MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 282: Blachowicz & Ankalaev Draw | Bellator 289 | Crawford & Lopez Win | Ep 385

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

On Episode 384 Luke and Brian recap a massive week of combat sports. At UFC 282, Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev fought to a split draw on Saturday night in the main event of UFC 282. Did the judges get it right? Paddy Pimblett scored a controversial decision victory over Jared Gordon in the UFC 282 co-main event. First, what do you make of the judging controversy? At Bellator 289, Raufeon Stots edges Danny Sabatello. Thoughts on the scoring and what we learned from both? Plus, Patchy Mix put Magomed Magomedov to sleep via guillotine choke. Has he been underrated this entire time? (00:09:00) - Blachowicz vs. Ankalaev (00:35:00) - Pimblett vs. Gordon (01:06:20) - Rest of UFC 282 (01:21:30) - Bellator 289 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

it's a locked and loaded fully fully ready to go morning combat. Hello, everyone, on this Monday, the 12th of December, 2022. And what a Monday show we have for you. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estados Unidos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by a man who was absent friday who was very much missed i have to say he was missed on a friday and had a weekend of his life apparently i'm not sure

exactly all the details but i'm looking forward to hearing more it's my friend and yours the king of connecticut it's brian campbell hi brian campbell uh luke thomas good morning thank you i had a fantastic weekend you know sometimes luke you do have to press pause on the good life, which is our award-winning careers, everything we got going on to get together, cousin Mike's wedding. There's all these NASCAR drivers there. It was a big-time party down there in Charleston, South Carolina.

Luke, I was right there in the middle of it. I didn't miss the fight game one damn second. All right. I can well imagine. How much dancing did you do? That's really the most important question. And is there film of it? There is film of it.

You know what? I should have played the video on the show today. We will have a still shot later from the event. But I don't have you seen this shit. But, you know, I've been known, Luke, in my family circles to cut a rug, uh, pretty consistently. So, uh, you know, it was, it was cool. It was really cool. Luke dude, Charleston is one of America's, um, gems. And I'm, I'm very late to the party. I'm finding out that with the history, the culture, the, the, you know, everything across the board and, uh, you know, really nice service workers. I'm like your home city. So thank you very much, South Kakalaki, for welcoming me in so lovingly there.

Yeah, the service in the South and the friendliness is real. Yeah, I mean, it's the complete opposite of the friendliness you showed in the pre-show meeting, Luke, when you came out like an old bitch. But, you know, I can put that behind me. I really can. I really can, you know. We'll see if you can, mister. I show up 30 seconds before showtime and then want to conduct business. But okay, neither here nor there.

We have a lot of business to attend to, BC, as you well know. A busy weekend that we had. BC and I were in briefly in Connecticut to do some of the previewing for Bellator 289, which we're going to talk about. UFC 282's last pay-per-view. What a weird-ass pay-per-view this was. We'll talk about it. Plus, Teofimo Lopez kind of got a little bit lucky to be honest with you uh we'll get to the full boxing results as Bud Crawford also fought as well so thumbs up on YouTube please hit subscribe if you are new here welcome we are delighted to have you we do this

three times a week Monday Wednesday Friday live 11 a.m in the east plus all kinds of other stuff including exclusive sit-downs with fighters, reactions to big events, live, the whole nine yards. I also want to remind folks, Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com gives you a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. BC, we have a merch store. I'm wearing my Morning Combat polo shirt today.

I think you've got all the smoke on there, if I'm not mistaken. But if folks want to get more, they can go to morningcombat.store. And I'm told Wednesday is a kind of an important day in terms of that store. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Breaking news from good old RJ Wallbanger himself. This Wednesday of this week, the last chance to order on morningcombat.store to get it in time for the Christmas holiday season. Obviously, that shows you what RJ feels about the people celebrating Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, but at least for you Christmas lovers out there, this Wednesday, the final day, you know if you're one of our very rare female listeners.

By the way, on the DMs, the lovely and talented Mrs. Anderson, Corey Anderson's wife, outed herself as one of our few, very few female listeners. So shout out to the Anderson family there. If you're, you know, if you're looking to get your husband decked out and look about as cool as Raffion Stotts did during that Bellator pre-fight video package

wearing our jacket, go to morningcombat.store right now. But, you know, make haste on that jam. So that Christmas morning, you know, good old Graham Manning out there in Ireland, if his wife, who I've been in her DMs too, if she got ahead of the ball, you know, he's going to have a nice Christmas morning MK style. So thank you very much. And Luke, you know, just one last time. I know you hit it hard on Friday and I appreciate it.

Thank you to the fans, man. I mean, who the hell are you and I, right? Two down on our luck, washed pieces of shit, yet we're award winning pieces of shit now. And that's only because of you on the other side of the screen, right? You, you, you, right? Two down on our luck washed pieces of shit yet we're award winning pieces of shit now and that's only because of you on the other side of the screen. Right you. You. You. I mean you can put your pants on but you right there. Thank you. All true. All too true.

We really appreciate all the fans helping us win the second back to back for us on the 14th annual MMA Awards but our second back to back award for best MMA programming. It's the best podcast in this space by a considerable margin, I think. We do our own little thing. Folks who latch onto it seem to like it a lot, so let's keep going.

Oh, and reminder, we didn't even do dead wrongs. I don't think we did dead wrongs or fan subs last week, BC, so we have a lot to get to this week. Morningcombat at gmail.com is going to be the email to get to for that. All right. With that in mind, BC, we have a lot to get to this week morningcombat at gmail.com is going to be the email to get to for that all right with that in mind bc we have a lot to get to today plus we'll do uh dms we'll do bc's feces the whole nine at the end but let's start where the program starts if we can with topic number one the last ufc pay-per-view for 2022 is in the books topic number one of course is jan blachowicz and Magomed Ankhalaev. I don't know how to have a conversation about the entire week, NBC, without judging, but let's,

what do we say about this? It was a split draw, meaning no winner. And of course, this is a big and important fight, not just because it was a main event and it was for the title. Remember, the title was unclaimed because the previous champion had dropped it. This was designed to see who was going to get it, and then the winner of this was supposed to fight Glover Teixeira. We will talk about Glover in a minute because he obviously turned out to be part of this whole story. First things first, A, what can you say about the performances

of Ankhalaev and Blahovic? And B, and perhaps that's the most important one, did the judges get it right? No, they didn't get it right. What can I say about the performances? Look, they, you know, it was a title fight and these guys, you know, did their best in a largely shitty fight to come out there and try to have moments. And both of them did the main event, like the co-main event, very close fights. But, you know, Luke, after, look, this wasn't a spectacular calendar year for the UFC, but damn, was it solid and consistent across the board. But I think we rightfully said, looking into this final pay-per-view,

used to be New Year's Eve. Now it's a few weeks earlier. Lack of star power, fights falling apart. UFC, unfortunately, you know, stepped in the puddle and had a, had a just, not a great night at the office. This is not Planet Fitness. Okay. This is a judgment zone. And the judging here in this case was off. The decision-making to be fair, Luke, on the overall light heavyweight title picture seemed very off, almost as if UFC was, you know, stealing from Peter to pay Paul. And this draw in the end was almost like, well, that's what you get sometimes for,

for trying to, you know, panic a I mean we could have had this could have been Glover versus Ankalayev in Brazil next month and now we have even less clarity but I don't think it's the two fighters fault it took this fight a while to kind of heat up it wasn't the most entertaining but both had their moments both established to a certain degree what they do good and at the end of the day this was a three rounds to two fight for Magomed Ankalayev and not only is that BC's opinion it's seemingly Jan Blachowicz's opinion as well and Luke if it wasn't for that third judge uh in this case who gave Ankalayev a 10-8 round in round five that I just re-watching you know this morning just could not get behind and couldn't agree with.

This would have been a split decision win for Jan, which, you know, as much as it was a close fight, as much as it seemed clear, maybe outside of the first round, which was the closest, that each seemed to have two rounds of their own. I didn't love the scoring. I didn't love the development. I didn't even love Dana's decision to bring in two new fighters to fight for the title. This was sort of an unfortunate ending to a largely patchwork card. But Luke, let's first and foremost on these judges. I mean, is Jan winning by split decision in a sense where all of us, including him, would have disagreed worse than a draw in

which neither man advances to a title fight. Look, I'm having a lot of trouble sort of like, not understanding, because it's clear what happened, but like, okay, well what happens if, you say we're going to get into it in a minute, but what the hell happens if Glover and Jamal Hill end up, you know, having a weight issue or end up fighting to a draw? We go further down, we calling up Jon Jones soon to bring him in? I mean, in a lot of ways, it's sort of like what a shit sandwich that the light heavyweight picture became. Not the UFC's fault that Yuri got hurt, but the decision making afterwards turned out to be par for the course. Unfortunately, these scorecards played all into that picture. It kind of sucks, Luke. Both guys gave good effort and Kalaya started just a little bit too late as

he seemed to take a while to figure out Jan's strong counter striking, particularly to the calf kicks and all that, but once he did, for the remaining time he had left, I thought Ankalayev showed us exactly who he is, yes, his hammer belongs in that cupboard, you know, we can pull it out, damn, dude, I mean, I mean, what, it's like, it doesn't really matter what we thought about this fight neither guy's the champion and other guys fighting for the championship next so it's a it's a big bowl of fuck you right now luke right i mean it's just like what that what where are we right now it's as if they and they never fought it's as if they never fought we have no more clarity about the situation after the fact than we did before right I mean here's the situation I thought this was a reasonably clear 48-47 situation for Onkelayev I saw two by the way it wasn't just one it was

two of the judges I'm looking up right here two of the judges Derek Clearly and Sal DiAmato both gave a 10-8 to Yom excuse me to Magomed Onkelayev in rounds five. The difference was Derek clearly also had rounds three, four, and five all together with Ankalayev winning, right? So he ultimately was going to win no matter what on Derek clearly's scorecard. He just got a little extra bonus as a consequence. It's the Sal Di Amato card that ends up being the 47-47 because he had the first three rounds for Jan. I just don't agree that he won the first three.

I think pretty clearly he won the second and the third. I thought Ankalayev, frankly, won the first one, to be quite candid with you. I guess none of the judges scored it that way. That's interesting. Wow. I mean, look, it's fair to say that if you gave Jan the first round, it's not a crime.

It was a closest round. Sure. But I thought Ankalayev had done more. Clearly, you give Jan credit because he's a stubborn out. He hits hard. He's got great timing. He's got great poise. Rounds two and three when he came back and established the leg kicks.

That's Jan Blachowicz fighting right there. But damn, did Ankalayev turn it on down the stretch and to see Blachowicz also be like, yeah, I definitely didn't win it. I'll have to rewatch it. I mean, look, I get it that the judges don't score the fight after the fact. The judges don't know or care if the fighters thought they won or lost. But when you package this with the Patti Pimblitt fight, which we'll get into in a second, I mean, it just sort of sucked. What a wah-wah end. And you know, is this the UFC's fault? No, unless we're going to specifically critique the decision-making on who fights for a title.

But look, here's what I learned about this fight. That Ankalayev is the real deal. But unlike his compatriots, and I don't necessarily just mean Dagestan compatriots, I mean the whole greater Eastern European hammer movement that we're talking about. Separate from Moneylion Hammer of the Month for a second. Just these guys that are coming out here, they're well-rounded talents. They're absolutely dominant. They fight like soldiers and robots in a good way.

I think the difference between Ankalayev and everybody else who's coming the hell on right now is a little bit too poised and patient. Once he can start going downhill, he's got you. It just took him a while to figure that out. But like we both established, still look like he won one, four, and five, only he's not going to get a while to figure that out. But like we both established, still look like he won 1-4-5, only he's not going to get a chance to get that back.

You know what I mean? I mean, Luke, would you have been upset if UFC said, okay, judges scored it a draw, it was what it was. But let's wait two months, three months even, and we'll do Ancalaya versus Glover like we probably should have originally done. That was the way I thought it was going to go. And we'll talk about Anthony Smith a little bit later as well because Anthony Smith in the first quarter of 2022 was supposed to fight Jamal Hill which was a good fighter and I think a fight that made sense and now it's Glover versus Jamal for the title in Brazil

which I don't necessarily hate especially given the circumstances that we don't even have a champion at this point. But let me say something and push back a little bit about on Kalayev. BC, if the takedowns in the fourth and fifth round, I mean, okay, in the fifth round, Blachowicz kind of stumbled backwards more than he got really taken down.

So that doesn't really quite count in the same way. But with the top control being as good as it was, we did know that Jan Blachowicz was not going to be a threat off of his back. And he got torn up in those first two to three rounds with the top control being as good as it was we did know that Jan Blachowicz was not going to be a threat off of his back and he got torn up in those first two to three rounds with the leg kicks did on Kalayev but the takedowns came as easily as they did in the championship rounds it's like dude why weren't you doing that before you could even go back and hear his corner saying to him for on Kalayev dude what are you doing go over there and take him down in the first five seconds quit playing around with this guy they were they were furious begging him and

he didn't do it until too late i will say this the judging is weird in this one not nearly as weird as the co-main which we'll get to obviously here in a moment so i don't know that the judging is like the only problem with this fight although although it is certainly something of discussion. I got to say, as good as Ankhalaev is, some fight IQ issues to not go for the takedown earlier in this contest. Yeah, he's a little too patient. Dude, let that hammer go. Way too patient. So, I don't know, like back to the original question

I sort of rambled out. I want you to actually answer this. Even Jan didn't think he won. So, did Sal D'Am domato who who correct me if i'm wrong but he's a solid rock solid reputation correct um i would not say rock solid i would say pretty good okay if he hadn't done what he did a 10-8 round five was it a dominant round for yes was it a 10-8 no i mean darren till drink is duplicy round one to me that's a 10-8 round this round five no but did sal domato in some ways do us a solid by going 10-8 in round five

forcing that to be a draw to prevent jan from winning the championship and then advancing on i mean is it is that the best case scenario for us that, even though I hate the idea that now two additional guys down the rankings are going to fight for this title, is that a better scenario than Jan winning and no one believing that he won? I don't know, dude. This is weird. I honestly hadn't thought much about it that way until you framed it in the way you did.

I don't know what the answer is. I really don't because neither situation is good either you have a guy everyone sees i mean everyone likes you on blohovich but even y'all was like i don't know if i won that shit you know and then on the other side you have no champion yet again in a contest where i suspect that there will be some kind of finality because most of the time there is but yeah dude this is not great and it's not great because you didn't have two bad performances from fighters but you had kind of you know uneven ones right where one guy was really either good in one place or he just wasn't and then vice versa and then the judges are trying to make heads or tails of this with the criteria

that they have but it's all very imprecise and you ended up with exactly where you started well who nothing got accomplished by the main event on Saturday and can we laugh about it that's the biggest it deserves like it does deserve like and this is not like aimed at Dana or the UFC but it's just sort of like you know what I mean you you take a few risks and sometimes it all it's all shit in the end and it all falls down it all fell down on the UFC this past Saturday night. I mean, it did, Luke. Well, it did, and it didn't, right? Because we're watching it live.

I know you were gone, but here was the weird part about 282, man. Through the first 10 fights, they had 10 finishes. I mean, it was on pace to be potential card of the year territory if obviously the main and the co-main had to be excellent. But it was a good night. It was a great night. And then when they got to the Comain and then the Maine, everything fell apart.

So it wasn't all bad. It just ended bad. It was a tale of two cities, Luke. And, you know, the French did great, but, you know. All right, let's talk about that fight between Jamal Hill and Glover Teixeira for a second and we talked about this I think on Friday you were out which was that if you just look down the rankings if you take out the folks who've already fought or injured or something like that then

Jamal Hill even though he ranks seventh he would be the next logical guy in line that's just how the math would work BC what do you make of glover to share a versus jamal hill all right here's the deal glover to share a deserves the shot of the title i felt he deserved a shot last night you know saturday night at the title i get that he in some ways took himself out of that event by not being willing to fight on goliath on such short notice okay he seemed to be he seemed to have the leverage as a name as a former champion they didn't take him up on the idea to rematch jan on short notice so staying true to the idea that the belt's on nobody right now so let's go back to glover who's willing just won the championship

just fought his heart out in the loss to to yary or yeezy depending on your stance um i'd say okay i'm happy that he's fighting for it but like i'm not here to criticize anything jamal hill's done in fact you look at the recent record coming off of his his his only ufc loss his only career loss which was a first round tko to paul craig in 2021 god those three straight victories all by stoppage two of them by first round knockout, the names Jimmy Crute, Jimmy Walker, and Tiago Santos are a nice escalation. Yet, did he earn a title shot with those three wins? Hell no. So this isn't, you know, I'm not here to hate on Jamal Hillman. He's got a sweet jump shot, by the way. I saw him on the court. He's also a very

good fighter, but he just got to cut the line and it's such extreme fashion now look that you know extreme measures cause you know extreme circumstances cause for extreme measures this was that but this is weird to see Glover now getting to go home against a guy way down the rankings who well it's not as if Hill doesn't belong in this conversation has he fully earned it no so, what happens if, you know, a month from now, Jamal Hill is your new light heavyweight champion? Look, it's about as weird as I can remember

something. It really is. Is there a better scenario? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I know they wanted to make this date. They wanted to have it in Brazil. They wanted to have a title fight up high on that marquee. This announcement, by the way, pushes Figueiredo versus Moreno four down to the co-main event. Okay. UFC has a history of putting the higher weight title fight, you know, in the main slot, but this fight is,

I mean, it's going to feel like a title fight coming in because the title's on the line, but that's the only part of it. That's going to feel like a title fight, Luke. And you know, it's like if Glover wins, okay, you know, he was just championing. It kind of makes sense. What do we do? We give him Uncle Ive next? Do we give him, yeah, I don't know.

But what happens if Jamal Hill wins, Luke? Like it's all, that doesn't make a mockery of the division, but it's certainly not best case scenario in the timing that we typically go through where someone has to pass a certain amount of tests to get there. It's a shit show at the moment. It really is. It is. And I don't say that out of anti-UFC stuff, but it's largely a shit show at the moment.

I mean, you've got people tweeting what has to happen before Jon Jones decides to take that muscle off and come back. I mean, the post-Jon Jones era, which you expect in some ways for the title to switch hands a couple times, and oh, it has. But it's been bizarre luke and this this only this goes in new directions i never imagined that doesn't mean glover versus jamal won't be a banger that's what they're both about it's just you you can't tell me you didn't hear that announcement go wait what really wait what yeah it's the first thing i was like, I was actually doing the live show and people were tweeting me being like, Dana

just announced Glover versus Hill and I was like, what? I mean, how was that even, I just couldn't even wrap my head around how that was a thing already and yet here we are. Remember when Jon Jones had a fight, OSP for the interim title? Yeah, I was there for that one. That

was a little bit of like a, really? OSP right now? We're doing this? But okay, I get it. I mean, it's Jon Jones, so I get it. And then Jon had a very

lackluster winning performance, which also made it weird, right? I mean, I just... Here's something else to think about, BC. There's a lot of angles here. Again, I really think folks... I have been high on Onkalayev,

and I still am high. I think he won this contest, especially was dominant down the stretch after being hurt. He's obviously very talented, but I really go back and sort of question some of his strategic issues. He had some strategy issues in this fight. This fight did not need to look the way that it did, and he made it that way,

and I think that there is a question to be asked about some of his judgment based on that. Gun to your head he the best light heavyweight in the ufc right now or is that or do you remind i think that he is but i think he's got some adjustments to make to some of the ways in which he calculates risk um they were not really on point and this brings up my other point bc which is what i want to spit back to you listen you never want to get into the part where you're you know you're weighing the impossible based on imperfect information but I will say this the case for Vadim Nemkov as the world's best light heavyweight it got a little bit stronger on Saturday it got a little bit

stronger did it not it a hundred percent did so here's where I want to ask you a question that is somewhat related to that only due to due to circumstance meaning Vadim Nemkov just had to go through a tournament in which he was the defending champion coming in. He got no favors. He won it. He won his $1 million, but UFC not necessarily known for tournaments outside of the fact that the promotion was started with one night tournaments and outside of the fact that very rarely, what are we talking about? When the flyweight division started, we had that cool little four-man tournament. It's very rare that the UFC has dipped into that. They haven't in a while, but they have at some points. I don't think we look at tournaments anymore as like a Bellator, Bjorn Rebny thing, which at a certain point we kind of did.

Bellator has been doing it on the regular and they're fucking awesome to be fair. Wouldn't this have been the time with so much uncertainty for Dana and company to very quickly go back into that green room that he talked about during the post-fight press conference? You know, he framed it as they all went back there. Somebody threw out the idea of Jamal versus Glover in Brazil, and they were all like, yeah, that's it. That's the one. You know what may have really been the one this time? If they stayed an extra five minutes in that room, looked at the schedule, looked at the rankings ahead of them and said, look, John Jones is not coming through that door. He's going for it at heavyweight. Yuri Prochazka, not coming through that door. He's out at least

a year career to some degree in question, but we've got a group right now, a parody heavy group of mixed hammers, mixed in terms of experience and accomplishments, but all kind of about the same. Luke Thomas, why the hell not an announcement Saturday night of a four, six, eight, whatever amount of man tournament you want, taking these names, Glover Teixeira, Jan Blachowicz, Magomed Ankalayev, Alexander Rakic, Anthony Smith, Jamal Hill, Krilov if you need him, Paul Craig, whoever you want to do, Ozdemir, whatever you want to do, and just saying, in Brazil, Glover and Jamal are going to fight for the interim title, or don't do the interim title, just go, the tournament starts in Brazil, step one, and you're going to want to see this

because all these guys are hammers and they're all excited and aggressive wouldn't that have been a cool circumstance a surprise turn in a unlikely to predict situation which is this division just kind of imploding in front of us why not go tournament luke is that because bjorn ruined it i don't think so i think it is he's not that he ruined it but as long as that idea is seen as something that competitors and smaller promotions outside the UFC do to set themselves apart UFC is never going to want to borrow their idea if there was a way to like borrow it and then make it seem like they came up with it then they would but a tournament even though they are the ones to your point who originated with it in MMA but that was so long ago different era different owners different company blah blah. They're just not going to go with it. I do agree it would bring clarity.

It would bring some forced resolution to the whole thing. But a tournament just seems very, or even a four-man, I mean, a four-man one they might do. That's what they should have done here. They should have done some version of Onkelia versus whoever they want to do it. They could have done a four-man tournament here. I don't want to say the names in that particular order. But you get the idea. Like, there was a possibility here. Now they're just kind of having to do the. They could have done a four-man tournament here. I don't want to say the names in that particular order. But you get the idea.

Like, there was a possibility here. Now they're just kind of having to do the... This is... Listen, there are strengths and there are weaknesses to the matchmaker model. And the matchmaker model, where a matchmaker begins to pick the fights, is, I think, in general, the best model. But it has noteworthy weaknesses. And one of the weaknesses is if you get judging that just happens to go a

certain way, you can actually get no clarity in your division, no ability to rank, no ability at the top anyway, to put a champion, a belt on someone. And you end up with this stasis that serves nothing. The matchmaker model can't actually really solve that problem nearly as well

as the tournament model can, but here we are. All right. Well, Luke, I don't want you to go too far past that. said no that's what the other conference you know the other promotions do but what about the demetrius johnson ian mccall joseph benavidez who the hell was the fourth guy i forgot yeah but that was pre-pfl pre-bellator returning to turn so is can't you say hey look

we've been doing this shit since before you guys were even born right i mean to some degree you can is it luke is it the fact that the other tournaments offer one million dollars to the winner is that the large is that the largest shoe that dana has with this right now dude is that it it's like wait we got to pay more at the end of this shit yeah no hell no hell no yeah maybe maybe not i just i just feel like they, as long as, here's the difference. As long as in the modern era we're living in now, the current times even is a better way to describe it, more than modern era because that spans some years.

As long as the current times that tournaments are associated with other promotions, I just don't see them going down that road. Who was the fourth guy in that tournament? Good idea, but. Who was the fourth guy in that flyweight but who was the first fourth guy in that flyweight tournament i can't remember you uh uru shatani i think was his name damn good poll right there is that true i i feel like i've i forgot that ever happened i think it is uru shatani i have to double check but i believe it's uru shatani yeah okay okay i mean look like again no disrespect to jamal hill but what will be your reaction if he knocks out Glover to win the championship?

Nothing. Is he the real champion? He's a good fucking, dude, Jamal Hill is a phenomenal striker. Like, nothing would surprise me. Good for him. Okay. All right. There you go.

But damn. Now, Luke, I don't want you to rotate too far off this topic without addressing your boy Ramzat Kadyrov's social media rant against Dana. Yeah. Dana has done an interesting bit. Dana has, because I believe, wasn't Kadyrov at like a Moscow event? I can't be sure about that. But, you know, the point being is.

Is that the one with Greg Hardy and Volkov? Could have been. Could have been. But Dana has been... People are like, oh, the media never ask about Dana. Well, the media has got some problems, but they have asked Dana about Kadyrov before. I've seen them do it, and I think a couple of times

in fact. And every time he's like, who are you talking about? Never heard of this guy. No, who's that? And he plays that bit where his hearing is impaired, but he kind of plays it up to be like, I don't even really understand what this is. I suspect he'll do the same if someone asks him about it because it's like do you really want to get sideways with a murderous tyrant you probably don't but either way yes if you guys didn't see it ramzan kadirov who of course megaban on khalayev is very closely associated with ramzan

kadirov the leader of chechnya when i say leader i mean like murderous tyrant and uh the murderous tyrant came out with a bunch of statements, or a long one anyway, about how Dana needs to fix this, give the belt to Ankhalaev, restore integrity by apparently going over the heads of the judges and then giving him the belt and making him the champion. The tone of it was like, hey, stupid, you should have saw this coming. Why didn't you step in and fix it?

Like, okay, we all sometimes accuse the UFC of everything, but for all we know, they don't control. I mean, did Dana want Doug Crosby to be the name everyone's tweeting after this card? No. So they don't control the commission and the judges for all we know. But if you find out Kadyrov was a silent investor in the Dana White Slapdick League, Luke,

would you be the journalist that red flags that? Yeah, I would definitely take that public. You taking money from that fucking guy? Yeah, sure. Gaff did confirm to us here, Luke, that Yasuhiro Urushitani was the fourth one. He was the shootout champion coming in. Nice work there, Luke. Very good.

I'm not new to this, BC. I'm true to this. Does Dana clap back, or does Dana just go, nah, them dudes are little? I mean, because Kadyrov is the same ilk of the people that ran Dana out of cardio kickboxing, correct? Oh, no. Worse. Oh, much worse. Much worse. much worse um you know ramzan kadirov is not allowed to do business he's not supposed to be

doing doing business with anyone in the united states and uh has been with with like very good evidence accused of uh first of all trying to purge gay people from chechnya uh kidnapping disappearances torture murder the murder of journalists like we're talking about an all-time horrible i mean organized crime is organized crime at the end of the like we're talking about an all-time horrible i mean organized crime is organized crime at the end of the day luke right right right i mean organized crime is not great but it's an order of magnitude like the the italian mafia at its heyday had a lot of power but they literally weren't the governor of the state of new york they weren't the governor of the state of new jersey they might have been close in certain ways but not like directly controlled in power Kadyrov is directly controlling in power and has

by the way Putin's sort of like level of support by virtue of how uh loyal he is to his interests so yeah so he's a bad dude he's a really bad people think weed is a gateway drug to like heroin and we all disagree on that I wonder if fraternities are a gateway drug to like heroin and we all disagree on that i wonder if fraternities are a gateway drug to to like organized crime and mafia at the end of the day luke the only the only connection i have to whitey bulger is the nickname for my my bozak luke okay that's the only thing all right you know what i give you credit that's actually four minutes before you referenced your own genitals amazing there. There you go. There you go. Well, I got,

I got, I got R and R this weekend in the deep South. All right. I'm revived. Okay. All right. Good, good,

good. With that in mind. And this is where I have purposely not dug in heavily to the judging conversation in part, because in the first fight with the main event, it's not as relevant. It's extremely relevant in the second fight that we're going to talk about here let's talk about the co-main event UFC 282's Patti Pimblitt defeating

via unanimous decision Jared Gordon so BC I have a lot of thoughts on this I actually have not shared yet even though I reacted in real time but we have not had a chance to get even your basic first reactions so let's start with you and I'm going to go in reverse order. In this case, what do you make of the judging, and then what did you make of the fight? Fight kind of sucked. I mean, it was competed on even terms, and I think Rogan was right to call it during the broadcast

that especially in round three, which really didn't finish much striking, but, you know, it's just constant standing, grappling. You know, yeah, they used a lot of effort there, but the fight stunk. The scores were off. Look, I had it two rounds to one for Jared Gordon. I felt a lot of people did, but I think the bigger story, Luke, is this is a major regressive step for Paddy Pimblitt. I was the guy like you who upon arrival was like,

man, I like the, I like the, the, the circus he brings, but does he have the, the head movement, the defense, the, all this to do things? Look, he's won me over largely step-by-step with his ability to rise to the occasion, to show us the ground skills that he does have. But this week in particular, Luke was a massive fail for Patty. And I thought you really nailed that. I don't know if that was on your live chat or whatever. I've been gone for a few days. But your takedown on Patty and the industry as a whole for sort of, you know, coming at Ariel at his own game

and the L they took is, you know, no different from Dana trying to clap back and forth with a professional troller and Jake Paul who can spit out those on-point two-minute videos, you know, left and right to show you that you're not on this level. I think Patty getting embroiled in all of that like he did really put the target on him, and he was just unable to rise to the occasion.

Do we credit Gordon's toughness? Yes. But the prediction I had coming in about what this fight might look like, I think was still in play as the fight was playing out, meaning, you know, eventually Pimplet's going to get served. There are holes in that game. He's been over to overcome some of those holes with some of those hard to identify intangibles that he does possess. But all of that seemed to be dull this weekend, meaning this was an opponent who's tough as nails and Gordon who came after him. But one Patty, in my opinion, should have handled. Only Luke, he he didn't and the fact that he was so nonchalant

and overconfident within the fight after the fight that bomb of a joke he attempted to joe about paying for the interview that rogan didn't even understand and just sort of like was like okay dude this was just a bad look from start to finish now you saw him physically he looked in great shape it's not like he came in fat or whatever, but Luke, I have to be fair here. The focus and that, that spark that, that I'm here to prove everybody wrong thing that was in the wrong direction for Patty this week. Meaning it wasn't like he was motivated to come out here and show everybody that he's not a hype job and a bust. It was as if mentally he already fully escalated himself into the role of superstar. You know, he'd been talking about fighting Connor on pay-per-view for weeks coming in he has the boss on his podcast

and gives an absolutely tone-deaf interview about ariel that plays into people kind of mixing in booze and cheers and then on top of that you're in there against a guy that you should beat ability wise i'm just in my opinion that he should be and you know he In my opinion, that he should beat. And, you know, he's just, he's getting beat to the punch in the first round. And, you know, judging-wise, how the hell do you give Paddy Pimble that first round? I just didn't see it. Closest fight overall. But he took a step back in terms of his growth as a fighter, no question. He deserved to probably have lost this and had to force himself to rebound. But instead, he sort of survived in advance with a double-bender finger. And, you know, between this and the post-fight

press conference and, you know, what do you want to do next? I don't care whoever they put in front of him. I mean, it's just like, it's, he made a wrong turn, Luke. Is he buying into the Patty headlines a little bit too much? Is all this barstool bullshit with everybody in the crowd in wigs? I love hype. I love circus stuff. I love trash talk. But what made Conor McGregor so successful in doing that better than anyone ever did in his rise, winning the fights and pretty much winning them spectacularly during that insane run Conor had. It's not like he was having these close decisions where we argue after the fact that he actually lost. Dude, he went in there and took care of things patty's already stepping into the character a little bit too

aggressively without making sure in my opinion that the the fine details are all are all you know are all handled in the right way luke this was a straight up regression and i think with with a sort of a bad pr week mixed in he he's going to have to go back to the drawing board and he's going to have to win us over because if this is the fighter he actually is, then stepping up in competition is only going to get him closer to that first L. And it's not like the career is make or break.

This isn't, you know, what we sometimes wrongfully look at boxing where one loss shows you exactly who somebody is. No, no one's trying to say that. But dude, he talked a big game this week. Talked a big game during the fight. He talked a big game after it. But he did not have a performance that backed it up.

And if anything, he was lucky to survive in what I thought was really just some shitty judging across the board. It's two rounds to one for Gordon. Could have been a split decision win or a split decision loss either way? Yeah. But to see Pattyty the favored you know the favored son come out it only fuels people to go oh day nine company paid off the judge no i don't believe they pay off the judge i think it's just a shitty performance from the judges who had a better view than i did but this definitely was a slow your role movement to what is the true wait for it ubl that tattoo right across the navel upper bound limits

luke this was a detour a stop can't you know seats taken it's not even a detour like we need to stop we need to stop with the fantasy that what we've seen gives us any confidence that a title is in his future like okay so for example for example this was his fourth fight in the ufc right pop quiz bc what was conor mcgregor's fourth fight in the ufc uh dustin poirier correct and what happened in that fight he knocked him the fuck out to be fair in a round in a round he finished him off in a round do you know where Poirier was ranked by most places at that time in that moment September of 2014 I'm gonna guess no worse than sixth how about number five okay so let's let's compare the two for all the people being like oh he's the next guy dude no the fuck he's not not right now that

Conor McGregor in his fourth UFC fight fought Dustin Poirier, knocked him out inside of a round, and he was ranked fifth. Jared Gordon is a very talented fighter, but as it stands today, is unranked in the division. Like, we're not even talking about people

remotely on the same level. The biggest winner at UFC 282 was Ilya Teporia, who we'll talk about later, matter-of-factly. Like, that is someone who's got real potential. That is someone who clearly either will fight for a title, maybe even win one, maybe even hold it for some time.

That guy is on the level. Paddy is certainly a very talented dude, and I will be clear again. His back attacks and his fence wrestling are elite. Those are elite. But the rest of the game which is huge portions of it are not it's not and it's not it's not it's not even me this is it sounds like we're being insulting by not like exalting every portion of his game which is not what we're trying to do we're trying to make accurate assessments we can say based on evidence

and by the way we're talking about a guy who's got what? 23 plus fights? Something like that to this point? Who's been fighting for over a decade in Paddy Pimblitt, or roughly a decade anyway? I think he made his pro debut in 2012, right? So he's got a 10 year pro career. He's

20 plus fights in. In his fourth UFC fight, he barely eked out a win due to poor judging in my estimation, because I think he lost, against an unranked fighter. Guys, not even on the same ballpark, not even the same universe as what Conor McGregor did back when he was fighting everyone in 2014 and 2015 and on. Not even related. How'd you score it, dude?

How'd you score it? How did I score it? I scored it two rounds to one for Jared Gordon. I had him winning the first round cleanly. Second round I recognized is a little bit close. Third round I recognized is also a little bit weird because it was control time without much behind it, and so it's really hard to know.

But if someone gave that one to Patty, it wouldn't bother me at all. It's fine. I get it. But BC, I think we do need to have a discussion about judging. I think we need to have it on two different levels. Okay? Here's the first level I want to have it on.

Namely, it is true that after every disputed decision, a lot of people are happy and a lot of people are sad. And the people who are sad get out and cry robbery. That is very true. People cry robbery in inherently close fights all the time, and that doesn't really do anything. It doesn't mean anything. It's just sound and fury signifying nothing.

On the other hand, BC, this is my problem, and this is why I think people are frustrated. If you look at this fight, only one round was consistently given to one person. Round two was given 10-9 to Patty, which I don't agree with in fact here's my point the other two rounds uh were could have gone either way based on how the judges scored it some people gave it to patty some people gave it to jared and of course we've seen three round fights before where there was no unanimity with the judges where each judge there was no single round where all three agreed in this particular case it was the second but it didn't have to be that way i want to point out something here and this is my main problem with the scoring criteria to me it is not impossible

to argue 30 27 gordon it's not to me a very strong scorecard is 29 2828, Gordon. It is, to me, less conceivable, but I could understand a 29-28 for Patty based on the way Judge Chris Lee had it, which was 10-9 for the first one and then the other two for Patty, right? That I understand. And honestly, while I could not agree with it, you cannot say, based on the way the judges scored it, who they both, two of them, gave round one to Patty, that is it at least conceivable, right, and arguable to your authorities there at the commission, if you scored it this way, is 30-27 Patty based on the scoring criteria in play?

Not that I am asking you to agree with that assessment, but based on the amount of latitude that we grant, where two of the judges gave rounds one and two to Patty and another one gave around three to him. So all three are in play there. In other words, we have a scoring criteria where 3027 Gordon and 3027 Patty are both in play. Folks, people listen to me very clearly. This scoring criteria is not good. It gives so much latitude, individual latitude, to interpretation and to the judge's own estimation of things that you do not get any clarity or any difference between a good scorecard and a kind of shitty one that you can fudge and see this is the reason why everyone is upset because we have so much room accommodated for dog shit judging that we grant as acceptable under the circumstances by virtue of the latitude granted fuck that well this scoring criteria blows i'm tired of people

defending it and we need a different and better system i mean it was a it was a perfect storm to get this to be one of our lead discussions meaning doug crosby putting in the outlier scorecard in bellator with sabatello the night before flying across the country and having an you know another shitty scorecard in this fight simultaneously all three judges scored it to the favored son that nobody thought won then you add in what happened in the main event where all this did to me was once again put back in the spotlight that we not only have one problem related to MMA judging and scoring we have many Luke using the boxing 10-9 must system nobody knows anymore what a 10-8 round is at some points you know there was

over compensation of anything dominant as a 10-8 round is. At some points, you know, there was overcompensation of anything dominant as a 10-8 round. Now, everyone's afraid to do it again. And last but not least, the interpretation of the letter of the law, which if you're reading it the way I did when a fan sent it to me, it's impact, not damage. And impact could mean so many different things based on that

actual letter, like making somebody frustrated because you're implementing your game plan and making them adjust. Yet we had John McCarthy of, you know, famous referee of Bellator fame on our podcast last week. And he's like, no, I'm the one who was in those meetings when that letter of the law was put out. I wanted it to be damaged.

It should be damaged. They wanted to change the word to impact to make it seem less barbaric and violent. Luke, I believe changing that word to impact completely changes how you could interpret it. All that leads to a large shit soup, which is what we're all going to be swimming in until changes are made. This just happened to be a perfect storm this week of Crosby flying all over the globe and all this sort of like, did the favored son win when he shouldn't have?

At the end of the day, was this fight close? Yes. Should have been two to one, Gordon? Yeah, both of us and everybody online is telling you that same thing. But, you know, these problems are going to stay these problems, Luke, you know, whether you want to go to five judges instead of three, or you want to go to almost a point scoring system, somewhat a la amateur wrestling. This is what you're going to get continuously in a fight where it's not like

this isn't even like mvp versus logan storley where you're like okay it depends on how you interpret that letter which side you're going to lean this just seemed like people are leaning all over the place and i don't really get it luke i'll say this you know everyone does this bit about like oh well if we use this system in this case it would be better without recognition of like well how would that work how would we this system in this case, it would be better without recognition of like, well, how would that work? How would we implement it more widely? And yes, it's very easy to say this one particular system would make a better choice than this one,

but would the system work better overall? It's a separate debate. However, BC, I've been very consistent on this show. I do think one championship has a much better system for adjudicating fights, and you could not fucking tell me in this contest. Listen I have the stats right here. Round two.

Remember round one is the clearest round for Jared Gordon. And two of the judges didn't give it to him. Like to me it's like dude what the fuck are we doing here? This does not make any sense whatsoever. So there's a problem I want to get to there. But BC in the second round. The round that they all gave to Patty. 28 to 24 Patty had a four significant strike lead,

which is not much but something. And of course, that's quantitative, not qualitative. However, Gordon also had a takedown and had two minutes of overall control time, partly along with that. Like the idea that that's a clear round for Patty, but round one with its math is not a clear round for Jared Gordon just makes no sense.

If you judge that fight as a whole, which guy took the fight to the other guy, the most, which guy did the most activity, which guy was trying harder, which guy was the one who, by the way, by virtue of the punches, he was landing, getting the other guy to back up when he was trying to launch an assault. It was Jared Gordon. It was Jared Gordon the entire time. This is fucking bullshit. And I'm so sick of hearing all the time. It's like, well, this scorecard is okay. And this scorecard is okay. And this scorecard is okay. And this scorecard is okay. If all of those scorecards are okay, then your criteria is not very helpful. It doesn't really separate the wheat from the chaff hardly at all, which we need the most of

in these contests the bcu brought up something else that we really got to talk about which is doug crosby a guy who's been fucking off for as long as i can remember in this fight game seven years ago chuck mindenhall wrote a feature on him if you've never seen it or read it it's you know this guy just believes he has a different set of wisdom that is above the rest of us mere mortals meanwhile he turns in some of the worst fucking scorecards you've ever seen in your life what do you want to say could you educate me i don't know much of his history but i'm told that he was on chail's podcast and and now these files are deleted and he said some offensive stuff and aaron bronstetter found the missing audio and put

it back out there i was at a wedding trying to catch up with all this luke okay yes i mean basically if you i i've not even heard those tapes, which are bad enough, but I read his profile. Doug Crosby hit me up years ago, was calling me and leaving me messages, and I never returned a single one of them, where basically here's what the commissions in theory are asking judges to do. Every judge, because they're a person, is inherently going to have their own set of biases.

It's impossible to not have any bias. But of course, a good person is going to be somewhat understanding of that and do their best to limit it. And what they really want you to do is to look at the criteria and make an assessment and as best as you can, take that criteria and apply it to the fight. Doug Crosby does not believe he is constrained by these considerations. And certainly what he has said in the past anyway is that basically he has his own sense of things and he's going to go buy it in the way which he deems best like he has

his own editorial judgment about what he's out here wine wine steaming all over the fight game right and so he will talk about the danny sabatello fight because doug crosby is involved in both judging controversies he turns in an absolute dog shit 50 45 for Danny Sabatello and then comes out here and gives rounds one and two to Patty which I don't doesn't make sense to me and then round three to Jared when round three is the one where he does all the control without much damage like if there was one round you're not going to give to Jared Gordon it's actually round three that would be the one that you don't give to him that's the only one he got from Doug Crosby. And dude, let me just say this very clearly. These commissions will not fire these fucking guys.

They will not reduce their roles. They will not limit them. Doug Crosby has been a, you talk to fighters and coaches, my phone this weekend is filled with high-level coaches who've seen some of the things I've said, reach out to me privately and say, this guy has been damaging careers for as long as they can remember.

And the commission won't do shit about it. We can cry all we want about the criteria being a problem. And I think that it is. But one of the things that exacerbates it is that they will not do anything about flagging talent who needs to be either removed, reeducated,

or otherwise have their role reduced. All I can tell you from my history in boxing is that's how the commissions roll. You know how sketchy the reputation of the Texas Commission is in boxing? You know how many times RIP the late Judge Gail Van Hoy just turned out scorecards that were like 12-0 in the other direction, yet continued to do the biggest fights? Lawrence Cole, son of the former head of the Texas Commission, has had so many in-ring botches, yet if there's a title fight in Texas,

old Larry's there, Luke, from, you know... I want to call her, because Danny Jacobs once famously mispronounced this on my podcast, I wanted to call her Adolescent Bird. But, I mean, is that the greatest example, Luke, of old Adelaide Bird, who, you know, botched the Triple G Canelo fight in Part 1 more than anybody? Bob Bennett at the press conference afterwards was like, no, she's completely fine. She's fine.

It was just a bad night. It's like, what planner are you living on? She's completely fine. But, Luke, the only time I ever saw somebody get run off was CJ Ross. And that's because she put back-to-back monster stinkers. She scored Bradley Pacquiao one for Bradley, and then she scored Mayweather Canelo six rounds to six. And they got rid of her with two monstrous misses on the very highest level.

I guess short of that, Luke, you're untouchable, right? You're Teflon Don over here in the commission official game. I've said it. I always say it. I believe it. The best way to weed out the good from the bad in the commission is to make the officials, I know my judging friends in Connecticut don't like this opinion, but to make the officials accountable after the event, make the judge, make the referee show up to every press conference, not to get pissed on, but to get cross-examined. Show us, tell us what you saw. Because, Luke, this will show everybody watching who really gets it.

This will also, in my opinion, educate. Because like you said, not every fight's a freaking robbery. It would allow an official to say, look, I'm not on Twitter. I don't have replays. I'm sitting right here and this is what I saw. Do that. If not, this is what's going to happen. But I want to ask you quickly because I always try to devil's advocate ourself.

Are we missing the scoring on this fight? And in particular, round one, which I don't think that's a swing round. I thought that was clear that Gordon landed more power shots that were knocking patty's head around in the first round yeah patty rallied late but so did gordon are we missing the fact are we over looking the fact that patty didn't dominate this guy like we thought he maybe he should did that make us want to score the fight more even than we should have luke because you will say this whether you believe these judges are clowns or true professionals, they are professionals, meaning they go through the, you know,

the conferences, the exams that, you know, they get feedback in theory from their bosses here. So are we overplaying that, you know, that whole idea of, well, Patty didn't do as good as I thought he should have, so he lost. Is that in play here or not? I mean, I'm never one of these guys who expects him to go out there and like I'm still in a state where I'm like let's see what Patty's got I didn't go in there with like big expectation frankly I think I thought he was gonna win I think I picked him to win on

CBS Sports HQ I thought he was I thought he was gonna I knew I thought he was gonna win but I knew it was like there's a lot we don't know how it's going to happen here. I mean, my sense is he should probably get it done, but I guess we'll see. You know, so this is not some case. Certainly, I can only speak for myself. I don't know about the wider public, which is I know what you're asking. But I never went in there with some preconceived notion that this was an unwinnable thing and he's going to get exposed. Or, you know, whatever negative editorial viewpoint you would want to put on this. I went in there being like, let's see what happens.

I thought he got boxed around for the first round. And also, here's another part. Go back and look and watch how much Jared Gordon blocks everything. There is so much that just lands on the arms and the gloves of Jared Gordon. And you know what fight it reminded me of? It reminded me of Diego Sanchez versus Martin Kampman, where Diego Sanchez wins this fight based on activity. And when I say activity, there's literally long stretches

where you can see the crowd roar, where he doesn't even make contact with Kampman, and yet he still wins. Kampman clearly won that contest, but it didn't matter because it looked like just the aggression and the volume of attempts from Diego kind of of swayed their judges there's something to be said for that i thought a lot of that here was this patty did land some good shots he was trying to be active i i well he didn't get his ass kicked or something like that but he clearly lost he

clearly fucking lost this contest and i don't know how that's well i do know how we got where we got but it's a fucking problem how concerned were you you with Patty's utter dismissal that this fight was close, that he could have lost, that afterwards you just started like, nah, man, I knew I was up 2-0, so I was coasting in round three. I couldn't believe it. And again, and then Doug Crosby gives the third round to him, and then it's like, dude. Dude, red flag alert.

He told Joe Rogan that i knew i was up to nothing so i didn't want to take a chance that i can get stopped yo that's the difference between patty pimble and conor mcgregor right now that's the difference right there okay well here's the thing robbie lawler throughout his career has always taken rounds off you know so like i'm not gonna kill a guy for doing that but again going back to the comparisons with Connor like you're right they don't make sense and also you know why would you be comfortable that you were winning the first two rounds like at a bare minimum you had to know they were close and when they're close given the criteria it's just impossible to know which way they're going

to go like there's a certain amount of comfortability with like how things are going that doesn't match reality i i don't quite understand how we got to that point i really i really really don't so the the big takeaway for me is he gets the win we can talk about judging and everything else and what should change i think our current scoring system sucks ass and we need to say it out loud but the bigger part is what you said up first bc which is it wasn't like patty looked bad that's not true he did not look bad he just looked okay right he looked okay against another guy who's not ranked this is not a guy who is screaming title potential at all and this is that you know if anyone thinking we're being extra critical i

don't assume anyone is but maybe there's someudlians, some scousers out there who think we are. When you announce yourself in the way Patty has since arriving here, yes, there's extra expectations. There's extra scrutiny. So, Luke, this plays right into, I want your take first and foremost. What direction should the UFC go next with Patty? Patty's not a train wreck. He didn't fall apart. He didn't gas out and lose. But he had a win that he was lucky to get survive in advance did not escalate his career in any sort of way

you know but yet the barstool guys are out there with wigs you know ruining all these scousers careers loop accidentally we're not cashing him out i mean in the war room which patty in theory shouldn't have access to are Are they concerned at all? What are they talking about, in your opinion, of what should be next for him? I think if you're a UFC, I've said this before because we've seen it with like Paige Van Zandt and the Sage Northcuts and some other prospects as well. We'll see what happens with Raul Rosas,

who, by the way, looked pretty good. Looked pretty good. He had a fight he should have looked good in. Pretty good. He looked freaking fantastic, Luke. No, he looked pretty good. I mean, we're talking about an opponent he was very much outmatched. Okay, he turned 18 yesterday.

He backpacked the kid and put him away without even being touched. I think that's better than pretty good. Dude, people do not understand combat sports peaking. People think with Raul Rosas Jr., because he's 18, oh, how good will he be by 25? Dude, he might peak at 19. He might peak at 27. He might peak at 22.

It's impossible to say. So what you can say is against an overmatched opponent, I see you playing games because you don't like reconciling with the facts. He looked good. He did look good. There's no other argument. But he had a very outmatched opponent. No, there is another argument.

You saying he looked pretty good dismissively okay no no it's not dismissively but you can do again it's he's not beating super high quality opponents nor should he be fighting okay but he stepped up in an espn main event probably without armpit hair he can barely vote with so much pressure so here's the question b BC. What does that mean for his future? Because that's the that's what you're trying to get to here. Tell me what Saturday means for the actual full potential, because here's the narrative. The narrative is because you look good. Oh, my God.

The possibilities are endless. Not fucking true. Not true today. Not true tomorrow. Not true ever. It doesn't mean that at all. That's the problem people think because i'm not necessarily talking about his this means at 25 he's going to be great that is not

what that means but he could get it he could get a flower today from you for his performance but that's not the topic what do you do next with patty if you're the u.s he ralph rosas jr actually looked sharp that's the point but neither here nor there i think you treat patty like you would if he won this convincingly what's the next step up from jared gordon the ufc with raul rosas and his other guys they usually give them like the three ish sometimes two sometimes four like workup fights before they really begin to turn up the heat okay man you fought jared gordon he didn't look bad right he did not look bad, but the judging would have been over that. So I think you just treat it like it's the next step up and either you give him something like inside the top 15,

like 11 to 15, or someone on the outside. I will say this, though. Like, lightweight's got a lot of guys who are also not ranked who I think would give Patty a real hard time. Who's the kid that lost to sadiq yusuf i forget his name but uh what are you talking about demir imogulov no no no dude demir is magulov would have his way with him i mean that's not even i mean okay is now that here's the question is now the time to find a little bit better jared gordon or is now the time to find a little bit better Jared Gordon or is now the time to go crazy

to go crazy and max him out and put him there with like freaking Connor or is there an in between where maybe you find a faded name going in that direction that you put him in there with you could do this Tony Ferguson he's ranked 15 that's what I was building toward I love your way you thought

about that Luke Thomas if he fights Tony Ferguson in three months, does he get the win and put all this stuff behind him? Probably. I would, gun to my head, I'd probably pick him. But I'll say this. What is that, a pay-per-view co-main? Hold on, I'll say this.

Mike Davis is not ranked, and I'd bet Mike davis to beat him cleanly um wow wow i it's definitely on a pay-per-view main card i mean he's definitely quite popular but um i mean does it okay all right do am i overly giddy about some weird potential of doing a connor patty pay-per-view too early and putting it in europe and going nuts yeah i'm drunk on that idea because i like fun weird spectacular you know me okay i'll get i'll get sold by the packaging by the colors i don't read the ingredients on the back luke you could ask my doctor but with patty showing limitations or concerns or maybe it was just a bad camp, bad week, bad all that and he just kind of was flat.

I almost want this kind of fight even more now because it's like the ultimate we don't know what it's going to look like, right? Yeah, but again, I mean, I just feel like you're like look up the rankings there on lightweight like Jalen Turner

is not far behind. Jalen Turner would do bad things to him, I think. I don't disagree with that. Demiris Magulov, I think, is ranked 12. 12. Like, Demiris Magulov would box his face off. It wouldn't even be close. So, to me, it's like, you know, if you're this far along in your career,

and the problem that Patty has is, again, the things he's good at, he's really good at. Back attacks, fence attacks fence wrestling he shines there he's a problem there like no doubt about it like i think he gives actually ranked guys real hard problems on that level i do i mean that genuinely but um i just feel like like the like what's the ultimate upside of patty at this point i think you can, not affirmatively what it's going to be, but I would be very, very, very surprised if he cracks the top five ever. Maybe even top ten, to be quite honest with you. Wow.

Okay, so Barbosa at 155. No, we're not doing that. You don't hate that. I know you. I don't hate that. I know you better than most. I don't hate that. I don't hate that i know you i know you better than that i don't hate that barbosa of like seven years ago no no this version of it but nobody's trying to do that yeah yeah all right let's move on to anyone else on the card here bc and we'll talk about some bellator because we still got to get to that bc uh there were other fights on the card let's talk about it darren till oh he does not look great he loses to drichus duplicy although he had a good second round and a good rally and into the first so what happened bc he gets finished off in the third

with a face crank which by the way it looked like it wasn't i'm not saying it wasn't in but there wasn't like a a pitched hand fighting battle to get it off kind of just tapped uh okay but you know maybe it was really tough who knows either way what's up with till where are we going so i didn't think i'd say this because for another two and a half weeks uh darren till is still on you know the light side of 30 he's still on the good side more or less i said coming in regardless of loss he's too big of a name he's still got too much in the tank that even with all these losses backed up you know you can't cut him or anything look I think

they should cut him and it's not necessarily because he can't win fights at a step down level from here but like look what happened to Brandon Moreno I know that was a different scenario they were considering getting rid of the division but my point is this I don't think step down level from here. But like, look what happened to Brandon Moreno. I know that was a different scenario. They were considering getting rid of the division.

But my point is this. I don't think, you know, the UFC would lose a lot if he went to another big name secondary promotion and became a main eventer or even a champion. But he is not getting better. He's only getting worse. And when you look at the totality of this streak which is six fights one win five defeats the only one to split decision even if everyone thought it should have been unanimous but the only guy he beat a guy love and kelvin gastelum has similar questions and problems at the moment

it's like unless you put him at the bottom now and make him make him restart and work all the way back i think the only thing that's going to change if this guy is still going to prove and come back to the level he once was, which was a title challenger in a division below, is make him go break glass outside and figure out if it's still in there, if it can be redeemed. Because I feel like at this level in the UFC, he's had too many chances and he's too consistently failed them. He hasn't failed them spectacularly outside of this one, which I think, look, even with his reversal late in round one, and even with some of the

success he had in round two against a suddenly exhausted Duplessy, this performance, including the tap out, I mean, dude, this is bad. Look, Drakus Duplicy impressed me. He was better in this fight than I thought he would be. I thought Till was going to get the sneaky upset here and remind us that experience, skill, some of those things still matter. Even with Duplicy outperforming, he was also ready to go at looked at times in that second round from his gas tank emptying to cease till overall succumb the way he did i mean the strikes on the ground at one point that first one was 60 to 0 you saw that stat on the screen it's like you only want to tell somebody that they should be cut if if they're you know getting knocked out or they're imploding that's not

necessarily it but luke every fight he's going further in the other direction back to being ordinary. And I think where he once was at one point, I don't know if you can allow him to continue to be ordinary unless he's okay to stay in that direction, Luke. And I know like, look, sometimes this happens, you know, guys like let's, let's look back on Talis latest or, or Patrick Cote or guys that, you know, at one point in their career made a move and when fought for a title. And then, you know, at one point in their career made a move and went and fought for a title. And then, you know, they were sort of average the rest of the way and lingered and had some wins and losses.

There's no crime, no foul at that point. But till at one point, and maybe it's being a weight bully in a smaller division, I'm not really sure, Luke. But at one point, he looked to be something big. Some of these losses have not been disastrous. The Robert Whitaker one, I thought he actually fought well. But how many more times is he going to talk a big game, come back after injury, switch camps, do all that stuff that you do to try to save? And what are you going to do? Go put him in there against another guy in the back of the top 10 and

lose again. He's one in five in his last six. If he, for his chance, has a chance at riding this ship, he may have to go on the indie scene, Luke, and go back and retool that way. I would not be against here right now, as much as I don't want anybody to lose their job. I'm not trying to be that kind of, but I am trying to be extra critical here in a moment that needs it. I don't think they would be wrong to let him go and say, look, we love you. We'd love to see you again, but you got to go out there and fix something right now. I mean, Luke, can he be allowed to fix it on a lower level fighting unranked guys in the prelims i mean i think that's the only way he stays alive right now would that i mean for the let me ask you this bc because i hadn't thought of it in this way i mean my take was going to be that like the idea

that he's going to be elite you know and a guy who can contend for a title at middleweight seems like a pipe dream at this point again 29 years old so you can never be too sure but it seems going to be elite you know and a guy who can contend for a title at middleweight seems like a pipe dream at this point again 29 years old so you can never be too sure but it seems very unlikely I mean dude his wrestling defense I'm sure Drickus is strong he does appear to be quite physically gifted but like it just seemed like I can't believe this far along his wrestling defense is not as developed as it is and he seemed to got injured in the fight but let me put you back to you like some guys get bounced and then they really take it as like okay i've got to get things right but dude some guys get bounced and they just never it doesn't fix anything like are you saying that that you don't know what's going to happen if they cut him or

that you're confident that if they cut him, he will bounce back? I'm saying that if he's meant to get back to the level that we once saw and thought he was, and I get that that level is a gray area because it came in a division down that he kind of grew out of, for him to get back there, I think the only way to do it is to force this, force this crossroads moment where he's going, oh, shit, he's going to have to go sign with somebody

else, he's going to have to run off a couple victories in a row, but if he does, for all we know, he could be right back here, but just keeping him there and now lowering the matchmaking bar even lower now to unranked guys in the first prelim, I mean, what's the, you know, I don't know, Luke,

I think the only chance he has of righting this wrong and getting back there is by doing it the long way. I mean, Luke, it's like, how many more chances are you going to give me? I already switched camps. There's been a lot of sort of like, oh, he'll figure it out. This is a dark turn, or this is a bad luck, or this is a couple losses in a row. To be honest here, Luke, his move up to middleweight has been a disaster. All the losses have come against, you know, elite-ish guys.

But this should have been the fight that he wrote the wrong. He had a bull in front of him. A bull that could stop him if he got fucked up, right? A bull that you don't want to mess with. But a bull that, if Darren Till is still going to be Darren Till, he could have and should have matadored and figured it out. There were little hints, right, with Duplessis dumping his gas tank in the first round where it looked like that was still possible.

And to give Till credit, he's got a great chin. He fought through some adversity. But as much as the tattoo on his arm is a cover-up to try to, you know, get rid of the earlier relationship he had with that woman, the mother of his kids, Luke, this fight looks like a cover-up performance on trying to make me believe that he can still be better than this, Luke, unless he gets caught and has to really do some deep soul-searching. I mean, Luke, is the fairest thing you can say that this move up in weight kind of killed whatever momentum or advantage he once had? How do you sum up the best you can? Forget about the Woodley loss, even though I called that on the MMA Beat episode 200.

Look, I did. There's footage. Outside of that, when we're looking at the Masvidal loss mixed with these four fights now at middleweight in which he's one and three, answer me this. What went wrong? How do you sum this up as a whole? Not this fight against Drikus, this run as a whole. Can we fix it?

What the hell went wrong? Because I'm going extreme now. I'm going, I'm sorry, dude. I've loved you. I'm not here to be a hater on Scousers. Although, I mean, am I the biggest Molly Meatball fan? No. Did I just crap on Patti Pimble a little?

Darren Till, oh, man. Hey, Mike Owens. There's Mike Owens media. Mike Owens media. You know, I know I'm an adopted Welshman, but I love some scousers. Luke, what the hell went wrong with Darren Till? I think there's a few things that went wrong. The first thing I'd say is we haven't, you haven't mentioned it yet, but it is worth

mentioning and it's not anything he can, I'm not saying there's nothing he can do about it, but it does seem like he's somewhat at the mercy of circumstances beyond his control, which is he gets injured a lot. He's missed a lot of time if for no other reason than injury. That's going to affect your motivation injury that's going to affect your motivation that's going to affect your mental welfare that's going to affect your your ability to continuously get better I mean I keep contrasting it compare the injury record and how much it's sidelined him in the last five years compared to Izzy who has never gotten injured

and look at his development now of course no fighter is perfect is he's coming off of a loss but just to compare how much better those guys got in that time you can see major major differences and injury load and your your your constant necessity to deal with it i think plays a very big role that's the first thing i'd say secondly i'd say that the weight class bullying which you know everyone was kind of trying to go too low i don't really like i don't think he was trying to sandbag or something like that but um you know he got into a bigger weight class and he didn't immediately translate to it i think that's the second thing i'd say and the third thing i'd sort of say is that like there was over promotion of him early you know did he train hard enough has he been partying the guy's been arrested in half the

countries he's trained in which you know i don't know how much that really impacts the training i've not been there i don't know if he's actually put in the work it makes me like the fact that he hasn't developed makes me wonder if he's actually put in the work to be honest with you but what i would say is that like we talked about it on the the pre-game preview with chuck for this card which was dude these these the uk boxing fans and then the irish mma fans like that together that, like that together, that's the perfect group of combat sports fans in the world. You just won't find better fans anywhere. But as a consequence, especially like post-Michael Bisping era a little bit, they were looking for like the next.

I had guys who work inside high-level British MMA. I won't say where exactly because it would give away who they are, but like very important figures tell me like they, like Darren Till was kind of held up as the next guy to air into Michael Bisping seat because they wanted him to serve that role before he was ever really ready. So this over-promotion, this injury load, has he been training hard enough switching weight classes? It just, it just ended up backfiring. And how many times have I warned,

if you fuck up a guy's development, you cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Here is a case where we might be at that point, BC, where his development did not go properly, and even though he's only 29, I don't know how you fix it at this point. So do you think they're considering cutting him? I mean, is he too big of a name to be cut before his 30th birthday? Luke, what do you think they're considering cutting him I mean is he too big of a name to be cut

before his 30th birthday Luke what do you do one more chance Biggie is that what we're getting here probably one probably one they might do that I know they're going back to London either first or second quarter I forget which I think first quarter they're going to go back to London they might depending on his injury situation they might try and put him back on there you know he listen he's well liked and he's got some abilities but dude even here's the other part too we see like we're talking about it I found his takedown defense like bafflingly not that great and even in the striking department he had a good second round he had a good second round but dude like we talk about this all the time a good fighter takes advantage of mistakes a great fighter forces his opponent to make them.

I just didn't see him forcing interesting openings in the stand-up to really lord it over him. He was landing. He was doing good, but he wasn't doing great either. Even that wasn't all that awesome. Do you share a different opinion? No, I completely agree. Everything outside of the toughness that he showed was rough. But on the flip side, Luke, I don't want this to drown

out before we transition what Drikus Duplessis did, which was score another big middleweight win as he continues to climb the ladder. So 28 years old, you look at this current run right now, 4-0 in the UFC, three three finishes now the escalation from brad to darren till is he coming on in the larger title picture at the moment luke drichus i i think so yeah i do i do see him getting better to your point he still does these blitzes where he's way high in the air you know and um and there's other parts that are not all that like technical but he does have a lot of really good parts of his game he's quite physical he puts a ton of pressure on his opponent right he's tough uh and like he fights

with a certain kind of real pointed consistent intensity yeah like i i you know do i think he's gonna win a title probably not but he's he's a high level ranked deserving winner and it should be worthy of our respect as well yeah got that mcdonald's wi-fi luke but i'm back i'm back at it okay i agree with you whatever you said i agree with you uh we were supposed to get to teporia but bc we haven't even talked about bellator i'm gonna punt him to extra credit if that's okay unless you have any strong statement you want to make about ilia he's a fucking hammer dude all right that's my strong okay the people though quick the people want you to say that teporia should fight patty next they want you to say that you know that dude teporia would do evil things okay they want they wanted you to say

that okay oh there you go yeah i love me some ilia to pour yeah he's fucking insane yeah yeah thank you uh let me add him to this cabinet bryce mitchell did not like lay down for him to pour you just beat beat him up and took his will from him i mean that is is this hashtag holy hammer material i know we had uh we have a guy on staff brendan lynch who uh you know sends us the list of potential hammers. Yo, you didn't put fucking Teporia on that list, bro. That was the number one guy you should have put on there. He is a fucking animal. An animal.

You're talking about dime store Gordon Ryan. Who, by the way, did you see? They had him talk to the MMA media, like doing a presser sit down through the UFC. They had him sitting cage side. They promoted him on Fight Pass. Dude, UFC is kind of blowing up Gordon Ryan's profile a little bit. media like doing a presser sit down through the ufc they had him sitting cage side they promoted him on fight pass like dude ufc is kind of blowing up gordon ryan's profile a little bit i think they see not only the dominance in in in that in the grappling game but look he's got like

a pro wrestler personality i mean he's like yeah he's you know and also he was out there with exploded in popularity and uh it's changing the game a little bit yeah like the like the literal jujitsu game and um you know he's a big part of that all right let's talk about make it out to to malco west in la luke we should put some mats down in the studio there and have uh you know brendan put put me in uh in submissions as you uh you know as you give a tutorial for the fans yeah and what i'll do is I'll be like Paul Hares and I'll be like, just keep cranking. Just keep cranking.

Alright, let's talk about Bellator because they had a highly interesting card on Friday night. BC, you missed it in real time. It was pretty good, although the main event was weird as shit. Let's talk about the main event. Ralphie Unstotz edges Danny Sabatello. Now, again, because it's the same guy in Douglasouglas crosby who we're talking about

here he turns in a fucking hilarious scorecard like just incomprehensible 50 45 to danny sabatello and then on the other side stats getting done i think 48 47 and both of those so either way stats retains the interim title he gets the job done, talk to me about the fight a little bit. What did you learn about both guys? And then let's talk about the scoring. Well, look, first and foremost, not a great fight. Not overly exciting. We knew that had the potential if the wrestling kind of canceled each other out.

And if, you know, if it didn't turn into a war. And look, the trash talk coming in led you to the hope that it could. But at the end of the day, I thought the right guy won in Stotts. I just don't understand, as anyone else did did how doug crosby can go five to zero when if anybody landed any form of damage or somewhat consistent clean strikes dude it was rafi on stats and i think the fact that he was able to elbow sabatello late and cut him open was the clincher to me and giving him this fight three rounds to two. I think ultimately when both fighters allow a fight this important to be this close without much separation,

both have the potential to lose based on the judgment right here, right? So both were sort of in that, but I mean, Big John nailed it throughout the fight, in the post-fight interview. As good as Danny Sabatello is in spots at gaining control, he was full mount at one point. I mean, look, not only did he not have any impact or damage, there wasn't the intention of going for a submission, of looking to even give the illusion to the judges that he's piling on hammer fizz or trying to get some lead elbows out there to create some damage it was essentially an amateur wrestling match and in that regard you know danny sabatello was his own enemy at the end of the day meaning yeah he can exit this as he did and walk off after he heard the decision and go hey they screwed me i thought i won i knew i won and you know to some degree safe face and i'm not a sabatello hater luke

i love that man's personality in this game right i mean a little bit of a shit show operator but he he he plays that role well with the 80s wrestling look but no he did not have a claim to have won this fight in fact luke to be honest with you i was disappointing that even in the in the advantageous positions he did nothing in my eyes to separate himself enough from Stotts through the intention of landing damage where he would even have a case. Despite this being a close-ass fight, 3-2, Stotts in my book, you do have to put a wall there between them and say, one man tried to win this fight, one man tried to constantly gain control. What else are you going to say about this?

You know what I mean? The best thing I can say about this is watching Rafael Stotts and Patsy Mix in the face-off afterwards to promote the final got me all kinds of excited, and I think doubt how do you explain like we're criticizing patty for afterwards going you know i thought you have like leaning on the fact that in his mind he had done enough dude you know this game you've never done enough right you know i mean you've never done enough until you stop doing it just a second i don't know if it's just me but i can't hear you you anymore. It could just be me. Can someone like on the staff? Oh, Brian's frozen. All right. Well, then if Brian's frozen, let me just take over here. No, I'm unfrozen.

Oh, here we go. Now you're back. Now you're back. I'm back. Luke, what the hell was wrong with Sabatello? How do you get that position and not try to advance it? How do you exit the cage thinking you've won when I don't even remember a clean strike outside of that nice front kick he landed that's not just that just shook off i mean there's a couple of you know he had some decent punches here or there but to your point like man i this

was the funny part about this whole thing bc you've heard me say this a million times that the criteria one of the issues i have with it is like they're they're trying to solve for a situation where if someone is using a lot of control positions and not much ground and pound or submission threats or positional advancement that you know they don't want that to be overly emphasized and so the scoring criteria has been changed so that you can't just hold a guy and then and then win and I've said that like I don't mind it in those like very specific instances but I think they've gone too far. However, here is a very clear case where that logic works.

This is that case where, dude, Danny Sabatello is a great athlete. He's a great self-promoter. He's done more to promote a Bellator fight than anyone I can remember the rest of the year. Truly, I mean that. He and Rafael Sanz did more to promote a Bellator fight than any other particular Bellator fighter

I can think of, period. Right? Think about that for just a second. Those guys really worked their did more to promote a Bellator fight than any other particular Bellator fighter I can think of, period. Right? Think about that for just a second. Those guys really worked their ass off to promote this fight. And he's a phenomenal wrestler. Like, dude, he is just an absolute handful when it comes to that. But you have to throw some punches. You have to look for a choke.

And I saw people say, well, isn't this what Colby does? No. This is not what Colby does at all you are very mistaken go and watch the Robbie Lawler fight and what you notice from Colby there is he will wrap the throat a little bit now how close is it I don't know but it's enough for Lawler has to bring up both his hands to fight it and And he will pitter-patter with shots constantly from different positions, especially if he's got one hand held with the wrist control on same side wrist,

and he has like one leg on the leg ride. He will throw punches at that point. He will do that. Now, there have been times, of course, where he hasn't done enough of that, and it may have cost him. But the idea that like Colby's fighting looks just like Danny Sabatello's

is just flat, in this fight anyway, is just flatly not true. My guy, like, here's fighting looks just like danny sabatello's is just flat in this fight anyway it's just flatly not true my guy like he here's the funny part bc would you agree with this if danny had put in a i'm not even gonna say a lot a modest amount of ground and pound through the course of those five rounds he would have won 50 4545 true or false he would have won three rounds to two for stats but like i said because of the lack of intention even with that close scorecard i don't think there's an argument for danny but had he put more intention even like your point like colby even if it's just to get the hands to move or to give the illusion even if it's just hammer fist luke even if it's just a lot of this i mean it'd be awkward right we'd be questioning whether

children should be watching it's a little bitene, but at least he would get the scores in his direction and he'd be one step closer to a million dollars. It's almost as if I'm disappointed because of the great promotion he put to get himself to this spot. And the fact he's able to one-sided dominate these fights, even if some people thought along the way of some of them were boring, but it's like Luke Stotts did what he had to do in this case. You know, you can argue Adesanya did that with Romero when it was a weird fight and, you know, he did just enough what he had to do. I think Stotts handled it well with what he was dealt. But look at the stats, four for 14 and takedowns overall for Sabatello. None of those four led to long stretch of clean striking or dominance or really

anything. It was just a position battle, but on the feet, Stotts was busier. He had better intention. He landed cleaner blows. The right guy survives and advances, I guess here, Luke, but I do think that for both of these guys, a bit of a disappointment after how much they talked us into the building. Okay. So that leads that leads us now i think to the second part of this conversation around bellator which is patchy mix patchy mix put magomed magomedov to sleep with a guillotine choke and bc i gotta tell you i was kind of surprised by this because i we all knew he could backpack someone like there was no tomorrow he beat horiguchi that way but dude his boxing looked pretty good and his anti-wrestling by

virtue of submissions look great like he had that hook sweep to the guillotine to get on top right here you're gonna see it watch he's gonna hook sweep his way over onto the guillotine right there boom comes right on top right so he was like using he didn't have to like use traditional defensive wrestling to get a dominant position and then getting a submission dude he finished megamed megamed off and backpacked and defeated kyoji horiguchi on weight on the way to the finals true or false he's had the best run in this tournament of anyone true and you know i have to take my l and almost say like i missed it up to this point now here's why i kind of missed it the horiguchi win was so surprising to me with horiguchi coming off

that sort of miraculous um not miraculous loss excuse me in which he was dominating the champion sergio pettis gets knocked out they announced the tournament i think a lot of us rightfully so we're like look even with that KO loss, Horiguchi is the favorite here. He might be the class of this deep division under Bellator. And the way that patchy mix put him away, Luke, I almost felt as if like something went wrong. Horiguchi made a mistake.

But let's give Josh Thompson credit where credit is due. And we had him on the show last week. The punk. Not only did he not escalate our podcast war podcast war to another level he was very gentlemanly you know he came out right outfit outright and said look we can talk about Sabatello and stats I'm really excited but Patchy Mix is is is the guy right now he's the guy that should be the favorite as we enter this final four to win the tournament all he did against Maga Madoff was completely double down on

that where it's like, damn, I kind of missed this along the way. The fact that Pachymix, who once fought for a title before losing the vacant opportunity against Juan Archuleta, now is able to look back. And he said so in the post-fight interview, like he just wasn't ready then. He wasn't the same fighter. He went back to the drawing board, Luke, and what he has put together is all of his skills coming together at the right moment. He has gone from possible dark horse to the favorite. And I don't know what the odds are going to look like for this final, but given that run he has been on, damn, dude, he's coming on at just the right time. He's going to have a size advantage over Stotts.

The confidence is next level. I didn't grab it for have you seen this shit because I didn't see it till after the fact. I wish I did. But that promo he cut afterwards on the microphone in the Big John interview, which was like not a Sabatello-like one, not one where he's trying to get the clicks. He's just like, look, I'm going to fucking win this championship and I'm going to go through anyone to get there. It was just hungry. It was real. Luke, he is peaking at the exact right time. And look, you know, could we say that Magomed Magomedov at one point a couple of fights ago looked to be more than he might be now? That was a somewhat humbling loss to Stotts, although he bounced back against Barzola.

But, you know, this was pretty clean and clear. He was not only dominated, dude, he was put to sleep. And, you know, nobody does that to Magomed Magomedov, who owns a win over Piotr Jan before the UFC. Huge wake up call for me to realize exactly who he is. And Luke, just like that time at High Rollers when he was warming up for the main event, remember, I came up to him, gimmick him hand and said, man, beat that guy's motherfucking ass. You know what I'm saying? And he gave me that really weird look, Luke. You know, I was wrong then to break his uh his focus and you know i was wrong now to not see that this giant storm was coming dude i'm proud of him

i'm happy to see this um he should be the favorite going in here for this million dollars against rafi on stats and he has come alive and come full bloom and was that tatiana suarez next to him cage side luke on friday night all right i think bc dropped if they want to put the camera on me uh i don't know you see what is happening that's the question luke can we hear no all right um yeah i share all of bc's sentiment about this i will tell you that in watching that fight because i didn't do a post-fight reaction show for bellator although i was on cbs sports hq on CBS Sports HQ. No Tukey this time. No Tukey this time. Dude, Patchy Mix looked big. Like he looks physically huge for bantamweight,

which we kind of knew, but you got to see more evidence of it. And again, if it was just backpacking skill, it'd be one thing. But to know he's got the backpacking skill with the front headlock series, with the guillotines, with the hook sweeps series with the guillotines with the hook sweeps with the jab and if his cardio is there he's training with bc did you see this his girlfriend is tatiana suarez i didn't see that before and he's like really focused now and all he's all he's

doing is training like man i gotta tell you i i thought patchy mix had like you know a decent chance to do well in this tournament dude he might be the favorite he might fucking be the favorite at this point yeah you're damn right and that was the question i had asked you before my mcdonald's wi-fi hit again is is he dating tatiana squires because that's a nice support team he's got behind him yeah yeah dude that's a hell of a combo there patchy mix again he was always really good grappler we saw him at high rollers that one time that we were both high as balls but you know allegedly but we saw him there he was always a really good grappler. We saw him at high rollers that one time. We were both high as balls, but, you know, allegedly. But we saw him there. He was really friendly, but he was big.

He was fucking huge. And I just couldn't believe, you know, he's... I'll say this, man. The polish that he's putting on his game is noteworthy. He's really turning into something special. He was already very good. And I'm happy to see it. So, Luke, he's 29 years old.

He's 17-1 overall. I referenced that decision loss for the title two and a half years ago to Archuleta. But look at this. He's on a four-fight win streak, but this three straight wins. Submits James Gallagher. Gets a decision over Horiguchi after dominating him. And now puts Magomed Magomedov to sleep. Like, if he starts head-kicking dudes, he's going to be a complete fighter

and going to be in competition, you know, conversation for, you know, one of the best in the world. But while his striking has not fully come around, you alluded to it, it's functional dude. And it sets up what he does best, which is take the fight into the, into the areas in which his strengths just cannot be stopped right now, dude. I can't wait to see what this final looks like against Rafi on stats and whether stats can use the combination of the striking and his wrestling to keep Patchy Mix at bay. But right now, Luke, Patchy Mix looks like he's one step away from one million bucks. I mean, he actually is, but he looks like he is red hot, ready to go. And you love in any tournament,

when someone sort of just comes out of the weeds and makes that run and gets that momentum, it's like, I'll always remember Andre Ward in the Showtime Super Six. You'll remember Daniel Cormier jumping into that Strikeforce World Grand Prix. It just happens. It's his time right now. And I'm very happy to see it from a guy who I don't think we've given enough love. Maybe it's just like, you remember that first time he was in the major spotlight, like it was against Archuleta.

It didn't go right. But it's about what you do after that. He's seemingly done everything right to get back to this point, so I'm happy to see that. I just love seeing guys who are talented, and you can see a potential for it, but then making their lifestyle work in such a way that they can get the most out of themselves, surrounding themselves with the right talent, putting in the right amount of work.

Obviously, he's already got natural aptitude. He was, by the way, shouts to Jake Shields, one of his great coaches. But now it looks like he's got a bigger, larger support system in place that's all built around his success. Man, I was impressed. The two guys, BC, for me, we'll talk about this when we do the Moneyline read, but the two guys who stood out to me this weekend were Py mix and ilia taporia two guys who absolutely took the game by the scruff of the neck and let everybody know what time it was patchy mix had himself a weekend make no mistake about it

both of those fights were early in the main card of a show the idea of the money lion hammer the month was sort of to look at people coming up maybe on the undercard, but sometimes, Luke, it might be early main card, but they're still coming on because they're changing your opinion of what you thought of them with breakthrough performances. So yeah, I think both are hammer-worthy here. No doubt about it. All right. And then last but not least from this Bellator card, BC, Liz Karmouche, I mean, making short

work of Juliana Velasquez. No doubt about it this time whatsoever, BC. Biggest takeaway from the fight for you is what? That she has responded well to criticisms of parts of her game of late and learned everything she should have from that first fight. Meaning, no, none of us thought she should have won the title in that way with a quickish stoppage from Mike Beltran when she beat Velasquez the first time. But I loved the sit-down interview we did with her, you know, in Connecticut a couple days before this fight where she's like, look, I don't consider myself the champion until I beat

her for real this time. But look, what did she tell us that she learned when you asked her from that first fight? She learned that Velasquez,quez you know she almost gave her the former champion too much credit heading into the first fight we all said what you know why couldn't she be as aggressive as she was against kata watanabe leading into that title shot and some of it was she got countered clean in that first fight but this was liz carmoo sort of waking up which is what she told us in that interview and realizing i'm better than this girl i can you, you know, my grappling's better. If I can stay aggressive, I can physically overwhelm her. And dude, her game plan was brilliant.

No, she didn't come in reckless. No, she didn't decide to try to play chess with a, probably a more scientific technical striker in Velasquez. Let's give, you know, the former champion credit. She counters well with that left hand. But how about Karmush? Bum rushing her, forcing clinches, being more physical, but just chipping away at her constantly,

whether that's digs to the body from the clinch, hard calf kicks. Luke, she basically wore her down through the kind of damaging shots that sometimes we overlook. But once it set her up in a position where she could take her down and implement her will, dude, Karmush was patient, she was thorough, and she absolutely earned this, which is great to see for somebody who's got so many layers to her legacy as, yeah,

a pioneer, lost to Rousey in the first UFC female fight. But dude, I mean, you know, she ended Shevchenko, her first loss. I mean, she's done some things across the board in this game and is now able to close the chapter of her career, although I'm not trying to say that she's retiring after this. But in her late 30s, pushing 40 to come out here and put this title down and redeem right the wrong, if you will, of how that first fight ended. Dude, I couldn't be more impressed, happy for her.

It was just physicality that won this out, and it was a very smart adjustment, I thought, that she made. Dude, I just, dude, she, what was the difference between this fight and the last one? To me, Karmouche realized her takedown defense is not great. I thought the last case would have worked on it a lot, but she didn't. Remember, Liz also told us she didn't really use her judo,

so I'm not really scared of it. That turned out to be quite prescient. Dude, from the word go, she did the Hamzat bit. She got shot out of a cannon and took the fight right to Karmush. And BC, if you take two wrestlers, two fighters, whatever, two boxers, and let's say they're equally skilled. In this case, you know, everyone's got a little bit of difference here and there, but just for a hypothetical sense, you take two fighters who are equally skilled but one operates with significantly more force and intensity what's going to happen that person's gonna win it's just they're always gonna win and she did that to her she took it right to her god i gotta say velasquez was like surprisingly nonchalant in this fight there were times when you know karmush had her locked up and was waiting for her

to make a mistake so she could advance position she was just kind of sitting there not really mounting a defense not mounting an offense grinding look how much does it wear on you when somebody's just constantly hitting hard strikes on your legs on your body on like i mean it was just like she broke the foundation down of who velasquez is and then once she you know weakened her to the point where she can succumb, she took advantage. It's almost as if Liv's Karmush came to the Bellator. And by the way, came here in a weird way, lost to Shevchenko in their rematch for the title, which is one of the worst title fights and, to be fair, worst performances by a title

challenger we've ever seen. And it was almost as if that killed her confidence. And slowly but surely, she's kind of waking up and realizing, I'm actually better than all the women in this division. I just have to be more of me. I have to be aggressive. I mean, what was that story she told us about weightlifting? I mean, she is a gorilla, Luke.

You know, and I say that positively. She found the best way to put that together and just over. I mean, she made Velasquez look ordinary. That was impressive. It was very impressive. Yeah. But the thing about it to me was, again,

don't get me wrong. Karmush like clearly was like, okay, what worked in the first fight? Let's dial the intensity up on that. Let's get right to it. Let's not give her an ounce of air, no space,

take the fight right to her. 100% the right game plan. She executed. She looked so much better. All the credit in the world to Liz. But I just thought, and this is like, the people might be saying,

Oh, I'm taking away from this here, but, but listen to what I'm saying. I'm not doing that. Liz took the fight to her in a new and improved way. You would expect Velasquez to have some kind of new or, you know,

equally intense answer. And she didn't, she just let herself get overwhelmed it was and that's what's cool about it karmush fought like the fighter who was wronged the first time right because in some ways she was wrong like shogun in the rematch with machinas you know what i mean absolutely and can we shout out coach chuck charles martinez out of virginia who's chuck on by the way on instagram tons of good advice he puts up look like a different fighter under coach chuck so it was good to see that i mean she's been with him did she say she's kind of Virginia who's Chuck on, by the way, on Instagram, tons of good advice. He puts up, look like a different fighter under coach Chuck.

So it was good to see that. I mean, she's been with him. Did she say she's kind of always been with him, but she moved her camp. This was the time she took her camp and moved it to Virginia beach for him to be around him. So she got a lot of different looks.

She looked great. Liz Karmouche looked to me like however much longer BC, it was last thing I'll say on this, however much longer she has in her career. I feel like she's extended it a little bit. Well, what'd you think of the really, really sharp. Of the 2023 plan, she told Big John afterward, she wants Bellator to make a women's band and weight division so that she could

face her good friend, Alima Leigh McFarlane in Hawaii in what would be the Pineapple Princess's final career fight. And then she wants to close out the year by defending her title in a rematch with Watanabe in did she say Japan maybe I'm not sure I mean she did kind of house Kana the first time I don't know if we need that rematch but hey you know shoot your shot Liz all right all right last but not least let's talk about some boxing so fifth point here Bud Crawford you know I wasn't expecting much but in the sixth round he he sends David Avenissian into the land of wind and ghost with a just a phenomenal two-punch combination because Bud

is quite talented in front of a very large I think sold-out hometown crowd BC I mean Bud did what we expected Bud to do I mean anything from it there's just no there's not much to say get credit to Bud after the long layoff and in his reasoning, the major reason why he was pushing for this fight outside of the fact that BLK Prime guaranteed him $10 million to do this thing, Luke, is that he didn't want to go into a Spence fight if it can still happen rusty or whatever. Well, look, he shook off that rust and showed you exactly who he still is in the conversation among the pound-for-pound best in the world. Obviously, the larger picture is sort of the business elements that played into this.

It's like, you know, there's some chatter online that all the, you know, everyone's so upset about Spence Crawford not happening right now that we're sort of cheering against BLK Prime, the streaming site, which put on this pay-per-view from, you know, playing a role in boxing moving forward. No one's out here hating on that. It's just sort of the way this came together was really the worst-case scenario for boxing fans. It doesn't mean Crawford Spence still can't happen next year amid rumors that Spence might fight Keith Thurman next year. We'll see if that happens.

But, Luke, I think the way this all played out, unlike the Mayweather-Pacquiao build where each time they didn't fight each other, it just kept building the want. I almost feel like this is doing something negative to the idea of crawford spence but you know he did what he had to do i mean the rumors are that they sold about five and a half pay-per-views luke um so you know i mean they had todd grisham on the call though so shout out for that but do they have todd grisham they had paulie malinaggi they had antonio tarver they had like a lot of names on there. Yeah, and we're not going to get to it,

but unfortunately for Bud, there's bigger stories this past weekend. Josh Warrington lost his featherweight world title to Luis Alberto Lopez in an upset, and Luke, Teofimo Lopez is kind of the real story boxing-wise this weekend in a lot of ways. He is. So let's talk about him.

So Teofimo Lopez scores a split decision over Sandor Martin BC I'll put it to you like this true or false Lopez did not look great and was lucky to get the win true or false yeah that's true and and I don't mean that he fought a bum and almost lost no Sandor Martin we got to put some respect on this guy's name he knows how to box he's a gritty southpaw who took some damage in this fight and just kept his strategy. And I don't get from Team Lopez to some very respected names in boxing online were crying that Sandor was running the whole night. No, he wasn't. He was standing in and fighting. He dropped Teo in round two, which was a surprise. And even though Lopez didn't get credited with a knockdown later in the fight that he probably

should have gotten that extra point. Sandro Martin, who upset Mikey Garcia and retired him, he made this fight as close as it was. But in the larger picture, does this show some concern for who Teofimo Lopez is right now and who he might be at 140 pounds? Yeah, Luke, big time concern. He secured the opportunity to be the mandatory for Regis Progray's world title at 140 pounds. I'm not sure that's a great matchup at this exact moment for Teofimo until he can figure some things out. Luke, we're going to have to have some real conversations right now, you and I, because you know how much I love Teo as a person. I know how much you respect his game. I've been interviewing this guy since he had single digits in the pro fights.

He just talks so well well and he always delivered. But the combination of all the drama in his life mixed with moving up in weight here, I don't want to say he looked average because that's not true. He looked like a guy who showed flashes of the guy he used to be, but he also looked like a guy who's incomplete right now, is unable to put it together. And while it's good news in the often turbulent personal life of Teofimo, that he's back with his wife, the mother of his young son, I couldn't cheer more for that development on him. But Luke, I think the larger conversation may be his corner and his father, Teofimo Sr., and whether or not this is a

relationship boxing-wise that is holding Teofimo back. I'm starting to believe for the first time that given the fact this guy's still crazy young, I'm not sure we ever see again, unless something major changes the version that he was at 135 upsetting Lomachenko to become the, at that point, undisputed lightweight champion, one of the pound for pound best in the world. It seemed like the moment he was able to financially wiggle that, that mandatory bout against Cambosis into a purse bid, which of course put him at odds for a minute with top rank. And then that turned into that long soap opera. Then he got punched in the chest by Bjorn Thornton Luke, and he almost died in that fight against Cambosis.

And ever since then, man, ever since that purse bid, I swear, it seems like there's been a black cloud over Teofimo. And, you know, he's been open and honest about his mental health challenges and he's considered suicide. Unfortunately, in some dark times, we saw how his relationship with his, with his wife fell apart, but he's not right right now. And I think some of that is exasperated by the idea that at 135, he was so spectacular, his timing was so there, and he's so big for a lightweight with explosive, almost Roy Jones-like power, that that sometime could make up for the mistakes just by the fact that when he touched these guys, he'd get put away. Now, that doesn't explain how he beat Lomachenko.

That night, he was everything he could be put away. Now, that doesn't explain how he beat Lomachenko. That night, he was everything he could be and more. Teofimo and his dad have made some large, early, bold claims in his career, but up until the Lomachenko fight, they were amazingly able to back all those up. But since then, Luke, you say about, can we put Humpty Dumpty back together on the wall? Unfortunately, all of the trauma, physical, trauma physical mental emotional that he's taken on since then he's still not right that's not Teofimo Lopez that we know who went out there and barely won that fight he didn't fight badly we can't overlook Sandor Martin but Luca do you echo what I'm echoing here which is concern not concerned that you know he's going to start losing

and get knocked out every time but concerned that he he may not ever be able to fully bottle and encapsulate how great he can be again. And some of that might be the natural, his body outgrowing 135 and moving up to 140, meaning does his power have that same effect where he's never been a pure boxer? Can he fight this style at 140 against these elite guys? Now, Sandro Martin is right around that conversation, but wasn't good enough to upset him here. But if you're going to start fighting Josh Taylor, Regis Progray, Jose Ramirez, I mean, you know, all these guys at 140, how about the guys coming up from 35?

I don't know if that power anymore is going to alter the fights like it once was. Luke, he's not right at the moment, and I'm a little nervous for him moving forward. I thought his, I was surprised he didn't have any pop, to be quite honest with you. I was really surprised, and I know that, like, this is not the first fight at 140 where you've seen this, but I thought, you know, he was working out the jitters the previous time, and no, it seems like there might be some translation issues. There was a tweet from Regis Progre that I saw that I thought was really quite interesting.

He tweeted out, this was yesterday. He tweeted out, all jokes aside, I hope Teo is okay. Boxing is a tough and lonely sport and it can be very taxing mentally. I think he might need some changes in his personal life yeah dude he's not the same this is not the guy who was going out there and blowing the doors off of comey or you know you name it who just looked electric when he was fighting he looks fine introducing the new mcspicy from mcdonald's it looks like a regular chicken sandwich but it's actually a spicy chicken

sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Are you crushing your bills? 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. He looks okay. He looks even good at certain points. He doesn't look great. He doesn't look sharp. He doesn't look in control. He doesn't look like he doesn't look sharp he doesn't look in control he doesn't look like he used to look and whether it's the fact that he's still training in a situation that may not be optimal or personal life problems or you know he's buying into his own hype and he's

just not doing the things he needs to do i guess we shall see but bc it's a bad time for him to kind of be flagging because regis progray he's had his ups and downs but he looked awesome in his last fight yeah and now if progray is the guy who's in front of Lopez for his next fight, that's like they're catching each other while one guy is surging and one guy is declining. Doesn't look good for Lopez. I'm just not seeing the same dude that we saw who beat Lomachenko. Everything after that has just been off and weird and not him.

And, you know, him and his dad have such a unique relationship but you do have to start to wonder whether you know could they bring in a second trainer just for another set of eyes is that even possible i i don't want to see him and his dad fall on bad terms but for the future of his career not only do i think he needs another trainer or another set of eyes um look as i said before i have concerns because i'm wondering now if if that explosiveness and that power think of the comey fight as I said before, I have concerns because I'm wondering now if that explosiveness and that power, think of the Comey fight, as you mentioned. Dude, he just touched him and the fight was over. I'm wondering if sometimes, you know, there's only four or five

pounds sometimes separating these divisions and the difference between 135 and 140, five pounds, right? Not that much, but sometimes people find that wall where their power just doesn't translate the same. Think of Adrian Broner at 135 compared to who he is at 40 and 47. Just not the same. Some of that is work ethic. Some of that is drama outside. But even though Tao was in great shape and he seemed to be saying the right things coming in, damn, dude, damn.

Look for a guy so young who upset Lomachenko, pound for pound ranking. Damn, I got concerns. I got legitimate concerns, man. Damn. You hate to see it. Not a great look, but it is what it is. Okay. With that in mind, BC, let's do this.

You know, UFC 282 was over the weekend, Bellator 289, and both cards had hashtag Hammer of the Month potential all over them. BC, as you know, Aaron Blanchfield, who was last month's winner for Hammer of the Month, we have them bc as you know aaron blanchfield who was last month's winner for hammer of the month we have now some competition heading into the next month although they're not really competing in that sense ultimately but for those of you who've been living under a rock the past few episodes our favorite show sponsor money lion the only app money app you'll ever need that we have a brand new segment bc do we not yeah we have a

brand new segment luke it's called hammer of the month brought to you by those great people at money line the only people that know how to do money the right way right i mean you want you want you want to be with somebody who knows how to money all right be with money line but here's the deal they love seeing fighters on the rise who maybe weren't getting the the the attention before but are punching or kicking or submitting their way through your screen to demand that. So if you're out there watching fights, why don't you at MoneyLion on Twitter, at MoneyLionInc on Instagram, put that hashtag hammer of the month. Put that hashtag holy hammer of who you believe was coming on.

Luke, when I look at UFC 282, yeah, Ilya Tepori against Bryce Mitchell was a whoa. But dude, how about Edmund Shabazzian turning back a three-fight losing streak with a new team after a long layoff and stopping Lugan Bula? How about Jairzinho Rosenstruck in 23 seconds against Chris Douglas? How about teenager Raul Rosas Jr. stepping into his UFC debut and absolutely just making new fans left and right. We have more than a few names this week to shout out at the potential for the future, but this month, Luke,

somebody's bringing home that giant-ass hammer, and I can't wait to see what it is. No doubt about it. So very simple in how you do it. Of course, you can go and follow at MoneyLion on Twitter or at MoneyLionInc on Instagram. Use that hashtag, Hammer of the Month. Let us know who you think for me it's

either patchy mix or ilia taporia from this past weekend but of course you could have all the names that bc mentioned there whatever one you think actually is the best you know who my pick is you ready for this friend of the program so is this is this is this you know making it harder for me yes but dude billy q and alexander hernandez both agreed to just go to featherweight war, and Billy Q came back from crimson face just, oh, God. Hey, Billy Quarantillo, love you, brother. That's a big win, man. You needed that? You got it.

It's because you're tough as nails. Yo, that's some Hammer of the Month potential right there, Luke. No doubt about it. Hammer of the Month for real. So for more information, moneyline.com slash morningcombat. All right, let's go to the DMs because we have been going on for very long here. What a show. What a comeback for BC right here.

What a comeback. All right, we'll jump right into it, BC, from at Cole underscore Brown 858. Your opinion on the situation with Anthony Smith learning that his fight with Jamal Hill is off live on the Post Fight Show. BC, before you react, we actually have the video of it. Let's roll the video announcing at the uh press conference you guys that jamal hill will be fighting glover to share in january um i know obviously you're stunned by this news just a reaction for that light

heavyweight title uh now between those two yeah that's a problem for uh for me that's a big problem for me um yeah i a big problem for me. Yeah, I don't know. I have so much respect for you digesting this news right now because as your friend and colleague to all of a sudden have that Jamal Hill fight go away and now he's going to be fighting Glover Teixeira for the title. I don't know what you're announcing at the press conference, you guys. Yeah, that sucks, man. Shout out to John Anik, the professional there, massaging that

situation live like he needed to, but you feel for Anthony Smith right here, and it plays into that larger conversation we had about was this the right decision? It's like it's constant sort of rob from this to pay this and just sort of making it up as they go along, but could Anthony Smith versus Jamal

Hill been part of this tournament? An acceptable fight coming up? Absolutely. Now you got Anthony Smith almost deeper out of, been part of this tournament and an acceptable fight coming up. Absolutely. Now you got Anthony Smith almost deeper out of the title picture in general and needing a big win to reenter that. But, Luke, things move quickly in the UFC. They often make quick decisions. Some we love, some we don't like. A true professional there, Anthony Smith, fielded that the best way he did. But, dude, when you're in camp preparing for someone, you know a guy on a three-fight win streak who's trying to make new waves that that's your ticket back

into that conversation by defeating him that sucks to see for a guy that we like a lot in the show i mean look we said it during rsd that guy's factory town mma material right there okay factory time and it puts him in a really interesting and bad spot i mean let's look at the rankings here very quickly bc so you've got you know yuri or harry yeezy yizzy whatever the fuck he's out glover is going to be fighting jamal yon just drew megamed just drew rakic is out because he's injured and then there's anthony then there's jamal then there's krillov and then craig and uzdemir he already is beaten uzdemir i guess he could fight krillov and craig but he has to fight someone now even lower ranked than Jamal Hill which I don't think he wants to do and Jamal Hill was a

good stylistic matchup for him Jamal Hill is very very talented on the feet I think was a real threat to anybody there but on the ground I think Smith has a pretty big advantage and I don't know that that's the case with Paul Craig or Kralov in the same way and again he might beat those guys too but that doesn't I don don't know, man. If you're Smith, you're like, that was a lot. It's one thing to be like, I'm just under the whims of an organization that can just do whatever they want. And the other one is like, now it's a substantive change to whoever you were going to be fighting.

It sucks, man. That really sucks. Them the breaks, Luke, you know? All right. From at it's not cage fighting. Who had the more damaging fight week? Hamzat at 279 or Patty at 282? I don't know, BC, what do you think?

Okay, initially I would say Hamzat because, I mean, whether there's any kind of conspiratorial foul play or not, the next big thing in the sport who's ready to fight for the title in two divisions missed weight by like nine pounds or something, Luke. So, you know, that was pretty bad, but let's be fair. He could not have won that fight against Kevin Holland,

more dominant to kind of win us back a little. And then since then, all we're talking about when you hear Dana White and company is that guy and monster big fights moving forward. So right now I feel like it's Patty, but is it Patty? Because some people wanted to love him but then saw the way that aerial thing played out and felt like they're looking at a disingenuous guy

so i think that's that's a big part of it whether that matters at all you know numbers wise money wise in the long term don't you feel like there were a lot of people that like went from loving themselves some patty to like being like, oh man, you know, he's one of them. Yes. I do think that his, his likability took some hits and then he had, I mean,

I think he would have, I'll say this for Hamza. Like all the things Hamza did were all messed up, but then he goes up there and just fucking blows the doors off of Kevin Holland. And in this particular case patty didn't and it's like you know so maybe patty had a worse one to be honest i thought like i thought that hamza did a lot more damage to himself based on the way that he handled it

but then he fought really well right and so people were like okay hamza versus alex perera that's gonna be great and you don't hear a lot of that now on the Paddy side like oh what would be a fun interesting fight people like who is this guy it's a very different kind of thing you know I mean how much longer is Dave Portner gonna sit in the front row at UFC fights Luke as long as Paddy keeps winning yeah I mean I gotta tell you like Dave needs someone who can whisper in his ear about some prospects that got a bright future I think he should be rushing over to Russia. Luke to find some hammers that are coming on right now. Okay.

You know what I'm saying? He really should. So anyway, so that's that. All right. BC from at ability to change. This is an interesting question. I don't know. You may not know about this.

I've been reading a lot about this with the rise of open source, AI software, chat, GPT, and incompetent judging. Do you foresee a world where the, or AI, uh,

artificial intelligence could assist, not replace judging as a tool. For example, if there was an AI program that was somehow powerful enough to understand strikes and even some elements of grappling, how do you think it would fare as an extra tool for the judges disposable? This to me does not seem like a correct read of what ChatGPT can do.

Do you know what ChatGPT is? No, this nerd robot stuff is making me a little nervous. This is an interesting one. They've basically come up with something, and this is one of the few things I've ever seen that could replace Google, where, for example, I could go to ChatGPT and I could ask him, ChatGPT, give me a sense of, I'm going to make up two philosophers, they were sort of opposites when they were around at the time.

Give me a sense of who would have a better vision of the future for the disabled in a world where Robert Nozick's philosophy was adopted versus John Rawls. Very esoteric, very specific questions. And ChatGPT can take and source information from the internet to give you a very accomplished, thoughtful read on this. You could do things like, what system of governance works better in some kind of population with these kinds of characteristics that value these kinds of, you know, open liberty or whatever. And it could actually give you an

academic answer full throated. Whereas if I just did that on Google, it would give me pages of stuff behind JSTOR, like you couldn't even get it or, you know, just garbage and nonsense. It wouldn't really give me anything I needed chat gpt can actually take basically an expert's opinion instantly synthesize it into a particular problem and give you an actual answer that wouldn't really work here because you would need ai to either observe the fight or have stats enough that give it enough of an answer to make a judgment call which we don't have yet but that's what chat GPT can essentially do. Chat GPT could write your papers in college for you.

That's how powerful it is. Didn't we learn a lesson from Attack of the Clones, Luke? Although all those robots were really put together stupidly. They're easy to take out with one shot. But eventually, Luke, the AI and the robots are going to overwhelm us. And Mike Mormau reaches in right now hilariously and says, the smart cage should incorporate that, Luke, the AI and the robots are going to overwhelm us. And, you know, Mike Mormal reaches in right now hilariously and says the smart cage should incorporate that, Luke. If that cage was smart, they'd already be using that technology. But, I mean, Luke, isn't it enough that machines are taking away all of our jobs, Luke, and they're closing down the factories?

Now we're going to put our future in the hands of a robot that could be secretly programmed to kill us all, Luke? I'm not into this idea at all. I got to tell you, it's kind of funny that everyone thought that truck drivers were going to be the first ones to be replaced, and it turns out that, like, tenured professors actually might be the first ones to go, is really the kind of interesting part.

What's next? No more Uber drivers? Because the car will drive you into a wall, Luke. At some point, Luke, technology will go too far, and it's going to take us old guys who remember what it's like to own a rotary phone to stand in and say, you know what? I can handle that myself. OK, I mean, I don't love me some Doug Crosby right now, but I'd rather have him score the fight over some damn computer. Luke, here's an example.

Explain quantum computing in simple terms. It could do that. Your droids aren't welcome in this place, Luke. OK, all right. Moving on here from this, at Gavin underscore Collier, are there any notable robberies in MMA or boxing that favored the B-side fighter?

Ooh, BC, that's a good question. Yeah, Pacquiao Bradley. Was that a robbery? Where I come from, it was. Brian Kenney is the only one that still thinks uh tim won along with hall of famer tim bradley but um i mean tim won that was still a pay-per-view fight between pound for pound rank guys i guess what you're talking more about is has there been a robbery where there was like the clear b-side both in ability and in terms of marketing um yeah i'm sure that's happened

i'm but i'm trying okay i'm say I'm sure that's happened a lot, but Luke, what are we missing here? What can we remember? So the biggest robbery in MMA history, again, I was there for it, is Mike Easton versus Chase Beebe, but Mike Easton was the A-side. So that's why it doesn't work here. I don't know. I'd have to think about that.

I don't know. Not off the top of my head. And this is, dude, this is the part to me that got me. It's like, everyone's like, well, it should have been a split decision, but that's for Patty,

but that's really not how it works. Like it does just because it was split versus unanimous. Doesn't mean that the judges didn't think it was a close fight and, and a unanimous one versus a split one doesn't necessarily tell you about the competitiveness of the bout. Right. So that's that there's a gap between that. Another reason the scoring criteria sucks ass, but the that is the reality but the point being here is

like dude again all three judges gave it to patty and two of the three gave him round one it's like what the fuck is this yeah what the fuck is this i did see a stat on twitter that the 50 45 scorecard for sabatello from doug crosby was the first time that a losing fighter in MMA, I don't know if it's just title fights or if it was in general, where the losing fighter had been given the shutout. 50-45, yeah, I think that's true. I've never seen it before. Yeah, that's interesting.

All right, I'm still scared about the robots, Luke, okay? Dude, you see they're using the robots in San Francisco for certain kinds of policing effects? That is the scary shit. What if one day your wife finds what the robot can do to be more efficient and better and handsomer than you, Luke? Okay, you'll be replaced there too, okay? Yeah, that's probably true. I don't mean to enter your marriage bed openly here like this

and out you like that, but I'm sure that robot knows exactly where to find it. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right, from at J Matt X, best and worst Christmas gifts you've ever received growing up. So as an adult doesn't count, this is going to be, you know, when you're living with your well, you've been living with your parents for a long time, probably, but, you know, living with your parents backwards.

So what do you think? I moved out when I was 21. Okay, please. That's pretty late. Late. That's pretty early where I come from. Look, please. That's pretty late. Late? That's pretty early where I come from, Luke. Okay, you know what I mean? I got out of there.

Okay, to this day, the best Christmas gift I ever got was Christmas of 86. I've told this story before, but when I was a big G.I. Joe guy there, Luke, in third grade, and my dad bought me the eight-foot-long aircraft carrier with all the vehicles and planes. And he stayed up all night, putting it together in the garage and at 3 AM while carrying it up the stairs, these are basement stairs that have like holes in them. And then like, there's just more basement underneath dropped the entire aircraft carrier into a million pieces and swore, you know, to wake up the entire neighborhood and then like a real dad sat there and put it all back together until morning luke that you imagine being eight seven eight walking downstairs and seeing an eight foot toy set up with all the everything out there luke

nothing will ever top that christmas nothing ever okay and worst i mean what constitutes a worst gift is it a gift that you wanted but it ended up sucking or is it just a bad gift where you're like i can't believe parents this was my big gift this year this sucks i don't think i've really had just just one that just caused you like i cannot fucking believe i got this the bad gift was them keeping me until fifth grade thinking that the that that fat guy was was sliding down the chimney luke i mean okay that was the that was the you know the amount of abuse i took for for holding firmke i mean okay that was the that was the you know the amount of abuse i took for for holding firm in that belief okay that was the the worst gift i ever got

uh okay best gift um i'm trying to think probably a bike i got in seventh grade that ended up using for a long time they got me like a big bike so because i was i i've been this height since i was 14 years old right so i just like ballooned so that bike actually like did me good all the way through the end of high school like it's all right it was still so that was like one of my favorite favorite bikes i just loved that bike it was so great it was all black it was even the lettering was black on black you know so it was just super was it a mongoose luke i don't know i think it was a schwinn yeah maybe something else but it was cool it was super cool we were the last kids to get 8-bit nintendo but i'll give my parents credit in fourth grade luke uh they waited until after the christmas presents

were opening and it was done and it was kind of like the you know the the you'll shoot your eye out gun and then like oh wait i think there's one more gift over there and luke it was nintendo with like a ton of games that moment that's my second dude how about my dad who would never get me nintendo until super nintendo came out and then i got nintendo yeah then you got nintendo yeah by the way when the when the what was it whatever the the successor to the super nintendo was and then it was like you guys want a super nintendo it's like fuck off you guys want harvey's coupons i got a few left over dude this is a true story like you know i'm not trying to you know like rest in peace to my mom she tried but like do you remember the remote control cars that they the remote itself had a handle and like a user board and the way in which

you turned the steering wheel it actually had a little wheel on the thing itself okay and it was like the cars could do anything i mean they could go in any number of directions it was amazing right all the cool kids had that and my mom got me this bullshit remote control car which had just one button and if you hit it it made right turns that's it that's all it could fucking do was turn in circles or go straight, turn into the right. You're like, Ma, Ma, NASCAR turns left all the time, not right. Come on. And it sucked, and it couldn't go fast.

It wasn't nimble. I couldn't take that fucking thing anywhere. It blew. Yeah. So I remember being like, seriously? Like, you couldn't? Okay. All right.

You should have just ran it right into the wall like Dale Senior did, Luke. All right? BC, I asked the chat gpi for i asked it a question ready my question was why is mixed martial arts legal that's what i asked it okay we want to hear its answer yeah mma or mixed martial arts is a combat sport that combines techniques from a variety of martial arts and fighting styles it is legal in most countries because it is regulated by athletic commissions or other governing bodies, which ensure that the sport is conducted safely and fairly. In addition,

most MMA fighters are highly trained and skilled athletes who are able to competently defend themselves and their opponents. That doesn't make sense a little bit. As long as the rules of the sport are followed and the safety of the fighters is upheld, MMA is generally considered a legal and legitimate form of competition.

Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. But can you kick my ass, computer? You know what I'm saying? At the end of the day, all right? By the way, did someone do the chat GPI? Did Mikey do the chat GPI for the Ali Act? Is that what you did, Mikey?

Yeah. So here's what it says. He asked, what would the ali act do for mma and chat gpi said it is difficult to say for certain whether mma would be a better in a better position if they had adopted the ali act as the effects of implementing such a law would depend on various factors the ali act was passed blah blah blah blah okay if the ali act were applied to mma it could potentially provide for greater protections for mma fighters and help to regulate the sport in a way that ensures fairness and transparent practices.

However, it is also possible that the act could have unintended consequences for the sport, such as hindering its growth and development. Ultimately, the decision to adopt the Ali Act for MMA would need to be carefully considered and evaluated by the relevant stakeholders in the sport. Tell me that's not a good answer for an undergraduate. That's pretty good. Okay, so are they going to become professors now too these damn computers luke where are they gonna we don't need a referee anymore the smart cage will take care of that right we don't need a legal system the smart cage will just electrocute you okay you know i mean then we'll feed you to the poor like soiling green i mean

what are we what are we doing luke you're bringing on Armageddon right now? You're just willing? Oh, no, the computers are great. They're great. Yeah, I'm sure. It's time for BC's Feces. All right. Luke, I scoured the globe from the airport yesterday to give you a snapshot of the good, the bad, the ugly, the highs and lows from combat sports

and beyond, and by beyond, Luke, I mean a wedding in Charleston, South Carolina. This is Have You Seen This Shit? Have you seen this shit? Oh, God. Ow, ow. Luke, we start in Charleston. One of the best weddings I've ever been to.

Shout out to cousin Mike Campbell for having me among the groomsmen. Luke, look at that. That's Mike on the left, the handsome dude. And this was a, he works for Dale Jr. at JR Motorsports as a PR guy. So a lot of NASCAR at this wedding. We had Cole Custer, Tyler Reddick, but you could see in the middle, me hamming it up with one Bubba Wallace, Luke.

How about this, right? Dude, Bubba Wallace got a thick-ass neck. Yup. You can see, Luke, thanks to Joseph A. Banks of West Hartford, Connecticut, that I got the wrong tie, but I still fit in well with this group. Brandon McReynolds, shout out. And the guy on the right the bald guy luke the only bald campbell they ever made cousin connor got that dog in him so luke you know what a weekend right weddings remind you how much you actually do love your family and that you know you can press pause

once in a while from work but uh you know what i'm saying luke i was i was rolling elbow rubbing elbows with some uh rubbins racing down there it was good good times great oldies so there you go see it good to see it uh that's my family luke let's see yours topic two takes us to ufc 282 but before then let's listen in on hq sorry um hey look at this everyone she just walked on in sorry about that um okay why don't you go on out there what's her pick we can we can fix that later yep yep you're welcome all right sorry about that um uh luke you looked a little overwhelmed there by tuki thomas did you play this on friday show uh that was actually on friday night that was uh that was like 6 30 i did a 6 30 hit for them so

that was after the show we We got to talk about this. One, people wanted her prediction on Pimble at Gordon, and she didn't give it. But two, can we get a lock? Can we get a lock on the office door here, Luke? Yeah, I forgot to lock it because here's the problem. I normally would lock it, but they came home early. She was acting up at the place they were at,

so they came home early and i wasn't expecting them and so that was why it was unlocked and she just barged right on in my wife just letting her go like you know just a fart in the breeze just let her just let her go and uh she ran right to the door one day she will replace me as co-host i know this is where it's going luke but i'm here for it uh thank you very much speaking Speaking of UFC 282, here's Paddy Pimble at the press conference after his disputed decision win. When you look back on the yesterday books,

I've got the little green marker next to my name with a W, so everyone else can suck me asshole. Luke, if you're interested, you can suck his huge genusice that's a weird thing did you watch the calabasas uh fight companion rampage jackson was talking about that topic a lot luke no what do you say how much he loves eating ass and he loves being on the other end of that salad too luke all right so that's just that's just a horrifying thought grown-ass man there but uh

if you got a problem with Patty, you can eat his ass. All right, let's keep it going here. Luke, here's teenager Raul Rosas Jr. after his big win. 50 Gs. I would ask Santa Claus, but I don't know if Santa Claus can give them to me right now after this fight. But hey, I need them 50 Gs so I can buy my mother a minivan and she can give me a ride to the PI.

Woo! Luke, is the next move to drop an Elk Boys bag inside, like, an 89 Dodge Caravan and give his mom a ride to the PI? I mean, the kid just wants to be able to work out for free, Luke. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's going to get the Nelk boys back in the 89 Dodge Omni, but they might give him the 89 Dodge Omni. All right, there you go. Shout out. I mean, look, he's asking for it. Give it to him. Let's also hear from Jan Blachowicz. I got a lot of respect for this move. This is after the decision.

I don't know what to say. I won that fight. Why didn't I get my belt? I don't know what to say. Your legs were compromised. I'll give the belt to Uncle Iyer, you know. You think he should get the belt. I agree. Jan Bohovic is an honorable man, ladies and gentlemen. How about a round of applause for Jan Bohovic? I'm serious, Luke.

You don't see that often. That's a class move right there. Yeah, between him and Yuri, like, showing character as sportsmen, you got to love it. All right. You know who showed character inside the cage for 23 seconds? It was Jairzinho Rosenstruck sending the Dalkus family back to hell. Unfortunately, Luke, were you impressed by this?

Yeah, I don't know. I kind of felt like this was coming because he's a great counterstriker and he's very accurate. Dude, how about that running left hook? That looked like Stipe against Verdum, right? Almost like a Superman punch, yeah. Yeah, good shit right there. Damn, he needed that win, too, and he got it, okay?

That's the kind of man he is. Let's keep it going, Luke. Deep on the undercard, speaking of young Hammers, here's 20-year-old Cameron Simon. Yeah, I had it on mute, so I didn't hear how they pronounced his name. He improved to 7-0 with his TKO, but, dude, that was pretty nasty, those knees. And he looked like he had been down early in the fight. He had to kind of rally a little bit.

He looked good. South African kid. Yeah, future Hammer in the waiting here. Let's go to Bellator 289 from the Mohegan Sun. Here's Rafael Stotz after Sabatello left the cage. Say, say this with me. Na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na.

Hey, hey, hey. Goodbye. Fuck you, Sabatello. Fuck you, Sabatello fuck you Sabatello that shit was terrible Luke I love me some Raffia and Stotts that's a pretty good impression thank you that was pretty funny dude

was that cringe though? a little bit off key in that one shout out to Raffia and Stotts, Cage Side, there, living it up. Let's gawk at Patchy Mix just being incredible, Luke. Here was the finish on Magomed. Dude, look at this guillotine. It's almost like an anaconda. It's sort of working the same way.

So how key is trapping the leg right there? Very key. It prevents them from rolling away. Think about the pressure, right? The head is being turned upside down. If he didn't have have the leg he could just walk his body to the other end and reduce virtually all of the pressure or just a good portion of it on the choke you could just move his body around it i mean that's why a choking and then having a person's body under control is important i've got the body controlled now i can sort of like you know go for the choke

but if you don't have it, it's not so good. But trapping that leg. Damn. Let me look at the results. Also, Wildman Pat Downey, Luke Wrestling's bad boy, took his first L in the MMA cage. Oh my god, dude. Not Hammer of the Month. Here's Christian Eccles putting Pat and his wild hair

away. Dude, Pat Downey was minus 2500 to win this fight. Why was he so tired two and a half minutes into round one i don't understand i don't know i i wish i had the guy's name somebody dm me they're like yo i went to high school with pat here's like seven insane stories about what it was like and i was like damn dude right someone says he had his dog at the fighter hotel. Jon Jones did that once. Jon Jones did that once.

Let's go to the boxing weekend recap. So, Luke, here was the face-off between Teofimo and Sandor Martin a couple days before the fight. Let's listen in. It's okay. It's coming. Don't worry about it. It's coming. It's coming.

You're nervous. You're nervous. You're not going to be a champion. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Stop sitting on your Aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach.

Right now, you can save up to 25% in AeroPlan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com.

Conditions apply. I don't know. In hindsight, should we have realized Sandor was for real after that moment, Luke? I couldn't hear a word he said. Yeah, I think it was more about the faces. It almost looked like Teofimo started happy and then slowly he was just like, it was interesting. But here is Martín.

It was in Spanish anyways, as Gaff would tell us, so I don't understand that, Luke. But here's Martin dropping Teofimo around two. Right on top of the nose. Martin. Hurt. So they called it a slip on the broadcast, but, Luke, you look at the replays.

He got check hooked there. It was like a pull counter. He did. He did. He came around the corner. Now, he was moving forward, so some of it might be off-balancing, but he got hit with a shot and he tripped. All right, Luke, as a postscript to us being concerned here about Teofimo,

I want you to listen closely about what the camera picked up after the fight. Bro, do I still have it? You do, man. Do I still got it? It's gone. Yeah. Do I still got it? Do I still got it? Is that what he said? Yeah, he's straight up saying to his team with the camera on him,

do I still have it? So, Luke, he did his celebratory backflip like he always does on Heisman Night, wearing the jersey of the Heisman winner from hours before, but he barely stuck the landing, and it was kind of like, unfortunately, an image of maybe where he's really at. I mean, have you heard that before? An elite fighter looking into the camera being like, man, am I still that good? Do I still have it?

And he's 24, you know? Damn. On the undercard, though. Also, by the way, the kid who won the Heisman? From Washington, D.C. That's what I'm talking about. Yep. D.C. proper. And like D.C. proper. He went to Gonzaga High School, which is just down North Capitol Street.

A lot of D.C. proper shirts at the Baltimore Airport this weekend, Luke. Okay. Saw it. I saw it, bro. Here's Jared Big Baby Anderson. He was on the top-ranked undercard. He's looking like the best young American heavyweight prospect. But here's his walkout, Luke.

You down for this? Yeah, I kind of am. I'm all about Grinches. He would improve. Especially like dancing Grinches. Yeah, he beat up a guy he should have, but, Luke, he's looking good. All knockouts in every one of his wins. Big baby Jared Anderson's looking like he's coming on.

Here's Bud Crawford in Omaha, as we mentioned. Here's the stoppage, a good one, against David Avenison in round six. Yeah, I mean, Bud's precision here is he just catches and shoots. Oh, my Lord, it is. I mean, look, no one's doubting it. He's still got it, dude. Okay, we love, I mean, seriously, as a fighter, love me some Bud Crawford. But, hey, I guess make that money, player, right?

Ten million, bro. Ten million. I haven't seen the clip yet, but Chris Algieri said if he approached, if Bud Crawford approached the Spence fight with the style he used here, he would get run over. Interesting. Manny Pacquiao was back, Luke, in Asia here. Boxing YouTuber DKU. He drops you here in round five.

It would go the distance over six. Luke, I didn't watch it. I don't know if he was carrying you. I don't know if you care about him beating you but did you hear that the 44 year old afterwards said yeah guys i'm back give me spence give me crawford i'm back i told you that moment was coming luke he's back okay yeah i have zero interest and i hope that there is no athletic commission who's saying all right i don't want him against either Spence or Crawford. I think the Ugas fight showed us something. But, dude, him against Gervonta is still the fight I want. Why am I the only one in the world that thinks that's great matchmaking?

Yeah, no, no thanks. I'm good. All right, boxing had a lot going on outside the ring this weekend. Luke, here's an Instagram live from Errol Spence Jr. He was in an accident. A 14-year-old stole a car and hit him. Stole their parents' car. Luckily, Spence is okay. But, Luke, let's watch this video.

Scary, bro. Scary. Yeah, he ran light. Damn. Fuck my whole shit up. Man, shut up. It don't matter. Oh, it happened to me.

I seen him too. Luke, it was good to see him make it light a bit, although it seemed like he was jawing with a bystander there. But damn, dude, right? This guy, trouble seems to follow him, man. I mean, no one's saying this is his fault. A 14-year-old stole a car, ran a red light, and crashed into him. But that's tough.

I'm not saying it's not his fault, but I'm saying trouble seems to follow him. Luke, Adrian Broner did a press conference with BLK Prime before Crawford Avenison, in which he announced he'll be boxing Ivan Redkotch in February. But damn, dude, what's AB been eating lately? I don't know. Is he going to be on The Biggest Loser before then? So, Luke, the story is that he's been talking trash to the media,

to all PBC fighters, saying they need to get out. But, I mean, I hope that check clears, dude. You know? Yeah, poor Adrian. I don't even know what to say about it anymore. Alright, your nickname of the week comes from Friday's Rough and Rowdy card. Luke, let's look at this. Here is Casey

I-E-Ass Dale. And in case you weren't aware, he puts it on his chest. Also, as a sort of a quote, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Dave Portnoy eat ass as well. Yeah, that's a lot more information than I care to learn. He has a temporary tattoo on his left pec that says IES, similar to like goldenpalace.com on Bernard Hopkins' back back in the day. This is a gentleman.

If he wasn't doing this, he'd be stealing car stereos. So, you know, just let him have it. Not bad. Not bad. Hey, your crowd fight of the week comes from the nhl game involving the coyotes at bruins let's enjoy this oh shit you know i don't think hockey fans well that's not true like in certain markets hockey fans are worse than nfl fans like flyers fans. Every time I've gone to a Flyers, oh, dude, that guy hit that woman. That guy just hit that girl. Damn.

Yeah, and then he just falls on top. Oh, man, he just decked her. That's crazy. Yo, she's wearing a Gronk jersey. She's okay, though. She's okay. Here comes the cops. Watch him just body surf.

Ah. Oh, wow. Look at these whores. Oh, come on. I mean, you know, she may have been promiscuous in her day, but that's unnecessary. I'm saying that's what the cops said, not what I said. All right, all right, all right. Luke, we always escalate how you can get higher in a more fun way.

Here's how you get high camping. Luke, you into this? Yes. Nothing says America like a flag shirt and a weed tent. There's a bear shit in the woods. Am I interested? What kind of question is this? How quickly would you pass out?

Hopefully instantly? Yeah, not quick enough. Luke, do you remember that time? Speaking of the World MMA Awards, remember that time at last year's when Brett Okamoto accosted us he was drunk as shit and he was like he was hey guys so here's a story from oscar willis on his mac life pod with dan hooker it was uh it was funny because i couldn't couldn't hear the crowd really like you get so in it you couldn't really hear it uh and then brett okamoto was there he was so hammered he just came and got

in my corner in between rounds i was like fucking kill him kill him and i had to be like dude shut up like i actually had to say to him dude i can't like you're being so loud right now we got a party with oaks we got a party uh bro komodo may be uh better looking than all of us, Luke, but can this guy handle his liquor or what? Because he basically said the same thing to us. I hope you guys win. Yeah.

Yeah, dude. He had that look where he was going to be the guy who could assure you with glassy eyes that he could drive home no problem. I mean, I don't think he did drive home. No, he didn't. But I'm saying he's got that kind of energy like i can drive home shut your mouth you know of course that was oscar willis referencing his uh look he was part of that program right that wimped to warrior what do they call it now ultra ultra yeah he was part of that program and of course we saw that video of him winning his

amateur debut shout out despite brett getting in his way. Luke, it's Christmas party time, holiday party, whatever you celebrate. Don Jr. had a party at his house. He hired Kid Rock as DJ and entertainment. Tickling the ivories here. Would you have been down for this? I would rather just have someone spit Ebola into my fucking mouth. Imagine just showing up to Don Jr.'s Christmas partymas party like yo we got kid rock over there spinning records it's like okay okay okay i'd just be like look did don jr sniff all the coke yet or is there

some for the rest of us oh wow wow all right hey it's time for mma fighters in the wild luke here's chuck liddell at the uh at the bat company. Luke, at what point is he not allowed to wear that haircut and dye it black? Yeah, and also, it's like, you know, what's up with the black eye there, Chucky? I mean. What do you think of his ability to take rips here, Luke? Yeah, okay. I mean, he's still terrifying, but yeah, all right. I wouldn't test him, but you know.

Luke, my live chat debuted last week, and people asked me which UFC fighter would I most like to be able to see how good they can dunk. I said Jon Jones, but then people were like, nah, brah, there's footage of it. I found the footage. Here we go. This is from like a decade ago.

That's Jon in the tank top. First of all, the other guy is tall as shit because John's my height or a little bit more. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Gaff says that's Al Horford in the video, Luke. Oh, I was about to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it is him. Yeah. Oh, God. Apparently that doesn't translate, Luke. Wow. Okay. You know, I mean. Different kinds of athletes.

That's true. That is true. Speaking of MMA fighters in the wild, here's Hasbula in a public park. Luke, just living life large, right? Is this dude's 15 minutes up yet? No, I'm back on the train. I love me some Hasbula. Okay, that cart is fucking slick.

I'll say that. That little thing he's driving? Dude, everything he does is slick for the most part, right? I don't know about all that, but this is pretty cool. Well, Hasbulla was able to stick the landing. Let's see if this guy can. Oh, no. Oh, no.

See, that's why... Hope you got a dentist, you dumb bitch. Yeah, that's why you don't sodomize on the dirt bike, Luke. I mean, what are we doing, right? It's like, dude, you're already in a poor country. You don't have to make life worse. Okay, okay. Luke, no surprise on this next daredevil feat,

but Dana White also declined doing this. Let's check out the videotape. Oh! doing this let's check out the videotape oh this is what is up what is up with honkeys jumping is this bill's mafia tryouts luke i think that guy passed right he also died but you know that was great yeah it's like dude these guys are like man ain't nothing going right in my life. I'm trying to get me a Darwin Award. Yep, yep. Hey, your KO of the week takes us to this karate pit, Luke. Let's see this. Oh!

Hit him with the bop gun. That was nice. Is that a rolling thunder or no? What is that? No, this would be like some kind of capoeira, or I'd have to see it again i bet you chef cas can do that luke while cooking a meal yeah damn yeah so that's some kind of scorpion kick i'm not i'm not entirely certain but it was nice i'd like to see that in mma if it's possible hey you want to see the biggest hot dog in the world luke this may answer the question is a hot dog a sandwich according to this lady yes the world's stupidest debate look at the size of that wiener

though luke like is a hot dog a sandwich is the debate that people have who don't read books okay but this proves that it is a sandwich right look at that grinder what it is call it a sandwich called a hot dog it makes no difference the classification is somewhat irrelevant anyway and also that's a first of all that's not even like a hot dog that's like a big ass kielbasa and baguette yeah i've seen scenes like this turn into adult films look i mean to be honest with you like look at the unit on that that uh sausage wow all right luke it's time for the world famous rate that tat luke thomas let's start off speaking of hot dogs let's check this out very naturally find that you can't help you know you know if i hadn't been diagnosed with uh non-alcoholic fatty liver disease luke i may have

considered this for my my left arm first of all they didn't even get the stenciling right oh wow look at that guy's head look at that guy's head now obviously that sacrilege to put a cross luke on your forehead with hot dogs on it but part of me can't appreciate that part of you there are people out here living just for the internet lulls until they realize this is like truly one of the dumbest fucking things you can do also I got to tell you there's not a lot of tattoo artists who would actually do a tattoo like this either for faces generally or some kind of stupid message and more importantly than that like you have to find the right kind of person for that yeah I find that yeah I mean look at his hair look at this bozo i mean this is um

yeah a future darwin award winner if ever there was one congratulations you found out he was an mk fan what would you do i'd ask him to get castrated okay life may do that to him uh regardless of your opinion though uh let's go to this rate that tat so look brendan shobb did a nice dad move and we do are we doing this bit are we doing this bit you're gonna ask me to make fun of him look he's got the the chombies on his arm those are his kids on his arm in zombie mode i wanted you to comment on the well you know look you were willing to tell mr hebas great intention bad execution what are your thoughts on these? I don't understand them. I don't quite understand why he would want kids as zombies.

I don't know. Is there a story behind that? What's the story? I think it's because one of his kids can't pronounce zombies, so he calls them chombies, so he wanted to get that on his arm to remember it. I mean, I guess that's okay. The left one is okay.

The left one's okay. The right one is not my fave. Probably nothing I would do. I'll put it that way. I wouldn't get tattoos of my kids with exposed brains, but look, people live different lives, and that's cool, okay? Yeah, but again, the tattoo's not for you. It's for him and his family. Same thing with Mr. He-Boss.

You're like, yo, yo, boss, nah, brah. Yeah, I know, but you're asking me because, listen, I realize that there is a large economy of people who love to insult Brendan, and I understand that, but, you know, I don't need to contribute to that marketplace for it to thrive, so I'll just leave it as is.

Don't keep that same energy. They don't need you, Luke, all right, at all. Well, let's go one more tattoo. I'm not telling anyone to stop. The world is going to do what it's going to do. Here's some hectic white lightning. What are your thoughts on this tattoo? So he's getting an all white lightning. It just looks like he's got a disease.

He looks like he's got psoriasis. Yeah, congratulations. All right, there you go. You got bit by a zombie. He looks like he's got psoriasis. Yeah, congratulations. Alright, there you go. You got bit by a zombie. There you go. Luke, if you're willing to enter a rodeo, you gotta be willing to get the horn. Sometimes it happens. Oh, no. Is Big Bertha about to get

airlifted here? Oh, God. Oh, yeah! Oh, wow! Dude, these bulls, man, that's not even a big-ass bull. These big bulls, man, they are different creatures, wow. Dude, these bulls, man, that's not even a big-ass bull. Like, these big bulls, man, they are different creatures, bro. Yeah, he was calling it professional. Look at Big Bertha take air.

Big Bertha had more air, like, under that one than Jon Jones did trying to dunk. Like, yo, I got ups. Oh, my God. You know, call in a superhero to try to pull this move off. Let's see if Spider-Man can handle it. Look. Yo, Spider-Man's been at the buffet, huh? Look at those spidey senses.

Spider-Man is so fucking fat here that you can see his neck because the part of the neck that the mask is supposed to cover can't reach it. Luke, this two and a half hour show will end with one more clip. Fight of the Week

took place at a Wawa. Let's check it out. Oh, wow. I mean... Yo, crack kills, brother. Wow. Just look at this gross... Look at him rubbing his ass over everything. Dude, if you don't sit... And look at his belly hanging out above his

fupa. Bro, if you don't burn this Wawa to the ground, the health code violation should be extraordinary. Dude, look at this man's gross, pimply... His ass is so pimply, it looks like he sat on a porcupine. Look at it. I mean, look, they say you are what you eat all the food in that wah-wah is his uh just burn it just burn the inventory burn it and collect the insurance money it's over it's over uh this guy this guy this guy t-bagged and ass rubbed every condiment in that thing how's gonna be some guy who like reaches for his like gum there or splenda why does this equal smell like you notice the guy in the

supplying the guillotine is keeping his covet mask on luke just to prevent yeah you know he's trying to be he's trying to be safe he's trying to be safe what do you think about the technique of of his submission here Can you comment on that? You know, well, when you rest your gunt on top of it. Yeah, all right. This fight's still going on, Luke. Oh, look at that. Look at that man ass. Look at that man ass.

Should Herb Dean stand him up at this point and separate him? I mean, what are we doing? Oh, look at that, right to the jewels. Dude, he's punching him. I mean, like, what has happened? Dude, this is gross. Oh, no. Full moon. Full moon gross. Oh, no.

Full moon. Full moon fever. Look at this. Dude, how many things is this man's ass going to touch? Go full screen. I got to see how this ends. Look at this. Look at this. He's got a tramp stamp.

Dude, he's got a tramp stamp. I saw a guy. Oh. Dude, just burn everything. Burn it to the ground. Oh, my God. There's no coming back from this Oh no

Look at his feet Somehow his feet are less dirty than his ass Dude, this fight's still going on Under pride rules right now By the way, why is everyone in this Wawa 700 pounds? Because they eat there, Luke. All right, that's it.

Wow. All right. Oh, boy. Yeah, that guy's a star. You had a good one there. You had a good one there. This is like Kimbo versus the late Sean Gannon right here, Luke. They'll never be the same after this.

This is Kimbo versus Dada. Yeah, but you better get out of there, champ. Yeah. Just go. Just go. get out of there champ just go just go yo we did three hours today why why would we do that i don't know i yeah i missed my dentist appointment because of this so i'm really happy about that oh no no yeah i did i did i have to call them now so that's great all right well luke just to let people know about boxing um nyawa inoue my number one pound-for-pound fighter

on the CBS Sports rankings, is going to take on Paul Butler tomorrow morning in Asia. It's a good fight, actually. I'm sorry? It's a good fight. Yeah, for all four titles at 118 pounds. Another undisputed championship tomorrow morning. I believe the main event is expected to start at 6 a.m.,

but, Luke, I'm going to get up early. I'm going to be handling the recap for CBS Sports. I don't know. Maybe I'll F around with an MK reaction if it's worthy. Who knows, right? Alright. Could be fun. Could be fun. That is it for us today. Reminder, morningcombat at gmail.com. Wednesday's fansubs. Friday's dead wrong is the place to go.

Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, keep it if not that guy's ass was all over the sunglasses and everything i mean it's like you can't get some woman twerking you have to look at a some 400 pound living in a van down by the river unshowered you know i hope the fight was over like a politics or like abortion or something luke right no i hope it was over who got the last slice of like you know i don't know i don't know what the fuck see that's why i support sheets gas stations and not wawa for this type of crap all right yeah you don't see people doing that over schmuffins and schmegels no no i've taken a heavy sheets before in that in that

location too but uh no i do we gotta i to call my dentist office now because I got to figure out what I'm going to fucking do. All right. So let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can bounce. Morningcombat.store for the merch. Don't forget Money Lion. Money Lion. Money Lion. Money Lion. Go to MoneyLion.com slash Morning Combat

for more information. And of course, Hammer of the Month hashtag for anyone from the Bellator card, anyone from the UFC card, even the boxing card, if your fancy is tickled in such a way. So there you go.

BC, any final thoughts? Um, no, no, I'm good. I'm good at this point. You know,

it's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long weekend though. Happy to be happy to watch all those fights this morning and get ready for this show, but we made it. We got to the finish line. All the big weekend, though. Happy to be happy to watch all those fights this morning and get ready for this show, but we made it. We got to the finish line. Alright. BC, glad you're back. We have a long show week

in front of us, so let's call it a day today. For BC, for Malka, for Showtime, for CBS Sports, I'm Luke Thomas and the great MK staff and crew here. We'll see you guys on Wednesday, maybe tomorrow after the Inouye fight. Check out. Oh, buy merch. Buy merch by Wednesday if you want to get it by Christmas. That's right. there you have it so wednesday is the deadline for uh if you want

to get it by christmas so until then may all of your gains be loyal