MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 296: Who is Next for Leon? | Pantoja-Royval | Ferguson | Boxing Roundup | Morning Kombat Ep 529

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

On Episode 526 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to a great weekend of combat sports. First up the guys break down UFC 296. Is the MMA fan base finally sick of Colby Covington? Who is next for Leon Edwards? Where does Alexandre Pantoja rank among UFC's most underrated or under appreciated champions? Is it time for Tony Ferguson to retire? If so, what is his legacy? The guys also break down the boxing fights over the weekend. As always we close out Mondays with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:12:00) - Edwards vs. Covington (00:42:40) - Muhammad or Rakhmonov? (00:58:20) - Alexandre Pantoja (01:09:30) - Ferguson vs. Pimblett (01:32:00) - Boxing Roundup (01:50:00) - Dm's From Donks (02:00:40) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, hey, hey. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. I don't even know what I'm saying. It's the 18th of December, 2023.

Hi, 2023. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. It is time for episode whatever the fuck it is of Morning Combat. I joined you from the capital of Los Alamos, right here in Washington, D.C., with a very chipper man whose happiness I envy, and both in addition to being envious of it, I just don't even understand it.

But it's there, and it's probably a good thing. It's Brian Campbell. Hello, King of Connecticut. Look, you look,vious of it, I just don't even understand it. But it's there, and it's probably a good thing. It's Brian Campbell. Hello, King of Connecticut. Look, you look, first of all, indeed, and second of all, you look like you're about to lick the screen or fall into it and then die. Are you all right? No, not really. I haven't slept in a long time. Yeah, so that's not great.

Okay, well, look, you know what i did last night luke i i got home in the afternoon from america i mean dude what we did on saturday that eight hour marathon of content very few in this industry can pull that off and land that plane like sully sullenberger can't luke we can okay but i'm not gonna lie after i sent over my have you seen this shit yesterday afternoon before dinner i took a nap lu, that ended at 6 a.m. this morning. I am jealous of that. I went to bed last night with my daughter. I put her to bed at 8.30.

I probably went to bed around 9. And then I got up at 4.30 to work on some shit that I have to do after today's show. So I'm tired. Will you be a salacious crumb during this episode luke no i'll be all right i'll be all right i'm just um it gets harder and harder when you get older and older it really does it gets it gets you just can't bounce back like you once did so um in any event here we are you know colby covington is is really thinking the same thing yeah he had a he had a bad Saturday did he not shouts to everyone shouts to everyone who gave me and BC a hard time last week for doubting his game and having written by

the way we we were there were things we were wrong about by the way in terms of being praiseworthy like one of the things I had thought BC was that he had a he was kind of like a you know a system quarterback right he was a system kind of guy in terms of the way his game worked. I was not a big believer that ring rust would be a factor. I'm not saying it was the factor, but I do think it probably didn't help. I guess the point I'm trying to make is there was more ring rust there than I thought there was going to be. You can send your apologies, morningcombat at gmail.com,

if you were a fucking dick to either me or him, and being very reasonable in our expressions of doubt about him you know remember i got called the shit tard or was that a lib tard no shit lib shit lib shit lib for saying that i don't understand how the vegas odds makers have colby as like a you know plus 150 plus 175 yeah i didn't get it also luke if we're doing maya culpas i'm not going to apologize for my delirious post-fight take after eight hours on camera Saturday in throwing a little shade at Leon for not maybe, you know, going for the finish or being more offensive. This was not a knock against the technical gap that Leon showcased or the fact that he out-wrestled Colby

and this certainly wasn't taking Colby off the hook the reason why Saturday's main event sucked was because of Colby and me mentioning injury was by no means to protect and excuse Colby's performance but to almost double down on my displeasure in having watched Dana force him into that fight and then watch him essentially not try to win until the final round and a half so um yeah it's colby's fault i just felt on top of that there were certainly opportunities for leon to make it his night so to speak and he didn't so look you can't look fights are not always going to be incredible and they don't need to be surviving advance is also part of this game but get it right colby lost on saturday in many ways leon won don't take one part of my analysis

as like oh these guys are making excuses for colby colby shouldn't have been in this fight he shouldn't have been that close in the odds he shouldn't have been anything so let's get it straight people before you start hurling stones at this glass house all right there's there's there's no one who thinks that colby like for, when we were criticizing him last week, and I'm talking about the versions of his game that were not great, that you could at least identify pre-fight, and they don't have the emotional maturity to understand that's not a referendum. Like, here's the part I don't get, BC. It's like, oh, you're saying this about Colby because it's a referendum on his politics.

Ladies and gentlemen, is Colby alone in being a Donald Trump fan among fighters? Like basically every guy who headlines every week is in lockstep with that. Now he takes it to another level in terms of like his personal advocacy of it. But like every guy is like that. If that were true, you would see it almost every week. What the fuck are y'all talking about? Okay. Anyway, we have a lot to get to with that so a UFC 296 recap in terms of advancing some of the storylines and where we have arrived to this point also BC there was a lot of boxing over the weekend Jake Paul had a what would you call it certainly wasn't a bad win definitely wasn't a bad win but we will characterize its value there was the last Showtime event David

Murrell obviously just blowing past and Agbeko we'll talk a little bit about that and then of course bam rodriguez getting a fantastic win as well over on the zone we'll cover that um a little bit later as well at all about this sweatshirt i just unwrapped from uh rj dunkel gangbang no jerkins in my box just for the record rj where's my lotion but look at this holiday morning donk shirt i mean this is this is look it's a uh a hoodie list sweatshirt and it fits spectacularly so morning combat dot store if you want to wear this if you want to wear this or if you want to wear that expression of grief and doom on luke's face that'll cost you extra yeah all you have to do is just uh be riddled with anxiety at all times it'll be great

all right uh let's see let's remind everyone the short story you mentioned morningcombat.store you can get that one um i don't know what else you can get but it's a lot of good things on there as well morningcombat at gmail.com our new diehard our new diehard christmas sweatshirts on there luke if you you go yep that's on there as well i got one in the mail i haven't tried it on yet but i'm looking forward to doing it. The weather has been, I don't know how it is in Connecticut. It's like 50 degrees here. It's not that cold.

Dude, it's going to be 60 today, which is just this weather just trying to get me all hung over and sick for no reason. But I'll fight the battle. I'll take it over snow any day of the week, Luke. And anything else to plug? I think that's about it. Morningcombat.gmail.com to reach the producers. there's all the socials and shit like that look saturday night after we departed after eight hours did you go back to the hotel room and eat all that cold food you ordered or did what happened i had half of the sub and i threw it away yeah yeah it was tasty though it was a good sub cold or did you use the microwave? I ate it cold. You're so weird.

Dude, dude, all of your ills in life are linked to this. This is the saddest part of your life. You're not, not your, you know, laziness. Let me assure you, it's not the saddest. Your what? I can go to levels. Not laziness. You want to eat this shit cold.

Why? Why, Luke? I don't, I don't, I don't really know. I don't really know. Some of it, I will say, it probably would have been better in the microwave, but I don't know. You know you had the option to eat it hot when it was delivered.

That was also in play. No, by the time that one got delivered, I was already on the air. So no, that one was not an option. But anyway. All right, BC. Without a way, let's remind folks, before we get going here on topic number one,

there's a great drink that we've been drinking for, how long now, BC. Without a way, let's remind folks, before we get going here on topic number one, there's a great drink that we've been drinking for how long now, BC? Four plus years at this point? At least three. At least three solid. AG1 has been a part of this MK journey longer than anyone not named UI, Mikey, or a few others, Luke, you know? And there's a good reason for that. There's a reason why it's had staying power.

It's because not only do we believe in it, BC, we know for a fact that it works. You want to help your digestion? Great. You don't want to take a million pills? Great. You want to put in the micronutrients that your body needs? Very simply and in actually a pretty tasty, easy to administer way. BC, what else could you go to other than AG1?

I mean, what am I talking about here? You know who likes swallowing pills, Luke? Not me, okay? Certainly not five, six, seven giant horse ones in the morning to try to get my vitamin fill. How about just one scoop of the magic AG1 green powder? I mix it with water. That's the foundation for the rest of my day. Prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes for gut support, magnesium, B vitamins for energy support, adaptogens to balance my body's levels, vitamin C, zinc. Luke, the kitchen sinks in there. All I do is mix that subtle tropical flavor every single morning before the coffee, before the carbs, before all that

stuff that maybe puts you off track. How about you start an on track to begin with? I got a friend in life luke it's green it's called ag1 and i love it cold and flu season is coming up you can never be too well i guess you could be vitamin doubt but ag1 is not going to put you there it's going to put you at the right amount all the things that you do need to protect your health all the other things you do need to get that uh insurance for the of your condition. So here's what we're going to do, folks. If you want to take ownership over your health, of course, it starts, as BC indicated, every morning with AG1.

Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash morning combat. That's drinkag1.com slash morning combat. Check it out. All right, BC, let's turn our attention as we do to the last UFC pay-per-view of the year, UFC 296. We did do a watch along. We did do a post-fight show, a little bit of a hasty post- fight show, but the dust has kind of settled and something interesting has been revealed BC. So the online and frankly, in-person reaction to Colby Covington has been fierce. And what I would describe as highly critical of him, folks that were defending him last week sometimes vociferously are now really turning

against him bc is the mma fan base finally sick of colby covington yes yes they are luke because even if you align with him for political reasons or if you align with him because you like the brash cocky nature and look not everything colby has said in playing this character over the years has been despicable on the level of the insult of Leon's dead father. Or, you know, there's a lot of nerds and virgins and hired models. But Colby typically comes to fight. So even Luke there, even if we have questioned at times whether, you know, allowing Colby to sit out for 21 months and kind of pulling a steep pay to secure what would be really probably a final chance at a UFC world title. Was that the right move for the promotion given how crowded this division in,

given how overdue Bilal Muhammad is and might get passed over once again if you take Dana's words closely? There was still that guarantee in there that Colby's going to mix it up on the build to the fight. He's going to represent if you align on that side of his message. But at the end of the day, if you put the money down either to support him or either in hopes of seeing him get his comeuppance, you expect that he's going to push the pace and do what Colby does, spam you with offense, spam you with takedowns and make it a fight. He didn't in this case and the only reason why i kept harping on i'm telling you he looks injured again not to give him a free pass or an excuse

but to double down on what an absolute debacle this turned out to be for the ufc to essentially hold up business in this deep division with so many new names showing up and coming and running a fight that no one really wanted but to what Dana White said in the post fight press conference needs to be taken into account here's why Colby was there because he can play that villain b-side role Dana said at the post fight press conference that after Colby said that insult to Leon leading to the bottle being thrown that their metrics showed a 25 percent improvement on pay-per-view sales. Not social numbers, but pay-per-view sales in the moment. They know what Colby did to get people to care about this.

And when you go out and lay an egg so willingly, right? Like there is a responsibility to go in there and fight. There is. He didn't put that best foot forward. Yes, he did attempt to rally with wrestling and did have a moment in round five, but wasn't able to capitalize on it. And the moment they put the microphone in front of Colby and he

attempted to act like, not only was everything fine, but I don't have a scratch on my face. This was the easiest fight of my life. I thought I deserved the decision. All things that are just really outright, absolute bullshit. Well, now you're talking about taking money from people. Yeah, the non-streamers, those who still buy the pay-per-views,

who still host the parties, who still bought this great deep card, probably in a lot of ways for Colby's involvement. What he delivered wasn't just go-home heat, wasn't just Xbox heat as pro wrestling fans would understand he also really just held up the division for nothing so yeah luke thomas short of him starting a blood feud with somebody right away short of him going right back down the despicable character route to get you to care about an actual fight in the cage i don't want to see him again in the elite level and the pay pay-per-view level, in the title level.

And I really think the general fan base came together. I mean, even Donald Trump was caught on camera walking out during Colby's post-fight speech. Why? Because, Luke, even he couldn't handle the fake news of Colby's post-fight speech, okay? I would have loved nothing more, even if he was lying, for Colby to come out and just be like, look, had a bad injury, couldn't train fully, still came out and tried my best. Look at the rally I tried in round five.

Don't worry, guys, I'm still here. But no, excuses and just being like, no, I won the fight. Really? You won the fight? Which fight? Which fight? No, I didn't see that. So no, Luke, this is a debacle.

And what I said Saturday night late is still true. He cashed out whatever goodwill was left in the hearts of UFC fans and most importantly, in the wallet of UFC fans. This was him cashing himself out for the pay-per-view main event title B-side money that he did get. It's not air repairable, but he's going to have to take a backseat for a while and at his age luke it might be forever in terms of demanding our attention at the highest level that's over those days are over yeah i mean his title days again the we said this on saturday this part i'll just quickly repeat which was could it be possible that he

could find himself as a injury replacement and then into some kind of title fight? That's a possibility. But short of that, just be very clear, he'll never fight for a UFC title again. Short of that, it won't happen. Not only because he won't be able to talk himself into that kind of position, but he won't be able to beat anyone of any kind of ability to get there. Very clearly, his best days are now far from over. I don't think that was his best showing,

even given his current condition. I think we'll get a better one than what we got against Leon. Leon's a difficult guy to beat, but it's a wrap for him. Look, he wasn't defending. I think it's important that I stop you here and get your reaction. He wasn't defended one bit by Dana in the post-fight press conference. And while Dana didn't go as far as actively shitting on him and talking negatively about his future, when Dana's only response repeatedly is he looked old, he looked slow. And three separate times Dana was asked what Donald Trump's reaction was to Colby's performance.

And it was, well, I think Donald had the same reaction as all of us. That ain't good. That ain't good, Luke. That's not what you do as a company man company men take fights at the last minute they'll fight anybody but also luke they'll fight how would you explain if there's no injury why colby was so willing to give away the three and a half rounds that opened that fight and whatever's left of the muscles on his right leg again going back to it to it, there's a Leon Edwards equation to this that we're going to get to in just a second,

which I think was a big part of it. But the other part is, do I think that Colby is 100% washed? No. No. But that was a washed-ass performance. Was it not? That was a washed performance.

Ring rust, age, and an outdated game as well. Like all of it kind of came together. I mean, you mentioned it. Dana said he looked slow and old. That's about right. He did. He didn't look like he had zip. He didn't look like he had a great game plan. He didn't look like he was even close to his physical prime. He just looked, for the most part, really, really bad. Getting back to the original equation, or the question, excuse me, which was,

has the fan base finally turned on him? My answer is yes and no. The answer is yes in the sense that, like, we had to fight off all the orcs and 4chan incels last week who could not, like, conceptualize that, like, criticizing his game does not actually mean some kind of political referendum. But all of those folks turned on Colby after the fight, too. So in saying that, and I tweeted about this, weirdly some people thought it was like a praise thing, which I don't quite get. But it's true.

Dude, the knives were out for Colby on Sunday. You could see it in a million different directions. People who were usually very, very cautious about saying anything bad about him or had otherwise praised him, they were done with him, fed up with him. They were sick of him. There really was a sea change. And getting booed in the way that he did on Saturday also kind of speaks to that as well. However, I mean, let's just be honest about something. If you liked Colby Covington prior to Saturday, why did you like him? Did you like him because he fought a lot? No. Did you like him because he had an amazing highlight reel? No.

You liked him because he is a professional shithead to everyone, and you like that. Or you do like his politics or the way in which he represents them, like some version of his identity. So if another fighter comes along and does that they'll just like that guy like this this the the reasons why they liked him they will materialize again also i would say and we'll talk about this a little bit later again i don't think that was the i do i do think that the the worm has turned on colby's career and he won't get back what once was available to him but i as i said previously i don't think that's actually the best that he's got right now. I do think there's more to it.

And if he does have an exciting fight against a very difficult contender, should he take a fight like that and he has to show something for it, the fan base will just jump right back on. Or I should say, the people who had alienated him on Saturday will come back around, BC. If you can change one direction that quickly, you can come right back to it. Yeah. If you have enough stimulus in the right direction.

So the problem with that though, is I think he needs to almost now double and triple down on the character, the asshole character to get us to care about the next fight. You have to make it a blood war. Then you have to fight like it's a blood war, but you know, he didn't call out notice Strickland or anyone else of that higher ilk. He called out Wonderboy, who, for all we know, could be going out that door afterwards. So, Luke, I want to expand on one thing that you

just said, where, you know, Colby filled a certain identity within certain fans who are looking for that rebel rouser that doesn't take shit from anybody that, you know, says what he feels at all times, but also that at least attempts to back it up dude if anything do you know what saturday night was first of all it was a very good pay-per-view card start to finish save for the main event and even that main event agreed even that a main event had elements of leon edwards that we're going to get into shortly that were redeemable performance wise in terms of the continued leap for him but i think we actually saw that that take place, the handoff. The fans that loved Colby for certain things that they didn't get from his shit performance on Saturday,

they are now getting from guess who? Sean Strickland, who not only has been delivering in press conferences and in his upset of Adesanya, yes, delivering a lot of quotes that we're going to have to beep out and hope that you don't see that level of casual homophobia just accepted in modern UFC circles moving forward. But I mean, he had a beef with DDP on Saturday and turned around and jumped the freaking rows and went after it. That's the kind of American free spirit freedom will that the fans want. Colby not only cashed himself out in the main event,

we actually saw the baton handed off to the new Rebel Rouser who tends to try at the very least to back it up in the cage. Yes, fair enough. And again, what really happened here was people who liked Colby prior to Saturday at least could stand on the idea that, hey, look what he did to Jorge, where it wasn't a super exciting fight, but it was a dominant one, right? He was very, very dominant in that case. Or, you know, pick any of the wins where Robbie Lawler looked like

he barely had a scratch on him when they fought, but the numbers speak to how well Colby was able to control with takedowns, ground-to-pound, such as you want to call it that. But again, a very, very active and dominant offense altogether. There were those performances. You take that away, and then it that, but again, very, very active and dominant offense altogether. There were those performances. You take that away, and then they really, I think, had folks that had enough. Also, I will say, B.C., it seems to me, and I don't know if you feel this way. If you disagree, please let me know.

There are people who just don't like him and don't want anything to do with him. There are people who love him, and I think there's some of those folks still left, although not as many. There were a bunch of folks who were willing to tolerate it, provided A, he won, but they were put on notice with the Leon Edwards father stuff. And if you went that route and you won, you could at least dunk and say, see, I told you so I can get away with this. Like the winning, it doesn't prove anything, but it just puts you on top. He's up there. You're down here. You have to tolerate it but it because it put them on notice they didn't like it

they weren't sure really what to make of it then he goes out there and turns out this all-time horrific performance he actually ended up like not creating people who didn't like him but more than normal were speaking out against him i think because he not only lost but he lost after really to some people's sensibilities anyway crossed a particular line there was there was people who maybe were ambivalent about him one way or the other that became no longer ambivalent because of these forces would you agree i would fully agree look there are times when look you can't mention Colby's arc without mentioning pro wrestling because of how aggressively he's taken the tutelage of Dan

Labbert from ATT, one of the biggest pro wrestling fans and actually a proven TV wrestling heel. And he's applied those teachings to his character. But once it starts to feel like pro wrestling in the results, meaning when do, look, pro wrestling fans like me, for example, come and go. When we're back in is when the storylines are juicy and when the story delivers at the end of the day. Colby didn't deliver at the end of the day. Not even that story could have been delivered in a win or a loss, but it's delivered through the fact that you may have influenced me perching this fight or influenced me caring about you because of the pro wrestling antics. But once we get there, it's a real fight.

I'm not saying that Saturday wasn't a real fight. I'm just saying that Colby's effort and Colby's performance didn't remotely live up to the amount of shit talk that he talked ahead of him. His effort didn't look like it lived up to it. And that's when people start going, wait, this looks too much like pro wrestling. I either paid to see him get his due or I paid to see him get the win and say F you to everybody. And he didn't really provide us with either, Luke.

And I think, again, some of that falls on Leon, which is why I guess I'm the only one, along with Joe Rogan, willing to criticize Leon to a small degree. But don't miss it. 90% of that criticism goes at Colby and it's warranted. Also, there's a big difference. People saying i mean i guess you know listen everyone's going to raise the stakes and twist and remix any kind of potential influence that they may have had

you and me included but i've seen a lot of comparisons to chael sonnen and chael certainly in a lot of people's sensibilities cross the line as well depending on what you want to say about that but let me tell you something as someone who knows Chael and had covered his career, there is one big extraordinary difference between them, perhaps other ones, but this one stands out to me, BC. Namely, yes, Chael had some real big remarkable defeats. He lost to Anderson Silva twice. You can go through some other ones.

I do not recall any post-fight press conference that he attended following a loss that didn't show chale having pure candor and contrition about anything that was said pre-fight or anything that happened in the octagon itself he would show up and take his loss like a man and colby goes out there in the most just absurd kind of fashion and you you know, says, I thought I won three, four, and five. The judges are against me because of his political worldview. I mean, just the most insanely stupid shit you've ever heard in your life. No one buys it, even the people who are ordinarily sympathetic to him. Whereas with Chael, Chael, I cannot tell you how many people he would lure back in with post-fight contrition about a loss that

Colby just doesn't seem capable of that is a big difference that should be noted it's why I said he cashed out his goodwill whatever was left of it because even if you're a huge supporter of him and you make a great point at least Chael afterwards after getting popped for steroids will make jokes about it but be honest Chael will tell you a lot of bs to promote a fight i've never lost right like you know all that fun stuff right but you're right there's always that back end of you know i tried my best it didn't work colby just i mean so look to sum up because i don't want to go anymore on cole because leon does deserve let's make him the center of this this universe here but do you think because i think he was hurt i think it it played into a

bad training camp and i just think he's not. I think it played into a bad training camp. And I just think he's not willing to admit it. And he's hoping to keep his brand alive in ways that are, it's too far. The toothpaste is out of the tube. But really, I want your explanation. How do you explain the shit performance from Colby? Was it that he was so overwhelmed by the technical, that by the technicality of Edwards that was closing the openings of any success he would have?

Or did you see what I saw? A guy unwilling to sort of go for it. Even with the success of taking Edwards down and getting into top position, I didn't see a willingness to risk it all to try to win, and I certainly didn't see that in the first three rounds. How do you explain that? Okay, so there was a video I saw of him backstage. And again, I said at the beginning of the show, and I'm going to say it one more time, which is this was an all-time dogshit performance.

There's simply no two ways about it. On the other hand, whatever Colby currently is, and there's a matter of interpretation there, whatever he is, I do not think you got the best of it on Saturday because there was a video afterwards we see of him walking backstage somewhat gingerly, of his own ability, but somewhat gingerly, where he had both knees wrapped in ice. Did you see that? He was walking around? Yeah. I mean, I could understand having one of those wrapped in ice

with the one he got really damaged with the leg kicks. And, of course, he took leg kicks on both sides, but not in a way that would explain where the ice was going. I think partly he's old. I don't think his body I mean dude you've been wrestling since I mean to get as good at wrestling in college as he was right where you're multiple time all-american you have to start wrestling in the single digits basically I'm sure he's and I'm sure that's the reality that he did of course he graduated college what at this point 13 years ago so then you add on 13 years of all that accumulated wear and tear he's simply not the same guy at 35 anymore and his body's not going

to recover anymore i am and i'm also with ubc i don't think he was 100 that weight cut he was able to do it but it looked like it had taken a little bit out of him he didn't quite seem like he had the same i mean if he was fully healthy and fully like i know all the energy in the world no no injuries you'd have to say well leon did all of that and leon did a bunch to discipline him that is a very key perhaps the most key part of this story but on top of it i i agree with you i think he's concealing some kind of injury and also 35 years of age. Ladies and gentlemen, every there's a stat or a thing I want to show. I'll send it to the Bruce was here in a second. Everybody thinks getting old in sports is gradual where like, you know, as your age

accumulates 33, 34, 35, your performance will kind of decline, but you'll have a little bit up here and then down and up and down. The overall trend is down, but you'll have some ups and some downs. And that can be true for some people, like a Jim Miller, who has managed how his career has gone in the later stages very carefully, given who he is fighting. But for a lot of fighters, you get old overnight. You get old like that, and there is no coming back from it. It can be an absolute torrential downpour of just all the problems that come with age depending on your situation we don't know if that's colby's we're

gonna have to see but don't be surprised if it is yeah well he's 35 and you're 35 and over stat from welterweight and below does hold up again so that's part of it but look at his stomach there look to be i'm serious about this i'm not trying to be a weird body guy but there look to be, I'm serious about this, I'm not trying to be a weird body guy, but there looked to be the formation of sort of slight, slight love handles on the side, he wasn't ripped up in the same way he normally is, for a guy who had 21 months off, I did expect him to come in in the best shape of his life, the fact that it didn't look like he was does scream injury, but you know, like TJ Dillashaw, he knew, Luke, that this was the last chance, so he had to do it anyway, and I felt that TJ kind of robbed the fans knowing that his shoulder can go at any time, and I certainly feel like Colby robbed the fans here, but back to Leon and what he did do right,

I want to make sure people realize this, I got respect for how Leon won this fight, he actively made a decision to go in there against such a decorated wrestler and out-wrestle him, that's some stuff that tyron woodley was doing throughout his welterweight title run that i still feel like he doesn't get that respect in the fact that he looked at each opponent saw their greatest strength and essentially tried to focus just on that and take it either take it away from them or beat them in that this was in that regard a great step for leon i just felt bad for leon that this fight is not going to help him

in terms of his marketing growth unless they continue to put him in London, which Dana did say afterwards, he feels that's the right idea to bring Leon back there. And I agree with that, especially if they're going to do Bilal next. And we don't know if they will. That's another conversation. But I just want to say this. A lot of people got into this fight because of what was kind of a pro wrestling thing. Now, it wasn't fake, but it was real when Colby went out there and insulted Leon and he got that pissed. What I'm saying is the fake element was Colby's playing a character trying to get Leon fixed. But when that happens, yes, you are getting people paying for the pay-per-view in a lot of ways

to see the villain get the comeuppance. It's the old hero and villain story, which is what pro wrestling is built upon. And I did, and I know Leon fans think, oh, this is just BC going to hate on Leon forever. No. But when you're trying to be somebody who's in the pound for pound, who's a champion, who wants to be marketed well, and he has such an inspirational story, I felt bad for Leon that he didn't have a better finish, that he didn't, you know, actively try to finish Colby, who could barely stand on one leg, didn't have knockout power, was not going to have success even when he took Leon down and trying to finish the fight. And then to see Leon on the bottom to close round five. So when Leon gives that baby face speech afterwards about, you know, crying and the comments about the dad, which was very real. And we felt it. And I connect with Leon. Horrible stuff that Colby said. But that rings so much more true on a business part, which is part of this game for champions, for elite fighters. You've got to have that marketing side and that business side. That's something we've criticized Leon for

a long time. Luke, I just feel like Leon had an opportunity here to beat down the injured heel who came out here and didn't give his best performance and got his leg chewed up and was barely in the fight. That's the best way to take the next step marketing wise with a stamp on you by finishing and almost maybe retiring the villain that everyone hates. You can always argue that that's not, that's the fighter does not have to do that. You're right. Survive in advance. Fighters can win boring. They can do it. Look at GSP second half of his career. You can do that all you want. But Leon has not had the right head start in terms of properly being a promotable pay-per-view main event or a cider without a Colby.

I think he had a chance to get Colby the F out of there and really send a statement about his future. And now, unfortunately, some of the stain that Colby put on this fight is still on Leon. That's my two cents, Luke. I don't know if you agree with that. And it doesn't take away from Leon's sort of dominant one-sided performance. But the optics of being on your back in round five matter. And when he tried to deliver that speech. Man, I don't care about that at all.

No one's going to remember that. I think it does. I think it does marketing wise because he delivered a speech afterwards and no one cheered for because he had an opportunity to take that dude who didn't belong and they're the f out of there luke i do think i do again i do think he went for two submission attempts both of which were pretty good um it was on the feet where i thought he was a little too different uh defer would agree that Leon Edwards was a little too differential on the feet not at first I thought at first having that kind of I'm gonna play the distance game with you I'm gonna make you stand far apart I thought actually thought that was

actually quite wise but once it was pretty clear that Colby couldn't overcome that then I thought there was another layer of offense which I know Leon has that he could have gone to and didn't. He just didn't. So I can say that that sense, but the fifth round, like all the optics of it, that doesn't mean shit to me. I don't,

I don't care about that at all. To be perfectly honest. I just, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't say it that that's something that's going to hold him back in the meritocracy.

Look, he's the champion, right? But look, that doesn't help him. People paid to see him give the bully what he deserved, and he didn't do it. Sort of.

No, I think people paid to see the bully win, and then when the bully shit the bed, they were like, do we really care about Leon? Well, we don't hate Leon, but I guess we can just be really mad at the bully. I just didn't... He could have been that what you're talking about for people who really dislike Colby but the people in attendance were

really not that they were they were wanting Colby to do well and then he just really disappointed them again just to go point out like oh they turned on him they turned on him because he had a bad performance really bad performance but if he goes out there and has a good one in his next fight, whoever that ends up being against, if it's enough that people care about, and they probably will, dude, they'll be right back behind him. I am absolutely certain about that. There's no denying that whatsoever.

But at the point he's at now, he really has done himself a disservice. All right, but it is true to say this, though. Final point on Colby. For anyone that says sometimes, well, he hasn't beaten a ranked guy since what? 2018, 2019. And I guess technically that's true. I always felt it was not fair to Colby because look at the two performances he did against Usman. I mean, he earned himself that rematch.

You got to give him that. But I think it is true now that we look back at the totality of Colby's elite prime and say, unless he's able to beat you going downhill in a one-sided fashion with his a game he doesn't beat elite names and that's a true fact luke he doesn't have any wins over elite names at one people like i saw someone battling because sean el shadi had a pretty like ruthless tweet about him and folks were like he has no signature wins and i saw someone be like the robbie win was it was a signature win and so was RDA that's not true Robbie was long past prime by the time they got to fight and RDA is good and still pretty respectable level when they fought but it's not a true 170 or and by the way that fight was actually

pretty close that's not true I thought Colby won it fairly convincingly but it wasn't some kind of runaway let's put it that way it wasn't a runaway for Colby in the end. So he doesn't actually even really have a dominant signature win against a really high-level ranked guy. He's got two good performances in losses against Kamaru as the best thing he can say about his resume up to this point. Those are literally his best performances in terms of how well he competed, and they're just losses. This is just a fact that you have to accept at this point. Now, it brings us to Leon here for a second BC and I do think you raise an interesting question did he really get a profile boost from this did he really elevate himself in the end we had talked on the pre-game previewed about like hey this might be the Leon Edwards era and BC he beat

Kamaru Edward excuse me he beat Kamaru Usman twice He beat Colby Covington very thoroughly on Saturday. But it wasn't like a takeover exactly, was it? It feels like he is very, very, very good. Again, I cannot overstate this more. Colby had so much problems because of the very smart, brilliant things that Leon was able to do. But it doesn't feel like a thunderous takeover. It doesn't feel like he snatched the crown and declared it like this is actually my era in that way. I do think if he goes back to England, he'll get a hero's welcome very much deserved.

But there could be something to be said about a missed opportunity here something you've alluded to in the way in which everything went on saturday well yeah i'm glad you're saying that because i think it is a big missed opportunity mostly because if you had to say it for yourself why did colby in in from for promotional reasons why did colby get the shot in theory luke? All right. Well, one, maybe you get Donald Trump in the crowd. And even though Dana said afterwards that he disagreed with Colby, they would not have allowed Trump to go in there to put the belt around his waist for whatever that matters. The reason why Colby's in the spot in reality is you have a champion who is very good among the three, four, five best pound for pound in the world. I mean, Leon's a great fighter.

That has never been part of my analysis. Once he showed me against Usman in fights two and three, four, five best pound for pound in the world. I mean, Leon's a great fighter. That has never been part of my analysis. Once he showed me against Usman in fights two and three, and I finally woke up to it. But Colby's in there to give Leon the rub. It just is. And I know that while we're blaming Colby for the flat performance, that's why I felt bad for Leon

because there was an opportunity against an aging name and a guy that brings a lot of eyeballs to really help try to put Leon over. He'll be over in England, and I know using over is pro wrestling terms. BC, stop talking about that. It's really just marketing terms. If you don't think the UFC is taking a pro wrestling model on how to market, then you're crazy, right? Like, obviously they have. And in marketing terms, unfortunately for Leon, it's a missed opportunity. But Luke Luke there are so many killers coming up behind him right it's now time to debate who gets Leon next and maybe it doesn't matter and that's that's not me

throw an extra shade at Leon I just mean that eventually Shavkat's going to get the call Luke and eventually that's going to be a very tough fight and I see the early odds makers already essentially making that a pick them so all in all i do feel like for leon it was a bit of a step back the whole thing even though no it wasn't a step back it wasn't a step back it was no no no no i agree that of all the good things for him that it could have been you didn't reach the maximum potential of that no you definitely didn't do that okay give me a lateral it's a lateral step it's more than a lateral dude it's more than a lateral he has two wins over kamaru usman and a clean win over colby that is a step up dude he is the guy that took out the trash of the last generation so to speak such as you want to even

say it that that way but he was the guy that took over and he was never pegged that way he got issued or he got he suffered i should say wasn't anyone's fault it was just the way that things went for a while he got a raw deal during the pandemic. He was supposed to have that Tyron Woodley main event in London and really blast off, and the whole thing fell apart, and he still managed to be in this position today, and that was a dominant win against a crowd that was booing him when he walked out.

No, that's a step up. That's a step up. It just wasn't this incredibly triumphant moment in the way that, and not many of them can be, in the way that he had kicked Kamaru or something like that. It wasn't this kind of like plant the flag thing, but it was not a step back. I don't agree with that at all.

Well, Luke, it matters more than just critical respect in the larger game, and I think in that space this hurts him. But let's talk about forward and i want to get your take okay let's see this is this is topic two so let me just let me just spin it then and then i'll go right back to you topic number two bc so that's the main event and everything that happened as a consequence and now it leads as bc rightly notes to what could be next ultimately so bc i'm gonna ask the question this way tell me not what could be next ultimately? So BC, I'm going to ask the question this way. Tell me not what could be next.

Tell me not what will be next because Lord only knows what the UFC might do. Tell me what should be next. Is it Leon Edwards versus Bilal Muhammad? Or is it Leon or two since that's a rematch? Or Leon Edwards versus Shavkat Rachmanov? It should be Bilal Muhammad because I don't know how you can possibly justify waiting another day. The question I was about to ask you, Luke, was if Bilal Muhammad DM'd you right now and not only asked you whether you think UFC will remember the name, but ask you

straight up, Luke Thomas, what are my chances of getting screwed over again? Luke, Shavkat, for whatever debate we had about some people thinking his performance was boring, and even Dana had a little side comment thrown at Shavkat's decision to try to grapple, even though it made a ton of sense against Wonderboy. Dude, I really feel like it's open season based on Dana's noncommittal answer afterwards over what they will do. It may decide upon where and when, meaning if they can get a UK date soon enough in the first half of 24, could I see them giving Leon, you know, Muhammad as the opponent? You do it in England, it'll sell anyway.

There'll be a lot of hype and you can build toward the future of Shavkat and then eventually behind him if Ian Gary can win against Jeff Neal. Like, we've got some comers coming on here. But Luke, what would you tell Bilal? Because if it's just let's get the next uk date and put leon in there then yeah balal's probably going to get the call but if they want to do something bigger dude shavkat looks like the absolute future of this division in ways that really nobody can anymore try to fight back against even with the style advantages he had

against wonder boy the any issues we saw in the je Neal fight for Shavkat, not there anymore. 18-0 with 18 stoppages. So what confidence do you have that Bilal gets the call? Because I'm nervous for him right now, and I think he deserves it. I think the promotion needs to stop what they're doing and go back to the rankings and make sure they take care of this guy. Shouldn't have to pass any more tests. Shouldn't have to sit out a year to get it.

Give Bilal his chance. But if they do it next, it's got to be in England. It's got to be somewhat soon, right? Put the fight in England and give it to Bilal Muhammad. Bilal Muhammad has absolutely earned it, whether you like Bilal or not, whether you care about his fight style or not, whether it excites you or not on some level, when a guy has pulled the yoke as long and as far

and with so much difficulty in the way that he has, you simply must honor it, dude. He doesn't have to do anything else. And this idea like, oh, he should fight Rachmaninoff and the winner of that gets Leon. Get the fuck out of here with that nonsense. I'm not saying that wouldn't be a good fight or something, but what an unnecessary hurdle for Bilal Muhammad. What a terrible thing to do to that division because now you're just ruining contenders by doing it this way. You're eliminating it unnecessarily.

The fight to make, without a shadow of a doubt, is Leon Edwards versus Bilal. But it does require us saying out loud that's not going to win on pay-per-view unless it's a co-main event and you've got something else in the main event that can shadow it more. Or BC. Fuck all of that. Put it in Fight Island.

Put it in London as part of a... Okay, if it's in London, it can headline. If it's on Fight Island, it can be a part of a bigger card that they can put there, whatever. But you have to do it, dude. If they really go another direction against Belal, I understand it's the matchmaker model i understand that nothing of this is set in stone and they don't actually owe balal really

anything at all you know that's that's the truth for any contender no contenders actually owed anything but i just don't see how a reasonably candid honest rational person can look at the division look at what balal has done and decided we just don't like your fight style enough you're gonna have to wait further in line it's bullshit it's time to make it and the other fight to make because of course you're gonna say well what happens to shavkat rakmanov i'm actually gonna do colby covington a favor it should be rakmanov versus covington that's what it should be here yes and i'llvington. That's what it should be. Yes, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.

Number one, Rachmanov's going to run over him. And by the way, Rachmanov, let's just be very clear about this. Rachmanov's your next champion. I mean, maybe Bilal wins, I don't know, but Rachmanov is your next champion. There's no one in that division right now who can beat him, Leon Edwards included. Rachmanov is going to be a champion.

Yeah, the only guy at Welterweight who maybe fights him well is Chumayev, but he's not there anymore. Right, exactly. And so he's not really a factor at this stage anyway. So it's Rachmanov. Rachmanov's going to wear gold. But the fight against Wonderboy, while I cannot believe for the life of me there is anyone even criticizing a little bit, because it turns out he told, or Henry Hoof told Loris

Enkel, then Shovkat confirmed it. He had a torn ligament in his ankle that needs surgery. He put it off so he could do the fight, and he still subbed a guy who's never been subbed in about eight minutes. I mean, please, people, what on earth are you watching? That guy is going to be your champion sooner or later. BC, the Covington fight, I'm going to do him a favor. One, Rachmaninoff is going to beat him, but Rachmaninoff is going to take the fight to him in a way

he simply can't run from, he can't ignore, he can't do anything about except face it head on. It's the kind of thing that would boost Rachmaninoff's profile. It's the kind of things that would get the fans excited. And at least you're offering Covington a guy who's like, hey, dude, you want to wrestle he'll wrestle with you you don't have to worry about that this guy's got all that time in the world for you you make those two fights winners get the meat in the end colby's gonna turn it down

and he already more or less said that without saying it at the post fight press conference when he was asked about fighting shavkat and went down the road of like that's not the right fight for shavkat's brand or mine you know Shavkat should be in there against a younger fighter rising. I should be in there against a wonder boy. And that's kind of how the wonder boy conversation started for Colby of trying to find, you know, a safe landing or of sorts for him in a style matchup that might be able to favor him. He's not going to accept the pro, you know, they're not going to force him in there as a punishment either. Uh, but how about Sean brady for shavkat i just like the covington fight so much more um i like the sean brady fight too not gonna happen yeah i mean if sean wants it yeah if sean wants it sure that's

a tough fight i think sean's not gonna turn down a fight you know sean brady he's not gonna turn out a fight he wants to be the best so he's Sean can win that one Sean can win that one I think Shafkat's a tough guy to beat dude even Sean when we talked to him he admitted like that's the guy to beat basically at this point but I think Sean could probably win that one um you know if he really had the right game plan and the right he had the good had a good night but in the end you know I don't know if the UFC really wants to do that I mean do you think that they let me just ask you do you think that they are looking at that fight I don't know I mean when you look at the top 10 a lot of guys already have fights committed to soon which could change the conversation a lot of ways Sean Bradley coming off of Sean Bradley Sean Brady coming off such a big win with Shavkat on a

winning streak it could make sense but uh I just want to echo one thing maybe it Shavkat's injury and the in the healing time is the perfect scenario for Bilal so that we can not have this discussion of should the UFC wait. And also, like, Bilal already had to jump through an unnecessary hoop, and that was called the Gilbert Burns fight, and I didn't think Burns should have accepted it on short notice, and unfortunately it backfired for him. But yet, Bilal still passed that test.

So end of that conversation, Luke. Let's go on, you know? No, no, no. Let me ask you this if they have to make it a headlining contest between balal and leon right where so we're not talking about a scenario where it's like a co-main event on fight island in which case doesn't this is not relevant do you make it a fight night do you make it a fight night? Do you make it a fight night so that you don't have to worry about what you can pull on pay-per-view? No, it's very easy right here.

You could put Leon versus Bilal in another homecoming. It was proved in the Usman trilogy, although good. Look, it's Usman, right? But it was proven that Edwards is a sell there. He's a conquering hero. You put a nice card around that, you can still do it. But the better play for UFC might be putting Tom Aspinall in the main event in the UK,

defending the interim title, and putting Leon in the co-main event. You hit the folks with a double blast of UK championship royalty. You throw Molly on the undercard. You know, whatever you have to do. I think that's the better direction, Luke. Alright, let me just say something about Shavkat Rachmaninoff, because I was looking at this over the weekend.

BC, he's already got over a million followers on Instagram. If you look at, you know, okay, you'll understand this reference. Back in like the late 2000s, early 2010s, a lot of MMA sites would cover Manny Pacquiao fights. And you might say, well, why would MMA sites want to cover Manny Pacquiao fights? It's not even MMA and whatever. And the answer is because the traffic was too good to turn down. I mean, guys, I cannot explain it to you.

If you put up Manny Pacquiao coverage when he was fighting Ricky Hatton or De La Hoya or you name it, you would just see traffic pour mean, traffic pour in. And you might ask where it was from. Especially if you put it on, especially if you posted it in the middle of the night in the U.S. and you timed it perfectly.

I mean, look, quickly, not just BoxingScene.com, which is probably the best boxing day-to-day site in the sport today. If you ask any blogger or site or well-known youtube interviewer in boxing where they got their start i'm going to guess right now without even saying it the 75 of them started because they fell into extreme manny pacquiao coverage that was so aggressive that they built careers off of it yes and mma sites blew up because of it floyd would do this to an extent as well but pacquiao was something special in his prime. Dude, I'm getting, not in terms of like eight division champion, I don't know about all that shit,

but in terms of the same kind of relationship to their home country, where like English-speaking Filipinos are just obsessed with anything Manny Pacquiao, and this coverage would pour in, because you can see where the traffic would come from. Dude, Shavkat Rachmanov is like that for Kazakhstan he's the first Kazakh fighter I think to win in the UFC might be the first Kazakh fighter overall in the UFC if he wins a title he'll be that he is fiercely proud he always talks about his homeland and Laura Senka was saying that because people were just posting flags uh the Kazakh flag in her comments because because they were so happy with all the nice things she had said, it was crashing her account.

I'm telling you, dude. Didn't she have like 150,000 comments on that post she put up of him? Yes, yes, dude. The Kazakh fans are obsessed with Shavkat Rachmaninoff in a good, healthy, interesting kind of way. He's also obviously a Muslim fighter, so you could put him on Fight Island and really appeal to the region in that way as well although that's obviously not the most important ingredient necessarily but i'm just saying it fits into that profile as well dude

the potential for international stardom for a guy from a place that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily like spotlight is oh we got to get that market. This dude already said, if you go back to the interview I had with him, he's already more popular, I think, maybe than Triple G in Kazakhstan. Now, Triple G is obviously on the different stage of his career. He's a little bit older and probably reached bigger heights. But Shavkat is the next big thing in a market that is so proud of this guy, so desperate for attention, so ready to be received on the world stage i am telling you watch out for how big this guy gets and how unusual it will be for his rise because he is doing something akin to what pacquiao did for the philippines 15 years ago yeah absolutely i mean i

think you can look at that recent uh tajiki stanborn fighter who fought in the whole you know, remember they filled up that outdoor stadium to watch him in the middle of the night? Like, there is a pride and a passion for some of these countries that have been underrepresented on the global level in some of these extreme fight sports. You get somebody that can become a champion. I mean, yeah. The whole, I mean, that's what I wish, like, you know, our American landscape of sports is so segregated. And a lot of times that can be hard for boxing and even MMA to achieve certain milestones because it's so spread apart. But it's been a long time, Luke, since we had like an American doing something in a sport or activity that's non-traditional American. And the whole country was backing them, like certain Olympic cycles and certain sports. Maybe we have no idea what that is like compared to these other countries where literally the entire nation can get behind somebody for

identity purposes alone. I mean, it's a joy to see. It's great for business, but I think you're right. We have to be ready that not only is Shavkat coming in almost a matter of fact way in terms of his want for the title, but some odd levels of stardom could follow him i mean look look i mean granted granted habib got the ultimate rub of the greatest most out of control blood feud in ufc history and and arguably you know among their in combat sports history with the incredible numbers they did in the in the connor fight but habib became like a legitimate pay-per-view star down the stretch in ways i don't think i ever would have guessed, ever. Could Shavkat become that just by dominance and the passion of a singular fan base? You wonder, Luke.

Again, I would have never been like, you know, who's Manny Pacquiao going to be? Because, you know, oh, the Philippines like him. I'm not saying that's small or nothing, but you just don't understand it until you see the fiery intensity at the peak of how much they love this guy. And I'm getting the same kind of vibes, BC, with a Z. I'm getting the same kind of vibes from Kazakhs about Rachmaninoff. He is doing something special with his connection to his country. Hashtag team vibes, Luke.

That won me OK bet this year. Yeah. It certainly did. certainly did by the way last thing i went through the fight with rock monov and wonder boy last night because i'm going to do a breakdown on my personal channel bc i know okay all right what are you doing did you just did you just uh did zoom crash or did you just have an aneurysm you know what bc finally stroked out on us sorry wow look you lost me for a second i'm back i'm back i was gonna say i did a i looked at the the video in detail yesterday man rock monov is so far ahead of these people we you just for anyone

doubting him after saturday and there's not many i understand but for among the hardcore viewers but for anyone out there who might be thinking about this, I am telling you, I don't know if he'll get a title shot in 2024. If he does, he's your next champion. There's not a doubt in my fucking mind about him. That's how special that guy is. Real question, because I'm nervous here that he just became your new pound for pound, number one, bone heir in the space of MMA.

Sorry, City Kickboxing. Sorry, Volk. Sorry, Izzy. Sorry to the saggy right nipple. Like, he may be your new one, but what happens, Luke? You schedule an interview with him, and then he cancels on you. Will you consider never talking to him again? Well, considering every fighter I've ever had an interview with

has done that to me previously, I wouldn't take it out on him, no. Also, I did have an interview schedule with him and he did show up so there you go maturity and growth out of you i like that luke because i'm what i'm willing to welcome jj champion back to the show anytime she wants okay no what she did was abhorrent and unprofessional that's different that's different okay well shofcott could still do that luke we're still he could he could and he'll become my favorite fighter when he does that all right your favorite fighters are all the ones who've acted unprofessional towards me that's your favorite kind of fighter uh all right bc let's go to topic number three not the biggest one but

it's worth considering something we were saying bc heading into ufc 296 man where is the buzz for Pantoja versus Royval? Royval, as he is so consistently called. Royval. Royval. Yeah. And afterwards, there is also no talk about this contest whatsoever, even though Pantoja fights like a goddamn crazed maniac on Panera Lemonade. So, BC, let me ask you. Wait, wait, wait.

Do you mean on fentanyl? Is that where you're going with this? No, if he was on fentanyl, he'd just be chilling. They've got, I don't know what they're putting in that Panera Lemonade, but it makes him fight like a goddamn Wolverine. BC, serious question. Where does he rank among UFCs, and I'm talking all time, most underrated or underappreciated champions?

Seriously. Well, let's give him more time than one title defense, but I will tell you, I was equally surprised at the fallout from this fight. Not that people were overlooking this fight or thinking that it wasn't going to be a good matchup because Pantoja had won so dominantly two years ago, or just the fact, Luke, that it's the strawweight division

and outside of, or flyweight division, and outside of like, yeah, these guys make pinball arcade action fights. Sometimes it can be hard for people to get fixated on the storyline of one fighter. But, dude, how are people DMing me or tweeting me back in response to me celebrating what this was? A mature championship breakthrough performance by Pantoja against a very hungering game opponent, and I have no disrespect for Royval or the effort he put out there. It's just that unfortunately for him, his lack of takedown defense in this matchup cost him big time.

I wonder Luke, because a lot of people are going, man, Pantoja is just another one of these hands down, not move his head, willing to walk into CTE land to try to win. And that couldn't be further from the case in this fight. This was a

smart, tough ass performance from him on every level. He outstruck Royval big time with those big looping right hands whenever they were on the feet. And obviously his wrestling was the story of this fight. I mean, he's out here slamming Royval around. Yes, the raw dog is who he is. And he tried to mount a late rally. And I, I have a lot of respect for him, Luke. He's got to go back to the drawing board and figure out what's next, but this wasn't Pantoja like saying like he did in the Moreno fight that I'm just going to win this under any cost necessary and he really had to turn that into a caveman just absurd slugfest that was one of the best fights of this calendar year this was efficient tactical savage at times but this was a champion who became better by becoming the

champion. He looked in better shape physically, and he went out and carried out a very smart game plan. What else could you say? What could you say negatively about this guy? Do you want to just say, oh, they're flyweight, so they'll always be second or third rate, whatever, but don't miss out on the Posto Hudo flyweight uh division run right here every fight is great either guy can win but Pantoja just took a strong step in the direction of maybe he'll be around for a little bit right maybe Figueiredo looked like that for a hot second it didn't last but this performance was so strong that I'm not worried so much right now about the accumulation of damage because Pantoja can beat you two different ways.

And Luke, tell me if I'm wrong, but he cleaned up so much in this fight from what we saw against Moreno that that theory is just not valid. He's not walking out there into traffic with no rhyme or reason. Is he putting pressure on you? Yes. But this guy's a calculated killer. And I thought that was the final message that I saw. I don't know. I disagree a little bit.

I mean, you don't think he walks into shit really he does by putting on pressure but dude he was he overwhelmed and engulfed roival where he was fighting from behind for three and a half rounds mostly on his back how are you going to say anything negative against that no no i don't mean that anything's negative about that but like no one's fight style is perfect so like we once you posit that you have to realize okay what are the strengths and weaknesses let's talk weaknesses for Pantoja he doesn't move his head he does take a shitload of abuse he does walk into traffic he does take unnecessary punches that is an extremely fair and very observably correct way to describe some of his deficiencies but what you point out is he just seems to overcome

it with all of the other skills that he has and he does have by the way good striking skills of his own it's not just those other things are true but the initial question that i asked you was like where does he rank among the most underrated things underrated champions bc i mean this is the thing to me that i can't stand about like mma hipsters and i know some people might think i am or you might think i am but i'm maybe not in the way you might imagine, which is when the UFC was getting rid or at least considering getting rid of the flyweight division, there were people wailing and showing gnashing of teeth who just couldn't believe that they would even consider something like that. And I'm like, guys, if you had to get rid of one division

and what you're basing that decision on is, of course, the strength of the division, but also which one will yield the kind of market results you need in the end. The only answer would have been flyweight. And I'm not saying that from just a talent perspective, flyweight isn't much better than heavyweight. Flyweight is infinitely better than heavyweight. Heavyweight is a terrible division. I don't have anything good to say about it, except it's going to make you a lot more money than flyweight ever will it should not be lost on people that Pantoja is an excellent champion all the things about him that you know you can say

negatively in terms of criticism fair otherwise are still in play but he's an excellent champion who beat a very tough Brandon Royville and then had a fight of the year against Brandon Moreno who fights like an absolutely possessed demon I mean there's you can only love his game but there's no one talking about his performance today and perhaps the most underrated UFC champion of all time is his predecessor basically the guy who was the king of this division previously another fly weight in Demetrius Johnson the The market consistently shows you there is, and even including among hardcores at times, there's just not a lot of enthusiasm around this division,

a couple of fights or a couple of instances notwithstanding. It happens all the time. Yeah, but that doesn't answer your question. It does. It does. He's not one of the most underrated kids. He's just one title defense. The disingenuousness about like how could they ever do this to flyweight this is how they can do it to flyweight people

pretending like they care the market clearly shows they don't give a fuck at least not that much in the end whether they should is a different conversation the question is about whether they do they don't they don't they clearly don't and i don't know why that's some kind of crime to say bc we're not saying pantoja isn't deserving of greater uh praise or greater celebrity or greater dollars or any of those things of course he is he's one of my favorite guys to watch dude when he gets out there you want to talk about guaranteed action pantoja's got you covered friends in virtually every dimension of the game but what what but this idea about like where what like

who's most underrated how could you not say it's him it's clearly because he has one title defense Luke how am I going to put him in the ranking of the most underrated champions in history so who else would you put in the ranking list who else Tyron Woodley would be high up on that list I think sure I'd happily agree with that yes Demetrius Johnson with absolutely without question So who else would you put in the ranking list? Who else? Tyron Woodley would be high up on that list. Sure. I'd happily agree with that. Yes. Demetrius Johnson with absolutely without question. He's probably number one.

Probably. I mean, you know, we could go up and down, Luke. I mean, but I don't think this guy's even close to that. And I think that you. I don't think he's that, but I'm talking about current champions. He's clearly. Oh, you didn't ask that. You didn't ask that.

Okay. What did I ask? You said he's one of the most underrated champions of all time? I said where does he rank among UFC's most underrated? Okay, I guess I should have clarified current. But yes, current is what I sort of wanted to do. Yeah, I mean he's underrated. But I think also, Luke, I think he did adjust from how reckless he fought against Moreno

in educated pressure, not allowing Royval the room to strike back, taking him down. He wasn't as reckless. I would agree with that. Right. So he looked more like the champion – like a champion, excuse champion excuse me in this one and it was great to see but also you're right on some degree in terms of the public's appetite for flyweight and especially to be fair like a flyweight that comes from another land like dana was smart afterwards when they asked him they said look you're coming back to brazil next year and would you consider having pantosia

defend his title there and daniel's like absolutely that would be our plan I mean that's the next move bring the guy back home put him in in in a fight against whoever's next but let's give him a chance to to to gain our respect and build the title reign that's what I'm interested in seeing is there somebody that can come out of this pack post Cejudo thought it was Moreno thought it was Figueiredo maybe Pantoja doesn't need to happen we just need to keep seeing great fights, Luke. And this fight wasn't great, but, you know, it was a good enough showing of where both are at and who the champion deserves to be. And the champion has a name, Luke. It's Pantoja.

Let's go. Let's go, Brazil, right? Let's fucking go, Scotland. Let's fucking go, Brazil. Why did this fight go the distance? Because Roy Vaughn is a tough son of a bitch. That's the only reason? Well, he was putting up defense on the bottom by having an active striking game and trying

his best to fight off submissions that stuck him. Once Pantoja got the hook in on the first fight, even though the fight was competitive and wild, the fight was over because that's what Pantoja does. The fact that Royval was able to fight it out and at least try to create some pockets of a comeback I'll give him credit right it was all it was all on a loss but I think that's the reason okay yeah I mean I think there's more to be said about it I think flyweights in general I don't I'd have to look at the math on this I'm actually so you know what let me say you mix it up sometimes you do that Luke don't do that yeah. I'm actually, so you know what? Let me say this. You mix it up sometimes. You do that, Luke.

Don't do that. I'm stopping myself mid-sentence before I get there. I would like to see the data on to what extent relative to even bantamweight or featherweight or lightweight, to what extent flyweights are able to finish one another, to what extent that is as consistent as the other divisions. My hunch is that it's not. My hunch is that it's not. My hunch is that it's actually part of the problem, but why the market doesn't get attached to them.

Although, again, anyone who's a keen observer of fighting would look at this fight and Pantoja's last fight and be like, these are the only fights I would ever want to see. I actually thought the fight was great. I didn't hate this fight at all for the most part. I thought there was maybe a little bit more that maybe Royville could have done. Royville just got put on the defensive back foot too early. The wrestling, the defensive wrestling failed him,

and he was good enough to survive certainly everywhere else, but that's just a bad combination for winning. I think it's a testament to Royville's chin, determination, and cardio that he went the distance, and I do think he had his greatest moments only after Pantoja started gassing a little, because to be fair, the three rounds of pressure and the slams that he put on,

it'll take a lot out of anybody. It took a lot out of Habib against a raging owl. Even if people think I'm miscategorizing rounds four and five of that matchup wrongly in hindsight, on the same level, I did Gastelum versus Whitaker. Hey, maybe you're right.

You know what I mean? I would do wear a belt, white belts often, but let's give Roy of all some credit. you know Pantoja Luke you can't fight that style for 25 minutes but the fact that he never let that back that trap door open the fact that he finished the job again I got a lot of respect for this championship performance out of Pantoja all right fair enough topic number four let's just get to it. It's an ugly one, but it's the one that we have arrived at. BC, Tony Ferguson.

This is now seven losses in a row. He ties BJ Penn for the longest losing streak in UFC company history. So BC, my question is very simple. Is it time for Tony Ferguson to retire? And by that I mean, by that I mean, the UFC no longer offers him a fight. Because Dana got out there afterwards and said, I think he should also retire. But no one followed up and asked,

does that mean you're not going to offer him more fights? That's my question. Should he retire in the sense that the UFC is not going to offer him more fights? Okay, I'm going to answer your question, but I'm actually not going to take as downtrodden and disastrous a tone as you did did tony ferguson lose his seventh consecutive fight tying a ufc record yes is he pushing 40 yes and has he accumulated the kind of punishment including when round one was at the end of round one when patty was just putting

right hands on him incredible i mean just lighten him up. All that's to be true. And if you want to ask me, should Tony be fighting again? It might be no, that might be the answer. But Luke, in the world of moral victories, I am here to tell you that Tony should hold his chin high. Everything he went through personally, emotionally, and of course, physically to go through hell to prepare himself for this fight. it worked. He didn't get stopped. He fought competitively. He actually provided the role he was supposed to in this fight of that veteran stubbornness to try to test Patty,

who was in need of a thorough sort of consistent performance across the board, which I thought he delivered. But Tony also fought against, you know, nearly being stopped and rallied to almost have a huge moment i think the fact that a huge moment in round five as patty's cardio started to fade i thought the fact that round three excuse me the fact that's that patty so quickly snuffed that out with a takedown was a veteran move it was smart and it went a long way in putting patty over as like okay the guy took a step forward but even though this step forward is only moral and really means nothing

transactually, Tony Ferguson took a major step forward. This was actually a very strong performance for his age and where he was. And whether you like it or not, and even with Dana's comments, he's going to get one more out of it. He is. The fans love him. He did prove that there is some life left. I'm not saying it's healthy. I'm not saying he should go out there, but I'm telling you, I almost guarantee the company's

going to end up partnering with him. They're going to get him the right type of Clay Guida, Jim Miller, Matt Brown, heck, maybe even Nick Diaz. They're going to get him somebody like that, where it's not going to be a major crime it's going to be published publicized as his go-away fight it might be a go-away fight for his opponent too but they're going to honor him for the service he put in and whether you think everything i just said is bullshit or not tony may have in a weird ass way earned it and i'm not here advocating for him to collect more damage that's only going to lead to a shorter and less quality lifespan but i'm just telling you what i saw i did see a reborn fighter and even though seven losses in a row probably should cut

anybody from the promotion, he did seem to fix or bring back or return some of that, the parts that we love about him, Luke. It was not a bad performance. He wasn't stopped. He lost, but he almost pulled one out against a prime fighter who has more questions than answers that was actively slowing down in the face of Tony's pressure in round three. I know you're not going to like this answer, but that might give him one more old guy fight on the way out. You say it's not a bad performance. What do you mean by that? given the circumstances and our expectations, which were that he was going to be brutally stopped and the company would be shamed in ever employing him this long

and putting him in that spot to fail, he actually lived up to the expectations of what he was as a B-side in this. The old guy who, if Patty, wasn't who we thought he was, if Patty had an issue from a one-year layoff, the recovery from surgery, and that critical cloud that was following him for having not beaten Jared Gordon in a manner that would make us all, you know, okay with that decision, Tony was in there to put up resistance.

He put up hella resistance, Luke. He survived Patty's biggest and best moments and nearly, you know, popped a tire on him and put him out of commission late with a rally. I know I'm showing you every positive and not focusing on the negative, but he actually lived up to his role. His role wasn't actually to win this fight. It was to put up resistance and redeem his name. And he did that, Luke. I'm not commenting on CTE. I'm not commenting on should the promotion roll him out there? They probably should have cut him three fights ago, to be very honest. But you know what, Luke? They didn't.

And there is something that Tony won on Saturday, whether you're willing to accept it or not. What did he win? Respect. Did he have respect beforehand? Not anymore on the level we once did, Luke. And you could say that's bullshit. That means nothing. You're probably right.

Health-wise, that means nothing. You're using a word, and I'm not sure. I just, I guess I don't know what the definition is because I know what you mean. Like, we all agree his abilities have declined. I don't think that much is in doubt. And so when you say you have respect, it's like, dude, I have respect for Tony Ferguson.

I have respect for him. Okay, but he did not belong in there. The other fights, he looked like he didn't belong there. Bobby Green, he looked like he didn't belong in there. He not only belonged there, he played his role. You know, he nearly put Patty in trouble late. He took Patty's best stuff. He rebounded.

He showed insane heart. Dude, he got gifted a guy. Now, granted, Patty did show some improvement. We talked about that, although he gassed in the third, and he still had his chin on a silver platter. But there were other parts of his game that improved. But it's like, dude, they gave him a guy he would have fucking smoked inside of a minute in his prime i mean that's worthless that that's not even worth saying right now because he's not

why isn't that worth saying you're talking about he turned in a a great performance and i'm trying to say great relative to what great relative to our expectations and great relative to what should be expected of a guy pushing 40 riding six straight losses who is only still in there because the combination of his marketing value and the guy across from him needing that boost came together at the right time what do guys on losing streaks with big names do they get served up to young guys on the rise that we have questions about okay but how many how many times you're trying to serve this guy up well i'm not saying that it's justified that they continue doing it but to act like this wasn't a resurgence from tony to some level mentally physically spiritually

i think would be missing out on what we saw i do i don't think yes i i i grant that this was a better showing relative to the bobby green fight in terms of any number of things actually um i just don't think any of that should matter or does matter in the end. I mean, I just really think folks should sit back, open up his Wikipedia and look at the losses he's had. Think about what has happened to him as a consequence and then convince yourself that more is a good idea. I can't do it. I just can't do it. I cannot do that in good conscience. I cannot look at that and say, and I know what folks want. What folks really want, and they got a little taste of it,

which is what I think you're identifying, BC, they wanted something good for Tony. And for Tony to have something good happen to him by the fruits of his own labor. I don't think that's in any way an unreasonable feeling or desire or in any kind of way shameful. This is a good thing that folks would want this for him. But if you keep wanting this for him, you're going to keep serving him up for real bad scenarios. We're at a part in his career where we can only really add insult to, or I should say we can only add injury and insult to it. We can't really add much more than or I should say we can only add injury and insult to it. We can't really add

much more than that at this point. And I think that people are trying to talk themselves into feel good scenarios when I think this guy has taken an absolute metric ton of abuse. And if you actually care about him and if you actually feel good for him and you actually want what was best for him, I'm not his father. I'm not his brother brother i'm not in any way related to him we cannot tell him what to do ultimately he will carve his own path and of course bc you always have to reserve chuckleheads like you and me could very much be wrong but i just don't know how people can look at the damage that this dude has incurred including on saturday night and think in any capacity more is better. I can't do it. I just can't do it.

That's not what I'm arguing, but you're right. And also, to Dana's credit, as two separate times he said his want would be that Tony retires. But, you know, he also let BJ come back a lot. Now, he would admit afterwards he shouldn't have and that he did it out of really feeling bad for BJ. I'm not saying that Tony is necessarily in the same spot, although I don't know if Tony begs financial hardship and begs for fights. I don't know what that is all about. I just know, Luke, that I have this feeling they're going to give him one more dance

and they're going to put him in a fight that he can win, and that would be the goal. Wasn't the fight he could win the Paddy fight? I mean, how many times did people say to us, oh, yeah, he can win this one? He just didn't. Don't mix up me saying I think the UFC will with that they should. But I'm going to mirror that comment by saying that's the best Tony has looked in a long time, Luke. I don't know if it's repeatable. Yeah, but he didn't look that great.

You don't think he looked that great. Okay. I mean, did he take a big beating early? Yes, against a younger fighter. But most guys will fold there. Tony pushed through and nearly had a rally. Dude, you need to go back and watch the RDA fight. And we're just talking about a different guy at this point.

Well, I think we're also fighting different battles that are very close. I'm not pushing for him to come back. I'm not saying I would make that decision for him. I'm just saying I think he won back enough sort of goodwill that is largely worthless, but maybe worth enough to get him one more opportunity from the company. The fans love him. They do feel bad that he never got Habib. They feel bad that he never truly got a real title opportunity, although he did get that interim one against Gaethje under the rush circumstances of the pandemic and all of that but i i just think that all comes together that he's had a unique enough career and a unique enough ending and has been the company guy left and right that if

somebody's going to get that one more time against jim you know you know the type of fights i'm talking about luke right you get it it would be him dude i'm telling you but with that said i don't want him to take more damage but dude his performance has to be so much better than you expected or am i wrong on that am i am i speaking for you incorrectly i mean i definitely understand what you mean i do i definitely saw life in him um in ways that you hadn't before and again we talked about this pre fight like the amount of processing of all the things he had been through. He was clearly doing that. And I think that that can only be valuable.

And I was glad to see it. I just feel like I've been around the fight game long enough where I've seen this a few times, where people get to a spot where someone has deep sympathies or attachment to a fighter, and they get to a point where they feel bad sympathies or attachment to a fighter and they get to a point where they feel bad for the situation that they're in and they want to find a way through fighting to resolve it and sometimes that can happen it's not like it's unheard of bc i'm not making that argument but what i have more commonly seen is that it just it just extends the misery that

their ad fact is no redemption through fighting that you can actually get. And you're actually only imperiling them by continuing to go down this thing. Now I know what you're saying. Like this wasn't Frankie Edgar. Yeah, this wasn't, this wasn't Frankie Edgar against Chris Gutierrez, right?

Where if they got flatlined inside of a round, you'd be like, okay, dude, you got to call this off. It's not that it's not that. Um, and I recognize there are real differences between the two and I hope everyone understands. It's not that. It's not that. And I recognize there are real differences between

the two. And I hope everyone understands, we're not, we don't want anything bad for Patty, whether it's BC's vision or mine or any of the viewers out there. I don't, only Tony's is the one that will get enacted. UFC has some say here, obviously, but you know what I mean. Tony's in control of his own life.

What I don't want to do is, man, the mistakes of the fight game, there are these distant echoes that you hear all the time, and sometimes they become roaring, loud sirens in your ear, and I feel like that's what I've got now, which is we want to absolve, I don't know, I'll be honest, maybe some of the guilt we have as fans or the feeling we have about him being, because we said it, BC, cause we said it BC,

did we not say it on the pre-fight or excuse me, the, um, the, the, the pregame preview where we said the fight game did him wrong. I firmly stand by that. He there's,

it's almost certain he didn't make what he was supposed to make. And it's almost certain he didn't get the opportunities that he was supposed to get. I recognize that, but I worry, I worry that trying to continue to go down this path will only exacerbate the problems, not solve for them. Well, that's why he's been allowed this leash,

because I do think they feel guilty that he didn't get the opportunities that it looked like he was going to get. He rushed back from crazy surgeries. He was so aggressively willing to be the company man, even in this losing streak, he would later reveal that that's a company man even in this losing streak he would later reveal that that's a big part of why i think that that he will get one more but we'll see from

a patty standpoint luke i'll say this um him not calling out anybody specifically afterwards i thought was interesting when they did post to him the fact that rda tweeted wanting to fight him patty suddenly got all bright you know lit up and said that here's what i think i think patty showed you positives of a step forward. Yes. Still some negatives with the chin and the stamina. Yes. So I do think matching him carefully is in the company's interest moving forward,

matching him slowly, using him continuously as a brand against competition he could beat. And if that means a Randy Orton legend killers type WWE type crossover of giving him now, you had Tony, here's RDA, who's the next legend in line? He needs this experience if he really is going to be a title contender and pay-per-view headliner one day. So unless you're going to break glass in case of emergency and put him against Conor at 300, which I think is the smart move, I do actually like this. RDA next, and what other aging action guy can you put in there after that i gotta say i love the rda fight i fucking love that fight and also like dude patty

patty's got he's close to what 25 30 fights at this point like people act like he's like nine fights into his career and he was on the contender series two years ago or something this dude is highly experienced at this point you know nearly 30 years of age dude like like the training wheels are off at this point you got the tony ferguson fight and again let's be clear about this i thought some of patty's striking in this fight was in terms of the offensive side of things vastly better than what i had seen from him previously way way better uh so that should be acknowledged i would love to see the rda fight rda i think has you know we want to talk about like softer landings i think he's earned one but dude i'll say i'll say this if patty can beat a guy like tony and then beat a guy like rda

whatever state you want to say that they're in at this point that's going to be great for him as well i don't know what patty sees for himself i himself. Maybe he doesn't want retreads or something or how he views them. I'm not saying that. It's clear he wants retreads. Why would he not be interested in the RDA fight? I told you that was the only... He didn't mention a name and then when they mentioned RDA, he got real happy

and was like, yeah, I'd love that fight. I misunderstood. I misheard you. I thought I heard the opposite. I heard you say... I apologize. I thought that heard the opposite. I heard you say, I apologize. I thought that you had said he wasn't happy about it. No. Okay. Well, in that case, yes.

He's in. That would be great. That is the right move for a guy with holes in his game who may never properly repair it. That's the right move. Yes. Look, how was Jake Paul and Kimbo built, even though I'm not trying to say that Patty does not have a chance of ending up legit? He's got enough qualities to his game that he may figure it out, but they built those guys up against aging heroes.

It's sort of promotion 101 in some ways. We just don't see that a lot in the UFC because of how often you're thrown into the deep end. Look at Michael Venn and page. You're getting, you're getting Kevin Holland on day one. That's how they do it. Last question on this BC.

Does David Goggins deserve to take the beating he's taking for this in terms of what he did? No, he was trying to motivate Tony. He did seem to get Tony in another headspace. I'm not sure the detail of the hell that he really put Tony through, although Tony says it was something he's never even imagined surviving. But it's going to be part of the future. You saw Jack Black and Kyle from Tenacious D in Stephen Thompson's corner. They asked Dana about those two afterwards and said, would this continue? It makes sense that it would, not just because you have Endeavor as your overhead, which has connections initially as what, an agency for superstars in the Hollywood world. But Luke, you've got the WWE connection through TKO.

I really think this is the future for UFC in a little tiny moves they can do here and there to help not only build the brand of their athletes by putting them together with well-known brands, but it's weird, Luke. It does kind of make things fun unless it becomes a distraction. Are you against that? Because that is the further Disneyfication of the UFC brand to do stunts like this. It's like, we like it if it's funny and fun and we like the celebrity that's being linked there and it makes sense. But I understand that this could go badly quickly.

Where do you sort of sit on that? Dana seemed to like it. Here's the thing. This is a David Goggins thing. Do I think that David Goggins in the corner was doing a lot of help for Tony? And again, he was training him before this and whatever. but on fight night, do I think he was very helpful? No, I don't think he was helpful even a little bit, but you know, Tony's the guy that hired him. David Goggins did

get David Goggins things. That's what David Goggins does. He shows up, tells you about how insanely motivated he is and how he doesn't you know succumb to doubt or weakness or obstacle and he can overcome anything by being mentally whatever he does what he does that's that's who tony hired you can't be mad at david goggins for doing david goggins things um in general unless unless someone claims to be like inside the combat sports space which you know he's not making you know it's different. I will say I don't really care. It doesn't really bother me or do much for me one way or the other.

If guys want to have cornermen that are celebrities, as long as it's really not negatively impacting performances in a very visibly artificial way, but for that, he would have been fine. Sure, whatever guys want to do i'm cool let me ask you this luke because there has been a noted change in strategy for the ufc from a media standpoint in recent years to prioritize the relationships with content creators and really give them not only the access of the cage seat media spaces even though most of these people

are not filing you know know, deadlines at recap. MMA media is all but dead. It's all but dead. They asked Dana about the guy he kicked out on Saturday, that influencer, which is a separate story. But they said, look, you know, this seems to be the direction you're going. Dana admitted that that was a calculated idea put forth by him, which may explain why we always see him at blackjack tables with 20-somethings in the Nelk Boys, if these corner drop-ins start to be more of the Nelk Boy, Nina Drama level, are you going to change your tune?

In terms of what? Cage-side media? They're already here. I guess I don't understand the question. I'm not talking about cage-side media. I'm talking about corner drop-ins. I'm talking about third person in the key. You know what I mean?

I'm talking about forget Goggins interrupting Tony's coach to give him motivation. What if we start seeing just, you know, like, you know, Takashi six, nine in the corner of a Sean O'Malley or something. I mean,

are you going to be okay with this? Luke? Listen, I'll just say this. If people want to be so again, wonder boy, you know, he trained hard,

right? 40 years old. This guy's a martial artist. You know, he's trained hard if he wants to have uh jack black and and tenacious d essentially in his corner does it do you really think it would positively or negatively impact him probably not right like the guy already knows what to do and how to do it for the most part he went up against a buzzsaw and rock monov but okay

whatever um but if guys are starting to fuck around where they're putting people in their corners that is that are negatively impacting their performance, well, then you're just a fucking idiot. You know what I mean? Like, you deserve what you get. I certainly would not be in favor of this or happy about it, BC. But I'm not sure how you police independent contractors' selection of cornermen if the Nevada Athletic Commission or the relevant state

athletic commission is ultimately great you have to get a cornermen's license which is not difficult to get but you have to still do that yeah I mean that wouldn't be great if you saw someone be like here I just imagine like bread man Edwards working in a corner you know can you imagine if he was working with like Eddie

Alvarez and then I'm just gonna make up something Eddie wanted to have Meek Mill and then Meek because he's a Philly guy. And then Meek was shouting shit like, you know, Bredman Edwards would have something to say about that. Like you could tell that there would be a problem with the way in which the fight function should be going. But if you can avoid that and it's not really a thing. Who cares, right? I'm with you on that. As long as it's controlled and it doesn't become a distraction

or like an unnecessarily not unnecessary advertisement right since the fighters can't have their own advertisements anywhere at the fight then uh yeah i'm okay with that luke i mean look jack black had a gross beard but i put up with it okay well he should have been he should have been just sent to isis prison for that beard i mean it was the worst beard i'd ever seen yes um you know and i've got mine has been. I mean, it was the worst beard I'd ever seen. Yes. And I've got, mine has been terrible at times, but that was the worst one I've ever seen. All right. You got called Teen Wolf by fighters in the past.

Don't forget that. Teen Wolf's dead. Oh, real quickly, on the Tony graphic, I'll put it up on the screen. I wanted to show you this. I think UFC did this or somebody did this. I'm not sure who. By the way, I don't know why they put apostrophe S,

but okay, it doesn't matter. This is what I mean. And granted, this is different than a lot of other fighters because you had that punctuated moment with Gaethje that was so brutal that you can almost trace it to an exact moment, but there's a saying in the fight game that you get old overnight and you do. You do. 15-1 from 2011 to 2019 down to 0-7. 11 finishes from 2011 to 2019, to 0-7. 11 finishes from 2011 to 2019.

Zero cents. Bonuses. 10. He's had one cent. Striking differential. He landed nearly 300 strikes more. Look at his plus minus now. Now he's negative almost 200 in that space.

When it starts going downhill for you. Thanks, boys. When it starts going downhill for you, some guys can salv going downhill for you some guys can salvage it sometimes you can have a more measured decline and i'm i'm i'm grateful for guys like jim miller who could afford us these kinds of scenarios but let this be a lesson to everyone once it goes this whole thing about we can capture it back with more want and more will is usually just cope or more damage yeah i hear you i hear you we hear you all right all right topic number five let's do it very quickly if we can bc bit of a boxing roundup let's just go in chronological order if we can now obviously we

were covering the prelims for showtime but very quickly if we can jake paul got a win over andre august a ko inside of one round on DAZN and I had said BC on Twitter like this guy he's fighting August is not even bordering on good but the uppercut itself was nice it was powerful, it was clean he set it up, the guy walked into it he executed, he did his job so why can't we say that?

why can't we say that August is not good but Jake Paul did a good job, isn't that fair? nobody wants to give Jake Paul any respect because he's been a disruptor and when they hear him constantly talking about a Canelo fight it's laughable but here's the thing here's where i think this weekend was a win for jake paul on you know regular zone and not pay-per-view why i think it's because jake needs to keep this this uh prospect series that he's got going you know active and healthy and he also is a boxing prospect, but that's the key. He's no longer framing this as, Hey, Conor McGregor, get out of your deal and come fight me.

Or, Hey, you know, other Diaz brother or whatever. Now he actually is trying to go legitimate and you can take that for what it's worth. The only time before this, he fought a quote unquote, legitimate guy and Tommy Fury lost a split decision despite scoring a late knockdown. But is Tommy Fury even legitimate is another story. Is Andre August worthy of our time here? Well, in reality, no. He was 10-1-1 coming in. We all, you know, we broke down.

I broke down ad nauseum how really awful his resume was. But again, that's also what guys who are 9-1, which Jake Paul is, that's the level they normally fight. Unfortunately, in this case, August put up zero pushback. Ariel Hawane, who worked on the broadcast for DAZN, reported on screen that he went into his locker room afterwards trying to get an interview and August said no. And he said it was like a funeral in there. I can believe that by the body language August showed in a media stops the whole week and

then ultimately by his performance. But if Jake Paul's trying to frame this, and I think framing it in a smart way, because he's a smart marketer, he gets your attention, that now it's time to go serious. Now it's time to look at prospects only and book a succession of fights against these prospects. First of all, don't miss that business-wise, it's the smart thing to do. He re-upped for a second season of this MVP Prospects series on his own. And what has he been using for those main events? Well, he used Ashton Silva, H2O once, who is his legitimate young boxing prospect.

He used Amanda Serrano once to headline, even though she's a decorated champion. And now he's used himself. But it actually probably is the smart direction, especially if Jake is building toward a cash out. And I'm not saying that this is a cash out in a nefarious sense, like he's trying to fool us. But obviously, Jake has opportunities in so many lanes, including he's already promised PFL that he'll fight an MMA fight for them in the second half of next year and told them

he needs kind of a year to start training. So here's what I'm really trying to say. The two boxing cash out opportunities are pretty obvious. One against Kalanello, if he can actually build himself up enough, can get a string of knockouts against obvious, you know, set up guys for him, but real boxers, maybe that does come to fruition for one day. But the other thing is what else he's talking about. A legitimate title opportunity. If you don't think somebody like the WBC or any of these sanctioning bodies are going to go out of their way to throw themselves at ranking him, then just look at the fact that it in Ghana,

who's ranked right now at heavyweight in one of those sanctioning bodies and look at the fact that the WBC was already ready to rank Jake Paul in the top 10 if he had beaten Tommy Fury, which is crazy enough to begin with, or if not top 10, top 15, what have you. Luke, I think this was all in all a great step forward. It gives him a beautiful knockout uppercut highlight. Nobody, you know, when you see that highlight, you're not seeing the Andre August true record and where he's at.

Really, Jake needs experience. He needs fights like this that he can package together to sell that he's really trying to become real. Jake's doing the right move right now for himself. This doesn't mean that he's three fights away from beating an active Cruiserweight champion. It just doesn't. There are certain qualities that Jake does well, but those qualities still shine best when put against novice boxers without a ton of experience or fanfare or novice boxers that have big celebrity names. That's where we're at, Luke. I'm not here to damn Jake. This was a big step forward. It looked great. Everything sounded great. He got to celebrate. He got to silence his critics because of the knockout. Do we know the truth? Yes. But he's trying to get

somewhere. Will he get there, Luke? That's the's the that's the question excuse me will jake paul get to either a legitimate title fight or a canelo fight before this experiment is said and done uh canelo fight no title fight maybe title fight maybe it was just weird to me like for example bc like you could just tell there's a bunch of mma fans who like don't watch boxing trying to like argue about this so for example let, let me give you an example. How old is Jake Paul? What is he, 26, 27, 28 at this point? What is he? 26.

Okay. So I have people being like, well, he's exactly where he should be for 26. That's very debatable, but you can't argue he's actually on time for a normal boxing prospect. And I'll give you a clear example of this. Vito Milnicki is vastly ahead of Jake Paul, both in skill in terms of like the development of his career, in terms of who he should be fighting in real boxing fights to get ahead. And there is still a fair amount of, certainly online, a fair amount of online skepticism about exactly how far he can go. So let me understand this. Milnicki is younger, better, and further ahead,

and most of boxing is still somewhat unsold on exactly what he'll end up becoming. Jake Paul doesn't have any of those things, and I'm supposed to accept. I'm not mad at what Jake Paul's doing. I actually feel like this was the right fight to take. And his performance was good. I thought that upp again, and his performance, like, was good. Like, I thought that uppercut was great. Like, he's got real power. About that, there's no denying.

What I object to is people being like, oh, well, this was a Golden Gloves champion, which means fuck all in the end. And then turning it into, dude, he's on a path for the title inevitably. I'm like, dude, he might get to that place. But, like, the idea that any of that is, that is like inevitable you're just wishing that onto the world like it's not actually in motion by virtue of the guys he's beating but is that unfair it's not unfair it's not unfair luke but i i just question like how many more does he need of these if he can if he can rile off like three more of these against you know guys in the eight to ten fight

max who in this case look august was 35 had taken four years off in the prime of his career like probably wasn't going anywhere and they woke him up he got an opportunity and he went down if jay can do that three more times one of these sanctioning bodies is going to do something dumb he's going to get that opportunity but look i don't think he's in it for the long run i think he's trying to get to one of those two, a legitimate world title or the Canelo fight. And to be fair to the context he's trying to provide, he's now saying, and I think smartly, wouldn't it be a great story to go from Disney Channel

to a world title fight in eight years? Yeah, it actually would be. And I think boxing would bend over backwards to help make it happen. I don't think he would win it, Luke, but that seems to be the next plan and the next goal because there's no longer a list of non-boxers that we want to see him against. That's just where he's at.

But people are probably going to kill him forever, Luke, because he's disrupted the market yet isn't trying to fight the best in the market, which is both smart and understandable. But that's where people are like, get the hell off my timeline. The last thing I'd say is, again, people being like, you know, these are the fights he's supposed to be taking. These are the right ones. It's just what you have to understand is at this stage of boxing, pre-20 fights, before you get to 20 fights, and, you know, I think he's even pre-15 at this point. Dude, like you can't say you're fighting good guys. You just can't. That's not what you're doing.

You're getting experience. You're working on your skills they might have one or two in particular things that they're going to show you or make you work on or you know some problem solve for it's all very very incremental till you get to a point we're just not even anything close to that yet all right neither here nor there bc uh let's talk about this the showtime card the last one from the armory in minneapolis minnesota i'm really not sure what to say about the main event bc david morel was a big favorite to beat senna agbeko the over under on that fight going the distance or the over under was a five and a half rounds it didn't go far at all he got

just a couple of rounds and then he polished him off what can we say except between this and the yamaguchi falcow fight did not have anybody remotely competitive with him in this year of 2023. I mean, he's a great fighter. And let's also remember when we're talking about Jake Paul, only having 10 pro fights that what was this? The 10th pro fight of David Morrell yet. He fought for an interim world title in his third fight and he wants to fight

next. Everybody. He specifically called out David Benavidez next, a fight that was almost made for this fall but then Benavidez ended up fighting Andrade and look both of them obviously wanted to be in the Canelo sweepstakes I think for Ben for Morel this opportunity came sort of last minute close out the year stay busy they gave him a durable opponent but when you get a durable opponent out of there as quickly as Morel did it's just another feather in his cap and an

announcement that he's coming at 168. The real question is, Luke, can he get one of those big names next year? Now, remember, he's had that secondary WBA title for a while and has made a handful of defenses. The mandatory is going to become due to the undisputed champion, right? Right now, that's Canelo. We don't know if Canelo is coming back in the spring against Munguia. That seems to be a rumor, although Munguia has to beat John Ryder first, and that's the toughest fight of Munguia's career. Luke, what happens if Munguia doesn't beat John Ryder? What do we do in the spring?

Because it seems like Canelo, when asked about Benavidez, is stiff-arming enough to lead you to believe it won't be in the spring, but still showing you enough that eventually he'll fight this guy, and maybe that means next september i don't think canelo is going to then slide in morel so can morel in your eyes get either benavidez or canelo in the ring with him next year or force himself somehow into a real title fight if canelo gets stripped what do you think about his future adding into 24 i don't think anyone's going to try and fight him in 2024 his biggest

opponent is going to be getting an opponent yeah because he's young brash slick as hell athletic as hell skilled as hell i mean he is something out of a goddamn comic book he is super super special and david benavidez is right. All eyes on Canelo. You're as close as you're probably going to be at this point. Maybe, as you indicated, maybe one more. We'll see. But, you know, you can't take any... Dude, it would be so...

Not reckless. Dude, would I love to see Benavidez versus Morel in 2024? Fuck yeah, I would. I would be very surprised if Benavidez accepted a fight like that. And you could say, well, aren't we accusing Canelo of ducking? Benavidez is facing all the tough guys that people don't want to fight that have been ahead of him all this

time. He is right to set up the Canelo fight next. I don't know what Canelo's going to do. It's just hard to say. I don't know what. But Morel, this is what I worry about with him.'s like guys dude senebeka was not a bad fighter but he couldn't even last two fucking rounds against this kid it's it's he's gonna have a very very very very hard time getting an opponent dude imagine him

against benavidez in vegas in may cinco de mayo weekend imagine if he tried to take that back from imagine if because both guys want canelo so badly If Benavidez had the balls and I'm not saying he needs to, I don't think it's likely. I agree with you. But if Benavidez said, F it, if I can't get Canelo in the spring and Morel looks like the next guy. And I just beat plant.

Who's, you know, a hard matchup. I just beat Andrade, who is one of the more difficult matchups that people avoided. And if he just said, F it, I'm being a,

I'm just going to be a star on my own. I'm going to do Vegas. I'm going to do it Cinco de Mayo weekend. Sorry, Canelo. And I'm going to do it against Morel. And if I beat him, there's no way you can avoid me now. That's a massive final hoop to jump through. If he did, Luke, he would have our utmost respect. But I agree with you. I don't think anybody wants Morel. I mean, can he get a Charlo brother? Probably not. Who can he get, Luke? I don't know. Hopefully somebody. somebody i mean i wonder if it's more likely that he tries to force his hand the sanctioning body way to try to get canelo stripped if he doesn't want to fight him right and try to become the full wba champion that way maybe that's his super bowl in 24 but you

and i echo this during our uh final showtimedown show, when we called the prelims on Saturday, there's a reason at 25 that the Southpaw with the Cuban national amateur background, with the power, with the defense head movement craft, and just sensational showmanship. There's a reason why they're talking about future star with this guy. Watch him continue to learn English and watch him continue to beat everybody they put in front of him.

Look, this guy is a pound for pound breakout sensation coming into your living room and waiting for his opportunity. And he did nothing on Saturday but just add more on top to that pile. All right, and last but not least, because I want to move the show along, we had Bam Rodriguez over on DAZN unifying titles for lightweight. He had the WBO, and now he wins the ibf title stopping sonny edwards uh basically at the end of the ninth round bc what can you tell us about bam rodriguez he seems to be a bit of a

breakout fighter himself in town absolutely absolutely people forget i forgot too until i talked to brent brookhouse of cbs sports that bam rodriguez with our was our runner up for fighter of the year last year to be to dimitri biebel Because this 23-year-old softball from San Antonio has monster. What do we call them, Luke? Bolas? Pelotas? Pelotas would be like a basketball or like a kickball. What you really mean is huevos.

Huevos. Huevos. This kid has huevos. He's also very skilled, and he's got big power for 115. Don't sleep on his trio of victories last year, which included stopping the boogeyman at that division in Thailand, Sirisaket Sorungvisai, the same guy who knocked Chuck Letito out cold and nearly retired him.

That man went in there against one of the best, maybe even the best competition that he has faced up to this point because of how slick Sonny Edwards has been with the unbeaten record. And look, he did what he said he would do. He got him the hell out of there. This kid's a breakout star on the rise. It's hard to be a star in the lower weight classes. It's really almost a miracle that somebody as legendary as Chocolatito actually found

a window to become the pound for pound king and for a short season be like a pay-per-view co-main threat behind Triple and for a short season be like a pay-per-view co-main threat behind Triple G as a marketing force. But Bam is becoming somebody in those lower weight classes that we need to watch now every single time out. This is a great way to end the rebound year to his near-Fighter of the Year campaign last year. Incredible.

All right, BC, that's our top five topics. Before we get to the DMs from Donks, I want to tell folks, as we know, BC, January, right around the corner. And I'm not one of these folks that's like, you have to have a New Year's resolution. But sometimes it can be helpful for people, right? They want them. They want to start the year fresh, put some goals out there, and see if they can reach them. Guys, if you're going to do it, it doesn't matter what your goal is. You've got to have a plan.

And if you're having fitness goals in 2024, then you need a fitness plan. And I have good news for you. BC, there is an app. It's called FitBod. It can get all of the things you need to make that plan a workable one, a scalable one, and the one that gets you to your goals. Am I lying? Am I lying? I mean, look, would you enter into a sport at an elite level without a coach? a scalable one and the one that gets you to your goals is am i lying am i lying i mean i mean look

would you enter into a sport at an elite level without a coach would you try to put together ikea furniture without a manual luke well i guess maybe a lot of us try the latter but here's the deal to really get ahead to really sustain and create progress to get your health your body your mind in the right direction you need need knowledge. You need a plan. You really need like somebody overseeing you. That's the coach in your hand that is FitBod, not just an app that can react and adjust to the way your body does with each workout, to the equipment you have available to you.

It creates a plan of attack on how to get the most out of your workouts, how to check all the boxes and to make sure you are doing a well-rounded, correct form and safe approach to getting yourself in shape. Doing it alone, guys, right? For a long time. It may have given you big shoulders to look good in a t-shirt, but is it building sustainable habits that you can carry on, not just for a short season to look good for the new year or to get in shape for your high school reunion. How about in our mid-40s or wherever we are in our walk, making real, sustainable life changes? You want to avoid those plateaus? You want to avoid losing motivation? You need a plan.

Guys, FitBot is the app that covers all of it. Yeah, I mean, of course, you can learn new exercises should you need to, but this is one that understands your past workouts, how you've done, what the plan is, and really just gives you the precise, specific, tailored-to- You get to have the customization that you want, that you need to get educated on the process, by the way, through the course of this, keeping it fresh, keeping the motivation high, and keeping you on track with a plan. I cannot overstate how important that is. So here's what you're going to need to do. Download FitBod today and get a head start on your fitness resolutions.

Get 25% off your subscription and get three free personalized workouts when you go to FitBod.me slash combat. That's 25% off and free personalized workouts at F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash combat. With that in mind, BC, it is time for DMs from dogs. B-O-D dot M-E slash combat. With that in mind, BC, it is time for DMs from dogs. He friggin' haw. Alright, BC,

from Flannels and Jits, what do we make of Sean Strickland brawling in the stands? Look, I said this quickly late in our Saturday show, but he's kind of becoming a hero to the average fan i think he stole colby's fan base and even though there's still you know two steps forward one step behind from some of the growth what do i mean by growth luke he can't they had that off that ridiculous friday press conference where a lot of ridiculousness happened

but he did speak out against colby being a bully he did somehow take to social media to defend children who were abused and then he had a beef with with uh with ddp and he made sure go uh gilbert burns his children were safe and jumped across and started putting it on him luke while that's not always going to work in ufc terms to just start a fight before the fight with the guy you want to fight it does speak to the fans it is making him look like an absolute american badass and somebody the company actually can get behind from a marketing standpoint you want toughness he showed it to you blue collar style in there i have to say all things considered he kind of won the weekend and i actually believe that instead of us although we did open the show talking about Colby's flat tire at this event, and I even took it as far as criticizing Leon, which people hate me for.

I wonder if most of this pay-per-view card being awesome mixed with this development, which is only, only going to get us super excited for 297 next month. I think Sean Strickland kind of saved this pay-per-view on Saturday and got people really, really pumped up. It's amazing we're having a middleweight title fight without Adesanya or Whitaker, but now it's starting to come together and feel right, Luke. This is a fun build. It is.

I know I don't like anti-homo responses on every other question, which was that seasonal press conference on Friday. Can we get that out of there, Dana? Beyond that, Luke, beyond, hey, why are you letting your coach grab your dick? Some good stuff that came out of this development. And I think Strickland's acting like a badass, and that's marketable. Yeah, I had someone ask me last week, like, how come there's not more, because you know just mathematically there have to have been more male gay fighters

than you've ever heard of, right? They've obviously had to keep that identity secret. And it's like, yeah, guys, I can't figure out why they wouldn't be more comfortable talking about it. What would ever compel them to just remain silent with so many positive incentives about coming forward with it? I mean, I would say that I agree with, basically I agree with your overall assessment

about Sean Strickland's rise and current position and everything else. It's certainly adding a lot of drama. Because we talked about this before, right? Strickland beating Izzy was surprised ddp beating whittaker was a surprise to what extent you can debate but they were they were upsets and here they are and folks like didn't quite know what to do with this pairing because the guys who had been the two sort of big-time institutions at at middleweight had now lost

uh well now they've got all this animosity now they've got all this heat because they're jumping into the cage and or sorry not the cage jumping into the stands and fist fighting and blah, blah, blah. But then, you know, the other part of it is it's like, dude, is every press conference now going to be a fucking race to the bottom? I guess so. I guess is what we're doing. I want to echo one thing. I said earlier in the show. Did you see the twinkle in Dana's eye when he responded at because they asked him basically, was there anything said at the press conferences this week that you were that you weren't happy with and to his credit he talked

about you know colby taking it too far unfortunately he didn't address some of the homophobic comments that i hope you know leaves combat sports it's taking a long time but i hope it can go soon but he did mention luke 25 percent hot boost in pay-per-view sales from colby doing that i think that was enough of an endorsement for every single fighter to realize that it's trash talking season. It's being a deplorable public person season. It's just going out there and causing chaos season. It pays Luke.

And if it keeps paying, it's going to keep happening. It pays allegedly. I mean, that's just what Dana White says. Dana White lies on the record all the time. So keep that in mind too. All right. Topic number two two it's not cage fighting uh BC did MVP make the right call signing with the UFC over the PFL

probably right I don't know I mean what is the right call here so he's he's don't forget that MVP although a young late 30s is kind of turning 37 soon if he hasn't already so there's's probably the element of, you know, here for a short time, not a long time from the standpoint of like he has been waiting all his whole career to prove himself at the most elite level. He never quite got over the hump to become the Bellator welterweight champion. But regardless of whether they're going to pay him, this does seem to be the right move of first career at the right time to take huge fights and prove himself in theory at the most elite level. But I do wonder, Luke, given what PFL is trying to create, which is the opportunity to

go the season route for a million bucks or the opportunity to go the pay-per-view route or the opportunity to go the Bellator champion route and be in big title fights on TV, you can argue there may be an opportunity for him to use his brand to make more money, potentially, on the other side. There's less unknowns. It depends upon the opponents available. It really comes down to me what his true goals were. If your goals at the end of the day are to prove yourself

and you know you've got a certain amount left in the tank, then I applaud this move at the right time. Tough opponent, but that's what they give everybody. Don't forget Eddie Alvarez lost to Cerrone in his first fight. They put you through the ringer to earn it, and he's going to have to do it that way. I would just say it really depends on what he wants, doesn't it? It just depends on what he wants. If he wants the biggest fights possible, then this is probably it. If he wanted the biggest paycheck, I don't really know what PFL would have offered him. That's the other part, too. It's like, what are the terms of the deal? What did PFL actually offer?

What did UFC offer? There's really no way to know. So between like the lack of understanding what's in the contract and then not having spoken to him about what exactly he wants, hard to say, but it's probably the best thing for him

where he's at in his career. I would say that. All right, BC, from Sam Laban, Sam Laban, however you say it, over or under 50% chance it will be a slap fight at ufc 300 so here's what's interesting here's what's interesting they did not ask dana that but somebody did ask him about this rise of callum walsh the irish boxer that dana has kind of

co-managed or put under his you know dana said he wants to bring walsh to ireland next year all that they said hey dana would you ever mix boxing with ufc because of callum walsh to Ireland next year, all that. They said, hey, Dana, would you ever mix boxing with UFC because of Callum Walsh? And would you be willing to do it at the sphere for Noche UFC where Dana has said, look, I'm going to come back and give you, blow you away with the craziest, biggest, not biggest, but most incredible combat sports show you've ever seen. And he said, no, I hate, I hate when people try to match different sports on the same card. I just hope he keeps that same energy when it comes to power slap because could you imagine a day what he'd

already put a power slap what they do a way a fight or a way in at one of the ufc weigh-in events is that true did i make that up there was some power slap crossover recently yeah like the ceremonial way it's not the actual way they didn't okay um if we ever ever ever see the power slap championship on the espn prelims of a ufc pay-per-view i think that's when the you know when it when we would rightly revolt but up to this point it seems no it does seem no luke i hope it's no let's keep let's keep it no okay i would really hope it to be no but one never knows one never knows all right bc this is a question for you from StJohn underscore CA. Brian, do you agree that Luke creating a members-only content,

he means like a members-only content tier, is no different than having an OnlyFans account member-exclusive content? So therefore, could you please refer to it as his OnlyFans going forward? I will. I will. BC, are you going to do that? It's not comparable because Luke has zero plans to shamelessly show his butthole just to keep his family's financial fortunes afloat. Now, if we get to that point and Luke changes his tune, I'll be the first one there to not

look at the photos, but to just, you know, just piss all over that guy R. Kelly style. But yeah, Luke, we all have a scam. You know, we've all got a spinoff scam going. You know what I mean? Hey, Cameo.com slash brian campbell why don't you get a a solid holiday shout out coming your way some inspiration whatever you need bc's here for you luke's got the same gimmick going with his content only you have to pay 75 to get your chat question halfly answered but that's your prerogative that's your listen i you're right i'm not going to show my butthole to anyone in order to have monetary success

only because I don't think it would work. But, BC, if it did work, if it were absolutely able to work, I would quit this show and then just show my butthole. I mean, I don't really care anymore. Okay, that's a huge statement against your life morals, and I'll talk to you offline about how disappointed I am, Luke. You can talk to me now. I'm not angry. Just so you know, I'm not angry. Yeah, you're just disappointed. I get it. I get it. disappointed I am, Luke. You can talk to me now. I'm not angry.

Just so you know, I'm not angry. Yeah, you're just disappointed. I get it. I get it. Yeah, thanks, Dad. All right. Triple A or Triple A, 10, 17, however the fuck you say this. Top three holiday action movies.

Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, et cetera. What do you think, BC? Top three holiday action movies. Is Home alone both a holiday movie and a holiday action movie is it action movie no holiday movie yes okay then uh what other holiday action movies are there between besides those two right there oh there was that one where rambo rambo oh yeah i guess. I mean, if we're doing. If we are doing.

Die hard as a Christmas movie and die hard as a Christmas action movie, then it's got to be number one. It's got to be. Yeah. Yeah, it probably does. Christmas action movies. Fucking wasn't there like a Harold and Kumar Christmas action movie? Some shit. No. Wasn't there something a harold and kumar christmas action movie some shit no wasn't there something i don't know i'm not i don't know i don't know have you seen harold and kumar oh yeah the first one's great i watch it on the plane in the eighth row all the time when i'm

flying luke i lose my shit every time you know who's the funniest in there david krumholz with the the jewish actor who who plays like the guy in the apartment next door, when he's like, I would do unspeakable things to her butthole. That guy, that guy's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He is very funny. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the answer would be. I guess Rambo, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and whatever the fuck else.

I'm a bad Santa guy for holiday movies. It's not an action movie, but- We'll get to it. Yeah. I mean, Holiday in Handcuffs has some action, too, if you're looking for a nice holiday. I'm definitely not, though. I'm definitely not. All right. Time for BC Species. Let's to it. Yeah. I mean, Holiday in Handcuffs has some action, too, if you're looking for a nice holiday. I'm definitely not, though. I'm definitely not. All right.

Time for BC Species. Let's see it. All right. I scoured the globe in the internet. Luke challenged me on Saturday night to come with it. I hope this lives up to his expectations. These are the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in-between in combat sports and beyond.

And it's called... Have you seen it? How? How? How? Hey, how about this luke before i throw to this clip i just want to say i have never received this many people sharing one clip i know i know exactly what clip this is you don't have to say a word everybody said you know what you need to do so i'm not going to show you andre touchy-feely

getting a nice knockout in the second fight of the night. This is him at the post-fight press conference. Five, six things you care about. So other than fighting and Harley Davidson motorcycles, what are some of those things? I like big booty

Latinas. Don't we all, Andre? Don't we we all luke that had to be a man after your own heart right i cannot i cannot i cannot tell you my email dms ever tagged on this that and the other like everyone and their brother sent that to me let me just say andre feely rsd 2024 i can't believe that people don't have latinas as their number one like in the power rankings but andre feely does because he understands well when we get him on room service diaries next year andre if you're listening i have so many awesome questions about that great acting debut he had in uh he did well in that movie thriller he was good in that yeah dude seriously people if you have not watched the marijuana thriller that that uriah faber like financed and produced it's actually kind of a good movie

and it's viciously violent luke it's like absurdly violent at the end with an lt cameo with an lt cameo yes we should that's got to be mk homework soon soon okay soon all right uh let's keep it going here, Luke. I mentioned the celebrities in the corner of Wonderboy and Defeat, Tenacious D's Jack Black and Kyle Gass. But, dude, if you ever get your beard to that Jack Black level intervention, line one. OK. Yeah. I mean, I mean, just you just look like an overgrown pumpkin. I mean, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. All right. You mentioned Coach Goggins, Luke. He got criticized by the internet for his motivational skills. Here's a little

snippet of him trying to bring Tony back to life. Luke, that was in round one when Tony was you know going through hell against Paddy and it was time now and he brought and he bounced back so you tell me if Goggins was valuable in the corner I'm saying dude you can't hire David Goggins and then be like oh he did David Goggins things in the corner that's what he's gonna fucking do like yes that's that's what he's there to do I love though before round three when he jumped in started firing F-bombs at him. That was cool. I like that. All right, Cody Garbrandt had a hell of a comeback win against Brian Boom Kelleher.

I want you to talk about good old Boom's haircut and this knockout victory. Yeah, the haircut is atrocious. I like Brian a lot. The haircut is the worst thing I've ever seen. And that punch is, unfortunately for Brian, quite beautiful. That was a really, really, really effective shot. Looks like he might have broken his jaw. I'm not sure.

Look at this. Boom. Damn. Okay, so, Luke, three and a half rounds we got from Garbrandt here. Is he back, back, or regular back, or back, back? He's regular back, but he's not back, back. Okay. That was a nice shot.

That was a really, really nice shot. He did a great job. All right, Luke. We identified on Saturday that Carol Hossa and Irine Aldana put forth one of the greatest fights in women's bantamweight history. One of the most incredible female action fights we've seen in a while. Look at the blood and guts here in the final minute. I mean, good Lord. I had this one going the distance. I think you went 5-0, by the way, on OK Bet, if I recall correctly, BC.

You ended very, very strong. I had this one. I got it right, but I got to tell you, Jesus, man, I was not sure this one was going to go the distance. These two were killing each other, but somehow it did. Amazing, amazing fight. Probably one of the better bantamweight women's fights in MMA history or certainly in UFC history.

No question. How Aldana was able to finish on that one leg that was kicked to hell is a testament to her strength and will, and she did bounce back from that performance in the title loss. Credit to her. And Luke, you want to see what the receipt's like when you fight like this. Here's the two of them meeting up in the hospital Rocky II style to show their respect.

So you want to be an ultimate fighter, Luke? Jesus, man. Their clothes look like they survived a car accident. Like, it's crazy. Shout out to the two of them, not just Irenay. Carol Hossa really showed her mettle in this one. Yeah, she's tough as hell, too. It's Shavkat Rachmanov appreciation time, Luke.

How about this surprising swagger he showed after squeezing the life out of Wonderboy? I missed this in real time. Luke, is this a celebration? Yeah. Pay me, bitches. Pay me, bitches. He don't act like that look at that no dude he he was he went into this fight injured submitted a guy inside too who'd never been submitted before and was like pay me hoes and i was like let him know shavkat let him know let him know indeed by the way i did like the

respect that that wonder boy showed before and after. That's a beautiful scene. Luke, if Shavkat really is the darling of the company that he's starting to be, will they let him do this walkout next time? Look at this fucking man. Look at this fucking man. There are a lot of animals in this walkout. Look at this fucking guy.

He's got a dog in one hand, he's got a wolf on his head, and he's got a fucking eagle in the other hand. Fuck life you've never looked this cool in your life you never will that is a variety of dead and alive animals in that in that traveling party right there dude imagine you were like imagine you were like some regional mma fighter and you had to show up to kazakhstan to like fight and this is your opponent you'd, dude, when's the first flight out of this motherfucker? I'm gone. Well, Luke, if you're wondering how serious Shavkat's title intentions are and to try to become the greatest mixed martial artist he can be,

do you know that during training camp for this fight against Wonderboy, he skipped his sister's wedding completely and was like, sorry, got to train for this, and they had to bring him in on FaceTime. But look at this glorious celebration. Shout out to the family. Yeah, hard as nails this guy is. Hard as nails. Also, skipping a wedding, probably a good idea.

Well, yeah, probably for his purposes. Let's give Sean Strickland and DDP their own subfolder. Here's the best view I found of what actually went down. It was wild on Saturday. Here's the official UFC view. So they sat them two rows apart. Dana admitted that was his wrong, his bad idea.

But he went, this went from zero to kick your ass real fast. Sean was about it, about it. DDP did an interview afterwards where he said even though Sean had the high ground, he knew he had to shoot in that moment so he didn't end up on his back so you know who won this Sean won it though right I guess I mean it doesn't seem like he got any kind of real punches in he didn't lump them up or anything but he definitely showed his willingness to do you know crazyass shit in public. Damn right, people do like that. Luke, people are wondering what the origin story of Friday's seasonal press conference was

when Sean accused DDP countless times of doing gross things with his coach involving his own crotch. Here's the video that actually is what this is about, Luke. What technique is this? Yeah, I mean, when people are asking, the the the answer is uh homophobia is the answer right like do you understand what i mean like yeah what if like why would you do that bro like why okay why would you care i don't know but people do i don't know i don't i don't listen i'm old and don't understand anything anymore so So that's where I'm at. But here's what people don't know. This is who his coach trained under.

This may explain this whole situation a lot better, Luke. See, it all goes back to military discipline, right? This is acceptable to you. I got to say, I don't recall this time in the Marine Corps, but I can't say for certain it doesn't happen. All right, let's go to the Zone Boxing. It was the Jake Paul show. I want to give him this credit. As good as this uppercut was,

he waved goodbye to Andre August after landing it. It was a pretty nice celebration. This is what I mean. Like, it's a nice punch. You know, he reached for it a little bit, but he set it up. I mean, it landed with devastating effect. Like, I'm not mad at Jake for taking the fight.

I'm not mad at him for winning it. I just'm not going to sit here and be like yo he beat somebody of great caliber no he didn't he just beat another dude yeah well colby missed out on having trump potentially put the belt around his wakes so jake invited your boy vivek luke vivek vivek i think it's vivek vivek ramaswamy yeah let's listen to the two of them laugh it up about Andre August. Oh, my God. He said he voted for Biden. The quote was, he voted for Biden, pointing down to the lifeless Andre August. Which I have to say, this is what I mean.

This is what I mean about the politics, dude. It's like everyone in this fucking sport has the same politics. At least be funny with it. That was funny. That was legitimately funny. Well, Luke, boxing's 140-pound division is on fire. But I want to remind you there's still a champion in there who's about to get his due again, and that's Rolando Roley Romero, my favorite boxer.

They asked him this week at the WBA convention in Orlando what his future plans are for boxing. Getting back in the ring or anything. Yeah, you know, I'm just taking my time, you know. Just chilling, having a good time at WBA convention, you know. Yeah, you know, I came to support. Yeah, I mean, like, you got to look at it from my perspective. You know, starve to death, get punched in the face, being there with a bunch of sweaty, disgusting dudes, right?

Jim smelling like ass.? Jim smelling like ass. Smelling like ass. Or being on a tropical island getting my dick sucked by two girls at the same time. Yeah. Which one sounds better to you? Option B, bro. Option B hard. Okay, so I'm not in no rush.

I don't give a fuck right now. Luke, option B hard. I have to agree. That is unassailable logic. Option B sounds significantly better. I told you he's a genius. I have told you that is unassailable logic option b sounds significantly better i told you he's a genius i have told you that a genius of comedy luke look at that he's living up to it uh let's go to the first pitch at the mlb luke we always see fun theatrics in this when they bounce it in damn dude that's if you throw a shit a fucking pitch

worse than 50 cent you are pathetic who is this person i don't know but she hit the photographer right in the lens cap that's wild right there wow yeah just yeah i mean what do you i mean that camera is like fucking 15 grand lady what are you doing yeah what are you doing here luke do you like to bowl you're a good bowler uh i used to be a decent bowler i'm pretty pathetic now all right you ever you ever try human bowling with a large person? I don't know if you heard the pin sound effect there of them going down. That was Snoop Dogg shared that with us. So blame him.

Blame Snoop Dogg. All right. There you go. All right. Luke, this is the guy. I'm sorry. This guy next is you and I at the end of our eight hour live session on the camera saturday in the bomb shelter there's no question here

as soon as we went off the air luke this was you and me yeah yeah just butt crack in the air that's right that's right i one time got drunk as shit at the bars and i came home and i was like i need a glass of water and i knew i'd had that one last one i had like a double to end the night you know it was fucking stupid and i i came home and i was like i gotta get a glass of water and i sat down on the couch i'm gonna drink it and then i fell asleep on the couch but somehow like the glass of water had stayed here like i had managed to hold it up the whole time and then like two hours later i woke up and i'm like and as i did that i just poured the

fucking water all over me oh yeah right as i woke up i'm like dude how did i fumble up the at the goal line here what the fuck well luke you know that i won okay bad and really just destroyed your reputation for at least another calendar year but i wanted to combine things that i really love to make this concert experience as uncomfortable for you as possible so look at this they've combined hippies jam bands and painting dude we got to go to this concert look at this this would be great dude here's what i'll say about this place okay this is the worst place on earth and i'd rather you know just get fucking uh run over by a car than go here however however however you know that the drugs being circulated at this place are next level i mean the ketamine here

must be unreal i'll remove my ear like a true artist if i have to in a place like this luke just give me enough of that uh what what did low trek get down with that uh by the way i mean is there is it any wonder that everyone in this fucking video is white i mean yeah just some some fresh absinthe with some real kind luke and we'll get after this okay there we go i do like absinthe absinthe will fuck you up though if you're gonna uh luke if you i got a great side income idea for you let's buy a mohead moped get you an uber account but make sure in the fine detail you do put a weight limit in there oh he got big berth on this one huh i mean is this worth the uh the five dollars here luke to get her down across town i mean, is this worth the $5 here, Luke, to get her across town?

I mean, this is just not nice and not fair. To him, I mean. Damn, man, my man is going to be struck. Oh, yeah. There you go. Oh, oh, oh. Yep, you're going to have to cancel that order. Yep, that's it.

All right, let's keep it going. Hey, let's go to the rest of boxing's weekend. We mentioned Bam Rodriguez settling his grudge match with Sonny Edwards. Here is the faced face first finish that dropped edwards damn luke he actually got up from this he gets up but then his corner waves it at the end that's a that's a hell of a punch he walked into dude damn dude i mean just when the when the force goes like this crossways it's it's all bad

yeah he moves into it you normally don't have to count but sonny to his credit showed some When the force goes like this, crossways, it's all bad. Yeah. He moves into it. Boom. When they fall face first, you normally don't have to count, but Sonny, to his credit, showed some life, got counted out. Hey, how about in the co-main? Former unified 122-pound champion Murjan M.J. Ekmedaliev, who lost his titles to Marlon Tapalas,

came back with a hell of a KO victory here, a resounding victory in the co-main event to try to work his way back up into No. 1 contention. It was a nice win for the Spurs. Look at that nose, too. That nose is shattered. Yeah, yeah. Shattered.

The ref would let this man continue, and it wasn't long before MJ just came out throwing bombs. Unfortunately, I wanted to see him against Inouye. Unfortunately, he got upset, but we'll see Marlon Tupala. Akhmadaliyev uzbek correct uzbek correct i believe he's that's correct oh luke we know showtime championship boxing had its series finale here is the sweet revenge ko and the co-main of anis jose valenzuela who felt he got a raw deal against chris colbert in march luke he jumped off his feet for this right hook this was wild it was so pretty he hit it down low does a bit of a double jab to keep curtis occupied he moves in a

straight line and then just absolutely flattens him now afterwards he said that the 50k bet was off uh he's a very very nice guy but dude that was wow that was a that was some revenge if ever there was some. Well, Luke, you just disrespected primetime Chris Colbert by calling him Curtis. And his own corner, unfortunately, disrespected him. Watch the reaction of his secondary trainer in the corner as he went down. Dude, that's Boogie, right? That's Boogie.

Boogie's from D.C. He's the pad holder from Headbangers. From Headbangers. Yeah, yeah, you're right, because he did have Barry as his trainer. Yeah, okay. Yeah, dude, listen, this is what I mean in boxing, bro. In boxing, it's a bunch of older men. They don't give a fuck about your feelings or the opinion,

but they're not intentionally cruel, but they don't, you know what I mean? They give it to you straight. They give it to you straight they give it to you straight they do they do uh we mentioned david morale scored the final victory in the 37 year history of showtime boxing here it is the stoppage against at senna agbeko clean punches that just burst through the get through the high guard there i mean this is what i mean dude like who the fuck are they gonna give this guy that can even stand up to him you know you're basically tried and like literally was put into a coma about it now he obviously he's okay he got out of it but his career is effectively over going the distance with david morel like

good lord dude he is i'm telling you his biggest opponent is going to be getting an opponent you know what i mean indeed indeed uh let's go to karate combat in vegas luke this was a big event on friday night anthony pettis in a trilogy with Benson Henderson in the main event. And look at this jumping axe kick that landed. Doing Showtime shit out here. I didn't see a lot that landed. It kind of partially landed with that jump. Watch this.

It's coming up. A little bit. A little bit. But it buzzed the tower. You told me they had to go into an overtime round to find a winner? Yeah, there was a sixth overtime round, I believe. All right, I fell asleep. But hell, I'll tell you this, Luke.

Sam Alvey and the co-main won the inaugural Karate Combat Heavyweight Championship. And to his moniker, he's smiling afterwards. Are you happy for him? Can he now retire happy? I mean, don't get me wrong. Very happy for Sam. But it does make me question the level of competition that's in this organization but okay uh hey if people are happy i'm not here to take it away say again will you question sam alvey's barber for putting a smile into the back of his head let's go to the next slide

does this make you want to change your tune on being so nice to sam yeah i mean Does this make you want to change your tune on being so nice to Sam? Yeah, I mean, maybe he's got alopecia and it just worked out artistically. I doubt it. Luke, you've long said that John Daly has been unabashedly one of your sporting heroes. Is this correct? Yes, John Daly is the king of kings want to watch him kick straight on 50 yard nfl field goals here probably while drunk and uh full of nicotine dude are you shitting me it's a small screen this guy but just just randomly dropping 50 yard field goals at broncos

practice look at this dude this guy literally i i saw him do an interview once where he like partnered with some company or developed his own where they make sports drinks. And they were like, John, what was the impetus behind getting behind this product? He's like, man, I just don't like the taste of water. They're like, what do you mean you don't like the taste of water? He's like, man, I just can't drink that stuff. I'll have a cigarette or a Diet Coke. I'm happy.

But that won't make you hydrated. So this will make you hydrated. But I just can't stand the taste of water. I'm like, any athlete who tells you he doesn't like the taste of water and loves to smoke cigarettes, that's my kind of athlete right there. That's Luke's kind of athlete. Luke, let's keep it going here. We have a cough button when we call fights on air so we don't let out noises like coughs or farts.

This guy's going to need a fart button moving forward. Watch this. This is live going to need a fart button moving forward. Watch this. This is live national news, I believe. Why is this law even on the books if people in authority are saying the things that they're saying right now? You know, police chiefs in Florida, including the former chief of Miami.

Okay, here's my thing about that. I've done this maneuver, and no one has picked up on it before so i'm skeptical he actually did that because he's not using a boom mic he's using a lav mic would the lav really pick that up if it was a huge deep fart that he had to lift the leg to get it out it depends on the seat because you know luke if you're sitting on a metal flip like like folding chair dude the vibration and the echo i mean you can you can have your most epic ever you know like family parties we used to seek out those metal folding chairs to try to compete against one another luke wow i was raised yeah yeah well my wife my wife has asked me before why is your

ass yelling at me that's what's a question I've gotten before. That's great. And you're like, sorry, honey, farting is your ass's way of telling you. Farting is your ass's way of telling you it's time to go take a dump. Luke, you ever be flipping through Wheel of Fortune? You're like, I can guess it. Watch. I know that because they got a certain amount of letters.

Well, let's try you out here, Luke. What do you think this is, this puzzle? Well, I got to tell you, there's a couple ways you could go with this. Well, Vanna, actually, yeah. I think it's supposed to be luck be in the air tonight. Yes. But there's a couple. You change out an L, put an F there, and change out the B and put an M.

A couple of S's, you're in a different ballgame. Then suddenly it's S and M. There's no question. Luke, what do you make of this drum solo at this local concert? It's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. He did get soloed, Luke. He got destroyed. Wow.

It's like we went from being a country band to just now we're just death metal. We're just fucking death metal. Luke, Chad Ochocinco, former All-Pro wide receiver, was on a podcast with good old, what do they call Shannon Sharp? Uncle what? They call him. They just call him like Unc, Unc Shannon. Shea Shea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, Shea Shea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is how Ocho played through pain throughout his career. R. Kelly style. I've always asked, man, how did you manage to have a career and have no injuries? The funny thing about it is I had home remedies that I used. Nobody believed me. I used to get urine.

What that urine for? Y'all stay with me now. I used to get urine and warm it up. Where from? Who urine? Yours? If it wasn't enough of mine, I would have to get my teammates urine. I put my ankle that's swollen or the one that's sprained

warming up really hot sitting my foot in the urine if I sprain my ankle on the Wednesday and we play Sunday by the time I got to Friday I was able to do that fast walkthrough practice on Friday and play the game

fully healthy Sunday I'm gonna miss that game. Shannon Sharp is the man. Shannon Sharp is the fucking man. I love Shannon Sharp. Also, BC, Ocho Cinco is right. So the next time you have a headache, we can fix this if you just let me piss on your face and you'll be great. I mean, do you remember when Jorge Posada, the Yankees catcher,

used to tell that story about how in the preseason he would piss on his hands to make it all chap to be better for gripping the bat, which is so gross. I don't know if you remember Juan Manuel Marquez on HBO 24-7 drinking his urine before the third Pacquiao fight. I mean, just disgusting shit. All right. Well, Luke, let's close with this. You know, I like finding those random Maine license plates.

Here's your Maine license plate of the year. You can find more at the great Instagram account, Vanity of Maine. I have to tell you, the fact that the thing at the bottom says vacation land is almost too perfect. That's my car. I'll tell you. And that's the shit of the week. I hope you saw it.

Hey, we gave these people a hell of an episode. I hope they enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not. But we did our best. We did our best.

Hey, BC, let's remind everyone morning combat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs. By the way, there are fights this weekend. I know Christmas Eve is Sunday and then Christmas is on Monday. We'll have content for folks next week by the way if you're wondering, hey, what's the schedule next week? We'll have content for you.

But also, the boxing fights are this weekend, right? All the big boxing fights. The day of reckoning is Saturday in Saudi Arabia. The extreme heavyweight card that also has dimitri b-ball back on it i chatted with joseph parker and dionte wilder this morning so check out those interviews on morning combat or youtube.com slash morning combat probably in the next 24 hours all right very good and as a reminder morningcombat.store to reach

all of our merch uh you can follow us on the socials and all that stuff. There you go. BC, any final thoughts before we close here on today's show? No. I'm done here, but thanks, everyone. It was fun doing the show, but I got things to do. I got to go to bed like a real bad dude. There you have it.

Thanks to Malcolm. Thanks to Showtime. Thanks to CBS Sports. Thanks to all you guys out there. Check out the podcast and everything else in between. That's BCMLT. That's been MK. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.