MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Garry vs. Prates Preview | DDP Denies Injury | Jones/Aspinall In Trouble?

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

The guys get ready for the Ian Garry vs. Carlos Prates showdown this Saturday. Heavyweight champions Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall were supposed to square off this summer but what is actually going on? BC and LT dive into what's happening with Jones and Aspinall. Plus, DDP denies injury concerns and says fight announcement is imminent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reveille Reveille Look at us now, tip to tip Oh Jesus Oh Do you want a margarita? Yes My God! It's us doing what we love

2, 3, 2, 3 It's time to bang Oh yeah, get fired up It's Friday, it is time to bang Somebody call Tui, oh good lord He's over 300 pounds Hey it's Morning Combat, it's morning combat. It's Friday, April 25th of the 2025 your boy BC that, uh, that alpha

fella here from the Connecticut suburbs, one half of your hosting duo. The other guy comes from DC. It's took his birthday this weekend. What a time to be alive. Hashtag girl dad, hashtag RIP Kobe. It's Luke Thomas. What's up? How are you doing there?

BC. It went well. How old is to this weekend? Can you believe that I announced that I was having a child when I briefly hosted the MMA hour and, uh, today or this weekend, anyway, she turned six, six years old. Such a great time to celebrate. Alright, thank you for that horn right there. Uh shout out to Tukes. Uh just the

same. Look, we have, I have to, I have to go to her school after the show today to go read to her and her classmates. So, I'm excited. Oh, wow. That's great. That's uh kids. Uh listen to mister Thomas. Uh yeah. Here's the story. Fuck your life. Do not follow your dreams. You'll only be disappointed. Alright. Yeah. In any case, you gotta get to him early. Life. Life is pain and the sooner you accept that, the easier it's gonna be. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Joy and pain. Pump it up. Pump it up. Hey,

we got a great show for you. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna set the stage for UFC KC tomorrow. Ian Gary, Carlos protest get fired up. We got a Connor Ben versus Chris Eubank Jr. All UK, all blood feud preview coming your way. Although you bank just missed weight. Spoiler alert. We will look ahead. You bank loves to spend money before the fight happens. He loves to do that. Oh yeah, great mismanager of the funds right there. Also, don't forget, this Saturday, KSW are gonna give us a strongman MMA main event heard around the world when Pooja and Eddie Hall get together. We'll be on top of that one.

Also looking at your latest news, rumors, and all that. Don't forget though, we close the show with your stuff from the fans. Morning Combat at Gmail dot com is your entry point into our universe. And we're going to hit up your fan submissions, your dead wrongs to close the show. Hopefully you were good to Mikey in the process. I am told multiple times by multiple people who work on the show. That's like, OK, that's show. That's like days. Okay, that's

multiple. That's multiple. That today's batch of fansubs is an all timer. That's what I've been told is an all time. Okay, we did challenge the people. This is great. I'm excited. appear to have answered the call. So I'm looking forward. I think some stuff had to get weeded out. Like, for example, if you're doing humor about like, I'm not gonna name which one, but like terrorist attacks, I don't know if it made it through the North Korean censors here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All your best building seven content is gonna have to sit on the floor for a while. But thank you for playing just the same. We'll see if Daz will get up on that as and hit us up with a dead wrong as well. Yeah, motherfuckers the best. Hey, we got another member of this team and on Fridays you get to see his face hole. Hey, it's Luke, no seat up of the main card minute.

We already know how we got here. No need to bring up any old balls. No, Sita. How the hell are you, brother? Good, man. I'm hyped. Good. Good weekend of fights. Good card this week. Kansas City. Pretty good mix of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Main event. I mean, Ian Gary's probably going to win, right? Looking forward to it. What time is the main card start

this weekend? 9 PM. I'll be live for just the main card this week. Not too bad. Not too bad. Yeah. And also the British boxing main card is noon Eastern. So it could be a full day depending on what you're into for combat over the weekend. I'm actually going to some regional fights on Saturday night. Oh, what promotion? Uh just a local uh like a amateur one. Um out of nowhere, some of my old fraternity brothers hit me up. They're like bro, we're gonna go. We're gonna get a VIP table at these local fights. Do you wanna go? And I was like alright **** I'll do it. So, I'm gonna do it on Saturday night. Yeah. Are you more apt when it's hangout time? When it's the rare hangout time for an old man who's a father, are you going to,

are you more apt to hang out with high school friends, Marines or ex William and Mary, uh, slash fraternity guys? Ooh, well, several of the guys from William and Mary ended up in the Marines. So it's not it's not mutually exclusive, but I would say largely, largely William and Mary. Okay. So that was the best time of your life in a lot of ways then the most formative time of your life. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a little complicated, but yeah. Okay. Okay. At least in the pre-tuki years. There you go. Right there. Okay. I mean, it's a little complicated but yeah. Okay. Okay. At least in the pre-tuki years. There you go right there. Okay. Alright.

We got it all together there. Oh, no. See you at a finally final bit of your attention. Uh. Will you see your girlfriend this weekend? Yes or no? Yeah. Will you? Will you be a good boyfriend this outside of 9 PM to you know,

midnight on Saturday night? Yes. All weekend. Yeah. Gaff main card minute. Maybe, maybe a few of these. Maybe. I mean, guarantee. Might be a few of it. Might be a few of those too, you know, you never know. Chill with that. Wow, wow, okay, here we go. Hopefully all you folks out there are fired up, doing well, excited for your lives and the weekend to come.

Why don't you follow us though? Why don't you spread that love if you are, if you're happy and you know it. Hey, clap your hands right here. Our social channels, our YouTube channels follow what's going on in the extended morning combat universe. Thank you very much. Luke, didn't you have a piece about, uh, Ali act TKO boxing that the

people should probably check out? Yep. There's an update to it. They, uh, it's not great, but I guess we'll see what the ultimate draft legislation looks like. All right. There we go. Uh, all we can do in this, in this climate, in this era, Luke is, you know,

one, one step at a time, one day at a time. Okay. One hour at a time. We're just living in the world of the rich and powerful. You know what I mean? Okay. Given the latest headlines, do you think there will be a scenario where an MK donk gets illegally deported without

due process and then we like become part of the of the story, you know? No, because they're more likely to be Jan Sixers, in which case they've already been pardoned. Okay, well said. There you go. All right, enough politics on the pre show. Why don't we get into the actual gold of what today's offering? And of course, that is topic number one. UFC is

back Kansas City fight night. Everything okay back there? In a fantastic welterweight main event as the TKO takeover hits Kansas City. No, it's not Jamal Hill versus Khalil Rountree, but it's actually a better main event when Ian Machado Gary and Carlos protest face off in this main event. And by the way, this segment, breaking down all things UFC Kansas City, brought to you by Total Wireless,

the official wireless provider of UFC, get unlimited data that won't slow you down. Yeah, we're talking about Total Wireless. Right now though, I'm talking about this fan friggin tastic welterweight main event as we speak right now. Luke Thomas hear me so you won't ask about it in 10 seconds your odds on this main event. Ian Gary minus 142 the favorite according to Draft Kings Carlos protest plus 120. So we are at virtual pickum levels here. But Luke, Ian

Garry has been as brash as ever entering this fight, saying everything from he's more Brazilian than Pratesh to he will become MMA's welterweight goat in just two years. He also said he'll be fighting for the UFC title next if he wins on Saturday. Here's your key question. Is there any part of you that's worried for IMG that maybe he's been a little bit too dismissive about the danger that protest brings before him and maybe putting the cart before the horse as we get fired up for Saturday's welterweight

title contending till well for a guy coming off of a loss and then saying he's going to be welterweight go. Yes, he is getting ahead of himself. I mean, I don't think there's really any question about that. But I'm not otherwise mad at anything he said, which is not to say that I'm co signing it. But he's injecting life and rivalry and youth and vigor and frankly, for whatever other reasons, controversy, you know, attention into this welterweight division

and not by himself, but he's doing a fair bit of it hyping up this main event not ducking any smoke. I'm here for it, I'm here for it. Now, if he falls on his face, that's up to him, but if he succeeds, he will have set it all up by, this advance, not notice exactly, but this advance, lean into what a hero he is and how good he is and And like this brash character.

It's almost like he's still trying to stick it to all the people who came after him for that utterly fraudulent and totally phony media angle about his life. He's still like kind of not on edge about it exactly, but I don't know how they say it BC. Like he still has something to prove about it almost maybe but also like coming off of that shortcut loss, you know, you're the one of the chief proponents

of this idea, namely that even though it is a loss, it was a confidence booster for Ian Gary. And I think he is, dude, he's believing in himself, you know, it's kind of funny. I did some tape study for this one for today's episode. And I did some stuff on my sub stack We're looking at the fights ahead of time Ian Gary I don't know how much he believed in himself as that fight with MVP wore on it was kind of getting away from him a Little bit on the stand-up. He was obviously able to rescue with the backtake in the third but against shop caught

You know, he was like for example BC at the end of the MVP fight know, he was, for example, BC at the end of the MVP fight, he takes MVPs back and he only had one hook. And to me, a more competent grappler would have been able to reverse position. And then, you know, maybe seal the fight right there. He got a little bit lucky with it. By contrast, he ended up in the fight with Shavkat, I think, you know, on his back threatening with a submission. It was a totally different posture, a totally different attitude. And I think he's carrying what he felt like he had in his hand in that moment forward into this weekend.

I think you're right on that because he's not a perfect fighter and you can go back over some of these important step up wins that he's had and pick apart. I just watched the Jeff Neal fight again this morning, a split decision win in which I thought clearly he won it. But the argument at times is does he leave things a little bit too close? Is he too happy disarming his opponent? And is he not putting forth enough threat of a finish or weapons coming the other way?

And I think that what you can say is look, he's not a perfect fighter. There are still either holes or things that will only come through experience, but his poise appears to be a 10 out of 10, his self-confidence a 10 out of 10, and you do have to give him a ton of credit. And he showcased this against Shavkat,

whether Rachmanov was hurt and slowed down a bit or not, is he'll control the terms of the fight. He'll make you play chess and X's and O's with him. Now, Luke, I don't know if this is going to end up burning him one fight where it's too close and he doesn't do enough, but if he can gain anything from that MVP win, which it probably did that propelled him into the confidence of the Shavkat fight, is that when it's close, when it's tight, and it can come down to one or two key decisions, he continually makes the right decisions. So I do have some questions about how confident he's been if he's

going a little bit too far, but there's a reason why, why I learned everything I needed to about him in that Shavkat fight, not a bust. I don't know if he's a champion in waiting. We're going to find that out very quickly. But this guy is a lot better than his haters want to believe. And damn, this is the perfect matchup, especially on short notice. And we've already talked enough about Gary's balls in here, but why don't we show a little bit of sound and react to it about just how confident Ian Machado Gary is. Here's him talking about not only that he prepares to finish Carlos Pratish But forget everybody else Javkat included he thinks he's got the rights at the next title show

Joaquin Buckley barely speaks fucking English and Sean Brady looks like he's out of Lord of the Rings So no one gives a fuck about these guys. Neil Magni's soul here look there's his soul You watched that fight right I did yeah Neil Magni's never been here look, there's his soul. You watched that fight, right? I did, I did. Yeah, Neil Magni's never been the same since I took his soul. It's right there, he's in the bottom of my hand. I've got the whole of Ireland behind me.

I've got Brazil, I've got fucking America in love with me and divided and hate with me because of other things, but at the end of the day, I fight. I'm a fighter who fights the best in the world UFC makes phone call and says hey do you want to weigh in as the backup in Montreal you and Gary gonna be there my flight's already booked is this can we confirm this she says I'll forward you an email so you will 100% be in Montreal 100% Saturday night Carlos Brachis is gonna get his ass handed to him, and I'm going straight

to Montreal because that belt is inevitably being wrapped around my waist. So Luke, the Montreal in question obviously is the Bilal title defense against Jack Delamatt Elena. We could argue, and I think Gary might lose that argument about who has claims for the title over him, but what does that sound tell you about exactly these things we're talking about the confidence level, the preparedness to be the next breakout star should his ability carry that out for him. One thing that I picked up on that I guess I didn't more fully appreciate

without tape study is that Ian Gary, what is he? 27, right? 27 years old. He is on the precipice if he wants to be, if he continues to work at it, he's on the precipice of making a monster leap in his game. So let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. And maybe he feels this and knows this to answer the question that you're directly posing BC, which is one thing that I picked up on on the tape study is he's takedown defense is very good. And his takedowns are actually not bad either, or at a bare minimum, they're well timed.

Sometimes he gets, he's not quite physical with them, but they're very well timed. And he finds himself on the back or on top or in otherwise good submission positions pretty regularly. His problem is the finishing mechanics. It's not refined enough yet, right? Just exactly where your hands are supposed to be, what kind of grip you're supposed to use, how to hand fight in certain situations, how to adjust the lock or whatever,

all the different things that go into proper finishing mechanics. I'm telling you dude, if he works on that, if he actually tightens up chokes, arm bars, and leg locks, and the finishing mechanics that go into it, his game is going to take a quantum fucking leap forward. Like, I didn't think I would ever say that until they did the tape study. I'm like, dude, this guy finds himself a lot in situations where he has discovered, maintained a strong finishing position

and then just can't quite seal it up the way it's supposed to be sealed. I bring this all up to say, I think he probably knows this, not just in that area, but in other ones too. He's never gonna have big power, but he usually doesn't lean far out of the way to counterstrike.

He can often get off at an angle and then throw. Contrast that with Sean Strickland, who does maximum pullback, but there's no offense there. What I'm trying to say is, his game is, there's no offense there. What I'm trying to say is his game is, there's solid foundations everywhere. This next level fine tuning, if he really goes through with it, it's absolutely going to be monumental for him.

And to answer the question that you posed, BC, I think he knows this. I think his coaches know this. I think he feels that way that he's just, I mean, it just tweak a few things and it could have a huge impact. Now, whether or not it'll be a submission finish if he even gets the win over Galak Prochaz,

I don't know, we'll see on Saturday. But I think that, like, where does confidence come from? Yeah, part of it is just a media angle to play up, you know, getting attention. But the other part of it is that that Rachmanov lost BC is a perfect example. There he is on the back trying to lock in that choke. And if he had done it a little bit different, he probably could have got it. And we'd be having a very different conversation.

He knows he's right there. Just a little bit more turn of the screw and he can unlock a true, true championship potential that I think is within him. The same argument can be said about his striking where right now he's so great defensively, he never lets even someone like Shavkat be in their best position to get off their best work. He's very thoughtful on distance angles, but I think Luke, the best part of his actual offensive striking is his kicking game. The body kicks, the constant little defensive jab kicks to hold space. I'm wondering if there's a huge level up to come there. Like is he going to run somebody into a head kick that we didn't expect

and we'll go, Oh, oh shit. He's a finisher now too. So he looks like he's on the burst of budging out, which is busting out, which is why this matchup is so good. Let's hear one bit of other sound from Ian Gary, who does, let's give him credit, travel the world camp to camp, gets the different looks in Thailand or in Brazil or in, you know, he did some time in Kilcliff and maybe they don't love him there anymore for some of the way he behaved, but he seems a willing student that adds a lot to his game. And he actually thinks he's more Brazilian at the moment than Pratish. The dude smokes American cigarettes, drinks Irish whiskey.

Meanwhile, I'm in Brazil having Guaraná, Açaí and Pasoquito. I'm more Brazilian than this guy is. Do you know what I mean? So I'm not only this, I've got his whole country wanting me to win. And I think that's just, look, that's his life choices. I'm not for me to get involved in, you know what I mean? He can do whatever he wants with his life and we can all sit here and talk about it. At the end of the day, Saturday night, he's going to step into an octagon with someone who's a complete professional. I'm going to manhandle him any way, shape, or form I want. I will manipulate him and

there's nothing he can do to stop me. So, Luke, those are bold statements right there, from the nationalism to putting him in the deep end of the water. We have had conversations about protests, who's admitted to smoke 10 to 15 cigarettes a day. What does that mean for his elite cardio? If Gary showed us, like, what's the biggest thing Gary showed against Shavkat outside of his inability

to get overwhelmed and finished? He went five hard rounds for the first time, basically on the title level. Are you feeling right now? And I have a lot of great things to say about Carlos protest. And I want you to share that too. Well, let's open with the potential for weakness. Is this a fight that falls deeper into Gary's hands? The more rounds it goes.

Um, uh, yes, yes. four rounds it goes. Yes, yes. I think for a couple of reasons, one, there obviously are some questions about Proches' gas tank, as these clips allude to. I think the other part too is Gary has more ways to win and can trial and error his way through that. Also what is Proches' big calling card relative to Gary anyway?

He's probably a better boxer, but he definitely has better power. And you wonder how much, if he's forced to labor, how much that might drain over the course. Like even if he has good gas tank BC, like, oh wow, you know, for a smoker, it's pretty good. We could end up saying that, but nevertheless, even for wow you know for a smoker it's pretty good we could end up saying that but nevertheless even for your handheld right but even even with that if he's forced to like constantly wrestle for two two and a half rounds whatever power he's got and that's his calling card it's gonna be very diminished and that's gonna make it a very different fight from that point

on like the reality is there are certain physical aspects to process this game that I don't think Gary can really match. But I think it's wrong to look at this and say, Oh, projects has more ways to win. Hmm, I don't I really don't think that is true. Again, that doesn't mean again, that that doesn't mean that Gary will win, he could make a mistake, catch one on the chin. And you know, the whole shit is over. But Gary, I think could win on the feet if he needs to. And he could definitely win on the ground and you know, the whole shit is over. But Gary, I think

could win on the feet if he needs to, and he can definitely win on the ground if he needs to. And that gives him some real latitude. It is hard to ignore the streak that protest is on. He's, he's 21 and six overall, but all four of his UFC fights and his Dana White contender series, all five in total have ended in knockout within the first two rounds. So we know the explosive power. He even got guys like Neil Magni who went the distance against Ian Gary and the leech and he did it in impressive fashion with that length. Picking apart with big shots.

But we got some sound from Pratish in response to Gary's comments. And Pratish thinks the biggest difference between them will actually come down up here to mental strength. Let's listen in. Just watching your media day from earlier and Ian's media day from earlier. He was saying a lot of stuff, man, like about you. You've heard the comments about being the quitter and he says he's more Brazilian than you. Like, is he making this personal now? No, not really, bro. I don't care about what he's saying, you know. When I step on the octagon, no emotions, no anything, bro. No, he can say whatever he want, but it's going to change. I'm going to step on the cage, I'm going to smash him. I'm going to knock him out.

I'm going to hurt him just because I get paid for that. You know, it's my job. It's my work. You know, nothing because about what he say or things like that. I get paid for that, you know. It's my job, it's my work, you know. Nothing because of what he says or things like that. Yeah, like you lose all the emotion and you kind of just go on instinct when you're in the cage. Yeah, I think when some fighter do things like that, what he's doing is because his mind is not so strong like mine, you know. Because he tried to break my mind and things like that. Because maybe some point of the life or some fight somebody did it with him, you know, and now he's

afraid about me start to do it with him and then he start to do it I'm gonna go there, listen to my music, walk out, step on the cage, and get one more in, one more bonus, knock him out. That's it. Luke, I'm trying to figure out who's in for the Rude Awakening here. I mean, the odds have it so close. We talk about the great matchmaking involved. Gary, of course, taking a chance on multiple fronts, but he wants to stay busy. He wants his last performance to be fresh in the mind of the UFC matchmakers ahead of that Bilal title defense

coming up. So when you look at those odds and how close they are, like, could you see the, like, where do you lean more? That somebody's gonna end up pulling away one-sided here or that this will be a nip and tuck fight that maybe could go five rounds where your decision could go either way? I think that, again, a range of scenarios are possible, but I think one likely one, or at least one more likely than some of the others, is that, like, again, just realistically

speaking, if Prochess just just realistically speaking how is if projects is to win how is he going to win and my answer to that would probably be pressure on the front foot galloping on the front foot and then big power boxing combinations right as you press a guy up against the fence that's gonna be probably his best bet okay so that means Gary now has to anticipate this and he has to have an answer for it and And he does have very good footwork. By the way, if this was in the apex, I might feel a little bit differently about this. But the fact that it's in the big cage where Gary has a lot of room to move and he does have,

by the way, the tape does not lie on this one. He is much faster than Carlos Proches, both faster feet and faster hands. I think that might play a role over time. But he's going to have Proches in his face. Okay. So what I think is actually going to happen is that you might see Gary struggle for a couple of rounds. I don't think that's in any way crazy. He might get dropped or at a bare minimum, you know, he's gonna be trying smothering Prochess and reversing him and then pressing him into the fence and like taking him down and making him work. It's after that that I think it gets kind of interesting, you know, after two and a half rounds, whoever is like winning at the, you know, let's say the four minute mark of round three might be the one that carries it on from there on out. Again, there's so many different ways it could go. But I have a feeling that that early pressure might really give Gary some problems. But once he slows it down, once he's able to see it, once he's able to now adjust to it, and then launch counter offense, particularly on the ground, that is where I think he can do some significant work. Also, assuming he has tightened up some finishing mechanics on various submission threats. So,

I think that is, of all the plausible scenarios, that one to me seems pretty likely. Long Island Luke, would we ever voiced originally the idea that this fight could happen, you jumped in. You weren't even called upon. And basically we're like Ian, Gary by matter. You have mentioned to us off camera that the odds have moved around. I mentioned that minus 142, Gary has the favorite. Have the odds changed in from a betting standpoint

Are you still all or nothing here on IMG? Yeah, so when me and Luke did the mailbag episode last week the odds were a pick them It was minus 112 minus 108 and I said at the time I was like, oh, I think Money will come in on protests and I can get Ian Gary as a dog That was not the case money has continued to come in on Ian Gary. He's obviously minus 142 now. Personally, my feelings still haven't changed. I still think he wins. I got him at minus 125, so it was a good price on him. He took down or he's taken down three of his last four opponents. Protis was taken down in his contender series fight. Also, they land about the same strikes per minute, but Protis gets hit about twice

as more. You should like Ian Gary has ways to get this done, man. And yeah, I haven't flip-flopped on it at all. Really. Luke, part of that, uh, Luke Thomas, part of that Ian Gary has ways to get this done, which I do agree, I think he has more ways is he does. I mean, he, there's been fights where he's gotten hit maybe more than we expected, but when forced to bite down, like he was against Shavkat where there was really going to be no room for big error, just like the Jeff Neal fight, he has an ability to

keep away your best offense. Is there any threat here that this fight is boring because that it will end up being the best style if Ian Gary has the control that he's looking for? Could be. So some of the things that for me that Gary doesn't have, he doesn't have big power, and I know he stopped people with strikes, but he does not have big power. He's got, you know, if you let him land on you, he'll knock you out eventually, but he doesn't have the kind of clubbing power that I think Proches has. His striking offense goes through his leg kicking, particularly that outside calf kick. That's where it all kind of began. So what he does is he stands orthodox. So this lead leg, that one tends to do a lot of the chopping. Well, excuse me, that one he'll switch step and then go to the body. And then the other one,

he'll tend to like calf kick on the other side. In fact, one big problem that he had in the Neil Magni fight is, and you know, by the way, they have a similar opponent in Neil Magni and Carlos Prochez. Prochez to me was a little, not hugely,, they have a similar opponent in Neil Magni and Carlos Prochez. Prochez to me was lit, not hugely, but a little bit better about steering Neil Magni when he was on the fence into his power. Whereas you saw Ian Gary at the time and it was, that was two years ago, but you saw him struggle a little bit and closing that off and forcing him into the power. So this is one of those other things where I'm talking about like tightening up that

doesn't, that doesn't, you know, get what you want. But like the point I'm trying to talking about like tightening up that doesn't that doesn't you know, get what you want. But like the point I'm trying to make is if he gets hurt early or dropped or you know feels the power. Gary is going to try and keep that one at kicking range. I mean, I think that's a very safe bet. Assuming those other things happen first, right? Where he's afraid of the power or recognizes it's a significant threat. He's going to. He's going to be playing a big kicking game with that rear leg.

He'll go oblique kick. He'll gonna be playing a big kicking game with that rear leg. He'll go oblique kick, he'll go teep to the gut, and he'll even go up top to the head at times. So those are really what you're looking at with his kicking game, is the switch step to the body, switch step to the head sometimes, the teep to the all three different locations, and then that leg kick on the outside. That's kinda how he's built it.

I think what I would say to the viewers is given that I've given this, you know, very minimal, but clear roadmap to how he throws these kicks. Let's see what he adds this weekend. And when he adds by the way, BC when he adds foot and hand combinations, because a lot of times what Gary does, this drives me fucking nuts. He just single strikes, he'll land a good one, and then not follow up and land another good one and then not follow up. But when he follows up off of something and puts combinations together, then that's when he does real damage. Is he gonna do that against someone early who's on the front foot against him? To me, Gary wins this fight by solving for that pressure from protest, either in the standup or on the ground,

whichever way you wanna solve for it. But ground, whichever way you want to solve for it. But if that's what he has to solve for, because I don't think he can get off his best offense if he's constantly getting backed up and hurried in that kind of way. I agree. And you don't forget against Jeff Neil, he did introduce to speak on the combos,

you're mentioning that inside leg kick with the instant right cross behind it. So he is adding a lot of different wrinkles to his game. But look, to lean one more time into what protest brings in, momentum matters in the sport. And who has more momentum right now than the fighting nerds? Nobody. There seems to be this joyful, loose, like none of this matters. Let's swing big attitude, which certainly can continue to lift you up. But what if you add that to the four inch reach advantage that Protest brings in? Look at his worst, Ian Gary is boring and doesn't throw back enough while limiting your strikes. Protest may be able

to find that chin a few times early. I'm wondering what that does to the flow of this fight because he's longer than people think and he's patient for a wild man No, there's simply no question about this. I'm glad you brought this up because protest this is key to his style I think you know, I'm not sure exactly where 78 inches on his reach puts him among You know his competitors or the average welterweight more generally, but this is another thing that shows up on tape well to weight more generally, but this is another thing that shows up on tape. Proccess, when he's pressuring, will stand closer and that makes sense, obviously, right, because he's trying to box, he's not trying to kick you as much as somebody like Ian Gary. Ian Gary gives these guys a little bit of room, which

gives them a little bit more room to move and it makes them harder to corral, especially in terms of steering in the direction you want them to go. Do proxesses right up on you, relatively speaking, but because he has such a long reach or at least a relatively long reach here, he's able to make kind of effective use of that still staying relatively safe. So he's got a style where he's got, he stands much closer to you,

relatively speaking than a kicker, but it's still far enough away where, yes, he does get statistically hit a little bit more, but he kind of avoids most of the world, a lot, I should say, a lot of the worst of that by, by leaning on how good his, uh, and how effective his reach can be in that case. So this is a lanky guy who uses that length for the most part, pretty effectively in this aggressive posture. This is what I mean. Gary's got to solve that. If you don't solve that, you can't win. But if you do, I think the world is his oyster on Saturday.

Yeah, this is going to be great, man. I freaking love this fight. I believe there's more to gain for Gary from momentum to the star that he's already claiming here. Luke drinking Coke Zero, okay, with a sister. Luke, remember when my neighbor, Joe the barber, would come out and see me in the morning and he'd go, a sister. Luke, remember when my neighbor, uh, Joe, the barber would, would come out, uh, and see me in the morning and he'd go, how sister, you know what I mean? That was gross. Call the cops on that guy.

That was pretty gross, but I love that guy. Yeah. Uh, damn, this is going to be great. So the more to gain for Gary is the possibility of cutting the line. What I want to see him cut Shavkat. Hell no. Unless Shavkat was still hurt. Let's be fair. Moral victory, yes, but Shavkat rightfully won that fight. It is crowded at the top there with Buckley, with Brady, but as Gary mentioned, he seems to have one up on them. I don't know if he's going to need a dominant, well, he probably would. He'll probably need a dominant win and or finish for this to be likely, but the other people in this division, they kind of laugh at what he's saying, that this victory, if he gets it, should lift him here.

In fact, we have Sean Brady going to IG and dunking on him saying, biggest claim to fame is losing a decision to Shavkat, crying like a baby. He didn't get a title shot off of a loss, and now he's claiming that he will get the title if he beats number 13. Make it make sense Zero top five wins calls himself an elite striker, but held on for dear life against MVP Look, these are not incorrect facts, right? Like there is a case against it and we have one more and then I'll get your reaction This is new manza Joaquin Buckley saying just don't get knocked out because Ian buck versus cuck for the belt

Just don't get knocked out because Ian buck versus cuck for the bell. Going feed nations. Yeah. Tell them about it. Buckley buck versus cuck is fantastic. I can't dude. I gotta tell you, I, I always wanted to see that fight. They almost made the five blah, blah, blah. I really want to see that fight.

I really want it. Cause both are going to talk. Both are on a hot streak. You're relatively speaking. I know Ian's come with the laws, whatever, but you know what I mean? In general, uh, I you know what I mean? In general. Uh, I can't wait to see that one.

Well, speak on the prize here. Where does either man go with a win and is it dependent upon the possibility of a stoppage? I don't think anyone's in title contention here. I think process has beaten good fighters, but his last win last two wins were over at Li Jing Lang, who's just not the same as he once was in Neil Magni. He's got some work to do. By contrast, Gary is further along.

He's got wins over Magni and then Jeff Neil and then obviously MVP. Of course he came up short against Shofka, but he took that one on short notice. This one on short notice. So I think if you're Gary, this puts you into pretty elite potential spaces, you know, top five ish, something like that, right around that area, but it doesn't leap forward, dude. Sean Brady just fucking manhandled Leon Edwards, like manhandled him. He's not jumping Sean Brady. I mean, he might in the site to make, do you let Gary sit out? Or do you

have to make him fight either Brady or the other name we mentioned there. Not who the hell am I thinking of Buckley Buckley sorry Buckingham yeah which one do you think they'd give them the Buckley one is the one I want to see the most Brady to me is in a little bit of a different place also Brady Brady called him out I interviewed Brady one time a while ago and Brady Brady called him out they have the same manager and And so I know that

that's something that he really, really, really wants. And I will tell you like Brady on, you know, on the feet, they'd be curious to see because credit to him. Ian Gary has very good takedown defense, very good takedown defense. But if it got to the ground, Sean Brady would fucking would would absolutely vaporize him, it would be real fucking bad for him. So that makes it, but on the feet, could be a different story and to take down the fence, very good for all these reasons BC. This welterweight division is reborn. We talked about

this a lightweight a million times. I know it sounds like a broken record, but look at how much better a division is when there's effective turnover. When there's effective turnover from one generation to the next, it's so much goddamn fun. One of my favorite times in a fighter's career is not just when they win the belt and they're on their title winning ways,

it's the path to it. What did they do to it? How did they make you reimagine who they are? How did they confirm who they are? What did they do along that path? To me, that's the thing that says the most about them and for a very real but otherwise brief blemish, Ian Gary has been extremely impressive and I think a good win here. Should he be able to get it gives him so many options but it's the Buckley one that I

wanna see the most. Yeah, I'm not against all of that and protest would be further away but boy, boy would his name take a huge leap with a win here so let's talk about it. Nocedo believes it's Gary by stoppage in the second half. Luke, I recognize the danger protest brings. There's a lot of ways he could make this hell for Gary and expose him because if he gets to that chin, he does it calmly with that length and boy does he close that gap and land big shots. But I think Gary's defensive intangibles, the IQ, the evolution,

it is going to be too much. And I think it may even come down to the too much level that he gets a late submission. Long Island Luke updating me, he's actually going Gary by decision, so I misread his early comments. So, Nocita's got Gary by decision. I'm gonna go Gary by fourth round, rear naked choke. It would say a lot about where he stands in this division if he did exactly what I'm saying. Luke Thomas, I know you believe protest is in this fight and you're damn right he can win it. But who does win it Saturday night? Give me Ian Gary. Give me Ian Gary. I like Ian Gary.

I think that he's got real limits that I have picked up on on tape. And I'm sure, you know, his coaches and everybody else who watches tape has as well. There are things that I think are like so frustrating to watch and in particular, the most frustrating thing to watch is his improper finishing mechanics on submissions.

But these things can be worked on, they can be tweaked, they can be improved and all the other pieces around it, or at least many of the other pieces, they're already there and not just there, quite good, very good. Man, I'm telling you, I really believe, I don't know if this is the fight or not

because he could get slept in around. It really is, you know, protest is dangerous. That's exactly what he is But Ian Gary to me has what it takes if he can really really make up make a make a move here and work on his craft He can be something special in this division whether it starts on Saturday, you know I guess I'll have to see the complexion of the fight But I do think he gets his hand raised a long out look lightning quick response from you complexion of the fight, but I do think he gets his hand raised. Long Island Luke, lightning quick response from you. We're going chalk here, the slight favorite, the three of us.

But the fighting nerds are red hot, people love Protis. What do you think has been the pulse of the Donk Nation on who wins this on Saturday? I think majority of people are going Protis, but again, I don't know if it's just because he's such a fan favorite and people don't like Ian Gary. I think people are letting that get to their heads too much. I mean, look, I'm going to be honest, like Ian Gary is a pompous POS and a lot of times like he's he's hard to be fully, you know, on board for in terms of sharing. But the dude's pretty damn good.

And I think he's on his way to great. Luke, when you look up and down the rest of this Casey Fight Night card, I don't think the names good or great will appear in much of our analysis. But we're not here to go on about that. We know what era we're in now. Let's talk about the fights. Let's talk about this co-main event when former title challenger Anthony Smith is a plus three 50 underdog against Jiang Min Yang, who's a nearly five to one favorite at light heavyweights.

Make me care about this. Luke. This one's a weird one to be honest with you because, uh, Zhang Min Yang is not good. He's not good. He's not, he's not, he's not very good. Uh, the nickname is amazing. Mountain tiger. That's a fucking sick nickname. Yeah. But listen, he is gonna stand in the pocket and fucking trade and he does have decent punching mechanics. He's not like completely wild, like he'll throw straight hooks and you know, he puts things together, got a little bit of head movement, but really not much mostly just gets tagged and then

fucking baits guys into brawling with him and then you know, more often than not, he wins, but he's not very good. But you know, in terms of total upside or at least what they, whatever, in terms of their potential, Anthony Smith, I think will probably end up going much further than Zhang ever will. But you know, this is his retirement fight and it got his stats are so upside down, Anthony Smith strikes landed per minute, 3.2 strikes absorbed 4.8 Jesus.

That's a negative differential in a way that's kind of remarkable. So to me it's like the you know a better version of Anthony Smith would wipe the floor with this guy. But I just don't know where Smith is at. I do think the odds are a little crazy because I'm gonna say it again like on the ground. The the odds are a little crazy because I'm going to say it again, like on the ground, the Jiang's not good. He's not, he's not, he's not good.

So Smith might be able to get a submission here. Um, but it's a weird fight because it's just, you know, the end of the road for a guy who, um, you know, had, I think a pretty respectable career, but it appears to be, you know, it's time to close it off. So Smith is 36. He's officially lost two in a row and five of his last seven in totality. He did submit Vitor Petrino. He did get a split decision, went over Ryan Spann and a lot of those were finishes.

Luke, this, I don't know if Smith can take shots anymore. You know, the fights of late for him, he comes in ready to go. He's always gonna go through hell if he has to, but it feels like he's in hell quicker each fight, and then he's in the fetal position, and you're like, damn, man, this guy is willing to take too much.

We get there quickly lately, Luke. I don't wanna see that again. Yeah, I don't want to see that again. Yeah, I don't want to see that again either. I mean, he's a great guy. I love this guy. I know he wants to start a, a regional slap promotion. Good Lord, Anthony, come on man. You got to be better than that. So really, really remarkably bad idea, but you know, it's probably a good idea that I think at this stage of his dude,

Lionheart has what he's got fucking more than 50 fights or just about 50 fights. I mean, excuse me, what am I even saying? Closer to 60 fights at this point. So, um, so wait, he said on Ariel this week that half of his fights aren't even on like topology or anything he has closer to 65 pro fights. Jesus. Yeah. Great.

Yeah. It's time. It's time to, it's time to call it a day, I think. All right. Well, we'll see what happens in here. Luke, I'm sure you have a better thing to say about this featherweight matchup that I think is promising all action in very close odds. Giga Chakadze, who just missed weight according to Long Island Luke for this bout, is a plus 150 betting underdog against the minus 180 David Onama. Luke, you can't argue that the stakes are high in this one,

but can you argue that we should be talking about it? Yeah, I'm, I'm actually very surprised by this one. They have now. Okay. Okay. Before I learned he missed weight, I I'll tell you what I felt like. Uh, and apparently long on Lucas Tongers, he has 15 minutes to, to, to reweigh in. So he might end up making it but before I found that out I was watching tape on Onama and I was like okay it's he's fine you know but I didn't see anything like particularly remarkable about it and then I saw the odds and that they had him as a favorite I gotta tell you again it's not like Chakazi is not without known limits and if he's missing weight and it could portend other issues, well, that's a different

story. But like, if that's not the case, and it's just like, skill for skill, I don't understand how they could make onama a favorite. I find that one to be baffling. To me, Chakazi has shown much higher upside and is much better. But I guess there's a question about like the ground game and like to what extent on that but you know he's often been on the receiving end of a lot of take downs himself like I don't know like let's see what kind of condition to cause

he is in but I feel like if he's in normal condition for we would expect from this career he should win this fight I'm very surprised by the odds. All right interesting stuff right there we also have Michelle Pordeda who lost his eight fight win streak and a stoppage against fluffy Hernandez at middleweight will be a minus 142 favorite against a boost mago met off. Yeah. He's back plus one 20. Look, he may have the name mago met off, but he definitely doesn't instill that same level of fear and respect. Although definitely doesn't instill that same level of fear and respect. Although I respect him, Luke. Yeah.

I mean, he's good. He just has terrible cardio. He just has terrible cardio. Uh, and Michelle Pereira trying to like, you know, fix his game and everything and become a little less insane, but, uh, he also doesn't have great cardio. So, so this fight might suck BC. I don't know. And let's see who gases themselves out on might suck BC. I don't know.

Let's see who gases themselves out on the walk-in. That'll be great. Yeah. Good on route to them gassing out. Like it could actually go either way. So let's be fair to that, you know. Randy Brown, Nicholas Dalby, Walter Wades, Brown nearly a three to one favorite.

Do you care? Yeah. I think Brown deserves to be, I think Brown's a pretty good fighter. Dalby had a moment in the sun where he was pretty good. I think he had a big redemption arc, which is great to see.. I think Brown's a pretty good fighter. Dolby had a moment in the sun where he was pretty good and he had a big redemption arc, which is great to see. But I think Brown's a little bit better than him at this point. All right, 32-year-old Ikram Alaskarov will kick off the six-fight main card in his first appearance since that one-sided first-round KO defeat to the great Robert Whitaker. He, Alice Scaroff, will be a minus 520 betting favorite more than 5 to 1 against the plus 390 Andre Muniz. Luke, the oddsmakers

are telling you this could go down pretty one-sided. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I agree. I mean Andre Muniz had a moment there where he was submitting a bunch of people and you're like, oh wow this guy might be great. Like here comes a middleweight submission specialist. I know we got GM three, but here's another one. I mean, he just kind of fell apart and I don't think he's ever been put back together again. I'll let scare off. All right.

He fell short against Robert Whitaker. So fucking what Robert Whitaker is awesome. Um, Alice scared off me should win this one walking away. I'd be very surprised if he doesn't. Thank you. Thank you. I haven't closed the door. Reggie's here.

You know, he's messing up all my shows this week. Luke. Uh, I got to close the door Reggie's here you know he's messing up all my shows this week Luke I got a lot of. In the room with you there he is you want to see him look yeah let's see Reggie. Come here Reg. Yeah he does he never shows but whole we we got

a long talk about that you know he's very polite and then there he goes all what's up Reggie can you can you put a microphone in his face? I want to hear him purr. Can you hear that? Yeah. All right. An old man and his cat. What a great making that pussy, huh? Obviously, first time for everything, Luke. That's the main card. What do you got on that deep undercar? Should I move on? I mean, what do you got here, Luke? Uh I got a couple of women's fights. Um

of Hey, Chelsea Chandler's back to running the other direction. That should be good, right? Wow. Okay. Wow. I mean, bringing the **** heat this morning. Good lord. Uh nothing. Super great super great. Daman Blackshear is always pretty good. I like seeing him. Chris Gutierrez back on this card. Uh, the fight against John Castaneda should be a fun one. Castaneda, excuse me, should be a fun one. So there's a couple of

decent ones on the prelim card. Um, I don't know if long on Luke, you got any bangers that you got your eye on on that prelim portion of the card? I mean, the featured prelim, although both guys have retired from their professional MMA careers and come back. Jimmy Flick versus the card. I mean the featured prelim, although both guys have retired from their professional MMA careers and come back, Jimmy Flick versus Matt Schnell, I mean that's just gonna be a barn burner. Matt Schnell should beat him right? He should but one of them is getting put to sleep let's be real. Also I want to say just no idea how this fight's gonna go don't even really know one of the guys but Evan Elder versus Gage Young, Elder versus Young that's a great gimmick fight right there. You know that I think the Elder is going to pull it off.

Is that what we're reduced to now? I wish I could talk. I mean I've tried to get worse jokes over but uh wow. Did you see those two? I think they were either college or maybe now they're NBA players. One was a white guy whose last name was his last name is Dick and the other one was black and they did. Yeah, they did the black dick. Uh yeah. Yeah. BBC Jersey Swap. Yeah, I'm done with that Luke. I'm done with the believe it. Uh alright. So that's your UFC Kansas City card. Uh Pollyanna Viana is on

there. Luke, your guy Cameron Kansas city card. Pollyanna Viana is on there. Look, your guy Cameron Simon's back. You didn't mention him once. Yeah, for good reason. I'm not, I'm not mad at him or anything, but. Okay. Luke, let's go to topic number two. Is there big trouble in a little China, a little China when it comes to making

the biggest fight they can, John Jones versus Tom Aspinal. Well, look, there's been trouble for a while, right? It hasn't been made yet. Although I have to believe the expectations of this thing going off November and MSG are somewhere percentage wise. The question is how high Luke, because one day after publicly declaring that Jones Aspinall was signed sealed, delivered and ready to be announced, Chelsea on a pulled an about face. This did not

take place at the Luxor, but he's now reporting that a Tom Aspinall serial gone interim heavyweight title fight is what really is on pace to be next. I think you add into that reporting for Mario Juan in the last two days that suggests the UFC has done everything in their power to do this fight and that the blame should probably shift toward John Jones. Luke as we stand right now April 25th 2025, read through the tea leaves here. What's the best you can do to try to surmise what is really happening and whether this is on pace to be a monster, monster disappointment in the fact of

the fight, not going off. I mean, what is the reaction of the fan base going to be if they make Aspinal gone BC? What would the reaction of the fan base be? Especially for an interim title. I mean, I guess that interim title. Oh my God.

I mean, what would be worse? What would be the fan reaction worse if it was a full title meaning Jones is done or an interim title meaning Jones is still negotiating. I don't know. Like, is it just public negotiation? Yeah. I mean, I think it would be bad either way, but like just sort of game it out.

If he got the interim title, you'd be frustrated, but there would still be a lingering hope that John might fight at a later time, right? Cause it's the interim title still being on the line. It would be absurd to have to defend the interim title that many times. And by the way, I just want to point this out. Remember John was like, I don't even know why they created an interim title. Yeah, this is why.

This is why. Because you won't defend it. So somebody's got to, right? That's the whole note. I remember when they created that title, I was like, yeah, they didn't even need to create one. No, they actually did. They actually did.

That was one of the few interim titles in retrospect. You're like, wow, that was actually a good call. That was actually a really create one. No, they actually did. They actually did. That was one of the few interim titles in retrospect. You're like, wow, that was actually a good call. That was actually a really important one. That one was quite necessary. On the other hand, BC, if you end up getting a spot where you get Aspinal gone, but it's for the full on title, okay, now you can move on. Now, whatever was going to happen is passed and you can just move on, but we'll have waited all this time. John is just by Fiat and sitting around potentially going to break the record for the longest title reign and he did it against a guy who's got, you know, at best blue belt level grappling and serial gone.

And I think even that I think is a promotion. And then in, you know, the corpse of Steve Bay, me, OCHE and he might be the longest reigning champion. And then for him to bail, if that's the what ends up happening in the end, even after the UFC has reportedly made efforts at you know, I do not believe that they're offering him 30 million. I don't think that's really at all true, but probably, you know, a historic payday relative

to what the organization has historically paid out. If you get to that point, I think there would be extreme disdain towards John. But you know, I've lived already be disdain for everybody that we're at this point, and we still don't even know if this fight's gonna happen. Like, not not for Tom, not for Tom. Okay, Tom's doing anything he can do. So no, wasting his prime. What the fuck is he supposed to do? I'm saying they're, they're fucking them over.

This whole situation is fucked. It's like now the latest news wants you to pick basically, are you blaming UFC or you blaming John? I'm blaming them all. Like make just, just like make the decision, please. Yeah. Can we figure this out? I guess what I would say is, you know, I don't know what the UFC can tell us.

I don't know what they can't tell us. But it just feels like we never get any information about anything and where this is going. And I understand again, a lot of this has to be kept secret. They're working. And if the UFC is really put on a full court press on him to like, hey, we're going to make you going to offer you more money. You know, we're going to put it, I'm going to guess they're going to want to put it for Madison Square Garden, blah, blah, blah. But this is what I mean about all of these like social media posts where these guys meet with Hunter and Dana or whoever. And then they come out there,

they'll be like, stay tuned, big announcement. And then it's like six months passes and there's no fucking announcement. I have no tolerance for that anymore. It doesn't mean anything to me. Either give us information that we can use or make a decision and move on. But like, dude, we've just been,

like John Jones and heavyweight has just been the infinite void of nothingness. It's just time off, time away, no information, Reggie Jackson, looking at your balls. What is that? Is it the scratchers for Reggie? That's Reggie's back scratcher, all right? Oh, look at Reg.

Yeah, you know, you gotta keep your people happy, Luke. Wow. I mean, Reg is about to fucking have it out for you. Right. This is you know, we've gone too far. My point like he might end up having the longest title reign and it would be an undefeated title reign. Assuming he just calls it a day. And it would be the most empty calories on any UFC run short of Nico Montano that I could think of. It's absolutely nothing to it.

Because the UFC has enabled this specific title reign, which is not fraudulent. He did be gone when and gone. It wasn't available. Although John sat out three years before that when and gone, who was available. But like I'm at the point now where I'm like UFC, you have to fix this. This is on you. Even if John is trying to hold you up for every dollar, which might be within his right. You've created this mess by allowing him to sit out injured for more than a year, pushing the steep a back to fight back another year.

When remember I was the one defending it a year earlier like, hey, kind of need this historically don't you know don't fret this will be fine no they waited another year to put it out there but I do have to question the news coming from jail and we'll play his video to hear his tone and we can judge but like it feels to me like it's just aggressive public negotiation to be like John if you don't sign we got a backup plan that's ready now. Only the backup plan is not impressive at all to step down in every single measurement that let's hear a chair on his original report here. No, I am confident enough to tell you that that fight is done though.

That fight is agreed all the way down to the day. International fight. We could make perfect sense I Personally just only nine weeks thought they were gonna go back to New York. Don't said he needs four months Now you're gonna do it. I'm telling you this john jones business Jones will say a lot of things to the media when they when he gets that phone call Here's the guy you're fighting. Do you understand? Yes, and that is what he will say all the other reports are the other rep has come out. He's been a media privately. He takes

out of his mouth. Any ans is not yes, but that did a false report. John Jones fight. I wish he did. I'd didn't. He did not. Okay. And then now the next day, here's Chael's update. Because I am fully aware of the rumor. Now you guys probably haven't heard this. You're probably getting this right from me. From the time this leaves my mouth to the time

we get this to California turned around and onto the internet, it's going to be about 40 minutes. So the only way I get scooped on this is if somebody hits me in 40 minutes, but the current player right now, Tom Aspinall versus Surrealgon. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? For the interim championship. Now, I will back the moves. Look, I don't believe anything Chael says. I love the guy, but come on. I'll add in the Ariel comments that he gave. Helwani said, obviously when fights don't come to fruition, there's a multiple of reasons.

It's not because of Tom Aspinall. Who will decide whether this fight happens or not is John Jones. This is not breaking news. Ariel will go on to say, if John wants the deal to be done today, it could be done today. It has always been up to him. I believe the UFC has met all the demands in a very favorable way for both guys. They both have demands when the story is written on this fight. If it doesn't come to fruition, it won't be on the UFC. I really think the UFC has done everything they could to make it happen. And quote, Luke, what do you think?

What do you think here? Did they really meet the, uh, the dollars John wanted in is John having cold feet? I mean, John's just becoming more of a supervillain with every day that this thing goes on, dude, there should never be. I mean, like who else wouldn't be stripped after all of this? Yeah. And I, and I understand, I understand. Oh, he has a claim. It's a real one to being the best ever. I get it. I this is not any ordinary champion far from being an ordinary fighter. It's a very, very special fighter in that regard. But like this is fucking absurd. This is absurd. What I hope the UFC is doing and we really don't know again, we just don't get any information about anything that's ever concrete. What I hope that they're doing is

realizing that this is the last this is the Alamo, right? This is the Alamo like whatever happens here. If you can't make it happen within a reasonable timeframe, you just have to call the whole thing off and then strip them and then move the fuck on or whatever they want to do. But like him asking for remember he was asking for six months to get ready for Aspen. All like dude, you get you got three years to get ready for all of this. And we had to wait another year when he injured

his shoulder, not his fault, but he injured his shoulder. They had more time off. No is the fucking answer. No, no. Well, final final thing on this. Good. Like I want to this is my belief. I don't know this. Just my belief. I don't think there's any chance they offered him 30 million. So like, is there a possibility he's getting,

let's say I'm gonna make up something, right? 20 million, which would be more than they've ever paid in a single purse to anyone ever. Is it possible that he got a $20 million offer and he's now potentially gonna balk, but he could say, well, they didn't meet my financial demands, right? By giving me 30 million. It could be that as well too.

So the whole thing is a fucking mess. I'll just say this BC. I don't think John is one of these kinds of guys who's like afraid of Tom Aspinall. Like, Ooh, he's afraid. I don't get that sense. But for as unaware of the outside world and like how John is supposed to fit into that and how like seemingly he's poorly he's understood that,

the opposite is also true. He's also kind of understood his own strengths, I think very well as a fighter inside the octagon. Like that part as an athlete, I think he really understands his strengths. And I think he just doesn't like his chances against Aspinal and it's how he's having a hard time figuring out how he wants to solve this problem. Does he just want to call it off? Does he want to take the

money and risk it? Because if he was like, you know, if this was, I don't know, anybody else in that division, I think we'd have already had the fight by now. He doesn't like his chances and he doesn't know what to do about it. And so the rest of us have to go around with our thumb in our ass. I just really wish if there was a chance, a good chance, he wasn't going to do this, then just put the belt down last year at MSG. We would have made fun of you for a year and then we would have gone back to talking about how he's the greatest of all time. We would have moved on.

But now when you drag it out this long, you know, it's time to get it done because everybody looks bad and Aspen all suffering because of it as is the division as as am I Luke a final bit This was 20 days ago. Here is what Jones looks like so it's not like he hasn't been training He had to know Aspen all was next the second the steep a fight ended look. He looks pretty good there 20 days ago, right? Let's go by the way, very funny that he wrote ass pin anal. That's, that's, that's, uh, that's, I gotta tell you, I was laughing for days after I saw this. I thought that was just the funniest joke I'd ever seen. Yeah. Well, that's, you know, it's creative,

Luke. All right. Hey, let's go into our third topic here. Uh, another update on a fight that he's isn't happening. It said it wasn't happening, but now it might happen. Or is it? I don't know. Let's get into it. Middleweight champion, Drikis Duplisi has now publicly denied the rumors going around. First reported by Kevin Ioli that he was injured and unavailable for UFC 317 against Tom's at Chumayev. Further rumors would be that he broke his shin and would be out for all of 2025.

Not so fast. My friend says Dricus du Plessis. In fact, he came back so aggressively. Hey, it kind of got us thinking about shots fired brought to you by, by Cuervo. And brought to you, of course course by Cuervo. Now's a good time to enjoy that tequila that invented tequila. But here is Drickus Duplisi on Instagram with his response. Okay, so everybody had their opinions and rumors and stories about a shin break and injuries. I found it all very entertaining. Unfortunately, none of it is true. Myself and the UFC already discussed the fight date and opponent. The June fight was never signed. I did not pull out of any fight. I am the champion. I know when I fight you as a contender,

just show up when we tell you to. Fight announcement coming soon. Stay tuned. So, Luke, there's some shots fired about the rumor mill and who we should take our news from and believe. But this is kind of a messy situation. We've already been booking the territory and getting Ilya and Islam potentially together. In fact, both have gone public and said they've started training camps. So let me ask you this. What's behind this breakdown of communication and who appears to be telling the truth as it pertains to International Fight Week and the main event that we still need for June 28th? I don't know what the fuck this story is. I don't understand it at all. I don't, did Kevin Ioli get a leak from UFC?

Is that why he wrote that? Or did he get a leak from a manager? Is that why he got it? I don't know. If they're not gonna use Drikus at 317, okay, that's fine. Especially if you get, I mean, listen, we said it before. If you get Drikus and DDP, sorry, Drikus and Hamsot at 317, main or co-main, it'd be great,

but it sounds like that's not gonna happen in June for DDP because he just doesn't want it to happen at a bare minimum or, you know, here's what I think is actually happening. I bet, I always report is at least mostly right that there was some kind of an injury and that's why he didn't wanna take that fight in June and now he's kind of playing it off like, oh, I don't want to be co-main event.

I'll fight when I want to fight, you know, that kind of a thing where in reality it's like that wasn't really the reason at all. It's because he got banged up and maybe he wants to keep that the nature of that injury kind of concealed because it could be a long standing problem. So, I mean, well, remember that he's a fair view that he waited two to three days and waited through the online talk between Chumayev and Kyle Behalo, that, God, I can't say that guy's name right,

that they're gonna have an interim title. Like, he waited a long time to come out and be like, hey, report's wrong, I never turned it down, I'm healthy, announcement coming. Yeah, I mean, you gotta remember, I'm not even saying this pejoratively, it's just a fact. It is a fact fighters lie to the media almost every time they talk like and partly out

of necessity. Like it's not a it's just you have to understand that like how the vast majority of what you see or at least a good chunk of it is just straight up not the truth. So I tend to think that's what's happening here is that the report is probably accurate or at least mostly accurate certainly gets at something. And then this is all PR on the other end. And that's why you saw everything get kicked into high gear with Islam.

And then first with toporia because it's international fight week and they need somebody to save the day. Now that doesn't mean those two are going to fight again. We know Islam after three 15 might have a site set on one 70, but either way we're going to get to poria there and then we'll see what happens. So that's to me, the most plausible thing is that Drigges didn't want this news have a side set on 170, but either way, we're going to get to poria there and then we'll see what happens. So that's, to me, the most plausible thing is that Drickus didn't want this news out there, at least in the way that it came out there, and then decided that he was going

to play some kind of cover, which is a very common thing that happens. Interesting. Well, a fan reacted to DDP and said, you can still fight on 317, but you'll be in the co-main. Here was Drickus's response. Potentially, there we go. Co-main with double laughing emoji signs. And if you're waiting on Dana to announce this because he's been teasing for weeks that he's close, he posted a picture of his new bull. And this fan was like, no bull,. Who cares about your cow announced the fight.

Dana's response, laugh my ass off. I'm never announcing it. How handsome is that bull? Say it, Luke, your thoughts on that bull shit that they're talking right now. Why does he have a bull? I don't know. He's, you know, rich people need projects. Luke, they need toys.

They need a dude. How was it? Our slaps. Yeah. I don't, I, I don't know. He's, you know, rich people need projects. Luke, they need toys. They need, uh, dude, how was it? I don't get it. If I had what it was in Dana's worth 400 million at this point, right? Something absurd. I believe in the biotech in 2016, he made a huge like a hundred plus million dollar sum. And then they said he was going to get paid 27 million a year to stay on and run the UFC. I'd just be gone. Yeah. I'd just be gone. I'd just be gone.

I don't get it at all. I don't know. I mean, Dennis seems like he's got other priorities to me. I'm not even trying to, like, you know, am I wrong for saying that? Like, is that unfair? It just seems like he's got a lot of other priorities right now.

We could barely get him to show up and talk. Here's a Tupori tweet, and this was followed up, by the way, by Islam doing the same. So, Luke, there is a lot of push. I saw Eero Hoani was going hard in the paint saying, this means Tuporiya will be there. By the way, that response, of course, from Drick Astupasi was brought to you by Cuervo. Now is a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila. But, Luke, as it pertains to this actual fight right here, Ariel's kind of leaning toward the idea that like whether he's fighting Mahatchev or he's fighting for the vacant title, we will see Toporya there. What's going to happen?

Because it's only about 59 days away. So what the hell is going to happen here? Toporya versus Mahatchev is probably the number one choice. And if that doesn't happen, Toporia versus Charles for the full weight class title. Saryukian maybe kind of playing a bit of a, you know, break glass in case of emergency kind of scenario. That's what you're going to get. I think it's very likely to get that.

Well, I was on the three dirt bag show on submission radio and one disbarred lawyer, Jed Michiu, who really doesn't want Islam versus Elia and I think he's mad for it, Luke, but he says the way to fix this. Is to, uh, allow the law if he beats JDM coming up to move up in weight and then be against Hamza for the interim title in the, uh, international fight week main event. And then you would then have, uh, to Poria fight either Charles or Sarukian for the vacant feather belt.

Do you like that idea at all? Lightweight belt. Yeah. No, that idea is terrible. Okay. There you go. Thank you very much. I agree. Can we just make the fight that you can make right now? I mean, so you don't expect UFC is a big, they need a big fight. They need a big deal. So do you expect DDP at 317? I don't know. Hums on Hums out maybe Hums out maybe but DDP know. Alright, but I hope that we get both of those two big fights. Okay, John in November against against Tom and then Ilia Islam at IFW. I'll stop complaining for the rest of the year about anything.

Give us two big fights. You know, I mean you really should have a big fight every quarter, but I'll take two big ones. You know, please give me give me to Utah. Luke less speaking of numbers and I'm not talking about two anymore. I'm talking about six, right? You ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs?

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And Luke, you know, I'm not just the hair club president. I'm also a client here. I wear a true classic day to day because I love the way it makes me feel for me. Me looking good in it is just a bonus when it's breathable fabric, when you know it's solid colors that mixes well, whether you're going out for dinner at a nice restaurant or you're just chilling with the boys. There's something about the way I feel in true classic that I don't mind aging and getting older all that much because we talk about it.

It accentuates the highlights. Maybe I haven't been in and getting older all that much because we talk about it. It accentuates the highlights. Maybe I haven't been in the gym a lot lately, but it's going to show out those pecs and those buys and make me feel like for a minute that I'm still in the game. You know, I'm talking about Luke. Yeah, I understand it completely, dude. You know, I'll tell you this much. When I know what I want to wear, I reach for true classic.

And even when I don't know what I want to wear, when I get up Classic. And even when I don't know what I want to wear when I get up in the morning, I find myself eventually reaching for True Classic. I actually bought True Classic before they ever became a sponsor on the show. That's how much I love what they do. And of course I get introduced to new great sponsors through the show, but this is one that I found

on my own ahead of time. And when they came to us and they said, hey, True Classic is interested in sponsoring the show. I'm like, perfect, sign us us up couldn't think of a better brand to do it the clothes fit so well you can use them for engagements where you want to look a little stylish you can mix and match things if you need it or if you want to dress down and just kind of simply would be a more relaxed fit they've got that too the quality is high the fit is snug in all the right

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I find myself just reaching for the true classic. That's the kind of thing that they do, and that's what they're gonna offer you guys. TrueClassic.com slash combat. That's combat with a K. Is it not, BC? It is. And you can grab yours at Target or Costco or hit that website one more time. TrueClassic.com slash combat with a K. Forget about the overpriced designer nonsense. We're talking about stuff that feels great, feels, looks even better. I mean, it's a no brainer. Don't even worry about it. Just get up on true classic. You'll be fine moving forward. Look, we're split on too many topics in this world, but

everybody agrees about the way true classic makes you feel. So get on board. You'll be knowing about it too. You'll be telling your friends. All right. MK sent you. That's what I'm talking about right now. TrueClassic.com slash combat. Go get it. Yeah. There ain't no true classics. A little bigger than BT, BCLT. That's right. Yeah. And good old reg. All right. Hey, let's go to speaking of very big men. I'm talking about really big ones. Let's go to topic number four. It's a curious circus fight, but boy is it the Super bowl of curious circus MMA fights. KSW in Poland will be rolling out KSW 105 on Saturday.

And among the many different types of fights on there in terms of importance and stature and championship belts, we've got this one. Two strong men as 48 year old, the legend Marius Pudzianowski will come in as a minus 385 betting favorite against fellow strongman and 2017 world's strongest man winner, the 37 year old Eddie Hall, who we may have seen before in gimmick two on one MMA, but this is his first rodeo when it comes to the, to the top end, which is crazy here because, uh, Pujo has got 26 pro MMA fights himself, but this is about strength. It's probably going to be about gassing out. It'll probably be sloppy as shit, but Luke,

it's a freak show and we fricking love it. Two strong men, one winner. What makes you so excited about what's going to go down at KSW 105? Bitch, this is my Superbowl. Are you shitting me? KSW is the best. They just understand MMA in a way that so few promoters do. You wouldn't want everybody doing what KSW wants, but you want a KSW doing well, what KW does. Now, this fight is brilliant to me. Marius Pudzianowski. Dude, Marius Pudzianowski has had a really unusual career. You see a lot of these strongmen and they're huge. Typically they're like six, seven, six, eight, a lot of times 400 pounds.

And Pudge is big. I'm not sure what he walks around these days, but he was always a little bit different because he actually looked physically yoked. Whereas if you look at someone like a, even Eddie Hall too, Eddie Hall's got abs now, but you know, if you look at like a Brian Shaw or even Tom Stoltman, like the last, you know, sort of like, uh, Stoltman's like the reigning Scottish, uh, what he's also world's strongest man. He doesn't have abs. He's got like a big belly, you know, because it's tough to put on that many calories to be that size and then still have abs. Pujanowski was like, you know,

back in 2002 was doing this kind of jacked. He's very, very unusual in that regard. Five-time winner of World's Strongest Man. I think his last one was 2007 or 2008, something like that. So he's actually a little bit older. He's almost 50 years old and his MMA career has kind of petered out, but he did much better at MMA than I ever thought he would. He's a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. Like, dude, he's a real athlete who tried to do things. I'm not going to say like exactly by the book in terms of combat sports, but much more by the book than you would ever imagine relative like Eddie Hall, who was fighting, you know, the lollipop guild in his last fight. You know what I'm saying? He's just fighting, you know, I do. I thought yeah, five foot two dogs, you know what I mean? That's who he's fighting. Eddie Hall only a one time winner, although he had to go up against a guy who's a bit of a generational talent in the half Thor Bjornsson and Brian Shaw, he was in a very tough era in order to in order to get ahead. But he eventually did win he four times at the World Deadlift record, although that was broken, and even though there's a little bit of skepticism about that as well, but either way,

we're talking about two very good strongmen. Eddie Hall, younger and much less accomplished in combat sports, Maurice Budzianowski, much better in combat sports, but now much older and a little bit of tread on those tires. So this is just a super fucking fun, amazing matchup. I'm so glad KSW does what they do. This can only be fun.

It cannot go the distance. I cannot imagine. I'm not even sure if it goes into the second round, B6 or 4. As long as it lasts, it should be a blast. And I want to say one more time, these two other guys, they were real athletes in their respective sports to begin with. Sure. And Eddie Hall did have a little bit of a boxing run in

terms of like some combat experience coming into this, although he'll be a rightful betting underdog plus 265 is what he's circling around. He'll have an 11 inch age advantage on the 40 year old Pujia but you know, Pujanowski 17 and nine overall even though he lost his last two MMA fights both by KO but then he took some time off so he does the last loss by the way was against former heavyweight title and boxing contender Archer Spilka but look he did beat Bob Sapp, Butterbean, Big Sexy Sean McCorkle, he's put in

there against you know some carnival-esque names but he's recorded victories before. Here's the face-off from the recent commercial shoot. And I also have their weights, which went down yesterday on the scales. Pudzianowski is 267 pounds for this fight. Eddie Hall will be 334. So, Luke, it is age against youth there, but youth has the size and the inexperience that only makes it even better. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Pujanowski is a little older, but I do Pujanowski is beaten. I'll put it this way. He's beaten several UFC veterans, several, like, you know, I mean, he, you know, he's pretty decent, but I'm not expecting, you know, what do you mean with all what are the, what are we going to get a great jab cross sequence? Man, shut the fuck up. It's just two big ass strong guys who are gonna sling the dogs for as long as it lasts.

But it's just fun because these guys were really, really good at strongman in their time. I'm looking at the lifts for Maurice Pujanowski. This is fucking insane. These are his lifts, ready for this? His bench is 640, which is which is which is that's a lot. Squat 840 which is also quite high and then deadlift 915 like dude to have any one of those numbers is insane to have all three of them is fucking absurd

absurd. Could he hold the candle to prime Mark Henry though in this area Luke? He's a much better strength athlete than Mark Henry. Really? area Luke. He's a much better strength athlete than Mark Henry. Really? Yeah. I think Henry has a stronger overall deadlift. Henry still holds records Luke. In certain cases. Henry was amazing but dude Puginowski is like dude a five-time world's strongest man. It's insane. Well Luke there's no dislike between them. Here's a video the promotion put out of the two catching up backstage during fight week they like each other a lot but they're gonna throw hands. Nice to see you. How long? Five? I know. 2015? Five, six years ago. Maybe more.

I think it's 2015, ten years. You are old. You are old. That's the fucking thing. Look, look. Don't start that. Look, yo. Good, good.

How you feeling, man? You good? You look good. Nothing, Jerry, everything. Six feet lighter. Maybe me. How you feeling? You good? You look good. Not injured. Everything is fine. Maybe me. But it's fine. Good to see you. That was weird, Luke. That was weird.

You can tell Eddie has respect for Mark. By the way, you were asking about Mark Henry's lifts. All three. His squat is a little higher. He had a 953 squat, which is great, but his bench was only 518 and his dead lift was 903. So he got beaten two out of three by by Puginowski. Oh, they did compete again. Oh, no, but not not head. No, no, no, no. I'm not like head to head or anything. I got to say I'm just saying Puganowski is like an all fucking timer.

Like very, very, very good strength athlete. Well, Eddie Hall had that one gimmick fight and he showed up on Demetrius Johnson's podcast to talk about it. This is pretty humorous to look back upon. The 201, the two on one, excuse me, against those small brothers. Recently we saw you in a mixed martial arts fight. How the f***ing powerb bomb what did you just like? Well, it just throw him we had a little bit of an agreement in place where I wasn't allowed to actually slam them down So I had to do a lot of training just pick it up and let him go

The aim was to pick him off and sort of throw him onto the other brother to cause chaos and then follow it up with shots. Didn't quite get that, but if you notice, so I picked one up and sort of let him go in the air. So I go to do exactly the same to the other one. I go to pick him up and throw him, but I couldn't quite get the grip under his stomach. But then as I was picking him up, I just spotted little man standing up in the corner of my eye and I was like, oh yeah, bang. And he just sort of walked on to the shot. Well, I think you did it right because you picked one up, you threw him in the air. That's the funny, you just tossed him in the air like a bag of potatoes and you're trying to lift that one up. He comes up, you just go whack,

like a big ass bear paw across his face. You drop him and then, you know, they stop the fight. They get the one you knocked out out of there. don't just you versus the other one it was literally five seconds of madness but it just went viral those that was fun times we got one more piece of business to put a bow on this this was Eddie Hall joining Ariel Hawani and talking about the workouts he did with Tom Aspinall which I think planted the seed for this turn into mixed martial arts. You like MMA more than boxing as far as competing and training? Yeah, I think I much prefer the MMA. I think it plays into my strengths a lot more. At the end

of the day, if you're strong, I think that's a good percentage of the battle in the MMA world. And as you can see here, it's going up against someone like Tom Aspinall. Yeah. I mean, he's proving a point that strength means absolutely nothing. But Tom himself is a strong guy. Like you wouldn't believe how strong Tom is. He is a strong opponent. What is that like?

What is it like to be in there with arguably the best heavyweight in the world? Very humbling. There's nothing like thinking you can fight and then getting in the ring with someone like Tom Aspinall and he just plays with you. You know, he can literally throw you around and stick jabs in your face like you're a little kid in a schoolyard. So yeah, it's very humbling getting to the ring with someone like Tom.

How often are you training with Tom or at his gym? At least once a week. I'm a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a Let's get gross here. If you've got the younger guy who's been working with Aspen, all throws little people around. You like this plus two 65 on Eddie Hall to get this done with youth personified. I do actually, I think that's a good bet.

I think it's a good bet. I mean, again, Pujanowski better strength athlete and probably a better fighter at his peak, but. You know, two years off, he hasn't fought in two years basically, and he's almost 50 and you know, Eddie's aggressive and do that. And as you can tell too, like any mistake against these guys, you know, it's probably going to be catastrophic, right? So yeah, I actually, I might take a flyer on Eddie hall. Uh, I think I probably will.

All right. That'll be fun. That goes down on Saturday. I'm not sure what time of day. What can you get it on YouTube or do you have to order a pay-per-view from some, uh, look it up? I'm not sure what time of day. Well, can you get it on YouTube or do you have to order a pay-per-view from some? I'll look it up. I'm not sure. Alright, whatever. Hey, let's go to the fifth topic of our show here and it looks at one more big combat sports event this weekend

going down Saturday in London. It is the first of Turkey Alişiç's The Ring branded boxing events in his new fight series. This of course is sponsored by the legendary magazine that he recently purchased. And it's an all England affair inside Tottenham Hotspur's arena where 66,000 are expected as Chris Eubank Jr. and Connor Ben with the history between their families

and the fact that these two signed to fight back in 2022 until Connor Ben failed the drug test for Clomaphene. He would blame it on tainted eggs. There would be a multi-year battle with the regulators and the sanctioning bodies to be able to fight on UK soil. Well, now they're going to do it. It will happen at 160 pounds. Chris Eubank already briefly missed weight after multiple tries by 0.02 pounds, having to pay according to the contract, $500,000 US to Ben. And of course, Eubank will have to meet the rehydration limit of 170 pounds. So Luke, this is a real grudge match. One that we were honest that we didn't care about much until it got announced. But play that clip, Nocita, that we all love of the egg. It's a letter D on our list there of the egg at the first press conference in February that

took this promotion to a world title. You bank is 35 years old. The 28 year old Ben has yet to live up to the hype of a second generation star. But yet I can't miss this. What are your expectations from an entertainment standpoint or maybe a gross standpoint, whatever this turns into. Either way for me it's must see TV. What says you for Saturday? Um, it's about as good as you're gonna get from a hit. Let me see if I can say this right for a non

title boxing main event. I don't know how they get better than this. Am I am I saying it too much BC? Here's what I mean. The titles on the line or you've got like a big star and it's on pay-per-view. it's a little bit different. You don't have like a super a list star here. You don't have a world title in any kind of meaningful way. You've just got a old fashioned grudge match. Their fathers had a grudge match in the history of British boxing.

This is a bloodline continuation story. It's been an ugly build. It's going to have almost 70,000 people, as you indicated in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Like, how good is Eubank at 35? I never thought he was that great. Ben had a nice win, has had a few nice wins. The Chris Algeria win was in particular quite nice.

But he's a little bit smaller, you know what I mean? I don't know exactly what kind of boxing you're gonna get, but I just feel like the atmosphere and then the antics you're gonna get along with it. If we're hedging in the way that we hedged before, non-title, all that stuff, this is basically as good as a boxing main event gets. Yeah, you're damn right. It should be, at a bare minimum. It should be fun. And it's crazy when it was booked in 2022, it was going to be at the 20,000 seat 02 arena in London. And it definitely didn't have this crossover charm. Now if you're from the

UK, then this is one of your Super Bowl fights that sort of had to happen for these two in their career to play out the family history and that history as Luke mentioned, was the rivalry between Nigel Ben and Chris Eubanks Senior. Sr. would knock out Benn in their first meeting to defend his middleweight title they would also meet to unify super middleweight titles a few years later and fought to a very disputed split draw so there's never been a lack of love lost for the dads that spilled over into February's kickoff press conference where the dads and the kids were talking trash amongst each other and let's also not forget

after that egg incident Nigel Ben came over and grabbed the throw of Chris Eubank Jr. it got very heated there but Luke I don't think people were prepared for the escalation of the soap-op return when Chris Eubank Sr. who himself always a colorful showman, publicly turned on his son because of the egging. Here's the video in question. Yeah. Why aren't you part of the fight week activities?

Why aren't you in the corner? Because I will not be an accomplice to their stupidity, to their circus. Junior, you're smashing an egg against this guy's face. I taught you that. I didn't teach you that. Who taught you that? Did Karen teach you that? That's disgraceful.

I'm going to stand in your corner. You must say, mud. You must be mad. I would never be in your corner. You're a disgrace. You're smashing an egg in someone's face and then you're trying to justify it. There's no justification for that. There's nothing noble about that. So Luke, they have never been perfect as father and son. They've had some feuds before. But

the craziest thing here is you know who's been the most outspoken against this? Nigel Benn and Connor Benn. They've come to the aid of Eubank Jr. and basically been like, hey, senior, show up, be in your son's corner, you're going to regret this the rest of your life. Does this weird family drama, unfortunately, remind you of your youth, Luke, or does it fire you up for Saturday? Well, that's a really awful question. All right, take it back completely, I apologize. I'm surprised by his dad's stance mostly.

Nah, I don't know how to pivot from there, but I'll just say, this is a, I don't know of any other fight on the MMA or boxing calendar that's got bad blood like this one. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. And so there's a lot of the storyline is around, can bank not only make the weight which he just barely missed and will have to come in under that rehydration limit on Saturday, but how he will be able to fight now he's clearly the more experienced at age 35 has shared the ring with Billy Joe Saunders like a lot of the big name super middle weights of the time that he was in that division. He shared the ring with two wins and losses. But in recent years, he's moved back down to middleweight.

And even though Connor Ben has some very good early wins at 147, you mentioned the Chris Algeri, there was the Chris Van Airden one. There's a few other like name ish middle of the road or aging welterweights that he looked great against. He moved up to 154 after this egg suspension and even though he's gone 2-0 and decision wins, you know, boxing hard cores will tell you he hasn't looked the same off the PEDs if you know what I'm talking about. And now he's moving up an additional weight class at 160 to make his debut against the hard punching U-Bank. so I think that goes a long way in these betting odds which are minus 185 you bank the

favorite according to DraftKings or Connor Ben plus 150 as the underdog but you do have to take into account everything we talked about and here was you bank at the final press conference yesterday when he was asked how he's going to deal with all these distractions including the weight. Just focus on getting the weight off fat boy. You know yeah the weight is painful. I'm in pain right now. I'll be in even more pain tonight and tomorrow morning. And the worst pain you've ever experienced comes Saturday night. I promise you that right now. You know the question I ask myself is what is pain? Oh shot No, I'm serious, what is it Oh shot what is it I have I Have a 31 year old brother

He's buried in the desert in Dubai. That's pain his son Rahim Three years old, you know, he asks why can't I see my daddy? Why doesn't he take me to school? That's pain. My own father, a man I idolized for my entire life, and we don't, he doesn't speak to me. We haven't spoken for years. And he thinks I'm a disgrace. You must be mad. I would never be in your corner. I'm a disgrace. You must be mad I would never be in your corner you're a disgrace. These things are what pain is to me and if I can deal with all the these trials

and tribulations the weight cut and the rehydration clause these are all things that clause. These are all things that, um, I'm not an issue. They are not important. Look, there's some heavy stuff going on in his life here. That's only adding to this matchup. I'm telling you the story on this is one of those fights where like, I don't know how good the fight will be exactly, but everything else you want out of a prize fight, again, non title. I mean, it's got insane storyline and I got one more.

I sprinkle a little bit more on top. There's one more reason why you should get fired up for this fight. And Connor Ben, the smaller fighter is here to tell you why. Well, let us answer your question. The only thing I asked for my contract was an 18 foot ring. So let that just ease your mind and how I'm feeling. He ain't going to be ready for what's coming anyway. Well, let us answer your question. The only thing I asked for in my contract was an 18 foot ring. So let that just ease your mind in how I'm feeling. He ain't gonna be ready for what's coming anyway.

So you wanna sit here and go, what are you coming in there to steamroll at cool time? You think I'm coming in there to muck about. You don't get paid for overtime. So when I come in there, it's not a matter of, oh, let's have a little move around and see him. Let's come meet me in the middle then. Look, he wants the bang. He's put in, let's have a little move around and see if let's come come meet me in the middle then Look he wants to bang he've put in that's like a showbox ring. That's like a UFC apex size ring

You on prom night just ready to bang. I'm fired up for this. Let's go. Let's go and long out Look, you just show that face off they had after the press conference We can speak over it shot to Rick Reno of Ring Magazine in the middle, holding up that ring belt with his life. I don't know why there's a belt there, but, uh, Luke, you see the size advantage. What's up with Rick's haircut? Uh, there's a lot going on there. Shout out to old Reno.

Uh, he's, he's fighting the good fight. All right. He's, you know, so is Keith Thurman to be fair. Uh, Luke Thomas, those odds are so close. The bigger man, you bank the minus 185 betting favorite. But if Ben is going to push the pace and really try to expose how hard this weight cut obviously is for him, dude, this rehydration clause is no joke.

I don't really know where to lean betting wise. What about you in terms of your prediction? Like it's going to be weird. It'll be aggressive. Somebody's going to enter the ring. Someone's dad might get hit. But'll be aggressive. There might somebody's going to enter the ring. Someone's dad might get hit. But in terms of who wins this fight, I don't feel like I have a grasp at the moment because it's been so

chaotic. I'm going to lean you bank. I'm going to lean you bank, but I don't have a clear sense of it either missing the weight again very minorly but then missing the weight. Ben not being as good as we thought he once was, gonna be the PEDs, who knows, jumping up weight here. Grudge match, you know, huge crowd. It's the so many X factors, BC, that's what kinda makes it interesting, right?

So many X factors. It's hard to say, but I'm gonna lean Eubank. I think I've seen better stuff from Eubank, and I do think size will probably be his ally here. I'm wondering if that weight cut catches up with, uh, you bank and Ben is willing to just let hands go. Could he stop you bank, which is, which would be the probably the biggest plus bet you could get in this very close matchup.

Um, I don't know. We're going to find out. It's not like Ben is known as a big puncher in his particular weight divisions. And now he's moving up to middleweight but maybe part of his strategy is jump all over this guy and make it as Gnarly and crazy as possible. Heck. It's already been crazy. Let's go on Saturday Eddie herning company Is this Eddie herns last dance with turkey? I don't know Luke. There's a lot going on in this world We're exactly another another kind of interesting part of this whole story. Yeah. All right. Those are our five topics Thank you for playing. We close with two segments that are, uh, you know, underwritten by our fans.

It's morning combat at gmail.com, your portal to get in for what we do on Friday, which I hear we got great fan subs coming, but first we take to the stand on some things that we may have said that we're incorrect, insensitive, or maybe you just want to dunk on us Well, you better have some timestamps and you better come original because this one's called dead wrong, bitch Then wrong All right, Luke Daz will mahalo you on that as and you know what I'm talking about Luke, right? Yep back up on that ass give these motherfuckers a as and you know what I'm talking about, right? Yep. Back up on that ass.

Give these motherfuckers a blast from the past. I'm talking about a dad says I got two dead wrongs within five minutes on Monday's April 7th episode at 5330. BC introduces the main event of UFC 314 as an interim featherweight title bout when in actuality it is for the undisputed title due to Elia vacating that position. Yes, I take that L, I got it wrong. Also at 58-15 of the same episode, LT, in discussing possible matchups for Top Turia, responds to BC's Ellya Islam for the lightweight title bit for IFW with quote, yeah, but Ilya is apparently waiting for the results of 315 and if JDM wins, oh, you know, I misspoke.

He's just going to fight jump to fight JDM. Pretty sure you meant Islam, not Ilya. And I think that's my dead wronged himself right there too. Anyway, yeah, Luke, you're wrong. Okay, so he says, excited to see the unlockable bonus MK Degenerate, AKA Jed Meshue on another pregame preview. You know, Jed is a, what's the word you wanna say, Luke? Trashy, you know, the word for Jed is polarizing, right? Better call y'all. Appreciate all the fight sports coverage. Mahalo, it's Daz.

Our second and final dead wrong comes from Orwayne. He says, hello, donks. It's that time of the week again. In last week's MK Mailbag, LT, alongside his brethren Bong Island Luke, claimed at 35 minutes and 10 seconds that people forget that Matt Sarah had quote huge power. People forget Luke because it never really was the case. No, no, no. He had two victories by knockout of his 18 fight pro career.

He didn't develop it until later in his career and then it became a calling card. That is absolutely not the fucking truth. I was there for Matt Sarah's career. It was after the GSP fight, he began to put hands on people. No fucking way. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong.

Are you saying you were ringside to see Arturo Gatti box in Montreal when Orwain was not even a thought in his dad's non-Australian nut bag? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. A bunch of people who didn't watch Matt Sarah's career lecturing me about Matt Sarah's career get fucked. No. All right. Or Wayne closes with while, while Sarah didn't have no power, he certainly wasn't

this huge power puncher. Keep donking. Wow. Luke, you just mutumbo'd hit that man right there. No, no, no, no. Early in his career where he had no boxing skills, it was not clear at all that he had power. But once he began to work on it, he began to hurt people consistently with it. Like absolutely fucking not. Okay. All right. We just, you know, we just wanted to see the fire get lit. Luke, you still got it. All right. You still freaking got it. Our final segment involves your opportunity to send us your artwork to post pictures of your significant others in tight MK gear that's no longer available but maybe pretty

soon. Uh this one's called fan submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. And remember, Mikey's rule, you send a piece of your pipe, you don't get on the air okay although he may he may move those picks around on the black you may get a reply though yeah ASL question mark yes indeed this one's from RJ our first one with no comments No, Sita, your thoughts on this hopefully, right? Pretty accurate. Yeah. As long as it's not a Saturday, right? Exactly. Yeah, that is great stuff. What a great boyfriend that guy is.

Thank you, RJ, for your submission. Let's hear from Matt. He says, I submitted a few fansubs this week, but they were DMed to the morning combat Twitter account. Here were those fans subs. All right, let's see it. What do you got for us? Uh, okay. Whippets, nitrous oxide, a helping hand for cleaning your keyboard or a

perilous plunge into despair. Joining us is Luke Thomas, podcast return crusader here to tell us about his mission to save his co-host, Brian Campbell and others from the grip of nitrous oxide in Arby's parking lots. Luke, welcome to the CNN. Thanks for having me. Nitrous oxide. It's something we might picture at a dentist office or a college party. Why Arby's parking lots? What's fueling this? Well, it's a grease stained purgatory,

a shrine to bad decisions where people like Brian worship at the altar drenched in meat sweats like a whore in church, slurring, whip it, tongues at pigeons. Our mission is to fight for them to lead their exodus. Wow, and that is taken from your appearance on CNN. Fantastic stuff. What's the second slide from this fella? Luke. Electricidad, Constitución, Bucaramanga. And Tukey says, Bucaramanga. Yair, Cassadis, Guadalajara, Tukey, BC. Guata, huata, water.

I don't actually get this joke. This is from the Sandler movie Big Daddy. It's very good. Yeah, and then BC goes, damn you, you give her all the easy ones. That's a little weird. You're giving her the easy words, but meanwhile you gave BC the easy words.

I guess you had to be there, Luke, in the 90s or whatever. Yeah, all right. Yeah, have you never seen Big Daddy? I skipped this one, but if you guys tell me it's good, I will leave you. Buka Ramunga's a real city, by the way. It's my wife's favorite Sandler movie, Big Daddy. You don't get down with that, no?

Adam Sandler has made maybe two or three good movies, one of which is Punch Drunk Love. The other one, Happy Gilmore. Happy Gilmore. Uncut Gems? Uncut Gems is, he's okay. No, don't save it. Just don't. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Adam Sandler is awesome in Uncut Gems, but Uncut Gems is a little frenetic. Billy Madison is not that great. I know that's like, like blasting me to say. Yo, Click is super underrated, all right? Come on. What's the Bobby Boshay, the Waterboy?

Waterboy's okay, I guess. Wedding Singer too is a good one. Wedding Singer's good, Wedding Singer's good. I'll give Wedding Singer a good. Bedtime Stories, good Family Flick, Luke. Tookey would love it. I'm not seeing good one. Wedding Singer's good. Wedding Singer's good. I'll give Wedding Singer a good one. Bedtime stories, good family flick, Luke. I'm not seeing that one. All right, all right. We also have Jeff with a video.

He says, howdy, donks. Whoever is on Luke's hotel room floor during the possible Toporia-Mahatchev fight will know what the villagers of Pompeii felt like, except it's not lava. It's the seeds of Luke's loins. God help us. Best wishes. It's Jeff. I'm working out my prostate. I'm working out my prostate. I'm working out my prostate. I'm working out my prostate. Wow. Wow. That is uh I hope we get there. I just don't wanna be there when that yeah

when that happens. Uh that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah. Number our next one is from he berif magnet. Hola LTNBC. Here's the debate. I can see y'all having forever got that big dog energy. Luke is on the left in front of a table that says high level positional control is sexier than unranked fighter chaos change my mind and Then BC's next to him just saying sex with straw weights or sexier change my mind Yeah, that's morning combat. That is that's it. That's what that's that's not that's not too untrue. That's mostly true Yeah, thank you here birth magnet Alan W who is

You know an incredible supporter of our journalism and entertainment I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a big fan of the show. I'm a. That's really good. I would like that poster in our new studio studio if we get one. I'll be your donkleberry. Yeah, that's good. Oh, well the ready whip can is nice and the leather hole, sir. Some Val Kilmer ish right there. I love that. Yes. Oh my god. These are incredible the MK action figures. Luke's is priced. What is it? 420 which is hilarious and Luke has a Barbas RIP on a leash with a vape a Pepto Bismol bottle a

weight and a bag of Taco Bell and I'm dressed. Yours is called wash dad. You're dressed in a Mister Roger sweater and mine which costs $9 and eleven cents which is the best joke on this by far it says king of Connecticut I'm dressed in my MK t-shirt with jeans there's a hot dog a Jimi Hendrix record a basketball and look it took me a while to figure it out but I think that's a black liver buddy black liver below it oh my god that's so good oh well done uh long out Luke can

you send me that I want to show that one to my wife I think you're gonna get out of. Yeah I guess that is great I let's see John he has a video he says this is dedicated to my favorite trio. I mean we got a couple hard matchups with a few star weights and I do mean hard. Wow. Oh my god. I can't believe you said that. I hope you die in a fire. You mouth breathing fucking heathen. I mean, Long Island Luke, do you hear this? I'm taking the over I'm taking the over. Oh, that's so good. Oh my God. That run of subs that we just went through.

Holy cow. That is so good. Wow. Uh, thank you, John, for that one. Alan W for the ones before we have one here from CC Die Hard fan who says, went to the Cannibal Corpse show Wednesday night and had an okay time. The music was, as always, really good, but the crowd was a little strange. No joke.

I thought the guy next to me was going to shit himself with the amount of flatulence I heard all night. As if the smell wasn't enough, he talked through the entire show, mostly just correcting the band's pronunciation of certain words. He must have yelled it's Jorge corpse grinder 20 times. I had to cover my ears for most of the show just to drown them out. Here's a pic of my friend that, here's a pic that my friend took of us. When the band asked who who here comes blood okay can we tell can we tell the real story behind this oh my god that's so funny yes so i sent this picture when my wife took this picture i sent this picture to the the boys here at the show

because there was a dude there and you're he is, put it up one more time. I'm off to the side, but where he's at, he can literally see the band straight on from where he's at. It's like the opening, you cross five steps forward and you get onto the floor, yeah? He is there looking at the band the whole time, BC, I know you can show me, putting his ears, and then he would, we wouldn't move,

and then he would shake out his hands between songs and then go right back to doing it and I was like why the fuck are you here my guy what like why are why are you here I didn't get it I didn't get it at all wow and so who did that that uh fansub that was me yeah they just made it up oh that's hilarious dude that is so good wow my wife took the picture yeah I was drunk at the bar when Luke sent that picture and I immediately texted Snyder and Mikey. I was like, yeah, we got to send send in a fake fan. So yeah, it's great.

That's great. But that dude did it. He did it the whole time like this when Cannibal Corpse was playing the whole time. Unbelievable. Did you fill that room with flatulence? No, but was some guy when the when the when when Cannibal Corpse stopped playing because they weren't the headliner.

Meshuggah was the headliner. So when they were done and they walked out, somebody walked past us and crop dusted everyone. And there was like a whole line of people gagging, including me and my wife. He just opened up his trench coat and it was like, yeah, wow. Uh, Luke, did you meet the band? I need to hear the story. I did. I met the guitar. I didn't meet the band, but I got to meet the guitarist Eric Rutan. Um, and it was fucking awesome. He's a huge boxing fan. He's a huge boxing fan. We talked a lot about boxing.

We talked a lot about heat. Like last night was the last night of their tour. They played at the theater at MSG. Um, and so we talked about that and being on the road and all kinds of stuff. Great guy. Great guy. Super fun. Good show. Obviously. Um, it was cool, man. Great guy, great guy, super fun, good show. Obviously. Um, it was cool, man. It was, you know what your sub sec needs a video chronicling you and George corpse grinder going into arcades and winning the claw machine for the kid. You know what he told me? Cause uh, they were asking about TKO and stuff. He was asking about TKO and I was like, oh, are you guys like, you know,

cause it was some other people there. I was like, oh, are you a wrestling fan? He was like, no, but you know who is in the band Corpse Grinder Corpse Grinder apparently is a monster wrestling fan a gigantic wrestling fan So I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah Luke That's a crazy crowd you had to put yourself in with but you know the things you do for multiple MK dogs came up

to me and identified themselves as such. Okay shout out to the MK folks all right all right if they had brought a plastic Tupperware container and opened it up and there were brownies made at their house would you have taken one down right in front of them? Probably yeah probably that's the that venue was nice. It's the it's the venue at the MGM property right outside the city. Yes. The venue itself is quite nice. But dude, I mean, I'm not trying to eat like a full meal at the at a concert. But all they had were Mike and Ike's and pretzels. And I was like, that's all the fuck I got to eat here. What the fuck is this shit? That's not I was I was not happy with that. So to your point, they'd open up a Tupperware full of brownies.

I was hungry, you know, and your wife like rocks out to this. She's like, she likes Cannibal Corpse. OK, she doesn't like it as much as I do, but she liked the the headliner, Meshuggah a lot. So, yeah. Would you would you admit it to us if your wife had become a super fan of the row a boat Norwegian hard rock? You would have found out through divorce proceedings. Okay. Okay. All right. I didn't know if you would change your view on that and be like,

well, actually I didn't see any this time to which I was quite grateful. I guess that's an amount of more thing or whatever, but God damn, that's the lamest shit I've ever, ever seen in my whole fucking life. Well, there you go. That's also our show. Morning combat at gmail.com. If you want to reach the show, thank you for stepping up your fan subs people. We appreciate that.

And the dead long always available there. We did it. We did a pretty good job setting the stage for the weekend. I hope you enjoy it. Long Island Luke, do you have shows people can watch that won't involve boxing because you never bet on boxing. I do. I mean, you know, maybe next weekend, we got those three boxing cards, you know, girlfriend granted. Maybe maybe I'll do something

for those boxing. We'll see but uh this weekend, I'm just doing the main card 9 PM Eastern. Gary Protis join me. Main card minute. Thank you very much. Luke Thomas Will you be entertaining the people with a post fight piece of content? I will not be live for the fights But I think either late that night or early early morning I'll be up and I'll have something ready for them at that point. All right, enjoy everything You got you guys this weekend get outside get some of that spring Sun, you know what I'm talking about? Follow us on the social handles below. We love you.

Thanks for taking part. Thanks for following us on this journey and enjoying the ridiculousness that is the combat sports world with that MK sauce all freaking over it. Luke, do you have anything to say to these people? Happy birthday to my beautiful daughter Violetta. And thanks to everybody who said hi

at the Cannibal Corpse concert. Thanks to everybody who reached out today. We can't wait to talk to you guys on Monday. All right, well, it's gonna be great. For Long Island Luke and Big Luke, this is your boy BC. Thank you for watching. We're out of here for now. We'll be back on Monday.

Yeah, bring it. All right. Yeah. Okay. Wow.