MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 285 | Rockhold & Alvarez Sign to BKFC | Figueroa-Magsayo | Till Released | Ep 413

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

On Episode 413 of Morning Kombat the boys open the show with their picks for UFC 285. Following Ok, bet the guys preview Brandon Figueroa vs. Mark Magsayo, discuss Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez signing to BKFC and Darren Till being Released from the UFC. As always we close out Friday's with Dead Wrong. (00:12:20) - OK, Bet (00:57:00) - Showtime Boxing Preview (01:08:00) - Rockhold & Alvarez Sign to BKFC (01:20:00) - Darren Till Released from UFC 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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So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. Reveille, Reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas.

I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah. Put that in your vape and smoke it, I guess. Yeah, it's Morning Combat, guys. It's Friday. It's March 3rd, 2023. 24 hours or so out from UFC 285 in Las Vegas. The return of Jon Jones, and my name is Brian Campbell. To hit the final touches to get you all kinds of fired up here

on this award-winning combat sports show, and my partner, of course, dressed in all things MK, dread, aging. He's a great guy, though, okay? He's arguably, arguably the best fight analyst in the game today among male or females who have never publicly fought his name is luke thomas yes yes there he is there he is it's great to see you luke i'm what's up i'm i'm really why don't you tell the folks what happened to you you know i did one of those awesome, like, get together with the high school friends last night, play cards, drink some pints, eat some wings, you know, Bogo, Easy Ed, Corvino, A-Rod, the whole group. But, you know, my body, Luke, it's no longer a wonderland.

It's actually a decrepit, you know, in terms of if we can see if we can compare to a theme park, it's like that Neverland theme park that Michael Jackson had Luke, but probably without like all the child slander and all that, but just like, you know, run down decrepit. So, you know, speaking of MJ, I had to look at that man in the mirror this morning and, um, I had to ask him to change his ways to look because, uh, I can't, I can't do this shit anymore. You know what I mean? Did you dangle some infants off of a balcony? Yeah, blanket? No, I did not. Did not do that.

But, you know, had a couple beers, won a couple setback hands, you know, had a bad forbid that my friends won't let me over on. But, Luke, you ever hang out with people from your life anymore? I mean, I don't see you meeting up at Big Chicken three times a year with the old crew, you know? No, the way my life works, I just don't have

a lot of time candidly uh i was i'm i'm supposed to go to uh an event with some friends next week but i'm trying to figure out how that's going to go with some work responsibilities next week so yeah i mean i don't get a lot of time with with friends dude this job luke will wear you out like a two dollar whore right it will but it's what the glory right the glory and the wow it's a great job but it will own your life it will absolutely own your life luckily for me luke it's my dream job how about you you know yeah it's pretty close i mean the thing is i'm sitting here bitching what else would i be wanting to do like you know so we'll figure out really complaining or you know trying to figure out i'd be ang to do. We'll figure it out. Angrily complaining or trying to figure out.

I'd be angrily complaining no matter where I was. No matter where. Nice shout out to the people that support us, of course, CBS Sports, Malka, Showtime. 30 days of Showtime would be a great time right now. Why? Showtime Championship Boxing back with a bang tomorrow night in Southern California.

Bellator MMA, I believe, Luke, is that next week? Bellator San Jose? Friday. Friday, next Friday. Next Friday. So get your 30 days free right now. Get the show box. Get the Cosby Docs.

Usman Nurmagomedov. Lightweight Grand Prix next week. It's going to be a good one. Oh, yeah. And don't forget on that undercard, Luke. Davlet Don Yagshamuradav versus Julius Anglicus. That's going to be a war and nobody wants to talk about it uh this accent is terrible you say it terrible is dovlet's

dan yagshi muridov yes yes my wife uh uh has sorry look sorry look derailed myself there uh also mikey more mile from cbs sports on the ones and twos on this beautiful friday look i feel like the winter that was that was barely here i can't complain right this was a this was a tame winter and i but i feel like it's it's almost done it's it's it's almost over luke a couple more snowstorms maybe we have we've had like half an inch of snow all year dude when i was a kid, it snowed. I mean, it didn't snow here like Detroit or something, but it used to snow here pretty regularly.

My friends used to, this is a true story. Back in the day, you couldn't do it anymore. But back in the day, there is a, there's a essentially like this public, it's not a pool,

but it's just as a reflecting pond, not the reflecting pond, but it's another one behind the Senate building. When I was a kid, you could go on there. Cause it was ice. So often you'd see kids playing hockey games out there. It hasn't been iced. I think, one day the whole winter,

so it's kind of crazy. Yeah, if you need ice, you got to go to Hawaii, right? Follow around Dog the Bounty Hunter to find some people on a beach hiding under a tent or something. Yeah, there you go. But Luke, I won't complain because normally at this time of the winter, I'm using, my wife bought me one of those sunlight things, Luke. You plug it in, and it produces fake sunlight, and you put it up to your face for a half hour. It actually works. You know what? So there's a guy who's like this big-time CrossFit dude who is – I forget his name, but he's won the championship like a bunch of times. is a big giant light bulb that doesn't make any noise but when it like for the alarm to turn on it slowly turns the color of the sun that time of day so whatever it is whenever whenever sun rises it matches that that same look directly when it when it wakes him up he says it's more of a natural

wake up that's interesting because you know it does help the seasonal depression to get that punch in the face of sunlight, but it hasn't been that gray this winter. Happy to be almost done with it. And Luke Thomas, I'd happy to wear this fantastic merch I got right here. Are you seeing this hat? Are you seeing that shirt you're wearing?

Look at this shirt right here. I got this one too. Okay. Right over the heart. Yup. You could be having that on your skin right now. If you hit on over to morningcombat.store. Bomber jackets, drug rugs, whatever you need.

Okay, bibs for the kids. We got that too, all right? Underwear with Luke's face near the grundle packet. Yeah, Luke, we got that too. I saw David Appleton wearing that over the jeans, right? Yeah, like a true man. Well, I think, I was he was that a fashion choice or a cry for help one never knows it's probably probably both in that regard uh i think

we got to sell something here look i did want to remind people that it's march now it's march 3rd right i mean look yesterday wasn't uh two days ago the 50th anniversary of dark side of the moon by the way what do you think about that how the fuck would i know oh sorry sorry i forgot we don't like rock and roll we only like death hog metal yeah all right death hog uh i'll tell you that march madness it's not only just around the corner luke it's only 11 days away in the cbs sports hq bracket challenge well it's back okay and it might even be back with a bang if you scan that qr code on the screen or check the youtube description of this show for the invitation to compete against your favorite hq personalities you want to try to gain bragging rights over our guy double

t tommy tran no do you do you want to have hair like tommy t you can't you want to see what kind of bracket bellator commentator ag2 Amanda Guerra made, Luke? How about who else we got in there? Chris Hassel? Jenny Dell? Who else do you want to compete against? We might even be able to force you, Luke, into filling out a bracket, but you've got to sign up to see. Hit that QR code. Join the CBS Sports Bracket Challenge. Luke, I ask you this every year, but what's your favorite March Mad madness moment that you watched with your own eyes where you're like damn i'm caught up in the nostalgia in the well more recently it's been when i've taken the remote and changed the channel wow dude there you're gonna get a call from programming that's for sure no my my professional

opinion through work is that march madness is great my personal opinion which i'll keep to myself but i'll say out loud at the same time, is that college basketball is unwatchable. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, you know what, Luke? There was a time, okay? You remember Christian Leitner in the final eight in 92, right? After Tony Woods banked in that... You know what? I'll give you the same answer I always give. I remember

when George Mason made the final four around here. Those were big doings. Big doings. Jim Laranaga. Big win over UConn. And, Luke, I'm the rare UConn hater in the state of Connecticut. Oh, yeah. I got to take it on the chin a few times. I didn't know that. Remember when Ray Allen hit that ridiculous shot in the 96 Big East

tournament final against Iverson? Yeah, I took it like a man of the high seas, Luke, that day. You know, what I mean. Were you like a UMass Marcus Camby guy? Who are you no no i was a georgetown guy i was a georgetown you're a georgetown guy i was you know luke what what because i'm white i can't be is that was that no it's just it's just surprising uh god dude that program has fallen so far it's not even it's just are you blaming Patrick Ewing right now yeah dude he's a terrible coach yeah like Nick's legend terrible coach all town legend yeah Georgetown legend as well yes he is uh thank you please uh like and subscribe and just a reminder one more time we've been hitting

it hard all week no we didn't give you the resume review Luke maybe you know maybe we could admit we should have had a Jon Jones resume review. Yeah. So we definitely talked about it. We just couldn't get it scheduled in time. But Jon did say he was going to give us at least two fights. So the plan is for the next one. Okay.

Okay. And we want to do it right. We don't want to just mail it in. And we want to do it in person, obviously. That's a tough one. You can't like. Sorry. I'm just going to say. You can't like just do that one quickly it's no no you gotta you gotta whine and dine it right luke you know what i mean uh here's the deal though if you go to youtube.com slash morning combat right now you can get our pre-game preview with chuck mindenhall

our uh room service diaries episode with michael venom page that i telling you, if you don't think you're going to enjoy that, take the plunge, right? Take the taste test. I think you'll enjoy it a lot. Arnold Allen as well. We got great interviews with Valentina Shevchenko heading into this weekend, Brandon Figueroa, who's headlining Saturday's Showtime Boxing Card, and obviously our colleague at CBS Sports, Shaquille Majury.

If you go to his Shaq MMA channel there on YouTube, you'll find fantastic interviews setting the stage for this weekend. Luke, speaking of this weekend, I told Mikey I wouldn't raise my voice out of nowhere to F with the levels and F with people's air hole to jar them, Luke. But sometimes I got to wake people up. People always say, BC, why do you say Luke's name 58 times a show? You know, there's people that count that, Luke.

They count it. Well, I say it because Luke show you know there's people that count that luke they count it well i say it because luke you know he loses focus quickly and i'm used to people turning me off luke not canceling me okay that happened once turning me off luke okay we're not we're not famous enough to be canceled oh my god i got hearing issues say that again luke we're not famous enough to be canceled. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Luke, I will say this.

Something's coming. And it's BC. And our weekly challenge titled, Okay, Bet? Bitch. Oh, shit. Okay, Bet. Look at those graphics, dude.

Those are straight out of 1984, and I'm here for it, all right? I love it. I love it. I love it. The updated standings. Last week, BC went four and one, as we talked about on Monday. Luke went two and three, so I didn't cut the lead in half like I bragged, Luke, but I did cut it by two. So it's 15 and nine for Luke, nine and 15 for BC. I'm down by six, but I'm going to make

a prediction. Luke this week, I'm going to take three points back from you in our five on five showdown. Before we get into the picks though, Luke, let's sweep up what's left ahead of UFC eight, two 85. The last few days. And of course is this Saturday pay-per-view T-Mobile arena, John Jones and Cyrril gone for the vacant heavyweight championship in the main event valentina shevchenko looking to extend her title defense record on the female side to eight when she welcomes lelix agrasso at flyweight luke thomas we've seen more of john jones in the last 48 to to 72 hours right if you've been watching all the embeddeds the countdown countdown, Jon Jones's media day,

the press conference from yesterday, the multiple interviews Jon's been doing. This is the biggest closeup we've had in three years with him consistently. What is your biggest takeaway in terms of Bones being back, his demeanor, all of that coming into Saturday?

I don't detect too much of anything. I don't get any kind of strange or otherwise unusual read from him. That's not to say that I pay close attention to what he says, because I think he just says a lot of nonsense and it's hard to know what's genuine and what's not. mean it's not to say that all of it is nonsense but it's hard to you know disentangle the wheat from the chaff here so I I'm not sure what to say about that

but in terms of his energy in terms of like also how the crowds um have received him I think how the media has received him I think he's generally speaking extremely happy to be back I think he feels like this is the right time he seems to know that I mean listen here's the whole thing I'll say the difference between gone and John this week is John just seems a little bit more purposeful with everything this week and gone seems a little bit more you know a little bit more along for the ride um uh in terms of his demeanor versus John I think this means more to John than it does to Gon. And I think you're getting a little bit of that. But in terms of anything else wildly unusual

outside of what John typically does on a fight week, again, there's no other distractions that we're aware of in terms of anti-doping or any kind of legal issues. It seems relatively straightforward in that sense. So to me, it's like, here's a very experienced guy right back in the swing of things. He looks to have settled into a groove. Yeah.

Ready for Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. I felt like he's been now look to hit the topic that you kind of tease off the top. He doesn't necessarily deserve our, our trust or benefit of the doubt in terms of his emotions, because in the past we've seen him endure usually self-induced troubles, come back after a, some, some level of a long layoff, and then say everything's fine and he's a new person. I think at this point,

you have to take that with a grain of salt. But I will tell you that John seems happy. He seems humbled to a certain degree. He seems certainly motivated. I was surprised, Luke. I'm not fully surprised because I've been keeping up the analysis of the Teflon John thing, meaning I feel like not only has he been able to sidestep huge danger deathly throughout his career, which means close fights, they always go his way. Potential suspensions that can derail him, he gets the benefit of the doubt because he's a star, right? Even with the law, you would think with this many transgressions, he may have had to do some time. Nothing like that.

Also with the fan perception, Luke, i was a little surprised to feel it but not surprised i guess overall that the fans were just happy to have him back and that seems to always be the default no matter what john jones does good bad or indifferent they want him to be great maybe it's just you know they they love what do you think about this? Because there were some, you know, while while John was straight up asked on media day by Mike Bone to address the the the February 2021. I'm sorry, September 2021 incident at the Hall of Fame, Las Vegas. John, you know, accused of striking his partner in front of his children, the headbutting, the police car, all that stuff. He said no comment. He moved on. But John did address the issues that are ongoing in his life in a more general statement.

And I know if you're cynical against John, you could see him get very— Which you should be. You should be very cynical. You can certainly get very pious to the whole idea of how he's talking about it. And of course, he's a practicing Christian, and that's a big part of his analysis in terms of how he's been able to get of course, you know, he's a practicing Christian and that's a big part of his analysis in terms of how he's been able to get back to this point and all that. But he is talking very openly about wanting

to be an example for others through Christ that you can slip up and come back. And I see your dismissive hand already. But Luke, he seems to believe that the public, when asked to sort of, you know, take hold of what he's felt from the fans since coming back, he believes the public, like, wants him to put it all back together. Like this, you know, this ingrained American romanticism to the second chance. Now, John's way past the second chance, right?

But do you feel that's where the fans are at? They know he's great. They want him to fulfill the greatness. And they're cheering for him to put it all back together because that's what that's the american way they love to cheer for john's demise and they love to cheer for john's ascension what they love from john is the drama they love his self-immolation right when he's testing positive uh i remember bc i don't know where you did you go to ufc 200 oh yeah i was sitting right there with you in the front row when the that's right yeah what was that lady's name

the handler what was her name i forget her name but he was sitting next to mulkey uh yeah i forget her name but he was sitting next to mulkey but i remember i had taken a flight that wednesday and i was landing and i turned my phone back on that's back when you you did all that and i turned my phone back on and then the first message i get is from my producer who was who's already there and then the news had broke that that john had to deposit and was likely off the card or whatever the news and i was like jesus christ i haven't even landed off the off the flight yet i mean listen here's my thing bc you know i'm not a religious person but in all sincerity i have seen people moved uh by religious conviction and these are

very imperfect people and i don't know what journey john's on maybe he is on that i'm one of them okay and i and i've seen it i've seen it i've seen what it does to people when it actually matters to them and i don't know that it doesn't matter to john but here's what i do know i've seen the uh you know you gotta love a sinner i'm trying my best. I'm looking for redemption. I'm just trying to be a good guy. I've seen that act from him so many times. So I don't know if this version of it is real, but I'm going to be skeptical and just wait because there's simply no way to tell at this point if there's even an iota of sincerity to it. Could be, could not be.

I'm just going to, I'm watching him as a competitor this weekend and nothing else. All right. Well, you did watch the press conference. So mix that with all of the other pre-fight stuff you've watched i wanted to get this your answer to this i mentioned on wednesday that john has been very openly dismissive of gon's game now i don't think it's blindly dismissive per se because john is usually framing it through the idea of him being a student of the game which he is very coachable has all those intangible qualities. We talked about it.

And he has broken down film ad nauseum, he says. And he'll tell you. He'll tell you point by point navigation, in fact, as to why Gon doesn't stack up against him. Is there any element of that that makes you a little nervous? Because if you did watch the presser, dude, when he was asked that question about, you know, Gon not being a complete fighter, I mean, he gave us like a, you know, six-minute breakdown of why.

Is John almost showing too much of his cards in an overconfident way, or is what he's saying actually straight on and right? I think most of what he's saying has been pretty good. There's been some stuff that's been crazy, right, which he didn't necessarily get into as much at the presser but like previously when he said tiago santos is the most technical striker i've ever fought uh and more is more technical than cyril gone it's like dude what the are you talking about that's not even remotely true um that's not that's just bizarre to even think uh they're different fighters for sure. Uh, but gone is significantly more accomplished in pure striking arts and

fights completely different and is going to be a much, much different challenge than Tiago Santos ever was, which is to say that Tiago Santos isn't devastating, but yeah, dude, John, like, dude,

I mean, this is the thing, man. John has high fight IQ. You know, he does. John watches tape. John has high fight IQ. You know, he does. John watches tape. John's coaches watch tape.

John and his coaches watch tape together. They cross every T. They dot every I. I think one thing he has said that has made sense is that, like, you know, he understands the contours of fight week. He understands what it takes to get to this position. He understands what it takes to win. He understands what it takes to beat the best guys in the world in the fourth and fifth rounds when you're tired and you're hurt and you might be down

on the cards and everything else. He understands what those requirements look like in a way that Cyril Ghosn probably doesn't. Cyril Ghosn, I think you can say he might be capable of beating Jon Jones. And I have tweeted some cases about guys who are making very good arguments for him. And there is, by the way, a very good argument for Cyril Ghosn. But I also simultaneously understand John's point. Like, listen, this guy is very athletic and he's got some skills that he has coasted to this point. He's kind of gotten away with a lot of shit he shouldn't have gotten away with.

And in short, what John has said is, I've audited you. I've audited you. I know exactly which way you're going to go. I know exactly what you're going to be up to. It's going to take me a little bit of time to figure it out. But in his mind, I think the end is inevitable. Dude, John's diagnostic abilities of his opponents is generally very, very good, and his game plan is probably going to be very, very good. It's going to be up to Cyril Gant to be better and disrupt it.

Yeah, we're right around the corner from getting right into that to kick off OK Bet, but I did want to say on the flip side, Cyril Gansi. Well, let me put you right back to you very quickly. What did you make of his assessment at the presser yesterday? Brilliant, right? And like you said, right on board. I mean, it's sometimes I got a little nervous because it's going. It's going very aggressive in the direction of not being rudely dismissive, but just being like, look, I've seen the best of this guy. He's not as young as you people think. He's not as dynamic and athletic as you people think.

I've seen him before. I know how to beat this guy. And you know what? He may be right at the end of the day. I just don't think I've ever seen John that outwardly dismissive. So it made me start to wonder, is there any element of this that he's talking himself into it? I think if you take totality of all the footage we got of John, you know, during camp and during this week, that would be no.

And John's too much of a gamer. But Luke, this is the longest layoff of his career by far, even though he has built a consistency in the second half of being away for a year for USADA suspensions, two years, what have you. Ultimately, I'm not worried about that, but I did think it was interesting because when things happen, when fights go in the direction you didn't think coming in, whether or not you thought Ronda Rousey was going to lose against Amanda Nunes, for example, in that fight, I don't think any of us thought it was going to go exactly like that. Complete train wreck. First time she was touched. Then you start going in hindsight about

the way she acted same thing with the holly holm fight right you go back to that weigh-in when she was like manic aggressive just trying to like create some kind of tension to motivate herself i don't think any of that is like that with john but there is part of me that goes does he not realize that that that look let's get to the central tension. Luke, the central tension of this fight is John's wrestling ability and Cyril Gans or, or serial Gann or surreal gain. By the way, he has called him serial gain the entire week.

And I want everyone to know it's quite clearly intentional, right? Well, you mean like how George Bush, the, the, the older one used to say, Saddam Hussein,

perfect purposely in all the, uh, state of the unions, Luke, maybe or how I said, I don't know, because that wasn't quite as intentional, but also negligent. Well, if you listen to John closely, he was using the you know, some people get hung up on a word, Luke, like narrative or or or, you know, stuff like that. And John was hung up on the word surreal, but it was screwing him up because he was calling gone serial up to that point. But once he was working in surreal a lot about how he felt, then gone became that at the end of the day. But look,

if the central tension is wrestling and how gone responds and what we saw two fights ago in the Francis and gone who fight, I want to merge this with how I was leading you in, which is we're talking so much about John, rightfully so heading into this fight. Not a ton of talk about Cyril Gan, but I will say he looks ready, playful, focused. It's his personality. I know John kind of called him out for being, oh, look at his, you know, team. He's playing video games. His coach is in a suit. You know, they don't, you know, they're acting like they haven't been here before, but the thing is, he has been

there before. He did headline a pay-per-view and win an interim title against Derek Lewis. He did fight Francis for the full title, although he came up empty. In regards to the central tension of wrestling, Gan might not be 23 like we try to act, but he's 32, he only has 11 pro fights, and he's openly admitting at the press conference like i didn't train for wrestling at all against inganu and looking back luke i was the only one that could have told him maybe he should it seems like in hindsight right but francis is really strong may not have the same technique as john may not have the same experience

all that you gotta believe he's gonna he's gonna show improvement of that if he's a true student of the game gone always comes in in top level shape i just have to believe luke that it's not gonna look the same way it did you know a year and a half ago in that in gano fight it's gotta be different so in that regard john's got to be prepared for the idea in my mind if wrestling is is not a consistent grab for him in this if god's able to be prepared for the idea in my mind. If, if wrestling is, is not a consistent grab for him in this, if God's able to shut that door, is he ready to outpoint a different kind of chess master? Now, you know, that, that's my question here, Luke.

And do you think Cyril gone is going to surprise us in his ability now that he's got a year plus to, to, to grind at it to show us better wrestling takedown defense. He didn't have to show that against Tui. Well, I mean, I'm just sort of a question of a point of order here. Aren't we going to get to this in our OK Bet main event breakdown? Well, that's what we're sliding into right now, Luke, but I did want to hit you up with an early entry.

I'll save that part for the breakdown itself. All right, Luke, we'll put that on the back burner. Guess what, Luke? It's time for the breakdown itself, Luke. And our first number one in our five picks against each other, an okay bet takes us, of course, to the biggest main event of the weekend, which is this. Right now, the folks at Caesars, minus 175, John Jones, your favorite,

plus 150, Cyril Ghosn, the underdog. Luke Thomas, are you going first or second and breaking down this pick? I'll go second. All right. Let's start off with the top, Luke. I've been a John Jones guy at heavyweight forever, back to when he was first teasing it 10 years ago. I always thought he'd make the debut against Brock.

It almost happened. Even could have happened a couple of years ago. It didn't happen here. But here we are. I always believed that when John got here, it would be easier than we expected due to the size difference. But a lot has changed the three years off the evolution of the division. He's not coming back against a hulking slugger.

He's coming back against somebody that I don't think you can prepare for because there's really never been someone exactly like him. This elite in the heavyweight division, somebody who combines a lot of the speed that John is rightfully bragging about that he dealt with that light heavyweight and dealt with it deftly. But this is the closest reach advantage John will ever have at three and a half inches. And we know how big that is to his game. And I just think, Luke, when you mix them together, the bulk of the weight he's putting

on mixed with three years off in a new division, mixed with if Cyril Ghosn is unable to keep his back off the canvas consistently, and once he's there, unable to get up quickly and absorb ground and pound, this is obviously going to be a big Jon Jones return and a huge announcement of what he is at heavyweight. But I just don't think it's going to be that easy. I do think we're heading into another five-round close decision, some level of dispute in terms of who you thought won,

whether you like the overall striking of Gahn, let's try to imagine, mixed with John's counter-striking and the effects of takedowns. But I just think we're going to see a different Cyril Gahn. Now that this had to be the focus coming in. Are we, are we guessing that this, that this fighter can't add that type of resistance to his game? Not saying John won't take him down. Not saying John won't have some levels of success, but I think it's going to take John a little bit longer to make the full adjustments to this type of opponent that I think will inevitably make this a closer fight. And I think when we go to

the cards, it's going to be one of those, how do you like it? But Luke, I think Cheryl gone is going to show him something different with the footwork in terms of being able to use it defensively to get out of range and then get back in that we're going to be looking at a very close competitive fight. And in that regard, I do like the younger, fresher fighter who's had an opportunity to learn of late from the biggest things holding him back and I think I think Luke the Tai Tuivasa experience will ultimately embolden him even more I mentioned it on Wednesday they didn't they went in there with the intent on having exactly that

type of fight that they had he got to taste some of these experiences that he hadn't because he had been so dominant in all his wins or had that weird fight with Ngannou where he wasn't able to really establish himself I think this is a new Cyril Ghosn and it's not like outside of Amanda Nunes knocking out Cyborg. We've seen people consistently have success doing just this, a champion at one division moving up and trying for one above them. It's happened before, sure, but I think recent history, it's just not easy. John's got a lot going against him here. He is the ultimate gamer. You may score it for him at the end of the day on Saturday, Luke.

But I think Cyril Ghosn's headed for a decision win here. It's not going to send John away. It's going to send him back to the drawing board to refocus. And you know what? He may one day hold this heavyweight championship. We could be looking at a series here. But I think the way things plan out, I'm kicking off OK Bet with my pick. Taking the underdog, Cyril Ghosn.

I got a feeling. It could be indigestion, Luke. It could be a liver failure, but I got a feeling right now. I'll say this. I'll just put my cards on the table. I struggled with this one more than I've struggled with one in a long time. And I struggled with Mokachev and Volk too, but in the end I felt reasonably-ish confident about Mokachev and Volk too, but in the end, I felt reasonably-ish confident about Mok.

I mean, that's even, that's, I felt more confident about that than I do about what I'm about to pick. I want to say that I think there's a lot of people who feel very confident in One Direction, and I really don't know what that's based off of. This is extremely unknown. What I've said before, we go into Fight Week all the time time all the time with unknown variables but rarely like this rarely with a guy who has been off with all of these questions we have to ask although i will say this week bc the questions about his family and everything else not that that's always the most pertinent but it plays a role it's been very subdued it's been very subdued like there's not been swirling controversy on top of pushing him right this time well but also like john is to what we know not fucking around like he's just there for this and so it's kind of

quieted that in addition to the distance and everything else to the media obsequiousness um so i just don't feel good about my pick today, but I had to go in the direction I'm going to go. Despite all the questions in either scenario, it just comes down to this. I'm going to go John Jones. I'm going to give him a slight benefit of the doubt. And the reason why I'm going to do that is it's not that I don't have my doubts about the time off. You know I do. It's not that I don't have my doubts about the time off you know i do it's not that i don't

have my doubts about the decline in his performance over time at light heavyweight you know i do but i've seen enough guys come back from layoffs where they looked bad at the end saint pierre in particular couture um couture looked bad when he left and then he comes back and he ices tim silvia or at least you least whips his ass for five rounds anyway. And gone training part-time is a big problem for me. Gone, I am certain, is going to have much better wrestling this time. And John striking at distance I think is going to suffer big time here. I think as long as this fight is on the feet, over time he probably loses it. So I think it's really this fight is on the feet, over time, he probably loses it.

So I think it's really going to be clinch, takedown, or it's going to get nothing done. But John is a fucking gamer, man. He is an all-time competitor. I do think that the time off is going to give him a boost, at least as he begins his heavyweight campaign. I think he will be able to get enough takedowns to win. It's either going to be batshit crazy

or it's going to be slow and methodical, and Jon might look a little human. Actually, he'll probably look a lot human along the way, but that amount of experience, and I think that presumed differential in skill should be enough of a difference. It's the coin flip if there ever has been one but it came up heads for john doesn't this feel like a three two fight

either way three rounds of two it feels like that potential and i think the reason for me why i really believe that and believe gonz will get his hand raised is luke john will adjust and i think he's going to fall down a little bit early in terms of the scoring the perceived scoring he's going to come back john's an absolute gamer he's going to figure down a little bit early in terms of the scoring, the perceived scoring. He's going to come back. John's an absolute gamer. He's going to figure it out. I just think the added bulk, and I think, look, he's going to try a very wrestling-intensive style. Look, that's not a style he's employed for a long time in the UFC, okay?

For a long time. The tail end of his light heavyweight reign was, you know, counter-striker from the outside, mixed with the guy who starts going downhill and breaks you down with the kicks to the legs in the striking i think gone's movement on the feet is going to make john have to it's going to lower his output but it's also going to make him have to chase a little and i think when he does chase he's going to have success getting takedowns but i question with that added bulk whether he can be the same guy cardio wise not going to have cardio it's going to fall have cardio. It's going to fall apart.

I think he's going to get to a point where he's got to manage that cardio and save some for the end of this fight. You'll see him make it close, but look, it comes down to this. When have we also seen Sarah gone have takedown issues outside of the Ingano fight, which again was a surprise, desperate tactic mixed with an incredibly strong individual. I'm not discounting john's strength at six foot five or six or four here look he is not coming in thin jacked and cut up he is coming in heavy and ready bulky yeah but like something has to give when you move up in weight and challenge

the champion it hasn't befallen everybody conor mcregor stepped up and took care of Eddie, right? Cyborg got stopped by Nunes. It happens here. But this is the largest leap you make in terms of weight difference, which adds certain elements and challenges here. Day one of being a jacked heavyweight, and I don't care how hard you train, day one of being a jacked heavyweight, he's now going to employ a wrestling heavy style and a five- round title fight against

an incredibly great athlete look to have success he's going to tax himself out a bit he's going to bring down the the overall upper bound level of what he can do cardio wise in a five round fight he's going to have to balance and manage that so look he may have some success on takedowns but if gone can stuff some and make him have to work for it there's going to come a point where john's going to risk the the risk you know weigh the risk reward is what i'm trying to say and go let's try to point fight from the outside and that may lead him luke with the judges going the other way in a close fight i think i think that's a very plausible scenario i think you're right again if he can't get the takedown i don't

think he can win i mean maybe if he can get to the clinch and do some damage there or something but if he you know if the takedown isn't there john's chances plummet but the problem for me is this man i've never been all that impressed with gon's grappling ever like ever uh you're asked like who took him down before well who's who was really trying that had any ability whatsoever? And I know what you're going to say. Well, John's ability declined. Yeah, fair enough. But like even then, John is better than anyone else who ever tried to take him down before Francis.

And more to the point, I go back to it again. Sitting for the ankle, he's got other heel hook attempts that were kind of weird against guys who didn't know what they were doing. I've never been impressed with John's ground game. It's his stand-up game and everything else and his timing and his movement like that to me is like the idea that he's better on the feet than John seems to me

like quite obvious right I mean I'd just be very hard I'd be shocked if he doesn't get the better of him on the feet but the problem is man I just don't trust someone who had a year to get better and then told me they half assed it and their last opponent was nothing like John Jones in terms of what kind of threat

that they offered. I don't trust that. If he was really one of these guys who was nose to the grindstone, if this was Francis, I'd be picking Francis. But it's not. Are we going to say that? Let me just articulate my worldview. My worldview is that

Gon has too much of a gap to make up and hasn't put in the work to make that up I think yeah I mean look if you if you have the evidence of his comments if you take them at face value then I understand the fuel that you have to make that argument I just can't I'm not saying gone is an all-timer we don't know that I'm just saying I can't see this guy lose the way he did on the highest level against Ngannou to some degree almost embarrassing right a guy with with a blown out knee who's trying to take you down and isn't even trying to use you know most of his menacing strength because he's surviving and you couldn't

come over the top that's a wake-up call so he's either going in the wrong direction if you're nervous at what the Tuivasa brawl represented he He got caught by a guy that he shouldn't have. No, no, no. That probably should have been able to control. No, no, no. Not nervous about that. Again, on the feet, dude, we agree, right? No, no, I'm saying if you're cynical in that regard,

you can take that lane, and I get it. But I just can't see him not – You're fighting the greatest of all time and your second chance to win the championship a little over a year after you failed miserably. If you don't have pride to put in that work and get better, then you don't belong here. We're going to,

as everyone says at the end of their answer, when they're asked, we're going to find out on Saturday, Luke, we're going to find out on fricking Saturday. I just think God's going to be a lot better than John is framing us to believe his limitations are. I think his limitations are,

are limitless. I just don't think he's putting the time consistently to get better in these areas. Now he has reason to a lot of reason to. He does. But at the same time, I just, um, also does he have the resources at MMA factory to get better in the grappling in the way that he needs to like MMA factory is a very good camp, particularly, I think they've, they produce good strikers. I've been less than impressed with some of the ground games coming out of there um so dude I don't know I honestly don't know I really don't know how this is going to go I and I'll tell you again I really don't feel all that confident with this pick but but you know gun to the head scenario John coming back understanding what he's

up against and God having these issues in the past it's hard for me to overlook that but let's add one we're gonna see our picture in stone you're taking Jones I'm taking gone let's add one more potential uh wrinkle to the mix the photo of Cyril Ghosn's hand that has been floating around now he did address this at Thursday's press conference said it was hurt after he injured it but fully healed all ready to go I mean what do you expect from him he's going to say my hand is compromised yeah there's the picture um he's going to need that right hand to win this fight Luke Thomas does make you nervous at all in any form not much not much nervous the reason why I would say that is because I've seen a lot of fighters hands and they're all messed up a lot

of them have had hand surgery. When they make a fist again, it doesn't look the same. And you can see if you put the picture back up again, Mike, I'm not sure if you can. Yeah. Look closely. He had hand surgery, but I understand there's a big scar over the middle there.

It's going to be hard to fully look like the other one when you've had it operated on in that way. It does look also swollen, and it does look like it's not 100%, but I think he'll throw it. In the end, when the adrenaline is pumping, I'm going to guess that however much

this hurts and debilitates him when he's not fighting will mostly go away by the time he's fighting, and it'll hurt like a son of a bitch afterwards, but he'll be okay. The thing I would say is I don't know how good the surgery was or how well it's healed. I wonder if it's susceptible to breaking again. And that to me is a different scenario. Now, if it doesn't actually hurt him and he does throw it, but it's fragile and then it shatters, well, now you've got all kinds of problems, look we know john jones's uh attack has long

been heavy he's almost been pioneering on certain ideas of using small leg strikes to keep opponents at bay he already has that incredible reach and a decent jab luke but he's always kicking you in the knee the side of the leg the calf long before it was hugely popular do you think that will be part of his offense and and on the flip side something that gone can do as well to try to limit john's mobility yeah that's a big part of what he does most of the work he does in fact um if you look at the first gustus and fight the vast majority of the work he did was leg kicking of a variety um and that includes those like stomps those kind of sideways uh oblique kicks the teeps whatever yeah gone's gonna take again dude to take it. Again, dude, Gon's going to take a lot of that away. He's going to take a lot.

Dom Reyes had some success with that against John Early. That's right. And Dom Reyes was, dude, this is going to look a little bit like the Dom Reyes fight because John, I think, is going to be plotting forward. And Reyes was the one on the outside, for the most part, circling, pulling him in. The difference was Reyes had to fight both John Jones and the dumbass Texas Criteria that favored forward movement. There is none of that in this fight. John can press forward, but if he's getting pot shot and then gone moves,

you can like that or you can hate that, but the fact that John is moving forward will not confer upon him benefit with the judges. Absolutely. Luke, let's continue down an okay bet with our bet number two we'll clean up any leftover ufc 285s afterwards uh we got to pick a favorite to win and i'm going to go into boxing here we'll have more on this matchup but i did want to get this on in stone as my pick saturday showtime championship boxing the main event will be for a vacant featherweight world

title 126 pounds brandon figueroa who moved up recently from 122 and knocked out carlos castro look like a million bucks he is going to take on the former champion mark magsayo uh we're expecting action we're expecting fun here luke we can get into that preview in a second but i'm gonna take brandon figueroa to win here as the favorite minus 280 for my pick which direction are you going so i'm not going to do the boxing. I'm going to keep this. All of my picks are from tomorrow's MMA UFC card. You know, again, I said I wasn't super confident in all these picks. I'm reasonably confident in this one. I'm going to go for my favorite, Tabitha Ricci.

I think Tabitha Ricci taking on Jessica Penny. Jessica Penny's got some skills. She trains hard. She is 40 years of age. She's had a series of layoffs due to complications with USADA and some injuries and a lot of other unfortunate events. She does have good judo. She's had a series of layoffs due to complications with USADA and some injuries and a lot of other unfortunate events. She does have good judo. She's got good jiu-jitsu, but

Tabitha Ricci is younger. I think a bit more of a dynamic athlete. I think probably a harder hitter as well. Penne is tough, but she got clobbered against Emily Ducati. I think Tabitha's going to have enough to get it done here, so I like her to win. Yes, minus 300. Ricci, the favorite, plus 240.

Well, she was 230 when I looked. Wow, she's 300 now? Shit, okay. Yeah, Caesars is always moving, Luke. My underdog this week. I like this fight. It's going to be on the preliminary card. It's going to be in the middleweight division, Luke.

Drikis Duplessis is going to try to continue his hot start to open it. Luke, he's claiming himself to be the true African fighter, isn't he? Jesus. I mean, listen, I don't think either you or I are in a position to say who is and isn't African. That seems to be a debate that's really not one we can say a lot about, but if you're from a place where even, you know, you're young enough where your parents were a part of the apartheid or not a part of it,

but like lived in apartheid South Africa, I can see why there might be some dispute about who gets to be, uh, called African or not, which by the way, like no one can not call him African. I mean, he's African.

I mean, he was born and raised on that continent. You know, our cbs sports hq you know hakeem dermish our fantastic colleague love yes love doing hits with that guy he's the best he he was born in libya and is the first north american uh broadcaster to host sports center in the history of the world luke all right is that right or sorry north african did i say north american north yeah north african essentially the arab north is what you're talking about basically yeah yeah shout out to hakeem there uh he's also african luke and there's nothing you can do about it speaking of this matchup though that's a good one here derrick brunson we haven't seen him since that win streak

came to a close by stoppage against jared cannoneer more than a year or i'm sorry just about a year uh layoff as we we look at Caesar's odds right now, plus 190, Derek Brunson minus 230, Drikus Duplessis. Luke, look, we're going to be asking a lot of Derek Brunson at 39, but a big part of this run for him in the second half in the twilight of his career to have that one more run that got stopped was his wrestling ability and his aggressiveness and his focus on that and trying to hit up opponents if he sees a hole in their game to outwork them over three rounds look that's potentially in play here he's had some time off which either means he's going to come back fresh or we're going to see the continued advancement of age here at 39 but

even though duplicy hits hard and gets you into a fight the the contrast styles are perfect for an upset here give me give me brunson at plus 190 i thought about this one too i don't think it's a bad bet at all i'm gonna go a little bit different for my prelim we're picking underdog now i'm gonna go and again there's another pick i don't feel super confident about but i'm gonna go um vivian how do we say the last name araujoo? Araujo? Yeah, you can do Araujo. If it was my hometown, we'd call it Arujo, Luke.

Arujo. Well, Araujo, however you want to say it. I'll call her Vivian. I can say that one a little bit better. I like her chances against Hibas a little bit. A little bit. Enough to take a flyer on her here. She's not a significant underdog to Hibas.

It's pretty close. And Hibas, I certainly, I think it'd be foolish to close the book on her here. She's not a significant underdog to Hibas. It's pretty close. And Hibas, I certainly, I think it'd be foolish to close the book on her 10 and three. Yeah, she's going to win, Luke. I want you to know Hibas is going to win this fight. Okay, she's coming off the Caitlin Shukagian loss, which was a split decision.

It was somewhat disputed. And she did beat Veeranar Jhanji Roba. But Vivian can pop and Hibas gets hit way too much for my liking. I'll take a bit of a flyer on old Vivian there. Okay. This gets hit way too much for my liking. I'll take, I'll take a bit of a flyer on old Vivian there. Okay. This could be a point situation for me.

If I can get a nice win here, Luke, let's keep it going to over under. I am going to take the under and the fight in question is going to be a very interesting one in the Bantamweight division. This could be your preliminary feature about on ESPN before the pay-per-view and it's Cody Garbrandt and Trevin Jones. Luke, I have followed Cody's journey this week in terms of speaking to the media closely and you know not making excuses but he did break down some of the stuff in his personal life that

was in shambles surrounding that cut down to flyweight Luke where he did get stopped was a high car France took care of him the thing in the end Luke he's saying is the weight cut was never an issue he said he could do it again tomorrow but he went through a divorce had to sell his house during fight camp like you know a lot a lot of stuff that gets these are humans luke this that stuff gets in the way does that buy him more life to the idea that there's still something here it might be but luke my bet here is that this doesn't go the distance either cody garbrandt's gonna continue the streak he's on and be you be one fight closer to the end of it, or he's going to bounce back big.

Either way, it's going to happen by KO, so I'm taking that under. Okay, I think it's a fair pick. This one I feel reasonably confident about, BC. We're talking over-under. I'm going to take the under on Bo Nickel, Jamie Pickett. I just don't see any way that one goes to a decision. I don't see any way Bo Nickel loses, short

of some kind of weirdness, although MMA is capable of that. His prediction is first round stoppage, Luke. It's a hard That's his prediction? Yeah, that's a pretty good one. It's a pretty good one. I'd be very surprised if it went to the second. I'd be shocked if it went to the third, but I guess one never knows. Bo Nickel's probably

going to mop the floor with him here, but there's no way this fight goes the distance. Give me this one to take the under. Luke, this plays right into my pick for KO or sub. I'm going with submission in this exact fight, Bo Nickel versus Jamie Pickett. If you wanted to know the line at the moment, overall, it's minus 1,600 for Nickel to win, plus 900 for Pickett, and I'm going to take the submission win, although it could go either way here for bow we'll see what happens all right

so for my last and final pick uh we have to do ko or sub how about rachmanov neil ends in tko i think that's the way it's going to go then that one could be sub two especially since uh rachmanov is a little bit more i think better about like locking up like you know subs at the end of a round he did it to Oliveira he did it to uh Neil Magny he's done to a couple of guys but at the same time more than that actually but at the same time I feel like Neil is just going to trade with him a little bit in ways that probably isn't wise uh because Rachmanov can do that to you and uh Rachmanov's going to get the finish here, for sure. All right, to recap for this week's OK Bet, Luke taking Jon Jones in the main event. Tabitha Ricci has a favorite.

Vivian Arujo is the underdog. Bo Nickel goes under. Rachmaninoff kneel by TKO. And on the flip side, I've got Gon in the main event. Brandon Figueroa in boxing is the favorite. Brunson the underdog. Cody Garbrandt's fight to go under, and Bo Nickel by submission. We'll see how it plays out as I make moves here. boxing is the favorite brunson the underdog cody garbrandt's fight to go under and bow

nickel by submission we'll see how it plays out as i make moves here real quickly to sweep up on 285 predictions anything going to happen here in this women's flyweight co-main event valentina shevchenko alexa grasso or do the odds say it all yeah i mean i respect again i do i really respect both competitors here this is a worthy adversary. She earned the opportunity. MMA is crazy. One never knows, but based on all the information that we have, it seems very likely Shevchenko was going to win and probably put her away.

Dude, Shevchenko is going to take her down and try to prove all of us wrong that she had any issue on the ground. I know that's not the same type of opponent, right? So it may be easier, but I think she's going to do like she did. She had an F remember the, the Jessica Andrade fight for Shevchenko turned out to be an, an FU fight. It turned out to be, oh, you guys think there's somebody out there that can, you know, test my, my reign.

And now she's been tested since then. I'm not saying she isn't human, but it's going to be one of those showcases. So take Valentina, take it big take it home uh let me ask a favor uh to our producer mikey mikey i forgot my glass of water that i have in here can you just put it on bc so i can go get it yeah why don't we do a bc live chat right now i'll be taking your questions uh the other bots we want to get picks from here is this welterweight pairing jeff neal against shavkat rock monoff to give you an update on the odds at this moment. Jeff Neal plus 400 on Caesars, minus 550 for Rachmanov.

And that interesting test at lightweight when Jalen Turner, a plus 180 underdog, takes on minus 220. I thought about... Gamrot. Hold on, let me ask you a question. Hold on, let me ask you a question. Why didn't you, because I didn't do it either, but why didn't you pick

Turner as your underdog? Because Gamrot made a statement at the press conference and the few questions he was asked, Luke, because how about, by the way, sign off to the schmo going, hey, John Jones, how are you going to get turned up and lit at the

Hakazan after party? No, it turned out to be a cool question in that regard. At the time he asked it, I was like, holy shit, Schmo, what are you doing? Look, there wasn't a ton of bullshit Basura this time. Although there was a lot of people reading off their phones. I don't know. Look, is that impossible to ask somebody to come up with a question and not read it word for word off the prompter it's it's all these jobs all of these responsibilities all these various acts in service of the job they are harder than they look i don't think people realize that but

to answer the question i didn't pick jalen turner either because gamrot's wrestling is so overwhelming but i was tempted i was tempted gamrot at the presser said i am gonna get that finish i have asked him to be more aggressive he guaranteed a finish in the few words he said on there. So Luke, that is, um, yeah, that's going to bring on the danger of course, because his opponent is one of those guys that can pull things out of nowhere, exciting things. And that's part of why this fight is so good and offers an opportunity for either one to make a big leap. But no, dude, I think Gamrot's going to get it done. I think this is going to be a reminder of exactly who he is. Just needed to fine-tune perfectly here.

And it's a short-notice fight too, right, Luke? I mean, there's some risk that the tarantula is taking here just to make a big statement, and I respect that. But sometimes you got to hit your ceiling, work it around, come back, you know? Or Gamrot is going to make a bad choice about what kind of takedown to pursue at what time. And Turner is so lights out with it and merciless,

he's going to have his way. I guess we're going to, I do, it's going to be fun. Tomorrow's main card. And by the way, we didn't even tell them, yes, we didn't go in studio this week. I'm going to see BC tomorrow in studio. We're doing the prelims, obviously, for the boxing fights on Showtime.

And then afterwards, we're going to do a post fight live in studio bc and i for ufc 285 so we are going to have studio content tomorrow can we take their questions live luke at the end of it or no i have asked for that i don't know if we have something set up but i think i asked long island luke last time about that for getting questions on twitter i think they said they could do it i think we should try you know his dad's from australia i do know that yeah yeah uh luke speaking of uh great partners to work with we got a new one and i'd have to say i'm really excited about this partnership mostly because most of my favorite uh strow whites and fly weights are are already putting out ads on IG all the time for them, Luke. I would imagine you've seen them then. Yeah.

This is the part where you would pick up the script where it says Luke Cole. Yep, that's right. Jon Jones makes his long-awaited return against Cyril Ghosn for the vacant heavyweight title at UFC 285. This one could go either way, which makes it a perfect opportunity to take advantage of boosted odds at my bookie. My bookie. Wow. Luke, when it comes to betting on the UFC, there's a ton of value in prop bets, like predicting how a fight will finish or how many rounds it will go. I like doing that. Getting started is easy. Just visit my bookie dot a G and use the promo code combat with a k to claim a welcome bonus

up to a thousand dollars plus a free 150 000 march madness bracket contest entry if people are asking me this all the time bc i want a sports book that gives me the most for my money to bet on this weekend's ufc 285 Well, I got an answer for you, folks. It's my bookie. Bet anything, anytime, anywhere with my bookie. And Luke, speaking of.ag, which is their website, shout out to AG1 and AG2, Amanda Guerra as well. Thank you.

That's right. Shout out to AG2. And AG3, BC, which is just vaping. Just watermelon vaping like a real man does, okay? Yes, yes. Hey, Luke, how curious is Tookie about this little habit of yours? Not very. Not very.

She doesn't ever seem to be interested in it. I don't really do it in front of her anyway. So, not at all. From what I can tell tell knock on wood my kids uh who are 15 my twins they tried to out me this morning like oh dad let me guess you're hung over you know try to shame try to body shame me because i haven't taken great care of myself you're like you're like mr schneebly in school of rock and it's like it's like uh it's like oh you're drunk he's like no i was drunk yesterday yes's like, oh, you're drunk. He's like, no, I was drunk yesterday.

Yes, exactly. Thank you. Look, topic number one after OK, Ben and the UFC 285 are in the rare view is what's going to go down Saturday, 9 p.m. Eastern time only on Showtime, a triple header of Showtime Championship Boxing. And I'm telling you, folks, folks Ontario California is the setting this fight is probably going to be a great one and contend for a fight of the year for however long it lasts you say how could you BC look at the competitors we got in this one Brandon Figueroa former title holder at 122 pounds only career loss that split decision fight of the year against Stephen Fulton Jr.

he thought Luke he was getting a rematch right here Fulton Jr. He thought, Luke, he was getting a rematch right here. Fulton's got other plans at the moment. So he's just going to stay at 126 and welcome Mark Magsayo, the Filipino power puncher, former champion in this weight class, lost that belt in a very close split decision to Ray Vargas. But now he's back for a vacant title. Luke, I tell you, Figueroa is going to fight Magseo, and the odds at the moment are going to be minus 280 for Brandon, the heartbreaker, plus 210 for Mark Magseo. I know the first thing you'll say expectation-wise is action and entertainment,

but going a little bit deeper, what are you looking out for when these two touch gloves Saturday night? Collision. Collision. Figueroa is going to be all over him like white on rice. As we used to say in the South, like a duck on a June bug is what they used to say. Here's the problem for, I think, Max Ayo in this one. He is a very worthy adversary, but I'm surprised the odds are as close as they are. Listen, Figueroa is longer, stronger, younger, and has done better against better opposition. He gave Fulton Jr. all he could handle, something pretty close to that, right? I mean, that was a close-ass

fight through the entire 12 rounds, and he felt like he deserved the decision. I disagreed. I thought Fulton won, but it was close, And Fulton is best in class, right? Max Saio is a step down from that and is a come forward kind of, you know, can be a brawler at times. He's got that classic kind of Filipino in your face style, which is fun and all action oriented. And he's going to land on Figueroa. But dude, Figueroa is an absolute beast.

And I just think he's going in the end maxio's gonna get hit with way way more shots than the other way around especially in the range that figueroa we talked about like the towering inferno sebastian fundora he's a little bit like that where he just kind of hangs over you like a canopy he's gonna swallow uh mark maxio eventually look he's gonna fight find some legitimate resistance from maxio because for as raw as he is technically and that has cost him in in you know in that fight against ray vargas for sure but uh he just keeps coming and he'll take damage and keep throwing and find a way to land athletic power shots so what's going to be interesting to me and look i caught up with brandon figueroa the heartbreaker you can check out that interview at youtube.com slash morning combat where he wears

luke almost like an emo cap and a lot of people thought he was the guy from fallout boy no it's it's the heartbreaker brandon figueroa okay he looks like he he looked like he was getting ready to make you and uh you know like an oat milk latte yeah yeah or talk to me about dashboard confessional which i would have been here for that conversation to be fair death cab for cutie yeah yeah i mean you know i'll follow this kid into the dark anywhere luke uh got a great strength trainer too but look let's get serious here for a second on brandon figueroa something happened when he moved up to 126 uh he wasn't killing his body anymore and he what he told me in that interview is it was like night and day from the idea of energy explosiveness

and that fueled into the power yes he fought more like the traditional figueroa style when he took out carlos castro in his featherweight debut but look it was dominant and the power was moving him previously figueroa not known as a knockout threat except to the body he knocked out luis neri in a massive fight to set up that fulton showdown and that was to a big hook to the body. He knocked out Luis Neri in a massive fight to set up that Fulton showdown. And that was to a big hook to the body. And he's got that for sure. And actually, in my interview, I encourage people to check it out. I did ask him where he focuses. Is it that one spot? Is it the left hook to the liver? Or does he feel he can turn off anyone's lights downstairs by going hard to the body? But he, Luke, when he is mixing in a little bit more of

what everyone said he should do, which is, you know, his brother fought the same way. You're tall and long, long arms, but you give away your height and reach and you're not a knockout puncher. You just get inside and just throw educated punches and bunches and you, you know, you take damage and you give away your natural advantages. He's starting to work in a little bit more boxing from range and using his jab. He did that in windows against Carlos Castro. There's a lot of narrative heading into this fight that if he just boxes from the outside,

he's not going to have any issues with Magsayo, no matter how aggressive and persistent Mark is. Do you think he can do that if he wants to, or the fact that at the end of the day, he loves to make fun fights. That's going to come out. I mean, look, this thing's going to, they're going to dance in the fact that at the end of the day he loves to make fun fights that's going to come out i mean look this thing's gonna they're gonna dance in there here's the thing with the right partner i think that idea about what figueroa could do would make some sense that does seem to be like a reasonable thing is like could figueroa fight this way if he wanted

to in the right circumstance yes yes i think he could the problem is or actually i think the challenge to that is going to be max io he's going to be in his face too he's and he's going to be like oh you want to have a you want to you want to you know he's got one of those kinds of attitudes like you want to do this let's get to do this he's going to get right up in his chest right up in his face and go to work and so a guy who's going to sit down on his punches like that, you might think, well, that would deter Figueroa. That would be a perfect case to jab. I actually think because of the exchanging

and the way in which a guy's going to be sitting down like that, it's going to invite Figueroa to revert back to what he already likes, which, by the way, you're right, he takes damage doing that, but he's very good in that style as well. It works for him, at least for now, while he's young. So there might be punctuated moments of that PC, and it may even start that way, but I just feel like Max Ayo's style,

what Figueroa more habitually likes, that's going to see itself made present over time. Anytime you get an aggressive Filipino fighter, we're ready to make the Pacquiao comparisons. In this case, Pacquiao is the promoter of Mark Maxeo. So their styles aren't, you know, perfect match, but it's the same spirit, although he's an orthodox fighter. But the one thing about Manny though, and I'm not, again, I mean, who else is Manny, right? Historically, not, not many. He was just this hurricane of straight left hands early on. And it actually was so dynamic. I mean, when he stopped Marco Antonio Brer to have that true like breakthrough, I'm pound for pound ilk.

I'm ready to be a star win. It was like, holy crap. And over time, you get Freddie Roach and him a lot of credit. They added so many wrinkles to his game. Remember that he never used his right hand ever and then that became the manila ice hook that he called it he actually became one of the best pure boxers in the game by the end of his career i'm not saying max ao is going to do that and not do that in the gap of one fight but should we expect improvement in some level of the technical aspects because they made pacquiao's explosiveness and wildness wildness work by marrying it with certain levels of fundamental activity Max Sayo seems to have like you know enough of a foundational form where if you if you forced him to focus in on that jab and work distance a little bit more

you know there's there's still time for him to improve but how much improvement can we expect here I'm very modest amount. And also just, again, it goes back to like your style is people don't, people may, your style is somewhat an extension of your personality. You know, it's almost a signature of like how you view danger, how you assess risk, what you like to do, what you don't like to do and what that says about you like it says a certain something about you the way that you fight a little bit um and people can sometimes read a little bit too much into that but there is there is a connection between your sensibilities and the way in which you compete and especially in a fight or a sport like this uh where it's individual right it's your it's what you're doing dude he he's not a guy who's

gonna jab and then exit like you just we just saw him fighting gary russell jr here in these highlights gary russell jr can do that because he's a little bit more naturally situated that way he's always been kind of doing a little bit of that stick and move at times or if he needed to be on the back foot and use good ring craft he could maxio is not that guy dude's not going to box nine rounds of 12 on the outside circling on the outside. He doesn't believe in that. It's not his gear. It doesn't make sense to him. What makes sense to him is to

maybe more scientifically, but certainly to bring the fight to you. Figueroa also thinks he should bring the fight to you, which means it doesn't seem like this is the fight to showcase. There might be some elements of what you're talking about seem like this is the fight to showcase uh and there might be some elements of what you're talking about but this is the fight to showcase the broader details

of that yeah it should be a fun one featherweight title at stake and if you want to catch more of my interview with Figueroa I got his thoughts on Fulton pulling out of talks to rematch him to go in the direction of Niowa Inoue which we we expect later this spring, including his thoughts of who wins that fight and whether he's still chasing Fulton in the future. Check it out. Emelkar Vidal versus Elijah Lorenzo Garcia in the co-feature. And then, Luke, we kick off the night with Jarrett Swift Hurd back. After that long break, he lost a split decision to Luis Cuba Arias on the Mayweather Logan Paul undercard.

He's at middleweight full-time now. He's going to welcome Jose Armando Resendiz. I probably butchered that. Resendiz? I can't pronounce it, Luke. Jose is a plus 300 underdog, minus 425 for Jared Hurd. So we'll see if the greater DMV product can find a new gear, Luke. I'd like to see that out of him.

He's still 32 years old still so young let's see what he's got left he looked bad in his last fight he looked bad and again without seeing whether there's accents on these here's gonna be do you want my gringo best guess on how to pronounce his opponent's name yeah here's my best guess jose armando resendiz resendiz okay resendiz i'll take Resendiz. I'll take that one. I'm going to be watching that fight closely. But before those fights go down, the 9 p.m. Eastern tripleheader start, you can catch Luke Thomas and myself, 6.30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Where?

How about the Showtime Sports YouTube channel? It's Showtime Boxing Countdown. Luke Thomas and I will set the stage for the evening's main card and provide you with the call of three action fights on this preliminary card, including Terrell Gauthier, 154-pound contender, fresh off that close loss to Tim Zhu. He'll be taking on Brandon Lynch. We got Trayvon Marshall and Justin Deloach in the co-feature.

And, Luke, you remember this guy We called one of his fights last year. Enrico Gogokia will be back, taking on Sam Teja, who is a veteran of Showbox as well. Gogokia, a former highly decorated kickboxer. Absolutely. He's an interesting one. Yeah, I'll be watching that one closely. Luke Topic, number two this week.

How about this from BKFC? Dude, they get on our radar a few times lately, usually through pro wrestling theatrics, but this time, how about signing big names on the same day? Luke Rockhold gets announced as a big-time BKFC free agent signing. Ash does Eddie Alvarez, the underground king so how about this for april it's i think it's april 29th i think that's actually the date in colorado 21 i think april 21 here maybe we should look mikey can you look that up here's the deal though bkfc going in

big with this pay-per-view your main event late april in color, Luke Rockhold versus Mike Perry. Your co-feature, Eddie Alvarez versus Chad Money Mendes. And there's a women's title fight as well. Ben Rothwell will also be on this card. I have to say, it's April 29th. Thank you. I have to say, Luke, that I am like, not even, there's no shame involved. I am all freaking in on this type of

slop. Like this is when I show up at that gas station on the mass Pike. And I find out that they shot the cheese into the hot dog. I know what it's going to do to me and I'm here for it. I, okay. So Eddie Alvarez did an interview, for with I think Jimmy Smith where he said that the contract is non-exclusive right so he has some options to go some other places which I think is great for Eddie I don't know if that's Luke Rockhold's contract or not I I don't mind it as much with Eddie I think Eddie still got a little bit of fight left in him obviously he's at the you know the very tail end of his career he's very senior level fighter uh but he's at the, you know, the very tail end of his career. He's a very senior level fighter, uh, but he's fighting a guy who's a natural one 45 or who's going to be a little bit bigger who we know who can pop and, you know,

who knows if he's on the gear at this point or not BC, but it better be, but I, that one, I don't think is great for Eddie, but okay. I can, you know, he's, he's a grown man. Don't look at this from like a sensible, this is not a sensible fight card, Luke, okay? It's like a, it's a circus and we're here for it, all right? All right, well, I just mean. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's.

It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy, Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game.

Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. The Rockhold one is more interesting to me. So what do you say to all the people who responded to my tweet and your tweet and anyone's tweet going, yeah, ain't Luke Rockhold a lot bigger than Mike Perry though.

Dude, Mike Perry lives for this shit. We got to find out if Luke Rockhold lives for this shit. Like he did against Paulo Costa, right? I mean, here's the thing, right?

So, okay. Your first reaction is, well, wait a second. One guy fought as high as 205 pounds and one guy is a welterweight. Like we're going to put those two guys together. That seems like a mismatch and it could be,

I don't know what weight this fight has been contracted for. Was it 195 or 185? I had to double check. So, you know, but the point is this. Rockhold's going to have to have some kind of a weight cut, right? Known durability issues at this stage of his career. Although he did go three rounds with Paulo Costa, but the durability issues I think you can his career, although he did go three rounds with Paulo Costa, but the durability issues,

I think you can't look the other way on in particular BC because the ring is tiny. And I don't know how anyone hasn't really talked about this. Luke Rockhold striking game is primarily kickboxing based, but now it's just with punches. And it's like, he probably has a reach advantage too. I'm going to imagine he's obviously a much taller person. It's like, listen, Luke Rockhold had a much more decorated MMA career. He was a strike force champion. He was a UFC champion. Like he did a lot as an MMA fighter,

but he is long in the tooth and Mike Perry is a fucking savage. So even if he's giving up all that weight, the rules, Rockhold's essential style, his durability issues, and the fact that BKFC kind of suits people who are a little bit more bite down on the mouthpiece in your face types. It's like, who are you putting money on, gun to your head, Rockhold or Perry? I'd probably go Perry. You have to ask yourself, what is the biggest adjustment? Why are so many boxers not doing this? There's been a few boxers, but it's mostly been MMA fighters. I think, Luke, because even though I don't see even people taking advantage of the clinching opportunities that there's there, I just think in general, it's different.

Now, some boxers did. Austin Trout came in and lit up Diego Sanchez. But in general, Luke, it's different. You know, I think MVP even thought he was going to come in, work behind that jab. You know, it would be easy. It's a ring is too small. You can't load up on every punch. It's a different setup.

People that are able to use the dirty boxing elements that can be a hindrance. And also it's gnarly, dude, you can get sliced open. I mean, I'm not saying that these guys aren't fighters. They, that, you know, that's why they agreed to do this. They don't care about that danger, but there's a lot of curveballs that get thrown Your fist breaking early There's a lot of curveballs in this type of environment Of which Mike Perry lives for

When he went in there in that Triller Hybrid thing they did And he fought Michael Seals That hard hitting light heavyweight boxer I thought he was going to run into something big Dude he grinded that shit out Like a man, Luke. I mean, that was an impressive manly performance.

And MVP. The same damn thing with MVP. This is what he's bred for, and he's still got enough in the tank that, yeah, he probably should be the favorite here against Luke. And I got to say, let me ask you a question about this, BC, because I can't decide how I feel about it. Maybe you feel more clearly one way or the other. Do you find it good that there is a promoter, not really in the MMA space? I mean, they're pulling from MMA fighters, which is the point of the question, but they're not putting on MMA,

right? They're putting on something else that is taking away some of these names from MMA promotions? Or are you glad there's someone who's kind of all in on the post-prime section of fighters and that's forcing MMA promoters to get a little bit better about curating their up-and-coming talent or just not relying on these kinds of names? How do you feel about what BKFC is doing in terms of taking all these names away? I feel it's great.

And it's not as if there's not risk, which is why people try to sign people to long-term multiple fight deals so they can always get the rematch or the comeback or whatever. But it's more in line. Look, Eddie Hearn in boxing has had some very prescient comments. Prescient, is that the right word? Yeah, prescient. About what the future is.

People had asked him, how were you able to get Canelo to be loyal to you when Canelo has all the leverage in the world? And he's like, because the fighter's the boss. And he's like, you know, we're in the outdated model that, you know, Don King and Bob Arum and now Dana White employ where, you know, you work for them and whatever they give you,

you'll be happy with. It is changing in that regard. So fighters should be allowed the freedom. Now, is there, if you're an MMA promoter and you've got them under contract, do you want them to go to a dangerous sport like this where they can get carved up and hurt their hands, be out for a while? No, there's some give and take and worry in that regard, but there's also something to keeping people happy. I mean, look, when I, I'll just be real honest with you. When I,

when I worked at ESPN and I don't know if the rules are the same now, you can't go do something on the side for another company unless you're at a very, very, very, very high level, right? You can't just take an announcing gig on the side for somebody else. bosses at CBS to get certain extra opportunities and experience and reps that, by the way, make me more valuable for my own employer and keep me happy. And you'd like to see more of a give and take relationship in general. But just as a fight fan, you give these guys a chance to do these one-off things where they're going to have fun. They can make a lot of money. Yeah, we're always going to argue when it's somebody like Diego Sanchez of, do you want to see this? These names in question, though, aren't at that point I love it I love the the marketing strategy of David Feldman at the moment look he you know he comes from the side the the real carnival side

of it so he's going to make decisions at times that we're going to groan at and I think Diego Sanchez is one of those and he's had a few other ones but right now well a guy died two years ago let's not forget that but right now he seems to have it figured out when they side signed page van zandt it seemed to get them a lot of attention that they needed it sparked their women's division which is fun they've got some guys that are like like lorenzo hunt who just seem like they're perfect for this and their characters and they're fun to watch and they have enough name value in mma where you'll tune in but now you're starting to get some guys who have like legit juice left to make really fun fights. Um, if you allow them to do what they want,

I mean, Scott Coker's learning that too, to a certain degree, Luke, I mean, he let MVP do this and it didn't necessarily derail, even though MVP was in a six round fight, it didn't derail his, you know, welterweight title hopes here in Bellator. He can come back happy, well-paid. It's where we're at luke you got to have options you got to have leverage you got to be you know it's different it's different yeah i mean i still have questions about the viability of the business as well as the safety of it but it's going to be in colorado for that one which is a good commission um oh by the way elevation add another factor in their elevation uh it's going to be a fun one man that's going

to be an interesting one for sure indeed well good move we'll see what breaks down with this and don't forget look in april we've also april's going to be wild we've also got the one championship u.s debut in colorado which is a loaded card yep tank davis ryan garcia no wait i thought i thought the i thought the one debut was may 5th is it yeah maybe i'm a couple weeks ago to maya i think that's right uh then we've got of course tank davis april 22nd against ryan garcia i'll be on vacation yay yeah you will uh right after the week after me luke really we couldn't coordinate that better dude it's you and i before so you were you were taking you were taking my vacation schedule for granted because yours was based on your kids' schooling. Well, now mine is based on my kids' schooling.

So DCPS has off whatever week it is in April, yeah. I mean, you know, Tookie at three years old, Luke, she can't miss that time. You know what I mean? No, I mean, she can miss days. I mean, let's be honest. She's in her... Just stay home.

Yeah, just work it. Coloring, but... April 8th, obviously, a big day as well in combat. Bro, I tell you the other day, I was sitting on my couch. I was just flipping things on the TV, and I look over,

and I see my wife and my daughter had a... And I'm not even doing a bit here. Like, for five minutes, had a full conversation back and forth in Spanish. Like, the whole way. I was like, dude,

Tukey's Spanish is getting... She can count to 50 in Spanish. She can't count to 50 in spanish is getting she can count to 50 in spanish she can't count to 50 in english i think she can count to like 30 in english yeah the toques dude the two is gonna like as a proud dad you're i know your answer will be whatever she wants to do but like what do you want to see her do in life luke i mean it's early but like nothing i did nothing i did like i don't want to see her anywhere near martial arts yeah i don't want to see her anywhere near the military i don't think i'll just be honest i think that there are way too many predators and weirdos in martial arts i think it's often a very unsafe place for women i was in the marine corps i could tell you that

during my time in the marine corps it was a very unsafe place for women. I don't really want her anywhere near either of those. Okay. But if she becomes a pop star, that can become an unsafe place to look. Yeah. I mean, there's other, but there's other, there's plenty of other things she could do that could also be awful or worse, but all I want for her is to be happy and healthy. That's it. She can do whatever else she wants. That's awesome. Uh, let's go to topic number three. This has more wrinkles than I expected upon hearing. Darren Till has asked the UFC for his release and he received it. His tweet quote says this.

What's happening, everyone? Me, Dana and Hunter are still cool as fuck. I asked UFC to remove me just to sort some other shit for the foreseeable. They happily agreed to release me out of the contract, which I appreciate. I'm not going anywhere. Got big plans to execute and I'll be back. He then tweeted what you can see there, the emojis of four boxing gloves and four bags of money. So Luke, when I saw that tweet, I'm like, is he going to do a boxing match to make money while going

back to the drawing board and MMA and figuring some things out? But that doesn't seem to be the direction. Before I get your reaction, we have video directly from him of him explaining this choice. Let's hear from Darren Till. Some like injections on my knee and stuff like that. I want to like really take care of my knees, not my knee, my knees. I was like, but some of the stuff I'm injecting into my knee, am I going to pass some of the tests and stuff like that?

There's a lot of hurdles to get past. I was like, maybe I could get surgery, stuff like that. That was with Brett Okamoto of ESPN during their interview. Luke, is this as easy and cut and dry as to say he's taking time away to exit the USADA testing pool so that he can use banned substances to heal his knee and then come back stronger with the UFC? Is that what you're taking from this? Seems that way. I mean, listen, you have a really clear and very easy choice to make.

And the good news is it actually doesn't matter because it ends up in the same place. So here's what I mean. So Darren is saying, I'm going to take time away. In this particular interview, I want to get better medical care. Okay. So you can look at that as a true statement that he has to leave the purview of USADA to get actually good, full medical care. That's a bad look for them, right? Or you can say he's going to just use performance-enhancing drugs and he'll be right back. That is also a very bad look for USADA in either way. Either way, it just shows you there's a certain level of restriction

and control that is either easy to get around or is obstructing what could be clearer paths to better medical care. It doesn't really matter which way you go. You end up in the same place. So I applaud him. And also, let's just put that aside for just a second because I realize that's going to be the forward part of the conversation given he said this.

But BC, the guy was, what, one in five in his last six? And let's just say it. Dude, he looked bad against Strikas Duplicy. He looked bad. He looked bad. He looked like his game was going in the other direction. Even if his knee was fine or whatever, whatever else you want to say about what that statement is, he told Brad Okamoto he needed to take a break. He needed to not be in the UFC. He needed time to get his game right, to get his mind right, maybe get a couple tune-ups in,

and then come back to the UFC. I actually think on just that level alone, it's a good idea to say nothing of the fact that he might need growth hormone to heal some kind of knee issue. Okay, but here's what's interesting. So he's 30 years old. Yes, losses in five of his last six, including four by stoppage. The only one that wasn't was the strong performance I thought he gave in defeat against Robert Whitaker.

Three losses in a row, two straight by submission to Brunson and Duplessis. But in this tweet, Luke, I don't. OK, so the boxing gloves and the money bags tell you something potentially in terms of options he feels he has. But in an MMA sense, he basically says, I'll be back. I'm not going anywhere. I don't get the feeling that he's going to go fight elsewhere in MMA. feels he has. But in an MMA sense, he basically says, I'll be back. I'm not going anywhere. I don't get the feeling that he's going to go fight elsewhere in MMA. And do you think there's potentially some level of agreement between him and USC? Because he asked the UFC for his release, it appears. They gave it to him. I don't think that's for him to go fight in cage warriors or

PFL or anything. I think it's for him to get healthy and in cage warriors or pfl or anything i think it's for him to to get healthy and come back that's just my two cents in my take i know he did tweet out those boxing gloves but what are your expectations you you are that that he'll go elsewhere and and fight and and get better uh well again we'll have to see uh he might just do the boxing matches and then you know come back or something uh it's really hard to say or he he doesn't come back at all, and this is the end, and that's that. I mean, it would be unwise to very clearly try to predict the future. But I think that even if he were, let's say, to take a couple of boxing matches in his time off,

if he does those right and he works on his game the whole time, including his striking game, which is the forward leading part of his game, but just in general, be in the gym all the time, training, you could focus it in certain directions as you needed to for whatever opportunities come your way. It's still what he needs to get his game in a place where he can use it to make money. It's still, he needs, he did not need to be in the UFC at this moment. He needed to go do something else, switch gears, find something else. I don't disagree with that.

I guess I'm still caught up on the idea because even though he's lost five of six, he's only 30 years old. He can talk. He seems to still have some level of like star value that he carries and aura, even though the defeats have been pummeling. Well, I don't know if UFC is just going to let that happen unless there's some level of understanding or agreement. Are they going to let him walk? I mean, would you, did you think they were going to cut him even with all those defeats right now? I thought they would keep him ultimately. I thought they would keep him as well.

But in the end, it's not good for him. Like if you're, listen, if you're winning and losing the UFC, that's tough, right? That's tough. But if your game is getting actively and noticeably worse over time, it's time to call it,

not a day, just timeout. It's time to call timeout. So again, just on that level alone, I think it's a to call it, if not a day, just timeout. It's time to call timeout. So again, just on that level alone, I think it's a good call. Whether he uses this time effectively, either for injury rehabilitation or other opportunities in other combat sports, that's up to him. But continuing, I'll just say this, continuing on the path that he was on was a path to nowhere.

That much I know for certain. Yeah. UFC doesn't usually just let people go. I don't know. It's weird. We'll see what happens right here. Luke, I've been told, though, that my celebrity doppelganger is Darren Till. Look closely at me.

Do you agree? I mean, I. If Till had done nothing but eaten Twinkies for a year. Yeah. Well, I was trying to add to my growing, what am I, what's my word lineage. I mean, you know, you understand Luke already, my, my Irish origin, my Scottish name, my adoption by the Welsh, the English, despite a loud crowd, you know, crowd pop that we got at the Pod Live Festival,

the English don't claim me. But if I look to people like I could be Liverpudlian Luke, like I'm the next Mike Owens Media, just walking, you know, scousing it out, Luke, I've touched all my bases there, you know? Do you know scouse slang? No. So if I said the word scram, do you know what scram means uh cocaine no scram means food food okay okay uh there's actually a really awesome social media account called footy scram

and it just shows you something you can get at a soccer stadium or even a park and what it is and how much it costs. And, dude, you should see the food they're serving these people in England. I mean, just dog food. Just dog food for like 10 pounds. You cannot believe people are eating this shit. But they do. They do. All right.

There we go. Look, do you want to go into dead wrong now? You want to take that plunge? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it, fucker. There's going to be, do you want to go into dead wrong now? You want to take that plunge? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it, fucker. It could be some painful L's to be had. You are on a run of taking them, Luke. Taking them, you know?

Straight to the face. You know, like, yeah, there we go. Okay. This is a segment that we offer you the chance to call us out. We're usually the one making fun of you and during fan subs. But morningcombat at gmail.com is the email address the the tunnel and at the end of that tunnel is mikey more mile our producer waiting but as long as you have receipts and you come original you're allowed to point out

that something we said was dead wrong this is our chance to be self-reflective right this is our chance to get this is our no let's just be honest about it this is our chance for the audience to roast us that's really what this is we end every week with the audience shitting on us and i honestly think that's exactly what should happen every friday i usually fight for more fan interaction in our show, you know, and you're like, I don't need to be that close to those weirdos, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't vote for fan interaction. What you do is you befriend the homeless and you're, you're this guy.

Hey, you're let's imagine we're roommates, right? We share a two bedroom apartment. We're 23 years old living together in the city of New York. You would definitely chase in our dreams. Yeah. You would do good douche me through a glass door. Just doing skits and bits, skits and bits.

But the point I wanted to make was you'd be the guy that would go on the street. You would talk to some homeless guy in the park and you would invite him to the house and bring him for now. That's what you do. And that to me is not being social. That to me is just being weird. You like homeless cats i mean all all five of my animals all rescues all of them are rescue animals okay luke all right nobody would give them any attention

luke except for me okay where'd you get reggie jackson where'd you get reggie jackson uh in shelton connecticut at a show this lady turned her house into a shelter so when we walked in there there's like 12 dogs running around and then there's a baby playpen in the middle with reggie another dog and three other kittens and he looked like he needed to be rescued and he jumped right into my arms when i bent over luke and he claimed me he claimed me as his person you know you know as my wife and daughter would say tan lindo yeah yeah and you know i'm his guy person you know you know as my wife and daughter would say tan lindo yeah yeah and you know i'm his guy and you know we have a very volatile relationship because he

breaks all of my shit and has no remorse like like not even any level of remorse but luke you know at the end of the day you know he picked me so i gotta go the distance with him you know it's kind of like you choosing me for this show i guess there. There we go. All right. Time to get dead wrong. I think this is from Paul. He says at approximately 525 of Monday's episode, BC referred to the guy who put the flex seal on the bottom of the boat, Billy Mays, end quote. Any casual TV watcher would know.

Bill Swift. Who is seen in the flex seal infomercial is none other than commercial icon phil swift dude i didn't know that shit did phil swift have cocaine too or is that just all these uh sellers i imagine all of these dudes have just died you know like david carity auto erotic asphyxiation somewhere in thailand yeah let me look this up i don't want to speak ill of the dead luke after that you know after that Heath Ledger situation, right? Yeah, I mean, you say awful shit, and then people write me. I don't think he's dead. No, I think Phil Swift's still gone.

Yeah, I mean, look, do you believe that, though? Billy Mays is dead, right? Billy Mays died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he liked to party or something, Luke. I don't know. But I'll tell you this. Do you believe when Phil Swift is taking a broken rowboat and he's you know putting some black masking tape over and spraying some spray paint

on it and no water gets in at all yeah i'm gonna call bullshit on that one you know but i'm gonna get you flex seal for your birthday every single year for the rest of your life look you'll never use it no are you handy at all i'm i'm desperately not handy are you at all uh there's a few things i do pretty well and then that's it i can't do a lot of things um yeah i do very little things well luke some would argue that even this thing that i think i do well i really don't okay i really don't just that's hilarious hanging on your shoulders there uh let's keep it going this is a no-name entry you didn't have the you know the guts to tell us who you are here goes another attempt at a submission for dead wrong at 152 26 of episode 411

mike wow they're calling out mikey here mikey chimes in to mention that luke is referencing at stale cracker as the tiktok chef yes oh he had that wrong it's uh it's ralph baker right with the affinity for garlic powder here now while stale cracker is a big tick tock chef big time one from louisiana with a heavy accent luke was referencing at ralph the baker yeah can you confirm or deny that Mikey is dead wrong? This guy. Mikey is dead wrong. We talked about it actually after the show.

He's talking about the guy who's like, I got this crawfish, dude. I'm not talking about that guy. I'm talking about the one who like puts like, he makes like queso dip and like pork tacos and everything is hit it with that W sauce there, nah. Hit it with that garlic powder, nah hit it with that garlic powder nah get that trinity cooking nah that's ralph the baker okay okay uh whoever sent this in ads if mikey

is dead wrong which he is sit on that garlic powder now mike no you gotta say nah sit on that garlic powder nah luke who's your favorite uh cajun is it uh daniel cormier or dustin porrier or the guy from the guy from uh what's the the adam sandler football movie luke billy boche the water boy yeah i remember the guy that wore the overalls and was like spinning his nickels all the time that comedian that's in every adam sandler movie you know that guy so i think i walked out of that movie oh get off come on adam sandler movies are not that good i don't know why back then they were back then i mean little nick is ridiculously bad but the other ones are you know and click look click will make you cry if you think hard enough at the message that they're trying to

definitely won't it definitely working too much and putting your family off. Adam Sandler's best performance is in the P.T. Anderson movie, Punch Drunk Love. I still haven't seen that yet. That's his best. Or what was the one you liked with the Safdie brothers? Yeah, Uncut Gems. He's extremely good in that one too.

He deserved a best Oscar nomination. He did. Yeah, he did in that one. Best actor. You know what I'm saying here. Yeah, he did in that one. Yeah. All right. Or best actor. You know what I'm saying here. I say things all the time, jumbled. I got one more dead wrong, and it's from Rob.

Rob Hudson, in fact, from Duval, Luke. Duval? What is that? Duval County, Georgia? Oh, maybe. Maybe he's a big chicken guy. Today's episode, BC said in 1994 that Chris Webber went around the back and dunked on Barkley. And the next game, Barkley went for 56 points.

That would be Luke from their first round playoff series in 94. But this guy, Rob, is saying Weber went around the back in the regular season and Nike used the clip in an ad campaign that season, but Barkley didn't light the Warriors up for 56 until the playoffs when they got swept by the Suns. 90s NBA was fire. Iverson's the best pound for pound all time. Love you guys. Go Jags. It's Rob Hudson from Duval. Luke, I'll have to look that up. Obviously my memory could be off there. That is the same season that happened. Do you remember the playing question at golden state on the fast break where chris weber went around the back and then dunked on barkley who was too far into the hoop to really contest it but like it was an embarrassing moment and that's what fueled barkley to come back and drop 56 on them on their

ass i don't remember that like you do all right sorry i guess i'm alone in this 90s nba luke i got some people who are intelligently dming me and saying you're wrong bc basketball nba basketball today is better than it's ever been and you're romantically nostalgically stuck on the idea that the 90s was some type of so so there is a uh do you know who ben thompson is no i know he is uh no no no he's a he's a writer who opened up this uh site years ago called stratechery which is you know uh he talks about the intersection between tech and the world around us and he's a huge nba fan he's actually been on bill simmons's podcast a couple of times and he has a piece up from february called What the NBA Can Learn from Formula One.

I didn't realize this. The NBA's product is suffering. Their ratings are down massively. Their revenues are down massively. They are apparently the biggest issue is not that the NBA is better than it's ever been. You could actually argue from a business perspective. It's actually almost in trouble, but its future looks extremely uncertain basketball is growing much less popular in this country than it once was so i'd be very careful about touting the the magic of the nba right now it was a guy named

keith i think his name is keith kim on twitter he did come at me correct luke in his basically saying that my love for the pick and roll, thanks Stockton and Malone. Every team's running that now they're running the spread pick and roll and they're running it better. And he's basically said as a, as a drawing point against the nineties NBA game was that it was all isolation and post-up. And I'm like, it's a lot of that.

It was a lot of that. Yeah. Isolation post-up pick and roll. Yeah. That's what it was. When you were, when we were kids at the park, man,

everyone wanted to be the one posting up to get the dribble, dribble, back, turn, and shoot and everything. You wanted to be that kid. That was what we did. I think the game within the game that I loved was when you double the post, right? And then you had people like Anthony Mason,

who was incredible. He was like a point guard in the post. And you could find the open three-point shooters. But look, the three-pointer became a part-time weapon. My issue with the game today is that because of the illegal defense changes and opening the lane purposely to allow smaller, quicker players and taking away the hand check and some of those fouls and allowing speed to become the dominant factor.

Why? To raise scoring. You mix that with the fact that every single player has to be able to hit threes to be on the floor. So the amount of threes taken on the regular, and I'm not saying it's not a skill to develop Steph Curry-like range from 35 feet. I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's lost to me a purity element of the game because everybody in this modern day on the floor is a 10 out of 10 athlete so the court's almost too small and it's just like it's a completely different game i'm not saying there's no defense adjustments play calling like all that stuff is still brilliant i still watch the finals and some of the playoffs and it's it's good it's just not as good maybe i preferred the more

grinding slow down team oriented style than the running gun, three-pointers, and dunks. But Luke, it's almost as if the modern athlete is getting too good for the setup in the game. The game is... Yeah, I see what you're saying. The game to me is just... Also, it's not just the game, BC, like with how stars move so often.

Yeah. You know, like you can cheer for like a season. You know what I mean? There used to be like these institutions, you know, that they would hold sway for long periods of time of continuity. And when someone left, it was a huge deal. Yeah. Now it's a huge deal for like 24 hours.

There's have and have nots. There's basically only like four teams you think can actually win the finals but you know i don't even like i don't like the idea of mid-season tournaments i don't like the idea of some basically every team has a chance to make the playoffs through this through all these new changes you know what i mean i don't know look it's just that this is the area i had like we always say it there's going to be lines culturally we're 44 years old now there's going to be things that are just not for us, Luke, right? Music, entertainment, whatever.

The modern games, just not for me. When I play with the old guys once a week. Also, dude, I don't have a post-up basketball. I've said this before. I don't have any idea how to dress anymore. I just wear MK merch. Cause I don't really know what to do. I don't, I don't know what a serious question.

How is a 43-year-old man supposed to dress? Well, I feel like I have a better handle on that. I don't exercise that handle a lot, Luke, because it's just more casual now. My kids wear sweatpants to school every single day. They've never worn a pair of jeans.

Never. My first high school in Georgia, so I went to Valdosta High for my first two years. That's where my brother graduated from. That school, it was a public high school in georgia so i went to valdosta high for my first two years that's where my brother graduated from that school even though it's a public high school but that school had a rule you could only wear pants you could only wear pants i mean even if you look at like video from the 50s the late 70s like regular middle of the road people were wearing suits you know what i'm saying like seriously like it was just a different same thing with television broadcasting code now you you know you and i don't wear a tie most of

the time people are dressing casual you ever see brett okamoto interview somebody look look like he just got back from the gym you know but he's cooler than us so he can pull it off right because apparently he ain't much cooler i mean he's cooler than us but he ain't much cooler than us let's be real well i don't know look you know see you you know i used to hang out with that guy you know i vouch for him you know oh i like brett i'm not with that guy. You know, I vouched for him. Oh, I like Brett. I'm not talking bad about Brett in any capacity, but the idea that he's the king of the prom, you know,

maybe, maybe better than us for sure. Can we get Yolanda to reconsider? That's really my question. I don't care. Truly. All right. Morningcombat at gmail.com if you want a fan sub or dead raw on us. You know, we're not perfect. Truly. All right. Morning combat at gmail.com. If you want to fan sub or dead wrong us,

you know, we're not perfect. We get things wrong. We say it when we're wrong, Luke, and we apologize for the most part. Sometimes we get all prior proud, prideful and,

you know, and then Luke's like that guy shouldn't have a weapon. And then people are bringing politics into it. It's just fighting and dick jokes. Okay, guys, you know what I mean? It's music recommendations,

fighting and dick jokes. That's the show. Okay. That's the show. And complaining about aging. Cause dick jokes okay guys you know i mean it's music recommendations fighting and dick jokes that's the show okay that's the show and complaining about aging because we can't you know but no luke this is the time should i make a public declaration here follow us below on socials and subscribe um i gotta turn this around i gotta get that liver in working order again okay yeah less friends because luke well i know i need to see my friends more i just need to not eat uh what i what i tend to eat because luke i got a lot more to give to you to my family to this audience to this camera right here luke and i'm gonna go the distance look they're gonna have to physically remove me from the microphone in my mid 80s it's going to get to that point you're not going to make it to mid 80s i'm going the distance i'm go i'm not going for speed but i am i'm gonna look hey chewy

you know like you know look i'm gonna be the last one standing we can call it a day we can call it a day i got that even even mikey wants to call it a day we should i got that in me you know what i mean all right all right mikey am i Am I getting the Apollo theater? The Apollo hook? Yeah. Yeah, the Apollo hook there. Thank you to Mikey Mormile on the ones and twos. Remember, folks, Saturday evening, first of all, you can watch Luke in BC

calling the preliminary action Showtime Boxing Countdown begins at 6.30 p.m. Eastern on the Showtime Sports YouTube channel. Of course, tomorrow, Saturday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, is the Showtime Championship Boxing Tripleheader. You can get 30 days free now at Showtime.com to try it out. But later on in the evening, after the conclusion of UFC 285,

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell, yes, hitting you up on the morning combat, instant reaction from the studio, from the studio. It's going to be a good time. Don't miss it. Catch up on all the great content you have missed by going to youtube.com slash morning combat, pregame previews,

room service diaries, interviews with the biggest names F around in there. You may be surprised if you have any money left from Luke's live chat yesterday, then, you know, take your wife out or something. Send a card to your mom. Something like that. All right. There you go.

Luke, do you have any final message to the people about how they can be better? You can stop listening to Brian's ridiculous entreaties and complaints about my live chat. See us tomorrow. post UFC 285,

right here, youtube.com slash morningcombat. We're going to have instant reaction to the return of Jon Jones in studio. Be there. This is a big one. Jon Jones, serial gain. It goes down Saturday. Don't miss it.

Serial gain. Let's bang, Tui. For Mike Mormyle, Luke Thomas, and myself, take care of it. Take care of it up here, all right? Put yourself first for the right reasons, all right? Don't be selfish. Wait, does that make any sense?