MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 305 Recap: DDP Submits Izzy, Kai-Kara France Dominates | Full Episode | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Another amazing MK is coming your way this Monday as Luke is back from vacation and joined by the one and only, man in the hat, Chuck Mindenhall to break down everything that happened at UFC 305. First, Dricus du Plessis defeated Israel Adesanya via submission in the fourth round. What does a victory like this prove about du Plessis? What does a loss like this do to Adesanya's legacy? What should be next for du Plessis? Sean Strickland? Robert Whittaker? Khamzat Chimaev? Or Alex Pereira at 185 or 205? Kai-Kara France blew right past Steve Erceg in Saturday's co-main event. Does this make KKF the top UFC flyweight contender? Did Erceg take this fight too close to his war with Alexandre Pantoja? Dan Hooker somehow turned back the clock against the smothering Mateusz Gamrot. This likely pushes him into or close to the top 5. What fight makes the most sense next for him? Lastly, Tai Tuivasa lost his fifth straight fight in the UFC, dropping a lackluster decision to Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Is there any real fix for what ails him? Can we talk about how insane that scorecard from judge Howie Booth was? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Oh, Jesus. Do you want a margarita? Yes! Oh, my God! It's us doing what we love. You, me, you, we love it's time to bang heavy metal rap with a 4-4 banger i don't even know how to finish it what's up everybody how you doing on this monday on this monday august 18th 2024 2024. My name is Luke Thomas.

That's Chuck Mendenhall. This is Morning Combat. Yes, indeed it is. How are you doing, Chuck? I'm well. You know, this is the first time I've been with you in the studio and probably since the second time you were ever in it. I'm a more loving partner.

Yes, you are. It'll be great. How are you? Everything is well in Iceman land? Yeah, everything's great, man. Everything's rolling. But that's that 18th? It's the 19th? You know what know what motherfucker it's the 18th if i want it to be how about that how about that what's up jock how you doing bro i'm good man i'm good yeah where did you watch

the fights on saturday i watched them from home in la casa fortunately i'm glad i wasn't in perth man 11 000 miles from here john annick every time he travels there is like uh five men have died on this trip they got dysentery in doha along the way oh my god i had to abandon them three weeks ago at least he's always in those like reclining cabins or you know the first class you know yeah but dude there was one update he had on the way there yeah it had been since he had left his door in florida 29 hours god he had a layover in Sydney, I believe, and then another four or five. Yeah, and another four-hour flight or five-hour flight to Perth from there.

I was like, dude, just quit your job. Just quit the fucking job. I don't have it in me, man. I couldn't do that anymore. Well, we have a lot to get to today. So first of all, glad you're here. Brian Campbell, I did text Brian this morning. I talked to him very briefly on text messages.

He was telling me me he's like dude they don't like prince harry jokes at buckingham palace and i'm like yeah i bet they don't bc you fucking idiot so uh he's there enjoying his time there in england i think he's in england or france i'm not sure where he's one of those two he's in somewhere in europe probably being a loud american asshole which guilty guilty as charged. I've done that too, but we'll have him back next week. And so today on the show, let's see what we got here. UFC 305. We're going to get to all of that. And then some, it's going to be a UFC 305 extravaganza. Plus we're going to talk a little bit of CJI, probably skip some ADCC.

I didn't put it on the rundown Chuck, but we do before we get out of here, we have to talk about UFC 307 and the announcement as well. Or they're just giving number eight ranked guys title shots. I mean, I don't mind it, but it's different. All right, let's do it. Sounds good to me. Anything you want to plug before we get started? Not really, Luke.

I'm not much of a self-plugger, but I'm still doing the same show. We're still at the Ringer MMA show. We do it after every big pay-per-view and usually every thursday before a any ufc card all right that's it that's it that's it and my byline is over there too the ringer are you writing for them too yeah yeah hey that shows how much you actually like uh look at the website do you know how much time i have to read i'll read stuff that you that i see come across my timeline. So if you're like, you had one non-MMA story recently.

What was it? I've done some NBA stuff, a little bit of NFL stuff, but mostly MMA. All right. So if I see stuff like that, I'll definitely click on it. Definitely something like Denver Nuggets. Anything outside of this circus. Denver Nuggets homerism. I know exactly who to go to. Before we get started on the show, I want to remind folks we do have merch.

There might be a code you can get 10% off. I don't even fucking know. Morningcombat.store. Hey, Long Island Luke, first of all, nice to see you. By the way, tell the audience about your gigantic parlay that you hit. Oh, baby, we hit on trick-or-duplicy by sub over three and a half rounds. I mean, that's wild, man. Plus 2,800 this guy hit.

Plus 2,800. Amazing. You said this guy hit. Plus 2,800. Amazing. You said you put two grand on that, right? Three grand, Chuck. That's pretty good. He's going to quit the job today on the air. I don't know. Did BC bring this up while I was gone?

I don't even know if he did. All my own Luke, did BC bring up the fact that the World MMA Awards, for reasons that blow my fucking mind, somehow nominated Morning Combat again for Best MMA Programming? It's like, dude, we're nominating post-World War II Germany after getting bombed to smithereens for Best Vacation Destination. Did he bring that up? I don't think he brought it up.

We definitely need a lower for it, though. We both posted it on social. Okay. All right. Let's tell the folks. I'm not even sure where you can go, but at least let's make them aware. Morning Combat, again, I don't quite understand it. Take it.

Listen, I'll take it. I want them to vote. The resurrection starts now. But they did nominate us. They did nominate us for a fourth time for Best MMA Program. I think we're up against Aerial Show. What else are we up against? Embedded, Intender Series, the usual.

All right. I mean, these are different types of shows, you know, very different. What it tells you is that there's just not much MMA programming. I know. I was going to say, you can look at that two ways. Either you guys are that good or that the competition is really that bad. We've got something special here, but, you know, we've listened. It's like Gotti Ward. We've been down a couple times on the mat you know you know what i just went through and said you could watch me or hear me on the ringer mma show and you know who's

not nominated is that so there you go there's your competition listen guys you know what you need more fart jokes that's what you need more buckingham palace where's prince harry yes i come here for those uh all right well we get we got that out of the way. With that in mind, Chuck, why don't we get this process started? UFC 305 is in the books. What a show it was. I actually really enjoyed it for the most part, although there was some craziness, which we'll address. But let's start with that main event. Drikus Duplicy defeats Israel.

By the way, I've been covering this guy for seven, eight years. I still don't know how to say his name. And I know less how to pronounce his last name than ever. Adesanya. Adesanya. Adesanya. Adesanya, whatever. He wins via submission in the fourth round. Chuck, there's so many different elements to get to about this.

But the first question I have for you is quite basic. What does a victory like this prove about Dracus Duplicy? You know, it's funny because I think that a guy like him, it's almost reminiscent a little bit of when Whitaker came up. Because when Whitaker came up and he was actually getting into contention, there were like four guys. There was Yoel Romero, there was Jacare, there was Rockhold, and Weidman, right? Those were the guys that were kind of in that space. And you're like, I don't know how he's going to leapfrog these guys.

And so you didn't really take him seriously until he was doing it. This is almost like the Du Plessis thing. I think that he was discounted because you could look back to the Whitaker fight three fights ago, and I think that people were like, that's the ledge too far. That's the one where he's going to be humbled, brought down to earth, whatever you want to say, like his streak will end. Because we'd seen him looking just like, you know, unchecked momentum going in there against guys like Brunson and getting by with it we thought that he would get settled that kind of reckless look would get settled and so we just discount him it's weird because then he goes through that fight he starts

getting the recognition and then you know Strickland fight was a close one but a kind of brilliant one in a weird way too like he was uh he was able to perform in that fight and then he goes here it's it's been a it's been a weird ride and i think that what he's proven is that he's been good all along it just maybe looks different than we're used to right the aesthetic the way he's doing it but such a good fighter iq um and i think he kind of outsmarts some of his opponents man that's what it looks like to me like he wears them down uh confounds them a little bit puts it in his wheelhouse whenever he wants to and he gets by but i think he's proven now that he's a he's a worthy champion like he's a real champion and we should appreciate him that way yeah i mean the one

of the big lessons i took from this one was there were people out there that were like okay he beat whittaker that was nice but they feel like some folks feel like he got away with one against strickland and that fight was close i mean there's really no denying it was very very close but that izzy was going to be the one to sort of restore order right to the division um and in fact the opposite really happened he was the guy who i mean the fight was also fun and competitive up until it basically wasn't but that he was the guy that showed you no he's the best in class right now this is the guy and i was really thinking about this i'm like how is it possible like yesterday morning I get on social media and it's filled with people mocking him it's filled with people showing him throwing goofy ass punches that don't land anywhere or blitzing

with like his not quite his chin up but like being vulnerable in a certain way and like this was the discussion after the fact and i'm like i'm not saying that those things on camera you're not noticing them you are seeing them they are real but like let's take a moment to step back here a minute for all of the highlights you see of him let's say lunging or running at someone how often is are any of these other world-class fighters former champion strickland, former champion Whitaker, former champion Izzy, and other good fighters before that, how many times do you ever see him being forced to pay for it?

True. When he comes through, they get out of the way. It's part of what he is. He's so physical. He's so in your face. He's like a machete just clearing brush. And they have to kind of just get out of the way when he swings, which is part of it. but the other part is this and he it doesn't show up necessarily like in any individual skill but you brought up something and I'm so glad you did

to me Chuck what I see when I hear him talk both of the post-fight press conference as well as beforehand he had said beforehand I thought Izzy had an off night against Strickland, then I fought him and I realized there was more to it. And then afterwards, he had talked about, you know, like Izzy was fighting a certain way for two minutes, then the two minutes would be over, and then he would charge and take over. And that wasn't quite true in the third, but it was certainly true in most of the other rounds.

He has a certain awareness about what is working, what is not, and whether it is pretty and whether it is balanced. And these things are important to a degree is not the most consequential part. The part is, does this work? When does it work? How does it work? And he systematically applies it in such a physical way that look at the results. He keeps getting his hand raised. It's true. And he mixes it up. You know, it's funny. We talk about that look at the results. He keeps getting his hand raised. It's true. And he mixes it up. You know, it's funny.

We talk about that Strickland fight. It was a close fight. I think Strickland outstruck him by like 40 strikes. It was Strickland had the edge in certain ways, but the re you know, the mixing in what was it? Six takedowns. It's kind of,

it's, it's kind of what you're saying. Like, I think he reads the situations, and he changes things, and he takes it to another spot. We saw him in this fight, as soon as he started getting pieced up, which he did a little bit, like in the third round, and then in the fourth a little bit, you know,

that lunging thing you're talking about, just kind of moving forward and taking it to him, it worked. And you're right, he doesn't really get caught on that and that's where I think when I was looking at this fight specifically I was like you know he's been able to get by with that a couple of times with the other guys but I think Izzy being kind of a sniper who's a counter sniper like especially coming off the back foot like the way he uh you know the way he stood in there and knocked out Alex Pereira I was like you could see a scenario where maybe he catches a guy coming in all officially trying to, like, you know, caveman him or something like that.

It just never happened. It was very strange. And I just, I think that goes into his fighter IQ. You know, it's funny. You analyze fights a lot and watch it, but I pay attention a lot to what they're saying. And he was, I heard him saying, like, is he, you know, he was breaking down Izzy.

He was like, you know, he doesn't really throw combinations. You know, he throws punches with, you know, he was breaking them down in a way that you understood that he knew what he was doing. And all of those, all of those things that we kind of accused him of being reckless with are very, you know, they're very methodical, I think, very strategic. And he understood, I think he fully understood, like whoever's initiating contact in the exchanges was winning the fight. It was pointed out in the broadcast, but that was legit. And every time he lunged in, I felt like he was catching him. I think that he's a harder puzzle to solve for the guys facing him than people realize. For me, there were lots of people, Long Island Luke can attest to this too,

people telling him this when he was betting. There were so many people, Chuck, and I'm sure you saw this in the lead-up to the fight. They were saying things like, oh, this is the kind of guy that Izzy feasts on. He's another bruiser like Paulo Costa. If there's any takeaway from this fight, and this should have been obvious beforehand, but now it is simply undeniable, this not another version of paulo costa no this is not another version of i never saw that but i mean like no am i suggesting as much but that there was some belief hanging out there and i'm listen i've been a guy who's been a long time supporter of izzy i had a slight lean i

thought he might win but in no way in no way was it true beforehand, and it is clearly not true now. Are there technical deficiencies in his game? Of course, there are in anyone's game. His, to some extent, do appear to be quite noticeable at times. However, however, number one, the fight IQ is ridiculous. It's very, his assessment of like, what is the principal task at hand that I have to solve? Very good. Number two, we cannot lose sight of this.

Izzy on the ground, it's always been almost only defense all the time. He locked up a triangle on Kelvin Gastelum, which he used for a reversal at one point. That's a great point. But Anderson Silva would finish fights from down there. And for him, it's always been the floor is lava. I think that that plays with his ability to have reactions. That's the second part I would say. Dude, Drakus Duplassie can win on the ground he took izzy down he took or i think he i don't

know if he took brunson down but he took till down even in a goofy ass way but he took whitaker down like all these guys whitaker is he takes them all down and then the last part i'd say is dude he is physical and he's a goddamn tank and he's durable durable. He's hard to hurt. Ask a question. In certain fights, like I think the one he had in KSW against Roberto Soldich. Remember that guy? Yes, of course. And Soldich stopped him. Yeah.

Since then, when was the last time? Was that a welterweight fight? Say again? It was a welterweight fight, too. Back in the day, yeah. Since then, have you seen guys land on Drakus in the UFC? Yes, of course. Yeah.

But this idea that he's wide open to be hit, well, if he's wide open to be hit, how did two of the best champions in the last 10 years at middleweight fail to really capitalize on that? Because the tape is somewhat, and I would argue, a little misleading. Yes. There's so much to it, man. He uses his length in terms of moving forward.

He uses his length. So I point this out not to kind of diminish him, but actually, I thought Forrest Griffin, one of the best things he used to do was he would use his full arm length as he was coming forward. He would just kind of throw these punches, and it was hard for people to handle just given his size. And I feel like I see a little bit of that with Duplass C2. You can just

see guys he didn't get enough credit for kind of landing on strickland strickland's a hard guy to hit you know he's very elusive people don't really i mean i think they they think of the alex perera knockout and they're like oh well he's you know he could be knocked out learned from that he learned from that and he doesn't get hit that is he could barely find him you know it's like but you could see the dracus could he could hit him and that so to me I was like it's just you know it's it's been it's fun to watch because he's adapting I think in real time as he's fighting an opponent I think he also game plans really well but I think he's he's able to kind of say I know it's going to work here you know or whatever it is he always has a plan he's fluid with his plan a plan b's and plan c's you know some people don't even have

a plan B. And I think that that just, it just shows, man. I think there's just more to him than people wanted to realize coming into this fight. Do you think, as a guy who analyzes fights, when you're watching him, especially against Brunson, because I remember it looked like, he looked like, I always say, he looked like a toddler who got hit and got activated. And he's like coming down a hill because he was just forward, forward, forward, chasing him around. Do you think there's been an evolution in that? Or do you think there's like when he's in those moments where he's just kind of charging forward, where he's fully in control of himself?

That's a great question. Honestly, okay, so heading into the Whitaker fight, I was definitely on, who is this? This goofball is going to get corrected here? And then he goes and stops Whitaker, and I was like, okay, well, it's time to rethink everything you thought about this. And then again, you still see some of these things where he's lunging and off balance. Like, for example, there was a takedown, I think the takedown in the second round. He just kind of falls on the legs of Izzy, and it works. And it's like, here's my response to people who say that.

Like, is that the technical way to take somebody down? No, it is not. My response would be, do you think that's the first time he's ever tried that? No. Right. I guarantee he has tried this kind of lunging, using his weight, using his physicality, where to wrap exactly to take him down he is very very physically strong and imposing but then finds ways with his own dynamism whatever you want to call it to make it work and honestly we've seen this in ufc before it's very very different there's many differences but tim sylvia

tim sylvia was a heavyweight champion now he was huge and he had a number of advantages both in terms of his reach and his height he was hard to hit and he was not dracus is actually a very good athlete but he was he tim silvia a little bit goofy but dude this guy knocked out rico rodriguez he became a champion he was actually actually beat some good guys along the way imagine if he was actually athletic i know And now what you can do when you're decently well-rounded, Drikus to me feels like a very, very, very, very improved version of what Tim Sylvia was trying to be. Does that make sense?

I think it's also just, you know, for him to be, his natural way of being may just look awkward to us. Like it may just look awkward to aesthetics that are common in the fight game, right? Like he just does things a little differently that first takedown attempt it looked like he tripped it wasn't what the case it kind of goes to your point what you're just saying like it looked like he kind of tripped and fell into his legs he didn't complete the takedown but it looked like he just fell onto his legs in that one too very strange but I think that's kind of just who he is that's his that's his range of. I'm always a little hesitant to talk about Tim Sylvia

because I did a piece where I quoted Monty Cox, you know, his old man. I quoted Monty Cox. He was like, my big piece of shit is now the champion of the UFC. He was quoting like back in the day his thoughts when he became a champion, and they used it as a pull quote in a piece I wrote, and Tim Sylvia saw it and got all pissed. He thought I – I'm like, that's a pull quote from your own guy.

I didn't say that, you know, but he wanted to, he wanted to beat me up. I still like my chances against him, but, but he wanted to beat me up at that time. Well, that's very common among fighters. They have, they're not known as the least sensitive group that's ever been, but okay. Nevertheless, as he indicated to me, the big takeaway, just being that like, if Dracus probably will continue to have doubters, especially if he goes up to a five, which we'll talk about in just a minute. But I feel like this fight really solidified the end of he's just lucking his way through this. Like you don't get this far lucking your way through this.

By the way, he's been enjoying the victory lap here. I want to post if we can. Yeah, he is. The tweet he sent to Drake. Drake, the rapper who's been getting his ass handed to him. victory lap here i want to post if we can long on yeah he is the tweet he sent to drake drake the rapper who's been getting his ass handed to him he drake had i think bet like something like 500 grand some enormous what was it long on luke god i don't even know i want to say 500 yeah some some enormous amount of money and afterwards he sent him a text saying from the bottom of my heart

once again thank you in all caps drake oh my god uh by the way went after brendan shop sent him a text saying, from the bottom of my heart, once again, thank you in all caps, Drake. Oh, my God. By the way, went after Brendan Schaub, sent him a couple of tweets calling him nasty things. Then today, went after Darren Till, called him a bunch of names. I saw that one. And went after Steve Erseg, calling him a six out of ten because that's what Erseg had called him ahead of time. Do you like Victory lap Drikus? How do you feel about it?

Dude, I love it, man. I mean, come on. He's weirdly good at this. Like, he's weirdly good at harnessing his grudges. Strickland was crying. Izzy was very good. He was very emotional. Like, there's something about what Drikus does that doesn't immediately pop off.

But then you look at the outcomes, and you're like, Jesus Christ. He gets under people's skins. Like, I love it, man.'s that's part of it right like if anybody ever snuck up into a position it was him like i don't think we fully understood who draco stu plus he was as he kind of came into the limelight and especially as he's you know wins the title and all this so he's still kind of showing off like who he is he's still kind of peeling back the layers it's a lot of fun man i love a guy like this i love a guy who's like the fight game needs that sort of thing. I think it makes it better, you know, when a guy's like doing this kind of victory lap

and he's like rubbing it in people's faces. It shows a personality. You got to kind of understand the subtleties within his personality, but he is certainly starting to come into that light. I think in the lead up to this fight, it was a little bit weird, right? Because you thought there was going to be huge bad blood between these guys that's what they were kind of promoting it as like these guys hate each other for reasons you know of the african thing but obviously like we know that the the broader implications of what was going on we didn't know if it was going to turn really really crazy it really didn't and

part of that i think was because of duplessy just i don't know if he wants to actually play the certain games he likes to play a mind game but it's not like that exactly so i just feel like we're learning about a man and it's it's been kind of fun i have to say like drickus fights are you bored you're never bored i've never seen i guess the strickland fight is one that you could maybe make the argument but that's like absent that where you have a very unique style that's sean strickland is the king of trench warfare right where we're putting up a line and i have a lob and then you lob then i lob then you lob you have to kind of count right got the most lobs at the end but short of that look at dracus fights and sometimes again he's pulling darren till right on top of him okay fair enough but

they're not short on calamity they're not short on action feels like you know it feels reckless and it also he initiates contact right like i feel like he he's not a guy like if he got the wrong matchup where they're just gonna patty cake through five rounds i just don't feel like he'll ever do no i feel like he's going to he would initiate action at some point and probably very early in that he never is in a place where he's like okay this is good enough yeah he's always in a place like okay that's good can we get more can we get more can we get more and dude he just fucking knocks on the door what's his name still knocks still knocks he's still fucking knocking at the door that's what he does now you brought up something about the bad blood there was an interesting

moment after the fight if we can long island luke where the families met and izzy was given this uh kind of jacket i think it's got some relationship to South Africa. I'm not exactly sure. I don't really know. But it was certainly a gift to a rival, to an opponent, to a former champion. And I got a question about this. Does it warm your heart to see stuff like this? I will say this about the fight game.

How sincere this stuff is, you never know. Could be, couldn't be. You can decide. But my view on this is I saw some real cynical takes on this. And my view is, and here he is, I think he was trying to make amends with the parents about not really knowing their story and everything. Because there was a lot about like, oh, they had servants growing up. And I'm like, have you guys been to the developed world? That is in no way rare whatsoever.

But okay, I don't even want to litigate it. The question I had for you was, I actually really like these. Again, not because I necessarily think that they are always sincere. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. However, the fight game has very few feel-good rituals where a winner tries to humble himself before the loser.

Yeah. I actually feel like we should protect those traditions, and we should be glad about them. I'm always so torn on this thing. Really? Well, no, not that specifically. But, like, I can't get enough of guys who hate each other either. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I love that aspect of it. Even after the fight? Well, I can appreciate when they do this. I think there is, like, this human moment where you're like, okay, the competition is over. They can shake hands. They can be buddies. I'm okay with it. But I also like it when the bad blood just rolls on because it's the fight game and it's like.

Chuck woke up and chose violence. But it's like, you know, it all leads. The greatest thing was like in other sports, you know, the ball is a metaphor. They're just going to go compete against each other and try, you know, it all leads. The greatest thing was like in other sports, you know, the balls, the metaphor, they're just going to go compete against each other and try, you know, shoot baskets or whatever. But in this sport, they're going to punch each other. And I always, there's something about it that revs up in its most literal form when they

just can't stand each other. Dude, I told you, I talked to this guy who wrestled D1. He made this point to me years and years and years ago. And he was all, he always found it funny. He was like, dude, after a wrestling match, we're talking like d1 penn state oklahoma state you know two national champions facing off to see what happens like whatever who even if it's a pin or a close doesn't matter they'll shake hands but it will be the most reluctant handshake of all time right he goes in mma you'll get two former wrestlers who beat the shit out of each other and then they'll embrace

right they'll embrace, right. They'll have the spiritual experience. There is something different about hitting one another that the other sports cannot replicate. That forces some of these traditions actually really kind of like this. And there is, and I can, and,

and, you know, to evolve that you're like, there is a brotherhood to have and went to war. Like if we fought afterwards, you'd be like, well, we're always going to share that.

The two guys, the two guys in the ambulance, both in their gurneys and all that, that stuff is very cool because you know, you have something now in history books with this guy you went to war with him i i can appreciate that sort of thing and i think that i could appreciate what was happening in this too because the bad blood was just so um it had the potential to be really ugly and i'm glad it didn't get there to be honest but there was a part of me too that was like i wanted to believe that there was going to be lingering bad blood it's just it's just part of the way it you think of the fight

game you know there's a conversation we're going to have in just a minute about what should be next for ddp but before we do that we do have to talk about israel adesanya adesanya adesanya i don't know anymore i literally do not know is he is he how did he look to you he looked okay so it's kind of a complicated question because if you compare him straight up to his hungriest his rawest like when he was lifting his leg and spraying you know and beating guys like what was that like when he was doing all that stuff and coming up it just looked to me like he was not going to be denied this was a hungry guy who um you could tell was kind of bookmarked like he was going to be in big moments and he was going to thrive in them. And I think we saw that through the course of his run,

all of his title defenses, something's happened. I'm not sure what, but I just don't feel like he has that whole thing in him anymore. Sometimes you think what's because he's evolved as a human being, like he's just sees the world differently, but you get the sense that he's kind of revving. He's trying to rev himself back into that, but it's maybe not clicking like it did.

It's just I didn't feel like he was fully that same dog, man. There's just something about it. I just didn't feel like he was fully himself in that fight. I think he exercised a lot of demons knocking out Poiton, and I don't think he's been the same sense personally. I think that that was such a landmark achievement in his career that, I mean, let's actually back up a step. Like, let me tell you how I think he looked.

Okay. I actually thought he looked physically prepared, right? I thought he looked in shape. He did not look in any way out of shape. He was breathing through his nose well into the fourth round, which is very, very difficult to do, right? So I thought he was breathing through his nose well into the fourth round which is very very difficult to do right so i thought he was like engaged he looked pretty good does he look a step slower physically at 35 than he did at 31 32 yes of course but i didn't did you very quickly did he look washed to you no i did not get the sense no no i had people being like

i thought he was going to win by the third round on i was like he's going to win the fight and he was he looked like he may have been on his way one never knows but he looked like he was he performed quite ably i think is the way i would put that but in in retrospect and watching it again i got the sense that this is a guy that has i mean heading into this contest whether he won or whether he lost it didn't matter he's still the second best middleweight of all time right nothing changes from that even if he had beaten drick is now if he got in the belt a third time he enters some kind of different history and it creates different opportunities but it didn't really change his place at middleweight he has achieved so much and then you add in that crowning achievement

over poetine and then add on top of that that he's 35 years of age. He has well over 100 combat sports professional fights. Crazy, man. You saw him in glory back in the day, right? Before I even knew who he was. And the last thing I want to say is, dude, the fact that afterwards, this guy who has been full of vinegar and piss and motivation and hunger and drive seemed to be okay with the, is incomprehensible to the other version. And I want to be clear, I am not in any way trying to be insulting. I am not. What I am saying is, even the guys who are this good, they have expiration dates.

And I don't know whether he knows it, but I feel like watching from afar, Chuck, I feel like he has entered a different phase of his life and i don't know if fighting should be a part of it anymore what else is there left to do and if you don't have that hunger and you're this age that's the whole thing what are we what are we doing here it's kind of like uh something about his easy resolve with it that was weird it was too easy i know it was too easy he was way way too accommodating. Yeah. And also like, you know, even the even the words he was using, you know, through his run had such gravity. Right. Like he was saying things differently, seeing things differently. And he was even saying, like, I manifested this, you know, after this, he was like, I didn't manifest this, which is this weird thing that you're almost like it's just so out of the personality of this alpha dog that you've known for so long. Like now there's almost a comic undertone to it or something. And I'm like,

I don't know. It just, I, I, I think you're dead on right though with the Poeton thing, because we had this discussion. And in fact, I sometimes think he took this discussion because we had a discussion about whose story is it?

Remember whose story is ultimately whose story is he kind of has been talking about that since then. He's been like, whose story is it? Remember? Whose story is this? Ultimately, whose story is it? He kind of has been talking about that since then. He's been like, whose story? It's my story. It's my story now. And I have no idea if he actually got it from watching our show. It is very possible. It is possible, though.

And I was like, because it became like such a chief part of his narrative about reclaiming his story, an identity thing, you know. And he was even saying it going into this one. And I think that that Poiton thing, because it got so crazy. He's 0-3, basically, if you go back to the kickboxing. He's going in that last fight. It got so crazy for him that he was being erased because this guy was the bane of his existence

coming to take everything from him, and all of a sudden, he knocks him out. I do think you're right. I think that that was kind of like the peak you were going to see, and I thought that was some of the most OG stuff I'd to see. And I thought that was the, you know, some of the most OG stuff I'd ever seen when he did that. And he shot him with the arrows and all the way he talked.

It was so good. And I feel like now kind of looking at it, that that was probably the peak of what we got from his year off. How can you do that and then at 35 with a year off reclaim that fire? I just don't know if that's possible. Now he was asked at the Post Fight Press Conference to assess his own performance long on Luke. This is the one where he says I was winning basically until I wasn't right.

We'll see what he says. I'm more happy with this fight than my last fight because again, I performed. I showcased myself. I felt great man. I felt great. So again, I wasn't really like I said, I wasn't hanging on the result. I just wanted to showcase myself. And I felt like I did that tonight. I was, in my eyes, I was winning the fight until I wasn't.

So yeah, as long as I performed, I made myself proud. I just don't like the result. But again, I'm not hanging on the result. I'm just proud of with what i with how i performed it reminds me of this quote from sean connery ever seen the movie the rock in 1996 and uh nicholas cage turns to him and goes i'll do my best and he turns around he goes your best your best he goes uh what did he say he goes pretty good he says um he goes uh i forget exactly how he said it but his point is your best is one thing he goes winners go home and fuck the prom queen and he

goes carla was the prom dude that's hilarious you know max brados yes i love it so max like next time you run across him ask him to do a shank he ran into him on the golf course it's just funny yours is pretty damn good but he's got a funny one too so but my point being is i understand what he's saying yeah he he didn't even look like himself against strickland he wanted to erase that and he didn't want to hang on the result like all of this is emotionally stable what i'm trying to make is that's an adult thing to say right that's a rational thing to say that's a smart thing to say that's not necessarily great for competing right that's where i'm at no i agree with you 100 that's what i'm saying like those those that kind of stuff like you use the word inconceivable i think that that's you if you were comparing it to the guy who

was making his run and just the way he looked at the fight game the way he looked at um almost like a primal way of looking at fighting where he was going to go in there and you were trying to take steel from his plate you know it's it's come a long ways from there so i think that at this point i don't know if we get that izzy back i think that people are clinging to him because i think that people you can tell me what you think in the canon of is he you know is is he one of those guys who um his legacy is like his legacy is certainly secure but is he one of those guys that we're always going to be legacy is certainly secure but is he one of those guys that we're always going to be talking about like what are the greats it's a tough one because i don't think he ever i think that this fight solidified maybe the strickland one first

that he's not a generational like generational fighter because you look at guys like anderson silva 16 and 0 in the ufc to start um 10 title defenses he was was 38, I think, when he lost to Chris Weidman. 38. Like, imagine going that long. Like, that's, when you compare it, right, even though I think Izzy's strength of schedule is harder, but if you compare those things, you're like, that's more like generational stuff.

That's the stuff that you'll always talk about until somebody's able to duplicate it. I don't think Izzy quite got there. I guess it will depend how long him being number two in terms of the best middleweights lasts. If that ends up being quite lasting, I think you could be wrong. On the other hand, if Dracus keeps winning and he beats those records, yeah, it probably will be quite ephemeral. By the way, here's the quote.

You're bashed. You're bashed. Losers always whine about their bashed. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen. There you go. It's the worst Sean Connery impression you've ever heard now you have the like the or whatever that yeah last bit on this izzy is actually asked about drichus and how he feels about him this is what he says i'm sure losing to this guy stings a little bit more than than you know they maybe normally would yeah

how desperate are you to get this one back and how are you going to carry that disappointment moving forward i'm not really desperate to get it back i haven't like he gave me a lot of respect in there and i gave him his respect back and i already knew he was a fan of me i knew he's a fan of me but i guess now i'm a fan of his because we've been in there we've done it and when i'm in south africa i'll tap in with him but i said look we can hang out but just so you know when we have to fight again i'm gonna kill you he's like i'm gonna kill you too so yeah it's always it's the respect is always there and dracus is an african champion but you know the three kings will reign supreme that era right there was what set this off for people like him.

And he's gonna inspire another generation of African fighters as well. So congrats to him tonight. Yeah, till we meet again. There's actually a significant amount of truth to this. Yeah. Obviously, Drakus' career was already in motion before any of those the three the original three kings Kamaru Usman Francis Ngannou and Izzy were champions but yes I know sorry Francis never heard of this guy before but um the reality is and I'll tell the

truth about this and people should really understand this one of the hotbeds in African MMA has been for quite some time South Africa they have had something of a local scene there and guys have come out of it. PFL has Don Madge. Trevor Prangley came out of South Africa a long time ago. Remember Trevor Prangley versus Yuki Kondo. And then everyone was shouting USA, USA. I'm like,

he's South African. You fucks, you fucking morons. This was in the United States. But the point I'm trying to make is he is the culmination of that. But I do believe that those guys becoming champion, now Drik is becoming champion, it does shine a light on, I think,

a very underserved world in professional mixed martial arts. Yeah, 100%. And I pointed this out when we were doing the other show, the Ringer Show. They've been talking about South Africa, the ufc for years i i remember this so specifically there was you know it was almost like the dallas when are you going to go to dallas cowboy stadium there were somebody was always asking when are you guys going to go to south africa you know and i remember mike strokka of all people saying something to dana this had

to have been 10 years ago like hey are the plans for south africa going to happen this is like probably 2012 you know and he's like i you know within the year he was basically pointing out that they wanted to get there within the next year so look at that it's just crazy that we're in 2024 and still um they haven't really made headway over there even though like you mentioned there are fighters coming from over now they got a champion from over there drick is deserves a fight and he does 100 if they're ever going to do it it it would be now. This is now.

He beat two of the best guys of the last 10 years, finished them both. Drikus Duplicy deserves a fight in South Africa. I was thinking about that, too. That gauntlet, right? You look at anybody's path through this, but to go through Whitaker, Strickland, and now Izzy, that's a hard three-pack right there. Most times, you know, you're looking at these and you're like, well, you got one guy that was kind of a gimme in there.

These were all fights I think most people thought he might lose, you know, and he's won them all. So, I mean, like, he's a deserving champion, and I hope they do celebrate him that way. All right, speaking about what's next, let's go to question number two. Chuck, a very simple one. Now that Drikus is, in fact, your champion, the question becomes, well, then what and who is next?

Now, UFC president Dana White has said it's going to be Sean Strickland, but we don't really have any announcement or any great assurances of that. There is some talk, obviously, this upcoming bout and rematch or rebooked fight anyway between Robert Whitaker and Hamzat Shumayev. There is also the Alex Pareda equation, Poetan tweeting that he would, or at least putting on social media, that he'd be willing to go,

do we have that graphic? That he'd be willing to go down to 185 again. I love this dude. And this was, I think him trying to flex. That's the happiest I've ever seen him look by the way. Yeah, I know. I mean, this is him jizzing. Look at that, look at that.

Look at his orgasm face. Just absolute DMV photo time. Okay. We can get to the 205 part here a little bit first. Assuming it is a 185 title fight, Chuck, what makes the most sense for him and 185? I would have a hard time saying that Whitaker shouldn't have. But it's weird, right? Because you have to.

This is one of those conditional things. He has a fight coming up in Abu Dhabi. We think, I feel like this is a hypothetical fight until you actually see Shamayev and, and Whitaker actually fight. But I would have a hard time telling Whitaker who has only lost to Izzy and Du Plessis, right?

Over the course of 10 years. That's the only guys he's lost to. And he's fought everybody else and he's beat him. I'd have a hard time saying to him, you don't get it if he beats Shamaya. The only problem is I don't know if the UFC will want, I don't know their schedule. It sometimes feels like they want guys to be more active. They might want Du Plessis to be like in there beforehand. Maybe they don't want to wait that timetable out.

In that case, they've already kind of promised Strickland. I don't really love it. Like, I don't really need to. You tell me. Do you want to see that rematch right away? I feel like it wouldn't have the pop that some of these other fights, potential fights could do. So this question is uniquely interesting because it is like the most

what choice do you make among MMA choices ever because if we're just looking meritocratically I do believe that Sean Strickland deserves a rematch I really really do however that fight is going to be not great in all likelihood in all likelihood it'll be boring and I feel like that factors in so much to their decision but and also if Hamzat Shamayev wins and let's's say blows, I don't think he will, but let's say he blows the doors of Robert Whittaker. Dude. Fresh matchup. Somebody that the UFC has been waiting to kind of turn.

Sure. Or, let's say Robert Whittaker goes in there and does to Hamzat what he did to Igrimala Skerov. You're like, dude, I mean, this is an easy call. Yeah. So, I don't know. What matters to you more the entertainment kind of freshness value or hey this guy is clearly the most deserving yeah and i mean and honestly like either it shemayev winning would that make him the most deserving i guess because he's going

through whittaker it would not make him the most right but they make him the most attractive at least you would have the argument right like but i do think that whittaker have you know if he beats your mind i mean like he'd be hard to deny that's the one that's the one thing i'd say like he would deserve it above everybody else um i do think like strickland probably has the inside track on it it would make no sense right now for duplessy to fight alex perot who also has a fight coming up anyway but it would make very little sense for them to fight like you have got like you're the new champion you don't need a guy to come back from another division to fight you right now or you don't need to jump up in a division plant that for later though because that is kind of a fun idea you know it's a fight that we haven't really contemplated until just all of a

sudden Saturday night you know so I feel like uh it's a fun place to be I think that so many of us I don't know how you were thinking of it, I was almost contemplating almost exclusively the Izzy side of the coin going into this fight. You're like, well, what happens? Does Izzy fight this or does he do this? And all of a sudden it's du plus C and it kind of opens things up. Whitaker, especially though, I think is like,

he's kind of like that Max Holloway situation where it's like now he has a clearing. He has a clearing back to a title fight right and i feel like that's important for a guy who is still there like he's still that good but he was never going i didn't feel like he was ever going to get it again with izzy it would had to be you know it's going to have to be extraordinary circumstances for him to actually fight izzy again so he's got that path at least back to it i'll say this too even if whittaker wins i mean it goes back to this question and like what is the ufc value they typically don't value people sitting out and

waiting yeah not sometimes that's not true sometimes like for example dana white has already said we're going to give it to strickland but they always favor the person who elects to stand up and then take the thing and then do them a solid they always kind of tend to favor that except for tom aspinall in the john jones situation but yes which is the most what the fuck are they doing situation I've ever fucking seen. It makes no sense, man. It is. I mean, I don't know what compromise that Jon Jones has on Dana White for this to be the case.

But the point I'm trying to make here is one thing to really consider is we didn't think about DDP versus Poetan. I want to talk about it in just a second. Something else that I felt like after Saturday was, hey, listen, if Whitaker goes in there and blows the doors off Hamzat, maybe he should be the guy. Do I really believe in his chances against DDP? I got to tell you, I'm not sure I do anymore. I really, even after, I know he got finished,

and you're like, oh, that's enough evidence. But, like, finishing him, beating Strickland, close, but beating Strickland, finishing Izzy, I'm like, can Whitaker even get this job done? I don't even, I don't know. I really don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. And it's crazy because, like I said, he has been nothing but good.

But he didn't, I mean, he got beat pretty badly in that Duplessi fight. So it's like, in a weird way, you're like, if you're looking at a rematch, it's the same thing. I think that you might, if you held them both up, rematches, I think the Strickland one would present more danger to him you know to Duplessis don't you agree I think if you looked at him in prospect you'd be like well danger I don't know but like at risk of losing yeah well that's what I

meant like risk of losing like I think that that would be the fight that would probably have the line like the you know the odds line closest because it would be hard to predict. Excuse me. One other thing I want to point out here. This was a little bit true of Izzy. Not quite

but a little bit true. It was a lot true but it's even more true about Drikus. When Izzy was coming up and he was beating the Rob Wilkinsons and then Brad Tavares of the world. There were lots of people being like this guy's a fucking bum. He's going he's gonna I mean he's gonna get exposed and then he just kept winning all the way to a title Drikus has kind of benefited a little bit because people

including me I did it well well into the Whitaker fight I've since learned my lesson but heading into that Whitaker fight I'm like this fucking guy all right he's big and strong but whatever right right and so I don't think people have taken him seriously. But now that people are kind of forced to contend with that, that he is this guy, I think there's going to be a lot more examination about the details of his game and a lot more examination about the mechanics of why, and the realities about why he wins. And that's going to put a target on his back in a way where now you're going to

really see him audited, maybe not by the best competition. There's a debate about that. But I just want to point that out like he has benefited from the fact like oh that goofball i know he ain't gonna do shit and then he just now he's here you're like well maybe he's not a fucking goofball anymore you know and i mean you know how you know revisionist mma audience is like if he were to lose the next one you know whoever he fights he just loses maybe he gets knocked out i think people would actually go back to that a little bit they would 100 go back especially came in kind of charging and the thing we're talking about and boom he gets hit and just collapses i mean people would be like well he's reckless he got by with it for a while you know

yeah you know that's gonna happen if he if he gets knocked out i actually love the idea of him fighting poet on i actually think it's a very compelling fight. Let's talk about that. Drikus spoke to the media about this very question, about whether he would fight him, and if so, at what weight class. This is what he said. Obviously, I know Dana White said that Sean Strickland deserves the next title shot, but I don't know if you saw that Alex Pereira posted that he wants to drop back down the middle

way too. He was sitting in front of you getting the belt tonight. What do you want next for your career? Yeah, what I want next is whatever they give me. I have to be honest. You know, I honestly don't think Alex Pereira should drop down to 185. If he wants to, great, perfect. But then we're going to hear the excuses.

I saw what we saw. Is he stiff? That man in the first round? I felt easy. Sponging power tonight. If that, you know, easy as great timing.

He's fast. He's long. And he has great combinations, but I felt the power. If he's stiff, if he puts you stiffens you like that you do not want to be in there with me especially not when you're going to come

in there with the excuses, no I cut too much weight that's going to happen, everybody's going to say that stay at 205, fight your fight against the number 7 ranked guy oh number 8, okay cool fight your fight there and enjoy it let me I mean if Str your fight there and enjoy it.

Let me, I mean, if Strickland's the next fight, the people want to see that fight. That's the fight that people want to see. And that's the fight right now that people think is the next best guy. Then it's the fight that I want. So let me handle my business. You handle your business. You don't have to cut the weight so you have some sort of excuse.

I'll come up after the Strickland fight. I'll come up to 205 and we'll sort it out then gotta tell you so much to love gotta tell you i love the idea of drichus at 205 and i'm i'm not i'm not making any predictions right now i'd have to think about if they ever made it about who would win do i think that drichus can beat poetan at 205 i absolutely do think he could I absolutely think he could guys look at how physical he is you're gonna give him 20 you're gonna bump him up 20 pounds and I'm sorry but Poiton's wrestling is extremely untested true this guy I think the UFC prefers it that way yeah I think that they do we'll have a conversation about that later but I'm just pointing out like this idea like yeah on feet, might he get thumped?

Yeah, he might get thumped. Yeah. But the well-roundedness, the physicality of the- Exactly. It is so fucking dumb to keep dismissing this guy. Dude, it's- But the greatest thing, too, is we were talking about him kind of psychologically steering things. He just did it.

You're just watching him do it in real time. If you're going to get under somebody's skin and really plant the seeds for something,'s the way to do it right like he was doing that's pretty masterful off go fight your number seven oh sorry we're hearing it's actually number eight oh i love it even better i love it this guy is amazing yeah it's very subtly like just jabbing even when he's you know it's just he's he's always doing that by the way we we got to get to something else here i just want to bring this up long island luke did you see the fucking cornermen that Drickus brought to the cage on Saturday? Yes, the rugby guys, they were huge. So I want you to Google this while I do this DK read.

There was two guys. One was a black guy, one was a white guy. I don't know who they are, but I know the white guy's name. He was the biggest of the two. His name is Etzebeth something. E-T-Z-E Beth, B-E-T-H. I looked this guy's stats up. He's six foot nine.

Dude, these countries that are good at rugby and the guys who would play in our NBA or NFL, they put them into the fucking rugby pipeline. They are the most intimidating motherfuckers. I saw them, man. They were doing fist poses and they looked like Drikus was a Make-A-Wish kid next to a real professional athlete. They would never be able to cut down to 265. I was like, who the fuck is this guy? Do you have a picture of him?

You getting it? Yeah, I'll get it in a sec. All right, let me do this read, then, if we can here very quickly. By the way, just want everyone to know, this show airs on the DraftKings network uh every Monday I believe at 5 p.m so shouts to DraftKings and the DraftKings network and I also also want to say in a world of slot reels and blackjack deals Chuck Mendenhall comes the must play event of the summer from DraftKings casino featuring non-stop action and an all-star cast of games including A-Lister, Loki's Luck, the summer blockbuster is the one you don't want to miss.

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$1 wager to earn $100 in non-withdrawable casino credits that expire in 168 hours. Terms at casino.draftkings.com slash blockbuster. You know, I get triggered when I say the word showtime because it the death of showtime changed my life in ways that i've i've yet to recover from those yes uh do you have that picture yet he's getting it up give me a couple minutes i'll give you a couple of minutes um okay chuck with that in mind then let's do this here i'm gonna get my notes back up because i had to change everything god damn it all right let's talk about uh the co-main event here if we can just a little bit all right uh and then we'll get to this picture of this guy all right let right, let's talk about the co-main event here, if we can, just a little bit. All right.

And then we'll get to this picture of this guy. All right, let's do topic number three. Kaikara France, Chuck, blew the goddamn doors off of Steve Erseg. After a long layoff, he had concussion issues. Remember, he was supposed to fight Manil Cobb. Yeah. And that whole thing. It was, of course, in Saturday's co-main event.

There is not a ton of discussion to be had about the flyweight division, but there is some, so we should have it, which is, does this make Kaikara France the prohibitive next title contender at 125? I thought it was a great performance. That's okay. Now you're looking at, like, you're doing the MMA math, where you're like, well, Ursaic just got a shot after three fights in the UFC, gets one knockout over Schnell, and ends up fighting Pantoja for the belt in Brazil well you just beat the guy

you know what I mean like you beat Ursaic who was put in that spot in some way you're like that makes sense even though he had a couple losses one of them was a split decision but he had a couple losses um before this meaning Kaikara France i think a name value and this this division to me than any other division feels like such a dealer's choice it just whoever the ufc kind of wants to go with you know it's like i feel like you can throw the dealer's choice all the time you know it's you're right it's more and more so like more so in this division this division i feel like we could you know we could say all this stuff and they'll pick the eighth guy like the eighth ring guy and throw him in there and you're like oh i guess that's who they're going with like ursa made

no sense for the title shot. They just needed an event. And it's kind of strange because this thing to me always ties into you have Al-Bazi, but you have guys like Mohamed, right, like Makaev, and he was out there as a young guy that had a name and at least a little buzz, but he's now not even in this running. And if you take all that into account, I'm like, well, Kaikara France has a name. He has some big wins in his career.

I think that you could look at him and say, like, yes, it's justifiable to put him into that, especially after this performance. I wasn't sure how that fight would look. I thought Erceg, because he's a really good counter puncher, and once he kind of dials in, he's a, he's very precise striker that might pay dividends, but he took all of that out of it, man. He looked,

he looked like a buzzsaw in there. I mean, just look at these rankings, right? Which I don't know what the value of them is anymore, but they provide at least some kind of arrangement. Yeah. So you've got Pantoja as the champion.

He's looking for someone. They gave Ursa that fight. I mean, I can just tell you, they gave her a fight because they were, they were desperate for someone to headline. So they needed that. That's why he got it.

Not that he's not good. Even with this loss, he's still quite good. But obviously, that was why they did it. Okay, so number one ranked contender is Brendan Royville. We've already been there. He could get back there, but he would not be the obvious one. Then there's Brendan Moreno. Similar kind of situation.

And taking time off, right? Exactly. Which he needed to. I don't have any objections with that. Three is Amir El-Bazi.azi now that to me is the interesting one he's been off for some time so I don't know exactly what his availability is but he would be a very viable candidate and I think he has the victory right over Kaikara France so you could if you're doing it in any kind of logical way you'd look at that al-bazi's legit yeah then there's Kaikara France France whatever and then below that you got him coming up in a fight. Tetsuro Taira's got a fight coming up.

Then there's Perez, Ursa, Nicolau, Kopp, and Tim Elliott. Okay. It has to be Kaikara France. I think so. It has to be. Who else would it even be at this point? I mean, was Pantoja kind of teasing out? Oh, he's got the picture.

Was he teasing out, though? Real quick, was he teasing out that he had a special, like there was going to be an announcement about his fight? My son had brought this up, and I'm not 100% sure if it's accurate. I don't recall. But I was like, unless they have like an ace up their sleeve, and I don't know what that would be. Who would it be?

Like they're bringing back Demetrius Johnson or something. But I'm like, unless they're going to do something drastic from the outside that we can't see, I think Kaikara France makes the most sense. What went wrong for Steve Ursaic on Saturday? Part of it, man, is he's one of those guys that I think the title shot actually kind of detoured a natural trajectory for him. Oh my God, I'm so glad you said this.

Go ahead, please. No, seriously. I think it threw him into a situation that was big and he had to kind of... I mean, there were whole promo packages they were putting together to familiarize the audience to Steve Herstig. And it was just one of these weird things.

That was a tough gig. But now it was three months later, three and a half months later, he shows up in a still a very escalated kind of way against a guy like Carcaro France, not getting a, like a soft landing here. Like he had to fight a guy who um is very good and has tons of veteran experience and it kind of showed man and i'm not sure if it's just that he was too you know overwhelmed he's like this is all he's drinking out of the fire hose or whatever that old proverb is like i don't know sure it's something like that where it's just it's all

coming so fast but he looked like you know he just he was he was kind of starting to dial in with the striking a little bit but just looked like he was overmatched overall. It just looked like he was, he wasn't going to be able to hang long-term in that fight. I had a bit of a different read, which was, I fully agree. First of all, the Pantoja fight was brutal, and it was only three months ago. People forget that. It was late May. I know.

A little more than three. Yeah, 301. Basically, let's see. So there's end of June, end of July, end of August. Yeah, basically three fucking months for a brutal fight. That is a very quick turnaround. So I didn't like that at all. The other part, though, is he he was still he's a very talented guy.

And I do still think he has very, very good boxing. Yeah. But if you mess up somebody's, to your point, natural order of development, it causes all kinds of downstream problems. He was backing up straight. I'm not going to say his head was super high up, but his hand was kind of loose here. And Kai Karfrance is just going to feast on a guy like that. That is a technical level error that he should not be making, backing up straight with his hands, not in a proper position. It was a hell of a knockout.

Because your momentum is carrying you backwards. He stepped on his foot, too. Which is a common thing yeah but i mean the point being is like look at the optics of it where you're flying back and then your head rattles when you go back like that just a really really kind of terrible moment if i were him you had two tough ass fights these are not bad fighters he lost to he lost to good fighters however it's time for a timeout i would not touch the octagon the rest of the year. I agree with you 100%. And probably not until even second quarter of 2025. Oceania has really kind of taken it on the chin recently.

Like, we were talking. Well, it was a Kiwi fighter who won. I mean. Well, true. But, I mean, like, in terms of, you know, you're just thinking about some of the prospects from the area and the former champions. You know, Izzy, Volk, and Urseg.

Like, guys who are either right you know what I mean yeah because for just a minute it was just a you know hot white flame coming off of there like everybody seemed like they're winning and we're spotlighting them so so huge you know although I will say between um ADCC and cji Australia and uh in particular New Zealand had a lot of very, very good competitors. We have that picture. So what's this dude's name? This is this was the guy that was in Dracus's corner.

His name is Etzabeth. Look at the fucking size of this mutant. That's crazy, man. Dude, this guy plays fucking rugby. Can you imagine him running downhill on you? What the fuck? You don't want to mess with his camp. You know what I mean?

Like, look at that. Look at these guys. Look at the size of his fist. Dude, it's almost as big as Dracus' big-ass melon. Is that not insane? Long Island Luke, are you not just blown away by the size of this freak? Yeah, dude, I was marveling at him over the weekend. The dude is a freaking nation. I feel like Deuce Bigelow, male gigolo,

that's a huge bitch. Is this guy legit training with him? I don't know. So these guys... Or is this just like security detail? So the national rugby team of South Africa, they're called the Springboks. You might have seen that movie Invincible with Matt Damon.

No, I haven't seen that. Where Matt Damon has to play a guy from South Africa. It's a fine movie, I guess. You're on a plane. Up there with the Phantom Menace. Well, the Phantom Menace is... The Phantom Menace is... It's for the stupidest people alive.

That's who it's for. I love it. Dude, the Phantom Menace is a litmus test. Are you, do you have traumatic brain injury or do you not? That's really the only lesson that you can take from that. That black and white. Have you seen that movie? I have seen it.

It's the worst fucking movie ever made. It's the worst fucking movie. Jar Jar saves it, but yeah, I get what you're saying. Jar Jar saves it? I'm kidding. I want to fucking drown him with two hands. But the point I'm trying to make here is um i guess the spring box had beaten uh the the what's the australian team the wallabies oh yeah i should know this but uh that's the one that uh yeah yeah isn't your fucking dad

from that country yeah but he's in he's a footy guy not a rugby guy come on from victoria big footy state new south wales is a big rugby state you know i just associate rugby with all the motherfuckers uh same anyway that put them up one more time dude look at the fucking look at the fucking lunch pail hands on this gigantic human what's his last name his first name is etzabeth what's his last name no his last name is actually etzabeth his first name is eben eden eden eben e-b-e-n even do they got weird ass names in South Africa, don't they? They got those Afrikaan names, you know what I mean? And who's the other gentleman?

He's also got a fist the size of fucking the moon. I don't know. I could find that out. He also plays on the Springboks. Okay. Or he is a Springbok, whatever the hell. But these, I mean, like, do these guys train MMA? Like, why are they just as buddies?

I mean, if they did, they'd be champions tomorrow. If you can get down to 265. Like, you're talking about a level of athlete that is absurd. They need a 315 division for that one guy. Yeah, no shit. Dude, I remember MMA, when I first started watching, I remember in Icon Sport over in Hawaii, they would have super heavyweight fights all the time.

That used to be a real division, and then they got rid of it. All right, let's get back to the rundown here very quickly if we can. Let's go to question number four here, Chuck Bendenhall. Dan Hooker, somehow, I mean, if you want to talk about the grittiest performance over the weekend, Drake has had a nice one. I think Dan Hooker had a better one in terms of the grittiness of it. He turned back the clock and beat a smothering Mateusz Gamrot. Okay. A, how surprising was this and b this is probably going to push him at or close to the top five what fight makes the

most sense let's talk about the fight in just a minute okay your reaction to him beating a guy that most of us thought was like not even remotely possible I can't even begin to understand his kind of resurrection on this. Because he lost those four out of five. And we've seen this kind of thing before with fighters who are pretty good. Maybe not great, but very good. Put on a show, and then they start losing fights. And you're like, well, this is kind of how they spiral out. Eventually, he'll just be out of the UFC.

It's like one of those type of things. I admit, I buried him. I was like, I thought he was on that track. You know, you lose this four out of five. There are very good fighters he was losing to. All of them are like huge names, you know, Islam, Poirier, you know, those types of names. But to resurrect was one thing. So kind of win a couple of fights. Okay. That's one thing. It was a nice thing. It put him back into a spot like this, but I thought this was a, this is where all of any renewed hype goes to die. You fight a guy like Gamrot, he kind of fits the trajectory

of the guys who had already beat Hooker, right? Like once he meets those guys at that level, they usually beat him. So I was kind of – if I had to have picked a lock on this card, I was going to pick Gamrot. I thought that he was that good. I thought his style would overwhelm Hooker card, I was going to pick Gamrot. I thought that he was that good. I thought his style would overwhelm Hooker. And it just didn't happen, man.

And it was kind of shocking. I think the way the fight went down, though, it's almost Poirier-esque against Benoit Saint-Denis in the sense that, you know, it looks like it's going one way. And then it starts to turn. You're like, is Hooker in this fight? You know, you're like kind of wondering, is he going to be able to turn this around he has that moment in between rounds where he's just like laughing and bleeding and saying i love this shit or whatever he's saying i mean

it's kind of an iconic turn isn't it and then he wins the fight it's it's it's funny that in a space of 15 minutes you can achieve a kind of cult status again maybe higher than he ever has in the ufc i i think that's so well stated and also for me it's like dude remember he had more than this but he's had at least two fights that were brutal oh yeah so the dustin poirier fight was brutal the edson barboza beating people forget that you had daniel cormier i believe commentating that fight begging the referee on air to stop it remember that yeah he was getting crushed and for him to still be relevant by the way not just beating a tough guy but this whole time he was like put

whoever you want in there anybody i just want to be on this card these are like a guy who's long in the two they were trying to kill him like kill him off in that sense right the guy who's long in the tooth who's had some bad beatings so you kind of feel like well we know his level it's good but you know it's it's got some limits and then i'll take a fight on short notice and then you're fighting a guy who's like the king of smothering and you fucking win it is it's like oh my god how is this even possible i will also say though you didn't have a problem though with the decision like in terms of like did you think gamrot won i know some people thought he did but listen this is this is a very close fight yeah i think you could have had it either way um i don't have i i kind of leaned a little bit more gamrot but i really have zero issue that's the way zero

issue same thing i have no problem whatsoever at all with the with the way it was run um and also like you know the the the judging in there, Ben Cartlidge was one of the judges. I think he's one of the best ones in the world, if not the best. And, you know, if you just look at his body of work, it's pretty clear that he's going to value any kind of striking damage or meaningful grappling more than just control time. But it also kind of gets to another part of the story, Chuck, which is,

Mateusz Gamrot has had a lot of these kinds of fights where he got beat up more in this one although his hands look pretty good too i thought yeah he did but he's had a lot of these ones where he like kind of eked it out or with just a little bit ahead because he's a very very dynamic wrestler but you know i'm not going to say he got his comeuppance that's that's not the right word but he might have been due for one and i want to point out something too hooker going for those guillotine chokes forcing him to go back down he didn't out wrestle gamrod but he definitely out technique right he definitely had a better answer that speaks to the judges that forces a reaction like i mean the judging was close or the the scoring was going to be close but gamrot has been kind of playing with fire finally you got a guy who

doesn't give a fuck at all and is clever is clever he had clever answers this is not the first time we've ever seen them in mma but as applied to Gamrot and he didn't really have an answer for it so weird man because Gamrot if you'd said I mean and most most predicted that you know he was going to win this fight he was a huge betting favorite but if you'd seen it if you'd seen the first round and you see Gamrot get up on the scorecards essentially you'd be like this is gonna just follow a pattern almost you know because he's that kind of fighter you know he may not finish you but he's just gonna do the the same thing he's just going to eke out the rounds like you're mentioning he'll be 30 27 it's kind of crazy that he wasn't able to do that like he was just prevented from doing that plus that crowd was nuts man like it it looked very strange it like

it looks smaller like that that arena but when he was fighting every single time hooker would throw was just like cacophony it was like boom they was just you know loud and i was like this is nuts man so it must have been like a little bit of a uh hitchcockian vertigo moment for gamrod because i think it started going south and he didn't know what to do with it like he just kind of tried to persevere probably thought he probably thought he had it but in the end man it's just that's how it goes right like close fight it goes either way. All right.

So who does he fight next? There have been a couple of names suggested. The big one was Charles Oliveira. You could do Dan Hooker versus Charles Oliveira. I'll say this. He kind of indicated in an interview with Oscar Willis from the Mac Life that there's going to be a Sydney card in February. So potentially he'll be back on there.

So you have to ask yourself, who is willing to travel to Sydney to fight Dan Hooker? I don't know the answer to that. It would have to be somebody under him then, I would think, in the rankings. Maybe, maybe. It would depend. But I'll tell you what. You could do – this is the interesting part.

He had kind of faded outside of the top, I think certainly top five. Where is he ranked right now? So Dan Hooker currently sits, as it stands this moment, Dan Hooker is sitting at number 11. So he's falling outside the top 10. As of tomorrow, though, they'll update that. I think because right now, yeah. This is the number as of still Friday, essentially.

But he's going to be back either at five or pretty close to it. Well, now you're around the Chandlers and you're around the Poiriers. Right. So you could do Poirier again. You could do Oliveira. Here's my vote. Dan Hooker, Justin Gaethje. I saw you say this

yeah where are you on this I love that fight because I think Justin Gaethje's at a part in his career that's sort of the same way like so that I mean obviously like you're looking at two guys who think differently like right just put them in front of me let's go I think they would accommodate each other 100% like Gaethje does with everybody and I think that that's that's a great Hooker fight like too like I think that it would make a lot of sense he seems so open to it I'm like I was thinking about this man I was like he really does fit the bill of like the the BMF like whatever that is right like you're like the BMF when you talk about that he kind of fits the bill because he's just put me in there all for I'll go to war get me bleeding get my hair pink you know with

his new hair it's like any of this stuff like I i feel like he's that guy so they could plug him into a situation like that i'd be fine with it um but he mentioned and i was like it's everybody always mentions conor mcgregor but i'm like if let's say that he like either he fights michael chandler because michael chandler's kind of left on this endless loop of waiting for McGregor. That could work. But if he was going to somehow get that McGregor fight, I could see why this would be an appealing fight for Conor McGregor. It's a guy who will stand and trade with him

and maybe play to his strengths a little bit more than maybe Chandler, maybe. But I'm like, I feel like Dan Hooker's kind of got it. He's in that weird space now because he put on such an iconic performance here that all of them sound good, right? I think I would go with Gaethje ultimately. If I was choosing, I'd probably go with Gaethje. I just think that that's like can't miss fight. Like that'd be a can't miss action fight.

There's no wrong answer. It's just a function of what the UFC wants to do with those guys on what dates for what purpose. But you literally cannot go wrong with any of them. Yeah, and I think that it's like it's – we've seen a little bit of it this year. Like, guys, you were mentioning – oh, this was before we were taping, but we were talking about like, you know, what are you going to do with Izzy next? And you're like, well, do you put him against a guy like Bo Nickel?

Like, make him like the guy who, you know, becomes like the stepping, you know, you're a stepping stone for this other guy to get up there. I feel like they've tried to do this, like Benoit Saint-Denis with Dustin Poirier. They're kind of a little bit maybe with this gamut, like, well, let's give him a guy here he can get through, and then we'll talk about the more serious fight, you know. And it keeps backfiring, man. It's unusual, isn't it?

It's unusual that these veterans are sort of like, nope, I'm going to draw the line in the sand, and they're winning these fights. We've seen it a few times this year. You know what I'm saying? Yes. So I feel like he's kind of in a great spot for that. I think once you go through the moment they're trying to kind of feed you to somebody and you beat that guy, it puts you in a great spot.

So if they I heard that I think somebody mentioned that Dana was looking at Charles Oliver. If that's the case, you're kind of giving him an upward trajectory, even if he's at five or six. You're still fighting guy now who's what, two or three. Yeah. So if he's if he wants that, if he's interested in that, that's a great fight. He beats Charles Oliver. How far are you away from a title shot? You would have to be right there, right? Which is just, that would be mind-blowing. Unthinkable on Friday.

Unthinkable that Dan Hooker would ever be in a position like that. I mean, after he lost four out of five, if you said, hey, if he's four fights away from a title shot, he's just going to win all these fights, that would be ridiculous. Nobody would believe that. That would be impossible. And yet, here we are. I know. He spoke to Daniel Cormier after the fight, and he has jazzed up about what he wants next this is what he said then you're gonna be

in the top five that was a big victory what do you want next look at me now i want to move i want to be a myth i want conor mcgregor i want the title of Eliminator. I want everything, Baba. I want it all shown. I want it all answered. What a phenomenal performance. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the hangman, Dan Hooker. That's as high as you can be on drugs without being high on drugs. You know what I mean?

100%. Your brain chemistry is just being tsunamied by adrenaline, and that's what you're seeing right there. Dude, I don't know how he keeps that going. His whole face is swollen. His eyes are swollen shut. He's bleeding. He was even doing that between the rounds.

It's crazy, man. If ever there's a guy, there are certain guys in the sport who communicate the high of cage fighting or just fighting in general in a way that others can't. That's what happened speaking of which this is him between rounds that moment he was like okay i love this this is great that's wild i mean if he if he doesn't go into sports, that's a guy.

I'm not saying he is a bad guy. I'm saying if he wanted to be a serial killer, he's got some of the makeup for it. You know what I mean? Man. You can imagine getting into a bar of scrap sometimes, and you see some sadistic son of a bitch who's smiling after you hit him with everything you have. I would be like, why?

Out of all the guys you could fight, you know? Yeah. I mean, there are some people who just love it. They just love it. Tells you how hard Michael Chandler hit him. Yeah. Because it kind of folded him in that way. True.

Like, normally, even Edson Barboza had to kind of beat him accumulatively. Yes. You know what I mean? Poirier, too. Poirier had to beat him up accumulatively. It's crazy with these guys, too, man. Like, you mentioned Barboza. I think that sometimes you look at these. Like, Barboza's been in a ton of wars you know like and he just beats

sadiq yusuf you can't even believe it i know and it's like you you see these guys and there are so many wars and we've talked about the old welterweight division where the buzz saw that was robbie lawler and how they were just altering each other's lives every time somebody fought you know johnny hendrix would get up there whoever it is and they would just come out in a different form rory mcdonald was never the same you know after these things but i feel like some of these guys like in this lightweight division are like this they're just beating each other to pulps and loving it and doing it again and again it's just crazy man i don't think we've ever seen this level of self of destruction within the yeah within that division i don't i don't on the one hand seen this level of self of destruction within the, within the division.

I don't, I don't, on the one hand, I am quite worried about his longterm health. On the other hand, it's like very few guys embody war horse better than Dan Hooker. Yeah. You know,

that's pretty remarkable. All right. Last but not least for topic number five here, uh, Chuck Mendenhall, let's talk about Taito Iwasa. Not a great look. He loses his fifth straight fight in

the UFC. Not fighting bums, but five straights bad. And it was a lackluster decision to Jairzino Rosenstreich. Now there was controversy with the judging. We'll put that aside for just a second. Let me ask it this way. After five consecutive losses, he's at 31 years of age. Is there any fix for what ails Tait evasa you know man you tell me too because in a weird way he reminds me of mark hunt when the when the ufc inherited mark hunt you know from the from the transaction um he was on a losing streak and he he was kind of like a guy that you're like probably wouldn't be on the roster but he kind of had a a little bit of a cult following people like he you know people are behind him and he started to win

which is kind of crazy can Tuivasa do that yes because he's in a division where his power if he's able to land it will translate but the problem is and I think you could look at all five of his losses I went back and looked at a couple of them. I mean, he's consistently outstruck. Most of the time, like double strikes, you know, like where he's taking way more and he's doing it all so he can land something. It's exciting because you're like, well, this guy, he's like, you're doing the thing. Like I remember Dan Henderson saying, I don't want to be known for my chin. That means I'm getting beat up all the time when people talk about how strength of his chin. It's almost like you're saying, well, this guy's a warrior, man.

He's a warrior. He gets in there there he swings and we're just waiting for him to land the punch that'll knock the guy out but it's he's getting out skilled in these fights like these guys are you know they're lighting him up Rosenstreich was just out striking him straight up you know um and just I I don't know he's gonna win a lot of fights I appreciate that he's a you know the shoeys and all the things but I'm not sure he's going to win a lot of fights. I appreciate that he's either the shoeys and all the things, but I'm not sure he's going to match up with the very best guys in the division. And I realize there's probably a little bit of a smoke and mirrors effect because he won, what, five or six in a row before his streak the other way.

And there's probably some smoke and mirrors to that, like where he was getting a little lucky with some of the shots he landed and things like that and persevering more than the other guy. So I don't know what you do with him. I think in that division, you could he could certainly give him another UFC fight. But I just I don't think that he's going to be able to turn around where he's at. I think he's he's a guy who he's trying really hard to land that big shot that will end it and be like, you know, and kind of have the celebration.

But he's not getting that easily. The guys like Pavlovich, the guys he's facing, they know what he can do and they can piece him apart, you know. And that's the unfortunate part of this, you know. I mean, I go back to some of the, you know, I'm not, obviously Izzy is a massively decorated champion, but like one of the things I do think is a weakness of his is like there's not a lot of offense on the ground.

Here's a case where if you had a reasonably well-rounded heavyweight they could have taken Rosenstreich down and pounded him out like that's that's not something that he's not unaccustomed to facing um that he's 36 years old like i know Overeem kind of botched that but he was having great success at it for the most part in that fight anyway and so it's like till the very end right till the very end that was the fight that was that was crazy yeah yeah but the point i'm trying to make is like you know like could he take him down and have his way for long stretches yes of course and this was only a three-round fight that was a five-round main event right so you know you all you have to do is bag a couple of these rounds and you're you know and then you can just you could he stand with rose and strike yeah you could stand with him but he was getting picked apart i

mean this is the thing i go back to if you learn how to fight in your formative years without correction very early as a especially especially at heavyweight as a bruiser that is a very difficult thing to fix yeah very difficult thing to fix because then you get thrust to the deep end and you're better than the guys you already beat but you're not nearly good enough to beat the other guys, basically. And so you're in this in-between space where you can't really do a lot. You don't have a second gear to wrestle or whatever. Going back to Dracus, that changes a lot about his ability to fight on the ground.

And then more to the point, I actually feel like if you're trying to fix what Ty is up against, it wouldn't have been helpful in this fight because Rosenstreich was just kind of facing off with him. But like, look at Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis didn't really change his striking much. What did he add to his game? The ability to

get up. That was a big portion of what he did. The ability to get up, everyone wanted to wrestle him. But they didn't really change him as a striker too much. I felt like, and we have the, put the tweet up if you can, where we have there he is, Taito Iwasa saying,

F, what a sport. I put my all into this camp and didn't come away with the win. Big love to all my fans and blah, blah, blah. He goes on from there. My bad. Love you all, the real ones. Live to fight another day. Aussie fan, Aussie fan, excuse me. I love you. Cunts. Best in the bizzo. He seems to be taking it

as well as one can. My point I'm trying to make here is He's got a lot of experience with it. Trying to turn that guy into somebody who jabs and sets off at an angle and is faking and fainting, you have to give him some of those tools. But if they learn how to fight a certain way as a heavyweight and a big heavyweight,

the die is cast. The die is cast. The die is cast. Add tools around it, trying to reform it and retrofit it. It's a little too little too late, I think. Yeah, and I don't think he's interested, to be honest. Why? You didn't think he was trying to fight

in a more cerebral way? I thought he was trying to. I mean, maybe, but I look at... I was trying to think of an example. Maybe like a Narlovsky, right, who suffered a bunch of knockouts when he was still kind of throwing caution to the wind more in the divisions, you know. But then he just turns himself into a boring version of himself.

I don't know. And there's just certain guys. I don't think that they could accept it. Maybe if he was going to do it, it would like okay maybe for a single fight but i don't think it's i don't think it's in his personality right to just try to add stuff that's more technical and to like piece apart you know what i mean i just i don't think that's his personality so i don't know like that's really it sometimes comes down to that orlovsky was able to do it to an extent and like but he was never a crazy brawler either.

He was a Sambo European champion. That's true. And, I mean, you're looking more like he, I guess he wound up in some brawlish type things. And he came out of losing it. So he kind of somehow, like, let's keep it holstered more. And Overeem learned how to be an outside fighter as well. It can happen. But both of those guys were not big, fat, heavy.

I'm not trying to shame him. No, no. Big carriage, heavyweight brawlers. Different guys. It's closer to like a Mark Hunt, right? Yes. It's that sort of situation. Mark Hunt was a world champion kickboxer before he ever got to MMA.

That is true. So like it's just a – and listen, some guys are going to have more natural aptitude than others. But I'm just saying if you've got a big heavyweight who's not quick but powerful, durable, and they learn how to just basically fight with that as their constitution, they're going to hit a ceiling. And when they do, fixing the problem will be much harder later than it will be earlier. Would you give him another fight in the UFC?

Probably one more. And who would you, like, what would be the ideal fight for him at this stage? Like, five in a row. Some donk. Yeah, that's what I think. Unranked, but, you know, well outside the top 15. I think so, too. And it's weird, man.

Like he's got one of those strange trajectories. We see this occasionally in the heavyweight division. Five, six wins in a row, three losses in a row, six wins in a row, five losses in a row. Occasionally they have these streaks. That's where the Arlovsky really comes in because he's had those types of streaks all through his career. It's very strange. I'm not saying he can't win fights,

but he would be doing it based on his, just the way he's been doing it. He would just be now winning the way he wants to fight. And I don't know if he's going to be able to do that. I think too many people know what he wants to do. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is anymore.

But I hope that, again, I think that there are things they could add to his game. A couple of things they could sharpen up. But like, oh, we're going to be the guy who jabs and does the peekaboo style? You can't imagine him doing that. It's not in the cards. I mean, he throws caution to the wind

even when he's drinking beer out of shoes. Who's going to drink a beer out of somebody's used shoe? I mean, yeah, a dirty piece of somebody's used shoe i mean yeah a a dirty piece of shit like me and brian campbell um the thing let's talk about the scoring on that fight very quickly if we can a 30 27 that was a big story put up the scorecard here so howie booth which by the way just sounds like a name that ai came up with right you got 10 9 all the way through now there was a 10 there was a 10 9 4-E in the first round from Charlie Keech. I don't quite get that either.

I thought it was a clean sweep. David Lethabie has, or Lethabie, however you say his name, he is the one that's got the best one by far. So they replace him. Judge Howie Booth, who gave all three rounds to Taito Iwasa, is the outjudge in 14.47 of his scored rounds in UFC events dating back to 2017. That's out of 76 rounds. Highest dissent percentage of any judge with 75 or more UFC rounds scored.

The guy probably— My boy Douglas Crosby. I mean, even— Yeah, Douglas Crosby does a bit. Like, he thinks he's painting, like, a painting. You know what I mean? Like, this sort of, like, I'm on this grand mission of fight knowing don't i know it i'm the one who wrote the yeah and this is my canvas right i think howie booth is just a fucking donk did you like that the commission

replaced him right away in the middle of the event yes um i did but it's do you recall it was either macau singapore it was one of those where they did this before. They have done it before, yes. And it's like, I don't mind it at all, man. If you get something that far off, something's wrong there, man. I just don't know. We have seen dueling 30-27s before. It's usually in a closer fight where it's a couple closer rounds, 30-27 one way, 30-27 another.

We've seen that. It always seems really weird that that can happen but there is no doubt that this was a 30 27 at worst at 29 28 but i think it's 100 30 27 you know the one way i just how you came up with three rounds like look at the stats too like control time everything everything goes um you know it goes to Rosenstreich it's just it's a crazy thing so that tells me that there was some like crazy blinders bias going on I just don't know how you get to that card I think I think not only is it good that they replaced him I think in a world where betting is now a central product in sports generally in fight sports in particular

and you see a scorecard like that, you have an obligation to remove him. I think so, too. You have an obligation. He is New Zealand. He's a New Zealander, right? Howie Booth. The relevant commission is the whatever, New South Wales, or whatever the relevant commission is.

Western Australia. Western Australia, excuse me. It's the Western Australian Commission. So they're the ones that ultimately made the call, and I think it was very much the right call. I don't know about the nationality of the. I he is yeah but anyway it's not here you know but if he did have a bias mate who knows i mean the good news is in the end the right guy won yes and they removed him but like that is you know it's so funny to me that sometimes people will be like oh boxing, boxing had this terrible decision.

That's why I watch UFC. And I'm like, bitch, I know you don't watch UFC. I know you don't watch UFC. Yeah, I know. It's like, I can't take these bad decisions anymore. That's why I watch UFC. And I'm like, motherfucker, it's the same people in charge of all of it. It's even more glaring because you're only dealing with three to five rounds.

I mean, it's more glaring when there's a horrible scorecard than in boxing where you can kind of like hide in the middle rounds. You know, you got some weird score. It's just, it makes no sense. I think the level of scrutiny when you see something like this is bigger too because it's just, you're watching a 15-minute fight. There's only three installments of that fight. It's pretty easy to judge in one way. Like in a fight like that, it's pretty easy to it's pretty easy to judge in one way like in a fight like that it's pretty easy to judge so like when you see something like that you're like whoa that's a major red flag i mean i had pornography on my phone and i was still managing to score the

fight accurately no doubt uh all right with that in mind those are our top five topics let's get to what the fans have in store for us right let's do DMs from the diggity donks. Oh my God, I hate this fucking intro. It's like, hey guys, we need to come up with an element. Can you get a donkey ejaculating as our sound? Can you do that? Turns out you can. All right. Question number one, let's fire it up here as I left my glasses at home.

From the Gibsonator, this will go to you first, Chuck Mendenhall. Should the next fight for Dan Hooker be a BMF fight against Max win or lose against Ilya? So let's pause it. He loses to Ilya. It's not some brutal destruction. He can kind of make a reasonable turnaround. Would that make sense for you? I think so because where would max be at that point you know and i'm like if max is like i don't i

mean i don't think the bmf title is on the line for this fight with ilia right like i don't even know how they're doing this i know that i don't believe that they have said it is okay well whatever the case is i think max doesn't have an obvious next move and he kind of enters that weird space where you're like maybe he's not all about titles anymore after you've lost this other fight he's already kind of been there done that i wouldn't mind seeing it i mean it's like that's a fun fight to me after watching what holloway did with gaethje in the other cult making fight of the year even though he had the cult of max was already strong i just think this solidified his thing when he's like let's let's do this right here knocks him out with seconds to go i think that um they kind of have parallels in that way you know they kind of have like this this strange like there's something transcendent

about that attitude that would match in the bmf sort of thing and if you're trying to really create an idea of what the bmf is not just throwing guys in there who are like oh he doesn't care he's a reprobate or whatever like or he's nuts this would actually make sense to me you know it's like you got two guys who they really are kind of the baddest motherfuckers aren't they like so i i think that that would be fun uh i don't need to see hooker in a bmf fight like for me it feels a little like but you do you even like the bmf concept at all i feel like it's uh some people like it so i would say this like obviously obviously by itself, if you watch combat sports long enough, and this is obvious to people right away, but sometimes it's not, what you really realize over time is the title does not make the fighter, the fighter makes the title.

And I feel like after what Max did to Justin, he made that title matter a little bit. Right. So I do think it matters a little bit right so i do think it matters okay um but i don't it's i don't you know i don't view it i don't view it as a trinket but i don't view it as a weight class title you know what i mean yep it's it's valuable in some kind of capacity okay by the way i just want to bring this up because it just blows my fucking mind about this pfl this is not neither here nor there i'm seeing this now jake Paul, Francis Ngannou, Chris Cyborg, and then Hena Fajera and Larissa Pacheco.

They're going to be in D.C., my hometown, on Thursday. They're doing a press conference. Dude, they're not letting people have, at a bare minimum, they're not letting me. But I'm told no one's getting one-on-ones. And I'm like, guys, guys, put the camera on me, please. I'm trying to be nice to the PFL here. PFL fire, the dumb motherfucker who's making the call that they can't do one-on-ones because let me just break this down for everyone very quickly.

It is not worth my time. I have another interview scheduled during that time with Dr. Mike Israetel. Anybody who knows anything about him, I have to cancel that to go to this, which I'll do if I can get one-on-ones. If I can't understand something, there's not enough juice through these scrums for me to make my money back going and doing that. This is obvious to anybody who understands how media works. Please give me a reason to go to this press conference. I am fucking begging you. Okay. Well said. Well said. I mean, dude, that's the most ridiculous. Who is the moron? Who is the moron who is telling them, we don't need to do one-on-one?

You're promoting the biggest fight you've ever had, and local media can't have one-on-one? By the way, I don't mean like hour-long sit-downs. I mean five to ten minutes. Of course. Right. Ten minutes. Dude, you know who does one-on-ones?

Canelo Alvarez. You know who does one-on-ones? Tank Davis. You know who does one-on-ones? davis you know who does one-on-ones conor mcgregor izzy what what are you doing not larissa pacheco i don't listen i actually bet that she would i'd i bet chris cyborg would too it is it is unfucking fathomable to me that you're having a press conference and you're only going to allow scrums it is it is such a stupid decision it's a stupid decision why huh have they told you why like have you have they i have tried to

there's people in pr who are trying to advocate like i've said the people it is let me be clear the people i've talked to in pr are trying to get something to happen so like i really thank you to all of them i I really appreciate it. It's somebody above them. Oh my God. Somebody in leadership was like, we're not doing those. A fucking moron is making that call. Just so you know.

Okay. I just want to say thank you to PFL for like doing this right now on your computer to get you in there. This is what I want. This is the Luke Thomas I come for. It's like, dude, how, how fucking stupid do you have to be to think that that's a good idea? Every now and again, we just tap into the Luke Thomas is pissed.

Oh, my God. Dude, am I crazy? Please tell these people I'm not crazy. No, dude. You're 100% right. And they're trying to compete, obviously, with the UFC, and this is their biggest event. They 100% should have access.

They should be telling media in attendance, we will get you one-on-ones exactly when can we schedule your one-on-one yeah well dude we've been in this game a long time it's very rare that you're shut down on things like this especially from companies that like this is they're hailing this what are they calling they have a title for it like the battle the giants or something battle the giant okay you're putting this on as the card of the year. Yeah. You better make it accessible. This is your biggest signing.

Jake Paul's going to be there. He's also a big signing slash ambassador. Right. You finally got it. By the way, Larissa Pacheco, people sleeping on this, she might beat Cyborg. That's a great fight. Huge. For her.

This is your best card. How the fuck are you promoting it this poorly? I don't know, man. How the fuck is that possible you know i do the rankings uh pound for pound rankings and larissa pacheco's been at number 10 for a while and i was writing you know you write up the little blurbs about why it's important and i was saying like you know nobody there's nobody who could lay claim to saying that i'd be kayla harrison and cyborg right these bigger women who've kind of been dominant yes and she can lay claim to that

that i think they gotta like actually start she might go in there and start drickusing them you know what i'm saying that's what i'm saying man the person nobody saw coming might want to get behind that a little bit and and promote it oh my god dude i cannot believe these people i cannot believe these people okay have fun at the presser i won't be at i guess all right next question hell of a scrum yeah it must be i it's going to be an awesome scrum. From atitsnotcagefighting, is Alex Pineda the most protected champion of all time? Okay, so let's talk about UFC 307 here a little bit.

UFC 307, okay, they announce it. What's the date for that? Can you look that up for me, Long Island Luke, very quickly? It says Salt Lake City card. Salt Lake City. October something, right? I think it's, are they going to have two pay-per-views in the month of October

because the 28th is going to be the one or 26th I believe October 5th so they're going to have two pay-per-views that month now granted the second of those

is really interesting between Max and well honestly Max Holloway versus Ilya Teporia is the best fight that can be made in MMA

arguably you've been saying that well it was Volk and then he dusted him off, and now it moves over to Max, and Max resurrected everything with this crazy win over Joe. Okay, so that's the best fight. Here's, I sort of get it, right, Chuck? You need headliners.

The second fight on this card is Raquel Pennington taking on Juliana Pena. Everyone's wondering why she's getting a title shot while Kayla Harrison just like smashed someone at UFC 300. She's going to take on Katelyn Vieira. I don't dislike that fight. I don't. And I get that you're trying with Juliana Pena. She's going to talk a lot.

So she's going to sell a fight, which Raquel Pennington is just not going to do that. Fine. But talking about the main event, I don't hate this fight i don't hate the fight between alex padena and khalil roundtree it's going to be fun for as long as it lasts it'll be action-packed and hey you never know it could actually end up being sure uh an upset like it's possible but later that month the prohibitive number one guy is fighting alexander rakic which is also a fine fight it's fairly glaring but for reasons we don't know or understand what the fuck is they doing

here chuck i don't know this is i mean i've seen a lot of people talking about this too i mean i feel a little bit for uncle i have because he was cast into the title fight was that a draw i forget now. How did that work out? But I know that Dana hated it. Yeah, it was a draw. It was a draw, right? So it was like one of those things where Dana clearly did not love the fight. And I feel like ever since then, the poor Uncle I was just kind of like,

he's behind an eternal eight ball. But I also think that in relation to this question, that this has certainly crossed some people's minds, right? Like I don't think that you want to be in the business. And I'm like, I know that they say all the time, like, our job is to beat the champion. We're trying to find the guy who will beat the champion or the woman who's going to beat the champion.

I don't think they want to be in the uncle of business as that champion right now. So if you go put him into a fight with Pereira, like, and I think we'd see the stylistic matchups. I think a lot of people would probably be like, this is a nightmare matchup for Alex Pereira. You know what I mean? If you put that fight together,

you might actually be in the Uncle Ive business. You know what I mean? I'm just going to ask the question. Are you saying that Alex Pereira is protected? I'm saying that it looks glaring that it's not on khalia and so i guess in a roundabout way i'm like it seems like he's being a little protected in this situation i don't think that they're necessarily you know this could be more a reward in a weird way to like we're going to give you a favorable matchup because you've stepped in for ufc 300 you stepped in for uh ufc

303 you saved these events we barely you know 303 we didn't even feel the loss of Conor McGregor and then because you had a guy like Pereira stepping up and he's become this guy this could be a little bit of like a hey thank you fight you know but it does feel a little bit because I just think that Uncle Ive was a clear cut choice right like why would he not be able to do unless he's not able to do this for some reason that i have no idea why um i have no idea why he's not actually the guy fighting for that title this is one of the reasons why i think is he at 205 i know he's i guess staying saying he wants to stay at 185 this is why 205 i think it's wide open it's like dude yeah they're granting title shots and again i'm not even necessarily mad at it on just

a fight basis but they're granting title shots to the number eight ranked guy. Izzy can't get a title shot with one win over a top seven guy. Yeah, fuck it. Of course he could. I mean, Alex Pereira did. Right. You know, he went up, he lost, he went up. 205 is wide open.

Wide open. Kind of a crazy moment. Also, what chance do you give Pennington to beat Peña? Oh, man. Because I think what the UFC is hoping is that they get, remember, Peña had a beef. Folks don't remember this. Peña had a beef with Ronda Rousey from the show, big-time beef.

They were kind of like maybe going to fight, and then it just kind of fizzled. And she fought Amanda Nunes. They would love a, as champion, Juliana Pena fights Kayla Harrison. Harrison goes in there and bludgeons her, and then, you know. You've got it all mapped out. But, I mean, honestly, that's how I see it. I don't give. Rocky's weird, dude.

And I was thinking about this. Pennington's in a situation. Imagine being Pennington, right? You're the one everybody's circling. I need to beat her, right? She's got, dude. And I was thinking about this, like, Pennington's in a situation. Imagine being Pennington, right? You're the one everybody's circling. I need to beat her, right? She's got the belt. You're going into this card where there's two women. It's like a two-fold thing.

It's almost like Sean O'Malley having to, like, your job is to go through not only Marab Davishvili, but also Umar Namagomedov waits for you. Like, this is crazy. That's a very daunting way to look at it. In the same situation, Rocky has been asked to go in there and beat Peña, and then

hopefully, if she's able to do that, Harrison is right there, and that's who you have to face next. That's a crazy thing to ask people. Even if it's Peña's side, and you're like, you need to go through Rocky, and then her. It's just crazy, right? It's a nutty to ask people, even if it's paying you aside and you're like, you need to go through Rocky and then her, it's just crazy,

right? Like it's, it's a nutty thing. I think that her perseverance Rockies has been remarkable in terms of winning, whatever it is, six fights in a row and kind of showing up at the end. But I also remember she quit or wanted to quit against Nunez and their

coach sent her out or, and then she got finished. A lot of fighters don't recover from something like that. That's true. So it's been, I think her perseverance, like just what she's been able to do is actually really unsung. But I do kind of think that this is where it ends.

I think that Peña wins this fight. Here's the card very quickly. Again, this will be at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Utah, very beautiful country. It is. It is. It's nice. When I say country, I mean, like, space.

I don't mean... Yeah, it's like the other side of the Rockies from Denver where I grew up. It's nice. That's right. You've got Poetan and Khalil Roundtree. Then you've got Pennington and Peña. You've got Wonderboy versus Joaquin Buck that. Yeah, it's like the other side of the Rockies from Denver where I grew up. It's a nice, yeah. You've got Poiton and Khalil Roundtree. Then you've got Pennington and Pena. You've got Wonderboy versus Joaquin Buckley. Yeah.

Love that fight. Jose Aldo against Mario Bautista. Fun contest. Yeah, that's good. Roman Deleuze, Kevin Holland. Fine. I don't have a, it's cool. I don't hate it.

I love it, but it's cool. The big one. Aljamain Sterling taking on Mozart of Loibe. That is huge, huge fight. And then Ketlin Vieira taking on mozart of loyve that is huge huge fight and then kitlin vieira taking on kayla harrison i'm sure they'll add some more fights that's a pretty deep card yeah it's a very it's a very deep card um i and by the way oh her retirement bout uh carla esparza versus tisha pennington cesar almeida taking on ihor poteria the weirdest motherfucker on earth and then marina hadriga has taken on uh all these women fights on there huh at altitude you can't put the heavyweights yeah that's true can't put

them you don't want to do that dude i remember when i was at the pepsi center i was backstage after ben rothwell fought mark hunt was there for that too them two was huffing air boy they were huffing it's bad out there man dude i'll tell you what when i was on vacation so denver is at like 5 000 feet elevation yep mexico city is about like uh is a 7300 73 74 maybe 74 boquita where i was is another thousand above that holy hell so they have this thing what they call altitude sickness bleeding the whole time no i didn't have a nosebleed but i had a horrible headache horrible headache it's bad sometimes so i have to so you can actually go to the store i mean you can't get high from it but you can buy coca leaf tea okay so i dude i had to go right to the store and get that shit because like it altitude was like no fucking joke every time i go to denver now i grew up there and we

to be fair yeah i grew i still go out there quite a bit and we go fishing a lot of times like when i'm there i love to do this and it's always at 8 000 9 000 feet i have to hydrate really oh yeah like the night before man i can't do it anymore's right. You have to have a ton of liquid in your system. All right, next. Wait, real quick. What are your eight top Esparza moments in the UFC? All right, next. From Christina Pinto underscore BJJ.

Did you watch CGI? By the way, everybody and their brother writing CGI. I know. CGI and or ADCC this weekend I watched mostly CJI but I watched some ADCC thoughts on the events and what this means for the BJJ competition world Chuck did you watch any of this so I only honestly like guys like you who were kind of talking about it I was following on social media I didn't actually get a chance to watch um but I know that you did so this is a good question for you okay so this i i really don't think people understand how big the weekend was i do not want to sit here and say that the sport has changed forever that might be a little bit too big and i have a number of different takeaways by the way i do think that made, the CJI folks made one big error.

I was looking on YouTube trending for all the videos, and there were ADCC videos that were on there. Michael Pixley, you don't know who he is, over at ADCC, he's a former D2 national champ, and he's a purple belt now. He, I think he Uchimata'd Nicholas Miragali, who was widely expected to be double gold in absolute, and whatever, and then Darstced him and finished him off.

That was a huge, huge, huge upset. The highlight of that video from ADCC trended. So then I went to the B-Team YouTube channel, which is where all their videos ended. They didn't pull out any individual matches. So they lost an opportunity, in my judgment, to trend. But okay, Small thing. We had all thought that what CJI was really about was 80 CC is not paying their guys. CJI will,

this is a new way for the jujitsu athletes to be paid. Isn't that great. And I don't want to undermine that. That is a real huge part of it. In fact, part of the reason why they had the talent roster that they did was because they had such an attractive prize at the end, but that is not the story of the weekend dude cji did not feel like a competitor to adcc to me okay it felt like the next evolution of it i can dig. It felt like ADCC was living in the past and do they do some things

better than CJI? Yes. Yes, they do. Does CJI have some room for improvement? Absolutely. But CJI to me felt like this is a better way to do jujitsu irrespective of the money and how it is apportioned, which of course is a central component to their identity. I have not been a believer, or at least I was very skeptical of this idea that the wall from Karate Kombat could be repurposed. Dude, it is a revelation. It is a revelation. ADCC, if you watch one of the big matches that they had,

was between Gordon Ryan and Felipe Pena, who was a big time rival of his. And there were constant restarts, constant pauses in the action. And the referee is very involved in awarding points in certain parts. And then not so much in this one, but in other jiu-jitsu tournaments, advantages and shit like that. Where they have a very active role. The referee here in CJI played almost no role. The wall facilitates the continuation of action. Now, there were some inconsistent judging issues because they did they basically did three five minute rounds and then

five five minutes for the finals um and the judges and there would be open scoring as well by the way open scoring worked very well it would see i still am skeptical about mma but it worked very well for this okay so this is what i come back to like, dude, they didn't have a different – I thought when Craig was talking about all the money that that was really the core of the issue. Right. Craig Jones is a guy I'll never forget, man. Years ago, or whenever he put it out,

I mean, I think it's a couple years old at this point. I've watched almost all of his instructionals. Yeah. And one thing you take away from it, like one thread, the through line through all of his instructionals yeah and one thing you take away from it like one thread the through line through all of them is that this is a guy who looks at the world very differently and has very different ideas the money was just an idea to really make adcc look bad like they spent all this money on shit that like did their production look nice it looked nice chuck i'm telling you it

looked nice it looked nice but ultimately it telling you it looked nice it looked nice but ultimately it wasn't serving the viewer all that much it was adcc was trying to be like we're the big brother and what they ended up actually showing was that they were they were the they were the older brother and like old old brother this was to me so profoundly beyond what I ever thought possible. Dude, you have people talking about CJI being a, the best jujitsu tournament they've ever seen. Right. And I'm not joking when I say this guys,

if you didn't see Cade Ruotolo versus Andrew Tackett, it might be the best no geek grappling match I've ever seen. And the rules and the, the, the, the surface facilitated all of this. I love to hear this. Because back in the day, you remember Metamorris.

Yes. So I covered a couple of those. And it was almost like they were trying to do this. They were almost trying to figure out a hipster way to kind of bring an audience in, give it cool lighting, give it cool vibe. But everything ended in a draw and i feel like that that is like an american audience is that's a hard sell right like when everything's a draw plus they were falling off you know what i mean like that the structure that they had um so i fully get it like i just i remember going to a couple i tried to give it you try to give it as many chances you can and and do the writing, but it just, it stalled too much. Like it required too much, really fine attention to detail, like where you

had to be paying attention and you couldn't really see what was going on. So this actually sounds like they figured it out. And there's been a ton of people over the course of this time, over what a decade that want to launch something like this. So it sounds like Craig Jones is finally onto something that's like, I've heard it and we've done a lot of research about how to do this and he might have he might be on to something that he went i was fascinated by the clips i saw for sure man he went into this being like this is a story of athlete pay and i came out of this being like this is a story about how to do jiu-jitsu differently and i'll never forget like this is a small thing in fact you even heard daniel cier Daniel Cormier is only repeating these points now I heard this years ago from Craig Jones Craig

Jones I remember so like dude when I first came up in jiu-jitsu side control yeah side control was a very very important position it was not mount or the back but it was very very important and Craig Jones was the first person I ever heard be like side control is not great it's not a great position and his whole argument was if you actually look at how someone pins from side control is not great. It's not a great position. And his whole argument was, if you actually look at how someone pins from side control, what's the big problem here? Your hands, typically in side control, you want to have one hand. This is a little technical, but the spine is a line. You need to have your hands or your elbows at either end. So you can cross face at the top and you can control the hip on the far end, but that's the two ends of the

spine. That's how you lock them in place in theory. But what Craig Jones argues is like, but look at their legs. You can't control them. And this against high-level guys... That's what DC was talking about. DC was bringing this up. Craig Jones has been talking about that for years. This is what I mean.

Sometimes it's a goofball thing. By the way, I love Hanato Laranja. Could have done without the could have done without the long interludes of him talking to the crowd haranjan goes a long way that's right well he was great in the in the gabby and also the gabby garcia matched for me was nothing but but but what i'm trying to point out about craig is everyone wants to make this about pay it is about pay but pay is part of the story about craig's broader vision about how to do jujitsu differently and it was a massive i hate to use the thing because

it's been so internet brained by this but it was a massive red pill moment it really really was cool man that's cool you had some fomo i can tell like you well going to vegas i always come back with some kind of gonorrhea or communicable disease. So I didn't miss it out. So that still trumps it. But the guy who actually did my tattoos, a bunch of my tattoos, shouts to, well, I don't know if he wants me to say his name or not. But in any case, the guy who does my tattoos is a jujitsu brown belt out of, I think, Black Cat Jjitsu in um in the dc area and he was there he went to both right on and he was like listen like they were both good events like it's not the case

that one was was better or worse but he was like the energy at cji especially on day two that's cool though it was electric that's the that's the key i just feel like metamoros energy was it was hard to get and they were even like full bars. You know, they're trying to do a VIP experience, very chandelier affair. The energy level just couldn't pick up. It was strange. So if they figure that part out, I mean, already something's moving there. I think that they have.

I've never been a guy who's like, oh, jiu-jitsu could be on mainstream TV. Dude, if slap, put the camera on me. If slap fighting gets a deal before the craig jones invitational we riot we riot okay i love that i don't know who this kid was you posted it on your twitter just some goofy haired looking face like just like the only reason i kept it was his hair doesn't move until his whole face is And he doesn't really blink, which is like, what the hell? Yeah, I hope he got, I'm sure he did get brain damage. All right, next.

From Fisher Aiden. Fisher Aiden? Poetan and Liddell, both in their prime. They're spelled wrong. Who wins? And Liddell's spelled wrong. I'd probably give the nod. That's a crazy one because it's like Chuck at his prime

was a beast he was a beast and people kind of forget how good he was and it's funny too because this is actually a weird matchup because Glover being

kind of the mentor I guess of Pereira coming out of the Liddell you know that whole thing right they're actually connected they're connected

it's really strange I would probably give the nod to Pereira. And I just think part of it is his kickboxing. The kind of kickboxing I think he... Even when Chuck was really at his best, he was still kind of a brawler mentality. If you're just putting them together,

I think Pereira would tee off on that. I think also the leg kicks would be a big deal. There just wasn't something that Chuck had to deal with. But will say this i will say this chuck in his prime people forget this dude oh i mean when he blinded jeremy horn in their in their fight like that was like scary to watch you've never seen chuck one of my favorite knockouts chuck put away alistair over him yeah oh yeah dude went went right over the top between his eyes and had Overeem, you know, asking where's Woke. Remember that? Oh, my God.

You make me, like, it's funny because people just don't talk. Like, you always see him. He's kind of like an ornament at UFC events now. Just kind of one of those guys. They dust off and roll out. They're like, hey, check it out. There's Chuck Liddell. But at the time, man.

Like, I was just imagining going back to going back to like 2006 7 or whatever those dates were even before then where it was like he was just the face of on top of everything it was awesome man like i just remember his events feeling like massive events to me this is how rampage got famous when he smoked ufc 76 whatever it was yeah all right next from telvin kipapa i think this is the last one would you guys guys want MMA to be in the Olympics? We get this every four years. Fuck no. Fuck no.

This is like an MMA beat thing we used to go across. I mean, there's so many reasons. People, like, I don't understand what MMA fans want. Like, we want more validation. Guys, I've seen the various stages of MMA. This is about as good as it gets. I mean, it could also be a little bit better, of course, but you're looking at a sport that is not fully developed,

but mostly fully developed. Enjoy it for what it is. Also, you know, for all the people being like, all the people in MMA are like, oh, I don't think gay people should vote. Yeah. Let's get the mainstream press to shed some attention on that. I'm sure MMA will come out looking just fine.

You know what I mean mean i can't imagine i mean first of all look at like the boxing realm of it right like so you look back at like muhammad ali joe frazier when they won it they were just no names you know i think muhammad ali was like 18 or 19 years old it was a louisville nobody knew who he was and of course you get like a name going through it but these guys are still cassius clay yeah a cassius clay exactly like, a name going through it. But these guys are still Cassius Clay. Yeah, Cassius Clay. Exactly. Like, you're going back to these guys at the beginning.

You didn't see veterans. Like, veterans aren't going to do it. The guys who are used to the money and all this, they're not going to fight in the Olympics. And so, like, that's just boxing model. But, like, when you look at MMA, who are you watching? Like, it's not going to be truly representative of the best in the world. You know? Also, like, amateur MMA, I don't want to denigrate it.

I actually think it's very important, and I'm glad that it's growing. Yeah. But it's not a ready-made product for television. And the rules that you have to use to keep it an amateur system, you know, like, if you win a gold medal the olympics there's a good chance you're going to be a very good boxer right i'm less convinced you can win an amateur mma and become anything that's what i mean i don't know if you're really getting the truth of something or like you're kind of like oh here's here's a future whatever i don't think you're really getting that

did you watch the olympics this past a little bit like uh you know i'm never the biggest olympic guy but i was like i paid more I think, this year than usual. So, yeah, I watched quite a bit. Dude, motherfucking Steph Curry. Oh, I saw all that. Oh, buddy. I was actually, I watched the game, and then I went downtown. I was actually in Cartagena by this time.

And so after he sunk it, we were watching it at my house, I went downtown. Dude, I could have been, you know, you could have given me an American flag. I would have walked out. Hey, did you see the fucking game, bitches? Huh? Huh, Chef Curry with the pot, you could have given me an American flag. I would have walked in. Hey, did you see the fucking game, bitches? Huh? Huh, Chef Curry with the pot, bitches? That's what I was doing. I was even telling the cab driver in Spanish.

I was like, did you see this motherfucking game, you know? I thought that, you know, if you're talking about transformative moments or, like, transcendent moments, like, truly, because you get those occasionally in the Olympics and just something crazy, it just almost seems superhuman happens. That was one of those moments. Like, that Wimby shot where, like, Wimby's, like and just something crazy. It just almost seems superhuman happens. That was one of those moments. Like that Wimby shot where Wimby's trying to fly. It's just insane, man.

It was so funny. After the game was over, I saw people being like, you know what, man? I'm a Steph Curry hater. He's like, but I understand what it means to be a Warriors fan now. Because he comes out and he drains. Because it wasn't just the one three at the end. It was the four threes. I know.

Essentially back to back to back to back. He stepped up against Serbia, too. Yes. But that was just a sublime performance. That was so iconic. Gold medal game. And I had the same feeling. I'm like, I'm not a Warriors hater.

And I really appreciate what you did. But when he's doing it for your team. Yeah, I know. It feels way different. I still hate him. I hate the Warriors. Did you watch the Olympics, Long Island Luke? Oh,ke oh fuck yeah dude i work one day a week i was watching the olympics every day you had your pants around your ankles for the gymnastics portion no i i had the four box on

peacock they had like they would put whatever event they would curate it as the day went on so i would just watch whatever was on how was the peacock experience i no complaints for me it was on. How was the Peacock experience? No complaints for me. It was fine? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have Peacock? Yeah. I don't. Yeah. The one big one I don't have.

The one- You just refuse on principle? I mean, what the fuck else am I supposed to get? I've got Hulu. I've got the bundle. So I've got Hulu, ESPN Plus, and what's the other one? Disney. I've got YouTube TV. I've got Netflix.

I've got- That's too much. It's with my iPhone, but i got the deal with apple plus that that expires soon but i technically still have it uh my job is ending with cbs sports but i still have for now paramount plus and i'm gonna let that shit cancel uh cancel that it was a free perk with the job yeah if i lose it now i'm i'm not paying for that shit and your favorite espn plus generally speaking your favorite dude they reached out to me did they really yeah they did i have to tell the story a little bit later but basically that's amazing it's like dude so what was the was it 301 was the ursic pantoja yes there was 301 right yep in brazil so that night

it didn't matter what i did i could not not. I purchased it. It could not. It wouldn't pot up. By the way, since then, it has worked flawlessly on Chromecast, Firefox, you name it, any of the browsers, whatever. Somebody up at ESPN got wind of it. I don't know who it was, but they got wind of it. So they sent a super duper high-level customer service guy to me. And first of all, they gave me two free pay-per-views wow yeah so they gave me 302 and 303 304 was the first one i bought without them gotcha but then

that was the night where it was like check check one two uh you guys gonna get my balls on this my balls are my balls are hairy i was like you know um they flashed up the third down miscues yeah i was like ben roethlisberger's third down miscues. It was so weird and random. Here's his favorite thing to order at Waffle House. Let's get that on the screen. But the point I'm trying to make is, like, they definitely fixed it in the sense that, like, whatever the problem was, it doesn't exist anymore. But, you know, the toothpaste is out of the tube on them.

Does anybody trust them anymore? Plus, I think the thing I picked up and i because i made that video essay about it the thing i picked up on was they've got this venue thing coming out so it's them fox sports and warner brothers like this which is which is legitimately a very compelling oh yeah entertainment product if they can get off the ground it was a preliminary injunction by fubo to stop it i don't think they give a fuck about espn plus anymore i think that they i think once this thing gets going the venue thing they're just gonna yeah they're gonna wash their hands of it

and call it a day is it dude who do you know that loves their some people might be neutral about it some people might like that the library's there but dude even the library doesn't work if you want to go watch fights first place i go to is fight pass that's what i do too and if they don't have them then i go to espn plus and you have to search the person's number and then you have to go and like so for example let's say i'm looking up mario bautista so i'll have to plug him in and then it'll be all the fights and then they won't when you click on the fight on espn plus they won't give you the fight they give you the fight card that it's on preliminary or main and dude i'm not joking several times this has happened to me several times where the feed i'll get is the spanish language one which i don't

mind fine whatever i mean it's not what i asked for but okay i don't like the practice setting exactly fine but if you don't like what the fuck or i'll get the gronk family ones the gronk family like dual cast one weird so i'll get the gronk one i'm The Gronk family, like, dual cast one. Weird. So I'll get the Gronk one. I'm like, dude, this is absolutely not what I'm looking for at all. Like, the service is just bad. It's bad. It's exhausting. So I appreciate that they were really nice about it. I do.

I really appreciate that. And again, 305 for me worked flawlessly. But holy fuck, guys. Your product sucks ass. That's crazy that they gave you the free paper i didn't know what happened with that story i just know that there i remember clicking on your complaint and there were a ton a ton of people responding to that and i was like whoa i wonder if you'll i wonder if they'll get back in touch with you given that like sometimes you see somebody

complain to the airline hey united you lost my bags or whatever trying to fish that out yeah people have seen it too often you actually were bringing up a complaint that i think you're voicing for a million people what's interesting was i they one of their bots wrote me i was like hey dm us we really want to help you and then i dm them and they never replied my god so that's when i was like okay fuck you mother effers and that's when i made my video and there's someone in the video somehow the video made their way up there because they gave the customer service agent that they gave me like I mean this was the best customer service agent I've ever not just because they were nice but like their troubleshooting

ability was beyond next level so I've been waiting to make a video about it because um I had to wait out I mean the one that they paid for I can can't. I want to see if the transaction worked. I've had two events in a row where the transactions worked just fine. But then it's like Ben Roethlisberger's first down completions against the Washington Commanders. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Oh, man. All right. Anything we missed here on the show today, Long Island Luke?

No, I think we covered it all. We didn't do Have You Seen This Shit, but Brian's not here, and it feels sacrilegious to do it without him. I mean, he still does it when I'm with him, so, I mean. He worships my nuts. That's why they call him sacrilegious. That's a line from a rapper I like. I'm stealing that completely.

Chuck, why don't you plug what you got, buddy? Well, I'm still with the Ringer MMA show, as I was mentioning off the top. Yeah, you guys lost Ariel, huh? We lost Ariel, yes uh he's on to bigger and better things i guess um could you work with him in the future it could happen it could happen okay it could happen i mean there's so there's a lot of things kind of in flux uh some contract stuff we'll say exactly it's just kind of the industry uh we'll see it all pans out but we still got we'll be doing uh uh two shows this week i think we we're even doing a post fight show on the big cannoneer uh who's he fighting i'm trying to remember now

who hi oh bohalio oh right yeah that we're gonna do that card so we're gonna do a post fight and we got a our regular thursday show so we do the ringer um mma show and i buy line is still at the ringer and at the myth.com m, M-I-T-H. There you have it. Yep. Long Island Luke, why don't you tell the folks how they can get your Degenerate Bullshit podcast? It's on YouTube, Main Card Minute. Follow me on social as well and we hit plus

2,800 bets. Tune in. Look at that. What's your ledger at? Your betting ledger? I'm up 18.54 units. Is that a lot? Yeah, man. Anything up is good.

In the porn industry, that's a lot. In the porn industry, 18.4 is. You're cooking with gas. All right. That is it for us today. Reminder, you can follow us on social. I think you put them up already. Just one more time if you can.

Morning Combat everywhere. Chuck Mendenhall. Give him a follow on social. Beyond that, we are also, let's see, we have, oh,hall, give him a follow on social beyond that. We are also, let's see. We have, Oh,

Oh, hold on. Let's tease next week. Long Island. Luke, somebody sent us a song. Did they not? Oh man.

Shout out to lazy bed in the chat. He sent me an AI MK theme song that apparently he put in the MK discord. So a bunch of MK fans have already heard it. Okay. So I heard it today. I heard a piece of it, yes. It's fucking great. It's fucking great. It's really fucking great. Okay, so we're gonna play it next week on the show. Next week on the show.

Randy Couture at noon next week as well. It's gonna be fucking awesome. Couture? The PFL hit us up. It was like, hey, would you like to have him on the show? We're like, yeah, sure. And then he didn't show up. And then they came back and were like, let's put him on again. And then he didn't show up again. So now we just do a bit like Randy Couture is going to be here at noon. All of your PFL stories kind of have a similar vibe.

Dude, I'm trying to give them media. I'm, like, literally trying. They don't want it. Okay. I mean, we can't make it. Lead a horse to water. All right. With that out of the way, we got to go.

That is Chuck Mendenhall. I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching. BC is back next week. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. you