MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 284 Leftovers | UFC Vegas 69 | Fight Announcements | Gervonta Davis | Ep. 408

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

On Episode 408 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian kick off the show by discussing some lingering storylines from UFC 284. Next up the guys preview UFC Vegas 69. How will Erin Blanchfield handle the change of opponent? The guys also break down a bunch of Showtime, Bellator and UFC fight announcements. They close out the main topics by reacting to the Gervonta Davis news and Previewing BKFC Knuckle Mania 3. As always they close out the show with OK, Bet and Dead wrong. (9:40) - UFC 284 Leftovers (26:20) - UFC Vegas 69 Preview (48:10) - Fight Announcements (54:20) - Gervonta Davis (59:30) - BKFC: Knuckle Mania 3 (76:00) - OK, Bet Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah, right? Sometimes it's Friday and you just got to art. And that's what we're doing here on the award-winning Combat Sports Showcase. Morning Combat.

Hey, welcome in. Friday, February 17, 2023. You're looking at two award winners right there. I've got award-winning pale and blotchy skin. My name is Brian Campbell coming to you live and direct from not the nation's capital, but maybe the capital of the Midwest, or maybe just the capital of the state of Kansas. Topeka, baby. Yes, on the ground here ahead of tonight's show box, the new generation return.

But the guy across from me is really the drawing card. He's from D.C. He's a fantastic analysis. It's Luke Thomas. Luke. What's up, man? Hi, B.C. How are you?

You asked me before the show how your skin tone looked. I'm going to say a little pukey. A little pukey. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pukey like Tukey.

Yeah. Yeah. She hasn't puked in a while, actually. Knock on wood. Yeah. Knock on wood. Indeed. Luke, we got a, you know, I want to say, I want to say we've got a great show planned

for them today. I'm also coming from a dark hotel room with McDonald's Wi-Fi. So I really don't know the future of the next 90 minutes to two hours. But as your award-winning co-host, I'm ready to drive it home. We're going to set the stage for this interesting UFC fight night card this weekend. Knuckle mania time in the BKFC, whether we like it or not. We got some random boxing news and notes, odds and ends to get through. Excited, excited to be here.

And obviously, as I mentioned tonight, 9 p.m. in the east, Topeka, Kansas, the host of Showbox, the new generation, myself, Barry Tompkins, Raul Marquez, Steve Farhood. We got two unbeaten super welterweights in the main event, and you can watch that card tonight for free by going to Showtime.com. Start your 30-day streaming journey. You know what happens. You can pound sand at the end, or you can continue to watch, you know, top-rated MMA, boxing, movies, documentaries, all that good stuff. Check out Showtime, the label that pays us.

Luke Thomas, how do you feel? I mean, we're coming off of, wow, a tremendous week in London. Our live show finally hit the mark Wednesday. We obviously apologize once again that it didn't come out before 284. Unlike a lot of the salty comments we received from their fans, that was not an active decision to do that. I don't understand how you guys could make those criticisms, but you know, it's a big world. A lot of people have different opinions. Thank you very much. How are you feeling, Luke? It's, you know, it's mid it's a big world. A lot of people have different opinions. Thank you very much. How you feeling Luke? It's, you know, it's midwinter fight season's about to get juicy again. We're on top of the world, you know, BC, uh, three times this week, I went to bed with,

uh, at the same time anyway, as my daughter, like when I put her down, I went to bed and, uh, and then I got my medical marijuana card renewed. So how am I doing? Doing great, BC. Feels so good. I'm well rested. I've got a full stash of weed. I feel amazing. You know what I'm saying?

Wow. You're like, let's just talk about it. In fact, if the fans really want, maybe we can show them what you got there, Luke. I've got one. I got the dab pen. There you go. All right. Great to see you going full bore back into your old ways and your vices. Oh, is that an energy drink as well, Luke?

This is great. I don't actually need it, but I'm going to lift right after the show, and so I need to be up for the show. I need it to carry me on through the afternoon. I'd say you're at least 90 minutes away from pissing in a public sink, Luke. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. It does happen to the worst of us in this area

in this game we're in right here right now. Luke, we've got a great show. I vomited in the sink. Remember that? You did vomit in a community sink there at Malka Studios. Let's hope that there's no HR violations. What is the statue of limitations on that, Luke?

Could there still be an HR violation? There really isn't one. Once you do that, it's sort of like a tattoo maybe it's just there you know it's like marking your territory right yeah not in a good way though in all the worst ways I mean look if puking and sinks is cool Luke consider yourself Miles Davis right there thank you yes thank you. I'm not into medicine or eating a lot of greens. But if I take one scoop of that magic green powder, put it in the water in the morning, I'm building a foundation for success the rest of the day. Luke, I really am. You really are.

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Less than $3 a day, a cold brew, energy drink, or vape pen habit already. You can handle paying for something that's this good for your body, Luke. You certainly can. And taking Athletic Greens is a small micro habit with big benefits. One thing you can do every single day, take great care of yourself, BC. Absolutely. And don't listen to us. Listen to Gervais. Listen to Tim Ferriss. Listen to the experts.

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You got any political views you want to push to the forefront here? Definitely not going to watch the fights like i might i might watch the main event for ufc live this weekend that's really about it i'm gonna i'm gonna take this weekend to spend time with my fam yeah i mean you've been a man of the world lately it's about time to get her data back all right what does she call you luke does she have a name for you either daddy or poppy either one of those two poppy is so brilliant i love that that's great that's what my kids call my dad you know they call or poppy either one of those two poppy is so brilliant. I love that. That's great That's what my kids call my dad, you know

They call him poppy. They do they call him poppy. Yeah, but they call him p-o-p-p-y. They don't call it a pi That's what no, it's very gringo. That's that's the world we live in. Okay. Thank you Indeed. All right, luke. Here we go topic number one somewhat of a slow week in the sports of mixed martial arts and boxing, but we did have some leftover debate. We'll call it the UFC 284 hangover here as we dip through the leftovers, the fallout of the Alexander Volkanovski versus Islam Mahachev lightweight title summit, of course, produced much debate in the standpoint of judge scoring, of pound for pound criteria and all of that. But Luke, one of the stories that came out of that and the accusations from Volkanovski teammate Dan Hooker of the proposed IV use of Islam Mahachev, it kept going over a multiple

day span. Hooker had the accusations. There were pictures out there of potential, I don't know, loaded veins, if you will, from Mahachev. Brett Okamoto of ESPN put out an update on what the actual rules are. And then manager of the Stars, Ali Abdelaziz, kind of did the same thing before instantly deleting a tweet that only further muddied the waters of debate and discussion. Luke, can you do your best for our listeners to kind of sum up where we're at in IVgate and whether this deserves more attention and debate?

We're basically nowhere. And the reason why I say that is because I don't know what the alleged evidence is that Islam has used. I've seen the very Reddit friendly Zapruder films that people have put together showing marks on Islam's arm. It could be true, but it seems very speculative, and I don't really take that to be direct evidence anyway. Moreover, that's not what you could use to actually know, like, did he medically, scientifically, did he actually consume fluids this way? We just don't have any evidence. We didn't have any evidence yesterday. We don't have any evidence today.

I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying we're being asked to adjudicate a claim for which the public has next to no information about, real information, reliable information. What is it we're supposed to say about something when we have none of those things? And to the point, people say things about MMA fighters, say things about rival fighters all the time. And sometimes they are true and sometimes they're not.

Sometimes they're kind of half true. Sometimes they're true in sort of unique ways, but not really in the fuller sense. So I don't really know what to make of Hooker's claims absent more direct evidence that gives us an ability to make an assessment. What I will say, BC, to me, the real story is you saw it just up and change the rules in 2019. And they claim that they told all the relevant parties. BC, does it sound to you like they told all the relevant parties? Because the relevant parties don't seem to be getting the message at all. They didn't tell the public. I don't recall any new stories. And I looked it up. I don't remember any new stories from 2019 about modifications in the rules related to IV use. Now the IV use has gotten easier. In fact, I would argue significantly

easier. All of this nonsense about we can't allow guys to have IVs. Sure enough, it turns out you actually can. You just have to have a more humane policy. Just to wrap it up, just to put a bow on it, I'll hand it right back. The story here to me is I'm not saying there's nothing with Makachev, but we simply don't have any information. We have plenty of information around this idea that no one seems to know the rules in anti-doping in MMA. Sounds a lot like judging criteria, stay in state-to-state commission rules on this sport,

and some of that falls into play because some of the reaction, I haven't had a chance to check this, but there's a lot of fans that seem to be Volkanovski fans who were tweeting aggressively saying, but guys, IVs are illegal in general in the Australian athletic commission handbook for this area. So I have my own questions in terms of jurisdiction and what means what, because Brett Okamoto of ESPN, as I mentioned,

did go back to the UFC slash USADA handbook. He did reach out to people. And what he found from the rules here is that an IV can be used if quote, it's determined to be medically justified in within the standard of care by a licensed physician and administered by a licensed medical professional. Brett sought further clarification here. And what he ended up finding out was if an athlete is administered an IV of more than the permitted 100 milliliters, as long as it's done by a licensed pro, it is not a violation, even in cases where dehydration caused by a weight cut

is the issue being treated. That sounds very generic and inclusive to any and all situations, does it not, Luke? Yeah, I mean, you can get one now very easily is the answer, right? That's the answer. It sounds like the effort you had to put in to get a medical marijuana card, Luke. There wasn't much effort. Okay, so this is a true story. So I went this week, actually, to go to the, because they have a bunch of brick and mortar stores where you can buy stuff off the street. I don't know how good it is. But if you go to the actual dispensary,

and I flashed my card, BC, it had expired. And they're like, sir, your license for it has expired. And I'm like, oh, man, how am I going to get a new one? They go, scan this QR code, and then just reapply on your phone. It'll take 30 seconds. So I did, and it worked.

It worked out exactly as they said it would. So is it that easy? I don't know if it's that easy, BC, but to the point, it's extremely, extremely easy. Now about the athletic commission in Australia, to my knowledge though, have they, I've not seen them comment on the situation beyond anything rather generic. I'm not aware of any investigation. Someone asked me yesterday, should there be one? Sure. I mean, if there is, if the relevant parties, UFC, USADA, or the relevant athletic commission on the Western part of Australia feels like that that's an important thing they need to do, then yes, by all means do it. But I just want to point out, here's my best

guess, BC. My best guess is that Islam did use one and that we're going to find out it was well within the permitted use of the authorities therein. And I know that there might be some regulations on the books about what commissions can and can't do. Hello, folks. Welcome to the world of commissions, where they can just make shit up whenever they feel like it at any point in time and often do.

The bylaws say one thing. Their actions typically say another. So let's see what happens. All right, let's address the Ali Abdelaziz tweet, which came out. That was not a great tweet from Ali. That was not smart. It came out two days ago, February 15th. And he says, for all those idiots out there,

and of course Ali is the manager of Islam Mahachev, any fighter under the UFC banner can take two to three liters of IV as long as it's done by a nurse or a professional. Next week I'm going to expose everybody. Islam is the pound for pound king. Luke, that tweet was deleted rather quickly. Is this just he tweeted out the wrong information and pulled it back because he was talking about two to three leaders.

Good Lord. But under the Brett's update on the jurisdiction, you can do any amount as long as you have a doctor present, I think. So this feels like much ado about nothing. And also Luke, I feel like personally, everybody's taken anything they can afford or get their hands on anyway. What is an IV bag compared to that? I get what it does for you. I get the dangers of dehydrating yourself to the extreme to make weight only to then rehydrate yourself. But that's the parameters that these athletes are given. This is the game. The

game is the game, Luke. I'm not like everybody else going, see Ali outed himself. I mean, the rules say you can do that, correct? Well, again, I don't know what the relevant authorities told Ali or anyone else, but do I think that there's some kind of legal mechanism you could pull to go beyond the 100 milliliters per 12 hours, depending on the circumstance with a physician's approval, you can do almost anything you want in the sport. Like again, welcome to the world of trying to regulate out the dangers of weight cutting is important, but it is a very perilous thing.

And it's very difficult to do. It's very difficult to find ways to meaningfully stop people from rehydrating in any number of ways short of more dangerous blanket bans. Once you introduce nuance, which can be important for medical purposes, any of these rules can be abused. Here's what I would say. If there is real evidence and someone asked me, should there be an investigation? Yes, of course they should look into this matter, right? If there is real evidence and someone asked me should there be an investigation yes of course they should look into this matter right if there is actual evidence that whatever the rules were they can clearly demonstrate that islam broke them i'm happy to see him punished but i have a feeling that what we're going to end up doing is we're going to find a situation where he did use

an iv and that there is some kind of way to justify it legally or otherwise or he felt like he was in the right or he checked with some authority and they signed off on it. And he felt like he was within his rights to do that. I think we're going to end up in a situation just like that. I do want to point out something I found very interesting. There's a guy on social media. I know of him on Instagram. His name is The Fight Dietitian.

He's actually the dietitian and nutritionist for all the sea uh the city kickboxing guys so including uh he does it for volkanovski he does it for uh izzy he does it for a lot of the guys and he had a whole video on like can like what does what does the ivy do for just pure rehydration um in terms of like that that taking stuff orally and then into your body into your small intestine what is the advantage conferred? And what he pointed out was like there's two major factors. You have to know how much weight they cut and then how much time they have to get it all back.

And what he pointed out was the benefit of doing the IV straight into your bloodstream is that it's a much quicker way to put fluids back into your blood as it carries the nutrients through your body than taking it orally otherwise would be. However, by itself, is there any data to show that over the course of 36 hours, that actually gets you more meaningfully fully hydrated back to your pre, before your weight cut state? There actually isn't hardly any evidence that suggests that. He thinks it's not true. So it's not to say that if you use an IV, you won't get rehydrated to a certain level quicker, but ultimately it doesn't fully restore

you in the ways that people think. So what I'm trying to point out here is again, if he broke the rules and there's evidence, he broke the rules. That's okay. I'm happy to see him punished for it, but there's a lot of nuance to this situation. There's a lot of gray. And I'm going to say one more time, you saw to changing the rules and not telling the press in 2019, to me was a dramatic mistake. If you want fighters to know the rules, they do read MMA websites, they do follow on Twitter, they do get on social media. It was pretty important to tell the media they didn't because they never tell the media hardly anything, unless they're really pounding their own chest about their own successes or perceived successes. And this was a mistake in my in my my judgment. Yeah, it was. And Luke further fallout

on two 84. I just want to say this one thing, cause I I've received enough flack and that's fine. Look, we, we put out opinions. There's going to be a plus or a minus reaction to all those I'm here for. Let's have the debate, but the idea that four to one Mahachev in the scoring, just to put some final closure on this, the idea that that's wrong. Look, if you, if anyone out there feels Volkanovski won three to two, that's fine. Let's have that debate. Let's go over the swing rounds and, and add up the success of one side against the other and figure out based on your own independent evaluation of the scoring criteria, what that means. But I mean, I can't tell you the amount of people who've come at me, you know, saying, go back to boxing, you know, you're a

white, but all that great stuff, but essentially under the idea of how could you score that four to one? I just want to reiterate things. Cause I feel like anytime there's a close score card, you have to, Hey guys, Volkanovski dominated him in round five and delivered a ton of damage, but not to the level of a 10-8 round. So that one round is just that, one round, 10-9 Volkanovski. Your argument can't be look at their faces afterwards. Your argument can't be look at all the damage Volkanovski accrued compared to Makhachev. In round five, yes, but it wasn't enough for 10, eight. So that's one round, one point advantage. That's the scoring criteria. That's the 10, nine, you know, the 10 point must system, excuse me, that was adopted by boxing. That can't be your,

your counter argument in this case, your karma argument has to be round by round that you believe in very close rounds that one guy edged the other. So you're only outing yourself when that is your, essentially the fuel of your argument. When you do a 10 point must system in boxing or MMA, each round is its own fight. You got to wake up and remember that the rounds don't carry together. They don't capitalize on top of each other. It's five separate fights within one fight.

And then you add the score in the end. Is that the best way to judge who won an MMA fight? In my opinion, no. We have this debate on the regular, but stop coming at me with this whole, you know, whatever angle's been coming. Like, wake up and understand the system. After understanding the system, if you still believe you saw three rounds for Volkanovski, that's fine, but can we put our heads back together and maybe try to get what's going on here? It's easy when you see one man exiting the fight with his hand raised and the other one damaged going, oh, that guy definitely won. That's not the system we judge by. And it never was short of pride, right? It never was. So can we wake the F up and move on from that, please? Also,

this idea that like Volkanovski wins on pride rules says who i mean i can see a case where he could it's hardly a slam dunk i could easily see someone looking at the majority of that uh whatever happened in rounds two and three and being like uh islam kind of got the slight better of it during that spot and then volkanovski ended strong so like because you ended strong you win it like that's not necessarily the case i've seen plenty of fights in organizations where they judged it as a whole where a guy had a surging last few minutes and still lost the decision. That's not inherently true. The one argument that was made, BC, that I thought was kind of interesting

was what about in the one criteria? The reason why that's a little bit different is remember, they score affirmatively takedown defense like that counts in your favor it does not count in the 10-9 must system and then under the one system of wachanowski stuffed five of nine takedowns those would go to him versus just being nothing and then the four counting for islam so that to me makes it a little bit more interesting the case for wachanowski goes up on a one, but not automatically on pride,

and certainly not necessarily within the 10-point loss system. Look, if you felt the swing, the closest rounds, and they were mostly all close, really, to be fair, you've got to back it up with the evidence of why. Because it's just saying, look, the rulebook says damage. How could you guys not see that? First of all, the rulebook doesn't say damage, which is why we reread the criteria once again. It's a very generic use of the word impact.

And after striking and damage, which is the first criteria, you have to have other things to look at. The striking success of both fighters was fairly even round by round. That's why at that point you start to go down that chain and you say, okay, when Makhachev did get the takedowns, what was that doing to either compromise Volkanovski's gas tank or frustrate him or force him out of his game plan? Those are all elements you can read out of the,

out of the true definition of what these judges are supposed to be working off of. So I'm not going to act like it's not a gray area, but outside of that fifth round, the damage component does not come into play in the overall argument of round by round scoring that's just the case it was i mean there's people blowing me up that volkanovski won round four i mean just to be very clear about something if you think volkanovski won round four you're off the island of anyone whose opinions we should listen to right period you're off the island it's such a ludicrous thing to argue but the debate isn't just the takedown and the over the head punches the debate is what happened

in the four minutes leading up to that who had the edge in terms of in terms of striking i mean it's all volkanov volkanovsky got clearly outstruck on the feet for the first 90 seconds of round four then got taken down and then got his back taken. And there are people who want you to believe that this is a superior form of offense to all of that. Get, get the fuck out of my face. That's not the right debate. The right debate is not, does the over the head punches get mean more than the takedown? The right debate is what about the full five minutes? That's the right debate in that case. Correct. You know,

we all live and learn and grow and maybe other people's interpretations are different. I mean, we had big John McCarthy look on our show a couple of months ago who was part of the group that made these rules and said, look, it should be only damage. That was what we wanted. They at the last minute wanted to change the word damage to impact. Well, I'm sorry. You can't just say that's how it was supposed to be. You got to work off of what is, and what is leaves many interpretations to a larger degree in terms of once you get past head-to-head striking. But we'll continue to grow with this and try to figure it out.

Luke Topp, do you have any other 284 hangovers, or can I move on to this weekend? Let's go. All right, topic number two, UFC's back. UFC Vegas 69 Apex. We know this was originally going to be a Corey Sanhagen versus Chito Vera main event. That's going to be March 25th now in San Antonio. So then we thought we were going to bump up Aaron Blanchfield versus Tyler Santos to the five round main event level. We know Tyler has pulled out Jessica Andrade is in the former strawweight champion fresh off a big flyweight victory, domination of Warren Murphy. Luke, this feels on paper a lot like a number one contender fight, and the winner would be up next for the winner of Valentina Shevchenko versus Alexa Grasso. Obviously, Tyler Santos, who's fresh off that very close and disputed fight against Shevchenko, is still in this larger title picture how much though after i read you the odds up to the moment do you think this changes the matchup for aaron blanchfield she was a slight betting favorite i

believe against tyler santos heading in as we stand right now our friends at caesars plus 115 aaron blanchfield minus one minus 135 for jessica and If you're Team Blanchfield, obviously both fighters have to deal with the adjustment of changing opponents. What is the focus in your eyes for Team Blanchfield in going from a more well-rounded big flyweight to a smaller, much more powerful slugger coming at you in Andrade? It's interesting. I think that because Blanchfield has such, seems like a fairly-ish lopsided skill set where she's just, not to say she's bad on the feet, but she's just really good on the ground, right? Um, so in that sense, I don't think the game plan changes too much in a very broad perspective,

right? In the broader perspective, even though Santos is a skilled ground operator I had the feeling after talking to her maybe you did too I don't know BC but I had the feeling like she probably wanted to fight her there too like she'll fight her a little bit on the feet that's fine but you know Santos was going to bring the fight to her in terms of trying to get to the ground anyway that fight was going to be won or lost for Blanchfield in that space so in that sense it doesn't change what it probably does change up though, is you mentioned the body type and also the weapons that they use and the danger of those weapons,

like the hooking big punches from Andrade, you know, Santos simply does just does not have that. She's, she can't reproduce that of her life dependent on it. And that does change a lot, but here's the interesting part we see. And I played this game with Mike heck a little bit yesterday.

I'll play with you here in a very similar way. Whoa, whoa, hold on. I missed it. Cause I was traveling. Did you, were you on BT played this game with Mike Heck a little bit yesterday. I played with you here in a very similar way. Whoa, whoa, hold on. I missed it because I was traveling. Were you on BTL? I did it, yeah. Did you go head-to-head with Jed Meshew? I did, yes.

Did you win? I didn't see. This is great. I did, yeah. I mean, you know, I won. I mean, you know, they just award points randomly. You don't seem excited. Look, Jed Meshew is a work in progress, Luke, but he's ever let up a sparkler on 4th of July. He's sparkling right now, okay, Luke?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Jed. I've known Jed for a while, so it wasn't... He's a little new to you. He's not new to me. But here's a pop quiz for you, BC. How many takedowns did Valentina Shevchenko get against Jessica Andrade in their 2021 title fight?

Well, I know at least one, Luke, and I feel like the tone of your voice is setting me up for some type of trap or trick question. So I'm going to go with one. It's definitely, she definitely got the one you're right. Try seven. And here's how many she attempted seven. She got all the takedowns. She attempted five in the first round, two in the second. So first of all, there's obviously a weakness there that I was two years ago. I understand, or a year and a half or whatever, but that's still a lot of dominance. That's the first thing I'd say. The second part is she got them all basically the same way. Body lock takedowns, usually off of a punch that Andrade would throw, some kind of big punch,

and Shevchenko would get underneath it or whatever. Body lock takedown, whipper to the mat, over and over and over again. She went five for five in round one, two for two in round two. To me, if you're Aaron Blanchfield, that has got to be part of the blueprint here. It's not to say that that's the same Andrade walking through that door, but if someone can take you down seven times with the same, again, similar family of takedowns over and over again. That could take a while to get better at it. Blanchfield's probably going to be pretty good at it. To me, that's the wide-open door here,

is whether she can do that. Because if you think about it, BC, why would Valentina Shevchenko not want to go for a leg attack on Andrade? I mean, without talking to her, I'm going to guess. But I think part of that reason is because the hammer-fisting of someone like Andrade can lump you up. It could change the debate. You may not get the takedown.

Like, there's a lot that can go wrong if she has a hand to strike you. But once you've attached yourself to her, there's no meaningful punch from here that can actually hurt. And so it's a really safe-ish way to take someone down like that. I bet you Blanchfield's going to try something similar. I bet you. Yeah. Look, to try something similar. I bet you. Yeah. Look, when we talked about the opponent change quickly on Monday's show, I think it's right. It's like, this is a, the change in opponents, I think presents a potentially easier path

to victory for Blanchfield based on that strength that you talked about. And if she can keep the fight completely on her terms, like Valentina Shevchenko did, which is obviously asking a lot against somebody as dangerous as Andrade, but boy, did Shevchenko go out there to prove a point that she can expose Andrade's biggest weakness and then dominate her there. It also brings hella more danger to Blanchfield given Andrade's punching power. And Luke, I watched closely the media scrum interview that Aaron Blanchfield did this week on the ground in Vegas.

And we had her on Room Service Diaries, of course. And I think this is the most intriguing part for me, you know, separate from the physical, the X's and O's, the sort of mental coming in. We talked about it after our RSD with Aaron Blanchfield. Either she is, you know, as cold-blooded as her nickname indicates, right? You know what I mean? And she's coming in this. Doesn't matter that you change the opponents. The thing is the same. I know what I'm going to do and I'm going to go out there and do

it against you. But there's this like hint of, I don't want to say naivety, but the idea of like, obviously you want to say this about any young fighter who's on such a one-sided dominant run. What happens if they have to make adjustments? What happens if they fall down in the fight? And all those questions are big for Blanchfield. But I really feel like this is going to go one of two ways, and I can't exactly figure it out. Either Blanchfield's plan A is so strong that it's going to navigate through the dangers that Andrade brings, and the opportunity for a one-sided victory could actually happen. Blanchfield could be that good. She could be better than we even realize after those one-sided dominations of Miranda Maverick and Molly Meatball. Or Luke, this could be a tactical, tense, back-and-forth fight, and we're going to find out if Erin Blanchfield has

a real chin, if she has real recuperative powers, because Andrade is not any regular type of puncher. She's a spectacular one punch knockout artist, which is as rare as it comes in the women's game at the elite level. You just don't see that every day. And she has hulking power. So it's like, I watched the sit down with Aaron this week, thinking the same thing I did on our couch. She's either in for a rude, rude, rude awakening, or she just has the perfect amount of confidence for a young fighter in her early 20s who's only been doing this you know this mixed martial arts for a handful of years I can't figure out if she's ready for that deep end of the pool Luke and in that prospect

alone is truly what excites me from an entertainment standpoint coming in I mean like her she's either going to be right or wrong and I think we're going to find out fairly quickly once Andrade lands or if she does at all because, you know, could Blanchfield reproduce the exact game plan that Shevchenko did against Andrade? Luke, does she have all of the skills and credibilities needed to do that in your opinion? No, because Shevchenko faced off with her at various points,

moving in ways to bait her in or attack her with certain kinds of strikes. And, you know, her timing and shot selection and strike selection, they're going to be unique to her individual skill sets. And, like, do I really believe that Jessica it'll be interesting to see what game plan Jessica comes up with here because you would want to like put some pressure on Blanchfield, but you have to make sure your defense is stout because otherwise you can walk into problems. But I just don't feel like Blanchfield can control like a, like a snake charmer with the Cobra, that other part of the round as nimbly. And it's like, if you go back and you watch the Andrade and Shevchenko fight,

Andrade has like a very healthy respect for what she's up against, you know, here she's coming in on super late notice. And, and it's just really hard to know what she'll bring to the table here. But to answer your point about like, is this an easier fight? Listen in many,

many, many, many, many, in most ways, the answer is no you've got a a dominant uh puncher here you've got a physical powerhouse you've got just a much more overall highly accomplished fighter even relative to tyler santos like in those very important ways

a draw just a much tougher opponent however there is this idea, which is what if Blanchfield actually is good enough to get, let's say consistent takedowns. Well on the floor, Santos is actually a little bit better in terms of both, I think defensive and offensive grappling than on Draj. In that sense, if she's able to cross the Rubicon there in terms of the challenges with the takedown and everything else, then once it gets there, that fight might be a little bit easier, but of course, good luck getting the fight there. Well, look, on top of everything we said, I mean, does Blanchfield have this long history of going five rounds in main event fights that could lead to title opportunities? No. So, you know, the idea that could that plan a control and even to some degree dominate

parts of this fight early against Andrade, it could happen. But if you can't finish Andrade and you let her linger, particularly in championship rounds, man, that whole equation could change. There is so much we don't know about Erin Blanchfield, about her, her, you know, recuperative ability, about her ability to rally back the gas tank, everything, the adjustments. That is so interesting in this fight Luke because she may end up slicing through Andrade and go right to the top of the title level

she may have a disastrous outcome here and and I'm having a real hard time trying to figure that out I mean it really matchmaking wise this style contrast this is it I'm into this a lot I love this fight I mean it's massively consequential I think it, you know, it does more for Blanchfield, obviously, than Andrade, even in the event of a victory, especially in the event of a victory. But for Blanchfield, if you lose. Why do you say that? You don't think it's the same stakes for both?

No, I don't. I'm not as convinced that Andrade gets a title shot off of a Blanchfield victory because here's the problem with it. It's like there's a way where Blanchfield bit off more than she can chew and then just gets drummed up for a round or two and then put away. And you're like, oh, right.

Well, she just was not ready for this. It's a great win for Andrade or something, but it doesn't tell you much. It doesn't move the needle. And by the way, she already got the shit kicked out of her by Shevchenko. Did you learn anything in this fight that tells you it's going to go differently in the next one? I suppose there is a scenario where Blanchfield does look good with the wrestling and you see Andrade able to

get off the bottom or something like some kind of way to make you think, okay, this could go differently against Shevchenko, but it's going to be pretty hard to do that. By contrast, if Blanchfield wins, I mean, she's off to the races at that point. Look, I couldn't disagree, though, more when it talks about the States. I mean, Andrade has a name. She's a former champion. She's got knockout wins in three divisions. And this, if she gets a victory, would be a fourth straight win. And the wins across multiple divisions would be over Calvillo, Lemos, Lauren Murphy, and now Aaron Blanchfield. Yeah, it's a solid win streak. But you think they're going to give her a title shot off that? I don't. Yeah. Yeah, it's a solid win streak, but you think they're going to give her a title shot off that? I don't.

Yeah, yeah, I very much do. I mean, what more could you want in a somewhat shallow division, although I'm enjoying this subtle turnover and the addition of new names, and Tatiana Suarez is coming finally. Can't wait. But, Luke, you defeat Lauren Murphy and Aaron Blanchfield in succession in this division?

What else do you have to do? She already knocked out Kaitlyn Chukagian, who was long the gatekeeper at the title level, again, in this narrow division. Andrade has name value. She's a knockout artist. Dude, she wins her fourth straight year. We're going right back into a rematch.

First fight wasn't competitive. It wasn't competitive at all. You don't really change that with a win over, again, in a scenario where someone was a junior fighter who was overwhelmed by the moment. You don't really change that with a win over again in a scenario where someone was a junior fighter who was overwhelmed by the moment um you don't really get that but it's not like it's not an impressive win streak if what she's already on and what she would add to it i just think that they would prefer her talents at 115 than 125 she's doing a masala here at 125 and yeah of course if they just don't feel like after grasso they have anyone they might

give it to her but i got got a feeling that by itself, this is not exactly the thing that gives her a title shot, but I guess we'll have to see. Okay, that's fair. Let me ask you the key question in this matchup. If she needs it, where exactly is Erin Blanchfield striking in the idea of doing it over five rounds against someone like Andrade? You've seen tape study of her.

Most of it is take down, ground and pound, make adjustments, more ground and pound, nasty stuff. What's her stand up like in your opinion up to this point? I've not seen too much of it recently. To make a broader declaration, I've only just sort of studied her ground stuff. From what I've seen of it, it is, I would call it utility based. It seems to be much more a function of what it can do at the highest level anyway,

um, to facilitate distance closing and everything else. Uh, let me pull up her numbers if I can here, BC, just very quickly. But, um,

it, I, I just listen, I have a very hard time believing that she's going to stand in any kind of prolonged sense with Andrade unless she is absolutely forced to and even then that would not be a great scenario she her numbers are kind of off the charts bc because she lands 5.79 strikes per minute and absorbs 2.45 2.45 is fairly low actually so she's got pretty decent defense but those numbers are largely padded by all of the ground and pound

that she does striking accuracyking accuracy, 57%. That's high. Striking defense, 61%. That's high. But again, it's not like she's spending prolonged periods doing this against UFC-level talent. It's just not the way she fights. When we look at this matchup and try to handicap it,

which is what we're doing, how much should we focus on that as dominant as Blanchfield has been, she's just 23, and as dominant as the big wins Miranda Maverick JJ Aldrich uh meatball Molly in the last one they ain't in draughts Luke they just ain't okay but what do you oh you mean like the step up in competition I mean I mean too much too soon for a 23 year old who has looked impressive as hell but when you look at the step up in competition? I mean, too much too soon for a 23-year-old who has looked impressive as hell. But when you look at the run she's on, there's levels, Luke. There's a gap between who she's beaten and the kind of skills that Jessica Andrade

brings to the table. Yeah, I know. I mean, she ran over Molly McCann, which was a nice win. But the difference between that and Andrade is significant. I mean, to your point, massively significant. And the win over aldrich was great the winner of miranda maverick was great too like all of them were nice this is orders of magnitude more difficult uh frankly and more in terms of like the danger that the opponent possesses and also like the i mean andrage is a marvel she's strong at 115 she's strong on 125

fuck dude she's strong at 135 go back and look at her 135 on five she was hoisting people up in the air and dropping them on their head even back then she's such a very unique physical dynamic hulking force this is a not just a tougher and steeper hill to climb it's a very unique one as well you just don't see a lot of fighters like this in any of the women's weight classes. And so, listen, we talked to Blanchfield, right? And we asked, like, are you ready? She had this quiet confidence, like, I already know I'm already better than them.

It's just a matter of making this happen. And I know, you know, a lot of times, I thought she was 21, but you're right, she's 23. I know a lot of people are like, well, didn't Raul Rosas Jr. say that at 18 he's going to be a champion in a year? It's true, and that seems to me like a little bit of youthful exuberance that doesn't quite understand how tough the real world is. But 23 is five years plus on top of that. Not that she was ready to start at 18, but she's been training since her early teens. I just mean, I'm a little bit more willing to buy that she's ready for the top end of the division than I am him. Yeah. I hear it. I hear it. Luke can't wait. We're shortly after Luke, we're going to get into

our okay. Bet segment and we'll get our picks for this one. But how would you describe the rest of UFC fight night, Vegas 69, however you want to call it here. Uh, would you describe the rest of UFC Fight Night Vegas 69, however you want to call it here? Would you use the term split? Arguably the worst card in UFC history. It's not good, which again, everyone, like, what does that mean? What it means is there are not any major stars on it. What it means is there are not any fan favorite fights. There's not super important fights for the division.

There's just nothing to really grab your attention and get you excited. That doesn't mean all the fights will end up being poor. That's not what it means. It could have been kind of fun, but the level of skill is relatively low. The level of stakes is very low. The level of star power is virtually none. You nailed it right there. It's yeah, it is.

It is. It's just a bad card. It's that this is no better than a good LFA card. Actually, I would argue a good LFA card is better than this. Main event notwithstanding. The main event is sensational. There's a couple of other fights we see. I will point out one.

Jim Miller versus Alex Hernandez. I do like that contest a little bit. Crossroads. Yeah. Huh? Yeah, Crossroads is shit. Dude, Hernandez came into the UFC and two wins back-to-back, knocking out Benil Dariush and then Olivier Aubin-Marseille.

He kind of got in front of his skis or out in front of his skis against Daydrink and Don. Okay, it didn't go as well. But then he rebounded against Masa Randuba. But he's just been up and down ever since. And he's got two losses in a row, a vicious one to Renato Moicano. And how about old Billy Q at 145, sending him now back to 155. He is favored to win, which I find a little bit surprising.

But Jim Miller is a tough customer. That's a fun-ass fight. I like that one. It really is. We look at the odds from Caesars at the moment, Luke. Minus 235, the favored Alex Hernandez, plus 190, the respect to the veteran Jim Miller, who if he wait, where is he at in the most wins in UFC history debate?

See number one right now? He's either number one or certainly number one for 155 or I'd have to go back and double check, but he's up there. Yeah, I'm opening up the UFC record book right now. Jim Miller is currently the UFC leader in most fights with 40. Arlovsky is 39 in second place. The retired Cerrone is 38 in third place. Most wins in UFC history.

Jim Miller currently in first place with 24. A tie for second with Arlovsky and Cerrone. The retired Damian Maia has 22 below him. Then RDA, Charles Oliveira, Emporio tied with 21 for fifth place. So, Luke, he can extend this lead, which has gone. Him, Cerrone, and Arlovsky have kind of, you know, kept one up in each other or evening each other. Jim Miller can build a two-fight lead in that regard with a win here,

which, look, it matters to some degree, right? He's got the second-most finishes and second-most submissions, according to our great producer, Mikey Mormyle, as well. What a career, right? And dude, I love Jim Miller's awareness. Now, usually he's fighting guys a little bit lower than Hernandez at this very senior stage of his career, but I love that this fight is still competitive.

It's still valuable in either direction. Not that Jim Miller needs to take it. I think he's already done his best work to this point but to be this long in the tooth and still you know be a viable threat against you know important figures like alexander hernandez that's deeply commendable i just love lifelong martial artists you know who have longevity and anything is very difficult to obtain and to have it prize fighting is extremely difficult and while he was never a weight class champion, he has some good wins, and he's had just amazing, amazing durability over the long haul.

I have a lot of respect for his career. Look, if things go the way that the Wikipedia page is offering right now, could our co-main event really be light heavyweight Jordan, the Beverly Hills Ninja, right? Coming off three losses in four fights all by stoppage against relative newcomer Zach Palga I mean is this a real co-main event in 2023? Yeah probably I think it's Zach Palga

I'm not sure how you pronounce it properly he was obviously I think previously a heavyweight against Mohamed Ousmane which he lost and here he is against Jordan Wright who is athletic but tends to get hit a lot I'm not going to shit on these guys and here he is against Jordan Wright, who is athletic but tends to get hit a lot. I'm not going to shit on these guys, but it just doesn't do anything for me. Yeah, there it is.

Is AtZuck renting out the event for this weekend, or is this one started at a normal time or more like 3 a.m.-ish? BC, I will say there's a gentleman on this card um whose name is juan camilo ronderos who is from colombia and uh i gotta tell you i showed this to my wife she tells me that juan camilo is a very colombian name like super colombian name all right i would love to to do the uh colombian uh drink toast with him, Luke. Abierto. Yes, abierto. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Merida and yeah. I don't know much else Spanish, Luke.

I'm sorry about that for my culture appropriations. Do you have anything else to say about UFC Vegas 69, Luke? No, I don't care anymore. Thank you very much. We'll have more to say on that in our OK Bet segment as I continue to try to pull out of the basement in our head-to-head debate. Luke, topic three takes us to some recent fight announcements here.

I want to get your reaction here. Let's start in the UFC, March 4th, UFC 285. Mateus Gamrot versus the tarantula Jalen Turner. That's moving me a little bit. You? Well, dude, Jalen Turner was supposed to fight Dan Hooker. So he goes from Dan Hooker to Mateusz Gamrot. Whoa.

Not just a level up, I would argue, but a completely different kind of fighter. And fucking Gamrot is as hard to prepare for as they come. Man, Jalen Turner, you win that one, dude. You're doing something very special uh tough

tough tough fight what do you still think gamra has has a major run in him or does he have to improve on the danger of his striking offense that's it yeah i mean he's got all the wrestling he really needs to be quite honest with you but he he needs other elements or a greater submission game or something he needs to introduce more than control and pace. Control and pace are enough to do well, but that's not maximizing your resources. Agreed, agreed. How about this for two old guys that love to bang and play guitar, Luke?

Two old guys that love to bang. May 13th, UFC Fight Night, the immortal Matt Brown against Court McKee, the life survivor Luke, who's still at it. These are two guys that come to the cage to do one thing, and they're going to do it together. What does that mean?

Hey, Chewy. Yeah, well, it's Hardy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, Matt Brown's had a, similar to a Jim Miller, has had a really sort of phenomenally lengthy career. And, you know, happy for those guys.

Yeah. All right. April 8th, UFC 287. How about this for a showman? The heavyweight Chris Barnett. What do we call it? What's his nickname? Beast Boy. Beast Boy.

Beast Boy. Going to take on Chase Sherman, who ends up in a lot of fight night co-mains and does come there to throw hands. Luke, this could be pretty interesting. Yeah, I mean, that's a little sloppy fun, but fun is the more important part there. Those two guys are going to be. See, I have a prediction.

There's going to be swanging and banging in that one it's a theme yeah april 29th ufc fight night kayo barajul versus the dude that's the dude with a very aggressive neck tattoo oh what does it say it says like like kill or something right or violence yeah like free will or yeah you know kill all enemies or some shit yeah uh he'll take on polish al ferran impersonator mihal Olejczyk, Luke. This is an interesting middleweight tilt, right? Is that middleweight? Bit of a striker grappler type a little bit.

Bojalio's got great control from the back, but needs to work on some other things. So let's see what Olejczyk, I mean, Lanszyk, whatever, can do for him. Eric Gonzalez versus Trevor Peek, February 25th. I don't know how that made it on this list, Luke. Yeah, I don't have much to say. All right, Luke, Bellicose are adding some more fights. March 31st, they added some interesting undercard tilts.

We got Sullivan Cauley against Luke Trainor. Lucas Brennan against Josh Sandiego. Vladimir Tokov going to take on Lance Gibson Jr. You have any comments about this card? How about the wife of Benson Henderson, Maria Henderson, going to go in there against Mackenzie Stiller on this card as well? So Sullivan Cauley was the gentleman who had that vicious – he was a nominee for Hammer of the Month.

So he had that vicious stoppage on top from his strikes. Lucas Brennan, the son of – what's his face? Is it Chris Brennan? Who used to compete? Lance Gibson Jr., Lance Gibson trains. Who's the 135 or 145 who went to PFL from Bellator? The woman, the Canadian. Are you talking about Julia Budd?

Julia Budd. Lance Gibson trains. I think she's married to Julia Budd as well. Tokov's a great fighter. Pam Sorensen versus Sarah Collins, you know, it's okay. That's about it. But yeah, there's some fun ones on that one towards the top. Bellator also announcing a two-night

return to Hawaii. April 21st and 22nd, it's going to be 294 and 295 of the Bellator numbered card system. And on that Friday night, Liz Karmush going to defend her women's flyweight championship against Deanna Bennett. You're also going to get Tim Johnson and Saeed Soma at heavyweight.

And Luke, one of my favorite fighters, the Australian slugger herself, Arlene Blanco, going to take on former UFC title challenger Sarah McMahon. Do any of those three fights move you? Yeah, actually, I think Blanco versus McMahon is an interesting fight. Liz Karmush i believe she already fought deanna bennett previously belt or 246 and she submitted her so this is a a rematch there for you know i'm not sure how much that moves people but i it's a decent competitive fight johnson versus soma is fine uh but the blanco versus mcmahon McMahon's, I believe, her Bellator debut. Blenko is experienced, you know, well-rounded-ish.

That's an interesting one to see, like, where each one, what each one has left at this stage in their career, I think. Sure, certainly. That second night, April 22nd. The second night's the better night. Yeah, Rafael Stotz versus Patchy Mix, Luke. That's the finals of the World Grand Prix, the $1 million, the Bellator Bantamweight World Title, full, online here, unification.

And Hawaii's own Alimale McFarlane, the former champion, trying to build this one last run here, coming back against Kana Watanabe. You'll have some local Hawaii blood as former UFC fighter Kai Kamaka III and his fantastic tattoo set take on Adi Edwards. You got Yancy Medeiros back, Bobby King. You got Davion Franklin back. I mean, there's some decent things to look out for on this Bellator 295 card. Also, the Sumiko Inaba versus Vita Ortega fight

has some interesting implications for their division, potentially. Those crowds in Hawaii are badass, though. I love that Bellator keeps going back there. Yeah, they're great. And then the Stotts versus Mixed Fight, that is just a sensational bantamweight fight. I love that contest. Damn right. Damn friggin' right.

Luke, let's go to topic number four as we continue. This is a pretty big one in terms of the combat sports calendar and what we're expecting, you know, even from the Showtime pay-per-view side we know april 15th is the targeted date for gervonta davis versus ryan garcia the 136 pound catchweight pay-per-view bout uh pairing two unbeaten lightweight stars on the rise big fan bases there was though some hold up in the idea of will this actually happen with the pending court dates and sentencing for Gervonta Davis. Luke, we remember his hit and run situation November of 2020 when he was accused four counts stemming from that. Well, what happened Thursday was he went to court and he pleaded guilty for all four counts.

So what this means is that Davis will be sentenced May 5th. He pleaded guilty to four traffic offenses, which included leaving the scene of an accident involving bodily injury, failing to notify of property damage, and driving with a revoked license and running a red light. If anybody forgets what happened there, there was a crash involving a second car with four people, including a pregnant woman. And Davis was caught on camera exiting that vehicle

after the crash and driving away in another one. Luke, he has pleaded guilty. So what this means, he'll get sentenced on May 5th. We're not sure what it's going to be, jail time or not. This is a pretty serious amount of offenses. That does mean the fight can go on as scheduled April 15th. Interesting decision here by Tank. Good for boxing fans, but we're not sure what's going to happen moving forward, all things considered here. Yeah. For folks who may not realize, he had a plea agreement in place to avoid jail time and get 60 days house arrest this was a while ago and the judge rejected it was like nah you're gonna go to trial so he pleaded guilty yesterday without any kind of agreement from the prosecution in fact the judge even told him you do so you enter this this plea of guilty

um without any arrangement uh ahead of sentencing and he was like okay so um doesn't look good for tank uh in terms of his freedoms i i i don't know what's going to happen i have no idea what the judge will do but if a judge if it's the same judge in fact that rejected the plea agreement it's you know i don't want to speculate because i don't know the law well enough but it seems like some of the inevitabilities of the crime and what some of the sentencing guidelines call for could put him behind bars um for how long i just don't know it would assume based on the decision knowing that there's videotape evidence that they i'm guessing luke and my 10 cent you know dime store knowledge here of the law which is way worse than even yours that they, I'm guessing Luke and my 10 cent, you know, dime store knowledge here of the law,

which is way worse than even yours, that they thought they knew the end result of that. So let's at least put this distraction aside, allow them to go forward with the fight. And I mean, look, if there was the possibility that if he stayed going to trial here, that this could be a major distraction leading into that fight. And I know it's hard to say, well, we'll just suspend all of these life comments and focus on this fight and boxing fans win. I don't really mean it in that sense. I just mean there was a calculated decision made based on the opportunity for this fight, what they thought the future was. And like you said, we're going to find out in May, you know, what his sentence is and what he has to deal with. But, uh, I look, did you see him at the Superbowl on a wheelchair?

TMZ caught up with it. I saw that. I didn't know what to make. Didn't he have some kind of ankle injury? I'm not sure the situation. It was a little bit weird, but I know that, look, this fight has had, you know, it got kind of announced pretty early. Then you saw, of course, Oscar De La Hoya and company on team Ryan Garcia complaining about certain things. The report was that the contract was amended.

Everything's good. It looks like we're going to see this fight April 15th on pay-per-view. And one of the best matchups you can make in the sport, but it's some obvious real life consequences that Jermonte Davis is going to have to deal with outside of it. And we'll see what that brings. An interesting update on the events. Topic five, Luke, brings us to what else is going on this weekend. There's some sneaky, sleepy boxing cards. There's actually a couple of the zone cards, one in which Luis Neri, the former Bantamweight champion

who had unsuccessfully bid for titles at 122, he's going to be back in a main event against an Armenian, Luke Hovindason. Shout out to Armenia right there. I thought Luis Neri was the PBC guy. Is that not the case anymore? I believe this is like a mandatory, or like a number one contender kind of mandatory fight.

So I'm not sure the true political machinations behind the scene and if this is a one off for the opportunity and if we'll be back. But yes, he was operating under the PBC universe previously leading up to this. Also known as a separate card in England pairing Lee Wood against Mauricio Lara. Both of them had had big upsets. Of course, Wood had knocked out Michael Conlon in the final round there in last year's knockout of the year. And we all remember Lara upsetting Josh Warrington, and then their rematch was stopped early due to, I think, an accidental clash in an early cut.

So those are going to be going down this weekend. But, Luke, tonight, Friday night here, BKFC's got an interesting offering with Knuckle Mania 3. So your main event is for the light heavyweight title, I believe, as Lorenzo Hunt and Mike Richman continue sharing unpleasantries. We've played a lot of Have You Seen This Shit videos to the very pro-wrestling, theatric elements of how they've built this fight. But Luke, from a everyday MMA and boxing fan, it's hard not to talk about this co-main event, and it's hard not to say bad things

when Diego Sanchez takes on former boxing 154-pound world champion Austin Trout. Yikes, Luke. Yikes. Isn't Diego Sanchez the main event? According to my research, no, but I could be wrong. Let me double check that here very quickly. I would greatly accept being wrong in this case. You're right.

It's Hunt and Richman that are on for the... Dude, Mike Richman, when he was in Bellator, fought at 145. He's fighting at light heavyweight now. I just want to point that out. That's a crazy, crazy transformation. But yeah, this fight should not be happening. Should not be happening. Five two-minute rounds. Austin Trout, BC, you can tell me better, but he is probably a little bit washed. But Diego Sanchez is. So Austin Trout is, look, he's in his 38, 39 years old, and he was never a puncher. We have to remember that. He

was a big junior middleweight with good defensive skills, sort of a slick counter puncher. And he went all the way. Like I said, he won a world title. He upset Miguel Cotto and Madison square garden. He fought Canelo and a pretty close-ish fight despite that one really wide scorecard. But I don't even think the lack of punching power on trout minimizes the potential danger here for Diego Sanchez. And if you're looking for odds on this, Luke, the only book I saw that's offering this is minus 2,000 Trout as your favorite. Sanchez plus 1,100. Is this more or less dangerous for Diego

than the other potential combat offerings he could have taken here post-UFC? Like, how do you sort of look at this from a gross standpoint and say, how bad could this actually get? That's hard to say. I just don't, I mean, a lot of times these boxers show up in BKFC and BKFC has a way of like equalizing things where you can just kind of, you have to have some skill, don't get me wrong, but you can kind of just Mike Perry it a little bit, you know,

just throw some tussing on it and just tough it out. And it's a great place for tough guys and i mean that as like actually a compliment so it kind of it's the i mean the rules are they start in front of each other the there's no room to move like you're kind of just duking it out we talked to mvp about that about fighting mike perry under those conditions it's it's different so in that sense it's kind of hard to say diego sanchez is the ultimate tough guy but dude he's taken it's not even a matter he wins or loses it's like dude should a state government agency be regulating and allowing participants with this much damage to their body and brain to fight in contests where

they're this outmatched without really knowing what the future yes there's a scenario where it doesn't go that bad yes but there's a scenario where it doesn't go that bad, yes, but there's a lot of scenarios where it goes unnecessarily bad, and I think that's just a risk you don't want to run. Yeah, no doubt. Knucklemania 3 is going to emanate from Albuquerque, Luke, to Austin Trout, a longtime New Mexico, I guess, native and longtime resident. Of course, that's Diego Sanchez's home base.

Dude, I found this TikTok channel I found this TikTok channel where these guys uh they do apparently what's called like Albuquerque accents have you ever seen this no can you give me a little can you try it what do you they don't say brother they say brother brother brother and they call instead of dude they call each other hoyo and they just have this weird dialect like what's up fucker i saw you i saw you throwing hadassos on the monte i just was with this dude with this madres you know fuck yeah they have a really and they say they don't say seven they say seven eleven it's a really weird and frankly kind of awful accent, but I'm intrigued by it. I'm afraid if I let you go on this, you'll end up doing a huevos rancheros bit, Luke, and you'll take it down.

I'm not going to do a huevos rancheros bit. All right. Dude, by the way, huevos rancheros, elite brunch food. Elite. Oh, damn. Dude, I always say, Luke, when it comes to like, you know, because I think breakfast is the most, you know, the best done. Like if you're going to eat out and you can eat out breakfast, I mean, it's not going to be healthy for you, but it's going to be tremendous, right? It's the best meal you can go eat out.

It's why diners are alive and well, why you can have breakfast anytime at some of these great places. I always say Atlanta has the best breakfast style and setup I've ever seen. But I will say, Luke, having covered a few fights now in the Southwest, we went to the Phoenix area of course from the Anderson Silva Jake Paul fight. Getting elite Mexican breakfast done right, that's next level. Breakfast burritos, chilaquiles, breakfast tacos. Have you ever heard of the West Coast based breakfast chain called Snooze? It's big in Colorado.

I ate at one in Phoenix when we were there. My brother-in-law happens to work, is high up in that system. But if you can check out Snooze, Luke, he does marketing for them, but you'd enjoy yourself very well. So there's a family plug, just the same. On this BKFC Knuckle Mania 3 card, we've got the trash-talking in the main event. We've got the weirdness of the Diego Sanchez-Austin Trout fight. We've also got John Dodson making a return along with his brother Eric Dodson.

John unbeaten so far in his BKFC run. And, Luke, the Prince of War, whether you like it or not, is back. Greg Hardy is going to make his BKFC debut tonight on this undercard against Josh Watson do you have any feelings about that John Dotson looked great in his last BKFC fight he still looks like he's got some good speed he's always had good pop no gloves I John Dotson my John Dotson might make a little bit of a run for himself and be yeah he's explosive but he's also also into the gnarly side. He's figured out how to land hard, clean shots, bare knuckle, which is an adjustment period.

But, Luke, I asked you about Greg Hardy, and I want to know your reaction. Oh, sorry. The Greg Hardy one, yes. Yeah, he should probably win, right? I mean, he's big and athletic. It's, you know, he hits hard. Listen, Greg Hardy does have decent hands like when you watch him move he's got decent hands it's just that everything kind of falls apart

really easily and he's not really well-rounded but for that that might be enough to get a dub you know what I mean yeah all right uh Luke also in the BKFC news cycle our producer Mikey has given me these notes. April 29th in Denver, they're putting together a decent card here. It's going to be Beck Rawlings versus Christine Ferreira for the flyweight title. Ferreira beat one of my favorite fighters, Britton Hart-Beltran, for that title, although Hart moved down in weight and won the inaugural strawweight crown shortly after. But Mike Perry's going to be back, Chad Mendes, and Ben Rothwell all in separate fights on this card.

Will you care? April 29th in Denver. A little. Are they going to be in Denver? High elevation. That's going to be fun for the heavyweights. Absolutely. The BKFC president, Luke, what's his name? Dave Feldman? Dave Feldman, yeah. He has also given

Paige Van Zandt an ultimatum. PVZ has been out for 19 months. She pulled out of her most recent fight with a broken foot. Here's the quote from Feldman. I'm going to be talking to her this week, and there's a possibility that she returns on a big card in April. If she doesn't, it's probably that she won't be coming back to BKFC. Luke, if you were Team Van Zandt here,

would you just take the money you got for a couple appearances and go on to the next project or I mean what can you gain by coming back here and and and winning a bare knuckle fight I've not really paid much attention to her career beyond the couple of BKFC she's doing I suspect she makes a healthy amount from only fans right I mean if she needed money she from OnlyFans, right? I mean, if she needed money, she probably would have fought already, right? So she doesn't necessarily need to fight. I don't have any issue with her making money that way. That's what she wants, and it's lucrative for her, fine.

Her prize-fighting career seemed to have stalled a while ago. Well, I will tell you you're not wrong in saying that do you think there's a value in a bellator or pfl and remember her husband austin vanderford fights from bellator in trying to make a run at her and just look putting her in competitive fights i said this when she signed with bkfc i didn't think that it was a great fit for her and they probably paid her a lot of money so that's why she took it uh but i just didn't think it made a lot of sense for her skill set because she's kind of like a wild, crazy, sort of frenetic fighter, and that works better in MMA, and I just thought that she made

much more sense at that time going to Bellator and working with Scott Coker. I thought that he would be able to manage the kind of right matchmaking that would suit her interests better, and I think MMA is a better style of fighting for her, honestly. Now, I don't know where we are. I don't really know where we are with any of that. I don't know if she is in a place to want to train like that anymore. So, candidly, BC, I don't care either way. I don't care either way, yeah.

I don't care if she lives or dies, a classic. I'm not saying that necessarily, but, you know, it's just, these are not relevant fights. All right, is it relevant that former UFC and Bellator fighter Alessio Sicara of Italy has signed with BKFC? Do you care? Not much. Okay.

Alessio Sicara is someone who suffered arguably the worst kick in the balls in UFC history. Did he have permanent damage or something? He got kicked in the balls in his UFC debut by a guy by the name of Ron Faircloth. And it was so bad

that he was not only laying on the canvas in the fetal position, they called the fight when he began to dry heave in the octagon. He fucked him up proper. They had to call the whole thing off from a ball kick. Yeah, those stick kicks will get you. Luke, the only other news related roundup-wise to all of this, how about this?

DAZN is going to raise their fees, not unheard of in this streaming wars. You know, everybody's doing a little bit adjustments that they have to make based on the current financial situation. Only DAZN has raised their price by 125%. It now costs for a 12-month subscription upwards of what? Like $230, $250? I'm trying to get this right here so they sent me an email overnight as a matter of fact to alert me to it in the email title bc ready for this important information about your zone subscription and they go on this long detail about all the fights they had in 2023

and what's coming up and here's what they say there's three tiers the monthly saver plan the annual saver plan and then flexible pass monthly saver plan, the annual saver plan, and then flexible pass. Monthly saver plan is a 12-month contract of $20 a month, right? So that's one. Annual saver plan is $224 a year. You pay up front. They say it's the best deal. And then flexible pass, $25 a month, which you can cancel basically at any time, which I guess you cannot do with the other ones.

So their pricing went up 125%. Yeah, and if you're just looking at this as, okay, what's it for the year for me to watch fights because that's what I care about, it used to be $99 a year. Now it's $229. Not including if you want to see Canelo fight. Not including pay-per-views. Yeah. Now, the good news is, you know, on the announcement of the Anthony Joshua return against Jermaine Franklin,

that that will be a regular DAZN price. But $225 is the new price, a 125% increase. That's wild, Luke. That's pretty damn wild. I know that DAZN has recently acquired. I was going to say this. Like, all of the streaming, all of the streaming platforms are kind of in a little bit of a troubled state um and during the pandemic there was just this gold rush into streaming obviously for a lot of reasons everyone was home and blah blah blah we're like

oh my god netflix is doing so well and what they thought was there was going to be just enough scale of subscribers where they could pay as much as they want for content and they would be able to sign up everyone. But the numbers across the board, Disney+, DAZN, I'm sure Paramount has suffered some of this as well, Netflix, you name it, all of them, all of them, have realized that there is actually not quite the subscriber base that they once thought. And so we have seen news about Showtime being partnered

in a more forceful way with Paramount. Netflix, I think Disney+, are going to introduce an ad-supported tier as part of what they're doing. They're cracking down on account sharing. There's all of these practices across the streaming world where people are having to account for not having the subscriber base that they thought they would to pay for the content.

The interesting part about DAZN is at this point, if you want to keep DAZN for what they offer, like you can get these fights in these countries for this amount of money, you can do it. But it should be noted that their initial statement that we're going to give you a flat fee, all fights, no more pay-per-view, this is the future,

all of that has completely blown up in their face. There's no logic to that at all. It didn't work. Now you're like, do you like what you get for this money? Absent some broader grand strategy about how they were going to change the game. Well, they did recently get an NFL package, but like a lot of their stuff, including a lot of their big time soccer coverage, that's for international in the U S like in the North America package, you don't get that. So, uh that so Jake Donovan a long time boxing scribe works for boxing scene.com tweeted out that this increase

will mean that he'll be paying that boxing customers will be paying ad free hula and showtime combined Luke so that's certainly a big development in the combat sports space in terms of fans keeping up on it but that's the world we live in as the streaming wars continue.

Luke, shortly we're going to toss to OKBed and update the standings and make our picks for the weekend. But before we do, why don't we hear a little bit of a message here? One of our friends, private internet access. Let's do it. Stay private while looking at privates. Yeah, that should be the catchphrase, Luke. there it is right there hey luke let's get into okay bet if you're new here this will be our fourth installment of our somewhat weekly betting series i believe maybe third i'm not sure luke but the point is this you and i go

and head to head each week making five picks competing to find out at the end of this calendar year who has the better record and which concert they are going to subject the loser to go to, along with MKDoc cameras. A look at our updated. Two weeks ago, we did this, Luke, ahead of 284. You and I both went three up, two down. And our current updated standings is Luke in the lead, 9-5, with nine wins, five defeats there.

I'm 4-10 overall. And, Luke, how we do this is you and I each submit five picks to our producer, Mikey Mormyle. Whoever has the champion's advantage in the lead, which you currently have, would cancel out any picks that are the same. We'd have to go back to the well. So, Luke, our categories, of course, are the biggest main event of the weekend, picking a favorite, picking an upset,

picking which fight would go over or under, and which fight would end in either a KO or submission. Do you want to go first or second here, Luke, as the defending champion? I'll go first. That's fine. So we do main event first, yeah? Yeah, let's do it. You know what? I'm going to take a flyer on Blanchfield. I really am. I understand that Jessica Andrade is just an absolute terrifying force of nature.

If Blanchfield got completely plastered here, would you be surprised? I mean, you know, this is what Andrade is capable of. But I don't know. Maybe, see, I'm going to – Blanchfield is – it's risky on my part because I recognize that she is very much untested against this level. But the way she breathes through the previous levels gives me some reason to believe, along with the short notice, along with her wrestling prowess.

And, by the way, the odds are very close on this one. I'm going to take a shot on Blanchfield. I'm going to see if she can get it done. Let's just remind about those odds while we're here, Luke. And it's minus 135 on Drodger Favorite, according to Caesars, plus 115 Aaron Blanchfield. Luke, you know I'm flashy.

You know I like to take chances. But I'm down by five points right now in this showdown. I got to pull back in here. So I got to play a little bit of chalk. It just so happens that this biggest main event of the weekend, look, I love everything Blanchfield brings. I mean, that cold-blooded attitude, it's almost like a naivety because her confidence is so strong. Problem is she did have a short amount of time to make the adjustment and prepare for Andrade. And even if Blanchfield dominates and stretches, like we talked about earlier,

if she doesn't finish Jessica Andrade, imagine Blanchfield in the first couple rounds, taking Andrade down, like, you know, coming out of those rounds, clearly the winner. If she can't finish the former champion, what happens in rounds three, four, and five? What happens, you know, when the game plans go away a little bit, and it's a little bit more an instinct, and we're falling a little bit more into some of those intangibles that we just don't know about Erin Blanchfield. What I know about Andrade is she carries her power very deep into fights. She's never out of it. She's insanely strong. She's durable. I'm telling you, she's going to find a moment. She's going to find her opening. I like,

I like Andrade to win this. I'm picking her. And Luke, if I had to pick a condition, I think it could be a stoppage here. What do you think Blanchfield does a decision? Um, she could get a stoppage, uh, but probably a decision. All right. We're going head to head on this one. I like it already. Luke, let's go to your favorite. You can pick any favorite within reason. I believe our threshold is around minus 350 or so. Who do you got this week? Yeah, I didn't love this one, but I'm going to go for it just because we have to. So this is a very uninspiring pick. And again, we can't pick someone who's like a minus 1,000 favorite. In this particular case,

the gentleman I'm talking about is a minus 225 favorite to a plus 185, according to our friends over at Caesar Sportsbook. I'm going to go Felipe Lins over Ovin St. Preux. St. Preux, 39 years of age, has kind of been up and down, hasn't looked great of recent. Felipe Lins has also struggled a little bit, certainly since coming over from PFL,

but I think he's a little bit younger. And more to the point, a little bit sharper, I think a little bit more careful. St. Preux seems to be somewhat more dangerous, but a little bit more wide open. And so for that reason, I think Lins is probably going to get it done. I'm going to have something to say about that matchup,

which will once again put us head-to-head in the future, Luke. But in terms of favorites this weekend, I'm going to that main event from that DAZN boxing card in Nottingham, England. Mauricio Lara versus Lee Wood. Lara, the minus 275 betting favorite. I expect this to be a close fight. I expect it to be a fun

one, by the way. Both were upset-minded, like we talked about, and their big wins over Josh Warrington and Michael Conlon. Now they face each other here. I'm going to go as the favorite, Mauricio Lara, to continue that trend. I like Lee Wood's hunger. I like how he carried that power late against Conlon. Now they face each other here. I'm going to go as the favorite, Mauricio Lara, to continue that trend. I like Lee Wood's hunger. I like how he carried that power late against Conlon. I think Lara's got a good opportunity here to make it happen.

I'm taking him as a favorite. Fair. Fair. All right, so now we go to what? Upset? Yes. Or underdog? Yes?

Yes, sir. That's how it works. I'm going to go Jim Miller. I'm going to go Jim Miller. That's also a bit risky. I think Jim Miller currently sits at a plus 190 favorite to Hernandez's minus 235. I understand that Hernandez was at 145 against Billy Q, looked good early, and then kind of faded.

And so he's back at 155. But he's also taking this one on relatively short notice. And he is a dynamic presence, but he just seems a little bit like his confidence has been really really shaken Jim Miller is older he is longer in the tooth I wonder about his cardio but he's still real technical he's still real slick his jiu-jitsu is excellent I just I just don't have a lot of confidence in Hernandez at the moment and I think he's trying to get one back here he might you know he's again he didn't knock out Benil Darius utterly by accident. He's a physical force, but Jim Miller is just so clever, so technical. I think he might pull it off here, BC.

All right, I like this pick out of you because I, even though it's not one of my five picks, I would have gone Hernandez in this, and I think I've got an opportunity to make up a point here. Just the same, though, this is the type of opponent Jim Miller has surprised of late just by being, you know, durable, having that submission game to work with if he finds an opening. So I'll be watching this one closely Luke to see if Hernandez can get me back in this. My upset pick is going to go to that same matchup. You talked about OSP versus Felipe Lins. Uh, this is a preliminary card bout, a light heavyweight. You mentioned OSP is, is sort of at the end of it.

He had that experiment at heavyweight, but I've got a long history, Luke, of making bets for OSP and losing spectacularly. He's one of those all-in fighters, risk-reward, that every time you think he's on a run, he'll get spectacularly finished or just come out and look so average. But anytime you count him out, he does have a way to spectacularly remind him of his, remind you of his power here. Plus 185 OSP, the underdog. Luke, I'm looking for this to be, I'm looking to be out trick myself. I'm looking for this to be one of those fights where we think, oh, old OSP is just playing out the string. And then he lands one of those left hooks from hell and we got a KO win. So Luke look i'm looking to make up many points against you this week without having senior picks ahead of time we're going head to head here and i like it i like it all right do you want to do over under next yes

uh i'll go josh parisian versus jamal pogues now you might be like well this is a heavyweight fight you know why would you pick it to go the distance and i understand that ordinarily i wouldn't have it's not like i've got a lot of great fights to choose from here. But the reason why I picked it is because if you just look at their records, Josh Parisian is not a devastating finisher. I think that he's got some wins via stoppage. He's got some losses via stoppage. But he's got a lot of fights that go to a decision at times.

Against better opposition, I would say he's got a little bit more that go to a decision at times. Against better opposition, I would say he's got a little bit more of a decision-based kind of scenario. Jamal Pogues, definitely so. And the other part, too, is Pogues is expected to win. Parisian is kind of tough and can hang on. There's a, I mean, it probably gets stopped within 30 fucking seconds, but I'm going to take a flyer and see if Parisian versus Pogues can go the full three. All right, I like this.

You're getting a little loose here, and this is going to help me come back in. Luke, my over-under is going to look like this. I talked about Luis Neri. He'll be headlining his own boxing card on Saturday from Pomona, California. A number one contender, eliminator fight at 122 pounds. His opponent is Azat Hovhannissin, the Armenian fighter who has three losses, Luke, but has never been stopped. Here's the deal. Neri was a destroyer at 118 pounds. We remember that, a knockout threat,

aggressive, wild. He's just not been able, above that weight, to have that same identity. Remember the one fight experiment with Canelo Alvarez trainer, Eddie Reynoso, that didn't go his way. He fought at 130 last time out. He got stopped by Brandon Figueroa at junior featherweight. Well, he's back at 122 here. This is a big fight for him. And I like him as the favorite to potentially win this because I do think he has adjusted to moving up in weight and his power not being the same from only one standpoint that I've liked. He's had some close fights where he's had to box late and figure it out. And he's done that. I think that's that that's going to lead to this one going the distance. My-under is over on nary hovenason fair enough all right last but not least for me we're doing a fight that's guaranteed to go to a finish uh

ending a kale or sub bc i'm going to go greg hardy versus josh watson from knuckle mania three i just don't see i just don't see i mean you know anything's possible i'd be very surprised if that one didn't get a stoppage i think hardy's gonna win but uh that one's gonna get ko or tko mark i agree that's a smart pick hardy will probably win by early ko you know could he have hand issues could he get gas could he have problems landing big hard shots in this adjustment period? Could Watson do the dirty boxing and holding that is legal in BKFC? And I don't think enough people do. Anything's possible, but I do like that pick for you, Luke. KO or submission? I'm going to go with KO, and the

fight is going to be UFC Vegas. That co-main event at Light Heavyweight, Jordan Wright, Zach Pauga, right, has been stopped in three of his last four fights that I mentioned, Luke. Pauga is very untested at this level. I can see a KO going either way here. I'm going to go with that. Luke, I think I'm going to go 5-0 this week. And, you know, if you stumble a bit, I could be right there on OK Bet entering next week.

I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I'd have to miss all of them, and you'd have to get all of them for us to have even records. Yeah, I'm in. I swing big, Luke. Okay, that's the one thing I. I mean, I swing big Luke. Okay. That's the one thing I do in life. I swing big.

Our final segment on this Friday. We haven't done fan subs in a while. Maybe we'll catch up next week, but you do know that morning combat at gmail.com is your way to reach our show. Mikey more miles on the end of that in hole. Say hi to him there from CBS sports. Dead wrong is what we do every Friday.

We give you a chance to call us out. If we've said something in front of a microphone that's just, you know, wrong and bad faith, stupid, you get a chance to call us out for it. But the thing is, you've got to bring receipts to find out at the end of the day whether we was dead

wrong. Dead wrong. Yeah. We've got angry male. Viewers. Okay, Luke. What happened on your flight? What happened in that video? You sent me about your flight.

Oh my God. So I flew from DC to Kansas city on Wednesday night. And you know, as soon as the plane lands and they make that sound, everybody stands up right away and jumps in the aisle and grabs their bag. This gentleman from the way back came firing down the land, pushing people left and right going, excuse me, excuse me. I mean, literally throwing people out of the way. And then went on this extended five minute swear rant, calling out how he's a US veteran and how

somebody in the back of the plane made comments, calling him a communist. And then he's like, you know, he's basically like, get the fuck out of my way to everybody. And he was saying that he was going to wait outside for that guy and fight him. So Luke, tensions were high as we all came out of the runway and walked, I mean, you know, down that hallway, walked back to the terminal there. I don't think he ended up ever catching the guy. I think the guy kind of squirted out, but I made eye contact with the gentleman and was told to F off Luke. So, you know, I secretly filmed the interactions. It was

wild, but yeah, he's probably not a veteran. He's just seemed like a loser dirt bag. He looks like an ex Marine to me to be very fair. Look, no, he didn't. He doesn't. There's no such thing. So turns out there is such thing at the end of the day. How could you look like a thing that doesn't exist? But I thought we were going to have one of those crazy airplane moments where I was going to be the photographer who brings it to the world and i felt weird in that moment luke i felt like i was like i should have maybe been the one stepping in to break them apart and and keep the peace yet i was trying to be like tmz suddenly you know dude i feel like people who are weird on airplanes these are like like you and i are weird we can just hide it

enough for a flight if you can't hide your weirdness enough for a flight, that's when you're, that's when you're too weird. You know what I mean? I, one time was flying back Southwest when I worked for Sirius XM, I had to fly Southwest from Vegas to Baltimore. And there were these three dudes who were,

they are in the terminal. They had on these big, they had tattoos all over their faces and shit, all three of them. And they had on these big t-shirts that said like, you know, we love Jesus, but like of them. And they had on these big t-shirts that said, like, you know, we love Jesus, but, like, huge letters. And they were walking around, like, telling people to repent in the terminal.

And sure enough, they boarded my flight, and I'm like, oh, fuck me. Here we go. They board the flight, and on the back of the flight, they're all, like, repent sinners, blah, blah, blah, like, loudly yelling. We don't even finish boarding and they stop everything and then they called the cops and they escorted all three of those bubbles off the flight and when they left they were like what happened we didn't do anything and the whole back of the plane was like yes get fucked loser it was a great moment yeah well there was one of those moments yeah indeed all right let's go dead wrong here.

Here's Jordan from Hawaii. He says, Aloha, Luke and BC. Sorry, BC, but during the pregame preview with Chuck at UFC 284, 10 minutes in, BC mentions, quote, Fedor handing the reins to Islam and refers to Islam as Fedor 2.0. Pretty sure your washed brain meant Habib. Yeah, it did. It did.

That was a low moment, Luke, in my life. I confused twice Fedor for Habib. All jokes aside, congrats on MK's successful transatlantic journey. Mahalo. It's Jordan from Hawaii. I'll take that out, Luke. I was wrong. That wasn't our best pregame preview ever.

We weren't on the roof. You were like real salty, Luke. And even, you know, and I was probably lame. And, you know, we'll do better next time. We'll be good. Yeah, we on the roof. You were like real salty, Luke, and I was probably lame. We'll do better next time. We'll be good. Yeah, we'll be good. All right. Let's go to Eric. He says, Dear Luke and Brian, at 33-12 of your February 8th pregame

preview, while speculating the implications for Volkanovski, should he beat Islam, that this is Volk's first fight at lightweight. The quote was, if you can beat Islam in's first fight at lightweight. The quote was, if you can beat Islam in your first fight at lightweight, end quote. UFC 284 will be Volk's sixth professional fight at 155 and his second inside

the UFC. He debuted at lightweight against Yusuke Katsuya. Sorry, Brian, to make you attempt to read a Japanese name. Before arriving in the UFC, Volk fought across featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight. Thanks, as always, for the enjoyable content. We wouldn't be bearable without you. Work wouldn't be bearable without you, Wash Dad,

and your banter three days a week. All the best from the city that loved Kennedy. It's Eric. Now, Luke, what city loved Kennedy? Dallas? They didn't love him that much. I was going to say, definitely wasn't Dallas. Yeah. Somewhere in Boston, I guess? Yeah, I guess so. Luke, will you take that L that you-

I will take that L. Yeah, I mean, I knew he had fought a 155. I actually did not know he had fought a 170 until recently, but I knew he had fought a 155, but A, I didn't realize his UFC debut at the time had been a 155-er. That I, I, I, I didn't realize his UFC debut at the time had been a 155 or that's what I, what I sort of meant was like, you know, moving up to the elite side of things, but fair enough. That's not even, that's just, it's just not accurate enough. So I'll take the L. Okay. I'm going to have to take the L again on this one from Bob during Monday's episode,

BC claimed that Sergey Spivak's last loss was to Marcin Tybura when in fact it was against Tom Aspinall. Seems like BC's memory is going the way of Derek Lewis's career. And by that, I mean down the toilet. Wow. Yeah, Luke, I guess I'll have to take another L. You know, I speak fast in a microphone, and a lot of times I get it wrong. You know, the spirit of accountability.

Yeah, you do. Right? You've got to stand up for those L's, right? You have to accept the L's when they're L's. Indeed. Indeed. People can learn from this, Luke. We got one more, and apparently I did it again. Aloha, Donks. This is Jordan dropping with a dead wrong for BC, episode 405 at 5450.

He mentioned the rising UK boxing talent, Skye Nicholson. While she is a rising talent, Skye is actually from Queensland, Australia, not the UK and not the UK plus, BC. Yes, Jordan, I will take a record third L this week on Dead Wrong with no rebuttal.

Yes. Yes. That's how I roll, Luke. Wrong and correctly. Your McDonald's wi-fi is starting to show up yeah it's probably a good time to get out a reminder of a few things here tonight you want to check out your boy bc on showtime showbox the new generation emanating from the arena next door to me here in the capital of kansas topeka great triple header we got planned at 9 p.m. Eastern. Super welterweights and unbeaten ones in the main event. As former top-rated welterweight amateur Ardrell Holmes brings his

12-0 record against Ismael Villarreal, who's also 12-0 in a 10-round battle at 154. We got some good matchups leading up to that. It's me, it's Barry Tompkins, it's Raul Marquez, it's Steve Farahood. You can watch us for free if you don't have the service by going to Showtime.com right now. Get your 30 days free streaming trial. Catch some MMA in Bellator next week.

Catch boxing. Catch a rising star, if you will. That's what you can do. Luke, will you be... It's a Friday night. You'll be with the family. Maybe you'll stumble into Holmes versus Villarreal on Showbox. I have a date with my wife tonight, so I'm actually not going to be doing that. Hey, Tui, let's bang a different way.

Let's keep that family strong, Luke. All right, enjoy that date. I'll be enjoying the boxing here. Luke, Topeka's... Shitty. It's interesting. You know, I always wondered, are there worse U.S. state capitals than Hartford? Oh, yeah.

Turns out, yes, dude. This is making Hartford look like Vegas, man. Seriously. Dude, I've been to Albany, New York. You ever been to Albany, New York? Yeah. I don't hate Albany, but it's not great. Mount Pelion is pretty lame.

It's sad. Yeah, yeah. So, Luke, I'm in walking distance to an Evel Knievel Museum that's in the back of the Harley Davidson store down the road. I'm thinking about checking it out. The Brown versus Education Museum is down the road, too, and the State Capitol Building, but I think that's where the entertainment – Oh, dude, I found a badass record store in Topeka.

It was great, Luke. I got some classics, dude. I got like this. I've been looking for this Weather Report live album, 830, with Jocko and Peter Erskine for years, Luke. I mean, this is great, right? Right, Luke? I mean, I got some Deep Purple. This is badass, right?

I mean, I got Nash and Crosby live. I mean, this is great. You into any of this? No? You love the whites. This is, I mean, this is, this is great. You into any of this? No. You love the whites. That's unbelievable. Hey, dude, how about shout out to our great fans in the UK because they brought me vinyl, Luke.

They did. I saw them do that, yeah. I got some metal. I got to check out and give a nice review on this show. So thank you to all the fans. Luke, did anyone slip contraband in your hands, Luke? No, I wish. Oh, all right.

Besides Saul, our guy? Yes, our guy. Yes, besides the person who shall go unnamed. Yeah. All right. Luke, I love our fans. Are we really getting out of here in 90 minutes? How efficient is BC on?

Well, efficient, but he's not now dragging it out and the mcdonald's wi-fi is getting increasingly worse so i don't know why you're dragging it out look am i having a seizure or is my wi-fi bad it's up to you to figure out all right um you have anything else to add you want to sell any ads you got anything else no post fight show this weekend we're back on monday all right enjoy your date to our great fans out there enjoy the fights this weekend hey maybe get some sunshine all right enjoy yourselves luke will we ever do another live show after the success of uk last week yes yes yes we will all right do you have anything to say to the haters who were underwhelmed by all this build-up?

I don't give a fuck about their stupid opinions. That was an unequivocal win, and if you're not part of it, then go do something else with your life. We don't want you around. There it is. Mikey Mormyle on the ones and twos, thank you very much for your service. All the labels that pay us, thank you very much. You can find our merch, by the way,

morningcombat.store. Luke, you... Is that a medium, or have you been in the front yard? BC, once again, your signal is breaking up, so I couldn't get much of that question. But yes, you can buy this at morningcombat.store. You keep not listening to me that your Wi-Fi is doing poorly, and you keep dragging this out. I don't know why.

I was asking about you lifting. You look like you're a little bit buff, Luke, but I have no comment. I've been lifting, yes. Quietly, I've been lifting. I've been lifting. For Luke Thomas' growing anger for our great producer, Mikey Mormo, I'm BC signing off. All work good and all work fine, right?

But first, take care of Ed, guys, okay? Have a great weekend. Two more words for you. We out.