MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 325 Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes 2 Full Card Breakdown

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

LT and The Man in the Hat are back on a Friday edition of Morning Kombat! First, the guys will review the impressive reported numbers from the UFC's debut on Paramount+, before diving into a UFC 325 full card preview. The guys play a UFC 325 edition of Rank That Card before being joined by Sean Zittel to preview this Saturday's Ring VI card and talk all things boxing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Revely, revely, docks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. I'm Luke Thomas. This is Morning Combat.

Morning Combat with the teacher from Charlie Brown's Peanuts. What's up, everyone? It is the 30th of January, 2026. My name is Luke Thomas, and welcome to another edition. of morning combat. As you can see, I'm joined here. I get, I get rid of one Connecticut Bozo and I'm returned a different one. I just can't quit you Connecticut Bozos. It's the Iceman himself, Chuck Mendenhall. Who? When did you get home, Iceman? How long did that take? Oh, my God, man. It was a, it was an or ordeal, Luke. I got, I finally got home Monday night. I was supposed to come back on Saturday.

But I was going to get hung up no matter where I was at. Either it was going to be Vegas or in connection through Chicago. So I did what any Colorado would do. I flew to Denver. watched the Broncos lose there. And then I was able to catch a flight on Monday. Did you stay with the parents? I stayed with my sister. And I saw some other family and watched the game with some family and very depressing scenes over there, man.

Yeah, I was very bitter. I was like, I cannot believe we're going to let the Patriots go back to the Super Bowl again, bro. Unbearable. The most obnoxious fan base in sports, which is saying, well, maybe that's a little strong. One of the most obnoxious fan bases in sports. And not even that good of a team.

but they just keep advancing. I don't quite get it. The weather rolled in, man. I don't know if you watch that game, but it was cold. Yeah, it was cold, but then once the flurries came in, it just changed everything. It was like neither offense could function. I saw both kickers miss field goals if memory serves, right? That's an exciting AFC championship right there.

That's what you remember is the kickers missing field goals. Well, that is now behind us. I guess what's left is a Super Bowl, but of course we have to get to what's important to us, which is the fights. and there are a bunch of them this weekend. Today on the show, we're going to sort of quickly recap some of the numbers that came out from UFC 324, which are basically universally good.

We're going to talk about those and what they mean. Then we're going to lean heavy. UFC 325, main event, main card, prelim card, the whole nine yards. Plus we have an update for you. One of the fights did fall out and under comical circumstances, I think is maybe one of the better ways to put that. And then, of course, at around 1230,

we'll be joined by Sean Zattel, who's going to walk us through the entire weekend. in boxing, one of the great boxing scribes of our time. Give us a follow on social media. You can see down below, there's morning combat, as well as for me, and then Chuck himself. Chuck, do you have any work to plug over at old Yahoo related to this weekend's fights? We've got like a big, so Yahoo itself, the parent company has like, they wanted us to do like a big kind of preview of all the things because we got three pretty pretty good, one mega boxing event and a couple of other boxers plus the Royal Rumble. I know

you're into that and then U.S. Very. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that it was all one-stop shopping. So that's up. And I've got like a round table with Pizy Carroll that's running right now, just asking all the burning questions, you know.

Very good. We have one day left for merch sales. One day. So you can go get the stranger danger design. Tomorrow at midnight, we all turn back into a pumpkin. So if you've been putting this off and you want to do it, now is the time. And, of course, you can go to morning combat. shop. Let's bring in our third member here of the program. He is, uh, well, sober and sometimes not.

You just never know what you're going to get when he's on the game. Hey, hey, it's Lohenlick. What's up, dude? How are you doing guys? How are we doing? Chuck? What? I was going to ask, are you guys in Long Island dealing with what we're dealing with here, which they're calling snow crete, not concrete, but snowcrete. First of all, Luke, it's on Long Island. Anyone would know that. But anyways, uh, yeah, They actually have this whole... How about that? They had this whole overnight thing in my town two nights ago where they brought in like bulldozers to bulldoze out all the excess snow

because it was just piling up and like you said, freezing. And it was making the town like impossible to walk through. So yeah, we're dealing with some shit here. We're supposed to get more too like today, tomorrow. I don't know. But not looking forward to it. The mood ahead of the UFC 325 for you is what? I mean, I'm hyped.

I told you last three fights. man are actually like really exciting. The card as a whole I don't think is as exciting as an Aussie you know I'm looking forward to it. Full card watch along by the way main car minute tune in five as an Aussie wait wait you have Australian citizenship

yeah motherfucker I actually got a Australian person in human history no I'm the least Australian Australian Australian in human history maybe but you know I'm like how he just disappears himself like that's good yeah he is he's good for that probably in a cloud

You seem sober. That's new. I know. We should make your transition into and off the screen, just like smoke getting shot onto the... What's that little dude, a little green dude in the Flintstones who, like, would appear? Like, that's what it's like.

You know what I'm talking about? There's like a little green alien or whatever. Yes, yes. Chuck, what's your coverage plan for the weekend? I think that... I don't have... Like, this one... You know what's funny is I, for the longest time,

for all week. And I guess it's because I was so caught up in last week's festivities. I thought that this was an early card for us. thought this was like one of those 2 p.m. type things. Yeah. But, you know, I only learned this morning that it was not. So I'll have a late night doing some, you know, recaps and all that stuff. But that's about it.

I'll have a column coming out. I always have a post-fight column, and then we'll have like some rankings, the pound-for-pound rankings that have be updated. Got bulk on there, so there should be some movement. All right. Well, we have a lot to get to. So we started a little bit late. So without further ado, let's get this party started.

Topic number one. Let's quickly recap UFC 324, not the results themselves, we've been over that, but some of the numbers that came out, Chuck. I want to read these to you, and then we're going to contextualize them. So what they said was the UFC 324 posted an average minute audience of 4.96 million views, as well as reaching 7.18 million global households, and then peaked with 5.93 million concurrent streams. Also what they said after the fact, you can see here, Trinidad on X,

They were number one for six consecutive hours. They had nearly 200,000 more mentions versus UFC 323, which is not surprising. And for no other reason, it was a much better card. But the number one most social event of the night across broadcast cable and streaming. So a lot of pretty good numbers. And then there's one more that I actually thought was pretty interesting, was that they claimed to have added a million subs, Chuck, just from this one event. So I actually went back and I looked at this.

What were some other places that had added numbers? And so here's what I found. Peacock, for example, for the NFL wildcard exclusive, which was Dolphins Chiefs in January of 2024, they added 2.8 million signups. But that's, you know, exclusive NFL wildcard. That's pretty big. Paris Olympics in late July, 2.8 million signups. Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson, 1.43 million signups.

NFL Christmas Day, this was from 2024. So there was a three-day window. They added about 700,000 signups. And then lastly, most importantly, UFC Fight and Identification. debut in ESPN Plus. This was January of 2019 in Brooklyn. I was there that day. 570,000 new subscribers over the course of two days. Now, again, none of these are apples to apples. And even that 2019 figure, streaming was just not as prominent as it is now. But Chuck, there's basically no way to look at this and say these numbers are bad. How good they are, I think, remains to be seen.

What is your reaction overall? How do you understand what kind of performance this had? You know, man, I don't know how you felt exactly about like where this would end up on Paramount Plus. For me, there was a little worry, right? Because when they went to ESPN Plus, they were kind of the flagship. They were the reason to get ESPN Plus. They were the full reason, right? Like, it was like they're bringing in. Okay, now everybody come over here and we can watch the fights.

It wasn't the pay-per-views, but it was the fights. I worried a little bit about Paramount Plus already having existed and now going head-to-head, obviously, for a long time, or at least a relatively long time with Netflix and all the others. Would it just be a woodwork product? like would it be a product they're bringing in that's a big deal, but would it just be just another product rather than a flagship type thing? But I think that these numbers, they're very impressive for that reason. I wasn't sure. Like when you mentioned the 570,000 from 2019, you know, to double that essentially, to, you know, somewhere in that vicinity is a big deal.

Because sometimes when you're inside of the sport like we are, you kind of lose track of what's happening on the outside. It's such a widespread thing now that it's hard to keep tabs on, you know, is the sport growing like we think it is? Or is it stagnant or what's happening? So to me, man, when you see numbers like that, and I still think that the pandemic and some of the things that happened within the ESPN Plus era probably helped the audience really, really build to what it is now. But to get a million subs, just like that, that seems like a home run.

and you know the numbers you're mentioned i think the the first one on fox correct me if you like you if you if you have these numbers too the first time that they went in 2011 it's hard because like you said it's not apples to apples now you're looking at a different era but wasn't the number something like five five and a half million um tuned in for that and i can remember at the time in 2011 i think it was we thought that that was just an astronomical number to tune in and watch a ufc fight you remember this and we were like yes it was a little it was again it's not quite apples to for a few reasons, at least of which was the member of the main event lasted 45 seconds or whatever it was. It peaked with about 8 million.

Right. But it had an average audience of about 5 right around this. But I mean, but that seemed absolutely astronomical to us. And I think at the time we're like, who knew that UFC would ever ascend to a level where 8 million people, you know, would tune in and watch an event like that? you've cut forward to now 15 years whatever it is 14 years and you get this number and it's less shocking because the thing has been moving in that direction but it's not something to take for granted um when you get those kind of numbers man i mean that's that is tough to do when you have so much competition out there with all the different streaming service and all

the different sports and everything so in my mind i was like man it's it just it's a testament that the ufc is still if not as pop it's if it's not growing it's as popular it's as popular right now as it's ever been, right? I'm not so sure. And when I say I'm not so sure, what I mean is I'm not saying no. I'm saying it, I mean, it's weird, right? Because it's more global than it's ever been. About that, there's just, I mean, no argument whatsoever.

And it also, I think, has reached levels that are of cultural ascendancy that were, you mean, you mentioned like unfathomable. I mean, they're going to have a card on the White House lawn. Like talk about unfathomable, right? So in that sense, there's like, no argument about where MMA's place has gone up, but I do think it did decline in popularity. Not in a huge way, Chuck, not like, oh, my God, it was calamitous, but I think it was like a steady kind of Chinese water torture drip during the ESPN era for a variety of factors.

And by the way, that UFC and Fox number that you're talking about, this was Kane Velasquez versus JDS1, did a 3.1 rating and 5.7 million viewers. Again, that was the average, not the peak, but the average. Sure. for just a one hour broadcast. If that fight had gone the distance, I think they would have done well in excess of 10 million, maybe 15.

But the reason why I say that these numbers are great is because they're just incontestably great. A million signups is great. Averaging 5 million views is great. 5.93 million concurrent streams at its peak is great. The only thing to consider is these are worldwide numbers, not just the U.S. So again, it's like, yeah,

this really short broadcast in 2011, and then you've got this much long. longer one, but in a completely different paradigm, all I can say is the Paramount has to be happy. They have to be happy. They have to be happy with the numbers they were pulling. They have to be happy with it. It was the most signups they'd ever had from any single sporting event in that streaming services history.

Like they're literally establishing benchmarks of performance. I would say, the one thing is kind of funny. Even with a million signups, you can see that they're probably not going to get a million signups this weekend. I think they're probably going to get a lot less, which is understandable, which is understandable. No one's comparing the two in that sense. But even with that, like, you can see like, okay, what is that worth? Like at a top end, 160, 170 million, but you, of course, you're not going to scale that over the course of a year. Plus, there's going to be churn on the back end. In other words, again, I'm not saying I like the ads. I wish there were no ads. I'm asking

Paramount to create a tier where I don't have to pay for ads so I can pay for that service. That's a great point, yeah. That said, that said, you're not making your money back on subs. You know what I mean? Right. Like there's just, it mathematically is not going to be done. Now, let me ask this question if I may, Chuck, which is, again, it's one event. We have a seven-year run to go on.

Let's see what happens. But do you think now, after seeing some of the results from UFC 324, that what does it really mean to take away the wall of pay-per-view to make this accessible to the average sporting fan. Do you think it actually can make a difference? That remains to be seen. I do think that right now, you know, coming out of whatever amount of time we were doing pay-per-views, you know, like coming out of that, and then you come into an era where the very first card is a pay-per-view quality card.

It's got title implications. You're supposed to have the women's, you know, a goat fight of all, you know, it's supposed to be on there between a man. and Nunes and Harrison, it was supposed to be even more stacked, but it was free. I mean, it seemed like it's free with your sub, right? So it's that novelty is what anybody I talk to that's kind of more of a casual or whatever, like this is the lure, right? Anybody who kind of wants to watch the fights, but they do not buy them anymore or

they stream them or they go someplace, they all get together. This was like the big novelty. I don't know how long that will last. my big concern is that at some point the numbered cards will just kind of bleed in to the regular cards. And unless they make them very like over the course of time where just title fights, and I know they were already doing those with pay-per-views anyway, but like there's a big distinguishing marker. But we have seen times where a pay-per-view or like a numbered card now will come up

where there just simply aren't enough champions. You know, there aren't people around to fill that card. It would be interesting to see what all that looks like. and how long this novelty lasts. At some point, people are just going to forget about pay-per-view, right? If there are no more pay-per-view, you just kind of, you let that flow by you get past it. But I'm not sure. I made the point in a column when they announced this thing that I was like, you know,

it's great to get past the pay-per-view model because nobody has the paper. But there is something about the rallying around and the reverence of a pay-per-view card, that everybody would come to those. These are the ones that were meant to be meaningful. even the people who were just players on the mid card where the guys that you're like, okay, but they're on this pay-per-view. There was some kind of significance attached

to even being part of that, right? Or at least there had been traditionally. Does all that go away? These are the things that I'm like, what happens with that? And, you know, we were talking just a little bit about like, you know, is it waning, is interest waning? And you were kind of saying, well, I'm not sure if it might be a little bit.

But part of that is the passion, right? Like the passion that the fans used to have. The hardcores were so into it that they could almost count on a baseline number for those pay-per-views. So much of that has eroded over time. And I'm not sure how all that's going to translate. Will it still, will these numbered cards still have that kind of passion attached to them? You know what I mean? So much to be seen on this.

So I think it's kind of fascinating from our seat as, you know, journalists to pay attention to. My view on this is, and this is just a hunch, so take it for what it is worth. my view on this question of like the removal of the paywall. I mean, there's still a paywall, but you know, the paper view paywall is that it will make a huge difference if they can marry it with both getting a little lucky with how these main events go. And of course, that's partly engineering, but part of matchmaking is just luck. How does a fight turn out? Right. Also in also in terms of like they just have to make sure that with this paramount turn, they're not just delivering.

on fights that can deliver action, but there's an argument about whether or not the UFC is still in the interest of creating stars. And I do think that there might be some limit to that now, but I think they would rather have people more popular than not, and it does more business for them when they are. Plus, I don't buy that they don't have enough control of exercise that they're worried about some kind of peasant uprising. But the point I'm trying to make is, I don't think by itself taking away pay-per-view just launches it forward. I think it can I think it can make a huge difference if coupled with getting a little lucky on the back end of how the fights go, but on the front end really engineering the fights that people want to pay money to see, creating some new

stars, really building around what this, the platform can offer. I think in conjunction, it all gets turbocharged. I just don't think by itself, all of a sudden it just unlocks all these new doors that all of a sudden now everyone's just going to be fans. I'm less convinced of that theory, you know? Well, they also might want to nudge Dana White a little bit, get them interested in its own product again. And if they could do that, you know, maybe they got a chance. You know, it's kind of funny.

Over time, during that media blitz he was doing, I was thinking about this yesterday. Like, you know, and it's also paired with the UFC Seattle announcement where he was like, Bueller, Bueller, yeah, a little Ben Stein there. And over time, he got a little bit better with it. And I'm also going to say this. He did so many of them that it almost had like, yeah, was he saying a whole lot each one?

Maybe not necessarily, but like the weight of them in total, I think it helped. That event was a success. And there's really no other way to say it. 100%, man. All right. Before we get to topic number two, let's remind everyone, there's only one UFC 325, which of course is this Saturday. And on Draft King's Sportsbook, the number one sports book for live betting, once it's your shot to get in on the action is gone. Draft King Sportsbook is built for live betting,

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Voiden Ontario restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets, which expire in seven days. minimum odds required for additional terms and responsible gaming resources. See dkng.g.com slash audio limited time offer. With that, Chuck, let's go to topic number two, which brings us now to UFC 325. This is an interesting one. At least it has the potential to be an interesting one. So in the main event, we have a rematch between reigning UFC featherweight champion, Alexander Wokinovsky, and he takes on Diego Lopez,

who he fought in his last contest, to a pretty wide unanimous decision. Of course, that was at UFC 314 in April of last year, and as I mentioned, Volklin, a pretty wide victory. Now, there's a bit of consternation about this matchmaking. Should it have been made? Should it have been made? We've talked a lot about that on this show. But let's, for a moment, give it the benefit of the doubt, just for the sake of argument.

What are some realistic scenarios in which the pre-fight concerns about this matchmaking would disappear, would fall away? What has to happen in this fight for people to say, you know what? It actually worked out great. Well, I think that the first thing is, do you remember the kind of the context as we went into that fight the last time? So Diego got the fight, and I think a lot of people viewed him as one of the heavier punchers in the division, if not one of the best. I remember Dan Igay, right, was after he fought Diego, he's like, dude, this guy throws with full power on every shot he delivers and you feel everything. Volcanowski had coming off

of a couple of knockouts, and it was almost like you were like, can he survive? I remember that I thought there might be a little bit of an onslaught from Diego Sanchez, or Diego Sanchez, Diego Lopez early in that fight, and it may not get out of the first round, that bulk may be susceptible to that. What happened instead was we got this,

if it wasn't a master class, it was certainly like a return to some kind of vintage form of Volcanowski, and I think that when he was just kind of piecing him up, landing on the counters, just you know, thwarting anything, that Diego was kind of coming at him and then actually making Diego a little bit, you know, afraid to pull the trigger. You could see it all unfolding in the first round. It lost a lot of

steam. It picked it up a couple of times in that fight when there were moments for Diego later in the fight. There was a couple of big moments where it looked like Volk was could be in trouble. But the pattern of that fight was kind of set. And I think that anybody who kind of went into that exhilarate, what we're going to go into the Diego Lopez era, this is going to be his moment kind of like walked away from that like wow that was anticlimatic he didn't really look like the guy we thought he would right i think for this fight to deliver there needs to be a different tempo set in that first round i think diego's got to be more you know deliberate with what he's doing if he comes out there and you know he gets in you know he's able to kind of land and it looks different

like he's he's he just looks like he's more prepared maybe he was a little bit bothered by that big of a spotlight but if he just goes in there and he's able to do that the volk early. Knowing Volks, you've talked about this a lot, just knowing Volk's ability to adapt and all that stuff and, you know, make in-fight adjustments, I think that would look more exciting. That's just my view on it. Maybe I'm a little bit too diehard on this, but I feel like if Diego goes in there and actually looks like the aggressive guy that he's been advertised as, I think we'd have a different fight. There's a weird thing I've noticed with this about, which is people are complaining. And again, I'm not even saying the, in fact, I agree. I just won't say I agree. The people are

complaining like this is not the fight that should have happened. To what extent do you think the paramount focus here, especially again, this is only the second ever event one week later from the very first event, where if you look at the other choices that Volk had to fight here, Lorone Murphy would have been a perfectly fine fight, but I don't know what kind of action it would have delivered. Conversely with Movesar, I think that concern, you know, again, maybe a deserving contender, but what kind of fight does it deliver? The Diego fight, you would think, again, I'm not saying the first one was a bar burner, but it certainly wasn't bad,

and the capacity for Diego to do violence is always pretty high. Do you think that factor in here, the ability to engineer action for a audience that might be somewhat new and or more casual than normal watching? Yeah, 100% man, because, and also Diego reminded everybody, right? Like, he comes back, he blows up Jean Silva

at that Mexican independence card in San Antonio. Like, he showed everybody again, like, this is why you want a guy like that. near the top, right? And the fact that he was headhunting that whole fight, like, you broke this down, right? Like, you've done like a full analysis of this fight because it was like, three quarters, three quarters of analysis. I didn't finish the whole thing. All right. But see, he kind of, you know, even in the, even in the last round, like, you know, as the fight went on in the championship rounds, it was just like he was still looking to land

that shot that was going to equalize the whole thing, which is, there is, there is something to say about that kind of excitement, you know, and even in the, there's a fourth round exchange, where he hurt Volkanowski and Volkanowski was reduced to just like, you know, dropping, changing levels, trying to go for single leg, looking for the takedown because he was trying to recover. I think that that kind of thing is going to translate. Like you mentioned, you know, if you give to Mozar, who I think is fully deserving, but, you know, that guy has only went to decisions and all of his UFC fights to this point. He's won them all, but do you really want to usher in an era where you have Mozar all of a sudden as your champion after five rounds?

everybody's asleep by the end of it. And it's unfair to say, but that's kind of the way his fights, some of his fights have gone. And Lorone was obviously like he had a big knockout last time, but I think for the bang for your buck, if you think about it from the engineering standpoint you're mentioning, Diego just has that head. He has the look.

He has the head hunting quality. You know, the B-roll is going to look very nice for him. And you could actually point out even from that first fight, the offense that he did have. Like, right, you could just zero in on that and you have kind of instant drama as to how it might play out. So I think that he was kind of obvious, you know, he's an obvious guy from the UFC's perspective to jump in there.

You know, what's really interesting to me about this fight is this is, how do I say this exactly? This is, to me, the way in which this has the capacity to be interesting to me is if it answers one or both questions. So one, we kind of already know that Volk is cheney. In fact, as you indicated, he got dropped in that. that fight. It was not a huge punch that dropped him, nor was he like terribly rocked. I think

it also just kind of knocked him off balance a little bit, but it did drop him. And I think he's always been a little bit chiny, but his recoverability is quite great. To what extent does that get tested or show itself to be even more compromised this time? Like it'd be kind of interesting if he wins four rounds, then gets beaned in the fifth. And here's Diego winning. And it's like, you know, you can only say it's because father time got to him, right? Because otherwise, this would not have been a fight ending scenario previously. Conversely, though, and this is the big one for me, dude, if you watch that first fire,

I did a substack watch along with it, and I wanted to pull my hair out watching this fight. Diego Lopez. I don't do that. Then you're going to be the second man in the head. You don't want that. Yeah, okay. Go ahead, man.

Diego Lopez didn't cage cut in this fight at all. And I don't know to what extent people, know fully what that means or understand the importance of it, but it's really basic idea. All right. If you have, here's me and here's me and my opponent, right? If this is the octagon behind them, octagon behind me. If they move, I don't just follow them wherever they go. When they move, I cut them off laterally, right?

I cut them off laterally. And it's insane to me that you have a guy like Volk who uses motion and movement, both to set up strikes as well as to turn his opponent, to escape when he wants to, to set up his jab, to set up his step-up leg kick, all the things he likes to do, it's all predicated on motion. And the times in which Diego had better luck, with some exception, was when he backed up Volcanowski and then when he narrowed his space. And he almost did it by accident rather than, you know, genuine understanding. And it's a whole team. And it's a whole team. issue. That whole team he comes from. These people don't do it. I actually was speaking to some

MMA coaches about this in preparation for today's show, Chuck. And none of them knew what the answer was, like, why these fuckers don't cage cut? Like, how is that possible? And their answer was, they think that they may not necessarily train in a cage. Because if you train in a cage, you'd have to be kind of mindful of how the space is distributed. But if you're just on an open mat, people are just kind of moving and circling and orbiting around each other without necessarily a ton of consideration given to how that should be localized. If you take away Volk's movement, a guy whose game is predicated on movement, then you go from, in my view, having a puncher's chance to a genuine chance. Right. I still might favor Volk no matter what, because he's got so many tools, you know what I mean?

But if he doesn't cage cut, and we're three rounds into this, I'm going to pull out a revolver and shoot my motherfucking. screen. Because you'd just be watching a version of the same fight, right? And then and then the drama is completely out of it. That's right. That is to me a worst case scenario is like it's basically just the first fight redone again because one guy refused to learn a foundational lesson of the people who don't understand this. It's not just that Volcker uses all that movement. It's that a lot of times when he gets into trouble, he's able to just walk and reclaim center position in the octagon. It's like, dude, you cannot surrender territory like that to a fighter this good. I don't care how senior he is. It's, it's suicide. It's suicide. So I got to tell you, if he starts to cage cut Chuck, I'm like,

okay, now we're in business. This is much more competitive. That's a great point, man. But if he doesn't, if he doesn't, I'm going to fly to wherever he is and be like, what the fuck, dude? And if you watch like the first, like in the first fight, do you remember part of the commentary they go to the corners in the first round and they kind of hear the instruction. Do you remember the criticism coming out of that was that they're like, hey man, you know, you've got to be more aggressive. Get after him like, break it, you know, without

any technical advice whatsoever to Diego. They were just kind of telling him like, do better, man, do better. You remember this? Joe Rogan was kind of always like, dude, tell him how to do it. Like, you're not telling him how to do it. It will be, it will be hugely disappointing if he shows up and you feel like he didn't

learn anything. Because I can guarantee you Volcanowski, who sometimes does it in fight. Like you see him doing things where he's like, you know what, off these brakes, that left, that left hand can land pretty, like you was doing both counters. Like, you could see him doing that in real time. You know he's coming back with his adjustments and he's going to kind of be prepared probably for even what you're talking about. Like he'll be prepared for a better version of Diego. But if Diego shows up the same, man, he's going to get worked. Just think about it this way. I realize that the first Volcanowski fight is not like the first, or the first Volk Lopez is not like

Patty, Gaichi, and says that, you know, the scores are pretty similar, but Patty took much more of a beating, right? Yes. Okay. But imagine somebody went to you and said, okay, Patty's got nine months to get a rematch in.

You know, you're not saying he couldn't do a few things differently, but he showed Gaichi a lot of what he can do and was just left wanting. This is a case where there's a wide open fix available. Now, how much he can take advantage of it is certainly remains to be seen. But it's not one of those things where it's like, well, you kind of showed him your cards.

You don't really have anything left. There is a massive gap in what he's able to fix. So to me, it's like, dude, this is like no bullshit. This is a test of like, is Diego Lopez an idiot. And I'm being serious. I'm not saying that he is. I'm not saying that he is. What I'm saying is we're going to get a, is he a fucking dog.

Because we're about to find out that answer on Saturday night. Well, man, I mean, honestly, that's, that hypes it up better than a. lot of what I've seen. Like, I mean, to me, if that's the stakes, that's, that's not bad. Because I think sometimes you do need to know, does a fighter, do they have an IQ that way? Part of what you're talking about is you knew he wasn't going to adjust in that fight. You knew that he was going to keep doing what he was doing. And therefore, you know, when we talk about plan B's and stuff, there was no plan B. You know what I mean?

Like, he was showing you exactly what he's going to do. I'm looking at the numbers here if my memory serves. Yes, in fact it does. So he tried to play Lopez, tried to play like hurry up offense on Volk. If you notice, he doesn't effectively cage cut except that he stands a little bit closer to Volk

in the fifth round. But what ends up happening is, number one, he gets no takedowns. He doesn't try for any, but like, you know, there's no, it didn't change the game up is what I'm pointing out. And also, he landed fewer than he did in rounds four. and in rounds two.

Other rounds, he only landed single digits. So the other ones where he landed double digits, this was the fewest amount of them. And Volk landed the most on him of any round in the fifth. So like, in other words, without effectively cage cutting, just kind of standing up on top of a guy, he got lit on fire for it. This is what I mean, man.

Like, I want to see what you're made of. Of course he can beat good guys no matter what, right? He's dangerous, you know? Yeah. But against the guy who can think, that's what it is. Right. And you know what's so funny, man? I pointed this out to you before. Like, before this fight, that fight happened in April. I had talked to Diego Lopez for a feature, the December, so December of 24, this is back when they were still deciding if you'd fight at Yair or if he would end up getting Volcanovsky. And I can remember, man, he was like, I want Volcanoz, his whole team. They were like, we want Volcanowski. They felt so confident that they were just going to be able to go through Volkanowski and that would us, you know, obviously you're going to have a title. and that would be that.

It didn't work. And I feel like that they're still like if you, from what I've caught, I still feel like they have the same mindset that way. Like, hey, the first time was a little bit of anomaly or whatever it's going to be, but it'll be different the second time. The second time is going to be what we originally imagined. And I think you're right, man. It really does come down to, is he going to do the things that will be winning,

you know, winning formula against Volcanowski because it's very difficult. If you look at the Holloways, like, series, and you've probably broken this one down, too, because I know that you've studied Max a lot, like, in terms of what he's able to do. But how Volk was able to beat him down the stretch, like, as the fight, you know, more fights and more, you know, more knowledge of what he's doing. That was what was remarkable, right? Like, it's just that you're like, dude, this guy's always got something. He's such a thinking man that he's always going to figure out where his openings are. It's like watching a quarterback dissect a defense. He knows what you're bringing.

He's going to exploit this. he can exploit this and once you try to cover that he's going to exploit this that's how he fights so if if deigo just shows up kind of like thinking well he is chinny and i know why i can catch him this time that's just i'm not sure that's the wisest move for him this just punchers chance that's how he i mean that's what it looked like he looked like he was like as soon as i land the shot that's what i need to do and that's how i win right like he was just headhunting uh if volk loses stoppage or otherwise let's ask this in the event that volk loses Does he retire?

Is there an automatic trilogy? Walk me through what happens. Okay, so like if he got smoked in the first round, like in a way that you're like, oh, God, that was hard to watch. It'd be tough. Wouldn't it? Like, I just feel like it'd be tough for Volcanozky

because you'd be like he's probably not going to be in line for a trilogy because I don't think people would want to necessarily see it. I don't think the UFC would want to put it together. And at that point, I'd be like, man, what is left for Volkinovsky at this point? A guy who went 13 and 0 in that division to start his career, beat a who's who like I mean his legacy is solidify what do you have like four or five title

defenses he went up he had that great fight against us long the first one and obviously the second one did not go anywhere near his way I just think that what are you going to do you know what are you going to do the fights you're going to get at that point you're going to be back behind the eight ball you're probably going to have to get through somebody to even get a title shot and at that point what are you 38 you know what I mean like

you're going to be very late in your 30s and I don't see why he would continue now if it's a fight where it's back and forth, maybe controversial scorecards, whatever it is like just a good, a good fight. I felt like then the trilogy,

like if he loses on the scorecards, you'd probably have to do. He's earned that, right? Like the kind of like, you know, status as a, as a featherweight go to kind of get that,

right? Like I feel like you'd have to give it to him then. Yes, I fully agree with that. I think your diagnosis is correct. You saw the way in there, excuse me, well,

the face off from the way in. There's also a pick of a vulk in an apron. He was, he was the chef chopping the block. or like how he's got a sense of humor he's got the CW was that cooking with yeah cooking with Volk championship the CMV CWV

CWV excuse me my glasses don't work as well as they need to CWB cooking with Volk he's got good spirits you know this is an interesting fight if this is an interesting fight if Diego finds a way to make it interesting but the max comparison I think is really interesting

right because first fight was close second fight started out with Max a heater and then Volk rallied back and then in the third one Volk just ran away with it. You know what I mean? So like over time there's a sense of even with guys who have good ideas, he gets better over time too. He's not cutting that cage. I hope there's a, I hope we have live footage of you watching that.

So I'm going to do a watch along just that, not for that whole card, but just for that fight. And if he does a cage cut, I'm telling you, I'm pulling out two fucking Glock 19s. and I'm just going to be like Deadpool, just shooting my fucking whole setup. Furious that I wasted my life watching it. But I'm not predicting that. You're not paying for it. And I'm hopeful that Diego proves that he's got.

UFC, UFC wants. Like, right, their druthers would be that you get Diego. Because obviously, like, if you are making a MOSAR fight at some point,

at least there's a backstory there. At least you can play on something. And like you've got some, you know, better options for him. Also, not for nothing, but they've got one female Brazilian champion in McKenzie Dern

and they've got one male champion in Poetan and that's it. And I'm not saying that they're trying to engineer an artificially high number of Brazilian champions. But I am saying it's obviously an important market to them. So, you know, putting a Brazilian in there as opposed to a Russian or a Brazilian or is he Mexican now. I mean, like he's, well, that's the best part. You can kind of lease them out to the Mexican audience and they love them.

That is true, man. Let's talk about the rest of that main card here. in topic number three. And you know what? I was discussing this with Long Island Luke. The top three fights on this card are great. So let's start with the other two ones in addition to the main event that make this great. Because after that, there is a bit of a drop off.

I just think it's fair to say that. So let's start with that co-main event, if we can here. Chuck Dan Hooker and Benoit St. Deney, they square off in, as we mentioned, this will be the co-made event on the UFC 325 card. Would the winner here be a number one contender, a BMF number one contender, or neither or potentially even both. What happens here?

Wow. The BMF would be more realistic to me, right? Even though like I feel like the BMF is like for old school guys who've been around for a while. But Dan Hooker, it's crazy, man, because the dude. Who's Dan Hooker? I know, exactly. That's what I was going to say. For some reason, when I think of Dan Hook, I always think of him like, ah, he's been around since like in the UFC since 2018, something like that.

2014, man. Like he's, he's been around for a while. I don't, maybe he doesn't have the same, you know, I don't know, like kind of reputation as a Donald Seroni, although he's got to be closer now than he ever has or like a Justin Gehche. But the dude is kind of proving it over the course of time when you look at who he's fought, you know, just his willingness to fight. And obviously he's returning even on short notice after being subbed out in his last one against Arm on on fairly short notice is three or four months. Like he's jumping right back in there to fight another beast within that division. So I feel like, you know, he would warrant that sort of thing. And then it would be like, there's been what, like, is, does he kind of fit that BMF thing too?

I mean, he certainly got like that, that kind of style. You know what I mean? Like that kind of attitude. So I think it would be more in play for that. I just think that the recent slip-ups, even though I think San Deney has kind of proven that he's back, especially that last fight where it was like, what was the 16 seconds that he went through Darius? like he's kind of proven to me that he's back and that those losses he suffered earlier were maybe more anomalies than you know than we when we were saying at the time i still think

that that dude has a chance to to be a champion in the division the patty equation here is interesting to me because let's think about it right so let's say benoit st deni wins that's a great point too yes yes because do they put him well do that's the thing it's like patty's 31, something like that, 31. So he still got some time left, but I don't know, but part of the problem for me in that fight with Gagie was like, he showed him all he had and it was like, well, yeah, came up short anyway.

Yeah, that's not enough, not enough to buy this ice cream today. You know what I mean? At the corner Tenda. So, what do you do with him? Yeah. Do you give him the loser of the BMF match? Do you give him the loser of this match? Do you give him the winner of this match?

Because you can imagine BSD versus Patty, that's a more competitive and interesting, interesting fight by virtue of what would happen on the ground, you might imagine, but do you want to put him in that scenario? Or do you try to rebuild Patty based off of, if Dan Hooker loses this one, there's obviously that fight you can easily make. And then you send BSD onto either the number one contender for BMF

or to bear minimum, like, you know, maybe you make Saruky and fight him or something like that. Does that sound like a plausible scenario to you? I think if Pat, like, it's a great point with Patty Pimbley. Like, I think if, uh, if Patty, if you can make Patty Pimbleau against Hooker, I think you'd do it. Because one, I do think that the UFC likes Patty enough where they're like, they would want to rebuild him. I don't think you'd want to throw them in there and just be like, here, this is, you're going to be an underdog in this fight. And this could be, you know, basically it for you in terms of contendorship.

I think that you throw him in against Hooker and, you know, he should win that fight, right? like on paper you should win that fight that's a good fight and they have the bad blood i just think that you've got like the way that paramount plus like you're saying about engineering i feel like maybe that would make more sense for them especially if they're i haven't really talked to this but isn't it seem like they're going for more of a cinematic feel anyway like the bad blood may translate way different in the paramount plus era than it did for uspn plus because now you're talking about a stream of service that actually incorporates dramas and shit into their product you see like what's his name the ghost face killer one

walking back behind, you know, one of the, you know, for the scream seven or whatever the hell it was. Like they had the guy, they had to walk in like through the thing. I'm like, they may be incorporating that sort of thing. It's a bit of a tangent. But dude, there might be like more of a bad blood may mean more. Like the drama of the fights may mean more to this

era than they did previously. I would imagine they would want to get on board with that. In terms of the upside here for, well, let's talk about the fight itself. Can I just tell you one of the problems I have with it? it's that Hooker just went up against a kind of guy who's going to try and wrestle and submit him, which fine, okay, that's not a reason to not do it. I'm just saying it doesn't make it like a fresh challenge in that way.

I know it's the first time he's faced in this particular opponent. What I'm trying to say is, dude, that that guitar fight was not that long ago, and Hooker got fucked up in that fight. It's like, I've interviewed Hooker before. Do you remember after, do you remember when Hooker fought Edson Barbosa? It was on Fox, I believe. Yeah. And Cormier was commentating that fight.

and Cormier was on the broadcast begging, screaming at the referee, not screaming, but yelling. Right. The fight to be stopped. I interviewed. I interviewed Hooker after that and I was like, bro, don't, aren't you concerned about like the amount of damage? He's like, no. I'm sorry. What?

And his answer was, well, because I distribute it head to toe. So I don't have to worry about too much concentration of damage in any one kind of place. And I'm like, I don't think that's how that works, bro. I don't, that's not. That sounds like all these philosophy on the ropes, you know, he's trying to like send. absorb the shocks all the way down through his body. It's like you're going to get fucked up doing this. I don't think that's the thing.

So here he is returning relatively quickly against an opponent who has a pretty good chance of doing the same kind of a thing. I like the matchmaking as such, like Dan Hooker versus BSD, but the particular realities that they're bringing in at this moment, I'm a little concerned for Dan Hooker, if I'm being honest. Well, same here.

I mean, when they made the fight, and sometimes you just look at the momentum of fighters. And again, but I did this with Dustin Porre, back in the day when he was fighting sent to Dian. I was thinking, dude, they're just kicking the ice floe, aren't they? They're putting them on it. They're like, so long, Dustin, it's been a good career. And obviously, he

was able to kind of turn things. I don't think that Hooker is going to be able to do that, man. You know, I just don't think that that's happening. You know what's, the craziest thing about him, though, is that he's, he'll surprise you a little bit sometimes, right? Like, I

thought when Hooker fought Gamrod, that that was for sure, that was going to be gammonaut's fight and even though it was super close hooker pulls it out and then he kind of revives his career i'm not saying like he's got like he's he's got like that spirit he's got like enough skill where he can put it all together and uh and and and do some he can shock some people but i just think that sandini having already had the losses especially that moikana one where you're like dude that was that was uncalled for it i feel like he had to dig a little deeper and kind of get rid of his ego again and kind of and re-center and the guy i've seen since then looks like

the marauder, we thought he was going to be the whole way. So I think this is just a bad setup for Hooker, man. I think he's catching a guy at the exact wrong time. I think you're probably right. And the winner of this, if it's BSD, he wins via stoppage. For me, the winner against, you'll put him in a BMF fight if you want. I mean, I don't know what the UFC has in vision for that or when that might be, but that's absolutely a fight you could do.

And then you just send Hooker to fight Patty. And then, you know, that really also. You like this BMF belt now. weren't you like one of the early guys was like get rid of that shit? Well, I mean, here's the thing. Here's why I feel like I'm at peace with the BMF belt, at least for right now. Number one, the person who wears it gets more money. Automatically, I like that.

True. Secondly, the belt will have as much legitimacy as the person who wears it and what they did to get it. It does it on its own carry, but it has some, right? Yeah. And, dude, the way in which Max B. beat Gaichi to do it and what he represents at this stage of his career

and now he's going up against another warhorse in Charles. Does it need a belt? It doesn't need a belt. It doesn't necessarily mean anything in that sense, but I value it a little bit by virtue of who occupies the office, so to speak. Long Island Luke is being a fucking hate. Let's bring him in

real quick. Why are you racist towards Hawaii's? Not at all. I just said the BMF belt is whack. You can just put on fun fights. I'm all for the fighters being paid more and stuff, so good for them that the belt is on the line and they get more. I'm not, like, hating on that. But what if they change the rules in BMF fights?

Like 10 minute first rounds and shit like that. Pride style. Dude. It's stupid to me. Why not make it? It's like boxing at this point. We were like Jake Paul had a belt at one point that was like the super fight belt or some stupid shit. Like, just get rid of, I, not, not here for it.

Sorry. Out. He's a little racist against Hawaiian. What can I say? I don't, again, the belt doesn't serve a purpose other than for marketing material, but I do think that it carries a little bit more gravitas given who currently occupies the office. The last couple, especially, too, I feel like if they didn't get those fights, like that last one, especially, I mean, if you don't get that fight, maybe it seems stupid, but that actually felt like

something was on the line and that just happened to be the accessory. Max won the belt with arguably the greatest knockout in UFC history. I agree, man. Something to be said for that. Yeah. Now, another great fight on this card, if I do say so myself, Rafael Fazeve, although we had Jed Mishu calling him Hafael because he's a fucking idiot. But Raphael Fiziv, he has still not aged out from another title push. He is still kind of eligible.

Here they are facing off. He's going against Maricio Huffy. Now, this is an interesting one for me, right? Chuck, because Fiziv came up 0 for two against Gaci, but Gajee's proven to be a little more resilient. He obviously has a fan-friendly style, so does Ufi. but it looks to me like Fiziv really now wants to make a push for a title. He feels like I've gotten a lot of learning done out of the way. And Huffy leaving what appears to be the fighting nerds to go train in Australia with

Volkinovsky and that whole camp, a lot of uncertainty about this one. I got to tell you, I love this fight, but am I allowed to say that I have a little bit concern that they're going to do to Huffy what they did to my man who did the backflips? I forget his name. The Brazilian did the backflips. What's his name, Long Island? Michelle Paneda. Michelle Panetta.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they take a guy who's wild and exciting, in order to make him good, they make him boring. To what extent are you feeling that that could be a factor, given the space these two are entering this fight in? God, I hadn't really thought. That's a great comparison, though. Like, you're right, because when people were hearing,

who they were thinking, okay, we could get a knockout of the year candidate. That's crazy expectations to bring into a fight. that seems kind of legit because I don't know if his I don't know if he was going to be sustainable to go in there and uh and do what he'd been doing but I feel like there was like some trouble in the in the fighting nerds I did a big piece on them last April um right before right when the thing started to spiral a little bit for them and I talked to hoofy in Miami and he was with one of his coaches and they were already talking about like starting a gym in new hampshire so they were thinking about coming up to uh to New England and kind of breaking off and doing their own thing, like a satellite of the fighting nerds. I have no idea where that ended up, but it didn't surprise me in the slightest for some, like, given that kind of information that he was elsewhere. And I don't know, I'm not suggesting there's like acrimony between the team or whatever, but there's, I think there's been a feeling that maybe he needs to, because he's super young guys still. Like, I think there's a feeling that he needs to, you know, pick up other elements of the game if he wants to be sustainable and get a chance down the line.

I hope though, like what you're mentioning off the top, I just hope it's not, it doesn't come with compromising his excitement levels. Because when you book that guy, even right now, right? Like when they booked this fight, especially against a guy like Fiziv who like has put on some really

fun fights that Brad Rydell, remember that one? Where he just lit him up. God, it was so, like that's when I really paid attention to that dude because it was just so technical and clean. You make this fight and just this one stood out to me. I was like, now that's a fun fight.

It felt to me like the kind of, you know, the bang for your buck type of fight for this card. I'm looking at Fiziv here for one thing because it's kind of interesting. I'm looking at the UFC stats for Fiziv. Fiziv got two takedowns on Justin Gagey. He got four takedowns on Bob Mondes, just given how bad Huffy was on the ground against Benoit St. Deney. I think there's a real chance you might see Fiziv mixed things up here because, dude, Hufi is probably so going to be real fucking. dangerous on the feet, at least in part, you would imagine, if not in full.

And then on the ground, how much, how much, how much could he be better relative to the fight that he had against BSD? Like not, no. Groundwork takes time to get better at. He's not going to be that much better. So you may not get the knockout that you're looking for here, right? It's also a possibility. You may not, but I will say the Fiziv loves to play that game, though, a little bit.

Like, he does love to stand? Like, he just likes to, he likes to engage, man. Like, he trusts a strike. And I'm like, does it get, like, it's always one of those things where the guy, that you know it's like you know you got to kind of convince him to do other things to be smart to win a fight um he he very well could be you know that three fights skid where he had the injury too uh in the middle fight between the gaichi fights like those type of thing you could look at them and be like yeah he could have easily won the gaichi fights you know like if he's just doing a little bit

if he's just going about things a little bit differently um but he kind of defaults into like just madman, you know, like kind of swinging with the guy and that's when he gets pieced up. And he always, it feels like he gets hurt in those type of fights. If he does that against Hoofee, I would be like, as far as his like, I'm revving up for a title shot, that would all be gone, man. I mean, you just can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, your default can't to be incautious, right? You can't default to in cautious and expect that to survive. Also, if, excuse me, Hoofee, I feel like a 29. I'm not saying a loss here is like totally great, but it's forgivable in part because if he's trying to make improvements, it's going to

take some time. But with Fizib, 32 and 10 months, the point of this fight will be nearly 33. I'm not saying that's over the hill either, but that's a little bit more like, shit or get off the pot if a title fight is going to happen here for you. This is kind of the moment where you got around this corner, which is what I think,

the pressure is on him, like, again, it's not great if Huff he loses, but it's real bad if Fizziv loses, given the ambition that he's got. How good is that, the potential, too? How good is that division? Do you remember the time we were like, we were doing a pregame it was at the studio with bc and we talked about dude look at all the guys coming up at lightweight it's like one of the remember this it was crazy and the fact i know that fizzis

was one of these guys that you're like you're watching like man i mean he's just a he's a monster you know like and the fact that he hasn't got a title shot like these years later it just tells you how just how crazy that division is man and it was gaiti obviously like who kind of deliver that it was like the old guard but that division over the last few years has just been so good. And this, this card is very like symbolic of that, because those two fights, even if you don't love that main event, if you're like, ah,

the rematch, we just saw that fight. I mean, those two lightweight fights, man, you should tune in for those alone, right? Like, it's just so good. Yes, I totally agree. Which brings us, of course, to tie to Ivasa, who hasn't won since Abraham Lincoln was in office.

And he's fighting Talas and Tashira this weekend. The odds, by the way, currently, Taito Ivasa, plus 270. Chalison Tashira at minus 340, just to remind everyone, if I haven't already, understand the context of which Taito Ivasa enters this contest, Chuck. Here is the losing streak. He lost to Jarzino Rosenstrike in August of 2024, before that Marching Taubora in March of 2024, before that Volkov in September of 2023,

before that Pavlovich in December of 2022. Before that, Cyril gone in September of 2020. he last one in February of 2022, and he beat Derek Lewis. By the way, the Gahn lost, the Pavlovich lost, the Volkov loss, and the Taibora loss,

all via stoppage. The Rosenstrike 1 was a split, and also Chuck, arguably the worst fight ever. Is this do or die for Ty two evasa? I think it has to be. And I know, man, they love him.

You know, he brings in the shooy thing and like you go into Australia. It's just, he's like one of those guys that you want to have on your card. He's part of the celebration. Um, but he has just been, he's been almost an anomaly.

I, I know that you, like, this isn't a guy that you're going to like, you know, you're not going to look at him, be like, oh my God, like, look at all these different, uh, technical things he's doing in a fight that makes him win. You're not going to do that, but he is a streaky, streaky fighter. It almost reminds me, like, of a guy who's like playing, you know, dice or something. Or like, you know, it craps and he's like, he goes on a heater. And then all of a sudden, once it goes cold, it goes completely cold because before then, He'd won like, like if you look at his, uh, his Wikipedia or whatever, like it's just,

it's like all wins, bunch of losses, all wins, bunch of losses. He does not mix it up. It's like, so if he's able to get off to Schneide, I mean, who knows, he might go on a five feet, fight winning streak in that division. But I feel like at six in a row, especially like you mentioned, man, getting finished, uh, the way he has and not really showing a ton like, maybe you, maybe you can contradict me here, but he hasn't really shown a lot of like evolution to his game. it feels like he's just kind of like, I'm going to go in here, I'm going to do my style,

and hopefully it works, you know? I don't know, you can't really keep a guy like that around at six, right? Like, especially in that division, if he gets knocked out too. Like, I just, he's only 32 years old, but man, I just, you don't want to see a guy put in harm's way that many times who doesn't belong there at that point. Yeah, as Long Island Luke points out, Ty Toe vass's career, one three, lost three, one five, lost five. That is so bizarre.

That is like a weird, that's such a strange trajectory, but that is so, insane. I mean, I don't even know what to say about this about it. It's like Taos de Chira is tall and he's dangerous, but he's there to be hit. And Tai Tui Vasa can hit. And it's like, if you can't beat an opponent like this, I don't know. Yeah, there may not be guys on the roster that you could beat at this point. Yeah, it's just, I don't know if this is going to work for you here. You know what I mean? I mean, to your point, they might keep him because Australia and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I'm right, though, right? There's not like, you're not seeing things from fight to fight. Oh, yeah. No, I mean. And again, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't

make as many boneheaded decisions in the Rosenstrike fight, but he was so boring that he let the fight get away from himself. And that's, as I recall, let's even worse. I know. It's definitely much worse. Let me pull up the stats on that one if I can for just a second. Please forgive me. Taito I Vasa here. This is the Rosenstrike. God, this is Jesus. He landed over the course of three rounds, just 37 strikes. That is anemic. He landed nine, 13, and 15 respectively. Meanwhile, Biggie Boy landed 19, 36 and 36. So he was, he kept pace, no takedown attempts, no nothing. And, you know, he's just punching and low kicking the whole time. That's it. I was at a split decision. I forgot. Like, I think I've scrubbed it from memory, but that sounds so.

Because it was pure ass. Judges drifted off. When a fight is so bad and so boring, it can honestly be like, okay, who the fuck is winning this bullshit? Like, it honestly is a little harder. Yeah. It's harder to kind of keep up with it when like very little is happening that effectuates change.

This is, we didn't get a chance to talk about Zuf. boxing, but I was there. And I don't know if it's easier for you to judge boxing or MMA, but given the Zufu boxing, like, you're mentioning this, and this is something I thought about, like, you got some, you know, you got these judges, the room's completely dead. Like, everybody's drowsy in the room. There's no energy whatsoever. And the fights are all destined to go that, whatever they're, you know, six rounds, 10 rounds, 10 rounds are going to go. They're all going to go as many as they're scheduled, you know. How about, like, I couldn't do that. Like, and So, like, I just, I find myself daydream and then I'm like, who in that last round?

I think that would be so difficult to fight through when you've got a super boring fight. And especially when the atmosphere sags to that level, that must be tough, man. Yeah, I score, I feel like I score MMA better than I score boxing. Yeah, I think BC's probably a little bit the opposite, obviously, which makes sense coming from boxing. But I don't know how it's like, I saw what Dan is like, you know, oh, a undefeated record in boxing now is going to mean something. I'm like, all right, that might be true, but it's like, bro, they give these guys squash matches because the shit rules. You know what I mean? Like, that's how that's how you build a star.

You got to give us a couple of those along the way. Nobody's looking for parity on the early prelims. You know, you're looking for some knockouts to get rolling. Yeah, I just want this guy to get some work against some jobber who, you know, fucking does nothing in his life. I don't, I don't need, I don't need it to be like, oh, this is a really tough sign. That was a tough gig for those judges out in Vegas, though, man. I will say that. That was hard.

and they all go the distance on a boxing card, you're like, fuck me, that is. I sent you a picture from the room. Yeah. That looked lively compared to how it felt. I mean, it was just so bad in there. It felt, it felt really just died, man. Like that main event where it should be like picking up and, you know, like there should be some excitement is.

It was so quiet that I, like, I said this in a column. I was like, it was so quiet that if you were an activist and you were like, I, you know, you say no to the, you know, Allie Reform Act. You could have yelled that out and everybody would have heard it would have been like the biggest bang for your buck possible, right? Because everybody would have heard it on the telecast and everything. So it was just so dead in there, man. It was, I felt bad for the guys in the ring, you know, because you're like, how do you even get up for this? Like, how do you keep getting off your stool and, like, get excited?

It was, it was rough, man. Well, I didn't watch much Callum Walsh and I won't in the future. He didn't blow you away, huh? No, let's talk about the last fight on this main card, which is kind of an interesting one. actually pretty interesting one. It came together last minute, but a guy who got my eye on, I think a lot of people do. Quillen Saul killed, got the weirdest name I've ever seen,

taking on Jamie Malarkey, who is a good and decent Australian fighter, but Quill and Saul killed coming off of maybe the knockout of the year, seems to have a little bit more of a higher profile. As I indicated, Chuck, it came together this fight a little bit by accident with a late repricement notice kind of happening here. But if you're Saul killed, it seems like a good opportunity to make a little bit more of a name for yourself.

I think so. and like the long island luca to weigh in on this too but like uh you know you get assy versus awesome kind of unique right like you get we talked about this a little bit but it feels to me a little bit like a showcase for for salkid because you know coming off of that you know that that big knockout that he had this feels like an encore performance and if you look at milarchy like just over the course of time he's been in the ufc for a long time and he's i think he's six and six like he's one of those guys who you know he's going to be a gay king And I know they hate that word, but like he's a gatekeeper to like, do you belong in the upper or are you down here with me? And this so it feels like that big moment for Salki to kind of just style on a guy. That's how I see this one.

Long Island Luke has a resident, phony, Australian. Why are you going to call me phony? I'm a citizen, bro. Chill. It's just fun. Australian than you're Indian. Jeez. Why don't claim to be? You guys told me I was. I wasn't claiming to be born there. You are. are you know. All right. Tell me about this Australian on Australian violence. I mean, Quillen Salkild, biggest favorite on the card. He's minus 1,000 right now. Wow. Not much value on him, but everyone thinks he's probably going to knock out Jamie Malarkey. Jamie Malarkey's been knocked out six times before. And you can get Quill and Sal killed by knockout at minus 1.45, which is a pretty damn good price considering he's a minus 1,000 favorite. Personally, over one and a half rounds right now is plus money on draft Kings plus 130. I'm taking that. Both guys hit it in four, their last six fights, hoping because they're both Aussie, there's some camaraderie there.

They go a little longer, you know. Maybe there's too much hype around Quillin because he's got two nice-ass knockouts. But he did go to the distance with the Yannal Ashmoos. And, you know, does anyone really remember that guy? No. No. So there you go. Jamie Malarkey.

I'm hoping that chin holds up, hoping it goes long. Rooting for boring. I hope it goes quickly because I'd like to go. I will say this for the first broadcast. And I know that Zach Candido tweeted like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the first one's a little different. But dude, it was like 930, and they're on their like third sizzle reel. And I'm like, guys, let's go to Brent Musburger.

I don't need to hear from Travis motherfucking Barker on his Zilgin drum set. 40 minutes into the broadcast, start the fights, please. So my understanding is we're not going to get that this time. It should be a little bit more. It still wasn't STEM. Imagine if it was STEM performing, bring the, yeah, I wanted to stem a fucking thing in my eyes what I wanted to do. All right, let's go, let's go now to topic number four, which is genuinely I was doing some research for this for topic number four. And I, you know what?

Hold on. Before we do that, before we do that, let me back up a step. We will get to topic four in just a second. But first, first, first, you guys know how this show goes. It is presented by Draft Kings. The Crown is yours. Chuck, do me a favor. I'm going to pull this up here from our friends at sportsbook.draftkings.com.

And I'm looking now at the sportsbook, and they've got all different kinds of lines. lines on this. So you heard the one there from Long Island, Luke, about the over under on that one. Let's go now to the top of the card. Let's talk about Vervolk and Lopez and see what kind of bets we got here. They've got, let's see, walk me through this if you can, Long Island. Does over under four and a half units at minus 1.15, at minus 1.15. Does that a bet you take? Oh, that's total rounds. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's the over under four and a half rounds. It's a pickum right now, minus 115. Would you, does that a bet you take? I like plus money only bet, so I wouldn't. There is good value there. The first fight did go five rounds.

This one probably goes five rounds. So, you know, it's a decent bet. I'm more interested in like, I don't know, man, maybe the Volk spread bet minus five and a half at plus one 30 where it's like if Volk just covers the spread. So he has to cover it by five and a half points, meaning he could win three rounds on two judges scorecards and like one round on the other. I see. Still cover kind of thing.

You got to do the math. There's plenty of outcomes. That could make sense there. Folk by decision is plus 150 right now. I like that a lot too. Also, I got to say they've got Benoit St. Denisuch. Yeah. At first of all, plus 135 overall on his odds.

But here, this is the one that's more interesting to me. They've got the over under on this one for one and a half rounds. I like BSD's chances. And I'm not saying there's in a world he doesn't run him over. But what I am saying is there's also, dude, hooker can be tricky. Hooker is crafty. There's ways in which this one goes a little. little bit long. Yeah. So you like the over on that. Possibly. I mean, as a as a bet, yeah.

I mean, straight up, you know, hard to say exactly what's going to happen, but like trying to find value in the betting, like, especially if it goes past the first. Yeah, you like the over. I think if it goes past the first, I mean, it seems to me that, you know, San Diego always kind of that first round is the one you're like the most danger. If it goes beyond that, things change a little bit. How are you feeling about the Huffy and Fizzie fight going to distance or not? you asking me? Yeah. I don't think it does.

I don't think it does. I think that, like, it's kind of one of those situations for me, and I know that if his Eve has not been, like, finished like that, but if he goes in there and plays in cautious, like we were talking about, I could see him getting slept. And there's another part of me that's like, I think he's a very good stand-of-fighter,

so I think he could catch who the other way. So I don't know that what is the line on that? Is it set it at one and a half or is it on what it's on the on hoofy no hoofy and Fiziv is two and a half two and a half okay because I was like I like the under on that one if it was one and a half I'd be on the fence but like two and a half I kind of like the under there I like Siziv money line in that fight at plus 102 I think he's gonna get the nod there okay I also have to say I like this honestly I know no one believes in Taitoivasa but they've got him right now at plus money on the money line at plus

two 60 it's not it's not it's not shot well Here's the thing. It's like, do I have a strong degree of belief in Tai Tuivasa? No. But do I have a strong degree of belief in Talas and Tashira? No. You know what I mean? So he's at, they've got Tashara sitting at minus 225. They've got Taitu Vasa plus 260. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I don't mind that at all. I mean, long eye look, that's value, right? That's what you'd call value. Yeah, but it's heavyweight. Ty, you know, he did retire for a year and a half. Hasn't want to fight in four years. I'd be very worried about that bet. But you know, there's value. you sure. Yeah. Listen, I'm not saying it's the most secure one. I'm saying the upside is real. How about that? The upside is,

the downsides are known, but the upside is real. And in any event, folks, if you want to go and do some betting with the Draf King Sportsbook, you can do that now. Analyze, of course, and make your picks. You can do money lines. You can do the whole things.

Honestly, though, pay attention. Current odds are what we were talking about here. They are subject to change. And as always, this has been brought to you by our friends and presented by Draft Kings, The Crown is yours. All right, let's go to topic four. Then we'll be about 15 minutes

will be joined by our friend, Sean Zettel, to cover the boxing this weekend. Very quickly, if we can, I don't even know what to say about this portion of the card, and I'm not trying to be a dickhead either. I really am not. But let's start out with this one first.

First of all, there was supposed to be a flyweight finale for the Road to UFC. We are going to have the Bansomweight finale. We are going to have the featherweight and the lightweight. Those fights are still on. But the flyweight finale, which, by the way, it was supposed to be pretty good between Aaron True and

Namsray Bat Bayar. It got canceled. Let's roll the video. This is Aaron True, or is the you can see him here. He's flexing Chuck like he's doing the double biceps. Tau. I'm saying true. I apologize. I'm doing an old school M.A. reference. Aaron Tau, not true. Aaron True was a different guy. Aaron Tau.

Apologies. Aaron Tau is flexing double biceps there, but he's putting his elbows on the frame of the curtain. So he comes in, Chuck, at 122, I think 122 and a half. Right. And they were like, all right, well, that's a little sketch.

So then they make him redo it. No, put his shorts on. Here it is. And they removed the thing, I think. He just stands up straight on the scale. Look at this. And he comes in at 129. 129.

Oh, my Lord, man. This is like in that song, The Devil went down to Jordan when he laid the golden fiddle down on Johnny's feet. You know, he knew he'd lost or whatever. that's what this is like look at it look his demeanor in the second when he's like fuck I'm found out um I haven't I haven't seen I mean you doing this that was that was that was yeah because he's like he's not moving either he's just kind of like sitting there uh his only flaw and nobody would have ever been onto him if he could have dialed that in better right like he he way overshot it at 122 that's just such a red

flag I mean he was also let's put it in the context he was like he came in 90 minutes into the festivities, right? So it was like they had already, he was the last guy on the scale. So I think there's already an added scrutiny to what's happening with you. You can't show up that late and then be that far underweight, you know? Yeah. Well, he did it. He tried. You ain't cheating. You ain't trying. Yeah. I don't know if it's going to get him. So in the Paramount Plus era now, we've had like one fight called off because of suspicious

betting activity. And now we've had one fight called off because a dude was trying to cheat the scale. This is what I said about the drama Yeah Yeah And the fight called off When a fighter face planted after weighing in it Oh that's right Jesus

And no guy almost died That's right, yes That was fun That was a fun little time Long Island Luke Come back in here Brother, I'm trying not to be difficult I swear I'm not

But this undercard is a show And not in a good way The top of the card is Junior Tafa versus Billy Ely Kana I don't know what to say about that I mean Junior Taffa Never really You can never really

trust him i'll say that much you know he is he's born in new zealand reps australia i believe he has a gym in brisbane so you know you root for him in this fight but i think billy elicana's probably gonna get the dub there cameron roston taking on c brundage brundage is a pretty big underdog here roston pretty roustin pretty good um he lost to teres finney who's in the fight before yes contender series but uh yeah he looks decent ckb guy cody brundage you know is he really a ufc fighter you know so you could be up a lot let's we'll see this one dude torres fiddy who just refuses to learn, apparently, taking on Jacob Malkoon, who, you know,

it's like, what's his claim to fame? He trained with Robert Whitaker. I don't know what to say about this fight either. Still trains, but yeah, this will be probably the most boring fight of the night, but I am intrigued by the odds because they're both grappling heavy guys and Terez Vinny a plus 130 is intriguing,

but naturally going to side with Jacob Malkoon here. The one that's most interesting to me, the one that's most interesting to me, Chuck, and Long Island, is this one, Jonathan. I pronounce his last name. name. McAuliffe, I think. Yeah, McAuliffe, taking on Obon Elliott.

Obon Elliott came a little bit of hype, still has some, but I think is in need of a win here. And McAuliffe, it looks halfway decent on tape, actually. This one to me is certainly the most competitive fight on the preliminary card. Would you agree, Long Island? Yeah, pretty surprised at the odds, too, that Obon's the dog. I would have maybe flip-flop those odds. I did take an Obon spread bet in this.

I don't know if he wins the fight outright, but I think he can steal a round or two here from McKalef, or around. And last but not least, anything else on these prelim cards that you give a damn about. Well, the only other fight besides the road to UFC fights. Khan Offley, who, you know, lost in the tough finale what two seasons ago, a season ago taking on Yizha, Yizha,

I don't know. It sounds like the Riza, the Jiza, the Yiza. But I'm going to side with is everywhere. Con Offley, I was really down on in his first two UFC fights. He looked like shit. He did sub-Hikardo Hamos in his last fight. I was pretty impressed by that. So, you know, maybe I think Yazah's got a lot of hype. He did get a quick K.O. his last time out, but he was on a two-fight skid, I believe.

before that so naturally i'm going with the aussie there all right very good chuck that was a that was a smart way to like i'm glad you didn't go to me for those fights man i mean you bring it they're not i mean pays attention to that shit i mean like i said are some jams on the main part absolutely 100% no question about it but uh oban oban should be fun i think that like coming off a loss and like so many people like you talk to europeans you know and they they still talk about him like he's he's got something that we haven't seen yet. So I guess I'm still intrigued to see how far he can take things, especially coming off the loss here.

And the last thing I'll say is I did hear that this guy, and I did a little bit of tape watching on Kaiichi Nakamura from the featherweight final. He looks to be the goods. He actually makes me pretty interesting. But we're still, I think he's what seven and one or something like that to double check. But we're so early into his UFC run, though, I don't know exactly what any of this is supposed to mean. You know, it's an important fight.

It's a good fight. But overall, the prelims from the first one, apparently. amount plus error were much better than this one is what we're saying right significantly so yeah uh all right with that in mind we'll put a pin in this we'll come back to the boxing later long island we got time to do a little over under or rate that card yes sir let's do it all right let's go that card guys you know we did it last week we're doing it again this week i'll explain it after the intro rank that card it sucks i did say rate but it is rank i apologize you know i keep saying rate myself but because you're ranking i'm it's obviously it should be but rate does roll off the tongue better.

I don't know why. Anyways, I'm going to pitch these to one of you at a time. You're just going to give me most likely to least likely based on the question. You can both chime in, but I will pitch it back and forth. So L.T. Who's the New Zealand-born fighter with the best chance to win on Saturday? Aaron Tau is obviously out of this because his fight is off. So Junior Taffa or Dan Hooker?

I'll say Junior Taffa. Wow. Okay. I mean, I think Dan Hooker's a much better fighter, but he's also got much tougher competition. Yeah, probably tougher. I feel like Hooker's uphill battle, man. That's a tough one. All right.

Chuck, which undefeated fighter in the UFC has the biggest chance of losing on Saturday? Oh, boy. Cameron Raustin, Quill and Sal killed, or Therese Binney. Dude, look at these names. These sound like names from the Key and Peel sketch.

Like, like, Merrius, Gemarius, Rex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. probably Torres Finney. All right. And then what, so rank them one, two, three. So Therese is number one.

And then maybe Ralston and then Sal Qie. I can't imagine that Quillan's going to like shit the sheets in this one. I mean, he's like, this is set up for him to succeed here. True.

LT, you agree? It's the exact same. Yeah. I mean, that is based on the odds. So that makes more sense. LT, who's the most likely to win by finish?

Talasin Teshara, Ben Wausen, or Quill and Sal killed. In this, in, rank them just one. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Definitely, Talison first.

Okay. Yeah, and then I'll, yes, in order. So I've got Talison, BSD, then Saul killed. Okay. Chuck. I'd go Talison, then Sal killed.

And then the NBSD last, yeah. I met you on that. All right. Chuck. Which underdog has the best chance of winning on Saturday? Tait Tuvasa, Dan Hooker, or Diego Lopez?

Oh, man. I hate to contradict, like, when we talk about Volcanoz. I still will say Diego has a good chance, though. Like, I think if he makes those adjustments or if he comes in a little smarter, I'll go Diego top and then and then Ta-Tovas and then Hooker. Okay. I'll see. I'm going to go Lopez, even though he's got the toughest assignment.

I'll go. tie and then I'll go Dan and again I think Dan's better than tie obviously but I think he to the point Chuck May just the timing of this fight I just don't love it for him I might flip-flop tie and hooker I'm kind of I love tie but I'm very low no you don't no you don't

I do I'll do like there's no betting on him you're like yo fuck that fuck that guy I'll do a shooey I'll do a shooey on stream if tie wins calling it right now all right now we're talking LT, most entertaining fighter on the card. Benoit Saint-Denie, tie to Avasa or Mauricio Hoofee?

Well, up to this point, the answer has been Hoofie, but I don't know what we're going to get from him on Saturday. So I'm going to say BSD 1, Hoofie 2, tie 3. Hmm, that is I would just flip-flop, I guess I'd go, I'm just going to believe in the

excitement factor on Hoofie. So I'll go him, then BSD, then tie. Okay. Tie to me, I was factoring in again, the shooies, the out of the age shenanigans. After that last fight, man. True. I don't know.

I need to see something here. Dude, remember that, remember that event? It was like an ACB, like one of one of these Russian events where like the owner came out in the middle of the fight was like, you know, just stop this shit. That's how I felt in the middle of that fight. Just fucking leave. That's hilarious. It's not worth it. Chuck, who's the most likely to avoid a second straight loss?

Cody Brundage, Jr. Tafaa or Dan Hooker? man. All right, I'll go hooker, Tafa, Brundage. Okay. L.T. I'll go Tafa.

Tafa. Hucker, Brundage. Yeah. I might go Brundage number one. I'm just like Cam Roos. You're just questioning if he belongs in the UFC. I know,

but I haven't seen enough out of Cam Roustin yet where we are really going to doubt. I don't know. There's just, there's too much intrigue there. Whereas Billy Alicana, I feel like is going to be top BSD. We obviously know where the odds are at there.

LT. Who will have more UFC fights after Saturday? Alexander Volcanowski, Dan Hooker, or Ty Kuovasa? Wow. That's a toughie. Hooker's going to go until they make him stop. So definitely he's the answer. And Volk at least might have a couple more, especially if he wins. Ty, I think this might be do or die. So I'm going to go Hooker, Volk, Ty.

Chuck. that's exactly right um and a volk especially like we didn't talk about this luke but like the psychology remember he's talking about like being psychologically affected during idle times i just i can't imagine he's going to walk away easily from the game so but hooker will be there like you mentioned until they until they force him out all right fair enough uh chuck fighter whose stock will drop the most with a loss on saturday maricio rufey oban elliott or quillin salkill with a loss i'd definitely to say hoofie because i feel like people were high up on him uh doing something so i'd go hoofy then salky just given where they're at and coming off of that knockout and then oban

l t um drop the most hoofy uh uh saw killed elliot because elli's already lost you know i feel like saul killed has to be number one because he's a minus 1 000 favorite he's fighting a chin guy, you know. Yeah, but how bad is that relative to two losses in a row? Yeah, but Hoofee is losing to top 15 guys. These aren't like bad losses. I don't know. This is a Nalco is going to have that.

He's, I think, right? I don't know. Is Malarkey like even a big fan favorite? Like, I feel like the crowd's going to want to see South Kil do something here. Yeah. I'm, I got to think. No, well, because Quillan's from Perth and Jamie is either from Victoria or New South Wales. so Jamie might actually have the hometown support.

I'm curious. LT. Fighter with the best tattoo. So I have pictures for each of you here. So picture number one is Dan Hooker's tattoo. Picture number two is Benoit Saint Denis tattoo. Is that Joan of Arc?

Maybe. And picture number three is Aaron Tau's tattoo. So I want you to rank them. That's to worst. Uh, hookers are the technically the most clean. Okay. Um, and so for that reason I like the most, I'm going to give, I'm going to have an order here because towels are cultural tattoos. Yeah.

Like obviously those are not for mass consumption. Those are for cultural tattoos. But I think those are actually the best tattoos to get, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, again, it's not for me, but I understand it would be for them. So it might look a little weird to people who aren't from that thing, but those are, those are to me are, are much more legitimate tattoos than anything else. They're Maori tattoos. Yeah, they're Maori tattoos, exactly. And Benoit's tattoo was not bad.

It just looks kind of like a robot slash Joan of Arc. I'm not sure what that is. Also, her left arm is really long and ways that her right arm is not. It's okay. It's okay. But no, I'm going to go with Hooker 1, Tao 2, BSD 3. Wow. Chuck.

Well, I was going to say tau 3, but I mean, now that you've, now that you've kind of talked about it I'm like well yeah you know if you're going to get a tattoo like you want it to be meaningful right like so I think I'd go the same order I think I like the same order I don't even know the other tattoos the other tattoos are strictly decorative

yeah whereas the cultural tattoo has some cultural decoration to it obviously but it carries significantly more meaning so it's like so how does that not one though huh shouldn't that be one then uh no because I still don't love the necessary the application

of it. I just on pure tattoo applying terms you know. All right, fair enough. Last one, Chuck. The Australian with the best chance of being a UFC champion. Jonathan McAuliffe, Dom Marfan who's fighting in the road to UFC final

are Quill and Sal Kil. Oh man. Well, Sal killed, I'll say... Oh, wait, sorry, I meant to preface. All three of them are 26 or under. That's why I... Oh, wow. Okay, all right. I'll say Saul killed I mean

and then is it Mika Leff How did we say his last name? I'm going McAilif I don't know Okay And then Marfan That's

Yeah I haven't seen To be completely honest I haven't seen a ton from you know Marfan says So I feel like I'm Kind of guessing on that one

That's fair LT you got any different Or you're going the same Probably the same right Quillin one And then after that It's who gives a shit All right, fair enough.

That was ranked back card, guys. Hope you enjoyed it. All right, very good. Thank you very much. All right, Chuck, we got to see you off. I know you're doing another broadcast later today, right? Tell the folks what you're doing. I'm jumping on the crack with Pisa Carroll at the top of the hour.

So, yeah. But you're going to be back with us on Monday, correct? I'll be back on Monday. We'll break down all the action that happened at UFC 325 and the boxing events, I'm sure, man. So it should be a fun one. Should be a fun one indeed. there's Chuck's socials. You can catch him on X and you can catch them on IG and you can catch them on the crack. Crake, Craig, Craig, Craig. I don't know how to say it. We say crack, you know. Yeah, the crack. A little bit later today. Thank you, Iceman. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. See you guys. All right. There he goes. With that in mind, let's bring up our next guest. Gentlemen, do you all remember the guy who asked Dana White about the Ali Act and TKO and Dana told him to schedule an interview later and that it never actually happened? But everyone was like, yeah, that was. So these are great questions.

Well, it turns out that my man who is part of, is a boxing scribe and is part of the Porterway podcast, his name is Sean Zatel. And he now joins us to break down the weekends boxing. There he is. Hey, Sean. What's going on, buddy? What are you doing, Luke? Thanks for having me, brother.

What do you have there in the background? My glasses aren't good enough. What's the video game machine back there? That's the NFL Blitz. I actually have a authentic with a CRT screen, NFL Blitz 99 upstairs. And this is the replica, the arcade one-ups. So, yeah. You don't know.

We got to get you some mats underneath the weight bench so you can learn how to, like, you know, because you've got to drop the weights, you're not dropping them on fucking hardwood. No, no, I do. I got one. I got one. It's just it's not visible. But there it is. Okay, okay, okay.

You're recovering it. Very good. Yeah. Well, Sean, thank you so much for joining us. I greatly appreciate it. Let's talk. There's a huge slate of weekend boxing. We're not going to have to get too, too much into the weeds.

but we want to at least keep our audience informed of some of the major parts of what is happening. And to me, that conversation starts with the ring card that's taking place. The official name of it is the ring four. This is Teo Fimo Lopez fighting Shakur Stevenson. It's a sold-out event in Madison Square Garden, six fights on this main card.

Let's start with the main event itself. Lopez, obviously, this fights at 140. Shakur coming in, I think, at 138 and a half today, in preparation for that. I saw someone a columnist on Yahoo, described this match as a bout between someone who is chaotic and uncalculated in Lopez versus the ultimate calculator, not the physical thing, but someone who makes that a priority in Shakur Stevenson. Do you agree with that framing?

Yeah, yeah, to a degree, for sure. I think it's controlled chaos and improvisation and being dynamic and creative on Tiafima Lopez when he's at his best. my guy Chris Algeri with a boxing scene, former world champion, says once Tio catches a rhythm, he gets into like a flow state. And again, becomes very creative with his offense, with his defense. He fights a lot off of his talent, his athleticism. And not just that alone, but Chakur is definitely the superior technician. I think the, to get right into the fight, I think the best case scenario for Tiafimo, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, but really cut his teeth as an amateur in South Florida.

If he's going to win this fight, it's going to be Roy Jones against Bernard Hopkins. Roy Jones versus James Tony, though much more competitive, I think, if he can win this fight in that manner. Because James Tony, I'm sure a lot of people listening, do know how to lose like 60 pounds and 60 days and was pretty drained for that Roy Jones fight. But point being,

Sometimes master technicians, what can offset them is someone who's more athletic and faster than they are. And that could be fuddled them a little bit because usually a lot of the master technicians also have a great deal of hand speed and timing beat speed. And that's part of why Shakur is the favorite here, along with being the more superior by the book technician. And the more precise puncher, the more accurate guy when it comes to placing his shots. He's very sharp. And the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. by Shakur is the favorite. He's a little bit more accurate than Tiafimo is with his placement. His shots go from point A to point B in a straighter line up the middle. And when he does throw

combinations, he's good at pinpointing each shot to the body or using two decoy shots to set up a right hook sometimes, very accurate with both hands, good, very accurate to the body. But Tiafimo is the more gifted athlete between the two of them. And Chris Algeri is saying he gets to a flow state, I'd say it's kind of like a streaky shooter. If he can catch a rhythm and get on fire in this fight, he can win this fight. And I do think it's interesting his mind games yesterday at the press conference, which of course says he's not biting on them, but we'll have to see on fight night. I think in Tio's best interest, Luke, because he's a guy who fights with his lead hand down. And when he's stalked, you know, guys that are good boxers like Jermaine Ortiz or

Sandor Martin, Sandor Martin put him down with a right hook over the top of that lead hand being low. George Cambols just going in and out with his feet, sniped them over the top of the right hand, again, over that low lead hand. Guys like Floyd Mayweather, even though they were great with their lead hand low and the shoulder roll and everything, when they came forward against the Zab Judah or against the Connor McGregor, as you'll remember, they would go to the high guard. And Tio doesn't, has never really shown a great high guard. So I think he'd be better off using all that athleticism, finding a way to get Shakur to come to him.

And Shakur, as good of a boxer he is, as good as of a technician he is, he doesn't punch laterally that often, like a Floyd Mayweather, like an Andre Ward, a Bernal, Bernard Hopkins, or Pernell Whitaker.

So if Tio can find a way to make him take that step forward, then I think he's better off. if he can find a way to dictate to Shakur and make him have to take a step forward. Not all fight. Tio's going to have to impose himself at times if he's going to pull this off as an underdog, and he's the bigger puncher. He'll have to impose himself in spots. But I think if he just stalked Shakur all night, that won't work the way it did against

Lomachenko, who was a smaller guy and older guy compared to Shakur Stevenson. So, yeah, I think that. And to wrap this up, that's what I think was interesting. he got him to, in a way, take a step forward at the press conference. He talked about, you know, putting his nuts in his mouth and all this stuff and a lot of antics that won't age well if he loses this fight. But I look at it as an attempt to get Shakur out of his game. And Shakur is very confident that that isn't the case, but we'll have to see tomorrow night what goes down.

Is it who has the better pro wins? And what I mean by that is, you know, listen, I saw the De La Santo's fight. I saw the Zeta fight. Those are good wins in the sense of you beat a quality guy in either case. But remember the De La Santos fight, his hometown crowd walked out. And when the Zepeda fight was over, you were just kind of like, I don't know, it wasn't. Chikor is technically detailed, but not overwhelming with the firepower, in part because he still has issues with his hands. At least he appears to have repeated issues over the course of his career with them.

And yet you mentioned Lomachenko was a little bit old, but there was a certain. dynamism to that win by Lopez as well. Who has the better pro wins to date, even though I recognize Lopez having the loss on his record of the surprising one to Cambosis kind of undercuts it a little bit. But in terms of the wins, how do you evaluate who's really done better, especially of late? I think overall, definitely Tiafimo has the better wins, the better resume, and it's fought as a professional, the better competition. But what offsets some of that is with the higher level of competition, not only has he lost, he's had a couple of fights that a lot of boxing people think he may have lost as well in Jermaine Ortiz and Sandor Martin, whereas Shakur overall hasn't fought the level

of competition Tiafimo has, but outside of the De Los Santos fight, which was scored the closest in his career, he's won handily in every fight. And really, outside of the Zepeda fight, hardly been touched in his professional fights. And again, Luke, the name of the game is land your shots. He's more accurate than Tiafimo is and not get hit by the other guy's shots. He's got better defense than Tiafimo does. Now again, like you're getting at against not as high a level of opposition and typically not against as big a guys as Tiafimo's been fighting the last couple of years. So that is what's interesting right there when it comes to the level of opposition. One guy has the better wins and has overall fought the tougher competition, but the other guy has won by a

wider margin than Tiafimo has. It has gotten hit a lot less. So yeah, That's how I'd answer that one. You mentioned the antics. I want to play a clip here. Shakur thinks Teofimo is doing all of this because he's actually nervous. Let's play this clip and I want you to react to it. I think he's nervous and he's giving off energy as if he's trying to dilute his brain into believing things that are basically not going to happen.

I just don't understand how he can dilute his brain into believing that when he didn't make Steve Claggett. That's his name, Steve Claggett, quit. He didn't make him quit. He didn't make George Cambosis quit. He did not make Limachenko quit. So what in the world makes him think that he's going to make me quit? What do you think, Sean? I think at first, I think Tiafimo's energy heading into this fight. And I, and Chacore very focused and very on point, something he learned from a guy like Terence Crawford. His eyes are on the prize and he's completely locked in. But then it felt like once the fight really got here and the fight really starts at the press conference into the way in into fight night that Tiafimo showed up the real Tia Fimo showed up and I didn't

get a sense from Tia Fimo that he was rattled. I actually think he was being calculated. Maybe he perceived some of what I perceive. How can I make this guy to get out of his game plan a little bit who's always so technical and sharp? How can I make him make it more of a fight? How can I make him take that step forward Saturday night as opposed to where you can take a step back and counter as good as he can with his step back game? So I didn't see T.O. particularly rattled. I know, and actually interestingly enough, Wally Moses, Chakor's trainer, who's an excellent trainer and helped build him from scratch along with his cousin Zaqin Moses, who's a good young pro. But now he's all in the video. Like usually Wally Moses plays the background. And usually it's Tiofimo Senior front and center. Tiafimo Sr. has been vocal at times.

And Wally Moses pointed out, the only reason he's not vocal here at the press conferences, he was drunk last night and can't make it to this press conference. But I see Tio as being calculated and trying to find a way to get in Chakor's head, get him off his game a little bit. I didn't see him as particularly nervous. And actually I see him as conserving his energy for the moment. Now, we'll see again if those antics don't live up to the level of focus and drive of Shakur, who is supremely confident, who unlike Tiafimo, doesn't know how to lose. But to go back to that De Lo Santos fight, and you mentioned Zepeda, too, what is interesting is the one time Shakur fought someone who could really match him in terms of speed and timing and quickness was Deo Santos.

and he beat him off the jab, but his offense took a big hindrance in that fight. He wasn't working his body shots. He wasn't working his combinations, his right hook. His straight left hand was sparse, and he really just won that fight off of one hand. Now, he says his other hand was hurt for that fight, and that's part of why he only beat De Los Santos with a jab. But the point is, and against Jeremiah Nakatia, too, a tall fighter from Africa who had some power on.

on his right hand. Those two fighters, and in particular, De Los Santos, made him timid. Now, when you bring up Zepeda, I do think that fight will pay dividends for Shakur, because heading into Zepeda, he already knew he was a sharp boxer. He already knew he was a master technician. But what he found out, I'm sure he was confident himself about already, but what he proved was he's a dog, too. So I think that Zepeda fight where he stayed in the pocket a lot, he exchanged with Zepeda a lot. It was by far the most exciting fight of his career. rear. It was kind of like his Mayweather Maidana kind of fight. I think that now he'll be a little bit more comfortable in the pocket against a guy with the explosiveness of Tiafimo than he was a

couple years ago in the pocket with someone of the explosiveness of Delos Santos. But these guys got big questions to answer. Will Shakur against the best fighter he's ever fought? Will he be a little bit more timid against the speed and the power the way he was against DeL Santos? Can Tiafimo be a guy who's excellent with the stepback game who could fight off the back foot as a as a great boxer when he's been up against that look against other fighters he hasn't looked as sharp as when he can play the counter puncher so that's why i say again he might be looking to find a way to make chikor come forward a little bit more than he wants to so he can do what he does best and that is be the lead hand low quicker fighter the athletic fighter the counterpuncher at times and not always have to go after

this guy. Let's talk about this co-main event. Honestly, like I'm not going to say it's more interesting than the main event, but it's certainly interesting. Jemaine Ortiz, as you mentioned, only two losses in his career, one of which was to Lopez, and as you indicated, a very, very shaky loss in that sense, as well, given how it could have gone, a very, very technical fighter, taken on the man of the hour, Keeshaun Davis, who in his last fight was supposed to have a homecoming in Newport News and the Virginia Tidewater area, where he is from the Norfolk, Virginia area. And he, he, just fucked it all up. I mean, completely fucked it all up. And the whole fight got canceled. He ended up showing up there, getting into fights. The whole thing was a nightmare. Here he is. First question,

is he still with top rank, but more importantly, I understand, or my understanding is that Davis left working with Beaumack, the trainer of, or at least the long time trainer anyway, of Bud Crawford. What the hell's going on with Keishon Davis? And for all of the promising parts about his game and his future. How much do you still believe in it, just given everything that's happened over the last year? Yeah, you raise a lot of fair points, man, and he's giving a new young team a chance at it, which part of me likes, because a lot of times in the NFL, the NBA, it's about like who could get the new sexy offensive coordinator or the new young coach, whereas in boxing, you pretty much retread the same names over and over again, Beaumack, Freddie Roach a few years ago, he's gotten up there

and age more so and Robert Garcia and so on and so forth. But yeah, man, he winds up having an ugly falling out with Beaumac. He blows the weight by almost an entire other weight class against Delos Santos, a fighter he handpicked for Top Rank. He is still with Top Rank. Top Rank is leasing fighters out right now, the Turkey Alashika Riyadh season. They can't compete with a Saudi, you know, government and public investment fund. And I made a point on Twitter that got a lot of people upset where I said, you know, this Tiafimo Shakur fight is really built up by top rank. Tiafimo and Shakur were built up on ESPN primetime slots where they got a million plus viewers a few times in their ten years with top rank. But, you know, when you're a private American business,

especially without a network deal anymore with ESPN, you can't compete with a Saudi public investment fund. That said, Kishan from blowing weight against De Los Santos to having a fair degree of hubris since he became a world champion against Dennis Moranchec last February to celebrating Andy Cruz's loss last week against Raymond Murataya where he was doing the belt to ass. And I get it. His point was, you know, this guy shitted on me all the time about beating me in the amateurs now that we're professionals. But, you know, you didn't beat him, Kishan.

Raymond Murataya beat him. And I used to ask Kishan about that. Like, don't you, isn't there a part of you that wants to? write that wrong from the amateurs and fight him in the pros. And, you know, he would say, yes, someday, but now it looks like that fight will never happen. Eddie Hurons talking about moving Andy Cruz down to 130. Heishon's talking about going to 147. There's nothing but quality champions at 140 from Richardson Hitchens to Gary Antoine Russell to the winner of this fight. He's already ruled out Tiafimo because he says Tiafimo's terrified of him. He'll never fight

Shakur Stevenson because how close they are if Shakur wins. The only guy he said he'll fight is Dalton Smith, who's the newest champion because he says Dalton Smith can sell out arenas back in the United Kingdom. He wants to go to 147 and fight Devin Haney, who is a three-division champion with more than double the amount of professional fights he has. So what I'm getting it, and he's promised a knockout of Jermaine Ortiz, who has fast hands, fast feet, is a very solid contender in his physical prime, arguably the most athletic fighter, Kishon's fought to date, who has more professional experience than Kishon. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's, he's. He's, He's fought Lomachenko and Tiafimo to very difficult fights.

And on his part, he's got to let his nuts hang all the way to the ground this time. You know, Luke, every guy steps through the octagon or steps in the ring, lets him hang. But he coughed up the second half against Lomachenko, and he didn't do enough to win against Tiafimo. He frustrated him. He made him look bad. He made the fight very close and even controversial to some people, but he didn't put his foot on the guys to actually walk away with the win. So this fight from Jermaine Ortiz, win or lose, I want to see him not leave anything on the table.

Even go out on his shield if he has to. And for Kishon Davis, he's talked a lot of shit and he's got to back it up Saturday night. He's promising a knockout, not just a win. I think he will win the fight loop because he's got a little bit more sophistication to his arsenal, to his skills than Jermaine Ortiz, who, again, has quick hands, quick feet. Kishon's the better puncher. I'm interested to see how Kishon deals with Jermaine Ortiz's very quick feet because Kishon keeps a wide base and he's actually a little bit flat-footed, but he's the better body puncher. He's more physical on the inside and at long range.

He has a hell of a right hand and he's the better puncher between the two of them. But this is his first fight in a new weight class against a legit guy, but he looked a lot bigger at the way or at the press conference yesterday. So I do expect Kishan to win, but he has put himself into a situation where you better back it up or else the critics and people on social media are going to cook them and be awfully loud about it, which I'm sure he doesn't really give a shit about, but you know how that goes. Also on this card, Carlos Adamas will be putting up his WBC middleweight title against Austin. Oh, the fights off. He got sick today. Oh, Jesus. Adamas?

Yeah. Oh, all right. Well, shoot, shoot Carrington's on this card still against Carlos Castro and then Jarrell Miller. Funny story, dude, I covered Jarrell Miller's fights in glory, sometimes in Europe. To see him out here after all of that, I know he's had PED failures left and right, stole a car allegedly one time. I mean, he's had a run. He's still on this card. I don't know what you can say about his career, but he's still present.

I'll put it that way. He's still around. Yeah, I mean, I thought he beat Andy Ruiz in L.A. back at that Riyadh season, Crawford-Azzanoff card. I thought he beat him. That's a guy who's been pretty shameless since popping for a couple of steroids when he lost that Anthony Joshua fight. But he's a very, for being such a big guy carrying so much weight, he's got some crazy

volume. He did, you know, he never really been down. I mean, Daniel Dubois, man, now that's off the top of the head. I can't remember if he got stopped right at the bell or if Dubois had him out on his feet at the bell in the final round and dubois a big puncher big baby miller's a good shit talker he throws a hell of a lot of punches he's got really good punch resistance you know i don't know if he'll ever hold a heavyweight title in this uh in the heavyweight division but yeah man he talks a lot of shit and except for daniel dubois he tends to back it up so we'll see if we get out of him he's fighting

in the in the five boroughs he's fighting in new york city he's from brooklyn shoe shoes from Brooklyn. I think Bruce Carrington is going to win that fight, win his first full world title and cry in the ring thereafter. But he is fighting a fighter in Carlos Castro, who is not this come forward Mexican fighter. And kind of like Jermaine Ortiz against Kishon has been knocking on the door. He's come close. A lot of people thought he beat Stephen Fulton and dropped him in their fight during the Canelo Berlanga undercard. So, you know, he keeps it long. And, you know, he keeps it long. And Bruce Carrington is a fighter who's a hell of a counterpuncher, not always the best defense, fast hands. But sometimes as a great counterpuncher, he waits to counter a little bit too much.

And he can't do that against Carlos Castro, who's tall, rangy, got good feet. He's going to have to use some of the parts of his arsenal. He's neglected in some fights recently, mainly his jab, some of his faints. He's going to have to initiate and punctuate. If he just waits to punctuate, just waits the counter, this fight could get away from him. But I expect him to win a world title on this card as well. I don't know if this is breaking news or not, but Zufa Boxing's main event for Zufa Boxing 3 is FAA a Jogba versus Charles Martin. Is that news?

So, yeah, I actually heard about that from my guys in the sport a couple weeks ago. Yeah, on Valentine's Day, FAA Jogba and Charles Martin. That's their first heavy made tossed up. Let me tee you up because they've got. they've got Ryo fighting this weekend, but also top rank has got this card in Puerto Rico trying to feature Xander Zayas. How do you feel about what Zufa's doing, just on the boxing side? Forget about the contracts and you and I've been over that a million times, but on the boxing side, relative to what top rank is able to do, relative to what Golden Boy is able to do right now,

how do you feel about their boxing efforts? I think their first show was kind of underwhelming, given the bravado they're coming into the sport with. Now, definitely, you could argue it's more sustainable. They're coming in, not blowing a lot of money on the talent right away and on the card, whereas PBC, when they had their first card, it was Keith Thurman versus Robert Guerrero. It was two legit guys at the top level. It was a bigger fight. It was a bigger card, but that's harder to sustain, as we found out over the last 10 years. And then for DeZone, their first foray was supposed to be Demetrius Andrade against Billy Joe Saunders. Billy Joe Pop for something, and it wound up being Demetrius Andrade against Walter Cotendacwa,

and Eddie Hearn wound up losing a bunch of money for DeZone on Demetrius Andrade. So to give them credit where it's due, they're not coming out the gates hot. They're not coming out the gates with a big name or a world championship level fighter in their main event, which was Callum Wals against Carlos O'Coppel, which wasn't really a good fight. I don't think Callum Walsh, who's decent, is a world champion material. but they did have some solid prospects on the undercard and Troy Nash, Emiliano, Robert Garcia fight now all of a sudden, Emiliano Cardenas, and most importantly to me, Robert Meriwether, who's a good young prospect of 20 years old.

The matchmaking was solid, and the Julian Rodriguez, Kane-Sanderball fight was solid too. It had a lot of action, but a lot of people are using the word sterile to describe the vibe in there in that apex, metapex, whatever the fuck pecks. It is Mark Zuckerberg complex now. And the commentary kind of devolved. Like at first, you know, Max Kellerman and Andre Ward are dropping jewels. Max Kellerman is talking about how it takes a talented fighter to throw his lead right hand at a certain long distance and all that. But then eventually it just turned into the Zufa boxing drinking game. Like take a shot every time Joe Tessator and Max Kellerman are trying to give you the hard sell on Zufa boxing.

And it just kind of, I'll use your word that I came up with as well. It's kind of felt soulless and dystopian. It felt like this is just another chip towards, you know, world domination for TKO and Ari Emanuel and the people running that ship. But the car did produce some good matchmaking and a lot of action. But as a first impression, I think it was underwhelming giving, giving. how much bravado they're coming into the game with. But it wasn't all bad at the same time.

What's left of top rank in Golden Boy? Yeah, they're in trouble, man. Golden Boy is going to swerve TV, which is a local Los Angeles channel. Oscar De La Jolla, his clapbacks, he makes good points, but it's not coming from a very strong messenger right now. His building in L.A. just got foreclosed.

His original Golden Boy offices. He's in a lawsuit with his best fighter, Virgil Ortiz, his other best fighter and biggest attraction, Ryan Garcia, by all accounts, we'll be leaving him. Oscar may have some options on him for two fights thereafter, but he'll still be able to leave after this Mario Barrios fight. He wound up folding to Turkey Alashique and giving him Barrios and Garcia as opposed to keeping it an Amazon Prime fight with BBC. and what's odd about that is he, in the lawsuit with Ortiz, he reportedly turned down a two-year extension with DeZone. But then it's like can't be lukewarm here then. You got to try to make something happen on Prime potentially then, another distributor. He still thinks he can get something done with DeZone, which he may have to to keep Virgil Ortiz, because Ortiz has a clause in his

contract that if Oscar doesn't have a deal done with a network specifically DeZone, then he has a clause to get out of that contract. And then his third best fighter, Gilberto Zerdo Ramirez, I don't think he beats David Benavides in Cinco de Mayo weekend. So, you know, I got love for Oscar. He's one of the great fighters I grew up with. I think he makes fair points against Zufa, but it's not looking good for him in Golden Boy. And then with top rank, they still have a war chest of talent. They got a lot of the talent on this Saturday's card, Tiofima Lopez, Bruce Carrington, and Kishon Davis are all top ranked talents. But they don't have a lot of network. I think this fight with Xander Zayas, which is a unification, a hell of a fight. With

Abbas Borrell, that's going to be a hell of a fight. But it, and Zander Zaisos, if he wins, becomes the youngest unified champion in the sport. But it's on Roku TV, I believe, an app you got to download. They got some stuff showing on Tooby. And I think a big problem for top rank isn't completely just the network situation where they ended on a whimper with ESPN. They had some strong outings on there. Haney Lomachenko, Lomachenko against Tiafumo Lopez. They co-promoted Fury and Wilder. That was great for the sport, and they produced three great fights,

two of which had to do with ESPN. But I think the big problem for them is who's the successor for Bob Aram? The jury is out big time on Todd Dubuff, who's been underneath kind of like an underboss to Bob. and does a lot of the decision making, but the jury's out big time if Todd DeBuff is the kind of successor to Bob Aram, if he could take them forward for the next 60 years like Aram has for the last 60 years. I think if Aram was 20, 30 years younger,

they'd be in better shape to withstand the storm of the Saudi Public Investment Fund and eventually offer a lucrative alternative to what Zoufa has going on. But top ranks in big trouble. Bob Aram's 94 years old and they don't have a network. but they do still have a lot of talent. There's a lot else going on this boxing weekend. Mertesalev is back. There's a whole bunch of things,

but we've got to get it going. Sean, how can folks get more of your work? And what's your coverage plan for the weekend? Man, I'll be doing a live round by round watch party tomorrow night for the Bacroh Murdozalia fight overseas against Josh Kelly. That's a good scrap. And then the whole ring card, ring six, Tiafimo and Shakur. I'll be live for that as well.

Me and my guy, Radio, Rahim. We're going to drop our instant reactions to that. We're going to drop a reaction after the way in, kind of give our final analysis on Tia Fimo and Shakur. We'll have analysis right after the fight. I'll be live during the fight. And yeah, man, I'm always in the gyms here in Las Vegas, getting quotes from champions and guys coming up.

And, man, if you go to my channel, Sean Zattel, I got a ton of interviews despite not being in New York City for this card. The access isn't too great these days anyways when you come. fights, Luke. So if you can get around me about it, yeah. Right. If you can get around the local gyms and talk to fighters there, you might wind up with more interviews than you would sometimes flying out to a New York City. So I appreciate the time, man. Shout out to you, Luke. We had Lawrence Taylor. We had Ladani and Tomlinson, and now we got Luke Thomas. I'll take it. I also do Coke and hang out with hookers. So me and the original LT are we're killing it. We're killing it.

Sean, thank you so much, man. We'll look forward to your coverage all weekend. We'll get you back on again soon. Thank you. Appreciate it, brother. There he goes. The great Sean Zettel. Can't recommend him enough.

I've got to figure out what's going on with my focus here on this here screen. All right. Let's remind everyone one more time. First of all, my coverage plan for the weekend. I'll be watching. I'm not going to watch the whole car, but I'm going to watch the main event for my watch along, I think, on Saturday. And then I'll do the Post-Fight show, the 325 Post-Fite show.

I hope to God. Diego Lopez. I don't care if you win or lose, but if you don't cage cut, I'm going to kill you on air. All right, so there's that. Also, you can follow up. We'll put it back up one more time.

The social's here. As you can see, there's Chucks who was here with us earlier. He's got a coverage plan, and then my stuff and then MK stuff. Don't forget the stranger danger design, morningcombat.combat.shop. Time is of the essence. You have today and tomorrow, and that is it.

This goes away after that. So you can go to morningcombat. dot shop to get those and also don't forget morning combat at gmail.com we haven't done fan subs in a while we haven't done dead wrongs in a while we will still accept them we should do those once a month so we'll probably get that rotating back into the the standard rotation here pretty soon long island why don't you promote what's going on you got going on i can't put myself on screen in this layout but either way uh i got a watch along saturday i'll be doing the full card 5 p m eastern and i got you lt back on prop quiz against jed mishu airing in 25 minutes no spoil

Don't make any reaction. LT. Just sign us off, please, and thank you. Let's go, everyone. So there you have it. You can go check out Main Card Minute. For everyone on this show, for Chuck, for Sean Zattel, and Long Island, Luke, as well as the staff and everybody else. I'm Luke Thomas.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We'll catch you on Monday, back with the Iceman himself. And until then, all of your gains, be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.