MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Belgrade Results: Medic vs Rodriguez | Usman Nurmagomedov, Dakota Ditcheva, Rest of PFL New York

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Luke Thomas and Jed Meshew are in the house on a Morning Kombat Monday, recapping the latest in the world of combat sports. The guys start out the gates with a recap of UFC Belgrade, from Uros Medic making short work of Daniel Rodriguez, to Navajo Stirling blasting Jan Blachowicz and Aleksandar Rakic's heavyweight debut performance against Marcin Tybura. The fellas also recap the PFL event on Friday, where lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov easily defeated Archie Colgan via first-round strikes. Plus, the UFC announced the headline fight for the next Noche UFC event.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Revely, revely. Look at this now. It's what 11 a.m.? I'm back. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a barrio? Yeah, marks get set and go on.

Integers, fractions, digits. Roman numerals, lend me your ears. It is I, Caesar. Hello, everybody. On this, uh, Jesus already the third day of August, 26, and welcome to another edition of Morning Combat.

I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of Estabwe. We're just right here in Washington, D.C. Our friend, the Iceman, is not here, but we do have another man who is also in a hat. He's been disbarred, 1-800. Ambulance Chaser.

It's Jedd. It's Jedd-M-Shoe. Hi, Jed, how are you? you don't really know a lot about integers if ambulance chaser is not seven integers yeah i know i'm i was just kind of rolling off the tongue there i'm sorry i didn't work but welcome to the show jenn how are you doing my friend it's great you know uh happy to be here thanks for having me got got the text last night that chuck is out doing some pro rasselin or what have you apparently that nice just firing into that uh what do you got a white a white monster oh no no no caffeine everyone thinks I drink too much caffeine. That's not the problem. Zero sugar, no caffeine. There you go.

Well, fancy. So yeah, happy to be here to talk about, I don't know, not like pretty fun weekend of fights, certainly some highs, a few lows. You know, I don't, I don't know how to do Mondays. I'm not used to Mondays. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, Mondays are actually in some ways the easier shows because I have to feel like reactions a little easier than previewing. Previewing is much more perilous reactions like you don't have to get. about what happened because you just watched it you know so we'll be good we'll be good let me just say though before we move on with the show we i don't know if we have any here let's bring in the third member here of the panel he went to by the way pfl's friday show we're going to talk to him about that

yeah but you know he didn't go sober it's long island luke what's up bud it was questionably sober you know may or may not have snuck the penjamin in there and been like in media row like what is that you know but uh it was all right it was a good time guys i think i enjoyed it more than most people but do you have any of the fan subs from friday still loaded i can get them loaded what do you want i just wanted to show him so we you know how the fan subs uh at this point jed they go into me like mowing the lawn or lawnmower jokes or things like you know things on the show that have been part of the show dude there must have been 50 of them last friday were one way or another related to integers so there was like at uh you know because i showed my toys number one made fun of me for it there

integer predator there was you know say integer one more time kind of jokes like the whole bit so you have apparently launched a thousand ships in my direction uh with this whole thing is my proudest moment as a fan of the show before i was ever on it uh this is my greatest achievement and i couldn't be happier with what was occurred here all right so let's set the table for the show aside from integer jokes there actually is some fights to get to we had the ufc event in belgrade on Saturday. Interestingly, set the record for most finishes and most first round finishes. Did it live up to the hype and beyond that? I think it's still some questions for me. PFL was on Friday. Usman Numergermigamedov looked unbelievable. We'll discuss that. Plus, at least some reports around

what could be headlining the next UFC noche card. Thumbs up on this video if you haven't already. Please hit subscribe. You could follow us on social very below. If you want to reach the show at any Point Morning Combat at Gmail.com. That's for fan subs, dead wrongs, and otherwise to talk to the producers. Of course, we do have memberships now, badges, emojis, and we'll think of some other fun stuff along the way. And then last but not least, now, do we,

are we ready to roll out these new designs, the morningcombat. No, well, we're going to launch them on Friday, but Evergreen are still up, obviously. All right, so the evergreens are still going to be up at morningcombat. Dot shop for that, new designs to come. We're actually pretty excited about some of the ones that we have. Thank you to everyone who purchased them behind the, before the deadline on Friday night.

All right, without further ado, let's get this party started. Topic number one. Let's start with the UFC. It's the most recent one, although I do think the PFL had the best fighter all weekend. But putting that aside, the UFC made their debut in Belgrade, Serbia.

As I mentioned, certainly an interesting card overall, which we'll talk about more in topic two in terms of the finishes and most first round finishes. But in terms of the main event, it did not go very long. Here you can see it on your screen. Basically, Urosh Medich intercepts a kind of walking in D-Rod and then puts him away clinically, as he is obviously very gifted at doing. Very short work in the whole thing.

Jed, is this a case of Medich really over-delivering and growing into something that maybe he wasn't looking like before? Or was this a case of booking a guy who is an aggressive finisher against a 39-year-old guy who, as the broadcast, could not stop, reminding us had spent eight of the last 10 months in a Mexican prison. What's the, what's the truth of what we saw there? Porcena dos dose. Great my Spanish, Luke. It's definitely a little bit.

I do want to mention, like, as you said, I was stunned by how, not even comfortable, but like how to the forefront it was that they were like, D.Rod was in jail for eight months. May I jump in very quickly? May I jump in very quickly? Yeah, of course.

I'll pitch it right. back to you. I had someone write me about this and wasn't even on my mind, but someone wrote me about this and they're so right. It is very, very funny how the UFC won't talk about any, not just the sexual assault case for Connor McGregor, but any of the issues of law enforcement. He's basically had other than the dolly and the bus part because that was like just you couldn't get around that. But like all the subsequent stuff, they won't touch with a 10 foot pole. They could not stop mentioning it. I just want to point out, what's up? This crime though, he got arrested for smuggling weed over the border, which obviously is illegal, but like because

weed is decriminalized in the U.S., do you think that has anything to do with it? They're almost like, oh, you got arrested for that. They look at the charges and they say to themselves, I don't think the fan base is upset by his criminality. It's not a crime of domestic violence. It's not a crime of like, you know, holding a gun to someone's head. It's like he got arrested for jaywalking almost. It's like, yeah, I mean, I don't think they look at it as a serious thing, nor should they. I'm not saying as much. I'm just saying it's very, very interesting. what parts of the fighter's criminality the UFC won't won't touch it all versus lean into that's all all right go ahead yeah no i mean i i agree with long island like it's it is because i don't think

anybody looks at this and says wow this is a terrible person or whatever like it's like okay but i just did not anticipate it being so so at the forefront of the promotion i thought that they would mention it i didn't think this would be like the other things where they just don't acknowledge it. But like the promo package was functionally built around D.Rod in jail, which is just a wild circumstance. And I, the booking to your like to answer the actual question at play here, Luke, like yes, part of this is D.ROT is about his pushing 40, you know, got got a good amount of miles on him and spent most of the last year in a T.J. prison. Like that's not optimal for for fist fighting a professional of the quality of Rose Meditch.

but I also watching this like he over delivered still. Oros Medich pitched a shutout like he threw a perfect game in the biggest moment of his career Luke like this was unequivocally the biggest moment of Rose Medich's career. Guy who I don't know about you I have never thought of right like he's just never been high on my mind as a contender like he's never been to the scorecards you know when his name is on the call sheet like we're going to have a good time but he's never. a dude I looked at it was like oh yeah he's got the juice like this man's got the goods and even when they announced this event and we're like he's gonna headline UFC Serbia so like that's kind of

weird like do do people care about it like yes he's a Serbian fighter but is that are people going to be like live for Oroz Medich rackage has been there a little longer you know those sorts of things and then just look what he did I mean he he ethered this man in 30 seconds and sent that crowd like off. This was a star making performance. You know, not, he's never going to be Connor McGregor, but this is a something similar

to, we're not here to take part, we're here to take over. I was one thing before, I am another thing after this. And yeah, he got set up, but you still got to knock him down and he knocked it out, man. It was a terrific effort from him.

Could I be honest? I don't know that I see it. I mean, Starmaking seems strong to me, bro. In the context of modern day MMA star making. I'm not, this is not a he is, your mom is going to know him, but he went from being Earl like Eros Medich's whatever to he's a headliner now.

He can headline events, I think for sure. I think for me, the way I see this is you know, one of the interesting conversations that I'm seeing online after this fight. is not about the fight itself, because again, there's not really a whole lot to it, but that now people are like, oh, what would it mean for Medich to fight Prochus? What would it mean for Medich to fight Morales? What would it mean for him to fight Leon Edwards?

And we'll talk about what might be next in just a second. But the point I'm trying to make is if there's a value to this one, I don't, I mean, these fight night cards on the road in Belgrade Serbia do, like no one's watching them. You know, like so with, it's a star making to me implies some kind of casual buy-in. And I don't think there's any casual buy-in or something like, I mean, obviously in his home country of Serbia, I'm sure it's going to launch him into the sun. But here it doesn't mean, I don't think anything. But what I think it does do is, A, it was obviously a great win. He's on a freaking heater four in a row.

And it puts him now in conversation where it's like, okay, now you're fighting the guys in this division that we care about or irrelevant or at the near the top of it. Like now you're getting to the meat and potatoes. and you know, to your point, it's going to be fun because he's just a born finisher one way or the other. And it just puts him now in a place where he can get the kind of fights that can be so big on cards big enough that then you can make that kind of star turn. But I think anointing him, or not anointing him a star,

but that this was a star making performance, I don't feel like it does that. What am I missing? the joy in your life I enjoy it but you're trying to say like dude a star maker performance is like wow dude people are like holy shit

very inside the bubble people are like holy shit but there's nothing else yeah and that's how I qualified this is not a he's a household name but like in the bubble I'm a fan of mixed martial arts and I watched that and I went into this fight being like Eros Medici is cool

he's fun and I left it being like oh, that was sick and look at that crowd. His post-fight speech was like emotional and cool. The call-out was good. Like every piece of it was just like, oh, it was the Shaquille O'Neal.

I was not familiar with your game, O'S Medich. And I don't think he's going to fight for the belt. He's kind of old anyway. You know, he's got flaws for sure. But if the context of this card was, man, it is very, they're going to Serbia because Serbia is paying them money.

and it is ridiculous that Uros Medich is the headliner of a fight night road show. And afterwards, I'm like, you can put that man to headline a fight card and I got no problem with it. Like him versus, I do think you're right that this is the biggest takeaway of this probably is that it opens the better doors for him. Because previously you couldn't have booked him versus a Leon Edwards versus a JDM, a Carlos Pratchez. And now if they booked that fight, everyone would be like, yeah, that's sick. Yeah. And that's, and then if he wins those, then he keeps elevating. But he went from afterthought, like main card, middle of the card for action fighter to main eventer in 30 seconds. Yeah. I don't, I don't think that's crazy. I think that's that to me sounds right. He definitely, he's definitely now in very different company than he was. Let's say when he, I mean, people forget this, dude. He lost to Punahelaeo Soriano in 2025. 2025. He got stopped by. him he's when puno looked like for a second he might be the business and then yeah fell apart well also

soriano's the kind of guy who's going to match at least at that time match matches fire with fire style yeah you know and it's just action figures sliding and at that point it's just a gun fight and who draws first so you know you get what you get on that one it was 31 second fight by the way so to be clear pluna is still on a good run right now he just feels he's kind of lost the juice somehow yeah in any event about this so then let's ask kind of the question because there's a question of like where he's supposed to go next minute. And by the way, you're right. I want to echo this. From the from the walkout to the announcement to the fight itself, you know, he just kind

of looked apart, obviously fought the part, and then has an emotional post-fight speech. And then to your point, kind of nails the call out or gets pretty close to like a really good one. Like all parts of that, he did his job. It's just whenever there's strike, I mean, this whole card was filled with strike force level matchmaking. I'm always a little cautious about going too far when stuff like that happens. But he did his job times 1,000. There's no question.

But it reads to this one, part of the matchmaking conversation about what would be next for Medich is almost anything, right? Not like going backwards, but I'm saying, who's he going to match up well with anybody? Anybody. He's going to match up well. It's clear as day at this point. He's going to match up well with anybody. But my question is a little bit different, Jed, which is, what is his seat?

feeling. If you have to guess, like, how far can this guy actually push a 33 years of age on the best run of his career? Where's he going to top out at? This probably is close to the top, right? Like, I don't think he's fighting for a belt. It's possible in general, like the standard of who gets to fight for belts is probably as low as it's ever been because it's not really about accomplishment. It is, can they sell this for one reason or another? Super exciting dude. And he's probably one one away, right? Like depending on his next matchup, if he gets in a gunfight with Carlos protest and wins,

I don't think that's going to happen. But if he does, then he's fighting for a belt. Okay. I guess that happened. I think it's unlikely that I think it's very unlikely he wins a belt. It is possible that he fights for a belt. But, you know, like top 10, not top five, feels like the peak for Medich,

especially given how, I mean, just awesome. well to wait is right now at a different period of time where i like medich kind like honestly he's a little vicente lukeish and like he's a get or get got dude he's on a really good win streak you know dark horse contender and then oh he'll probably just lose to somebody who's better and we won't he'll just be fun but like rcente luke was also very close to fighting for a belt at one point time and this weight class is better than it was you know a couple of years ago top to bottom there's just more exciting names in the division right now than there have been in a few years. So I think that hurts him.

But he has one really big thing going for him in this regard, Luke. And it's the way class has a lot of, it is a little in transition, right? Like you've got protest and Morales and Bonfim, right? Like these guys coming up. But you've also got Usman and Edwards and Ballal and I don't know where JDM is and this. He's sort of between those two worlds of guys going up and guys going out. And so if he can just kind of find the right matchup, maybe he can make something happen,

then I would never have a thought possible, like even a year ago. I'll say this. I think he can beat Leon Edwards. You know, I don't know Leon is not in the best. You definitely can beat Leon. Yeah, like not. And I realize I'm saying that when the guy's going through a losing streak is, you know, not some grand proclamation.

But I mean, even like a good version of Leon that you could show up, I could see Medich really pressuring him and just kind of volumining him yeah, he could get dropped. Leon's got the capacity for that, but I could see him very much getting overwhelmed, certainly over the course of a few rounds if he needed to push that long. And so to me, it's like, you know, what is his limit for the question about Meditch? I kind of feel like I don't think he can beat enough of the top contenders to get to a title shot. But even beyond Leon, I bet on a good night he could beat one of the other ones. It's just you've got to be able to do that in a sustained way over time to really top out. And that part seems to me, I'll believe it when I see.

it but I think he could beat Leon for sure and I may be another one along the way Ian Gary seems like a bridge too far even Morales the beast that he is also seems like that I wouldn't pick him against Prochess I think Prochus beat some let me jump in here for a second Luke and let me just let I just pull I pulled up the UFC meta rankings okay I think we'd all we'd all pick Islam I think yeah yeah okay as you just said Gary you just said Morales I'm taking Morales yes This is the one that's the most interesting to me of the top five guys. It's Jack Delamadalina because a year ago I would have comfortably said JDM.

And I don't know where JDM's head is at where his game is at. Like on paper it still feels like he should beat a guy like Medich. But that is a winnable fight for Medich, I think, at this stage of things. I mean, Medich, uh, JDM beat Belal, which is a better win than Medich has anywhere in his career. so I would still favor JDM, but that won to me, to your point, I fully agree. That's got new level of competitiveness and intrigue that it didn't have before. Yeah. And that, not to step on sort of where we're going toes, but like, that's the fight I want.

I think the Leon callout makes a ton of sense. It's very winnable for Meditch. He could lose also. I think people in general underate Leon at this stage, but maybe they don't underate him because he's looked so bad in his last couple. but he's looked bad in different ways than Medich is likely to you know compete with him JDM's the fightly if I got to book it

I would pick JDM I think any of the former champions are good matchups for Medich but if I have the power of the pen I genuinely am not certain how it plays out I favor Jack but let's just have some fun man those two dudes

will throw heaters and one guy will fall down I love that and I think if he starts beating guys like that. Now we're like, okay. I mean, to get, because just to be an action fighter in modern MMA and to be a title contender, it's very difficult to manage both. I mean, typically you have to kind of go

in one direction or the other. So seeing a guy push the style, say again. Like nobody succeeds. Like, Gaichi did it. Yeah. That's like it. Which of course, he's the outlier of all outliers in all things. Yeah, like I get yury, Yuri won a belt, but also in the worst weight class in the

sport, you know, like it's. He got but then there was no ability to hold it for any kind of period. Correct. In any event, very quickly about D-Rod, any takeaway from this? I mean, like I said, dude, the guy was in prison, 39 years old. You know what I mean? I don't know that it means more than what you can just assume that it means. Yeah, no.

In general, you should mostly not take anything away from a 30-second loss because, like, he just, he stepped in and then got called, like, Medich read the step in and caught him, clean and that was the end of the ball game. You know, the, I have no idea if this is just Medich was on one. Drod didn't have his best effort out there. He came out and made a statement a little bit of the dared to be great, like part to it. I don't take anything away from this.

He gets a clean, he did not injure this under the best circumstances and he got ghosted in, you know, half a minute. Let him re-rack and see sort of where we're at. You know, it's felt like over his last few fights he's been in decline. way he's pushing 40 but this didn't I'm not the co-main event is where I have more thoughts about the guy who got knocked out than this main event it's like we'll see what Drod can do his next booking he made one error he he got hit with a push kick and then he just kind of charged in and medich's timing was perfect caught him right between the beats and that was it like watch he's going to step in boom and he

just catches him got that kick is sick I love that kick to the body it's so fun yeah that is this is what I mean about being a dynamic finisher. The guy is unquestionably a dynamic finisher. So you got to love that. I mean, dude, it's just a great thing to see somebody at Welterweight moving up the ranks and doing it by smoking everybody. Let's just see how far he can go. Now, that takes us to topic number two here, Jed, which is basically the rest of this

card. You just referenced it. Let's talk about that co-main event. This one to me seems very interesting. Navajo Sterling, ladies and gentlemen, is on a freaking heater. He blasts out. Look at that right hand and that push after the right hand. Just absolutely fantastic stuff. And then the ground and pound, Jed, vicious elbows slicing open the face of the former champion. He puts them away minutes into the first round. Now, Jed, let me tell you what I love about this win for Navajo Sterling.

Once you'll recall he slipped on the mat and kind of had to do a reactive take down to save himself. Lojovic tries to go to the back and he's able to wrestle up and protect himself. And then as well, remember, he got rocked with that left hook briefly from Blahovic on one of the level changes. So he had to deal with a little bit of offense from an opponent as well as some just, you know, random adversity and nevertheless got the job done. So the question for you is that's what I loved about the fight. But the question for you is, brother, is Navajo Sterling the next big thing at 250, pounds? Yes.

Dude, we talked about this like the other week ago where it's just like anybody who wins, anybody who wins a fight in this

weight class is the next big thing because they are desperately in need of it. The problem, like the, I like Sterling coming off Contender series. I thought that he was

really raw. I think you saw that early in his UFC fights where like he's not, he's not blowing the doors off like Tucococos. You know, like that's not inspiring.

you're like, yeah, he just, he needed to sort of figure this out. He's coming into his own a little bit more. I don't want to oversell this. You know, Jan is pushing 40 or pushing 50. He's 43, 44, whatever. But he has leveled up at his last couple of performances. And the big limiter to him at this stage of the proceedings is that his friend and teammate is the light heavyweight champion of the world.

And so because like this is the type of win that historically, like he historically could have come out and been like, I want to. fight for a belt. And in this garbage ass weight class, you might be like, okay, that's fine. Sure. Like you knocked out a former champion impressively. We need something. But now that's, you know, that's not what happened. He made a couple of questionable callouts on whether they'll occur. And we'll go from there. But like he is young and talented in a weight class that has almost none of either of those things. So almost definitionally, he's the next big thing at 205. Man, I got to tell you, I didn't know what to make of the fact that he,

I thought the Kute Laba fight was the right fight at the right time. Or excuse me, I like the matchmaking and then I wasn't sure. I think I did pick him, but I was like, let's see if this is too much too soon. And it wasn't. Like he got the job done. And then he piggybacks it very, very quickly into this one. And I got to say, like, that was a risk that he took. And as I mentioned, there was some adversity he had to go through, which I think was really important.

And he was able to stay the course. But like getting Blahovic at the time he's getting him. Like actually this is the, you know, sometimes the matchmaking by UFC can be intentional and still end up being bad. And sometimes it can be accidental and then sometimes end up being good. This is one of those cases where his matchmaking, because he came to the UFC with not a ton of fights yet, I've actually really, really liked the matchmaking for him. And some of it is being rushed because of the nature of the content schedule that the UFC produces and the trains are always leaving the state. So I do think they're rushing it maybe a little bit.

But everything is kind of working out at the time that it's supposed to. And it's clearly through his own training and through these experiences, it's like visibly leveling him up. And he looks physically the right size for this weight class. As you indicated, there's like a bunch of old, kind of olderish kind of guys hanging around. Like, I don't know, man. I think things, I mean, next big thing,

I worded it intentionally because it's a loaded term. if he's not, he's like, you know, at worst, a diet version of that, right? Like, but what would be, like, we asked about what Medici's ceiling is. Maybe let me ask it kind of a different way in making this point. What's the bottom for Sterling? You know what I mean? That's the thing. In 205, he's like, there is there one?

Like, it's top 15. I don't know. It's, you know, I guess, he is arguably not the next big thing. There are a couple of other emerging 205ers that have drawn some interest, but like he's further along the road than they are right now. Like Mohammed Saitov's not, it doesn't have as many fights as Navo Sterling does.

You know, like, uh, Yakiyev, sorry, I was trying to think of that dude's name. Abdul, like these guys are guys who have something and that the UFC is going to build. Sterling's just a, you know,

he started a couple years before them in terms of how this goes. I agree with you. I think they have built him well. This is really the first time that I think they rushed it. And this wasn't a plan. The plan was not for Sterling to fight, Janbovich. He stepped in on short notice. As he told either the promo packages or after the fight,

I don't remember which one where he was like, yeah, Eugene Bearman told me not to take this fight that I shouldn't do it. It's too quick. I should have a full camp for something like this. And I said, F it, I'm going to do it. And that clearly worked out for him. And so now he is, like Medich, he's transitioned from, you know, top 15 prospect to real player in this weight class. And again, it could be too soon, but for the fact that this weight class is buns, Luke.

There's like, look at this top five, man, who he at least has a, like Alex Perevers is gone. He's still in the Oc's top five. Ancolaev, probably pick Uncle, Luke. Like, I think I would pick Uncleav, but I would not say that Navajo. Sterling is out of his depth. Yeri, I love Yerie. You know, Luke, you know that I love years. Yes, you want to have sex with him. I make no comment on that. But like, you, you can't, like, I, I acknowledge that

Yuri might get the same thing done to him that Yon did. Paulo Costa had a great win over Osamaan Marzicanov, but like, okay. Like, he is definitionally in the mix, especially if, Alberg comes back, fights once and is like, I'm going to go to heavyweight. He's, he's at least fighting for a title in his career, if not winning it and maybe even defending it. We shall see what happens from here. Nobody makes Jan Wilhovic look like shit.

And I know that Jan is old. Dude, you know what? I knew it was going to be curtains for Jan. I'll tell you why. I know what you're going to say because, yes, I are. The hair line. It was visibly deteriorating. in a way that it hadn't before.

He looked so old. I was like, bro. And then Sterling comes in there with like, you know, I don't know what they call that haircut anymore, but the Lloyd Christmas joint and just bodies him. And I was like, you know, dude, if your hairline is like receding like that, you got to start asking some questions.

All right. Speaking of which, for him, he's been on a rough run. The thing we talked about on Friday, Jed, was like, like, if you looked at the guys prior to this fight, prior to this fight, I know he wasn't winning for Blahovic, but he had a draw with Guskov, okay? And I know Guskov just had a bad showing,

but he's still, you know, relatively close to the top-ish of this division. He had a, he lost to Carlos Oldberg, in a fight that people thought he may have won. He had a split decision lost to Poetan, and then the draw with Oncolaev. Now, I know he was old and had a million injuries too, but like, okay, the names he's losing to aren't names like Navajo Sterling, and then he gets fucking smoked.

What is next for him? I hope retirement. It probably won't be. I talked about this. It's 43, by the way. I talked about this on a post show. I don't think he'll retire. I would really like for his team to sit him down and be like,

Jan, here's what we should do. You have been in this company for a decade over it. I think it's over a decade for Jan. you're a former champion, widely respected. Like, who has a bad thing to say about Jan bohovic, you know? nobody um and so i would say cash in whatever capital you have go to hunter campbell and dana white chan chan chel being company and be like hey i want one more and i'd love to do it in poland can we

find a way to take a fight night show to poland you've got other polish fighters something that we talked about like let's let's do this and that can be my send off and you give him somebody who he can beat. Doesn't have to be a total can, but like 205 is garbage or just pick a, pick a name. And I would like that to happen for him. My guess is he'll just keep fighting until the wheels fall off. But they've already fallen off. Luke, did you, at MMA fighting, Mike Heck has mentioned this like on every program that we've done since this show. And it was a thing that I noticed as well. And I, when I heard it, I thought I misheard it. I was like, that can't be real. Did you notice that when Jan Belhovic was walking out and they're doing the commentary talking

about it. John Anick was like, yeah, Jan doesn't lift weights anymore because it hurts him to do so. Oh, like, brother, that is that you shouldn't be fistfying. If you can't go do deadlifts because you're too old, you probably shouldn't be getting in fist fights. You know, like that's, we should be done with Jan. He had a better career than anyone ever could have anticipated. Like, 10 years ago, he definitely overperformed. He overperformed. One of the great over performers in the history of UFC. Like 10 years ago, I would have laughed you out of the building

if you told me Yombova, which is going to be a champion. And none of it was he champion. He defended a title. Like he, he, not just one one. He defended a belt. Like great career.

It comes for us all. One and done is what I would like to see. And I hope that that kind of is what happens here. I think he should retire. He's 43. he's taking a lot of damage and this one was so I'm not going to say effortless

I don't think that's right effortless seems a little strong because again he did go through a little bit of adversity but like once he applied the offense Jed like it went downhill so fast you know what I mean there was no ability to resist it after that was over and I don't know he's always had a pretty good chin

typically he's been a really good defensive fighter for most of his career and just got washed. Like, it is real. He fought Carlos Albert very tough because he's a hard guy to look good against. And if your whole calling card is like, you might beat me, but Alex Pereira looked like shit against me. You know, like you were just going to have

a bad day at the office. And then, and relatively unproven newcomer smokes your ass. It's probably time to consider exiting. Yeah. For sure. All right. Give me a grade. Grade me Alexander Rackich's heavyweight debut performance against Marchine Taivora. Rackich wins by unanimous decision. This fight was the only bad fight of the evening.

And it wasn't even like an awful fight, right? But like there were 14 fights on this card, 12 finishes, one legitimate fight of the night contender and then this. It just got so heavyweighty, so fast. C plus. I'll give him a C plus. I thought he actually looked good at heavyweight. He clearly didn't just get fat and move up.

a weight class like cough Robert Whitaker cough um like he looked like he had actually bulked up to compete in this weight class he looked like Alexander rackett just didn't change like he didn't add too many things but if you are physically of a size to compete at heavy weight that's like half the battle and rackage has always had a good amount of talent like we talked about yon's losses go through the four fight losing streak uh rackett was on before this it's all very good men Like, it's all very good opponents. So, but still, like, if you're going to make a real run at heavyweight, you should be getting Marchine Tibera at this stage of his career out of there.

And Rackich did not really even threaten to do that. So C plus. I, I hated this fight. I, you can't give him a failing grade because he passed, right? Correct. but if I could give him a failing grade, I would. So you're in the D range here. Yeah, I mean, no, I mean, I mean, here's what I, okay, so when the fight first comes out,

he's baiting these blitzes from Tibora and then he's counterpunching him, right? And I'm like, oh, this is great. He looked good in the first round and then he got worse as it was pulled. He fucking stopped. He gassed. He got all this new muscle. Well, the other part, too, is like, when a rackage is better. things when he really gets to it is leg kicks. He's got some powerful ones. And again,

you saw some of that early and then sprinkled out in other ways. Like, he didn't completely abandoned it, but he just didn't stay with it. And Tyborah was just eating him. And I was like, dude, like, like, there's a willingness to engage in offense for a little bit of time. But like, you can tell, it just feel, I should say it feels to me, like, kind of what's happening here is he's got a plan to try stuff. And if it doesn't immediately produce something devastating or, you know, change the game in some way, he's just going to retreat to, I touch, you touch, I touch, you touch,

and then hopefully just kind of win numerically over time that kind of a battle, which is, you know, what happened here. And it's a safe way to fight. And I understand a guy's been on losing streak and he's been getting, you know, touched up. And maybe he doesn't trust his durability anymore. I don't really know. So, like, there's probably a lot of factors he's trying to entertain there.

But, like, you just can't convince me that's rackage believing. that was the best way for him to win. And that that was Rackich showing you what he can actually do. That was to me, Rackich finding a way to get the job done when he needed to and then shackling his game in order to do that. Because he probably believes that, like, I can't just be offensive enough without being defensively compromising. So I'm just going to narrow what I do and then just try and, you know, peg the board like that the whole time.

He parked the bus. He figured pretty early, okay, I can get this done. And then, like, and I don't really blame him. This is your first fight at heavyweight. You have lost four in a row. If you lose this, your career is arguably done anyway, but maybe you can salvage it with this weight change. But like the history of fighters who lose four in a row,

extremely small number of them come back to have a meaningful career after that. Weight change, maybe it helps. But also you're going up to a division where it doesn't take. much to get you out of there. And so he just kind of turtle. It's like, all right, I'm going to win, but let's give him nothing to go off of. Had Tyborra elevated his game at all to make a threat, I think rackets probably would have. He clearly, like, was in second gear for most of this and just played really safe and defensive. And I don't blame him for that, but it's hard to, it's why he gets a C plus. Like, it's, nobody's excited about what happened there. It was a necessary thing

for rackage to get a win under his belt. Maybe his next time out he can have a little more confidence and fight with a little more gusto. Fair enough. If we move to Dennis Bazookia's loss, was it an early tap or not? He didn't tap. This is one of those things I think Herzog screwed the pooch here.

I think he screwed it up. I don't blame him. I do understand how it happens, but I don't believe that was a tap. it kind of looked like one in real time, and that's sort of how you have to judge Herzl's response to it. My take on all of these things,

and I think I'm in the minority in this opinion, I would rather refs let things go longer than shorter because I think it's like, don't let somebody eat 50 unanswered punches, but I think it's fine to take one or two extra to be certain that nobody feels hard done by. And particularly for like a blood choke, he's not going to die if you let him tap or even go to sleep.

Like you can be more certain and then there wouldn't be, Bazooka couldn't feel bad about it. Ultimately, he wasn't going to win this fight. I don't think it's like, and it is explicable, but I do think Herzog screwed it up. And I think he'd probably even acknowledge it too.

This one was weird because he gives the double tap, which is, I mean, people are like asking, oh, isn't the tap three times? I'm like, well, first of all, it's not WWE. Yeah, one is a tap. Yeah, it's an intentional tap.

Fador getting submitted by Verdun was just one tap. There's nothing else to it. Of course, you can do the one tap, which is the, they call it. You can also change that to the Brazilian tap, which is where they pretend to tap. And then they get you to let go and then they just keep going, you know. That's what they call it anyway. Anyway, to me, it's a little borderline. I didn't love it that he stopped it.

I certainly would have preferred that he let it go. I don't think it's so egregious that you can't. defend the referee's decision here. I think you can. I just don't think it's the... There's a difference to me between defensible and good. This one is defensible and not good.

That's a great way to put it. But in any event, like, the other part two is like, Bazooki's had a lot of chances to win at this level, and he's struggled with it. And like, the other part of me is kind of just like, I just think this level is perhaps a little too high for him. You know, the UFC level is sort of what I mean.

I think he's a good fighter. I just think it's just tough. And by the way, that choke was getting worse. He had the knee up to protect the opponent from going chest to chest. But then he lost it. And I was like, I think he was going to get finished. And that's also, this is a really bad way to view anything like this of like, well, this was going to happen. But a lot of times it's just like, it's like the Cyril Gond thing.

Like he definitely hit the back of the head at least a couple of times. That's bad. Who's also going to win anyway? So I can't be up in arms about it in the same way. like, Bazookja has a right to feel hard done by to some extent, but you shouldn't feel like cheated, you know, if that's, it's like, ah, that's a bad break, but you didn't get screwed. You did kind of tap-ish, you know, Luke, what if, what do you feel like if they,

because this is not the first time something akin to this has happened, do you feel that they changed sort of the referee rules to fighters, has been like, hey, so we're not going to consider it a tap unless you panic tap, unless it's like clear and evident and multiple times. And then you, he just wouldn't stop it as a matter of form. And again, for like submissions, is that really going to be that big a deal? Like if you hold on a choke and the guy does a double tap instead of and then he goes to sleep, it's like, oh, he's asleep.

I can stop it. It feels like you could maybe make that change and it wouldn't be problematic. they my understanding is they try to keep the rules like on the one hand they don't want anything to be a tap because that would be hard to enforce on the other hand they try to give latitude because the way it was explained to me was some there's there there there need to be multiple ways for a person to be able to surrender and so for example you've seen guys uh at times it's possible to get like mounted and then both of your arms trapped and so you've seen guys try and like like tap with their legs, you know, or their feet.

Buddy, I've had to tap out with my legs before. And it is as embarrassing as you can. It is one of the most humiliating experience of your life. I can't do anything and I can't really breathe either. So the only way to tell you that I surrender is to tap the mat with my leg a bunch is. I know. It's like, I'm prepared to surrender and I can't even do that to you because you've taken away the means for me to surrender as well, you know. It's quite embarrassing.

So, so like the way that they try to think about it is like to give people some kind of demonstrative ability to do it. And I think as a consequence, they've had a hard time coming up with the, or not coming up with, but like settling on the idea that it has to be a firm, you know, series of kind of taps like that. They want to leave it open. But then this is what it leads to. It leads to situations like this where it's like, could this have plausibly continued? Yes. you know yes could have that's kind of to be an important dividing line as well let me move the conversation it is you really just a conversation of like to what extent i would rather have less

ambiguity and adopt a little more risk to fighter safety um and so like because i don't think you're really adding much risk to the actual safety of the fighters yeah but i understand that that's not like correct that's just a choice so fair enough also i mean it's just going to be hard for a lot of these commissions to want to pass laws to like, at least in theory, increase fighter risk. You know what I mean? Fair enough. Now, I want to talk about this card for a second because as I mentioned, it had the most amount of finishes, 10 first round finishes, by the way.

So 12 total finishes and then 10 inside the first round, which is a UFC record. Now, let me be very clear about what I'm about to say. Some of what these first round finishes ended up being, I really enjoyed. We're going to talk about a few of them here very quickly in just a moment. But a lot of this to me felt very empty too. I know a lot of people were like, oh, my God, this card was amazing. And I'm like, again, I can't get up on here and say like, oh, I didn't get to see action. I got to see action.

Oh, I didn't get to see finishes. I got to see finishes. But I also saw a lot of overmatched fighters and a lot of bad fighters getting like crushed. Like, for example, the Shepo fight or Chepo, how he pronounced his name, the Velasso Chepo fight against Gilbert Urbina. the guy just spammed right hands until he got dropped. I was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing here? You know, it was just like fucking insane. And then Kyle Preppelak, I do think he's a decent fighter,

but like he didn't really show up at all against Rombetsky. That was weird. Haley Cowen, I don't know that she should be at this level, you know, and on down the list. Like, that was a nice shot, though, from Milosevic. I thought that was a really sick-ass punch to the sternum. Yeah. She gets her with another one.

Anyway, so here's my question. A, did you feel something similar about this card? And B, tell me about the first round finishes that did stand out to you. What were the ones? Because I have something that I liked. What were the ones you liked? I enjoyed this card. This is empty calories of a card is what it is.

It's like most of these fights don't matter. And that's, I am, I'm of two minds. I think the UFC really adopting this year more than they ever have. they have absolutely leaned into, you called it Strike Force matchmaking, but like, you know, prospect development, squash matches. Like, we get more of those than we've ever gotten in the UFC.

And I actually think that that's correct. I think that they should, for too many years, they didn't do this almost at all. And so I think that it is a good thing to have adopted it some. They might have pushed the envelope a little too much. They're going a little too into it.

A card like this were like half the fighters were minus Aon. betting favorites or whatever. Though we did get some upsets, it still, it might be a little too much. And that was part of this, your experience,

right? Like, who really cares about the outcome of several of these fights? Not too many people. But you had some fun. If you were just tuned in for easy viewing,

you got to watch a lot of people get knocked out, and that was pretty cool. If I'm pigging two, I'm going to take the lowest hanging of the fruit here, because why be adventurous or different? Michael Olavera is the obvious.

choice that dude looks dude that motherfucker guy's physique is like i want to be long on luke threw that up before i even said michael o'er's name he knew where i was i was hovering over it when you said the low hanging fruit let me explain something to you 99% of men could work out with steroids their life and never look as good as he will like his genetics are insane just just looks looks good getting off the bus, as the NFL people would say. I loved him coming off contender series. He has some real like Rumble Johnson vibes to him. I'm not entirely certain how he makes his way class because he is, what does he cut?

Where does the water live? You know, he's just so, and he's like he's not wild, you know, like he'd knocked him out with a jab. He is, he is a genuine talent in this weight class and somebody to really keep your eye on is like, oh, he's going to make like an actual, an actual run at Welterway. So I'll pick him because Oban Elliott's also, of all these people, I don't think Oban Elliott's a great fighter. Like I, he had a moment where people were like, ooh, is he?

And I was like, no, he's not good. But he's not a bad fighter. He's, he is a, he is UFC quality in like the real terms of that, not even the distilled version of it that we get now. And he just embarrassed that dude. Like it was terrible. So, my goal of error for sure. and then you already threw the finish up there.

But Nina Milosevic, not because it was, I mean, one, if you work the body, I'm going to love you eternally because I think MMA fighters don't hit the body enough. She beat Haley Cowan, who has an argument for being the worst fighter on the UFC roster, so you don't take too much from her opponent. But women's Bannonweight needs all the help it can get. Here is a woman with, if you go watch her regional work, capable. I wouldn't say she's a world beater, but capable, you know, a little Rocky Pennington action to her and just this weight class needs help. And you've got somebody who came in and got a body shot knockout.

So I'll pick them. I'll do a few of these. I got to tell you, it didn't go to a finish, but I thought Borislav Nicolich's performance against. I love him the most. Against Valakdin was actually pretty impressive. Because he actually had some adversity early. He also had to overcome and got the job done. What are your thoughts on Vlogden?

because I could see you hating him. I actually am surprised he's had as much trouble as he's had. And I think he's much better than his UFC run has shown. But I think defensively, he's getting into a lot of problems by being too hitable. But I really like his offense actually quite a bit. His offense is great. He's way too hitable. He especially the later of fight goes, like every third round, he's pretty tough.

He's also probably too small for the weight class. but he's like, I didn't know if you'd hate him or like him because his offense is good, but his defense is bad. And sometimes you really want fighters to have defense. And that's not important to me. Like in terms of the craft of his offense, he underperforms relative to that. And I'd like to see him obviously get further than that. Tofic Moussayev putting away Ludovic Klein with that combination against the fence is fucking awesome.

Here it is. Watch this. Bang. Hold on. There. There. Bob, Bob. Oh, son, this is just tremendous. That's a second round, K.O.

Say again? It's a second round, K.O. Your prompt was pick first round K.O. I understand. I understand. I just like the finish. We kind of went through most of the ones I want to talk about. But it gets to this one. Noah Gugnion against Milo Janashik. I can never say these names properly, so please forgive me. Okay, Gugnion looks good, but I don't even know what the hell this is supposed to mean. He nearly loses the choke against a better opponent. He would have obviously lost it. but he's able to maintain it and get back on there. Dude looks like a sick athlete and I love his aggression. I just have no idea what it means to beat an opponent like this.

Can we talk about his fight IQ in this fight too? His opponent had the fucking drop foot. His leg was giving out on him. He couldn't even stand. And this dude was like, let's go to the ground. Luckily for him, what happened when he went to the ground, Luke? What happened when he went to the ground? He got the finish.

But that is some of the dumbest shit ever. Your opponent can't even stand. And you're like, yeah, yeah, let's go to the ground, bud. Like what? That was pissing me off. I'm sorry. I mean, in context, it's bad. But it's also not because, like, the only way Yanich was winning this fight or Yanichich was winning this fight was on the feet.

I really like Gugnion. I think he's a good prospect because I think Yanichich probably does deserve to be in the UFC as well. Like, I think he has some talent. He's got a ceiling and his ground game needs to work to put it mildly. But, like, Gugnian's young. I think he's 24, Long Island. right now I think he's like young he is 25 25 uh he's like a talented prospect though this was like this was one of those was like it probably shouldn't be on the main card but

I'm interested to see how this goes because he could have lost it and then he showed out very well so I he's a guy to look out for to make some noise you know all right before we go to the pfl let me just remind everybody about this summer right because this summer whatever you're watching, whether it's baseball, golf, soccer, racing, doesn't matter. Draft Kings has you covered for every single moment of it. The Draft King's sports app is now available in all 50 states, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. New Draft King's customers, sign up with the code combat, that's combat with a K, spend five bucks to get 150 in rewards within 14 days. This includes all markets. That's code combat, K-O-M-B-A-T, in partnership with

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$50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 14 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable, terms at dkng.c.c.c.0.0.0.L.L. Time number three, let's keep it now with the PFL. So same thing. We definitely need to separate this out, because we had kind of presented Friday, card as like a double header. Oh, you're going to get Dakota and you're going to get Usman. But I got to tell you after what's over, no, that was the Usman-Numbergamedov show. He beats Archie

Colgan inside the first round. And when I say beats him, I mean made him look effortless. I mean effortless. This is one of the best showings of Usman in quite some time. Granted, of course, it's partly opponent dependent, matchup dependent, and a series of other factors. I want to talk about his contract in just a moment, Jed, but let's sort of talk about his ability. For you, can you quantify how impressive you feel this showing was and

paying attention to both his well-roundedness, as well as his ability to get a finish here? It's hard to quantify because I don't know how good Archie Colgan is. I think Archie Colgan is a fine fighter,

undefeated guy. Oh, solid wins. But he, you know, doesn't have the same sort of pedigree that like any top 10 dudes in the UFC at this stage has. So tough to know like how good it is in context, but in a vacuum, incredibly impressive, right? Like you're taking on an undefeated guy who's at least capable. And it's not just that, oh, I threw a head kick and I killed him and he died. It's like he set that up.

Like this was a developmental plan of the fight. Like I'm going to hit him in the body a bunch. He's going to duck his head. I'm going to kick him in the head. and then he's going to die. The finishing sequence, the actual like uppercut as he sort of fluried on was nice. We haven't seen that much of this aspect of MMA from Usman. Like, let me pull him up right now because the critiques of him lately are that he's kind of,

yes, he's very talented, but how good is he? Because he goes to a couple of decisions with Big News Paul Hughes. Many people, many people thought he lost the first one. I don't, but like I understand it, Alexander Shabli or Shabbily fight. And so he really needed a stamp authoritative performance. And here it is, last fight of his contract,

main event. People are super bummed about what had just happened immediately before. And he delivers probably the best performance of his career, at least like the most kick-ass performance against a relative top opponent. So I don't know where he ranks in terms of like actually the best lightweights in the world, but I left this being like more convinced than I ever have been that this dude can win the UFC lightweight title should he go to the promotion and could be the best lightweight in the world.

And I thought that that's possible, but I feel a little bit more convicted in that belief after this. man I thought I've been yeah I've been critical of Lusman I've been critical I mean I think you could there's no way to watch him fight

prior to Friday let's say I mean Friday's part of the whole thing too but heading into Friday I was like listen the guy's obviously well-rounded he can do a lot but he had been he had been in fights where it felt like he was overly relying on control positions maintaining range

like didn't have more on his mind other than touch and go. And again, partly that's because he went 10 rounds with Paul Hughes, right? So you're obviously going to be somewhat more reserved as a consequence. But it wasn't just exclusive to those fights. They've been in some other instances as well. And then he comes out here against Archie Colgan. Now, to your point, we don't exactly know how good Archie Colgan is,

except I thought pretty good. Certainly a good athlete, undefeated, and a guy who had the ability to gut out wins when he needed to and had a wrestling background. like, you know, a tough customer. Like, you've got to be real good to be able to beat him. And Usman was that times 1,000. But the thing that I really, really, really want to highlight here is two things.

One, how did he set up the finish? Well, one was he was throwing the teep kicks to the gut the whole time. And then he comes up with a question mark kick because it looks like it's going to be a teep. And then he switches it at the last minute. And it comes over the top and he rocks them. So that's just tremendous to begin with. But it even wasn't that. He gets in there as he, as Colgan eventually recovers and gets back to,

his feet. And you see Usman run upon him, faint him, and gets a reaction where Colgan leans his head over and shows the right like he's going to fire it. And then Usman, I fucking love this. Usman feints him into a reaction, gets him to move over. And rather than just greeting him with an uppercut, because now Colgan is moving his head into the line of the uppercut, right? He doesn't do that because you don't want to lead with an uppercut. So he throws a fake hook to keep Colgan's head there and then Bob blasts him with it. And I'm like, holy shit, holy shit. Making a guy, make mistakes, and then instantly punishing for it.

That is the shit I'm looking for. That is precisely what I want to see. It's one thing to be like, you know, hey, I tricked you because I was throwing, you know, linear shots and now I'm going to throw a curb it. Anyone can get kind of, you know, any good fighter can get hit with something like that. That's clever, but it's sort of standardly clever. But making a guy make a mistake and then immediately pulling the rug out from under him, brother, that's high level shit. That is super, super high level shit. Your reaction time, you're processing, you are just your natural offense flowing through you.

All of that has to be really, really dialed in to be able to do something like that. And he did it effortless. Bro, this guy's top five in the world. He might be top three at life. weight and I'm being absolutely dead serious. Now, is he the best lightweight on the world, Jed? I just think there's way too many unknowns for us to say something like that. But he gives anybody in the top five problems and he might be the best.

And he certainly, I think, is within the top three. That's my view. Yeah. Like I, he is outside of my current top five rankings. We didn't do an update after this. But that is purely based on accomplishment and not ability. Because he just, these are good wins, right? but he hasn't

Max Holloway knocked out Justin Gachey I'm sorry I would comfortably pick Usman to beat Max Holloway at this stage of the proceedings but that's a better win at 155 than Usman has but yeah and like the thing to me about Usman is we've known about him for a very long time

obviously and he's been champ of PFL or whatever for a hot minute this was the fight where I was like oh he's got it he's putting it's it's coming together now. It's like these previous iterations of him have looked more like potential than actuality. It's a weird thing to say about a guy who's undefeated and beating pretty quality opposition. But you can just see sort of the bones, the structure of what he will become,

but he still was 25. Like you got to, you have to develop and learn to really embrace your style and what you are. And one of my criticisms of him has been that I wasn't sure what his style was or if he knew it because like you coming from that gym these big personalities these sort of epic mhm a fighter and he's a was just a little bit of like i can kind of do everything and not didn't really have a fallback plan jack of all trades whatever now he's 28 it feels like he is more in control of his himself in his career than he's ever been and knows what he does do well and how to set up his offense in a much more tangibly effective way. And that is genuinely terrifying for the rest of the 155 pound weight class because he is extremely, extremely talented.

And if he can match his ability with his talent, he's going to be he going to be problems for you. Yeah. There's no question about it. Now, of course, all eyes on where he goes next. This was the last fight on his PFL deal. PFL has now merged with MVP. There's a conversation to be had about Jake Paul in all of this. I'm told that there's a question in DMs from donks.

I've not seen it, but it's about Jake Paul. So I'm going to push that portion of the conversation there, except to ask you this. Like, is it even realistic that PFL slash MVP can keep them? Because here's something I want to play for you. Oscar Willis asked Dana about Usman Nirmugamadov, and there was an interesting response. Usman Namauga Madov has finished his contract with PFL.

Is that someone you'd be interested in signing and bringing to the UFC? Sure. Cool. I know it's one word. It's just a face. Hard to know exactly what any of this means, although I think it does mean something. What about you? So immediately afterwards, Uspin said all the right things, right? Like they, they talk to him in the cage. John Martin, all of them like, we'd love to have you. He's like, money talks, you know, Jake Paul says all this stuff about Dana, pay me, you know, prove, prove that or whatever.

And in my head, I'm like, that's smart because don't negotiate. against yourself. You have another suitor who's going to pay you money. So when you go to the UFC, you've got to pay. You've got to pay me money to do this. And there's about a 24 hour time period where I was like, maybe, maybe this happens.

Like maybe, because Usman is only 28, and I pitched this talking with Mike Heck earlier this week, it was like, he could still do this, right? Like, he could go back to PFL for two years and do the just-eng H-E-W-S-O-F thing.

I'm just going to beat up dudes. Because I'm going to smoke. I don't have anybody to fight, so I'll just slaughter these people, and I'll get paid very handsomely to do so. Lift my profile even more. And then when I go to the UFC, I'm still 30.

I'm still on the prime of my career. And I will just bring hell with me to all these people. And I'll already have a shitload of money in the bank. And my thought that that was possible lasted for about 24 hours. Because now the vibes of this feel entirely. like this is predetermined that everybody knew that we had talked about it and we're just not going to say anything. It's like your girlfriend broke up with you, Luke, and you're like, I think she broke up with me because she is, she's dating her best friend or whatever. But they don't put that out

immediately because decorum insists, you got to wait a couple of weeks so it doesn't look like, hey, I ditched Luke and now I'm with, you know, this guy. So it feels like this is predetermined. that we are playing out the string for whatever reason. And in the next couple of weeks, Usman will have a fight announced for the end of the year. Or shit, maybe for the Abadabi card against whoever it may be. Yeah.

I've just seen this movie before. It certainly is possible. He could stay with PFL. I don't say that it's impossible, but I say it's highly improbable. I mean, I've just lived through contenders getting to a point where, you know,

like what's next for them at the organization they're in? you're really not sure. Certainly, PFL's at an interesting time in its life, now merging with MVP, but there appeared to be friction with Jake Paul East on some level. I do think that the claims that PFL will pay him more are absolutely true, and that keeps them in the running. But in the end, they probably want to seize this time right now for Usman,

and I think that they will go to the UFC. That's the thing. It feels like this is monetarily, I think it would be just outright, better for him to stay with PFL. He could go to PFL, be like, look, you guys are in this transition period. You basically need me for two years. After that, you probably don't for whatever your long-term vision is, but you need a guy to hold down the fort as you start to embark on this new vision of your promotion. And I'll do that for two years, but you got to pay me just so much money. And I think that actually would be good business for both sides of the equation and more than he

will get in the UFC for sure. But you hear them talking about Father's plan, Abdulmanop's idea to hand the belt from Habib to Islam to Usman. And this just feels like something bigger is at play here, that they are not fully in this for the money. And so by the end of the year, if not sooner, Usman will be in the UFC. With that in mind,

let's turn our attention to the rest of that PFL car. Topic number four here. Okay. So it's a nice win for Dakota Ditchiva in the sense that she got the job done after a year off. She beats Denise Kielholz via unanimous decision. But there were booze during the course of this fight, and it never really got out of second gear, for the most part.

I mean, it was a couple of nice moments by, in various different contexts. You can see that knee up the middle. There was a front kick she landed as well, I thought was pretty good. Kielholz was overmatched and Ditch of it gets the win. But as I mentioned, I don't know, people didn't come out of this super high on her, and there were booze in the audience. Like, is she being graded unfairly, or should we kind of manage our expectations

about what's possible here? No, she's being graded fairly. She was like a minus 10,000 betting favorite. And she won and she was at no point at risk of losing this fight. She did not look good. And that's okay, right? Like, my biggest criticism of this fight

and of ditch of his performance is her reaction to it afterwards, where... I think fighters, and it probably just is a personality thing that fighters can't really do this. I think almost every fighter would be better served by acknowledging when you have a bad fight and be like, I had a bad day at the office because we've all had them. Like everybody, that is a very relatable experience of, you know, I came in. I had plans to do this.

I still did my job, but it wasn't my best work. Like not every show I do, Luke, is the best show of my life. and I think it would have been better if she said this because this was not like outside of the optics are terrible Denise Keelho's looked a weight class if not too smaller than Dakota Dichiva and Dichiva never really stepped on the again never in trouble never at risk of losing but never stepped on the gas

never tried to make a statement or really show out just kind of stuck around in third gear winning the fight comfortably even when the booze are yelling at her and like you can see that it bothers her. So I think it's fair to criticize her. She has been positioned as the face of this company. And in a high profile match that she should have, maybe she can't knock out Denise Gilholtz, who's a very good quality fighter,

but could have done more. Like I think it is a fair thing to say you could have tried harder in there. In the same way we said like Rackich could have tried harder against Tibera. He had more to lose. And like it was more reasonable that he could lose stuff. And so I'm willing to give him a pass. We don't need to hold this over to coat his head forever. But like your, this stage of your career is you got to show out.

And you certainly did not do that. And so the criticism of fair. Yeah, I'll say this. I think it is no question in my mind. The layoff didn't help. She just looked, you know, not unlike herself, but not the full self either. And I think there's just no way. way to say that taking a year off didn't play some kind of role there. All right, fair enough.

On the other hand, I think that it'd be wise for her to look at the way this fight went and to your point, ask like, what did we leave on the table here? Because it seemed like there was something that could have been done in that regard. And it just really wasn't, to your point, Denise Koolholtz, people forget, you know, everyone associates her with kickboxing. Her husband's a kickboxer, but she has a judo background as well. She's on the national team there in the Netherlands, which has a good judo team. So she's, she's tougher in that regard either, but she was also physically, you know,

I think she's undersized for the weight class and certainly against the frame of Dichiva. There was just, there was a, this was just, it was an okay performance. It was okay. Was it horrible? Definitely wasn't good. It was fine.

Take it for what it is and let's see what she goes into the next spot. I do think, though, I will say this. Let me say this. If she fights like that against Liz Karmouche, Liz Karmouche is going to beat her. I think that that's probably true. I have, there's a piece of me that wonders how much of this was stylistic versus like, because in general, Ditch of his last several fights have been this person is going to try

and take me down and then I just kind of bomb on him on the feet. And so you get somebody like Nisi Kohols who that wasn't like she tried, but that was not a primacy for her. So there, ultimately it's like the thing that I would say to Ditchie of if I were speaking here, this comes down to, this is an either or situation. Either you are incapable of trying harder against Denise Keyholz, which is really concerning if you are supposed to be the best fighter in this weight class and have to fight somebody like a Liz Karmouche who is extremely good at fighting, or you didn't choose to try harder against Denise Kielholz. In which case,

yeah, like people are allowed to boo you for coasting to a win. That has been the history of of combat sports. Fans don't like it when you don't try your hardest. And it is one of those two. So pick which one you want, but you have to wear it on the chin for either of those things. And that's just sort of where we're at with this fight. Like it's,

we don't have to harp on it. Wasn't good. And that's okay. Sometimes that happens. All right. So Habib Numer Gamedov's protege, Amruh Magamadov made his, well, not his PFL debut,

but a stateside pfel debut against Anhele Alvarez. absolutely crushing him with leg kicks, although doing more than that. Give me a great for Amru Magamadov's state side, PFL debut. A minus, because I'm not entirely sure how good on hell Alvarez is. I know that he's capable, CFFC champion.

It's not like a guy who's a walkover. Amru looks just gigantic for lightweight, like at ludicrously big in there. And yeah, you know, he's a UAE warrior, champ like he's been on the radar but his game looks really well-founded complete like that he it is built and structured in such a way as to optimize his strengths and he put this man through a wood chipper like he just kicked the absolute dog shit out of him and then like you know got close to finishing him in the first round after he complete shut out and then you know lowered

the guillotine in the second round so they keep doing it man they just they just they They just keep churning out these guys who are just like, I don't know. How do you fight that guy? Pray bring a bat to the cage? Like, man, team Abeeb is a bunch of really good dudes. Yeah, they're fucking tough. They're tough. Mustafa Diakate beats Daryl Walker in the first round.

Diocate was the Ares 205 pound champion. What do you think about him? An interesting prospect for you from Senegal? Yeah, like how do you not? One, many people disliked a lot of parts of this broadcast, and I understand that. I'm a little less critical than others on some of this. I think we'll get to that. My big gripe for the broadcast is Diocati had this, like, really cool walkout.

Like, they gave him some extra stuff. He's in the garb. Like, he's got a musical accompaniment. And they sort of stepped all over it while talking to Jake Paul and John Martin and this sort of thing. I was like, let that dude cook. because then he goes in there and massive favor.

Like he was supposed to do this. But he did what he is supposed. Dakota Ditchieva was supposed to beat the shit of Denisey Kielholz and she didn't. This dude is supposed to beat the hell out of Darry Walker and he did. It's 205. This is a weight class that desperately needs people

who are interesting and dynamic. He is still very, I still don't know so much about him because he doesn't have that many fights. But what we've seen is very good. He's got a good look. He carries himself in the way. that he is a guy you should notice and care about.

And so he feels like a guy that this new look MVPFL should maybe consider building around. If he's got the talent, again, he's got six fights or whatever. We got to see more of it. But he's got big paws and a puppy for sort of what you can do promotionally with a guy like him. I mean, I still think he's so underdeveloped in the raw that you can look at some of those punching mechanics. And you're like, needs a little work. But at 205 pounds, I'll take any kind of new entry. Anything, any port in the storm, buddy.

Anyone else on this card stand out to you? I have to say, shout to Danny Seguro. We had him on Friday. He talked about Lazaro Diodon. He was like, don't sleep on him. He actually picked him to win, and he gets the somewhat controversial. It was a tough close fight over former interim belt or champion.

Ralphion stops. What did you think of that fight? Yeah. So I caught pieces of Friday show. I did not catch all of it. And I listened to Danny Say. I was like, I had never really considered this dude. My first thought looking at this card was, man, what happened to Rafian Stats?

Who was a guy who was really good? And now he's not even on the main card of a PFL show. And Stats didn't even look bad. Like, this was a competitive close fight. Darien did enough to be like, I'd like to see more from him to see. If you can beat a guy like Stats, even if I do think Stats is on the decline, that's still, like, that's a very good win for a guy with, you know, 10 pro fights who's developing.

So that guy stood out. A lot of the other stuff didn't really make much noise for me. Tatiana Passenar, I'm going to read this now, Pasta Nikova. You know, Montana De La Rosa is a veteran, but how good do you care about that? Yeah, the prelims didn't really dazzle me. So if I'm picking one, I'll go, I'll go Daring.

Long Island, what about the rest of the prelims? What else stood out to you on this? I mean, my boy, Omar L. Dafrawe getting the upset here. He was like a plus 150 underdog over Jonathan Pearsma, who is from New York, but he's from Rochester, which like, that's not really from New York. You know, this is a Long Island card, you know. And then speaking to Long Islanders, Levan Kabalaya, who is Serralongo trained. You can see Ray there in the bottom right. He got the first fight of the night. He got a nice finish. And I do just want to say that Musafas walkout was arguably the best part of the night. Like that shit was sick. Dakota's walkout.

was really cool. But the crowd itself, man, a lot of wooing, a lot of booing. But the funny one funny thing they did for like every single fight was cheer the over. Like they were clearly a lot of betters in the house and they'd be like, three, two, yeah, like on the over. That's kind of a

great gimmick. Dude, and maybe I was the only one not upset at the Dakota fight because I took the over one and a half which was plus money and that was the easiest over one and a half ever because she fucking cruised to a decision. Denise Keelholt's never been knocked out. That was really my logic. behind that, but I didn't think it was going to be as, I won't call it boring, but as

anti-climactic as it was. Fair enough. So that was your PFL coverage. Let's go to topic number five. Now, this is an interesting one. We don't have a formal announcement from UFC, but there was at least one report from a Brazilian outlet of some stature that indicated that the next Noce UFC event would be headlined up by, in it with a featherweight clash between Jaire Rodriguez,

and Jayon Silva. Now, you'll recall that Jayon Silva headlined the previous Noche card. This was when he was taking on Diego Lopez. Here is the report from this outlet, and it says Jayon Silva has an opponent, and the fight date is confirmed. He's going to be facing

Yar Rodriguez in the main event of Noce UFC. He works for the ESPN Brazil website or via ESPN Brazil. So we shall see ultimately what comes of this. let's just take it this is not confirmed so but let's just take it as true for the time being for a fun discussion here on mk i cannot imagine i cannot imagine that this would anyone would say this is a bad fight i don't know on what level it possibly could be but let me say this is it the best choice for the noche event no it is not okay the best choice i think this is a fine

choice. Not even that this is like a, this is probably a top five choice if I'm picking to headline the noce thing. Because for a couple of reasons on that is flying under the radar, but like when we first started doing the noce thing, there was this huge influx of exciting Mexican talent that is not holding up as like Brandon Moreno might be on his way out. You know, like one of the biggest Mexican stars. It looked for a minute like Grasso was going to be there. She obviously brought it all the way to. back against Macy Barber. But like that class of young, talented Mexican fighters who we thought probably

four or five years ago would really have elevated plateaued a little bit. And so some concerns there. This isn't the best choice. Again, one of the top five choices, maybe even like a top three choice. The best choice to fight that's been talked about for years. And I still, to this day, do not understand why it's not happening. These two have beef. They have talked about fighting.

We continue to not do it. You know, you take the Iyre part and you put him against Diego Lopez, who has headlined a no-jee before, is not like Mexican, but is adopted Mexican. And you put these two dudes together. And that's just like, that's a fight that should have happened two years ago. It should certainly be happening now. And it's still not. And so instead we're getting this, which is a perfectly, perfectly acceptable fight. We'll be have fun.

It'll be weird. but I don't know why we're not doing Lopez Rodriguez. I just want to make a point about this. Like one more time I'm going to say it. Like if they end up going this direction, there is no world where a Silva Rodriguez fight is bad. I mean, I guess, you know, in the instance where there's some kind of eye poke and it gets derailed or whatever, yeah, that part sucks.

But that would be true of any fight. Like, just in terms of a fight happening without any kind of crazy accident or injury, there's no way this fight is bad. not possible. Just two action fighters, two guys that take risk, two guys with a lot of offensive skill, a lot to win and a lot to lose. It cannot be bad. And so I just want to acknowledge it a front. Like if they make it, I'll be like, hey, man, you know, edge of your seat kind of entertainment as far as fights go. Here is my issue with all of this, which is the point you made, I think is really strong, Jed, which is that, hey, man, like there was a moment in time when we

launched NoJUFC where there was like this emerging class of Mexico. And there was like this emerging class of Mexican talent. And there still is of some of that, but it's not what it once was. And, you know, Grasso's falling on hard times and Rodriguez might lose this one. And he's not been himself or at its peak anyway in quite some time too. So like you can just go on Brandon Moreno. It's just a bunch of names. But the other problem is this. Like basically TKO wants to be in the boxing business and is in the boxing business. And Mexican independence, the two big days in Mexican or Mexican American boxing are Cinco de Mayo, which I know is an American, holiday, not a Mexican holiday, but for the purposes of showcasing Mexican talent and where

it's been a Mexican boxing holiday forever. Yes, exactly, exactly. So it's been that, I mean, that's when Canelo fights, Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day. And so the other one is the Mexican Independence Day. It's a big day in the boxing calendar. It has never been a big day in the MMA calendar. And I think for me, Jed, the issue is, it's not like I find this fight offensive or something. It's that I don't understand what the point is of, having this constantly, like if you want to be in the boxing business and you have to treat Mexican Independence Day as a really important day, which they're doing, right? Ryan Garcia versus Connor Ben is the crown jewel. That one's going to happen later. This noce event is

going to happen earlier. I guess I don't understand the point of having Brazilians constantly in some of these ones, which I understand Diego Lopez is too, but he's a special kind of Brazilian. And you're having it as like the secondary thing. When A, the Mexican talent is, not what it once was. And again, that's not a reason to not do noce. I like that they're celebrating fight cultures and one especially close to us. But like they're halfway celebrating it. Like they're constantly putting people who aren't Mexican in it. They're making it a subsidiary of the boxing one, which I understand makes sense because it's more important to boxing. But like, why are we constantly making an event that's automatically second tier?

I guess I don't, that part doesn't really register with me. as like a reason to keep doing it. What am I not understanding? I think that yes, that it would honestly make a lot of sense to be like, because initially they don't have Zufa boxing. That's not part of the brand. And so we want to have provide something on this big fight weekend.

Like this is a fight weekend that people know. Let's get involved. And maybe we lose out to Canelo from viewership. Sure. We're trying to draft off that, create our own sort of. of carve out our own niche in this known thing. And then they get Zufu boxing.

And then it's like, well, now we've done it. They've not done it enough where they could walk with this away and be like, hey, we did three of them. We're good. Right. Now we're going to focus on the boxing aspect of it. And instead it just feels like it's an ingrained internal brand now. Like they expect us to have an international fight week card.

Fans expect us to have a noche card. And fighters, you know, Mexican MMA fighters want to have. a noce card. And so it feels like they're just going to do it. And now they're going to, like you said, subsume this to the boxing. Here's the appetizer. Here's the main course. It's fine. It's not probably ideal. But it also might actually work better considering like you don't have a Mexican champion right now. So you can sort of let this be beat here. But yeah, they could walk this way. But when does the UFC give up on like this? This just has inertia. internally and so they're going to keep doing it until they have a better reason not to do so.

I don't mind that they do it. I would just, I don't know. I guess it doesn't like, Notia UFC doesn't have to be a numbered event either. It doesn't, it's not any one thing that it has to be. But I feel like if you're going to be in the boxing business and you're always going to say, this is important to boxing and MMA is not, making MMA do a kind of, for them, it's like, oh, it's one big thing, but I feel like it's really not. Like it needs to be something on. I just feel like it needs to be standalone. If it's supposed to be in anything, then other than what it is.

I don't know. My honest is got to me. My bigger issue with this is that this will be the fourth one and it's in Glendale. Like, dude, take the, you go to Mexico. Like, you do a UFC might take take a no check card to Mexico. Stop doing it in the southwest United States. What is that about? Yeah, there's that too.

I think they tried to do it in T.J. last year, and then they had to bail because, but like, you, it's not like you can't hold events in Mexico. If you're going to do a card celebrating Mexican heritage and Mexican M.A. fighters, put the motherfucker in Mexico. Yeah. Especially if it's not on Cinco de Mayo, right? If it's on Cinco de Mayo, it makes more sense to do it in the Southwest. Yeah.

If it's on Mexican Independence Day, it's like, Let's go to Glendale. It's like, all right. What are we doing here, man? In any event, for the fight itself, who would you favor? I have to favor John Silva because, yeah, he hasn't fought since April of last year where he beat Pippel, right? Like, that was the Pippel win? Is that right?

Yeah, I'll double check that. I think that's right. And it's been like over a year. He, his career is just weird as hell to me because he, you know, interim champion, sometimes I forget he had a belt, even if it's an interim belt. And he just doesn't fight all that often. And then the guys he's fought hit or miss. And it's like, why aren't you fighting multiple times a year?

Because when you do fight, you are generally exciting. People would like you more if you were just more active. And so, yeah, a fight should be fun, but I'll go with the more active dude who also has dynamic offense, as opposed to the dynamically offensive fighter who has fought twice in the last three years or whatever it is. I, by the way, Pitbull was the last one. I think that this fight heavily favors Silva, but I think it's two cats in a bag

until someone lands something substantive. And I'm curious to see how Silva is mapping the next part of his of UFC career where I think he's had enough kind of feedback about what works and what doesn't, what lessons to take, how often you should bark at the referee, you know, those kinds of things.

And it's making him probably sharper, but I want to see how. How often should you bark at the referee? What would you say is the appropriate number of barks? No more than twice. No more than, you're giving him two. That's more than, that's generous.

I thought you were going to be like, you shouldn't because you're a grown adult man. No, this is M.A. You can... Look, you at your whimsy, Luke. Yeah, you can make animal noises at the referee in this sport. It's not rugby.

Mo. All right, and that is it for our top five. Now is the time where you guys get to ask us questions. We put up a thread or a solicitation for questions on Instagram every Sunday. It's time for DMs from dogs. All right, Jed, from dash. Fit, do you believe that headlining Medich

in a favorable mismatch and sort of, Serbia was better than putting him against a legit top 10 contender on a numbered event for his stock. See, now it might be, they did it again, but I don't think it didn't make sense for this time, so to speak. I think the first one is better to headline an event in friendly territory where you can show out. You have the clips of this that you can build off of and you, however many people attended that, whoever watched that, if you watched, and a lot of people probably didn't watch U.S. Beldgrade, like that's fair. Certainly fewer people watched it then will watch 3.30 or whatever. But if you watch it,

it's impossible not to come away from that event thinking about Euros Medich as one of the top takeaways. And that is better than, you know, fighting a top 10 dude on a random thing. There are, to your point, diminishing returns. You can't just sort of when you keep doing this, that's when it's like, oh, you're doing the Bellator MVP thing. What are what do we grow up? Peter Pan make him fight somebody real.

But the first one I think is better to do than the first top 10 fighter on a as the fourth fight on a paper view. From at underscore m. ally four. Why is it these fight night cards have more finishes and exciting fights over the numbered events with bigger names? Because you're getting mismatches and fucking donks who can't compete. That's why.

Yeah, pretty they I mean, they still have some squash matches on numbered events, but they are really embracing the strike force matchmaking of. Here's some local fighters as huge favorites in very winnable fights.

From Telvin Kippa, with WWE having a wellness program and the recent arrest of Anthony Smith and other fighters legal problems, do you guys think it is time for UFC to have a wellness program for legends? I don't, can I, can I I confess that I don't know what the WWE Wellness Program even is? So we talked about this on between the links at MFAIN.com, great website.

I learned that they had one. I had no idea that they have one. I don't know the like details of it, but it is sort of broadly the same like employee wellness program. And they're not employees, they're contractors, but they help transition and get, you know, various things. And yeah, I don't. think the UFC will do it, but I don't know why they wouldn't. I think it is such a, such a moral obvious good, right? Like, nobody would be like that that is stupid. And Dana has said

that they have something. And so I do want to qualify that because Dana got asked about this by maybe Jose Young. Somebody asked him about this at a recent press or post. I think it was Porre, not even the Anthony Smith thing. Somebody asked him and he was like, no, we have, we have something. But he didn't go into detail. I don't know if that's real. Like a promoter saying something does not mean it's true. And so if they do have something that's terrific, I'd love to know more about it. If they don't, they should just do it because it's not free.

But, you know, like the PI isn't a moneymaker for them. But it engenders goodwill. It does benefit their product overall. And I think that the same sort of argument we made do this, especially because fighters are more visible than they've ever been, and this is going to continue to be a thing more so than it's ever been, I think, given all the things behind how this sport works.

All right, here's one I've been waiting for. From at Brian Coolbeams. Between the two, which do you currently consider to be the greater hindrance as an effective promoter? Jake Paul's cringe factor or Dana's lack of interest? I mean, it has to be Dana's lack of interest. Jake Paul's cringe factor is a problem, or at least carries some negative problems with it. But that is to me, oh, the next question is more about this.

Okay. The next question is more about the point we talked about pre-show. Okay, okay. So then what's the greater hindrance as an effective promoter? Jake Paul's cringe factor, or Dan, his lack of interest. It can't be that trying and then being cringe at times to me is worse than not trying at all. I just cannot believe that. In a vacuum, you're absolutely correct.

In the context of one of these holds all the cards to promoting and the other does not. Dana, like, how much is Dana's lack of interest really hindering the UFC at this point? I don't know. I mean, it is, but it's like, in context, it's probably Jake Paul. But certainly in a vacuum, like if I had to pick one, I would rather, and I don't like Jake Paul. Like, I really dislike having him be. a major part of my life at this point. But he just like, he has become like, I did not know who he was before COVID.

And now he is a substantial part of my life. And I dislike that change. But like, yeah, to your point, if somebody's trying, that's better than somebody, even if they suck. It's better than them not trying or the, you talked about this. But the, hey, Dana, what's the favorite fight on UFC Serbia? And he just doesn't know the guy's day. Like, that's, that sucks. That's not cool when the guy, the job of a promoter is to get you excited.

And the best way to get other people excited about anything is for you to be excited about that thing. And so, yes, it's much worse. All right. From J. Rock. 1-1. J-R-O. A-R-T-11. This is a motherfuckerfuckers name.

J-R-T-11. Yeah, whatever. Will Jake Paul's involvement hurt the PFL MVP legitimacy, or will it bring in young fans loyal to brand names like the UFC unfortunately did for us tough one fans? People think his boxing fights are fixed already. So I want to add another context to this. So, so Usman and Mugameda, you saw this, Jed, he wins. And then Jake Paul, and I don't know if he was drunk. I don't know if he was high. I don't know what was wrong with him. But he did not seem to me to sound normal. He seemed under the influence. influence of something, which, hey, listen, if you're going to go to fights and enjoy yourself, fine. But if you're going to do that, then you shouldn't be on the microphone, especially after the unbelievably good performance of maybe one of the most important names you could potentially

hold on to, although this is the last five, like, of all the, of like the button up things you need to do, and then you're out there, ah, blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean? It just seemed so off-putting. At the same time, it's like, Jed, for better or for work? the PFL has just given the keys of the kingdom to Jake Paul. He is now one of the most important promotional figures in keeping the sport alive and doing well. I mean, obviously not as important as UFC, which is really the most important one.

But there's a role to play here. How should we feel about all of this? Is he going to do this job or is he going to fuck this up? That is the million-dollar question, isn't it? And I don't have a good answer, but I'll tell you sort of where I've landed. because I've thought about this a lot since the PFL announcement. It's my initial reaction, Luke, I don't know what yours was.

My initial reaction was, okay, we are shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic. It's a sinking promotion. It doesn't matter that you've added something. I'm a little more optimistic than I was initially. And hearing John Martin talk about why they partnered with MVP made a lot of sense in a way that I don't think I had fully given credit to. I thought about, but I thought it was kind of wrong. And I think there is a vision, a world where this does work. And I am willing to be optimistic and see for it to happen.

I don't think Friday was the best showcase for it. But also, I am willing to say, you know, they just closed this deal. This wasn't really super well planned out. It was like, hey, we got a deal. You guys should come to the show and we'll just start, you know, freestyling and see what happens. the thing that gives me some optimism is as much as I dislike Jake Paul, and I think there are valid criticisms of Friday and his overbearing presence on it, and I have a genuine major concern that there is nobody to put the brakes on him,

that if he and Nekisa and John Martin are in a room talking about what PFL should do, Nekisa is certainly not going to tell Jake that's a dumb idea. And John Martin is probably not going to either. and so they might do some dumb shit because Jake wants to do it. He hasn't done that with his women's boxing promotion and that's what gives me some optimism, right? Like he has done his absolute level best

to elevate the sport of women's boxing in a way that he is involved and present but he is trying to be a star that casts light on other people and not absorb all of the attention. He has done that with Amanda and sort of elevating her as best he can to frankly some success like that has been a successful thing and so if he can take the same energy in m m i think that's good i think that that can work

and i'm willing to let him try because like i say he's done it to an extent and so we'll see if it works out the same way friday wasn't a good showing i do i do think he deserves some credit though like the crowd hated him and luke you're an adult right like we could have looked at that like maybe just don't go in the cage because your presence is drawing negative attention. But he was always making it about the fighters. You know, with Diacate, he was like, this guy's awesome. With, even with Usman, right, probably shouldn't have been there. But he was still like, you guys should be celebrating Usman or Mermugmaninov, best guy in the world,

whatever. And so we'll see. But I'm, I'm willing to be proven that he can't do this and not assume he's going to fuck it up. I think on some level, there's no question he can. do it, you know, like he can, I mean, I've said this before, dude, if you look at the amount of eyeballs he's drawn on some bullshit-ass fights that were terrible fights, like, it's kind of remarkable how good he's been at it. And that's, it's not like he got a bunch of eyeballs on like a great thing.

He got a bunch of eyeballs on dog shit. And you know what I mean? Like, it's just wild that he can keep doing it. So like, that speaks to something. And I do think that the MVP card, the Netflix one, was in general a success. But dude, that to me, I, I, I, I, I think that the fans, I mean, you can't, they're going to feel about Jake how they're going to feel. I'm not trying to lecture them out of it. What I am going to say is like, I also felt when he was in there with Usman, I was like, do you get the fuck out of the cage. Like I just don't want to hear and see from you right now.

I mean, if you want to be in the background or something, that's fine. Like, you know, Dana's in the back after a main event too. Fine, you know, but I don't need to hear from you. I want to hear from you. That's where I want to hear from you. I want to hear from you talking to Dan Hardy maybe, you know, beforehand or something. something. But like once like Usman is done, like I just, and then the fact that he seemed to be a, again, I do not know, but the fact that he seemed to have been drinking, I was like, ugh, like it's just just such a bad look. I really felt very, very awful about it. However, the fans like, you know, and again, the fans being angry at Jake seems to motivate Jake. So maybe like it works out in the end as a positive. But I would just cautioned MMA fans. It's like, dude, you don't want Jake Paul to fail here. you don't.

You don't. For Jake Paul to fail here would be very, very, very, very bad for MMA. And so I'm not telling you you have to automatically just like whatever he does. I'm telling you, I did not like him in the cage with Usen. It made me very uncomfortable. But as a general view, to your point, like he needs some latitude to try and be given a chance to try

and be given an opportunity to lead here in as best as he can. And if he fails, he fails. but I think the fan base just deciding fuck that guy no matter what is a little too aggressive for me fuck him for what he did to Usman but there's got to be

there's got to be some simpatico happening here right it has to be fucking personally like I do not I do not like that man I don't I don't particularly think he's a good person he's probably not like the worst person in the world or whatever but like I don't I do not care for him

on a personal level but I think he is at like outside of we should give him the benefit of the doubt because we need it, like just a pure, if this fails, we are screwed. He has earned it. He has earned the benefit of the doubt with what he has done promotionally. And so this was a bad first step. Absolutely.

No questions asked. But I don't have to throw the baby out with this bathwater so quickly. Like let us see if once they are on a formal partnership and doing formal MVPFL events or whatever, if this is structured a little better. If they go and look at this criticism and say, yeah, you know, this was a little slapdash, a little thrown together. Maybe we were having a few or whatever,

and we didn't put our best foot forward. Let's recalibrate. Because again, he didn't, to the best of my knowledge, he's never done this shit with Amanda Serrano. And so give him the benefit of the doubt. And if I'm wrong and he ends up sucking, okay, that sucks for all of us. But like, I have some hope.

And that is our DMs from dogs. All right, now is the time where we take a look at your artwork and put it on our proverbial fridge. It's fan submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. All right. Best one all month gets a free signed poster.

Let's go with Jordan G. Who has a meme. Okay. I mean, it's bad Photoshop, you know? Bad Photoshop's better than you. good Photoshop, though. You said this last time I was on the show. I do want to just point out for anyone wondering, some of these

were sent in the month of July, so we'll announce July's winner on Friday's show. Okay, very good. All right, John McLean has two. These are usually good. Nobody. Someone at the urinal. F.L. never made a profit. I mean, I feel like it's important

to remind people. People are like, oh, the guys, they've never made a profit a day in their life. You want to Ask a question. Oh, at the end of the show, not for this. Shrek in Spanish. Dude.

Dead. Oh, that's a really good one. That's a good one. Dude, after a Friday show, Danny DM'd me again. Or message me on WhatsApp and was like, yo, bro, I'm not joking. You need to watch Shrek in Spanish. Like, he went further after the show.

I love that. That's great. All right. From Mike Kay, we got a bunch of these. Let's see what we got. Trying to figure out how many integers, my mileage is varying by okay well played

well played I like he's probably thinking about other girls I need to learn Spanish so I can know if Shrek 2 is good that's Danny all right I don't always watch Shrek 2 but when I do I prefer

in a Spaniel dude we gotta send the Danny ones are good yo we got to send that one to him all right the look Luke gives his neighbor when he's mowing at his integer okay All right.

All right. Long Island Luke getting high and ignoring his girlfriend. It ain't much, but it's honest work. Very good. Those are great. That was really a good collection of them. Yeah. Here's Jake Paul at the PFL.

Boo this man. That was also true. They boot the fuck out of him, bro. They really, really did. All right. Spencer has a few memes. He says, Danny kept saying the new merged promotion could be a solid number two.

And my kindergartner, mine got to work on the meme. point of view Danny the genie appears while Luke is in the middle of a multi-integer flush surprise a lucito it looks like it could be a solid oh my god dude there's a lot of inside

is insane that is a layered effort when Danny keeps talking about a solid number twos but Taylor Farms and RFK Jr. have had you shitting liquid number twos for two weeks Oh, we got one more. When you're two bong rips deep

Engaging in Morning Combat with your porcelain throne And hear Danny Sigurra talking about solid number twos And you low Kirkingly telepathically, I don't know what the fuck that is I don't quite get that one Yeah, I got nothing on that I don't know I don't get that one All right and last but not least

We've got four of these from Jesse C Luke heading towards the exit at Joseph A. Bank. You're going to go buy something, right? Sir? Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm coming to defecate and leave. Please understand that. Solid number two. Yeah, solid number two. Long Island Luke's live chat. You boys ever boardside a six stair handrail? What the fuck are they talking about there, Long Island? Because I used to skate a lot back in the day and I was talking about skateboarding or something. I broke my wrist board sliding a six stair handrail. That's probably the reference there. you used to skateboard

yeah I was pretty decent I like to think you know not good enough to like actually do anything you don't suck yeah I was pretty good there's some videos on YouTube if anyone wants to deep dive you can find Oh I check that out all right are you better than Who's is Jalen Turner the skateboarder in the Oh I challenge I challenge Marcus McGee I think is the

Marcus McGee he's apparently very good though He is good I watch his videos but I challenge him to a game of skate Let's fucking go Marcus All right there you have it All right with two more of these I think Luke Thomas live chat Long Island, Luke live chat. Yeah, fair enough.

We're some Pataco. And then last but not least, Long Island's perfect parlay, Velasco Shepo's game plan. What was the parlay? It was, Fight does not go the distance in Gungong, Janichich. Fight does not go the distance in Valentin Tadorovich.

And Cheppo Money Line. Man. Tough scenes. Yeah, you got hoard there big time. And there you have it, folks. Best one all month. It gets a free sign poster. You can send those.

Morning combat at gmail.com. Fan subs, dead wrongs. And then, of course, just a ruse to show more generally. Jedd, it is a long week ahead of us. What coverage do you have planned? We've got a UFC this week, right? Oh, and a PFL too. So I've covered in Vegas 120.

Gamrots soul killed, baby. Let's go. Yeah, I'm not watching that event. That's all my birthday. And so I took it off. And the best birthday gift I've ever gotten is not having to watch that UFC card. PFL on Friday will be okay. So, you know, we'll have a between the links on Thursday, preview show, post show.

They'll do that. I won't be involved. And all the coverage you've come to expect from Mayfight.com. And then we're back to the best fighter in the world, Luke, next week. So keep it locked. You mean, Ian Gary, right? Yes, that is. I mean, if he beats Islam, he won't be the number one pound-for-pound fighter, but have you

Have you considered how many tears there's going to be in the fan base if Ian Gary beats Islam Makachov? Have you considered like because Gary like it's amazing. You can give an interview where you just use the N word as a white guy and they won't say anything. But if you say women should run the world, which is a goofy thing to say, but like obviously not nearly as fucking bad as being like racist and and that kind of thing, they don't care. But if you say that, it'll make them angry. If that dude goes and then ends up just beating fucking.

Islam Makachev that wailing and gnashing of teeth is going to be legendary. I think I hate Ian Macha Tari more than any other fighter. And for a very specific reason, because he just seems like somewhat, like, I don't think I would like to have a beer with him. He seems genuinely grating to be around personally. But the fan base hates him for the, like, really, stupid reasons. And so then when I hate him, I'm like, but I don't, I need you guys to know that I don't

hate him for the reason you hate him. I hate him because he sucks. You hate him because you hate women. Like these, these are not the same thing. And so it's just like, uh, I don't, I didn't think we'd get both co-hosts to tell us we hate women on this show, but here we go. So the, I mean, Gary says goofy shit. Like he says goofy shit, but the outsized reaction, Long Island, you can

pretend is strictly based on what he is saying. Sure. But I also agree with Jed where like he's he's top five for me like least likeable fighters. He's, I agree. He says goofy shit. But like the backlash to the Ian Gary thing. Nobody said in the backlash to the Ingary thing, well, that's dumb.

The like the people who run the world should be the smartest. Like that wasn't the response was, DUR you think women should exist outside the kitchen. You cuck. That's like, no. So I hate him, but I don't hate him for the reasons other hate him. I don't want him to lose, but I do. I don't, I, Islam, he's a try hard.

He's a try hard. He is a huge try hard, yes. Dude, but I'd rather get fucked to death by a three dick donkey than watch him win a title. I got to say that much. Well, you know what? We might be able to make that happen. I don't know what the ATS budget is, but it could be happening in a couple of weeks. He's a big fighter.

Long Island, what do you got going on? I'm doing a live chat now. you know i did it last week it was a success so that'll be wednesday at 11 a m i haven't gotten a prop quiz locked up yet for friday but uh fingers crossed because this will be one year on the date episode number 52 52 straight weeks so i'm hoping to get that and that's sick thank you bro and then uh back to primetime saturday for ufc Vegas 120 you know 5 pm start full card watch along you already know the drill maybe i'll do something for pfl not sure yet probably not all right there you have it and uh you stay tuned to all of my stuff if you're so interested.

All right, as a reminder, we do have memberships on this channel, emojis, badges, and we'll think of some other fun stuff. I already mentioned to you the email. You can follow us on social as well. And then morningcombat.com. We'll have all that stuff rolled out here in just a few days, but we appreciate you, and you can, of course, check out the Evergrade stuff while you're around.

For Jed Mishu, for Long Island, Luke, and everybody else on the show. Thank you so much for watching on this Monday. We'll catch you on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains. Be loyal.