MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 313 Recap: Ankalaev dethrones Pereira, Gaethje outworks Fiziev | MORNING KOMBAT

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Fresh off UFC 313, Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are back in NYC to break down all the action. Magomed Ankalaev dethroned Alex Pereira to capture the Light Heavyweight title despite going 0-11 on takedown attempts. Given Pereira's recent reign of terror, how surprising was Ankalaev’s ability to pressure, control the pace, and use angles and technique to neutralize one of the sport’s most dangerous strikers? In the co-main event, Justin Gaethje relied on veteran guile to outwork Rafael Fiziev in their rematch and keep his place in the title picture. At 36, and coming off a brutal knockout loss to Max Holloway, Gaethje proved that he’s still an elite lightweight. Were the whispers of his decline premature, and does he have one more title run in him? Looking at the bigger picture, does Dana White have a star problem? With more champions being labeled as “boring,” is the UFC facing a marketability issue? Plus, the guys dive into all the latest boxing news from the weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Oh, Jesus. Oh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It's time to bang. Oh yeah, we're packed in, we're holding, we're smiling, we're living, we're golden. Yeah, we're back out of this morning combat, Monday, March 10th, 2025. Couple days after UFC 313, we're going to break it all down for you. My name is Brian Campbell, your co-host with The Most. Yeah, right? How about that? That guy right there. Took three dumps on the train today.

It's Luke Thomas. I know. Can you hear me? Sorry, I don't know if I can hear myself here. And a fourth one here. That's there's issues with your plumbing. It works today. It works today. Well, I got to tell you, taking a dump on the train

is the least amount of fun you can have. Yeah, taking three dumps on a train is wow. Anyway, Luke, we've got, I would have to say we've got a fantastic show for them today. We have a lot to get to. Yeah, we're going to break down the pay-per-view. We're going to talk about some overarching UFC storylines. Look, react to some big news in the boxing business space. Tank Roach 2 may be on the horizon though.

We shall see. Looking see to get into that. We'll hear from you with our DMS and of course, we'll pick the Colonel's out of BC's she at to close the show. If you like this show then like this video and subscribe tell a friend. You can also see our personal YouTube channels on there. Thank you for your support in this year show. We're so glad to be back.

So glad to be here on Monday morning in metal arc studios, Manhattan. How was your your subway ride in this morning? Any stories any buttcrack? Well, the subway worked well today because it stopped at the places that it says it's going to stop versus last time on Friday when it's supposed to stop at our stop it instead. It just keeps going past and then I have to come back up on the other side. Yeah, it was really annoying.

You had to key with you last time. Right, right. Did you wash her hands in carbonic acid after she got off the sub? Yeah, I mean, we set her clothes on fire. I mean, not with her in them, but I'm using your material. I had to told her, I told her like you have to treat the New York City subway like it's a urinal. Like it's a toilet. You just don't touch anything.

We want to welcome you into this episode of morning combat, which is brought to you by DraftKings. And remember when we're talking about DraftKings, the crown is your shout out to all our viewers watching on the DraftKings network. I want to also say what's up to the third member of our crew. He's a producer, director, bong enthusiast, and the son of an Australian's ball bag. It's Long Island Luke Nocita of The Main Card Minute. Yes, yes.

What's up, boys? Great intro as always. How we doing? Well, we're doing good. How about you after that? Mid pay-per-view card over the weekend. I mean, dude, I left that pay-per-view with a high because I had Justin Gaethje and Magomed Onkaliyev

as underdogs, so I was pretty happy. He left that with a high. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well that too. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, right, right. Okay underdogs, so I was pretty happy. He left that with a high. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well that too. Blblblblbl. Right, right, right. Okay, great, great to hear from you. Thank you, LIL. Anything else you want to say? Any statements you want to make?

Did you take any pictures with the Tape Brothers over the weekend? No, I don't believe that rape is cool. You know what I'm saying? Alright. We just lost another MK listener. Here we go. Good fucking riddance. Yes, okay. All right, we can't wait to bang you today, listener, viewer, all right?

There you go. Yeah, you want me to line up this way? You know, I mean, I like lining up here, but y'all put the controls like this. So rather than sitting evenly between the controls, I have to sit right adjusted. And it doesn't flow quite rightly, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, I didn't set up the studio, Luke. Luke, when was the last time you were truly happy? Holy fuck. Ah, when my daughter was born. Okay, but before that fraternity days, William and Mary. I don't know if I was happy then either. Happiness is hard to come by. It's tough to come by. There you go, all right. I don't think we have was happy then either yeah happiness is hard to come by it's tough to come back there you go all right

I don't think we have any other bullshit to pedal. They can't buy merch yet. Maybe one day real soon, you know All right. Oh Zoe the cat has made a miraculous comeback Oh, yeah, also I would do want to shout out everybody who sent out love prayers notes and all that Zoe the cat collapsed last week Was not breathing. I had to revive her on the ride to the hospital from. Yeah, it got bad. She bounced back. She was diagnosed originally with like an enlarged heart, possible stroke, diabetes,

all this stuff. In the next day, all the signs were gone. So tentative, but she's turning back to her old self. OK. Do you have pet insurance? Yes. How much were veterans of the pet insurance game? Okay, how much did that whole episode cost you only four grand? What the fuck is the point? Oh, no, I'm not sure after the pet insurance claims and all that I'm talking about the the well we had to revive Barbas with no insurance and that shit. Oh Yeah, yeah that one hurt that one hurt. That one hurt.

Well, also Reggie Jackson made a CBS Sports HQ debut weekend, which was not expected or planned and Reggie was like, here's my butthole. Have a nice look at it America. Very much. All right. Hey, let's get into our damn show. And you know what our first topic is the main event of UFC 313 this Saturday night T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas.

It went down. Did you enjoy it? That's up to you to decide. But in that main event, of course, Mogomed and Koliyev dethroning arguably the biggest star in the promotion, 205 pound champion Alex Pereira. So, Luke, after Mogomed and Koliyev went 0 for 12 and takedown attempts, it might not be accurate to say that I've won this fight with his wrestling ability, save for maybe that dominant cage control he showed in round four, although he's been maligned for it.

So how surprised do you think we should be, given Pereira's recent reign of terror, that Ankalayev was able to pressure, control the pace, rely on angles and technique, and even hurt the most dangerous striker in this game in route to an unanimous decision victory. I mean, I think we should be a little bit surprised. I don't think a crazy amount. Pick them odds. You got to remember that. We crushed Ankle Life coming in. That's what I mean. First team all-dong people got on us.

They got mad. It's not that we didn't think he could win or even should win. The argument that we had made quite incorrectly, we should say that, was that we thought he had the skills. We just thought he would error prone his way into fucking it up. And that's just simply not what happened. I know you take some issue with how he approached the fifth round. We can circle back to that in just a minute. I thought it cost him. I thought it cost him. He thought it cost him. I thought it was going to cost him is what I see. I see. I mean,

I would say this. You did uncleayev fought really, really well. And again, not in a way that was overwhelming to your point. He didn't get any of the takedowns to your point. And I think at least two, if not three rounds, he was numerically outstruck. Again, there's some qualitative differences along the way. But the reality about what Megaman Ankalayev was able to do do is you asked was it surprising? A little bit for me. I was waiting for the bottom

to drop out. I was waiting for some kind of inconsistent effort. I was waiting for some kind of I don't know, for whatever he was producing from, I mean, round one, okay he lost, but it was fine. Round two he looked awesome. Round three, a little bit, that's the swing round, that's a really tough one. Oh that's definitely the swing round. Round four, back to Ankalai

and then round five I thought was it, Sal Diomato notwithstanding. We'll talk about that. I thought that was also for Poetan. And so, you know, it was to me, I mean, here's the reality, dude. It wasn't comprehensively overwhelming. But people like me, people like us saying that he had the skills but couldn't deliver because of his his the inability to make good decisions over the course of a bout that is simply not true that simply

did not materialize at least not in this case that is true in certain other cases obviously but it didn't materialize on Saturday and here's the reality I looked this up you can even compare this to other five round fights that he has had not only did he win the bout and obviously perform quite ably, even if you didn't score it for him, he actually landed more significant strikes against Poetan than he has against any other opponent, including those in other five round contests. He did his best work against his toughest opponent in the most high stakes bout. Dude, you simply have to give it to him.

You gotta give it to him. And I understand the folks who might be like, I got Poetan 135. Fine. We'll talk about scoring in a minute, but there's no looking at on Kalaya's performance and then doing what we were doing, which is calling him Don Kalaya of, and he'll mess it up. He didn't, he actually executed really, really well. All things considered.

I do think it's a little surprising, but to that point, maybe it shouldn't be. It was surprising. Let's be honest. Um, I did think he was going to hurt himself on the scorecards when after a dominant cage control in round four, the closest he came to using that grappling, that advantage that we thought, that technique coming in, to not come out around five and do the same thing after he completely controlled an exhausted Pereira in round four.

I questioned that because I thought Pereira outstruck him in that final round. And it goes back to the scoring. Could you score it 3-2 Pereira? You could. But look, if we had scored it, if the judges had scored it 3-2 Pereira, I think everyone would have been talking about how the star, you know, that that Ankleyev got robbed and UFC protected the star even though they didn't protect it. It's the judges that score that. I'm happy that that Ankleyev got the nod in the end because who fought better? Who took one of them arguably the most dangerous fighter in the UFC took him out of his game, changed the terms, forced him to fight off the back foot, made him uncomfortable with constant

pressure, and did not make one of those key mistakes technically where you opened yourself up to be finished with one shot. In a lot of ways it was kind of brilliant the way Ankolyev fought. The technique he showed in round two to back up Pereira and hurt him, switching to the wrestling in the cage and along the cage wall in round four. I just wish he would have come out in round five and really put that stamp down. That's really my only complaint right here. He had better stamina, he had better technique, he had better ideas, adaptability across the board. So whenever something like this happens there's two things that can be true at once. This was a breakthrough performance in so many ways at the highest level

for Mankaleev. But on that flip side, how disappointing of a performance in your eyes was this for Poetah? We should say something upfront, which is there's a good chance there will be a rematch. And there should be. I do think that this performance is disappointing and I'm gonna tell you why in just a second But I do think it's important to also say this You can make a very clear argument Again, people can disagree but it's not hard to make an argument for one rounds one three and five For Poetan and the reason why I bring that up is to say even if you think that uncle

I have one rounds two three and four and again That is essentially how the judges went. Although obviously one judge gave him around five as well. The point I'm trying to make is did that fight look to you that if poet on got another crack that the distance between them was so significant that he couldn't meaningfully improve and then obviously change, you know, his fortunes in a rematch. That seems like a bridge too far. It's too much to argue that they were so far apart

that Poetan can't make some adjustments and come out the other end. So that's the first thing I'm going to say. For all of the problems of Poetan's performance, this is a rescuable operation. And by the way, shutting down 12 takedowns from a Dagestan wrestler when you're a kickboxer, that also needs to be praised in a losing effort.

No doubt about it. The one thing I'm going to say about those takedowns, though, one, we didn't really get to see the chain wrestling tested. So there's still a bit of an unanswered question there. Also, while the takedown defense was really good and I was actually very, very impressed, not just because he would stop takedowns, but at times he would turn him off the fence before he could even get there. Like he clearly understood the assignment.

It did look to me like they were so nervous about stopping the takedown that that's where all their energy got channeled. Kind of like Connor against Habib. A little bit, but Connor was still kind of flowing a little bit with him in that first round. After that, it kind of fell apart. But in the first round, he was still kind of like playing the dozens with him a little bit. It looked to me like Poetan was like, Oh my God, Marshall, all forces here so that we can stop to take them,

which by the way, obviously is in some ways the right call, but it almost looked like they were a little bit too nervous. But dude, the reality is this, I went back and I looked at the targeting that he had in this fight. How did he target the head? How did he target the body? How did he target the legs?

He targeted the head being, not even just what you hit, like what I'm aiming for. Yeah, 14% of the time. Oh my God, man. It was overwhelming leg kicks and then some stuff to the body, obviously some stuff to the head as well, but not much. And this is the point, and I think this is why Sal Di Amato may have made the score the way he did BC.

I'm not telling you that Poetan's leg kicks aren't effective generally or haven't been decisive factors in previous contests. Did they look decisive to you in terms of changing how Onkaliyev fought in this fight? They really didn't. They really didn't. And in part from rounds three on, Onkaliyev did better about turning out his shin to at least somewhat check and diminish what Poetan was doing. So you're getting those at least partially checked. Some of the stuff to the body was landing. He's barely even having his head targeted at all.

You're really your take down defense is solid on that first order, but it looks very tense. You know what I mean? Dude. Onkaliyev didn't get any of the takedowns of the 12 he attempted, but he clearly put a bug in the mind of Poetan. Did it go deeper than the mind? That he simply couldn't overcome. Did he gas Poetan out? Cause everybody's saying,

people are saying a few things coming out here. People are saying, well, Ankali proved he's not actually a good wrestler. But I want to say this, even though he didn't land in any of those 12 takedown attempts, when you mix that with the control he had in round four, which clearly won that round for him,

did he take out Pereira out of his game by constantly putting the mental threat of the takedown and then the physical threat of holding him off, of keeping on the feet? Did that rob Pereira of the type of... When Pereira's going downhill on you, when he's at close range and he's waiting for you to make that one mistake to knock you out, we didn't really see that guy outside of the first round. Is that because of that constant threat of the takedown and the constant taxing of the body to fight him off? In that case then that's a really smart, you know, adjustment, strategical plan there for Ankaliyev. I think

Ankaliyev played the distance game well and what he also did was he was kind of fainting almost like a level change. You'd see him reach and then he'd switch stances and then come over with the other side So he's playing this high-low game. That was a big part of it. He's playing this He would do the circular thing like, you know, you know Who does that a lot is Usyk Usyk does high-low and then he'll circle and right then they'll change the timing and then build Stuff behind it. But do we also have to say it? I think that the evidence that poet on struggles against Southpaws is somewhat overstated. Okay.

Ankaliyev, however, in this case, to me, took some meaningful steps to completely neutralize the lead left hand of Poetan, and that made him go to his second and third order weapons, and you just saw how ineffective they were. So him on the back foot, he got criticized a lot on Twitter saying, we've been, he's been exposed, he can't fight off the back foot, he got criticized a lot on Twitter saying we've been, he's been exposed. He can't fight off the back foot. But I guess what I'm really trying to ask you, is it that or was he exhausted from the constant pressure? I don't, I didn't read that he was exhausted. Did you read that? When you rally in round five, trying to defend your belt like he did to win the round, you can't say exhausted. But I do think from rounds two through four, we saw a diminished poiton compared to normal.

Normal when he's at kickboxing range across from some of them. I think I think the the lead hand fighting, the lack of the leg kicks having enough of a pronounced effect, having difficulty closing the distance on his terms. By the way, we should also talk about this on Koliab was quicker. Yeah. Not that we thought that that's hugely surprising. But then when you see the contrast, one guy is moving around, one guy is stepping in and out, one guy is fainting, one guy is level

changing, and he is able to get into position and out of position more quickly. He's setting the terms, he's faster with it, he's shutting down to at least some meaningful extent the lead left hand, checking some of the leg kicks. Poetan doesn't have a ton of flashy offense. He's got something of a meat and potatoes offense. And so if you can take out certain pieces of the pins of the grenade, there's just not, well, that's actually wrong because they pulled a pin and then they'll let the spoon go, it explodes. What I'm trying to make is if you disassemble the bomb a little bit, obviously you need all of the chemical reactions and everything else to work. And it looked to me like Ankalai, if I said this before, he didn't have an overwhelming offense, but he had a consistent offense and he had a neutralizing offense, both I think mentally and physically.

Poetan's meat and potatoes game, I think somewhat caught up with him here. And it's worth saying also, and I go back to this, listen, can everybody be what Poetan was in kickboxing or even in MMA, the kind of striker that he is? Obviously not. But I go back to this with these kickboxers who come over late into MMA, it's partly true with Izzy. Izzy was never a takedown threat, right?

Poetan is not a takedown threat. He might have good takedown defense in this fight, and he certainly did, but this is where a lack of diversified offense can cost you. We always say it. You can have a lopsided offense in high level MMA and A, go pretty far, and B, win, you can literally win world titles with it,

but it has to be overwhelming to everyone. Because the instant someone can pull the plug on it a little bit and you now are required to go to second and third order weapons, the whole shit falls apart. He was still able to keep it together at least a little bit here and again, you can make a case for one, three and five. But I think all of these factors BC, the lack of well-roundedness, the things uncle live was doing, some of the physical traits he employs, the game plan, the high, low, the in and out, the, the game plan, the high-low, the in-and-out,

the, you know, the dismantling of the lead left hand. He simply didn't have an answer for that, and good on Ankeleyev for how well he performed. Long Island Luke, I'm interested to get the third opinion here. Was Poetan flat here, or was this just that first opponent at 205 that really, outside of first two rounds against roundtree played better chess than him throughout. I think it's the better chess thing. I don't think he was flat. I think people are just using that now given the result. They're like, oh, well, now that I look back, he was a little flat. I think he just uncle live did a great job of mixing things up and it was enough.

Uncle live round two is like a new mythical fighter. He looks so fucking good walking down hurting him, like drilling him off of his own balance, like popping him back. I was like, dude, holy fuck. I couldn't believe it. It was it was incredible. Let's talk about the scoring in this fight, because in real time, I scored it one three five for poet on three rounds to two. But I knew that was going to be a tough thing to defend afterwards.

It was really more of the scoring system. What that what I'm trying to say is who did who did my eyes tell me won that fight and Koli of neutralize what Poet on does hurt him, you know, control them around for with the wrestling and even with that late rally from from Pereira scoring wise 10-point must system. I did think there's a case and I did have it for for Pereira, but I was almost happy that uncle I have won because he deserved to have one. Does that make any

sense is to competing exactly theories at one in the in the letter of the law. I do think out of Sonia has an argument to have won this fight because even though busy even though I'm saying out of Sonia Pereira, even though it was clear that uncle I have like I said what the rounds he won won the more dominantly won the story of the fight, won all of that stuff. But what about round by round? So first round, we're giving it to Pereira. Second round, best Ankalayev we've ever seen. But third round is the swing, and all three judges would ultimately score that for Ankalayev.

But I felt like, and maybe we can say don't trust the stats on the screen, but in that round three, Poetan outstruck him, landed what I thought was the best strike of the round when he had Ankaleyev against the fence and he landed that lead overhand and chipped him up, you know, tore him up to the legs. It was really the last round that he effectively was tearing up Ankaleyev to the calf where you're like, I wonder if this is going to be a problem late. Is there a strong argument? Because if we're all saying he won rounds one and five, it's all the motto's not and we'll get to that in a second, but that round three, you've watched it a million

times. I feel like Poetan, not Adesanya, Chuck was right, the story's about Poetan. I feel like you could give him that and if you do, isn't that three two, Herrera? If you give him round three, it is certainly three two. It would have been at least on two of the judges' scorecards, right? He would have been... it still would have been split. That would have been a shitty result, by the way, because we all saw who the better fighter was. Yeah. But this isn't the perfect scoring system, I guess, I imagine. No, I understand. I... I don't think you can make a... I don't...

How did you score at Long Island Luke? How did you score that main event? Well, I had a bet on Uncle Iov, so I was rooting for him, but I did actually score it 3-2, Poetan. Okay, give me the argument, but not B.C but I did actually score it 3-2 Poetan. Okay, give me the argument, but not BC's, give me your argument for why Poetan won round three. And obviously, please understand, I know it is butt close. You also have to remember I'm very intoxicated by the time this fight comes on.

So to remember specifically is a must. Such an honest man. I just remember going into round five, I clearly said it's 2-2 going into round five, and I thought Poetan clearly won round five. Okay. Like I said, I was afraid for Ankaliyev that he put forth this great

performance and he was gonna lose 3-2 under the scoring setup. For better or for worse, because you know that they're not going to give him a ton of credit, even around 4, because he didn't take him down, it's just sort of cage control. I wondered if all that could go against him, and then when Ankaliyev, like I said,

opened up round 5 safe and almost pedestrian, rather than pushing that pace, I was worried. We do have the judges scorecards and this does set up before we throw to them a good opportunity to, I don't know, maybe fire some shots. How about we get into our segment here? Shots fired brought to you by Cuervo. brought to you by Cuervo. Um, he doesn't have the best reputation in these MMA scoring circles. Judge, veteran judge Sal DeMato.

Can we show these, these scorecards here? So you see the judges, Mike Bell and Derek clearly the first two starting from the left, three rounds to two in favor of Ankalayev with round three being that swing round. In fact, all three judges scored it for Ankalayev in there. So you can't, I can't argue that too much in the favor of Ankalayev with round three being that swing round. In fact, all three judges scored it for Ankalayev in there. So you can't argue, I can't argue that too much in the favor of Pereira. But Luke, let's look at Sal DeMato's card. Rounds two through five going to Ankalayev.

These are the judges. These are the guys reading the rule book. These are the guys with a way better seat than I have. And they're not tweeting and trying to, you trying to text people back like I am between rounds. Is there any case here for Sal DeMoto to be correct that this was a four rounds to one fight? I don't think so. I don't think so.

Again, numerically, Magomed Onkaliyev had more strikes, 20 to 14. However, with that 1.22 of control time, those were often in the clinch. And I want to say something people say on Koli of was, was just holding Pereira against the fence. And there are certainly 1 billion percent. True examples of it, including in this round, I think it's overstated for round four, I really think people are, are grossly overselling some of the key components,

but as it relates to round five, that numerical total is really deceiving BC because so much of it came from busy work there. I will also add though, if your Poetan takedown defense is not really stopping the takedown, but extricating your back off of the fence, which he simply had a very hard time doing against an opponent like this. And I'm also going to say something else. Every time that I argue on this show, on my personal channel, anywhere that referees and MMA need to be granted license to foster quicker action. Sure. People always say, no, we can't touch it. No, no, no. You have to save the integrity of the sport. There should be no standups. There should be no intervention.

Guys, you can't have it both ways. Either people holding someone else against the fence and not doing anything is basically slow stalling or it's not. Either it's a problem you want to solve or it's not. If you have argued against more proactive referee intervention, you simply have no license to cry about this. And I know what they're going to say. Well, the judges should still render a decision that is favorable to the guy. What getting pressed up against the fence that also doesn't even make any sense. They're also not doing anything. So at best it's kind of nullified and then you're sort of

left to judge the other pieces. We need to empower the rule makers and the rule enforcers to promote better action in the sport. This is one clear example in round five. Then again, part of round four, there was one separation that Mark Goddard went through, which by the way, I was totally in favor of that gets you to situations like this. People need to consistently understand how their worldviews about MMA impacts the rules, impact the rule enforcers. This is a bit of a wake up call for all the Poetton fans being like, oh, this was so unfair.

Are you the guy that has argued for quicker separations? Probably not. Well, let's talk about the leather of the lawn judging, because I think you pointed out something which is true. Poetton stuffs 12 takedowns, but in MMA scoring, you're not gonna score the defense on there, so his reward is not being on his back. But on the flip side, do you then reward Ankaliah

for that constant pressure of takedowns in some of these close rounds? I guess if the striking is more ultimately equal, then that could be the thing that gives you the edge. Only if the damage is equal. Only if the damage was equal. I just felt like, letter to the law of round-by-round scoring. This was a closer fight than it looked with our eyes straight up.

No, no question about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but even then even for someone like me who thinks that uncle live is probably the rightful winner round five is not a strong argument for uncle live. I don't I in it but it but also because the Commission won't ever tell us why anybody scores any around the way that they do. Okay, we're left to wonder what exactly he saw that he's spotlit as something important.

Then I've got to ask you, what did all three judges see in round three, giving that to Ankalaya? I'm calling that the swing round, the true swing round. I have a theory about that. So I watched it multiple times and I'm like judging, okay, who won each minute? Which I know is not how it's done, but I'm just trying to like quantify. And it kind of went back and forth and went back and forth. And then if you'll notice, What's the last big strike either one of them lands in that round? That's the jab. It was on Koliah's jab Yeah, it was a heavy jab that popped his head back and it didn't rock on Poet's on but it did cause him to have to Catch his balance and I think I counted it was only like 45 seconds left in the fight or the excuse me the round and

And it was on Koliah who was still on top of him pushing, pushing, pushing. I have a feeling that that probably that guys the judges were looking at it being like this is close. This is close. And that one strike again, I can only imagine because they don't talk to the public but just having heard them explain decisions in other ways. Yeah, because I've been on some of these referee calls where they have to like watch rounds and explain how they score it. I have a feeling that played a pretty decisive factor in how it ultimately went to on Koliah's way. Hope by the slimmest of margin.

Hopefully, Sal DeMoto will show up on Henry Sohoudo's podcast to break it down. That would be really nice. Let's hear from the fighters here. Let's go to and Koliah first letter B on the list there. Long Island. Luke. This is him saying ultimately that not only did he win with that,

Poetan's a runner. Let's listen in. Kind of some tight rounds to score as well. All three judges had you winning two, three, and four. Um, at the end of five rounds, how confident did you feel that, that you had won the fight? Yeah, you know, I was, uh, I was confident. I thought it was... running for 20 minutes and then he's wondering who's supposed to get the victory. Listen, I'm happy for a rematch if he wants a rematch, but then maybe in the rematch he could fight for real and not just run away the entire time. Dana, and he said he's not sure, but a rematch probably makes sense given it was close. I

mean, is that the fight you want the most and if so, how soon would you like to do it? Yes, I never picked my opponent, so I'm very much happy and ready for a rematch whenever UFC offers it to us if You know, we'll see what the date is. We'll be happy to accept it That I know he's going with big on energy now. I like heel on I like when he was like, yeah, John Jones I'd beat him in his prime and also John Jones is a steroid cheater. He pulled that one out What do you make though of the comment about the running? I don't I don't see that per se you got you He had him on the back foot. That's a big part of why uncle I've got the win.

He's look uncle. I was the better fighter in this fight, but to say Pereira ran away from him for 20 minutes. I didn't see that. Yeah running is a strong way of putting it. But if you're on Kalei, I have and you're walking the guy down and he's trying to use lateral movement to get away and defend take downs. I can see why he would think you're not engaging with me. I can see how we think that. Of course, the reality is he doesn't have to engage with you on your terms. He has to even get, he wants to at a bare minimum, engage with him on his terms. And he simply didn't get a shot to do that. I thought in round two when Ankali was,

was literally walking down Pereira that he was going to walk into something massive credit to him for not, you know, for, for always having that defensive posture still there. The technique was strong. But did you have that feeling too? I'm like, you're going to get what everybody else got. You're walking into traffic. You're too confident in there. He knew though, he could tell that the pressure was getting to Pereira, but I was a little nervous for him in round two there.

I will tell you what, man. I knew something was up in that second round when he hit Poetan with that push kick that sent him like careening into the back of the fence. I was like, holy shit, that was awesome. I too thought that that was, you know, I didn't know if he was gonna get knocked out, but I thought at some point the wheels were gonna come off. Dude, we gotta say, we were wrong on Friday, we were wrong about on Onkhalayev. But I, let me ask you a question if I may, and I would love to get long on Luke's opinion here in just a second as well, which is did this win by on Koli off, erase your doubts about him, not so much as a talented guy,

which we kind of thought he was, but as a donk, does this erase donk alive from you? Yes. I regret donk alive as a name first team, all donkey.k. He has shown to be a mistake-prone fighter at times. You can question his fight IQ like we have at times, including the end of that Blachowicz fight. And look, I questioned it, watching this fight in real time, again, about round five, when he didn't come out with that same posture and pressure that was swallowing Pereira up in round four. But in totality, five-round championship stamina was the better fighter,

made the better adjustments, took a killer, a Superman, and made him look human. Yeah, I take back everything I said. Uncle I have when finally given the chance, and I did believe like you that UFC was delaying this for as long as possible. Dude, he came through and he got it done at the end of the day.

Like shout out to him. What is he on, a 14 fight on beaten streak, something like that, since that loss in his UFC debut? It hasn't always been pretty. He hasn't always been as, maybe as, you know, come forward as we'd like. A lot of things you can say about there. But he was the better fighter in every single category against the guy who was number three pound-for-pound on my list. Yeah, I take back everything I ever questioned on this guy in that regard. Long Island Luke, have you gotten rid of all of your suspicions

about him? I mean, I wasn't the one tooting the donk horn like you guys were, per se, but no, he looked good, dude. I don't think we can call him a donk after that performance. Yeah, no, I mean, he... Okay, so let me challenge that a little bit. I'm not fully ready to let go of the fact that the guy has proven to be air prone in the past But I have to dial it way back because that was 25 minutes against a very dangerous guy And he did not look dangerous poet on did through 25 minutes. He looked You know talented but not Here's why I also thought he didn't look I didn't think he looked boring and that's still I know people. Yeah in this fight Was it was it a back-and-forth fight? Yeah, in this fight. Was it a back and forth fight?

No, but Ankolyev believes there's a reason for that. So let's listen to sound and then we can respond to it. This is Ankolyev talking about that idea of whether he's a boring fighter. You know, I don't understand why people think that my fights are boring. Everybody thought that Alex Pereira coming into this fight was the most exciting striker in the division. And then you saw the way he fought against me. It seems as though when people come out to fight against me, they all of a sudden become boring.

You saw what he did. So it's not just dependent on me. It also depends on the dance partner, on the opponent that I'm fighting. That's fair. I mean, he was the one backing him up in round two and putting it on him. He's not the most exciting fighter, but I don't call his performance or even his strategy necessarily boring.

People were bitter. There's an overarching conversation that we're gonna have a minute about, are the too many boring champions in UFC, and I understand that you're gonna have to include him in this batch, but was this performance boring out of him? He brought the fight to the most dangerous man. I wasn't watching live so I don't know how it translated live. I did not I did not think it was especially exciting. I guess there's a difference between technical where his goal is to disarm you of your danger and outright boring. Same thing in boxing. I like I don't call a lot of these Floyd Mayweather fights

boring. I say you should know what you're getting call a lot of these Floyd Mayweather fights boring. I say you should know what you're getting into a lot of people at the highest level. You know, you're watching one of the greatest defensive fighters of all time. Be brilliant. It might but I don't think it's boring. I think there is a difference there. That's all I'm saying. Would you say it was a technical thriller?

No, there was there was not the same. There wasn't the thriller element. The thriller element is usually a higher pace and a little bit more of a back and forth and not sure who's going to win. Now, granted, you weren't fully sure when they went to the cards here, so there was a little bit, but no, this wasn't the technical thriller that StricklandDDP1 was, okay? That still stands. I do want to hear, though, from Poetan here, who was humble in defeat and came out on Instagram

and shared his thoughts. I thank you for all your support, all the affection, always supporting me. I'm receiving a lot of messages too, of great encouragement. I'm here with the guys, my family, my team, my children, everyone here. Everyone eating here. We ordered some pizza and that's it. Life goes on. Thank you everyone. Thank you my team. And that's it, guys. We decided the gato to the mundo Me yes, this is all

This is a boy she he I just all those boys Tom much better What's better is a mom's all yeah, yes nunca desista do so so yes Shama Shama and I always believe in giving up on your dreams Shama. Shama, indeed. I always believe in giving up on your dreams. So he was humble in defeat. You know who was not humble in defeat?

His ex-fiancee Merle, who came out and pulled a Katie Bevil. I'm not going to show it and play this up, but did you see that? That was some salty salad. I don't know who these people are, but you know, all of them need to get a life. Okay, okay. He mentioned the rematch in there. Dana White mentioned the rematch in there.

It will be different. Will we see though, Okay. He mentioned the rematch in there. Dana White mentioned the rematch in there. It will be different. Will we see though, a Poetown who takes more chances offensively? I think he will. I think he's going to have to and in part, I think he's going to be very comforted by how good his takedown defense was here. And the point I want to make is if I were him, I'd open up a little bit more and maybe you do surrender a takedown right, maybe you do but the reality is I don't know if uncle I was gonna finish you might be able to get back up and At least if you're in a fight where you're more open like that Your left hook is gonna cause him problems have him thinking about What he's gonna do when he gets too close and all the problems that emerge like it just never seemed to me like uncle I have never seemed to me overly concerned

about anything Poetan was going to do to him. And that has to change. That has to change, not just for psychological reasons, but strategically you need to get that guy thinking and doubting and wondering. More high kicks. Huh? More threat of high kicks.

High kicks were great, which by the way, obviously an open stance is a thing that you can do a lot of. I think he was probably worried about the take down a little bit. He did throw some, he did he did throw some but I mean do you get on that bandwagon of people saying you may be dog astani he may be our champion but he just proved he can't wrestle on the level of everybody else he can't wrestle on the level of like he he it's funny but he's a bet but he showed he's a better striker than we thought totally true yeah totally true and also I don't think that's the sum total of his wrestling I think he felt stiff resistance when he first went for the takedown, got stopped. He was like, okay, I'm not going to waste energy. You're just trying to wrestle this guy to the mat. So there's a part of that too. But the reality is this, he's not Islam Makachev. He's not a guy like Islam Makachev is the, you know, the pound for pound best guy in the sport. He can strike, he can submit,

he can wrestle. He's got ridiculous takedowns. That's not Ankolyev. However, Ankolyev did seem to benefit from the same kind of threats that Makachev was able to make against a guy like Poirier, where you watch Makachev just having the success with Poirier, you're like, how's that possible? Well, in part, Makachev can strike, like he's not Habib. But the other part is, of course, if you're Dustin Poirier, you've got to be real careful against a guy like that who can Level change it's a similar dynamic to that. I just don't think it's fair to be like oh uncle I have is just a

205 makachev no no he's not very few people are any version of what marka chef is Final note on on topic one here in this fight in the potential of a rematch which I think is the right direction given The run poet on Twitter is down by the way It's down and I and I do believe that I blame Elon for that by the way but I do he took it he took a chainsaw to it yeah no doubt but I will say that in regards to this rematch I actually believe and I always believe it in situations like this unless you were absolutely starched and knocked out where we're questioning your future.

I think Poetan can redeem most of the buzz, the star power, that anything that you thought he lost here and he lost something. He lost something. There's some glitter, there's some buzz and shine that came off. I think he can get it back by winning the rematch. Long Island Lucas convinced this doesn't really affect him at all. How do you met? How do you you know deal with that with that idea in terms of his critical stock and his around gets you mix that with the commercial overall the aura of of Chama and this incredible athlete. Yes, he took a step back, but he can he can get

that back in a rematch for starters. He can definitely get it back. That's one to it wasn't like he got whooped. You know, this was not an ass kicking. This was a close fight. The problem was Poetan just didn't look like himself. It'd be one thing if Poetan looked, like for example, Poetan got iced by Izzy, but he was fighting like Poetan before he got iced.

Right. This one felt like it was Poetan's twin who got subbed in there and it This one felt like it was Poetan's twin who got subbed in there and it fought kind of like him, looked kind of like him, but not exactly like him, was it? It felt like an uncharacteristic performance. So that hurt, that certainly hurts his stock. Losing the belt certainly hurts his stock. But I'll say this, if they book a rematch, you're in great shape. And if he wins that rematch, you are right back where you left off, and you're off to the races as the... Again, we said it last week, Poton called himself the face of the UFC.

I still think that's probably still true today, whether he can maintain that without a belt or by losing a rematch. That's a separate question. That would be. That'd be a whole new reset. Might be time for heavyweight right away. But let's get into topic two, which addresses a few different things. If we're going to talk about the good of Ann Kalaya, I'm glad we did that in topic one. But if you take MMA Twitter as any point of reference,

this didn't feel like a great night overall for the UFC. Bit of a mid-pay-per-view card that I didn't think was all that deep. Yes, some topics we'll get into. The Fighting Nerds continue to win us over in so many ways But did this fight card expose larger issues with the UFC that a lot of us have been pointing out Maybe sometimes to pissing off the hardcore fans Luke. Um We're talking about does Dana White have a star problem and do you add to that the idea of too many boring champions? Even though I just said I wasn't bored by uncle Ivo's performance, a lot of people are going to

lump him into that category. So Luke, the idea of UFC lacking top-end marketable stars is not a new discussion. We've been through that a lot. It's probably a byproduct of their content provider mentality that they're riding these days. But considering the most exciting fighter and active champion in the sport, just lost his title to a wrestler named Magomed, is it fair to say that UFC is in fact lacking mightily in mainstream stars at the moment and that the promotion does have too many boring champions, which I hate saying that word,

but is it true right now in totality? Do we have, if that's a bad thing, too many foreign guys that only wrestle. Is that where we're at right now? Did this expose that? Um, well, let's go through. Let's answer. All right. So I think there are two ways that you have to answer the question.

One is, are they popular? That's one. And then two, do they have an action oriented style? Cause you can either be both or one or the other or none of them. Right? Think about that. All right. Pantoja clearly has an action oriented style, but is basically unknown to anybody with the hardcore fans. Sure. There you go.

Then you got Marab. Marab has something of an action oriented style, but is definitely not a finisher and I think has a stalling problem and I think certainly is an extremely good fighter but is not a beloved fighter at the box office. I don't think that that... It may not be. Right. 145 it had to Poria and now we're back to Volk and Diego Lopez. I don't know how to answer that question because I don't really know what's going to happen there but certainly losing him at 45 is not great for 45. I think we can all agree there 55 I think there's plenty of good things at 55 and Islam Makachev people say he's not really popular I don't believe that I do think he's actually pretty popular. Yeah, exactly and also

He's the pound-for-pound best guy in the sport. He's fucking awesome. He got the Habib rub He's a more he's more powerful as a paper view brand than people will really let on okay so we've got pantoja has a bit of an issue you've got marabas a bit of an issue at 45 it's neither here nor there at the moment 55 not at all a problem i don't think 70 you've got bolal and shavkat who we love but it's not like a house okay but i'm talking about just champions at Okay, okay, but all Again, I have a lot of respect for ball alls game I also should note the UFC did the right thing and put the Palestine flag in his online profile Which I think is a great thing I applaud the organization for that but we're just talking about is he exciting for the fans fans don't seem to feel that way and Is he a box office draw?

Certainly not then you go to 85 different story and by the way if they getamsat, you're in a very different story. So I don't think that necessarily qualifies 205. And DDP is coming on. He's coming on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But 205. Again, if Pereira gets back there different conversation, but right now on Koliiv, good fighter, definitely not a box office draw. And then at heavyweight, I don't know. I don't know what the fuck to say. The two guys, one of the worst divisions. Let's go to women's

side. So it's draw what you got John Wiley, who I think certainly is well liked. I don't know how the fuck to say. You can't get the two guys in. One of the worst divisions. Let's go to the women's side. So at straw weight, you got Zhong Wai Li, who I think certainly is well liked. I don't know how popular she is, but definitely action oriented, well liked fighter by the fan base. They claim social media wise that her metrics are through the roof because of the Chinese. So maybe maybe a slightly different conversation with her.

Then you've got Valentina Shevchenko. I don't think she's quite as exciting as her reputation. It comes out and I don't think she's a big box office draw either. She's hit her ceiling. But generally is well respected within the fan base. 35, I don't even know what, I mean, Kayla Harrison might get that belt. But Peña, you know, I don't even know what to say about that division. The answer is there is certainly something to the argument that they've got a cadre of champions who in many cases are not popular, but good. In other cases are not popular but good. In other cases are not popular and you know, I don't know what to say about the

Peñas and so forth of the world. It's not to say that it has affected every part of the championship portfolio BC, but it is fair to say, is there something to the idea that the UFC because of its internationalization and the way the MMA metagame has gone that you've just got a lot of these guys now who have taken over who aren't necessarily making the same kinds of fan connections, no doubt, box office draws, even if they are so good, they can win titles. It's a real issue. How big you want to say is certainly up to for some debate, but I don't think it's a non existent.

No. And I think the problem is that it's getting worse. And the problem is that even though we needed this fight to happen, we were criticizing UFC for not making this fight a year and a go when it probably should have. You have to meritocracy wise. You have to put people in there, your stars in the toughest matchups and do what they do. They did it. Okay, the title change. It's not about Ankleyev here. Is there a star problem? Yes.

Is there an aging group of stars, the Holloways, McGregors, Poirieres, like, on and on, that are going to be out soon? And is there a proper backlog of people ready to replace? No. And you could say, well, you can't just manufacture stars like a microwave, and you can't. No. But I think you're starting to see the things that we've warned or said, I don't like this trend, and people people like, BC, just enjoy it.

Shut up. This is our MMA. This is our weekend getaway. We don't want to hear your complaining. And that is true. It's only true up to a certain point, because I think the trends are this is starting to feel like a soulless product. It's hard to make stars when it feels like a assembly line, Walmart product of plug and place. When we're at the point where like, what's the thing that got you into this game and kept you here, whether it was boxing or MMA or however pro wrestling,

however you started it. It's fighters and their stories, fights and their stories. When was the last time a UFC fight had you feeling, you know, four months in advance, counting down the days? When was the last time we have fight had you feeling, you know, four months in advance counting down the days? When was the last time we have like true rivalries or personal stories pushed to the forefront? I think this is really a clear vision of what happens when you become all about extracting as much money

from the industry as you possibly can, spreading out and having as many tentacles and have a show every weekend as you possibly can and becoming this this kind of soulless factory with the Dana White contender series and nobody on these cards have Wikipedia pages and you know these the next assembly line of young stars come in they go one and three and they're out of the organization let's bring in the next group that it's always about the three letters you, Dana's face, the connection to the creators and politicians that they have and the whole vibe of being a UFC fan.

But that's not retaining the old hard cores and I think it's creating very short window fans who get into it for the, like everybody who's 20 something and white right now and male is into UFC and they've marketed it to them aggressively, but they're not doing what they used to do and spending the money or putting the focus to make you care about these individuals. They had a guy in Nganu who had the greatest story personal of anyone that they've ever had in their organization and look what's going on with that. They can't even make the fights under the hood right now. So if you want to talk about TKO boxing and where will it fit in and Dana claiming all these things he's going to change. Let's look at where the UFC actually is right now. It's not in Kalais. Well, it's not really just about that. It's about the bigger

picture to me, Luke. Is there something to this or am I just getting so bitter? Where's the stories and storylines? When someone gets a breakthrough win, they don't go to Bristol, Connecticut and the ESPN car wash and on eight hours of TV anymore. They're not doing that type of stuff. You know what I'm saying? Okay, hold on. We had a press conference over the weekend, but it was about exploiting Bryce Mitchell's racism of come see him and you can pay to throw the ball and he'll get dunked in the water.

That's what it felt like. Like this, like the UFC has turned into the D real tweet, you know, you know, you know, drill or D rail or it's like either turning the racism meter up and looking back at the audience and smiling to see when they stop laughing Well, let's pull you even take race out of it or even take some of the Joke, I mean they're cashing in on the controversy from these guys having opinions from 1925, okay Long Island Luke, but let me let me try something here Long Island. Luke. This is a hobby horse of BC's

It's not like I disagree with him, but I'm not as motivated by it in the same way as he is. So let me ask you, and I'm trying to ask this in good faith, so go with me here. How much of this is BCs issue? How much of this is a product more general issue from your vantage point? And if you disagree with BC, please by all means say so.

Yeah, I don't think it's as big of an issue as we're making it out to be. Obviously we don't have a McGregor, a Rousey, anything like that anymore, but we still have plenty of stars, they're not- Do you feel like they're trying to make stars or they're trying to, that's the real question? Or are they-

I mean, yes and no, dude. We just saw Ruffy get in his third UFC fight, get the opening bout on a pay-per-view, and he showed the hell out, man. He could be a future star. John Silva, another guy from that camp, obviously looks like a future star like I could see the marketing when you say star Well, so when we say star we mean people that draw big numbers on pay-per-view That's what we mean and people that are that become household names in regular sports homes that watch football and like whoofy and Jayon

Silva no are not pulling pay-per-view sure yet. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So you're building stuff I mean you're building Patty Pimlet is he gonna sell all these pay-per-views maybe and my argument. They're building him, right? Yeah, yeah, Patty. They might shop got though I don't know how that's gonna go you know what I mean like shop got might be a world beater But I don't know how they're gonna that's gonna go I think he's gonna be like Pantoja where he's always in fun fights, but his pay-per-views don't do that great Yeah, okay, then you've got then you've got Hamsat who's coming up 205 I

Don't know Well, I think pass poet on an uncle live I don't know that when a card comes out and then your BC is gonna complain here We go how bad is it BC and I and I'll sometimes give you answers and people like see you that's so much of a casual BC as he's trying to get these extra casual names added in isn't that part of what we loved and fell in love with the sport whatever year you came in when you look at a UFC card and be like title fight, title fight, banger fights, veteran coming back, good storyline here, this, you know, you had a lot of things. If you're not targeting some form of it to the full casuals, putting Jones Aspen on a football stadium, doing

that kind of things, like that's the thing that keeps your sport healthy and growing. And would you argue that under the fatigues it felt more like it was about pushing the sport and under the endeavor era, it's about what can we take from the sport? So I have a few, can I give you a few theories about what I think is happening? Because I get, it's, I think a lot of fans hear this and they're like all these two old motherfuckers complaining and I don't think that's necessarily unfair. But I do think there are some differences that we have to acknowledge. One is the Americans are just not as competitive as they once were. Like the reality is people might come to American gyms like ATT and you know, AKA or you know, Extreme Couture, but the American like if you go back for example, when

GSP fought Jake Shields, you might recall that week that was in Toronto, I went to that fight, that's when they had that roundtable and it was Edgar and it was Cruz and it was Kane and it was John Jones. And yeah, GSP was there and Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo were there, but it was majority Americans. The reality is the Americans are just not as competitive as they once were. That's just a fact. Okay, that's the first problem. The second problem I think that we have to kind of face here is

when we were indulging our MMA fandom coming up, it was a different kind of ecosystem, including a different media ecosystem, where to your point, you had to really go through traditional channels of media to promote these guys. It meant car washes before fights. It meant car washes after fights. It meant managers calling up every different, you know, write an article for me in this site and this one, this one. And that has simply evaporated. There is still part of that happening. Obviously, people will go on aerial show today and stuff like that. And that's not nothing, of course, but it's not the same kind of all in on this process that really built up larger than life figures with these big bold narratives and whatnot. And also there's just so much happening from a content standpoint.

It's just hard for rivalries to develop on top of it. I think a lot of that is playing into what you're talking about. That's making it feel very alien from the fight game that we grew up on and how we responded to it. But it is worth listening both to our audience as well as guys like long on Luke who are saying They don't exactly feel the same way that you do about this. Okay. Well, let me see if this finally encapsulates it Whether you come from into combat sports liking real combat sports from pro wrestling or not The hook of a story like from the very beginning is there going to be a major audience for fights if you have no connection at all. Well, those people love violence, people love whatever, there's going to be some of it.

But in totality, when you want something to be huge, you need the casuals, you need hook storylines to get the casuals. UFC used to be about the stories of the fighters in the fights. Now, the story that they tell is the success of their brand. That's all that's the story that they tell is the success of their brand. That's all that's the only story they tell anymore Dana pushing through covid the ultimate fighter one fight saving the company after they put all that money in look at us today where we stand politically like it's all about telling the story of them and taking that eye off the ball and going completely corporate

commercial microwave. So there is also a TKO element has sucked the soul. The Endeavor TKO era has sucked the soul that keeps people carrying. That's my point. My point isn't the hard cores that are going to be there every week no matter what, because they love fighting or they're just into this. I'm talking about the casuals that are going to come and go. What is the evidence that it, that UFC has suffered from casual fan retention?

I think I've never seen as many groups of people be like, I couldn't miss a fight on a pay-per-view, and now I don't even watch it live. You know what I'm saying? Like that's changed really quickly, because post-COVID, they were on fire. Is that your experience, Lone Island Luke? I think that's actually a really interesting discussion.

I was gonna say, I have friends who are, I'll call call them casuals who only really watch pay-per-views And I know for a fact they did not buy the last two pay-per-views even this one Yeah, they didn't think it was worth it again. That's them there, but it's fucking poet on. I don't understand that dude I'm not the person I'm asking you to justify their logic. I don't I mean is Dana he was talking at the post by press conference about Next year they may have to figure out lightening his load because he's got boxing. He's got power slap He's got so much going on. Yeah, um, I mean, there's a whole nother rabbit hole discussion about you know replacing him and who could do that but I'm just saying like

Do you like? Covering this sport and watching this war as a fan in this endeavor TKO era has it improved the product or has it only? Month by month year by year taken from it improved the product or has it only month by month, year by year taken from it, taken the storylines, taken that care level? I never felt what I felt on Saturday where it was just sort of like, this doesn't matter. Yeah, I want to see the main event,

but everything else felt like it didn't matter. I'll say this, there is simply no denying that we have to account for the fact that the way in which we fell in love with the fight game doesn't exist for anybody anymore. And however young people interface with the fight game and how they come to it, it's going to be a different process and we don't understand that and we have to acknowledge that upfront.

It's married to the star issue. Okay, fair enough. But I'm also going to say this to the young people who might be watching or people who had a different relationship to how they came to the fight game now, which is that you also must understand not only is the USC a monopoly, which has been over a million times, but the parent company TKO, they're wall streeting this whole, they're treating the UFC like a financial instrument as part of a broader financial portfolio, not to the same extent that PFL does their own organization, not even fucking close to that. However,

Yeah, imagine if PFL could use this opening to change their... Yeah, but what I mean is you can detect it It is it is noticeable relative to how it used to be in the point I want to make is like remember Dude, remember when Connor and fucking Josie Aldo won on a world tour to promote yes that fight like they the UFC dude That was when they were showing like with the UFC was like you want to see how good we are promoting fights watch this Shit and they did it and they were right and it worked we are promoting fights, watch this shit. And they did it. And they were right. And it worked. Like, what we want to see is not them flex their muscle about how big their market cap is.

Livegate, that's all they care about. We want to see them flex their muscle in terms of what they can do as promoters, not measured so much by the financial measurables, but measured by that kind of buzz, that cultural cache. And I'm sorry to the younger fans, I can admit that we're missing components of this because of the way they came to the sport is simply a different way and I accept that. But they also must accept that kind of thing that they used to do. Sure. They just simply don't do anymore. And what we're trying to identify is,

I think some of that is missing. They're still the premier vehicle in MMA by far. I mean, PFL can't get their shit. PFL is about their own story. They're about telling you about their smart cage tournaments. They never tell you about their fighter stories. But I will say though that it doesn't feel

like a premier product anymore. And I don't say that, oh, you're the boxing guy. You're just shitting. Or you, oh, you have a grudge against Dana. None of the above. I'm the guy that wants long-term job security here. You know what I mean? I want this thing to reach out to casuals. I want people to be banging on the door of UFC offices going, where's Jones Aspinall? We haven't heard. Put that in a stadium. Let's have a moment here.

So that's really the argument. I mean, I'm feeling, I'm watching this turn into some of the bad stretches in boxing in recent years. I'm feeling some of those same elements in this Tico era. And it does scare me to a certain degree. Let me say one thing, if I may, last one on this. If there are viewers out there that really think we're missing something on this argument, and I'm sure that we are, hit us up. MorningCombat at gmail.com, morningcombat at gmail.com.

Send a video in, we'll play it. Send a video, send a response. Now listen, you can call us names, that's fine, but what we're actually looking for is like a really good argument to help us understand what we might be missing, because I'm certain, dude, generationally things happen where you have to be very careful about the myopia of your own worldview. MorningCombat at gmo.com. You can send a voice note, you can send a video note, you can send a written note. No private parts though.

Yeah. Don't send your dick and balls or can send a written note. No private parts. Yeah. Don't send your dick and balls or butthole, but everything else is fair game. Let us know what you think we're wrong about what BC is missing, what I'm missing maybe. I'd actually, and I couldn't say this more sincerely. We would love to hear it. Thank you very much on that. To close on the star topic, there's a couple of topics that lead to big star pushes. One of those is Jones versus Aspenall.

Here's Dana White giving an update on that. We were talking about Tom and John. Tom really saw a video blog a few days ago on the train where he was saying like John side is holding up the fight. What is he referring to there? Well, I think that, listen, John Jones definitely wants to fight, just when and where is what we're working on now. Do you feel a confidence? I think you said John Jones. I'm very confident. The fight happens, yeah. Summer? Yeah.

He's saying when and where. I think it's probably more they haven't finalized Jones Price. That's probably still where they're at. But if they can get this for IFW, that that's monster huge and I know they don't want to do the stadium thing I wish they would for the the way it would feel I don't care anymore but I just want it but people ask me what was the fight you wanted to see most this year Jones Aspinal period related question how much does the Poet on loss affect John Jones's timeline in the future does this put extra pressure on him to get the Aspen all fight? Because now with Poton coming off a loss, headed into a rematch most likely,

he can't say, here, take your heavyweight belt, I'll just fight Poton. Yeah, it narrows his options pretty significantly. But at the same time, this was kind of all with, like Dana was not giving that fight a lot of interest, and now you've sort of, I'm not saying formally removed it from consideration, but it now goes very back burner-ish. And plus if they're gonna do a rematch, you have to set that up and that's gonna take time

and everything else. So I definitely think it constrains the options of Jones, but Jones was kind of always playing with house money here anyway. So we'll see, by the way, this morning, I took the escalator down to Union Station to go, I had to go to Walgreens to go pick up something and there is an advertisement one of these billboards that like changes over time

and as soon as I got to the bottom it was John Jones remember that health care company he's sort of right at the bottom there and I was like wow imagine aligning your brand with this guy that's amazing if they did that for IFW that'd be monstrous I really hope they can get that done I hope they pay a heavyweight title unification and MMA is a fucking gigantic I mean we're talking about Inganu being out there and that they probably could have gotten that done if they wanted to a million times. You gotta get this one done. Poton's not gonna be the one that's gonna crash the party. By the way if they don't get it done, now again, we want that fight to happen probably more than any other fight. Yes. I'm gonna say

this though, if they don't get that fight to happen for whatever reason, we need to revisit this conversation we're having. Yes. Well, they won't have a star problem if Alia Toporia moves into a really monster fight next and takes over the lightweight division like he's threatening to. Here's the tweet that has a lot of people talking related to this so-called star problem. When we announce it, you won't believe it, get ready. So everyone thinks this is either Islam Mahachev for the title, maybe Conor McGregor for a passing of the pay-per-view torch in stardom.

Luke, we know you have a bon air from, you know, hard on from here to Hanover, Ohio for this gentleman. If you found out this was him versus Conor McGregor, what would you do? Because I'm in on that carnival spectacle. Just do it. That's just I don't believe it's him. Then what do you think? This is a partnership and advertisement is this? Yeah, I think it's some kind of shit coin or some Spanish fucking company.

Do a lie detector on Dana. Let's watch Dana react to this title and when Ilya teased a massive announcement a few days ago. Is that fight related? I Don't know that I don't know probably okay, okay? That's the Dana like I'm hiding it which I'm fine if he's hiding it that he's planning something big and it's not done yet I mean just go right to Islam if you don't want to do the well No, we didn't well talk about this, but I think Gagey might end up getting that Islam fight You know I don't really know how that's gonna go so dude if it's probably I mean I thought it was something cool, too

But then my mentions were like dude. He's selling a shit coin. I was like all right. That's probably you know That's probably what it is. I have no fucking idea Also long I and Luke Dana had some guests at a power slap in the UFC 313 over the weekend. Yeah Long Island Luke Dana had some guests at a power slap in the UFC 313 over the weekend. Yeah Those are alleged accused sex traffickers the tape brothers Yeah, and the milk boys shut up by the way guys who are either facing charges or criminal investigations in three countries I've traveled the world BC. I've never faced charges in three countries. I'm not even facing charges in one country There's an aggressive negative response to this and I think it's kind of rightfully so, but I mean you know, you don't need to pin us on the on the political argument listeners, but like

it's just gross. This is so obviously, I mean they're making it political by who is defending and not, but it's obviously not a political issue. I'll just say this, I watched MMA luminaries tell various state agencies for years in order to get legalized. We are not pimps. We are not hustlers. We're not thugs. We're not any of these like reprobates.

We're math teachers. We are dads. We have college degrees. And it turns out 15, 20 years later, when they said we weren't any of those bad things, that's exactly who they are. That is exactly who we are. That is exactly what that is. All that bullshit that we're math teachers and whatnot, just a fucking lie the whole time. So, great. Hey, let's, I don't know how to transition out of that. So I'll just do it. Now is a good time, by the way, to remember where Tequila's story

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Luke, I love our great sponsors on this. I do love some Cuervo. Don't think I don't. That was, that was some good stuff during pregame preview with Chuck Lassford. It never fails. It literallyervo. Don't think I don't. That was some good stuff during pregame preview with Chuck last Friday. It never fails. It literally never fails. It's good every single time.

I'm not much of a drinker, but you know, when the opportunity is right, in a safe and responsible way, that's what we like to do. All right. Let's go to topic number three, which is probably the best fight of the night. I think it did win that award. It was the co-main event in the lightweight division of UFC 313 on 12 days notice was it Rafael Fiziv? Isn't we going with Fiziv? Fiziev? So the dude who I was it for Dawes who reps him? I don't know. Remember the member for Dawes came up to us at the MMA awards and he was like it's

not Fiziev, it's Fiziev. Okay well let me take this. So I'm assuming he's telling us maybe he told us some bullshit. I think he's telling the truth though. Faziv came back from 18 months out, knee surgery, entering a rematch on 12 days notice against Justin Gaethje. And the veteran Gaethje, the former interim champion, would rely on that guile to outwork Faziv over the second half of this fight, win the rematch, and keep pace in the title picture. So I want to know just how impressed you were, Luke.

At 36 years old, and of course coming off of that brutal KO loss to Max Holloway, is it safe to say that Justin Gaethje not only still has it on the elite level at 155 pounds, but that his chin, the whispers out there of his demise, greatly exaggerated? Well, I don't think you can just dismiss casually what happened to him against Max Holloway.

I think that would be very, very silly and ridiculous. But dude, this was so impressive from Justin Gaethje. And we always talk about the good parts of Gaethje. He'll bite down on the mouthpiece and throw. He's all action. He's Mr. Action. And these are all true. Absolutely all of it.

1000% true. 1000% deserve. I'm not telling you guys anything you don't already know. I just want to say, like, these are the things though that we commonly associate with him. But one thing I think we should also really, really talk about when we are now speaking about not just him, but Michael Chandler, Dustin Poirier. I know Eddie is kind of Eddie Alvarez is kind of transition over to BKFC, but he's part of this conversation. Shout out to RDA. RDA. There's a bunch of these guys who are kind of like this.

These guys are absolute war horses. And when I say durable, I don't just mean tough in the fights, but durable as key figures as part of lightweight. I mean, this is what really occurred to me watching this BC was not just like the way in which Trevor Whitman and Justin Gaethje came up with the game plan where they would slip, roll to come over the top and then feed those uppercuts. It was so fucking awesome.

Dirty boxing inside. It was incredible, dude. And then by the way, to recover from that knockout mentally in the way that he did in terms of willing to engage in action was incredible to see that. Live by the sword, baby. Just that alone was remarkable.

But I wanna say something, like dude, I can't prove this. But I think that if Armen Saryukian had fought Islam Makachev at the January pay-per-view, I think Makachev would have won. Again, I can't prove that. But what I can say is Fazib granted on short notice and he fought well. Yes. He fought well. And he was ripped for. Again, I can't prove that. But what I can say is Fazib granted on short notice and he fought well. Yes. He fought well.

And he was ripped for short notice. For short notice. I mean, these guys stay in incredible shape, but he couldn't get the job done with multiple cracks. Dude, when this generation of lightweights fully go, the Eddies, the Dustins, the Justins, to an extent Islam himself, the RDAs, Hooker.

Hooker. When they go, the next generation will not be able to fill their shoes. They've had now multiple cracks at replacing these guys and they simply cannot do it. They have to wait until these motherfuckers get out of the business due to old age. Yeah, Poirier was like BSD, no. No. This is what I mean. And I gotta say, I'm actually worried a little bit about the next generation of Lightweight because it's not just the way you build up fan acclaim,

but the way that the public learns to take you seriously and understand your prowess is by getting those kinds of big victories, which this old generation keeps doing the matumbo and fucking blocking them the whole time that they're trying. And Justin Gaethje, after a devastating knockout loss, plenty of time off, short notice opponent, who by the way will absolutely knuckle up with you right away. And by the way, in that first round,

looked pretty fucking good. I have to say, but to come back that way again, not rescuing himself, but you know, turn the tide in the second with that uppercut and then in the third, by the way, a very close third round too. Nevertheless, I cannot overstate to you how special that performance was how special Justin Gaethje is.

And this class of lightweights play the last of the Mohicans guys, because when they go the next generation, they'll replace them in the sense that, you know, someone's got to be the fifth ranked guy when all the rest of them go, and the third and whoever it is. They cannot replace what they have been to us. They cannot replace what they have meant to us. They cannot replace their heroics. A truly all-time special class of fighters. Yeah, they're lightweights, but independent of the lightweight division.

And we are lucky to be sitting here at this time. We don't do DVDs anymore, but imagine putting on a DVD collection of every great lightweight brawl with these top elite guys that are all aging at the same time here. I mean, it's just incredible. I've said it before, again, if you look at the best guys at lightweight, your BJ pens, your Islam's and your Habib's, they don't necessarily have the best fights. The best fights comes from the Gachis. They come from the Chandlers.

It comes from the Eddies. It comes from the Tony Ferguson was part of that, RDA is part of that and on down the list, all those guys, they're the ones that made you fall in love with the fight game. They're the ones that had those fights where you remember exactly where you were when they were when you were watching it, whether you were in the arena or not in the arena. Justin Gachey put on another fucking one of those with, by the way, BC, headwinds the entire way and still got the fucking job done. So it's funny, Dustin Poirier went in the hall, or not Dustin Poirier, Robbie Lawler

went in the hall over the weekend, the Hall of Fame, and- Well deserved. Shout out to Ruthless, and I love seeing him cry too, because you never see any emotion from Robbie in his whole career, and then he's crying. I loved it. He had that three fight stretch, the rematch against Hendricks to win the title, which was a fun fight, action fight, then Condit and McDonald Part II back to back, which were, you know, the two gnarliest fights ever. That three fight stretch, and by the way, he lost the title after that, no surprise. The wear and tear in there.

I'm always like, that's probably the gnarliest, manliest three fights stretch anybody has. What about Gates, his first three UFC fights? The Michael Johnson fight of the year and then the law, the TKO late losses to both Eddie and Poirier, where they were just gnarly all. I mean, those three fights and he lost two of them, by the way, are like three of the gnarliest, manliest performances in succession that we've ever seen. So that doesn't even include his World Series of Fighting Fights, which by the way,

there's some goddamn- Or the ones that happen after, yeah. There's some bangers on that one too. There's a lot of bangers. So in his last four fights now, Gaethje, two wins over Fizeev, a head kick knockout of Dustin Poirier, and then of course the loss to Holloway. He has set himself up for a very, very big fight. Here's Justin talking about that proposition. For sex. The great thing about your career is you can literally

fight anybody in the division. You know, it's going to be a great fight. What does interest you? You know, you said, hey, I'm here. I mean, does trying to get Dan Hooker again, does that make sense to you? Are you thinking more like title shots with Victor? I mean, what does make sense to you?

I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. What do you want? What do you still want at this point in your career? I mean, I want make sense to you? I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. What do you want? What do you still want at this point in your career? I mean, I want to fight for the belt, obviously. It's a much different matchup than I just had.

They tried to give me a donut. I took a bite, but I got to get back to running if I'm going to fight Makachev. Obviously, you mentioned Makachev there. You need to get the cardio on point. What are some other things that you kind of think about when you look at a matchup with him and how that could potentially go?

Yeah, I'm going to have to get my jujitsu coach out here. It's really just confidence. He's a tough matchup friend. He's so good, so strong. And I have to have a perfect night if I want to beat him. I guess for anyone that might wonder, why should you get the shot over Armin or Charles? I don't care argue with yourself Fair that is fair that is fair odd is his case strong and should it be elevated above

Olivera and Sorokin based on the three wins in four fights that I mentioned and the fact that we have not seen this matchup yet. Gaiji versus Mahajab. I don't know if it's the strongest argument meritocratically, but I don't know that that really matters. It's a good argument meritocratically and it's a great argument for this era of lightweight. And Islam, by the way, it's also good for Islam because it's a tough challenge granted you have to imagine that in the takedowns what Habib was able to do and get to the back that Islam might be able to do something similar so I would favor Islam to win but you know when was the last time Gaiji was matched up against anybody and you were like yeah I could take it or leave it like it just doesn't it just doesn't exist in that way so

were like, yeah, I could take it or leave it like it just doesn't it just doesn't exist in that way. So and by the way, like, you know, these guys are I'm sick of talking about it. But these guys are underpaid. It's very, very difficult. I mean, a guy like Gagey, whatever, how much money he's made, it should be 10x. Yes, you know, getting an opportunity in a title fight, obviously, the title fight itself wouldn't necessarily change his fortunes, but getting the title and he has any subsequent ones would be a financial windfall for him I think this generation of lightweights that one though the the a-listers in my judgment They have earned it ten times over so I'd be in favor of it. Yeah, I think again, so are you can I'm sorry Like I know he's my Armenian brethren. He's simply not ready. I just don't think that he's ready

I don't think his skills that has matured enough. He can wait a little bit his body is a wonder It is his first team all body. Oh, he's ready. I don't think his skills that has matured enough. He can wait a little bit. His body is a wonderland. It is his first team all body. I'll use my hands. Yeah. So if if not the time, okay, let's say it is the title. Let's say Gaethje gets Mahatchev next. I think that fight is going to be well anticipated. And I think especially considering that Poirier turned that that title opportunity into a fight of the year contender.

It's just going to be fun. No matter what even if Islam figures amount stops him. But who, Luke Thomas, if that happens, would go to toporia and who would go to pori a if that is the way it goes. So if you take the new Dariush did an interview with Submission Radio where he said that he heard it's going to be pori a Holloway three. I can't hate on that, which is on the fucking awesome. I can't hate on that. Which is fucking awesome. Again, it's just ridiculous. That's a pay-per-view main event. You don't even need to be a method.

Can I kinda hate on that for a second? Yes, you can be a dickhead. Go ahead. I'm not being a dickhead. But dude, he's 0-2. Holloway's 0-2 against Dustin. Why are we even in the 2-1? Juan Manuel Marquez was 0-3 against Pacquiao before he turned his lights out in the 4th fight. Yeah, it's a different sport. But I don't know, it just feels weird. Well, I wouldn't have hated a Poirier-Gayche trilogy because I feel like they put, they,

both of them, even with Chandler in this era of great lightweights, they've made the best fights and I think the best came from them together, especially that first Poirier-Gayche one is my favorite fight of this great action era. But here's Gayche saying why that's not an option for him. Yes. Are you interested in find Dustin Poirier for his retirement fight? Oh, no, I've stated many times. I don't think either one of our families deserve that. We're one on one.

I'm OK with it. If he's OK with it, then no, I don't think that's I don't think we're. I think we're contenders if we beat other people. If I be him, I don't think either're a contender. I think we're contenders only if we beat other people. If I beat him, I don't think either one of us would be considered a contender. You agree with that? That logic? Not exactly, but I don't bemoan him not wanting a third fight. And I disagree with Long Island Luke. I mean, I get that it's not a fresh matchup between Poirier and Holloway. Holloway doesn't have the BMF belt if we're if we're keeping.

Yes, so there's that. But the point I want to make was like we've got Jose Aldo fighting Mario Bautista and then Diggity Donk and then Rick Rickerson. It's a hobby. Yeah, exactly. But like this is to me not a useful application of Aldo's time, and especially in his twilight years anyway. So if so, what I'm trying to make is you got legend versus legend in Holloway and

Poirier like and by the way like you would at least admit long. I don't look it's gonna be a good fight, right? That's I don't want it to be misconstrued. It's gonna be a great. You just have a different idea I feel like it doesn't make sense. Okay Chandler's fighting pimp lit if Dustin fights max and Justin fights Islam Then who will toporia make his 155 debut against the McGregor at 170 in a pay-per-view, or will he wait for the winner to get the winner of Islam and justice?

I don't know, because I thought it would have made sense for him to have a fight against Chuckie Olives. I really thought Toporia versus Charles Olivera was the fight to make. So are they going to make Olivera-S Sarukin too? Because they're both kinda- I don't know what the fuck they're gonna do because that to me was the fight to make and then Toporia's like, Oh no, I don't I don't want to be taking number one contender fight and I'm like, You kind of need to. If they make him fight Dobranx, Toporia Dobranx. Oh my god. Yeah, that's that's boner if that's- Oh my- that is- Long Island Luke, are you feeling it in the loins? Wow. Yeah, that would be sick fight, but I actually I want Ilya to get the immediate title shot

I don't think we can lose here. I don't think we can lose. Yeah, you could do that, too I mean obviously that's of that, you know, Ilya and Islam is obviously a huge fight Finally here's a picture of that first round where fazeev was having control and then Gachi tossed his salad Yeah of all positions in MMA, the reverse triangle. I mean, is it? That's a tough one. What is the... I'm going to ask a sincere question here, as ridiculous as this sounds.

In Bushido, in top level MMA, can you weaponize flatulence? Or would that be looked at the equivalent of like kicking somebody in the balls in a street fight? I don't know if giving someone pink eye is. I mean, is that a gentleman thing where they were they like, OK, you don't do that. If I've got you know, if I'm sitting on your face, I'm not going to just. Yeah, but I got to be honest, like anybody who's wrestled or done jiu jitsu. It's not like their crotch of your opponent ever smells awesome.

I remember I remember one time. This is a true story. I remember one time. This is a true story. I remember one time I went for a head inside single on a guy and his crotch smelled like a fucking dumpster fire that's covered in like embryonic fluid that had been sitting in the sun that someone urinated on. I was like, dude, I don't know what's wrong with your genitals, but please go set them on fire because this is unacceptable as a, your training partner.

Well, that takes us to topic number four and it is the UFC 313 undercard. Wow. Fighting nerds are taking over this time. Mauricio Rufi with the wheel kick KO heard round the world. I think Terry Adam rolled over in his grave against King Green. Uh, we don't, we can't show the highlight, but I just want to show the fighting nerds reaction here. That's of course, Gian Silver Carlos Pratish. So Luke, I use that video to set up this. We can talk about anybody here on the undercard, but you can argue that that Rufy stole the show. What is the secret right now behind this overwhelming savagery of the fighting nerds? Jim and some pie at Sao Paolo.

And how serious should we be taking Mauricio Rufi, who's now for known the UFC, 12 and one overall with 11 finishes. And like I mentioned, unbeaten in the contender series in UFC talk, talk the savagery of fighting nerds and his hoofy looking as real as he as he looked there. Dude, this is one of the first of all. Easy knock out of the year contender, easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, just one of the best things you've ever seen. First of all, there's that second of all, who

fee I are again, I'm not they called him who feed and they called him Rufy and now they're calling him G.H GHB. I don't know what they're calling him, but you know what I'm saying? They're just giving him names. Just teasing. The one I'm trying to make is it's still a little early because giving somebody Bobby Green or excuse me, I keep doing it. Giving somebody King Green is very different than giving them Mateusz Gamrot, right? You're getting up, you know, we still don't really know how that would go. They gave him a very stylistically advantageous opponent, but holy shit, he over-delivered.

But let me just say this because you asked about the fighting nerds themselves. They are easily one of the best things about the fight game today. Not just because they're speed running the collection, each of them, Protches, you mentioned Silva, you could do Hoofie, good on the list. They're speed running the development

of their own highlight reels, like all time highlight reels. By the way, this one is gonna stand the test of time for a long time, but that they come from the same team. These guys are so focused on letting personal creativity and being in a flow state with their offense deliver such a new and I mean there's nothing formulaic about what they do. Everything feels like it comes from their heart and this is why I think fans respond.

Are you getting devastating KOs and devastating highlight reels and cool stuff like that? Yes, of course. But you're also getting, even with language barriers, BC, you're getting to see fighter personality. You're getting to see like, I don't, Whoopi speaks a little bit of English and Proches does speak some pretty decent English. But even if they didn't, don't you feel like you would understand them better watching how they move through face-offs and then into the fights themselves and how they go about picking apart their opponents.

You can get a sense of who they are and how they think about things and their vision of things and what appeals to them and what doesn't just by watching them compete. They're not following, you know, jab one, two, level change, you know, and then we're just gonna do best practices and you just follow those. They are setting the table for a new set of best practices by personal expression. When we talk about mixed martial artists, these guys emphasize the last part, artists, and it shows up in the most dynamic of ways.

This is such a breath of fresh air. They bring contagious joy. Yes, they bring approachable branding, meaning they always have a ton of those glasses and they're putting on bronster, they're putting on Laura Senko, everybody. So they're like approachable, like this comedic group, but they're absolute savages in the cage. I mean, what what's in the water in the gym? I mean, there's like they must tear up the favelas at night, right? Just like like Johnny Walker in Scotland.

Right. Oh, just lay in pipe. I mean, call call him the plumber because he was laying pipe all over Scott, but like each one were having the same conversations. Are they for real in their own division? OK, these are separate conversations because it's nice to see a guy who can flow and express himself. By the way, do you know who was the original guy in MMA who did that? Anderson Silva.

Anderson Silva was the guy who was kind of like doing, who didn't speak English for long stretches of his UFC run. But you could feel like you could get, you could understand who he was by these incredible artistic, you know, displays of acrobatic skill and the front kick to Vitor and the whole nine yards, more than just that, you know, the whole bit. They're that front kick to Vitor and the whole nine yards more than just that you know the whole bit Um there that but he also had to face down wrestlers He also had to face down guys who nate marquardt took mount on him or no

I'm sorry. I don't know if nate did but travis luter did you know all different kinds of ways you have difficult challenges We still don't know about these guys yet, and I think 2025 Certainly for pro chess and certainly for Silva, because now he's got the Bryce Mitchell fight. Yeah. We're going to get a little bit closer to an answer. That might make him a star indirectly. Like I get ultimately what the UFC is doing.

I just don't like. It's just all weird. It's all weird. But anyway, this is about the fight nerds in Long Island. Look, if you're going to play matchmaker, how do you escalate that win for Rufy to keep him as buzzworthy as his teammates seem to be right now. I'm not looking at the rankings, but Bobby Green, I know he wasn't ranked coming into this fight, but he has been ranked before. I feel like you got to give him someone in that 10 to 15 range. Someone fun who's going to strike with him. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have a name at the top of

my head. I mean, this whole card was a lightweight showcase in a lot of ways. So why don't I bring in the other name right here that some people want to match him with Bahamondes, Ignacio. He took out Jalen Turner and then he retired him. How would you compare this as a breakout performance? Rufy and Bahamondes. And is that the answer? Match them against each other? I'm not so sure it's a breakout performance just yet. I and Bahamondes. And is that the answer, match them against him?

I'm not so sure it's a breakout performance just yet. I mean, it's not his fault. I mean, he did everything times a million that he was supposed to, but Turner was not there. I mean, he was not there. And I was talking with Lauren and Luke about this ahead of time. How did the triangle get locked up?

Because if you notice, he throws the triangle, he fakes an omoplata, he can't get it. And so when he circles back, because omoplata you have to be this way, and then when he circles back into him that's when he locks up the triangle, but it's not fully locked in because you'll notice that Turner is like, you know, he's standing, he's sitting ramrod straight. Very very difficult to get a triangle under those circumstances. You have to hold them down to you or go to them, whatever. So what does he do? He scoots underneath, yes, but he takes both of the wrists of Jalen Turner and then pulls it into him. It's hard to explain if you've never trained, but let me just say this.

That should never happen to you, ever, under any circumstance, ever. It should never be a case. It's a little bit less, actually this is not true in the gi where guys can get double sleeve, but in no gi, no one should be able to reach out and grab both of your wrists and you do nothing about it. If someone has both of your not just one dude, someone grabs one of your fucking wrists. You're in trouble if they get both of them and you don't contest that and I know he was moving kind of quickly, but it should be automatic if they're able to make a double grip on you in Nogi,

and you're not immediately peeling grips, first of all, you can see what happens. And also like well-trained, dialed in fighters, like how many times have you ever seen someone get double sleeve pulled into a triangle in the UFC? It almost, from guard, no less. It never happens. It's very, very unusual. That to me tells me, and the fact that he retired,

obviously, is the big one. I mean, he's lost, he's only 29, Jalen Turner, but this is four losses and five fights. Even though I think a bunch of those losses, like we said in the preview coming in, didn't tell the full story, he came in in great shape, he looked okay early on, right? Yeah, you should never, ever, ever, ever

let someone make grips on you like that ever should never happen All right fact that it did was like a red flag. How about? Bahamondos against Matt for vola next and Then we'll do I'll take it and then we'll do I'll take it Rufi against Yeah, careful with that one All right, so PSD though is rumored to be fighting Joel Alvarez. He did the Adesanya bit. Yes.

Yes, he is rumored to be fighting Joel Alvarez. Winner of that fight. That's a winner of that fight. BC, I was saying to Luke pre-show that I like Bahamundes versus Fazeev. Think that could be a banger. That is a that is interesting too, but that's that's three losses in a row for Fazeve No, I mean he's got to get let the guy get a full camp here and a healthy knee, but uh Yeah, okay. I mean it are you down on Fazeve after this we didn't mention that Or do you say but I days he tried his best man. It's not again It's one of those things where it's like you watch him fight. You're like did he perform poorly not at all Yeah, not at all, but the fact that he couldn't break through again

and now he's in his thirties. Quickly on the rest of this card, Josh Van, another Josh Van, a great win. I mean, he had to earn it. He had to earn it. It was not very easy. To me, it was a good, it was a very good performance from Josh Van

who I'm still quite, quite high on. To me, it was a little bit more of Ray Saruya's Lack of overall development kind of costing him here when he finds out you can punch in these fights. He's gonna be good Yes, that's basically it he's obviously his grappling is phenomenal, but it's just dude He's a one-trick pony a little bit. So Amanda Lemos didn't Didn't make us like overly excited, but she got the win there. I mean unfortunate that Joe Rogan Said he instead of she went talking about her who gives a shit. You're like, we don't have time

Dude, women's MMA is a fucking disaster. It's a disaster. Am I wrong? You got issues with suffrage too? No, they can vote I mean they should be voting their wonderful people but this that side of the game is a fucking nightmare since we had so much downtrodden anything else you want to say about this card positively long island anybody jump out on your main card minute undercard here Carlos leo Look good against Alex Morona for whatever that's what I'm gonna look like he's on the way out, but yeah Francis Marshall got robbed. I mean that was he did get robbed. That was a bad one fire in Santa It was a bad one that first fight was sloppy gross and. Did you see the Jordan and Ozzy fight? Yes It was there was no technique. Yeah, I mean, you know, what are we doing? Yeah, what are we doing? All right Um Luke, have you heard of Gold Belly by any chance? I have heard of going I think you have um

It's this amazing site Of course where you can get the most iconic famous foods from restaurants all over the US and they will ship it free to your door anywhere in the country. You may have heard Luke and I talking about this before. I got that Guy Fieri trash can nachos sent to my house, barbecue pulled chicken, all the fixings. My kids were like, oh, oh, you got that Guy Fieri thing? And like they were fired up. It was a nice feast. It happened to be Super Bowl Sunday when we had that.

So the timing was perfect and it was wonderful. And look, it comes shipped to your house. Frozen, ready to go, put it in there. Not too much longer. You're rocking out. I know my family enjoyed it, knowing that that I can get that flavor from somewhere else sent to my door. I know you took down some of them wings.

Yeah, so I got the stuff from Anchor Bar that is in Buffalo, New York. They sent me some wings. They sent me some ranch, some blue cheese. They sent me some sauces and even instructions on how to exactly to prepare it the right way. And you're thinking, oh wow, how fresh could it possibly be? You know, how good could it actually taste? And then when you follow the instructions and everything that they sent you and you fired it all up, we did it,

and we could not believe how good it actually was. It was freaking delicious. Who doesn't love wings? It was easy. I'm not a good cook. Yes. I am not a good cook at all. It was very easy. All you gotta do is just follow the instructions

that they give you, and you can order, as we said, from so many iconic places from across the country. Honestly, a great deal for great food. You can use it for any kind of opportunity. It was a home run in the Thomas Household. So you want to know what does Gold Belly have for you? How about Chicago Deep Dish Pizza from Lou Malmati's? How about New York's best and most famous cheesecake from Junior's?

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That's GoldBelly.com with slash CombatWithAK as our code for free shipping and 20% off your first order. Thank you very much. All right, let's continue on down the topic list here and let's go to topic number five. This is boxing, quick little roundup here. Maybe first and foremost, the New York State Athletic Commission upon an appeal request from Lamont Roach Jr.

for his controversial majority draw against Jervonte Davis just a few weeks back, TBC on Prime Pay-Per-View and the missed knockdown call in round nine along with the replay malfunction. A lot went bad here against Lamont Roach, but the New York State Athletic Commission has declined that appeal. along with the replay malfunction. A lot went bad here against Lamont Roach, but the New York State Athletic Commission has declined that appeal. And Luke,

they did admit in their investigation that referee Steve Willis blew the knockdown call in round nine. They did acknowledge their inability to get the replay under law there. But they ultimately ruled that they would not change the outcome of the fight, claiming it couldn't predict how the next three rounds would go after that, had they, you know, gone back in time and fixed that. So while the ruling on the surface appears to be yet another raw deal for Roach, who kind of couldn't get a break from this, the New York State Athletic Commission, right call or not right call,

from the standpoint of avoiding a future precedent of people wanting to go back and change the results in fights because it's really been a 50-50 split on the reaction to it Luke outside of like hey Roach probably deserve better and boy did he Should we extend that power where they'll go back and change a result if there's as much pressure coming their way. I am. I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world that they didn't overturn it because the knockdown wasn't called. But the fact that they also didn't disqualify him when the referee was going one, two, three visits, we talked about visibly is counting visibly stops counting. The guy puts his head out, gets wiped off again. We don't know. He's claiming he got stuff out of his eye, but we actually don't even know. To what extent that's really true. That's just the story that he told us. And, you know, by the way, I'm not saying that's not ultimately true. I'm saying an unscrupulous fighter could use the exact same logic for much more nefarious purposes. And we're just going to let it go.

I don't understand these arguments about like, oh, well, if Tank had got a point deducted, he could have fought differently. Okay. Well, if Tank had fought differently, then Lamont Roach could have also fought differently, and it could have also even increased his lead, and it could have even led to a knockout. This idea that like, this was all in the hands of Tank, and that's the only deciding factor about how it all could have changed, to me is a really empty argument. It could have changed any number of downstream effects that have nothing to do with Tank, or at least at a bare minimum in addition to any kind of change tank made. The reality is this, dude, show me what the fair due process to Lamont Peterson looks

like. You had a ref, huh? Lamont Roach. I keep doing the Peterson, Lamont Roach. Show me what that looks like. You had a referee begin account stop, there's no accounting for that. You had a guy stick his head out and a corner come up and wipe something off and he takes a knee and the answer that the commission comes up with is we're going to do nothing.

I gotta say I'm torn on this though. I'm not torn. They should overturn that fucking result. That is to me on a bare minimum disqualified tank. This is the first time I think I've I felt like I'm willing because and people that asked me on recent podcasts, you know, what would you do? And I'm like,'m willing because and people that asked me on recent podcasts, you know, what would you do? And I'm like or what should happen and I'm like It should be overturned because it's obvious how wrong it was and they screwed over Roach in like three different ways

But that is a there's enough corruption in boxing where I don't know if I like the precedent because let me give you an example We all remember Mike Tyson getting knocked out by Buster Douglas in 1990 What I sometimes forget is Don King for weeks after was trying to get that appeal. They were arguing that there was a long count earlier when Douglas got knocked down by Tyson. And I remember thinking as a kid, man, this guy Buster Douglas just had this, you know, great breakthrough moment. But this evil rich promoter is going to use, you know, the legal system to potentially try to upend that and get history changed. I remember when that appeal wasn't changed, it was like, I don't know if I want that introduced, even though this is an extreme situation

where Roach got screwed. I don't want there to be an opening for for for that to become the norm. Oh, we don't like the results. So we're going to pick out one thing like there's room for human error. Even like I don't think you should go. That's why I was always against this. We play human error group replay in the NBA. I was always against replaying. This was not human error. Replay in the NBA I was always against because I feel like that's a game that if you stop for long periods, it slows the momentum in so many ways.

That's why I'm largely against instant replay in a lot of situations, but I wouldn't want instant replay after the fact. I wouldn't want to watch an NBA playoff game and then after the fact, they're like, oh, we did make a mistake. Let's switch the score. The other team wins. That would feel so... You know what I'm saying? No, I don't. You don't's switch the score. The other team wins. That would feel so. You know what I'm saying? No, I don't disagree. You don't agree with me.

No, I don't. I think people are hand wringing over absolutely nothing. How many different ways can you fuck a guy, take away his due process and then say that the result should be we do absolutely nothing about it? This is the problem. The solution is the thing that we're not actually doing. What we're doing is just prolonging the problem. People like to your point, well, it's a bit of a slippery slope. No the fuck it is not.

I think it is. I'm really torn. The lawyer for Lamont Roach didn't just list the knee as you indicated. He listed several different ways in which the commission erred. And my question to everyone is how many fucking things does the commission have to screw up and take away what they owe in terms of fairness? Like was that contest conducted fairly for Lamont Roach and the answer is Absolutely fucking not okay. You cannot let me finish

You cannot make the argument that that was fair to him and in fact what you can argue is that they broke not one several rules to arrive at a place where Tank Davis enjoys a draw. It is bullshit. It is a fraudulent result based on a series, not one, a series of failures. The solution is to address this. Okay, I've acknowledged that. I fully agree.

He got completely screwed. That's not the argument. So you're're I don't know who are you yelling at by the way? The camera. Oh is there is there like a group of people that you're targeting this after? We do a show where we talk for a living. Am I allowed to put a little bit of life into it? Put a little mustard on that I like that. I'm gonna ask you is there a middle ground where we can change this to a no contest? I'd be okay with that. That I could live with that. I could live with that. Fight fan Long Island Luke what do you think about that this specific it?

Let's apply this to MMA if it was a big UFC fight So I just want to bring it back to NBA for a second because you were saying like it would be weird to live in A world where you see the result then the next morning they change it right NBA all the time We'll tweet out and say we fucked up the call at the end of that game this team should have won We fucked up. They don't ever change see I'm there's a there's an argument. I get that. This is an extreme example of roach getting fucked I don't have to creep relitigating that but I do think that change is a precedent. I'm gonna ask a question one more time Was that fight by the rules conducted fairly for Lamont roach? No, the answer is no and so what I'm asking is why does that decision then on their record?

Why are we no satisfying it? Why are we sanctifying it as some kind of legitimate aboveboard process? It was not fair the result. It was not fair. It should be fucking overturned It's not fair, but again this happens all that like there was that picture. I think his name was Galarraga or something Yes, under under Scalaraga. Yeah, no, no This happens all that like there was that picture. I think his name was Galarraga or something. Yes under a rock That had the perfect game going on the first. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, like that guy I know a game on his record, but he doesn't he has right. That's one failure. That's one failure We're talking about a cascading series. I know contest change just it just cuz look we all want to rematch It seems they're going in that direction tank has a contra contractually obligated if he kicks it in that that he can make this so he says publicly he wants it

Let's hear from Gary Jonas of pro box who's sort of acting as promoter slash which to advise Roach his team tells me that's not true. I mean they're there. Yeah an advisor. Yes, but not a promoter technically He's not a promoter, but he's kind of a helping advisor for him Here's him and Roach talking about a rematch. Important question on everyone's mind. How close is the rematch? How big will it be? How close is it to getting done?

Very close. It's in my mind. It's a done deal, but there are formalities, but it's a done deal and it's not far off. I can't give you more than that right now. What I can tell you is that is going to be an interesting fight. I think you got dynamics. You've got Gervonta who's probably going to be an interesting fight. I think you've got dynamics.

You've got Gervonta, who's probably going to be angry, probably woken up, probably more focused than he has been, not talking about retirement. That's a factor. May? May is pretty, pretty sooner than later, right? May is, I would be totally okay with that. I just, I want to say something if I can, and it's a common denominator, because remember, it's the same commissions that are doing MMA and boxing.

It's the exact same. I mean, we might have different referees and stuff, but it's the same governing agencies. You can see in both MMA and boxing, there's this reluctance to call upon the regulatory apparatus to do more. Oh, we don't want referees and MMA to break things up. If you can't stand up on your own, you're on your own. And there's this whole movement about that. Oh, we don't want them, um, you know, to be, uh, writing any wrongs as part of the

commission, because, you know, uh, this encroachment by the officiating, uh, staff and by the, the, the office itself, this the office itself, this will pollute the game. And I'm like, you're just tolerating bullshit that happens all the fucking time, either how the sport looks or how judgments are rendered because you have this abnormal and frankly irrational fear about asking the people who are charged with doing this correctly to dot dot dot do it correctly. You cannot screw over guys in main events like this. By the way Lamont Roach may never even get a rematch.

They're talking about my ABC but you know how this goes. Something can happen he may never even get the rematch. This was a huge. Well if Tank says yes there's a contract they have to have it. There's all kinds of ways that could fall apart. I mean, if Tank says no, then it falls apart. It falls apart. What I'm saying is these opportunities for guys like Lamont, they very rarely come around.

They fucked him more than one way. And then the answer is we want to do nothing. And people like, oh, they didn't interfere with the way it naturally went. Well, the way it naturally went was fucking stupid. It changed the precedent. So make it a no contest and they better grow and learn from it. But will they? I don't know. Will there be a Muhammad Ali act in a few years?

I don't know. But our next topic within this is we got a little bit more knowledge of what this TKO boxing takeover could eventually look like with Dana White saying in recent interviews, it's actually not until another 18 months from now that they want to launch sort of the Young Fighter League that they want to do. Other Dana developments are that they want to have a small amount of weight classes, maybe marrying the original eight that had been part of boxing for so long and not have 17 like boxing currently has, which I'm not against by any means. But the idea that they would work with other people, well we also got that answer at the

UFC 313 post-fight press conference. When you talk about the business of boxing, one of the biggest issues in it is that the guys who are in boxing can't get on and they never do deals and it took Turkey to come along with money to basically make them work together, right? So with that respect, when you've come on to do this for Turkey, do you almost have to cut out these other guys? Because they're just gonna make your job harder, right? If you're having to negotiate with every promoter in the Sun. Do you have to come out and eventually just get rid of these guys, lock them in Alcatraz like Turkey said, and just do it yourself?

Yeah. I don't know. I'm more focused on... If you think about the UFC when we bought the company, we had three letters, the old octagon, and 12 contracts. We had to build the thing from the ground up. I think that the sport of boxing is so broken, it needs to be built from the ground up again. And that's what I'm gonna focus on doing. He's got some commitments over the next 18 months with a lot of guys and a lot of fights

and a lot of different promoters. But I talk a lot about USA's Tuesday night fights. You know, they put on like the best, the best up and coming fighters all fought. He would go on to talk about that model that he wants to do. But that's a big reveal there. no plans to work with other promoters So this really is going to be a league whether they want to call it or not Yeah, they're gonna have their own titles, which is a violation currently of the Muhammad Ali reform act We'll see if they can go around that or get it changed Dana does not seem to be worried about that How does this change quickly your your vision of what TKO might mean?

I hope everyone understands this UFC titles are not real. You know that right? Right? Like you have UFC staff under oath not just Mark Ratner, but Lawrence Epstein and others You have a Lorenzo Frutita admitting It's just a trophy they hand out to the best fighter that night But it actually isn't a real title in the way that we typically understand titles. It's just a thing that they made up So there's that as well. I mean guys, I keep trying to explain everyone like what's going to happen here. And then on top of it, not only are they not going to like work with other promoters and everything else.

They want to do reduce the number of weight classes, which by the way could be kind of interesting. I suppose we'll see but you know, I mean, we've kind of been over this BC, but I don't know. They're coming in with day one ideas that they're going to be UFC in boxing same model same power when the reality is they're the equivalent of Bellator or PFL trying to come into MMA against the behemoth UFC now in boxing right now There's not one behemoth. It's spread out. Yeah, and I'm not saying that they're not gonna have some Incredibly large advantage with turkeys money now going right at them rather than spreading it to other promoters But to come out without a roster

How are they gonna? You know me you can you can probably overpay and get a few big names But how are you going to be the premier operation when that's how you're presenting yourself from day one? 18 months before they even launch they're gonna build up a bunch of guys sign them to deals like the ultimate fighter where they're super fucking Long they keep them under lock and key for titles won't matter if they have you know Super fucking long they keep them under lock and key forever. Their titles won't matter if they have you know Journeymen or second-rate prospect and they don't have the other names around then then them having eight divisions in one title per division It's not the best versus the best I mean show the tweet that I want to just put out there because I feel like this is I feel like boxing starting To aggressively turn against this idea

I am I am I think betting against the UFC slash TKO is a unwise proposition. I get that. But like I said the other day, it's like Turkey in the beginning. The message was we're bringing everything together. Now that TKO has arrived, it's we're separating now and it's you're either whether you're against us. But unless they're not telling us something like they're going to be able to get all these boxers out of their current contracts. They seem a little bit too confident for the the the meandering battle that it's going to be to get to that point where they own the market like that. I think you're I guess we'll have to see.

I don't I don't know. I don't know how to respond to that. I just don't see. I don't know if you're if you're a boxer and you know their history of how they pay an MMA and how they structure it and they want to reveal they want want to take, get rid of the Muhammad Ali Act which will take... You think boxers give a shit? Which will remove the transparency so you can't actually see how much money was made in it. That's probably the most important thing it does.

I don't take these guys to having great financial literacy or even a sense of self-preservation all that well. Sorry. We'll see what happens. They're very interesting. Those are our five topics. Now we transition to hearing from you and answering questions directly given to us at Morning Combat on Sunday night on Instagram and Twitter. These are DMs from Donks. All right. Let's hear what the people have to say today.

That was a gross sound by the way that donkey made unnecessary completely. Let's put it up on the screen if you don't mind from Christina Pinto BJJ Is that dr. Pinto you keep saying I believe so the commentators made a point to say Gates his gloves did not have the UFC logo because it came off while warming up Others are speculating that Justin took it off himself as retaliation for them blur I see Trevor Whitman's gear on embedded so when they're in Trevor Whitman's gym He has that what onyx it was his own glove logo and someone asked me about this yesterday I didn't know what it was about okay that makes more sense um I Wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it interesting. I mean you know we're speculating. I have no fucking idea, but

would that would that strike you as I have no fucking idea, but would that would that strike you as Implausible does not strike me as implausible I mean it was kind of crazy how quickly they went to a new glove and then pulled it back like this whole thing has Been kind of whiplash like I want the best decision to have been made in the end It makes a little bit of sense, but because I remember when the UFC was like okay We're gonna move all pay-per-views back to 9 p.m. And then they did it once and they were like nope fuck that we're right back to 10 They sometimes dip their toe in something and then they're

like and then they go right back yeah well we'll say they put more than their toe they're putting the whole bag in yeah honestly we're gonna team game that's that's the key part of this it's not their money that's right so if things are that's right that's right it's it's weird that does change some parts of absolutely changes a lot Let's go to our next question from a DM donker This is from legendary third. Oh, you got a big old dick. Are we in the most boring era of the UFC? You should have been with us earlier when we talk about this

He says we have Bilal DDP Pena and now uncle I have his DDP getting thrown there like he's some boring fight He's one of the best things they got going right now and none of them are superstars I miss TRTV tour who doesn't? Uber Eam and three blue chews John Jones. I think you can add what is a blue chew? That's the gas station dick pill. Is that what that is? Yeah, it's like the Viagra that you can chew. Throw it up one more time. It's the same topic we hit earlier. Okay, V tour was obviously not American and neither was Uber Eam, but he spoke English He was kind of here and then John Jones is obviously American. Again, part of it is the Americans are just simply not as competitive as they once were. That's a part of it. I think he referenced three

particularly juiced up superheroes. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other part is they look I mean, Uber Eam. He knows he didn't say over Eam. He says Uber Eam. Oh, yeah. He just looked apart like these guys, these heavyweights now. They don't look much better than me. The way Uberbream was ripped for the Brock fight, holy crap. Holy, no, no. The best one was, do you guys remember when Overeem left StrikeForce and was the dream champion?

Oh, he got geared up, yeah. And when he was doing K-1 at the same time, Michael Cievello made a joke that you could screen a movie on his back. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, you could. He looked like 2004 Barry Bonds, basically. No question. Let's go to the next one from these people.

Oh, we didn't answer his question because we already did for an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At Flannels and Jits. We love this guy's probably a creeper wearing the same pajama pants all day, every day. Do you think that the UFC is really going to commit as much resources into grappling as they say? And how will the how will that impact the current landscape? So they're talking about they said over the the weekend they're putting, by the way, did you see Craig Jones kiss the other guy? Oh, you'll see it in a minute.

Okay, okay. So they said they were going to put 10 to 12 million into professional grappling, which is a significant amount. By the way, that Fight Pass Invitational card they had last week was great. I didn't get a lot of buzz, but it was pretty great. It had some interesting results on it. This is what I'm trying to explain to people. Dude, they're trying to monopolize all of combat sports. And I hope everyone understands, by the way, we never talk about this. I'm trying to explain to people dude. They're trying to monopolize all of combat sports And I hope everyone understands by the way we never talk about this. I'm gonna say real quickly MMA has become monoculture where everybody likes the same things. They dress the same they listen to the same podcast They have the same worldviews about everything. It's just my day broken by night. It's just it's just monoculture up and down

They'll take that and make grappling monoculture and they'll take boxing and make it monoculture. That doesn't actually make it better. I hope everyone understands that. That's what I'm saying. All you casual boxing fans, this pitch that Dana's giving you, it's... They want to make it... The grass is not greener. They want to make it monoculture top to bottom. That's soulless. That's lifeless. Next question. This is from at MTBuble we love that name which past combat sports events do you wish MK was around for so pre 2019 right yeah Connors ride would have been something and rousy and how about Lewis Schmeling to peak World War

two we would we would turn it on fuck about that debate in Mussolini I will say MK would have been perfect for like fan man and go Lada and all that shit You know, oh, yes, that would have been that would have been a perfect Beginning of the McGregor rocket. I mean, I'd say 90s heavyweight boxing madness. Yes or rousy and Connor 2014 2016 heavyweight run at the top Lesnar's. Oh It was like pro wrestling come to life. It was wild and crazy. Do we have any more from these damn people? Yes at Queso fresco one two three favorite breakfast lunch and dinner meals

I'm a breakfast burrito guy. I love breakfast burritos. Yeah, I'm probably a saw the sausage biscuits and gravy meal that you can get, you know, with scrambled eggs. Like, that'll do it. That's your thing? Okay, lunch. Chicken and waffles at like a really great place like in downtown Atlanta or somewhere like that. Yeah, okay. That's pretty much amazing.

Just mentioning black places now? I'm not allowed to enjoy the breakfast in Atlanta. I'm teasing. Just teasing. Then you were talking about lunch. Do you like an old school grilled cheese and tomato soup? Do you like me or no? I'm not like that at all. No, okay

But you know what I like I like noodles for lunch like you know like a pad thai or something though and for dinner I like steak. I like a big steak. Yeah, I like a nice meatloaf or a lasagna You know I'm a comfort type guy. I take comfort and things you know and then for long Lucas Is whatever he can inhale through the bong you know yes? It's all day now bacon egg and cheese in the morning. I'm maybe turkey sandwich for lunch and dinner. I'm going taco, bro I'm telling you. I love a chopped cheese. Holy fuck New York City chopped cheese is like amazing all right I think that's all the questions we have from the people But don't forget you can reach our show at morning combat at gmail.com

Send in your videos for our debate earlier about UFC star power. I would love to make that a Friday topic that we revisit and like we react to be. And especially if you disagree, especially if you disagree, we would love to hear from you. Okay. And also send your fans subs, your dead wrongs. And if you send them, we'll play them. That's how this deal works.

Unless you, of course you put a picture of your genitalia on there. Mikey does not deserve that. Our final segment is where I scoured the globe on Sundays to try to find these videos that are wild, right? Here's BC's Feces. All right, Luke, here we go. I'm trying to get to at least A level. I need an A grade today. All right, let's see what you got. UFC 313 in Las Vegas, friend of the show. Craig Jones was cage side. I can't show the video, Luke, because they'd pull us down, but he went right after that gentleman next to him. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. If you're ironically gay, what's the difference between that and actually being gay? Like,

here's what I'm saying. You can be like, oh, I'm ironically fucking dudes. And it's like, yeah, but you're still just fucking dudes, you know Yeah, what are you doing? I'm just gonna say there's no difference between being ironically gay and gay You're just it's just same thing. Are you the new co-host and Bryce Mitchell's podcaster? What what's going on here? I'm just joking about like how far he takes the best, you know One of the worst entertainers alive was also at UFC 313 Oh my fucking God. And I saw this. Oh, Mikey loves this guy.

And I saw Burr Chrysler. I do by the way, I mean Long Island. The guy's the worst, right? It's funny. I saw him sit in front row and someone said do you think he's going to take his shirt off? Yeah, he's got one bit. It's taking his shirt off.

He's the most disgusting man alive. Where's the drive-by shooter when you need one? Okay. I'm just saying I'm just thinking out loud. He's the most disgusting man alive. Where's a drive by shooter when you need one? Okay. I'm just saying, I'm just thinking out loud. He is, dude, if there was ever a question, can you be rich and famous without having a shred of talent? Burt Chrysler answers that question in the affirmative. Wow. Also, we wanted to celebrate and congratulate Robbie Lawler getting into the class of 2025 of the UFC modern wing hall of fame. Here's the greatest moment in Robbie Lawler's entire career.

Did you want the rumor Conor McGregor fight to happen? I wasn't too worried about it. Obviously that was a big fight. He was a, he's a big draw, but wouldn't have been good for him. How so? Wouldn't have been good for him. How so? Um, because if I hurt him, I wasn't taking his neck.

What were you gonna take? His soul. That was a bit- God, that's so badass. I mean, that's like the greatest thing ever. That was the setup for his fight with Tyron Woodley where Woodley iced him in the first round. But nevertheless, it's an all-time. He was coming off of those three fights I mentioned in succession. He was the baddest ass he ever was.

And the fact that if you've interviewed him and kind of know him a little, he doesn't care about any of this shit. This is a true story. So I went to work for you. We talked about this. I worked for a promotion in the Mid-Atlantic in the Aughts called UWC Ultimate Warrior Challenge. That's where Andrew Tate made his MMA debut, by the way,

and had like five amateur not with the promotion that I was with I mean they sold their name off to other entities that used it, but trust me no I just want to say that we're all sitting here going yeah, Robbie's so badass Ken who doesn't watch MMA goes man That was cringe as hell. Okay. Okay. Have you seen Ken? I mean Let's pump the brakes on the Robbie Lawler slander. But I think Ken needs to become a playable character in this universe, I think. I don't think he's ready for it. But I was just going to say they hired Matt Hughes and Robbie Lawler

to be like the guest fighters. Yes. And they came to the weigh ins because that was part of the process. Robbie Lawler fell asleep at the weigh ins there that he was hired to be. He didn't give a shit. So for him to deliver that line just naturally, you, like that's a cold motherfucker right there Wow all right Hey, Logan Paul was in a charity soccer match and got sent to hell by the announcer Logan is a WWE wrestler and a Trump supporter which could be the first sign of CTE Got him there Wow, new segment idea.

Oh, that's awesome. It's called Would You Eat? I just need a yes or a no. Let's go to the first one. This is a restaurant in the UK that specializes in... What? Back beans? ...burgers that you dip in.

They're called Doritos Dip Burgers. So far so good. First you dip them in the cheese from... And then you dip them in the crushed Doritos. Okay. I'm... Would You Eat? Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Dip burgers so far so good first you dip them in the cheese from and then you dip them in the crushed Doritos Okay, I'm would you eat Luke? Let me see this looks brilliant. This looks genius. Oh I would eat yeah, I would Lee style, right? Just okay, just getting after let's go to the next one Luke would you eat? You know, I mean, just OK, just getting after. Let's go to the next one. Luke, would you eat? Kit Katup, it's Heinz flavored Kit Kat. I'd rather be fucked to death with an eight dick. OK, next one, please.

I think you can maybe find this in your Wal-Mart grocery freezer. Mike's Hard Dogs, would you do spiked frankfruits? That can't be real. I don't think it is, but would you would you? Yes. OK. All right. We, by the way, have have you? Yes. Okay. Hahaha. Alright. We, by the way, have, have, you always like, Nocita, what'd you do over the weekend? We, they caught him.

Ignore his girlfriend. They caught him at the Islanders game. Watch this. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho at that! Yeah, buddy! Look at this guy! Join me for the main card minute when this game is over! I'm impressed he just snuck the bong into the stadium. Also, it was in Iledelf. That's a name brand bong. This guy's bringing expensive glass to us.

Wow, I didn't know we had the fucking... I didn't know we had the master Shifu of bongs over here. Hey, letu of bonds the bombs over here Hey, let's go to the riverside here Luke remember in cry to kid part two in Okinawa when they did the water funeral Yeah, yeah, it was a real touching moment. I've ever been to a water funeral. I can't say that I have One of these dumb whores fall in There you go. Right there.

OK, you got to you got to be careful with these rotted out decks. You know, my favorite segment, sub segment on here is MMA fighters in the wild. Here's John Jones at a set. A yeah, there's John Jones right there with grandma just getting after it. Right. All right. I've had enough. That's a lot of ass play right there. Hey, you know who might have a big rematch coming up? Sugar Sean and Marab who were caught together

in the same hot tub at the P.I. Like, are you like old school enough where you don't want to see two guys that are about to fight have friendly moments? I'm kind of like, keep it, K-Fabe. You know, so there's been a big debate like in the NBA. It's like, oh, LeBron's era, all these guys were friends. Yeah, they were bought for wine afterwards.

And obviously not on the same team, like LeBron's friends with guys play all over the league whereas in Jordan's day It was like yo fuck yo mama exactly. I gotta tell you I'm a little bit more of the fuck yo mama Also, I want to have sex with your mom's okay They also took a group photo with like ten of them in the hot tub, and it's very similar to the umar Yeah, wait did they do it like with that in mind? I'm thinking because Murad brought that up in the press conference. He had to know. Luke, I don't need to tell you that the UFC weigh-in show is often off the rails.

I love it. One of the best things that they do. You love this. Excited for Pereira? I was so excited. You want to see how excited I am for Pereira? Don't do it. I was so excited for Pereira to fight. Do not do that. Look, is he about to get naked?

I have to wear nipple covers. What the to get naked. I have to wear take it down What the hell I mean, that's that's basically mk material right there I feel like soldier boy in that clip. They stole our flow bars for bars That's wild though. That's what we should be doing. But with... We need a fun house. Dick covers, yeah.

Yeah, because I think if we did that here, they would ask us to leave. Yeah, probably, probably. And fairness, they'd be in their right to do that. Also a bonus boxer in the wild, here's the comedic stylings of Rolly Romero. Tweeted last week that you never lied about anything, anything But really you must have told some little white lies. Tell us a lie you have told Just a tip hey bro, you know what? Wasn't he investigated for yeah, but he was he was found to be the was he the lady pulled the chart pulled the charges Okay. All right. Well, that's also disturbing. I don't know what to say about this video

So Dougie Fisher editor of the ring and turkey ala sheik owner of the ring We're having a debate about whether the TKO boxing league could Change your save boxing they had this debate over Twitter, and then they put out this weird video It's nothing personal. I know. Hahahaha. Yo, I'm out on this. I'm out. I'm out on this

experience. Did they throw him out of the window after this? I don't know if he lived but I'm kind of just, I'm kind of just done with, I'm, like we had a great run of really fun fights, I'm kind of done now. That was a little much for me that had Isis hostage vibe bits feelings to it anyway. Yeah, hey new sport alert They call it hot air boxing look you into it execute everyone involved feed them to alligators Would you watch powerslap if it was on top of a balloon and you knew everyone would die only if they pop the balloon

And then everyone had to plummet to their death every time yes, that's something right there all right Hey check out this painting and watch closer as it gets in there Burton Ernie yeah Look at the calendar. What's wrong with the calendar Tuesday September 11th? Who would paint that that's just ridiculous Dude, I did wow I can't believe there's an idea having lived through that day I cannot believe there is an entire industry of humor devoted so sickening Luke I also want to say that do you like when people stand on their business in public and

Preach it and announce it. What they're all about depends. I fucking ashamed to say it. I eat ass a lot and I like it. It's healthy and fun. Fuck you, dude. When did you get this video of me? I didn't authorize you to use this. Speaking of ass, it is time to get flatulent here. Luke, would you call this a dream toilet? Yes or no?

Oh, I'm tempted to say yes. But I think it's a little gross. If we're going to get nitpicky, though, your neck's going to hurt so long after watching TV. Yeah, the TV. That's right. That's right. The TV should be in a different position. Is there room for the for the crap to go? If you got a cooler under there?

I don't know about this. Maybe there's a sliding thing. Yeah, yeah, I don't, this would not be my ideal sense of indoor plumbing, I'll put it that way. Luke, do you like flavored chips or just plain chips? I don't mind a little flavor. How about this flavor? Pfft.

Pfft. Here's your chips, your fetties. Thank you. They must have actually been. Pfft. Pfft. Okay. Alright, hey, let's go to the elevator. sexless. South America. We got one more fart related video for you. I can see you're not into this. Luke, one day. I just think all these people should be executed. Well, you know, people that end up living in a van down by the river

Do you think sometimes they don't realize that they're practicing for a future like that in? fact toys were different when we were like real little I Like the beer bottles floating in the in the lake. That's nice. Okay, all right Let's keep it. Let's keep the fun going next video, please your uncle died during 9-eleven my fault I mean my my apologies. He gets five big booms. Oh. Jesus. What the fuck was that?

I don't know. I don't know. Let's go to the grocery store, though. Oh, big old fatty's about to. Oh, there it is. Arrest that piece of shit. Look, know we love when dirty dancing goes wrong and people don't have the time of their life. I'm sure she's never felt this way before. Oh he's about to just dump her. Yes I swear.

Here we go, have a nice day! Ohhhhh! He held on! That's like pulling the tablecloth out right. Wow. I give that a 9.9. Wow. That actually was that exceeded my expectations. Now, Luke, I watched the Netflix documentary on Jerry Springer was very interesting, but there was way more wild TV beyond that. Check out this old Maury episode. Beyond that, check out this old Maury episode. I had the worst stomach ache of my life. I figured it was just the corn dogs I had for lunch. But when I went to the bathroom to relieve myself, a hand came out of my vagina.

And Luke, we have footage of that, courtesy of WWE. Let's go there, please. That's of course Mae Young. You remember this great moment in pro wrestling history. This could be our last show ever. Once again, I'm going to say that, uh, where is a drive-by shooter when you need one? Eventually they pull out a giant gross hand. Next video. Okay, let's keep it moving here. I'm going to say that where's a drive-by shooter when you need one? Eventually they pull out a giant gross hand next video. Okay, let's keep it moving here. Thank you so much That is that is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. That was pretty pretty bad Well, we got two more for you the kids they say the darndest things right Luke

Macy with my buddy say Ashton Milton. What the heck? He's about Ashton Milton. Titties! Yeah, he's about that life and finally Luke Shout out to those Juggalos. Here's our guy. He's back Happy 4th of July motherfuckers. This is SuperHeroTV today. I'm gonna get hit with fireworks This is for Juggalos and Juggalettes. Do not try this at home and I hope you like it. Whoop whoop!

Remember this guy? Like that bitch up! Fuck this shit! Ah! Fucker! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah That's the shit of the week. I hope you saw it. All right. That's great. He does that all the time?

Oh yeah. He jumps off of ladders onto like spikes or barbed wire or whatever and then screams and dies in pain and then, you know, finds another thing to do. I'm honestly like traumatized watching that. What was worse this or the time the guy had the Joseph a bank crap and then the thing came out of his stomach and Remember that from two weeks ago. Why when did this segment turn into traumatizing me? I'm trying to here's this 90 year old woman giving birth to a hand watch this bitch All right, that's the show for this week. Thank you, Long Island Luke for doing your part and

Maybe we'll check you out. Are you gonna be back on that podcast of yours this week the main? I'll have bet break down out today tomorrow, and I'll do a watch log on Saturday All right reach out to the show as we mentioned morning combat at gmail.com Friday. We'll be back 11 a.m. From home Luke That's right. That's right. What do we have this weekend? We get Keith Thurman on Wednesday by the way in Australia. That's this Wednesday. Yeah, okay, all right What time is that by the way? I have no idea. Are you calling that? Okay, I don't think PBC's right maybe on the social maybe on YouTube that running it I don't think okay, and then Saturday we have UFC fights. I don't think there's anything else in the middle of the week

Oh, that's Vittori do leads a to right is that what you would believe the worst card of the year, but yeah I mean how often do we say? We say it pretty often, but this one this one's Before you go hold on because I want to see who's on it, but then we'll kill the show here hold on So okay next week is you're right Vitoria deletes a to so main event Vitoria deletes a Comane Chidi Andrew Kalani versus Eliza's Alessio dos Santos that should be fun the lead's a co main Chidi and Guglani versus Eliza's, let's get to Santos.

That should be fun. Uh, and then choice song. Woo. Taking on Kevin Vallejos, who has no Wikipedia entry. Alexander Hernandez is back against Kurt Holobots. Okay. The bond Blackshear taking on Cody Gibson. That's okay.

I like Cody Gibson. Yeah. You Sue young taking on AJ Cunningham. Couldn't pick them out of a lineup. Then you go to the prelims. Waldo Cortez, Acosta taking on Ryan Spann. Stephanie Luciano taking on Sam Hughes. Diyar Nurgose taking on Branson Hiberro. Carlos Vera taking on Josiah Musasa. Daniel Berez taking on Andre Lima. Josiane Nunez taking on Priscilla Quechewra and then you nacy do Ben taking on Carly Judas

Okay, that's a real fucking terrible card. They could have put and Cortez Acosta on the main. I'm not like that is That is not a good card Problem and a depth problem. I mean what is going on right now like does anyone feel like they're ruining one of the greatest things In your life, they're just slowly ruining it I guess well again put it up one more time morning combat at gmail.com I think for Friday's show because we you know will preview the big fights and because they've been the main event is noteworthy I Would love to debate this central question, but with the perspective of fans who don't necessarily feel this way yes I think it'd be actually kind of fun to hear from them. I really, really do.

I think this is a fun opportunity for you guys. Oh, Brian and Luke, they don't like it when you say that stuff. Okay, now's your chance to tell us why we're missing something. Yeah. So let's do it. By the way, these Bevol Benavides rumors are making me feel different things. Yeah.

Well, I mean, this diarrhea's making me feel different things. Hey, that's the show for this week. Take care of yourselves. We'll see you Friday. Follow us on these channels right here below. And you know, we do this because we love you. All right. Thank you. And because they pay pretty well. So we'll see you next time. Yeah.