MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 274 Recap: Oliveira Submits Gaethje, Rose Loses | Bivol Upsets Canelo | Ep. 299

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

After a big weekend in studio, Morning Kombat doesn't stop. The boys recap the massive weekend in combat sports. At UFC 274, Charles Oliveira Submit Justin Gaethje, but lost his title on the scale. Where does his legacy stand? Also, Rose Namajunas lost in a close decision to Carla Esparza. Was she right in being upset with the decision? Plus, Dmitry Bivol upset Canelo Alvarez. What's next for both fighters? 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

oh my god oh my effing god mk is back ladies and gentlemen it is monday the 9th of may 2022 how are you doing welcome to the show i am merely one half of your hosting duo my name is luke thomas i join you from the capital of estados unidos right here in washingtonC., joined by my man who is head to toe in sweats because he's old, because he's washed, and he just loves comfort. He's the Viceroy of Connecticut. He's my friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, B.C. How are you doing, buddy? Hello, Luke. It was great to spend, you know, four or five days from you with you in the beautiful armpit that is Jersey City, and shout out to our great merch master, RJ Dunkelmaker, for sharing

all the smoke jams with us. Luke, I'm 43 years old and I'm wearing a full body matching sweatsuit right now. That's what I'm talking about. Bro, they gave us these things. They're from all the smoke. So there's these gift boxes

that they have. This is what it looks like it's got all this like logoing on the front there are sweats in here like bc's wearing and then the best part is they only made 420 of them and this is the certificate of authenticity this is 418 of 420 bc they're pretty i think that if you read the fine print i think you can roll that certificate up and smoke it i think that's part of the gimmick. But Luke, I have to say this. A lot of MVPs this weekend from Dimitri Bivol to our fans

who sat with us, I don't know, for about eight hours as we did live drunken entertainment. But you know who was the MVP, the real MVP, Luke? Neon Dion the barber from Jersey City's whatever the name of that barbershop is. Etiquette barbershop, excuse me.

Luke, I don't want to brag. I don't want to sound like I suddenly think my shit don't smell. But, dude, I look in the mirror after hanging around with Neon Dion. I look and I feel about 15 years younger, Luke. I'm ready to take over America in fact if if they open the border I'll take Canada too all right hey listen I told my wife I might just start getting my haircuts in Jersey City now the the guy works just a couple blocks from where we were working I mean it's a discount for you bro it's a discount for you dude it's

half off for me yeah it's way cheaper I'll happily do that also you know the best part about Dion was that he also goes by the name Albanian Damien which is just great you know what I'm saying it just works out so well I mean does he have tattoos of dead children hanging on his nipple no but he's you know we he's uh he'd be welcome in the 209 just the same big shout out to Dion big big fan uh big shout out to my wife loved loved the haircut and it was great and he was awesome. And thanks to everyone who watched. Obviously the, you know, listen, that was our first foray into it. Six hours, probably a little on the long side, BC, but nevertheless, people seem to love it.

So shout out to everybody who took some time to watch. I mean, I thought we made a mistake mixing, you know, alcohol with analysis, Luke. But, you know, you, like Sully, you landed that plane in the Hudson and we pulled it off, so congratulations. All right, so on the show today, you guys know what we're going to do. UFC 274 talk off the top. We will talk about some Canelo Bivol as well, and plus there's PFL and Bellator, your questions,

and have you seen this shit. Also, as a reminder here, just for the top of the show, we're going to bring him in in a few minutes. We are going to have Aaron Bronstetter on from TSN. He's going to help us with our UFC 274 analysis. A, he's smart and he has good analysis. B, he's from Canada, so you know he's nice. And

C, he was actually at UFC 274, so he's got some on-the-ground perspective as well. We like to call him, Luke, the Elvis Costello of MMA, Aaron Bronstetter. He's a charm, a charming fellow. I don't know if we like to call him that so much as you like to call him that, but either way, it's fine.

I want to remind everyone, Showtime is the label that pays. You want to get a free Showtime subscription for 30 days? You can do that. You go to Showtime.com. You can sign up there. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go do something else with your life. Reminder, Charlo Castaño 2 this weekend for all the marbles.

That's a huge, huge fight, a huge rematch. That'll be on Showtime. If you sign up for free, you can get it. So keep that in mind. Also, you can, let's see, you can go to, or you can email us, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place if you want to reach the show for dead wrongs, for fan subs,

or just to reach out to our producers if you want to have something to say. Let's see, on top of that, BC, morningcombat.store, where you can get this lovely piece of merch that does not look like the logo of a pornographic website that i may or may not have visited 75 000 times before today bc what else they got on that store you won't catch me in that piece of shit that you're wearing right there but uh everything else we got the best part was okay that's part was i wore it i wore it this morning, and my wife goes, I really like that shirt.

I'm like, she has no idea. Oh, boy. She doesn't know the violence that led to the creation of this shirt. All those times you, yeah, let's just stop right there, Luke, okay? Hey, speaking of partners, Luke, do you know what I have in this bottle right here? What do you have in that bottle, BC? I have the future of your health, Luke, from one of our great partners. We like to partner with some fine Canadians like AB.

We also partner with a great group of people called Athletic Greens or AG1 on that ass, biatch. Yeah, we love it. It doesn't taste super healthy, but of course it is super healthy. Easy to make, easy to go on the travel. BC, what else do you like about AG1? Well, look, I'm not good at taking pills, okay? That's a deal. I'm not good at taking pills okay that's that's a deal i'm not good at taking my vitamins on time uh but i like things like gut health i like things

like more energy so i take one scoop a day every morning i start my day with it it refreshes me it makes me feel clean and when you have a diet that sometimes is as dirty as mine this this is a good deterrent luke this is a better way to do it and start your day, all right? Yeah. It certainly is. And, of course, it can help with gut health, with your nervous system, with immune support, all kinds of different stuff. Yeah.

I mean, it's so easy to use. I can take it when I'm busy on live stream days like right now, and I can take the travel packs like I did in Jersey City this weekend, Luke, to make sure that at least something's going right in my body. And you know what? You talk about losing energy, losing T levels at this age. AG1 is like having a bodyguard, Luke. It's lifestyle friendly.

Whether you eat keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free, it contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals, or artificial anything, while still tasting good. Yeah, I mean, it costs less than three bucks a day, too. I don't think you can beat that because you're investing in your health. And it might even be cheaper than many, Luke, of your habits. Cold brew, vape, you know, we can go on and down the list. I'm not sure if you know what the word verbatim means.

Anyway, taking Athletic Greens is a small micro habit with big benefits. It's the one thing you can do every single day to take great care of yourself. And who uses it right how about 7 000 people who have written five star reviews for athletic greens which is trusted luke by leading health experts including tim ferris and michael gervais and if you can't trust those guys luke right who can you trust all right right now it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition especially heading into the flu or 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. And, you know, to make it easy, AG is going to give you right now for free a one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D in droplet form. It's fantastic. I take it daily. And how about five free travel packs to help you on the road with your first purchase? form it's fantastic i take it daily and how about five free travel packs to help you on the road with your first purchase all you have to do visit the website athletic greens.com

slash morning combat with a k yes again that is athletic greens.com slash morning combat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance all right with that in mind bc let us bring in our guest now this gentleman is a combat sports reporter over at tsn in canada he's been on the show before but only as like a compliment to you or a compliment to me now he is a compliment to both of us that is my friend and yours let's bring him in now mr aaron bron stetter let's see if he shows up on the screen here get him in the three box hey a, Aaron, how are you, buddy? It's the holy trinity of MMA. I got Brian over here, Luke over here, and we're going to get this done. This is going to be a lot of fun.

I'm very thankful that you guys had me on today. You've got clowns to the left of you, AB, and jokers to the right, but here you are, okay? Absolutely. All right, Aaron, before we get started, you were in Phoenix for UFC 274. Your overall impression of the fight week and, I guess, fight night? It was a lot of fun. It was a great fight week.

And, of course, the co-main event soured things a little bit. But if you look beyond that, I think every other fight on that card was very, very good. You know, the heavyweight fight between Blagoi and Rogerio de Lima was pretty good. And the Shogun versus OSP fight left a little to be desired, but we kind of know what we're getting into. That wasn't a great matchup in terms of potential fireworks, but a really solid card all around. Is Shogun the new dad bod version? I mean, I know that's the correct way to pronounce it in Portuguese, but I don't know if I can go my friends over uh at Combatch backstage so I Shogun has uh has been the pronunciation that I've been more familiar with lately one of my favorite production rap groups is the Snow Goons but that's a little

bit different okay let's get this going then uh we'll start with you Aaron we'll pitch the first question to you as our esteemed guest so let's start here if we can with topic number one. All right. So what we have, uh, your main event, Charles Oliveira defeats Justin Gaethje inside of a round, an incredible win streak and incredible finish. I mean, really what he is doing is quite special. I want to get to the broader details in just a second, but Aaron, if I had to ask you just right up front, your major takeaway from what Charles Oliveira did to Justin Gaethje, what would be the number one takeaway? Well, Charles Oliveira is just a brilliant mixed martial artist. I asked him backstage after the fight, I said, was part of the strategy that you would have time to recover if Justin Gaethje, I was asking all these questions

about the X's and O's. If Justin Gaethje knocks you down or hurts you, you can go to your back. You know he's not going to join you there. Does it give you more creative license on the feet if Justin Gaethje is not going to be able to take you down or not going to try to take you down? Are you going to be able to throw a lot of funky stuff on the feet to try to throw him off? And he basically looked at me and said, no, the strategy was just to beat Justin Gaethje. Like, he just comes up with the stuff on the fly. And if you would have gone into the fight with that being your strategy, you would have the same success. But he's just become so good at adapting on the fly to figuring out what his opponents are going to throw at him and finding a way to capitalize on that and to find these little openings and to feel out the rhythm of his opponents.

And that's why I thought Justin Gaethje was going to be the worst matchup for him in the division. Because Justin Gaethje doesn't give you the time to figure that stuff out. But Charles Oliver has become so sharp that he was able to figure it out in two minutes. AB, are we should we start believing that this is now a trap that Dobronk is setting for the rest of the lightweight division, which is go ahead, touch me to the head in the first round. You know, I may even take a seat. I may even, you know, surprise you by hiding the fact that I'm attempting to pull guard on you because I want you to chase me down there.

Do you think that this stretch of all killer, no filler stoppages against the action heroes of our lightweight current generation is going to create a change in how people approach him. Well, what are you going to do to this guy? Like, what's your strategy going to be against Charles Oliveira? Because the closest thing that I can think of is how Paul Felder beat him. You get him on the ground and you just try to stay out of trouble. But right now, he's gotten so much better since that fight. I mean, how long has Paul Felder been retired for? He's been retired for a year. That's how long ago that fight in Detroit was. I just don't know what you do to beat this guy. You know, Islam Makachev is going to be an interesting matchup because he's very technically sound with his takedowns. He's got a lot of

submissions of his own that he can utilize. But do you really want to try to take Charles Oliveira down? Because if he snatches your neck, how are you getting out? I mean, this guy is just so good everywhere now that I just don't know what strategy you would implement to try to beat this guy. Again, I thought Gaethje was the toughest matchup for him left in the division, and he dispatched Gaethje like nobody else has in the past. I'll say this. Two things that stood out to me. Danny Segura had a tweet last night that went viral because I thought it was just so smart. He had sort of noted that if you look at, okay, for example, when Chandler hurt Oliveira, he was legitimately hurt. He was on the ground scrambling because he had his senses rocked but you look at a couple of times especially like

that second knockdown that Gaethje had Charles elected to go to his back when he gets rocked and then goes to his back a lot of the opponents Paul Felder notwithstanding don't even want to follow Danny Segura had described it as the guy is the only guy in MMA who has his own boxing 10 second count before he has to get off the mat he will elect to just go to his back knowing either a he has the advantage there or b no one's going to follow that contrast that would when he dropped someone like Gaethje he went right to his back I mean he he snatched it up with a quickness so he has this weird ability and folks have compared him to Fabrizio Verdum. I actually think it's a pretty good comparison. The other thing I would say is if you watch, like we talk about, oh, Oliveira's striking has come a long way, and it has, 100%.

We already knew his ground game was good. Fellas, his clinch is dynamite, and it's really the thing that binds everything together because when for example he was getting hit with the leg kicks from Gaethje he would then reach out and then grab the the neck or the head of Gaethje to pull him in close and then so Gaethje would have to avoid but then when he pulled away he would get hit with the clean shots on the way out it's this way of combining everything to make all the different parts of his game work so well and so when when guys try to avoid it, either the ground or they're breaking off in the clinch, he catches them with offense all the time. To answer the question you had, Aaron, I mean, who the hell knows?

But my best guess is Paul Felder's success was not an accident. Because you can't resist all the stuff that Olivera is throwing at you. You have to kind of go into it. But of course, easier said than done. Yeah, I just think he's gotten so much better since then too, especially his striking. And even his wrestling has gotten way better. If you watch against Tony Ferguson, he was taking him down with ease. And that second knockdown, like that was a Bennett Brower knockdown when he, you know, got a knockdown against Charles

Oliveira. It wasn't a knockdown. He got basically teeped to the stomach, said, you know what, I need some time to recover. Laid down on his back because he knows that Justin Gaethje is not going to go there. Like you said, and like Danny Segura said, it's basically a 10 count because he knows that nobody's going to follow him to the ground, especially not a Justin Gaethje who I think he knew that he was setting a trap there. Justin Gaethje smartly walked away and tried to get him up as soon as possible, which was the right move. So I just, again, I just don't know how there's a formula to beat this guy.

And I think Islam Makhachev is going to be a really unique matchup if that's what they do next, because Makhachev is just so good with his grappling and his top control and knowing what to do on the ground to avoid trouble from the school of Khabib, the school of Abdulmanap. And that's what I'm really eager to see. I think the big problem, though, for Islam and why I think that he should face Benil Darius first, in my opinion, if I'm going to be the guidance for Islam Makachev, who I'm sure thinks he's good enough to hang with Charles Oliveira at this point in time, he hasn't fought anybody close to as good as Charles Oliveira. And it could be a real rude awakening if he doesn't face some sort of pushback before he gets in there with Oliveira. And I think Benil Darius is a perfect matchup for that reason.

You're right. And the thing that is so dangerous about Oliveira that we just illustrated collectively is that he doesn't need to give you the appearance that he's in control of the fight on his own terms to actually be in control of the fight on his own terms. And that's something, you know, Islam, who's been seemingly going downhill since the beginning, just plowing through people and controlling it. That's why you want to see that matchup. I got a lot of complaints and arguments as to why we won't see that for a while.

But looking back to Olivera here, I mean, you know, Luke and I talked immediately after the fight. I mean, it's just ridiculous how he's able to focus within chaos, how he's able to put away the losing the title on the scales, all of that and make Gaethje look no different than what he did to Poirier before that Chandler before that. But AB, you know me a little bit. You know me a little bit. I love me some Justin Gaethje. And like you, I thought he had the best chance to do this.

But unlike you, I stood on the rooftops and said, damn, this guy's underrated as shit. How come you guys don't realize he's about to be the next UFC lightweight champion? I mean, look, I got no problem eating crow, AB, but I'm wondering how deep I should invest in that crow. Is the glaring weakness of a lack of a competent submission game not only the thing that's holding back Gaethje from fulfilling its potential, but is it actually shit against these elites? I mean, Habib took him from, you might be kicking my leg off to you're tapped out within seconds. And of course we saw Gaethje bringing back the quitter narrative

just to see him tap again. And look, who's not going to tap there against Oliveira. But I missed it i missed that there was this this this this gap in gaethje's game that uh now twice in a row at the super elite level it got exposed um i'm gonna eat the crow here publicly but is it as bad as it looks just in gaethje's uh bjJ against these super elites? Well, it's hard to really tell, right? Because he was rocked by Oliveira first.

It's not like Oliveira just took him down. He got rocked, right? And then you've got a guy like Charles Oliveira on your back. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're Justin Gaethje or anybody in the world. If Charles Oliveira has your neck, you're done. As soon as that fight got to the ground, as soon as he knocked Justin Gaethje down,

I was in the back and I said, it's done. People just looked at me and I'm like, it's done. Like, he's going to find something here because that's what Charles Oliveira does. To me, in my opinion, he's the most opportunistic fighter we've ever seen in mixed martial arts. Nobody is able to find an opening like this guy and capitalize. I mean, hey, the proof's in the pudding. Look at the amount of finishes this guy has. Next finish will be his 20th finish in the UFC. It's a record already, but he'll be the first one to ever hit 20. This guy is just able to snatch things just seemingly out of nowhere, but if you give him

an inch, he's going to take a foot. That's just how Charles Oliveira is. Why is there... So this was... I had been sleeping, A.B., on Oliveira up until this fight. So this is the first fight where I was like, okay, I think Oliveira can really win this because I've been so wrong about him so many times.

I finally had a wake-up call. Now, my theory has always been that because we've seen him in lesser states when he was kind of flaky as a younger athlete, missing weight, not granted it was a 145. This one, I don't even know what to say about it anymore. But certainly a 145, there was no doubt there. It was a difficult cut, and he wasn't managing it properly.

And maybe he shouldn't have been there for a long time. And to your point, Paul Felder and a million of the Max Holloway fights, we'd seen him kind of just crumble before. Now we see him hurt, but resilient to what do you attribute that change? Cause we can talk about all of the changes to his offense, but that's a little something different. Yeah, dude, I have no idea. Like, I just don't know how he's gotten to be so resilient. Like you said, that's the perfect word

for it because he seems to get tagged in every fight and it just seems to make him stronger. It's like the Glover Teixeira school where you think you've got this guy hurt and he's able to just completely flip, turn the table on you. And I don't know where it came from, honestly. Because I've been the biggest Charles Oliveira mark ever. I hate to say that because we're not supposed to be fans of fighters, but I've been saying for eight to ten years that this guy's the most fun guy to watch in MMA. You know, I think he was going to ascend to this level. I don't think anybody did, and I can't say to you with a straight face

that I thought that he'd be an elite champion one day. But in terms of just absolute fun, to me, him and Justin Gaethje were actually my top two. And that's why I love this fight so much. They're my top two fighters to watch from an entertainment standpoint. And I mean, we saw what happened. It's instant fireworks very easily. I thought the best fight of the night. Unfortunately, I didn't get the bonus because Charles missed weight. But I just think that he's become so well-rounded, so elite everywhere. His wrestling has evolved so much. His striking has evolved so much. He was outstriking Justin Gaethje.

Now, I think that part of that is because Gaethje had to worry about the takedowns and worry about the submission game, and that opened things up. But he was outstriking. I think he was clearly outstriking him, too. I know he got tagged, but, man, Charles Oliveira has just become such a complete mixed martial artist, and it's been such a joy to watch. Yeah, the fact that he just moves into the difficulty rather than getting away from it is remarkable go ahead bc i was going to say you know when you when you look at where does olivera go from here that you know it's a

it's a large discussion that's got many branches on the tree whether it's a commercial reward whether it's freaking you know uh islam mahajev right now to figure it out but you know during this run we start going, damn, it's kind of a shame that we never got to see him fight Habib. It's kind of a shame that those two have lingered in and around the same weight class for a long time, but it never happened. But this stretch of dominant finishes, I think,

is bringing that discussion even faster back to the forefront. And certainly, if Oliveira does end up facing Mahachev with Habib in that corner, there you have your, your pre-fight column to write, you know, for every website around the country. But as you look at it right now, do you think we missed it this whole time?

We thought it was Ferguson. That was the one that could, you know, figure Habib out. Is it really Olivera now, at least mentally in the mythical match making sense, because I do not believe we're ever going to see Habib out. Is it really Oliveira now, at least mentally in the mythical match, making sense? Because I do not believe we're ever going to see Habib back.

Do you lament that as much as I do now? Quickly going, damn, that's the fight. That's the one right there. You can find a tweet from me three years ago. And it was when Charles Oliveira was ranked probably 9 or 10. And I said, and Charles, I guess I just want to fight. I don't know what the context was, but I said, I know he's nowhere near the championship right now,

but to me, Khabib versus Charles Oliveira would be an incredible stylistic matchup. And people, of course, were responding like, you're crazy, blah, blah, blah. I mean, again, Charles was like barely in the top 10 at that point in time. But the reason for that is because if you take Khabib's skill set and you take Oliveira's skill set, and we've never really seen Khabib in any real submission trouble, so I can't say definitively that Charles would be the guy to beat him. But man, would that be a fun fight to watch.

I mean, just Khabib's stellar top control, his suffocating ground and pound against a guy as innovative as Charles Oliveira. I mean, we're never going to see it, I don't think. I mean, maybe if Charles beats Islam and then calls out Khabib, who's sitting cage side, he could invigorate Khabib to a point where he has to swallow his pride and come out of retirement to show the young man a thing or two. But I just don't know how we would see that fight. I just would love to see it, though. I mean, just from an X's and O's standpoint, it would be such an absolute delight to see how that would play out. Yeah, November.

Go ahead, B.C. Let me just put a final button on that and say it was November 16th, 2019, when Aaron Broadstetter tweeted, quote, I'm not suggesting that it gets booked or that Oliveira is even close to title contention, but Habiba Oliveira would be an interesting stylistic matchup. And fuck Dana White. I don't really know where the why you would include that tweet, but you know

I don't know why you would include that at the end. It's not like he, you know, it's not like he put you in that video at all so it's like, you know, what are you, where's the scrudge coming from? But you know, that's you, that's you bro. The one I would make though is I wasn't in the video, the famed video Somehow I managed to escape the wrath of that video as well.

But the thing about getting back to this conversation is I had previously suggested, wow, I think Olivera might be a tough fight for Islam. And I had a lot of people, this was long before last or Saturday night. Folks were like, oh, that's crazy. Now I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, that's not crazy at all. You have to imagine they would want to pursue control positions, probably from the back, that they usually do, wrist control, more like wrestling rides for ground and pound.

They should kind of wither him out that way. But here's a serious question, and I mean this. And the answer is probably no, but it's worth thinking about. If Oliveira is the number one contender, as we imagine him to be, and he fights Islam, let's imagine a world where he smokes Islam. Now, that may not be happening at all, but let's imagine that world. If he goes in there and it devastates him chokes him out from the back is there at all a a reasonable possibility a reasonable possibility that that pulls habib out of retirement is there any one show of hands who believes that smoking islam by olivera could smoking Islam by Oliveira could produce that result.

Anyone? I don't think so. No, Luke, you know me, I have to make it blood and guts pro wrestling. If Charles, you know, beat the bags off of Islam and like hurt him and like left him in a pile of blood, knocked out cold, Rocky IV style, should have thrown in that towel, Balboa.

That's the scenario, Luke, and that's it. That's it, bro. And AB, what do you think? Yeah, I don't think so, but I think that whoever's advising Charles Oliveira going into that fight should tell him that if you do smoke Islam Makhachev, you point your finger at Khabib and you call him out, because that's the one and only way you're going to settle this debate. And Charles Oliveira doesn't really seem like the type of guy to do that. Probably not. All right, so let's ask this broader question rather than sort of what's next,

because it could be McGregor, it could be Islam. Who the hell really knows? But I'll say this. Could be Chandler, bro. Could be a lot of people, if we're really honest. Could be Chandler. What do we feel like is the power rankings? My power rankings would be Islam next, probably McGregor second. Whether or not

that's deserving, that's not the argument I'm making. I'm really making an argument about probability. I would go Islam one, Conor two, and then maybe Chandler three. What would be your power rankings, Aaron Bronstetter? Well, for me, I think it would be Islam, I think, is the definitive number one. But I have a lot of trouble writing off Benil Darius. Like, I think I would put Benil Darius at two. He's got fantastic striking. He's got incredible BJJ. I think from a matchup standpoint,

him and Charles would be a great fight. And then number three, you know, I just don't know if McGregor ever wants to make 55 again. That's the thing that makes me hesitant to look at McGregor as a potential opponent for him. But the way that I would matchmake the division from here is I would do Islam versus Oliveira. I would do Benil Darius versus Chandler, and I would do Dustin versus Justin, too. That's the way that I would book the division if you gave me the book.

Oh, God, yes. OK, I love a lot of what you're saying there. The Dustin-Justin rematch just got me fired the hell up. But Aaron, part of you saying that you you believe and look at we all know it could be connor as luke said but but you believe it should be and maybe even could be islam i have felt a hesitation from dana white at every turn publicly to reward islam you know despite having a streak that really in any other division any other time he's the next title contender yet we're seeing him linked to benil rumors and you know i go i don't

know why i go to extremes but i do and you know i'm wondering if if this is dana holding it against habib and saying you know we're gonna hold your boy back and make him jump every fence because this should be you in there right now i i don't i don't tend to believe you agree with that but i think there's some kernels in there and that in that shit pile I just gave you. I think the RDA thing is what soured the UFC on Benil. He came out or sorry on Islam Makhachev. Pardon me. He came out and said, I'll take the fight at 170. I'll take the fight against RDA. And then they it never came together. And I think that the UFC, I don't know if they came to him and said, OK, we'll book it, but you're going to be

making the same money as you did against Bobby Green. And there was I have no idea what happened behind the scenes. But what I will say is it seemed like that is what soured everybody on Islam. But I think that they need to get over that. I think that if you're going to book a big event in Abu Dhabi in October, that's the title fight you book. You book Oliveira versus Islam. And like I said, I think it kind of does a disservice to Islam because I don't think Islam has fought anybody who's really had the resistance that Charles Oliveira will give him to this date, you know, to this point in time. Who's his best win? Is it Dan Hooker? You know, and nothing against Dan Hooker, but if you're looking at the very top of that division, there are tiers to the lightweight division, and he has not fought

a tier one lightweight as of yet. The only thing I would say in contrast to that, though, Aaron, would be you sometimes sometimes I'm not even saying you're wrong per se but the other way to look at that might be right but sometimes we go down that Tony Ferguson path not this one but the one pre-tripping over the wire where it's just like okay one more all right one more all right one more and you kind of get lost in that one moreness rather than being like look we got to defend this title who's done the best at this point yes could there be a more full-throated development process no argument there could but we got to keep the train the chains moving he's next in line let's just let it happen i mean

tyler santos granted it's a very different division women's flyweight but she's ranked fifth now granted ship chinko has blown through everybody else but i'm just saying sometimes it is just the next man up. Islam certainly seems to have that placement. Yeah, and I agree with you. That's why I don't think they're going to make the Benil fight. I think that they need to keep the division moving because there's nobody else. Like, there is nobody else that you could put

Charles Oliveira against right now. So I think that, you know, Charles wants to be an active champion. I think that that's a perfect main event for the October card if we're going to do something big in Abu Dhabi. I think you guys have missed how much of a company man Michael Chandler has been. You guys, as much as we all agree, we would not be surprised if Conor got the call

because that's business. Under that same silo of thinking, if Chandler gets the rematch, I mean, dude, Chandler cut that pro wrestling promo on McGregor, but the first half of it, he didn't know who, of course, was going to win that main event, was a promo on getting a rematch for the title against the winner of that fight. Either one, the last two guys he lost to. I mean, if you guys are as willing as I am to say, if that's what Dana wants, he'll make the McGregor fight.

What if Dana wants Chandler? He's been everything the UFC would want out of a model employee in the time he's been here. He just blew away Tony in spectacular fashion, which was really a stay busy. You're telling me they might not want to put in Chandler, Olivera too, because all you have to do is play that footage of the first round with Chandler dropping and nearly finishing him. I'm telling you, don't overlook that in the war room, bro. Okay.

I don't know if, you know, I don't know how you could do it. I mean, he's one and one since losing to Oliveira. It's not like he's on some sort of run. Islam's won, what, nine, ten in a row? The guy's on a massive streak right now. I just think optically it wouldn't be a great move. But like you said... They don't care about optics, bro. No, they care

about optics. They don't care about optics in the ways that sometimes we imagine they would. They don't care about optics in the way that sometimes we expect. But there are certain ways they don't like being presented and they don't mind being accused of favoritism but they do mind being accused of like incompetence or like gross misjudgment they don't like that at all and so it's not like giving chandler would be some the title shot would be some crime but to to bronzetter's point dude like there are a lot of deserving guys well ahead of chandler plus but folks if chandler somehow goads uh mcgregor into

a fight at 170 we haven't even talked about that that fight would be fucking incredible and yes a plus a point maybe people want to see chandler give spark to something, and that's a spark to something new. Correct, Aaron? Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think we have to look at the facts here with that win. It was such a great highlight, probably the knockout of the year, or at least I'd say tied with Molly McCann or in the mix with Molly McCann for the knockout of the year. But let's be real. Ferguson hasn't won a round in the previous three fights. He's on a three-fight losing streak, and he won the first round against Chandler. So great knockout and everything, but I just, we have to look at what we have in front of us, and I just don't think that Chandler's back

yet. I don't think that he's quite there for the next title shot, and I love Michael Chandler, and I love what he's done to the UFC and how he's shaken up that division. I just, I don't know if they could make that fight, and I think that if you take Chandler and you put him in an exciting fight, like there's that McGregor fight that came up, although it doesn't seem to me like McGregor's going to fight until the end of the year. I personally think that a fight with Darius is the fight to make. I just think that that would be such fireworks.

Like, that's a can't-miss fight, in my opinion. Are you talking about Darius Chandler? When Poirier's out there, bro, it's got to be Chandler Poirier next. Hold on, we'll get to Chandler in in just a second but let's wrap up this conversation on olivera is as follows if he comes back and beats islam who again what we widely regard as probably the guy who's going to get it probably the guy who does deserve it if he goes in there and and it's absolutely steamrolls him again we're positing that scenario where does that

put olivera on all-time lightweight champions? Because I've got to tell you, that streak would be 12 in a row, as you guys all know. If he finishes Islam, that would be just another incredible feather in his cap. He would have, obviously, getting his belt back. That would mean he would have made weight. Aaron, give me your sense of

things. I know we have these GOAT conversations too early. I'm not trying to have that. But merely, where would it place him? It either puts him at the top or pretty damn close. He'd have the best lightweight resume of all time, hands down. The problem is, if people are trying to assess, like you said, legacy conversations, GOAT conversations, Khabib barely lost a round in his UFC career. He's retired undefeated. That's always going to be a tough mountain to climb if you want to prove that you're the greatest of all time when you

have whatever, seven, eight losses on your record like Oliveira does. These people are going to look at the entire body of work. But in terms of strength of schedule, I think even right now, you can put Oliveira up there with Khabib. He has missed weight five times, though, so let's not act like that didn't happen. But to Luke's point,

God, if he goes out there, forget even finishing, if out there and beats uh a fight of this on fire and destructive as uh as mu as um islam with habib in his corner which just adds to i mean dude it's going to be hard to keep him out of any discussion but uh i don't know man i i feel like it's wide open in terms of who's next for all of these guys. And it's a great spot to be in if you're at the UFC. But I can't, I really can't put any kind of confidence in any direction because I feel like there are so many options on the table. Fair enough.

All right, let's move to topic number two now. This is, boy, this was a terrible fight. I rewatched it today. I was like, wow, this was really, really bad. Let's talk about it. The co-main event, Rose Namajunas basically giving up her title to Carla Esparza there's a lot of questions about what the fight means for both competitors but let's start with the judging Aaron Bronstetter two questions for you number one what is the best argument for a Rose Namajunas

win if there is one because obviously she lost the decision two there was a lot of discussions about whether or not these rounds are 10-10 rounds I will say affirmatively they are not 10-10 rounds not even really close to being 10-10 rounds how do you assess this broader discussion of how the judging worked and then the 10-10 round in particular well I think you can make a case that Rose won that fight it just there was little that happened, such a small sample size to draw from that you really could have scored it either way. So if you scored it for Rose, I have no problem. If you scored it for Carla, I have no problem because you have to judge such little data that you have to make these determinations based on things that probably the people watching on TV can't even see with the naked eye. Like if you're sitting cage side, you can probably gauge the impact of those four strikes each landed in the first round

more than the television viewer. Now, in terms of the 10-10, there are some people in this industry who I respect deeply, like BC, Brett Okamoto, a lot of people saying that those were 10-10 rounds. They're not 10-10 rounds. And let me just explain why and why the 10-10 round is a real unicorn in MMA. And I had the pleasure of actually And why the 10-10 rounds is a real unicorn in MMA. And I had the pleasure of actually, coincidentally, on Saturday morning, sitting and having breakfast with Mark Goddard for about two hours, where we just talked about the legislative side of things, officiating, judging, etc. And I was able to pick his brain. And I've also taken Mark Goddard's course, which I would highly recommend. If you want more information on how fights are judged, you can go to his website and watch his course. And it's the amount of information like I went from here to here in terms of my knowledge of scoring after

watching. I took it. I recently just took it as well. I co signed but go ahead. Yeah, it's excellent. So if you if you are interested in how fights are scored, I would highly recommend, you know, putting out a couple of dineros and buying that course. So in terms of a 1010 round, this is how you would score a round 10-10. So let's say that the two of them didn't throw a single strike in that entire round. Unless they stood uniform and didn't move at all, there's no 10-10 round. If one of them took two steps forward, you would give the round to that person because it would go to the secondary criteria. The judges are tasked with scoring what they have in front of them. So if it's four strikes apiece, like the first round was four

significant strikes, they have to judge who landed the better of those four strikes, whose four strikes were better, which were more immediately impactful, which did more damage. That's what they have to judge. And that's why they are judges. And they have to process that information in front of them. The only time you would really see a 10-10 round, maybe not the only time, but the only time you should see a 10-10 round, for the most part, is if a fight goes into the third round of a three-round fight, and let's say a low blow is landed in the first, an unintentional low blow is landed in the first 20 seconds,

or an unintentional eye poke is landed in the first 20, 30 seconds, maybe even first minute or minute and a half. And the judges have to render a technical decision because the fighter cannot continue and they don't have enough data to determine who won that round. That's really the only time where you would see a 10-10 round scored. It's really a unicorn in terms of MMA. If you can find a 10-10 round in history,

since the new criteria, I challenge you to do so, because that's really the only way that a round would be considered 10-10, based on the criteria that we have. Folks want to, folks, sorry BC, go ahead. I was just going to say, this is a massive disappointment in the fight, not living up to expectations, but to be even more fair, the performances of both, to be honest, like it felt, I felt a bad feeling in my stomach

seeing esparza get the title around her waist when in theory she didn't do anything to earn it now that that isn't a response by me in replacement for saying i believe that rose should have won you know i said after the fight on saturday that any champion really in any combat sport when you don't do enough to leave no doubt and you leave it up to the judges, especially in a fight like this in which nothing happened, you have no room to complain. But if we're going to try to get inside the mind of Rose

to try to decipher why this happened, I did see that tweet. I didn't watch the broadcast live, so I can't confirm it, but that Trevor Whitten may have told her after round four that she was up four to nothing and maybe that was part of her mindset there but I think overall this was a major miscalculation on her and her team's part and I'm wondering if it became something that we sometimes see of champions in combat sports where they may have been they may

have been through the wars before but now they're the champion and sometimes the mindset shifts to let me neutralize what my opponent does well. And I think sometimes they can get caught up in their own artistic brain and thinking, didn't you just see what I just did? I just stopped my opponent from doing anything. But if you don't do it yourself, you don't win the fight.

And I think sometimes people get caught up in that mindset of, unless you take the belt from the champion, so to speak, which isn't a thing in the scoring of either boxing or MMA. There's no asterisk to change your mindset because the challenger didn't do enough to compromise the champion. I've just felt bad.

I feel bad for Rose that she now has to go back to the well and try to climb the contender ranking when I think she's the better fighter than Esparza, only she didn't show it. And I equally feel bad because I don't think the challenger did enough to show that she should be the champion. Do you guys think there's anything we can do here? It'd be messing. It'd be playing God to look at a title fight that sucked the horn and go, sorry, guys, this fight blew.

None of you deserve to win it. It's a no contest immediate rematch. No. You can't justify them doing that. It's not fair. But is there anything that could have been done maybe before round five going, referee coming over going,

hey, both of you are on the hook here to lose this fight because you've done shit. So step it up. What do you do if you're the promotion at this point? You just move forward. I mean, round five was actually the most active round of all of the rounds. Not that it excuses what happened in the previous rounds,

but I think to your point, BC, they overthought this 100%. And defense is not in the scoring criteria. You don't earn points from defense. And I'll even look back at the Randy Brown and Chaos Williams fight earlier in the night. I think there was a real case to score that for Chaos Williams because most of what Randy Brown was doing was defense. It was moving. He wasn't getting hit. He was looking great by doing all of that. But on the scoring criteria, you got to give it to the person that does the most damage. And in the first and third round, he got dropped. But let's put that aside and just look at this particular fight. Rose didn't do enough to win that fight. And the thing that boggles my mind is Rose is one of the all-time great women's mixed martial artists. Top three

all-time if you were to look at like pound for pound ever. You don't have the confidence to go in there against Carla Esparza, who, no disrespect to Carla, her striking is nowhere near on the level of Rose. You think that you're going to just play defense against Carla Esparza for five rounds and that's the best strategy? If Carla was taking Rose down at will, Rose is one of the most innovative fighters that we've seen, one of the most creative fighters,

has one of the best submission games of anybody in the history of the strawweight division. You're telling me you don't have the confidence for your fighter, who's a great champion, probably the best champion in the history of that division, doesn't have as many defenses as Joanna, but beat Joanna and Weili twice, has the best resume by far in that division. You're telling me you don't have the confidence to let your fighter loose against Carla Esparza, who's probably the

easiest championship fight that she's had since the first championship fight against Carla Esparza, when she would have been the youngest champion in the history of the UFC at age 22, had she been able to pull that off as a raw green fighter? You don't think that she can beat this version of Rose, can't beat Carla Esparza wherever this fight goes. To me, that was a terrible game plan. And I know that Trevor Whitman is a genius. He's a brilliant, brilliant coach. And he should be given all the credit in the world. But the corner work of Pat Berry and Whitman,

they were contradicting each other in the corner. Like, Rose must have been completely flustered because she's getting mixed messages from her coaches. And I didn't hear Trevor Whitman say that she had won the first four rounds because they showed half of Esparza's corner first and then half of Rose's corner in between those rounds. If he said that to her and any coach says to a fighter in a close fight, you're up these rounds, you're doing them an incredible disservice. Because unless you're confident of that, and I know people have been proponents of open scoring,

it doesn't exist, so let's put that aside. You can't tell your fighter that they're winning a fight like that, you can't, it should have been do or die at that point, because she handed that belt to Carla Esparza on a silver platter, and every time they go back and watch that fight, I'm sure it's going to keep them up at night, and I hate to say it, but they really, really did her a disservice in that fight, by A, implementing that strategy to begin with and not having the confidence that she could beat Carla wherever that fight went, but also the corner work, to me, in that fight was a rare, rare anomaly where Trevor Whitman,

I don't think, delivered. I would say a couple things. I thought Whitman's advice was better than Pat Barry's, and that, you know, I know a lot of folks out there are like, well, who are you guys to critique these game plans? Listen, man, I'm not saying they need to consult me with a game plan, but if that was the game plan you had and you had those results, sorry, you're up for criticism. That was not a winning game plan, period. It just wasn't. There's no way you could frame it otherwise.

That was not a strategy to really get a win. And so as a consequence, we have to be sort of honest about it. And I also thought that it seemed to me, Aaron, a little bit more, at least a little bit more on the side of Trevor Whitman, trying to goad her into doing something. Let's see you get active. Let's see you lay it out there. But then who's to say, like between contradictory messages and everything else,

maybe it just wasn't getting through. I would say, though, people always make this argument that it sounds goofy to bring in stuff from other sports, and I get that. But I'm telling you, folks, a yellow card system, and I realize it's so late in the game to even implement it that no one even wants to see it, but I really telling you folks a yellow card system and I realize it's so late in the game to even implement it that no one even wants to see it but I really believe in them I believe in a referee listen part of mixed martial arts is wrestling and it's everything else and in wrestling dude if you watch amateur wrestling the referees are driven to make sure the action goes they are

constantly on their whistle I realize this this was mostly a striking affair, say, for a few takedown attempts through the course of 25 minutes, but the question becomes, what role, if any, does the referee have in inducing action? I would argue, I would submit, they do have a role to play,

and if we don't empower them, now you could make a case maybe we're not, Keith Peterson really used them, but there is no yellow card or red card system, and again also in pride involved finding people for their purse which I'm not necessarily in favor of but you know finding some or finding some kind of system to induce action with warning with points being taken away I am 100% in favor of it leaving them to their own devices to do what they did clearly did not work you don't have to have a yellow card all the time but this is one scenario where it would have been a huge benefit i agree i

mean look it's in there i mean there's rules on timidity and a referee can warn for timidity and can't take points for timidity um i don't know if it's on keith peterson i mean the thing about that fight is the activity was there they just weren't hitting like there was output. It's just, it wasn't accurate output. If you look at the accuracy, it wasn't the 20th percentile for basically. But fist punching the air to me is not.

I agree. You know, I agree. I agree. And, and timidity is in there. And Keith Peterson is well within his rights to call a timeout, talk to both fighters and say,

listen, I need to see something here or we're going to start taking points away. He's in his rights to do that. I don't see it very often in MMA, but he can do it. The fight just left a bad taste. I think that went beyond, oh, this fight sucks, like, you know, Ngannou versus Lewis or, you know, on a title level, Woodley versus Wonderboy 2, even though there was some some hipster style, you-style technique that you could have enjoyed there. I think I just have a bad taste because we didn't get closure. We didn't get closure to this rivalry. Who's at fault? Rose and her team, of course.

So in the end, you would deserve to lose your title if that's the game plan you put out there. But on the flip side, does anybody else just have a bad feeling about seeing esparza who who look has earned this opportunity of course and is going to go on her honeymoon and you know you know more power to her but she didn't win that fight and i think that's the the rough i've never dude think about this have you ever seen a ufc title now i'm not talking about with olivera on the scales or being stripped for something I'm talking about once the fight started they're facing off has a UFC title ever been surrendered for less I'm not sure great question you could say the Aldo fight with McGregor because he got one punch but Aldo was going for it and McGregor landed a kill shot

right like that's not nothing that's a lot has a UFC title ever been given to someone for less? I honestly don't know the answer to that, but maybe not. I think maybe there was a fight. I think it was Rampage versus Machida where not a lot happened. That was a long time ago. Am I thinking of the right fight? Who did Rampage drop the title to? Who did he drop the title to? He beat Dan Henderson.

Forrest Griffin, yeah. Forrest. Maybe that fight. There was not much that happened in that fight. No, but Rampage got leg kicked really hard. I was like, you really got to beat the champ to win the belt, which is, of course, a total myth. But I remember at the time that was a close fight.

It was, but remember Rampage got his leg kicked early and that kind of set him back. At least there was like he was kind of hobbling on his leg or something. Well, one thing I did talk about, you know, late Saturday is with Dana announcing that Rose is going to have to get back in line and that he wants the winner, of course, of the UFC 275 rematch between Weili Zhang and Ioana to get the title shot. Look, this does, whether Esparza has the title or not,

the future's fun and the future's bright. And, you know, AB, if you're the UFC, do you like that direction, giving that Whaley you want to rematch, which is really, you know, linked more with our hearts in terms of action and both going for it. But are you okay with that being a number one contender fight as we move forward as the best way to do exactly that,

just move forward and make Rose get back in line, whether that's Mackenzie Dern, whether that's Marina Rodriguez. I don't think we lose in the end. We're going to get great fights, and I love the idea of Rose can work her way back. She's going to have a trilogy with somebody, right? It's going to be Esparza, Ioana, or Whaley if she ends up getting back. But is this the right choice moving forward to not give them a trilogy,

again, based on you blew it you blew it son you blew it no nobody wants that trilogy fight right now nobody wants to see that trilogy fight right now i i think that you know people would riot in the streets if they booked that fight again no disrespect but i mean i i think marina rodriguez is being uh very much overlooked here i think that she's earned a title shot. Her last fight was a very, very close fight against Jan Schaunan, and I think that maybe that could have tipped her over the top if it was a more dominant performance, but I think she's really earned that spot. I understand the Weili against Joanna idea, though that's a bigger fight, Esparza against

either of them, but a rematch between Esparza and Marina Rodriguez I don't think should be completely overlooked. Also, let me just say something in defense of Esparza, because I realize all the blame is going on Rose, because she was the champion heading into the fight, and her corner work was not the best. On the other hand, Carla Esparza had to go through a murderer's row to get there, and I understand some of those fights were close. She had two split decision wins. I get it.

But at the same time, look at the respect that Rose had for Carla in this contest. She didn't want anything to do with her she wanted she wanted no part of the ground and barely even wanted to get into like contact range with her at all granted a huge miscalculation all those things but there is still this twinge of like carla is some imposter i don't know if carla is the very best 115 pounder on the world but i do know that she is very competitive with the very best 115 pounder on the world but I do know that she is very competitive with the very best 115 pounders in the world and at least deserves some consideration in that place Saturday night was not the best evidence of that but there is this I'm wondering at what point the conversation is going to turn on Carla where folks are like you know what she is she is among her

peers at the top of this division. She's not a pretender who is just sort of masquerading in this space. 100%. And that's why I give her all the credit in the world as a champion. I don't think that this is a thing where you want to vacate the title because of the inactivity in that fight. Rose had that game plan because of how good Carla Esparza is in that one particular area of MMA with takedowns. And I think that that's going to give whoever faces Carla next a lot of problems. If Carla's able to implement that game plan and is able to take women down, the only foil for Carla Esparza in that department has been Tatiana Suarez, who absolutely handled her back in the day. And Suarez isn't going to fight

in that division anymore, so you can just toss that aside. But I think in terms of wrestling, Esparza is, now that Suarez is out of that division, by far the best wrestler in that division. I mean, Jean Bailey's catching up, I think, but I agree with Luke. I don't think you can take credit away from Esparza for how this has all played out. I think that we need to give her her credit and her due for getting back to the dance and then winning. I mean, it's not her fault. This wouldn't be, let's say, if Anthony Smith had activated the disqualification win against Jon Jones and took a title where it wasn't deserving, Sterling with the

belt after the first Jan fight it felt bad, this is a little bit different but it's not great, but to your point on Marina Rodriguez being more deserving and I agree they're just not going to put an Esparza Rodriguez title shot next when they have these bigger names, but when you look

at the fine print of a Ioana versus Weili rematch being a number one contender fight, Ioana has lost four of six. Weili just lost two in a row. I don't love that. I really don't, that that's automatically the winner's next. Would I prefer that business commercial storyline-wise to see the winner of that face Esparza, knowing Rose could be coming up the back door? Yes, I do. But nothing, again, nothing about this entire situation really makes me feel all that great.

And let's not forget Andrade, too. Andrade just had a really nice win against Lemos. She's back in the division, and she's making some noise. And she had a pretty brutal tweet yesterday. And when I say brutal, I don't mean like, oh, that's brutal. It was like sheer brutality. She's back in the division, and she's making some noise. And she had a pretty brutal tweet yesterday. And when I say brutal, I don't mean in the, like, oh, that's brutal. It was, like, sheer brutality directed towards Carla Esparza, the champion of the boring division, as she called it.

So she shot her shot, so you've got to give her some credit. But the reason I like Rodriguez is if you look at, what, the last five years of this division, it's been Rose, it's been Wei Li, it's been Ioana, and it's been, I guess, Carla's in the mix now, but it's been all the former champions. It's been four champions of this division, and they've basically been passing the baton. It was the same way for a while in the Bantamweight division,

where it was Hennenborough, it was Dillashaw, it was Cruz, and it was Faber. It was just those four. It was a revolving door of who was facing who all the time. And the division got stagnant. And now look at how good the Bantamweight division is when you bring these new contenders into the mix. And that would be my argument for showing some love to Marina Rodriguez

and even the Mackenzie Derns of the world who are on the sidelines also working their way up this division. Same for welterweight to a lesser but kind of similar extent. All right, let's go to point number three here. Let's talk about that devastating KO by Michael Chandler on Tony Ferguson. Probably one of the best front kick KOs you'll ever see.

Man, I'll say this. I thought that Michael Chandler's peak KO was going to be the one over Patrycki Pitbull, which if you've never seen it, it is a devastating one punch KO. But this probably exceeds it. Alright, Aaron Bronstetter, we've had four fights with Michael Chandler. He is two and two. He beat Dan Hooker, he beat Tony, he lost to Justin, he lost to Charles Oliveira. Four fights is often one contract. I'm sure he'll get more, but let's

just say that's the one contract you got. Through four fights, how would you grade the UFC Michael Chandler experience? It's an absolute A+. What could you take away from this? Other than this being a complete and utter home run. He's been in four exciting fights. He's come in. He's been great on the mic. He's great with the media.

What is the downside of this relationship? He's been a new contender in one of the most difficult divisions in the sport to crack into. And he's proven that he can hang with the top guys in this division. It's been nothing short of an A-plus. Honestly, I just can't think of a single negative that's come of this marriage between Michael Chandler and the UFC. The only negative I'll say, Aaron, is you not realizing that he's higher on the priority list for the next lightweight title shot to the company than even Islam Mahachan. It just hasn't clicked yet. I mean, he is.

I don't know how you guys don't see this. Would Canelo, would Conor get, you know, placement above that? Probably. But, guys, Chandler is going to make great action fights against everybody, especially if he's, you know, lost two, three in a row. At that point, he's an action fighter. This might be the last time you can roll him out as a title challenger. I don't see how you guys don't see that this rematch is coming your way.

I really don't see it. What has he done that Benil Darius hasn't done? That's not how you get rewarded, though. And I respect Darius. I respect everybody who's trying to, you know, come out of being part of the pool in the top ten to being a clear-cut title contender. And Leon Edwards has had a hard time crossing that same line in his rise.

But it's not out of... But you haven't seen him in boring fights. He's smashing guys. I get it, but it's not about what's fair, though. It's not about what's fair in the sexy divisions. It's not. It's not at all. We're not even saying it's fair though it's not about what's fair in this in the in the sexy divisions it's not it's not at all we're not even we're not even saying it's fair like if i'm if i'm hearing bronstetter right what he's saying is listen you want to say chandler's exciting no doubt

chandler's like crazy exciting dog did you see the banil daryush chakar close fight i mean it's one of the most insane fights of all time it's not like daryush isn't handing out excitement either but bronstetter just said... He smoked Tony in three rounds. And that's who Chandler just beat. Like, I think that we can't take away from these streaks that Dariush and Islam are on to put Chandler back in there. And I think that Chandler is going to be in an exciting fight regardless of who he's against.

It doesn't need to be against the champion. Throw him in there against Poirier. Throw him in there against Dariush. You know, there's going to be an exciting fight for Michael Chandler. It doesn't need to be a championship fight. I just think the weakness of both of your arguments is the strength of what you said.

What's this relationship grade? A plus. Dana rewards that dude. He does. He does. Okay. So that's the last time I'll speak about that. All right.

So fair enough, BC. Then let's go to you. What do you think is next for Chandler? You had Dustin Poirier on Twitter that night. Boy, he was really active saying, I could beat about that. All right, so fair enough, BC. Then let's go to you. What do you think is next for Chandler? You had Dustin Poirier on Twitter that night. Boy, he was really active, saying, I could beat these guys. Muscle boy, pull up, all this kind of stuff. But, of course, he called out the potential winner or whoever was going to be in the main event.

Or he set up the Conor McGregor thing. Conor, of course, speaking about it as well. But, like, just looking at the UFC, looking at their options, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that he doesn't get the title shot. What would be a next appropriate fight for the UFC and looking at their options, let's assume for the sake of argument that he doesn't get the title shot. What would be a next appropriate fight for the UFC and for Michael Chandler, who we all agree has not only been a company man, but has just been,

it's a very fruitful relationship in both directions. BC, that's you, buddy. Oh, sorry. I thought you were teeing up our fine Canadian friend. No, no, I was going to you, although he can go next. Go next go ahead look if it's not the title shot i think the first priority for the ufc would be getting conor mcgregor's interest in making that fight if it doesn't look like that's a fight conor would want once it's time to sit down and draw it up dude uh poirier is the fight it is and i think with with with chandler until he does get more losses his pay-per-view brand is strong so

while your point aaron would i love to see him against you know dairy use and would that be a more deserving matchup at this point it might be in terms of how the top 10 works but chandler versus poirier is a non-title pay-per-view main event and there aren't a ton of those going around so if it's not connor it's not the title, it's got to be Poirier for me. You know, I don't work in that war room, but I'd love to. I think I can hang in there with those guys. There's only one reason why I'm booking Darius and Chandler,

and it doesn't even have anything to do with Chandler. Darius has said he's not going to fight Justin Gaethje unless it's for a title. They've trained really closely together. So if you're going to book a fight between Poirier and Chandler, basically the last two men out in the lightweight division are going to be Gaethje and Darius who aren't going to face each other. Now, could they face some of these up-and-comers like an Armand Surukian or a Fiziev or RDA if RDA beats Fiziev? Like there are possibilities there, but I think that you got to work with those four names. You

got to work with Darius, you got to work with Chandler you've got to work with those four names. You've got to work with Darius, you've got to work with Chandler, you've got to work with Gaethje, and you've got to work with Poirier. And you've got to book those four in some way or another, and if Gaethje and Darius aren't going to face each other by process of elimination, that's the way that I would have it laid out. I mean, Aaron, would you be upset if Abu Dhabi, and we saw Habib tweet out, you know, hey, UFC put Islam in Abu Dhabi in August against Oliveira.

Would you be upset if it was Oliveira, Chandler in the main event, Darius Islam in the co-main? That would mean Conor's going in a different comeback direction, which is fine. And we sort of did a boxing thing where the main and co-main are setting up who's going to be fighting in the next title fight. I can't say I'd be upset by it. I just don't think it makes a whole lot of sense.

I mean, that's what it comes down to. I'd love to watch Chandler face Oliveira again. It was a great fight. Anybody against Oliveira, for the most part, is going to be a great fight. Look at any of these names. They're going to be fantastic matchups. I just don't see how it makes sense personally.

I know. Could you imagine a scenario where Michael... Could you imagine a scenario where Michael Chandler fought either Rosnum and Yunus or Carla Esparza like it's so he would have to be profoundly injured or something for that to happen and even then I don't think he would so like any matchup makes sense let me ask actually the reverse of this question because it will affect the match making and where Chandler goes we'll talk about Tony in just a second which is what do you guys actually think is the likely,

like really in your heart of hearts, is the likeliest possible, like the likeliest outcome, I should say, for a fight for Conor McGregor in terms of who he signs to fight? Is it Chandler at 170? Is it, we had Nate Diaz tweeting last night saying the trilogy is done or whatever,

and then whatnot. Aaron, if you really had to say who Conor's gonna fight next and at what weight class, in your heart of hearts, what direction do you go? Well, if I was booking it, I'd put him against Masvidal. I think that's the fight to make it 170 pounds. I think Masvidal's days, unfortunately, as a real contender

in the 170-pound division are kind of behind him. I think it's going to take him a lot to get back up to the top, especially after that fight with Colby. But I would book McGregor versus Masvidal. I think that would just be a huge fight. Masvidal's star power is still there. Might not be quite as big as it was once, but I think that the build-up to that fight would be excellent.

I think the Diaz trilogy is a better fight, too. I think that that's another great fight that you can make with Conor. And I think Conor versus Chandler at 170 pounds makes a lot of sense, too. I don't think you can go wrong with really any three of those scenarios, but the fact of the matter is, McGregor's going to pick up the phone, he's going to say, this is who I want to face, and that's what they're going to book. It could be Oliveira, it could be Kamaru Usman.

Conor's going to be ultimately the one who calls his shot here, and I don't think the UFC's going to say no, regardless of what name he gives them. AB, speaking of Conor matchmaking, Luke and I have said look, Conor's, there's a lot of questions. Age, injury, recent track record, mental state on social media. He's often just wacky and wild.

But Luke and I have both agreed that he's got one more big win in him. Probably. It'll buy him time. You know, could he lose a welterweight title shot at any point? Yes. Could he lose a lightweight title shot at any point? Yes. But we both believe that Conor's going to surprise

one more person. Is Chandler the perfect matchup to create that possibility? Because it's also hella dangerous. But if you're looking to put Conor in a fight in which he could win or lose, but specifically that there's an opening for him

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Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Three names. Chandler, Gaethje, Ferguson. If you want to give a fight to Conor McGregor that he could potentially win in that division, those are the three names. And I still think it would be an uphill climb for him to be able to beat any of those three guys, honestly, at this point in time, just because we don't know what we're looking at anymore.

We just haven't seen the best of McGregor in recent years. I think he certainly has it in him. I think he certainly could beat any of those three guys on the right night. His power is just undeniable, and all it takes is one with Conor McGregor. Guys, I'm starting to think Gaethje might be the pick here for UFC with Conor. I mean, he knows what he's going to get into with Gaethje. Gaethje's not going to try to take him down. Gaethje might be the might be the pick here for UFC with Conor I mean he knows what he's gonna get Gaethje's not gonna try to take him down Gaethje's gonna stand with him yep yeah and and I would say that I'm not gonna argue that Gaethje's chin is gone but the way in which Oliveira was able to land on him makes you think that like if Conor could

do something like that it would have devastating consequences for him as well which of course speaks to the parody of the fight. All right, but before our friend from Canada leaves us, we do have to talk about Tony Ferguson. Now, Aaron, 38 years old, four losses in a row. He has never been stopped cold like this. He finally gets stopped. Dana White said something after the fight that I understand. I don't really have any arguing against him, which he's like, Tony needs to take time off. Right. He does. After a vicious KO like that,

there can be no doubt. But the problem he's up against is he is 38 at 155 pounds. Time off serves the recovery from the potential effects of the knockout. It doesn't serve his competitive interests whatsoever. What is really going to be next for Tony Ferguson? You've got to give him someone ranked from 10 to 15. I don't think that you can continue to put him up against these killers at the top of the division. I'd like to see him face a Gregor Gillespie or something like that. Somebody on the lower end of the lightweight division.

I don't think you should put him at welterweight. I don't think he's big enough. I think that a lot of these welterweights would push him around. Unless you're going to do maybe a Wonderboy fight, I think that would be fun. If you want to book a fun fight with him at welterweight, sure. But I don't think you can continue to book Tony at the top of this division. I think it's just a disservice to him.

Now, of course, you do need to have marketable fights for him. But I think at this point in time, maybe you put him into the gatekeeper role and see how it goes. I think he's worse off than that. I mean, look, am I crazy here? We both had a bad taste in our mouth ahead of this fight,

certainly after it, although, look, fair play to Chandler. He did what he had to do. I think it's even bad news against a ranked guy. I mean, the panic move is to cut him. UFC won't do that, right? You give him Nick Diaz? It's not a crazy thought even not a crazy thought even nate would be a fun one neither of those is a crazy thought the only issue i mean here's the thing aaron i would

love to get your perspective on this which is part of the debate is that well tony's never been stopped this way and now he has been so what does that say about the decline in his chin? And again, we would go back to the damage from the Gaethje. I still go back and say, the damage from the Gaethje fight is a clear turning point. You cannot absorb damage like that over time and be the same afterwards. It's really not possible.

But the thing is, the counter-argument to that is, listen, if Chandler lands that on anyone, they're going out. Like, why is everyone picking on Tony? Yeah, and Tony had a good first round, right? Like, I mean, they know I brought that up. He said, Tony looked very good in the first round. And it's funny, Chandler landed that kick.

And you saw, there was a guy, if you saw the reaction video in his corner, a guy with like kind of a long braided ponytail that is one of his striking coaches, I believe, who just kind of went like, like, he was like, oh, wow, that happened. And I asked him backstage, I saw that same coach, and I said, well, was that like a modified front kick? Like, he had to get pretty high up. Like, the angle was very different than a normal front kick. And he was like, dude, I don't know what that was.

I still have no idea. Like, it just connected and it hit. But like you said, if you connect on someone's chin like that, on an upward trajectory with your foot, you're going to knock that person out regardless of who it is. So again, I still think that Tony has something left in the tank. I really do. And I wasn't even really saying that before this fight. I needed to see a good round out of him, and I saw a good round out of him there.

He rocked Chandler, looked very good. I still think we have something with Tony where you can put him up against. If you look at like 10 to 15, you don't think he could hang with like a Diego Fajeja who's ranked 15th right now with lightweight? Is that a bad? Would Diego Fajeja smoke Tony Ferguson? I don't believe that. I think that he would still be competitive with a lot of these guys

at the lower half of the top. But Aaron, is there anything to gain there? I mean, what the hell do you gain there? You don't think in your heart of hearts that Ferguson's capable of winning three in a row against, you know, B-minus, C-plus competition to get him the reward of a top 10 guy who can finish him. So if you're not going to go that route, we always say this about aging fighters, the UFC tends to not know what to do with them. Why wouldn't you enter Tony into this glorified action fighter twilight division with Jim Miller and Cowboy and all those guys? I mean, why not go right there? I mean, do you really believe that what he has left is

going to be worth testing it against somebody he shouldn't be in there with? Well, that's the big question. Do you want to use Tony to have big, fun fights against the likes of the Diaz brothers, like you mentioned, something along those lines, and utilize him as kind of a fan favorite that's going to draw an audience? Or are you going to use him to put over younger guys in the division? And is he going to be comfortable with that role to begin with? If you give him the name Armand Sorokian, is he going to take that fight? That's really what I think is the big question here with Tony going forward, is what's the vision of the promotion with how you're going to utilize Tony? Because you might be onto something in BC. Maybe you you just do that you put them in the bigger fights

you get what you can out of them and BMF bro yeah and you look exactly the BMF and also also Aaron not everybody wants the Jim Miller path like Jim Miller wants that path because it's it's important for him and like we all love him for it but not everybody wants that some people just want to walk the high wire and if that isn't fit for them, then that's the whole game. Tony's a draw. Tony is a bona fide draw. 100%. If you're going to use Tony in that way, I can completely understand if they want to put him in cool co-main events with fun fighters. I think that you could make something

happen there. I'd say the one takeaway I had, BC, real quickly, if I may, I'll pitch it to you, but the one takeaway I had from the weekend was Tony's star power definitely hasn't waned. Now, we'll see what happens from the knockout, but even then, I don't think it'd really go away. The fans love Tony Ferguson, and for that reason, it does give him a couple of extra options. Yeah, I mean, they've aligned with his battle, which is the bad luck, the never getting Habib in the cage when all was said and done,

never fighting for the full title, twice for the interim belt. But there's still tread on the star part of that tire. So, you know, it's weird. The UFC is probably never going to, you know, promote a BMF fight again. Not that it even needs to. But if they can be more mindful of creating their own BKFC division within UFC, right?

Like not bare knuckle, but sort of guys at the end of the food chain who can still fight each other. I just think but sort of guys at the end of the food chain who can still fight each other. I just think that's the direction at the end of the day. And if Tony won the Ultimate Fighter at welterweight and at times through the years had even said crazy things like going up to light heavyweight, I'm not saying do that. But if he goes to welterweight,

doesn't have to cut anymore, there are plenty of Robbie Lawlers out there. There are. Fair enough. All right. Aaron Bronstetter, we always appreciate your contributions. We kept you a little longer than we had promised. Nevertheless, you do great work. How can folks find out your best stuff? Where do they go? Where do they look? All my work's at tsn.ca slash UFC. And usually it's linked on my social media. So

you can go to Aaron Bronstetter on Twitter. I broke the 50K barrier this past weekend. A real great achievement in the Bronstetter household. We're throwing a party later on. No, my family doesn't care what I'm doing. They don't care that I broke 50K. Yes, join the club. My family also doesn't care. So we are very much in a similar position.

Listen, I hope we get a chance to see you at international. Well, go ahead, BC. I was just going to ask him who his favorite prime minister was in Canadian history. Pretty important stuff. You you big trudeau guy i don't know man i i try to just i'm not a big politics guy i don't think that they do much for us let's just put it that way big health care guy regardless of who you're going regardless of who you vote for you're going to be disappointed are you not i mean has there ever been anybody where you've they've emerged from like a the office, the highest office?

We're like, this guy just this guy really knocked it out of the park. Everything he did was great. Yeah, DJ Penn, bro. OK, that's about it. Penn is running for the governor of Honolulu, from what I understand. So we'll have to see. That's from a that's from a viral clip, by the way. I know that it's the governor of Hawaii, but either way, thank you guys. It's been a nice kind of a no-nonsense Keith Peterson, Connecticut, blue-collar mixed martial arts chat that we've been having here, and I really appreciate you guys having me on.

Hey, if we see you in Vegas for International Fight Week, don't be a stranger. We'll link up again. I'll be there. Thanks for having me on. There he is, Aaron Bronson, ladies and gentlemen. Look, did he just say we smell like booze and hooch? Is that what he said?

I mean. I hope so. I hope he said that. That'd be great. All right, BC, the show continues. Let's go over to the boxing side of things if we can. All right, BC, Canelo losing to Dimitri Bivol. Can you effing believe it?

Yes, it happened. And on top of it, BC, you happened to call it. Topic number four, we talk about it now. So it was a unanimous decision none of the judges gave canelo the fight now of course they gave him a few rounds in a few different directions but he had bivall had the leading scorecard on all three judges scorecards okay bc this is my question to start this conversation having thought about it potentially reviewed it again in your mind mind, I know you scored

it in real time, 11 rounds to one for Bivol, which I don't think is crazy at all. Thinking about it in a different way, perhaps, what are the maximum number of rounds you could reasonably give to Canelo? Three. And anything more than that would be uncivilized Luke. And what was weird about the three judges scoring it seven, five for B-ball of course, was that all three scored the same exact rounds, the same. They gave Canelo one through four and nine on all three cards, which is,

I mean, it's happened before Luke. It's not impossible, but it's weird. I ask every fighter the same question when they're fighting Canelo. And sometimes I feel like I'm doing the stir the shit up for no reason, Luke, but I ask him, do you believe you can win a decision against Canelo? Nobody does, right? You know, even Floyd, who I scored 12 rounds to zero against Canelo. Somebody gave Canelo six

rounds, CJ Ross, to score that one even and have it a majority draw. So you know the history there. It's ridiculous in a fight this non-competitive. I mean, I don't want to say non-competitive. It was competitive. But in a fight this visually one-sided, and Luke, the CompuBox numbers tell you in every category that it was what you saw with your eyes. It was visually one-sided. To see Canelo lose 7-5. So, like, I wouldn't doubt what Canelo said after the fight that he believes. Oh, we'll just rematch and I'll beat him this time.

In his mind, Luke, I was one round away on every card. But, dude, that's the only way B-Ball was going to get the decision by demonstratively beating Canelo. And he did. So yeah, I don't think you can give Canelo more than three. He landed some hard single shots, but Luke, the thing that Canelo has had the advantage against every opponent above 168 pounds is instantly, whether they're confident or not coming in, they show intimidation against him because he's so crafty, so smart, so efficient that he finds ways to get inside your guard and he starts picking you apart and he's faster and stronger than you think he is.

And his footworks great. And it doesn't matter the challenge he finds a way, which is why he's been carrying balls this big in every interview saying, uh, cruiserweight title yeah i'd do that heavyweight title fuck it that was what he said this week luke fuck it but he ran into somebody who wasn't going to back down and it was it was key even though i had the balls to pick the b-ball upset and by the way shout out to aaron bronstetter who did dm me about two weeks before

the fight and said am i crazy to think b-ballall wins this? And I said, no, you're not crazy. To do that, Luke, we had to see a version of him that we'd never seen before. I mean, you know, he fought Joe Smith Jr., a big puncher before, but even that B-Ball thought safe and outboxed him. The only way B-Ball was going to win this was to do exactly what he did, Luke, show Canelo zero respect, push him to the ropes. And when he had them in compromising situations, let your hands go. Luke, it worked out perfectly that his technique is so strong. His speed was on the right level. And he had enough pop to confuse, anger, frustrate Canelo. But dude, he never backed down in ways that every single Canelo opponent has in recent years.

For whatever reason. The stage was too bright. Canelo was too good. Whatever was a fantastic performance and Luke my biggest takeaway you know looking at this is you know there was going to be a ceiling eventually for Canelo's ambition and let's all sit here and applaud the shit out of Canelo for taking this fight and for taking this L I mean afterwards more or less he gave the credit to B-Ball and said, it's boxing. You win some, you lose some.

And to be fair, Canelo's been always about that. He's not protecting his record. He's always been about this. But Luke, I think he needed to find out what his limit was, where he was going to be humbled. He found it. And Luke, even though he's talking about going right back in there and rematching, if I'm Team Canelo, I sit down in a quiet room and I go, okay, 75's a bridge too far. We gambled against Kovalev, we won, but 75's a bridge too far. big fight we possibly could between 160 and 168 and let's retire as the greatest mexican fighter of all time the face of this era and continue to stockpile as many world titles as we can

because luke if he goes if he stays trying to fight at 175 against world-class credible guys this is why we have divisions you know what i mean sometimes you can bypass that canelo did that at 168 manny pacquiao did that at welterweight. Sometimes you can bypass the natural disruption in weight and size, but Canelo met his match at the end of the day, dude. And you know, B-Vol, he wasn't that dude before, but when it mattered, Luke, he was that fucking dude. So I think we got to stand here and applaud both guys. Thank you, Canelo, for being a world class star, face of the sport pound for pound king who's willing to challenge yourself like this and thank you to Dimitri Bivol for

showing us that at the end of the day skills pay the bills and he went in there and he got it done Luke but if you're trying to score five rounds for him get the get the dude okay so this is this is my follow-up BC like what like you this was a route to me. It was not close. It was not close ever. That ninth round was good for Canelo. I thought that was a really solid round for him. It really was about it other than some moments here or there. You asked me the maximum number of rounds I could give him. I rewatched it today.

It was two. Three, I think, is being quite generous, to be honest with you. However, this is my question. However, it does appear like they want to have the rematch in September. Canelo always fights Cinco de Mayo in September. If they do it in September, BC, this is what I want you to think about. To you and I, and to most people, to many people anyway, this was a rout. But, but, the judges gave him five rounds.

Dude, is it really all that unthinkable if they put this fight in LA or Las Vegas again for Canelo to make a couple of adjustments, have a couple of better rounds and to beat Bivol, even if we look at the fight, we'd be like, okay, maybe you could give Canelo four or five rounds, but you can't give him six, certainly not seven. Dude, he had a fight where we thought he got basically not destroyed, but handily beaten. And he got five rounds. How hard is it for him to get seven? Doesn't seem that crazy.

Does it? I mean, that's the problem. If he's going to think that way, then we're grading on a curve and Luke, it's like, why wouldn't he think that way? Do this happens every fucking time.

I get that. But, but we're, we're essentially grading on a curve. And in some ways it's like, okay, well, welcome to boxing. That's what we do at times with our super elite big stars. They get, you know, membership has its privileges. They get advantages sometimes.

Luke, I would say that before this fight, if you ask me why, why does Canelo get scorecards that your eyes tell you maybe he didn't deserve? Or why does he get the benefit of the doubt at the very least? I think he has a style that judges love traditionally, right? Like efficiency, power punches. You know, he does a lot great in that regard. He didn't do that in this fight. Dude, look, his power did not touch Bivol.

It didn't move him at all. Canelo was really down to just throwing one shot at a time. Could he understand the way that the sausage is made and say, Oh, like you said, Oh, do a rematch, man. I could, I could, I mean, maybe Luke. Okay. But again, I don't think there's a ton to gain here. He's already won a world title in this division.

Unless it's like, no, I told people I can win all the belts at 175. I'm going to do it. If he can go back in that lab and come out and figure out a way to beat beevil in a rematch that we would believe with our eyes and then he wants to keep going and fight better beaver whoever else for all the belts then dude canelo you are a modern marvel in this era of boxing businessmen you are everything we say you are but luke i don't think it happens in a rematch and i don't want to see a closer fight that Canelo wins by four rounds because the judges just do that. No, I don't want to see that. I don't think a guy, I don't think a guy who, by the way, Canelo thinks he won that fight.

Like you listen to his post fight comments. He recognizes that it was, you know, reasonably competitive. But he, he thinks he won that fight. Who is daring to be great. Who that same week to the point you raised is talking about fighting fucking Usyk at heavyweight, that guy is not going to take this loss and look at it and say, gee, I got thoroughly beaten here. He's going to say I was this close, and there's no reason why I can't be even better

and then get over the hump in the rematch. To me, BC, tell me if I'm wrong, and I know you think I probably am, but my read on the situation is he's going to have to lose twice to this guy before he decides that 175 is a misadventure. He's not going to take one loss that he thinks was close as definitive proof this is all too much. You know, he may be because he's got, you know, a stubborn pride that's earned. So I get that.

And Luke, if he did come back and win this, I mean, we'd freaking applaud him because look, the question is, what does your pound for pound look like now? Does Canelo hold the top spot because he was daring to be great even though he lost? And where do you think B-Ball belongs after this performance? Luke, B-Ball showed you he's, ability-wise on paper,

the dude's pound for pound worthy. So it's a monster uphill climb for Canelo. If he wants to do it again, that's fine. But it was weird to me knowing how boxing works that even B-Ball in the interview was like, sorry, I ruined your Golovkin fight. Maybe dude, if Canelo actually wanted to fight Golovkin, it's in a different weight class. It's at 168 for our four belts. You could do that next without issue, but I get what you're saying. Canelo is a competitor. He wants to run it back. Luke, did you see those comments that B-Ball even said,

I can make 168 if you want to do a rematch, but we put all four of your super middleweight titles at stake. That could be the sexy edge to get the audience really tied into this one. And I would also say, if you didn't hear, they asked him about Canelo's power. I thought B-Ball's comments were super interesting. What he basically said was, listen, there are kinds of box if you didn't hear, they asked him about Canelo's power. I thought Bivol's comments were super interesting. What he basically said was, listen, there are kinds of boxers you go up against, and everything they throw hurts. Everything. Jabs.

No matter what, they just have this kind of power. He goes, Canelo doesn't really have that power. Yes. When he really leans into it and goes for it, those are heavy shots, and they hurt. But in general, he's like, no, he doesn't have that like god tier power that some folks had ascribed to him i gotta tell you that's a warning sign for canelo yes bivall's face was barely marked up at all yeah his arm where he'd been hitting the right hands was a little marked up but it didn't really impede him in the boxing fight to win or to to use it effectively even in

late 10 11 12 rounds dude i gotta tell youivol, you know, we'll see what happens. At 175, I don't like his chances. At 168, I guess I like him a little bit more. But either way, Bivol appears to be a bit of a, we'll see if it's a turning point in the career of Canelo. This one by itself, probably not. But if he loses two in a row, that's a whole lot of turning point, I think. I agree with you completely.

And look, you know, Bivol's a bigger man who's used to fighting light heavyweights. He took the big shots from Joe Smith Jr. and held on and won that fight. Everyone's got a ceiling look, and it's weird. Some fighters, they're great at 140 pounds, then they go up to welterweight, and their power and their chin just doesn't match it. I've always felt that

even though that's a 7-pound difference, 140 to 147, that told you a lot. For Canelo, that gap between 68 and 75 might be it because at 68, it's not that everything he throws hurts or finishes people, but when he's smart in his placement and he counters you clean with everything he's got, he's going to break your face like he did against Billy Joe Saunders. He's going to break your body like he did against Rocky Fielding. I mean, you know, the punches still matter. He can still walk around like a badass and be a headhunter.

Luke at 175 against a guy this good, Canelo can't do that. So, dude, I have to ask you, if you're Eddie Reynoso, how would you approach a rematch with B-Vol differently? Because, Luke, one punch at a time from the outside when you can't hurt him and B-Vol's defense was on point in this fight I don't know what the strategy is because Canelo can box I mean he outboxed Miguel Cotto but Canelo is not a high volume boxer where he's going to take the lead with his jab and outwork you what do you do Luke dude if you're going to be the smaller guy like you listen I mean this would be impossible to ask for and nor am I asking for it but just imagine a scenario where Canelo had like Lomachenko style footwork and angle setups where he's getting to the side of you and around

you all the time forcing you to turn to play catch up if you're the smaller guy one thing Canelo did not really do here was he didn't really seem to use any perceived speed advantage and he was real flat-footed now Canelo's been flat-footed a lot and has you know not I'm gonna say gotten away with it's part of his style you know and and we know we know that he's very good at evasion and head and trunk movement so like those are things that he still has that are quite good but dude if you're gonna stand in front of Bivall that's a hard fight to win dude it's a hard fight to win he was here with him which i'm not saying there's always a right context a wrong context none of that i'm saying is wrong when you're high on the guard here you're trying to close range dude bival was just teeing off on him with these combinations and it was bival who was

getting off at the angle first man you got to be off on those angles angles angles angles you got to make that guy turn to find you and he just wasn't doing it he was sort of using the same thing he'd been doing against guys who are much more he was able to get inside the distance a lot better or hurt them or make them change he was never able to change what bivall wanted to do so i don't know if the punching power is there to do that but the angle switching to me was a big missed opportunity here could play a role in the second fight i guess we'll have to see Luke what I know you're not big on palm for palm but what do you believe is the penalty

here so for example when Vasily Lomachenko was in the midst of my top 10 and lost to Teofimo at lightweight in a close fight I didn't drop Teofimo out of the top 10 in fact I kept him higher than I'm sorry I didn't drop Loma out of the top 10 in fact I, I actually kept him higher than Teofimo, which some people thought was crazy because he's a pound for pound guy. He's a champion of multiple divisions. I think Loma could go down to 30 or even make 126 still and be number one. Canelo has a certain similarity in that he goes to multiple weight divisions. Do you think the gap between Canelo and that group behind him, Spence, Crawford, Inoue,

maybe Usyk, maybe Fury, depending on how you vote. Do you think he can hold that serve with this loss to Bivol and still be your number one pound-for-pound fighter? Yeah. Yeah, he can be because he's so out. I mean, to Eddie Hearn's point, the guy has to handicap himself just to have a competitive fight, you know? It's true. So for those reasons, because he is so far outside of his comfort zone, you have to kind of not look the other way, but to be somewhat, I think, understanding of the difficulty that he is inviting here.

At the same time, I think two losses, especially when, again, we saw this one as a route, basically. That could play a little bit more of a role. But it is also like the guys who are number two and three, they're just not even close to doing what Canelo is doing across weight classes. And so for that reason, it doesn't hurt him too much in that regard. You know, Max Kellerman used to say, when a great little man moves up to fight a great big man

who isn't compromised by age or, or, or his game having fallen apart, you know, due to miles that the great big man historically wins, like statistically overwhelmingly. I think that kind of happened here, Luke. I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right.

All right, let's wrap up on some of the other MMA action from the weekend. There was Bellator in Paris and of course, PFL featured Kayla Harrison. Let's start with Bellator in Paris and of course PFL featured Kayla Harrison. Let's start with Bellator here for just a second, BC, and we'll go through these relatively quickly. Ryan Bader got it done against Czech Congo, but it was not entertaining. I would say that the Esparza and Nama Yunus fight might actually be worse, although that's somewhat debatable, but in either case, neither was great. However, Bader did get it done. Now, again, he got it done against a 46-year-old Czech Congo,

but we talked about this. Some people, I mean, Czech Congo's done better than most folks realize. Here's my read on things, BC. He blew through the heavyweight Grand Prix, but we saw some troubles bubble up to the surface at light heavyweight. He got it done in Paris, but it looks to me like while he is still the best heavyweight in Bellator, that grip is starting to slip a little bit.

Fair or unfair? I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Look, I didn't love this fight on paper. I know the first time around it was a no contest, but I think we learned enough of who was the better fighter there that I didn't love the rematch. I get that you're doing it in Paris.

It's a great story for Congo who at 46 was still very relevant. Bader is suited at 38 for this heavyweight division where his hand speed is, is better. He can take anyone down. His gas tank is great. I'm not, you know, I think he'll be fine moving forward, whether it's a Linton Vassell, whether it's a, uh, you know, a fortune or, you know, however, whoever else he, he goes in there against, but this division is really not all that crazy deep where I think he's going to get caught in a while. This was a crappy fight, Luke,

but Bader is the class of this heavyweight division for now. I mean, when you look at who's capable, do you think Bader's greatest threat could be eventually a light heavyweight moving up than an actual heavyweight? Because you've got Corey Anderson saying now, hey, if Vadim Nemkov needs more time, why don't I go up there and fight Bader for the heavyweight title?

Yeah, I think that's probably right. I mean, it's not, again, you look at the heavyweight division in Bellator and you're like, who's that guy that's going to beat Bader? Well, no one really stands out on the list, but a couple of things. As you know, every day that passes, Ryan, we all get a little bit older, but again, when you're an athlete,

the sands in the hourglass appear to be getting close to the limit of where he's going to remain competitive they've already passed for me at light heavyweight again he could still win fights at light heavyweight but he's not the best in class and bellator anymore not by a long shot actually so that i think is next for heavyweight the question is how soon father time will have some ability to dictate this unless he just retires so you're right i think it's probably we might have to wait a little bit longer, but Ryan Bader, I think is either at 40 or pretty close to it. Dude, it won't be that much longer, like another year. How much, how competitive can he remain with another year of aging at,

you know, even in the belt or heavyweight division, I'm skeptical that he has a long reign still in front of him as good as he has been. And as fruitful as a signing, it's been for him and bellator i'd argue just the same i still want to see musashi go up and fight for the heavyweight title against him but that's just me liking weird matchups luke are you going to take that comment from producer mikey more mild to heart in which he said hey guys i suggested cory anderson moving up to heavyweight and fighting baiter a while ago and you got shit on me you guys pissed all over me that's what we do to our producers we were unnecessarily cruel to them so take that mikey fuck you mikey how about that all right wow wow you're cool i'm teasing i'm teasing i'm teasing uh bc yoel romero did get a third round tko win in the co-main event um i

thought he looked good all things considered you know uh it was a it was a seemed like a fairly routine performance for him he seems what 45 years old but he still looked to be for the most part joel romero what did you take from this yeah you know it was the right matchup i know pull easy easy pull easy was a last minute replacement for uh melvin manhoof but i think either of those against this version of romero was the right sort of get get well fight i mean he got thrown thrown in there against Phil Davis. We didn't love the matchmaking. You saw what happened. He's not the same Romero.

He's not the same Romero from the Adesanya fight anymore. And by the way, he's 45. Let's allow him a chance to slow down a bit. He's still fun, though. I think there's still a million fun fights you can make with him here. And, you know, Polizzi did his best to take big strikes and hang in there as his fake tattoos were falling apart. But, Luke, sometimes we got to be honest with ourselves.

Belter still rolling out the idea of Melvin man, hoof against Romero. In fact, they had man who there, and I know he had a lot of the fight because he took down some, some robbers, some home invaders potentially, and did a great service,

but hurt himself. But to bring man, hoof in the ring and then, you know, the cage and then, you know, already have a date to throw up on the screen and have that announcer, the fill-in for Morrow, say it's an early Christmas present to MMA fans

this September when Romero faces Manhoof. I'm not even sure Melvin Manhoof should be fighting anymore. Maybe I had a better childhood than most, Luke, where I expected more from christmas maybe but bro water weed dune hair okay okay dude what the hell are we doing here seriously luke what are we doing here bro yeah i'm not i'm not so sure. I mean, again, I'll say this. I thought this was actually a pretty good fight for Romero because the Phil Davis fight, Phil Davis just sucks all of the life out of his opponents,

and they can't really, no one ever looks good fighting Phil Davis, whether they win or they lose. It's just hard to look good against him. This was a case where you got to see Romero look pretty good, and so for those reasons, and again, it was last minute and all that stuff, I didn't mind the fight.

I think he'll still look pretty good against Melvin Manhoff. My only point about that is, again, Melvin Manhoff, dude, he's had a lot of vicious KOs. That dude's been doing vicious KOs since Cage Rage was around. How many people remember Cage Rage? Wow. It was a long time ago. So I'm just not sure about the medical state of things,

but a relevant athletic commission will take a look at that. All right, BC. Hold on real quick. Do you think? Yeah yeah i'm sorry to interrupt you but it's important do you think if easy palizi was an ex-marine that beltran would not have left him out there in round three to just get uh nearly decapitated no such thing as an ex-marine all right we go now to the pfl bc kayla harrison did win at pfl in the main event but she was super critical of her uh performance i gotta say i didn't love her performance either now she won handily it wasn't like really close but the problem was dude she couldn't really get her offense out of like

second gear so she was kind of winning on control and a little bit of ground and pound not a whole lot else is she right to be uh as scrutinizing of her own performance as she was? I mean, it's tough. She was such a high-priced free agent, right? She comes back to PFL. They're launching a pay-per-view division next year. As the face of it, you kind of expect her to walk in, finish everybody in the first two minutes,

and take home that million dollars at the end of the season. So anytime you get somebody who's big tough and makes a decision that they're not going easy like marina makhana takina did that's how the family pronounces it like she did luke um i get it but look she was never in trouble. She never took shots. She dominated it. She played with her foot a little bit at times, maybe, but she didn't have somebody that was there to fold over. So, Kayla, you did fine. You're doing great. Keep it up.

Quickly on this, do you believe her argument that maybe the 155 division needs to be, like, I'm not saying she thinks it needs to be put on par with the 115ers, but rather she seems to be arguing maybe it deserves a little bit more respect than it's getting. If we continue to see her in decisions or fights in which she can't just completely dominate, then yeah, let's respect. But, Luke, come on, bro.

We can't put any respect on the 145 division. Seriously, we can't. There's not enough. You can't put any respect on the 145 division seriously we can't you there's not enough you can't do that so um you know they got julia butt at 155 only she lost on the undercard the other night so i'm not gonna go that far with her luke uh all right also on the weekend from pfl and dude anthony pettis oh my god he looked sharp got to tell you, you know, the guys who he lost to, we now have respect for. Clay Collard, we know how good he is. Haush Manfeo, we now know how good he is.

Clay Collard's on the level of Haush Manfeo, but you know what I'm saying. These are not guys you can just take lightly, whatever that's supposed to mean. But Haush Manfeo is obviously quite good. Okay, dude, but I got to say, there was life in this performance from Anthony Pettis. Yes.

And a pep in his step when he talked to the cameras and he even admitted maybe I didn't take these guys as seriously as I should I gotta tell you is he now your dark horse to win the tourney wow dark horse to win the tournament I'm gonna have to see him do this again but you want to talk about a great first step forward look unfortunately you've interviewed Pettis as much as I have through the years he tends to say that after every loss of you know oh man I need to start listening to my coaches more. I need to whatever. Whatever was the issue last year.

And I know, look, he's a promoter now. He's getting into different business things. But, look, he got into, like, elite shape again. In fact, he was in such good shape that when he walked to the cage wearing a PFL t-shirt, Mikey Mormont and I were watching it in his hotel room. We're like, why is Sergio Pettis there in a PFL shirt? Like, what are we doing here, bro? He's the Bellator champion. No, it turns out it was Anthony.

Like, that shows you the shape he came in. Dude, he absolutely dominated Miles Price in this one. Yeah. You know, maybe this is his mulligan to try to come back and show what he should have done last season. But there's going to be some tough outs here from Clay Collard, who beat Pettis last year, to Jeremy Stephens, who moved up in weight. I'm just happy for him, Luke, because Anthony Pettis has been, you know, he's an OG in so many ways.

But he's also a guy who never, I mean, forget about never living up to the moment of the Showtime kick. Dude, after he lost his title, he's just never the same again. Yeah, he alternates wins and losses. No, dude, it was the RDA beating. The RDA beating changed him. You're right. And I think also his dedication to the craft

has always been slower than it should have been because he's such an athletic freak who could do whatever he wanted to for so long. But, Luke, whatever he needed to figure out internally to produce that version of him, he should stick with that dude, because there's still something there. There's still something left in that tank.

And I like, I would say everyone, everyone scoffs at the idea. You leave the UFC. Oh, you'll just go win the PFL tournament. No dude. If people leave the UFC and then go and win the PFL tournament,

that is a major accomplishment that everyone should take seriously. We'll see what he does here, but I'm telling you, if he goes and he wins this tournament, I would be, I would, I would consider that to be a hell of a somewhat late career yeah not resurgence but certainly a just a grand effort to get there that's it's it's no walk in the park to that end by the way also over the weekend uh lorenz larkin getting a nice win

over kyle stewart and rory mcdonald over at pfl getting a nice he looked pretty good as well rory mcdonald right he did r did. Rory McDonald looked like he was back. Let's not forget how disappointing his loss to Ray Cooper III was last year, correct? Is that what happened in the semifinals? Did I get that right, Luke? I can't remember anymore. But yeah, he didn't look himself for a while, basically.

Well, Rory submitted Brett Cooper in this one in the first round. But speaking of Ray Cooper III, Luke, yikes, bro. Defending two-time champion, came in 5.4 pounds overweight, was very doughy, and then he went in there, and yes, Ray Cooper did get a decision over Rory in last year's semifinals, but Luke, in that Colmaine, Ray Cooper went in there against Carlos

Leal, and he came up empty in a fun fight, a three-round unanimous decision. Luke, that's a bad look for defending two-time champion who, I mean, you and I were like, hey, rest of MMA world, Ray Cooper, the third's coming on, bro. That's a step back. That's a big step back. I would agree.

All right. That is our top five. Wow. Luke, this is the most 1242 and we haven't even done DMS from dogs, bro. We got to move it along. I love you, but we got to move it along. All right, let's get to it. Now.

DMS from dogs. There you go. He at mother effing hall bitches. I love you, but we got to move it along. All right, let's get to it now. DMs from dogs. There you go. He at mother effing hall, bitches. All right, do I even have them? Yes, I do. Here we go. All right, BC, BC.

From Brandon Baranowski. Whose stock dropped the most after Saturday? Tony, Rose, or Canelo? I'm going to say Rose. Rose, what do you think okay so the stock question on Tony would would mean that most of us didn't have high expectations for a stock coming in so it didn't change much right so yes I would agree Rose's stock it was it was a it was a skullbanger it was a like what what happened? Something, you know, it was, yeah. She's got a lot to prove.

Tony got viciously KO'd. Canelo fought up several weight classes. Like, both of them were trying. I'm not saying Rose wasn't trying, but Rose didn't try in a very offensive way. You're right. And so you just have to say that, like, yeah, I mean, Tony's loss is bad. Canelo's loss is bad. Rose not only lost and lost the title but like the fans were like what the fuck was that you know i mean doe bronx lost his title on the scales

yet won everything back of his reputation and more to the point luke i think you and i acted this whole time with bronstetter that he's still the champion right like we didn't even say oh the vacant title he's the number one contender we just acted like he's still the champion rose unfortunately didn't take the l in the cage right i mean she did but she didn't put her best foot forward and because of that yeah that's it's a it's a mental sort of like knock of like you let it you let it slip away it was your fault and that's it's unfortunate someone that great it is all right uh let's see from underscore is itaterain, based off of his performance on Saturday, did we put too much stock in Gaethje actually, quote-unquote, changing as a fighter?

He seems to have reverted back to his early UFC and World Series of Fighting style in his last two fights. I'm not sure I fully agree. I mean, yes, there's been somewhat of an undisciplined style, but that's really not the case, I would argue. I think he still fought, relative to what he did in the world series of fighting days, much more in an organized way. For the most part, the problem is BC two things.

I would say one, there's just been no effort to get better at jujitsu. Like not really not meaningful elite championship effort to get good at jujitsu. And that's that glaring weakness still shows up. And not just as like, you can't do that, but you have to now avoid that whole side of the game and the other thing i would say is um you know yeah there's something to be a little bit undisciplined about it but you know

dude like he's what would you say well i'll tag you in there. Okay, I would say the evolution part, I don't have an issue there because he fought Chandler two fights ago who lures everyone into a brawl. And this past one, as I said, even before the weigh-in fiasco, I think the best medicine for Gaethje might be to get into a brawl with Oliveira

because we know that he can be vulnerable and take shots. So I don't have a problem with that part of it. And look, Gaethje came out and dropped him twice, so what are you going to say negative about that? But Luke, as I sort of threw out there earlier to Bronstetter and neither of you chose to take my bait, I got to take the L on feeling that Gaethje's better than he actually is, Luke. That gaping hole on the ground is just that.

I mean, he was tapped with ease by Habib and now Oliveira. Now, good, two masters of the game in terms of grappling and putting you in position to be subbed, of course. But, you know, there was very, very little effort. You know, I don't want to say very little effort, but very little defense. He just, you know, he has to resort to very you know emergency tactics and again i'll go back to bc the new meta in mma my daughter is just throwing fucking beads underneath my door here

okay this is fun but the point i wanted to make was dude the new meta in mma they don't have to take you down they just have to find back exposure yeah and once they find back exposure it's all over dude it's it's a it's a new ball game all right who's watching tukster right now uh we have uh right now abuela who is watching uh all right but as you can see just letting her throw shit under my door all right at jobey underscore the underscore hut. With it now being obvious that the Gaethje fight changed Ferguson, what are some of the most career-altering fights in both MMA and boxing? BC, if I may, we should plug, you know, I mean, okay, let me just plug this. Tomorrow we have an interview coming out with Rich Franklin from One.

We talked only about one thing, so I want to be clear about that. But you guys have heard me reference it on this show many times. You see, here's a great example. Rich Franklin beating up David Loazo. He was never the same afterwards. Is there one in boxing where you can just go back and be like, that dude never recovered? Two of that jump out huge.

I mean, look, when somebody suffers a catastrophic injury and then never fights again, that's obvious. But Mildred Taylor against Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. in their 1990 bout, Taylor was just, as we know, just electric in that fight, built a huge lead. But Chavez chipped away with huge power shots and finally dropped him at the end of round 12. And we know Richard Steele famously stopped the fight

with just seconds to go. Unfortunately, Mildred Taylor, who was a pound-for-pound level talent, explosive speed, but a Philadelphia fighter to the fall, he took heavy internal damage in that fight and really was just never the same. You know, was too willing to brawl the rest of his way and got old quick. Also, let's not forget when Hector Macho Camacho was at the early peak of his game. He fought Rosario, Luis Rosario, in a huge fight. And he got beat up in that fight, even though he came back to win it by rallying to box.

And, Luke, he became a defensive, trash-talking, almost counter-boxer the rest of the way, meaning negative boxer, almost like, you know, getting away from trouble and just trying to be a pot-shotter. Where earlier he was an offensive, aggressive force. Those jump out. Where else are we thinking in terms of modern MMA where somebody was coming on, they got solved violently, and then they just fell off the side of the earth, Luke? Barau and Dillashaw. Yeah, yeah. He was never the same after that one

either he got absolutely worked um it's a bad one again for folks wondering like well i've seen guys take bad beatings and come back well again not everyone's the same not every situation's the same but what you're looking for is a steady beating that just continues round after round after round after round that is what you're looking for and you go back and watch that gaethje and ferguson fight dude it is it is a one five minute chunk after the next of abuse just straight up abuse this is why corner work is important this is why fighter pay is important because if you just have the right circumstances with the right when i say the right referee i mean a certain kind of referee a certain kind of feel you can go in there and you can get changed and if you get changed your whole

life gets upended as a consequence everything has to be done the right way to the extent possible and if not bad shit goes it happens and it will happen it will happen in front of you and sometimes it's it's extreme it's ronda rousey against holly holm where yes she got beat up yes she got knocked out but that the invincibility was was gone to the level that her career was over and essentially in And sometimes it's extreme. It's Ronda Rousey against Holly Holm, where, yes, she got beat up. Yes, she got knocked out. But the invincibility was gone to the level that her career was over, essentially, in that moment. It's wild. Are you crushing your bills?

Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply all right from scott r new what are the chances history repeats with a strawweight title in other words carla beats rose and then if you wanna beats jang wai lee then you wanna beats carla and then rose beats you wanna three are we living in the matrix dude it's not a crazy thought it's not it's it's

actually look long term this is going to actually be fun because if rose is as you know i watched the post fight comments of rose at the press conference. You know, she was upset, but like I still think she's like, okay, I gotta go back to the drawing board and prove everybody wrong again. And by the way, she's really good at coming back. She's really good at, you know, putting it all back together and being even better. So it's very probable that she

does come back, Luke, chip away and win big contender fights. And she's, if that's the case, dude, she's getting a trilogy against one of those three i mean it's wild and you know she could lose her next one it could be mckenzie durne sliding in for all we know but the point here is that the old names are back they're all in great position to make some noise you mentioned andrage we shouldn't sleep on you're gonna keep seeing in this core group of four or five best at 115 them keep fighting each other and that's exciting

as shit Luke it really is all right and last but not least at punch drunk Pete uh it's a good question actually BC given the one-sided nature of their first fight in our mind anyway more shit rolling under my door and the apparent willingness of both fighters to do a rematch is it likely we see Canelo enter a second fight with Bivol as the betting underdog? Why or why not? So that's interesting. We're normally surprised in this case. When a big name gets upset,

they're usually often still the betting favorite in the rematch because it's the idea of they're the better fighter. They had a bad night at the office. Think Anthony Joshua against Andy Ruiz, right? Rematch, he's the betting favorite against Ruiz because it's sort of like okay we're gonna fix what was broken the first time around this is not that case even with the closest scorecards Luke I gotta believe B-ball as a slim favorite minus 140 or that's really the direction I see it going going you I would say I'm still I'm thinking about this I still anticipate Canelo gets the opening odds on a rematch will favor him uh but I suspect that you'll move to like pick them territory by

the time the fight rolls around but I actually don't see Bivol being the betting favorite by the time the fight starts um maybe that's fair maybe that's not but i'm just saying what i think the reality will reflect if that makes sense were you surprised that he was that much of a badass though that surprised you that he fought like a man in there right he fought like a fuck dude i said about before the show eddie i saw some interview eddie hearn did with a british outlet and he was like dude bivall fight the fought the perfect fight his jab was on point when it needed to be. His defense was on point when it needed to be. His positioning, everything.

Everything you needed to do to win 12 rounds, basically, or a 12-round fight, I should say, against Canelo, he did. That's absolutely correct. He fought just an absolutely superb fight from the opening bell to the close. You can't take shit from him. He looked awesome and for that reason i um i anticipate he'll win the second one unless it goes to the decision and canelo just does a little bit better with it in which case who the fuck knows you know that's funny i came into this show thinking i don't need to see a rematch i hope canelo just

takes the l and goes in another direction but you have talked me into the idea from an excitement standpoint of seeing this a second time and seeing what tricks Canelo can come out with to change the outcome. I mean, the first, listen, you could say Canelo won the second or a triple G fight or lost it, depending on your perspective.

But the second triple G fight was wildly different than the first. And so for that reason, you know, you got to think about that a little bit. Okay. Enough of us talking enough of old Aaron Br bronstetter it's time for your shit thank you i scoured the globe yesterday luke i looked at the highs and lows the good the bad the ugly and the in-between in combat sports and beyond this is my gift to you luke it's called have you seen this shit? Have you seen this shit? Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

All right, Luke, you think we're going to start off big here, but let's go to CES MMA. They had a show in North Dakota over the weekend on UFC Fight Pass. Look who showed up. The greatest fighter of all time, Jon Jones, looking buff. Luke, he told the announce team. This is in North Dakota at CES MMA, he told that announced team

he could return September 23rd in Las Vegas against Stipe. He said that's the hopeful date. So that should show you, Luke, that the early negotiations are promising, correct? Yeah, why the hell was he in North Dakota?

I don't have that in front of me. Maybe cheering on a teammate? I'm not sure. Maybe that's where Honey Boo Boo lives. I don't know. Or Boo Boo Wild Thing. I'm sorry, Luke. I don't know his situation, okay?

Thank you. Let's go to PFL in Arlington, Texas. Hey, Luke, former Bellator champion A.J. McKee showed up on the PFL broadcast got interviewed by the announce team with a PFL shirt on wearing a PFL shirt what does that tell you about his free agent future I talked to him right after he beat Patricio like in that when they were still bass I think it was at the Jake Paul fight. Remember that? We had a little conversation with him, and I talked to him a little bit after. At that point, he still seemed to be very hopeful

to find a long-term path with Bellator. I wonder if things have sat. I don't know, by the way, but it seems like something turned either around the Pitbull rematch or since then because he appears to be looking with wandering eyes if you know what i'm saying right i mean the news was that he said you know i want a million per fight and he told ariel that they offered the most they offered was 500 as a as a fight guarantee for every fight

and he wants he wants that m luke and you know that maybe this is telling you he's not going to get that with that company who knows we'll see all right interesting uh also on that pfl car we mentioned anthony pettis before let's see the finish here luke against miles price you said this is still called a triangle but he basically ends up sitting on the guy's face luke after this reversal i mean there's nothing about it that's not a triangle it's just called a mounted triangle and i gotta tell you in order to get a mounted triangle there has to be a massive difference in ground ability it doesn't really happen between two people of a commensurate or even reasonably commensurate like something has to go or someone has to make a tragic mistake um like you roll it here he pushes

it across yeah and then rolls through on the other side i mean dude it you know this is a um that's big bank take little bank i mean whenever they count down the most disrespectful dunks in NBA history, they always show Pippen over Ewing from the 94 playoffs in which he dunked on him with one hand and then teabagged him as he looked down. Is this the most disrespectful submission, Luke, to essentially sit on a man's face? It's pretty bad. Like, again, the amount of control.

I mean, he did a little bit differently. He locked up the triangle and then rolled to mount. It's a little bit different if you mounted them and then put then rolled to mount. It's a little bit different if you, like, mounted them and then put the triangle from mount, because that's a little bit harder to do. But either way, it's a really, really terrible look. Agreed. Let's go to UFC 274 in Phoenix, Luke.

They announced what I think might be the final member of this year's Hall of Fame class, and it was announcer, two-division champion, Daniel Cormier. Look at DC getting the love from the people, Luke. Good for him, dude. What a class of... I mean, if he can't get into the Hall of Fame, I'm not sure who could. He's been extremely important for the

UFC. Titles in two-way classes. He's blown up his profile back in collegiate wrestling where he is now calling matches for them, which he did for the national championships on ESPN. He's done so well for himself. You know, I wouldn't call him the biggest advocate of fighter pay with some of his views, but as a fighter, it was a joy to cover his career.

And this is a very, very deserved honor. I think he's still the best interview in MMA, meaning he gives you the most, you know, humility, honesty, like talks about his faults, the best damn interview in the game. Let's go to Jared Cannoneer, Luke. The celebs were out in the first few rows like normal. Look at Aljo, Molly Meatball, Patty Pimblitt. Look at Jared Cannoneer. Cannoneer's like, how did I end up at this party?

Yeah. Luke, are you still- That is fucking hilarious. Are you still in on this? Dude, Cannoneer is me. That is me at the bar. It's reminiscent of that time they zoom still in on this canineer dude canineer is me that is me at the bar it's reminiscent of that time they zoomed in on rose when she was sitting next to holly holm that one time and she gave that dirty look luke are you in on the patty and meatball like comedic marriage here are

you already over it yeah i mean i'm not hating on them i mean they're doing their thing they're they're a cheerful bunch you know all right uh inside the cage here i saw aljermaine sterling still getting booed i did hear that yeah yeah it is what it is uh portugal's andre fialo luke with this sneaky left hook ko on cameron van camp look at the baseline view of it damn yeah i mean the guy came in hands down into range that's yeah it's gonna happen right there yeah a little floyd mayweather right there I like that he didn't lead with the uppercut but this is why they say don't lead with the uppercut in this particular case you can't I get it he didn't lead but the the lead hand didn't do much to distract or really act effectively so he was sort of almost in a sense nakedly throwing the uppercut

this is why they tell you don't do that because if you just throw it without a kind of setup where they're really having to react to it you you can get drilled, and there you go. Doe Bronx, big victory. Charles Oliveira backstage with his team. Luke, this is how they celebrate. I mean, they deserved it, Luke, okay? They remind me of the 2014 men's Colombian national team in soccer who danced every time they scored a goal at the World Cup,

and it had the world loving them, BC. You remember that. I don't remember anything about that. Let's keep it going here, Luke. Here's Canelo Bivol. Here's the best highlight you can show. This was in the second half of the fight. Look at Bivol showing zero respect for Canelo with straight, hard punches, Luke.

I mean, what a killer performance, dude. I mean, I'm not going to say he's battering him here, but, like, is he taking the fight to Canelo? Like, not an ounce of doubt. Zero ounce. It's hard to hit Canelo clean, and he basically backed him up repeatedly and did just that, so shout-out to B-Vol. He won it fair and square,ball oh let's go to fair

and square dude let's go to potty for bellator 280 luke uh here's a little action from yolo romero finishing easy polizzi luke it was a buzzer beater of sorts although it looks like mike belcham was like three seconds too late luke i know well here's the thing the clock on the tv is not official. Okay. So I don't know exactly how they did it. It looked to me, I mean, you could have, dude, police, these people should not have let him out for the third round for crying out loud. But that aside, Beltran was just like, hey, just, you know, it's a street fight, fellas. Fight it out.

You know, if you're Juliana Velasquez, though, Luke, Beltran waved that shit off a lot faster, right? Yeah, that's true. Maybe some inconsistencies there. All right, on the undercard, Luke, Yves Landau had a victory here, but how do you score the dance, Luke? Is this... I mean, this is a 10 out of 10.

Holy crap! Oh, he almost didn't score the backflip. Okay, if he had missed the backflip, I would have docked him. Dude, is that like black magic or something? He's like bouncing on his forearms, Luke. Yeah, this man is a hero and deserves whatever the Presidential Medal of Freedom equivalent is in France. Yeah. Luke, check out this finish between Yousef Uwabos and Matthew Duclos.

First round TKO win for Uwabos, but it was wild here. Wabos? They're telling me they no longer have it, Luke. Okay, we're going to skip that. Look it up on the internet, apparently. We'll keep it going here, Luke. I don't know what this kid's future is, but this video, I mean, I watched it like 37 times in a row. We're in the sugar aisle here at the supermarket this is me during quarantine dude this kid rules i like how his eyes no longer line up

oh i'm a huge scarface fan apparently this kid that's great yeah yeah this guy was like you listen i have partied with uh no dude he came out of this and goes i am sugar yes yes i there you go machine gun kelly all right hey how about some elder abuse we haven't done this in a while luke we give you the youth of the world now we give you uh since we do believe the children are our future let's go to old people getting hurt luke this is if you're old you got to stay out of the x games i mean come on dude yeah dude fuck that fuck this boomer you think i have an ounce of sympathy for this bitch ass motherfucker it's like dude why dude look you're balding to the point where you know you have almost nothing left you didn't even bother to wear a helmet why the fuck are you riding on this trick course yeah pretending to be somebody you're not?

Get the fuck off the hill, old man. Wow, wow. Take that, Grandpa. Let's go over to the bus stop, Luke. You do have to be careful when the new automated garbage trucks come out with that mechanical arm. I feel really bad for somebody's grandma here, Luke.

Trying for the trash bin. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. That's not good. Maybe that guy can help her. I don't know. What city is this?

Probably D.C. No, we still have human garbage men here. All right. Let's keep it going, Luke. We haven't seen any dongs in the wild lately, but here in the Wild West, they got them everywhere. Check out this cactus, Luke. This is Amlo, who is the president of Mexico.

And if you hear the Spanish, he's, like, telling you, like, why Mexico is magic and shit like that. I bet it is. I bet it is, El Presidente. I bet it is. Look at the unit on that guy. Yeah. Wow. All right. Dude, that is

bulbous is what I would say. A new segment called Munchies of the Week. This is from Amano Pizza in Las Vegas. They have something called the Pizza Baby. Would you eat this? Okay. So far so good okay all right we're getting a little weird now a lot of carbs in here luke okay a lot of carbs okay another meatball and now cheese was that vodka cheese sauce on top oh my god well bc i would eat this on one

condition could you give me a ride to the emergency room when my gallbladder explodes? Yeah, just about right. BC literally gave me a ride to the ER when my gallbladder nearly exploded. Yes. I have a feeling this would put it over the top. I would not advise you to eat this. All right. Hey, let's go to the MLB baseball field.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go back, go back, go back. What's the name of that account? Look at the name of the Instagram account. Fat fuck. Fat fucks unite. That is perfect. Fucking perfect.

Luke, it's good to see rival fans team up. Let's go to Chi-Town. Cubs and White Sox fans here at this game decided to create a beer snake out of all the cans. I hate these people. They did this at a D.C. Defenders game when the XFL was real, and I was hoping that every one of these people would catch Ebola. Oh, my God.

It's all their cups. Sorry, not cans. All their cups together. Look at the size of this snake, Luke. That's expensive. I mean, can we put this effort into recycling, fuckfaces? I hate these losers. I hate all of these losers.

All right. Luke, Mother's Day yesterday. I know I had a great family day, but, you know, there's no limits for women these days, Luke. They can do whatever the hell they want and sometimes often most of the time do it better than you and i so um happy mother's day to this lady who's proving that extreme sports mixed with public breastfeeding is is no problem luke you know listen i'm not one of these guys who tries to police you know women breastfeeding in public.

It's just it's natural. It's part of life. But I got to say, in this particular case, that kid's probably headed for vocational school. I'm just going to point that out. This lady does not appear to be the brightest and is clearly going to have a moron child. And she's pregnant, as Gaff just pointed out to us. Yeah, and she's pregnant, as she pointed out. Yeah, I mean, this lady is, you know,

she's going to raise some moron children, so let's just be aware of that. Hey, let's head to the pool. Here's pool jumping done right. Luke, this is Andre Galvaio of One Championship. You know him very well. Yes. Pool jumping done right. Black belts of all time. Whoa! all time not bad not bad not bad not bad i

thought he was gonna bite it there but he's got it well done uh galvaio luke now we'll do pool jumping done wrong here's uh here's a new sport called pool parkour fuck this person let me guess is he white bc oh so so out of character for some dumb ass fucking hippie loser who's into like touch button the park to crack his ribs at the on the pool at the local fucking memorial day cookout uh lu, the only time I watch NASCAR is when they fight. This is a few weeks ago, but did you see Ty Gibbs take issue with Sam Mayer? So you know what? We're in the pits. Let's throw down, bro.

Dude, they do this in NASCAR all the time. They do this like the boys will be boys fighting in the pit. Rebels racing, Luke. Look at this. Dude, he goes, I want the smoke. Guy was like, you don't want the smoke. He's like, no, I want the pit. Rubbin's racing, Luke. Look at this. Dude, he goes, I want the smoke. Guy was like, you don't want the smoke. He's like, no, I want the smoke.

He's like, you don't want the smoke. Okay, bitch, here's the smoke. Have it. Have it. Choke on that bong, pussy. Bah. Air 1-0, Junior's going to win. Luke, Terrell Owens, T.O.

Remember that guy? 48 years old, still suiting up. This is the Fan Controlled Football League, which is that new indoor league in which the fans can call the plays. Going deep, T.O. That sounds like the worst idea ever. Yeah, pretty much. T.O., more muscular at 46 than you and I at 26.

Yes, at 48 there. The crowd loves it. That's great. All right. Luke, you and I had some good talks over the weekend about MMA rules, what should be legal, what isn't. What are your thoughts on 12-6 elbows to the sphincter? Those are all to the buttocks, to the hammies. I mean, is there anything stopping fighters,

whether you're in one or beyond, from aiming right for it, Luke, right for the ass crack? I'm not going to tell you who it was, but I had a famous sports journalist, I'm not doing a bit, this is real, last week ask me, and he was like, this is going to be a weird question, but just answer it for me. I was like, okay.

He goes, can you get knocked out? Is it technically even possible? Can you imagine a scenario where someone punches you right in the butthole and it knocks you out? I don't know the answer to that question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to speak with the true experts like Rock Hudson. Yeah, I'm with you on that luke all right uh luke one of your favorite child books has now come to life on the cinema screen this one's called willy wonka and the weed factory luke i don't know where this is

but good god i mean can someone just leave me here please just put me here and leave me here could you breathe underneath that probably i hope not i really hope not all right listen you don't know how you're gonna die you don't know when it's coming for you and you don't know how bad it's gonna be suffocating in a mountain of weed i gotta tell you yeah there are worse ways to go my friend there are worse officer he went out doing what he loved so this is not a tragedy. This is a triumph.

All right, Luke, let's go to karate. I don't normally show wins on this show. It's normally big L's. But, dude, have you ever gone to one of those karate shows

and people are breaking boards? They didn't used to break them like this in the 80s. Dude, what's going on here? This is Taekwondo, I think. Right? I mean, it's all karate to me, Luke. I believe that's a Taekwondo- think right i mean it's all karate to me luke i believe that's a taekwondo

but i can't be certain because i don't really know that much about taekwondo but i believe it is gaff has confirmed that it's taekwondo you ever seen these like these boards that they break it's like you know you know that you know when you go to church and you do communion and they give you that like piece of bread and it's like a little circle or whatever? I mean, I grew up Catholic. I know that. Why do you know that? You – I went to church for a while.

Then I realized it's a waste of time. But the point I wanted to make was – You're more likely to bark at the moon, Luke, than anything else, right? Those little wafers. These little boards are not much stronger than those, just to be clear. All right. A couple more left here, Luke. We got puke.

We got more puke. You know how we were taught at a young age never trust a fart never trust a baby either luke oh dude they will they will piss and shit and vomit oh yeah take that oh yeah give give daddy a big kiss yeah that's great thanks kid oh here's hey dad he. Baby bird, take that. Luke, the world is opening up again, so your return to the subways are inevitable. Check out this trick to get an open seat. I didn't think it would work. God, I hate the New York City subway.

This isn't New York City, though. This is way too clean. Yeah, yeah. That's probably like Toronto or something, but it works, Luke. It works. All right, finally, I got one more for you, Luke. You know, I've been involved in some dirty tricks, pranks on people, but nothing this gross. Your thoughts on this guy?

I've got you a gift. It's pure methane. Oh, my Lord. Dude, that's that i mean everyone dude if you do this the person who is the victim true or false they have a right to stab you i'm not saying shoot you but they definitely have a right to stab you well the last time i farted in a in a plastic bag and gave it to somebody they they didn't open it with their mouth, Luke. That was her first mistake, right?

Wow. You didn't notice this, but every time Damien from Albania turned on the clippers, I was just ripping ass in that studio. Just let me go. When Neon Dion from Etiquette Barbershop in Jersey City, when he was cutting our hair, you were

just crop dusting underneath that camera? Sorry, I should say when you were getting your hair cut I was crop dusting in your seat oh great that's a great reveal you know you're like yeah wow all right Luke uh yeah that's all the shit I got this week you probably have another job right no I do have another podcast uh probably to record today but not that um all right what a show we went long dude we went really long i do we got to say thanks to the crew in studio that helped us out we should also talk about bc we have a rich franklin interview coming out i believe tomorrow and we pushed him a little bit we definitely we asked him about like the way in situation being you know a little bit suspect. I liked it.

I'm excited about it because one is coming on to some degree. They've got the Amazon deal. We talked to Rich about that. They're looking to make the U.S. invasion and it's going to be interesting, Luke. Can they do something to grab our attention? I think at the very least, Rich Franklin, the vice president

of one, was able to hear some of our concerns, whatever, our, you know, whatever, and answer it in a productive conversation. So our fans have wanted more one combat. God, it's a great time to go up and down with a legend like Rich Franklin. So I encourage everybody to check that out tomorrow. Luke, a lot of people are still tweeting at us. When is that high court episode going to see the light of day?

Hopefully soon, okay? I would say soon, but we are waiting on certain news to break so we can attach that to the news. And it will happen, but it may take a little while. But it's coming, so don't worry. And fans of Morning Combat's hair parts from Neon Dion, shout out. But fans of Morning Combat's new interview series, Luke, that has yet to be announced.

We put a couple in the bank. Well, I guess you just announced it, didn't you? We put a couple in the bank over the weekend, right? We did put a couple in the bank. We got a lot of stuff coming. We just can't really talk about all that just yet. Nevertheless, BC, what did your wife say about your haircut? Hated it. Two snaps down, Luke, okay?

Yeah. Alright. Reminder,, okay? Yeah. All right. Reminder, Showtime is the label that pays. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can do something else with your life. Morningcombat at gmail.com. Wednesdays, fan subs. Fridays, dead wrong or just to reach the show.

That's the email. We, of course, are all over social. Let's see. We're on Instagram. We're on Twitter. We're all over all different places. You can give us a follow there like the video hit subscribe thanks to everyone who is a new

subscriber we do this three times a week so you can join us Monday Wednesday Friday 11 a.m. plus we have a lot more coming out we'll have extra credit coming out we'll have the Rich Franklin interview coming out we got a lot of stuff plus morning combat dot store as you can see there BC any final thoughts this

all the smoke sweatsuit is great, Luke. Can you see it? I mean, it's great. I do. I see it. I see you with your terrible socks and excellent haircut. All right? So for CBS Sports, for Malka, for Showtime, thank you so much

for watching. Shouts to Aaron Bronstetter. Go follow his work. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.