. Okay. Hey, look. We don't deliver, you know, the soft news or the good news. We deliver the real news here at Luke, okay?

But, I mean, like, understand something. Like, somebody... Glover has just been consistently very good. He's never been consistently excellent. He's been excellent maybe at times, but very good over time, especially the length of time. We're talking 42 years old,

where he's been fighting for 20 years or whatever it's been. Just consistently at a super high, but not the highest level, ultimately will get you some pretty handsome rewards. I just don't think that should be resulting in the Hall of Fame. I agree. I made a very aggressive, due to my Mets Braves old school hatred of the Braves, I made very aggressive cases that Chipper Jones was Hall of Very Good

and shouldn't have gotten in. The baseball peers were very upset about that. I do sometimes want to penalize the Craig Biggio compilers and say, look, you were very good, man. You're fucking great. You know, we should have standards in this bitch, right? You know what I'm saying? All right, from at flannels and jits.

This guy's a lot of fun. Is the Dagestan takeover of MMA just a trend, or will it be sustainable long term? Motherfucker, that ain't good. That spigot, that fire hose ain't getting turned off anytime soon. No, no. I mean, look, would you say this is comparable with that Brazil takeover about 12, 13 years ago? I mean, here's the reality, dude.

Brazil's always been good in combat sports. They had a big moment in the aughts when the ufc went down there and even before that but like you go back to the earliest days of like nhb and rings fuck ufc won brazilians have always been good uh and for that reason now that the things are moving in a place where you can discover and then recruit and then groom top talent to do big things dude i mean combat sports is just written into the fucking bloodlines of some of these people they're going to be dominant for a long time let's let's do a pie chart of what makes the shmesh factory workers so freaking dynamic and it's like one

every you're right every promotion one by one across the board every division they're starting to pop up you know the a blinking beards and you're like okay I've seen this before these guys are incredible what is it Luke is it a pre-natural toughness based on the circumstances of where they're from that makes a large part of the pie uh a dedication to their craft at a younger age to just hammer home the wrestling that could be a part of it is it also just like a almost a militaristic mindset you know like you don't see a lot of jokesters coming out of there I mean Chamayev sort of special in that regard because of the charisma but you see a lot of like soldiers coming out of there Luke is that fair I I tend to think that when something takes on a cultural

significance the way that combat sports has in this part of the world where you have you know obviously wrestling um is big and you know all throughout that region from azerbaijan to armenia to iran to georgia to chechnya and other greater parts of russia it's not just that they're good at combat sports in many of these places like i mean weightlifting is dominant here like anything masculine these are all are perceived to be masculine anyway they are all like just to be masculine anyway they are all like just totally embedded into the fabric of the culture and when that happens a lot of things go along with it you have state apparatuses or apparati that can discover and recruit talent like

do you remember uh did you watch the last week's uh contender series they had a chinese fighter on there a woman who had washed out of the Chinese Olympic weightlifting program. And I wanted to, I didn't tweet at the time, but I wanted to be like, I hope folks know that doesn't mean shit. Like, dude, they recruit thousands of kids every year inside China and put them in very special schools just to get them prepped over the course of their life for the Olympics when they're eligible to compete and by age and everything else. Like that's their whole fucking focus. To fall out of that means you can still be strong as an ox, and of course she was.

It's similar to this one. There's going to be so many guys who don't make the Russian Olympic wrestling team. Just because you don't make it, how many good guys are there going to be outside of that? Because it has a dramatic cultural importance. You recruit them early. Everyone gets pushed in that direction, blah, blah, blah.

It just ends up finding, discovering, and creating these absolute fucking hammers every which way you look. That's never going to change. Butaev, the boxer in the Showtime main event who's from Dagestan, he was 392-8 as an amateur and beat all these Olympic champions, but yet never fought at the Olympics or the world championships. And he had said that it's all amateur scandal politics, that like if you're not the chosen one, you don't get the same push. But when you are the chosen one, you get every avenue to succeed.

We see that in Cuban boxers that go through that amateur system. So maybe it's just more of an extreme focus, like you're saying, on giving these guys every chance to succeed. At David underscore Spangler, could you guys see Cordy Sandhagen becoming the next Gustafson at Bantamweight? Well, he is. That's a tough question. He already is, and that's not an insult,

because like I mentioned in the earlier part. No, it's an's an insult well it is but like to have these great eras like the four kings we talk about all the time they call wilford benitez the fifth king from puerto rico he was on that level he just lost to those guys right so it's like somebody even look even within the four kings sometimes thomas hearns gets some criticism because, okay, he lost the, that one to Hagler and he lost the first one to Ray Leonard and, and, you know, and got the unfortunate draw on the second one where he never got over the hump against those guys. So, you know, like somebody's got to play the, the, you know, Joe Frazier lost twice to Ali.

Somebody's got to play that, that role, Luke. Now he can come back and win a title one day. He seems to have that ability and that would erase this. But for now, he's the guy that can come as close as you can come and not get it, Luke, because the other guys are just a little bit better. That's the reality of it. Yeah, I mean, he might end up being that, but he's only 29. I would very much wait to see what happens.

I still think he might wear a title around his waist by the time he turns 30. But age isn't the deciding factor in the question because, you know, Gustafson goes out there, fights great, but loses to Jones, fights great, but loses to Cormier, gets sent to hell by Rumble. That's the same spot Sandhagen's in.

He got sent to hell by Sterling instead, and then fought those other two guys really close, correct? Yeah, are you under the impression he can't get better or something? Because I'm not. No. No. I'm just saying for now, he is the Gustafson of this weight class.

He already is for now. For now, he might be there, but I think long term. Doesn't mean he's destined to come up short, which I guess is what happened in the end for Gustafson. But like, I don't hold anything against Gustafson. I don't think Gustafson failed to get the best out of him. I think he just fell just short. Would you agree with that?

Also, I think if he was as fresh now, I mean, Gustafsson put Glover's lights out. Like, if he was as fresh now as he was then, he'd be a weight class champion too, you know? Glover just kind of hung the fuck on in the most miraculous of ways. You always wonder, historically, Luke,

when you've got a dominant champion for a long time you always wonder who underneath them that couldn't beat them you know like dc could to jones although dc did have his moment because of jones as many outside the cage moments but you always wonder which one of those guys that lost to that all-time great champion could have been the champion for a long time and we would have thought of him differently if that guy wasn't there but luke you can, you can't control history like that, okay? You certainly can't. I mean, you know, would I have been the big star? From A.Burns to...

If you never... Luke, if you... From A.Burns to... I'm moving along, dude. If you were never born, would I be the face of MMA media right now, Luke? Okay? Would the American alpha be on top if it wasn't for you stealing all my views and subscribers and thunder, Luke, okay? Would the American alpha be on top if it wasn't for you stealing all my views

and subscribers and thunder, Luke, right? Right, just like that. Okay, from a.burns2. This is the worst question in America. How would Peter Yan fare in a boxing contest against Lopez, Teofimo Lopez, Garcia Haney, Haney is spelled wrong,

and Tank? He would get viciously KO'd by probably all of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what the fuck this question is. Oh, he's a master of boxing in Russia, or a master of sport in boxing in Russia. Great. He would get viciously KO'd. How would Clarissa Shields do tomorrow against Kayla Harrison, Luke?

Right. She would get viciously fucking grounded and pounded. Yeah, Jon would get absolutely obliterated. Okay. grounded and pounded. Yeah, gone would get absolutely obliterated. Okay, at I underscore messy underscore 89. If Luke shaved his upper lip, would he feel as washed up? As what? I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Would he put BC in a Dagestani handcuff on the next rooftop diaries as a reflex? That BC or I would join an Amish farm and then be the guy who wakes up with the cows and the roosters and shit. Is there any potential alterations to your beard that you believe could help you look younger and make you feel happier that you haven't tried? Listen, I don't know why there is great consternation and worry about my beard that there appears to be among the great unwashed masses I would kindly ask them to focus more

on going to the gathering of the juggalos every summer than my beard and move on from this alright okay this is great speaking of the gathering of the juggalos it's time for your segment alright yeah this is what we do every Monday And speaking of the gathering of the juggalos, it's time for your segment.

All right. Yeah, this is what we do every Monday in these parts. We scour the globe for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between. In combat sports and beyond, it's called Have You Seen This Shit? Oh, God. Oh. All right, Luke. We were in Abu dhabi on saturday for ufc 267 how about this knee counter ko from lerone murphy bro i was going to talk about him on extra credit but he quietly putting together a very impressive run quietly but he is doing it. He looked good.

I mean, you have to rewind that to see what he actually did to Makwan Amirkhani, Luke. Yeah, sent him packing is what he did. Yeah. There was a lot of these guys who come out of certain parts of the country. I mean, obviously, he's very talented, Amirkhani. I don't want to say he's not. He deserves the place in the UFC that he has earned, and he's got some great wins. But I noticed there's almost a lot of hype around,

depending if you come from the right camp or the right training partners or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Lerone Murphy didn't have any of that, and he goes in and puts his lights out and tells you how good he is. No hype, and he's out there putting together a very impressive career so far. A big hype for Hamza Chemaev, as we mentioned. Luke, let's look at this celebration. We've seen the backflip off the cages. It's the first time anyone's balanced themselves

and celebrated. I'm sure UFC hates that. He's a fucking freak in every way that is. He's a marvel, dude. He's a total marvel, and I just can't wait to see what he does in the octagon. Luke, we're not all dicks and donuts here. Let's see a wholesome moment.

Here's Peotre Jan's son just really celebrating his dad's big win by taking a close look at the hardware there. It was a good moment. His son was pretty cute, Luke. Yeah, Tan Lindo, as my wife would say. Very, very cute little kid. Got a great haircut, too. Dad took care of him there.

I see that. I see you, pops. I see you giving your son a haircut. I like that moment when he had his boy around his neck during the post-fight interview. Because, like, Jan's a badass, but you can see he's also, you know, a good-loving dad in there. That's a moment for his son to be a part of that. Damn, you know?

Yeah. Where are you, by the way, on the whole Hasbulla jokes? To me, the shit is so fucking lame and overplayed, but everyone loves him. Dude, I've been on a rollercoaster of Hasbulla emotions where at first, like everybody, I was like, this is great. Then I'm like, this is exploitation. This is kind of Howard Stern Rat Pack Beetlejuice level. And then he had

a big weekend, which we're going to get into in a second. And it may have changed me. I'm not sure, Luke. Let's keep it going, though. Verna John D. Roba took the loss there against our girl Reboss. But let's go to this walkout here. Reboss, you mean? Yeah, I meant, yeah.

I don't know the story of the hat that she's wearing. Well, Veena or Verna walked out, I don't know if you can hear it, folks, to Island Boys, Luke. We've seen humorous walkouts before, whether it be that shark, baby shark song or whatever. Did you pop for this, Luke, or was this lame? What do you got?

I know you're thinking I'm lying, and I know you think that I'm not telling the truth, but I am. I typically mute UFC and most MMA broadcasts. I watch like, I listen to like music in the background. Okay, her walking out to Island Boys. Funny or lame, Luke?

I'll call it mostly funny. She was trying. She was making a good faith effort. I'll give her that. If someone else did it after this, it's lame. Speaking about Island Boy, Johnny Plasma has tweeted this at us so many times, I don't think we need to wait for Wednesday's fan submissions, Luke.

Your thoughts on this? Dear Jesus. T-F-f in christ what is this i mean i don't know what what what the what my my savior has to do with this luke but um yeah this is uh i don't like this it's very disturbing i need i need can someone uh come to my house here in the capital of the United States and then just spray me in the face with carbonic acid so I can never see this and then forget this ever happened? Thank you. Let's see some more wholesome stuff. Here's some emotional reactions to Glover Teixeira's gold medal winning, gold title winning at age 42. Here is his former teammate Chuck Liddell reacting at home.

Luke, this was a good moment. Yeah, dude, I don't, who in my life would be that proud of me for anything? That was me watching Rogan, Luke, until the co-host moment.

I was like, fuck that guy. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. I'll take that, I'll take that. All right, real recognizing real, here's Big Nog, Noguera, catching his countryman and friend in the aisle after the win. This felt good too, Luke. Yeah, I always love it when they do the C grip, you know, for the hug. Oh, yeah.

Because they're so used to training and shit. I also love Glover kissing DC on the head during the interview. Just good times, good feels all around. Glover gave us that moment. But you mentioned Hasbulla, Luke. He was a guest of Dana White, and he took over Fight Island and made it his own. Let's look at the highlights.

Here's him meeting Big Nog, Luke. Speaking of, think about how Hasbulla is. You've got to be careful, Luke, about it. I mean, look, right to the right cross. So just so if people have questions. Okay, I will say the bit where he steals on people in the face is mildly funny. So if people don't know, and it took a lot of us time to realize, he's 19 years

old, Luke. So he's actually not a child. Yes, he's not. That's the bit. That's the bit. Right, is that he looks like a child, but then acts and says things like a foul-mouthed adult. Well, he put the same shtick on DC. Daniel Cormier, let's see the results. Oh, yeah.

There's Hasbro right there. Oh, yeah, you got to be careful, DC. Also, Lukey was brought into the cage to celebrate Islan Mahachev's win, and he was up on Habib's shoulders like he was the mini-me to Dr. Evil. Look at them bumping heads here, Luke. Head-butting. Yep, this is supposed to be funny, so I am told. Everyone's like, oh, Luke, you're a boomer. That's right.

I don't think stupid things are funny. Well, this went to a new level. There's another small man named Abdu who's also trying to become like a singing sensation. There's a pair of these two. They had a breakup. So Hasbulla hates this guy, Luke, with a passion. All right? Yeah, I mean, get it?

Because they're not kids. They look like kids. Isn't that funny? When you hear friend of the program and MK Doc 5 actor Oscar Willis come out and ask Dana if these two are going to fight in the cage, that's where I get all, come on, like, spare me. You know what I'm saying? Miss me with that.

Yeah, I'm going to have to kick him in the balls next time I see him, which will probably be, well, you know what? I think he's going to be in New York. He won't be in Vegas for fight week. Yeah, all right. Next time I see you, Oscar, kick in the balls. Luke, let's go to be in New York. He won't be in Vegas for fight week. Yeah, all right. Next time I see you, Oscar, kick in the balls. Luke, let's go to Asian kickboxing here. The card was Crush 130.

Check out this face plant KO first. Oh, God. And watch the celebration, Luke. You have your moment. He did the billionaire strut to the corner. And then let's finish it off. I don't know the guy's celebration, Luke. You have your moment. He did the billionaire strut to the corner and then let's finish it off. I don't know the guy's name, but... Oh, yeah.

Oh, they didn't show it, Luke. He did the brush off and then he dabbed, which was, you know, I mean, it was so lame mixed with something so violent that it had to show up on this show, Luke. Bro, you got to get out of the corner, man. This dude was coming out there like a fucking freight train. Lukeke he wasn't the biggest winner of the week though you know actor ken jong from uh the hangover captain micro penis right yep let's check him out on college game

day on espn boy utah in a close game i'm going to ucla because my wife went to UCLA med school. Shout out, Tran. You complete me, ho. That's her last name. That's her last name. Relax, ESPN. How dare you? Can you imagine having a hog his size and then showing it for money? I mean, I can't tell if he's like self-loathing

or full of self-confidence. I don't know, but that was shocking. To pull off Tran, you complete me, ho, on an ESPN platform like that, that's pretty clever. That's pretty well done. Alright. He makes me giggle time to time. Teofimo Lopez Jr. was in the gym with your boy

Thurr Bernson, Luke, and check out the body shot. Oh, God. Actually, it's half Thurr Bjornsson. Bjorn Thorson, whatever, Luke. I mean, yeah, that looked legit, Luke. I'm not coming back.

Tao returned the favor, bro. Oh, I don't have that film in front of me. Tao hit him with a solid one. Luke, what we didn't focus on heading into Clarissa Shield's second PFL fight was that she may have jinxed herself. This is what she walked out to the weigh-in in ahead of this PFL card, Luke. The quote had the Versace robe, and we know the long line. Yeah, but Tyson Fury was just stewing in one. He goes out there and fucking has the long line yeah but tyson dude tyson fury was just stewing in one he goes out

there and fucking has the fight of a lifetime i was gonna say i think he's the only one that's broken the same curse that got masvidal connor out of sanya i got sent to hell by floyd while i was wearing it you know yeah all right luke hey tattoos of the week luke we love when you judge great tats i think they call this tip to shaft we should get that tattoo only real friends can have a tattoo like that luke a little tripod action we should get that tattoo interesting all. All right, let's go to... Would you get part of this in Vegas if I got the other part? Only if you, like, drugged me up and I wasn't making my own decision. So, no, Luke, we'll not be doing this.

Let's go over to this boxing superfan getting the Canelo Caleb Plant stare down on the back of his hair. Luke, it's not a tattoo, but it's art. Just the same. What do you think? It's a haircut. I thought it looked like you and me that's what a lot of our listeners said uh it's pretty good i guess i'm canelo in this relationship luke all right i'll take that uh speaking of canelo super fans luke i don't know what this means but so they caught this fan with a uh oh, first, sorry, look at this.

Luke, what about the shading on this one? You've got to love this. This is a Canelo fan on his left forearm. Not bad. That's actually – I would just – it's hard to know how brand new it is and whether some of those – the heavy coloring around, like, the side of the top of the head, would that a little bit because you would want it to um but it's otherwise pretty good work and we cannot confirm if this was caleb plant's arm at all this is not from all access but here's

another canelo fan jumping in with a tat luke can you rate this it says uh RIP Canelo. So a little morbid, a little premature. Yeah, that's not great. Okay. All right, Luke, let's go to old people fighting in a bar. That's always fun. You try to take a selfie. You do it for the gram. But watch out over your shoulder.

Can we full screen this? this you think they're arguing over like brexit or some shit yeah like proper 12 is the worst whiskey how about that that's how that started luke all right yeah look we need to spend time in the uk like imagine if if mk opened up a uk studio and you and I, like, you know, every other month we'd go out there for a week. Have you been to London before? Never. I want to badly. I want to do all of UK.

I want to meet our Welsh fans. I want to go up to the Geordie Coast. I want to do it all, Luke, all right? My brother lived in London for several years. I went a couple of times. It's it's very expensive. And the Brits aren't especially friendly, but it's a cool city. Just the same. All right. Luke, most of us on this show are just really caught up in the everyday passings of your beard. But this next guy, Luke, he don't just got a beard. He's got what they call a chest stash. Your thoughts?

I mean, he's not employed by any place that matters. I can tell you that. Luke, my church used to have this youth pastor who could do this chest stash, and he would show everybody, take a shirt off. But then he said his next goal was the bod stash, because he thought he could connect from here all the way down, Luke. Yeah, I mean, we are primates, and this man is living proof. All right, Luke, you're going to get to the results of this fight, I believe, on odds and ends.

But here's from the weigh-in of top-ranked boxing on Friday, Josue Vargas and Jose Zepeda. They got into it a little bit. Yeah, I'm going to talk about this later, but I want everyone to keep in mind the guy on the right is the one who, not just at this weigh-in, by the way. We didn't talk about the fact that at the weigh-ins, he was also taking Zepeda's belt and trying to grab it off of him while Zepeda was trying to be professional and not escalate and everything. I want you to

keep that in mind for later. Yes, they call that a what do they call that, Luke? A cum ovens. Yeah, a harbinger of doom to come on this show. Luke, let's have Halloween fun. Here's on the menu. This makes me want to throw up in my mouth and

then snort it, Luke. They call it Halloweeners. it's black licorice flavored hot dogs that's some kryptonite shit right there luke 110 calories for one of those i mean black what would it take for you to eat this well a serious question what would you put on it uh well you know even if i didn't ketchup and mustard right i guess i don't even if i didn't have a black liver to me black licorice is like the it's i mean there's nothing grosser there's not a single thing that tastes grosser than that lu Luke. And now you're going to put it in a hot dog? Yeah, that's...

I would love a bet that ends with you having to eat a Halloweener with no condiments, Luke. Those should be called the BCs right there. The Halloweeners. That's what your organs look like. Luke, your Colombian relatives uh were over i think to decorate pumpkins this weekend right let's see the results oh god oh come on luke that's just why is this why is why is this colombian pray tell i i don't

write the bits luke i just deliver them okay you know what I mean? Wow. That's just not acceptable. That's not good. Hey, Cypress Hill got into the Halloween spirit. Luke, are you down with this? Can we zoom in on this? Oh, dear God. Please let these people find me and take me away. Wow.

BC, I can't explain to you that if someone was like, how do you want to spend the rest of your life? You're looking at it. You're looking at it. Luke looks like I'm ready to plug into the Matrix right now. Let's go. Let's go. All right.

Yeah. We're going to play audio on this one. Luke, the Halloween costume of the year may have come from this little guy. That's more Hasbulla jokes. Oh, fat guy in a little coat? Fat guy

in a little coat. That's honestly really, really, really good. Really good. Whoever's parents of that child, you've won. BC, don't you feel like the kids today, everyone kind of laments Patrice O'Neill, who I thought was a brilliant comic,

maybe the best comic I've ever seen. But the kids today, man, they don't know what they missed with Chris Farley. They don't know what they missed. Oh, no. Really, the Farley, Sandler, and Spade movies that broke off SNL, that whole run, just incredible, Luke, okay?

Chris Rock, yeah, all that good shit. Beverly Hills Ninja, remember that one? Dude, that's a, my kids and I watch it all the time. That's actually a really good Farley movie. Doesn't get the credit because it's not as good as Tommy Boy and the others. Black Sheep is like, it's kind of like Tommy Boy 2,

but it also sucks. It's hard. You know what I'm saying? There's some good moments in it, Luke, but it's not great. Yeah, yeah. Tommy Boy and Black Sheep are the ones he gets noted for, but Beverly Hills Ninja, not too bad. Not too bad. Yeah. Farley's incredible in really small roles, too, like the bus driver in Billy Madison.

Really everything he ever touched, Luke, was gold, okay? Luke, a lot of people are thinking this is the type of actions I would do, but look at this guy caught on camera in a convenience store. What do you think of his behavior? Let's zoom in. So he goes to the hot dog rack, steals it. Takes a bite. And then just throws it into the gum area, Luke. You know what?

Maybe he thought he was at Costco and was just trying the free samples, BC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I just want to point out out these are your contemporaries these are your people right here these mutants i will say that if you go to my hometown of noxia connecticut and you go inside a cumberland farms for about 45 minutes you'll see about five of those guys right there there's no question about it that is those are my people yes luke all right let's go to the t-shirt of the week luke. Interested to get your thoughts on this. I understand this man.

Yeah. I understand him completely. Luke, you ever been drunk near a staircase? I one time did a backflip. A few times. I fell backwards over a stairway trying this exact move. Oh. Oh, fuck.

Oh, my God. And Luke, I fell. Oh, i fell lucky he didn't take a full-on spill so i took about a 10 foot fall on the back of my neck and i still to this day if i was sober luke i would have been paralyzed because i was that drunk i just got up and walked away like nothing happened first of all go back go back show this one more time show one more time is my man wearing yep can, Canadian tuxedo. He deserved it. Fuck this guy. Wow. Wow, take that, Bronstetter.

I guess. Wow. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying Canadians are great. I'm just saying this asswipe, you know, you dress like a total... Listen, if you dress like a jerk job, jerk job things should happen to you. Hence. Luke, before you work out in your front yard today,

I think you should reconsider the way you take in your pre-workout protein. They call this, Luke, brokaki. So he's doing what's called dry scooping. Oh! What's up, guys? Here's's called dry scooping oh nope not dry scooping oh boy yeah okay um let's close with this one dude people are people are bored huh they're bored yeah well yeah there was a pandemic luke let's close with this is this why like teenagers always smear like dog shit on people's car handles and, like, toilet paper houses because they're just fucking bored? They're bored.

Well, you'd think with the Internet and Netflix they wouldn't be doing this, but apparently they are. Luke, we always, you know, you really have to check your circle. Keep it tight. Make sure you've got a few Andy Kims and Chewbacca's, people that are bout it, bout it when shit goes down. Luke, we're trying to build that team right now at mk right i want winners i want people that will bleed for this shit okay gaff if you ain't willing to but gaff if you won't kill for me you're off the show luke this guy in the yellow jacket he thought he was about about it chewbacca

style sometimes you find out you're not luke, these guys all think they're chewy. You ain't fucking chewy, bro. Oh, look at that. Nice one. Nice one, fucking Jet Li. Look, for a second he was like, oh, I'm in this shit. I'm ready, baby. No. Yeah.

Good one, Wright Brothers Li. Yeah, that's good shit right there. All right, Luke, that's the only shit I can find this week. Hope you saw it. That is amazing. Good shit on that one. All right, BC, time for odds and ends. What do you have for odds and or ends?

Luke, sometimes you just got to recognize good matchmaking when you see it. Our friends at BKFC have a fight coming up November 12th in Miami. Get this. You ready for this? Friend of the program or spirit animal of the program, Britton Hart against Pearl Gonzalez, Luke, who once had an issue in Buffalo under the UFC banner but is now a BKFC veteran.

Luke, tell me you're not at least a little bit interested. This would be good theater. I'm not. BKFC is this weird thing where i can't tell i'd be lying if i told you i wasn't interested but i feel like i'd be equally lying if i told you i was like geared up for it you know what i mean that's a good fight though that's actually a good fight i like to see rachel forget my ignorance as pro gonzalez been doing bkfc for a while a little bit yeah yeah she's been training with, she's been training with the Serrano sisters to prepare for it.

That's good. I mean, that's legit training. Okay. Yeah, listen, I don't want to be a hater. I'm definitely not down on it, but I'm not quite as high as you, I guess is what I would say. Okay. In general or just on this fight? Yeah.

No, I'm sober as a... I'm sober today. So, you showed the weigh-ins, but I wish we had some of the footage of the presser, too. Because Zepeda, as we showed here previously from Top Rank on ESPN this Saturday, he was smiling, the Mexican guy holding his belt. He was being a professional. And his opponent, how do you pronounce his first name?

I can never, is it Josue? Josue. Josue, yep. Vargas, who's from Puerto Rico, so you can imagine why they made this bout, Mexico versus Puerto Rico, and for a lot of other reasons. All fine, and you know, listen, scuffles happen, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But Vargas made it a point to be as, true or false, BC? He made it a point to be as loud and as BC he made it a point to be as loud and as confrontational as possible in the run-up to this fight true which is wild because Zepeda is like a gentleman of this sport he's like this counter puncher who'd been willed into that brawl against Baranchik last year with all those knockouts the fight of the year where it's just like holy shit and yet he's just still this calm quiet guy but Vargas was like no I will get you into a blood feud and Luke we don't have the video apparently but you're our boys to pay to put it on him Luke that was some five like a six

punch combo in the corner absolutely demolished him in the first round and including as you're seeing here we don't have the video but it's all over YouTube I shared it on Twitter you can see it wherever you want um Did I lose you guys? I don't know if you can hear me or not. No, we got you, Luke. Keep going. For some reason, my computer is acting up. All right, well, I'll just act like you can see me. And then in that corner, just hit him as you indicated with a multi-punch combination and absolutely sat him down. Let that be a lesson to folks. Like, dude, if you're going to do the confrontational route, that's cool. That's the fight game. It's built on it. And if you win, you're a god.

But if you lose, and if you lose in the first round via just an absolute drubbing, what an L that is going to be. I went to check his mentions, BC. You can well imagine they're a fucking graveyard of people just absolutely hammering him. Dude, Zepeda's not even a big puncher. So for that guy to get that pissed off from being incited and to go in there and deliver it like that, I mean, that was vicious. But you know that the ESPN boxing reporter in Mexico, Salvador Rodriguez,

he reported, Luke, that Josue Vargas' followers waited for Zepeda and his family to arrive at the hotel after the fight and then attack them there. I don't have more specific details. Yes, in fairness, we don't know if vargas was in any way involved in this in fact some of the eyewitnesses say vargas got to the hotel later and people had to inform him so i don't want to implicate him but at least supporters of vargas try to rough up the family of zapata which is fucking gross but in any case when it goes down the history books zapeda not only gets the win, but he taught Vargas a very important lesson. I hope Zepeda gets a big fight because, you know, his first loss was against Jose Ramirez when Ramirez had those belts.

And I was the ringside for that randomly in Fresno, California. And I thought he fought his ass off that night. I thought Zepeda won that and he lost a close decision. And, you know, then he's kind of lingering, trying to make a name for himself. Then he's in that crazy brawl with Baranchuk and he got it he lost a close decision and you know then he's kind of lingering trying to make a name for himself then he's in that crazy brawl with barantic and he survives it and he's got this new attitude as almost a puncher now um i'm interested in him getting a big fight a big title opportunity i think he's always he's become somebody to watch so look real quick um bob aaron made a statement because we i interviewed chicker stevenson last week and catch that at

youtube.com slash morning combat and he wants that unification with Oscar Valdez, but he also accused Top Rank of kind of separating it and putting it out in the distance. Bob Barron went public and said this is his thoughts for the 130-pound division. A final four of Shakur Stevenson against Miguel Burchelt, who got knocked out by Valdez but was the long-reigning champion. And on the other side of the bracket, Oscar Valdez against Emmanuel Navarrete. Dude, Navarrete is a beast.

And then the winners face each other, Luke. That could be some good shit right there. It's hard to decide. I mean, it'll never happen because it's boxing, but that would be tremendous. Absolutely tremendous. All four can fight on the on espn under the top rank uh you know banner with it'd be good it'd be an interesting interesting thing but yeah good good shit what a weekend of fights luke and only you know not only was the weekend fun

thanks in a large part to the ufc but also showtime and boots ennis and all that but to spin it now into canelo and UFC at MSG, what a time. What a time, Luke. What a time. You're already there. I will join you in a matter of days. I want to remind everybody to like the video, hit subscribe for the fights we didn't get to, and there are many of them.

MK Extra Credit is going to be the place where we're going to get to some of that stuff. It's going to be a banger today. Yeah, I'm excited about it, because normally I'm sort of weeding through not the most exciting fights, but there's a bunch of that stuff. It's going to be a banger today. Yeah, I'm excited about it because normally I'm sort of weeding through not the most exciting fights, but there's a bunch of good stuff. And I know I got people tweeting me, what about the ref in the Saint-Denis fight? We'll talk about that.

What about Ankhalaev? We'll talk about that. What about Islam Makachev? We'll talk about it. So we got a lot of good stuff to get to, so don't go anywhere for that. MorningCombat at gmail.com is going to be the place to go for your emails and everything else, for Dead Wrongs, for Wednesday's fan subs, blah, blah, blah.

Luke, you're really going to go this whole show and not bring up Jake Paul, Tommy Fury on Showtime Pay-Per-View December 18th from Tampa, Florida? I did forget about it, if I can be honest about it. But yeah, what do you want to say about it? It's happening. It is. I tend to think that

um jake's gonna win but i don't know what do you think what's your early view i don't know dude tell me if you really look like crap against that mma fighter on the uh on the undercard last time let's be fair he did not look good not really did not look good he is big and strong so it's like well we'll see yeah um okay so there is that coming up as well. We'll talk about that whenever we are going to get around to it. What else? Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can go pound sand is always the option there. And I want to remind folks, it's MK, it's DK, it's free money. Here's how it works, folks. You guys know DraftKings is the most legitimate sportsbook based here in the U.S. And we want you to use the promo code COMBAT. COMBAT with a K. K-O-M-B-A-T for people listening on the podcast. DraftKings is offering all new customers a deposit bonus up to $1,000 in free credits.

You must make the deposit in order to be eligible to receive a deposit bonus up to $1,000 in free credits. BC, who hates free money? I don't know what the answer is. I don't know. I don't know who does that shit. But if you like watching sports and who doesn't, you think you know what you're talking about? Jump in there. Okay?

Have some fun with this. Be responsible. Put a little action on your action and help out the show as well with our promo code, CombatWithAK. And there's plenty of good action. The NBA's heating up, okay? MMA, box, there are a lot of fun things to bet on. The NFL, do it for fun. Do it with MK and DK, please.

Let me ask you quickly, BC. Being from Connecticut, for folks who may not know, this is how other Connecticutites, Connecticut Canadians, I don't know what the word would be, but this is how it's explained to me. The state is split. So half of the state all root for Boston teams and the other half of the state all root for New York teams. When it comes to NBA teams, are you a Knicks or a Celtics guy? Celtics. Celtics fan all the way. Okay. Yes. But I was a New York Mets baseball fan, so I'm kind of perfect Connecticut, right?

And also I grew up sort of near that dividing line between where it's New York or Boston territory in Connecticut. So, yeah, Luke, there you go. All right. Well, obviously, as you mentioned, NBA is in full swing. Canelo Plant is this weekend. UFC 268 is this weekend. And if your state doesn't have DraftKings Sportsbook, it's okay. Make sure to try the DraftKings Fantasy app where you set the daily fantasy teams and lineups you can win millions

of dollars and look it's fun offered that i since connecticut just became legalized i did a little you know a little sample run there on draft kings and uh you know being able to do the in game the in of you know in fight or in game bets as as things change as fun as crap but you know going those prop bets and having some fun with it, Luke. It's a very good app. Okay, I couldn't recommend it more. Just as a reminder, must be 21 or older, and especially in New Jersey, Indiana, or Pennsylvania only.

New customers only. Minimum $5 deposit, $1 wager required. One per customer. Restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com slash Sportsbook for details. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or in Indiana, 1-800-9-WITH-IT. That is it, BC.

What is your plan for the rest of the day, good sir? You got anything going on? I will be switching hotel rooms to our final destination, Luke, and to a different hotel on the Strip. And, you know, I'll be preparing some features that you can read this week on cbssports.com slash boxing ahead of this uh canelo alvarez caleb plant fight lots to write about a lot to talk about luke um the coverage don't stop here just on morning combat as if you follow uh showtime sports page on youtube on the digital platforms uh you can see me again luke

hosting tuesday's grand arrival be a part of the coverage for wednesday's press conference as well on the digital platforms. You can see me again, Luke, hosting Tuesday's Grand Arrival. Be a part of the coverage for Wednesday's press conference as well, as will you. So a lot of great stuff coming through. Check out our video there on youtube.com slash morningcombat, our little bit of rooftop diaries with our friend Chuck Mendenhall, the pre-game preview, getting you fired up for UFC 268 like men do, and be on the lookout for Canelo Alvarez resume review dropping in soon. Soon, Luke. Soon. I think 4 p.m. Eastern today. 4 p.m. So about three hours, be on the lookout.

And look, we got video footage from the archives. We got a lot of fun breakdown. If you feel like you've seen Canelo here and there, but maybe don't know the full journey of how he got to be number one, Luke, it's a fun ride to get there. No doubt about it. All right. So for Brian Campbell, Malka, Showtime, and CBS Sports, we thank you so much for watching. We have just a metric ton of content headed your way this weekend. I will join Brian on the ground in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning. And until then, thank you so much for watching. May all of your gains be loyal.