MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Austin Picks | BKFC 56 | Garcia Feuds with Golden Boy | PFL Signs w ESPN | Morning Kombat Ep 522

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

On Episode 522 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell get you ready for the weekend of fights. The guys give their picks from UFC Austin, BKFC 56 and Ryan Garcia vs. Oscar Duarte. The guys also break down some recent fight news before closing out the show with Dead Wrong. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our life.

This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah. Jump up. Jump up and get down.

Wow, look at that. Flip-flopping on you. Hold on. Let me find my cough button here, Luke. All right, all right. I have not been anywhere near Newark Penn Train Station or Luke Thomas' daughter's mouth. But, Luke, I'm a little under the weather.

Don't you go dying on me. Okay, I'm a little under the weather today. Welcome in to the award-winning Morning Combat on this Friday, December 1st 2023 happy holiday season to y'all out here brian campbell that bbc with that bde and luke freaking thomas of washington dc fame luke always well a lot of the time it's a pleasure to be here with you. Like most of the time, right? Wow, really? Wow. Just right out of the gate.

Bang, bang, bang, bang. Like neither here nor there. But, you know, no. We got a decent show for you today, by the way, because things are heating up in OK Bet. We got just three more weekends to go as Luke and I go head-to-head on picks. We'll have that. We'll look at this.

Luke, how about this growing Ryan Garcia messy situation with Golden Boy promotions? I really don't have. This is the best story in combat sports right now. It's the best story. I have not seen. I mean, we've seen Dana jawing at people. We've seen boxing promoters go ham before.

Never this petty, though. Very interesting breakout there. And, Luke, we'll answer some of the tough questions that our fans have. Like, why don't you guys talk about ian gary at all i guess we'll talk about him today luke right okay you want to talk about let's talk about who ian gary is fucking yay yeah great that's a great really really the most important topic there can be who is very relatable to all the male betas in our audience, right, Luke? No, I'm kidding.

I'm just kidding right there. Soy boys. No, we got a great show. Mikey Moore, my CBS Sports on the ones and twos today. We'll look at your dead wrongs. I'm sure we'll sell ads on something here. But you know what, Luke? You'll be a lord or a lair, BC.

Yeah, a lair of the rings, no doubt. Hey, I want to tell you about merch, though. Right here on my chest. Right here on my hat. Right here on my shake cup okay right there on luke's chest it's morning combat it's the greatest brand name in all of flatulence to be fair but if you go to morning combat dot store at the moment we got some great merch you got holiday gift ideas for yours how about you get over there to morning combat dot store. Tell him RJ sent you. I don't know if he's got any coupons off for percentages.

Luke, you'd have to log in and check that out, but we're fresh off of a very successful black Friday cyber Monday set up there. So continue to add this to the stocking stuffers of the men in your family because Luke, it's pretty clear up to this point, maybe with the

exception of snarky red ginger melissa loves mma uh you know uh who's that chick from scotland that everybody loves in the chat nicola luke outside of them we have male viewers although a lot of them eligible viral viral viral what's what how do you define that word v-i-r-i-l is that what you mean yeah does that mean a lot of sperm unused sure sure yeah that will work v-e-r-i-l-e what is that it that's it right virile virile yeah now you got me fucking it up good lord yeah well we do that tomato tomato ronaldo ronaldo in these parts all right I don't know what else I'm supposed to say here look you got anything else in uh oh how about this how about this fantastic episode of morning combat the one you're watching right now presented to

you by FanDuel Sportsbook make every moment more by downloading the FanDuel Sportsbook app today big weekend to do that guys we got a BKFC pay-per-view tonight. We've got UFC fight night in Austin. Very tasty. We've got the return of Ryan Garcia on DAZN. Should be good times and great oldies. Luke, do you have any life updates, weekend plans? Because this is the time of the show where I love it.

We just riff. We're riff masters, Luke. I have to go see the National Tree downtown at some point this weekend oh yeah yeah joe biden just just uh kicked that off last night right uh i don't know if he kicked it off last night i think it's been there it fell down because we had a terrible storm i at some point i got to go brave those crowds which is going to be uh just a full-on nightmare but i have to i have to do it i have to do it so we'll see how that goes oh luke last we spoke about art and no i'm not referencing friday shows in general i showed you an unfinished painting i went back to the well i went back to the drawing board and i finished it

i want to get your honest real aggressive takes here um it kind of looks like a fever wet dream right it looks vaguely racist i'm just teasing it looks like some kind of jackson pollock avatar acid trip of some kind. Yeah, it's very psychedelic, Luke, right? Yeah, but it's also, I don't know, it's got some, it's got like some kind of forest or vegetation or jungle vibes, something like that going on. Yeah, yeah, jungle fever, Luke, right? Yeah, hey, hey, I'm not discriminatory, Luke, if that's where you're going.

How many Delta 2000s were you deep while undergoing this artistic effort? The only answer to that equation is what is 8 plus 9 plus 10 equal, Luke? And the answer is happiness, apparently, right? There you go. Okay. Luke, I wanted to mention. Do you name these things that you do? Sometimes, Luke.

Sometimes they are an editorial on something important about our nation's goodwill or dealings with other nations other times it's just luke my brain throwing up in a colorful pattern right how long did that take you uh three separate sessions of about two hours each jesus and you sat there two hours straight well there's a lot of layers on this thing luke i've screwed up 75 000 times and the hope is of about two hours each. Jesus, and you sat there two hours straight? Well, there's a lot of layers on this thing, Luke. I've screwed up 75,000 times, and the hope is by the end you have something.

But my wife tells me all I have is a midlife crisis and some deep emotional wounds, and I tell her, hey, take a number with my therapist, all right? We all got issues with me, all right? Get in line, right? We're working on it right now. And your kids during this time, what are they doing? One of them thinks I have severe mental issues. other one's like that's awesome nice color scheme there i'm like yeah yeah i know i know who butters my bread over here all right there we go you have a favorite child at this point though no i've got many favorite no i'm kidding i they

think i have one favorite over the other luke but as of right now we have this thing called tf1 in our house tie for first that's where everybody is okay they're animals though i got favorites it's that's the way i was raised okay there's ranking there's a ranking system all right so that's another topic for another day all right luke that's about all the bullshit i got to kick off this show you oh more youtube.com slash morning combat look there's some great content out there have you been on that channel at all yes of course uh you've been uh grinding um like clips from virginia beach out there doing interviews especially for this bkfc tonight kind of i mean they're calling it the biggest night we know it's going to be in salt lake city

which i think is going to introduce a level of problem slash hilarity uh into the whole equation that is probably you don't think the mormons are up to speed on mike perry yet they will be look they will be he wouldn't be the, well, you know what? The new Mike Perry, I think, can sort of figure it out. But like, you know, that they brought him to this kind of place sort of tells you about his transformation, no? Like, it's pretty interesting. Yeah, that's Ocean's daddy.

He's on a hell of a transformation at the moment. All right, enough of this middling bullshit in this puddle we're talking about here. Luke, let's get into real life. Let's get into fights. Let's get into a head-to-head battle that goes a full year when Luke Thomas and I go head-to-head, five picks each every Friday to find out who's worse at making bets and more importantly, who is going to be subject to the type of concert that will force them to realign their emotional foundation,

force them to, all right, Luke, this one's called okay. Bad. I see where you're going. All right. Do you like jam bands or do you like abortion rock? Hey, Luke, last week on this great segment of okay. Bet, which by the way, I don't know if you heard this segment brought to you by fan dual sports book, make every moment more by downloading the FanDuel Sports app today. Last week, your boy BC went 2-2. 2-2, is that a thing, Mike? I think I lost the fight.

I may be down. One fight completely fell off before it could take place, so therefore it was ineligible. LT went 3-3, so we both go 500. Your updated standings, as you can see right there, 83-87-1 BC, I, 83, 87, and 1 BC. I think in the lead, right? Yeah.

Two of the worst records you'll ever see. We've really humiliated ourselves in this process to get extra humiliation heaped upon the loser. Like, the winner doesn't even get anything, really. Oh, you get to go to a concert, but you've been to one. No, the winner avoids embarrassment and disgusting. Yeah, I guess you win that, but there's nothing affirmatively added to your life. No, we both suck at it.

So Luke is 82, 85, and 4. So how that breaks down is I have one more win than Luke, two more defeats, and Luke has three more ties, draws? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't really know what to do with that information, Luke, beyond keep picking and try to win this thing, okay? We're going to go head-to-head today.

Five picks apiece. Luke, BKFC, one of the options here, but we won't be seeing the co-main event in BKFC as I just update the latest news. Big Ben Rothwell is out of what would have been a co-main event in vacant heavyweight title bout against Todd Duffy. The fight is delayed until February. And shout out to MMA Fighting for aggregating the quotes here.

Here is Todd Duffy talking about this. He says, I think it's sad that Ben stuck in 2020 and thought this was a stay-at-home job. It's terrible, Duffy Cracked. I fought with COVID my last fight, so I really think Ben's real fight is happening with the scale. I think Thanksgiving was his biggest opponent. I don't know what else to add to that. Luke, I don't think they have to really make weight here. So what is he talking about with the scale?

Is he trying to say that good old Ben Rothwell fatted himself out of this fight? What is he going to do, not eat for a few months? I don't understand this, which, which, you know, as a zing, just as we're just judging it,

not on its truth value, just it's pure zing terms. It's a funny way to describe it. I suppose I will give him that, but I don't really believe it. But Ben Rothwell has been a professional for, when was the last time Ben Rothwell missed weight ever? Like,

and how, how, how deep is he into the issue was, I guess he didn't want to fight because he had COVID, which if you that you probably shouldn't and if the state is aware of it they just won't let you so maybe duffy's like look this is bare knuckle we don't test for anything not forget covid we don't test for anything duffy said i think i correct me if i'm wrong but i believe duffy said he actually fought previously with it before so here's the quote from duffy to continue i've fought with covid i know what that's like, but you make a commitment. You try to get out there and make it happen.

I don't think Ben by any means is a weak man, but maybe he's going through something. Well, look, Ben would respond over a series of text messages to MMA fighting, and he said, like, what the F kind of comment is that? You knowingly fought with COVID? Okay, let's just get the fight rebooked. The only way I want to settle this. I have over 50 pro fights, and I've made weight every time blah blah blah i mean not like anyone really

cares like when he says i think thanksgiving was his biggest opponent it's a funny zing but it's just i don't i just don't buy that ben rothwell was unprofessional i don't buy that okay this is kind of a weird question because we're talking about bkfc here but did the promotion make us an acceptable statement when they upgraded undercard fight and arnold adams versus mick terrell to now a vacant bkfc heavyweight title fight i don't care i don't know but i don't okay i don't yeah there you go also don't know also don't know yes yes uh all right there we go hey let's get into our okay bet though. And of course, UFC Austin, a loaded fight night card will be the focus of our main event. And a lightweight tilt

offering Benil Darius, a plus 225 underdog against the Armenian Hulk himself, Arman Saryukian. Updated lines, according to FanDuel, has Saryukian at minus 290 so we've talked about this line in Wednesday's preview but Luke Thomas I'm in the lead so I'm going to go second I'm going to put the spotlight on you let's go main event pick right now Darius versus Saryukian who you got buddy if you don't think I struggled with this one, I just don't know what to say. This was a really, really, really tough one for me. Because there are things to point to in either direction as, in the case of Darius being 34 years of age, perhaps fatal flaws. In the case of Saryukian, lingering problems that make you feel like they could get their chances really undermined here, potentially in a spectacular way. Armin Saryukian is 27 years old,

and we did this with Marvin Vittori when he hit 27, which was a lot of these guys come into the UFC early, and then they don't really hit their stride until they get to their late 20s, early 30s, and they really begin to peak. And so as he is 27 years old, you have a real reason to believe that while he has had lingering issues, now could actually be the moment where he takes a fantastic turn that he, this is sure there have been fits and starts with some of this, especially with the Gamrot fight, a little bit of MMA math

there, but this, this actually, this juncture is where he gets it done because of X and Y reasons, which of course I'm sure we'll get into, BC. But I just have to see it first, and I haven't seen it. And until I see it, I just can't be sure about it. So I'm going to go Benil Dariush. I think that he's got some fatal flaws, BC, but I think most of them are in his past. I looked at it since the... What fight was it?

It was about a fight in 2017. He was taken down by gamrot four times but since a fight he had way way back before i'll double check here with which one it is evan dunham i think it was the evan dunham contest like people just haven't been taking him down at all and even in the gamrot fight he won that and was able to get up um i think there's more reason to believe that benil dariush could be stubbornly something of a potential bad matchup as the bout goes long. Give me Benil Dariush. Interesting.

I didn't think you'd go that way. Not only are you picking against Armenia, although I agree that it seems like the odds here are a little bit off. Does that make me a traitor? I don't know. No, you don't typically play the underdogs in the main events. I was going to go Dariush anyway to try to mix this up. But I also agree with you on everything you said. I believe't know. No, you don't typically play the underdogs in the main events. I was going to go Darius anyway to try to mix this up. But I also agree with you on everything you said. I believe in him.

I think this is his fight to win. Now, obviously, Vegas tends to know things that we question a lot and then go, oh, well, I guess Vegas knew. But then again, Luke, there's upsets all the time atop the sport. The difference here is that we're asking, is Saryukian ready to truly make that leap to the inner circle atop this division, the top five matchups, where you cannot make mistakes, the kind where you need to have everything ironed out? Could this be the fight where he levels up and does that? Yes. Is he the younger, brighter commodity in some ways in the moment? Although I want to be careful not to write off Darius.

Not only has he not reached the cutoff point on your aggressive stat that ruins all middle-aged fighters at welterweight or below, but Luke Thomas, I think that, you know, maybe that loss to Olivera was a little bit of an aberration in the fact that that was about Olivera. He needed that comeback fight. He got that win. He got it done. The thing is for Saryuken to make this leap, he would be better served against somebody not as skilled, where he could still rely on a lot of his strength and hulkness and just aggressiveness. The thing is, Darius is too smart, too skilled, and oh, by the way, he's pretty big himself and can't be

manhandled. So I just think when I look at this line, man, and I see that plus 225, I think Darius is, as of right now, the more skilled fighter. And I think that's what has the potential to win here over five rounds. I am also going to go Benil Darius by upset. I'm just wondering, what are the two of us missing that Vegas hasn't? It's not some ailment of flicking Darius, because even though I postulated that on Wednesday, it turns out, Luke, I was thinking of Vicente Luque, who had that sort of mysterious sort of health shakeup that questioned his future. That wasn't Darius.

So what are we missing here? Why are we going both upset pick? And why is it pretty aggressive in the other direction toward Saryukian? My hunch is that if you look at some of the – here's what I'll say. I think that people recognize Saryukian has been extremely advanced by the time he got here, but then the progression from the time he got here, it hasn't been quite what you had wanted.

I think that they recognize that, but they look at Darius and they think, right, but here's a guy who gets finished inside the distance multiple times very quickly. He has a tendency, I think they might say, against better opposition to fall apart very quickly, which, in fact, he did do against Charles Oliveira.

And he got knocked out very quickly by Alexander Hernandez, but he got iced by Edson Barbosa as well. And Michael Chiesa quickly taking his back and then sticking the choke in. The fight went from 0-60 against him in a way where you look at a young 27-year-old guy who does have outstanding wrestling, outstanding scrambling, working on the rest of his pieces, but the win seems to be more at his back than Darius. I get that. I really do. Again, these were some of the factors I was considering before making this bet, but the thing is, man,

I just need to see it. I'm not saying, PC, I'm not even saying it's not there. It's not what I'm saying. But until I can just lay eyes on the evidence, I don't want to wish it into existence. You got to prove it, kid. Let's wish it into existence. You got to prove it, kid. Let's see what you got. You got to prove it.

In the main event at this level, right? Grant Dawson was tasked with that recently in a step-up opportunity. He didn't. Brendan Allen tasked with the same thing he did. You're never quite sure in this step-up situation, especially against a talented veteran, what you're going to get. We're going to go the route of the veteran. We'll see what happens. I'll tell you what, Luke, no disrespect to Bennyny but i'm cheering for the armenian whole care i

like saryukian he's fun to watch i hope he does put it together i want to one day see that that islam rematch but i don't know if he gets there that's only only he can figure i don't i don't root against dariush because i do think he's one of the sports really genuinely nice people you know he's a family guy he doesn't fuck around you never hear stories about him doing anything wrong he seems like a really sweet human being. I mean that sincerely. But would it be great for the sport if Saryukian beat Darius? Yes, it would.

It quite obviously would. It would be an exciting moment for a rising prospect slash contender. That would be great to see. It's just, you know, we got to see it. Speaking of, you know, salt and pepper, do you think the drapes match the curtains or the rug, or did this just become the Nina drama show, Luke? Are you now asking about the color of Benil Darius's pubic hair?

Well, now when you put it that way, the answer is no. I mean, I guess we should be talking more about these topics. I guess this is where all the action is. Yeah, forget the takedown defense. Forget the chin. How about the – all right. Let's keep it going here. We're going to go down to favorite category number two after we both took their use luke thomas it's open to you you're going boxing you're going bkfc what do you got here i didn't do bkfc because i don't know it feels a little weird doing bkfc like didn't

well it always feels weird dude it's it's carnival bare knuckle backyard i will tell you if it wasn't for like if i did a solo show not that i think it's not here's the thing this is the joy in having a partnership which i mean is truly is like you're not going to see the world the way that your partner might and editorially speaking and sometimes you're going to have a blind spot for something that does kind of work and i feel like bkfc is that like my natural instinct would not necessarily be to include it but i think we're better off doing it by virtue of the way in which you kind of shepherd it through. Does that make sense?

That does. But okay, so for my pick, I'm going to go... Let me find the matchup here for just a second, BC, if I can. I apologize. I don't have the thing I needed right in front of me here. Let me get it. Ah, yes. Now I have it, good sir.

Okay, so we're going to go for a favorite bc in this particular contest i'm gonna go zach reese zach reese is gonna be my guy and i'll tell you why zach reese is the one i'm looking at you're gonna kill me for doing it it's a prelim fight at a middleweight contest against cody brundage and i know cody follows on the show i know well because cody also seems like a very nice guy he seems to be a fan of the show i feel but i do i genuinely feel bad because dude i know these guys they're not saying they listen to everything we do but when they do catch it that it bums them out when we pick against them and i hate doing it and he wasn't hearing us talking about his pubes just

now i really hope look i really do you know what i mean mean? He seems the forgiving type. But in the case of Zach Reese, the dude's a firecracker. Now, this will be his technical UFC debut. He has a win coming off of the Contender Series, a first-round armbar against Eli Orinoff. I hope I'm saying that correctly. But, BC, let me just read you all the way down. Before that, he beat a guy by KO round one. Before that, submission round one.

Before that, punches round one. And then his first two fights, he won also in round one before that submission round one before that punches round one and then his first two fights uh he won also in round one with ko or tko the dude is an absolute shot out of a cannon kind of firecracker hunting the finish at all times and i feel like cody it does have some skills but is a little bit error prone in a way where this guy's style in particular i think because it's such a hurry up kind of offense and everything is tied together so nicely um he might just walk him into a trap uh give me zach reese and the odds on him you see i had him up god damn it i forgot where i put him i got the odds right here luke i'll tell

you please tell me we got reese according to fan duel as minus 235 your favorite plus 186 is broad so not a huge favorite from the odds standpoint, but I do think stylistically it favors, even with Cody's experience, which should not be taken lightly, even with that, I feel like Zach Reese is probably going to give him some trouble. All right. I don't tend to know, Luke, the inner workings of Cody Brundage's mind, of his job hopes or future or whatever,

but he recently snapped a three fight losing skid hat is coming off a win but is in here a tough fight in which he's the underdog i want to speak to his situation more of fighters in general with the pfl absorbing bellator and with the hope of bringing free agency and more options to fighters of all different levels do you think a guy like brundage who has lost three of his last four, and might be wondering what does this look like if I suddenly have lost four or five? I'm 29 years old.

Would that mean I have a future? Do you think there's part of guys at this level where they've yet to find the consistency to be a consistent contender, that in their mind they're going, look, I'm young enough. Maybe I can benefit from a leap over to the damn smart cage for a bit. I'm wondering if that's in any of their minds right now,

as the free agent season seems to open up a little wider. It's hard to imagine now, but there used to be a time where we did have dominant players, UFC and pride. And at various times, one was bigger than the other, but there was also a constellation of other promotions around the world. And, you know, know again i'm not saying that situation was better uh as a fan but what i can tell you is the promotions had more individual personality rule changes the the cage material um sort of the cultural practices around it they had you know you distinct personalities and feelings and also what would you what you notice with that not feelings but personalities and traits what you also notice with that is sometimes very different ways of doing business, arranging their product,

who does better under what system, you had a chance at a certain time to kind of find the right one. You have less of that now, but I do think it's a lesson worth reflecting on. Whether Cody is the best candidate for the PFL or not is a matter of debate, but to the substance of what you're asking,

there is clearly a market for a guy who can't quite find his rhythm, who's talented in the UFC, and maybe not necessarily the best in the world, although in certain cases could be, but is talented and just needs to be the right kind of format with the right opportunity to really showcase that.

Dude, Olivier Aubin-Morcier is living proof that that system works for that kind of guy very explicitly when it doesn't necessarily work in the UFC. I very much encourage fighters, if we ever get to a place, but to the extent that you can, the UFC is a great fit for most fighters and certainly the highest earners, right? It's the best fit. But it's not the best fit necessarily for everyone. And that's not actually a knock on UFC. It can't be. It can't be everything to everyone can it right it just it everything has limits and so yeah i think he could i think there's something to be said for um finding the right opportunity the right promoter for you even though the sport has

been consolidated well look he is already married into abc nation population two so maybe he's already found love and one in his ufc journey maybe a win keeps that going we're going to find out as luke picks Zachary's your favorite. My favorite is going to stay on the UFC card. And how about this match of abandon weight that we're getting fired up about the veteran Rob Fonny minus one 38 betting favorite against former flyweight champion, Devis and Figueredo Luke.

I love this fight. I really don't know what it's going to look like, but given Figueredo's advanced age, given the fact that he already can be a little opportunistic slash reckless in the cage i do have questions whether he's going to come in and find himself a bit oversized matchup wise and maybe that leads to him taking some chances either way that consistent steadiness of rob von's jab and the fact that in his own late 30s right now he's trying to sort of put together

one last string, one last run to the top of the sports deepest division. I like Rob fun as a favorite here. There's too many questions about Figueredo. Mike Owens media will be, I don't think in his corner and a look in a coach Latore type of role, but he's on the scene in Austin. Does that add anything, Luke? I don't know. Mike Owens Media did challenge me to make Rob Font my pick. You know I said on here, well, let's get some Rob Font merch in exchange, right? Where's my Rob Font t-shirt, right, Luke? All right.

Either way. Just do him. Just do him. Pay Ola over here. My Lord. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. The reality is, though, I do like Rob Font in this matchup.

I want to see what Figueiredo can do. He's fun to watch, but we're going to ask a lot of him here. We asked a lot of him at age 34 when he regained the title from Brandon Moreno after being stopped the fight before. But after four straight fights against the same man, Figueiredo is going to need to reset here in a new division, a harder division,

a deeper division, and show us what he's got. Font might be just the wrong guy. Too consistent, too steady, a tough out. As we saw against Adrian Yanez, he can make you pay if you make a mistake. I'm going to go Rob Font here as the favorite in a very close matchup and a good one here for Saturday night. Very good. All right, so now we go to underdog, yes?

Mm-hmm. BC, again, we're forced to pick someone who the odds makers have said is the chances are unlikely to win right so under that circumstance uh our friends at FanDuel have Bobby Green at plus 172 to Jalen Turner's 215 uh I'll take that I'll take that I mean here's the thing straight up skill for skill matchup for matchup you certainly would like Jalen Turner's chances you really would obviously rangy excellent striker vicious um you know can just cover distance in so many interesting ways really an assortment of kicks that are incredibly dangerous uh battle tested I think at this point as well uh but he's coming in a short notice we'll see how things go on the

scales today Mikey if you get a chance let me know what the update is on whether he has made weight or not I'd be very curious to see that. And then also BCI, I'm going to go back to it. His media day comments, I think, raise certain questions. I don't know what all the answers are. There are some interpretations about what he said in terms of not having a choice to say no to taking the fight. You can interpret that a couple of different ways if you want. But he also was talking about some of the you know scared moments that he had and frankly some some doubt about what

he was even doing when he saw the damage he had inflicted upon Dan Hooker at the hospital like he really has been I think going through a bit of an interesting time uh in a fighter's career where they really begin to wrestle with the impact of what they're doing in a more settled way anyway not the best scenario to fight Bobby Green so straight up maybe I'd take Jalen Turner but under these circumstances and given the task at hand I'll take Bobby Green at plus 172 interesting interesting I'm just kind of getting caught up to speed on what he did say at the media day the big quote that made a lot of headlines was like you mentioned I I feel like I did not have a choice to take it. Meaning this fight, he went on to say, I think it's just because I'm ranked. They want somebody in the rankings and who else is really saying something. Terrence said something, but he's not in the ranking. So they probably didn't want to do that.

He mentioned some other fighters that were there and he's saying, I was just trying to say to the UFC that we're from the same area. I respect him. And they said, we're putting this fight together. So it's interesting here. Even though Jalen Turner's coming off two straight defeats, we did identify on Wednesday that they were both split decisions. But he needs to win badly. And this is short notice. And he's saying he might not have been fully prepared.

So I don't hate that. I just don't think it will happen. I think Bobby Green has that spoiler ability. God, we just saw it, but I think he kind of just poured out the jug maybe of what's left of that spoiler ability against somebody in Grant Dawson who was in that spotlight moment we're talking about that Saryukian is. Even though Saryukian's different, he'd had more experience in terms of featured fights, but the whole point is when you step up to a big five rounder main event and they're looking to see whether you're ready to make that leap to the next level. That's sort of what's at play here in a lot of ways for Turner, even though coming off of two defeats and we got Bobby Green sliding in here.

I just I mean, can he do that twice in a row? A short turnaround himself. It's got the style for it. He's got the daringness that he lures you in to fight with his hands down and he can sting you and make you pay. Well, look, it would be really bad here for Jalen Turner to suffer a third straight defeat in general. You add on to there, the comments he made, does the company like that? Do they feel he's exposing a little bit of the behind the scenes? I'm not really sure. Um, I still like Jalen Turner in this fight. I mean, the odds makers, I think got it right. I guess I, I understand that you're tasked to pick an upset here.

Does this upset involve a finish, Luke? It's not part of your bet, but do you see this as something that they go the three rounds and Green's got the edge by outworking him? What are you leaning toward here? Again, straight up, you know, under better circumstances, I would actually think Turner finishes him off at range. In these circumstances, I can see Bobby having success, potentially pressuring him against the fence a little bit. circumstances i would i would actually think turner finishes him off uh at range and these circumstances i can see bobby having success potentially pressuring him against the fence

a little bit um now bobby often doesn't fight in the most disciplined ways which is why i understand where he's an underdog still his boxing pressuring i think he's gonna have to fort force uh turner to kind of quit a little bit um or force his body to just not be able to tolerate the kind of punishment. There's going to have to be kind of like a push into him to do that. You know, again, that's why he's an underdog, but I'll take the shot. Okay. Here's what's interesting. We're talking about the things that Jalen Turner has to combat with the losing skid, the recent comments of short nature. Luke Bobby Green has been in the news this week for you're nearly getting into a hotel altercation with one Armand Saryukian who will be in the main event.

Green throwing up, you know, sort of live reaction video the other day from him in the hotel and basically saying that Saryukian's people came up on him. They were hostile. They jumped him. And he claims to have delivered sort of a quick two-piece to one of Saryukian's boys. And that nearly led to a big scuffle. Luke, it seems there's some video of this, actually. This isn't quite Habib cornering the GOAT at UFC 223, forcing Conor to get on a jet plane to get to Brooklyn,

but here is no sound here, although you can read some subtitles. Luke, what are you going to make of this? This is the first time I'm watching this in real time. This dude on the left, I used to train with him. Yeah, I used to train with him. Oh, Christoph. Christoph from UFC PR. Yeah.

I used to train with him back in the day. He's a great dude, by the way. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month.

Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. I mean, guys, you know what I'm saying? It's not hard to not get in a fight in a hotel. Like, I don't even blame Bobby Green, man. Like, these guys are just, you know, inviting. I mean, I don't know what the source of the drama is, but it's like, guys, just as a rule of thumb,

it's very easy to not get into a fight in a hotel, even with people you don't like. Yeah, but look, it's fight week. Tensions are raised. People are trying to make weight. Maybe it's not as easy as you think to not get into something. I mean, we see it a lot. It's pretty easy. It's pretty easy.

Remember, Vittori almost killed that guy that tried to miss weight against him. I mean, it happened. Yeah, like I said, that's not an example of restraint, BC. Yeah, Kute Laba had a big thing that time in the lobby. You mean the guy who dresses up as the Incredible Hulk? Jeremy Stephens and Yair nearly came to blows there in the lobby. Look, it freaking happens, all right? Yeah, I know.

It's also very easy to not do that. That's how we roll. Thank you to Mikey Mormont for grabbing it. Here's a second video that Armand Saryukian uploaded here of him. I don't know the context here, Luke, but he does look like an Armenian like an armenian hulk he's on the phone you think he's talking to dana or uh i don't know dude look at the cauliflower ear on this guy jesus christ so he's claiming in that subtitle that bobby green's trying to make a scene he's blaming it on him i'm not sure who instigated it but it seems like i don't know i look to me

like bobby green was sitting down minding his business yeah what am i missing yeah i mean i would knowing bobby green's personality i wouldn't put it past him to get into something like this but i hear what you're saying it seemed like sorry listen i'm not even saying like who the hell knows what they said to each other to like enrage the other guy what i'm saying is how necessary was it to approach a sitting Bobby Green minding his own business how essential was that interaction because I that's that's at the root of this you don't do that there's no fight right so I don't I mean I don't know I don't know Luke you never know what was said you never know if this is a reaction to social media or what have you people

keep receipts maybe it's a future fight I I don't know, but that's the business that Bobby Green and Saryukian, for that matter, will have to attend to this lingering over their head. Let's go into my underdog pick, though, if we can transition and keep the show going here, Luke. I'm going to keep on this UFC card, and this is my fight of the weekend. Kelvin Gastelum versus Sean Brady

in a virtual welterweight pick-em. Technically, Sean Brady is your betting favorite at minus 118. Kelvin Gastelum at minus 104 on FanDuel. For Gastelum, it's a return to the welterweight division. He looked fantastic in those picks, especially the side-by-side comparison. The whole question is, with the discipline locked in, provided he made the weight cleanly, healthily, and safely, all that, will we see a reformed Kevin Gastelum?

Will we see the continuation of a lot of the hit or miss up and down style where he can look like a contender one night and not the next night against Chris Weidman in New York, Luke? Sean Brady has to answer a lot of questions, too, coming off this Bilal Muhammad fight. All things considered, though, Luke, it's going to come down because Gastelum can wrestle to what Brady can do on the feet. How much has he evolved his striking?

It was a humbling knockout loss to Bilal Muhammad that exposed his lack of striking game at that level. If Gastelum has made this weight safely, he's got a great chin. I mean, he'll go the distance, Luke. He'll absorb punishment and that that's always been an issue i think he can win this three rounds let's let's let's ride his striking he's technically the underdog against mk zone sean brady wow the second straight fight he may not return my calls after this but that's the price we pay in this game sean brady knows i

love him at the end of the day luke but this is what it's about hard-ass boons luke as they said and above the rim it's about real talk like men do putting it on the line and i'm telling you here kelvin gaslam changed my life at ufc 236 luke maybe maybe he did let me let me ask you about this i'm not even saying you're wrong because the i think the odds seem pretty fair having Having a strong feeling about this one, I don't. Perhaps you do. This is a very, very close fight with enormous stakes. It's a great fight because there's so many questions on both sides. That's what's great.

So let me ask you to make the case for Gaston a little bit more explicit if I can. If you were to guess what kind of game plan Sean Brady's gonna have what would you say and I ask it in this context which is I know a lot of people are like well he didn't show great striking against Bilal Muhammad and I think that's a fair criticism but the idea that he has to do that here I'm not saying he won't but if I'm Sean Brady the ground is where I have the most success. Black belt in jiu-jitsu, strong as a fucking ox. Gastelum did make weight, everybody. And I think Jalen Turner is walking to the scale now.

We'll get an update in just a minute. But in the case of Gastelum, he made it. You know, you know he's going to try and test it. Gastelum has fast hands, great combinations. I'm sure striking at feet will be some part of it. But I'm going to guess Sean Brady is going to look for that. You're betting that that won't work. Is that what you're saying? I'm betting that he's not going to be able to keep Gastelum down to, to rain down enough sustained ground and pound success or the threat of submissions to ultimately put him in a spot to

finish this fight because Gastelum, if anything is, is, uh, resilient. I mean, he's stubborn. He'll take big punishment, keep trying. I mean, I always reference that wide loss to Robert Whitaker that I over-inflate the success he may or may not have had. But he's proved, even in losses to very elite middleweights, that he's in those fights. He just isn't doing enough. So here's the deal.

We're asking a lot of Sean Brady. We're asking him to repair his striking from one fight to another. know there's been delays in his comeback so it's given him more time but i don't know if that's possible luke i think the the the greater possibility is that sean improves his striking and the threat of his own right hand but in an effort to increase whatever advantages he may have on the ground in terms of setting up takedowns. I just don't look at Gastelum as somebody who's going to, I don't know, submit to that Luke to be, to, to have huge issues in that. And when they do scramble on the feet, I just like Kelvin Gastelum's game a lot more. I like the power he's going to bring back to this lower weight class. Yeah. I think he's going to win this fight, Luke. I think this will be that nice little resurrection moment, put him

back in good graces, get him back into a big fight. What he does from here, I don't know. It's really hard to gauge on this guy when he'll come back around and remind you how good he can be. Consistency has just not been a thing he's been able to secure. He's consistently decent in defeat against great names. That's the only consistency about it, right? Outside of the defeats. But he's got a lot of reasons right now in this age you know a good amount left to turn this around and reinvent himself in a division that's not as deep maybe arguably at the top as he came from from a middleweight yeah i think i like it here luke are you are you positing a scenario to go back to that term once again that brady has a lot more success in the top position

than I'm going to give him credit for here ahead of the fight. Same thing I'm going to say about Armin Saryukian. I certainly believe that the talent is there, but it doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is what he can prove, right? To borrow from a few people. Yeah, you're under 500. Yeah.

It doesn't matter. Like, it just doesn't matter. You have to go out there and prove it in scenarios like this. And, you know, even if he wins with that wrestling kind of game plan, we both know what's going to happen. There's still going to be a lot of questions surrounding some of the other parts of his game that have tripped him up, but it would be a enormous boost for Sean Brady.

And conversely, I mean, to, to ward off the kind of athlete and intense grappler that Brady is would be hugely restorative for Kelvinvin gastelum as well big big fight love it hey luke do you think that if you lose by the way did you see the timeout real quick jalen turner misses weight 157 oh boy oh boy this makes the bobby green pick a little bit more interesting luke and i'm not again these are all look at our look at our results our

results suck ass but you can at least see my reason for having some skepticism, right? You can at least see that. Even though I haven't won yet, and even though we're virtually tied, we're very close right here. I got one more win than you. You've got the other categories. Mikey's telling us that Jalen Turner did not look great coming to the scale, and the chat was saying that he was seven pounds over yesterday. That's a very interesting development, something worth watching here.

Can I offer you a pre-end-of-year lifeline that says, Hey, Luke, I know you might not be into the jazz fusion, the jam band scene, a lot of this bullshit musically that I'm into. Now, really, it's brilliant genius stuff, Luke, psychedelic rock. I mean, it's just that I'm on top of my game right now. These ears. I can hear Jimmy. I can hear Jimmy.

So I want to offer you this, Luke. Instead of the concert scene, you have to accept to purchase with your own money a pair of Project Rock X UFC sneakers, and you have to wear them with a suit at the next five times we were on camera in 2024. Five times? Five times. No one sees you below the waist. You remember your pink pants from Miami. No one talks about them anymore.

Luke, come on. Five times. Five times. You had me going until five times. You got to shorten that up a little bit. Okay. All right. Okay. Three. I'll give you three. I'll give you three i'll give you three you would take that bet you'd have to purchase the project rock shoes you'd have

to wear them three times with the possibility of me calling them out on a live stream when we have a suit and tie on luke on top of that yeah this sounds like delectable this is better than going to otl and friends i think because you may end up enjoying that. I won't enjoy that at all. No, I won't do that aggressively. All right, let's keep it going here. Luke, underdog, which essentially means which UFC women's match, sorry, not underdog, over-under, will the fight go the distance or not,

which typically means Luke will take the easy way out. So, Luke, I tried to match you on the easy way out here. Which way are you going? Yes, I did, in fact, take the easy way out. So, Luke, I tried to match you on the easy way out here. Which way are you going? Yes, I did, in fact, take the easy way out. It is never a statistical certainty, but the odds are always in your favor when you go with, you know, sadly picking a women's fighter to go the distance. So I shall.

Misha Tate taking on Julia Avila. I'm going to have going the distance. By the way, interesting stakes in this one. Julia Avila, as I mentioned before, has had enormous amounts of fights canceled throughout her career. As a consequence, has not been as active, I think, as she wanted to be.

Some of that is not her fault. Some of it is. But the bigger point is Misha Tate, 37, and has kind of openly this week hinted that retirement is at least possible, you know, a very fluid situation, but at least something that isn't utterly disconnected from her thinking.

So big fight here for her as well. She had this return to the UFC that I think she had envisioned perhaps going a little bit differently. It looks like she's always had a little bit of trouble since the return, getting out of third gear a little bit. We'll see. We'll see. Her last two wins were by finishes. Luke, a TKO of Marion Renaud in 2021.

And then going all the way back to the title winning submission when she put Holly home to sleep at UFC 196. She also has lost once by stoppage that was against Amanda Nunes at UFC 200. So it's a good bet. In fact, it was my original bet and you matched it not really reading too deeply into it luke but here's what here's my uh here's my audible at the line of scrimmage right omaha omaha uh veronica hardy yeah veronica hardy's back in the curtain jerker here the wife of dan hardy uh you just went to the other women's fight normally my say see i was

gonna go i was gonna go um uh mike perry go in the distance but then i'm like that's too volatile then i was gonna go ryan garcia not going the distance i'm like that's too volatile yeah that you could make that pick yes that fight is not going the distance if you're gonna play with chicks on this segment luke i'm gonna play with chicks right there with you so hardy versus horth jamie lynn horth is the opponent as veronica hardy looks to continue this comeback from look she had remember she was gone for like almost three years i don't know if you ever listened too deeply on what she told ariel but she had like real serious

concussion uh syndrome like recovery issues from that you know wow yeah you know it's some people it's they're i mean not not to say that concussion is not serious in every case but we have seen a range of experiences and people getting over it dude i knew a jiu-jitsu instructor who just got kneed in the head one time accidentally in practice jiu-jitsu practice he accidentally got kneed in the head and it was like right right on the temple and from a bigger partner or training partner and had to stop teaching for like a year had sensitivity to light so we couldn't be under the mats that's what she had she had something similar that i saw beya malecki another ufc female fighter who recently went through that after a knockout

loss too and was open and honest about it on instagram sometimes you can lose a whole year of your career you know i mean i guess that's more yeah i guess that's why so many you know quarterbacks are retiring young nowadays and walking away. I mean, look at Andrew Luck, Luke, ahead of before any issues would happen. I mean, we've seen a lot. Roethlisberger didn't walk away early, though, did he? No, no. Can you imagine what he's walking around with in that dome piece?

Two Super Bowl rings. That's what he's probably walking around with. Great quarterback. Fair point, yeah. Bad date, Luke, as we saw earlier in his career. But let's keep the debate going. You're taking Tate Avila to go the distance i'm taking hardy versus horth hopefully somebody's uh somebody will finish here while you know beyond just people that are gross that are watching this

for reasons beyond fighting luke you're a disgusting human being no i mean i did i wasn't referencing either of us i'm saying like that that happens we live in a world with a lot of you know you know what i mean i mean i don't know you know how could i transition out of this that's the real question like is there a way to massage out of this luke yeah we can go to the next one yes no we might just have to sit in this a little bit longer all right let's go to ko or sub luke thomas which direction you going here feel pretty good about this one um not good at this game so you know take that for what it's worth sub 500 but i'm gonna go punahele soriano and dustin stoltsfus ending in ko soriano swings as joe rogan says for the bleachers, BC, for the bleachers. And Stoltzfus is more of sort of a well-rounded, kind of beat you however he can kind of fighter.

So that one, by the way, I do think is defensively vulnerable as well. So Soriano could lose because he is also defensively vulnerable, but he also is just throwing fucking hammers in, you know, every way he possibly can for as long as he can. So that seems to be for a nice recipe for chaos, probably in one direction, but potentially in both. We'll see. Well, they both need to win really bad,

so that's going to amp up the want to get after it. I like that pick a lot. My KO or sub, I'm going to go submission here. UFC Austin, look, Wellington, Turman, Luke, he's fighting out of Connecticut there in the greater Danbury, Glover, Teixeira, MMA area. He has not had a great run of late, but he is a submission specialist. He's not afraid to mix it up. We're going to see Wellington Turman here against Jared Gordon.

And for the 27-year-old Brazilian Turman, Luke, last two fights have been defeats decision losses to Petroski and Randy Brown he has lost in fact four of his last six UFC fights in general this bet is more about just what you were talking about in that Puna fight like they need wins there right now this man needs a big win look for Terman to get after it and look for him to scoop up that submission against Jared Gordon to really lift me one day closer to see you rocking Project X with a suit and tie. Look, this is going to be so good, right? It's going to be so good.

Listen, here's how I'm going to game the system. And you just haven't accepted this yet. Either I win and you come to my concert and you just have the worst time of your life while I, you know, enjoy myself every second of your demise. Or you think the opposite is going to happen, but I'm just going to go take some drugs and overdose and you're going to have to take me back to the hospital in Connecticut or some other place like you did previously. New London, Connecticut, where you almost, would you say, like when people say I almost died, usually like they, it could be like they had a 2% chance and they're, they're over-inflating it that night. Luke, did did you almost die what was the percentage that you almost died that night

you weren't bad almost that wasn't bad shit i was starting to think like what am i gonna do here morning campbell is that is that a product is that a thing morning campbell morning campbell with ariel helwani that's that was the path you were having for it that'd be a great show right be fantastic all right uh featuring featuring jed mishu pornography arby's and terrible dad rock there it is no show gets you amped up and rubbed up like morning cum ball uh let's go over to this luke this okay bet segment has been brought to you by fan dual sports Sportsbook. Make every moment more with this fantastic FanDuel Sportsbook app. Luke, we did not end up making bets related to the large BKFC pay-per-view card that's going to go down this evening in Salt Lake City. Do you have any

comments about it? Ben Rothwell versus Todd Duffy, as we stated earlier, is off the card. Still a good amount of fights, but the one we care about here is Eddie Alvarez versus Mike Perry a middleweight attraction we know what's at stake really for Perry in a lot of ways to continue this this incredible turnaround since being cut by the UFC and transitioning over to for some hybrid sports I guess BKFC is a hybrid sport in many ways do you have a pick in this main event do you care Luke because I'm going to be watching like pants on but I'm going to be into this I think Eddie Alvarez is certainly like he always does is going to bring the fight to mike perry but uh i just how do you not love the streak that mike perry is on and the form that he's in and what he's doing seems to be the face of that organization don't really care about

the rest of that card at this point i would just tell you i care mostly about that main event to the extent that we pay attention to it at all. But in all seriousness, the Mike Perry story is compelling. Also for Eddie, it's like, you know, we know that he probably doesn't have a ton of fights left. And if this one goes south, what does that mean for his future? Again, I'm not suggesting that that automatically declares that it's over. That's not what I'm saying. But he has long in the tooth and has been in a lot of fights and a lot of wars.

It probably is not that far away. What would a loss here mean? Or conversely, you know, what would it mean for him to get a win? It'd be huge. So we'll see. Is that your way of saying Mike Perry wins by decision? Yeah, I think Mike Perry, I think Mike Perry probably stops him. Yeah.

All right. We'll see. We'll see. Eddie does get dropped by. No, I think he should win. I just, I don't know if he'll get the knockout because Eddie has a flash chin, but a chin that's long suffering. We know that.

So it's hard in the sport. It's hard to deal out sustained punishment when your hands get injured. This is, it's a weird sport. It really is. So Turner came back and made 156 and apparently someone said the scale was off backstage. Yeah. So that would throw everyone off who had sort of weighed themselves in before the way he said it was yeah he said it was all right look let's transition out of okay bet into a few topics of latest news and this aligns with this weekend the zone saturday night the toyota center

in houston ryan garcia the 140 pound star is back what is it uh eight months removed from his first defeat in that super fight in april against gervonta tank davis when garcia was dropped on a seventh round body shot was unable or maybe unwilling to beat the count he is subsequently referenced in a pre-existing rib injury that he brought into but look no one's really talking about gervonta davis or ryan garcia's opponent mexico's oscar duarte the 27 year old who brings a 29 one-in-one record with 21 KOs and a reputation as a guy who's never beaten a big name meaning this is a big step up against Ryan Garcia but somebody who's dangerous enough should go things things go wrong for Ryan

and I think Luke we're still in that window and maybe we'll always be there where whether we're talking about Ryan coming back in a showcase fight which this has the potential to be like a get well fight against a guy who's dangerous but limited or when he goes in there in a big one we're always questioning his head movement his commitment his chin his defense all of these things you add into that that he enters his first fight with trainer Derek James, which marks the third trainer in three years after failed runs with Eddie Reynoso and then a three-fight run with Joe Goosen. But, Luke, no one's even talking about that. This is as bizarre a turn of events as I can remember.

Ryan Garcia has been feuding exclusively with Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins of Golden Boy. Before we throw to this video and talk about some of the follow-up and all of that, Luke, I want to kind of get people up to speed at sort of how some of this started. Garcia and De La Hoya had issues ranging back to 2019. That's when Garcia was in the Reynoso camp along with Team Canelo. Canelo had exited his Golden Boy deal when DAZN essentially defaulted upon paying the remainder of that 10

fight $365 million deal that Canelo signed in 2018. So he was already on the outs with Oscar. Oscar and Ryan got into a war, but they settled that war of words by re-signing Garcia to a multi-year extension. No terms of the deal were disclosed, but if you that war of words by re-signing Garcia to a multi-year extension. No terms of the deal were disclosed, but if you remember back in 2019, they put forth in the press release that it was like a big deal, making him one of the highest paid fighters in the sport. So things were good for a while, but during that stretch, if you remember, Garcia sat out nearly a year and a half with mental health injuries, with a broken wrist, with stuff like that. And then we go back to this calendar year.

Immediately after Ryan lost to Tank Davis, it was Oscar who was very public. By the way, Oscar and Bernard skipped the post-fight press conference for that. They would later say it was miscommunication. But they were like outright publicly putting him down in the immediate aftermath, saying they told him not to take the rehydration clause that he went rogue on his own and luke this year right after that fight garcia's uh lawyer sent a letter to the california courts in june saying that oscar de la joya and golden boy have defaulted upon the promotional agreement de la joya countersued saying essentially that their deal is rock solid and it's Ryan's issue. And now we are here this week. And what set off this week was that Bernard Hopkins last week publicly was asked about whether Ryan will bounce back from the loss to tank. And what Hopkins

essentially said was Oscar and I will make the decision for him after this fight, after we see what he looks like. Luke, that got Ryan Garcia pretty pissed off, and it all led to this bizarre press conference yesterday. Let's go to the videotape, essentially highlighting some of the weird back and forths. I want you to watch Oscar De La Hoya's face the whole time in the background as we check this out. You know, one thing that's been on my heart is uh the statements that bernard made where he'll decide if i'm gonna finish or if i should continue boxing after this fight he don't he don't decide that my coach does my team does everybody that you know grinds with me day in and

day out that's who decides and ultimately god decides not him. Nobody was telling him when to stop boxing. You know, he stopped boxing at, what, 45? So kudos to him. But he don't determine that. Oscar's saying that, you know, we misinterpret, you know, what they say. It's plain English. I didn't hear anybody speaking any language I don't know. So, you know, it's very clear to me that, you know, they're backing this guy to beat me just like they thought Duna was going to beat me. He was the next Filipino star. They're saying he's the next Mexican star. He also said that, you know, he calls out on the bullshit, the lies. Man, last time I checked, he said he never loses a white boy, and then Joe Smith Jr. knocked him out of the ring.

Last time I checked, Joe Smith Jr. was white. So, you know, they be lying. So at the end of the day you know i'll come to show what i what i bring and i'm laser focused and that's where this confidence comes from here's what makes this different here's what makes this different than what you're used to in beefs between promoter and fighter across any sport they're saying this right in front of each other like bernard hopkins came out and did an opening statement in which he kind of was you know a little bit prickish and throwing some shots at garcia stood up and recite you know retaliated you saw de la joya's face dude this is a bizarre

soap opera luke bizarre it is um here's what stands out to me. I'm not saying this is the most important part of the story. What I cannot seem to understand, and this is less true about Bernard Hopkins, but he has some blame to share here as well, but it's mostly about Oscar from what I can tell. They don't seem to understand their leveraging position very well right where they've had a number of departures most notably Canelo and their stable of fighters has shrunk in both relevance and size and it doesn't cut you off you add in Virgil Ortiz the unbeaten welterweight having weight and health issues over the last year that have completely sidelined him they have nobody besides Ryan Garcia at the moment like nobody besides Munguia. Munguia and Garcia. Yeah, and they've got Munguia,

which he might get a Canelo fight. We shall see, but I don't know exactly what his biggest upside would be beyond that, which is significant, but beyond that, there's not much more, right? All of that is in play, and it doesn't seem to be affecting

Oscar's decision-making in any way that i can detect about making reasonable choices about the preservation of golden boy promotions because when ryan's contract is up it seems like a foregone conclusion he will leave munguia won't fight forever my guy who the fuck is going to be in your company that you're going to promote after this getting sideways with one of the young sure he you know he stumbled against tank fine but one of the young stars of boxing i also have to say bc ryan garcia taking ownership of his career not letting people shit on him nice to see nice to see nice to see him stand up for himself you know i mean

look we only got that fight him against tank where two major networks are involved and the zone agreed to actually allow showtime to exclusively produce in broadcast you know or not broadcast because they shared it across both networks but to produce it themselves that didn't make de la joya happy that compromised his relationship with the zone like there's no question about it, but Ryan pushed forth and put his own career first, which is what we want the younger stars of today to do, to basically realize that your promoter works for you and not the other way around.

So it's not as if Ryan isn't without some level of blame or concern in certain areas. I think him having a third trainer in the third in three years and having the last two trainers and Canelo publicly question his work ethic, commitment, coachability. Those are all big issues. But what his promotion is doing in real time to discredit and put him down in some back and forth is so short-sighted to your point. This is the only guy you have. And this guy matters for as long as he's going to keep fighting, right? He matters. And you're essentially shitting on him.

So here's the tweet that Oscar put out immediately after this press conference that he since deleted. I want to read it to you. Now, mind you, Ryan Garcia sat out for a month, a year and a half, mostly due to mental health issues and then became an advocate for that. De La Hoya has had legions of mental health issues that have led him in and out of drug rehab for more than a decade. But here's what Oscar said. I have to say that I'm really concerned

about Ryan Garcia's state of mind, considering his history of mental instability, which he has documented himself. His current erratic behavior shows he's clearly not focused on Saturday's fight. You won't take my calls, Ryan. I hope you're okay. End quote. I want to come out here and say that, that I'm shocked. They're still working together. Now, what does that mean? He's under contract, Ryan. So he's got to fight it out. Meaning if this went to court, Luke, everyone's like, well, why doesn't Ryan just sue and leave? Well, they ha it seems without having the, you know, access to the contract, it seems that they know what they're doing promotional. And they've got them locked up to the degree that Ryan has to fight his way out of his deal. And that would be it. They already

tried. Ryan already tried this year to try to create some type of court injunction and, and get out of his deal. Andre Ward famously tried that and basically missed almost three full years of his prime, lost three court battles to Dan Goosen. And then before Dan Goosen died of cancer, they essentially agreed to just settle it. So Ward can get back in the ring. Like when you do this, Demetrius Andre did this to when he was co-promoted by star boxing and by banner promotions, he wanted to go to rock nation and it led to lawsuits and him sitting out.

It can derail your career because the contracts are typically rock solid, meaning that the promoter has to give you X amount of fights during the year. They have to promote it. So like golden boys doing their job in theory, but they're also openly shitting on this guy. And like, I, so when I say, I can't even believe they're still working together, I'm referencing that I still can't believe that Oscar De La Hoya went on

Twitter after Ryan's lost a tank and just eviscerated him. You remember that? Like calling out his toughness, saying he should have got up from the knockdown, saying it was his fault for accepting a stupid hydration clause. Like all these things that seem very unforgivable in terms of the strain between fighter and promoter. And although Eddie Hearn has not had the success in his own U.S.

invasion that I'm sure he hoped for, Eddie Hearn is creating a new template where the promoters are like working for the fighters, right? The fighters are the bosses here, especially the stars. It's just the way it is. This isn't the 1970s and 80s where everybody's suing Don King after their contract is up because he's taking such large chunks. You got to give Al Heyman and PBC and Mayweather credit for this modern era of redefining the control in boxing. Now, the control here is in the promotional deal because it favors the promoter.

But they are, in my opinion, putting that control in jeopardy by publicly, publicly disparaging him at every turn. Let me ask you a question about that, BC, if I may. To what extent in your experience in boxing coverage have you seen something similar let me list some other examples of like a promoter who got sideways with her fighter because you know while while Anthony Joshua's father was mad at Eddie Hearn after the Ruiz fight the first one anyway um in general you would say that Eddie Hearn has been a pretty

good uh advocate for Anthony Joshua's causes, at least publicly speaking, right? Sure. But I remember Bob Arum got sideways with, for example, Bud Crawford. That is a scenario that stands out. Let me jump in and say Bernard Hopkins has gotten sideways with every promoter he's ever had. That needs to be said, too. It happens to a certain degree, but this is next level. Right.

So I was going to ask you. So Titoana they had certainly they had an insane war of words but that's slightly different too it's a different sport a different kind of culture but you know you you can name all the times that a various promoters gotten sideways with one of their fighters to what extent did their bad blood mirror what you see here what is the most noteworthy difference is it just that they air it out publicly or is there because it seems to me bc there's a certain kind of venom that the other ones didn't have if that's the difference i think bob last thing on this bob and bud seemed frustrated by each other and i'm sure there may be more claims than that these fucking guys seem to hate each other and it much different feel there's a difference in the bud bob case bud was

coming to the end of an expiring deal and they were sort of just exiting by throwing shots at each other bud accused racistness you know racism bob came back and said you were never the draw you were there was supposed to be a bud lawsuit okay and it didn't really go anywhere and it is what it is now it's not that i haven't been or you haven't been involved with fights. Let's say Bob Arum, Dana White, where it's obvious that they're sort of at odds or against, I mean, Francis Ngannou's situation in the gone fight with Dana, not being willing to put the belt around his waist. Like that's largely unprecedented, right? Like, you know, but we have seen some levels of Dana and Randy Couture fighting and being at odds over business. I guess the

difference is a lot of times those promoters were fighting for their own business bottom line and trying to protect themselves, but they weren't making it this personal. Like he's outright disparaging Garcia publicly after that loss. Like you, that's, that's the time you should be really no matter what your fighter is saying. That's the time where publicly you should be reassuring everybody he's young he's going to be fine he took this big chance let's give him credit for it he's daring to be great he had a pre-existing rib injury like all those things should be the even if you have all these issues with him and even if publicly you're admitting to some of those issues the difference

is that oscar just is going this next level and just dropping bombs on him just basically like make trying to make him look crazy. I mean, that tweet by Oscar about mental health is fucking gross. That's a, that's a bullshit. Especially with Oscar's history, especially like that's a bullshit. But look,

I mean, Oscar is my favorite fighter of all time and I still get jazzed interviewing him, but I know that Oscar as a person, a lot of times in this game has sucked. He said things as a promoter that he hasn't backed up. He has all these things, right? He does a lot of shit that it's really hard to defend and get behind but this to

me is just petty like for the for the sake of it where you're actually potentially blowing up your only the only thing that still makes them golden boy a true elite promoter is ryan garcia right yeah they're lucky that the zone resigned them, but they lost Canelo. In fact, you know, Oscar lost 90% of his roster to the PBC when, when he split ways with Richard Schaefer and Al Heyman took PBC and launched in 2015. And Oscar who was in rehab at the time regrouped, went back to HBO. Like Oscar's a survivor in this space, but this is bullshit. This is like petty bullshit. Like we don't even see Dana go to this level.

I mean, Dana does some petty shit. And you know, when somebody misses Wade and saying, oh, Amanda Nunes will never main event again, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff that didn't turn out real. I guess I just don't see people going to this effort where it's like, it's not, you're not the UFC where you have eight, you know, where you have nine stars and another 15 must see fighters, right. Or whatever, whatever the numbers are, you have one stars and another 15 must-see fighters right or whatever whatever the numbers are you have one that's the only guy you should be going out of your way to

protect him publicly at every turn even if you're feuding with him privately because you need to keep him happy you need to get him re-signed it should never be about you versus him only they made it about both of them versus him. And it's embarrassing to be honest. It's really, it's embarrassing. And I hate doing both of those where I reveal that Oscar's my guy. He is, you can't pick who you love. Luke, I loved Oscar as a boxer. I love, he had balls, yet he was this pretty boy.

He made the biggest fights ever. I love him. But what he has brought to the sport since then, even with some huge success in the late 2000s as the house promoter for Floyd Mayweather and all those stars that would eventually go to the PBC. I mean, there was a time in 2010, 2012, like, you know, Golden Boy is arguably the biggest promoter in boxing at that point. Those were successes for Oscar. But he used to always harp about being fan first and changing the game. Luke, he lies about that shit all the time.

I don't know if you remember before May Mac, when he was saying, Hey, Hey Connor, if you want a real boxing match, you should fight Canelo. Then what did he do? The week of May Mac,

he sent a letter to every boxing writer and promoter, urging them to not watch Mayweather McGregor and to boycott it. So they can send a message to the rest of boxing that this type of crossover bullshit won't be allowed. That's like three months after he offered Canelo to Conor. So like we're talking about freezing cold takes Jesus. It's just a lot of it. Unfortunately, it's just a lot of bullshit from Oscar. And I love him, Luke, but I'm always going to call out the truth and in this case how are you going to

justify that him and hopkins are right or that they're taking a position that would benefit their company like this is this is mind-boggling to me you said it all i don't have much to add again i just sort of reflect on the decision making of oscar and aside from just how fucking gross it is to like use someone's battle with mental health to make some kind of shitty point because you got aired out at a press conference even that aside although i guess that's part of it just decisions like that it's like dude if these are people that you want to do business with long term this seems like a real bad way of trying to go about securing it yeah it seems quite i don't know how else to put it, right, BC? If these are people you want to stay, maybe you don't,

but then if you don't want to be in the Ryan Garcia business, what kind of business do you want to be in? Also, BC, last question on this because I know we got to move around, but would PBC not being on Showtime anymore embolden him to think he could easily refill his roster?

Like, does it make them available in some kind of way that he can take advantage of the no the opening of the marketplace because at the end of the day pbc is technically not a promotion right they have their own promoters that they use like tgb made with a promotion yeah um technically they're they're uh you know an advisory managerial house and all those guys are loyal to al we expect pbc to announce their next tv home hopefully soon luke because we're all sort of waiting around especially us x are now soon to be x show timers sort of just trying to follow where the direction of the business is going no he wouldn't have any in on that he oscar has re-signed his golden boy deal with the zone recently, but where's the next great prospect that Oscar's grabbing out of the Olympics?

Where's that next great thing? I don't know what the future is for that promotion, and this is bizarre. Seriously, bizarre behavior that even with this change up in the business with PBC finding a new home, it's not going to really change anything with Oscar unless the zone goes out and gets a really big co-promoter. I know they have match room and that's helped Oscar stay alive by being able to match his fighters against Eddie Hearn's fighters on the zone. But let's not forget, Luke, they had to don't spend a lot of money when they launched to get all those middleweights and super middleweights in there. And they could barely match them against each other.

They were barely able to make a third Canelo triple G fight, right? Like people are not going out of their way to work with them, which is kind of why we are shocked that that tank versus Ryan partnership between the two networks ever even happened to begin with. It was great for boxing. What Ryan Garcia is trying to do is make really big events for himself, for the sport. Like this is something that we should embrace. And to be honest, something that golden boy should be embracing.

Golden boy should be on the phone with Dana right now, trying to repair things and trying to say, hey, Zupa boxing, you want to be a co-promoter in Ryan Garcia versus Sean O'Malley inside the UFC cage with four ounce gloves? Like that's probably the direction he should be going to try to maximize what Ryan Garcia can bring to the table. Not this. This is where you got to swallow any sort of like pride or, oh, what the fighter said something about me. Who cares? You're the promoter. It's about, it's about putting up

the money for the event and taking home. If it was a successful event, all the, all the extras of the money, like that's what promotion is, right? It's not about petty individual breakdowns. It's why say what you will about Vince McMahon, Luke, and everyone always will. But it's, it's, he was always about business at the end of the day. CM Punk just came back to WWE. I know Vince technically isn't in power right now. But CM Punk just came back to WWE after 10 years. And I saw the report today that they're actually talking about a Steve Austin versus CM Punk, like, old guy WrestleMania match.

That's what real promoters do. That's why I challenged Dana in this space and be like. Reheated hits. You know, that's why you should basically be going, OK, I don't like Francis right now, but I'll never say never about him coming back and fighting. Right. You've got to always leave that door open. This is almost Dana like behavior from Oscar. I hate it. I'll just say this. Vince McMahon looks so youthful with that hair dye.

I just cannot. He fooled me. He fooled me. I was like, is that guy? That guy can't be a day above 40, you you know when he dyes his hair that way meanwhile his his 50 year old son shane mcmahon is doing backflips off the top of a cage with full salt and pepper so look you do the math right who's who's uh who's drapes are no all right let's go to topic youthful once again we're talking about another man's pubic hair today great it's a great show look this show is brilliantly dumb and you know that at the end of the day. Okay.

That's true. That's true. All right. Topic number two. Look, this is a surprise. It's a big ass surprise to me. So PFL has purchased Bellator. We don't know the full extent of what next year is going to look like.

Although there will be a season format. There will be two pay-per-views. And there will be a Bellator eight fight night international series. Where there will be Bellator champions. We've debated that up and down, but in terms of what network the PFL will air on, they are going back to ESPN announcing a multi-year deal that will cover PFL's regular season playoffs championship, championship events, and the Super Fight Division events that will air on ESPN Plus and ESPN Plus Pay-Per-View. It's the exclusive home for this soon-to-be-launched Pay-Per-View division. So, Luke, this is surprising to me,

given that they already have the number one MMA promotion on the globe in UFC, and we've been wondering for a while whether UFC was down with this agreement, having PFL as sort of a secondary promoter on the globe and UFC. And we've been wondering for a while, like whether UFC was down with this agreement, having PFL as sort of a secondary promoter on the streaming network. Well, PFL is not trying to be secondary anything. They're trying to be the, the co number one in the space from that standpoint, how shocked are you that Don Davis,

Peter Murray and company have gone back to the worldwide leader. I'm a little surprised. I can be honest with you. I would be lying if I said I wasn't, and for a couple of reasons. I've talked to a few people who are in the know about this kind of stuff, and I don't think the UFC is threatened by the existence of PFL on ESPN's platforms,

but I don't think that they love it. I believe that they want to be the only game in town. They should be. You don't see that in any other sport, do you that they love it. I believe that they want to be the only game in town. They should be. You don't see that in any other sport, do you? Think about it. Is there any other sport where there are leagues that are competitors where one network airs both leagues? Like, legitimately.

I suppose you could say something like a network airing multiple football conferences in college might do something like that. But to your point, it's not the most usual arrangement, is a fair way to put it um you know again i don't think they're threatened by it but i don't think that they love it that that i guess it's different when matchroom and golden boy are under the same like the zone not the same but similar to zone deals where they can be matched up against one another this is different because they're two agnostic exclusive promotion those two entities

can actually work together for the benefit of the public that you don't see that arrangement in mma we've been over that a million times um and if i know about ufc not liking that i would imagine espn would being aware of it and then so they're still doing a deal with pfl kind of says something i'm not exactly sure what but something now the deal the ufc signed in 2019 was for initially five then seven years so they don't go up for renewal until about 2026 we'll see what that looks like then. But this is certainly a great thing for the PFLBC. But the specifics of what they announced in the press release are that the ESPN coverage is going to be for the regular season playoffs,

the postseason playoffs, the World Championships, and then that eventual pay-per-view super fight division whenever that gets going for how often that gets going and for that i think being on espn is obviously great in terms of all the different kinds of coverage they can provide uh as well as any kind of integration with betting is probably pretty good right on that level and then more to that point mma fans know to go to espn plus to get mma content right because majority of it is going to be with uf. So you don't have to train anybody to sign up anywhere else. It's all kind of there.

But the BC, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there's some things missing from that or at a bare minimum things you can infer that do give me some questions about the wisdom of the deal, at least the long-term wisdom. Namely, there was no mention of PFL Europe or any of the other subsidiary brands tied to geographic locations.

So PFL Africa, PFL, wherever they're going to go. Can I interrupt you? I think PFL Europe has already signed an exclusive deal with DAZN previously, right? They have. I'll circle back to that. But there was no mention of what that was going to mean. Okay.

And certainly there was no mention of Bellator. Now, we know that the Challenger series airs on FuboTV. We know that PFL Europe, to your point, airs on DAZN. So here's what they're trying to do. They're trying to get as much media rights fees coming in by splitting the product in a bunch of different ways that they feel like it's still compelling. But BC, I cannot understand the wisdom of buying a brand that didn't have a fan base but that does have a strong roster and then siphoning it off to get media rights which i know will give them more money but you cannot convince me buying a roster and then not meaningfully use it to bolster your events to make

your product better to make it more stand out is to me a a decision that if they stick to it will lead to the demise of it that you cannot win with that formula long term, and I don't like it. Will it lead to the demise of this plan within a year, a year and a half, and they just become one full promotion, which you and I have both sort of argued and said at the end of the day probably would be a better move to be a more traditional one-stop shop, have all your talent. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree until they prove us wrong that that's a questionable decision but when you frame it the way you just did which is you buy this brand that doesn't have you know a big this or that which you can argue is true

i'm not questioning that but they're not folding it and putting it away now is there still the future of of confusion that you're going to have Bellator world titles and PFL championship titles. And they're not the same thing. Yeah. There's confusion there. That's again, an issue they're going to have to prove to us that it, that it's a failure. It might, it may be a success if it can lead to free agency and it may be a success if it can lead to separate revenue streams. And don't forget Don Davis told Ariel that they can make so much more money on international TV rights than trying to fill up American gates, which is why they do these smaller arenas. Again, you can debate that.

It's not about filling up American gates. But when you frame it under you're buying this brand and then you're this or that, I mean, look, they've already stated that the fighters are going to have the choice and that they're going to work hard to try to figure out what's the best place for everybody. So I think that even though you're right, that you're going to take some of this roster and leave them Bellator exclusive, and we can make the arguments up and down, does Bellator have an established money-making brand name

enough for this to make sense? We can't really comment on this until we see the breakdown of the roster and see who's going to the pay-per-view division, who's going to the regular season format, who's not. Because they may take the 60% of the names that matter in Bellator and infuse them right into the tournament. So I don't think we have that answer yet to necessarily criticize them

in that regard because we don't know how many Bellator fighters they're going to put into the pay-per-view division or in the regular season format. Again, is there too much going on? There might be, but it does seem their strategy of keeping the Bellator brand name alive does seem to line up with their hopes for international expansion and some of the legwork

that Scott Cogurn and company have already done in Europe. Again, will it work out? I don't know. But this news of their regular stuff going back to ESPN, I think it's a win. And it surprised me because it seemed to be, everyone was saying matter of factly that this would be the last year of their ESPN deal. And the reason why I didn't think they were coming back is again, because they are literally aiming

at competing with UFC, which has to in the long run, alienate in some form, the relationship between ESPN and UFC, in my opinion, meaning we are only, you know, like you said, two years and change away from a new TV deal for UFC. They're going to demand stupid amounts of money, just like they did when they got this current deal where they're making $950 million. We don't know where the streaming market in terms of media rights fees is going to be in two years. It could be massively contracted.

I know some folks have speculated couldn't endeavor launch their own platform seems very very unlikely i don't think that they will nevertheless bc that's going to be a story to follow about what kind of deals and where they're going to go um but here's my main point about this espn deal and why it's a win pfl whether you think the bellator international series is the stupidest idea or not same thing with pfl it's a very bad idea whether or not okay they are going to live or die based on their pay-per-view success and how much their pay-per-view success leads to recruitment of other big names so when you're telling me that they when they do launch this pay-per-view series which is going to be a big deal from the fact of in ghanu fighting anyone

especially if it's some mixed rules fight with deont wilderer that's an eye opener, or Jake Paul's MMA debut, or some of these other sort of freaky, clunky crossovers, or even Kayla versus Cyborg, for example. There are a few things you sort of like have to see. The fact that that's going to be promoted and streamed directly on ESPN, that's got to be a win, Luke. It's not like you're making people go to the new fresh app that maybe all of America doesn't have or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like even if they sign some big Amazon or Netflix or whatever deal, there's still in some ways an adjustment period of people realizing where they are, who they are, why they're on there.

Like you said, ESPN Plus, it's already known as sort of the home of the most illegal mixed martial arts. And now they're going to get to be there again. I would love to see the financial details, Luke, because we were always under the assumption that the PFL deal with ESPN was more about just getting that platform and not about being overwhelmingly financially lucrative. I would love to see how much that has changed being that they are openly bringing in Ghanu, Jake Paul, and a couple other shiny firecrackers to the table, because that's enough for ESPN to basically say to themselves, Disney, that we are going to risk that maybe this alienates UFC for the short term gain of the Ghanu popularity of the Jake Paul crossover popular.

Like, look, they're kind of risking a lot in the short term and PFL is going to benefit from that right potentially uh again it remains to be seen how much they're risking but certainly there could be costs down the road for ESPN trying to do also I'll just say this man like I never imagined ESPN would be the home of the number one dominant firm in MMA plus basically the number two and three however you had Bellator and PFL or vice versa all under one home that's that's such a dramatic win for MMA or at least you know um a service from a broadcasting standpoint to the fans that was unfathomable years ago this is this is really quite strange to see ESPN in this position used to be a big deal when they were like oh ESn is going to cover the ufc weigh-ins oh wow how amazing is that look where we are now this is bizarre you know um so

look the biggest question i have about this is this and gano versus john i do i do i do have to challenge you a little bit in the bellator thing dude please please bring it just just just one more just one more thing i want to post to consider here about this again i understand that there could be a slower path to eventually sunset the brand and they're not there yet they want to use it for crossover fired and if that's the case cool or you know again we're going to do it for some media rights fees but this is not a long-term plan we're going to sunset the brand in some other way all of that i completely get and understand if that's what's really happening here then it's no issue but if there is a long-term plan for this i just want folks to consider something like bellator at the end of its

run on paramount network was doing around 300 000 viewers not a great number by any stretch of the imagination then they go to cbs sports they did a little bit worse but not a great number and then showtime same kind of thing like this idea like oh we're gonna take bellator and put them where we don't even know if it didn't do well on any of those platforms, why would it do better on a different one? It doesn't make any sense. It just won't, other than as a way to transactionally get media rights fees. But in the process of doing that, what are you doing by dividing your roster in these interesting ways? And you might say, oh, well, if they go to Ireland, they want to use the Bellator brand.

I do think that it carries some value there, perhaps. But the whole point is to grow the PFL brand. The whole point is to grow what is the root anchor of the business, make that the new brand leader in there, take their market share by using all of their fighters, having Peter Creeley come into the Cranberries, all that kind of thing that the Irish would respond to. It doesn't, again, short-term thing, I get it.

But if it's anything more than that, it is a tragically flawed argument and a way to do business. of thing that the irish would respond to it doesn't again short-term thing i get it but if it's anything more than that it is a tragically flawed argument and a way to do business we both agree that it's potentially justifiable if it leads to that second revenue stream that is like necessary and foundational is there any thought that maybe there were some discussions i mean look i'm creating a scenario out of fake thin air But what if there was some dispute within the PFL brass and the connection with Disney and all that of saying, like, guys, will this regular season playoff format really work? I wonder if keeping alive the Bellator brand,

trying to take advantage internationally, and then keeping, which I think is the point of keeping the Bellator brand, because you're keeping champions. They're promising a championship fight in the main and co-main of all Bellator international championship series, which is interesting because Johnny Eblen, middleweight champion from Bellator, has no division at the moment in the PFL. Stuff like that, right? That kind of makes sense. Do you think that's just, was there any kind of discussion behind the scenes potentially where they're like,

maybe long-term this regular season thing doesn't work. So let's try to be everything for a year or two and we'll give it a trial. And if it looks like, you know what I'm saying? I'm wondering if that's some sort of soft launch toward like, eventually they know the real answer is just being a UFC, being a true UFC competitor with a different but similar structure and product. I wonder if there's some type of fight or internal balance between like,

no, we can make this work, but we also have this other arm for fighters that don't fit this perfectly that still can help us recruit and bring names in. I mean, look, you couldn't call it anything else but Bellator because if you called it PFL and you're giving out championships, then the knee-jerk response would be,

what's the difference between your PFL international championships and the regular season ones? It would be what's the difference between your pfl international championships and the regular season ones it would be even more confusing than it is now right i'm just i'm trying to figure out why this decision was made beyond just that second stream potentially of revenue and beyond the explanation of like not everybody's fit for the short season turn you know a turnaround it's. It's interesting. I don't know. Sounds to me like they're, they've got a media rights strategy and a belief in their core business that I think is partly right. Like imagine if they did mostly the matchmaker model,

but we've talked about this kind of borrow the grand prix, call it like an in-season tournament. The same thing the NBA is doing right in season tournament. Some guys will be in a tournament. Some guys won't, but the cards will just go. We'll make them as entertaining and as stacked as possible with the most compelling matchups. I mean, I understand that like, they're like, oh, we don't want to fill up American gates. It's not about filling up American gates per se, but you want to be the kind of promotion

that can brag about doing a good gate because you're putting on big attractions that result in big audiences demanding to see them both live and on pay-per-view. That's the, it's the result. It's the fruit that grows from the tree more so than just the reward itself. Right. It's that you have to think of it differently. And, you know, I don't know that they quite see it that way. Yeah. It's fascinating though, because they're making such a huge swing and look, getting the ESPN

deal re-signed when we all thought that wasn't a possibility. It's a big ass move. See if they can continue packaging these interesting decisions together i mean the proof luke as floyd always says will be in the putin i will say this if you want to get people to watch that bellator product don't put how many miles per hour their fucking leg kicks are don't do that to get amped up you know it's gonna get don't do that shit dude who is a fucking name one fucking person in mma that you know of whose opinion is even remotely relevant that you respect or even aware of that has been like dude i cannot wait to see how fast these fucking strikes are i can't i can't go to sleep at night until I know how fast that uppercut was. Was it 15 miles an hour or 16 miles an hour?

Life hangs in the balance. Yeah, I don't have an answer to that one, Luke. I like how in the middle of my soliloquy, you're like, you know, I'm just going to check my motherfucking phone. Fuck this motherfucker. I don't care nothing about his life. I'm always of the belief that I could have said something stupid enough during any program that people connected higher up on this program might text me and be like yeah don't go down that road again luke you know

they were like maybe the text said hey tell me yesterday maybe the text said hey maybe benil's pubes shouldn't have been part of your ufc breakdown probably not probably not you could have you could have avoided that one, you know. Okay, here's a hard-to-answer question, but I'm curious because you have been, I think, not a doubter of what PFL is doing, but someone who's openly critical in, I think, the right ways. What is a year one success?

What is a 2024 for PFL Inc. that you say to yourself, it's not perfect, they're not neck and neck with the UFC, but they have dramatically, what's that word we always say? That DAZN used to say, when you enter a market

and you just flip things upside down, Luke. Disrupt? Yeah, they love that term, disrupt. This is active disruption in the MMA space. What's the success next year? Number one, and I think this is the most important thing, and I mean that with 1 billion percent sincerity. Let us see if this antitrust case goes to trial.

Remember, in April, it's right around the corner, right? And either they'll settle before that or somehow during that process. So you might get some kind of settlement by May. What does that look like? Is there any kind of injunctive relief granted in any kind of settlement or the similar kind of requests rather than the actual process of injunctive relief? I think that is number one, because if you start reforming UFC contracts, and that's really what I mean, I mean, monetary settlement,

but some kind of actual change to the structure of how the business is run. Brand new ball game. I mean, it could completely change the industry. So that is one thing that's quick attention to. And it's right there. That's what I'm trying to tell folks. Again,

everyone wants to talk about Ian Gary's marriage. I got to tell you folks, there are things vastly more important out there than that dumb shit and it's right well i guess that's also fun too but in all seriousness in all seriousness i don't think there's an adequate huh he lives with her ex oh yeah yeah yeah there's plenty there's plenty to mock and have fun with but if i'm just being serious for a moment just for a moment okay there is like it's just right around the court five months away five months away it's right there what about the appeals what about that that shit takes time luke okay fair enough so moving on from that getting some if they if there's a

resolution then there won't be appeals right there's some kind of settlement okay so let's see that's one the second thing i would say is could they show some kind of sign you're like oh they don't care about it but doing some kind of even in France or Ireland some kind of million dollar gate can they show some kind of sign to pull at the gate in significant enough a way to say this is an attraction when we come to town even if it's international it would be a big deal not I think only Bellator and UFC have ever done a million dollar gates maybe Strikeforce did one as well but that's about it right it's very very difficult to do so that's one do they get Francis on pay-per-view? Does it do well?

Do they get Jake on pay-per-view? Does it do well? You don't need both, but if you had one and one did well, I think that would be a hit. And then some kind of reformation of their product over time. That's not as required by the end of year one, but let's see if they've learned any lessons about how that integration works or doesn't.

They might be locked into contracts that don't enable enough innovation, so I don't know exactly how that integration works or doesn't. They might be locked into contracts that don't enable enough innovation, so I don't know exactly how that would work. But what I would say is if they can't meaningfully get a big fight for Francis or a big fight for Jake that people care about and wanna see, and if they can't meaningfully show you growth in the live event space,

that isn't necessarily the end of the world, but you're asking what would success look like? You need one of those things or a couple of those things along the way to show you've actually got some juice going. Yeah. Well, they plan on having the Ingano first quarter, whether it's a boxing hybrid fight or an MMA debut,

they do plan on having a bell tour versus PFL pay-per-view in or card in February. That could be interesting. And then you got your regular season, you got your playoffs championship, and they hope to close the year with a Jake Paul pay-per-view will cyborg versus well, cyborg might open the year fighting Larissa Pacheco, which would be good. Could she close the year fight? Or could the winner close the year fighting Kayla Harrison? Who knows? I mean, there are, there is, look,

there is potential for them to, from a big picture standpoint, hit a few of these keynotes where you're like, okay, I see what this is doing. Let's see where this is going. It's one of the bigger stories to watch in all of combat sports for next year because they got stupid money behind them and that matters, Luke. And they got bold. They got bold leaders there who are saying a lot of big things. You at least want that as a fan if you want to see some real competition, right?

You got to be a little crazy in this game, Luke. You have to be different and you have to be bold, but you don't have to overdo it. What is your actual appetite for the amount of tournaments PFL is going to offer? What is your actual appetite? You're probably going to to say a little appetite i do want to see some i don't need to see a dude i don't need to see another regular season with all the weight classes i don't need to see it i don't need to see it i want to see other interesting matchups you can make by the way i don't want to have to crawl through a million different fucking places and get subscriptions to watch cedric dungbay i don't want to do that shit i want to see him on espn so again we'll see what

they do we'll see what kind of decisions they make but they've got dude the raw material is there for something great that's really what you're asking is the raw material there yes the money the roster the broadcast partners, whatever. There's a lot there. How they use and leverage those relationships, we shall see. That's proof's going to be in the pudding, or puttin', as Floyd would say. Topic number three, interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall of the UFC recently did the podcast rounds. I'm not sure who we're going to attribute this to.

Maybe the video will have it. But Luke, Aspinall outed himself as a big boxing fan, but had a lot of issues with boxing's current structure. Now, I haven't heard these comments in depth, so my knee-jerk reaction would be, hey, brother, get in line. But we are coming off such a fantastic friggin' year in boxing. So let's hear Tom Aspinall's take at what the hell they're doing wrong. Well, let me tell you, I'm a massive massive boxing fan I absolutely love the sport of boxing I absolutely can't stand the

boxing model hate it hate the way that boxing is going at the moment because I love the sport of boxing I love the science I love the the defensive techniques which is amazing I absolutely love watching like actual classic traditional boxers who are defensively brilliant like it's my favorite thing the way the sport's going at the moment is absolutely terrible the way that you look at you actual classic traditional boxers who are defensively brilliant, like it's my favorite thing. The way the sport's going at the moment is absolutely terrible. The way that you look at, you can literally look at a card, you can look at an Eddie Hearn show or Frank Warren show, any other promoter's show and know, say there's 10 fights on,

you can know at least eight of the winners before the bell rings on any of the fights. I can't stand it. Just look at that, for example. We talk about the top guys in the world. None of them are fighting each other. What is this it's hard luke because what he's saying is rooted i like tom i like tom a lot but tom is just wrong on this one dude yeah what he's saying is rooted in truth

but this is a much better argument 5 10 15 dude this is an argument Dude, this is an argument from 2012. This is an argument from 2012. Yeah, when the reality is, not only are we coming off an insanely great year where the foundational elements that prevent boxing as an unorganized entity with multiple promotions that don't like working together because they have exclusive deals with their own networks, that structure normally is enough to handicap them yet 2023 repeatedly produced big name fighters crossing the street going to another network making huge fights and also as

mikey just put in our chat um tom ain't fighting john jones anytime hold on hold on hold on not is he not only fighting john Jones. Back up a step. He's not fighting Francis, right? Because they won't co-promote. Not for him or for Jon. He's not fighting Jon Jones because they're not going to strip him. He's not even fighting Stipe Miocic. So they've taken, arguably,

depending on your ranking or whatever, one, two, and three of the division out of the equation. Now, Jon's not able to get a fight now because he's injured but it wouldn't matter if he was it seems like they're not going to make that fight so by their own promotional choices nothing more than that they're not letting basically the guy who might be the best at heavyweight and the youngest guy this new phenom fight one two or three meanwhile usic versus fury is already booked for february which has historical significance in terms of getting everything together i love tom aspinall dude i'm so glad

he's the interim champ what a what a great guy he is for the sport he is just desperately wrong about this argument could not be more wrong well it's like i hate to say this because i love tom too but he's only the interim champion right now because his own promotion while having the two biggest heavyweight names under contract at the time when it was francis and john couldn't make you that fight for three years look at where we are now to your point john versus stipe is somehow still being held up as we need it next year when we don't anymore. It would have been fine for MSG. Don't need it anymore.

Yeah, you're right. That's bad. Well, Eddie Hearn had a response to Aspinall that I have not seen. I'm interested in seeing this. What do you got, Mike? Okay, let me see. I saw a few clips of Tom Aspinall, the UFC. How do you think he doesn't think boxing is in a good place right now? Where do you think boxing is at the end, coming into december 2023 how's boxing looking i mean tom aspinall could enter

boxing and make five times more money than he could ever make in the ufc so it can't be in that better place um but he's not wrong luke look at what francis just did he's not wrong not wrong uh i mean show me the lies. Eddie Hearn's a promoter, and therefore, by definition, is a liar because there's no other way to do the job. That's the job. But show me the lie there. I don't know what it would be.

Show me the money. The final point on this topic was Daniel Cormier went on ESPN Airwaves and basically said, I was surprised to hear this. It was nice. He says Jon Jones should be stripped by the ufc john jones of course is injured torn pectoral muscle not expected to return until next summer ish so luke normally we kind of rip on dc for two things one peddling the company line at all times and two i mean look wwe did him dirty with that vertically striped referee shirt let's i mean i

mean luke you know what I mean? Like, they just hung him up. It's like the Foot Locker referee here really has been eating some cake, hasn't he? But yet he's coming out almost against his own promoter here, and maybe it's because he's always had beef and words with Jon Jones, so it continues that. But, Luke, he is 100% right, 100%.

Why are we not making Tom versus Stipe next? Or Tom, you know what I mean? Why, Luke, why? And again, Stipe doesn't have to take those fights. He doesn't have to. He can say no. Yeah, exactly. We're not just going to wait for you to give you the one fight anymore.

That was the window. The window's closed. Time to move on. Tom Aspinall is one of the best and most exciting talents, frankly, in the sport, but certainly in the heavyweight division, obviously. Let's what let's let's take this uh camaro for a ride let's see what it can do yeah a lot of outdated boxing opinions lately when the reality is we know how shitty this sport is luke but damn when it shows up dude no one no one is more

familiar with how bad boxing is than boxing fans boxing Boxing fans are a sad, you know, kind of miserable bunch. I'm not sure what they like. They don't like many, many things. Yeah, they tend to love hating their own favorite sport. That becomes their default, you know? Yeah, it becomes a default. So it can be very difficult to please them. But, you know, and again, they've had a number of years

where the UFC just did better work overall without any questions asked. Like, certainly that has been true, but not in 2023. No. Yeah. And again, let's look at the structure. Many promoters in boxing who all, a lot of them have financial reasons not to work together. There's a lot of bullshit spite as well. That keeps it apart. The UFC only has that control because they purchased this brand at a time when the sport was banned from television and on death's doorstep and to the credit of Zufa in general and the deep amounts of station casino money that the Fertittas were willing to blow through in order of hopes of getting there.

They got there, but look at how restrictively they got there for their own fighters. So to see their own fighters being like, yeah, man, this is the real shit right here. Not that bullshit boxing place where I can make all that money. Right. Not that, not that. All right, Luke, enough of that BS. I want to talk to you about something important, Luke. And it's the fact that we got to be honest at our age, really at any age,

right? When motivation can come and go, when years maybe of poor dietary choices and sediment lifestyles have added up, it can be very difficult to keep your workouts fresh and effective. But I think even more, Luke, to be motivated enough to gain the knowledge that you need to evolve as your body does and keep in line with where it should be both health-wise, nutrition-wise, fitness wise. It ain't easy, Luke. It really isn't. No, it's not. What you need is some help, right? Stop trying to do everything yourself. We don't really know necessarily what the best programming should be or when exactly you should train this muscle or that muscle and how much

get a little help, right? Use a service, an affordable service that can help you plan your workouts, track your goals, teach you how to get all the new movements that you need, really focus on you in a personalized, customized way, BC. Isn't that right? Yeah. And the app we're talking about here is FitBod, F-I-T-B-O-D. Get the name right, download it today. And you want to know why? How about a personalized workout plan designed for your fitness levels and goals? How about an app that can be in the palm of your hand and act like a coach that can help you avoid those plateaus which frustrate you

and send you back in the direction you're coming by adapting to everything you produce, Luke, an app that tracks your muscle fatigue, that designs recovery around both your results of your body and really what you have in front of you. If you've only got free weights and a bench in your basement, FitBod can set you up, organize, motivate, and push you in the direction of your dreams. Luke, we all dream of being healthy and look great in a t-shirt. And a lot of us have the willpower to get there sometimes luke but knowledge

is power man i feel like with fitbod that i got a whole team working for me but it's really just it's really just a dramatically smart smart ai inside this app luke it's fueled by greatness it is absolutely fueled by greatness listen to me folks i've said this a million times but i can't be more serious and more genuine. Going to the gym is great. Good to have willpower. Always better to go to the gym than not, right? What does Chael Sonnen always say? Just show up. He's right. It's better to go than not. But you're going to lose motivation over time if you're not getting the results out of this experience that you should be. You need something or someone, some kind of product to help you make sure that when you go to the gym, you already know what it is you have to do. Or, of course, working out from home.

Don't just show up to work out wherever that may be and be like, what am I going to do today? Worst thing you can do, you will absolutely put in a ton of work at something that may not be directing your progress at the appropriate speed. And that can mess with everything in the process. Know what you're going to do. Trust the professionals and our friends at FitBob. They can give you something. Every time you show up, you know exactly what you have to do, which exercises, which reps, which sets.

It's all planned out. All you've got to do is put a little elbow grease in, BC, and you can get some fantastic results. And look, it's not just keeping your gym sessions fresh. It's not just mixing up your workouts, exercises, rep schemes, supersets, circuits, all of that stuff. How about exposing you to 1000 exercise demonstration videos so you can learn new things the right way. Look, I'm going to admit, I always lifted weights to look good in a t-shirt only. I worked for minimum wage is what I used to say, right? Forearms, chest, little bit of shoulders. And that's about it.

I wanted to get back into working my legs for the first time, dude. I wanted to, in my mid forties, try to improve at basketball as my body's starting to go the other direction. FitBod organized a workout plan, opened me up to new ideas, things that I've been afraid to do in the gym. Like, look, it's not easy for a skinny guy to get up on the squat rack, right? And do that stuff. But FitBod step-by-step takes you through the process, helps you safely get to that next level. So if you're reading this, watching this, listening to this, I don't know how you read a podcast, but I'll tell you this, Luke, I want our listeners to download FitBod today and take this chance, right? Get a head start on your fitness resolutions. How about 25% off your subscription to get you there?

How about FitBod throws in three free personalized workouts when you go to their website, fitbod.me slash combat, of course, with a K. That's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash combat with a K. Luke, 25%, you can't beat that with a bat. You know what I'm saying? You'll get it, fitbod.me slash combat. Hammer can't touch that. All right, Luke, I don't can't beat that with a bat. You know what I'm saying? Get it fit bod.me slash combat hammer. Can't touch that. All right, Luke, I don't know what we call this segment,

but this is miscellaneous shit that our fans won't stop DMing me about saying, Hey BC, why are you guys afraid to talk about this? What should be the name of this new segment where we prove that we're not afraid to talk about shit? Um, I know i don't know i didn't know we were framing it that way so there it is all right well luke topic number one of shit they thought we was a terrible response it appears tyler santos former oh you ever scared like the bone crusher song bc one time i did karaoke and i did the bone crusher song oh it's the only time it's the only time i've ever done well okay tell me that we're where what year what age did you slay what happened i mean this was a long time ago this was like 2005 or six uh and i was um just meeting when i was with yeah it had

to be 2006 because i was starting to see my wife around that point and um and i was just uh i met up after work with some friends and we went to some place out in near uh connecticut avenue in dc and yeah did my thang did you bring it like he was shivering and shaking on the people like yeah yeah get that shit yeah yeah yeah a little bit a little bit because you know i did it with some enthusiasm you know of course the answer is were you good no you have to be terrible but no but if Yeah, get that shit, Harvey. Yeah, a little bit. Because I did it with some enthusiasm. Of course, the answer is, were you good? No, you have to be terrible. But if you're enthusiastic and terrible, people will overlook it.

So I was enthusiastic. Luke, I've never been known as a good singer. I've tried to regale you a few times with my 90s jukebox. And just like the people in my house, they throw tomatoes at me and tell me to stop. I don't know what a rapist sounds like, but you sound like that. Wow. But I did karaoke once. So in 2013, I'll give ESPN credit. I had a review that year.

I had become like the combat sports editor, one of them. And I was like, you know what? I'm like a writer in my mind. I think I need to brush up on my editing skills a bit in some certain key areas. They sent me to this editing conference in Tampa for Luke, for the week, right on the water. It was beautiful. And at the end, we all went out to a bar, everyone in it. And we were talking all week about like the theme for me and my growth was like that week.

I realized that even though I'm on a path to become an editor, I'm really a writer, Luke. I'm really a talent. I really got a voice for this shit and that week was about coming out of that shell and realizing it so the last night we went to the karaoke bar and i'd never done it before because i've always been too afraid and self-conscious despite me being an absolute clown luke but that night i i put down the paper and i wrote walking in memphis by mark cone and luke i delivered standing in memphis

i mean standing ovation in a loaded bar okay was it was it wasn't walking to memphis bruce hornsby no mark cone big great one hit wonder from the early 90s great debut album by the way i want to grab it bruce hornsby cover it maybe but oh no no no bruce hornsby did mandolin rain that was a different one he did i got two bruce hornsby records here with the range luke i just bought it for a dollar mandolin rain look you like bruce hornsby in the range or did you just play basketball with him in williamsburg yeah i just know the hits i don't i'm not familiar with the catalog i don't listen to that shit yeah what a fake steve winwood that guy is anyway just kidding the whole point is luke i stepped out of my shell and i brought it right it wasn't a good singing performance but it i sold the performance with passion just like i've also told i've also

told you that i went one time karaokeing with two of my fraternity brothers this was a little bit more recently maybe like 10 years ago a bit more than that maybe closer to like 12 years ago we went to georgetown they were like watch this and they go up there and they didn't i forget what fucking song they played because they thought they thought this was hysterical they would go up on stage and they would just keep saying over and over again we built this city oh yeah we built this city we built this city we built but they weren't even singing that song like we built the city on rock and roll it would be like snoop dog or something and everyone would be like fucking booing real loud real loudly and i remember there's one guy at the front being like hey asshole the words are right there just read them do you remember like one of the first have

you seen the shits after mikey produce joined this show i i snuck through that video of him drunk as shit in a florida bar singing um mike saying, I once got so drunk in a hurricane. Yeah, that's it, Mikey. He was drinking. He was singing Sweet Home Alabama with a live band, but he just kept yelling, where the skies are blue, over and over and over again, Luke, every single line, right? He was feeling those margaritas, Brian Campbell.

We're going to play that. We're going to play that on a Monday show. Have you seen the show? We're going to bring that back. Mikey says, I only knew the first line. You're dead right. Okay, Luke, how about he and Gary? How about Tyler Santos? So it appears that she appeared

a couple weeks ago on that UFC X account that tells you when people were pulled from the roster. I saw originally that some people were saying roster tracker. I think it's called now. It might be a temporary situation, but I haven't seen anything since it's tyler santos fresh off a a loss in a very important sort of number one

contender-ish fight fresh off before that maybe deserving the nod over valentina shevchenko for the belt now she's out of the promotion what happened here do you know do you care well remember she did get sideways with her team uh after the right after the fight with Shevchenko right if I recall that correctly um and obviously she returned to action after that but she just I don't know the story we should probably have asked Guilherme Cruz he could tell us I think he's got the lock on the Brazilian you know what I might DM him on the show and get an answer to that um i'm reading a uh a farah hoonan mma junkie story from november 7th luke so that's three weeks ago and it says that santos was released and a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed it after the ufc roster tracker had done that she had a couple fights left on her deal and it's unclear why she was released.

Could this be, and I mean, it's major speculation here. Does this sound more like personal issues need to step away, or is she going to go make some PFL money? How do you read this situation? I know, again, not making weight is not necessarily the end of the world. But if you're not making weight, and then you're doing other shit behind the scenes that maybe we're not aware of. And again, I want to be clear, I am am hypothesizing i'm not acting upon any information i'm simply saying i have known cases of other fighters with the ufc who in conjunction with missing weight would do some other kind of administrative be some other kind of a headache for them and then the ufc would be like you know what like maybe they're talented we're just going to move on from

them and sometimes that's paid off. Sometimes it hasn't. Bit of a mixed bag. But I wonder if we're dealing with something like that. I did DM Guillermo. If he gets back to me, I'll let you know. All right. Luke, our other bit of you guys are so scared you won't talk about this surrounds a certain –

Oh, is that what the issue is? We're too scared? Yeah. It surrounds Ian Machado Gary, the UFC welterweight riser who i believe was it december 16th right he's got a monster yeah yeah yeah he's got a big fight of the vicente lucate not an easy fight by the way very very big fight so luke he's been in the news a lot there was a feud with mma guru there was uh a lot of throwing around of the word cuck established with that so it seems that the internet is uproaring

and this led of course to sean strickland jumping in and then mike perry jumping in to challenge sean strickland i mean it's been wild as shit but is the center of this debate slash i don't know the idea that i don't know i'm sure exactly what i mean i know i know but like is married to his wife but it was subsequently found out that his wife had written a book about how to essentially entrap an athlete yeah celebrity athletes and marry them there were rumors that her ex is living in the house with them and ian and then there's also this video in which ian describes a elevator situation in which hamza chamayev walked in over the past year and ian claims his wife was like urging him on to start a fight with hamza and when gary didn't they exited the elevator and she according to ian gary called

him a pussy and then they kept walking all right look there's more to this we'll get to in a second sean brady had some comments but let's start with that right there. You don't like this shit, and I respect that. You don't jump at the, hey, let's have an opinion about these people's personal lives. But this story is weird, and it seemingly won't go away. Well, I mean, here's the thing, right? Here's the thing about the Garys is that, and I don't know them.

Do you know them? I mean, I saw him. We've been to Kill Cliff a couple of times. I've seen him one time there. Yeah, he had a Phoenix Suns jersey on with his name on the back. You remember that? Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.

Yeah, I don't know if he had his name on there. That's, I don't know. No, he did. Oh, he did? He did, really? Yeah, I remember that. This is what I mean, man. This is what I mean.

So I don't know the guy at all. Uh, I have heard things from both sides. I have had people probably been like, Oh, you know, this is ridiculous. These get, people are great. And then other people have been like, you know, I don't, I've gotten sideways with them. I don't like them. I have no fucking clue. You guys can make it up for yourself. I will say that what this tells me is cause like at the end of the day, the story about like that book she wrote, some people say it's satirical either way. It's probably terrible, right? It's probably, it's probably about that book she wrote, some people say it's satirical. Either way, it's probably terrible. It's probably a terrible book.

And the thing is this. It's like, dude, I'm not even saying this like I'm trying to be like Mr. Cool or something, but I would just be lying to the audience if I woke up and be like, I give a fuck about their marriage. Dude, I don't give a fuck about their marriage. I cannot pretend to. I mean, it's none of our business. it could be a knee-jerk listen here's the thing i will say here's the thing here's the thing they put from what i can tell they put a lot of their life on camera for everyone to see yes you know and it seems like there's a lot of people who have

obviously gotten you know their insults him and at the last week or however long it's been but it also seems like there's been some pent-up hostility didn't you feel like a reading on that on this one there's a larger narrative going on about i think the character of ian gary that's separate in some levels from this whole cuck marriage thing but it might be connected and that's about being what thrown out of the gym by leon edwards and some of the extensive talk about his behavior in these gyms so in some ways that's a separate topic and i'm going to get to that in a second but i'm just wondering luke if all of this because originally when ian took his wife's surname and added it to his it was looked at as like progressive and man this guy's really in love and i didn't hear a lot of people going man that's a cuck move but after

the recent reveals i see a lot of people now saying that whether that means anything whether that matters whether any of us have a clue about the inner workings of his marriage but is that a red flag at all to a rising prospect who's starting to really look like not a new conor mcgregor but somebody who is like mattering on the rise and is has give me give me again just because this is such a foreign language to me give me the argument um for why that would be a relevant concern for his athletic performance what is the argument fair comeback question I just no I don't know I'm not I'm not even trying to play the dozens I'm actually just asking like what is it yeah everything I've seen has just been, like,

very suggestive about what it could mean, not what it has actually done. And by the way, let's be clear. One more time. This fucking guy is fighting Vicente Luque. Like, good luck, dude. You're going to need it. That's a tough fucking guy, right? No matter what, he's just not going to lay down for anybody.

But I'm just trying to understand, like, what seems to be driving the story is that for whatever reason there's a lot of hostility towards Ian Gary and everyone's got their various views of why that is fine again I'm not telling people to like her fans are going to like and dislike who they want like you just kind of have to let that process play out I'm just telling you like we didn't jump on this story because at the end of the day what is it it? It's a lot of palace intrigue about someone's, what appears to be, by common standards, unusual marriage situation

and that these people have this very visible life that people are now picking apart for things that they don't like. That's fun for certain people, but there's not a lot of there there. Well, look, I think it's obvious that given the age gap between them, she's much older. Given the reveal of the book,

we really talking about this shit. This is what I mean. Like, no, I'm just, you asked a question of why people would care and I'm answering it. I'm saying that given all of those things, I think there's a fair,

a fear in some people that maybe Gary is being not manipulated, but maybe he's just caught up in something that is, is, is, could take his eye off the ball or maybe says something about who he really is. If he's not in like control of this whole situation, I think, but I also think there's also some of those people who are sitting in their basement going, yeah, look at that guy. That's not my marriage. I'm the king of the castle. Look at that piece of shit. You know, like,

and they're like projecting that they've scored some win because some celebrity had a setback, but Luke, what we should care about more of is how this relates to fighting. So I want to play you a video of Sean Brady at media day this week that MMA junkie captured, uh, commenting about the time Ian Gary came to,

uh, his gym in Philadelphia and, uh, Luke, it didn't go well. Let's let's listen. Oh, I didn't go well. Let's listen. Oh, I didn't see this. What are your honest thoughts on Ian Gary?

Man, he's very talented. But, like, for me, like, I've been with the same group of guys since I started fighting, you know. So, it rubbed me the wrong way when he called out, excuse me, when he did that whole thing with Luque and recording the phone. The way he just did that, he called him, he had cameras on him, recording him and Luque having a conversation. It was whack to me.

These guys, my teammates are like my brothers. So for me, if you're at a gym, that's your family. And for you to kind of do the that he's been doing and then talking about like training and how like the guys know how good he is and he's beating everybody up in the gym and now I see like Brendan Allen was kind of calling him out on he's starting to get some backlash and um yeah I just think that's whack how would you handle that if somebody was in your gym constantly filming like with a camera well he wouldn't he wouldn't be uh because like we're we're not a super gym we're not this big gym we're a small gym in philly we got good guys out like we got a lot of good guys but we're a family you know

um you come in you start pulling out your phone like let alone an actual like cameras like getting shut down like we're not we're not like that you know we're not going to film everything so god forbid you leave our team and say you did do something to one of our guys you're out there posting and training is training. You can do whatever you want in training but you get out there and fight the guy it's going to be a completely different story.

I'm just not into that. Let me dead wrong myself twice. That was MMA fighting not MMA junkie and he didn't go to Brady's Philadelphia gym. I was about to say. Brady had talked to Brendan Allen about the time that he went to Kill Cliff. So, Luke, what I want to ask you.

This is what I mean. Like, the guy filling everything? Like, not the best decision, you know? Okay, whether or not any of this marriage-related stuff has anything to do with his prospect as a fighter or if it's a red flag or not, is this area of an area of concern his attitude in the gym toward other fighters mixed with the idea that

i wonder if the fans are going to turn on him now after this almost like they did to patty after patty had that close decision win that we felt he didn't deserve i mean yeah again you know everyone's got slightly different because i saw some people being mad about how he handled the Neil Magny fight and the way in which he promoted it by talking about how Neil disciplines and hits his children again. I'm in the context of discipline as sort of, you know, cause I realized there's a debate about this with certain folks. Ask Adrian Peterson about that, Luke.

Yeah, he's got a way. See, his methods are a little more. What's the word I'm looking for? Medieval. It's a little bit different. I thought were gonna say menendez but yeah that'd be that's the opposite way yeah that too but i guess my point being is there's sort of different things that people have picked up on about ian gary that they've decided they really dislike him about and again everyone's gonna make their choices about whether they want to or not but you can see like there's a certain kind of um again i don't know the guy right you don't know the but you can see like there's a certain kind of, um, again,

I don't know the guy, right? You don't know the guy, but it seems like there's a little bit from what I can detect about other people. Other people seem to be suggesting he's got a bit of a look at me kind of way of building his career that in certain ways, among other issues appears to be rubbing people the wrong way. And what that might mean about who he is as a as a training partner or something is now coming into question by the way we shall see like

in mma i've said this before you know he's getting crushed now and that 296 presser is probably not going to go super great for him i think we can probably say that but never ever i'm telling you you cannot imagine it but you'd be surprised about who can get redemption later on down the road in the sport it's just right now the stock is tanking in terms of the public perception that's just the reality of it you know look do you think when we're not around people talk about our editorial marriage in the same manner in which they talk about the gary machado marriage in terms of the red flags and questions and the power structure and hierarchy of it? Yeah, but we don't have an intermediary

that we're banging that would make it... You know what I'm saying? They do. That I know of. Okay. I don't know where to go from there. Luke, let's go to Dead Wrong. That's probably where we belong. Morning Combat at gmail.com every Friday is when you email our producer. Do you feel better?

Do you feel better about having this discussion? Yay! They really said we wouldn't talk about it okay all right all cuck cunt in fact i'm gonna have a new friday segment in which we write it's a cuck roundup from the combat space okay it's the we'll we'll have a power rankings of who's the most cuck brian cuck bill campbell uh we we give you a chance to email our producer, Mike B. Wormile. We don't see the emails, so when you show your piece in those, only he gets to benefit from that. This one's called Dead Raw. That happened, Luke.

It did happen. It did happen. All right. You better have received it. He was so bitter, and I was reading the text being like he's like thanks guys i just saw a shaft yeah yeah you did yeah it's like you're not gonna fucking believe this man guys are sending me pictures of their fucking dicks and i'm like yeah yeah get ready to meet our audience that's for sure hey this is from your boy uh how would you how would you pronounce this luke g-U-L-I-O. Is that Julio?

Is that a man's name? He calls himself your boy Julio. I'm going to guess Julio or Julio. Me and Julio down by the schoolyard. All right. He says, greetings, beached whales. It's Julio from Montreal. Coming at you with a dead wrong.

On Monday night, I was enjoying a piece of performance at bc's favorite spot wow he's going old school club super sex in montreal look i'd say catherine street by the way while listening to mk and my earpods so already he is out of himself as listening to our podcast while at a world-renowned elite strip club luke so already do you like this guy or dislike uh he came out guns blazing i have to respect that okay he said i had to tell i oh sorry he says uh it was the perfect monday night me listening to the show in the airpods but at the 108 40 mark of episode 520 i heard something so egregiously dead wrong i had to tell the dancer to get lost so i could pen this email wow luke claimed gilbert melendez used ground elbows to stop uh shinya ioki once

when oh it was kawajiri before strike force legalized elbows this is dead freaking wrong melendez ioki in his previous fight at Nashville via unanimous decision. It was Tatsuya Kawajiri. Kawajiri. Tatsuya Kawajiri. Very good fighter. He bludgeoned with elbows en route to a first-round TKO. This was the co-main of one of my favorite cards of all time.

Strikeforce Diaz versus Daly, April 2011. BC may have had the infamous karate chop, but apparently William and Mary's finest can't tell any of the japanese lightweights from the early 2010s or never change mk boy i gotta say most of these dead wrongs i'm always like yeah that's a great one that's a great one because it's a big swing and a miss by me and it's a great correction good job i'll bc i will take that out i will wow wow uh he delivered that from the strip club. Look, I've seen things like that.

Yeah, I got dunked on hard just now. That was great. I mean, look, I've seen things in that building that we should do a Patreon podcast about. I'm not kidding. Okay? I've been there. You saw the donkey show? No, not that gross, but just world class.

You know how many Marines I know who've seen the donkey show? Okay, you have hung out with the grossest people alive maybe it's not united states marines that's right united your occupation is an mma luke and that your uh favorite music is what it is maybe you know dude i found out a buddy of mine who one time when he got back from iraq this is true he hired a porn star to bang on the side that actually 1 billion percent happened uh i had dinner with him the other night and i was like how many times did you actually not do that but just straight up like pay for sex in your life because i thought that was the only it's the only one he's ever told me about yeah and he was like at least a dozen and i was like holy shit balls

dude either here's what i figured out about dudes who've done that either you've done it like 50 times or you've done it not at all like there's not anyone who's like i tried it a couple times it didn't work either you're an absolute degenerate or you're just you know a married chicken shit guy who just doesn't do that kind of thing that's what that's it that's what set pat tellman apart from all these people that, okay. You know what I mean? I'll stop right there. Okay. I'll stop right there. Dude.

He was, by the way, he was not in the middle. He was not in the Marines. He was in the army. So there you go. There were, they're worse than the Marines.

Oh, I don't think that's true, but my buddy came back from the army. One of my best friends growing up was a completely changed person after like four months, new Southern accent. And right away it was like, we got to go to the titty bars. And where's the, where's the closest massage parlor?

Because I know how to tip them so you can get what you want. And that was all the guy ever talked about for the rest of his life. Yeah. Marines have, it's well-documented the highest rates of alcoholism in the United States military. So they're just rowdy rowdy dudes man that's just what it is wow did the commandant uh continue to recover from his heart setback he is on he is on his way to recovery yes god bless as he can has he used the sex trade at all to fuel that recovery would that be in that'd be if someone asked me what's the okay serious, what's the, okay, serious question. What's the over under on the amount of male Marines who have at any point in their career during their time in the Marine Corps paid for sex?

What do you think? 50, 50 more than that? Maybe like some absurd. 72%. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's high. It's super, super high.

We should, I don't know if we can do this legally but we should pull our viewership of veterans yes how many of you have paid for sex when you were in uniform not like actual uniform but like in your in your term of service how many i do the number is going to be astronomically high it's you're going to be you're going to you're going to look at you're going to look at the armed services in a new light you're going wow you guys are keeping the sex trade in business by yourselves mikey says 73 he believes that's interesting uh luke we have two more dead wrongs are from the same man when i say morning combat in hawaii who do you think of um i think of max holloway what kind of question is that governor penn at the lava shack would

probably be the first answer max okay, okay. Max sat down with us before the third Volk fight. Don't sleep on Max. Max done us some solids. Telvin Kipapa in that conversation? Telvin Kipapa, yes, of course. He'd be on there as well. Kai Kameka III with the chest hats. Eric Nixix student, Luke?

Yes. He's got some of the best tats in the business. Alright, well how about Daz?-a-z-z he says uh back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blast from the past the past bitch uh during lt's recap of the pfl finale at about 20 minutes in luke mentions quote harrison is huge for the weight class at 145 luke she might have looked huge because kay versus Aspen Ladd was not a 145 fight. It was a 150 catchweight fight. Kayla has fought only once at 145, and that was with Invicta during the COVID 2020 when the PFL canceled their season.

Hope your Thanksgivings were fun. From the mailbag to the recaps, thanks for the content. Mahalo. It's Daz. Well, Luke, Daz went back to the to the well once more and he says aloha donks during episode 521 while previewing the soriano versus stolts fist fight stoltz bc kept mentioning someone named puna lehi what's wrong with that luke the hell's wrong with that haley puna haley hey bc it's puna haley i know your pronunciations of names like Alex Pereira weren't always on point,

but being from Hawaii, I just wanted to correct the record for Puna Haley. Hope to hear you pronounce it correctly on Monday's show, hopefully following a Soriano victory. Mahalo. Keep up the great content. It's Daz. That's it. That's the whole show.

You're the person who says Chipotle. What should it be Chipotle Chipotle yeah I know so many people are like yeah I love you going to Chipotle I'm like no you don't I just don't eat there Luke it's very bland to me Moe's is better if I'm gonna go like what's your okay what's your Chipotle bowl walk me through it I don't even have one because every time

I've eaten there it's been tasteless and bland I don't tell you what I get I get my go-to i get the white rice i get the pinto beans i get the fajita so you get like the little bit of the onions and peppers double chicken or i might get double um um you get double chicken so i'll leave it at that one but some sometimes i'll switch that up like steak then i get sour cream corn verde, the red salsa, pico de gallo, and then a little bit of lettuce on top. And then I put some hot sauce on top. Nice cover.

Damn. Very protein rich. Before we close here and we want to thank Mikey Mormile, CBS Sports, behind the scenes. Thank you to all the viewers. We love you guys. We hope we win this award, by the way, a couple weeks. We'll see what happens. I want you to go to our merch shop of course morningcombat.store

and of course i want you to go to youtube.com slash morning combat great interviews check out i talked to regis pro gray i talked to oh brandon roival dude that is a fun ass conversation check that out but luke i wanted to close with this um how are you what can i get a health update are you are you and your trainer grinding what's happening here yeah yeah um i have a meeting with him after the show and um we're gonna set our six month goals so we'll see how that goes okay all right um my trainer darren robinson, Luke, chewed me out a new asshole for my candy intake over the weekend in Las Vegas. You know, I mean, I deserved it. I had it coming.

Look, I did. You know, well, I'm glad someone is holding you accountable because certainly I can't do that. Yeah. He looks like Keith Jardine. Real badass. My guy, Luke. Do you call him the dean of mean? No, I should, though.

I definitely should. Yeah. Luke, let's get really healthy, the two of us, because then they're going to offer us all the broadcasting jobs in the world because we'll be so remarkably transformed. It's, you know what? We can, in the winter, when everyone else is hibernating and packing on the LBs, you and I can be out there, you know,

just getting after it. And then when it's time for cut-em-up season, when it's time for cut-em-up season, we can be ready to show the world, likeocks what we've been working on yeah but i don't get out there i'm not like lifting in my front yard like a weirdo or do you have a fence around where you lived yes i have a fence okay i have a fence do people ever comment outside of that man who drove by i mean most people look at me like i'm a psycho fucking murderer you know and they just try to shuffle past as quickly as they can yeah yeah but a couple times people have stopped have been like you know

get after it or you know um looks tough you know some kind of bullshit you know in the middle of me lifting or whatever oh dude we screwed up on okay bet we should have cucked each other and the loser has to take the other one's last name hyphenated for a year on this show yeah i'm not in any way engaging in a debate where i bet with you where that's on the line i don't i don't care about you enough to do that you know all right well that's the show for you i tried luke i tried okay i tried uh for for everyone i'm your boy bc look do you want to say anything to our audience i mean you've had a love hate relationship with them you know what hate have i had well you know you've said i mean you've regularly said i don't care if they live or die large no i don't care no no when i say you i mean you brian campbell i don't care if you live or die oh okay okay that's the you know jay erin living or dying

it's all the same to me right that kind of thing um no man i mean listen i won't be able to do a live show on saturday but there's probably a very good chance i'll have a bit of a sunday wrap-up for you guys um for this particular austin event because i do think the results will get pretty interesting i can't wait to see it actually talking about like extra credit luke yeah well i might do like an extra credit where i give just some kind of video on sunday to set the table for monday which by the the way, let's remind the folks Monday. We're in studio Monday. We're in.

Oh, shit. We got a lot to react to from. OK, bet to all the fights this weekend. Chuck Mendenhall going to stop by. We're going to film some future. And that might be our last time in studio. I don't even know, but it could be. I know.

Should we be coming home with all of our shit? You think? Probably, but I'm totally unprepared for that, so that's going to be great. I might ask you to take home the trophy. Take home the award. Yeah, I hope we win it this year. And that AEW replica belt you have sitting up there. Yeah, damn right. Yep, yep, that's it.

All right, I'm going to go cough a lot, Luke. It turns out you have AIDS aids i didn't know that yeah it's gonna be like a uh what are those exams called luke when they make when they like grab you by the by the uh the satchel the scrote and then they're like a physical a physical yeah it's gonna be a day-long physical in my house luke i'll be having my okay let's get out of here that's it um that's it um i don't i don't i don't i don't want to imagine having to look at like do all those doctors who have to evaluate you at meps military entrance processing station that's where you have to go before you go to like your boot camp and then they all have to look at your butthole and

stuff when you like you get there you know these like these lines like where you're doing these physicals it's like can you imagine that's your job like what did you do today i just looked at a lot of like you know buttholes is that mikey dead wronging you and yeah mikey's like you know mikey's just like whatever yeah i couldn't believe people did that for a living but they do that for a living um what do you think is more likely to happen that i get your father robert thomas on this show or that i get the marine commandant to talk about the future of the armed forces sex trade you'll get the commandant before you ever get my dad all right all right we'll ask him how many of these marines are fucking for dollars how many yeah all right i don't i don't think i have anything more to say

about this or nothing that will help us really at this point it's just like i i don't you know i don't want to do it anymore luke i don't mean in general like i'll do the show with you on monday and i'll continue changing the world with you but in terms of this show like i'm i'm i don't want to do it anymore i'm done wrap it up then let's go yeah we should probably get out of here all right um i'm gonna go but thanks for watching i mean what do you what do you want you want me to dance you know you want me to show my weird paintings you know all right