MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 331 Results: Van Dominates Pantoja | Arman Tsarukyan Stops Ruffy | Gable Steveson Upset

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

LT and Chuck are in the house on a Morning Kombat Monday, breaking down the results of the weekend in combat sports.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Revely, revely. Look at this now. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, off the combat. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a Margarita? Yeah, ha. Your marks get set and go on. Well, dang, that was kind of fun.

Welcome, everyone, on this Monday, this 21st. Happy payday for all the YouTubers out there. The 21st of September, 26. My name is Luke Thomas, and welcome to it. another episode of Morning Combat, but I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estatus, right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my Connecticut brethren. He's a big fan of, I'm hoping that's, that's, is this hitman Hearns or is this some pro wrestling

fuck? It's a pro wrestling fuck, you know. It's a, wait, it's a, it's a, it's Thomas the Hitman heart. It's a fight thing. But is it the 21st that they pay you guys? Is it the 21st is when you YouTubers get paid? Yes, YouTube pays every creator on the 21st. Okay.

All right. Well, congrats to you too then, brother. I know that you're not exactly a slouch in that department there. I'm doing all right. Yeah. Good. You know, I'm saving for the apocalypse. This is Brett the hitman heart. So, yes. So that's what this is. Nice. I'm going to recommend to all the smoke that we fire you immediately for that. How you doing, Chuck? Dude, how about the fights this weekend? Were they not great? It was a great card. That was a fun card. You know, sometimes you get one on paper. It looks like it could be fun. This one. We talked about it. in the pregame, we thought it would be a fun card. Jed was hating. I wasn't hating on this card. You're right.

Although he ended up giving it a B minus or a B plus or something where I was like, wait a minute, what are you doing? But the card delivered, man. That was, I think, from just about the opening fight, right? Like we kind of got something the whole way through. I know you like the Casey O'Neill thing and there was a lot in between there. I'll say this. We're obviously going to talk about the main event first and then the co-main event after that. But if I'm just looking at what's out there in social media land. The biggest thing coming out of that fight is the Gable Steven loss. Is it not? Like, dude, people are ravenous for that content. I always wonder to what extent, like, you know how like

gamblers and maybe long, I can speak to this? Like, you throw on something like that just to improve your parley, like you give it an extra little bit of oof. I wonder how many parleyes were destroyed in that one punch. Well, let's ask the parley man himself. He is the third member here of our show, intrepid producer did uh did that did that shiraph win fuck up all your betting so kind of but not really so i'll say i had gable in a parley why i had him in a parley i don't know because he was minus 1,800 but yes i did chuck the good news is you know the good news is iwo barnowski ruined that parley already okay so it was i was surprised by that too yeah oh i literally said right before the gable fight started i said this is great news i can root for sean shir off now and then

Sean Shroff knocked him out and we were all happy and it was a great time. Great cards. Two seconds, baby. 12 seconds is all it took. Yeah, dude, I put up a recap of the Gable fight yesterday. All right. I put up a recap. Now, my live stream did slightly below normal

because I was like, oh, it's a flyaway title fight. Like, I didn't think it was going to do that great. Dude, my fucking Gable recap, which is just like, you know, 14 minutes, not even, is already, like, it's not even been up. It's been up one day officially and it's 160 the 8,000 views.

Wow. And I'm just, I'm just 14 minutes of me just rapping about the fight. That is like blowing the fuck up. We're going to talk about that. I don't know if you saw his footwork though, Luke. I don't know if you saw his footwork,

but you might want to take a closer look at that part of it. I can't believe that they put this guy in the UFC. It's just insane. Okay. Well, we're going to talk all about that, all the main card, prelim card. We're also going to talk about the announcements today

from what we saw during the UFC 331 broadcast about UFC 334 because there's some changes. to what we had expected, plus some things, I think, to iron out. So thumbs up on the video if you haven't already. Hit subscribe if you haven't already. Remember, you can follow us on all the socials you see here below. We have an email, MorningCombat at gmail.com, dead wrongs, fan subs, and then to reach the show,

I'm told we have an absolute mountain of fan subs today. I'm looking forward to that. Of course, we have memberships here on the channel as well, emojis and badges, and I'm sure we'll think of something else. And then, of course, on top of all of that, morningcombat.combat. shop for all of your merch. All right.

Well, Jaden Daniels is broken again. So I just want to say, I did have a good weekend, but it ended on the sourest of fucking notes, bro. And he's playing good. Or he was playing good, but you just about beat Philadelphia. I'm thinking, hey, I'm trying to warm. I'm like, dude, that was a good showing. I know they lost, but the showing growth and then this happens.

Come on, man. What's going on with that franchise? You know what? We deserve it. All right. Here we go. topic number one in the main event of ufc 331 let's start with the crown jewel of this event which was of course the flyweight title fight joshua van defends his title against alishandre pantogia

he does it be a unanimous decision the scoring we'll talk about in a minute because i do think it's interesting no one would argue at all that pantogio won this fight i don't think so but the 5045 scorecard is the one that's a little bit a little bit more noteworthy we'll talk about that a little bit later But let's sort of start here. At just 24 years of age, Chuck, what impressed you most about Vans' winning performance here? I think ultimately it was, you know, it's almost like when you watch a superstar in like basketball or something. And they get a little, they're a little slow out of the gate. And you just think like, it's just a matter of time until they start to find their flow and they take over the game.

Right. Like we've seen this with superstars and other sports as well. This was kind of the case in the terms of like, You know, Van got taken down in the first eight seconds of this fight. And you think at that moment, like, okay, we've talked a lot about this. If this is not going to be, if he's not going to put up some kind of fight on that level, this could be a short night for Pantosia. It might be one of those things that turns very badly, very quickly.

But yet he was able around like the two and a half minute mark, three minute mark, something like that. He was able to turn the tables back, kind of reverse things. And I thought that that was just really good poise for this kind of fight where the magnitude is where, was at showed very good poise and then as that fight happened like especially in those second and third rounds just seeing him kind of get into his flow and and start to leave no doubt as to who's dictating terms like you know there was a lot of a lot of different kinds of combinations and leg kicks and a lot of that sort of thing went on but what I really loved was they'd come in close and you would see like Pantosia you know we're kind of almost like a plum like he's got his his heart and like he's kind of

trying to lift his knees and he's doing stuff and while he's in that position there's this dirty boxing element that Van was just like pelting his body with shots. And I just thought he stayed active in, you know, in those types of situations early on, especially in those second and third rounds, is really where he started to distance himself. Obviously the fourth round, and I know you're just talking about the scorecards, I'm not sure how you could give him that fourth round. But beyond that, I just, I think it was just that he established some control in a fight

against a guy who's very, very difficult to do that against, in fact, almost impossible and was able to kind of carry that all the way into the fifth round where he really, put his foot on the gas, had his cardio. I know he worked cardio so hard in his camp in this fight because he was dealing with some injuries. So he just did the cardio, shows up in that fifth round, puts it away and left no doubt. To me, that was like the poise of a veteran. And at 24 years old, dude, there's a lot, a lot of good to be said about his upside right now. For me, I just think Josh Van is maybe the best representative of what is, what is working in this era of MMA. Roll the highlight one more time if you can

because I kind of want to just talk over it, not the specifics per se, but sort of the general tenor here of this, I think Chuck, part of what you're driving at is this bend, don't break kind of thing that he was doing. And then here, of course, you can see him attempting this from Scarfold.

He asked how he got out. He doesn't try to get out the wrong way. He goes inside tuck, watch, and then comes out like that, you can see. But what I'm trying to make here is you can see these takedowns. He tries. One of the things that Pantoja always does, Chuck, because he's just always trying to, like, crash into you, right?

He's trying to wrestle you to the ground. He's going to try and shoot here again. He's just going to, you can see him collar tying, you see? And there's constantly van breaking the collar tie, putting punishment on him, disrupting him with the jab, moving offline, stuffing the takedown here like this. It's this kind of process where in modern MMA, you've got these guys who are really good at boxing. You know, they're much better about their footwork. They're much better about their timing.

They just have a cleaner sense of boxing, some of the better ones. And then, of course, they have to marry that with the defensive responsibilities of anti-grappling that you saw there. But it's more than that, too. It's kind of like anti-clinch fighting. And Pantoja has a way of just kind of smothering in all ways. He has good takedowns. He has good back control. You saw him reaching for collar ties all the time.

And he'll blitz into you and just kind of overwhelm you. He's this, like, this steady repetition of the waves crashing into the shore. And it's very, very hard to resist that. And I thought that Pantoja resisting, sorry, I apologize, Van being able to resist that on route to winning no worse than three rounds against a guy who's the best of that kind of a thing. It just shows you like in the modern game, this is one of the better examples of what that looks like, at least offensively. To me, he's like both a representative, Chuck, a young guy who the game is natural to him. It's effortless and he's kind of always happy and he's got this sort of like cool attitude. but he's also got this game built for modern sensibility

and it's coming to him very, very quickly. But this was the ultimate stress test because a guy like Pantoja has so many different ways of disrupting the kind of thing that Van is good at to the point where I would ask, not that somebody, oh, if Van can beat Pantogia, that means he can beat anyone. I think we'll talk about it in a bit.

Manel Cobb is a different kind of threat. But what I am going to say is, is for anyone who does have a pressure style, if Van can beat Pantoja, your pressure style is not going to be any better than that. Like, it's the ultimate proof that a pressure game at this weight class will not defeat this guy. And that is a very, very, very strong argument to make

at just 24 years of age. He had a great plan for like you mentioned, I think that's the right way of saying, like crashing in. That's kind of what Pantosier did. We saw it of Kai Karra, France. I remember that fight specifically where it just seemed like France had no, idea of how to kind of handle that.

This van to me, it felt like he kind of had a plan for that. They had anticipated it. They had worked it. It was more of a cerebral response with it. And also, he's just in tremendous shape. But like just his, the inward shots and the way he was preventing, you know, some of that stuff from getting, from getting him off his moorings was really impressive to me. And you know what?

When they defaulted in those weird moments, or in those scant moments, I guess, when they were at distance, you know, that's when Van was just, he would showcase that boxing where you just kind of piece him up with these combinations. It almost forced Pantosia to play the game that Pantosia is very good at, which is to come crashing back in because he couldn't stand at range for a long. And that was, that was really one of those situations that was, it became more evident in the second and third round, especially in that second round, right? Was it the second round?

There was one point where he kind of hurt Pantosia with a shot. But, but I mean, to me, that's what it was. it was like he could beat Pantoja a little bit at his own game. And honestly, that's kind of what stood out to me in the end, was just that dude, he was ready for everything Pantosia was going to throw at him. Let's put up the scorecards here if we can for just a second. Now, these are the scores. You can see Sal Diomato had it 4946, which I think is acceptable.

The fourth round you can give, I think, to Pantoja. Yeah. Derek clearly has it 48, 47. He gave rounds one and four. I think if you did give Pantoja two rounds, it would be those two. And then Ron McCarthy, 5045. I saw some debate from people I really respect online

who understand the modern scoring criteria, excuse me, criteria who think 5045 is the right way to score this fight. It does deserve to be noted that the head of the California State Athletic Commission, who is my name is Andy Foster. Was, according to reporting from Aaron Bronstead, really upset that someone scored at 5045.

How did you score it, Chuck? And what do you make of this? I had it like Sal Diomato there. I think he had the first three, yeah, the one on the left. The first three, even though that first was very close, I had Van went in the first year. I thought Pantosia won the fourth. And then the fifth, obviously, going away was Van. So I felt like he was in the kind of driver's seat down the stretch there.

But I knew that that first round was close, close enough where you might get some the scorecards that were going the other way. So, you know, at worst, I thought it was two, too, too going in the fifth round. So that's where it's at. Like I could have accepted either one of those. But I thought Pantosia did enough to win the fourth. I thought that that was like the one round where it was like kind of easy to give to him in that sense. Yeah. Long Island, how did you score it? I had the middle scorecard.

Derek Cleary's scorecard. So I had a two to two going into the fifth. I gave one and four to Pantosia. But I mean, did the momentum? Yeah, he won round four. But I feel like as soon as round five started it was like, okay, Pantosha's not winning this way. Exactly right.

Shout out to Josh Ben. The 5045 is interesting. I mean, we've turned grappling into like almost defense. What I mean by that is defense is not scored. Defense is its own reward. Like what you do for defense is just up to you. Like taking the back now and mount, like there's not any special status conferred anymore

unless you're able to do something from mount or from the back. And I'm not saying that's altogether bad. But I am going to say is if we're applying the rules consistently, right as they are designed to be employed and you can give round four to van that i think that there is some question about what we're actually how how we should actually be scoring these things because they were numerically the same i do think that van put a little bit more uh on some of his stuff but it's saying seemed somewhat negligible a little harder to tell maybe and then he gets controlled for roughly three and a half minutes or something something along those lines and it's like

something to be said for who is is in control and why that should matter, but neither here nor there. Okay, in terms of, let me ask a question about VAM if I can here. And we'll talk about Pantoja in a minute. I looked up something because I had, I put up a tweet just to get people to come to my post fight show and, you know, people naturally, it's hard to communicate yourself effectively on social media. I just want to say this. I'd ask a question like, oh, is this going to be the guy to break DJ's record, the title defense record. And of course, the natural response is he's got two,

DJ's got 12, like we're not even close. Yeah. Which is, of course, very fair. I'm not to declare something, Chuck. Not that Van is going to get there. I have no idea if he's going to get there. However, when Demetri's Johnson was 24, he was fighting Demasio Page in WEC and non-title bouts.

Okay. We're talking about a guy at 24 who's already got two of them. I don't know if Vann's going to do it, Chuck. But if there is anyone poised to get, even close. If it's not this guy, I don't know who it would be. Yeah. It's one of those situations where I kind of like, you know, because he's so young, I think that there's a little bit of an asterisk to a guy like this. And especially because he had got caught, we saw him get knocked out against Charles Johnson a few years ago.

We've seen some things like that. And we've also seen him in wild exchanges where you're like, dude, I don't know if that's the, you don't want to play roulette. You know, you don't want to go in there and play roulette with guys. But he certainly has. shown, like you mentioned defensive responsibilities. He's shown certain aspects of this, and especially within forwarding to some of these takedowns and things that we're starting to see in his game that he knows are important to keep the fight where he wants it. Those things really start to matter. I was looking this up. Like John Jones, who'd won his title at 23 years old, you know, how soon can you start to anoint a guy like, oh, he could

be a great. I mean, John Jones at his age, when he was 23 and 24 years old, basically where Van is now, had already, you know, he was beating Quentin Rampage Jackson. He was beating Leota Machita. And what was the other one? I mean, he beat Huah to start it all off. Like, he had like all the time, all that time he was in the range right now where Van is. And you kind of knew at that point, this was a very definitive moment in his career. We're like, this dude is going to be a problem for a long, long time. So is it too early to kind of see that within Van? I don't think so. Because it's very similar in that sense where you're like, you kind of look at like, obviously you look at manau cap and you think that's a guy who could give him problems but in another

way you're like well van it keeps solving these problems and i don't you know i think they've installed him again as an underdog like in the in the early going of this fight for van to be an under but i'm like it strikes me as a guy who figures dudes out like he's very very um adaptable in there like and he feels good and how he starts to roll i mean he could do it i could see him doing it once you get past like cap and stuff and maybe a rematch with pantosia that that's that's a good division has a lot of people in it. But at that point, I think I'd be favoring Van over most of those guys just at a quick, a quick glance. So I feel like he can do this for a while. I want to say this. There is one, aside from the fact that, you know, he's two title defense is in as opposed to 12. But

one thing I do want to say is there is one big difference to pay attention to, namely, these guys who had these long title reigns that we're talking about, it's a little less true with Jones. So this is not quite. But like in the case of someone like, you know, GSP and in particular, and let's say DJ, right, it's the relevant comparison, they were offensively so well-rounded that they could solve for anything. It's not exactly Vann's game.

Like, Van obviously, has very good boxing, good striking generally, but in particular good boxing. but the rest of his game in large part is built on negation. It's built on not going to the ground. It's built on not being susceptible to jihitsu. So if I just negate these other parts of the game, then I can just use this part as the most common part of it. And that, as you can tell, is a very, very effective way to fight.

You can win and defend UFC titles with it. But I just would say something to monitor long term is to what extent he's able to grow the repertoire of what kind of offensive weapons he has. again, it's not necessarily a limiting factor. Look at Habib striking. It wasn't necessarily a limiting factor. But if we're talking about someone who is poised to do great things, can you do it with still a relatively speaking narrow skill set to get there?

I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that. I guess we'll have to see. Did you see? I mean, we've seen him obviously in the Tatsura Tira fight and also even the Brandon Royval where he's a little bit more, he's willing, right? Like he's a willing, he's willing to engage on his terms. But to a hazardous degree too, like he's willing to fight his fight knowing that that's a little bit of a minefield for him to go there.

But did you see enough, I guess, defensively, like in these last couple of fights? Because he's going against guys who clearly wanted to take him to the ground, you know? But are you seeing enough of a wrinkle, I guess, in that area where you're like, okay, I'm seeing improvement in his ability to keep the fight where he wants it? Yes, he is getting better at all of those things. but you know like again this is different this is not the same i think if you're going to have a narrow game and again we're talking about relatively speaking narrow right but i think if you're going to have a narrow game having boxing first as like your best way to do it is going to be far and away the one that works the best right because you can look at someone like armin we'll

talk about this later with justin if he has to fight justin just that is something of a very bad matchup for him. Because unlike Pantoja, for example, who can wrestle and then through back exposure, threatened with the sub. And I know that he subbed Dan Hooker, but like generally speaking, he's not the kind of guy who's going to take your back and then choke you from there or move to him out and then triangle.

You know, it's not like like Habib did to Gachi, right? Like that extra missing component, that's going to be a very hard problem for him to solve. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But if you're going to have it, it's this one. But I just think if over time, once he gets older too, you

you're going to encounter the best way to have dominant long term, if you've got the kind of raw ingredients that you've got with a guy like van, is you have to specialize certainly in the way that he has. And that particular lane, the boxing first negation of anti-grappling second is probably the best way to do it. But I do believe that that has to expand a little bit over time for him to really reach full potential. Whether that happens, I just have no idea.

You know what I mean? Yep. The van fight, sorry, the Minnell cop fight. for Van. Is that the one that you it's a totally different fight from the one we just had and I think I love it for that reason among many others. That's what's fun about it. Yes, 100% I think it should be.

Cap is basically, you know, the Horo Gucci one, but I'm like he's been on a role anyway and I think the fact that he's blowing guys up with his power, like that makes it fun. He's got like six KOs in this division, man. I mean, like it's, you don't really see that kind of power in it. He's got a little bit of a reach advantage too, I think, with Van. So if it

gets into these exchanges, you know, like whereas Van maybe he's a good boxer and he likes to stand in the pocket and do these things. But also you're going against a guy who's a precision striker who carries a lot of power. And I think that that makes the component that I think so many people like to watch from, you know, like the commentators were talking about this too, like how beautiful is boxing gets. I think if you like that element, you're going to see that element. But again, that's probably, you know, this is one of those guys who can put you away. And I'm like, if, if, you know, if Van goes in there and fights kind of like he did with,

with Royval, for instance, where he's just like, all right, let's just do this and I'll solve you the way that you want to fight. It's not going to, this could easily be the end of his run. So what wrinkles he brings to that fight will be very interesting. But I definitely think 100% it's got to be Capnix, right? They've already been going back and forth on like social media and all that too. So, and that build up would be fun. In terms of, yeah, I fully agree.

I think that'd be just absolutely the way to go for all kinds of reasons. But putting that to the side, let's talk about Pantoja for just a moment if we can. Second best flyweight of all time. He was 36, I believe, in this fight, fan 24. That's an enormous difference to try to cover up. He did not look super wash to me. He looked a lot like his normal self. I think, Chuck, what did he, what happened here for Pantoja?

Like, he had a certain moment in time where what he offered the division was more than it could handle. And then finally, you just, what, you get a young prodigious talent. And this is the natural. cycle of things. Is there any other take beyond that? No, I mean, you, you use the word like he likes to just kind of overwhelm you. And he was able to do that. Like, I feel like that that's kind of how he would present. Like, and he was very good in just about anywhere the fight went.

But he would overwhelm you and then, and then he would just, he would overtake you. This particular fight, I felt like he just couldn't do that. And that could be an age gap. But I also think that this is when you start, when you talk about a phenom, you're a little bit in this realm. where like, well, he didn't let a guy who didn't look washed. And we presented himself, I guess, in the same sense he always has, but you shut that down enough, right? Like, you shut that down. So it felt like a very genuine passing of the guard in that sense.

But from Pantosha's standpoint, if he fights like that, he's probably beating just about everybody else right now. So, I mean, the truth of the matter is he could go do this to somebody else and be right back into a position. And I don't know how you feel about this. I'd be okay if they did. if Pantosia can work his way back. I don't think it should be like this. He's buried. He's behind the eight ball.

He won't be able to get another shot. He had enough tenure there and he's done enough good things in division. I think if he wins a fight definitively and, you know, if Van is able to get by cap, I would, I would be okay if they end up putting that fight back together at some point. Let me just say one thing that gives me concern. I forgot to mention this about, excuse me, about Van. I realize we're talking about Pantoges. I apologize, but I just want to make sure I don't lose it.

So forgive me for just a moment, Chuck. can you put up these numbers, if you can, that way we had sent, right? The significant strikes of sorts. Chuck, take a look at the top of that. Wow, that's crazy, bad. Right? Now, Strickland's at 4.3, Chuck,

but I think a lot of that is him just kind of rolling with stuff, you know, getting in the way of it. And I also think that, like, newer, newer fights, he's even better at this system. But, dude, top two, Gannon, or I'm sorry, Van and Gachie, do you share my concern that like if there is one thing beyond the fact that his game is kind of narrowly constructed he takes way too much damage do you agree yes and i mean we've seen him get knocked out you know once but he has been hit hard in several fights and i mean like you know that brandon royball fight for instance

i'm like he takes it i understand on short notice and all that but how many times that they just kind of trade you know what i mean and like he'd get hit he'd get hit and he was happy to get hit to get off on his own punching and all that stuff. But man, that is not the recipe for long-term health in the division. Like he is going to have to shore things up a little bit and probably exercise more caution as he goes on. He's getting by with it right now. But dude, he's like, he still has that feel of youthful invincibility.

And you can tell that about him. And he believes in his chin currently and all that stuff. But, dude, we know how fast these things go. His best course would be to add caution incrementally at least. and not getting gun fights, like not getting just such willing gun fights and especially multiple times in a fight. It just won't sustain.

Fair enough. I can't wait to see what's next. I hope that Van can tighten up the defense. To your point about Pantoja, I'm glad a guy like that who would have never succeeded but for what's left of meritocracy in the game, you know?

You would have never gotten anything but for the fact that, like, you and I were talking about how he crashes into his opponent. He did that to the game, you know, generally. Like, that was the way he was able to elevate himself, was just forcing the issue. And it worked.

And, you know, it worked to like whatever effect you want to say. But clearly he materially improved his life. He, I think, is the second best flyweight of all time, given the record. And he has a lot to be proud of. But like that, you have to just be a cannibal. Yeah. To make that idea work, you know. He's a salty dog, Luke.

You were talking about like he's that guy who's seeing it all with the cigarette. He's a salty dog when those head butts were clearly sort of, they looked accidental, right? I mean, maybe one of them was a little like marginal, but like he's just salty, man. Like he was in there. He was not having it. And he's just, I love that about him. I love that he carries that kind of chip on his shoulder. And he does bring emotion into the game, all that stuff. So yeah, he'll be back though. I'm pretty sure he'll be back. 36. He didn't look bad at all, man. No, for sure. He crosses every tee. He dots every eye. So I suspect he'll still be prepared to have some big wins ahead.

All right. Let's talk about the co-main event. Topic number two here. Wow, man. You know, I think we all thought that Armin was going to win. And maybe you thought he was going to win relatively early, depending on your perspective. But I didn't think it was going to look like that. And in fact, Chuck, it looked kind of strange. It's mostly this story a little bit where I looked at the numbers, right? Armistore you can went one for 10 on takedowns. So the people who were saying, Armine's not going to be able to take him down or it's going to be much hard. of them people think. They were right, Chuck. However, however, my man has clearly adapted his game to add elements of offense that naturally complement his wrestling. And it had insane effect. Is there any other fight to make at this point, aside from Justin Gachie versus Armin's no, man, it's got it.

Like, this was the whole, you know, I wrote about this going in and coming out. I'm like if you if you like he I think he's already made his case right like they they set up the hooker fight to be that he was he was already supposed to be Islam and he fell out regardless of what it was he was already been there the guy has earned it but like to go in there and do this and I know that this was a this was a bit of a roulette situation too because you're saying okay now you got to get through hoofy who I think is probably one of the hardest strikers and also also just a guy who is young enough and I think is still adding to his game especially training with Volkanowski. and like it feels to me like he's been building up more than just being a big striker. But to be able to go through that guy, when your plan A is kind of being shut down, like you're mentioning one of 10 in those takedowns, when your plan A is not exactly working and you're like, I see that he's leaving his chin out there while I've got him on the fence because I was noticing this earlier, like maybe a couple minutes earlier, like, dude, if he starts throwing stuff up top, you know, it's like he's wide open, hoopee's right there.

He figured that out and he got it done. And I mean, they were so vicious, man. Like that type of thing, we don't see a lot of like elbows from that range. And he landed two of them. One that actually knocked them out. The other one that just kind of got him on the way down. But dude, that's like that's how you make a case for it. It's got to be, if they're setting you up and saying prove it again, prove it again,

prove it again, you can't do better than that, can you? Like first round knockout. And this is a dude who's highly visible at this point. I feel like he's a slam dunk for the for the title shot. I mean, I guess if someone really wanted to nitpick, they could be like, wow, BSD took him down, no problem and you got them down once and even then not really. And then whiffed on the other nine. I guess someone could say that, you know, like as a way to be like, well,

isn't that supposed to be your bread and butter? Yeah. But it's like, this is kind of what I was alluding to in the last point, Chuck, which is what you want to see is that they've got a narrow focus that has to expand, particularly if your narrow way to win is wrestling, right, without so much, you know, you don't have so much striking. And he took, by the way, he took a huge right hand in this fight from Hoofie. That was the same right hand.

that Hoofee messed up Fazeve with. And so Eugen was able to take it and rebound and get to the thing. But the point I'm trying to make is he clearly added capacity that it makes a lot of sense that naturally fits into the rest of his game. And you look at somebody like Hoofie

when you say, wow, he did a great job, stuff in the takedowns, and he did. There's no argument. Like statistically, he stuffed 90% of them. That's very, very, and the one he did get didn't even really matter. Yeah. That's incredible. Right. It's incredible. But like the reality is that defense of things, things is so unnatural to him, Chuck, that it doesn't make him ready for the rest of the things

that a guy like Sir Yucan can throw. And because Saurukian is not just going wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, but now wrestling, and I can't get arm into position, but, you know, elbowing over the top. Like, this is exactly what he should be doing. It's exactly the kind of thing that we should see from a guy like this between fights who's still young enough to be adding in skills and needs them if he's really going to ascend to the high. highest level and get there. I'm not saying that he will get to the highest level because he elbowed Mauricio Huffy in this fight. But what I am saying, Chuck is like, we're asking about like, has he been focused enough? One of the big things on this storyline was he's got neon in the corner.

I know, man. He's been doing this R a.F shit and streaming stuff. Is he really going to be focused? And it looks to me like in the training room, Chuck, he's been doing exactly the kind of thing that someone should do given his skill set. Yeah, he 100% did. I mean, just when he was not, not getting the takedown and just to see him do those elbows. To me, I was like, okay, this is, we talk about this a lot. You're like, what do you have on top of that? And you're mentioned, Hoofi, I mean, I guess in a sense, you're like, okay, you could, you could have that knock on arm on in this.

But at the same time, it felt to me when you mentioned negation, like, in terms of like, where people just, like, their first focuses to do, like, that's what it felt like with Huffy. It was like, I'm not going to let him take me down. He was in the wide stance. It was clear that he had practiced this. This was like his, you know, his. his obsession through his camp was probably just to be like keep this fight where we want it

but to the point where you know he you know he leaves himself open to that kind of thing and it was good on armand to find it and say like okay this is what you're giving me i'm going to take it and that's what you got to see and it was it was like an urgency too like you what you're talking about is like is he focused and i feel like that was my concern going to is like is armand really care well i talked about you know like obviously he's already rich what if he never got a title shot it's like he'd just get up the next day and, you know, somebody to feed him grapes and he'd be okay, you know what I mean? Like, he's not going to be too worried about it.

But to me, he showed, I guess, the hunger that I wanted to see for this thing. And, yeah, I mean, I just thought that he kind of did exactly what he needed to do. And I would be thrilled if I was the UFC that he made it this far, you know, like, because I think Dana did. Like, when he was talking about it in the back afterwards and he's saying, like, you know, I'd look stupid if I was holding him against him at this point. Like, the dude has done everything we,

vast and here he is. So it's a slam dunk man. That's going to be a fun fight too. If it happens, and obviously Gaichi has to be a board and all this, but that will be a fun fight. In terms of the fight with Gaichi, you heard some of my reservations earlier. So I wonder A, if you share that, and then

B, maybe differently though, which is how big is Justin Gaichi versus Armincery how big of a fight is that for the UFC, for the UFC lightweight title? I could be wrong on this. I keep saying that I feel like it's bigger in the sense like for for if you just look at gaichi what he just went through right like there was all these extra eyeballs on that fight maybe some people who had never really watched just

gaiti he's reading the Declaration of Independence you know he's in the white house he goes out there everybody knows he's an underdog he puts on that show um you know it's almost like so there's this weird weirdly patriotic thing that came out of it where he's like hey not on my soil not in America I feel like he kind of got over in this bigger way because even at the fights I saw him at UFC 329 and you know they show him on the thing and it's just this big pop I feel like right now he's it's it's really that he kind of realized this huge moment for himself so whether they did to Poria again or if they went with Armand it feels big from the Gaichi perspective now which is something maybe you didn't always have but I think that Armand has put himself in a position where

it feels big to me I don't know like would you would you say it's comparable at all to the I know some people are like let's that's the one if you're just trying to If you're going straight for, you know, box office hit, you go with that fight. But if you want the more of the meritocracy and all that, you go the other way. I feel like this is still a box office hit for the UFC. Long Island, how big is Arm and So you, or I should say Justin Gachie? Pardon me, since he's the champion. Justin Gagee versus Armin So yuki.

How big is that fight? I don't know. I feel like it's, part of me wants to say it's a, we're just talking how big of a fight. We're not talking like, should that be net. Like, obviously that should be net. Just how big it is. Just how big it is. I'd argue that I don't think it's the biggest fight, but I then being like, well, what would

be the biggest? And I'd say Ilya or Patty, which they've already done both. So maybe it is the biggest. I don't know. It's kind of hard to gauge. I feel like no matter what Justin feels like the B side in all these fights as far as popularity. That's true though. Like Armin, Ilya and Patty, I feel like are all way bigger stars than Justin. Maybe I'm wrong with that. But I don't know, man. I feel like he's definitely closed the gap. That's what I was kind of pointing out. Like he's this, that moment was so big for him. It changed him from like wherever he was before. Maybe it was just a fighter's delay. Like guys like to watch him. But now he's more of a broad. It's a broader intrigue. Like people who didn't know him before the White House know him now. Like I've had

conversations where I'm like, oh, okay. So you're, you know, Gachie's a madman. You know, you finally figured that out after all this time. There's a quote that we have here from Armand talking about Gachie. He says the following. Justin Gachie, he never says my name. He's scared. He wanted Hoofie to knock me out. It means he's trying to avoid me and he's going to try to call out I'llia Tuporia or tell the UFC, I want 15 million for Armand, So you can, or I'm retired. He's going to play around and BS the game. But UFC, either he's going to fight me or he's going to give the title opportunity for the young guys. We have a lot of contenders right now. He's right. They do have a lot of contenders. We have seen the Patty fight. We saw the Ilya

fight. Now, Ilya Chuck to that end, has thrown his hat back in the ring. We have a quote from him. this was from last week. We didn't get a chance to talk about this because we didn't have a Friday show. But he had tweeted on the 16th, Chuck, that final medical test done, I'm back to all the clowns who've been talking shit and counting me out this whole time. Here I am. Now let's see who's got the balls. Thanks to everyone for the support.

Next time I'll make sure they check Justin's gloves. I love that part. Anything weird on them. See you soon to which Gachie replied. 94 days and the best you can come up with is a lame excuse. As terrible as your last performance. Do better kid. Justin Gachie,

not that great at playing the dozens if I do so say so myself. But Chuck, obviously Tuporia can get himself back into a rematch. You could see, like, is he your feeling like that's what he's trying to do here? This is the point that I always

make, Chuck, which is if you did Justin versus Armin, you could do Patty versus Ilya and have two huge ass fights. That's what I'm saying. I've been saying this the whole time, I'm like, why would you mess around? I honestly think, too, like, you will lose eventually. You will lose eventually, you'll lose the Patty Ilya fight you'll just lose it because I think I'll like I'm not going to

like go against Patty too much here but I do feel like there's he could slip in a fight and you just never get it why wouldn't you want this fight now and also we've talked about this a little bit too I'm not sure that it's the best interest of Ilya to go and get that Gatji fight right away this would be one of those really spiraling situations if he goes and takes a huge amount of abuse in the second one you know where and like he just kind of loses this you know this thing that he has that he's built up this superstardom, especially in his home country and in Europe,

to me, I'm like, I would rather rebound against Patty and still have a huge fight because that's what it's right there. Like that everybody's going to pay attention to that fight. The buildup of it would be immense. I don't know why we wouldn't want to play this game. The UFC has two. Like you get two for the price of one.

So that's got to be the way they go, right? Like if you didn't have anything really, I'm like, me like, like, but dude, you got a slam dunk fight right. there it makes sense to me because the other way they could go right they could do the rematch they could do just in ilia too and then you could do patty versus armin would you want to do that or you could do i don't know patty versus max and armin versus whoever the fuck i don't know someone says what if uh oh long allen says what if justin retires and then that's i mean that is the x

like who would you put in a vacant title fight right now if justin just decides i'm retiring i feel It's obviously Armin. And Toporia would get thrust in there, right? I feel like what they would do is Toporia versus Armin, which by the way is a fucking balls out fight. To me,

that's kind of better than Gachi Armin. I get more. Wow, somebody wants to just get rid of Gaichi in this motherfucker. No, I want him to walk away into the sunset for sure. The longer he waits to retire, the worst the retirement will be.

If he just retires today, perfect. You retire two weeks from now. We're all going to be like, you're ducking arm and it's not going to be a good retirement. So do it now while you get all the flowers. We'll all be like, wow,

at the White House that was sick. You wait too long. You're going to ruin it. I will say, doesn't it feel like Gachie doesn't want Armin? I'm not saying he's ducking him. I just feel like he's like, I don't know. I don't really want to fight that dude. He's been like he's kind of held that stance the whole time. It's not like it's altogether unfair, but as I mentioned before, like, you know,

I think it's not like I'm exactly picking Justin to win. But if I'll say because because Justin is older and I do wonder what that might mean. Again, and Armin is also adding other skills here. see. So it's not just striker versus grappler as such anymore. And so for those reasons, I'm not necessarily saying I don't think Armin can beat Justin, but like style versus style, Chuck.

Justin was the Justin basically pioneered what the game ultimately became. That's what folks don't realize. That's why Van doing what he's doing to me makes the most sense. Justin was one of the first guys to be like, I'm going to bang it out and then just negate everything else. And that didn't work

because he couldn't always negate it or he could negate the wrestling, but then a guy like Habib could take the back, you know. So the style had issues and Van is like a more updated version. But what's kind of funny about Justin is the game kind of centered on what he was doing over time, not the other way around. And we all thought, oh, because he lacks wrestling, that offensive he had it, but he never really used it.

He only used defensive wrestling. And he had no jiu-jitsu that this would cost him. To me, it's not an accident, Chuck, that he became a champ at a moment in time where the game kind of converged on what he's been doing this whole time anyway. It's kind of a funny little. No, that is. That's a great point, man. And I mean, like you mentioned, it's kind of, there's a stylistic.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of intrigue and how Armin would get it done. And then you look at it almost from the Gaichi perspective and you think like, can you imagine if he beat Armand, like, so this guy who's like these boogeymen who were supposed to be in your way and like he's thrust into the situation in the Paramount Plus era in a situation where it was, I felt a little grandfathered like his style and like, we want fireworks. We're going to put him in their head of Armand and all this stuff. And he's able to beat Patty.

He's able to beat Toporia in the most ridiculous fashion. And then he's able to beat Armand. Can you imagine if that's kind of how he ends up his career? That would be wild. But he's batting back these beasts who are coming up after, you know, after the title. And it would be the most, I would have to say like, I mean, it's way different than like this thing.

There would be no parallel. It almost be like there's no, we've never seen a guy who, shine as bright in the twilight of his career. I can't wait. Armine finally ascending. Finally, the prodigal son has returned. It's a fun storyline. I will say, let me ask this when we move on.

Crowd was hyped for him, dude. Like, he, the biggest thing was the Gable thing. But Armine had, and I know it's L.A. And there's a huge Armenian community. But I'm just saying MMA fans, They have embraced Armin. And we kind of already knew that. But now that you see him in the flesh, competing, winning, you can see the synergy

between everything. He has ascended, has he not? He hasn't. I think it's in part because he's played the game like a different level, right? He's playing on a different level. Like he's got the whole neon thing, obviously, like he's got these. I know he mentioned he's going to have Nina drama in his corner. I mean, these are like, this speaks to a different generation, Luke.

I mean, this is like my son who's 15 knows all about all the stuff and Armand's right in the thick of it. To me, he's just appealing to, you know, two different crowds at once. And I think that that's really big. The UFCs keep trying to appeal to these crowds. And I'm like, dude, you've got a guy who's, who's tailor made for it. So I don't feel like, I felt like the UFC was slow to catch up on how big Armand has gotten since that hooker fight, honestly. You know what's amazing is like getting the audience who watches streaming, your son notwithstanding.

Right. You're getting, I mean, you're not getting book readers. Let's just be honest about that. you're not getting them dogs you're getting you're getting people who eat dog food on camera for a dollar you know what i mean that's the kind of person you're getting so it's true man it is true this is what happened to my beautiful sport we used to have book readers all right just just raise your daughter raise your daughter right look maker oh we read every fucking day in this right don't think we don't all right uh she did she has a it doesn't have a birthday coming up

but she has christmas she was like dad i want a kid's phone i'm like okay yeah you'll die of old age before I buy you a phone. All right. Here we go. Let's turn our attention now. Topic number three, if we can. And this is, as I mentioned at the top of the show, it wasn't the main event, Chuck. It wasn't the co-main event, but it was kind of the main event. Not so much in terms of what we had expected going in, because Gable Steven, the NCAA national champion, the Olympic gold medalist, the minus 24 or even 2,500 favorite. Not that we had expected him to lose. We thought he was all going to win in large part. We thought that it was, yeah, maybe there's a chance he doesn't win but you know we all thought he was probably sure and then shiraff not only beats him

chuck he basically the the timing is 12 seconds but really it's nine to even eight seconds when he lands on him first round you know just the most improbable of events although i suppose in retrospect maybe not chuck what can you say about what happened to gable where this actually ranks in terms of like big prospects just i mean folding completely and then I would also like you to speak about it you know the the the mma fan base is not typically united but I'm not sure where it was real gable contingency was because I didn't see anybody not in los angeles they were not out in their droves that is for sure they they were if anything they were united in the hatred towards this guy it was like that at the press conference too and obviously like

there was a lot of factors and that's where shoroff was playing it but dude to go in there and back it up and to make it look that easy it shouldn't have been that easy it just shouldn't It wouldn't have been that easy, man. Like, this was one of those, you know, he's with guys like John Jones, Gable Stevenson. Like, he's with John Jones. He's with John Jones. He's with these guys. And so, like, I think there's always this feeling of, you know what, man, he went in there again, Alicia Ellison. And he kind of stood with him and maybe he played a little more dangerous than he needed to.

He walked him down. He was in cautious in that fight, but he was able to succeed. Maybe he was just trying to show wrinkles. we raise that as a pink flag, if not a red flag. We're like a little bit like, okay, let me, maybe don't want to play that game against Shroff, like, right, who has two losses. But dude, he goes in there.

And I mean, I'm not, like, obviously it happens so fast that you're like, I don't know if he intended to wrestle. I don't know what he intended to do. But to get clobbered with that shot right away, it's just not, it's not what I think that you just thought his scaffolding was going to be a little better than this. Like he was going to be better prepared to deal with the situation. I don't know if the, you know,

I don't know if there was an emotional thing in play here because of the way the R word starts getting thrown around and he had to defend himself. Basically, I don't know if like this is kind of what plays into it. But dude, that was just, I think that's as bad as it gets. When it's Bel-A-Mere, for instance, right?

Like, we just know her from a name and she's been very good in her come-up. We know that she has that kind of scaffolding from her dad and all this. She's basically, though, a name. Like, this is one of these guys who's like, his credentials are so, they're so unassailable that it's unfathomable that he would lose this fight the way he did right

like it just feels insane to me that he went out there and got clobbered and i know you were pointing this up before him but just like that footwork and all the the way he the way he took that i mean it just it was i just didn't see that coming man i uh i certainly did not predict it obviously be very clear although we had kind of all been like uh this dude fights real recklessly. Dude, he should not be in the UFC. He should not be in the UFC. Say that outright.

Oh, he can beat guys in UFC. Yeah, great. He's not ready. There's a difference between like, can you win at a level and are you actually ready for the level? Like, for example, you'll see this sometimes with like younger teenagers. Oh, you see these teenage grappling phenoms. And it's like they'll beat people that are like super heralded and older.

It's like, oh, just move them on up to these divisions. make them a black belt at 15 or 16. It's like it doesn't work that way. You still, there's still other things you need to work on for your development before we just sort of unleash you to the wolves. And of course, none of that really exists in prize fighting, but then this is what happens. I went through this fight. I don't know if I can show this to you on this because this is, the UFC is, you know, they're just complete. They're not nice about me use, but if you can find, let me just clear this up, if you can find this highlight. So the overhead highlight, okay? The overhead highlight.

I'm just going to back this up a little bit, right? I want to point out something. This dude comes into this position, right? He over rotates. Oops, let me clear this off. I need to get me one of those. So as he's circling, he's circling and he gallops into position. Like he literally lands to stop himself on his front foot, right?

So that's what you see him here doing, galloping into position. He over extends so far, look at how far past the head he is. And in fact, this right hand that Shereff throws doesn't come over the top, Chuck. It actually comes inside. So his whole right hand is in the inside of Gable's jab. That's how far over he rotates and steps in so hard. And so if you just pay attention to his feet here, I think I could probably just show this. Let me see.

Yeah, it's just this. Just look at his feet here. Ready? Hold on. Look at his feet. The punch hasn't landed. And he has over rotated so much that he's trying to ice skate, Chuck, his way out. He's trying to moonwalk at the same time his way out so that he doesn't even have his feet under him.

He is jabbing when his feet are not set. He's over rotating. And people are always making the point about, like, oh, he closed his eyes and stuff. Oh, there's a series of failure. here. Right. There's a series of failures. He closes his eyes. He puts his hand out. And so the hook comes around the window because his hand's not here, right? I mean, there's a bunch of stuff. He's also crouched and then just comes straight up. Bang, you're going to get it. I could point to a number of different failures, but the big one is that he is throwing just to throw. That's why he throws there.

He's throwing just to throw. He's throwing because he's in a position or he's moving, I should say, into position and he just wants, he doesn't want to let the quietness of a fight sit. This is a guy who's green. He doesn't have the calmness to steadily apply a game in a thoughtful way. He's doing almost Chuck like an amateurish version of Pantosia, where he's kind of just crashing into you. Pantosia's got a system about it. But like one thing you'll see is you should not jab just to jab.

you should jab when you're ready to jab because if you just jab when like maybe someone prompts you to jab well then you can get countered and if you're jabbing because you're over-rotating into space and you're not ready you're going to get fucking countered right like this is why you're your offense

a jab is a wonderful thing Chuck but it's got to be thoughtfully applied that's the whole thing and he's not thoughtfully it's just offense you see what I mean I'm just throw I'm just I'm just throwing shit out I'm just trying to see what sticks on the wall. That you're going to get fucking crushed doing something like that. And people are like, you know, Sean Sharoff is like a guy who was four and two.

I guess he's five and two now, right? Yeah. And he had two losses. Don't count out the Marines. Yes. You know what I'm trying? But people were saying, oh, that's a guy who he would have fought on the regional scene. Hey, that's not necessarily true.

You might have been a guy worse than that. But more to the point, like, you would still be grinding it out in some fuck-ass casino in the middle of nowhere, you're not having the whole world telling you, oh, you're going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, right? And that messes with your psychology. Gable clearly thinks that if I want to, I can just throw offense at you and it'll eventually break you. Yeah. It doesn't work that way at the highest level. And the last thing I want to say on this, Chuck, is to that end, I understand why the UFC might have thought that he was ready, in part because they just need help at heavyweight, you know? But the other part is, like, they had Brock come over when he had.

had, I think, one pro fight or whatever it was. And Brock lost against Frank Mears, but had natural aptitude, even though he didn't like getting hit. You could tell you, other things that were great. And you could say, well, Brock didn't have these wrestling accolades, but Brock never did this shit. Right. You know what I mean?

They never did this. Like, Brock is once again, the freak of all freaks who could break all the rules. But I just kind of want to point out here, Chuck, this fucking guy is not ready. He is absolutely not ready for this. he has to take his time. And if I was in the UFC, I'm not saying they're going to do this, Chuck. But if I had my, if I was king for a day,

send him to LFA. You need to work on your development. You need to work on your timing. You can't just throw to throw. You've got to be feet have to be set in position, all that shit. And he is, he's acting like someone who just hasn't had nearly the amount of rounds he needs

to make this a comfortable experience. for himself. Can you even like can they relegate a guy to like LFA? That would be a great. I mean for a guy like that honestly that is you're absolutely right. It's like he should be developing this and you've mentioned as many times you do not you do not want to be in a situation where you have to learn through UFC fights. You don't want to have to learn on the fly because you're going to get lit up like this. You mentioned Brock Lesnar. I mean he did have like a big career too like it wasn't as decorated as Stevens but he did wrestle at the University of Minnesota and I think that he you know I I feel like he was better prepared and sense of like, you know, I think he had been working towards this more. If you, if you look back at like Gable Steven, for instance, we talked about this before, you know, there was the WWE stuff. There was a lot of different avenues he was looking at. You're always wondered, is he going to spread himself too thin?

This was an initial sort of thing with him. It's like, is he going to be dedicated? But when you've got guys like John Jones, and I mean, John Jones has been talking about this guy, and he keeps talking about him, like, we got the, you know, the future, heavyweight champion of the world training over here, as if it was going to be a baton pass. That is a dangerous setup for what you're talking about.

I do believe on some level that Gable just felt like he's leagues above, these guys. He sees this, he saw this guy as a person like a, as just an anonymous woodwork figure, who's only got a chance to fight him because of his name, right? Like you got mentioned this out. This guy's only here because of me.

This is, it's like the ultimate comeuppance when you get in there and you get exposed on that kind of level. And I, you know, we know this dude has the scaffolding, but he's got to be dedicated to doing that first until you put the other pieces around it. To me, that's what the red flag was when he was fighting Ellison at UFC 329 was he didn't seem to have a respect for the guy he was facing. It was more like, I just want to show I can do a lot of different things. It was kind of like that and you're like, I don't want to see him doing that too much. You want to see him do what he does really well wrestle. And then if you get like to the point where, uh, you know,

You can start to show those things great, but it felt like he was more hell bent on You know doing like kind of going about it in reverse trying to show you that he's a full martial artist without Doing what he knows he can do you know what I mean so I feel like it's he bought it his own hype And that really cost him man and I don't even know how he gets sourced through this that he was on such a different level We put him in such a blue chip prospect space where you're like I don't know how you come back from this other than to humble yourself completely and yourself in full to getting better. I mean, I mean, this is closer to like a CM Punk.

You know, when we're talking about wrestling, like when CM Punk gets in there, you're like, well, dude, I mean, I mean, he doesn't belong you. That, it was closer to that. The way he got beat there was closer to like that amateur level than you would even, you know, it's like Brock Lesnar. It's like hard to, I, you hate to even bring Brock Lesnar, no, because Brock at least, yeah, he was overzealous.

He was like the bull in the China shop in that first fight. But he, he had some things he could do. do well already. He was already kind of showing you that. It was mostly raining it in for him, right? Like rain it in a little bit. Also, people always get this wrong. Or like, oh, he beat a nobody in his first fight. Well, like that nobody was a silver medalist

in the Olympics, Monsu Kim. Oh, that's right. You're right. It's like, I'm not saying MNu Kim was the best MMA fighter, but like, you know, we're talking about someone with some real athletic category. He was fighting and Brock ran him over. Yeah. You know, Brock had problems. I don't want to sit there and say he didn't have problems. But like, in terms of the

wrestling, sturdiness, big power, good ground and pound. He was just a force. And Gable does not appear to be that. And just, you know, like, it's weird, Chuck. Like, people express inexperience and nerves differently. Yeah. You know, Brock expressed it by being somewhat reserved, but then when it was time to go, he would go, you know.

But he wasn't like, he would charge against, you know, for example, he would charge across the ring against Heath Herring, but it would be to wrestle. Like, he would have a purpose. Gable expresses it through just, you know, he's just, I don't know how to explain it. He's like a kid, you ever seen a kid? You give him a kazoo at a children's party and they're just hammering it. He's that with his offense. He's the kid at the children's party with the fucking kazoo.

It was blowing it constantly, you know? It's like there's nothing. Dude, it's weird. What a horrible weekend is that? Like, first of all, like, he's just booed, just mercilessly, you know, as he's like during the press conference. And it really brought up this kind of ugly, this shadow over him that you thought you would see more on the Connor McGregor's side of it. Like when he was fighting, like some people were talking about it, but he carries this cloud in there. But let me ask you this.

What did you even think of this? Like he gets beat. This tells me about his feeling of otherness, his feeling of stardom, right? Like he doesn't even stick around, you know, for the hand raised ceremony. Like, and I know that D.C. made a thing about this. What did you think of that? I mean, that's kind of like when I'm saying, you're like, come on, man. Like, play the game on some level here.

I don't mind it that much. I don't mind. I mean, the thing is like, what? No. I mind it. Are you kidding me, bro? You don't mind it that much. That's part of the fucking sport.

You stand there when you lose, unless you're unconscious getting stretched out of the fucking page. Yeah, usually that's the only case, right? You stand there like a sore loser. You take your thumps and you walk the fuck home. I know that that's a common practice. But if you're like, where you pretend you like them and you give them a hug.

I'm not saying that I think. think it's great that he left. What I'm saying is as a rule in the sport, if you've been K-O'd, I don't like to me, oh, he needs to stand there for pageantry. If the fight had gone to a decision, yeah, he needs to stand there, you know, even if it was like a, let's say he was clear he he was going to lose or some other kind of factor. But if you got your shit turned off, it doesn't, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm offended that a guy whose brain just got shut off wants to go and get medically evaluated. I mean, I get the point that people are trying to make like it's bad sportsmanship.

Yeah, I'm sure he's a bad, like, it's not like I'm even dismissing the charges. Yeah. I guess what I'm just saying is as a general posture. We stick a microphone in a guy's face after he's been, you know, caoed and like had his shit rattled. If they've been rattled and they want to go back to the back, I don't. Yeah. He got booed mercilessly on that walk back to, you know, that's just what a bad,

it's just a bad weekend for that dude. I don't know what he does either because when you have that kind of, um, stardom, I guess, at this point in your time. Like, what do you do? What do you do? I don't know. It's like, that's going to be a hard thing for him to figure out, I think. Tell you exactly what he does. Okay. He quits M.A. because he quits everything that he starts. And he goes to fucking R.A.f and just becomes the arm in the, it just become the face of RIF. Just do all these fucking big

wrestling matches in R.A.F. That's the only thing you could do now. See you. Good luck. I mean, I'm not sure if he can win, though. Like, I remember talking to Ryan Hall. This is going to be an obvious thing, but I was asking him about his jiu-jitsu, like, had it gotten better? And this is many years ago before it dawned on me. Yeah. But I remember like, oh, is it getting better doing MMA? Because the way I was thinking about it was now that you have to account for punches,

is it making your guard more effective in dealing with that. And he was like, well, yeah, for dealing with those kinds of threats, but like pure jihitsu, no, it declines. Like, you can't, I have to train other things. And some of it's not even relevant for Jiu-Jitsu purposes. Like, no,

how could to be better? So, like, he can go back to the RAF, but like if they match, make them hard, you know, that's like I mean, it's a really weird thing to be like a like an NCAA champ and Olympic gold medalist. And then people are like, I don't know if you have a future in sports at all. Because remember, he washed out of WWE. He washed out of the NFL. And I'm not going to say he's going to wash out of MMA, but like this is an inauspicious beginning for someone of this kind of athletic pedigree. And so the other point too, it's kind of crazy, Chuck. Like here, Nikita Hand is going to release her tell all book this week.

And I'm, I'm, I'm going to guess that that's not going to be super well received by portions of the online MMA fan base. But everyone lines up to hate on cable. And I'm fine with that. Like, believe me, that's the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. But it's a weird asymmetry to watch. I thought about that. I was like, why is this so different? You know what?

You know what I mean? Like this, I feel like he was. Yeah. But I just thought, yeah. He's kind of coming in with the baggage rather than the baggage appearing after the fact. Yeah. You know, that by itself doesn't. explain it but it's a little different that's exactly it because i feel like connor was so beloved on

his rise by most people that they're trying to look past his wrongdoings whereas gable came in to the public like with those wrong doings and you're like yeah dude i i i said this previously like connor being connor was great for m mma for any number of reasons but like i never understood liking his personality i'm like he basically just is a professional dickhead who wins fights. You know what I mean? Like his whole shtick is making a mockery of everyone else around and everyone else is nothing. And it's like, dude, that's what a jerk off does. That's how a jerk off moves through the world. He's just winning

right now. And then people are like, I can't believe he turned out to be so bad. The guy who made his professional identity being a jerk off, you're surprised he turned out to be. How could he turn out to be anything other than that? It couldn't have been more glaring than that four that four city stopped during the Mayweather tour. Remember, and like each one of them was worse, incrementally worse? Yeah. And you're like, dude, this is the guy who's representing M.M.A.

And like, for some reason, it was very clear. I know he'd already given us examples of all of this. But dude, it was, this is when it was like, the way you just described it, this was when it was in full view for everybody. I was like, yeah, he's just a, he's just a kind of a dickhead who's very good at MMA, you know, and transit as well. And we give him all those flowers, too, because, I think he rescued, like this, who knows that the company sells for four point at the time for $4.2 billion, whatever it was.

Who knows where the sport ends up if he doesn't come along and him and Rousey at the same time kind of and galvanize it to such a station. Like we're like, dude, this is like, this is where it's at. Like he did do that. And I think that we, you know, people love him on these levels because he's represented that kind of magic. But dude, when his country in Ireland doesn't like him anymore and they were the first to kind of like, be careful with this guy, you know. And I'm like, all right. You know, Gable doesn't have any of that. No, he doesn't.

No, you're right. I think that's exactly it. I don't know if I've ever seen the M.M.A fan base this aligned. However, we do have to talk about some of the other things that happen on this main card, Chuck. Namely, how about Pitbull? Yeah. Tricio Pitbull, best fighter in Bellator history, but certainly passed it 39 years of age. Look at this countering he does over the top of the jab of Du Ho Cho here, right there.

Boom. Oh, maybe. Just so nice. He was winning most of this fight the whole way through, to be honest with you. And Duho Choi Chuck was bigger. He was faster. And yet pit longer. You know what, man?

I tell you what, 39 younger, 39 years of age. But that you can see the quality of the kind of thing he can do is still pretty damn high. Shades of the Michael Chandler fight way back in like, what, 2019, whenever he was on that big run and like he caught him with some shots just like that. Do you remember that fight? I think it was in Chicago. So it's like, yeah, that was shades of the old pit bull.

But I guess in a weird way, I'm happy for him because you feel like, if he loses this one, what would that be three out of four in the UFC? And you'd just be like, eh, I got here too old. And people, if you've never paid attention to his Bellator runner, you know, this is what you'd see. To me, this was like, okay, he's going to at least give you a glimpse of what this guy, what he used to be and what he'd do fairly regularly, right? So it's always good to see a guy who's near 40 show up and do something like this. Yeah, it is extremely impressive.

And he said it, you know, he didn't really get a chance to show who he was early in his UFC run. he's two and two in the UFC, which I guess sort of matches what I expected, given how old he was by the time he went there. But to beat a guy this, you know, not like championship heralded, but respected and certainly dangerous

and just kind of pick him apart through half a round en route to stopping him. Very impressive. Was he a big underdog in this, Long Island? I didn't really look at the odds. Was he long round? He was pretty decent.

He was like plus 200. Jed said during pre-game preview, Jed said, he's like, I'm betting on Pipple. this week. It's say that. Good point. Danny said bet the house on Choi, I think it was.

Danny said bet the house on Gable Stevenson. It's a lock. Something like that. It was crazy. And then the rest of the main card, I don't have much to say about it, but Along the Menafield having the most disgusting injury imaginable. There it is. Check out that thing with a bone just sticking out. It's kind of a cool picture, but Jesus Christ,

these guys. That's a cool picture. But there's a way worse picture that Dana posted, where it's like the bone just sticking out. My only takeaway is that the Iwo Baranefsky guy, it's like, not that I necessarily Chuck had high expectations, although, you know, he can, he can thump and he's certainly down for a scrap. You can say that. But, you know, 205 needs people to ascend. And Navajo Sterling has done that.

Yeah, yeah. But there's just not enough of that, I guess is what I would. Would you put him into the don't category? Because I felt like he was early on. He might have been taking up some residence there. Yeah, probably I would. Although I would say in this case, he didn't fight super donkey in this one. No, he looked actually really good in the first round.

I was like, I thought he was going to win the round going away. I mean, when the fight going away, and then it just kind of turned. Which is insane, given the Minifield's thumb was in that condition from an early exchange. I mean, this is when I see when I'm like, I could never be a fighter. Like even if you like, I can punch, I can do whatever. I can wrestle. I can take a punch. If my thumb in a, you know, the first few minutes is like sticking out and I can see the bone, I'm passing out on the stool.

You know what I mean? Like I wouldn't be able to fight through that. Okay, yeah, no, fair enough. I mean, again, but you and I both know we've seen fighters who are like, oh, my thumb is infected, take my thumb away. I know, exactly. You know, that's not, you know, Treson Gore just handed into his lower jaw like a couple weeks ago.

Like, here, man, my face fell off through this fight, you know? Yeah. Fair enough. Chuck, as we've talked about all show, MMA is rolling. Football is back. Yes, indeed. And here we are. Morning combat, of course, is pretty.

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which I have to say, did its part mostly to do. deliver pretty good action. We start with Marlon Vera defeating Charles Jordane, Jordane. However you wish to say it. Chuck, this was interesting. Jordan was making his Bantamweight debut. Vera had, I think, what, four losses in a row. He drops.

That's not true. Jordane's been at Bannon Wave before. Oh, he has. He'd been there a couple of fights. Oh, I apologize. Excuse me. I apologize. In any event, because, well, let me pull this up here. This particular when he looked the role, though. That's what was so weird. Like, he looked different, didn't he? You're so right. He had been to Bantamweight.

or wow, quite so, back some time, I apologize. I don't know why I thought this was. Yeah, he was on a nice little streak, actually. We didn't talk about it on Friday because I didn't think it was new, but then someone told me that, I didn't double check until just now, so I apologize. Okay, in any event, correction, the record, dead wrong in real time. A bantamweight contest between Marlon Bera and Charles Jordan. Jordan gets dropped three times in this fight, Chuck,

and in the third time, in the third round, he himself waives it, and the referee doesn't even necessarily need to intervene. It looked to me, Chuck, two things. tell me if you agree one i'm not saying vera got like shot out of a cannon in this fight right got into a rhythm at least a little bit quicker yes he did but more to the point dude vera just looked like he was made out of steel and jordan couldn't do anything to him meanwhile everything vera threw at him looked like it had like an oversized impact yeah i was i thought it just the opposite was going to happen i thought this was the moment where chito kind of you know learns his fate in that sense

where you're like it's five in a row man you see the writing on the the wall. But honestly, man, that was, that's what kind of was fun about it. Like I could tell early on, and was it the David Martinez, is that who he fought last? Because he was in that fight and it was, it just took him. I mean, the last couple of fights. And I know that Long Island was making fun of this too, like if he decided to show up and fight, but those fights, he was so slow out of the gate, so slow that I was like, I was almost half anticipating that sort of reaction to see him in the fight earlier. And like you said, like kind of, I don't want to say that he looked very. And, vintage. It wasn't like the crews and

Edgar fights from back in the day, but I felt like he definitely was, he gave you a glimpse back to what he used to be about when he was on his big streak. And I felt like that was cool. And to kind of put him away in the end and not just kind of get by on the scorecards, to me was, and he knew it to pounce, right? Like he knew to pounce when he had him hurt in that third round. So to me, that was like, it was

very good. It was, it was closer to the vintage Cheeto. And I feel good for him because I know, dude, that's a, that's a huge burden. When you were up here, you never got to the mountain top and then you start to decline to get that win and to feel like that feeling again. I know that must have been very big for him. I think he still has some work to do to really,

not just make up for lost time exactly, but he wasn't getting the technical progress in the last few years that he needed. And I think that that journey needs to continue. But this was a great first step in that new direction, let's say. Robelis de Spain Robelis de Spain defeats Taito Ivasa in the most fuck-ass fight imaginable

split decision 2 29-28s for to Spain 129-28 for Taito-Ivasa I guess what can we say here Chuck the fight was a little fun here and then you can say well Tui Vasa won two scorecards in a three-round fight that's kind of fun

how about the California State Athletic Commission paying Taito Ivasa ready for this $350,000 for his eighth loss in a fucking row. I mean, brother, I've been taking L's for years. I would love to get paid this handsomely for him. Yeah. I mean, that's that I love the California thing because I saw this exact same thing.

And I'm like eight laws of a row you're getting $350,000. I'm guessing this all goes back to some original contract that, uh, obviously he's been losing through the whole time. But dude, I mean, they were, you just showed that, you just showed that clip. I mean, they're swinging purses. know they're just her hands are down at their at their thing and they're just kind of winging these these shots and I guess that's what I was anticipating so I in that level like this part of it was fun on that level it was like oh here we go here we go but as the fight wears on which

inevitably these things do just kind of dies on the vine doesn't it like nothing much happens beyond that I will say interesting note the judge here on the right of your screen Felicia oh if you guys are not familiar with her she was a very accomplished and um the visible black belt competitor in the sort of 2000s in the I think the early 2010s maybe around that time. Cool to see that she's become a judge. She's got about as legit credentials in grappling as you could possibly have. So that's nice to see.

But I'll just say this dude. What the fuck is this, man? Dude, do Spain look? They ever seen like an old person trying to walk into a building and then someone makes the mistake of asking them a question? And they have to stop and then turn. And then they look very confused. And their mouth is like this. Like, that's how, that's how dispain was for every minute past the first in this fight.

And you knew it would be this way. I mean, we talked about it. It was like if it goes, I mean, I kind of anticipate they may just throw down in the first time. But if it gets past that, nobody goes down. I guess I was anticipating. This is the fight it would turn into Luke. I mean, I don't know. And he got paid too, like on that grab of what you got paid like a hundred and some grand, right?

Or 200 grand, 200 no. Mdip. 100 to win, 100 to show. Yeah. So, yep, you're right to keep him FMVP, keep him out of, uh, in Gano's range. He got paid. So I give him that at least. Um, I don't have much to say about Michael Aswell defeating, uh, you, uh, you do saying, uh,

or you saying you ever want to say it. Um, not very interesting to me. Gondra defeating Diaz, Diaz, I don't know what we're doing with this shit. You said that in advance. Yep, you're right. Gondra didn't do anything. And then the first time he did, he just fucking spams him with punches and puts him away. I'm like, once again, you know, like, it's just, this is the problem with MMA and UFC.

It's like they've got so much quality and then they've got so much shit that's like, what are what this was never needed to happen. Is he pregnant? Edmund Chabazzian defeats brutal. I don't know. It was like he was pointing out his pregnancy bump or something. I don't know. Fighters are weird. All right.

Edmund Chibazian defeats Bruno Faheda unanimously. Yeah. Fine. Yeah. Yes. The one that's kind of the way it is with Edmund these days. It's just kind of like that, you know. Yeah, you're right.

One of the things that was interesting, though, is Casey O'Neill defeating Edward O'Mora. You can call this a helicopter or you can call this an elevator arm bar. Look, she's going to pull in the hips, watch. Look at her move off. The hands are going to post. She's going to block it and then block the head and then use the extra elevation. to come over as she twists into the arm. Or you can play it one more time because I want to show it.

The trick is that you put both feet in the hips and then you get underneath them, make them wrestle to their hands, and then you post one hand on their arm, and then one hand behind their head. Watch, you're going to elevate, the hand will come up. You post on both, and then you just come around as you twist. Just there like that. That's wild, man. Really great. Really great.

I'll just say this. That should not work on anyone good. So it was pretty, yeah, yeah. People are always like, oh, it's a fun submission. And it's like, you don't see submissions like that too often against people who are good. It can happen, but not too long. It was funny too because of the commentary. I don't know if you, like, I went back and had to watch because I was like, weren't they just kind of just praising? What's the chick's name?

She was fighting. Anil, I'm sorry. And Juara, Laura, Laura. Yes. And so she was like, they were, they're praising her for these very reasons. And there's talking about it. And then all of a sudden it's like, all in my three seconds, the fight is over the other way. I thought that was hilarious.

Yeah. I mean, the commentary was a little bit up and down this whole card, you know, in terms of like the ways it would go. But I suppose that's not new. Still, a hell of a submission from Casey O'Neill, just a wear with all to try it. But, you know, it's not the kind of thing you're going to be able to use probably in a UFC title fight, which is why you don't see those there. Joe Anderson Brito defeats Gigga Chikaze.

You got to feel bad. It was kind of doing well on the feet, Chuck. Yeah. Then slips and then just gets hammer-fisted into oblivion like 10 seconds later. And then his phone and his shirt. Oh, yeah.

I don't know what these. I don't even know. I mean, I guess that's better than people throw on their mouthpiece out there, but not much better. I don't need that.

Yeah, it's not much. I wouldn't want to catch the ball sweat from these dogs. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm good on that. Yeah.

And that was the card. There you have it right there. A really fun one. If I do say so myself. With that, let's go to topic number five. this got announced during the UFC broadcast itself. Namely, we have an event at UFC 334.

Okay, let me set this up. Put the main event up, because we'll talk about through this way. So this is the big news. The 14th of November at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. Cyril Gahn is going to fight Hokit, Josh Hokit, for the heavyweight title. That's the first piece of news to know. The second piece of news to know is that, well, well, go back, go back. the second piece to know is that

gone despite what Dana saying Dana said last week no gone's not going to be the interim champion I'm sorry he's not going to be the full weight class champion he's going to remain interim champion despite the fact that the fucking real champion vacated which means that the interim title has literally no value whatsoever they walk that back so gone is the official full UFC weight class champion for heavyweight He's going to fight Hokit to defend that title there.

Now, show the co-main event. Kayla Harrison is back. She is going to face Amanda Nunes. This is the co-main event. Let's take a look at the rest of the card very briefly. I'm just going to read it out the main card anyway. Kyle Baha'aulio, Ust Rebels, Tish, taking on Kevin Holland, and then the opening will be Balasan taking on Luis Garulay.

Okay, Chuck, let's start with the bigger parts, though. Gone has now become, as I indicated, the undisputed champion, is going to face Hokit. Is this the right move for the heavyweight division? I think it is in the end. I mean, getting Hokit in there, as much as we like to be like, I don't know about this dude. I don't know. It's clear that Dana White has not gotten along with him and he has got lots of reservations about him. He's still that weird A side. Like people are talking about him all the time. So I'm like, if you're going to make a heavyweight title fight out of what you have available, that's the only way that you could have gone.

It's a little bit of a rough look. I don't know. I think it's more so from the gone perspective, the way he's been winning, obviously, like some of the fouls he's been committing. And then if you look at the, because I laid this out like the heavyweight timeline since Inganu held the title, the lineal title, it's such a mess. And to end up in a situation where a guy who had like nine Mulligans

and also has like this record for putting your main guy on the shelf with the eye gaug and Aspinall to have him kind of, now prancing ground as the, you know what I mean? Like as the guy to beat is, is a tough look in that sense. But I think that's just for us, guys who really pay attention to how we got here, in terms of just Madison Square Garden of that,

like if you're going to put the heavyweight title on, it's got to be this. So I feel like they did a good job on it. The bigger question, and I guess would be, does that deserve to be? I know you're alluding to this off air, but like does it deserve to be the main event in this spot?

I want to come back to that question. because I do, we are going to talk about it. I'm jumping the gun. I'm jumping the gun here. No, it's okay because it's the, it, there is a question to be asked about it. But I think I just want to say this too. Like I don't love this fight. It feels a little weird to be honest. Like God's going to fight Hokit for the title.

What? You know? Yeah. But just given where they're at and given what they're willing to do, I don't know what else was available. Like, well, here's what I mean. Chuck, Francis should be signed by now. Like, what are we talking about?

This is insane. But they're not going. going to do that. So, okay, that's out. And then that leaves you with, well, what can you do? There's no Francis. There's clearly no Tom. So who else is the top of that division? Well, you've got Hokit, you've got gone, and you've got Poetan kind of floating around in that top three-ish area. No one else really makes sense part of the conversation. Okay, so let's go through it. You could do Hokit versus Poetan if you wanted to make that fight, but it wouldn't be for it. I mean, I guess you could have, I guess you can make that for the title if you wanted to and then

keep gone interim, but, you know, such that gone is now the champion, that doesn't make sense to have a non-title fight headline. You could do gone versus Poetan again, but again, like, I feel bad that Poetton got hit in the back of the head a couple times, a few times even, but that's not why he lost that fight. He lost that fight because Gons much better at him a heavyweight. That's why he lost. And then the other component here, Chuck is like, you know, Hokit, getting fast track to a title shot and gone being there. Like, none of this feels organic. because it's not organic. Like you have email champions constantly in this weight class,

which we talked about previously. But given that, just where you're at, I don't know what other play that they could have made other than this one as palatable or unpalatable as that may be. It's just kind of what you're left with. Well, that's what the problem is. It just feels like consolation, a deep consolation. Not just a normal consolation.

It just feels like you're way in your bag pulling something out. And that is the problem. But given the, Like you mentioned Poetton. I guess that would have been the other angle to go with it. Like he's obviously headlined that venue before. But who was clamoring for the rematch with Gone? The problem with it was it wasn't, you know, those back, the shots of the back of the head,

they didn't determine the fight. He was losing the fight throughout. And it was not a very exciting fight. Nobody's pining for it outside of, you know, Poeton and his camp. To me, that would have been worse. It would have been worse to roll that back. It would have been more glaring. I think if you add Hocat to it, just given that he was.

was on that, you know, White House card and you kind of groomed him, I guess, to be in the situation. He's the right call, but dude, he brings a lot of different baggage to this, too, doesn't he? It's going to be interesting to see how his responses out there and, like, what he does and in the lead up and all this stuff. I mean, dude. It's an ordeal. You know, you know, it's amazing, like, I just want, I mean, UFC, I mean, UFC doesn't care about bad press anymore, but like, it's just very funny that, like, oh, we don't really

like it when, you know, he says Michelle Obama is a man. it's like that guy's probably going to be your champion. Like you know that right. Like just, I know. Just putting it out there. Like if you're already have Strickland as one of your guys. And I'm like,

now you're going to add Hokit to this, uh, your champion's list. It's, uh, welcome to the moon era. You know what I'm saying? Like,

I don't know what else there is to say about it. Like, Hokit could lose that fight too. I don't think it's a runaway necessarily for him. Do we have odds on that one long island? I'll check right now. I don't know yet. What if you curious to see if there's odds on that one.

If Hoked wins it in some weird way, some fluky way dude this division i'd be like it's twilight zone at that point it'd be so off the charts gone gone gone is going to try a flying triangle miss it and then hit his head and knock himself out i think you're going to be surprised at these odds luke uh cyril gone minus 225 whoa friends of draft kings plus 185 josh hoakett what do you think about that i think that's fair i thought i thought gone would be the favorite but i'm i'm willing to maybe take a flyer on josh hockett at plus 185 they're very intriguing they're they're well lined right now hokit has a lot of physical ability clearly, right?

But he also fights a little bit recklessly too. And against gone, that could prove costly, depending, you know? Yeah. All right. Let's talk about this co-made event. Kayla and Amanda, this was announced eons ago, and then she got her, really, her neck into serious jeopardy.

She's back. I'm assuming that she's going to be ready to go. Chuck, should this have been the main event? Because here's the thing. It's like, it's the bantamweight champion who is, you know, consensus, she's the lady versus the best female fighter this organization's ever had. It is more, we're talking about too much more accomplished fighters than anybody in the main event.

Yes. And I think when you start to bill it, which is exactly what Dana's playbook is, is like this is the greatest women's MMA fight of all time. If you're really going to go with that, if you're going to use it. And I don't think you can dispute it in a weird way. Like it's just, when you have somebody returning who was the goat, and I think she's, Amanda Nune is clearly, considered the goat at this point, you know, like, and she's going against this former Olympic Judoka, who's now won titles in different, different organizations, and she's sticking around for this fight. To me, this is the, probably the biggest women's MMA fight of all time. Like, you, I think that should be your number one. Like, imagine if they'd put Nate, you know, Nate,

Diaz and Masa, who was he fighting? Perry, right? Like, they put that as the main event of that MVP card. They would never do that because what they were drawing on was Carrano star power and like you know from back in the day and round or rousey star but like they're they were presenting it as if it was the greatest or the most anticipated this is actually it i think that even just to counter that this should be the uh this should be your main event that's that's my opinion i know the ufc has always operated where they're like if you have weight class distinctions a lot of times they'll have the weight class the higher weight class is the one that like trumps out like the lighter weight class or whatever it is.

I kind of understand it. But I think it would have made more sense in this situation, given what we just walked through with with Don and how he's become the champion and Hokit where he's at. To me, that would have been fine to make it the co-main event. That's the way I would have done it. How about you? The Hokit Wildcard here, by the way, is just, I mean, you're asking about like what

you would have done it. I think given the practice, well, I'll come back to the Hokka thing. Oh, by the way, our odds, Kayla minus 190, Amanda, plus 164. I'm surprised by that. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Because I'm like, dude, if Kayla can't get this to the ground, this is not going to go long.

People forget, dude, you know? And I guess that layoff with Amanda Nunes, right? Like there's a layoff and she's older and all that. But still. Kayla and Amanda are just much more accomplished fighters. And for that reason, if they wanted to put this one in the headlining role, I would never in a million years complain. It wouldn't bother me at all.

And I think if we allow ourselves to make cards with a little bit more editorial discretion about who goes where rather than a process, then I would be very much in favor of it. The process has been typically for UFC, not exclusively, but typically that, you know, if you've got a main and a co-main where there's two titles on the line, the one that's the heavier weight class would go. And so they're kind of following precedent in this regard, which I don't also necessarily have a issue with. I think the one thing that needs to come up is that like you got Josh Hokit who like, you know, whatever he believes, I don't know, but I think it's fair to call him a provocateur, right?

Yes. Pretty fair. Pretty nice way of seeing. And you've got a gay female fighter going up against not another one, but like, you know, you've got a women's fight and then one of them is, you know, out in this regard, like what he might do with that information to antagonize them, to get ahead, to, you know, just to be, again, maybe he says nothing. Like, I'm not predicting it per se. I'm simply saying, interesting choice by UFC given what they claim they're worried about and what they're putting him next to

you know yeah could be could be quite an ugly scene I hadn't even thought about it that deep yet but you're absolutely right dude it's a setup for disaster in that sense yeah it could be yeah it could be if he doesn't respect Nunes I'm not saying yes to Geniflex but I'm saying like if internally

he doesn't respect Nunez I mean all bets are awful on this one all right it's better when we forget about Josh Hokit I feel like every time he comes around though and like he becomes the center of attention uh guy i was just at that washing in card and like dealing with that like that aspect of it already on top

of all the other shit going on with that uh it was just too much yeah but let's let's take a look at the rest of that main card very quickly one more time Kyle Baha'uio versus Usurie belgarly I love that I love that fight yeah yeah great you guys love that I feel like yeah man bad fight for yousri so it is a bad fight in a couple

of different respects and I the one thing I'll say I don't like about it is the rankings you got unranked versus six but I feel like Bill Garwe could actually surprise some people here. I do too. I mean, dude, he works with a lot of these guys and I mean, I see them in there sometimes and I'm like

I feel like he'll be ready for it. Let's put it that way. Erosh Medich taken on Kevin Holland, Chuck. That's just got action written all over it. Can I complain about this one too real quick? Yeah, like a bitch, yeah. He just foot down in the rankings to fight DROD. Can we give Medich a fucking step up in competition? Why are we giving him? By the way, I think Kevin Holland's only ranked in the

meta rankings and they fucking put the number there. I'm pretty sure he's not actually ranked in the media. So why are we giving him an unranked opponent? No, you're right. It feels like that it should be getting somebody bigger than that. Especially, didn't they just have like the last event was kind of planned around him in his home country? I'm like, what's what I mean? Dude, give him a step up. And then you have Balal Hassan taking on

Larice Garulay. So this is kind of like a striker versus experienced mixed grappler type kind of guy in Garule. That's kind of fun. Prelim card. You've got Wonderboy taking on Charles Radkey. Is this Wonderboy's retirement? fight? Do we know that? It should be. This is another weird matchmaking, dude. I said on my stream, imagine they did Neil Magny Wonderboy. How much better is that fight than fucking Charles Radke? Who wants to see Charles Radke Wonderboy? No, no. Drew Dober, taking on Chris Duncan. That's actually

pretty fun. Yeah, that's a bad. Jim Miller, McKinney. That's awesome. Tim Miller, Terrence fucking McKinney is, I mean, either McKinney's going to blast Miller's brains out or he's going to get choked out, right? That's it. Dante Johnson, who is a bit of a Wildman taking on Bison Gersu Sarkaev is kind of fun. B. A mosquito. You're taking on Macy Chazahn. I think I'm saying that right.

Oh, yeah. That one is super interesting. A ranked fight all the way down on the cards. Adrian Yanjez taken on Juan Diaz. And then Nazim Sadatikov, who's out of the Long Island area, although he was Becky, or sorry, I should say he is Azerbaijan. Taking on Jefferson Nassiamento. So that's whatever.

I would see Bia up there a little bit more. Like they should be kind of behind her more, right? Like you give her a big spot here. I agree. They want to feature Bala al-Hassan, which I get. But it's like, Bia is probably going to fight for a title before too long. She should be getting on some bigger profiles. Well, that's why like even the Wang Tong thing, all of a sudden she goes from a prelim where there's like 15 people in the building into a title shot.

You want to build these people up a little bit here. Exactly. Exactly. So fun little card, I guess, for November. I saw people complaining about it, show. I saw a lot of people complaining about it. That's not like our demographic to complain. I mean, but it's like, it's like, dude, I mean, you know,

this is what the UFC is today. You know, it's got some great stuff. It's got some stuff that's just going to be whatever the fuck, you know. All right. That is it for our top five. Now it is time for you guys to ask us questions. We put up a call for them on Instagram every Sunday. You fill them up.

Producers pick them. And then we answer them. It's time for DMs from dogs. All right. Let's go to Kasim Husseini who says, or Kasim, I'm not sure you say it. If the UFC still goes ahead with Gaichi Toporia, would that be the biggest title snub in U.S. Boy, that is a great question, isn't it? Let me think.

Let me think. I feel like we have seen this type of thing in the past. You got one long? We just saw Diego Lopez get an immediate rematch with Volk when you had like Evloia, Murphy waiting. Like there was multiple guys in the wings that you could have. Yeah. instead of him it's not like that crazy but that would definitely be up there but i think that this is

worse like this would be worse right yeah so you're so kuruki and two times uh on on pretty big platforms where you're like you're next if you know he wins them both easily finishes stop stop i mean tony didn't get a title shot for fucking like 12 fights yeah eventually gets the interim well he was the interim champion then got done this big yeah all right from jd e has 91 is gable steep he wrote stevenson it's steveson everybody makes it able steveson getting knocked out the most satisfying k o in ufc history i will say this if you weren't around chuck for m m m a at the time of ufc 100 yeah um michael bisping was widely disliked here's got to be the one right like that was and then dan henderson coming off the ultimate they were both coaches on the ultimate fighter yeah

comes off the ultimate fighter and viciously chaos him with the h bomb like like kios him with one shot and then retuitously drops the H-bomb on him, Chuck. And I remember, I'll never forget this. I remember the next day someone took that song, you know that song, Such a perfect day. Yes. And they just took, for the entire song, it was just a loop of Hendo knocking out Bissing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I saw Dan Henderson, I would say, maybe 10 years after that, 10 years after at least. And he told me that he still gets thanked to this day by strangers for knocking him out. that's awesome. Yeah.

That's fucking awesome. Yeah. I mean, now people, now, now this thing's like an unc and now people like him and he had a redemption tour and all. But at that time. Yeah. But I got to say, Chuck, even with that, I don't know. This is.

It was up there. I just think that Gable hadn't built up his, they hadn't built up a hatred over course of time. Like this was sort of a sudden like, oh, this dude, he's coming in here and you kind of knew the stuff about him getting knocked out. Like, imagine if he had been here a while, being cocky or whatever, and then got knocked out. That's the difference.

because people's hatred for Bisping had been festering for years. Yeah, that's true. And again, to be clear, Bisping didn't do any criminal wrongdoing in a way that it is alleged that Gable did, but there are some symmetries.

This would have been more like if Greg Hardy getting knocked out or something, but yes. Him losing, did he ever get just fully knocked out? I feel like he did. I just forget which fight it was now. But like him losing,

I remember had a little bit of that. Like there was like, good, you know. Yes. It's something like that. Yeah. It's like a mix of the, of the bismping around UFC 100 with Greg Hardy later. It's kind of got

a little of both of those things. All right. From Christina Pinto, who I believe is a doctor. I could be wrong about that. I saw some people hating on Jordan for waving off the fight. I personally love it. Why risk unnecessary damage when you're getting pieced up? I also agree with this, Chuck, but a lot of

people don't. Where do you come down? Everybody wants these warriors like, oh, no. Because this is like the old mentality, right? Like, you just don't do that. I'm fine with it. In fact, I wish more corners would just intervene, you know, like you see in boxing. You see it a little more unboxing where they're just like, our guys had enough. Let's live to see another day.

We just don't see it yet in MMA. But, man, I'm all for it. If you feel like you're compromised and you can't do anything, I'd rather you get out of there at that point, you know? The argument is if you let yourself do that, you know, you're liable to do it again. And yeah. The thing is like That's just not really true I mean it obviously is true in a sense that like

If you are prepared to quit once How hard could it be to quit another time? I don't think that's unfair exactly right But like yeah you're right you're right St. Pierre quit against people always get this wrong St. Pierre tapped two strikes against Matt Sarah He turns over and taps the mat right He surrenders and then goes on to have

You know a legendary fucking career like the idea that like it just does something irreparable is not true right and the other point is like you know hey like live to fight it like we're not talking about a championship caliber fighter true like just live to fight another day there's certain dudes like was it chris leban didn't he quit on a stool like he just kind of was like i'm done he just quit on a stool against your eye hall i think it was and i mean but he was on his way out the game like he wasn't trying to come back and like fight another fight or whatever it was something like that yeah i remember people i just remember people were talking about that for a long time but i mean but i mean i just remember people were talking about that for a long time but i I'm like, well, dude, he was done with the game. Like, he was leaving the game itself. Like, you know, you can understand that sort of thing. Yeah. Also, it is tough. It is tough for these guys.

We don't know the answer, but it could be that Jordan also had an injury that he felt something wrong with his face. True. You know, there could be a lot of things. He tweeted something after. He didn't allude to an injury, but he basically, he said he couldn't see. He said he was basically going blind. Exactly.

Dude, if you lose your fucking eyesight completely in a fight like that or just blinding, like I can't say. Like, wave that shit off, dude. Like, what are you doing? I agree, man. yourself. Yep. All right, from Che Wardles. Usually a late career camp

change is just a sign that a fighter is washed and only remedied by stepping down in competition. Can you recall any example of a mid-late 30s fighter reviving their career at a championship level by changing camps? It seems awfully specific. Yeah. Off the top of my head. I feel like stuff like this happens, but off the top of my head,

Like, you know, like Rashad, like, but I think that was all after when he was kind of, you know, certain guys like that who like, like when Rashad left Jackson. Yeah, left Jackson. I mean, that was all like, it was still in the thick of things. It wasn't like at the end. Yeah, I mean, I can think of people who are like at critical junctures in middle parts of their careers that maybe changed and got a big boost. But like if you're lit with what's the question again? Mid to late 30s. Yeah.

I don't I'm not sure what that would be was it Amanda Nunes or was it because they were training it Yeah but she took people who were kind of already with her and I know So that's what I'm saying it's kind of it is specific so it's like trying to figure out the details I don't I can't recall in the vein of the spirit of that question I can't think of anybody off the top of my head And the other part too is she was still winning I mean I know she lost the Yeah But like you know in general she just and she just chenko's one of those ones like nomadic like she goes around but it's always kind of the same people around her

It's not like she's she just trains in different areas and Yeah. That's a tough. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the answer would be there. And then Aurelius 92 says, since gone has become champ by a literal foul, because rules don't exist in MMA, should Hockeet just bring a Glock 19 to the kid. Don't give him ideas. Jesus.

No, he should not come with a firearm. But I will say this. I will say this. If I was gone, I would want to know who the referee is, and I would want to talk to the commission and be like, have a rep talk to the commission and be like or sorry not gone. Hokeet. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. Hokit's someone from his team being like

we want to approve who the ref is, which I know you have seen like in sideways, but in boxing you can do it all the time. And then even if you can't have a rep reach out to the commission and say this referee, whoever you have, needs to be ready to take a point and enforce the rules and when fouls happen. Just to put pressure on them to get someone in there who will do that because you are risking it if you don't. I will say too that if you didn't know that gone had cheated in some of his situations,

you will by the time Hokit gets in the ring with because he's going to be playing this up in such a big way. Hoked is going to call him a cheater the entire fucking time, which is not necessarily undeserved. I mean, not to be called a cheater per se, but like even if gone hasn't been cheating, he's been so negligent that it's almost like who cares,

you know, in terms of a distinction. But there you have it. Those are our top five topics. and with that in mind, and our, excuse me, and our, Jesus, my brain is not working, our DMs from donks. It's time now for where we take your artwork and put it on our proverbial fridge. It's time for fan subs.

You've got mail. Incredible that I get paid to talk for a living. Jesus Christ. All right. A lot going on. Lord help me. Okay. Remember, you can always send these morningcombat at gmail.com to reach the show,

to put these dead wrongs, fan subs, the whole nine yards. There you go. Morning Combat at gmail.com. All right, Jesse has two memes. Let's see. Luke Thomas putting all the technical difficulties behind him. Camera dies in the middle of fansubs. Look at this. I remember that, yes?

It's plugged in today. It's plugged in today. Cyril gone prepping for his first fight as champion. Oh, because he's got those fingers. Yeah. Yep. All right. Not bad.

I hope that's for the eye. It could be for somewhere else. we will find out. Oh, yeah. All right, from Quinn. Quinn writes, on the pregame preview for UFC 331, everyone's favorite degenerate,

Georgian ex-attorney. Jed Mishu gave us the beautiful turn of phrase, workshopping a take. Yes, I remember this whole thing. Describe his ruminations about straw weights. I immediately thought of Brian Campbell as well, and so did my meme maker. So behold the result.

Reading, workshoping takes about straw weights. Not bad. I like it. I like it. All right. Christian has sent us not one, but two movie posters. Higher ground.

The white guy, the black guy. That's Gaff for everyone who doesn't know. Two dudes, one van, zero plans. We guys just going to bang bus each other? We're just driving across the country. I don't fucking know. I sent this to Gaff though pre-show. He was loving it.

I mean, I realize that the joke is marijuana, but I could just make a bang-bust joke about you two guys blowing each other. All right. All right, next. What the fuck? One man's exploratory journey into the deep recesses of beast? Cvorting. I don't think that's quite what cavorting means.

That's a funny shot, though. Come on. It is a funny shot. Looks like you put on some weight, but. Yeah, a little bit there. I'm not doing too great. All right. Not bad.

Not bad. All right. Jordan has a meme. He says, this is Chuck recapping Jed's experience watching Noce UFC. Okay. Can I tell you how little I'm interested in thinking about Jed's jiz? Just not interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Daniel S says, couldn't let Jed get away with this one. I said, don't disturb me when I'm workshopping and take. Oh, there we go, man. We've got a new thing, don't we? Oh, that's great. That is a good one. I love it. All right, Declan, holy shit.

Declan's got a bunch of these. Let's see what Declan has to say. Oh, man. All the Coetys. All the Coetys. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God.

All right. Next. I've heard a lot about you on that show, Morning Combat. Why don't you take a seat, Brian Campbell? For folks who don't know, he's playing Chris Hanson in an upcoming movie. Robert Pattinson is? Yes. Yeah.

You're doing a To Catch a Predator. bit. Okay. All right. Check learning Cody Gibson got cut from the roster. Leave my Cody's B, you know. Did he get cut? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's the beauty of the Cody's. We don't know. This is funny. Luke in his live chat

thumbnails. Luke in his political channel thumbnails. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have noticed the world's on fire, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, this is the illusion of free choice. Nothing to talk about for U.S. 332. Studio pregame preview online pregame preview yeah it's the same it's yeah it doesn't change much i don't know if we're going to do one for ufc 32 to be honest with you guys that's pretty that's pretty sad that

boring yeah um we have more from him no that's it from him okay from decklin good job deklin all right uh tim has a meme in our favorite grammar gistapo's future dad where's the milk at tuki don't you realize you ended the sentence with a preposition sorry where's the milk at asshole that might not be far from the truth you know I thought of this one when you said earlier you're like me and Tuki read all the time I'm like oh my god

dude that's funny that's a good one that is can you send that one to me I want to send that one to my wife what did the book say there I missed that part oh yeah what did the book say can you read that Jack Hoff's lexicon of big words all right dude you can tell this person doesn't read because I mean, I appreciate the thing.

You can tell you, people who are hostile to words, like, for example, I'll use a word like, what's one? Like, oh, you know, this really esoteric knowledge. Right. Oh, esoteric. And I'm like, esoteric is a big word if you dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. Right. I know, man. Trust me.

Trust me. I know all about this. All right. I know you're a fellow reader. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Kevin has a meme. Kevin S. Jed workshopping and taking the shower. Okay, that's gross. He's going to take a beating. Oh, by the way, look, he's got a smearing off ice in there. I saw that. I saw that back there.

Not bad. And he was pouring one into. All right. From Marcos, we have a meme. BC returning to MK once his contract is up. I don't quite get this. Are they saying he's going to be too old? I think that's the joke. Yeah. Oh, I see. He'll be an old man. You see him eating cereal on what they they've been making a big deal him eating cereal on one of the shows. Yeah, I want to defend that

by say as a grown adult, it's perfectly acceptable to eat cereal. Yeah, they seem to be giving him shit. I was like, I still eat some cereal. Wait,

wait, what did I miss? So BC was on CBS sports on like their big jumbo tron like eating cereal and they're all making fun of him and the anchor was like, what kind of grown man still eats cereal?

And I was like, oh really? Right here. Yeah. Yeah, dude, cereal's the shit. What are you talking about? It's cereal all the time.

You know? You know what I don't understand. Serial gone. Yeah, serial game. I think I'm at Archie. It doesn't mean. Me after throwing down $8 on Gable Steveson to lose. What's the say in the back?

Some people bet smart. I bet for fun. What's the other one say? High risk, high vibes. Yeah, yeah. Not bad. Dude, congrats to anybody who made that bet, though. Seriously.

Jesus. You made some money. Yeah. All right. Left. Lane has some memes. Loophole exterminated. Oh, Jesus. We're treating him like Osama bin Laden now.

All right. The Joseph A bank employee is checking the bathroom after Luke Thomas. That was a funny response. Did you watch that? Like John Jones, like as that was happening, they were gobsmacked. All right. When the fans do, in fact, hate you for your past wrongs and you get slept in 10 seconds. Yeah, they sure fucking did.

Okay. U.S. How does a month of Slop Sound kid? Anyway, how about that gate record? UFC 331, the last few cards have been great. Can we expect the UFC to keep rolling for the next month? Yeah, dude, the next four cards are just butt cheeks. You could make one good card out of it.

Ugh. Long Island Luke, seeing the UFC schedule for the next month, knowing he's got 25 hours of pre-lint, excuse me, premium girlfriend ignoring time. Look how happy. He looks delighted. Not bad. Not bad. All right. Dalton's got a meme. Small BJ mouth, large BJ mouth. You know, I don't like that they're calling it BJ mouth. But yes, I did have a very wide mouth when Gable got knocked out compared to Jed. LT chooses best Gable K-OBJ mouth reaction. Yeah, which one of you guys has the best? Wow. Oh, look at look at you. Don't even say it. Don't even fucking say.

You can put a few glitz going right in there. I mean, shit. a few glizzies in there. Rundum Cheeks, who's a Marine has some memes. Let's see what he has to say. We've got a lot here. This is great. All right,

LT being the only MMA journalist not to outright dismiss Ilius claims about Justin loading his gloves. I wish I knew how to quit you. I'm not endorsing it. I'm simply saying like they don't let the corners watch their opponent get their hands wrapped.

Like, just add that and like 99% of this goes away. That's my point. Yep. Exactly. All right. Next. Long Island Luke uploading his audio to Spotify for the 331 pregame preview. Oh, they got old David eating the burger.

I mean, this is a classic in MK lore, but I will just say that that's not on me. Everyone blaming me for that. I guess the metal archives when they uploaded it didn't put in my, we were dealing with audio issues that day. It'll be fixed next time. Sorry, over it. All right. Very good. What else?

MMA fighting on their way home from the Prop Quiz Awards. Oh, did they win a book? bunch? They won Jim of the year, which was basically the media outlet with the best record, and Jed won, oh, and Jose won. Yeah, I guess now that I'm thinking about it, they did clean up a lot. They won a lot.

Fair enough to them. All right. Yeah. Is that it? Okay. B.C. Prop Quiz Awards. Luke Thomas. The Caddbiller. I don't quite get this one. BC carried the prop quiz awards, I guess, and you were left out of it. Oh, I see.

I see. I see. Okay. Did BC make an appearance on this? He did. So anyone who hasn't seen it, go check it out. All right, all right. Full cameo. Yeah, whether he'll make an appearance on this show. Yeah, I have no fucking idea.

Is that it for all random cheeks? Yes. Okay. We got one from Jeremy. You're definitely going to be the next Brock Lesnar. You're not that guy, pal. I said that on my post-fight show. You guys know that meme?

You're not that guy, pal? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like, this idea. that Gable's like, oh, we can just fast track him like we did Brock Lesnar. Yeah. You're not Brock Lesner.

Like, oops. You're not that guy, bro. All right. From Saul. Saul says, what a weekend. The louder than life music festival, Grace Louisville, Kentucky for another year. First day made it in time for Guar, Richmond, Virginia's Guar. Oh, my gosh.

Second day was emo night. And third night was limp biscuit. Wow, this is like my 20s all over again. By the fourth day, I was completely. over it and helped my wife make a charcuterie board and sold my wristband but you all already know what the reward for for helping is right mid tier mexican all dude that looks so fucking perfect this is peak food i don't give a shit what anybody says this is p you give me some hot sauce this is peak fucking food right now with the elite order too he's got like tacos and then the rice and

beans on the side i mean that's the way to do it he's got sauces and shit too yeah bro this is this is this is living right here. I don't know what anybody says. Let me see the gore one. I didn't get to see. I was reading. Gore. Okay. Where is Louder than Life music festival? Louisville, Kentucky. Yeah. Okay, sorry.

I didn't even hurt. I never heard of that one. Is it because we're too old? He mentioned it on my live chat and I also had never heard of it. He mentioned a few bands though that he didn't name here. He said Pantara was there. Wow. Someone else big that you guys are. This guy on the right definitely doesn't work in an office.

I'm thinking this was the limb biscuit night. This guy definitely looks like a limp biscuit fan. Yeah. Dude, Limbiscuit, I mean, I can't overstate this. They were big when I was in like my third and fourth years of college.

Yep. Yep. What are we doing, gang? Elementary school, I had the red Yankee fitted with the blue logo. Damn right, baby. Let's go.

I wonder if Gore still dresses up and all their shit. Are they like kiss? They took off all that stuff now. Who? just like gore oh no they still do they still do the whole bit is it's so fucking hot like that that look miserably hot can you imagine dressing up and all that shit that war wears i i love i i bring this up on the show all the time there's a bar in richmond i mean maybe it's closed now but like the last time i was there uh it's called guar bar and it's it's owned and run by the

guys from guar and it's like this i mean you got to imagine like i go into a bar and what are they playing they're playing fucking bullshit music i never want to hear well not in this one You go in there and they're playing fucking Pantera and Metallica. It's like the best. You know, you love that. Yeah. And then the food is actually, again, I haven't had the whole menu, but like to the extent I've eaten there, the food is fucking awesome.

So I'll have to check this out. I had no idea that's existed. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And dude, it's in a quiet neighborhood, too. You'd look at it. If you actually walk outside Guarbar, you look around, you're like, how the

fuck did you all pick this location? It's crazy. You think that's where Joe Silva hangs out. You know, he's quietly tucked away in Richmond. Every time I go to Richmond, I'm always in the place. look out for that little fucking one. Apparently he doesn't he just walks around everywhere too because he doesn't have a car or a driver's license. He just he walks around town. So he must live downtown then. I think so. Brian Butler, you know, that guy that who's the agent, he lives out

there too. And Joe, Joe and him are buddies. But he was the one telling me he was like, yeah, I used to see Joe just walking all over like he was a homeless man. Like in Richmond, Virginia. In Richmond, Virginia. How weird is that? Never had a driver's license, nothing like that. So, A truly eccentric human being, I think. Yeah. Well, there you have it. That is the show here for today. We had a bunch to get through and we still managed to do it in the two-hour window.

Chuck, I know we probably have a lot of after-action reports everyone's doing. What can you plug? What's coming up? We will have a at Uncrown, we'll have a new pound-for-pound rankings, which is good because we've had some movement both on the women's side and the men's side. So that will be updated today at some point. I'll be on the crack on Friday. I think we're doing one of the, whatever, this reprisal, the, the MMMA beat tomorrow on Tuesday.

So I'll be doing that and I'll have some other coverage on uncrown. So lots of stuff this week coming up. Do you all do that digitally? Do you go into a studio? Yeah, it's just a digital thing. And they call it, I think it's just the beat or it's like uncrowned beat or something like that. Yeah, yeah. It just started.

So forgive me for not knowing all the details here. That's quite all right. I'll be on the lookout for that. Long Island, what's going on with you? usual week except for the fact I do have a wedding this Saturday and I'm actually the best man so I'm not doing a full hard watch along

I know I know that's shocking news to everyone so no watch along this weekend I got a new spin-off show as well Road to Prop Quiz like Road to UFC where people are going to compete to get on prop quiz so I think I'm going to do the first episode of that this Friday and you know live chat Wednesday and LT maybe you

and Chuck want to come on regular prop quiz you know we still have that episode ready to go I also do as walrus myself with many dicks waiting for me that I'd rather see. I will have a review from some of the fights on my substack probably tomorrow afternoon. I've got an interview coming out with

Nate Wilcox from the MMA draw. I'm going to be talking to John Nash tomorrow about the Ali Act. By the way, I didn't mention this. Breaking news. The Paramount Warner Brothers merger is going through, which is going to have implications for a number of different parts of the entertainment economy. Sports rights, including

but we haven't seen the official announcement yet. So be on the lookout for that later today as well. That actually is going to be important to see. Yeah, that's it. All right. Let's remind everyone. We have merch, morningcombat.shop, where you can buy all your fun stuff. We have memberships here on the channel, badges, emojis, and a whole lot more.

I've already mentioned everything else. So I'll just say thank you all so much for watching. We greatly appreciate it. We'll talk to you guys on Friday. Enjoy the rest of your week. And until then, for Chuck Mindenhall, for Long Island Luke and everyone else on the show, may all have your gains, be loyal.