MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 287: Pereira-Adesanya 2 Storylines | Weekend Recap | Endeavor | Ep. 426

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are down in the sunshine state for Episode 426. The guys discuss the reports that Endeavor is buying WWE. What impact could that have on the UFC? Next up the guys Recap Bellator 293, PFL 1 and Gamebred Boxing 4. The guys close out the main topics by discussing the biggest storylines heading into UFC 287. The guys close the show with a discussion about Catching Lightning and Dm's from Donks. 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

Reveille, Reveille, dogs! Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, it's Monday, April 3rd, 2020. Two, three, and my ears are about to blow off. Jesus Christ, that is loud. Let me turn that down. Hi, everyone. Welcome. It's time for Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. I normally join you from the capital, the Estados Unidos, in Washington, D.C., but not today. Live from sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I'm Luke Thomas. That's Brian Campbell, the King of Connecticut. It's time for Morning Combat. Hi, BC. How are you? I'm doing great. Just two washed dads trying to fit in in South Florida.

It's working out great so far, but happy to be here. They treat us great, Luke. It's just fantastic. I mean, the coffee machine is incredible so far. I didn't get a chance to sample that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we spent yesterday, Luke, getting a big taste of Broward County right in the mouth. Yeah, we did. We did.

We saw Phil DeRue over at DeRue Strong. We almost didn't see Phil DeRue, one of us. So I flew to the wrong airport. Yeah, that was not smart. We had a car waiting for him, you know. We're like, he should be here any minute now to start this interview. And then, you know, Luke's like, I'm actually not in the United States at the moment. Sorry, guys.

Sorry, we had a mishap. Guys, did you need me? I'm in Slovakia. Sorry, I'll be back. And when we made it's like, I'm actually not in the United States at the moment. Sorry, guys. Sorry, we had a mishap. Guys, did you need me? I'm in Slovakia. Sorry, I'll be back. Well, we made it work out. I got there, and we had a fun time. We talked to him. His gym was great.

We got to see Jake Bostwick. The BKFC star. BKFC star who has aggressive tattoos. Aggressive tattoos. But a very nice guy. Very nice guy. No, we're going to have a Room Service Diaries with Phil DeRue of DeRue Strong out in the future, and we've got some great content to pair with that

that we're filming this week here in South Florida. I'm fired up. You know, Room Service Diaries, pregame previews. Look, we're coming. Okay, we're coming. Yeah, we've got a lot of fun stuff headed your way. We'll be here today as well as tomorrow and on Wednesday. So Wednesday's show will be here as well.

We have a lot to get to. Of course, we have this massive news about the UFC and WWE. We'll start the show with that. We're going to get to the weekend recap. We had PFL, Bellator, GameBread, Anthony Joshua fighting over the weekend. And then, of course, why are we in Fort Lauderdale? Well, that's where our bosses have an office. But also, it's because UFC 287 is this week.

So we'll talk a little bit about that as well. It is hot as balls. I don't know if we can say that on this show. You know, Danny on Friday's show was like, oh man, you've got to go to South Florida right now. It's like, the time is great. It's like, you know, low 70s. Danny, it's not low 70s, my guy. It's hot as fuck. I got off the... Whoa, whoa, can we clean it up here, please? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I know. We're on CBS.

You're like, JC bomb check, F word, there we go. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know. We're at CBS. You're like, JC bomb check, F word. There we go. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll try and clean it up. But the point I wanted to make was, BC, I got off the airplane in Miami, and then you have to take that little tram to get to baggage claim? Yeah. Yeah, I was sweating like I was on the witness stand and just lying the entire time. You were like Cato Kaelin, right? I'm not that much of a freeloader, I hope.

But all right. By the way, doing OJ jokes in 2023, I mean, really? It still works. How many people watching this show know who Kato Kaelin is, the house guest of OJ Simpson? You should see what Luke does when he talks to our staff. Anyone younger than us, he'll always be like, it's not your fault. You probably don't remember this, but it's not your fault. Back in the Gulf War, you know, it's like, okay, dude, like they may have studied that in school.

All right. Did you know what I was talking about? You're like, it's not your fault. Hold on, hold on. Back up. Let's back up a step. The thing I mentioned about the Gulf War yesterday,

had you heard of that? No. Right, okay. Point, the point. Yeah, but it didn't, it didn't change me, though. Well, you're just not a very curious person.

Okay, so thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Please hit subscribe. Thank you so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. I'm trying to see if we have anything here

to tease. Oh, yes, we do. Cameo.com slash Brian Campbell. You want to hit up my OnlyPipes. Look, I meet the nicest people, right? People from Iceland. I mean, I love it. I love getting to reach out and touch my fans in a safe and consensual manner. You know, it's great. Is this more or less justified than me asking for donations on the Super Chat? I think I give a much better value than you. That's really where I'm upset again at you for, you know what I mean? Right. Well, build an audience and then you can charge them for it. You know what I'm saying? Hey,

I'm ready to go head to head live chat. I'm ready to take MK Nation and use them to bury you. It won't work. It won't work. But you can say that from a lofty position, but are you willing to step into the ring and find out? I've been doing it for the last 15 years. Okay. Because I was told let's not go head to head. It's bad for business. I've been doing it for the last 15 years, yeah. Okay, because I was told let's not go head-to-head. It's bad for business. I didn't say that. Although, I mean, it would be kind of weird to do that. I mean, I'll just point that out.

Yeah, but, you know, hey, big news with evil empires merging together. Yeah, let's get to it here. So a reminder, of course, if you want to get anything related to the show, you can go to morningcombat.store. I don't know if we have the graphic here in South Florida for the podcast award. But SportsPodcastGroup.com. Best Combat Sports Podcast. You can vote for us there.

It might even be SportsPodcastAwards.com for the voting. It's possible. Yeah, I may have given them the wrong. I don't have the information. Either way, look it up. Well, yeah, we're up for Best Combat Sports. Got to have that ready. Against some heavy, heavy hitters.

Did you say our merch? Morningcombat.store. Morningcombat.store. I did that. I mean, look at this golf shirt. I don't really golf, but you could wear this out with your boss. And make sure you let them win because people high up, Luke, the higher they get, the softer they are, the big ego. I mean, we got two big egos that sat down at the same table and said, let's break bread together. We did.

All right, so let's kick off the show here. We'll start with topic number one, if we can. This is obviously massive news. So yesterday, CNBC reported, it's since been confirmed, that Endeavor, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is going to purchase the WWE, yes, the Professional Wrestling Corporation. Now, the way it will work is two major components to understand. Number one, they're actually not purchasing the entirety of the WWE, just 51%.

The shareholders, existing shareholders. And, yeah, and Nick Khan. Essentially, Nick Khan's still going to run WWE. Who, Nick Khan. Essentially, Nick Khan's still going to run WWE. Who is Nick Khan for folks who may not know? Nick Khan is a breakthrough sports broadcasting agent that became the go-to negotiator in terms of big businesses like WWE TV deals from sitting down with USC and allowing GSP to come back ahead of the BizPing fight. He played a big role in Mayweather Pacquiao getting...

And now, obviously, is the CEO of WWE and really turned them in a position to be ready for a sale like this. The hierarchy and structure is going to be Nick Khan running WWE, Dana White running UFC, Vince McMahon being the one above them that they would essentially report to as the executive assistant vice president, however you want to say it, to one Ari Emanuel. Right. And one more component here. So as part of the deal, what they had said yesterday was the UFC and WWE, still under Endeavor ownership, obviously,

are going to form a separate publicly traded corporation. We don't know the name of that yet, but the value, and this is huge, is over $21 through the sale the evaluation of the WWE was reached at nine point three billion And UFC ready for this remember they sold for four billion in 2016 according to the sale They're valued at twelve point one billion. They have tripled in value Apparently in seven years so Brian let me go to you first on this as we upset this all up What does this mean for UFC? What does this mean for WWE? What does it mean for endeavor? apparently, in seven years. So, Brian, let me go to you first on this as we have set this all up. What does this mean for UFC? What does this mean for WWE?

What does it mean for Endeavor? It's hard on a short-term basis to try to assign, okay, what changes will you see that will show the impact of this? It's obviously more about big business and power and joining together and aligning. Could there be some legitimate type of entertainment crossovers involving the roster of UFC and WWE in the future? Obviously, that's going to be a lot easier along with the constant promotion of each other on their respective brands. And let's not forget WWE's value of that consistent cable number one rating spot of Raw on Monday night and SmackDown Friday nights live on Fox.

And those broadcast deals are coming up, too. So it's more about power and big business than how much will your week-to-week MMA change. Not a ton right away. It will be interesting to see, though, how these brands ultimately merge together in certain ways where it makes sense and what that will be. But this is a monster power move within the sports broadcasting landscape, at large. All right, I don't watch professional wrestling. Help me understand, why would Vince McMahon want to make this deal now?

Look, it hasn't been without tumult of late for Vince, who had that very public sexual scandal and had to pay back. It wasn't one sexual assault scandal. There were numerous issues. And at the same time, Dana... You can't not see,

you have to be impressed. Patrick Whitesell and Ari Emanuel purchasing this brand six years ago, and then taking it from that $4 billion sale price, which we, a lot of people criticize and say, wow, they shot for the moon. That's not worth that. To see what they've did in that time is insanely impressive. And to turn it around to this value, WWE is still just this consistent cable magnet and deliver in that regard. And what was the theme of the question you asked me? Why would Vince McMahon do it now? Oh, because he had that scandal and I think that sped up some idea of what is the end plan.

And you can make the comparisons to the show Succession and there's always been this idea of what would it look like. We know Vince is such a hard worker and is going to work until his final day. We know that. But would it go to the family? This is a power move by Vince, I think. He's trying to say publicly in the loan interview that was done with him and Ari on CNBC that the recent allegations against him

and the whole scandal where he had to step down and now he's back, that that didn't play a part in speeding up or wanting to do this deal. But I think Vince wants always to make history, always to be a part of that next big thing and be ahead of it. And I think for him, this allowed him to retain a hell of a lot of control, not day-to-day creatively, but in a larger picture in where he's at. And he's making a monstrosity amount of money in selling this right now.

So I think Vince got a taste of what it could be like when it all falls apart and he doesn't have control anymore, when he was forced to step down and we didn't know, is his family going to take it the distance? Is Triple H going to, you know, his son-in-law going to step in and be there? Now he gets to do it on his terms. And I think if you know the competitor in Vince McMahon, that matters. This is a, just like when Vince launched WrestleMania and changed, you know, the pro wrestling landscape in the 80s by going national, just like what he did in a lot of the big hits he's had through the years, bringing his product to streaming way early when he was criticized.

Obviously, the track record for success is there. So I think, Luke, this is just a late power move where he doesn't have to walk away and retire. He's merging with people that he considers just as brilliant. I mean, look at the relationship Vince had for years with Dick Ebersole at NBC. He's had these power play partnerships before, but why would he want to give it up right now? Because I think he gets the best of all worlds. He gets to be a part of this record-breaking deal and still have a seat at the table.

Yeah. I mean, I guess from my perspective, I don't understand why he sold when he had... My understanding was, and again, this is not my forte, my understanding was he had the sexual assault issues. He got bounced from the company. Triple H, I don't know what his real name is. And Stephanie. Paul Levesque, yeah. Yeah, we're supposed to take over control. And he basically backdoored his way in through the board, as I understand it.

Under the guise of let me help you prepare this for a sale. Right. The big reason. Oh, I see. That was. So that. Okay, okay, okay. So I didn't realize that was another component of it.

Okay. And there was a lot of switch up behind the scenes and a lot of stuff going on. But this is an insane power move for Vince. So you were asking me why would you want to do it. The history involved, the money involved, and he still gets to be here at 77 in a major spot. I guess, okay, so let me ask a different question. And this is really important. It's less Vince specific.

Why is this a good deal for WWE? Is the idea that, well, hey, look, look what happened to UFC. Endeavor purchased them. They were able to triple in value. They are now, I mean, they were already the dominant player prior to that in the mixed martial arts space. They are now dominant with a bullet. Certainly, WWE had the similar kind of market position, although I guess AEW is a bigger competitor than what UFC has on the MMA side. So I guess what I'm saying is, why is this, if you're the WWE,

what would you say about why this is a good deal for that business? The infusion of an insane amount of cash. The idea that you become even more legitimate because you're joining with such monster powers. And I think Vince has a trust having, look, Ari Emanuel used to represent Vince as an agent. He used to represent the WWE brand at times. So this is a long partnership. And they talked about that in that interview, which had

these superpowers coming together, kind of almost, you know, hilarious feel there. And we'll get to, believe me, we'll get to Vince's mustache in a second. But this is a monster power move to become even more mainstream and legitimate, which is what WWE is always fighting for at the end of the day. Always, right? They don't just want to be a flash of, wow, we've got this great big WrestleMania event with a celebrity, and wow, I know you care, everybody cares, and then we fall back and we're just wrestling again.

They want to be up there in an entertainment level, you know, with Disney, with everything else on there. So I think this allows them to align with people who can help elevate them with, again, not taking away the creative control at the end of the day. What is the model Ari has successfully shown? That he can partner with Dana White without being overbearing to hurt the product in a negative way. Obviously, financially, what they've done is so impressive and gangbusters. But look at the trust that Dana, you know, is able to retain in terms of the vision going the right way.

I think this is the right timing in terms of the vision going the right way. I think this is the right timing from a WWE standpoint. If somebody's not going to come in here and just ruin it and put a stain on it and change the way we do things, they'll work with them and go even further. Look, people conglomerate, and that's sort of where things are in the larger landscape, but this is a power move just the same. Okay, so I've got two questions, one about Endeavor and one about UFC. Let's start on the UFC side, and this is something I saw on Twitter a lot. Here was my initial thought.

My initial thought was we're four months off of the scandal involving the Ontario and other, there was actually two Canadian provinces that temporarily suspended UFC betting. Now, that's not related to professional wrestling, of course, in any capacity. It's related to the James Krause scandal. But what it underscored, at least temporarily, was the Canadian regulators at the time had at least a question about the authenticity of the product based on the crazy betting and the Krause scandal. They have since obviously re-allowed it. But what I mean to say is if you're the UFC, you have to be conscious of the reality that there needs to be some kind of firewall between UFC and WWE for product authenticity's sake. Right? It's the main reason why you've never seen a pro sports franchise in Las Vegas until now. kind of firewall between UFC and WWE for product authenticity sake, right?

It's the main reason why you've never seen a pro sports franchise in Las Vegas until now. Right. It's that same reason. Right. So, that seems intuitive, but then I had Ant Evans, who used to work at UFC, who tweeted me. I forgot to respond. I'm sorry, Ant.

Ant starts fires on Twitter. Well, he was actually, I don't think he was trying to, he made a good point. He was like, right, you mean like the same firewall between UFC and PowerSlam? It's like, right, there was zero firewall there. Now, granted, that is regulated by the Athletic Commission. That is at least in the UFC's view of sport. BC, what in all of these broader, I would say, concerns that someone like me has, what does this mean for the UFC product beyond just a promotional extra boost.

Right, because to pair with the questions you asked about what does WWE get, what does both brands get? The opportunity to weave their audiences into one another. And they both have very strong audiences in that younger demographic that everybody's shooting for, and the loyalty of both audiences too, like brand loyalty is on big there. But you asked me specifically here. What does UFC get out of this, if anything, besides just a promotional boost? here. What does it mean? What does UFC get out

of this, if anything, besides just a promotional boost? What does it mean for the product? I mean, the promotional boost is huge and can't be overstated. I think if you're a hardcore UFC fan, should you have some level of concern on what we've seen of late is the reliance on the ESPN broadcast deal for UFC to ultimately dictate the larger terms and decision making of their own matchmaking. So what you've seen is not as much dependency on making the very big fight, but just trying to have a consistent product across the board. Sometimes you can complain that's led to watered down matchmaking. There's also been a larger look. We kind of nailed it without knowing exactly what was going to happen. It's not that this idea wasn't out there, that people were

saying, hey, maybe Endeavor will buy it. You know, there was of course, up right, uprage of the potential of Saudi Arabia buying this product, WWE. But we kind of saw it coming in some degree of, look at all the price gouging of late, look at all some of the decisions we made. It feels like 2016 all over again, right ahead of that sale. Now this is a different kind of sale

because they're buying and bringing in the WWE, but for UFC, if you have a fear as a hardcore old school fan, it's that this is the full sellout. This is the full Disneyfication of this cage fighting brand, you know, which people love it because it's raw and pure and it's competition and it's violence and it's packaged in such a great way. But should you have fear that merging, because I think you brought up the betting fears there of what does this say about the real product that you're trying to protect if you're now, you know, partners and brothers with

fake fighting. The marketing and all that is obviously huge, and that's why we're doing it here. But we talk about how quickly UFC fans recycle. This does show a different hardcore direction of we're trying to be, you know, we're trying to be the NFL here. We're trying to go after it. So how will that negatively affect matchmaking, presentation, rules, and all that? We don't know yet. We'll have to see over time. But is there in your eyes a legitimate fear if you're a hardcore fan who's already sick of going public and going Hollywood and going ESPN? They just want great fights. Right. Well, people never think about how things can go wrong, but you have to think about that in this world. Obviously, on the promotional side,

this one's an easy call, right? I mean there's so many ways in which the audience is and then the broadcast could support one another. So that part I completely get and understand and professional wrestling is not for me but I also understand its relationship to MMA and how there's a huge crossover with the audience. Here's my concern. On the one hand, let's take a case.

Let's take the case of Gable Steveson, right? So, Division I National Champion, Olympic gold medalist. I mean, this guy's got phenom, heavyweight too. Kid's got the world in his palm. He went to go WWE with a deal with them. Now, that has somewhat floundered as I understand it, but neither here nor there. Could you imagine a scenario where he continues to do whatever he's doing for WWE and then takes a break and then goes and does UFC stuff all under the auspices that, hey, this is all in the family? Yes, you could easily see that. And I don't think that's in any way a bad thing. I actually think that's a good thing in the right circumstance. But what I mean to say is if there's enough cross-pollination and there is some kind of controversy in someone's bout

and storylines quite literally are getting mixed up between the two worlds, what does that do over time or in particularly pronounced cases to not the authenticity of the product, but the fans' perception of the authenticity of the product? I realize this is like a 43-year-old guy who doesn't like professional wrestling, maybe raising concerns that are a little bit hyperbolic, but it is worth at least working of the product. I realize this is like a 43-year-old guy who doesn't like professional wrestling, maybe raising concerns that are a little bit hyperbolic, but it is worth at least working on the problem. If you're a pure UFC fan only,

you might look at this as like, what kind of bullshit are we going to see now? Are we going to see Israel Adesanya showing up on SmackDown and being inserted into an angle? Hold on, being inserted into an angle only to promote his next fight? And are we on the flip side then going to see, what if Roman Reigns decides in real life, I want to have a real fight?

I saw Tito and Rampage, when they were with Bellator in the Bjorn Rebny era, folks forget this, go on, what was on Spike at the time? Total Impact Wrestling. Total Impact Wrestling, hitting each other with hammers. I literally saw that. So that actually is a thing that in a different world with different players, it got real weird at the end there. That is what I would seek to avoid, but I don't really know if that's possible. Right. And also realize whether it's smart or could ever happen or not, we've seen headlines of late that WWE is trying to push hard into the gambling space, right? So that you can go on your DraftKings or FanDuel or whoever app and bet on the results of the matches,

which obviously are... How can you do that? There'd have to be some level of showing... I mean, you'd have to show the betting industry that you can protect your secrets, which has long been. That's why people like Dave Meltzer can have these jobs and be these investigative reporters and report this stuff ahead of time. I don't know how you can protect that, but it's showing when you put all of this muscle together. Because look, let's not look past what this actually means, whether you're looking at this news from, because you're more of a UFC fan, you're more of a WWE fan, or you care or don't care, is think of the power players that are all going to be under the same umbrella now.

It doesn't always work when you put too many egos and cooks in the kitchen, but as long as everybody respects the job, the hierarchy, which is going to be in question here, but you've got Ari Emanuel, Vince McMahon, looking down on Nick Khan on one side, Dana White on the other, you know, Patrick White, so all the others that are involved in that. What can they do big picture that's never been thought of before to merge these together?

I don't know if you're a pure UFC fan at the end of the day, if any of that stuff's going to interest you or you're going to want that, or if that's just going to continue. But like, if UFC was ever, they got pretty damn far. They got a Fox deal. Now they got an ESPN deal. Now they've cleaned up to a level where it's being fed to you on ABC sometimes. It's like – $12 billion. Yeah. Is the only chance for this to ever go as commercial to be like, you know,

McDonald's and Coke and Pepsi to be, like, literally a number one or two sport? This is the chance. This is the big swing to do that. So, again, if you're hardcore and more about the purity and the old school, this might not be for you. Just like people say about the Super Bowl, it's not for the real fans, right? It's for your wife to watch the commercials, right? I know that's generic and stereotypic, but that's what we're talking about.

I do have those concerns long-term for UFC. But here's another thing, though. Why did the Zufa boxing rumors suddenly come back? Why does Dana suddenly in interviews the last couple months going, well, maybe it's not over? This is a power play for both brands because both of them own the progressive new spaces of media and streaming and giant TV deals that are right around the corner so well and cater to such a young market that you put them together, Luke, this becomes a potential superpower. So could they get into boxing using all of these promotional arms and networks

and actually make some headway in space? It's interesting. When we always debate, one day Dana White's going to walk away. You know what I mean? But who can fill that spot to be both the public face but still be that maverick behind the scenes? And we're like, could Chael do it or is he more of a figure? What about DC? What about whatever?

I've always said the only one that could do something like that is Nick Khan. Yeah, Nick Khan could do it. And right now, the way this deal is set up Nick Khan's going to stay being the CEO of WWE but like Nick Khan is the one if these families really merge together that could I mean he's look he's proven consistently like Vince has in his own lane that he's the smartest guy in the room and gets very much ahead of these big things. No relation to Tony Khan. No, but I do wonder long-term what that means, you know, what crossover eventually, because it's a...

Well, here's another question. None of this may play out, Luke, for months or years where we say, oh, look at that, connect that dot with this. But there's potential for a lot of change through this deal. There really is. Yeah, there's a ton. I mean, just thinking about it,

like, who... This is what I was thinking about last night. Who is Endeavor's competitor, right? I mean, look what you have with UFC. You have these rights holders now. You have tons of intellectual property. You have now rights deals in terms of television broadcasting, vastly international, and in these major markets, you've got some of the best. You both, in case of UFC and WWE, you have a tremendous live event business as well, right?

And there's just a whole lot. The movie studios on the WWE side or whatever. Music, merchandise. I mean, it's so in-depth. So what I'm saying is, who is, not UFC's competitor, WWE, who is Endeavor's competitor? Well, I think they're setting a new template. Well, this is what I was going to say. It's almost, and it's not quite like this, but it's almost like they're a competitor to Live Nation.

You would get your tickets from Live Nation for any kind of concert because they're in the live event business. Yet, they also have all of this IP. They also have all these broadcast rights on the other side. You're right, it's a hybrid business. But this is what I was thinking about. Endeavor's making a move here, and this is the quarter or halfway version of it, even though it's a big deal.

They're trying to set themselves up, I think, as a dominant player in live event and television business. How that will look in the next five to ten years, I can't figure that part out. But they're gunning for something far above what I think we've given them credit for with this. The difference in the new model, the new template they're making is that they own the rights. Yes, that's right. That's right. Now, interestingly enough, maybe this is all

vertically integrated. Maybe this is the perfect transition to Vince McMahon. Part of that interview that him and Ari did with CNBC, it closed with sort of an awkward question where part of the deal was Vince retains his own IP to his own name and life story and character and all that. And so, you know, in terms of like, nobody's going to put out the Vince McMahon biopic or, you know, or tell all book while he's still alive. But can we get Luke, because when you get that many powerful people together, I mean, it did feel like a little bit of like a cult initiation video watching those two up there. Can we show Vince McMahon's pivot here into, you know. He's 77 years old, Luke. He's still a

business machine. He has... You know what, BC? I think that hair color's natural. It looks very... When I think about this picture, I think very natural. Dude, he looks like a hot dog that got left in the sun and then someone put a suit and drew a mustache on it. I mean, what are we doing, fella?

He looks like a villain in every kids movie. Vince, buddy, hear me out. If you, what are we doing, fella? Dude, he looks like a villain in every kids movie, like, you know what I mean? Vince, Vince, buddy, hear me out. If you're dying your eyebrows, it's time to let it go, my guy. Dude, this is such an aggressive rebranding, a reinvention of your physical image. That is the grossest mustache that Elfpaw...

I mean, that's like John Waters level. That is just like creepy. Yeah, dude, when you shave the mustache from the nostril to the lip, you know, so it's just this thin pencil. And the worst thing is Shane McMahon, his son, who once again came back, I heard, over WrestleMania and blew out his quad in pure Vince fashion. He's been going with the gray look for like a decade now. So, but dad's all brown up there. Like, if you're a UFC fan and you have fears about, okay, this is going to cheese up our product because we're going to WWE-ify it, you know, eventually it's just going to all kind of blend together and be one meal, like eating at the same cruise buffet for a whole week.

Luke, yesterday's meal kind of tastes like today, even though they look different, you know what I mean? A little human centipede. How much do you think that concern you raised about impropriety and the fact that you're now joining hand in hand with the phony baloney fighting? I get if you're intelligent enough, you can draw a line between scripted and unscripted here. But is there going to be concern about the impropriety here in Long Island? Not automatically. No, certainly not automatically. It's not really that I think, oh, because they have this relationship, now everything is called into question. That's really not what I mean. But what I do mean to say is, for example, the Kraus scandal, it kind of snuck up on

them. I had MMA coaches, this is a true story, I had MMA coaches in the wake of the Kraus scandal calling me up being like, hey, so-and-so wants me to do a betting breakdown for them. Can I even do that? And I was like, I don't really know. In other words, everyone was engaged in these practices, they got out of hand, and then the UFC kind of reacted later. Now, they seem to have fixed the problem, but that created, I mean, there's an ongoing federal investigation in terms of law enforcement related to these efforts.

Like, the UFC doesn't want that. They don't want the bad press related to Canadian provinces removing betting. So, again, it's not that I think that the natural order of things is that everything will be a mush. It's that I think that sometimes the UFC has been a little bit indelicate with the way they've treated the firewall between the brands, in this case, PowerSnap and UFC, but also indelicate in not appreciating how other members of the public, including regulators, actually think about the product versus how they think about it or the authenticity of how they view it versus someone else and they kind of react after the fact and i'm just hoping i guess bc my

only concern is that you know again some level of integration is inevitable and probably good but i don't want that to just cause a fervor and a feeling like guys this is working great what's the problem let's just keep doing it without putting enough guardrails into the practice i think that that's what I'm concerned about. You're right. UFC's been very reactionary. Let's see how much noise this makes so we have to address it. And then get after it. I mean, can you believe that both of these two powers, Dana and Vince, both had these ridiculous scandals? I want to point this out. And Endeavor was just like, I don't see a problem. Dude, Endeavor didn't say a word about Dana's issues. Yeah. Right? I guess he addressed a little bit, Vince, on the CNBC interview. Not much. Just the generic of like, I've made many mistakes in my life

over 50-something years and I've always taken the blame for them and stood up and said, Yeah, I mean, you know, just total billionaire nonsense. And Endeavor didn't give a damn. Yet, they'll send me emails.

Did you get the email from Endeavor being like, we're giving 250 grand to women's sports causes? That's great. Like, dude, send that to another chump. Like, that doesn't mean a thing to me. But incredible that these two guys enmeshed in what would have been absolute career destroyers.

But BC, honestly, if you're powerful enough and there's no disciplining force and shame, you can do whatever you want in this world. You can do whatever you want. If you're a swinging corporate raider and you got the biggest stick in the fight and they showed it in that interview. Look, Vince was celebrating touchdown dances. He loved to say this. Was he doing the icky shuffle? Close, but he loved to say,

this is the biggest move in Ari Emanuel's life and this is the biggest move in my life. He's basically saying, this is my legacy. This is the final flag put down on top of the mountain for now of what I'm showing you I'm doing with my legacy and the control that I have and retain I mean look he's still here in an executive position technically above Dana and the UFC overseeing um that putting all those brilliant minds together right it's either going to be the most incredible thing ever or it's going to blow up spectacularly. All right. Well, with that in mind,

we do have to get through the rest of the show because we are limited time here. But huge news, to put it quite mildly. All right. With that in mind, BC, let's talk a little bit about Bellator. We can recap in general, but let's start things off with Bellator. So Bellator 293 obviously took place at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, California, headlined by a contest between Daniel James and Marcelo Gomm, BC. Daniel James winning in the third round via a KO-TKO, a hook and uppercut combo. BC, my question for you. Daniel James, does he look like a threat to Ryan Bader to you?

He's becoming one. Some of that is the lack of true depth in that division. But has his rise been this fun revelation? Yeah. I mean, 41 years old, big, big power as well. But, you know, he was like a rap security guard for Twista. That's right. Yeah. And for him to put his nose to the grind and go all in right now and at this age, too, it's a fun story to watch. He does have two consecutive knockouts over pretty legitimate names here. So, Luke, he shot his shot on Friday. He grabbed the microphone and said, Ryan Bader's in the crowd.

I know I can make a fun fight against him. How much more does he have to prove to get that shot? Bader's kind of silently cleaned this division out, would you say? Yeah, he was there in attendance. And Scott Cogar, I thought, said the right thing, which was afterwards, it's like, all right, well, Linton Vassell is probably next. Sure, oh, that run has been impressive. But the card we talked about in Chicago, the upcoming card, I think the June card,

where you're going to get Patricio and Pettis. June 16th. And you're going to get Nemkov and Yoel. They want to put Daniel James on that card. It looks to me like he's like number one contender B, and Vassell is number one contender letter A or whatever. Like they're both one, one A, one B. So I think they're going to give him somebody else he can probably really beat.

Coker's, I will say this is one of the things that Coker does really well, which is he gives guys tough fights when they are supposed to have tough fights, and he gives them more manageable, look good fights in other spaces. All he would need would be a look good fight. But yeah, if you're Ryan Bader, now you have your work cut out for you. You have Linton Vassell in front of you. You probably have Daniel James in front of you. I don't know how much time Ryan Bader has left, but it sets up the heavyweight division.

I thought he looked good for what it was worth, BC, Daniel James. I thought that... I mean, when he gets top position on the ground, he could be scary. He's terrifying. But what about his takedown defense against somebody like Bader? I don't really think it's at that level. It's not enough. Now, here's the thing.

Bader has kind of wilted at times under the threat of big punchers. Yeah. So you have seen him lose his composure in certain ways, but then his run through the heavyweight tournament, which has not been some years at this point, still his speed and explosivity and his ability to run through horizontal force in that way, I don't think Daniel James' chances are all that great. But hey, they gave Daniel James a chance.

It's kind of an unlikely headliner. A five-round fight. Came through and took care of business again. He beat two top contenders in back-to-back fights for a guy we hadn't heard of maybe even a year ago. This is a nice run for him. BC also on that card. Not a great fight, if I can just be honest.

Kat Zingano, she did defeat Leah McCourt. They exchanged dominant positions that seemed to last forever BC so I'll ask the same question now Chris Cyborg is apparently not under contract although there's a situation right now well Coker seemed to be pretty calm he said that actually she's still under because we have matching rights yeah so she wants to box on a high level and which she did well not a high level but she did right but I think Scott's always been willing to play ball on that right, but it's the it's the same question It was like Katzen goes gonna be 41 probably by the time they make any kind of Chris Cyborg fight

Did you see something from Chris? Excuse me from Katzen Gano that made you think that she can wrestle the way the title from Chris I'm no I mean she is a cheshire in the chance though given the depth and division and the win she's had yes But Luke I felt bad for she spent a lot of the build-up to given the depth and division and the win she's had? Yes. But, Luke, I felt bad for her. She spent a lot of the buildup to this fight talking about how confused she was. She felt she was already in key labeled number one contender fights and won that and had to pass yet another test. Some of that could be the confusion of, is exactly Chris Cyborg coming back? What's the situation?

I hope she can because Kat Zingano has earned this. Now, at this point in her career, though, is she showing you that plus-level danger of her rallying back against Misha Tate for a brutal knockout? I don't think that same fighter is here anymore and hasn't been for a while. She's still after it. Let's give her that chance. But she'll be a heavy underdog heading into that title fight if they can make it. Yeah, I just feel like Chris Cyborg is aging really well.

She's aging, but very slowly. Does that make sense? She adjusted to the need to really get the technique down in terms of her boxing. She's not the bruising marauder she once was. And that poise and patience is going to allow you to extend it because the power can always bail you out for sure. But she's also added a lot of smarts. I mean, how many promotions has Cyborg been in and ended up the champion in? All that experience adds up over time. Lea McCourt. I thought she did pretty well. I thought this was going to be much more of one-way traffic

on the ground and there was actually not quite the case, although in the end, Kat was better. Although I did see some folks being like, eh, there's a case for McCourt

in certain ways. It was a weird fight. It was all grappling. It was a weird fight. It was all grappling and somebody would get full mount and would do nothing with it and then they'd get the back

and do nothing with it. It was a lot of just butt heads in that regard in the grappling. So I don't know what the future holds for Leah McCourt, but Kat Zingano stays on the winning track. She's your number one contender.

Should they have made this an interim title fight because there is some uncertainty about Chris? You could have. You could have. But let's, I mean, let's stay positive that Chris, you know, Chris doesn't turn down comers, but the business will have to make sense here. Yeah, fair enough.

John Salter wins over Aaron Jeffrey, BC, and gets booed by the audience when he announces his retirement. He apologized for needing to win that safely, but he's like, have you guys been in here with Jeffrey? This is not an easy... But BC, the two things I want to talk about very quickly. Number one, Luke Traynor defeating Sullivan Cauley. Sullivan Cauley on Power MMA.

Super surprising, and did it quickly, no less. Big win for him, but the big one, BC. Super surprising. And did it quickly, no less. Big win for him. But the big one, BC. Rat garbage loss, by the way, against... What's his name? Mandel Nalo. Dude, I want him. See, in my mind, Mandel Nalo and Big Tuna, they'll just never lose again.

I don't think they've ever lost again in my personal heart. Even if they lose, they never lose in our hearts. Like Yoel Romero. I don't think I've ever seen him lose the decision, Luke, right? You know what I mean? I've seen some close ones there. But the big one was two good prospects lost. Lance Gibson Jr. fell to 7-1.

But the big one, BC, Joey Davis lost. And I know what folks are going to say. It's like, Luke, you hyped him up and he ended up losing. Well, okay, fair enough. That blew up in my face. But BC, truly, and I'm not doing a bid here, in terms of betting okay, but fair enough. Like, that blew up in my face. But BC, truly, I'm not doing a bit here. In terms of betting odds, a historic loss.

Joey Davis, ready for this? Yeah. A minus 1,800 favorite, and he lost! He lost and he didn't look good, BC. Did he gas out? He did the, no, here's what he did. He did the Darien Caldwell bit, where it's lots of control

not nearly enough ground and pound not nearly enough sub attempts which by the way he was not doing before he just took two and a half years off for reasons i don't know remember joey davis never lost a match in college and was undefeated as a pro in mma heading into this contest was a minus 1800 favorite and still managed to lose christian edwards Christian Edwards move up to heavyweight, lost his third in a row? Yeah. Big Tuna took his soul. Yeah. Remember, that guy was hyped up.

He was coming on. Yeah, Big Tuna not to be played with. Yeah. I think they screwed Big Tuna in LFA, though. I think it was a close decision that could have gone his way for the big fish. It could have. It could have. All right.

Let's get to PFL if we can because they were on Saturday night on ESPN and ESPN Plus. I mean, one thing you can say about that, I like the broadcast, but that cage is... It's too smart for its own good. It's getting there. I mean, why is everyone telling me what they're doing on chat GPT when you can just be asking the smart cage in PFL, right? Like, what are you guys doing? BCc i'd like to see the smart cage predict how many months and years we have left as a duo i mentioned if it was like the marriage is already over it's like it's like thursday okay yeah last day together um here's what pfl did bc they got two of their champions brendan lochnane brendan lochnane

whatever and then rob wilkinson you can just call him lochnane it's fine okay but it's pronounced a million different ways from depending on who you talk to. You? Yes. No, no, no. I've talked to several different people who are Brits, and they all pronounce it differently. It's not true. Okay.

Whatever the proper pronunciation may be, BC, they got him and they got Wilkinson, two of their champs from the last season, and who did they fight? UFC veterans. Smart matchmaking, though. In a sense. But it ended up being, at least in the main event, fucking gross. But you're not, hold on. At the surface, though, I'm not mad at what PFL's doing.

They've got a couple guys that are considered their guys that came to their greatest level of prominence as fighters under the PFL brand. Guys that just won championships, even though we've seen Wilkinson in the UFC before and Lockman as well. You've got to put some names in the tournament that people know, though. So there's a market to grab the aging names. Not the way that they did this one. The co-main, fine.

I mean, it's tough to watch Marlon Marais get stopped for the seventh straight time. Dude, Marlon didn't even get sent to the land of wind and ghosts. He got beaten up to the legs. And, of course, he got TKO'd from leg kicks. He just couldn't do it anymore. So credit to Brendan Lockman. Look, he looked great. He looked great. He did everything he was supposed to. By the way, apparently he

wanted to take the year off in like, not full year, but he wanted to just take championship fights and PFL told him, you don't get into the tournament. We're just going to lock you out for a year. So that's not great. Well, that tournament's a grind. It is an innovative concept. Everyone talks about like, is the opponent hard enough relative to the UFC?

Well, probably not. But the fact that you have to do it so frequently makes it very difficult to win. But BC, Marlon Marais, dude, he used to be known for a guy who had real physical durability. He's still in great shape. He's only 34. But how many more do we have to see? I mean, this is now two fights and two knockout losses. I believe it's six or seven consecutive knockout losses.

Something like that, yes. Danny Segura was high on him coming in. Danny's point was, if you look at the Shaman-Morais fight, which is the one he had prior to this one, and it was his PFL debut, he looked good up until he didn't, which is true. But this is just the reality about guys once they cross a certain threshold.

Dude, you can't get it back. You cannot get it back. Well, we thought, but there's a couple exceptions. Like an Andrej Orlovski, we thought he hit that point twice where we're like, dude, the chin's done. You can't keep doing this. Okay, even he didn't have a losing streak quite like this. No, not quite like that. Even this one is worse.

Is this like when Ryan Hall tapped BJ Penn and then BJ was like, I didn't get knocked out, so I can come back and do it again. And also, Orlovski's to be back and do this again? Olavsky's at heavyweight. Big, big difference with that. Dude, listen, it is very easy for me to get up here and say a guy should retire, and, of course, I don't have to feed his family. And it sounds always, like, insulting, like, you're not worthy to be here. No, it's a bad idea for his health.

Dude, he's literally getting just absolutely maimed out there. But those were some intense leg kicks. Oh, yeah. No, no. It was great. But I'm just pointing out, not at 145 per se, but at 135 in his better days, I don't think Marais would have necessarily had a huge issue with it. Boom, boom, and then the bottom drops out. I've seen better days.

Been the start of many plays. Thiago Santos, he won a round. Wilkinson wins via unanimous decision, 29-28. I think on the judges' many plays. Thiago Santos, he won a round. Wilkinson wins via unanimous decision, 29-28. I think I know the judges' scorecards. He basically got out-wrestled. Out-grappled is maybe a better way to put it. I feel bad for Mejeta because he... The injury against Jon Jones played

a big part. And in hindsight, you look back and you have to respect that he went all in on that fight with two destroyed legs. Bill came due. And remained a threat. Knockout threat late in that fight when I don't even know how he was standing. But it's almost like, you know, like, remember Wooderson from Days of Confused? I mean, he was, like, really cool,

and he finally came into that and knew it. But he was also, like, 22 and hanging out with 16- and 17-year-olds, you know, trying to drive them to the Aerosmith concert, you know what I mean? And, like, you know, hey, man, watch the leather. And, you know, when I was 18, I was like, that's who I want to be when I grow up, you know? But it's also kind of sad. No one wants to be the old guy at the club. My point here ultimately though, is that Tiago Santos

found his upper bound limit later in his career. He was always a knockout threat, always a fun fighter, figured out his division and figured out his moment against Jon Jones and went all in. And obviously there was going to be a receipt due from that injury. And Luke, even in that losing streak that led to him exiting the UFC, he had big moments at times, like against Glover Teixeira, almost knocking him out after dropping him. But he's a diminished second-rate version of where he was at that very peak. And I give him credit for getting there. But he's a name now and an opponent for guys like Rob Wilkinson, who's the defending champion there in PFL, light heavyweight, who came out and gave a strong and honest performance.

And had moments, last couple seconds, he was putting together big combos, but those moments are fleeting, Luke, because what they're proving here, these younger guys, if you pressure him, you can lower his output. You know, you've got to watch the big counters and stuff, but that quick twitch fiber, which made him electric during the run, leading up to and ending with the Jon Jones fight, that guy's

not in there anymore. It's not as quick, that twitch. The twitch is fibering, Luke, just not as fast. It's like, you know. It's fibering? Yeah, quick twitch fibers. Is my colon fibering? You know, I think two weeks at Daru Strong, Luke, I could be a new man. I think you could, actually. You know what I'm saying? I think you could.

Bam Bam gets after it. I'm talking about life. He gets after it, Luke. You know what I'm saying? I think you could. Joe Phil gets, Bam Bam gets after it. I'm talking about life. He gets after it. He certainly does. BC, I always talk about this. Everyone and their brother is always like, yeah, they just do these

BS narratives because they're, like, you know, there's so many people out there who just treat MMA like they're reading comic books or something, you know, where what really matters

is some kind of mental or personal satisfaction about effort and these high lofty principles that have nothing to do with real life whatsoever. You hate MMA fans. I mean, you hate these people. Do journalists do it too? They're paying for your super chat.

No, dude. It's me versus the fans. That's not what I'm saying. It's me versus people, media included, promoters included, lots of people. It has nothing to do specifically with the fans, that they treat MMA like they're reading comic books, when what you should be doing is thinking about this like a business. And sure enough, he's in the middle of a Jon Jones title fight and gets injured,

and everyone's like, yo, you don't take him out, he's injured, blah, blah, blah, because this will be, you know, it's a title fight. And fair enough, it's a title fight, like, maybe you've got to go for it. But if you're that injured, you're probably not going to win that title fight, and you might be doing even more damage by just letting it go through. Sure enough, they put a charge on the credit card of life, and then they just forget about the bill, and then the bill comes due, and then everyone goes, what happened? Oh, where are we now?

Well, here's where we are. We're in a place where this guy is at 38, almost 39 years old, two utterly destroyed knees, lost all that time in his career, and then now this is the state of things. Of course, it's been the state of things basically since then, 38, almost 39 years old, two utterly destroyed knees, lost all that time in his career, and then now this is the state of things. Of course, it's been the state of things basically since then, the Johnny Walker win notwithstanding, but that one wasn't super inspiring to begin with. He sat out 17 months between John Jones and Glover Teixeira.

Right. That's how much time he lost, because everyone wants to say, yeah, you just got to go for it, bro. It's the title fight. You just got to do it. Well, fine. You can do that. But then the bill comes due on the other end

and this is what it gets you this is why i'm always with someone's injured in a fight and it really reduces their chances of winning get the f out of the fight stop trying to put your pico shoulder back in we'll also have like like we've seen with t.j dillashaw that's a much worse situation because he had that before heading in there but like his shoulder was I mean dude his he ground his shoulder into dust and for what for nothing and now the bill is due and his surgeons are like oh my god you're gonna need extensive repair it may it almost certainly will never be the same well Maheta's lost six of seven against very good competition though he was subbed out by Glover but the only stoppage loss was that Jamal Hill fourth-round knockout.

Like, he's not in a dangerous spot, Luke, but he's becoming a diminished average fighter. Correct? That's fair to say? Yeah. That's correct. I mean, what... Dude, if you had that much time off with that age, with those injuries, you know, dude, with both of your ACLs going like that, I mean, what...

He's one of my favorite fighters to watch, Luke. I understand. He's a new father. Congratulations to him and Giannis Santos. It's great. I'm just saying, like, everyone just push through injury. No, dude. These are human beings.

They're going to have a life after fighting. They're going to. And this is the other part, too, man, like with Marlon Marais. Dude, he's 34, right? 34. If you're 30, I mean, we just talked to Phil. Phil DeRue's 34. All of these guys dude this

is why fighter pay matters to me so much we talked about the 12 billion dollar valuation there were four seven years ago does anyone think fighter pay has tripled since then because i definitely don't yeah that's the one thing we didn't mention about this wwe and ufc uh which are forming a new company together is that this won't how will this affect fighter pay or will it at all i don't know i don't know how that's going to go. It remains to be seen. But I just want to point out, this is why with Fighter Pay I feel the way that I feel, is that so many of these guys keep thinking that they're going to be doing this longer than they're going to do it. Something happens, they get knocked out a couple times.

For example, like with Dominic Reyes. You get viciously knocked out, You're never quite the same afterwards. Or guys get injured and they lose time and whatever. And then they could be in that mid 30-ish range and they think, oh, I've still got time left to get big checks. And then it dawns on them that the big check days are behind them. You have just medium to small check days left. And by the way, even those are going to be few and far between and probably come at even more health expense. This is why. The window to make actual money is so narrow, so small, that guys think they have much longer in the sport than they do.

And then they get pushed out and they're like, where was all the money I was supposed to make? As a Redskins superfan, do you feel like Joe Theismann made the right decision after LT? I watched that live on TV. I remember that. Dude, you would have been like six or five. No, no, no. I remember. It was obviously a huge deal on Theismann.

It was a big game. Go look at LT's reaction after he's like, ah-ha! He's like freaking out. It's so gross to watch. It's really bad. By the way, Joe Theismann does the radio rounds all the time. Still? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He calls the preseason games for the, well, now the Commanders,

for the local television station. Do you think he's in cahoots with Dan Snyder? I don't think he likes Dan Snyder very much. It's hard to be part of the history of the team and be totally on the outs with the owner. Even Riggins at times can still. Do you hold against Mark Rippin that he had acne and wasn't that cool on the of like your Washington I don't he

was good enough to win that's all it really matters right I mean RG three sucks but you know no one ever thought season was fun Jason Campbell was adequate no one ever talks about that all right I Jason Campbell I'll never forget he I think he got benched or bounced or something he did an interview on one six seven the fan he, I'm a starter in this league. I don't think he started another game after that. Again, the window. That narrow.

But the NFL players make a lot more money, and they have a CBA. Your clip fell off, Luke. Are you going to address that? Nah, I'm just going to let it rock. It looks like an earring. It looks like Jesse, the body Ventura. How do I look? Put the camera on me.

I got an earring? Look at my earring, bro. Luke, would you like to comment on the outfit I pulled out yesterday at Phil DeRue's gym? In hindsight, did it work? No. I would say dad at the splash park. I had on the official shorts of Morning Convent. I had a Ioana t-shirt on. I felt I was filling out the t-shirt fine, but it was too much pale.

It was too much skin. Yeah, Ioana pale. Maybe that was it. I let the toes fly free luke because you know would you would you go up to gilbert burns and be like your cauliflower is a problem it's it's disgusting to look at you should address that so why can't i live with my toes the way they are they're a roadmap of how i got here um you can just you can't ask people to like it that's your issue so it's like frank be Beamer should wear a COVID mask on the left side of his face at all times? Hey, listen, if you're a Division I coach, you can wear whatever goiter you have on your face.

It doesn't matter. All right, BC, let's talk about Anthony Joshua, if we can. Anthony Joshua was back in the news. He wins a big fight, sort of. He wins via unanimous decision over Jermaine Franklin. First fight with the new trainer. First fight with the new trainer. First fight with the new trainer. Third trainer in as many fights.

Don't forget that. Here's my review. Tell me if I'm right or wrong. My review is that this was an important fight to definitely just get a win. Yes. Had to get momentum going in the right direction. On that level, in a very basic way, mission accomplished. However, there was nothing about that performance that inspired confidence now he didn't make any bad decisions

but he looked hesitant he didn't look like he was really ready ready to let his punches go franklin i thought was a decent opponent and had some he overachieved he was definitely over his quick hands he stayed in there so i'm not not ready to bury Joshua. But here's my one takeaway. If you were looking for this performance to restore confidence about how he could do against Fury or Wilder, boy, did it let you down. It did. It did. I saw the tweets from Derek James who said afterwards,

I was just happy to get the win under any circumstances. So like you said, in that regard, that's fine. There were some things to like. It wasn't a disruptively bad performance. He landed double the punches of Jermaine Franklin. But I never saw Anthony Joshua fully comfortable. I thought in the first half of the fight when he was relying on that jab and actually making it a weapon and movement with that, that's what you want from AJ, right? But he never went after Franklin. In fact, he got wobbled a couple times from one punch at a time moments where you can imagine what would happen if somebody of elite skill

was in that spot late in that fight against him. So let's talk him. He's broken. Anthony Joshua is broken from what happened in the loss in the first Ruiz fight. That doesn't mean he hasn't repaired some of that back. He has. But I asked a lot of him coming into this fight with third trainer in as many fights, but, like, what could be the Derek James factor it to me it came down to AJ

Could he get back his confidence his swagger? He doesn't have it back. He's too cautious Um, luckily for him with his size and look he came in at a career-high 255 dude He was you know, super jacked, you know, so that shows you the direction he's trying to go So I was like, oh good. He's to go back to his punching ways, right? Not fully good. The confidence in that isn't good. The confidence in his chin. And even though he never got one punch by Andy Ruiz, it wasn't like, you know, Lennox

Lewis got one punch twice. Lennox Lewis got one punch twice. Now he got up and came back and beat those same guys by knockout in title fight rematches. AJ was an equilibrium shot. And then the accumulation of flurries and exhaustion and I think all the mental stuff he was fighting, you know, the family business and all that drama that surrounded that event. But he's not fixed and I don't think he ever is going to be. If you're an AJ fan though, can he still beat the majority of heavyweights? Yes. Yeah, but can he beat anyone

that anyone cares about? Can he beat, the key question is here, can he beat Usyk or Fury, the two guys with belts? No. He can't beat those guys right now. Could he beat Deontay Wilder if he could finally make that fight? He could, but you'd have to believe the later that fight goes, because no, he doesn't believe in his chin, and because of that, it takes away how effective and damaging he could be. Franklin overfought,

Luke, he overachieved, he showed incredible toughness, but Luke, he should have got him out of there. If this is AJ back, he should have got Franklin out of there. And I'm not basing it just on that fact. It's overall, something's broken. I don't think it'll ever get fixed. It didn't cost him in this fight, but if we're being really honest about AJ, this vulnerability, this idea of forever, I mean, look, it's heavyweight. So in some ways, everybody's potentially vulnerable at any time. It's an overused statement, but yes, one punch can completely change this, you know, fight at any time. So it's always going to be like that.

But AJ's entire ride was him kind of learning on the job. And, I mean, you know, Carlos Tackham rocked him early. And he, you know, had to get up off the canvas against Klitschko. And he had to, you know, rebound against Dillian White and come back from being hurt. He's always sort of been, that's been part of the charm, because AJ works hard, and I think he's likable overall. I know people have picked apart his reactions to things and all that. I'm happy he won. I'm happy he can now make a big fight.

But, Luke, this was not the performance that I'm like, see, he's got a chance here against Fury. And what did you think about the fact that after the fight, AJ goes right in the microphone and says, Tyson Fury, we're not getting any older. If you want to do it, my team is ready to get any younger. If you want to do it, my team is ready. Let's sit down and do this. Luke, obviously this is a

monster fight, almost a career defining for both in some ways because of the UK star versus UK star, Philly Stadium, all that. This kind of tells me even AJ is ready to cash himself out now. Not that I don't believe he could go into a training camp and believe he's going to win and go out and give the best performance possible, but his willingness after a somewhat shaky win to just be like,

now is the time. We're not getting any younger. Let's do it. 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. Dude, that to me is like... Here's the thing. Normally, Joshua, in recent bouts, after winning, has been like, you know, are you going to fight Fury? He'd be like, you know, I'll take on all comers.

He was very deflective. This time, he went right into... So it's like, well, you can read that as, well, he's confident. Let's do it. But he doesn't know. I don't, I don't believe he doesn't think he can win. I just believe he's looking at it as I got one more chance at this and I'm just going for it. However I am. And that's the problem, Luke, because that's where I believe Derek James won't matter. Could Derek James correct certain things? Was there certain things you could stop the video and show? Ooh, that's probably Derek James related and that's a plus. Yeah, there were moments where AJ looked like AJ again. I mean, look, when he's leaving with that power jab, I don't care who you are. You've got to make adjustments and work around that.

Some of his body work was good too. Absolutely. And when he's that jab, he's a great finisher on the inside. People don't give him that credit. There aren't a lot of great inside fighters to be able to put those big punches together and have options and go with the right uppercut. He's got a lot of that, but he doesn't commit to that enough luke so um could he beat fury yeah there's always that chance but he he's gonna end up being a big underdog betting wise

you're gonna see how he gets that and i wouldn't and i wouldn't love his chances going in we already saw what happened twice against usic i hope they he can still make a wilder fight on the way out but luke um damaged goods is an insensitive way to say that but he has been compromised from the ruiz lost and that that balloon may never get filled up again right that toothpaste can't go back in luke it can't you saw it no and i tweeted this i was looking this up i tweeted this in the andy ruiz rematch and here's what i wrote this was december 17th 2019 quote joshua might win but there isn't a doubt in my mind wilder ko's him inside the distance if when that fight is made.

Yeah, I tweeted that almost four years ago, and I think it's truer than it's ever been. So when AJ is fighting second-tier guy, like, look, if they don't do the Fury fight, the Dillian White rematch is something that Dillian White's been working for forever. Who cares? Jesus Christ, who cares? Could he avoid the big shot and use his boxing skills to outbox Dillian White? Yeah, potentially he could. Against any second-tier heavyweight, Luke, who doesn't have one-punch crazy knockout power and isn't a great boxer,

that's where AJ fills in the gaps and shows you his athleticism and shows you the combination. He does a lot of good things across the board. But I don't think he's willing to risk it all in the big moments, and I don't think he's comfortable. Not everybody's comfortable being hurt and fighting through that. Brock Lesnar, even at the highest level of UFC, never fully adjusted to the idea of what happens

if you punch him square in the face early in the fight. You know what I mean? AJ does just... He's not lacking the want and willingness and warrior spirit, but something's blocked and he doesn't know how to apply it, Luke, and he's not willing to. I mean, listen, here's a little test for yourself. You want to know the difference.

Now, the performance I'm about to say is not the best performance in terms of, like, crisp boxing. But if you want to see the biggest change in how Anthony Joshua approaches the fights, go watch his fight with Vladimir Klitschko. One of the best heavyweight fights of this era, frankly. And he had to get up off the canvas. And he had to rally. And he had to go for it.

And he did. And he won. Now, granted, he got hurt a bunch. And so, you know, you would look at that and be like, okay, we don't want to do that for the future. to get off the canvas and he had to rally and he had to go for it and he did and he won now granted he got hurt a bunch and so you know again you would look at that and be like okay we don't want to do that for the future and he's had cleaner performances but the willingness to go the willingness to sit in the fire and be there i just don't think that's there's a trend i didn't like part of the part of why his his performance did not get raving reviews is there was way too much holding initiated by AJ. And the reason why I give some criticism to the tail end of Vladimir Klitschko's heavyweight reign,

which was, in my opinion, in the worst era in boxing heavyweight history, it's not Vlad's fault that there was nobody left to fight, that Lennox Lewis retired and didn't come back. It's not his fault. And he took care of business across the board. But like people on the MMA side have criticized GSP at the end of his title reign for being too safe Vlad started to get too safe and he did the jab jab lean jab jab lean and in some fights like the the fight against Alexander Povetkin in Russia the referee back from being one punch, not once, but twice was certainly, he believed in his own power and his boxing ability and that he could stand in and take shots. But he had Emmanuel Stewart,

the hall of fame trainer who could act like that calming figure, but also get, get in the ass when he needed to. And look, he, Emmanuel taught him how to use his size and be a safe heavyweight without taking out your danger. AJ doesn't know how to, how to, how to use his size and be a safe heavyweight without taking out your danger. AJ doesn't know how to do both. He doesn't know how to do both at the end of the day. It's either one or the other for him. And he was leaning too much on that Klitschko playbook of shamelessly holding to the point where his own trainer, Derek James, was like, stop the holding. Like, let's get out there.

Let's put the punches together. Let's get on him. So it's tough to see, Luke. He still could win big fights. He still could win big fights. He still might win big fights. But, you know, he was calmer on the microphone this time afterwards, even though him and Daniel was. Even he was like, no one's going to remember this fight in 15 years. Dude, no one's going to remember this fight in 15 minutes.

I mean, that fight was not. Did you see the skirmish afterwards? The two sides almost fought. The team. Yeah, yeah. I mean, whatever, whatever. All right. Let's stick with boxing.

Let's talk about another one that happened over the weekend. I don't know if there were any fans in attendance. That was kind of sad. But at the Fiserv Forum, a boxing event took place. Game Bread Boxing 4, I think is what it's called. In your main event, Anthony Pettis defeating Roy Jones Jr. Of course, we had some other matches on there. Jose Aldo and Jeremy Stevens.

We had Jacare and Vitor. We'll talk about those other two in a minute. Your impression of how this event went, RJ or Roy Jones Jr. Look, I don't want to see Roy Jones in this spot anymore. He's 54 years old, and it was a competitive fight against Pettis, but at the same time, it was also kind of this like... Dude, Pettis looked noticeably less washed than Roy Jones Jr., which I say to be like, in professional MMA, Pettis has looked like he's than Roy Jones Jr., which I say to be like, in professional MMA, Pettis has looked like he's been on his last legs for a while. So what I'm saying here is I don't like the use of Roy Jones here,

although I get it, and luckily Roy didn't get hurt, and it was a competitive fight and a close decision that could have gone either way. But the rest of the card in totality, I think there's still an opening in market for this in the larger boxing bubble that we talk about that, that, you know, it was Mike Tyson and Roy Jones fighting each other. And it was the Paul brothers and this whole YouTube breakout. And some of that is you get differing quality elements in there, right? I thought Jake Paul at the highest level has been

good enough in a mix of, you know, entertainment to get you in there in a decent fight. These were really competitive fights. So I think there is a market for this and taking retired, you know, in this case, retired UFC veterans who are still have something left in their late thirties, you know, even in some cases in their early forties and putting them out there against one another in competitive fights, not necessarily bringing in the YouTube element or the idea of like experienced guy who's old against inexperienced guy. Although I know that was part of the pull in the Roy Jones-Pettis case. But each fight across the board, even to be fair,

even the Jacare versus Vitor Belfort fight, Luke, which Belfort was mopping up and dropping him left and right early, Jacare kind of hung in there and ended up blooding Belfort. It was like they were all presented as pretty darn competitive. I got to say, across the board, the boxing level is not going to wow you, not going to wow you under any means. But it wasn't sloppy, and it was competitive. I got to say, across the board, the boxing level is not going to wow you. Not going to wow you under any means. But it wasn't sloppy, and it was competitive. Luke, I don't know if it's going to be game bread and Masvidal's promotion through UFC Fight Pass and the Fight App and putting it on pay-per-view that makes it work, or if it's going to be Zufa boxing. But I feel like

this is what Zufa boxing should be, or at least should be, to start. I say this because Dana's not giving up this boxing dream. Now you're mixing him with other people, you know, merging with WWE and looking at like Nick Khan, who's the top WWE. Don't forget the impact he had on the boxing side and representing people and negotiating big deals and bringing the top rank boxing to ESPN and having a huge hand behind the scenes and the building the production of that. I wonder if Zufa boxing could stay alive by almost starting this as the foundation. Competitive fights against using their athletes who either really want this one-off to see what they can do or their UFC career is done, but instead of going to slap or bare knuckle, let's do it in-house. Let's build the soft landing for you. And look, I wouldn't even be

mad if UFC did this. If they put out a Zufa Boxing League that was largely ex-UFC fighters, and they make competitive fights and even put a couple belts at stake. Hold on. And didn't try to toggle over this belt means this or that. But this is a promotion. We're open to business. If you want to come in from boxing or MMA. The promoter's not allowed to have the title in boxing by law.

Okay. But, like, I wonder if there's something here where it's like, okay, their career's done, but how would they look against Jose Aldo for this Zufa boxing title, where it's kind of like fun and goofy and roadside attraction, but it's taken seriously and they're matched competitively. Dude, I kind of like Jose Aldo boxing Jeremy Stevens. It was an interesting kind of fight. Okay, here's the thing.

It was a draw, now they want to do a rematch. I'm not saying, Luke, that these are going to sell monster pay-per-views or that these guys are going to get paid a lot. I don't know if it's going to sell any pay-per-views. But I do think there's something, because you want to do a rematch. I'm not saying, Luke, that these are going to sell monster pay-per-views or that these guys are going to get paid a lot. I don't know if it's going to sell any pay-per-views. But I do think there's something. Because you want to see people you know fighting against each other. But if the quality and skill isn't high, then the fight better be competitive and exciting. These weren't barn burners or fights of the year.

But they were competitive and exciting enough for me where I'm like, yeah, I kind of like this. Didn't hate it. Wouldn't say I hated it. I thought it was fine. But it did not appear that anyone was in attendance. I don't know what the gate was. I've never seen a crowd purposely blacked out that aggressively in the arena. It looked like WrestleMania I in Madison Square Garden where you can't see anybody.

You just see blackness all around. You can't see a single thing, so that didn't look great. I don't know what the pay-per-view numbers were. I cannot imagine they were very high. Dude, I just keep coming back to the same things. Do MMA fans want to watch MMA fighters box? My hunch is no. My hunch is no. My hunch is no.

They don't really like boxing to begin with. They will make exceptions for it for Fury, Tank versus Ryan Garcia. What if, Luke, what if, okay, part of what makes BKFC good, part of, if you can tolerate how, you know, it's raw. It's carnival boxing. But part of it is they build the storylines to the fights in almost a pro wrestling way. What if Zufa boxing took pre-existing storylines from Aldo and Jeremy Stevens previously fought, and now this was sort of their rematch in another sport. What if you built on that and got you to kind of care about it,

where you're like, okay, the level isn't overly high, but that's going to be a fun fight. The only way that works is you have to get someone that someone cares about a fighter that people are interested in and they have to be in a bout that you otherwise could not get in mma that has to be the difference you have to see them in a way where it's like not only do i want to see this pairing i can't get this pairing any other way. You're never going to get Mayweather-McGregor in any other way. You're never going to get Wilder versus Francis any other way. Those are interesting crossovers. Or, in the case of like, we made our own fake game red cards on Friday's show with Danny.

I had said Alexander Volkanovsky versus Patricio Pitbull in boxing. Because there's no other way to get that. Dude, we saw Stevens and Aldo fight each other already. And also with Jacare and Vitor, I admit it was better than I thought it was going to be. But still, Vitor knocked him down a bunch and he won pretty cleanly in my mind. And so it's like, what did I really get out of that? I didn't see anything I was desperate to see or I couldn't get otherwise. But that's the

only thing in the market that UFC isn't capitalizing on right now. The idea of taking big names and others, you know, they did the CM Punk experiment. They'll do big experiments if it makes a lot of sense. Maybe WWE fighters or wrestlers. Right. They don't have a house for it. But what if you start the foundation of whatever the Zufa boxing thing could be? And then you can reach over and say any WWE big names who want one off. If they're making fights that you otherwise could not get. Right. And then it becomes, they would never brand it this way, but then it becomes a senior league for your, again, retired UFC guys who still have name value. The storylines are already connected. You have the backstories. But if you can put out a competitive product that has

knockouts, I mean, if you can put a little bit of a tough man element into it, a little bit of a pro wrestling build the storylines element to it, and get it to a level that it's easy to consume for the average person that doesn't have to know a lot about combat sports. Oh, I know that guy. Oh, that guy's going to box that guy. Then you have the opportunity for celebrity one-offs to get in there if they're ready to take it seriously. I wonder if you can start, make something there,

and then start to say, look, we're open to anyone, anyone that wants to come in here and fight for our title, any skill level, if you're good enough, come in here. I wonder if that's where they can make a mark in a sport that, unless you're willing in boxing to come in with a lot of money and you're willing to lose it all, it is hard to... I'm going to say this. Asking MMA fans to watch boxing and then pay for it, very difficult to do. Well, if they took all the money and effort they're putting into slap and put it into Zufa boxing, I think it'd go a long way. Maybe so. I think it really would. And I think Jorge just showed with this event that you can do it.

You can do it decently. Wasn't it better than Triller and a lot of this other bullshit? Yes, certainly better than that. Yes, no doubt. Again, it was not bad. The question is, is it financially viable? And again, in the very basic sense, do MMA fans want to watch and pay for boxing even with fighters they like more? I am just very skeptical.

Okay, well, look, coming out of this Jose Aldo fight was... It's not my fault. We do have... We don't have... We built this do-for-boxing thing, and you had UFC Fight Pass where you could put on pay-per-view and you have connections with now all these other partners and you can promote it through WWE as well. I mean, you can do a lot of things with it. What if you got Conor and Jose to box?

You know what I mean? What if you did Conor Floyd, too, under the Zufa boxing brand? Conor's big enough to make it work. And you said, OK, Conor, you want to box? You want to do these big things? You want to box Jake? Well, it's got to be under the Zufa boxing brand. And we're using now Endeavor andwe and all our arms to promote it i'm saying luke they have

built the infrastructure for this to work this new company of wwe and ufc together is meant to dominate the live combat it's still such a thin narrow slice of that would make it work though like of the entire pie of available fights you could make the thinnest slice is the one you can make money. Think of how many UFC fighters are building up their own brand within UFC, but not getting the money they want. And then they start talking about, man, I'd love to box because they're thinking, I'd love to take my star value that I've built, bring it over here and finally get paid. If UFC can create an area within their own ethosphere here, Luke, so somebody doesn't have to go across the street and they can do that here,

then you keep everyone happy. Yeah, well, I don't imagine that Zufa Boxing is going to pay what other promoters might. I mean, if passed as prologue, they might be stuck in contracts that no longer sunset the way that they used to, which we've talked about the changes since 2017, in which case they might not have much of a choice.

But I think as long as they have choices, they're going to choose elsewhere. Again, I am very skeptical MMA fans are going to pay to watch boxing. Just not going to happen. If you use people like the names we're talking about, it's a good way to lure them in and try it. We've got to move along because we only have the studio for 20 more minutes. So, BC, very quickly, UFC 287 is this weekend. Very exciting pay-per-view.

A great pay-per-view. It's well-matched across the board. Really well-matched. BC, give me the storyline you're watching the most as we head into fight week. I don't like to take that, but remember that line Chuck used when we sat down for the pregame preview? It's the only thing on my mind as well. It's the whole line of leading into the last fight between Adesanya and Pereira, November in Madison Square Garden.

We were talking about finally Izzy, the superstar, his villain, you know, from his past was showing up and it was going to be the Izzy story. And Chuck said, well, what if it's really the Pereira story? And now that he's got three victories over Izzy, including two come from behind. And the fact, Luke, that... Two stoppages. Yeah. And the fact that like he has almost no MMA experience and makes this transition almost in like a Brock Lesnar-like way to just come on the scene. And obviously having had history with Israel, it sped up him getting a title shot, although he won the fight he needed to. And it helped that as he kind of

cleaned out the division. And look, the timing was perfect, but he came in there, he stayed the course, he got the knockout win. I hate to frame things, or always from the podcast standpoint, always trying to say, well, does this make him the third greatest middleweight if he wins? Like, no, people are sick of that, Luke. But it is interesting that just recently, Izzy was like literally on the verge of knocking on the door of immortality. Not just being a great and one of the greatest middleweights of all time, but becoming a all-time great.

We were talking about him moving up to light heavyweight and winning that and then moving up to heavyweight and fighting Jon Jones to try to become MMA Elite's first three-division champion. Okay, then he lost to Jan Blahovic. He did come back and defend his middleweight title three more times. But Luke, I really wonder now if this is the Poetan Pereira story and are we heading in? I mean, if Izzy, who, look, he's already accomplished enough that he's in the history books. He's already a great. But if he loses twice in a row right now to his longtime rival, how much does that put a ceiling on his, you know, on the totality of his once bright,

we could be looking at the greatest striker this sport's ever seen. And, you know, and look, that middleweight run is super impressive. But two in a row now, this story will be all about Pereira. I mean, he has eight pro fights, Luke, in MMA. All right? I mean, you know what I mean? Like, he lost his debut, and then he won a couple, and then he took four years off. And he watched Izzy become this thing. And then he come in there, and he took it.

It doesn't undo for me. I said this to Chuck at the time, and I still do feel this way. It doesn't undo the spectacular run that he had. I mean, remember, dude, he went in there in Australia in a hostile crowd and finished off Robert Whitaker. Dude, that, and remember he danced beforehand? Like, none of that goes away if he loses. That, to me, is still very special, very remarkable.

And the names in a row that he beat, if you read them out in a row, you're like. It's crazy. It's crazy. And also, I want to say this. Like, whatever happens on Saturday, if Pereira wins again, Izzy is a major contributor, I think, to the growth of the oceanic region in MMA and in kickboxing. He played a role in really lifting it and creating some huge rivalries and some big fights. So no matter what, nothing there changes. But it does change, obviously, the narrative if he loses again. By contrast, though, BC, what if he actually pulls out a win?

And I want to point out something here. I've obviously had a very good relationship with Izzy for a long time. Reached out ahead of time. Couldn't hear back. I checked out to see if it was an MMA hour because obviously Ariel gets all the best guests. He's not on there either. This seems calculated radio silence. Yeah, maybe Ariel will get him or I'm sure he'll do some media that's mandated.

But he's not doing nearly as much media as he did last time. As much as I'm being overaggressive in setting that narrative tone of saying, well, what if he does lose now twice in a row to this guy that would have had his number now four times across two sports? Is he not that all-time great that we thought we were? The reverse on that is if he comes back and wins it and regimes it, then it's what Usman tried to do and couldn't against Edwards, although he came close. It's what the greats, though, you know, Amanda Nunes against Peña, GSP against Sarah, when you get that second chance. I mean, you know, Cain Velasquez after getting knocked out by JDS and then coming back and getting too dominant. Although he was injured. Still, the whole idea of, like, the great ones come back. Jon Jones came back

after that long layoff and sat on gone, and he won a second title. I mean, the great ones do it. There is that pressure on. So that's the biggest storyline, I think, without question, Luke, is the whole idea of, it's like, Luke, I rewatched that fight again, right? The one at, what, UFC 281 recently? You know, dissimilar to, I never really meant it when I said that Leon knocking out Usman with a fifth-round head kick. You know, there's some luck involved.

But there was. There's not that degree in the Adesanya loss. You know what I mean? Yes, if there were ten more seconds in round one, Adesanya probably wins by a stoppage. Yeah, he might have. But it was a gradual development of things that were happening. In the end, Styles make fights, and Izzy wasn't able to make Pereira pay for his lack of experience and lack of grappling skills. But, Luke. Well, he Pereira pay for his lack of experience and lack of grappling skills. But, Luke.

Well, he made him pay for one round. True, but not enough to truly make it pay. But, dude, the Alex Pereira story is insane. It's crazy. I mean, it's insane. I've never seen anything quite like it. And, look, I think Izzy's a slight betting favorite in this rematch. But you'd be crazy if you know what this is going to look like.

Because sometimes people just have somebody else's number. Luke, does Pereira, with the strong counter-punching ability, with the ability like he did in that first fight to just put constant pressure on you. Luke, who's better than Izzy when he's flowing? Nobody, right? Nobody. He can't flow against this guy. Nope.

He can't. He has to stick and move and he can't really hurt him. It's a difficult fight. This guy doesn't go away. I don't think we say enough about what Alex Pineda did in that first fight. He did not go away. Like Luke, if he's still walking him down in the fifth round of this rematch or this fourth fight between them, you could have trouble all over again.

We don't know how this is going to happen. That is the crux of my excitement Saturday in Miami. And if you want to go there in the building, Luke, you better use your monthly rent payment. I agree. Let's do this MyBookie read, my friend. You're up first. Yeah, I was all into like passion. I know, dude. We have 15 minutes left in the studio. They're going to kick us out. It's going to be the best 15 minutes of the week. It's not me, everyone. I know everyone thinks it's not me.

Well, Luke, we were talking about Alex Pareda, and he makes his long-awaited return against Israel Adesanya, doesn't he, Luke? That's right. Former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and his final preparations for his... ...pronounced it Adesanya, Luke. When it comes to betting on the UFC, there's a ton of value, as we know, in prop bets, like predicting how a fight will finish or how many rounds it will go. Getting started at UFC.ag and use promo code COMBAT

to claim a welcome bonus up to $1,000 plus a free $150,000 March Madness Bracket Contest entry, although I would imagine some of that might be no longer available. People are like, BC, give me one statement to sum this up. If you want a sportsbook that gives you the most for your money, bet on this weekend's UFC 287 card and bet with my bookie. All right. Bet anything, anytime, anywhere with my bookie.

We want it to become your bookie, don't we? Yes. BC, we have a question to ask here. We can do the – we have two segments left. We can only have time for one. So, Mikey, can we punt the – No, no, let's hit that. Let's hit that. We'll get through it quick. Let's go. Okay.

Alright, so, Catching Lightning comes out, I think, episode one today? I'll tell you. So, Friday, April 7th. Friday, April 7th, I guess is what I'm saying. All four parts of this docuseries on Showtime, directed by Pat Kandelis, will begin streaming on any Showtime platform. Sunday night, though, April 9th, will be the television premiere on Showtime. Four-part series, Luke, and Pat Kellis, will begin streaming on any Showtime platform. Sunday night, though, April 9th, will be the television premiere on Showtime.

Four-part series, Luke. And Pat Condellis, by the way, was the same director of Outcry, the Greg Kelly story that we all enjoyed during the pandemic. Luke, this is twofold here. If you love the story of one of the great what-ifs, what could have been, Lightning Lee Murray is that in UFC and MMA history, right? One of those great what ifs. And if you like true crime stories with interviews with the witnesses

and CCTV footage of the largest heist in British history, the equivalent of $92 million, this might be the documentary for you. All right, we don't have time to play these clips and do DMs. We just don't. I think we do if we speed it up, Luke. All right, so let's get to it. Pat condell is talking about the heist itself they call the flawless heist it was it was it was flawless in the way they did it which was one of the things that really interested me when we initially started looking into it how does this happen

how does the place that the brits describe as similar to Fort Knox, right? These guys get in and you're talking about, like there's such a Hollywood element to this, right? You see it again, like when you dig into it, you're like, how has this not been made into a movie yet? You know, you have prosthetic disguises, you have these guys walking in, you know, there's a very heat type, you know, feel to this and tone and what they were doing

with the weapons, full body, you know, body armor in some cases, masks, right? But the extraordinary lengths that they go to in the months and months of surveillance and planning that they did is amazing. It's remarkable. I mean, even the police and the doctor, like we've never seen anything like this before. This is the kind of mission impossible stuff that happens in Hollywood. It doesn't really happen for real in real life. So this was such a unique case. It was really amazing to dig into that. But you see in the documentary like this, there's a flip side to that coin, right?

Where the robbery itself went off amazingly well. And there's a lot to be said for that. Other things were not done well at all, you know, but it takes a special kind of person to say, hey, I'm going to take all, you know, 15 plus people hostage, you know, and bring a seven and a half ton truck in and spend an hour and 20 minutes robbing a place. You know, again, we don't see things like this happen very often at all. Luke, our producer, Mikey Mormyle, called it the best documentary he's ever seen. It's really good. This is must-see.

And to close here with Pat Kandelis, you can check out this interview in full this week, youtube.com slash morningcombat, about the process of documentary making and all that. The idea of how good could Lightning Lee Murray have been if he didn't have visa issues, if he wasn't part of this $92 million heist. Let's hear from Pat Kandelis,

who interviewed all the big guns in UFC history for this one. I was shocked, actually, because I knew he'd only done one UFC fight in his career. He didn't have very many professional fights. He'd had hundreds and hundreds of street fights, which have all kind of become legendary. But I was really surprised to talk to Anderson Silva, who was his last professional fight, to talk to Pat Miletic, who he was training with in the very early 2000s when Miletic's camp was Matt Hughes, Robbie Lawler, Jens Paul, Jeremy Oren, Tim Sylvia, you know, Tony Fricklin, like these amazing, amazing fighters. Everybody said the same thing. And Rem parnell as well amazing brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner

in europe uh that that lee murray was so good that he was so talented that he worked so hard everybody thought he was going to be a champion if if not what are the goats and i was surprised like remco says at one point you know i think he could have been the next Anderson Silver or Fader in our, in our industry. I had to repeat that because I was so surprised to hear him say that, but it was something Pat Miletic, I mean, I kept hearing over and over again, you know, so it was, it was amazing, you know, that he did have that kind of skill level.

He did have that kind of talent and yeah, if only it had gone a different direction. Lee Murray was good. I remember his career. I remember his win over Jorge Rivera very clearly. Yeah, I can't wait to get your reaction after seeing this whole thing. And, look, if you're an MMA fan, if you're a true crime fan, this merges together perfectly.

The breakdowns of all the stories, like the Tito Ortiz backstreet fight, all of that, with all those heavy hitters telling the story, Anderson Silva and on. It's an impressive watch. Friday, April 7th, begins streaming on all Showtime platforms. The television debuts Sunday night, April 9th. Don't miss Catching Lightning. Shout out to our guy, Pat Candela. Big fan of that guy.

So let's close here. How about some lightning round? Yeah, Mikey said no DMs. We're just going to ignore him, and we're going to do it a lightning round style. Sorry, Mikey, but I promise we'll be done here very, very quickly. So let's get to it right away. Question number one from AtGranth, with just a bunch of numbers behind it. He's talking about how AJ might have lost his confidence after the first Ruiz fight.

BC, any other boxer who lost their confidence in one night? Absolutely. Many times over. Sometimes losing your confidence ties in with taking a sustained beating. Think Mildred Taylor and the very controversial loss to Julio Cesar Chavez was never the same at that night. David Loazzo versus Rich Franklin. David Loazzo was never the same. There's also sometimes it changes you. Think, look, Hector Macho Camacho, still a Hall of Famer, still an all-time great, but he was something and was a certain point when he met that career defining fight against Rosario, Edwin Rosario, even though he ends up winning that, that changed him. He didn't go after you anymore.

He became a slick, defensive, safety-first almost fighter with the theatrics the rest of the way. Countless times you can look back at a fight where you say it was never the same. But in this case with AJ, I do think it's much more mental than physical. Without question. You would agree? I would agree, yes. I would agree.

At Doug.Stone, if you guys could learn one language fluently to help you better connect with and understand fighters from some part of the world, which would it be and why? Got to be Portuguese, right? For you, yeah. I'd love to learn Spanish. I try. ESPN used to have the free Rosetta Stone, and I tried, Luke, and I gave up quick. But I'd love from a boxing and mixed martial arts as well standpoint to be able to easier be able to navigate the quick translations when you hear it from a fighter or whatever.

Dude, if you work in boxing, you almost have to speak Spanish. I love hanging out with El DiMonte, Raul Marquez, because he can talk to anybody. That Spanish could just be shooting out. Now, you almost. You almost can pull that off, right? Yeah, I'm not as good as El DiMonte, but I can get by. RIPC from at Daniel D. Again, 75 million numbers. Have you guys thought about doing a resume review on Dustin Poirier?

No, we haven't, but that's actually not a bad idea. A lot of people are saying that. His career is so good. Did we do Gaethje? We may have. I don't think we did Gaethje either. I mean, can we take any of these ministers of violence and just rerun all their fights again? We're talking about, remember, he finished off Alvarez, finished off Gaethje, and finished off, who's the other one?

Alvarez, Gaethje, Chandler. All right, from at MXVRMR. Dude, what the fuck's up with these names? Do you guys think Usman will try to make a move to 185 if Izzy fails to regain the title, potentially? And assuming he doesn't get an immediate title shot, what would the route to get there be? He would get a pretty big fight at 185.

He would get a big chance. He would get a big chance. I don't know what that's going to look like, though. I don't know. Okay, quickly. Usman versus Pareda. Can he win? Not would he win.

Can he win? He can, yes. But look, I don't think he's committing anymore to the taxing, full-time, rise and grind style that won him the title. I don't think. Is it age? Or is it you fall in love with your striking? And it's not that he's a bad striker.

But when he's not going to release that bull, right, Luke? He can't turn the cage into a china shop. I just think he's older and doesn't have quite the same gusto that he once did. Like people are always like, stop saying DC could have out-wrestled Stipe in the rematch. He's 40 years old and he's fat. Stop. BC, at It's Not Cage Fighting, is Pineda the most opponent-dependent champion in UFC history? Wow, that's a good question. That's a good question. Well, Nico Montano would seem like a pretty opponent-dependent one.

But you get the theory of it. Look, sometimes specialists or people can just fall into the right performance at the right time and you're like, they're not a complete champion. They would lose against all these other guys. But styles make fights.

Timing makes moments happen, Luke. He got there, though. That's all you can say. Look, he had to go through Sean Strickland and he went right the hell through him. So what else?

That was the top contender at the time. He got there, Luke. And then he knocked the champion out in the fifth round. Also, McGregor had, again, not easy matchmaking,

but he had very careful matchmaking early. Favorably, yes. To an extent. And then eventually just threw him out in the fifth round. Also, McGregor had, again, not easy matchmaking, but he had very careful matchmaking early. Favorably, yes. To an extent. And then eventually he just threw him to the wall. But I always throw in that when McGregor is willing to be a company guy on that level, which, like, I don't care if I'm injured, I'm still going through with the fight. Or my opponent fell out, give me another opponent right now. I don't care. Chad Mendes fight, yeah. Dude, that, like, when you're able to flaunt that and pull it

off, yes, you'll get more opportunities. It's easy to say, UFC, the C stands for Conor. We've heard that a million times. But, like, million times. But he also fulfilled the obligations that come of a company man. And so did Chandler. It's not the easiest road to take, Luke. Some people think it's selling out. But it's also selling out every arena, right, Metallica? Friends don't let friends get haircuts.

That's right. Boy, you're doing the VH1 behind the music thing? Always. In my head, always. BC, at Riggins32, does it make sense for Nganou to go all out for the AJ fight now? I guess, but I would actually say the Wilder fight would be better. I don't know

which one's more doable, but... Well, if you can do a Saudi Arabia or something like that and get large money from... Actually, isn't Nganou talking specifically with Wilder about the idea of doing it in Africa and making this a monster event? I've heard that, yeah. If you can do Wilder in Africa, do it.

But if you can't do it for some ridiculously large site fee in a foreign country, go to a soccer stadium and fight Anthony Joshua. Yeah, there's a little vulnerability there. Like, you could talk yourself into that, couldn't you? Yes. He'd get knocked out, though, right? Yeah, probably, yeah. Meaning Frank.

Yeah, probably. At Scott Arnew, what UFC 287 prelim fight could steal the fire of the night? And we'll just leave it there. BC got a UFC 287. Oh, look, Kelvin Gastelum versus Chris Curtis is going to be fun theater. Also, Chris Barnett against Chase Sherman? I think Barnett is out. That could be sloppy fun.

Why? Are you sure? Yeah, he got injured. He's out of that fight. Why do they always take from us? Also, for me, Kevin Holland taking on Santiago Ponzinibbio. Yeah, that's going to be a bad one. Well, Rob Fon.

Yeah, that's more main card. The card is great. The card is great. How about Michelle Waterson Gomez at 37 with a lot of losses lately? We signed for like eight more fights. Yeah, so she can't go fight anywhere else. Are they doing that to combat the Sunset Claws? Yes.

Yes. Is this grimy or is this smart business? Both. The two are not mutually exclusive. Oh, by the way, MMAI has a new video out, Luke, that people should look at about Ngannou. When are you going to watch this guy's content? I think it could change you. Dude, when I can stop doing all these side projects.

I think it could change you. You know how long it took me to do this tank thing I'm working on? All right. At Von Bacall. Guys, how badass do you think Dana White's security team is? And furthermore, whose team would win in an all Donnybrook? Money May or Dana's team? Money May's bodyguards are the largest people of all time.

A, Mayweather has significantly more bodyguards, and they're way bigger. That's a silly question. He has some of the, like, did you see that WWE guy, Omos, Omos, whatever, he did a face-to-face with Daniel Cormier backstage wrestling. Did you see that? Daniel Cormier's face came up, like, below the guy's moves, like right here looking into his namos, whatever. He did a face-to-face with Daniel Cormier backstage. Russ, did you see that? Daniel Cormier's face came up below the guy's moobs, right here looking into his navel, basically. Floyd has that level large, guys, in his entourage.

Question nine. This is a bad question. I don't really want to do it. Who's the most dangerous man in MMA? Who is right now the most dangerous man in MMA? You. To himself or in the fight? Yeah, dangerous to who?

Francis Ngannou? Or is that no longer true? When I think dangerous, who's going to knife you in the alley? That's what I want to know. I'd take Patricio Pippo in a street fight against anybody. Think about this. GameBread's still got a case. All-around dangerous, he's got a case.

By the way, DC sit-down interview he did with Brock Lesnar backstage at WrestleMania was the only interview Brock did. Shout out to DC. That was a good-ass interview, so watch that. Our boy Brett did the home ride with Jorge in Miami. That's cool. Alright. You're like, fuck Brett. And I'm like, stop that. No, no. I'm just not going to watch it. I don't have time.

At CamoKTV, Luke, do you think BC could create a five-minute stand-up routine and actually get laughs? Not only from the crowd, but also you, Luke. Could he make you think BC could create a five-minute stand-up routine and actually get laughs? Not only from the crowd, but also you, Luke. Could he make you laugh? BC makes me laugh all the time. But not in playing bits. I'm a reactional.

Do I think you could do a five-minute stand-up routine and actually get laughs? Not just from the crowd, but from me. Not many of us can. There's only a thousand of us who can on this little book, okay? Skits and bits. Skits and bits. That's not my comedic gift, right? I'm a counterpuncher.

But have I not pitched for the next doc that I don't know if ever is going to come out the idea of going to an open mic and going all in? Here's what I think. Here's what I think. We have literally a minute left. Here's what I genuinely think. I think you could create five minutes, and your first five minutes would be abysmally shitty, and you would bomb very bad.

You don't think I'd pop the crowd a little? A little. I think you'd probably have one or two good ones. Don't forget about this. Let me finish. I don't care about your anger at all. It's not anger. It's just forcefulness.

There's a big difference. But I think you could make a good five minutes with a little bit of, like, if you had ten opportunities on stage, by the end, I actually think your five minutes would make me laugh. Oh, boy. Your first rough draft five minutes is ass. It's terrible. You're going to be a failure.

Great. Thanks. I don't even, yeah, that's fine. I can't, yeah. This is the pep talk my parents gave me. You're going to be terrible. It's going to suck. Just go do it anyway.

I thought I would look fit in this. Turns out I look fat. No, we just look old. Yeah, we can't dress this up any better than this. This is really. You know what they should do when the Phil DeRueve interview comes out? They should just put a bleep mark over my pasty legs and just not show

them to the audience. They are pasty. Let's remind everyone, we have a ton of stuff we're shooting today. A ton of stuff we're shooting tomorrow. By the way, Wednesday, because we're in Miami, BC is going to eat a Colombian hot dog on air and give us a review. Liver depending,

if I can make it through. This was a My Wife special. My my wife's like get BC to eat a Colombian hot dog on air see what he does I'm like okay we can do it we're in Miami we can go get one so that lady puts up with you on a full-time basis I'll back her all right let's remind everyone morning combat store for all of our merch you can go check us out there we have tons of stuff coming your way we've already shot some today Wednesday show and everything in between we're sitting down with some big A-listers in the game. And it's going to be great. So thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe, all that good stuff.

Email the show, morningcombat at gmail.com. We'll get to fan subs and have you seen this nonsense a little bit later. We ran out of time. We have to go. All right, this is it. We're in our limit. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas.

This has been Morning Combat. Thanks to the folks at CBS who hooked us up today with the show. Shouts to Malka and Showtime. We'll see you guys soon. And, yeah, that's it. So until next time. Yeah, loyal gains and stuff like that. Yeah, may all your gains be loyal. Bye, y'all.