MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Island 2 Recap, Adesanya-Costa, Whittaker-Till | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 52

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

On episode 52 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian break down everything from this weekend's Fight Island card including Joseph Benavidez and Kelvin Gastelum both getting submitted in the first round of their fights. They also preview Robert Whittaker vs. Darren Till and look ahead at Israel Adesanya's matchup vs Paulo Costa reportedly set for UFC 253. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, July 20th, 2020, and it is time donks for morning combat hi everyone i am one half of your hosting duo my name is luke thomas i am joined by the gentleman on that side of the screen who you know and love from cbs sports he is the conspiracy to my theory the one and only brian campbell bc how are you doing today uh firedired the heck up, Luke, on so many fronts. Yes, it's BC. And Professor S and the P want to kick with us. Cool. We're wicked G.

We'll hit the skins but never quickly. And we're back, Luke, with a bang. If people could only see the way we love them, then maybe they would understand, Luke, that big things are happening in the MK universe. I wish I could show, you know, I wish I could show you mine. Maybe you could show me yours. But I think we could take it in steps. And today we got a fairly big announcement and reveal.

Yeah, we certainly do. I don't want to give too much away. I'm going to just let it sort of play out. Also, BC, I don't always read the comments on YouTube, but I did, I think, for the last one. I like to just check in now and again. And they were great. They were positive.

Some good things, some bad things. But I did notice one thing, BC. People wait until I'm done with this preamble, and then they post the timestamp so they can skip all of that. To which I say, please don't do that. If you want to mute me, maybe you can mute me. But at least see the gestures, BC, that they should give this video a thumbs up, that they should hit the subscribe button on the channel now because it really helps us. It's really important, and we need that from them.

I know a bunch already have, especially from last week, so we appreciate all the new subscribers. But BC, they got to know we need their participation. It's not a me and you thing. It's a we thing. Yeah, it is. It is. And look, to be honest we want to wake up where you are and you know we won't touch anything at all but but why don't you slide into our dms into that that little button there to click uh because i say it a lot of people say okay i'm getting tired of hearing that this rocket ship is taking off i'm telling you okay

happy endings for all craft included uh but uh get on board now because fights are are ongoing but a lot more fights are coming we're going to be a big part of taking you along on that journey yeah we certainly are so uh do us a favor of course subscribe uh like the video share it with a friend of course if you'd like to try showtime the very company who makes this possible you can go to showtime.com right now for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. You can watch the great documentary series, Outcry, which, BC, we were ahead of the curve. People are finally beginning to figure it out.

It's actually really good. We're biased, but by all means, take the Pepsi Challenge. Or if you don't like Showtime because you're a stupid person, you can just leave it alone and go away. And, BC, if they want some merch, how do they get it?

They can go to store.show.com. Yes, there it is. Something close to that. But here's the deal. Look, the reviews have been overwhelming from one thing. Love us, hate us, I don't care. Hate our designs, I don't care. But this shit's comfortable, okay?

And everyone is saying it. High quality, whether you're drinking out of that coffee mug or putting on that sweatshirt. So join the revolution. Let your voice be heard by what's on your clothing, okay? MK, we're coming for you. We're coming, okay? COM, we're coming for you. I'm telling you.

All right, join us. With that in mind, we have to get this party started. So let's go to our first of our five major topics, BC UFC fight night. I think it was one 72 UFC fight Island three, whatever the hell it was. Your main event, Joseph Benavides loses via first round, I guess, submission, although he didn't submit to, uh, Deveson Figueredo. So Deveson Figueredo is now your new UFC flyweight champion. This was an absolute beating from pillar to post. They only scored two knockdowns, but really it was kind of three to the naked eye. Four submission attempts, back mount, full mount.

BC, 40 of 45 strikes total landed. He had 87%, Figueredo did, of significant strikes landed. This was, I mean, for Joseph Benavidez to last as long as he did, He had 87% Figueiredo did of significant strikes landed. This was, I mean, for Joseph Benavidez to last as long as he did was frankly kind of incredible. Some of those weird naked joke attempts he got out of were amazing. So go first on this one. Here is the question I want to start with first. What is Joseph Benavidez's legacy now?

Yeah, yeah. I don't want to bury the lead of welcome to the Figueiredo era, but for Benavidez, he was the storyline coming in, Luke. And it's, it's, you hate to say it, but his, his, his legacy is that he's a great fighter who ended up in that other conversation as one of the greatest bridesmaids title wise in UFC history. He'll be on that list with Dan Henderson, with Uriah Faber. His story a little bit more heartbreaking because he never did get a big title in any of the major organizations,

but he was of that ilk for many years. Pushed Demetrius Johnson to the limit in the inaugural flyweight title fight. Won the first flyweight bout in company history and then was still relevant almost a decade later at 35. But when you go for the belt four times and you come up empty and the you know you are who you are at the end of the day and this was obviously the most heartbreaking Luke because karma was setting you up for a good ending right it was bispingian up

in here considering the heartbreak of a guy missing weight last fight headbutt knockout all that wife scooping you up off the canvas and then you come back and you get one more chance uh luke i i can fall in love with a storyline with the magic rather than the x's and o's when you're handicapping a fight and i wanted to believe in jojitsu here i felt that you know karma was going to come around and be on his side but uh he he ran into a freaking buzzsaw and uh good lord uh luke when you talk about in ufc history you can cat you can win a title you can capture a title or you can freaking seize it there have been seizures in ufc history john jones shogun hua right uh adesanya robert

whittaker where it's like i think i know how good this guy is and then he goes in and you know sort of steers the direction writes a new chapter that's what Davidson Figueiredo did on Saturday night so give us the Joe Benavidez you know soliloquies slash uh you know obituaries hair but this was all about that crazy Brazilian with the with the colorful hair. Wow. Wow. So if you look at Joseph Benavidez's losses, he has in three separate occasions, or at least in three separate pairs, lost to the same person, lost twice to Dominic Cruz, lost twice to Demetrius Johnson, and now has lost twice to Devison Figueiredo. But there's a big difference between the Figuretto losses and then the other four that I spoke of. Namely, in fighting Dominic Cruz twice, Joseph Benavidez lost one time via

split decision. In fighting Demetrius Johnson twice, he lost one of those times via split decision. And in fact, the other one of these losses that deserves to be mentioned, although it's not part of the pairing, is Sergio Pettis. He lost that via split decision. Now, he's got some split decision wins, too. So he's come up short. He's come up roses in other times. But this is the first time he's been finished in any kind of loss where he had a pairing with another person.

Excuse me. Well, yeah, both times. Because Johnson finished him one time, but not the other. This has never happened to him. He's never had back-to-back losses. Obviously, the same guy. Well, that's weird. Did you ever get him in that situation anyway but what this shows

is i think two things right one three things one figueredo is a bustle as you mentioned two i just think at 35 years of age at flyweight and the miles that he's had at this point he's just not going to be as resilient as he needs to be to stand up under the firepower of some of these newer guys and then three it's like if in all these different iterations were against Dominic Cruz it was up a weight class and it was WEC and then against Johnson okay it was UFC it was flyweight but you still came up short twice and then you finally get back to a spot where you can contend for a title and you take the worst consecutive L's of your career by a mile. It just kind of shows you on the one hand, the good thing is he is absolutely one of the very best fighters to never hold a UFC title. And I almost hate that designation because I don't

think BC that measuring greatness strictly by title accumulation is the only or even best way to do it, but it is a pretty handy way to do it. It is good shorthand. It is a common metric that we all rely upon. And at every interval where he could have crossed that line, he just didn't. So the story is a little bit of both. It's that this guy was absolutely tremendous, a pioneer, a credit to the sport, a guy who gave every part of himself in service to a goal that he couldn't reach. But most people, I wrote this on Twitter on Saturday night, PC, most people don't even know how to give themselves to that kind of pursuit. They don't have that kind of grit and perseverance. And he did. And I take that seriously. On the other hand, when you come up short in the

particular ways and those pairings that I mentioned, it just goes to show you, you were very special, very talented, but not quite the ever the man in your weight class during your era. Yeah. And you know, all the stuff that you laid out about him being a credit to the sport and the guy who does it right. And I mean, look, I've been asking him about this bridesmaid theory for about five years in interviews, and he always handles it so perfectly and putting what the title actually means in perspective, not making that as the ultimate definer of who he is and uh you know he stayed

relevant up until latest career in his career it doesn't mean his career is over now but it's certainly in the final stages but i do want to give a quick shout out before we rightfully laud figueredo of just like it's got to be hard for benavidez and megan oliva to live you know this sort of public relationship and be so vulnerable and I thought the UFC put out a great video package after his loss to Figueiredo in Norfolk that was very like behind the curtains of what this is like

and, you know, the two of them have carried this out with a ton of honesty and class, so I give them their credit. But Luke, it's time for me now to bang the drum of all things Davis and Figueiredo. 19-1. I was late to the party i'm going to say it right now in really uh appreciating who this guy is and the threat that he brings to this division as a you know headhunter buzzsaw with big power but a guy who's just hungry who's

aggressive his balls on the ground can finish you in a lot of different ways um luke this was exactly what the flyweight division needed. So did Henry Cejudo's star power rescue and save it? Yes. From where Demetrius Johnson left it, even though, as we know, none of that really his fault. It is what it is. But we looked at this flyweight thing up and down after Cejudo dropped the bell and basically said, okay, we can get a good story if Benavidez wins it for one fight, but where is our John Wayne, right? Where is our happy ending?

Where, in fact, have all the cowboys gone? Luke, we got a lone freaking ranger right here in Devis and Figueredo. He is an absolute unyielding badass who talks shit, backs it up, walks around like he owns the whole organization. He's everything I think we want and need right now because if you look at his his recent fights there are there's a fun group building at 125 and they're a little bit unlike the guys of old we think of 125 as a track meet rightfully so and you'll get that you know we got that in askarov pantoja on saturday which we'll get into. But you look at the recent fights of the intention of these guys going for finishes.

Any absolute combination you can make forward of Figueredo and those names around the top five, you're going to get badass fights. So this night on Saturday was all about the flyweights, and I couldn't be more excited about the division's future. And I have to say this. Figueredo, there's a video floating around on Twitter. I'm not sure. excited about the division's future. And I have to say this. Figure it out. There's a video floating around on Twitter. I'm not sure.

You can Google around for it. The guy apparently is a very good and talented sushi chef and hairdresser. I'm not making that up. He actually does women's hair. And so, you know, I don't know what that says about the guy, except maybe he's a Renaissance man. I do know this BC with the power that he has i mean he is absolutely just a dramatic force physically in that division he's big his jujitsu is phenomenal

the thing i think about is when this whole covid thing is over whenever the hell that's going to be you know getting back to some of these markets that have been underserved is going to be key now maybe figueredo's the champion then maybe he's not not. All I'm saying is for the UFC to have now two Brazilian champions, one in Amanda Nunes and now one in Devis and Figueiredo, they almost had three if Aldo had won against Jan. And of course, they may get another one with Paulo Costa, which we'll talk about later. It's good for their business. In Brazil, MMA is the second biggest sport behind soccer. And so to have another person in that country who can carry the flag, it matters. It does not right now we don't feel it because we're all kind of trapped inside of our homes quite literally but i think over time you know making sure that there are high level

brazilians in rotation who can win ufc titles that is good for the ufc's business so just in looking at the bigger picture there is something to kind of cheer here now yeah it takes and by the way nobody submits joseph benavidez and he just went out there and put the guy to freaking sleep i mean luke this was a seizure this was a statement of his badassery i mean could you imagine what fights between him and brandon moreno askarov rematches with pantoja what that could look like over the next two years i'm strapped in luke okay it could be quite it could be quite good now let's get to that co-main event if we can kelvin gastelum at 185 uh in his return fight to there since darren till losing to that one uh yeah by split decision he loses to jack her manson and talk about quick dominant finishes bc i guess he had the lateral drop so that was

nice but go first on this one please good sir This was a very bad loss Heel hook victory for Jack Hermanson In I think I don't know 90 seconds Or something like that it was pretty quick Okay that's three losses In a row BC For a guy like Kelvin Gastelum

Just a year or two ago was a title contender So the question for you is Does this loss prove that at 185, Kelvin Gastelum is not elite? I mean, the evidence is too damning. Yes, and I hate saying that. Look, I don't have a future champion Kevin Lee-like lustful relationship with this man's future ceiling, okay?

But I do believe in Kelvinvin gastelum i was cage side ufc 236 for that ultimate adesanya war in which i think that night he finally you know shed all the crap that got in his way and figured out on one night how to be the best he could be didn't win but it was a massive stock riser but he can't put it together luke you know i don't know if i'm going to sit here and say, God, you should have been a Walter Wade all along. Go back and get disciplined. I don't even know if that's true.

I don't know his body, but he just can't seem to put it together. This is a disastrous loss. And the only way that I hedge that slightly is that he's only, he's 28 and look in the UFC, you, you know, you can take learning lessons from losses. And if you have a name, you're always two wins away from being back in there, but where we stand in a crowded title picture in this division with, you know, the Whitaker-Till fight coming up with Costa, with Kananir coming back from injury, this is a really bad loss to be thrown back to the pack. You saw the shape Kelvin Gastelum came in with, you know,

had the little man bun too. I think that showed me an extreme level of focus and belief that he needed this win. And he did. And, Luke, he didn't lose it in a factor which outright told us he's not elite. Like, I have to say he's not elite because Bill Parcells told us you are what your record is, right? Like, there's only so much you can defend a guy with that type of streak lately. But this was one of those losses where it almost didn't count it's it's frank mir against brock lesnar one we didn't see out of this matchup everything we were supposed to have seen but that doesn't matter at the end of the day it's an l and uh yeah i can no longer uh you know i have to remove myself from the kevin kelvin gastelum train for a while um young

enough to still make a difference, Luke, but his prime window, he's got a lot of missteps during it. Yeah, I mean, here's the funny part about it to me. It's like folks are like, oh, well, when John Jones came up through light heavyweight, he was beating a lot of older guys, which is really totally oversold

because I actually did the math on it. The average age was about 29 and a half through the top 10 of that division. So it's just not even true. But let's just say for a second that it was true. Okay, well, after he beat all of those older dudes, then he beat all of the younger ones too, right? I mean...

Oops, is that my phone? In my pocket? They're calling you, Luke. The alarm going off. That's fun. Come on, Luke. He's a professional show. What am I doing here? I can sub you out and put in Jay so quickly, okay? Okay, so here's the deal that I would add to this. He went ahead and beat him anyway.

So in this particular case, you can look back at Gastelum's wins over Vitor Belfort. That got turned into a no contest. But then Bisping, Tim Kennedy, the Jacare win was a little bit dicey, you know, that kind of a thing. So it tells you that there is a bit of a difference between what you can do against the sort of the older guard and the newer guard. That's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is, you know,

is he a lead at 185? Not at this moment. Now at 28, which you noted, maybe he can figure it out and get back to that point again. Okay, that's certainly possible as well. So I leave that up. But I would say he is the victim here of something. Not that he hasn't made his own missteps, but honestly, I just don't think he's big enough to be competing with the

modern middleweight guys. Now, Jared Cannoneer is not the biggest guy either, and he beat Jack Hermanson. So it's not an every size fits all kind of argument, but I just don't think, like against Chris Weidman, he was too big. Against a big, strong guy like Jack Hermanson, yes, Gaslam can have these moments, but it's hard for him to sustain it. And when a guy like Jack Hermanson, early in a fight,

is cranking on a heel hook, and a pretty good one at that, I'm going to have a discussion about it on MMA, when a combat dissected. Here's what I mean, BC. This is why there should be a 175 pound weight class, which means there should be 165 pound weight class.

If we had one 65 and you could bump welterweight up to one 75 and then one 85, I think you would have a case where he wouldn't have to kill himself to get to one 70 to have that five of sometimes six pound allowance going up to 176. And you'd get the most out of a guy who is clearly quite talented, who is clearly quite special, but constantly up against a situation that is just not advantageous for him. And so to me, the big picture is here. Yes, he's talented, but I don't think 185 is a home for him. I think they should have a 165 and a 175, and I've done the work on this, BC.

I've done a draft to see what would happen if you pulled from 155 and then you pulled from 170 and you made one down the middle. It can be done, and you can still have three very, very talented divisions, but as long as that's not the case, honestly, Kelvin Gastelum is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He is. He is straight up you know

and we should be talking more about Jack Hermanson's you know five wins and six fights and and you know he just beat a big name but again it wasn't one of those wins where I'm where I'm hold on answer this question for me because I think it will get to it what would you say is Kelvin Gastelum's best win? You're right. That's the problem. The resume, right? The Bisping knockout doesn't really count.

The Jacare split decision was a little close and wonky. Yeah, when you don't have that one hit that you can go back on, it's hard to lean on. I don't know off the top of my head. I mean, what has he done? Is there a bigger welterweight win I'm forgetting before he was forced out no yeah two of the big ones would be the rick story wins and then the jake ellenberger win neither of those feel like big wins in 2020 although i certainly respect how tough those guys were at those times yeah this guy that you know the people that said he got by on reputation to a degree you know are've seen at times, the flashes of brilliance, it's true.

There's something missing there, and maybe that's the only way it connects with the Kevin Lee conversation where I see the full body of talent, but something's missing from making that step to the next level. Do you like my idea of, I mean, UFC's going to tell me to pound sand, but what do you make of 165, 175, especially coming from the boxing world? I certainly like the spirit of that idea, Luke, because it seems to be a black hole where you can get caught in the middle there being too small, too big for the respective weight class.

But they have eight divisions. And as I've said it before, as a boxing fan, right, we think back to the glory days of eight divisions, one champion per division. You always knew who was the man. Now in boxing, it's just such a bastardized reality that I hesitate the idea. Because then you go, okay, let's add 65. We'll bump up middleweight or welterweight up to 75.

And hey, we might as well do a 95. And hey, how about 215 junior heavyweight? No, no, get the frick out of here. Let's keep it where we are now. Look, you're going to have some guys where it's heartbreaking, okay? It is what it is, right? There's going to be small heavyweights who can't make 205 either. You do have to adjust and figure it out, Luke, okay?

Yeah, and by the way, to be clear, BC, I'm not arguing we should make 165 and then ultimately Walter weight 175 on account of Kelvin Gastelum. Like, hey, let's do Kelvin a solid. I don't mean that. Like, if you're going to make new weight classes, you have to have a very good, broad, sweeping reason to do it, and we can have that debate. I just mean to say, let's assume for a second, we were all convinced 165 was a good idea. My argument is Kelvin would,

I think, be a very strong beneficiary of that. I guess the last thing I'd say is, I don't know, man, if he can find a way to get back down to 170, And when I say that, I don't mean, you know, Hey, just try it out. No, I mean like with a real nutritionist, a real discipline, real game plan and so that you can reliably make it every time that you need to, including by the way, 170 on the nugget for title opportunities. Then I think he should go back to welterweight at 28 years old. There's still a lot of time there. I think he'd be very competitive with some of the Colby Covingtons

and Jorge Masvidals and some of the other figures in that division. So I think that's the best opportunity for him, assuming he can get that right. BC, very quickly. Quickly here because Jay's going to pass a kidney stone here, but people want to hear about this type of stuff. Would you be okay with a middle ground in which the UFC kept the BMF title around and made it feel like a quasi title and we only tried to match action fighters in it?

But in reality, it was kind of a low-key 165 title because for the most part, that's where the majority of these quote-unquote BMFers live. I mean, look, if you made a list of the 15 guys you would most want in a BMF fight, what, 12 of them would be between lightweight and welterweight, or right around there, you know, or maybe even above welterweight, closer to middleweight. So that might be the better direction for a Calvin Gastelum who can put in fun brawls, but can't seem to figure out the full picture. I'm not convinced that if he can't get things together,

he couldn't be a title contender again at 170. I think he probably could. And I don't hate that idea you brought up, but to me it's like either do 165 the right way or just don't. Some sort of ghost title that kind of means 165

but not really. I don't know. It's not for me. Alright, let's jump to point three here. Can I hijack your show again? Jay's carrying a loaded weapon right now and we're just burying the lead. Are gonna keep it going or what let's yes for just a second for just a second let's let's run through this a little bit more uh all right point three so we're talking about this card we talked about the main we talked about the co-main bc one more time i will pitch to you good sir anywhere you want to go from the rest of this card who else from

saturday's event impressed you? All right. There's a guy who impressed, I think, all of us the most. I'm going to save him for one second. I do want to complete that flyweight title picture conversation because that Askar-Askarov-Pantoja fight was absolutely fantastic, Luke. They set an obscene pace. Pantoja always sets an obscene pace, and he couldn't keep up with this pace.

I sort of said, Luke, last Thursday's show, if you don't know about this Russian fella, you better ask Arav, because this guy screamed title contender to me, right? Only had that draw with Moreno that was all action, had won all of his tests coming in. Dude, that's a hell of an elite win that he had over Pantoja I don't know if Askarov's going to get the next title shot Moreno's in that conversation as well but Luke any like I said before any combination of those three or four names it's going to be magic in the flyweight

division and I'm very late to this party so uh please let me in on this uh I want to talk Fizyev for days but give my my brother askar askarov the the love he deserves Luke all right so with that in mind who else in that card impressed you no I just challenged you to love the man Luke to to just accept it this guy is a stud yeah he's great okay who else in the card impressed you wow wow okay okay what wake up kids we got the dreamers disease all right uh uh look it was hafael fizzy ev all day at lightweight against marcha casey uh everything why is it hafael he's he's he's from kyrgyzstan what did i call him hafael it's rafael rafael well look sorry luke sorry okay yeah thank you thank you it's uh okay all right uh so rafael fizzy ev um is a freaking cyborg he's a freak of nature i've already had people on twitter oh bc

style you know get that heart on down a bit he fought a guy taylor made to make him look good i understand the the you know limitations of a mark jacasey which is why although we said ahead of this fight he was going to break into the top know, five or seven in the division with a big win here. And he still seems far off, but to see the, uh, the intention, the bad intentions of every strike Fizev, uh, seemed to show out there. Fizev, he was looking to finish the fight, Luke. It's, you know, again, there's very rare times that someone's talent just like leaps through the screen when you aren't woke to him. And I certainly wasn't.

I didn't watch his UFC debut or I didn't remember it. This was a night where I wrote this guy's name down in my heart and said, I'm going to follow him to the ending because I need to see him climb this lightweight ladder. Yeah, he is amazing. Actually, it's a funny thing. I actually spoke this morning with George Hickman. George Hickman is the head mma coach at tiger muay thai i don't know if you know this bc so rafael fazaev fazaev however you pronounce

it he was a sort of a good very high level thai boxer at the time in thailand had done with work some other teams and here's the connection brad riddell who is now uh one of the well he was kickboxing hoodie on that's right break it out of the, well, he was for a time. Get the shitty kickboxing hoodie on, Luke. That's right. Break it out. Well, here's the thing. He was the striking coach at Tiger Muay Thai.

When he left that, Fazaev was the guy who took his spot. And they didn't even know that the guy wanted the job. He just sort of asked to try out for it. And they were like, yeah, sure. And then, of course, he has been amazing. I asked George Hickman, like, how good of a wrestler on all the other phases is Vazaev and he was like he is very much the real deal so be on the lookout for this guy he looked like a wrestler but then he had that that lean back and everything else I mean he is absolutely phenomenal on the feet the other sort of Tiger

Muay Thai connection here I would make BC I'm going to go with Armin Saryukian. Wow, man. He is absolutely impressive. You know, he lost in his debut to Islam Makachev. But, you know, he put Makachev through the paces. Certainly, he was competitive, I think, through the majority of that fight. And, you know, Makachev is more seasoned, a little bit more polished, better of a fighter right now. Okay.

But still, you could tell right away he was amazing. The guy right now now is only 23 years old and he made Davi Hamos look foolish. It was not even especially close at all. And he didn't mind going to the ground. Beautiful double leg got out of the inside and reverse De La Riva when he rolled underneath, uh, on the feet looked competent. George Hickman told me another story. His brother, Frank is the wrestling coach at Tiger Muay Thai. Does some work over in New Zealand and Australia as well. And he told me, uh, Armin Saryukian came through Tiger Muay Thai because they had a tryout and this guy won the scholarship at like 20, 21 years old. Frank Hickman had wrestled division one. And he said, after he sort of wrestled with Armin to see how good he was, he came by to George and he goes,

uh, he can wrestle. And he said, for my brother to say that, which he never does, is a big deal. So Armin Saryukian, be on the lookout for him. To your point, Rafael Fazaev, be on the lookout. These dudes, BC, from like the Caucasus Mountains, like Indo-Europe, you know, the former Soviet satellite states, boy, these guys are not to be played with. Yeah, Armin Katayan,

probably another Armenian hero as well. Shout out to your people, Luke. But I haven't seen you, you know, cold shoulder, no-sell-a-guy like you're doing right now with Askarov, except for that, remember that submission guy in Bellator from Israel? You were like, I want nothing to do with that guy,

except for that. I've never seen you no-sell a guy. Askarov's my guy, all right? If they make the t-shirt, I'm buying it. Submission guy from Bellator? Which guy was that? The dude who was like 19. He had those flashy submissions back-to-back.

You weren't drinking the juice. You weren't. I don't remember. I don't remember. You're like, I don't drink. I don't, you know, no, no, no. Yeah, well, I don't know. He's fine, but like I'm not one of the, like I might be an MMA hipster but i'm not one of these mma hipsters who pretends that flyweight is the

world's greatest division i'm mostly bored by it um not bored i'm mostly unmoved by it so i agree he is talented i agree that fight was good but i don't have you know i don't have a uh a stiffy like you do for 125. There's got to be a personal grudge in there somewhere. No. Why do I have against Askarov? I have nothing against him. No, no, no.

All these people out in MMA are like, it's a travesty what the UFC has done to flyweight. And then on when I have to produce flyweight content for people to read, and this is before, of course, they gutted it, but even now still, no one reads it. No one listens to podcasts that are about the flyweight content for people to read. And this is before, of course, they gutted it. But even now still, no one reads it. No one listens to podcasts that are about the flyweight division. Everyone likes to chirp like they think it's the best division on earth and they care so much about it.

They're all liars, BC. I just don't pretend. At the end of the day, I just wanted to hear you say it. You know, last week you didn't want to talk about this fight. I'm telling you, Asgraf's coming for that ass. I just wanted you to give him the respect he deserves. He is super talented. Luke, are you going to give any love to Lipski's women's flyweight knee bar

where I think she broke that poor chick's leg? Did you see that? The opportunism and the presence of mind and then the viciousness, absolutely, I will give it to her. But I got to tell you, the poor control by carolina underneath you know like there's a reason you don't see people do knee bars like that when they're in a calf slicer um and it's because you're supposed to be chest to back with them so they can't just reach down and then fiddle with whatever they want to fiddle look at that picture look at that

look yeah i mean it's it's vicious it's vicious, I mean, it's vicious. It's vicious. There's no denying it's vicious. In fact, she's sort of, it's funny, like, were she not in a calf slicer? That's almost exactly what you would want to do for a knee bar, where you sort of sit on the chest to keep them pinned down. She's still a little high for that, but, you know. I think if you destroy somebody like that,

you should be able to take the leg home and put like a lampshade on it, you know, Christmas story style. Yeah, put Fragile on that bitch. I understand. By the way, kind of sneaky hot too. I know we'll edit that part out after, but you know, somebody was thinking it. I'm just saying, it's a nice submission.

I take nothing away. But to me, the best submissions are not just the craziest or most vicious ones. Although those count, it's when you do it against somebody who's very, very talented. Luke just not into putting over anybody who's not armenian today very interesting episode listen i have my biases if you're azerbaijani you're out you're out all right let's go to number four here if we can bc and i think it was reported by espn uh just before the show

so now israel adesanya and paulo costa my understanding is I think it was Errol Hawane on ESPN saying and reporting that they have signed their bout agreements for UFC 253. You see, the question we have to wrestle with is, is this, if you think about all the title fights they're going to have, now we're still only halfway through the year or so, but you can kind of see what might be out there. Is this the most important title fight the UFC will have this year? And the answer is no, but yes. And here's what I mean. You've got DC and Stipe III just next month. And because those two have fought before and because of where they stand in their careers, the winner of that is basically going to take home, not really the UFC heavyweight title, but the unofficial title of best UFC heavyweight ever. That's still somewhat debatable because Cormier didn't have the long career there,

but I don't think most people are going to quibble with it. If you beat the guy who was the guy who was supposed to be that in Stipe, you do it two times out of three, kind of makes you that guy. So in that sense, no. But in another sense, BC, we just talked about Brazil potentially having a third champion. That's a big deal. In terms of the internationalization of MMA with Adesanya being from Nigeria now of course representing New Zealand that's a big deal but the bigger part to me about this one BC is to me if Adesanya wins this it's another step in the right direction for him to be a star he was on the cover of ESPN. He's on the cover of the magazine. He does all the interviews well. The UFC is dying to get this guy into a position where people really want to see

him fight. He is so close. And the Paul Acosta fight seems like it has all the makings to get him there. Now he has to win. So if he loses, forget about it. Paul Acosta could take his place for crying out loud. But if Adesanya wins to me bc i don't know if it will be the star making moment but it's got all the ingredients it's a real grudge match they don't have to fake talk like they'd like you know hate each other they legitimately don't it represents something so huge about ufc they might even be able to do it by the way bc in new zealand with a crowd. That is not out of the question.

We don't even know the location for this yet. So to me, if they had done Nurmagomedov versus Tony, that would have been the biggest one. I still recognize the enormous significance of next month. But when you're talking about the future of the sport, BC, honestly, I think this one in that sense is the most important. Yeah. How often do we get two unbeaten fighters in a major title fight and you have the backstory? They don't like each other. It's kind of the third time they've tried to make this fight due to injury and COVID.

And at its core, this is a box of sex that, you know, step three uh put your thing in the box this is absolutely an incredible fight on paper because look like the you know styles make fights but the best thing about fights are when guys are dance partners that match perfectly and costas unyielding straight ahead style machismo i'm gonna find out if your backbone is what you think it is paired against you know the best counter striker going today in terms of most calculated and creative guy. This is, I mean,

this is, you know, Hollywood casting for as far as styles go and, you know, whoever does win and, and I, and you know, Adesanya deserves to be favored,

but whoever does win is really going to get that, that giant catapult and push. And for Israel, you know, the Romero fight what was it was a detour it was a speed bump it didn't go the way it was planned uh i got caught up like a lot of people and think it would be a great fight and uh you know should have woke up to see what the uhc matchmakers had seen when they told dana they didn't want to match it but he got out

of there with a win and this is that exact fight that can make him that next level star for those that aren't woke to him absolutely agree with you on that luke um it's not more important than the others but um speaking of bag of sex where was uh stag parties big in your area or was that like a northeast thing where i was in my 20s refresh my memory what is the stag party i think it's exclusive to new england i'm not sure people can jump in but if you're getting married instead of like a wild bachelor party where you go out to a bar and strip club and all that with your friends you would have a stag where you'd rent out a you know a polish hall everyone would come and spend

you know a 25 ticket which would get them a a cheap buffet and all the you know, a $25 ticket, which would get them a cheap buffet and all the, you know, bush light keg they can drink. And then there's raffle gifts. And depending on how, um, cultured and sophisticated the potential groom is, those raffle tickets could be legit. They could be like, you know, second row Red Sox tickets or, you know, golf clubs or Xbox or something ridiculous. Did they have that in your area? No, I didn't really attend any cuck fest. I didn't go to Cuckapalooza 2000. That was never on my agenda. No, no, this is more of like a factory town thing.

The whole point is that pays for your honeymoon. That's why you do this, Luke. But I would always, I was that guy in my early 20s who was kind of like a professional stag attender where somebody would be like, hey, yo, my buddy's having a stag. You got to come tomorrow night. And I'd weigh the odds. I'd go, 25 bucks can get me a buffet

and all the bush light I can drink cold. Like, yeah, I'll go there. So it was always like a good investment. But I always forgot to get a raffle gift, which was sort of custom, right? What does this have to do with UFC 253? I'm going to connect the dots right now. Some people would buy a giant liquor bottle or something.

I, last minute, if I completely forgot to prepare, would do bag-o-porn. So I would get a giant paper bag, fill it with the grossest magazines I could find right in Sharpie on the outside, bag-o-porn. Put it on the

table, and it would always be the first item chosen by some creepy old guy who would then pass it around to all the old like italian dads the rest it was a giant hit this fight costa adesanya is is is the bag of bag of porn at the morning combat stag like this is it this is the one you don't think it has the potential to be that turning point for Adesanya or one of the early turning points for Costa if he ends up winning? To me, here's the thing. Here's the thing. If Gaethje goes up and... I mean, there's all different ways to measure significance, right? As I mentioned, DC steep A3, title for best heavyweight ever. I mean, that's a huge deal. I can recognize that.

And if Gaethje goes over there and beats Nurmagomedov, I don't know that he will, but let's just say that he does, then that carries its own form of enormous significance. But still, you can just kind of tell, man, all roads at middleweight lead to this. You can't go forward at middleweight until you settle it and you have dynamic personalities, dynamic guys

in front of the camera totally opposite styles totally opposite parts of the world and both of them are not stars yet but they're just you know they're kind of inching there i don't know it feels to me like one of those things you'll look back on like that was the point in their career where x did this you know right because you're almost guaranteed to get a finish that that like coast is going to make you knock him out right so you're almost guaranteed to get a finish that, like Costa's going to make you knock him out, right? So you're almost guaranteed to get the kind of performance and finish that is currency to yanking those casual fans in. So if Adesanya wins this, he's probably going to have to stop him to do it, and he can give the soundbite afterwards,

and casual fans will lick that ish up. So it's a perfect setup fight, Luke, if he can get through it, and it's going to be a violent test. All right, with that in mind, let's go to our fifth and final point. So we have looked back at the news and the results from last weekend. Let's look ahead. Darren Till returns to the cage against Robert Whitaker in a middleweight title. Well, not a title fair, but I guess potential title contender bout.

First, let's talk about who is likely to win BC. And the answer to that question is, I got to be honest, I'm going to guess Robert Whitaker if he is back to being Robert Whitaker, where he is taking his time, where Till is a big target at 185. Both of these guys, former welterweights, you know. But Till is clearly the bigger of the two. And at 185, when you look at them you say to yourself one guy is sort of a step and slider another guy is a you know a hop and blitzer and it didn't work against Adesanya who's very creative that way but I think it might against Till who doesn't have quite the reflexes or speed

that Adesanya does and also I think that Whitaker had that long layoff, and we all know about the other issues that he had. Now he seems to be centered. He seems to be a little more focused. I think he was just a little bit too hurried in the game against Adesanya, but I still think if those guys fought again, the second fight would be very different. Maybe Adesanya wins again. I'm just saying, I don't think it would look like the first at a bare minimum. I think you get a lot of those elements here, except Whitaker can do some of the things that Jorge Masvidal did and get in and out. And so I like him to win, you know, again, not an official prediction, but I lean that way. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, you nailed the whole sort of handicapping element. It depends which

version of Robert Whitaker we get, because he's one of the, I mean, certainly was one of the most elite fighters before losing his title on a pound for Ponson's, but he might be like the most balanced and well rounded elite fighter that we've seen in a long time and has that disposition and toughness to go through hell. 10 rounds with Vitor Belfort made, I'm sorry, not Vitor, obviously Romero made him Luke and then, you know, probably played a big part in breaking him unfortunately so um i think talent versus talent whitaker wins this all day he's gonna have to answer some questions but i think they're very answerable he has more in the bank from uh you know reputation credibility wise for us i think to believe and give him a chance that we're gonna see at least 90 percent of of

what he was on this one i think he gets back to that Adesanya title rematch no matter what. And to your point, Luke, it's going to be a much different fight. I think it's going to be a five-round classic chess match. It could be an absolutely incredible fight. He's got to get through a till to get there, but I've never been a big till guy. Really? You know, good Gastelum win, but we can go back on the tape to the MMA beat days. I told you straight up, Willie's going to knock this guy out.

He's not of this ilk. He didn't beat Stephen Thompson. They rushed him in there because they thought he was the next Conor in terms of marketable European guy. I give him credit for going to a new division and settling nicely, but he doesn't seem to have, in my opinion, those plus abilities to bring a fight to the next level where he will need it to be to win these against the very very elite let me play devil's

advocate you were not impressed with some of the evolution in his game against kelvin gastelum i was and that's where i give him credit for establishing himself in this new weight class as a player, which is why he could get this fight. I don't think the guy's a fraud. I just don't see the upward potential to actually win a title, especially a middleweight, and be anything more than a really tough out. Interesting.

All right, and then lastly, winner gets a title shot probably, right? I mean, it wouldn't be much of a run for Till, but if Till beats Gastelum and Whitaker you're like well I guess he has to get it uh there's still Jared Kennedy are kind of floating out there I don't know what to do with him and then you've got Hermansen who won so what is your sense about what they do with the winner here and Whitaker I guess it would almost get like right back in there yeah I think Hermansen is is going to find himself more in the Leon Edwards spot. He will still need to show you a little bit more. But it's Whitaker if he wins.

Look, Till has a marketable side. I'm not going to say that wouldn't be a fight they would make. But I wonder if Till won, if they'd look at their options a little bit more. I thought Gaslam could have been around there if he had won. He didn't because you had the built-in rematch without Asanya. But I want to see when Kananir comes back because I think he is more deserving than everyone else, Luke. And if Whitaker doesn't win and Kananir can get healthy

and get back in there, maybe you make that fight. Yeah, I suppose that you have to. We'll see. Okay, well, with that in mind, let's get to the part of the show where the viewers, BC, or the listeners, depending on how they consume this product, get to ask us questions. It is time now for DMs from dogs. All right. There we have it.

There you go. Every Sunday, we put up a post on Instagram, at Morning Combat, and you can check us out there. All right. I love this account, BC. Do you know King of the L the uh the uh instagram account no no so they post is he of our ilk is he one of us yeah so he's an mma fan whoever runs i think it's two guys i'm not sure who runs the account but they it's a site it's a youtube channel it's an account and they do nothing but post mostly deadlift porn. Now, not people banging each

other doing the deadlift, but I mean, oh, here's some ogre in the middle of a place where Fazaev and Saryukin are from and he's doing a AMRAP of 770, you know, hook grip and you watch that and then they'll do guys, you know, squatting 700 pounds in the warmup room at the Olympics. It's fucking great. I love it. Anyway, he asks BC, was Cejudo's hiatus a stroke of genius to create super fight options for him? He left, and now Flyweight has a champ who looks like a killer, and Jan and the Bantamweights can emerge as stars.

Add the possible move to featherweight, and Cejudo stepping back was great for creating more big fight options. Or, BC, was Cehudo legit never looking to return to his previous weight classes what do you say i think you know just like we said back when it happened i think he took this retirement largely to get out of the need to have to fight all the next killers in line at bantamweight for the idea of controlling his own future destiny with super fights yes but i also think the timing was key because no live gates and no live gates expected when he made that retirement out of nowhere seemed to justify why

he'd be like you know what screw this you know i'm not gonna fight jan and san and uh you know san hagen sterling and all those guys for less money why don't i can you know not well now we got abu dhabi money so now it's easier for him to come back and I think it really would just make the most sense for to try to get Volkanovski in that featherweight title bout if you're really going to try to go a la carte and pull a McGregor here you have nothing to gain by going back and fighting the new champion in divisions that you've already conquered unless those new champions are just overwhelming uh future stars from a marketable side where you're like, okay, me coming back and facing them, we could do legitimate pay-per-view numbers and make money.

He can't do legitimate pay-per-view numbers against my guy Figueiredo or against any of the up-and-coming Bantamweights at the moment. I think it has to be Volkanovski or nothing. They do have a problem that that featherweight division is loaded. Alexander the Great said he doesn't want that fight he wants the real contenders in the division because he thinks people will favor him because of the size he would take it if the money is there look i could see this being the type of fight that ufc would want and would want to put the money there because uh suhudo is so marketable if somebody's got to be the first three division champion in ufc history i always said it would be connor that would get the first chance and for all we know we still may

end up getting the first chance but you know suhudo has surprised me at how much he could make himself known and how great he could get himself to be on a critical level that i could 100 see the company doing that here's the. You guys got to call it like what it is. None of those fights are super fights in the sense of what Cejudo is looking for. All right, so let me give you an example. If he fights Figueredo, to your point, it's not going to sell.

It's a great fight, but it's not going to sell. If he fights Jan, it's a tremendous fight. It's not going to sell. And if he fights Volkanovski, it's a tremendous fight. Why are we under the impression that that's going to sell? Volkanovski, I don't think, to my knowledge, has ever headlined a pay-per-view as champion. I don't think he's headlined a pay-per-view, period. And so there's no clear telling exactly how big of a star he is. After the last win, there's a lot of people upset that he won at all. And Cejudo was up and coming

as a star, but he hadn't crossed over. Now, that fight is huge with historical significance for the reasons you mentioned, and I think is a big fight, certainly for inside-the-bubble hardcore fans. But does anyone really think that Cejudo versus Volkanovski sells more than 300,000 buys? No, no. I don't believe that at all. You put it in Australia, Luke,

and you'd make a giant gate on a full stadium, and you'd do decent pay-per-view numbers, not great pay-per-view numbers here, but you'd take the chance that if Cejudo wins, that maybe that boasts him up to another level as quadruple C or quintuple C or whatever he would call himself at that point. Yeah, although if he gets waxed, which I think he probably would, then you're just like, oh, why did we make this fight? Well, Luke, couldn't you?

No, no, hold on. Stay right here. Park it, okay? Do you think Cejudo could wrestle with that guy? Um, not really. You know, when we say wrestle, we mean like in an MMA context. Yeah, like be able to win the fight by taking the fight to the ground more often than not no

i think you might be able to get him down for a second maybe once or twice you know but holding that guy down no i mean he could barely hold down demetrius johnson you know no i just don't see that uh hey my kids bought me uh my kids surprised me with ufc3 the game from on xbox one this Xbox One this weekend, Luke. Yeah? So you don't get enough MMA in your life? You don't have to play it as a video game? Oh, I love it.

I love it. Oh, my God, yeah. We're doing a lot of... I'm going to take Rose to the top, okay? Through that Strawweight Killer division on my game, okay? So leave me alone. I'll play you online, Luke, okay? I know you got some PC, and we screwed up last week with the Mortal Kombat talk

you're playing X11, I'm playing XL whatever Shocker, you're playing the old hoopty version and I'm playing the new hotness Alright, at Belly of Lead Jon Jones just turned 33 BC Will he be a heavyweight champion by 35?

Yes I say no Will he be a heavyweight champion by 35? Yes. Oh, I say no. Yes. Yes, he will. You think so? Yeah, we got to get Arenas back. He'll come back. He'll, you know what?

They're probably going to have him rematch Reyes. If he wins that, it's a tremendous win. You know, it's not Ali-like, but it would be like, you know, older career Jon Jones had one close fight and then came back and figured out how to not make it close. It would be great.

If he went to heavyweight from there, I'm saying it right now, I will favor even this early 30s version of Jon against every single heavyweight out there. At 35, I don't know. I don't know I don't know I think John looks a lot different in two years you know at that point he'll have been fighting for 14 years in the UFC you know and I guess he's had some I guess he's had time off so that's not quite true but still he he is uh you know Teflon John he just seems to always find a way luke okay although we did

see that that booty call on the phone during the during the uh albuquerque pullover i know you don't want to act like it was there but it was there luke it's not that i don't want to act like it was there i just don't care all right like wow do you care famous famous athletes want to get laid i can't believe it you know luke do you care about uh this show at all because we did you know despite you just dropping a doogie on ask our asker of we did tease a big announcement here and we're we're like an hour into the show and you're just like so hold on we'll get to it at the end well you know now it's not gonna be that big anymore so now it becomes relevant all right from at telvin kippa kill No, Telvin Kippapa.

Tribe Called Quest BC or Beastie Boys? What do you think? That's not the question I see on the screen, all right? What do they have up there? Oh, I skipped one. Fuck it. All right, Terrence Kroonan. God, what a day.

If you could only watch Costa versus Izzy or Khabib versus Justin, which one would you pick? Costa versus Izzy. But it's close. It's a flip-em. I really think it's a flip-em on terms of which one would you pick? Costa versus Izzy. But it's close. It's a flip-em. I really think it's a flip-em on terms of which one would I rather see, which one would be more entertaining, which one do I need to see the answers to.

I think I need to see Habib just a little bit more to find out. I want to find out if Gaethje is of that ilk, right? But I think I'd get more entertainment out of Costa walking him down. I tend to think, I have a feeling that Nurmagomedov and Gaethje might end up being a better fight, to be honest with you. I don't know that, but I don't know. It's just part of me that feels like, it's like, is Justin the guy to beat Nurmagomedov?

I don't know. But I do feel like he's the guy to really kind of push him to his limits. I do think that is true. And at the same time, I think the same thing about costa and adesanya but i don't know man i don't know i don't know that's a hard one that's a hard one okay okay uh all right so then so then we go to telvin telvin key papa tribe called west bc or beastie boys since i fucked it up before all right tribe call quest oh believe me i love me the beastie boys right that that new serious

xm channel is pretty badass and uh i am a a diehard check your head guy got all the albums but i am a check your head guy to the to the nines but uh come on tribe call quest to me for my rap taste you know i've had seasons in hip hop. I'm not some, you know, all time historian. And and yeah, I liked Hamilton. So F you, Luke. But, you know, the deal on this, the tribe is is the most sophisticated. The fusion of jazz, the the two man MC interplay between them. I mean, that's you talk about dance partners right israel and and costa like put q-tip in in in uh in fife together it's i mean you're on point tip all all the freaking

time fife all right like yeah i've got i own every album they're the greatest okay to me for my tastes they're my favorite uh hip-hop outfit of all time i won't say they're the greatest but they're they're my favorite of all time yeah i can get down they're the greatest, but they're my favorite of all time. I can get down with that completely. Tribe Called Quest, to me, is far and away better. Can I tell you something, BC? I realize what I'm about to say is blasphemous.

All I can do is just tell you I feel this way. I've tried to listen to the Beastie Boys. I can't do it. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. When you say I've tried to listen to the beastie boys i can't do it dude can't do okay no hold on a second hold on a second um what and when you say i've tried to listen to them what what albums have you invested in under what circumstances okay so first of all you have different you have different you have different phases no i let me spit this out i'm not saying i'm casey casem or kurt loder here but you're

you're walking thin ice for your musical tastes over the history of this show. You recognize good shit, okay? But can you hear Jimmy? I don't know because of this cannibal nonsense. Speak to me here, okay? So first of all, I just want to remind you, we are in complete lockstep with A Tribe Called Quest, number one.

Number two, and I recognize I'm totally outvoted on this. I get it 1,000%. And the Beastie Boys evolved over time. So you have like the early party Beastie Boys where quite literally you got to fight for your right to party, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, Brass Monkey, that kind of a thing, right? Yeah, Paul's Boutique, one of the greatest albums of all time.

Put that on tomorrow. You won't be upset, Luke. I understand Rick Rubin has a big influence as well. And then they got into like in the mid-90s, they got into more sort of, I don't know what I would describe the style, but sort of emblematic through sabotage, you know. Yes. Which is big. Yes. And then they ended up in some kind of like playful place in the end of their career as well.

I recognize people love them. I recognize they evolved. I recognize they were outspoken about tibetan freedom i i get all of that i don't hate them to bet i don't hate them i'm just trying to tell you every time i turn them on how do i explain this it's like i i just don't feel anything people like yeah don't you feel how cool i don't feel anything and that's the problem okay i'll look you want to be really honest you want to be really blunt are they overrated historically yes but i still get down with them i mean you know license to ill i mean like i said check your head when they're

playing their own instruments live which led to the you know the evolution into like the sabotage stuff you're mentioning like they've evolved over time they they prove to be uh an important not a novelty act that has you know changed with the times but they're you know they're they're also not like luke let's let's can we be honest about nirvana too nirvana was part of a giant shift from you know metal into grunge and they were the forerunners and they were freaking brilliant but if colbain didn't die then they wouldn't be up there in that upper table I'm telling you I'm telling you that okay. All right, so let's break look Okay, so hold on so let's bring in here's the big reveal. It's producer Jay Jay

What do you make of our Beastie Boys take most my Beastie Boys take and what about the hot take from BC on Nirvana? Well, first of all as a member of the tribe uh you know beastie boys are good it's one of the small things that uh that anyone's done for us so beastie boys are in but i i appreciate the hot take nirvana is amazing because cobain died before 30 and he still had a lifetime's catalog worth of amazing music that still plays today so that take is that's trash no that tape is with is that take the no escape of boy bands right there uh jay by the way how do we bear wow jay's screen getting bigger here he's already taking control uh luke you know you wait the whole

show you shit on askarov you you pretend this is a big moment in the history of this show jay the producer has a voice okay okay here's the deal he already he already violated it he is not supposed to speak until spoken to and then he was chiming in my effing ear like a dog so he's already on thin ice with this thing but yes however bc shat on nirvana so you know it had to be done this is a man who once hit a spinning back kick on uriah hall and dropped him, okay? So here's the deal. I fought for Jay to get his voice heard because, you know,

this is either going to be the best decision we've ever made in the show's history or a one-week, you know, tryout here, Luke. But you have, you know, Shatteth on him many a times in history, and he's never had a chance to defend himself. And the commenters for, you know, years, months have said said uh you know i don't want to hear these fake conversations i don't even know if jay's real like give us give us something so there it is there's the back of jay's head okay turns out all i needed was a microphone for 1995 yes there you are and there you go never to be seen again all right uh last question at mt booble if you were to end up on Have You Seen This S,

how much alcohol would be involved, and what scenario do you envision taking place? Oh, Jesus, BC. That's such a loaded and right question, because we are in that era, Luke, where, like, think about it. You know, Luke, you could piss a fighter off in this game by accident. You know? And Mike Perry told me, you know, he sent me to hell on my own podcast.

I could get Mike Perry'd one day like that old guy did at that bar. And somebody's going to capture it on a cell phone and put it out there, right? Luke, you could go out with your college buddies from William & Mary one night and just drink, you know, way too many vodka and cranberries and you know and relive the old days and end up drink that trash and end up going streaking in um in uh where are you uh williamsburg virginia there and suddenly you're on this damn show and you lost your job and you i mean it can happen luke i'm glad that we did our craziness right before social media and good cameras took over. But if you or I were to appear on this in a very unflattering light, I would have to guess alcohol and nudity would be involved.

You know what I'm saying? That's not me. It would be shoplifting. Shoplifting. I used to get hammered and go shoplifting. Do you guys have Wawa up in Connecticut? No, we don't. I know of the legend.

I'm more of a sheets guy, Pennsylvania area. Yes, it's basically the south of the Mason-Dixon line sheets. All of their sheets down here too, but yes, more or less that's what Wawa is. Wawa's huge in Jersey. Huge in Jersey. So if you don't know who Wawa is or what it is it's basically one of these gas stations it's like kind of nice for a gas station and they have a kitchen in there where these screens and you can go and punch up

like a sub sandwich you want you get to pick every little piece or they've got like macaroni dishes or whatever and everything's made to order and then you know they have nice everything's clean you know dude let me tell you something. I used to go and order party orders worth of subs, and then just dip out the front door when I was hammered, running like the Hamburglar from the nearest McDonald's, bro.

And there was one time I got real bold. I'll never forget this. I'll never forget this. I think I ordered like four meatball subs. Why? I don't know. Right. I popped a couple of Snickers inside the,

uh, what were we wearing in the two thousands BC? Uh, the, the, the pants with the pockets on the side, cargo pants. Yeah.

Oh yeah. You got to have the zipper around the kneecap too. Yeah. Yeah. So dump, dump a couple of the, uh, Snickers king sizes

in the old cargo pants and as soon as they come up walk just grab all the subs and on the way out i scooped up a 24 pack like i was you know throwing a ball down a bowl that you know the bowling ball down the alley of uh of gatorade on the way out the front door and just ran out like supermarket sweeps bitch i, I would do that. They must've thought I was the fucking Billy, the kid of just shoplifting at fucking Wawa. Cause I can't go back there ever. So yes,

I stole a lot from Wawa. Sorry. Yeah. That's, that's interesting that you would say something like that where, because there's times where I'm at like the mall and my kids just do something to really piss me off. And I just snap at an unnatural level, and I go, oh, wait.

I do have that level of celebrity, meaning there could be one person in this building who knows who I am, and they could get the cell phone cam of me picking my nose while I elbow my kid in the face. I'm always waiting for that to happen. Well, I haven't done this in a while. I mean, it's been a decade or more since I've shoplifted. But I'll just say this. I've had these moments where I shoplifted food and then woke up in my college dorm like, and then there's meatball subs and Cool Ranch Doritos all over me. And I'm wearing all the...

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, how did I get a pack of Newport 100s? Where the fuck did these come from? I've had those moments as well. Why is Lou Pearlman here? Why am I the fourth member of No Escape? What is happening right now?

Why does my butt hurt? That seems weird. Okay. With that in mind, let's go now to... Perfect intro, BC. Why does my butt hurt? Take it away. Yes, let's do it. Here's what we do.

We search the globe high and low, the best, the worst, the good, the bad, and the ugly in combat sports and beyond. It's Have You Seen This Shit? And we got a loaded edition this week, Luke. Buckle up, get ready. We always start out with legitimate killings, right? Let's go to one championship did you see this insane push kick ko luke and why is that man dressed in a diaper what is happening

here god damn dude he beat him like he was insulted he was fighting him oh my god like that's like uh you know silva Belfort on steroids, that finish right there. Yeah. Bop. Jab. Bop. Oh, God. You can get diaper rash from that kind of finish.

That's great right there. All right. Hey, Luke, we teased it earlier. Let's go to UFC Abu Dhabi. Our guy, Rafael Fizev, pulled out this Matrix-ish that a lot of people are talking about. Took both the red and the blue pill. Luke, I don't know if you remember on this segment, we've done a kickboxing one just like this. Turns out it's the same guy, Fazeev.

You remember that a couple months ago? I guess I didn't, but now that you mention it, it sort of rings a bell, yeah. Dude, what kind of core strength do you need to do this and not end up on a stretcher oh and balance and everything else that is in reflexes that is ridiculous he is ridiculous he's a a plus athlete absolutely ridiculous uh luke in the hangover of ufc 251 maz vidal usman a lot of people sending me these zapruder pictures. I want you to zoom in here and check out Usman. What is his intention here, bro? What are we doing here? You know?

Is he saying basically, hey, Jorge, if you got a big, let me search it. Is that what's happening here? That's interesting. I almost see the guy's bald hair. Didn't Jorge accuse him of being a crotch sniffer not a you know other form of crotch touching it's very uh crocodile dundee like remember he was unaware of that person's sex so he just found out the uh illegal way uh yes casual 80s transphobia yes that well look at that yeah it's a dated scene we don't live our life or a world like that thank you all right hey let's go to one of our favorite viewers at brandtendo64

underscore on twitter luke he purchased the morning combat mug and he came out to do his luke thomas impression this is well done it's pretty good i have to admit i showed it to my wife even she said it was pretty good. Shout out to this guy. Apparently he's like a professional video game player, streamer, or maybe, I don't know. Can you go professional on that? I don't know. By the way, he looks 15.

He might be. He might be. I wouldn't take him as a candidate to steal my kidney and have me wake up in the tub behind you with four meatball subs all over me. He looks like one of our more normal... Yeah, he's definitely more normal, and he has a nice setup, too. He's got the purple

lighting in the background, but then he's got the regular lighting on his face. He kind of knows what he's doing with the camera there. Good work. I'm sure he can figure out how I can play UFC 3 against you online, Luke. You should play UFC 3 against this guy and when he wrecks your shit completely like Figueredo did to Benavidez,

you should play it on the show. Okay, I'm in on that. Alright, let's go to the concert scene. I think this is a Cannibal Corpse concert. Sometimes people have great ideas. They want to be part of things. They want to stage dive. They want to get their friends around to help them out here. Plenty of seats still available at this

call. Oh my God, Luke. Face plant. Oh, holy shit. Not a Cannibal Corpse concert. I can tell you that. Yeah. Did you ever stage dive, Luke? Did I ever stage dive?

No, not stage dive. Sorry, crowd surf. Have you ever crowd surfed? No, I was always too big for that shit. Because I got a fat guy dropped on my head at a 311 show in 1997 when he was surfing that was not fun that's but that's karma that's that's what you get for going to a 311 show i always felt bad for i know that you know i always felt bad for the chicks who would crowd surf in the 90s because they just get looted luke you know it's ridiculous

in fact oh yeah let's go to a superstar this is from 2009 this is beyonce in london she's got a lot of balls to try this because you know i could go to a beyonce concert and take home a poster or a t-shirt i could also grab them biscuits like a lot of these guys are doing does jay-z know about this oh man yeah i don't recommend that i don't recommend that now like hey you wanted front row that's what you get that's what gallagher used to say luke uh speaking of that let's check out this throwback 90s nhl clip um certainly these fans will never buy front row tickets again in fact they may be blinded by this luke that's is incredible. That was like Rose when Connor threw the dolly at the bus window. Yes, yes, that was.

Ray Borg. Sorry for your iris there. Yeah, fucked his eyes all up. Yep, yep. By the way, have you ever sat in those seats at a hockey game? No. I've sat legit front row at a Celtics-Knicks game in 2001 under the hoop, like directly next to the support.

That was pretty badass. I've been on the wood for a Wizards game, but that's not a big deal. But the Caps tickets are always so fucking expensive because it's a good team. It's impossible. Dude, these things are like $700 a pop. I'm not spending $1,400 so me and my wife can go watch Ovechkin board check, you know. I don't know. Evgeny Malkin or some shit.

No, we're not in for that shit. All right. Hey, let's keep it moving here. It's birthday time, and let's bring out the adult pinata. Luke, these always end bad. Let's be honest, right? Somebody always takes it to the pills here. Oh, Jesus.

This guy a little reckless. Oh, God. I guy a little reckless. Oh, God. I mean, that's what you get for wearing jorts, Luke, I think. But what is happening here? Wow. Dude, both of these zeros wearing jorts. Oh, right to the... Yeah.

Woo! Did it occur to nobody that your two sticks here in this particular case are the same effing length? And by the way, as you stand up,, your eyes are face level with his balls. Yeah. These idiots. That's stick on stick right there.

Wow. It really is stick on stick. Speaking of that gross stuff, it's tip on tip time, Luke. Look, I know that people, you know, they characterize us as the people who've carried this along. But check out Mark Hamill and Han Solo here, Harrison Fordd luke i didn't know they were one of us so who do you think was who did you like more as a kid han solo or luke skywalker luke skywalker the the most badass character in star wars history is still return of the Jedi Episode VI, full black Skywalker going into Jabba's floating casino thing. Yeah. No.

Luke Skywalker was a whiny bitch. Dude, he was like a teen, and he lost his family. Give him a chance. He matured into... Okay, he became a whiny bitch again as an old guy. You're right. But in between, in his prime, give me prime Skywalker. At the end of Empire Strikes Back,

he's talking like he had a stroke with, you know, at the side of his mouth. Dude, they cut off his hand. His dad cut off his hand. This is like the Thomas Life saga right here, right? No, he was a whiny shithead. The best character in all of Star Wars

is Chewbacca, number one. And then number two, it's Darth Vader. That's it. That's your power rankings. You got to have Solo up pretty high there, though. Yeah, because he was Chewie's friend. But this is a pro-Chewbacca household. I have a Chewbacca doll right here.

I thought you pointed to your beard. I was going to say, are you very shout-out to the Wookiees there from Kashyyyk with that facial hair listen it's like vinnie pass says big guns big beards bunch of chew bakas that's who i run with all right okay well speaking of uh tip on tip it also goes for padres fans check out these uh mlb diehards they got on the big screen luke they start dancing we've all done this at a pro game but not a lot of us turn toward each other and go T on T during it. Check this out.

Yeah, they've got nothing going. Of course you don't worry about doing this when you have no job to show up to the next day. We don't have audio, but that's got to be Cotton Eye Joe by the Rednecks playing, right? Cotton Eye... Rednecks with the right? Cotton Eye Joe.

Rednecks with the X. Cotton Eye Joe. Yeah, or it's Blue Daba Dee. That one might get you up on your feet a little bit. That is great. All right. Hey, the tip-to-tip don't stop. Let's take it to the golf course.

Check out these two friends. They're going to lock their tips together and hit a big pot here duo style tiger on 16 hell yeah that was fantastic is this where they bang each other i was gonna say when the camera ends i'm sure they make out afterwards but uh luke if you and i ever go golfing we we have to we have to nail this okay yeah we have to do it we have to i agree i'm not much of i don't know a whole lot about putting but um i'll give it the old college try but look at that look at the read on that and the curve that that's great only only if we go shoplifting in the pro store before we leave i'm in i'm in on that then we'll end up on this segment we know with jay as the new host with the schmo all right here we go um a real knockout here. Check this out. It's a promotion in the UK called UCMMA.

This is Mike Shredder Garrett. I think he sent that man to hell in two seconds. Jorge Masvidal, take a step back. And look at the weird-ass dance after. Yeah, what is that dance? I don't know. Is he, like, climbing a fence? I don't know.

What is he doing? But that's impressive. Is that the fastest knockout you've ever seen, Luke? That's up there. That's up there. That's up there. Shout out to Shredder there. Probably a big Ninja Turtles fan. All right.

Yeah. Hey, let's move on here. You know these halftime skits they do at NBA games to keep people in? This is called Build-A-Burger, couples only. I'm kind of aroused by this, Luke, and I don't think that's mayo on there. You are an absolutely disgusting creature. I don't think that's mayo. Are you saying that you and the spicy Mrs. Thomas wouldn't go to a Wizards game and try this?

You think my wife would let me do some dumb shit like this? I don't know her well enough, you know? You and me might do this, and then my wife will have divorce papers ready for me when I leave the arena. She could be the beef in an MK sandwich. Is that where you're going with this? No, she is not. She is the fucking divorce papers in a failure sandwich.

And probably attempt to kick your ass. How is her functional jajutsu? It's pretty good, actually. She has a really good cross choke. She has a very good cross choke. I've never said that about my wife. Hey, you know, she's a good cook. Pretty damn's pretty good, actually. She has a really good cross choke. She has a very good cross choke. I've never said that about my wife. Hey, you know, she's a good cook. Pretty damn good cross choke, too.

Hey, Luke, speaking of fast food, check out this sneaky exit in a Dunkin' Donuts fight. Look, sometimes shit will break down, and if you've got to get out of there, get out of there, Luke. See, Luke, this is where the COVID mandates actually save somebody, Luke. You've got to be down for this.

You know what? But they're not wearing face masks, BC. These people obviously don't care. Wow. Bro, she, that is a, you know what? I don't even blame her. It's like, listen, we exchanged a little bit on the feet. I stood my ground.

I realized this was going to go south. I decided to get the fuck out. You know what? Yeah, somebody, I got to get a Dunkachino and get out of here. Yeah, definitely. This is not going to go my way. to get the fuck out you know what yeah somebody i gotta get a duncacino and get out of here yeah yeah this is not gonna go my way let's just get out of here luke do they have dunkin donuts in your area do they have dunkin donuts in dc um i don't know not many if they do when you go out for coffee do you hit a chain or you more of like some vietnam vet around the corner who has like a little place of his own i usually try to go for there's a there's a korean coffee

shop i like to go to that's got really good coffee very cultured luke thomas you're a man of many nations you know listen the service is great place is well maintained uh they're friendly and they make a mean cup of joe and all right i't have to watch All Lives Matter here jump under the COVID window to get away from whatever the hell she said here. Leave Karen alone, all right? All right, let's move on. It's time for famous athletes doing weird things with animals. Hey, Luke, this is unbeaten, unified junior welterweight champion

in the red shirt, Josh Taylor, the Tartan Tornado of Scotland. He's about to get a kiss from a rose here on the seal would you try this luke would you be down for this wasn't that fury's former trainer yes yes uh ben davidson who is now taylor's new trainer uh oh wow caught him off guard he tweeted out i shat a brick when this happened all right i'm not really into i don't i'm not really into into making animals do shit like this. Yes. You know what I'm saying? I watched the Blackfish thing.

You ever seen the Blackfish documentary? No. Yeah. I don't, you know. I mean, this seal looks like he's not suffering exactly, but I like it when it's like, oh, a bear at Russian Zoo

mauls entire staff. I'm like, yeah, bear at Russian Zoo, malls, entire staff. I'm like, yeah, that's the kind of. I'm with you. Josh Taylor doing his best Heidi Klum imitation right here with this seal. Hey, let's roll on. Here's UFC heavyweight Alexi Olenek. We know him for that, what, boa constrictor choke? Just effing around with snakes.

I mean, look, if you're that weird, you can probably safely pull this off, right? You ever held a snake like that? No, no. I'm not going to. I've held a mini alligator. I've touched snakes at petting situations at zoos, but I ain't doing this, Luke. You? I've done this, yeah.

I've done the one where you put the giant snake around your neck. I've done that bit. That's not fun. That's not fun. It's like, here, let's do a simulated uh guillotine here off with their heads and the blade will stop which by the way i did that before i hadn't you know i realized that animals are a friend so i wouldn't do it now but i have done it yeah yeah okay hey let's end with this uh you know in terms of the athletes and the animals uh unified welterweight champion errol spence tweeted out wrecked a ferrari bought a horse hashtag country shit luke do you give him credit for you know

making light of his own um personal setbacks and um no getting out there and enjoying nature during the quarantine no but you know what he uh staying out of trouble The horse looks like it's well-maintained. And, you know, it's a badass look, right? Sitting on top of a horse like that, that's a... Hey, Canelo rides bareback on the ocean all the time. He always puts those videos out. Remember we saw Aaron Pico with that horse? He had that giant... You got to be careful when you use language like

Canelo rides bareback in the ocean. You have to clarify exactly what that means. It's 2020, Luke. Okay, thank you. All right, let's get out of here. Hey, speaking of guillotine chokes, sometimes great fights happen in public. The vagabond-looking guy spit at the larger fellow.

Oh, I've actually seen this. I've actually seen this. Have you ever choked a man out of his clothing, Luke? Yo, there's a line that i can't say from slim thug but it's the ending is uh that he basically his triggers blow people out of their shoes and socks yeah this dude choked my man out of his out of his pants just like yep we got a lot of bystanders nobody's stepping in no heroes there luke okay throw that body inside there thank you just that's how i mean mean, that dude, he threw that man on the ground

like I threw out my mattress in college filled with bedbugs. Well, I'm sure it's more than bedbugs there, Luke. All right, but yeah, that's pretty violent. I don't know if I'm going to be lucky. Spit on him. What do you expect? So here's the deal. So people were asking, like, well, what's your favorite street fight story?

And I've tried to get you to watch mine. saw one on the dc metro that was pretty incredible but in it bc i talked about rules for street fights and which is when will i intervene and when will i not intervene when do you intervene here uh when when it's clear that he knows what he's doing with that choke and that he and certainly after he puts him to sleep i mean look i try i'll try to diffuse the situation publicly unless or even you know yeah whatever unless i think i could get you know badly caught in the crossfire here but if somebody's gonna third world another mfr i might just get out of the way luke okay yeah i mean look again all lives matter here takes a bit of an l it's like don't spit on the gentleman who appears to be

uh four four and a half times your size and doesn't suffer your shit uh kid rock here is a hell of a drug luke it is all right uh hey luke let's roll on here uh we've got a couple more bros will be bros during cookout season check out this body. Look, the first guy that passes out at a party, you know, if there's a lot of shirtless white guys, weird things are going to happen. But this is pretty cool here. He takes the Nestle plunge on his buddy there. Just look, don't pass out.

That's the rule. Look, when I'm out with, you know, when I'm out with my boys shirtless with the white claws, don't pass out first, all right? I was prepared to shit on this All Lives Matter party. I have to tell you. I have to tell you. Don't go too far.

Because they're white, they're racist. Come on. I'm just doing it. Listen, can you laugh at yourself a little bit there? Why don't you be more uptight about it? Hold on. Hold on. Yeah, be more uptight about the jokes that I obviously am not sincere about.

I'm just saying I think this is hilarious, and I have wanted to do this to my friends. You can't be a white guy in your 20s and have a friendship that doesn't involve hurting your friends physically. Yes. Yes. Now, drawing a dong on their forehead with a marker, I wouldn't go that far, Luke. Okay? All right. Yeah.

Well, I've done that too but hey luke you ever try to slap your buddy's ass at a turkish bath and uh and have this happen luke can we get to the bottom of this i know we see it in movies sometimes people say that they're still around what is the uh what why would people want to go to a public all-male bath why so so okay i i've been to turkey and my wife was like why don't you do this and i was like um i don't have any desire to sweat around hairy male strangers with little to no clothing what what about this experience is supposed to be relaxing? Yeah, go to the locker room at your gym.

You'll see a lot of hairy, sweaty old guys with their balls dragging on the ground. Yeah, well, these guys at least aren't wearing their dress shoes, which apparently old men forget. Your underwear goes on before your pants and then your socks, or you can do underwear, socks, then pants. They put on socks, shoes, then underwear.

Or socks, shoes, then shirt, on socks shoes then underwear or or socks shoes then shirt bc and then underwear or they go zero to dong just to shave their face it's like who who shaves their face for a half hour completely naked in public who would do that yeah these these jackasses so no i didn't go they have these in columbia too BC. So when I go and visit my wife's in-laws, they have these baths from Turquia, is what they call it basically. And it's supposed to be the exact same thing. And she's like, why don't you go?

And I'm like, did I want to go in Turkey? She's like, no. I'm like, well, then why would I want to go in Colombia? She's like, I thought you hated the Turks. And I'm like, I don't hate the Turks. Can we bring you in here, Jay? You're a man of the cloth. Is this a cultural, religious thing? Like, why

do men do this? I do not believe this is religious in any way, shape, or form. Jay, no one can hear you. Sorry. Yeah. No, I'm here. I'm here. It's not religious. Not religious at all. No. Would you do this? Would you do this, Jay? No. And when I go to a spa, like, I wear something. Or, like, you sneak in and, like, you, this would you do this jay no and when i go to a spa like i wear something i you

know or like you sneak in when no like you like you i you know the jacuzzi and then when nobody's in then you run in naked so you know like so yeah i'm not walking around with i'm not in this conversation thank you jay that's it that's it hey let's let's close with this uh luke you all you've told people often that the first date with your wife, oddly enough, was at a shooting range. Is this how the date ended on public transportation? You know,

true love is passing out as your bear just drips all over your wife's Canadian tuxedo there. That's great. Oh, man.

That is awesome. Dude, the New York City subways. Can I tell you how little I miss riding those things every Monday? Yeah, don't fall asleep in the wet spot. Holy shit. Yeah, that is gross. But you know what, dude?

I'm not above it. I'm not above it. I told you one time I went out here in D.C. I don't remember the context. But I do remember this. I remember being on my couch waking up at 3. And you know when you do that bit where you wake up at like 3 and then you kind of like jolt awake for a second and i jolted awake and this is true i had i came home i was like i'm not i haven't had enough to drink and i poured myself

another one did not drink it and then just sat there and it sat on my like chest slash barriga slash belly. And then when I jolted myself awake, I splashed the entire thing in my goddamn face. I had actually kept it balanced, BC, unlike this idiot, while I was sleeping. And it was only the process of coming awake that I then take a Jim Beam and Coke Zero

shower. But I've done that. Luke, you've shared with us that you can be a gross male and walk through first class on an airplane and just crop dust that tiny tube with all the uh spicy columbian food you ate earlier in the day where do you stand on where do you stand on urinating in a public pool because i was at the town pool this weekend hundreds of people families there and i'm like somebody's pissing in here right now could I could see Luke Thomas doing that just well how would you justify that the level of chlorine

is that your justification no my justification is how I'm treated so this is a true story I hadn't peed in a pool in probably 30 years right until two summers ago I went with my wife to we went to cartagena which is a beach town in colombia and uh there were a bunch of uh argentinian dudes there who my wife says they're not racist i think they're racist uh but here's what they do in south america dude people don't care about well i don't okay yes i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm going to generalize they don't care about space or noise so here's what i mean the pool clearly says do not in spanish obviously do not play a personal radio don't do it they show up with one of those like bluetooth speakers that is so goddamn big they look like you know a dude from

a spike lee movie do the right thing fucking 1980s okay brownsville and they're blasting reggaeton which i don't like and the guy who comes over who is they're all white obviously and the pool attendant comes over to tell them to hey can you turn it down they basically tell this guy to fuck off okay so your boy had enough your boy had enough now i don't have the spanish to go and argue with them they're not going to understand me my wife but i have the urine but i do have the urine yeah my wife uh thinks that nothing's wrong with it she's like this is just how culture works down here so i said well you know what i'm going to tell you how my culture works so in los estados unidos we vandalize things and i walked into the pool and i walked the entire perimeter and i urinated the entire way through and then got out so there was no possible way they could get in this week let me

finish without bathing in my urine so shea boludo over in argentina how'd you like my piss that is so ass pennies from uh what's that 90s show the uh yeah that is uh wow you know well don't be right don't be racist to the guy who works there and when he asks you to turn down your fucking stereo do it or you get to bathe in my piss i don't know bc seems like an easy choice okay uh jay let's not invite luke or his family to the mk cookout later this summer thank you uh what these burgers aren't grass-fed where's your pool bc what do you think's in the burger yeah hey let's end it with with some j video look at what i found on his instagram account uh can you create can you uh critique his uh his form here oh look at this physical dynamo uh look at that facial hair. You know that facial hair kind of screams like

40 divorced I bought a convertible right? J.J. is that any of that true? No but I did destroy this bag I mean I destroyed it. BC you see how he's biting his lower lip that's the same face he makes when he takes his pants off before he touches himself inappropriately. All right all right. My pants were off in video actually in fact i'm not here for this jay slander i can't wait to get uriah hall though on the show one day luke then we'll get the truth all right that is fucking awesome this is great form on a terrible bag i must say yeah well something's terrible or if it's the everlast but all right i'm I'm pretty close to the idea of like, you know, hashtag old guy fight. If you and Jay, like, if we did it, I don't want you to punch each other or kick each other.

But can we do a grappling? Can we do a, what do those weirdos do in Abu Dhabi? Submission wrestling? You know I'm not into Submission Wrestling, but I would promote a match between you and Jay considering his background in jiu-jitsu and your years of rolling. This is an interesting idea here.

No, that would not last very long. That would not last long. No, not at all. Luke has 100 pounds on me. Yeah, at least. All right, BC. With that in mind, we've got to keep these going because I do have another job.

That is it for Have You Seen This? Did you put that on a t-shirt? Please put that on a t-shirt already. Yeah, thank you. What do you have today for odds and ends, good sir? I don't have the results of Pat Miletic and Michael Nunn in their kickboxing match. I watched the highlights of that pay-per-view. It was old.

They were old, Luke. Okay, here's what I do have. Box comes back this friday on the zone their first card golden boy promotion since the quarantine shut down supposed to be ryan garcia but you know he's having troubles these days with the promoter canelo still don't have an opponent for this fall we're hearing lemieux we're hearing quigley all that but uh virgil ortiz jr will be back and if you're not woke to him, the 22-year-old Southpaw Welterweight does very much seem to be the real

deal and the next big thing in this division. It's kind of a stay-busy fight against Samuel Vargas, a guy who has fought some big names at 40 and 47 and typically loses when he steps up. But it will be good to see another promotion and channel or

streaming service come back luke boxing has had a slow go of it so uh excited to check virgil ortiz out this friday night and um i think he's really like a year away from really crossing the street and trying to get those big fights with the big welterweights a lot in the pbc of course i don't know how that's going to work promotionally, network-wise, but that is a fighter to watch, Luke. Although, Ryan Garcia, we're not making any progress here, Luke. I don't know how that's going to end, okay? Oscar dropping bombs on him. Oscar

giving him the Luke Thomas Askarov treatment. Well, that must mean he respects him, if that's what you mean. For my odds in NSBC, we have Bellator back this Friday they're back at the Mohegan Sun Arena 7 fight card, 4 on the main card

3 on the prelim card they've got Ricky Bandejas vs. Sergio Pettis a bantamweight contest in your main event they've got Jordan Mean on the card, Tywin Claxton also Aaron Pico is back BC and on the prelim card top wrestling standout Logan Storley is back as well

at welterweight so that should be kind of interesting and of course they got yeah well you know what it's only seven fights which by the way bc the main card for the saturday ufc event has seven fights on just the main card itself, 15 overall, the most in company history. Yeah, that's a lot. And look, I would have given Bellator some degree of a pass if they came with a really soft card. And while this card isn't overwhelming in star power, there's some good matchups. There's some good fighters spread across it.

I did talk to Aaron Pico about two months ago in the midst of the quarantine, and he's got to try something new. He's got to figure out the new direction. And he feels really, really comfortable at Jackson Wink and says for the first time, he's beginning to understand, you know, the teachings that he was slow to in the early in his career when he relied more on just his athleticism and, you know, sort of natural gifts.

Now he's by force but you know he's figuring out the game a lot more so i mean you can only wish this guy well came in with such overwhelming hype and has shown us you know the good and the bad but if he sticks to the wrestling moving forward like he says he will and use that more that of a threat to set up his strikes rather than just going out there to walk you down and knock you out still early enough for giant things to come for this guy yeah he's not fighting a huge name Christopher Hatley I don't know much about him which I tend to think is the right thing he's been off not for a long time but you know getting back into the swing of things after the pandemic and I always thought they had just rushed him like he was fighting Leandro Ego way too early

in his career so you know getting a couple of I don't know if it's a gimme fight, but let's say not, you know, oh, let's make sure we give him the toughest fight we can at featherweight. No, let's give the guy just some reps, basically. I think that's the right call. So I am glad there. By the way, one note on this,

and I don't know exactly what this means. I legitimately do not know what this means, but I asked Bellator about it. This fight is not airing on DAZN. So the prelims are going to air on YouTube, the main card on Paramount. And DAZN's not carrying it. Now, I always thought that DAZN would carry all of them. And then DAZN had specific Bellator events exclusive to them.

I went and looked on inside the DAZN app, their calendar for that day. They don't have anything listed. I hit up Bellator. I was like, what does this mean? They're like, fans can get the prelims on youtube and the main card on paramount i'm like okay so uh you know there's been a lot of rumblings about where exactly the future is for the zone and what it all means they let go of you know of uh well that was turner sports but they were they thought to be maybe in the play for uh

for champions league rights cbs got it instead but um i don't know what that means but it must mean something bc yeah yeah certainly and uh you know full disclosure obviously bellator part of the larger viacom cbs family that even this show falls under uh interesting change of events we'll check this out on paramount and see what it means for the brand moving forward uh we don't have all the inside answers here luke okay people think because we work here they tell us things they don't tell us things so yeah uh but i did notice that in the press release i was like that caught my attention okay all right bc i think it's just about it for us let's remind these folks they got to give the video a thumbs up like this they got to hit that subscribe button like that

what else they got to do bc they got to understand that um you like that. What else they got to do, BC? They got to understand that we ain't our competitors. This is a different show, okay? We see what you're doing, competitors, right? Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson. You're all fakes. Run to your mansions. Come around. We'll kick your ass in.

Nobody's doing what this show is, Luke, and it's about to take over the world, okay? You've got the music in you, Luke, okay? So I'm fired up. I'm fired up for the future. It's going to take you subscribing. It's going to take you supporting. It's going to take you buying our merch. It's very comfortably worn, believe me. A lot of big news to come from

the merch side to everything involving all things MK. Thank you for those who have patronized us early. they were patrons of what we're doing we've also been patronized many times but uh thank you to all from web scream to uh to uh you know across the board all of our all of our soldiers in this army okay phil mccracken there the uh chargers wide receiver coach love that guy okay oh yeah look you want to shout anybody out you're usually usually web scream Scream has got to be the MVP.

I love the Photoshop's that he does. Please keep those coming. And of course... Oh, Dominic Valando with the Simpsons stuff lately. He's coming out with more. It's great. You know, there's stiff competition, but Web Scream has been loyal for a long time. I do think it deserves some recognition.

But if you want to follow us, you can see it there, Instagram, and then Twitter for me and BC, and then YouTube, obviously. It's just Morning Combat with a K. And then, of course, I want to thank the good folks at Showtime. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly may. Showtime.com. 30-day free trial.

Keep it if you like it. Bounce if you don't. Totally up to you. And then, as you mentioned, you can go to store.show.com for the merch. All right, BC. Tell them. Jay, you did great. Oh, let me bring in Jay.

Jay, you did great today. You didn't piss anybody off. Jay, when's your new doc coming out? That thing about airlines and points and stuff? Yeah, it's about travel. Unknown, since travel doesn't exist right now. All right. Well, hey.

Well, you know what? I'm really glad you picked a timely subject. You really have great vision like that. I started shooting it four years ago. Yes. Maybe you could jump in your Jigawatt machine and go back in time and put that documentary out last year. Back in time.

I believe that's on Hulu if you want to check that out. Jay told me, Jay told me, BC, he was like, you know what the future of television is?

He goes, Betamax, working on a documentary. Stay tuned, no escape. I was like, okay, Jay,

you really got your finger on the pulse there, guy. Hey, Jay does a, Jay used to do a podcast with, what's that guy's name?

With Sinbad, my man. And I was a guest on it one time. Alright? This is all true. This is all true. Jay was the guy who was like, listen, Apple's going to go out of business. I'm going to buy a Zune. I listen to my podcasts on Zune.

That was you, wasn't it, Jay? No, but I did have a mini-disc player. Of course you did. Of course you did. Of course you did. All right. Well, we've got to get out of here. BC, great. Today you can always find BC stuff over at CBS Sports for Malka, for Showtime, for BC.

I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.