MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 286: Edwards-Usman 3 Picks | Conor McGregor | Francis Ngannou | Ep. 419

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

On episode 419 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell give their final predictions for UFC 286. Who will leave with the welterweight title? The guys break down Conor McGregor's interview with Ariel Helwani. Francis Ngannou is close to signing a new deal... Who will the former heavyweight champ sign with? The guys close out the show with quick hitters and dead wrong. 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

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. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. 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. Aaron, go brah. Indeed.

In fact, lose the brah, Aaron. It is Morning Combat combat your award winning combat sports showcase it's friday march 17th 2023 and you're looking at the co-hostess with the mostest yes we bring out the art brush every friday it's the beige guy the american alpha brian campbell but you don't come here for me right you know the arc you stay for me and then you hate me i mean it's inevitable right you come here for the guy next to You know the arc. You stay for me and then you hate me. I mean, it's inevitable, right? You come here for the guy next to me, right? Washington, D.C.'s finest, the best

damn fight analyst who never quite had the stones to find out exactly who he is on this earth. It's Luke Thomas. That's kind of a fair way to put it, I suppose, on some level. BC, how are you? BC, happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you. As somebody who is one-eighth Irish, I do, Luke. You know,, how are you? BC, happy St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you.

As somebody who is one-eighth Irish, I do, Luke. You know, my great-grandmother was a Brady. Never forget that, all right? Never forget that. Are you wearing anything green besides both of us having green toes and green teeth? Other than that, anything green? My liver is – my wife thought I had jaundice the other day. I was like, no, that's just my, you know, changing skin here.

You know what I mean? So, yeah, there's probably some green benefits from a from a failing liver luke but outside of that nothing else too festive today i am rocking out double triple dose of morning combat merch today so if the fine fans out there i got some want to hit up morningcombat.store um bomber jacket sizzling upon us luke's t-shirt is available. The Dead Luke brand, Factory Town MMA. You know RJ, Dunkle Gangbang. He's got so many goodies over there. So check out the best sellers. If you like Morning Hub and you're an absolute decrepit POS,

hey, buy that shirt. Add to that being our best selling item of all time. But you won't be disappointed. Thank you. Luke, I'm doing great on this Friday. UFC 286 is tomorrow afternoon, dinnertime-ish on the East Coast. And, you know, that's got me fired up. And good Lord, Luke, we are, what, eight days away from David Benavidez, Kayla Plant, Showtime pay-per-view. So these back-to-back weekends are pretty damn awesome in the combat sense, especially with Chido Vera and Corey Sanhagen next week as well.

So I'm feeling it right now. Check my blood test, Luke. I'm feeling it right now. This weekend is great. UFC 286. Obviously, you're going to be doing the post-fight show for that. Reminder, 5 p.m. start for the main card for UFC 286 on Saturday. So I guess you'll be on air roughly 7.30, 8 p.m.

And then, as you indicated, next week we're going to hit the bird to go to Las Vegas. Going to be great. Cannot wait. By the way, I saw both guys in camp. Both look to be in tremendous condition. Plant, in particular, looks like he has had the camp of his life. Yes.

So I'm excited. Dude, I cannot wait for the face-offs. I cannot wait for the presser i can do it's one of those week fight weeks where like every day you just know it's going to be wild as shit especially because boxing boxing is crazy so i i'm and the fight itself dude the fight itself is going to be great i saw an interview i saw an interview with eddie hearn he did one marcos viegas bc and he was given this fight tons of praise. Of course, he has nothing to do with it, but he wasn't shitting on it at all. You can't. It's a

great fight. He'd love to put Canelo against the winner, right? Canelo's going to return May 6th against John Ryder in Mexico, a mandatory defense. His first fight back in Guadalajara. But Luke, quickly for next week, if you're not following Showtime Sports on YouTube, now would be the time. You're going to want to check out the All Access episode

setting up that fight. And then Luke Thomas, myself, and some very, very big name special guests are going to be on the scene. Thursday's press conference. Friday's weigh-in. Saturday night, the prelims. This is going to be like real heat between these two fighters. So don't miss it. We'll be having interviews on the ground with both of them during these events.

It's going to be fantastic. A very sneaky good pay-per-view undercard as well along with that. So don't miss that. But, Luke, today is more about the old cage fight and the idea that Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman are going to meet for the damn third time tomorrow. BC, can I say something real quick? I know you're going gonna plug your interview with uh kamar usman so i apologize for cutting you off no i don't talk over you because siri got activated in my earphone um i i didn't even know that game rosado was fighting zerto ramirez

tomorrow i didn't even know until today yeah i don't like that luke moving up like two weight divisions you know that's a terrible fight that's a terrible matchup for him i i mean he's you know he's game as hell and he always takes i respect gabe rosado i respect him but jesus dude at this i just watched he was great in creed one too i just watched that with my kids the other day so love that man but not now not this way class we'll be touching very quickly on that later uh but luke the trilogy is here and And before we get back into it, what we missed the last few days and leading in, of course, to our OK Bet segment, because the people are waiting with bated breath.

Anything else, Luke? I mean, you know, do we have any ads to sell? I'd love to sell ads. Where's AG1? I'd love to sell you something. We used to sell all the ads, and our viewers complained, and now we don't sell any of the ads. But we do get nominated for awards, BC.

You want to tell them what we're up for here? Yeah, I'd love to. So here's the deal, folks. It's called the Best Combat Sports Podcast, nominated by Sports Podcast Group. So they're the group that did PodLive. You saw us co-headline their festival. Last year we were Combat Sports of the Year.

Then they named us Sports Podcast of the Year. But, Luke, I don't know if you saw the nominees for this year it's getting pretty heated up in here era hawani's mma show um inside boxing live with dan canobio and chris algeri uh remember uh renee renee paquette luke from wwe fame she's her podcast is nominated as well a bunch of other big time boxing ones like chris mannix so it's some uh pretty serious company that we're up against but if if you think we are, once again, the best combat sports podcast of the calendar year, QR code on your screen or go to sportspodcastgroup.com. Register, vote. Look, it takes like 30 seconds. You don't need to become a leered or a lord to

do it. I don't need your credit card info, but if you believe in us on this level, then keep us going. People are always like, what do i get out of it what do i get out of creating a fake email address 37 times and making you guys successful luke why don't you tell the people what they get they if they vote for us yeah they get probably something pretty great i don't know what that would be but every time we win one of these we get to go well here's the thing every time we win one of these we circle back with the, well, here's the thing. Every time we win one of these, we circle back with the bosses, and we're like, hey, what's good? We're like, how do you like this now?

We're like, do you like ball bags, right? How do you like this one, right? That's what we tell them, Luke. Not exactly in that straight and narrow. Not quite in those terms, but yeah. All right, and as we were teasing earlier, lots of bonus content at YouTube.com slash morning combat, my sit down with Kamara Usman to get inside the mind of the former champion,

along with our pregame preview with Chuck Mendenhall. There's probably other stuff I forgot about in there that you might watch. You know, people was like BC, why are you always interviewing all these boxing heads and you're content with low, low outage on the clicks because I love boxing and I want you to love it the same way I do.

Like your record collection of various jam bands, just absolutely high as fuck on ketamine playing nonsense. Hopefully Luke, hopefully. All right. All the pre-show bullshit is before us. Let's move on. Topic number one on this Friday. This is a Gaff Pierre production on the ones and twos, so shout out behind the scenes. Here we go, Luke. UFC 286. Let's recap the last couple days since Wednesday. The news and notes, the latest press conference and all that.

Atop the card in London, obviously, on Saturday. O2 Arena. It is the third meeting between Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman. Luke, I watched the press conference, and you know who the MVP of the press conference was? John Anik, on the last question, when he's like, you're damn fucking right, I'm excited about this fight.

I was like, yeah, I'm feeling it, J.A., right along with you. But Luke, did you like that little exchange there when Kamaru Usman was trying to rile up old Rocky and was like, what's your excuse for the first fight? And Leon was like, what's your excuse for that fucking head kick you got? I popped for that. You?

Yeah. I mean, listen, it's just funny. Like of all the people that we thought would have been like the real big adversary for Kamaru, you would have thought maybe Gilbert and Gilbert obviously had a little bit of success early. You would have thought Colby, obviously. Colby was the big one. And not to say the fights weren't close.

They were. They were what they were. But in the end, Usman gets the nod in both of them. And he just moves on. I know we're going to talk about Colby later. Because hello, he just appeared out of nowhere. But that aside, turns out Leon was the guy. Leon didn't give him the best first fight.

But it wasn't a beating. And then we all know what happened in the second one. They've sort of turned into rivals and pairs, and they offset each other in weird and interesting ways. He actually ended up being more of Usman's genuine career rival than I think we ever expected to be, and I think he's carrying that confidence forward into Saturday. I love to see it. Love to see it.

See, that's interesting. I still feel like... And look, dude, it's interesting. I still feel like, and look, it's hard. Dude, it's really hard. It's really hard not to comment on this fight without feeling like somebody's going to type in the comments that I hate Leon Edwards and I just won't stop. He had a fantastic win in the second one. I do still feel like Colby is Kamaru's chief rival. Obviously, the results of this fight

and the fact that we're doing a title trilogy in London with a UK resident defending champion coming in makes it certainly much bigger but Colby still feels like the natural rivalry but in a lot of ways this fight could decide on Saturday for Kamaru whether Leon actually is his greatest rival of all time or whether that might be himself Luke because that is part of the theme on the build to this third fight when we laid out Wednesday's storylines about, is this just more about Kamaru fixing mistakes on his focus and on his preparation and all that? Or is Leon Edwards really that dude?

I want to play a video of the face-off here, and I want to just get your final closing comments on the week that was at large in this close-up. Dude,on seems really confident he's not acting like the happy to be there potential one-hit wonder luke he's acting like the defending champion in his home country so i gotta believe a lot of these narratives may not matter as much as the narrative of who actually on the x's and o's is favored to win this one come saturday yeah you know listen look at this stare down boy that's an intense one that's a great one and you know you already know this but it's just worth reminding like these guys are not

here to lay down at all um both are I guarantee you fundamentally in their heart of hearts believe they're gonna get their hand raised Saturday obviously we'll see what happens is it's more than just what you believe but dude that's such, I love the confidence in Leon because he's usually kind of demure, you know? Like, not happy to be there, but, like, all this stuff. And I'm sure he does treat it like a formality, you know, because it is. But I don't know. Like, to your point, that beaming confidence is just breaking through the concrete of his sort of, you know, that veneer he has of kind of quiet and subdued.

You can see it. He can't even contain it. And usually he can. It gives me great hope for a great fight anyway on Saturday. Well, we mentioned Colby Covington and he does play into this fight suddenly. I know this was mentioned at Thursday's press conference, but Luke, I didn't watch yesterday's press conference until this morning. So I first found out about this this morning

when one Colby Covington showed up as the official backup for this main event. He weighed in. He made weight. They had to bring out the old ball blocker there, Luke. Remember, they used to just use a tiny towel like poor Misha Tate back in the day. Now you get this whole, you know, this whole beachfront sort of changing room. Luke, this was the best kept secret in mma this week we kept talking about what is happening with colby covington uh what's your reaction to seeing that he damn right signed up to be next in line which could tell you he could be next for the winner yeah i don't understand how he would be next for the winner to me i mean okay let me back up a step i can i can

understand how he would be next for the winner but i really hope he's not to be perfectly honest with you i don't think he deserves it i I think Bilal Muhammad certainly deserves it a lot more. Again, we're going to see what happens between Gilbert Burns and Jorge Masvidal at UFC 287. Now, folks were saying, okay, so just think, who could it have been? Who would have been a good candidate you could have put there in this slot? Burns, you would have thought maybe would be a good candidate, but I doubt he wants to cut this way, get off camp, go do this, and then recut again in the beginning or second weekend of April, but April 7th and 8th. I just don't think he wanted to do that, right?

So that takes him out. So then it leaves Colby and then it leaves Bilal. They went with Colby and not Bilal. You have to ask yourself why they wanted to do that. Again, I don't think that they think that they're going to need Colby. Everyone weighed in. Everyone looked good. I guess he brings a little bit of a sizzle factor because you would get the trilogy in the case of Leon being out. Or you get a fresh challenge who would fight probably a lot like Kamaru against Leon Edwards.

Obviously, they're different, but you can see some overarching similarities. So I get that. But you could have done the rematch between Bilal and Leon, which ended unceremoniously the first time. But there's something there. And obviously, Bilal's the more deserving guy. I guess it's just the sizzle factor, right? Just got to be the sizzle factor of available people who they could put in there, and that's what they did.

Well, if Leon wins here, and you're now the UFC, and you're putting your marketing tools behind Rocky as the new champion, and that's certainly not an awful idea, given the country he's connected to in the UK. And I think also, let's be fair, even though Edwards was deemed almost like anti-marketable on the build up to him finally getting this title shot, I think he's built a small but solid brand and image of himself just by being the inspirational Rocky and the speech he gave after the win and all that. But, Luke, central casting, you do want a trash-talking, competent opponent, particularly somebody from America that both sides of the pond seem to purposely hate in Colby. Colby is coming off a pay-per-view main event win, so it's not egregious. I do agree with you. You go, okay, how much longer are we going to hold back Bilal? What kind of hoops does he have to jump through?

I know I'd mentioned I'd love to see Bilal against Shavkat or, you know, we got to see what happens in the winter of this Gilbert fight. But it felt like Colby was being strategic and purposely laying low and not taking fights against rising contenders for an opportunity like this. I know him showing up today and essentially what? They get show money if you weigh in and you make weight and you show up as a potential backup i don't know if that means he's guaranteed more but i have to believe to some degree luke even if it's not a guarantee this is him showing the company i'll play ball if you give me what you what what you want what i want excuse me you know

i'll come and cut the weight and show up but i gotta be next but all that is nice but what if usman wins nobody wants to see us a third time Luke right nobody does yeah and also what off of this long layoff where he had this weird criminal alleged criminal run-in with Jorge Masvidal or whatever it's just a weird time like of all I mean and also this like we're gonna play the hits again right I mean if Usman wins do the division is starting to experience some turnover. It's time to embrace that. There's a lot of divisions where turnover is really necessary. Welterweight is one of them just playing the same old fucking hits again.

Listen, if Colby goes out there and beats, I don't know, Hamzat or Burns or something, yeah, man, give it to him. That would be so validating. No problem. I could do it. But his last win was what? The Jorge Masvidal win? Yeah.

Like, come on, man. You're going to get a title shot off of that and a fucking layoff? No. By the way, you're right about one thing. They came to him and whoever else to fill in the slot. Him doing the UFC a solid like that and making championship weight, we should point out, championship weight, that does them a favor. That does them a big favor.

They're definitely going to look on that kindly. So we'll see what happens. Well, one thing you have to say about colby he had what is colby does what does he have in his belt already the notches of headlining three pay-per-views already and you know headlining a afternoon fox show and and you know do or not what was that espn the the one in newark you know what i'm talking about that was on espn but that was in the afternoon as well it was in the afternoon it was a featured spot you had the trumps in attendance and all that um you know i feel like he's transitioning to the full-time businessman portion of his career and that's what he's committed to the rest of the way right now

uh when he has at least some leverage coming off of that masvidal win doesn't mean he won't you know come in in great shape and be willing to fight but you think you get my point there but luke quick transition here as we go from main event to Colmane. But on the way there, we mentioned nobody's really jumping through hoops to see Usman versus Colby three. One sort of bubbling narrative I've been hearing people talk about, whether it's like podcast clips or the general message board that is Twitter of, hey, if Usman comes back and regains his title, he'll be 36 in May. He just did a big-time movie. Like, would he possibly retire?

And I know Leon's already said, I'm not just going to beat him a second time. I'm going to retire him. You know, is there any idea here, Luke, that maybe Usman isn't completely long beyond this one fight, that maybe, you know, Colby knows something we don't? I don't think that's crazy. I mean, the guy we mentioned, excuse me pardon me going on 36 in a couple of months or less and dude I mean listen if he loses I think it's very up in the air there's some ways in which he could still have some big

fights and get some big paychecks but if he gets like finished again you know we saw what happened to Tyron Woodley do when he fell off he fell off a cliff almost instantly you know almost instantly when you i mean dana one time said this and he was wrong at the time but he was right in general i remember when jake shields beat dan henderson and that was very surprising because hendo was red hot at the time i believe and certainly you just thought like the h bomb jake shields was it was believed didn't have great kickboxing or striking and he was going to lose. And what ended up happening was Jake Shields took him down repeatedly, passed guard repeatedly and beat the shit out of Dan Henderson. And I remember after that fight, because obviously, you know, there

was a bit of a strike force and UFC war over Henderson and later on for Shields. But Dana said, you know, Dan got old in the fight game and you get old overnight. Now it turned out that Dan had a few more hot performances in him, but in general, BC, you know it as well as in boxing, when you get old, you get old like that and there's no coming back whatsoever. Especially in this division, Luke, this is one of the last divisions where that speed,

athleticism, reaction time, timing, all that stuff still really, really matters. That's why I thought, you know, what Woodley was doing at 35, 36 with his reign was really impressive. But when he fell off, he fell the freaking hell off. There's no question about it. It's why, look, could Usman reinvent himself as a wrestling middleweight potentially? Yeah, it's possible. But it is an interesting thought. You know, you lose the title in that way, but you take time off, you come back. What if he regains it? What if he just says—I mean, if he retires after a win here, Luke, he'd be something like 22-2.

He would have avenged the only, you know, elite loss he had in the UFC. He'd have the second longest win streak in company history. He'd have five title defenses. He'd kind of already be in that, you know, the people that are standing right outside the door of the upper room in terms of his accomplishments, in terms of his hierarchy as one of the greatest, you know, reigning champions that reached pound for pound number one status. It's not crazy or impossible. One thing I didn't mention, just updating you, the odds for this main event from our friends at Caesars, minus 240 Usman, plus 200 Edwards. Luke, let's transition to this co-main event and get a quick peek at the stare down we saw after Thursday's press conference.

Justin Gaethje coming in as your underdog at plus 190, minus 230, the red hot Rafael Fazeev, and a six-fight win streak. It's been respectful and cordial, but you could feel the intensity brewing between them here, Luke. Boy, Fazeev looks like the world's toughest barista out of Aurora, Colorado, does he not? I mean, he'll serve you a frappuccino and then serve you a fucking knuckle sandwich right behind it. And his supervisor pat cummins will be there to oversee it all that's a that's a good pull that's a good pull i like that one but yeah everyone those two fights man we said it like the rest of the card you know it's gonna

you may like it you may not it's not it's there's nothing necessarily that special about these top two fights they're just it's just wagyu beef that's what it is just oh yeah oh it is it is our colleague in this cbs sports fraternity here and mk abroad is a man who's over that border in canada and vancouver shaquille majori and look he caught up with the highlight this week and one of those key questions that you and i had during wednesday's show when kind of trying to handicap this matchup is is the wrestler that's still inside Justin Gaethje that never comes out for UFC fights is there some potential you know mid-30s reinvention here for him uh Shaq asked

Justin Gaethje something similar to that let's get his response about whether his wrestling will be a factor what are the chances on a scale of 1 to 10 that we're going to see that first Justin Gaethje takedown in the UFC on Saturday? I'm going to say a 6. Is that significantly higher than you would have said in past fights? Probably.

Probably. I think it's always something that you should make them think about so i'll uh i'll ponder that yeah do you think i i know you've said in the past that it's like it's almost like your mind or your body won't let you come fight night is that something that like you can sort of how do you sort of combat that how do you make yourself more willing to do it on fight night yeah i mean it's always a risk assessment, obviously. You know, it was never, you know, up until I got TKO'd by Eddie Alvarez and same with Poirier, you know, I thought I was being more successful in that area.

So I didn't necessarily find it, you know, necessary to take that shot. You know, against Habib and Oliveira, you know, I didn't want to take it to the ground because they've been doing jiu-jitsu their whole life and I'm a wrestler. So Luke, 60% chance? Wait, first of all, Shaq's saying he's never attempted or never landed a takedown in the UFC. Sorry, I hear two of you.

I'm having trouble with it a little bit. Hit the one in the middle. Sorry, I hear two of you. I'm having trouble with it a little bit. Yeah, hit the one in the middle. There you go. There we go. One more time? Is Shaq saying, first of all, that Gaethje has never even attempted a takedown in the UFC yet? Or is he saying he's never landed one?

I don't think he's even ever attempted one. I can double check that if you'd like. Considering his wrestling acumen, and I know this has been a recurring theme that he doesn't use his wrestling, but I didn't realize it was that extreme. Do you get any feeling, Luke, with the 60% offering that he will? No.

Oh, he did attempt a takedown on Eddie Alvarez. So he didn't get it, but he did attempt one on Eddie Alvarez. He did not attempt one on Poirier. I'll go through the list here. But remember, people say, well, he doesn't act like a wrestler. Well, he doesn't act like an offensive

wrestler. He routinely acts like a defensive wrestler. I do think that's worth pointing out. He doesn't use his wrestling in an offensive way. I think you might see it. I think you might see it, but first of all, Fazeev has really good...

I said this on Wednesday, BC. fazeev has really good like i said this on wednesday bc fazeev has fucking great takedown defense like great takedown defense so even if he was able to get one i don't believe he's going to be able to hold him down i don't think he's going to try to hold him down and i definitely don't think it's something he can just routinely go back to so to me it's like of all the fights where you were wondering will he use it i don't think this is a good opponent to even try that on i mean a little bit maybe sure mix it up you know fine but like as a okay this is going to be a wrestling based game plan against this dude i don't think that's all that smart you know i hear you and look at the end of the day luke he turns

into a a violent superhero uh and that's what does. But if you have ever wondered about the process to become that, we've got one more clip from Shaq and one more plug to the Shaq MMA YouTube channel for the full interviews. Roman Delizze, among others this week. Here's Justin Gaethje on becoming the highlight. Could you describe what that dark place is like? How do you get out of that dark place post-fight? Yeah, you know, as each day comes, you know, you get closer to the fight, you go to a darker place. I mean, the chaos that we have to, that will be my life on Saturday night is the most chaotic situation that you could probably put yourself into. And in order to have confidence and survive in that situation, you have to be content with the outcomes. The reason we're all such big fans of this fight is because anything can happen at any moment.

And if you're not content with that outcome, then it's so scary. So knowing that I have such a supportive and loving family that I can always fall back on, no matter if I win, lose a hundred times in a row or one way or the other, that brings me the confidence and allows me to go there because, you know, they know that I'm giving max effort and that's all that I can expect from myself. Look, is there a good life lesson in there and embracing what could go wrong and being okay with that potential? I think you have to. I mean, all these fighters are like, you know, I don't think about this and I only focus on that. And it's like, listen, man, I'm not, you know, I don't need to be telling fighters what mental state they have to get ready for.

Like, that's their thing and I'm not in any position to tell them otherwise. What I can say is just based on my experience, the fighters who, in a more veteran, senior role, who are more comfortable with themselves, they're comfortable with difficulty, they may have had a loss or two on their career, still high level, but not a perfect record. Even Jon Jones has a perfect record or something close to it.

But, you know, you see him now. They embrace, like, all the things that could go wrong. They embrace all the things that, you know, that all the scenarios you have to think about. And everyone's like, oh, I train in bad spots. I don't mean that. I mean, like, you'll see younger fighters won't even entertain the eye. Like, you ask them a question, they'll be like, hey, if you don't win this, what might happen? They're like, I'm not even thinking about that.

And senior fighters certainly don't focus on it either, but they let in what I'm going to call a certain amount of combat rationality. I have a little bit more combat rationality, but listen, bad things do happen. You do get hurt. You do get knocked down. You might get cut, whatever. And they really begin to think about and process those things and they try to make more cool, even-headed decisions about what they have to do and what they're up against both before the fight and during. I think you're seeing a little bit of that combat veteran rationality peek through with a guy who I think rejected all of that early in his career. He's made a little bit more space for it. And, you know, yes, it didn't go well against Olivero Rabi, but in general, I think it's improved his results. By the way, BC, lastly, so I went through the whole record in UFC. I don't know about World Series of Fighting or whatever,

but in UFC, he's not attempted any one takedown except in the Alvarez fight. And I think even that one was like a half-hearted one. Yeah, wow, that's wild. Even with the reputation, that's wild that it hasn't even been the threat of an attempted one to plant that seed. Wow. There you go. All right, Luke. Topic number two is America's favorite MMA, boxing, bare knuckle, whatever you got. Baca betting segment. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Bet your ass. All right.

Yeah. Let's run the graphic. we go okay bet oh this is luke where we go head to head picking five each in the five prepared categories uh if there's any we try to avoid any duplicate bets except for that big main event of the weekend uh let's see what we got today an update on the standings we talked about on monday luke had the golden sombrero he had the r kelly special all in5 last week. Did I do that already? Wait, has that happened yet? I'm trying to remember. I'm the first 0-5. I'm the first one.

You had, I think, 1, 1-4. I think I had 2-1-4. I mean, I was scraping the resin off the closet floor for a while just to get by, Luke. Last week, though, I went 2-3, which was good enough to claw back within 5 of Luke. 18 and 16 overall for luke which is you know i wouldn't i wouldn't whiten your teeth over that luke and make betting videos you know who i am i'm like i'm like the

washington wizards on a hot streak it's fine but it ain't gonna go anywhere you know what i mean and your boy bc 13 and 21 but you know a lot like the history of my career in life you know i've gotta i've gotta kind of scrape that bottom first luke but that come up right that comeback oh man i mean yeah at by the end of it luke i won't want to come back down from this cloud you know what i'm saying luke this cloud then what song is that is that glycerine no it's not glycerine what is that it's a come down by bush it changed my life is that from the first album is that what is that 16 stone i think that's a 16 stone creation but i could get dead wrong for that it's one of the you know the first two albums were the were the ones

like those were the i mean they were good they were really good i mean okay creed not creed fuck creed uh bush to me not an elite band but produced upwards of four like legit elite radio hits luke that that you know kept some level of badassery remember they did that conference that that concert shirtless in the rain uh that time at mtv and he could have got electrocuted and it was kind of badass you know no all right by the way i don't know if you saw rolling stone put out the list of the top 100 metal songs of all time oh yeah how many cannibal corpse in there coming in at 93 cannibal corpse hammer smashed face yeah yes why wouldn't you why why why would you uh that's

it i'd have to i'm gonna check that out that's a great countdown i like that like probably a lot of ozzy in there right i mean that's gonna be yep there's a there's a fair amount of sabbath and ozzy in there yep yeah all right luke okay bet this week you have champions advantage are you going first or second um i will go first i will go first today all right main event ufc 286 take it over all right main event so this one like last week now both of us were wrong last week we've been right before when we both had the same idea so obviously we're gonna go just 286 we're not gonna look at any of the boxing cards bc i'm gonna get right to it i really i did struggle with this one in the end and i do have questions about who i picked but i feel fairly confident in saying i think kamaru usman's going to regain his title tomorrow what gives me pause are the things that give everyone pause the condition

relative about uh or i should say um kamaru's knees and more generally his age how is he going to react to losing via head kick? You know, what changes can he make? But the thing for me is BC winning those three middle rounds, clearly having an impression of what you have to do to win those ones, getting him backed up against the fence line, putting pressure on him. I don't know if it's going to be a great fight, BC. It might be kind of a boring slash ugly fight.

We'll have to see. I don't know. I don't have a great feeling about that one way or the other. But I just feel like I've said it every time we do these picks I say the same thing because it really matters skills win fights and Leon is highly skilled but in a lot of the areas where this fight is likely to be contested I think Usman's just a little bit ahead we shall see but I like Kamar usman to win on saturday luke remember that quote from apollo creed at the end of rocky three by the way watching creed 2 tonight with the kids hitting the imax theater tomorrow luke okay so we're going to bring this thing home here but you remember before that sparring that that third fight the unofficial fight in the sparring

ring with rocky you know the ding ding uh ap Apollo took his mouthpiece out and said, hold up. You fight great, but I'm a great fighter. And Luke, I kind of feel like that. If you understand what that means in this fight, it's like, what are the sound we played on Wednesday from my interview with Kamaru where he said, I understand the concern of all these people of will I bounce back the age, the knockout, the all that stuff. But he goes, those are fears for ordinary people. I'm extraordinary. And look, I understand Kamaru can be very cheesy,

and some people think he's always kind of acting fake, and to them that's like cringey. It's always borderline with Kamaru. But I think it's right, though, this time. Like, I've underestimated Leon too much, and I admit that, right, as I continue to turn all the narratives and picks against him. Both of us have underestimated Leon Edwards. But here's the deal.

If I get the best of Leon Edwards on Saturday and I get a focused, hungry, still got it with purpose Kamaru Usman, he's the better fighter. He has more ways to win. Yes, a wild kick could happen at any time. And that wasn't necessarily wild. It was calculated. But you know what I'm saying there. I expect Edwards to compete. I expect him to be in positions to have a shot at winning a decision here.

But the ability to bring the fight to the ground, and I think you're going to see the most possibly motivated Kamaru you could ever have. I mean, to hear him talk about, for the first time, enjoying the sport again. I think, Luke, we do sometimes underestimate when somebody's at that level, carrying the stardom on your shoulders and, you know, the interviews and when you get the movie opportunities

and all that stuff. You know, for some like O'Connor McGregor, that's all they ever want to know. Normal people, Luke, can't or shouldn't want that all the time. And I think that that can distract you. So it's Kamaru Usman normal, or is he extraordinary? I think as a person, he's normal. I think as a fighter, he's extraordinary. He's going to win this. We make the same bet. Uh, it's why he's the betting favorite. Okay. No one's trying to crush Rocky's dreams. Luke, I come through this

experience loving me some Leon Edwards, but is it more likely in history that he's Matt Sarah or more likely that he's like you know frankie edgar taking the title from bj and just going right i mean look it's it's you know where it's more likely right now okay and we play the people forget the odds the first the first pen and edgar fight was highly disputed yes in fact i did think pen won that one actually um and then what you didn't realize in time was that one guy was kind of here and then Edgar was surging and there was this really close performance. But the reality was one guy was just moving in this direction.

So when they met later, he was clearly superior. That just didn't happen in this fight. Truly. I say it again, nothing accidental about that Leon Edwards KO. He timed it. He set it up.

He read it fucking great. But Kamaru dominating the middle portion of that fight in KO. He timed it. He set it up. He read it. Fucking great. But Kamaru dominating the middle portion of that fight in the way that he did, it's just hard to look past that. It is. It is. And I get the elevation change this time. I get the buoyancy, Luke, as we continue to, man, I'm all over that word right now. The buoyancy of fighting in front of your home country. Yeah, dude, there's going to be a very good Leon Edwards in front of you. The only way to once again beat him and do it in the somewhat one-sided fashion is to be this great. I think Kamaru's still got it.

Luke, give me a favorite for the weekend, either UFC 286 or I guess you could have picked off the menu. Luke, I picked one boxing match. Spoiler alert. You did pick one boxing match. I did not. I'm actually not going to give away your pick because that would be wrong. But I'll just say you took my pick for this one.

So I actually like your pick on this one much better than mine. I had to struggle to find one. And it's not like this was my number one choice even after picking or not being able to pick the one you did. Because I wanted to fit some of the other fights in other positions. So I'm a little nervous about this one. But I'm going to go Marvin Vittori over Roman Delidze. Now, obviously, we know the story. Delidze is as hot as he's ever been, just running over Jack Hermanson.

And no doubt about it, Marvin Vittori has had his struggles. But the fact that basically, not counting the shoe-face fight, which I would pick Vittori to win that one 10 times out of 10 at this point, his only other losses have come to the champions. I just don't know if Deleuze is that guy. Now, of course, he could be. That's why I'm nervous about this one. I take all the issues about Marvin Vittori seriously.

I do think he needs to work on his development. He needs to get some skills that he can really lord over the division. But even with what he's got, I think's too sturdy too defensively sound too big uh for roman delizze over the course of three rounds i think delizze is going to make some mistakes whereas i think marvin's a little bit more meat and potatoes but on a good in a good way in this particular context give me marvin vittori at minus 280 or Roman DeLizze. That is... I know, because here's the thing. I almost picked DeLizze as my upset.

So did I. Dude, I had DeLizze in a bunch of different categories on this OK Bet strip, and then I end up leaving him off because, yes, he has to make a big leap here against a Vittori who only looks compromised against the super elite. But, man, so yeah, so Fazeev at this point,

I'm sorry, not Fazeev, let me go back to this. Roman Delize is plus 230, opposite the minus 280. Ultimately, Luke, that is the safer pick, that Vittori can grind this out, can do a little bit of wrestling, a little bit of striking, right, and just not be dominated in the way that guys right below that level were when Deleuze lands that big shot. And remember, they've trained together,

so there's some familiarity with their game. You know, who's fought better guys? Dude, Vittori has fought much better guys. And they had the same competition. They both fought Jack Hermanson, and Vittori's was not a great fight, whereas Deleuze ran through him. Still, you know, it's just hard for me to completely discount Marvin Vittori's was not a great fight. Whereas Delize ran through him still, you know, it's,

it's just hard for me to completely discount. I'll say this. If Delize wins this one, shit, dude, give that guy a title shot. Cause he is ready to go. Yeah.

He's, he's rip roaring and ready to go. That Caucasian Luke, let's go to my pick of a favorite. I struggled on this one. I struggled a lot. I thought we, we were counting out Justin Gaethje and then I was talking myself back into it. And then I didn't know where to go

because this fight, to be fair, in the lightweight division is such a good one. But Luke, minus 230, your favorite is Raphael Fazeev. And I'm going to take him to beat the plus 190 Justin Gaethje. I'm going to stick with my gut instincts here. I don't think Gaethje is washed and is going to fall apart. I don't. I'm betting on ultimately the skill and poise of Raphael Fazeev, who is going to have to keep that distance, as we mentioned. But I think Gaethje, I mean, Gaethje is always hittable, even when he's getting, as you said on Wednesday, even when he's landing and setting up perfectly these devastating combinations. And, you know, he does have wrinkle to his game when he wants to offensively.

His defense is his offensive pressure. So you can hit him. Fazeev's going to have a chance to cut him, have a chance to hurt him. And, you know, I heard Gaethje talking about the Charles Oliveira fight. I'm not saying, you know, Fazeev is Charles Oliveira. But, you know, Gaethje got hurt right away in that one, like 10 seconds in, pretty badly, you know, right to the nose, across the face. And he really never recovered in terms of getting that center balance again.

And it's maybe not surprising or a big deal because this guy lives in that chaos. But don't underestimate, Gaethje also loves to be in that chaos but be getting the better of you. And he operates well within that um there are potentials here for fazeev to hurt to really hurt him and and get him off of his game and i think that's going to make it potentially just a little bit easier for him to keep that distance out strike show us the slickness but always be a knockout threat but luke i think he's gonna get a decision here it's not part of the bet but i'm gonna take fazeev here by decision i like the fazeev bet i like it i think

it's a strong one i think it's good all right all right you want to go next yeah all right so underdogs this was hard because of some other fights that i had to kind of fit into different places um again not so convinced by this because his opponent is physical and can do a lot i'm gonna give a slight nod for my underdog pick to jai Herbert. Jai Herbert has been up and down in the UFC, to be clear, and at times when he's been down, he's been really down, but I've seen moments of inspiration from him. I've seen some great striking from him. I've seen quickness, hometown guy here. He's only a plus 150.

He's not a substantial underdog, so don't get me wrong. If he loses, I'd be like right I mean you know we've seen that movie before but you know if we're at if the task is pick an underdog who you really think can get it done here I think Jai Herbert is well suited to get the upset on Saturday I'm gonna roll with him yeah he's plus 160 by Caesars minus 190 is Klein and Luke we got to be honest here like the the meatball Molly recent explosion, right? That led to her getting the Barsch duel deal and making all this, you know, fanfare with Patty. It hit perfectly in some ways, Luke, because of the, that big, you know, the back-to-back

wins, but that big one in England, that crowd matters. There's always when they go somewhere foreign like this that has incredible fans, there's always going to be two to three, you know, hometown people on that undercard who are going to overachieve and kick your screen in by really benefiting. That's why I think that Meatball Molly moment for her, you know, the London crowd was that perfect sort of gateway drug to make that happen. It could be Herbert here. It could be anybody who's going to benefit from that because, you know,

same thing when Bellator goes to Dublin, man, sometimes magic happens because of that. Dude, look, the crowd can matter at the right moment. There's no question about it. So this whole era of first pandemic and then this elongated stay at the apex for the UFC and PFL kind of playing that small arena without a ton of fans. I'm done with those days, right? Tell Fauci that I'm done with that shit, Luke.

I don't think he can stop it anymore. But yeah, dude, I think Jai Herbert is real good. And, you know, is he the best fighter in the world? No, but he's talented. I'd like to give him a shot. Okay, there we go. Luke, my underdog pick. Look, you can question my motives or my credibility here, Luke, when it comes to the women's fight game or this 125-pound division.

But, Luke, I follow this division closely. And that's the truth. And I'm going to tell you right here, Jennifer Maya at plus 150 is the potential, the potential of some very easy money against a fighter I like a lot in King Casey O'Neal, who's unbeaten, who's got some hype and momentum behind her, fights very aggressively, but she is coming off a very legitimate leg injury. And as much as I've loved the fighting spirit of Casey O'Neal, and you mix that with the idea of her potential, she's not fully, completely a well-rounded fighter at this level. And there's still some elements of learning on a job. And she's had some close fights, and it feels like a leveling out loss is in her future,

and she can benefit from it. Maya kind of is that perfect opponent from a stubborn standpoint. The wrestling game, she does land big shots from the outside. She can get her offense off enough. This is a tough fight for O'Neal, Luke. I think Jennifer Maya, who's had two, I think even

three recent losses at the very high level, the Chukagians, you know, the Shevchenkos, that level. She can win this fight, and I think the odds are off, Luke. I'm going Jennifer Maya here. Alright, fair enough. For my over- under claim, BC, I'm going to go with, I'm going to take

the under on Mohamed Mokhaev taking on Jafel Filio. Jafel Filio coming off of the Contender Series. Very dominant. Yeah, Contender Series. Very dominant. I think first round striking finish that he got. Mokhaev has had a couple of problems with ground and pound, but he has very good control. And obviously he rebounded with a finish in his last contest.

The one before that in London. Not his, I mean he won won but it wasn't his best performance still he is getting better he is he is i think putting things together he is obviously heavily favored to win this one i think he will get it done inside the distance so take i take mokaya and filio to take uh to go the under okay my over under luke will go to that DAZN Boxing main event there as Gilberto Zerto Ramirez, fresh off the very humbling loss, one-sided loss to Dimitri Bivol, first loss of his career

in that light heavyweight title fight. If we could switch the camera back on this guy right here. This guy, yeah, that'd be great, thank you. I'd like to tell you that he's fighting Gabe Rosado, like we mentioned, and he's moving way up and it's way past it. Luke, Gabe Rosado cuts every fight. He gets cut. So it's either going to be a cut or it'll be some form of a stoppage here,

maybe a mercy stoppage to some level. It's going to take the under. I think this is easy money, but I need it. I'm down by five points against you, so go to the next one, Luke. KO or sub, what do you got? All right, KO or sub. I am going to go with sub, and I'm going to go with Juliana Miller taking on Veronica Hardy, formerly Veronica Macedo. I think she did change it fully.

I don't think it's Veronica Macedo Hardy. I think it's just Hardy. But either way, Veronica Hardy hasn't competed in a while. She's 6-4. We met her backstage. She seems quite lovely, quite nice. And Juliana Miller, you know, doesn't have a ton of experience coming off the Ultimate Fighter. You know, you can pick a lot in her game that is in need of development.

I don't know that it was wise to come to the UFC this quickly. But in terms of her submission grappling, it's excellent. She actually has a win in EBI via overtime rules over Bia Mosquita, which is like a huge win. I mean, that's a dominant world-level champion, actually, in the black belt division. And Miller actually beat her in EBI rules. So take that for what it's worth.

If she gets her hands on you, she gets the takedown. She is probably vastly superior to Hardy on the ground. So I think that one's going to end in sub, BC. Yeah, it's an interesting pick. I think this fight definitely does not go the distance. I almost picked it. I don't hear BC. I don't know if that is just me or what's going on here.

Yeah, I'm still here. All right, there we go. Should I take it away, folks? What's happening here? Luke, can you hear me now? I mean, what are we doing here? can you hear me now i mean what are we doing here can you hear me now luke no uh bueller uh fry there we go now i hear you now i hear you but it's my uh it's my headphones i think bc yeah look at the camera on bc for just a second please i think miller's gonna win that fight by stoppage i'm not sure if it's gonna be sub or ko so that'll be interesting in this okay bet platform you could you inadvertently

effed me with the mokaev pick luke because my ko or sub is gonna go submission uh either one could do it here and i could win this but you know mokaev the big favorite has a ton of subs under his belt already could really be a long-term player in this division. He's going to pass this test, and it'll probably end up being a push then since you've picked the under. But I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about it. All right. I got audio issues here.

Oh, and we're back, Luke Thomas. Wow. We did it, Luke. It was a technical issue, but it might have even been my fault. But, you know, that's the breaks at this level. People come to expect us to be human. Luke, I picked Mokaev fight to end via submission. So that's going to end up being a push if it does, because you took the under. We already pushed in the Usman main event.

So I could force a tie here if I sweep my picks and you take the bagel on the other one. So we'll see what happens here. It is possible. It is possible. All right. Let's keep the show rolling here. Topic number three. Hey, random interview.

Conor McGregor came up for air. We know he flew to New York. He was on Fox News, wasn't he? On Hannity Luke. And he did some business stops. He also showed up on the MMA Hour set with Ariel Helwani. And it was nice to see an extended— I know McGregor's also been chatting to some of his, you know, MacLife cohorts, and I saw the Mom's Basement thing, Luke.

But this is Conor McGregor back, and he's talking big-ticket items here with Ariel. Maybe the biggest one, maybe not, is he believes he's going to get a welterweight title shot if he defeats Michael Chandler later this year. Luke Thomas, both champs at Thursday's press conference were actually asked about that exact quote. Leon said, as the king, I welcome all challengers. So whoever is next can get it. Kamaru answered, like I've always said, I welcome it, meaning Connor. So if it happens, it happens. It could probably happen very easily, Luke.

Yeah, it probably could. It will depend on how things go with Chandler. Obviously, that's not a gimme fight, but we shall see. We know that Chandler either wins explosively or loses that way. So it'll be an interesting contest. But why would McGregor want it? Obviously, he'd become the first guy to have three weight class titles in UFC history. That's sort of what he's chasing here, I think.

And he certainly bulked up for it. So I don't know that it's the likeliest scenario, but you damn sure can't dismiss it. Well, Luke Conner told Ariel he has two fights left on his deal, but he'll be with the UFC forever. He doesn't want to go anywhere else. The real question then is when is this Michael Chandler fight going to happen? He did seem to confirm the rumors that there was some incident on set with him and Chandler, but nothing too serious. He actually respects Chandler a lot here, Luke. But the question is, when do we make this fight? McGregor on USADA, he says, I'm not rushing nothing, these hurdles and whatnot, but we're in constant communication and there's an interview scheduled and a meeting happens and then it will be official.

But the six months thing, what they had said was two clean tests and off I go. So I assume it won't be long. Well, USADA had a quick response to that quote. Amazing. Let's show that, please. Here we go. And Luke, you saw that this is Aaron Bronstender tweeting out, ultimately said, while we meet with all athletes who enter or re-enter the pool, we do not currently have a meeting set with Conor as of today.

We have not received notice of his coming out of retirement. And they went on to defend their stance, Luke, about the UFC rules, which is six months in active testing. Luke, this escalated quickly overnight. Can you tell us what Connor tweeted and then deleted? Well, hold on. We've got to back up a step. I'm not going to read the whole entire statement, but leave the statement on the screen if you can,

because I do want to read one more time. Sorry about that, guys. I did, Luke. I read the first paragraph, and then I summed up the second. What are you pointing to exactly? I know, but it's one more thing, and then the second one, I want to do it. So when they say this is a fair way to ensure an athlete does not use the retirement status to gain an unfair advantage by using prohibited substances during the retirement period.

So the reason why I just wanted to highlight what they wrote there is it is highly unusual for USADA to put out a statement basically in response to an interview off of one fighter. I mean, they do sometimes issue clarifications, but basically what Conor did subsequent to this was he went on a tweeting tirade. Now, he's since deleted them. One of them was, you know,

you're going into the bin, right, the trash. That's one he had. But he had a couple other ones too, right? And I got them, I saved them, I sent them out yesterday, and I took screenshots of them. Here was a couple of the ones that he had, BC, which I thought were really, really interesting.

Here's the first one that I thought was um of note quote over 70 clean tests never violated once i will not be scapegoated by this garbage organization you are not the be-all end-all in this equation you saw and then someone uh said something to him about what he was doing whether he was lying he was like this is the thing that's bothering me. They're putting out these statements in a way that says that, in McGregor's view, that makes it seem like McGregor is lying. Now, I don't know who McGregor has talked to. I don't know. It seems like there is a degree of miscommunication or lack of communication here between the parties. But let's just be really honest about what is happening here.

McGregor did what he did for what seems like what he has said was medical purposes because the injury was so severe he had to go outside of what you thought it would have typically allowed to get the kind of treatment that he wanted. And now he has to get back in. He is using the two testing rule and then he is assuming, I think rightly, that the UFC is going to waive the six-month testing period like they did for Brock Lesnar, because folks, in the end, here is just the reality. USADA works for the UFC. They don't control the UFC. They don't dictate to the UFC. They are paid by the UFC to perform a service, but to the extent that the UFC decides

that service impacts their business, they are allowed to go around service, but to the extent that the UFC decides that service impacts their business, they are allowed to go around it. And it looks to me like what's going to happen here is Conor McGregor is just going to bulldoze all the protocol because he's Conor McGregor. I will tell you, as someone who has obviously expressed a number of views on anti-doping, it's funny to watch this. Candidly, I'm getting a great deal of enjoyment from it but at the same time i this is not the way it's supposed to go either right like

the way you would an ideal scenario would be the fighters working with usada to craft a policy that someone couldn't do this in i don't think this is good for the market necessarily either but might makes right in this business which we always know and connor's gonna get his way here anyone who thinks usada is gonna stop connor boy i i would take the fucking under on that well this this is gonna be a big moment now the moment's not too big because people already have pretty strong opinions about usada and what role they actually play and whether this is just ufc you know dotting their i's and t's and having an insurance safety net but um you know in the past when they bent to to brock and the ufc the way that happened and then when he looked i mean he didn't like barely fail a test this wasn't pico

grams like brock failed the shit out of that that was like brock was using like a motherfucker i mean that was like chael sonnen level or stephen bonner and the anderson silva fight level of like yeah guys i like you're damn right i'm using let's do it you know what i mean like no like that's what i was wondering about chael like chael knew he was going to get caught under that old system right luke but he's still like eff it i you know yeah like it's just worth in his mind i think it was just worth the risk or whatever right because even if he wins it and then gets stripped he'll always do the bit that he won it and that he's the real champion so for someone like him in that spot he was able to take that ridiculousness and just ride with it. But if this is allowed, especially like, dude, I know it's just tweets.

But, you know, when you have that many followers and you're at this level, like those are some pretty damning tweets just straight up. Like unless the UFC, which you know they're not going to do, unless the UFC comes out and is like, Connor, we're fining you for those incorrect comments about USADA. And then they put out a release that says, Conor McGregor will adhere to our own rules, blah, blah, blah. That's the only way I would believe that USADA actually is what it's supposed to be, Luke, and not a bit of a dog-a-pony show in a lot of ways from these various moments. He's going to run them over.

He's going to run them over. But BC, there's something— And they're not going to not gonna do it look there's no chance that actually happens there's no chance ufc actually steps in here and tries to like fix it and be like no no no he's wrong guys we actually have they don't care they don't even care luke they don't even care and also do the advertisers care no do the fans care nope some of the other fighters might care but even then the severity of his injury, I don't think the other fighters really care. Does Michael Chandler seem to care? Nope. Like, I'm just wondering who cares here besides the people who are zealots about this issue. But BC, there's one more aspect to the story that I think is getting lost a little bit, and it is worth reminding people. I often ask people to read some of the scholarship on anti-doping,

which I realize is a fool's errand because it's dry literature and really no one wants to go through it, but it is highly informative when you do. One of the longstanding, well-documented, long prior to UFC and USADA ever getting into business, Criticisms of anti-doping is that when you institute it, it actually has a bit of an inverse effect. Namely, we have seen this across numerous sports. What ends up happening is the athletes or the teams or whatever that are very rich and well-positioned to have either lawyers to fight in court or hire their own chemist to get a proprietary blend or whatever, guys who are in control of the power structure, they're able to get past and invert all the

rules. Meanwhile, all the people at the lower end of the sporting economic spectrum get run over. Guys like Tom Lawler. Bad science. He doesn't have a lot of time and lawyers to fight anything. And they ruined his fucking MMA career. They ruined it.

One of the perverse effects of heavy anti-doping is that it actually enables the rich while it penalizes the poor inside that sporting economic spectrum because that's all it really ever can do. It actually can't do much more than that. You are seeing that play out here yet again. Yet again, more evidence from what we already know, well documented, anti-doping ends up actually being totally ineffective against the rich while being overly punitive against the poor. This was said long before UFC ever signed with USADA. It was a criticism I brought up when they made this deal. Everyone looked past it and look at it now. Live, in your face, it is happening in real time. It wasn't made up before.

It's not made up now. It is time to look at this and say, does this really benefit the sport? Does it really benefit the athletes if the rich can just do whatever they want and the poor are fucked for years at a time. I ask people to really consider what I've been asking them to consider all this time, which is the evidence. Not the talking points that all these entities put out. The evidence. The evidence is fucking clear. It's shitty for people at the bottom.

It's great for people at the top. Damn right, Luke. I think that was a speech on, you know, life in general and structures of business and government i'm out with shaking to my core but i think you nailed it though just the same i mean seriously it's weird it's either weird or perfect depending on your angle because if this was any other sport or league like the nfl and you know somebody prominent came out in such an in you know direct way against one of the, the inherent structures, like when someone comes out and criticizes officials and then, you know, you

typically have a fine around that or some level of, you know, you don't want that message. You don't want the message out there that some of these things could be true. Luke in general, across the board, the UFC is like, not only we don't't care at all we're not even going to address these issues um they you know like with the Dolly incident with Conard like find areas that they can actually market and benefit from it that that's either really good if you don't care about the politics in sports especially in fighting and you're like dude f all that stuff but it also it's also absurd that there's just never a response. Like, this will just go away tomorrow, Luke, and we'll put some more slaps and F it fucking Fridays in the news cycle, right?

I mean, that's just like... But BC, again, this is always what happens with doping issues. Always. Always what happens is people clutch their pearls and they wring their hands about how upset they are. But then when you just look around at, you ask the individual stakeholders, fans, advertisers, whoever,

are you really mad about it? Are you really going to stop watching? Nobody ever says yes. Nobody ever says yes. It's just a fucking lie that people actually care about this. They care about the scandal for fun. They don't actually care. You're right.

You're right. Luke McGregor in closing here uh told ariel he wants to fight twice this year and said about again about the chandler fight i assume late summer maybe a little bit later depending but i would like that so obviously luke we're at month uh three right now of this year uh the six months could still make a september fight happen if let's say behind the scenes they were you know ufc still make a September fight happen if, let's say, behind the scenes, UFC was like, Connor, sign up, dude. Let's go. What the hell are we doing?

I mean, even that is ridiculous because you're basically allowing him to set his own terms of this six-month window. But we'll see, Luke. I don't know if he's getting a second fight in after that. Interesting also, Luke, he told Ariel that this fight, this comeback comeback was actually offered to him as Nate Diaz for a trilogy. He accepted. They brought the offer back. There was, you know, they probably tried to lowball Nate a little and they offered Chandler and they ended up coming back to Connor and going, no, it's going to be Chandler instead. And it's going to be the ultimate fighter.

Does that surprise you at all? No. You know, in talking to some of Nate's people, it seems to me like, and I know we'll talk about Francis in a minute, but I think they have the same idea that Francis does, which is going to get a boxing fight first. Going to get a boxing fight first. Yeah. Let's get some money. Let's do that.

And then, you know, after that, I think it's wide open. Who knows after that? But I just think he wants the boxing fight first. So this was the next best option i suppose yeah um it was interesting to see connor back at it luke it some things he said sound like the old you know mystic mac of old other things sound sound quasi delusional there's gonna be a lot of questions about him coming back from this injury i mean the other point i wanted to bring up was i know he was trying to flex on how like i'm a fighter and I'll be fighting until they, you know, until they make me stop. But look, he basically told Ariel that like even if his leg hadn't healed, he was still going to come back in quietly debilitated and not tell anybody and then pull guard the second the fight starts.

And he even said he's been working on innovative offense from your back for that case. And it just so happened that the leg healed enough that he feels like he can actually make a legit comeback. I'd like to get your thoughts on that, Luke. You know, Connor says some funny stuff like, you know, all of the touch button to park stuff. I mean, that was Nate. But like all the Ido Portal movement stuff, it all seems kind of silly and crazy. And you're like, what is really the value here? And sometimes like against Mayweather, it didn't help him.

But I actually would say Connor does have interesting ideas about health and wellness. Not all of them all the time. But he has been a little bit ahead of the game in certain ways like movement training function training things like that he was he was more willing to embrace i think some of those things in ways that others weren't i don't know what he's got cooked up off of his back i'd be curious to see it but i wouldn't be so quick to poo-poo it i think we're often because connor just says crazy shit like we just gonna i would be no i believe him i believe he would actually be willing actually do that and it's ridiculous it's

kind of what we got on tj dillashaw for right it's like okay cool you you'll fight to the end but if you're not you're not able uh it's interesting anyway here's a transition from topic three to four luke connor was softly dismissive of francis and ghanu's choices in walking away from a contract with the ufc and that takes us to francis Ngannou, Luke, who caught up with Ariel as well this week on the MMA Hour and gave an update on his free agent quest. Francis says, I have made a decision without making a done deal. I know what my next move is going to be. I know I want to fight boxing first, but after that will be MMA and I'm going to sign with

one MMA promotion. I haven't made a decision on that yet. I'm very close, but PFL and one championship right now, we are very close. We will see. Luke Thomas, he said boxing will be first. I'll comment. I'll get his comments on Wilder in a second. But in terms of signing with those two potential free agents there, do you have a a preferred one do you have a feeling which one over the other can offer more what do you look at for her for this i mean i don't really understand it so like okay so there's basically two considerations here that are top of mind for me first do they have the money? I suppose PFL and 1, having had relatively, especially 1, relatively recent cash infusions,

that maybe they do. I don't think that's totally crazy, but I still wonder exactly what they can really offer him. And the PFL side, obviously, they're probably going to tie a lot of the revenue to whatever he could pull on pay-per-view for them. So that would be kind of interesting. I want to see how the money works on that one. The second though is i don't know who the fuck he's gonna fight like bellator would have been a better fit for him and everyone's like oh we work you know for showtime and cbs yeah sure you know but like just tell me okay so if he went to one who would he fight to

me you could have the arjun bowler fight who was the champion but the guy that would be more interesting is you and i are big on him anatoly malikin now that would be a hell of a fight i actually think malikin would give him a fight to be perfectly honest um malikin's a tough fucking guy he's gonna be a big star in the sport but okay that's one or two fights you could do there's boucher there but he ain't really ready for a guy like francis you go over to pfl it's like dude i i, I don't even know who could even last a round with that guy. So, you know, I don't want to poo-poo Francis' efforts. We just have to be realistic where the money is going to come from, how they're going to package that in order to watch him, and who the opponents are going to be. I don't know.

I don't have high hopes outside of maybe a Malikin fight so uh this is a bad example because um uh uberim luke just popped for uh for yeah in kickboxing in kickboxing uh over him there and but which is you know let let them play let them play luke but what if like okay i'm signing with pfl i'm gonna headline their first pay-per-view and their launch of this, and I'm going to fight like an Overeem or something like a free agent big name, something like that. And the money was great, and he already had a boxing payday. I mean, I get what you're saying. You wouldn't be

crazy excited, but there's some vibrancy there, right? To come have a pay-per-view, come back on a loaded card potentially, and then maybe enter their tournament and win their heavyweight championship. you saying there's there's nothing there not saying there's not nothing there but the problem with being at the stage where i think francis or any major really major pay-per-view star is is that the other organizations aren't really suited for that business right that business is exclusive given the way the market is constructed

where the ufc has again 80 plus percent or 80 roughly of the world's elite talent the ufc makes 90 of all the money made in the industry in general that relationship works well as a pay-per-view entity when you're with the pay-per-view driver in the business when you're outside of it you've kind of outgrown those other organizations. And I want to be clear about something. 15 years ago when I was getting into the business or starting out anyway, it wasn't like that.

There was much more parody. It was mostly UFC and Pride, but there were other sort of small, especially from like 2001 to 2005, there were some of these smaller shows, not as much money in the game i'm just sort of pointing out there was much more parity between the promotions but that has evaporated it has changed dramatically since that time and so when you're outside the ufc and you are uh you

have a certain set of business needs and expectations and certain realities i think in many ways you know you you do it in a way where it's outgrowing these smaller promotions. It's a, it's a tough fit. It's not an obvious fit. So I'm curious to see how they're going to make it work. Yeah, I agree. I agree on everything you said. I don't know the situation with Bellator beyond having seen Scott Coker even recently mentioned that, you know, they have interest, but it wasn't one of the finalists here that Francis mentioned.

You'd love that potential synergy of like, you know, fight Wilder on Showtime pay-per-view and then, you know, fight Ryan Bader for the Bellator heavyweight title, what have you. But we'll find out what happens, where he goes, either way. Luke, he was asked by Ariel on whether any of the potential suitors have agreed to the same type of demands he made regarding like health care to the UFC. Here's his quote. Guess what? So many of them are coming up with some of the stuff I asked for. They are proposing a plan to work on it, to get it better.

Obviously, we can't get everything done at once, but there is a willingness to improve and make things better. I was surprised I'd even have to fight about it. I didn't even have to ask. They were coming up with some offers and proposing terms. Hey, Luke, it got him excited, but I actually think, you know, look, it doesn't matter what side of the line you sit on, whether he made the right move or, you know, because nobody can predict the future. You know, to some people, the virtuistic stand he took was everything. To some people, that means nothing here. But if this is actually making change

across the board, at least in the other big promotions like that's that's what happens when you when you take your platform and you know risk something to try to make it to try to make good things happen like i i it's great to see that yeah listen i i will tell you and and just be honest now you're a boxing fan i think first um so you know your answer is going to be a little bit skewed here but just like i think, I think, try to put your MMA hat on exclusively. What would you rather see? Would you rather see Francis fight Deontay Wilder in a boxing match, or would you rather see him fight Anatoly Malikin in one?

Now, don't get me wrong. I would love to see him. I actually think that's a great fight. I think Malikin would be a tough customer. I'd probably favor Francis to win. Even our, what's the guy's name, Luke? Arjun Buller, yeah. Yeah, Buller, that guy's fun to watch too.

That'd be a real interesting fight, right? And he can wrestle. That's actually his primary skill set, so that could be interesting for a time. But, you know, the answer is fucking Deontay. Like, dude, like, that fight is amazing. And it's not like the Tyson Fury fight where he got a big name.

You know, Wilder doesn't't have as we talk about all the time doesn't have great fundamentals you got two guys with insane freakish KO power that's just manifestly much more interesting than whatever else is out there so you know I appreciate he's going on his own path but I really really really hope whatever happens whatever else happens I

really hope he can sink a big boxing fight just for his own sake and ours it is ridiculous to go from UFC heavyweight champion to a really big boxing fight that like actually matters. I mean, like Conor did that with Floyd. But even though it was Floyd coming out of retirement, he was close enough to competent age where, you know, like that's that's a big ass deal. It looks like boxing will be next. And according to Francis, when talking to Ariel, he said, yes, Deontay Wilder iser is the front runner at this point we are closer with wilder than with anyone else maybe sometime this summer and he was asked about the idea of why do a boxing match with wilder over a hybrid fight or the

opposite and francis said i think there's more interest in us boxing because i can give him more of a challenge than he can give me meaning on the other side in mma and that's yeah i think that's right luke it's potentially right potentially he also make it absolutely crazy it's not i mean he also no matter the no matter if he comes in skilled trained make good transition or not you can get absolutely flattened against deontay wilder no matter your skill level so uh no matter your toughness level so i i mean what what is the potential on on a pay-per-view like that what is that potential great that's a great question i honestly think it's good i don't know if it's a million buys but if it's promoted well um i i think it could do a north of 500k buys i do believe that i really think about that that's in a that's like a a

straight up attraction fight it's like let's take the two most devastating punchers on the planet you know that it's it's it was like when let's take floyd and connor in their own way the two most popular vibrant whatever you know notorious ones together um this this that's interesting so i don't frances frances this is not quite right because dionte is kind of mocked a little bit for his lack of technical refinement there is a little bit of that that goes on and we've talked about like who's the hardest hitter dionte is on that list but some of the other hardest hitters like julian jackson or ernie shavers they had it with a wider array of punches than dionte does Deontay's power hand is just it's

just the it's the dim mock he's got it in some ways not the technical aspect per se but like Francis kind of is the Deontay Wilder of MMA in the sense of like who if you had to say who's got the biggest power punching in boxing it's right now it's Deontay who's got the biggest power punching in MMA it's Francis put them fucking two guys together you know what I mean like it's it's just it's just you don't have to be a technical genius to appreciate the fight it's easy to get the people in you're bringing two worlds together you're bringing you know like it's godzilla versus whoever the fuck like it's just so easy to enjoy and sell um yeah i hope they make it i really do yeah i'm starting to really get the it's weird i mean i

never thought we'd be here you know i thought if he did do it you know there seemed to be some synergy there with fury and some of the foundation that they built and trying to promote that and and it was like okay but you know there's a lot of ways francis can win even by losing just by being competitive or showing great toughness or whatever. And obviously there's a lot of ways this could be a very painful payday in that regard. But there's part of him, Luke, that it's not like, again, a lot of it is the money. But I do think it goes back to like this is like the boyhood dream. And Francis, you know, he he left his home country to try to become heavyweight boxing champion. He kind of stumbled into MMA in some regards.

So he's going for it he's freaking going for it uh let's go to quick hitters here luke um i don't think boxing fans were prepared for this after parting ways with blk prime ab adrian broner the can man anyone can get it luke including the last stop on the boxing promotional highway, Don King. This really happened in 2023, Luke. Wow, brother. Look at that picture that Don King's PR staff emailed everybody after the press release. No subject line, just the picture, by the way.

And there's stacks of cash. There's a cracked cell phone. And I mean, dude, it's crazy. I mean like AB is only 33. I know he's got a lot of mileage on him in many ways, Luke, but he's still a four division champion. He's still got a 34, four and one record, but he only fought once in the last three years. Uh, and he's, you know,

skewing much more towards, like, joke falling apart almost the end of Mike Tyson's reign in the last few fights than anything else here. I don't know what the hell this'll mean, because if you go with Don King, you inevitably are going to take him to court.

That's sort of how that works, but I get that, like, he's still willing, if he can get somebody into a title fight, to work with everybody and he put that in the press release so it's just man this screen this is a different type of uh of funk and i can smell the desperation luke it's amazing don king is in his 90s and he's still out here just swindling these fighters i mean it's unbelievable it's unbuttoned his longevity in the boxing game

truly given everything he's dude don i don't know if folks understand this we're old pieces of shit when we were young pieces of shit don king was being mocked as like you know bad for boxing when we were teens dude when we were teens and lo these many years later he's still here doing this listen i don't wish bad for adrian i really don't i don't get any it doesn't do me any good to root for his demise i don't get anything out of it um also like you know they're showing a picture with all that money in the front end it's like yeah but how much is don taking on the back end and the writing you know i want that no seriously you can go fighter by fighter that have worked with him you either take him to core or you end up sitting out you know a year and a half randomly

because i mean there's always there's always something bad on that didn't do i just take him to court i probably dude it's so consistent that like everybody does you know what i mean like and the only difference though is let's let's give bob arum a lot of credit because they were long time rivals and roughly the same age. But, you know, Bob's still with a major machine on top. Don has not been relevant for a long time, although in the last 15 years, you know, whenever he does get a fighter or a champion, he'll, you know, you'll see him again. He'll pop back up. But he had like Berman Stiverne for a while.

Yeah. He's had a couple of guys. Amir Imam. He has a couple of random guys pop up. Remember Vanus Martirosian went with him for that one fight and it was like a deal with the devil type thing. I think Don King helped Vanus

get the Triple G fight last minute. Something like that. Anyway, Luke, we'll continue on these quick hitters. We'll see what happens with AB. PFL Europe. Big splash here. We knew Dan Hardy had a future there, Luke. The announcement, though, yesterday, Dan Hardy is the head of

fighter operations for PFL Europe. He's also going to do broadcasting for them. He told us during our MK and UK live show that he would have a role in some form also on, I believe, their American broadcast. Luke, this is a really strong hire, but they're imploring him to be a scout on the road,

help in matchmaking. This is a big deal here. It's a great deal. Obviously, we love Dan Hardy over here at MK. We enjoyed seeing him in London, and obviously we met his wife Veronica backstage. She was lovely as well. It was just great.

Dan's a good guy. He's a smart guy. He's a hardworking guy. He just seems like there's just not many Dan Hardy types in MMA. So the more keys to the kingdom that he can get, I think the better off we all are. And shout out to Saul, Luke. You know what I mean? Better call Saul, right?

Oh, Saul's the man. He's the man. Luke, UFC announcing a return to Abu Dhabi, not just for season two of power slap but how about a pay-per-view in october ufc 294 uh will you be filling out a credential request for this where is this uh abu dhabi yeah no i won't be going to uh abu dhabi no i'm good thanks all right all right i've been to the middle i've been to the middle, BC. I don't need to go to the. Oh, no. We've heard horror stories on covering fights there. And it's not necessarily like Abu Dhabi or the Hotel's Fall. It's just the grind.

If you had to go to one Middle Eastern country, where would you go? You can only go one. I'd probably go to. I don't know. I mean, was Naco at all an option, Luke? Was that an option at all? You wouldn't go see the Great Pyramids and all that? No, I would probably consider Israel or Egypt, Luke.

I've been to Egypt and I've seen the Sphinx and I actually went inside one of the pyramids when I was a kid. So I would recommend doing that once in your life. Okay. Okay. Not connected to this because Abu Dhabi card will be October. But, Luke, I also saw Jon Jones had a weird tweet at Stipe in which he basically said, like, I hear July might not be it, but I'm willing to fight you July, October, September, like whenever. I wanted to give you, again, an updated guess from you at what the international fight week main and co-main is

we just talked about the threat of volkanovski versus yair being potentially the main or co-main if it's not john jones and stipe what do you think the other one would be so you could potentially do a welterweight title fight just given the timing depending on how that goes like just imagine for a second that this is unlikely but that both Leon and Jorge Masvidal win I mean I'm not saying that's the fight that I want to see but that just there's just no way they wouldn't make it right there's just no way they wouldn't make it so there are some other opportunities but I would say losing Jones I mean Jones Stipe would be for the UFC's purposes and I think the fan appeal that would be a great fit there's not a lot of there's there's other good fights you could put in that role right but there's not a great substitute for that on the on

the radar especially since Conor won't fight till after that I mean I'd take Weili Rose Rose three but I seem to be the only one pushing for that these days luke you might be i haven't heard anything about that division's top in a while have you strawweight i haven't heard like any kind of update not recently not recently i need to get on the ones and twos there call up uh mcmain or luke or sean shelby there uh fight announcements hey you mentioned the one championship unification that they're thinking about. It's got a date, March 24th, and it's Arjun Bueller versus Anatoly

Malikin to unify this title here, Luke. And yeah, hell yeah. March 24th? No, that's got to be wrong. That'd be a week from now. They were supposed to fight, but it got Buller pulled out, so I don't think that fight's on the card anymore with Malikin and Buller.

Oh, cause I didn't read the fine print closely. Luke it's off. There you go. That's the news. Thank you. Glad you're here. Wow. I just,

let me just, I could put the stamp on the envelope and mail the rest of the show in Luke, Emily Ducati, April 29th, Pollyanna Viana, UFC Vegas 72. Is that,

that's a good one. That's a great one. Emily Ducati has been on my radar for a while. She had a great debut against Jessica Penne. I'm not sure if she's fought since then. I think she may have been lost, actually. But in general, I think she's good for the opportunity, and Polyviana should be a great test.

Okay, that same night. How about this, Luke? April 29th, Arman Sarukian versus Hinato Moikano. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, what is there not to like about that? That is excellence.

Give me more of that. So May 20th, UFC Fight Night. You know that guy Slava Claus, Borshev? He's back, Luke, the Mr. Faber product against Mahashate is that how you say that? I'll have to look it up let me see that dude's fun to fight this is a weird fun fight isn't it?

I forget how you pronounce his name he actually has he's like Sting he goes with just the one name sometimes yeah yeah I should be into that Luke June 3rd Tim Elliott vs. Alan Nascimento you don't care about that not much I, Luke. June 3rd, Tim Elliott versus Alan Nascimento. You don't care about that. Not much.

I do. I do. I'm a big Tim Elliott guy. Eric Anders, Marc-Andre Berial. Who's writing these? That's June 10th, Luke. Same night, Miranda Maverick against Jasmine Jazdavicius. I'm into that one.

That's a great one. Jazdavicius. That's a great one. Looking forward to see if those two can take a step forward in their career, Danny Sabatello recently resigned with Bellator. He comes back at Bellator two 94 against Marcos Breno. I don't know that named off offhand, but I'll be excited for that and targeted for may at UFC two 88.

How about Drew Dober versus Matt Frivola? Love that one. Two absolute dynamos, you know, Frivola is going to bring the fight to him. Dober is not going to back down. Love that one. Two absolute dynamos. You know, Frivola's going to bring the fight to him. Dober's not going to back down. Fireworks for that one. Yes. Injection City, please. And to recap again, this Saturday we do have some boxing on the zone there

from Long Beach, California. It's Gilberto Ramirez against Gabriel Rosado. And then in the co-main, Joseph Diaz Jr. against Mercito Hesta. And then also – I'm looking, Joseph Diaz Jr. against Mercito Hesta. And then also— I'm looking on the calendar here, BC. The March 18th fight, same day over in Dubai, the Jarrell Big Baby Miller. This is the same Big Baby Miller who tested positive for, like, all the steroids and didn't get the Anthony Joshua fight? And then, like, a week later, they're like, hold on.

He actually tested positive for an additional one. They were, like, separating his feces and urine. Like, nope, found more, found more in there. He came back, Luke, recently, like off TV, like low level. And, but he was like fat as shit, Luke. He's going in here against Lucas Brown, who's, you know, from down under, who's been around a long time. That's a gross, it's kind of a gross fight, Luke. But I'm sure, I know Ray Flores is on the call there in Dubai.

So shout out to uh to sweet baby ray there but uh jonah carol and miguel mariaga nobody cares the rest of the way that happens on saturday if you're like a hardcore uh you'll be there all right luke let's go now to a quick helping of what we do every friday morning combat oh no sorry hold let me pause that one second look before we get there before we get I'm going to be dead wrong myself right now. And let me reiterate something to you, Luke Thomas. Leon Edwards, Luke, he's got the home field advantage when him and Kamaru Usman complete their trilogy tomorrow at UFC 286. Am I right?

That's right. For UFC 286, this one could go either way, which makes it a perfect opportunity, BC, to take advantage of boosted odds at my bookie. That's what I'm talking about. When it comes to betting on the UFC, there's a ton of value in prop bets, like predicting how a fight will finish and how many rounds it will go. Getting started is easy. Just visit my bookie dot a G and use the promo code combat. That's combat with a K to claim a welcome bonus up to a thousand dollars plus a

free $150,000 March madness bracket contest entry. Yeah. And if you want a sports book that gives you the most for your money, bet on this weekend's UFC 286. I'm sorry. Yeah. 286. It's what it is tomorrow,

but bet on it with MyBookie. Bet anything, anytime, anywhere with MyBookie. Damn right. All right. This is my co-host. His name is Luke Thomas. And Luke, every week we say a lot of things into a microphone and it ain't all right. Okay? It's not right, but it's okay.

We're going to make it anyway, Luke. But our fans can email morningcombat at gmail.com and they can tell us with a receipt, some chutzpah, and maybe the balls to tell us off in the process that we were dead wrong. We've got angry male viewers. All right. This is Paul from Texas. Hey, MK, a short dead wrong for

today on wednesday's episode bc said juliana miller is from the dana white contender series when she's actually from the ultimate fighter as its flyweight tournament winner last season thanks for having this part of the show because many others either say more incorrect facts or butcher names worse than the animals in BC's gas station hot dogs. Wow. We appreciate the accountability for the team and donks alike, Paul from Texas. Yes, Paul, I continually got that wrong. I mean, it's the same thing, though, right? It's like the JV last AAA, like the last station, Luke, that gets you ready to launch.

Okay? It's the same thing, right? All right. Fair enough. Luke, I think Killer Miller is going to make some noise. She's going to knock some people out and do crazy things and tap them off. She might. She's got to work on her striking.

It needs some work. But her ground game is phenomenal. All right. Our other Dead Wrong of the Week is aimed at you. It comes from a fellow named Austin. At 1.26 of episode 417, that's an hour 26, Luke stated that his daughter's new favorite movie is The Princess and the Frog. While I agree with this choice of movie, I cannot overlook the error Luke made when he explained that the movie was not in fact new and has been out for five or so years. The Princess and the Frog is a 2009 disney movie and while sometimes i also feel it wasn't that long ago we must remember how truly old and washed

we really are that's from jesus hold on let me double check that is that fucking true if it wasn't for these pedantic pieces of shit look we wouldn't even had a segment this week so maybe we'll both take those l's and yeah fuck 2009 shit's going fast are you finally at the point that when you see things from the 2000s on tv it looks like really really old like even like the fashion the style like so funny i remember watching certain games at that time and thinking you know this looked great or normal or didn't look bad in any capacity and then watching replays years later like holy shit it looks so old yeah it looks so fucking old yeah yeah we were much younger in those days i have to dead wrong myself i said yesterday on my live chat which i know you don't care about this my part was for free that uh someone had asked me to watch the movie in bruges you ever seen the movie in bruges bc uh no i have seen moulin rouge the the music video many times

uh in bruges is a good movie it's got colin farrell in it actually it's and it's got uh i think uh ralph fines in it too it's actually really good uh and it takes place in a city called bruges in my fucking stupid you know this is what two decades of drinking will do to your brain yeah i said it was in holland it is not it is in belgium the reason i think i got confused is because i went to both those countries on the same vacation and i think what surprised me was i went to bruges and they spoke dutch there at least a lot of people did speak dutch a lot of the signs were in dutch and i was surprised because that's a french-speaking country typically so uh well there's german there too actually but um But anyway, I got it wrong, so fuck me.

There you go. Luke, are you a serial Dutch oven artist, or we're not going there? Yeah, that's a fair accusation. That's a fair accusation. All right, we won't go as far as... My daughter's going to kill me for this? So is she.

Later on, when she discovers this, when her team says that I embarrassed her, yo, my daughter will absolutely Dutch oven oven the balls off the bed it's unbelievable oh yeah that's the kind of award-winning content you can only get from morning combat and speaking of that luke there are awards that again in the sports podcast group is offering us in the very hotly contested category of Best Combat Sports Podcast for the new year. Yeah, we won it last year. We might win it again here.

You got to hit that QR code or go to sportspodcastgroup.com. Sign up, vote. It's easy. It's up to you. You know, you can accuse us all you want of, oh, they only win these awards because they tell their fans about it. But, you know, I didn't tell you to make 50 fake email addresses. You just did that because you love me. And I don't know what to do with that feeling.

Like guilty as charged. You only won that election because you knocked on doors and asked people to vote for you. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly correct. Yeah, you freaking campaigned there. Luke, I wanted to tell you quickly as I round out this Creed and Rocky journey that I forgot Creed 1 is really good. Creed 1 is great, dude. uh luke i i wanted to tell you quickly as i round out this creed and rocky journey that um

i forgot creed one's really good really good great dude creed one is creed one you know i don't know exactly where you would put it if you're ranking all the creed and all the rocky movies because there's a lot of history there but just as a movie creed one to me delivers big time well we're going to do that monday like we should make it a segment there that because i'm gonna be finished with all nine creed and rocky movies when i take my kids to the uh to i told them we gotta do it you gotta freaking do imax this is the problem with toaster man i can't take her to movies like that right now you know i got you i got you but dude damn creed one reminded me how how great it can be um i'm excited about that. You, you see anything cool lately, Luke? I just finished Outer Banks season three and it was a flaming shit show, but the ride was fun,

but man, who edited that one? All right, over to you, Luke, what are you watching? What am I watching these days? I don't watch dude.

I mean, I, I don't have any, I don't, if I tell you what I watched, you're going to make fun of me. You ready? I'm ready.

But I watched recently. I haven't watched any TV shows, so that's not anything I could say. Obviously, whatever my daughter puts on. But in terms of my free time, I've been watching John Danaher series on BJJ Fanatics on a bunch of different shit and just taking notes. Dude, that's like being in the weight room. You're putting in the time, Luke, okay? And no, i can't take that away from you because that what that's what makes you great all right yeah it's true i mean what remember when i asked dan hardy and i wanted him to give me some awesome answer of like what makes you different than the other fighter analysts

like like you know what is it tell me you tell me your dad owned a gym and you grew up watching it from this angle you know what i mean no he like, I just watch more tape than everybody else. Dude, it really it's at the end of the day, like. Homework, you laughed at me about my answer in high school, dude, like getting not an appetite for homework, but getting a tolerance for it. Yeah. And and being able to work through that, dude, that will save you in your adult life in ways you just don't appreciate. The ability to work through homework without, you know, distraction or delay,

just doing it and making it a habit every day. The dividends over a year are extraordinary, to say nothing of 10 or 15. Yeah, I wish I had had better habits. I mean, I was a tremendous student, Luke until i you know stopped being one but um if i had kept those better have i mean i wouldn't have the story to tell luke you know i you know i wouldn't have this great life story to tell without it i mean you can't you can't go back and change it but yeah i mean if you're wondering bc were you just a just a stupid pos for at least half of your life? Yeah, yeah, I'd say that's true.

I've been a stupid POS most of my life. Yeah, but at least I'm living the good half of the life now. Yeah, yeah, you're killing it now. You're killing it now. Yeah, well, my liver, too. That's the problem, Luke, okay? You know, you said you had an appetite for learning. I had an appetite for destruction at 7-Eleven, okay?

That's what I had going on. Yeah, but what i would i change it luke so i i don't know i don't think so well i changed a lot i can't believe you don't have regrets i have like a shitload i mean i have regrets to to things i did that i know hurt people that you know and that that you have if you don't have regrets in that regard, you're a piece, you know, you're a big piece of crap, Luke, but, um, you know, dude, you, there's, this is going to turn into Tony Robbins, but you know, there's so much to learn from an L Luke. You don't want to go through it, but man, you know, you went as we've said many times you win, are you learning boy?

Have I done some learning in this life? Let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great. All right, Luke, have I done some learning in this life. Let me tell you. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great. All right, Luke. End of the year. Okay, bet.

Don't forget. We picked the concert. I should remind folks. Post-fight show tomorrow. Yeah, so that's the deal. Luke Thomas is going to go live his life and have a real night out, and I appreciate that. I'm going to be doing the UFC 286 instant analysis. Spoiler alert.

There will be spoilers. I mean, what kind of person, Luke, wakes up the next morning, goes, you know what? I didn't stay up for the fights last night because of the time zone and all that. You know, why don't I watch something that won't give me spoilers, but that I could just, you know, entertain myself? I know a post fight reaction show. Yeah. could just you know entertain myself i know a post-fight reaction show yeah i mean i don't want to believe when you make fun of the reading level of our audience lou because most of these people are hard-working good honest people no okay vast majority no no no the overwhelming majority of

people totally get it it's always just a few fuckheads that fill up my inbox. Why, why, why, why, why? It's just, stop. Yeah, I'm with you on that, dude. I'm with you. All right. I don't know where I was going, Luke. I got off at exit real quick, but we can probably park this thing and, you know, take it on home, right? Let's do it. Yeah.

Thank you to Gaff Pierre on the ones and twos. Malka, our friends there. CBS Sports and Showtime. You can actually get 30 days free of Showtime right now. We're talking about Bellator MMA, Championship Boxing, Bill Cosby Docs from Kamau Bell. We got a lot of good stuff going on there. Our partner's there. So check it out. Take the plunge.

No sand needed at the end. Because you'll be pounding the pavement with more content. Okay, that's what's going to happen right there. You can wear our merch and it's fantastic. Bomber Jacket Sizzin is back. I mean, it is, you know, it's like that transition from going to happen right there. You can wear our merch, and it's fantastic. Bomber jacket Cizan is back. I mean, it's like that transition from winter to spring, Luke. Nothing feels better than that bomber jacket when you're walking tooks around the park. And you're like, no tooks, no splash pad, only one season for that, one season per year for that.

I wore my black bomber jacket to the park yesterday with Tookster. How about that? Okay, I like that. I like that. I wore my black bomber jacket to the park yesterday with Toopster. How about that? Okay. I like that. I like that. Luke, it is St. Patrick's Day. I'm reminded by Gaff.

You know, if I was 23, I'd be arriving at the Old Corner Cafe in Augusta, Connecticut about, you know, 10 a.m. And, you know, I'd be going for it, Luke. I'd be going after it, all right? We can end the show, BC. It's okay. It's okay. Those days are for it, Luke. I'd be going after it, all right? We can end the show, BC. It's okay. It's okay. Those days are long over, Luke. So for any more stories on the history of Luke's St. Patrick's Day debacles, you'll have to pay for that in his live chat next Thursday.

There's our social handles and channels right there. Luke, I don't want to end the show because I love doing this. You know what I mean? I know, but we should end the show because it's time to end the show less is more okay there you go that's what I said about my secondary education for Luke Thomas my name is Brian Campbell and there's no dynamic duo like us whether you like it

or don't like it sit around and take a look because it's the best thing going we're out of here thank you thank you very much