MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 330 Results: Islam Makhachev Beats Ian Machado Garry for Record 17th Straight Win

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall are in the house on a Monday edition of Morning Kombat, breaking down the results from UFC 330. The fellas dive into Islam Makhachev's win over Ian Machado Garry and then discuss Mackenzie Dern's successful Strawweight title defense over Gillian Robertson. There is more to go over from the card, including some intriguing results, like Tresean Gore's win over Vicente Luque, Dustin Stoltzfus submitting Mansur Abdul-Malik and Jeremiah Wells pulling a massive upset over Myktybek Orolbai.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Revely, revelry. Oh, look at this now. Oh, Jesus. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, the combat. Oh, there is. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want to mark a rita?

Yeah, do this. On your marks get set and go on. I'm sure the debate today will be calm and reasonable, unlike anything else I see online. Hello, everyone, on the 17th day of August, 2026. It is time for another episode of Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo.

I join you from the capital of Estabaluson. Right here in Washington, D.C., joined by Connecticut Brethren. He's got logos on all his shit, and I don't know what any of it is. It's the Iceman himself, Chuck Mendenhall. What's up, Chuck? You're talking about my sweater here, Roots of Fight? Yeah, what is that? This is a black ace at C.C. Sabathia, you know, from his 20 Wednesdays.

So, you know. You know. I've heard some stories. stories about C.C. Sabathia that are pretty funny. Yeah. He seems like a character. Yeah, these, it's probably not something you'd want to air out here, right? It's a yeah, no, off the air. It'd be a lot to say, but not on the air. How are you doing, Chuck? I know we had a busy work weekend. How are you doing otherwise? You know, it was a, it was a fun one

and it was a late, like, I haven't had one of these very late nights, but I had to do like a post show. I know you did the same thing. And then I had to do a column after that. I think I went to bed like at 4.30 that night. It was, uh, it was a wild Saturday night. But today is my daughter's birthday, so shout out to Lily. Hey. I told her I'd shout her out, you know. How old does she know? You want to really know?

She's 42 years old. No, I'm kidding. She's 21 years old. She's the big 21. How crazy is that? Wow. Yeah. 21.

You are old, motherfucker. Yeah, well, I mean, I had her when I was 16, so. But I mean, you know. Sounds like your daughter's going to get C.C. Sabathia tonight, right? Here we go. Try to give her tribute and then Long Island jumps in and ruins. Wow, that was.

Who took it the wrong way. C.C. Sabathe was a lot. Oh, yes. I was like, okay. Okay. That's a way we can start. Well, welcome.

Welcome. We have a fun show today. This is just basically going to be a UFC 330 extravaganza. We'll look at the main, co-main, main card prelim, plus during the broadcast, there were a series of announcements about upcoming UFC events. We're going to talk about those as well. So thumbs up here. If you haven't already, subscribe if you haven't already.

Share this with somebody if you haven't already. You can see our socials there below. We have an email address as well. MorningCombat at gmail.com. We will do some fan subs later in the show. And of course, you can do Dead Wrongs, fan subs and everything else that goes right here. We do have a membership available on the channel.

There's emojis and badges and everything else in between. And then certainly last but not least, well, neither of those, I suppose, depending on how you want to look at the programming here. We have morningcombat.combat.shop. Morningcombat.shop is where you can get all the merch. We have two shirts available this month, the head splitter design, as well as the John Donk design, as well as autographed posters. And of course, referencing the fan subs earlier,

the best one all month gets a free signed poster. Let's go to the third member here of the show who went to UFC 330. You did not go, right, Chuck? I did not go. No. But he did. It's our one and only super sober. Very sober.

Long Island Luke. How you doing, buddy? It wasn't this weekend. I was there. I was not sober this weekend. I can definitely say that. In fact, I was super hung over Saturday, where I was almost contemplating,

should I even go to the fights? I really don't want to leave this hotel room right now. But I did. I did try and hang out with BC, you know, got a little bit of this. Tell them the truth. Tell them what happened. I texted BC Friday night.

It was me, Gaff, Manich, you know, the boys are in town. BC, we're going out for drinks. You want to come through? I got crickets. I got crickets. Didn't hear from him until Sunday, where he said,

oh, sorry, I was busy all weekend. But shout out. I love him and he was doing great work all weekend. I would have been cooler to hang out with him. Did hang out with Oscar, Bonn and Nolan. You know, they're not too big time for us. So shout out to them. Yeah.

But it was a fun weekend. I tried to Warren. You man. Nolan King. Yeah. Yeah. How's he by the way? He's good.

All right. I tried to warn you at 329 by the way. Like I saw, I saw Brian and he kind of, you know, give me a little bit of that treatment too. So yeah, he's too big. He's big time with that shit. Yeah.

He's doing pretty well now. Paramount as I understand it. Did you know he's doing a podcast with Laura Sanko? No. It hasn't been well advertised. It says right up his out. It hasn't been well advertised. He apparently is doing a podcast. Now it's just once a week. Okay. It's about the contender series and it's after contender series. So apparently after the contender series, he and Laura do a podcast and then I guess they interview the contract winners. I didn't hear it last week. He was telling me about this. I was texting with him yesterday. He was telling me about this. Well, Now I guess I'm going to, I was wondering about that because he talked about having a podcast over there.

I don't know if this is what that in result is, but I'll have to check it out. It's been a while. But maybe we should just ghost him like he ghosted old LIL. Maybe we should do that. He has a comment. All right. I think that is about it for the preamble here on the show. So without further ado, all right, UFC 330 was over the weekend.

It is, it is in the books. I don't know how memorable or well received the event was to be perfectly honest. honest. But let's start with that main event. And of course, as everyone knows by now, Islam Makachev has defeated Ian Gary. He does so via unanimous decision. Two scores of 49, 46, I believe one of 48, 47. You can see the judge's scorecards here. We'll talk about them a little bit later in the show. For the time being, I need help with this one, Chuck. He, Islam, breaks Anderson Silva's consecutive win streak. He now has 17 wins in a row as the first UFC fighter. obviously to ever do that.

And of course, he secured a title defense, a legit title defense, up a weight class. This is not John Jones fighting steep Amiochich. This is not, you know, Amanda Nunes going to 45, which is not even a real division, which, you know, those wins count. It's not that they don't, but they're not on the level of this one in terms of its difficulty.

And yet, I'm not exactly sure what he accomplished beyond some of the things I can list as notes or elements of the victory. So help me contextualize it. With this kind of win, what did he gain here? Did he, in fact, even gain status of becoming the greatest of all time? It did seem really quiet, didn't it? Like, in the end, I mean, I know that the UFC, I thought they'd make a bigger deal. You know, the fact that he was trying to break Anderson.

Sov, I saw that they ran one promo, like, earlier in the night that basically was comparing him in the goat talk and all this stuff. But it just came and went in a weird, in a strange way. I thought that he was showcasing really well. is I guess the way the fight played out was was meaningful to this too like you know he he he was doing what he basically did to um to jdm in the first round like just controlling the fight and it was i was like are we going to get this i didn't quite get the same feeling that it was going to follow that same pattern but second round he has that big moment where he gets that head kick kind of drops

gary and it looks like okay now we're starting to see like him rise to this this occasion and uh and and and maybe and i mean the thing the flashed through my mind was, you remember, UFC 101 was in Philadelphia, and that was, uh, that was Anderson Silva's second time up as well, like fighting at a weight class above. And I was like, how weird if these parallels and he has like this masterful performance for Islam, but it just didn't really pan out that way. And I think that, you know, in the end, all the talking points, I felt like nobody was really, I mean, you know, they were mentioning a bit more as an aside, well, he broke Anderson Silva's record. It felt like any kind of like goat talk, which I thought we would

end up coming in. Can you hear me? You got me? Yep. Okay. I just like, any kind of goat talk, I was like, I thought we'd be having that discussion, and it felt like there was reluctance, or there was just dissatisfaction with that main event, or there was Gary hate, you know, it kind of, there were waves of all of that, but it really, it didn't hit

home like I thought it was going to. Why don't you think it hit home? I don't know if it was just, I don't know if it was in part because the fight itself wasn't that entertaining. I mean, did you look at the stats on this? I think there was a, oh yeah, The stats are not exemplary.

I mean, it's 51 total strikes. Significant strikes landed, which I didn't feel quite that bad. But then you think about it, there were large swaths of that. There were just Islam control or them kind of, you know, doing the paddock because they're opposite stances and they're doing the paddock. They're kind of feeling each other out. There was a lot of that. And honestly, like from the Gary perspective, the times he came to life, did it really feel like it? It was sort of a subtle thing because he's throwing one-offs.

The shots weren't like, you know, he would throw a kick to the body. and stand back and reset. It wasn't like he was coming in with a combo or trying to like, you know, to take his head off at any point in that fight. So I don't know if it was just it kind of plateaued, you know what I mean, at some point and just didn't kind of rise above. I mean, I thought it was two to two going into the fourth or the fifth round, which generally speaking, when you enter a situation like that in a big fight that has historic

stakes, you feel it on some big level. And I didn't really feel it. Did you? I mean, I felt like, okay, this could be tied, but it almost felt like the magnitude wasn't where it should be, right? I don't know why. What would be your theory on this? I've been trying to noodle this one because if you just step out for a second, as we've indicated, and you look at what he achieved from a categorization standpoint, I mean, there's really no question about it, right? And just forget about the 17 win streak, you know, how it compares to Anderson's, which, of course, as you've articulated, there are really meaningful differences. Nevertheless, like no one's ever won 17 fights in a row of any variety, right? Yeah. So just that alone is kind of impressive.

And then when I say something like, hey, he has a legit number one title defense up a weight class, you know, like these are the kinds of things that are like the rarefidest of heirs. And you could actually argue, I think we did argue on the show that the title defense that he has is maybe the most legitimate one of any of the five that have defended up a weight class. right like they're significantly more difficult and the continuity that he's trying to put through it is quite real but the fight itself i mean like it one of the reminders and i'm not breaking any news here obviously but one of the reminders is that like how you win often is more of a determinative factor in how the public will perceive you versus like the contextual quality of

the win and this one was this one raised a lot of questions both about like you know, how entertaining is Gary, how entertaining is Islam, how active Islam is. But then also like the rules of the game and stalling and, you know, not anything really happening. I mean, to your point, dude, like in a fight where Islam Makachiv lands 22 significant strikes over the course of five rounds, and Gary lands just 29. And many of those are not all that impactful. You know, you're just talking about such, I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, fan base is always going to prefer a fight where there is more offense than there is less.

Like, anytime you get less offense, and that usually means that there's a lot of wrestling, although not necessarily, they kind of just recede back into not being able to contextualize the thing that happened. I think here's what's happening for me, right? This is my best read on it. All the things I mentioned already. But on some level, what it looks like to me is Islam has enough skill to go up and win at 170, but he's at the limits of what he can do.

You're looking at like, like people being like, oh, how would he do against Sean Strickland? I got to ask this on my live chat numerous times and I'm like, yeah, I'm not picking him to beat Sean Strickland. No, man. You know, like skill for skill, who's got more skills? Well, Islam does, obviously, right? But the physical heft of another 15 pounds. I mean, Islam was even saying after this fight, he still has weight he needs to gain to really

be in this division. What I think is happening is that it's very hard for people, Chuck, to accept the enormity of what Islam is doing. Because especially in a case like the JDM fight, you know, he could have pursued it more, right? He won it fairly, but could he have done more. Yes, he could have. And in this one, he didn't do enough. So you felt like he, like maybe some people felt like he could have done more. But to me, it's more of a situation of like, this dude is peeking out at what you can possibly get out of him.

by moving up this weight class. And so within that context of what he's trying to do, it's a magnificent achievement. It just has no lasting review value at all. It raises questions about the rules of the game and stalling. And when a guy is at his limit, limit, limit, limit of what he can do, he just can't wow you in the way that this kind of achievement, it's supposed to be triumphant.

but he kind of eeked to the finish line more than the latter part, and I think that that is getting people unable to recognize the enormity of the achievement. 100%, man. And let me ask you this. So let's say that in that second round, they peel off, you know, it comes out. Like this is a moment where they're coming out the fence from the clench and boom, he hits him with the right hand, then he hits him with that lake kick. Let's just say that Gary was done.

Like you just went down and he was out. How different would this conversation be? Isn't that weird? It's like if the fight just ends right there, I feel like we're talking about Islam in a whole different light right now. If he ends it there, but I mean like the reality is dude,

he didn't though. You know what I'm true? I'm just saying like we have this, it becomes so much more complicated, you know, because of what we saw beyond that, you know, and that's what your point is.

But I'm just like, man, it's like if he, that's kind of the way it is. It's a game of inches in that sense. Like, you know, if he scores on that one, um, we're having a whole different.

conversation, but like the fact that it, I don't know, it's, I think maybe because also you, you pinpointed it in saying that like, you're seeing the upper limits of what he can do here. And I guess in a strange sense, that's the, the subtext or like the, the extra excitement when you contemplate those guys sitting in the front row that are big hulking monsters like Michael Morales or, uh, and even Carlos, uh, Carlos, uh, proches, like those types of guys are just going to be enormous, you know what I mean? in a situation with Islam and you're like how will he handle that?

Can he handle that? And I think that that's a fun element of this. But dude, did you say, I mean, when I was watching that and you'd see him kind of like, he's very strong, he gets in the clench, you know, you see him doing work, post him on the, you know, fence there. But like, Ian Gary, you could just see like he's just wiry. Like,

he's wiry, strong and he was able to kind of, you know, put his legs out and just kind of prevent things from happening just on his size, you know, just on the size and his length and his, like, like lankiness and all that. It's an interesting thing, but it just makes it so difficult, right, for him to do anything with. And considering all that, it is complicated.

I just think you walk away there like, I mean, I pointed this out in a column. I'm like, in a couple of weeks, we won't be talking about this fight, right? You just be like, well, it happened. He got through it. But that's crazy because it was historic and it should be talked about. The other part, too, is like, you know, Gary's lost twice. He lost this one and he lost his shot off Kovat, right? neither of those guys came away from those bouts,

even though they got their hand raised, with anyone saying, oh, wow, they looked great. You know what I mean? True. Like in both of those, and in Shavkat's case, obviously he nearly got choked out in the end of that fifth. Now, Islam was not in that kind of danger at any point to his credit. But like, Gary is one of these kinds.

I mean, dude, this fight kind of played out the way we thought it would. I mean, not in the exact specifics, but that Gary's defense is incredibly stout and that Islam has enough tools to get past it, but it's probably going to be a grinding difficult affair. And sure enough, that's what you got. Gary has really good defense, not enough offense. Islam's got

just enough to make that kind of work and in addition to control positions. To your point, if there had been a more emphatic finish, but that would also mean different things, right? It would mean something, it wouldn't just be received different. It would actually

be different because the level of skill and the level of violence you'd have to bring to actually put Ian Gary away and frankly the level of risk taking that would be required we would be singing the praises because he would be overcoming something something so insanely difficult it's very weird for me to see a situation where a guy is on the precipice and frankly having crossed thresholds of history and the public seems at best reluctant to accept it yeah you know much less enthusiastic or otherwise you know greeting it with the history that it should be afforded to.

I mean, there's so many complicated layers to the Ian Gary thing too, right? Like just how he's perceived the polarizing effect, you know, that he has on his, on the fans. And even for Ireland and stuff like that, it's a, it's a weird thing. And I'm like, I'm wondering what you think about this because I talked about coming in, you know, Makachov was kind of the last of these invincibles or these guys that are just going to be, they make sense to the poster. They're the longstanding dominant kind of guys. that you can pin a big main event around,

just on the magnitude of the, you know, in the strength of like 16 fights in a row, 17 fights in a row. But like, is this the, in this sense of like him getting by, you know, in the end,

he, it didn't feel like he eaked through, but like it felt like he got through Gary okay. But is it better? Like, I mean, I was trying to figure this out too. I'm like if Ian Gary wins it.

Doesn't it? Like, it feels like things would be fundamentally different for a few minutes with the UFC. It would be like you don't have these dominant guys at the top. I felt like the UFC kind of dodged one with him in that fifth round. And that would became like these esoteric kind of stakes to me. I was like, dude, so much rides on that, not just this historical, like, you know, beating Anderson Sova, but if he doesn't take this round, you know, you have a different, you have a shift where it's like, you just.

And if you went down like the champions, you'd be like, wow, all these are these are the champions in 2006. It would have been a weird moment for the UFC. So I think they got by with one here, you know, because I think the bigger fights to happen. for them in that division is machacha versus prachis or morales right like don't you agree with that or do you have a different look no no that's about what i'm what i'm thinking um we'll get to that part in just a second but i'm just long out luke long on luke how should we contextualize this victory beyond the kind of stats or accolades we've listed already i would say in a gaff dude that i feel like if he doesn't drop him with the head kick people are talking about this fight like they did ddp hamzat

they're like, wow, nothing happened. It was five rounds of this guy laying on top of this guy. The head kick saved this from being like one of the worst. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was a great fight. I was on edge the whole time. Even though I scored it for one, you know, going in a round five, I'm like, okay, it's clearly Islam's fight. He's up 3-1 at this point.

I didn't think it was ever really in doubt. But at the same time, it was almost technical thriller-esque besides the head kick where you're like, okay, anyone could, something could happen here. but I don't know, man, it was a solid win. You're not going to look good against Ian Gary. You said it yourself against Shavkat. He didn't look good. It's just like maybe Ian Gary is really good at making people look bad against him, you know? And this is also Ian Gary's second best win.

His first best win is losing to Shavkat. His second best win is losing to Islam. There you go. Let's go through the other title defenses here very quickly. In the Long Island, if we forget, one help us out here. So you've got the Suhudo one against Cruz. He finishes him. you've got Jones against

Steep A he finishes him yeah uh was it Amanda Cyborg at 45 Long Island is that the one that they count Megan Megan Anderson Megan Anderson was the defense I finished her right like made her look bad what are the two I'm forgetting those are the three what's which two am I forgetting? Daniel Cormier right with uh

David Cormier Derek Lewis and then this one right it's like Islam didn't get the finish and you know those other ones are not as memorable like DC versus Derek Lewis is not like a super memorable fight. But like, here's my point. Look at what Islam was attempting relative to the other ones. Now, the Amanda Cyborg one maybe is an exception there, but not the other ones. The other ones are not even remotely on par with something like this. And honestly, look at the way Cyborg fought that one

wide open, which is what Ian Gary does not do. I mean, I understand what people are saying, like, hey, there's a question to be raised about like how much stalling was in this fight. I think that's a fair question, Chuck. At the same time, this is kind of the point that I'm making and why, like, these moments of like, you know, 17 straight wins and all that stuff. He attempted that in a way that is categorically more difficult than what the other guys and ladies were attempting, in my opinion. And like that doesn't seem to be registering nearly as much. Would you, would you, I heard somebody say like, and I may, you, you think what you

with the GSP era. And, you know, you saw the way he would wrestle and he'd win. Like, and sometimes maybe that might have looked like some stone. I don't know. But did you see any resemblance to that? Like, you know, where you see GSP. Remember, he was another guy who when he was. he contemplated going up and wait.

He had the, like, what you're voicing here about, like, being the upper limits of what Islam is able to do. This was just, this is why he didn't do it, right? Like, he was afraid that he would compromise too much of his, um, advantage that he has with the 170s by going up. Like, would he be able to still control where the fight went? Would he be able to, uh, you know, kind of dictate, you know, the action the way he was. And I, I think he was like, uh, it becomes a lot different with this bigger body guys, right?

But did you think that GSP, like, did you, do you see any of that in this, like with Islam? You know, because he, he had a long, long reign and we consider him. A lot of people still consider him the goat, right? So, I mean, could you see any similarities, sir? I do a little bit. Not so much in the, you know, Bispying middleweight campaign, but, which actually was a little bit different. But like, for example, in the Hardy fight, you know, one of the criticisms you can make of GSP in that fight is he does pass guard. sometimes, but he spent a lot of time in guard against Dan Hardy.

And it's like at that time, and I, you know, obviously I like Dan a lot. But in that time, Dan did not have a super dynamic guard. And GSP obviously had very good passing, very good ground to pound. And he just doesn't engage in much of it. He tried to submit his way through that fight rather than engaging in more open, more open forms of fight affecting violence. He just didn't want to do that. And to me, that was a huge.

knock on him. It's like you've got a guy who you have a very reasonable expectation to not be able to submit you. And that means that the tools you should be able to use in those scenarios open up significantly. And he just didn't do it. And I thought I wrote a whole paper, or not paper, but I wrote an article at the time about it. Because I was like, you know, if you're, if this is Michael Chandler versus Charles Alavera and you're in full guard with Charles, different ballgame. Like very different ballgame about what you can open up with. But when you're with Dan Hardy and your GSP and you're not electing to use those things. That's one thing. So then it gets to this question of like, how much stalling do

you think Islam can be credibly accused of doing in this fight? Oh, man. And also, like, is it just like, is part of it just being risk-averse? Because we were talking about this with JDM too, right? Like, when he was beating JDM, like he just, it didn't seem like he was, you know, he didn't want to put himself into a bad

position. And some of it is just like maybe checking himself from going too far into certain situations. I felt like a couple of times in this one. I watched it back this morning. Like, he could have, he could have done a little more. Like, it just like he could have pressed his advantage in certain situations and he's just too methodical. Like, I don't know. It's just, or maybe he just doesn't want to like put himself into danger, you know, or something like that. But, you know, perceptibly, like, I just, that kind of thing, like, it, it does seem like stalling, you know, that fourth round. Okay, let's talk about that a little bit. The fourth round, he gets into,

you know, there's, there's like a clench. and he's got his back and they're doing this. But who's landing anything? At this point in time, this is why it becomes a very nuanced round to score. Ian Gary's the only one doing anything, you know, to try to advance this fight because he's actually landing shots in close. He's throwing, you know, little punches wherever they're available. And he is landing them.

And that's why this became a very difficult round to score because you're like, well, what was Islam doing? You know, like besides holding Gary and making it very difficult for him to operate, What was he actually doing in that situation? That's where it was weird, right? Like it did feel like you're just kind of letting the clock run out when you should be doing something more in those situations. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like they have tried mightily to figure out a way in the rules to get rid of grappling stalling. And it's looked different for different times. And the rules always follow it a little late. Better late than never certainly. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But, you know, for example, Chuck, we grew up in the era of lay and pray, where someone would get a take down,

the person underneath would relent to that position, and the person on top would just not be doing much. GSP was doing enough to not lay and pray, but he was just inactive relative to what the threats were. But, you know, we've seen it a million times. And they've more or less solved that problem, although the fighters themselves, I would argue, more so solved that problem. But the locked hands part is a real big problem. I bring this up all the time, and I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record. but in certain wrestling context,

you're simply not allowed to do that. And it's often in these scenarios where one person has the back of the other. I mentioned it comes from something called referees position where they restart a scramble. You're allowed to grab the waist and then the elbow and you're not allowed to put your hands together in those situations because what wrestling figured out was

if they do that, they're just for the most part, never going to get out. And it just stalls out the fight. But like, here's the problem with MMA. MMA is supposed to be a place where it's like, yeah, but what if we just take away all those protections? and now you just have to let the fight organically breathe. There's a problem with MMA.

And the problem is the whole notion of it is to let things organically breathe. But if you do that, you just let people who are very, very good at wrestling never really advance their attack and then stall a fight out because the person has just enough defense to not let the fight get out of hand.

And the person has just enough offense and control to never lose it, but not to do anything else. And unless you want to institute rules to solve that particular problem, I don't know what you're supposed to do. Yeah. No, you're right. And I think that, like, you know, in the situation you're talking about,

the guys who do that and they stall out fights, they end up becoming these guys that the U.S. out of favor with the UFC. This is the only, it's not a, it's like a, not a rule thing, but they just, remember the John Fitch thing. Like, well, he got Fitch. They'd let, let, let guys go who could do this. Like they could just basically keep it in their domain without really they're being too big of a threat of a finish or anything.

And they could just kind of outpoint you based on that sort of thing. The only thing that they keep tweaking now is like a takedown on its own right is not scored. They tweak the way that the scoring criteria so that guys weren't just trying to like score takedowns and do nothing. If you didn't do something with the takedown, it was not seen as much. It wasn't supposed to be, you know, control falls pretty low. it falls a lot lower than it used to on the on the criteria but dude i mean it is a problem and the guys who are very like i guess that's why you you start to nuance you start to look at it and say like what is he doing in the positions how is he and you see guys who like um you know

you point out guys the opposite who don't do anything to get out of bad positions or they you know they make bad choices when they're on the ground this seems to be a recurring problem now doesn't it like where it's just um we see this more and more where just there's just there's There's some kind of, what do they call in chess? Like, what's it called? You know what I'm talking about when the game ends? It's like a tie. What do they call it again?

Like in chess? I don't know how to play chess, but I'm going to get a checkmate? No, no, checkmate's when you're about to win. It's a stall something, whatever. It's like, I don't know why. It's like it's not coming to me. But you know what I'm talking about. It's like you hit a point where it's an impasse.

Like there's really nothing from either side that's going to happen to change anything. Stalmate. Stal. Stalemate, yeah, stalemate. Yeah, stale made. Still made in wrestling too, by the way. Yeah, okay. Stale made. That's kind of what you, we keep seeing this.

We've seen this a lot in the last few years. Honestly, like, to me, it's a, it's a difficult problem to solve. Yeah. Because one, you know, do you want a rule where there's a shot clock for something like this? You know, locked hands from the back and the person is got at least a knee or a foot up, if not absolutely standing? You know what I'm talking about? Unless they're like flat on their back or flat on their stomach,

you know, you got a case where someone's got the back, they've got their hands locked. And then the person is like in Gary's case often standing or they'd have a shoulder up against the fence. Then the other foot is up. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Like the way to solve that is the way that wrestling solved that, which is one, you don't allow locked hands in certain scenarios. And then the other one is you've got to get the referee on the metaphorical, in this case, whistle. And they have to kind of, and you could see Dean doing, a little bit of that. You see him

kind of telling him to move a little bit, which I appreciate. I'm glad that he was doing that. Remember, he broke up a couple times the stalling of Marab and in the fight with, what's his face, Sean O'Malley. Right. Yeah. And the fight at the at the sphere. And everyone was like, why is he breaking this up? He has control. No, he was fucking stalling. He was completely stall.

Or at least to your point, it had reached a stalemate condition. Right. I honestly feel like if you want this kind of thing to change, somebody has to come up with a good answer for stalemating in MMA with locked hands. And I don't know what that is, but unless you get to it, you're just going to get more of this. Yeah. It's true. And I mean, one of the original things I remember about like those early days you're talking about the lay and prey was just that people, once you identified this, right, how much excitement drained out of the, you know, the situation. It was like, it was like a soul-sucking thing

to understand like, okay, this guy's going to do the lay and pray, you know, it's like, it just took all the energy out of the room. And it was a problem, man, you know, it was a problem for the UFC to figure that out. And I, what they basically did was punish guys or, or they'd use those guys to punish somebody

that they didn't want, you know, they'd use them for negotiated. Like, there was somebody, well, you want, uh, whatever and you're going to be leaving. And they was, well, let me put you against this dude who's going to, like, make your life miserable first before you go, you know. But yeah, it's been a long, it's been a problem, and I think it's got to be addressed at some point.

What, how much of a responsibility falls on Ian Gary here? I mean, what did you think about, like, because it wasn't like he was, you know, he wasn't just like sprawling out, right? Like, he was, he was trying to get stuff done. From an analytical standpoint, what did you think about? Like, I was, I thought he was, especially in that third, was it the third round when the momentum switched,

He kind of reversed a, you know, a takedown. There was like a little scramble. He ended up in the position, remember? And then that's when it kind of changed. It felt like Islam suddenly was a little, you know, more hesitant or something to come in. I thought that round particularly like he looked good. But I don't know. I felt like he did a better job than Jack, right?

Like I felt like he did a better job of like trying to reverse things and like make it complicated and try to wear down Islam. but it's just a tough task. I didn't have like a big, I actually thought he did okay. Like I thought he did okay. I just thought he should throw more volume. It didn't seem like he was throwing a volume in the striking realm to me. I don't know why he didn't move as much.

I really don't understand that. That is such a normal component of his game where he's constantly moving to both set up offense, make himself more, you know, a tougher defensive target. And he just stood in front of him at this time, which I'm not sure I understand. I don't know what the strategy was there to do that because to me it made the single egg easier for Islam to pick up.

And he didn't get the finish on those every time, but it would start a grappling sequence that would be on Islam. I mean, what grappling sequence that Islam initiated ended up on Gary's terms? I could think of one where he got the reversal off of the crackdown, right? That was it. That was the one time he got. Everything else was just on Islam. terms. It's like you facilitated that. Can I just say this too? Like I don't need pushing and

shoving ahead of a fight and I definitely don't like poor sportsmanship after the fight. I recognize that there is a place for some good sportsmanship ahead of a fight. Like you know what I mean? Like, hey, I'm not going to trash talk and you know, I made the best man win. And you know, it can still get intense, but you're not like actively, you know, trying to provoke your opponent. Like I think that's cool. But dude, Gary's whole shit about dapping people up, I did a tape study on my substack before the fight. And you can see it throughout his career. He's constantly like after like a takedown fails or you know anything end up around. He's like hugging, dapping, fist bumping, smiling. He was doing it here constantly. The fight's over. And then the first

thing he says is, you know, I feel good about what I did. And like on some level you should, right? On some level, you took the toughest guy in the sport to maybe, you know, three round to two decision in certain judge's eyes. On the other hand, it's like that's also a loss. And a loss should weigh on a fighter who believes they can win much more. Like, did Gary really ever intend to straight up win that fight? I don't know. I'm not, I don't know how to answer that. I'm not saying it's not true. But what I am saying is I'm not convinced that it is. Yeah, that fifth round. I mean, did you have a tide? Like, it was it, or how did you score it? In real time. No, I had it 3-1

going into the fifth. In post-re-watch, I have it 3-2. That's how I had it. I had the third and the fourth going to Gary. And again, like the fourth was a weird one, but I gave it to him just because he was doing more in the end. And

to me, I was like, okay, who knows what the score card would actually be at that time? But fifth round, you better come out there and do work. And I just felt like you know, I saw Dana mention basically the killer instinct thing and I got to say that occurred to me. I was like

dude, where's your killer? This is your chance. You know, you're there. You could be the guy who kind of like, you know, you beat, you dethrone this guy who's trying to be great, you're the spoiler, you know? And I just didn't feel like he had that. He didn't have that, you know, something about it just didn't, it didn't look right. Like, you know,

some guys, they come out there and they're desperate in these situations because they're so close. I just didn't get that from him. But I'm with you, dude, like I remember the Pat Barry, like, he had so much respect for a crow cop. Do you remember that fight? And I was like, I was, and I was like, dude, just stop.

This is nobody wants to see this. You know, hugging him every time. Oh, you got me that time. Hug him in the middle of the fight. You're like, dude, I don't want to see that stuff. I never, I can't stand that. I don't need to have bad blood either. I don't even have to, there doesn't have to be a hate fest.

But the constant kind of like high-fiving and stuff, I don't want to forget that I, that I'm watching a fight. I want to keep in a fight. I want to see the intensity. And I like guys who burn. Like, you know, I know, I know, I know, I know we'll talk about Jalen, Jalen Turner later,

but like, dude, did you see the intensity in him? I was like, he went in there and he was like, it was like he was in there to kill the guy. I was like, I love that sort of thing.

Dues are so dialed in that they just, you know, they refuse to lose. I don't know what's up with Gary, man. And, you know, it doesn't help. Like the narratives going in and,

um, just about, you know, kind of bringing into the, into his whole fold, like his wife, his kid, all that sort of thing.

And I don't know. It's just, Something about it wasn't adding up. And I really, it was more like as I slept on. At first it didn't really bother me. But when I thought about it yesterday, when I was really thinking about the fight and I rewatched it, it bothered me. I was like, Gary, what are you doing, man? I just, I would like to see him leave that aside.

It doesn't have to be like that. Long Island, to what extent does Gary bear responsibility for how this fight looked? And then also what kind of effort he turned in? I mean, you're not going to look good against the best fighter in the world. Islam's number one pound for pound until he looks kind of shitty. I'm still going to just run with that. Like, I don't know. You're not going to look good.

The whole like hugging every five minutes, I truthfully in the moment didn't even notice. Oh, I hate it. I did not notice until I saw all the backlash online. And then I was like, you're right. He was doing that a lot. That is annoying, you know? But I like, I got to be honest. I did not even think about it in the moment until there was one moment.

until there was one moment, I want to say Ian thought he hit Islam with a low blow and then he tried to like pause it and Islam's like, no, keep fighting. Like, I'm fine. And Ian's like, high five though, right? Like that was the one time I'm like, do you want a winner you want to be liked? I feel like he's always trying to be respected.

It's weird, man. Exactly. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, not my favorite fighter, but I think he did all he could. Now, in terms of what's next, Chuck, Islam weighed in on who the rightful number one contender is. We have video. Let's take a look. There's like videos of Carlos Pratches and Michael Morales backstage arguing about who should get the title shot against you next and they both want it. They both think they deserve it.

How do you feel? I don't know who I want to choice, you know, no matter who is them. Maybe let them fight. Why do they not fight in this car to see who is the number one contender, you know? But it's okay. I'm happy we have some real contenders in this division. and these guys, Morales, Prattes, Shavkat, they make me like training every day more hard.

But because I say this is the real fighters who can give me good fights. What do you think, Chuck? Who makes the most sense? Well, I like the Carlos Pratchez's fight only in the sense, like, I think that he's slightly more deserving. Michael Morales is a younger guy. He had that big showing, and it was a long time ago, too, like in November against Brady.

but like the problem is he's going to have to wait a long time and if you're looking at kind of keeping things rolling um i think morales should stay busy i don't know if he'd want to like he's what is he 26 i wouldn't want to wait that long because i don't what is this thom's timetable this is a guy who fights how well traditionally he's fighting like once a year maybe twice if you're lucky i don't know like i was i was actually kind of like in my mind you know you started computing like the wins ramadan ramadon's happening like i think february 7th to march 7th or something like that it's in that that month long thing and you're like does he fight before then you know if he fights before he said he wanted to okay and i'm like if he's able to do that you could go you can't lose on either one of these i think that they're both slam dunk like i love these like the concept of him having to fight one of those dudes is a lot of fun i just think i would go with proches you know i i think that he's kind of like he's the guy that i think he's put himself in there he fought like he looked very good right in that jdm fight like in may i think to me that was like you know what are you waiting for for put him in there the dude he's also kind of a you know he's got the cigarette dangling from his

lip and he's just he's that guy that you you know it's like you kind of want to see what he does in a big spot like that and how he handles himself in that buildup i think it would be a lot of fun i'll say this i don't think you can go wrong with either you know they made either i wouldn't cry but i think the morales one to me is a little bit more of an interesting test i think islam would have his way with process in the grappling eventually anyway and i don't know that that's true with um with morales but morales has never really been pushed by a talent the level of islam and certainly you know i don't think has as i mean i don't think any of them are skill for skill as talented as is the question is just what does weight do to it but again he's up against it

dude like is he really going to like think about it is he going to slug it out with process probably fucking not right right is he going to slug it out with a beast like morales probably not he's going to do to your point chuck late stage gsb he's going to try in late stage gs ESPM. And I think when guys are up against it in terms of like what they, you know, George was burned out by that point too. So I don't think Islam is burned out in that way. But like when they're up against the limits of like whatever they can reasonably contribute from like almost like a spiritual standpoint to a fight and a physical limit as well. I've seen this case, you know, what are you going to get? Like I don't know. Let me just say this. I don't know how many more exciting fights Islam has in it.

I can see in this division, you know. Yeah. I can see plenty of. exciting contenders for him to fight. That's a good point. Sure. But like, what you think he's going to go? I'm going to fucking slug it out with Bruchas. He's not going to do that at all.

At all. No, it is a good point. And I mean, Morales is so big. Here's one thing to consider is like, I feel like that dude's inevitably moving up soon to, right? Like, I don't think Morales can sustain himself like in this division.

So I suppose that might factor into this. Like you kind of want to, if you're going to get this fight, maybe this would be the, time to make it. But you're right. It's just either one of those, but you're right. The narrative is actually

that they're fun to contemplate because can he move these guys? Can he like, can he do what he normally does against these bigger guys? Especially Morales who's so big. Can he like dictate where that fight takes place and like, you know, and impose his will on him? That becomes the real plot of the thing.

Can he do that or not? But honestly, you're right. I don't really, I can't imagine it being a super exciting fight unless Morales is like beating him to the point where he has to get desperate, you know. But even then, you're right, I just don't think that either one of those matchups will be ultimately that exciting in the end.

What about Gary, though? You know, like what are you going to do with him? Gary's, I mean, you know, I think Gary can beat just about everybody else in that division. Yeah. Isn't that the weird part here? And I feel, okay, so you look at the kind of Eddie Hearn angle with Gary and then to Dana White. Dana did

not seem overly pleased with Gary's performance. You, wonder how far behind the eight ball he now is. Is this the type of thing where this is going to be his only chance? And I mean, like, it's one of those situations. I just don't really feel like the UFC is that into the Gary type thing beyond what they just did. We will see. But, like, if I'm Gary's camp, I want to go against the guy, like one of those guys, right?

I want to go against one of those guys who we're talking about as being next because then you make yourself somewhat inevitable back into that conversation. I don't know if the UFC will do that, you know? And if the UFC wants to punish him or like put him against a very tough guy where it's a little bit more of a thankless thing, you're a slub, right? Like I was talking to Long Island Luke about this a little bit. Can you imagine that fight? That would be a fun one. Tremendous. Yeah.

I mean, it was way down in the rankings, but it's like, I mean, compared to where Gary is. But dude, that would be a crazy-ass fight. Yeah, I mean, this is just one of those problems. Like the precipice of history was met with something that was an incredibly difficult hill to climb. but the nature of how he had to climb it left everyone kind of like, you know, not very fun. Speaking of a fight that left everyone going, let's go to topic number two.

How about that co-main event? Jesus Christ. I hated this fucking fight. I really did. McKenzie Dern defended her strawweight title. She did it by beating Jillian Robertson. By the way, with the exact same, well, not the exact same round apportionment,

but the exact same scores. Right. You can see it on the left and then the far right. there 49 46 and then straight up the middle you can get a 48 47 um i still had this one four rounds to one upon rewatch i suppose you could give the fifth round uh the fourth round excuse me to robertson if you really wanted to it wouldn't make much of a difference she looked good mackenzie durn did in the first two rounds chuck in fact nearly submitting her in the first it was great and i will also say that her excuse me their her takedowns just look way yeah way better than they used to but it was a you know

this wasn't much to this affair, it did not seem championship level. Does a win like this quiet the criticism of Dern as champion or maintain it? I mean, it had similarities to the main event in that way. Like it was in the sense that the first two rounds were telling you one thing and then the rest of the fight played out in a way that changed your mind. I was actually one of those guys,

I'm probably going to have to eat a little crow on this because Dern is showing up. I kept saying, you know, alluding to like she's probably on borrowed time, you know, like she didn't beat, Jay Lee Wang and like if she comes back you know I don't see her beating you know Zhang and like that sort of thing like you go through this process so you're kind of discounting Dern and I thought that this would be somewhat of a dog fight we talked about this on the on the pregame you thought that maybe then the scrambles and the submissions like I thought that you know Robertson would have something some

kind of answer and maybe turn the tables a couple of times something like that and you would get kind of a dog fight but that is not what we got here um so therefore when Dern was really kicking ass and I mean it seemed like she had an extra gear that Robertson could not figure out for those first two rounds especially like she was it was just such one way traffic that it was almost impressive on a whole other level

right like you're like dude this is this is somebody there's a huge gap between these two but then the fight kind of plays out in a way that it just becomes frustrating because I didn't really get the sense that Dern was putting you know was putting it you know Robertson into too many challenging positions

she was still dictating the fight but then Robertson and that whole thing was just so weird it just felt like she was ineffectual as a as a challenger like there was nothing that she could present to change the tempo of this yes in the later like especially that fifth round she ends up with the round she wins but did you really think that there was a moment that she could actually put durn away I mean it just it had none of those dramatics none of that you know none of that stuff so in that sense it was a dud in the end I was like he wanted to do Dern to kind of like finish the job at some point. She doesn't. And in fact, she has her own good performance diminished as that fight went on. It just didn't leave a lot to, uh, to feel good about it in the end, man. I hated this fight. Now, did you hate it because of Robertson or because of Dern? Like, or is it like just the combination here?

I, here's the problem. Okay. Obviously, some level of blamberts. for how the fight goes, has to go to Robertson in the sense of like you have a title shot and you know, you can only fight up to your ability, but it just didn't seem like she had a lot of ability to do much of really anything, not get much going on the feet, you know, Dern got a, Dern got a take down in round one. She got to take down around two or got to take down around three and a take down around four, you know, for 20 minutes basically, not the entirety of the time,

but for the 20 minute allotment, she got a, she got to take down in every single round. And it's like, you know, dude, what are you, how is it you expect to win being taken down by McKenzie Dern? You know what I mean? Like, what is the plan there? And they're just really what really wasn't one. So in that sense, like, she deserves some blame. But this is to me the real problem. It's not really, you know, at the end, I kind of retreat back to my previous point,

which was like, Robertson can only do what she is capable of doing. You know what I mean? Like, yes, you can say she didn't do these things, but like how capable of. was she doing it in the first place for Dern dude I made a whole tape study on this maybe about two years ago something maybe a little maybe a little bit longer maybe 2023 where I noticed what she was doing was she would get people down one you know not easily but she would get them down she would climb to the back and then what she would do is she would post on her forehead while high on the back so like

literally like this Chuck she's like this Right. And then trying to punch with her weight all the way forward like that to get some ground and pound. And what she was trying to do was usually snake open an arm and then go for an arm bar from the back, like a shin in the back of the head kind of situation, right? And a lot of times it just never worked. But the major point was like, dude, this is not ground and pound. This is nothing. This is nothing. This is what I mean about like strong grapplers. And there's different kinds of strong grapplers with different strengths. But strong grapplers getting to. to positions and then just doing this and then expecting ground and pound to count. Like, oh, look, she's trying. It's nothing. There's no ground and pound from there at all.

Gillian's face heading into round five looked basically fine, other than like maybe being tired or something. It looked basically fine. And so what she tries to do is have her takedowns improved, Derns, radically. Very, very clear improvement in that regard. The timing of them, the finishing of it, just much better. but she's done nothing on the ground other than like, I'm just going to resort to Jiu-Jitsu.

Yeah. I'm going to take your back and then try, you know, from here to get a choke, but I'm not really going to do anything to soften it up. I'm going to get a take down. I'm going to work on top. Like, dude, that's the other part too. Like, how was she having this hard of time passing guard?

You know, again, I know that this always sounds so awful. It's like, you know, guy who was nothing tells pro fighters how to do their job. but like I can just tell you what the tape shows and I can just tell you what practices are. You can stand up and you can throw the legs to the side if you want. There can be reasons to do that, okay? But the problem with doing it is if you just throw to the side, you're going to also rotate them over and they're going to be able to stand or it's going to complicate your ability to get ground and pound. If you really want to get to the side, you have to press their knee into them flat and then rotate your body hard core around it to get to the side. or you can throw and then you can greet them with the same side you throw to

with the punch coming down. And she was doing neither of these things. And it's like your striking has gotten better, your wrestling's gotten better. But then on the ground, it's almost like she's saying, Chuck, hey, I'm my jujitsu so good. I don't have to do anything. And it's like it's actually not, not for MMA. It's actually not good enough to do this.

And it really just leaves a lot to be desired to me. Do you feel like I know that she, like there was so much talk right about the submissions and Robertson kind of having more and all this stuff, like kind of like sub-tweeting each other. But like in the end, I think that Dern really wanted a submission. But does she fixate on something like that to the point where she just won't do the other thing?

Because you're right. I mean, we've talked about people in the loss of ground and pound in general, like these guys who just don't do it. You know, Hamzot is a good example of that, right? Like sometimes you're like, dude, where's the ground of pound? Like, what are you doing? Like, you know what I mean? like you want to see more of that. I feel like back in the day we saw guys get very vicious with

their elbows, hammer fist, that sort of thing. Why aren't we, why don't we see that? And, um, I thought you might in this particular fight because it sets up, it actually helps you, right? It helps you, it helps somebody squirm out of a, uh, at the bottom into a worse position. Maybe it sets up your submission. But yes, I, I don't know what's happening with that. I don't know if she was just so fixated on just getting like a, you know, a clean submission over Robertson to prove a point. but at some point you got to try. You're right. It was frustrating.

It was the same thing. We're talking about those stalemates. I feel like it wasn't quite like that. But even when Robertson in the end, you know, would get into a dominant position, she had land these very little pitter-patter type things. And you're like, dude, this is just nothing's happening here. You know what I mean? It was just it was a, when you say you hate the fight, that's why I hated it.

I was like, I felt like Robertson couldn't do anything. And Dern wasn't going to force her to. It was just, where's the drama? that in the end, you know? I don't mind if she tries to use the skills she had in the first and second round to pursue the fight that way. Like, hey, I'm going to try it this way. Okay, fair enough. But then it was pretty clear that that's not going to work. So then you have to go to something else and then they just don't. Yeah. And, you know, Robertson, I can forgive because, you know, she's the contender. I suspect she'll never get another title shot. You know, again, it can forgive

is a strong word, but you know, I kind of just understand she has what she has. But for Dern, who has, you know, such a leg up in the jiu-jitsu and then not building the other components to make that work in modern MMA, just feels so behind the times and so negligent. And like, I really just wonder what she's been doing training this whole time. Like, clearly, again, there are, there are absolutely elements to her game that have radically improved. And I think the timing and the nature of offensive takedowns has been a big one. But I, really also think Chuck it took her forever to get better and so it didn't leave enough time to really you know close all of the the loop the open loops in her game that need to be you know sealed off

and yeah this is what you're going to get and it's like this is my thought was like you know I didn't hate the fight because I thought well it could be action packed and maybe it doesn't deserve to be a title fight as such but you know it's fine but then again it's like I need people to compete who have an ability to do something to the other person by virtue of having well-rounded ability. And I can forgive Islam to a degree because Gary's defense is so

stout, right? Very good. Robertson's defense is not that, I mean, it's not terrible, but it's not as good as Gary's. Yeah. Did this win do anything for you in terms of like if Whaley comes back to the division and that's the fight that's made?

Did it do anything for you to say like, okay, I like Dern's chances better than I would have had nice seen this performance you know maybe a little bit on the defensive and offensive wrestling side yeah um but not really no long island am i missing something here i i think

you guys are a little down on this fight i didn't find it that bad i was the crowd though did the crowd like this fight i was curious about that i was in the back for it i got to be honest chuck so i don't really know i wasn't getting the real aroma of the arena but uh i i feel like maybe it's because i bet on durn but i was like loving this for durn I thought Robertson looked like shit, but I also thought Dern just looked really good.

Sure. Once round four and five start, you're like, all right, she's starting to fade. This doesn't look that great. But I actually went out of that being like, ooh, I want to see her fight way Lee now. And even if she doesn't, I think people got to like step a bet. People are like, she's a paper champion. She's got to fight way late. She got a title defense.

I mean, that's got to count for something. She won the belt and she defended it, regardless of who it was against. That's pretty damn good accolade. And, you know, Luke's looking at me like he'd rather get fucked to death. by three dick hippo but you know i think it's pretty cool dude i don't know i i am hard to please i am hard to please and i've always been hard to please and i recognize that and so that should inform people how they receive my analysis here but like to me it's like dude like this is it chuck like if i am able years ago years ago to pinpoint a problem in her game and it goes unaddressed

basically unaddressed until years later now she's in a title fight and she gets the dub, fair enough, she gets the dub, but it's still just like quite visibly lingering in a mostly unaddressed way. What conclusion am I supposed to draw from that? You know what I mean? Like I don't, I don't understand why, how can I see things demonstrably,

provably, I can show it to you. How are it, it's just, you know, with the Diego, it's like the same with the Diego Lopez. It's like, oh, I can't cut a guy off. I'm going to cut them off one way in the second time and then just not the other. It's like, dude, how the fuck is that possible? How the fuck are y'all elite fighters and you can't do the things that an absolute dumbass like me can see a mile away? I don't, I just don't get that.

I'm waiting for a Volcanovsky to like break it down the same way because last time, remember like when we're talking about Diego is kind of like, he pointed out exactly what you pointed out. He was frustrated and he's the one fighting him. I mean, I like when guys like that weigh in on these types of fights, right? like because you they see the opportunity they see everything that's going on in the same way and um it's just frustrating man i mean i don't want to be frustrated for fights like that you know like i guess that's what we would you want to see a good fight like you want to you want to see full evolution um you know game planning and execution and all that stuff i just what you don't want to see is what you don't want to be left with this frustration that's why i was curious how a philly saw it because i feel like

in the live atmosphere sometimes the room dies on a fight you're not so i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm fight like that. It started off very good, but those final three rounds. Those were the dog-gated. Just didn't do enough for me. Now, what's more interesting about it is not so much this, but rather the kind of the fallout. So Dean Thomas

famously was in Julian Robertson's corner. Not giving, hold on with this for just a second. What I would say is, Chuck, maybe you disagree. The advice that Dean Thomas was giving her was, I didn't think the wrong advice, but it was not

overly technical, which is weird because he's kind of the guy the UFC brings in to be like, hey, what could these guys be doing between rounds to adjust? It's like, that's kind of his thing. And then he didn't do a lot of that, I thought, some of it, but not much, not much. Now, of course, the argument to the contrary of that could be, hey, maybe he felt like the other coaches were giving her specifics. And he was just kind of trying to rally the troops a little bit. Maybe he felt like there was an energy she had that was overall just limiting the scope of things. So there can be a lot of reasons why that happens. To me, that's not as big a deal.

I don't really focus on that. The one that I thought was interesting, though, was after this fight's over, he's back on the desk, and now you can put it up. And I'm going to read to you what he said after the fact. He said, for my announcement, and this is, you know, during the broadcast, I do have an announcement. I told myself I would continue to do this until I took Gillian as far as she could go. I think that might be as far as she can go.

And I'm officially retiring from cornering fighters tonight. I'm doing the Matt Sarah. I'm no longer cornering fighters. It's just I told myself that I would do this with her. I would see her journey out. I would take her as far as I think she can go. And this might be as far as she can go. And I'm still, I'll still work with guys.

It's just a matter of going down that road with cornering. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. You got to be there all week. I've been slowly telling you, I don't cut weight with them. It's not fair to them. They need somebody who is really going to be, to put that type of work in with them.

This has resulted in what I would say is fairly substantial backlash. him. What do you make of it? Well, it was a bad look, you know, the way he kind of announced it. And if you, if you paid attention in between the corners, too, he was, I don't want to say disgusted with what Robert St. was though, but it was something like that. It was something like, you know, in an intimate or a fair, like where he's just known, he knows the fighter to the extent that it just, you know, you could see that he was just seething about like, move your feet. What are you doing? Wake up. Like, he's telling her these things. And, okay, that's fine. But as

each one in between, it was just like that guy who's, I don't know. I don't want to say he's giving up on her, but like, that's what it felt, especially between the fourth and fifth. You know, like, it was just like, you could tell that he just was completely sagging on that. But I think that the reason it's a bad look, I mean, you go on to

you go on to like a a post-fight show like that and you make this announcement. And I don't even know why you needed to. And when she said why, because she's a good journalist, the the host is there, like she pointed this out and you know he basically throws her under the bus i mean like you if you say like you know i wanted to take her as far as she could go and this is as far as she could go i mean that's like saying

you know i've been with her through thick and that's it you know i'm not gonna be with her through thin dude you needed to be there for her probably on that night and i mean honestly if you're going to do that if you're like don't do it don't do it like that don't do it like do it behind the scenes tell her like hey you know we did this during i'm i'm out now i think we take it you can do that behind the scenes. I didn't love that, man. I mean, you want to like, you want to think that the, there's a respect factor there, you know, that they maintain a bond, you know, like, I just, I felt like it was in such poor taste. What did you think about it? I mean, it's just to me that's like, you don't do that. There's like an unwritten rule to like throw your, your fighter under the bus like

that. Well, I've known Dean for a long time. Yeah. And, uh, although he pulled a Brian Campbell on me, the last time I messaged him, he left me on red. Yeah. So shouts, Dean, we show. our last name, but you couldn't even respond to my WhatsApp message, motherfucker? Okay, you have to understand something about Dean. All right. Dean, I mean, okay, yeah, unless it's about

protecting his job at UFC, which, you know, to an extent I understand, Dean is not going to suffer fools gladly. Dean is absolutely like, you know, all gas, no brakes, whatever metaphor you want to use, no

Vaseline, that's just who he is. Okay. And in general, in general, I feel like the game actually kind of needs that. It needs someone to just be like, you know, so-and-so's a bum or this is stupid or, you know, this is great and here's why.

You know, like somebody who can just sort of clearly articulate something without trying to hedge it for one reason or another, but I thought this was a fuck up on his part. Yeah. I don't disagree with the substance of what he's saying. If you're not going to be their weight cutting with them.

You know, if you're busy because he's got a burgeoning, frankly, media career, right? He does. He's on this Deep Waters podcast that CBS is producing. Obviously, he's got desk work, you know, and more than that. He's got a ton of different assignments within the UFC universe. Clearly that has taken off to a degree, and he just doesn't have the time or the willingness to do those other things, which is fine. Like, there's no argument with that.

It's fine. And again, I appreciate Dean for his candor. I really do. I think it's actually important that a guy like that exists. But I don't know what the fuck he was thinking here. You know, to do this on a broadcast, you, like, we don't need, we don't even fucking need to know the announcement. You know what I mean?

Exactly. Why are you making an announcement at all? Why are you telling us you're done cornering? Like, you don't, we don't need to know that. I mean, you can, I suppose. But it's not like information that, like, the, the public had to be told or in other ways, made the broadcast better or more interesting. It just kind of made it feel grosser.

Yeah. And, you know, he's known Jillian since he was 15. We don't know the contours of their relationship. But Chuck, I echo what you're saying. It's like, dog, she just lost. I agree. That's probably as far as she's going to go. I agree with that.

I agree with that. We don't need to know you know that. Right. We don't need to know that. We don't need to know that you're so put off by this experience for whatever reasons that may be there that you don't want to do this again right after your, your, your, your, your, your, your protege essentially just lost. I felt like it was in poor taste.

You know, it's also kind of the, I guess, the danger of having these guys who are intimately involved in the fight night on two scales, right? Like you have a guy who's, he's in a corner, you know, this is a, it's a fiery situation because it's somebody he has been with like she's in a title shot. And then he's expected to go do his desk, put back on the tie, whatever, and go back up and do this stuff. and you might get these emotional kind of things where you're not thinking clearly. What it put me in mind of it.

Actually hearing you say this about Dean, because I've talked to him, but it's been a long time, and I don't know his personality quite like you do. But it reminded me like, you know, if you had a guy like Teddy Atlas back in the day with him, you remember Mike Moore and he worked with Tyson and all that stuff,

but like he was kind of like both too. Like he was intimately involved with fighters, but then he could, but he, it was like this sort of abrasive, from no nonsense thing on TV that really worked. Like he, I could imagine him saying this very thing.

You know what I mean? Like with one of his fighters is like, you know, man, I'm done with him. You didn't do what I said. Like you could see that. I just feel like maybe Atlas had that. Like this was our notion of him the whole way.

Whereas with Dean, I don't know. To me, the perception of him is not really, like when you say why to even announce it, that's kind of where we're at with Dean Thomas. I love him. I think that that's great that he,

you know, is a good coach and all that stuff. but who sits around talking about like, you know what, man, the corner, like I hope Dean stays in corners for a long time or anything like that. Nobody has this discussion, you know? So it's just bizarre.

But I'm like, maybe it's just that we haven't caught his personnel. Like, if he's truly, he's got to let that, he's got to let that flow all the way, you know, and like let people know that that's who he is. You know, he's going to tell it like it is. The problem with the, it's hard to have a media career working for UFC and then maintain like the contours of who you are, you know?

because you have to just tow the line so aggras i mean i know these people who have these jobs like they have to tow the line very aggressively to like pro u sce stuff which makes people not really see who the real dean is dean is dean is not a jerk i don't i think he i think he fucked up here but i don't think he's a bad person and i don't think he's a jerk again i think he really fucked up here but if you got to know dean this would be a little less surprising you'd be like right well he this like i guarantee you he had a probably a rough conversation with her when the fight was over too. And again, I don't know the specifics of their relationship, but it's like, yeah, he, I think was frustrated to your point, not just during the fight, but afterwards,

and was like, I can't do this anymore, man. Yeah. And not being there too. Like, if you're not even there during the fight. And he, he seemed to know that he was lacking in that regard, right? He admitted, you know, you've got to be, you actually have to do that. And I can't do that, probably because he's got all these media assignments that he has to do. Big time. And like, you know, I, and it only kind of rubs salt in the wound a little bit. Because if you saw, um, Robertson in the,

in like the lead up fight week where she's, she was asked a couple times about like, Dean and stuff like that. And she's like, you know, this isn't me trying to win a belt for myself. This is me winning it for us, you know? Like she's,

she's so like, you know, she was so protective of him and all this stuff. And I don't know. All of that, that's why it seems like such a fuck up in the end. Because you're like, dude,

uh, it felt like she needed you on another level than you, then you were. at the end there, you know, and that's unfortunate, man. Also, not for nothing. Like, I don't know if I've seen a main and co-main event title fights back to back, where in multiple rounds in either the main or co-main, someone didn't land a significant strike.

It happened to Jerry. It happened to Islam. And it happened to Jillian. And then there were several rounds where they got three, six, five. You know what I mean? Like, just as back-to-back main and co-mains, it was like, somebody do fucking something. Wow, dude.

You know, that plays to Long Island's point about like if that head kick and that main event doesn't land, can you imagine how we're talking about this card? Like, I mean, we'd be like, dude, that was a stinker in the end, wouldn't we? I mean, that would be really bad. Well, we got what we got in the end. So Dern is your champion. And Robertson, who knows what her future is with Dean. But we'll see what Dean has to say about it going forward. Let's go to topic number three, which is the rest of this UFC 330 main card, which is to me weird. is maybe the word I would pick? Weird? All right. What the fuck was the point of the Coway Fernandez and Jalen Turner fight?

Now, fights end quickly. He's going to go for a spin here. Just a terrible fucking idea. Gets caught in the spin with basically he gets stopped. Play it one more time. Watch how he spins here. Play it one more time, Chuck. Watch.

He'll spin here, but he kind of gets stopped on the shoulder. Stopped, but now your back has turned against a guy with a brilliant left hook. Why the fuck would you do this? that. I did not necessarily have a low opinion of Fernandez before this fight. Chuck, I'm not saying I thought he was bad or anything, but I didn't have a high one. Yeah. What the fuck was this?

Well, I expected a little more. We talked about it in the pregame, you know, like he had a couple of good victories coming into this fight. So you think, eh, we'll probably see we'll probably see a decent, I mean, a decent showing from him, but no, it wasn't much of a fight. I mean, if you want to look at from that perspective, too, it's like,

why was the fight put there? I don't know. But like from the Jalen, you know, Turner's side, I'm like, hey, man, the guy now has two first-round finishes and Rosent's coming back from his two-week retirement. That's not too bad. I kind of got saw it from that thing. I thought he just looked really dialed in. Did it feel like that to you? It felt like Turner to me came in there to do business, not playing games. And if you've met the guy in the past, he's very nice. I wouldn't say he's Ian Gary, like slapping high fives and stuff. But he's a very nice guy. And I think it's hard for him to compartment. mentalize the fighting, you know, and like feelings and all that stuff. But I think he just seemed very dialed in for this fight, man. He did. He did. Credit to Jalen. Jalen is to me a really instinctual striker, which I mean, I don't mean to say he doesn't make thoughtful decisions. I mean, he just naturally makes very good reads, you know? He naturally just can kind of see things very quickly materialized and then act on them very quickly. Like, I really like it. It's a nice win by Jalen Turner. I just think we got to up the level of competition a little bit. I know that they or trying to slow roll him a little bit maybe after that kind of semi-retirement that he had.

Fair enough. But it seems like we got to up the ante a little bit here. So, yeah. Nice win by Jalen. I just don't know what the fuck it's supposed to mean. You know, I just,

it was one of those fights where it's like great, great, great, great. Jalen, Jalen's great. Like, I really like Jalen a lot. I mean, they should put him on the next card. Yeah,

I don't think he did he take any damage at all? Like, he was like, it came out of their mint condition, right? I don't think he took. I mean, I guess his shoulder might be sore. I don't know, you know. I mean, that's about it. Now, the crown jewel, in my opinion, of the main card was the next one.

How about fucking Dustin Stoltz-Fuse? Yeah, this was wild. Going out there and just truly breaking, man, Sir Abdul-Malik. How much do we need to, in both cases, Chuck, in both cases, reevaluate their respective stocks, because this was a phenomenal win by Dustin. And really, we'll talk about in a minute, quite the breakdown from Abdul-Malick. dude I don't know where this came from do you like we were talking about I'm like ah this is just a showcase fight you know this is a showcase fight I didn't really think that he would compete in this fight he's he's lost the majority I think he's like three and seven coming in this fight but it reminded me do you remember we almost had a moment this one was way different in the sense of uh you know in terms of a high prospect that some of us think could be due damage in the division he's going against the guy he's a huge underdog but remember the punasoriano like he showed up out of nowhere he'd lost a bunch of fights and and does work puts on a performance of the night type thing and you're like oh okay i guess you know

there's something more to him but dude like this was like three times that like i don't know where it came it was just like a refuse to lose it seemed like everything he was doing was working he was just very good in there very tough very durable like he just kind of kept taking the fight to the point where um you wondered you wondered how much like the guy like uh how much he wanted to be in there in the end, right? Like, toward the end of that fight, he'd just hurt and that he was sinking that choke or he was trying to get the choke and it just seemed like, it just seemed like the dude was like, I, you know, I'd prefer to get out of this fight at this point. Like, he beat him up, man. He beat him up solid on this one. He was two for seven on takedowns and the takedowns ended up being pretty

consequential. During that, he gets a sub attempt that he gets credited with. He outstruck him numerically. He had a higher portion. Do listen to these numbers. Now, Master Abdel Malik landed a bunch in round two, but these were kind of busier shots. I mean, a little more than that than what I'm suggesting. But, you know, he got almost more, more than double outstruck in the first round. But dude, to me, I didn't see this coming at all. There were questions as we raised on Friday about Abdul Malik following that loss to Belgarou, who really beat him up. But it also looked like, you know, Belgarwe was just dialing, he was just dialed in on that fight. And you're like, okay, all right, he didn't go. He fought a tough guy. He lost. So what, right? It just happens. Yes. And I don't want

I disrespect Stoltzvus here. I certainly I did a little bit ahead of time, if I'm being honest. I thought Abdul Malik would be able to get over the hump. But Stoltzvus just really had to me a great idea about this fight, which was putting the pressure on him, making him work. And then, dude, he just like took the will from him in that second round, really, really, really beating him up and then finally getting that rear naked choke. Dude, this was, it was wild. You know, when I say about when the initial question I asked was like, you know, re-evaluating the stock. I'll say this for Stoltz-Fuse. If you're not dialed in, he will find out. He's got veteran

savvy. He's been in there with very tough guys. He obviously, I think he's maximized his skill set. I don't think he can get a lot better. But if you're not up to par, he just knows ways to pursue fights and ways to pursue rounds. Well, he's going to find that out. And, um, Abdul Malik, man, great athlete. I do still think there's some time for him to get right. But, But he should have been able to get more takedowns in this one. Yes. And he should have been able to leverage that athleticism, Chuck, a lot more than he did. I just think he's got to like, and I mean, you know, when you say like, who am I to be talking about these guys?

What's what their motivations are? But I'm like, it seems to me he's got to want it a little more. I don't know. It just seems like he's not dialed in on that, like the hunger factor. It just, it was a weird fight that way. But I do think the first old fuse is like a, it's a signature moment. you know like I think we'll remember like him doing this one and I always remember you know like

it's very interesting did you like the way he handled the mic he was basically like you know something he almost had that imposter syndrome like like he's like kind of like man I don't know sometimes I feel like I don't belong in this company right I don't belong in this company and all of a sudden he puts on that performance that's a wild shit isn't it? I was loving I became a huge fan of him in the post fight he basically was like I know my record sucks

I do suck but like I just really enjoy mixed martial arts He was so realistic. I was like, dude, this guy's the fucking man. And I'm not going to say I called this fight. I did say Stoltzvist by decision, guys. I was just feeling it. Mansour Abdul Malik. I know he's a D1 wrestler.

What was the line in the end? He was like plus 500 money line. He was a huge. And the decision prop was like plus 750. But yo, Mansor Abdul Malik might be a D1 wrestler. His wrestling numbers were really suss going into this where I was like, I think Dustin's going to expose this. And that was my whole logic.

I was like, I took the over one. and a half officially and got that so that was cool too but uh dude dustin stultzvus i'm not saying i'm going to bet on him in the future but i became a fan of his what a weird thing that like the the pennsylvania guys that they did book on this card were the biggest they were the biggest underdogs like they came through i know parlayed the two of them plus four thousand three oh my god jeremiah wells and dustin stoltzvus wow so phenomenal win by stoltzvus again to the point like does this make me think that he's somebody he's not no no necessarily, but you got to respect what, like, dude, you have to be, if you're going to be

of limited ability, right, you have to be a dog to go in. And he was. And I, I like that. I like that from a guy like that. I'm going to just be a fucking dog in your face. Last but not, Lee, oh, by the way, I have an update. Dean Thomas has apologized. You want me to read it to you? Oh, yeah. I guess we should. So Dean Thomas on the Deep Waters podcast, this is not the whole statement, but one of them is talking about the apology or sorry talking about what he said about Julian Robertson and not cornering anymore quote this is Dean talking quote it was irresponsible it was despicable I shouldn't have done it fair enough okay I think that's right yes I

like a guy being candid with people even when they're a little mean I actually like that but if you get too mean you just everything gets lost I really think it had to have been him just like very frustrated and he's not still on his mind as it goes back up to the desk and it's the first thing that comes out so he's still talking you know what I mean I think it's one of those situations but it's good that he said that yeah and you know this

too Chuck if you write enough or if you talk enough you are eventually going to say some shit you really hate about yourself like you're going to be like why the fuck did I do that hopefully this is a learning lesson for him too yeah last but not least again another fight that just did not need to happen

Esteban Rebovich. I never know how to properly pronounce it. It's taking on Edson Barbosa. And Chuck, of course, he just beats the fuck out of him en route to a second round stoppage that we just did not need to fucking see. There didn't even need to be a second round for crying out loud.

The body language was bad at the end of the first, and it was very bad in the first 90 seconds. The second. Let's do this. Rather than asking why this fight happened because we've kind of been over it, can you just tell me, how has it been covering the career of

Edson Barbosa and do you have a favorite moment? Oh man, he's one of those there for a while dude. He was, I'm not talking about just the Terry Adam thing. That's the one that become part of the B-roll and everybody's like, and rightfully so,

it's one of the craziest knockouts that's the way that landed looked choreographed, right? It was so nuts. I think for me, you know, it was like he went in there against Tony Ferguson at the Cosmopolitan. I was sitting there and there's a small room.

It's almost like the apex, right? like there's it's only like a thousand or twelve hundred seats or something and you could hear this fight like i'll never forget the sound of that fight the way that they were just they were just going at each other in such a um just such a barbaric savage way they were just trying to tear each other's heads up the body shot slam slam it you could just hear everything and just the violence it was like the soundtrack of violence and if you remember this is the time when tony ferguson it was like he was kind of people see saw him as sadistic like he was going in there beating everybody and he was it was just kind of like you know he's he's the hatchet man he's going in there

just sawing people off and like here's the guy edison barbers i'll meet you on those terms let me just fight you and i it ended up going ferguson's way but dude i'll never forget that that that told me something about barboza that it was like inside of him like to meet tony ferguson at his height right in his wheelhouse and just trade with him back and forth in that fight i'll always remember that and i think he was one of those electrifying names man like there for a while too especially So, like, you just, you felt like, remember the Daryush, that knockout? Like, you look back on some of those things. So glad you brought that out.

Yeah. I mean, it's just wild. He had some crazy. I felt like he was that electrifying. I never really thought he'd be a title, like you'd hold a title. But he was always going to be that guy you'd plug in and be like, okay, you just elevated the main card, right? Just a, just an absolute architect of acrobatic violence.

You know, a terminator of a striker. frankly, a game, a guy who's striking when he was dealing, Chuck, was quite literally beautiful to watch. I don't say that. Like, it's almost like aesthetically pleasing. Owner of maybe the greatest knockout in UFC history, certainly on the short list of them, the Terry Edom knockout. But honestly, man, everyone gets this wrong.

I think the Terry Edom one is so good, it's hard to not pick as his best knockout. But maybe his next one was the Daryush one. Dariush was a motherfucker at that time. And if you guys have never seen it, The fight goes on back and forth and, you know, Darius is doing some good and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and then it's in too. And, and Eton times it and just goes perfectly vertical with a knee that just completely puts Darius out when people weren't doing that, right? That was long before he was ever, you know, vulnerable in that way.

Just supreme. Just supreme. He always looked apart too, you know. Yeah. He looked like a demolition man. He acted like a demolition man. and he did it yet with acrobatics and violence. And, you know, never written, and to a fault, to a fault,

but always willing to go out on his shield as well, you know, as shown here. Otherworldly tough. Yeah. It was tough to watch, man, because we talked about this in the lead up. You follow these guys. You talk to them, like you, you know, you know their family people and all the stuff. Like you get to know them over these years in this, in this way that's just not,

It's beyond just a casual, like watching it. You know, like you feel for them. And to see him kind of, you know, see his family and cry because he knew as he's walking out and all that stuff, I'm like, I just knew what was about to happen, you know. And I don't know why they, I don't know why the UFC needs to do this. Maybe this was a Barbosa. Maybe he wanted a guy like Riebevich, but like, that's a buzz saw. That's guy like, he has like three performances in the nights because he goes in there and he just goes to war with guys, right? You knew it was going to be like this.

And I don't know why the UFC likes to put. dudes on their last fight against, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't, I don't, it felt wrong. It felt wrong to watch that fight, but it was a great career. He shouldn't have been fighting at all. There was nobody they could have put him against where it would have been like, yeah, I guess, if you give him a wrestler, Chuck, how was that better?

He's just going to get fucking wrestling to death, you know. Yeah, well, that's true. That's true. So, you know, he just shouldn't have been fighting. But this is a guy who, you know, we talk about best guys to never win a title. I don't know exactly how far up that one you could put them, but certainly one of the most dynamic guys, like some of the best offense striking you've ever seen.

And no, he didn't get a title, but he, I always say this, Chuck, like everyone's going to remember the Joneses and the GSP's, and we understand that, the GSP's, I should say, sorry, the GSPs. Everyone's going to remember them, and for a good reason,

but guys like this are the ones that really make MMA an enriching experience, guys who never win the title, but provide memorable action provide praise GSP's at Long Island Luke's writing a message but you know provide memorable action

provide memorable moments bring richness to a card and Edson Barbosa did that times a thousand I wish him nothing with the best but I do not need to see him fight anymore it's bad for him it's very bad for him well he'll always be on the Baba O'Reilly like montage they play at the beginnings right

because those knockouts are ridiculous. People will remember his knockouts more than they'll remember, you know, what Islam did on Friday. You know what I mean? No, it's a good point. That is a good point. It has a way of lasting because of that. Chuck, are you going to any sports games this, the rest of the year, the rest of the season,

or anything coming up? You got your eye on? I'm actually going to be in Denver in September to see the Broncos on a Sunday night game with my son. So, yeah, I'm going to take them out there. They're playing the Rams. it's like week three of the NFL season. So I know, I know like night games are sometimes a little wild,

but he's ready for it. So we're going to take him out. Long Island, you're a Jets guy? Yeah, but I don't really care. But yeah, I would say I'm a Jets fan. Who does? Yeah, exactly.

It's mostly an Islander's guy. Yeah, Islanders and Knicks. Yeah. I mean, I have seen the Jets go back to their locker room at half time, and I've seen the fans yell at them to not come back out for the second half. Like, you're just not missing much. But I will say commander season is about to start rolling back in. There's still a little bit of time left in the Nats season.

I'm still excited for the sports calendar that remains and the one that's ahead. And this summer, donks, whatever you're watching, whether it's baseball or golf, soccer, racing, Draft Kings has you covered for every single moment of it. The Draft Kings Sports app is now available in all 50 states, bringing the game straight to your fingertips, wherever you may be. So here's what you're going to do, Dons. New Draft King's customers, sign up with. the code combat. You can see it right here on your screen, K-O-M-B-A-T, sign up with the code

combat, spend five bucks to get 150 in rewards within 14 days. It includes all markets. That's code combat, K-O-M-B-A-T, in partnership with Draft Kings, the Crown is yours. Bet with D-K Sportsbook. Gambling Problem, call 1-800-Gambler-1-800-Mye reset. Connecticut, call 888-78-9-77-7-7-7. Visit cCPg.org. On, behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas, bet tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 21 plus void in Canada. Event contract trading with draft king's predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York.

Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get prediction dollars that expire in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 14 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. terms at dkng.c.c.c.com slash offer limited time offer. With that, Chuck, we turn our attention to what was to me, one of the more interesting. Frankly, the premium card was way, the quality of the fighters is not as high, but the action itself was a little bit more fun, certainly.

So the preliminary card for UFC 330. Now, there is one exception to this, which is, dude, what the fuck was Joel Alvarez doing against Chidi Angiangu Kowani for three rounds? Like here's what I don't understand Chuck Could you survive the whole fight doing it that way? Yes, and was he getting overly beat up? No Like the fight was still there But like it was like running a race with a guy who's here and you're here and you just keep pace No matter where track you are. It was like changes and I'm like

Take him down I know man against the fence Take a shit on the floor. I don't know something to change it up. Yeah that was really really really weird man I thought he'd bounce back in a big way too and I kept waiting like it's almost like one of those fights you you you you sit and pending like okay this guy's about to do something but it never really happened and like you know honestly it's like he's just kind of getting out pointed in this kickboxing match they're just standing there kickboxing which it almost felt like there were the there were no takedowns weren't allowed I mean almost felt like you know even trying to fake a level change was kind of not allowed I mean it was

strange to me to watch that performance. He got out struck in the end loop 155 to 76 or something like that. He got doubled up. So when you mention that like they're running here and he's kind of keeping pace, he kind of was, but it was like, you know, they call him shitty bang bang for a reason.

Like the dude was like he was fighting in his wheel. He was fighting his fight and the guy was just happy to like outpoint him, you know? And there was no variation to that fight. I have no idea what his game plan was. I assumed it's one point that he must be hurt because it just he didn't do anything he did nothing to alter the rhythm of that fight to disrupt anything it was just a very bizarre showing from alvarez

low island what the fuck was that that was like really the only bummer the night i got that was it that was the only one so weird but even just like betting wise for me like there were a lot of upsets but i happened to be on the right side of a lot of them besides jeremiah wells but it did have the over in that fight so alvarez was the favorite no uh alvarez was a pretty decent favorite chitty was like plus 220 or something. Alvarez was like minus 300. I just don't get that. I expected an Alvarez sub like pretty early on and he just never took it to the ground. It was like, all right, sick. Never even entered his mind. Funny enough, I went to go out for that fight and I was like, oh, this fight's going to be a banger. I'll go out and watch this one. And then apparently the governor of

Philadelphia or Pennsylvania or whatever was there. And they were like, you can't go out right now. You got to wait for the governor to be seated. So I went back. I was like great thing. I didn't go out for that. I ended up going out for Riebevich Barbosa, which was, you know, we got to see Barbosa killed in the cage, but it was pretty good other than that. Hilarious how they finally had a Democratic politician on screen and they didn't, they didn't show them. I was going to say that's news to me, Luke, that he was there, right? They finally had a Dem who showed up.

I don't even know his name. I'm going to be honest. Josh Shapiro. This motherfucker has designs on the presidency, too. This is the guy that went on Pat McAfee show to announce UFC 330. That's right. This is, this is, do you might recall this. Chuck. This was during the White House build up and they wanted to pretend to be like

hey, we're both sides. That was after they were doing that bit. So they got this centrist fucking damn shitbag, Josh Shapiro to come in a Pat McAfee's thing and announce it. Then he shows up to the event apparently and they didn't even put this fucking guy on camera. It's hilarious.

Charles. They're trying to separate politics, look. But anyway, go ahead. They don't want to. They just show up at Trump rallies and then promote his interests and then try to get legislation pass for him to sign. Charles Johnson had a

fucking Scottish Twister. Look at this. He bates the turn and then puts the arm over and then you just squeeze with your hips one way and then the arm and the other and sure enough you can just crank the spine. By the way, I got to say, the Scottish twister, it's called a Scottish twister because of the guy who patented it, which was Stevie Ray. Stevie Ray, Chuck, fought in UFC,

but was very unremarkable. Right. Goes to PFL. Still kind of unremarkable but has this incredible innovation of the Scottish twister, makes good use of it. Now a bunch of donks are learning it. He, in fact, Charles Johnson, credits patchy mix with showing him that. Wow, weird. Which itself was amazing.

Here's the thing. All of that's amazing. But that dude Chapoline was boxing his ass up before that. How do you reconcile what was an incredible finish with a guy, a newcomer on like last minute notice, tearing him up before that. Well, when you say baiting, I imagine somebody else baiting during this fight

and that was you. Like, I thought that when he put that Scottish switch, I was like, okay, Luke loves this one. Oh, I love this. I, uh, you know, it was, it was putting it in mind a little bit. Do you remember the, what's that guy's name? Ethan, um, uh,

Ewing. You know who I'm talking about the guy who showed up at Madison Square Garden? Yeah, he kind of showed up. It was like, you didn't know much about him. He was like, kind of, kind of last minute notice. And he puts on a show. against a wellmaker, I think it was.

He put on that great show beats him, and now this dude's a player. That's kind of what this reminded me of. I was like, are we going to see a dude to show up, you know, kind of 11th hour and do work? Because he's a, he's a Cormier guy, right? And, you know, so he's probably got some good training and all that stuff. But yeah, he was boxing him. I thought that was this. He's a, it was on tough.

And, okay, so, like, you know, I don't watch those shows. But, like, I guess he was on tough and all this stuff. But he looked good. I mean, I was surprised. I was surprised. And then I thought that that was a, you know, a typical way for that type of fight to end. Because I feel like a homeboy, like he's always kind of, you know, he's always kind of putting on craziness. You know what I mean?

I feel like his fights always have like a zany feel to them. So it was a fun one, man. Dude, I feel like Charles Johnson. I don't know if he's the best. Bantam weight. Is bantam or fly? My brain's the way, isn't it? Fly.

It was a catch rate. This might have been at Bannam because of the short- That's why I was confused. Yes. Okay. In any of it, he's not the best flyweight, but, because that's right, he beat Lonnie Kavanaugh-in, but if you're not, like, if he's on, he could be the best one that night. Or if he's not, you're going to see something spectacular one way or the, like, to me,

he's got this amazing ability to fight really up, sometimes to fight really down, but in the middle to just be able to deliver, like, excitement one way or the other. I think he's a great addition to any UFC card he's on. And I also think he's quite dangerous at times, but then very beatable at other times. He's enigmatic, but a great, great thing for the UFC to have, particularly in the flyweight division. Trayshon Gore, Chuck, gets the win over Vicente Lucke,

nearly gets submitted, by the way. I mean, somehow found a way to not get DARS, which I thought was incredible, and then just kind of put it on him, you know, in varying degrees anyway thereafter. losing his fucking teeth off of a flying knee, which is just, I mean, do the dental surgery this dude's about to have

is going to be legend. They're going to wire that shit shut. He's going to be drinking out of a straw for the next six weeks. But he got it done, Chuck. What did you make of this one? I mean, he looked good and I thought pretty good in his standup too, like a little bit improved.

Like, you know, some of those exchanges. I was like, all right, this is, this is cool. I mean, he gave up some pretty hardcore stuff for this, didn't he? like he uh he he was yeah there he goes I don't smoke weed anymore I don't watch pornography I'm like brother we're living very different lives I love it man it was it was a Sean O'Malley remember he had that same thing he's like I don't know even watching porn for this way you know like he's I love that

this is a new thing um I thought he looked pretty good like all of his victories had been through like guillotines right like I thought he showed some some metal in there and obviously dude if you get your that's a that's a that's such a horrific feeling, you know, to get your, if you, you know, if you even break a tooth, it's like, oh, God, what's happening with my, you know, but to lose your teeth like that, like to fight through that and get the win, Vicente Lucie is a tough dude too. I think he got him with some shots earlier that were pretty good, pretty flush. So I thought it was a good, I thought he showed growth and like it was a good performance from my perspective.

I don't know exactly what it means, except it's the kind of win that makes me believe he's entitled to a step up. Obviously, he has to heal and can be a fun, exciting addition to some of the, you know, either a prelim or a smaller main card. You know, and a guy who I wasn't sure what to make of for most of his run, this to me felt like the first, and I know, I know Vicente is old. I recognize. But nevertheless, to your point, Chuck, he just, he looked at the part, I think, for the first time to be in a while. And that, that's enough to keep that going. The Sente did look. gold, by the way, is that fight went on. I felt like it was noticeable. I know he's old in MMA years, but for the record, he is 32 years old. And dog years. I know, but that's good.

Call him old. It's crazy. I know. No, you're right. That is wild that he's only 32. He's had like 100 fights. Neil Magny, who gets controlled basically by Ramiz Brahmi, storms back and with basically standing ground and pound.

Watch this. He just kind of like, look at this. He's just standing and. just banging on him. This is how like school yard fights look, Chuck. Yeah, seriously. And you want to fuck with me? At the locker is out of gas.

Yeah. Yeah. Rahimai just looked like he was out of gas. Dude, Neil Magny, I mean, I know he's had a lot of L's and I don't know exactly what this is supposed to mean for him, but he's another, dude, he is so valuable to UFC. Or he can just give Neil Magny to a guy and it's like, dude, Neil Magny is not the best fighter in this division and never has been. But buddy, if it's time for him to audit you, yeah, you better make sure your, uh, financials are in order. You know what I mean? Yes, man. He's a limit

test. Even at this age, how I don't even know how old he's like 39 or something. He's up there. But like he is still, he is still that dude who will, uh, give you a fight. What was funny about this was the broadcast was kind of pooing, you know, where he was at on the ground is positioning. 39. 39. So like he's like, it's like, it's just wild. And he has. It's just wild. And he has like a record for the most welterweight wins i mean he's quietly putting together like a very strange you know but noteworthy career and he just he stands in the way of these dudes like the the commentary crew was basically saying like he needs to do this he needs to do this why didn't he explode up he's got to get off his blades all this stuff and you know you think like

well this is one of those new magnate fights where you know he's going to get worked he's going to get worked and that's kind of how it was and then boom within a minute the fights over in his favor and I was like that's totally like a Neil Magnify he doesn't get a ton of finishes but dude whenever one of these guys puts their foot down and like not on my watch not today like it's fun we've seen this happen with some other veterans over the last year and it's it's good for a guy like that right

who's kind of had this long career where he stood in against anybody to have a big moment I felt like everybody was talking about him again that's fun man and he looked tough yeah he didn't I mean I know he's washed in a certain sense but he didn't look Long Island he did not look mega wash to me here

he looked like he was still serviceable he looked awesome this was a great fight this is the battle in New York Neil Magny from Brooklyn Ramees from the Bronx and it was like all right who's going to win here also Neil Magny Haitian sensation Gaff is Haitian Gaff asked him a bunch of Haitian

questions at the end they were vibed they were boys it was actually pretty dope so shout out Neil Magny that was like the highlight of our Jeff as well a legend from the MKU universe. And then last but not least, this might have been, dude, this card started off with a fucking bang. How about Jeremiah Wells? Head inside single goes to the power guillotine, a.k. Ninja choke.

And then just pulls him down, puts him to sleep. Did you know, look at how, you know, muscley he is. You can imagine the squeeze on that must have been insane. Put his fucking lights out. Roll it back one more time. Roll it back one more time. I want to count it. Let's go. One, Mississippi, two Mississippi. Three, Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi. He's out. Seven Mississippi. Right there. He's gone. About seven or eight seconds to put his fucking lights out. Dude, yeah. This was awesome. You got to love hometown guy. And I love what he said afterwards to

Chuck, where he's like, hey, listen, man, I used to work in this fucking building. And here I am fighting in it. That's awesome, man. Give me a top 15 guy or I'm done. And he wasn't even saying it like in an angry way at UFC. He's just kind of like, this is all I really want to do left in this sport. I love it when guys, like, they don't have anything left to do in the sport, except prove something to themselves. I freaking loved everything about this. I just want to say the one thing that pissed me off about this, and we talked about it on Wednesday, the bout placement. It was the curtain jerkers. It made zero sense. We all thought it was going to be like an oral buy finish, but it made zero sense. He's the lone Philly guy. You just talked about

the crowd. That was the people there for the first fight of the night. Could you imagine if this was the featured prelim or on the main card. That place would have been fucking crazy. Wasn't it? I mean, Worldwide was like a like a 5 and 1 in the O.C. going on too. It's nuts. It's crazy, man. That's a wild fight and I think it's equally wild that he like was going to retire

unless he got, you remember like he was like unless he gets stopped. I mean, like I've never seen that type of thing before. So I know he walked that back down, but the dude is a character man. But this, to me this was also like Oral by what do you, what do you do? Like he was controlling that fight. Like he had some

trouble early like he was getting kind of lit up early not detecting that left hand and like he was uh i was like this could be bad if he doesn't like start to uh you know get it to the ground or do it and obviously that's what he did and you from the first round through the second it felt like he's in control so it was just such a narrative swing to see that happen man and there's something about that that never gets old when a guy it's basically his fight he's a huge favorite he's controlling the fight most the most the people are talking about oral by like it just and you know it's all in his favor and then just like that you just counted up seven seconds or whatever it is boom it's it goes the other way that's the beauty of fighting i will say this for oral by i think that he's obviously

very talented and very skilled but i think we should make i was kind of hyphen him as like wow he might be really to do something in this in this division he obviously he still could i'm going to dial that back a little bit after two losses uh particularly one in a fight that was very winnable. Right. But nevertheless. I mean, he's only,

I think he's 20, he's either 28 or 5,000 years old. I'm not sure which, but he's like, I'm not sure. He's 28. But I mean, there's plenty.

He's got your eye of favor and like, he's got a good team and all that stuff. I think he'll be back. But dude, that's a tough one to swallow. That's a, that's a hard one. There's so many of these good guys coming out of Kyrgyzstan.

I called fights for one. Who is, I don't know if he's still with, I remember I was calling fights for XFC the last couple of years. I don't know if he's still with XFC because I don't know if he got signed for a contender series. Darkenbeck, what's his last name? What the hell was his last name? Erzegov, something like that.

Darkenbeck is the name I remember. Dude, this fucking guy is a monster too. And dude, the Kyrgyzstan fans, they travel. Yeah. They travel for their guys. I love the hats. You saw those hats. Yeah.

Yeah, it's cool. So, you know, hopefully he can get back on the horse. But I'm going to dial back some of the enthusiasm after a loss like that. Yeah. All right. Last but not least, topic number five here. The UFC made a series of announcements during the broadcast itself related to upcoming events. So let's go through them if we can.

All right. The first one, which was the biggest one, was the UFC 333 card. Now, hold on just one second here. Is it my imagination, or have they not announced UFC 332? They have not. As far as I know, the main event, I mean, they've announced a couple of fights. We were talking about this before we started going on live today. But yeah, I don't think they've really announced the big.

fights on that card yet so i don't know what's up with that but whatever okay put the card up so let's go through this here for just a second volkov what am i saying for my saying volkov vlouyev in the main event killer yon versus marab two and the co-main killer and then the rest of the main card be lani cavanaugh taken on ramsan tamarov that's a fun one timorov just getting a recently a very big win volkov versus cuniev i mean just fucking kill me who cares oh you get yon marab three yes please forget me the rematch from their title fight but you have three. And then, let's see, Arnold Allen versus Aaron

Pico, which is a surprising one, but a very difficult fight for Pico and then the prelim card, I suppose. Reyes versus Mersakhanov. Abus Megamadoff taken on Cam Raustin, or however you pronounce his name. Nikita Krilov, taking Abdul Rahman, Yakiaya. That one's going to be wild and shit. And then Grant Dawson taken on Norillo Aliyev.

You can miss me with that one. All right, Chuck, rate that card for me. What do you think? All of those are, like, you have a ranked fighter and all of those. I don't know what that man. I love this card, man. I mean, those two fights at the top, they could get rid of the rest, and I'd be happy with that, you know? Both those fights, Evelu finally getting the chance. I know that, like, people aren't high on him because he's went to like whatever amount, nine decisions in a row, like all of his fights are decisions.

But, dude, I think it's so awesome that Volcanowski was the one advocating for him to get the title shot. Like, who wants to face a dude like Evelov? And there's Volkinov. Ever stood in the game, knowing he can beat him, like that sort of thing. I love that sort of attitude. I love that fight. I love the matchup, everything about it. And then that trilogy fight with Yon and Maraub,

it's very similar in a sense to the Pereira Izzy situation where you're not sure, like in the end, like maybe this has been Yon's story the whole way. And you're like, to me, that that could go either way. And I think that those stakes are awesome. As a one-two punch for title shots, man, I love that. I love this card. Long Island, how would you rate it?

It seems pretty fucking good to me. Yeah. This is a 9.5 out of 10. I mean, I'm never going to rate a card of 10 just because I feel like I can always one up whatever's on paper kind of thing. But this is as good as it gets, man. We were talking about this before UFC 330. And I was like, imagine you just swapped these two title fights and put them on UFC 330 for the

two title fights there. I feel like UFC 330 would have been so much better. And this would have still held up because of how good the undercard is as well. like Arnold Allen Aaron Pico I'm I'm super hyped for that so that's the weirdest one to me and to be clear I don't hate that fight but it's yeah that seems like a real tough fight for Pico that's why I love it it's a great fight for Arnold Allen gets him right back in the mix and then you got Lonnie Kavanaugh Ramazon Temarov I've been high on Temarov but fuck man that's I'm surprised Kavanaugh's taking that fight yeah they're feeding him to the wolves here yeah for real after that that card looks tremendous and I love everything about it for the most part. Then we have this one, which I thought was interesting. Rosas Jr. versus Howany Barcellos, this will be September 26th at the apex. It's also a main event.

So here's what I would say about this. Barcellos has clearly been earning his keep with upset after upset, basically, and needed a good opponent. I guess my thought is, Chuck, I actually like the fight. I really do. And I know it's at the apex. And everyone's like, it's just the apex. Take what you're given. I don't love it in the main event slot,

but I feel like this is a great opportunity for Rosas to begin to round a corner that he needs to. And for Barcellos, you know, it's out of the frying pan into the fire, but would also be kind of part of this late surge career tour he's been on as well. What are your thoughts? In the sense of what we're talking about with Barcellos, it's such a bizarre thing because they're saying,

here we're going to give you another one of these prospects that we're trying to get over or whatever it is. And he keeps standing in these guys' way. The Peyton Talbot, I always remember Peyton Talbot afterwards, after he lost,

I mean, it was a huge upset, but it was such a one-sided fight that Peyton, Talbot basically said afterwards, like, what struck me was if I didn't, you know, if this was a fight to the death,

I would have died, you know? Like, this is how he had to look at it. Like, if we had to fight for the death, I would have just died. He would have killed me. And this is what helped him get better as he showed back up and fought so who don't know that. But like, that's kind of who Ron.

Barcellos in his old age has been doing this. Like, you know, what was the other one? He had Garbrand, right? He's had a couple of really good showings. And I think that he's more than just like a guy to get through. And I thought that's what's fun about it. They booked this. The first thing you think is like, oh, Rojas, this is a big moment for him.

He's got a main event. It's if it's at the apex, whatever. But dude, I think that, you know, this might be a step too far. think that that's the fun of the fight. He's going to have to get through a very tough guy here. I'm actually kind of looking forward to that one. I think that's a fun one, whether it belongs in the main event slot, debatable, but not a bad fight, certainly. And then last but not least, Gabriel Bonfim taking on Sean Brady. This will be November 7th, also at the apex, five-round main event, I should note as well. I actually really like this one. Yeah. This is, to me, Chuck,

I think winnable in either direction. Obviously, you've got a clash of styles. You've got a clash of body types. You've got two guys who have kind of, more so Brady been up to the top, and he's now trying to find another way back up there. Bonfim, who I was not super impressed with, but is now really starting to put it together.

And they're clashing at an interesting time. Do you like this one as much as I do? Yeah, I do. And it's kind of that second tier of contenders in that division, because you have all the guys we were talking about front above them. and I'm like, so what do you do with these guys? I think that's the perfect kind of fight for both guys. Like, because both of them have, you know, juice right now.

And I think if, you know, whoever wins this will be now inserted into that conversation. So it has those kinds of stakes in probably one of the, you know, in a division right now that is really thriving. I think that's a good spotlight fight. All right. With that, that's our top five. Because we've run long, let's kind of hurry this up if you can. Now's the time for you guys to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from you.

dogs. Okay, from Q. Troy Anderson, who do you think would put up more resistance against Islam between process and Morales? And regardless of result, which fight do you think would be more entertaining? What do you think, Chuck? We kind of went over this a little bit. Yeah. I could see Morales being the guy.

That's just my thought. He's big. And he's young. He's explosive. I just think that it's going to be a hard. That's a bad combination, you know? what do you think? I think Morales is the tougher fight.

I think the Prochus fight would be more entertaining. Right. Because I think Islam would be able to do more to him. Right. You know what I mean? I think Prochus would, yeah, he's going to leave himself out there a little more, right? Like he's going to go after it. And that's going to be.

Yes. From Sergeant Molina, if Islam has three fights before he retires, who has the best chance of beating him? Morales is one of them. Yes. I mean, if Shafkat comes back in his like, Oh, shot. In his form. Oh, my God.

Can you imagine, though? I mean, can you imagine that fight? Like, that's a ridiculous fight. I know. The chosen one. Who's had his whole life fucked up in the last two years. If he just comes back. This is now it's such a, now it feels like such, there's so much he has to overcome.

But like if he comes back and he's anything like what he was, I mean, that's, that's probably the one, right? Has to be up there. And then the last one, I'm not sure who the third one would be. Long Island, who's a third tough fight he could get? Not necessarily the third toughest, but I think it's going to be Protest Morales, Shavcott, in no particular order. You know, those three. I mean, that's a, he would leave no,

if he beats all three of those guys, there would be no conversation to be had. He's the goat, right? I mean, he beats JdM, Gary, Prochis, Morales, and Shavcott. I know, dude. Can you imagine? I mean, that's, that's, that's, I mean, I know he's Muslim, but that's fighting Jesus right there. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah. Good luck fighting that guy.

All right, from at Real Kempi. Was that the worst ever corner speech for a fighter heading into the fifth round by a title fight by Dean Thomas, i.e. zero. He had nothing. No, I've heard worse. In the case of Raquel Pennington, Chuck, I totally remember fighting Amanda Nunes. She goes back to her corner after the fourth round and says, I'm done. I don't want to go back out there. Her corner's like, yeah, you do. You definitely want to go back out there. they convince her multiple times to go back out there after she says I don't want to go back out there what happens they send her back out there and she gets absolutely bludgeon into a fucking billion pieces

by Amanda Nunes no that is significantly worse to me yeah and we just had an example of a of a corner and I can't remember the exact fight it just Harry golf that's it the one where he's like just stay away from go out there and be elusive stay away from him for them come on what kind of advice is like what are we doing? That kind of thing is just

We couldn't figure that out. That's perplexing. All right, from Fitman 720 Of the 19,238 in attendance at UFC 330, over under 20 human beings that could stop from being killed in a fight with Islam, fighters included.

You mean like to the death? Long Island saw the crowd there. What do you think? Islam's killing over 20 of those motherfuckers. I just got to be honest. Let's be real. I'd probably be one of them. I mean, fuck.

Yeah. I mean, the, the Philly donks are tough. I'll give them credit. I saw you give him some, some credit, man. That was rare coming from you. You were like, hey, Philly's all right. I saw you. I like, I like Philly all right.

I mean, you know, it's a dirtbag, low-class town, but I like them. Yeah. All right. From Emery, Nick 6, does Ian have the most in-fight love sessions of any few of UFC fighter in history? Any other names come to mind where it was a freaking. You mentioned the crow cop Pat Barry one. are there some other ones? Yeah, there was others, right?

Like, we've definitely seen them over the years. I can't like remember, but like it always drives me nuts. It drives me that's when each time they've got a high five and hug each other and stuff like that. I'm just like, no, we don't need to start. Are there women who do it a lot? God, it's, I know we've seen it. I just can't, I can't remember who did it. No, on a long, I don't remember.

Gary being like, oh, I'm really proud of myself after you're hugging your opponent for five rounds. I was like, yeah. Nah, son. I know. I know. It doesn't work that way. The best fighters, George St. Pierre was like the consummate professional.

Like, he set a standard for what professionalism in MMA looks like. He never did that shit. Dude, I know. I thought Gary was trying to get to second base with Bruce Buffer before we even got the fight going. Dude, stop touching his faith. That was so weird, your face to his face.

He grabbed his neck and pulled him in. I was like, oh. I know. It's like, are you going to ask him to prom? What the fuck? I hope you brought a condom, fella. All right. With that in mind, this is time for you guys to show us your artwork.

We put it on our proverbial fridge. It's time for fan subs. You've got mail. Viewers. We certainly do have male viewers. All right, from Jesse B. Says Danny Seguerra was on submission radio, and when asked to rate the Islam Gary card,

he called it a 7.3. and Dennis had a good laugh about using decimal points. Danny Seguera, you use decimal points to rank cards. I use integers to rate striking. We are not the same. See, I didn't use integers to rate striking. I used integers to finish a computation. Right.

A little bit different. People are still confused as to what you're doing, Luke. I don't think they know what the word integer means. All right, from Jesse C. Shouts if you can guess what movies these are from. All right. top one, is that Goodwill hunting? Is it goodwill? Yeah, that's probably right.

This is casually discussing MMA, bottom one, which should I use first? Integer or parsimonious? I don't know the second one. That's a Oh, God. Is that Monty Python and the Holy Grail? That's what I'm thinking. Yes. That's the vibe I'm getting

from the bottom, but I don't actually know either. All right. I mean, it was all right. Not bad. All right. From Phoenix, we have a meme. What are they calling it integers? Yeah. In the top. hand corners that what it says on prime video november 18th yeah and he's john madden yeah

be happy or some are all in this uh yeah i i don't quite i look like in the lead singer of an emo band the sweep sweep of hair a little bit's side all right not bad not bad uh from gregg says gentlemen i was at the gym the other day and i noticed on one of the tvs they were playing donk toss on espn eight the ocho i looked closer at the tv and got a still shot from it i'm not kidding This is a real thing. Keep doing what you're doing. Donkey punchers. That's not what donk means, but he who's without sin, your mileage may vary.

I heard about this. Someone message me about this. I don't know what it is. This is legit. I mean, this is a fake picture, obviously. But there's such a thing. There's such a thing. That's fucking wild.

Wow. Not a bad. Not a bad joke, I suppose. Not bad. All right. From Danny, he says, not sure why Chuck got a pass for using the word her suit. while poor old, which means hairy,

while poor old Luke has been crucified for integer. I wondered about this. Actually, I think it's the other way. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. People just have a heart on when I use any other word besides rock, water, sleep.

You know what I mean? I love it. All right. From Eric, we have a meme. Morning combat. This show is for families. Change my... That's a good one.

That's a good one, man. Dicks. That's a good one. It's definitely not for families, but what can you do? All right. For Quaidon, I think that's how you spell it. Mowing the lawn at 3 p.m., Joseph A. Bank, Chuck doing crack, integer. L.I.L. neglecting his girlfriend, B.C. and 115 pound women.

M.K. Dawks making memes. Yeah. Oh, Lord. Turning into the Infinity goal. That's good. Chuck, are you going to see the new Avengers with Dr. Doom? I doubt it, Luke. Are you? You fucking.

Osama bin Laden lover. Do you go watch that shit? Is that like, is that in your wheelhouse? The truth is, the truth is I really did like Infinity War and game. I like those a lot. And every Marvel movie since then, with maybe the exception of the first Black Panther, has been terrible. I have this thing whenever like the CGI gets too much or there's a chase scene. It just puts me to sleep.

I don't know what it is, man. Like I just, here's the thing. It's like, dude, Thanos can snap his fingers and get rid of half the universe. We have to go back in time to beat him. He wins. It's like he's the great. They tell you, there's no. nothing like Thanos. He's going to be the most powerful guy in the universe. And then Dr. Doom comes

along. And then all the comic book nerds are like, dude, doom is more powerful than Thanos. I'm like, make up your mind. Make up your mind. Okay. Yeah. All right. So apparently Thanos is like the PFL great. And Dr. Doom is like the UFC great. And, you know, revisionist. They've just been telling me he's the best. I don't know. All right. From Maddie, who says, I had a dream and all I could remember from it was I was listening to M.K. And Luke Thomas was a pez dispenser and all he could do was say integer i think this means i've been listening to way too much mk fuck it you know your boy had to draw it out and send it in that's pretty good baby i like you as a pes dispenser it would be the other way around i suppose that'd be cool get a pez

dispenser with my face on it yeah yeah all right not bad all right from telvin kippapa he writes aloha donks telvin kippapa here just to show the new partnership ufc teamed up recently and granted a young man's wish and probably a restraining order afterwards. Oh, yeah. Hanging with Dern. Oh, I texted him about this. I'll just leave it at that.

She kept saying, my eyes are up here. That's what she kept saying. I'll just, I'll leave it at that. From 10, we have Chewy has a mean. LT, fighters dapping up during the fight. Yes. Stop fucking doing it. the only time it's acceptable, Chuck,

to dapp up in the middle of the fight is if you foul the guy and you're like, my best. Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course. That's different. Yeah. Otherwise, stop doing it. All right. From Barra metal, Luke's daughter needed some help in her homework.

Papa, help me conestes. Excuse me. Rompé cabes. I can't barely read this. Rompé cabezas. In. Tiger and Tiger integer integer

Yeah Yeah Oh baby You're never going to live this one down Until you Let me ask a question everyone out there Did you guys go to high school Did you not learn the word

Integer? I mean It was taught in my school You know It does not come up at any point In the course of your mathematics We definitely learned it But it is a nerdy word

I mean let's just be honest Is it a nerdy word or is it just a word? It's kind of a remember. I don't know. I remember that one. I think it's just a word. It's just a word.

Parallelogram is just a word. You know? They toss that too. That's right. People are like, it's a square. Well, no,

it's not. No, it's not. All right. From RJ, how BC feels now when he runs into Luke. Nah, motherfucker,

please. Are you kidding? Unless they mean Long Island, Luke, because this is how I felt this week. Oh, yeah.

now maybe Long Island. Yeah. And by the way, I don't know if you all know this. Agamemnon dies. How about that? So, I've got to go see that. What are you going to do? Yes, it's good to see that Paramount finally figured out,

hey, if we signed Brian Campbell, maybe we should use him. Oh, fucking geniuses operating there. All right. This was a long one. Chuck. Oh, by the way, put this one down for a second. Morningcombat at gmail.com.

morning combat at gmail.com. That's for fan subs, dead wrongs. Best one all month gets a free sign poster. You all know how it works. The memes, by the way, fan subs is maybe the best it's ever been. It's truly taken over a life of its own. So keep them coming.

We appreciate all of them. All right, with that in mind, Chuck, what you got going on this week? We'll have a new pound-for-pound rankings up for the women and men today on Uncrowned. And I'll be back on the crack come Friday. Like, it's been a minute because all those guys were on their vacation and I'll have some I'll have some written content too but I got to sort all that out

all right long island what you got going on back to the grind I'm a little behind this week but I got to do you know bet breakdown live chat watch long prop quiz all that stuff right back we have next week what do we have a little bit of Robocop oh that's right okay but RDR delidese is on that card too it's it's low key got some good fights on it so not a bad card not a bad card indeed what will I have going on I don't even fucking know just follow me. What are we going to do? All right. So you can see there below.

We do have memberships on this channel. This channel, excuse me, badges, emojis, and more to come. Let's see. Morningcombat.combat. Shop. Of course, you can get the Head Splitter and John Donk t-shirts, and, of course, the autographed poster as well. Morningcombat.compt shop, this will only be available until the end of the month. And then I think that's it.

Long one, but we appreciate all of you. So for Long Island, Luke, for Chuck Mindenhall, and everyone else on the show. We appreciate you. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.