MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 274 Picks | Canelo vs. Bivol | Bellator 281 | PFL | Fight Announcements | Ep. 298

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

The Boys are back in studio for episode 298 of Morning Kombat! The boys start off the show with some UFC 274 picks. Who should you be putting your money on? They also preview Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol, Bellator 281 and PFL. The guys close out the main topics by breaking down a bunch of recent fight announcements. (13:00) - UFC 274 Picks (55:00) - Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol (70:00) - Bellator 280 (79:00) - PFL Preview (81:00) - Fight Announcements 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

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Reveley, 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. Oh, yeah, Friday, right?

So much about the damn arts. It's Morning Combat back in the bomb shelter, Jersey City. Brian Campbell, Luke Thomas, the beige bastard, that angry guy. But we're back doing what we love, what we deserve to do, where we belong. Friday, May 6, 2022, a loaded combat sports. So much combat this weekend, so much. A lot. You know what I mean?

Like you ever like walk in on spring break into a dance club and just be like, so much tail out there, bro. I know you did, Dirtbag, or even the back of a Denny's if there was something going on. Yeah, there we go. Hey, we're happy that you're with us here. We gotta set the stage for UFC 274 Bellator Paris,

which will go live on Showtime right after today's MK episode. We're going to get into that. Canelo Alvarez returning, moving back up to light heavyweight against Dimitri Bivol. Is that a trap fight, Luke? We're going to have to talk about that. In waiting right now, a couple of fight announcements as well. You want to try Showtime?

That would be a great time. You can go to Showtime.com, get your 30-day free trial. Watch Bellator today. Watch Championship Boxing. Okay? Watch W. Kamau Bell change the world in a Cosby sweater. Right?

I'm gonna let you hang. Wrong. That's where, that is the label that pays us. Luke, we have a fantastic inventory of merchandise. And maybe an even more fantastic merch master. I couldn't believe we showed up today. They had like care packages and prototype stuff. Backpacks with the MK logo on it.

Yeah, we saw the beginning of the early, next line coming up, the early beginning of what it might look like. We're also peddling, if you can see right here, this stuff at morningcombat.store. Look at that porn addict. Your Morning Hub gear. So here's what we want to do today. Why don't we celebrate and give 10% off

all Morning Combat merchandise at morningcombat.store. You have the worst smile in the human race. Is it all the merchandise or is it just the Morning Hub shirts that we're getting the 10% off? Either way, it's live10 is our code. Why don't you check for yourself at morningcombat.store. Everybody in our staff is wearing this, Luke. Everyone. It's pretty nice.

I have to say I'm pretty amazed. Quality is very high, nice and soft. I can't wear this in public. You know what I mean? I can't. What does this say to you? Yeah, but the question is, why can't you? You would acknowledge that it's naughty.

Maybe you have to act innocent. I mean, what do they do to Ash right there? I mean, what are we doing here, team? I mean, are we just asking for a case, okay? Always there for you. It's morningcombat.store. Yeah, well, I mean, look, I really mean everyone. The janitor out back.

Can we get a live shot of the control room here? Can we put Maniche on blast? What do we got going on here now? Boy, take a look at the luminaries. Oh, yeah. He did the Cam Newton. He did the Cam Newton. Oh, yeah, Maniche. That guy's great. That's awesome. You know, Maniche, he did the old, he did the Cam Newton. He did the Cam Newton. Oh, yeah, Maniche, that guy's great.

That's awesome. You know, Maniche, he took the chair. Which I know comes from Superman. Fuckos. Anyway, go ahead. Wow, nice disclaimer. Maniche took the chair that was once manifested by Jay Aaron. Jay is the worst human ever.

And Jay showed up yesterday. I mean, I don't know why. Dude, he literally shows up and we're like, dude, why are you here? He's like, you know, meetings. I'm like, not with us. Jay was just showing us these pictures of his life, of his history, of how he got here. We're going to do this? And I was like, dude, why are you showing me these?

But what about this picture? And he told, look, this man was so desperate to get laid in the late 90s. Look at this guy. That he wore the... I want to put this on record that I tried really hard to not get this in the show. The wife beater necklace cornrow combo for a white guy from

Jersey. The problem is he's always wanted to be like the emotional pianist or, you know, Oh, he's a pianist, all right. Hold on, but like, you know, all the dancer that everybody loves, but what his true calling is, and he was ahead of his time,

this is the early prototype version of the Island Boys. He's an island boy. I'm gonna get dumb tattoos. You're saying he's like the Ronda Rousey of the Island Boys. He's got puka shells, a wife beater, and motherfucking cornrows. Dude, how did you not get bullied out of existence in high school? Okay, okay.

Thank you, Jay, for helping birth this franchise. All right. Luke, speaking of this franchise, we win big time awards. We encourage people to like and subscribe and watch what we do three days a week for our live shows, the post-fight reactions, which by the way, we're gonna hit you hard later today, Bellator Paris post-fight reaction. Tomorrow night, we're gonna give you a live fight companion. We're gonna give you a UFC 274 slash Canelo post-fight instant analysis breakdown.

But part of becoming popular, Luke, is you get to join forces with some really good friends in the industry Mm-hmm. Sometimes that's truck minute. Hall. Sometimes that's AG one motherfucker Are we doing AG one read? Can you make it seem spontaneous and natural as if it was something that we you know being like I hope we're doing one Cuz I want to talk about this tremendous product in my life. I mean Luke we love it But one of the reasons why we love just taking one scoop of vitamins and all that good stuff is it tastes great. It doesn't taste slimy, grimy, too medicinally.

Luke, it's got a nice tropical, undersold taste. It feels good. Yes. It makes me feel healthy. Nice and cool. 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sourced super foods. You can even put the camera on him if you want. And adaptogens up in this piece.

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I want to live, okay? All right. Is that how they say put in other foreign languages? I don't know. Athletic Greens is so easy to use. I take it on. I thought I'd say that I take it on the bus. Even if I was on the bus, I would take it there.

But I also take it when I'm busy on live stream days. Which bus? I mean, seriously. All right, well, it's lifestyle friendly, Luke. I take the bus around town. Bang bus. Whether you're keto, paleo, vegan. I prefer more Captain Stabin. Dairy free or gluten free. This AG1 contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals or artificial anything, and yet it still tastes good. Cost you less than $3 a day, you're investing in your health, and it's cheaper than your cold brew habit.

Yeah, and it's also a, talk about habits, how about a small micro habit with big benefits? That's what's taking one scoop a day with AG1. It's a great way to take care of yourself. And Luke, how about 7,000 five-star reviews online to back up what we're saying? Can't be wrong. All right, how about Tim Ferriss and Michael Gervais? So right now it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with a convenient

daily nutrition, especially heading into the flu and cold season. Just one scoop and a cup of water every day, that's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. Luke, could you at least act like you're not reading it? You're like, hold on, let me- It literally says fucking verbatim. Like I have to read it verbatim, so that's- Sorry, that's what the rule said, I have to do it. Okay, to make it easy- That's the fucking agreement.

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Yes. You can, you know, you can, again. Oh, that is athleticgreens.com slash morning combat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. I want to take ownership over this show. That's the BS. That's the business. We put it behind us.

Let's get down to it right now. It begins this Saturday. It's time to put your picks on the line. It's time to do this. UFC 274, two title fights have topped the marquee. A great action fight as well in those top three fights. But we begin with Dobronks, the finisher. Charles Oliveira making this defense of his lightweight title

against the all-action former interim champion Justin Gaethje. Luke, as I speak right now, the champion Dobronks, a minus 190 betting favorite. Justin Gaethje plus 160. That's pretty damn close. We know how live Justin Gaethje plus 160 That's pretty damn close We know how live Justin Gaethje is The king of finishers In Charles Dobronks

Going against the immovable force I mean this is The immovable force? An object that's just immovable Is really where I was going there This is a fantastic fight Is it going to be crazy? Is it going to play out to the script

That both of these guys know that it's sort of like, you know, not first guy to get you wins, but pretty soon after that there's going to be high-flying antics, a lot of violence, a lot of knockdowns? What do you got here? So when we did CBS Sports HQ this morning, and it's okay if you did, but were you disagreeing with me for just the editorial effect, or did you actually disagree? I actually disagreed with you. Okay, so here's why it's hard to know what the actual reality is going to be.

The reason why my, so the argument that we had, not argument, but the difference of opinion that we had on CBS Sports HQ was that, to me, this is a question not so much of how good we know them to be and how potent each of their offenses are in their own ways. I completely agree. Obviously, Olivera is a much more well rounded threat quite obviously his hands have come a long way we know about the submissions. So the issue for me when I try to examine this is it's a much more a function of who's gonna make mistakes here.

Because for Justin Gaethje he cannot make any positional over commitments or he could get taken down he could get his back, he could get his back, obviously if he gets his back taken, that's probably gonna be over, right? I don't know if he can really get out of that. Absolutely. I don't know, I don't see him for three minutes hand and, hand fighting from the back, I just don't see that. So BC disagreed, and I understand the point, which is right, but he's not gonna be on the

back foot either. He's gonna be on the front foot, really trying to like press the action and drive and pressure this guy. I agree to an extent, but I think if he gets too crazy, too wild, dude, he's gonna be on the front foot really trying to like press the action and drive and pressure this guy I agree to an extent but I think if he gets too crazy too wild dude He's gonna give Charles Olivera all the openings he needs he does have to be disciplined with the attack at least Yeah, that's the center of the debate You and I had an HQ where you said look I need to see a poised patient controlled Gaethje at times, right? It doesn't mean not violent which he's done a great job at somehow becoming more efficient and poison calculated, but yet keeping that violence quotient so high.

Do I agree with that? Well, to a certain degree. I also agree, though, that Charles Oliver thrives on chaos. He thrives on it. He's not a fighter that makes swing and miss massive errors and you counter them. He's just somebody who goes for the finish so consistently and so aggressively that it leaves open opportunities for him to get hit. I mean, he got hurt against Chandler.

In each of all of these dramatic wins, he's gotta go through hell to get here. Look, not only is there some level of fear of how many times can you do that, and I don't mean from a damage changing you as a fighter point necessarily, even though that is going to be in play in the long run there. But just like if you're going to be a gunslinger in the Wild West, you know, you can become a legend. But like, it's not a permanent job, Luke. It's not a permanent position when you fight with that type of style.

Eventually, someone's going to get you. When I look at who is out there that's most capable or the wrong matchup to play that style against if you're Dobronksov aggressively going for finishes, to me, it's Justin Gaethje. So I disagree with your premise of maybe I need to see a more controlled version of him to win this. You may end up being right, but I almost feel like the more this fight gets chaotic, Luke, and gets in that style where Oliveira thrives, pure chaos.

Dude, Justin Gaethje was born in chaos, brother. He lives in it. How does- You get into a- Do you really think the most likely way that Oliveira gets to the back is he drives into Justin Gaethje, takes him down, and then methodically finds his way there? No. Or that Gaethje overcommits, or it gets dragged in certain directions,

and then the resistance of the takedown itself creates a stable structure, which is what Habib did to take his back. Like, dude, that is very much in play. If you are not maintaining the range you need to maintain, that fight could end in a fucking flash. Well, the fight can end against Oliver in a fucking flash any time, okay? Okay, that's true for any fight, but you understand the very specific nature of their matchup. If you're Justin Gaethje and you don't really ever use jiu- any fight, but you understand that the very specific nature of their matchup you if you're just in Gaethje and you

Don't really ever use jujitsu and you use wrestling for almost exclusively on the defensive side Dude, you have to be that those are by definition defensive postures I have no offensive jujitsu and I have no offensive wrestling is not not in the wrestling side that he uses That's inherently defensive. You cannot abandon that especially against the guy where if he gets onto the other side of things, you're fucked. You can't do that. It's just, you know, I think Oliveira's luck is gonna run out if this fight looks like Oliveira-Chandler. I think this is the guy that eventually- Yes.

Who so, you know, let's give Gage his credit. His sole focus is to land that one strike that ends the fight. That's the wrong guy to F around with in this type of equation in my opinion. But Charles Oliveira has been pulling it off on this 10 fight win streak. And he's been proving to us that any notion of what Gaethje said at some point this week a lot of people talk about of once a quitter, always a quitter. It's like, no, we talked about that on Wednesday. I mean, Oliveira's reformed, he's a different dude.

Also, didn't Gaethje technically quit and tap out against Habib? I thought he went out. It doesn't hold up well in that regard. But if you're Gaethje, I would try to use that craziness that Oliveira thrives on against him by trying to ratchet it up a little bit more and make it the type of fight, again, where even if Gaethje's a little bit of a changed man in recent memory, that's still, look at the fight against Chandler.

This is still the type of fight that he loves and lives for. You're taking chances against somebody as good as Gaethje, Luke. That's why I tell you, I wonder what the posture of Gaethje will look like early and what this will do. But let me flip it to you on this. Why Charles Oliveira beat Dustin Poirier wasn't necessarily the same reason

why he beat the guys before that. The wrestling he showed in round two to take top position with an offensive wrestling set, to cover the mouth of Poirier, to fight not dirty, but like raw and aggressive and almost teeing that line with the form. I mean, just really just trying to be grimy. Dude, he mauled Poirier and took a significant chunk of his will and his gas tank out,

which I think set up the finish eventually. How much does that become a factor if you're a guy who looks, okay, Oliver's the favorite, he's the champion, why should I back him? Do you think he can do that against Gaethje? I'm not sure I understand the question. Can he take Gaethje down and have the type of top position success that he had against Poirier because I thought Poirier was going to beat him. A lot of us did.

I didn't see it playing out that way where Poirier's gas tank just gets yanked and gets dominated in that one specific setting. I would say this, taking down Gaethje is going to be a lot harder than it is to take down Dustin Poirier. So that remains very much to be seen. I will say that according to Fightmetric, Charles Oliveira averages 2.50, two and a half takedowns per 15 minutes. So per 15 minutes, he's getting about one a round.

So anything less than that would be obviously under what his average is. Although you can also agree, getting the takedown on Justin Gaethje probably much harder to do than it is for Dustin Poirier. And I realize he submitted Poirier from the back, but I would point out this. Poirier's defense in that position is just going to be a lot better than Justin Gaethje's, like probably by a considerable margin at that point. So all you might need is just the one to get it.

To answer one point you had before, there's no way to say your version of things is wrong either because is it conceivable, potentially even probable, that there could be a single really hard push from Justin Gaethje to just absolutely cause problems, hammer Charles Oliveira, cause him to make mistakes, and then just finish him off without a shadow of a doubt? Especially if he sets up with leg strikes, to be fair.

Especially if he does that. I'm only speaking in grand percentages, and if they fought 100 times, what would be the most probable outcome? For me, the more defensive one. At least, I'll say, the defensively responsible one will get a better result over time. But okay, I have to acknowledge that.

I just think this. If you're Oliveira, you have to mix in the takedown attempts. You have to wrestle in different ranges. You have to find a way just to get to a body lock. Remember, you don't have to takedown Justin Gaethje, but if you can get to a body lock and then just trip him, and if he lands on his hands like he did against Habib, back. All you have to do is not, remember Aljamain Sterling, did he really get full takedowns on Jan?

I think he got two or something like that. But you know what he did do? He took advantage of back exposure. That was all he needed to do. He took advantage of once exposure. That was all he needed to do He took advantage of once the back was exposed if he can just expose the back of Justin Gaethje where he has to show it To him for whatever reason that is gonna be a winning ticket. That is not a good position to be in. How do you rank Gaethje's chin damage resistance in comparison to the last two tough guys that that Olivera just finished I mean finished Michael Chandler and finished Dustin Poirier. He didn't finish Chandler, he went to the last two tough guys that Oliveira just finished. I mean, he finished Michael Chandler

and finished Dustin Poirier. He didn't finish Chandler. He went to the distance. No, Oliveira finished Chandler. Oh, Oliveira, yes. So, you know, Oliveira finishes guys. That's what he fucking does. He does it in both ways.

He does it with striking. He does it with submissions. And he's incredible. Can he do it as easily against the Gaethje? If he gets Gaethje's back, that's a different equation. But just on wearing him down, I mean, you saw him walk down Chandler in that second round, Oliveira,

land the left hook to hurt him and that turned that fight around. Do you think Gaethje's a little stronger and harder to hurt in that same way, striking? Gaethje is easier to hit. He is harder to make use of it, right? So strikes landed per minute for Justin Gaethje is easier to hit. He is harder to make use of it, right? So strikes landed per minute for Justin Gaethje. So what he's dishing out 7.5 per minute, yes, per minute. Strikes absorbed, dude. It's not just a negative differential. I've never seen a number like this.

I've seen crazy numbers in one direction. I've even kind of seen them in both. I've never seen both like this. He absorbs 7.8 strikes per minute. Like, that is so fucking high. That is higher than a giraffe's pee. I mean, I just can't even explain to you. That is an abusive amount of damage. Now, obviously, much more of that comes from the early part of his career. Of late, it's been significantly better. But even late, it's not been great.

He takes a lot of punishment. So I think that Oliveira will have plenty of opportunity to land on him. But it is gonna take something special from Oliveira for him to be disciplined in a consistent attack because if Poirier proved anything, it's that dude, even if you're landing on this guy consistently, Poirier landed on Gaethje consistently. The amount of will he has to just absorb it and move forward is extraordinary. Yeah, both of those stoppage losses that you saw Gaethje have on the feet against Alvarez and against Poirier, I mean, dude, they were deep in hell by that point.

I mean, they were in like— Look at Alvarez's face. Remember he had the big swollen part of his face? And I don't know if Poirier could walk for a week. And the point is, though, when you get that deep into hell, anything can happen. If Oliveira's gonna finish him in anything but a choke,

obviously it's gonna have to be well down that road into the championship rounds and it being a wild fight. But if I'm a backer of Gaethje and still have him in my top 10 pound for pound, and maybe viewers think overrating him, I'm just guessing, critically, the way that Gaethje lost to Habib, how much of that is a negative at his ground slash grappling defense ability? It's a big negative.

Again, the old idea that what you have to do is you've got to pick them up. You go back to Luke on the – I mean, really, what are we doing here? Is Jay back there? The ghost of Jay. The ghost of Jay. Fuck you two hoes. And then he comes and does this.

All right. The point I'm trying to make is – what the fuck was the question when I got lost? You know, it was definitely about Gaethje and the other guy. Oh, oh, oh. No, no, no. So the whole idea is if Gaethje, it's not, listen, the old idea was take them, get them on their back, create essentially hips facing the ceiling for your opponent, move to side, move to mount if you want, but occupy that kind of an attack sequence.

And now we're just finding out that that's really difficult to hold someone down, and that's a very old way of, obviously still valuable in certain circumstances for guard passing, but you just can't rely on that, especially against a guy who can wrestle the way Gaethje can. It's, again, it's a different meta. It's back exposure. I'm just wondering, is that, do I have a blind spot that Gaethje is way more vulnerable

on the ground than I'm realizing, and that that could end up being the, now look, we've already established that if Olivera gets the back, the fight's over. That's just Olivera. He's a special animal. But the transitions that create him getting the back, could Gaethje be his own enemy

and be on his way to another Habib-like loss? That's something that I'm not... I'm just trying to explain the difference. The difference in grappling is if someone can make you create back exposure and then plant your weight to create a stable structure for them to then use to climb. That's what Gachi, that's what Habib did. Remember, he shot the double, turned, and you saw Gachi go to all fours, or at least I think his hands and knees.

But that is all Habib needed. He did not need him to go all the way like a beetle turned over. He just needed him to create a stable structure for then him to climb. Because if someone is planting their weight and driving it down, they're actually gonna be pretty sturdy and then you can get to the back and you can do all this stuff. It's a completely different thing. But in order to pull that off, yes, the person doing it has to be very good, but there has

to be a very wide gap in skill between them. And so what I would say is not that Oliveira is on par with Habib. They're very different grapplers, just the same. But I think if Habib can do something like that, Oliveira should be able to do that as well. To me, this is, again, the danger of you have to keep that guy completely off of you. No overhooks, no underhooks, no nothing.

Oliveira's finally getting the critical respect, and I have to assume he's starting to get more commercial appeal, highlight real victory after another on the pay-per-view title level against our heroes. Basically, Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler, now Justin Gaethje. Do you think, though, his shtick is a little underrated in how badass it is? With dyeing the hair, with, you know what I mean?

Like, being all about the favela. Like, I'm falling in love with, like, Dobronk's the character at this level as well. You should ask the fans. I mean, I- You're like, I'm not a fan, I'm a community college professor. No. That's funny actually.

What I mean is, I don't really, some fighters I do care about their personality, some ones I don't, some ones I like, some ones I don't. I have no issue at all with his flair for the dramatic and whatnot, but it's so irrelevant to me because I find his game Electrifying I don't care if he dies his hair like I don't need the sauce The meat is so good the sauce what you think the fucking sauce is the hair dye not the triangle chokes motherfucker

That tells you that tells you how fucking terrible your palate is No, no, no, you think hair dye and sunglasses is the sauce. It's the BDE. It's the aura. No, that's fueled. That's a consequence of the triangles, of the striking. It's fueled by the triangles.

It's fueled by the success. It's fueled by the finishes. You start making finishes whether it's in the cage or in the dorm floors, Luke. You come out of there acting like an alpha, okay? So you start dying your hair.

Just because I unfairly yelled at you on Monday doesn't mean you're right about the sauce here. I'm sorry about that, BC. Thank you. Thank you. You're my main bitch.

Damn. I got too many wives. A real one? An editorial one? That's, you know, all right. Luke, it is time, though. We talked about the stakes, and there's big-time stakes. Whoever they both fight next coming out of here with a win is, we're going to continue on down that road.

This division is loaded, and Islam's eventually going to get his chance and there's no shortage of all action opponents. No chance it goes the distance, though. No chance it goes five full rounds. I'm saying hell no. I would. I don't know what those odds are. But yeah, exactly.

What are the odds on that? I would bet I would very much take the under. Yes, very. I cannot imagine how two devastating finishers like this would not finish. Yes, it has to be. The only point that is interesting, though, is exactly where. Because a first-round finish, 100% in play in either direction. Yes.

But, like, what happens after the first? Who do you then begin to favor? Because after the first, Gaethje's cardio is not shit. It's very good. You know, obviously it will depend on what happens in the first? Who do you then begin to favor? Because after the first, Gaethje's cardio is not shit. It's very good. You know, obviously, it would be able to depend on what happens in the first, but like, who would you favor?

If they get out of the first round, who would you favor into the second, into the third? And again, we don't know the complexity of the fight. It's weird. So I think you can, from what we've seen of late,

you can say, well, I like Oliveira in the second and the third, especially if the first is batshit crazy, kind of like the Chandler fight. Like, we know that he lives for this. He can swim in this.

It has to. But who does it favor in rounds four and five if we've been through a lot of reversals and control and submission threats and all of that? Dude, if Oliveira is around in the fourth round, if Gaethje couldn't put him out in 15 minutes, that has to be a good sign for him. He does get rocked. He does get dropped. That's the thing.

I was going to ask you, do you think Gaethje becomes more vulnerable by the end of round four and five historically? Now if it's a fight where he's completely dictating the terms and kicking your ass, that's different. But in the absolute wars when they got that far, that's when you can finish Gaethje. I mean, you gotta be a man to do it. I mean, you gotta fucking bite down. You gotta be a fucking dog to finish him. Boy is Oliveira that dog.

I understand that we can just look at the Gaethje versus Tony fight and be like, well, that one went late, didn't favor Tony. In fact, it just got worse. He's kicking his ass. I understand, because it's a different fight. There's a lot of ways where, of course, what I'm saying would not make sense. But I would just argue, if you're Charles Oliveira and you're heading into the fourth round,

some part of that has to be a bit of a good sign. Some part of that, because Gaethje is going to be a fucking huge threat at every time, but that powerje is going to be a fucking huge threat at every time. But that power punching is going to be ready to go from the moment that opening bell rings. So if you have survived that, again, we'll see what happens. That would favor, I think, at least on most cases, Oliveira. It's prediction time, Luke, and here's what I'm going to tell you. You know what fight this is going to end up looking a lot like?

UFC 201. UFC 201. Tyron Woodley, Robbie Lawler. Just goes in there and smokes him? I just think, would you be, you wouldn't be shocked if Oliveira wins and wins by a spectacular stoppage, and almost gets to finish himself to then do the finishing. No one will be surprised by that. How surprised would you be though if Gje comes out and just the first big combination or big punch he lands, he stops Charles Oliveira?

Not surprised at all. It's not that Oliveira doesn't still have it. It's, again, how many times you show up to be the gunslinger in that duel. You know what I mean? Aaron Burr might be coming through that door eventually. You know what I'm saying? Is Justin Gaethje Aaron Burr? Historically. I have gone back and forth on this one.

I say yes. I say this. He comes in there. They have some smoke. They exchange the flames. But the first big one, Gaethje stops him and gets the win. Luke, you can only, dude, you can only sling for so long, Luke, okay? Bro, I was slinging in my 20s.

So yes, I like Justin Gaethje by first round stoppage. What does Luke say? We're looking at this here real quickly. Dustin Poirier landed 54 of 87 strikes on Charles Oliveira in round one, but he managed to, and did score a knockdown, but he managed to hang on. And then Michael Chandler, in their fight against,

let's see, here we go. In the first round, Michael Chandler landed, Jesus, just 28 of 51, but that's still a lot. And then, you know, he was able to, I didn't count it as a knockdown, but it looked like a knockdown to me. I guess they called it a takedown. In either case, dude, this is a coin flip, man. I really don't know. So the way I'm leaning, I have, I have, I'll just go this way. To your point, if Gaethje goes out there and just drops a fucking bomb on him at any point, is at any point

that surprising? It should not be to you. He is that kind of a finisher. It's a finished way. And Oliver gets hit. Let's be honest. He gets hit. There's no denying. I'm just going to pick, I'm going to pick the champ. And the reason why I'm going to pick the champ is because I have been, I have consistently underrated him. I've always thought he's good, but I did not see the reformation coming. I did not see those victories. I thought Dustin Poirier for sure was going to beat him. And, dude, he really, he is, he is a tremendous fighter. He's a tremendous talent.

And I really believe, I understand where Justin Gaethje is coming from and making the comments about the quitting. But I also believe that Oliveira is, has really, you can work on your resiliency. It is a thing that is possible. And I I think he's I think he's a different guy I'm gonna go with the champ, but I recognize what I mean I can't wait to see this Luke. Oh man event is Redemption, what are you you're picking Gage? I pick a cheap my first-round finish Wow While you were in your computer the people sorry, I was pl Sorry, I was pulling up the stats. I'm sorry. It's all right.

Rematch in the flyweight title. When you said it was Woodley versus Lawler, I wasn't sure who you were assigning Woodley and who you were assigning Lawler. It was a little mysterious. That's how I creep up in the night. You know what I mean? Luke, it's Rosnami Yunus

who lost the inaugural 115-pound title bout in 2014. Tough finale. End of the year, seven and a half years later though, right? She's the best in the game in this weight class, but Carla Esparza is coming on with five straight wins. So Luke, we already hit up all the points on the romanticism and the redemption angle

and all of that. Let's get into the actual fight where Rose Namajunas is a minus 200 betting favorite. Carla Esparza plus 170. Luke, if I tell you, because obviously as much as Rose has made this incredible evolution in her game, damn, so has Carla Esparza during this win streak. If I tell you Esparza is able to take Rose down at least once per round, maybe even more, we all know that's a fight Carla Esparza can win. No question about it.

That's how she wins. Can she win any other way, though, Luke? That's the question against this version of Rose. No, I mean, yes. I mean, an errant punch could land, rock her, and then she could finish her off on the feet. That seems unlikely. Also, I was speaking with Dean Thomas yesterday. Oh, yeah.

He made a really good point, which is it's not just that if Carla and Rose just had a striking battle, you would favor Rose and favor Rose to win probably quite handily. He goes the other part is that he still believes that what Esparza has shown in a couple of fights is just a lack of composure on the feet under fire. Yes. Right? This goes back to the thing we always talk about. No fighter likes to get hit, but some lose composure and some don't.

It's just part of the human experience. She gets hit a lot, too. She gets hit a lot too. And she gets hit a lot. And so her composure under fire standing is not great. However, you asked about the takedowns. Was she good for one around maybe more? Yes, 3.53 per 15 minutes. She is good for at least one takedown around.

And we have to assume even though Rose's wrestling has become also very good, as far as it's gonna take her to her back, it's what she does with it. Can she keep her there? Can she start landing off? Let me just say this. It'll be the real question about the takedowns is one, obviously, can she get them? I'm going to assume over time she will get some.

The other question is, does she get them in open space? Does she get them against the cage? I really wonder about that because if she gets them against the cage, that's really going to aid. I think Rose has good defensive wrestling I don't think it's nearly as good from the from the starting point of her back not her feet, right? So imagine you were doing a partner drill one person's on bottom one person's on top and full guard and the the task of the person

In full guard is to then stand. Yes, right. I don't think her stand-up Capacity in that context is nearly as good as it was along the fence line. Her fence defensive wrestling I think is actually a little bit better. So that will be the key. So let's posit a scenario. Let's posit a scenario where Esparza is able to get the takedown relative to her average, so at least one around. And then I wish they had like average control time, but we don't have that.

But the other one I would say is, and then where is it? I bet you Richard Mann has it. He's probably sitting all over that good shit. Just hiding that shit, bitch. But what I'm saying is, if we have that in play, you're going to have, there's a very good chance you're going to have a new strawweight champ. I honestly think people, and by the way,

shout out to Dan Tom over at MMA Junkie, who is just a phenomenal analyst, does consistently great work. You know, of course, no two people always agree on things, but I usually find myself nodding at a lot of what he has to say. He has outright picked Esparza.

If you've not read it, you don't have to agree. I'm not asking everyone to buy in, but he makes a very, very compelling argument that you should take seriously. Esparza does not have the game that Rose has, but we're not asking about that. But does she have the game that Rose is the most vulnerable against? That's the key question. And can she, and then once she's able to make it work, getting her down, okay, not against the fence, what can she do in that context?

Then what can she do? We shall see. But I think people are sleeping on Esparza's chances here a little bit. Okay, but let's be fair. Before this win streak's been great. But like we mentioned on Wednesday, there's been some split decisions. There's been some, when there's a split decision, sometimes it's bad judging. Sometimes it's because it's close.

She's fighting fucking Marina Rodriguez. Sometimes it's a little uneven in your performance. It can be different things. But here's the point. If I didn't see the most recent one, Yao Shan'an, who she finished, and she finished violently. And the motor, I mean, look, her motor's always there. She's somebody that's going to maul you and wear you down. Like, I liked watching Rose, the UFC countdown made Rose rewatch that fight with Pat Barry next to

her in the living room. And, you know, I like, you like to see some of the natural reactions there. And they both just kept saying, you know, we thought we had this easily, but what Esparza does is she forces you to eventually quit. She just, you know, she aims at that, at that spot in the Death Star, that one shot you can hit hit and she just keeps Going at it until you quit like the rose from 2014 could get suspect in that I don't think modern-day Rose can though and if I didn't see the young Sean on finish Luke I don't know if I'd be giving as far as a much chance at all But that does show me that she has not only I mean She's got a lot stronger if you look at her build and And she's still going to be able to push that pace.

And now she can finish you on top if you're not great down there. So I'm going to give her that finisher's chance. That's why the odds were they at. That's why some people are picking her. But at the end of the day, though, Luke, for as much as they've grown, Rose has grown to be, like, great. Like, super elite. Like, all-time great in some ways of looking at it. I don't think Esparza's on that same level or really all that close, even though what

you're saying, it may not matter because if she has the game that taps at Rose's most vulnerable areas, then it won't matter, right? Styles make fights. I don't think you can crack Rose anymore. I think she's too battle-tested, Luke. I don't think you can break her like that. I'm going to read these names to matter, right? Styles make fights. I don't think you can crack Rose anymore. I think she's too battle tested, Luke. I don't think you can break her like that. I'm gonna read these names to you, okay? Zhongwei Li, Zhongwei Li, Jessica Andrade, and then a loss to Jessica Andrade, and then

Ioana Janjacek, right? These are all excellent fighters. Truly, truly very special talents. But which of them has a traditional wrestling background and a traditional wrestling attack in MMA? Certainly not in J-Check. I would also argue Andrade is not that way. And neither is Jean Wiley. Carla Esparza has

many known documented limits. No question about it. She does not have the overall ability of Rose. No question about it. But the unique threat that she presents is a genuine problem for Rose Namibian. Okay, but two counter things to that.

One, Rose did face a wrestling heavy Zhang Weili in the rematch. Yeah, but okay. And it was this tactical fight, okay? Yeah, sure, that's fine. But two, even though I agree with you that this fight could end up being more competitive than most people think because of exactly what we're saying. The thing that Esparza does best might be the one opening where you can compromise or challenge Rose the most. We're still banking on the idea that Carla can basically make Rose quit.

You know what I'm saying? That can either beat her into giving up her back or can wear her out to win a decision or can outright finish her. Rose ain't that person anymore, Luke. That's the thing, though. It's not like we're saying, okay, Maybe a submission happens and you get caught looking at caught She's gonna have to beat the fight out of the champion Bruce just went through hell with and Raj in the rematch She you know she's been in these five round thrillers with you wanna and then Whaley in the rematch

As far as not been on that same level you're not gonna do with the method of attack because I don't think For as far as it'll win. She's gonna going to break her. What's that got to do with the method of attack? Because I don't think for Esparza to win, she's going to have to break Rose. I don't think she can. She doesn't have to break Rose at all. She just has to slice her open. She doesn't have to break anything. I think she'll need more than just a cut or a round in which you score it for her because she was dominant on top. She's going to need more to win this.

Yeah, she has to do the best she's ever done. I would agree. Yeah. But honestly, I wouldn't say that two back-to-back wins over Zhong Wai Li, two back-to-back fights, one of them being a redemption win against Andrade and then you and Jay Chak. As good as what Esparza has done,

it's tremendous, but it doesn't match that. But dude, it's not... But she beat Rodriguez. She beat Genji Roba, Grasso, Watterson, Rodriguez, and Yan Xiaonan. If I took away the name of the person who won, and I told you that is their five-fight win streak, you'd be like, yeah, that motherfucker is good. Dude, so I just feel like I get the point.

There's been a level at which Rose has been tasked to fight that she has not only which by itself separates her from Carla, but she has risen to the occasion in almost all those scenarios save for the first Andrade fight. Absolutely.

There is no argument. Absolutely. I just don't, I'm going to say this, and I think, to answer the question, I'm going to pick Rose. I'm going to pick Rose. But this one, you've got to watch through your fingers a little bit. Carla Esparza is being underrated because subsequent to their last fight, she has not had the decorated return in many ways that Rose has, and the fight game fans don't like her as much.

What the fuck does any of that have to do with her double leg in the center of the cage? Nothing. Nothing the double leg couldn't figure out, I'll tell you that much, but they do have to be on the feed at certain key times. I think Rose is going to piece her up. Before we get there, though, in the final prediction, you chatted with Rose Namiunas, of course, youtube.com slash morning

combat can get you all our great bonus chats with the likes of, I don't know, Juliana Pena, Michael Chandler, of course, youtube.com slash morningcombat can get you all our great bonus chats with the likes of, I don't know, Juliana Pena, Michael Chandler, Kayla Harrison. How about Rosanama Yunus talking about what techniques will be needed to get past this Barza here and this rematch? God, you're stupid. Stop sitting on your aeroplane points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide.

So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. This is fun. What are we doing? This is a very good show. Yeah, I think it's always been sort of,

it's been pretty organic, I would say. There's been, I've had to to i've just been kind of like i think a lot of fighters i would say we're all just kind of figuring shit out on the fly as far as like uh there's no rule book to like this the sport is still evolving and still you know new things are coming up all the time so um i think that just with my taekwondo background it sort of evolved and then and then along the way this journey i've i've come across just i've um uh crossed paths with so many different people that has like sort of just it's like it's like making gumbo you know what i mean it's just like you just kind of make it as you go along and you just kind of add

new flavors to it and so this is kind of what I came up with. It's like, yeah, so there's a certain structure to how, like, I know this works for my style. I know this works for my body type. And then it's just like kind of trial and error and like adding things as we go along. Very good chat with Rose right there, Luke. It's a redemption angle at the end of the day. I think she's the better, far better fighter who can no longer be pushed and bullied in those same ways,

even with the style contrast here. So not only am I picking Rose to win, I think she gets the rear naked choke. I think she goes full circle and beats Carla the same way she got beat. It's going to take, obviously... You love pro wrestling. I like a good story.

I like a good feeling on the inside. Are you the guy who watches all the porn stories up front, like the pizza delivery and fixing the plumber and stuff? You're like, I need that first before I can get in the mood. Wow, wow. All right, so Luke, I think it's gonna take her being on her back at times, but she's gonna figure out how to reverse that, Luke I think her jujitsu is is far ahead of Carlos and

You're gonna see what happens here Luke. I think as far as is gonna give her a hell of a fight I just don't know if it's gonna be enough Each round to to put Rose out of the fight such that she can't figure it out later in the fight So around three, round four. But I think Esparza is going to – Rose has her hands full. I really believe that. Big night for Trevor Whitman once again, who will be in Gaethje's corner, will be in Rose's. Remember that fight card last year?

He had those two and the Woodley fight on the same night. Yeah. Must be a nice paycheck after a loaded weekend. I hope. He deserves it. Coach, well done there. Luke, Michael Chandler, Tony Ferguson, lightweight, we expect all action. We talked Wednesday about the fears of exactly where Tony Ferguson is at.

You can check out our bonus video as well, reacting to Tony's comments about Dana White and fighter pay and all that. But that's not gonna matter when they touch gloves, Luke Thomas. Michael Chandler, minus 380, your betting favorite. Tony Ferguson, plus 290. Luke, we got some sound with Michael Chandler about what he has to do here in this matchup.

Let's toss to that. Then we'll break down who wins and why. Not always. It's definitely not always the best path to victory. You know, I mean, granted, you know, when we talk about the Justin Gaethje fight, which went down as fight of the year and hopefully makes it into the Hall of Fame in the fight wing sometime soon. I think I was caught up in the moment, man. You put any human being in the middle of Madison Square Garden with that many screaming fans and you look at your opponent with cross-eyed and on roller skates after you get them hurt.

You start smelling blood and you throw caution to the wind. I couldn't hear my coaches. Couldn't hear anything. Don't remember much about the fight. So it just, I was an autopilot and luckily for me, autopilot is is wildly entertaining and indomitable, but no, I think you'll see, yeah, I've shown shades of a, you know, a smart and sharp composed and confident, more veteran. And I think you'll see. I've shown shades of a smart and sharp, composed and confident, more veteran. And I think you'll see that on Saturday, next Saturday night, May 7th.

But when I smell blood, I'm coming for the finish. Absolute alphas right there. Well, there was an alpha on screen. I can agree. I did see an alpha. Luke, the main point of Chandler's answer there was he knows he probably should fight a little bit more poised and controlled, knowing the advantages he believes he'll have in every category here against Tony, then the fighter we saw who was balls out in his last two.

Let me ask this question because it relates to the question you asked, the one, the debate we had about Gaethje and Oliveira up front. Would you agree in this particular case, because Tony is, is Tony, very unorthodox, you know, creates a lot of defensive vulnerabilities, but it creates a lot of offensive, fantastic conditions for him. Does, in this case, Chandler need to be what I'm prescribing for Gaethje, which is you have to be attack, you have to be offensive, but you've got to be real disciplined with that attack. I agree, because if you're asking me, could he go balls out like he always does and beat this version of Tony Ferguson, yeah, you can also argue that going balls out,

because Tony does fight in such an unpredictable style, could leave you open to mistakes. You don't want to make a mistake against Tony Ferguson. He can't get on you and end it that quickly. I do agree, though. Look, be poised, be calculated. Look for the big counter shot because we know that Tony is just part of who he is, man. He welcomes danger, sometimes too much.

He puts himself in spots where he's able to take your biggest shots so then he can pull out a shrimp roll, an Imanari, whatever you guys are getting in your bento boxes these days, Luke. Masakazu Imanari is who it's named after. It does come down to how much can Tony, who seems to be mentally refocused and he's angry, and he said a year off, but yet, like you said, he's got some gray, he's got the hair lines going. I mean, he looks like a warrior who's been through the shit.

He is. He has been. How much can he turn back? There's levels of turning back the clock. A win here, the crowd would go apeshit, and it's in play. He can win this fight. He's that good of a fighter, but Luke, how much damage is too much? Man, this is gonna be, this is gonna tell us, because

Chandler, if nothing else, dishes it out. But I actually, people think we're dismissing Tony's chances. We are acknowledging Tony's difficulties given the larger circumstances, right? He is 38 years old. He is coming off of a string of three losses. Obviously against very good guys, but a string of three losses. He has absorbed a lot of damage. That fight against Gaethje was uniquely brutal, right?

These things can't count in his favor. They just, they do not correspond to success by themselves. However, BC, you would also agree that Michael Chandler, while I would probably favor here, and I do think is favored, what the fuck are you doing

with this Mission Impossible bullshit in the middle of my point? Can you be polite to Ashley? She just gave... I'm not mad at Ashley. You're just, you're like, you lit a firecracker and then a series of dominoes fell. Jake Von Amsterdam

stands up with a camera for what fucking reason I don't know. Ashley is switching out Apple boxes with you. I just wanted more coffee. I just wanted more coffee. Why is he filming that? I don't know. I don't direct this show. Oh my god.

I'm like, what the fuck? I'm looking at the side of my face and there's just action. Our life is a documentary, okay? I see that. I see that. What are we talking about? I don't fucking know. Oh, yes. The only point I'd raise, quickly to sum it all up, Michael Chandler should win this fight and probably will win this fight.

But Tony Ferguson's open style of offense and his ability to catch people with it, if Michael Chandler is really not minding his P's and Q's, this is an open opportunity for him. Michael Chandler is there. Throughing his P's and Q's. This is an open opportunity for him. Michael Chandler is there through his aggression. He creates openings. It's simply the way that it goes. He is so much more clever about it.

Go back to the body kick and the stance switch. He hit against Benson Henderson on his way out the door of Bellator. Obviously, the look high, look low, switching up the stance to catch Dan Hooker. Dude, he is very, very crafty. But if the fight goes long at all, he will relax those standards. And that is really the task for Tony Ferguson. As you finish your whatever this was. BC's like, hey, can we stage a high school play to my left while the show is on?

What are we doing? We'll be doing Our Town at Summerstock this year. Yo, I want to see Taming of the Shrews. Yeah, wow. Wow, I'm drinking this black too, Luke. Okay. I bet you are. If Tony Ferguson is able to pull off this type of emotional dramatic victory, is the

most likely scenario when Chandler takes him down or knocks him down? See, I think if I'm Chandler, you... And Chandler in top position, are you vulnerable against the submission ability? Because Ferguson can pull shit out of nowhere. Yeah, yes and no. I don't know that Tony can submit Michael Chandler. I mean, yes, Michael Chandler could be submitted, but you've got to remember,

Eddie Alvarez had Chandler's back for a long time in their rematch. His neck is just a... It's big. And the big one I would go back to is, who is Bellator's version of Charles Oliveira? It doesn't quite line up, but the closest thing, or at least the old version of Charles Oliveira.

No, it'd be Goichi Yamauchi, who has a ridiculous guard. He has a super good guard. And Chandler was able to fight him inside of the guard without getting submitted. It didn't create for the most excitement, but he can do it. He can avoid the submission. However, however, that's not the point. The point is, could Ferguson use it to create a scramble? Could he use it to create a reversal, right, where he now gets on top or then he can get to the back? He can create back exposure. That to me is very much in play. But by itself, submitting him from guard, unlikely.

Give me Chandler. Give me a third round TKO, Luke. I hope Tony doesn't get hurt. I would pop just as anyone else would for a Tony resurgence here. I've really no idea what to expect except for feeling that dread, as we talked about the other day. What do you see? Yeah, just as a disclaimer, you should not listen to my predictions because they're not very good. But again, to the best of my assessment, I'm probably

going to go Michael Chandler. I'm not going to go as late as you. I'm going to say that he actually gets a stoppage here in the second round. It could be a ref stoppage where there's nothing to think about, dude. We haven't even talked about this. Does the ref go into this fight? And I know what they're supposed to do, which is take all these things neutrally, but they're not supposed to take it neutrally. If you were the referee in the Evander Holyfield, Vitor Belfort boxing match, you're not gonna treat Evander like he's 25-year-old Evander. God, I forgot that happened. You're referencing it so quickly, I forgot it even happened.

Yeah, and I'm not here to say that this is, that Tony Ferguson should be compared to Evander. Not even close. That's not what I'm saying. He's still a top-10 ranked fighter. But what I am saying is, if the abuse starts to get bad and if it goes downhill, these are big ifs.

By the way, Tony Ferguson can deal too, but we're operating under the assumption that it's going bad. Does the referee intervene a little earlier? Because he is a 38-year-old fighter, and he's coming off three losses in a row. Like, if you're the referee,

that might be in play too. So I'm gonna say second-round win, Michael Chandler. Chandler's dangerous, but he's dangerous to himself. So that's always something to think about as well. Oh, just want to note this, too, but this should be pointed out. A lot of talking, a lot of chatting. What's going on here? I know.

Is this camera guy doing his own podcast over here? I mean, what's going on? This is called the Whisper Podcast. It's actually the most popular one in this building. 4.98 strikes of sore per minute for Michael Chandler, 3.78 for Tony. Both of those are high, but Michael Chandler does take on average more damage. We gotta keep the show moving, Luke, because we got big business. Hey, by the way, we had a reigning and defending UFC champion right there yesterday.

We sure did. Yesterday. And it went great. More to come on that. Luke, anything else on this fight card? We hit up the storylines on Wednesday. Do you want to make any picks? Do you want to circle in

on one bout above all else that'll tell us something important? No. Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's keep the show moving. Okay. Big Time Boxing

is also back this Saturday to Zone Pay-Per-View. They've gone full-on into that area, and Canelo Alvarez is back after the one-off with the PBC to fight Caleb Plant.

He'll move back up to light heavyweight this Saturday, T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas against Dimitri Bivol. If you don't know anything about Dimitri Bivol, he is your unbeaten WBA 175-pound champion from Russia. He's going to have a four-inch high advantage, a two-and-a-half-inch reach advantage against Canelo. He's 31 years old like Canelo in his absolute prime. But Luke, the key thing I've been talking about this week, nobody looks

good against Dimitri Bivol. So like of all the options Canelo had, we rightfully praise him for going out of his way to take on this super difficult fight against one of the best pure boxers in this game who controls distance and no one, win or lose, he's never lost, but no one looks good against him. Dude, this has like kind of high trap fight potential.

And nobody's fucking noticing or caring at this point. We did say that about Dillian White and he just got fucking smoked. So why is this different? Because I asked certain things of Dillian White that just wasn't there on this day. Like I knew he was gonna try to push a pace, which would be his best chance to win. He has punching power, but he was gonna have to get off combinations and shots to make it a brawl. And he just was overwhelmed by the gap in technique.

Also he was the smaller of the two. Canelo here was the smaller of the two. He kind of froze too to some degree. But B-Vol Luke is huge amateur background. He's born in Kyrgyzstan when it was under Russian control. And I believe his parents are of Moldovian and maybe Korean descent. And he is two-time amateur world champion. But he boxes from the outside.

Great jab. Statistically, lands the most jabs per round of anybody that CompuBox counts in the entire sport, but doesn't put himself in places to get hit. Nope. At all, really. You know what I mean? Fair to say. He has a very refined, very effective, but very basic offense.

So when we're talking about, well, maybe Billy Joe Saunders can kind of slow down the fight and do certain things to Canelo. Maybe Caleb Plant with the quickness can outwork him. This is a different what if, meaning this guy's going to have to do something that Canelo's never seen, right? But let's not forget, Canelo's moving up in weight and fighting a natural light heavyweight here. Even though B-Ball's not a big puncher, if he can take control of the terms of the fight and keep on the outside, he's so accurate. His combinations are beautiful.

He goes to the body great. And Luke, most importantly in that scenario, is defensively, he's the best fighter in the game statistically. He stands in first place on those CompuBox statistics of fewest punches landed by their opponents and the plus minus thing

that you see in hockey, BoxingCino does that as well in terms of showing you how good your defense is in relation to your offense. He's number one in the game. He's ahead of Fury and Canelo and Lomachenko. He is, B-ball, the most efficient in control of what he's doing out there. And so Canelo's the smaller guy who's gonna have to push that pace, gonna have to be the biggest puncher,

gonna have to get inside and go to the body. But I almost have some weird, even though it was a different scenario, Pacquiao-Ugas feels, meaning it was supposed to be Pacquiao against Spence a couple years back, or last year. You know, Spence pulls out. Ugas was the wrong,

even though Canelo and Pacquiao aren't in the same situation in their careers, Ugas was the wrong, even though Canelo and Pacquiao aren't in the same situation in their careers, Ugas was the wrong guy to fight last minute like that with so much at stake there. He's just too good technically. Is there a question coming at some point? Yeah. This feels like that has that potential. Do you have that same fear?

No, I do not. You think Canelo eventually finds a way in? Here is the basic way I see this fight. Take it for what it's worth, probably little. But the best assessment I can have is everything you said about Bivol is correct. It's a great jab. He's got, I mean, it's just phenomenal. It can do a lot.

Range fine. He can pump it with some power. It can be effective. It can be consistent. It does a lot. It serves a lot of functions. Establishes range, the whole nine yards. But he does not have a lot of creativity behind it.

After that, it becomes a very basic game, a lot of one-twos, one-two-threes. But he is not a razzle-dazzle kind of boxer. Well, he'll throw three, four punch combinations and he'll mix in body shots. I'm not saying he's not a combination puncher, but there's nothing especially creative about them. He's just got hardcore, well-established basics. And that's why he's undefeated and that's why he's good. Please don't make sense.

When I say basics, people think that means bad. No. No, it means the fundamentals. It means everything about him is very sharp. But there's just not a whole lot to that.

I think a guy like Canelo, you marvel at his power, you marvel at the fact that he's never been knocked down. I mean, a fucking rock chin. But the thing that I think gets lost in all of it is, dude, he is one of the smartest fighters that we have. Maybe Bud Crawford's number one, you know, but Canelo, not talking about pound-for-pound rankings, but just who is creative and sharp and incisive.

Canelo is a fucking genius. I mean, he figures out how to get inside eventually on everyone and get them the hell out. That's right. So what do I mean? I think he's going to have to get inside eventually on everyone and get them the hell out. That's right. So what do I mean? I think he's gonna have to rally in this fight a little bit, because I actually think that Bivol's jab to start is gonna be a major problem for him, as it is from all the guys that Bivol has literally ever fought.

No one's ever really figured out a way to work around at least for enough to get the W. So I think Canelo's gonna have to fight out of a deficit, but a guy as creative and clever and sharp, by the way, remember Eddie Reynoso, creative and clever and sharp, they are going to have, I think, by the mid-rounds, that fight is gonna turn. And I think in the end, it's gonna be Canelo, which is fucking crazy to say, but I think Canelo's actually gonna win a decision here pretty cleanly. Wow.

All right, I talked to both Canelo and Bivol. Canelo compares Bivol to a mixture of Sergey Kovalev, which is the last time Canelo fought at this weight class, three years ago when Canelo won the WBC title by knockout and then vacated it. But Kovalev used the jab to kind of outbox Canelo. And it worked until it didn't, but it did work. Until it didn't, but some people had Kovalev ahead

or even at that point. And Golovkin, because even though Golovkin's a much bigger puncher, Golovkin knows how to use distance and technique like Bivol to set up his punches. Bivol not as devastating against other light heavyweights as a puncher, but let's also not forget

like Canelo's moving up in weight again and he's only fought one guy at 175 and that was Kovalev who can crack, but didn't go for it in that fight. Really just fought safe and conservative. At some point, Luke, Canelo's going to have to hit a wall or meet a guy with just big pop where he goes, I can't get through that. But, dude, he's not putting limits on himself. So let's go to Canelo right now, on which I asked him, you already talked about maybe going up to cruiserweight.

And something we can get into in a minute, even talk about maybe fighting at heavyweight for the title against ucic when will the wall hit you when will enough be too much where you feel like you know this powers is stopping you from winning ah no i don't remember never never in my life one time when i when i fought when I fought the brother of Koto, made me like a little in my legs, but I don't feel anything in my head, so maybe. That was actually Canelo talking about whether he's ever been hurt, Luke. He said, I asked him specifically about Triple G

as the follow up and he was like, no, no, I don't remember, never been hurt. Only he referenced that 2010 hook from Jose Miguel Cotto. But the other answer that I was trying to tee up there is Canelo just says, look, there's no limits, man. There's no limits. And it's like, you love that about him? But eventually he's going to meet somebody who either punches too hard or can control

the terms of the fight too much that like watching old Pacquiao trying to rally against Ugas and it was an uphill battle. Again, this is not old Pacquiao, it's Canelo. But dude, this guy can hold the fort down. This guy's ready to go 12 rounds with you. This is why I take that seriously because again, you go to the Kovalev fight, dude, if that, I mean, who's to say what would have happened had the knockdown stoppage not happened? You know, it did and it did for a very good reason.

But to BC's point, up until that fight, dude, Canelo was losing. He was losing that contest. Now that's not so much, maybe you could say that with Billy Joe Saunders and some other ones, but like, there's been a lot of times where I've seen, I thought Erislandy Lara was beating him, you know? I thought he beat him, yeah. I was like, you know, and what I'm pointing out is Canelo courts danger not just in a theoretical sense, in a literal sense.

He's down on the cards. He's going to a bigger weight class. He is, you know, can't find an opponent who's on the move or whatever. He really embraces it and yet, with the exception of fucking Mayweather, he problem solves around it. This is why I go back to it. It's like with a guy as good as B-Vol, but as conventional as B-Vol, it is very difficult for me to believe a guy this smart and Canelo can't figure that out.

I think he does. Well, I did ask him about constantly challenging himself and I think he gave me probably the best answer that sums it up right is he has to do this to get the adrenaline rush. As much as we wanted to see him against Benavidez at 168 or Charlo moving up, that doesn't move him as much. It's taking these challenges that produces the best versions of him that we've ever seen and it's admirable. But again, one of these days he's gonna run into a challenge too far.

Now for B-ball to be that challenge though, Luke, he's gotta be offensive. If there's any criticism of B-ball, it's that he's too safe and too willing to fight people at distance and control those terms. Obviously, it's up to Canelo to take away those terms. If Canelo can meet him on an equal ground, Bivol has to show an offensive spark to him that we haven't really seen out of him. I asked him that. I said, sometimes you fight too safe. Can you fight anti-safe in the moment, the moment if you need to against Canelo? Let's see what he said. Sometimes if you are doing good something, and this is fine to win the fight, you should do it again. And sometimes it's not enough and you have to create something new something you have to

take something from your deep you know and show it in the ring and some opponents do it with you yeah when you have to show more. And I think Canelo, this is that fight where you have to show all of Dimitri Bevel. Luke, he's willing to show all of it for the first time. He said he's inspiring, he's had to. I asked him if he's ever had to show all of it before in a pro fight in this interview, and he said, not yet. Do you believe enough that he knows enough of what showing it all looks like and feels like that if he gets to that level and he's got to go for it against Canelo, that A, he can do it and be effective with it and that it will have any impact on Canelo?

If we see as offensive a version of B-Ball as we have ever seen, could that be too much? Is that going to be the wall that Canelo can potentially hit? Yeah. Yeah, that could be. I just feel like what I really have to see to make me think that Bivol has a chance is not to see a good range and a good movement. He's got to stick it to Canelo, right? That's the thing that Kovalev couldn't quite get over the hump with. Kovalev couldn't commit to throwing the right hand, which would get him those moments because he knew he would get countered in his championship. Right, and Callum Smith didn't have anything for him in that regard. Neither did

Billy Joe Saunders in that regard, and neither frankly did Caleb Plant in that regard either. No one really has been able to, Triple G was like the only one you ever saw like really whip his head or whatever, even if he says it doesn't hurt him. At least these were powerful impacts that clearly had a demonstrative effect. But you've always got to get a little bit of that, dude, because honestly, without it, I don't

see how he wins. So the point I'm trying to make here is, you know, could that cause trouble? Yeah, for sure it could. For sure if he's got a real offensive mind and these punches are having, like, imagine, like, you know what I've never really seen? I've never seen Canelo's single eye swell up. You know what I mean? Swell up the face, dude.

Like, do something to him to make him really be like, oh, shit, I am in another weight class. It's because we're not seeing people consistently sting Canelo. That's right. We're seeing jabs. We're seeing body shots sometimes. And in part because, dude,

Canelo's head movement and his ability to roll, he's incredible. But if Canelo, especially in the first half of this fight, if when he does attempt, I think Canelo's gonna be willing to give up rounds to make his reads

like Floyd did. But when Canelo starts to make his move, if he's met with stiff, accurate combinations that can end up, Luke, over time producing the swollen eye or the damage that we don't see Canelo ever endure, dude, by mid-round, by mid-fight, you're going to see some major adjustments needed to be made, and the excitement is going to go up. Luke, I'm telling you, dude, I'm picking the upset here. Wow.

I think B-Ball can do this. I think he's better than we've seen. And Luke, he's not somebody that hasn't beaten anybody. He beat Joe Smith Jr., who's now a champion and gonna fight

Better Beef to unify. He beat all the guys, former champion Gene Paschall. He beat all the guys in a row who was available to him that you would want him to fight. And again, sometimes it's boring, but dude, he's always in control of these fights.

I think he's one of those guys that when pressed, you're gonna see another level. It's gonna have to be by decision. He's not gonna knock Canelo out. There's a long history of people getting the, you know, feeling like they've outboxed Canelo and then the judges say otherwise. I just think this is that reach too far.

Remember when Adesanya was saying, in the UFC, I'm going to move up. I can move up to light heavyweight and take the title from Blachowicz. And I think I can even go to heavyweight and fight Jon Jones for the heavyweight title. And we were like, I think maybe he could. And, you know, maybe he still could. But, like, maybe he could. And then, you know, he went up Luke and he got humbled.

And it wasn't domination, but he got humbled. I think Canelo's going to get humbled a little bit here. Can't say that's wrong. Can't say that's crazy. Can't say that's crazy I disagree. I think canel is gonna figure out a way but The later already split later later rounds are gonna be very telling the early rounds I'll say this would you agree if be Vols not winning the early rounds? That's a bad sign. Yes. Yeah Yes, so let's see if people starts winning the early rounds. That is how it kind of got to win seven rounds

So he's got to make sure. He counts them early. Three or four of those are coming in the first half. That's right. It's a good point. So let's pay attention to that. But it's up to Canelo to problem solve. We'll see if he can do it.

Minus 550. Canelo, right now your betting favorite, Demetri B-Vol, plus 400. So I think that's. Which in boxing is. That's close. That's pretty good. That's close for Canelo. The only people that had closer odds against Canelo were Golovkin, who was favored in one but not the other of their two fights against him, and Danny Jacobs was just a small underdog

against him. And look, Golovkin's the only one to ever really have major success against Canelo outside of Floyd. And Danny Jacobs did push him to a loss on the scorecards, 7-5, 7-5, 8-4. I scored that fight a draw. I thought Jacobs was in that fight as a boxer. So when Canelo does fight a certain level of fighter or boxer who has these skills, it's close.

I'm telling you. All right, Luke, let's keep it going here before we land this ship. Showtime this late afternoon from Paris, Luke. Is that, I think, a 4pm Eastern main card time start? Only on Showtime. It's Bellator 280, and it's a rematch for the heavyweight title.

Czech-Congo back at home in Paris. First time he fought Ryan Bader for the heavyweight crown. We saw a no contest, an accidental foul. Now you've got Ryan Bader as a minus 5'10 favorite in this rematch. Czech-Congo plus 375. Luke, decent homecoming

story, I guess, for Congo to go back to Paris and have a chance to fight for a title. He already did go back to Paris and have a chance but lost to Moldavsky, was it, for Congo to go back to Paris and have a chance to fight for a title. He already did go back to Paris and have a chance, but lost, what, to Moldavsky, was it, or Tim Johnson, one of the two that would have given him a shot. Nice story, but this isn't going to be a fight, right? This isn't going to be a fun or competitive fight. This is why Bears got this shit, right? I like how you're selling this to the fans.

This will neither be fun nor competitive. No, no, I mean, the matchup, it is what it is. Do I be right? I don't think- Check Congo's 46. We should be honest with him, too. I don't know how fun this will be. It sort of is a function of Bader's not readiness, per se, but what he's got left. Has he gone...

Because of the losses at light heavyweight, has that affected his stock at his age to the level where... Is he still the best bellator heavyweight? We don't know. Right, so the wins that got Congo here, which are surprising, the ones that are not surprising is he beat Augusto bellator heavyweight? We don't know right so the the winds that got Congo here Which are surprising the ones that are not surprising is he beat Augusto Sakai do it's amazing. I watched Who was his name Mustafa Al Turk? Fight check Congo once in the UFC and then Joe Rogan made fun of their names because they just sounded so crazy

Like I watched Pat Barry versus check Congo live it is fucking remarkableet Congo, who's like, how old is Chet Congo? I think he's 46. Like something, you just can't believe the longevity. But he's consistently won, he's got a lot of Bellator wins. So he lost to Mohamed Lawal back in 2015. Since then he beat Alexander Volkov, Vinicius Queiroz, Tony Johnson Jr., Oli Thompson, UFC vet, Augusto Sakai, top 10 or 15 UFC heavyweight, Javi Ayala, long-time guy who's been around, then Tim Johnson, then Vitaly Minnikov, and then Sergey

Haritonov. He finished with a motherfucking choke. He did lose to Tim Johnson along the way. Dude, that's not bad at all, man. Oh, he's still solid. I cannot believe that. But here's the problem, though. And I don't look at the age as like a major detriment, although he's old as shit, but he's stayed at a pretty high level. Bader's most recent

fight after those light heavyweight losses was against the interim champion, Valentin Moldavsky, and I think if Bader wasn't still gonna be that guy, that would have been the fight that showed us, dude, Bader did what he had to do in that one. He did what he had to do. I'm gonna say this. He's still the Bader. Chet Congo, what he's done has

been impressive, and the longevity is kind of shocking, because I gotta tell you, I left him on the side of the mental road about thinking about him as a relevant heavyweight, probably after that lost to Lawal's like, oh, right, this is this this experiment is over. And here the fuck he is. You just cannot believe it. So I will. You must grant him respect for that. You must grant him. That is a very impressive thing that he's done. The only way Bader should lose this is if he fights like a jackass, which I don't expect that he will, or he has passed it.

Other than that, this is Ryan Bader's fight to lose because it's impressive what Cech has done, but an in shape, still viable Bader at heavyweight should win this one 10 times out of 10. I mean, it's worth watching here for the potential to see in Cech Congo, who we've always respected. I mean, look, I feel like he's, what was his first UFC fight? I feel like it was a long time ago. Actually, that's a great question.

I think it might have been the Mustafa Al-Turk fight. No, I'm wrong. Jesus, he had several before that. Was he fighting as far back as like UFC 60? He made, Jesus, fucking, he made, sorry about that, I know I'm trying to work on that. I'm sorry, BC, I'm trying to be a nice guy. Gilbert Aldana.

Gilbert Aldana, who, by the way, tragically drowned years later. What number card was that? UFC 61. Damn. Then he fought Christian Wellish at UFC 62. Then Carmelo Marrero, who was a pretty good fighter as well,

a good wrestler, UFC 64. Osweiro Silva, he fought Krokop and beat him. I mean, he feels like many UFC generations ago, yet, Luke, if he wins a major, you know, world championship, which this would be, in his hometown, dude, this is gonna be a moment. Yeah, listen to his wins just real quickly. Dan Evanson, Mustafa Alatur championship, which this would be, in his hometown, dude, this is going to be a moment. Yeah, listen to his wins just real quickly.

Dan Evanson, Mustafa Alturk, Anthony Hardonk, a very good striker and now a striking coach. Paul Buentello, Pat Berry, Matt Mitrione, Sean Jordan, Mark Godbeer, Peter Graham, Eric Smith, LeVar Johnson. Then we went to the ones Volkov, Karras. That Pat Brady fight was fucking crazy. Pat Berry. He literally had one of the most exciting UFC fights of all time. Like, dude, give Chet Congo a little bit of respect.

Thank you. Although he has been boring as shit at times. Luke, this co-main event could get interesting here. Yoel Romero was supposed to be fighting Melvin Manhoof, who had to pull out of the fight. Did he stop a robbery? There's something related to that. Somebody tried to carjack him or something, and he held him until the cops got there. I was like, that's the fucking wrong guy to fuck with.

So he's out of this fight, but Easy Polizzi is in. Alex Polizzi, Luke, is a plus 145 underdog. Decent fighter. He's solid against a minus 165 Romero. Luke, against Phil Davis, we saw an old Yoel. Limitations. He's moving back up to this division.

What do you expect to see, though, this time against a less formidable opponent opponent for sure, but not a scrub, you know? It's amazing to me, and you can blame whoever you want for this, but we should acknowledge that there was a lot of hype about Romero coming over to Bellator, and there is virtually no coverage of him heading into this rematch. Now is that because of the nature of the loss to Phil Davis?

Probably. Right. And we didn't get the rumble fight. We didn't get the tournament for Romero. And by the way, I'm going to favor Romero to win here. I think the odds makers do. But is he going to wrestle? He doesn't wrestle.

Well, Polizzi's, I'm not going to say his only way to win, but his best way to win would be through submissions. He has a big submission threat. He's got heel hooks. He's got arm bars. He's got good stuff on his record. Which, you know, Romero is going to be very difficult to submit. So I would favor Romero is going to be very difficult to submit,

so I would favor Romero to win. But at the same time, like, I cannot believe the situation from Romero, you know, has a case against Izzy in their fight to now he's fighting Alex Polizzi in Paris, which is a fine fight. But the fanfare, the lack of fanfare for it is tragic. You're right. I'd still like to see him against Rumble if Rumble's gonna end up coming back, but it doesn't have

that same sex appeal it had when it was kicking off the tournament. I'll say this. I mean, listen, 205's better for him. He doesn't look quite as physically imposing

because he has 20 pounds of fat on him or more, but the point being is I do think it's gonna help with the weight cut. I still think he's gonna be athletic.

I still think he's gonna be able to move well. His defense is pretty sound, man. His defensive wrestling is good. The problem is when he goes into that offensive mode where he's only gonna throw strikes if he feels like he can finish you with it, and his speed is slowly diminishing.

I know he's moving up and away, which offsets that. He's still a good athlete, man. I get that, but if he's not gonna be active, Luke, he's gonna have problems winning rounds in close fights. That's true. And I don't know if they're gonna be that exciting. We kinda need him to impress. But remember, Phil is the ultimate example of shutdown guy.

Oh, absolutely. With his wrestling and his striking. Like, Phil makes it look, frankly, boring, but it's so effective. A lot of people can't do what Phil can do. You were telling me you were into this Lorenz Larkin, Kyle Stewart. Yeah, shouts to Kyle Stewart, who's over there in Paris. Kyle Stewart served in 2-7. I had a lot of friends who served in 2-7.

It's one of the- In the Marines. In the Marines. It's one of the top sort of infantry units that is known to exist. And he fought, he did multiple combat tours, and he's got all kinds of, you know, I love Emoto USMC tattoos. Anyway, you know, I'm always going to have a bit of a soft spot for guys like that. And he, I've been following him on Instagram. I don't follow a lot of fighters. And, you know, listen, he got out of the UFC

and was kind of like toiling on the regional scene. He was in the LFA, but he fought a UFC event in his last fight in New Orleans. But he'd been kind of up and down the regional scene, but he finally put together a pretty decent win streak or win combination. And he got called back up to the big show. He was going to say that if he didn't make it to the big show, he might have hung it up altogether. So he finally got back to Bellator, and then they made this fight on short notice in Paris

against Lorenz Larkin. He just took it. I really respect how he saved this car, not saved the car, but added a decent piece of art, remained for Lorenz Larkin to stay on there, brought himself back to the big show. It's a tough assignment. Let's be honest about it. Lorenz Larkin, again, where was the fanfare from him from UFC to Bellator?

It seems to have evaporated. But he's still a very, very good striker, very good athlete. It's a tough fight for Kyle Stewart. Larkin's a minus 410 favorite. Kyle Stewart plus 310. Do those odds change if Mike Beltran ends up refereeing this? I don't know.

I mean, Kyle Stewart, if for no other reason alone, has a- Wearing Semper Fi clothing. Wearing Semper Fi clothing. Kyle's sponsor is Howitzer clothing, I think. But the point is, if for no other reason, coming in late notice is just gonna make this a really difficult fight for Kyle. And then you add in the fact that Lorenz is a really good striker. Yes.

Lorenz deserves to be favored here. But I like Kyle Stewart a lot, and I hope he does well. PFL back tonight as well, Luke, and in the main event, the face of the franchise, Kayla Harrison, who you also talked to this past week. I don't know if, do we, are we throwing her some Kayla Sun? No, no? We don't have that. Luke,

she's a minus 3,500 favorite against Marita. I will land this play, Maniche, okay? I will. Maniche is like, yo, we gotta get the fuck out of here. I'm like, yo, you're talking to Sully fucking Sullenberger right here, okay? Gonna land this bitch on the Hudson. Her name is Marina

Makna Kina. She's a Sambo champion. She's a Sambo champion. We expect Kayla to absolutely dominate and then talk trash about Cyborg and- About women she can't fight. Yeah, and Peña.

That's not her fault. We've been on the same page. No, you had a great chat with her. I'd love to get her in studio, Luke. Yeah. Okay. I've had her in studio one time before. She's great.

All right. Domination, thank you. Luke, Ray Cooper III, though, who was what? Won two different welterweight season championships and is the defending champion. He's a minus 380 favorite over Carlos Leal, but Cooper missed weight by 4.5 pounds. That's a red flag of all red flags. So that's not a good time to do that. No, that almost certainly says either I have desperately underprepared for this fight.

Sorry, 5.4 pounds. I had that wrong. 5.4 pounds. I mean, you're halfway to the next weight class. I mean, not in his case because he'd be 171.85, but you get the idea. Dude. I've got something to explain to you. Dude, something either went tragically wrong in fight camp, or you have a very bad injury

that you're hiding. Anthony Pettis is back in the lightweight tournament. He'll be taking on Miles Price. Pettis, a minus 305 favorite. And also, Rory McDonald back in the welterweight bracket. John Danaher in his corner. He's a minus 365 favorite against Brett Cooper. Is Brett Cooper going to?

Brett Cooper, Bellator vet. Yeah, he's still pretty good. Okay, okay. Luke, Julia Budd on that undercard against Jennifer Fabian. Rory should win, but, you know. Gleison Tebow's back on that undercard, okay? Thank you. Sweet.

Larissa Pacheco also on the main card. Awesome. Minus 900 favorite. You don't care about that. Can't wait. Nope. All right, Luke. Keep the main card. Awesome. Minus 900 favorite. You don't care about that. Can't wait.

Nope. All right, Luke, keep the motor churning here. How about this for a potential fight announcement? Not only is Alexander Volkanovski your UFC featherweight champion, God, he wants all the smoke, Luke. Max Holloway for a third time as soon as July 2nd, according to reports. I saw Brett Okamoto was all over this. Ariel was reporting it to Luke

Volkanovski Holloway 3. Oh, yeah, we thought we were gonna have it until max had to pull out How about this turnaround for the champ dude? This is like love it. Damn Love it. Let me tell you why I love this fight so much You can say what you want about how the first fight should have been scored and how it was scored You can say the exact same thing for the second time Should you watch it before you say something about the 50 plus one? But what I do want to be if I can make a point seriously for just a second the reason why this fight is so Intriguing to me is because when you think about it

Even though he made the biggest adjustment between the first and the second fight in max Holloway Max Holloway still has the most adjustment that needs to make Needs to make because as good as you may have thought that he fought in the second fight, it was not good enough to get the judges to be convinced. And so now he is quite literally down 0-2. Why do I bring all of this up? Because what I love about this is Volkanovsky basically told me in New York, on the other side of the water where you're going to land that plane, Sully,

he told me quite explicitly, like my style encompasses, I can do a lot with it. He didn't make a whole lot of changes from the first to the second fight. And I don't think he'll make a whole lot from the second to the third. Some fine tuning, but not much. It is Max and his team that have the most, the largest creative challenge here. And let me say this. I think people have slept on the fact that Gracie Technics and Ivan Flores, his guys, they don't ever do interviews. They don't ever seek the limelight. they are some of the smartest fighters and fight coaches in the world to the point where Eugene Bearman has very much tipped his cap to how smart they are. This is on Max, not just to win it, but he has the creative challenge here to figure

this out. It is actually Volkanovski who can play prevent defense if he wants. Max has to solve this riddle. Damn, I can't wait for this. So the cool part about this fight, it was happening so quickly. And we saw that board over Dana White's shoulder on that Ryan Clark podcast. Now Ariel's saying maybe that was filmed a few weeks ago. So, you know, this didn't look like it was in the plans for International Fight Week.

Now it is. I don't know what that means for, you know, Hamzat or even Kananir Adesanya, which I think is still being targeted for that date. But Luke, here's what's great about it. Volkanovsky is just coming off the best version of him we've ever seen against the Korean zombie, where he just took it to another level. Two fights ago, Max Holloway had the same type of performance against Calvin Cater, where if this third fight was happening directly after the Calvin Cater fight, where Holloway

is just flowing and setting records for punches landed and all that. How much differently do you think about who potentially wins this third fight because Max had that fight of the year contender in between against Jair Rodriguez where even though he won the fight and did brilliant things to do that, he was in a fight. I mean, we haven't seen him in that type of fight in a while. Yeah, listen, Max has a lot of wear and tear. So do you think that changes the way you look at it? If this was after the Cater fight, would you be thinking differently? Yeah, I think we've made the point, like, it has a little bit of Triple G Canelo in it,

where you could argue, maybe you thought Max did better the second time, but the point is there was a draw in the first case of the Canelo Triple G, then Canelo won, and now we're in the third one. But by the time you get the third one, Triple G is much older than he was in the first case of the Canelo GGG, then Canelo won, and now we're in the third one, but by the time you get the third one, GGG is much older than he was in the first one. I guess, of course, both have aged the same, but one has aged into a prime, one has aged out of it. That would be the difference.

You'd have to ask yourself if that's the case with Volkanovski and Max. I would not think so. I don't think it operates along those lines. But I do think that there is no way to say anything other than Max has taken a lot of damage in his career. The second Poirier fight is a fucking brutal affair. And certainly this last one against Jair. But he takes damage and wins.

The Ortega fight in which he- Yes. Well, Ortega took the worst damage. Obviously, and that's how the finish happened. What I'm saying is Max, even against Aldo, he had to walk through some huge- Yes, so Max has been extremely resilient. Please don't misunderstand me. He is a live, I don't know if he's a dog or not, but I mean, he is very much in play to win this contest. But if I am asked to draw one clear distinction between them,

it is that the amount of damage Max has taken over the course of his career, it is a potential difference maker in ways it is not for Volkanovski. I don't want to hold that against Max too much because styles make fights. Your motivation might be different. You would want to have the same energy, but your motivation might be different against

Yair Rodriguez than in a third fight with Volkanovski. The reason why I have so much confidence in Max regardless is the changes he made stylistically in the second fight showed me that he realized he's fighting a different animal. He realized he was going to have to try to think like this different animal, and the way Max was able to give me a chance watching it live, going, damn, I think Max just won that,

showed me that he can play chess with Volkanovski. I don't know if he's- Yes, he can. I don't know if he is as good, and if he ends up losing three in a row, it's like, what are we gonna say? Volkanovski's, you know, he's the better man. This is what Max is up against.

The first time he had the lowered stance, and he went after Volkanovski, couldn't quite catch him. In the rematch, he stood tall and waited for the pressure, and had, I thought, a little bit better success, certainly in that first round, but not enough over the course of the fight. He has to have a strategy, not only enough to make impact early, he has got to find a way to win rounds late. That has been a bit of a problem for him.

Yes, but what about this wild card? This is the most offensive we've seen Volkanovski in terms of intention. In terms of intention, I wanna show you that I'm well-rounded, I wanna show you that I'm a finisher, not just a five-round master. It could be a different guy. That's why when you have these great rivalries, and this is a weird one, right, because, again, the one guy won twice,

but obviously there's disputed scorecards in there. When it can happen over different eras of the same era but different chapters and they're different fighters and there's different stakes, I mean, this is going to be a, this, this, this, even if Alex gets three wins, this is going to be a memorable rivalry historically. Like this will, you know, this is, this is gonna be a memorable rivalry, historically. This is very high level stuff, and I'm very much looking forward.

And sometimes, Luke, the third one ends up being crazier because they're a little bit older, or their intentions change, or maybe they're just angry. Remember Marcus bulked up against Pacquiao after feeling like he got- Flatlined him? Yeah, you never know. So that announcement, Luke, should move you. Wrapping up quickly, Cody Garbrandt, Yanni... Hani Yaya,

July 9th, the end of that? God, I butchered that. Hani Yaya? He's still around, Luke. Jesus. August 6th, Tiago... Boy, they gave Cody somebody who doesn't strike at all. No. This is the rehab tour. Tiago Santos, Jamal Hill, August 6th, that movieata. Boy, they gave Cody somebody who doesn't strike at all. No, this is the rehab tour. Tiago Santos, Jamal Hill, August 6, that movie at all?

That's great. That's a very tough fight in either direction. Both guys have, especially for Hill, that's a really big fight. And joining Garbrandt on that July 9 fight night card, Rafael Dos Anjos, currently in the works against Rafael Fazeev. Give me that shit. Give it to me. And then again,

I don't know what card it was announced for, but Saryukian versus Mateusz Giamrot is, and people have argued it's a little bit early in their careers to have them meet.

Yeah, probably it is. The fight's still going to be fucking awesome. You want to do these dead wrongs or just tell these viewers to fuck off? We can do them, but we can do them tomorrow

on the companion, yeah. Yeah, we're doing a fight companion. UFC 274, Canelo Alvarez against Dimitri Bivol. We're doing tomorrow on the companion, yeah. Oh, like live on the companion, yeah. Yeah, we're doing a fight companion, UFC 274, Canelo Alvarez against Dimitri Bivol. We're doing it here tomorrow, so I guess check your local listings on YouTube, right? Yeah. But we will have a post-fight morning combat reaction to Bellator Paris, which goes down 4 p.m. Eastern on Showtime. You wanna watch it for free, go to Showtime.com. Get your 30-day free trial right now.

And then we will give you that post-fight reaction after Saturday night's events as well. So, companion, take a break, do some HQ, write a recap, whatever, freshen up. But then it's right back, MK, instant reaction. Do they pay you enough to work this hard, Luke? Do I look like they pay you enough to work this hard, Luke? Do I look like they pay me enough? We're about to welcome in another special guest in a minute.

Oh, we are, yes. This brand is just- You're gonna land this plane like you said you were? Just going places, you know what I mean? It's great. I love it. One thing more on merch, morningcombat.store. I have gummies to eat.

Live 10, 10% off. You can have gummies to eat. Live 10. 10% off. You can get it. Thank you. For Luke Thomas, for our fantastic staff here, I'm Brian Campbell reminding you

if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. We out.