MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 326 Results: Oliveira Beats Holloway | White House Card Revealed | Is the UFC Getting Boring?

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Charles Oliveira dominated Max Holloway in the main event of UFC 326, but the fight itself left fans wanting more. Did this matchup deliver the way it was supposed to? And in the co-main event, Caio Borralho scored a unanimous decision victory over Reinier de Ridder. What does this win mean for Borralho moving forward? Did the preliminary card have any standouts and what in the world happened between Cody Garbrandt and Xiao Long? Plus, the UFC White House card was finally announced. Does the card live up to the hype? Any surprise omissions? Any matchups to look forward to? Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall are back on a Monday to get you up to speed on all that is happening in combat sports.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. Oh, ha. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a barcarina? Two, three, two, three. Your March gets set and good.

Yeah, tossing and flossing. The style is awesome. What's up, everybody, on this ninth day of March, 26. It's time for another episode of Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I joined you from the capital of Estatus Funitos right here in Washington, D.C. I'm of course, Luke Thomas, joined by Sub-Zero himself, the Iceman, Chuck Mindenhall. Charles. Yes, sir. Congratulations on your BMF title, Charles. Great win. I like how I change. I'm either Liddell or now I'm all over. I'll take that. How are you, Chuck? How are you, buddy? I'm good, man. I'm supposed to be. I'm good, man. I'm

surprised you were pretty high this morning when they made that in Gano announcement. So you look like you finally kind of subdued and you've had time to really think about that fight. The thing is, we'll talk about that in just a second. I don't like hate or love the fight, but there's a certain kind of thing that's happening. And we'll talk about in just a minute. That's driving me kind of crazy. But yeah, what can you do? What can you do? I mean, everything is an anti-climax at this point, man. I mean, it's, uh, it's too expected. Oh, yes. I'll get to that part. I'll get to that. All right. Let's sit up the show here today. Of course, what are we going to get to? is some breaking news, as Chuck just indicated, and I'll just sort of share it very quickly,

then we'll circle back to it and talk about it, namely that Francis Ngano is going to be fighting on the Gina Carrano and Rhonda Rousey Netflix card. So we'll put a pin in that and come right back to it. But of course, what are we going to talk about here today? The UFC White House announcement we're going to get to, and then the big one, UFC 236 results. What does it all mean? What's the future of the BMF belt and everything else in between? So thank you guys so much for being here.

Greatly appreciate it. Thumbs up, if you can. so nice. Subscribe if you haven't. Excuse me, these are our socials. They're every which way in between for MK for me, as well as Chuck Mindenhall there on the screen. Let's remind everyone, you can email the show, MorningCombat at gmail.com.

That's for fan subs. That's for dead wrong. And that, of course, is just to talk to the producers more generally. A bit of a note on today's programming. We're actually going to do fan subs today. We're doing fan subs today because we actually got a bunch of them and we want to make that, you know, make sure everyone knows we're going to keep it. it in rotation. Let's also talk about the merch and the reason why this is relevant is not only do we have a

bunch of new merch to talk to you guys about morningcombat.shop is the place to go. Of course, you can see the Basher Trasher Morning Combat model. We can't quite call it what it actually is called, but there you have it. That t-shirt and hoodie is a March exclusive. Thanks to our friend at Average Joe Art for putting all of that together. And then of course we have the Delta 8. We'll light it up for you, as well as one of my personal favorites, the McDonald's Wi-Fi T-shirt. This is truly a work of genius, if ever there was one.

And then, of course, we have Evergreen stuff too. Plus, we have, well, I won't say a contest per se, but I mean, I guess it is. Morningcomat at gmail.com is the email for fan subs. The very best fan sub we get this month will give you a signed poster here, all right? And of course, the man who will be doing that is the third member of the show.

He's my friend and yours. he is the perfect girlfriend ignoreer it's long island look what's up my that's not true i actually had to not do submission radio yesterday to spend i said dennis i got to spend time with my girlfriend i've been ignoring her on saturdays you know so i got to do this on something but uh jens good to be here i do that mystery bet thing on my stream luke where people just blindly vote we take a random prop on the main event

charles by decision plus 1,000 we all went ah that bet sucks but it cash so uh that was pretty cool wow otherwise not a great bet weekend. Did get Cody Garbrandt live at plus five. That was a good one. We'll talk about that fight. That fight was just absolutely insane. Hey, Long Island, let me ask you a question. Before we let you go, we'll come back to you on this. Do you feel, how do you feel about the, your pre-UFC 326 arguments about not loving BMF? Now that we've seen the results, everything, how do you feel today? How would you describe

that feeling? Well, I'm so glad you said that because me and Chuck were just talking about this. and I said, Chuck, how'd you feel about Charles's performance? And he said, ah, wasn't BMF-E? And I said, this is exactly my motherfucking argument. No one would have said this was a boring. I mean, maybe it would have not been your favorite fight, but no one would have complained about this. If A, no title was on the line, or B, Charles said,

if an undisputed title was on the line, like, I get that as well. So it's like either way, this is why BMF is fucking stupid. I rest my point. There you go. I mean, I still want to be clear, Charles. I still disagree with that, but we're going to talk about that on today's show. All right. You might be the only one, Luke, by the way. That's a good tease because I haven't seen a lot of sentiment in that direction right now.

Yeah, I know. Everyone on their brother is horny to get rid of it. And we'll get to it. But if there's nothing else, before we get to topic number one, Chuck, let's start here. I guess we'll call it topic zero. This news broke literally just about an hour or so before today's show. So here's how it's going to go. apparently, according to a news release from MVP as well as Netflix, there you can see it right there.

Francis Inganu is going to fight former, I believe, 2018, PFL heavyweight tournament winner slash UFC heavyweight slash UFC light heavyweight, because actually his last fight was against Iwan Kutelaba at 205 pounds. That was in 2024. We have not seen Felipe Lin's sense, a Brazilian guy, obviously, but Francis is going to be fighting for MVP. kind of interestingly, Francis just put out a video kind of confirming that he had signed with him and blah, blah, blah. And then during the course of it, he was like, you know, now it's one step closer to knocking Jake Paul out. So obviously, for Francis, this is a pretty big win. You go from PFL to Netflix. I cannot imagine that the Netflix deal is all that long, right?

They're not going to sign them to five fights or something like that. It could just be a one hit or quitter for all we know. But it certainly sets up an interesting possibility for him. your reaction to this news about Francis and Gano. It felt a little underwhelming, man. I mean, like, I wasn't exactly sure who they could plug into this role. I felt like Francis and Gano for sure was heading that direction with MVP. Wasn't sure what they're going to do.

To see Lins' name kind of come up, I was like, okay, so we're just, we're doing that kind of like the A side attraction. You're tuning in to see Francis put somebody away, right? And I know it's a little unfair to Lins because he's been a decent fight. or wherever he's gone. But dude, he's going to be, you saw, did you watch his last fight at UFC 299?

I mean, he was a light heavy weight, and I feel like he's going to be 40 pounds less than Ingano come fight night. Yeah, he's, you know, he's one of these guys who's like a decent light heavyweight who was able to maximize some opportunity

because of the PFL's business model and then how weak heavyweight is. Yeah. So, I mean, it looks like one of those squash match type things. But if it's all, I guess if they're trying to build us towards something, right? And that's Jake Paul. Like are you basically saying that Jake Paul and in Ghanu are,

this is the end goal at some point for an MVP card? I mean, I don't know about Jake, but certainly for Francis, that is a huge payday if he can get it. Yeah. I mean, he's bringing pretty good. Again, who knows if Jake wants it? But I mean, also like, here's the thing about signing Francis, right?

On the one hand, it is the lineal heavyweight champion of the world. on the other hand is Jake also just lining up a future opponent. Your guess is as good as mine on this. Right. Well, I mean, if that's where it's all heading, this is the right fight. You know, I think this is the right fight for it. And I wondered if they might do something like this, maybe to balance out a little bit in the situation

where Serrano was fighting Katie Taylor as the co-main event for Jake Paul's fight with Tyson, it was kind of like balancing the ledger a little bit. not that you need to do that. You just have Twilight fighters who haven't fought in a decade with Ronda Rousey and Carrano. But with Ngano, man, the one good thing about him,

even though he is up there in age, like you said, he's the lineal heavyweight champion. They can really pound that home, pound that fact home. And he's still vital. He's still very vital. If they plug them into the UFC right now,

you could still make that argument that he's the best one, right? So I feel like it's a boon just to have him on that card. I listen, I don't really disagree with any of that. I had a, you know, the tenor of my tweet this morning was a little more negative because there's a big reason for that, which is, let me just say up front. I recognize for MVP getting Francis to sign is a big deal, right? And we've all indicated he still, people are like, oh, he can't sell on pay-per-view.

He doesn't need to. They're not on pay-per-view. Right. He just needs to be able to sell on or do his, do his role in whatever spot he ends up holding on that card, whether it's a co-main event. or something else for Netflix. And of course, he won't even have to do the heavy lifting. Gina and Rhonda are going to do the heavy lifting. But having a guy of that caliber of that quality on your card,

obviously that makes it better, right? I mean, only a silly-ass person would say to the contrary. But Chuck, this is my point. And it's driving me insane. And I want to warn every MMA fan about this phenomenon that I've seen over the years. there was a long time during the late 2000s and the 2010s where you were watching like for example like I know we're not about to have

Mayweather Pachial 2 but Mayweather Pachial 1 was like six or even maybe seven years late like that fight happened late because what ended up happening for long stretches of that era and I think it's just a big problem in boxing generally and this is where the sanctioning bodies really hold a lot of the responsibility as well Boxing is the absolute king of fans demand X versus Y, and instead they get X versus Z, or X versus A, or some other pairing that you did not ask for, but that what will end up happening is they'll explain to you the consumer, they'll explain to you the fan that, hey, this is this is good for Fighter X, this is good for a potential Fighter X. X versus Y down the road, right? They'll set it up for you. Like, here's why it's good for the promotion.

Here's why it's good for the fighter, but you never asked for it. And to me, it's like going to a restaurant, you order steak, and instead they bring you a burger and you're like, well, I guess I'll just eat the burger. And who doesn't like a good burger now and again? But the point I'm trying to make is they will do this over and over and over and over and over and over again if you let them. And then so many of the fights that you actually want to have don't get made. And it's not Netflix's fault or MVP's fault. Again, I think they're using the best of what they have that's available, Chuck. But the point I'm trying to make to you people is, dude, that sickness of the way in which

people think about fights, well, it's not good for me, the consumer. I didn't really want it, but I'm going to tolerate it because these other forces they want it for themselves. Dude, this will become a self-reinforcing way of simply looking at all fights. I have seen boxing do it. I have seen boxing fans, order steak, get jello, and say, you know what, jello's great. No, it is not. It is not what I ordered. It is not what I asked for. It is not why I came to this restaurant. I asked for steak. I expect steak. And so I get it. There's all these reasons to like this. It could set up something big down the road, Chuck. I'm not, I'm not going to cry about it. I just want to warn the fans if you let yourself get to a place where you are putting the primacy of every other party's reasons for making a fight

ahead of your own, don't complain when you don't ever get the fights that you want. Absolutely, man. You worded it perfectly. Boxing has been doing this. What sucks is in our day and age, at least in 20206, as I feel like it's infecting the UFC as well. Like that very thing that you're talking about, the two principles that you are trying to bring together, or it feels like everything has kind of, you know,

roads lead to each other and somehow you end up on a detour and we keep getting this and i think that is part of the fan's frustration i know we're going to talk about all this in a little bit but uh it's it's definitely rampant in the fight game in general right now that's the problem for me is just how much of this is happening writ large you know so um but again good to see francis on the card and i also if you're francis i mean bro people keep like oh he fumbled the bag everything got messed up with pfl i got to tell you. I got to tell you, I mean, are there other fights I wish he was able to take part in?

Of course, yes. I think all of us would probably feel that way. But I don't think he's going to be poor from this. You know what I mean? I know, man. For sure. Everything he's getting paid no matter what he's done since he's left the UFC, right? Like it's not, you can't really

fault him. And especially even, I think some people are like, well, he hasn't really fought much. But the two boxing matches, I mean, if you could, if you can make eight figures, each time you put on the boxing gloves, I'm like, you're probably not going to want to be jumping into an MMA cage where you're getting not quite, you know, anywhere in that ball.

I have no idea on this one. They may be giving them a big, big amount of money on this to kind of set it up. But like you mentioned before, the great thing for him is probably this is a one-fight deal. I would guess because right now MVP's not really in terms of building a league or anything.

They're not really interested in that. All they want to do is put on big events, you know, and I feel like obviously he adds a big attraction to that event. And I think the only problem, like, in terms of what we're saying here is, I don't even know who you'd put against him. You know what I mean? Francis? Yeah, like

in the... Eddie Hall. Eddie Hall? That would have been something. That's true. I heard people mention like Steven and stuff like that, and I'm like, well, that dude's so green, but I mean, obviously, if you put that on, that would have its own intrigue. But in general, like, for more realistic options, that's a good one. But there

weren't like, you know, if Rico had been available, that would have been interesting, right? Like if they had put that one together, I guess that's what, when you're contemplating this, you're hoping for something of that magnitude. Sure, sure. Yeah. And again, there's lots of reasons for everyone to find something to like in here, even the fan. It's not, it's not, I'm not saying some kind of loss. It's a gain. I just really, really, I am very concerned about the fan base being like, well, they have reasons for them to do it. I'll just accept it. That's a cancerous way for fans to accept matchmaking. And I think it is a huge

contributor to the woes of boxing in the state that it finds itself in. All right. With that out of the way, let's get to this. Topic number one, Charles, speaking of which, Charles Olivaura secured a unanimous decision victory on Saturday in the main event of UFC 326, 50, 45 on all three judges' scorecards. It was never very close at all. Not really for a moment, to be quite honest with you.

And we saw Ola Vera Chuck dominant, aggressive. in control, doing all the things that he needed to do. He is obviously... I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms and the IHeart Radio app.

The rightful winner. But did that fight deliver in the ways that it was supposed to? Are the fans demanding more... for a BMF fight. Is that a fair expectation? Or is this a little bit too much pressure on just what the UFC can actually deliver? Well, it's a great question, man. And I think this is the first time we've really had to look at this and say like, okay, wait a minute. Is there a different bar we're holding for these BMF fights? Because fortunately, I think the first four fights that were contested for BMF, they were all action-oriented fights. Two of them featuring Holloway. Some of them were epic moments. You know, and I think that people put this into their, head. But the thing that starts to happen is you get you get a BMF title which is separate now, right, from just a regular title. If this fight had happened and it was just for the, you know, the lightweight title, the UFC's title, nobody would be complaining. You might be complaining

that it was another boring main event in terms of so dominant in one side there wasn't much drama, but you wouldn't really be hating on Charles Olivera, for instance, for not living up to the spirit of the idea. And I feel like a lot of people, that's the problem, right? Like they, they feel like that he didn't live up to the spirit of the idea and what is the spirit of the idea? And I'm like, so I did a column on this that ran yesterday on Sunday. And you kind of, I mean, the spirit of the idea, just if you're really looking at it just, it was Nate Diaz saying, hey, I want to fight the baddest guys around. These guys who've been around forever, who survived, not these come lately's who come through

and, you know, they're ranked for a little bit. And then they're just gone. He was talking about these people who'd persevered through multiple wars, title shots, whatever it is and they're still on top. Well, you had that. It checked all those boxes. You couldn't check more boxes with the two guys they had. But the other part of it was that he was like, I don't want to, you know, if you're just going off of his original idea, it was like no loophole wrestling, you know, where guys are trying to outpoint each other and finding, you know, ways to win on a scorecard. This is where you run into something. I'm not saying that everybody took these tenants and they're like,

oh my God, this is the spiritual idea of what the BMF title is all about. But something, like that was placed on it. And even the UFC's promo packages leading up, right? They're just showing you these gunslingers. And we know that Charles Olivera is a grappling ace. He has the most submission finishes. And we know what he likes to do. But there was still an expectation that you were going to see both guys going out on their shield, right? Or like going out there and doing harm to each other. And that's not what you got. So it places almost like a, um, I guess a gentleman's kind of handshake on it or something like that. Like, okay, this isn't the real title.

So we're not as concerned, right? We're not as concerned about the wins and losses so much as going in there and living up to this title, which would be kind of, you know what I mean? Going out of his shield banging, like, it just wasn't how it happened. And I think that that was like, you know, because it didn't feel like it lived to the spirit of the, of the belt itself, you could hear the booze ushering it. you could hear you I know it was hilarious looking at your tweet because you said like hey I just finished up something I was like hey that's a pretty good fight and then you go on social media

and you see that the village is burning down um I think that that's kind of what happened I think that people are like this is not what the BMF is right I mean that's what it seemed like to me I I am a little bit torn on this one because I want I do want to be fair to the fans and I think that they have a point to be quite honest with you which is particularly if you're like if you're dude especially if you're paying you know $800 per ticket for nosebleed seats and you know, you get in there and the fight is not to your liking. I mean, I'm not one of these guys who loves people who boo, to be honest with you, but, bro, they're killing him at the box office.

You know what I mean? Like, it's a little bit of the heckler's veto at times that I think is something that we should take seriously in a world where people are just getting crushed in their pocketbooks to attend these. But I think the point you brought up on top of that is the best. one, Chuck, namely like, dude, this was straight up marketed like a gun slinging fight. And I had every expectation that it was. Part of the reason why I thought Holloway would win was because I thought Oliva would just accommodate him in that particular way. And that's just not what you got in the end. So, so I think for fans who feel like, listen, these fights need to look

a certain way if the other fights are definitely not going to be that kind of a thing. And it wasn't like people are, I mean, yes, there's always been people who boo when the fight goes to the ground. But In this case, you had people booing when the fight went to the ground who are people who don't normally do that. And I think that kind of tells you there's a bit of a difference. So if people didn't like the fight or they were unhappy with the way in which it was fought, I honestly don't have an issue with it. It is a legitimate and fair perspective. It's just not the one that I have, which is I didn't think it was also scintillating. The problem ended up being that Charles had enough advantages over Max to do what he did, but not enough of them to close the show.

And it just kind of hit a wall right there, basically in every single round as a consequence. And also, Max just barely had enough to even, you know, get to his feet at times. But the thing about this situation to me, about BMF that I think I don't understand the hostility to it, it goes as follows. Honestly, I have more hostility to that interim title fight than I do this one. I mean, who is better between the two fights? It's the winner of Olivera versus Holloway or the winner of Gaichi versus Patty. Sorry. Sorry.

That BMF title, in my opinion, is way more prestigious. Like, you can attach the fact that the 324 main event has more significance by virtue of what designation you're giving it. Fine. But it's not a more prestigious title in terms of like who's actually fighting and winning it. That's the first thing I'm going to say. Yes. Second thing I'm going to say about this, Chuck, if I may, is that, listen, I don't love the BMF belt either. I don't think it's like, oh, we're like, there's no way you can ever.

we get rid of it. If they got rid of it, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, whatever. I don't think it's the, it's the end of the world. But the problem I have with all of these arguments is, it's not like there's a bunch of these floating around. There's one. Okay, there's one of these floating around. Guys get paid more, at least we think in theory, they used to in the pay-per-view era, but ostensibly they get paid more than they would if it wasn't around. And it's not like it's fucking up the rest of the calendar. Right. Whereas the interim title is exactly doing that, because it's putting two people in the pipeline for a title shot who basically don't deserve it. I mean, now the die is cast.

Like, you can't, like, you have to deal with what the reality is. But, like, that is actually the one that's fucking up the matchmaking much more than this one is. Like, to me, the hostility around something that isn't necessarily a huge benefit to anything, but it's not really a huge distraction either. Like, this title is clearly more prestigious than the interim title that came with lightweight. Right. I guess what I would say is long on, look, I would love for you to weigh in here if you can. What I just don't understand is the hostility to this. People act like it's doing something to the fight game that it clearly isn't. And that to me is the problem.

And you know, if Oliver, right, he gets, I think that take down, the first takedown came at like the minute mark of the first round, right? Like, let's just say he goes in there and two minutes later he submits Max Holloway. Nobody would be having this argument. You would be, you'd be like, well, that's. That's his form of badassery, right? He goes in there and he he submits you. Like he takes your arm or, you know, he snatches your neck, you back. That's how he wins.

We wouldn't be having this argument. But I think that it's what you said is what bothers everybody, right? Like it's that you get into the situation where he's not able to finish max by the second round and it kind of goes the exact same way and, you know, the rinse repeat way. And the fans know that. They know that now you've established this pattern.

which is clearly not going to be the fight that they thought they were going to get, right? So, I mean, just going back to the original, to that whole original idea, it's, it was very interesting to see the reaction because in any other content, I agree with everything you just said about the interim title, I don't know that, but in any other con, you know, any other contexts, we're talking about the masterful performance and the way that you might, like the Shemaya for, you know, Islam's fight just so dominant on a big stage like that. but it's just he couldn't finish him. And I think a survival mode situation for Max was not the look.

And I was going to ask you this, man, like you, you watch this fight. Is there a possibility? And I was thinking about this as I was writing my column that Max simply expected the promos, you know, everything that was talked about, that he thought that he was going to get a different Charles Olivera, that he simply didn't train for this eventuality. You know what I'm saying? like that he might have been caught off guard a little bit by that game plan. I'm glad you brought that up.

I don't know because I've not talked to his team, but it looked that way to me. It looked like there were two problems that he had, you know, because you can't really say he had a problem in the striking, there just wasn't enough of it to see. And to the extent that you got any, it seemed largely even, I guess, maybe a little ahead of Max, but there's not enough of it to make any kind of declaration. There were two problems that I noticed Max really had. Number one, if you go back and you notice, Charles is still good about blowing through this line of defense,

but go back and you watch the Ilya-Tuporia-Charles fight. When Charles tries to establish a takedown, there's heavy down-blocking from Ilya. By down-blocking, I mean, like, you know, it has a more technical, precise use in wrestling, but what I'm trying to use it is shorthand for trying to challenge the takedown at the point of the attack, right? heavy sprawled, dropping your hips,

firing an underhook, shucking him off of you right there. Like right there, you stand your ground right there. He didn't do that at all. He allowed Charles to just take him to the fence. And I think the reason for that, Chuck, is we talked about, like, had Max faced a great wrestler before?

Yes, in Frankie Edgar. But Frankie Edgar's style, he'll do the same thing. He'll kind of pick up a leg and then run you to the fence. And then he tries to reconsolidate the position. And Max, under that, kind of old school wrestler, boxer type, dude, he has dynamite takedown defense. Like, if you've never seen him try and use it, like go back and watch against that particular style of defense, or I should say offense, but the style of defense he's presenting, he's got

a very, very good takedown defense. But Charles wasn't playing that game at all. Charles is playing a much more modern game. And I also have to say, I think heavily Dagestani influenced, where he's got double underhooks or just some kind of upper body lock. He's turning you, lifting you, and then using. a variety of different attacks to trip out the post leg to then establish contact on top. And that's great for a lot of reasons because one, you're now wrestling with the upper body

and the lower body simultaneously, but you also get to go into a pinned position when you land on the ground. So like it has a ton of benefits. It's a more modern style. And dude, like Max just looked like that was new to him. You know what I mean? And I think it was. I don't know that he was getting the looks on that he was supposed to be getting in training. Yeah. Nice. I do. I mean, I can't help it.

I can't help but wonder just a little bit, though, man. If he just was like, wait a minute. What? I did not expect that we were going to have this kind of fight. I think that maybe you're right that there was enough of a, you know, a dedicated new wrinkle to what Charles was doing. But it just seemed like, I think it was like maybe in the second round, after the second round, you could see Max.

It was almost like a bewildered kind of look of this, like. Like, man, I can't believe I'm caught in this kind of whirlpool, like, that's going to keep happening. The rest of the way, you could see it in his features, man, that he just, I don't know. He just didn't look like he was prepared to be dealing with what he ended up dealing with that night. Also, it gives you another appreciation. I know, I know his personality can be grading and even I now find it quite grating. But, dude, I'll eat to pour you is fucking good. I know.

I know, man. He made that look. He, dude, he went through Charles Oliva in two and a half minutes. Like, I know. To the point that when we were doing our. pregame last week. We were talking about who would be, you know, if either guy got kind of a rematch in that situation, well, I was like, I'm not really interested in seeing Charles Olivera get that rematch because it just wasn't competitive. It looked like it was, it was such relative ease in which

DePore was able to win it. And so you're kind of, I was pointing out, and I know that Jed was kind of mentioned, it was like, you're kind of pointing out the Max Holloway would be the option there, just kind of his adaptability and just the competitive nature of what he brings to it. But you see something like that man and what it really does is just these these victories for to pouria and there's only been a couple of them they're both they're against both these guys so he's the real bellhold right for the bmph because he'd be both these guys but they've aged so well going into his fight uh june 14th he looks now like he's the baddest man on the planet just by what he how easy he made it look against those guys Dana white weighed in on this main event we have the audio or the video let's take a look Dana, dominant work from Charles Olavera, but maybe not exactly the fight. The crowd was anticipating or looking for. What were your thoughts on the way the made event played out?

I don't know if anybody was expecting that. I mean, the way he body locked him and took him down so easily and absolutely dominated him on the ground. I thought there'd be a lot more stand-up, and I thought that Max would do a better job at defending the takedown. And if he got on the ground, he'd at least pop up a couple three times during the round, but total domination.

Yeah. At the end of the day, the goal of the sport, is to win fights, right? But when it's a BMF title fight, do you feel like there's an unwritten rule that you've got to fight a little bit differently, that you got to make it a stand-up war and not have a grappling-based approach?

Well, I think you'll have those type of guys, but the goal at the end of the day and every fight is to win. So he did exactly what he needed to do to win. And I think probably, you know, you have to ask Max, but in training camp they're probably expecting, you know, if you've seen Charles fight,

he's not afraid to go toe-to-to-to, stand up and, you know, They obviously really believed that if they took them down to the ground, tonight would happen. So this is, I think, a fair point by Dana. I mean, I think he's trying to do what he can with the situation as he kind of inherited it. Listen, you know me. I don't shy away from criticizing UFC.

But in this particular case, while I, again, I don't change my argument. It's you're presenting a fight between two guys as something you can reliably trust to be an all-action affair. If you don't get that, you bear some responsibility. At the same time, Chuck, like none of us pre-fight were looking at this and thinking to ourselves, oh, these aren't worthy candidates of what we think the ideals of this belt is supposed to be

or the ideals of what this ballot is supposed to represent. In fact, we all thought that they were perfect candidates. So what point I'm trying to make is, it's not like UFC didn't try. I mean, they put together a fight that I thought here made a lot of sense. It just didn't work out in the way that they wanted. But, like, for example, Chuck, people will be like,

oh, you got to make it all stand-up affair. So now we want the UFC to go jurisdiction by jurisdiction to get rules changed for one particular fight within the MMA contact. Just watch one championship. They have four-ounce moitai every fucking Friday or something. That's exactly what these people want. It's four-ounce moitai stand-up, donks killing each other. You've got what you need.

Yeah, I don't know. If they're going to continue the BMF at this point, man, I think that they're going to have a hard time distinguishing it because I think that it was just this was just implied. What you just said it was an implied sort of messaging

right like these guys like you said it's going to be reliably action oriented because these guys that's what they do. So that's the best you can do in a matchmaking sense right? Like I say like we just think that this fight will deliver on some fireworks level

wherever that is hopefully on the feet. But when it doesn't do that, man, it kind of loses his meaning. And really, it's just, it's, that Charles was unapologetic about it. You know, he's like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to win the fight. I'm going to win it the way I know I can win it. And what does that mean for the title then and all the people's expectations with this title? And if it's like with Charles Olivera's wearing that

BMF belt, like, does it hold any significance now if, if you're going to game plan and just kind of, you know, manipulate the guys' weaknesses? You know what I'm saying? or like take advantage of something that you feel like you have a big advantage in. That just changes, fair or not, it just changes the gentleman's kind of handshake that I think people thought was in play.

But I'm with you, man, like it's just, I'm not sure how you market it the next time through. If they do this, if it doesn't just skip and like they take it off of Charles and put it on some of the other fight or something like that, I'm not sure how they'll market it with Charles Oliver for the next one. You got to really mark,

you got to book this. It turns out if you want to do this in a reliable way, which is still going to be very difficult, like Max just doesn't win with chokes from the back. He wins via striking. Charles, excuse me, Justin Gachey, doesn't win with chokes from the back. He wins via blah, blah, blah. Like, you have to find people who are not just action fighters, but are action fighters who don't win via grappling. Right. You know what I mean? Like they can do it if they have to or something like that, but like they just don't. Otherwise, it's not going to work. Long Island Luke, we have talked about the BMF belt. are the world's foremost BMF belt hater.

Surely we have talked you into your senses at this point. I mean, dude, here's what I'll say. I don't think the UFC's gonna get rid of it or anything, right? Like, we're clear on that. They need this as a marketing piece, as stupid as a fucking is.

What me and Charles were saying... You always have to add that. I keep calling you Charles, Chuck. I think it's Charles Oliver. Yeah. What me and Chuck were saying pre-show is like, do you, can you not strip Charles Oliver? but can you just move on from Charles Olivera and just put two new fighters up for the BMF or do you have to let him defend it?

Dude, this is my favorite part about all of this. They can just do whatever the fuck they want. Yeah, but okay, but with the Mosvodal situation, he like loosely retired. I think he might have officially retired. And then they were like, okay, we'll do Dustin Justin for the belt. And it kind of always moved on with the next person. like it never they've never like just ignored the the reigning bmf champ to put it on another fight so i'd be interested to see what they do here and we were saying like conner arguably fighting on that

july i fw card would that be against uh charles for the bmf would that be against Nate do they put the bmf on the line if it's against Nate and just say sorry charles not bmfy enough or or they can just do charles Connor at 170 international fight week that too but But are you put it like Chuck was saying, are you putting Charles in that situation again, given how that just went and you, it wasn't very BMFEDU? Do you want to risk that now with Connor?

Yeah, I don't know. That's a problem for the UFC to solve. It's just the thing is, Chuck, it's like if you actually look at, if you look at testimony from UFC leadership under deposition, so like under oath, essentially, what they all admit is that the titles aren't real. I'm not talking BMF.

I'm talking the weight class title. And this is not a joke. They have literally explained that the legality of it is that the titles are not real. It's simply a trophy that they hand out to the best fighter that night. They don't mean anything other than the significance that we give them. So I'm happy to say, we dialed down the significance of BMF or we dial it up. It doesn't to me, I guess what I mean, like a strong opinion like fuck this belt. I was like, calm down, calm your titties.

It's not that serious. But at the same time, I recognize that like in a sport where you've got elite guys who have wide-ranging skills, it is very, very difficult to consistently arrange a stand-em-up rock-em-sockham robot fight. And that is in contradiction to how the BMF belt is presented, right? Yeah, yeah, man. And I don't know, you're not going to make Charles Olivera change his stripes. So, like, I mean, the dude has been, we talked about this in the pregame, everything that the UFC could have ever wanted in terms of, you know how they talk about second chances, perseverance and those types of things.

We talked about it, man. He started off his first 10 fights. He went 5, 4, and 1. He missed a bunch of weight. He was called a quitter early in his career. He was able to rebound from all of that and put together almost like a cult-like run that just made him a hero in Brazil and, you know,

wins the title and was able to, you know, put himself in these kinds of legacy fights to begin with. It's like unassailable his career, man. So I don't know if he doesn't fit this new, this kind of gimmicky thing. that they've got going on. It's very strange, but only in MMA

can you do what I just said, like go through that whole thing where, okay, you've changed your career and you become this one of the stars within the league, and you have a dominant performance in which you beat another guy who's running parallel with you through this whole process,

and you come out of it for the worst where you're being criticized for something that you did very well. Isn't that crazy? It's like, I feel like, only in the fight game, do you come out with a damaged reputation for doing everything correctly? Yeah, for looking awesome, basically.

Yes, yeah. But again, it goes back to the heart of the how this was all promoted. A couple of strange items here, if we can. Max got his black belt from Pedro Sauer after this. Check out this graphic that we have. Our new black belt after demonstrating an incredible defense. And like, I get the point. Don't get me wrong.

Dude, to survive against Charles Levera for, I mean, Justin Porre is a black belt. Couldn't do that. Justin Gachie couldn't do that. Michael Chandler couldn't do that. I mean, I guess he got knocked out a little bit differently, but go ahead. Can't hear you.

Sorry, I had my shit set up wrong. Michael Chandler did do that. He survived five rounds with Charles. Oh, I guess the second one. Yes, you're right. What am I said? I do not have memory hold that. But okay, it took him two tries.

Took him two tries to do it. Especially, man, just the first round, right? Because everybody's dry. I mean, it just looks like everybody's at their full power. And you're like, there's no way. When he was down and there's still four minutes, on the clock and in some vulnerable positions where I was like there's no way he survives this

so the first round was extremely impressive to me for him to get through that no question first and second round the other problem with the fight wouldn't you agree first and second round to me were still pretty good I mean they were dominant but like there was tension it was by round three it started to dip and it's like okay max

can survive but he can't do anything else and Charles can dominate but can't finish uh oh you know what I mean exactly you know what's crazy too man the first minute, Max comes out there and he hits a couple of those rhythm like, you know, puts it the jousty jab out, boom, boom.

He's kind of hitting him. Did you see this? Like, and you're like, oh, here we go, man. He's already kind of putting this together. And it looked like we were kind of heading in that first minute, like towards something, towards a Max, you know, Max Holloway fight. Like where you're going to watch, like, maybe you're going to get a, you know, a version of the Calvin Cater or something where he's just landing combinations and counting them off.

Like it almost looked like that. But then, you know, it happened so quickly. It was such a flash in the pan before it all changed. But he gave just a glimpse of himself in that first minute. And I think that that kind of made it hurt all the more, honestly. I mean, I will say like, and we'll move on after this, but because we have other stuff we have to get to. But just very quickly, Max definitely, like both guys kind of took a bit of a stock hit just basically because Max lost. So that's not great.

Yeah. And then Charles won, but not in the way that everyone had hoped. So that's not great. but I will say this. I don't think like Max comes out of this looking like, oh, you know, there's no cost to be paid. At the same time, I don't think it's much of a cost. Like, I think if they book them up with another, you know, dance partner where he can do what Max normally does, which is going to be the vast majority of the lightweights they can put him up against.

You know, he's going to be right back in the thick of things here. This is not some like massively disqualifying thing. Yeah, he's been in the spot before and he responds tremendously well to the sort of the night. You're always like, how much does, you know, the age? in the in the in the battleware like how much does that actually take effect at some point but if you just go up the tradition of what max has done he he always rebounds and like it like he said he's like you know i just want to i'll be back i'll be kicking somebody's ass again very shortly and there are plenty of guys that they can match him up with right now who would uh you know

accommodate him in that sort of thing like right they would kind of they would meet him more in his wheelhouse that way yeah here's a graphic where max holloway was speaking about his lost to charles oliver a quote i'm going to come back whoop somebody's ass. I ain't done yet. I'm going to see Mr. Olivera again. And I believe him. Like, I believe him. Also, one last note on the fight itself, if I may, you know, we had talked about Max like really settling into 55 and his power carrying. And you saw that, of course, a UFC 300 and a big, but you saw that in the rematch with Dustin Parier, too. Like, there's a, there's a, well, I should say the trilogy, excuse me. But I did feel like Charles, who I also know fought 45 for a time.

again, I do think Max was technically unprepared for what he was going up against Charles, but do you feel, Chuck, that like, he also looked a little, not weak, not undersized, but the physicality of Charles Olivares was a bit of a surprise to him. That was surprising. I certainly noticed it.

Let's put it that way. I didn't notice that Max did not look the same size as Charles. I don't know. Max used to cut him. his weight cuts were pretty bad, weren't they? Like, when he was going down to 145. And generally speaking, man, like, he's been fine at 155 in terms of, you know, I wasn't worried about him, right?

Like, because he came up there. We saw that Justin Gaichi thing. But, like, you know, I feel like his power translated well enough. And obviously his speed was still in play, you know, just with the stand-up in general. So I haven't really worried about it. But it is funny that you mentioned that because it looked like Charles, wasn't a different weight class. I don't know if that was just, you know, Charles, like, put on the I don't know what that was, man, but I did not anticipate having such a visual kind of like

discrepancy in their weight there or their size, you know. Yeah. Well, you got it. Kind of interesting. All right. Let's move on to topic number two. So let's talk about the co-main event of UFC 326. Kyle Bajalio wins a pretty clear unanimous decision victory over Rainier de Ritter. And the bout was supposed to be, Chuck, something of a redemption moment for two contenders. You'll recall that both of them were not just coming in off of losses, but kind of deflating losses to both their stock and then the momentum they were trying to build. So simple question, Chuck, in your opinion, did Boholio get the rejuvenation to his stock and the redemption that this win was supposed to confer? I think he did. I mean, obviously, like him getting a finish or something would have,

especially on this card you know maybe it would have felt bigger but you're you I have to correct you he did get a finish oh my lord I was sitting here like dude am I out of my mind

oh my god we saw a lot of that we saw a lot of that shit we saw a lot of that listen I'm 46 going on 14 you understand that dude oh man you had me sitting here like

what he got to finish oh my god yeah he finished all right but it was uh you know it was a you you you like to break down tape like this was actually like he said he likes to look at fighters he's told me this in the past when i've talked to him like as equations right like he's a he's a nerd right so he looks at it like a math equation and it felt like he had him he had uh riner barely solved and one of the things that it looked like to me was that he he had like almost those king green hands down here by the like by his side he was not worried about the power you know

punching power it was more about like hey if we're gonna if you're gonna change levels on me I'll be ready for it I'm gonna keep the fight standing and if I keep the fight standing I'm gonna piece you up and and he was also very good at just kind of Renner's is different he's like he's able to put his weight you know use his weight very effectively and I didn't feel like he could do that in this like he couldn't just kind of body him and bully him it just seemed like Kyle was up for all of that it felt like anything that was being thrown at him he was completely prepared for and there's something to be said about kind of understanding your opponent to that degree, right? No, I certainly think that there is. I thought it was a fine performance. Yeah. I thought he did what he needed to do.

I thought he was clearly the deserving guy. He shut down Derritter a lot. Derriter was trying to grab, you know, and collar tie constantly and then clinch up, and he was really good about clinch breaking. He was pretty good about takedown defense. I think Derritter got like, what, two. of eight something like that and couldn't hold a lot of control time he took the fight to de ritter when he needed to i thought some of his boxing looked improved you know that right hook he had the

leg kicks were brutal you know he did a lot of what he needed to do i just the one of the challenges that really happens chuck in this division now is like it's like okay did you get through the hurdle that you needed to get through yes what does that mean for hamzat trimiav and it's i'm not even saying that's necessarily fair but i do think it's just what's going to happen, especially if you're this close to the top, you're like, okay, well, you know, what does it mean for that? I will say the one thing I really enjoyed about this performance, Chuck, was not just that, you know, the right guy won and it was a, I think a respectable bounceback. It didn't set, you know, the world on fire by any stretch, but it was fine.

Is that he called out DDP. Yeah. I love that. I mean, first of all, we got to get DDP back in action. It's got a little bit of a donk fest, you know, whatever. That kind of pairing happens. Wow, if you consider yourself a very smart cerebral fighter and you're calling out DDP, you're calling out kind of the opposite of you, right? Like you're saying, I think I can outwit you a little bit, right? As a matter of fact, he talked more about it at the post-fight press conference. Let's take a look.

You had a call out ready to go with Drick's 2 Plus C. Obviously it would be an amazing fight. Why do you think that's the right fight to make right now? Because you already said it's going to be an amazing fight for the fans, you know? Like I can entertain people. I think you guys were entertaining today, you know? like my hands down, moving everywhere, and throwing punches, trying to knock him

this guy out. And I think me and Drickles can do a great fight. I respect him a lot as a champion. I think he was a very dominant champion. Awkward guy to fight too, but a little bit shorter than Renier. So I think my punch is going to connect a little bit more. But he's one of the best guys in the world.

I feel that I'm one of the best guys in the world. And I just want to go there and test. myself against these guys, you know, and made the best man wins and the title is on the table all the time. Yeah. I like it. I like it.

No, I dig it a lot. And I think that if you're looking at it realistically, and I think that's what Kyle's doing is like, I'm probably not getting the next title fight. So what would be an obvious opponent that you like your matchup to put you in that spot? I think the DDP is that, right? I think that if he goes through DDP, he has that argument.

Yeah, and I also feel like, you know, like part of the reason why he's not calling out Chamaia, because it'd be one thing if you want, he's like, okay, I want to get right back there. And then to call out another guy in front of that, so you're putting the Chimae fight on the back burner, to me, this is a guy who trained with Chimai of too. Remember that. To me, it kind of signals that Kaya kind of knows there's a little bit more work to do before he really makes a move up to the very, very top of the food chain. And I kind of appreciate that about him.

I appreciate that he was able to find in this callout an exciting possibility for the future while recognizing need a little bit more seasoning on this dish. You know what I mean? Need a little bit more work on this thing. I love both the courage as well as the sensibility of it all, I think is the way. You like the fight? Like he was just kind of mentioning like, you know, he thinks it's a fan-friendly. fight. I was just kind of contemplating that. I mean, I think it would be. Dude, I don't think

DDP, I mean, unless you are Chimae of DDP doesn't let you have a. Yeah, and he's probably hell-bent to do something after that performance. Especially, yeah, watch the taste out of people. And he's got a lot to prove in that regard, you know? So I would be very surprised if it wasn't. I don't see Kaya having the kind of shut down wrestling that Chameh have had. I just don't, that seems a little harder for me to imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that that would actually, you know, get like people too interested either right away. Not with, you know, I don't know. Is it going to be strickland then? Like, is that what we're like is this what's happening? I mean, I mean, dude. I mean, I felt like you needed, somebody needed to make a huge statement in this fight and that didn't happen, right? So,

we're living in the era of DEI for Americans in the UFC and, you know, Sean's not like, he's not a bad fighter. He's obviously very, very good fighter and has earned a pretty big opportunity, whether he's the number one contender obviously is a very different argument. But dude, that fight is big. They're probably going to make big fights. The fans do fan. At least if they made that one,

you could have an argument for one, the fans really wanted it. Two, there is at least some pretty good argument for thinking that Sean's got a good chance if anybody does in that division of giving Chimai of some kind of challenge. So I would actually be totally okay. But I recognize Imovov is

the rightful guy. I understand that too. And Strickland's not going to come off a better performance than what he just did with Fluffy. So, I mean, if you're going to do it, I mean, yes. What does this leave Derritter in your mind? I mean, he's still interesting, right? He still, he didn't look shabby. He just looked like his athleticism is going to the limits of it are going to have some limits for what he can actually do in the game. Did it look to you like he had a good plan B? It just seemed like he was, if he wasn't going to do the thing he went in there to do, it was sort of like he looked a little listless to me. He's been able to really use his weapons really well.

I mean, even like in, you know, that bone nickel fight was just, you know, just being able to shut down a dude like that, you know. It's just that speaks volumes, but I'm not sure. I don't know if it's just, and you maybe tell me this, like, is it because there's tape on him, there's more tape on him and people are like, okay, here's what you can't do versus him, here's what you can do. Or is it that, you know, that he's going against really good guys every time

and some of these guys are going to beat him. You know what I mean? I mean, he's going to each time, they're booking him against the top of the class. You know, these guys are like up there. And so he's just fighting good fighters. It's not like he's getting beat by a guy who's like marginally top 15.

He's getting beat by good guys. Or do you think that people are saying like, okay, wait a minute, here's how you beat him. Like you can look at the tape and sort of say, you know what I mean? Like are people figuring, and him out? Is that what's happening? Yeah, I mean, his footwork's a little bit of a mess, which is why you see him a lot of times kind of off balance, trying to turn and find people,

you know, he had a hard time. He can't knee pound when he wrestles. So a lot of people that can lower their level. And then when they, when the front leg goes out to, to, to plant and then bend through the shot, you know, they can really lower their level very fast on that. You don't have to knee pound. It's not a requirement, but sort of a shorthand way of understanding level changing. He can't do that at all. So like, he has to kind of come over the top and grab people like that. And, If you're good at clinch breaking and framing, you can, as Kyle Bajalio clearly is, it just shuts all of that down.

So, like, he's got real limits. But dude, if I was him, fucking go to 205. Like, you're big enough for it. You don't have to cut the weight. You can, these guys are donks up there. Like, go do that shit, you know? That's a good call, man. I mean, that would be fun for him, too, because I always love it, like, when you,

the partitions down. I don't know if he's going to, he's nowhere near, you know, losing back. to back to back fights, you're nowhere near the title fight anyway. If you're going to do something like that, this would be the time. And he's still got plenty of juice. I feel like people really were talking about him, man, going into this fight. And like when he was winning those first fights in the UFC, I felt like he had a huge buzz. Like, he became sort of a, you know, this, what would you?

Like, I don't know, one of the rare crossovers that you really have intrigue with. And I don't feel like that's done by any stretch, man. Go to 205, brother. You'll win some big fights up there, I guarantee it. Um, REL Rossos Jr. Chuck got the win of a Rob Font, not controversial. He was simply better in the wrestling. He looked good in the wrestling. He looked good for the most part.

I thought in the control department, uh, virtually no ground and pound to speak of. In this fight, Chuck, there were 10 significant strikes that Rob Font landed throughout that five. Wow. Do you know how many significant strikes? Rel Rouss Jr. landed? No, no. Eight.

Oh my God. How would you grade his development after this win? Because it's a good name. there are parts of his game that you cannot deny are clear. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind and now got my own show. So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app.

Really threatening for very good people, but he's still 21. What would you say? Yeah. I mean, if you look at it strictly from like poise and just like for his age like handling the escalation a little bit of an opponent. And people are saying, you know, Rob Fon's one of those guys where prospects go to die. He's done this a couple of times where he's taken out guys who had a little head of steam and they ran in Rob Fon and that's who he beats. But at the same time, you know, I felt like Rob was doing okay in certain aspects of that fight.

But as soon as I saw Raul kind of get into control and the takedowns and the poison which he was doing it, I was like, all right, this kid now is, you know, like he's doing what, he's taking what's available to him and he's dictating where he needs to. And that, that to me spoke volumes because if you go back, you mentioned this before, he was never really a phenom. He's just a young, he's not like a guy that you're like, oh, my God, future champion. He was just a very young guy who got in there. And obviously, like, a couple of these fights, you've seen the mistakes he's made early on, sometimes overzealous, you know what I mean? But I didn't feel like any, I didn't feel like any of that was an evidence against a guy who was, what, 17 years as his senior and like has a ton more experience.

I felt like he knew exactly what he had to do to beat him and that's how he did it. It wasn't the greatest fight, but he got the job done without putting himself in danger through that fight. Yeah, he also got the job down without putting his opponent in danger, which is kind of a problem for me. But I mean, here's what I would say about his development. Like you can't watch him fight and then conclude he's not getting better. Just on like one very obvious way,

you can tell he's getting better. like before chucking like some of his early UFC fights, you know, he was trying to like thrash the opponent immediately, like immediately get the takedown. He immediately passed him out, like kind of like a Hamzot, you know, shot out of a cannon. And this time he doesn't, he doesn't do that now. Now he sets up his shots.

He takes time. Clearly he's getting better. Like there's simply no question about it. The issues for me, though, is like these kinds of the, like these versions of development where you're not spazzing out, you're more methodically applying a game, you know, but then there's no ground and pound. these are these are these are really important developments and they matter but they're also the kind of thing that should never be worked on in the UFC itself yeah right these are things that you should get outside of it before you get here because that you're going to need a much more fully thought out and developed game to land and it's like dude yes you can beat rob font with your wrestling and that is not nothing that is actually something and i don't want to take that away from him but that is not you're going to run into a brick fucking wall

at the top of this division, not just the champion, several guys before that are going to make you look foolish if you don't really begin to build that part of the game too. Yeah, and I think that if your game plan is to nullify

another guy's danger is, like if you're trying to nullify striking or if you're trying to nullify the excitement, that's not going to be in good standing. Sometimes we talk about, I know we're going to even mention this in a little bit too, like where the game in general suffers, like where the UFC suffers.

and I you get a lot of these matchups now man you get a lot of these matchups where I know that you know Raul is very young but you get matchups where it just seems like you know they're they're good enough to win a fight right like the end they're happy enough to win the fight they're happy enough to win the fight without some of the you know the more in-depth tools to put the fight away or to you know to be aggressive or to have a sense of urgency a lot of times you know what's happening is this fight was a prime example So once you kind of saw what was happening, did you think it was going to end? I mean, like you said, nobody was ever in danger in the fight.

So it felt destined to go to 15 minutes. And what you don't want, and we're seeing it too often, is for fights, 15 minutes or 25 minutes to feel like sentences to the fan base. And unfortunately, this one kind of skirted that edge a little bit, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Still plenty of reason to be hyped for him, 21 years old. A lot of time to get better. But my attitude on him is, yes, there is.

obviously so much time to get better needs a lot of work too needs a lot of it's it's hard too to be that in the spotlight you know this I mean this is a this is this is like the swing bout wherever you call it in a in a pay-per-view it's like on a big card he was at the sphere right like he's on that card like he's been in some big spots he's one of those guys who may benefit from a couple of quieter shows and just kind of let him you know what I mean if you're going to grow up in the UFC put him in spots where it's not so conspicuous no no no question in my mind. Very quickly, Rosas has a goal in mind

that he talked about the post-fight press conference. Let's take a look. He's fighters against, so I guess when would you like to return? Yeah, I'm going to talk to my team, and God willing, I'm able to return ASAP this summer, hopefully. I want to stay active. You know, I got two years to break John Jones' record, and I feel like I'm in a good path.

I'm starting off the year good, you know, being ranked at 21 years old. So we're doing a good job, I think. where to get those Maryland Manson glasses man those are nice I was gonna say why did he steal Abuela sunglasses I mean I want to be clear

I don't know what's cool anymore I don't know what young people are wearing male or female but those definitely look like my grandmother's glasses I'm gonna be clear about that fucking all right let's cool it with that not your grandma Raul

yeah elsewhere elsewhere on the card Drew Dober sent Michael Johnson to the shadow realm it was a nice win. This is the aftermath. I mean, he looked great doing it. I just don't know what the takeaway is supposed to be.

Chuck. Like, we do these shows. We're like, what do these wins mean? Does this win even mean anything? I don't know. I don't know that it does, you know? I mean, these guys are forever in the, and they're not going any different from the spots they're in right here, right?

Like, they're just kind of, with Drew Dober, both those guys. I think they deliver a good fight. You know, it's almost like, you know, back in the day with guys like Clay Gwita or, you know, these guys who are veterans who would just be on cards. You know, I know, I know, Clay Guida, you know, you just watch them. I feel like that's where these guys are. The only thing, you know, the only takeaway is, you know, Michael Johnson, I was kind of impressed with it. He's been an enigma for a lot of years because he'd beat the guys he, you know, he shouldn't beat,

but then he'd lose fights that you're like, you're certain he was going to win. Like, it's impossible to kind of, like, handicapped the guy. But at the same time, he comes in there and he's showing you very quick speed. Who is he 39 years old? Like, I felt like his exchanges, his, uh, his striking. it looked very crisp in the first round. I thought he was winning the fight up until the moment he wasn't. And boy, did he get taken out, man. That was a brutal knockout. Wow. I agree. Now, Long Island Luke, there was weird line movement on this. Can you quickly walk us through the weirdness of that?

And then let's hear what Drew Dober's response to it was. But first, you go. So basically early in the week, Drew Dober's hovering around like plus 140. The line opened at plus 160, as you can see here. come fight night look at that number on the bottom left there minus 233 was where he peaked that so he went plus 160 dog to a minus 233 favorite i will say right around fight time he was like minus 205 but either way this fight was a pickum the morning of the fight so for it to grow that much i'm honestly shocked they did not pull the fight i thought for sure this is clearly some betting irregularities i would have thought dana was on the phone with those guys the integrity services, whatever, shocked.

Also the fact that it's two Michael Johnson fights back to back, a little weird, just saying. Also very weird, yep. They didn't acknowledge it. Dober wasn't even told about it. Here's what he had to say about it. And then, obviously, you're probably going to get a ton of questions about this. There was a lot circulating online before this fight.

Did anyone notify you before the fight? Did anyone come into the locker room? Or are you just finding out about this, you know, now? I literally just found out about this, like two interview views ago. So, like, I'm just finding out about it now. I don't bet. I don't gamble.

I know nothing about it. So this is all news to me. And nobody came up to me in the locker room. We didn't talk about it. It was never a thing until, you know, just now we're talking about with you. Is that weird being on the other end of something like that? To be honest, like, I haven't even really thought about it. Like, I have no idea what's going on.

And people are asking me questions and, like, I don't even know what happened. I feel like it's super weird. They didn't talk to him, especially given the last few things. Like that's very sure. To not even acknowledge it is super weird. I don't know what to make of it except to say that I saw some, and this is just, I want to be as clear as I can.

This is internet rumoring, but that there was something happening with Michael Johnson's family and that he, there were people online, let's be clear about this, there are people online claiming that there was something wrong with Michael Johnson's family and that he had to lose to pay off some kind of ransom or some other. And this is just internet speculation is the best I can say. I don't want to dignify this if it's just complete nonsense.

I'm just alerting folks to what I had seen floating out in the ether. But that kind of wine movement, though, is like unheard of. I mean, that's just you don't see that unless something's weird, you know. Last but not least, Chuck, if I can, Gregory Hobocop, Gregory Hodriguez gets a big win. Let's take a look at it. And then I'll ask you about it. Here we go. Watch this.

Bob. Hit him with the bob gun. This was a rematch. He did it in a minute in like 45. seconds. Chuck, he looked great. Yeah, man. What is three wins in a row? Where are we with Robocop? Well, that was fun because correct me if I'm wrong. Was that the first punch throw? I know they did a couple leg kicks. It felt like they were not doing anything up until the moment he delivers that big punch. It's like, I mean, that always is going to stand out and also admirable restraint. You could see him like,

looking at Perro and basically saying like, I don't really need to do anything here. Shrug your shoulders. I guess it's over. That was a great performance. man. And you know, if you go back, I think just in his UFC, like he's got seven knockouts. The dude is carrying some serious power. And look at his physique, dude. Like he doesn't he look like he's like

I don't know. It's like, it's almost like he's a second strike. Okay. One to the body. All right. So like, but the second strike, that's pretty impressive stuff. Thank you, Long Island, Luke. But his physique man, he looks like a bodybuilder. I mean, I know that you know the world, but like he is so cut. And it's, it's almost

it's almost at odds with his feature, like his face. If you just saw his face and he's walking out, you wouldn't think anything of it. But dude, that dude is seriously cut. Yeah, dice to the socks. Yeah, man. So, I mean, couldn't have gone better for him. I don't even think he took a single punch or anything.

It came out completely in men condition. We were talking about Reneer Derritter earlier. Like, what's a place you could go? Dude, I don't know if he beats Robocop. Robocop also has phenomenal jujitsu. Yeah. Look at this knockout power. This is what I mean.

It's like, dude, if I'm you just go to go to 205, fight those donks. Fight the fucking dig-a-diggy-dolls. I'd rather go to 205 at the face this guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Fuck all that. So, a pretty good, fun little main card. Before we get to the rest of the show, I want to talk about our friends Cuervo. We love our friends, Quervo.

They're back. Very excited to have them here back on the MK program for the year, 26. And folks, you guys know how it goes. Every moment has the potential for more with the right signal. More energy, more excitement, more fun. When Cuervo enters every moment, just gets better. The blue, agave, silver tequila, tequila. This will be a lot of fun. But you should just know, if you find yourself in the center of the dance floor, you can't help but stand up and

high-five those of you around you at the game. The room reacts just, excuse me, the room reacts like it just got the same text at the same time. You stop even checking the time. Suddenly small talk escalates to laughing so hard, you can barely catch your breath. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Cuervo effect, a signal everybody understands a moment that anyone can join and a good time that just grows. All you have to do is keep it quervo. And of course, you guys know that we've had tequila during the pregame previews and that will continue. It's our drink of choice there. Of course, you know, at home, you can do what you want, but we recommend Cuervo. We love it. We're glad to have them back on MK for the year 2026. And for our next pregame preview, which I think is going to happen

in the next paper review, or paper view, the next numbered event is 327, so that's April 11th. You know, that week, the week of April 11th, we'll be back in studios, in New York City, drinking Cuervo, getting you guys ready for the UFC numbered events. It'll be a great time. So welcome back, Cuervo, happy to have you.

Let's do it. All right. Very good. Topic number three, Chuck, we don't have to spend a ton of time on this. We can make this very, very quick, but we've got to talk about that UFC 326 preliminary car. First of all, just a really weird card. Now, it did end up that the second two fights on the UFC CBS portion of the card ended up being the last two that we discussed, the Robocop and Bruno Faheda fight,

as well as the Michael Johnson and Drew Dover fight. Fair enough. But it started out with some Basura all the way up until, I don't know what you would say. Chuck, what did you make of the fact that the two fights, which one of it was the Cody Garbrandt and shall long fight, what we'll talk about because that was just, I mean, a disaster. But the first fight was kind of dreadful, this fight here with Dante Johnson and Cody

Brundage, and then the next one was just bizarre, I don't know, your reaction to what we got there. Look at this. Look at this. Oh, my God, man. It's just, I saw you tweeting about this. You know, like, you know, you talk about that first fight.

It just looked like John's, like, when he moves forward, it looks like his hips are coming out of socket or something. It was the visual of that was just so bad. And like the Dack Prescott warm up. Yes, it's like that. But like that's how he just comes forward. There was something really bad about that aesthetic. And then it just looked like neither guy really had it in him to win that fight.

It was a bizarre. Like it could have went either way. But man, it was just not the kind of fight. I sometimes wonder strategically. What are they thinking when they're like, all right, we've got CBS. Do they care anymore? Like, because I felt like at some point, you know, even during the ABC era,

which wasn't that long ago as part of. ESPN. There was some consideration as the fights they were going to show on these things. But to get that fight particularly and to kick it off was not a great visual, man. It just wasn't. And we've been going through a string of bad prelims. And this one felt like just a bad move. I just didn't understand it. And then you get that second fight, man. And to see Cory Garbram just get like it's just you have the guy, what's his name of? long like he's like he's just doing crazy shit right like he's making crazy gestures he doesn't look

stable but then he keeps kicking garbrent and the balls to the point where he's driving into it I mean this visual on TV and is just yes UFC on CBS which is hilarious just bizarre boot I it's been a minute since I've had a fight like that remember when I think it was Dan Lozon fought

King Green back in affliction there was a ton of groin shots that's what it reminded me of like it just every few seconds everybody's like what is going on and you can't figure out why the guy continues to go there. Like that's what it felt like. I mean, Herb Dean had to take two points. Garland won at V unanimous decision, 28, 27 across the board,

never even heard of some shit like that. The fight itself beyond that was just a weird pairing to begin with. Cody looked good defensively. Couldn't get much going offensively. You know, I don't know where he's, I don't know what he's doing in his career at this point. There's a little bit of a cautionary every time he wins, that you're like, we don't worry about as much,

but remember he was getting chenny and we were worried about him a little bit. And so he gets wins and it kind of incentivizes, you know, bigger, better fights and all that sort of thing. And this particular fight, he probably shouldn't have won. So it's like, it's a bizarre, bizarre setting. Here is Cody at the Post-Five press conference reflecting on this weird-ass fight.

When they brought the bucket out, like, did you think that was going to be it? Like, that was going to be the end of the fight? Dude, when you got a crowd cheering USA, USA, you know, you can't bitch out. You know, as painful as it was, I was spinning, throwing up. I didn't know how much time even was left in that round, to say the least. But, you know, I got to get back to my feet and, you know, rally from the crowd. And then, you know, try to knock him out with a Jorge Masadolni.

Didn't, you know, goes that well. But then I got hitting the nuts again. I was like, oh, geez. dude so it was like I was just trying to get my rhythm you know it was just a weird fight you know oh man my mouth was so dry it was I didn't know it was going on it was like a you know high as low highs lows but you know being a veteran being you know experienced and fighting you know even a lot of street plates you know sometimes don't go your way there's you know a lot of cheating things involved in the street so you kind of just got to you know stay calm stay engaged and

you know I looked over at my coaches and they were just you know tell me to calm down because after that I was ready to fucking just stand in the middle and bang you know but they're like hey take you take you. like the win, get the win, stay smart, you know, and I was trying to open up my game plan with that. So, you know, experience played a part on my end, but also my coaches. I'm surprised his voice isn't higher, you know, after that whole thing, you know?

Say it again? I'm surprised his voice isn't higher. Yeah, no kidding. That was just a ridiculously weird-ass fight on that one. Also, you know, the weird-ass fight, I mean, it ended up being a good finish, but the Alberto Montez fight against Ricky Terseos. He gets him with a nice Anaconda.

This was one of the high points from the card. If you ask me, he's got a great setup, Montez does on the anaconda. Did you see Ricky Terseos stomping his fucking feet and yelling him? This was my tweet. Ricky Terseos yelling and stomping his feet at Montes, like he's trying to scare away a bear on a nature hike. It was weird. He was like, ah, ah, ah. And I was, and then Montes was like, who the fuck you're talking to?

You know? Yeah, man. What's the kid that manga? I always slaughter his name. Long Island Luke told me, but the kid from Mongolia looked really good. I'm jargled to mendem barrel. I still got to work on that one.

But he looked good, man. He's kind of fun to watch because he's, it's like all in the scrambles, right? Like every time you're getting a scramble, it's like some wild thing and he ends up on top. So he was fun, man. Anything else in that card that stood out to you of delight? What about Long Island Luke?

he's our pre-lims specialist here. Hidalfo Bellito getting the win or Balado. That ruined a lot of people's nights. You know, we were on the undefeated Luke. Gaff had him in a ton of parlays, you know, to see Balado to get the win there. I mean, whatever. D.R. Nurghazai also got the upset

over the UFC debutante. He looked, he looked pretty good for a South Paul boxer, the Kazakh guy. Not great, but okay. Sumadjerji, Jesus Aguilar was just, like, hilarious to look at it, because Jesus Aguilar looked so tiny next to Sumadurgy. And Sumedurgy had a 10 inch reach advantage.

And it was just like, I feel like if Aguilar just had some reach there, he might have made that a little more competitive. Dude, the prelims were pretty bad. I'm not going to learn. This seems to be recurring. Yeah, they're turning into Bellator prelims. They're straight up.

They're turning into Belator, which, you know, people think that that's like nothing but universal condemnation. And it's not because even the Bellator prelims would have some gems on it. And, you know, the Belator prelims also would just have, human sacrifice up there. Lots of them.

You'd have some guys. Yeah, you'd have the guy who's like 18 and three, some Russian dude you never heard of, versus diggedy donkerson getting up there. And he just gets fucking waxed. He's from the local Danbury Club over here. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So you're like, all right, well, someone's going to die. I mean, I'll watch that. But the rest of it is just drek. This is the problem with the prelim card. It's like, you know, there's some respectable matchups in terms of like, you know, did you get a guy in another bout that these guys are competitive? with one another. Sure, you got plenty of that. But like what you also have are people who just can't do much to one another. Like they don't have the skill to advance an attack. And

you can say, oh, well, couldn't Charles not advance his attack against Max? It's like, okay, yeah, but that's a much further along stage. And that last part is actually quite, quite the most difficult. You know, this is. Especially for like season, like you watch a lot of MMA over the years. And you kind of being a practitioner, like, to an extent and understand, like, there used to be, like, you could point out a mistake. And it was usually some guy would get, so he'd hurt somebody on the feet, right? Somebody's, like, you heard somebody on the feet, laying a couple shots.

And then all of a sudden, rather than trying to finish the fight, you would see them shoot down, grab the waist or grab a leg and put them against the fence. And all of a sudden, there's this 15 second recovering. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You'd see this kind of thing a lot. that used to just kind of be a glaring thing, but these days it just feels like you get a lot of that,

but in a lot of different ways where just people, you're like, wait a minute, why didn't he just, you know, you're yelling out things about like, why aren't you doing this or why aren't you doing this? And I don't know if it's just guys are,

you know, like you said, maybe they don't have the full toolboxes yet, but there is a frustration factor with that. Like watching people who you're like, oh man, this should have been, if you just did this,

the fight's over. you know, and that's kind of going on a lot these days. Yeah, there's a lot of fight IQ issues. There's a lot of, and not even necessarily just that. Like, for example, that Dante Johnson fight, he was, he still, I think undefeated. He was obviously undefeated hitting in and he wins. But what I mean is, like, you know, he's got a lot of finishes on his record. But, you know, he's got less than 10 fights.

He's got less than 10 fights. And they're putting a guy with less than 10 fights on CBS. Like, dude, it's not surprising he can't do much. You know what I mean? Like how many guys are going to be really well-rounded after 10 fights? not very many. So, you know, partly it's also putting some of these guys in positions that maybe they're not quite ready for, you know, it's not even a, it does seem that way.

It does seem that way. All right. Let's talk about some of the big news beyond UFC 326 that started yesterday, or I should say on Saturday night. So we finally, finally, finally, we got the revelation of what was going to be on the UFC White House card, which, by the way, they're calling he-haw, UFC Freedom 250, UFC Freedom Fights, 250. definitely the worst name imaginable for this card.

Just call it UFC White House for fuck's sake. I know. All right. Here's the lineup. Ilya is going to be unifying the title against Justin Gaiti, or we'll be unifying together, obviously. Poetan moving up to heavyweight to take on Cyril Gondis will be for the interim UFC Heavyweight Championship.

Then down the line, Sean O'Malley versus Amin Zahabi, Maricio Hoofi, taking on Michael Chandler, Bo Nickle versus Kyle Dawkes, and then the card will open, or the event will open anyway, with Diego Lopez. versus Steve Garcia. And again, they are called UFC Freedom 250. All right. You're not going to do that.

I mean, UFC White House, fine. That makes a lot of sense. UFC Freedom 250? Dude, that sounds like something that, like, MMA Freedom 250 is something that sounds like happens in Alabama at a county fair. It totally does, man. Doesn't it?

Yeah. Come to Wild Steve's bail bonds and get a ticket for down the line, freedom 250 fights. You'll get corn dogs and fuckling. It's like, okay. Well, at least they didn't go with the 80th birthday. I think at least that didn't make its way into the theme. Come to Trump's birthday, which this also is.

All right, but putting that aside for just a second, let's talk about this. Simple question for you. Does this card live up to the hype? Charles, what do you think? It does not. And I'll tell you because, the first six fights that you mentioned on that,

if you go down that list, all feel like you're getting, you just mentioned this about boxing. You want fighter X versus Y, you're getting X versus Z, right? And I feel like this is what happened with this card, is all the potential matchups and a lot of the, you know,

a lot of the conversations that were being had about, even if they weren't going to end up on this card that you wanted to see this fighter versus this fighter, didn't happen. I mean, you could go down that card and you know Justin Gachie that's a fine you got to kind of do that one right because Justin Gachie you you've already made

the error of giving him the interim title fight he wins that this is the natural thing you've got to do but I think if you looked at you know the hardcore base like where's Aramon why you know this is the fight that would actually make the most sense in the entire in terms of that sort of thing

you get there's no John Jones on the card this was the speculation for a long time and you're thinking Alex Pereira he's moving up that's probably going to be the fight. That's not the fight. You're getting Cyril Gahn, who seems to be just the ultimate band-aid for the UFC, who they plug into every major fight that we don't get.

With the heavyweight division, they plug Cyril Gond into that. So you get him, you know, Michael Chandler was going to be fighting. Connor McGregor, obviously Michael Chandler, Connor's not there. He's probably fighting a couple weeks later,

but you got Michael Chandler on the card against Hoofee, which is just kind of at a left field in my mind. And actually a really sad sort of, of, you know, like, yeah, that seems like a sad, you know, fight to contemplate. I don't know if that ends well for Chandler. And it kind of goes down. O'Malley, I was, you're thinking maybe he's going right back to fight Peter Yon. He's not fighting him.

It just every one of those cards feels like we got a little bit something different than, you know, what would have been optimal. And in that situation, yeah, it's a little bit of a letdown, but just not having like, I saw people basically saying, like, this is basically a very good numbered card. or like a pay-per-view but it wouldn't be it doesn't kind of fit that mold of what you've been building up for all these months which is this historic card the best you know the best card in history and all the stuff i think it falls well short of that man what about you this is the ultimate i asked for steak they brought me jello right you know i'll just right jello i guess i mean let's be clear about this

the main event i don't if you're asking me is ilio to poria versus Justin Gachie, is that going to be a fun fight for as long as it lasts? I'd be shocked if it wasn't, Chuck. Right. So I don't, and you're unifying the title. So there's some cleanliness of the whole thing. Fine. Like, it's not the one that I wanted, but I recognize there's some value there.

To me, the most intriguing fight on the whole card by a million miles is the co-main event. Poetan, going up to heavyweight. Yes, it's for an interim title. Yes, it's against Cyril gone. But honestly, Chuck, if you think about it, Poetton versus Gone, that's a fun-ass fight. It is. Like there's plenty of reason to think that that fight is going to be a really, really good time. And of course, there's history on the line with Poetan as well.

Also, just should go to show, like, you know, Islam, you could put in this conversation, he's not on this card. But Ilya, Islam Makachev, Alex Pereira, these are the saviors of the UFC. Like, these are the guys that the UFC calls when they need to make sure that they've got some reliable fucking quality on their card. And so for me, while the main event is not what I would prefer, I recognize it'll be a lot of fun. And I actually legitimately do like that co-main event. But I think everything after that, I think people are lying to themselves if they say that it's good.

First of all, Corey Sanhagen was campaigning to get the Sean O'Malley fight. You telling me that the Iman's a hobby fight versus Sean O'Malley has the same kind of sizzle and excitement. As this one, like, no, if I'm ins a hobby has put himself in a position to get a good fight. sure and i don't deny that but it does not have the same level of appeal bro they're going to straight up execute michael samler yeah there's only six fights on there you know it's like like you think they'd be able to put together the some a couple of those that aren't left field that one felt so left field to me same with the diego lopez one but anyway yes what you go ahead long i want to just devil's devil's advocate guys i feel like this card isn't that bad like being realistic for a second

sure are there better fights yeah ilia versus islam would have been a better fight yeah poeton versus john would have been a better fight too sure but there that wouldn't have probably been the main event just being realistic at the same time like you had an interim champion at lightweight and you have the undisputed champion at lightweight that is the inevitable next fight as much as none of us want to see it that's that makes the most sense then you got poiton moving up the champion can't go he just had eye surgery so you get the next guy who just yeah i'm not complaining about that one that's one I like. That makes perfect sense. O'Malley, sure, should have been either Yon or should have been Corey. The Corey is just, I don't know what the fuck they were thinking there, but at the time,

it's still a top 10 matchup. You can't really bitch about it. You definitely can bitch about it. You can't come here on Monday, Long Island and be like, oh, if people aren't fighting in a certain way, the BMF belt is a problem and then be like, oh, this is a ranked fight. No, my argument is, Yes, we can. My argument isn't that people are fighting a certain way. The BMF is a problem. My argument is the BMF was stupid to begin with because we're putting these expectations on it,

like people being like, well, that wasn't a BMF fight. That's why it's a stupid fucking thing to begin with. My point with the White House card is all fucking six of these, besides maybe Bo, Nicol, Kyle Dawkes, I'll give them that. All six of these could headline a UFC card and no one would really bat an eye. Whether it's Apex Fight Night on the road,

obviously not all of them could headline a pay-per-view because they're not title fights, but you know what I mean. But that's an indictment of the UFC product. Yeah. I don't, like, O'Malley's a hobby is just random as fuck. But, like, you know, you can't tell me whofe versus Chandler isn't going to be, like, fun until Chandler gets murked in the second round or something.

Yeah, which is fine. I mean, there's, you know, watching a guy, you're going to watch the T-Rex feed. Okay. And Steve Garcia, Diego Lopez, that I'm calling right now, that'll be fight of the night. It's not that I look at these. And, by the way, I like Kyle Dawkes. Dude, Kyle Dawkes got bouncing organization and came back and has been great. He's earned himself a good opportunity.

And same with Iman Zahabia. I'm as a hobby. It has put together enough wins. Yeah. Where he's earned himself a lot of opportunity. But like one more time, who was asking for those matchups? That's what I want everyone to understand.

There is what the fan base organically decides is important to them. Sometimes that dovetails within the architecture itself. What I mean by that is rankings or title shots, right? So sometimes it matches that. Sometimes it doesn't. But like put the matchups one more time on the screen, Long Island. So again, first one, you're right. Again, I don't have, I honestly, I'm not.

not complaining about the main and co-main. I'm really not. Like the main, I think should be a different one, but I will take it. And certainly I think the co-main event to me is by far the most interesting one on the entire card. Not a single one of those was requested by anybody else. No, you're right. Nothing. Nothing. No one was filling up the fucking message boards saying O'Malley's a hobby. No one was saying Hoofie Chandler. No one was saying nickel Dawkins and no one, that's weird, was saying Lopez Garcia. And that is my fucking point. people will just get a card and now they're just going to say,

well, it makes sense for these other reasons. Fans, does it make sense for you? That's what I'm asking. That is the big difference. I think Amon Zahabee was calling for the O'Malley fight. Fair enough. They like jello out there on Long Island, though. Chuck, we have the finest steakhouses here.

This is New York, baby. I know, man. But that's just the random nature of some of that matchmaking. it seems so arbitrary like for a White House card where there was so many possibilities that seemed a little bit weird it seemed off to me all right let's talk about the elephant in the room john jones did not make the cut on this one and it was kind of some weird speculation now dana white Dana white says uh you know what let's actually let's hear from dana because dana says that hey i'll just talk about john jones being on the card not true let's react to

what dana has to say you don't want to say what fight fell out which is fair enough but there is obviously. Well, there's weird circumstances around it that we probably shouldn't talk about. Okay. There is speculation, of course, that it's John Jones. No, it's not. Was John... Ever, ever, ever, which I told you guys 100,000 times was John Jones even remotely in

my mind to fight at the White House? I wouldn't... First of all, I've told you why he wouldn't. I wouldn't do it. And number two, some guy with, you know, meta-glasses on, filmed him talking about his hips, that his hips are so bad. And I don't know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. John Jones is, he retired because of his hips.

He's got arthritis in his hips. Apparently he's been, you know, doctors say he should have hip replacement. So. Okay. For that, that on top of all the other reasons that I wouldn't. The John Jones thing is bullshit. I'm not saying they weren't talking to John Jones and that John Jones wasn't interested in the fight. And it was even crazier is John Jones came out and was like,

I'm in negotiations right now for the White House fight after an eye had already sent a text to his lawyer saying, never going to happen ever. Is it fair to say that John Jones is retired and this is the end of his time? Yes. Your reaction, Chuck? Well, I mean, on fairly good authority, I know that they were at least negotiating, right? We both know Ariel, you still work with.

him. Like when Ariel, this is the thing. It's like, you know, some people love Ariel. Some people don't. Forget it. If he is out there in the media saying it's what he's hearing, I am telling you he is hearing it from an authoritative source. Yeah. So, I mean, just knowing that, you have to take with a grain of salt what Dana is saying, right? Like you're saying, Dana's saying something else. I don't know why he's kind of taking the stack. I do think that it's such a, it was a glaring omission in my mind. You know, you have a guy who, and I know I've heard about this arthritic hip and everything that's going on. But John Jones was actively

lobbying, and I mean to the point where it's almost unbecoming, right, like where he's kind of almost begging on these platforms, Dana, forget, like, let me be on the show. And I think there was a, like when you're mentioning the fans kind of want, if you're going to have a splash, as much, you could hate

John Jones at this point, you can love him, whatever the case is. He's still John Jones, putting him on this card, felt like a no-brainer to me. The fact that they didn't get it, and then to have that reaction, again, it just seems out a lockstep with the perception. It's the old UFC, I don't feel like really operated this way. You know, and I'm talking about the Fertita run UFC.

It felt like what the fans kind of wanted is what they really zeroed in on. And these days, I'm not sure. Like, you just kind of laid it out. I'm not sure that they really take that into consideration. And the whole John Jones thing, it's being handled very strangely now. I don't know. We probably have clips. I don't know.

but you've probably at least seen some of John Jones's now deleted tweets and all that stuff. It's such a weird thing, you know, for a card that you, you know, there's going to be disappointment of, it doesn't meet the standards of excellence that you said it was going to do. And then to go into this with John Jones, a very strange look, man. Dude, I'll say this. Like, you know, John Jones being upset that the sport didn't do him one last favor to me is extremely funny. and I agree with this. You know, it's like, it's like, buddy, you know, you've had nine lives in this sport and, you know, the fact that you were even consideration for this.

He's, he leads the league in entitlement. I will say that he's always, it's insane. It's completely insane. However, I will say this in his defense. The one thing I can say for John is that when he makes an argument about what he's entitled to for money, I don't know about like in every case, but for the most of the public advocacy he's done for him. himself. I remember wanting Deontay Wilder money, for example. He's been right. He's been right. John has been, if anything, underpaid in his career, and I recognize that. And so I don't know what ultimately was the stumbling block. Ariel had reported that it was not the 30 million figure from

before. John wasn't necessarily asking for that, but that they couldn't get to the figure he was, he was arguing. And I just want to be clear about something. This is part of the reason why these fights just kind of blow my mind a little bit. Everyone needs to wrap their head around and never forget that their monetarily is not a single fight you can think of that is out of reach for this organization. They can afford all of it, any of it. It doesn't matter. There's no price tag that they can't meet. Now, I'm not saying that they should meet every price tag that's hung out in front of them, of course, that'd be silly. But within the constraints, Chuck, of how the market tends to work, even at the high end of this, there is nothing that financially,

this organization cannot afford literally nothing and when these fights show up and at some of these names you see it's like dude in long island this is my problem are some of these fights going to be fun hell maybe all of these fights are fun maybe when this night is over you're like dude that was that was that delivered the excitement that i wanted maybe not the star power whatever but the excitement it delivered but the reality is also you cannot look at a card like this and say well they rolled out the big dollars, didn't they? They clearly fucking didn't. I agree with you and yeah, obviously these are not the best

matchups they can make and to that point, you are correct. My argument was just, I think everyone was expecting like the best card ever and I'm just saying, if you take that away and you put like no expectation on it, it's a pretty damn good pay-per-view. I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, they put a big expectation on it though.

I mean, they were like, true, true. I mean, it is. They were hammering. The United States was hyping it off. You know what I mean? And also, also I'll see this truck very quickly. old Trump didn't do UFC any favors he was like I was going to be like eight or nine title fights on this you know what I mean I know man

that's a that's appropriate use of that there is a little bit too and I know this is the kind of leads into the last thing we'll be talking about but if you look at in this Paramount Plus era of 2006 so far each kind of main the big

fights has been somewhat of a letdown right because when they first announced like Gachi and Patty. There was a lot of talk of where's Arm on? Wasn't like his fight that happened like six weeks prior or whatever it was. Wasn't that being dangled as the number one consider fight? He won his fight. Like what's happening with him?

You get Vulcan Diego Lopez and people are like, why are we doing this again? And we talked about this ad nauseum around that fight. And now you kind of get, you know, you get this BMF title, which, you know, I'm not sure people were pining for it, but it was okay in one sense. but there was nothing around it. And then you get basically a card that's being dangled, that's supposedly the vortex that's holding everything up, that's going to be this enormous card.

And you can't figure out any other part of the schedule until you have this set. And it meets a little bit with a thud, you know. And I think that that's just so far in 2006 in this new era, it just seems like it's par for the course. Each one of these cards is underwhelming its fan base. By the way, a bunch of heavy chalk on this car, too, according to our friends at Draft Kings, Toporia minus 455.

Wow. Poetan gone. This is what I was saying. Poetan gone is the best fight on this fuck. At least best fight, I don't know. Most intriguing fight on this card for sure. Poetan minus 135 gone plus 114. That's a great, great line.

O'Malley minus 345. Hoofie minus 380. Nickel nearly a minus 200 in Lopez minus 205. You know. By the way, not for, man. Michael Chandler waits all these years and they're like, we're going to feed you to a buzzsaw at the White House.

It's like you wanted to fight. Great news. Great news, Mike. We're going to put you on the White House. Yay. Bad news. You have to fight Shang Sung from Mortal Kombat. And he's going to take your soul.

Pretty much. And that'll be that. So I think in the end, Chuck, when the night is over, there is a, who knows if it holds together and what that might mean, too, by the way. But I think when it's all over, you're probably going to get some really fun fights. I don't think that there's going to be a problem necessarily with that. I love the six-fight thing, too. It's like, you know, I'm all- Yeah, it's kind of snappy too, right? So they don't have to worry too much on that end,

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Topic number five here. And Chuck, we could have talked about Jayopatai at Zufa boxing, but I didn't really care. So we're going to talk about something a little bit different, which is I have never seen since the ultimate fighter boom, maybe. I don't know if I've ever seen the fan base

this disaffected. We're not even three months into the Paramount deal, and the disappointment, the disaffection, whatever you would like to call it to me, is the highest I've seen it in a very long time, maybe even as much since the launch of the ultimate fighter, to be perfectly honest with you. There are questions not merely about the costs of being a fan,

not so much now whether they've removed the paywalls for pay-per-views, but in terms of just attending and what that can end up being. But there's real concerns about the quality of the product. Now, Chuck, I'm not here to yet. I want to hear what you have to say first. Just describe the malaise that's out there, but it's a bigger question.

Is there something wrong with MMA? is there something wrong with the UFC? And do you sense that there is a malaise or disaffection with a fan base that feels especially heightened right now? I do sense that. And I think a lot of people are pretty vocal about it. You know, you see it quite a bit. And not just from, I mean, I have plenty of people who are hardcore fans or like media. You'll hear about some burnout issues.

But it's also coming from people who are just enthusiastic about it, who are influencer types or whatever. Like they just have, they've commented, right? Like you see a lot of comments these days about the product, just not being the same. I don't know exactly why it is because we've had the same issues in the sport for a long time, no off season, just the, you know, the crush of the schedule alone can wear you down. But it does seem like it's turned a strange corner in this new era. And sometimes it becomes more glaring when you get like under like maybe something like a new, you know, broadcasting partner.

I worried a little bit when you remove the price point of like, you know, like you remove a pay-per-view model. Do you, does the fan base suffer that weird kind of syndrome where you're like, I'm not, you know, I'm not paying for my event. I'm not getting the same value. So somehow they devalue what they're watching because they're not paying for it. There might be a slight, you know, some of that in play. But it's also that Paramount Plus was an existing, you know, streaming. service. It had content already. When the UFC went to ESPN Plus, it was part of a flagship launch. Basically, they were going to go in there and kind of be the initial, you know, Trojan

horse to break it through and everything was going to fall around that, which they did a great job of. It's just a little bit more woodwork this time, right? Like they go into it and it's like, you know, they're just kind of fitting in as part of the programming. They've done a good job with the push of it. But it's just it hasn't had the same big feel that we, that we've seen. seeing when the UFC interest partnerships with other broadcast, you know, place. It's like, there's a little bit of that, man, but I think it also comes down to what you mentioned, like what we've been talking about, these cards themselves, you know, these prelims that we're just constantly like, wow, that was pretty bad.

There's probably a lot of people on roster at this point that shouldn't be on the UFC roster. You know what I mean? Like, I think you're watching a lot of bad MMA. And that used to be kind of more relegated to the other leagues. That wasn't the UFC. And unfortunately, I think the UFC's kind of. of dealing with that now. Long Island, where are you on this question?

As somebody who watches an enormous amount of MMA? I don't know if I'm the right person to ask about this. I mean, no, every every, I love it. I'm not looking for, I'm not looking for consensus. I'm looking for your answer. I'm saying all right, clearly since like the Fox era, even the ESP, no,

I'll say since the Fox era. There's been a clear drop off of just quality of cards in general. Like we used to get, you look back at some of these cards and like, sure, you don't know these guys are going to pan out to be champions, but you look back at some like old fight nights and you're like damn they had uh chevchenko on the curtain jerker you know like it's like it's crazy to look back at nowadays you're just not getting that shit i always like look at a mid fight and i'll be like yeah that's probably going to be comane on an apex card you know

look it i don't know if you guys have even dove into this weekend's card but the bout order is one of the weirdest i've ever seen mcta beck or by chris curtis which was on my top five most anticipated fun ass fight outside of main and co-mains luke you know you did that the mains are coming, but yeah. But anyways, dude, they're burying that shit on the prelims. And they have a six-fight main with like Harry Hardwick versus fucking some Aussie who's debuting, who didn't look that good on Contender Series, by the way. Like, what the fuck is it?

Why is that there and you're burying this? Are they going the PFL route where we're just going to like mix in, sprinkle in? PFL almost, you look at it. The second fight of the night is like Rob Wilkinson versus Impa Kasaginai and you're like, wait, aren't those like two of your biggest stars? Why are they on the second fight of the night? I feel like in the Paramount era, UFC's kind of thinking like that. Like, let's just sprinkle in good fights throughout the card and make it majority of its shit,

especially the main card look like shit. And as a result, you're no longer backloading the main card, you know? So to answer your question, yes, it's getting a little stale, but, you know, I'm still rolling with the punches, no pun intended. Yeah, I mean, there's still plenty of good things to look forward to. It's not an either or kind of question. it's just for me, Chuck, you know, I'm old and jaded all the time. It's not new for me to feel this way, but it is new for me to see it so ubiquitously on my timeline or, you know, folks talking to me about it or just some kind of way of interfacing it with the fans. And then hearing, you know, criticisms that I didn't used to hear.

I used to get resistance. I'd be like, oh, I've got some problems with the product. And be like, no, it's great. And now I don't face that kind of resistance. Now there's a lot more people being willing to kind of accept it. And part of it's unfair, right? Because part of it is coming off the heels of this Oliva and Holloway fight, which was not

up to the keeping of the branding, but was not an objectively bad fight by any stretch. It just didn't, you know, it didn't live up to the branding. But I think for me, the one thing I'm going to leave everyone with here on this question is, you know, I just see all of these like Wall Street types talking about, like, oh, the value of getting in on TKO and they talk about, you know, what the various aspects of the business that gives them some confidence for its future. And I don't even necessarily think that what they are talking about is wrong,

but there's two problems with it in the sense of what we're talking about. Namely, one, it never, ever, ever delves into product quality. It always delves into product ubiquity and control in markets, right? So there's never a question of like, you know, are they producing something of value? the question is there's no one else to do it. It's kind of the big one. And I think the other one is they just don't see the malaise that is brewing at the bottom of the totem pole here. And maybe it goes nowhere.

Maybe it's a little bit of, you know, there's too much overrepresentation in this opinion based on what you see on social media. There can be a lot of these things. But I just know, you know, Chuck, you have conversations with people behind the scenes too. Those conversations are much more candid than even the one we're having now. At least they've been in my experience. and the reality that I think people need to accept is you've got a weird kind of moneyball thing happening. Chuck, I don't know if you know this. Do you know who Mark Shapiro is before he got into TKO?

No, not really, not really. He was the guy, and this was a bigger story here, obviously, than it was probably anywhere else in the country. But he was the guy that Dan Snyder, the former owner of the then Washington Rescans slash football team slash commanders, Dan Snyder put him in charge to fix Six Flags. That was what he did. And if you actually look at Mark Shapiro's business record on that, in general, it was pretty good. He couldn't actually fix the debt problem that Six Flags had. And he did make one really critical error that fucked things up. But he actually did a lot of really, really good things and increased revenue. But this is my point. This is not a fight guy. He can go

to a thousand fights. He'll never be a fight guy. Dana White could skip fights the rest of his life and will always be a fight guy. And there is a difference between them. And the thing that I want people to understand is you've got private equity who are making decisions about how to arrange their product where what the fan wants and what they actually need. These are not primary questions. The primary questions are how do we deliver for our media partners in various markets? What are ways in which we can get, you know, different governments to pay us money and these financial incentive packages? That's what they're calling them now. You know,

what are the ways we can meet shareholder value, right? It's all of these questions, but the questions of like, what is actually happening to the product, they come second.

And I know what everyone's going to say, they're going to say, well, eventually that will catch up with you. Sure, but it's a monopoly, which means that by the time it takes them to catch up for it, it's going to take forever.

It'll take forever. And there could be, you know, an enormous amount of damage that's already done by that point. And so this is why we started the whole show, Chuck, being like,

oh, well, it's good for Francis. It's good for Netflix. Fine. What do y'all want? Right. We need someone who does that because you were so right, Chuck. It felt like back in the day, the fans would be like, we want Randy Couture versus blah,

and they would just find a way to make it. And now that just doesn't seem to happen. Yeah. There was like, you know, you mentioned all of this, and that was the key difference, right? Like in the Pretita era, there was a familial field that they built. it wasn't just within the matchmaking itself, although that was a huge component, but it felt like if you were speaking on stuff,

they listened. They wanted to, they wanted fan input. They were very finger on the pulse that way. They were not tuned out to what these needs were. And a lot of times, you remember, man, they would just be going into new markets.

Hey, we're going to go to Denver or we're going to go to wherever it was. And they would mention these places and there was huge excitement because people had been wanting to go there. This had nothing to do with them being paid. paid, you know what I mean? Like it is these days,

it had less to do with that than just meeting the demand of what people wanted. And I feel like that that's how they built their hardcore base and just this passion for the sport up. But it started to, the UFC benefited, I think, from the, from the pandemic in the end, because obviously they were able to keep rolling fights. This may have started way earlier, as what I was going to say. It may have started way earlier because once the sale of the UFC, put it in different hands, like you said. The people sometimes making decisions these days don't consider the fan elements of it.

It probably shows up earlier, but the pandemic actually turned a lot of new fans onto the sport because it was going. The gambling era kind of coincides within that, like where it's like legalized gambling in a lot of states brought a lot of more eyeballs onto it. So I think it was able to kind of grow in spite of these things. but now you're getting to the point where maybe some of this starts to catch up. And I mean, honestly, the biggest,

the thing that we're seeing when we're talking about talking to fellow fans or you're like talking to media is that they just don't feel listened to, man. Like that's what it comes down to the thing that they wanted most to see in the sport that felt within the grasp of the UFC to get, they're no longer doing. And I think that that's like, that's tough to take when it becomes just a pattern

where it's just, okay, now we're getting, we're settling for whatever plan A, or, you know, with plan A in the fan base of mind becomes plan B and then plan C and we're accepting it again and again. And that is the problem. I remember when Dana would be like, hey, we're, you know, our blueprint is the opposite of what boxing does. And he would talk about how you never got the fights you wanted and every guy would dance around the other guy. And it's like, yeah, Justin Gagethe's only fighting on this White House lawn because they just gerrymandered it in.

Like there's no reason that should be happening at all. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's a pretty clear example. of that. All right. With that out of the way, those are our top five topics. It's now time for you guys to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs.

That's what Kyle Bahaliyo sounded like adjusting his cup. All right. Question number one, let's go here. From Eric Bolden, how would you describe the start to the Paramount Arrow so far compared, compared, so this is a different question, compared to the start

on spike, compared to the start on Fox and compared to the start on ESPN. Is this the most unimaginative era of all time thus far in terms of matchmaking? So Chuck, when they started out on Fox and everything else, what kind of vibe did you get? The Fox was interesting, right? Because they threw that extra, again, it was like,

hey, we're gonna give you guys something. We're gonna kick it off. This is for you, the fans. Let's do Velazquez versus Dos Santos. Remember that felt like a big deal. It was a one hour, one hour block. You had guys like, what's his name? Minifee, right?

Was that his name? Kurt Minofi, yeah, Kurt Minofi. Like you had like, you had like, You were like, oh, my God, this is a huge crossover moment into the broader world of sports. So that one felt very big. And when they finally got to the real portion of the Fox era, it shook out in a way that was like the least desirable title. Like, for instance, Demetrius Johnson seemed to be on a lot of those, right? Like, there were still title fights and they were kind of put on there.

But there was still like a, there was an excitement in here to it because they've been trying to get on, you know, like these types of like they wanted this kind of deal for a long time and now they were on it like it was more of a crossover thing i felt like the ESPN one is more like this right the only difference was that ESPN um they were launching their ESPN plus and so it felt like this was more about that than anything else but like the fight the matchmaking itself luke you tell me if i'm wrong i felt like it was similar i didn't really feel like they were they were doing anything extraordinary for the beginning or even through the ESPN era. Like I felt like they were just kind of going about business as usual at that point.

Well, and also remember, the first card was the T.J. Dillishaw and Henry Sehudo card, where T.J. eventually would pop later. Exactly. So they had some complications at the beginning of the co-Made. I was just going to say the co-main event was Alan Crowder and Greg Hardy. I think it's safe to say the matchmaking was still pretty terrible. Right. And Ostevich was on that card too, like on the main card.

That was a whole thing. It was like a weird thing, man. It was like bizarre too. So a lot of what they've been dealing with, it extends back to the espion era. Yeah, the thing that people, I've just, I've seen people complain, oh, it's the Paramount era.

It's really not. Now, maybe the taking off of pay-per-view will change and has changed some of the calculus. But to the point you raised, Chuck, these forces have been in motion for some time, you know, since 2016 in some certain ways. Maybe they were slow to roll some of these changes out, but not now.

Now it's, they're fully, baked in to how the product is and going back to like the spike era it was just like for anybody that held that like that illegitimacy of like I just want my sport to kind of grew up and be like the other sports that's what that felt like right

like when it was kind of it was like everybody was just so excited that it was showing up in a bigger way than it had been because from where it came from at that point it was fueled for the early odds just on people's passion that's it there was no other way to do it also the Fox era had

some issues too because that was the first time the product product really began to scale. You know, they really began to do like a bunch of fight nights and a bunch of extra stuff. That's when the product grew and grew and grew. So that had that had an oversaturation challenge as well. All right. Question number two. From romping Bronco, that's your neck of the woods right at that airport. How does the White House card build up slash reveal compared to that of the sphere card?

Also, is Michael Chandler the most talented fighter at failing upwards? is UFC history. I mean, Michael Chandler did a lot for the brand and they kind of owed him a big one, but I realized they're giving them a buzzsaw. Put the question up one more time. What is this in terms of the reveal compared to that of the sphere card? What do you think, Chuck?

The sphere card was a big deal, but more, I guess, I mean, the White House being what it is, the venue itself is kind of the star of the show. The sphere was that, you know, but I don't think that we were expecting, because this was also a Riyadh season, also spent you know a Mexican independence day like there was a weird concoction of ideas going into this card so I felt like they were going to they did a specific amount I forget how many

fights were on that card it was it was it was less than usual but I felt like it was they managed it they managed expectations on that way differently than they did this right like because I feel like this one they were just like you said didn't hope that Trump was out there saying there's going to be seven title fights and all of that stuff. But the expectations were just set so high on this card. It would be more akin to UFC 300, like when people are like, what's going to happen with this card, right? It was more like that to me.

Yeah. Well, people are like, oh, well, you know, like what else did you expect from them? And I'd be like, surprises. Yeah, that's true. Like helping the ante, not using the existing resources you have in a reshuffled way, although that inevitably will be part of it. But the part of it is like, oh, we're going to have a special venue. Well, then you need to have special attractions, right?

I mean, and it's a, you know, 250th anniversary. You know, it's like all these things, the 80th birthday of the president. You're like, okay, you have all of this on top of it, right? Like, and they've just made such a ceremony of every time the, you know, presidents at one of the events, they do a walk out with kid rock and all this shit. Oh, believe me, I know. You've seen that? So they like they, you know, they're doing all that.

So just given all of the ceremony. of the buildup in general like you know it needed to it needed to be something very special to really appease the appetite that they'd set up there all right next from connor underscore maylie any reason that you know if that san hagen didn't get the call for the omalley fight i thought that was one was a certainty tim welch was saying hey we just take the fights that are offered to us yeah i know cori sanhagan has expressed like what the fuck how expensive could it have been to get him on there. I don't know. I don't have a good answer for this one, Chuck. I don't either, man. I have not talked to the camp.

I will say that Corey is like, he's a fan of yours. He watches this show. And the last time I talked to him, he talked a lot about you, Luke and stuff. But he is, uh, well, I mean, that's, that's legit. He did do that. But I haven't actually talked to him, but he's one of those guys. He's so down to earth he could text them and I'm sure he would tell you exactly what's going on. You know what I mean?

Yeah. That one broke my heart a little bit because I was like, that felt accessible to me, you know? Yeah, man. I mean, they've kind of like the same thing. They've been chirping and I think in San Hagen's mind especially, like, you know, that's a fight he's won for a long time. I thought it was when in Grasped to get it. I have no idea what's going on there.

Yeah, maybe do I. All right, next. From Lord Page, this is not my lord. Can we start speculating on McGregor's opponent? Surely Olivera is out of the running as Connor don't want that. If it won't be, it won't be Nat Diaz. I mean, I don't think of Nat Turner. Nate Diaz.

will it be a striker who can talk like Holloway or Hooker or is it going to be Patty? Patty, I could see Chuck. I honestly, how do you not do Nate Diaz? I think that's the one, man. I think that's the one, but we're falling into the same trap of saying, like, from a logical and a fan perspective, well, you got to do that trilogy, right? Like, that's the one you've dangled. Like, it broke records back in the day.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's one of those things that you've got to have closure to. And then we'll get something else because the UFC doesn't really prioritize that. This could shape up like that because I don't know how Nate like serious, like in terms of dealing with Nate at this juncture of his career, I don't know how easy that is. Like you mentioned, they can pay anybody any amount to make something happen. But Nate's been a little disgruntled this way too. I'm not sure he's just going to cave in for whatever they all, you know, for peanuts. He'll probably want to be paid.

You see his tweet about the main event? Yes, I did. that was hilarious that didn't help things instead of bmf he wrote boring motherfuckers i was like all right that's a best part was he originally posted it just as normal no capitalization but then he was like oh wait they won't know i'm talking about the bmf so he went back and fixed it to like capital you know oh i said yeah well it worked you knew what he was doing it went viral

it worked uh and i think we have one more from frankfurter sixty seven has something changed with ufc contracts and allowances to compete outside UFC. Seeing Arm and wrestling for another organization and generating a lot of buzz would have never happened even a few years ago. Yes, it would have. There were lots of times where, for example,

they would do MetaMoros. MetaMorris used to get a lot of people's attention, and Rory McDonald competed on that while he was working for UFC or, you know, the reality is, Chuck, these outside, like smaller composite sport events, like UFC BJJ or Metamorris or RAAF or, you know, some of those are old. old and some of those are new. But those are now slightly bigger than they used to be. And so the response you can get is bigger. But all of that is there is language in UFC contracts. They are your sole promoter for all of combat sports. So you can't do anything else without their permission. However, I think they realize Armand's going to go ham either in the training room or somewhere else. You might as well have him just go do the other shit. The biggest difference, like you're right. Guys have been doing something like this for a long time. But the biggest difference is that REF actually

has pretty good spotlight on them. And they've had enough UFC fighters come through now where people are paying attention as a crossover thing. I think Marab has signed up for one coming up. I mean, so they've done a good job of, you know, figuring that out. But the fighters themselves seem to seem to dig, you know, dipping their toe in that.

I rarely am like, oh, I got to go see a show. I want to in person. It would be funny. Yeah. Yeah. Have you been to one? I have not been to one. For the very first one, though, I talked to like,

is his name, Chadd. Bronstine and like some of the like some of the brass about their vision and they've upheld everything they said they're going to do it and then some like you know a lot of times you hear there are blow hards in this industry all the time they start something up they're unable to kind of follow through on what they're trying to do but these guys have done everything and like you know times 10 they just keep going so good for them man yeah it would be fun to go check one out though it would be fun it looks like a cool atmosphere yeah all right there you have it there is that one as well anything else I think that's it right All right. Yeah, that's it. All right. Nat, we haven't done this one in a little while. Let me pull this up here. Let's go to fan subs.

Let's do it. You've got mail. Viewers. The dulcet tones of one Gaffney, Pierre. I just want to remind everyone, we are doing a meme contest for the month. Winner gets the autographed poster so you could send them in anytime every fan sub we're showing today is eligible for the running. but anyone you send in between now and Sunday, March 29th, will reveal the winner Monday, March 30th.

You get a free signed poster, Morning Kombat at Gmail.com. Morningcombat at Gmail.com is going to be the place to get those in. All right, let's go number one. This is from John McLean. He says, I'm coming for that signed poster. Here is Luke, when someone invites him to attend a football game. I don't get it. Just like you're not interested, I guess.

Not interested. Oh, you mean like an NFL game? Yeah, NFL, he's talking about it. Yeah, yeah, come on. This is America, Lou. Yeah, I mean, I'd rather just, I'd rather just die than go to an NFL game. All right. There's three photos.

Hate Burke Kreischer, hate cake lady, decisions, decisions, yes. This is indeed a very difficult choice. This is good. I like this one better. And then last one, at least, B.C. From CBS watching an episode of MK. True. No, dude, he texts me.

text me. He loves, he still watches the show. He loves it. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. I mean, I can't speak for him, but I'm pretty sure, like, he can't wait to come back and guest host. Like, don't worry. He's, he's still all bored with it. That's pretty funny. It says two videos, though. Long Island Luke, five minutes before going live on MK. Oh, hell yes. This is completely inaccurate because I don't own a van. Everything else, though. True to light. All right. That's good. All right. I like that one. Oh, and then wait. You got to read the message for the next one before. Oh, the second one. Long Island, Luke, you did an awesome job.

co-hosting. Here's my favorite segment of the show. Is this AI? Yeah, no, Luke, I just passed you a joint virtually. I'm like, what the fuck is this? My face gets super weird when I turn. That looks nothing like me. It's fucking weird as own. Luke's face morphs a little bit there, too.

Yeah, yeah. Mine's, you know what? AI on occasion. I mean, I'm glad that some trees in the rainforest had to die for that video, but that was pretty good. All right. We got a couple of memes here from Tanner B. Hey, Luke.

If you're going to be nixing a couple of tats and aren't quite sure what you even like these days, why not slap something on your body that you're truly passionate about? Something that when you experience it, it makes you go, holy fuck, who are the geniuses who put this all together? Take my rough Amtrak sketch into consideration. That's pretty cool. And if ink is a bridge too far, why not at least cop a snug graphic tea? Rock on, boys. My sources in the rail industry have confirmed Amtrak rules.

It's a decent bit. It's a decent bit. Isn't that the anthrax? Isn't that the anthrax, like their font or whatever? Oh, yes. I saw anthrax in person once. You ever seen them? Yeah, I saw him once a long time ago.

What'd you think? I like Scott E. And man, he's out of their bouncing around. But it was fun. I saw him with Iron Maiden. Do you remember that tour? It was like a big arena tour. So like that kind of metal, like Iron Maiden shit and like Megadeth?

I agree. Not my shit. not my shit at all. You know what the reality is people like will show me any kind of metal and they'll be like oh, you're a metal fan, you like this? I'm like, no, I actually hate most forms of metal actually.

Renaissance Fair metal or like Viking metal. These are all worthless human beings who like this show. We have another note here from him. He says, wow, guys, can't wait for the best card of all time. Freedom 250 on the Mexican cut White House lawn brought to you by

ice. It says, please Wait, what is this note? You guys made me read like a semi-weird maybe racist note. I don't even know what the fuck that is. He's got white house card memes. All right, all right. So here's one. Please, sir. I've toiled for four

years. May I finally have some Connor McGregor? Best I can do is Brazilian Connor McGregor. That's pretty good. That's true. He does fight like Brazilian Connor McGregor. That's funny. Here's another one. Dana, I got a fever and the only prescription is more Americans. All right.

I think in that book. You also skipped number two, Luke. We got to go back to number two. What was the other one? Go back to it. No, meaning those are all of Tanners, but you skip person number two. Oh, I skip two. Oh, okay, sorry, sorry.

Okay, let's go now to Genghis Bong. Everyone loves seeing Papa Donk live. I mean, just look at that crowd. Cut my life into pieces. There goes my last pair of shorts. Into feces. Also, you have to look at everyone in the crowd. He put faces on everyone.

Oh, my God. I see it. Oh, dude. There's Burke Chrysor. There's shack. John Jones is here several times. I'm in it. Chad's in it. I'm there. Chucks in it.

Joe's there. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you, Chuck? I'm on the left-hand side. Right near cut. Yeah. Looks like we got. Oh, I see. Coppinger's in there. Who else we got, man? No, I don't see Coppinger in there. Yeah. He sent these in before the cop thing. But he does have another one that's the exact same mean. I just did a normal bodily function. And now I'm going to tell the whole world at least 49 times because poop stuff is a big part of my personality. This is in fact a fair critique.

My wife says the same thing. She's like, why do you tell me this stuff? And I'm like, I'm deeply invested in it. All right. We got one here. One meme from RJ. BC realizing he can't make Damien penis jokes anymore because he's not on M.

BC realizing he can't make Damien penis jokes because he's not an M.K. Yes, but he needs to have a more forlorn look because he would really be saddening. You know what I mean? he's way too buttoned up over there at CBS man they're going to have to let the kid be himself for a little bit let let him get on there and make some armpit fart noises you know what I'm saying he loves it all right from anonymous we have one photo telling my kids this was ice how old are you here I don't know like early 20s something like that I'm not even sure ugly as shit are a untalented zero yes thank you dad I appreciate that. Very nice of you to chime in here on my show. And then last but not least, we got a photo from Ian.

He says, shout out to MK from day one of the March Sumo tournament held in Osaka. That's cool, man. I rep my city with the excellent new merch, really enjoying the new era of MK. Look at Ian here in freaking, dude, this is how cool that is.

Muno in Japan. What's that? Isn't this the dream to go watch Sumo in Japan? I would love to do that, yeah. Have you been to Japan? I've never even been to Japan, no. I will say that during the pride heyday and then even during Dream and Sengoku

to not have been able to go watch a show there to me feels like a really missed opportunity. Especially now. At first I was like, ah, you know, whatever. But like as time has gone on now that 20 years has passed, I'm like, I really wish I could have done that once. I mean, don't get me wrong, I would still go and see Dream. But dude, pride was filling up

much bigger arenas. for a much bigger show. Do Pride dude shows in the fucking Tokyo Dome. I know, you know, like it's a different level. You know what I'm saying? Is that out?

That's all the, that's all the, that's all of them. They were pretty good. They were very, very good. All right. Thank you guys so much for sending those in. By the way,

Morningcomat at Gmail.com. Morningcombat at Gmail. That'll be for fan subs to reach the show. Dead wrongs, which are still doing us what we did those last Friday. And by the way, you know,

if Chuck got something wrong, which is not often, but it does happen. You can light his ass on fire there as well. Say again? It's more often than you think, Luke. You're always right in my heart. Yeah, all right.

Let's see. We got the merch, morningcombat. Shop, morningcombat. Dot shop for all of the different merch that's available. And I didn't mention it, but for the fan subs, of course, the signed free poster will go in there as well. But it's all part of March. By the way, these designs are only available until March 31st at 1159 p.m.

And this, of course, is the basher slash trasher slash t-shirt hoodie March exclusive from our friends our friend I should say at average Joe art a lot to do there on today's show we really appreciate everyone coming through and checking out all the stuff that we have for them back on Friday Danny Seguera in studio not in studio but I'm saying in this chair to get you ready for Friday's Kevin Bachejos and Josh Emmett fight Chuck yeah what do you got going on this for content well we have the new pound for pound Rankin's, which I don't think really have a big shakeup over it uncrowned for MMA. But we got that running today.

I'll have a column later in the week and I'll be with Pizzi on Friday on the crack as usual. There you have it. Long Island, what you got going on? I'll have a bet breakdown out tomorrow. Prop Quiz Friday. Bain and Bond finally. We'll see who makes it to the final against, you know, if you haven't seen the episode, I won't spoil it.

Chuck, you know. Yeah. But anyways, and then I'll be a full card watch along Saturday for UF. see Vegas 114. Everyone's most hyped anticipated card of the year. So, you know, I'll be there. I had my shoe on the ropes. Last time I was on pop, because I had them on the ropes.

And then I let them off, man. You know, you got to step on their neck, Chuck. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. All right. Appreciate everyone tuning in today. Thank you guys so much. Thanks for everyone who sent in fan subs and everything else.

We really appreciate all of you guys. We're out of here. So we'll see you on Friday for Chuck. For Long Island, Luke. I'm Luke Thomas. See you guys next time. And until then, May all of your gains be loyal.