MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC: Cannonier vs. Gastelum | Kamaru Usman vs. Conor McGregor | Jake Paul | Ep 192

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Brian Campbell is joined by Aaron Bronsteter on episode 192 of MK. The guys preview this weekend's UFC Vegas event and discuss Kamaru Usman's response to Conor mcGregor. Plus, they talk Jake Paul's boxing hit list.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reveille, Reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat.

Oh, yeah. Who said MK got no love for those north of the border it's back baby it's the bbc with the bde one half of your weekly morning combat duo it's wednesday august 18th 2021 welcome back hump day edition bc on the controls today as the great Luke Thomas continues his vacation in an undisclosed location. But you know that face next to me, a guy who still prefers girls who wear Abercrombie and Fridge. It's MMA's answer to Elvis Costello, TSN's Aaron Bronstetter making his second appearance on the greatest talk show in fight history. A.B., great to have you back. Well, I appreciate the compliment.

Elvis Costello, an absolute legend. But B.D.E. is the biggest dork ever? I mean, is that the insult? You're throwing me under the bus right off the top? What's B.D.E.? No, no. See, guys like me, we've got that large energy because we're, you know. Oh, so, okay.

I understand what you're saying now. That's the B.D.E. See, I interpreted it as biggest dork ever, but that's, I understand what you're saying now. That's the BDS. See, I interpreted it as big as dork ever, but that's just me being self-deprecating. That's just you being cynical. Back by popular demand, by the way, Aaron Bronstetter, and I've never had the chance to co-host the MK with you, so I'm excited. And by popular demand, I mean I don't typically read articles, but I read a lot of headlines on Twitter.

And I don't know if you've noticed, it must have leaked out this week. Everywhere I look, it's prominent MMA journalist makes return to the biggest show in MMA. And I'm like, you're damn right. Bronsted are on the MK. Let's do this thing. It's gotten lots of publicity. You know, when it comes to Canadian MMA journalists, everybody's looking in this direction. They want to see the Canadian journalist on the biggest show out there.

And that's Morning Combat, right? So, I mean, I think that it's been a good segue into this show. I don't know how it got leaked that I was going to be on today. But, you know, when these things try to get kept under wraps, they unfortunately get leaked every now and then. And everybody's running with it. So let's run with it, too. Let's get going. Let's knock them dead.

Like STDs in college, right? It's a handshake deal that gets spread around. So let's keep with it, too. Let's get going. Let's knock them dead. Like STDs in college, right? It's a handshake deal that gets spread around. So let's keep this going here. Great show for you today. Looking ahead to the storylines of UFC Fight Night this weekend in an action-packed middleweight main event. We'll set the stage for the PFL playoffs and the return of the great Kayla Harrison, which goes down tomorrow night. Conor McGregor news. Jake Paul.

Lots of good stuff to get into with BC and the AB. So why don't you like this video? Why don't you subscribe to everything going on here on Morning Combat? And if you're new to this, if you're a Bronstetter fan, if you're from Mississauga, Ontario, or wherever the hell this guy is. Mississauga. You were close. Mississauga.

Yeah, if you're there with Nav Bhatia, Raptor superfan over there in Mississauga, then what we do here is MK every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday live, BC and LT. Great bonus content out there at youtube.com slash morningcombat. Interviews with Manny Pacquiao, Jared Cannoneer, so much good stuff for you to check out, so please do that. Also, morningcombat.store is the place for Merch 2.0. You could be drinking out of this mug right here.

You could be like Bill and Jen in the RV right now in Glacier National Park in Montana, enjoying the sights and sounds in their lovely MKGare. Shout out to the good folks there. Also, AB, I know in Canada it's a little bit different, but in the U.S., if you want Showtime, there's only one way you can do this for free right now for 30 days of trial. Showtime.com is the place. It's the only, the only place where you can watch Bellator, MMA, Showtime Championship, boxing, movies, documentaries, the UFO series,

a lot of good stuff right there. So as Luke would say, try it, right? Try it. Why not? Bellator Friday night. You don't like it? Pound some sand get the hell out of here i'm in canada crave tv bc that's where you can get all the showtime shows in canada

crave tv so there you go i would be remiss if i didn't plug something that we have in-house here in canada so you can you can get that as well and bellator is on youtube here in canada so you have a computer uh internet is on computers now, and you can catch Bellator on YouTube in Canada. Love it, love it. Before we get into the show here, A.B., I mentioned you are a stalwart of the fine combat sports coverage on TSN, north of the border. Can you update how you've been, your career, life, family, life good, things going good here? Yeah, life is great. You know, we're up here in Canada, and the weather is good at this time of year, of course. So that's been nice, and, you know, we're just chugging along. We're doing all of our interviews on a weekly basis, you know, breaking news and just having a lot of fun. I mean, this job is

amazing. Anybody who is lucky enough to cover this sport, it's just an absolute blessing. So it's been fun this year. It's, you know, the summer has been nice, but we've got events every week and it's really starting to ramp up now with PFL, Bellator, UFC, Contender Series on the horizon, the Ultimate Fighters just wrapping up. So there's still a lot of MMA and combat sports as a whole coming at us. So, you know, no rest for the wicked up here, but it's been great. It's been a lot of fun. I know you have had a much tighter restriction in your Ontario home

in terms of COVID and getting out of the house and back to work and all that. When can we expect AB back on the scene at a UFC fight in person, digging through the crates of the record stores, hanging out with your boy BC? Hopefully in a couple weeks for UFC 266. So that's the plan. We'll see if it comes to fruition. I know it's a it's a fluid

situation, as they would say. It's a fluid situation. We don't know what's what's going to be happening with all these numbers here in Ontario. They're saying that an optimistic estimate of how many cases there's going to be on a daily basis is like about a thousand eleven hundred by the beginning of September. So I don't know what it's going to be like in Nevada. So who knows? Again, fluid situation. We'll roll with the punches. There's a lot that goes into traveling from Canada to the U.S. right now. So, you know, we'll see.

But the plan is to be at 266. Well, that'd be great. That'd be great. I hope I get a chance to see you there as well. You know my people are from French Canada and Quebec. So does that make us rivals or brothers? Because I know there's this thing, right? You know, Quebec, from French Canada and Quebec. So does that make us rivals or brothers? Because I know there's this thing, right? Quebec, they want their own place.

Well, less than 50% of them do. So I mean, we'll take it. We're like half brothers. Alright, well people aren't here to hear any more of that. Oh, also, podcast award season is upon us and Morning Combat's nominated thankfully for many of them. So, Gaff, are we lower-thirting this?

Are we hitting the people up to continue to vote for us, or we're done caring about that? All right, drop it right below it right about here. Yes, the best MMA programming nominee, your boys BC and LT. Head on over to worldmmawards.com slash nominee. You know, take your pick. You a Rogan fan you're a big DC fan how about you're a big BC fan why don't you click on that right there and do that solid for us all right enough talking about anything else that doesn't matter it's time to talk about the fight game and our lead-off topic on this hump day of a very busy fight week of course which which the Manny pacquiao uh is back in

the boxing pay-per-view realm but we're going to kick it off with some ufc and mma it is ufc vegas 34 a fight night card saturday night back at the apex and back on big espn and we want to talk about the kind of fights on paper that leap off that scream all action this one headlined by a great one atop the middleweight division two guys looking for a win coming off of defeat to scratch back into that title picture as Jared Cannoneer takes on Kelvin Gastelum. Aaron Bronstetter, I want to throw this to you. As you look at this card, as you look at this main event, what's the biggest storyline jumping out as we're just a few days closer

to what should be a great one atop this card? Well, Kelvin Gastelum is like the cockroach of the middleweight division. You can step on him. You can try to get him out of your house. He is staying at the top of the middleweight division, no matter what you try to do. This is a guy that keeps getting opportunities to stay at the top. And the reason why is because he put up such a great fight against Israel Adesanya, the champion. And he's also somebody that I think is incredibly underrated, has been underrated. And if you look at his resume, I mean, he got into the UFC. I think he was the youngest Ultimate Fighter winner. He was like 21

or something when he won the Ultimate Fighter. Had a couple of warm-up fights. But ever since then, if you look at what his resume is like for like the last eight years, it's as hard of a, you know, of a slate of opponents as you'll see in MMA. He's fought the best of the best guys. At first, he was fighting them at welterweight. I mean, he was fighting Tyron Woodley before Tyron Woodley was champion. He was fighting Neil Magny. He's fighting all of these great fighters in the welterweight division. Then moves to middleweight, and he's just going through murderer's row to get to the top of that division. Faces the former champion at the time, Michael Bisping, who was a couple months removed from being the champion.

And just kept moving his way up the ladder. And this is a guy that just will not go away. And then you look at Jared Cannon here, a guy who's fought at heavyweight, light heavyweight and middleweight. You're going to see a bit of a size discrepancy this weekend. But I think really what we're going to find out is which one of these guys is going to be the gatekeeper of this division, because I think whoever wins this fight is going to stay in the mix. And whoever loses this fight is going to just keep getting tough opponents. And for Kelvin Gastelum, I just you look at this guy's resume and I, it just, it just wows me how tough his schedule has been

over the course of his MMA career and how long he can maintain fighting guys at such a high level before he gets burnt out. He's been doing it for such a long time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right that Gastelum in a lot of ways is the story heading into this fight. Although you could, you could certainly argue, and I think it's true, Kananir probably has a shorter path back to the title, and he believes, you know, he told me, we're going to throw to some sound from him in a second, but he had told me this week talking to him on Morning Combat

that he believes he's one win away. He believes he gets this win, he's back for a title shot. I think you can certainly argue that given the, you know, bottlenecked picture atop this very good division and the idea that, of course, Whitaker out of Sanya 2 is probably going to get pushed off to 2022 due to COVID and all that. But I think Gastelum is still the story for all the reasons you said. I mean, we can't avoid it, AB. He's lost four or five, yet he's still not even 30 years old. And all four of those losses have come against the super, super elite of this division,

and he's kind of showed out. I mean, not just the Israel Adesanya interim title fight, where I will go to my grave telling you he fought like a champion that night. I was humbled to be there in the John Morgan chair in the front row, and the guy fought like a damn champion. I think the big question for me heading in, oh, by the way, the other fights as well. The Robert Whitaker fight, which he just recently lost. I thought he fought very well. Showed an incredible chin. But here's my big question.

My big storyline surrounding Gastelum is, you know, is he still that guy anymore? Because I think he's become polarizing enough. And you hear arguments either way in circles talking about his stock. Is he already at 29, the celebrity journeyman gatekeeper that we circles talking about his stock is he already at 29 the celebrity journeyman gatekeeper that we're talking about or is there still time for him to pull it out i mean ab that's the best combat sports fight adesanya gastelum ufc 236 atlanta that i've ever been blessed enough to be cage side for and that includes you know yoana versus way lee and some great boxing uh pay-per-views and all that.

I mean, that fight was just everything. And it was everything because both guys, you hate to use that phrase, but were willing to die in the cage that night, willing to pour it all out and go for it. Did he pour too much of himself out that night? Can he correct this path of four out of five? Is he still Kelvin Gastelum elite in that same guy? Or are we looking at a guy with an L here?

Could be talking about job security moving forward. Yeah, well, I guess we'll have to see. I wouldn't say that his job is at risk, but like you mentioned, if he loses, I guess he's one in five in his last six, which is certainly not a great look. But you can kind of compare it almost to Rory McDonald and his loss this past weekend. You got a guy who had that absolute war with Robbie Lawler. It just was never the same after that.

You know, he was able to rise to the championship in Bellator, but if you look at his recent record, it's very similar to Gastelum's. It's parallel to that. He's fighting a lot of really tough opponents. I mean, you have to unfortunately count that Gleison Tebow loss against him, even though it was a terrible decision, in my opinion at least. But I think that this is kind of a similar situation,

except I feel like Rory's opponents have kind of taken a little bit of a step backwards in caliber, whereas you're looking at Gaston continuing to face the best of the best of the best guys all the time. And I think this will tell us a lot. To interrupt and cut you off, the difference, I think, between the two, although there is a parallel there in Rory still being so young at 32, is I'm questioning if Rory still has that fighting spirit to want to, as Rashad Evans said during Monday's morning combat,

go to that dark place and be willing to go there. I still think Kelvin Gastelum's willing to go there, and he showed that to a large degree against Whitaker, but how many times do we need to see him lose to elite competition before we're willing to say he's really good, but he's not elite? Yeah, and we're going to see whether or not he is burnt out on having to face such tough competition. But let's just be real here. I think that if you look at who he's lost to, the only guy you could argue of his losses

that maybe isn't elite, but it's still like a top 10, top five guy is Jack Hermanson. I feel like Cannoneer is kind of in that same category. And if he can get past Cannoneer, I think he's getting past one of these kind of guys that's kind of on the cusp of championship contention. And like you mentioned with the middleweight division, the fight to make obviously right now has to be Israel against Whitaker. But outside of that, there's not really anybody who's broken on through to the other side

that has been able to really cross that threshold into being, okay, this is the next guy. You've got your Sean Strickland, and he's facing Luke Rockhold. You've got this fight between Gastelum and Kananir. And you've got a couple other contenders that are hanging around. You've got Paulo Costa against Vittori are that are hanging around uh... you have polo costa against the tory out to guys that israel's already

beaten there's just a lot of of moving parts right now in the middleweight division but we don't have anybody that's established as that next guy i do think that can in your and strickland have a bit of a leg up because they and rock old as well because they haven't fought israel before so those are going to be at the automatic next challenges that that

the ufc looks, unless you can find somebody who is able to really make a big name for themselves. I just don't think that Costa or Vittori right now is going to be able to do that. So I think that when you're looking at the next challengers, you have to look at maybe Gastelum, because it's still not as fresh as it was the first time

they fought. I think he could make a case for himself with a big win over Kananir. Then you've got Kananir, and you've got those other two that I mentioned, Strickland and Lou Krockold. I might be forgetting somebody a case for himself with a big win over Kananir. Then you've got Kananir and you've got those other two that I mentioned, Strickland and Lou Krockold. I might be forgetting somebody off the top of my head, but that seems to be what the title mixes right now. And I think that we're going to have to see all these fights to determine where the division

goes after the Whitaker fight. That's an interesting point. I do think, though, if Costa gets a statement, knockout type of win, he might have the best chance of leaping the pack to sort of be next in line. But Kananir, you can argue the window's short. 37 years old, this is a rare situation

where both guys in Saturday night's main event are coming off losses to Robert Whitaker, who has shown in his own little comeback that he might be better than he was before. So we'll see what Kananir has. And this is something I talked to him about. Where is his mindset? Because as you know, AB, he had that win streak

and it was all about redemption and coming from working in the airport in Alaska and cutting down two weight classes and finding himself at middleweight and figuring out the powers of the power crystals, which you better believe I did talk to him about. But I asked him about that mindset specifically, if we can throw to that,

heading into Saturday night's fight. What is the mindset coming off the loss to Robert Whitaker where, okay, it's a loss, but man, you did show out. You were coming on, as they say, down the stretch of that fight. Do you take a moral victory from there? Is it career reset now at age 37? Where's the mindset like entering this castle about? Not necessarily a reset, just a continuation man um the goal is only to be better so why reset i didn't do anything wrong i didn't mess up i didn't i didn't do anything wrong i mean i did something wrong i broke the

i blocked the kick the wrong way but um other than that, you know, I've stayed true to the path that I'm on. So nothing new except for a few skills that I've implemented, my level of fitness, my strength, my time in service, my experience, all that stuff. But nothing new as far as the mindset just going there smash this guy beat the beat the shit out of this guy win emphatically a flawless victory um hopefully i can get i want to get that finish um dominant win title shot next title win the world next this is an interesting dude AB and you sort of tipped me off

you said oh I see you're going to talk to this guy you were like don't forget my 45 minute QAnon breakdown that has aired in the past with him we didn't necessarily that never aired we're unable to air that we didn't go down that road specifically although we did talk about his sort of you know willingness to say whatever he pleases he's a deep

and i i'll say you know in a generic sense a very interesting dude to say the least um 37 is the window closing we don't know he sort of figured out how to be elite are you of the belief that he saved face to a degree with coming on against Whitaker in the third round? Or do you look at that as sort of a clear and solid loss in really finding out that he is a step down from that championship level, at least for now? Well, it's a clear loss, but it's also a circumstantial loss.

He got injured in the fight. We don't know how it would have played out otherwise, but we do know that Robert Whitaker has beaten all comers since losing the title and has done it in the fight. We don't know how it would have played out otherwise, but we do know that Robert Whitaker has beaten all comers since losing the title and has done it in impressive fashion. One other fight I forgot to mention is Darren Till and Brunson in a couple weeks. That's also going to play into this division. So we've just, again, got a lot of moving parts here, and I think that this is kind of Cannoneer's last chance. As you mentioned, he's 37 years old. Gastelum's still young, I think 29 or 30. I think that we have a really interesting one here because

this is kind of do or die for Kananir and that's a tough situation. But on the other side, it's also kind of do or die for Gastelum if he wants to maintain his relevance in this division. Now, they gave him that kind of step back fight against Ian Hynash. He was able to answer the bell on that one and or answer the call rather. And I think that he looked really good in that fight. But I don't know how many more of those fights they're going to be able to give gaston because he he is just we know how good this guy is and i think he knows how good he is but it's like we were talking about is he too burnt out is he able to go uh you know walk through the fire like he was against israel and you can make a case that was the greatest fight of all time i i would make a case

that it's certainly up there um i was at that event as well. It's just like I was on the edge of my seat for that one. So I just want to see if that same Kelvin Gaslam is in there, like you mentioned. And, you know, for Gaslam, it's like he's always been a bit mercurial in the cage where, you know, we remember the long stretch where he couldn't make weight at welterweight. Is he going to kind of figure it out? And there's some fights where he just, you know, even the tilt fight, I wanted him to do more. I think sometimes it's just can he get the right formula on the right night like he did against Adesanya and figure it out?

I think your fear is, is he going to take too much punishment along the way in trying to figure that out? Because he did take some punishment against Whitaker and kept coming that eventually he's just going to show up a little bit older still not 30 years old but he's been in the pocket and I think you have to agree there's a sexy ass matchup because I expect they're going to be guns blazing until one guy gets down and doesn't get up again I mean this is a great fight if you just love action on paper I mean maybe we'll have to see you know this is there's an interesting story that I heard that Chael Sonnen told,

and you can see it on YouTube. It was on one of his videos, where he talks about how, when he was training with Gastelum, when he was coaching him on The Ultimate Fighter, he said that Gastelum is a real gentleman in the cage, especially in the training room, where he just matches your energy. Whatever gear you're going into, he's going to match

that gear. And Chael said, you know, he was going to first gear, second gear, third gear. And then when he got into third gear with Gaston, he could tell that Gaston was matching that gear. And he was like, I'm just curious how many more gears this guy's got. And he's shown that he can get up to the fifth gear. It's just whether his opponent takes him there, I think, is the thing that determines if he gets there. He's not the kind of guy that sets the pace of fights. And I think that might be a problem with Kelvin Gaston.

It's something that he should look at. He should look at dictating the pace. I don't know if a sports psychologist can help him with that. But it seems like whatever his opponent does against him, he matches that energy. And if he's able to get the better of Jared Cannoneer in that regard, I think that this is going to be a great fight. But I also think

that it wouldn't hurt Cannoneer to kind of take it slow. Don't rush into anything. Don't try to come out guns a-blazing. It's a five-round fight, and you know that Kelvin Gastelum is going to go five rounds, you know, as long as you're not able to get him out of there, and nobody has been able to get him out of there, save for Jack Tremanson with a sub, you know, nobody's ever been able to get a KO against him, as far as I can, as far as I can remember, so this is a guy that you've got to, you've got to maintain your energy for five whole rounds, and I don't know, have we seen Kananir get into that fifth round before

when he fought against Whitaker? That was a five-round fight, I believe, right? No, that was a three-rounder. That was a three-round fight. So I don't know if we've seen Kananir in the championship rounds. Can he match Gastelum's energy for five full rounds? So there were just a lot of questions that were going to be answered on Saturday. We'll put a pin in that for about 20 seconds about what can a near expects

quickly. I think you're right. Gasoline plays up or down to competition. I think that's why he got sucked into a technical battle to a degree against till, and maybe he didn't bring out the best of himself. Maybe it's why, you know, without a Sonia matching his energy, they both found that fifth gear. Speaking of shifting gears, I, I, I don't mean to curse you, but I tab you as probably being seven years away from a midlife crisis purchase of a sports car. You might be right. I mean,

how old will my youngest be? They'll be nine. Yeah, maybe, maybe. My oldest will be away at university in about seven or he'll be nearing university in about seven years. So, you know, you might be right. You might be right. Wow, very Canadian of you. I've been looking at Mustangs. I have the Mustangs and the Challengers when I'm walking down the street with my dog. And I see them parked in driveways. Maybe. We'll see. All right. All right.

Back to Cannoneer. We'll throw it to him now. It's an interesting point you said. Should he go guns blazing? Should he try to test his own cardio and see if he can go the distance? Let's see what he expects in our final clip heading into Saturday. Good stuff. Deep stuff right there.

Great chatting with you, Jared Cannoneer. Of course, this Saturday, you and Kelvin Gaslam. Main event ufc fight night las vegas at the apex in closing what can we expect when you and gaslam touch gloves saturday night uh fireworks sparks lightning a good-ass show it's gonna be a badass fight everybody knows what kelvin's bring kelvin brings Everybody knows what Kelvin brings to the equation. Everybody knows or thinks they know what I bring to the equation, but only us two know what we bring to the equation. And the fact that we have both signed on the dotted line to come into this

main event and put on a show for the millions of fans who are going to be watching is enough to say that it's going to be a banger, man. Kelvin throws down and I get it on. I get it in. And I plan on again, doing to him what I intended to do to Robert

before I broke my arm. Kelvin about to fuck around and get crystallized. You know what I'm saying? This could be it. Jared, thank you, sir, for the time. He gets it in and he gets it out. Sounds a lot like Bronstetter in college. Hey, don't get me fired, BC.

Don't get me fired. I'm going to say that a couple times during the show. Just don't get me fired. That's a good bet right there. Special thanks to Jared Cannon. You can check out that at length, 20 minutes of content on youtube.com slash morningcombat. So check that out. I'll quickly here, AB, looking up and down this fight night card, not overly loaded. Is there another storyline, another situation that you have your eyes pinned on?

Well, the one situation that I think has been plaguing cards that have taken place at the Apex in recent weeks is whether or not fights are going to fall off. We saw three fights fall off yesterday. And I hate to talk about the COVID boogeyman on the show. It seems like it never wants to go away. And I know Luke is on vacation. I'm trying to spare your viewers from this, from the doom and gloom. But it does concern me when you start to see fights fall off midweek leading up to a card.

And we've seen fight cards go from 15 fights to 11 very quickly. And, you know, it leads to a shorter event. And I know a lot of people like that, but I want to see as many fights as possible. So let's keep our fingers crossed that this one isn't as affected as a lot of the other recent fights at the Apex. But it seems like that is the reality of the situation. It's a bit of a mixed bag in that co-main event as Clay Guida, who has the same job title as my savior there, so shout out to him, still soldiering on at the end of his career against Marco Manson,

who's not young, but I'm still waiting for that signature. Marco Manson has transitioned from grappler to legitimate MMA fighter, and he's a threat. Does that come on Saturday night, that signature performance? I don't know if the signature performance comes, but I think that question might be answered, because I think that you're going to have a very high-paced, high-motor Clay Guida, a guy that's going to be very difficult to take down. He's going to be on the feet, and if you're on the feet with Clay Guida for three rounds, you know, Clay Guida is going to outwork you. So it's going to be up to Mark Madsen to land more damage over the course of those three rounds. Because if you're going to

place a bet on who's going to land more significant strikes in that fight, you got to lean with Guida because that's just his MO. He's got that high motor. He doesn't quit. He goes all three rounds with cardio. And he could exhaust Marco Madsen in this fight. I think a lot of people think this fight's a slam dunk for Marco Madsen. I'm not of that opinion. I think that this is going to be one of those situations where if Marco Madsen cannot land these takedowns

against Guida, it's going to be very difficult to do because Guida's got a very good wrestling background and has shown that he can stuff takedowns in the past, and has also shown that he can take people down when he wants to because he's so fast and he gets in so quickly with those doubles. I don't think that this is the same dunk for Marco Matz and we're going to learn a lot about him on this particular card. I think this is going to be a particularly tough stylistic matchup for him. I agree with you. Even though

he's 2-0 in the UFC, we've seen his gas tank tested a bit. I mean, it is a transition to get to this level and Guida, even at this age, is a guy that will test that gas tank and like a famous Canadian Harold Howard once said if you're going to come come on Guida's coming he will be there

interesting card Saturday night not the only MMA this week of course Friday night we'll get the return of Bellator I think it's Karatanov, Czech Congo. We'll break that down on Friday's show. We're also going to get to PFL in a second. But let's hit up this.

And some people are going to cringe and sigh at this. But Conor McGregor won't stop tweeting right now on his recovery from the injury suffered in the trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier. We've seen him in spats with just about everyone. Daniel Cormier accusing him of being drunk and fat on the job just in the last 24 hours. Good God. Connor

versus Michael Bisping could be coming to a theater near you based on some of the trash talk back and forth. By the way, Bisping did hit him with a zinger last night. Don't go at Bisping. Connor's great at trash talk, but you have to really elevate your game when you're coming at the Bispings and Chael Sonnen's of the world. Those guys are just the wit between those two guys.

I mean, you just got to be careful. Just tread carefully when you're playing that game with Bisping. Connor shows a picture of Bisping sitting in coach referencing that his mom flies in private planes. And then, you know, Bisping comes back with what's getting deleted faster, your tweets or your legacy? Oh, God. Wow. Wow oh god wow wow yeah that's that's those them are fighting words but the focus here is on welterweight champion kamaru usman connor responded to a fan question i you know he must be bored he was killing some time and mentioned that he would essentially knock usman spark out or spark him too or whatever that uk speak is that means knockout.

And you know Kamaru Usman, my number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world at the moment, is not going to take that. He came back and responded. I don't know if we have that tweet there, Gaff, to throw up there on Social Justice Wednesday. Spark who? You must be talking about that pipe you've been smoking. Unlike you, I'm going to talk shit, blah, blah, blah. End of story.

So here's the deal, AB. Conor is at the point where we're questioning his sanity, where we're questioning whether he's pathetic. We're questioning a lot of things. And I know there's people listening who go, come on, get to the next segment. This sucks. I know nobody is actively like, make Usman McGregor. Do you think we could put it past the UFC though

that if Usman gets back past Colby Covington in the rematch later this year are you what what degree or level of confidence do you have that Conor McGregor couldn't be next he could absolutely be next like people are dreaming if they don't think that this fight could happen Conor McGregor holds the cards. He's the one athlete in the UFC that holds any sort of cards in terms of what their fate is in the promotion. If he says, I want one fight, I just want Usman. Otherwise, I'm not coming back. I'll sit on the sidelines.

They'll make that fight. They have to. Because the amount of money they make on Conor McGregor fights is astronomical. So he does, to an extent, have leverage when it comes to any sort of fight negotiations that he has, because they want him to come and fight. I know we're talking about this later, but you look at what the UFC's numbers are this year financially from Endeavor disclosing them. A lot of that has to do with McGregor fighting twice this year. I mean, this guy brings in the dollars, he fills seats. And I think that if he came out and said, this is the fight I want,

Usman, you think Usman's going to turn that fight down? Usman probably thinks it's easy money. You know, I just don't see why people would rule this out. Listen, there's a meritocracy a lot of the time in the UFC, but you've got to remember, at its core, this is a promotion, this is a business, and if you want to make money, you make the fights that make money, right? It's as simple as that, right? And I think that I always say that you can compare it to George Orwell's animal farm, you know, where he says all animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others. Conor McGregor is more equal than others.

He's just one of those guys. And there aren't that many of them in the UFC right now. Membership has its privileges. Usman, by the way, has already beaten pretty much everybody in the rankings, not coming off a loss except for Vicente Luque. And that's just at this moment, not going to be a sexy jump out. Let's put it up there as a pay-per-view main event. It could happen. Luque probably need another win there. Of course, Leon Edwards still deserving, although he also lost to Usman before Usman became champion. It just, again, would make too much sense in dollars, that they would do it. But, man, you know, in terms of the potential of title shots

that you don't want to see that you would outright deem undeserving, I'm always going to put Dan Henderson in the rematch with Bisping up there because Henderson was 46 on the way out, hadn't beaten anybody of significance to earn it. Although, look, let's give him his full credit and say he almost won that fight twice. At 46, you know, it's's wild he hurt bisping big time although i obviously understood the storyline connection ufc 100 the the revenge and all that but i think this would actually be worse than when chael sunnen who was already sort of solved and used up at that point as a trash

talking pay-per-view you know b-sider when when he got thrown in there against Jon Jones and we're just like, why? This is a division too high. He's not on this level. He doesn't deserve this. Why is he getting the title shot outside of let's get some tough ratings and let's sell a pay-per-view or two? You'd have to agree. You'd have to believe McGregor Usman would sell way more than those two I just mentioned.

So that gives it even more chance of happening. But, A.B., gone to your head, you can't give him much of a chance in this fight at all. The odds have it at minus 700 for Usman. I posted those odds because I was told them as they went up. And every single response was almost with people saying, I would be willing to bet my house and car at minus 700 if that Kamaru Usman wins this

fight. And I think the only reason that this line hasn't gone up is because when you look at future bets like this, you're only allowed to wager about $500 on it. So the comeback on a $500 bet on Usman would be like $80, right? So I don't think there are a lot of people who want to just put $500 aside for an indefinite amount of time, or I think it's a year probably, just leave it inside your sportsbook in hopes of winning $80. I just don't think that a lot of people are doing that, and that's why the line isn't moving. I think that this line, if this fight happened, would move even further in Usman's direction. That's just what the public consensus seems to be. So, yeah, I wouldn't give him much of a chance, but one title challenger you forgot to mention, of course,

in as much Herald the debut, Joe Soto taking on TJ Dillashaw. I know that was a late notice replacement. Injury replacement, but great point. Just the same. Anytime Nico Montano was near a title, too, I could offer the same advertisement there. Wow. Hopefully, Conor's not focusing on the other lines that we're talking about because there is a lot of question about where his head is at. Maybe he's just trolling the world who knows we'll see of course he will be in the headlines relentlessly because that is what happens let's keep it going some real mma so to speak goes down

thursday night pfl8 it's the semi-final round of the playoffs for women's lightweights for the heavyweights the focus here obviously though aaron bronstetter is the women's lightweights, for the heavyweights. The focus here, obviously, though, Aaron Bronstetter is the women's lightweights and the big star in that pond, the big fish, Kayla Harrison herself. She's not the number one seed in this tournament. That goes to Larissa Pacheco, who's also fighting on Thursday night. But Kayla's the draw. Kayla's the main event. She's arguably the most dominant woman in the world at this moment. She'll be in there against Jenna Fabian, who is very, i want to say inexperienced right she's five and one overall

she has six feet tall though i'm sure you saw that that stare down right there uh we're gonna get into kayla's future and her comments and contracts and all that but as it pertains to this set of playoffs right here uh is there anyone in this Final Four that can give anything to Kayla in your eyes? Larissa Pacheco seems to have improved quite a bit since last season, but we saw how that fight went last time. I think that of anybody that's in this tournament, she would be the one that I think could push Kayla Harrison just a little bit. But, you know, I imagine the odds for that fight are going to be,

you know, Harrison minus 600, minus 700. But Pacheco's looked good, and it's been nice to see her stick around. I know she was a really good young prospect when she came to the UFC, but was just a little bit too green. So it's nice to see her career trajectory and how it's turned out for her in the PFL because she's looked really good this season and last season. Yeah, there's a potential good storyline here if both advance, meaning Kayla Harrison, who's taking on Jenna Fabian,

and then, as you mentioned, the 26-year-old Brazilian slugger Larissa Pacheco, who is the top seed in this tournament. She had two knockouts on her road to getting here. She'll be taking on Taylor Guardado, and to speak of Pacheco's resume against tough outs, these are her losses. Jessica Andrade

in the UFC, Jermaine Durandamy in the UFC, Kayla Harrison to open on PFL 1, and then the last time PFL put out a tournament, 2019, when Pacheco met Kayla Harrison for the championship in that final round and lost a five-round unanimous decision. I talked to Kayla Harrison earlier this season. I'm sure you did, too. She's not scared about what Pacheco brought then or what she brings now. And I think we can agree, it's a different Kayla Harrison.

At 31, we know the story with her now adopting more or less the children of one of her siblings and becoming a mom sort of out of nowhere and how much that's put her nose to the grind and sort of taking this more serious. But, A.B., look, it's different than just that. She's caught in wrestling promos. She's going out there to destroy people. At 31, she's a tank in there. I mean, is she among the top three or four pound-for-pound women in the world right now,

or is it at different levels of competition in your eyes? Well, I think it's a bit of both. We haven't really seen her against the best of the best, but from what we've seen her do to every single opponent that has been put in front of her, you have to consider her a top four, top five pound-for-pound fighter in the world right now. It's actually a pretty unique situation where you have, I'd say, three of the four top pound-for-pound women in the sport right now in three different promotions. You've got Kayla in the PFL, you've got Cyborg in Bellator, and you've got Amanda Nunes, of course, in the UFC. It's just a very unique situation because I think that Kayla Harrison's next move is going to be against one of those two aforementioned individuals.

And I think that that's going to be exciting. You know, Kayla Harrison doesn't fear any opponent, but she does seem to have one major fear, which is the fear of not fulfilling her potential, not earning those legacy wins that will make her in the conversation of being one of the greatest women to ever enter the cage. And I'm eager to see what happens, not just in this tournament, but beyond for Kayla Harrison, because she's scary. She's really good. She's really determined. She's a fantastic interviewer. I always love speaking with her. She's very honest. So I think that that's something to watch

because I think she's got just such massive upside in this sport. I think if you were to look at somebody that could give both Cyborg and Nunes a run, I would say that she would certainly push both of them to their absolute limits. And I know it could be easy to say, why are we talking about the future when she's entering the playoffs here? Because she's going to be such a big betting favorite for the right reasons. I mean, there's been a different edge to her, as I mentioned, this season. She's 10-0 overall in her career,

obviously the former two-time Olympic judo gold medalist, and she's had such an efficiency and a destruction getting a first-round TKO of Mariana Marais in the first round, and then that first-round submission via Armbauer of Cindy Danois. It's just been like, it's almost as if, you know, she can choose how she wants to end these fights. She's just been steamrolling. So with that said, Talk of Her Future has popped up

during these rounds of interviews, and she did an interview with MMAmania.com. And I want to read you these quotes because it's almost as if Kayla's attitude has been like picking up more fuel each fight and each interview rounds, right? Now she's more willing to not, let's say, talk trash, but just be honest and say, I'm the best in the world and I'm going to be the greatest of all time and no one's going to stop me. These are her quotes now about PFL. Obviously, I have these next two fights in front of me.

These are the most important things. I got to go out there and I have to dominate and instill my will. I've also come to the realization that if PFL and I are going to negotiate and if they're unable to bring in new talent or whatever, they're going to have to offer me life changing money in order for me to be willing to give up my chance at legacy. That's kind of where I'm at mentally. I know the PFL is negotiating with my manager right now, who of course is manager of the stars, Ali Abdelaziz. And that's the stuff that I let them deal with.

I have a job to do. Um, AB, those are some of the strongest comments she used to this point saying life changing money. She's already made some good purses from the PFL. The 1 million prize at the end of the season championship has probably been a big part of her trying to

establish her name here uh if she keeps rolling do we never see her under the pfl banner again after these playoffs well i'll add to what you said because i spoke to her as well the interview that i did with her is coming out today and i said to her in a year from now what division do you think you'll be fighting in and she said 1455 pounds. And I said, oh, great news. The PFL is going to be doing a featherweight tournament next year. And we had a good chuckle. We had a good chuckle about that because clearly that's not what she was implying when she said she was going to be fighting at 145. And as you said, she needs life-changing money from the PFL

in order to consider coming back there. She's made no qualms about, A, that she was unhappy about the quarantine at the first event that she had to bring her two kids into the bubble with her. She's made no qualms about, A, that she was unhappy about the quarantine at the first event, that she had to bring her two kids into the bubble with her. She was very upset about that and voiced her displeasure towards that. And it seems like we've got a breakup

that is going to be happening as of October 27th, I think she said was the last day of her contract. Once that happens, I think we're going to start seeing some negotiations and whether or not she ends up in the UFC or Bellator, I think is anyone's guess. I did like how she responded to Dana White when Dana White said, is she ready? Is she ready for the UFC yet?

And her response was, listen, Dana, if you want to sign me, we can make a lot of money together. Now you're speaking that man's language. So I'm eager to see what ends up happening with Kayla Harrison going forward. She is ready, by the way. I think that she could beat much of the 145-pound division in the UFC, which contains, what, four fighters, five fighters? That adds to the equation, certainly, because the UFC is just a very, very narrow field there at 145. But even if she were a 135 or whatever, I don't care what weight

she was at, I would say put her up against the best in the UFC. She's just a professional, man. She's a freak athlete. She's strong as nails, and she seems to have all of those championship intangibles. You don't become a two-time gold medalist and not have it, so to speak. She's going to be a star, and it has become must-see TV to see her each stop out, especially this season with the change in attitude. To close on PFL here, I don't have a lot to say about the heavyweight tournament

in the playoffs there. It hasn't moved me at all. You can cut me off if you want to break down your favorites there, but I've been tipping the cap to PFL all season. Straight up, AB, I didn't want to go near their product last year or even the year before. I'd watched fights here and there. It's been okay. Maybe I was sore that the PR team was harassment level aggressive to try to get me to get interested in and interview their fighters to the point where I was just like, can I put out a restraining order against you? But this year, dude, I don't know if

it's the broadcast, the announced team. You know, I don't need a smart cage. I don't need the stats and all that. But I've really enjoyed this product. Do you echo what I'm saying that they have made major strides forward this year? Yeah, I really like the PFL as well. I like that they have a mind towards innovation. Now, I know that a lot of the different things where you see the smart cage and you see all of those different numbers that come up at the end of the rounds,

you've just got to take that for what it is. It's entertainment value. That's all. Don't read too much into it. But I do think that it does confuse the viewer. I think that if the viewer sees that somebody got a 95 rating for that round and then the other guy got a 65 and then the judges gave it to the guy who got a 65, I think it causes some confusion. That being said, I'm never going to fault a promotion for trying new things.

I think the PFL has done a good job of trying to innovate it. I like their rep cams. I think that they just try to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And I like that mentality from a promotion that is not quite to the level of a UFC. But, you know, kind of the second-tier promotions. I like seeing that from them. I think that they've got a great roster. I think that they have a lot of fighters that could be top 10 in the UFC.

And, you know, I think a lot of people are getting upset with me for saying that, but I think that Magomed Magomed Karamov could be top 10 in the UFC. Ray Cooper III could be top 10 in the UFC. I mean, Antonio Carlos Jr., we've seen, has already been ranked in the UFC. Kayla Harrison, of course, would be, you know, a top fighter in the UFC. And I think even Pacheco, if she decided to go back to 135, if she could ever make that weight, could be a player in that division in the UFC. So you just look at a lot of these different fighters and how they've performed.

And I think that we see that they have a lot of great talent. And I believe that we're going to continue to see some great tournaments in the future from the PFL. I like their format. I like the way that they do things. I think that it's a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed watching this season as much as I've enjoyed watching their previous seasons. I think that there's just a really high level of competition, and the tournament format is really good. Now, it has some flaws, and there's certainly some things that can be shored up,

but at the same time, I think that this is a promotion that has a lot of upside. Yeah, that $1 million prize also, which of course Bellator also gives out in their Grand Prix. That's a big key if you're trying to compete with the top. That's a nice little offer, especially during this season of fighter pay woes, for sure. Speaking of guys very outspoken when it

comes to fighter pay and UFC fighter pay, it's Jake Paul, the Problem Child, the YouTube turned boxing sensation. Of course, a little more than a week from now, Sunday night, August 29th, he will be in there on Showtime pay-per-view against Tyron Woodley. I'm looking forward to it. Luke and I will be on the ground in Cleveland. Should be a wild time.

Should be fun. Should be wacky. And it also should be a good fight with two guys going for the KO. Speaking of going for it, we teased it a little on Monday's Have You Seen This Shit. Jake Paul has put out this hit list, and it got a chuckle around the horn there, maybe because he called Tyson Fury's brother Tommy, Timmy Fury, and maybe for some of the comments during the interviews this week that Jake Paul has given. But as we look at the hit list and what it is is the idea of who's next,

and you see on that hit list the three opponents already that Jake has taken out none of them are are great indications of how good of a boxer he really is although he's dominated all three uh you know uh a YouTuber a former NBA guard and a former you know wrestling and in wrestling heavy MMA champion now he'll get a very much more legitimate test in Woodley. But if he wins this AB and we look at that hit list, the hit list got some wild names. It's got names that may not be realistic. It's got Conor McGregor.

It's got his brother on there with a question mark, maybe as a joke. But where do you think he'll be in terms of the forward progress of this matchmaking and where we are in this celebrity boxing bubble at the moment? Keep in mind, we've got Anderson Silva and Tito Ortiz coming up. If Jake Paul survives in advances like he says he will,

who do you think is realistic moving forward on his hit list? I'm surprised Anderson Silva's not on that list. I think Anderson Silva would be a good one to make next if he's able to beat Tito Ortiz in that boxing match, which I think he will. If you look at the list, you've also got to gauge what's actually possible. The UFC is not going to loan people to Showtime to have them fight.

What would the UFC have to gain from loaning one of their top names to Showtime to box against Jake Paul? They gain literally nothing from it. Jake Paul continues to say bad things about Dana White and the UFC. You can just kind of throw those names out the window. And then if you look at the other names, Gervonta Davis, I mean, you're talking about way different sizes in terms of... Yeah, way different.

Way different weight classes. Not that that would stop Gervonta Davis from taking a fight like that. But I think that if you look at what's actually possible, the Logan Paul one is probably the most interesting out of all of them, honestly. I mean, don't you think if you have the two Paul brothers boxing against one another in a professional bout on Showtime, that would do numbers? I mean, if we're going to talk about what would do numbers, that would do numbers.

It would. I think that's more of a—now, I've asked them both about it personally, and they've both done the half and half, right? They're like, well, we've talked about it. Wouldn't it be great? Wouldn't—you know, and it is in line with them doing these sort of public—well, how'd they make their name? As YouTubers, you know, social media influencers doing public stunts and wacky stuff. is in line with them doing these sort of public well how'd they make their name as youtubers per you know social media influencers doing public stunts and wacky stuff it is the ultimate public stunt they also hedge those comments with our parents would hate it we don't necessarily want

that to me that would probably be more of a cash out angle for both when the bubble of celebrity boxing which is hot right now let's's be honest, because of them, maybe it was old Mike Tyson and Roy Jones that brought in a lot of viewers and got people like Triller thinking, wow, this could be a business model. But it's the Pauls that have kept the balloon alive, even though I've been very critical of how the Logan Floyd win ultimately played out from an entertainment factor. I think that's more likely when the bubble bursts.

I agree with you in the interim. It's got to be somebody commercially viable, somebody who can be competitive against at where Jake is at in his growth if he keeps winning, and also realistic. You're not going to do those UFC guys. Anderson Silva, especially if he gets by Tito Ortiz, would be a fantastic pick. I think the real question is if Jake Paul keeps winning, Aaron, because every time you interview Jake, he's like, I'm not here to be. That's the difference between Jake and Logan.

Logan is like, I'm the YouTube guy who's crashing the boxing party because boxing sucks. And I'm taking your, your marquee and your money because you guys can't put it together. Jake's the guy who's going, no, I'm a real boxer. So if he goes out there and knocks out tyron woodley i want to know like how soon do you put him in there with a real boxer and is that real boxer going to be an accomplished boxer who's a lot smaller so you're making a carnival matchup or is it you know the kimbo slice route of going after the washed old guy put him in there with like de la jolla or is it you know the the, the younger, but not accomplished sort of journeyman guy? It's worth asking. And I know they're putting Tommy Fury,

who is Tyson's half brother and is a celebrity-ish fighter himself. Who's made a name for himself on British reality TV. Um, how soon do you think we'll be toward the idea of Jake facing like a real boxer? Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're a real boxer, you should face boxers, right? Not mixed martial artists and things like that, right? So prove it. Hey, how about this? Put him against Chavez Jr. I mean, if you're going to put him against a boxer and have him build his name,

do the same thing that Anderson Silva did. Put him up against Chavez Jr., a guy who was a former champion, who, I mean, is a bit of a joke in boxing circles right now, but, hey, he's a guy that has a legitimate boxing record, who has boxed professionally for many years, who's been a champion, like I mentioned. So, hey, why not make that? Let's see where you're really at.

Because if Anderson Silva can beat him, why can't Jake Paul if he's a real boxer? So, that's what I'm eager to see. Listen, if Jake Paul wants to be a real boxer, then he should be boxing and working his way up the ladder He has no interest in being a real boxer He has an interest in being an attraction And I think that that's fine

And I think it's good for what it is I do think that it's a little bit I'm sure distressing to boxing enthusiasts Like yourself and many in the boxing community That we're talking so much about this guy When there are great five-star boxing matchups Every month That are being completely overlooked

for something like this. It's the reality of the situation. Hey, I understand. But listen, I think over time, it's going to eventually get exhausting to keep talking about this guy. But if he keeps winning, we're going to have to do it. Well, as I've said many times, if he keeps going for it, so to speak, going in

there to try to get the knockout win and risk a knockout loss, like I think will happen in this Woodley fight. And if he keeps winning, the bubble's going to still be there. I've been through the hamster wheel of emotions as a boxing purist of, I don't want this in my sport. And obviously, Showtime getting involved from a morning combat

business reality certainly helped us get in that direction. But I think also, it's fun when it's done right. It is different from regular boxing. It can be a separate different thing, but I don't know. You think they came in there with Mike Tyson eventually?

I mean, there are some crazy matchups you can make that the public would really want. It's interesting. Jake was asked on an interview with MMA Fighting this week about some of the members of his hit list. And again, it's not realistic, but he says of the Diaz brothers, list. And again, it's not realistic, but he says, of the Diaz brothers, I've had beef with Nate back and forth.

I've beat up one of Nate's boys in sparring, and they're unhappy with that. They think they're super tough guys, so let's prove it. Again, not going to happen. He still thinks he's going to one day fight Canelo. Not going to happen, A.B. It's not going to happen, all right? He might. If he wins, like, three more fights, maybe.

If Canelo's willing to do it, it'd be big money. You know, about, about Usman. He says, what is that? The Camaro Camaro.

There's he named after a Chevy car. I've got beef with him too. Not going to do that one. And of course, surprisingly, Jake had some nice things to say about Connor where, you know, he said,

well, mixed with some bad things. He says, Connor's not the same anymore. That's for sure. It's not as interesting as it once was. However, I would still like to beat him up because i would want to freak him to freak out in the ring and go crazy and lose his shit just like he did against poirier so none of those are going

to happen but there is a fighter who's technically eligible who appeared on morning combat on monday who might have thrown his name or hat in the ring as a potential future Jake Paul opponent. Let's go to the videotape right here. Let's keep it going here. Hey, Jake Paul, who's back next weekend in a Showtime pay-per-view on Sunday night against Tyron Woodley, has put out a hit list. Now, if we can zoom in, Rashad, I'm seeing, okay, Woodley, Canelo, the Diazes, Kamaru, Timmy Fury. That's supposed to be Tommy, by the way.

Conor McGregor, KSI, Gervonta, Logan Paul, question mark. I'm not seeing Sugar Rashad Evans on there. Can we get Ali to get you in the sweepstakes here, Rashad? What is going on here? You know what it is? Because he knows he'll get his ass whooped, BC. Listen, you can't convince people to want to sign up for an ass whooping. Oh, shit.

Because he knows, listen, he knows this. He knows he'll pay people off on a list. He'll do the fight the way he want to. But he knows, I'm not going to take a pay. I'm not going to take a dive. And that's what they're avoiding, BC. Wow. That's the bigger question.

Come pour a little sugar on yourself, Jake Paul, in the name of love, alright? Because Rashad's still got it. You can make 185 or 190 easy. You'll be looking jacked. Easy. Is that the way they're fighting at, 190? Yeah, about that. I think it's 185. Yeah, I can do that. A, B,

if you were Ali and you were advising Rashad, you're stepping up there. That's a good idea at this point. Yeah, why not? What does Rashad Evans have to lose? You know, it would be a lot of fun. It would keep him busy.

We know that he wants to get back in there and he wants to compete. He still has that competitive drive. He looks like he's in phenomenal shape. So, hey, sure, throw that name in the hat. You know, my podcast co-host, Bazooka Joe Valtellini, would also like to box Jake Paul. So lots of people are willing to answer that call if it's made. All right, all right. There is money to be made.

Rashad still thinks, you know, post-licking toad. Rashad is a new man, he says. So we'll see what happens. You see, if you had them lick toads before the boxing match, now you're really talking. Of course, all the fun and games will be real, though, when Jake and Tyron touch gloves. It's August 29th. It's next Sunday night, a little bit more than a week out.

And if we can throw to that undercard, there's a good mix of real box, of some fun stuff going on there. We've got Tyson Fury's brother, Tommy Fury, stepping up there. Could be a future opponent for Jake Paul if we see that. You've got a match that's facing pretty boy Anthony Taylor, who's on a five-fight MMA winning streak. Shout out to Anthony Taylor, one of the good dudes in MMA and somebody who's bringing a lot of great awareness to mental health issues.

So don't just say that Tommy Fury's boxing. You got to say that he's boxing against Anthony Taylor. He's a good dude. You should have him on MK. He's a great guy. Alright, he's part of the Paul camp as well. Amanda Serrano will be on there, so it's a good mix all together. We'll check that out next week. Let's keep it going here.

To close on our big topics of the week, let's go back to the UFC. And this one made a lot of headlines, and I think rightfully so. What a year so far in 2021. You referenced earlier for the UFC, the quarter two earnings statement came out for parent company Endeavor. Excuse me. And part of that call with Ari Emanuel or some of the details related to the UFC, and what we're finding out, Aaron, is that 2021 is the biggest first half financially in UFC history by friggin' far, okay? court, UFC's revenue increased 70% year over year to $258 million in quarter two in 2021. We know UFC's had some massive years in the past, 2016 with Conor fighting three times and Ronda

Rousey back and all that. Are you surprised though, given everything that this year, which we still had some COVID issues, we still had a few things going on, has been that massive? Well, we've had two Conor fights. I'm not sure how much of the revenue would be showing up in this report, given that I believe the second Conor fight would have been Q3, like right at the beginning of Q3. So I'm sure that a lot of the ticket sales and things of that nature would have been built into that Q2 result.

But I'm not shocked. It seems like they're doing a lot of different things to make money. And even though these events are taking place at the apex, primarily when it comes to the UFC Fight Night cards, you do have to remember that a lot of the Fight Night cards lose money when they travel. And part of the reason why Fight Night goes to all of these different markets is to kind of galvanize those markets, bring in new fans, get people to see the product for the first time. And they're willing to take the financial risk to have them go to all of these different markets. Whereas the Apex is kind of, you know, there's not a lot of overhead for those events. And they still do the ratings, they still get a certain amount of money

from the rights holders for each of those particular events. So that's already a good way to make money. And then, of course, you've got the Connor factor. You're starting to bring the events back to arenas, live events for the first time in some time. And they're all selling out at high ticket prices, breaking gate records. So I'm not overly surprised at this. That being said, has there been financial disclosures for previous quarters from previous years, right? Like, what are we comparing this to?

Well, we would have to call up John S. Nashash who i'm currently feuding with over uh over twitter you want me to call him is what you're saying yeah you're gonna have to call by the way what is john nash hiding for him to be this aggressive to show the ufc's number what are you hiding john nash all right does have a beautiful mind so i mean we do have to uh to go by his numbers all right uh so what's interesting obviously with this boom for the ufc and look it's great it's great for you and i professionally obviously in morning combat and tsn and cbs sports and showtime and all that when ufc's flourishing like this a rising tide raises all the ships that's why every time connor fights right we the money gets spent we get to do the full the full

boat and the full show on the road uh is obviously, how this offsets the, the very hot topic, which is fighter pay and, and playing in, in a timely fashion here is Cyril gone. Your interim UFC heavyweight champion, unbeaten, fresh off of that breakthrough victory over Derek Lewis, the stoppage win at UFC two 64 told a French outlet that he earned just

350,000 for that main event. And after taxes and paying his coaches will take home just 188,000 for that main event. And after taxes and paying his coaches, will take home just $188,000. Aaron, this is a headlining undefeated fighter in a UFC pay-per-view in a championship fight. And he's taken home less than $200,000. I mean, it's nothing new. We've done this debate a million times. No one's here to say fighter pay is on par. It's great. But, like, it's extra damning when the UFC comes out with 70% increase year over year

and you got this unbeaten guy who is just making ends meet. Now, that's an exaggeration, but you get what I'm saying there. Will this get fixed anytime soon? How many more positive headlines can we keep having? How many more times can Dana White go, I can't bump the bonuses up to 75K. It would quote, fuck up our budget. Dude, your budget's on fire right now.

I'm kind of interested in picking your brain because Luke and I talk about this ad nauseum. We both agree that for fighters to get paid, there's going to be a back end to that. And it's the fact that like we as fans and journalists thrive on the great matchups because of the lower fighter pay to a great degree and the way you can force people into matchups. Do you see a change anytime soon?

How many more of these big time headlines can John Nash put out there before we'll, before Dana and company have to adjust? I don't see it changing anytime soon. And I know Luke has said this many times. It's kind of in the fighter's hands. You know, we, we can talk about this as much as we want, but ultimately we're not the ones that are coming up with the contract. We're not the ones signing the contracts. And we're also not the ones that can, can do something to get a collective bargain, uh, bargaining situation by collective bargaining situation by unionizing. So as much as we want to talk about it, and if we want to criticize it,

we can criticize it until the cows come home and all of that. But at the same time, it's kind of in the fighters' hands, and it's in the hands of their managers. So it's hard for us to continuously go to bat for them in this regard when we really have no power over the situation, and we're not the ones that should have any power over the situation you know we have the power of the pen and that's about it uh and another thing that we have to look at is if you look at the financial disclosures from Endeavor the company still reported a net loss of 320 million dollars approximately uh regardless

of the UFC success and we have to keep in mind that while the UFC is doing well the parent company Endeavor needs to do well on top of that. And in the midst of a pandemic, and we still have a lot of moving parts when it comes to talent management and live events, and all of the different things that Endeavor are in the business of, a lot of that has to be kept in mind when we look at this kind of thing. And even though people say, hey, $75,000 versus $50,000 isn't going to break the budget, you're still allotting an additional $100,000 to an event that you didn't have allotted before. And even though, you know, people will laugh and say, well, it's going to mess up our budget, the budget is still the budget. If you're on the business end of things, that's not something that really gets adjusted on the fly,

except, you know, in certain circumstances. And, well, you know, I'm not trying to go to bat for the UFC here, but these are just little factors that people do need to take into account. And we also need to stop looking at the UFC as a sports league. It's not a sports league. It's a promotional business. And when you're in the promotional business, you have to almost look at it as if you're a concert promoter or as if you're, again, in the live events business, not a sports business. We don't have owners of teams we don't have shares this is all run by a single entity that has made this sport so gigantic and is bringing in a lot of money as you mentioned and as this report mentions

but there are just a lot of little factors that need to be taken into account uh when it comes to fighter pay that we as people in the media cannot remedy we can talk about it as much as we'd like but this is something that's kind of on the fighters cannot remedy we can talk about it as much as we'd like but this is something that's kind of on the fighters and on the management uh and if they're unhappy with it they can do something about it we can't do anything about it so we can talk about it till the cows come home it's a topic that's going to continue as time you know for for until there is a collective bargaining agreement in place and there is a bigger revenue share we can keep talking about it we can talk about how crypto.com the fighters aren't getting any of that money

um whereas otherwise they would have gotten money when they were getting sponsors on their fight kits. We can mention these things and it's good to bring light to these situations. There's just not much we can do about it. Well, I'll give you respect as somebody who gets regular access with Dana White and company. You do ask the hard-hitting questions. You do sort of go after it and you do make a good point that we can't overlook the endeavor factor. I said, I brought it up to Dana last year, that Dana being so ridiculously over-the-top and brave and brazen

to put the train back on the tracks during COVID had to do with the idea of the parent company hurting and needing the money. He said, that's bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. I think it's fairly obvious that it wasn't right you know what i mean i'm sure dana is just wired that way to not be held back by everything anything but there was financial incentive to get meet that minimum requirement of that espn deal because of how much that

that fuels the ship and and but you know you do see john nash tweeting out that ufc 264 the the promotion paid out just 10 of the the overall gross to the fighters. So until the fighters stand up outside the gates of a pay-per-view and say, join arms and say, we're not fighting until you bump it up. And even if they did that, AB, Dana's probably got a plane full of fighters who are ready to fly in and take that last-minute picket-crossing opportunity. And that's one of the problems, right? It's like the fighters are a little bit handcuffed in this situation.

You look at the roster and you look at how many of these cards are occupied by fighters that have been on the contender series that are making kind of a lower base salary. And it's astronomical. If I pull it up here, let me pull up this weekend's card. And just go from top to bottom here. You've got, I think Parker Porter was on Contender Series. I don't think he is anymore. Sorry, I don't think that he got the contract that way. But Domingo Palarte did.

I think Austin Lingo did. Luis Saldana did. William Knight did. You just look through all of these names. Ignacio Bahamundes, Roosevelt Roberts. All of these different fighters that got their opportunity through Contender Series and are on these kind of entry-level contracts, they can call up anybody who lost in the Contender Series tomorrow.

Those guys would jump on a plane and come to Vegas and fight. So it is very difficult for fighters to do this in a way that makes sense. It would have to be the fighters at the top. And I always say, the thing about the UFC is the fighters that are on the undercard or in the prelims aren't the ones that are hurting as much as the fighters that are actually at the top if you are going to compare it to boxing. Because if you look at boxing cards and the pay structure for a lot of these boxing cards,

the opening fights and the first five, six fights, these guys are making, what, one and one, two and two sometimes. They're not making a lot of money but the people at the very top are making three four million dollars uh for their fights millions and millions of dollars whereas the fighters at the top of the ufc aren't making the the amount of money that these big boxers are but a lot of the fighters that are making 15 and 15 to be the first fight on uh on a fight pass prelim they're actually doing okay if you're going to compare it to boxing so these are the kind of things you do have to look at, the economics of the sport. I think it's going to take all of the

fighters at the very top to bring everybody together. It's not going to take Bjorn Rebny. We don't need Bjorn Rebny, but we do need some former. Look at that. Think about that, though. Think about that situation. You've got TJ Dillashaw at the top of his game. You've got Cain Velasquez at the top of the game. GSP. You've got all

these big names coming together. Company man cowboy. They tried, but then they stopped. So, you know. Well, how long did it last? You had Bjorn Rebney. You had a powerhouse. You had all of these lawyers

on board to try to help do this. It lasted like three days. It lasted as long as that press conference. And that's with the biggest names in the sport. Yeah. Look, we can't fix it,

but we can continue to announce the facts. And that's what we did here uh to close sort of the news of the week happy 34th birthday today to the great joanna young jay check former strawweight champion the champion of our heart normally i'm not allowed to applaud her with praise on this show because sometimes luke is a curmudgeon but jj come on j you want a champion okay you know we love you here uh ab close out, you wanted to bring up that the Tough 29 season has come to a close. Luke and I, full disclosure, have not been following it, but you can.

What can you tell us about the fighters? I know there's this one fella who continues to get some close-up, Ricky Tursios. That guy looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because you're not seeing a lot of people talk about Tuff, but I really enjoy the show. I continue to watch every season. I'm not a big fan of reality TV in general, but I do like watching Tuff every single week because you get to learn about these stories and really get a good feel for these fighters early on in their career, what they're all about, and learn more about their backstories. And I really enjoy that part of it. And while the Contender Series does that to an extent, you know, I kind of, when I spoke to Dana White,

you know, a couple, I guess a couple months ago when Tuff was relaunching, I said, Tuff is kind of like your Kraft burger. You can go to a burger joint and you put, you get custom toppings, you can get them to cook it well done or whatever, or medium rare, you can do, you can really customize and you get to learn the full story of the burger. Whereas the Contender Series is kind of a conveyor belt. You know, you're getting your burgers out to people. You got your standard cheeseburger. You got your Big Macs.

That's what the Contender Series is compared to Tough. I kind of like Tough for that reason. You kind of get to really learn about these guys. And you mentioned Ricky Tercios. When I first started watching the season, you know, I'm not looking for people to cheer for because i'm in media but i just really liked his energy that he brought to the show i liked his attitude he was uh kind of a later pick and i know or take his team were kind of like this guy's kind of a weirdo i don't know if we should would draft him and volkanovsky's team did draft him and i think that it ended up paying off for

them because he's just a really enigmatic guy and then on the other side of things you got uh brady um brady he stand I believe is his name. And he's a guy that trained with Michael Chiesa. And if you look at his record before he came to the UFC, let's just say he fought a lot of guys that have bad records, guys that were like 0-4, 1-6, that kind of thing, where you look at it, it's like, how is this guy going to do in the UFC when he gets to the big show?

And he's really delivered. This is a guy that Michael Chiesa called the matchmakers and said, I don't ask for a lot of favors, but I'm a guy that won tough. And I think that this guy's got a really big future. And he ended up being right because now he's in the finals. And you've got Gastelum fighting this weekend, the guy who was the last pick in the middleweight division. And now you've got Brian Battle, who's also a last pick in the middleweight division for his now you've got Brian Battle, who's also a last pick in the middleweight division for his team that's going to go to the finals against Treshawn Gore. I've just really enjoyed the season.

I think that these guys are going to be a lot of fun to watch, and a lot of them will be a lot of fun for the UFC. I'm not avoiding it out of any reason, but Tursios has made his way across my radar with some fun highlights, seems like to be a fun personality. So he has made me want to begin following his story. What about the season of tough from the standpoint of the coaches? Brian Ortega, the challenger against Alexander Volkanovsky.

I mean, I can't wait to see that fight. I'm sure no one ripped the door off Rampage style, but did we get some juicy moments between them? Not a ton of them and i i'm not necessarily against that i do think that it's better to put the focus on the actual contestants rather than on the coaches but it seems like there is some real beef coming out of that show it seems like they really can't stand each other now for whatever reason but that didn't really come through on the actual show itself all right all right no no snake in the grass no tj

dillashaw no snake in the grass nothing like, no. Although Volkanovsky pulled off this really odd prank on the show. Ortega kept showing up late, so he filled the locker room up with clocks. You took a dump in the top shelf of the toilet. I've seen it before. No, no upper deckers on the season, unfortunately. He filled up the locker room with clocks, and it was one of the worst pranks you'll ever see. Yeah, that's that that's a that that's like a that's a that's gross that's lame okay uh hey no luke thomas this

week so normally on wednesday we would hit you up with uh fan submissions wheel of death i've decided here as co-host i don't have producer credit of course to uh create two special fun segments today for use between bc and ab so let's keep it rolling. I got a new segment idea right here. We're going to try it out. Here's the premise. Sometimes I come up with hot takes with some crazy thoughts. So I've decided to write them down on paper. Seven of them.

Some crazy takes. Call it. We'll call the segment Call Me Crazy. I do that anyways. I do that anyways. So whatever. Hey, I'm glad you're not throwing the wheel of death on me. I don't want that smoke. But I will call you crazy I do that anyways I do that anyways, so whatever hey, I'm glad you're not throwing the wheel of death on me I don't want that smoke, but I will call you crazy you're not ready for that, you're not prepared for that

so yeah, I'll pitch out an idea here, a thought I've got and I really want to hear from you AB in response am I crazy or am I secretly onto something here, here we go, number one speaking of Conor McGregor, earlier before and the idea of hey, maybe will he move up to 170 and fight Kamaru Usman, call me crazy, Aaron Bronstetter, but I don't believe Conor McGregor will ever fight in the UFC again

below 170 pounds. Hear me out real quick. As much as I thought immediately after the third Poirier fight that there was a lot of juice for a fourth one the more that Conor's kind of exposing himself on Twitter in the different attitudes he's showing and the more Poirier gets closer to be pushing toward that title shot against Charles Oliveira Conor still got to overcome this injury he's not doing great PR work for himself I think it's much more likely that he would come back in a, let's say, trilogy situation at Walter Waite against Nate Diaz or in some type of rehash of what he had fighting Cowboy Cerrone at Walter Waite that I think, whether he's coming back against Usman straight for the title or he's coming back in a fight that's set up for him to win,

I really think his future here is at 170. And that's not a future because I think he can compete and win against the elite here. I just think that the window's closing on him competing against the elite at 155. And if he can't be one win away from a title shot or just be dropped in there, it's more likely, in my opinion, that he would close his career in sort of action-friendly fights against equally vulnerable fighters for different reasons. I'm not sure if we ever see him again at lightweight before his eventual full-time move into celebrity boxing. Call me crazy.

You might be onto something there. I mean, I think the one impediment to your crazy idea here is getting one back against Dustin Poirier because I don't think he's going to want to settle for 170 pounds. I think if you remember when Diaz beat him the first time, he demanded that the rematch be at 170 because he wanted to prove that he could do it without any sort of built-in excuse on the Diaz side, and I think that in this situation, it's going to be the same way with Poirier, where if he wants to face

Poirier, he wants it to be at 155, so he can prove that he can beat Dustin at that weight class. I think that's really the only barrier of entry to your idea, but otherwise, I think that if you're looking at him wanting to be a champion again, I think that there's going to be a lot more incentive for him to try to become a three again, I think that there's going to be a lot more incentive for him to try to become a three-division champion and go after the 170-pound title. And in order to do that, I think he's going to have to beat some guys at 170 or just go jump right in against Kamaru Usman like we talked about earlier, if that's a possibility.

So I think he might be on to something there. But again, I do think that the one barrier of entry would be the Poirier rematch. You know, it'll be interesting. I mean, that is think that the one barrier of entry would be the Poirier rematch. You know, I could... It'll be interesting. I mean, that is a fight UFC would certainly make, a fourth fight. If Poirier's champion at lightweight, obviously they could make it even faster, but even with Poirier talking about going to Nate

Diaz level, I could see Conor coming back against Usman, and I could see him going down the road after a loss of, hey, I'll fight Jorge, I'll fight frickin' Mike Perry, right? I mean, you never know which way that guy's going to go before he's boxing again and selling more whiskey and on the way out. All right. Number two on Call Me Crazy. Look, we made some jokes about Canadian MMA, but Ariel Helwani did make big headlines this week, leaving ESPN, coming back

to Vox in the MMA hour and all that stuff. But in my opinion of what was left behind of my former company there at ESPN, call me crazy, Aaron, but I think that company dropped the ball huge, not combining Ariel's former dance partners, Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen, and putting them together in the aftermath of Ariel's exit. Say what you will about Ariel. He draws a big number. He had a rapport in chemistry with both guys. I just don't think there's an attractive sexiness

in DC and RC or Chael and Sedano. I don't think mainstream fans are going to care, and I certainly don't think casual fans want something that's aimed at mainstream fans. Call me crazy, but you wanted fun sound bites and arguments and inside information. DC and Chael seem like a no-brainer. I'm not calling you crazy on this one.

I don't know why they didn't do that. I don't know if schedules just didn't permit. But I'm willing to let the other shows breathe a little bit. You know, Jorge Sedano is a good, a really solid broadcaster. I think him and Chael will bring the best out of each other. And RC and DC seem to have good chemistry, but I think you're right. I think that the juicier fit would have been those two. There you go. There you go.

There you go. ESPN obviously has reasons to want to get casual fans as involved as possible financial reasons. So maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Did DC and Shea not want to work? I don't know. But I think it would have been fun to try out.

All right. Number three, after UFC 268 in November, which is aimed to be at Madison Square Garden in New York City, hopefully we can see that. Call me crazy, AB. I'm not sure the UFC will promote another pay-per-view card anywhere but Fight Island, Las Vegas, Houston, and Jacksonville until 2023. I'm going to call you crazy on that one.

I think that they're going to try to find as many different places where they can hold events. You've got so many different concert tours scheduled for the rest of this year next year it seems like the arenas are starting to open up a little bit more even though we this pandemic continues to roll on and the numbers continue to get racked up uh it's crazy if you look at the numbers from two months ago from like june on the same date as today and you compare it with like you know in florida and tex Texas and how many. It's amazing how many more cases. Even in Israel, like, you look at how many more cases there are

in the span of two months. It's actually very alarming. But at the same time, these arenas are continuing to open. These tours are continuing to roll on. I think we're going to see the UFC in different spots. I don't know, AB. We've heard Dana say, oh, that's fine. I'll stay in the Apex or go to Fight Island.

I don't need this or that what about hold on and also this what about Miami what about Sunrise Florida what about uh Tampa Bay what about Tai Chi Palace uh one other thing we all love the Tai Chi Palace but if you're gonna go do Tai Chi that's where you go all right well if you think I'm crazy for saying that then you know we did see uh in fact Luke Thomas textedomas texted to me that the las vegas raiders are now requiring every fan to enter the death star to have uh you know immunization to be vaccinated so do you think some of that could force ufc's hand into going to more select areas where where they can kind of control the the narrative in terms of that no i don't think that they care that much about that i think that they're going to just're going to just go wherever arenas are going to hold these events.

I don't think that they've never, you know, I don't know. Has Dana White come out and said we're not going to go to any buildings that require masks of our patrons or that require vaccinations? He's never really come out and said that. He just said if you're going to open up and have full capacity, you're going to have full. I mean, if they're going to go to MSG, there's going to be a mask mandate in place. In fact, T-Mobile Arena is probably going to have a mask mandate in place if they do events there going forward. At least at the current time, that's what it would be.

So I don't think that that's going to be a barrier of entry for the UFC. Maybe I'm taking the stereotypical right-winged, aggressive, ultra-MMA fighter stance and adopting that on the whole organization and the attitude toward fans probably incorrectly. So we'll see what happens moving forward. All right. Paige Van Sant of BKFC fame, although not in the win column, put out a shared video online that basically said she revealed mental health struggles in the aftermath of her recent

bare knuckle loss to Rachel Ostovich and said, quote, everyone expects me to lose and everyone expects me to fail. And while I, end quote, while I certainly have, you know, appreciation for her struggle and don't wish negative online response against her, call me crazy, Aaron, but PVZ is right. More people are openly cheering for her to fail than succeed. And I think it's been that way for a long time. Am I wrong? Yeah, and it's kind of sad. I think it's emblematic of her having a presence on Instagram and posting pictures. For whatever reason, people

don't want her to do that and succeed simultaneously. It doesn't make any sense to me. Listen, she works hard. She's at a good camp at ATT now. her husband's doing great in Bellator he's gonna get the next title shot in the middleweight division I don't know why people are rooting for her to fail I I don't I I don't know if people could explain why it doesn't make

any sense to me I I'd be happy to see her win I'd be you know I think that she's competing I think that you she should be uh lauded for going to bare knuckle coming out of the UFC they're giving her a lot of money she She wants to win. She's bringing good attention to the events, win or lose. So, yeah, listen, I understand why she's struggling with her mental health. You have all these people piling on. You're putting all of these months into preparation for this one big event, and you end up losing.

It must be really difficult just to do that in general, to put all that much commitment into something. And then you go online, whatever, you go on on social media and people are just piling on and calling you a loser these aren't people that are putting in the same preparation in the gym these aren't the same people that are are you know putting putting their lives on the line or putting you know their reputations on the line putting their health on the line going into a ring or a cage and doing the same thing it must be very hurtful for her and i understand why she's going through those kind of mental health struggles.

I think even as somebody who covers the sport, there's so much negativity online, and you have to wade through it all and filter through it all and ignore it all. And her following is probably 20, 30 times what mine is, maybe even more. Probably, yeah, probably even more. And she puts herself out there on TV in front of a large audience, in front of a live audience, in front of a live audience. And to lose like that after putting in so much hard work and then have people pile on you, it can't be good for your mental health. You know, you're the healthiest person in the world.

And I'm certainly not saying the online response is healthy or that it's right. I just think it's at this point, it's sort of like, yeah. I mean, anytime you get somebody who has options elsewhere and is actively doing that, meaning dancing with the stars, modeling, acting, whatever, people are going to question your commitment and sort of, you know, they want to see you live or die, full-time fighter, all that. So you're going to get haters. Anytime you're a good-looking person, to be honest, like you're going to get a certain amount of people cheering against you and thinking you don't have the substance. So I'm just saying it's sort of like that's the default way it is you just got to kind of turn off dimensions i'm not saying it's easy she doesn't need a win though and even bkfc uh you know uh president david feldman said yeah the next one it's it's kind of like win or what are we doing moving forward so yeah and i agree

with that and that's fine and that's how it is in combat sports but you know my advice to page van zandt is just keep you do you live best life, living well is the best revenge, and just keep doing what makes you happy. If fighting is not going to make you happy because people are going to pile on and you can do other things and you want to do other things, by all means. But if you want to keep doing this as a living and you want to keep training and working hard and proving people wrong and that means something to you, then keep doing that. But there's always going to be people that are negative. It's so much easier to be negative online than it is to be positive. The way that I always look at it is when you put something out there, look at the likes. Don't worry about the responses. Don't worry about the negativity. If you think of every like as somebody responding and saying, I like what you

just wrote, you'll be a lot happier. And let's squash all beefs. All right, Luke, embrace Joanna. Me, John S. Nash, you're my brother in this world. All right. I love you. OK, let's squash all beefs. All right, Luke, embrace Joanna. Me, John S. Nash, you're my brother in this world. All right, I love you. Okay, let's get together sometime and talk about backroom bonuses. Beautiful mind. All right, thank you. I'll call off that donk, Damien, our guy from 209, that wild and crazy guy with the MK10.

Leave John Nash alone. All right, let's end that beef. Okay, keep it going. Number five on Call Me Crazy. Look, I come up with crazy ideas when I sit alone at night and stare at the ceiling and fall asleep. How about this idea? An MMA, as unlikely as it could be, an MMA promotional merger between PFL and Bellator would create the biggest competition UFC has faced since the Pride days. Call me crazy. You look at the combination of rosters coming together, the TV connections,

the innovations, the seasonal format from PFL, the celebrity investors. I'm wondering if they join forces, not that anyone's calling for that, could that be an even bigger opportunity at making headway than even Strikeforce had

with the video game and the Grand Prix and all that just less than a decade ago? Well, are we pooling resources as well? Because then I'm buying. I mean, you're going to have a lot of clout behind this. And I think that there are such good fighters on both rosters that if you combine them, it could only, you know, what is it? All tides, all tides raise all boats. I'm going to mess that quote up. Rising tides. Yeah. Yeah. Rising. Yes. Rising tides. But I think that that's going to be that quote up. Rising Tides, yeah, yeah. Rising Tides, yes, Rising Tides. But I think that that's going to be, that would be a good competition for the UFC. I don't know if it would be a great competition.

I mean, I don't know if you look at the numbers for both of those even combined, if they'd come close. But I certainly think they'd have a very talented roster. If they formed a Super League, because we do this in pro wrestling circles, we're always like, okay, WWE is the end all UFC equivalent. But what if this guy and this guy just knew Japan and AEW?

Could they beat them in the ratings or put out better? Could a PFL Bellator mythological merger, could that have the depth of roster where you're like, they could put together cards that I have to see, man? It might, but again, i think it's the brand i think that the brand is is what would rule over uh you know that that that battle so to speak i think the ufc brand is just so big globally that even if you had such great talent on this roster by combining those two i just don't know if the awareness would be there there are a lot of people that only know what the ufc is they don't know they think that the ufc is mma uh and i think that is something that would have to get broken in order for people to really buy into having a secondary league i mean hey if you're if

you're devoting five to six hours of your week every week to the ufc are you going to be willing to devote another five to six hours of your week to another promotion? We are because we cover the sport. That's our job. But, you know, is Joe Public going to be willing to spend 12 hours of their week watching mixed martial arts? I just don't know if the appetite for that much mixed martial arts on a weekly basis would be there. But I do – and I guess the other question is what are the dream matchups?

Like if you're going to merge those two rosters, other than like Cyborg and Kayla Harrison, what are the matchups that really have you salivating? I think you're going to merge those two rosters, other than, like, Cyborg and Kayla Harrison, what are the matchups that really have you salivating? I think you're going to have a lot of good matchups, but I don't think that there's that much of a hunger for any one crossover matchup. We'll leave that idea on the ceiling, okay? So, so far, I've given you five ideas you've called too crazy. So, I'm winning right now.

We've got two to go here. Number six, look, with the obvious exception of dipping French fries in mayonnaise, bro, call me crazy, but there's actually no such thing as, quote, Canadian food. There just isn't. We got poutine. Poutine is Canadian food. We got fries with gravy and cheese. That's really all you need. I mean, you know, if I'm a world traveler, if I'm going to Epcot

and I'm going to the Canadian section, I'd be like, let me try your cuisine. They're like, here's some ham. We call it bacon. There's no Canadian food, bro, right? And these are my people I'm coming at, all right? I will defend poutine in this. Poutine has already come to Las Vegas. There are poutineries in Florida. Poutine has crossed over.

Poutineries sound like somewhere Robert Kraft would go if they closed down his favorite uh yeah all right you know if he's a fan of fries and gravy then that's where he should go well he i'll leave that where it is all right yeah don't get me fired bc you're damn right he's a fan of that gravy yeah all right okay well let's see that's that one's not crazy i got one more here we go final one of all active ufc fighters the one fighter who has the best chance right now at joining what I call my GOAT upper room table, the people that have a case for the greatest of all time, currently right now that's a six-member table that includes GSP, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Amanda Nunes, Mighty Mouse Johnson, and Fedor. Of all active UFC fighters at the moment who have the best chance of closing their career out at that table,

I'm going to go Israel Adesanya. Call me crazy. Did you mention Khabib in that mix? Oh, crap. I left him off. Yes. Well, he's not active, but he should have been in that mix. Let me get that seventh chair ready and put Khabib around the corner. You're crazy.

You don't have Khabib on the list. Yeah, I was crazy right there. But now that we've added Habib, do you believe of active UFC fighters that Izzy is angling toward having the best chance? Are you more of a Poirier, Usman type of guy? Well, that's a good question because Usman only has one loss. Israel only has one loss and that came up a division. I mean, you might be right on this one. I don't know. It's interesting. And one guy that I think is being wholly ignored in this conversation is Max Holloway. Max Holloway is still, what, in the sport, and he can keep racking up numbers. Max Holloway might earn a spot at that table as well. I still think that he has an argument. Had he beaten Poirier on that night in Atlanta,

I think that you could certainly make more of a case. But I don't want to write Holloway off because I just think he's done so much in the sport. I'm not going to write him off because he's so young and he's coming off a performance in which you can argue he looked the best he ever has. But you made a good point on the Poirier thing. You kind of have to do something extra special to crash that party. I feel like Holloway, who's great, is going to end up in that next

tier of Jose Aldo and Randy Couture and those other guys, and I know people I hate when I don't put Aldo at the big table, but it kind of is what it is. I feel like right now Adesanya's showing me that he could be that dude. Hey, Usman might... Usman might be that guy. If Francis ends up knocking out Cyril Ghosn and knocking

out all these guys in the future, I mean, you have to look at him too. He's got the potential, but I think if you're going to say who has the most potential, yeah, it's either Israel or Usman. I think that it's kind of a toss-up at this point between those two.

What about if Valentina beats Amanda in a proposed third fight? What about? I mean, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I think you can make that case. She'd be essentially moving up a division and becoming a champion in another division. So I think if anybody beats Nunes, they can enter that conversation. They can enter the chat room, so to speak.

But yeah, I'd say Usman, Israel, those are probably the two that have the biggest chance. I mean, Usman hasn't been losing rounds, right? I mean,

at least Israel, you had him losing those rounds to Gaslam. He's lost rounds in the past. So kind of a toss up between those two, I would say. I just think,

you know, I guess I want to say, if you, if you said, well, what's the difference between Adesanya and Usman? Well, I think Adesanya has got a got more high moments so far on the resume. I mean, got one punch knocked out Robert Whitaker more or less. But I think he also has the brighter potential to one day move up and grab a title in the second division. Now, you can argue that and say, hey, Usman has been talking about maybe one day going up to middleweight, and what could stop him with that wrestling? You know, we'd have to see it, though.

But I think, you know, although we've slowed down the talk of Adesanya becoming a three-division champion and going up to heavyweight and looking the same because of how Blahowicz used his size and smarts to hang on there, I do think the ceiling's brighter. But we'll find it out. Are you in on Ariel's new committed pronunciation of... I can't even try it. I have been.

I've been saying it that way for a long time. No, not even Adesanya. He said that was the promotion. No, he's going weirder, and he's going extra curvations and stressing. I think it's actually pronounced Adesanya. That's where he's going. Adesanya, but I think it's Adesanya.

See, maybe I'm just ignorant. Israel would have to verify that. Maybe I'm just ignorant and lazy, and once I get used to one name, it takes me long enough to learn the first name. I'm probably just an ignorant American. I'm sorry, Aaron. Hey, shout out to Israel for,

sorry, to Ariel for at least bringing that into the public perception that it was being pronounced wrong this whole time, and that that is the way. Yeah, Brett tried that for a while, too. I think Brett. Sorry, I tried to do the same thing with Jack Hermanson, which is how you pronounce his last name, Jack Hermanson. I'm not doing that.

It didn't pick up. No, I saw Brett trying that at Destinia for a while. Then he pulled back. Brett's still calling the guy Khabib. Hey, Brett, the case silent, bro. OK, can you get on board with that? By the way, you want to call Brett the best looking journalist guy Khabib. Hey, Brett, the case is silent, bro. Can you get on board with that? By the way, Joanna called Brett the best-looking journalist in all of MMA. She called him that after she did an interview with me,

immediately after she did an interview with me. That's still a sore spot. Okay, maybe you should be the one feuding with her, not Luke. All right, let's keep it going. I said to her, I go, hey, Joanna, I'm right here. She goes, I get to speak to the most handsome journalist. I go, Joanna, come on, I'm right here. Yeah, it's Joanna, speak to the most handsome journalist. It was right after. And I go, Joanna, come on. I'm right here. Yeah, it's Joanna.

But that's fine, too. Maybe that's why. All right. Well, let's keep it going. Hope you enjoyed Call Me Crazy. I've got one more inventive segment for A, B, and I to tickle right now. The fancy of. And this one's going to get nerdy.

As you can see behind the great Aaron Bronstetter and his Mississauga homeissauga, uh, home there and, uh, near Toronto, outer Toronto, whatever you're close Hamilton, something like that. Yeah. Um, over his shoulder. I always thought those were like books or comic books or something nerdy. You're my kind of nerdy. You got vinyl for days, brother. You sell it, you buy it, you savor it. You love it. You've counseled me in certain directions, including my changeover and transition into jazz fusion. I'm even doing some world music lately. I mean, Ginger Baker's taking me. Heroin took Ginger Baker into some weird travels.

He's taking me to those too. Just, you know, no needles, though, involved in this. But I wanted to create a fun-loving segment in which you and I get all kinds of nerdy, so I've decided to call it Final Intercourse. Look at this graphic team. All right, look at that. Look at that graphic.

Building graphics on the daily. On like two hours notice. We will spin the black circle. This segment is fun and games in which A in which AB and I are just going to share recent records that we're getting down on in our man times alone in the man cave. So AB, you want to go first or you're the guest? Sure. Well, listen, summer usually for me gets split into like four genres primarily. You got hip hop, you got a little bit of world music you got some jazz jazz funk and then you got like punk and like you know indie rock punk that kind of thing those are like my four genres that really get me going in

the summer as well as some stoner rock some stoner rock will get me get me up in the summer but number one we got Vince Staples Vince Staples you got big fish theory big fish big fish theory is one of my favorite hip-hop albums of the last 10 years. It's a lot of fun. That's actually a nice picture disc. But Vince Staples is one of the best rappers today. I stand by everything he's done.

He put out an album this year. It's not his best work, but Big Fish Theory is my favorite Vince Staples output, and I've been really playing that a lot this summer. People may not know, they may look at you and think classical, but no, this guy gets down in jazz, and you do get down in not only hip-hop, but new hip-hop,

which, you know, whenever I talk hip-hop, it's gotta be commercial, suburban 90s hip-hop, so Michael M. Biscuit. Stop that, stop that, stop that right now, please. What would you how would you describe, is this the kind of rap No, stop that. Stop that. Stop that right now, please. What would you, how would you describe, is this the kind of rap or hip-hop that Luke would listen to? How would you describe, to me, as a Vince Staples ignorant newbie?

Well, I know that he's more into Jedi mind tricks, Vinny Paz, that kind of thing. Well, the thing about Vince Staples is he's kind of like Miles in the fact that he likes to make every album sound different. So his first EP had a very different sound from his first album, which was Summertime 06. Summertime 06 is like an 80-minute album that's just like a bunch of different stories

about the summer of 06 and his upbringing. Big Fish Theory is more of a dance-y type album. A lot more beats, a lot more electronic influence. And I like that part of that particular album. I just think it's one of the more innovative albums in hip hop that we've heard in the last 10 years. So you might like Vince Staples.

Good stuff. Well, the thing is, you got me into this music app Tidal, T-I-D-A-L, for the highest quality. And I've gotten some others into it as well. And I'm constantly sharing recommendations of songs and albums, which is really the glory of this segment, to expose people to new music.

So I will add that on the old title app and check it out and get back to you. You should see how nerdy our DMs get. No stick picks. All right, I'll start off with mine on Vinyl Intercourse. I've told you over the DMs that I'm into this. A lot of people know I took a hard turn into all things cream, the super group in the late 60s of psychedelic blues rock,

all that good stuff, realizing that, no, this is one of the greatest bands of all time beyond the radio hits and a big reason. In fact, in that power trio, the one man you can argue who was the most valuable was bassist Jack Bruce, not only one of the greatest bassists of all time creating that very heavy sound for Cream which kind of became a template for heavy metal moving forward in some ways he was also the front man for as long as the record company would allow as they were trying to pull a not so ready Eric Clapton to the forefront one thing about Jack Bruce's bass playing in Cream though is it was just very heavy but it served as a foundation for Clapton as God to go out there and solo over but after Cream broke up after just four albums

and in the midst of this breakup Jack Bruce went solo and here's what's interesting you could argue that of that trio Clapton went on to huge fame Ginger Baker went on to Blind Faith with Clapton went on to other areas of success Jack Bruce has had the least amount of public success, but his 1969 solo debut titled Songs for a Taylor is, I believe, one of the hidden gems here that has fallen through the cracks in rock history. So even though he had that heavy sound with Cream, Songs for a Taylor sees a Jack Bruce that's basically playing lead bass as if it guitar, and constantly soloing over songs. It's the same songwriter in Pete Brown who's given the weird psychedelic lyrics to the Prime Cream albums, including Disraeli Gears,

and he's sort of taking you on some of those, hey man, I should be on acid while I listen to this journeys, but the song structures are anything but psychedelic. They're all written by Jack Bruce. And here's, what's interesting. It's probably one of the earliest and finest mixes of what became progressive rock, but mixed with a very jazz sounding foundation there. And certainly Jack Bruce has a folk background,

a classical background, and you would need that classical background to, to really get Prague off the ground. But I've been vibing for this one for months. And it's funny that no one talks about it. It doesn't have a ton of radio hits, but it's got some eclectic sounding grooves with a great backing band, which come from the rhythm section of a band called Coliseum, which had some great success in the fusion space. But this is a jazz prog rock sort of tour de force that I think is a very hidden gem under the radar. If you like the Cream sound, but you

like sort of other areas, including fusion and such, this is a very good exploration that's worth your time. Yeah, you told me about this one. I added it to my title list as well. So I still have yet to listen to it, but it's interesting when you hear these kind of supergroups branch out, and you kind of get these

results that you weren't really that aware of. Like, for example, the Beatles, I mean, we'll dismiss much of Ringo's solo output, but I think that George Harrison, I think his solo output blows Lennon and McCartney's out of the water. I think like just all things must pass, I think is as good as any Beatles album, in my opinion. No, it might be. That might be the best post BeatlesBeatles solo album. With respect to... I think it is hands down. But the problem is, and as much as I love George, he's my favorite Beatle, and I have followed his solo career,

the other albums are not as consistently strong as, let's say, Lennon's, right? Yeah, I mean, I've got my mind set on UBC. We've seen where Harrison went down some dark roads later on in his career. I like that comeback album, right? That's not a bad career. I like that comeback album, right? That's not a bad one. I like that. But we do, I think that the albums that were like, you know, immediately following All Things Must Pass

were still very good. I still think that he had some good output. McCartney's very hit or miss with his solo output. I think Ram is an amazing album that kind of gets overlooked sometimes. But yeah, I think that all things must pass is just a legendary work that's as good as anything the beatles have ever put out sometimes even better but it's wild that that you know nobody talks about jack bruce and he and he did

fall through the cracks because he didn't let's say have that solo success from the standpoint of hits but the bass playing is is insane and in songs for taylor was written about the late cream um stylist costume maker taylor whatever you want to call her there who jack bruce secretly had a love affair with and she wrote him a letter as he was heading into the studio and he received the letter two days after she died and the letter said sing me some sweet hymns so he wrote this album and dedicated it to her so good shit right there we probably turned off all the things kind of you really see bass bassists kind of go and do their own solo thing also so kudos to jack bruce good good shit right there we've probably turned off all the things kind of you really see bass bassists kind of go and do their own solo thing also so kudos to jack bruce good good shit what

else you got for me here ab all right uh you were talking about getting into world music this summer one of my favorite genres of the summer uh of any summer is tropicalia from brazil caetano valoso this is his uh self-titled album from 1968 He has several self-titled albums, but this is the one from 1968. Just a psychedelic masterpiece and really one of the first pioneering albums of the Tropicalia movement from 1960s Brazil that was a very strong political movement against their government and the oppression of their government. And you look at them, act like Gilberto Gil,

Os Mutantes, or or muchanch if you want to uh say it in the uh portuguese way but uh caetano veloso is uh an absolute star he's still touring to this day in his late 70s uh and i just love that particular album i love a lot of his early output but that album to me you can put that on anytime in the summer and i'm i'm grooving to it i love it all right you put you went down a a a niche road here and i'm happy you did i'm gonna add this one as well because i've never heard of him although this seems to fit where i'm at now did you are you into fela kuti i recently got into him through ginger baker he's from africa he's basically like of course bob bob marley-esque with the political connections to the music but more jazzy and and

and i've been blown away. And I also just bought Harry Belafonte's Calypso album, which is obviously a known classic. Is this anywhere in that realm or you're saying this is much more psychedelic? This is a little bit more psychedelic because it's from late 60s where the psychedelic movement was really taking over America. And then it kind of trickled over to Brazil and they put out some really great music at that time with a lot of interesting experimentation with the instruments. I know Os Mutantes were hitting, like, barrels and all kinds of, whatever they could find to make a lot of really interesting psychedelic music.

So it's a little bit different. I think yours is more like kind of the Afrobeat. And I actually bought a Fela Kuti album today, so it's a very relevant thing for you to bring up. Sky AB, all right. All right, let's keep it going here. Here's what I got. So a big part of my vinyl exploration this pandemic

has not only been digging into parts of the 1970s I just wasn't aware of, whether you're talking about Fusion or I Never Went Down the Prog Roads, but just finding out that classic rock radio essentially lied to us, often playing or overplaying the one or two hits we would know of a band forcing you to to gain a an idea of what

that band could be in sort of stereotyping them without really knowing i'm going to give you a band right there that i've been harping to you over dms the freaking marshall tucker band if you hear the marshall tucker band you're like okay I know they're two hits, right? Can't you see and heard it in a love song? Yeah, that's like Southern rock. That's like country rock. It's like poor man's Allman Brothers, right? Not really, kind of, but that this band is absolutely badass with Toy Caldwell on lead guitar as the main songwriter, sings a bit, but mostly just playing recklessly fast and out of control, boogie country rock into other genres. What's the key of what makes Marshall Tucker worth your time? It's the fact that ambitiously, Caldwell basically said, I'm going to take a country rock foundation, but take blues, take jazz, take almost the early onset of jam band

before that was even a thing and mix it up into a soup that actually works. And the prime album of their early run is their third one, 1974's Where We All Belong. It doesn't have the radio hits of some of their other albums but it's their most solid one top to bottom and key and point is that it's a double lp the first one being in the studio which has the the lead-off track uh this old cowboy which is one of the rare ones that toy

sings lead on is just impressive and amazing but more importantly has the live album on the second disc or the second lp and that shows you what this band can do live yes they utilized uh a flute player jerry eubanks who can also play other other uh stringed instruments they had charlie daniels on fiddle and what this band can do live would blow away what you would believe they are or what they can do i mean it is jam bandy it's jazzy it sometimes can be heavy. Toy Caldwell is one of those forgotten guitarists. Very similar to like Terry Kath with the band Chicago, where nobody's talking about Toy

Caldwell at all. And you go back and here's the unique thing about him, Aaron. Remember when we'd like rent a video game or buy a video game as a kid? You'd never read the instructions. You just grab the game plug and then be like, dude, I'm just going to learn on the fly. This feels like a guitarist who learned the basics and then was like, F it, I'm just going to go. And he's sloppy and he's aggressive and he's

loud and he goes after it, but that sloppiness is the endearing element to the chances he takes and the places he goes. He has a unique style all his own. Marshall Tuckerman freaking rules and nobody wants to talk about it. In live, they're even more incredible So if you want to take the plunge where we all belong has that great mix of the blues the country the jazz and really

Gives you a full flavor of where this band is Yeah, you're 100% right radio did lie to us like they played us all these singles a lot of it is cheese and Then you go and you listen to the actual full album And it's like wow this these guys have something and it's funny When you look at collecting records in general, there's this kind of misnomer that the expensive records are the ones you want to get. You could build an awesome starter kit for people for like $80. You can get them like 15 great records to start their collection with. And you always find these kind of hidden gems in the bins at record stores that are four or five bucks. And there are so many good ones.

I mean, I turned you on to Heavy Weather by The Weather Report. You can find that record for like six bucks, and it's an amazing record. So it's kind of cool that if you want to explore, you know, a lot of these kind of older bands, a lot of these records got reproduced in such a degree that you can find them. Elvis Costello, you mentioned off the top of the show is another one of those, uh, artists where you can find his records for seven, eight bucks.

So it's cool. Do you get, do you get into that sort of idea of, I guess what they, what some people call boogie rock, where it's, you know, it's country influenced,

but they can, I mean, you know, the best part about Marshall Tucker is they take some of these songs and jam them out for no reason, eight, nine minutes. And it,

and it doesn't wear you out. I mean, it's good. It's great musicianship and they go a lot of different places with it yeah you saw a lot of that in the 70s and uh again those are the ones you don't hear on radio because they're too long they're not they're not the uh what is it three minutes and 19 seconds or whatever that ideal amount of time is that you're supposed to have for a single uh so you get to hear that kind of thing when you just you know take take a dive into any album.

If you go into one of these, again, record stores, you buy something from the $6, $7 bin, you find these great albums that are just great top to bottom that people don't really talk about. And I think it's good that you discovered one there. Start talking about them, okay? Because it's all over my turntable. What do you got? Number three. All right, number three.

In the jazz funk vein, grab this. This is Stepping Into Tomorrow by Donald Byrd. This is an awesome album. This is the Vinyl Me Please exclusive. Press the 45 RPM, which is, you know, if you really are an audiophile, you always like seeing records

that are recorded in half speed. But Stepping Into Tomorrow is just an incredible jazz funk fusion album where Donald Byrd, another guy kind kinda like Miles Davis that just kept evolving as his career went on where he was able to really go from hard bop and early jazz in the 50s all the way into the whole jazz you know jazz funk fusion area and I think that he did it masterfully and

that's another record you can find for like 10 to 12 bucks if you want to just buy an original pressing or a repress but I would recommend this one up to you I think I've recommended this one to you in the past and I don't know if you want to just buy an original pressing or a repress. But I would recommend this one to you. I think I've recommended this one to you in the past, and I don't know if you've gotten into it yet, but Stepping Into Tomorrow is an absolute gem of a record. I have, and it's fantastic. It was one of the first ones I added on title. And interestingly enough, there's a lot of crossover in 70s fusion jazz. I mean, I have gotten into jazz through your influence, but I'm much more a fan of fusion, which is combining jazz and rock together. And what you end up finding is a lot of these guys constantly playing on each other's albums, which is great because a lot of these backing bands become all-star bands.

I mean, you know, my favorite fusion record I always tell you about is the solo debut of Jaco Pistorius, which has like Herbie Hancock on the keys and has like all across the board, just an all-star lineup. When I look at the lineup on this album, I don't know a lot of these names. So for this one to get to that level, this is a very impressive LP. It's just a phenomenal album, and it's great for the summer. It really gets the blood flowing, gets you up and moving. This is a good one. All right, all right.

Let's keep it rolling here. Number three, a lot of people know I'm a big Grateful Dead fan, jam band, and the spinoffs of what the Dead have given us through the years, including the great Bluegrass, Jerry Garcia, influenced Old and In the Way. If you're not down with that, then come on. What are we talking about here? But this one was a monster surprise for me from Bob Weir, still fronting Dead & Company with my boy Oteel Burbridge on bass,

and they just started their new tour. Bob is in his 70s and still going. But his 2016 solo effort, his first solo album since that forgotten one he did in the late 70s. Of course, he did Ace, his debut one, which is fantastic. That second one, Suck the Horn. This one was a shocker, 2016's Blue Mountain. Why?

Because it's a double LP, but it is as pure a folk record as you can ever purchase. This is not Grateful Dead style of, you know, bluegrassy, this or that. No, this is straight folk, straight Americana. This is an old man singing songs about rivers, mountains, valleys, and it's inspired. He had a co-writer on it, but it's inspired by a lot of time he spent in his youth in Wyoming on looking at the open fields. And it is a mood album. It just sets a tone. It's a different voice than Bob has used during his Grateful Dead run.

I don't typically, although I mean, I love me some folk, you know, early Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, but I'm not a folk guy. You know, I love more of what folk became, you know, when it plugged in the birds and Dylan and what became of that. But this is just pure friggin' folk, and it takes you to a place, and I think when you're a washed dad who's 43, and you got a basement filled with fight photos, and you get away from your family for the final two hours of the night, and you

put the headphones on and you plug in, sometimes you just you know, you want to be taken someplace. Bob Ware takes me to a river on this double LP here, and it's incredible. Shout out to Josh Kaufman, the producer. And it's a very good record and no one talks about it. So good shit right there. I missed the Grateful Dead bus because, you know,

I've listened to Anthems of the Sun and a lot of the different studio albums, but I know that they're mostly known for their live stuff. I just don't know where to get started. There's so much output from them that it makes it difficult for me to, like, get my feet wet with the Grateful Dead. And there's a lot of other musicians and bands that are like that, where the discographies are so long that I kind of have to pick and choose. I'm like that with Dylan's discography.

There are some Dylan albums that I just love, but I just don't know where to get started with a lot of his other output. So I just need more time. But the one thing that we can't buy is time. We can't buy it on this show either. We're running out of time. I wish I could stop time and just listen to every record I wanted to listen to. Does that wrap up your vinyl for the week here?

I think I got one more. Oh, shit. Hit me with that. Hit me with it. All right. We got Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Denial. This is an awesome indie rock album from the last couple years, 2016 in particular. I just love

everything that this guy's done, and this particular album is my favorite of his. He had prolific kind of online output, where he was just putting out singles after single after single after single, and the reason he was called Car Seat Headrest is because that's where he recorded his songs. He got into the backseat of his car,

put his head up against the car seat headrest, and performed. Love it. But Will Toledo since then,, the front man of car seat headrest, has continued to evolve. His last album was pretty good. It didn't do as much for me as Teens of Denial, but that's one that I've just been rocking this summer. Okay, I've never even heard of this band, and you've got me intrigued by how you sold it. In the indie vein, is it Dad Rocky? Is it Death Cab? Is it Wilco-ish?

No, it veers more towards punk, I would say. Like, it's more in that vein. Okay, okay. Hey, I'll give it a spin, man. A little Dashboard-y? No? No? No Dashboard on that?

No? What is that? Love with the Dashboard Light? Was that the Meatloaf song? No, I was talking about Dashboard Confessional, but you were right on there. All right, let me close with this. My great vinyl exploration has obviously gone into deep

on Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Young at times and just how incredible that super group is. But what people tend to forget is how little studio albums they actually put out. They would break up a lot. They'd get in arguments. And then you had the solo breakouts. And David Crosby and Graham Nash put together

a bunch of very good solo albums that felt like crosby stills and ash records and sort of fall in that lineage one time though former buffalo springfield members and csny alums stephen stills and neil young got together for 1976 is long may you run and this is one of those rare albums that i want to put to the forefront and just say, I think the ratings board gets it wrong. You go to sites like allmusic.com and they'll tell you, oh, three-star album, forgettable.

It came off the heels of a broken attempt at reuniting Crosby, Stills, and Nash for big money. There were arguments, so Stills and Young went into the studio. Young kind of carried the songwriting, but not only is Long May You Run my favorite Neil Young song and sort of one of those Bob Dylan, Forever Young type of sort of seminal songs that you look deep within yourself as you age and look back on your life, even though he

wrote it about a car, which sadly kind of takes away the charm of it. But it's got one of those romanticized feels. The whole album has that. Yes, got some of that early that mid-1970s southern california eagles country rock laurel canyon thing going but it is a very good album and also steven stills starts to veer off a bit into caribbean rhythms and some other things that might surprise you on here doesn't get the credentials it deserves you never hear people talk about it within the csn family or the great albums that neil young has done on his own but this one fit through the cracks and it is a hell of a mood record of this era combining a few different ideas and genres and some really good songwriting so check that out if you like that shit hopefully we kept viewers here ab through our run of vinyl it's highly doubtful

but you know we did we did our best and it's a niche csn y ecosphere is one that i need to explore a little bit more too i love I love the Crosby solo album. If I could only remember my name, that's a good name as well. So that's a forgotten how great that one is because it's so psychedelic and weird and has so many special guests on it of big name, too. Great album. Good shit altogether. Eric Bronstetter, good shit altogether. Whether we lost people or not talking music or whether we brought them back in.

Thank you for sliding in for Luke Thomas, for going to bat for MK, for feeling what we're feeling here. We know you do great work on TSN. Where can we follow you, find you? What do you got going on here? Just go to Twitter, at Aaron Bronstetter is my Twitter account, and you

can find most of my output there. I know you guys have my Instagram link up. I'm not as active on Instagram as I should be. I haven't gotten into that ecosphere as much as I should have either, Brian, but you can find basically everything that I do. I try to keep on my Twitter account and tsn.ca slash UFC for all of our UFC output on TSN. And I love doing MK. I've had a great time doing with Luke. Great time doing with you. You two guys are class acts among the class acts in a mixed martial arts journalists. So,

uh, thank you for having me on. It takes a special journalist to be able to, to slide into what the weirdness we do here. And you fit in, excuse me, as I burp unprofessionally, you fit in perfectly.

So, uh, love your work. Love the, the interviews you put out there. Hope to see you on the road as well. I mean, you want to maybe not have given you the handsome rub, so to speak.

Maybe wrong choice of words. But you're one of the better dressed journalists in this game. So I'll give your songs for a tailor. I'll give your tailor that shout out right there. Hopefully you're not having an affair with her and she won't die young and your soul album will be dedicated to her. The letter's in the mail, Brian. I just got to check the mail when I get upstairs and make sure she'll have written me something

lovely. Thank you for watching the show. Follow us, like us, support us, all that stuff. Buy our merch, morningcombat.store. You can be wearing this shit. You can be drinking out of this shit. I mean, why wouldn't you want to do that? Is it the holiday season?

There's probably some holiday coming up. Arbor Day or Labor Day. Buy your dad that for Labor Day. Also, check out our bonus content, youtube.com slash morningcombat. Luke Thomas is on vacation. He'll be back next week. We've got a great week coming for you on all things heading into. You can check out the Jared Caron Neer talk ahead of the

UFC on Saturday. Of course, next week, Jake Paul, Tyron Woodley. It's going to be great. Bellator Friday night, only on Showtime, 9pm Eastern. Check Congo and Sergey Karatanov are gonna throw some sloppy meat hooks at each other. That should be great. Thanks for

buying into everything we do here. We love you back. I don't know much about loyalty, but I got two words for you. For the great Aaron Bronstetter, my name is BC, and we out.