MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night 202 | Haney-Kambosos 2 | Wilder-Helenius | Quick Hitters | Ep 360

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

On Episode 360 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian are back in studio to discuss the biggest storylines heading into this weekend. The guys break down UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs. Araujo, Devin Haney vs. George Kambosos Jr., Claressa Shields vs. Savannah Marshall and Deontay Wilder vs. Robert Helenius. Next up the guys run through some quick hitters. Tai Tuivasa vs. Sergei Pavlovich and Alexander Gustafsson vs. Ovince Saint Preux fights have been announced. Leon Edwards wants the Kamaru Usman Trilogy to be in the UK. The guys close out the show by discussing their top 5 favorite boxers to watch now and fan submissions. (14:10) - UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs. Araujo (40:10) - Weekend Boxing Storylines (70:00) - Quick Hitters (84:30) - Top 5 Favorite Boxers to watch Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Wednesday, morning combat time, we're in studio, fuck your life. Hi everyone, I'm one half of your hosting duo, my name is Luke Thomas. It's Wednesday morning combat time. We're in studio. Fuck your life. Hi, everyone. I'm one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I usually join you from the capital of the status news in Washington, D.C., but today we are in the bomb shelter. Yes, we are back in studio. That is Brian Campbell, the king of Connecticut, otherwise known as B.C. Hi, B.C. Yeah, I'm beige. I'm happy to be here. We're going to get Chuck Mendenhall rolling in here a little bit later. Got some goodies to shoot, maybe to eat. It's going to be a wild day here, Luke, but I don't really think I can go a second further without saying all you folks who tuned in to MK Donkumentary number seven, Homeward Bound. Like, Luke, it's not about the number, right? I would hope not because they're not impressive.

It's about the impassioned feel. There are people, Luke, who have said, you know, I never dealt with your doc bullshit before. I thought this was all just bullshit. Right. Then I tried. That's exactly what it is. I use Doc 7 as a gateway drug, and look at me now, Luke. Look at them now.

The Brian Campbell masturbation tour has finally come to an end. No, it was a spectacular finish, wouldn't you say? It's well made. It's well made. It's just a shame that that much work will go into something that will do not a lot of views. But what can you say? What can you say? People like it.

I do agree that people did like it. They seemed to really enjoy it. You want to know why they liked it? Because Jake edited it in a way? Because Jake von Amsterdam is a superhero. One day he'll be weird. He'll always be weird and make you a little uncomfortable, even though he's real sweet, but he will go on one day to make something epic and people will look

back and be like, oh, that's where he... Oh, James Harden played for the damn OKC? Yo, I forgot that ever happened, right? He definitely is way too docile to commit crimes, but he definitely looks like a sex pest. He definitely has passion crimes in his mind at all times. He's just incapable of fulfilling them.

All right, so on today's show, let's see. We have a lot to get to. There's a UFC this weekend, right? They're back in action. We're not that far away from UFC 280, by the way. And that shit's bloated. Just packed. I mean, top to bottom.

Like the prison system. That's an unfortunate way to make that point. No, it's just overpopulated. Yeah, but that's not a good thing. It's a good thing that 280 is as stacked as it is. Yes. Both will feature intimate contact among men. Is today the day we get fired?

It's looking like that based on what I'm seeing here. A lot of gummies in your tummy? No, there's not. Look, there's a natural, like when we see each other in the wild, there's a natural hormone that gets released. When we see each other in the wild, do you run for me like T.J. Dillashaw? Because you want to get all touchy and brotherly, you know? Hey, it's like, hey,

it's nice to see you. He's like, get the fuck away from me. But Luke, you know, an endorphin gets released when you and I are together that you know, I bet if it had an aroma, it would be cat urine. Let me ask you about this as well, because we are going to preview this. It's a very busy boxing weekend. Scale of 1 to 10, how good of a boxing weekend is it?

It is busy. Well, look, but the volume ranks that number a little higher. Okay, that's fine. What would you give it? It's an 8.5. This is a good box. I think it's a little high, but it's not bad. Dude, we got Deontay

back in a pay-per-view. Yes. We've got the all-women's card that has like aggression, undisputed chick-hates-chick matchups that's going on. It's a very demeaning way to describe it.

It's a very demeaning way. Some of the pound-for-pound best female boxers in the world fighting each other in grudge matches. And we got another one. What's the other one going? Oh, Haney Cambosis.-Cambosis, too.

Which no one gives a flying F about. I'm not trying to pretend that that is now must-see. It's a gratuitous opportunity. But you get a chance to see one of the 10 best fighters in the world, Devin Haney. That's true. So we're going to get to all of that. Plus, we have our top five we're going to do today.

And then we're going to do some fan subs as well. So thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Hit subscribe as well. If you're watching there're watching on YouTube. Hit subscribe as well. If you're watching there, you can see all of the socials. Let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. Thereafter, you can see the very visible

graphic, $3.99 a month. Glad they improved that. Is this part of my vision test to read this? Let's go with Times New Roman font size 7. Let's go with Times New Roman font size 7. Let's go with that. Could the fine print be smaller? What are they, sign up to shovel someone's walk with that thing? Okay, well it's a good deal.

It's a great deal. No, it's a great deal, but I'm just saying they've got to make the graphic a little bit bigger. Also, of course, for Wednesday's fan subs and Friday's dead wrong, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to go. That's there as well. Real quick conspiracy theory. Doc 7 was supposed to go. That's there as well. Real quick conspiracy theory. Doc 7 was supposed to be the doc

that ended all docs, yet it's so great that it may be the doc that saves the doc franchise. The doc that saves the doc franchise is the one that people watch, which this one cannot claim to be. Oh, stop being such a hard-ass. You know you love being in that shit. If this one had done like 100k views,

I think they would be like, alright. You did have a serial killer vibe during the office shots during the yeah that was very intentional jake just wouldn't get the fuck out of my you know jake just jake lingers true or false he just fucking lingers you know jake will show up in your hotel he's like yo i forgot my camera it's in your hotel room could i just get it that's like an hour and a half process and then the next question is yo what do you think about the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers? I'm like, dude, no one gives a fuck about them. This must be Jake's moment and you're just disrobing him. Well, I did say he did

a good job editing it because he did. But other than that, he's a contemptible. By good job if you mean a treasure, Luke. He did a good job. It's well made. Certainly it's well made. Alright, PC, I want to remind everyone that our next partner has something we're not having at this moment, but it is something that we have every day.

How about that AG1? Athletic greens. Yeah, people are like, BC, when you talk about the gangrene, as you like to call it, AG1, you always have this face, like this cult-ish revolutionary face. I think because it's doing revolutionary things for my body. And, Luke, would I take something that tasted all medicinally and stuff? Probably not. I'd make bad decisions for my life. But the best one I've made is taking

one scoop of that green powder, putting it in a glass of water with eight ounces every single morning, and setting a tone. You know what I'm saying? For what's the tone? It is good. What's in it? 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food-sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to start that day. Yeah, look, and it's lifestyle-friendly.

So whether you're keto, non-vegan, vegan, paleo, dairy-free, gluten-free, whether you've got one of them seafood diets, Luke, right? You know what I mean? Yeah, you like a lot of fish. This can be for you. Why? Because it contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals. I don't think there's even any NMSG in it, and it still tastes good. And can you find that quality?

Look where it's something that people like it, but it's also really good. It's like this show. What does MSG stand for? Madison Square Garden. The food. Monium sodium glutamate. Monium sodium glutamate, I think is what it is. It has fueled a lot of our great fast food or ethnic foods.

A lot of it, it's been the fuel that's made it so good. And it was beat up in the 80s. Turns out it's not so bad for you, all things being what they are. Cost, by the way, AG1 will cost you less than $3 a day. You're investing in your health, and it's cheaper than BC's cold brew habit. Yeah, what a habit, right? And you're just saying, okay, what about you two donks?

We can't trust anything. You say, well, don't trust us. Trust the 5,000 people. Maybe even trust the 7,000 who've given a five-star review to Athletic Greens. And it's trusted by the leading health experts, Luke. We're talking about the Ferris's, the Rogan's,

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All right, BC. Let us start with topic number one. If we can, we'll get to the boxing a little bit later, but we do have UFC fight night. I think it's UFC Vegas 62. In any case, it's UFC fight night Grasso versus Arujao. BC, in your main event, a five round women's flyweight contest, Alexa Grasso taking on Vivian Arujao. Grasso is a roughly minus 210 favorite as of the time of this recording to arujo being a plus 180 ultimately bc what is this fight really about uh this is

about finding title contenders at 125 pounds and for specifically alexa grasso who you could argue is the a side of this pairing although there's somewhat equal stakes on the line for both. Here's somebody who was forced to change divisions, but has adapted her style to that after being unable to make 115 consistently, has very good boxing, even if she's at times more well-known for her wrestling. But she's starting to put it together. Arajo seems to be the, I mean, I wouldn't say Arajo, Luke. Am I just way off here? I don't know. My Portuguese is nonxistent, so you might be right. Okay. This is the right stern test challenge to try to prove that,

but Luke, there's only a few rungs, a few steps on that ladder to get to Valentina. We're trying to figure out who's getting in line next, pretty much, after Talia Santos. So is your argument that it is, if not possible but rather likely, that should Alexa Grasso win, who, by the way, is a Mexican national, if she were to advance, I believe she would be the first Mexican woman to even fight for a title, and if she were to win it, that would certainly be the first one.

So there's a little bit of potential market massaging, so to speak. Is your belief that if Grasso wins, it's title shot city for her? It would be four consecutive wins. And in this division, that at times has been more than enough. And to everything you said about potential marketability, she's also a fighter, Luke, tell me if I'm wrong, who seems to be ironing out any wrinkles in her game. She's found her weight class.

She's got a balanced style. What do you look at is the remaining hole that she needs to fix to not beat Valentina because we are talking about an all-time great and also I kind of need to see Valentina against Tyler Santos again if that's the direction the promotion would go how close do you think it just I mean Grasso needs to win this but how close do you think she is to being seen as a legitimate number one in terms of having the game that could justify it right that's a separate question from the point I was just going to quickly make where if you're She is to being seen as a legitimate number one in terms of having the game that could justify it. Right. That's a separate question from the point I was just going to quickly make,

where if you're just looking at who could be a title contender, one is Chukagian, already fought, wasn't close. Two is Tyler Santos. They're not going to run that one back anytime soon, I don't think, even though there was moments where it was close. Three is Lauren Murphy. They're not going to run that one back anytime soon. Four is Andrade, but she's really down a weight class again, so I don't think that's really necessarily in play. And then five is Alexa Grasso.

So to BC's point, I don't see any way where if she wins, at least wins relatively convincingly, they don't give her the title shot. Who the hell else are they going to give it to? Now, granted, Vivian Arujao is right behind her at number six, so this could be just the number one contender bout in more general terms. I don't know if they feel that way about Arujo because her record is, to your point, this would be four wins in a row.

I think it's only be two maybe, I think, for Arujo. I'd have to double check. But in any case, if Grasso wins, would she be seen as a legitimate threat to whatever Shevchenko was doing? I don't think so. I have a little hard time imagining that. What are the strengths of someone like Grasso? She has volume striking. She has good, not great, but good defense. She doesn't have the best takedown defense, but she can scramble

pretty well. She can get back to her feet. She is hard to hold down. These are commendable skills. And I do think that the division is going to very slowly but inevitably catch up to Shevchenko. I just don't know if you're looking at Grasso's game. Now, let's see what she shows us on Saturday, but if you're looking at her game, historically speaking, it's not clear there's any one thing that stands out that shows you that she could really put it on Shevchenko. And specifically trying to find doubt in Valentina,

and Tyler Santos created a good deal of it last fight. You're going to need to be strong for the division, an offensive wrestling force who could potentially keep Valentina there and control parts of the clock. Now, I don't think that game adapts there. So that's why I'm sort of saying in terms of comparing her to Valentina's game, it may always be an uphill battle.

But in terms of if she gets this victory, considering she's beat Macy Barb or Joanne with some decent names on the ride here, I would think she's ready for that test at the very least. Because she has rounded out her game the best she can, and moving to a new weight class, there was no hiccup in that regard. So somebody who you can watch closely, when you look at Urijal, Luke, what does she do well? What am I seeing? I mean, what am I missing, really, from seeing her as a legitimate threat here, just the same? She just doesn't have the same acclaim.

By the way, to your point about Grasso, just 29. Just 29 years of age, which is kind of—I think she just turned 29, for that matter. And Aruja, by the way, 35, if I'm not mistaken. Let me just double-check that. Yeah, she's 35 years of age, so she's got a lot going on there in terms of what is left of her window, reasonably speaking. Aruja is, obviously she's got a little bit of boxing, but she is a bit of a decision machine. So she's well-rounded. The one thing I would say, she is relentless with takedowns, so she does a lot of takedowns, a lot of volume punching, a bit of a wrestle boxer in that way.

Control the round, control the terms of the engagement, and then kind of ride out to a decision. That seems to be the best way for this to get her done, but she does have a negative striking differential. I was reading Richard Mann's column from Fightmetric about it. She has a negative differential, while someone like Grasso has a positive differential, although they seem to land at roughly similar rates.

So, Arujao getting hit a fair amount, which you would think is a bad matchup. Now, she does get about two plus takedowns per 15 minutes. Of course, this is a 25 minute bout. So the takedown will be in play. There is a dual threat there in that sense. But I think Grasso's got plenty, not plenty. I think Grasso's got enough, certainly to be better on the feet. She has good boxing, good footwork.

And again, not so much the takedown defense itself, but the scrambling capacity, I think, is what's going to make the difference. I mean, the missing name in this discussion is perennially now Tatiana Suarez, since the announcement to move up to 125. Do we ever hear any advancement on that? I see her on

Instagram once in a while, but... I bet you do. I bet you do, Creep. Like, to take it right there with no proof, no... In fairness, I follow her on Instagram as well. It doesn't match up to... All I see is her training. That's it. I don't see any timeline for a return. I don't see any hint at a return. I just see

this one. We should be clear. This card overall has some value, but it's not great. Okay, I wanted to do that the other day. Say, oh, this is another in-between fight night kind of trash card. It's definitely, dude, relative to 280. I went to do that the other day. Say, oh, this is another in-between fight night kind of trash cart. It's definitely, dude, relative to 280. But I went up and down at Luke. There's a few stops on the highway, though.

You know, a few points of interest, right? Convenience stores with, you know, unique sell. You know what I'm saying? You ever go to that gas station on that highway between Vegas and L.A. in the deepest part of the desert, Luke? And it's that place where, like like fuel is like nine bucks a gallon but they've got sodas from all around the world and they got that fountain that you pee in do you know that specific gas station that's a sink and you shouldn't do that that's illegal no no in that

bathroom it's a it's a fountain and you pee into the fountain that's a sink you should no i'm serious that's the setup there it's kind of like the yale you ever go to the yale bowl and you piss in those tubs that they have it's weird no. No, but England's latrines are kind of like that. No, I've never been to that one. To your point, the co-main event, a bantamweight contest featuring Jonathan Martinez, another guy who's got a lot of decisions but is on a bit of a win streak, I think out of Factory X there in Montoya, taking on Cub Swanson. Cub Swanson, an interesting character here, right?

We talk about guys who fought in UFC who never won a title, who would be the best of them. I don't know if I would put Cub Swanson at the very top of that list. I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration. However, BC, I bring him up to say he has been important for the fan base. He's been in big fights. He does have some big wins. He just got put in the Hall of Fame for the Korean Super Bowl fight. The fight got put in the Hall of Fame. Don't perpetuate't perpetuate the stereotype the myth the myth what's the myth he's not like the fight was great it's a hall of fame fight he's not a hall of famer by proxy of the fight being added to the hall of the fight wing of the hall of fame okay but his contributions have been added to the he's fantastic right so the point i'm trying to make is he has had some measure of acclaim granted to him that i think is appropriate

um obviously doesn't have the ufc belt but there are some other ways to honor people has had some measure of acclaim granted to him that I think is appropriate. Obviously he doesn't have the UFC belt, but there are some other ways to honor people based on their contributions, this being one of them. It seems like about, I've not looked at the odds, it seems like about that Swanson should win, but the question is how old is he and where is he in his career at this point? How do you size this up? This is an interesting matchup because

this is the tail end of, this is the Cub Swanson victory lap the tail end of this is, this is the, the, the Cub Swanson, you know, victory lap at the end of his career. And the thing is, is he makes action fights and he he's won three or four and he can, you know, catch the wrong guy coming up at the wrong time.

He serves his purpose well as being a tough out in a name there at some point though, that's going to turn in the wrong direction for him. And he had that recent pack of loss. I think it was three or four in a row, that again, he did turn back having won three or four. But does he have one more to surprise you, Luke? In terms of who's coming or going,

this would be, you think in theory, Martinez's fight. But do you know the betting odds? I can pull them up here very quickly if you give me a second. So the betting odds are apparently, wow, interesting, Cub Swanson plus 175. Okay, that's where I thought they'd be about. Really? I'm surprised. By the way, we should know, if not his debut, this is a bantamweight fight.

Obviously, he's made his career at 145. So look, this is late career. Let's just try something new. Let's go for it. Cub Swanson's going to achieve in potentially giving you that theater, but Luke, does he have it in him in a new weight class to be more than just the old name guarding the gate here, so to speak, Luke? I don't know. How old is Cub Swanson? 38.

38. But he has authored so many classics, really, up and down. I mean, just giving us a fun-ass career, an elite throughout multiple eras, right? I mean, in the title contending picture a few times. And he's fought some of the very best guys of our generation as well, so that should be noted. And he did appear in Doc the very best guys of our generation as well. So that should be noted. And he did appear in Doc 3 in the MK series. Cub Swanson?

Yeah, the Bohegan Sun. He was helping to corner the Spaniard. Warner Trolleta. Yes. Did he also run from you? Yeah, he has that famous scene edited in. I thought that was TJ Dillashaw who ran from you. TJ ran from us, but then you were like, yo, Cub, thanks for coming out.

And he just blew you off and was like, look at this phone. I think the scenes T.J. Dillashaw who ran from you. T.J. ran from us, but then you were like, yo, Cub, thanks for coming out. And he just blew you off and was like, look at this phone. I think the scenes were not related. I think Jake took comedic— I have a pretty good relationship with Cub. I'd be surprised by that. Anyway— It's rare to have a fighter that you turn on, too. By the end of their career, it's rare.

It's rare what? You have these beefs with fighters. I don't have beefs with fighters. I just have certain rules about self-respect. But in any case, Jonathan martinez an interesting guy um ton of volume from what he does overall 28 years old again he's on an interesting win streak he beat a guy local to my area although he's natively from georgia zviad lazish veli i think he's out of kaizen mma out of northern virginia then he beat alejandro perez then he beat vince morales I think he's out of Kaizen MMA out of Northern Virginia. Then he beat Alejandro Perez. Then he beat Vince Morales. And now he's taking on Cub Swanson. I don't really know what to make

of this contest. Cubs always had really good power at 145. Is that going to translate down to 135? How will it affect his cardio? It's just a 15-minute contest. But there's just a lot of unknowns to this one. It's a good fight, but would you agree with me that it, even if we don't know if it's going to end up being the co-main event, according to Wikipedia right now, it's in that slot. Yeah. The fight after the fight before it, excuse me, right. Is, is better, is the bet, arguably the best fight in the card, right? So the main card bout, I would agree with you. I mean, I think the main events are very important fight, but to your point, this one's right up there. Another flyweight fight, this time on the men's side. Askar Askarov returns, taking on Brandon Rawdog Royville.

That's a real thing. Royville, BC, what would you say? A kind of go-for-it grappler, puts himself in bad positions, can scramble his ass off, tons of good submissions, takes a lot of punches, takes a lot of damage against Askarov, who has been there, been there, had some good wins. He beat Pantoja, who probably will be the alternate for... Has a draw with Moreno.

Has a draw with Moreno as well. And by the way, had that loss to Kaikara France, which is somewhat disputed. So not only is it disputed, but we found out that he came back too soon. He came back too soon for that fight. So that was Askarov. Let's start for a second on Brandon Royville here. One of these days for Brandon Royville, it's going to kick in,

and he's going to figure out how to get the best out of himself with some restraint until he figures that out. He's going to be who he is, which is raw dog and make hella fun fights because of his willingness. As you mentioned, Luke to put himself in dangerous situations and sometimes take heavy damage. I think Luke, he's a little bit too addicted to trying to please the fans.

You hear that, that dilemma come up in him in the post-fight interviews a lot. Does he have the ability to fight for a title in this division and be one of the elites? I think yes. He is a dual threat. He's aggressive, and if he goes after it, he, though, at this level, against somebody as skilled as Zaskarov, is going to need to produce. Am I right or wrong, Luke? Brandon Royval is going to need to produce that version of himself that he's teased at but hasn't yet found. And even though these two have the potential to make a crazy fun fight that's still high level, I need a little bit of restraint from Royval.

And I think if he does, he can win fights like this. In Askarov, you might think, oh, I just saw him lose to Cara France. But, Luke, we found out afterwards there was an injury. He came back a little bit too soon. He kind of just went for it. He still almost won. If he had the right full training camp that he needed, this is as tough a fight as you can have in this division that's not for the championship.

True or false, Brandon Royval needs to ditch the raw dog and figure out how to be his best, and he can win this fight if he does. Well, this is always the eternal question. Do you want to do what Johnny Walker did, which is completely overhaul your fight style to be a little bit more, actually to be a lot more, frankly, rational and managing risk in that way? Or do you want to dance with the one that brought you there? I tend to think that they overcorrected Johnny Walker,

although obviously he's had a little bit better of success recently. With a guy like Raw Dog, what you want is, what is he really good at? Scrambling, subs, he has a lights-out guillotine, things like that. But he can scrap on the feet, too. That's a problem. A little bit. I agree that he has to dial it back. I don't think he needs to switch out what he has and against the guy like Askarov, who is a very good wrestler who can find his way to the back as well. A, this should be exciting. And B, to your point, you just can't spend rounds trying to fight Askarov. If he is routinely able to find your back, you must be able to set the tone more aggressively and forthrightly from the beginning of the fight, not react to what he's doing.

And I just feel like one of the things that sets Brendan Royville back is not so much overall ability, but choices, strategy. And against a guy like Askarov, he is very unforgiving of poor strategy. It's interesting. It's like I'm Royville and you're Askarov in terms of the comparisons to our journalistic careers, to their fighting careers. You're a raw dog? Yeah. No one's ever going to call you raw dog. I mean, separate maybe from the raw dog side of it.

You know, if I could just take it a little more serious and get out of my own way sometimes, Luke, who could I be, right? And you on the other side were waiting for Askarov to finally have his moment. And I think for some people they've been waiting for that for Luke Thomas and you're having it right now. I don't know if it's coming. In this MK season right now and you're having it. I don't know if it's coming Yeah, I don't know this MKC is having it But my whole point is this look if I think ask Rob is gonna have the the need to prove everybody that the Kaikara France fight was like, you know 75% him but He kind of dropped the ball a bit. He tried his best to hold it together Luke

This is a future champion in front of us ask our ask Rob Seriously, he might be mean he could be. He's technically brilliant, and there really isn't a huge hole in his game. He can pretty much do it all. He can wrestle you and control the fight that way if he needs to. I mean, he fights angry and mean. He's a submission threat. I would say that his sub-threat could be better with his ground and pound.

He's got a stiff jab. He's got a very good jab. I would say that he's got a little, obviously very different, but he's got a little bit of that McKenzie Dern in him where he'll kind of hold position a little bit rather than kind of just lay in serious

punishment to his opponent and then using that to more aggressively move the fight to a finish. I will say that holds him back a little bit, but he is a very talented fighter. All right. Pantoja is the backup for the fourth meeting between figuredo and Moreno Do you think he gets the next title shot then would with the winner of this fight on Saturday? Which again?

I think it's the best fight in the card would they sort of be number two in line in the title picture I think Pantoja you may have high car france on the comeback though that well here's a funny part askerov has a win over pantoja not super recent i think 2020 2019 something like that but um i think pantoja is the guy that they have uh locked up because his last win over yeah i'm establishing that he's next so the winner of saturday's fight is sort of like gonna need one more step on the journey yes Yes. Maybe it's, maybe that is against a coming off of a loss. Kaikara France or yes,

they could do the car car France fight again. If they wanted to, they might. Do you think I, yeah, I think that's right. I was going to say like, do they find a way to make the Pantoja rematch?

But if I'm Pantoja, because if I fucking way, I take that fight before I have a wins, that's four. He'll have one, four or five. And even though Asgrave is coming off a loss, he has beaten or been in equally with these top names.

Look, this... I mean, he'll probably need two wins. But I'm telling you, he's coming the hell on. And I think you can see the holes in his loss to Cara France. I think you're right about Cara France, because Cara France has a loss to Royville as well. And then Royville lost two in a row to Moreno and Pantoja. Fair enough. I mean, they've all fought each other.

They all make great fights. And since then, he's got wins over Bontorin and Schnell. One by split, one by he finished him in the first round. That was a danger match. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the Askarov or the winner of this has to run it back with Cara France again. I mean, if you've been waiting on Askarov, this

is the all-in moment. If he's going to be that guy, he's going to win this, Luke. He's going to go on to big things. But there's no guarantee because the raw dog, he's just one ingredient off and he's going to figure this thing out. It's a condom.

It might be Saturday. Who hates condoms more than Herschel Walker? I genuinely don't know. I honestly don't know. Right? I mean, that guy is like, yo, fuck condoms. than Herschel Walker? I genuinely don't know. I honestly don't know. Right. I mean, that guy is like, yo fuck condoms.

Um, all right, BC, another fight on this card, kind of getting slept on. I mean, this guy at one time was right there at the top of the division and now he is barely hanging on.

Rafael, a son, Sal, who's a very, very good fighter, though, obviously much older now take it on Victor Henry, Victor Henry,

his fight against, uh, again, my, I'm sure my Portuguese is horrible, Hany Barcelos, how do you pronounce his name? Yeah, Hany Barcelos. Everybody knows that.

Yeah, that's not really how you pronounce it, I'm sure. But Rafael Sonsal, by the way, out of Georgia, not too far from where I live, he's 40, BC, 40 years old at 135 pounds. Here's where he's been. I lost to Ricky Simone. I lost to Cody Garbrandt, which, by the way, was all the way back in 2020, a loss to Corey Sanhagen,

and a loss to Marlon Moraes. He lost all of those except the Sanhagen one via stoppage, I believe. Yes, that's correct. Victor Henry, very underrated guy. What do you think, BC?

Well, you know, if a Sun Tzu loses a fifth in a row, it's over, so he is fighting for his job right here. Basically. How good is Henry, though? Should this be easy for him? So I didn't think much of Henry necessarily before,

but then the Barcelos fight, he looked pretty good, to be honest with you. How old is that guy? I think Victor Henry is not that old. I could be wrong. Oh, he's pretty old, too, 35. Still, he had a little bit of pep in his step in his last fight, and I just feel like Asuncao, you know, listen, you cannot beat the fight game.

You can only survive it. And I just feel like he's at the very tail end of that survival chapter. Henry probably just has a little bit more, I think a little bit better speed. At their peak, Asuncao reached much further heights, to be clear. He got a gift in the first TJ fight, though, let's be fair. Asuncao yeah yeah still i mean he was of that ilk he was of the top three top four space would you say he's a poor

man's rda no why that's not disrespectful rda is a they don't have the same kind of games i mean they're relatively similar can linger for a long time and be elite, give people tough-ass fights. Yeah, but RDA is, I think, 37 and still putting it on people. Yeah, RDA, they shouldn't build a statue for him when his career is over. They should. They should. Then Deontay can make out with that statue. By the way, BC, also on this card, Nate Diaz, member of the team,

whatever you want to call him, Nick Maximoff. Who got put to sleep, right, in his last fight? Yeah, taking on Jacob Malkoon. Malkoon is the training partner slash friend or whatever of Robert Whitaker. Malkoon having a tough fight in his last contest. I believe that was at the Brendan Allen fight or was that a different one?

Yes, it was the Brendan Allen fight where he was able to get control but not do much damage with it. And so the judges didn't really reward it, which I thought was the right call, actually. He is pretty good about getting to the takedown, pushing the opponent to the fence line and getting on top, but he just didn't have a whole lot of steam

on anything else. And his 209 accent is mint. Jacob Malcum? No, no. Maximoff. It's like Diaz clone. And the problem with Maximoff is he's a very good grappler. You have to give him that. But from what we've seen in the octagon, he has not much else.

Just has that. And again, so it's both guys who are kind of position grapplers. One of them is going to have to raise the level of what they've shown, I think, to get it on the other one. That's what I'm saying. I'm not going to sit here and say this is a good card, but there's a few party favors on this undercard. I mean, Mike Jackson's back.

Dude, Mike Jackson. If I would have told you Mike Jackson is going to far outlast CM Punk in the UFC before that fight was booked, would you have believed me? You told me that after riding CM Punk's back and getting ripped by Dana and told he'll never do anything in his life, that he's back on the UFC card. That's great to see. I one time got barbecue with Mike Jackson in, where were we? Were we in Austin, Texas? No, we were in Houston, Texas.

I was there for the Kimbo Dada fight, one of the illustrious moments in Bellator history. First MMA match with the heart attack rule. First one to have cardiac arrest loses. And by the way, I went to Adrian Peterson's gym for that. Do you remember? You didn't go to that fight, but they had an open workout, and it was the co-owned gym of who was was the left tackle who played for DC who left?

Trent Williams. I think Trent Williams and Adrian Peterson opened up a gym in Houston, which was one of the nicest fucking gyms I'd ever seen. Anyway, Dada 5000 hit like pads for maybe 30 seconds at most. Oh, yeah. Broke into a torrential swing. Smoked a cigarette afterwards. Yeah.

Do you know that fight, Luke? I was working at ESPN as an MMA editor, and we did a ton of coverage ahead of that. I wrote this giant feature on Bellator's fascination with carnival matchmaking and old guy fights and how it's fueled. I mean, the ratings were ridiculous during that stretch, right? It was absurd.

Yes. Do you know that you quote tweeted my story and wrote essential reading? Did I really? Yeah, that was like a, damn, maybe I made it in this field of MMA where people think, who's this boxing guy? Luke Thomas, you know, Luke, I mean, the L.T.

Bless you. Gave me that. By the way, do you know how many people DM me on the regular that are like, dude, Luke blocked me because I made a joke about my own wife. Like people are coming at me left and right about how you are under the impression that no one ever DMs me about you. You should not be under that impression. People routinely DM me.

Let me finish. To lobby complaints about you. That's a Dana White-like reaction. Hold on. I just don't tell you about them. Would you like me to start inventorying them on the show? You're going to pass over the meat, though, the core of the— Yeah, I don't tolerate fuckheads on social media.

Why should anyone? This is an airing of the grievances. I went right for the grievance. I'm not saying that you can't have, like, as an umpire, you can throw the coach out, but you gotta have a... I understand. People remarkably oversell the necessity of their company. I don't

quite understand why. Most people... Their corporation or their physical company? Either. Either through social media or in person. Not everyone needs to interact with everyone else, and if I don't find your shit humorous, and I... You know. Usually, I've started doing this now to have with everyone else. And if I don't find your shit humorous and I, you know, usually I've started doing this now to have a little bit more justice. I'll mute them first.

And then if they're like repeat offenders, then I usually... Some of these people are my friends, Luke. Okay. Well, your friends are fucking idiots. What do you want me to tell you? My friends are also our audience. I tried. I will say this. If I block someone and then they message me and they're like,

oh, I watch MK and then they reference something from the show, I almost always unblock them. Okay. Almost always. I'm going to have a long list. It's going to be like, who's that boxer? The Argentine guy in the Showtime triple header and Jim Gray's like, all right, enough.

You can't keep reading this list. Oh, Martinez? Yeah, yeah. Martinez is like, hold on. I've got to thank my plumber. I will say this. I used to do a bit on my radio show called Twitter Court where someone I blocked would call in

and then argue their case to be unblocked and then the staff would vote whether to unblock them or not. We should have people send in videos of their situation, their argument. We'll put them up here and then you, with the wig on, will be like, you know. People think there's something disreputable. Off with the heads.

People think there's something disreputable about blocking people. You people don't block other people enough. That's the issue. The issue there's something disruptive about blocking people. You people don't block other people enough. That's the issue. The issue is not that I block. The issue is that you guys tolerate morons in your orbit. I do not. I do not. All right.

But what does that say about you? That I don't suffer fools gladly. Doesn't mean you don't suffer, though. Yeah. I mean, the world is broken. Something to think about. It is a fallen place. I certainly agree with that. All right. I think that's it for this card. Something to think about. It is a fallen place. I certainly agree with that.

All right, I think that's it for this card. Tetsuro Taira is on this card. Joe Anderson Brito brings it. He's on here. He does. Taking on Lucas Alexander. There's some fun fights there. But that's really about it in terms of any...

There is the Dusko Todorovic versus Jordan Wright fight. Yeah, but he might be fighting for his job, Dusko. He's lost like three or four at this point. Yeah, so that's really about it. That's most of the gems from that card. Hey, what happened to Krohn Gracie? I don't know. Cub fought him in 2019.

That was a fun fight, right? Krohn decided to be a striker then. Just walking straight into him. And then Cub had to kind of stick and move, quite literally. Because Krohn was a zombie in that fight. Krohn has some of the best, even in MMA,

some of the best MMA jiu-jitsu I've ever seen. I don't really know. Hope it's not Krohn's disease. That would be like Lou Gehrig, right? That's a different kind of crone that's c-r-o-h-n i believe that's gotta be painful i any any mk fans on the crone uh you got our love and respect all right i think if you have the crone you have to spend time on the throne on the throne yeah you're looking for that crown it's not coming unfortunately all right let's go to topic number two this is what i asked bc about at the top of the show. There is a ton of boxing, a ton of boxing this weekend. Some of it great, some of

it not so great. They've got the order messed up here. I want to switch the order if I can. Can we start with Deontay? I actually think this is, at least in terms of in North America, casual fan, public perception, this is the biggest fight for sure. Because Devin Haney is a much better fighter, but he's fighting all the way in Australia again. And then, of course, Clarissa Shields is probably the best American fighter competing this weekend, but she's over there in the U.K. doing this. At least stateside, Deontay is your biggest attraction. He's taking on Robert Heleneas.

BC, I have seen people say that Heleneas, who is like 6'7", he's this big Finnish dude. By the way, former training partner of Deontay Wilder. I have heard people say that Hellenius sucks. I really disagree. He has his limits. He's probably going to get knocked out. He does not suck. That is a good fighter.

This would be a straight-up fell asleep right in front of me. They're either on their phones or just lounging. What do you think that kid was doing last night? Nothing good. All right. Nothing good. Crimes. Yeah, he should switch to uppers, right?

I mean, if you're going to steal car stereos all night, you got to make sure you have your. Here's the deal. Robert Helenius in the totality of his pro run has given us both. Meaning he came on like a future heavyweight champion in waiting here, six foot seven, big time power. But dude,

he lost to some guys you don't lose to. And he lost to them by knockout. Johan de Halpas. I mean, we got to a point with him where it just looked like, okay, this guy's a bust, but he's on a bit of a late career

Renaissance run. And the two consecutive knockout defeats of then unbeaten Adam Kovnatsky really opened our eyes to exactly who he still could be. I mean, look, it's not that many years ago that Hellenius got knocked up by Gerald Washington. So like there's levels in the heavyweight game. He had slipped down, but he does appear to be back. So while Hellenius is in some ways, the perfect opponent for Wilder to potentially reinvigorate his fan base and his own really want and passion. And we've got an interview with Deontay Wilder that you can catch on youtube.com slash morning combat from last week that, you know, Wilder said, I wasn't going to come back at all. It took me realizing that I'm beloved, that people actually have been touched

by my career and find me inspirational to get my flowers, as he said, and get his statue and find out, oh, crap. So, Hellenius is the perfect opponent for that in that they're sparring partners in the past, they know each other, but to act like Hellenius isn't capable in this

fight of winning it would be a little bit crazy. He has come on of late. He's still 6'7". He's still got a hammer. Also, can I ask you a question? So would you say this is kind of perfect matchmaking? I like this fight for a lot of reasons, one of which is in defending Hellenius, I've watched both of those Kovnatsky fights.

He ruined him. Kovnatsky has not been the same since then. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, that is. So to this late Renaissance you're speaking about, plus these guys know each other a little bit. I read a stat, and again, I don't have his resume right in front of BBC, so tell me if I'm wrong.

No one has ever decision Deontay Wilder. No one has ever made it to the end and had the judges vote for him. He had the draw with Fury the first time. So here's why i bring this up because you could make a case well fury got it in the trilogy right no no fury knocked him out you're right so this in the second one and the third one but this is the point i wanted to make it's like you everyone's like oh well dionte has got all these he's got all these weaknesses which is true it's true and by the way dionte will punt rounds at times yes luis ortiz you could argue had dionte

figured out the fucking problem is, it doesn't matter, because all he has to do is unleash one of those nuclear right hands, and he closes the whole show. So for me, I like this fight because it's interesting to see what Deontay has left, what he's going to look like. It's winnable for him. I suspect he will win, but I think that the early middle portions of this could get a little bit interesting, no? Yeah, especially offensively for Hellenius. He could actually have big moments here, and if he commits to a power-heavy boxing style behind the jab, he could win rounds over Wilder for a stretch

in the same way to some degree that Luis Ortiz does. But ultimately, when you're picking, and we'll do this Friday with the predictions, you are going to come down to comparing one intangible that ultimately may say the most into who wins. And, Luke, you have to look at chin as that. Because even though Deontay Wilder, in the beginning of his career, we thought he had a flashy chin because guys like Eric Molina were wobbling him with a jab.

What we didn't realize is that there's a difference. You can have a chin that puts you on the canvas. Felix Trinidad in so many of his big wins on the rise was knocked down by flash knockouts, but you can also have a backbone and a will that gets you back up and keep fighting. I don't think anyone's got a, got more will than Deontay Wilder when it's, when it's been properly cultivated, like it was for the third fury fight. Uh, Hellenius, does he have that same chin and will? Well, we did see him get knocked out by Johan Dohopis and Gerald Washington, two guys

that got to the title level. Deontay Wilder knocked them both out. But if that's the sort of common comparison that they'll fall on, Wilder should be the favorite. And in some ways, he should win. But anytime you're going to get two 6'7 heavyweights who can box a little bit and can punch a lot,

it's going to be fun. And don't forget, we've got a good co-main event as well. Before we get to that last thing on Wilder-Hellenius, it just seems to me, and again if forget we got a good co-main event before we get to that last thing on wilder helenius it just seems to me and again if you disagree by all means step in it seems to me that they're trying to set up a wilder versus andy ruiz fight that's the direction it looks like pbc is probably going at heavyweight and i have to say if we get that wilder versus ruiz not mad at that bc not mad at that at all although fox has seemingly been i don't even know fox will be in the PBC world, you know, come at the end of this year,

but it seems like Fox has been slow playing to build to that for like two years now. But here's what's going to be most interesting about the Tyson Fury situation, which is related to this, and he might fight Derek Chisora a third time in a stay busy December 3rd. And will that be the setup to get Fury into Usyk?

I don't know, because here's the deal. While Wilder versus Ruiz is the perfect PBC scenario and could benefit us in the long run as well, for boxing fans, though, if Wilder wins by knockout in this comeback and if Fury isn't pointing himself in that moment in the right

direction of Usyk, there is the chance because Usyk is a promotional and network free agent that we could potentially do Usyk versus Wilder for three of the four belts. Don't Wilder's talked about it in the interviews and the buildup. And again, with that free agency and, you know, Usyk and Fury haven't been really all that happy with each other. By the way, their fight talks kind of fell apart.

I know Usyk has an injury that's delayed it, but you get my point. That's not out of play for the first half of next year as well, as much as we all want and need this four belt, you know, undisputed summit finally. So keep that. To your point about the co-main event, Caleb Plant is going to take on Anthony Durrell. Durrell, 37 years of age.

The dog. The dog. He had a nice win, I think, on the Canelo Plant card. He had that uppercut. Just beautiful. Knocked out of the year. But, you know, hasn't had a solid win in a long time. I think that is pretty fair to say against a name

opponent. Caleb Plant, what do you want to say? He beat Uzcategui. That was nice. Okay, that was something. Then he beat Truax. That was something. He beat Mike Lee, but that doesn't mean shit. But he gave Canelo... What would you say about the Canelo fight retrospect? He probably took a couple of rounds from Canelo.

He made Canelo work for it. He should easily win this one, but I guess what is... I don't know about easily win. Well, here's the thing. Darrell's old. He's a former two-time champion, but he's still got something in there, okay? Yeah, but... So if you're saying should Plant outbox him, I guess in theory looking at the...

Just to be clear, he's a minus 1,200 favorite. Oh, Lord. Okay. Yeah, I guess to what you're saying is what's the most likely play to script it's it's caleb plant winning a you know comfortable decision sure but i don't think it takes away the potential intrigue of this fight and if you're asking me who is caleb plant right now i think he proved a lot in the march he took to get to the canelo fight i think he proved to me at least he showed out the best he could right he stayed in that fight a while i think he gave Canelo the best fight he could.

He stuck to his strengths, gave Canelo a hard opportunity. Now I think there is still something left to prove for him. Caleb Plant to come out and remind everybody that I'm not just going to be the guy who lost to Canelo. I'm going to go back and try to regain titles. Because when you look at the title picture right now, and this is where it's getting juicy at 168, okay? And it could potentially be juicier. We don't know if Canelo's going to go in the direction of chasing the B-ball fight with his own at 175

and then maybe fighting better B-ball or potentially coming back to the PBC bubble and trying to fight the biggest names available to him at 168. Those big names are David Benavidez, who has unbeaten and been a champion twice, Jermall Charlo, who's currently a champion at middleweight, but we've been hearing whispers that he might move up, and the winner of this one. And if the winner of this one, Plant versus Durellas, Caleb Plant,

we've suddenly got a bunch of players that can come together to make some very fun fights with legitimate stakes for the super middleweight title picture. Canelo's got all four belts right now, but with the layoff coming up with his injury, I'm not sure all four are going to strip him, Luke, because some of these belt holders love having canelo alvarez as their champion but uh i wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them go up and become you know vacant titles this could be fun caleb plant needs this win he should get it to your point but i do like this fight and i do like what caleb plant might look like matched up against benavidez or charlo the benavidez fights the one i want to see for a lot of reasons one it's a great

fight too they have bad blood like legitimate bad blood so one I want to see for a lot of reasons. One, it's a great fight. Two, they have bad blood, like legitimate bad blood. So I would love to see that contest. I feel like Caleb Plant has bad blood with everybody he's about to fight. Isn't that true? Dude, he has a chip on his shoulder, does he not? Oh, absolutely. He has a constant me against the world attitude. Yeah, and he's unapologetic about that, right?

Yeah. So he just puts off this, kind of like when you're walking your dog and it comes across another dog and it's just like tense, right? And I've noticed, I wouldn't say that he's mean to the boxing media. That's not quite right. But he keeps everyone at a real distance. He doesn't let anyone in. He's very garbage in that way.

I wish he kept us at a closer one. I tried to get him on that couch, Luke. Yeah, we wanted him for room service diaries. We got the big old, what do we call it? Get a no, but it just kind of fizzled. But that's okay. Also on this card, BC, this is the closest one on there in terms of the odds. Now, where would you rank this Gary Russell?

So it's Gary Antonio Russell, not Gary Antoine Russell, not Gary Russell Jr. It's yet another Gary Russell taking on from Washington, D.C. area, taking on Emmanuel Rodriguez. Yeah, this is the Bantamweight version. This is the Gary Antonio Russell at Bantamweight. So he's good. He's good. He can box. The difference is this.

The middle brother, Gary Antoine Russell, he's at 140. He's a puncher. He's a big-looking, George Foreman-looking dude. Had a box. The difference is this. The middle brother, Gary Antoine Russell, he's at 140. He's a puncher. He's a big-looking, George Foreman-looking dude. Had a nice win in his last fight. Which is different, of course, than Gary Russell Jr., the oldest brother who's kind of become their trainer in that regard, who is a slickster on a different level. But, yeah, Gary Antonio Russell, is he as good as the other two?

I don't think he's proven that yet, but I don't think he's fully had the chance to prove exactly who he is. So this is a good opportunity. And then Frank Sanchez versus Carlos Negron. Good heavyweight fight. Not bad. Frank Sanchez is... He can box. He can box. It's not must-see TV.

I'm not going to do the thing where we put the women last. I'm going to go to them next here. Now, what's kind of blowing my mind about this... Nobody puts baby in the corner. In all fairness to them, Shields versus Marshall was supposed to happen, but the queen died that week. And so the queen of England, and the fight was going to be in the UK.

That cat bitch. Yeah, she bought the farm. The old lady bought the farm. She's like, finally, the women are going to get their close-up. She's like, no, you're not, bitch. Well, that was the thing. That fight, had it taken place that weekend, would have been the crown jewel of boxing that weekend.

Now you've got Wilder here stateside. You've got Haney and Kambosis doing what they're going to do in Australia. This one's kind of taking a bit of a backseat. But it's going to be on in the afternoon on Saturday, so it may get our attention here. It's a 2.30 p.m. start. I want to be very clear about that. Clarissa Shields taking on Savannah Marshall. Marshall has a win over her from, I think, the amateurs,

and so this is something of a rematch. It's been ugly, the buildup. Not quite like throwing objects at each other at the weigh-in type ugly, but it's not been pretty, to be clear. This is going to be fun. It's a fun fight. So both the main and the co-main are going to be really fun. Let's stay with the main for a second.

Is Clarissa Shields right now? By the way, this is for the undisputed title at 160, these ladies, are you? Yes, 160, which Clarissa Shields already fought who we thought was the best threat to her at 160, and Christina Hammer on Showtime, and she dominated her. Now we're fighting for all four belts here and the Savannah Marshall part of it is so cool. Clarissa's unbeaten as a pro. She has one loss as an amateur in her career in which she won

two gold medals and that was to this fighter and Savannah Marshall can talk a little bit, comes from the UK, has power, something that Clarissa Shields has not been able to show as a pro in the two-minute round. She's been an aggressive fighter. She's been a clinical boxer when needed. I mean, look, she boxed

circles around Christina Hammer. There's potential here because Clarissa Shields is so great that that may happen again, but I think the spiciness of their backstory and the fact that Savannah Marshall has a puncher's chance and is willing to sit on that puncher's chance and use it, this could be some fun theater. Where would put clarissa shields right now in that women's pound for pound voting

that also includes katie taylor serrano sanisa strata uh you know mckayla mayor as well bomb gardener we'll talk about mayor because the winner of mayor bomb garner is for what three belts yes and they could it's a fight even juicier hatred match. And that fight is at 130 pounds, but you have both women already saying if they win, they want a shot at Katie Taylor. I guess the setup of my question is to say this. It would not be wrong to have Clarissa Shields as the pound for pound.

Yeah, I have a hard time putting her above Katie Taylor. I have a hard time. Even Amanda Serrano, depending on how you want to look at it, because Serrano in that Katie Taylor fight, that's not her best weight class, and she still gave Katie Taylor everything she could handle. And have they both fought better competition than her? I don't know.

Shields has fought everybody available. She's moved around in weight. Shields is, at worst, at worst, top three pound for pound in the women's discussion. I think you can argue one. You could argue one. I'm saying, at worst, she's three. But does that tie in at all in your eyes to like

she went to PFL, Clarissa Shields, kind of because she wasn't getting the love in boxing or the opportunities or the money. I feel like the American public embraced her during the Olympics, but as a pro, kind of soured on her a bit. And I don't think that's necessarily fair.

Clarissa's outspoken. She's tough as nails. She tells you what she's going to do. She calls herself the quote, whether you like that, that letter combination or not, Luke, do you feel like American boxing fans though,

like are embracing her or pushing her away at this point? They've definitely not embraced her. They've definitely not. And it's not for a lack of effort on her part. And, you know, to be clear from what I can tell, it seems like it's a pretty big fight in the UK.

So she's going where the fight is being received. Obviously, her opponent is British, but she's going where the fight is being received in a very public and highly supported way. I don't quite understand the disconnect. It's hard for any, I think, female American boxer right now to break through. Michaela Mayer, who's in the co-main event, is also making a run at it. But, I mean, BC, just to be candid, if I asked you, like, hey, who are some female MMA fighters who broke through, really became casual fan stars? I could name a few. I don't know if there's that many since Layla Ali, to be perfectly honest, who have really broken through.

So we're making it about a referendum on Clarissa. When it's really the entire industry. Serrano hasn't broken through it, even with Jake Paul's push. Like that's the first time she's getting. She's gotten a lot bigger. First time she's getting some of what she deserves. And,

but look at what another country can do with somebody like Katie Taylor. I mean, in Ireland and the UK. She is heavily supported. She's front page news. I mean, she is. Yeah.

But look, this is a very good fight. I think if Shields wins this. The odds on this one, by the way, this is a boxing odds. Clarissa at just a minus one 30 Marshall. Wow. tight this tell me this could be if you had told me instead that clarissa was like minus 700 we still would be talking hey this is still a must-see

fight the other the other fighters got power there's a spack story there's a lot at stake with the four belts but that those odds show you that the sharps aren't 100 sure that clarissa outboxes her without taking damage that's right i mean clarissa's been knocked down before but i think overall she's shown that she's got a good chin yes and i you know i i would be very surprised if shields put her away that would that would very much surprise me but i do think of the two she's the better boxer so we'll see how that all plays out. Now, you mentioned Michaela Mayer taking on Alicia Bumgarner. This is going to be at 130 for three of the belts.

The winner of this has already said, well, not the winner of this, but both ladies have already said if they become the winner, they want a shot at Katie Taylor. Get in line because I think a lot of people do. Mayer sitting at a minus 280. Bumgarner sitting at plus 215. What's on the line? I mean, I sort of set up the stakes here. Is there anything more to it?

By the way, a heavy grudge match here as well. That's the, the anything more is the heavy grudge match element. You look at three or four titles at 130. It's a very legitimate bout. These are two names in the women's boxing game, but the elevated level of interest, part of that has become because Michaela Mayer is separating herself and saying that like, I am in this Katie Daly discussion. I am discussion I am you know look she's gotten a great push by ESPN and top

rank who have said look this is somebody legitimate that you should tune into and she's backed it up did you see that fight of the year contender she had last year with uh I forgot that the the um I don't have a resume in front of me but I mean that was just a 10 round war Michaela Mayer is known more with coach Al Mitchell in the Olympic background as a pure boxer, but she proved in that fight that she could stand in there and trade. And Luke, I think she's lived up to every opportunity she's gotten improved to us in front of us,

that she's a legit pound for pound talent. And now you've got an opponent in Baumgartner who's been talking about her for a long time. I think with this fight being delayed because of the queen, it's actually only made this co-main event fight even more of a, of a tight package of like, I've got to see this co-main event fight even more of a of a tight package of like i've got to see this this is good it's going to be intense they do not like each other the stare downs the stare downs at every press event have been wild you see the

social media videos they go back and forth of like the scale with the wasn't there one where bum gunner was like threatening to eat her ass or something like that yeah it's gotten pretty crazy yeah um i would have to say that don't miss this it's it's an important fight and if the winner's entering the kat Taylor conversation, then it's going to be a big event. But I think when you get two people, look, it's still catnip to me, Luke. You get two people in a professional fight who I can tell really, really don't like each other, and it's separate from the titles and the stakes and the placement on the card.

It's just more about, I've got to beat that motherfucker across for me. That's my language right there. That's why I got into this game, Luke. I like it, too. I like it, too, but not at the expense of technique. But the good news is we don't have to worry about that here. You could have tech. Look, the best brawls are the chess ones.

I agree. I agree. So I think you're going to get two good fights again. That will start from London at 2.30 p.m. in the east. Finally, last but not least, although maybe least, this will air. I think they're just going to put the main event on ESPN. The entire card will air on ESPN+. Yeah, the rest of the card is very Aussie-centric.

I like the Maloney brothers, but it's very Aussie-centric. Let's get to the main event. Yeah, you got Jason and Andrew Maloney on this. But Devin Haney, who is now the undisputed champion at 135. Yeah, excuse me. Taking on George Kambosis. He's a minus 1,000 favorite. Kambosis at plus 600.

BC, I was tweeting about this a day or two ago, and I was like, dude, there's no buzz for this fight. No, there's not. And I'm told, but look at the replies. It's a bunch of Aussies, and they're all saying, yeah, there's no buzz here either, which is a little bit... To be fair, there shouldn't be. Okay, so there's a couple of reasons for that.

One, the first fight was not a thriller. It was not that thrilling. We're only here because it's a mandatory, contractually-obligated rematch, and everyone involved is making a lot of money off this. Devin Haney was just, that's one reason. The fight was not that great. Two, Devin Haney appeared to be much better than Kambosis

and had a jab-slash-clinching strategy to get the job done, basically. Nobody turns the lights off better in the game today, maybe besides Shakur Stevenson, meaning they got a threat in front of them, and they're just going to, by doing that, Floyd, like, you're turning off the entertainment value, but can just flip that switch. Haney at distance did that in the first fight.

He's just like, you're not advancing. I'm not going to be there. You know, is there any reason to think Cambosis can win? Okay. On the surface, by the way,

he dropped the nickname emperor, went back to whatever the other one was on the surface. No, but his saving grace has to come from the fact that you can't tell me, go back and watch that first fight, you can't tell me that part of that performance from Cambosis was, I got the rematch in my back pocket,

so in this fight, fight one, I'm going to try my best to be an aggressive boxer and try to win that way and find an opening. The opening was never there, but Luke, he also, I don't think, pressed for that opening. And maybe that's the luxury of having Ben the A-side from the negotiation standpoint. He got, look, when Kambosis upset Teofimo, he became the power player in this division that has way bigger stars than

him, Tank, Ryan Garcia, you know, but they're all orbiting in different networks and promotions and spots in their career. He was the go-between that was like, send your offers. I'll fight whoever you want. It turned out to be Haney. It was a creative way for Haney and his team who had just finished their Eddie Hearn matchroom deal, just finished their association with the zone. Also looking to make the next leap in their trend progression. They created this two fight series where Cambosis is the A side. Both fights would be in Australia. Cambosis would have the rematch clause. And again, everybody would make a ton of money. That's what it took for Haney to take this step and get on ESPN. He signed a three fight deal. So this rematch is fight two of that three fight deal. But I don't think this rematch is about this rematch. This rematch is about,

we get to tune in on ESPN and see this guy, Haney, who's one of the, you know, who's maybe got next and is one of the 10 best in the game right now. And I think it's about where are we going next? And Haney will tell you the best fight for me at 135 that will give me the equal level of commercial and critical respect is Vasily Lomachenko, the former champion. Lomachenko is going to be back on October 29th against unbeaten Jermaine Ortiz, his former sparring partner, in a, you know, get back. It's a challenge, but coming back from the conflict in the Ukraine,

we're building toward, and you have to believe ESPN on top rank is as well, we're building towards Haney versus Lomachenko, which would be a hell of a fight. I think the only reason why I'm saying watch this rematch is because I don't think Kambosis went for broke like he did against Teofimo, and now there's no excuses. You got the rematch, they're coming to your house, you're getting paid a lot of money, let the bullets go, right?

Haney says more aggressive Kambosis will be even easier to beat because i'll see all the openings coming and i'll take advantage of them he's like the first fight i had to kind of find the openings because cambosis was so defensive would you agree with me though this long ramble but the point of it is that cambosis knew he had a rematch why get knocked out in the first one you got to build the second one right yeah although i'm told that ticket sales aren't great for the second one either they shouldn't be look okay look were we wrong on overlooking cambosis by the way yeah yes yes i gotta say all the aussies that were in our mentions before the first haney fight y'all have gone noticeably silent this time around you guys need

to understand were we americans that were yeah we were we did overlook because it was that process for teofimo and the purse bid and Triller and then Dazon. Like, it was a nightmare. We just wanted that fight over with, as did most fans. Did Cambosis take his Buster Douglas opportunity and hit a home run? Yes. You cannot tell me that was a not compromised 100% Teofimo Lopez. It just wasn't.

We found out afterwards he had that heart condition and he kind of knew there was a problem. And he went brawling in round one. It's crazy that fight went the distance. Kambosis won it. He deserved getting this two-fight deal, but he doesn't deserve to have buzz after the way the first fight went. But, you know, you can argue and say, BC, well, if he gets knocked out in the first fight,

really nobody will care about the second. That might also be true, too, Luke, okay? By the way, I'm watching Mikey rearrange the rundown in real time here i don't know why he's doing that but okay well because he's the producer yeah in real time while i'm reading it it's not like he's getting up in the videos you know and come to death row yeah no but okay but so it's tough to say well the interest of this fight is seeing one of the best fight but look if he stops cambosis this is haney and that's the thing about haney he's not afraid to be boring or defensive if he has to right he's not trying to entertain you that way he told me the money and the pay-per-view matchups are going to come if i just

keep winning will cambosis cross that line and trying to win hard enough to give us something to watch and potentially give haney a chance yes in the latter part of the fight not early in the latter part of the fight i do think he's going to put a little bit more of his foot to the gas pedal this time i just he was thoroughly outclassed the first time thoroughly it was in a stadium the first time now they're at rod laver arena so tennis yeah so we're downgrading here but um man i mean you got do you give team haney a lot of credit for how they've carried themselves? Like, let me remind you, Devin Haney was a phenom. He said he knew about age 12 that he was going to become

one of the greatest fighters of all time. So him and his dad said, we're not doing the amateur Olympic route. We're turning pro at 17, and we're going to go fight in Mexico about 10 times. And then they had every promoter, including Floyd Mayweather, lining up, trying to get their services. They were on show box for a while in some main events. Then they went after the Eddie Hearn and DAZN money. Now they've pivoted to ESPN to fight the big names.

After a potential Lomachenko fight, they could be in position to be a free agent and go wherever they want. I don't think Bill Haney, dad, trainer, manager, gets enough credit in this. And by the way, only got to the fight the day of the fight, the first time around, because of some visa issues, some kind of travel complications. So, you know. Like, he's calling his own shots in a way he's using the promotion system but he is calling his own shots and by the way i saw a lot of we should talk about this for just a second i saw a lot of discussion i think there was one from ufc fighter larone murphy but he was hardly alone there's been a bunch of this being like oh well boxing can't get it together mma put more regularly

puts out the best versus best boxing is you is this, that, and the other. And I'm always like, guys, let's play a little game here. Why? Why are there better fights? First of all, the disparity between how many of the top guys in UFC fight each other versus how many in boxing is grossly overstated. That's the first problem. But let's just assume for the sake of argument is it magic that it happens better in ufc why is it that it happens more regularly in mma control right it's

like dude it's very easy to make better fights if you have a monopoly that has 80 plus percent of the industry under onerous contracts it's not fucking magic right i always try to make this point to people who shit on boxing if you don't like boxing don't watch it It's not fucking magic, right? I always try to make this point to people who shit on boxing. If you don't like boxing, don't watch it. It's not going to hurt my feelings. I promise. But what you must understand is you as the consumer, and this is why people don't like it. You have to pay a little bit of a tax in a combat sport. But in that particular combat sport, the fighters have more discretion and control over their careers. To me, if you are going to be sacrificing blood, sweat, and potentially treasure in the way that someone does in combat sports, they should have that control.

Yes, it's a cost that the consumer at times has to pay, but it's a cost that you actually, in real terms, you actually do want that in the industry. You want a degree of equitability. At the expense of the consumer, it's a very hard sell to them. They're never going to accept it, and I understand that. But it's not magic. It's not an accident. You have to realize it is very easy, at least relatively speaking, to make fights if you have the vast majority of the talent under contracts in which they largely cannot escape. Like this argument, like, well, boxing has really got to get a ship.

No, no. You have now given these fighters certain amounts of rights and privileges that they are not afforded in another sport, and then they exercise them. And look at what Haney's done. That's the difference. Few do it as deftly as Haney's done. I mean, obviously, Floyd's at a different standard, and a lot of people have tried to live up even parts of that.

But, you know, somebody like Gervonta is calling his own shots for the large degree and has become a huge ratings and pay-per-view magnet because of that. Pay-per-view, slowly, but you get my point. But I've got to give Haney credit. It's not like he didn't have to earn it. He had to go to Australia twice and fight a guy he didn't even want to. But he's now undisputed champion. He's only 23.

He's unbeaten. He could be fighting Lomachenko after this. He's getting paid. And he says, in my era, I want to face the best. I want this to be one of those eras where everybody faces each other. He's actually pivoting from promoter to promoter to make that happen. I got to give that respect. Final question on Haiti to you is this.

Is there anybody 140 and lower that you think could be a betting favorite against Devin Haney right now? At 140? 140 or lower. He's at 135 right now. Is there anybody at 140 or lower that you would take, you know? Well, so they've got this potential fight

between Lopez and Pedraza. If Lopez wins that, I could see him at 140 being potentially favored. I still think Devin would be favored. He might be favored, but it would be close. I think Shakur maybe. We'll move on from this. Last thing on boxing for me from this.

The next time someone says something like, well, boxing just can't make the fights on time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just keep asking them why until you get an answer. And what I mean by that is you'll say why. They'll be like, well, boxing is blah, blah, blah. It's bureaucracy. Okay, why? Well, because they just shoot itself in the foot. Okay. Why keep asking them why, or you can play the game on the reverse side with MMA. Well,

MMA just does it better. Why? And what you ultimately can only come back to, it's the only answer you can come back to is the way in which the industry is arranged at the expense of the fighter or pro fighter. That's the fucking difference. That's why you get it the way it looks the way it looks. Sorry, that's why you get it the way that it looks. Yes, there are problems with the sanctioning bodies and how much they can manipulate how fights get made, who they make it mandatory, how much that bureaucracy clogs it up.

There's plenty of fair criticisms to make, but when you're going to make the wire fights easier to make an MMA versus boxing argument, keep asking that person why until they give you, not a bullshit, boxing shoots itself in the foot, some stupid metaphor. Ask them very explicitly how that comes to be. That's the only conversation you should be having.

Are you attracted to women from Eastern European backgrounds who live in factory towns and were hot for a season but now wait tables and look back at their own mysteries? I wouldn't call that my wheelhouse. Why? Seems kind of trifling. Why? Because they have titty tattoos. Alright.

That's a fair answer, right? Yeah, your game worked. Alright, so let's do this. Quick hitters. BC, T Tuivasa for topic number three is going to be taking on Sergei Pavlovich at UFC Orlando. By the way, this card is baller. This is Kevin Holland

versus Stephen Thompson. Derek Brunson versus the Joker, Jack Hermanson. I like it. RDA versus Brian Barbarina. Angela Hill. That's a weird fight. That's a weird-ass fight. How about this one? Angela Hill with a very tough fight. Taking on Emily Ducati. Tracy Cortez versus Amanda Hibas. That's a weird fight. That's a weird-ass fight. How about this one? Angela Hill with a very tough fight. Take it on Emily Ducati. Tracy Cortez versus Amanda Hibas.

That's a big one as well. Clay Guida versus Hot Sauce. Scott Holtzman. Dude, hold on. Don't go too fast. Did you say Tracy Cortez's fight and Hibas? Yes. I forgot that was even a thing.

That is tremendous. That should be more my real house than yours. Michael Johnson. Take it on Mark Giacchese. Darren Elkins versus Jonathan Pierce. Eric Anders versus Kyle Dawkus, and then there's some other ones. Pretty good card.

That fight card is like walking into Sheetz gas station. You're like, I have so many ways I can go for lunch right now. How many times have you ordered a schmuffin from Sheetz? I've never done the schmuffin, but I've drunkenly hung out at that machine where you can add things from different food groups into the same grinder. It starts off as a chicken parm grinder, then before you know it, you've got a fried

egg in there, and there's guacamole. You can go weird places there. You certainly can. Taito Iwasa, Sergei Pavlovich. Pavlovich getting a controversial win in his last one. Taito Iwasa losing to Ghosn. This is the right bounce-back opportunity for Taito Iwasa. Look, that performance he showed in defeat, how the hell did he

lure Cyril Ghosn? In hindsight, how the hell did he lure Cyril Ghosn into a brawl in Paris and nearly win it? It's because Tai Tuivasa's one superpower that allows him to dance with the elite, there's something there. So this is the right featured bounce-back type of fight. Pavlovich is not easy, and anybody, because Tuivasa fights so wild, could have the right game plan to give Tui Vassa a tough night, you know, on the right night. I think this is one where Tui Vassa can come back, stamp home a knockout.

And Luke, be honest to me about where you think Tui Vassa's brand is in the eyes of UFC. I think he's always going to be that guy. Okay, he had a loss against a big name. Let's get him back in a featured spot, bounce back, and then let's put him right back in there

and play matchmaker against another big name. I was going to say, it's something kind of like the Derek Lewis role, but it's a little bit more elevated than that. And that's because he just went in there and was that dangerous against Gon, correct? I mean, he was that close to being in a title fight. That's wild. Yeah, it was surprising.

It was certainly surprising, but it shouldn't be, because Taito Iwasa has done really well of late. Is there a long-term, like when guys fight so aggressively on the ride we're like enjoy the ride they're not going to be able to sustain that his willingness to take in other people's fluids through through shoeies and like the cross-contamination of chemicals and honestly like is that that's how kovid got formed just somewhere he's like hawked up a booger somewhere and then someone else drank it, and God only knows. Good Lord.

This one is just sad. I don't know how else to say it. December 10th at the T-Mobile Arena, Gustafson is back. Alexander Gustafson, UFC 282, taking on Ovin St. Preux. BC, I got to tell you, my level of interest in this is less than zero. I don't. This is. I'm surprised he's still fighting.

So Gustafson's at an age with a name value where I'm not surprised, but this is sad because his last couple of performances, he's got like, you know, it wasn't KO1. I mean, he just got wiped out. Like, he doesn't have it anymore, Luke. The experiment at heavyweight was sort of desperate and didn't really go anywhere. This is a bad fight.

Mikey Morims just wrote to me, it was a good fight 10 years ago. Yeah. That's about right. That's about right. That's about right. This is like when you acquire a PS3 because somebody gave it away and they got a couple games. You're like, oh, shit, they got UFC.

But it's like UFC 2 from 2008. And you're like, yeah, then Gustafson versus OSP. OSP is certainly long in the tooth as well. But Gustafson appears to be far past it, unfortunately. BC. long in the tooth as well, but Gustafson appears to be far past it, unfortunately. BC, Leon Edwards says Usman has to come to England for the rematch, really be the rubber match. By the way, he

did this interview with Troops TV. Do you know who Troops is? No. Have you ever heard of Arsenal fan TV? No. Is that some UK soccer thing? Yeah, but hold on. It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different because all of these big teams over there, Manchester United, whoever, even the smaller teams, Newcastle and whatever, they've all got fan channels, but hold on. It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different because all of these big teams over there, Manchester United, whoever, even the smaller teams, Newcastle and whatever, they've all got fan channels. But Arsenal, which is one of the bigger teams, correct me if I'm wrong, Arsenal, their fan channel, which is called Arsenal Fan TV, by the way, they're not affiliated with the team. They're just fans. It's the biggest one of them all by far. And they got famous because they put a bunch of guys on camera troops being one of them another guy was called dt who's now in jail by the way this is a true story for just having these

fucking outrageous post-game reactions and you gotta understand when we when we were like in the 2000 i think 2004 with 2004 right was when they had the invincibles with thierry henry yeah so they had a season where they didn't lose a game in the premier league which is like un-fucking-heard of okay since then they've been bought out by an American guy the same guy who owns the LA Rams Stan Kroenke has driven that franchise to the ground now they're having a better season this season but they had a look what was it like a 10-year span where they were getting just fucking murdered by Bayern Munich and shit anyway troops got famous, truly famous.

Barstool signed him. He moved to New York City. It was like a whole thing. That's where Leon Edwards did this interview. He did it with Troops. What was Troops' thing? He would call everyone blood clot, Obama Yang, and fucking, oh, he would call everyone blood. Is he the Robbie Fox of soccer?

No, he's got tons more caffeine in him than that. What would he call everyone? He calls everyone blood and fam. Blood and fam. At the end of every sentence, he called got tons more caffeine in him than that. What do you call it when he calls everyone blood and fam? Blood and fam. At the end of every sentence, he's called blood and fam. I'm sure it's awesome when these nerds get together and talk soccer. It's great. Dude, it's fucking hilarious.

When Arsenal would lose and troops in DT would lose their mind, it'd be great. Anyway, I don't know why this is news exactly. Wouldn't it be, to the words of my old live chat, wouldn't it be promotional malpractice if they put this fight in any place but England? Yeah, it would be. So let's do it. It's a great fight. Dude, why do you think you're above soccer? What is it about where you come from?

I grew up in a soccer-crazed town, okay? I grew up in the Portuguese section of a soccer-crazed town. And also, soccer is a sport of the people. I think I'm the only kid in the history of my town not to have played one year of organized soccer. It's a cool game. You know what else is cool? Everything but soccer. I grew up watching boxing.

Dude, you can like both. The NBA. It's not either or. Skinamax. I mean, those were must-see TV. Did you have that book in high school, the Mr. Skin book, that had every B movie that floats around on Showtime, Cinemax, and HBO, and it would have the time frame to skip ahead due to CW. I've been watching hardcore pornography since I could. That's disgusting.

All right. You done with these quick hitters so I could tell you about Moneyline? I'm going to skip. Hold on. We've got a few of these left. Let's see this one. I'll skip one. Gamrot says he's improving his English to be able to talk shit.

That's nice. Great. Thank you, Matus. How about this one? Fedor. Okay, how about this one? Scott Coker to the MMA Hour. He loves coming on Morning Combat. Have you noticed that? He loves it. He said, quote, I mean, it's not like you're easy to deal with.

Let's be fair. I'm not as hard to deal with as you make it out to be. Fedor hit me up, he said. Am I going to fight Anderson Silva? I said, no, no no everybody just calm down listen i would personally love to see that fight but fedor he's got his bullseye on ryan bader yeah he really wants i gotta tell you i understand that look if it's fedor's last fight you got to give him what he wants i understand that but someone talked some sense into him

fedor versus anderson silva or fedor versusvereem is infinitely better than Fedor versus Bader. But is it Fedor or Bader or Fedor or Bader? The train is never late. Here's the thing, though, Luke. I mean, you can say, though, that he's trying to go out with the biggest bang legacy-wise and would adding the Bellator Heavyweight Championship in a rematch, if he can knock him out, considering Fedor feels reborn from the knockout of Tim Johnson and Bader has not looked amazing of late, right?

Dude, you can't possibly tell me anything other than that fight is a fraction as interesting as Fedor versus Soto. I'm not into it, but the competitor in him might be. So I don't want to dead wrong myself. I wasn't saying that Overeem fighting Fedor was bigger in terms of accomplishment than taking the heavyweight title and glory from Rico as a underbeat as an underdog. I was just saying.

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In this regard, if this is Fedor wanting to be a competitor, go, no, I can run back that rematch and I can win it. Imagine if his last fight, he won the Bellator Heavyweight Championship and then bowed out. That is a little bit more to the competitor and career achievement side than going in and beating a smaller Anderson Silva if that happened, right?

Or just fight Overeem. How about that? Just strip Ryan Bader. You're not into the idea that he... I'm not into the idea of Fedor fighting Bader even a little bit. For a second time. His clock got cleaned in that first fight. he... I'm not into the idea of Fedor fighting Vader even a little bit. For a second time. His clock got cleaned in that first fight.

Yeah, I'm not interested. Are you into this Tito-Chale trilogy that Tito's talking about? I went to text Chale this morning. I forgot, but I would like to see if that's even real. Tito says a lot of things. It's like a regional MMA fight, too. It's not even like a... Freedom Fight Night, whatever the fuck that is.

Oh, is that like a right-wing promotion? Probably. Probably. You know, probably. B.C., Frank Mir, speaking of Freedom Fries, wants to fight on his retirement fight, but here's the deal. He wants to headline

a card that his daughter is also on. Quote, next year I'm going to go and fight again because actually I want to fight once on the same card with Bella, that's his daughter, as my last fight. She can headline the card. Oh, excuse me. She can headline the card. I dead wrong myself in real time. She can headline the card. I can

open it. That'd be a cool little moment, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would be. I'm not going to hold that against him. You know a poster I had on my wall as a kid? The one with Ken Griffey Sr.'s locker next to Ken Griffey Jr. And they were like... People don't even know. That was a thing in like 89 when they were hitting 3 and 4 in that lineup or 2 and 3, whatever, and they hit like people don't even know that was a thing in like 89 when they were when

they were hitting three and four in that lineup or two and three whatever and they hit back-to-back home runs that was like a thing and LeBron James is trying to like will that moment with Bronny it seems right yeah it does which he should but he's 18 now I think he's gonna have the draft next go around I think that's right now the difference is those guys weren't taking punches Mears well passed it but if he wants to go out on some who's what's theer for this plan? I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, I'm not against it. Oh, he did it on Fight Night Flashbacks. That's the Brendan Schaub vehicle. That's where Schaub said that

he'd put Tim Sylvia against any modern UFC heavyweight today. Prime Tim Sylvia against Francis. I was like, Brendan, I don't think that's a good take, buddy. I would not. Although I will say, here's the argument to make about Tim Sylvia. It's not that a prime Tim Sylvia would beat Francis.

I don't think that's really true. But that prime Tim Sylvia doesn't get credit for actually how good he was, I do think there's some merit to that. Did you ever see that episode of Blind Date that Tim Sylvia was on after he had broken his arm? Yeah, he's a big goof. Yeah, he didn't get the girl. And he was trying to brag that I had my arm snapped in the UFC championship.

She didn't give a fuck. No. Lastly, this is no surprise, but Ali Abdelaziz has admitted to tweeting for Habib. Yeah, but he said, I used to tweet for Habib. Yeah, bullshit. He said on Inside Fighting, quote, of course it wasn't me. People are crazy. I haven't been tweeting for Habib for at least four or five years i used to tweet for him for sure but we said that 100 it

was not me i would let you know i promise you i used to tweet for him when he began every day four or five times a day uh but he locked me out that's hilarious do you buy that he locked him out he might have i don't know i don't know all, you know, it's very, what do I always compare it to? The buffet on the cruise, Luke. By day four, the breakfast tastes like the dinner, you know? Lastly, how about this one? There are reports. This is the last one for us.

Tyson Fury is finalizing a December 3rd trilogy fight that not a fucking soul is asking for except his opponent, namely Derek Chisora. By the way, there was a stat from Dan Canobio who runs CompuBox. Well, his dad runs it, but yeah. He hosts inside CompuBox Live. There you go. Yeah. They have fought previously a total of 22 rounds, and Chisora was outlanded in 21 of those 22 rounds.

And by the way, Chisora is worse since then and Fury is better since then. This is a fucking joke. It's not Chisora pushing for even that. It's like Fury's always included Chisora's name in the fights that he wanted to close his career with for whatever reason. I don't know if they've become friendly behind the scenes, but look, is there a need for it?

No. Fury's won dominantly both times, including a knockout. But if this is just Fury saying, I want to, this is like, just like tell the truth. If this is just you saying you want to stay busy ahead of whatever the next

huge fight, hopefully Usyk is, nobody has a problem with it. Just stop the bait and switch details of this. I mean, or, and if like, if you're going to take a softie,

just go take a softie. Okay. Just say it. I mean, it's not, it's not soft. Like it's not going to be an easy, even if Tyson beats him a third time, like just, or is Del Boy's tough. Okay. Okay. But I mean, thereisora's not soft. It's not going to be an easy, even if Tyson beats him a third time.

Delboy's tough, okay? Okay, but I mean, there is less than zero clamoring for this. But nobody cares is really the thing, yeah. All right, so let's do this before we get to our top five. BC, I don't know how we're going to do this because it's not really properly articulated. People know that we've got a new show sponsor. It's true. Money Lion, which is the only money app you'll ever need. They saw our commercial.

And they love our community just as much as we do, BC. And because of that, Luke, we at MK have decided to partner with Money Lion and create a new segment. How about this? It's going to be called the Money Lion Hammer of the Month. And as Krupp behind the scenes likes to say, hashtag holy hammer to this one. Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of that. Krupp, you're starting to come around to me, okay? Holy holy hammer that is wow uh there so here's how it's going to work there are undercard fighters out there not necessarily getting the recognition they deserve so what we are going to do is highlight them off the show and then reward

them with an epic giant hammer trophy that they can show off to their friends and family or they might just chuck it in the garbage yeah they can touch this, actually, it seems. And we're asking you, the MK viewer, to vote throughout the month and let us know which undercard fighters out there deserve this sweet award. At the end of the month, we will tally up the votes and get it down to a top three. Then we'll review the top three and pick a winner. This is a creative cross-promotion here with Moneyline. I like this. All right, so how do you vote? Just hop

onto Twitter and tell us who you think should win while tagging at Moneyline and using the hashtag Hammer of the Month. Dude, they're going to send dong pics. You know it. Can we go back to Holy Hammer? To learn more. Why don't you just hashtag send dong here. How about that?

To learn more, visit Moneyline.com slash Morning Combat. Again, Moneyion.com slash Morning Combat. Again, MoneyLion.com slash Morning Combat. Is this going to be UFC undercard fighters? I think it could be any undercard, including boxing or Bellator or PFL or one or whatever. Yeah. Okay, BC, let's do this. Time for top five.

Let's do top five. That's what we do. Yeah, that's what we do. So what we're going to do today is favorite boxers to watch. Now, here's what I want to pitch this to, because I know we got a lot of people who are more MMA centric than boxing. Yeah, they're like we do. So what we're going to do today is favorite boxers to watch. Now, here's what I want to pitch this to because I know we got a lot of people who are more MMA centric than box. Yeah, they're like, oh, I can go shit now. Right. Right. But here's what I want to do. This is my list to you

as an MMA fan, which is to say I have, I don't know about BC, but I have structured my list as like if I wanted to actually recommend someone to you that when I knew you watch them, i would have no worries about you enjoying what they were capable of or you need as an mma explain why they should be right it's just very easy to watch so with that in mind bc i don't know how you constructed

your list this was fun obviously it's a boxing one so it was up my alley but it was so hard to come up with five i can give you like eight more names that deserve to be here like fundora you know what i'm saying he would be close to my list as well, but I didn't have him. All right, let's start at number five, and let's start with some royalty. I'm talking about Chocolatito Roman Gonzalez. He's still going, and he's going to have a December trilogy, I believe, with Juan Francisco and Strada. But Chocolatito is as regal and classy and royal an all-time great elite fighter as this game has ever seen and

the fact that he's operating in his twilight still at such a high level it's so fun to watch if you've never heard of this guy he came from Nicaragua and it became a long time through his success before American TV got a hold of him before he became a co-main event to some triple g pay-per-views or HBO put him front and center you had to get illegal stream. But you're looking at one of the most successful boxer punchers who went on to become the pound-for-pound king despite coming out of those small weight classes. And even all the way up to his run in the two-fight series against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai,

both times going the wrong way of Chocolatito, but just, you know, he got knocked to hell in the rematch. The fact that he's been able to come back and make great fights is a testament to his all-time great chin, will. Why is he fun to watch? Because his combinations are some of the most beautiful packaging of footwork, classiness, technique,

and just raw power. He's one of those rare guys, Luke, he's won titles in three or four weight divisions that every time he steps up, he brings that power with him. And getting to see him navigate his 30s in a division here at 115 where he can get into trouble. He can find the wrong guy on the wrong night. He's shown an all-time great ability in his senior years to still ratchet it back up.

There is no more elegant butt fighter. Sort of like saying, you know, Darryl Strawberry's swing, Luke. It's just a thing of beauty to watch in baseball. Watching Chuck Luchito game plan, figure you out, make adjustments, and then walk you down with a high work rate and a high technique.

It is just beautiful to behold. For number five, for me, I'm going to go with Oleksandr Usyk. Now, there's going to be a Oleksandr Usyk. Now there's going to be a theme to the five that I pick. Usyk is a little bit less than the other four in this regard, but still very much of that part. Obviously he unified all the titles at cruiserweight, and here he is up at heavyweight doing incredible things. Usyk, why would you love him? A technician's technician, the kind of guy when I want to see when other boxers say,

hey, you got to stop and watch this guy. Of course, Vasily Lomachenko, his Ukrainian, uh, brethren also of that ilk. This is not the same kind of fighter in that way, but the way he was able to undo the potential powers and the, uh, of a guy like, uh, Joshua, but before that don't Tony Bell you and goes on and on and on. He can, he can lower the boom when he has to. He can box on the outside when he has to. He's got tricks like you wouldn't believe. Good footwork, good defense. He's a bit of a weirdo. You just know if he's in a fight, you're in for something special with a guy like that.

So for that reason, he's my number five. He's an all-timer. Let's go. Let's move this along, BC. I'm sorry to bother you here, Luke. Number four on my list of must-see. It's the king of the junior middleweight division, 154. he's an all-timer let's go let's move this along bc i'm sorry to bother you here luke uh number four on my list of must see it's the king of the junior middleweight division 154 it is jermell charlo and i don't think you'd be surprised that we consider him among the 10 15 best fighters in

the game today maybe you're surprised that he's must watch like on this level on my list here's why yes a rare combination at the elite level of speed, power, boxing ability, IQ. No question about it. But nobody in this game today, maybe outside of his brother, Jermall, fights with as big of a chip on his shoulder as Jermall Charlo. And what we've seen from him at the highest level is anytime he's had a setback, the disputed loss to Tony Harrison or the draw in the first fight with Castaño that could have just as easily been a loss,

he has regrouped, come back in the rematch, and won it by knockout. The reason to me why he's so fun to watch is because there's flashes at times. Think that original title run at 154 when he was knocking out Erickson Lubin with one punch, knocking out Charles Hatley with a vicious combination. He'll go on stretches where he will look like he's close to completely figuring it out and leaping into the top five or 10 of the pound for pound. But I'll have a step back here and there and watching him navigate that where he still can be vulnerable at times. He still fights with such a chip on his shoulder. They can be overcommitted at times. I still think here's a

guy who has yet at 32 to really author the best performance of his career. And when he does, if he does, he's going to go to another level. He fights angry, yet at the same time, he fights efficient and with skill. And he has become over this stretch such a dangerous counterpuncher who can finish you with the perfect shot. Sometimes he'll give up rounds and take a whole fight to try to find that moment. And that can be frustrating when he doesn't get that moment. And sometimes you go, wow, maybe he needs to make adjustments.

But when he's on, he shows you brilliant flashes of greatness. It's always must-see VTV as our studio falls apart in front of me. I mean, when Jermell's on, you've got to see it, Luke. There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it. How many unified champions are there? Undisputed. Undisputed, excuse me.

So there's him, Canelo. Who else? Josh Taylor was, but they stripped him him right uh we're hopefully going to get one at heavyweight the point being is there's there's a handful or less Devin Haney Devin Haney and we're going to get one at 118 when Paul Butler fights Inoue or potentially at heavyweight if they make Usyk Fury but you get the idea there's not many of these guys so when they compete it's important to watch them for me number four easy on this one the Chechen Hammer out of Canada how about Artur Beterbiev or Beterbiev or however you want to pronounce it? This guy is one of the only world champions, I believe, with a 100% finishing rate, right? He does nothing but

put competition away. And he has done it through some adversity before being cut before being, not necessarily being dropped, but having guys try and just get him off of their personal space but over time he is a fucking terminator if you've never seen some of his workout videos on youtube look it up he has this insane spartan but bizarre regimen that he goes through where he is doing push-ups off the back of his wrists and he's rotating a barbell, which is 45 pounds and long and difficult to control. And he's twisting it over his hand like it's nothing. All kinds of weird stuff. He has relocated to Canada.

I would say that's his home. He has a friendship, by the way, with George St-Pierre. There's a whole video about it that Top Rank put together on YouTube. But if you've not seen Artur Betterbeave, I don't know what you are waiting for. The 175-pound dude. Now, he might match up with Bivol. We'll see what happens there. He's going to be fighting Anthony Yard in a title defense coming up.

It was a nice run for Yard, but it's going to come to a close. And he's going to end up fighting, hopefully, the winner of Dimitri Bivol versus Zerto Ramirez, which is going to be a good fight. So we'll see what happens there. But it's sort of presumed that Bivol and Beterbeev are the two guys at 175. But of those two, there is one Russian dude who just walks everyone down and has vicious, crippling power, and that's Artur Betterbeave. And two fights ago, he looked like he was getting old because he's 37.

But then rallied in his last one. Not rallied, but showed better life in the last one. Against Joe Smith Jr. to unify belts. He's got three of the four at light heavyweight. It's going to be fun to see if he gets that chance. I don't think Canelo should go near him. I think you should go to number three. All right. Let's go to be fun to see if he gets that chance. I don't think Canelo should go near him. I think you should go to number three. All right.

Let's go to number three on my list right here. It's the only overlapping one we've seen, and that's heavyweight champion Alexander Usyk. Folks, what you're watching here is strictly, without question, one of the all-time greatest fighters in any weight class to do this. He was an Olympic gold medalist from the Ukraine. He became the first four-bell undisputed cruiserweight champion and went through a tournament of death in the world super series, a world boxing super series tournament to beat

and unify unbeaten fighter after unbeaten fighter. Then he knocked out Tony Bell, you and put him into retirement. And then he moved up to heavyweight and look what he's done since consecutive wins over Anthony Joshua. He's got three or four heavyweight and look what he's done since. Consecutive wins over Anthony Joshua. He's got three or four heavyweight titles and a chance potentially here to try to become the heavyweight undisputed champion if he can get Tyson Fury into that ring. But in the super heavyweight era where everybody's above 6'5 and jacked with power and a lot of other attributes, he's a 6'3 southpaw who comes from the same Ukrainian amateur system, Islamachenko and Popachenko, the trainer, and has adapted that to the heavyweight division now in ways that outside of Tyson Fury, who is a unicorn himself, not only is there no one that can stand up to him now, but even historically, you've got to go

through and find a guy who maybe has that technical ability, but do they have the size? Do they have the speed? What he does with his footwork patterns and the variety that he can do with his hands is just masterful. And I think the fact that he doesn't have a punch that's considered a one-punch threat at heavyweight, and although he's got a good chin, he doesn't have the type of resistance

where he can just go toe-for-toe with the biggest puncher. It adds more potential vulnerability into his fights and makes what he ultimately does. And don't forget, he took big punishment against AJ in winning that first fight, but just didn't really show you that he did. We're watching somebody who is constantly daring to be great and might actually be the greatest cruiserweight fighter

in the history of the sport. May have eclipsed Evander Holyfield in some people's eyes for accomplishments and who they be and when. A genius. I mean, an alien, but a genius alien. Must see in every aspect. Number three for me, MMA fans.

You have to believe me, and I bet you BC is going to co-sign on this. For my number three, Naoya Inoue, affectionately known as the monster. If I told you that there's a Japanese guy who's 118 pounds and he might be one of the most devastating punchers, not in the sense that he can match a heavyweight punch, but in terms of what he can do to his rivalry or his rival, excuse me, would you believe me? Well, you better. This dude is out of control, crippling power, but here's the other part about it. In addition to being heavy handed, he has guts. He got his face broken in his first fight with Donato De Niro, which he was able to come back and still win in the rematch. He dusted him off like it was nothing to show his

progression. So he's got big power. He's got big guts and he has excellent technique as well, right? He can get into position. He has pretty good defense and he can rise to the occasion when pressed. This dude is absolutely every time he competes, must see television. He currently competes for basically top rank in the States anyway. And that's where you could see stuff is usually on ESPN BC. Am I exaggerating at all that he is again for what this guy can do to his division? One of the best punchers in boxing. No, he's currently my pound for pound King above Canelo's crawford spence and here's the deal on him he is now in his third weight division and he's carried the power up with him like chocolate tito in a scary regard but as you mentioned in the first donair fight we found out how great of a boxer he is how tough he

is he's looking to fight everybody he's going to fight paul butler in december to try to become an undisputed champion at 118. Then there's talk of him going up to 122 and trying crazier stuff. Here's the thing I love about him most. He was a two-division champion before he even had 10 pro fights. He did that sort of Lomachenko fast-tracked where you're like, oh, God, he's 6-0, but he's going to move up to

another weight class. He has frightening power. People jump backwards when they get hit with a shot. Anytime you get somebody in the lower weight class as a Chocolatito now in a new way, it becomes must-see TV just on their power alone. Only these guys happen to be all-time great boxers on top of that. And by the way, we're mentioning Inoue,

not a pay-per-view guy, so you can catch him on regular television. Yeah, ESPN and Top Rank did well in bringing him into the fold with Mr. Honda, his Japanese promoter there. Let's keep it going to my number two. Look, he's must-see TV for his talent. I think he also is for the reality TV part of his life that's following him around, and that's former Undisputed Lightweight Champion Teofimo Lopez Jr.

He moved up to 140. There was some good and bad in his debut, more good than not. He's going to be back Heisman weekend against Jose Pedraza, which is a very interesting fight. But Teofimo is one of the most dynamic young talents we've seen in a long time. Roy Jones Jr. said the only fighter today that reminds him of Roy Jones Jr. is Teofimo Lopez. He's got the quick twitch fibers, the ability to land crazy finishing shots

out of nowhere, and oh yeah, he can also box and has a backbone. But what has happened to him personally getting married at 21 then getting a divorce his family being against his wife losing the title with the heart condition against cambosis it's with everything him and his dad his trainer and you know in the craziness in the corner it's like a reality tv show is it not following this guy with the trailer thing for For better or for worse. I mean, all together, he's a great personality.

He's very mature beyond his years, but he's also personally kind of going through some hell behind the scenes. The fact that he put it all back together and got his career back, I thought was a plus. I don't know, Luke, from here on out. I know he's going to be in big fights.

I don't know if he can be as great as he once showed and teased, but it is fun watching it because he's one of those rare special talents and has the personality to match the backflips, the Fortnite dances. Is it the full package? Look for my number two. This is an easy one for me to pick. How about Errol Spence Jr.? I'm trying to think about the best way I can describe it to someone who's never seen him. He is very, very talented. Southpaw, 147 pounder. We were all are waiting for the, this is the one half of the Spence Crawford equation. The way I like to explain this to someone who's never seen him, has he ever seen that third Matrix movie

where the Sentinels are drilling all the way to the center? I stopped halfway through the sequel. What's the name of the paradise for the humans that's left? The remaining city. What was it called? What was the name of the remaining city? Dude, if you try to think that i recognize any movie after the first matrix as being part of the name of the matrix city that was the human city the only one that's left

it was like nazarene or some shit like that books the point i'm trying to make is the whole third movie all the sentinels are drilling to the core and they eventually make it there's nothing they can do to stop them we're talking about and if BC disagrees, I encourage him to speak up, but I don't think that he will. We're talking about maybe one of the very best body punchers in all of boxing, independent of weight class, but more than that. People talk about his relentlessness, his pace. That's all part of it.

And his devastating body punching, that's another part of it. He is extremely crafty with footwork, combination, angles. He's got one of the most educated lead hands I've ever seen to blind, to blast, to turn, everything he needs to do. Imagine a guy who is a master's more than just a body snatcher he can go to the head and combine everything with inside footwork outside footwork angles pressing turning leaning he's got it all but what really stands out is he puts a pace where he begins to drill on his opponent and all is really in question thus far in his career is what round is that person going to fold in his last fight that we were at, taking on the Cuban gentleman, Ugas, Ugas's eye got destroyed and exploded. Now, he was a warrior and tried to go on, but this is my point. Errol Spence, when he competes, is inevitable. And he does it with absolute mastery of technique, a certain kind of mean streak, and some of the very best body punching you will ever see.

And if you like a great, let's say, recording artist who has a modern rock album, then the country acoustic album, you can go watch his pay-per-view win over Mikey Garcia to see 12 rounds of boxing brilliance in which he was trying to prove a point. Or you can go watch, as long as the Ugas fight lasted, what does he look like when he's a destroyer and he's just walking you down? Dude, Spence could be number one on my list. can do everything he is already in all-time great i'm

telling you this like whether he beats crawford or not they're the sugar ray leonard and thomas hearns of our era they are next level and what they can do he's old school too doesn't he get like that old school air the way he carries himself and the way the city was called zion zion was the name of the city so when the Sentinels are digging to Zion. And he's also come back from a lot of setbacks even if he caused them. Right. He had the terrible accident. Well, he had the injury with his eye and then he had the terrible car accident that he miraculously

survived without significant injury. So we're lucky to be having him. I hope they make the Crawford fight, but I'm telling you Errol Spence is, you cannot miss it when he fights. Alright, my number one of of my favorite boxers to watch today look again this could have been Fundora could have been Shakur Stevenson who I might you know I think might actually be the best the best boxer today he hasn't proven number

one pound for pound but he's the he might be the best damn fighter today but he didn't make my top five when I ask myself I'm really look in the mirror and say, number one, who do you get the most excited to watch? It's Gervonta Tank Davis. It's the complete package of what I'm looking for. An absolute badass who has the coolest tattoo setups and is the southpaw Mike Tyson of the lower weight classes, but oh, at the same time, is also among the pound-for-pound 10 best in this game and can box circles around you if needed. He, yes, has some consistent setbacks outside the ring, but when he shows up inside the ring, he draws a celebrity crowd.

He draws people's attention in ways that today's boxers don't necessarily do because it doesn't matter the opponent, the weight class, or the situation. The bottom line is Tank Davis is an entertainer and he comes in there and he carries that big left hand and he carries it around the entire fight and you're waiting for something to happen. And when it does, you get exactly what you came for. But if he's unable to land that he's just as great, it seems in every other in ring category, chin IQ to me. I mean, the way he is so efficient Canelo, like in the way he'll walk you down and only show throw single shots that matter that will connect everything about him inside the ring is a 10 out of 10 and he's built a regional following going to different cities and selling them out he's starting to build that pay-per-view brand and

bumping it up left and right dude at the end of the day he delivers he absolutely delivers and you can't always separate person from from, but separate from the personal side, when he walks into that ring, he just looks like a superstar. I mean, there's rare guys that just carry that. He's been able to do that at a young age when there'd been a lot of pressure on him to be the next Floyd Mayweather under Floyd's arm.

He's way different than Floyd, but he's lived up in the long run to a lot of those expectations with some setbacks along the way, both in and out of the ring, yet still unbeaten. Here we are, multi-division champion. And he does have some troubles outside the ring. He's got a court case coming up and a trial, I believe in February or no, December, December, excuse me. So he's got some issues, but BC it's imagine if it's, this is not quite

the right comparison, but imagine if Deontay Wilder could box, right? It's something like that. Like he has this crippling power. Like for, for example, oh, God, the knockout loss. Leo Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz loss, or knockout, excuse me, is just frightening to watch him be able to do that. And to see how he set that up for rounds to get to that moment. Yes.

I couldn't put him on my list top five only because the Santa Cruz fight, to me, was great. The Roley Romero fight was not. Dude, Roley fought better than you thought he would. Yeah, but also Tank fought a little worse. Look, Tank needs to step up to matchmaking, and they're trying, and they know, and they're trying to make the Ryan Garcia happen.

I hope that's a fight that can make happen. But he did have three straight pay-per-view fights in three different divisions, so he is trying to do, you know, he's trying. He's trying, Luke, okay? All right, for my number one, let me just say this very quickly this is my favorite combat sport athlete to watch in mma or boxing independent

of it this is the guy right which i normally don't say if i had to pick my top 10 combat sport athletes to watch it's probably going to be 80 90 mma fighters but this guy would be the exception they call him boots geron ennis ger. Jaron Ennis, by the way, is a mandatory, I think through the IBF for Errol Spence, which they may end up making if this Crawford fight falls through, which would just be like my number one and number two guys on my list competing. Let me just not mince words about this. Jaron Ennis is a genius. He is a prodigy. He can do everything in boxing and he can do it better than just about anybody else. He can box.

He can punch. He can move. He has phenomenal athleticism. He's still young. He hasn't taken hardly any damage. By the way, one of the very few boxers who is super damaging, both defensively, well, I should say damaging offensively, but also super good from either stance. You will watch him switch back and forth, Southp Southpaw Orthodox, you name it, and can do everything like he makes boxing look far easier

than it actually is. Now he has yet to face BC. If you want to make a criticism of his career, he's yet to face that a level guy. They keep feeding him guys and they just can't last against them. Not only does he beat them, he makes them look foolish and typically dispatches them within a few rounds. He is exceptional next level. He is the future of boxing. He might be the future next star of boxing. I think that's somewhat debatable, but it's on the table. BC, what do you make of the talent of Jerron Ennis and how bright is his future? I don't say this often, although I've told you Shakur Stevenson right now might be the best fighter in the game. Jerron Boots Ennis is young LeBron.

I don't say that lightly. That's exactly who he is. He's young LeBron on the Cavs coming in on opening night at Sacramento, getting the steal at midcourt and dunking. And, I mean, every time we see him step up and face a different level, Sergey Lipinets, DeLorme, I mean, he's faced the guys he's supposed to on the ride up. He's not just blowing them away. He's doing the Bo Nickel bit.

And he's not just blowing them away spectacularly. He's also blowing them away at the next level in terms of the way he sets up and does things. The future at Welterweight is always crazy fun. And Spence Crawford. And we still got Ugas and Thurman and all these big names around, and there's the names that are coming behind. Boots might be better than all of them, and that's without having really seen him consistently face them.

He's trying. He's trying to fight everybody. He's been trying to fight Thurman forever. He's going the mandatory route to get to Spence. They don't want, no one wants a part of Boots Ennis right now. And they shouldn't, but he's going to work the system in the right way to get that shot, And when he does, and look, he may have to fight Ugas first. He may have to fight Staniosis,

who has a secondary title. He may have to do what he has to do, but you're going to favor him by about minus 500 on most of these steps of the journey. Him against Spencer Crawford is going to be something special. It really is. I mean, as much as we're like,

we've been waiting all these years to have this next generation's Mayweather Pacquiao, which is Spencer Crawford. Not commercially, although it'll be a big fight, but critically as we're like, we've been waiting all these years to have our, this next generation's Mayweather Pacquiao, which is Spence and Crawford. Not, not commercially, although it'll be a big fight, but like critically, it's like, dude, Spence, Boots might just flip. Boots is like, he's like when you had, you had Magic and Bird, but, but Jordan's coming on. Don't you get that feeling? A little bit.

That's not a bad comparison. Yeah. Came in and just wrecked shit. Came in with feels inside. Yeah. Jerron Ennis, that's the guy. All right. BC, it's time for fan subs, my friend. That's not a bad comparison. Yeah. Came in and just wrecked shit. Came in with feels inside. Yeah. Jerron Ennis, that's the guy. All right. BC, it's time for fan subs, my friend.

Let's do it. Let's do it here. MorningCombat at gmail.com every Wednesday is your opportunity to email us, send in your artwork, send in pictures of you in tight t-shirts that you bought on our merch site, morningcombat.store, and we'll probably clown you. Yes, this is called fan submissions. You've got mail. You've got mail. We've got mail.

Viewers. All right, this one's from No Name. Hello, Luke in BC. Hello. And the Degenerate Malka producers. I recently went to the Five Finger Death Punch concert in Tinley Park, Illinois. We can't see it.

Can we put it on the screen? Even though I'm a hip-hop fan. So to fit with the dub-tee crackers that might have been at the Capitol on Jan 6, I wore my MK merch and this lovely hat. Can we go full screen on this? All love to you guys. Thank you so much for making the best damn combat sports show, period. Let's identify this.

He didn't give a name, so we don't know. What was the name of the concert? Newfound Glory? No, he went to the Five Finger Death Punch concert. That's identify this. He didn't give a name, so we don't know. What was the name of the concert? Newfound Glory? No, he went to the Five Finger Death Punch concert. That's equally bad. What do you think of those bedazzled sweatpants he's wearing

along with the MK 1.0 merch? Okay, what's the chance that a guy like this lives with his parents? He's wearing Crocs. Pretty high, right? He's wearing Crocs, Luke. He's wearing Crocs.

Yeah, he lives with his folks. That's okay, though. Okay, we support him, though. Just the same, right? Thank you. Let's go to Penelope. Wow, we have female listeners? Hi, guys. This is my husband, Miguel. As you can see, he's a, though. Okay. We support him, though. Just the same, right? Thank you. Let's go to Penelope. Wow, we have female listeners? Hi, guys.

This is my husband, Miguel. As you can see, he's a huge fan. His best friend bought him the shirt for his birthday, and this past week, he proudly wore it for today's UFC and Bellator fights. He doesn't know I'm submitting this, so if it makes it to the show, it would be a great birthday surprise for my husband, Miguel. Thanks for all the content for always making us laugh. It's Penelope. What a wife.

What a wife. What a mighty good wife. That's not the words, but yes, that is tremendous. Happy birthday, Miguel. Yeah, praise the Lord indeed. Look at that. Look at this family. Look at the cable management. Can we blow up their fireplaces? Everything looks the way it's supposed to. The dog bowls

there, the dog, the child gates, they're on top of it over there, Penelope and Miguel. Happy birthday. Let's go to John. He says, hey, all, first time emailing you guys. However, long-time loyal listener and reader, dating back to well before the MMAB. I'm talking about 2012.

I guess I am a day one subscriber. I subbed September 15th, 2019. My name is John G. I'm from prospect bay nova scotia much better and more excellent area than jp and mount unike i had sent a dm via instagram a while ago but i figured given the number of messages that got overlooked i've attached a pic of me and my trusty mk porn hub hoodie doing yard work after the recent hurricane in nova scotia blah blah blah he's a hobbyist leather crafter look at this wow i'm working on some other things but it was something i wanted to share thanks for all your great content and for helping a fellow mid-40s washed old man laugh a little bit what happened to the picture we lose it let me see this guy's leather hey Hey, man. Watch the leather, right? Look at that, dude.

That's incredible. Yeah, that's pretty great. That and JP made that sign for his outdoors, too. I mean, these Nova Scotians. I never thought of Nova Scotians before. Yeah, also, it's at different times in New York. They're actually one hour ahead of that, I believe. Oh, wow.

What do you call that? Atlantic time, I think. Atlantic time. Okay. Let's keep it going. This is from Rajiv. I know that dude from Las Vegas. Isn't that Dr. Rajiv?

I know this. Yeah, I know this guy. He said he went to Mexico for his lady's 35th birthday and was spreading the MK word in the process of exploring. The first picture is me going to tip to tip in front of Chichen Itza, a Mayan ruin. The next, homage to Lakito, double fisting margaritas for the last live show in Vegas. Be easy fellows. Can't wait for the next one. I met this guy in Vegas. Look, I think he's a doctor.

I may have gotten that wrong. Great guy. Always in my DMs. Look at him and his lovely wife came to our live show. He's a doctor? A doctor of what? I think he's like a family doctor. Like a general practice guy. That's what I think. You should come and do a medical checkup for us for free. Oh yeah. Now would you be willing to do an on-air prostate check who the fuck would want to see that maybe rajiv would you know maybe rajiv you're disgusting all

right let's go to uh jp the other nova scotian we got in this house he says good day crew big thanks to rj dunkel gangbang and the mk MK producer Mikey for my promo code the other week. The merch has arrived. He spent a couple hundred bucks on merch, this guy JP. Happy birthday to me, to my beautiful wife Dawn, as she flies out this afternoon for a two-week work trip to Australia. Do you think she's going to Haney Cambosis? Luke, in this household, I have producer credits. Wow, another female listener, Luke.

That's amazing. that's amazing that's amazing and 29 hours of travel later dawn the boss lady paquette is down under wearing our mk merch dude we were at chitsunitsa and now we're at the sydney opera house mk is the new flat stanley right that's that's a little strong it's a little strong okay all right well shout out to jay and dawn just the same she puts up with a lot to have to wear our merch and shit wow christ that's amazing thank you very much pockets you guys are the best all right you they're french canadian like me you know you are not french canadian all right let's go to zach he says not sure if you've been on makwan americani's tapology page lately, but his profile picture is quite hilarious.

I couldn't help but take the opportunity to throw down my first fan sub. This is what BC dreams about when he's in a dollar dog food coma outside of the local Cumberland Farms. Wow. Yeah, well, you know. That is awesome.

Stay creepy, you old bitch. That is awesome. Zach, you might be onto something. Let's go to Peter. What's up, sun punchers? Here's a clip of me rocking some MK merch with the Warfrats, Nova Scotia's Grateful Dead tribute band. Good Lord, Nova Scotia.

Wow. We have to do a show in Nova Scotia. We might clean up. We might get five people to show up. The psychedelic pickguard on my bass is called the Oteel. Yes, a big shout out to fellow mk fan and fellow bassist are we able to hear this otl burbridge from uh you know dead so he's wearing the official luke otl pickguard that our buddy wears for uh for dead

for the dead and company that he wears on the otl and friends tour right now so mk is in the music scene luke do you know this? It is a little bit. It is a little bit. I have a good relationship with the lead singer of Hatebreed. That's fantastic. Jamie Josta, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was just celebrity texting John Gorley from Portugal the Man

the other day talking about some tunes, all right? Is that right? Yeah, that's my guy right there. All right. All right. So he says, this guy Peter says, I hear that 2023 will be the Dead & Company's farewell tour. So, Oteel, if you feel like a night off, I'd be happy to, quote, fill in.

Phil, like, P-H-I-L, Phil Lesh, you know? I do love Oteel, but I got to tell you, I'm just not a fan of the Grateful Dead music. Okay. He was in the Allman Brothers, too, with the longest reigning bassist. Allman Brothers, I have, no, who did I see in concert? Was it the Allman Brothers? I saw Drive-By Truckers open for, I think it was the Almond Brothers

in Virginia Beach. Nice. I saw them open for Charlie Daniels one time. I was drunk as shit. Dude, Charlie Daniels still brought it. This was like 2002. He wrote three different songs about Dale Earnhardt's death and was playing them all. It was like the most focused... I had a friend

who was a hardcore NASCAR fan when Dale Earnhardt died. You know how the Brits wanted us to care about the Queen of England dying? It was like, I just don't care. I'm sorry. The people in the South tried to make Dale Jr.'s or Dale Sr.'s death like Elvis's in a way.

Oh, 100%. It was like a super, like a head of state had died or something. Yeah, that was a PD from Shubankati, Nova Scotia. Shubankati? Shubankati? I don't know. Dunkelgangbang.

Is this like the maritime area of Canada? Well, it's just, it's over the... That's where Jake Von Amsterdam's from. And character, I think. Can you go to the next one? All right. Let's not. This is Danger Mouse.

Hi, BC. I'm back. I figured if Mikey could take a vacation, so could I. Plus, Mikey took like a two-week vacation. I mean, Mikey just was like, I'm not coming back. Plus, you haven't been giving me much to work with of late. If you could try and say more dumb shit, that would be greatly appreciated. Anyway, just this one from me.

The MK team at the first Only Pipe social gathering. Oh, my God. Wait a second. Who am I not recognizing in the bottom right there? That's Rafe. Oh, that's Rafe. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. Wait a second. Who am I not recognizing in the bottom right there? That's Rafe. Oh, that's Rafe. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.

Look at this man spreading. I got to tell you, this is uncomfortable. There's a lot of man in that picture. Look at how chummy, though, Abron and Danny are. I'm also worried about Chuck. He's lost a lot of weight. That's not normal. I need a hand check on Luke right there.

I mean, look at it. You got your hands right on Rafe's. Danny Segura is the one who's a little bit too complacent. I think he likes what AB can do for him right there. I mean, look at it. You got your hands right on. Danny Segura is the one who's a little bit too complacent. I think he likes what AB can do for him right there. Yeah. By the way, I'll tell you what. Shouts to Danny Segura. So he heard us talking about how my favorite fight was Lesnar-Carwin.

Yeah. He actually had the poster for that unused. He sent it to me in the mail as a gift unannounced. Unannounced. What a guy like Danny. So shouts to Danny Segura. He's a real one. Alan with an E.

He says, tis the season for Halloween, donks. Here are some horror-inspired memes. Hey, BC, you haven't said anything for 40 minutes. Best show ever. That's pretty good. Wait, wait, wait. Go back. What was the crawl?

You want any of your chicken out? I want all your kids. All right, what's next? I've got to blow it up. Even from here, I can't read. I have come here to vape and complain, and I'm all out of vape juice. This is from John Carpenter's They Live.

Yeah, that's Roddy Piper. Yeah, yeah. By the way, great movie. John Carpenter did a good job with that movie. Great movie. Alan has one more to close. He says, in last Friday's show, I do with that movie great movie alan has one more to close he says in last friday show i do like that movie it's funny yeah and the fist fight with uh his friend in the alleyway yeah episode 238 during the dead wrong segment luke said he has zero shame about

begging advocating or whatever you call it for those award votes that's right here is luke campaigning for those votes hey man you got any votes got any votes? I got these cheeseburgers, man. Come on, I'll... I might have to do something a little bit unsavory. Oh, you're talking about S-A-D? I might have to S-A-D. That's right. I gotta tell you, metaphorically speaking, I'm happy to do that. Yeah. I'm happy to do

that. I mean, I don't know if we get the credit our fans deserve for making us the best sports podcast I think globally from the from that last award yeah and now from the people's choice podcast look we're the best sports podcast in the world my favorite is how often work sends out press releases about our successes yeah yeah that's all right i mean do you think we only won because our fans created 50 dummy email addresses each okay so the answer to that question is yes.

But each award had different, like the most recent one, they had only selected. The point is we obviously advocate, we probably do better than we ordinarily would by virtue of advocating. I have no doubt that's true. But if your listeners or viewers

are still willing to do all of those steps, that's the story. The story is that they're that loyal, that committed, that they lift us up that steps. That's the story. The story is that they're that loyal, that committed, that they lift us up that high. That's the story. That's the story. Everyone wants to make it out about us, you know, banging pots and pans for it, which we do.

But the real story is you can bang that all day. If people don't care, it doesn't mean anything. The fact is that they care. Name seven MK fans that you like a lot. Okay, well, you can exclude my family. Okay. Let's see. Danger Mouse. Yes. Jay Paquette. Yes. Rajiv. Well, you're just

Hold on. Hold on. This is like the last three fans. Melissa loves nachos. Oh, okay. That's four, right? Bill and Jen. I haven't heard from them in a while. I think they live in Pennsylvania. I know. They kind of have fallen off a little bit. They sold the RV. And then this is easy. WebScreen. All right. All right. Now, I couldn't name anyone else here on staff that that would be would you agree that he likes

racist soccer look we talk a lot about that the mk donk of the year running and don't forget two years ago it was web scream yeah last year it was damian the donk that's right got the tattoo this year we always talk about davidleton, Jay Paquette, right? Are we forgetting Christian DeGiro, who not only showed up to our live show in Vegas, but wore the MK badge on his D when he won that amateur fight? Is that Snick Diaz on Twitter? Yeah, and he wore an MK shirt while sparring with Tony, or working out with Tony Ferguson.

That's pretty good. That's Tony Ferguson. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. What do you think? Hold on. If he's watching, can you send me footage of the fight? I would love to see it. Can we do a dissected on his fight? I would happily do that. Yes, I would happily do that. So here's the deal. Pieces. In the past, I think

the first two years, the votes were obvious. We knew who was going to win. We didn't even vote. We're just like, oh, it's Webb Scream. It's the other guy, you know you know damien i sent you some of damien's stand-up comedy it was very dick heavy i did watch it yeah he talked a lot about his micropenis they have stepped up so much not just in voting us into every award possible we might win best supporting actress soon because these people are so crazy we should do an award show almost like a debate where they come on on zoom and they, you know,

they get a chance to, to debate their case, to be donk of the year. And then I can just hang up on them. And then we let like the fans vote live. Do we have some like apparatus where people can vote live during our, our like live studio episode where, I mean,

we can't fly them in and do, and we can't do high court with them, but they can get high if they want. Would you be interested in some like blowout end of the year? Not only do you have to prove that you're the donkey, you've got to come on our show and explain exactly why. Russell from Georgia is in this conversation? That's the Elvis guy.

This might surprise you. My answer to that question is yes, I would be interested. I would be interested in doing that. I wouldn't mind giving back to the fans that way at all. You're like, as long as I don't have to touch them, as long as I don't have to really give back to the fans. As long as you are one foot distance at all, one arm's length distance at all times, please. Hey, don't forget that old guy who got their

first at a live show in Vegas and sat in the front row with his tattooed wife. That guy was real nice. It's possible that that guy could end up in a window in a hotel overlooking a country concert one day, but I liked him. Alright. If this is our last a country concert one day, but I liked him. All right. If this is our last show, it was a nice run.

I mean, that's the best two hours of your day. You gotta do it. We'll be back on Friday. By the way, Chuck Mendenhall, as he indicated, will be here later. We got some special stuff we're going to be shooting for you guys that will be out very soon. I want to remind you, you can reach the show morningcombat at gmail.com. That'll be for Friday's Dead Wrong or today's Fan

Subs, but next Wednesday anyway. Let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. Go to showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Shouts to Moneylion for giving the show money. Moneylion.com slash morningcombat. There's info in the description box.

We're looking forward to that. Holy Hammer. We got a new thing. The Hammers. It's Hammer time Holy Hammer. We got a new thing, right? The Hammers. It's Hammer time. You can drop the Holy Hammer thing, but you can follow us on socials there, including TikTok. There's the old TikTok right there for Morning Combat.

PC, any final thoughts? I love being in the studio with you. Yeah, me too. I like it. Luke, there's a lot about me that you don't like, but sitting across from there in the studio is the time that you're most engaged. I like most things about you.

Oh, thank you. That's a lie. I like some things about you. Oh, thank you. That's a lie. I like some things about you. It's just the people in my house that don't. No, they're very supportive. I love you. My wife and kids would have been in that dock. They just refused to be. That was the difference. Yeah. So Zoe and Molly, the animals, showed up. A lot of people saying,

where's Reggie Jackson? You know, it's a good point. It's a good point. Where is Reggie Jackson? So Molly got a new dog bed, but Reggie Jackson now sleeps in there all morning. So he doesn't show up during our show time anymore and cry like he used to. My daughter does. So there's that. There you go.

All right. Let's see. That is it for me. That's it for Brian Campbell, the King of Connecticut. We'll talk to you guys on Friday. You don't even know that guy in the corner. You don't even know if he's working anymore, if he's alive. I don't even know if he's alive.

Yeah, that's great. I have seen. He looks like someone at the train station every time. He's just living on the benches. Dude, how about that hotel down the road, the Hyatt House? They put you and I up. They put us under the tracks. Saturday night, they put us, the room we were next to each other, that overlooked the train platform.

So, like, you're eye level with the train, with the people that are up on the platform about to get on a train. Yeah. So let me explain how this worked. If the people arguing didn't keep you awake, the train rattling the entire building would. So thanks to the folks at the, I may have screwed us.

Cause when we checked in, I was like, could you give us that room? You know, that room that the corner was like, fuck you, bitch. They have a corner room that the glass goes from floor to ceiling on both

walls, looking at the Manhattan skyline. It's like, if you can get it, it's tremendous. Yeah. They have a corner room that the glass goes from floor to ceiling on both walls looking at the Manhattan skyline. It's like it's a million dollars. If you can get it, it's tremendous. Yeah. They didn't give us that. They gave us the opposite one of that, as a matter of fact. All right.

For Malka, for Showtime, for CBS Sports, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. We'll talk to you guys on Friday. Until then, may all of your gains be loyal.