MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 306 Recap: Merab Stuns O'Malley | Canelo Beats Berlanga | Full Episode | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

The Monday after a HUGE weekend of fights, there is nothing better than MORNING KOMBAT. BC and Luke are back in studio to recap all the action at UFC 306 and Canelo vs. Berlanga. First in the UFC, Merab Dvalishvili easily bested Sean O'Malley to become the UFC bantamweight champion. UFC President Dana White said O'Malley looked flat. What's the guys theory as to why he appeared this way? What is it about Merab's story that makes him so unique? Valentina Shevchenko definitively won the trilogy against Alex Grasso, but how surprisingly one sided was it? Did the Sphere live up to the hype? In boxing, Canelo Alvarez had little trouble with Edgar Berlanga, but failed to put him away. Is Berlanga better than we thought or is Canelo slowing down? Is there really any interest in a Bivol rematch? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hi everybody! Bang, bang, bang. It's time for Morning Combat on this 16th of Monday. Well, 16th of September I should say. On Monday, 2024. Hi there, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm one half of your hosting duo.

That is the man with brain damage from Connecticut, the king of CTE. I'm fresh off the bird from Vegas. I didn't get in until after midnight last night. Have you showered? And boy, are my arms tired. I have showered, but this is the same outfit for the most part that I flew in. So I'm going, because I got to go to Dublin after today's show, I'm just going to go full on acetosis for 48 hours. I'm just going to smell and live in these clothes until they just disintegrate off of me and I'm ready for it. It's kind of like Christmas vacation in high school when you're like, I'm not going to shower for seven days and I'm going to masturbate 400 times.

I never planned to not shower during Christmas break. That's a you thing. No, come on. That's a protest. No, that's an American thing right there. It seems like your stay in New York is quite literally just a very long layover. It is, but get this. On the elevator this morning on the way to the studio, a man saw my Mandalorian sweatshirt stopping and said,

Hey, by the way, I designed all the weapons on that series. What? Really? And then we got off the elevator and I chewed his ear off for like 10 minutes and heard the inside story. Why was he in this building? I don't know. But I was like, yo, did you see Gina DeCrono before they canceled her? And he was like, no, it was COVID.

They didn't let me near her. And I was like, oh. Yeah. We had a moment. Then we like made out and chill. I was going to say, did you guys go out afterwards? It's weird, but yeah. Well, we have a lot to get to because you were in Las Vegas for Canelo versus Berlanga.

The UFC 306 event is now in the books. We will talk about that. Shout out to the, I want to say it right now, early. Shout out to the production team of the UFC for that visual. Treat. Treat, yes. We'll leave it at that. Yeah, I know.

I have seen people be like i'm not that impressed put the camera on me very quickly oh boy the people who are claiming that they're not impressed are the people who are impressed with eating hot pockets for dinner these are fucking dullards who are dead inside who know absolutely fuck all about anything which isn't to say it was a flawless performance i'm not making the comment that it was a flawless performance. I'm not making the comment that it was a flawless performance. There are things to nitpick, for sure, but it was incredible. Anything short of that are from...

Here are the people who don't like it. Major divorce dad energy. Those are the people who don't like it. Did you give the sphere a chance to take more times than you saw Holloway versus Volkanovski? It's got to be neck and neck. At this point, I'm like, if I hear that shit again, I mean, come on.

I just can't believe how people – here's the point that I don't understand, BC. And I'm not even saying it's necessarily an unfair charge, but I get accused routinely of being, well, have some fun. Won't you have some fun? Well, let me turn the tables. Let me turn the tables. Have some fun, dullards. Open up your mind a little bit.

Now, there are complaints about the card, which we'll get to. Looks like stop shooting up six racks of Bud Light and get back to regular life. Well, that'd be all right, too. I wouldn't even mind that, necessarily. I just cannot believe the fucking totally vacuous, empty bullshit responses to what was obviously a very, very successful show. Luke, don't wake up now to the idea that the internet is nothing but bad faith. That's not what I'm saying. So, for example, I will say this.

I had three people email me who were in attendance. And, of course, there's going to be a gap between the in attendance. And what was their toxicology results upon entering? So one guy did admit he was high the whole time. But the other two were basically sober. And all three were like it was a life-changing experience. In fact, one guy was retiring from the Army, wasn't sure if he was going to go. And my enthusiasm pre-fight had convinced him, you know, I'm just going to bite the bullet and get a good ticket.

And did. And said it's the best money he's ever spent. He's so glad that he went. And that Army veteran has probably spent money on sex a few times. And like the 7-Eleven guys probably smoked meth out of a light bulb. But, you know, we're all making our way in this world the best we can. All right. I did once get busy in an Arby's parking lot bathroom.

There's no question. We're going to get to, let's see, do we have DMs later? We're going to get to have you seen this shit later. So thumbs up if you're watching. Max and Randy are going to come on at the same time today. It's going to be fantastic. Well, you did get the Max interview. I did.

And people think that I tried to back-end double-cross you. No, no, no. In the content I did. We talked bad about Luke. But no, we had talked about whether we even had the manpower to post that on MK. The basic issue is sometimes I book a guest. Sometimes BC books a guest. In this particular case, you got the offer for it.

And Max missed it but then wanted to reschedule. And there was no way to reschedule on MK. book a guest sometimes bc books a guest in this particular case you got the offer for it and max missed it but then wanted to reschedule and there was no way to reschedule on mk yes so we were like just take it just shout out to shaquille majorie of cbs our friend here on mk who hooked me up with that interview but uh i obviously have to commend max who came on and right away it was like hey guys sorry i missed that interview max is the man but what he said was that the mk nation if we want to call them that um that they came after him. Not like in a Torch Reddit aggressive way, but we're like, yo, why'd you do that to Luke? So, you know, it was good to hear Max say that along with, you know, his response to your love affair of Ilya Duporia.

So it's great content. I didn't hear that part. What did he say? Over there at the Brian Campbell Experience on YouTube. What did he say? What did he say? He mentioned the idea of, you know, you were following the latest flavor of the month. Oh, get the fuck out.

Max, I love you, but you're wrong. You're wrong. By the way, just a spoiler. I got a lot of content where I take shots at you on this personal channel. I forgot that Eric Alberacin and I talked about your Colombian love as well. Yeah, I mean, you do nothing but undermine me every possible chance that you get. You're obsessed with, in fact, talking about me. Funny, I never talk about you on my channel. Well, we could argue that you get. You're obsessed with, in fact, talking about me. Funny, I never talk about you on my channel.

Well, we could argue that another time. If people ask about you, I talk about you. Otherwise, I don't. Yeah, but no, thank you to everybody for jumping on board the Brian Campbell experience. I have no idea where it's going or what it's going to be, but it's fun as shit, and I appreciate you guys watching. Last question on that. Content from Dublin?

I hope to. Okay. But, you know, I'm still learning the ropes. You know I'm not a huge production guy, but, I mean, I got a cell phone. You know what I mean? Listen, you can do wonders with that. I could. I could.

You can do wonders with that. I should start a membership and then really give people the inside look at what I do. That's when you can really. I mean, that's the only thing. That's when it's only pipes. Reminder, of course, we have merch. You can go to morningcombat.store. You can get 10% off, I guess.

I don't even know who's running the store anymore, but it's there, I guess. Let's see. What else do we have merch you can go to morningcombat.store you can get 10% off I guess I don't even know who's running the store anymore but it's there I guess uh let's see what else do we have although just put the socials up very quickly if we can you know we should add our youtube socials to these because bc's got a channel now I've got a channel there you go we should maybe get that up yeah maybe these channels can work in concert with each other and we can do a duo together did you know that we can do duos what does that mean I don't know how to do it for actually from the laptop but from the phone if you go live from the phone yes um it would be like do you want to do this in concert with like a like a tandem with another channel you just include so it would be live on both people's channels yeah i think so i think so that's just morning combat at that point yeah that's just morning combat but

but we would be we'd be collecting all the money that way you know what i'm saying rather than you know the opposite yeah i'm yeah okay what i'm saying? Rather than, you know, the opposite. Hey, I'm... Yeah, okay. What? I was going to get all excited about the future morning comment, but then you're always like, I'm not going to tell anybody anything.

We have nothing to announce until it's ready to announce. All right, well, I just wanted to let people know I'm really excited about the future morning comment. Okay, that's fine. We can do that. All right, BC, did you watch the Sphere show? Do you want a margarita? Yes, I did.

Do you want a margarita? Did you watch it? Are you ready to talk about it? Hell yeah. All right. We'll get to the Sphere show. Do you want a margarita? Yes, I do. Do you want a margarita? Did you watch it? Are you ready to talk about it? Hell yeah. All right. We'll get to the Sphere part itself later. Let's talk about the fights first. Topic number one.

BC, we have a new UFC bantamweight champion, Marav Davalishvili. I know people got on me for saying it, but I guess that's how you pronounce it. Yeah. It's spelled Davalishvili, but it's pronounced like a W, I guess. He bested Sean O'Malley. Now, two of the judges gave O'Malley rounds three and rounds five, but I'm going to say it was pretty one-sided by and large. Yeah, that's not a stretch for round three to O'Malley.

Round five, definitely not. No, round five, he figured it out. He figured him out by round five. Round three is close. I can see it. I don't think that's the best score card but it's doable but let me get the question out bc there's so much to talk about marab and sean's future which we'll get to but the first thing i want to kind of get to to frame this

conversation is that ufc president dana white said that o'malley looked flat tonight just came out and looked flat do you agree and if so why i think in this case the answer is going to be not just one thing but a little bit of everything so in large you know in general to answer the question do i think o'malley came out flat i do but i don't by any means lean on that as the reason or even the majority of the reason why he lost this fight this was rob's coming out party in my opinion for all the upgrades he had made to his striking in the henry suhudo fight a fight he needed to win and and really show us that he can handle a super elite former champion in the full aspect of his game and he did that that only set the stage for what i saw because i know people can frame this in a lazy way and say oh we had

balal now we got another you know nut hugging non-finishing grappling champion but you're if you frame it like that you're completely missing the brilliance of not just the human interest story of marab winning which turned out to be this awesome inspirational awesome moment afterwards but how he actually won this was o'malley kind of flat yes i ultimately give him credit even though he started very late for figuring out how to find some offense in round five but it proved to be too late but Luke I re-watched round one again this morning and what Davalos really brought to the table striking wise did more to frustrate O'Malley and really I think surprise him by Murab's ability to counter so accurately that I think he won the fight in that opening round. I think he came out and was bouncing

and really O'Malley couldn't find a flow, a lane to sit down and get off his offense. Anytime he would let it go, Murab would be two steps behind. But then Murab would jump right back in and use good angles and show us this explosive side to his striking, which was just enough to keep touching O'Malley.

And once he established that, then it opened up room to build the threat of the takedown. And then once he had put him down a couple times and O'Malley knew what that could do to his gas tank, suddenly he's using the threat of the takedown to set up his striking and his striking to set up the takedown. And he had O'Malley completely bamboozled. I think it was a really bad night for O'Malley's corner and coach Tim Welch. I think you heard that in some of the things he said. Maybe it's just him being casual when they're obviously down and being like, oh, good round to try to pump up his ego.

But I didn't see any key instruction or even a panic of like, you got one round left, go out there and win back your title. There was none of that, even though O'Malley, to his credit, did rally. But yeah, for as flat as O'Malley kind of looked, I think a big part of him getting that flat was this isn't just a cardio machine. This is an intelligent, tough as shit, well-rounded champion who really proved to be, as I said last week, the style-wise, the last boss in the video game of Sean O'Malley's Bantamweight reign. This had the potential, because of Murab's A-game, to expose all of the parts of O'Malley's game that really actually aren't super elite, but he's been able

to overcome that because of how great his poise and his stamina and his, I'm sorry, and his striking is. But once he got tested in those vulnerable areas with a guy who can absolutely exploit that, we saw what happened. And what we saw was the birth of an absolute,

critically, pound for pound wise, a star, dude. That was a star-making performance. I largely agree with almost everything you said. Bit of a pop quiz on this, BC. Against Chito Vera, five-round fight, Sean O'Malley scored 230 significant strikes. Okay? So 230 over five rounds.

Give me a ballpark estimate about what you think he scored in this one five rounds as well 86 86 so it was 230 against Chito Vera it was 47 47 answer this the spin question back to you if Marab doesn't establish the entire game in that first round including the threat of the takedown, he's not able to break him down mentally like he did. O'Malley could not kick at all because of the threat of turning that into an instant takedown. So this is what I mean when I say I largely agree with you. I fully disagree with UFC President Dana White that O'Malley looked flat, other than to say he didn't look flat. He got flattened. Big, big, big

difference. And I want to be fair about something too. Sean O'Malley, I did a whole tape study on this. He does not have bad takedown defense. I know Henry Cejudo was saying during the fight we go, he's having trouble getting off the bottom. Guys, Murab does this to basically everyone. The one exception to this rule has been jose aldo who did stuff all the takedowns but still lost because he was basically offensively nullified he couldn't get quite literally anything going he's using so much of his stamina to fight off those takedowns and there was a three and it was a three-round contest i think at altitude it was a whole mess but the point being is basically basically basically, basically, Murab does this to every single person he fights.

Sean O'Malley wasn't flat. He got flattened. The 47 significant strikes that he was able to land is indicative of how much that fight was put on Murab's terms. The good fighters of this world, the great fighters of this world, they make you fight on their terms. And I want to point out something too. Understand against Marlon Maraich, you saw Marav get cracked. Even against Henry Cejudo, he got cracked. In this fight, until the fifth round with that shot up the

middle of the teep, which was almost like one of Sean O'Malley's most important strikes, it's almost like his jab, really. Up until that, you didn't see him take any physical punishment on the feet whatsoever, and I attribute that to many things. We already know he has great cardio. We already know with that single leg entry, he's very good about finding it without taking any punishment. There's not a high friction attack. But more to the point, I honestly believe he has gotten better

about timing, movement on the outside, feints, setting it all up, making people much more aware that they need to expect something coming, creating dual threats, and being unprepared for the moment. guy basically not entirely but basically from the beginning of this fight until the end and you can have criticisms of the performance like okay he's a dynamic attacker but he's not a dynamic finisher fair that's fine or I don't particularly enjoy his style after three rounds these are these are criticisms that people are allowed to make but what you can't say is something like well there was something wrong with Sean O'Malley. He couldn't rise to the occasion. I do agree that the corner advice from Tim Welch seemed more motivational speaking than tactically charged. And I'll put you back.

Well, I don't want it back. I just want to pitch it to you and say, if I found out after the fact that O'Malley had a somewhat significant injury and he just didn't want to say it, then I think it would make some of the Tim Welch speaking back and forth to O'Malley more understandable. Especially that fifth round one where it's like we're almost done, I think is what he told him, right? It could be the case where he had an injury. And in defense of Tim Welch, we don't know their cornering style.

Yeah. And we don't know the various relationships they're in. He also had Augusto Tanquinho in his corner who was a great grappler and was like his grappling coach obviously that guy's gonna have to give more tactical advice against a guy like Marab so there's there's relationships there and ways in which they work that kind of explain this but Marab has truly he took a skill set a raw one with his work rate that was able to beat a lot of guys. But I want to point out something beyond this, BC. His entries into the takedown are now safer.

His finishing off the single leg, he has so many different kinds of finishes. Tree top, outside trips, Osoto Garis. He's got high crotch finishes, head inside singles. Any number of different finishes. And now, once he gets you up against the fence and you try to build height, how about that front headlock?

Yes. The front headlock. Sean O'Malley kept going from frying pan to fire. And this is all due to the talent of Murab. You got to give him that credit. And I think he made a leap in that Cejudo fight and he took it to another level here. And the most important part was not being reckless,

not opening himself up to strikes. Think of how brilliant the well-rounded performance of round one was. He not only said that the threat of the takedown was real, but he was accurate enough of the striking, where really he had O'Malley bamboozled. That's why he wasn't throwing. He had him not confident in any direction. Luke, if you can take, I didn't think he's going to be able to take away

O'Malley's kicking game like that, like instantly like that. It's a whole other game. When he can do that to you, the chances of him being able to play his A game and go downhill against you are going to be so much higher. You are really going to have to hurt him early on

because he did have a stamina dump in that fifth round, which led to O'Malley having some offensive moments. But he didn't fall apart. He held it together. If he can do that for 25 minutes, you're in trouble. You're in trouble unless you can demonstratively shut down, you know, an avenue for him.

O'Malley had nothing in that regard. And then when he's unable to get his offense together, do you look at the fifth round as Merab just kind of getting a little bit tired, or do you think there was an adjustment from O'Malley there that maybe could have been, should have been earlier? That stab up the middle that he hit him with, where you could see him visibly go like this, right? That's actually Sean O'Malley's number one strike.

He does it to everyone. He sets up things that way, establishes distance that way. He purposely wasn't using it early in the fight because I think he was scared of using it early in the fight because i think he was scared of getting it grabbed and then taken down may have been a mistake that may have been a tactical error because it looked like he could throw it without too much issue now again it was fifth round versus first who knows what would have happened in a different state setting but that thing that thing gave marab real problems i think he just discovered it almost by accident

and it just worked and he he drilled down on it. So the takedown threat takes away the calf kick, so there's no slowing Marab down, but also O'Malley is used to, he's a very good boxer in an MMA space, he's used to building off that jab and getting not only control of the range, but you get confident when you start landing

that. You can do so much more offense off of a jab, it's why it's in striking so much the foundation and importance that was completely taken away. And it took O'Malley really to the fifth round to, to figure out a lane of some type of offense that would land consistently. Did not see this coming. When you looked at the IQs of each fighter coming in and the way you could

predict that they were going to adapt. I didn't think O'Malley was going to have this level of trouble. So I think most of that is due to, is due to Merab getting to another level in his game. But I do think you'll look back on O'Malley's career and be like, this was a low moment because he just didn't, he was solved and didn't bring a ton of the table. So I'd love to know if there was an injury that affected that.

And I like that he's not leaning on it. If there was, it's not like a day one excuse of, Oh, by the way, I had this going on but um it would make sense or he just I mean has he been a front runner for too long meaning that he's controlled the terms of so many fights and led the dance no he's also been in close fights like Jan I mean the Jan fight was he's had to make adjustments there guts fight and you can say you can say Jan won but it was not I mean that was a tough scrap all the way through and he kind of came on strong in the third anyway, after having a bit of a rough start. Let me add a couple of dimensions to this, if I may,

in looking at Merab's game. Two things really stuck out to me about this. One, I think one of the real key errors, and I understand why O'Malley made it because it's hard to get over this, but when O'Malley wanted to, when O'Malley was on the back foot and wanted to charge at Merab to land on something, if Marab was in the center, and every round kind of started with O'Malley in the center, but then it eventually changed except for the fifth.

Did you notice O'Malley would try and come and charge at him, and Marab does not have super slick countering defense, but if the whole octagon space is behind you, you can just get out of the way. Yes. So one, not being able to put pressure on Marab made Marab's ability to avoid any blitzes or sudden attacks from O'Malley much, much easier, like significantly easier.

That was the first thing that I really noticed. He wasn't there to be found with a jab. He was almost Pacquiao-like in darting in and out constantly, never there to be hit. Never there to be hit. But if you've got room, imagine the roles were reversed, and now you're up against the fence. You could maybe duck and get out of the way,

but you couldn't back up anymore. But if you can just back up because the whole octagon's behind you, who really cares anymore? That was one thing that I kind of really noticed. I think part of the other one was we got to already was the addition, and he's done it before, but now he's got this offensive system. I'm going to go go for the takedown either I'm going to get it and get on top or you're going to wrestle you to your hands and once I wrestle you to your hands I'm going to pull that outside leg off because for folks who don't realize if this is the wall of the fence my outside leg typically

has to go up first because you have to press into the fence so they can't come to the other side of you but when you put the weight on that like that, it makes someone like Merab able to put his leg inside and then turk it, lift it, shelve it, whatever he needs to. And then if you want to turn to face him, well, then he just goes to the front headlock. And if you stand on your hands, what's he doing? He's banging you on the leg the whole time with his. He's got this whole offensive system now pretty fucking dialed in,

if I do say so myself. And it takes up so much of your mental focus and energy to to keep him in line to keep him from overwhelming you that really it went perfect to code to for uh marab because look look at how much time in the first two rounds he's just leaning on o'malley on the ground and just pulling on that gas tank it really was brilliant across the board, but all of that's not going to be as effective if he doesn't raise his level of striking. That's why I'm so impressed with the counterpunching.

Did not see that coming. You got to give his team a lot of credit. Obviously, Ray Longo's a big part of that, and he had an A-plus night just playing the Ray Longo character, just being like the lovable ex-Mafia uncle. You know what I mean? Just being like the, all right, Murab, I love you, buddy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, go kick his fucking ass. Just giving him like the most like casual, but awesome,

uh, encouragements there. But obviously they've built a factory of champions and it kind of makes sense. I look at a guy who we don't talk about enough in Rob lost his first two UFC fights, one by split decision, one by he got put to sleep and has now won 11 in a row and is improving

leaps and bounds at just the right time. It's not that he's just a cardio freak, but being a 10 out of 10 cardio freak on top of everything else we're talking about, this is sort of a rare combination of a fighter. Like he's Habib-like, but he's so different. That's not, you know, he's kind of his own guy.

Habib is much more of a finisher. That's what I'm saying. He's Habib-like, but not even really all that close and serious but what he's built is so unique and i think you have to spin that forward to what he revealed about himself after the fight it was just like we know he's just he's everything at once he's this wild out of control guy who will do crazy things and put his health at risk in his personal life to the laughter of everybody on instagram but he's also this like every man. I mean that speech afterwards, I love that he interrupted Joe and was like, no,

we're not going to talk about the Umar fight, which by the way is one of the most bad-ass fricking fights we could ever make. And I can't wait. I can't wait him doing that. Every man's speech and just trying to inspire people at home and being like, I am just like you. Obviously there's very few people that are just like Marab because he's a

freak in many ways and a lot of great ways. But this was a really wholesome, like, feel-good moment of somebody who did it the hard way. And we don't get that enough, it seems like. You know what I mean? I love to celebrate that. Let me make a point here. I could go back further than this, but this is when the names to me start to really matter. Listen to this win streak from Marab.

He beats John Dodson, Cody Stammen, Marlon Marais, who he finished, Jose Aldo, Fyodor Yan, Henry Cejudo, and now Sean O'Malley. I'm going to ask you something, but I'm going to offer a theory about it too, which is like what is it that makes Merab's story so special? Yeah, what do you think? My best guess is he feels to me like the absolute physical and honestly like personal embodiment of working class ethic he is like if you could just build like show me what a blue collar guy looks like personified so it looks like marab if showtime went out of business would he door dash that's really what

i'm trying to ask you had to and he and if he, he'd be the goddamn best door dasher that ever lived. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing to me. Does he have those special kind of Shavkat Rachmanov truly dangerous finishing skills? No, he does not. I mean, this is a long run of decisions, granted, against really tough guys, but it's a lot of decisions. He doesn't have that extra gear in him, or skill-wise it's not really there but what he does have is max effort at all times

against a murderer's row of people that no no one no favored son situation here no we're gonna put you at the front of the line this is you you can get to the front of the line if you just outwork everyone and he was like bet i'll do that and in the fifth round his chin got tested and we know he's got great recuperative skills mixed with that cardio but his chin legit got tested a few times wasn't there a high kick in there too i mean he was getting pieced up in round what's your what's your best theory about you agree with that like this is why his story has resonated i mean it is the perfect sort of like immigrant come to the u.s and make the dream happen and do it the hard and long way and the blue collar.

But on top of that, he's also like this lovable maniac. It's really like, he's the perfect character. That's why I was like unhappy at some of the social media response, even though you expect the worst from X slash Twitter, especially from what the hell is Elon on lately? Oh my God.

He's seen these tweets. They are heavy handed. You expect the worst, but a lot of people were just sort of like, man, so boring. It's like, no, it's not so boring. It was a fucking great fight to watch to see the style contrast and to see this guy put out this performance. And also, if you're not moved by this guy's story, it's like, what's wrong with you? This was one of those i feel like i won

when i'm watching it i'm like we all win that's rare dude juliana pena created that moment with and i give her credit that's an all-time great moment but this is is it's real man i'm feeling i'm still high off marab right now all right so let's advance you're not you're not no i'm super high i even said it like was this a barn burner of a fight i I wouldn't call it that necessarily. No, it wasn't that. But you knew what the fault lines were of this fight going in. And the question was, who could solve that problem? And then for it to be, again, fifth round notwithstanding, for it to be so one-sided where one guy really solved the problem,

you're like, man, that is special. It is special. And again, it's one of those things where- This is the best division in the sport, man. Come on. This is not one of those situations where, well, he beats some fraud. Sean O'Malley is not a fraud. His takedown defense is not bad.

His striking is obviously his bread and butter, but his takedown defense is not bad. He's a winner. His wrestling is not bad. He's a fucking winner. He's a fucking winner. It's just that dude, Merab's ability to perform and make people fight on his terms is extraordinarily good. You do not get handed UFC titles.

This guy earned that shit. He has his own section in Have You Seen This Shit Today. Excellent. So the question I now have for you is very simple. At the post-fight presser, not so much speaking to Rogan in the cage afterwards, but at the post-fight presser, Barab said, you know who actually deserves the next title shot? Deveson Figueredo.

Now, the camera, when he did speak to Rogan, put it on Umar Nurmagomedov. BC, settle this for us. Should it be Deveson Figueredo. Now, the camera, when he did speak to Rogan, put it on Umar Nurmagomedov. BC, settle this for us. Should it be Deveson Figueredo? Should it be Umar Nurmagomedov next? I think it should be actually Figueredo. And I'm saying that. Not a bad fight either way, by the way. From the standpoint of saying, I think Umar versus Murab is like a hardcore fan's boner.

I mean, this is an absolute perfect wet dream of a fight. It's so compelling, I can, it's so compelling. I can't wait to see it, but could you argue that Umar has kind of been allowed to just, you know, leap ahead of the pack? What was he ranked 15 before that last,

uh, victory, the breakthrough victory. If he had to go one more, I don't think that's the end of the world because figure it was not getting any younger. And I think his success at Bantamweight now three and oh, um, it's not being talked about enough.'s like 36 37 years old on top of that moving up to the sports deepest and most dangerous division

and yet has found a way despite being clearly undersized to be very legit here yeah I'd be absolutely down with that fight it would give you time to to build up Marab versus Umar even more. To go beyond just a hipster, hardcore favorite. Because look, Umar Okay, here's a good question, Luke. Marketing-wise, if Umar proves to be legit pound-for-pound top 10 and

going to be there for a while, and he very much looks like so far, will he get the rub that Islam got from Habib? Because Islam's like a legit top five star in this game. I think all those Dagestani guys with the Muslim backgrounds, I think, especially with the Nurmagomedov name, is Umar as compelling a person as Habib was? Habib was fucking hilarious.

We don't ever talk about that. Habib's really funny. Umar doesn't seem to have that similar kind of personality from what we can tell. But I think if your last name is Nurmagomedov and you win like that guy wins and you have this Muslim background, they can take you to the UAE, you're going to fucking sell.

Like you're going to be a major attraction in key markets for them, no question about it. So you wouldn't be mad if Umar had to go one more. He probably should have to go one more, right? I wouldn't be. Listen, here's the reality. Either way, Murab versus Umar, Murab versus Figueredo, both of those fights are great both of them and if it ends up being in the end if umar wins one and figueredo wins one and then it has

to be umar versus figueredo that is also a incredibly tremendous fight by to the but just to clarify figueredo's 36 will be 37 in december so he's not far from that either one of those bantamweight and you look at the ages at bant far from that. Either one of those. This is Bantamweight, and you look at the AGs at Bantamweight. I know. Either one of those is compelling. You talk about the three-fight win streak. It's Rob Font who he decisioned. He submitted Cody Garbrandt.

And then he kind of beat up Marlon Vera. It is true to me that the body of work at 135 at this point is better for figure eight, or at least the last three, certainly. However, none of those wins are as good as the one win over Corey Sanhagen. The Sanhagen win is better than all of those. And then when you throw in the reality that the guy's last name is Nurmagomedov, and also I'm going to say this too, it's not like Figueredo's not well-rounded. His power has carried up a weight class.

His jiu-jitsu speaks for itself. Again, he could beat Murab. His speed and punching placement is so underrated. It's very underrated. However, I think Umar is the guy. Okay, so who would you... Instead of Omar's coming from the wire, Umar's coming, buddy. Errol Spence, did you see that?

He put it on Instagram. He said 154 slash 160. Oh, wow. Who do you think Umar should have to fight if we went Figueiredo for the next title shot? All right, so assuming that we're going to just say give it to the brazilian um here's probably the best opportunity you could give it to yan yan versus number commando oh dude that is a perfect fight to make umar show us a little bit deeper that he belongs and deserves it yeah i mean because we still need to see a little bit more offensivelyph offensively out of Umar. We've seen the full, complete game.

Yeah, he tried to basically, if you think of Sandhagen as a bomb, he tried to lightly defuse the bomb. Yes, yes. But there wasn't like some great demonstration of offensive skill in that way. Jan will make you fight. He will. And he's going to go for it. You know what I mean?

Like he takes risks during the middle of a fight. So you could go that direction if you really wanted to. However, the opposite is also true, BC. If you really wanted to, you could go Um direction if you really wanted to however the opposite is also true bc if you really wanted to you could go umar for the title shot and then you could go figueredo versus yan and by the way that fight also fucking bangs both of those fights are incredible are they not this division so fun i love it i love the high end of it i love the mid-end i love all the end low end yeah it's hard to go the low end theory. Great. One of the greatest.

I mean, really, that started the rap jazz era in so many ways. I'm just pointing out, like, people trying to make the case that Figueredo's resume is, like, vastly better. It's three wins, none of which are as good as the one win over Corey Sanhagen. So if you wanted to give it to Figueredo, fine. But I think we should stop pretending like he's Tony Ferguson on some 12-fight winning fight winning streak and he's deserved it at this point and it's long overdue that's really not the case here oh connected to this somewhat what do you think about henry suhudo threatening to go back down to flyweight i mean he's almost 40 like i don't really care at this point is he a threat to the flyweight title in your eyes no no you don't like Pantoja against him I don't hate it

but he can win that if he can make that way I understand after he beat Dominic Cruz I understand why Cejudo was like man I don't really want to fight for peanuts and I don't really want to do this right now I want to just do something else as a decision for your own sanity or for standing on principle I get it given the state of the industry, as a decision to advance your career prospects, it was calamitously bad. And so you lost all that time, and now it looks like he's trying to make up for it,

and it is too late. So I don't have a strong feeling about it. I had a deep chat with Eric Alberacin that's coming out tomorrow on my solo channel, and we talked at length about that Henry Cejudo decision. The one to sit out? Yeah, about whether Coach regrets it now and what he thinks that may have done to the legacy.

Give me a little nugget, a little nugget. He would have wanted him to stay active. Okay. Listen. He also put out there that Henry had things in his personal life that he had a want for, and starting a family was that. Fair enough. I can understand that.

I'm just saying it didn't do anything for his professional interests. Yes. But I've done great wonders for his personal needs, and that's fine. But now it's like I'm 37, you're 38. It made him a boutique brand in a way, though. Doesn't that raise your price? A two-to-two division ex-champion? brand in a way though doesn't that isn't that like raise your price at two to two division i don't i think giving away the last years of your early 30s as a professional decision is not good i wish he

could have got the volkanovski chance to be a three division champion i don't think that yeah that ain't happening no no right volkan not on top but back when that window was there yeah i wish he would have bc you mentioned something and i want to talk very quickly about Ray Longo having an impressive array of champions. Let's go through this here very quickly. Matt Serra, Chris Weidman, Aljamain Sterling, Marab DiWallach-Wheely. When we talk about gyms that have multiple champions, like ATT for a time, certainly AKA had a bunch all at once.

But this is truly dynastic from Ray Longo where you have the Matt Serra era basically ending leading into where Chris Wyman came shortly thereafter leading into Aljamain Sterling's time to rise and with almost not quite but almost a direct handoff from Sterling now to Merab dude I realize that those two guys do a lot of work in Las Vegas. Weidman's down in South Carolina and has been. It's not all just one guy. And, of course, all these guys are talented. But for their formative training years to be spent with Ray Longo

and for Ray Longo to have this kind of success generationally through MMA is outrageously, outrageously unusual. And one of the most impressive things I've ever seen any MMA coach do in the history of the sport. It's a tribute to the culture that you create to have a powerhouse system that can evolve over time like that because you have to evolve as a coach. And look, it's not all him. Like, who's the head coach? Who was the head coach in the fight the other so john wood out of syndicate that was

okay and so it's part of the thing but what ray longo seems to have built there and sarah with him in the beginning um is that culture of winning of getting but i mean it's on fucking long island can we bring in long island luke here i mean this is your shit who i mean who else besides billy joel is putting that stamp on that island anymore? Shout out to Long Island MMA. Ray Longo, the GOAT. That's all he had to say, I guess. Thanks, Aussie Rules Luke, for that very insightful contribution.

I mean, I was on Marab, man. I had a clean sweep of betting this week. Oh, do you know what he does on his podcast, The Main Card Minute? It's a threat to the audience. If Long Island Luke has a clean sweep of perfect betting, he will smoke the Mike Tyson, what do you call it? Gravity bong? No, it's an e-nail.

It's like for hash oil. So you connect it to your bong and you put the hash oil in? He did that live on his podcast. Do you think that'll raise the potential? What time is your show on the DraftKings network? I don't know. DraftKings hit me up. Dude, him and Gaff doing bong rips on a podcast talking MMA, network. I don't know. DraftKings, hit me up. Dude, him and Gaff

doing ball rips on a podcast talking MMA, I'm kind of into that. Their entire show is just RSD. You know the comment section of our YouTube on Morning Combat? That's what his podcast is. Yeah, basically. Just misogyny and racism. It's great.

BC, any final thoughts on Ray Longo? I love the man. Can we get him back on the show ASAP, please? Can we get him in the studio for about an hour and a half? Would you like to do that one day here? We can do it again, I'm sure. All right, let's go to question number two, our co-main event of the evening. Valentina Shevchenko, what can you say? Again, just kind of ran over Alexa Grasso, winning an easy unanimous decision,

getting every single round on every single judge's scorecard. BC, are you surprised in their third meeting that it was as one-sided as it ended up being? Yes, shocked, because this goes against the grain of what typically happens in these situations. It's like, for as close as Shevchenko came in that second fight, which was a draw and was a very kind of like technical classic and great, you know, great adjustments from both throughout, but she came really close. And now we were asking her to go to a third meeting,

but sit out a year because you're building, you're filming the ultimate fighter and you're setting this up for the next noche. And Oh, by the way, you'll have turned 36. Is that what she is? 30?

No, she's 36 now. She'll be 37 in April. So you will, you know, you'll be deep into 36 when the fightche. And oh, by the way, you'll have turned 36. Is that what she is? No, she's 36 now. She'll be 37 in April. So you'll be deep into 36 when the fight happens. We don't talk up enough what Devis and Figueredo did coming back after he got finished by Moreno to win back the title at 34 at Bantamweight. This is 36 and a half here at Women's Flyweight

where this division is as deep as ever. And this is one of the most decorated champions, one of the all-time greats. But this doesn't happen like this. Her to go against the grain and not just win this fight, but to go 50-45 deservedly on all three scorecards. A clean sheet. So I don't want to hear anybody about, oh, this was boring, it was too much wrestling, or the combination of this and Merab ruined the sphere event and proved it was a financial debate.

Stop. Stop with the madness. This was a historic, brilliant performance. In most cases, the younger fighter surges, if not just sometimes for youth or when a matchup is so close that inevitably every meeting will stay close until the older fighter declines. Luke, there was no declining on Saturday because she figured it out as what the great veterans do, to be as efficient as possible. She also, Luke, improved on her striking meeting with Valentina. Her counter hooks, her boxing counter hooks, completely bamboozled Grasso. Almost the same thing we're talking about O'Malley in the first two rounds and really round one, particularly on the feet, just getting, just leaving, giving you the feeling like there's nothing she can do to Grasso on the feet was completely out of her element

in this one. And then that led to the success that Valentina had on the ground and on top. And while I certainly give credit to the moxie of Grasso to put herself in positions where she was close to a submission or at least had a big threat of one. Although if you listen to Rogan, every time they touch, Valentina's in trouble and in danger. What was up with that?

That was one of his, I usually, one of these, that was all-time bad calls from him. That was one of the worst Rogan performances I've ever heard. Every time he's like, look, there's the choke, it's in, oh, Valentina's in trouble. She's in full mount. We all appreciate how successful he's been and what he's done for MMA. He sounded

mega-washed on this broadcast. Maybe he took too many edibles because of the sphere experience. I mean, we were there in the crowd. He was without sin, cast the first stone, but that was an all-time poor performance from him. Just to close the point, Luke, this wasn't supposed to happen, and she not only did it, she did it easy and efficient and brilliant and raised parts of her game in the process.

We don't deserve her. MMA doesn't deserve somebody this freaking great and dedicated, this level of a professional who afterwards said, I'm glad we didn't need trash talk to sell this fight. I'm glad it was about this. So I hope people respect this because that was real MMA on Saturday. Here is what is amazing to me about this fight, BC. It's the third.

You could say, well, O'Malley got run over and he did, but that was the first time he fought Murab. This was the third time that Alexa Grosso has had to face this fighter in a row, by the way yes in a row and this was by far the worst she looked and what really blew me away was what was the big change from the first to the second fight uh shevchenko got rid of the spinning attacks because that was making her back vulnerable and then really leaned into the wrestling in the second fight right we saw that there was a big physical difference between them the strength so that was what she did in the second

fight you had to know as her team you had to know that they were going to go back to that in the third fight now maybe this much i don't know but you had to know it was going to be absolutely critical to what they wanted to do and her takedown defense got worse. And her ability to scramble off the bottom got worse. She declined in her ability. She got shut out. Dude. When does that happen in a fight like at this deep into a rivalry unless the older fighter completely falls apart?

It never happens. This is what is amazing to me. It was the third crack she had. She had 25 minutes in that third crack. There was a big gap in time between the second and third fight. Your opponent is close to 37 years old, and you got roughhoused. There are two explanations for that. One, Grasso just did a poor job.

I mean, I'm just, there's no other. Was the moment too big for her? I don't know if the moment was too big, but her preparation for this was deeply inadequate. There's just really no two ways. If this was the first time they fought i'd be like well you just got beat by a better person and she did but this is a better person where like you knew exactly what they were going to do you've had multiple tries at it and it got worse over time that is incomprehensible then the third the second thing i'm going to say about this is dude we just have to make it it probably already was true before this fight.

But BC, I think the hardest thing to do in MMA is to win a UFC title and then maintain it. That is keeping a streak alive. Like I saw people being like, oh, O'Malley lost it after one defense. That's actually more common for UFC champions than the opposite. It's actually rare to get a streak going. But to me, the second hardest thing to do is to lose your title, time elapses, and then you get it back later. That is what the great ones do. That's it.

Valentina Shevchenko is at worst, at worst, the third best women's fighter of all time. That's the worst place she could occupy. I think it probably goes Amanda Nunes. I do think that Cyborg probably occupies the second space because when she was in Strikeforce, she defended her title four times, in Invicta three times, UFC two times, and in Bellator five times. It's a level of

dominance that is simply absurd. However, for Shevchenko to do what she has done at Women's 125, all while young contenders are emerging the entire time to wrestle it back quite literally. And to get better. Firmly.

She's getting better. Firmly, firmly, firmly puts her top three all-time. I mean, she's knocking on whatever door she wants to. So here's the idea, Luke. Is there time for her to go beyond knocking on top three all-time? Is there time for her to make a run? I feel like it's been unfortunate that she didn't get the third Nunes fight because you can strongly argue that

she should have been the Bantamweight champion that night. But Luke, what we saw right now and what she still has, which is a lot, you're going to be tasked with this question, I believe. Do you stay at 125 where there's killers come up? I mean, her against Faroe is a hell of a fight.

You've got Blanchfield trying to retool herself. It will be boring to gotten Rose Nami Eunice. You've got, I mean, there's some players in this here. Natalia Silva is another one of those. Like there's legitimate fun contenders and they're going to be tough or because you're going to be 37 soon. And the window of history is usually short to get to like rare air.

You got to tell the UFC, I'm going to 35 and maybe there's a chance through there to not only add kayla harrison to her resume in terms of you know the great facing every great possible but maybe she gets the trilogy with amanda through that with the potential to becoming a two-division champion to really round out what's available to her because obviously she's a she's a rare The longevity, it's not just the longevity. It's not just that she's been doing this for, you know, back to her Muay Thai career forever.

I mean, this is a, forget lifelong passion. I mean, damn. Look, if she could add a second division title and add those Hall of Famers and GOATs to her resume, and if she can come through there winning, then she's going to have that chance to actually retire as the greatest. That seems unlikely. But wouldn't you chase it?

If you're her, you've got to. There's no question I would chase it if I was her, especially with the time she has remaining. She's maximizing it, certainly, at age 36, but a lot of factors beyond her control have to kind of play to her favor. Hard to know exactly how likely all that is wouldn't you love to see her against kayla for example just a style contrast just see what that looks like kayla's so big and strong i think she would be one of the one of the few

fighters would have a real physical advantage sure however on the feet i think valentina would light her up and so that part makes it kind of interesting altogether but i just think what valentina showed was that was the i mean that is championship moxie right there right where it's like okay i'm gonna have to by the way we're talking about it like all she did was wrestle but on the feet the combinations and flurries at the end of or after the jabbing of alexa grasso she looked lost there too. She bamboozled her. She absolutely shut her down. Yes, with a lot of wrestling and a lot of top control, 100%, but also attempts from the back.

And then on the feet, she kept it minimal. But on this, we talk about the good fighters, the great fighters. They make you fight on their terms. Yes. And she shut her down on the feet just long enough for her to be confused and then for the takedowns to come like that. Dude, this was a major humbling, I think, for Grasso and one of these moments where I really hope folks appreciate it will be very rare. You can watch MMA fights for 20 years. How many times have you seen a UFC champion lose the belt and then get

it back years later, especially past the age of 35? It's been done by Couture, obviously, and he had to kind of go all over the place to do it. Now Shevchenko has done it. Stylebender just tried, could not do it at age 35. Amanda Nunes did it once after she lost

it to that fight against Juliana Payton, but this one, look who's doing it. Shevchenko, Couture, Nunes did it once after she lost it to that fight against Juliana Payne. But this one, look who's doing it. Shevchenko, Couture, Nunes. These exceptionally rare fighters. Is he getting it back against Poiton with the knockout? It's possible. No, no, he did it. Oh, right, right, right. I'm sorry.

He didn't do it against Drakis, but he did do it against. He already did that shit. So this is what I'm talking about. We're talking about the second best middleweight of all time. The top one, three best women's fighters of all time. One of the best light heavyweight slash heavyweights of all time. Those are the, three best women's fighters of all time. One of the best light heavyweights slash heavyweights of all time. Those are the only fucking people who can do this. That is it.

And I really hope folks understand. Again, BC, I'm going to ask you, from a pure entertainment standpoint, was the pure entertainment, was the co-main event that great? I was entertained. Look, entertainment isn't always by action. And it's like, we got a lot of action on this card. We got like rounds of the year and absolute brawls on this card because the main and co-main were technical and like i there's a drama in watching brilliance play out

there was a drama in watching marab to see if he can keep throwing this no hitter and keep o'malley away and o'malley tried to rally around five it It wasn't enough. There was a, there was a great sense of drama and entertainment to that. And I think in this co-main seeing Valentina turn back time and do this, it wasn't overwhelmingly exciting, but that's what a veteran fighter should be as efficient and smart and mastering the fine arts of all the foundational elements of this game. As she has, she also seemed to be the more fit fighter at that age.

I mean, she's just a complete well-rounded legend. I don't get afterwards when Dana was kind of crapping on the main and co-main. He was putting out there that we can spend all this money on the sphere and we can do all these big things, but the fights are going to be what they're going to be. And that's true. A promoter, you can make the best fight card ever on paper, but if it's duds, you take that blame too.

But I would rather have him be like, let's talk about the brilliance of Valentina and Marab can make the best fight card ever on paper but if it's duds you take that blame too but i would rather have him be like let's talk about the brilliance of valentina and marab and where they fit pound for pound and did you guys see the craft and the heart they showed rather than just being like you know too bad we didn't get the brawls we hoped for to close out the sphere that's fair right i mean this was i maybe i mean there's different kinds of fans there's different reasons that you're watching and i'm not always on on the MMA side looked at as a hardcore Luke. People look at me as a white belt piece of shit, even though I got that hardcore love for it.

But this was, I mean, how could you not be entertained by this? I will say this. I didn't mind it. I did a watch along for the co-main and main. So I was watching it live, and I found it. I certainly found the main event entertaining. And I also agree with you. Entertaining doesn't just mean rock them, sock them. Sometimes it can be drama or it can be real subtle things.

Storytelling. You get into their career arcs enough, it's all storytelling. I will push back a little bit, though, and take Dana's side a little bit. Take it. The fact that Grasso looked much worse in the third fight and had no improvement, no answer, nothing. I'm not saying she didn't work on things, but if she did, it didn't show up at all.

Took a little bit of the wind out of my sails on this one. I appreciate what Valencina did. I mean, look at it from a business sense. We talked coming into the sphere card of if O'Malley finishes Marab and adds another name to his streak, is he the biggest star in the whole sport suddenly? Like, you know, is he chasing McGregor? I mean we had these out outsized things to say by the way that went up in smoke it did but so did the idea of you're doing no che and you know you're setting

the stage with grasso hair in this trilogy for her to come over the top and win that rivalry and be the star of stars with the face up on the screen so from a business sense the two younger more valuable brand prospects you could argue kind of you know not kind of they both underwhelmed in their performance in a big way so do you think that's really fueling what dana was saying probably probably i give sean significantly more of a mulligan here because it was literally the first time fighting this guy yeah ragrasso dude this is your third crack you gotta be kidding me she showed shevchenko showed her hand in the second fight about what where they were going to go i even

you can go back and watch my watch along right before the fight starts i'm like okay what did we learn from the second fight she went wrestling heavy let's see if she could add more ground and pound but she's going to go back to it and then the first fucking thing she does is that like it's not it wasn't mystifying downgradgrading Valentina to a certain degree though and saying, okay, what she did was brilliant. And for her age, it was brilliant, but the, there was still an opening there for Grasso to overwhelm and counter that and figure it out. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying Valentina did everything she needed to, to get the win.

I cannot say the same for Grasso. I don't feel like, yeah, if I, I just, I cannot understand how you can be a champion, know what your opponent is going to do, or at least have a pretty good sense of it, and then get worse at defending it. That is just very, very hard for me to understand. Seems to be a similar debate going on about Berlanga from the Canelo fight. I don't know if you saw Lou DiBella's

aggressive tweets of saying like, He was reading my mind. We're praising Berlanga for taking this beating and surprising us there, but he wasn't trying to win. I kind of disagree. I thought he was still trying to win, but we'll get into that. I don't agree with that at all. But I will say this.

We didn't talk about it very quickly. What should be next for Sean O'Malley? Because you mentioned what's going to be next for Valentina, in all likelihood, Manon Fiorot. She weighed in as a backup on Friday just in case something happened. It takes a lot of balls. I mean, it's opportunistic. It shows your discipline.

But is there a risk of her doing that? I think so think so in fact i know one fighter who got offered one of those for a title fight and it was a shockingly low amount of money oh okay so i don't know what the situation maybe maybe she got more for this one i don't know but okay so it's going to be for furo versus shevchenko that fight is going to be super boring i just have to tell folks it is now yeah but that's intriguing on the nexus knows chess it chess board stand. It is, but it won't be action-packed. However, the one that could be, and he called for it today, I think last night even on social media, Corey Sanhagen wants a fight with Sean O'Malley.

And I got to tell you, yes, please now make it. Whatever your problems might have been with Merab's wrestling heavy approach, I got a pretty good feeling, BC, we won't see a lot of that in Sanhagen versus O'Malley. Could that be a pay-per-view main in this era? Could be a co-main. I wouldn't want it to be a main, but it's such a good non-title fight that I'd see it in any way I could, illegally or legally. That fight is can't-miss material.

It would be such an important fight for both of their arcs right now it would be it would be that would be great i think major redemption would be available on either side this division's great it's fucking amazing why are they putting josie aldo into fights that we don't necessarily care so that bautista fight is actually a good fight no i get that these are and that these are giving answers to whether it's on the prelim card that's the part that's like what the fuck are we doing here with this one i know would you wouldn't i'm would you rather i would rather see him against like legends like dom cruz or something and those type of fun old guy fights i wouldn't hate it i think if you're if you don't have a title taking old guy fights is great the problem with jones is he's taking an old guy fight with

a title like if you've got a crappy pay-per-view in in brazil and you need like him to splash your co-main don't put him against donks on them some donk who's about to break through into the top 15 all right let's talk about the rest of that card let's finally get to the sphere bc so we of course everyone knows we've been to the sphere before it was hyped as the greatest combat sports event of all time okay it definitely wasn't that i mean that seems absurdly unrealistic and you can't really have that unless you've got some of the best fights of all time and you had some good fights on this card, but you didn't have that on this card. So I actually have things about the sphere that I did not like on this show, but my basic question to you is this, did the sphere

live up to the hype? I think it did. And I know there's a lot of people that are going to push back on that, but you have to take what perspective are you looking at it to do? What is your experience before then? If you, if you've never been to the sphere and you don't really know what to expect, and then you're trying to see on TV, if you can somehow experience the same experience that everyone inside the

sphere is experiencing, inevitably that's going to fail yet. I've got to give the UFC nothing but credit here for being this ambitious for delivering a truly unique night that we're never going to forget. I mean, we're pushing them to do this type of stuff. We want stadiums and big thing. I want them to go to Yankee stadium.

I want them to do stuff like that. You know what I mean? I've always want any promoter in boxing or MMA to do fun, kind of crazy stuff like that stuff you wouldn't imagine this was the ultimate example of that if the argument is was it worth the 23 million i think that's a separate argument if the argument was could we have taken this money and put it into better main events or co-mains here and there that's also a separate argument about spanish speaking hologram dana white but if the argument was i want I want the UFC to do something truly unique and groundbreaking

and really, I mean, because you can have another conversation about what this does to sports broadcasting in the future. And Dana talked about in the Post Fight Press Conference about what this is going to do to arenas moving forward and how everyone's going to have to adapt their technology to be cutting edge and how they're going to present this. I thought

the UFC took this as serious as possible. They brought in award-winning directors and shit. I mean mean they they went for it and i thought it was a truly memorable unique artistic experience those videos in between were insane and i could only imagine watching from home what it must have felt like again having been in there for a dead and company show and really really connecting with the art of it in the, in the physical experience. I can only imagine what that was like for the fighters, for the people cage side,

for anybody in there. I think this was a home run. It, it reactivated a, a version of Dana that we've missed. Dana's always ambitious. It's one of his calling cards, but I think he's in,

in this increasingly in this endeavor era, he's been you know unfocused on the things that we want him to be focused on and that we love about he's always pushing the brand to next levels globally and oh you know but he's putting his attention in power slap and and all these other things but when he gets back to proving a point and trying his i mean like there's no stone left unturned they went for it and it has to be adjusted based on your expectations if you were hoping that from home it would look like something that would change your life that's not going to be the case but on an art scale like they went

after it and and i'm glad they did this is kind of pushing combat sports which when dana rips on boxing i get mags i'm a pure boxing guy But he's never wrong when he talks about how behind boxing still is in its presentation. You know what I mean? Like, what's the difference now between, you know, the boxing you saw on TV in the 80s? Like, not much, really. What did he say? The only change was HD. Like, yeah, he's actually kind of right on that.

That's not totally unfair. It's not. It's not. So I enjoy it. That's why I liked that year that I was on that Ring City USA boxing series on NBC Sports. They were really shaking it up, yeah. They tried some things. We were in the wild card parking lot at Freddie Roach's gym.

We were at the old San Juan on the edge of the ocean. We were at the Puerto Rican National Team Center. We went to some cool places. West Point Gym for the Army Academy. This felt like that. It felt like, okay, let's take a chance. I don't think it's sustainable. I think that's why Dana White afterwards was saying,

do you subscribe to that, what's the email sub stack of what used to be Bloody Elbow? The MMA draw? MMA draw. I just started reading the free stuff and now it's making me want to subscribe. They had really good coverage, I thought, on the build to this sphere card,

particularly about pushing the idea that there's pushback at endeavor for for dana's ambition with this specific event and obviously you can hear dan he's talking i think he hopes it wins an emmy a grammy a tony i think a lot of things in one night it seems to be a big landmark moment that he was trying for his own resume but i i think that they did a good job of potentially spelling out from a business sense what this all means. I don't think they're going to do it again anytime soon because I don't know if you can justify spending this much money, but they hit a home run. Prove me wrong.

Prove me wrong here. Because I am so enthusiastic about it, I do want to talk about the parts of the show I think did not work. So first things first, the prelim card, they barely used any of the technology at all. Long Island Luke, you would agree, the preliminary card, they changed the background I think two times, maybe three at most. And they were fine, but there was nothing special about it, right? No, they didn't use it at all. They changed it briefly before the Norma Dumont-Irene Aldana fight, but they just changed the color.

It was really nothing. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Totally underwhelming. So I agree that not doing... They didn't have to do as much on the preliminary card, but they did almost nothing, and it definitely was like, well, this is underwhelming.

So that was one thing I would say. But isn't that a tease toward the pay-per-view of if you spend the money, you'll see this... I don't think they had to do too much more, but they probably should have done a little bit more than they did. They went all and nothing, you know? So that's one thing I would say.

Secondly, the sound was a little bit different. Now, this one's a little bit of a wash because you could hear the strikes. In my setup at home, I could hear the strikes much better, but I could also hear the cornerman yell a little bit more. It was a little distracting. Did you hear Tim Welch yelling at Merab? I'm not sure. I was turning it down by that point because I was doing a watch-along.

Oh, you didn't hear the debate about overcoaching and how was talking over it so i missed all of that i mean i went back and watched a little bit of it today but um but i can understand folks being like the sounds a little different that's true the lighting in the cage i thought was fine but not quite as good as it is traditionally where they have a you know where they've got a they've got that um apparatus that they put over the cage where they can really get it dialed in. Fair enough. They were dealing with a number of technological challenges. I didn't think it was terrible, but I didn't think it was as good as normal. So I think some of these things definitely kind of brought it down.

The last thing I would say I thought was a fair criticism of it was they did six chapters. Not all six chapters of the story were equally good. In fact, some were vastly better than the others. The last of those, chapter six, which was the one right before the main event, the main event backdrop looked cool when it was finally there, but the story they told where this Lara Croft woman is tumbling through the air, that didn't work.

That just didn't work for me. I don't know what that was. However, what I would say is the one they did for the Dia de los Muertos was insane. Fucking incredible. Incredible what that one was. So it wasn't a perfect show. That's not the argument. And I will also agree.

And that venue is not, well, didn't it prove that that venue is not perfect for combat sports? It's not perfect for combat sports. Yet they tried as hard as you could to make it work. You could do a good job there, but it's not ideal for it, certainly. And again, the last thing I'd say is, was it the greatest combat sports event of all time? No, that's just a silly nonsense thing. But did it live up to the expectations that I had? Did it deliver something unique, brilliant, at times beautiful, utterly unlike anything else you've seen before?

Without question, it did. And I know there's a lot of people who have this divorced dad energy on the internet where nothing pleases them anymore. And they can't find any joy in the world. You should do a clip about that. Yeah. They can't find any joy in the world. But these are not people that you should hold in high esteem. You can have criticisms of the show while recognizing that the broader effort was actually pretty fucking spectacular the vast majority of it did work the people in attendance from what i can tell really had a good time yeah by the way one thing to notice i didn't see any fights in the

in the arena i didn't see any people fist fighting like they normally do at the whatever venues that they they tend to go to in awe when you're at a venue like like for the first time this was this was part art show, part fight and does every part of that work? No, not necessarily. Okay, but the other side of the argument that people will have, and it's their right, is that they thought the fight card was

underwhelming on paper, and then because the main and co-main were tactical grappling-based affairs. I'm not sure what to say about that. You got the opening fight with Rodriguez and Osborne was crazy, kind of fun. It was a crazy fight. The Esteban-Ribovic fight was out of control.

The Zellhuber and Ribovic's fight was fucking bananas. And there was another one before that that was similar like that. By the way, how about Bob Mondes knocking out Torres on the preliminary card? That was sick as hell diego lopez and brian ortega that one went to a decision but that was pretty fun then they said chuiwis all over the sphere he looked okay he looks fine but the point i'm trying to make was yes there were and again the criticisms of the card which we knew coming in weren't altogether unfair i do think if they ever go

back i know i saw some folks being like, they should go back every year. I don't know about that. I don't think it's worth it. Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that either. Until that space becomes more, like they're so early. Remember when Laser Discs came out and it was like, yeah, my dad got a Laser Disc player, but the movies are $100 each.

It's like, yeah, that's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. But the point I wanted to make was they tried. Listen, if the UFC is not going to spend the money on the fighters, spend the money on us. Spend the money on the show that we're paying for. Spend the money on bringing, not trying to dress up a bad card. Again, if they do this again or something like this again,

yeah, they should do it for a Max Holloway versus an Ilya Teporia. They should do it for a, if he ever gets back, a Conor McGregor. And Jon Jones is probably on his way out. But something like that, really match it to a high moment in the sport. But without question, BC, the UFC pulled off something beautiful, something rare, something I would say rather magical. And one more point I want to make about this. Oh, yeah.

One last point. They kept saying that this was going to be a love letter to the history of mexican fighting but i think it was much more than that this was a love letter to the people of mexico to mexico more generally they're in the more i learn about mexico over the course of my life the more i realized dude this is a very deep, rich culture that most people, frankly, know fuck all about. I know very little. They tried to tell an enormous story with the tools that they had available. It was so much more about Salvador Sanchez or Canelo Alvarez or even JCC. It was more than about those guys. It was about a certain kind of people. And they had Gael Garcia Bernal, who's a famous Mexican actor who did the narration. And the point he made about, dude, even on our flag, a serpent is fighting a fucking eagle.

Our flag features a goddamn fight. I got chills listening to that. So when people degrade what they actually turned in, I'm sorry that your marriage didn't work out very well. I truly am sorry about that. I can't miss that the debate, which I don't agree with their side, but I do think it's connected to something larger. And it might be the Disney. Complaints about the card quality. No, it's connected, I believe, to the larger Disneyfication, Walmartification, whatever you want to call it, of what the UFC has become in this endeavoravor era, where it's become, you know, uber corporate. Let's talk about that. I think in people's eyes,

it's sort of a, like, this is the well, this is the totality of what the Endeavor era is, where they've got their hands in WWE and entertainment and all these other things. This is it on full power. But I thought it was artistically a 10 out of 10, and I love the ambition, and I thought they pulled it off well but I could get though the argument that might say hey guys what's the difference between this and Eminem showing up with the turkey boxing card and Triller with Metallica

it was done so please be serious I'm telling you I agree with you it was done artistically so tastefully with the Noche the Saudi Arabia Riyadh season stuff that we had complained about wasn't overbearing. It wasn't really a thing, to be honest, although it was on the screen

and they were the sponsor. But that also financially helped make this work. I think it was a story worth telling, and they went after it. I'm here to tell you that I love fight sports to have a lane for this, but you're going to get people that are going to say, doesn't this mix with watered down matchmaking of late? And isn't this a larger thing of like, let's talk about this,

this dirty sport I love in a cage is getting as much lipstick and Disney put on it as possible. You could, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. Two responses. I would have the Saudis have money. They don't have taste.

Those shows that they put on are just extravagant orgies of lights and celebrity power without cohesive vision, without any real artistic direction. It's just how expensive can we make this look without actually bringing something more substantive about it? I'll tell you a little story. Those commercials, though, are movies. BC, let me finish my fucking point. Let me finish my point. This is your favorite thing to do. May I please finish? I thought we you a little story. Those commercials though are movies. BC, let me finish my fucking point. Let me finish my point. This is your favorite thing to do. May I please finish? I thought we

had a flowing back and forth. I didn't realize that. How can it be back and forth if I can't ever get it out? Let me just make a point to you. Let me make a point to you, if I may. Please. In 2018, BC, I went to Beirut to go see where my mom was from. I'd never been there before. And you might recall, we don't know a lot about Beirut, but you will know that

it was war-torn. And a lot of it was just destroyed. Not the entirety of it, but a large part of it. A big part of the rebuild was funded by some of these like Gulf state oil money, you know, petro-states. You know what they built in the parts where they rebuilt old Lebanon? They put a clock tower that was sponsored by Rolex. They put facial clinics out on these old promenades next to Roman ruins. The point I'm trying to make is they can put money into things. They don't put anything interesting into things. So when the UFC makes a story about the history of Mexico and Mexican people and tries to tell it to you in a quick but interesting way, do you not agree that that is radically different than being like hey here's

Eminem we're paying 20 million dollars to just show up and rap to us it's more tasteful ambitious and I think it works better than just hey we're Triller we got Metallica you know and like it's like okay but like I want my fights that's point number one but here's point number two I would love to know what you think about this one yeah the second point is again i we talked about this i don't think the criticisms of this card on paper being like this is not enough are unfair especially when you have like you know like like osborne rodriguez was a fun fight but like why is that on a pay-per-view card however this is the point i want people to understand i get asked all the time,

hey, what's the problem with UFC Monopoly? Guys, they have built a business model that means maximum production of content at all times, Road to UFC, Contender Series, all the fight nights on the road, all the fight nights at home, all the pay-per-views. They're just pumping shit out the door constantly, and there's nobody who can make them change this by virtue of showing you something different. I don't mean to be blunt about it, but this is what it is. Cards can be better or worse, BC, on the margins. You can get a 299 and a 300.

Hell, even 298 was pretty good. But then the rest of the calendar year is kind of suffering as a consequence. My point being is I think there's a reluctance to accept what the reality of UFC monopoly does to the product. It does this. So dressing it up is not a fix to the product, BC, but it's a welcome addition to whatever we're just going to get by what's baked into the system. Okay, so you're basically saying is we already know we're in this corporate era. It is what it is, but at least this is using the wealth and the resources for something advancing and different and new.

Yeah, again, I said I agreed with you from the artsy side of it 100%. I was just kind of given the countertake of the people, and then you yelled at me, and it got weird. It's not weird, BC. I just want to get my point out sometimes. Yeah, well, you have a channel for that, and you do a great job on it sometimes those long-winded takes bleed into this show but you know buddy you got no fucking ground to stand on about long-winded takes my friend yours are hardly parsimonious yeah but they all you know they all call it they all end with a bang are we missing any other argument about the sphere uh long island luke

are we missing any other argument about the sphere about Long Island Luke, are we missing any other argument about the sphere, about people not liking it? No, I just want to say I was kind of one of those people who was underwhelmed. Well, I mean, look at you. No, but share the feeling. What are you feeling? Again, I think it was just a bad taste in my mouth from the prelims because the first five fights I said.

Prelims were not great. They did not do something special with that. But the main was cool, but again, I started to get more intoxicated as the fight went on. I mean, the guy was smoking hash during watching this. Maybe we dial back the sincerity of some

of these criticisms. BC, elsewhere on the card, very quickly. Diego Lopez. Is he a legit title contender at 145? He is. I thought it was aggressive when he ran up to Dana White and was like, give me the shot now. on the card very quickly yeah diego lopez is he a legit title contender at 145 he is he is i thought it was aggressive when he ran up to dana when it was like give me the shot now but at the same time he went out there against the number three guy and absolutely brought it to ortega unfortunately it exposed where ortega's at you know we wondered if he could build a run off of that yair win which

kind of you know was another ortega comeback special and was this opening up a new light for him he still can get in top shape and he still has the ambition Luke but the he's just there to be hit and you're not going to sustain against these killers like that um Lopez was aggressive as shit he was trying to make a statement it seemed and um I was here for it even with you know him in that second round having to recover from the stamina dump of how fast that first round was all in all it was a thorough mature step through performance we got to take this guy super serious in this division like he's showing that now what's next for brian ortega hard to say right you know older guy not not completely old guy fights but older guy fights uh 155 there could

be a reinvention there but again like i want to see the commitment to the defense and the head movement. You know what I mean? Imagine what he looks like with that. I know it was induced mostly by the style matchup, but do you remember that fight he put on the Korean zombie? Where he just looked like, and I know when you have those speed advantages, it's easy to come out in style on a guy and suddenly look like you're, you know, a crafty boxer. But when he commits to that,

he's, you know, he can be, he can be super elite in a couple of different areas. There's still that reckless side to his game. That's just never, I don't, you know,

it's too late, Luke. I don't think you can teach the old dog new tricks. He's always fun to watch. It's shit, but he kept stepping in hard. And then, uh,

Lopez would just plant and counter him coming in. And he did it over and over and over again. It's like, geez, man. He just wasn't learning from. He tried to almost attack the fan as he was walking out. That fan. Said some shit. These guys heckling.

First of all, the guy just lost a fight, number one. And by the way, who even knows what state he was in? He got his shit rocked a couple of times. And then you're being like that or something to the effect of like that's why tracy's not with you dude dude fuck that guy yeah fuck that guy that's tough um bad night for uh yasmin howdy yes really fucking bad night she was promised to us it's like the next big thing in mexican mma we'll see that you've seen this shit that was an incredible finish and then lastly do we have the daniel zellhuber recovery whatever the hell he turned in against reba vix that was in what is that the round of the year a fight of the year contender just an insane you know a middle card insanity of the

year moment it was one of those moments that i think that was like the prime part of this of the sphere luke last of like it was before the artsy movies and stuff but i feel like that was the heart of core of what people wanted in that building that mexican style war between those two young hungry guys and they they got it man they got it certainly did all right let's turn our attention we'll come back to some ufc a little bit later real quick did you hear john john jones was there did you hear in some interview he said they said with the steepipe fight? More than likely his last. More than likely his last. More than likely. Is that public negotiating or not?

I hope it is, but, man, he keeps doubling down on that shit. I'm just telling you now, if it really is going to be the case that the Stipe fight is the last one, I'm looking forward to it. We're just moving on from it. Let's just fucking be done with this shit. What a waste of everyone's time. All right, BC, you were there. You were there at the t-mobile give me

a sense how was the crowd at t-mobile that night seemed like on pay-per-view they were pretty fucking they were late arriving i felt bad for stephen fulton jr and the prelim main event in a good fight against carlos castro there's like you know 200 people there but yeah they came for canelo it um the brand is still very strong from no matter who the opponent is, Canelo's fighting on one of the big holidays. Should we show up? They showed up and they delivered. So fan-wise, it was another homecoming of the favored son.

Question for you. Canelo Alvarez basically had, topic number four here, Long Island Luke. Canelo Alvarez basically had very little trouble with Edgar Berlanga. In fact, I scored it 120-107. I thought he won every single round. But he did fail to put him away, and he was a minus 1,800 favorite. BC, is Berlanga better than we thought,

or is Canelo underperforming? I hate to say it, but I think it's both, okay? The big debate, Lou DiBella had a big part in it, and I always love Lou DiBella's takes, even if I disagree with him, of we are aggressively saying, well, hey, I mean, it was the lead to my story. My recap on CBS Sports was about Canelo dominated,

but it seemed like Edgar Belonga, at the very least, won his respect and proved to some degree that he belongs here. But yet he did get absolutely dominated. Maybe our expectations were so low. Canelo was a 20 to one betting favorite. And our whole idea was look, Berlanga might one day be worthy of this slot, but not right now.

He hasn't proven it yet. So when I say a little bit of both, a big part of this, I think was Berlanga is a big kid. And he came in and showed us a chin and a focus and a commitment that we hadn't seen before. He raised his game. There's not much you can say negative about Canelo.

At 34, he still got it to a high level, but I think the question, Luke, is how much does he still have? Would the Canelo of three years ago, when Canelo came up to 168 a few years ago and beat all those unbeaten champions in a row and became the undisputed champion in one year

and was your rightful pound-for-pound king, yeah, I was starting to believe he could do anything, whether it be move up to 175 again which he would do in the b-ball fight or you know even those threats luke remember for that short season it was canelo michael to cruiserweight it was like at that point he was riding so much goodwill and success you didn't doubt it it's caught up to him but the question is how much because luke now it's four straight decision wins i think the the the of that stretch, there was that narrative for those three fights. The B-Vol loss in the decision against Golovkin in the third fight and Ryder, where he had the hand injury. But he was staying active regardless, but he wasn't able to train at the full level, so we got like 75% Canelo.

I wanted to argue after the Charlo fight that he turned it back up to 100% Canelo, that, okay, maybe he's not 28-year-old Canelo anymore, but he's still in the midst of that tail end of that pound-for-pound prime. It's hard to argue that he's still not in that when you saw what he did and the pressure he put on Berlanga and just the output at the age and the command he had of the ring and that beautiful knockdown on that left hook in round three. But at the same time yeah i do think even with the hand injury behind him we're seeing the natural slowing down of a great

great fighter who still has it to a great degree but i don't think we're wrong as a public to urge especially after this fight to urge and push for him to do more for us from a matchmaking standpoint and i also think we have to be realistic moving forward. I don't know how long he can keep up this, but I do see a fighter who, you know, if this was 2018 Canelo, he probably gets that Berlanga out of there in round six or seven,

regardless of how tough he is, right? We're seeing a little bit of that slowdown. You have to say it now, from Charlo through Munguia, which I know we differ on the value of that performance and all of that, but that was still a prime Canelo in May to a large degree. Do you echo what I'm saying? That we can praise him for an absolutely dominant performance over

Berlanga, but also find some of those holes. I love his commitment and his ambition to stay great, but we can't have this conversation without talking about the matchmaking, right? Okay. So here's where i'm at on this by the way how did you score it i gave berlanga the first round was a completely uneventful round and then the last round so it's 10 rounds to two and i was generous i was generous to berlanga uh first round i could understand last round i probably would not agree but um okay it doesn't matter like canelo and he got the knockdown in round three. I feel very conflicted about this because we really like Canelo on the show. We like he is, it's been a joy to cover his career,

but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills whenever he fights more recently. He noticeably takes fights that he is not supposed to, or at least are certainly out of what is expected of someone who holds this many titles. He had all four. Now he's got three. The odds are always dramatically stacked in his favor. He was a, it was a minus 1800 favorite over Berlanga. I didn't think Berlanga was going to make it past round six. He did get dropped in round three, and then he lasts, and then the narrative afterwards is, well, Berlanga's better than we thought. No, he's not.

No, he's not. I will say he is huge. The guy looked enormous relative to Canelo. He can easily fight. Dude, he put on, like, he rehydrated 25 pounds. It's insane how big he was. 193, I think3 so i can understand to an extent why canelo couldn't put him away i do get that but i didn't see anything other than

a little bit of determination from berlanga that was impressive to me like what was your favorite offensive sequence from him during the course of that fight i can't even think of a single one i thought the best moments he had offensively, he got cornered way too often. Like Canelo at will was cutting off the ring and just putting him where he wants him. I thought Berlanga, whenever Canelo would start to heat up in those moments when he was cornered, did well to plant his feet and throw back some big rights. And they weren't always landing, but there was enough power there where Canelo had to respect it. And that would give him some air.

But I don't know if I disagree with the people that are aggressively saying he never tried to win, though, Luke. I just think he was outgunned, and I do think there was part of him that thought, I'll get a moral victory here if I go the distance and show my toughness. And it's not like there's not value in that. People respect him a lot more after this. I don't think it plucked him up on the elite level,

but he's going to get elite-level fights after this. You know what I mean? Him against Caleb Plant, who won on this undercard, would be a hell of a fight. But I think it's a little bit of everything. It's a little bit of Berlanga overachieved in that category. Canelo did look great,

but it's also a... It's an aging Canelo there. Did you see that? I think Canelo looks good in the first five, six rounds, and then he doesn't look terrible in rounds seven through 12, but he looks rather pedestrian. And this is what's driving me nuts.

After our little disagreement, I do think Munguia is better than Berlanga. You would agree with that, right? For sure, Munguia is better than Berlanga. I've gone back and I looked at when the fight was booked, what were people saying on some of the places that I read, boxing scene, bad left hook, you name it. And everyone was like really he's

fighting this guy he's hand-picked he's cherry-picked then after the fight the narrative is wow mungi is so much better canelo is raising the stock of people that don't have that don't have the right to have their stock raised at least this much and he's doing it because he's at a stage in his career where he buried the stock of jermell to be fair that's jermell's because he really underperformed yeah uh hit it there long island luke here's what i feel like we're getting i feel like we're getting the harlem globetrotters of boxing i feel like we're getting the globetrotters versus the washington generals that's aggressive where he's setting up fights where they're not like fix that's not what I'm saying but you know he can show a little razzle-dazzle he can spin the ball on his finger when you ask me about the ground and put it

between his legs he can do the whole bit and everyone everyone wants to come to see the show that's what I was gonna say when you asked me about the crowd it felt like a rock it felt like a rock concert crowd it felt like people that were just happy to pay to see Prime Canelo on Mexican Independence Day weekend. So he is, from a marketing standpoint, from a commercial standpoint, leaning hard into that. I'm in the late part of my career. I'm almost like this touring act. I mean, Ali did that all over the world.

In between still striving to fight for the title. But we're running to a point where, you know, the act is. I mean, we gave him this year. I don't shit on the Munguia fight because of Munguia's unbeaten record at that point. And he had won some big fights and look, he tried to win that whole fight. I mean, Luke and I can debate on Twitter all we want, you know, as how Canelo's reveal of that he did carry Munguia in that fight.

I think he carried him from the idea that he didn't want to finish him. He wanted to let his countrymen go to the distance and have his moment. But let's be honest. Canelo is fading a little bit. Boy, can he still bring it? He's a showman. He can raise his game. But obviously the question comes now to who is he going to fight next?

Here's what I didn't like. I didn't like that he didn't have an outward plan ready and a name ready. Terrence Crawford was there. Terrence Crawford actually hopped from ringside at Canelo and then suddenly he's right next to Turkey Al-Ashiq ringside at the Sphere. You mean Kendrick Lamar. Yeah, Kendrick Lamar. What I don't like is that Canelo took that I told you so tone and said in the post-fight interview, you know, what are they going to say now?

They said I won't fight younger fighters and look what I just did. Don't do that, Big Red. Don't do that. Yeah, what is that, dude did don't do that big red don't do that yeah what is that don't do that like the argument here is really and we bring it up all the time i brought it up on the way in show and the press conference show with with you know with all the smoke fight and andre ward and burdo and durell of you know does he deserve that has he achieved enough that he deserves now to call his own shots more than ever and almost have a late career floyd run where it's like i'm not always going to give you what you want.

I'm going to play my hits, but then I'll sneak in and still give you the big ones. Is that just what this is? Or were those comments from Canelo just showing that like, maybe he doesn't get it. Like, is he starting to, you know, love the smell of his own farts, as you would say, and living in a vacuum of no one's going to tell me what to do. I'm Canelo because the decisions he make moving forward, I think to some degree, will have a lasting effect on his legacy. Now's the time.

Let's fight Benavidez. Or let's fight Crawford. Now's the time. What type of patience will the audience have moving forward? Now, Mike Coppinger of ESPN did report leading up to fight week that a conversation he had with Canelo said that Canelo's watching closely B-Vol Betterbeave

and that he specifically... Give me a break. He specifically only... He said that Canelo's watching closely B-Vol better beef and that he specifically, he specifically only, he said better beef's too big, but he said he specifically wants to fight B-Vol in a rematch. If B-Vol becomes the undisputed champion, that's not the fight we want, but that is ambitious enough. No,

that is totally, but is there, here's my, I guess what I'm asking overall, is there a chance that does lead us to the, to the Benavidez fight? If Canelo's mind that he's going to, cause Canelo, Canelo looks back and says that he was very flat against people. I mean, it may have been the case, but just,

he fought a better, bigger fighter in the end. Could he win a rematch? You got to argue that for yourself. I don't know. But if he did, he'd be the undisputed champion and the next guy up would be David Benavidez at light heavyweight. So maybe that's a road to get there. Or maybe it's Canelo saying, I'm going to get to Benavidez eventually, but I'm going to do it on my terms,

and my terms is I want to be the champion going into that fight. He's never going to fight David Benavidez, and it's time to let that little imagination go. He's never going to fight him. It's never going to happen. He will never fight him. You can't justify that, because if his complaint is the rehydration, you just fought a dude, a young dude who just rehydrated to 193. All of his arguments about why he can't or shouldn't fight David Benavidez completely fall apart

given who else he's fought and under what terms, like fighting Kovalev at 175 and everything else. Dude, he's never going to fight David Benavidez. And the Bivol call out to me is so utterly ludicrous. I can't believe people are even entertaining it here's what he's doing he's taking fights that are well beneath his level the Berlanga fight just an opponent who has no like at no point was there any intrigue in that fight about whether or not Berlanga could do anything to him nothing went around if he was lucky it was 120 107 on my scorecard then he wants to go back to a fight where he has no hope, right? You got a fresher version of Canelo already lost to Bivol. Now one that's even older with more tread on the tires.

Granted, he hasn't had, like, grueling fights per se, but he certainly is older now. That's going to do better against a still-surging Bivol, who, by the way, Bivol's got work against Betterby. Bivol's getting older too, we gotta be honest. Okay, but he's got work against Betterby. Is he even gonna be ready on any kind of timeline where it matters for Cinco de Mayo? But it is the biggest fight Bivol could have

probably with the exception of Benavidez but I think Canelo's a bigger fight, obviously. This is my thought. He's bracketing. He's taking fights that are way too easy or he wants to take on fights where it's hopeless for him to win, and he can say, aha, you see, I even tried to get this fight. I don't agree with that part of it.

And the fights that he has, the weight classes where he has belts against the opponents he should be fighting, Benavidez, you could even, Morel's at 175 now, but Morel was kind of in that conversation four times. Wasn't he the mandatory? Yes, he was a freaking mentor. He was in that conversation. He's missing all of those.

To me, it is not impressive to take on a challenge you have no hope of winning. Yeah, this is too much control right now. You nailed it. The sanctioning bodies won't strip him because he's Canelo. The fans, I'm not going to say that they don't care who he fights, but if they're still going to pay for pay-per-views and sell out the T-Mobile,

what incentive does he have to take these tough fights? He did prove somewhat stubbornly, I think, what he wanted to on Saturday. That, okay, of all the potential options, this is the one you guys wanted the least, but this is the one I want because it's very sellable. It's Mexico versus Puerto Rico. We'll do it on the holiday, and we'll see what this young kid has. He proved that they're still going to come out. There's a sold-out arena, 20,000, and it was rocking.

He's still in that window where people just want to see him. They still going to come out. There's a sold out arena, 20,000, and it was rocking. And there's, he's still in that window where people just want to see him. They just want to see him. It's at the expense of the division. He's holding up three of the four titles for sure. But I think he proved his point stubbornly that like, I'm still that guy I'm calling the shots, but it will be diminished returns commercially moving forward until he makes that challenge.

So is there a challenge available outside of Crawford, Benavidez, or Bivol? There's nobody. I mean, it doesn't seem like he has any interest in Morel. So, yeah, there's nobody that would move. Oh, no, let me back up. Sorry to interrupt. Could he fight the bigger Charlo?

Yes, but the bigger Charlo is going to have to come back and reestablish in a fairly big way, right? But yes, he could fight the bigger Charlo. That is at least possible. That would be the best thing that would think the PBC can do, get big Charlo back and active and see what we have here. Right. And there's a lot of questions.

Another fight I have no interest in. Zero. None. I have not a fucking hint of interest in Canelo fighting big Charlo. I'm with you. It's got to be... Man.

Very quickly. Just do Crawford. Just do Crawford. We would shut up right now, right? I would take Crawford. I would take Crawford. Kendrick Lamar. BC, very quickly. Is this the end of Danny Garcia?

Yes, I think it should be, and I think he showed that with the inability to throw. And those are one of the big telltale signs. One is the chin if a guy's too old, right? But this was, you know, it wasn't just the two years off, as he said afterwards. This was one fight in four years that he had coming in. So the rust was there, and I think there was just an an on he didn't trust himself enough to hit the trigger consistently and push offensively because lara

kind of stood right in front of him and had that quick counter left i mean lara at middleweight he's not fighting top end competition but he's interesting right you know because he's still crafty and he can sit down on his power i mean he took zara off out of the woodshed in that last fight um but it was disappointing to see the way that DSG went out, because he's always been such an honest champion and such a hard worker. And for anyone that wanted to criticize him or didn't like him because his dad was loud, and there were times that they thought Danny was getting matched softly. In reality, though, I think we look back and he, more often than not, would match himself very tough.

But there was that stretch, the Rod Salko fight, whatever. But I think through that, we came know who danny is as a person and i think his courageous mental health uh headlines the last couple years were very good as well but he didn't have it and and i'm it was just sorry to see that so many rounds had to go by where that was that crowd was booing the crap out of it you know it was becoming a little bit of a uh a sore thumb and luckily though after the knockdown his dad i was in the towel and got very emotional afterwards. And his dad just recovered from a stroke.

So there's a lot of heavy emotions there. But the dad did the right move. I hate to see Danny go, but he's got to go after this. Angel Garcia is a maniac. And we were there. Angel. Come on. He goes by Angel.

OK. I read it on paper, and I just go to, if his last name's Garcia, I'm going to say Angel. But you're right, Angel. Angel was a maniac before he fought Lucas Matisse. You remember that? Yes. On the Canelo and Mayweather. He's no Valentino.

Dude, he was a fucking maniac rooting for Danny Garcia. And sure enough, Danny pulled out the win. That was a great stoppage by his father. You rarely see that in this game. His dad clearly cares for him. Good stoppage. Last thing i'm gonna ask i think danny's a hall of famer by the way he's i think he's a borderline guy that should

get in a philly guy who i don't feel like philly fully embraces by the way i don't quite get that um last thing on this the the funnest fight to me on that card caleb plant versus trevor mccombie really fun fight uh early on plant gets rocked and dropped dude mccombie maybe twice his running start fake and then come through, sorry, fake with a wild left hand and then come through with the right cross was becoming a problem for Plant to pick up. And even though Plant was significantly better

than this guy, dude, he was having legit trouble getting out of the way of that. He was very physically strong, too. You could tell Caleb was having a hard time dealing with just how strong he was. But how smart is Caleb with Redman in his corner and Caleb's dad in his corner, Richie, that they were able to make the adjustment that the only offense McCombie had that was approaching on the level of becoming a problem was those running combinations.

So they just crowded him, made it an inside game. This turned out to be a perfect resume builder for Caleb's comeback here after 18 months to return to the elite of 168 because he showed a completely different side to his game for the first time. And, dude, he crowded the shit out of McCombie and made him largely ineffective. That was brilliant. Who should be next for Caleb Plant? I mean, he wants Canelo. He's going to have to do more than that to get back in that sweepstakes.

But I'd love to see him against Big Charlo if you get Big Charlo rehabbed and back in there. But I don't know who the obvious opponent is right now. Do you? He bought EdgarBerlanga.com, and Edgar said he was going to sue him. Okay. That is the right opponent right now. I wouldn't be mad at that.

No, that is the right opponent. I mean, there's no shortage of people throwing shots at Caleb Plant or trying to get in line to take shots at him, it seems, but not all those guys are in his way. Classic Ryan Garcia. But that was a big win for his brand. You have to admit. And he like, people love him. People are beginning to get, brand, you have to admit. And people love him. He gets respect.

Yes, you're so right. People are beginning to get on the Caleb Plant bandwagon, and I'm happy for him. They like that he kind of stands on business. Oh, he does not back down. He's a blue-collar dude. Yeah, I think he had a great night. All right, we've got to move this along.

Topic number five will end here. Michael Chandler, B.C., is now moving on from Conor McGregor. He's going to be fighting in a rematch, Charles Oliveira, as the co-main event at the UFC 309 show. This will be the Jon Jones steep pay card in November. BC, simple question. Was Michael Chandler, again, he could fight him later, but for now he's moving on.

Was it the right call by Michael Chandler? I think it was. I think it was because was because man all those rumors last week was that you know connor would go in this direction or this i mean there's oh you know it was a it was a big cluster fuck i don't know whose fault it is in the end luke was it was it that connor could have pushed through the injury and should have just gotten that fight out of the way or was it ufc trying to delay him is the new theory of everybody because he's got two fights left and they can use that on the new TV deal as a sweetener. I don't know if I buy that either, Luke, because it seems like he could have just fought. But I think this news ties in with the comments that we saw from Conor at the BKFC fight over the weekend, too, which was, you know, him asking openly for UFC for a chance to box or a chance to partner with them and do another big one.

Whether that would be what Canelo or Pacquiao, I don't know what they're thinking there, Luke, but if considering how uncertain this whole journey through tough through everything with Connor has been, I don't, I think this is perfect. This is absolutely perfect for, for Chandler. It's a great fight. It bolsters the MSG card. In my opinion, it puts him back in title contention legitimately. If he gets the win, I know some are saying he didn't, he didn't earn it. he didn't earn it he you know he's known of late for big losses

right in big moments you can question he's two and three and you can question i guess in hindsight the full quality of those two wins but he's been a company man luke give him this i don't know what it means though for connor because some people are saying chandler can still rematch or still have the connor fight anyway after the oliver Does he need to beat Olivera to get that? Does a loss matter? What do you think about Conor? I think he has to win. I think if he loses, Conor loses interest.

But the weird part is this fight's in November. You know, I don't know how the Charles Olivera fight's going to go, but the first Olivera fight, remember, he got rocked real bad in the first round. Then he got finished off in the second. So, actually, I like the fight on those terms. I would still favor Olivera, but I guess we'll see. He's 35. It's not like he's a spring chicken either. But Chandler will be 39 up here coming soon.

Yeah, he's got to. But dude, here's the thing. He burned two years. Remember, after he beat Benson Henderson and he went to the UFC, he was 34 years of age. For a lightweight, you got one little chapter left to really make it work, and he burned two years. What was the enough of a

of a get well gift from the ufc for him being a company man and burning those two years waiting on connor do you think he's getting overpaid if he gets pay-per-view points from this on a john jones card yeah that's definitely pretty decent for sure promise for a big fight winner and a promise for a big fight and he's getting a guy he could get redemption over so there's that plus dude charles lavera is i mean he didn't look great against soryukian but Chandler's not going to pancake him for three rounds I mean he might do it a little bit but he just is not that guy so it stands to reason wild fight exactly exactly and so to me this is actually like a good fight to add to that card I'm just saying he waited and waited and waited and waited and for what well I think they probably told him if you beat Charles,

you'll be in legitimate contention for the title. Okay, last question about this. Right? That had to be the conversation. Probably. But then where does Conor go? Okay, does Conor come back at all? Does he come back at all?

Yes, because he wants to do other things. Box, BKFC, right? He wants to do all that stuff. I think he wants to be done with this UFC deal. But then again again then why did he pull out if he could have pushed through with that injury there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we don't know and maybe we shouldn't know because it's all the private negotiation and pushing but i don't know how to answer this question i i think that connor will inevitably have to to try to get out of that deal do you think it's related at all to the to the future tv prospects i mean, Jeff Bezos of Amazon was at the Sphere with his wife

and prominent in the front. They're going to have a monster deal in some form, whatever it looks like. Or they'll split up the deal. A little bit on Amazon, a little bit on Netflix. So do you blame Conor? Because there was a word that we heard that Conor could have pushed through with that fight.

I think he could have pushed through. He did not want to. I mean, he's drinking everywhere. Every night he's in a new state serving at a bar he was on long on luke's podcast they were doing long hits together right how was connor he was great right yeah man we got lit it was sick i'm just putting out like here's what chandler was doing he waited and waited and waited they booked it at 303 connor fell out they're like okay we'll do it in december and then that didn't happen and he was like you know okay fuck this i'm not gonna go into 2025 having not fought at all in 2024 and i think even 2023 to an extent yes so punting two years away

but dude remember just remember this remember when they signed to do the ultimate fighter they didn't have a deal for the fight then. They had a deal to coach opposite one another. There was still no deal to fight. All of this, to me, has seemed very tenuous and thrown together, and the result ended up being that Michael Chandler punted away two years of the very, very, very end of his not so much prime, but peak earning years. Okay, I've seen a lot of people say they want Volkanovski versus Conor. If you're going to move on from Chandler.

Then I've seen some people saying maybe Bilal gets him, but I thought that would be, you'd have the ball, the promotion would have to have a set on them to put him in. Bilal versus Conor? They might do that, though. You know what I did see? I did see Volkanovski versus Lopez thrown about. 145. I don't hatekanovski versus Lopez thrown about. 145.

I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I don't hate it. That's a fun one. There's so many good fights you can make. And by the way, don't forget, Dan Hooker. Still floating out there. He just had a big win over Gamrot.

That's true. He needs a dance partner, too. Oh, you're saying Canelo. I mean, Canelo. God. Conor versus Hooker would be like the perfect shootout to see where he's at. Or Dustin wants one more. How about Dustin versus Hooker too?

The first one was incredible. So do you think Conor's telling UFC, I don't want Chandler? Is that a part of this too? I don't think he was ever really all that interested in that opponent. Okay. Yeah.

It seems like part of him is trying so hard to show that he has leverage, which I don't think he has anymore. So what do you make of him openly pushing to, for them to partner with him in boxing? So I don't know if we got this on, on, have you seen this shit,

but you saw the BKFC. Yeah. He looks a little lost. If I could be honest, he looks a little bit. I mean, I think some of this, he has brought on himself with the drinking and then the pinky toe injury,

which was in the light from what we see and what we hear. He's living the life. This is what I don't get. He's in it. It's like, dude, you are clearly already in a stage of your life where you're just enjoying it. Stay there.

Yeah. Stay there. Oh, these guys, they have egos. They want to go do stuff. I don't care. It's not where your heart is, and it's certainly not where your mind is. Stay there. Go enjoy your fucking life.

If I was 37 and I had fuck you money for the rest of my life, I would tell all of to go fuck yourself and i'd be out of here oh you tell us that anyway so it's great uh bc before we get to uh the dms yes let's quickly do a bit of a read here if we can bc you know when you discover a new binge worthy show or a song that you bump the fuck or a song that you bump on repeat and you have to share it with your friends so they can experience just how awesome it is that's kind of what it feels like when you discover that mint mobile bc yeah offers premium wireless for 15 bucks a month when you purchase a three month plan it is such an awesome deal there's no way you can keep it to yourself right dude 15 bucks a month that sounds absolutely legit friends don't let friends overpay for wireless. So say buh-bye to overpriced wireless plans

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See Mint Mobile for details. BC? The best three months of your life. That's right. With that in mind, let's get to the DMs, shall we? Yeah. For the record, I'm against that. I'm against that.

All right. With that in mind, let's see what the first question is, BC. Fire it up. BC, a man and his cat says... Yes, that's my type of man. If the UFC was to do another Sphere show, who would you want to fight? Good question. Because Dana did say about the idea of Noche maybe moving to other areas like Texas or Arizona or maybe Mexico,

which is interesting. You could do a Noche show in Mexico other areas like Texas or Arizona or maybe Mexico, which is interesting. You could do a Noche show in Mexico City at that elevation, bring Kane out of retirement for redemption. If they did another Vegas sphere thing, I want to see them go big and fill in the gaps of where people thought the matchmaking was underwhelming. It was a good ass card on paper. Okay.

I get the want for more, but maybe sometimes people just want to play the hits with the old stars i mean connor at the sphere makes a lot of sense conor against anyone at the sphere here's something to think about like obviously something like this if the sphere existed in the country there you would do it there but the sphere is in vegas you have to make it work people were like why'd you have to have a noche theme well you could see you have to have some kind of unifying artistic direction and i saw someone say you could do a love letter to Japan. You could do that. But why not a love letter to Brazil? Brazil is arguably, outside of the United States, the most important country in

the history of MMA, certainly in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You have no shortage of fighters you could put on there. It would depend on exactly how you would structure the main event, because you would have to have, in my view, a Brazilian in the main event you're right connor doesn't make sense you're not going to tell the history of ireland you do have to have a unifying story or it would never justify spending the money to be there yeah or i mean you could do other ways you could do an all heavyweight card you could do you know something there's all ways to structure it but i'm just thinking like you have so much brazilian talent brazil is so important brazilians would travel to that kind of a show.

Okay, then who's your Brazilian main eventer in that case? Padela? Well, let's see. I'll say this. If Oliveira beats Chandler and you did Oliveira McGregor, could you imagine that? That would be a killer. How many Brazilian legends could you fly out? You could fly out the Nogueras.

You could fly out the Shoguns. You could fly out. I mean, there's just an endless array of Brazilian talent. Would you fly out the Baron? The Baron? The former Pompapong King? out the show goons you could fly i mean there's just an endless array of brazilian would you fly out the baron the boron the former pomfret pound king you could do it you see my point though like there's just a lot you could do there's a lot yeah all right next tell me he's on give that guy some love by the way how about doing a love letter to hawaii now i wouldn't want to put bj penn on that card i'm just pointing out can you imagine max coming Max coming out to Hawaiian kickboxer at the Sphere? It'd be insane.

Do you guys think next year's UFC-Noche event, or Noche UFC, by the way, will be in Mexico or Vegas? It should probably be in Mexico, right? Okay, so what type of... Okay, so that would mean divorced of the whole Sphere idea. You're just celebrating Noche. Yeah, we don't have to do that in the Sphere again. That was a one-time thing. I don't need to do that again. Then, yeah, you got to go to Mexico City, right? Go to Guadalajara. You're just celebrating no change. Yeah, we don't have to do that in the sphere again. That was a one-time thing. I don't need to do that again.

Then, yeah, you got to go to Mexico City, right? Go to Guadalajara. You can go to a lot of places. But what would be the main event that would make the most sense using a Mexican in it? Two Irishmen. Up season.

Two Saudi Arabian fighters. How about that? Let me think this through. Okay, you want to take something... I mean, it's hard to know, like, in a year. Yeah, it's hard to know who's going to be the one. I mean, I think that's why it didn't hurt... I mean, it doesn't hurt the UFC

because, you know, Marab's an interesting story and Valentina's a legend, but I think they wanted Grasso to come out of here to continue to be in this spot. And it doesn't mean she's gone, right? You put her back in another high-end contender fight and she can, you know, fight her way right back into the title contention.

But maybe that's what it is, Luke. maybe it's her fighting whoever is champion at that point right i mean it wouldn't be valentino fourth time i have we didn't talk about it but i have zero interest so did valentina by the way yeah she's right she's right she blanked her if you win 50 45 on all three judges scorecards then you don't it's over it's kind of like when mark has knocked out pacquiao and he's like rivalry's done you know what i mean you can't. It's over. It's kind of like when Marquez knocked out Pacquiao and he's like, rivalry's done. You know what I mean? It's like you can't argue with that. Exactly. Next. Jimmy underscore Reed.

How far away is Raul from ranked opponents? Rosas or Marquez? Oh, Raul Rosas Jr. Oh, I feel you'll both have different answers. The answer is extremely far. Okay, but would you say that he's showing you maturity? That he's trying to up his striking game and his technique was better? So here's what I would say.

I thought that in terms – okay, it was great for him to get three rounds of experience, number one. That was great. That was good. Two, he showed a lot of good patience. He's showing much better patience overall. I like that. The wrestling I thought was not that great from him.

It was okay. It was okay. The thing I noticed was – and this is just a function of him being, was he 19 still? He got hit with a big shot, and he would immediately try and land one back. Not great. It's still young.

This is what I mean. I mean, he's four fights before 19, right? Four fights. Yeah, this is my thought. My thought is, like, what's the rush? He's 19. He can fight guys like this for a good long while. Let's wait a little bit.

I don't, I don't, even if he could beat a top 15 guy, which I don't think he could, I still don't. Yeah, I'll do it. I still don't think it's the right idea. I still think you should give me some time. He's the one who's advancing the timelines to be very honest with you, Luke, from the standpoint that he, he came out this week and said, I'm going to be Umar Nurmagomedov for the title, defended a bunch times, and be out by 25.

People always say that. A lot of young fighters say that at certain points. Do people ever back it up and just, like, walk out at 25? No. All right, next. We've got to wrap this up a little bit here. Zrigs, best advice for a couple about to move in together? Make sure you're fucking a lot.

That's actually not bad advice. Seriously, don't become roommates. That's the worst thing you can yeah yeah but i mean it's just it's it's the same advice you give to marriage and compromise or maybe it's different because marriage there seems to be more of a lock and a hole as we're if you're just moving in in sin as they used to say luke you know it's easier to get out of that um but you gotta you gotta listen listen to remember that advice from wesley snipes and white men can't jump listen to the woman do the dishes take the trash out i always say this to folks there are studies that have been done that when women feel like they have to become the caretaker of their husband yeah they lose sexual interest in them and that's when all the

problems begin they become to just see them as like a liability rather than a third child yeah they don't want that. Next. NSTEM, what is one thing you'll never do again? Probably call boxing fights. Well, vasectomy, definitely. To be fair, I mean, nothing took my manhood like that, Luke. But, yeah. That is hilarious. You don't think you'll ever call another boxing fight?

I would like to. I just don't think I'll get the opportunity. But it starts with the belief in here and in're right it does you're right you're absolutely right all right um yeah i mean is there anything else luke that stands out that you did once you got amped up you tried it and you're like man never like i'll never ski because i could just see myself shattering my hard drugs no interest no interest yeah i'm with you i'm good i'm good on weed and that's it i don't need any other help i'm good on it right yeah's it. I don't need any other help. I'm good on it. Right? Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know what else. I thought you were going to say like anal or like three-way with coworkers. Never again. You know, it didn't go great. Boy, that Christmas party got ruined from that. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Well, I feel like I always owe the DM from Donker like a fair effort in the question.

Do you feel like that on your podcast? I try. I try. I mean, sometimes the questions are weird. It's hard to know. They ever piss you off and you're like, I don't care if you paid for the question. Do you feel like that on your podcast? I try. I try. I mean, sometimes the questions are weird. It's hard to never piss you off. And you're like, I don't care if you paid for this question. Fuck you.

Usually what happens is someone will put like something like weird, like, you know, Hey guys, Donald Trump, 2024, my guy, they'll pay like five bucks for it.

I'll be like, I'll leave it up on the screen for a little bit. And I'll say, okay, you paid for this. Here you go. And then I just move on. And what am I supposed to say to that?

You know? All right. You see, with that in mind, dating on your phone, banking And then I just move on. Okay. And what am I supposed to say to that? You know? All right. You see, with that in mind, dating on your phone, banking on your phone, news on your phone. Yeah. Ordering lottery tickets. Excuse me. Well, that's on your phone too.

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Dude, I would love to wear Jack Pocket merch if they're out there listening. Oh, is that right? That's a great name, right? You've already been jacking in your pocket. I mean, that's just something you've been doing. Speaking of weird shit, Luke. Let's do it. I scoured the globe yesterday from the Charlotte airport for the highs and lows.

The ugly. Four hour layover? Five and a half by the time we got there. The highs and lows, all that other shit. This is viral videos of the week. I hope you saw it. Let's watch it. it uh um luke let's go with marab davalish willie taking over the damn sphere for himself at ufc 306 on saturday first was his entrance off the bus luke we should have saw this coming i mean look

at this mother you don't get off the bus and lose a fight looking like that. The commitment to being himself, which is dialed up to, you know, 11 in every category, is wonderful. It is. He is one of one. Is he not? He is one of one. Well, in the cage, man, he was taunting Sugar Sean throughout.

Look at this, making fun of the basketball moves. Between this and the weird kissing on the back of the neck. I don't quite get that. I don't quite get that either, but he was in Sean's head. He was styling on him. He definitely was loose the whole night, man. Yes, but Luke, to the victor go the spoils. This post-dance celebration between Valentina and Marab with like all

of the inner circle of UFC watching, I can get behind this wholesome fun. It's a little bit different. I think the Kyrgyzstan dance is different than the georgian dance but they were rocking it yeah they were making it work i love i saw jack slack said this was his 9-11 god um did you see the celebration i didn't add him on here but the celebrations in georgia after he won like people in the sand like just i love that i love that shit but luke i said to the victor go all the spoils marab also got to smack that backside hanging out with eileen perez

um this looks like an only fans collab luke i don't know if we can show all of this. Are they about to have sex? Like, what is... I don't know if this was before or after the win, but, yeah, there you go. Okay, well, that was weird. Yeah, it was. There's also footage of him at the post-party.

You see they had, like, a sign, every sign with a different letter of his first name. Yeah. And, like, I mean, dude, this guy knows how to win and celebrate. It's a very Vegas thing to do that. That is. Elsewhere at the Sphere, Luke,

this was the moment of the night for Raul rosas look at him i can't believe he turned something so weird into like this endearing cringed weird moment it's my favorite thing about him and now he's got the full arena doing it's kind of brilliant i hope he's selling chuiwi's merch i really yeah okay good good he should do like a purple headband with it written across there and crazy letters i agree i'd wear that on this show, okay? Elsewhere in the sphere, we talked about Ketlin and Susan. Were they like one and five or two and six? Something like that.

Over. All the Mexican-borns lost. No, Rodriguez won. Ah, fuck. Good call. All right, my bad. Oh, you shouldn't have taken that. But there's a question.

Remember the scoring on that one was weird because they both should have gotten 10-8 rounds and only one of them did, so the whole thing was weird. Did you see the war between Flyweightights Joshua Vann and Edgar Chai? He'd be open to strikes. To an extent, but he would also be... I don't agree. All right, all right. Lightweights Esteban Rebovich and Joe Rogan, despite all the Mexican history going on,

was still looking out for people like me. Tell us what that's like for you. I'm very happy to be here. We continue making history for Mexico. The first female trilogy. And I feel very honored to see you all here. Thank you for coming. It will be an incredible night. One time for the gringos. Thank you so much.

I feel blessed. You know what's kind of funny? Everyone's a little bit different, but Mexican Spanish is actually the easiest for me to understand. I can understand Mexican Spanish better than I can understand Colombian Spanish. Who's got the craziest Spanish where it's just impossible? The islanders. Puerto Ricans, like Dominicans, Cubans.

It's fast and they drop letters. And it's like instead of saying, me gusta la música, they'll say, me gusta la música. And you're like, what the fuck are you saying? Let's keep it going. Maybe we should have seen O'Malley's demise coming. Luke, did you see this cringe moment? Una noche mas!

Una noche mas! Viva Mexico! He played that cheap beat to the Viva Mexico a few times. It just didn't seem to work. Let's go. Good luck to you, sir. I don't buy that he came in with the the wrong attitude I just think he fought a better guy yeah no I'm with you on that I'm with you on that but we maybe we should have seen Brian

Ortega's downfall coming from this soundbite so you just have to embrace that you're gonna suck you have to have fun while you're sucking, and then that's it. Luke, I've given that advice so many times. Pause. Pause. All right, there was also— Listen, you've got to have fun when you're sucking. Indeed. There's a lot going on in the sphere crowd as well.

Luke, this actually happened. I'm blessed. I'm in favor. I'm blessed. I'm in favor. I don't care. I'm still going to try hitting him with the left hook. It's probably not going to work, but I'm going to try and shoot. Dana would joke about it afterwards. I'm't care. I'm still going to try to hit him with the left hook. It's probably not going to work, but I'm going to try and shoot.

Dana would joke about it afterwards. Telling Hunter Campbell, are we going to babysit him and make sure that they don't hang out after? How does no one care that he said he hated all N-words? Yeah, he cleaned that part up quick, didn't he? Well, there are some people who are still mad at him for it. In boxing, I've seen a little bit more of it. Hulk Hogan still gets labeled the scarlet letter of saying yeah but he didn't like he apologized for it right who hulk yeah yeah but he was ryan hasn't apologized for

anything he generically did for the most part not really yeah uh elsewhere in the sphere crowd watch this what this turkey shadow box evolves into first of all like like worst punches that is the worst shadow box and i do really bad comedic shadow boxing and that is the worst but then there's the funny kendrick lamar hey kendrick i'm a big fan which was really the only setback of the night in terms of a production wise for the ufc it was it was like a real error yeah it was a great night but uh yeah turkey makes you feel like you could actually take him and I can't take anybody.

But you know, come on Turkey, stick to that jab, put it out there. Also Luke, let's head over down the strip like Bud Crawford did going back and forth there to T-Mobile arena where I was for Conelio and Bud Crawford was also starting stuff in the arena there.

This is what he did to Teofimo. Smacked him in the head. Yeah. And told him off. Teo had been petitioning all week to try to get Gervonta into a fight, which didn't seem to make sense. It seems to have gone nowhere. Yeah.

Somebody posted a video interviewing him and teasing to the idea that he may be in some type of a argument with top rank about. Oh, litigation. I saw that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know the truth of that,

but that's what seems to be out there. Also Luke Canelo at the grand arrival on Tuesday was petitioned with this indecent proposal. Great to see you, Canelo. Obviously, this man needs no introduction. The crowd absolutely loves you. One guy in the back said he would let you get his wife pregnant. The crowd, they would die hard for you. He's smart.

He's smart. He's smart, Luke. Yes a smart. He's a smart, Luke. Yes. Wow. That's hilarious. Caleb Plant was asked for three words here in this pre-fight moment. There's definitely been some animosity between you and Trevor. If you had to describe Trevor as a fighter in three words, what would you say?

Not experienced enough. What about the other two words? Not experienced enough. What about the other two words? Not experienced enough. Okay, then. In round three, though, Canelo did give us... How do we have no jobs in boxing? I don't understand that. I was employed this past week.

I should have been there as well. I wish I could have been. Canelo in round three did give us a prime Canelo moment here. This left hook was a thing of beauty. Yeah. Early on, Canelo looks like Canelo. Right about now. Come on, Canelo.

Oh, my God. That's so quick. Fantastic. You got to say, though, Berlanga took a look in and he was game. Yeah. You know what? He was a little more game than I thought, but he's still, you know. You know who took a look in?

Our boy, Royman Villa. He had lost to Boots Ennis that well. Dude! Was a big favorite here over Ricardo Salas, and he got sent to hell. He was like a minus 700 favorite. Something insane. No one had really heard of this guy, Ricardo Salas, before. And, yeah, you texted me.

You're like, who is this guy? I'm like, I'm not really sure. But that replay, which we'll see in a second, was short and powerful, the punches. Hope he gets a big fight from there, as you see. I couldn't believe that. That's like boots took him a while to break down. Yes. This guy's tough as nails, Via.

Normally, he's kind of like a Maidana type. Watch this. Bah! Damn. Hold that. Hold that. All right, we got to speed this up here. Let's hear from this blind mom.

As a blind mom of two, here's how I know my toddler has ripped off his diaper and peed somewhere in the house. Okay, so you know what's funny about this? My dog pissed at the bottom of my stairs and i went to go clean it and i slipped in his piss this weekend oh that's so that actually happened to me yeah uh luke shannon sharpe's having a lot of fun with that just fucking on instagram yeah let's go to the video too like this you you try to you try to make light of it nobody yeah no nobody was harming the making of this audio no no no no no i don't know

you know she might have to put a little ice pack down there but she's good otherwise nope you know you play a hard game you i how much of that do you think was i hope it wasn't uh dude how much of that that is staged to make it look like he's a certain kind of way? He milked it. He has merch. Multiple pieces of merch. This is what I mean. I'm a little bit not convinced.

He made great content out of it and did a lot of jokes, but maybe that's the best thing to do. This is my Tower 7. I'm not saying he did it. I'm not saying he did it. I'm saying I'm not convinced it was accidental. Wow. You're going to Tower 7 already.

Okay. Let's keep it going here. Luke, you hate when people just start playing music live in person, right? In shared public spaces? Yeah. They deserve the death penalty. All right, let's watch this guy. That's what should happen to every one of these fucking losers.

Luke, if you weren't a pro podcaster, do you wonder what you would have gone pro in in life? Like, what would have been your other thing? Failure. They asked this guy that same question. What's a regular day-to-day activity you think you can go pro in? Jacking off. Who do you think you top tier?

Come on, man. Send it to me like old goat James. I can go with left hand or right hand. Sometimes I didn't get clever enough. I can mind fuck my... I can get... I get right. Oh, wow.

That is a... I probably would give him a run for his money in the jack-off department. That man is a professional. Let's see the job of a lifetime, Luke. You want to work in your passions, right? Well, that's a great job. That is not bad. Jerry's got a great job.

Jerry's getting it done. Your truck decal of the week, probably from Florida, but is that? No, I can't see. Luke, there's no doubt what that guy's about, right? No doubt about it. Get some Listerine in that guy's car. Jane's Addiction, Fight of the Week, right? Came from the stage.

I couldn't believe this. Dave Navarro on the guitar and Perry Farrell, the lead singer. Do the Zoomers know who these fucking guys are? Probably not. I didn't even know they were still touring, to be fair. Long Island Luke, do you know who Jane's Addiction is? Come on, of course I do. Yeah, he knows good 90s music. But this was like a, they actually stopped the show.

Now watch, the next guy comes up and punches Pharrell. There it is. Punches him twice in the stomach. You see that? Oh, wow. He uppercuts him twice. Some rando from the crowd? No, security, security.

Damn. Also, Luke, politics crossed up with the MMA again. Let's see the table. That never happens. He won the Olympic gold gold medal and he's the ufc and was the ufc champion numerous times actually i wonder if i could take him i'm a little larger than him i wonder if i could take him in a fight what do you think henry you know who i'm talking about henry sunuho henry sunuho come here go yeah henoku. Henry Sudoku. Henry Sanudo.

Sanudo, yeah. He hugged him like a little kid. Well, Mr. President, I'm just honored. I think I would have just bent the knee. I would never fight you. All right. Oh, my God. Just blow the guy already.

BizPing clip of the week. This one was floating around. What a guy. What a night. UFC 298, Anahe of the week. This one was floating around. What a guy. What a night. UFC 298, Anaheim, California. Certainly one for the box. What a guy. That's fucking gay.

Let's go to the sparring gym, Luke. Do you see Cyril gone with seven footer Rudy Gobert? Boy, it doesn't look like defensive player of the year to me. It's like Stephen A. Smith from that pose, right? Remember when he's pretty athletic? No, he does. Yeah.

Yeah. Is this to prepare for Volkov for gone? I think it's just to do some internet shit. A misfits boxing in Dublin. I believe over the weekend, you see the sucker punch in Boxing in Dublin, I believe, over the weekend. You see this sucker punch in the crowd. Dude, this is a monster sucker punch. Watch this.

Watch this. Bah! Hold that, bitch! Damn. Dude, he fucking, as we say in the South, hauled off on him. Yes, yes. Luke, you a big fan of pirates? When it comes to internet content.

Okay, let's watch this. This is what I think pirates would be like if they lived in our lifetime. Yarr! I don't know about that one. Let's go to the next one, Luke. God! What did I hit? Not again!

Okay, this is something. Send your emails. I hit it. Not again. Okay. This is something. And your baseball. Send your emails. Don't send them to me. Send them to morningcombat at gmail.com. Send them to the curator, whoever that is. Here's your baseball jersey of the week.

Okay. I mean, who paid for that? Come on. And finally, Luke, you've got to really commit to finding art in all places. This is my brush. This is my paint. This is my taint. Good night.

Hope you saw it all. That's all the shit I got. Hey, not bad. You know, I'll give that a solid B+. Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. You know, it's amazing that you do the 9-11 humor in New York City. I have to tell you, it's quite ballsy of you.

I just, you know, this is what the people are into, unfortunately, Luke. But, you know, like Dale's junior and Dale's senior in turn four, I should probably go away with that. BC, you're doing it again. BC, you are going to take a bird tonight. Yes. How can folks watch the fight you are calling? Friday night, this Friday night, September 20th, Dublin.

UFC fight pass. Callum Walsh going to take another step forward, the 11-0, 154-pound prospect. The 11 and no 154 pound prospect. He's dating Tabitha Ricci. That's right. He has an MMA connection. He's fighting premise. Love Renowski.

Who's a 21 to Polish fighter. This is a big step up for him. Check us out Friday night. Raul Marquez on the call along with myself, Corey Erdman. It is a fun team. I'm excited, man. We're going to see what happens with this young fighter. Dana White's supposed to be there.

I heard he's trying to get Conor McGregor to come. Is it on Fight Pass if you're in Ireland? Yes, it airs on Fight Pass Live. You sure? Okay. Oh, I don't know for people in Ireland. I don't know. Because we have Irish viewers.

I don't know where it airs for them, to be very fair, but I'm going to find out. But for us in the U.S., Fight Pass. Yes, on Fight Pass. Very good. Enjoy your trip. Hey, show the folks your luggage, and we'll get out of here. I don't have to. You don't have to, but I us in the u.s fight pass yes all right very good enjoy your trip hey show the folks your luggage and we'll get out of here i don't have to you don't have to but i'd love you to bc has the most bc looking luggage i've ever seen look at this shit bring it over i don't think

they can just show it to all right look at this we gotta get out of here look at this fucking luggage got bubbles and shit on it worst luggage you've you've ever seen. And that's BC's. Put the social graphic up very quickly. You can follow us there. You can also follow Brian Campbell. It's at YouTube.com slash. Yeah, the Brian Campbell experience. Check out my interview with Callum Walsh today.

I've got a great sit down with Eric Albert. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't miss it. Great stuff coming your way. There you have it. You can follow me at YouTube.com slash Luke Thomas. We're out. No show this Friday.

But hey, when we have news to announce, we'll announce it, right? We're going to have news soon. Thanks. All right. There it is. Brian Campbell, Luke Thomas. We're on MK. Until next time, may all your gains be loyal.