MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 329 Results: McGregor Immediately Injures Knee vs. Holloway | Paddy Pimblett Submits BSD in R1

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Conor McGregor injured his knee on his first strike attempt and it was all over 60 seconds later. Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall discuss the main event and the future for McGregor and Max Holloway. The fellas break down the rest of the UFC 329 card, including Paddy Pimblett's submission over Benoit Saint-Denis in the co-main event, Mario Bautista getting the nod over Cory Sandhagen plus Brandon Royval and King Green both win. LT and The Iceman recap all of UFC 329, from the prelims to the McGregor - Holloway main event on a Monday edition of Morning Kombat.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. It's what 11 a. I'm back. Oh, there I did. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want to Margarita?

Yeah. We're going to do it to me, choose, choose, that's true. Your marks get set and go on. Yeah, it was less mystic and more just shit-tastic. welcome everyone speaking of shittastic to god i got hiccups right before we went live on air to another edition of morning combat my name is luke thomas i join you from the capital of estatus anditos but i am merely just one half of jesus can you hear this now i can hear one half i'm i'm a professional broadcaster fucking too many shots right beforehand man it's okay uh i think it's a rule on this show that one of us has to always be on the road and today it's my good friend the iceman himself Chuck Mendenhall. Charles, how are you? I'm good, man. I think they stuff me in the same closet.

You were in Columbia, it looks like. Just whole white background. No, I'm in Colorado. I just got in here last night visiting some family before I head back east. So how long is that from from Vegas to Colorado? It's like an hour and 20 minutes. It's very, you know, it's easy, man. Yeah. It didn't even have time to put on a buzz. You know what I'm talking about? Just like right in. I'm very glad to be home for a lot of reasons. One, it's, you know, it's just obviously you're, it's quite a little way home. But to have the ease of internet back where I don't have to freak out about it. Yeah. Oh, it is so nice.

It is so nice. Before we get to the meat and potatoes of the show here today and my hiccups as a three-year-old child having just consumed too much air. Chuck, how was, how was Las Vegas? Did you get, here's the thing. Okay. Here's the thing, Chuck. Every time I go to Las Vegas, I get a communicable disease. Did you get one?

Fortunately, I avoided him. But, I mean, this particular time, like, I mean, I felt like I was working the whole time, but I still had time to gamble a little bit. I never usually do this, but I actually sat down at the table a little bit. I did the sports book. I heard the, you know, for Long Island. I did a little bit of that. And I even played some slots, which I never do, man.

So I just, I tried to, like, embrace that side of it a little more. And it did make it more fun. I actually walked away some money, too, so that was good. I saw that you also hung out with friend of the show, once a king among men himself, Brian Campbell. Did you tell him that his new mustache makes it look like he has officially transitioned careers into a pornographer? I did say he drives a Wendellas van.

I mean, and I will say that a lot of people were mentioning this mustache. It was kind of making its way down press row there, people talking about this. So, yeah, he looks like a perp. he looks like a 1980s reliever for the Seattle Mariners you know what I mean he does that's a good way of saying it I got a chance to hang out with them a little bit at the press conference so he was sitting there and I went up and surprised him and I talked to him just a little bit but dude he's a big time now like he's got guys around him handling everything and kind of giving you the hand a little bit like hey man you know later we'll talk

and we never really got into a good conversation he's a busy man he pays those people out of pocket that's not real. I know. I know. But it was cool to see him. It was cool to see him. We have a lot to get to you today. So basically, I don't really need to set up the topics, but just for the purposes of formality, UFC 329 is going to be the entire show today. It was the entire show Friday. It's going to be the entire show today. From the main event to the earliest prelim and everything, Jesus Christ, and everything in between. I love that it's right before the show. I know. I literally right before.

for the show. I had a sip of my this is the goat of zero calorie diet sodas. Oh yeah. I literally had one. I cracked it when the trailer for the episode was to start and then I had it and now I'm like, oh, I can't breathe right. I'm 50.

We're going to let's sort of sit this all up. Thumbs up if you haven't already. You can see the socials here below. You can become a member of morning combat. You can get emojis, badges, and more to come. We appreciate everyone. who supports the channel.

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for those who missed it to Army of Dawkins. Speaking of the root beer design, there is that one as well. And then, of course, 50% off all posters. You can do this morning comp. Jesus, fuck. Like God. damn it morning combat dot shop sorry all right let's bring in the third member here of the show

who is i mean he's here but whether he's here i don't know let's talk to him now it's it's another level it's you know you go from 60 that he's actually here yeah exactly you go from that macdonald's Wi-Fi in columbia to now every time you hiccup i think your mike's cutting out and i'm like oh shit looks like oh shit and so uh that's been a fun start to the show but guys great card this weekend. A lot of fun. You know? Main event didn't really deliver, did it though? I think we've got new guys for the Army of Dunkness, right?

I mean, we've got some donk, yeah, we do. Yes, sir. Main event was like, I wasn't even looking that forward to it, but I'm not going to lie and say that I wasn't disappointed because I think you're all a little disappointed when you're expecting a fight to take place and then it kind of doesn't really happen. But interesting, man, interesting, interesting times in the sport.

Yo, Charles, let me show you my new toys real quickly before we go. So I was in Columbia the last couple of weeks, which again, I'm sure is no surprise, anybody who was familiar with my life. And I did a week in Bogota where my wife's family is from. And then I did a week on the coast. This time, not Cortagena, I went to a city called Santa Marta. Santa Marta. And they're similar in certain respects, but a little bit different.

But Bogota, while I was there, dude, had a Comic-Con. Yeah, it was like the like the Bogota. Oh, how cool version of it. I have to say, you know, I go into these things with very managed expectations, you know, because I don't want to like assume it's going to be great. I don't want to assume it's going to be bad. It can be a lot of things. It was so much better than I thought it was going to be.

Really? Those things tend to get so crowded in the United States, man. So what I will tell you is the thing that it clearly lacked that like DC has one called AwesomeCon. There's a New York Comic Con and the real one. over in San Diego. There's a bunch of these. Right. Yeah. The one thing that it absolutely lacked, and this is going to make sense, was like,

celebrity appearances. You know what I mean? They had some, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't that great. Ralph Machio, he's usually at the ones I'm at. No. But like, who's the guy who played Frodo in Lord of the Rings? Oh, yeah, yeah. I know, I got a picture of space.

Long Island, you know. Elijah? Yeah, Elijah, not him. Yeah. Elijah. Yeah, those kinds of guys show up to the one in D.C., like they had a rider for Walking Dead. Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's what I mean? Like, it wasn't that great. On that level, wasn't that great. But in terms of, like, the other things that it had, it was huge. And, and when I went to the last DC version, I was trying to find, I kind of collect predator toys.

I was trying to find, because I'm, you know, because I'm a fucking loser. Oh, yeah. I knew, I knew you liked it. Predators. Yeah. Speaking of predators. I was, but I literally, at the very last one, I couldn't find a single one.

I went to booth after booth after booth. No one carried it. Dude, this place was a wash in them. I couldn't believe it. Wow. So I showed this one on my live chat. I had, we're going to get started here. Don't worry.

I had, this is an old one I had. This is the jungle Dutch disguise, a jungle disguise Dutch, right? That's the old one I had. That's cool. All right. I picked up this one. which is thermal vision Dutch with the machine gun. Don't lose sight of that one there.

How cool and sick is that one? And... Oh, fuck you, Long Island. And... And ready for this one? I got the feral predator from the movie prey. Look at this, son. Oh, that's cool, man.

Long Island. Don't be jealous. I just feel bad for Chuck having to pretend that he's interested in the... No, I think it's cool. I got, dude, I go to the Comic-Conn's, man. I love to check them out. They're so busy nowadays, man. I went to the one in New York and you could, there's no place to sit.

And like, so, like, you can't just take a rest. You just got to keep shuffling through with people and it's just, it was madness. But I know we have to get started, but if you ride the subway in New York on the day of Comic-Con, it's hard to tell if the subway is just a little extra weird or if Comic-Con is there. You know what I mean? It's one. I saw that 100%, man. All right.

Enough of that nonsense. We're done. Let's get this started. It's an all UFC 329 edition. So let's begin. Topic number one, where do we even go with this one? Connor McGregor makes his return, but the main event goes just 69 seconds. You can see here.

He injures his knee on basically the first strike he attempted, which was a jumping scissors kick. He repeats it. And he obviously is hobbled and can't do anything. he's on his back eventually after the second one you can see at the top there i think max landed something like 11 or so punches he gets back to his feet connor does but then he's limping and referee mike beltrane waves it at again 69 seconds chuck connor mcgregor is going to be 38 years of age tomorrow tomorrow he will be 38 so let me ask you what is the significance of this loss is it just another

Is it a bad loss in some kind of way? Or is there a greater significance and meaning to what happened on Saturday? Oh, man. I think that there's a greater significance in terms of the hysteria surrounding him. And as I was in Vegas for Fight Week and you're watching, you know, this whole thing stir up. Again, we've been through it a lot of times. I think we were adding asterisk to it and saying like, let's wait and see. There are a lot of unknowns, a lot of intangibles, a lot of things he's trying to overcome here.

but people buy it, right? Like they buy into this. I had people, you know, I had people that didn't realize I worked in MMA that would just fall into discussions with you and tell you all the reasons why Connor was going to win. And I mean, like, this is the thing that is, I think, lost now, right? Is you get a big event where maybe there was a new faction of fans who were seeing him really for the first time or really soaking it in, especially in Vegas, like the McGregor experience. And you get that kind of anti-climax.

I just don't know. I mean, it feels significant in the sense that we'll never get the Connor McGregor vibe again. I felt like this was the end of it. When that room, when that happened, right? And you could see his knee giving out and it's slowly dawning on people what's happening. And they get back up, they separate and he tries to move forward and his leg buckles and Beltran comes in. I've never felt a room just kind of like the room, the energy just nosedive like that.

It was, there was a party going because Patty Pimble, you know, remember he leaves the place lit, like everybody's dancing. Everybody's like, the music's pumping and these walkouts are crazy. But for it to end like that, man, was seismically anticlimatic. And you mentioned it. He's 38 years old. If it's an ACL, and I don't know if we got official word on this, but whatever that, you know, if it ends up being that, you're looking at least 39 years old before he comes back. And I just don't think you can recapture that. And part of what this whole thing is about is Conner's mystique,

Conner's ability to draw, all those things. I think that those days now are bygone, all in one fell swoop. I don't disagree, but I think I would go a little bit further. It's been pretty clear to me for some time now, years. I mean, I would say that the Mystic Mac thing is done. but I think Saturday was the funeral. Right. I think that is now completely,

utterly put to bed. And the reason why I think this is important to say, Chuck, is again, there's going to be people who watch and say, well, yeah, like, of course, it's been dead for a while,

which I'm sure you have felt and recognized and I have felt and recognized for the people who were around during his ascendancy, it's just hard to say, like, what is happening now is so divorced from that. It's just bonkers.

Like, no symmetry between them at all. So I understand that point. But to the point you raised, Chuck, there are people who are aware of Connor celebrity who have come to the sport, let's say, since the pandemic, who have been waiting to see the magic show themselves, who have been waiting to see what this Mystic Mac thing is all about. And I'm here to tell you, it's never coming back. If you want to see something like that, you got to get on YouTube or fight pass. There's no other way to experience it.

Now, I think that people are making a fundamental error, Chuck, and saying that, oh, well, you know, he, to your point, I don't, I don't disagree with it. It'll be 38 tomorrow for crying out loud. He may not be 39 until he comes back again, right? It's very, very possible. I mean, who knows exactly? Because if it's an ACL tear, it could be a long time.

If it's a meniscus tear, maybe not as long. So we'll have to see. But let's just take it as sort of a general rule that, or a loose guide that he won't be back till 39, even if there is a comeback and there will be. And he still will be a big box office draw. And we can talk about that in a minute. But the idea that you can just conjure up

the kind of performances that create real-time magic, that is finished. That has been, and I know it's been finished for a while, but now there is simply no denying those days are over. they have been over and there is no coming back to that he is now just a 30 well i'll say 38 because it's tomorrow a 38 year old fighter who is in my opinion chuck broken old enfeebled out of practice and he may win again and he may have some big fights again and i want to get to that in just a minute we'll talk about it but the connor mcgregor that we have in our heads in terms of the fighter at least

who was larger than life is fucking finished bro over and done never to return and to your point man it had been it had been that right we saw the Dustin porier thing play out if you if you thought that the mystic mac thing still existed we would have seen it then we did not

the only reason that this one sort of took on a different meeting is because he was trying to do something that okay now you're playing into a mystic mac because we're putting him into a situation where we wouldn't believe anybody could win in you know coming back from five years away, broken leg, all the different things that were surrounding him going into this fight. And also fighting a very viable guy in Max Holloway.

And you're like, if he's able to, like, it almost fed back into the narrative of the Mystic Mac thing, right? Because you're like, if anybody can do it, it would be him. So people start to generate and regenerate this kind of feeling of aura that he's going to bring in. And maybe, you know, I heard so many people all week that just really believed he would find that way, you know, that he would find the way to like, to do something. and we'd be like, see, he did it, and we would be celebrating this thing again.

There's a Kool-Aid thing that goes on with him, man. And I mean, that part is certainly gone. I think that, you know, it was almost karmic, wasn't it? Like, just from things that were going on for him to, you know, be Holloway's daddy and all this stuff. And then, like, everything that was going on and all the things he was saying and professing. And he goes up and it all goes up and spoke on the very first thing he does. I was I had somebody real quick I heard like I was like is that the biggest backfire because you're obviously he's trying to show that he's not Chris Weidman and one of those guys who was very guarded in how he was going to use his legs he wanted to kind of go out there and use his legs right away and it fails on him like is this the biggest backfire we've seen in a fight where somebody does something like this and the only one that comes to mind that somebody pointed out was the Ben Ascran you know rushing across to to mosvidal right and gets flattened in five seconds that type of thing backfiring on in the big way but To me, this was right up there, if not the most, you know, like in terms of a writer, the storylines of like, you're trying to show one thing and you actually, you know, her truly trying to do it.

It's just like, oh, the irony of that is too rich, man. So I actually feel like the better, well, it's hard to compare eras. Yeah. But Chuck, the one that stands out to me is, you know, anticlimactic main events. you could point to, for example, Andrea Olavski sleeping Paul Buonelho because he hits him with a shot and in real time you can't see it

and Paul Boatel just falls over and everyone was like... That's a deeper cut. Yeah, I like that. Everyone was like, well, what happened here? But the real one to me that stands out is the Vitor Bell for Randy Couture fight because I think it was, I'm not even making this up. Someone can double check this long island if you can. I think it was like 45 seconds into the round and then

Vitor had made a fist and then the glove catches the eyelid of Randy and it's tears his eyelid off of his eye and they have to stop it right then and then Vitor becomes champion for a little while. So it's this, you know what I mean? But here's the thing. The reason why I think that comparison is more apt is because it was sort of, I mean, it's an injury, kind of a freak one, but the Connor one is separate from that for two reasons. One, this is self-inflicted. I don't know if I've ever seen a self-inflicted injury unrelated to contact with anything other.

other than the floor right in my life and second of all obviously Connor's level of celebrity and uh size you know in terms of a you know what a box office attraction he is makes this you know the the the stakes of it and the scope of it so much bigger that honestly dude i actually think this might be the biggest backfire in ever in history and i i hate doing that because you know everyone just kind of does oh what happened most recently is the business know, but I think this one actually might be. Well, and I mean, that's why I brought up the Masvedo one, because that was what, 2019, and it kicked off, like,

the cult of Masvedol, because not only does he achieve that, but now for that whole year was this victory lap of the biggest money he ever made, the biggest celebrity he ever achieved, he became, like, one of the biggest stars of that year. That's why that Ben Askeron was such a big, you know, such a crazy swing moment in the careers. But in terms of what you're saying, you know, when you think about like Belfort or Couture,

and I mean, like you mentioned these and I'm like, man, that's really cool. But like you're almost talking about an era when, you know, it was like, it was select insiders and guys who are diehards like us.

And, you know, they're paying attention. There was a casual feel to it still that I remember. But we were certainly paying attention. But this is like one of those ones where the world feels like it's paying attention, you know, broader sports media and all that stuff.

So if you go in like you mentioned, just the kind of magnitude of the feel and what it all means. going into it and all the hoopla that went around it. That's why in the end it's like this has to be the biggest backfire. In terms of just how many people absorbed it all at once, it's just it was an immensity in that sense. Let's look at some of these tweets from Connor because I want to ask you about something about this fight.

So he's had more. And by the way, he had one today where he indicated he's going to get surgery. He did not, to your point, Chuck, he did not say one for, but some kind of surgical intervention is necessary. But up top, he says, this is the one right after the fight. He says, my head gasket is gone, destroyed. I had no injuries slash injuries going into the fight. I was throwing kicks, planted and jumping all throughout camp, as well as backstage before the fight.

This came out of nowhere. I am beyond dark here. I can only describe it as hell. He continues, I was so sharp and so ready for this fight. I cannot believe what has happened. The talk of me being off while walking into the fight is nonsense. I was calm, ready, and confident. I am in shock what has taken place.

the devil sorry it's hard not to laugh at some of this the devil is literally staring at me right in the front of my face here I am not engaging I will be at church tomorrow yeah I don't care about none of that shit all right let me just ask this question though there is a lot and I think we just kind of have to take it

head on there is a lot of speculation fair or unfair but that it exists is real the speculation anyway that he came into this fight injured what do you make of the arguments visual evidence suggestions, any of that, that he came in here compromised. Now, are people primarily pointing to him taking off his shoes, you know, as he's getting into

the cage? Is this what we're, is this what we're like, is this the big indicator? Let's bring in Long Island for this, because I think it's important to inventory everything I've seen. So Long Island, if you've seen something I haven't, let me know. So one is the shoes, okay? To me, that's the least compelling of all of them. Right. I don't, I find that to be not very. Well, like you said, it's like, you know, a guy getting towards 40, doesn't slip off his shoes as easily. I know, it's like, bro, you should see me take off my shoes. It's much worse than that, you know.

Yeah. All right. But okay, but such that people are pointing to it, that's one. The other one is you're seeing is a video of him taken during the week showing up to a pain clinic. Now, he's walking into the pain clinic, but seem to be fine, but he's clearly looking for some kind of at a bare minimum, Long Island medical evaluation. and then there's this idea that like, well, listen, if he was injured, number one, he's got an incentive to keep going because what did he make for this fight? 20 mil or more maybe, who the hell knows, right? Yeah.

Maybe even 30 mil for something like this. So he's got an incentive to go see it through more to the point. Can you imagine if Connor was so fucked up that he wanted to pull out of the fight? And UFC was like, well, we just sold $26 million at the gate. Like no fucking way we're doing that. Again, I'm not declaring that these things or any of them are true. I'm simply saying this is what has been contributed to the conversation.

What am I missing and what do you make of that theory of Long Island? I don't think you're missing anything. I think you nailed the three instances we'll call it, which is putting the shoes on the video earlier in the week of him going into the clinic. And the third, I'll say, is him actually throwing that fucking kick in the fight and what they showed on the broadcast essentially.

I feel like the video of him going into a pain clinic does nothing for me that like fighters go have pain throughout can like what i'm going to you saw the cupping marks on his neck too like on friday it's like okay maybe that's where he was going to get the cupping done i don't know that means nothing to me the putting on the shoes i don't think that's like ooh when he blew out his knee but i'd argue that maybe he tweaked it there and then in the fight right when he lands on it is what ooh now i tore my meniscus or whatever and i do want to uh point out that that doctor, that sports doctor, who always makes those great YouTube videos, Brian Sutterer, I think is his name.

He, again, he obviously didn't examine McGregor, but just watching the video, he points to meniscus rather than ACL. And I do trust his opinion. So I feel like- He's been right most of the time, yeah. So I feel like we're leaning meniscus here because he like points out you don't see the calf like jolt forward when it lands, which is like what you normally see with an ACL tear. But I don't know, man.

The whole thing is interesting. I do think like 90% of it has. happened in the fight though. Maybe that 10% was putting on the shoes, but I do think it's so much to it. There's so much to it as you start to think about it because you're in a strange way, let's just advance some time here, right? Like

is it better in a sense that like if he goes in there and just gets smoked, he's outclassed, this would look really bad. But now that you could actually say like in the end well, I was injured right away. I never got a chance to go. I mean, you could still spin this right? Like I, you could still try. Can you? To a, too, I mean,

from the thing we're saying, like, which is a you're an old man and like you're never going to recapture that magic that's what the thing he's not going to be able to do that but only in the sense of saying like you know building a viable you know kind of understanding that hey i i never even got a chance to fight that night i could guarantee you that that can be spun again um i'm just kind of going through it as we're talking about it but you know i'd heard somebody say that he's been in and somebody kind of um who knows the camp a little bit was saying that he might have been in more financial straits than we lies, you know, and that's one of the reasons. So if he were injured, he was going to go through

it anyway. And, and this was before, honestly, like, this was before we even saw all of that. It was before the fight that they thought this. So you could take this for whatever that is worth. But, you know, I think there's a lot of, there's just so many, it's going to lend itself to conspiracy theories, right? Until Connor tells you exactly what went on, I guess we stand by, right? Yeah, I mean, two things I want to say about that. One is, you know, I, I don't know if Conner's having financial troubles. I've never heard anything. It's all speculation.

This is just somebody who's been around the camp a little bit and this is speculation, you know. So let me just say that. If that is true, right, if that is true, can you fucking believe we're less than 10 years past Mayweather McGregor and both

Mayweather and McGregor, assuming that information is true, would both be financially suffering because it's, you can't. Well, luckily they're making the rematch in Zufa boxing according to two insiders that we know. which two of the weirdest fucking tweets I've ever seen in my fucking life.

I haven't spoken to either of them. I don't know what the fuck that is. But just sticking with this for just a moment, because I want to make this point before I forget it, it is unbelievable. Dude, Mayweather Packia was 2015. And Mayweather McGregor was 2017.

Just those two fights alone for Mayweather should be anywhere between, I mean, at bare minimum, Chuck, at least $300 million. Yes. Probably well in excess of that. and he is facing felony charges for all different kinds of financial crimes. Meanwhile, again, under this idea, again, we don't know if it's true or not in the case of McGregor, but then he could have like need money to do this.

You can't fucking believe what some of these guys do to their own fortunes along the way. It really is so shocking. But let me make one more. It almost seems impossible to blow through that kind of money. It seems impossible. If I had $100 million in the bank, you motherfuckers would never see me again. Like I would change my number. I'd move to the middle of nowhere.

And you'd never hear. I'd be like Enya with her cats in an Irish castle. You just don't hear from me at all. We'll be doing things like, remember when Luke Thomas was in the space, man? Those are fun days. People really liked him. I forgot what the other point was. Oh, I do think that Connor, I mean, again, this is a point that I think people get wrong that, you know, oh, Connor is his, he suffered oral loss.

I mean, you know, he did. And I don't want to make a point about that in a minute. But, you know, having watched the fight game long enough, if you're a really big name, even as you decline in terms of your box office attraction or ability or however the two may line up, it goes much slower than you think it does. Yeah, it does. I mean, nominally nobody mentions the Burbik or the or the, the, uh, the homes fight really that often anymore.

I mean, that's before your time, before my time, too. But I'm saying, like, you know how that ended. And yeah, he had. aura that grew for years and years out of that. It's crazy. So, like, the point is, like, you know, again, Kimbo Slices is the biggest star that Belator's ever had. And Kimbo, I think, died while even under Bellator contract. You know what I mean?

Like, he was close to death's door during that time. Connor's still going to be a big star. But I want to say this. The fact that the Irish didn't travel for him this time. Yeah. And again, I think this is all related to the sexual assault case, but it probably could be more than that. But certainly that is a major contribution. It changed how everybody viewed him.

Like, dude, even Max after the fight was like, hey, let's give it up for Connor. And it was like, yeah, I know. I noticed that big time. It was a smack, dude. I know people were disappointed, but yes, you're right. I think it all plays in. It all plays in like a temper resentment or something. You've been to other McGregor fight weeks.

Did it feel different to you either before, during, or after relative to those previous experiences? I mean, in the past, and I mean, it's kind of difficult because now we're in the, in the central aura, right? Like that era when he was fighting Alvarez and MSG and it's getting legal. There was other like parameters, right? Like it was MSG, New York was now legal. You have, you know, Connor McGregor,

I can remember that particular one trying to do a preview show and like a sea of Irishmen just come over there and like bombard us and we never got it taped. You know, it's like it just carried you out of there and that was kind of that. I remember being in Boston where they're dropping the lights on this guy in a second UFC fight and they were Boston. like there were, you know, the Boston Irish, but there were the Irish Irish, and they were just all over in song with flags. There were people in leprechaun costumes.

It was like nothing I'd seen, but then you go to that Mendez and those Aldo fights have been there for all of those. And it was just like there were so many Irish in the building. And it was, I remember, I think it was Thomas Jerbezi, the late Thomas Trabiz saying the Irish have arrived at one of these events because you could hear the, you could hear. It was during one of the other, like the earlier fights, you could hear this song traveling through the corridors. you know as they were as they were coming in they were all coming in at once from the pubs or wherever they were and uh it was just such a different experience this particular one i don't think i actually other than a few irish media and i'm talking very few like maybe two or three that uh that i was able to recognize and know that they were there i didn't really see the irish media um and then as far as the fans i talked to a couple of them who i saw with the the tricolor and you're thinking these are the irish men who came over and you talked to them and they were not from ireland but they just

carrying the flag you know so um it just was it was a completely different vibe that way um you know usually when he's at a press conference or the wayans and that type of thing that's when it whips into this frenzy i thought it was a nice vibe it's definitely like a big feel but it was not like a mcgregor fight it just did not have that that sense of abandon that we're used to it's so strange you know like don't get me wrong i think the guy deserves to uh be brought down several pegs and then more by virtue of his, you know, run-ins with law enforcement, and in particular the sexual assault case, like he is a loathsome figure, in my opinion.

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Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeard Radio. But it's very strange, like which ones in MMA the fans really react to and which ones they don't. Yeah. You know, like there are just certain guys that are allowed. And it's not just related to popularity either, although that obviously can be a big one too. But I will tell you that like I feel like. the Irish were something of a linchpin for him that both were like they were both the they were both the pep

rally squad firing everybody up but also just kind of signaling this greater significant movement and you pull them out because they're all horrified by what a dirt bag he is and it's really i don't know it deflated the whole thing to me even though i recognize it did a huge gate and they'll do a huge number on paramount plus but it it just felt like another big thing and I also want to say this chuck like hold on a moment here Hamzot loses yes poetan gets stopped oh ilia gets stopped Connor gets stopped now Islam is next month's it Islam's thanks if I'm Islam I'm like okay wait a second here but I just want to say like if you think about that white house card obviously the white house card or the event by MMA terms. I mean, to me, I think being party to authoritarian fascist is a bad look for

MMA, but I recognize that as an event from a production standpoint, it was a big success. It obviously had huge numbers and the fights all delivered. I'm not blind to that fact. But to me, like you're, like the Connor McGregor declined, Chuck, and I wonder if you had some thoughts about this. The Conor de Greger declined, it almost feels like the moment that MMA is kind of. in because MMA it felt like it was expanding under his expansion. And I'm not saying the two are exactly related, but it seems at a bare minimum to me, Chuck, almost symbolic of the contraction. The reason why I point this is not about the White House card is because if you take that

card, it's a very good card, but it doesn't do the numbers that it does but for the fact that it's on the White House. Like that was the actual attraction. Now we're past that. I don't know if they're ever going to do it again. You're kind of just faced with what MMA has left and what MMA has left and what M&A has left is its top star can't make it through basically a minute without getting injured and the whole fight being ruined we used to track like ufc's growth so would you remember like we would

always just all the numbers and every time they were bigger you'd be like wow this is growing this is crazy you would track these things especially within the pay-per-view buys and uh gates things like that these days you know i almost wonder if it's grown to such a mincity that it um you know kind of bus open like your kind of common sense of putting the math together anymore because I felt like when we were talking about the McGregor aura in this lead-up,

it was more about like UFC fans. Like you should have seen the amount of shirts, right, that are just random UFC fighters. I saw tons for like, not a ton, but like some for Josh Oket, guys who had nothing to do with these event, Hasbula, you know, like things like this. But it's like the UFC as a whole is like drawing like

these people now who I think that that's where it's kind of grown, but we were so for so long, like, you know, they have to build stars in this league. And that has, that has been the catalyst of how they've gotten over. If you don't have Ronda Rousey, you don't have Connor McGregor and, you know, that kind of chain of events from, from Jones and all that all the way through. I'm not sure that we're in this spot, but it seems that they've reached a point where the stars don't mean as much in that sense.

I don't know how to explain it, but like, I feel like there's a wider spread understanding of a lot of fighters versus just a central thing of, you know, a couple of people, which we've went through in pockets before. It's a very interesting thing. But the bigger concern, when you mention all of these, you know, all of these fighters losing, how long can that sustain before it starts to go back down? Because to me, it's like, you know, when we're talking about these guys who win, the invincibility factor to the casual audience, oh, that guy can't lose, you know, he's must-see TV, that type of thing. When that starts to go and there's an ultimate, kind of parody, I guess, in the league.

You wonder if it sustains, can it keep growing with that? Because that's where it feels like we're plateauing on that level, where, you know, people have just, there's just nobody, the times we identify somebody we think is going to have like a very, very long run, they're getting beat now before they can get to those like kind of historic places, you know, that we're used to going with certain superstars in the sport. It's changed a little bit. Right now, I feel like we're still at the zenith in terms of people, their attention

span is really on the sport, but I don't know if it sustains if they don't, if the stars don't win or if they don't bring new stars up, right? I mean, there's only so many people willing to watch Apex fights Saturday after Saturday, you know what I mean? Like most people want this end of MMA versus the other one, you know, I don't know. It just, it's just very weird to me that like all these stars are losing. And yes, the White House card was big, but it was only big because the federal government juiced the card the card itself was not right that uh yeah sense all right let's talk about max holloway because we haven't said one fucking word about yeah not funny this entire yeah 40 minutes in we're yeah 40 minutes in we're not but now talking about okay what the fuck do you do with max i mean what do you

even say about what what that was because how like did i mean did he take any big step forward like you like you know he flattens gaecy at ufc 300 in the last second point of thing okay now you can you can book this guy anywhere. His star status is like through the roof. I'm not sure where this leaves him. You know, and in fact, he's kind of like, hey, man, I got paid really nice for this. I'd love to do that trilogy. He's talking about a trilogy. And you talk about not reading the room, man. Like, that place, they took that suggestion, like, and groaned, you know, like they didn't want to see that again. But I understand why Max would want to do that again. And it was cool of him to bring it up. But in terms of what you do, I don't know. I mean, I was thinking about this before, but I was thinking

and he would have to have like a performance where he kind of shows, shows up and reminds people that he's not done, you know, and all this stuff. I mean, he didn't really do anything in this fight. So I suppose he could go back to 155, but you tell me, did it feel like he moved, you know, anywhere from the station beforehand to now? I didn't really feel like he moved anywhere definitive through this fight. I mean, on the one hand, if you're max, you've got to be thrilled because you had two fights this year. One didn't go great.

Right. but there was at least for a title or some kind of a title anyway and then the other one was against Connor McGregor and I suspect that this one was a big payday and he took no fucking damage you know what I mean condition yeah like you got to feel great about that at the same time to your point it's like but like what are we doing now and I also got to say this too like I usually feel like max is really actually if you go back and you watch max I feel like when they put a microphone in his face afterwards he's either one of two things one he's either one of two things one he's usually they're kind of funny and

insightful or two, he just, you know, is, hey, it is what it is. I'll be back. You know, like, very, very matter of fact, doesn't say the wrong thing and moves on. This is the first time of my life. I can recall him making a couple of verbal gaffes after a fight. Like, I don't, I can't think of another one where

he did it this way. And I don't really know what that means. Maybe, you know, the weirdness of the fight, just threw him off. You mean just calling for the trilogy? Well, like, people spent like shit tons of money for this. And it's not his fault that Connor got injured. Good point. but being like hey let's run it again and make this money baby everyone must have been like yeah the

you mean the money i that i don't have anymore right the five grand i paid for these fucking tickets you know yeah i mean there's 26 million dollars worth of the dupes in that building in that moment yeah that's what it felt like rather than being like you know i'm sorry that this happened uh thank you to the fans for your support if it wasn't for you blah blah blah you know and you don't have to say that either you could there's other things you can say but just to kind of double down on the on the on the, and I love, I love Max, and I hope, you know, if he sees this, he doesn't think I'm trying to kill him. But like at the same time, I just don't think that was the right thing to say. It was tone deaf in that moment. I'm telling you, me. Yes. But the crowd was,

oh, it was crazy. We'll talk about whether or not you could match him up with Patty in the next segment, because we're going to talk about Patty, obviously. But I think, you know, do you do the Charles rematch? That doesn't make sense. No. Gachie, I think, was waiting to see if obviously Connor was going to win because that would have been big. Does Gachie really want to run it back with Max? I mean, I would be cool with that, but I don't know if he necessarily wants to see that. And then you start looking at the rankings below him, you know, it's Gamrod, it's Quillin, it's all killed. He's, dude, he's not, they're saying Ruffy or Huffy. Oh, yeah, Rufie.

Yeah, yeah. He was there. Yeah. Okay, but does like Mac, again, would I like to see that fight? One billion percent. Sure. But Max's coming off on McGregor fight. Does he want that one?

I don't know if he wants that one. I just feel like even if this had gone perfectly, like let's say McGregor didn't get injured and Max finished him. in a minute. We're still having this conversation. It's a fight that took place at welterweight with a guy who had in four or five years. If Max went in there after getting handled by Charles, right, which he did, and he looked authoritative and strong and he put Max or Connor face down, we'd be like, holy shit, dude, you really got to make him get another tight. Like there would be, there would be clamoring to put him back to the front of the line. And now we're like, we don't really know where to put him. Maybe. Maybe it's just because

Armin is still sitting there, but I'm like, no matter what, he wasn't get, in my opinion, like, I wasn't, he wasn't getting the title shot off of a win here. So that's why I said Ruffy. I feel like that's a nice, like, you be roofy now, now you can get the title shot. You've earned it. Just a strange one to be very, very clear. So there's a lot more to say about this event and for Connor and the UFC, but a I will say this, historic in all the wrong ways.

Right. It's probably the right way. It almost feels like for Connor, it's going to have to be almost like the rousey thing now, right? Like you're just like, I don't know. It's got to be like for him and his mind. How can I go out on a better?

Like if he, I'm not that he's going to go up, but like he wants to put himself into a better note again. You know, like and that's going to be tougher and tougher to find. Other than unless you book him against Chandler or or Diaz or something like that. I just don't know who's out there in that sense. I have seen.

I saw Chale do this, but now I've seen other ones do it. So he's not the only one suggesting that, you know, actually, there's a few different competing versions. So Chale had one version. There's a, this is a similar but different version. But it goes something like this, okay, that, that Connor, that UFC doesn't want to sign Connor again. He's got one fight left on his deal and they don't want to be back in business.

And I've seen people say that that's a silly suggestion. And I'm here to tell you it absolutely is not. like that is that is i guarantee that that is true i guarantee that they have no desire to deal with him after this deal and more to the point it doesn't even matter chuck because connor wants out because he wants to go to netflix and make a bunch of money and i've got that on some pretty good authority right like that is that is absolutely the game plan now how quickly he can get there and what that looks like and and by the way what fights they give him on the way out i also think is kind of interesting to see here as well but people suggesting that like oh they would never want to get

rid of their biggest star dude look at this fucking guy look at the state of him yeah when he's not competing he is having a hard time staying out of handcuffs and when he does compete he can barely be ambulatory because he is constantly getting injured you like whatever the best of connor was there might again i'm not suggesting it won't be another big fight or another big win for him in the future. In fact, if he goes to boxing and you know, he's fighting whoever the fuck probably will be another big win, right? Yeah. But, but like the

MMA side of things, dude, the show was fucking over. The show is fucking over. And UFC has to know that. And they don't want to pay him a bunch of money for, especially if competitors are going to pay him a bunch of money. What I do think is true is they're going to make him

walk over fucking broken glass. Right. To get out of there. Well, yes. I know, because we were talking about this in Vegas a lot. And people are like, who the Patty and all this stuff. And I'm like, well, a lot remains to be seen. But if he really is going to leave the UFC, there's no way he's fighting some guy that's, you know, they would want him to go against a guy who, Shavkat or somebody who's going to like just walk through him. You know, that's what they're going to, they want to send him off broken more so than he is, right? Like they want to, they want to devalue him.

That's what they would do. That's just the way they do business. They've always done that. So, dude, they did it to Andre Rolovsky. 100%. 100%. He was a former champion that he wanted to go to Affliction to go fight Fador

and they're like, and he actually turned the tables on him. But they were like, oh, you're going to fight Jake O'Brien. At the time, Jake O'Brien was like this marauder who was beating a bunch of dudes. And it just so happened that Andre won. But dude, they put him on the prelim card. Prelimbs. Against the Terminator

on purpose to make him. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that whole dissension in the air for that era. All right. But with that in mind, for, it's a lot of talk for a fight that were really nothing happened, which is kind of strange. Yeah. Let's move now to topic number two, which is the co-main event.

Now, here's the funny part about that, Chuck. The co-main event was shorter than the main event, but there's actually a lot of fighting to discuss here. How about Patty Pimbleau, buddy? Look at this choke. I asked a bunch of black belts what they would call this choke. First of all, I want to say something. I contacted, I would say, how many does speak to you? I contacted more, but I spoke to three.

high level black belts, world level black belts, okay? And what they all told me was that this choke was awesome. Like every single one of them had huge enthusiasm for it and really respected Patty for just how fucking ice cold. Yeah. The whole thing was. They're calling it different names. It is technically a Dars choke,

but it's got a weird setup because he throws his legs over the top. You'll notice it starts, leave it up for a second. It starts out as like almost like a guillotine. and they go to the ground and BSD tries to roll to his back and then come all the way over the top and then Patty stops him with that arm, the right arm at you see there

that ends up being the choking arm and then he locks it up and then you can see he puts his legs over the top this prevents BSD from really being it just immobilizes him essentially so some people are calling it the padlock I saw Craig Jones call it what do he call the scouser lock

in any case Chuck I like it is fucking ice cold brilliant I know that there is the BSD equation and buddy I can't wait to have fucking hammer him over the head but we got to start with Patty because that he's the winner and frankly in my opinion Chuck

the biggest winner of the entire card so let me ask you this following that Justin Gatchie loss and now with this performance just how good for his stock was this big time because you know we the discussion going into this was you start to do that revisionist thing, right,

where you start to look at like the past opponents. Who does Patty actually beat? You know, he beat King Green, he beat Tony Ferguson, he beat Michael Chandler, right? Like he beat these guys who are all well on their way out. They had some name value, but they were definitely long in the tooth, right? And so this became the fight that you say,

okay, he loses the Gachie. If he belongs anywhere near the top 10, or the top five, let's say, he'd have to beat a guy like this. And we have seen, we have you know Sandini has like shown like he's done the don't thing

we've seen this in the past but he's also looked pretty good the last few times out like he's on a nice streak and you know you're like maybe this guy's turned you know maybe he's turned things around and he's going to make his push because I thought there was an early point when I thought that he could be a champion so to me this was like

okay Patty you're going against the guy where there's huge you're an underdog in this fight I think a lot of people think you coughed up all of your charms against a gaichi and you still weren't able to get it done. That spelled a lot of doom, but to go in there the way he did, you know, treating it like he was rolling up to the discotheque, you know, like just kind of coming out there and dancing and everybody, getting everybody riled up. And it just when he cinched to that, you know, when he locked in that choke, that place

got elected because you could see it perfectly right when he locks his arms and it starts to turn and all that. You could see this. Everybody knew what they were watching. And that's unusual in like a jiu-jitsu. two things. Sometimes you kind of have to see an angle, but on the on the big screen, you could see exactly what was going down. The place went crazy. You know, they lift up a BSD's arm and it falls down and you should have it. It was like it's one of the more eruptive moments.

I can recall in a fight like that because that crowd was just glued to it, man. So I think that he was the big winner of the night. He stole the show. And I guess if you're looking for like an aura baton, right? Like Patty did a pretty good job. you're trying to find the next guy that they can get behind and promote like he did a very good job and he sees that moment i mean for me chuck i don't disagree i mean the aura baton's a good description i actually really like that that was that was that's a good way to think of it but the other thing to me chuck is like people are going to say hey how much of this is bsd just fighting like a fucking idiot um and the answer is quite this i thought of you when this happened because

he shoots it i'm like oh my god this is going to be fun it's crazy is like i actually don't it's It's so funny, you know, because I want to be, I want to be serious for a moment. I actually, if I could get on this show, if I could get on this show, one of my favorite things to do since ever covering MMA was to listen to a high level fighter or a high level coach or somebody who knows a lot about the game. And then they tell you something about their insight that they've developed over time. And it just unlocks all of these things in your brain that you didn't quite, you couldn't quite piece them together and then they put that last puzzle piece in and all of a sudden,

like you can just see things differently. That's actually my favorite thing in the world. My favorite thing in the world is getting that missing piece of information from somebody who knows much more than me and it just completely broadens what you're able to understand. And so if I could have a relationship with everyone in the fight game that who competes or coaches in that way, I'd be happy to keep it that way. But the reality is, dude, you cannot believe in the UFC, how many guys fight like fucking idiots. You just can't, and good ones too,

like in other respects. Like, no one thinks BSD doesn't have skills, or that Diego Lopez is not a dangerous fighter. He obviously is a very, very, very dangerous fighter. But, you know, when he can't cage cut or BSD's like, dope, do, dope, do, do you know, just walking into shit. You're just like, how is it possible? Like, how is this fucking possible?

And I don't know what the answer to that is, other than it just shows up. And if it shows up, I have to say something about it. Nevertheless, to keep it for Patty for just another moment, the reason why I like this win, Chuck, is because while a huge portion of it is BSD just fighting like a moron, the other part was, and I've done this too,

and I'm guilty as charged, is just kind of treating Patty as an afterthought. Oh, that's a, That's the easy win on the schedule. And then he goes up there and fucking seals that thing mercilessly. I kind of love that for him. If I can be honest, you know what I mean? Yeah, man, I got it.

It's a little bit of, not smoking mirrors, but it's a little bit of you got to be careful how much you read into it. But for a guy that gets treated as an afterthought as like the, as like, you're only here by invite because we felt, you know, pity on you or something. thing. Yes. To then go in there and then take on a fucking French special forces guy and fucking put his ass to sleep in 52 seconds with perfect, frankly, kind of very advanced technique on top of it. Dude, that is big time. And especially coming off getting his ass whooped against Justin Gaichi. Really, I salute the fuck out of that for Patty. Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, you nailed it 100%.

There's been this narrative to them the whole way. And I'm not sure where it comes. from. He was sort of a polarizing figure, I guess, coming from K. George was like people either liked him where they were, like, annoyed by him. And it seemed like the fighters themselves were mostly annoyed by the attention he'd get. But there was certainly a vibe that he was just a guy kind of

getting special treatment that was not worth that. And even even it was it, what was his name, Vendarini or whatever that guy's name is. He fought early on and he fought 11. Who rocked him. Yes, and that's what I was going to say. And I think that that only fed the narrative. You're like, you're fighting these woodwork figures and you're barely

getting by him or you have to overcome adversity to get it done. Yes, I can't. Luigi. Luigi, Vendramini. Yes, Vendramini, yes. But you remember those fights and it set things up in a very strange way for him because I felt like people were like, yeah, I mean,

he lost that fighter, he's losing that fight. And it was like he couldn't overcome it. And I think that when he fought Gaichi, there was this kind of doubled down feeling, well, I tried to tell you guys, you know, he has a certain ceiling. He can't get by Gaichy. I mean, he's not going to be able to do this.

So everything you just said is exactly, I guess, that plays over the psyche when you watch a guy like him as like, wait a minute. Like you knew he had to do something like this against a guy like San Deney. And when he does it, you're like, okay, see, there are levels. Like he's, there's some kind of broader proof in there that he brought to the table. And it was also just his handling of it. Like you said, you see him lock that up, ice cold, like he knew he was going to do this. that stuff man that's what kind of like that that's what translates into the

it factor um is when you see stuff like that and just dude he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand it was and that that that's always like this uh the sign that maybe a guy is in his magic element right like he's finally reached this thing where like he's realized this potential and everybody kind of understands that at the same time so it was a very cool thing man i agree with you 100% on that

long island what did you think about that win I thought it was a great performance. I'm not going to take anything away from it. Like, Patty looked sick. But I did say before that fight, I said before that fight that both these guys are so hard to predict. Like, I still don't know how good they are. We talked about his best win going into that was like King Green.

Like, it's just so hard to tell. And I even said before it started, I said, no matter who wins, I'm still going to have so many questions about both guys. So as good as he looked and as great as it won, it's still a win over BSD, who I still don't trust. and it's like, you know, Patty said this in the post fight too. He's like, everyone's going to keep moving the goalpost further saying BSD wasn't that good.

I did say it before the fight though. So, you know, yeah, but I kind of agree. First of all, that's a submission of the year candidate. And I don't even know which one will be second to that. That's so good. The other one, too, is he's right that the goalposts get moved. But honestly, my comment to Patty on that would be you should take that as a compliment. Right.

Because that means you're actually making progress on them and they don't want to give it to you. And that might be frustrating. but I've been a long time Patty skeptic and I still, you know, to a degree I obviously still am. But I will tell you, I really appreciated what he turned in on Saturday. I thought that was, you know, for everyone to look at you like you're the meal on the roster and then to go in there and fucking face down him with brilliant technique like that mercilessly. Dude, you got to, you just have to respect that.

I don't know how else to say it. I mean, I absolutely have to respect that. So let me ask this question then. Yeah. Max didn't have a fight. Patty barely had a fight. Do we just put them together? Oh, man.

That's, I hadn't really contemplated it. Yes, to an extent, I guess. I would make sense. Well, I guess it'd be, I always used to, and maybe this is just a bygone, you'd always think, like, do you want to kill ahead of momentum by doing this if you can put them into fights that market? But I just don't think the UFC does things like that anymore.

I don't think that they really consider that. They may actually look at the timing of this and be like, hey, why not do this type of thing? For Patty, though, would you do the Ilya fight, man? I mean, like, for the, like, okay, so we're having this whole discussion that you're like, yeah, but Patty belongs nowhere in that, you know, in that scenario. Like, there's no way he should have that fight and he would get killed. Does your mind change now in terms of, A, like, the fascination of what might play out in that fight? You know what I mean? And B, is it merited to do that at this point?

I think the Patty and Ilya fight is the only fight to make. Yeah. As good as that win by Patty was, what you have to ask yourself is, not how much did it convince you or me, but how much it convinced UFC? Like, does the UFC think that they've got a guy there that's worthy of, you know, being,

well, I know he fought for an interim title against Justin, but, you know, up the food chain and couldn't be a champion in this organization. I mean, maybe they do, maybe they don't. but I just feel like you've got Ilya's stock has quite literally never been lower and then Paddy's I mean it's a question of how high it's been but certainly to your point Chuck it's been massively restorative by virtue of this performance and also this is the other part too it's like Toporia was made to look beatable and not that Patty was made to look unbeatable but Patty was made to look like dangerous

Like you, like, if you don't take him seriously, you will fucking pay. Right. That was the lesson of this fight to me. And they've got beef. Like, I don't, I don't know how. That to me just seems like obvious matchmaking at this point. It's not apples to apples. But if you look at Ilya Tepoy, he's nine and one in the UFC, right?

Like he's nine and one in the UFC. And I think he has seven finishes. If you look at Patty, he's eight and one in the UFC. He has six finishes. Now, obviously it's not apples to apples because who, Ilya's been beating is a lot different than who Patty's been beating. But if you're just looking at the records, man, and you're looking at the time the UFC, like, there was a moment where it was like, Ilya will kill him.

And we had this discussion where like, you might, you might see a guy get murked in there if they put Patty in there. But it's just the perception has changed so much to the point where I'm like, and maybe it was because Justin Gaichi, the, you know, the shared math of watching both guys go against Justin Gaichi, whatever it is. But perception has now changed where I'm like, I'm a little bit more like, I don't, I don't give it to Ilya by default just like, oh, he'd kill him. To me, there's like elements of this fight now that seem interesting. And I think that if you can have bad blood,

and like I think you, you nailed it by saying like you got Ilya whose star took a, to took a hit. I think he could restore that pretty quickly in a, in a buildup with Patty. I think that those two guys would be, make a very dynamic pairing. So I'm with you, man. I mean, I just don't know if you get a better opportunity than this. And with Patty where he's at right now, man, I think he's kind of deserved a shot like this. I don't disagree. Listen. And you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts.

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On the road to the July 19th final. 2026 FIFA World Cup. Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeard Radio. Now, let's talk about BSD. This fucking guy. What was this game playing, Luke? What do you think it was?

Chuck, I want to ask you, what the fuck was that? I had a couple guys reach out to me, separate from the question about the choke, because I initiated those, but then I had a couple of other black belts like reach out to me to make a point and all of them were like dude what the fuck was that and I was like you tell me motherfucker you're like you know what I mean like I just want to tell you there was one danger zone for him right like the one danger zone dude I want to make a point about how you build a game

okay and you can say this is true for literally any dimension striking grappling whatever but because this was a grappling one let's just make it about that okay dude I can recall from my earliest, earliest, earliest days in jujitsu and wrestling, which was there might come a time when you go up against somebody who you just can't beat and they can't beat you and you might just have to kind of use force as the one thing left that you can bring to this when everything else fails, right? there will be an occasion where you might have to resort to that. And you should not lose sight of that. People sometimes they just want to have these fully technical games. And if the technical game doesn't

work, they don't bring the intensity that they might need that can be a little loose and a little forceful and, you know, if misapplied cause problems. But it can also sometimes, sometimes be the difference maker. Okay. I want to make sure that I say that. But Chuck, the one of the most important parts of building a grappling game is having a very clear understanding that you cannot force your way into things you cannot make it as a matter of routine and you cannot make it as a matter of your leading offense in exchanges right this is the first fucking it wasn't like this was round five well there was a three round five but it wasn't like it was you know the third minute of the third round, Chuck.

He was like, well, shit, nothing's working. Let me just plow through and see what I can do, right? No one's sweaty. Fucking, you know, obviously, Patty was not, by BSD, not taken seriously. It is absolutely, and I want to say this word very clearly, it is unforgivable to fight this way, where you don't take seriously. By the way, Chuck, how many times have you seen him just walk through range and he gets lit up with punches?

And yeah, once he gets a hold of you, okay, fine, he's very, very good, but not taking that seriously. And just shooting in head on the outside of the hip rather than like a head inside single or like a John Smith low single or getting to a body lock or something like that, putting your head on the outside of their hip when everyone's dry with the worst, he threw a high kick and then just shot, like no, barely a setup at all, right? You cannot fight that way ever if you expect to be good or maximize your potential or get to a, title, dude, literally, and I'm not joking when I say this, white belts are discouraged from doing

that because they want you to build technique to solve problems. Blue belts are discouraged from doing that because they want you to build technique to do this. And I want to say this too, Chuck, obviously, BSD is a much better grappler than I ever was in my day by a million miles, but I was a heavyweight. Okay, I am a heavyweight. And so, as you know, Chuck, there can be ranges of heavyweights. There are times where, yeah, I'd spar with another heavyweight, but I still might have 30, 40 pounds on him in certain cases. You know, and deep into like a 10-minute round, you know, sometimes you can lean on that. And they don't want you to do that. You get discouraged from that because they want you to build

a bridge to winning vis-a-vis technique. That is what they want you to do. And again, Chuck, if that's not enough, then yes, there might be a time where you just have to kind of say, I'm going to have a gung-ho attitude and that there's no other way to win other than to do that. But this was the first fucking takedown of the whole thing. This is Chuck. Ready for this? BSD 1 billion percent is on the all-dunk Mount Rushmore. All-dunk, first team, Mount Rushmore, top four to treat your opponent with such contempt.

To treat the game with such contempt, you belong on the. Mount Rushmore all donk, unforgivable approach to fighting. You know, what's really wild is all week too. Like this is a guy who shows up. He's just drowned out. It's almost like he's incidental to the matchmaking, right?

Because you got Patty Pembley, everybody's singing, Patty to Badi, you know, like it's just everywhere you look, it felt like, you know, there was one-sided. And every time they would mention, you know, San Deney,

it was a chorus of booze. and he was handling himself so well. He was handling himself so well in these positions. Like he was just very quietly confident. And I was like, this isn't a dude you want to piss off in this way, right? This is how you traditionally think about these things. But I would, like, it's always funny to look back in retrospect

because you're like, that's exactly how it struck me? It's like, how do you not have respect for a guy or, you know, want to, um, you want to put your best foot forward in a situation where this many people envision you lose and want you to lose. Don't you want to go in there and just silence? I feel like fighters themselves, they get to situations like this. They're like, it puts an extra, you know, log on the fire and they're like, you know what, man, I'm going to beat this. I'm going to beat this dude and I'm going to shut them all up. I can't believe he played right

into his hands. I mean, it's like, it's so mind-boggling. It's so mind-boggling. As it was playing out, I was like, if it ends like this, dude, like this is just going to, I thought about you immediately. I was like, he's going to have a field day looking at this and be like, what is this guy doing. And then my immediate reaction too was like what you said is just like a lack of respect or a lack of intelligence to do that. But at the same time,

I was like, and let me ask you this. Like, do you think that this was actually a game plan? Do you think that like his coaches were like, we're going to do this and try to catch him off guard? Because maybe it's the coaching, you know, or something like that. But otherwise there's really no explanation for

what he did there. If you're so if you're so fucking arrogant, that you think that if I all I need to do is get my hands on him and I'll eventually be fine you have a problem with a your competitive mindset number one and number two and I don't know this to be true Chuck but here's a hunch that I have my hunch is that he needs tougher tougher rounds in the room because if you've ever had someone that you had to roll with particularly when you're tired and they're just clearly technically superior to you like all the gung-ho lead with your head shit doesn't do it only makes your problems worse i have a feeling that what happens

in the training room chuck is that he i mean obviously let's be serious like when he's acting in an offensive capacity and especially by the time he's already established contact yeah he's he's he's a very good grappler like i don't think there's any question about that right and i don't i don't question it in that sense he underperformed because he ignored the rules of the game not because he doesn't have overall skills per se. I mean, you could ask any good grappler to follow that game plan that he had and the exact same way that

he did it. How many are getting going to get put to sleep a bunch? You know what I mean? Like, that's just a trap door for basically everybody. What I think is happening, Chuck, is he goes into the room and he can just force his way through these scenarios and his coaches don't really challenge it

or maybe they do and he ignores them. I don't know about the coaching aspect. But it seems to me, if you've had, to problem solve through technical maturation and and, you know, fainting and all the proper setups to get you to a place, as well as thinking ahead about what kinds of takedowns to be doing and what kinds of scenarios to do them in, you would never, ever, ever, ever approach the game that way. I think he needs tougher roles in the gym, and I think he needs some different training partners. And frankly, I'm not saying leave the gym per se, but they need to, they need,

if you can just go into the training room and roughhouse your sparring partners to the point where you think you can show up against a guy like Patty Pimble for all his limitations and think, yeah, I'll just head outside double or head outside single. I'll be fine. This is the wake up call of all fucking wake up calls. And he's only 29, Chuck. He's got time. But it looks to me like things are too easy for him in the training room. And that's a big problem. That's probably a good shout, man. And I mean, we've seen these guys in the past.

they have a ton of potential. And you hear that thing where regrets to stay in business a long time, that sort of thing. Like, and he's going to have so many of them. I mean, and so much as he's going to look back at it intelligently

and remember these things, because the Dustin Porrier fight, for instance, you know, that should have been his fight. This particular one, you just don't know if you just play it, you know, you play it differently,

like if this could have been his fight. I mean, these are the types of things that he's beating himself, you know, like just by stupidity. And I'm like, that's, that's the worst kind of thing. We've seen fighters like this in the past where they're guys like on paper. You're like, this guy should win. I, you know, if he just, you know, plays intelligently or if he just does this or this,

he should win. And yet they keep finding ways to lose. And I feel like that's where we're at with him. I'm not sure like when Long Island was saying like, can you trust him? I don't think I could trust this dude anymore. Well, he's 29. It is 29 or 30, like right around then. Yeah.

I here's the thing. This is the good news for him. One, he does have ability. Like, that's a real thing. He does have it. He's got to clean some of it up, but he's got some ability. Two, he didn't take a beating in this fight. You know what I mean?

He got embarrassed, but he didn't get like walloped, right? So there's still time. There's actually still some time for him. But he's the guy that like, you know, I could see him doing this again. Like I could see him putting together four fights, you know, winning. and then all of a sudden dropping the ball again in the exact same manner. That's the problem.

I feel like he's got a patterned something there that's like he's going to just keep doing this. I don't know. Maybe that's just me, but I'm like it just feels like we're going to see this again. He reminds me a little bit of like a, so, okay, God, this is a reference. No one's going to care about.

Back in the day when our local football team had Rex fucking Grossman as a quarterback, I had a friend who believes in the theory of he calls it the turnover gene where you know because dude rex would have games where he would throw 200 sometimes 300 yards and one thing you can say about rex grossman was he had a fucking cannon do you remember that right yes of course yeah you can't he could haul that shit uh but then you know he would just eventually throw a pick because he just had a turnover gene he just couldn't no matter how much discipline no matter what the coaches wanted it was just in him

to give the ball away so if bsd is that that way? Yeah, if BSD is that way, then there's nothing that they can do. But I don't know if I'm ready to make the turnover gene comparison to him yet, you know? Well, let's put it this way. And you're now to a point where would you be surprised if he just walks into another loss? I mean, so that's the thing. And when the expectation is kind of like, well, you've always got to take into account, he may do the stupidest thing here. That's where it starts. Let me, let me tell you how bad I think this is. If I was his coach, okay, the conversation I would have with him is, if you want to keep fighting this way, I can't work with you. Right. I can't work with you. I'll work with you through

wins. I'll work with you through losses. I'll work with you through the toughest times of your career if you want me to be there. But if you just think you can muscle your way into things and you don't have to respect the bridge building through technique to properly put yourself in a position to win, we can't do this anymore. Right. I would never work with a person. I would never work with a I'll work with a person who's bad who believes in that before I'll work with someone who's good Who doesn't you know what I mean 100% I mean like you say he's 29 if he figures it out right now like where They have that discussion and you're like okay Let's you know let's resolve to do this correctly I mean obviously he's young enough where he could do it

I think he is talented enough dude we talked about him years ago I think you know I was I was pretty high on him I thought that he could uh you know he definitely looked like the type of guy who, you know, could go very far. If not win a title, he would definitely be entitled, a title shot at some point, right? I just, I do, you hate to see it because I feel like it's a waste of potential in the end. I should have set this up earlier.

We're going to move to topic number three here in just a second, but we have a video of Patty reacting to Connor losing. I want to play it very quickly and then we'll move on. Okay, all right. I'll exchange with him. I need shooting. What's happened? Oh my God, McGregor's done already.

At least finished. The new boys in town, the main man's here. I don't what I mean? I can become the face of the organization now. But, yeah, great. What a performance from me. Don't want to blow smoke up my own ass, but what a performance. Go ahead and blow the smoke up your own ass.

You deserve it, man. That's funny, man. It's just funny. He was like, he looks at a man's injury. He's like, this is great for me. Without a second of, like, introspection. none at it at all. It's good to see that because at the press conference, if you remember, he was very deferential to McGregor and the pop he was getting. And I was like, this isn't the

patty we know. That's the patty we know. And I hope he can retain that. That's where he needs to be. Yeah. Well, you know, a win like this is going to boost your confidence and it deserves to. Absolutely. All right. Let's go to topic number three. Let's talk about the rest of that main card that was left because there's actually a great main card if I do say so myself. So let's get right to it. Mario Bautista defeats Corey Sandhagen. He does it. Let's put the scorecards. Yeah, it was 29, 28 across the board.

The one I thought it was, and we'll talk about this with Long Island, look in a second. To me, the Ben Cardinalist's scorecard makes the most sense, which is round one to Batista. Could have gone either way, but fine, I'm okay with that. Round two, I thought Sanhagen rescued himself there a little bit. And then round three, the amount of offense just from the striking and the grappling and everything else was just overwhelming from Bautista. So a one and three scorecard for him makes sense. Interestingly, Chris Lee on the end there, you can see, gave round one to Sandhager, which I don't think is a problem either, but gave round two to Bautista, which I really don't get

at all, but it doesn't matter. It's 29, 28 either way. Chuck, what is the significance of this win for Bautista? Well, to me, he's been a guy who's been kind of slow to capture the imagination of the fight, you know, the fight world, but like he had that, he had that main event in the last one with Olivera, right, Benicia's Alvara. And like, to me, he's at an age like he suffered some losses but it's a guy who's kind of dogged in his approach you can tell he's he's wired in right he's got good coaching behind him and it was that it was like main event i think it was an apex card and he looks so good in that fight that i i was like this is the right test for him right to go against a guy like cori sannieang and who's coming off of a title shot uh they have history that goes back what seven eight years and uh they've seen each other they know about each other and i wanted to see this fight and i wanted to see this fight and more from the Batista lens because I think we kind of know Corey over the course of time. But I wanted to see where if Batista was really the player. And I predicted he, I predicted it.

I told other people, I was like, you know, if you're looking for the dog because people, you know, in Vegas want to know all this stuff. I'm like, Batista's probably your guy because he just, you tell me, man, because I thought he looked as best in his last fight. And I thought he had, you know, flashes in this one too, where he just looks like he's the best he's been. Like I feel like we're seeing the best version of him that we've seen. I think the only issue that Bautista has is not that he's not good, he's good, not that he's not prepared, he looks always really well prepared.

You never have to question, oh, does he have a gas tank late? Motherfucker, he's got a great gas tank. You see him at the end just dragging that down, one after another was standing? One after. I think he had like seven takedowns in round three alone. And they were just one on top of the other. His cardio was there for days, man. The two issues that he's got are, as far as I can tell.

And these are somewhat promotional, mostly promotional issues, really, is that one, he's not a dynamic finisher. And I think that can be a problem, especially in that weight class. Yeah. And the other problem is like his game chuck, it's like he's got the Batman tool belt. You know, we kind of use that metaphor about how you can do different things. But if you really think about it, that analogy doesn't quite work because Batman's tool belt is filled with cool shit. You know what I mean? Right.

there's like oh this this thing does this incredible thing and this thing does that incredible thing and so yes they do different things but there's razzle dazzle there's mystery to it whereas his game is like one of the most elite versions of a workman like game plan and ability that you've seen and I don't mean to demean that like look at how good it is he just beat Corey fucking Sanhagen you know like you have and he did have that suble of a stretch right like in the at the end of the first that would if it finishes there obviously maybe we're not having to happen the conversation. You know what I mean? Well, you know, what's interesting is he goes from the Sulu-O-Wev stretch to the knee bar. Think about that for just a second. The Sulu-Ev stretch is chest to back,

and I'm grabbing the ankle, but I'm chest to back. There's no knee bar from there. I have to get past your back onto your leg itself, and then I can go to apply the knee bar. So that transition is very difficult to do you. I don't know if I've ever seen it, to be quite honest with you. Yeah. So, like, this is what I mean. Like, the dude's fucking. good. Had he pulled off the knee bar, then the Batman belt thing works for me a little bit better. Yeah. But I, I, I, I just think that, like, in a division where you've got guys like Jan, who also has a Batman belt, but his weapons are a little cooler, it's just

going to be a little tough for him to, uh, get the, get the respect. No, I know. You're right. No, you're right. I think he's, uh, he's not exactly like stirring up like the dynamic, you know, that some of these guys do where, you know, the fans are like, okay, let's, must see TV type thing he's not doing that but i thought he handled himself very well in these last couple of fights so if he's going to get the push it'd be right now and i'm guaranteeing you um that division is so stacked but his next fight will probably be everybody says this but it'll be the biggest in terms of visibility i think it helped him to be on a card like this especially in that swing bout

where you've got patty and you've got connor um right behind him because i felt like for once in his life everybody was paying attention to him you know so we'll see where he can can take it. But I thought, I mean, honestly, we know Corey Sanhagan. I know he had a compromised leg too, like, that was after the first round, right? Like he was so second round on, he was battling through that as well. But to me, I mean, like that third round were, dude, you just try to imagine going through like 10 minutes and then all of a sudden you go in that third round and he's just ragdalling, taking him down again and again, taking Sanhagen back down. Every time he'd get up, drag him back down, throw him back down. I mean,

that it was exhausting to watch that and it felt like he could have kept doing that for three more rounds i um i don't know what this means for cori sanhagen i do feel like they don't matchmake him right at times uh you know obviously if you're going for a title then you know you just match make who you match make but i i still feel like they whiffed on not making the shana o'mally fight and i realize that now they've got shone o'malley like waiting in the wings for a title shot so i get in that yeah they messed up there big time but it's like if if if cori has tasted the mountain top he's been just a little bit short, but he's still very good. And he's primarily a striker, although I did think that some of his take down defense through

the first and second round was pretty good. You know, match him up with a striker at this point, you know, and they just don't do that. I don't quite get that. How about this one? I mean, Brandon Royville, like, holy shit, dude. This was a phenomenal fight. Frankly, this was the fight of the night. I think literally it was the fight of the night.

Yeah. But even if it wasn't, it was my fight of the night. But my question to you is this. it was a great fight i thought rooval came out with a great game plan chuck looked good in round one cavanaugh drops him in round two you can see the scorecards all of that all of this absolutely makes sense they all oh yeah they're all the same sorry i misunderstood um so so that part is all great he submits him in the third off of a dumb ass decision by cavanaugh to go for a guillotine but you know what are you going to do here's my question though does brandon royville at this point deserve consideration

as an all-time great in terms of being an all-action fighter. He's standing out to me that way, Luke. Like every time, like that Joshua Van fight last year, right? Last year, I think I had it as a fight of the year. And it was in part because this was a quick turnaround for Van. But if you looked at like, if you looked at the situation, it was more like this. Okay, here comes Van. Here's the spotlight.

We know this kid like he's coming up for it. he's doing something crazy. There was nothing on Roybal, right? Like, this is a guy who already had victories over Brandon Moreno, for instance, Tattoo Tyra. Like, he'd beat these, he'd already had some big victories, but nobody's paying attention to him. And he quietly goes in there and just puts on a ridiculous battle. I mean, a war where they're just hacking away at each other. He's taking big shots and then returning fire. And I was like, this is the, it was, it was, it showed me so much about the dog, you know, the raw dog, right? Like, It showed me so much about the dog this guy has in him that I'm with you.

I mean, when you asked me a question, I'm like, I'm sold. And I felt like this fight particularly was going to be just like it was. I thought it was going to play out just like that. If you see Royvon the card, you're in for a treat. And if you're an opponent, you know that as long as you're willing to play the game with him a little bit, or if you want to go in there and mix it up with him, you stand a pretty good chance of getting that $100,000 bonus because the dude doesn't know any other way. And it's almost like, you remember like Chris Lieben or those types? So they'd have to almost get cut up or dropped or or stunned for a minute to come to life.

It almost felt like that. Like he's, he gets dropped with that counter shot. And he's on the ground and he's, you know, he's wiggling. And he's trying to avoid the big follow-ups. And then he's like with his blades, like his shoulder blades crawling over the fence. I mean, and you're like, I were, I was said the guy's next to me on press around. I'm like, if he gets up, he survives this, watch out because this is what he does. right like he's just you have to kill him you have to kill him if you don't he's going to win the

fight and that's what he ended up doing dude he's got he's got if you just like guys who go out there and lay it on the line go out on the shield every single time brandon royball is your guy there's no question about it so i was looking up in preparation for today's show like uh you know everyone's informal lists from and but not just current eras but like i looked up one from 2018 looked up one from 2010 you know all-time action fighters who people count and some of the names you would imagine are very easy to consider Diego Sanchez as one that shows up a lot. Vanderlea Silva is one that shows up a lot. But the thing that really stood out to me when I read the Robbie Lawler is one.

Yeah. When I read the list though, Chuck, the things that stood out to me was that most of the people making the list had a level of celebrity within the fight game itself, you know, and they had big time opponents. You know, yes, Diego Sanchez at the end was fighting whoever the fuck. But, you know, he fought BJ Penn. He fought, you know, and this was a big time. big time fight at the time he fought caro he fought joe riggs he fought people that the fans at the time cared about and had some kind of name and some kind of visibility and the only thing holding up

rooval is not that he can't contribute to that list he belongs chris lightel's another name that shows up a lot too um you know but these guys had big pushes at times you might say chris ladle chris lytle was season four ultimate fighter against mat sarah you know and in the finals so yes he did have something of a put joe lazahn was on that list and i and i love joe lazahn's career and his fights but you can't have a list with joe lozahn on it and not brandon roival you know what i mean like it doesn't make sense at that point so i just want to point out like one of the things that the flywights are up against is that their inclusion on some of these like all-time lists or greatest lists or just even like what class of fighter you belong to so much of that even still today is determined by who your opponent is

and what the level of celebrity around the weight class is. And I think that might be holding Reuvel back from some broader consideration. But from the merit standpoint, Chuck, he's in no question about it. And he's had the occasional, like, you know, fight that he just loses just outright. Who just beat him? It was a cap, right? Like, he lost that fight. There are times he's just going to lose.

I mean, but that's just kind of the, that's the nature of his game. But he's not a guy who's discouraged. and I'm not even sure how much it matters to him ultimately to, you know, to be a champion. I'm sure it does on some level, but he's a guy who's just wired to go out there and give it as all, man. I mean, and just kind of, you know, put on a show. And I love guys that when they get hit, you know, or like, not that he was never in the fight, not like he was fighting passively or something at the beginning, but didn't you kind of

know the moment he got dropped and he survived that? you're like now this is going to be a war like that's when you know that that's the mentality of these guys it's so much fun to watch you know and you mentioned all those guys Diego sancho he's had some crazy as battles you know like those types of guys like that was kind of their mentality you know you hit him with something boom dropped them and all of a sudden they came back and now they were fortified they wanted to come at you even harder it's we don't see a lot of that in ufc anymore so it's fun man yeah and again he's got i actually really what i liked about this fight too was I think he fought pretty technically

and you know I know how to know he got dropped in the second but actually what I liked about it was like I thought he thought he had a good game playing in round one yeah I'm going to get right on top of this guy from open stance jabbing his face going to give him no room if you give Kavanaugh room to kind of play this like slick game he'll pick you apart he'll pick you apart you know yeah but if you kind of like you know get right on top of him and kind of you are the one dictating offensive tempo, it kind of mutes what he's good at. They got right at it, right at it.

And they got a little bit away from it in round two, but he used his, you know, his scrambling ability and his veteran savvy and wits about him to hold on. And then in round three, oh, oh, you want to make a mistake? You're going to make you pay for that. You just, how do you not love that? How do you not love that? Kavanaugh looks like a middle schooler, by the way.

Like he just says that haircut and that stance. It's like if you saw kids squaring up in the, you know, in the play yard or something. He definitely has a youth to him. He's got a, I don't know much about the youth these days. I guess he's got like a halfway what they call an Edgar haircut, you know, using the Edgar. Yeah. That's what it is.

Like a like a 15th century fucking Franciscan monk. You know what I mean? It's kind of a weird thing. All right. Last but not least. Okay. So dude, I was flying home from vacation when I was watching this on my phone. All right.

I'm sitting in the airport terminal. My flight was delayed an hour from Miami back to D.C. and i'm sitting there watching this thing on my phone and you know uh i was in uh what boarding group was i for okay so they're calling it up and i'm watching it and like this whole time terence mcanny's just beating the shit out of bobby green bro and i'm like dude and and this was the thing that got me too yes terence mcanny you know he gets right to work but it looked to me like he was at least making some some kind of effort to be a little bit slower and more methodical about it that's what it struck me yes right yeah yeah

But he hangs on, Bobby Green hangs on. He manages to get a little bit of chest to back asymmetry. He calls Terrence McKinney a bitch as he's punching him over his shoulder, which was fucking hilarious. And then he extricates himself. And by the time I sit down in my seat, he's standing and then hits him with the liver shot, drops him. You could maybe argue Chuck that the fight was stopped a little early.

But my question to you is, what does it say about King Green that some of his biggest and most high profile wins are happening as he nears 40 years of age. Dude, I tweeted this out afterwards. I'm like, the thing about his fights is they make no sense to me. They just don't make sense. You know, it's like you're watching him. He keeps his hands down. Like he's getting pieced up.

He relies on it at 40 years old. He's relying on his movement, right? To kind of to set him free and to get his offense rolling. He's still relying on this rhythm thing. And he's just getting pieced up. The dude was bleeding in the first minute, you know, and it's just, he's just getting butchered in there.

And the moment you think like, well, this is what happens, man. You play this kind of game. You know, play dumb games. You win dumb prizes type of time. And the next thing I know, he's getting his hand raised,

man. And I mean, yes, you could make the point that they could have let it get to the next round. It would have been interesting to see what happens there. But it doesn't make any sense to me.

It doesn't make any sense. This is a dude who fought on a fliction against Joe Lozano. That was the first time I ever watched King Green or Bobby Green at the time. And for him, him to be when that was in 2008 so 18 years later to see him doing this kind of thing it just doesn't add up man i mean it's fun i got to say like when he's in there generally speaking just his talking

is kind of vibe like you know the way he he he gets into his flow and all that stuff it's it's a lot of fun but either he gets crushed or he uh or he wins or it happens both where which is what we did in this fight he had no business winning that fight somehow he did in insane Long Island of the fights we talked about here in topic three, which one was your favorite? Definitely the King Green one. Gaff and I both had an underdog bed on Bobby Green. So like you said, he's getting his ASB in the beginning of that fight. And then he starts coming back.

That's the best kind of victory. I made a short out of it on my channel. Anyone go check it out. Our reaction to it. It's pretty funny. But also, uh, they fucking hung out afterwards, dude. They squashed their beef afterwards. They were hanging on the strip.

They went to the club together. So it was just a fun time. It's pretty funny. And how about? this. Bobby, so who did the most, who did the most in that fight? Well, it was McKinney, right? Like he's, he's dictating everything. He's dictating all terms. This is a guy who's never won a bonus in his life. Tables turn on him last few seconds of the round. He gets finished. King Green gets a bonus. Not Terrence McKinney. That poor dude will never win a bonus, man.

It's insane. He's the evil-con-eval of M.A. And he just can't get, he can't get the bonus that he deserves. Chuck, before we go to topic number four, have you been watching some of the the soccer, as they call it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've been catching it here and there, but dude, everywhere I go, because I was in D.C. and they were all behind it. And in Vegas, it was just like, there's so much passion around it, man. Like, everywhere

you hear big cheers, like, everybody runs out to the sportsbook to see what's happening, you know? So, yes, I've been watching it in pieces, yes. I think I told the story on maybe Friday's MK. I'll just say it very quickly. I, we Columbia played Switzerland. Right. I don't know. Last Tuesday or Wednesday,

something like that. And we were staying in the Airbnb downtown but you can buy a day pass to a resort which we wanted to because my daughter wanted to hit the water slides at this nearby resort so we bought a day pass and we took my daughter to the thing and there's private beach there it's all nice and we also did it because they had an auditorium at this facility that they were going to show the game and uh but of course earlier that day was argentina versus egypt right and i'm sitting there by the pool right by the auditorium and i hear like loud cheering and i'm like oh wow argentina must have scored you know because I would imagine Colombians would be more in favor of that than they would.

Egypt. Fuck no, bro. They were cheering Egypt hard in Colombia. They didn't want, because you come here, you come here and there's a little bit of like, like pan-Hispanic solidarity. You know what I mean? Yeah. You go there.

That shit is out the window immediately. That was crazy. I wouldn't have, I would not have anticipated that. No, they were, they were unambiguously pro-Egypt. It was so. funny. It was, I called me by surprise for a little bit. And then my heartbroken by the end then. Weren't they like that was so? Yeah.

Yeah. Once they went to penalties in the Columbia, Switzerland game, the whole vibe shifted in the place. Half of it emptied out. Half of it emptied out. I was like, wow, these buckers don't trust their team at all. But I just got to say, we're down to the final four. So let's see. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's going to be

Argentina versus who? Who are they playing? England, I think. England. And then France versus Spain. So those are the four teams left. I can't wait to watch it. Listen. And you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage. And breathtaking triumph. 2026 FIFA World Cup. The knockout stage. Every match. Every moment. Listen on TSN radio.

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Predictions offer void in New York ends July 19th, terms at dkng.c.c.O. All right, let's move to the prelim portion of the card, Chuck, but first I want to talk about, well, inside of the prelims. Right. The two bigger names that were kind of on the prelims, namely Robert Whitaker and Gable Steven. Let's start with Robert Whitaker, the former UFC middleweight champion. Now, he has a bit of a tough run moving up to 205 early, but he eventually took over.

It looked like he broke Nikita Krillov's jaw in the third. It gets called there. Look at this photo. I think that's from Esther Lynn, if I'm not mistaken. Yep, she was there. A tremendous, tremendous win by him. But he did look a little. Doey, Chuck, and he did have some adversity early.

How would you grade this maiden voyage to 205 for Whitaker? I would give him like a B, you know, because it's tough to, it's tough to move up and wait. And this is a big one. And I, like you mentioned, like he did the kind of, he did, he looks doy. Like, I thought his hands were pretty good, though. His IQ was still, you know, was still good. Like, I felt like he was making good decisions. he landed some very good shots in that fight but I have a hard time like kind of seeing him beat the better guys in the division

you know what I mean? Like to me it was like he looked pretty good for like the first one up there but I'm not sure I would expect him to make a big run at a title shot. How about you? So I would say I think B is a fair grade. I might go a little higher.

Yeah. I might go be playing. Plus, because to me, the fight IQ difference was way higher. Like, you could see how much, like, better the quality of pure fighter was between them as that fight wore on. I do think that he hasn't quite figured out optimal weight, you know, like exactly how big should I be, how much muscle match should I have? How much am I, how much do I need to bulk versus how much do I need to not bulk to reserve for speed, you know? because Whitaker is not naturally going to be a speedy guy. Most of what has carried him through has been his timing.

But because he is smaller than most of these guys, he probably is going to be faster. And that's something that's going to be important to preserve, right? You're not going to beat them on pure heft. You should beat them on the other things, you know? So I think he has to calibrate that. But it's his first one. I am also concerned that some of the bigger guys at 205

are going to be a problem for him just by virtue of the difference in pure size. But I'll say this, like, did his power carry? Yes. And then on top of it, like, can, is he technically on the level to beat these guys? Like, I don't have a doubt in my mind, he can beat a lot of very good light heavyweights, yes. Well, Paulo Costa when Wright moves up and gets a win and he was what? He was ranked.

I don't know if on the meta, like the new rankings, but he got ranked pretty highly. So sometimes when I say this, I'm like, you're basing it on, you know, the idea that like you're mentioned in the bigger body guys who are at the top of the division. And, uh, but at the same time, it's not the, it is not the deepest division. And if you're trying to reinvent yourself and I think what, Whitaker is somewhere like 35 years old. It's not like he's, it's not like he's completely washed up. And I got to say, dude, he's got a immense falling. The people who love him really love them. They still love him. I saw, you know, there's guys like Ben Folks who calls him Bobby Knuckles. I saw that he was like,

this guy still makes him nervous when he goes out there because he's liked. You know what I mean? and to see him kind of do go in there and be successful and you can you know you can tell it meant a lot to him that's all good i guess i don't want to write him off and say that he can't make the run you know what i mean but maybe it is more like what you're saying about an aesthetic that he needs to kind of improve upon because it just looked like a dad bought a little bit right he's in there and i'm like i don't know how that will translate against the very best in the division well i'm not sure with the very best some division even are anymore. Well, that's why when I was thinking about it was like the best in the division aren't

aren't as good as they used to be though, you know? Yeah. And I'm not predicting he can win a title, although I suppose one never really knows, but you know, can he beat top 10 guys? Would he be an unlikely two division champion? You'd be like, what the hell? How did he do that? That would be insane, especially his undersized.

And also remember, this is a win in his third UFC weight class. He had him at 70, 85, and now 205. That's also by like, you don't move through weight like that unless you've got real technical ability to carry you that that kind of distance, you know. So I appreciated that from him. I saw people being like, oh, no matter what he should, you know, this is the end. And I if you wanted to be the end, that's okay. He's had a good career. But like, I think he can beat some guys in this division.

Yeah. I don't think that that's. I'm definitely intrigued. I mean, I'm intrigued by it because I'm like, I feel like he feels reinvented. And sometimes that works, you know. What his jab got going in that second round. dude. I was like, he's starting to just take over, you know, and he did.

He absolutely fucking did. So, and I think he brought out, vintage. Yeah. Right. The vintage guy. It was an evidence there. Yeah. And then he brought out, like, I think he's got, what, 75,000 children he brought out, something like that, right? Did you see that? Six children.

Dude, what, what's the basic math on flying six kids Oh my God? And your wife from, let's say Sydney to Las Vegas. That's got to be what, 20 grand? Oh, God, at least. It'd be a shitload. But what's even better is they asked him about that. They're like, how was it traveling with six kids?

He's like, oh, yeah, you load up Bluey on the iPads. They're good. Like, just so casual about it. Like, what the fuck? 15 hours each way? No, thanks. Dude, 15 hours of Bluey. I would bluey my brains out.

You know what I'm saying? All right. So let's talk about the other one here, the more controversial figure of the two, Gable Stephson. So he just bulldozes, Elijah Ellison. and I mean, I've got complicated feelings about this one. Both of him as a person, but let's put that for the side for just a moment of making the fight analysis, Chuck.

What would you say four fights into his career? I'm going to ask very basically, how does he look to you? He's not going to be able to do that because he just didn't respect Ellison at all, right? Like he just went right in there, traded. He was going to show his hands. I think he got, he didn't have a take. I mean, he had to take down a. temper to, right, but he didn't succeed in actually getting a takedown in this fight.

I mean, I thought he did what he had to do, but did he look like a phenom? You know what I mean? Or something like that? No, I still think he's very raw. And honestly, I'm not sure this was a test that told us much because it looked like he was going to walk right through land the shots he wanted. And, you know, he got out of there pretty good. He took a couple of shots, though, right?

Like, because I felt like there was a couple of moments where it's like, oh, geez, I mean, this is a little, a little more adversity than I even thought he would get. But I just, he's a little in cautious, man. You know what I mean? And like he got, what was it? That fight where he took the head kick. Was it the last one before this? That stuff stays in your head. And I was like, I was like, will he be a little cautious in this one?

And he absolutely wasn't. Now, obviously he's fighting a guy. He was supposed to he was like 25 to 1 or something like that. But even in that, I mean, dude, they're thumpers. When you watched them, I was up close, right? And you see how big they are. And you, you just know that they're packing power. I don't know, not that he was, I don't know, not that he was that incautious, but it did, it felt like he'd had no respect for the opponent there. I mean, here's the thing. Like, you saw that sprawl he hit or, um, some of those front kicks, the snappiness to them. I mean, he's clearly a gifted athlete. I mean, that's not breaking news or anything, but you can, you know, watch. watching it in an MMA context it's like wow holy shit like that's he's he's obviously a very gifted athlete the thing for me though is to your point someone made this comparison to me it's not mine but someone made it to me that he's got Aaron Pico vibes right yeah where stud wrestler stud athletes but he's just so incaut

cautious that it's eventually gonna catch up to him i mean i'll say this if you've watched enough regional m m m and lord knows i have in my time that's how you're you you're you fight on regional MMA, where you're getting some guy who you are the A, you're the A side, and, you know, this is an important experience for you, but it's a limited one. So you treat it as a limited one. You just kind of blow the guy out. Dude, if he keeps fighting, again, it's four fights. Like, on some level, you got to be like, all right, like, give him some time. But at the same time, like, it's hard to get proper development in the UFC. That's one challenge. And the other challenge is it if he keeps fighting this way, he's gonna get chinned.

Like, that's a garen fucking T. And everyone's like, oh, he's a better athlete than blah, blah, blah. It's like, I don't know, dude, Greg Hardy's a phenomenal athlete. I mean, yes, he didn't have the wrestling background. But like, you know, on pure athletic terms, you ever seen Prime Greg Hardy? Like, dude, he was good. Like, he was a really good football player. And he was incurious and didn't work on his game.

And now he's just, you know, I know he's a punchline. But like, you're gonna get chinned doing. shit like that. And to your point, Chuck, Ellison hit him with some shots along the way. That was like a bit of a wake-up call and he just kind of bulldozed through it. You might say, well, like, how come I'm killing BSD and I'm not killing this guy? Well, BSD was fighting for, I don't know, number one contender status, but he was fighting another ranked guy at the top of this division. That's not this. This is this guy's fourth fight. So it's a little more forgivable to take this approach. But you can see, Chuck, what happens when you take this like bulldozing mentality all the way,

it eventually becomes, it comes crashing down on you. And buying into your hype, because, you know, he realizes what a big favorite he was. I think he kind of looked at it like, well, I'm supposed to crush this guy. I better go crush this guy. And I just, that mentality, man, when you say Aaron Pico vibes, that's what it was. It's at the Herapico vibes. Because there's such an expectation. There's very few guys.

I mean, like, Boe Nickel or somebody, like, there's these, there are these guys who come in and there's almost an unrealistic expectation that they're going to walk through everybody and dictate wherever the fight takes place and all that stuff. This particular one, he should be able to, you know, if he's able to kind of figure it out and like you said, kind of just play a little more cautious, figure it out, like take his time in there a little bit. He could go very far, obviously.

He could be a champion in the sport, but I don't know if he's going to be able to get by with it, like what he was doing here. And he shouldn't, like, Bo Neckle was the same kind of guy because he was like 20 to 1 type favorite. and, you know, he was very aware of that. And I would say that you should start to ignore the odds because that was a big talking point as, oh, yeah, this guy has no shot.

You don't, you just don't want that mentality, man. You don't want to have a mentality that you're clearly the better guy in all these matchups. Somebody will find your chin at some point in the heavyweight division and that'll be that. What was the, like, the Bellator, when they, remember when they signed like 10 years ago with it, it was with Aaron Pico, but there was like, there was a slew of wrestlers that they kind of signed it once, like, division. one guys who oh like tyrell fortune yeah fortune and stuff like that and obviously like

this is a different beast we're talking about but sometimes just go back and look at like a lot of these guys just didn't have any success in it man you know like they they did okay they might have won some fights here or there but would you still be talking about like what did they have a legacy that they left in mma a lot of them didn't so not that i feel like steveson's going to do that but you've seen we've seen a lot of guys though who didn't live up to the potential build of what we thought they would do. I just don't want to see him fall to that. Let me ask a question about him as a person

because obviously he's got his own background where he was accused of, I wouldn't want to call it heinous sex crime that ultimately did not materialize due to a few reasons, one of which was a legal loophole that has since been closed. But you know what's kind of,

I don't know if interesting is the right word, but something I noticed, which is that like, the fan base has no problem. problem mentioning this and engaging with this when it comes to him. But then when it comes to Connor, they're much more defensive about it, even though like the evident, well, I mean, there was a longer legal process, so you have more evidence as a consequence. But like, you know, Connor in his situation, it doesn't get nearly as the same kind of a probrium. Now, again, we talked about

the fact that the Irish didn't roll for him and that's played a huge deal. But I'm just saying, what is your best read on why people all seem much more ready to engage? with steveson's alleged malfeasance versus conners oh man that's such a that's such a crazy question i mean in the in terms of i have no idea if it's racial like you have no idea like if it's just because he's a you know an american and we've they focused more on that i don't know if it's because of you had like a transcendent star it's almost in the oj sense like right like when oj was first arrested and it was so surreal for people like that's impossible man this is a american and hero this guy's been doing this for a long time and we had Connor on a pedestal that it

we certainly saw a lot of warning signs from him and his behaviors and stuff like that but i think a general public may not have thought he was capable of something like that um i don't know i don't know why you know there was a lot of talk like what you're saying is we do we point out the mcgregor thing but a lot of it is under hushed tones you know like um you know what i mean like like people don't want to bring it up because they're afraid of offending, I guess, the promotion. They don't want, you know, or something. They don't want to like ruin the vibes of the fight week or something. But it's like, it was like an elephant in the room all week and everybody would talk about

it. It's just you didn't really hear people, you know, on microphones talking about it. Isn't that strange? Like, oh, we're dealing with this thing, but nobody wants to bring it up to them. It's a very strange week that way. Very, very strange. It is, it is strange. And again, it's not like every time in every scenario there,

has to be a long conversation about it. But it's like this weird like, oh, it's like a Jedi mind trick. Oh, you don't care about this. You know, this isn't what it was. You know? It's like, I don't, I think, I mean, I don't want to be naive to the extent of this racial,

I don't know. My best guess is that the dominant reason that there's a difference is that Connor's celebrity kind of inoculates him. Whereas Gable, like, if Gable was bringing $26 million gates, maybe he'd get the same benefit of the doubt. I don't know, you know. I don't know how that works, but it was curious to me that like, it's like, wow, some of this they hyper focus on and some of this they hyper is it avoided, man, you know? I mean, Michael Jackson is a, is a good example of somebody who like is a very polarizing figure, right?

But there's a just transcendent feeling of like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, people will defend him who know nothing about it, you know, or like, what they've heard or whatever, they just defend him as a default. They just cannot accept that there might be something shady going on, you know, with that. Like, they can't accept that, you know. It's just different athletes or different, different celebrities have different, different vibes this way, but I certainly saw a lot of it this week with Connor, man. It was very, very strange. All right, with that in mind, let's go to the final bouts on the rest of the UFC 329 card.

Topic number five. We don't have to spend a ton of time on each of these, but I kind of want to go through, Adrian Yanyes I mean fucking smokes Cody Garbrand in the first round about two and a half minutes

in Chuck was this about Janiez getting back to form or is this about Garbrand being just shopworn at this point I think it's shopworn Garbrand unfortunately man you pointed this out before

like when a guy like you'd mention like defensive boxing like when you come in with a shot and you don't you have no regard for where you're leaving your chin exposed you know what I'm talking about he did that. Like Garbrandt went there and he threw a shot.

A couple of shots like he's trying to get off his own offense. He's not concerned at all about what's going to come his way off of it. And Yanis just was able to counter and just piece him up. But I had to look at that when I watched the replays and you know, you know, what happened exactly in this fight? I couldn't help but feel like Garbrand. I was like, man, what are you doing? What do you know?

He was such a great box. You go back to the Thomas Almeida fights and some of those early ones when he was just piecing dudes up um you know the even the you know like you can take your pick but like he was he looks so good in boxing to see him kind of doing that stuff now i don't know if it's just that he's older i don't know what it is but like he leaves his chin out there man he rolls it out there for these guys and they're finding it um i think that it was a good confidence boost for yonyes you know what i mean like where he can look at and you saw in the post fight interview how like Ampt he was. He's like, I deserve to be here. I think it really did a lot for him. I just don't know what it means to beat Cody Garbrandt, but like I mean the difference in quality it did not take long to show up. I'll say yeah. I you know one thing to point out is they didn't make a big deal of it and I don't know if it's I have no idea if Garbrand pointed this out afterwards, but he took off his gloves like he took off his gloves and he he had them in his hand. I think he intended I was it looked like he intended to retire but he wasn't going to get the spotlight or.

something there. So you, yeah. I didn't give him the time. There's no confirmation, but he was like seen talking to Sean Shelby afterwards. Yeah. He walked right by him. He wrote with his gloves off and all that stuff. So if it's the end, I mean, the dude had like a very great, you know, first part of his career. You know, it's like one of those weird ones where they took a sharp U-turn. But for a while there, though, he was phenomenal. And I guess that's what you latch on to. But yeah, I wouldn't mind see him go though. I would not mind seeing him go. If you missed the dominant Cruz torturing team alpha

male rivalry to then see what Cody Garbrand did where he became the chosen one who finally solved it and ultimately became champion was such a big deal. He did have some real nice moments, but holy shit, that has come to an end. All right. Chuck, how high is the ceiling

for Luke Riley after he gets an impressive first round stoppage of Kai Kamaka the 3rd? I should ask you this because to me he uses that left hand, you know, like his lead left. Like he just, and then it sets up his rights like so well. Like it was, I thought it was like just a very fluid attack. And, you know, like his timing is very good. He's a precision striker.

To me, he looked outstanding out there. I thought this was one of his best performances. Yeah, dude, Kamaka is a good fighter. I mean, is he the best in the world? No, he's not the best in the world. but solid fighter, experienced, well-trained. He's got a wide range of skills, and Riley just kind of dropped him and then walk through him.

I mean, you can quibble with the timing of the stoppage if you want, and I'm not going to fight about it. But, you know, in general, I thought Luke Riley looked fucking awesome. He's a top guy. He might mind to move his lead leg a little bit more, though. That was getting, yeah, I was getting hammered a little bit. It was, you know. It didn't matter.

I mean, it didn't matter. How about Wang Tong scoring a decision over Tracy Cortez, despite by the way being deducted a point for a foul? Is she titlebound or is Cortez PFL bound? Which one is happening? Oh, man, it might be Cortez's PFL bound at this point. She didn't look good, you know? She just didn't look good in there. It's hard to say because how old is, how old is Kong?

She's got to be like in her mid-30s, right? I don't have it in front of you. I've got it right here in front of me. I'm not saying she can't make a run. 34. I mean, there's time for her to make a run. I don't know how, you know, I don't know how, like, if she'll get enough fights

or if the UFC will try to expedite her, but she looked good, but I just, to me, that just was not a very good fight from Tracy, though. I just didn't feel like she was in it. I mean, her last three losses, two of them, you know, okay, one is Rose. Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

And then the other one is Aaron Blanchfield, also right good fighter all right fair enough and then you know this one which is like i don't think that wang tong is a bad fighter by any stretch of the imagination but she's not on the level of the last two names i mentioned and it was still kind of you know is one-sided the word kind of sort of you know what i mean yeah so i don't know it's cortez dany sigur was telling me that cortez moved her situation to the uh the i in mexico city and was trying to get some training down there That may take time to really gel. Right.

But I don't know how much time she has left to get that right, I think is the point I would make. Yeah, it feels like her better days are behind her. That's the way this one looked. We'll see. Yeah. Let's bring in the guy. No one loves the penis more than this guy. Dicks.

Dicks everywhere. Dicks. It's Long Island. Long Island. How about that it was BC you're going to get penis. The best part about this, I'm going to play it again is he tries to hold off throwing the extra shot at the end. But right when the ref touches him, he then throws it.

It's like, why did you wait this? Like, okay, you're not throwing it, not throwing it, not throwing it. Okay, now I'm going to throw it. What the fuck was that? But, dude, penis looks good. Yeah. It's huge. She finishes, you know, wanging penis back to back.

Also, shout out. Oh, my God. I didn't even connect that. Lazy bed and gaff had the sex ed parlay, which was wang, penis, and raw dog. And all three of them. Wow. Yeah. I mean, this show should be canceled.

Let's just be. about that. There's no, there's nothing redeeming to this whatsoever. How about, oh, you know what? Long Island, come back on here. All right, for the rest of these fights, what stood out to you? Ryan Gandra looked good, but he also fought Zach Rees, which I was hilarious, though, you know, you know, what to do. That was hilarious because the commentary, that's the only one I was listening in the commentary upstairs, and they were right as they're like, exactly. They're all about him. Look at this time. He looks great. Boom, he's out. That was hilarious, man. Also, Alessandro Costa finished Cody Durdin, which like I don't think is a surprise by anyone

but I was actually surprised I looked back at the scorecards two judges gave round one to Cody I thought it was a cost of round but he did get the sub and round two didn't really end up mattering and was that it I think that's all I have as far as that's maybe there was a decision mixed in the end up we're talking about Cody prelim like Cody's on these prelims every week like there's a Cody Durden there's always a Cody some runage yeah there's always

one of these Cody's fighting on the prelims there's a great meme and it's like where's all the Cody's I grew up with and it's like oh they all fight on the same UFC card every year And preloves, do you know where they are? They're contestants on American Ninja Warrior. Yeah, or they're in jail. But Farid Basharad, you know, everyone's high on John Garza, so I'll give it with a grain of salt.

He was making his debut on like seven days notice. But like I feel like Farid should have probably got him out of there. You know, you're like a minus the issue with the Boschard brothers, dude. They're very, very talented. I like them. I've talked to them in person. Like, they're good dudes. But the lack of finishing is going to impact their career.

I'm not hating. I'm just saying like that's what it is. he was a huge favorite in this fight. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Minus 650. Yeah. But I feel like Garza might, in a few years, we might be like, oh, John Garza is actually like pretty good. So like this might not be that bad of a, he won at the end of the day. So I don't even want to say a bad win, but you know what I'm saying.

Philly should have got him out of it. All right. That is it for our top five. It went a little long. So let's just jump right into it. Now is the time you get to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. Let's go through these if we can here.

from Zach's the King with both Max and Patty taking zero damage in their fights. A fight between them seems like a no-brainer in the next two weeks. In the next two weeks, yeah. That's funny because I was saying like Max could just fight again next week

because I don't think he took. I mean, there was like an upkick that might have got him a little bit. That's it. Like there was no other damage there. I wouldn't hate it. Would you hate it if they booked those guys? I wouldn't hate it.

I just feel like you, if you're going to do the Illia fight, you should do it now. I mean, the thing is this, a BSD fight versus is Max is more interesting because BSD can take you down. Patty's takedowns are not great. And I feel like he'd be behind the jab the whole time.

So I feel like that's a good fight for Max. Whereas, you know, I just, this is what I mean about the Ilya fight. I just think that like right now, the size difference there could be a little bit of a factor two for Ilya. There's a lot of reasons why you might want to make that one. I just think that Santini would choose the box if he fights Max.

I know. blindfolded like a fucking jackass all right from frankfurter 67 if Connor had run his camp in Luke's front yard would this injury have been avoided only if my my neighbor had not been mowing his yard

that that would have happened you know who god only knows what projectiles would have gone flying but dude this is the thing about Connor it's like people are like oh you know what's up with his camp and blah blah and I'm like what's up with being 38 I know like bro

fuck your butt. Back hurts getting out of bed at 38. You're not supposed to be doing. Some guys can do it, right? We know that. Like, we know that. But there's, and I know there's a lot of, we didn't talk about this, Chuck. There's a lot of questions like, because, you know, New York Times was reporting.

This is New York Times reporting. It's not me saying. I'm just, yeah. They were like, not only did he take HGH and anti-block steroids to heal his shin, but they claim he took it long after that point just because it made him feel great. There's a question about what that does to your connective tissue. How about all the hangovers and God only knows. the drugs of recreation he's used,

what that's done to his body. And even if neither of those have been in play or the catastrophic injury, brother, you're almost 40. Right. Well, that is the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, that's why at some point, though,

he'll do the bare knuckle or he'll do, you know, a Netflix boxing or something. I mean, that's going to be his only viable way of going about it. But he's got to take his kicks out of the equation. First and foremost, he's still going to have to do his legs no matter what.

But no more kicking for this guy or jumping through the air. from Christina Pinto underscore BJJ. Can we talk about Theo Vaughn and Drew Breeze joining the on-air commentary? What was the point of that? So the UFC caught lightning in a bottle on the very first season of the contender series when they had Yeriah Faber and Snoop Dog do alternate commentary for that. And I feel like a lot of places have tried to do it, like the Manning cast on ESPN. Like there are ways you can do alternate commentary and it makes sense.

but you know I just don't know if those pairings that they had made sense I just want to chime in here to say I hate that they forced it on the main broadcast I watch the Manning cast when Monday night football's on because I don't give a fuck about who's playing in Monday night football I just want to be entertained

sure I'll watch the Manning brothers great same thing with Snoopcast Luke it's Contender series I don't season one of Contender Series I don't know these guys I'd rather just listen to the funny Uriah and Snoop commentary. But when it's a fucking UFC, and I don't remember which fight they put this on during, but it's like, dude, I'm like locked in. I don't want to hear

now Drew Breeze and Theo Vaughan talk about the fucking fight. Like, save that shit for, oh, by the way, they're doing commentary if you guys want to switch over. Great. Go do that. If you're not that interested, it wasn't for me. Hated it. Remember the Dennis Miller Monday night football year when he

was in the booth and it was like such a catastrophic. People were like, why am I being forced to watch this dude? that's what I'm. I didn't get a chance to really check it out. I saw just a piece of it because I was there actually. But like the, I heard the Theo Vaughn jokes, just kind of like the biscuits in the pocket and that sort of thing. It's like, eh, it doesn't really work for commentary.

From Rupert Foxcroft. With Herb Dean being booed when he was introduced at 329, I did hear that. Yeah, that was, it was, did it have any effect on how refs make decisions inside the cage? Can public option affect, effect spelled wrong, affect, how rules are enforced? I had someone reached out.

to me and tell me they thought that Herb Dean had less assignments this time than normal and including the where he got the assignments as well do you do you buy into that? Yeah. I mean I was I was I was it did seem like he had less assignments. You're right. Now that I'm thinking about there's only two that was like you know that were like down the stretch out. Okay. So that's it because I was like he might have been on one of the first two fights because I got there right at those times. But like yes they uh usually he's on far more than I don't know why, like what the reasoning is, but, uh, dude, it was loud booze. I mean, it was, this is Mazogadi level.

I'm like, what's going on here? I don't know. I don't know. I've heard that for Herb Dean. Yeah. I mean, like, suddenly everybody hates Herb Dean. This is the steady guy in the, you know, in the rotation for years and years and years. I'm, I'm skeptical that public pressure generally can matter.

But what I will say is sustained public pressure might have. actually matter. So we'll see how long this lasts. When they booed, like, I don't think the camera went over there, but I looked at Plinyo and, you know, Plinio Cruz and Alex Pereira, who's sitting over there and, you know, they're laughing because there's all these boos. And I mean, they're a big part of it because I think Pereira

like has brought something of a scrutiny to this whole situation. And unfortunately, poor Herbs in his crosshairs at this point. From lowercase three, what does film review look like for fighters? Meaning, in the NFL, they have full sessions where they sit and break down film. Is that how it's reviewed during fight camps or is it sprinkled

in here and there depending on what the fighters are working on? It depends entirely on the fighter. There are certain dudes who don't watch any. Certain. Most. Yeah. That might be true. That might be true. That used to be a standard question I'd ask guys. Hey, do you break down film? Because you wanted to know how they

picked up information about their opponent. And you're right. Like I would say half of them were like, nah, man, I leave that to the coaches. And I just kind of show up and go with the coaches. say, but there are certain guys very cerebral to the game who break down a lot of film. And I generally think that those guys bode well in the sport. Like they break down the film, they know what they're looking at. They kind of know the defaults of the fighter.

They kind of know the weaknesses of a fighter. You know what I mean? Like you've seen those guys. And they seem to bode well in the sport and have longevity. Dude, like if a fighter tells me they don't watch tape, this is just my opinion. You can take it for what it's worth. That's a red flag to me. Yeah.

You know, how much. you watch, okay, there can be a limit to that, you know, and an important ones. You know, in what context you watch it, like with a coach or without it. Okay, fair enough. You know, that's fine. I don't have an issue with that. But people are just like, yeah, I don't watch tape. I'm like, yeah, you're not going to go far, you know.

You know. Because John Jones, look at him and he's a voracious tape watcher. I know. Like it's just in GSP, Mighty Mouse, all these guys watched a lot of tape. It's not an accent, you know. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

With that in mind, I've got, I see here we've got a, fucking shitload of them. So we got to move through them. All right. Now is the time when at morning combat at gmo.com you can send in your artwork. We're going to put it on our proverbial fridge. It's time for fan subs. You've got mail. Viewers.

All right. Declan has five memes. Let's go through these. Maricio Hoofy. So on Friday show, Chuck, I was like, yeah, Ilya's next fight should be against Patty and not and not hoofie. And so, and I even said it because I think

Patty's a better fight for Ilya. So they're killing me for this one. It's a good joke. That is good. Two thumbs up. Long Island Luke finally got out of his house. Look at Long Island Luke and his girlfriend on top of the Empire State there, Chuck. I would guys, man. The heights up there? Fuck that. All right. Next.

An order of magnitude is 10x. Netflix only has 4x more subscribers than parents. So I got hit with over the head by using order of magnitude in it has a specific mathematical definition but I was using it in a more loose sense and I had a bunch of people ride in and try to hold me to it and this guy's killing him for it so I appreciate the support magnitude donks calling MK Dullards

Jed calling magnitude donka Dullard Luke's neighborhood for no fucking reason Dude on a big ass Mower My dream is to have a yard where I need a lawnmower That big you know what I mean yes so dude i people ask me where i live i live in the city proper i've got the tiniest fucking yard you've ever seen it's expensive out there it is dead wrong order of magnitude it was colloquial

and hyperbolic long island luke not knowing what magnitude colloquial or hyperbolic means accurate that's hilarious man it's a great meme yeah it's a great meme all right that's what deckle good job on those very well done jesse c has one and he writes luke or long island need to text bc and have him subtly start dropping some MK cannon on the Paramount broadcast. Just one ball's bonanza for the boys. Keep up the solid work. So on the left here, we have Claudia saying, how the hell did he end up here?

Chale saying, what the hell does this guy keep saying? Why does this guy keep saying balls bonanza? And then Brian Campbell, three gummies may have been a bit too much. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. A shot's to BC on the great coverage over the week. All right. To number three.

Jesse B. He writes, I think this is bizarrely accurate. So I don't know the names of all of these ones. Can you all help me? Who is, who am I? Bro, I have no idea. I know fucking Tigger. I'm going to poo. Oscar's piglet is piglet. Yeah. E.ore is Jed. Okay, the Jed one I get. But I don't know why then. Oh, is Dennis the kangaroo because he's Aussie. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Why is Chuck the owl? Yeah, I don't know.

It's very wise. Who are you? You're just a rabbit? I don't know, man. All right. I don't know. Reproducing. All right. From Lazy Bed, he writes,

Professor Salt and Pepper loves the Colombian culture and cuisine, but the aftermath is the real story. After far too much, Bandeja Paisa, this is like a gigantic dish that they eat. Luke finds himself rushing to the nearest restroom for some needed relief.

Oh, here comes a toilet humor. Yeah. It's not as rudimentary as a hole in the ground or as highbrow as Joseph A. Banks, but with fingers and ankles crossed, L.T. praise his porcelain throne can carry the weight. This was me during.

Yeah. Well, you know what? They're better than this. I'll be honest. But you know what it is? A lot of times you go to some of these places and they just have no AC in them, you know? Grand Central's isn't much, much better than this. Bro, I one time saw a guy shaving his pubic hair at Penn Station, a homeless guy.

How about that? Shaving his pubic hair. Dicks. Dicks everywhere. I also, you know what I think about stuff like that. I've seen some crazy. Can you imagine? Japanese, like tourists who come to New York.

city where like everything you can eat off the floor the Tokyo subway you know yeah and they come here and they see homeless guys like shaving their balls in the sink at Penn Station you know it's like dude we we we are third world uh all right new york is no place to be no no new york is not for the for the faint of heart let me just tell you all right carlos has a movie poster the eighth tusk you got to read up top if you can i can't can you read it it says he was given two options. He chose the walrus. Oh, is this getting fucked to death by an eight dick walrus?

Yes. Yes. It's pretty fucking good. All right. That's good. Not bad. Not bad. It also like in the fine print. It says bong enthusiast long island Luke. It says the ice man. Chuck Mindenhall. Jeds in there. We got to pull this up, blow it up and read the fine print. Wow. That's good. That's fucking awesome. Great job with that. All right. Leslie, I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, has a meme.

Hammering the under in my eight-leg parlays. I don't really know the reference here, but, you know, I don't know. Me gambling. That's funny. It's a puny little body guy with a big head there. Yeah, indeed. All right, from John McLean, he's got a meme. He goes, what do you guys think of BC's new facial hair?

Okay. BC's never looked that cool a day in his fucking life. Okay, the best part about this is he attached the original screenshot. And that's just literally taken from one of BC's CBS interviews. and he just put the exact head on the spike curtain fits perfectly. It does fit perfectly, but he's not that cool. I hate his facial hair. I want to make fun of him so bad for it.

But, you know, that's just because I'm mean. All right, Jordan writes, Luke, when he forgets his sunglasses while on vacation with his wife. Bro, let me show you my shades. Tell me if they're, if what I bought them, she was like, oh, these are really big for your face. I'm like, right. Those are cool, man.

I can look how far I can look around to these things. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty great, right? All right, good job with that. That's a funny one. All right, where are we at? Ed, Ed's got three memes.

Luke live streaming. Law and, dude. That's a good one. That is a good one. I cannot believe how many of them there are. And they're all good. All right.

Luke, resolving tech issue. neighbors. There we go. That's a good one. I mean, this is a great one. Luke's neighbor lawnmower waiting for him to start

the live stream. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. All right, Ed, pretty good. All right.

Rick Dawkerson has a meme. It's going to be bad. No N-word. Sir, the bathroom is only for Joseph A-Bank customers. That's a good one. All right. That one's pretty good.

That was taken from like MMA uncensored years or something like that, right? Like that's a wild... Say it again? Like, were you on MMA uncensored, right? Wasn't that the show you used to do? Yeah. It looked like, like, uh, what you looked like back then.

So I was thinking they took that from back in the day. Yeah, back when I was still lifting weights pretty aggressively. Now I just looked like a fucking bag of milk. Don't be bad. All right. From Genghis Bong, he's got some memes for us. Number one, it was so crazy. I got so lucky.

I saw this Joseph A. bank. And so I went into the bathroom. and dumped a triple flusher down their pipes. I used so much toilet paper too. It was nuts. I love Joseph A. Bank now. Literally everybody. Yeah.

Listen, the person who you really should blame for this is B.C. He was the one who kind of kept it alive. But all right, next one. Anyone who will listen. I just found a Joseph A bank. A nice walk with his esposa. I, I wife and child. Yes, I do do the Joseph A bank.

a lot. All right, now I do. Hola. Wait, what? Oh, may jam O. Lukito and soy am uno half of your M.K. Hosting duo. My Spanish is better than that fuck face.

And then last one, at least. Have I ever told you about the time I went to Joseph A. Bank? All right, all right. It was just funny. It was just funny because it's like, and Joseph A. Bank.

I'll wrap it up fast. My wife took me to a new restaurant I'd never been to for Father's Day, and it happened to be right next to the one that was the scene of the crime. So, brought back some trauma. All right, we have art from Spencer. He writes, I did a portrait of Luke

and wanted to share it with the MK Squad. I call this one, donk, wiserdunk. Not a second of AI used. God smite me down right now if I'm lying. This is like a Unabomber, like after getting a shave kind of vibe. I think you should get this framed and hang it up in your house. It looks pretty cool. I appreciate the art, but I don't know if I'm going to get that framed.

I'm just going to say that out loud. Right. Michael has two photos. He writes, I meant to submit these weeks ago, but better late than never. Here are some picks slash video from UFC 250. I think he means Freedom 250, right? Yes. As a DC resident, I was so hyped to have it in my backyard despite my political feelings. As everyone before me mentioned, it really delivered. I've been to several UFC slash other organizations events and saw some big moments, but this blew them all out of the water. It was crazy how loud it got in an open airspace when Justin won. Had it been in an arena, my ears would have bled, truly an incredible night,

and I was proudly reppping M.K. and D.C. very good while being there. On a side note, on my way in, I got interviewed by Nippon TV, and I ended my interview with MK all day. This guy looks like anyone who lives in D.C. is going to know what I'm talking about. this guy looks like the bartender of every bar at the north side of Georgia Avenue. Let me just tell you. If you work at a bar in Petworth, this guy has served you some kind of IPA. You know what I'm saying?

I'm sure I'd mess with this guy, man. Yeah, exactly. He looks fucking intimidating. Like, I'd be nice when he gives me my IPA. Thank you for that. And thank you for sending those in. I'm glad you had a great time. Real quick, Luke, what is Nippin or Nipon TV?

Is that like a big one of the major major, major, major news stations out of Japan. Oh, that's dope. Hell, yeah. Yeah. And then last but not least, Saul for our four photos, he has. Happy Fourth of July to all those who celebrated this nation's 250th birthday. My wife and I went to our friends family barbecue for 4th of July, and the food was on another level. Ox tail, mac and cheese, green beans, you name it. And it wouldn't be Fourth of July if someone didn't wear a shirt to remember the nation's greatest tragedy. They didn't wear 9-11 shirt there. Holy fuck. M.K. All day from

Day One donk, Saul. Let me see that one. Wait, what's he wearing? What's the shirt say? Hold on. Cucci, Cucci? It's not an MK shirt for once,

but he is rocking the main car minute Cousy. Shut out. No, but what's the shirt say? I don't know. Something up top, but it definitely says Coochee, Coochee on the bottom. Hotter than Coochie Coochee. Yeah.

His hat's the pink morning combat one, though. Oh, it is. You're right. Yeah. Let me see the food. Let me see the food. Let me see the food. This is, I think, a significant other.

Food doesn't look half bad. I mean, yeah. yeah not bad not bad and then 9-11 why wouldn't it be he still sends me those 9-11 memes the ones we can't play on the show just for future references sake um all right chuck what a experience but we still have a lot to do for the week in terms of wrap up and then looking ahead what do you got going on coverage wise we have our new pound for pound rankings that have come out today and i don't think anything moved i think it's exactly the same but

uh but we do have the new rankings that come out today and I'm not even sure. I'm in Colorado, man. I got a fly back. I'll be on the crack come Friday. And beyond that, I'm not even sure, man. We'll see what happens. Long Island, what you got going on?

I got new prop quiz coming out Friday. You know, bet breakdowns all week. Full card watch along on Saturday. We got DDP Usman, OKC card should be pretty good. Chuck, we did lose your favorite fight on the card, though. The Kevin Holland Jacobi Smith fight is not happening. Kevin Holland got hurt. That sucks, man.

I love Joe. I want to see Jacoby. That guy's got it. Me too. And apparently they're not replacing Holland So he's just off the card now I'll have coverage on my YouTube channel And all the various places that folks know me for

So be on the lookout for that Let's remind everyone that you can see at the bottom of the screen All the socials you can go get those You can become a member of our channel You can get emojis, badges and more to come It's a great way to support the channel Of course you can always reach the channel Or the show I should say

Morningcomat at gmail.com Dead wrongs, fan subs, you name it Send it there And then of course, morning combat. Dot shop, all of the designs. You just saw the Washington, D.C. one for anyone who's in the area. That's one that's still available. Whippets in the parking lot.

I mean, what more could you possibly ask for? And we're going to make them 20% off. This only lasts until the 31st of the month. And plus 50% off of all posters. Go to morning combat. Dot shop. What a show. What a show.

Chuck, it was great to have you back. That one is in the books. We now will wait, as you indicated, the fight night here at Oklahoma. City and the next one will be a big one will be Islam next month. All right. So for Long Island, for Chuck Mendenhall, I'm Luke Thomas and everyone else on the show. We appreciate you watching. We'll talk to you guys on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.