MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 304 FULL Recap | Brian Ortega joins The Show | Full Episode | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Absolutely LOADED show for you donks this Monday as Luke & Brian go hard recapping UFC 304. In the main event, Belal Muhammad made sure his name would be remembered in history by upsetting Leon Edwards for the welterweight title (and breaking Luke's 35-and-over title curse). In the co-main, Tom Aspinall needed just 60 seconds to demolish Curtis Blaydes in their rematch to defend the interim title before the respectful callout of Jon Jones. Has Aspinall effectively backed Jones into a corner thanks to his quick ascension and timely callout? The guys also react to the ATSF/Ward interview with Bud Crawford to look ahead to Aug. 3 and welcome top-notch guest to the show in UFC star Brian Ortega. 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! Guys!

Look at us now, tip to tip. Oh, Jesus. Do you want a margarita? Yes! Oh, my God! It's us doing what we love. You, me, you, me. It's time to bang. oh yeah the only combat sports show fueled by melancholy gas station delta eights and a copious amount of infinite sadness you've arrived arrived. It is morning combat.

Monday, July 29th, 2024. My name is B. Sizzle, Brian Campbell, the guy next to me. Body for days, but diarrhea for life. It's Luke Thomas. Yeah. Yes, it's true. I had enormous diarrhea over the weekend. What can I say?

I mean, you may or may not have texted me from Joseph A. Bank. I took, and I'm not joking about this. I took one of the great dumps of my life in a Joseph A. Bank. Would you say it was? Over the weekend. What's the guy's name? Dan Mergliata-esque. Oh, dude.

Big John in Tokyo. I'll leave it to you this way. Triple flusher. Wow. Triple. Wow, okay, that's a little too personal there. Wow, that's gross. A double is a lot.

A triple is very unusual. Oh, animal style, I'm sure, right out of your a-hole. Hey, this is a show that breaks things down on combat sports, and we've got a lot of things to break down this week. UFC 304 recap. And my apologies to Bilal Muhammad this morning. Well, I've got some crow to eat, but you've got a lot of crow to eat. Yeah, I've got to figure out how to eat some of that, apparently.

Now serving crow. We're going to break down all things. Hey, what a night for Patti Pimble. You know, good thing I called it. Look, I mean, to be fair, right? But wow. We're also going to welcome i think three spectacular guests randy couture at noon no the truth about randy couture is he's always with us he will always be

on his way here brian ortega my favorite active uh mma fighter luke will be here supposedly at noon in uh second half of the show how about andy ruiz jr the former heavyweight champion of the world who is going to be back saturday this saturday august 3rd by the way taking on jarell miller right yes in the uh in the big saudi arrival card for riyadh season on u.s soil in la terence crawford obviously in the main event moving up to face israel madrim off more on that to come in the show but uh this luke this could be epic i have a smaller batch of shiite but it it's decently potent can we bring in Long Island Luke here? Luke, can you speak to the potency of my feces?

It's very potent. I could smell it from here. I'm excited. Here's the reality. We have two guests booked. Will they show up? I don't know. You never know in the world of combat sports whether or not the MMA fighters or the boxers will be there.

I try not to hold grudges anymore. You get right. You try that. I said anymore. Oh, sorry. boxers will be there. I try not to hold grudges anymore. You get right. You try to ask people. I said anymore. Oh, sorry. So, Joanna will be a lifelong one. Well, that one was just so uniquely awful. But the reality is I'm not even expecting it.

If they post, I consider that a bonus. You know what I'm saying? I consider that a bonus. Also, we should make sure we thank our friends at DraftKings Network. MK, part of the DraftKings Network. You could be watching this right now every Monday, 5 p sure we think our friends at DraftKings Network, MK, part of the DraftKings Network. You could be watching this right now every Monday, 5 p.m. Eastern on the DraftKings Network. Watch Morning Combat.

We are live from Metal Ark Studio here in Manhattan. I mentioned Long Island Luke on the ones and twos. I believe you can follow us on our social handles. I will be burping this whole show right then and there. And also the merch, Luke. I've got this hat right here. I've got this fantastic shirt. I got this jacket.

All right. We're still in the middle of summer, but winter not far away. So you want to look in that bomber jacket. You want to be fly in that bomber jacket. Go to morningcombat.store. I'm going to take this to Bogota tomorrow. If you want to get 10% off, you can use our code LIVE10 right now. Tell RJ that your boy BC sent you.

Anything else you want to rap about? Are we good here? Going on vacation tomorrow. You need it. You deserve it. Yeah, I'm excited about it. You should bang that trip, right? I'm going to try.

I'm going to try. I'm going to my first ever Colombian wedding. Oh, what is the tradition? Because if you said you were going to Greece, I'd be like, we're going to smash the plates. If you said we're going to areece i'd be like we're gonna smash the plates if you said we're going to a portuguese wedding which i've been to they're like nine hours there's like five courses i don't know i'm not sure what to expect i'm told that there are 300 people coming uh my daughter is the flower girl so she's actually in the wedding not a lick of english will be spoken at this event right my

daughter's spanish is fluent she's good to go oh there'll be some english there'll be some english but not really not much i mean if you're asking how many americans will be there one out of 300 baby all right what about the facilities in case you get a an attack uh i'm not sure where the wedding is my wife has been doing all of the assessments of that i'm sure percentage of the toilets in the nation of columbia would be first world enough for me to entertain. And mind you, I have a long history of gross bathroom use and gas stations. So don't worry about the gross. I would say nearly a hundred percent.

Like you wouldn't have to worry about that at all. You know, what's really gross national park bathrooms, you know, those like side of the road. No, like there is nothing worse that I've seen. I've seen everything.

I have been to third world countries. I've been to developing nations. I've lived, obviously the United States of America. I've traveled all over the world. I've been into virtually every countries. I've been to developing nations. I've lived obviously in the United States of America. I've traveled all over the world. I've been into virtually every continent. I've been to Australia. I've been to Antarctica, but I've been basically everywhere else. The grossest bathroom I have ever seen. The porta potties at the Renaissance festival. I was going to go with Newark Penn. It's like someone took a dump and peed on top of Planned Parenthood.

Wow. I mean, it just looks like there's just abortions being committed in there. Okay, but get your turkey legs before they sell out. All right, there you go. There's nothing worse than that. Okay, there's a lot of grossness to open the show. Some people did come ultimately for martial arts, mixed kinds. So why don't we give that to them right freaking now.

Topic number one on this Monday morning looks back at what went down late night mixed kind so why don't we give them let's do that that to them right freaking now topic number one on this monday morning looks back at what went down late night in manchester england right sunrise i believe came up as we saw ufc 304 roll out with two title fights atop the marquee none bigger though in terms of big breakthroughs and takeaways than balal muhammad remember the name muhammad made sure that name would be remembered in history by upsetting Leon Edwards via unanimous decision to take their welterweight title. And by the way, break Luke Thomas' 35 and over welterweight Abrelo curse on the men's side. Tyron Woodley, formerly the only person to do it, but Luke, he won the title before he was 35. So at 36, Bilal Muhammad smashed a lot of things.

Speaking of that, Luke, alongside with an apology that he has coming from me, what specifically did we all miss when we handicapped this fight? Some more aggressively than others. What did we miss in what Bilal was able to ultimately do to Leon? We have to have a conversation in a moment about what time this event took place. Yes. And then to what extent we think that matters. Maybe you think it matters a lot. Maybe you think it matters very little. That is a portion of the conversation, but for the interest of just understanding what happened in the fight, let's put that to the side

for just a moment and talk about what we saw in the fight itself. Okay. So on Friday's MK, we had discussed this and I can speak for myself I had argued I didn't see an obvious path for him those are the language that I used and you didn't say you know you're gonna get tuned up like a guitar you didn't do anything I didn't do that again I I was always of the belief like you know the odds were pretty close the law has been under great win streak you know there's some questions about how good some of the wins were, but in general, he's been active. He's been winning. You know, MMA's crazy.

Things you don't expect to happen happen. Sure enough, here we are. But that's not really an explanation. I think there's a couple of things that I go to in this one. First of all, Bilal Muhammad and the wrestling and then the sort of offensive cycle he was able to get going was much better than I anticipated. I knew he could wrestle.

I knew he had some of that in him, but it really all came together. He had a very clear sense of what he wanted to do, what positions he was trying to achieve, and that made a big difference. Secondly, his striking, it's not Canelo. It's not Canelo or Marquez, but I take back anything in terms of where my expectations were on how quickly he could evolve that dude. Yes, but at a bare minimum, BC, and surely you would agree with this, it was very useful. Very useful.

Very useful. Great jab. Very useful. The jab landed. It was good at backing Leon up. It was good about setting up all the different strikes that he wanted to get going. That was very, very impressive as well. Also, BC, you go back to even the press conference when Leon made him,

like when he flinched at him and Bilal just no-sold it completely. That's what I should have saw. That's what I should have read. Right. You would ask me on Friday about like, you know, he's making this all a grudge match. And what I was saying to you, like sometimes it can be a distraction. Sometimes it can be fuel.

Clearly. Dude, he acted with purpose from the word go. You saw the result. He was a man possessed on fire yes he knew he was going to win and also like he was kind of overcome with emotion a little bit when he won but not not really it wasn't like go back and look at holly holm when she knocked out ronda rousey she was covering her face like oh my god i cannot believe where i am ball all I think, elated, but then you see him afterwards. This was what exactly what he expected to happen. I think it's a competitive mindset. I think they ironed out a great game

plan, which he executed very, very well. I do want to say, I'm not making this argument that like, is that the best Leon or did he have an off night? But he did make a, partly because Bilal put him in that position, but he made a series of very, very weird decisions. Did you hear him say afterwards, not using it as an excuse, but when they said like what went wrong after the fight, he basically said the time change, I felt exhausted all week. Now look, he wasn't saying that as this is the reason why UFC screwed me. He took the loss, gave Will all the respect,

but he did say, I felt weak all week because of that time adjustment. I know you want to talk about that. I do want to talk about that in a minute, but let me tell you one reason why that falls a little flat for me. Sure. Not all of it falls flat,

but one reason why it falls flat is, I went back and I was like, and I've got a video coming out about this on my YouTube channel, which is I went back and I watched and I was like, okay, wait a second, wait a second, time out here. Why wasn't Kamaru Usman able to do this? Like, what happened there? So I went back and I watched the Usman fight and I watched how we set it up.

I'm going to tell you that the striking of, and just the, by the way, the offensive urgency and how constantly Bilal was on him, Kamaru wasn't doing that, number one. Number two, the functional value of it, getting him to back up was a lot better. But the other part is, if you go back and you look at some of the ways in which he was able to set up the takedowns, and there was a difference in the takedowns he was executing versus Kamaru, but one of the big things that I noticed was,

if you go back and look at Leon, Leon's standing southpaw, right? So he's standing just like this I am in front of you. Go back and watch. He had this weird high elbow block, which you sometimes see. I have bad shoulder rotation, so I can't really do it. But sometimes you'll see Dustin Poirier do it, but usually more in open space. Leon's up against the fence, nearly square, somewhat in a southpaw stance, and then he's elbow blocking dude we'll all shot right underneath this giant this

yawning gap of space that he gave him i can buy bc i honestly can buy that fighting at 6 a.m is probably not optimal for anybody i can believe that they signed the contract first and foremost i understand but i'm saying if you were thinking of a time, if you wanted to get the very best out of all your athletes, would you pick 6 a.m.? Probably not. On the other hand, this tactical decision to block strikes that way, you opened the door for Bilal, and he just walked right on in. That is on Leon and nobody else. BC, I pitch it back to you.

Tell me what you saw out of all of this. I think you nailed it. I said coming in that I loved the intangibles about Bilal. back to you tell me what you saw out of all of this no i mean i think you nailed it i i said coming in that i loved the the intangibles about balal so you know the motor the what i saw was great poise and and and mental toughness to get him this far but obviously luke i gotta i gotta take the big l i mean you're gonna come out if i'm gonna come out and aggressively say look i'm sorry i don't trust blades his chin. I like Aspinall by early knockout. Nailed it.

I'm sorry. Patty is going to make a statement here and get a finish. I didn't call the right finish. Nailed it. Yeah, Luke, I felt the same vibes and feels of where Bilal status was. And I know I felt it was different from when I underrated Leon on the rise up. And Leon surprised me in ways that I didn't think he would. I wonder if that led to us overrating Leon.

We can get to that in a second, but yeah, I'm sitting here humbly apologizing and happy that Bilal was able to break through so far above what my expectations were. Luke, I knew he brought that stuff to the table. Did he put the, did he put the threat of the takedown and the striking together in a more

seamless fashion than I thought he was going to be able to? Yes. And that's a credit to him at 36 for improving so much in the three years since the first fight. But Luke, ultimately what I missed the most, you know, a lot of people are comparing lightly his style and what he did to Habib because Habib had been in his corner in the past and had helped him during training camp. They have the same manager. I want to make a Khabib comparison here, but it actually isn't the wrestling. What impressed me and shocked me the most was he had Khabib-like mental focus. And it wasn't just focused through all the critics, the loudmouths like me being like, I just don't see it.

I don't see him at this level. I was wrong. Did I go too far, Luke? And was I disrespectful? I could have been toying the line for the purposes of entertainment so i i humbly take that i would say this if i may say it fairly i don't think you were um i don't think you were trying to be mean i don't believe that but you've done it what i've done before because i've absolutely done this i've made this mistake before. Indignant at the idea that the guy you thought couldn't win,

there's just no way, and then very dismissive of it. I've made the exact same mistake. I'm no better. But I was ultimately wrong at where I thought his ceiling was, and that's why I make the Khabib-Habib Harrison. It was Khabib-like mental folk dissonance. It's not just for the critics that saying he had no chance. Not

just for how long he had to wait. Never the promotions, darling. He's 36 by the time he gets the title shot, but everything across the board was so damn poison focus. Luke, his confidence was through the roof and it was so firm that what did I miss?

What was my biggest takeaway and missing? I misread the entire fight week in terms of where he was and whether the stage was going to be too bright for him. Luke, I want to throw to his post-fight comments because I was so impressed. Because this could have been his opportunity to dunk on everybody, all the critics and everything. But instead, what he delivered is ultimately who he is and maybe a lot of the reason why he's here. He's humble, hardworking, he's a warrior, and he never stopped believing in himself. It sounds like all those people booing right now

got a lot of tears coming out of their eyes i see you guys with watery eyes right now i got my family in here i got all my family at home alhamdulillah alhamdulillah god first always secondly this fight is nothing this is for my family my people, and Palestine. They're fighting the real fight. And Charlotte puts my smile on their face. One of them guys over there. I'm just trying to do my part. Alhamdulillah always. I've had people say, Luke, doesn't he actually embody what your BS Factory Town MMA idea would be? Yeah, he kind of does. I missed completely what this guy was all about. I thought he was acting out of character. Turns out he was just sharpening his focus.

I give him credit. He was fighting for more. We're going to praise, you know, Usyk and those guys who kind of came off the front lines when their nation was at war and put that focus together and fought for their people. As you could hear from him, he just did that right there. He was exactly who he needed to be when the moment demanded the most out of him. And like you said afterwards, that cool, calm celebration showed you that this is a big thing in his life, but there's much bigger,

and this is just part of it. I was very impressed with the character that he ultimately showed. And I don't care that Dana didn't love it and it wasn't exciting. I'm not here to disparage or take anything away from this win. Leon ultimately surprised me by not being as thorough as I thought he would. I thought he would handle what Bilal brought in, but the reason why he didn't, I'm going to say, is more Bilal than anything else. He stepped up his game when it mattered most.

It wasn't that there wasn't any case for some skepticism, some rational skepticism. Bilal was 36. We talk about the 35. It's not a curse. It's just a statistic. But we talk about it. The way he had broken it, I misunderstood it a little bit.

The way he had broken it is Tyron won the title at 34 and his defenses came after belal is the first guy to win it at 170 and below at above 35 years of age 36 but i'll say a couple of things one he was 36 and we're like well that doesn't bode well statistically speaking and then two we had said remember he had come off the two i mean he had three usman fights but he'd come off the two back-to-back usman fights and then the colby fight sucked, but you know, getting ready for Colby, you have to know wrestling is going to be a chief concern that you have to be prepared for. And we thought, wow, man, Bilal is 36. He's getting a guy coming off the Colby and Usman wars or battles anyway. This is just a bad time. And then in in retrospect what you realize is the long path that Bilal had to take to get

here actually slowly but very effectively fine-tuned him it did just for this moment and I'm gonna say this too the Colby fight not so much but certainly in the the two back-to-back Usman fights I watched those in real time and we did breakdowns on them. And I thought, wow, man, like, I don't know how you can improve upon this. I don't know if it was the law himself. I don't know if it was below and his coaches.

I don't know if it was Habib, but they took what the good parts of what below has done and built. And they kind of refined the universe of what he should try to do and made him stick to that. Wow. That worked. Yes. That worked really, really well. And I did not know. universe of what he should try to do and made him stick to that wow that worked yes that worked really really well and i did not know and i went back and i watched like i said i went back and i watched the usman fight the third usman fight like how the hell was this been not able to do that and

again i'm going to break some of this down a little bit later they took some of the stuff that worked that usman did well in the third fight but they picked up on a couple of tendencies that I haven't seen anybody else talk about yet that went wrong for Usman, that they corrected, that allowed Bilal to find the takedown more successfully and then managed to hold position once he got it. Man, I got to tell you, Leon Edwards, you saw it.

There was one takedown in open space. There was one takedown in open space there was one takedown open space or take that attempt i should say and leon stuffed it beautifully and up against the fence people are like oh his takedown defense is really good and it is and it is but balal and his team or if balal muhammad is watching i don't know all buddy whoever came up with the game plan that they had for the specific kinds of takedowns and the nature in which they were shot, and then the offensive sequence that went with it, boy, they did their homework such a sharp eye. I was blown away. I was like, I could not figure it out. That's the thing.

He didn't just out-gas tank him. It was out-thought him, out-game planned him, out-adapted. Yes. And that's where it's like like i don't want to take anything away so there's no i don't want to do the revision his history of do we go back and did we overrate leon's rise no it was pretty great i mean no i want to say no because you had to go through usman twice you had to go through a colby who's still difficult if you're not strong in that one area but you did see the revision sister right away people going see i told told you Leon was overrated. Either way, Bilal gets that credit.

But man, he did it in every category to get it done. That's why I don't take anything away because it wasn't exciting. He shut down everything Leon does. He did shut everything Leon does. And again, he had picked up, there's, I don't want to spoil it, but there are a couple of defensive tendencies in takedowns along the fence that Leon makes that, again, was it Habib? Was it Bilal? Was it his coaches? Was it a combination of all three? I don't know, but they read it. And I went back and I looked at the Luque fight and I looked at

the Thompson fight. Five takedowns in the Luque fight, seven takedowns in the Thompson fight. And you don't see these tendencies in those fights. You see some of it, but not really. In this one, you see a clear, distinct way in which he tries to position himself around Leon to set up the offensive sequences that come after it, and they did such a good job. I really, again, I didn't think he could do it. I wasn't like completely blown away that he did it,

but I was skeptical. Man, that long road to the title, that long road, he really, really earned that opportunity. And, I mean, you want to talk about making the most of it by picking up where Usman and Colby could not do it and then improving upon that. And his fans reminded me that if we're going to discount the quality of the win over Gilbert Burns to get here because of how Gilbert was,

was a short camp. Let's not forget that blah was coming through Ramadan for that training camp and, and really had to, I mean, look, he's had to jump over hurdles and push himself and be as mentally tough as possible.

I want to make sure at least post I don't miss. Yes. And I also want to say this too. Like one thing we had said was, you know, there was questions about some of those wins, like the Luque win. Who was Luque at the time and who was Thompson? I tell you what, someone brought this up to me.

I forget who it was on Twitter. They're like, shouldn't you go back and reevaluate that Sean Brady win? Well, I got to tell you, that Sean Brady win is aging nicely. Oh, yeah. And maybe Brady got rattled, but like look at the pressure that Bilal puts on people. I'm going to point this out. The, just the, the level of activity, how much rest does Bilal give you?

Not much. He constantly forces you to play a game where you can't think through decisions. And so you make suboptimal ones. You'll make defensive lapses. You'll make wrong offensive reads, or at least not the right ones suboptimally. And then he's just all over you because he's built in this reaction machine that he's got. And I want to point this out. Like people don't talk about this enough. Once he shoots, he knows exactly where he's going.

And if you defend this way, he knows exactly what the response will be. And if you defend that way, he knows exactly what the third option should be. There's a route tree that he knows offensively and goes to it. And it's very, very difficult to deal with. He needs the five round championship cardio, despite this was only his second fight that went to the fifth round in his career. So it's like he had that when he needed it at 36.

So Luke, uh, not Woodley, uh, Edwards ends up losing three to two, three to two and four to one. He rallies back in the fifth round to cut Edward, uh 3-2, 3-2, and 4-1. He rallies back in the fifth round to cut, I'm sorry, Bilal and Blas to show the toughness and keep that gas tank together

to survive that. Most people across the board, I believe, are giving Leon round three, as you should, because he did rebound down 0-2, seemingly to kind of dominate that round, start to finish on the ground, getting a takedown of his own, and threatening subs throughout. But Luke, I want to run what happened in round two and ask you, look, this was Muhammad causing this to him, so it's no excuse, but how much did this pile driver here, Luke,

in which Leon did not protect his head, in your opinion, affect him? It had to be some. You can't say, you can't put all your eggs in that basket because he came out around after this and completely dominated Bilal what do you think though this had to rattle the cobwebs in the head and really put you in a tough spot I don't think it was great he did post on the hand there to mitigate that somewhat um that was bad though couldn't have helped probably rattled him but like remember dude Bilal got a takedown 20 seconds into the first round.

And you didn't hear Leon complain about it afterwards. I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been complained about or that there aren't issues about spiking him on his head that particular way. But that just doesn't explain why. Should we outlaw that in MMA or is it outlawed? So one outlaws it completely. Okay, one has it. In the UFC, you can still technically spike on the top of the head. I think there are certain ways about how you can and can't do it.

You can do it, I think, as part of an arc. I have to go back and look at some of the rules. There are ways in which you can do it. It's strictly forbidden in one. I would think that you can outlaw that and it's not going to hurt the game because how many people try to weaponize that? Obviously, when you pick somebody up, your goal is to slam them and try to add injury to that and jump on top of them.

But if it's something that can lead somebody paralyzed, we probably should get ahead of that, right? Again, I don't think it's a very essential technique. Also, I don't think he meant to do it. I think he meant to just turn him over. I don't think he meant to drop, which doesn't necessarily, you know. Do you think Leon gassed himself out at all

by using so much energy in round three to take the back? I'm trying to figure out what happened in four or five where, yes, he did rally in the fifth. He rallied big time in the fifth. I mean, that was he did rally in the fifth. He rallied big time in the fifth. I mean, that was a great rally in the fifth. But he was unable to keep Leon, I'm not,

keep Bilal off of him. Was Leon in rounds four or five for the most part? Bilal was just better. That's what I'm saying. Bilal was just better overall. I mean, again, in open space,

if there was no wall, they could just fight forever. Takedowns are going to be hard to come by for Bilal. Some of them he would still get, but they'd be hard to come by. If they were striking in open space, and he wasn't really so much worried about having to be taken down against the wall, maybe Leon's better. I just lost my hearing on this thing.

Can you still hear me talk? I can hear you. There we go. We're back. But that's not the game they're playing. For example, was it round two, I believe, Edwards has an underhook, and he's blocking the far side hip like this,

and he's turning him off the fence. Bilal just took that and then switched to a knee tap and then ran him right over back to the back there. Like, he was on top of it. On top of it. They knew. Dude, he. He was preparing for the it. On top of it. They knew. Dude, he. He was preparing for the rematch for three years while Edwards was the one who was actually maybe overlooking.

I hate that the Ninos say this these days, but he knew the assignment. He knew the assignment. He prepared for that test much better than Leon Edwards did. So to the victor goes the spoils, and that might be. It might be Shavka Rachmanov next. At 36 here, Bilal raised his stock. He's probably going to get some pound-for-pound votes rightfully after what he just did to a guy that I believe was in the top three or four

on most people's list. Luke, how do you like Bilal's chances leaning into his strengths like he did against Edwards, even against somebody like Shavka? So I think, listen, Bilal is obviously not a champion by accident. Got here the hard way, beat people that no one wanted. No one wanted to fight Sean Brady. He did it and he fucking stopped him.

Right. And obviously everyone wants to fight Leon, but not very easy to do. And you saw what Bilal did. So it would be very, very foolish to just dismiss the idea that Bilal can't retain, you know, right away.

I don't want to be that guy but I do think it's fair to say if you want to be fair to both guys Shavkat is a tough fucking customer man yeah and he's got all kinds of tricks and throws up against the fence that's the interesting part because he stops the takedown up against the fence or at least holds it off for just a moment dude he's got all kinds of tricks, trips, throws, you name it, from that position to get on top. 17 fights, 17 wins, 17 finishes. And that's the other part.

Look at Leon, who was able to reverse position in the fifth, and it was enough to win the fifth, at least on a couple of the judges' scorecards. And certainly, I mean, it was a gruesome scene there for a moment. If you let Shavkat hang around for 25 minutes, I'm not sure there's a person in MMA in the welterweight division he can't beat under that condition. I'm intrigued by that fight, though. I'm intrigued.

Oh, it's very... I'd love to see it in Chicago. Bilal is going to win rounds against that guy. Make no mistake. We don't see big fights in either sport. Big, big fights in Chicago. I'd like to see that be an excuse. When they were with Fox, when UFC had the Fox deal,

remember Shevchenko did the arm bar on Holly Holmes, uh, over in Chicago. They used to go to Chicago quite frequently. Bellator made it a big deal there. It was a decision against home. You're saying she submitted. Or was it Pena that she hit the arm bar on either way.

One of those fights took place in Chicago. There was a Shevchenko Fox card in Chicago, but they, but also Bellator used to go there quite frequently. Now, by the way, I don't know if folks picked up on this news. They had an event Bellator did scheduled for September.

That event is canceled or it's going to be rescheduled. You can no longer get tickets for it. They took it off the list. So just pointing out there's something else. There's a market there that I think could be really great for everybody. Even for Bellator. Well, I mean, Bellator is just a name at this point. Luke, we mentioned the whole bonus thing we have sound of dana white being so this is not his specific sound where

he reacted to this fight where he did sound a little bit disappointed uh didn't think it was a barn burner didn't didn't think it was exciting enough but overall luke he seemed upset about getting tricked into once again raising the bonuses during the press conference here's his words in general about 304 you know every time you get on a press conference. Here's his words in general about 304. You know, every time you get on a press conference, the fighters manage to get you to up the bonuses. Do you think there's an argument that maybe you should just up them? I think tonight showed that we should not, no.

Upping them doesn't change anything. It doesn't make anybody fight any harder. It doesn't change anything. I'm not doing this again. Ever? Ever. Today was the last day that I'm doing that. Not saying that in the future the bonuses couldn't get up,

but I'm not going to be at a press conference and say, 200, 300, fucking never again. Never again. So, you can thank everybody on this card for that. Indeed. Nobody fought any harder. There was no sense

of urgency. Holy shit shit i want the hundred thousand seven straight who gives a fuck it's uh fucking seven o'clock uh in vegas so whatever yeah never again okay seven straight fucking decisions yeah the hundred thousand was was a real big fucking woohoo let's get it boys fuck that shit never again okay luke i do think patty and tom aspinall kind of saved this card in a way because it was all those decisions in a row that weren't peaking for full excitement is this the boss just being angry that they didn't bring it to his level or what do you make who else in this room has argued that upping the bonuses did nothing to actually incentivize you were wrong about ufc 300

i definitely don't think i was i definitely don't think i think if you did a poll of the audience that has nothing to do with the truth value of anything polling the audience what does that mean are you trying to insult the uh intelligence level of my audience you could poll anybody polling them is not evidence of anything the reality is what you can reasonably demonstrate as an incentivizing factor by a noticeable and clear change in behavior of which there is not enough evidence to conclude that and now we have another one you have to be a scientific study it's not but like if you're going to make a claim hey doing this changes behavior you have to have evidence for your claim i just i mean is this the like like i said it hit a it hit a ditch this card but they pulled it out i don't know if this

was the card to be like, this sucks. I'm the hater lately, and I'm telling you I enjoy this card. I agree with Dana that upping the bonuses doesn't do anything, but of course, that's not a reason to not pay the guys more because they deserve more. That's a different conversation. But I would say this. It is very, very hilarious to me that they booked a card at 6 in the morning

with a main event that anybody with half a brain knew did not necessarily have the highest potential for a finish a finish or even great action necessarily and then blaming the fighters for not like rescuing it from that reality that's a choice that's a choice you can make if you want to i i agree with you i don't like it dana had one other choice to make i want i do want to get your take on this when the whole flag gate was brought up again let's listen to this reporter's question uh bilal muhammad's corner put the palestine flag behind him on the fence and what it looked like from press roll was they were told to put it down so i was just wondering because there were other flags shown throughout the night. If that was kind of random, or if that's a policy thing because of the war?

Say what? The Al-Muhammad's corner had the Palestine flag behind him. Was that random, or was that a policy thing because of the situation? He put a what? Palestine flag. Oh, Palestine flag, and somebody said take it down?

Who said take it down? I don't know who it was, but it looked like it was someone from the UFC. There was like two people just like telling them to don't put it on the fence. Looked like there were people from UFC? Were they wearing fucking UFC hats or name tags? Otherwise I wouldn't have been right at the octagon. I have no idea. There's no like new flag policy thing because of anything. I have no idea. I get what you're trying to do, but I have no idea. There's no new flag policy thing because of anything. I have no idea.

I get what you're trying to do, but I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're trying to do. I know what you're trying to do. Good try. I don't fucking... I have no idea. But good try.

You guys love to do that shit. Well, he's in a mood. This is not a gotcha setup. Have a good night. And he walked off. He was in a mood this is not a gotcha this is and he walked off yeah he's in a bad he was in a bad mood but like to be fair this is not a gotcha thing this is a has your policy well if he didn't know that they're i mean he's the ceo so i don't know why he wouldn't know but assuming he didn't know what happened i understand being like i'd have to look into it i genuinely do not know what's

this always this disdain for the fucking media but this is not the media trying to spin something this is literally a guy doing his job trying to get an answer about a topic that connects far beyond the media doing its job is what disturbs him that's oh that's the point i'm trying to like that's what people don't seem to understand like that's the and also like getting clarification is there a change in flag policy but i will say this in defense of ufc i think he did walk out with the flag, did he not? He walked out with the flag. And then they also, his walkout song is a song by a Palestinian artist, and the name of the song is My Blood is Palestinian.

Yeah. So, like, his overtures to his culture seem to be accepted on the broadcast, but I don't know what the flag policy is at this point. I don't know. Well, Luke, let me tell you, in a world of slot reels and blackjack deals, if you can let me transition out of this topic. I do want to talk one more thing.

What about the time zone? What about the timing of the event? So you heard Dana quickly say no to it. My belief here is it affects everybody, but if everybody signs up for it and has the same thing to overcome, it's like if you and I signed for a number one contender fight on two weeks notice, but we're both dealing with that same two weeks notice, then it's equal. You either take it or you don't ultimately.

Same thing with fighting in another country in a different time zone. Same thing, unfortunately, with fighting at 5 a.m. Do I want title fights locally at 5 and 6 a.m.? No. But again, there is some leverage. There is some negotiation, some level for stars, and you ultimately can walk out and say, I don't want this fight in this situation.

If everybody has to do it, Luke, then to me it's even keel. Same thing with the sphere. Who knows what the sphere's unique atmosphere will do to a fighter's focus, to everything. This could be sea level cane levels of just shock and sort of shaking you up, but everybody's going to everything. Like it could be, this could be, you know, C level cane levels of just like shock and, and sort of shaking you up, but everybody's going to agree to do it. They agree to do it.

So I'm okay. I'm with that argument. I think that's fair. I think if you agree to do it and you have time to prepare for it and it goes poorly for you, you just kind of have to live with the consequences a little bit. I would say a couple of things though. One,

you know, people like, Oh, well, we'll all had the jet lag, right? But we'll all is still fighting on East Coast time. He's still fighting on the timing of the UFC pay-per-view

did not change for East Coast American fans. His clock is still attuned to that. So while there may be jet lag in the sense of normalizing on a Manchester calendar, it's still the clock he's keeping largely in the U.S. That's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is, Leon has to just recognize that some of his tactical decisions were really poor i mentioned the high elbow blocking like that was just a really really bad decision so he has to

live with that the thing i will say though is and i had a back and forth with a positive one but with jake donovan you know jake don, a well-known and very respected boxing reporter shots to Jake Donovan. He's great. I'm boxing scene. Right. So we were trying to go back and forth about like, you know, he, I was like, I could not imagine an a side in boxing agreeing to on the promoter's behalf, a five or 6am show.

And his point was, well, some of these Saudi cards are two and 3am. Okay. Right. Fair. That's a fair point. That's a fair point that's a fair point because if you're getting saudi arabian money to put on a fight at two or three in the morning they have properly incentivized you to eat shit on that time so you can do it but like none of those dynamics are in

play for this one would bud crawford for a european card fight at six in the morning depends where a fighter is in their arc for example ricky hatton his big breakthrough title win was over costa zoo he did it at home in the uk that was in manchester right yeah they did it on showtime but they did it live on east coast time so it was the same exact thing and everybody there had to stay up until the middle of the night to do that but again at that point that was what was demanded in the tv landscape you could easily make the argument now that especially with UFC's distribution deal and that, you know, how expected was this card to do big pay-per-view numbers anyway, doesn't even matter to their bottom line. Would I on the East coast who this is supposed to be aiming for,

would I rather have it regular time at 1 30 AM or would I rather have it, you know, dinnertime at 5 PM Eastern? I'd rather have that. So it really comes down to me, like, who has the leverage to push against that? If you don't and that's your fight and you have to sign up for it, well, then everybody's dealing with it. But I think the only argument here is why does it have to be that way? This isn't a card that they needed on, in my opinion, on regular East Coast time to, like, bring the justified traffic again they the ufc in 2023 made more than all other mma and boxing promoters combined they're spending what 30 20 third 25 30 million on this sphere card which by

the way could be a gigantic hit it could be a bust we don't even know we don't probably won't be a bust but who's to say like exactly what it will be we don't know you mean to tell me they can't forego a little bit to give the Manchester fans something that's more appropriate? Even like delaying it a little bit, changing the time a little bit. I just find it... If you're

Ricky Hatton and Showtime is trying to incentivize you or you're taking money from Saudi Arabia that's life-changing and you want to fight at those times, that's fine. Here's my thought. In a world where they're making them fight at 6 a.m. and they're like, bonuses are still going to be 50K, it's like maybe give them 100K if you're asking them to fight at 6 in the morning. That's kind of my only thought.

Even if you don't change the behavior. You have the potential to get diminishing results. Just as a goodwill gesture, thank you for doing this kind of thing. That's my thought. All right. Well, Luke, as I was saying, in a world of slot reels and blackjack deals comes this, the must-play event of the summer from our partners over there at DraftKings Casino, Luke, featuring nonstop action and an all-star cast of games, including A-Lister, Loki's

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There you go. There you go. DraftKings, the crown. Is yours. Is yours. Luke, second topic time. Okay. With that in mind, BC, let me pitch this one to you, if I may.

So, let's talk about Tom Aspinall. Tom Aspinall needed literally 60 seconds, just 60 seconds, to demolish Curtis Blades. Of course, this was a rematch from 2022. He defended his interim title before a somewhat respectful call-out of Jon Jones. My first question to you is this, BC. Has Aspinall effectively backed Jones into a corner, thanks to, of course, his quick ascension and timely call out of him,

where anyone whispers of a post-Milchich retirement might become a big enough stain on his resume that it's not even worth attempting anymore? I didn't think we could be here so quickly, but I think we're actually here. I think this actually may have worked out perfectly for Tom Aspinall, meaning that things went the way they did. John getting injured, which opened up the interim title opportunity, but which also kind of pushed down his standing as we are all going to sit here and wait a year for John Stipe to

happen again. But Luke, the weight has allowed Aspinall to continue to do exactly what he just did in the rematch of his only loss in the UFC against Curtis Blades, which has come out here and be this real deal heavyweight 2.0, quick hands, quick feet, no flaws in the game. But even if they are, we're not going to find out because this guy doesn't go past the second round. Luke, I'm starting to believe here that because the call out you know it i i wanted him to kind of shake the cage of john instead he went with the polite rod in fact let's listen to it first and then i'll follow my point hello john i have nothing against you personally but i just think i'm better than you i just know that i can beat you in a fight so i'm coming for it luke no no insults of John

and his police history, but didn't need to. He's leaning on the competitive side of it. I'm here. I've arrived. I think I'm better than you. Let's do it. Now, if he makes that statement a year ago,

I could still see John Jones going, yeah, dude, you're probably not even going to be anything. I don't need to hang around for you and risk it. But because Aspinall is staying busy and now he's got three first round finishes since that knee injury and that loss to blades has the 100% finish rate.

I think he is taking such a leap where we're not even opening with the question of, does this performance tell you that the real best heavyweight in the world is Tom Aspinall? We're all sort of just saying that accepting it as fact, because we've seen John Jones for so little at heavyweight, but Luke, I think it's already at the point now where if John Jones beats Stipe in November

and takes the mic at Madison Square Garden and says, I've had a great career, goodbye, they will boo him out of that building. And I actually think they would be rightfully so in doing it. I don't think this is a time where John Jones can do this and get away with it. Now, he may not even be thinking about it anymore. Did you see his tweet?

He basically said, you know, shout out to supply and demand, which does tell you to some degree of like... What did that even mean? I think it's more John saying, okay, now that the demand is here, now that everybody wants this, now that Tom did his part, and now they're just looking at me,

well, I'm going to look back at you, UFC. Pay that man his money. Give me that Wilder money. Luke, that was going to be my follow-up question back to you on this, ultimately. Yes, I think Jon Jones is back into a corner where he must take this fight now if he beats Stipe.

But, are you of that belief here that what Aspinall is doing, that he's just running through people that just that, Luke, that if Jon does this, dude, this won't leave. This will be a thing forever if he walks away. Now, John's too good now.

You can't walk away. You can't leave this man standing because I think John's heavyweight reign will just become an asterisk in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, if he doesn't take it, he's ducking. Let's just be very clear about it. If you don't take it, I mean, you could already argue he's ducking. But, okay, the fight was on the books, and they want to see it through, however stupid that might be.

Okay, all right. They have a contractual relationship that they want to see it through however stupid that might be, okay, alright, they have a contractual relationship that they need to figure out. But after that, if he doesn't take it, and of course he doesn't have to, he's ducking. He's ducking flatly. So does he deserve Deontay Wilder money to take this risk? Is this the

fight now where you pay for what he's worth and what he's worth is the greatest of all time? Whatever my disagreements with John, he has always been right that he deserved Deontay Wilder money. He sold more than Deontay Wilder ever sold. He absolutely deserves Deontay Wilder money. And I have no problem defending John asking for Deontay Wilder money. Now, Deontay Wilder money got a little bit crazy at times.

But, you know, the difference between them, even if you you went halfway would still be a great gesture for him and would be totally deserved for the level of accomplishment that he has in the general expanse of his career um that he has experienced so that's fine i think the lesson from ufc 304 from abc is that the division is moving on without him. Like, he, in order... He is doing the Canelo bit, right? Listen, if Canelo retired today, if Canelo retired today, he goes into the Hall of Fame.

If John retired today, he's already in the Hall of Fame for the Gustafson fight, but obviously he would go in. He's the greatest light heavyweight by a million miles, not even a question. He's the greatest fighter. Arguably greatest fighter, but I'm saying at a bare minimum, he's the very best

205-pound fighter that's ever lived. No problem. Easy, easy claim. But he's taking on a contender that has zero business fighting him, who makes a mockery of the title being

on the line. Now, Stipe obviously has a great career and obviously had a much better career than Edgar Belonga's had a career. In that sense, they're not the same. But he's been off for almost four years. And the last time he was out, it's a long time. And he got viciously KO'd the last time that he competed. That's not a fight worthy of the UFC title.

You're literally taking one fight against a guy who kind of shit the bed, but whatever. You got that fight, and then you're seeking out a 42-year-old semi-retired fireman. Yes, I know Stipe has had a great career, but that's who he is today, is a semi-retired fireman. March of 21 was Stipe's last fight. Right, so we're talking about nearly four years to the point where he has a one

in almost five. Yes. That's a joke. That's a joke. That has no business taking place for a UFC title. That is such a ridiculous joke. Meanwhile, they can't find a ranked heavyweight to take Tom Aspinall past the fucking two-minute mark. Past the two-f fucking two minute mark. Past the two fucking minute mark.

He is a decade into his career and only this weekend surpassed the 40 minute mark in total fight time. He is blowing the doors off of the division. We should just say it outright. Whatever the difference is in terms of their titles on paper, John's title on paper is more significant

because he is on paper the undisputed champion. Tom Aspinall is the UFC heavyweight champion. Cause he's out here earning it. Tom Aspinall is your UFC heavyweight champion and their resumes at heavyweight are not even comparable. I mean, he's going in there against Pavlovich when he's on that streak and knocking him out early before he gets a chance to set up.

So Luke, look, the, the, the narratives move quickly in this game. A lot of people have podcast hours to fill. We do that a lot too. But people are already starting to say,

he's showing us that he's building the foundation to give you the greatest career of a heavyweight in history. Now, I mean, there's always going to be that problem. Are we talking about UFC history or are we talking about we're comparing to Fedor? But let's just say UFC history for a second. Obviously he's not there because he hasn't accomplished it yet. But the speed and ease in which Tom Aspinall is

slicing through the competition up to this point like is he building something that could lead him to being heavyweight 2.0 and maybe the greatest fighter this division has ever seen well here's the funny part about all of that. His offense is nuclear-powered. We talked about it. His foot speed, his hand speed, and his power. I mean, he dropped blades with a jab. Yeah, with a heavy-ass jab. The right hand didn't even land on him.

And then his finishing flurries are, once that gets going, the feeding frenzy is over. Do blades have an argument for it being stopped? So what I would say about the stoppage itself, if I may, is that what the argument is is by the time Goddard intervened right at the same time, you can actually see Blades building his base back up. Sure. But the thing is, Goddard let him have a chance.

There was an amount of time he let expire where he wasn't doing anything and Tom is pounding on him. It does qualify as non-intelligent defense and it went on long enough for Goddard to have intervened. So was blades completely knocked into unconsciousness? No, but Goddard, you know,

we beat referees up all the time for bad calls. I don't think this is one of those. I think it's a justifiable stoppage based on the information and the situation that Goddard had encountered. But I forgot the point we were on before this. The point we were on is, is, is Aspinall showing you. Right. That where the hype lives up to.

This is why the Jon Jones fight kind of needs to happen among any other number of reasons, like for title unification, for legacy, for the whole nine yards. But the other one is this. Dude, there is still a lot that is not known about Aspinall's game. And he cross steps. He leans back all the time. He makes bad decisions in the stand-up department defensively.

He gets hit because he plays a little bit reckless. There's been two takedown attempts on him by people who weren't even really good at wrestling and he stuffed both of them John Jones versus Tom Aspinall is any number of things but one of the things that it is at its core is a highly intriguing fight just on style terms just on that because what how did John beat Cyril gone it was with the wrestling up against the fence and everything else. And of course, Ghosn shit the bed. I expect Tom to put up a much sturdier fight in that regard.

But like, how does Tom's cardio look after 15 minutes? We have no fucking idea. Just like we have no idea what John looks like at heavyweight after a minute. There's so many questions for that reason alone. Is this the biggest fight in the sport right now? Because if your answer is yes, then I say, is this the fight that turkey al-ashik and saudi should come in and give the same type of financial investment that they do

for the really big boxing ones with for how much it seems turkey wants to make crawford canelo right now more than anything he's making everything we want in boxing is this the right fight so that john jones can finally get his wilder money because he does deserve it this is a big test and big risk if and gano's not walking through that door and he's not tom is that next guy i want to see john paid for it do you put this luke in a stadium in las vegas in a stadium in the uk on saudi soil because they have to pay for it is this fight big enough to be one of those cultural milestones in the history of our fandom yes yes it is i mean i don't know if you could do a soccer stadium i don't quite know how that would work but this is a premiere like when you think about the biggest fights that can be made in MMA and certainly the biggest fights that can be made in the UFC because the Francis Ngannou equation is an interesting one still too. But nevertheless, if we're just talking about the UFC strictly that universe there, Connor coming back is obviously going to be big. I think Max and Volk is certainly going to have some level of acclaim.

But Jon Jones versus Tom Aspinall for the undisputed heavyweight title is easily, if not the biggest, top three and probably the biggest of importance, of relevance, of style contrast, of generational battles. And I don't think we're having this exact conversation if he doesn't walk through Blades in the matter he did in the same matter he did Pavlovich. Like, he's just slicing right through these people. Dude, I don't think John wants to fight either of those guys, either Blades or Pavlovich.

I mean, he even said, remember when he quoted me? Yeah. Saying it wasn't even worth it? Tom Aspinall beat Pavlovich and Blades in a combined two minutes and nine seconds. Like, dude, this is the guy. Tom Aspinall beat Pavlovich and blades in a combined two minutes and nine seconds. Like, dude, this is the guy.

This is the guy at heavyweight. This is the flag bearer. I don't give a fuck whether it says interim in front of his title or not. That's the guy. And either John Jones wants to do something about that because he thinks his title is more important or he wants to duck. He made that. Those are the choices. You know what?

Tom made this happen quick. He escalated this conversation because of how quickly he continues to ratchet up his game and raise that potential. Let me say this. I think John has to answer the phone now, Luke. I think he does. I think he does, too. Let me say this.

I had mentioned this point before where John had said something that I do think is true, which is he's seen so many guys be like, I'm coming for you, John, and then they get tripped up along the way. Phil Davis is the biggest one where he thought he was going to fight John, had to fight Rumble, and then Rumble had another thing for him, and it completely derailed everything. And I think John has been waiting for history to play out that way again,

except the exact opposite is happening. They keep putting guys in front of Tom Aspinall, and he keeps mowing them the fuck down. This is it. It is either fight Aspinall or duck and then live with the consequences of it. Those are the choices in front of him.

Well, Aspinall has an interesting idea for this fall in November. Let's hear that. Here's a thought for you. I was thinking about this the other day. What about, so they're saying that Stipe and Jon Jones are going to fight in MSG in November. Why don't we do a tournament? We'll do Jon, Stipe, me, Alex and do a four-man tournament. Two fights in one night. And let's find out

who the real heavyweight champion of the world is. We've got the best heavyweight of all time. We've got the best MMA fighter of all time. We've got the light heavyweight champion. And then we've got me, who's just a poxy interim champion. Do you know what I mean? Let's do that. Two fights in one night. Put it to Dana.

I'm sure Dana's going to be here in a minute. He's been. Dana didn't really like the idea of him moving up. No, I don't. I am honestly the biggest fan of Alex Pereira. What I like is one scary guy. But would that not be a cool little thing? Two fights in one night.

Let's see how we get on. I mean, I've got the lowest average fight time in the year. Luke, that's almost giving us gravy on i mean i've got the lowest average fight time in the year luke that's almost giving us gravy on top of our gravy right there is that a great idea or do you not need to risk the jones fight by doing something so i mean i would still favor tom to win that one just because i think tom would run him down and try and take him out down and sub him out like he did against volkov i think you get something similar in that way but i just want to point this out like dude look at this fucking guy. Yes.

Would he have some advantages and be the favorite over a guy like Poets On? For as great as Poets On is, Tom would still have a lot of advantages. He's not necessarily calling out somebody who would be the favorite over him. But who is he not calling out? I know. That people want him to fight. Who is he avoiding? Nothing.

Oh, that you want me to fight the big, scary Brazilian motherfucker? Sign me up. Jon Jones, where are you at? Sign me up. He'll fight. They offered him a fight with Francis. Do you think Tom Aspinall turns that down? Not in a million fucking years.

Does this guy? And everybody else has, well, I don't know. What about the time? What about the place? This guy is absolutely your Huckleberry. It does not matter with Dana though, opponent or circumstances. I got to agree with Dana,

but it's with a caveat. If John Jones is not going away. And by the way, I think it does come down to money. I think it really just comes down to money. If they pay John Jones, what he wants, as long as it's not crazy astronomical,

I think the fight gets done. I think John deserves that. I want them to have that happen. But Luke, I don't think we need to do this. We don't need, if John Jones is around, we don't think we need to do this. If Jon Jones is around, we don't need Pereira to move up to heavyweight now. It seems to be, you could put a dent in him

and it really could get in the way of that potential trilogy bout without Asana for the light heavyweight title. So I agree with that. But yeah, this Jon Jones Aspinall fight could be massive. The only thing I like about what Aspinall is saying with the double header is, this is old school promotion. What we really want is the Jones versus Aspinall.

So let's put the two on the same card and fight so they could lose. But let's see what we got. And then we'll bang the drum. You don't need to do that here. But man, if I'm going to be greedy, Luke. Yeah. I mean, imagine Poiton crashing that party. Imagine him, you know, being like, sorry, Tom.

This is my end. This is the end of my video game. Either way, I think both can keep. I think, I think Tom, yeah, John Jones is going to be here. He's going to take it. Luke, he, John Jones is a competitor deep inside. You have to respect that in him. That's why I was shocked by this talk of retirement,

but maybe it's more about first planning the disrespect to, to, to Aspinall. You're down here. I'm up here. I'm the real champion. There's something you got to look at. I'll give a guy, you got to let the guy cock out

and do that, all right? Rock out with your cock out. Dick's out for her romp. I think ultimately, John's just like, pay me the respect for taking this risk. Pay me it. Come on, let's do it. Again, if his argument is you've got to come up off your pockets to get me to do this, I don't have any issue with that.

Any A-side deserves to do that. But I'm just going to say, if what's really been happening is he's been killing time and picking an opponent who is, I mean, as done in MMA as you possibly can be short of an announced retirement. Also, he could avoid this fucking juggernaut from the UK. It's shameful. There's nothing shameful about his light heavyweight run, which was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. No, you don't have to read that again. That's right. But this would be shameful. This would be.

I mean, it would be for Canelo too, but that's another story. Let's see where it goes. Topic number three, Luke, and we could be getting Brian Ortega in here any second, so I'm excited about that. Or not. We don't know. What a weekend for Paddy Pimblitt. What a fight. What a moment. Pimblitt makes a huge statement in putting king green to sleep for his eighth straight win overall and pimble it now six and oh in the ufc and then hold out high not oh moicano so luke thomas considering pimble

it is trying to push the ufc for tough coaching gigs across from moicano did this feel like the type of performance that could launch patty to not superstardom, but true contention in this division? I'm not saying he's here after this, but is this the fight that could launch him there? Is this exactly what he freaking needed on Saturday? I'll say this. I have been not a believer in him up to this point. I still, we'll get to this in a minute. I still have many reservations.

But, but, this was a phenomenal performance by Patty. He looked chiseled out of stone, which was incredible by itself. No gyno either, from what I can see. Nope, he was carved up. His back was ridiculous. So, he from what I can see. Nope. He was carved up. Uh, his back was ridiculous. So he was clearly in phenomenal condition and he was smooth on the feet. I mean, he wasn't exactly like,

you know, showing you prime Georgia, Petrosio Petrosian, but, um, he looked smooth on the feet. And then the ability and the, and the presence of mind to jump triangle off the guillotine was fantastic.

I mean, not great work from King Green in that moment. So I went back and I watched it. It wasn't great work, but I kind of understand what he was doing. He got leg kicked and I took him off of his feet and he just reached for the single instinctively and then kind of, I think, was using it to build his base back up. But like tying up with Patty like that obviously was a very, very bad idea ultimately. But that's a common thing that fighters sometimes do to rebuild their height

to getting back to a better position. So like, yes, it was a big mistake. But people being like, oh, he went out there Randy Couture style to go take him down. No, that's not exactly what he was doing. That would have been really boneheaded. He didn't do that. So it was very

suboptimal. We can clearly say that, but it wasn't the most, oh my god, egregious thing I've ever seen in my life. It doesn't matter though. Fighters who are great make you make mistakes. Fighters who are good can take advantage of them. You're asking, can he be great? I am still skeptical of that, but Patty's fucking good.

He's good. The performance in the location, in the location on the card, everything just was perfect for this. He played to the crowd. He went out there with full confidence. And, dude, not a lot of guys can jump guard very effectively in MMA. Charles Oliveira can do it. He does it a little bit differently.

To jump guillotine like this and to do it with really a triangle set up, ultimately, that's very impressive, dude. It's athletic. Presence of mind is quick. And obviously, he had exactly the setup that he needed to execute. This was the best I've ever seen, Patty. Oh, he raised his game to another level. He certainly has earned the right to fight the Moicanos of the world now.

I am still skeptical that he can really put together a true contendership run. But this was the step that he needed. But he earned this time of the thousand. He didn't get in trouble. In fact, he was just as shocked as we were that old King Green went for that shot. Let's hear his reaction. I know you challenged him to take the fight to the ground, but were you surprised that he shot in that soon? Yeah, I was surprised he shot in at all.

I mean, he's had some brilliant stand-up fights with people. Like the Jim Miller fight. He stood with Jalen Turner. He's done three rounds with Fizyev and won the last round. People kept talking about that and the build-up to this. So, yeah, I was surprised. But, as I say, everyone underestimates me, lad. Just because I look like a 14-year-old girl.

You know what I mean? Luke, in the court of public opinion here, it is a good bit. Did he use this entire week? He shined big time. Do you think he won back the critics? Because whether, I mean, look, that Ariel thing, it started to kind of label him as a villain to some degree. You're always going to be a villain when you're the flashy guy.

Also, he had the issue with the other Irish kid on the bus. Did you see that? And he also, Luke, he'll do the jerk off notion. Look, he's still going to be a punk in a lot of ways, but it seems like a more wholesome focus version of him if that matters. Nothing solves problems in MMA like winning. And nothing solves problems in MMA like dominant, exciting winning. And he did that in spades.

I mean, dude, this was such a strong performance from him it's the kind of thing where like this is where i'm at did i see someone in there who can win a ufc lightweight title what's a tough division to win a lightweight a title that's just really difficult but did i see a guy who is clearly still getting better very athletic again chiseled out of stone you can see a guy who can sell out arenas in the main event. Sell out arenas. Is calm in front of an audience. And this is what I mean. That wasn't a panicked guillotine. Like, oh, I see it.

I'm just going to jump on it, and it's low percentage. It was smooth as shit the way he set that up. Dude, he needed to go through hell in training camp mentally to be able to get through whatever he needed to to come back. These guys hate. These guys sometimes, you know, fighters often seem to hate the negativity that comes with the sport

and it can beat them down and really negatively affect them. But it can also make them very, very resolute in getting to the next stage of their career. Bilal Muhammad is, dude, Bilal Muhammad, up until the moment he got his hand raised and even after he got his hand raised, the guy's still getting booed, but he knew, he was driven. And I think the negativity

in part helped fuel him to that place patty's a little bit more of a showman and it's more liked but i'm simply saying that he has his share of critics and i think it fuels him patty could get me to watch tough again he could this could be his vehicle i don't give a rebrand in fact here's his thoughts on the moicano opportunity potentially yeah he's obviously ranked above me as well but the fact that i think the build-up would be hilarious i've already said it tonight i think a season of the ultimate fighter of me and him as the coaches would be absolutely fucking comedy gold i don't think he's wrong luke that's the right fighter at the right time to get him into the rankings deeper if he can win it we don't know if he's going to win that

that's tough out you know moicano's going to go for it he's kind of like the perfect the perfect foil let's do it let's book it i'm in well moicano has to beat bsd for sure for sure and that's you know i don't probably can't do that if it gets demolished by b but here's the part about bsd unless you get him out there quicker or quickly dude you're like you're gonna come out of that fight fucked up yeah right yeah uh long island luke any update on the the arrival of my favorite fighter? We got a few people here, just not our favorite fighter yet. All right. Hopefully we'll be dropping by soon.

Luke, you want to transition to topic number four? Yeah, let's do it. Topic number four, if we can here on Morning Combat on this July 29th. All right, BC. Let's get to question number four. So this is kind of a big one and an interesting one and a very controversial one.

A lot of opinions in different directions, but no one seems to be, well, it's not quite true. Actually, some people are very unhappy about it. All right. So Muhammad Mokhaev,

he improved to 13 and 0, 7 and 0 in the UFC, undefeated all the way around. And he defeated Manel Kopp, who, by the way, did have a broken toe. It appeared maybe a couple of them in a grudge match,

which of course, it was tough as shit to put that back in and just keep fighting. yeah i've dislocated a toe before it was no fun i've never broken it but i dislocated when it sucked um but the fight itself was not great it was not a lot of fun it got better as it went along but it certainly started off it had some rabid moments i thought that were pretty cool it did but like the first round was terrible yeah you know it was just really really not great and then he is released afterwards by UFC CEO Dana White in the post-fight press conference he alluded to in that post-fight press conference that the matchmakers were not a fan of Mokai you have that audio yeah so I want

to set this up and I want to pay attention to something he doesn't just talk about the style in which Mokai fights he talks about some other issues as well let's hear it that's you long island luke anytime buddy mokaev please sorry guys getting brian set up i missed whatever oh hey can you play the mokaev clip from dana oh yeah of course once yeah why not brian ortega coming in here all right all right let's just do they try to give you a new contract before this fight they said they're gonna see how i perform they don't want to see me keep shooting and taking somebody down, but I've done what I could do with tonight.

They said they didn't like you shooting in there? Is that what they said? Yeah, they don't like this because they tried to get rid of flyweights before and they don't want this kind of fight. But listen, I'm young. I'm still not in my prime. Like, if they want me to stand in bank

and bank with toe-to-toe with this like 30 years old grown months i have to do what best for me to win you see here's a question for you was the ufc justified in cutting him i wanted my answer to be no because this guy's got talent and I wouldn't even throw any kind of boring thing at him. Look, he wins fights. You can see the skill there. The proof is in the pudding. But if UFC was this adamant,

what seems to mostly be not a contract situation issue, a character issue. Luke, it seems like you have to do a lot to get on the wrong side of the UFC where they'll actually step in and discipline. This screams to me that they have more than enough reasons. And Luke, we don't have the sound at this moment, but Malkaev was asked about that picture situation.

Did he set up Mel Kopp by asking for a picture and brotherhood? He admitted to sucker punching him. He admitted it and he said, look, I'm no Alex Perez. I'm no, you know, he tried to basically say, I'm going to back it up. You guys don't know where I'm from. Luke, every, at every turn,

there's trouble with this guy. So if it's more than just, uh, we'll bury you, which, which we thought is this a conspiracy angle. Why is this fight continually getting buried? Um,

I don't think it really does come down to the fact that you actually could put him in a title shot. He's that he looks that accomplished. He looks that ready to go. But Luke, if character is this bad, then more power to the company for establishing standards and sticking by them. I think ultimately, he's going to need maturity

so they did make the right move, Luke, in that regard. Do you want to hear Dana's thoughts, what he said? I have said that his contract is up, and he made this interesting remark that said someone at the UFC told him to stop shooting for these takedowns so much and maybe he'll get this contract that he wants. Is that true, and what do you think she'll bring him back?

Yeah, that's what we tell guys. We tell guys how to fight and tell them what we did. We've been doing this for a long fucking time. I'm sure one of the matchmakers probably said something to him or whatever, but, yeah, the matchmakers aren't big fans of his for many different reasons and not just – there's a lot of people who shoot takedowns in this business. You know, a lot of guys that fight with that type of style. But it's a lot more than just that.

But McIve is the guy that you'd want to bring back to the UFC because he said his contract is totally done now. Yeah, he is. He's under contract. He's not under contract anymore. Okay. But would you be interested in, you interested in keeping him around in the fall? I think the PFL is going to get a great undefeated guy.

That's cold. Good luck to him. You said the PFL is going to get an undefeated fighter. Is that his fighting style? Is that he's asking for too much money? None of the above. Listen, the stuff that played out here over the last several months that started at the PI and other stories of this breaking out, plus many other things, these guys don't want to resign him.

Luke, he doesn't appear to give a fuck, Mokaev, so I think they actually made the right move here. I'll say this. Mokaev admitting to sucker punching the guy is such a fucking weird move. Like there's such a turnoff, such a turnoff. Like it's one thing to be like, I admit it. And then, you know, I made a mistake and I apologized to his team and it was low and

I was angry and frustrated and it got the best of me. That's not what he did. He was like, yeah, I did it. And I'm glad I did it. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? I got a couple of thoughts about this. I'm not in any way suggesting that what Dana is saying about Mokai of being a problem is not true, but we don't know what the behind the scenes issues might be in terms of like, maybe he doesn't want more money. They don't want to give it to him.

And maybe he does turn down fights and they don't want them to do that. Maybe, maybe he's a complete pain in the ass and they're right. I'm pointing out. I don't have, I can't take his word or the UFC's word without more information. So I put that to the side. I will say this. A lot of people are like, well, now, you know, you got a guy who's undefeated. Why are you letting him go? I actually think this is going to be better for Mokaev. Mokaev is, he was right. He's 23 years old. You want us to stand and bang with these guys? You know, I'm 23. Like, what the fuck do you want me to do? I mentioned this on Friday's show. I'm going to bring this up again. One more

time. Mohamed Mokaev, by the way, the nickname is The Punisher. It doesn't seem that fitting. Strikes landed per minute, 1.61. Dude, that's about half of what it is for an average-ranked UFC fighter. Yeah. Right? These are anemic numbers, and I understand he's winning, and I get that. And maybe he could go pretty far with that.

But I do think he's going to hit an absolute ceiling in this division when your basic method of winning is just control right because the takedowns uh what does he average 5.29 per 15 minutes that's a lot right he's averaging several takedowns per round that's significant but the point i'm trying to make is his game is clearly still in development well he also he needs my is, let's dial back the competition. Yes. Can he beat them with control? Maybe.

Maybe. Well, look, there's obvious maturity issues here. He's got clear maturity issues. He may need this more than anything just to humble him. But I just mean on this game alone. People will be like,

well, he's winning. You're not going to find out who the best is. Okay, there's something to that. That's not an unfair accusation. But the thing that I want to point out is if you're so lopsided in your game and you're just 23 and you're a good athlete,

I actually do feel like dialing back the competition to get him the incremental striking development that he needs. And he, by the way, he did show some better striking here, but it's all on the outside. Like he clearly is afraid of contact. Still let's get him that experience.

Like he could not have done more to hurt his chances. It's not just that he didn't resign and that they had a standoff on seemingly on the price. I think that was probably part of it. But then when you're going to essentially act like a dirt bag, admit afterwards that you completely set up and manipulate this situation and did sort of a dirt bag move. But then you're so rabid at every turn of the way and you run out and try to fight him at the to start the fight we actually had security guards holding back both fighters from fighting seconds before they were going to be allowed to fight like you're holding back pitbulls what's the worst thing you can do in that situation then go out and point fight and wrestle obviously that's

the worst case you should do you just built up to everybody that this fight is going to be a war like you just sold that and then you did. Um, I just think he lined up enough reasons one by one for them to basically say not worth the risk, move on. And I'm just, I'm just pointing out. You can be mad if you want at the UFC for cutting him, because you feel like you're trying to send a message about what kind of

style that they prefer. Fine. If you want to make that argument, I won't really argue against it. The point I'm making is a little bit different, which is, however punitive you feel like the UFC was and potentially inappropriate

in being punitive about cutting him, which is debatable by itself, but even if you believe that, I actually think it will be in the long term better for his development. If he keeps escalating, BC. That'll be bad. Just think about it rationally.

You're still working on the other parts of your game, but now you have to go up against the Pantojas of the world and the guys who are fucking Terminators at the top of flyweight. You're going to win some rounds against them because of your control, but you're probably also going to get fucked up against one of those guys. It's going to win some rounds against them because of your control, but you're probably also going to get fucked up against one of those guys. It's going to hurt your development. I actually think long-term it'll be better for him. Maybe he comes back to the organization.

Maybe he doesn't, but long-term this will be better for his game, or at least there's a world in which we can take seriously the idea. This is better for his game. Yeah. There's just no division for flyweight at PFL at the moment. So that just really made that someone said on Twitter, someone said on Twitter, forget who it was. They they're like can we make a switch for a trade

mokaya for patchy mix i was like yes hell yeah uh we can go to footage though of uh mokaya also a cheater in the cage luke here was the big scandal with holding the tights and mike beltron got pissed off Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't grab the shorts. I lost them. Time. Time. Time. Get up. Time. Mike Ball's trying to intervene in here.

But now he's going to fix his toe. Fix your shorts. He's telling him to. Don't be grabbing the shorts. You understand? Oh, look at that. Do not grab the shorts. I'm going to take away your position. I'm not playing with you.

You're going to. Stand right here. I'm talking to you. Don't put yourself in a position that I have to enforce the rules. You understand? I'm going to take away your position. That's your last warning. Fix your stuff, young man.

He got more than a handful. Oh, yeah. All that Hooters, right? Oh, man. And it looked as though maybe if Manel... Oh, my God. is the point dude breaking the rules in mma is completely legal there actually are no rules yeah you can get multiple and i want to kind of comment on this because i saw people being like well he took he took the position away that was that was mike enforcing the rules listen i like mike beltron i actually do think he's a really good referee and he did he did take He took the position away. That was Mike enforcing the rules. Listen, I like Mike Beltran.

I actually do think he's a really good referee. And he did. He did take away the position. Good. That's fine. I don't know if what Cop was doing was something called K-Guard or not, but it looked to me either way he was trying to pass the leg over. So, Mokaev is pulling on the shorts to tip his weight back the other way

to keep the position. Dude, that is just as bad, if not worse, as double hand grabbing the fence to avoid a takedown. Take a point! It looked like Ric Flair rolling up Dusty at the Mid-South Coliseum there and grabbing a handful of tights. Hey, Luke, our guest is ready. All right, why don't you go first?

Hey, let's do it. Let's welcome him in. Luke, I mean, you know, it's not often that you can get the most exciting fighter in the world to show up on your show. But Brian Ortega is here, and he's going to appear soon, September 14th, on pay-per-view, Las Vegas in the Sphere. What Dana White is calling the biggest and most exciting and craziest pay-per-view in combat sports history against Diego Lopez. Let's bring him in, the former title contender who came oh so close to squeezing the life out of Alexander Volkanovski. Long Island, look, do we have Brian Ortega?

There he is. Oh, yeah. Look at this gentleman right here. There he is. What's up, guys? In the house. Brian Ortega, it's a rocky road at times, or it has been in your career. Layoffs, injuries.

We saw you fall out of this fight with Diego Lopez, but then get the sphere. It's kind of par for the course in the Brian Ortega experience. Maybe have a little setback, but this bright thing coming right around the corner. You got to be fired up for September 14th. Oh, yeah, man. It's something that, you know,

if obviously for UFC 303, we didn't, yeah, we didn't, yeah, we didn't make it, man, and it was, it sucked, and, it was something that kind of dawned on me for a while,

actually, and then we got a phone call, and we had the, you know, the opportunity and the ability to fix it, and make it right, and that's what we're doing, especially on a bigger venue,

than, not a bigger venue, but a more exciting venue with with everything new with the sphere you know it's pretty dope do you have any reservations brian we talked about this earlier in the show today we have no idea for the fighter what the sphere is going to mean what it's gonna is it going to be distracting is it going to be awesome what are your expectations from a fighter in agreeing to fight a very difficult fight here against a fighter I'm sure you respect who brings action, knowing that you're in the middle of a stadium? The video screen is, yeah, I mean, this is a crazy atmosphere in there. It's wild. So we did some filming, right?

I went to Vegas, and we did some filming for it. And they put some VR goggles on us, and we were able to see what the arena would look like on the inside and bro it's crazy it's crazy like like i can't say too much like because i'm not allowed to but yeah it's gonna be something where i for sure have to stay locked in and tuned. I have to stay focused, man, because if you start paying attention at what's going to go on when the fight happens, I'll for sure be distracted. And I probably will, but probably it's going to be for a good cause anyways. Once I get punched in the face, I'm going to come back to reality anyways.

Ryan, good to talk to you. Good to see you. Glad to see you're feeling better. I know you released a statement about what happened with the Diego Lopez fight, but you had mentioned that like you had a fever and you thought it was from the weight cut and you had been feeling bad that whole fight week. Looking back on it now, are you, was it just the weight cut? Were you sick on top of the weight cut? What exactly went wrong the week of UFC? Was it 303?

I can't remember. 303. Yeah. It was both, both man that's what I was trying to figure out I was confused because walking into the fight the fight week um yeah I felt I don't know uh if I could kind of really put it in there I was on autopilot basically I was in there and I don't remember much if if I'm being honest, and something fell off. But I thought it was because I thought it was the lack of food and the weight cut that I was going through because I went from 178 to 160 in a matter of like a week and a half.

So I went to like 18 pounds pretty quick and then cutting the weight. The rest of it was something that we faced after and uh yeah my body gave out at 151 but i still had some sweat in but i don't know it was just hard we stayed up till maybe 4 4 30 in the morning trying to cut the rest of it couldn't man we had to pull the plug on it we agreed to fight 155 which I kind of drank some water and some electrolytes kind of just feel better And then come Yeah, come fight day, dude Oh, actually no that night after I ate food and everything I

Was good. I felt the normal feelings of what a fight is right you go in there training camp cut weight you come back you eat food you right you rehydrate again and then you start coming back to life and I never got that feeling I didn't come back to life I figured maybe just the weight cut was too drastic from you know 178 to 155 or attempted 45 and it just didn't go in my favor so I figured that I would feel good today of the fight but I did it all night I was in cold sweats I was sweating I took my clothes off I was basically just in hotel full for AC cranking and I don't know why but i can stop sweating i didn't put two and two together that it was a fever i just i don't know i was just confused

what was going on and then uh yeah we took the temperature everything and then had a fever gotten some cold water to try to just bring it back down. We brought it back down a little bit. But it was probably 5, 6 in the morning. And then I had to fight that day, so I fell back asleep. I think I woke up maybe around 1, 1.30. Tried to eat some food. Wasn't hungry. I was just out of it i don't know how to say it other than just yeah just out of it and i called uh i called my manager i said hey man i don't feel

too good so we drank some coffee we had a b12 shot for energy tried forcing some food down and bro with with a nitro cold brew a b12 shot and some food i still felt the same and that's kind of when i realized something's wrong this is not a normal feeling that you get on fight day i tried to walk around the room a little bit and it just wasn't it i told my manager then i called him i said hey dude like i'm not trying to be a you know what but if i step in there tonight i'm gonna lose i just don't i don't feel good i don't feel right my my everything just got sucked out of me uh i called the ufc we had a conversation i said listen, listen, I'm not... I'm just telling you guys where I'm at

and what I'm thinking, but I'll go in there and I'll give it a shot. And I'm at the point where I'll just probably put my back against the cage and just let them tee off on me and we'll just get down like that because I don't really have it in me to go and have a war.

Not right now. And surprisingly enough, they agreed with me. And they said, let's see what we can make happen. And that's when they called and they made the Danica fight happen with Diego Lopez. But yeah, it was an intense two weeks. Sounds terrible. So let me just ask this. Obviously, you've never had issues like this before does this in any way change how you might cut weight for 306 or still going to do exactly what

you did before but now that since you have more time it won't be the same kind of issue yeah well i think a lot of people don't realize and i didn't even realize myself was a one i was bulking to 155 so i don't usually walk walk around that heavy. I stay within 168 to 170. That's a comfortable weight for me. I was bulking to get 155, so my goal was to hit 180, 185 and be solid. I got to 178. I was close to 80. So when I got that phone call, it was a shock because I'm like, here I am.

I do feel good. I am in shape because I'm like, here I am. I do feel good. I am in shape. I am ready, but I am heavy. And the last time I took a short notice fight, and I wasn't that heavy, but I was still pretty heavy, was when I fought Frankie Edgar on two weeks. So I figured, okay, it's possible. It's doable. I've been here before. But yeah, man, I think those two factors played into it, having two weeks and cutting a lot of weight.

But now that I have time, it should be good. We should be all right. And right now, as we speak, I'm exactly at 170. I'm in shape. I'm ready. I'm actually wearing one of the wrestling mats right now and after this we're going to get to work

Brian, when we're talking about the stakes in this fight, September 14th, Inside the Sphere and Diego Lopez you've been a perennial contender, two-time title challenger you always seem to be one win away from a title shot is it as simple as that in terms of what you're looking at what's at stake for you against this opponent,

this date UFC 306. I'm not too sure, man. If I'm being honest, I don't know how, how this one's going to play out. I know Diego has a lot of hype behind him. I know he's got,

you know, a good amount of support. So that's good on, on, on selling the fight and everything. But if you're talking about me beating someone who gives me a fight i think me beating him would just say i'd be a contender who people thought might be input in the potential conversation to fight for the title

but you know who knows man the rankings and the way the ufc is sometimes it's kind of funny so uh i just don't know man because i said like like i said in previous interviews even up leading up to the fight on ufc 303 you have volk and max both guaranteed a title fight so that i'm kind of in line and i'm in a weird situation which is why i was talking about moving up to 155 and having some fun up there while the dust settles at featherweight. Speaking of that dust settling, two guys that you fought for world titles, or sorry, not in that matchup.

One of them would be Max Holloway if he gets the next shot at Ilya Teporia atop this division. Could be one of the biggest fights to make in this sport. How do you see that fight playing out to pour you coming through the breakthrough knockout of Alexander Volkanovski? He seems to be the right guy at the right moment, the right country behind him,

but Max has not gone away. That's going to be an interesting fight. I think I was talking to someone about it yesterday. I forgot who, but I was talking about how, it yesterday. I forgot who, but I was talking about how fundamentally skilled and sharp in wrestling and jiu-jitsu and boxing Topor is. Sometimes when someone wins with a knockout, you're quick to write it off and say, Oh, well, Volkan got knocked out by Islam or whatever that happened and he wasn't ready. And that could be the case.

But I also do believe that Tuporia does possess a handful of skills that I think are yet to be tested. Max, on the other hand, is someone that hasn't been put away at all in his entire career. So this is a great fight. If anything, as a fan of the sport, I can't wait to see that fight because, obviously, one, I fought Max, and two, I want to fight Topodia if he's still the belt holder or even in the future. But it's good for guys like me to go in there and see them and kind of collect data on what they bring to the table other than, you know, that amazing performance they had against Volkanovski.

Speaking of performances against Volkanovski, I wonder this as a fan of yours, Brian, because you've got to be a competitor to succeed at the level that you are. So when you look back against Volkanovski and how close you came to tipping the entire division upside down and submitting a guy who was, you know, universally the best in the world at that moment, does the competitor in you celebrate that performance and how close you were? Or does it eat at you that, you know, one more second, one more something you could have come away on top that night? It eats away at me, man. It's something that I've had to learn to make peace with. If anything,

every time I see a fan or something, they're like, dude, you were so close. And I'm like, thanks. Like, thanks, fucker. Yeah, thanks, Brian. I'm sorry. I didn't want to cuss, but it's like, damn, bro, why rub it in my face?

Did you hear him gurgling when you did it? Yeah, bro. He was gurgling. He was squealing. And this is something that, yeah, I'm not going to lie, dude. I was on top, and I was celebrating. I was literally like, I'm about to be a world champ. In my head, I was not gonna lie dude. I was on top and I was celebrating I was literally like I'm about to be a world champ In my head. I was kind of saying that so then when he got out I was like

Fun And then I put him in a cut in a triangle and I was like nope T city by T city and I'm looking up at the jumbotron as I have this triangle, and I'm like, no way. Picture a dream come true. The guillotine wasn't meant to happen. T-City is going to win by a triangle and become a world champion. And then he just flopped back and my legs uncrossed. And I was like, bro, it's not your night.

I was like, your mom must be in the arena right now because you're losing. And she was. Let's talk about your opponent, Diego Lopez. So just stylistically, one thing that the fans, I often hear them say is, oh, they both got great jiu-jitsu, which is true. But you've got different jiu-jitsu than him. How would you say your jiu-jitsu is distinct from his? I would say that my jiu-jitsu is more distinct oritsu is distinct from his i would say that my jujitsu is more distinct or it is it's distinct from his i'm not i'm not a competitive grappler as in terms of i'm not

trying to go for certain situations that are not ideal for for getting hit in the face right i don't i don't roll over or try you know these certain types of knee bars or stuff like that that uh put you in potential danger what i like to do is is more gracie style fundamentals old school to the roots where it's like hey man you got to punch my face and i gotta go in here and we're gonna fight and it's more of a self-defense type of jujitsu that I've adopted and just brought it to a different level with guys who are trying to punch you. And they're actually more skilled at it than just someone in the street. So through time, I've had the ability to perfect all of this and just sharpen it up you know i'm more of i would say more of a sniper and a more methodical guy when i'm in there and fighting versus just kind of shoot some missions and and impose jujitsu will on you during the fight and kind of just uh ignore the punches per se

and i think that's uh what we probably differentiate in in watching tape on him, like, for example, he blew right through Sadiq Youssef when they were in the clinch, and then obviously you can look at the Dan Ige fight, but that was on, like, a few hours notice. I mean, it's just really hard to know what to make of that. In watching tape on him, like, describe him to me. What do you see about Diego Lopez as a competitor that you observe as important to be ready for?

He's dangerous, obviously, in the first round. He's very explosive. If you've noticed the success he's had, the majority of the success he's had in the UFC is through beating these guys in the first round. He's very explosive. He loves the crashes, loves when two people collide.

And he likes this uh dirty boxing style right where he likes to clinch uppercuts hooks now he likes to be in the pocket and just and just swing away and that's something that you know as a fighter you pay close attention to and obviously he's a black belt man you know on the ground he's he's hunting for submissions the entire time the second you put his back on the ground or before you even man you know on the ground he's he's hunting for submissions the entire time the second you put his back on the ground or before you even put his back on the ground he's hunting for your neck your arm uh he's looking for for ways to finish you on the ground and on the feet right he's trying to knock you out can't wait for that fight UFC 306 inside the sphere September

14th on pay-per-view I got one more for you on the way out here, T city. I have one more than, Oh, then, then we got two more for you. I want to talk about the mindset. What I love about your career and watching you fight is that you wear your emotions on the, on your sleeve. You're always very honest about your walk and your journey, but you're also one of the mentally toughest fighters I've seen in your ability to, to, to zoom, to zoom in and have that focus.

When you're talking about Eagles and shipment, I'm getting like five, I'm ready to jump through glass windows. Okay. But life offers some challenges. Do you fight better when life is chaotic? Do you fight better when life is as in harmony as possible? How much does that affect the performances we see out of you inside the cage? If I'm being honest with you, bro, like I said, yeah, I wear my heart on my sleeve,

so I'm just going to shoot it straight. I've never had peace in my career, not until recently. My career has always been chaotic. My life has always been crazy. I've always had things outside. My personal life has been just a shit show. That's all due to me. My decisions, the things I like to do, that I used to like to do or whatever, and the choices I decided to uh brought a lot of just badness so i had to deal with a bunch of negativity and and and darkness and that's what i used for fuel right some things i had no control of something some things i did but recently in my life, I found, like you said, I found peace. I found joy.

I found tranquility. I like it. I like it a lot much. I like it a lot better, actually, than what I used to be doing. So, yeah, it was the first fight where I've had that. And that was the first experience I've had. And Diego is going to be the second so i can't i don't know i don't know and and to me it's just a question mark and it's a we'll see but regardless

of the outcome i'm choosing this type of lifestyle every day man like my yes i love yeah as a man i love peace and enjoy and that'm going to take it. All right, last one from me, Brian. I really appreciate your time, which is, of course, you're going to be competing at UFC 306 at the Sphere. It's a UFC Noche event, or Noche UFC, I should say. And then, of course, right across the way, down the road, basically, is going to be Canelo Alvarez taking on Edgar Berlanga, another sort of celebration of Mexican fight fans,

of Mexican Independence Day. I wonder, do you think that the UFC show at the Sphere, for how unique it is, is it going to upstage Canelo, or is it one of those situations where both of it is celebrating Mexican fight fans and Mexican culture, rising tide lifts all boats? Man, you're making me go against the ufc right now bro what are you doing to me bro i'm just asking i'm just asking i actually feel like the ufc sphere show could really upstage him but i don't know we'll see how it goes i think i think

obviously like the i don't know man that's hard bro because right now when you look at like mexican fighters and what they're doing in boxing you know i don't think you could really beat canelo not not in that aspect of it not in the way he sells and the way he represents mexico and how he carries it if we're speaking only specifically towards what mexico is you know uh dude canelo's born and raised in mexico from mexico and and has made it happen. That's something that Mexican fans don't understand. But then you got the sphere, dude, and then you have

just everything that Dana White's put into it and the card, the people that are in it, it's amazing. I have no idea, but I'm Team Canelo on this one. although i'm fighting on the sphere

although i'm fighting on the sphere bro i'm just i'm gonna i just shoot it straight i just i think that boxing has been a big part of mexican culture and although mma is catching up they're not there we're not there yet yet. But we're in the conversations. See, just like right now, we're in the conversations. But if you go to Mexico right now and talk to any Mexican, they'll tell you, Canelo, we don't care about UFC right now. Not if we have to choose. Are those your kids in the background?

Like, they're playing John Wick back there. Yeah, man. Yeah, I'm sorry. They're fighting. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they're fighting back there, there. Yeah, man. Yeah, I'm sorry. They're fighting. Yeah. Caleb, Joshua. They're fighting back there, bro. Caleb, Joshua.

You guys did an interview, and then you guys were fighting the whole time. And now you got me in trouble. This is awesome. Oh, look at him. Oh, no. Yes. Yeah. They liked it.

Say hi. Oh, that's great. What's up, fellas great what's up fellas guys what's it like to have the coolest dad in the world you know i mean come on pretty great right well i can't see you guys i gotta fight him oh great we're not we're not gonna fight your dad trust me that would go bad for us oh wow so great to meet the ortega boys brian ortega thank you for your time We can't wait to see you at 306. You got another big moment left in you.

I know this in you, okay? You're not done. You haven't yet finished spoken in the history of this featherweight division. No, not yet, man. Like I said, it ain't over till it's over. And having my mind and my body and my spirit and everything kind of in a good place for the first time in my life, I'm excited to see what I can accomplish this time. I've been in there when my mind and body weren't right. I've been in there with my body, but my mind wasn't right. And this is the first time when everything is actually right.

Everything's moving smooth. No hiccups, no injuries, no drama, no outside noise, no distractions, no craziness, no turbulence. It's just me now. The only person that I actually have to go to war with and push and just keep moving forward as myself. And it's been, it's been, it's been fun,

dude. I'm not gonna lie. I, I wish I figured this out when I was younger. Cause then you, yeah, you earned this. Enjoy it.

You earned it. Okay. We can't wait to see you September 14th. Thank you so much for joining us, Brian. Thank you, Brian. Really appreciate it.

No, thank you guys, man. And we're just kidding. Rising. September 14th is going to be such a great day. It's going to be awesome. He seems like he's doing great, man. I mean, I want to ask him about having the greatest role. I kind of cut him off there when he was making a good point,

which was a little weird, but in general, I think that was a good interview. You know, I tend to cut people off in the show, and I'm working on it, okay? You, Chuck Mendenhall, you know what I mean? It's just a guess. I mean. But in general, that was a good interview. What did you think there, Long Island Luke? We haven't brought you in yet.

I thought that was great, man. Yeah, I mean, I want to ask him about every woman he ever dated, Luke, but he's doing so well in this. Yeah, I mean, that's a little inappropriate. That's really inappropriate. His kids are there. Hey, his kids was good. That was.

Yeah, what a gentleman. You see them John wicking each other back there? Yeah, dude. They look. They're going to gonna be beating the out of each other indeed indeed fun guests good luck to him that fight is going to be very fun look hey that's a oh here you go breaking news can we get the alert there uh this is a fun little announcement here we go breaking news on morning combat on july 29th uh according to his manager, and they posted it on social media, at UFC 307, which will be October 5th, Kevin Holland is back, and he's going to be taking on, ready for this,

Chris Curtis. Chris Curtis versus Kevin Holland. Sean Strickland was never my friend. UFC 307. Yeah, they had a breakup, I guess. They did. I could have used the restroom. It might be the perfect time to do it, Luke, so maybe you can set up

point number five, and I'll just take a whiz. Nobody beats it. I'll tell you what, here's what we'll do while we're waiting for BC to empty his bladder like a fucking 82-year-old grandmother. Got the bladder of Joe Biden back there. I mean, what are we doing? Hey, Long Island Luke, how did you do on

your betting for UFC 304 over the weekend? Not great, I gotta be honest. I did good on the prelims, but main card, only one I hit was Tom Aspinall by KO. What did you whiff on? I had Leon by decision. Okay. I had the over one and a half

in Patty Bobby Green. Yeah. And then I hit the first two fights, I had the over one and a half in Allen and Giga, and I had the over half around in Robocop CLD. That fight was actually, no one's talking about that fight, it was actually pretty good. Dudeiga and I had the over half around in RoboCop CLD that fight was actually no one's talking about that fight was actually pretty good dude and I said before it started I said RoboCop's a live dog I didn't bet on him but he did cash also it turns out did you I mean I paid

for the pay-per-view I don't know if you're a pirating piece of shit but uh dude the production errors on that broadcast were absolutely insane were they not i'm really glad you brought this up so i have a uh fight pass account that is uh through a previous job you know i can get any fight on it for free essentially those broadcast errors were not on the fight pass feed they were only on the espn plus feed so anyone outside of the u.s did not see those okay rothlisberger so then that i mean dana white had said in Post-White Press Conference that it was not their fault. It was ESPN's fault, and I am very inclined to believe him. Can I tell you a story about this very quickly, if I may?

Go for it. So I made a video on my YouTube channel about how bad ESPN Plus is, and I noted consumer surveys, and I noted industry results and everything. And ESPN got wind of it. And I had made a point that I'm, I'm arguing these points as a customer. I'm not arguing them as a media member. Cause no one's going to care if I'm a media member, but I pay for the pay-per-views. I should be taken seriously as a customer. So they saw that. And then what they did was they granted me, they gave me like a, like a super deep customer service rep,

like not an ordinary one, but like a really specific one. And yeah, just walk in front of the camera like an asshole, you fucking moron. And they gave me two pay-per-views for free. They gave me 301 and 302 because I had, they gave me 302 and 303, excuse me, because 300 was fucked up and 301 was super fucked up. So they gave me 302 and 303, excuse me, because 300 was fucked up and 301 was super fucked up. So they gave me 302 and 303 for free. This was the first one that I bought under the new, without their help. And it worked in the sense of like I didn't have the same tech issues,

which was great. When you shake your leg, my microphone rattles. I don't want to make a noise. All right. I mean, you can live. No, I'm teasing. I'll stop. But the point I'm trying to make is I was like, wow, alright, they finally

got their shit together. And then sure enough, during the broadcast, Ben Roethlisberger's third down conversions were a problem. How about the guy going, oh, channel one, check, check. Channel two, check, check. I was like, holy fucking shit.

What a disaster. ESPN. Dana blamed it on ESPN, holy fucking shit. What a disaster. ESPN. Dana blamed it on ESPN, rightfully so. I got to say this. Dude, ESPN like 15 years ago was like untouchable in their quality and then their prestige. And obviously it still is prestigious to be there. They still do great work. My friend Brett works there.

You know what I'm saying? You want to fuck them on air. Like, it's amazing. You guys want to mouth bang each other all the time. It's unbelievable. But no, I'm being serious for just the second BC. They've fallen off a little bit. Yeah.

A little bit they've fallen off. Right? I'm with you on that, okay? All right. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, all right, they finally fixed their shit. Are we expecting a second guest today, too? I mean.

We are? Soon? Or can I get into second guest today too? I mean, we are. Soon or can I get into point number five here? Get into point number five. I think we need to start. All right, let's get into point number five. Hey, Terrence Crawford is back. Whether or not he has retained that time for pound number one slot on your list from his takedown of Errol Spence one year ago, it's taken that long for a two undisputed division

world champion to make his return when he moves up to 154 pounds Saturday to challenge Israel Madrimov for his world title in the main event of Turkey Al-Ashiq and Riyad Sison's first fight on U.S. soil that will be in Los Angeles. A pretty loaded card from top to bottom. But Luke, this offers us a chance and opportunity to get a close upup back at bud one of the best in the history of this sport and he proved that against spence uh is he currently your number one pound for pound i mean it's very competitive at the top probably usic usic in a way in all that but he would be under any other circumstances and could be so luke thomas he had a fantastic sit down on all the smoke fight with andre ward which was Ward's sort of debut piece of content since joining forces alongside of us and the patriarch Brian Daly there and the crew from

all the smoke. And we got to hear a lot of stuff about the businessman and Bud, and we got to set the stage for this fight and what could be next, which certainly involves all things Canelo Alvarez. So Luke, while I'm certainly here to talk about him moving up in weight and fighting Madri Mov, it feels like the Canelo fight is suddenly back in rotation in the discussion this week. It certainly does.

So, well, can we throw to the quotes from Turkey, Alice, she care. This is a quote with Mike Coppinger of ESPN. I will give Canelo what I think is a fair price talking about the biggest fight that he wants to make that he thinks is the biggest in

the sport. If he accepts it, he deals directly with me to finish the deal i don't want anyone in the middle i guaranteed crawford a big fight i want canelo for crawford and crawford wants canelo if canelo is crazy with his financial demands i will still guarantee crawford any fight he wants luke how much do you think look we it's one conversation what's going on with canelo at 168 in my mind and not fighting david Benavidez. But if Crawford moves up in weight and takes off Madrivov on Saturday,

adds another title in another division, he's going to be 37, right? So it's time to make the biggest fights possible. Is this about Canelo not wanting to fight a smaller man and lose if he ends up turning down this offer? Or in your eyes, is it more about if you wanted this bad turkey meet me at my number whatever that number is yeah i don't think canelo wants this fight at all and i don't think it matters how much turkey reasonably offers him i know what canelo has said which is 200 million i don't think that that was for benavidez okay but he probably would offer a similar number 150 maybe or something all right canelo gets a guarantee in the last few big fights of around 35, 40 million, right?

What do you think gets that fight done? Because this is the time to do it. Turkey has the means, so this is the time to do it. I don't think there is a number that gets that done. I don't, I just, there's a, I think people are having a hard time understanding where Canelo was at. Again, if he retired today, he would go into the UFC. What am I saying?

He retired today. He would go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Pardon me. And deservedly. He'd be in the conversation with Chavez for greatest next to him. Absolutely. It's been a joy to cover his career. And the Berlanga fight will not be a bad fight in the sense of entertainment.

There is certainly going to be, I think Canelo is probably going to look pretty good doing it. Sure. But something happened to Canelo after fighting Bivol. And I think there is a degree of, if not lost confidence, a recognition about where he's at and what kind of fights he has to have in order to perform ably and look good. Because by the way,

he did look good against Jaime Munguia. He did look good against Charlo. And, and certainly the John Ryder one was when he says it, when he says, I'll get no credit for fighting a fighter that small, you think it's more, why take the risk of what this will do to me if I lose to that guy? I would say this.

Listen, if Crawford, who has been off for a year since demolishing Errol Spence, if in fact he looks suspect against a guy at 154 pounds who is a physical tank, Mad pounds who is a physical tank, Madrimov is a physical tank, but if you watch the tape, he is just not even close to the technician that Bud Crawford is. Big amateur background, though. Yeah, but no, he is simply not the technician that Bud Crawford is.

He is not, not even close. And so for that reason, if Bud looks his age and the weight really diminishes his pop and really makes him look like, wow, okay, this is beatable. Remember, he'd have to go to 60 and potentially 68 in order to secure a fight with Canelo. Maybe under that circumstance, something could be done. But I have a feeling that Bud is going to look really fucking good on Saturday. I don't know if he stops him or not, but I think he's going to look really, really awesome. And I'm just trying to be clear. I don't believe Canelo really wants to take on anybody at this point who is in any kind of way a genuine threat.

Ryder, not a genuine threat. Charlo, not a genuine threat. Munguia, not a genuine threat. And Berlanga, certainly not a genuine threat. This is where we are. And I think you're having a hard time accepting that from somebody whose career up to this point has been superb beyond words. I can't accept that he would try to duck both or avoid both or not take fights with both. But then again, he just took the Munguia fight.

Now we're going to do Berlanga. So it's like he's slapping in the face. But look, I can come to terms, I guess, on him avoiding Benavidez and hoping maybe that fight comes back around for stupid money. But I think the competitor in him would take the Crawford fight, but it just needs Turkey to fill in that gap for whatever that price is. Maybe that price is $100 million. If we know that

originally Anthony Joshua, when he fought Andy Ruiz in the rematch in Saudi, which was the first big boxing match there, he got $75 or $80 million. That was his flat fee. If he can give Canelo $100 million that was his like flat fee if you can give canelo 100 million for a fight that big if you can do that he'll fight crawford crawford is a real threat if canelo genuinely perceives him to be a real threat there is not an amount of money that will make a difference all right well let's listen guys he's gonna get a 35 million dollar guarantee

to fight a guy he's going to wipe the floor with yeah Yeah, but this looks too bad to miss both of these fights. These are two of the three biggest fights you can make in the entire sport. Him and Benavidez and him and Crawford. Dude, how many of the... By the way, people are like, why didn't Benavidez activate his mandatory status? Because he didn't want to do it on the mandatory contract. He wanted to do it independent of that so he could get more money.

But putting that aside, dude, how many big fights in a row does Canelo need to skip post Bivol for you to recognize we're in a different place now? All right. Well, here's Terrence Crawford sitting down with Andre Ward of all the smoke fight. You can catch this on the, all the smoke boxing,

YouTube channels, check out the social media channels for all these big following here. Luke, we're happy to be a part of it. And this was a very interesting sit down. Here's Terrence Crawford talking about the Turkey and Saudi effect and really why he's getting it right. Where other promoters got it wrong.

All the promoters say, all what Terrence Crawford can say. Terrence Crawford is bad for business. Terrence Crawford is Terrence Crawford is bad for business. Terrence Crawford is, Terrence Crawford that. All so much negativity. But when you look at my numbers compared to the fighters that they trying to push, it's night and day. He seen that with his own two eyes. He did. Turkey. He seen that and he just was like,

I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it with him. As a matter of fact, since y'all always got something negative to say about him, I'm going to take a fighter from y'all promotional company. Take a fighter from y'all promotional company. Put them on an undercard. Yeah. Of him. He doing that. And y'all can't do nothing about it.

So now who's in charge? Yeah. He just bringing boxing and the excitement back to boxing the way it should be where all the promoters should be working together instead of trying to compete with each other. I think that's what he's doing right now and it's mixing the game up. Rob Markman Man, I think you're right, bro. You know how it is.

Everybody got beef and funk until the money comes into play. If it's big enough money, all of a sudden y'all not enemies no more. And y'all seeing that with Turkey right now coming over. This was very unconvincing to me. In what way? So it is true that Turkey is putting money in there and making people work together in a way that they hadn't before. And the card is constructed in the way in which bud discussed that part i think i agree with but like oh there's so much negativity around bud bud is notoriously

famous for not wanting to do media even pre-spence um you know i've certainly had some conversations with people who have had promote promoted fights with him before and they tell me he is uniquely difficult to work with in ways that even other difficult people are not easy to work with. He is an enormous mega talent, and I'm glad he's getting paid. But it didn't happen because people just decided they didn't like Terrence Crawford. Well, I think he's talking about his issues with the quarterback. Part of the reason he had difficulty promoting with other people is because he brought some of that on himself. Turkey is willing to look past that and make the money, make it like it's no big deal. But there's a real lack of self-awareness about what problems he's contributed.

I'll agree with that. To the equation. The larger discussion that they seem to be having was Crawford's idea that the reality is all these power and power players in boxing don't hate each other and actually are willing to work together. And it takes someone like Turkey showing up with the money. And suddenly everybody's like, where do I sign up? So he's basically saying, look, the one thing I did like, and this plays into that about this interview and maybe what can allow somebody like Andre Ward, who's going to get that level of respect from Crawford to get, have deep talks like this about power and leverage and all of that is they look at it almost like

the fighters are being deceived by the system, by all this talk of other side of the street when reality that's only a thing if you believe it's a thing and they're trying to say that this money and it could be turkey it could be anybody but turkey is the guy with the money is the great equalizer because it's showing that everyone really i don't know if i really believe all these guys are friends but i get what he's saying it's the same kind of idea luke if i think that people get so exhausted in the political debates in this country and play the home teams so aggressively against one another when you can argue in reality that everybody's on the same team in the same way.

I don't know if that's true, but what I liked about this specific sit-down was how much we got to see the chess player of Bud because we saw his business acumen come out in this interview. We saw the power that he believes the fighters already have, but don't execute. And it kind of made me look back because he did give a slur to Floyd for his credit as critical. If we were at times of Floyd's matchmaking and the selective nature of it, and we should

have been, I think when you do look back, Floyd brought in a lot of change in the business game. We blame him for creating boxing businessmen who weren't as good as him, who were trying to position themselves and not challenge themselves maybe too much. Because what he did come in and bring him and Al Heyman was eliminate the middleman and show the fighter how much you really are worth. What I loved about this conversation was Bud's basically saying to this day, these fighters still don't know what they are worth. And if they stood out more, if they were willing to use their leverage, my only problem with buzz assessment here is that he consistently paints a world where he can't fail.

He can only be failed. People have only failed him up to this point. He's played no role in that. And I'm like, dude, like I'm a curmudgeon. And I know that I've earned that reputation by the things that I've done. He thinks he gets labeled as a curmudgeon,

and it's invented out of thin air by people who have vendettas against him. And I'm like, I don't think that's the way this goes. However, your point about taking ownership of his career and then the smarts he's used to do that, yes, that is very clearly true. Again, he got paid 20. Was it him and Spence each got $'s used to do that yes that is very clearly true again he got paid 20 was it him and spence each got 25 million yeah and i like to fight each other he deserved every single cent of that and i'm glad that they got that deal it was interesting to hear the inside baseball of how he called up spence directly and that's something yes what got the deal exactly

right this is what i mean we're hearing just his side obviously but it does really illuminate the the mindset the the chess playing of terence carver even though there's times that we look like he was making the wrong moves. And he did bring up that lawsuit against top rank for racism and basically said that they settled out of court and Terrence won big. So I guess more power to him in that regard. I want to play a quick bit of, of Crawford when he was on aerial show recently on the MMA hour where he lined up,

like seems like boots is suddenly a big fight for you, but Luke, he doesn't seem to want boots. And here's why from Crawford's mouth. Where I'm at right now, I'm looking at the fight that makes the most sense. And that's not boots.

Canelo's going to bring way more to my legacy, way more to my bank account. You know, because at the end of the day, when boxing is done, what will we have? You know,

I want to have a legacy that's something that people talk about for the ages. And not only that, I want to have a bank account that will last for ages as well if he fought canelo and then beat him he'd have a legacy that would have no limit i mean i mean

you couldn't say he's the greatest fighter ever but i'm saying he would have the opportunity to leap into such further discussions of his greatness if he was able to get this fight i think his confidence i i think he can be Canelo, but I didn't want to point out something. Do you see the video? And it was, it was, you know,

it was friendly ish banter back and forth between him and Eddie Hearn. Did you see this? This is what I mean. Like he sees Eddie Hearn. And the first thing he does is just start, just start going after him. But I beat your guy, this and blah,

blah, blah. And again, it's partly friendly and Eddie, Eddie used it so perfectly. But it's like, you know, if you've rubbed half of boxing the wrong way, maybe half of those people misunderstand you. I fully believe that.

But also maybe you brought that a little bit on yourself. A little bit of a lack of awareness about what role he plays in, in like, he only wants credit for the authorship he's taken for the right decisions that has gone well. He doesn't ever seem to take any authorship over things that were stalled. He tends to just say, everyone else failed me. And I'm like,

this rings quite inauthentic to me. Interesting stuff. By the way, I have breaking news. I have breaking news. What do you got? Breaking news. According to Marca, which is the biggest Spanish newspaper in a million years.

This better be good if we're going to Spain for it. They're saying that, and they're very close to Ilya Teporia, they're saying that his first title defense is going to be in Abu Dhabi on October 26th. So that means he would probably be fighting Max. Oh, that's big. October 26th in Abu Dhabi, which means it's an afternoon time. And why is that important? Because if it's in Abu Dhabi, it's prime time in Europe, which means that

it won't be in Spain, it won't be in Europe, but it will be in a place where they can watch on their normal evening schedule. And Dean is going to say this weekend that he can't go to Spain because all those arenas are backed up post-COVID with their schedules already full, so it's been hard to find a big venue. I mean, he could say what he says. Quickly, Luke, to close on our

boxing talk, we like them extra sloppy and two heavyweights that we didn't even preview coming in. Derek Chisora at 40 years old in what was going to be billed as his last fight against 38-year-old Joe Joyce turned in a fight of the year contender, Luke, in a sloppy brawl,

which Chisora in round 9 throws that lazy counter punch that floored Joyce Chisora goes on to earn a close decision but Luke this was like rock'em sock'em robot does this prove that if you get the

right washed fighters think Diaz and Osvidal in the boxing match at the right time you can produce this type of magic. If you're washed, but you give it what you got against another washed guy who's also giving it what they've got, where it's offense first, defense second. Not no defense, but offense first. No, there was no defense from Joe Joyce.

Okay, but I'm saying Diaz, Masvidal, there still was some defense. But offense first, it can work. It can absolutely work. That's the formula. Both guys have to give it. Both guys have to be offense first, it can work. It can absolutely work. That's the formula. Both guys have to give it. Both guys have to be offense first period. That's how it has to go, but it can work. So Joe Joyce was weighed around 257 pounds in his first fight against Zhang Zhe Li in which he got stopped.

He ended up getting stopped in the rematch when he put on a lot of weight. Look, he was up to 281 for this fight. It wasn't that he was completely out of shape. It's just that Joe Joyce squared up from the start, was like, I'm not going to move my head at all or block any punches. And they just had a war and it was slow. Tim Bradley on the call on ESPN Plus was like,

it looked like they're punching in slow motion, but it was sort of like who Chisora is in the end. So I'm glad that he got this moment. But dude, remember when Joe Joyce knocked out Dubois? He knocked out Joseph Parker. Like, dude, he went through a run of these, like, B, B-plus heavyweights. And then as soon as he ran into Jay Lee Jong, dude, twice, he got handled. And he's kind of done.

He's kind of done. We got a great quote by Chisora, though, which we had to make our show, Luke. Had to. I'm like a shit that won't flush. What a way to end it. I hope he officially does it. That's like MK. Yeah, exactly.

We're not going away. Should we start the shit, speaking of Long Island? I think we should. I don't think waiting on Andy is going to... Is Randy or Andy coming, either of the two? Randy should be here shortly. Yeah, Randy Ruiz. Brian Ortega was great, though, so shout out to him.

Listen, that was the most important one. Until I cut him off. All right, Luke, I scoured the globe over the weekend for the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, the bad the ugly in between this one's called have you seen this yeah luke thomas are you ready for ufc 304 in manchester content my wife is telling me i have to go to a fucking happy hour in columbia. Oh, that's great. I'm not very excited about that. You should sneak in a lot of edibles. Oh yeah, I should just bring drugs to

Columbia. I'm sure that will go quite well for me. Luke, you gotta get warmed up before a pay-per-view card like 304. Check out Bruce Buffer loosening it up. This is me before I take a dump here. Look at that. He's very flexible. Do you think he's a sensible lover? I don't in any way want to consider that whatsoever.

Luke, Shauna Bannon scored her first career victory in the Curtain Jerker, and then her coach ran right into the camera. I'm going to jab a little bit more. A stiff jab. High frame, stiff jab. Yeah? Now it's going to start getting layered on me. Luke, your quote of the weekend really came from patty dude i i i'm becoming a fan somehow

in it look let's check this delivery luke statement made bitches i mean come on right he's growing on me he's slowly growing on me i still think to pour you would have wrecked his shit but he's he's growing on me look did you see that distraction in the arena the moment the main event of Bilal versus Leon ended? It was a brawl in the crowd. Look at this, dude. We got chairs. This was wild.

What are they fucking? No, the NFL game is down the road, folks. Not here. No, not here. Why? Yeah. What was the one that we saw that was totally, oh, it was in Mexico? Yes.

It was a UFC Mexico show. It was uninhibited. And they let the fight just burn out naturally. Your pick of the week also involves Patti Pimblitt, Luke. This is a pretty sick pick suitable for framing. Puts King Green to sleep and then mangles his arm. Look at that fucking arm. That is such a terrible way to go.

All the while teabagging him with the orange shorts. Well, he's got the athletic gear on with the cup, but yeah, it's not a great look. It wasn't all fun and games, though, at 3-0-4, Luke. We had a couple of fails. How about D.C. failing to remember the name? Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the welterweight champion, Leon Rocky, I'm sorry, below my arm. Leon Rocky Pennington, there we go.

Yes, yes. He, in fact, did not remember the name. And you mentioned Big Ben, Luke. Great quarterback, bad date, but he kept showing up on the broadcast. Here's Mike Heck and GC of MMA fighting fame reacting to it. They're getting him out of there. Ben Roethlisberger, third down, miscues. What the hell was that?

Well, here it is again. Ben Roethlisberger. Here it is again. Third down, miscues, yeah. Ben Roethlisberger, third down down misc. Yeah. Speaker 2 3rd down misc. Speaker 1 As Wayne Rooney. And again, this is no lie. It kept happening. MVP. Give it to us a fifth time. Oh, they have to go to break. What was that dude? Last time. Speaker 3 4 Mike Heck by the way time yeah my keg is great also connor burks there is a great dude as well let me just say this um espn plus fucking sucks yes

they fucking suck you know who didn't suck in detroit over the weekend claressa shields moving up two weight divisions to 175 pounds and luke for the first time since her fourth pro fight she scored a knockout i know but she's fighting the lady who does, like, Dunkin' Donuts, bagels, and shit. You know what I mean? So to kind of get the confusion out of the way, this fight was at 175, which is normally light heavyweight, but two of the four sanctioning bodies rule 175

as women's heavyweight. So she technically won a vacant heavyweight title and the light heavyweight. Yes, it was intense, right? A lot of cake. Wow. A lot of cake. Okay, let's take that back. I wasn't mad at it. But look, that highlight was intense, right? A lot of cake. Wow. A lot of cake. Okay, let's take that back.

I wasn't mad at it. But look, that highlight was legit. And I watched the fight. Clarissa Shields is awesome. She came out headhunting. She didn't box. The problem is, dude, she just doesn't have anybody who can stand up to her. It doesn't matter what weight she goes to.

She overmatches. The only way, seriously, this is true. The only way she can find a peer to give her problems is to change sports and to go to mma that's it other than that she just wipes the floor with everybody a real recognized real in a massive way this week as mk fan and amateur rising fighter holy shit christian daguerreo on the left he once put mk right on his package luke and that's poeton damn that is amazing like poeton's fucking he's everywhere yeah he's traveling more than ryan garcia these days it seems yeah but probably a lot more sober yeah

and less racist and hateful uh shout out to christian there one day luke we're gonna have to corner him coach latore style you know it's coming i would love to i owe him um video breakdown i gave him i gave him i did i did go through his tape and i did talk about some overarching lessons but i haven't gone through the individual pieces of footage give him his own i do i promised him i would i did i did go through the footage and i did but we went back and forth with audio clips so i did do that he's one of us at the end of the day he's a fucking great guy i love that guy talented fighter too by the way yeah i met him once when you had a lot of margaritas uh boxing tip to tip time on this face off extreme tip to tip. That guy's got a, a hard one.

Like he's McGregor at the, at the Floyd way. And Luke, look at that meat pipe. Wow. That is, you know, and he's wow.

Look at these two. Yep. They are. You know what? They do look in love to be fair. Look, they do. That's great.

Listen, pride month was last month, but these two guys look ready for fun. That was great. Luke, you say vaping is for closers? Mm-hmm. Rate this Sphinx. I've been to the Sphinx.

You have? Yes. The Grateful Dead once played right in front of it. Did they really? Yeah, it must have been an awesome concert. Well, I remember they were a part of the show that we saw. Yeah, I didn't realize that was connected. I didn't know you stayed that long.

I went inside one of the pyramids, yeah. With your father? With my dad and my brother, yeah. What year? I was nine years old, so this would have been 89, something like that. 90? Luke, let's check out this lady. Let's see her.

Get the app off my yard you could have you could have kept that one okay see that was borderline but i fell for it luke i fell for it uh luke would you uh would you date or swipe on this lady which what do you think lady which what do you think and she uh she did the uh the the pig thing the uh yeah no i uh hope she gets hit by a bus all right let's go to white people having fun with champagne luke shake it really really hard what the fuck that one wow that was that one ended very you know not the first death we've shown on this show though luke okay that's that's we've shown dick we've shown death what's next that's my question all right uh let's this one really hit me hard luke i can feel this guy's pain let's take a quick look at laziness my leg is broken This one really hit me hard, Luke. I can feel this guy's pain. Let's take a quick look at laziness.

My leg is broken. Dude, did you assemble? Okay, okay, okay, okay. Here's what happened. Here's what happened. You have clearly assembled a list of things that you think were funny when you were high as a motherfucker this has bong hits as inspiration written all over it just get high luke you'll probably enjoy it more um do you remember when we showed the larry holmes video of the dropkick yes one of my style off the windshield somebody sent this from a trash reality show but shout out to this moment.

Oh, shit! Dylan Danis style. Dude, what the fuck did she do to deserve, she got, what the fuck? Yeah, look, you big Seinfeld guy, I'm not. No, I was never a big Seinfeld guy. Oh, I didn't know if we were going to laugh at this clip then. Jerry! I'm busting, I'm busting! I'm busting!

What's going on? Long Island Luke, rate that for me, will you? 10 out of 10. Okay. He was high when he made this, wasn't he? I mean, aren't we all, man? Yeah, I wish. Luke, you know the old Ricardo Mayorga bit?

You know, keep hitting me, it doesn't hurt me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch this in MMA. Okay, put your fucking hands up. What the fuck are you doing? Oh, what the fuck are you doing? Hey, they waved off the fight. Stopped defending himself and the ref gave him up.

That's in Kazakhstan, the Niza niza um uh promotion yeah kazakhstan dude what the fuck are these guys doing i don't know people playing i'm telling you regional mma is the real shit oh yeah that's the real shit speaking of people playing with fireworks can't believe he's white. That seems so out of character. Oh, you fucking ape. You fucking ape. Wow, wow. All right, let's go to Germany for these two kids fooling around here. Hi, ich bin's Michel.

Und ich bin's Sven und wir zeigen euch heute unseren ultimativen Trick. Great trick. What the fuck look we're getting closer to the combat sports event of the summer craig jones versus gabby garcia fucking wait for this have you been watching their pre-fight with hanato laranja here's a just a piece of what we can expect. How you think you're gonna be a man? Okay, what's the way you're gonna do that? Why it's never been did before? He's not if I put like my my mom, my grandma watching like, you know, that your grandma

your mom and me. Shut up. Right? Shut the right friends. Shut up. About talking about my mom. She's going to go to the oligarch. Shut up. Shut up. He's going to take to the bloody Outback Steakhouse for her. That's serious. Don't go anyplace my man. When she back? Shut up.

Okay. Enough. Now let's keep. No. It's like he crossed the line. He text my mom. But this is how we get into. No.

No lie. She ask for a t-shirt. No. She never ask no lie. She asked for a t-shirt. No, she never asked for nothing. She asked for a t-shirt. I said I'd hand deliver it. Now what's the matter with that? He's very attractive. He's my mom! You think he was delivered by the store?

No, no, but like... You got him in the car like... No, it's okay, But my mom like this. If you came out, can you imagine? You better be packing something in there. Dude, I met Hanato Laranja. I met him in 2014 at Glory Last Man Standing.

Is he a character? He didn't do it for me because he was just hanging out he's actually there just as a fan he is such a nice guy i don't know him beyond what i just met so you know hilarious he is fucking hilarious craig jones is a a star in this did you see that other clip where they um they make a bet where only fans collaboration if he can tap her via leg lock she'll do an only fans collaboration or if she wins she gets a million dollars and he's like either way she'll be limping out of here afterwards i mean it's just damn dude he's the best he's so unique and he's giving away

gordon ryan's miata on top of that luke there's a lot of categories that make this next fail exciting. Oh, wow. We checked a few different boxes on that one. And we closed Luke with the catchiest song of the summer. I'll go to a strip club, get a boner with a bunch of other guys. This is the greatest day of... This is the greatest... Have you ever eaten at a strip club? Oh, yeah, I have.

I've had the buffet before. So have I. Yeah, you never forget it. The wings are just like... Yeah. I've done it. I did it. There's scant meat on them wings.

You know what I'm saying? I did a Camelot in Washington, D.C. I'm sure you did. I'm sure you came out. Camelot's an interesting one. Camelot has been in like a business district for as long as forever. Yeah. And it survived COVID on basically between 18th and 19th.

And that's like unheard of. All the bars around there died. Hamillot survived. All right. I want to thank Brian Ortega for showing up today, Luke. I want to thank Randy Couture, my favorite guest. Randy Couture, we'll hopefully get him next week. We missed Andy Ruiz Jr. again,

but I am looking forward to that fight Saturday against Big Baby. Well, you know he doesn't miss a meal. I mean, let's just be honest about that. Now we're going to do fat jokes now. Wow. That's the show for the week, Luke. Are we coming back for free to talk about Abu Dhabi or no? I mean.

I'm off. I'm going to the airport tomorrow. Oh, yeah. We ain't doing Shia. I'm off tomorrow. The rest of the week, I'm not doing shit. Enjoy your vacation, Luke, and your birthday, number 45? Five, yeah.

45 in Washington. What do you feel about joining 45? Not been my best year. Not been my best year. I'm just grateful to have my family support me. Yeah. I'm going to leave it at that. Damn right.

I'm going to leave it at that. Because that's all that matters. And the support of MK Nation, I should say. You're also damn right about that. So yeah, Luke, enjoy it. Unplugged. So next week, program reminder, scheduling reminder, it'll be myself and Chuck Mendenhall in this chair.

Yes, big Chuck, big Charles. So looking forward to see Sir Charles back here. The following week, Luke, you will return to it. We'll be hearing from you. Yes, I'll be calling in from vacation. From Columbia. From Columbia.

What a great show today, regardless of anything else. Regardless, not a word, but not a correct use of the English language at a bare minimum. But I will say that it was a great show today. Brian Ortega was fantastic. Thanks to our intrepid producer Matt for pulling that one. Yeah, what to our intrepid producer, Matt, for pulling that one.

Yeah, what about our intrepid Australian sidekick here? Aussie rules, Luke. Yeah, Luke, where can people listen to this Mile High Minute podcast? Main Car Minute on YouTube, guys. We're like 10 subs away from 1,000. Get me to 1,000. So at 1,000, you can get monetized, correct? Exactly, Luke. you can get monetized. Exactly. Now, will you, will you smoke the Mike Tyson hash smoker system?

Yes. On the air during the main card minute. So this weekend I'm doing PFL. I'm doing the boxing and the UFC. I'll be taking dabs. I'll be taking, but to smoke dabs, that that's like next level drugs,

right? Or that's normal. It's super duper high. I think if you're still doing marijuana, it's not quite next level. Yeah. You gotta be falling over in public. Like heroin style.

We should have talked weed with, or Bottega. We missed that. Yeah. All right. Hey, Long Island Luke, thank you for being you, our great team and all that. Folks, take care of yourself. Okay. We'll see you when we see you next Monday here live and direct.

Yes, Tom. Thank you to all the MKDocs. A bunch of them reached out to me after Friday's calamity, but I'm okay. I'm very good. And for everyone who reached out, thank you guys. Really appreciate it. I'm going to try to reply to as many of them as I can.

Hey, we got good people out there. We do. We are very lucky. This is what I mean. Like, at the end of the day, we actually are pretty lucky, and I do recognize that, and I'm very grateful for that.

So I'm going to try and have a couple weeks of vacation where it's not too stressful. Use our promo code live 10. If you want 10% off our merch at morning combat dot store for draft Kings, for metal Lark, for all our great people, it's been Luke and BC. Like it'll always be.

Okay. We're always just, I mean, look at the end of the day, what is this show? It's a documentation of the up and downs, the growth of men in this life cycle. It's a community.

It's not always pretty Luke, but it's a community, but we will rise. It's also about. It's not always pretty, Luke. It's a community. But we will rise. And it's also about two guys, not us, but two guys we have touching dicks. That's really what it's about. All right. As fighters.

That's about all. That's all I got left. May all your gains be loyal, bitches. Yeah, I don't know.