MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 323 Merab–Yan 2 Final Thoughts | Aspinall Eye Injury Update | Pitbull vs Roach | Ali Act Hearing

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Happy Friday, Donks! Chris Algieri joins BC and LT off the top to preview Isaac "Pitbull" Cruz vs. Lamont Roach this Saturday for the WBC (interim) super lightweight title.  The fellas take a last look at UFC 323 plus discussion on the Tom Aspinall eye injury, the Ali Act hearing and other news and notes to get you ready for all the action this weekend.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Revely, Revely. Look at us now, tip to tip. Oh, Jesus. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Do you want a margarita? Oh, my God.

It's us doing what we love. It's time to bang. Oh, yeah, penetrating your facehole with full consensuality. It's morning combat Friday, December 5th, 2025. I am BC, Brian Campbell, coming to you live and direct from the American consulate in Riyadh, Luke Thomas. Sorry, I'm in San Antonio here. Fired up as always.

Luke Thomas and D.C. representing your alma mater of William and Mary, who did consummate. LT, welcome to the program. Thank you to all the fans for joining us. Luke, tell me if I'm wrong. This is a pretty loaded show. We're about to roll out. Surprisingly, we've already previewed 323, technically speaking, BC, because we did it the reverse, right? So we did the Monday pregame preview, but we still have some 323 to get to.

plus you're in San Antonio both to harass the locals with your terrible comedy at the local Starbucks as well as to call the Pitbull versus Roach fight. BC, regrettably, they invited me to an open workout that was here in D.C. for Roach

the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but I had family events so I couldn't go. But hoping the D.C. guy gets one done here against a very, very tough challenge in Esauk Pitbull Crew. A hell of a fight, by the way, to two guys that gave Tank Davis, his toughest test to date.

So we're going to have Chris Algeri, the four-bow world champion and fine analysts representing ppv.com this weekend on and a bit to break it down. We're also going to hear from ULT, who was live, local, and late breaking in the nation's capital yesterday for the congressional hearing involving the Ali Act, Zupa Boxing, TKO. So we're going to break all that down. Then give you our final thoughts on UFC 323. We'll react to last night's press conference. and close with some other updates involving Tom Aspinall and more.

So this episode of Morning Combat is brought to you and presented by Draft Kings. And with Draft Kings, The Crown, is yours. So get fired up. First of all, like and subscribe to what we do here on this fantastic program. Follow our extended YouTube channels. I got a hell of a lot of fun interviews out there with the main and co-main participants in Saturday's event. Same thing with LT, great content you can find there. Also, merch time.

I mean, you see me wearing this fantastic MK punchout. Why don't you go to morningcombat. Dot shop right now. We have December exclusives brought to you by average Joe R. Heeman style. Get the t-shirt, get the autographed poster, evergreen holiday items available. Go to morningcombat.

Dot shop right now. And Long Allen Luke, the third member of our team, correct me if I'm wrong. But if these people put the orders in by December 11th, will they get them for Christmas? Yes. Every order is guaranteed.

if you put it in by December 11th, except for possibly the Masters of the Universe poster. I got to be honest with those. Those might not make it in time. But every other item on the website will make it guaranteed by the 11th. And they might make it later than that. That's just the guarantee.

All right. Well, I can put a guarantee on a box and shit in it, but you know, I'd rather take the butcher's word for it or something like that. Anyway, that's what's going on at morning combat dot shop. Chris Algeri to come in just a few minutes. LT, how is life? How's the toks? you know, we're big fans.

Tewks is great. She's got a lot of sass. Yeah. She talks back because I don't hit her. Thanks, Chris Brown. I appreciate that. I'm saying it's true. Like, I don't hit my kid.

And it makes trying to impart, you know, what you need them to do a little bit slower. I'll say it that way, a little more challenging, but she's great. and it's snowing here in your nation's capital, but not enough to have fun, you know, just enough for the, be shitty, you know, that kind of a thing. What are you in, oh, sorry, that's next month. I was thinking tomorrow's the six. I was like, it's 10-6, baby, but we're not quite at the anniversary yet.

No, we're not there yet, no. Yes, all right, but big combat sports. We can also tonight in karate combat. Are you fired up for Sam Alvi, Robelis, Des Bonnier? No, not at all, but I'll catch the highlights, on social media after the fact. You know what I'm saying? Somebody's going to hell.

Were they facing off at an IKEA? Like, what were they doing? Yeah, I think they were. It was the least regal circumstances I've ever seen. I think that's the case right there. Long Island Luke, an official introduction to the... Oh, no, no, hold on, hold on. I have something to tell you.

I have something to tell you very quickly. One of the first ever MMA fights I went to was in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This was, I mean, I mean, I don't know, 2005, 2006, a long time ago, right? years let's say something like that and at the time it was a pool hall and i've said this before they pushed all the pool tables to the ends and they put a ring it wasn't a cage at the time it was a ring and i watched one of my friends compete that place is now a latin club el paraiso el parisio you can look it up on google maps el paraiso in fredericksburg virginia and i've not been to the new version obviously i don't know what it looks like i can't i can't vouch for it but i drove by it because i had to go to my brother's place

for Thanksgiving, and I was like, dude, this, I saw people get viciously caoed in this place, and now it's a, it's a dance club for. Oh, they're still getting chaoed after hours, Luke. Maybe they, maybe they are, but I, my how the world turns, I guess is the point. Yes, yes. All right, we're going to delay this great second introduction to Long Island. Look, you know him. He's a producer, director, podcasting man himself on the main card minute and prop quiz.

He hates sobriety like Antonio Cromarty hates condoms. Indeed, cowboy Olivera too, but we love him. We'll hear from him throughout the show, but we do want to start with segment one. A reminder, we had the pregame preview Monday for UFC 323 with Jedmishu. You can still check it out. We'll be having later in this show a lot more on that card, but we are going to hit it hard off the top for the boxing fans out there because there is a paper view going on down this Saturday behind me in San Antonio. Well, not necessarily on that couch, but it's going to be BBC on Prime Video Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern.

The two guys that gave Gervante Tank Davis, the toughest fight of his career, will square off against one another for a 140-pound interim title as Mexican star. Esauk Pipple Cruise welcomes the Reaper, Lamont Roach Jr. And the main event of a loaded card going down at the NBA Spurs Frostbank Center. We've got a hell of a guest to break this card down coming to us by way of ppv.com Where he'll have fantastic coverage this weekend, the former 140-pound world champion, and one of the finest boxing analysts in the game today, Huntington Long Island's own, Chris Algeri, in the house, live and direct.

Let's go, Chris. Avocados for everybody. Great to see you. What's up, gentlemen? Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be on this show. It's one of my favorite shows out there. So happy to be here.

Well, Chris, you're going to be back this Saturday co-hosting, along with your youthful ward, Dan Canobio, for ppb.com's exclusive viewer chat in real time. throughout ppv.com's HD live screen, uh, stream, excuse me, of Cruz versus Road to begins 8 p.m. Eastern 5 Pacific. You can order it, by the way, at ppv.com. No subscription required. So Chris, let's start right off the top here.

Two guys that in some ways made their name with how well they fought, Jervante Tank Davis, with Pitbull losing a close decision as a late replacement four years ago. And of course, we all know about that March showdown that probably should have had a rematch but things fell apart there with Tank and Roads fighting to a draw. When you look at this fight, which really feels on paper like a 50-50 fight, what's the most intriguing aspect stylistically that we're going to see Saturday night? Yeah, I think when you look at it from the style point of view,

I mean, it's intriguing because these guys are almost polar opposites. You've got Cruz, who is, he lives by the moniker pit bull. He goes forward, he's aggressive, he's relentless. He's a shorter stockier guy. he's super durable. He'll take one to give one, wants to cut off the ring, put you on the ropes, and just blast away with both hands. And then you've got Lamont Roach, who is that prototypical East Coast, DMV fighter who uses the sweet science, hit and don't be hit. He's smart. He fights long. He'll use the jab. They'll counter punch. Not a big mover. He'll be there,

and he'll catch and shoot and slip and slide. He's a high contact fighter. So I think this is an interesting matcher because these guys, I mean, they both have the style to beat each other. Like you said, this is on paper a 50-50 fight, and I think realistically it is as well, because really it's just going to be who is going to be able to make the other guy fight their fight. Yeah, technically according to Draft Kings, our partners, Issaq Cruz is a plus 180 underdog to the minus 235 Roach, who, as we mentioned in March, did sort of get screwed, not just on that ninth round knee that Tank Davis took that referee Steve Willis refused to call a knockdown,

but also to some degree in the scoring right there. when you look back at how both fought Tank. Can you play boxing math here? Is there an edge that you would give to either man from what we did see in their performances? No, in terms of boxing math, boxing math doesn't work. And it certainly doesn't work in this instance. You know, you have Pitbull Cruz who, again, he's just a forward guy, throws a ton of punches. Tank doesn't throw a lot.

Tank is a power puncher. He is a knockout artist. He's a sniper from the outside. You know, he likes to set the table before he eats. And with Cruz, I mean, the guy just had a good chin. Tank also hurt his hand in that fight. So he had to box more. And now with Lamont, when he fought Giovante, dude, he walked him down.

He walked him down. He stayed in his face. He stayed aggressive. He knew him from the past. They had come up in the amateur ranks together. They had sparred together. He knew there was a little bit of unwillingness in tank to deal with what Lamont was going to bring, high boxing IQ and a lot of mental pressure.

So very, very different in terms of how these guys performed against your Vante Davis. We can't use him as the conduit to see how this fight's going to go. And like I said, I mean, in terms of these two fighting each other, it's all going to be about where the fight is fought. Who can make the other guy fight the way they want them to fight? Roach wants to be on the outside. He wants to disable and disarm Cruz so he has to think and he can move around the ring. And then Cruz, he just wants chaos, man. The guy operates excellently in chaos. He likes the fast pace. He wants to be in your face. So who Whoever can make these guys, whoever can make the other guy fight their fight, I think, is going to win the day.

All right. So when we were talking about the tank fight and the lead up to it, part of the storyline was about Lamont going from 30 to 35, tank, obviously being a big heavy hitter. And to what extent that would matter? This one is at 140. Now, again, these are not necessarily gigantic jumps in wait, Chris, but they are noteworthy ones. to what extent do you find the fact that this fight is going to be at 140 to be a relevant factor in how it could go it's it's funny i i don't really think weight's going to matter much in this one because both of these guys aren't real 140 pounders i've been around both these guys

i was a 40 pound world champion they're they're small for the weight that that's not the weight class that they really should be operating in uh cruz is is a 35 pound he might even be a 30 pounder and lemont you know his third weight his third weight class in three fights um he's been packing on some good muscle. I've seen him training over at the ProBox TV facilities. I mean, he looks like he's put on some good lean tissue. He is the taller, longer guy. The only way that weight could matter here is that Cruz is more comfortable because he's fought up 40 more often. That being said, I don't think it's going to matter that much. I think that Lamont is savvy enough, is physically strong enough to be able to deal with the new weight class. And I've been seeing him

all week. He looks fresh. He looks fresh. He's not cutting weight. So I, That's going to be, I think, a sharper, smarter, cleaner, Lamont Roach. One of the points of tension for me in this fight is that you mentioned Lamont, very slick, right? Does like to fight behind the jab, but not a heavy mover. Now, I'm not saying he's going to borrow Tank's game plan from when Tank fought a Pitbull. But one feature of that game plan was that Tank was moving quite a bit as you had a pit bull trying to find him, trying to find him and eventually he just couldn't but tank still was moving even in rounds he was winning so how exactly in your mind could lamont win if he's not exactly a heavy mover

and you just know you know pit bull's going to be right on top of him can he discipline him with that jab like what is a realistic path to victory given he doesn't necessarily move a lot against the guy who will encroach on his face look you use a great word discipline and i'm going to use another D word, domesticate. That's what he needs to do. He's going to have to domesticate the pit bull. And you do that by using the jab, using a disruptive jab. Roach has to hit and then move, not the other way around, not move and then hit. He's got to be able to set the tone, draw that line in the sand, then step around. Again, like you said, not a big mover. He's not a lateral movement guy. He's not going to be on his bike moving around the ring. But he does cut angles and

he will slip and slide and make you miss in front of him. The problem that I see, what I think that you're seeing too is that roach is a high contact fighter he's he stays on the inside he let you hit the shoulder he's catching and shooting consistently that kind of plays into into a cruz's game plan because he's just going to overwhelm you he'll he'll take that counter shot and punch through it and that's really how you beat a counterpuncher the guy can't hurt you you just punch through his counters again this is why this fight is really really intriguing um if crews can get that respect early set that line in the sand use those little angles and side steps and catching shoots to get Cruz to think, it's going to be a great night for Lamont Roach. But if he cracks Cruz

and Cruz smiles at him and keeps digging with both hands, it's going to be a long night for Lamont Roach. What would you say was your biggest takeaway? Why was Ryo Valenzuela able to beat pit bull split decision? It was close in the end. But what was the key factor there, you think? It was fighting from the outside. It was the ability of Rial. Ryo hits hard. Rial was a good puncher. And I liked Cruz in that fight. I'd never seen Rio be disciplined for a whole fight. He likes the bang. He likes to trade.

And trading with Cruz is not a great idea. But that fight, he fought a very disciplined fight. He fought a very disciplined. He fought on the outside. He hit hard enough to get Roaches' respect, but also he stayed disciplined all night. Discipline's not a problem for Roach. Roach is a very, very disciplined guy. The issue I'm going to have is does he have enough pop to get Cruz's attention and to

end to domesticate him? So, yeah, it's, I think we're going to know pretty early what kind of fight we're going get. I love this fight so much. You wonder if the winner could end up rematching tank, if he can get sort of his outside the ring business together. You also, of course, have that January 31st, 140 pound title fight between Teo Fimo and Shakur, in which Pitbull wanted to fight the winner. But I saw your reaction to what's going on with Tank Davis. He subsequently, of course, after activating the Roach Rematch Clause, pulled out of that, signed a fight with Jake Paul on Netflix, got pulled from that due to another civil case involving

domestic abuse. Look, Chris, we've been up and down the road on Will Tank Ever fully get it together to maximize the great potential. As we stand right now, the two guys he should be fighting are going to fight each other. Can you make any kind of guess about what the next year or two of Tank's career looks like if he even has one moving forward? I got the feeling that the route that Tank took, that he had the rematch with Lamont Roach, which needed to happen. And then he just veered off and went to the Jake Paul was that he was just looking for a payout and he didn't really want to compete at the highest level anymore. He didn't want to be in tough fights. You know, he wants to make that big payday and send off to the into the sunset because, you know, he's been doing some interviews and he's been talking about mental health and he's been talking about his kids. And once guys start saying stuff like that, they kind of got one foot out the door already. And, you know, it's kind of like the fighter who starts talking about his last fight is his last fight. It's going to be my last fight. Usually they're already, they're already halfway out the door or all.

the way out. I think Tank wanted out. So the only way that we see him come back and fight these level of guys is if he has to. And that's meaning he needs the money. It's going to be a little bit. He's lusting for the fame, something in that order to see him come back. But I don't really see him fighting at world class level anymore. I don't see the desire in him. It looks like more like a money grab than anything. I don't know how much money would be involved with a rematch with either one of these guys. But I will tell you this, either one of those guys is going to be a tough fight. Indeed. We were supposed to have a very interesting co-main event as Erislondi Lara was going to put his middleweight title on the line against the unified champion from Kazakhstan, Janibek, Alim Kanuli, who I had a ton of respect for coming in. Unfortunately, Pop Dirty for Meldonium this week. You can see the tweet where he says, I've always supported clean sport. You know this well. I was surprised when I read the news. Vata took the first test and said everything was clean. I've not made any changes to my vitamins. I don't know what happened with the second test. So I requested a retest. Chris, you've been very outspoken against PED users in this sport.

Laura will stay on the card, of course, against brawler Johann Gonzalez. But this was a big part of the sell on this pay-per-view. How much of a shadow does this pass over everything Janubeck has accomplished in recent years? Yeah, I mean, this is a strike two for Janubeck. He didn't make weight a little bit ago, a couple of fights ago. Now this, this is a huge, huge problem. And listen, Peds is a problem in our sport. There's no question about it.

Um, you know, like you said, I've been, I've been pretty vocal about this, a very vocal about this. Um, it's a real shame because the middleweight division needed this fight. Middleweight division has been a bit of a wasteland and not for lack of talent. It's been lack of stars. Janubeck is not a marketable guy in this side of the world. Lyra's 42 years old guys. So let's, let's just be, keep it, keep it 100 here. Um, and then you've got, um, uh, you've got Bronco, um, I'm drawing a blank, uh,

well, Adamas, Carlos Adamas, who I actually have really rate. But again, not a super marketable guy. But if there was a unified middleweight champion, the marketing matters less. You've got a star, you've got a guy who's been able to collect the belts by feeding the other champions because those would all be good fights. That would have been a nice little middleweight tournament if we could have those guys together. And then you got Terrence Crawford is looming talking about moving back down to 160, looking for another undisputed title. So those juice getting back into the middleweight division is getting exciting again. And then boom, this happens a couple days out from the fight.

This is just a total bummer. This is a good card still. But this was a fight that I was really looking forward to, and now it's not going to happen. At least Lauer still gets to fight and get paid, you know, at this stage of his career, good for him. But in terms of what this does for the midway division and the sport, it's not a good luck. Yeah, not at all. But the good news is elevated now to the Co-Maine is a fight that was supposed to take place on the October Fondora Thurman pay-per-view card and really has some interesting elements to it.

You want to talk about a true pick-em fight. Oshaki Foster, the 130-pound title holder is minus 110 on draft. but Stephen Fulton Jr., Cool Boy, Steph, minus 1.15. They're fighting for Foster's title. This should be a third weight class title for Cool Boy, Steph, who says, I'm cementing my Hall of Fame resume with this fight. Chris, I want to pause first. Let's watch the Stairdown from yesterday.

Things continue to get spicy between these two. We're going to smile in the day. I'm going to smile in the day. We're in no playtime right now. We're going to get serious now. We're going to get serious now. We're going to get serious now. Everybody gets serious, man.

You ain't on nothing, man. Everybody gets serious now. I don't see no smiling, man. You don't need a smile. I'll show you. You don't need a smile. I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you.

I'm going to show you. Hey, I'm going to show you. Let me come back with another one. I'm going to show you. So, Chris, they're going to show us something. The real ones know this is a real-ass fight. What do you love about this matchup? I mean, everything.

I think in terms of the stylistic matchup, you got two guys with a high boxing IQ. They're going to be. matching wits. You obviously see some bad blood there at the face off. These guys are very, very serious. Ashaki Foster is a guy that I actually rate, man. I really like Oshaki Foster. You've got some bad breaks. He's got some good breaks, too. He can be, he's very, he's got a lot of tools in his bag. We've seen him be a cardiac kid where he had to come back from behind in a fight where he was down to score late round knockouts. You've seen him bumble close decisions

because he just allows too much room for judges to give rounds to other guys. You've seen him made it was to disarm a guy like Robson-Hopson-Kenseau, which is a fantastic performance. You know, he can box. He's big. He can punch. You know, this is his weight class and he's really big for 1.30. But man, cool boy, Steph, you just cannot count that man out unless he's fighting anyway. But other than that, always, always in it.

And he's, and he looks like he's really locked in. To me, I think if they just go on boxing on Q alone, I'm going with Cool Boy. I think Scooter is going to be able to outwit and out savvy using his experience and his ability, you know, his experience with that guys at the high level. If Oshaki makes this thing physical and uses that size advantage, because again, I'm going to reiterate, he's a big 30-pounder. He's big, he's athletic. If he can push that pace early and use that physicality, I can see him getting it. But this is another fight. This is a real 50-50 fight and one that I'm going to be watching really intently.

If I may, just one kind of sidebar here, Chris, I'd love to get your opinion. And there's obviously been debate around sanctioning bodies and the WBC in particular. They got kind of at loggerheads with Terrence Crawford this week. And I think a lot of people probably share the opinion that the sanctioning bodies have a little bit of this coming to them. On the other hand, here we are talking about Oshaki Foster, who has been explicit as a guy who did not have, you know, or at least for long stretches of his career, did not necessarily have a big promoter. Having a WBC title in his particular case was a great way for him to advance his career. How do you feel about the current debate?

It's not so much about WBC specifically, although in this case it is, but more broadly about the value of the titles, the sanctioning bodies, and the job they're doing in boxing. Yeah, I think they're important. I think they matter. Belts matter.

Being a champion matters. And Oshaki Foster, I had a very similar background in terms of having a very small promoter, local. I couldn't get out of my own hometown. I was killing me because I really needed that exposure in the world stage.

And that title got me that. Be becoming a world champion. brought me to elevated my career so much, and I had a bargaining ship to make a lot of money and get some really big fights after that. So I think that they're a bit of a necessary evil. I don't like everything they do, obviously. No one does, you know, in terms of, you know, whether it's sanctioning fees, whether the two-tiered system of how they treat infractions by certain fighters over others, you know, some of the, some of the whack-a-do ideas that have out there, you know, in terms of the weigh-ins and, and, and, uh, rehydration and things like that.

So there's a lot of things that I, that I don't like and, you know, I would love for them to change. But at the end of the day, I think they're unnecessary evil. And, um, having these titles is important for fighters in order to, to make the bucks that they deserve. All right. Getting back to the card itself, there's a couple names I want to throw at you and tell me what you think of them. And then obviously the fight that they're in, we see a name like this on the card and we're like, well, is he really the good? Shane Mosley, Jr. has a record of 22 and 4. Seems like a bit of a red flag in terms of the number of losses.

I've talked to BC about him. I'd love to get your sense. He's taken on Jesus Ramos, who's obviously the A side in this contest. Is Shane Mosley Jr. even a little bit like his dad? What kind of threat is he? He's not like his dad, but he's a good fight. And I like this fight. I actually really like this fight because Shane Mosley Jr.,

he's fighting a 54 for this fight, right? Is this a 50? The record I have says 60. This is an interim runaway title about. Okay, so Ramos moved up. So, but again, regardless, Shane, fighting in the weight class that he should be in, because I believe he fought Danny Jacobs at 168. So he's a big middleweight.

He's athletic. And this is his last shot. He mentioned the losses. He's got four losses. Another one here, you're likely not going to see him at the world class level, buying for big fights. But this is a winnable fight. Ramos coming up to 160.

Ramos, we saw him against Lubin, really just not do much. you know, he can let a fight slip away. I was very high on this kid going into that fight, and then that fight really kind of showed me. There are some things to work on. And I think Shane is athletic enough, long enough, and he's gotten good experience. He's been in with some real tough cats. I do think Shane is good. I think this is actually a sneaky good fight. I mean, I would definitely favor Ramos. But don't be surprised if Shane goes out there and performs well. All right. The other one on my list is I, one time after the tank fight, I booked an interview with Frank Martin, and we had to rebook it four times, and he failed to show all five times.

The ghost! The ghost! Yeah, the ghost. I found out how he got the nickname. It was incredible. He is back. Since, I think this is his first fight since the tank fighter. I believe so. I believe so. Taking on a gentleman at 39 years of age, who at one point, I'm not going to say was not a good boxer, he was. But Rancis Barthelamy, who is pound for pound, maybe one of the least entertaining fighters to watch at this stage. Just as my opinion, you don't have to co-sign it. But I don't really know what to make of this contest at 135 pounds. Where do you come down on, like, what's left of Martin, who was still had a, is kind of young, had a good name.

Yes, the tank loss was bad. But size this one up for me. Yeah, Frank Martin, you can't write him off yet. He's got one loss, and it's the tank. And tank is a murderous puncher. And listen, that was his first step up, big fight of that level. Like you said, he is young. I like, I like Frank Martin.

I like the way he fights. I think he's physical. He's strong. comes in great shape. He's got good boxing IQ. This is a tough comeback fight, though, man. You mentioned Bartholomeo. Like, whatever you think about his style, he's a disrupter. He's disengage, disengage, disrupt, tie you up, keep the jab long, be a little rubber bandy when he gets hit with shots.

Yeah, this is a really tough comeback fight to look good in because nobody really looks good against Bartholomee. But if Frank can go out there and just get the win and write the ship and show that he can do something at 140, I think he's right back. in the mix because he only has that one loss. And again, I think he's got a lot of skills. But this is a really tough comeback fight to look good in. Chris, great chat with you, man. We love your work on ProBox TV. And of course, this Saturday's Pipple versus Roach pay-per-view.

You can order it on ppv.com. You'll get access to the exclusive viewer chat where Chris Algerian, friend of the program, Dan Kenobia, will give you the breakdown. No subscription required. That's ppv.com. One final question, I wanted to toss it to our producer, Long Island Luke Nostita because Chris, he's a Northport native who lives and dies Huntington, Long Island right now. Noseita, you've got to ask him about bagels or coffee or local chicks or something here, right?

Just Algeria, I want to say, I'm at the Paramount all the time. And every time I'm there, I think of you fighting there. I never got to see you fight there, but do live down the road from it. So shout out Huntington and shout out to you. That's awesome. That's awesome, man. Pleasure to meet you. And yeah, Huntington is a great town, man. Great place to grow up. and the Paramount's one of the best venues around, man.

I thought there 11 times back in back in the day. It was funny, walking the streets and just fighting in my hometown. It was very, very cool, very cool time. All right, Chris, we can't wait for this card this Saturday. I'm lucky enough to be on the call. More and Alamo back in the seat as well. So it should be a good time over there on PBC on Prime. Chris, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chris. Always a pleasure to chat with you, brother. Absolutely. I feel the same way, guys. You show rocks. Keep going. Good stuff. Good stuff.

From Chris, Algeri there. Love his podcast. the way with the aforementioned Dan Kenobio and you can check out that pay-per-view card by the way 8 p.m. Eastern Saturday night there's also a three-fight preliminary card beginning at 5 Eastern B.C. Ebner Maris, Moore, O'Anlo on the call, Brian Custer, Joe Gousin, Justin Gousin Brown, part of our extended team. So check that out. All right, I have a quick history lesson to share with the viewers if you give me a second here because now is a good time to remember where Tequila's story truly began. Hey, all the way back in 1795, let's

me tell you something. Quervo invented tequila. And since then, all Quervo was done is stayed true to its roots. Same family, same land, same passion, okay? 230 years later, Quirvo was still right here in every pour and every margarita and every MK pregame preview. So enjoy the tequila that started it all. Quervo, the tequila that invented tequila, proximo quervo.com. Please drink responsibly. And LT, we got a little, you know, we were responsible to a point Monday when we had Jed Mishu in studio. I didn't drive after that. I had, uh, I had Amtrak drive me. Thank you. Thank you very much. But some people are saying it's among our greatest pregame previews of all time. Is that because of Jed's, uh, grossness or what? I, it was loose. I think that I think they like loose, you know, like my, like my stool before today's show.

Okay. All right. I was going to say, like those chicks at your fraternity parties, but that's a little bit to All right. Speaking of disgusting, let's transition here into topic number two. Hey, members of TKO and UFC brass spoke in front of Congress yesterday in Washington, D.C., at a hearing titled, In Their Corner, Creating More Opportunities for American Boxers, where proponents of both sides of the proposed Ali Revival Act presented by Zufa Boxing had their piece. Notably, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, an outspoken combat sports fan, pushed UFC executive Lawrence Epstein on the promotion's history of fighter pay and antitrust lawsuits.

LT, you were there in attendance, along with everyone from Zufa's Nick Kahn to California Athletic Commission head, Andy Foster to the attorney Pat English, who helped draft the original Ali Act. What was your biggest takeaway about the battle ahead for TKO in getting this, let's say it, controversial piece of legislator, legislature passed? Their only obstacle to getting this past is the way in which the Senate now votes on things. And I'll explain what that means in a second. First of all, I want to just sort of set the table. I was the only media member who was there.

There was one member of the political media, but they were just a photographer. They weren't actually like doing any kind of coverage or beyond just, you know, photographing the moment. There was no one who was doing any kind of text-based or video-based work in any capacity. John S. Nash when you need them, you know? Well, he lives, I think, on the West Coast. I could be wrong about that, but, you know, obviously it was local, so it's very easy for me to do. But I just want to point out there was not that there. However, the event was very well attended, B.C.

The room was packed. There was a line down the hall. We were in the Rayburn building on Pennsylvania Avenue. And when I tell you that the majority of those people were either UFC TKO employees or the absolute army of TKO lobbyists that they had there who I met a few of them they were you know people have this misconception I think lobbyists are kind of like mean and cold it's quite the opposite they're actually quite friendly as you can imagine they have the glad hand all the time and develop relationships I talk to many of them in the hallway that was the majority of who was there the way I need to explain this to you

is I don't have a ton of experience on the hill in a previous career I had a little bit so you know take this with a grain of salt but to the extent that I've been exposed to these processes before where committees have hearings, they talk about eventual markup, and then they've tried to push legislation through. I have never in my life encountered personally a more lopsided legislative effort than this one. And what I mean by that is TKO is running a highly financed, organized, well-thought-out campaign on the lobbying side of things to advance this legislation, both in terms of messaging, in terms of lawmaker outreach, in terms of earned media spots, I mean, you name it, they're doing a phenomenal job at it.

And the resistance to that, because typically what happens B.C., when you have contentious legislation of any kind, there's usually an organized resistance. There is no organized resistance to this. The boxing stakeholders who claim that they're alarmed by this, I know some say that they're not, but the ones who are bc asleep at the wheel they're going to get absolutely run over there this is marshawn lynch not even trying to run through the tackles of high school kids it's prime marshawn lynch

unopposed just a straight shot down the field the let me just say this it is and i talk to some other lobbyists that i know who we're not with tk o but you know i've obviously extensive experience on the hill they all tell me it's a foregone conclusion it will pass through committee and to the House. The only place that there really could be some trouble for this is in the Senate. Now, I'm not guaranteeing that. I'm saying here's one of the points of friction. As everyone knows, our politics are broken. And so what happens in the Senate is if they're trying to pass something related to the spending, to the budget, they only need a simple majority to pass what's called a reconciliation bill. They only need 51, right? Out of 100, they only need 51. But for anything

expressly related to that they have to get 60 now that's not a constitutional rule but what's happening now this has been happening for years basically every side is just filibustering everything else you actually can't filibuster budgeting bills in the senate but you can filibuster anything else so it is a foregone conclusion that someone will try and filibuster this meaning you have to get a 60 vote cloture to end that do they have 60 votes for this in the Senate. We don't know the answer to that yet. It remains, you know, hard to say. But for people who are thinking, well, this could go along partisan lines, the Republicans all support, the Democrats don't, that's really not my read. You already see that it was introduced in a bipartisan way.

There were, for example, all of the congressmen out of Nevada who have been, I think, approached about this, who are Democrats, have signed on as either co-sponsors or have spoken out in favor of it in one manner or another. They were somebody who wasn't even on the committee yesterday, a Democrat from Nevada who spoke in favor of the legislation because what they want are people pouring money into, you know, Las Vegas resources, right? Zufa is based out of there. That makes a lot of sense, at least from their vantage point. And I did see some skepticism from some Democratic lawmakers, Representative Ilhan Omar out of Minnesota, probably being chief among them, B.C. But it's not like this is falling expressly along partisan lines. Short answer,

here is absent strange ways in which the Senate does business this is going to pass. Understand something very last thing I want to make on this point if I may B.C. Understand the pitch that they're making to the broader

public. They're making two pitches simultaneously VC. One pitch is isn't boxing broken, right? Let's repair it and we're going to put a ton of money into it, right? We're going to invest, like, who's putting money into boxing in the American landscape? They kept talking about how Showtime and HBO and ESPN, they all kind of kicked boxing to

the curb, here they are saying, we're going to put money into this. That's sort of the one part about it. But I mentioned the first one, too, which is, hey, boxing is broken and we're going to fix it. We've got the fix to get boxing back to its heydays. BC, I'm not kidding. I think I heard Hagler-Herns referenced yesterday 50,000 times. I'm not kidding everybody from the lawmakers to the witnesses everybody in between was doing it so like who else is making that pitch to the American public who else is making that pitch to lawmakers we'll fix it and we'll finance it I'm not saying that I want that that makes me agree with the legislation I am well on record of saying I oppose it but I'm just saying if you're a lawmaker and you barely understand any of this and then you have people with a proven track record of some success coming to you and saying we'll finance it and we'll finance it and we'll

fix it brother and they're running unopposed how does it not pass is really my question yeah i mean i heard there was going to be a hearing involving epstein in dc i got pretty excited luke that we're going to finally get to the bottom of all this not that one not that one not that one very different one uh you mentioned without the sex i'm sorry without the sex yeah like belab ever ball all he's like he's like he's like belal the voice of uh long island luke no ced there who will keep us updated by the way on UFC 323 way-in results, which is a key part of our analysis coming up next topic. You mentioned that the organized front that ZUFA and TKO are putting on ahead of what is expected to be their January launch of the Zufo Boxing League slash series that will air on Paramount

Plus. Nick Con did the media rounds on some very TKO favorable spots, including the Pat McAvey show and Max Kellerman's new show on Ring to basically explain the argument that they landed upon that you can take the old way or you can go with the new way you can get with this or you can get with that I think you'll get with this though because this is where it's at where it's at go to the video please the IBF either pleaded guilty or was found guilty in federal court of corruption right so the Muhammad Ali act was intended with a pure purpose of protecting the fighter what we're suggesting with the Muhammad Ali enhancement act is to leave the

Muhammad Ali Act as currently drafted alone. We're not proposing any changes to it. What we're proposing, we call it, is an or. Another option where you can come over and fight for any promoter you want who has its own system that doesn't have to abide by what we think are arbitrary rules of the sanctioning bodies, unfair rules of the sanctioning bodies, which would thereby allow a champion like Terrence Crawford to defend his title against the number one contender rather than oh you have to fight the super champion the champion in recess the interim champion the wb u champion whatever all the nonsense is it's that simple i mean the only argument against the things that nick con had said that i can really say is he's trying to say it's going to be

like ufc where number one contender always faces the champion and then we have fan complaints about the ufc 324 and 325 main events where that's not happening but look uh no need to get into an engine engine number nine continuation of that fantastic black sheep song but if you don't know boxing and all you know that it's broken this plan actually sounds good right like but and it's like are we going to sit here and defend the alphabet bodies no they've made this sport i mean that's the other part too is like dude they mean the years of disrepair that they've tolerated and or fostered is really coming back to haunt them but the logic of what tk o is saying is so silly to me bc it's like listen we're not saying

all these laws against you know financial fraud we're not saying change them we're just saying or here's an option of ways you can be exempted from following rules that prevent financial fraud it's like that's not really an or that's an that's an end around that's a very different kind of way of putting it granted that this message is being lost on the lawmakers is is very very clear but the thing that really stood out to me yesterday bc was it's a very very very easy thing to leverage boxings, both current state of decline, but this long sort of association with being a sport of, how should we say, not just, say again?

Lawlessness? Disrepair. Yeah. Like just being, like, they are dysfunctional. It's such an easy sell. And again, the problem is there's no organized, Pat English was the only person who spoke yesterday. yesterday who had any kind of competing vision about how it should be you know it's kind of funny like

the opposition has no way of saying here's better legislation in fact we see i was talking as i mentioned with some of tkos lobbyist out in the out in the hallway and they were because they foolishly asked me what i thought of the legislation i was like yeah i think it's real bad and uh they were some of them couldn't believe i was saying this to them and they're like well what are you what are you offering as remedy i'm like fixing the in how ali act it's very very like weird nick who's a very bright guy like this is not you know nick con is not a fool by any stretch the imagination he's a very bright successful guy but when he talks about the ali enhancement act i mean this is this is orwellian to the nth degree it's not enhancement it's exemption that's the difference and rather than creating

stronger protections and people understanding that they're going this direction but bc because of boxing's Byzantine structure where there's a bunch of promoters there's a bunch of sanctioning bodies there's a bunch of champions, people have a hard time understanding why that needs to be maintained. And there's no one advocating for a vision of not so much the brokenness that we understand today, but a separation of powers. Yeah. There's really nobody doing that. So TKO, this is what I mean, do, TKO is up there just running unopposed. Anyone hoping that this is going to get stopped, the only hope is 20, or excuse me, 60 votes for cloture in the Senate. That's it. I'm with you. I can see through it, but at the same time, there's no organized front from.

boxing. They act like a bunch of clowns. You have Oscar De La Jolla trying to fight it through Clapback Thursday. I think Evander Holyfield made a statement against it, but you've got the widow of Muhammad Ali going forward. You've got everybody else pushing the agenda. It feels like it's going to go through. Maybe tied along with this. It seems like a strategic push in that it happened just days leading up to this congressional hearing. We did have this dust up that we mentioned earlier when Chris Algeria was on between the WBC and Terrence Crawford that seemed to I think from TKO's standpoint, Zufa standpoint, illuminate the issues here.

First, let's see the video that sparked all this with Mauricio Sutherman of WBC talking about why he stripped Terrence Crawford of his title. He did not comply with the rules. Then he moves up to Super Middle and makes the fight of the century. Bits Canelo makes $50 million or around that. The W.C absolutely is not going to charge 3% of such an amount.

amount. We made a very clear 0.6%, which is $300,000. With $225,000 going to the Jose Sulayman Boxers fund, which is to help former fighters in need. And it is just regretable, not even a thank you or I'm sorry, taking a different route, no response. I wish him the best. But this is not. The WBC's huge, is great. It's about greatness, and I'm relieved to tell you the truth. Now, Luke, I have no sympathy for the heads of all of the four alphabet sanctioning bodies

for the greed they've done, Mauricio included, done great stuff for the sport. I've also done a lot of awful stuff with the super champions, the unnecessary belts. The system is, you want to defend one of those alphabet titles? You need to pay them that percentage every time. We've seen big earning fighters in the past, whether it be Canello, Floyd Mayweather, decide not to defend a certain title to avoid that payment. But the heavy-handedness of Mauricio saying there was no apology from Crawford, boy, did that fire up North Omaha's own.

Here's just a piece of the video he put out that lit up the internet this week. Maricio, you know, got a lot to say about me not paying him $300,000. plus another 100k something for sanction fees, right? They ain't gonna tell me I ain't even to apologize. Like, who the fuck you think I am?

Boy, you better slap your fucking self and paying your ass shit. Fuck you talking about pay you. $300,000. What makes you so motherfucking better than any other other sanction bodies?

Huh? Answer that question. What makes you better than the WBO, the IBF, or the WBA? Everybody accepted what I was giving them. But you, you, the WBC, think that you better than everybody, don't you? So since you, the WBC, and you got the fucking green belt, which don't mean fucking shit, the fucking real belt is the ring belt, which is free, motherfucker. You're talking about you want me to pay you more than the other sanction bodies because you feel like you better than them.

How in the world, all the sanction bodies agree to the same amount, but you sit your motherfucking ass up there and say that I need to apologize to you. The fuck, you can take the fucking bill. Should have dropped it in a garbage can Riddick Bow. style. Luke, I have no sympathy for the alphabets, Bud is right. Also, this is very calculated by Zufo to put this out to have Nick Con on interviews accusing Mauricio of asking for extra tickets and sweet hotels for the Canello Crawford fight. It is what it is. It looks like UBOs are here. They've done the right things publicly to sort of show you why it should get passed. I mean, it is what it is, right? Yeah, I mean, I think you would have to be naive to look at the

timing of this thing between Mauricio and Terrence and also the media around the Ali Act and this hearing yesterday and think this is all coincidence. I don't know to what extent Terence was influenced to make these kinds of statements, but that

the idea to me that he did it totally organically and on his own without any prodding from outside influence seems I would question that narrative. I think that there's a lot of wagging of the dog that's happening here, so to speak. And this is what I mean dude like look at this sophisticated well organized and well dude the lobbyists

that they have hired on the fucking hill these are the very best ones that money can buy these are guys with deep entrenched ties on Capitol Hill the most amazing Rolodexes and a proven ability to shepherd through legislation even on contentious issues that's who they're hiring dude like just understand the game that's being played they are running on a on a fucking posed here so know i mean these people in boxing who have let their situation deteriorate this way you have earned your your own i'm a hardcore boxing guy but i can't defend boxing here but will zufa be able to if this passes hide their finances from the fighters yes put out their own titles yes this is a major monumental change in the history of the sport so we'll keep you posted

as this uh continues to develop to close luke do we have any end date on when this might be decided No, I mean, this is the issue too, right? So what they were saying was they wanted to get to it quickly. I think they want to do it probably before the midterms, if at all possible. It's just a question of what kind of changes to the law that they pursue through markup. One thing that Andy Foster, who is the head of the California State Athletic Commission, did say yesterday in his testimony, was that one thing he was hoping to get added was, you know, how there's going to be a $150 minimum per round for, you know, as like a national standard now. so that guys get paid. What he actually asked was for that to be tied to inflation so that it rises and adjusts as necessary over time. Everyone seem to be on board with that. That's a very minor ad, but it's a question of like, what does Ilhan Omar or other members of the committee potentially ask? And to what extent does that slow things down? Again, I think they're probably going to get it out before the midterms because after that it might actually be hard to get it through the house. It's hard to say exactly. But probably before the summer is what I would say. All right. Well, angry MMA fans can rejoice as we now transition into topic number three.

It is UFC 323 Fight Week. The final pay-per-view in the ESPN UFC relationship, which dates back to early 2019. It'll go down at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and this road to UFC 323 is brought to you by total wireless, the official wireless product of UFC, get unlimited data that won't slow you down. We look, we set the stage Monday with Jedmishu with our pregame preview. you, but things have unrolled throughout fight week that definitely have gotten our attention. And Luke, when I interviewed Bantamweight champion, Marab de Vallechevili, who of course will be in the main event defending his title and rematch against Piotr Yan on the BCX this week,

he made three separate unsolicited references to how hard this weight cut will be. Remember, his fourth training camp in weight cut of this calendar year alone as he looks to become the first UFC champion to defend the title four times in a single year. And then I listened to this sound of Marab with Brod Okamoto, and the topic continued. Two months ago when you were telling me the hardest part is the weight cut. How is it cutting weight for the fourth time this year? It's a mental game, you know. Right now, I'm cutting weight.

And so I was drinking water like Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. yesterday I stopped like it was stopped peeing and now my weight's high it's like mental gaming I know I will make it but like and I feel like low energy and stuff but it's

I kind of do my way but it's always like it's always hard you know now look a lot of people were talking about at Thursday's press conference Marab's face looked very sucked in sunken in however you want to say it here

key question we already laid this fight out on Monday and made our predictions but are we overlooking just how physically demanding it is what marab is trying to do this Saturday and is the idea of pierreyan being a true live dog considering he's now 100% healthy unlike the first fight are you changing your mind at all about what this rematch might look like on Saturday maybe a little bit I mean we saw just this year for example not you see different weight class different circumstance different fighter but with already are right i mean he was kind of hot and yes the end of that whittaker fight he slowed down but i don't think any of us expected him to implode the kind of way he did um in his last fight against

brendan allen it was very very surprising to us i did not think that was the toughest opponent he had all year but it certainly looked that way and there's really no way to look at that and say well the weight cut played no role at all in cases where you've got guys like waldo cortez o costa excuse me at heavy weight you know he's either not cutting weight or he's cutting very minimal amounts of weight and also those fights are not going very long for the most part to bc right so he's kind of in and out very quickly whereas but with marab these are over the long haul now the thing is bc we kind of all know the score it's like well if anybody seems to have i don't know what the word would be immunity to the kinds of physical challenges around what Marab is attempting, it would be Marab himself,

the cardio king, you know, the guy who's got mental toughness for days, you would think a guy like that could be above it. But biology is frail and it is in many cases uncompromising. I will tell you, I'll just be honest, maybe you feel differently. I probably overlooked this factor to a degree and maybe I shouldn't. I mean, just, we should just make a point. We did talk about this on Monday show, B.C. But remember, Umar in January, and then when was the O'Malley rematch? I mean, a few months later, six months later. June.

June. Then he has the fight against Sanhagen just a couple of months, or what is it, like a month or two ago? October. Two months ago. Or October. Yeah, October at this point, yeah. And then now this one, like, just to get that three-bout stretch, and I'm not

talking about just beating the opponent, just the physical toll of that, is kind of insane. To add this one against a guy who's getting a second crack at you and you, and you, you're you have to cut weight on top of it and maintain it, you know, obviously to, to make that one, because you can't, there's no allowance for title fights, where you have to get the 35 flat. This is, I mean, it's, it's, it's standard marab recklessness, you know, it's, it's out, it's him dancing. Yes. On the outside of that building, you're like, please don't fall. Please don't fall. He just never seems to, but you wonder when the luck might run out, B.C. I mean, here's the deal. You know, like we talked about a Monday. Yon says he has a broken hand two

years ago when they fought. Marab's coach was like Marab's hand was so swollen from being broken, they couldn't fit into a glove. Then you talk about 311, UFC 311, his maybe his toughest matchup on paper to date when he was the underdog against unbeaten Umar and Ramagamette off when Marab came in with back pain that he told me most fighters wouldn't be able to get out of bed with and a huge gash on his shin that eventually needed 25 stitches that caused a, you know, a major staff infection there that Marab's team told Ariel afterwards that like normal humans would have like worried about amputation if they had gone through that. Marab had to hide that from the doctors that week in California, yet still went out there

rallied in the championship rounds and got the win. So in one sense, he's indestructible. He's not human. He's a machine. In the other sense, you have the RDR story. You have the Pereira story where he constantly took short notice fights while injured. He won them all until he didn't. He ran into a wall, which was the Enkolaev first fight.

We wonder if this catches up with Marab. I have an interesting video that I want to get your take on here. Daniel Cormier joined CBS Sports HQ this week, caught up with our friend, former colleague, my current one, Shaquille Majori, who often text you for a retweet, Luke. I gave him a retweet on this one, unsolicited. Here's DC with inside knowledge on why Marab has such a difficult cut beyond the fact that it's four camps in one year.

having to put his body through that cycle so often. I think that is where some of these people that question his ability to do it multiple times thinks about this as the problem because Marab also cuts weight the old school way. So what he does is this is crazy. He doesn't do the way that the UFCPI wants nutrition and kind of gradually bringing the way down. He actually doesn't cut weight until fight weak and then when he gets to like Wednesday, he completely shuts himself off from any hydration, any food.

So he essentially starves himself from Wednesday to Friday to make the weight. And then he tries to recover before he gets into the aqua. That is why he hates the weight cut so much because he knows that starting yesterday, he's pretty much done with intaking anything before he steps on that scale on Friday. That is the danger for a guy like Marab because the weight cut is so difficult to put his body through, that four times in one calendar year is crazy. And the consistent fighting, even for the best

at times, have proven to become an issue. The great Alex Pereira was fighting over and over and over, and then he got beat. And then he took nine months off, came back and fought the same guy and knocked him out in the round. Right? So there is something to that theory that

you can do it too much. I just don't know if it affects a guy like Marab. I think that illuminates the comments he made to Okamoto. where he stopped urinating like he's and you saw him i don't know if you saw the videos where he had a pizza in his hand he didn't eat it he kept smelling it and then he's throwing cucumbers in his mouth because that's all he can eat for dinner i don't know if this is going to work out for rob dude i'm serious again if this was anybody else i'd be like well just put the belt on

yon today right i mean again former it's not a new it's a former fucking champion and if you've never seen it or i mean maybe our audience has i'm sure most of them but like yon beat the fuck out of Joseo Aldo. Like this is not a fucking bum by any stretch of the imagination. If it was BC, if it was anybody else other than Marab, I would not hesitate to pick

to pick Jan. It's just, I feel like we're giving Marab a leash here because he's doing incredible things. But BC, he will quit when his biology fails him. Yes. There was years ago, there was a guy, he was not as good as Marab, but there was a guy

years ago. Actually, it was one of my favorite Joe Rogan commentating moments, and I mean this sincerely, Josh, he was the original The Dentist. Josh the Dentist Neer fought a guy by the name of Drew Fickett. Drew Fickett before a time was kind of like the It guy or one of the it guys coming up in the sport. And they choked out Josh Neer. And at the time, Rogan makes a comment. He's like, the only way to beat this guy is to incapacitate him. Like, there's no other way. Like, you have to turn his biology off. Otherwise, he is a Terminator. And it just feels like that's what's going to happen to Mara. But like almost through self-inflicted damage.

You know what I mean? So I'm not changing my pick or anything. I'm not going to pick against Marab until I have to, but I will absolutely admit I did not take this fully into account on Monday show. Well, look, I encourage everyone to check out my interview on the BCX because Marab, like I said, three separate times without me mentioning it, would just end a sentence with as long as I can get through this weight cut because I didn't expect it to be this hard.

He all, I also asked him, by the way, about, because look, the closest he came to losing on this stretch was that Marlon Marais's fight four years ago. Luke, I rewatched that for that interview. He got the shit kicked out of him for about three and a half minutes, bloodied, dropped, chased back and forth, pillar to post as Marais unleashed, and then somehow closed the round in top position on the ground, doing heavy ground and pound and then submitted him the next round.

You just let, or stopped him with strikes the next round, where you're just like, if that situation where he got blitzed, he got completely lit up and he still couldn't get finished. You're right. He's his only enemy here. But you can see for yourself whether you believe the weight cut is catching up with him when we show you this clip. It's probably the only one from yesterday's press conference that got a little bit of attention here with the back and forth between Marab and Peter Yon. My first fight, I fought with him with one arm. He tried 49 takedowns. Peter, you are better than this, bro. Stop making excuse, please. No excuse.

In Saturday. When I repeat you on December 6, what excuse you're going to make? Tell me now. You're going to make excuse when I repeat you again. Tell me now, please. More, more, more, more, more. Are you going to make any excuse? More, more, more, more, more.

Are you going to make excuse on December 6 or no? Tell me now, please. Do you have any injuries now? More, ask more. Do you have any injuries now? In Saturday, we will see. Okay. Question for you.

Do you have any injuries now? Do you have injuries or no? Yes or no? I guess no. Okay. I understand. Preeto, do you have any injuries right now? Moro I would like to know.

I understand. Who is? Who is there? Yeah, I'm actually I feel This sabote You will see Just in me

in the Luchy form Guys, I feel great This Saturday You're going to see me In the best shape of my life Good luck Luke we have breaking news here As we're watching that video

Relating the UFC 323 live way And our correspondent Luke Noseida has been watching closely LIL What's going on down there in Vegas So Marab was the first one to weigh in He made 1-35 he gets off the scale and then like jumps in the air super how he looked energized he looked ready to go

he looked like that cut was no problem uh pantosia also weighed in right after him made one 25 few other guys weighed in but those are the important damn right dude marob is a fucking animal i don't know how to explain it all right well speaking of pantosia luke this josh van fight has been heating up i don't if you saw the face off between them where van had the glasses the red suit it there's not bad blood but it's really turning into a fight we need to see um does has the week that has happened changed at all your belief of whether josh van can pull this off on said once again i'm not changing my pick but it's one of those things where it's like early in the week you're like all right i i feel good about my pick you know reasonably speaking and then everything that happens later that

week makes you go i don't know so for example i don't know if you saw this i don't know if we have the audio for it, but Josh Van basically admitting he doesn't do game plans at all. Okay, I was getting to that. We don't have the video, but we talked down Josh Emmett when he told us that at the at the service diaries. Van told me the same thing in my interview. He said, no game plan. I'm going to fight Josh Van's style.

Is this a mistake against someone as well-rounded and precise as Pantoge? Here's what I would say. I don't know if that's going to cost Josh Van on Saturday, but it's going to cost him sooner or later. You're not going to be able to fight at championship levels for very long with no game plan and then expect to have enduring success. Not going to happen. That's just, it's absolutely not going to happen. There's a lot of corners you can cut in MMA. B.C., I mean, just think about how ludicrous it is that these guys don't game plan. Josh Van, it was just, it is very clear who he is. He is a natural talent. I don't think anyone would dispute that. In fact, I think that very much. He's naturally, his natural

aptitude for this is very high. He, as we discussed, absorbs over six strikes per minute, lands over eight, meaning he is absolutely right in the middle of the fray the entire time. He does not have lights out, take down the fence, but he's got very good scrambling. He is a guy who just believes, like every young 24-year-old guy in the country, you know, it's all going to work out. Like you just have this young confidence that like, yeah, things just work out. I'm just raw dog it it'll be fine yeah we'll just roll we don't need condoms we're just gonna figure it out and maybe the first time that happens you're fine second third maybe it doesn't happen bad for a while but it only takes one time for that to really come undone i and i know obviously he lost to

charles johnson but i'm saying at the championship level like let's be serious you cannot have enduring success fighting for a ufc title without consistent game planning so i don't know if it's going to cost them against pantogia but if it does like he just gets fucking run over because he's not planned for any of these scenarios. You're going to look at that and be like, right, my friend, you have all the talent in the world. But he also has a lot of talent and he has a game plan. These differences matter at the elite level to significant degrees.

Is it too much too soon? We're going to find out. I can't wait for that fight. But if you are hoping that win or lose for the great Alexandria Pantoja, that a super fight with him and Marab is coming pants, as Jed Michoud calls him, not today. Not so fast, my friend. Here's Pantosha talking about it.

Will you ever consider going up 135 and challenge Mareb or something? Maybe when Mirab retired, I tried to go another ballot, but Mirab is too good, you know. But I have a lot of respect for him. Me, my team talking about that, but we need a lot of time to understand that, change my body to 135 and when you talk about the flyweight, bent weight divisions, 10 pounds, a lot of difference. So we will not be getting that Marab superfight anytime soon. Look, quickly on Pantosia, one thing he told me was this.

He said, I think I deserve consideration for pound from pound number one. He said, I don't think you can rate anyone currently above Islam. He thinks Islam at Walterweight literally looks unbeatable. But Pantosia believes that he should be on the same line. as Islam, Ilya, and Marab, and he believes the four of them will eventually be remembered as a unit for elevating skill in UFC in recent years and taking this craftsmanship to another level. The last two years for Pantosia went from a self-proclaimed brawler when he won the title against Moreno to one of the top fighters in the world. Is that crazy talk or do you think he's on to something? no it's crazy talk um i mean he's ranked fourth as i understand it on the pound for pound list is he

he is he just wants to be considered equal to those yeah it's not though um not yet but i mean that doesn't mean like again the guys in the top five in the world and an overall pound for pound i think that is a very uh worthy and appropriate designation for an incredibly high achiever like Pantoja, but like, do I see his accomplishments on par with Marabs? No, I do not. I do not see that. All right. He has elevated his craft. Luke, your favorite fighter on Saturday's main card, Bogdan Gouskov, we were like, man,

we need to talk about this guy on the show where maybe you said the exact opposite. Rate his fit here as a Bond villain. I will say I do kind of dig the fit. He has a freshly shaved head, right? You can see it there. He's got the glasses. I don't quite know where he got him, but they do the job.

The red tie looks. Long Island, Luke, what's the dumbass movie? Was it Agent 47 or whatever the fuck? You know what I'm talking about? I'm not a big movie guy. I got no idea. He's too high. He's a big bomb guy.

Come on. Wasn't there a guy who was bald like this who was an assassin? Wasn't it called like Agent 47 or something? I think you're referring to Joe Sahn and Austin. No, no, no, no. Google. Google Agent 47. It looks just like him.

I swear to God. I want to take the Pepsi challenge Currently drinking the Pepsi Okay, yeah, yeah, age of 47, yep, you're right So I think that's what it is Which actually, you know, I kind of respect that Look, not related to this at all Have you seen the Diddy documentary on Netflix or no?

Dude, you are like, and I'm not exaggerating Maybe the 10th person to be like, You have to watch the Didi Document I started it last night, it's pretty wild I think they're still covering up the deeper connections to the... It turns out he's a real bad guy. Yeah, but I think that the conspiracy theorists are right but anyway wrong wrong time for that uh luke finally to close

real quick jed mishu just texted me and said it's from the movie hitman slash video game that's what guskov is dressed up at i see but it's agent it's it's hitman agent 47 thank you to jed meshu for watching live we love that name look i while i don't want you to ever be down on your luck in in your career or facing charges well a bit late for that i would love if you came into a scandal and you had to hire mesh you to represent you like bring him out of retirement you know what i mean dude what kind of crime would i have to be accused of to go that low yeah and i hope it burns in hell oh yeah there we go that'd be great uh look to close here uh henry sudeau will be taken on uh patent talbot i'm really excited about that fight i want

to get your take on his rant regarding i pokes from media day that actually led to him going the exact opposite at the press conference and saying how Dana White's the greatest promoter of all time, but check this out. One question for me on the I-Pope thing. You mentioned Jason Herzog in your last fight. Obviously, there's been an I-Pope problem in the UFC for a while.

It's not the U.S.C.'s fault, but more of the commissions. What is the solution? I think everybody needs to man up. Dana White, the Nevada State Athletic Commission, the referees, and just make a fucking decision, man. If you guys can do it like, dude, that's bullshit.

If we're being worn in the back And all right, dude, I'm going to start taking my warn I'm going to start sticking in the eye too I get a warning Like that's not for everybody Needs to fucking man up And step up And create this

And make this thing official Dude somebody could lose an eye Bisbee I mean how many other Dude these dudes are deformed for life Dude that sucks You know what I'm saying Like dude

It sucks to one that happened to me But two man It's batch cold hair There's a lot of people that have eye issues that you guys don't even know about you know what i'm saying so it starts here and i think it needs to be immediate and if not mad i think people need to be held accountable for that stuff if i also lose a fuck i did too you imagine that like oh yeah oh good job you're a warrior oh okay well who's gonna give me my back you know what i'm saying like everybody needs to step up

everybody including denouye uh that's one of the i got to say very quickly that is one of the few times I've ever heard him speak where I was like, I agree with every word. No cringe in that. No cringe in that. And it's weird how he did come back and was like, by the way, we love Dana White here at the press conference, which I don't know if he felt like he had to, but I fully agree and we'll get into Aspinall in a second here to break down further the eye poke thing. But Macy Barber officially makes weight, by the way, 125 pounds for a fight with Corrine A Silva, which was important given her weight and medical issues in recent years. That is UFC 323 this Saturday and this podcast, by the way, sponsored by Total Wireless,

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5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area monthly right on the total base 5G unlimited plan for new subscribers applies only the monthly rate for your plan. Additional terms apply. See website. for more details. We stay in MMA for topic number four, heavyweight champion of the UFC. Tom Aspinall gave his first interview following the no-contest iPoke from Surreal Gone that brought an end in the first round to their heavyweight title match. It came just days after he posted a video that was heavily criticized by the MMA Twitter crowd who continually pushes the agenda that Aspinall quit.

upon looking at this interview with Ariel, Aspinall would say that not only does he believe gone is a cheater, he shares in the disappointment of the reaction of the fans of John Jones, of UFC CEO Dana White, and Aspinall also revealed he has been diagnosed with bilateral traumatic Brown's syndrome, which contradicts Dana White's comments that there was no damage. And Aspinall also said he has not returned to training. he may need surgery on both eyes, and a long layoff either way is likely. Luke, what is done is done here? But is there any way that Tom Aspinall can actually get a W in the Court of Public

Opinion moving forward? And does he deserve any of the criticism he has received for how he has handled something that was completely not his fault? this is the part i just don't understand i don't have any issue whatsoever with him doing this interview with ariel right or with any other outlet it's not that's not the point but the point is he made that video or excuse me i'm sorry i should say he did the interview the day or the day after he did this long video where he walked through the park with glasses on and then gave like a medical update with medical information, and it's like, on the one hand, I do admire the

transparency, and I think that there's some value in having a transparent, both sharing of information and, you know, doing it at a reasonably steady clip, but at this point, it just feels like he is living to silence critics, and that to me is not a strategy that ultimately can work or that you should really pursue. In other words, if you're going to put out the video, you didn't need to do the interview. Or conversely, if you're going to do the interview,

you didn't need to put out the video. There's a way in which you can communicate these things and without having doubling and tripling down, constantly going back to the well. And I feel like the fact that he's doing it seems to me, A, as I indicated, he's kind of responding to maybe lowest, common denominator or criticisms, and then B, this act of doing it is creating fatigue and hearing

from him. I mean, even if you have all of the truth on your side, BC, if you're trying to affect how you're perceived, there should be a comm strategy that goes into it. And I don't think a calm strategy of just talking all the time is necessarily in his best interest. At this point, give us an update when there is one. And if it comes to a point, B.C., where he has to relinquish the which is like crazy to fucking say but if it comes to that point then fine we'll cross that bridge when we get there but i feel like he's trying to fight a battle that at least at the present moment cannot be one with more information he can only hold serve so hold serve and wait to make a move down the road i really think the worst thing he could have done was when he sort of like live stream

that doctor's appointment right after where initially they said there wasn't long-term damage and it allowed everyone who thought he quit to double down. Then you get the ill-timed Waldo Cortez-A-Coste fight where he fights through a bad eye poke, gets a K-O, is putting an eye patch on his clowning Tom, John's clowning Tom. Dana's not happy. And you have a fighter, who, by the way, already missed a year at his prime when he got injured against Curtis Blades, then came back, wins the interim title, is not allowed to fight for the real one.

It has to go through a multi-year soap opera, and then has this happened? It's, I mean, it's bad luck, but the real question here is, is he making his luck worse? I want to get your reaction to him what he said and hit that video he posted about Cyril Gahn. Let's listen. Did you think he did it on purpose? So, I think that when it initially happened, I didn't really think much of it. I thought, accident while I poke, whatever. Look, when I watched the fight back, that's when I really got the gist of what's going on.

The guy was trying to poke my eyes out all the way through that round. Nearly every exchange that I could put him in danger, he had his fingers out pointing towards my eyes. And your thoughts on him at the moment? Thoughts on him, I think he's a big cheater. I think that look at all his fight. Yeah, I think you can only lose by talking, Luke, even though I feel bad for him. I mean, we've had a lot of people continue to dunk on him. One of those is friend of the program, Mike Perry.

I want to know if you think this goes too far. The Tom Aspinall thing, John Jones was saying, you know, Tom's a quitter. It's like he blew up so big, he was the next big thing. He was the call. Like, everyone was like, no, no, you're duck. You're ducking, blah, blah, blah. Everybody always got something to say. But, you know, where are you at now?

I'm just going to say this. If he needed to stop the fight, then he needed to stop the fight. That's fine. But the shit we did it after was lame. Like, Homeboy wanted to make a Netflix documentary about it. about the aftermath on his eye poke, right? Dude, it was so cringe. Like, and his dad was talking for him every six hours.

It was very bizarre. What would David Gaghan say? Life is hard. Still crying about it, be a man. Do some push-ups and go run some miles. With the broken leg, who gives him? Yeah, look, well, isn't David Gaggans like an absentee father?

I don't know. I don't know, Luke. All I know is every time my son does something that he shouldn't that's aggressive around the house, he goes, that was Goggin' style. I'm like, please don't bring Goggin style into my house, son. Thank you very much.

LT, Aspernel's got an idea, though, of how to fix fouls in MMA. We heard from Suhudo. Here's ultimately what Tom believes will change this. What I think should happen is, if there's a foul, like, in my case, double eye gouge was what happened to me. So if we want the fight to carry on fairly,

I'll, I get a, free foul on him so i'll double eye gouging back and then we still wouldn't restart the fight i think that's fair i feel like that might be a tough one to pull off well soul's continuing when you've got no eyesight an eye for an eye look it's not going to work in the ufc yeah that's not a thing but i i mean i mean tom's in a bad position but i think you have to recognize okay i'm in a bad position fighting with the internet by just releasing more evidence that he considers to be exculpatory or exonerating or corroborating depending on what the charge and the claim is he thinks that this is doing him a favor and again i'm not even i'm not even disbelieving anything he's saying you see i'm not

saying oh this claim is true this claim is false i'm not even weighing in on it i am merely saying trying to beat the internet with like oh i'll just give them more info i don't know my read is that that is not working. And so if it's not working, I think a different strategy is an order. All right. Let's say he needs surgery on one or both eyes. It feels like no matter what, he's going to be out a while. So what is, you know, we feel like the UFC might do a John Jones Poetan sort of one-off heavyweight super fight. Does that mean if Waldo Cortez-Akosta wins at UFC 324 that him and Cyril Gahn are going to fight for an interim time? I mean, what do you even do next? The Poetotan up against Cyril Gond is interesting. You can always

kind of pull that trigger too if they made it for an interim title or even I don't know I mean yeah but probably that's enough um so I mean it just fucks everything up yeah this is this is I mean what I will say this in Tom's defense and one thing he's really not I mean again there's only so much he can do right so it's a difficult situation but like this idea that we're just going to abandon the idea that there's an improvement to glove design and glove geometry as like oh well I guess that's settled how the fuck is that settled? The Association of Boxing Commissions and the team of doctors they hired to conduct a study found that there was statistically significant amount of evidence that showed that the curved knuckle design meaningfully reduces eyepokes. How are we not talking

more about this? And I understand we've talked about it to some extent, but I'm simply saying like in Tom's defense, the people who can do something about this seem to not be interested in doing much about it, not so much just for the past, but for the future or two. and that can contribute to his frustration. I share his frustration with that. This idea like, oh, there's really nothing we can do about it. I'm like, well, we can't eliminate it, but the idea that we can't do anything about it also seems equally untrue.

I feel for him. It reminds me of when DC was feuding with John Jones initially and everybody looked at DC as the villain, and I'm like, I can't believe Tom Asmel is getting villainized this aggressively, even though I don't necessarily like the amount of stuff he's putting out. I mean, we have another video we're not even going to play where he's just going off on MMA haters. You know, I mean, just turn off the socials.

Get healthy. Earn it back in the cage, which is the only thing you can do. But they better do something. Association of commissions, they got to do something. It's easy. You got to poke someone, you lose a point. That'll teach you not to do it. Okay.

You come at somebody with the fingers out, you'll lose a point. That takes a, like, you know, that's it. That's it. How did the NFL change how we hit quarterbacks by giving them like a strike zone that's this big? you know what I mean? They instilled penalties. That's it. Okay. So handle your business, MMA. I do feel for Tom, this heavyweight division is getting weirder and weir. Maybe Poetan can climb that ladder. I mean, will they let John Jones back in and play? I don't know.

Let's go to topic number five, which is combat sports news and notes, a potpourri, if you will, of quick-hitting topics that I want to get Luke's take on. So in boxing, the WBC has authorized unified heavyweight champion Alexander Usick to make a voluntary title defense, which he wants it to be against faded former champion Deontay Wilder. Now, Shelly Finkel, who reps Wilder, said they would accept the fight, provided the offer is big enough, and both sides are reportedly negotiating, per Dan Rayfield of Fight Freaks United. Here's a quick video of Usik explaining his decision.

You know, I want to fight with Wilder. Why? Because it's a very famous guy. This is a guy last 10, 15 years will be champion and very dangerous opponent. Because. Now, Luke, if you're U. Yeah, if you're Ushik and you want to have a. resume that 15 years from now means you fought everybody you could in your era and you cleaned

them out then this is a good idea but luke the old wilder that once made out with his own statue that guy ain't coming through that door you know what i'm saying dude fuck this fight yeah thank you fuck this fight i've i've seen the argument i'm sure you've seen a two bc it's like well hasn't usick been having to do rematches and mandatories and he's kind of followed the script and now he's got a chance to go a little bit, call a shot, so to speak. And it's like, I'm not unsympathetic to that, but this is, this is pathetic. This is pathetic. The difference in their ability in 2026 is vast and enormous. It's a fight that is just a money grab. It's all, again, talking about all the things wrong with boxing. This is a fight that is all wrong with boxing. BC.

If it were the case that there was really nobody else for Usik to fight for like six months, they're injured, they're out, they're retired, like a weird moment in time. You'd be like, all right, well, I mean, you've got to get creative. Maybe under that circumstance, I might feel a little bit differently. But that's just not what this is. This is just, this guy is washed his shit and he's got a big name and I want an easy payday. Nah, fuck off. I don't want to pay for that.

And I don't want to see it. Usik has never operated like this. He's always taken the toughest road. So I get what you're saying. I agree with you ultimately. I don't want it. I want to see him against Moses Itama eventually if he's going to hang around. I wouldn't hate it if he fought Fabio Wardley, who picked up that belt,

that Usik was forced to vacate. I don't love that matchup, but I also wouldn't hate it because it matters. Same thing with any other heavyweight he hasn't fought who gets a big win and puts himself in position. I don't need to see a trilogy with Joshua or Fury, but yeah, yeah. Let's go to the next one. So we know that Marab, Devalosvili, has a history of sitting in hot tub. with other fighters. He tweeted it himself. Can we show that tweet at the UFCPI that time where he caught up with two-time former opponent Sean O'Malley. And Luke, it's 2025. We had a bunch of

dudes hanging out in the same sauna. Deal with it. It happens. Except for the fact that Peodor Yan ain't going to deal with it. To the level, Luke, that I had to make a phone call to our friends over at Cuervo for something we like to call. Shots fire. And this shot's fired moment is brought to you by Cuevo. Now's a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila. Here's a colorful back and forth from Thursday's press conference. You have plenty of people in your jacuzzi. I don't need to be there.

Come on, Peter. Just doesn't matter what. I think that in jacuzzi, I feel like you should have girls in your jacuzzi instead of who you have. But if you like to be with jacuzzi with the boys, it's up to you. What's the problem with girls or boys together? It doesn't matter, bro. We can mix.

Okay, just boys. All I saw is all you got is boys and yours. All you got is boys and yours. All you got is boys and yours is what I saw. I, if I was a girl I never even seen you with a girl before at all. Now, Luke, to be fair, I would never share a hot tubber jacuzzi with you out of fear of what your ass might do inside there. But do your back peyotia here?

Using homophobia as like a, it's like a, it's like a, way i mean i'll say this marab didn't have a comeback you know what i mean like he was kind of stuck there so i mean you know you know how fight week goes they're gonna try any little needling thing just to get in your head i don't need to come to marab's defense here but i feel like majority of his social media content has women in it and like him in jacuzis with women and there's definitely like a bunch of those videos so yeah he always says his goals are to get married yeah that's it he says i'm my goal is to find a way that's my goals again apparently in this world the most disreputable thing you can be is gay i suppose i'm

not really sure i don't know i can't speak for them i'll just say the reason to watch this fight is not because of the personal rivalry between morab and yon and i don't think it my personal view is it doesn't necessarily add a bunch there but if you're yon you're up against i mean if you're yon you're up against the greatest bantamate of all time you're going to try anything i suppose to get an edge. It didn't seem to, I mean, it did rattle Marabi didn't have an answer, but yeah, we're good with that. Let's keep it going. Also in news and notes, Luke Lance Bugmeyer of boxing scene.com is the only one reporting this very interesting story that boxing champion, Katie Taylor, the Pound for Pound Queen alongside Clarissa Shields, depending upon your opinion,

is in talks to box Ronda Rousey in 26? What the hell are we doing here? First, Luke, we can throw to the very memorable infamous shadow boxing videos of head movement. There we go, Rhonda. Good old Honda-Hausie. And here's a quick update from Katie Taylor, who was at the WBC convention and was pressed by the media about this. Like I said, she's an iconic figure herself with a female sport. And she has an amazing mentality. You don't get the position that she's in without a fantastic mind, without a fantastic mentality. So it's just a very interesting fly for me. This is the first I've heard about it as well. This morning, I looked at all the headlines, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm up for this fight.

I'm ready for this fight, and I'm, I'm, I will be very excited for this fight as well. You know what? We're ready to. Now, Luke, Carol. I have breaking news here for you. Does it involve hot tubs? Uh, I don't think so. Coming in at 132 on his second attempt, which means that the does.

WBC 130 pound title is not available to him. So if he defeats Foster, the title goes vacant. If obviously if Foster wins, then he'll have. So you're talking about Stephen Fullen, Jr.? Yes. And so he now has to pay a fine to Fulton and the commission. Good Lord. Well, that happened, Luke, okay?

Yeah, sorry. So just to be fair on this Ronda Rossi news, Aero Hawani has consistently reported that she is in training for real for a comeback of some kind. He had teased the idea that it could be an M.M.A fight against Gina Carano, considering Carano recently timing-wise was right to post training videos herself. So, Luke, if it was some kind of Rousie Carrano White House super fight, you would get it. Even with Rousey's very troubling CTE comments she's made about getting concussed, you know, with a single punch. But what the frick is this boxing rumor? I don't know why the Karano fight is that much better.

I mean, I get that Karano is not the boxer or the probably even the puncher that Katie is. Okay, fair enough. But Karano is also real big relative to even to Rousey. Like, dude, you said that Rousey's comments about her head trauma were. troubling. I actually disagree. I think they're disqualifying. I think they're much more than troubling. What she has said, let's be very clear about it.

What she has said is that she had concussions and traumatic brain injuries during judo, starting in the single digits in terms of her age, that she obviously got more through her MMA career, the two fights to say nothing of whatever happened in training and everything else

on her way out the door, that she got them there. She said she partly had to exit MMA as a consequence of it got more in WWE and also had to call it quits in WWE as a consequence, I mean for other reasons, but partly that was a factor as well. So we have decades of potential head trauma to the point where she has said publicly it ended her ability to participate in professional MMA as well as the WWE. Now, these are not the only factors that played a role, but it was a significant contributing

factor. On what planet would we ever license this person to ever have another kind of? where head trauma was involved. I don't I don't even understand what the argument would be. To say nothing of the fact, B.C. That what you're talking about is Katie fucking Taylor. Yes. Not a not a huge puncher per se,

but doesn't need to be for that one to be really bad. Even if this was an MMA fight and not a boxing match, I'd have issues with the concussion side of it. You know, we're like, okay, well, at least Ronda could just take her down and submit her. But if this goes any further, and I question the very, validity of it, not on Lance's reporting. He's solid. But the idea that Katie was like,

yeah, this is the first I've heard of it. Are the sides really negotiating? Is he getting bad info? I don't know. Obviously, would I think Netflix would jump at this? Yes, Netflix doesn't seem to care about whether fights are, you know, sort of kosher in the true lane of boxing. They put 59-year-old Mike Tyson out there in a real sanctioned fight, not an exhibition. That's why we had issues with it mostly a real sanctioned fight uh they wanted to do tank versus jake so yeah i think they would jump at this could it fill a stadium of course but wow luke she never had hands wow what are we doing here dude is there a part of you that this is what the government regulates this shit you can't just pluck two names out and be like oh make a fight like the whole point is the

commission is supposed to be like no no no no no no you have to make competitive fights and people who are ready appropriate weight classes the whole nine yards but like it just just seems like there's like people inside the sport now who are like oh big name big name put it together tip to tip bc but seriously put them together and then we'll just you know we'll just have a bigger fight because we have bigger names and it's like dude that's not how this shit works do you think ronda would do you think ronda would be thinking hey if i can get 10 million and you know retire off of this my kids don't have to worry i'll take i'll take a one round knockout again i don't know what she's thinking but the state has a compelling interest in preventing

this for sure for sure uh quickly to close on this topic luke uh cut two other pieces of news natalia sylva will replace an alexa grosto who pulled out of a ufc 324 in january in las vegas fight against rosenami unis that of course is the first p le in the ufc paramount era i certainly love the fight and you can argue it's an upgrade of sorts but wasn't natalia sylva in line to potentially challenge valentino do you think that this announcement it means Valentina could face the winner of Amanda versus Kayla at UFC 320. I think she's keeping her options open, but also Silva not waiting around, trying to, you know, affirm her place at the top.

And honestly, if I'm Rose, this is a tougher fight to me than Grosso. At least the current state of Grosso anyway. Silva's not as accomplished, right? She, you know, wasn't a champion, but not yet anyway. I just think the current state of things, like Silva to me is a tougher fight. So that's, that fight actually got better. That doesn't happen, right? Yeah.

This one to me got better. Even though I did want to see where Grasso was at, where Rose is at in terms of them juggling losses recently. And to close, the 2006 class of the International Boxing Hall of Fame was announced yesterday. Triple G. Gennati Golovkin, the great middleweight champion from Kazakhstan headlines the card alongside two great fighters, but somewhat questionable choices, in my opinion, in Antonio Tarver and Nigel Ben, of course, the father of Connor Ben. You also had Jackie Nava on the women's side, the great late referee, Frank Cappuccino, the great late broadcaster, Alex Wallow, and media member, Kevin Ioli getting the call. LT, any thoughts on any of these names going in on a class that's outside of Triple G kind of considered a bit weak? I guess I would say the following. I only had a long tenure, right?

Like how long did he cover? boxing. Probably 25 years, right? At least, right? I think more than that. Yeah, you're right. Probably closer to 40. Probably closer. Yeah, probably, I'd say 35 years. It sounds about right. Which means, dude, you might actually end up in that motherfucker hall of fame, huh? How about that? I'm like, if he can get in, I mean, I'm not saying he, you know, he didn't do it a long time, but like, you know, you've been out, you've been at this for almost 20 years. You're not that far, my friend. I mean, I'll have to change my tolerance for muscular women, but I'm with you on that completely, Luke, definitely, okay?

What I'll say is if they actually do put you up for it, I'm going to be like, I don't know if they're, you know, they treat it like a wedding, like if anyone hair has, you know, objections, speak now forever, hold your peace. I'm going to speak now. Yes, thank you. You'll also be holding your peace while you do that, I'm sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much. Those are our five topics. quick update from long island luke on the way in situation for ufc uh bruno faeta missed wait we're still waiting on peyodor yon as far as the main event co-main is official josh van is in josh fan is in he's in 214 and a half pan tojo was 125 merino did make 125 for what it's worth i know he said he would be the backup but both guys made wait uh long on luke someone on my live chat said we should add my fart sound to the soundboard and what they said was

Yeah, and I said no. Yeah, I know. They're like, well, we don't understand why L.I.L. objects. And listen, I'm just telling you what they said. It's not going to hurt my feelings. And they said, instead of playing crickets when B.C. makes a bad joke, you could just play the fart sounds over and over.

I just think we're going to lose more subscribers than we already do on a daily basis. Yeah, that's trauma. That is induced trauma. A quick update here on this show, Morning Combat. It is presented by Draft Kings and Draft Kings, the Crown. is yours. And you all know it is UFC 323 this weekend. It's a great time to pick, play, and cash in by downloading the Draft Kings pick six app right now using our code combat with a K. Yes, that's combat with a K. You play just $5. You get $50 in pick six credits. Make the call,

ride the upside in partnership with Draft Kings pick six. The crown is yours. And Luke, you already know how to do this. We're picking two or more fighters, two or more categories going more or less based on the Draft King's projections for this weekend. So when we're talking, for example, about this main event on Saturday, and if Draft Kings have Marab Davalishvili, the Bannamweight champion, set at a more or less for significant strikes over five rounds of 11.5. Are you going more or less for Marab? I'll go more.

I'm always going to go higher for that on Marab, even though it's a pretty high threshold. I'll go more. Okay. Okay. Speaking of Marab as well against Yon, takedowns for Marab, eight and a half. He attempted 49 the first time. Will he secure more or less than eight and a half takedowns? He might get eight in a round.

I'll take the overall on that one as well. Wow. Okay, same question, but in the co-main event, three and a half takedowns for the champion, Alexandre Pantosia, over five rounds against Josh Vann. I'll take the under because some of that might just be back attacks, which they won't count as a take. takedown, so I'll take the under.

Okay. And also we have something called fight time, Luke. How long will the fight last when we're talking about Bogdan Guskov and Jan Blaovich, 10 minutes and 45 seconds, more or less? That would be early, the first minute in round three. I don't know how you feel. I'm going to take the under. Bojovich can slow guys down and not make him look great, but Gustav just gets to work. and I think he'll either get the dub or it'll spell his demise. All right.

Download that Draft King's Pick Six app right now. Use our code combat with the K. Remember, play $5, get $50 back in Pick Six credits. Got a gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-78-9-77-7-7-7 or visit cCP.g.org in Connecticut must be 18-plus agent eligibility restrictions.

Vary by jurisdiction. Pick-6 not available everywhere, including New York. in Ontario, void where prohibited, one per new customer, bonus awarded as a non-withdrawable pick-six credit that expires in 14 days, ends December 2nd at 11.59 p.m. Eastern Time terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. All right. Those are our five topics here. Any other updates we should know about. Payot or Jan coming in in that. Look, how do we pronounce Jan's person name? People hate when I say peyotor. Is it peyote? What is it? Peter? Piotr? Almost like, you keep saying Piotr. I think it's a little, I think it's a little more curved, Piotr. Piotr. Piotr. I'm really not sure either, to be honest with you.

135 on the dot for the title fight Saturday, the rematch here, okay? I'm fired up. I am fired up with that. All right, there we go. That's it. We have fan segments to close here because every Friday we give you the opportunity, morningcombat at gmail.com to reach out to the show. send a Mikey a picture of your piece. Maybe send us some fan subs are dead wrong. So we start with the ombudsman portion of this show where we don't always get it right. Sometimes, folks, we get a dead wrong, but you better be on par. You better have receipts. You better come original. This one's called Dead wrong.

Dead wrong. All right. Samuel and Kevin reached out on this one. good old Samuel. At 4722, Luke refers to Alexandre Toporia as Ilya's younger brother, but it's actually the other way around. Alexandria is one year older than Ilya. It's an understandable mistake with Ilya being the more experienced fighter. But we got to call you out, Luke. Are you taking that out? I'll take the L. I did know that, but it's a bad habit of mine because that's how I first thought of him and then someone else hipped me to me to it. But it's an L. It's an

I'll take it. All right. I've already stood up over this L, but I'll take it one more time from Dan Taylor, Jonah, and Eric, but here's Taylor writing in, the mango isn't a melon, B.C. You can't hide your cucumber trauma here. Mangos and melons aren't even in the same taxonomic order, making them just as distantly related as melons and pomegranates. You probably just haven't had a ripe one. Go to a Thai restaurant in August and get mango sticky rice to experience true mango bliss. I was wrong. I have nothing against mangoes, but don't you dare try to push cucumbers

or any melons or pickles on me because I understand what a pickle truly is underneath you. Do you eat any saviche at all? No, saviche, no. Okay, anything cooked in acid is what I'm trying to get at. Parvonic acid, yeah. I don't even know what that means, look, to be fair. Okay, all right.

It was great talking to you, though. I mean, it was great doing the show with you today. All right. Vinegar is an acid. That's how it turns cucumber into a pickle. Yeah, I avoid that transformation. It's not exactly Cevice. They're different things, but it's a similar kind of idea.

Yeah, yeah. I don't like that. You know what I mean? Like, you know, some people like the worm, but not the butterfly. Luke, I don't like either. Like, not that you would ever eat it again, but like, what's the grossest thing you've ever eaten, the sketchiest? Octopus, and then I threw up for like two hours after?

Yeah. Don't eat octopus. They're incredibly smart and sentient beings. I'm not, I'm not protecting them, Luke. Well, they are.

You ever seen my octopus teacher? No, because octopuses remind me too much of spiders without I'm also against Luke. So, you know, I'm just, I'm just telling you.

I got to stand up for octopus here. Grilled octopus is delicious. I mean, you, listen, let's be honest about Long Island Luke. Let's be honest about him. He would eat other people,

right? Wouldn't he if it was legal? Okay. Okay, okay. Soiling green, Luke, it's made out of people. Spoiler alert, okay? It's like he would, he would eat your cats and dogs. I feel like if it came to it, you know. Also, Luke, I hate, hate black licorice. That is just an evil taste. I mean, I don't think there's many people who are going to defend. Old ladies love it.

What was the candy in the 80s and 90s, juju something? What was it called? Juju beans. No, juju beans, juju beans. And they would have, and they would have some of them that were good. juju-bees, yeah. And they would have some of them that were good, but they would have the black licorice ones in there, and they'd be like garbage.

Yeah, I'm not into that, Luke. All right, thank you very much. Our final segment allows you to send in videos of yourself making artwork, wearing tight t-shirts, or frolicing with Saul and his wife in Louisville. This one's called Fan Submissions. You've got mail.

Viewers. One of our male viewers is Jonathan, who says, I wanted to take time to share this and say I've been a listener since the beginning. Thank you for all of the content and laughs. You guys help out more people than you know. We are one. Wow, this guy's a 0.1% or listener of M.K. Luke, when they say we help them out more than

we know, what does he imply? I'm not sure, except to say I appreciate the generosity and as well as the commitment to the program. That's absurd. Yeah, thank you, Jonathan. You're more committed than some of the hosts. I mean, this is incredible. Thank you. All right. Our second one comes from Des, not Das,

Dez, who says, Hey, Soup and Luke, Merry Christmas, Boyo's. Great year. Just one Christmas wish I have been leading into, leading, I have leading into 2026. It's that we see a return of some of the all-time great phrases, such as, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Have a great Christmas break. Can't wait for 26. Here's the video in question. Don't don't. don't don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don, don't, don't, don, don't, don't, don, don, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, dunk, don't, don, dunk.

Don't, don't, don't, don't. Merry Christmas, you filthy animals. Dude, I didn't even know we had a Christmas ornament. Is that old? That's, I think, from the gangbang days. Oh, yeah, the R.J. Dunklemaker days. Wow, shout out to the good buddy Jonathan, or Des, sorry, that was Des. Appreciate that, okay.

Our final one comes from Wes, who says BC and LT, while I appreciate your always animated coverage of combat, you got to admit that you guys are pretty cartoonish. Thus, I made a couple Simpsons-inspired MK memes, keep up the mediocre work, day one donk and fellow wash dad here. What is this saying, Luke? Zero days without explosive diarrhea. I almost showed this to you pre-show when you shared with us your bowel movement this one. Yeah, I had some today. It was a lot. The next one, please.

Luke arriving late to the MK Studio. That was the worst Amtrak ride. No, that was the worst Amtrak ride so far. Oh. Yeah, and then here's BC when LT matches his dirty old man, Pervy, energy. BC only likes to be pervy when he's the only perv When anyone else matches it

He just turns into a wallflower All right donkey climax noises 9-11 jokes in elderly abuse Shout out to all the 9-11 fans out there Luke Yeah, that's wild I look forward to seeing you on 9-11 I can't wait September 11th can't wait

Those were fan submissions And this podcast has been presented to you by draft kings draft kings the crown is yours point of order point of order if I may did we not settle on we should say it out loud we had promised to give a signed poster

to the best card for the Thanksgiving day episode and I think we settled on well let's bring in Long Island Luke here who did we settle along Long Island we're giving it to Rundum Cheeks Joe who sent us the video of him sitting in the bomber jacket in the hot tub

took commitment so we'll send him out poster joe uh email morning combat at gmail dot com let me now look is joe a x marine or former marine i can't figure it out former never an ex okay okay shout out to joe from rundem cheeks fame a big fan big fan as well uh sign poster coming your way let us know what body part you want us to sign on it okay thank you very much uh l t speaking of our fantastic merch uh people can go to morning combat dot shop right now the december exclusives from average joe r romero are there it is uh Masters of the Universe, MK style, get your T-shirt, get your signed poster, a lot of Easter eggs in that design as, I mean, no one knows us better than average Joe art. Mix and match colors, by the way, evergreen items available, but you're going to have to hurry.

As long as you get your orders in by December 11th, you can get your stuff probably for Christmas, probably. Okay, thank you. I don't know if it'll get there in time for Boxing Day on the 26th. so I'll have to call a Canuck and figure that out. Luke, real quickly, who are your three favorite Canadians of all time? Go. Uh, I don't know. Bronstetter?

Well, I'll say the great Jordan Breen. Okay. All right, Pete. You know, I can count, I mean, all time figures, I suppose. I'll throw Abron in there. I like Abron a lot. And then for third, Shaquille Majori.

Oh, God, Jesus. I'd rather just get... Mike Bone? Mike Bone, right? I do like Mike Bonn. I don't know if Rick has my top three all time. I'm not sure. Do you go St. Pierre?

Do you go somebody else? I'm not sure about the number three slots. Yeah, Jazz DeViscius, you know, a little... You know, I mean, who else combines the Lithuanian and Quebec Cua flavor like her and I do, right? It's great. Yeah, that is that. And this is this. Appreciate all you folks.

What else did I want to say? I think I want. Oh, yeah, check me out. You're follow, like, and subscribe. Check out our YouTube channels. Check out the work that we put in right there. And also check me out Saturday night, PBC on Prime, pay-per-view. You can also order it through pbv.com.

It is Lamont Roach Jr. pit bull cruise, the PBC card in San Antonio, I'll be on the call. And by the way, I wanted to say, Luke Moranalo has been out of action for about five, six months with some mental challenges. and he's back in the lineup this Saturday. And you know the love we both have for him as a person, as a historical combat sports play-by-play guy. Abner-Maris and I are so excited to be reunited with Morrow this weekend. So check that out. Now, the question is, are you doing post-fight interviews?

Yes, I will be doing post-fight interviews. I'll be doing the Draft Kings breakdowns. I will be calling the prelims as well. Wow. And the Ghost will be in the feature. prelim. That's 5 p.m. Eastern on Amazon Prime. You do not need to be a prime member, by the way, to order the pay-per-view or watch the free prelims. So check all that out. It's going to be good stuff. LT, should we be checking you out Saturday night on your YouTube channel? Yep. I'll have a

watch-along as well as a post-fight show and then some coverage as well on Sunday. All right. Great stuff. Long Island Luke. It's been great to pod with you. I mean, hope I didn't put you on the spot too much with your boy, Al-Jerry. No, you didn't. I mean, that was school i wanted to talk to him but uh thank you uh i'm also doing a full card watch along so join me for the prelims before you join look also got a new prop quiz drop in in about 35 minutes got a gc versus new york rick from uncrown so go check that up wow uncrowned on uncrown to hick connor connor burkes right connor burgs is that yeah connor coner yeah yeah cc yeah what is the cb what's the origin of it georgia connor georgia connor new york rick we all go by where we're from yeah they call you

you know India Franklin look you know this right you know what I mean yeah there you go with that long Allen look do I need to apologize publicly for my crash out against Jose Young's because I still want to fist fight that guy not not personally just in the show in the show that's up to you did you see he left a comment on the last video and was like BCLC in the parking lot yeah I mean it may come to that my competitiveness rolled up that's what it's what it's like when I play basketball that's why I had to retire I'm sorry you're competitive I just want it so bad you know what I mean it is what it is but uh LT, it's been great doing the show with you today.

I hope you have a great weekend and join the fights. We will be back Monday, not in studio, right? No, because, well, we normally are always in studio on Mondays, and especially up to pay-per-views, but there's a lot of traffic, let's say, in the studio, and unusual amount of traffic, so we're going to have to do it from home on Monday. But I'm not going to miss that Amtrak ride.

You know what I'm saying? I hear that. By the way, speaking of the chair that we share, Pablo Torre of Pablo Torre finds out dude we already know that man is on fire lately but what he did to congressman and NBA alum tom McMillan with the Epstein files if people have not watched that episode I am dying to see it everyone has told me to see it and I just haven't had time to do it yet holy shit folks please check that out okay please wow myron Santos just missed wait by the way 147.5 according to law for the UFC card enjoy the fight

this weekend. There's a lot of them. We'll be back Monday to break it all down for Long Island Luke, for LT. It's your boy B. Sizzle. Thank you to Chris Algeri for joining us today. Take care of yourselves. We're out of here. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.