MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 318: Holloway Beats Poirier, Pacquiao Robbed? Usyk KO | Ft. Brett Okamoto & Rafe Bartholomew

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Brian Campbell is joined by guest hosts Brett Okamoto and Rafe Bartholomew to discuss the latest news in combat sports. First, BC and Brett go over Dustin Poirier's retirement fight against Max Holloway. It wasn't the result Poirier wanted, but what did Saturday's main event say about the true legacy and impact that Poirier has had on this sport? Also, Dana White shot down any chance of Jon Jones headlining the UFC White House card. Plus, BC and Rafe go over the latest in boxing news, including Manny Pacquiao's majority draw against Mario Barrios in a comeback fight for the welterweight title. And Oleksandr Usyk scored a brutal KO of Daniel Dubois in a rematch to regain the undisputed heavyweight title. Welcome back to a Morning Kombat Monday. There's no better way to start your week, donks!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. uh... uh... all all yeah lou thomas is away on vacay the we saw this weekend. I'm Brian Campbell. Welcome on into the best damn combat sports show that they've got going today. Period. Yeah, you heard that right. Okay. Still here, right? Still fighting for survival and still gonna absolutely bring it. Let's go. Follow the show. Like the show. Subscribe to the show right there. You see the handles of our team. While Luke Thomas is away, we have two absolutely elite guests filling in today. Top of the hour will bring on the New York Times bestselling author and my boxing podcast partner on Inside the Box, the great Rafe Bartholomew. We'll recap everything from Pacquiao to Usyk,

Bam Rodriguez and everything else that went on in the squared circle over the weekend. But how about this guest to kick things off right frickin' now for the first time in the six years of Morning Combat as we're just two weeks off of the show's birthday. My former colleague at ESPN.com and one of the finest analysts and writers today and yes we always have to say it, the man who Joanna Young-Jakchuk once said was the best looking media member in the world today, Brett Okamoto of ESPN, dude, we finally got this together. What happened?

Great to see you live from Las Vegas, bro. There are two ways to look at when you say, this is the first time I've been on in the six year history of the show. There's a way of saying, you know, oh my God, this is a big deal. I'm very excited or like, wow, they didn't invite this guy on for six years. So this month they must've gotten a lot of nose. People must've been very busy for bread. Okay. Well, it'll be joining the show.

Like I said, off show, I just always assume you're better than us prep, but you know, maybe it's not you. Maybe it's us at the end of the day. Either way, live from your bomb shelter, it seems there in Las Vegas, thank you for waking up very early. You just got back, I believe, from UFC 318 in New Orleans over the weekend. So top of the morning to you. And you know, we're fired up to have you,

no question about it. Damn, what a weekend. I mean, you're here to talk some MMA, but did you check out Pacquiao? Did you check out who's sick? This is one of the better combat a couple of days we've ever had. I didn't cause obviously I was a, they're going on simultaneously. Teddy Atlas was actually up at our desk and he was sitting there and it did cross my mind. It was, it was cool to see how much Teddy Atlas still loves boxing. He was locked into the prelims. And then obviously

when Dustin walked out, that was what he was there for, to talk on our show about Dustin. So then he watched Dustin. But like I don't know if I'm fortunate enough to like make it to Teddy Atlas' place in life and you know with the age and the money and where he's at. I don't know if I'll be watching UFC prelims still by then. Like I just don't know if I love it that much, but like Teddy Atlas still loving the sport of boxing that much. Like I'm telling you like prelim prelim Brian, if I stepped in that man's way to go get like a water or something, I mean, he's going like this.

So that was incredible to see. So I didn't really get to see the boxing, but I got to see some of the results and it did look like it was a good card. Theo Von Stile being there from fight number one on the evening. Quick reminder of the fans, you may have already known it,

but today's episode of Morning Combat is brought to you by, how about Cuervo? Yes, now's a good time to remember where Tequila's story truly began. In 1795, Cuervo invented Tequila, and since then, Cuervo has stayed true to its roots. We're talking same family, same land. How about that same passion?

Because 230 years later, Cuervo's still here, and every pour, and everyo is still here in every pour, in every margarita, in every celebration. So enjoy the tequila that started it all. Yeah, that's Cuervo. The tequila that invented tequila, Proximo, Cuervo.com. Please drink responsibly and thank you of course to Cuervo for sponsoring our UFC 318 pregame preview last week with Jed Meshew number two. What a rip, roar and affair. How about that devil's reserve? That's some of the good stuff out there. That's a dangerous tool that you can put down brought to you by Cuervo. Before we get into

Brett's reaction to all things UFC 318, John Jones on the White House lawn and PFL South Africa. Let's welcome in the third member of today's show. He's a producer, director, bong enthusiast, and he's here on a one-way ticket from a horned Australian man's ball bag. It's Long Island Luke Nocita of the Main Card Minute. And I'm sure you were jamming over the weekend on that Main Card Minute channel. Welcome on in, Luke. Hey, you guys. Good to be here, dude. We were hyped over the weekend. We had Costello van

Steenis by sub at plus 1200 on the bet generator. So huge hit on that. Also had Palo Costa on the three 18. That was a fat dog. So a good weekend overall bet. All right. Long I look, you've been on the show a long time getting bread. El Camota today. This is a big, big deal for him. He's big. We, I feel very corporate today. I feel like we're, we've made it to the big time. We got Brett. So good to have you here, Brett. Thanks for Brett. Couple of factoids between you and I before we start. You and I go way back. In fact, you and I, 2016, we were the editor-writer relationship there

on the ESPN.com and MMA page, ready to take over the world together. And is it still true that you once sold a house to Francis Ngannou in Las Vegas? That is, well, actually that is not true. That is not true. I sold my house to a very nice family from California who then moved into it. Apparently did not, well because obviously I took all of my things when

I left but I guess I left some fight posters hanging in my garage and apparently this family never took them down and they only lived there for like four months because something happened. They had to go back to California. And when they were showing the house to different people, some guy walks in the garage and he was like, you like fights. And they're like, no, the guy who lived here before was a big fight guy.

And he was, he had all these posters up and Francis is like, I fought on that card that that poster is. I don't remember where the poster was, but. So then Francis came and told me and yeah, he's still as far as as I know owns the house. He did live in it up until a couple years ago Maybe he still does I don't know but I have to tell you I interviewed him Before his rematch with Curtis blades in which he did the interview in a car outside of his house

And I asked him I'm like hey, man. I heard you bought a house from bro. Okamoto. He's like What would you hear and I was you bought a house from Brero Kamoto. He's like, what, what'd you hear? And I was, you know, trying to be me. So I'm like, Hey man, did he leave anything behind? What'd you find? The nudie mags in the dresser. And his response was so awkward. Like I had violated his personal freedoms that we edited that out of the interview. He does.

He did. He actually didn't like anyone talking about it. So like, and then of course here you are still talking about it. It's like, uh, all of years, 12 years later, but, uh, yeah, he was like, like right when the apex got built, like he would still hand me mail sometimes. That's, that's a wild relationship. You and I have had a fun up and down. In fact, Long Island Luke put together a slideshow here.

As we go back down memory lane, let's look back at the great times we've had. Hey, UFC one 99, Brett, you and I, right? Is that us? Look at that. It is us. And then there's you in Atlanta shaking that awkward statue's hand at UFC 199. Oh, Braves game. Look at this. This is great. Memory lane. And then us with Arash, of course, at UFC 205. Dude. Yeah. What a time. What a time. And you're still there at the worldwidewide Leader how many years right now? 15 15 ESPN 15 dude no editor no editor ever as good as BC Thank you for that. Thank you. Appreciate that. You know, and also, uh, you know, I may I may be doing okay these days But you and I were we put together a podcast called five rounds, you know on ESPN comm MMA that you know

Really had a bright future until it was don still get asked about five rounds on a daily basis I know thank you very much all right let's enough of this uh enough of this schlobbing on the bone here let's get into the big topics and you know about topic number one already UFC 318 in the Crescent City over the weekend the goodbye to the one Dustin Poirier dropping a unanimous decision to Max Holloway in their trilogy Also max defending the BMF title So from that tear-inducing retirement video package played for Poirier to really just the perfect exit Anyone could ever ask for headlining a pay-per-view in your home state Chosen friendly respected opponent in max Holloway.

And of course the BMF title on the line. It really was a chef's kiss for the great Porier except for that result. Of course, but Brett, what do you believe since you were there in New Orleans on Saturday? What did that main event and that performance from Porier and the love that he received from the company, the sport, and the crowd there. What did that say about the impact, in your opinion, that Poirier has had in this sport

through 32 walks to the UFC octagon? Yeah, man. I mean, you do have to give the UFC credit for mailing the presentation of this and all the circumstances of it because it provided the right opportunity for people to really express how much he meant to them. Now, having said that, I think you could do all of that build up for someone other than Dustin and it wouldn't even come close to it because I feel like Dustin's is emotional.

There's a lot of other guys where they would receive a lot of accolades, they would receive a lot of praise, we'd be going through their careers, they'd be watching videos of themselves and of course it would be emotional, but it would not be to the same level of just this fan sort of Connectedness that Dustin has and I think that's just because I mean, it's pretty effortless It's all it's also through of course his charitable works, but it's just because he's so just Normal guy, you know Dustin Poirier is is a is it is a normal guy who I said after the, you know, of course we were talking about it afterwards on the show, on the post show. And I was like, if MMA had never gotten popular and there was no money in it and they were still taking place in

barns and, you know, bars in Iowa and Indiana and wherever, smokers in California, like he'd still be doing it. You know, I mean, he just had fight in him that had to come out and everybody got to see that over the course of a 15 year career so I Think I don't know how these guys do it where they nail the walkouts You know where the music is just so synced to like when they emerge from the tunnel like it's not likely really practice this thing Be in there in person, the crowd was really loud. I mean, it was kind of quiet and subdued when he was like making his walk out. And then when the beat hit and a little Wayne was behind him and then he comes

out and again, give the UFC credit for the production value of it. The cameras behind him, the lights are shining. Like it was perfect, man. It really was. The crowd was so good. Um, that once all that happened, it really didn't matter what happened in the fight, man. It really was, the crowd was so good. That once all that happened, it really didn't matter what happened in the fight, frankly. However, it would have sucked if he would have been finished in the first round or second round and not even really gotten going. But once he then hurt Max and then jumped on that guillotine,

like if he would have got that guillotine, Brian, like maybe we should, like let's just pack it up and everybody go home, dude. That's peak MMA. You're never gonna see anything the tops it if he hits that guillotine in the second round so he didn't win but who cares like it was perfect it was it was great I fully agree and I always felt like Robbie Lawler got the best send-off with that video package the fact that he delivered

the first round KO it was on the prelim featured prelim before pay-per-view. But this is a pay-per-view main event in a ceremonial title fight against the perfect opponent. And I want to ask you about that idea of the perfect opponent. I don't think maybe since WrestleMania 6 in Toronto in 1990 have we had two baby faces facing off, like Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior there, like we had here. There was so much damn

Bushido around the octagon around the arena did Max get cheered as well or did he get that? Visiting city boo from the crowd he got like that that boo, but we don't want to boo you you know it was kind of like you know like but it was not like You know when there's a villain type boo it was nothing like but it was not like you know when there's a villain type boo it was nothing like that it was they just weren't gonna give the guy any love you know and I mean every single shirt was Dustin Poirier's it should be I think every single person of the crowd felt like wearing Dustin Poirier's shirt and the

prelims were good the crowd showed up early so, he got he got the appropriate meeting and then like Max is just I mean he even met I think as we transition off of Dustin retiring and we start to move forward Max is gonna get a ton of love and he already is he's already getting a ton of love but it's really gonna start to sink in like the performance that he had him pointing down at the end and still be in game for that kind of stuff and I mean still like you can point down and kind of fake it like or you can point down and literally like put your face out and your hands down which is what Max does like if he's gonna point down he's gonna go all in like he ain't gonna half

point down you know so I think and then obviously like he says what he says so fast on the mic that you can barely hear him. And then he gives the floor to Dustin. He's going to get so much love for the entire way he handled that. And it was a good performance by him. It was, like I said, so much Bushido for all the BS in MMA today. When we get these wholesome good moments like this, I want to savor them. Kudos to the UFC for the video package, the way they handled Dustin. And he really is a unique American hero in a lot of ways.

I compare him, even though UFC doesn't recognize anymore that Randy Couture ever fought for the promotion, I compare him to the sort of superhero love that The Natural gets still to this day. And shout out to him recovering from the burns of that NHRA clash. He'll be joining us later in the show. It's a nice running bit there. But the point here, Brett, is that like so beloved, maybe the, you know, among the one or two best resumes of a fighter to never win a undisputed title but has such a great resume that it doesn't matter. Long Island Luke, can you flash that full screen of just the names and faces that Poirier has fought over his 16 years as a

pro from the pound for pound King Mahatchev who he rallied back to save face in that matchup. How about three fights with Max Holloway? How about three fights with Conor McGregor, two with Eddie Alvarez, two with Justin Gaethje fought all the action heroes of his division, of his era from Dan Hooker there to Chandler, Korean Zombie, so many great names. Brett, is there a unique way to, I guess, surmise what Poirier's individual legacy and sort of is after this? Because man, was he game.

But some people are criticizing Demetrius Johnson for that immediate reaction where he's like, well, he was a heck of a brawler. He was obviously a lot more than that. How do you sort of put it to words? Yeah. I mean, it'd be like talking about, you know, maybe certain players around, you know, the Jordan era or talking about certain players around, you know, you see in these other sports where it's just like, there can only be one players around you know you see in these in these other sports where it's just like there can only be one best you know and i mean if you're talking about Dustin

Fourier's era um like Habib you know like no one could beat that guy you know and and then as far as as as the rest of them a lot of it comes down to timing man if timing just would have like moved a little bit here a little bit there if one match up would have came sooner than another If he would have fought for a vacant belt if he would have been coming off of a win instead of a title lost here Or there it's just like you could think the belt could have been around his waist at any time, you know Once he felt again, but he chose the two pay-per-views with Connor, which you know, I don't I don't hate him for that Oh, yeah, I'm sure his bank account sure't hate him for that and I'm sure to this day I would hope that he would say that was the right decision because it absolutely was the right decision

But that's kind of how I look at it like was he Habib? No, but who's Habib? Habib is like, you know top two top three fighter of all time. So it's like He fought in a very competitive division at a time and an era when that division was really on fire. I mean those all of those guys throughout his era I mean he beat guys that I mean some of those guys towards the bottom of that list that you just showed are still phenomenal you know I mean lightweight has just been extremely deep the entire time Fourier has competed in it and you know by some some circumstance like again one's zig there, one zig there. I mean, we know guy misses weight and then the UFC scrambling puts together a title fight.

Like any one of these fights could have been for a championship. So he won an interim championship. He was kind of an uncrowned champion if you want to put it that way. But I don't know, man. I really don't think like, I don't even, I know some people call them like, Oh, he's this is like one of the greatest fighters to never win a belt. Like to me, the belt doesn't even come to mind. Like that's to me, that's the best way to describe Dustin for you is when I think

about his career, I don't even think about a belt. I don't even think about like, oh, did he win it? Did he not win it? Oh, he won an interim title. How many times did he fight for it? Like I even forgot the other night when I was writing the news story about it. I forgot how many times he fought for the belt because I don't care. I mean, I just know that he was one of the best of a very great era and he could have worn the belt at any time.

It just so happened that it never found its way around. Yeah. Such an honest style. He was one of the best of a very great era and he could have worn the belt at any time. It just so happened that it never found its way around the world. Yeah, it's such an honest style, such a great interview from the standpoint that he does bring it to you. Real philanthropist, family man. Look, he got the right amount of flowers.

He deserved it. He did not get the score though, or sorry, the decision in the end. And that was certainly justified because 33 year old Max Holloway looked like the fresher fighter, like Luke Thomas had said in the buildup had added certain elements to his game and recent fights and you know, still showed you, he has a lot left. It would go down in the end, two judges, 49, 46, one judge 48, 47.

Brett, how did you score it and which rounds do you think were fine to score for Pori? I had a four one giving Pori a round two. How did you score it in? Which rounds do you think we're fine to score for? Poirier? I had a four one giving Poirier round two. How did you see it? Yeah, exactly. I didn't think it was that hard of a fight to score. And, uh, I think everyone sort of around me.

So it was saying the same thing. We were kind of keeping track, you know, like, uh, of course I'm up there on the suite I'm with, uh, like Alan, Joe band, um, you know, chaile Chael, Dominic and and Brendan Fitzgerald had already gone out to get two desks in their arena but like all the rest of our like the ESPN crew was there and we kind of we always do this through the main event like what do you got it what do you got it you know 2-2-1-1 whatever and everybody had a 3-1 man had gone into the fifth and everyone and everyone and then yeah of course Max won the fifth so I thought it was pretty easy you know and I think that just shows again Dustin

the careers over man it doesn't matter if you won or lost and he was he was salty about it man he really was not in like a poor loser kind of way but it just shows that dude that guy is just a competitor he's a competitor I I was having this conversation with Oscar Willis from the Mac Life who you know and he was kind of laughing that he was like during that entire video package I felt like Dustin was just sitting there being like I won that fight. I don't know what these judges are looking at. It was so true. That's the old one man, Wil Marquez. There's never been a post fight interview after a

loss where he didn't angrily say that he thought he won right there. Really nice performance from Max who to be fair, we never know these days fight to fight if we feel like maybe he's showing signs of going in the other direction. Still only 33, but has been through the war so aggressively yet constantly reinvents himself. There was some question coming in.

I mean, enough for me to pick Poirier as the underdog to win considering Max was coming off that KO lost it to Poirier. But in true Max fashion, he sort of pretty quickly showed you that he still got it. Do you think he made certain adjustments from the first two fights against Poirier to be able to cleanly, somewhat, not dominantly, but cleanly get a victory here? Or do you think maybe he was just the fresher fighter at the end of the day? Well, I would I would hope he made adjustments. They were six years ago and 12 years ago You know

I mean the guy is just a much better fighter than he wasn't and just to be fair the circumstances around their first two fights It's just like if they do kind of toss them out the window in my mind going into the third one I did feel like this was a completely new fights that sometimes that gets cliche to say but this one in this case It really was to me I mean you're talking about a situation where like it has been six years since the last one and then prior to that 12 so like you could really throw the 12 one out and then the six-year one if I'm remembering the circumstances correctly that they not want they wanted Tony right they wanted Tony Ferguson to fight Dustin Corrier for the interim title and then Tony was

And I think he was in a contract dispute where they he didn't feel it It was also just Tony Ferguson right and I didn't make great business decisions along the course of his career at times But for whatever reason I think that they were really going if I'm remembering this right They were going for Tony Went down the wire didn't happen. So then they turned to Max. Max is like, of course, I'm game goes up. Everybody remember, I mean, he even made a joke about it to me before the fight that like the only thing I remember about the first about the second fight is that everybody told me I had the DC bodysuit

on because he had that little pouch on it. You know, he didn't have the abs. And I mean, I just think that that was it was gonna I figured it was gonna be a completely different third fight I mean Max he loved being at featherweight he stayed at featherweight until it was essentially like like dude there's you can't stay at featherweight like there's literally no fight for you anymore I always thought this was gonna be a better weight class for him the guy's big man I mean you saw him next to Dustin like he's big so I think I mean, he saw him next to Dustin. Like he's big.

So I think that just from size alone, and I gotta be honest, and I said this before, I was in favor of Max moving on to 155 even before he did, you know, I think he's going to be good in this weight class, but to your point, he is at that point in his career where he's just put on so many miles that you just kind of like cross your fingers and hope that the, the decline doesn't come because he's, and this is nothing against him, but it's just put on so many miles that you just kind of like cross your fingers and hope that the Decline doesn't come because he's and this is nothing against him But it's just like from a physiological standpoint, it's gonna come at some point So you just hope it's not coming anytime soon, but it could at any moment, but He's in a very good weight class for him now

I mean the speed is still there and then you know one thing that we we said about like After watching that that Dustin fight in Atlanta, it's like, well, does he have the power? Does he have the power to be a 55? He hurt Dustin like that. He knocked out Gagey immediately. He hurt Gagey before knocking him out in that fight. So I think he does have power,

and I think technically he's getting better. So yeah, if he doesn't turn old overnight, which because of his long career, he could, but if he doesn't, then he's very legitimate. It's weight class, of course. He talked afterwards saying he could chase some big BMF names, but the recurring idea of him getting a rematch against Ilya Tuporiya, who has moved up after their title fight at

Featherweight to capture that vacant lightweight title. When you look at the landscape of this division, Brett, is it realistic for the idea of Max getting a shot, a second shot at Tupori, considering his star value, considering that just in this division alone in his last two fights, he's finished Justin Gaethje, who's still in the title picture, and he sent Poirier into retirement with a strong victory. No, zero chance, especially, are we talking about next?

I'm trying to gauge. Where do you think he should go? I mean, is he farther away than he thinks he is to a title shot, you think? I even think that he knows he's not close, but you're gonna say it. Your course, you're gonna say what you want, but realistically, how far away is he from Ilya?

As of right now, pretty far, I would think. And that's not even from a ranking standpoint yet. He just beat Dustin Poirier, but he just lost to Elia Ziporia in October. And Elia is like superstar, superstar trajectory right now. You're not going to then rewind him and put him against a guy he just knocked out at the end of last year. That just makes no sense. There's bigger fights, there's fresher fights, there's new fights for Elia Zeporia That's unfortunate for Max Holloway But he's been there before with Volkonovsky and having to win three fights to get back to a trilogy fight

So I think what's working in Max's favor, of course, is that he's a big name But then there are also other names for him and like this BMF thing that like I felt barely got mentioned last week It was just it was completely I don't think really anybody's scared all that much about the being over it. Right. To be fair, I think this fight didn't need it and I'm kind of over it. Yeah. It was cool, but I'm over it. And I think a lot of people are over it. Like it doesn't hurt anything. Like I'm not like getting out of there. You know, like this is this is crap. Like I don't care about that. But I don't think anybody is really paying attention

to it anymore. But I feel like it can stick around in this instance just to like add like a slightly new layer, give these guys something to fight for because there are fights to have for it. I think Charles Oliveira is the most obvious one. And I think like Max mentioning in it post fight shows that he thinks it's the most obvious one.

Like those, there are two guys who are an all action style. You put them on a poster, dude, I wanna see it. And I actually think that you could recreate this scenario that we just had, send Max to Brazil, let him be the bad guy again against Charles Oliveira. I wanted to see Charles Oliveira walk out of the tunnel in Brazil for a while, he never got to do so as a champion. And I mean, he has over the course of his career,

but you know, he was Charles Oliveira, Charles Oliveira, Charles Oliveira, like the quitter, but also the submission guy. And then he's just fighting like an active guy. He was fine and he was up there ranked, but then he had this renaissance, right? Where he had a champion, he put away all of the quitter stuff.

He got knocked out, rise up, the champion has a name. He turned into superstar, he hasn't been to Brazil since then. So I would love to see him walk out of the tunnel Since he's gotten this, you know superstar aura and to have max go down there and fight him and you can have the BMS fell down there and it's similar to this one take the guy put him in his own home state or country like we did with Dustin have Max walk out from a ranking standpoint

it makes sense and then depending on what happens you know there are other BMS fights you can make as you kind of allow Max to sort of settle into this division but unfortunately if Elia has the belt like you got Islam you got Armand you got Patty you got Gachie it's not gonna happen so and I think he knows that I truly think he knows that and so it's just like settle in at this weight class take the fights and make sense, make them big, put a BMS belt on it and just wait. And if you happen to win all those fights

and Ely is still there, then maybe you can go after him. Or if he loses, then you never know what's gonna happen after that. Yeah, indeed. We mentioned, you mentioned earlier that there was what was teased pointing to the ground, final 10 seconds. We of course saw that at UFC 199 with Ricardo Lamas resurrected so beautifully at UFC 300 against Gagey. Here's though, Poirier talking about an area where he did get a little bit of, you know, criticism

that he was shooting for a takedown in the midst of all that action. Let's hear it. Yeah. And then I was like, I wanted to do it, you know, that's why I kept looking up at the clock. I said, when we doing this? Yeah. You saw me looking at the clock a few times and like, well, okay, that's 25 seconds left. I said, not time yet. Then we pointed down. I said, okay, I obliged. And then he hit me with a few shots and I said, okay, we're going to wrestle a little bit. Let me clinch up. There's only eight seconds left. Good stuff there from him. I, my highlight of the night was the two of them finding out they did not win the bonus backstage and seeing this interaction between them.

Like I said, so much BS in this game. I love feel good moments like this. Let's listen in on that. Bro, how did we not get funny tonight, bro? We didn't? No, it's some bulls**t. Go talk to f**king Dana. Take your time with f**king man.

Tense his a**. We didn't get it? No, they gave it to freaking Allen and Matoran. I don't even know. What? We done almost finished each other in the same damn round. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you tell me we didn't get it. No Bright you were there does that was that the fight of the night in your eyes? Yeah, I think so. Although I do think right now that the bar in Victoria wasn't a good fight. I really did like that fight.

And sometimes I think the UFC can get kind of lazy and just make the bonus, the fight of the night bonus, just the main event, just because it was the main event. So I don't know, man. We can sit here and always complain about where the bonuses go. I pretty much never agree with them. Those two guys are well paid though. So I'm fine. You know, if they're, you know, I'm fine seeing it, you know, I'm fine. Seeing 50 G's go to Marvin and Brendan. I'm sure these guys made their money, but that that interaction is phenomenal. the only fight on the card wasn't a great or overly deep pay-per-view card. It did have its moments. One of those moments being in the co-main event is middleweight Paulo Costa at age 34. Having lost four of his last five, you could see the urgency in there that he needed a win

and he delivered it against a streaking Roman Kopilov. Brett, I have been very critical of Costa since the loss to Adesanya. I don't feel like he sticks to game plans. He fights as recklessly as he tweets at times. But this looked like not just a fighter that was a class above Kapilov, but I felt like it was an efficient use of his destructive tools to go out there and score a wide decision.

How impressed were you by this performance? Yeah, impressed and very happy to see it. I mean, you and I on the exact same page as Costa. It's a better division when he is around. It's a more entertaining division when he's around, you know, but he's gotta be a decent version of himself. And in the past, I mean, you had that entire Marvin Pettori thing, which was just wild, you know,

just like, I'm not showing up on weight. Like, if you won't let me fight, then fine, you know, like, we're just gonna make up a weight when we get there, you know, and then again, then fine. You know, like we're just going to we're going to make up a way when we get there, you know, and and and then again, it just kind of didn't feel like he cared about winning. It kind of felt like I'm going to go in and I know I'm a big strong guy. I'm going to throw my combinations. If the other guy falls down, great.

If not, then whatever, you know, it just kind of felt like like he wasn't there. And I mean, I want to say this all, of course, respectfully, the guys crawling in there with some of the best in the world. And it's easy when you start losing to Robert Whitaker, when things aren't going good, you get Sean Strickland, and Sean Strickland's in your face with it. It's just, you know, this thing constantly, and it's like, you can't get off.

I get it. But also it's just like, it didn't look like there were any adjustments being made. It didn't look like there was like, to your point, game plan or sticking to a game plan. That's what was impressive to me about Costa on this one is that he just looked focused. He looked focused and he really cared about the outcome.

And when he does, he's good. Kapilov is good. And it's not easy to win a decision against him, especially for a guy like Costa who has been, if the knockout doesn't come, then you wonder what he's going to look like in the later rounds. And he was still there. And again, the focus was there

So I liked it It was it was great to see because there are still some fun fights to have a Costa if he wants to fight You know and there for a while It's like not only the performance in the octagon made you wonder if you wanted to fight but then like you what he was Even saying like let me out of my contract. I don't want to do this anymore You know, it sure said about his contract. So See you actually racist in a very aggressive manner on Twitter Fred. I don't want to do this anymore. You know, he's sure he said about his contract. So he's good to see you. Casually racist in a very aggressive manner on Twitter,

but I don't know what's going on over there. You know that as well. Yeah. All right. I mean, some people were putting up the picture of him and Tracy Cortez and saying, maybe this was the reason. Normally on this show, we're not allowed to talk about power couples in MMA.

And I don't even know if they ever have been or are because of Luke Thomas' preference to talk about his own shitting history instead But is that an is that a cut you're on the ground out there? Are they a thing or no? I don't did I I didn't even know that I wasn't even aware of this Yeah, I'm wondering if it was because I saw a lot of people putting that picture out there and I'm like, you know I get it. I get it. The internet detectives are usually when they get on to something. They're usually not wrong So, I don't know maybe I maybe. I wouldn't dismiss it,

but I can't share any evidence in support. Appreciate it. Ryan Ortega never the same since the ending of that. When we look up and down this card, look, Kevin Holland is determined to be the next Cowboy Cerrone and take sometimes unnecessarily short turnaround fights. Usually though that happens at middle weight

where he hurts his own further momentum and standing by just staying active, cash and paychecks and fighting whoever's available. At 170, it seemed like he was putting together a little bit of a run, coming in there against a 30 year old Daniel D. Rod Rodriguez, who had been on a pretty rough streak himself of losses of late.

I assumed Holland would continue streaking toward an eventual, you know, knock on the door of real title contention at 170. Instead, he fought a head tattooed version of D-Rod, who was aggressively looking to save his job. And I really think he did just that an impressive and at times powerful, unanimous decision victory. But Brett, I know this is par for the course and the Kevin Holland experience, but dude, come on, put it together. Take six months off.

Show me what you got. You got to get, you got to, you got to, you got to, sometimes you got to let people be who they are, BC, you know, you can't care about Holland's 170 pound run more than Kevin Holland, you know, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You you want to come on here and yell angrily at your camera about Kevin Holland. I have to when I've interviewed him. I've been like, dude, can you please just stay at 170? And like, can we see what you got? He wants to cash checks, man. And that's fine. And then you know what and credit to him, because he could have found a way out of that of that fight and still cashed his check but he was he made that fight really really

really entertaining but by coming back by fighting with a sense of urgency so you know he is a cowboy Seroni guy and it was frustrating this is a perfect comparison I started laughing when you the way even you said it he is determined to be done and I would get mad at Cowboys. They're only, I'd be like, dude, what are you doing? Like, like for, for what, for a hundred thousand dollar show purse, you're going to put on the line, something you could be in a title fight and like one more win, you know, and it's just, can't do it. Can't do it. They, they, they, they, they got to jump off it. They see it. Yeah. Same thing. Luke says about a fighter pay if they're not gonna care. Us in the media might have to just continue to move on

and enjoy the fight. I did enjoy Pitbull, Patricio Pitbull getting back on track, scoring our first USC victory in a fight against Danny Gay that was tense at times, technical. There were some action moments. It was a Spider-Man meme feeling

of how they were sized perfectly. But to see Pitbull come in, maybe we're talking about him getting a title shot off of a win if he could get by Yair Rodriguez the same meme feeling of how you want to say hello to BZ? Hi. What's your little man's first name here, Brett? He's so cool. What's your name real quick? Cam. Cam, yes, yes. Cam, you want to see my new glasses? All the kids love this trick, all right? Cool.

What's he doing? Yeah, yeah, there we go. He's like, Dad, get off of the show now, Dad, please. All right, yeah, I'm going to be done here in like 10 minutes. OK, you go play pretend on that. 10 minutes or I won't help you. You don't go. OK, well, you know, it looks like a mini rushed rushed hallway right there.

So shout out to him right there. I'll take that. That's a compliment. Rush is a good looking kid. Real moment there, Brett. Thank you. Oh, of course, man. You can lock him out, but then he's just gonna start banging, so you're better off just bringing him in. We were talking about Patricio and Danny. Yeah, look, it's the end of his run. How much left does he have after this victory in your eyes?

I mean to win the title is very, very hard, right? And so then to do it at the end of a very long career is like, do I expect him? Are the odds with him? No, they're not. But your boys were talking about how they had some good underdog picks. I thought the line was insane. I mean the fact that Patricio Pitbull comes in and looked like he just couldn't really get out of first gear against Jaya Rodriguez who is by the way

very good, younger, and it's his first time coming over to the UFC. To then just think that Dan Ege was like a two and a half to one favorite over Patricio Pitbull I was like dang that's crazy to me man it's like I don't not so sure Pitbull looked a little hesitant in his last fight but he didn't look like super old right so I think that he's a competitive fighter for Just about everyone in that division. I mean if he gets his wish and he were to fight Aaron Pico Are we so sure that he can't beat Aaron Pico? And I mean Aaron Pico being injected in this division is super super interesting exciting

You know, I would love to see him fight Alex Wolkonowski But are we so sure that Pitbull can't beat him? No, not at all. So I think he's still got an outside shot at, you know, if the cards fall right, he could fight for a championship. And he still has that history of being that long reigning champion. So the UFC could look at that and be like, in the right circumstance, we could promote this guy. We could call him this monster that would like, you know, rule the world outside of the UFC for a very long time. So he's still there. He's still got a chance. And he did a couple of things to Dan Ege that just doesn't happen to Dan Ege very often, you know, cracked him, threw him around a little bit. Like Dan Ege has never fought for a championship himself, but he's not a guy that he always gives everybody a tough fight.

And the pitbull, some of the things he did in that fight showed that he still has some things to offer. Is it likely? Most likely? Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out. Yeah. I just like to get more chances to see the captain's bedazzled jeans in the corner there. Shout out to Eric Albarra. Long Island Luke, what do you got on this undercard? Yeah, I know you picked up some big betting money over there on PFL, but who stood out to you on this undercard? I mean, dude, the prelims were actually sick on this. We started, what, six straight finishes, five of them first round finishes. I got to give a shout out to Gautier knocking out Robert Valentine. That was pretty sick. Islam Doolitov looked damn good against Adam Fugit. My boy Jimmy Kruk got

one of the ugliest arm bars I've ever seen, but shout out to him getting back on the win. Column Ryan Spang got that guillotine. How about Carly Judis, dude? She looks damn good. She got another knockout win, only ever won by finish. And you're talking about her performance, right? Not her Instagram.

Yes. I appreciate that distinction. Also, 39-year-old Michael Johnson to close out that main card, Brett. He's on a win streak of three right now and sending Daniel Zellhuber to a second straight defeat after a big trash talk build before them. What do we got here? Just a little old resurgence for the one-punch knockout machine, Michael Johnson? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't have to be more than that, man. throw him out there and let him go You know and the hand speed is still there somehow at 39 I mean Michael Johnson is not the young kid coming off the ultimate fighter anymore

But when he starts throwing in the pocket you can remember just like dude That was always what stood out to me about him firstly He was like a little reckless like Michael Johnson was kind of guy that would fall over when no one touched him But then he was also just like his speed, his hand speed was so there. So it was fun to watch, man, because Michael Johnson is a very nice guy. Very nice guy. You saw that afterwards. Like he was pretty disrespected by it by Zell Huber and the way that the fight played out, how it was booked. But then he was so quick to give that kid credit. You know, I like Michael Johnson, was happy to see him get the win. And then he mentioned, you know, did I really win by decision?

Cause I've always been a little salty about some of the split decisions that I haven't gone through. So it was nice to see. Yeah. It did feel like what time Alexander Hernandez woke up a cowboy dad, Saroni there and found out about that. Just the same. All right.

Two quick ones for you on the way out here, Brett. Great to have you reunite here on today's morning combat. Topic number two is from what we heard after UFC 318, Dana White addressing the media and that recurring topic of John Jones maybe coming back after retirement, re-entering the testing pool and fighting whoever is champion on the White House lawn. Not so fast my friend, the boss has spoken. Let's listen. One sec here. Sorry, guys. You've got a lot of questions about the White House card potentially. Conor McGregor said he's back in the pool with hopes of potentially fighting on that like a year from now. And then

Nate Diaz said he would love to be the opponent. I know you've said that trilogy is something you could do anytime and it would make sense. Are you interested in doing business with Nate Diaz? time and it would make sense. Are you interested in doing business with Nate Diaz? I love Nate. I love Nate. That fight's a year away. So I'm not even thinking about anything right now. The landscape will change so much by next 4th of July. Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows who's going to be on the card or what the main event will be or who will hold all the titles and everything could be completely different. So it's not even worth thinking about it right now.

Sure. I guess just want to follow up on that though with John Jones. I have other problems. I'm dealing with the logistics and you know all the things on figuring out how to make this thing happen. How do we want to do it? I'm going to fly out there in about 10 days, two weeks and we'll have all the renderings done, sit down with him and have all the renderings done,

sit down with him and go through the renderings and see what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do. John Jones says he wants to be on there too, and he says he would fight whoever the champion is at that time, but would you be okay with him like coming back and potentially winning that belt again, and you might have to go through? It's not even about him winning the belt.

I mean, you know how I felt about him. I just, I can't risk putting him in big positions and a big spot and have something go wrong. Fair enough. Yeah. Brett, we're coming off of a two year soap opera that did not end in Jones Aspen Hall. I could fill hours worth of material

of how much John Jones disappoints me at times. Is this the right stance from the company to be like, you just put us through yet another shit storm, if you will. Now we're just going to reward you against Aspinall for the belt on the lawn. I mean, what are we doing here? I would love if Dana White came out right now and said, John Jones wants to fight at the White House in July of 2026. He can do so as the defending heavyweight champion after unifying his title against Tom Aspinall in November at Madison Square Garden. If John Jones fights Tom Aspinall in New York and beats him, he will headline the White House card. Just come out and say it because if he doesn't, and John won't take that, I believe, but who knows, maybe he would, and

then we would all be very happy about that, right? But I agree with everything he said. You look back at the career of John Jones, you know, if you're in the mind of Dana White, you know, first off, you remember that he wouldn't fight Chael Sonnen on short notice after Dan Henderson got injured. I actually thought that that was perfectly fine. I think a lot of the sport thinks like, he was the champion he has the right to turn down a short notice challenger but Dana White has long held on to that memory

and then you have of course UFC 200 where they're changing the change in the poster during the week leading up to it and then you have the also the time where on Christmas they moved the entire card to Los Angeles because Nevada wouldn't license him because of the pico gram stuff that was the whole pico gram era so like he has been burned by this guy. And then to your point, we are coming off now a year of I think this fight's going to happen with Tom Aspinall. I think he's going to take it, but then he doesn't. So why in the world would he commit first of all to a fight that's a year away, but also to this guy that has been unreliable in big

events? And I say that while also giving him credit that like, yes, he showed up time and time again. No one is disputing John Jones is great and defended his titles and won all these world championships. That's great. But there is a history of this. And also you don't get to duck Tom Aspinall and then come back to fight at the last fight

in the White House. Like go fight him in Madison Square Garden. And then we will all line up to see you fight whoever at the White House on July, 2026. Yeah, and put some pants on that random woman in the car. Right? I mean, I don't know what's going on here. Here's John Jones's response quickly on Twitter.

I'll sum it up for you. Hearing that there would be a fight from Trump's lips about the White House lawn, I guess, re-aggra- you know, re-lit the light, the fighting spirit, particularly John saying, I can't wait to fight for my country. Uh, Brett, I don't know if he realizes that this ain't the Olympics here. You know what I'm saying? Okay, like, uh, you'll be fighting on your country. I don't really know if it's for your country, but I'm done talking about John Jones here. You know what I'm saying? Okay, like you'll be fighting on your country. I don't

really know if it's for your country, but I'm done talking about John Jones here. Let's close with this and then you can return to being a dad here. Topic number three took us to South Africa as PFL Africa made its debut and there was a bit of a star-studded main card on top of that, including Costello Van Stenis in the main event, submitting Johnny Eblen, giving him his first defeat after losing the first three rounds, rallying in round five to submit him to become the inaugural PFL middleweight champion. So shout out to Van Stenis right there.

But Brett, the bigger story was in not only the co-main event as Dakota Ditcheva finally made her return after a breakout year last year, getting a wide unanimous decision over Sumiko Inaba and a strong performance, and then revealing afterwards that she signed a multi-year deal with the promotion, considering that this hasn't always been a great PR calendar year for Don Davis's LinkedIn page and PFL in general. And then it took Ditcheva to go on Mike Bohn's podcast to basically complain and beg to just get a fight

when she should be the face of the company. How big is this for the company in your mind resigning Ditcheva like this? And will they be able to keep her busy and challenged enough to make this relationship work? I wanna see the PFL succeed, man. I know you do too. Everybody wants to see the PFL succeed.

It gives fighters opportunities. It levels out the market. Everybody wants to see them succeed. But I look at this and you know, you mentioned the PR of 2025, Bellator champions complaining openly, why am I not getting a fight? I want to leave and then they don't leave for a while but then it just drags on for a few months and then they leave. It's just that you question does this team, does this company have a PR strategy ever and

PR strategy ever and Ditcheva is So incredible. I am all in on ditch of I I was you know at a bunch of her fights last year She is the real deal. She has fought veterans now. She is tested. She's not just this flash in the pan she is violent, she is very good and she's very fun to watch and You should know by now that she is the face. And to my knowledge, I still don't even think she's been a headliner. They keep putting her in the co-main event of these cards that, why? Why is she not even the main event? If it's happened, maybe it's happened once, but I can't remember. I want to say she's been the co-main event pretty much every time. And then

you resign her. She's going to fight for the first time in 2025, why didn't you like, I mean, I didn't hear about this fight. Not only did I not hear about Ditcheva resigning, of course, because she she had made that announcement in the cage, but I didn't really see much promotion or talk about this event at all. It's your first PFL Africa. Where is the promotion? Where is, you could have used this news about Ditcheva that people actually care about and use it to promote the event. You know, you could have held a press conference. You could have taken cameras over to her and been like, Ditcheva is signing a multi-year deal with the world leading PFL.

And we're going to take it to Africa. Like nothing, not a peep. And you and I's friend coach is over there. And I think it's going to improve because coach is Getting more of a spotlight there and I know that coach was that's the way his brain works. He wants to send messages He wants to go in that role of WWE. So I like that move for them and I like coaches involvement Dude not enough people knew the people Africa one happened this weekend Not enough people knew that Dakota did she what was fighting and that she has this great fight and you're like, dang, I want to see this girl fight again.

And then she announces that she's resigned with you, but no one was watching it. Like, dude, PFL does some good things over there, but like, can you tell people about it? Can you promote? You know, that was Bellator's problem as well. Bellator never promoted. They never had a PR strategy, you know, and I get it It's hard when you the UFC is going every weekend. It's very hard, you know, but

Yeah, man. I like watching Dakota did you have a fight and I just feel like you know We should have more people should have should have been watching it and they should have used that announcement of resigning her for something It should have been used dude. I'm with you I mean, they also put the fight on the busiest combat day, like, ever. Like, you know what I mean? So it kind of got buried in that regard. But AJ McKee gets another win. They need to make him one of their faces and push him. And shout out to friend of the program, OT himself, Corey Anderson, moving up to heavyweight, taking a TKO2 of Denis Golov Goldsov and then calling out Vadim

Nemkov for a trilogy. I see you the beast down at the end of the hallway and dorm room, whatever that was called right there. Brett Okamoto, it has been a pleasure chatting MMA with you in your debut on this program. I believe people can follow your work, of course, on ESPN.com. You do great work on the PFL and UFC coverage as well. Anything else that we should promote at the moment? No man, that's it. Yeah, I'm in the same place I've been for the last 15 years working at ESPN. Still loving it. Fortunate that I've been there. Sorry that it does look like I'm coming to you from a bomb bunker. Usually, you know, it's like I got my ESPN camera set up,

so everything's pointed this way. So now it just looks like I'm in some dark closet somewhere. You know, my eyes are a little red because I'm still tired from the fights and the flight from New Orleans but this is this has been a wonderful way to start my Monday start my week I'm gonna walk around very positive getting to talk with with Brian Campbell and dude I tell you I text you from time to time I don't watch boxing as much as I used to but I feel like a lot of the times when I do turn it on, I see your bright, smiling, energetic face in there. So I really am happy for you that you're out there as well. Thank you. Thank you. You've been doing some great shit in your career since we parted

ways as well. And look, you talk about the bunker mentality here. Underwhelming is the theme of morning combat. So that's good. That's all good. But thank we'll do it again we'll take it from the top hey nothing beats relaxing on a hot summer day and watching baseball and the simplest way to get in on the action is to download the pick six app from DraftKings it's crazy simple just pick more or less on the stats for two or more of your favorite players and boom you're in the mix for big cash prizes. Works the same as when you play it for the UFC over under more or less on strikes, baseball, any number of categories you can look in here and if you nail your picks and you keep heating up oh it gets hot in here

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The MMA put to bed. Let's get inside the box though with my weekly podcast partner for life. Really? Yes. The New York Times bestselling author, Rafe Bartholomew, normally coming to us from Detroit, the Motor City. normally coming to us from the to the motor city but for today you are in and why see your old stopping grounds. We know you

friends I love your daddy but your dad big G turning 80 years old all much love to the family there rate thank you and your mustache for joining us on this Monday morning. Are you know it's an honor to get a call up to the big show you know I took

a shower I put on a shirt with a collar. I'm sitting here. Also, a little bit in tribute to my dad who just turned 80 and was a career bartender at McSorley's Old Dale House in New York. Some of y'all may have been there. Shout out. This is, I used to, I give him so much shit about this room. This is like a shrine of his bartending career, but he deserves it.

Shout out to my father. Now let's get it on. He likes his coffee like he likes his beer and career, but he deserves it. Shout out to my father. Now let's get it on. He likes his coffee like he likes his beer and ladies, right, too dark and then too light. Black coffee, no sugar, no cream. All right. Get on top. Rafe, we don't have to clean it up here too much on Morning Combat compared to our normal

Brian Campbell experience YouTubing that we do these days, but great to have you here. So much box to get into over the weekend. So let's get right into it. It all starts for me on topic number four here. Manuel Pacquiao, Emmanuel Pacquiao, excuse me, the 46-year-old legend, the living legend. He was back headlining a PBC on Prime pay-per-view card that I had the privilege of calling from ringside and in the end Manny Pacquiao was forced to settle for a majority draw with WBC

welterweight title holder Mario Barrios in this historic comeback fight as he looked to become everything from the first boxer to win titles in four different decades to the first hall of famer to come back and win a title. Oh boy, did he come very close, but in that majority decision in the end, one judge had it slightly for Barrios, the other two 114 114. So Rafe, ah, man, you know, it's a close fight when I'm getting just as many text messages of people saying Pacquiao was robbed as they were saying, man, Pacquiao and the crowd tricked everybody into thinking, you know, that Barrios wasn't doing anything.

This certainly was historic, even in a draw, just to see him come back and give that performance. But how much at the end of the day, if we're being honest, was this Manny over exceeding expectations or Barrios being underwhelmingming playing to the worst stereotype of himself and maybe not being Urgent or mean enough to get the job done Yeah, I mean they might have needed to let him out the cage Brian. No, I think both things can be true You have to say that Manny overperformed compared to the expectations of a lot of experts who were genuinely afraid for his safety coming back after a four-year layoff at age 46 with just a couple of those

weird exhibition fights that he didn't train for and looked like a true shell of himself to fight to a draw that a lot of people, you know, certainly the arena, much of the, you know, the Twitter audience thought that he deserved to win. That is overperforming for what a lot of people expected from Manny Pacquiao coming into this fight. But also, it unfolded that way because Mario Barrios let it happen. It was up until the moment the scorecards were read,

it felt like everything was unfolding almost as well as you could have possibly have hoped for Manny because his opponent was letting him, you know, take rounds, deal rounds in the middle of the fight, build up an advantage on the scorecards and wasn't really making him pay for some of the signs of, you know, the age factor that were clear to observe in the fight. Some of the ways that many, when he falls over his punches, he used to be so athletic and quick

that he could just jump out anyway. He couldn't this time, but Barrios more often than not, or certainly not often enough, wasn't making him pay. And that's what made it such a close and fun fight. And it felt like this weird magical moment was actually gonna happen. And then boxing happened. I know, but I guess the real debate for me here is did boxing really happen? Our unofficial score on the broadcast, Larry Hazard,

had it seven five for Pacquiao. I, joining all three judges and giving Barrios the final three rounds, had him winning seven five. Two of the three judges and giving Barrios the final three rounds had him winning 7-5. Two of the three judges scored it even. You did though get an aggressive response in all areas. Dan Rayfield led the charge on Twitter with people that scored it ultimately nine rounds to three for Pacquiao and believed that he got robbed. You know how I scored it.

7-5 Barrios even though he was largely underwhelming, even though Pacquiao did land the bigger shots throughout, he's just 46. There wasn't enough of them and in some very close rounds, it was the jab and the activity of Varios and the few times he would use that counter straight right hand that probably could have put Manny in a lot of trouble if he sat down on it. Still, I thought he did enough. This takes nothing away from the fantastic performance from Pacquiao, but was this really a robbery in the end? How did you score it? And how

do you view that reaction? Uh, you know, it's, it's unusual Brian, because I'm familiar, very familiar with your long history of completely insane scorecards. I mean, you have some real doozies on your resume. However- Wait, 115, 113 Thurman over Pacquiao, Glenn Feldman. That one might be at the top of the list. Also, did you have Danny Jacobs beating Canelo or just drawing with Canelo? No, it was a draw.

Also, I had Trout beating Canelo and I'm gonna stand on that business, okay? You know, the open scoring in that bout thought otherwise. But, uh, anyway, man, uh, you're not crazy in this one. I scored it a draw and it's, I, it's not that hard for me to see how you could have gotten to seven five for body. Oh, it's also, and if I'm scoring it a draw and a lot of those rounds were close where many was trying trying but I don't think

that effective is trying to land you know jump in and land either a straight left or a or a two one two any some of those vintage Manny Pacquiao combinations and it wasn't they weren't quite landing he was or or uh he would he was you know falling he was off balance it didn't it didn't it wasn't crisp work. And then Barrios wouldn't really counter, and they'd reset. And Manny would complain about a body shot that probably wasn't a low blow, and that would kill about 15 seconds. And nothing would happen for a while. And all of a sudden, it's a round.

And you're like, well, I don't know, maybe Manny won. There were a lot of rounds like that that could have gone either way. So no, as much as I love to give you a hard time for your eccentric judging opinions, I don't blame you for this one, but I, I, I'm kind of curious, uh, how, how are the netizens treating you for this one? Uh, the netizens are just fine. I really, I didn't get any crap, but it's just, it's weird though. I did get, like I said, I saw some,

whether it's texts or emails or whatever DMs I got some very aggressive reaction split from the Pacquiao was robbed to the man he wasn't even connecting clean but the crowd went nuts and in some cases that was true because that was an old school Pacquiao crowd so not only look did it mean a lot to me calling the biggest fight of my career did I ever think I'd be calling a Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view fight? No, no, I would have hoped to and loved to. I never thought I would. There was that magical feeling when he came out. There was that like, as the rounds started to progress, there was that like, how the

hell is he doing this? And when does the clock turn midnight? When is he going to gasp the out or when is Barrios gonna listen to Bob Santos and really sit down on those right handed shots and start fighting mean now he never committed to the mean to his credit. He did at least rally and put on more pressure and like I said, I thought he won but it was a close fight that could have gone either way but Rafe that magical feeling of

Pacquiao doing something in front of your eyes, literally right in front of me with his giant ass calves and those beautiful Keith Van Horn high socks, there was this like Ali, Jordan on the wizards type of feeling of like, this damn legend has no business doing this right now, but he can't help, but being great. Like he can't help that even this after ass market version of him is still out here doing things that are insanely impossible. I don't know what it felt like to be a fan of Muhammad Ali when he goes to Zaire and knocks out George Foreman or survives the thrill in Manila or beats Leon Spinks in the

comeback. But I got a little bit of those feels being ringside and it really just reminds you how insanely unique and special and one of one Manny Pacquiao is. You're the resident Manny Pacquiao super fan. That's the guy that dipped you deep back into the hardcore of this sport. that dipped you deep back into the hardcore of this sport. What were you feeling from that same sort of romanticized viewpoint of this aging living legend doing this shit? He should have got destroyed and somehow he didn't, Rafe. It was, I was confused.

I was all mixed up inside because on one hand, I am rooting for that narrative, right? Because it really was all lining up for him, but except not in the way that if I were, you know, if I were writing it in a screenplay, it would happen where he summons this, you know, he summons a true, almost vintage, like the version of Manny Pacquiao who beat Keith Thurman,

what was that, four or five years ago? 2019. So six years ago, good. Six. Yes. No, I can count. All right. I can. I'm a community college. Keep going. But now he's a he like it wasn't happening in that way where he was really taking over the fight looked truly impressive. He it was on. And I'm curious sort of what you observed at ringside of this, Brian, what do you,

how do you explain how Mario Barrios approached that fight? Did he, was it, and why he couldn't pull the trigger a little bit more and maybe try to walk Manny down a little? I think Manny looked like he was uncomfortable under pressure and not as dangerous with his counterattacks as he used to be. Once his momentum was going backward, it was harder for him to change directions. I think that a fighter who would be willing to put more pressure on him and

make him defend more might, even though that means taking on danger and man, he must still have enough pop in that left hand and some of those Surprising little right hooks that he'll throw around the guard to keep people Honest but but I was I you know it so I'm rooting for this narrative I'm like man he might he looks like this is gonna happen All the way up into when the scorecards are read, but it wasn't you know I you know because my I couldn't quite I you know I still have to believe what I'm seeing with my own two eyes, which is that, okay, a lot of the story here is Mario Barrios,

for one reason or another, underperforming pretty severely. And I don't, like, this doesn't look like, this doesn't look like a top welterweight champion. This looks like a guy who's going to maybe, you know, snag a belt off of the weakest champion in the division, which is kind of what it was. Yeah, I think the best way to answer that question is how you answered my original one.

It is a little bit of both. And here's how I'll say it. Look, rounds three and four were what I thought were the best for Barrios. That was where the two rounds that he was sitting down on that counter right hand. He was timing Pacquiao, he was darting in and out. And Pacquiao was, there was a few times he'd get hit with that straight right and he'd not only shake it off, you can see the grimace.

He'd get hit with a body shot, you could see the grimace. You could see how laboring he was in little split seconds and then he'd pull it back together and be manny. That's the way that fight should have went in all reality. Now look overarching is Barrios a beatable champion, which means he's good but flawed. Yes, we all knew that coming in. He's been prone to hot and cold performances.

The take down he had two years ago against your Dennis Ugas where he just dominated him over 12 rounds and sent him into retirement. We don't always see that guy. Now he did have the right excuses for why his draw against journeyman Abel Ramos on the Jake Paul Mike Tyson undercard turned so badly. He was ill throughout the training camp like really badly. And then he basically had to use the rest of the training camp to make weight. He got rocked in the second half.

He didn't have the gas and he was barely able to hang on. That of course was the fight that, that Manny now reveals. Jinky was watching and said, Manny, I think you can beat this guy, but only this guy. So as the foundation, that's all true. But the reason why he didn't return to who he was in rounds three or four was because Pacquiao started to time in that leaping lead left hand on him. And it was becoming a problem. was because Pacquiao started to time in that leaping lead left hand on him. And it was becoming a problem and that lead left hand to turn into a counter

left hand that not only took away the jab of Barrios for essentially that entire middle portion of the bout, allowing Pacquiao to surge to get upwards of four consecutive rounds in a row on most people's scorecards. In a couple of those rounds, by the way, he did do the Ray Leonard versus Hagler thing of smartly flurrying in the final 30 seconds, but he disciplined Mario Barrios 1 million percent. You heard that in the post fight interview where Barrios was like, he was so much trick more tricky and awkward than I expected. He was faster than I expected. That's what Chris Algeri told us on this show that that explosive first step, which is diminished at 46 but still there. He's just in your space before you even realize he is and

he's throwing from awkward angles. The fact that it was a 46 year old who I think in rounds three and four got slightly beat up enough where he's like, okay, I got to fight my way out of this. Dude, he disciplined the younger more inexperienced fighter only. He's not that inexperienced experience compared to Manny, but we have seen them lose twice on the pay-per-view level to tank and Thurman and all the talk about him making the right adjustments.

So those types of fights never happened again, dude, this is yet the second fight in a row, he's lucky to walk away with this title. I couldn't score it for Manny based on just the math of 10, nine each round. But in the story of the fight in the mythical Max Kellerman way of looking at it, dude, Pac won every inch of this story. And he did it by disciplining him.

I mean, did you see that same thing where he made Barrios really, really have to question and think about whether he's willing to take the chance of getting knocked down or knocked out on one of those rocket left hands that somehow still had some fuel in it? No, you're right. And that is to quote Brian Campbell when he said a few minutes ago that Manny is, and I believe also said on the broadcast, nice work, called Manny a one of one athlete, a one of one fighter, you know, not just generational, but a true

all-timer that the kind of, you know, boxer we're probably not going to see again as long as we live. And he, that even the a version of him that to the naked eye looks so much slower and less explosive and compared to the version of him that was beating Keith Thurman even six years ago, let alone the insane buzzsaw he was in that early welterweight, junior welterweight run through Oscar de la Hoya, then down to Ricky Hatton, then Miguel Cotto, Claudie Margarito, all of those wins. I mean, forget it. But that he could look like maybe only 50% of that or less than 50% of that and still be so quick,

so fast and so awkward that a fighter 16 years his junior couldn't pick up or was cautious enough about getting picked off by that left hand, that it swung the fight in the middle rounds and made most of the people watching think that, you know, this is close. I don't know if Manny, you know, is winning clearly, but I'm gonna assume since it's Manny Pacquiao and this narrative, you know, belongs to him,

that the judges are gonna find a way to see him winning the majority of these rounds and walking away with a decision. I said before the fight that if Manny wins four rounds, they'll figure out a way to give him the fight. He did much better than that and came out with a draw. So boxing, the theater of the unexpected, shout out to Larry Merchant and all of those great old,

old, old maxims about the sport. I have one question for you, Brian, about Mario Barrios. What, what, uh, comprimat, what leverage does he have on the, the, the boxing world that, I mean, these two very controversial draws in a row, his, I, his first huge step up fight step up fight way back in the day against what, Batyr Akhmedov. Yeah, it was a war.

I mean, he did a great fight. He dropped Akhmedov at the end and made it, and at least made a case for a winning. But a lot of people still scored that for the opponent. He and has had some serious luck in his personal life and his love life, we could say. But all of that- We're talking about, sorry, sorry.

We just, if you know, you know, so he's sort of touched by something here. What does he have? Does he have an island? Is he flying judges down to an island and getting things to blackmail on them? What's going on with him? I don't think so. I don't, and I don't think he's going to show up on the Epstein files either. If that's where you're going with that. But I think ultimately it was maybe happenstance in both situations because for everybody saying, oh, he got the PVC railroad job. They paid for these scorecards. They wanted to use Manny to build up the fight, but have their champion win.

It's like, are you following boxing in 2025? You think this promotion would rather use Manny to build up the fight, but have their champion win. It's like, are you following boxing in 2025? You think this promotion would rather have Manny as the champion right now or Barrios? But at the end of the day, I don't know. Barrios is who he is, man. It has to be frustrating maybe for Bob Santos in the corner. He said the right things. Barrios did enough to save it.

But now we're in this, Ty feels like kissing your sister type of thing where Nobody really knows where to how to move forward We didn't get the historic breakthrough feel good moment and now we're like, what do we do? Do we do it again? It kind of goes without saying that we are in a very down era at welterweight a historic star pay-per-view Division that this would be possible. That's true. Rarios was the perfect champion as much as John Ruiz

was for Roy Jones, for example, in a different sort of scenario. But now what do we do? Manny saying afterwards that like, yeah, I think I can fight again. They both kind of said they'd be interested for a rematch. I don't know if the public would be, you'd assume that with another year of, you know,

Mandy turning 47 in December, that maybe Barrios would, would listen to the criticism, watch the tape and be a lot better next time. Or should you try to F around and do a Floyd rematch, do a fight against Rolly Romero for a welterweight title. How does this blah result to a fight that was fun to watch? I loved calling it but we didn't get a result that was climactic, that was cement, that was solid. Where do we go with Pacquiao moving forward? If I am Sean Gibbons, the manager of Manny Pacquiao, shout out to Knucklehead Sean.

Yeah, the promoter there at MP. And everybody at PBC trying to plan out the Manny, you know, what's next for Manny, I would probably just act like you won. Just pretend like, whoa, take the draw, move on and try to make something bigger because while it would be, it would be, they could sell another body, they could sell a Barrios rematch, but if they're truly, if those rumors

about a Floyd rematch are true, why not just plow straight ahead into that? Because it's not, it's 2025, Brian. Boxers make a lot of fights that don't make sense, you know, in any other world except the strange, twisted, funhouse mirror universe of boxing. And certainly there could be, it's not hard to imagine a world in which there's like, there's so much money on the table, so much, so much pay-per-view money out there for a Manny employed rematch with Manny. I mean, Manny, like you said,

the story of the fight, just carry that and try and parlay it into the big payday, which is, people, I'd get excited for it. I wouldn't expect it to be a great fight, but I would still get excited for it. And there are other options if Floyd is not coming out of retirement. Is Rowling safe? Is that a safe fight or is that a really bad idea? What do you think? I think it makes sense. That makes perfect sense. There are opponents at welterweight who have name value, who are affiliated, who fight for PBC and who are beatable or it's not hard to imagine this version of Manny that we saw after having what they said was a great training camp in LA, really dedicated, sort of, you know, everything

went right. No drama I heard, no drama at all. Cause Jinky was in control. They said people were scared of her. That's what I heard. No, yeah. No more cod fighting, no more womanizing, no more billiards, maybe a little bit of billiards. But yeah, you got to have some room for billiards.

But he's, I think that Rowley makes sense. Like, and especially you think of what are the things that Barrios did that allowed Manny to have some success in this fight. He fought at a slow pace. He allowed Manny to be first and sort of pick and choose his spots on when he wanted to jump in and launch his attacks. And you see Rowley doing that as well. He's sort of a one-shot puncher artist. And I guess there were earlier versions of Rowley's career

where he charged forward, but I think that he... I don't... It's hard. The version of him that beat Ryan Garcia in April was, you know, fighting at a very slow, deliberate pace, trying to slow down Ryan, of course, and take advantage of some of Ryan's inexperience. But I think that it's just a sort of,

it's the matchup where it's not hard to see Manny doing really well against a fighter like that. And Rowley, again, having trouble like Barrios did, and Roly again, having trouble like, like Barrios did dealing with the speed, with the angles, with all of the, the, the experience and craftsmen, you know, like tricks of the trade that Manny is going to bring into the ring if they meet. So yeah, and there's a weird interim belt on the line.

So all that lines up and makes sense. It's good business. All right. There's one other Hail Mary. Nobody's talking about it. I'm just throwing it out there to see if you can catch it. Tank versus Pacquiao? Is it, are we gonna do that from Raway State Prison? Is Jersey back in the business for that? No, shoot.

Look, that's a more dangerous fight, obviously. Like Tank is, I think Tank, you know, I would expect Tank to, even though he's smaller, he fights, he usually fights at 135 pounds. He's been up what, as high as 140? But I just wouldn't expect him to, I guess Tank versus Manny, that's a fight where I think Manny starts to really get picked apart.

You see his age. Unless, you know, I mean, Tank does run hot and cold. If you catch Tank on a night where he's not feeling it, then maybe, you know, the narrative just goes wild from there. And Floyd will have to come back to avenge the loss of his former protege in that case. Yeah, yeah, that'd be weird. There'd be some weirdness going on there. I don't know. I don't know if I don't think I want Pacquiao Barrios again. I don't think, you know, it's I don't know. I don't know, dude. Let's see that Twitter meme there about the judges. People really didn't like these scores, but it is what it is. But yeah, Scott Foster, Stevie Wonder, and Dwayne Wade, we're we're judging the fight right there. We almost had a huge memorable feel good moment, but I really just I don't feel like we were robbed of it. I feel like that's boxing. Let's not act like this fight was fought at an incredibly high pace or some technical thriller.

It wasn't, it was an attraction fight. There was a great storyline and we got a a plus plus performance like an above expectations for a true legend. But that's not the way fights are scored. So we can't act like that. And then you can also score fights on the curve of the age and the overachievement. You can't do that either. So it is what it is.

But I did enjoy this card top to bottom right there. And there is something to talk about in that co main event as Sebastian Fundora stopped giving away his height for most of this in the rematch with Tim Zoo. And he brutalized him dropping zoo in round one, putting it on him through a back and forth all action round seven as zoo was starting to rally and had twice bloody the nose of fundora. But just as you walk back to the corner, it shocked me brought ringside. It shocked everybody.

He asked out of the fight. He was out on his feet and he really looked hurt for most of this fight and was fighting on instinct. The larger story of course is Sebastian Fundora is evolving into a real big problem. The zoo story is going to get a lot more tweets and clicks, but Rafe, let's talk about the winner. First and foremost, he was a praying mantis, fun action fighter,

joke of a guy in some cases until he wasn't. And now he's putting real craft and thought into it. I know there's the element of Tim Zoo having taken all beatings lately. But were you as impressed with fund or as I was that if he keeps going down this road, he might be like the true class of this division. It might be a problem for every single person. You have to you have to say that is that's a possibility here. If you can't have watched that fight and that performance, especially the rounds,

that first round and the first three rounds really where Fundura was in almost complete control. And then even when the fight warmed up in Zou, Tim Zou, he got beat up real bad, real bad, but had some real brave moments and landed some Sunday punches in the middle rounds, including that seventh round where they were exchanging, just wild exchanges like, like, like Emmanuel Stewart. Oh my God, look at this. Look at this.

Yeah, it was so, but that version of Fundora early on where he, yeah, he's using his jab way more active with it and has almost perfect distance with it and then was picking, was timing the exact right moments to come both, you know, over the top with that, you know, with his left, with Fundora with his left or to sort of like bolo it because he's, I mean, he is so tall, of course, six, six, six, six, seven at 154 pounds, when he throws sort of like that, that bolo-ish half, half uppercut,

and it basically arrives at eye level for his opponent. So he doesn't, and he can throw it from almost a safe distance and not get countered because of his height. So he doesn't and he can throw it from almost a safe distance and not get countered because of his height. All of it. He's cutting off the ring now. So there's like nowhere to hide against him. The one caveat there I want before we

you know before we start crowning this guy really calling him yeah maybe he is the class of the division. First let's remember this right now is a white hot division. I mean, Boots Ennis just came up. Boa Chuck is fighting. Virgil Ortiz looks at, is fighting the best he's fought in his entire career. Madgermaw is still out there. What has a belt still? I mean, Zias is coming on. Zias, gotta watch out for Zias, Brian. And so I would say I want to see-

What was that? I don't get what that was was because I'm just not a believer yet in my man Zander will see I hope I will see how he does with his vacant title fight coming up but But um, but yeah, so this one there's a lot of really excellent competition in this division So calling calling him the cream of this division means that he could that that you're essentially saying He might end up being better than Virgil Ortiz and Boots Ennis which yeah you got to earn that yeah that's it that's a far cry and i i would like to see it against someone who as brave as Tim Tzu is i think

that he he seemed like he learned all the wrong lessons from uh his just outstanding hot start to his career, where he was able to sort of stand flat-footed and out and counter lesser opponents and look like he was this sort of master in the pocket. Once he stepped up in class, it turned out that actually he's got bad instincts when he's hurt. It's fun instincts. He just tries to fight his way out of it. But he doesn't really move out of the way of the punches

that are hurting him. He just tries to fight his way out of it. And it's not working. So I'd like to see it against an opponent who doesn't just stand there and allow Fundora to really look as dynamic and incredible as he looked. But look, you got to give him credit. This is the opponent he had and it was a and he had fought that opponent before and didn't

look nearly as good. No and he got cracked a bunch. Exactly. Nose bleeding and shook it off. I mean, I have so much respect for the gas tank, for the improved punching power, for obviously the warrior spirit that Fundor has always showed. But I think we're starting to see him get a little bit of a chip on his shoulder for the first time.

You know, normally such a fun, loving, like, you know, humble guy. And by the way, he's going to Harvard. I mean, like there's a lot going on good in his life, but like his dad taught him how to sit down and on his shots and bring power. And he's looking really good. I did forget that Boots Ennis moved up. He has the potential to take over this division. You're gonna have to go through Virgil Ortiz to truly be called the class of this division.

But this felt like a breakthrough. He didn't just fall into this, even though he fell into the title opportunity. Remember, he was coming off of being KO'd by Brian Mendoza when he was offered the last minute chance at zoo the first time a year ago. So, wow. But let's talk about Tim Zoo. I know it's harsh to quote the great Prince Naseem Hamad. Should he finish? And I don't really mean that I'm playing that up because it's an old sound drop on our podcast. I guess what I'm saying is this. I actually thought he was mentally and physically ready for this and, and, and truly was, and it's just, this is a bad style matchup and he caught a really bad

version and now you're adding another beating to this recent run, three losses in the last four fights. I'm not saying he needs to retire or he will, but I do believe that that needs to be on the table in the conversation. Some people are using this as a way to say, see, he was never that good, which is also incorrect. He was very good. He looked like he was on his way to becoming the man in the division before he wasn't. What do what, what could or should Tim's who do after this in your eyes?

Brian, was he that good? He looked like, yeah thought he was gonna be good but when he got to the point of fighting the other elite championship level fighters not not once did it really work out well and you're if you're gonna say that yeah he was very very good he was on the way then then you're sort of buying into the idea that that cut fighting through that cut in the first fundora fight somehow derailed the whole thing, which I mean, that's not, look, it's a crazy sport. Weird things can happen like that. It's not implausible, but it's also possible that maybe he just wasn't that guy. Like we saw what we wanted to see against opponents who let Tim Tzu look good and

then better opponents came in and he wasn't good against them anymore. Anyway, as you're asking asking what should he do next I'm you know he doesn't need to retire but he's not no one is going to buy him as a credible championship threat of real championship contender at 154 pounds right now he needs to build himself back up and and luckily for him the driving fight culture in Australia he can go back down under and you know what's waiting for him there a fight that you know a fight that a certain of certain male dancer probably believes Tim Zuduk back in the day. Are you talking about Michael Zarafa? Yeah it's time the

thunder down under should happen. The stripper. Yeah the stripper Michael Zarafa. Yeah, it's time. The thunder down under should have a stripper. Right. Yeah. The stripper Michael Zarafa, who is the test maker down there in Australia. You shouldn't get off that continent without first beating that stripper. If you can't get because he Zarafa, he will, he will expose you. He's exposed our boy Isaac Hardman who was up and coming. Yeah. But Lara sent him to hell though. Look, Zarafa don't belong over here either, but I'm saying- I mean, Peter Quillen killed him once straight up, right? He is, that was his US debut

and he kept coming back over to get sent back to hell. However, that's a good fight down, that is the sort of, okay, Tim Tzu, go home, get back in the lab, we're going back to the drawing board as Daniel Dubois likes to say. And if you say the words Glenn Rushden, I'm coming over there. Okay. I mean, come on.

It hadn't occurred to me yet, but if you, you know, get Glenn Rushden, Jeff Horn, his wife, Joe Horn, the rhythm pressure method, some tough, tough Aussie gang members. All right. And teach this man a few things. Give him, put some new tricks in that bag. Teach him how to move, get some,

work on his game a little bit. Let him fight a couple of easy, you know, a couple more Joey Spencer's, but you don't have to fly him in. They could be local Joey Spencer's down there. And then make a big local domestic fight with Michael Zarafa, who's always ready. He's always ready.

There's domestic comeback plans for sure. If he wants to still keep going. Damn. I mean, I don't mean to always make excuses. And I'm not going to say he was, you know, on his way to staying, to being unbeaten from the beginning. He's a, you know, there's flawed elements to his game that have gotten exposed.

I just think that there's certainly elements of excuses in the first Fundora loss plus the sort of moral victory of how he behaved and performed. Even though that took a certain, that took a percentage of them. And then to go in there against Murtazali of a killer guy, we didn't even mention sort of the names that Fundora should be going through and maybe will be or have to prove himself against that guy is no joke. But I don't think the one sided walkthrough of Mertesalia versus zoo. I'm not gonna say like it didn't happen. I saw I called the fight. I think zoos dad being there just f him up and how they're on and off relationship and it just it was the wrong fight the wrong night the wrong everything and he was

Just not there and he lost and got the shit kicked out of him Now you're adding another beat down. I get that I Just don't know if he should keep going because inevitably when you get to the top he's gonna be in some banger fights and He could I Don't know. I'm really torn, dude. I'm emotionally torn. You know, you get attached to these stories when you watch these guys. And he does have that Terminator side of him

who never wants to come out of a fight. To see him actually say enough was enough was shocking, even though he had more than enough right to. If he did walk away, no one would say anything negative, except for maybe H, right? Well, HE seems to have seems to be a little hurt about what was the what what was the backstory to well, let's set it up. Yeah, I'll set it up for you. So, around the time that we heard the first two dissenters to the

HE reaching out to you and offering you money and you know, he'll he'll put you against who he wants It was canelo at first who was very aggressive in tank who was very aggressive The third in that and it just so happened at the time that all three were close to the pbc label You know was zoo but zoo didn't do it in a disrespectful way. He was like No, I already have a fight. Let me get that first and then I believe he was offered money ahead of the Mertesalia fight to go fight. Remember he had a pullout of the LA Riyadh season card against Virgil Ortiz Jr. because his cut wasn't fully healed from the Fundora fight so it wasn't time yet for him and then he turned down an offer from Turkey to instead fight Bakram for the title because I think he wanted to

get right back in there. Even Tim Zuse said in the lead-up to this fight I got no problem with Turkey, I'd be more than happy to work with him, but after he got KO'd here, dude, or after he asked out of it, Turkey gave a very Dana white like response. So here's the deleted tweet that got a lot of people, I think rightfully angry of Turkey putting out a picture of zoo, getting knocked down and saying, I said to you from the beginning, Tim's zoo does not deserve to be on Riyadh season or ring magazine's cards. He can be useful as a sparring partner

for for his fighter. He went on to say more and that it's cut off right there. Um, Rafe, a lot of people are getting after me on Twitter when I tweeted, you know, this is bullshit. Like this, we don't need this type of talk in boxing. People like, well, what about Oscar de la Hoya? He just did a victory lap on Berlangas Keo. There is a difference here. There is a major difference in my opinion in terms of the control Turkey has and just the respect you would want to show for fighters. Also Oscar's a mess. Also that is fighter versus fighter kind of, you know, going after it. It's, I don't know, am I crazy here? When I saw this, I was like, man, no, that's not the right tone. Zou didn't try to clown on him. Zou didn't do anything, but

go in there and fight like a warrior until he couldn't anymore. I thought that was a Bush league response. How did you react to it? It's in, it's clearly in poor taste, Brian. Turkey, uh, we know this good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter.

He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter.

He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a very good fighter. He's a the most part, that's been pretty good for boxing. It's created a lot of good fights

that have not happened otherwise. And he's making, I mean, Riyadh season and ring, whatever we're calling them fights, are filling up the schedule in a way that few other promoters are. So that side of it is fine with me. But it still remains that when Turkey actually starts to speak about the sport or express his views,

whether it's the whole, I don't want Tom and Jerry fights, even though the analogy doesn't make any sense at all, where he doesn't want fighters running, he meant, I want blood, like that's not what the sport is all about. When it happens that way, we can love and appreciate it, but that's not all that boxing is. Skills also pay the bills, right? Shout out to Floyd.

And the more he talks about boxing, the more he sort of convinces me that he's not a very smart observer of boxing. Maybe he'll become one. Maybe he'll develop a true love for the sport. I also don't care really what he says. I get like, it's whack. Did I already know that Turkey Al-Sheikh is whack in my opinion?

Yes, I knew that. I get like it's whack. Did I already know that Turkey Al-Sheikh is whack in my opinion? Yes, I knew that. Oh, I hear you. I hear you. You know, but that was responsive to everybody. But what about this? What about Tank being arrested? What about this?

It's like those things aren't related. And we've talked about that. We are talking about a power player, a promoter who's, you know, a promoter-ish, advisor ish, whatever you want to call him, who is like the one going around the promoters and managers and having the one-on-one relationship. So that looked, it just felt like throwing, throwing dirt on the grave unnecessarily, but maybe you're right. Uh, of the recent, uh, the recent beef retaliations from that side of the pond

have been very interesting. They got receipts over there. It's wild, it's getting wild. It's getting wild in Versace land lately over there. I mean, it's a circus, but- I mean, this is the same guy who hires his journalist to come act like weird wrestling henchmen around him all the time and just be part of his traveling circus.

And look, I mean, I think that they might've been more suited to those roles than their previous jobs, but it's the kind, they're, he's, it's like, oh, this guy who doesn't seem to really, you know, have a ton of class in the old, the old man sports, old man yells at clouds sportsmanship sense of the word has a classless tweet about a fighter who didn't fight on his card for one reason or another, made a decision not to work with Turkey.

Turkey tries to kick him while he's down. Yeah, I could see a guy, at least the person who I imagine Turkey Al-Sheikh is, I could see him doing that. He's a person who, as reported in the athletic in the New York Times, has a wing of a prison nicknamed after him because he's got such a thin skin. He likes to put his critics in there. I hear you, I hear you on all of that.

More like jerky, right, man? Yeah, tough loss there for Zuh. We'll see where he goes from here. And the only quick mention I wanted to add, turn back the clock night. It wasn't just Pacquiao. 37-year-old Gary Russell Jr. came back, absolutely dominated a limited opponent who was very game in Hugo Castaneda. But afterwards, in his new division of lightweight, and don't forget that through all of his inactivity,

which with like one fight in the last seven years or five, six years, wherever the streak was, and of course his father dying and him taking over the training and him taking over his other late brother's children were a big part of him being out. He had a lot of beef stir in that stretch with big name fighters at 140, 147. So maybe it's not a surprise that he's talking game afterwards, but mr. Gary Russell's talking some game first Let's hear him talk about one boot. Well, Keith third. No, who's he talking about there? Lamar Lamar Ro your core let's hear it Few years back. I think he's a good fighter, but like I say,

I wouldn't have put this shit on the line against anybody in the 135 pound division. Dude, this is interesting because he's 37, 38, whichever one it was, I think 37. But he was not taking punishment. He does have that arm injury from his last fight before this, the loss to Mark Maxeyo, which he thought he won with one arm.

He said his shoulder will never be the same, but he looked like a 28 year old prime throwing fast and hard combinations. Do we say, let's wait and see if he still got it against a more live body, or do you think he could step in there against these young champions and maybe give him a problem? Yeah, why not?

What I saw was that looked enough like the Gary Russell I knew and loved back in the day, the combinations, the hand speed. It does seem like he has the legs of a late 30-year-old athlete now. He was not moving around the ring, but maybe it's because he didn't need to, or who knows. But it did sort of seem like he was really relying on,

you know, his hand speed and combination punching, which still appeared to be as good as anything you can see in the sport of boxing. And he's not that old, so it makes sense. And even though he's had health issues, right, he threw out his shoulder and that caused, I believe it caused him to lose the Mokzai fight. And his only other losses against Lomachenko

at the beginning of his career, or in their first title fight against each other, more than 10 years ago, he never took a lot of damage in his career. Unfortunately, he did have hand injuries that kept him out and appeared to not be super eager to stay active as a champion, which is lamentable. What are you gonna do?

It's too late now. But maybe he recognizes that now and realizes, hey, I'm still 37. I still got it enough to compete at the highest level. Maybe I know I'm not quite as good as I was five years ago, but I'm ready. I want it more. I wanna be active. And he's got enough to give, I mean, yes, Lamont Roach,

for sure I think that would be, I'd love to see that fight. Would I favor Shakur Stevenson over him at this point? Yes, I would. But do I still think that he would catch Shakur Stevenson with punches we've never seen Shakur Stevenson come close to getting caught with? I do and I would love to see that. So yeah if he's right if they want to throw him straight into the fire I would love to see that. Look Mark Muxio also fought on this undercard. Did he win? He did he did win. Okay so that means that a rematch is

viable like if if everyone is if those bigger fights are booked Lamont Roach says look I'm waiting till tank gets out of jail I want that payday I want my get back and there's nothing you can do to talk me out of it if Shakur has business with Floyd Schofield and someone else after that if whatever if they can't make those kind of fights immediately the Muxio fight is right there it makes sense because you know that that's a loss that he probably thinks he can and wants to avenge. Yeah it's gonna be fun to see. I didn't have this on my bingo card, but enjoyed it. All right, let's get into topic number five.

We could have just as well led the entire show with this as it's among some of the most amazing headlines that came out of this loaded combat weekend. But how about heavyweight champion, undisputed for the second time, Ukrainian hero, Alexander Usyk, adding yet another giant gold diamond piece with flair to his incredible already historic legacy and maybe really getting his flowers in an abundant way

for the first time in a deserved way. It went down Saturday in Webley Stadium in front of 90K, more than 90,000, not quite 80K Carl Fratsch, but Rafe to paraphrase the great Angel Garcia, you've been giving Usyk his flowers from the beginning. This violent fifth round knockout of Daniel Dubois in the rematch to become undisputed that heavyweight for the second time, undisputed

overall for the third time. This was the performance it seemed, and rightfully so, that woke up the people that had yet to really realize not just that we have an all-timer here, but that we might have a top 10 heavyweight all-time, that we might have a guy who is carving out like Manny his own sort of description. The craziest part about this to me was you said on our Inside the Box podcast last week coming in that at 38, Usyk might be at the peak of his powers. This might be his prime. And I remember thinking like, it's cute to say that because of how great he's been fighting and he's coming off of two wins over Tyson Fury. say that because of how great he's been fighting and he's coming off of two wins

over Tyson Fury. But man, that can't really be true in reality. And then I watched how he performed on Saturday, knowing he had a more dangerous version of Dubois and how he brought the fight to him and got him the hell out of there. I think I think you're right. I think we're watching the very best version of one of the true living legends in the history of the sport. How much do you think Saturday's performance based on the reaction we're really starting to hear might cement this idea that we truly are watching

a one of one in the history of the sport? Well, I mean, Usyk is 38, and I'm not gonna argue with anyone who wants to go back and watch that run through Cruiserweight. Watch that World Championship Super Six, whatever they called that, World Boxing Super Series Tournament from 2019. Where in 2018, where Usyk ran through Markle Hook and that masterclass performance in the championship

against Murat Gassiev and even the war, the hardest fight of his career really, against or the closest one against Mayres Priatus in the middle of that. All of those, I mean, the version you saw of Usyk there in a lot of ways probably looks fresher and more dynamic even than the one we've seen, you know, we saw on Saturday or recently against Tyson Fury. But what I do think is that heavyweight in the second Fury fight, I felt like Usyk looked as if he had finally grown into a full-fledged, strong heavyweight, fully comfortable at the division and fighting toe-to-toe or

able to fight toe-to- to toe with any of the biggest opponents in the world in a way where he was, you know, he was still growing even though his weight was pretty, has been really incredibly stable throughout this heavyweight run. But his body started to look really solid and he was holding his ground and his neck and sort of trap muscles. He had like a true heavyweight physique, modern heavyweight physique, and he fought like it and we saw even more of that on Saturday. So yeah, I think we're seeing the best heavyweight version of Usyk we've seen so far and there

is no reason, he has not shown us any signs of slowing down. Inside, I bet he knows what little things are a little bit different from, that he can't do quite as quick as he needs as he used to do. But he's so smart. He's got so there's so many dimensions to what he can do ways he can trouble and confuse and beat and then hurt opponents. That we might not, you know, we might not know that he's going that he has gone downhill for a long time because he's good

enough to just keep beating people as he progresses into his, you know, late, he's already in his late 30s, goes through his late 30s, maybe into his 40s. He looks incredible at this weight. And he, look, he made Daniel Dubois just, he outclassed him, man. It was incredible. It was insane. It really was because I knew he had the power to potentially make this not as difficult as we thought because of the success he had against Dubois

in the first fight, but even the idea that he disciplined both fury and Joshua with those straight left hands, you know, to where they couldn't just try to walk him down like he was some small opponent, because even though he's the smallest of the class in this super heavyweight era, man, dude, his way to know when it's time to sit down on the power of the accuracy, speed and power to really give you trouble if you're going to try to threaten him or play games with him. He is getting better. He is getting better fight by fight. He has to to be

able to I mean because when he turned pro, I mean not turn pro when he moved up to heavyweight and let's not remember for people if you didn't watch like he's generally considered either the greatest cruiserweight of all time or number two behind the van der holyfield so we're watching a guy that came out of winning a gold medal in the olympics and beat every unbeaten champion one after another in that great tournament you reference but yet when he moved up to heavyweight it was like damn they're big wilder was still viable joshua and are so much, you know, wider and bigger and stronger. You know, he was like a boutique, cute offering in the division

of, you know what, he is skilled and daring and brave enough. Maybe he'll pick up a title. It is possible. Rafe, even though you've been a day one guy and if I wanted to, I could show a picture of you standing on top of a mountain in an usik hoodie, giving yourself the, yeah, giving yourself the Rob Van Dam there. You have to be blown away surprised because I know the guy I podcasted with during the cruiserweight Usyk era. You can't tell me you expected him to defeat the names he did through eight heavyweight fights and for it to look this way.

And it didn't always look this way that Jusor fight was close, the witherspoon last minute debut, he looked okay. But look at who he is now knowing that there's no reason to let Dubois linger. He's gonna have to go after him to get him out of there. And he walked through a guy that just knocked Anthony Joshua the fuck out. Holy shit, you didn't see that coming, dude.

You did not. You can't say that. No, no, I'm happy. I mean, to see an athlete attempt something so honestly crazy, it seemed crazy, far-fetched. And this was a fighter who I thought was the top three in the sport, and that has never budged from that position, right? If anything, he's only growing in everyone's estimation. But still, at heavyweight, with how well Tyson Fury was fighting at the time, how just physical and powerful and explosive Anthony Joshua can be when he's on. With when, yeah, Deontay Wilder, it still was a question, well, what if Wilder catches it with a right?

Like that would end it. And to see him, and I figured that, look, he can go up and I would consider him immediately the pound for pound best heavyweight, but he's given up 60 pounds to some of the best of these guys. And eventually that weight somehow, or that size is, seemed like eventually it was going to be too much

to overcome. So yeah, when he first fought Anthony Joshua, I was like, yeah, I think he can do it. I can see how he will try, he might try to do it. But do I know for sure that he can pull it off? No, I don't know. And then he did, And he did it again. And of course, then at Fury, again, I thought, man, it's so much to bite off. Tyson Fury is

such a born winner in a way that Usik, I believe also was, but that's the thing. He was meeting a great fighter like himself who was just gigantic compared to him and has a gigantic bag of tricks and different ways to fight and win fights, pretty ugly, showboating, can do it all himself in his own way. And I was like, man, I wanna see him do it. Again, I believe that he is talented and disciplined and has the attributes to pull this off,

but I don't like what I bet on it. No, I would have made Tyson Fury the favorite in that first fight. And again, he over... He almost knocked him out. He knocked Tyson Fury out. I think he's this guy, Usyk is this fighter who I thought was already incredible. Then went and said,

I'm going to do all the things that even my biggest fans think probably might be just too much more, too ambitious for even some, even me to do. And then pulls it all off twice. Uh, and, and the DWAF,ois, I mean, the thing is, especially at heavyweight, he beats, he's beating opponents. He hurts them first with his legs and his brain and his feints and the kind like the going all the way back to the Tony Bell you fight, which was at cruiserweight,

but the one that you called, Brian, where he tires out the opponent with movement, circling, constantly making these big men adjust and think and react to his jab and to everything in the ring to the point where they tire out before he does. And then his punches, which might not have hurt them in the first round, can hurt them, can knock them out, can knock them down, can swing a just I mean it's all it's it's we're lucky to watch it and yes he does I mean he I think is at this point he's clearly cementing himself as the as the best heavy weight of the 21st century definitely you know and and of this renaissance era and people

are like well this era sucks well first of of all, it doesn't it I've made arguments in print that it actually could be the third best era of all time but even if it's not like He's beating he is beating Hall of Famers when you talk about two wins over fury two wins over over Joshua and the idea of beating some of those like Top shelf purezer weights at the time that he did. Dude, he's done this in 24 fights. I don't think another pro has had, considering the eras that we compare these guys to, they had a hundred, 150, 200 fights,

but in 24 fights, this guy went from being the first four belt undisputed Cruiserweight champion, being every single champion one after another, and now beating this run at heavyweight and twice becoming the undisputed champion first time the four belt undisputed. This is this is insane. Let's see that Twitter meme there with all the faces on it along Alan Luke of the recent run there. I'm sorry of all the these are the last 11 fights. So the last fight at cruiserweight there was Bellier the last last two fights was Bell Yu and Myra Sprydas. Oh, and Murat, so this is the end of the world boxing super series

leading into his heavyweight run. Look at this. So you're looking at his last 10 fights, 11 if you count the second Dubois. That's insane. That's absolutely insane, dude. And even the, that was a great version of Chazor who really pushed them.

So it's not like that- Yeah, that was a great version of Chazor, who really pushed them. So it's not like that- Yeah, that was a throwback, yeah. Like Chazor doing his best wild man act that he could and put just smothering him with so much like disgusting, ugly pressure, but it's hard to deal with, especially for a fighter like Usyk. But the thing, Brian, with that graphic, the other crazy thing about that graphic is

there's not enough room on the screen in that tweet, but it should have gone on a little bit longer his fight two fights before that he beat Marco hook, who you know was a dangerous heavyweight and a longtime cruiser weight, you know, title list and title can contender, and also glow at ski, the, you know, the Polish champion. Michael Hunter? Yeah, I mean like those are the three fights before then. It's outrageous like you could and even then shout out to my boy Tabisu Mchunu of South Africa who in his moment could give our boy Eddie Chambers a rough night on NBC Sports. Yeah and while everyone can say cruiserweight sucks it always sucks that was the deepest it ever was seriously for like world-class guys. And think about it, how hard it is to be a heavyweight in the top five of a pound for pound at any

time. The list, you know, the pound for pound was created to put people on an even basis with heavy weights that they'd never be able to defeat in reality in an era in which you have so much competition on top of it that Terrence Crawford, Niall Inouye, Jesse Bam Rodriguez, who we'll talk about in a second, like Canelo, all these people have to take a back seat to this guy being the rightful pound for pound number one at age 38 and being a heavyweight. It's amazing. Let's hear this great piece of sound from the press conference that everybody's been rightfully playing up about Ustik explaining why he is who he is and why he's here today.

Ah, listen, bro, I don't have motivation. I have, uh, uh, discipline. Motivation. It's temporary. Today, for example, uh, today motivation, tomorrow you wake up early, you don't have motivation. But when I wake up early in training, I never have motivation. I have only discipline.

Because when I wake up, my team to wake up and we go to training motivation need only a matter, a matter sportsman, not boxing, not professional. Yeah. Italy, he is a very impressive person, loves his God, his family and his country. Above all else, you can see that in the way he lives his life. Here's a tweet from Luke Thomas actually

who's on vacation right now, but saying, Usyk might be the most talented and accomplished combat sports athlete of my adult life. Rafe, both you and I are not here to try to figure out exactly where he would rank top 10 all time if he is in the top ten. And look, once you start actually doing a top ten, you realize how many greats there

have been. He does fit, though, the mythical matchup idea really well as someone six foot three with that skill, that durability. Could he beat a prime Lennox Lewis or Vitaly Klitschkoff even from modern era? I don't know. But we know what we're watching. We are watching one of the greatest of all time. So if he's got a couple fights left, who should be next?

I think the proper judgment tells you Joseph Parker has earned it. He's been on the outside looking in lately of this opportunity. But then they let freaking Jake Paul in the ring. What is, show this, what is going on here? Now apparently, Rafe, this was to push the idea of an MMA fight between the two and not a boxing match, and luckily, and if it's an MMA fight, like do it afterwards.

As far as who's left, Turkey tweeted that he wants what, 21 year old Moses Itauma, who is going going to be great but it's early in that dude's rise why would it not be Joseph Parker next? The only reason it would not be Joseph Parker is because they think it's not sexy enough or they think it's not not going to make enough money they can't sell it well enough if I if look if if it's Turkey's money make the fight that we should that that should be made according to the you know I mean not that anyone actually follows the rules of not not that not not that the sport of boxing follows its old rules

Or that commissions rules really they even care about their own rules But but generally in the spirit of the sport if there is such a thing in boxing like Parker is on a great run He's a former champion. He's a he's he he all, he, he, you know, he fought AJ and, and, and, you know, and tried to unify. Uh, he's, he's, he's a worthy challenger. And the way that I think Usyk builds his resume from here isn't by running it back for a third time with AJ or Fury. Guys, he's already beaten twice.

Even though, look, Fury is, is Fury is all, might always be the toughest match alive how Usyk builds his resume from here in that not just having beaten the big names and clearly put himself above them, but then stretch out that run. Show people that, yeah, there wasn't some random guy out there who might have had my number but just never got the chance. And also, it's fun to see new styles match up in the ring, even if I would make Alexander Usyk a heavier favorite

against Joseph Parker than I would in a third Fury fight. But at the same time, Brian, and this is something that all of the UK fighters who fought him twice say, the second time you run into that guy, it's a much worse experience. Like he already, like he has, like we used to say about his friend and compatriot and former Ukrainian folk dance partner Vasily Lomachenko,

he's downloaded the information. He's got you in the hard drive and he's going to be way worse. So it is fun to see a new fighter give him a new problem set to unravel in the ring and also how they're going to react to everything that Usyk can throw at them. So I would like to see Joseph Parker get it. Even though, I mean, Joseph Parker might be all the things he does are a little bit like Alexander Usyk, just a little bit worse. So it's not, it's, it's, I see why it's not sexy, but that's what, that's, that's the deserve, that's sort of what deserves to happen at this point.

Well, look, the love that Usyk showed England in the ring afterwards in the press conference, even though Parker's a New Zealander formerly sponsored by Burger King and who would have the center logo on the ring on his local fights. I think you do that in the UK, you know, do it on a turkey card loaded up. They did not load up this one, but I think that it'd be just fine because those fans make filling a soccer stadium with almost a hundred thousand people feel really special. Those, the dude, the, the ring walk for both fighters on Saturday Dubois and Usyk It really gave me like chills. It blew me away and I watched it after the fact knowing the result and to see

That pageantry dude, like that's everything. I love about boxing bring him back there even when those UK Dizone announcers came on guys guys that we've been, you know, watching call fights forever, even as Americans, I was like, damn, come on, give me Grisham, give me that big fight feel. Those guys were awesome, dude. I mean, they not only gave Usyk some major flowers, but they made that fight feel like it was, you know, the epic end to a movie. So, Joseph Parker deserves it.

I think he'd give him an interesting fight. You want to do a Taoma'd give him an interesting fight. You wanna do a Taoma, give him a big name first, right? Give him a little more than what you have given him, which he looks fantastic. Let's just close out this and we'll get into the fan segments. We gotta bring up what did happen

with Todd Grisham on the call Saturday night. And that's when DeZone went to Frisco, Texas. We got to see a unification fight at Super Flyweight and pound for pound ranked San Antonio's own Jesse Bam Rodriguez, Francisco, Texas. We got to see a unification fight at Super Flyweight and pound for pound ranked San Antonio's own Jesse Bam Rodriguez, just 25 years old, put it on a game. Fumalala, Fumalala, Kaffu to finish him via 10th round TKO, unified titles, put him a step closer to Super Fights, which will be first a unification with Fernando Martinez this fall

In Riyadh not a super fight, but a very good unification and then the idea could he fight? Nakatani could he fight in a way down the line first and foremost rave we know how good he is But then you watch this fight and you see the wrinkles He's adding to his footwork to his game, to the way he leaps in with combinations. He's fucking awesome. And he's not going to get the, the pub he deserves on this, on this past weekend or maybe for a while as his profile continues to grow.

But he's really becoming a, a dynamic, insanely great boxer. And I don't want people to miss this. I'm not, man. The patience, also the patience in this fight. Kafu was fighting a very negative style, basically going from corner to corner defending and challenging Bam with truly dangerous counter punches. Like he had a nice little game plan to make Bam work and Bam Bam took his time one rounds banked rounds along the way did what he needed to do to give himself a cushion on the scorecards didn't just sort of fall into complacency and be like this guy was you know, do honestly, you know, imagine Canelo against William skull who was doing a much worse version of what Kafu was sort

of doing in this fight. But like, and Canelo just sort of disengaging. No, Bam stayed with him, stuck to him. That was whenever Kafu tries to relocate Bam's footwork is so, like, we usually see it just, we think of it when he does those shifts and sets up a great combination. But it was also in keeping the pressure on this opponent who was trying to make it a really hard night for him and make him work as much as possible and had some success, but eventually he figured him out

and delivered a pretty impressive finish, even though they got kind of tangled up and then it got waved off from the corner. But it was, man, he's an artist, man, and he's so young. He's 25 years old. He could be doing this. The smaller fighters tend to have shorter careers. It's unusual to see them fight into their late 30s

like the heavyweights do, but goodness Brian. He's, you could take Brian's, Brian, well, I like all of Brian's tweets. You could take Luke's tweet about Alexander Usyk from this weekend and apply it to Naya Inouye. Maybe, you know, Ben Rodriguez isn't that far from similar kind of praise because they're doing really incredible things and dominating just outstanding opponent after outstanding

opponent. They're, he's fantastic, man. And I have to admit, sometimes, you know, you tune in for a fight, you know, he's great, but you're like, is he really great as we say he is? And then you watch that fight and watch just how ahead of it he is, how dynamic he is. I mean, a thinker, but with real power.

He's got a cool look with the tattoos he's adding. He's a badass on top of it. And he beats legends and beats them badly. So continue to soar there, Bam. I hopefully he'll get the kind of big fights that chocolate Tito eventually got that really put them in people's living rooms. Five seconds or less. How disappointed were you that Diego Pacheco decided to box Trevor McCundy McCombie and we didn't get a weird Florida swamp sloppy war.

As I like I'm I'm I'm not I'm not I'm not over it yet Brian I'm I'm down it's it's got me down bad. Alright let's we got two more segments for you happy thankful that the great rave bugs filling in for Luke

Thomas today as Luke enjoys a family vacation every Sunday night we put out the call at morning combat on Twitter and on the damn Instagram to hear your questions. We'll try to answer them the best we can. This one's called DMs from dogs. Ah, ah, ah. Was the sound of a donkey getting off apparently

and it's disgusting. It wasn't that bad. Okay, I've heard worse. I've looked at a lot of donkeys. Yeah, I mean, you've probably seen that video in the late 90s that people used to show each other in colleges with that woman and that giant horse. Like, I don't, I can't, I just, I can't, I can't, okay? I can't.

Anyway, first question, what do you got, people? From Nate the Great UK. Oh, sorry, Nate the Great UX? Lux. Yeah. All right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Here's small writing. I got old eyes with how much class was displayed before and after the fight. UFC 380 main event on Saturday between Dustin and Max outside of those guys. Who would you guys put in a top five classiest fighters? No order necessary from an MMA side, you know, those guys are

right there at the top of it. I love Randy Couture and all that as just an all time gentleman. And maybe he'll appear on this episode. We'll see. We still got some time left. Raph, what do you got on a boxing standpoint? You've been a reporter, you've been an admirer of this game. Who do you think kind of fits that Dustin Poirier, Max Holloway bill of like, at the end of the day, you just want to cheer for them because they're gentlemen. They're, they're respectful class individuals. Oh, a real top bloke. I think we got to go. We got, we probably got to go across the pond

and figure out who's a, who, who always gives her like a, like an Anthony Krohler back in the day, clear clad, Dazling Darren Barker. There you go, Brian. I mean, he's retired now. I mean, you gotta put Manny in that too and you know I love Darren Barker. But I mean, Manny, we wasn't always a gentleman. You know that's a good point.

That's a good point. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's hard because a lot of times you get guys that are naturally edgy because it's the fight game, right? But I mean, I guess there's a difference between if you press their buttons, they'll come after you

and they can still be classy individuals. I'm like, you know, Daniel Cormier to me in MMA comes across on a top five of that as just a classy individual, a guy that I like a lot. And in that regard, I mean, maybe boxing, as Angel Garcia also famously said, it's a hood sport. Maybe there aren't classy individuals at the end of the day. There are lots of great guys.

I mean, Vander Holyfield was always to me, a treat. I mean, Bam Rodriguez is one of the, you were on the call with Abner Mares. I mean, he is another one. Oh, great call. Everyone, every, I mean, Leo Santa Cruz. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm naming a lot of retired fighters, but they're all fighters who have been gracious and generous from the homeless man's BC, Rafe Bartholomew, to the actual BC, to all the, they treat us all well.

They treat their fans great. They're just, they are true class acts. Yeah, I'll put Peter Quillen in there. I love that guy, Caleb Plant. There's been a few of those guys when you meet them and really talk to them outside of the game. You can really be about respect. Carlos Galdemir?

No, no, no, no. Oh, how dare you? But Dustin and Max definitely fit that bill. That's why it was baby face versus baby face. It was great. Number two from Flannels and Jits. Where does Dustin Poirier rank among the best fighters to never win a title?

Is he a first ballot Hall of Famer? So the latter, of course, he's the first ballot Hall of Famer. He would be under, in my opinion, if they had stringent Hall of Fame credential, you know, stipulations there like a like a baseball Hall of Fame, I think it'd still be that. And you know, to me, I think he's number two behind Dan Henderson of the guys that never won a undisputed UFC title but did fight in the UFC. And we talked about that earlier with Brett,

what his resume ultimately means. But yeah, he'll be a first ballot in there because he's so beloved and he's a great UFC company man outside of just being a great dude. But he would get in there anyway. It was just an insanely great talent. But sometimes you do get those individuals where maybe they don't get all that way to the top, but what they left behind, man. It's harder in boxing rave because there's titles going out of style. I mean, Adrian Broner is gonna be able to say

he's a four division champion. I mean, it's a true fact, it's hard. Less titles in the UFC. Let's hear from Von Beckel. What is your guy's criteria for the Hall of Fame? Boxing is a little more stringent than the UFC sort of ceremonial Hall of Fame, but yet they also let in Arturo Gatti, Mike Tyson,

Riddick Bowe, people that you would think actually might have a case for Sergio Martinez, who I, one of my favorite fighters of all time, but I even think he, with that short elite window, there should be a line in the sand for you, Rafe. What should be the criteria of what would get you into, let's say, the boxing hall? I think the big, the number one criteria is like you were getting at within the, you know, we're Team Sergio here. We're Mara Villa guys. All right. We can't be on him.

You have to, the knee was not responding in that fight. We know all know this, Brian. But you're right about that. He just, you look at the resume, you're like, this might not actually be a Hall of Fame resume. So I think greatness over time is the number one criteria. After that, there are, I could,

there's a little bit of room still for just an incredible peak, but it has to be outstanding. Like a peak that was so white hot, so historic. For those two years, he might have been the best fighter I've ever seen in the tight peak. There aren't too many fighters who reach you get that high and Well, there's a lot of fighters that'll get high but not maybe not that high or you have you froze out here Walt Disney style rave do we still have you tell me can you hear me my friend? Can you hear me? We'll try to get him unfrozen as we continue on down the line

But I think what he's trying to say is you got a value you on down the line. But I think what he's trying to say is you got to value accomplishments above all else. Longevity certainly helps because longevity will mean that you were on top for a long time and thus the accomplishments will be bigger. But like he said, and I think it's the same thing in any team sport, you have to have to all you can't just be a compiler. There has to be a certain stretch where you were considered among the best in the game, an MVP candidate or a champion in the face of a division, that also helps. The marketability side, the pay-per-view commercial selling side, the grabbing people's hearts side, that does matter.

And for someone like Arturo Gatti who was a world champion as well, it was borderline but no one really aggressively argued against it, because if somebody should get in under that silo and that way of thinking, it should have been a gaudy. But when they're talking about WWE and UFC particularly, there's like no standards. It's just like, who would put into this year? Oh, everybody, whatever. We got one more for you from the people. And this one's from Nick you Nick who underscore macronuck Where do you rank usic among the all-time heavyweights and the all-time boxers overall? such a hard thing to do especially because boxing history going back so far to the early 1900s and

Unlike a lot of other sports it's it's aged less gracefully from the idea that like it's really hard to compare George Mike into Shaquille O'Neal, right? In that regard, just the eras were so far apart in the competition level. And even, you can say even Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds, you know, pre Jackie Robinson in breaking the segregation in baseball.

Boxing is a little more wide open because in some cases outside of the size and athleticism we see today, a lot of the champions from many decades ago are actually better because of just what it was then you're fighting almost every weekend, you've got 100 to 200 fights, there's a boxing gym on every corner, boxing was at such a different place in the public consciousness and as a king sport in the 40s and 50s with baseball and horse racing that it's preserved a certain thing where I still think Joe Lewis is the greatest heavyweight of all time, Muhammad Ali number two. Can Usyk fall into that top 10? It's really subjective and you gotta make your top 10 first

and then you gotta make the list of the guys on the outside looking in and you really have to look at it. One thing, as I mentioned earlier, that helps Usyk in this idea is that he's undefeated, that he has a separate legacy at cruiserweight. I don't think that goes against the fact that he only has eight heavyweight fights

because look what he's done in eight heavyweight fights. I think in some ways that spices it up a little bit more But I think the fact that he could compete in any era that he has that game that you know It's not like Rocky Marciano where you're like great for his era retired undefeated Not in a great era an era where you can be 511 and 185 as heavyweight right like a different than The super heavyweights today the fact that Usyk has sw Like a different than the super heavyweights today. The fact that Usyk has swam above water against the super heavyweights of today

really would give him a shot. That I don't think it's crazy to wonder if he's in consideration now for top 10. But it's harder to crack it than people realize. And I do like the tweets from Ishae Smith in the last 24, 48 hours that really is like, yes, let's give him, let's give him that. Let's give him that respect that he endures and endure. But you just can't say, oh, he probably beats Ali

too. You just can't say even, like I said earlier, that he beats Lennox Lewis. We don't know this. Lennox Lewis is the measuring stick that a lot of people use for the idea that let's literally put him in any era with that skill set against any heavyweight and you're gonna have a problem. He's gonna be in that discussion of maybe not accomplishments, you can rank him number one, although I think Lennox Lewis has to be a top five heavyweight of all time. But it also goes to show how hard this is and I think Vitaliy Klitschko is also that wild card. I'm not sure Usyk beats him, but the fact that Usyk threw eight fights is even here in this conversation that we're talking about this. It is crazy. And then when you take his whole resume together and you say, where could he fit in overall adding the accomplishments at cruiserweight, that's really hard because it is really hard to crack the, just this is where the changes in rules hurts this era. That back then there were less weight classes

and for the most part, one champion per weight class. So you can have greatness in people that never touched the belt. That means a lot different than now when there's four recognized sanctioning bodies in 17 weight classes, 18 if you count Bridgerweight, and we know how many extra bootleg titles get created in there.

So I can't give you an answer on there, but I can give you the answer that Usyk has separated himself in this era from those around him through accomplishments and class and grace in ways that's getting really alarming. Now he only has 24-25 pro fights so you know you can't put his resume above somebody like Pacquiao who won titles in eight divisions, but he's certainly up there with the It's just it's a difficult science to put a number on especially with the amount of weight classes, but good lord Do we have this man coming back to close the show or should we save this shit for later? What do you got here? He's not in here. I texted him He hasn't answered my text yet. It's all now. Can the people hear you? Yeah, they can hear me

Okay, um, I don't know. Did he die? Did he lose the connection? Did the power go out? Is the is the bronx burning what's happening right now? So I know he wasn't using his phone as his camera because I did text him earlier and I saw him answer it on camera So there's a chance his computer died, but I don't know why he wouldn't just answer him and be like, yeah, yeah, I'm waiting for her to start up. I don't know. All right. Well, he did give us a lot of good stuff and we are runneth over after a loaded

weekend so we can hold the shit to Friday. You down with it? Yeah. I think you need someone else here to react to it. So yeah, so we will run some of that shit on this Friday. I don't know who will be joining us, but uh, It'll be our second wait wait episode of the luke thomas vacation Unless this man is back in the building there. Oh shit

There he is. There he is Are you good? Can you hear me? Uh, yeah I had to pour a little bit of water on my balls to cool them down a little bit I was getting a little overheated. All right. We've closed out the DMS from donks. We've got one more segment. Is this your debut seeing, seeing my shit? Or have you done this before? Are we talking about like in Las Vegas in the, in a hotel bathroom? Oh, where I didn't flush all the way. Yeah.

Or I mean, I, I've seen you talk about your feces. Okay. Well, what I did yesterday in the airport, by the way, in, uh, in, uh, Chicago was I scoured the glow in the Admiral's club lounge, you know, and I'll take that buffet downtown, by the way, they think you're supposed to get like one beef epinada per small plate. Dude, I'll stack that shit. All right. But what I put together was a recap of the good, the bad, and the ugly, the highs and lows and in between in combat sports and beyond, Rafe. I call this VCs. VCs. Alright, Rafe, the aforementioned Dustin Poirier who retired on Saturday.

First and foremost, you always surprise me for being a non-fan of the skinheads over there in mixed martial arts. You tend to know when someone's red hot. What has been your history of Dustin Poirier, like knowing him or cheering for him or anything? He's a guy that I hear you talk about, Brian. No, somehow, somehow when, yeah, he's not one of the MMA fighters who made it makes it through like the the Swiss cheese shield I have of just not paying attention to stuff. But now I look, I hear he's a guy I know you and knock people out too so I don't really believe in it damn damn I wonder

if I'd rather I have a guy who's already recently ejaculated yeah yeah me out or a guy that's full of knock me out you know yeah I guess they're all different I mean women do make the legs weak Mickey said come from a boxing point of view we know what's up we know like this is that's one of the old you can't you cannot yeah you got to hold all that strength inside. Get angry, get aggressive. You know, you got all right. New segment alert brought to you by Mami. Taz here. I'm going to show you three separate clips or pictures of modern combat sports stars and you try to tell me after it's done. What drug

are they taking? First up, here's UFC middleweight Paul Ocosta at the press conference on Wednesday. Yes, you guys know that about that. All right, everybody knows about that. I have a mutual hate. After this fight, I'm gonna send a message for him, but until then, you need to wait to watch. And because my focus right now is on this guy so I need to focus on him but of course I have a plan after that and I have a finished

business with Gourmet Chetien, you know, Shumayev and yes I'm gonna face him sooner or later. I have not yeah I have not seen Gerardo on that much cocaine since the 80s and uh the Rigo Suave video. Uh what do we have uh survey says white lightning for number one? Okay we didn't hear the buzzer. That's good. Let's go to number two. Here's Jake Paul and watch what a lackey is passing him. Rafe, what drug did he take? Here it comes, here it comes. Still in the palm, there we go, there we go. I've done that move, I've done that move, all right?

What is he on? I thought I thought I thought he dropped it into the pizza and then took a bite. Oh, then we that could that could be some shrooms then you never know I guess right. My guess is Adderall right. I mean you come by get a little pill you know a little pick me up and he's trying he needs to perform it. That's his generation's drug. They're all on it. They've been on it. They're one of those like 100 milligram edibles or something you never know true all right finally here is Connor McGregor pulling a Roy Jones impersonation here what drug do you think did you see did you see the unit on that guy I thought he was Irish what drug was this guy on um he might be he might be on the GHB as they say a

little too much of that party drug man that I'm sorry the the what's the guy's the uh he might be on the GHB as they say out there. A little too much of that party drug. I'm sorry. The uh the uh what's the guy's name? That triple GB that was on the uh they could travel the Martin Murray. Martin Murray. Yes. He uh he drank. He blacked

out on GHB and spent a whole week out street robin as he likes to say. Alright, Rafe. Here's our dunk of the week. Let's head down to the uh Chuck E Cheese here. Have you ever seen this before? Tell me please. Oh Facial facial right there That's that looks like a good I mean that's that looks like the best time since since slam ball the original slam ball I don't when when Joe jelly bream Bryant used to be one of the coaches, but they never said Kobe's data. They never did. Joe or Kobe. I love your daddy. All right. Well, have you seen this shit has long been a no judgment zone. Let's listen in on this couple. Okay. If I

can travel to outer space, it would be planet Mars. Wow. That's awesome. But I think you should explore planet fitness. Okay, sir. That is, that may have been AI. I may have gotten, gotten God again. I think, I think you might have gotten God. It seemed like AI to me. I got to work with my friend in yours, Hall of Fame trainer, Joe Goosen on Saturday. And before the show started, we watched a live stream of his new heavyweight prospect.

Rafe, are you aware of 6'7", 300 pound Armenian Gergen the Big Gug Hovinason who knocked out this tattooed fella Chris Thomas in one round on Saturday? Uh, no, this is my first exposure, but it makes sense. You know, he's out there in Burbank right next to Glendale. Uh, you know, that's that, that, that know, that is Armenian capital USA. And yo, I'd see a little bit of the big gherkin, the big gug, why not? Yeah, dude, fat, white, heavyweights with chest hair. Come on.

Lots of body hair, bring it on. This is Nikolai value of all over again. All right. Great inside game. The body hair makes you a really tough to deal with on the inside because the opponent is just disgusted the entire time. It gets in the head. Uh, Rafe, we know that you were born in New York. You spent a lot of time living in LA. You've done some time in the Philippines, but you've been calling

suburban Detroit home for some time now. Would you say? Six years, man. Do you have some pride for the city? I'm live band for the city. Okay, got a reputation. Let's listen in. Everyone I'm mad about, I'm mad as hell about Detroit because in 1960 that was the richest city in America, the richest and now it is the poorest and no other city anywhere in the world has collapsed that quickly. What about Hiroshima? I mean, you know, I'm glad that that bloke is repping for Detroit. He's putting it off of the D because he's like, look, what are you like,

at least we're still here, you know, like, we got some depopulation issues, but downtown is coming back a little bit. We you know, the bankruptcy years were difficult, but Detroit's a city on the rebound. Why don't you go ask Hiroshima? Yeah, yeah, please. Why don't you ask Bob Seeger how it's going? All right, there. Let's play a new game called, tell me the exact point

when you would have stopped this fight as a referee. All right, you ready for this? Let's head into regional MMA from the weekend where you know anything can happen. Rafe, you're the referee. Tell me when this fight should end. Oh, that... the regional MMA from the weekend where you know anything can happen. Rafe, you're the referee. Tell me when this fight should end. Oh, that

I'm ready. It's still right. Okay, there we go. A little bit late but we got him right there. Oh boy. Was he as a as a as a more uh educated viewer there. Was he was he out as soon as he hit the canvas there on that takedown on the back of the head hit but but even if you gave him one more punch okay

but that was rough. Let's throw back here boxing Hall of Famer and former UFC champion Holly Holm tell me when you would have stopped this fight that's Holm in the green. The blue. Oh boy I know it's too early let it let it fight fight yeah go go on champ you don't want to go out like that. Okay okay. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh,

Let's go to our final fight. Tell me the point when you're stopping this one. Oh, he's all right. That actually we could keep going. That person looked like maybe a grease teabag over Abner Morris after Johnny got a chance. Give him a chance to beat the count. At least you know that person is moving. I would expect it to be out cold or dead.

We're uh, let's go to the bumper sticker of the week. Can you please read this out loud? Uh, if you have a fat coochie, Hong Kong. Uh, Hey, remember that time Deontay Wilder lost to Tyson Fury and blamed it on his costume design. Yes. Yeah. What's that got to do with fat coochies? Well, we caught up with that costume designer who ain't too happy. Oh, no, no. I did the clothing for Teonte Wilder.

Everybody said they were the best ring walk outfits in boxing history. Basically, it was the biggest fight. He was the heavyweight champion. And he fought Fury and made this beautiful outfit like it is in C.S. boxing history. Basically, it was the biggest fight. He was the heavyweight champion. And he fought Fury. I made this beautiful outfit. Like, he's in Caesar's Palace. I'm in the locker room. We are friends. But there's something weird about him that day. And I'm like, what's going on? Like, Deontay, I just made you a $65,000 outfit. Like, you wanted something intimidating. I said, you better win this fight. You hear me? But he wasn't himself that day. I think the component got in his head

because if you Google this guy Fury, like Deontay's six foot seven, Fury's six foot nine. So anyway, he loses the fight and I'm mortified. I'm like, oh my God, he gets his ass kicked like a rag doll, okay? The next day, the New York Times, Deontay loses but the outfit wins, right? And then it says Deontay loses because the outfit was too heavy Oh, he told me under the bus girl. I was like make it stop

So every time you get on the cusp of being like really famous and I'm like, that's my ticket you get Hey, it's good to see Vince Neil still working You gotta you gotta get Vince on this show, Brian. I want more content from from that designer. I say we got to give the Internet credit for for calling that right in the moment. All of the jokes when Deontay did his ring walk in that crazy outfit. We're like, yo, what kind of S and M eyes wide shut dominatrix suit did Wilder get made for this? Like, why is he, he looks like a, like a 24 karat,

you know, like, yeah, like Stanley Kubrick movie. It, we were right. That's what it was. That's what it was exactly right there. That is wild. Let's keep it going here. You and I had a, we used to play a great snippet of a song by, should we call him Motown legend Marvin Cease?

Who used to say, let me lick you up. Let me lick you down. A legendary soul singer, yes. Soul singer who regularly talked about smut in his lyrics. Have you ever heard of the great Miss Millie Jackson by any chance? Sounds familiar. Okay, get ready great Miss Millie Jackson by any chance? Sounds familiar.

Okay, get ready to meet Millie Jackson. If you don't wanna feel it, then can I feel it? I wanna feel it Alright. Is it something I can feel? Whoa! Yeah. I wanna feel it

Wow! Where is it? Where is it? Oh, that's rough. Yep. I said. Can you imagine writing this song and being like, this is the showstopper.

I'm gonna touch a bunch of old men's nuts. She said he's hard. I loose your hands, I wanna feel it. Yes. Would you let, would you? What? She's going in the pants. I Yes. Would you let, would you? What? He's going in the pants. What?

What? What? He's going in the pants. You see these guys are pumped about this. Who is this? We know. Can't make me feel it. Who is this that's singing?

Millie Jackson. Millie Jackson? Nothing I wanna feel. Millie Jackson, does she have more songs about penis and balls? Most of her? Collection is about squeezing dicks give this woman. I mean anything. Let's bring her back Hey forget Gallagher. We got to sit front row at Millie Jackson, right?

You know, I I'm first time in my life I will have plausible denied deniability when a woman's hand lands on my junk. There it is. I love that. That juke joint music, Marvin Sees, what Millie Jackson's doing there, it's fun to listen to. Try out a performer, a contemporary guy, named Pokey Bear. You'll like it.

OK, I thought you were going to give me some Teddy Pendergrass feels or something. That's different. That's a different, slightly different soul genre. Different genre. There, Poke Bear. You're like, I thought you were gonna give me some Teddy Pendergrass feels or something. That's different. That's a different, different, slightly different. Yeah, I gotcha. Let's go to live TV, especially in South America.

Anything can happen. Watch this exuberant fan on the bottom right. Ray, if you're checking this material here. Oh, oh, okay. Oh my. Something right there. That is inappropriate to say the least. Let's check in on our good friend, one-time, Keith Thurman. He's got two call-outs this week. I want you to react to each one and tell me if it's a good idea. Boots! Do you want Timo? Boots doesn't want Ortiz. Hey, Boots! What do you want? Yo, hold up. Champion. Hey champ.

Champ. Champ. Who do you want? You want champs or you want chumps? What? Someone told me the other day that he was saying he wants to move up and get two? Two nubs? Undefeated champion getting two nubs? Did you pop your bicep tendon? Did you twist your ankle, bro? What happened? Oh, man, look. Boots versus Thurman at 54. You in? Good idea?

Oh, yeah. Well, not good idea for Thurman, but good idea. Why not? What bad idea? I know there's another one coming, but what's up with his eyebrows? You know, he's got some... They're, super thick and and he's got like I mean they look like a certain historical figure's mustache. Well okay well also his head is really thinning as you'll see in this next video if you don't like that matchup how about this one? Thinning head is not good in boxing. Yeah how about this one at 54? You want me to stop making you look bad? You want me to stop stating facts? You want me to stop saying that's why and that's why you stop throwing punches when

you fought. When you fought a real one, you stopped throwing punches. When you got dropped, when you got dropped, you don't get back in the fight. When Thurman gets dropped, he come back in the fight. Tell him, what does Thurman do? What does Thurman do? I've been dropped. I come back in the fight. I've been dropped, Keith Thurman versus Jermela 54.

Great idea. You already know that's the best, right? Outstanding. All right. Let's carry. Let's keep it going here. Coldplay gave us a lot to love from the breakup of the CEO and the HR lady to the many Twitter reactions.

What are your thoughts on this one? All right. Okay. That is, yeah's that's shameful. That is a wow. What a wonderful, beautiful secret they kept my my favorite one there, Brian. We didn't show it here, but I saw an image of Bill Cosby holding a woman who appeared to have fallen asleep in his lap uh in

that same uh picture that that one works for me. Yeah that is that is something here. Uh let's go I don't know if you're a big like president guy you can name him an order you rank them on there like all that. Well let's hear this guy's take. Ranking every US president by how much I want to ride and a convertible with them. And last place we have John F. Kennedy. Time for your worst t-shirt of the week. I don't think you're getting through TSA with

this. Your thoughts? I wouldn't be trying that. It's been, well, yeah, that looks like he's in a U S airport. That's a TSA shirt. I mean, maybe some other places you could, you could go through with that, but not, not there. Oh, ouch. Also, you know, those regrettable family pictures that people resurface and it's like, why would you do that? Uh, do I have the right one there? You got the wrong one. All right. No, this is the right one. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That can't be real. That cannot be real, right? That's probably real. Why not? Good lord. All right. It's glizzy time.

Would you eat this? Yes or no. Check it out. Glizy Oh's hot dog cereal. Come on. Don't try to act like you're not a hot dog eaten degenerate as well. Coming up. I don't need to eat it with milk. I don't need to eat it in cheerio form.

No. Hell no. All right. How do you rate this tat from this next fella? I mean, the sign of the cross thing is a lot, the the the the the the you have a Detroit guy. So, you have Detroit pizza. Have you ever had Chicago style dogs? Yeah, they're they're my

favorite hot dogs. Yeah, check this out. Check this out. How do you want your hot dog? Chicago style. Say less. **** Okay. You know, that is, I walked right into that one. Okay, so did he. We got one more for you. This is your

sucker punch of the week. We got one more for you. This is your sucker punch of the week. Check out this homeless guy. Which is nice. They're giving him meals, right? But you gotta watch your back on those streets. Oh man. Oh my god. That's real. That is just insulting. What was that about? That is again, that's assault, brother.

Yeah, it is. All right, that's all the shit we can handle for this week. What a loaded super episode. Thank you, Rafe. You fought through some terrible production issues to give us what we needed in Luke Thomas' absence here. Like Keith Thurman. I get knocked down, I come back.

Thurman comes back. Keith comes back. Rafe comes back. I drink a whiskey drink. I drink a vodka drink. I come back. Thurman comes back. He comes back. Wraith comes back. Yeah, I drink a whiskey drink I drink a vodka drink. There you go Indeed we can find you at Wraith Boogs on the socials, of course And almost every week you and I on the Brian Campbell experience getting our hands deep inside the box Anything else you want to sell maybe some of your New York Times best-selling?

the box. Anything else you want to sell? Maybe some of your New York Times best selling books like Two and Two, McSurly's, My Father and Me. Yes. Well, thank you for mentioning that. That's the one I think we need to point out right now because yeah, my dad worked at the bar for 48 years and just turned 80 and that book is about his career working at the bar, me growing up there and how the place works. And if you've ever been there, I just wanna read about New York's oldest bar. It's a fun one. Yeah, but don't, wow, well, nice. Don't undersell it though. There's a lot of emotion and life in that book.

It's very, it's a very well done, as is your other ones, Pacific rims, shocking about your love for Filipino basketball. And don't forget, basketball, a love diaries? Is that what it's called? A love story, close enough, you know? Yeah, sorry. the basketball. There we go right there. I'm sure you wrote that book too. Uh you can follow the show at the social handles below. Those are the extended YouTube channels of us. Also check out the main card minute with our own Luke Nocita and speaking of LIL, the the handler of our merch these days whether you like this hat or whether you like this

skits and bitch shirt right now. Why don't you head over to morningcombat.shop? New releases every month are July exclusives. the technical thriller the margarita three margarita shirt and of course our lucha libre poster you can get them signed you can get them unsigned there's only a few left so get that specific poster while you can because it will be gone forever until November in fact with, with Wyclef. And there you go, morningcombat.shop. Rafe, have they ever given you any MK merch? I think I actually bought an MK.

I know I have one. I think I bought it. Or you sent it to me, but I'm pretty sure I bought it because I like to support. Thank you for the support. We need to get you one of these, one of these fantastic Punch Out t-shirts, right? Amen, yes.

Yeah, yeah, with the great, with Luke Thomas who says, I read books suck my balls. Luke Thomas, there you go. Okay, that's it. For Brett Okamoto who did a great job joining us breaking down the UFC 318 to Rafe Bartholomew, one more time, Long Island Luke,

thank you for your patronage today on this long marathon episode. Can we see your face or no? Here it is. Great show, guys. Thanks for joining Rafe. Here it is. Appreciate y'all. For everyone here, including Rafe Bugs, this is BC. Take care of yourselves. This show will be back on Friday. Mystery guests coming. Who's it going to be? Tune in to find out. We're out of here. This is an iHeart Podcast.