MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 310 RECAP, UFC 312 Reaction, Maycee Barber Interview | MORNING KOMBAT

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

No where better to go after a huge UFC card then right here for MORNING KOMBAT! Luke and BC are back in studio to break down all the big results from the weekend. In the main event, Alexandre Pantoja submitted a feisty, but overmatched Kai Asakura in the second round of Saturday's main event. If he can't get a Demetrious Johnson fight, what should be next for him? Is Pantoja the second-best flyweight of all time?  Plus, in a huge co-main event, Shavkat Rakhmonov earned the decision win over Ian Garry, but is it fair to say Garry's stock might've risen more than Rakhmonov's? They also react to the rest of the important results across the full card, including a win for Ciryl Gane, and a prelim loss for Aljamain Sterling.  Looking ahead, UFC 312 was announced and the guys react to the news that Sean Strickland is going to rematch Dricus du Plessis in the main event of UFC 312 in Australia. Was Khamzat Chimaev snubbed? While, Tatiana Suarez will face Zhang Weili in the co-main event for the women's flyweight title. Suarez had two fights cancelled in the UFC and is now moving into a title shot. Is that fair? Finally, Maycee Barber joins the show to update the guys on her return to the cage! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yes! My God! It's us doing what we love. You, me, and you. Oh yeah. Monday, Monday. Can't trust that day, but we are back to bang. It's morning combat Monday, December 9th,

2024. And you've reached the best damn combat sports show of all time period luke thomas monday brian campbell and luke speaking of popular music how about jay-z seems like he's got a hundred problems now right yeah got some lawsuits going in his direction doesn't he maybe he took that w Wu-Tang is for the children line too literally, right? They're from different boroughs in New York. Jay-Z's from Brooklyn. Wu-Tang is from Staten. That didn't prevent my joke from crossing over.

Wu-Tang's from a few different places, including Long Island. Thank you very much. Which of these shit members? Method Man. Method Man's from Westbury. I'll walk that back. That's pretty great. I thought you were going to say like like, you, God, or something.

I'm like, yeah, you can keep him. How about that? No, he still counts. That is Long Island Luke Noseda, your producer, degenerate director. Dude, nobody will get, in defense of Wu-Tang Clan, more than white guys past their 30s. Yes, yes. That's the number one, like. He's probably just barely past his 30s.

How old are you, Long Island Luke? 32. Yeah, he's just crawling over that line. We have a fantastic MK episode for you today. Not just an extensive breakdown of all things UFC 310 over the weekend from wow, wow, wow. I'm sorry, Prohotska. I meant to say, Luke, of course, Alexandre.

How about that breakthrough victory once again to continue his flyweight title streak? Ian Gary making believers. But maybe Shavkat was hurt. We'll get into that. Macy Barber live 1230 p.m. Eastern time. Going to stop and we'll find out when she's getting back into the cage. That's right. Hopefully.

And also we'll look ahead. How about that UFC 312 card coming up? Going to be a banger. Yeah. Fun main event. Should it haveanger yeah fun main event should it have been a different main event that's the question sorry you're right over there yeah i'm okay about that yeah thank you uh we're gonna find that out luke we also have what i'm calling a fantastic batch of hysts now we have limited time we gotta get this show on the road oh we'll fit it in we'll

we'll we'll bang hard. You could probably like us and follow us at these here socials and please, if you haven't subbed to this great channel, what are you waiting for? Get on board right now. Follow our socials right there and our extended YouTube channels, including the Main Card Minute over there. By the way,

did you know that Luke Noseda, co-host of the Main Card Minute, had a seven hour marathon UFC show? Did huge traffic. Shout out to that guy.host of the Main Card Minute, had a seven-hour marathon UFC show? Did huge traffic. Shout out to that guy. Yeah, we did good. We had a good time. Got high and won some money.

We're A-plus boyfriends too, huh? The both of you. What? Yeah, what? I'm saying, you're not spending seven hours. How would you justify to your wife when you're not on the road spending seven hours with your friends smoking marijuana, watching fights without losing said wife? Well, he was working, you know, it's a side gig.

It's a side hustle. Is that your side hustle? Yeah. Yeah. Side hustle. There you go. Honey, I'm working over here. All right.

You know what I'm saying? All right. Great. Luke, do you have anything else you want to say? Great weekend for you in DC? No, I was tired as shit. I was ruined by the lack of sleep. I did do that gig on Friday.

LFA. Yes, which was a little bit of a juggling act. They gave me a list. Understand, I'm not blaming anybody. You know this. In the fight game, sometimes they'll tell you, hey, Tank is 30 seconds away. Yes, yes. And then they're like, right at the five- second mark, Tank will be here in another two hours.

It's just how the fight game goes. And that happened a little bit. The fight card that I had received, but who was going to be on it, didn't really match the one that was on the TV. Did you have to vamp a lot? It wasn't so much vamping. I just didn't know who they were. Remember that time we were going to call like three hours of prelim card boxing

and like five minutes before you're like, I can't do it. I'm out. Well, my kid had a 105 temperature. Yeah, it was a very serious situation. I was still left on Survivor Island by myself. I got you back, I think, about six months later with a similar type setup right

there. But that's about it for our pre-show rambling and don't buy our merch just yet. But hey, we got some shit to sweep up in the corner of the room entering the new year. Yeah, we certainly do. We certainly do. All right, let's get that.

Hope we can get a broom. Let's get that shit smell out of here and clean it on up. Let's put some Febreze on it. We're happy to still be alive and ticking. And I hope you guys are just the same. Thank you, as always, to our people for supporting us and what we do solo and what we do together. Thank you. All right, let's get into the show.

We got a busy show. It's going to be rip rock and roaring. And it's ready to go right now. UFC 310 over the weekend from Las Vegas. The final pay-per-view of 2024 for the world's leading MMA promotion. And in the main event in the flyweight division, we'll certainly get to what went down as Kaya Sakura made his UFC debut. And the champ was the

champ once more, but Luke Thomas topic number one supports what was the biggest storyline coming in and might be coming out. It was the number one contender fight in that co-main event, five rounds welterweight division and Shav caught Rachmanov in the end, earning the unanimous decision over Ian Gary through five rounds, three rounds to two on all three scorecards. But is it fair to say, however, despite the Rachmaninoff win, that Ian Machado Gary's

stock might have risen even more higher than that of the Victor Rachmaninoff who secured the title shot he had already secured against Bilal Muhammad. Luke, we were talking more about Ian Gary coming out. Should that be the right topic and storyline at this moment? Ooh. Okay. So we all watched the fight, and then I gave a reaction that I thought was pretty positive of Gary,

most of which I'm not going to change on today's show. Watched the fight subsequent times. Reached out. I can say that I reached out to Justin Flores, who was the judo coach of Ronda Rousey, a guy who has specialized his entire, he has a whole system called Wall Waza. Ne Waza is what they call sparring in judo.

Or no, that's Randori. But it's a similar kind of concept. And it's all up against the wall and i asked him to like kind of look at some footage and give me some feedback and whatnot and then there was the admission by daniel cormier oh we can play that that rakmanov may have been injured let's play it so we can get the context for today's conversation this flight tonight because shop caught rock monoh did not look like himself even though uh I learned after that he had an injury I think he might have tore his MCL going into the fight granted with a torn

ligament in your knee you're not gonna look like the killer that you looked like in fights prior I got all my results now I don't know what that Russian or Cyrillic alphabet was on the screen. If there was some. Kilwhitey. Yeah, if there was Kilwhitey on there, I apologize. I don't know. I don't know what any of that stuff says. That's from his YouTube channel, Daniel Cormier's YouTube channel.

I think here's where I'm going to come down on it with a little bit of some of this information and some perspective included. To me, there is no way you can look at this performance from Ian Gary and decide that the only way he performed ably is to grade him on a curve. Some grading on a curve is now inevitable if what is true about Shovkat Rachmanov has been revealed, namely by his MCL. I mean, he still kept the fight. He still took the fight and signed it. He still took it.

And also, let me just make sure I didn't hear back before the show. And that matters. I texted Danny Rubenstein, the manager. Oh, yes, great Oklahoma wrestler, and has a hairline that's fighting just the same, right? I love that guy. I texted him this morning. I don't know what time zone he's in. I think he's on the Vegas

time zone about this news to see if he would tell me what's up. If he responds, I'll let you know okay ian gary is a very good defensive fighter now i know his stats actually speak to maybe being offensive but i don't think that's what the tape shows when you're up against guys like rachmanov and jeff neal and some of the other ones but he is very good defensively bc great great footwork fast yes makes snap decisions in certain circumstances that makes him really slippery. Length.

Length. Length. And he's solid. You know what I mean? He doesn't get overwhelmed. And he fights a game where rather than us trading, I'm going to invest in the part of the game that sets up all of the trading. And I'm going to define terms in that way. And I would ask folks to look at this and say,

did that fight in the end look more like a Shavkat-Rachmanov fight? Or did it look more like an Ian Gary fight? It looked more, for the most part, like an Ian Gary fight. However, I'm going to say two things in response to that. All of that is true. And Gary Stock must have gone up in the minds of most people. It's got to be the leading story coming out of this. It's in the minds of it's got to be the leading story come out it's got to be it's got to be but I will say on the offensive end he's somewhat limited

his finishing ability relative to Rachmanov is like not even close like um some of the takedowns his head is on the wrong side some of his submissions his head is on the wrong side like there's real polish in the finishing. He just clearly hasn't gotten to yet. And I think that still holds him back to a degree. I also think this guy was, we talked about it. You asked what's the relevance of having trained together to some extent. Hi.

All the places you need to be to neutralize a guy. And maybe it stalls out a little bit there, but you're mostly safe. I think some of that played out as well. And I also think Rachmanov's injury, assumed injury BC, there were, there was opportunities where was Gary defending along the fence in a way that was legitimate and tough to deal with. No question. But there's also moments where Rachmanov is waiting around in spots where he wouldn't have. So I think you have to raise Gary's stock at 27 years old.

Dude, he is good. He is legitimately good. He's title good. He's title ready. And I did some of this on Saturday. Now I'm thinking a little bit about it. I think at the margins, at a bare minimum, some of the burying of Rachmaninoff, a little premature. That's fair.

Does this give you a get out of jail free card on the idea that Rachmanov didn't fully take advantage of the moment in the situation? You can understand it with the injury call, but I think you were right to point out that there was also periods where he just didn't seem to fulfill, fill the gap. And when there was an opening there, was that a hesitation due to an injury? It's hard to know. I will say that the more often, and it didn didn't happen often but the more often that Shavkat let his hands go that he was throwing combinations yes Gary's defense was blocking a lot of it but

it's not like Gary was countering and make making Shavkat in a situation where he you know was in too much danger to stand there and throw I think they both did not benefit from single strike offense for, for a lot of it. You know what I mean? It was, it was too technical and too pinpoint to be fair. I thought shop caught one route.

One's one, one runs one. One, the first and second round, mostly due to just landing the better strike when it was just a couple strikes each for the most part. Right. Yep.

But when you're talking about the poise that Ian Machado-Gary showed, is his game perfect now and perfectly well-rounded? No. But his poise, his IQ, his stubbornness in certain categories, the gas tank to go five rounds, and then to put you in a position where he's putting the boogeyman of the division in legitimate peril down three rounds to one entering the final round. Didn't get the submission.

Didn't get it done. And a good fourth round, by the way, for Rachmanov. Absolutely. Where Rachmanov felt the momentum turning and stuffed it out by finally securing the fake with the punches, getting down, getting the double leg and really putting on some decent ground and pound. But I wonder if the criticism against both for not being offensive enough really just came down to that this was a chess match where they they canceled each other out so well i wonder that does it pull back to a certain degree on the idea that this killing machine is

just going to finish everybody and run to the title yes and i think you're gonna have you're gonna it's gonna lead to a lot more people picking balal to win that inevitable title fight provided that this injury won't keep shafkat out. Do we know that? So, again, preliminary research. What the hell do I know? He can last. You can get back to assuming he gets assuming he has a torn meniscus, excuse me, MCL, and assuming he has to get repaired surgically anywhere between three to four and then as

late as six months. We'll have to see. But regardless of how much Shavkat was compromised, they both agreed to the fight. Gary took it on three week notice. Like there was a lot to like about both of their willingness to basically say, let's do it.

Let's do it. It's better for business. Maybe it's better for our careers. All of that. Shavkat took a big chance too, but you cannot act like Gary didn't win this weekend and have the, one of the better moral victories we've seen in a while. And I think it was punctuated by the time on the mic

where he didn't embarrass himself. There wasn't cringy catchphrases. He was about business at hand, and I think he's accomplished it. Listen to his post-fight thoughts and tell me if you agree. I wanted to come out here and talk to you guys because in victory and defeat, I'm still the same person. I still want to come out here and give you guys what you deserve, the knowledge. I am

humble in victory and defeat. I always have been. And I do not feel like I lost today. My hand might not have got raised, but I came out and I fought a giant. I came out and I fought the boogeyman, and I showed that he's fucking human. I went out there on three weeks' notice. I saved this event. I saved this card against the

scariest man in the division, and I went out there and three weeks notice. I saved this event. I saved this card against the scariest man in the division. And I went out there and I stopped almost everything. It was at no point where he looked like he was going to finish the fight. I put him in two submissions. I took his back. I had fun. I showed that I can hang with the single best in the division. And I proved tonight on short notice that I can absolutely be a champion.

And I can do it for five rounds and there's no holes in my game. There was nothing that man brought for me tonight. He won by opinion and that's okay. That is okay. I can live with that. And I'm very happy with my performance tonight. I don't see any lies in there. And I'm not trying to become number one in the Ian Machado Gary fan club.

But I don't care if you believe that his wife's ex-husband is their trainer and lives in their house. How fucking old are we dude? I'm basically saying it doesn't even matter if you are the worst critical mind looking at him. The kid acted like a fighter, passed all the

tests and literally, you can't say he won because he didn't win the fight. Did he win the event? Did he win the story? Yes. But look, he did not lose this fight in terms of what that means it's an L on the record the unbeaten record's gone but everything elevates him moving forward and I don't know how you can watch that fight and not think he's going to be back in a title fight two to three fights from yeah let me let me be very clear I don't even like his fighting style his fighting style does not please me but to point, his ability to enact it at a successful level is simply beyond being contested at this point.

There are limits to it like anybody else. Again, don't you agree on the offensive side? That's really where he's got to go. Look, he was so brilliant at shutting down what Shavkat does when he begins to build momentum against you that that was where that energy went, in my opinion. So again, it wasn't a perfect performance, and he didn't win, and no one's arguing that he won,

but for what our expectations were. It felt a little bit like Boots versus Chukadzan, which the MMA fans are really not going to understand, where one guy was supposed to clean up the number one, not number two, the first fight between them, where Chukadzan would just play on the outside. It's like, dude, if a guy is playing defense on you, and they're really not trying to do much more than play defense it is hard to look

good against them yeah when Ian Gary's defense is again he's stopping momentum before it ever starts he's look at how good his inside head position was when they were wrestling like he's shutting down a lot of these things so that they can't ever get to the next stage he prevents the cascading he prevents the the uh the tide from really coming in, and that's where he just kind of holds the fight. It's like the other part of it isn't there so much. But even then, BC, you mentioned it was a double leg. It was not a double leg. He attempted a double leg, Rachmaninoff, in the fourth. He missed it. And then he comes over the top, right around the neck, and clubs him over while blocking the knee. And the reason why that's

relevant is he tries it again in the fifth. Gary ducks under it. It goes past. And so Gary spins him the other way to the mat. Like that is, if he can marry his offense with his defense, you can see the results. Right now they're almost a little too segregated or one's minimized for more than the other one.

But Ian Gary is a good fighter he definitely definitely I mean at a bare minimum I can say this he earned my respect with this fight I wasn't you know the Irish are so proud of their own that they'll they'll sometimes like they'll back anybody and then you watch him after a few fights it's like I appreciate the enthusiasm but he's not that good I was a little skeptical of him and obviously he had been performing you know he beat up Neil Magny, he did reasonably well against Jeff Neal, but it was like a fight, and the MVP fight, I kind

of thought he scraped through. Even if Shovko was injured, he's talented. The kid is talented, and just 27 years old, like he's got time. He's going to get better. He's going to build those weapons. That's the thing for me. To already have those built-in intangibles of knowing how to, I mean, again, he didn't win

this fight, but he seems to have that know-how of how to win close fights, right? He showed that against MVP even if we didn't like fully the way that he went about it. And even in this case, we're saying we didn't like that he wasn't offensive enough, but he can cut corners, he can play the edges, he's smart in there.

It's going to be able to take him very far and this fight was really, to be very fair, yes, a win would have gotten him a title shot and that's what this is all about but really this fight was about proving that the hype was there for a reason and he truly is a potential elite fighter and he won he showed us that and maybe that it maybe it did help that he has the experience in there of having sparred Shavkat to some degree but they still both signed up they still went at it and he did sort of make the monster look human he's right we do have Shavkat by the way reacting to Gary's improvement since the time they sparred I just want to add very quickly he when he says he saved the event he did he did if he's not on that fight and Shavkat

has to fight like whoever the fuck that card was going to be a disaster he was the storyline coming in 100% so you have to give him credit for that as well. Yeah, for sure. He did a lot of work. He improved a lot. It was a great position from him, and he's someone who didn't lose for a reason, and it was a great experience for me

tons of class yeah i i mean i'm very impressed with the way rakmanov handles himself in general right and even if there is an injury that that kept him back he's not going to be the type of guy that's going to reveal it i'll say this too you know if he was as injured as cormier is suggesting and by the way it's not the first time he's complained about having some injuries in his lower extremities he did the same thing against wonder boy i think for a different reason but i'm just going to point this out long island luke was talking to us before the show and he said on friday if you had said shofcott versus belal who's going to win he would have said shofcott he says he's flipped and i suspect many people feel that way i don't even think that that's necessarily wrong we'll have to see what the odds ultimately come to.

But I think, A, Long Island Luke represents a lot of people, and, B, I'm not in any way suggesting it's wrong. What I am going to say is if you are on Shavkat's team, you cannot beat Bilal Muhammad this fucked up. If what you're saying is, and, again, it's Cormier saying, so it's not their team, but if the implication anyway is that he was able to get this done in spite of being injured, that's impressive. That's very, very impressive.

It is not going to get the job done against Muhammad. Sure. So if surgery is needed and some kind of rehab is needed, now is the time to get it. Because what I don't want to hear is like, oh, I just don't want to get surgery and then fight Muhammad, and you look like a version of yourself that we can somewhat recognize, and then be like, well, I did my best. Go get the medical help that you need to perform at your best.

Well, before we get into the idea of Bilal versus Shavkat, provided that he's healthy, if he's not, what becomes of the title picture right now? They might give it to somebody else. Who's knocking on that door for next in line? The thing is this. I don't think Buckley is that close, even if he goes and starches. Although that would help.

That would help if this scenario played out that way. So I was just going to say, but if he does starch Colby Covington and they have to keep busy, dude, we just saw Poiton versus Khalil Roundtree. You could absolutely get something like that where, hey, is he the number one contender in Buckley if he wins versus Colby? Probably not number one contender. Close enough.

Close enough. We got to keep, dude, the number one thing that the UFC needs is for the trains to leave the station on time. When they need a welterweight title bout, they need the champion to be ready and they need the contender to be ready. And if Shofcott's not going to be ready, I don't mind if somebody else gets it, BC. I mean, it doesn't matter who the champ is by the time Shofcott returns. I just want to be very clear. I still think very highly of Shofcott.

I still am not changing my prediction. He will wear UFC gold, but he won't wear UFC gold this year if he has to fight Muhammad and he actually has a torn MCL. It's not going to work. Okay, let's close the if Shavkat is injured talk by remembering that Leon Edwards is the number one contender. Would he get an opportunistic opportunity, Luke, to slide in there? We know that he told the Zone boxing broadcast last week

that he's going to headline UFC London in March. What if they said, hey, we need you to fight for the welterweight title instead? Could you go back to that matchup? You could. I don't think that they would. What are you going to do? Kamaru Usman is still ranked No. 2, which makes no sense. What about JDM? You could do JDM, but I think they're going to save him for that Australia card.

We haven't heard that yet, but that's my implication. The Kamaru one you could do. Remember, Kamaru and Bilal had all of that trash talk. Kamaru's got a lot of money in the bank from the standpoint of us just accepting that he's still a viable Walter Wade title contender. I think Bilal washes him. I do. At his peak, I don't know that I think Kamara would probably win. I do not think Kamara was even close to his peak anymore.

He had a phenomenal career as champion, but those days are over. And he fought very well against Chermayev under those circumstances. He's not a scrub, but he's not what he was. He's not what he was. And I think Bilal is at the peak of his powers. All right. Now, people are saying that the face-off we did get in the cage afterwards, after Shavkat came away with this unanimous, but close decision victory. And they called for the

champ and there was ha ha. And Joe Rogan spoke into the mic and said, what was probably true that the security didn't realize that Bilal was the champ. Luke, people are saying this is the most underwhelming face-off they've ever seen. I mean, Bilal's like just wearing sweats. Like he's going grocery shopping on a Sunday here. I don't mind that. I kind of wanted a little bit more of some oomph, didn't you? Well, do we have a picture of it or anything? I think we have Bilal's comments. Let me hear. I'm here with UFC welterweight champion Bilal Muhammad,

who has just watched the essentially eliminator fight between Shavkat Rakhmanov and Ian Machado Gary. Shavkat Rakhmanov's going to be your next opponent. What do you say to that? I'm excited, right? Because I was supposed to fight him now. So I was studying him, watching tape on him. Now he just gave me an extra 25 minutes to watch. So I just want to get back in there. Feeling the energy.

Anytime you're at a fight live, seeing your opponents in the cage, I'm hyped. I just can't wait to get in there, and I can't wait to show the world that there's levels to this. I'm the best in the world. And this is the first time Shafkat's gone the distance. Like you said, there's more tape on him now. What did you see in that fight that maybe is a vulnerability or something? Not a weakness. No one has weaknesses.

But something that you could capitalize on that maybe you hadn't seen before. There's a lot of stuff, right? When I look at both of them, you could also take it in a different perspective, right? They're training partners, so maybe they fought carefully for that reason. They've trained with each other. They've seen each other. And Shafqat, this was his first fight in like a year. So I don't like to look at fights and be like, oh, man, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that. Obviously, I could watch his fight and be like, I'm not impressed. I'm going to walk through him. But for my mindset, I always try to take the best of every fighter that I'm facing, every opponent that I'm facing. So I just got to be smart with it. And like I said, break down the tape, look at the little things that he does,

see if it was something we caught before, and then continue to break him down. I got to say, I'm very excited about this matchup, provided Shavka can do this. Do you think Bilal watched some of those negative aspects of Gary's game, the defense, the spatial control, and is thinking, I can take away this guy's danger just as easily. I don't think he's doing that.

I do think, though, he watched that fifth-round back take and was like, thank you, Jesus. That's the one I think. I don't know if he necessarily said that. Oh, right. Probably not that. Shout out, just the same. Fair enough, fair enough.

But the point I want to make is i think he saw that and was like okay there's a path here and maybe they're you know not just because of that but that was a punctuated moment where you're like wow gary was able to get the back and keep it and shofcott you know what is the what is the negative through line between the Neal fight for Shovkot and then this one for Shovkot. Dude, just defensively way too reckless. Walking into range against Jeff Neal, unconcerned with his power, and then here letting Gary find the choke, you know what I mean? And you're not really fighting the hands for a pretty extended period.

How scared were you? How scared were you in that moment? Well, like I said. It wasn't Volkanovski versus Ortega level scared, but you were close, right? No, great, great point. No, was not that scared. But I was watching it. Here's the thing. If Gary had been hand fighting and really just did better, I'd be like, you know what, man?

Fuck it. Like he was the better guy. But to not even employ your hands for the hand fighting, I was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? That was the part that was a little bit disconcerting at first. But nevertheless, he persevered. He got the reversal, and it was what it was. I just feel like I forgot the fuck I was talking about. Jesus Christ.

You were talking about Shavkat versus Bilal Muhammad. Yeah. Oh, yes. But Muhammad, he's going to have a very different approach. He is going to push into Rachmaninoff and work to the back. And that is a very doable game plan against very good guys. Like, can you see Bilal taking three rounds out of five against Shavkat doing that? I think you should be able to.

Well, you have to avoid those sharp hammers, those counter shots that are coming after you, in a way that Gary did not put himself in that strike zone. One billion percent, and I did make this point. You saw this long on Luke. You said you saw my recap where if you're playing defensive long guard and you're snapping and you're interrupting your base and I can't really ever get going and you're not letting me establish a rhythm,

that's very different than just meeting Rachmaninoff head on. That's cock blocking. Rachmaninoff wants you to meet him head on. That's where he likes to fight. Some of what Bilal does, some of what Bilal does will be that. And I think to that extent, it more favors Rachmaninoff. But this is what I mean. That fight got more interesting because a lot of folks, including me,

were like, yeah, Rachmanov is going to run him over. And now you're like, to me, kind of coin flip-ish. All right, let's set a line. Let's bring in our degenerate gambler, Long Island Luke, Aussie rules, no Sita. What should be, what's the Long Island Luke betting line for this fight? I still think Bilal should be a dog,

but it's going to be close. I'm going to say minus 150,maninoff plus 125 Bilal. I think that's about right. I think that's about right. You like that? I do kind of like that. We got to make sure Shafqat's okay. We got to hear from him about the knee.

Yeah. Again, did Danny Rube get back to me? Hey, Danny, answer my text messages. Danny Rube is, yeah, there we go. I love that guy. Let's go to topic. By the way, when we talk about him on the show, he sent me a screenshot last week. People tell him.

Well, they should. We're like the best show in the game. He's one of the best managers in the game. It just makes a lot of sense. Hey, let's go to topic number two, and that's the man in the main event, the face of the flyweight division. I'm talking about Alexandre Pantoja, who submitted a feisty and dangerous, but ultimately overmatched Kai Asakura,

who was making his UFC debut in this title fight. It took place in the second round of Saturday's main event. And if Pantoja cannot get a fight against Demetrius Johnson next, which he asked for, and which we will certainly talk about, Luke, what should be next? And what should we be saying about this thorough walking right into the danger and then humbling Asakura dude this guy Pantoja's pound for pound man like he's he's real deal there's a question about where he goes pound for pound I I don't know if he's ranked highly enough

there's certainly debate because you're asking about the level of competition which is perhaps the most critical component. Sure. But he's the second best flyweight in UFC history. That's who he is. Above Henry Cejudo? He put himself at three behind DJ and Cejudo. I appreciate that.

Certainly he's behind DJ. I mean, you're just, no matter what, DJ's number one, and we're just going to leave it that way. The thing about Cejudo is this. He has done more in combat sports and more in the UFC by becoming a two-weight world champion. But if we're just looking about who reigned over flyweight the longest and the best, I think his resume, his flyweight resume is better than Cejudo's, with the exception of the DJ win. But overall, in general, I think it's better.

And the DJ win was questionable. The DJ win was very questionable. I mean, it was a close fight. But it wasn't like he got finished the first time they fought, and it was better and the dj one was questionable the dj one was very questionable i mean it was a close fight but it wasn't like uh he got finished the first time they fought and it was very controversial the second so there's that i just feel like what he's done of late is so special so so dude this guy to bar from teddy atlas is a firefighter he sees a burning building and he doesn't run the other way. He runs into the fire. We live in the flames. Okay. You don't have to make him sound like he got hit in the head with

a hammer. I mean, you don't have to do that. You're making him sound like Lenny from Mice and Men. I thought you were going to say Lenny from The the simpsons but it's probably the same reference just he is all action he is all courage he is all excitement he fights with absolute purpose every second of the fight and more importantly i want to make this point too very very very at least in key portions of the game, there's some parts where he throws caution to the wind, but in general, very, very technical. I was going to say, getting technically better, it's title defense by title defense, it seems. No doubt about it.

He had Kai Asakura, who, you know, fought spirited for as long as the fight lasted. Was dangerous as shit with those flying knees, let's be honest. Couldn't take his back, had him at one of these angles, like a T-bone angle, and used what's called a K cosodo hook to pull him off and run him in a direction which got Asakura to plant his weight and then he just attacks over the back with that choking arm dude I mean this is what else do you want from a champ and I know what the answer is going to be the answer is going to be we want some rivalry we want some story we want some bad blood. And honestly, that is a missing critical component.

But part of the reason that it's missing is that DJ is gone and Henry moved up and some of the bigger names are gone. The other part, BC, is because he is destroying that division by himself. The only other fight that is available that makes sense at this point. I know what you could say. You could run Royville back. I don't know what the. I. I know what you could say. You could run Royville back. I don't know what the, I don't know how you justify that. Two wins over Royville and three wins. If you count the exhibition against Moreno, I don't see how either guy could get it next.

The answer is Kaikara France because there's just no one else. What about Abazi? Abazi just lost. That's right. He just lost. That's right. Dude, it's Kaikara France. It really is.

Think about this for a second guys win ufc titles and they're like hey i'm thinking about going up to the next division and you're like you haven't beat anybody yet it turns out that the flyweight champion if he beats kaikara france has like the best argument for going up in weight because there's literally no one left for him to fight anymore. I understand that when you go up and wait, part of that is a celebrity cause. The fans have to kind of rally behind it for it to make sense. So I'm not predicting it or even saying that it will happen. I'm simply saying his case for going up and wait is one of the strongest among active UFC champions because the dude has

decimated this division. If he beats Kaikara Frantz, it would be 10-0 against people in the top 10 if that's the next fight. But, dude, he's getting better with each fight. And it hasn't been like full domination. I mean, the Ursaek fight came down to almost a miscalculation at the end. And what was the first title defense? That was Royal Royval, right? Yeah, I'll double check here.

Which was a five-round decision and a competitive but clear win in that regard. We really were questioning, we've been questioning every title defense when Father Time was going to knock on the door and say, you know, nice idea, great run, everything's going great, but you can only take that much punishment or you can only stay at this level for so long. Yet he's getting better as he's getting older. And Luke, if you recall the shape he came in for this fight,

dude, did you see the abs had like that extra line below the pecs with the cross under? I mean, this guy is going all in right now, and he's, for as reckless as his pressure can look at times, he brings technique and smarts, almost like Charles Oliveira in a sense his ability to navigate responsibly within the chaos that he creates by putting the pressure on you is the key to why he's so great but he also has to eat it wear a

little bit of that but if you noticed anytime Asakura hit a big strike on him instant counter one two speedy as shit and tag guys Asakura with a receipt instantly after each knee or after each big punch. So it almost began to take the air out of the balloon of what Oscar was trying to do. And then look, when that second round happened and when he saw the opening and got the back, I mean, it was over. So I didn't think he would be able to bring this much sustainability, especially when you go back and rewatch the title win over Moreno, where it was just pour out the heart and the chin and the balls and the guts. And just, it was almost like risk it all.

Don't care about the future. We want this one moment to win the belt, but yet Luke, now he's figured out how to be sustainable. And now we're literally talking about, is there anyone left where he can fight in? Does this DJ situation make sense? It's worth having a conversation.

We thought, except for the fact that Demetrius Johnson was watching the live broadcast when he was called out by the champion here. So let's see his immediate response and then we'll answer anything to the idea of is this fight possible. This fight is special for some retired fighter.

He don't fight anymore. He retired this year. But this is something I'm saying for you, Demetri Johnson. I'm the GOAT here. If you want to prove you're the GOAT, come back. Why would I do that?

Boys. Boys. The bank account is sitting nice and good. 38 years old. 11 consecutive title defenses. champ ain't coming back i believe him because he's been he's built a reputation of not being about that right also i think he just on a procedural standpoint, he has fights left on his one deal.

So it seems like there's the Twitter rumors that there's one fight left on there. Is that something that can, if, you know, and Dana White was asked about it at the Post Fight Press Conference, and he seemed to have some level of interest. He didn't shoot it down at all. Can you buy out that deal? If one would allow that to be bought i'm sure that

they could find a way to do that um but it might not be cheap or timely and the ufc is cheap and and dj doesn't seem to want it but how excited would you be if that was reality if demetrius was watching live and said yeah let's call my people let's figure out how to do this because yes i get what you're saying about the contract reality. He retired at one. He didn't finish out his deal. I would freaking love it. I mean, I totally understand DJ.

I don't in any one way sit here. I saw people being like, DJ is ducking Pantoja. I'm like, if you're retired, how the fuck is it ducking? Like, you're not even eligible to be accused of ducking. You're not competing. You're accused of ducking you're not competing you're out you're fucking done and he and it wasn't like there was any inkling that this fight was even available like they just threw it at him and all this i don't think he ever could or wants to cut to 120 or probably could but he doesn't want to cut to 125 i think he could do it but that's right

i don't think he wants to either and but listen how would it be as a fight dude it'd be fucking great and i think pantoja would probably be a little bit favored just given the state of where dj is at no still good but not at his best and we have to kind of countenance that i just feel like you know we're at a place where again pantoja oh brandon moreno the last fight was competitive that was the third of them and pantoja won them all yeah like what are we like i mean i think we just have to see Moreno and Pantoja again. I'm sorry, Moreno and Roy Vall again. Yes, you could do that. I also feel like they're going to have, you know, we didn't put it in the rundown, but Dana White was sort of all effusive with praise for Ryzen. Yes.

They might just bring over more Japanese fighters. We got a question coming up about that. Oh, we do. In the DMs. I haven't seen that. I have a possible matchup. How about davison figueredo moves back down to 125 he already has a win over pantoja and he's a former champion if he

can make the weight sure i don't know if he can make the weight think about it he just lost in a fight that could have propelled him to abandon weight title shot yeah no i would love to see it i don't know if he can make the weight okay i don't i like that idea i like that's worth a call in a conversation right for sure for sure, for sure. That is. If you can get him down to 125, but remember, it doesn't make sense at 126. It really is no margin for error on that one. I got to be honest, though. I had him in my top 10 pound-for-pound in the last couple of fights, Pantoja.

I had him in the back end for CBS Sports, but I had this lingering feeling like, does he fully belong? What about the veterans that are from 10 to 15, the former champions, guys that are still still showing us a pound for pound level they're just not champions now but i'm glad he had this performance to show us exactly where he's at exactly where he's at is he somehow even better than he was three fights ago so this guy's training upward let's see how high he can get on he'll be 35 i think in april brazilians are different they're different they're different we gotta we gotta there has to be the asterisk on the, on the 35 and under ruler on the, I mean,

Bilal too, Bilal's skirting off age easily here. He has that again for how much longer we'll see. But, uh, that, you know, yes,

interesting stuff, but Hey, shout out Pantos. So that's above one 55. That's different. Do you feel like though, because the talk was about Shavka and Gary, that once the main event happened,

it was kind of like, yeah, I was doing a live stream and then I lost like a bunch of viewers after the co-main. Cause people were like, I don't give a fuck. once the main event happened, it was kind of like, hmm. Yeah, I was doing a live stream, and then I lost, like, a bunch of viewers after the co-main because people were like, I don't give a fuck. And the thing is this. Kai Asakura, I saw some accusations that he kind of under-delivered. I'm like, not really. He went for it.

The way that it went was one of the more plausible ways that it could have gone. He did land intercepting strikes on Pantoja, that knee up the middle, right on the liver. I was like. Those shots finish other people. I'm serious. 100%.

That's actually what dropped. No, I think it may have hit him on the chin, but it was one of the similar kinds of knees when Archuleta shot in on him. Like, dude, those are powerful shots. It's just Pantoja fights with a certain kind of competitive fire that is psychotic. He is prison shower, fight to the death kind of intensity, man. That's what he's got. What do you call it? Get that guy a shiv, right?

He doesn't need one. Wow. All right. Shout out to Pantoja. I'd be down for KKF. Let's keep this division moving. Yeah. After that, though, I don't know what they're going to do.

I genuinely don't. I hope he gets a chance to kind of maximize whatever the peak of his star stealing could be. You know what I mean? He's doing the right move. That's the right move to call it, DJ. At 135, Pantoja versus O'Malley. What do you think? O'Malley, but I'd like to see it.

Here's that sparring footage of them, if you remember. O'Malley stops Pantoja with a body shot. How long ago was it? That's a good question. It looks pre-Sean's UFC debut, maybe early on UFC days. Probably a few years old at this point. Still pretty good.

I would still want to see it. Interesting. All right, let's move on over to topic number three, and it was the heavyweight rematch that offered big moves for the winner in terms of title positioning, or so we thought. Cyril Gong ends up getting

what a lot of people believe to be was a gift decision and a very close three round fight in the rematch with Alexander Volkov. Is it fair to say that not only has Cyril gone failed to improve Luke, but maybe, and I think he echoed that by running out of the cage and initially turning down the post fight. Victor interview is Cyrilil Ghosn regressing after getting a win that almost

nobody had it for him? I think Danny Shigeru was the only prominent media member who scored 2-1 for Ghosn. Everyone else had it 2-1 or 3-0 for Volkov. How'd you score it? 2-1 Volkov. It's not like a crazy robbery. It was a close fight where neither man was truly overly effective.

But Volkov got the better of almost all of the striking components and seemed to have the better takedowns and control on top. I echo Dana, and maybe not so much in the F and robbed you or whatever, but they gave it to the wrong man. I quibble with those two. One of them is Adelaide Bird, so we're all thinking it's 118, 110 Canelo every time that happens. But let's talk first about Gann a as a stock here on backwards.

Luke, I called him a donk and some fans didn't like that. I didn't mean to be rude to him, but he kind of donked out in there a little bit. OK, so here's another case where you have to decide what the hell is happening. He put out pictures of an X-ray where he had broken his big toe and then the two next to it. So three toes he had broken on the same foot. Okay, that's not nothing. And if a guy that's known for movement, that's not nothing. So I went back and I watched their first fight.

And what you notice in that one is two things. On the gone side, he's like Robert Whitaker, bouncing up and down, up and down, up and down. If your feet are broken or at a bare minimum several of your toes, including your big toe, that's obviously going to be a lot harder to do. And if you notice in this second fight, he wasn't bouncing much. He was kind of stepping and sliding. Now, also I noticed he threw a kick and Volkov caught it, which he never did in the first fight as well. And that kind of limited what he could do. So I do think it is worth, we're going to give Rachmaninoov at least a little bit of understanding that injuries can affect how you perform.

Maybe giving Gahn a little bit of that, I think, is important. I also went back and I was like, okay, because I was really harsh on him on Saturday. Where was the volume striking? Where was anything? Hold on. I was looking at some of the takedowns. They were decent from him. Oh, he showed improvement, right?

In certain areas. Okay? In certain areas. Okay. In certain areas. However, dude, I don't understand his grappling, like, at all. I don't think he does either. I don't. He doesn't. There are two.

I could pick three scenarios. You know what? Let's talk about them because I actually think this is pretty important. And I'm glad you are because I get mad when Dana White tries to reframe the the john story of ducking of not ducking francis and we be gone the best heavyweight in the world he was not the best heavyweight in the world let's be fair so there's three scenarios that i want to talk about that really just pissed me off watching i just was like what the fuck are you doing the first one is he is caught in leg drag, then moves to side control, and Volkov has a crossface. Like, rule number one, if someone has a good,

if they're just holding it and there's nothing going on, then it's different, but if there's actually a little bit of force to it, you have to clear the crossface before you can do anything, because the crossface is designed to drive their shoulder down and immobilize you. How can you effectively scramble if part of shoulder down and immobilize you how can you effectively scramble if part of your spine is immobilized rule number one clear it he tries to fight off of the bottom without ever clearing it and it's like dude i don't know how to explain this to

people it's like trying to show up to put out a fire and you just forgot the water like you can't even get this fucking process started until you have something like that. That was one. I really hated that one. The second one that drove me up the wall was when he was underneath in half guard. Do you remember this? In the third round, he overcommits positionally,

stops scrambling, and then has this Kimura underneath. And I think it may be why he won the fight. I have to go back and check some of the judges' scorecards. Can you look up the judges' scorecards for that fight? The Gon Volkov 2 fight? I want to see how they scored the third round. If anybody scored the third round for Gon, I really think they got that one wrong. I know Adelaide scored 1 and 2 for Gon and the third for Volkov.

Okay, that's a little bit more understandable. But that third round, him sitting underneath the way he was, if you've never rolled, that Kimura grip is very powerful. You cannot just rip your arm out of it, especially against heavyweight guys. They're just too strong. There is a point where he's holding on to it, and he doesn't advance in any of the ways that you need to because he's completely on bottom, out of ideas,

and does not know what the fuck to do, and just gets stuck there the whole time. I didn't mind the guillotine at the end of round one. I didn't mind it because it was close to the end of the round. But the one that just drives me up the fucking wall is he's standing over Gon, and he's got a leg, and he chooses to go from a standing position to a sitting position nuts it drives you nuts to go for a shitty ass heel hook that is nowhere close of course he gives it up and now they're both back to standing you want me to take seriously your foot is broken

why are you giving up top not it wasn't on top of them but why are you giving up top control? It wasn't on top of him, but why are you giving up a standing position to sit? BC, I cannot overstate this to you. My first month of training, I started to do that. And I can see where I was in my time, in my life, when I had instructors being like, don't you dare sit on your ass to go for a heel hook or a Achilles lock. Pass his fucking guard. Yeah. Pass his fucking guard. Yeah. Pass his fucking guard.

Dude, even if I want to give him a mulligan for the standing, and maybe there is something to be said for that, his, let me just say it outright, his decision-making and somewhat his ability in the grappling department is terrible, terrible, terrible. Not fit for the top of this division or any other division. The grappling department is terrible, terrible, terrible. Not fit for the top of this division or any other division. Unbelievably poor.

Here's what's crazy is while he was having all that success initially before he got out-wrestled by a one-legged man against Nganou, I used to ask that question every time of can he win a fight if he's not controlling all of the terms with his A game? And the answer is no. I mean, the answer is no in terms of an elite fight at this point, right? For the most part. It's definitely no. And, dude, there were no combinations.

Volkov was controlling distance with almost ease at times. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't like Volkov was perfect in this fight. Okay, let me ask you the question that I asked you coming in. Now that we're coming out of it, is Volkov the worst of the elite title contending heavyweights or the best of that decided second tier I think he is he should have been the worst of the best title contending like he's getting pretty close if that was a win he's getting pretty close to a title shot so the other part there is Volkov is undeniably not like we should

give you credit because you've been high on the Volkov renaissance I also said he would he would he would have wrestling and long periods on top of gone yeah no no chance you know uh he he is much improved and you could point to a couple things again going back to the first fight walking gone down in this one made a huge difference gone can't gone can't bounce and go if he's constantly on the back foot. That was a big one. BC, on top of that, his defense has gotten a little bit better. His awareness of how gone would evade and then intercepting him

as he ducked or ran. His striking variety, too. His striking variety. His timing was much better. He understood much better the assignment about how to keep gone from being able to get his offensive rhythm going. So we're sitting here bagging on gone, which is well-deserved, especially in the grappling component.

But we also have to be fair. He was up against a much different Volkov. But this is the point. Why wasn't Volkov up against a much different gone? Why has gone, at least in the grappling department, has he added other skills yes he has added other skills he has not improved his decision making or foundational level of knowledge almost at all or certainly not even close to enough john jones's wins are over the grappling of cyriln and the ghost

of Stipe Miocic. People are like, he can do what he wants. No, fight fucking Tom Aspinall because that shit doesn't count for anything. I got the scorecards. I was not impressed by Ghosn at all. Anybody give Ghosn the third round?

No, all three judges gave Volkov. Thank God. I was so worried about that. How did you have it, Long Island? I had a 2-1. I was glad I didn three judges gave Volkov. Oh, thank God. Okay, I was so worried about that. How did you have it, Long Island? I had a 2-1. I was glad I didn't bet on Volkov, because I think he should have won, and I would have been very pissed. Okay, does it come... Like, when Dana comes out, chases him down, or not, you know,

just walks over and grabs Volkov and was like, I thought you got effing screwed on the cards. Does that mean he'll get a favorable matchup next and they'll treat it as a win, or just treat it as a no contest and move forward? They'll probably do him something of a solid, but they're not going to give him a gimme. I mean, there are gimme's in that division, but I don't think he even wants that. He's trying to ascend.

Yes. So it's like, will he get a fight that is of premium heavyweight quality? Yes. But it's probably going to be a tough one. It might be blades. Blades in a fight night main event. Yeah. Something like that. You know, interesting. Let's's hear from volkov who was upset about the way this

fight was scored although he could be just as upset about his own hair choices the worst corn rows I've ever seen my uh respect to to serial gun he he he wasn't like a guy who just uh walked out from the gauge after the decision because he didn't feel this too. So nothing bad to my opponent. I just don't say it with commission. I can't agree with this. He was in here and he said that he injured his toe after the first kick of the fight and that affected his performance. Did you feel that he was hurt and was changing

or did you just think he wasn't able to keep you off him with your wrestling and your ability i i was feeling he was absolutely i know broken like mentally he was like and the fact he he broke his finger is a damage that i give her to him so it's a it's a one more fact that i get this fight uh how can the guy who was less active and come with more damage, like took from the fight, could win the fight? Like, I don't understand this. Did he make a good point there? He caused the damage ultimately? So why are we talking about it?

Hard to say. I mean, like if you break your toes on someone's body when you're striking, I mean, yes, they did it, but they didn't do it with great intention. They just did it by being there, partly by being, you know, who knows how they blocked it. It's really hard to say. It's a little bit taking credit for something that is hard to say. It's hard to say.

Jon Jones would love to fight him. Maybe a perfect title defense for Jon Jones because of the speed disadvantage. Yeah, he likes to wrestle guys who are, that's not their, you know, primary base. Does he ever get there? Do you think Volkov ever gets to the title shot? He might. He might. I mean, depending on how things go.

It's not like, the problem is if Aspinall ends up either beating Jon or just becoming the champion outright, depending on how this goes. It's like, dude, Aspinall, did you ever go back and watch Aspinall versus Gann? Yeah, he swallowed him, dude. I was ready for Volkov to make the leap in that fight. I didn't know Aspinall was that great, and I was just like, what just happened? It's like a uniquely bad matchup because Aspinall is so fast and so athletic. It's like a kryptonite.

It made him look clueless on the ground. 100%. It's kryptonite for a guy like Volkov. But, you know, you just can't walk away from this fight being like, oh, that's the same Volkov. Gon looked shittier. Gon looked shittier or at a bare minimum static in key portions. That is a much better Volkov.

I mean, the post-fight interview was about Gon revealing that he doesn't have the answers to the questions against him. He doesn't understand why that performance came out the way he did. I'm not saying he's not trying and not training hard, but there's a, same thing I said, the mojo seems to be gone. You know, the way he did. I'm not saying he's not trying and not training hard, but there's a same thing I said, the mojo seems to be gone. You know, that the way that he used to carry himself and there's a

disconnection between the game he's trying to accomplish and maybe the understanding of it or the time put in. I don't know. I don't know enough about what happens at MMA factory to declare that, you know, breaking ties is the most important thing. But I do think it's probably safe to say he needs to get wrestling training outside of MMA factory and he needs to get a lot of training more generally beyond MMA factory.

If he wants to stay with him in a, you know, installed some important capacities and to, you know, Ray Longo doesn't train all those guys, but then he'll corner them. I think that's fine. He desperately needs some supplemental training. But again, it's like, dude, you're 34. How are you still making grappling decisions this bad? Well, is the answer because he literally went from the first day of MMA training to fighting in the UFC within something like 12 or 13 months.

Probably. I mean, that kind of explains it. And guys just didn't know how to beat him yet. And Volkov had a much better idea about how to beat him and got pretty goddamn far with it. Good performance. Good-ass performance. But do you think anyone specifically should be next

or will be next for either? Also, he couldn't finish the Vaughn flu choke. I was just like, oh, my fucking God, bro. You lock up the Vaughn flu and you don't even really try and push it. I mean, what do you do? Gon goes back to the spivax the tabura level yeah even though we got a win here yeah no dude he needs work yeah can he beat them doing his a game to your point yeah he can be he can beat some of these guys but then that falls apart against the a level guys and then he has

to bring out the b and then the b is just i mean it's an f yeah let Let's be honest. He goes from A to F. There's really no in-between. Alright, let's go to topic number four and it was who else on the UFC 310 performed well? Luke, what's the biggest storyline below the heavyweight fight and the two title fights atop the card? I'm going to say how bad Chrome Gracie looked, but I would like to

focus on the winners instead. If that's okay. And dude, there's a lot of directions you can go, but we have to go with arguably the best fight on the card, Movzar Evloy versus Aljamain Sterling. What a fun-ass fight. What a contrast in grappling styles. Competitive the whole way through, but Movzar is tough at 145.

His strength on top is incredible. His balance, his understanding of how positions are about to move and getting there before even Sterling could get there. I thought Sterling made a great account of himself. He absolutely threatened Movsar in ways that we really haven't seen him, not even Diego Lopez could do. But Movsar is that dude. He is so talented, so strong.

He doesn't ingest sugar in any form. I mean, diced to the socks that guy is. I thought it was really, really impressive. Don't you agree? I agree. Long Island Luke, that was a fun-ass fight, was it not? Yeah. It totally backfired in the UFC's face

being like, this is a boring-ass fight. Let's bury it on the prelims. Turned out to be one of the best fights. Aljamain gave, I thought, everything he possibly could. I thought Movesar was pushed in ways he wasn't before. It was intriguing. It wasn't thrilling. It was intriguing. Yeah, yeah.

No, it wasn't like edge of your seat, but it was, you could see the chess. Sure. You could see that these guys were getting after it. They weren't stalling by any stretch. But that style is going to hold Movzar back from getting extra opportunities. And he said it afterwards, right?

He more or less said, I'll fight. It doesn't matter if they line up 100 guys to get to the title shot, I'll beat them all. It might have to be that way. It might have to be that way is what I'm saying. In this division. They've got an exciting guy at the top that they, I mean, do I want to see Teporia versus Evloev?

Sure, sure. But if you've got options with Teporia, especially if Islam is one of them, you're going to have to wait a little bit. That's true. I mean, Aljo deserves a shot at that decision. I remember I wasn't scoring it like officially, but loosely I'm like, that could be 2-1, Aljo.

Am I crazy on that? You've got to show me which two. Let's go to the man from Long Island. Am I crazy on that? I mean, I was a little biased, but I had Aljo with the spread, so I like that bet a lot. I don't think there's a case for him to win it,

but he looked competitive. I'll say that. He did. He did. How far are you from just selling your car to feed this habit? I'm very lucrative, Luke. We do well on Main Card Minute.

I'm not saying I don't know what you're doing, but I know a lot of people have known what they're doing who, you know, lot of people have known what they're doing who have had to explain to their wife why they drained their savings. Well, I told you that the Volkov resurgence was upon us, and despite the loss, maybe I was right. I told you bet on Doohu Choi. Now, he didn't ultimately – no, he did ultimately get the stoppage

that we were looking for here against a largely ineffective Nate Landwehr who took the L like a man and put out a video afterwards where he just owned it. But for being away from the sport and now back-to-back good performances here coming off the Bill Algeo win, you said coming in that, you know, we're not like booking this guy for a path to the title. He's a fun, you know, TV fighter to some degree,

but he surprised you with the... He looked, you know, here's the thing, the biggest difference. Striking looked smooth, which we'd seen before, but he looked even smoother. Yeah, tight. But he cared about defense. He'd pop into range and then pop out of range. That was never there before. That was never there before.

And how about he hit one of the throws he hit to get Landwehr to the ground. It's called a Sasai. You block the outside foot and you turn him. He hit that, which was crisp. But those are hard to do. It's called a Sasai. You block the outside foot and you turn him. He hit that, which was crisp. But those are hard to do. It's a real difficult move to hit. And then, you know, finishing from mounted crucifix. It was like, dude, it wasn't just a good performance.

It was a complete performance. I'm wondering if there is a run for this guy. 33 years old. Missed four years of his prime. Dude, he missed like 28 to 32. Like, no. And he took some damage in those. Took a shit ton.

Another four years probably helped. Four years probably helped. But nevertheless, I don't think so. I love having Korean Zombie in his corner and seeing that mentorship. Although you wouldn't think defense would come from Coach Korean Zombie. You wouldn't. Maybe he's got a defensive coach. But like you got to feel good about where he is now.

Yes. You got to feel good. Like you can, I mean, how many great matchups can you make with, with Choi? A gazillion. Yes. A gazillion. Also in that featherweight division,

it was a Donk Donkerson performance to some degree from Krohn Gracie. And even Dana got sick of people, you know, setting them up to dunk on him afterwards. And it was pretty salty in that post fight press conference, but Bryce Mitchell did what he's supposed to do, but he got a lot of, it seemed like he got a lot of positive feelings coming out of here.

Back on the win track, it was two losses and three fights, but devastating ones when you consider what Teporia did to him and then one of the most brutal one-punch knockout losses to Josh Emmett. I guess it was good to see him back, whether you agree with his seatbelt or flat earth theories. Does this propel him forward to an interesting fight moving ahead? Sure. Or is he still kind of stuck in the middle of the path?

As I mentioned, he's only 30 years old. 30 years old. He's very good. He is, I think, respected. We know him as the ground specialist, the guy who got the twister. But he's pretty well-rounded, Bryce, actually. I feel like he's got, you know, can he go on a run to the title just with his hands? No, probably not that.

But could he beat really good guys? Dude, he beat Dan Ige just before the fight with Josh Emmett. So, like, he's beating quality guys out here. That's no small achievement. That was a close fight, though. I mean, I kind of thought it was a little controversial. But you see what I'm saying? Like, the traditional markers of quality.

Dude, his two losses are Josh Emmett and Ilya Teporia. Maybe, and he's 30 years old. Maybe he pumped the brakes on. Granted, granted, the stoppage loss to Teporia? Maybe, and he's 30 years old, maybe pump the brakes on, granted, granted, the stoppage loss to Teporia was really bad, and the one to Emmett was a nuclear meltdown bad. Those were bad, dude. Okay, but and they gave him a bit of a soft landing here. Sure.

30 years old, I think he'd be very foolish to And he shouted out JC in the post. That's the only man that can say it. I think JC got shouted out by literally every single winner on that card, right? Yeah, I was down with that. I also want to throw a shout out to Michael Chiesa for not only the win, considering how kind of inactive he is in this portion of his career and the

dominant submission, but he shouted out Derek Thompson, the UFC employee that I used to work with at the ESPN back in the day. You knew him. Who passed away. Yeah, I worked with him for a long time at ESPN and loved him and seen him through the years. That brought a tear to my eye to see that shout out and to do that in the post-fight interview. I love that.

But that was the good. There is some bad coming out of there and the idea that Anthony Smith with the performance there against Dominic Reyes and maybe Chris Weidman too, maybe even Clay Guida. All three, is it time to go? It's time to go. It's time to go. Clay Guida has had a nice long run i don't know

how much he's adding to his quality of life when fighting is over he didn't get like super beat up but i just don't you're risking bad injury continuing to fight out there when you made your ufc debut in 2006 i mean it's incredible longevity like i do give those guys the jim miller guys i give those guys credit for sure 100 i give him credit chris wyman we said it before the fight needs to retire it's just so i mean the amount of damage he's doing to himself yes to me is really just kind of heartbreaking at this point i would really wish he would stop and then do we have the clip of dominic reyes anthony smith who we've had a you know i've had a good relationship with for a long time and you know you more recently as well.

Great guy. He should not have fought on Saturday night. It was heartbreaking to watch. Let's play this clip. Anthony's a true warrior, and he's going to fight to the end. And he wanted to fight to the end. He needed to feel something tonight, whatever he's going through. But he kept moving, right?

The ref said, come on, Anthony, and he would move. So he gave him a little bit more leeway. So when I went in the cage, I haven't been around Anthony much in my life, for the record. But when I went in the cage with him, he was emotional, right? And that's a dangerous man. has, he said it, you know, he's fighting for his friend, right? And he doesn't care about the outcome.

He just wants to feel something. There was a point in the first round when he put his hands down and just like punched me in the face. And I obliged, right? So that's my job. My job is to finish you and get you out of there. Whether you're going through something or not, you're going to give me free shots or not, I'm going to hit you.

And that's what we're professional fighters. This isn't – it's a very dangerous game, you know. And God bless Anthony, you know, all the best to him. You know, prayers for him and his team and his teammate. He lost family. Losing someone's never easy. I've lost some really close people to me this year as well, and it's terrible.

I'm glad he got to come out and be the warrior that he is. This is his outlet, right? So, like Cormier said, it's my job to not care, and my job is to win. My job is to go out there and give my best performance, and that's all I was... It was hard to watch the whole thing, right? You know what I mean?

I'm glad Anthony tried to honor his friend and coach in that way. You can get hurt doing that, bro. Absolutely. And look, we'd already sort of thrown around in question, like, should this be it for Anthony Smith? He does seem to have a really good burgeoning podcast, you know, TV anchor, TV analyst career going. But this is 21st pro loss too.

This guy's got 60-something pro fights, right? This guy has been a survivor in this game. He rescued his career. I mean, this guy was fighting at victory fighting in the middle of nowhere for a time and then really kind of turned himself into a John Jones title contender. He has an iron will, has a refusal to quit, right? I mean, we saw he kind of had an emotional breakdown in there. It it was tough to see so for reyes it's a second straight stoppage win

it continues his sort of comeback story at 34 is there still some life for him to make a little bit of a run here in this division that's not that deep right a lot of aging warriors i was happy to see for dom at least in that regard yeah i i would agree i i don't know how much value you put in the win but it it was, you know. He did his job. Sure. Good to see him get his hand raised because I'm sure he worked hard to do it. And that alone, I think, is a process you want to honor.

But Anthony Smith should retire. We could almost talk about every fight on this card because there was a lot of things worth talking about. Chase Hooper at 25 at lightweight. Now, Rogan was making it seem like this guy is almost ready to fight for the title. Like they were playing up and he has made a nice turnaround for how remedial his striking was in the beginning and he's improving every aspect of his game.

But are you looking at him as somebody who's put it together in time to really start stacking wins and making noise here? I don't know how to answer that. I'm not going to say yes or no. I just feel this way. He's what, 25 years old. His jujitsu skills are fantastic.

I think one thing we also just really need to notice is how much more bulk he has. He's really filled out in his frame. To me, clock starts now. Like, everything that came before this, I'm not saying it's irrelevant. That's not my point, but like, you're asking bigger questions about how far can he go. We can't even start evaluating

that until right about now. Yeah, and he's not doing those looping helicopter punches. I mean some sharp shots there's much sharper everything is much crisper it's putting together but like clock has just begun about what we can use as footage to be like oh this is something that we can figure out what he's going to look like at 28 29 30 it starts now and so for that reason you gotta love the improvement yeah you gotta love how less how much less damage he takes. But he was fighting Clay Guida, who needs to retire at the same time. So that's no fault of Chase Hooper. Chase Hooper looked good.

I want to be clear. He looked very good. But how far can he go? We're going to find out. We do have a clip about a potential next fight for Chase Hooper. Let's see if this interests you. You said you want an intriguing matchup next. I saw a couple people online after your win suggest Jim Miller. What would you think about that?

I mean, I don't see why not. Jim's, honestly, I felt kind of the same way about Clay. It's like he's an older guy for sure, but he's still doing the damn thing. Like he's still in here going against these young guys, and he's still doing well. Like Jim's still out. He's still subbing guys. And that would be a good fight.

Like if it wasn't on such a stacked card like this, I felt like me and Clay could have been card on on a lot of events um but yeah i i mean i think we'd be a fun one and why not love it dude if i looked and sounded like him but could fight like him i'd talk shit at every ball oh yeah yeah yeah i just get a guy to follow me on camera and then just put people's reactions on youtube and make money all right you got a shot at also vicente luque against garimbo he went in there and did the deep i went to the bathroom and came back it was all over drops him with the right hand locks up the anaconda gator roll finish he is fucking nasty dude vicente luque remember he had a brain bleed situation yes but his career was over and he's still out there dropping people and then subbing him with his techniques. I mean, I'm just happy it wasn't Nick Diaz. I'm really happy. Yeah,

that was probably good that they did not do that. All right. Brian Battle gets a win in the catch weight fight caused by himself missing weight by more than four pounds, which seemed still unexplainable when he was asked about it by Rogan in the cage afterwards. And he was still doing the heel thing and calling the crowd on the win over Randy Brown, who was streaking and moving on, I mean, it doesn't do a lot for us. It wasn't that great of a fight. It wasn't that great of a performance. But I feel like every part of his stock seemed to go down,

even though he comes away with the win. I thought Randy should have won, and Brian Battle missed weight, and then he did the heel thing on top of it. I mean, I guess the heel thing, it doesn't really matter because in the end, you know, you're just trying to get a reaction in this game. It doesn't matter if it's negative or positive, but it was not confidence inspiring.

Yeah. Am I missing something? It was not confidence inspiring. And when Eric Anders beats up on Weidman, they're like, that's the best win of Eric Anders' career. It's like. And then Eric gets on the mic and he's like, yeah, I'm not even looking for championship fights.

I'm just looking for fun ones. Which, by the way, fair play to him. Fair, but like. No, no, no. I actually prefer that. I actually mic and he's like, yeah, I'm not even looking for championship fights. I'm just looking for fun ones. Which, by the way, fair play to him. Fair, but like. No, no, no. I actually prefer that. I actually am glad he's like. I felt it was an insult to him to say that's his best win against like that version of Weidman. Like, come on.

Is that Eric Honors' best win? That's a good question. I mean, it might be. Didn't he have that? Brandon Wise was trying to talk me into saying the head kick one should be. So he's got the. No, he's got Jamie Pickett. He's got this Chris Weidman one.

Kyle Dawkus has got one. Aaron Stewart, the dentist. Gerald Mearshart's a pretty good one. Split decision one he's got there. Just in this circumstance, it was just not good. Oh, he's got a win over Brendan Allen in LFA. That's his best win. There you go.

There you go. And also, Luke, Josh Vann against Cody Dern. That fight was fun as heck. Dude, he looked awesome. And he looked awesome. Yo, did you not long on Luke? How good did Josh Vann look? Becauseern. That fight was fun as heck. Dude, he looked awesome. And he looked awesome. Yo, did you not long on Luke? How good did Josh Vann look? Because I know he got fucked up one time playing too loose with it.

He looked much better this time. He looked great. That fight was awesome. If anyone didn't see that, definitely go back and watch that. For sure. I love that. I love that reaction. All right.

We also have Dana, who was very salty in the post-fight presser, asked about Conor McGregor. I want to talk about this for just a second. Yeah, yeah. This is where we move on. Let's hear it. Since, asked about Conor McGregor. I want to talk about this for just a second. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it. Since the thing about Conor McGregor came down, any reaction that you have since the conviction in the civil court and the penalties he faced?

What do you mean, what's my reaction? Do you have any comment about what his... If I had a comment, I would have put it out already. What about his status with the UFC? He hasn't been fighting here in I don't know how long. But there's been, you know, you've noticed him at 303 there's been talk he's gonna fight right i mean does that impact him in any way or well if he does fight it'll be sometime next year yeah so we learned nothing but hey i only was pushing dude he was he was i only was the only

one who did it i i mean here's why this comment to me is so insane. It's like, what do you mean? What's my reaction? It's like, Dana is in charge, essentially, of a publicly traded company. What the fuck do you think we're looking for a reaction for? Because this is a literally public-facing, publicly-owned property for which Dana White is ostensibly, for lack of a better description, its manager. Why would we want to know where you, like, do you think sexual assault is bad? He's the most famous fighter in the sports history. Of course we're going to ask every time anything happens to him.

But it's a relevant question. What is your company's stance on any number of things? And the answer is this, BC. The answer is the very bare minimum that capitalist forces will do in a worst-case scenario. Let me give you an example. Jerry Sandusky, Vince McMahon with this terrible lawsuit. In other words, the only way that anything will ever happen to any bad actor is if the capitalist forces essentially quit on them in a worst-case scenario. And I know what folks might say, because I know there are folks who think, oh, well, McGregor's innocent. Hold on to that thought for just a second. Let's say you believe that.

Let's say you believe he actually didn't do this. Whatever the court says, you don't believe it. You must understand that a policy where you're punting to the basement-level capitalist forces to be involved gives leeway to any other bad actor that you may or may not like to do almost, not anything, a ton of unethical shit. That is what that policy enables. And the last thing I'm going to say on this is, if this is the game that they want to play where we just, we, the UFC wants the public to say that they don't have a relationship, the UFC does, to a fighter's misdeeds. That's what they're dealing with. Oh, the famous, you know how much Conor Payton legal fees, that's all the punishment is. But also like, hey, whatever's happening in their private life, their independent contractors, that's for them to deal with. If that's the game that they want to play, okay. But then you don't get to tell us about all of their community work that they do.

You don't get to tell us about how laudable they are as fathers or mothers. You don't get to tell us how great they are. I feel like you're speaking directly to the Netflix documentary people that handled the Conard doc. It's just, here's the thing. If you want to tell us that you don't take responsibility in any way or have any relationship to any misdeed that any of the fighters have, you don't get to parade how laudable they are on the other side and then ask us to accept that because you also now have no relationship to that either. I don't know if that was the thing that set Dana off, but did you see the rest of of when people were asking him about from gracie's poor performance they're asking him

if smith and weidman should retire and finally he got to the point where he snapped on the media and was like oh you guys have his negative questions today no one wants to talk about the positive but it's also like the way that is set up that's the only time people really get to talk to him right you know so it's you understand also i want to sort of correct something i had said someone asked me on twitter uh they were asking about the pre-fight press conference and nobody asked connor about anything or nobody asked anything about connor and someone asked me on twitter they were like hey um do you think that the ufc told people not to ask and let me just say what my i don't know what your experience is let me tell you what my experience is now granted i don't go to shows hardly at all anymore but in all the time that I ever did go to shows,

no one from UFC has ever even bothered to ask me something like that. When there was other forms of controversy or whatever, it's never happened. So I found it kind of strange. But then Stephen Morocco found an example from 2018 when staff did ask media around the Greg Hardy situation to keep it just focused on the fights at that time so I don't know if they did that at the pre-fight press conference but there at least is some precedent for it sure it's just nothing I've ever personally experienced all right let's move it on to topic number five and that is what is going to be going down at UFC 312 Sydney Australia what is the date on that? March something? Look it up here. Give me a second.

Sean Strickland is going to get the rematch in the main event, not Hamzat Chemaev against Strikas Duplassie. And in the co-main event, fired up, Zhongwei Li will finally make the return 11 months after her fight at UFC 300 in April. And Tatiana Suarez, who has not fought since late 2023, has been in and out of eligibility in terms of her health and the lineup. We're finally going to get that.

But first and foremost on the main event, Luke, first of all, these are two, in my opinion, very good fights. I'm excited about it. Let's go, UFC 312. But is that the right opponent, considering Sean Strickland is fresh off of a split decision win over Polo Costa, and Hamzat Chamayev just ran through Robert Whitaker. Let me first say I actually I know no one is ever allowed to be surprised on the internet anymore I was surprised a little bit

by this not crazy but it applies the way they released it which was like between fights on the UFC broadcast when they showed Suarez in the crowd. And then they put underneath that she's going to be fighting way Lee. And then they come back and they're like, Oh yeah. Breaking news. EDP versus Strickland too. Yeah. I suppose that too.

I suppose that too. But I thought after what Hamza did to Whitaker and given that it's a fresh matchup and all the trash talk and everything else, I, you know, maybe there were visa issues related to getting into Australia. Who the fuck knows? I can never really tell you the answer, right?

It might be because I his here's what we know. You know, this as well as I do. Historically speaking, sitting on a title shot and waiting almost never pays off. They just don't like that. They like guys who stay active. Now, granted, Sean had done them a number of favors in taking a bunch of fights so maybe they felt like they owed him one on the other end but like if you're just looking he had the fight with DDP which was close I thought DDP did it in

real time and then afterwards I thought Sean won he gets the rebound against Paulo Costa which is not much of a rebound it wasn't a great fight and then he gets back here and you're like dude Hamzat okay he's got his problems, but then he goes in there against Whitaker and absolutely obliterated. He rearranged Whitaker's face. I thought that's going to be it.

This is the guy. If it's not because of either calendar planning or where this guy can get into based on his real- world allegiances. Yeah, does he have a health setback that we don't know about? No, I wonder if the Kadyrov stuff

extends far beyond the United States in terms of being a problem. But they don't want to say that publicly, right? Right. Because they're trying to get... Once again, the only civilizing force in the industry is what basement level capitalism

will do for you. That's it. Long Island, is this the topic that got Dana pissed off at the post fight press conference? Because he was also salty about when people were like, why is it not Jumaev? He got pissed off at Jose Young's about asking about Krohn Gracie's performance. And then this, he got heated too. And it was the kind of thing where it's like, I think you're onto something where it's Hamzat

can't get into Australia or something because Dana normally would be like, Strickland's the guy. What do you mean? Hamzat doesn't deserve, you know, he'd up the guy. Instead, he was like, of course we tried to make this with Hamzat, like pissed off about it. I'll just say this. I don't feel super strongly about it for two reasons.

One, Strickland's got a case that he won the first fight. It was a very close fight, yes. He's got a case that he won the first fight, and I think also the second fight could be somewhat, I won't say meaningfully different, but different enough for DDP to be kind of an interesting chess battle sure I am surprised correct me if I'm wrong long on Luke does Australia have different rules about speech about what can be criminalized and what can't be because I do recall the first time Sean Strickland went down there there were a lot of folks including the in Australian government, who were really upset with some of the stuff he had said.

And I'm not here to like parse it just as like a risk that you run if you're bringing that guy back to the same area. Yeah. Is there anything to that? I'm honestly not the person to ask. I have no idea. Ask your father. He's only got a dad.

All right. All right. Well, you know. Well, look, it's going to be a great fight, but I can sympathize with Dana's tone if they did try and they couldn't right now. Because with Chemaev's inconsistencies with his health and his schedule, if you get the window, you got to make the fight because he's championship ready.

The dude's ready to jump through our screen. EDP versus Chemaev would have been sick right now. Yes. But I do like this fight, but I love the co-main, dude. Are you getting moved on that? Same thing with Suarez. It's like you don't know when the calendar is going to arrive where she's healthy at the right time.

The right time is now then. So correct me if I'm wrong. She was supposed to fight Virna Janjiroba. Yes. And that fight fell through. And there was another fight she was supposed to have. And there was a weird thing where someone on Twitter said she was hurt. And she was like, where'd you get that rumor? That's not true. And then the next day, the UFC announced that she was supposed to have. And there was a weird thing where she, where someone on Twitter said she was hurt. And she was like, where'd you get that rumor?

That's not true. And then the next day the UFC announced that she's hurt. Yes, and then that fight fell through. And you're like, okay, well, she's still trying to build back as a contender. And then she just gets the fight. So yes, she was supposed to fight Veeran Ajandji Roba, as well as she was scheduled to fight Amanda Lamos.

And then she had to withdraw and then was replaced by Mackenzie Dern. So she's had the Lamos fight, as well as the Janji Roba fight where we were supposed to get a better look at exactly where she was. I have to tell you, though, you might think, well, God, it's fucking cold in here. It's cold as shit. It's so fucking cold in here.

Ken wants to see our nipples, I think. Ken, do you want to see our nipples? The only thing that stands out to me about this is here's my reading on it they've been trying to move her up trying to move her up trying to move her up they're like you know what fuck it just put her to the front of the line the clock's ticking yeah if we don't give her a title shot now her health might fail us before she even gets a shot 33 years old but undefeated and dominant so they just just said, fuck it. Forget the other contenders. Just get to the front of the queue.

And to your point, BC, as a fight, I like it. I love it. I like it. I love it. Look, my beloved 115 division, not as deep as it used to be, but this is the best matchup you can make. Roseanne here, this is the best matchup you can make. So let's see it.

I do think we have a Strickland video we can throw to hear about his comments. Because did you see that tweet first from Hamza that showed a picture of himself? He wrote, at Strickland, it was a picture of himself with a large assault rifle in his hands. Yes. And then Strickland says, I love how Cumshot will try to talk shit to me. Bro, you're not a man. Character level fucking dog shit. Crypto scams.

Hoard yourself out to Kadira for cars. Fled to the Middle East when the pimp hand got too strong. Stay in your lane, Swedish man. All right. Hored yourself out to Kadir off her cars. Fled to the Middle East when the pimp hand got too strong. Stay in your lane, Swedish man. All right. So Strickland already planting the seeds if he can get the title from DDP. And if we don't need an immediate trilogy. By the way, he went on to say other things.

Also, the three-way trash talk between DDP, Chimaev, and Sean Strickland is also pretty good. Yes. Because then DDP got on Twitter and was like, the first one they called a robbery, the second one they're going to call attempted murder. I was like, oh, shit. Dude, this middleweight division is fun right now. At the top level, very, very, very fun. Well, that was the thing. That's why you kind of thought Hamzat was going to introduce

some electricity into it and shake up the established order or things, and then they went back to the well with the fight they had before. I didn't love the first fight. I didn't hate the first fight. I didn't hate the first fight. I thought it was somewhat intriguing. It was a technical thriller. Thriller's doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Technical, yes. And I think a totally fine fight. I'm not, oh, it was terrible. No, it was absolutely not terrible. That's totally not the case. But it wasn't like, dude, I mean, Sean has a way of making every fight trench warfare. Yes.

That's a tough thing. He just defines it. Maybe he loses the trench warfare battle, but it's still trench warfare. Yeah, I don't know. All right. In just a few minutes, Macy Barber will join the program, but those are our five topics.

And before we welcome our special guest and UFC women's flyweight contender, we have your questions every Sunday night at morning combat on X on the Instagram. You can chime in and we'll address them, but they better be good in your name. Your handle better not be like at inmate four, five,

six, seven, eight. Yeah. At booty eater 69. This is DM from dogs. All right. Let's see what Rick Rickerson's we have here.

The first one is from is underscore. He will below Muhammad's pace, cardio and wrestling be too much for Shafqat to handle over five rounds. That's a direct question. I think it absolutely can be. I think put it back out. Let me see. You're hoping that this man was MCL.

You were hoping that we get that the next time we see him, it's full power, 100%, full strength, Javka. Yes, but this is what I mean. If he's got injuries, I'm not interested in seeing him compete again. Again, he didn't say it, but if it's going to leak out later, it's like, oh, he had his fucking ball sack amputated. I'm going to be like, well, three needles to the bag. Brian Campbell still shows up and does the show. You know what I mean? Like took my manhood, but not my soul.

I'm just trying to point out, I'm not interested in seeing, you know, Hey, this is 60% shop cop. Get the fuck out of here. Like none of them are ever a hundred percent. Give me 90% or give me nothing. How about that? Give me liberty or give me freedom and death and something like that. Also, Danny Rube, answer your text messages.

This second one's from at Mike Perin Nyshin, 1995. Do you think that the UFC should pull back on the five-round co-mains? They feel pretty underwhelming and often unnecessary. This feels like a minority opinion, right? I don't agree with it at all. I thought, I love five-round co-main events. Well, look, I wonder if there's a compromise to be made here. If a fight is involving two highly ranked guys,

and especially if they have yet to fight five rounds in their career, then a five-round non-title highly contending fight is perfect because we find out who's ready and who's not for the title level but what if it is a a a co-main event that doesn't demand that does should we automatically put it on there or should it only be for the exact type of fights like we saw with Shavka versus Gary if you have two guys or two ladies in your co-main event and they're not fighting for something approximating number one contender and you wanted to go three rounds, I don't hate that. Like, not fight night, co-main shouldn't be five rounds. Depending.

Depending. I mean, Noche UFC, the first one was a fight night. So I don't have a problem with the co-main on something like that being for five rounds. But just to do it to do it, I don't know what the point of that would be. Yeah. But this one clearly needed to be five rounds. Rachmanov and Gary would have been a travesty at three.

Yeah. By the way, think about how much you learn more in the fourth than the fifth. I mean, Rachmanov would have won either way because he was up 2-1, I think, after three. Right? That's how I had it, 2-1. So he would have won either way. But look what you learned in the fourth about Rachmanov. Look what you learned in the fifth about Gary.

Like, I'm very glad that they went to this. The thing is, if you've got a loaded 15-fight card on a big pay-per-view and you've got, you know, three title fights or two title fights and a five-rounder, because sometimes it happens on the really, really big juiced-up cards, dude, you're going to go super late into the night. I mean, that main event didn't start till 1 a.m. Eastern anyway on Saturday night.

For all the shit that Dana gives boxing for having bad pacing and they they do that boxing has terribly bad pacing these UFC ones do they need to be that late you can you can get rid of a few power slap ads and uh you can tighten that up a little bit I think what do you do start earlier promote less fights what's the deal here again I lived through the very very very very very brief era where they moved the pay-per-views back to 9 p.m. They claimed to not like the results that they got. I love the results. I don't know what the metrics are.

I have no way of knowing, but I fucking loved it when they did that. I'm old as shit. Let's go to number three. This is from at itsnotcagefighting. Then what is it, okay? Which three Ryzen fighters would you most like to see in the UFC next? Now, who's this Adam Waite that somebody asked Dana about who's like the best in the world,

and Dana agreed in the post-fight presser that this person could. I did not hear that. And this person tweeted at a bunch today to support that. Oh, Ren something? Yeah, Dana said that's the type of person you would build the division around if they did start that. Long Island, Luke, you don't know anything about this person, right? Ren Hiromoto?

Yeah, that's it. You know much about this gentleman? I would be pretending if I did. Is this men's? This is men's Adam White? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Do you think there should be women's Adam White? I do. I do actually believe that. So instead of 145, let's have 105? That's where all the talent is. That's when Victor has an Adam White championship.

Like, absolutely, that's where all the... Dude, we've known from MMA in Japan in the early 2000s that that was the case. I know you disrespect Megumi Fujii, but – Did you see that clip from the UFC weigh-in show where Laura Sanko read out her accomplishments and Dan Helly admitted that he doesn't know anything about her either? Yeah, but shout-outs to Dan Helly, who's a DC sports legend. I'm not going to sit here and besmirch the name of a guy who, who gave me a lot of great,

great nights on NBC four, along with Lindsay. I didn't follow Lindsay's Arnie from sports center. Lindsay's Arnie. I got her start on the exact same channel as Dan Helly. Okay. All right. So Luke,

is there, are there any other rise in fighters that you would like the UFC? Cause it's a, do you agree with what people are saying that because the UFC actually broadcast rise in highlights and because they hauled Asakura on the screen former Rizin champion do you think this is a pipeline that Saki Karaba and Dana who have been close are opening I hope I think it's good for Rizin by the way to get any kind of talent sharing if that's the way they can go I don't know what Dana's going to do in that regard because he was really, he really resented how talent sharing with pride went

and sending Chuck over there and not getting Vanderlei was really a thorn in his side. But we're in a different era, and I feel like, dude, promoters working together is what MMA needs more of, not less. So any version of it. Are you talking about Turkey being the middleman between Don Davis and Dana White to make John versus Francis? Well, there's things that, you know, I mean, unless Jesus can come back and turn water into wine,

there's a limit on what we can do in the natural world. You know what I'm saying? That's interesting. I do believe there is a lot of talent rising. Would you agree with that? Yes, of a certain kind of weight class range. But yes, yes, of course. Okay, interesting.

I mean, you're not going to find your next best middleweight there, but you'll definitely find some guys at 135 pounds or around that who are going to be real good. Let's go to number four. This is from at Jimmy underscore Reed. Over under five and a half on the number of current champions who will hold on to their belts at this time next year. Oh, let's go through it.

I believe he's talking about the UFC. Yes, so let's go through it. Ready? Now, part of this, like, John Jones could end up winning against Aspinall if they make the fight, but then retiring anyway. So I don't know how that would qualify, but let's go through it here very good. Pantoja. I mean, I would have said no coming into this fight, and now I'm like. Now I'm going to say yes, although he's going to be 35 in April, so we're right around that.

Brazilian's built differently, asterisk. Sorry. Okay. Marab. Fuck no. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Okay. Marab. Fuck no. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Sorry, Marab.

Ilya. Unless he moves up and vacates. No, no, but at 45. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Islam. I'm waiting for him to just shock us after a win by saying, thank you. Had a great run here.

Now I need to let Usman Nurmagomedov come over here. I'm going up to middleweight right now. I'm going to say he stays champ. You say he stays champ you say he stays jam all right uh balal no me neither drickus that's the interesting one right now i'll say yes oh right now i'll say yes i'm gonna say no so i mean i'm adding in the factor that chemayev is inconsistent in terms of showing up. Where are you at? I'm going to say yes, because he's going to beat Strickland and then maybe doesn't get another

title until next year. If he beats Strickland, do you think he beats Chimaev? I didn't say that, but like we said with Chimaev's health and travel issues, they might not book it. Poeton. Now before you say, oh yeah, it would be Poeton, Ankalayev is a donk, but he can win that fight.

I think we all agree he can win it. I think Poiton will still be the champion. All right, same. And then the one about Jones is the interesting one. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say Aspinall. I'll agree with you. So where are we, over and under?

Oh, how about the five and a half? I think we found five. I mean, there's a lot of turnover in this era. John Wiley, I don't think will be champion by the end of the year. Valentina Shevchenko, I don't think will be champion by the end of the year. And then Peña, it's a harder one to say. I know Kayla probably beats her. That's right.

So you definitely get some significant turnover. Interesting stuff. Our final DMs from the diggities will come to us from at Von Beck Cal. And this person says, if you could get one gift from Dana this Christmas, Luke, if you could fall in on those 16 days of Christmas that Dana White is doing for the UFC fans, what would it be and why? One Christmas gift. From Dana White, what would it be?

An Elk Boys bag? I mean, I wouldn't turn down $250K in a paper bag. I'd take 250k. One gift from Dana. Okay. I hate the framing of the question because it turns them into this avuncular figure that I don't think is an appropriate framing, but if we're going to go with the game, this one's easy for me. John Jones,

Tom Aspinall. John Jones, Tom Aspinall. Doesn't have to be in the UK, all that crazy-ass shit. No, you can make it in New York, you can make it in Vegas, just Jones, Tom Aspinall. Doesn't have to be in the UK, all that crazy ass shit. No, you can make it New York. You can make it Vegas. Just make it anywhere around this area. Title unification,

pay-per-view main event. And I will, I will be happy in 2025. That's the gift. I still think they can make that happen. I'm still over 50% confident that it happened. That's pretty, pretty confident.

I would want to take the money the resources and the time that they put into power slap which seems to still be aggressive and throw it all into boxing and take your swing and i think they might you know when you when you hear dana talk they're in the rumors of a turkey partnership a lot of things whatever it's going to be take your swing we've been hearing about this for years i want to see what he can do i want to see what role he can play let's go take your swing go all in here's my my hope instead of doing powerslap take all the money that they use for that and put it towards a better cause by setting it on fire that's really what i hope they do that's fair just live stream like you know this this powerslap event cost 400 grand

just create a youtube channel where you take 400 grand and you set it on fire as a way to like truly entertain us and make valuable use of that much more valuable use anyway of that of that time. Well, those were the DMs from Donks. Thank you for playing. Slide back in next week. OK, for next Monday's episode. Luke, we have a couple more minutes before our guest joins. Yeah. Before we get into that.

She. I mean, if I if I urinated right now, would you be very mad at me? have a couple more minutes before our guest joins yeah before we get into that she at um i mean if i if i urinated right now would you be very mad at me now you're saying urinate on your pants no just like you know run to the no shit bathroom can i tell you that i don't know who it was in the office so i went to the i didn't use this restroom i used the one in the back you know yeah oh yeah you have to punch the code in which 50 of the time no one's taking a dump okay so two things were happened to me and they were both you know i needed a trigger warning you saw george michael in the men's room no no but one guy in the far stall i didn't see who it was he was making noises with his anus

that sounded like the t-rex roaring in jurassic park no nadir's looking at you. Do you think he's thinking? It was not. Nadir goes like this. No, it was not Nadir. And then a guy, while I'm hearing velociraptors scream in the corner, there was a gentleman who stood next to me who unzipped his pants

and did this number. Now, he's just like, Wait, wait, wait. What number is this? No, no. I'm in the stand-up stall. The number six and nine put together?

What number you got for me? I'm in the stand-up stall. The guy gets next to me together? What number you got for me? I'm in the stand-up stall. The guy gets next to me, and he does this number. He unzips his pants and goes, ah, and then audibly farts. Oh, wow. So I'm like. But that's like an 80s old guy move to just walk in and be like, oh, like finally we're away from the women.

So we got the velociraptor in the corner, and then we've got old man at the gym audibly farting next to me at the urinal. I needed to get out of there as soon as you should have just triple decked it joseph a bank style and just been like you want a war i'll give you a war i should have done with what randy quaid did in in um in the bowling movie what was the bowling movie with kingpin kingpin where he just took a dump in the urinal okay that's disgusting hey on that note why don't we welcome our fantastic guest this week one of the top women's flyweight contenders in the UFC. What, what, what, the future?

The future is now. Just 26. The future is now. Let's bring in Macy Barber on the program. Macy, welcome to Morning Combat. Great to see you. We are itching to see you back in action. How's everything going?

I know, I can't wait. Well, first of all you guys introed me on like the most random conversation that i got to walk in i was like what are they talking about we we don't we didn't mean it personally the guy the i blame on the producer he was like just just talk about anything for five minutes so i talked about anything oh boy this is definitely anything i was like, what are they introing? Wow. It's all good. Okay.

But yeah, no, I'm excited to be back. Let's talk about your status. We thought you were coming back in July over the summer and you had a setback. How is everything going with your health and when could we see you back in there? Everything is going great now. It has been a long journey. I was so bummed when I was, well, first of all, I was so excited to fight Rose because not only was I fighting Rose, but I was also fighting in Denver where I made my UFC debut. So for me, it was my first main event. It was a very huge opportunity for me and I was so excited and then I was so devastated when I was told

hey look you're not gonna you're not gonna fight on this card and you're obviously you know the health is more important so I was very devastated um but I have made a lot of progress coming forward and I can't wait to be back this is great do you have a plan set in mind, a timeframe? Yeah, actually I was just, uh, messaging with Mick and, um, uh, Hunter called me as well. Um, I'm hoping for April, honestly. I mean, I know it's still a little ways out, but it, for me, like that's, that's the timeline that I was given. And so originally I thought I was going to be until July, August of next year, but it's looking like more like April. All right. Well, we can't wait to see you back.

You're a big player in a division that suddenly Macy has a ton going on for it. Big names. I feel like three, four or five women could be champion right now in terms of the, how stacked it is at the top. How would you assess this 125 pound division as we champion right now in terms of the how stacked it is at the top how would you assess this 125 pound division as we speak right now yeah the division has had a lot of changes obviously um it's it's one of those where i am so frustrated with like wanting to be there like i want to be there so bad because i know that to be honest like I

feel like I'm the best contender for being the champion you know and I can't wait to get that shot and to have the title shot because I feel like we've seen how uh Erin has matched up against you know the top top opponents um and I don't think that she's gonna be up there you know I mean she's obviously she's a great fighter but she's not champion worthy uh manon is a great fighter as well um however i don't think she has the champion uh capabilities as well um and then you know we have the top we have alexa grasso who um was uh got her rematch and then um i feel like i just want to be there, you know, like I know for me, like I have the most exciting fights. I have what it takes to be there. And I just want

to get back there so I can have that belt. All right. I want to go through some of these individual pieces. If I may, first things first, you were supposed to fight Rose on that July card. Obviously it didn't work out. We hope to see you back in April. How did you think Rose looked more recently? To be honest, when she fought Aaron, I thought that that was a boring fight, but I also thought that Rose won that fight. I thought that

Rose won three of five rounds and the judges obviously gave it to Aaron, but I thought that that was not fair to Rose because I did think that Rose had done everything she needed to do to win that fight. So for me, I mean, I don't think that she looks as good as she has looked in the past. You know, she used to be a really dominant champion. She used to be a phenomenal, she still is a phenomenal fighter, but it's different now,

you know, and you can see that she's changed ever since she's been with different coaches. And there's just been a lot that's happened in her life. And I mean, she's getting older. So I just don't think she's the same fighter that she used to be. However, I do believe that she beat Erin. And that's what was tough to watch. Let me follow up on that because I get asked this question all the time. And folks are like, well, she is bouncing or she has changed anyway.

Bouncing is not quite a fair way to put it, but changing some of her coaching. When you're a fighter and you're looking at another fighter who has changed their coaching and you could say, aha, this is why they fight differently. What would you point to specifically in the case of Rose that would lead you to believe that the coaching change itself is playing a big role in how she's fighting? I mean, it really depends because there's fighters like myself who have bounced around a lot. You know, I've been known as someone who goes from gym to gym and coach to coach. Like I, and that's something that a lot of people have talked about with me. However, like with Rose, I mean, she didn't do that before like she had trevor women as her coach for the longest time and i think that that played a huge advantage in her career you know trevor is a phenomenal coach um and from what i picked up you know

she should have stayed with trevor and now that she's not with him whatever the circumstances are like however that came about she's never been the same ever since. Okay, let's talk about the top of that division for a second. I would love to get your perspective. This blew my mind. Noche UFC, Valentina Shevchenko defeats Alexa Grasso. And over the course of their rivalry, Grasso's wrestling somehow got worse. How is that possible?

How did it regress to the point where Shevchenko was just able to use that as like the sole means of winning in a five-round contest? I mean, did Grasso's wrestling get worse or did Valentina's get that much better? You know, like it's it's a tough thing to answer because I don't I mean again I don't know you know you don't know what happens in other people's camps you don't know whether injuries play a part there's a huge thing to be said for I mean everyone talks about it mentality in a fight um and the whole fight game is a is a mind game so you don't know what has gone on you know whether she might have been training in it it would have

you know maybe she didn't have a lot of success in her wrestling in terms of training and she didn't have as much confidence in it going into the fight maybe uh maybe Valentina did just you know get that much sharper in her wrestling and and there's a lot to be said for all of that so I mean for me to go and say yeah uh Alexa Grasso's wrestling got worse like we don't know what played a part in that but I mean I could tell you for sure like I have seen fighters where if you don't ever find success in the gym it's really hard for you to take that and go into a fight and and be confident in it and that's when the mentality turns into a big factor as well well Shevchenko the the all-time great, the legend, the champion, once again.

It appears, although we haven't heard, that if I'm planning out her future, No. 2 Manon Faroe seems to be the most deserving of that next title shot. Do you agree? And how would you see that fight going down? You know, I actually was talking uh a fight offer against menon and um then i was also told that she does not want to fight unless for the belt uh so there's a lot of things that are going back and forth in that division with you know i do feel like as far as a fighter who has put in the fights and who has beat the people she needs to beat and put herself up there i do believe

that man on is the best uh contender for that next title shot um you know and it could be a good fight you know to see uh valentina in her fight and then uh me get to get the winner of that or and then see who i get to fight for the belt but i do think that she like right now as it stands is the is the best next candidate for for the title shot well you're currently the number four ranked women's flyaway you're riding a six fight win streak when you look back to the two losses that at the time sort of slowed your momentum when we thought you really were on pace to become the youngest ufc champion i know that was a big goal of yours do you you look back at those losses though, as a gift? And you know, is that, does that, does that work in hindsight now? Did you grow extensively from that experience? I do, you know, the things that I've

learned, I mean, obviously like, uh, the first loss that I had, um, to be honest, like I felt like I had one of the best camps of my life. I was at the time I was training at Rufus sport and I had a great camp. I had an amazing weight cut and I was super confident going into that fight. And I remember actually talking to a few people and, uh, one of those was actually James Krause. And I was like, cause I used to ask him a lot of opinions on my fights and matchups and everything. And I asked him and he was like, you know, you, you win this fight 10, 10 out of 10 times. The only time you would ever lose this fight

is if you had a freak accident and you got injured and you couldn't continue. And that was maybe like an hour before the fight. And then I went out and I, well, I was like an hour before I went to the fight. Um, obviously I went out and I fought and I tore my ACL. And I think the things that I took away from that was, I showed that no matter what, like, if I get hurt, if I get, obviously, severely injured, like, I'm going to keep going, I'm gonna keep pushing. And I'm not just gonna keep pushing and try to survive. I'm gonna try to keep winning, you know, like, I feel like I showed a lot of people and my coaches and my own family and like myself, you know, like, I feel like I showed a lot of people and my coaches and my own family and like myself, you know, like the, the thing that I have inside me, which is a heart and

coming off of that loss, like it was really hard to be sad about, oh, I didn't do enough. You know what? I really took away with that. And the sadness that I had was, damn it, I lost. And I know that I could have won that fight and had circumstances been different. And also, I can't fix it for a whole nother year. Like I was looking at going into a surgery and facing a whole year layoff of like rehabbing an ACL and going through that process with that feeling of like, wow, I really want to just go out there and show like what I know I could have done. And actually, when I got offered that, like I asked to go and fight her again, and

she turned it down. Obviously, it was her retirement fight, she wanted to win. And which actually, I don't I don't know if that worked in her favor, because she fought Casey O'Neill and, and didn't win. But then when I fought Alexa, the thing that I took away from that was, you know, obviously I had another loss that I had come off of. And I really learned in that camp specifically and in that fight, how important the mentality is, how important it is, who you have around you, who you have coaching you, who you have speaking into your life. again no excuses when I fought Alexa like I went in there if I go into a fight I know I'm like look I'm ready to fight and I'm gonna fight

and I'm gonna win um however like she was better that day but for me I learned you know the the coaching that I had at the time was not the was not the camp that I needed to be with I was actually learning a completely different style than what I should have learned um and it was not me at all you know it was someone who wanted to be more of a counter fighter and I'm not a counter fighter I'm a pressure fighter and I'm known for brawls and I'm known for pushing the pace and that's what I feel like you know I showed that in the third round when I pushed the pace and I won that third round from being myself but I really had to get out of that get out of that other style that I had been working on and trying to like be this person that

I wasn't um you know and I dealt a lot with like a lot of external things that I learned you know you can't let outside factors come into your mentality because if you do it's it's going to cost you a lot and and I lost that fight and that was a bitter taste in my mouth because I truly did lose that fight and even though I won the third round you know I I got to learn you know I need to be who I need to be for me and when I'm not I have a lot of success well there was some close decision wins to start the six fight win streak was there a point where you felt like you did fully get your mojo back where you were allowed to sort of release the dog again and and you felt comfortable in that dominant attack style that you that you performed so well yeah I mean like I said coming off of Alexa Grasso like I

had a different style and I had a lot of external things that I allowed into my life and influenced my career and then I I tried to shift that, you know, I realized in that third round, I needed to shift it. And then I carried that into the next fight. And the next fight was a little bit better. Still way closer than I wanted it to be. The next fight was even just just like that, you know, it was a little bit better, but still close. And I feel like I really started to feel that, you know, after after like two fights after that, you know, and then I, um, when I fought Jessica, I, when I fought Montana and then obviously when I fought, um, when I fought, uh, yes, Amanda, when I fought Amanda, I felt that a lot, you know, I was like, this is me, this is who

I was meant to be. This is what God created me to do to do and like this is like the person that I am um and I like finally got to feel that again and it felt great you know and then I got to carry that on into Caitlin's if I with Caitlin and obviously you know like the tougher the higher up I go in the division that the tougher the girls are going to get and so I just want to make sure that no matter what like I'm always going out there with the actual, the true me and the a hundred percent Macy Barber that I have. Um, because I believe that when I do that, I'm unstoppable. Let me follow up if I can on Aaron Blanchfield. Give me, um, imagine we've never seen her fight before.

Give me the Macy Barber scouting report. Uh, the scouting report would be she's a solid wrestler and grappler and her striking is very low level. She does,

but she makes it work for her in certain fights. I would say that she does get success in certain fights with it because she's a pressure fighter, very similar to, like, she likes to pressure and she likes to be aggressive, which is what gets people down to the ground, and obviously that's where she has most of her success. But if you watch her, like, her striking is not clean. She doesn't have good defense.

Against the right fighters, she's going to get hurt. We did see that with Manna, who was a good striker. Against a good striker, Erin Blanchfield's not going to have very much success at all. And then also, she's just not an exciting fighter. She's not someone that you're

like, oh, I have to watch this fight. You don't see a lot of brawls with her. You don't see a lot of devastating wins. You just see someone who goes out and can win sometimes and has made it pretty far for herself because of that, you know. But she's not someone that's like, oh, this is a devastating fighter. Okay, same exercise, but this time for Manon Fierro. For Manon, I would say that she's a very well-rounded fighter. Her striking is good.

She's long. Her striking isn't just good. It's really good. She's done really well with it. I feel like she has more success in the stand-up and the strikes, which then you don't see a whole lot of wrestling and ground game from her, but her whole game as a whole is well-rounded. And her technique is championship level.

However, I feel as though the rest of her, because being a champion isn't just about just fighting. Like, you can be a champion and just fight. And to be honest, you're a boring champion. So she doesn't have, like, that full, well-rounded champion of a fighter. However, her fighting style is championship level. Okay, so then if Shevchenko fights Firo, give me the Macy Barber prediction. How does that one look and if you have a strong feeling about who might win? I think Firo, give me the Macy Barber prediction. How does that one look and if you have a strong

feeling about who might win? I think Firo's tough. I honestly could see that going to a decision. I'm trying to think. I mean, obviously, we've seen that Valentina has knockout power. I don't know if we have seen Menon have knockout power. I feel like a lot of her fights have gone to decisions. And so I just think, you know, but she's also tough. Like, I don't know if she's been put away too many times either. So if someone was to catch, I think it's going to go to decision. I think Valentina's on her way out. Like, I think she's older.

And she's just also not the same fighter that she used to be. She's just kind of getting a little bit old for where she's at. So I think it's going to go to the decision. Interesting stuff right there. How's the Macy Barber brand doing right now? I see you with a lot of different sponsorships. I see you on some, you know, viral crossovers with Demi Bagby on the internet. What, how's life as Macy Barber these days?

It's great. You know, honestly, I'm trying to maximize and take advantage of this off time. You know, like whenever I'm out, whenever I'm not able to fight, obviously the number one thing is I want to be back in the gym and I want to be training. When I'm not able to do that, I know that I have to be as proactive as possible because this career is very short. And I need to build it up. So I want people to want to watch.

I want people to want to pay attention. So I've tried to do everything I can to stay busy and to create lifelong partnerships that aren't just going to be with me through my fighting career, but are going to be with me through life. And through that, I have met Demi, uh, and she has been amazing. She's helped me a lot. Um, and she's doing great things and I'm doing great things. So for us to come together and collab has been really incredible. Uh, so yeah, I mean, honestly, Macy Barber is blessed and looking forward to the future.

All right. If illness is injuries, time off. All that's behind us. Let's close with this. Map out a perfect 2025 for us. How does Macy Barber go from the number four ranking to where your goal has always been championship level here? The perfect path, if I was to have every fight that I would want right now,

I mean, obviously, I talked about having a fight with Manon. I would love to have at least one fight to come back, obviously, off my layoff. And then I want the belt. I want to have the belt by the end of 2025. Oh, there it is. Speak. What is it? Speak, receive.

I don't want to have the belt. I'm going to have that belt. Yeah, there it is. There it is. Macy Barber in the house. We appreciate your time so much. Best of luck getting back out there into the cage. We're looking forward to it.

Thanks, Macy. Thank you, guys. Good stuff right there. You're the number four women's flyweight contender, Macy Barber. Luke, there's only one other thing we have to do to close this show. BC's feces. I mean, I feel, I mean, I should have apologized again to Macy that we transitioned her in on a feces conversation, right?

Listen, you came on Morning Combat. What are you expecting? You're like, the quality control was on you in that regard. I scoured the globe, the internet, actually, yesterday. You know what I do on Sundays, right? That's what I do. I've got the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between, people getting hurt. Hey, have you seen this shit?

Here we go. Hey, UFC 310 was in Las Vegas this weekend, and Luke Shovkot literally tore Ian Machado Gary a new ass. Have you ever seen this wardrobe malfunction before? Did that come from the cage? I don't know what the hell. I think he talked about it. I missed it.

But yeah, it was strange. That was strange. There you go with that. Conor McGregor, Luke, he hasn't been in the news for good reasons. But he put out an audio reaction to Bilal Muhammad and the face-off with Shavkat. The security doesn't know he's the champ. Look at the state it is.

The security doesn't know he's the champ. I'm not surprised, motherfucker. Oh, mate. He is an asshole, I think. I'm excited for... Go get silver, please. I'm excited for... Go get sober, please. I mean, if you were PR

for him, would you be... His attorneys had to deal with some of the stuff he posted about the trial afterwards. Judge didn't rule yet, but they might hold him in contempt for it. Alright, we mentioned Alexander Volkov had the same hair of any 19-year-old girl who went to the Caribbean for the first time. Luke, wow, this was a decision.

I like how you put your own tweets in, have you seen this shit? Are you saying that Shaq Majorey style? That's a good point. He did the old Shaq Majorey. He looks like the worst thing I've ever seen. Okay. So you're saying he actually deserves the loss based on the hair choice. I'm not going that far, but it's like, I get that they do the cornrow thing because it's

functional, right? It keeps the hair out of your face. Yes. They used to comb his hair in the corner. Adrian Broner's better than that, but then you just end up looking like Malibu's most wanted. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Nate Diaz was back through his cornering of Crone Gracie, which meant, what does Nate Diaz do?

He gets into water bottle throwing wars backstage, this time with Islam is this planning seat I mean we're all above 30 and now headed towards 40 in certain some of these cases what are we doing here this is planning a seed for him to get a lightweight title shot that's what it is can't say no to that but could he make lightweight one more time for a title fight probably good okay that's interesting uh i'm a little over the bottle throwing yeah speaking of chrome gracie you know who sent him to hell on twitter cesar gracie caesar never a good idea to pull guard in MMA like that. Never. Right?

Yeah, you want to talk about a guy who, I mean, I believe Gracie's best win, Krohn, is over Tetsuya Kawajiri, which is like a really good win. I don't know what the, I mean, dude, like, you realize like there's Neiman Gracie still out there, but like, with the exception of him and Krohn, like the Gracies are done as a fighting force in MMA. As Bryce said, he's a Gracie.

He's a Gracie. Y'all better put some respect on that Gracie. Bryce Mitchell's back with me. I'm back with Bryce Mitchell. He's a loon, but a very good fighter. Could we get him on the show? I would only do it in studio. Bryce, if you're listening out there, he's friends with Big Tuna, Ben Parrish, my guy.

Oh, we do like Ben Parrish. We should get Big Tuna on the show. The both of them. Oh, my God. That'd be so much Arkansas. Unbelievable. We should get Big Tuna on the show. The both of them. Oh, my God. That'd be so much Arkansas. Unbelievable. They can sell me milk and steak. How about that?

Nina Drama asked Asakura a dumb question and got an inappropriate answer. Are you ready? What's the first thing you wash in the shower? Oh. Me spe lok. Teak. Okay. Okay.

All right. Luke, we talked about- what is the first thing you wash in the shower i guess i've never thought about that uh my face my face is the first thing i wash yeah with your ass uh also luke ufc 311 we got fired up for armand surukian was in las vegas to do the press conference for the rematch with islam machev and he was also there to do one final meal before training camp. Did you see this? Nice thoughts tomorrow. Oh, my God.

That's savage right there. Do you think he ate the whole thing? I would say the meal is a little excessive. Would you dip your pelote in that sauce right there after he did that? My pelote? Yes. I would dip my pelote in the sauce, yes. Would you say he's currently your third favorite fighter due to his Armenian background?

Probably, yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm going to grade him on a curve every time. You're not worried about him not making weight after this feast? No, I think so. This fiesta. All right, weird couple days for Merab Davalashvili, right? Weird couple days?

He brings it on himself. All right, he nearly came to blows with Umar backstage. Once again. Where? What I said? Real question. Why are you disrespecting him?

Is Marab acting like a bitch? I won't. Why are you disrespecting him? Why are you disrespecting him? Put him back over there. Why are you disrespecting him? I like the heat, though, between them.

I like it. Come here. Marab, Marab, Murab, Murab. Yeah, it's like, dude, everywhere Murab goes, he's getting into confrontations. The confrontation isn't following him. He's bringing the confrontation. Come here. Well, then at the actual presser, him and Umar sounded like divorced biatches, didn't they?

Yeah, they did. It was interesting. I kind of liked it. Let's listen. I don't care about you, Murab. Listen to me. I'm talking personal, okay? I don't need anything bad for you i was always respectful for you okay i said bad about your country about your national about your personal what i said nothing

interesting between the two of them. I have an update from Danny Rube about Shafqat Rachmaninoff. Oh, please. All he is committing to is saying that they aren't sure of the full extent and they're going to get an MRI this week. Good move. Good move. Let's get that going.

Also, Luke, Murab did throw a zinger back at Umar during the presser. Did you see this? Umar, you and Islam have shared so many memories together. I want to know, what's your best moment with him? How about jacuzzi? Jacuzzi. You can come. I was not there.

You can come. Focus on your fight, Mirab. Focus on your fight. Okay. Mirab, I don't have nothing for you. Don't look. What do you think about Islam closing it with,'t look what do you think about uh islam closing it with like what's like what do you say about the belt put some respect on or yeah like act like a

champion basically yeah i agree okay well then mirab after cornering aljo as he was walking out a fan aggressively grabbed mirab's arm and it started this sequence which led to one of his teammates throwing punches with the guy. Turns out, and Rob would tweet this out, that that guy is a regular in the Dagestan camps. Yeah, he is. So he was a plant, right? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Once again, it is not hard to not get into a fist fight in public. It's actually, for the most part, not always, but it's for the most part very easy to not get into a fist fight.

Is it easy to get on a scooter and not fall? Once again, context is important here. What? Are they white? Is that the question? Well, are they 800 pounds? Let's find out. Oh, this is a skateboard.

Sorry about that. Yeah, he's going to bust his fucking teeth, right? Let's see. Ooh, he's pulling it off. Good job not wearing a helmet, you fucking oaf. Oh, no. Bah! Oh, yeah.

Oh, no. It's Taco Tuesday. Oh, he's about to take out Big Bertha. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, right into the coochie, too. Oh, wow. It's Taco Tuesday. Big Bertha. Yeah. Oh, wow. Right into the coochie, too. Oh, wow.

Look at them titties just crushing him. Can I lingus? Yes, he can. How did he die? He was crushed by a giant set of lunch lady titties. It was terrible. I think he accidentally got sent to Pound Town. Would you agree?

Let's go to the next clip. The Edge. A one-way ticket to Pound Town. What? Get out of the gutter i went to pound town today i went to pound town on the d pound town on the dirty d is another story that is a lot of comment and it has some folks down we're doing a double take passing by this bait and tackle shot there are some social media posts that maybe are taken up the wrong way maybe they

get their mind out of the gutter i don don't know what to tell them about. But there is an innocent explanation for it all. We used to always say, oh, we're going to pound town. You're pounding the jigs off the bottom. You're pounding the fish. Pound town. For anyone who might be offended, an open invitation to pound town. Yeah, I bet you've pounded a couple of tortas in your life. All right, Luke, let's keep it going.

You love when people film themselves at the gym. You love it. I hate it. Oh, dude, you can cause real damage doing that. Oh, you can also cause damage doing this in the layup line. Watch. Oh, clean up on, yeah, we're not playing today. When that happens, good Lord.

Wow, okay. Let's go to the Christmas cat, Luke. This is how Reggie Jackson acts, and he has no remorse. Ah, a fake version! I got a fake version! Did that guy have it coming for how over the top that reaction was? You bring those animals into the house. You know, you need to know what time it is. All right, new segment alert. This one's called Would You Eat It?

Are you ready, Luke? This one's called A Burger Dog. Would you eat it? So far, yes. Brilliant, right? We never thought about this. Yeah, sure. I'd eat that.

Long Island Luke, automatically. 100%, I'm making that later. It's a little like circular meatloaf, but yes. Okay, what about this two combo meal? Would you eat this? Call me a veterinary assistant the way I'm about to put a couple dogs down. Shout out to Market Basket

with the two dog and fry deal for $2.99. I'd be all over that. That is awesome. Alright, now let's go to the food competition. All you can eat here. The choice, mayo. Or drink it. This is tonight. This is the contest. Look at far left. He's going to work down there.

He's not giving up. Look at this. He said the heck with it. Beard. Look at Beard in the middle. Oh, wow. This is disgusting. I like how it's a contest of nothing but whites.

All right, let's go over to Grandma. She's got to get her cigs. Is there a cigarette here? Yep, Granny. That's just a new cigarette dispenser. And then what do I get to it? Hold the bottom. Hold the bottom. The way we do it, yeah.

And now lift hard. Oh, my God. Oh, you got a nice one. Alright, Abuela. Oh, this is easy. Ooh, I need cigarettes all day long now. All day long. Every couple days.

That's every grandmother in my town growing up. Someone needs to euthanize that bitch. Okay, all right. Luke, is this how you're going to celebrate Saryukian becoming UFC lightweight champion? Yeah, I'm not going to call that great firearm safety. Different cultures, Luke, different standards, all right? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure this is a...

I don't know what's happening here, that they're not all tackling him and then beating him within an inch of his life. All right. I mean, there's children around. That's wild. Hey, let's go over to this weekend in boxing. In the BKFC, Luke, Justin Watson set a new combat sports record with a two-second KO.

Take that. It's over. Put him right face first. Damn. With your butt in the air. Also, in his own main event, Richardson Hitchens took a split decision from Leon Paro in Puerto Rico to win a 140-pound title and then found out he wasn't the father. No, that was the joke from the tweet. I took it.

But look, it was a very aggressive celebration, and I'm here for it. Shout out to Richardson Hitchens. Good for him. World champion. He was calling people out on Twitter, too. I saw that afterwards. Indeed. Let's go over to Manuel Navarrete arriving to the arena in classic style as all the fighters in the

main and co-main did in this one in Phoenix. Look at that. I don't know much about this kind of car culture, but I do like that car. Oh, yeah. With the hydraulics. That's what I'm talking about. This is what the gangster rappers would do in the 90s videos. You know what I'm talking about?

Love it. Love it. Navarrete. West Coast. Oh, yeah. He would then go into the ring and score three knockdowns to finish Oscar Valdez in the rematch with somewhat ease, you would say.

This was a left hook to the body to finish it. Oh. Wow. It's tough to see Valdez, the great warrior, just kind of run out of steam there. He got overwhelmed. He definitely, definitely did. So did Robesie Ramirez, although now people might be changing their stories. They were murdering him on stories so we're murdering

him when we have the footage against rafael espinoza this was a rematch of that incredible upset from last december he just says i'm done he no moss people were tim bradley joe test was aggressive on the on the uh announcing it would turn out uh carl moretti of top rank would report that it was a broken orbital and not just a broken orbital on the outside on the inside of the interocular pressure so that's that's tough loss for for robocie who remember won two olympic gold medals yeah get that from cuba uh also we have uh a new game let's watch this uh my name is william and barry and today we're gonna see how many eggs i can take to the chef without hurting all right i'll see you. Oh, damn. That should have

been our okay bet payoff. He is jacked for an absolute moron and probably is going to get a Darwin Award as his method

of dying. Luke, I don't have elder abuse, but I do have some child abuse. You down? I'm less high

on that. All right, let's see if you like these. Oh, no. A table. Oh, no. A table. Okay. Let's go over to the boxing ring.

I mean, this gentleman's house. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good boys. Okay. I mean, we try to be all ages. We try to welcome.

Based on who their father is, I'm guessing that they weren't headed for mathematics PhDs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, it can be a dangerous sport. So it can be taking a picture on a beautiful bench. Getting that water. Getting that water. Getting that water. Yeah, take her with you.

That bench was a swing, Luke, and they didn't realize it somehow. There you go. Okay. A couple more for you. Let's head to church. You got to be careful. Watch your step. Next stop, hell, Luke.

Wow. Okay. Oh, boy. I don't know how to set this one up. Wow, okay. Oh, boy. I don't know how to set this one up. Oh, running of the bulls. You got to be careful. You can get gored. Okay, you could also lose your pants.

You got to really watch out. Oh, we did have elder abuse. Sorry about that. Oh, here we go. Oh, boy. This asshole just getting gored. I have. I mean, it's not that I don't feel bad for these guys.

Oh, my God. But it really turns ugly. Oh, it's getting ugly I don't feel bad for these guys oh my god it really turns ugly oh it's getting ugly now I see full crack oh my god take your pants off bitch you'll be my prison bitch oh wow do you see that guy just ass assless there wow that's great stuff okay I got one more for you who was that remember he walked around I love you my son yeah turn around it's like it's just a big old Mike Tyson okay I got one more for you okay who that Mike Tyson? Who was that? Remember he walked around? I love you, my son. And then he turned around. It's like just a big old Mike Tyson ass. Okay, I got one more for you. Okay, who am I here with today? Steve. Steve, what would you say the best day of your life was? Probably when I had my first

child. And what made that day so special? Well, you know, just being a parent. Come on, man. Alright, maybe I loved them all. This was for me. Sorry, that's a parent. Come on, man. All right, maybe I love the ball. This was for me. Sorry, that's all the shit I have this week. If you had ended that clip with him being shot. Yes, that would have been better for you.

I would have much preferred that. All right, maybe the shit, you know, you throw it at the wall, you see if it sticks, you know, it slipped. There was definitely some good ones. There was some good ones. The guy who fell into hell at church was a good one. That's all the shit we got this week, but don't forget. MorningCombat at gmail.com is your email address for Friday's show.

Dead wrong. Fan subs. You can email the show. Let your voice be heard. Just don't send any stick pics to Mikey anymore. Send him all of your butthole pics. Thank you very much. That's the show for today.

How would you grade the show? Efficient. Did an efficient job, yeah. Macy would you grade the show? Like, it was decent? Efficient. Did an efficient job, yeah. Macy Barber in the house? Macy Barber in the house. I did not want to get up at 4.30 this morning when I got up. No, I got up at 4.22, and it was not fun.

It was cold. It was so cold. I was just not feeling it. Yeah, but, you know, that's the commitment we give to this game because we love it. We live and breathe this shit. We love this shit. And this year's almost over. What a crazy, difficult, ridiculous year.

But, you know, Noseda, would you agree? I mean, there's nowhere to go from here but up. 25's going to be a slam dunk. It's going to be the best year of our lives. We're going to the top, baby. You hear that? You hear that? Yeah, I don't believe that.

All right, that's the show. You can follow us and like us and subscribe to us, please, as well as our YouTube channels right over there. Thank you so much. Also, the Main Card Minute starring Luke Noseda and Gaff Pierre. It's a slam-tastic event going on. Anything else you want to say? We'll be back Friday, of course, 11 a.m. Eastern time to set the stage.

What's going on this weekend in combat sports? Anything? Isn't it? When is Usyk Fury? The 21st. 21st. Oh, I think this weekend is... Covington-Buckley.

UFC 10. There's a couple fights on there that are good. A couple fights. One that's halfway decent. Yep. All right. Well, we'll be back to do some weird stuff on Friday then. That's all I got for you this week.

Okay? That's it. That's it. That's it. I'm done. All right. May all of your gains be loyal. Yeah. okay that's it that's it i'm gonna that's it i'm done all right uh may all of your gains be loyal