MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 312 Recap: DDP Dominates Strickland | Canelo Spurs Jake Paul | FULL EPISODE

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

MK is back to recap a HUGE weekend of combat sports and sports in general.  Starting in MMA, Luke and BC recap UFC 312 which was live from Australia. In the main event, Dricus du Plessis breaks nose of Sean Strickland, pitches near shutout in middleweight title rematch. Was this more about Sean Strickland not doing what he said. he would or DDP continuing to get better?  PLus, the guys were SO wrong about the co-main event, as Weili Zhang dominates Tatiana Suarez in every aspect of wide decision win to defend strawweight title. Is it time to start calling Weili the 115-pound GOAT?  In boxing, Canelo spurned Jake Paul at the last second to accept a 4 fight deal with Turki Alalshikh and Riyadh season.Canelo aligning with Turki good for the sport, American boxing and/or the Mexican star's legacy? Who were the winners and losers of a wild 24 hours in the boxing business?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reveille Reveille Boys Look at us now tip to tip Oh Jesus Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Do you want a margarita? Yes! My God! It's us doing what we love.

Two, three, two, three. It's time to bang. Oh, yeah, you hear that sound. You get fired the hell up. Hey, welcome back in, Morning Combat. Back in your absolute face hole. Hey, welcome back in, Morning Combat. Back in your absolute face hole, Monday, February 10th, 2025. The best damn combat sports show they ever had the balls to put together.

One day after the Super Bowl, two days after UFC 312, and we are back to mop up this mess. Luke Thomas, Brian Campbell. In both UFC title fights and in the Super Bowl, you had opponents who lost who were just not ready for primetime. Right? That's a fair point.

None of them were even close. Yeah, we have both Mayes and Culpas ready for Zhongwei Li, who had a hell of a weekend. Did we marab her? We marabbed her, didn't we? Or I did. I'll take the floor. I definitely. Well, here's the, didn't we? Or I did. I'll take the full blame on that.

Well, here's the thing, and we'll talk about it. I didn't know what to make. 35, relatively inactive. Yes. But got a pretty good look at how good she is. She's great. Yeah, yeah. Or you could just take the butcher's word for it, right?

The butcher? That's an old Tommy boy. You're not getting any of my Sandler references lately, right? You know, business ethics. You're like, well, BC, I'd actually need about 55 minutes to study that one. But we're back. We're ready to bang, Toohey. We've been in New York City a lot lately.

Yeah, I'm coming back on Saturday as well. With the family. With the fam. What will you expose Tookie to in Manhattan in terms of landmarks? It's limited time. So we've got to just pick a few and then call it a day, and we'll come back for another time. Maybe, like, we'll get Hep C in the subway.

Right, we're going to watch fistfights and drug addicts in the subway. That's going to be one. Two would be Empire State, I'm thinking. Okay. There's a little kid at the top of the Empire State seeing all of Manhattan. That's a cool thing. Yeah, that's badass. So, and then we.

Like a little bit of Central Park? Absolutely, Central Park. The four big ones would be Empire State, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, and then we want to see a Broadway show. But I was going to say, the big one was BC. She

one time asked me to look up how to make a milkshake on YouTube. Is there like a home recipe? And we actually went down a rabbit hole. And there's a place, there's many places in Manhattan that serve insane milkshakes. Yeah. We're going to go to one that's quite famous for it.

So she is dying to go there. Let's go, Tukes. Let's go. Let's get fired the heck up. Hey, we have a show that you can like, by the way, on YouTube right now. Or wherever you're listening to this audio. Please subscribe. It does matter.

It does go a long way. We do want to get off of this subscriber bubble that we've been on, 175K more or less for like the last two and a half years. Yeah, let's keep that going. Let's get up to 200. Maybe Luke will expose himself on air. Something good will happen if we can get to 200. Could there be butthole?

Who's to say? Follow us, of course, on our YouTube channels as well where the fun only continues. And a member of our community, our show, our director, our producer, our ringside degenerate here, our gambling expert, and a guy who will be seeing Jerry Cantrell play solo coming up with Alice in Chains. Say what you need to say.

How many songs off are we ready for this how many songs off the boggy depot album can you name long island luke's here guys i could probably name a few which album is that what cover does it look like i know i'm based on the artwork that was jerry cantrell's first album oh it's his solo album after alice in chains well after they took a break when lane staley died or whatever yeah i was saying to BC, they bring a new guy in that does Layne's parts. I don't love him. So, hold on. Seen him three times in concert.

Damn. Ready for this? He's from DC, motherfucker. How about that? Who is? Jerry or a singer? The Jerry replacement. The singer.

The lead singer of Alice in Chains. Oh, the Layne replacement. Yes. No, but wait. This isn't the Alice in Chains replacement. Two different guys. Jerry has this other guy he brings with him. Oh kind of like a steve perry left journey and now they have that asian guy who sounds like him right that's dude that's exactly what lane staley

or the replacement right it's like ding ding ding did the ding ding yeah they got the guy who did the ding ding part i mean i was like is he if you close your eyes for a second and you hear um wood and do the flight again yeah it all of a sudden you get transported back to 94. Speaking of that great Vanilla Ice joke, did you see Bryce Mitchell on the Jackson podcast? He had very much that same moment where they were cornering. They were pressuring him. He's like, no, this is what I really said.

What I really said was I love everyone. It's not the same. No, it wasn't the same. People don't know about the Vanilla Ice trying to say that he didn't steal from Queen and David Bowie. Ashug Knight was hanging him upside down over the railing of that hotel. All right, there we go. Thank you, Long Island Luke. You'll be probably hearing from that gentleman throughout the show.

We will have Have You Seen This Shit, DMs from Donks, all the regular routine. Oh, quickly, quickly. Betting. How did it go on Saturday? And how did it go to the betting yesterday, by the way? Yesterday was terrible. I had eight bets in on the Super Bowl. Not one of them hit.

Did you have the Taylor Swift proposal bet? No, no. I did have that score-a-gami bet, though, which is like a score that's never happened in a Super Bowl. And it was 40-12 at one point, which was score-a-gami, so it was pretty close to hitting. Or am I score-a-gami, right? But as far as UFC did, we did pretty good.

Jimmy Crute was a void. I did have a Moneyline bet on him, but because it was a draw, it was a void. Tatiana, we lost on. I did hit a parlay, though. I did finish up about .34 units on the week, so anytime you finish up, that's pretty good for me. All right. That's Long Island Luke. That's a sad existence right there. I tuned in to the

program. It was him, Gaffney, Jim, Pierre, and they ripped the bong as soon as I tuned in. Now, what part of that stream do they blow each other? That's after the stream. Wow. and they ripped the bong as soon as I tuned in. Now, what part of that stream do they blow each other? Okay, okay. That's after the stream. Wow, okay. A reminder, by the way, folks,

that today's episode of Morning Combat is presented proudly by DraftKings. And as you already know, DraftKings, the crown is yours. Thank you very much. Shout out to everybody watching right now on the DraftKings network. I was going to say JackKings by on the DraftKings Network. I was going to say Jack Kings by accident. The Jack Kings Network.

No. Is this another Sandler reference that I'm supposed to get? No, I was just testing your early improv skills this Monday morning. Listen, I got up at 4.30. I'm tired and old. Yeah, there's a truth to that. I got to tell you, in your 40s, going to bed at 4 a.m. And then the next day getting up at 4 a.m.

They don't understand. They don't understand. Yesterday I was a freaking mess. I was just shoveling snow and ice in my front driveway not knowing what's going on in this world. It is hard to be dad of the year on days like that. It's tough. It's tough. I'm definitely with you on that.

I don't think I have anything else to say or any other bad jokes I've been storing up. But yeah, I guess that's it. Hey, 312, can we be honest? We'll talk about it. with you on that. I don't think I have anything else to say or any other bad jokes I've been storing up, but yeah. I guess that's it. Hey, 312, can we be honest? We'll talk about it. 312 sucked the horn. Can we be honest? Not that great. Some of us saw that coming in. We'll get into that. No, you didn't. No, you didn't.

We'll get into that as the show progresses. No, you didn't. You didn't see shit coming in. You did not know they were going to go that way. It turned out that way. Yeah, I know. When there's four ranked fighters on the card and there's no Wikipedia pages, you can pretty much pick it up. I told you the first three were nubs. It was a question of how the co-main and main were going to go, and then they also sucked. There was more questions than that. And they fucking sucked.

So what are you going to do? By the way, we're talking about being old. I went to bed at like 9 o'clock last night. No Super Bowl for me. Just played some Fortnite, rocked out to some Van Morrison. You didn't watch a single commercial? First time. Nothing?

First time, yeah. This was a streak that dated back to the Giants-Broncos, like, Super Bowl from the 86 season. No, I watched part of the Patriots-Bears with Jim McMahon and all them. That was live. This was the first Super Bowl since then that I didn't see I have one comment about that

I'm really old I have one comment about that which is the older you get the more you become disassociated from things that are popular in pop culture and the young look at you and you're like oh you're so distant from that but what they don't realize is when you're young much of your life is

artificially connected to this and you don't even really realize it. And then when you get older, you're like, why the fuck am I doing this? I don't care about this anymore. Yeah, why was I raised to worship celebrities? Yes, I don't care about this anymore. I want to just do the things that I like, which in your case is masturbating at the bus stop, eating Arby's, and watching and playing Fortnite. There you go. And sleeping and doing massive whippets behind uh sorry were you

were you the one telling me that uh that other guy that real the other famous uh anti-semite he's real into uh nitrous too no oh you mean kanye west yeah yeah kanye west does enough nitrous to kill a beluga whale good lord yeah people should get off drugs eventually especially when they're doing them like that meanwhile luke showing up today with a monster shout out to that first of all first of all i selected this one one to have a reduced caffeine intake. It has 150 milligrams, which is about the same for a tall cup of coffee. Wow, that's so much healthier. It is. Well, the other ones all have 200 or

300. You don't think there's enough guarana in there to kill a horse or what? No, there's enough. There's just enough caffeine to get me through your bad jokes. How about that? I don't know if there's enough caffeine for that, but hey, we're going to get into the show right now, and there was a pay-per-view over the weekend, but topic number one will be hitting the main event right about here. Hey,

UFC 312 Sydney, Australia. The place where Luke Noseda's dad was sired. And we saw a middleweight title rematch. For better or for worse, we can get into that. But Triggis Duple C breaking the nose of Sean Strickland, breaking the will nearly and

pitching a near shutout across five rounds to defend the title. So Luke, while the focus here honestly probably should be on DDP, his evolution from fight to fight, and we will get into that. Social media's reaction has been almost universally about Sean Strickland afterwards. Okay. He was unwilling to back up the pre-fight talk of fighting to the death, of altering his

game plan. You had Eric Nixick in his ear after every round, urging him to do something different, and he couldn't. He did fight through the broken nose and showed some toughness. But does Sean Strickland deserve what amounts to the Colby Covington like go-home heat that he's receiving, essentially blaming all things UFC 312 on him.

Should we be talking about him as much as the internet is after this one-sided defeat? I think so. I think so. I mean, listen, let's say one thing about Coach Eric Nixick, friend of the show and somebody I have great admiration for. After every round, he was saying things in your head that you were saying to Sean. At least I certainly was watching that fight.

So you can't really claim if you're Sean that sometimes you watch title fights, BC. For example, when you watch title fight between Amanda Nunes and Rocky Pennington, and she tells her coach, I'm done. And her coach is like, get back out there. And then she gets her face smashed. You're like, right. Her corner didn't necessarily help her in that case. No.

The corner here was as excellent as they possibly could be. It didn't help in the end because Sean wasn't able to execute. But I just want to be very clear. It wasn't like he wasn't getting obviously right instruction in an urgent, timely, digestible way. He was. And I bring that all up to say, look, I don't know how encumbered he was by staff. That was a part of it, yeah. It looked like he had it.

The question was, was he on medication at the time or nearby in a way where it affected his training? Let me ask you a question as I answer this very quickly. Did he look as in shape to you this time as he did for the last fight? Yes. And I even thought with the change in facial hair and hair, even though that doesn't really be part of it, that it showed that he was even more focused on going in there and doing what he had to do.

I did not think he looked as good. I thought he looked much sharper last time physically. If you look at the numbers for this fight, his significant strikes landed dropped off by 50, not 50%, but like 50 total. And actually last time he numerically outstruck ddp this time he was numerically and i think i'll see obviously qualitatively outstruck you you bring up colby covington and the reason why that's important is because he made this claim after the leon edwards

fight where he completely shit the bed whereas like well i was injured and he you know other factors he brought up and it's like it's I understand that there can be, in certain cases, extremely mitigating circumstances that make judgment of any one individual performance hard to come by. And I can certainly afford Sean Strickland that in this particular case. But the body of work is what the body of work is he is a defensively oriented fighter who has tried to rebrand himself or at least um retool his skill set to be a little bit more offensive to get himself over the hump and not only did he not do that, he actually regressed. Yes. He did. He worked less in this fight. What he worked at was less successful in this fight.

Yes, he broke his nose. He is obviously tough. But all those guys at the elite level are all pretty fucking tough. But to be fair, he also said it back in. He could have asked out of that fight. And no one would have been upset about that. This is not going to be any kind of claim about is he sufficiently tough to be a UFC fighter or UFC champion. Sure.

He's plenty, plenty tough. And then some. That's not really what's holding him back. But what really gets me, and there's a lot of frustration, is there has just been a consistent drumbeat about going to war, leaving it all out there, dying for you guys. And it never even gets close. And I'm not even mad at that no i am i'm mad at just the lifelessness i can't there the the unwillingness to alter and change but if he was sick what more could he have done that's the part where you have to kind of reconcile a little bit so i can

understand if he was actually sick and this was the best he could do well then it was the best he could do sure what i'm saying to you is there is now a demonstrable pattern where he says he's going to go to war and die for everyone and it's never even close and then if you challenge that publicly you get a legion of orcs who come after you typically with bad spelling who say things to you like he's a warrior he goes out there and yes he is certainly he does speak for the orcs, though. Fine. But you're... Dude, I've never seen a more boring fighter graded on a bigger curve than Sean Strickland.

Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. He is graded on a fucking curve because Colby doesn't attract the same kind of adoration that Sean does. Yes. And again, I'm not saying that there's no room for adoration depending on what your the way in which it is

used. But what I am saying to you is, it is totally not a function of who he is as a fighter. It is a function of who he is as a celebrated figure of being an edgelord and every part of his fight game consequently is graded on an absolutely

unfair curve unfair to us not to him a lot of your takes on the show are fueled by arguments you have with neo-nazis on twitter it seems like but i i have to tell you there are many of them um are we are we grading on a curve or i was wondering if we're hating on a curve because there were this was a confluence of bad events. Meaning we came in believing that this was a shitty pay-per-view card on paper. We all wanted to my have in the spot. We all wondered why this rematch is even happening,

even though it is justified storyline wise. The first fight was very close, but in between Strickland had beat all the Costa, but just barely whatever. But I think Luke, when you add in, we had low expectations for the card, and we were hoping someone could grab it and entertain us.

It's not Sean's fault that the fight card sucked, that it played out as it sucked, and then we get to the main event, and someone's just looking for something, and he's the one that doesn't deliver. But I do think you do, he does deserve a great deal of the blame, though. Because, not even so much for sustaining our entertainment level, just for his standing as a fighter it was most disappointing to see him

not have a plan b and not even be willing to entertain a plan b now i'm basically saying what what led up to the nose break the nose break on he's just hanging on and i almost felt like to some degree ddp was like i don't want to you know destroy the guy and hurt him and he may have just carried him to the end i'm just talking about when you're in a spot where people are like, well, this wasn't the fight I would have picked anyway. And you're going to talk that game. You owe it to yourself to go out there and give your best performance. And he fought in a way he fought the way he always fights.

He looks like a million bucks when he's when he's controlling the terms of the fight and dictating everything. But DDP took that away from him and we didn't see the proper adjustments. And then we get tweets like this from Ben, the Bain Davis, who I, who I enjoy on Twitter. And he's not,

you know, this is kind of sums up everybody with one of the worst title capturing efforts in recent memory, never had any urgency or looked as if he wanted to be there. That's the latter is the part that really makes me upset. I think it's maybe just coincidence and timing that it happened on a shitty card and we're heaping more blame on him. But like maybe it should be more about what DDP did and the adjustments he made because he improved from the first fight. To your point, Sean Strickland regressed and I'd almost rather have him come out and be like, it would have started some other conversations.

But I'd almost rather him come out and be like, look, guys, the honest thing is I had staff and I wasn't 100%, but I didn't know if I'd get another chance, and I pushed through and I tried my best, and you saw me fight through this nose and blah, blah, blah. Because he wanted to get the babyface reception. He took the mic out of DC's hands, which is like rule number one in general. Never give up control of the microphone. But number two, never give it up to a guy who may say something wild and crazy, and Sean tried like hell to baby face that up and he

did get a pop and I mean what did you think about Dana afterwards essentially absolving him completely and just playing up his heart and how he acted like a professional in the cage even though he doesn't act like it out of it I think that it's a little bit of an overreaction but at the same time he deserves blame for himself for not getting after it, dude. You know what I mean? This was his opportunity to shake this division up a second time, and he just didn't have anything beyond leading with that jab and doing what he does.

But how often do you win title fights with your A game like that? We talked about it. If you can get by on just your A game, if your A game is absolutely generationally overpowering, but if it's not not you have to have a b game and i think defensively sean strickland does have a good b game right he does have very good takedown defense he does have good scrambling and and and whatnot but like offensively why didn't he wrestle at all could he not have did he just simply choose not to i don't know i mean

we're kicking outside of the teeps here Here's the thing. That's the difference between those two strikers. DDP leaves the thread in of the high kick. DDP leaves no fucking stone unturned. If there is something he can, dude, he's a looter grabbing everything he can off the shelf. Like rioting in the 92 NBA playoffs. But he comes home with the biggest fucking bag because of it. Yeah. This is what gets me about Sean.

It's like, you know, could he have wrestled? Could he have not? I simply don't know know this was not even a fight that had to happen why wasn't the hamzat fight made again i don't know if there was some kind of immigration thing or just a timing thing they wanted to save i'd love to get that answer like the real answer maybe sean did him a solid when i say that i mean ufc uh in the sense that they needed an available contender he took it on terms he had to go to Australia, taxes, the whole nine yards. And they didn't want to bury the guy. Also, he may have had staff.

They didn't want to bury him after the fact. I understand that. I think that's totally fine. I'm not asking Dana to go and bury Sean, nor do I wish to make it part of today's show. But I am a little frustrated when it's like two things. One, this was probably his last chance to have a ufc title fight again i agree with you once the nose was broken it was probably a done deal but he may have been down three rounds before that i scored a five nothing yeah right it may have been down even

three hours before like where was the urgency even before that this is your last chance to be here was to give him credit he was close in the first two rounds i thought one rounds one and two you could argue round one i thought you could argue. If you had scored it for him, I think there's an argument. But the whole point was, I thought he still lost and he didn't do any adjustments after that. Okay, but even after round two or round three, you're saying to yourself, dude, the whole point of what we were talking about pre-fight was, and you can hear Eric Nixick saying it.

I know, that's why. Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up. And he didn't do it. If there was something that was wrong, I wish they would just come out and said it. These are the times where I don't think it's an excuse. I think you're giving us answers to why it played out that way. I have a take here from Dean Thomas after the fight that I'm interested in your thoughts.

We just have to admit it now. We have to admit it. Sean Strickland is not who he says he is. He's not who he says he is. We want him to be something. He wants to be something, but he's not that guy. He's not the guy he's not the guy who's going to go to the death to the death he didn't go to the death he didn't even go to the

well he didn't even go deep i'm not saying he's not a great fighter i'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be where he's at but he's not who he says he is we got to admit that dude what is wrong about that that's fine ddp is the guy who will go to the death. Yeah. DDP is the guy who, if he was down three or four rounds, would fight with insane urgency. Sean Strickland is a very talented, very tough guy with a defensively oriented style.

He is good, and because of how good he is, he does deserve respect. I understand that. But the level of acclaim, the level of promise, the level of here's the storm, that's what's to come. Here was the big opportunity to deliver on that. And again, tweak the style to get meaningfully different results. And everything went the other way. At what point are you supposed to inventory that and then ignore it all? The overwhelming evidence at this point is simply too complete this is multiple title fights a long career what did dean say that was so aggressively

ball island luke he's not that guy bong island luke okay what did you make of what dean thomas had to say about sean strickland i think that's perfectly accurate everyone was saying this all week sean says he's gonna fight to the death and then keeps the whole fight. I don't even need him to fight to the death. I need him to fight to win. It was disappointing to see him stuck in that mode when his coach, who we respect, is all over him and that's tough.

But they caught up backstage, the two of them, and there was no debate this time of whether it was a headbutt that caused that. That wasn't a headbutt. No, no, that was actually I felt that. I saw that. Bro, you broke it and I wasbutt that felt that. I said it, and the crazy thing is, you shot on me again. That dude, your nose just touched it, and it f***ing broke again. I saw it.

I saw it when the birdie hit it. At the end of the day, man, we talk about s***, but you're a bad motherf***er. Best in the world. Best in the world. I gotta go to South Africa, man. I've actually been to a Durban once. I loved it. I love the behind-the-scenes stuff that the UFC is starting to show a lot more often,

not just the audio in the cage between like the referee and the fighters and these big moments. But I love shit like this. You know, I love the iron iron shit. I even like Izzy on the tour right now of all of he hugged Mark Goddard backstage. I mean, Izzy's like, if you're willing to cash in on their reckless and insane views, you're not allowed to then promote them as like humble and ordinary. Maybe in this case, but in general, I'd like...

You don't get to do it. All right, well, what do you make of Sean Strickland's... He did a video after the fight. Let's hear that, and then we can close the topic on this. Hey, what up, guys? We've been here once or twice. I'm so grateful for you guys' support, man. You guys are so awesome.

Win or lose, you guys always ride, and I appreciate you. Drake is a top man. Helped fight, broke my nose in six places. Silver lining is my nose is so broken, it's really easy to reset. So, you know, that was a new experience. But, you know, I'll be quick. I get so many messages from fans, friends, family. Like, hold your head up.

It's okay. And you guys, man, like, I'm good, dude. Like, losing sucks. But, like, we all lose in life. And I talk to so many people, you know, dude. Like losing sucks, but like we all lose in life. And I talked to so many people, you know, whether they lose their job, their girlfriend breaks up with them and they just find themselves in this hole. But like me, I love the misery. Like I love the suffering because when you're miserable, when you're in pain, when you're in suffering, the moment that's

gone and it will end and it will end and there will be a new day, a better day. Life's good. So, you know, I'm grateful and being grateful kind of keeps me keeps my head up. And, you know, for you guys going through it, look at me. I just wanted to give you a taste of that. Is he trying to pivot into like guru like Tony Robbins encourager or like is he just a multi-faceted individual like are you okay with that reaction I know people want to blood from him you want more from him

in that moment I have no problem with that reaction at all I think that reaction is normal I mean dude he just got his face smashed he had to fly all over God's green earth to go fight there he had to fight a very tough guy it has to suck losing I don't have anything against him is that the real him though is that him pulling the character back in in actually showing like a humble hard-working like probably is i mean again i don't think eric nixick is a crazy person if eric nixick likes him there probably is obviously something to him like this whatever yes probably my point is i i don't judge it negatively like oh you're not a man of course he's like again he's a very very talented, tough guy in so many different ways. But the reality is also it just didn't look like he had a lot of competitive fire.

It didn't look like he had a lot of competitive fire in the fight. It didn't look like this loss was eating him alive. And again, you don't want someone moping around or something like that. Not everyone has to be Jose Aldo in the locker room after Conor starched him in 13 seconds, which was, he was despondent. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying, again, the total package of things is my best assessment is Sean Strickland is a very, very talented, skilled, experienced middleweight,

who has a defensively oriented style. And he's a couple steps off from the very best that this division has to offer. And his fights more often than not, are pretty boring. People want it to be more than that. It's just that. And I think that's it. I think that's it. It's just that. I think he'll fade away from the title picture slowly.

I would like to see him against Izzy next, but we've got to pause this Strickland discussion and talk about the guy who won the fight, Luke, Drakus Duplassie. His nine-fight win streak within the UFC, beginning with his debut, is currently tied for third behind Islam and Marab. This was yet another title defense, yet another former champion

that he can add on now, Strickland, the second time to his growing resume. Luke Thomas, he evolved from that first fight. He's in great shape. He's coachable. He carries out a great IQ. Yes, he's slow and awkward and lumbering, but he does that at full speed and he never stops trying. He can mix in a

takedown. We're looking at a guy we already knew coming in. One of the pound for pound best in this game. What did we ultimately learn? What can we add on and sprinkle on after this performance? He fought like a guy who believed he could win. And you could see that from the opening bell he this

is what's interesting about ddp to me in this fight ddp gets a lot of criticism for the goofiness and some of it is well deserved some of it is not but it's all part of the story there but he had a task which was he thought that volume was the key in the last fight and again he got a little bit out volume but it was the effective volume but he again, he got a little bit out of volume, but it was the effective volume. But he just tweaked that a little bit. He made sure at kicking range he was firing at all times. He was attacking the legs. He was going to the body.

If you actually look at the targeting by DDP in this fight, BC, he was nearly at one-third to the legs, one-third to the body, and one-third to the head. He was giving himself maximum latitude to find ways to just sneak in offense here there here there without being overly aggressive he didn't have as many crazy blitzes this time his defense got better he tweaked it up he did exactly what a championship fighter in his position was supposed to do would have been nice if you could put the opponent away okay Sean Strickland's hard to put away very tough good defense we know he looked close you look like it was like one strike to the nose away a few times i mean again once he broke that nose he got really close i thought it might i thought it might go

there and that would have been insanely impressive but okay sean toughed it out fine but he did which like this is what i mean for all of the faults for all of the footwork being weird for all of the balance for all the leaving his feet to leap into all this stuff. You just don't even know if it works. And then at the end, he keeps getting his hand raised because he just has an attitude of seek and destroy. Fine. Turn over a rock. Let no stone be unturned.

It's a clutch gene. He knows how to win. He has an absolute clutch gene. A clutch gene is sometimes also defined as like you're down in a hole and you got to fight your way out. But there's another version of clutch gene which is i'm gonna step on his neck from the get-go i'm gonna make better decisions and key moments that will change the outcome of the who set the tone in that fight

again there were close rounds i i grant who set the tone it was fucking ddp who set the tone ddp was the one that basically had sean reacting to what he wanted to do, and Sean could never really get out of second or third gear the whole way. So you have to be careful with what you can say as a result of this fight because the next opponent is so unlike the last one. It's just hard to know what it will all mean. But remember the central task we had for both guys. DDP had to dial up what went right in the last one.

Sean had to find a new gear. And try to be not racist in the process. Just try your best, yeah. One of those guys did it, and one of them did not. It is just that simple. It is that simple. What a win for DDP, and what a run that he's currently on. So afterwards, we assumed it would be all about Hamzat Chamayev.

Dana has intimated in the past few weeks that Chemaev would kind of automatically be next, but then in the cage, uh, Dracus Duplicy did cut like a quick promo on one poet on Alex prayer, who was in the corner of Strickland. And of course they have grown a friendship. Luke,

uh, DDP addressed that after the fight in terms of what would be next, but it is interesting to think about the idea of him moving up to 205 and facing Pereira. Not yet, though, according to the champ. Let's listen to DDP. No, Hamzat's first. Hamzat's first? Hamzat's first.

No, I wish him, I said, please beat Uncle Ive. No, no, no hate against Uncle Ive. I just want to beat Alex Pereira. It's nothing personal against Uncle Live. It was just, Pereira, he's such a legend in the sport to me already that it would be amazing to beat him.

For my legacy, I want to be the greatest to ever do this. But Hamzat's next. Hamzat is next. I want to make sure that this belt, the middleweight title, that there's no question that I'm the GOAT of the middleweight division. And I know that you have Anderson Silva.

In my mind, he is the GOAT of this division. And you have Adesanya, who's done incredible things. But it's not about how many times just you defend. It's about who you fight, how you defend it, and how you've done it in what period of time so luke this is kind of a smart move he's already planting the further seed now he's going to be an abetting underdog of course against chemayev who's just streaking and that's a fight we need to see but do you like this because it was rickus that started this conversation that

led to their backstage interaction that he was just breaking down where pereira's like yeah come on up and let's do this. Kind of planting the seed for future business. Not a smart, not a dumb idea. How do you feel? Yeah, not a dumb idea, but he's got work to do. You know, I think if you beat Hamzat, obviously that means many things, one of which is you can probably call your shot after that.

Dude, everyone wants to fight Alex. Everyone in every division. He has done so well for himself. It's kind of funny. It's like Poetan is getting called out like crazy because he's the hot guy. And I thought that Ilya had a better year because not he won more, but because he had the better two wins. But, you know, he's not really getting called out like that in that same kind of way. Alex is the guy that is the destination.

But nevertheless, I did like what DDP had to say, which was, okay, we got business against Hamzs out first but i swear to god you go in there and you beat i mean let's be clear about this i want to ask you this too this brought him two title defenses one was against izzy and now against sean strickland that ties him with rich franklin who i think beat evan tanner and david loazo um if he gets one more that would tie him with weidman but weidman's title defenses are anderson who broke his leg in that fight. Machida, which was a good one. Very good one. And then Vitor, who looked like he had been a

deflated balloon after getting off of TRT. Had three minutes of fighting him and then completely collapsed. Did he have bitch tits, too? He didn't look great. He didn't look great. So, I gotta tell you, if your wins are Sean Strickland, Izzy, Izzy by finish,

and if you can beat Hamzat, I think you replace Weidman as the third best middleweight. He's knocking on that territory. He is knocking on that door. The quality of names, too. Would you put him, Bunga and Luke, how would you compare what DDP has done at middleweight relative to— You're talking to a Long Islander here about Chris Weidman, though. Hold on. Not Chris Weidman. Hold on. Hold on. Not Chris Weidman. Rich Franklin.

That's a good question. I think I got to put DDP ahead of him. Because. Just overall quality of work. Also, like, Whitaker wasn't a title defense. But you have to remember, he finished Whitaker, too. Like, DDP's run right now at middleweight is actually crazy. If he can beat Hamzat, his stock goes up.

If he can finish Hamzat, I mean. All right, let's just worry about the win. Because if he beats Hamzat, he's going to become one of their biggest stars. I just want to say, this is where DDP is now. I hold Rich Franklin's career in high esteem. Now, I asked about his middleweight run. Part of what made Rich Franklin great was he moonlighted at 205 and got some great wins up there too in a later stage of his career. Knocked out Chuck

Liddell with one arm. Which is ridiculous. And by the way I thought he beat Dan Henderson which was a controversial loss. But nevertheless this is where DDP is now. He is in the Rich Franklin territory. That is no small feat. Not at all. And I'm telling you, you beat Hamzat and you are in super elite

company. But that's not a given. Let's see Hamzat's reaction to the fight. He jumped on the old X. Biggest bullshit is this fight. Well, the fight was suck. The fight was kind of BS. But DDP, not BS. He's surging top five pound for pound, really, really doing big things.

We don't talk about him in terms of like if we say who are the stars right now or who's on deck to be the John Jones, still a big star, but he's at the tail end. We're going to say Teporio. We're going to say Hamzat. We're going to say Islam. Max is still a big name, but DDP is coming on, dude. DDP was accidental for so long that I don't think he really – the worm didn't quite turn.

Yeah. But now what he's doing is so undeniable, I think it might start to build now of course if he gets derailed against Hamzat what are you going to do but if he builds I mean I'm telling I tell you what if he beats Hamzat if he if DDP beats Hamzat he's the next big star in the company think about that remember remember that interview we did before Gilbert fought Hamzat at 170 and that interview blew up there is an electricity surrounding Hamzat now of course if Hamzat at 170. And that interview blew up. There is an electricity surrounding Hamzat. Now, of course, if Hamzat becomes champion,

I mean, he's off to the races times 1,000. I think you would probably agree with that. I would agree with that. But I'm telling you, if DDP beats him, he's the next big star in this company. Hamzat's like evil Habib, in a sense. Like, you know, trying to generically describe his, like, pay-per-view character

of what you'd be selling. I know that like villain version of the guy who can come in and just own you. I agree. I agree. Interesting stuff. Hey, let's go to topic number two. And of course was the co-main event for UFC three 12 on Saturday,

women's strawweight title showdown that we talked up coming in that had the potential to be a great fight. No, it was one sided. And what the gentleman on this show thought coming in was dead freaking wrong because Zhong Wei Li, at age 35, dominated unbeaten Tatiana Suarez,

ruining the dream turnaround in story for the inactive and always injured yet super elite fighter in Suarez. This was five rounds of exactly who Wei Li is. So, Luke, we were wrong. We were dead wrong. We established that. Whaley looked like the top pound for pound fighter.

She looked like maybe the best strawweight of all time. She is now 10 and 0 against every strawweight not named Rose Nama Yunus outside of those two title defeats. So now that she's one win away from tying Ioana's record for title defenses at five and title wins in title fights with six. Is it time to start considering her as the 115 go? How do you deal with that with the two Rose losses? Or does that not even matter? Let's savor and enjoy what we saw, which was another dominant performance from this great champion.

I don't think you could. I think you could argue now if you wanted to that she is the 115 goat. I wouldn't make the argument. Not yet. I think you would probably have to tie Joanna because of some of the other things that have happened to her with respect to Rose and what that does to undercut it a little bit. Only those losses made her great.

They made her absolutely great. There's no question about it. I was unsure of what we were going to get in this fight. That's why I thought it was, you know, again, we had said that Tatiana Suarez didn't exactly earn it. Because she had the Lemos and Janji Roba fight that fell through. So the UFC matchmakers just pushed her to the front of the line. I didn't mind that. But a couple rounds into this one, three rounds into this one, it was pretty clear.

Suarez had absolutely nothing for her. This was big bank, take little bank, 80 foes and candy paint, my friend. Didn't Suarez gas herself out by the end of the second round just by spamming the takedowns? It wasn't the nuance that we expected, and that's where the 18-month layoff, we probably didn't talk about it enough. This is what's interesting to me about staying with Zhong Wai Li.

This is what's so fascinating. She had a great team behind her. Jack Slack was joking on Twitter, but it's not really a joke, which was, you know, maybe she's standing out from the pack because her coach is not her boyfriend, right? She has a real team behind her. And at age 35, to still be that good, I mean, dude, where was Suarez, who is a vaunted wrestler with some good

reason obviously where was suarez better than zhong wiley and the answer is nowhere there was nothing where she was better than her and when did you realize that in the first round when she had the long top period top position control but could not turn that into offense at all i didn't it was too hard it was too early to tell what that meant at that round. But by the second round, when she failed on four takedowns, and by the third round, when she failed on five takedowns, she went 0 for 4 and 0 for 5 in rounds two and three, respectively. That's when you knew it was over.

Tatiana Suarez can only win that fight if she can get the takedown. If you deny her that, it simply goes away. She was lucky to survive that one, to be quite honest with you. I mean, she showed incredible heart, but her face got mangled by the end of that this is what i mean like let me pull something up here if i can i want to give me just a second to look no one's questioning her heart or or her perseverance through everything but i just didn't see this one-sided uh drubbing coming in fact i thought it was going to be the you know the a and b games of suarez winning out even through a great great fighter but this it was going to be the you know the a and b games of suarez winning

out even through a great great fighter but this story turned out to be about how great whaley actually is right now luke do you have that uh uh yes i just wanted to give me just one second here i just wanted to look up something when they've okay so when they fought for that fight of the year moment between zhong wai li and yawani andC. Yes, 2020. Ioana was just about 35. She was 34 and a bunch of change, just shy of being 35. Zhong Wai Li not only survived that, which was brutal in both directions, she has continued since that time to get better, beating Carla Esparza, which whatever, she finished her off in round two,

beat Amanda Lemos, beat Yan Xiaonan, and then just thoroughly dismantled Tatiana Suarez. Dude, holy shit. That is unprecedented in women's MMA, with the exception of Chris Cyborg, but certainly at the lower weight classes, for someone to be this advanced, to have gone through this much. She is now almost 30 pro fights into her career. So think about all the damage, all the time, all the athleticism,

and the decline that is possible. And she didn't look slow. She didn that is possible. And she didn't look slow. She didn't look gassed. She didn't look technically overmatched. Dude, she is one of the most special fighters on that roster, irrespective of weight class, irrespective of gender. Appreciate her while she's still around. And by

the way, I'm not even sure who the fuck can beat her in that division because she's so good. She may have to go to one north and we'll talk about that. Here's a stat. This is since the second Nama Yunus loss. So not only was Whaley solved by first-round head kick knockout, she then adjusted her game and still lost the rematch. But since then, look at this Bronstetter stat. In this five-fight win streak, she has outlanded her opponents 890 to 214.

And when you look at significant strikes, that's 458 opposite 142. It's not only been the striking. Look at what she did to Esparza, putting her in the crucifix on the ground. Look at what she did to maybe somebody I was saying was like female Habib, the greatest wrestler we'd seen in women's MMA, neutralize her wrestling completely and make it difficult for her and the guards so that Suarez really I mean she had like what she had one choke attempt or was no it was the other way around it was

I could tell you what five metric credited her with no attempts by the way I mean she did sit for one I think in the first or second yeah so think about it Whaley beat her in every single aspect of the game so obviously a big part of this is I was dead wrong my expectations were that Suarez even with the, even with the layoffs, it was 18 months coming into here that even though I didn't think she had a game as complete as Weili's, I thought her strengths were going to show out more.

I was disappointed in the lack of ground and pound from the top position, whether that was her inefficiency or maybe just the defense of Weili. But once that fight turned, it turned aggressively. Yes, we need to play up everything here about Weili and those stats are just insane. But is this a disastrous, damaging loss for Suarez in your eyes?

Because not only did her A game come up empty, she didn't show a B and C game, and she took a beating. And with her injury history, it compounded. You see the disappointment in her face afterwards. My heart was broken for her. You know what I mean? The human interest story of her coming back, but that was not a performance that she can really be all that happy about.

So is this the type of situation where she's only 34, she hasn't taken a ton of damage. If she can stay healthy, she's still better than every other strawweight out there? Or did you see a level of diminished returns throughout this fight as it went on that you question if she gets back to this level i don't think there's any way she gets back to this level and you know i mean if zhong wai wow like automatically you're like you you think that she could be she would get

beat by a lot of the other top steroids i i don't know like i we'll talk about what's next for zhong wai i'm sure because there's questions about what they shall fight shevchenko but like and again in fairness to suarez she fought one of the best female fighters on the planet on saturday night oh yeah but listen to these numbers this is the significant strikes that she landed tatiana suarez in rounds one through five ready for this zero zero eight three one and she hadn't shown striking that bad against other people. It was this level of competition with the layoff. Like, dude, she had nothing for her. Takedowns for Suarez.

Rounds 1 through 5. Ready? 1 of 1, 0 of 4, 0 of 5, 0 of 0 because she was being controlled the whole time, 0 of 5 in round 5. Dude, this was a massacre. This was a massacre. And, again, it's one thing to be well you got massacred against the best in the world okay fair enough but the distance between them was significant i mean significant to the point where the need for the fight during the

middle of it i said to myself we didn't need to see this did you now knowing what you know did we this need to happen no no again i'm not mad at ufc matchmakers we talked about this well in advance fair enough they want to give somebody who was a top prospect at one point who has had a lot of bad luck and opportunity which i appreciate and respect fine but now that it's happened she had no again it's not like well one person was a better than the other one as the sole determining factor. There was no ability to go to what you mentioned, a B game. There was no ability to make adjustments. There was nothing.

I got to ask you the hard question. I got to cut you off and ask you the hard question then. Was she never who we thought she was? Or was this just a horrible performance when she got to the top level? I think it's two things. One, credit to Zhong Wai Li for just making a good fighter look bad. That's one. The second one is I think all the injuries in time off have

made her game static, and I think the rest of the game has, at least at the elite level anyway, caught up and passed. Talking about this with Long Island Luke, it's very easy for me to say this. I sit in this chair, I ride a train to get up here, I have a very comfortable life. You avoided trains in college, but I understand your point this with Long Island Luke. It's very easy for me to say this. I sit in this chair. I ride a train to get up here.

I have a very comfortable life. You avoided trains in college, but I understand your point. I avoided the Marines. But the reality is if you want to do ground and pound in modern MMA, you have to be a master of top pins and rides and wrist control. And if you don't do that against a good opponent your takedowns don't mean anything yeah so here was her problem she got the takedown in the first round she had three minutes of control time she landed zero significant strikes that was the round to like soften that was

her moment up and she got nothing out of it i mean i guess she won the round or whatever but in terms of like sticking it to an opponent, then she couldn't get any of the takedowns after that. And I'm going to go back to it. Habib had bad striking. He did not have good striking, but he had top pins, rides, and wrestling from the back to get to places where he could just absolutely

lower the fucking boom on you. But he also wouldn't stand with you in those key moments early. Fuck no, he wouldn't. I mean, the Gaethje fight, a little bit he had to. You know, there was always like a little bit of a... Well, he was one of those. He was one of those. But you understand my point.

It has to be the case. If you want to be a wrestling first fighter, male or female, heavy or light, in modern MMA in 2025 2025 top pins and rides and if you don't have them there's no value to wrestling against someone this good i know it was it was tough to see she had she had so much heart she just didn't have the didn't have what she needed in that moment to pull it off so uh we can show the she she i thought she was never the same by the way after getting rocked with that right hand in the third round, I felt like she was kind of like almost out on her feet for a lot of that.

And she just gutted it through. Cause she's so tough, but she also had this leg gash. Can we show this? I mean, apologies for the meme attached to it, but Luke, that was nasty.

You don't usually see injuries break out like that. That was just another thing to try to deal with. This is what I mean. Everything went, went against her. You know, not, I'm not saying, I mean, everything went This is what I mean. Everything went against her. I'm not saying, I mean, everything went wrong is what I'm saying, ultimately. And to her credit, like Shawn Strickland, she's tough, bro.

She's tough as shit. There's no question. And we should maybe take a moment, though, because we're bagging on her because it went real bad. It did go real bad. And there's simply no denying it. You have to evaluate the performance for what it is but Suarez has always carried herself for the most part out from what I can tell anyway with great professionalism just getting to this position was something of a minor miracle hell yeah between her cancer diagnosis her knee injuries you name injury that wouldn't neck injury dude just getting here was a legitimate kind of heartwarming achievement

but the problem is as good of a moral victory as that was in terms of the competitive readiness bro not dude that was a like not even remotely ready for some of this level like a million bucks adjust her striking evolved i mean it was so crisp the The talk now, Luke, of course, is, is there anyone left at strawweight, whether that be Dern or anyone we think that she should hang around for, or is it time to do what Whaley revealed during fight week she already thought she would have done, move up and fight Valentina?

The potential problem here, Luke, Manon Farrow is undefeated and has passed all the right steps and has now just been waiting for Shevchenko to recover from injury coming off of the trilogy against Alexa Grasso. So what does the UFC do? Do they let way Lee cut the line? And do we have a true number one versus two pound for pound on the female side and way Lee getting the opportunity to become a two division champion

and a super fight against Shevchenko. They're both, I guess right around the same age, even though Whaley did tell John Anik that she's not 35. Her passport says she's 35. She's really 34 and that the passport's wrong. Luke, here is Dana White dealing with this. Is this the fight to make?

We'll talk about it. But lots of people were texting me saying that Whaley loses tonight and, you know, it's over. And she was an underdog. And I bet the casinos got murdered tonight because I bet a lot of people threw money on Tatiana. But when you look at Whaley, she's one of the greatest of all time, the best female fighter, you know, in the sport right now. And at the press conference, you know, Tatiana was talking about what she was going to do and what about her wrestling. And Weili said, this isn't a wrestling match. This is a fight.

And she actually out-wrestled Tatiana tonight. And absolute stud. And such a huge, huge star in China for us. She trended, I want to say she trended number one like four times during fight week. A hundred million views just on UFC platforms. I want to say she trended number one like four times during fight week. 100 million views just on UFC platforms in China. And tonight she was trending number one in all the big territories for us. So huge star.

I would assume then that you would look to bring her to China at some point in the future. So I must have grabbed the wrong sound specifically, but he's open to the idea potentially, basically was like, we'll wait and see about doing what I said. Shevchenko, Whaley now? Or do you allow them both to defend who they have to? And that would be Manon Faro at 125,

who's next in line. And do you push that as like a late 25 super fight? I would feel bad for Manolfiero. I think. Who's not young either, just to be fair. I understand. And for that reason, she's earned it and she should get the title shot next. But like business is going to be, if not a determining factor, the determining factor. And people love wayley already and then

you hear dana talking about the specific things she's hitting metric wise as you know almost an ambassador to mma in china that's why i'm shocked that that they didn't do the yan shanan fight in china but then again they did do it as the co-main to ufc 300 so she has been put in situations to succeed and wayley has hit home runs. Dude, that's a big-ass fight. That's a big-ass fight. You can talk yourself into, like, the winner is the GOAT if you want.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's certain... You can make that feel even bigger than it is. To be the second woman to get champ-champ status after Amanda Nunes, and then to doing it in much tougher divisions, because 135, obviously, that's pretty cool. 145 was just, you know, fucking math teachers and lunch ladies.

Sure. 115 and 125 ain't that. Not the women that. And going through somebody like Shevchenko, like, come on. Like, you have to ask yourself, what would Whaley have to do to surpass Amanda Nunes and Cyborg, you know, atop the list on the female side all the time? She might have a road to get there.

She might. John Wiley. Yeah. And, I mean, if you become a road to get there. She might. Zhong Wai Li. Yeah. And, I mean, if you become a two-division champion and you go through Shevchenko to do so in your second division, that's massive. I mean. That's exactly what Nunes did, essentially,

by moving up and then going through Cyborg. Exactly. So, to me, like, to me, you're still at a place where, with a win like this, Zhong didn't transform how we understood her or necessarily her place in the sport, but what it signals, what it telegraphs as possible in the future,

given by the way, I want to be clear about this at age 35, she still appears to have most of her athletic gifts. She still looked pretty quick to me. She looked faster on the feet than Suarez, who, by the way, I was also 34 and some change.

It wasn't like he was young. Sure. But I just want to point out, like, at 35, for Ioanni and Jacek, she was kind of on the way out, and that was a brutal fight that kind of pushed her on the way out. At 35 here for Zhong Wai Li, she still looks real close to her physical best, and her skill advantage now is becoming hard to deny.

She's more dangerous now also as a striker than she ever was, and I think that you need power to carry late into your career, into your late 30s. Ioana never had the power, especially when she's moving up to 125, so that was always going to be sort of a roadblock on her limitations. Whaley has the well-rounded, you know, Ioana was also somewhat one-dimensional as a striker. Whaley can do it all.

So we are talking about someone who could be on the path to being the greatest. We are talking about somebody who could be on the path to being the greatest. We are talking about somebody who's in the pound for pound conversation right now. I was teeing up a question. Is it Val or Whaley right now for pound for pound number one? Is there a debate here? Does it matter where you are? For the women.

For right now, yeah. I gave it back to Val after she beat at the Sphere when she won in the trilogy. I might still give it to Val. I have to think about that. Probably because she hasn't been that active either. It's close. I would probably still give it to Shevchenko. But yes, I mean, again,

the win doesn't necessarily transform anything. But my confusion was, I just didn't know where she was in all of this. By the way, it wasn't like she went in there and blasted her out in 30 seconds. You got 25 minutes of Zhong Wai Li being comprehensively good. Yes. That's the thing to me. It's like, dude, we're not even close to done with her yet.

Okay. Let's see what we can do here. Yeah. She's also really cool too. You know what I mean? I don't know about that, but. Okay. All right.

She might be. I don't know. Okay. There is a language barrier. She's trying hard. She's trying hard to come around on the English side. I think she was getting English language instruction from her corner, if I'm not mistaken. I think so as well.

She might not be too far. Thank you very much on that topic. To pause the UFC on a second, Luke, I wanted to talk to you about something. Did you? My childhood. Okay. I always used to say that there's six food groups as a kid, and they'd always be like, well, what's the six? I said, no, you mean the first it's cereal, Luke, because it was my

favorite food. I'd love to sustain a mostly cereal diet as an adult, but it's hard, Luke. It's hard to go back and purchase those nostalgic brands, knowing the sugar content and the lifestyle, the healthy lifestyle I'm trying to live right now. But then dude, I developed, uh, or I found magic spoon and I quickly developed a relationship here. Why? Because magic spoon can give you that nostalgic taste of cereal from gone days only can do it in a wholesome fueling type of way. And the type of way that can work with your cob carbconscious diet in living a healthy lifestyle. Luke, this is like a perfect marriage between me and Magic Spoon. Yeah, are you carb-conscious?

Are you sugar-conscious? Well, then Magic Spoon is for you. And by the way, one of my favorite things is my daughter loves the cereal, and I have no problems giving it to her because of the healthy content that goes into making them. But how about their protein treats as well? I love those for a snack in the middle of the healthy content that goes into making them. But how about their protein treats as well? I love those for a snack in the middle of the day. And they've turned their super popular cereal into these high-protein treats that are light, crispy,

taste just like those crunchy classic cereal bars. Magic Spoon's treats are so delicious, in fact, BC, and have already become a favorite in the old Thomas household, if I do say so myself. And here's the deal on the cereal, okay? Every serving of Magic Spoon's high-protein cereal has crazy macros, 13 grams of protein, 0 grams of sugar, 4 grams of net carbs. They come in many nostalgic flavors, like we mentioned, cocoa, cinnamon roll. I've been rocking out with marshmallow, and don't forget about peanut butter as well.

So here's what you need to do to get $5 off of your first order at magicspoon.com slash combat with a K. Hit up magicspoon.com slash combat with a K or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery stores. magicspoon.com slash combat with a K to get $5 off your first order today. Thank you very much. All right, let's move on to topic number three. Luke, it's the undercard of UFC 312. It's Brother Toporia and everyone else, but I do have a specific question for you

because, Luke Thomas, you came on here last week and were very vocal, and you said, if you don't agree with me, you're wrong on the idea that UFC 312 may be nubs, but it may not be the nubsiest, especially compared to the Riyadh fight night card that was very strong the week before. I mean, you say it was strong. It's not that strong.

So, Luke, you talked a lot of she at, right? That it wasn't that bad. But now I feel like you're not just wrong. I feel like it's time for you to come out and willingly apologize and change your tune after one of the worst pay-per-view cards in recent memory. No disrespect to the one-sided performances of the two champions atop the bill, but Luke, this was a low-budget UFC pay-per-view. And we knew that on paper coming in,

it played up to those expectations outside of some storylines that we'll cover on the undercard. But, you know, will you admit and get on Team BC and Long Island Luke here, along with Team MKFan and just say, look, folks, I didn't have the information. I didn't have the science in front of me. I was wrong. No. BC. Well, halfway, yes. Halfway, yes. BC.

Let's talk about the UFC Saudi card. Who did Hamdi Abdel Wahab beat? This is your point. Jamal. Not you. I'm not asking you. Who did he beat? In the opening fight of the night, I didn't watch it. Who did Bogdan Grad fight? Still not winning the argument with this strategy.

I'm hardly done. I love when the debate team member comes out. Who did Jasmine beat? This one you should be able to get. Horror guy? What? Okay. Who did Terrence McKinney beat?

Right. Who did Shamil Gaziev beat? You're not winning the argument, though. You're just exposing the bad undercards. I'm barely getting going. Who did Mohammad Naimov beat? Still not. Right.

Okay. Still not. I mean, I could. BC, hold on. This paper view card on Saturday. Let me make the argument. It's an argument, Luke. It's a debate.

It's a debate. So that we can do this. All right. BC, serious question. When you're done, I would love to do two-way man combat with you. You asked me a question. May I answer it? Is that okay with you?

I don't just mean combat talk. I mean actual man combat. Okay. There were two points to the argument I made last week. You can look this up. It's okay. One was I wasn't sure about the main card, but I thought it would be better. Not because I thought the first three fights of the main card were better,

but because it had two title fights, and I thought, well, there's reason for optimism there. I will beat you halfway. That main card sucked ass. It was terrible. And as I just mentioned, the first three fights were, I don't know, fine but forgettable to bad or something. I mean, the Jake Matthews fight was whatever.

Shout out to Taliesin Teixeira, though, that heavyweight. That was fine. With the really bad tats, yeah. Like I said, that was whatever. I mean, at least he got the job done quickly, right? We can all agree with that. But then, as I mentioned, after three rounds of the co-main, I was like, dude, this is fucking, why are we watching this?

There's no need for this fight. And then when Strickland didn't turn it up in the main event, I was extremely like, okay, that main card was terrible. But there were two parts that I was making. One was the prelim card of UFC 312 had a lot of gems on it, which I think for the most part actually ended up being quite true. Cody Steele and Rong Zhu put on an awesome fucking fight of which there really isn't quite the equivalent on the Saudi card. Certainly not on the prelims. Not even close.

And there was more gems than beyond that. For main card, come on. Let me finish. Comparing the main cards. Oh my God, oh my Lord, Jesus Christ. Is this not a TV show where we talk back and forth? I don't understand where you're pulling these emotions from. If we constantly get to a point

where the argument never gets delivered, you actually can't debate me. In order to debate me, I have to give it to you, and then you have to give it to me back. I have to have room to be able to actually talk, though, in the debate. You asked me a question, BC. Am I allowed to defend myself? You literally structured a question on the show about asking me to apologize. I have a right to defend myself. I would love to hear it.

Okay. The two arguments were, as I mentioned, the prelim card for 312. I said it last week. It is better. Sure enough, it was better. The main the main card i thought on paper had enough to be better it didn't deliver in the end the main card was certainly worse so about that i don't deny but i think it's very wrong to go back and be like oh the ufc saudi card top to bottom was great no it wasn't that prelim card was ass and this one was pretty good but that wasn't the argument it was the argument yes it was the argument was which one is But that wasn't the argument. It was the argument. Yes, it was. The argument was which one is better. It wasn't the argument of which one was great. What does that mean, which one is better?

What does that mean? Which one? How are we defining one? Are we defining it the whole card or just the main card? Yeah, the whole card. Which card was better on paper? That was the argument. And the answer was the one before.

The main event for Saudi ended up being vastly better in part because it was much shorter. I mean, I can certainly say that. Fine. But you have to assess the full breadth of the card. The full breadth of the card, certainly on the prelim side, is vastly better than the Saudi one. The Saudi prelim card was, for the most part,

not totally, butt cheeks. This one was not. No, there was some... You couldn't even name a single opponent of the entire prelim card. Okay, you specifically picked out fights and names that I wouldn't know because they're all from the Dana White Contender Series

and no one's heard of them before. I went in order. I went in the literal fight order. But that doesn't win the argument just because you found a loophole in your debate. I'm agreeing with you that the main card. You're taking the fun out of this. It was supposed to be you defend yourself, but now it's like you're ready to fight and battle. I'm not ready to fight.

I'm simply defending. I agree that the main card for 312 was asked. You were going to say something? I've wanted to chime in a few times i don't remember specifically uh i just want to say we were going on how it looked on paper which to me means like name value do i do i recognize these names have they fought in the ufc before right and i still feel like saudi had more name value to it therefore a better card again better in quotation again the saudi main card one more time.

Imavov, Izzy, which ended up being great. Short, but great. Page, Magomedov, fun. Fun, I would agree. Pavlovich, Rosenstreich, complete ass. Right, but on paper. Complete ass. Right, we're talking on paper, not in execution.

Okay, fine, fine, fine. But modestly interesting on paper. Vinicius Oliveira versus Said Nurmagomedov. That's a hardcore delight. Again, we're talking about what it was on paper. Vinicius Oliveira versus Saeed Nurmagomedov. That's a hardcore delight. Again, we're talking about what it was on paper. It's fine. Fine. It was the fight of the night.

It was a war. On paper. You just told me. On paper. Not what it delivered. On paper. You just used the argument that I couldn't say Pavlovich. Right, but you wouldn't anoint it.

Rosenstreich sucked ass. The previous week, you wouldn't anoint it as fun. You said it's- I said it's fine. And then Fariz Zayam versus Mike Davis. Fine. On paper, actually ended up being weird, but kind of good in the end. I guess Davis had a weird performance because apparently everyone was inhaling

paint fumes. Main card to main card, Saudi better. Prelim to prelim, 3-12. Main will value more, obviously, than prelim, so overall, Saudi wins. But I just want to be clear. So you lost the argument. That's all we wanted you to say. Yes, main card to main card, Saudi ended up Saudi wins. But I just want to be clear. So you lost the argument. That's all we wanted you to say. Yes, main card to main card, Saudi ended up being better.

But how could I make that argument? How could anyone make the argument until you actually watch it play out? So let me ask you this. I have a question. The first three fights, they go exactly as they went. What if the main and co-main had been not even great, but like good? Oh, it always is tilted toward what people leave with. That's why the main event is so important.

That's why like sometimes one great finish in a bad, in a main event that's bad on paper can save the whole night. We all know that. So yes, that would have changed a lot. This was a confluence of worst case scenarios that just bubbled together, but it's also the risk you take when you're matchmaking, not just fight nights in the apex underwhelmingly but now these pay-per-view cards i mean it's tough it's it's

it's right i don't i don't like this trajectory i'm why we're watching the product get watered down more and more and it's it's making me angry although this setup to this segment was to try to make you angry in our debate over last week when you said, if you disagree with me, you're just wrong. The reality is I'm nervous that we're only continuing down that path. How much do you consider how bad 312 main card was? Here's my question. How much of how much it sucked was bad luck? Does that make sense?

Only to a certain degree because you match those fights. Those are secondary fights. With the Suarez fight, again, with the Suarez fight, that ended up not being great. Right. But I don't blame the matchmakers. Well, I don't even blame them for the way that fight played out because at least it was interesting and there's something to talk about

and we learned something important between two true elites. There just wasn't elites on this card. Do you know what I'm saying? Like the amount of ranked cards. There was a couple people that put out those tweets that are filled with the stats telling you how bad this card actually was on paper. There was like the amount of ranked fighters, the amount of this, the amount of that.

And it's eye opening and it's becoming the norm. It's not just, oh, after 300, we're going to kind of punt on 301. And hopefully no one complains too much, but we'll be back. Now it's starting to be a little too regular is what I'm saying. And that's that's again, my hope for the card last week was you know for the main card i thought it would turn out a little bit better it didn't it turned out bad i mean there's simply no question it turned out bad you and i were in agreement like when that fight was halfway through we're like oh my god just end this already but i i said there was talented prospects from

oceana all up and down that card. Dude, they performed fucking well. Let's hit a few of the high notes. Although not from Oceania, I'm sure people want to know what you thought about Bantamweight 29-year-old trainer and brother of Ilya Tuporia, his older brother, Alexandre, who went out there against a late replacement, but somebody who trains with Volkanovsky, someone with a real gas tank in thickness. And, you know, was kind of patient and technical and tentative, but showed us that, like, he's pretty damn good here. Were you as fired up in the man space for older brother as you were for the main man? I wouldn't say as much in the man space but i thought it was pretty good i think the for me the lesson i took from this fight was it he was not overwhelming but remember he had been inactive

uh to the older teporio brother he'd been inactive for quite some time he didn't have much experience overall to begin with is it true that i was trying to listen to to their story, but I was in and out of the TV. Did he, like, pause his career to train his brother for a long portion? Yes, he did. Okay, kind of like the Golovkin brothers were one. They were twins, right? And they had to decide which one was going to pursue it, and the other one would just support him.

What's the brother's name? Max. Max, okay. In any case, I thought he was super solid and precise. Those body shots, the right hands to the body were awesome. How about the suplex with the pin? Fantastic. He didn't get hit with hardly anything.

And check out the still on this suplex city buckle. Yeah, dude, look at that. I mean, he took him for a ride. I mean, that was fantastic. All of that was great. It wasn't overwhelming. He didn't put the guy away. But my thought is, it's your UFC debut. You haven't fought in a long time. Getting a solid win and looking good doing it is probably the most you need to do anyway. If you look at his younger brother's early UFC fights, he's got firepower, but they're not necessarily like, oh, I know this guy's going to be a champ from it.

So I thought that was great. I will say this. That kid, Colby Thickness, first of all, great name. I mean, that's just an awesome name. Could be a stripper's name. Could be a stripper's name. Magic Mike up in this name magic mike up in this bitch kc cannon something like that you know for sure big dick nick philadelphia eagles um he he did not look like a plus athlete to me on tape or in the fight but dude he just chips away at the opponents and every once in a while

he would sneak stuff he's kind of a berser, but there's kind of a method to his madness. He just tries. He's got a little bit of DDP in him. Just keep trying stuff. So I kind of appreciated that. Kong Wang or Tong Wang did pretty good. Tom Nolan, I thought, looked awesome. Dude, how about Gabriel Santos?

I was going to bring him up next. So he rallied back against Jack Jenkins, in which he was dropped by a head kick, and then yet in the third round, he gets the overwhelming, what was it, a tap out at the end? Choked him out from the back, yep. But it was a physical, he grabbed that fight by the scruff and took over. I mean, he looks like a finisher. He looks like he's got,

I mean, didn't he have Oliveira in his corner? He kind of had that magic edge to him where it's like, when the opening's there, I'm going to seize it. How Oliveira of him to get rocked, survived, and then choked the opponent out from the back. Brazilians build differently. Brazilians are just built differently.

They're tough as shit. They're fucking tough as shit. So I thought that was, Jack Jenkins, by the way, his record at this point simply doesn't reflect it, but he is a very skilled, good opponent.

And for Gabriel Santos to rally the way he did and then show such skill, kind of draining the life out of Jack Jenkins slowly through the second and ultimately succumbing to the choke in the back from the third. I thought that was awesome. So I really had I thought there was a lot of

gems is a strong word, but something to like on the prelim card. I agree. And Taliesin Teixeira taking out Justin Taffa in 35 seconds. He's got a dad bod. He's like six foot eight. He's now what? Eight and oh with eight 6'8". He's now, what, 8-0 with 8 finishes in the first round? Long Island Luke, can we get really excited

about this guy, or is he just facing the heavy... There's like four good heavyweights, and then it falls down. I don't know if we can get excited yet, but he looked good. I want to give a shout-out to Jonathan McAuliffe. It was the second fight of the night. Kevin Jose put a beating on him. He looked really good. And Quillen Salkill,

first fight of the night. 19 seconds. Okay, but he fought a guy who lost a fight to barking. I mean, what are we doing here? I'm not saying it was quality. He looked damn good, though. I thought that shit was going the distance. Don't you remember that? Anshul Jubilee in his last fight before this one, I think, he was beating up on the kid, and then the

kid started just barking. Yeah, Mike Breeden. Oh, yes, yes. And he started barking in his face, and Jubilee just collapsed, couldn't fight any longer, and lost that shit as a consequence. I do remember that, and that was one of the weirdest moments. So that part of the card, I skipped that portion of the card, but the Rong Zhu win over Cody Steele. It was a fun fight. Dude, Rong Zhu, I slept on him completely in this one.

Just want to say, I said before the card started that was going to be fight of the night, and it was. It was. Wow, Long Island Luke all freaking over it. Also, Cody Steele, great chin. I think his wrestling is better than what he showed. But dude, if he doesn't clean up that striking defense, his career is not going to be too long.

He was kind of frustrating, dude, because I feel like he could have taken Rong Zhu down and choked him out. I agree, but he didn't. I also could comeback win for Wing Tong, but her opponent, Bruna Brazil, was literally running away from punches for a round and a half. I thought after the end of the second coming into the third, oh, this is about to be over, and it just kept going. That was a weird development. Quickly to close on this card, Dana took to the microphone and took it, went after the Aussie media, even though the city of Sydney and the New South Wales government probably paid a pretty penny to get them there.

Here's Dana White. I thought that was fucking hilarious. Most of us do. It's ridiculous. We don't even like the paper here. But listen, for a place that is so tough and the people, everything on land and the water can kill you. You have the biggest pussies I've ever seen in the media in my life. I saw a story where a guy was like, I saw Dana do a podcast with the premier and it physically made me sick.

Holy fucking shit. You guys have to have the biggest pussies of all time in the media here. Just for the record. That was pretty aggressive luke yeah apparently not liking racism is weakness i didn't know that i didn't know that free speech baby yeah again once again do you want to say crazy things about hitler i know just the place that will employ you but if you want to say i think monopoly is bad well yeah i don't know if you're going to be around too long.

Oh, that's interesting stuff. Hey, speaking of Dana, let's go to topic number four. And it's an interesting headline. TKO Group's Ari Emanuel teasing Dana White's potential hope of not just coming into boxing, teaming up with Turkey Al-Ashiq, and potentially having some form of a prospect league, but that abolishing the Muhammad Ali Act would be part of that. Now, conceived in 1996, enacted in the year 2000, the Ali Act was created to try to protect

the fighters' rights, welfares, to aid state commissions and giving them the power to keep things clean and the idea that a manager and a promoter can't be the same gig, that type of stuff, and et cetera. So, Luke Thomas, let's quickly play this Aria manual sound on the Pat McAfee show at the Super Bowl this week, which is what brought this topic to light. Yeah, you seem like you do everything, you own everything. Is there anything that you could tell us that you want to get into that maybe you haven't dipped your toe into yet in the business world, sports, whatever it may be?

Well, we're starting to talk about boxing. Okay so we're gonna with dana dana's been trying he's been talking about doing that boxing for a long time we're kind of looking at that right now and can you revive boxing like is boxing right now i guess compared to maybe 20 years ago well i think he got the ali act that i think hurt it hopefully who knows what's going to happen with the ali act and then dana's got a plan for boxing we'll see you know there's a lot of work a lot of wood that's got to be chopped there but we're looking at it pretty seriously hey that's a uh that would make sense with the tko group obviously wrestling fighting boxing in there yeah and i don't know how much how much is there a collaboration between those two companies with you or are they just

you know the back office we saved a lot of money and kind of got more efficient. You know, there has been a lot of collaboration. They would go on to talk about the business here. But, Luke, you heard he didn't, like, say outright, we're going to team up with Donald Trump, our friend, and abolish the Ali Act. But there was an acknowledgment and the idea that that is something that they believe has been bad for boxing, and Dana would look to be a part of removing it. So here's the key question by removing that architect, that the, that legislator enacted to protect boxers, how dangerous would this be for the future of the boxing? Knowing that as we feel like Dana and Turkey's concept here for this prospect league would kind of be coming in with the UFC model on trying to control the sport monopolistically. How dangerous is that to the future of boxing

at large? It is existential. It is existential. Let me just be clear as I possibly can be. If any boxers or boxing managers or promoters are watching this, this is a flashing red light. They're coming for you. They're coming for you. Understand, I know that inside boxing that people think the Ali Act doesn't do anything because it's actually in addition to the professional, I think, Boxing Safety Act of 96. But so there are, let's be clear, what would it even mean to repeal the Ali Act? Well, it would really depend on how it was done. Would they introduce new legislation? Would they keep certain parts of it and then not keep other parts? But let me understand.

Let me just explain to you what's happening here. A monopoly that has wanted to get into boxing, that basically has never done it, is now saying they want to strip out the one law that is basically stopping them from doing it so that they can get into boxing. If this law is repealed as we understand it, right, and I'm going to say what it does. It does. It prevents managers from being promoters. You can't, as a promoter, offer a contract where you say, hey, if you sign with me, I'll give you a title shot. You've got to sign for five years.

That is illegal. By the way, there's a legal mechanism in there if it wants to be enforced. Of course, there's jail time and fines, but that is an enforcement mechanism just built into the law. But the big part is it codifies that the promoter cannot own the titles, that the sanctioning bodies, if they're going to rank a guy, they have to explain why their ranking position moved. And, of course, it also deals with financial transparency. This is the reason. If someone asks you, why do boxers make more than MMA fighters, this is the reason. If someone asks you, why do boxers make more than MMA fighters?

This is the reason. I mean, there's a few couple other ones, but this is basically the law that keeps the barbarians at the gate. It was created because of decades of fighters being used by promoters getting, you know, screwed financially. I've said this before on this show, and I'm going to say it one more time, but I'm going to get a little twist here. People keep saying boxing is broken, and it is. And I have always said it's because they broke it on purpose. Guys, no one put the Ali Act in place and arranged the product that way because they thought, BC, that was the best way for boxing to operate just as a sports entity. They did it to minimize or stop corruption

or undo monopolistic influences. You strip out this law, just changing the rules of the game, you are going to see the boxers go from taking 80% to 20 and vice versa, the promoters going from 20 to 80. If they make it a law where now promoters can in boxing, make their own titles. Look at me.

It is fucking over for the sport. If they do that. Okay. I can only do that. It is game over. Now. I think if there's any counter to this and I'll counter it from the space of being the boxing guy is that the Muhammad Ali act has never

been perfect. And there's also never been like fully executed because a big part of the Muhammad Ali act is giving the state commissions, the ability to enforce these rules, but like enforce them at their own discretion. So to a certain degree. So like, is it always enforced?

Is it always used properly? No. But the whole point is that it's there though, that it's there for a reason. And if you just remove that, what will that do for the future? Well, it's also like, it's not like a reason and if you just remove that what will that do for the future well it's also like it's not like there's not corruption with like sanctioning bodies and rankings there's corruption everywhere in this sport but that doesn't mean that there

won't be very bad outcomes by removing that completely and just letting a new future in a sport where it's where it's so easy to take advantage of these athletes because due to the damage that they take for usually only a certain amount of money. Now, if you pull back those training wheels and you can just, I mean, it's- Let's talk about some of the failures of the OLLI Act. So one thing that gets brought up to me

every time I say how important the OLLI Act is, people say, well, hey, Al Heyman's been violating it, which is not technically true. It's sort of true in the sense that you can't be a manager and a promoter at the same time. He is not the promoter of record. PBC is actually not a promotional company. They use TGB.

That's how they, they have a few, but TGB is the main one. And so he's not in the sense, there's no technical violation, but people have said, Hey, should it be this way?

He got sued by the way, when he launched a PBC in 2015 by basically every major promoter and was able to show that. Right. But here's the difference. Al, even if you want to say he's violating it, which is its own little conversation, even if you want to say that, Al is doing it to get his guys paid. Right, right.

He is not doing it to take 80%. But that's not even the point. The point is, if you can have long contracts and you can, as a promoter, own the title, guys, it is over. It is over. At that point, you can't. Have you ever heard of the concept of the Chesterton fence? No.

You ever heard of that concept, Long Island Luke? Can't say that I have. Because if you piss on it, it'll electrify your piss. Not quite exactly. It's the concept of sometimes you could be walking by in a field and you see a fence there. And then the reason why the fence is there is you're not really sure. You don't know why some it's been an old fence.

It's maybe even looks a little decrepit. Someone put it there and it seems like it doesn't serve any value. But then when you mess with it, all of the things you didn't realize that it does come pouring down on you. It breaks the dam. The boxing world is about to find out what a Chesterton fence, the Ali Act is, and I have seen complete silence from them. They do not know what they are up against. And all those

boxers who said things like, oh, I would love for the boxing industry to be run by the, like, it is an MMA, you're about to find out what that means. It is, what better advertisement, BC, could there be for a law that a monopoly refused to enter the space, basically, until they could change the fucking laws? Yes.

Wow. So we've heard Dana kind of be quiet of late about the rumors of this boxing league and telling MMA media, asking him that, like, you know, damn the media, the New York Times thing shouldn't have leaked. Which is probably true, because it seems like the timeline timeline luke has been pushed to the fall on this but mike coppinger vsp and had turkey al-ashik on he did ask specifically his thoughts on this league so let's hear what he has to say i know i'm not sure if you can comment on this but there's a lot of talk right you've posted some photos about this boxing league with dana white uh Will we see it happen? The vision will be clear in two, three months. We will know.

Okay. But I imagine it's big, big plans. Big, big plans, but you understand me similar to this project to reach the peak you need time right it is long time project it's not short project well and you're saying long-term projects really fix all the issues because i imagine now that you've really been in boxing for 18 months you're i don't i don't think they care to uh to fix the issues they will do something success we will do something success so luke this is interesting because turkey's taken over the sport from a all the for the most part most of the promoters are working with him he's fueling and funding the huge fights he's going to have a ring magazine series.

He bought the ring. He's going to be a part of this TKO Boxing League and funding that. And he sponsors all of the sanctioning bodies and controls the ring, so there could be one title moving forward that is ultimately controlled by him. And we're on a topic about the Ali Act where we're talking about controlling it from the inside. This is a takeover. This is a complete takeover. It appears that way.

It's hard to say exactly what they will be able to do or when they will do it or how they will do it. There are many ways a federal law could be repealed. Would you make a Turkey's kind of cryptic comments about it? Like it's going to take time, but we got a plan, but they don't want to change it. We want to, you know, like there's like some cryptic. Well, I mean, how do you get a federal law overturned? You could, again, introduce new legislation.

I don't know if the president will issue an executive order. I don't know. I don't know if they could challenge it in court, I suppose. This is wild. This is a wild turn of events. There's ways that this could all happen. I just want to make one point, if I may. Boxing is in trouble because, again, it is run inefficiently everyone talks about how inefficient

it is run without realizing the inefficiencies are simply a safeguard against bad actors and now you have the barbarians at the gate as i mentioned before but there's a different thing going on bc and you see it in combat sports you see it in mma too which is they look at the structure of mma or boxing depending on what point they want to make, and they say, you see, it needs to be more like stick and ball sports. Take the PFL, for example, right? We want to have a season schedule. We want to have teams, if you're the GFL, things that sports fans are just used to seeing.

Or here you see on the boxing side, aha, you know what? All the great players play in the what? All the great players play in the NFL. All the great players play in Major League Baseball. It's all in one house. And of course, boxing is a sport, but trying to apply a traditional sports framework of how they operate to boxing will result in all of the protections that boxers enjoy being stripped out. It's actually bad for MMA to try and do a sports team league concept. And it is extremely bad for boxing to try and be like, oh my God, these sanctioning bodies are corrupt. It's so inefficient.

Let's streamline it. Streamline is code for deregulate and monopolize. That is what that means. Be very, very clear about the terms. You don't want boxing to run like traditional sports for any number of reasons, not least of which is the one thing that these guys have protecting them is this, and it makes it hard and it makes it inefficient and at times very frustrating but it is their security this is a long-range plan they want to change the structure how boxing is fed in you know what i mean they want to change the laws of the federal government in this in this country to be able to have their own titles and more i suspect you may ask yourself what what is the

structure of boxing going to do then well Well, most of the structure of boxing is Team Turkey right now. They're on board with this. But this was an interesting tweet from Mike Hoppinger of ESPN who put out there that he said, this was last week, that there was a meeting at the Wynn in Las Vegas,

sources told ESPN, between Bob Arum of Top Rank, WBC president Mauricio Suleiman, and others, and one of the items discussed was the arrival of this boxing league. I wonder what boxing is going to do about it. I mean, there does feel like we're already at a point where you're either with the machine or you're against them, right?

We're coming up on that point if we're not there already in some ways. I mean, it's not like if, listen, let's say they repeal the Ali Act and now a promoter can make its own title, among other things. Again, they may not. They may repeal certain parts of the act where that stays on the legislation. I tend to think that won't, but one never knows. But let's assume for the sake of argument that they remove it. It's not like the WBC title simply goes away as a relevant thing tomorrow, but they'll introduce the TKO belts.

Sure. And they'll slowly push out the relevancy. Or the Ring. Or the Ring Magazine Championship. We're going to stop paying the sanctioning fees to these guys. Which, by the way, the Ali Act limits how much they can actually even charge. Which, again, they're still scummy about it. But it does put some limits on them.

They're just going to take control of it. And everyone's going to say, aha, this is so streamlined. This is so great. Hey, why can't these guys pay their bills? Oh, right. Right. We remove the thing that gives them leverage in these situations. Fucking frightening.

This is some groundbreaking stuff that's happening to the industry right now. It's a level of mendacity that I didn't even consider. It's wild. It's wild stuff, but it does take us into our fifth and final topic. Mike Hoppinger of ESPN did have a big role in this, and it was the 48 hours of craziness surrounding Canelo Alvarez's boxing future that appeared to be at multiple

times some type of Netflix super fight against Jake Paul in May would quickly or at the final 11th hour according to those reporting this thing changed aggressively and suddenly Turkey Al-Ashiq swept in signed Canelo Alvarez away from PBC to a

four-fight deal that would include now fighting in May in Riyadh on Cinco de Mayo weekend with the start time adjusting for American primetime on Saturday night against IBF champion William Scull to try to become undisputed again to set the stage for

fight number two, which would be this September in Las Vegas, reportedly Allegiant Stadium against Terrence Bud Crawford. Fight number three would come in February of 2026 in Saudi Arabia, possible rematch with Dimitri Bivol among the names mentioned, Chris Eubank Jr., Hamza Shiraz, and then a fourth fight in the fall of 26 to be announced. Luke, there was a lot attached to how this happened.

The misinformation that was being shared publicly, the reports flying back and forth. Jake Paul making a public stance that he feels like Canelo is ducking him. But this is also Canelo making a monster power move financially with estimates that we're looking at 200 to 300 million here that he's going to make on the life of this deal. So the key question is this. Is Canelo aligning with Turkey here good for the sport, good for American boxing, good for the Mexican star's legacy? Who were the winners and losers of this wild two days that ended with Turkey kind of doing a victory lap that the lion himself has now signed Big Red?

I have mixed feelings. I would Big Red. I have mixed feelings. I would imagine most boxing fans have mixed feelings. Let's talk about the good. The good is, in September, Canelo's going to fight Bud Crawford. Your mileage may vary on how much you like that fight. I don't think that's a disreputable fight. And Turkey's trying to say that it could be the biggest fight of all time. He's actively trying to make it this monster thing.

And it will be in the United States, which is of the four fights that he has booked, only one of them will be in the U.S., but it will be that one. I think for that reason, I'm kind of excited. Now, we have to admit, BC would probably agree. I'm not saying it will go this way, but it is reasonable, I think, to conclude that one of the ways that fight could go is that maybe Terrence has just bit off more than he could chew. That is something that you could— But the unknown factor of finding that out is the pull.

Same thing with Tatiana Suarez and Zhong Wai Li. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I didn't mind the matchmakers giving it a go. Okay. So that part is great. But the problem is Canelo Alvarez appears to be firmly in the taking bullshit-ass fights stage of his career. Not the Crawford one, but the three other ones, starting with William Scull. This is too early. This is too early, Canelo.

Come on. Hey, Long Island Luke, what is your favorite Scull win? Oh, his last one for sure. Yeah, the Shishkin fight. Which was called one of the worst title fights in modern history. Yeah, the Shishkin fight, which happened only because he had to lose the IBF title to begin with, and they had to make it. They stripped Canelo for not wanting to fight Skull as a mandatory.

William Skull, by the way, is a Cuban fighter. I watched this fight over the weekend. It's not a bad fight, but it's not a great fight by a stretch of the imagination. No, it's a horrible fight. Well, I mean, it was a little bit interesting early in terms of what Skull shows athletically, but then he fades down the stretch. There's really no reason to believe he will beat Canelo Alvarez.

And then, you know, depending on what happens with Terrence Crawford, if that goes poorly, like however bad you think the matchmaking is now for Canelo, it would only get worse. But BC, I don't know how I feel about the Jake Paul thing either, because on the one hand, that's the most bullshit ass fight he could have possibly taken. But that would have been big for the American market. Now you've got Canelo, who I guess I understand is Mexican, but fights exclusively at Piers with the exception of a couple of mandatories here and then in Guadalajara. He fights in the United States.

You're now taking the next two years of him and you're giving us one date in the United States for yes, is Skull better than fighting Jake Paul? Of course it is. That's the biggest U.S. boxing attraction for live ticket sales. Holy shit. So it's like really bad for the United States.

It's good for Canelo's pocketbook, but he was already rich to begin with. But I mean, I think it takes him further. How do you feel about good and bad here? Yeah, it takes him further away from the Benavidez fight, which we hope is part of this four fight package. Although I know, I know. It's time to let that go. Look, this is really bad for Canelo if your legacy is is going to focus you know extremely on who'd you be in the decisions you made with the leverage that you had now look it's obviously a

great business move for Canelo and you know if we're honest right around the same age Floyd Floyd Mayweather signed that landmark deal to go from HBO to Showtime six fights 300 million and we didn't know at that point could he fulfill the deal like what would happen no he gave us you know he kind of did one or the other. Gave like an okay fight against Guerrero, but then he'd fight Canelo. You know, two fights with Maidana. Fight Pacquiao, but then fight Berto. Maybe ultimately that's what Canelo's going to give in this,

but it doesn't make you excited that he's going to be pulled from the country. I mean, obviously the Terrence Crawford fight's going to be an event, a big deal, and they're going to take care of it with the right gloves, I believe, to really prop it up there. Putting it in the football stadium. All that stuff could be potentially brilliant. But I don't know, man, it doesn't give me confidence that Canelo is going to lead this. I mean, I know they're talking potentially about a B-ball rematch in there. I know it can get interesting with in this 175 title picture if Canelo wants to be willing to go and fight those guys because Benavidez and Morel

and all those guys are potentially there. What does this do for the future of the business is interesting. Can I just tell you that the last eight fights of Floyd's career, there were some bullshit fights in there. I'm not saying there wasn't. They're not bullshit, but they were sort of like, could you have done a bigger one?

Yes, but he did one step down below. I cannot tell you how many times I see in boxing fandom a bullshit fight that gets made and someone goes okay, but there's a little value of it here, which is always true. For example, Canelo versus Skull. Well, if Canelo wins, he gets to reunify.

Why does that matter? Because that gives Bud Crawford the chance to become boxing's first male to go undisputed. But as a fight, it's a bullshit fight. Right. These are the last fights of the career, roughly, you know, about the last five years of what Floyd did. Miguel Cotto in 2012.

Robert Guerrero. Okay, that's a bullshit fight. Guerrero beat Berto to get the welterweight title. It was a bullshit fight. He was way overmatched. Then Canelo. Then Maidana. Twice.

Nothing bullshit about that at all. The rematch was aggressive, but the first fight was a majority decision. Maidana gave it to him, the first fight. I really believe that. And then, of course, Pacquiao, which again came late, but Pacquiao was not a pushover. But they got it done. Berto, which was the last one for all intents and purposes, and then McGregor, which was a bullshit fight. So he had a couple of them sprinkled in there.

But what you get with, like, who is the equivalent of the back-to-back Maidanas that Canelo was fighting? Dude, he just fucking fought Berlanga. Yeah. What are we doing? And, you know, yeah, this is disappointing. Look, this turn for Canelo and to be this brash about it, it is disappointing.

Not that I wanted the Jake Paul fight at all, but you even have to ask yourself as a pure boxing fan, would you be more interested in Canelo Jake Paul or Canelo William Skull, even though it's the path to get us to Crawford? It just, I don't know. I have friends ask me about Canelo Crawford. They do. I have friends ask me, but I have, like, neighbors ask me about Canelo Jake Paul.

I mean, this is where the sport's going, the money's over there and Canelo's taking it. So it is what it is. But Turkey seemed to, I mean, do you, would you agree with this statement that Canelo definitely played Jake Paul, whether that thing he signed was actually the contract, the beginning of the contract or just a NDA or whatever, whatever level it was that he signed. He certainly leveraged them and played them. But did he play Turkey too? I mean, it seems like he drove up his own price to be able to get this done

and raising it to a four-fight deal. I mean, it didn't seem like it mattered because it felt like Turkey needed to win this. Can we watch this video quickly? Here's Turkey's reaction that he put out on social media. Canelo and Riyab and May. The big fight in the history of boxing in September. Then two more fights

in 26. Don't miss with the line. I mean, he's feeling himself. That's his hit. Also, do we have the Jake Paul response at all? We do. But I can understand if you're trying to take over boxing,

especially the highest end, you need boxing's biggest star. So for Turkey, that's a win. We don't know the terms on it. We're going to assume it was hefty, hefty to get that done. Do you take what? I mean, like, how should we receive that? How should we feel that? It's like in one thing, it's it stopped us from having to do a bullshit fight with Jake Paul.

But at the same time, it's enabling Canelo, even though I love the Crawford fight. It's it's very it's the thing about this Even though I love the Crawford fight, it's very, it's enabling. The thing about this is I thought it was funny, and I totally agree, that Turkey and Canelo clearly used Jake Paul to negotiate in the media. I mean, there's simply no question. In that document that he flashed,

the way it works is you can sign an intent to fight with a confidentiality agreement attached to that, and then you take that agreement to various networks, depending your contractual freedom you take it to netflix you take it to amazon prime hey bid on this right that's sort of the idea and so they had that but that was just to you know ultimately um leverage for a better deal i just think you have to ask a question what does it say that the face of boxing is basically doing Saudi tourism a favor? That's what that is. I mean, that's what it is Cristiano Ronaldo.

Okay, but he is not the face of world soccer anymore. He's not. He's absolutely not. Okay, maybe not actively its top best player, but he's not far from that title, is he? Yeah, he's pretty far from that title. In terms of just being a symbol, being an ambassador, being an icon of it? He is an icon for sure. I mean, talk about one of the

five best players, maybe not top three best players of all time. But dude, I was there. I love Cristiano Ronaldo as a player. I understand. But he's like... The headlines in Europe are not about him. They're about Mbappe. They're about Haaland. They're about, you know, you name it. There's a whole new array of players.

It's not that. He's not the face of it anymore. And so it's a little bit of a different detour. Canelo is simply renting out what's left of his career. He'll be 35 in July. He's renting out what's left of his career so the Saudi government can, you know, for various purposes, make itself look good. That's the face of, basically, of boxing,

and more particularly, even though he's Mexican, the face of American boxing? Holy shit, that is sad. Well, Canelo put out a video dunking back on Jake. Let's look in on that. Hey, guys, don't pay attention to anything. And this fucking YouTuber, I just fight real fighters don't fucking around with Canelo

come on let's go I mean it was a power move by Big Red there I mean it certainly was but you avoid the circus fight that is true but then you pick up extra bullshit fights but at the same time, Canelo

outplayed Jake Paul. There's no question about it. There is zero question about it. So Jake Paul had a number of videos, but here's the one, the variety show that he put out, this Fun and Games dancing video bit. What'd you make of this? Let's watch it. Hey! Canelo!

I'm coming, my puta. Hey! Are you enamored with the way that man wears slacks? I don't know what the fuck he's doing, but I can say this. I'll say this. Remember, we sat down with him. Yeah? What was it, four years ago?

Something like that. And he was like, yeah, my goal is to get a fight with Canelo. And we scoffed in his face. And he got very, very, very close. I don't know if they'll be able to make one going forward. But the point I wanted to make was, if you're Jake, that was your white whale. That was the holy grail. That was everything you were building towards.

Outside of McGregor, who you can't get. Then that's that. But, I mean, he told us Canelo is the fight. He was this close, and then the whole thing blew up at the finish line. I can understand why you would be pissed off in a case like that. Yeah, but to act like he's ducking you is such a joke. He's laughing at you. He's not ducking at you. He played you.

Well, is there an angle he could take? Because I saw that he had Benavidez and his son on his podcast the day after, which was kind of cool to see them team up. And then people were like, man, wouldn't that be the ultimate FU to Canelo? I'll go fight Benavidez instead on May 3rd. But then he also would get hammered out. So is there any move he can one-up Canelo with? Is there a fight he can make in that spot on May 3rd to get him back? I don't know what else

he could do. I just don't like the stance of Jacob like, oh, you're ducking me, dude. He's not ducking you. Somebody texted me that he should fight Oscar De La Hoya. What do you think about that? I mean, it's sad as shit, obviously. I mean, Oscar's 52 and he could get hurt in that just the same. He could win that and probably be favored,

but I don't... What about Carl Froch? He's 46 and he's... I love Fro love frotch i think he's a very good fighter i don't know if that's a canelo substitute in terms of the danger and what it would know in terms of like how big it could be oh i hear what you're saying canelo is just simply going to it's certainly unless you did it in wembley with adk or something hey hey he brings that up a lot does he not that's his that's i like carl i like Carl Frotch, but I just think even if you're Frotch, you've got to be realistic. Canelo is hard to replace.

He has leverage, and he used it, and I understand it, but he didn't really use it for anybody else's gain except his and the person he's in financial bed with. Yeah, he's showing his true colors. What does that mean? Well, he's a businessman. He's a shrewd businessman. He's certainly showing that, and he's also in true colors but what does that mean? Well he's a businessman. He's a shrewd businessman. He's certainly showing that

and he's also in full complete control of his career. Doesn't care if we say he's ducking this person or that person because he's not ducking when he goes to the bank teller window Luke. But he found the biggest suitor. He played this right. He got the deal. So at least we're going to get Crawford out of it. I hope Canelo after that crashes

the party of the B-Vol better be of you know, Benavidez trio, but we'll find out one other point on this. Then we can close on this. So what we thought it was, was maybe the sloppiest 48 hours in boxing journalism in a while, right?

Like everyone's coming out with reports and then it was just changing. It was like, Canelo is going to fight Crawford. Now he's not, now he's going to fight Jake, but now the Crawford fights off, but it was never on again. And the reports are going back and forth.

And a lot of people are taking shots and saying, look, can people just tighten up and do the job the right way? But, Luke, as it turns out, Turkey was the seed of this misinformation. So we know he purchased Ring Magazine. But to be fair, they also put out many tweets and disclaimers saying the ring would be separate from Riyadh season. It wouldn't be like Turkey and the matchmakers. Riyadh season is Saudi. Right. Ring magazine is just Turkey.

But even even when it was launched, it was presented as it's going to be a separate independent editorial thing. This blurred those lines a lot when Turkey caught up with Mike Coppedrier with ESPN. And listen to this part. I will be honest with you. I start in the last 48 hours giving wrong information to everyone to make them go to another site. And when I know that big appointment between one big platform and the camp of the two fighters,

and there is people starting to doing posters and choosing arena and choosing where is the Congress will be then I finished the deal in five minutes I call Canelo directly. And I said to him, hello, brother. You know, this fight will damage the pictures and the idea about our plan. And honestly, I think you are, as a Canelo, too young to take this fight. You can have it after 30 years. Right. So Turkey would go on to make a joke and say, uh,

Jake Paul should instead fight Mr. Beast right now for the YouTube championship. But Luke, the first part of that is what I wanted to ask about. Did Turkey just do what all the other promoters do like the UFC, which will even go the length of announcing a fight before it's even signed, you know, putting the pressure on the fighters.

Or is it the fact that he's doing it so openly and he's in an interview with a guy who he gave misinformation to for two days that was leading the reporting in all these opposite directions at once? And then he's like, yeah, I felt like that Jake Paul fight was going to take the luster away from the Crawford fight. So I jumped in and fixed it and paid everybody. And I'm also going to admit to you on the air that I was lying to you and spread misinformation. Are we supposed to just like go, Oh, he got it.

Just like we said, Oh, Canelo, Canelo won the negotiation there. Like, Oh, he got us. Or is this really bad when these reports were coming directly from ring

magazine, which means they're coming directly from him, which means there is no break between owner, not like people thought there was, but still, this proves to you that there's not. And I feel like the rest of the boxing industry is just like, yeah, he lied to us, but we got the better fight out of it, so cool. Yeah, I mean, these are people who also have been told the Ali Act might get stripped down. They're like, yeah, so what? These are not thinking people.

I would say anybody in a position of power is going to leak, and they're going to leak either because they want that information leaked for one purpose or another. It can be to manipulate a situation, to put out fake news, or it can be real news we're going to leak strategically for any kind of aim. People in the combat sports business, powerful people, promoters, managers, you name it, they leak. It is up to the media outlet to verify the leak before going public. In the case of the Ring Magazine, and I know there are good people who work there. There's lots of people. I think Jake Donovan, one of my favorite guys to follow. I didn't see him as part of this, by the way. I didn't see him reporting on this.

Maybe he did. I didn't see it. But i like him a lot but in general i don't know how you can trust anything that the ring magazine says anymore they are clearly a mouthpiece for arguably the most powerful guy in the sport who just admitted on camera he has no problem lying to you unfettered and the media outlet won't check it holy shit guys what are we doing here well there's one more let's let's listen a little more and then i want to get your reaction you know i like you you know you deserve this interview because what happened yesterday and before i am sorry to do not tell you the truth. And you know now what's the reason?

Because I plan to make this all success. I never give you wrong information. But I don't give you the right information the last 48 hours. I see you go in different direction and I don't stop you for the reason until I finish. But you are great man, success man, and have a great future. Thank you so much for the kind words. I appreciate that. And thank you for everything you're doing for me.

So is it just that he's like brash enough to like show you the map and be like, this is what I did. He's, he's. Is that why I'm upset? Because this is, this doesn't feel. He's daring you to give a fuck and be halfway thinking. I've always gone along with cop, but like if Turkey or anybody else,

like if Dana calls you and says, Hey, um, Poetan versus John Jones, UFC international fight week. That's a pretty good source. It's a great source. You still have to have a second one to confirm it.

You would then have to call John's manager or John direct, or you could call Poetan's manager or something. You would have to get it verified. You just can't take the scoop and then run it. And it appears, again, I haven't talked to Mike, but it appears he got the scoop and just ran it thinking, oh, well, Turkey is not going to lie to me, but Turkey is here in minutes.

Yeah, I don't know about Mike's practices. I always get along with Mike. Maybe he thought he could trust him. To me, this is just so brash that he's coming out and saying, I'm giving you this interview because I screwed you over yesterday, but I wasn't lying. I was just giving you the wrong info on purpose. It's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

It's strategic lying. It's the same one way or the other. It's like, okay, that's where we're at right now. All right. Hey, Sergey Kovalev is posting insanely anti-Semitic things on Instagram. Please don't. Please don't. I'll show it to you.

Okay, he does have a history with saying absolutely awful things. Those are, yeah, unfortunately, those are our five topics for the week. Luke, the takeover's upon us. Not Teofimo, okay, the big takeover. It's upon us. Yeah, I mean, I've tried to warn people that, like, in general, certainly in this country, that

antitrust is not strong enough. You have to break up big companies. And we already were doing a bad job of that, and I think it's about to get significantly worse. Yeah. So here we go. This is a very aggressive future. We are getting great fights,

but there would always be a price on the other side. We're finding out about it. Let's go into our next segment, and I just want to remind you folks, not for this segment, but in general, you want to reach out to the show. We need you to hit up morningcombat at gmail.mail.com of course that's fueling our friday fan subs and also dead wrongs which we skipped last week so we back with a bang this friday this segment is dms from donks every

sunday night on the at morning combat twitter and instagram feeds we open up the questions to you to hear from you but it better be a good one and you better not have a weird handle that makes it look like also your prison number. This is DMs from dogs. That's just the grossest sound. I keep waiting for help. It ain't coming. Help. We need somebody.

Long Island Luke. Let's hit the first one here, okay? Please. This is from at Pete Riddell. No, at Peter Riddell. Yes. Was UFC 312 one of the worst pay-per-view cards in recent memory, including name value, fight delivery, lack of finishes, et cetera? If not, what recent one was worse?

UFC 301 was really bad. Brazil after 300. Oh, fuck that. Well, the main event was pretty good, though. Erseg and Pantoja? Yes, but the whole card talked about that. And then the star power and all that. Also, you hear rumors that this Montreal, the return to Montreal, which is great coming up,

but you hear rumors that it's going to be Bilal in the main event and Juliana Pena in the co-main. That's interesting. Wait, wait, wait. Bilal Shavkat, though? Yeah, at least we get that co-main. That's interesting. Wait, wait, wait. Bilal Shavkat, though? Yeah, at least we get that. Okay, that's all right. Wait, hold on. If it's Bilal Shavkat. That's just rumors I'm hearing on Twitter.

If it's Bilal Shavkat and it's Juliana Kayla, again, on paper, that's... We've got to see what's underneath it. Is it Mike Marat and a bunch of no-Wiki pages? What is it? You know full well it's going to be. Okay, thank you very much. By the way, William Scull, the only opponent he's ever faced with a Wikipedia entry is the last one, Shishkin.

Yeah, this is a – I hate this part. Quickly, though, is there another one that jumps out for you as worst? Or is there a sore thumb outside of ufc 152 that never happened um there was one that they went to with like uriah faber but it had a bunch of injuries on the card back in canada i forget whichever one had pennington newness that was a really bad paper that was a really fucking bad one yeah long island luke you you remember any any blockbuster crashes here good call on 301. That's the one of recent memory.

But again, that main was good. Yeah, the main was good, but it was like Anthony Smith, Vitor Petrino. At least he got him out of there quickly. Yeah, but it was bad on paper. I know, I know. It was gross. Let's go to our next one from our donkers here. This one's from Jimmy underscore Reed.

Does Patchy Mix fight for the UFC by the end of 25? Now he has once again social media public saying, hey, PFL, can you please let me go make money and live my life? You think they might try to hold on and give him something? I think he is still in his prime, and I think they're going to try and hold him. Would you, if you were them, ask him if he wants to move up in weight

and enter the Paul Hughes-Ussman-Nirmaga-Madoff circle? Or is it not necessary you could just have him run the Bantamweight division still um oh wait that'd be moving up two weight classes anyway right yeah two okay then that's although he is he's big though but I was thinking we were one uh weight class also free agent completely according to Ali Abdelaziz that's interesting also so is uh the old Bellator welterweight champ, Almasov, who has just that one defeat, 28-1 or something. Yaroslav Amaslov? Yeah, Yaroslav Amaslov.

He wants to go to the UFC, too. He was putting out on social media. He'd be a great addition. I'm into that as well. All right, what else we got here from the people? This is from at IW Lichtenberg. With his granite chin surgical jab unforgiving power, Golovkin was avoided whenever possible.

That's a true fact. What are some of the most avoided fighters in recent memory? That's a good question. Well, Golovkin was avoided whenever possible that's a true fact what are some of the most avoided fighters in recent that's a good question well Golovkin obviously Golovkin no question about it what about Lewis or Holyfield did they have I mean Bo obviously chucking that shit in the garbage what didn't help no that didn't help but like

straight up avoided you have to be somebody like who's high risk low reward commercially. Benavidez? Benavidez avoided due to the carnage factor, for sure. He's definitely up there right now. I mean, he's got the biggest star in boxing, not mentioning his name and making up weird excuses of why he would have to earn it or rehydration or whatever. I mean, where are we at?

Where are we at, Big Red, right now? Oh, we're in Riyadh. That's where we are right now. Is there famous names of people that were avoided? big red right now oh we're in we're in riyadh that's where we are right now um is there is there famous names of people that were avoided i mean you would you notice you don't say that in the ufc for understandable reasons you know who would say he's avoided who shannon the cannon riggs yeah that's probably he would say he's avoided that's probably true um demetrius andrade was avoided for a long time that's true and then he finally got

andrade you know and that that's sort of a negative avoiding where people are like, I can't really gain anything. But there's certainly times when you're just so dangerous, people want nothing to do with you. In boxing, it's never the big stars who are avoided exactly. It's always the contenders. Yeah. But Golovkin was aggressively avoided by the major stars.

With the exception of once in a while, you get a guy like that who they still just don't want a piece of. Yes. I mean, even Canelo waited him out a year and a half, and people don't want to realize that it happened. It happened. It absolutely did, unfortunately. All right, what do we got next from the DMers?

This is from at Flannels and Jits. He's a regular in this spot, you know? Yes, he is. With Dom Cruz retiring, what is your favorite Dom Cruz fight, and where does he rank among all-time Bantamweights at 135? I have two. I was cage side for Dom Cruz versus Demetrius Johnson. That was in D.C.

That was at the Verizon Center. That was great. But then really my favorite one, if I can be honest with you, it wasn't really the Faber fights. Those were great. But the T.J. Dillashaw fight for me is the one where he had to come back from injury. I didn't think he won that, but it was very close. Certainly is debatable.

That was in Boston, right? Yeah, it was more in the Mizugaki win when he came back after another long day. Oh, he looked like a million bucks. So there's been a few of them. Those are mine. Yeah, definitely. I'm trying to think through here in terms of what jumps out to me. I was at the third Faber fight, but obviously the third one doesn't, you know.

I mean, he was competitive, but Cruz couldn't get over the hump in that one. I mean, who do you think gave him the closest fight at his peak? Dillashaw. I mean, I know he lost to Demetrius Johnson one weight class above, but do you think that was the closest? Yeah, that was.

I wish we would have got that a second time. He beat DJ. I mean, he beat DJ. He was up a weight for DJ before they invented it. Yeah, yeah. There you go on that one. I believe we have one more coming in.

Oh, how do we say this guy's name? Sharon? I think Fuckface McApplestick. Underscore Delaney. Yes. What's the most hungover? Oh, God. Oh, dude.

Everybody has one story, right? Everybody has one that just is above all the others. The goat of the pain. And for me, it was drinking 18 cranberry and vodkas at Seton Hall in the year 1999 and being thrown out of the bar called The Hall because I was aggressively dancing and crotch chopping on my back in the middle of the dance floor. But the whole place was going nuts. I mean, it was like that scene in Can't Hardly Wait when the nerd is like, GNR is playing.

But here's why that stands out for many wrong ways by why that night stand out, including I threw up in a place I shouldn't have, was we've all had really bad hangovers.

We have 24-hour hangovers. This was almost two full days where like a day and three quarters later, I was still throwing up from, you know. That's pure up from it from you know that's pure alcohol poison that is that's bad it was bad that's alcohol poisoning like that's cut you know call out of work for about three four days type of bad you know like to just recover yeah i mean

you know if you're that bad you nearly died i mean it's a little strong but you weren't too far from it um i've had two really bad hangovers and the common denominator for both of them was the jacuzzi. So what ended up happening was you get drunk, and then you dehydrate from being in the jacuzzi, and then you get out, and it's just, it is death. But the worst one was my first ever Colombian wedding. Oh, boy. What was the culprit? The culprit was the fucking groom.

Oh, it wasn't the specific alcohol? No. It's just like I never drank vodka again after that night. He was the groom who got married. My wife was a friend. They were childhood friends. And in fairness, he wanted me to have a good time at his wedding. Dude, Hispanic people party their fucking ass off at every age in ways that you just never so do

aussies apparently yeah i guess they do my wife told me my wife told me she when i first met her she's like yeah we party better than you guys do and i was like yeah not really and then i saw it and i was like yeah they do the long story short there's a drink in colombia i've talked about it before aguada diente i never had it is it like the long island iced tea where you're just throwing they drink it in shots but i didn't know how to consume it so i was almost guzzling it and then i got into later on with place we were staying i got into the jacuzzi dude i could not move i had to touch my wife and beg her to go get me like a leave or tylenol or something so I could move. I vomited all over the bed. I vomited.

You'll never drink that drink again. All day. When you get knocked the F out by a specific, it's really hard to ever get back on that train for like at least a decade sometimes. You got to swear off that specific thing that got you that. I don't really drink it. I will say though that the most embarrassing one I ever had was I got super drunk at Hogs and Heifers here in New York.

You ever been there? No. Hogs and Heifers was where they shot the real or the original movie, the Coyote Ugly movie. Yes. Where they hang bras on the window. Yeah, yeah, I know the place. So you go to, but people don't realize,

Hogs and Heifers is a biker bar. And I don't know what happened, but I got thrown out of Hogs and Heifers. I don't remember why. It could be bad, I don't know. But I lived, I didn't have a black eye or nothing. One day you'll get me too from that night. But this is a true story.

My buddy lived down in Greenwich Village, not far from Bleecker Street Pizza. And I'll never forget, I was laying on the ground like this and I had stuff poking into my face. I didn't know what it was. We tried to get back to his house, his apartment, and we couldn't get in. So he was sleeping

in front of the elevator and I was sleeping in front of the door. I was sleeping on the doormat. There's the pain. This is a true story. The NYPD had to take a nightstick and poke me to wake me up. Dude, your hangover must have been brutal that day. It was life-altering. So fucking bad. Long Island, you ever been shut out by one where you might disappear for a week?

I don't have a good hangover story. I have plenty of good drunken night stories, but as far as bad hangovers, no. Pussy. There you go. Do we have any more of them dms or is that it no that's it all right let's get into my shiite you know what i do every so thank you for your questions by the way people users uh we'll see you friday with that uh with that with uh phantoms i scoured the internet though yesterday for the highs and lows the good

the bad the ugly in between in the world of combat sports and beyond we call this stuff bc's feces. Have you seen it? Alright, we've had a few B and B plus grades from Luke lately on this show. Let's see what we got today. UFC 312, big weekend for Izzy Adesanya. Real recognizing real as Izzy and Dubronks apparently meet

for the first time. A lot of healing going on. I know. Izzy also met with DDP after his fight and Mark Goddard, I mentioned it, and Pereira.

We talk about this. Is Charles Oliveira the most liked man in MMA? He might be. He's climbing that list very fast. But I love when you see the respect from each other.

For sure. I love that ish. Let's keep it going it was chama time so perrera was overheard telling izzy that he wants to train and like share their secrets with each other dude i'm telling you izzy said settled with... Bushido is back, dude. Izzy settled with Rob. He's settling with Alex. He doesn't need to have these beefs anymore.

Is this a company-wide counter to the Strickland-Covington gross side of the sport where it's constant negative? I mean, who knows what Alex Pereira really believes about things, but it's nice to see. Okay, I'm really enjoying this section of the show. I enjoyed this a lot, though.

UFC 236. Adesanya Gastelum going to the Hall of Fame. Look at this FaceTime call. Emmanuel, we did it. Congrats to you, man. Hey, it takes two to tango, and you're a great salsa partner, man. Thank you so much. That's what I said on the mic, I mean, on the camera,

when they put it on the screen. I was like, Kelvin, that was us. That was you and me, hermano. My man. That was a special thing, man. That was a special thing. You're a special human being. You're a special human being.

I'll see you in June, yeah, for the ceremony? I think so. For the Hall of Fame ceremony in June. Dude, I love Bushido. It's so back right now. Again. Can they just bang? Because this is where it will end. I mean, that's about where they're headed. Seriously, you know how much I love thatido. It's so back right now. Can they just bang? This is where it will end.

That's about where they're headed. Seriously, you know how much I love that fight. Jed was in the building. Aaron Bronstetter. That was a big night for you. That was the highlight of the pay-per-view. Holloway Poirier too was awesome. No, no, I'm saying on Saturday. Oh, that was the big moment. That was the highlight. Did you see Izzy?

He was almost like he was ready to tear up. You know what I'm saying? That was such a great fight. I'm so happy they gave it that stamp. I highlight. I mean, did you see Izzy? Like, he was almost like he was ready to tear up. You know what I'm saying? Dude, that was such a great fight. I'm so happy they gave it that stamp. I agree. I think if you're going to put one in, that's a great one to put in. Put it in. Please put it in. Let's go to UFC 312.

We've got more. Talking about real, recognizing real. Watch this, Luke. I'm hearing you feel what I'm feeling. That's the opposite of what I got they're gonna have dinner look at this is great everybody gets treated nicely except your boy it's fucking awesome well Volkanovsky didn't just get this he got this and then some from a fan let's listen I'm the guy with a picture of you in my car oh how good's that i love it i've dm'd

you you're gonna get booed dog i'm just wondering vogue i love you you're my idol i'm just wondering man like if you're free next week or at any point to hang out or maybe grab a cross love i'd love to do it did you just ask him on a date yes i, I did. Get out of here. I don't care. I'll cop the views. I love him. Get him out of here. Security. Alex, go on a date with him. You got to give him a try.

Go on a date, Alex. Wait, is this real? Yeah, yeah. I mean, what is this? I'm married. Oh, man. Dude, first of all, Taito Iwasa is getting after it. First of all, Taito Iwasa is so fat.

Wow. I'm not even trying to be mean. It was cool to see him in the crowd with his son, though. He seems like he's enjoying life, and I don't want to get in the way of that. But Volt's fan wanted to absolutely bang him. I remember Junior Dos Santos one time told me, he's like, dude, the only people who ever ask me for photos are other guys. And I'm like, that's who watches this sport, brother.

That's it right there. We also had a WTF moment from the UFC weigh-in show. Look at this, man. Look at this from the bottom. Like, why would that be on my... Yeah, I mean, you would not want to see a rematch of Tatiana Suarez and cancer. No, like, I don't understand

why that's on my deal, bro. Why do they even say that out loud? That's kind of rough. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's all that funny, but... Is someone setting them up, you think? Listen, we live in the goon edgelord era, and I don't think those guys are goons and edgelords. No, no. Whoever wrote that didn't think that.

That's not cool. Listen, I don't mind the attempt at humor, but there's got to be a little bit of editing at it, yeah? Yeah. Also, Luke, big signing for the GFL overnight. Did you see this? Helio Gracie. Big lightweight signing. Weekend at Helio weekend of helios coming your way

luke let's go to the ko of the week we go regional this is lfa and this is lanny silva all right she fainted the rear high kick let's see or the fainted the rear kick anyway against con se so oh she's leaning forward bop yeah there it is hit her with the bop gun that's a nice one that is beautiful beautiful. Saw that one coming. That one's not too hard. Also, Luke, this wasn't a sanctioned fight, but the greatest featherweight of all time is moving again. He's up.

He's up off the bed. Okay? Is that Abraham motherfucking Lincoln? Look at Zabi Magomed Sharapov. I like how he's hitting pads and everyone's like, dude, bring him back. And I'm like- If he ever comes back, he should get an instant title shot and get the same treatment that Hoist Gracie did when they brought him back to

face Matt Hughes. Just like, we don't even care what condition you're in. We just want to see Ilya Teporia sends him to the land of wind and ghosts. Book him. I would back Zabit so hard in that fight. Long Island Luka, I think I can convince you to back me on that. Who would you back? I don't mean like BC or me because I know you'd pick BC, but

who would you back to win? Come on. I'd need a tune-up fight before the immediate time. No tune-up. You've got to make a call. No tune-up. No tune-up. Because it may go badly. We don't know yet. The odds could sway me to Zabit. You know, if he's like a plus 300.

You low-level primate. He's just from Long Island. He's a nice guy. So Poria's going to send him to the shadow realm if it ever happens. Alright. Your hit of the week, though, takes us to the rugby field. Hey, yeah. Right? I think this is rugby.

Oh! Oh, you got jacked up, sir. Wow. My man got up, but holy fucking shit. Now, Luke, this next video may not match your experience, but when I watched this... Bro, rugby's a no bullshit game. Oh, my God, it's crazy.

This is equivalent to Luke attempting to sleep at night while in the Marines. Bro, how much shit is on this fucking train? I've been sitting here for 20 minutes. No, there's another fucking train i've been sitting here for 20 minutes thomas you're gonna uh thomas you want to get it on this osborne action no i know i know i do not wow i do not luke i think it's time we had an honest talk on the show about racism how about you I can't read that show me your tits if you hate racism that is how we heal

pro titties anti racism that's the LT message right there the thing about MMA and racism though they kind of go together I hope Sonia Dawn continues to keep eating those long tongs and those egg roast fried egg roasts. Well done on that meme, whoever put that together.

And speaking... You've seen it, like all those OSHA things, like days since the last accident. Speaking of racism, we finally have footage of Hulk Hogan in a Joseph A. Banks restroom. Well, they said I had to take a steamer before I get out of here. So I just unleashed a major toxic. I think the paint is starting to come off the walls.

What did he send that to? What is happening? Can we send him to Mars? Can we do that? All right. Hey, you always critique pull-ups. Remember when Phil Sims of inside the NFL? Who didn't do a single pull-up and you guys kept saying he did?

At like age 60, he was doing awesome. He did zero pull-ups that time. All right. What do you think about this right here? These are regular pull-ups, correct? These are clean. That's clean, too. Have you ever done CrossFit pull-ups?

Those are called kipping pull-ups, and he's wearing a thong, you sick fuck. I think that was the joke, Luke. Sorry, I had to trap you in that. You know they've got this new trend, like raw dogging, like I'll go on a flight and I don't listen to any music or watch anything. Yeah, they just stare straight ahead. Just stare straight ahead. This is what we used to call raw dogging, wasn't it? I mean, what do you think of this practice?

It's not hygienic. Holy shit balls. But I also don't hate it. I also don't hate it. That's just not giving a fuck. Show it one more time. Show it one more time. Can we tell where this is?

This looks like a Sheetz maybe. I was going to say Cumberland Farm. Cumberland Farms you think? Dude, that guy, and I'm not doing a bit here. He just got full-blown AIDS. He just got AIDS. Wow, that's interesting. Hey, let's check in on the Deer Calling Championships, Luke.

Wow, my man. My man is. How do you show you have that talent to somebody you just met? You know what I mean? What do you do? i work in adult films yeah i'm the three-time deer calling champion it's like dude when you say calling deer do you mean blowing other guys yeah what do you mean hey smoke them if you got them time luke we're always trying to keep create the apparatus that might kill you i think we found it right here. I am telling you, get my last will and testament and make it this.

Look at him. He's swimming. He's swimming. There is no way. This is the dignified end that all of us deserve. Alright, our next video comes from an actual PGA golf event. This is a live telecast. Watch this. Oh, past the douchey to the left side.

Look at these guys. That's a big-ass little fucking blunt they got there. I know. It looks like your grandpa, too. You know what? I tell you what. Pre-rolls, they don't come cheap. That's what I'm talking about.

Look at these guys. Yeah, that's like part of the telecast. They zoomed in, too. That's crazy. I was at a kid's party last night, and one of the dads was just like, I was like, oh, you're going to watch the Super Bowl tonight? He was like, no, I'm just going to go home and get high. I was like, okay.

All right. All right. Luke, you know the new trend where people, they try to get, no, I'm just going to go home and get high. I was like, okay, all right. Luke, you know the new trend are people, they try to get people to try to fight them just for a prank on the internet. If you ever try to do that in front of riot police, it goes badly. My man thought he was the main character. Picture not even the side one. Luke, nothing I like more than out-of-pocket reactions on local news telecast.

You into that? Okay. Let's watch this. Were you scared at all? Did you start running or take some steps back? Or did you stop in your track? I was driving, so I was coming out of the Wendy's. Okay.

Yeah, I got a good 444. Shout out to Wendy's. It was a good deal. You got to give them that look. I mean, I know that plane went down, but it got a good 4-4-4. Shout out to Wendy's. It was a good deal. You got to give them that look. I mean, I know that plane went down, but it is a good deal. I'm down with the 4-4-4 on the Wendy's. All right, what are your thoughts on leg day? Let's watch this. At the time of the crash, he's here to tell us what he heard,

what he saw, and just his reaction to the whole thing. So tell us what you saw. So I was at the gym, you know. Today was leg day. Who says stuff like that, right? Once again, where is a drive-by shooter when you need one? All right, we got another one of these, I think. It took Cruz longer than anticipated to find the crack in the 64-year-old pipeline.

I'm standing here with Fred, who says he was greatly impacted by the gushing of oil. Can you tell us a little more of what you saw? I sure can. I was sitting on my front porch, grabbed a beer and fuck her right in the pussy. Back to you. So this guy was famous for a while. He's done this on like 10 plus news broadcasts. Oh, this is his bit?

Yeah, this is his thing. That's a great bit. That's not a bad bit. Look, people always say would you accept this gift if it meant Yeah, this is hilarious. Okay, that's a great bit. That's not a bad bit. Yeah. All right, let's look. People always say, like, would you accept this gift if it meant you could never eat cheeseburgers again? You know what I mean? What do you think about this debate?

Would you rather give up cheese or blowjobs for the rest of your life? Blowjobs all day. I'm the same. I'm fucking with you. Yeah, they hurt my jaw. I mean, it's an occupational hazard. Did you see the deer guy? I can understand that. Yeah, definitely. Alright, you ever wonder what Victoria's Secret actually is,

Luke? I'm outside Victoria's Secret. The secret is that I just took a diarrhea in the dressing room because I ate too much orange chicken at the Panda Express. Please, book a cameo.

Link in bio. Hashtag relatable for you, right? How does she eat orange chicken with no teeth? Oh, boy. Yeah, that's a good point. Just straight nubs. She just swallowed it. Yeah, wow. Let's get flatulent here to close the show.

What do we got? Hey, Ty. Mm-hmm. Is that real? Oh! How is that even possible? Does that make you aroused or disgusted? Can we send them to Guantanamo Bay?

I don't know their immigration status. All right, watch this trick you can pull on your neighbors next time. Some random dude's window. What was that not terrorism? That's great. So is this one. That's terrorism. Stop.

Stop filming me. What is your problem? Do not touch. Do not touch. Report me. We'll close with the worst. Speaking of the drive-by shooter I was looking for. We'll close with the worst boyfriend ever. Hi, Dad.

This is my boyfriend, Jacob. Say hi. Introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Jacob. What the fuck else do you want me to say? Say something about yourself. Like, something nice Jacob I lay pipe I'm a Rizzler and I love big justice Say something else. Be nice. Say something. What's up, man? Come up at me. You should have another daughter.

That's all the shit we got this week, Luke. Did we get an okay grade or did it die at the end? It was great. The problem is I just had a moment where I'm like oh my god, is Violetta going to bring home a loser like this? Yes. And I'm going to have to sit here.

I'll kill him, motherfucker. He talks to me. Okay. All right. All right. We can all hold on there, sir. Wow. Don't be talking to Tukey or me like that, motherfucker.

That's just a reminder that today's episode of Morning Combat was brought to you by DraftKings. Yes, with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Thank you for watching today on YouTube or live on the DraftKings network. You can follow us at the social channels below. Please like and subscribe. It goes further than you'd actually think. It goes Sofretti links, if you will.

Will you? I mean, like, have you thought? I mean, that's good. Anyway, follow our YouTube channels, too. Luke, do you want to give any message to these folks as we leave? When we gave them two hours of the best 15 minutes they ever had, right? Thanks to everyone who watched today. We'll be back on Friday to talk about that nubs-ass card.

Oh, and shout-out to Derek Chisora over the weekend, turning back time. Dude, he went for it. Yeah. He went for it. I give him credit. He went for it. Now he wants his 50th to be against Nganou in Africa and then retire on that.

Not the worst idea. Not the worst idea. Interesting. Maybe put DDP on that card. Find out the real African champion. I don't know if you could do that. Yeah, interesting. Thank you to Long Island Luke for working on the show.

Ken and Nadir, all the people that make this engine run and shout out to our producer Matt's new son, baby Callum who we hear is doing well We wish him very well on the future prospects of his life, including Doge trading so thank you very much. That's all the show we got for LT, this is BC, take care

of yourself up here, we're big fans of you guys, thanks for tuning in to us and remember what should they, anything? Can we fucking go? Should they remember? Okay, that's it. The name. Yeah, the name.

Yeah, there you go. Thank you.