MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Grasso def. Araujo | Wilder & Haney Score Impressive Wins | Ep 362

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Another Monday, another big-time Morning Kombat episode. Luke and Brian recap a wild UFC Fight Night event as Alexa Grasso got the unanimous decision nod over Viviane Araujo. Did she make the guys believe she could beat Valentina Shevchenko? Plus, it was a HUGE weekend of boxing. Deontay Wilder and Devin Haney both put on superstar performances in wins. Also, the women of boxing had a stand out weekend as Claressa Shields and Alycia Baumgardner scored UD wins. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, it's Monday, the 17th of October, 2022, and fuck your life. It's time for Morning Combat.

Hello, everyone. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of the status of Venus right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my green drinking friend. He's got, what is he, the king of Connecticut? He's the, what is it again? I'm the American alpha, Luke.

No, no, no. But it's like, what are you? He's from CT and he's got CTE. It's my friend, Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell. How are you? Wow. Luke, I'm happy to be back.

It was a fun weekend of fights. Boxing was the main course this weekend. Watch it be an appetizer in today's show, though. But Luke, you know, it's just another manic Monday and kind of of wish it was sunday you know because that's my fun day right yeah my i don't have to run day is that when your family leaves home and you watch pornography with the volume on that's despicable that's gross i'm never there for you mk okay don't buy that don't buy those clothes anymore okay hey speaking luke speaking to mk relics look at this prototype hoodie i found they don't even sell this donk shit right here no they don't they had some early stuff some of

it worked some of it didn't this is sort of middle of the road but they do have good stuff morningcombat.store not just for your um you know pornography designs but all kinds of good stuff actually is there hats and we have the trucker hat the amateur director hat i believe yeah great new hat right now great new hats yeah bc very quickly did you have a good weekend mine was not so great to be honest with you oh wow do you want to get into it here luke let me let me be your shoulder to cry on no it wasn't that bad but yesterday i had to we we lucked out my brother had and his wife they're having a kid in january so there was a baby shower i went to that was fine that was cool actually tell your brother congrats on the sex right yeah yes that's right he procreated

it looks like but um what i was going to say was saturday we went to like a couple of festivals out in town and my daughter had meltdowns all day long. Was it the equivalent of when you're like, Tukes, get back to the bed, your bed, not ours. And then she's like, F off, mother. And then there we are. Here's what it was very quickly. This is obvious, but kids love to get their faces painted. They love it.

And then they love smearing it with their hands like a minute after, too. Yes, they do. That is absolutely correct. Well, we got in the line, and, dude, they had two women who were doing it, but they weren't doing it like, you know, when you get a face paint, it's usually just a little bit apart of the face. Two chicks at one time? Well, not on one kid, but, like, I'm just saying,

there was two women operating the booth, and instead they were doing the dia de los muertos the whole thing so they were going like all white then black circles and then all the designs i timed it it was 20 minutes a kid so after like an hour and a half we barely moved i told my daughter we gotta get out of here and buddy it was bloody murder the rest of the day is that celebration exclusive to mexico luke or does it extend to central and south america it's a mexican tradition i mean i think other nations kind of play with it a little bit but it's it's exclusively mexican yeah okay all right um all right on today's show

as bc indicated we have a lot to get to including a lot of boxing some of which bc we may have oversold a little bit we'll talk about that when we get there we also have I don't think we sold Shields Marshall enough that was yeah right yeah maybe maybe that one but the the Wilder fight ended up being well we'll talk about it here in just a minute you got what you paid for Luke okay you think you think they told Peter North take a long time right it's whatever whatever happens happens all right all right very good so we'll talk about that plus we'll start with some UFC stuff thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube please hit subscribe if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform which by the way we

should say apologies to the audience uh there was a bit of a mishap in not getting Friday's audio up early enough I don't think that'll be an issue today Luke we will you and I can we're the front facing members of this team, so we'll take it on the chin. I would like to throw who did it under the bus, but I'm not going to. We had a few mix-ups this weekend. Apologies to the audio-only crew. Apologies to those who tweeted me and said,

hey, look, you told me there was going to be a Saturday Night Boxing post-fight show. I stayed up late for it. When the hell was it? Well, it didn't happen. All right, we'll fix it. We'll fix it, okay? Is that your fault? It's MK's fault, and i am mk luke so yeah in the end it is my fault all right fair enough but we will get to all that stuff here today um okay bc oh showtime is the label

that pays you can go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce uh and by the way after the 30 days you can get it for three months thereafter $3.99 a month for each of those consecutive months so that's a fun little deal and morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs and Friday's dead wrong BC I also want to note that we all want to turn back the clock and relive those glory days yeah for me I would love to wake up every morning with zero brain fog a a clear mind, and be as energized as I was when I was younger. And thanks to First Person, I can at least start on that journey to take a more active role in my brain's overall health. Very true. You were very angry when you were younger, though, Luke, so maybe you should

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All right. With that out of the way, BC, let's get this party started if we can here. We start as we customarily do with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In the main event, Alexa Grasso gets the unanimous decision nod over Vivian Araujo. I think that's how you say it, Araujo. At UFC Vegas 62. BC, first question on this. Were you impressed with her performance is part one.

Part two, I know she had some other comments about it. We'll talk about that in a second. Do you think the UFC will offer her a title shot based on the record she has, of course, previous to this, and then based on this win? Look, this was a solid win by Alexa Grasso, and this played into kind of what I said ahead of time, handicapping it, that she's coming on. She's progressing at a fast rate. She's either adding or rounding out her skills at a fairly rapid level.

Now, 4-0 in this new division that, of course, we had questions about when her body forced her out of 115. Well, she's answering those questions. Was it spectacular? about when her body forced her out of 115. Well, she's answering those questions. Was it spectacular? Was it kick your TV screen in in this five-round main event opportunity? No. Not all wins have to be,

but in using your question of, is this enough, should this be enough, to launch now to the title level, I think she's very close. I do think it's dependent upon that Kaitlyn Chukagian-Minone Farrow fight that, what, is this Saturday, Luke? Abu Dhabi? Is that true? Yes, correct. It should open the

main card, but I'll double check. Because here's the deal. Is the UFC going to go back to the well and put Chukagian in a title shot if they don't have to? I don't believe they will, even though they re-signed her. She's on another win streak. Look, she's as tough as it gets in this division, short of the title level. But I like to reserve space here,

potentially, that if Ferro wins, and if she's able to do it in a dominant or stoppage manner, the UFC would have an interesting debate. Look, Alexa Grasso coming from Mexico I think is going to help her when it comes to who can we use, who do we want to use as the B-side here to go up against Valentina. But let's

give Manon Faroe a shot now that the French doors are open. The UFC just did a show there. You know they want to do a big pay-per-view there. You know the idea long-term of like Francis and Serral rematching under the Eiffel Tower with maybe Manon Farrow and the co-main event for the title. Look, all that stuff kind of makes sense. I say we reserve judgment until then, but did Alexa Grasso do anything in this victory negatively or to set her back no a solid yet

unspectacular performance across the board Luke am I hitting on any of the notes that you believe in deep in your heart I think that's right I mean if you're looking at Manon Fioro which we'll talk about here um she is obviously undefeated in the UFC she has a total of 10 pro fights and in coming to the UFC she has beaten uh Victoria Leonardo who fights and in coming to the UFC she has beaten Victoria Leonardo who I'm not even sure is on the roster anymore Tabitha Ricci which is pretty good Maria Bueno Silva and then more recently Jennifer Maya she decision the last two those are pretty good wins so if she beats Kaitlyn Shukagian you know you could see a case where you beat two former title contenders back to back in Maya and Shukagan.

She might get one. For me, with Grasso in this performance, we never said it on Friday, and it didn't really occur to me in the same way that it did after the fight was over, which is, dude, Arujo is hard to look good against. There are certain fighters out there where, yes, if you get a very preeminent talent, and they're way better than the rest of the division, then they can beat fighters like Arujo and still look spectacular. But you can still get very, very good fighters up against her,

and it's not only difficult to win, it's just difficult to win in a very convincing way because it's deceiving, right? We talked about it. She takes damage. She's very physically strong. She kind of punches from a lot of different angles. She's constantly putting pressure in a lot of different ways. She can mix up with a takedown. She's physically strong she kind of punches from a lot of different angles she's constantly putting pressure in a lot of different ways she can mix up with the takedowns she's physically strong

that's a hard person to like hurt physically it's a hard person to get physically off of you it's just very difficult to do anything that really demonstrably stands out in that way so I think that for me what I saw here remember what said on Friday, and I really believe it was true. We knew that Grasso had the skills to beat someone like Arujo. But what you've often seen is I've seen other fighters tear her up early and then not be able to sustain the effort. She sustained the effort. And in fact, the only two takedowns of the 10 attempted from Arujo were given up in the second. She couldn't get any in the third, fourth, and then the fifth, she attempted four.

All four of them got stuffed. I I mean this was a very strong performance I get the point that you're making and I don't really disagree with it that it wasn't it wasn't spectacular it wasn't super dominant no it wasn't those kinds of things not every win will be or has to be Luke just to be fair yeah yeah I know what you're saying I think I think you're couching it fine the only piece of sort of the twisting caveat I would give here is that I just think this is an opponent that's tough if this is your tryout for a title shot. Styles make fights, right? We all agree with that. This is a tough opponent upon which to make your title shot tryout

for the reasons articulated. Now, it also just so happens, BC, after the fight, that Grasso was asked by the media, hey, do you think you're ready for a shot against Valentina? She was like, I actually would like one more sort of five-round main event. They are different to prepare for. You're in a different spot, different kinds of situations.

I actually really like that from her. 29 years of age, looking for that. The question is what the UFC will do. let's pause it for a minute that Shukagian beats Manolfi Oro so she's not even in the equation now if you're the UFC what do you do do you give her that extra main event or do you rush her to a title shot well I think there's an interesting discussion that plays on the question you asked but also the larger title picture does it do you get the feeling that talia santos is not getting that rematch that's that's off the table correct

against jeff chanko seems very much odd there's just no discussion about it whatsoever and is that is that a is that a backdoor revenge for uh you know in terms of her not paying her coaches like she should have luke is this karma catching up with her no i mean i don't really believe in that all right all right let's not go let's not let's shut that exit down let's stay on the highway here so here's here's my question luke you could argue that right now is as good as time as ever to start the four or five month build toward a trilogy between amanda nunes and chef chanko am i am i incorrect or correct here you could do that yes because my question to you is, who else for both? You know what I mean?

There's no one else at the moment that's kicking the door in in either division where if you're going to do that, you might as well build to that now. And if you do that, it would make a lot of sense, potentially here, that Grasso could be facing the winner of next week's Chukagian-Ferro fight. Or, to be fair, Tyler Santos, if she doesn't get the immediate rematch and title shot, which it looks like she's not, what do you think about Grasso running into her? What do you think about the idea of exactly what Grasso was saying? Let's give her that one more chance to earn it.

I think it's refreshing to hear that. I think she responded well to the five-round challenge. She was in tears afterwards talking about how hard she worked. She knows that it's constant leveling up. Look, every time she adds another wrinkle to her game or takes on another challenge, Grasso is passing these tests.

But she might be predicting her own future in a way because what are we waiting for on Nunes and Valentina? Seriously, why would you wait any longer? It's an intriguing fight. It matters historically. I think the time is now, Luke.

I don't really mind that idea. I think actually it's a pretty good idea because quite candidly, you could give a title shot to either Grasso or, again, if Fiora wins on Saturday, you could go either of those directions. But candidly speaking, and I know the UFC doesn't want to, as a matchmaker one of the things you have to be careful about is having viable contenders for someone eliminating

each other before they get a chance to fight actually the champion which the UFC may not want to do here because the the cupboard is so bare as we've talked about I think again as it stands today the rankings are not updated they will be later on this afternoon after the show. But as it stands, you've got, I think, Grasso sitting at number five or six in the division, meaning basically everyone inside the top five except Jessica Andrade has not had a title shot yet. And Andrade is certainly an interesting name, but hasn't quite done enough yet in this division to warrant.

Actually, I think she's back. Is she back down? She's back at 115. Excuse me, yeah. So she's not even... She's still ranked in that space, but they'll update that accordingly. Anyway, you get the idea.

So my point being is, if they went with the Shevchenko-Mandenunas, it actually would be better because, one, that fight needs to happen and it would be historically significant. That's one. Two, you get Grasso getting another five-round main event. That would be kind of fun.

And against Fiora, it's a good opponent. And then you just get a little bit more clarity about who's actually deserving of a flyweight title shot. But BC, if you end up having Grasso versus Fiora, let me pull up the rankings here very, very quickly so that we're all on the same page. I'm not just talking completely out of my ass in real time. Here's how it stands in that division right now. You do have Santos sitting at two, but then it's Murphy, Andrade, Grasso at five,

Araujo at six, Fioro at seven, Kaitlin Shukagan sitting at one. Like, dude, you have to go literally to five and seven to get a title shot if somehow both of those are eliminated, right? Because one of them has to lose, so one gets a title shot, one has to be eliminated, and then that person loses. Dude, you're having to go down to number nine or ten in the division of andre or lee or casey o'neill i think the ufc might be hesitant to make a grasso versus fioro matchup

for just that very reason no those are very good points i do want to also throw out there though to to further cement my idea though stevchenko finally looked human last fight against Tyler Santos. And Nunes lost the title and was able to win it back and improve, you know, and reprove her greatness. But it goes to show you that you wait much longer. You know, history could change before you have a chance to put these two historical figures against one another. But, Luke, I don't like to do this. I don't like to call you onto the carpet of pronunciations and find out firsthand whether your drapes match your own carpet there, Luke. But, you know, you could just as easily say Santos instead of Santos

and Grasso instead of Grasso and Adujo instead of Arujo. I mean, this is some Sage Chardet bullshit from you and you don't typically pull that so i'm a little bit disappointed in you this monday morning look and i'm the guy who can't figure out if it's risen or rising luke okay you know these are all very fair criticisms i've again you know look it's a common refrain you hear from me and i know people are sick of hearing it but it really is true my sleep is is a disaster and i can't think for five minutes straight without some kind of you know oh look a butterfly you know i mean i'm really just dying over here mentally from the

inside out so you all those criticisms absolutely fair and i don't know what to say about it but you know what haters will say do you know what haters will say and i'm not talking about bgl but haters will say if one of these women were colombian we wouldn't have this issue that's what they would say. Listen, I would like to tell you that they're wrong. They're probably not wrong. I really am guilty as charged here this morning. All right.

Tell me this. Tell me this. From your eyes, you're a keener eye. What did Alexa Grasso do in this fight that took her stock to another level that impressed you that we are talking about setting the stage for a potential title opportunity well it was funny that Dominic Cruz took a moment to throw shade at MMA statistics which I just have to tell you I really find I activated my Alexa one second Alexa off sorry that it happened Luke it did it did Grasso made it happen it happened go ahead I'm just gonna say which really blows my mind because I just don't understand how you can have the role as a commentator and then have hostility towards statistics and MMA.

It seems like one of your more valuable tools or at least some kind of a valuable tool, not some kind of, you know, referendum or challenge to your authority. I'd never understand that. But okay, neither here nor there. The reason why I bring it up is because Richard Mann of Fightmetric, he puts out a column every week sort of detailing what the statistical picture looks like ahead of every weekend's UFC main event, and his assessment using the numbers from the past week were like right on the money. What stood out to me was that you had Grasso, who doesn't have lights-out takedown defense, but over the course of a bout is very difficult to hold down for prolonged periods of time, which is true. She did have to give up a lot of time under control in the second round, but that is basically it.

And so that was something that we me was something I alluded to earlier, BC, which was, I knew that she had the skills, but did she have the discipline and frankly, the IQ to make good choices over the course of 25 minutes? That is actually a much more difficult task than it looks like, especially against an opponent who is both durable and physical yet hittable. It can be a little bit hard to do that. She had decision making for 25 minutes she did not ever compromise um herself by making poor decisions she was never really out of position and if she got put into a control spot she found ways around it over time and then never really let her opponent get back there she shut the door on her constantly which against this kind of sort of tricky opponent is very very very difficult to do.

So that's what stood out to me. Good decision-making around her existing abilities, incrementally better for sure, but applied very professionally, very diligently for an extended period of time. Hard to do that. She did it well. Did you agree with the scoring in the end?

I agree that she was the rightful agree with the scoring in the end I agree that she was the rightful winner wasn't there one or maybe even two four rounds to one cards out there um the scores were Mike Bell had it 50 to 45 Sal DiAmato 49 46 and then Janitia Real Comedio having a 49 46 that's about right I would give her one round maybe you give her the second round or something something like that um but other maybe the fourth or something but in general no i thought that that was there was it was easy to find three rounds i would say it's easy to find three rounds for grasso right that sounds very fair very fair um all right so let's talk now about the second fight on that card and point number two here Jonathan Martinez man what do

you want to say BC he I mean we let Cub Swanson out and I'll cop to this very quickly we did have a caveat on Friday saying we just didn't know what kind of cub we were going to get at bantam weight but he made weight look like relatively easily he did not look super drained I want to talk about what benefits may have been conferred or not from going to Bantamweight, but he didn't look compromised. I want to make that point. And the reason why I make that point is because I thought if you got a relatively similar cup from 145, even in this later stage of his career, that I thought he was going to beat up Martinez pretty handily. It was the exact opposite. Dude, Martinez demolished him, demolished him. Okay. How big of a win was this for Martinez and how big of a step up for him

was this as well it was big for Martinez fourth straight win I believe he's got something like five wins in his last six fights but you know this is a big name and into your the first half of your question regarding Cub and to be fair because of Cub's name that played into a lot of our pre-fight talk was just what would Cub look like you know is it too late at 38 I think it's somewhat inconclusive regarding Cub meaning I didn't see him physically compromised at this weight class I just saw a hungry young fighter in the 26 year old Martinez come out take control of the moment let us know his name if we didn't beforehand afterwards and be destructive as shit in chopping this veteran warrior down one leg kick after another from the outside from the inside switching legs

just absolutely brutalizing him that yeah at the end of the day this was a step up big boy performance from Jonathan Martinez and I think it's going to put him his name on the map you know this division's so deep with up-and-comers legends guys in the midst of their prime it's going to put his name on the map. You know, this division is so deep with up-and-comers, legends, guys in the midst of their prime. It's easy to get lost when you're not in that top ten in terms of people talking about you. You know, this doesn't allow you to cut to the head of the class, but this gets your name known.

People are going to be talking about him after this performance. So I got nothing bad to say about it, Luke. It was destructive. It was step-up. It was confident. it was confident was mature and uh damn it was hard to watch by the end of it i mean he he kicked the shit out of him luke literally really did i mean with with jesus though the leg shots were punishing i mean look at these highlights this is this is really what sort of caught my attention about the whole thing bc was that jesus where do i start

i mean i kind of have to start with cub unfortunately because that's sort of where i had framed everything from the get-go i don't really know what he got out of this you can make the argument that it's inconclusive fine by the way here i am drinking my killer cub mug and coffee i by the way he's got the best you know athlete endorsed or made coffee whatever you want to call it that i've ever had it's really really good from columbia by the way should be known but the point i want to make was bc um he looked he didn't look drained but his this is what also okay i'm trying to like put a few things here together two things really stood out to me about Cub. One was that he did not look drained, certainly, but on the other side, it almost looked like his style was not new enough for modern MMA. Do you see how

many times he was throwing like big single strikes trying to get in and then get out? And Martinez was basically, for the most part, either eating it or having none of it. But when he was eating it, he seemed quite durable. And in fact, he was the one dishing out the far worse punishment, which I thought was kind of interesting. So you had the situation where like, okay, the weight cut didn't necessarily hurt him, but I don't know that it necessarily elevated him either. And more to the point, there might be some durability issues in part because, hello, he's 38 and he's been fighting for a very long time. But also on top of that, like going down to that weight class

and depleting yourself against a guy who has offense also on top of that like going down to that weight class and depleting yourself against a guy who has offense in a lot of different phases is well suited for the weight class looked to be a little bit faster to me and just had a bit more of a modern game that dude that was overwhelming quite literally it was overwhelming for Cub to deal with that and I'm not here to say that Martinez is not a good fighter I think think by virtue of this performance, anybody like me who was potentially discounting him on Friday needs to reevaluate that. But I just go back to it. It's like, I think this was a great win for Martinez because it showcased all the high

notes of his game and all the different ways in which he can meaningfully score damaging offense, all the different phases, all the different ranges, and how much more modern his game is. On the other side, it was just a bit of a reflection for me on cub where like he's up he's down he's up he's down in the win-loss column but the bantamweight cut man i don't i if this is supposed to be the start of a new lease on life i can buy that you know one fight on lesson i can buy that one fight isn't enough to make a strong determination, but the early, the early reviews are not positive. Yeah. Well, let me put the, the, the term I use there in the proper context, because people sometimes they miss what I'm really trying to say, Luke, is that a me problem or them problem?

You know, in this case, I want to say this, if your expectations were that at 38 Cubs Swanson, it's going to go to a new division that happens to be the deepest in the sport and maybe the deepest in history and come through with a spectacular finished performance and announce himself as a new contender. Well, I never really firmly bought into that in the first place. So when I say the results for Cub here was kind of, what was the word I said, Luke?

Inconclusive. I was going to say inconsequential. Inconclusive is to the idea of whether long term is this the the right move can he have success in this weight class i think that's still inconclusive the idea of him and i know he's trying to talk himself up of course he did this for a purpose to try to enter a new division clean slate use what he's got left in the tank no this didn't validate any of those those ideas of him now moving into the top 10. I mean, not only did he lost, he got stopped and somewhat brutally, to be fair, but inconclusive in the larger picture of does he have life left here? I think the

question you asked is what did he gain from this? Is that an easy cut? I mean, they talked it as he was walking to the cage, the announcers of, you know, he felt like he was cutting to 145 too easy in recent years and he really wanted to challenge himself i don't think he needs to run away from bantamweight i don't know if he fully learned exactly what what he looks like or who he is as a 135 pound fighter but the result certainly puts in a a ceiling there in terms of what our expectations can be moving forward no question yeah i i certainly don't question that as well. Now, we're looking, I don't know that this was the kind of performance

for Martinez that would necessarily put him inside the top 15 space because you've got Umar Nurmagomedov at 13, Yanez at 14, Jack Shore at 15. He's still got some work to do there. As you indicated, it's one of the more deeper divisions inside the sport. But he said something kind of interesting post-fight. Remember how we referenced on Friday that Cub had a weird media day where he had an anger translator who spoke for him

and he didn't say a word at media day? Martinez, now fighters are going to take anything they can as like, oh, you're against me, well, then I'm going to stick it to you kind of thing as motivational fuel for their careers. But he sort of took that as a slight i didn't think that cub was trying to do that did you what trying to slight the media and fans no cub by having that weird media day that he had was insulting martinez as somehow not worth his time. No, you have to wonder if that way cut turned out to be harder than even Cub thought. So he just thought, look, let me just conceal myself, you know, take the attention off of me, put it on this guy.

I mean, look, I'd love to be your anger translator in real time. Some argue that I am, Luke, you know. Are you my anger translator? In some ways, or I might be the activator of your anger. That also in play but no i didn't read anything extra on there let me look look the expectations do have to be you know tempered is that the word tempered temper yes to begin with at 38 um rough setback tough setback now he's got to figure out was what is the is the juice worth the squeeze here? Should I just go back to 145 and play out what I've got left?

Luke, to be very fair here, and it comes back through the wars, and he's fought everybody that he could, and he almost got to the title level. He was very close a couple times in terms of getting to the very top of that mountain. I don't know how many fights he has left on his deal, but this would be the type of aging free agent who could potentially find more life elsewhere. Would you say? Like a BKFC? No, I don't want him to get off the last stop on the highway.

I'm just saying, if you had found out tomorrow that he was inserted into a PFL season, right, you'd go, okay, maybe let's see if he can find new life here, right? Yeah, I don't know if they're doing 135. Isn't it right that they don't have a 135 division anymore or ever? I don't think they have 135, but to your point, could they do 145? Yes.

There certainly is a case to be made that, again, he's up and he's down. It's not universal and slow and steady decline. I mean, obviously there is decline in a larger sense, but competitively he's able to amass a win and a loss and a win and a loss, and that's sort of where he is. I did not get the impression that Cub can't win anymore. That's not the argument that I'm making. But when you make a big change like this, it's like, okay, let's see if we can ascertain what the benefit might be. And again, you could go back to the Maraich fight, which Aldo lost, and you could say, well, Aldo didn't necessarily start off all that great either, but then if you look at the actual details of the performance,

you could say Aldo should have won that fight and certainly had strong moments where he looked pretty good and then following that as well. This just didn't look like it conferred any benefit. I just didn't see the firepower didn't get added, the durability wasn't necessarily there, the speed wasn't necessarily there, and speed wasn't necessarily there and then again these bantamweights man they have really even unranked ones have much more advanced games

i'm looking at who he has lost to jonathan martinez in the ufc davy grant and andre you will being kind of the last two the you will fight was a split decision loss grant polished him off inside the second with punches seems to me like high pressure guys either in the wrestling or even the striking department grant has like a high output um tend to give him problems cub being a sort of a single punch guy that's like the opposite of the kind of thing that typically gives martinez problems historically speaking so maybe in the nbc it was just a bad matchup it was just a bad matchup yeah it happens you know last thing on this would you want to see cub continue to try bantamweight or back to 145 i'd personally like to see him go back to 145 and that's why i sort

of introduced not knowing his contract situation the idea that like what is left for him is it is it just you know play out what i have left be in some fun competitive fights try to get as many wins as i can or could it be you know dropping down a bit and taking on a different level of competition luke elsewhere i don't i don't know his contract situation but if he's staying if he's got a lot more fights left you know he did he learn everything he could have learned about what he could look like at 135 no but i think your original question is the one that stands the firmest still of, you know, only he's going to know if this is actually worth it for him to continue down this path.

Yeah, he won in 2020 in December of 2020 beating Daniel Pineda, but then he lost to Giga Chikadze. Okay, no shame there. He's tough. Then he beat Darren Elkins in 2021. He KO'd him inside of a round. That's amazing. And then loses to Martinez here at 135. That, to me, does not signal the end is imminent. Obviously, at 38, it probably is closer than it is that we might imagine certain scenarios.

But it doesn't mean that, like, oh, he has to retire right away. I don't think that's quite the case. But it was not his night, certainly, on Saturday. All right, BC. Let's talk about the boxing side of things shall we now I want to I want let's start with this one Deontay Wilder he wins by KO one punch inside the very first round it wasn't competitive I mean I guess for as long as it lasted until it didn't it was competitive it just when when it's over in a while their fight it's fucking over luke okay that's the deal all

right all right all right so here's the first question i want to ask and there's not much tape to go on but we talked about how he was really light right at the weigh-ins 214 is deontay as good as ever or is he new and improved i think he's as good as ever and that's the best you can hope for following two consecutive stoppage losses in both you know one against fury the second one being one-sided the third one being competitive at times largely one-sided but the biggest theme here is that you know wilder was willing to risk it all and and and got served took time off considered retirement made out with his own statue. Now he's back.

Again, at the end of the day, did you get the bang for your buck if you paid 75 bucks for this? Well, you've got to debate that with yourself. You still got, at the end of the day, what you were looking for. Maybe not a full referendum on exactly where Deontay Wilder is physically, mentally, all that, in terms of if we had seen him box eight to nine rounds. But he was in there with a guy his size who could punch, and they've got history together, and he only landed three total punches and needed just one with that perfect right-hand counter from the corner

to knock this man cold, ice cold. So I think in the totality of the build-up to this fight and what we saw on fight night, he's as good as he ever was, Luke, because he's back in the type of shape. Well, he never fell out of the buildup to this fight and what we saw on fight night he's as good as he ever was luke because he's back in the type of shape well he never fell out of the shape the point was that he added 23 24 pounds of bulk for the second and third fury fight which strategically not a bad idea but when he's in this you know cruiserweight plus sort of bridger weight area of 214 215 he is dangerous as f we already know he has certain sublime superpowers in terms of his

intangibles not just the power his his gas tank his ability to stay poised even if he's losing on the cards and still deliver the boom i think if you take his interviews as a whole the way he looked and acted here physically in this very very very short window of footage not only is he back luke i'm not sure he's not going to win another heavyweight title before it's all said and done he's only he's 36 yes he'll be 37 soon but that's extremely young has he taken a fair amount of damage of late of course yes that is also to be expected at heavyweight but he has the great equalizer that i'm sorry on on paper, unless you're Tyson Fury or Alexander Usyk, and these are two heavyweights, by the way, who are all-time

heavyweights we're finding out. Seriously, both need to add a few more names, but both have the type of skills and ability that you don't see at heavyweight now than in general, especially now. But short of those guys, and Wilder could knock out either of those guys at any given point, I don't know if there's another heavyweight that can go 12 full rounds with him. I don't. Would I like to see him against Andy Ruiz

or eventually against Anthony Joshua or against anyone? Yes. I mean, I want to see Wilder against everybody because this is what he delivers. But a couple things are true at the same time. One, he's never going to be the boxer in terms of pure ability and technique that's going to win you over or make you not potentially criticize him. But he's also never going to be dull and he's also never going to be out of a fight because

he's so strong, so athletic, he's so poised and he never gets enough credit for that. This was the full boom. He's back and I think, Luke, he's back in a very big way because the only fights we're talking about now are the, you know, pay-per-view blockbuster world title variety, maybe separate from Andy Ruiz, who at least is a former champion in the same promotional stable as him. This is as good as it gets for Wilder.

He's back, and I think he's back in a big way, Luke. What can you pick apart from this negative? Nothing at all. I mean, not much. I mean, you kind of know what you're going to get with Deontay, the way you said it. Like, he doesn't have Andre Ward-level boxing or footwork or anything else like that, but he's patient.

He is patient, and he has, you know, a nuclear bomb attached to his right hand. I mean, we're talking about a guy. We've had this argument a million times, or at least a debate, and it certainly is one. Who are the hardest punchers in boxing in all-time history? You've got Ernie Shavers or Julian Jackson or whatever. And Foreman's another guy you could pick as well.

Wilder doesn't have power in both hands that way, but in terms of his power punch, his single right hand, it's one of the most lethal right hands in the history of boxing, man. I mean, it's the fucking death touch. This guy just didn't have a great punch. Luke, to be fair, the, the, the knockout in the second Ortiz fight kind of reminded me of the punch that he landed here. It wasn't a perfect punch.

Didn't turn the chin. It actually hit him straight on in the nose but when you've got power that's just nuclear and you're able to line up a straight shot you don't need the full extension you don't need all the room in the world you just need to land that thing and body scatter dude that's just what it is and if there was another hole in his game beyond the boxing that you can expose, then he wouldn't be who he is today. But because there's not, they don't make people that can stand up to him

unless they're super-duper special. That's the reality of heavyweight history, Luke. Love him or hate him, he's still in this game, and he's still very, very viable. Well, this is why a performance like this one, I mean, whether or not, I think you said it correctly, whether or not you feel like you got your money's worth on pay-per-view is up to the person who purchased it but what i can say is i don't know how you feel bc and again you can make all the arguments in the world that for the majority however long that fight lasts deontay wilder would be thoroughly outboxed fine i seedede control of that argument to whoever wants to make it but if deontay

wilder fights anthony joshua i'm picking deontay wilder 10 times out of 10 sorry dude if you mean to tell me he only landed three punches on robert helenius and all he needed was fucking one of them which wasn't even at full extension to do that you cannot sell me on the idea that Anthony Joshua can box and move and get out of way of enough punches over the course of 36 minutes to avoid a similar fate I don't buy it I simply do not buy it I don't believe it Anthony Joshua is a better boxer than Deontay Wilder but he's not going to last in a boxing contest if they ever meet tell me I'm wrong BC tell me what I would say Tyson Fury is the best heavyweight of this era. And he is, if he stays on the path and continues to knock off the names, seriously, he's going to parachute into that top 10 in a

very high spot because find me another unbeaten six foot nine guy with that type of quickness. And he was down four times in three fights against Deontay Wilder. I mean, like, you know, had a pull from the grave in round 12 of that first fight, Undertaker style to shoot back up. We're going to talk about him maybe in the time is now in terms of what's next for Wilder, but you know how much I love Alexander Usyk, who's undisputed cruiserweight champion, now trying to do that at heavyweight. He's unbeaten. He's in the top five or six pound for pound. Some people have him number one right now. You can't tell me if he fights Wilder next or eventually that that's not must-see TV every second for how long that fight lasts

because even if Usyk is dancing circles around him, Usyk's biggest problem is going to be that I don't think he has elite-level recuperative ability in this division. We know he's not a heavyweight one-punch knockout guy or even really a knockout guy in general. Dude, Usyk's going to be in danger even if he's up 11 rounds to zero in that fight. Look, I know Deontay Wilder, he can't avoid criticism. Maybe that's part of why that statue moment was so emotional for him. And to his words, you know know finally receiving my flowers from people did he get a raw deal in some ways in terms of the the american pro sports landscape which is

so competitive the u.s never fully embraced wilder when really they should have in the times that they did it was okay yeah he's fun to watch but man this guy couldn't outbox uh you know insert then whatever whatever joke you want to make. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. I mean, look, if I asked you, if I told you that he's fighting Usyk in six months, you can't be confident for any single moment of that fight if you're Usyk. They don't have punchers like this throughout history. There's a reason why this guy Wilder's got 10 title defenses, which is fifth best all time.

And, you know, who has he not finished? Okay, Stiverne in the first title fight he had because he broke his right hand, but he still won it. And Tyson Fury. That's it. Everybody else ends up looking up at the lights. And look at the Stiverne rematch, too. What happened in the Stiverne rematch?

He went to the land of wind and ghosts quickly. Yes. Yeah. Dude, Wilder is, by the way, way like i don't know what would be more american than getting a late start not being good at the fundamentals but having so much power that it just overwhelms your foes that's a very american way to fight i have i do say so myself but truthfully i think you're right i mean whether it's andy ruiz whether it's alexander usic whether it's anthony joshua or whoever they find to face this

guy Joe Joyce how about that Joe Joyce whoever at any point in time and yes those guys could put Fury excuse me those guys could put Wilder away because he does have some vulnerabilities we saw Tyson Fury in the subsequent fights from the first one take the fight to Wilder and then get him away early but of course he had to court danger and everything else to do that I'm only pointing out he's also 6'9 bro he's also 6' everything else to do that. I'm only pointing out. He's also six, nine, bro. He's also six foot nine.

Six, nine. I understand. I'm simply pointing out, you know, we can't ignore Wilder's vulnerabilities by virtue of his power, but the story, the story is,

if you look at the history of Deontay Wilder's career, the story is really not the vulnerabilities. The story is people can't get out of the way of thunder and lightning. It's just too difficult to do unless, as you articulated quite correctly, BC, you're a 6'9 freak Tyson Fury who's just godlike level abilities. Short of that, the Reaper is coming. He is coming for you, and that power is so destructive, he needs just that much of it to do

unbelievable shit it's pretty impressive what do you say to people that go ah this played up to the least like you could argue it played up to the least you know of your expectations because it was over so quick and it made helenius look like a pile of crap we know better to know that this could happen in the 10th round as easily to it happened in the first, and Hellenius can do some things. Do you feel, I mean, like, when Mike Tyson was in his prime, you know, also when Ronda Rousey was in her early UFC prime, it's like, you're paying

for, you don't care who the opponent is, you don't care how quickly or how late it ends, you just have to see it. You know, we're still there with Wilder. I mean, can you, is there an argument to make as a consumer that, oh, Hellenius was never that good to begin with. Look at what happened. No.

Well, did we oversell Helenius? We talked about the vulnerabilities. How about this? Let me pitch this to you this way. Tell me why we didn't oversell him. Tell me why folks, because by the way, it should be noted afterwards, there were friends who saw Wilder break down the post-fight press conference, which I do want to touch

on a little bit, but there was also a video of Wilder visiting Hellenius in his hotel room long after the fight was over and they embraced, and he actually apologized to him and Hellenius said something like, don't be sorry, I've been doing this for 25 years, I think my time is up but, you know, there was there was

a lot between them that could explain some of the matchup but you answer this bc tell me why we didn't oversell him uh look because we were honest up front that helenius was at one point a failed you know kind of a bust in terms of he was looking like the future of the division 10 years ago we brought up those two knockout losses which you know in hindsight but he had turned his career around too late he was red hot and i think wilder said it to us in our pre-fight interview the best it's like yeah i love this guy and i'm gifting him this opportunity but once we step through those ropes like the love's gone this is what i do and you know again like if this had played out in the seventh round, would you have been happier? Because you got more time for your money? Maybe, but very few guys can do that. Wilder can.

I don't think it mattered to me. I think Hellenius was the perfect challenge size-wise and strength-wise where if Wilder, who had some legitimate questions to answer. Anytime you're talking about retirement and then you flip it and come back, there's always legitimate questions about where your want is and where it's at. Okay. This, this didn't turn out to be a long dragged out thing where we got to see whether Wilder's gas tank is still there in his want because he's so freaking dangerous. Okay. So like the, so at the end of the day, Luke, it's like there were questions that could have been exposed if Wilder wasn't the same guy, but for, for, you know, two minutes

there, he kind of looked like the same guy again so uh i don't think we oversold it that's sort of what happens when you're paying to watch somebody with frightening all-time great power you know it's tyson sphinx it happens okay it happens all right so that leads to the question let's let's talk about the real world the real world what is likely next for him is it Ruiz or is it Usyk or is it Joshua or is it something else lay out the realistic likely next opponent for Deontay Wilder all right uh Tyson Fury has to be mentioned in this because I think he's the conductor in some ways of what's going to happen next he was going to fight Derek Tresora third time December 3rd. It's looked at, rightfully so, since he has two wins over the aging

Del Boy, as just a stay busy, bring in a name that Fury seems to like a lot, give him his final payday, and get out of there. In some ways, not completely different from what Wilder just did against Hellenius. Okay? That's why I don't think we oversold it. Because, yeah, was Hellenius a setup

for Wilder to look good against? Yes. Also, it could have been a trap fight, and it wasn't. But if Fury is just doing this to stay busy, to stay fresh and get ready for Alexander Usyk in the, you know, late winter, spring, whatever, whenever they're going to do it, for all four belts, then given that Wilder and Andy Ruiz are both under the PBC banner, and given that, I don't know what Fox's TV future is with PFC with PBC after this year but Fox had been so invested in building slowly to this Wilder Ruiz fight is that a a pay-per-view PBC would seek whether it was on Fox or Showtime

I think so Luke I think there's money there I think there's action and fun there, both former champions. I think it would take Tyson Fury purposely delaying or outright saying, I don't want this Usyk fight, which again would cause another whole debate and talk. I think at the end of the day, Fury is that fighting man. He's doing some shell game and bait and switching, but he wants to fight Usyk. He doesn't want anybody else to steal his thunder. Wilder would have a chance to steal his thunder in a way if he went in there and upset Usyk. He doesn't want anybody else to steal his thunder. Wilder would have a chance to steal his thunder in a way if he went in there and upset Usyk. Fury's already beaten Wilder arguably three times.

Would he care about that? No, I think Fury still wants to make the history that's available to him and take control of the spotlight. Give me Fury-Usyk next year as the next fight for both of them if he gets by Chisora and give me Wilder Ruiz it seems to make the most sense but I think the most fun fight that is also the most important you can make right now actually would be sliding Usyk and Wilder together just my take at the moment all right yeah my hunch and based on nothing other than just a hunch is that I think

Wilder Ruiz will happen next but the Usyk one is interesting it could happen it certainly should um I also Joshua is such a it's such a wild card right now I don't know what's going to happen with him either there's rumors that he might fight Otto Wallin Anthony Joshua in a in a comeback fight what do you think about that uh old Valine I think is how you pronounce it again yeah Otto Valine, who pushed Fury to the limit there with that cut. Yeah, which by the way, if it had happened in another jurisdiction, that fight could have been stopped and Valine could have won. That's a decent fight. Otto Valine's probably a little bit overmatched

against Joshua, but it's competitive enough that I would care. It's not like, but it's certainly not the preferred fight for him. I think that I would argue. I mean, I could certainly get by on it, and he probably does need a bit of a tune-up, right? So not that he's had time off, but to get his mind right, given how, I think, devastating the losses to Usyk were. But don't hate it, don't love it, but it's understandable,

is the way I would put it. What matchups left at heavyweight that we have not seen what's the one fight you want to see the most or it could be another rematch what's the what for you as the heavyweight fan here you know in this moment in the second right now i think i love matchup wise wilder usic the best but if i had to choose look i'm taking'm taking the history of Usyk Fury. Give it to me right now. Let me smear it on my face.

What tugs at the heartstrings of heavyweight fan Luke Thomas? So certainly Usyk Fury, for sure. Candidly, I go back to it again. Wilder, Joshua. I really want to see that. I want to see what it's like for two guys, both tall, big for the weight class, obviously, while they're as thin, relatively speaking. But for one guy, phenomenal athlete and boxer, can move the whole nine yards, has an entire country behind him,

against a guy who's got not many of some of those same things, but has pretty good durability, which we saw, and a level of power which we won't see again anytime soon how does that how does that pair up i would really really love to see that one that one would get me front row for sure that could be a hell of a non-title pay-per-view if we end up going that route i mean imagine if usic fury happens but gets pushed off or needs a rematch or whatever if wilder gets past joshua and rematch or whatever, if Wilder gets past Joshua and then suddenly, I'm sorry, Wilder gets past, who are we talking about?

Oh, Andy Ruiz, and then suddenly Joshua's available. I mean, that's still an 80,000 soccer stadium without belts, right? Joshua and Wilder? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That would be for sure that would do well. I mean, yeah, obviously in the UK, not so much here, but yes. Yes, that would be enormous, enormous.

But, you know, again, there's a lot of other permutations you could make that I wouldn't like as much, but I would still like to see a lot. And I'm glad, I will say this, we should say it. I am glad Deontay is back. I am glad Deontay Wilder is back. He is a fun addition to heavyweight boxing, and he's weird in his own way and he's certainly unique bc but he the division is better off for the fan experience anyway when he's competing absolutely it that it

brings back that feeling that anything can happen right that is always there in combat sports but sometimes you get too many one-sided matchups in a row you know you get the point he just cuts right through the heart of it nothing Nothing matters but that right hand and if it can find you in 36 minutes. So it's as simple and elementary as possible to explain to people, and maybe that's why it's so fun to watch. You see, the last thing I'll say on,

excuse me, on Deontay Wilder would be that in the post-fight presser, I indicated he had broken down talking about what boxers go through. He was very emotional about having to hurt his friend, Robert Hellenius. And again, they embrace later on, and I think it's all good. But I will say that people were giving him a lot of praise,

which I want to as well. This is not an opportunity for me to slam Deontay Wilder. I'm not interested in doing that. But remember, in our interview with him, we asked him about a thing that he used to say all the time, which was, you know, I definitely want to catch a body. He would openly say he wanted someone to die in the ring that he had killed by virtue of fighting them which I always found very

off-putting and I and earlier in 2018 and 2019 I was giving him opportunities to walk it back and he never did we asked him about it pre-fight he kind of distanced himself from it a little bit and then you saw this it seems like we're getting in many ways bc the same old dionte which is a good thing but in terms of the mental changes he has made perhaps a much more mature and i think compassionate one which i i'm happy to see actually i am too and and you know that same interview if we had gone the route of did you really believe all that stuff you said about tyson fury and mark breland then you could have come out of that interview based on his responses feeling like nothing's changed but i do agree on that specific topic. I always felt that was more showmanship of, you know, I'm so nasty that, yeah, I'm trying to

catch a body, which, you know, in this sport where unfortunately this does happen on all levels on a regular basis, you know, it's just the reality of it. You hate to hear that. But look, there's also a lot of stuff said in boxing and MMA that we wouldn't accept elsewhere that we do because it is the fight game. So I never harp too much on it. But I do feel he's mature. I feel like, look, in anyone that goes through things on a very public level, which he has, you know, you have to come out of that for the better or the worse.

It is great to see him seemingly have his head on straight in the right spot as he continues his career. He says he wants three years more well there's plenty of fun matchups that we could fill for those three years so let's see yeah knock on wood let's hope we get the a full three all right before we move on from this card we stay with pbc on boxing how about old caleb plant huh now the fight was weird our you know they were tumbling on top of each other and Durrell had a couple of big moments and then a couple of the rounds were eh. But in the end, Caleb Plant,

a one punch knockout over Anthony Durrell. BC, is it a case of Durrell being too old or have we continued to underestimate Caleb Plant? A little of all the above, but I don't put too much in. The reality is Durrell is older for sure. And after this type of disastrous knockout loss, you do have to look in the mirror and say, how much do I have left? Should I be keeping on? But he was fresh off of a knockout of the year contender his last fight.

This was a big opportunity. It's not that he fought bad leading up to the knockout. It was just that it was somewhat of a grungy, gross, non-exciting fight. Both had the moments you kind of expected, but it wasn't consistent. And it was a very almost dirty fight. But how freaking shocking was this finish for Caleb Plant? I mean, look, it's extra shocking considering, A, he's not a puncher. He's just not. He's a slick-ass boxer b there was a lot of trash talk leading up to this a lot and that just happens in caleb plant

fights and it seems like he's fueled by that but that finish was gore as gorgeous as it was brutal and shocking a left hook to the body, and just as Durrell slipped his right arm down to try to block a follow-up, he went back, left hook upstairs, cleaned his clock. F you. I mean, this is the ultimate fuck you knockout. It really is. Of course, you had the sprinkles on top, whether you think it was too far or not, of his Tito Ortiz-inspired burial afterwards, which was either in really bad taste or, again, just part of the fight game. But, Luke, I think a lot of the fervor leading up was into this idea that Anthony Durrell

may or may not have said somewhere publicly that he'll never lose to a white guy. And that did harken back to Bernard Hopkins saying the same thing a decade and a half ago ahead of the Joe Calzaghe fight, which he lost. I'll give Anthony Durrell credit. He posted a video overnight on Instagram that showed that he's okay. He gave Caleb all the love and respect and said, look, you got me. Okay. Great punch. Great performance champ. But he also said, Hey fans, if you can find the video where I said that I'll give you like 50 G's right now. So look, I don't know if he actually did. I heard that he did, but that seemed to play into this. There was no love lost between them

and old Darrell, the dog. He got old Yellard in the end, Luke. It is what it is, and it's shocking. It's shocking coming from Caleb Plant. But, Luke, in terms of a bounce back, you set this question up talking about Darrell's age. How about Caleb Plant bouncing back from the Canelo loss with this right here?

You know know money's coming money's coming after this performance emphatic emphatic win really closing the show I love it when bad blood again to me may the best man win whoever that is but I like it when bad blood ends at a fight with a definitive clear no question about a conclusion and that's exactly what you got here I do think that Darrell's age played a role in it. But I also feel like in terms of his durability, but he didn't see it coming. If you actually watch in slow motion,

you see the left hook to the body. And then there's a counter, which never comes. But Caleb Plant doesn't go one, two. He actually delays his timing. So he goes one, wait. And then he pops him. Dude, Durrell never saw it coming. Yeah.

Which means he absorbed every ounce of it. And it shut his lights off. timing so he goes one wait and then he pops him dude durell never saw it coming yeah which means he absorbed every ounce of it and it shut his lights off dude that was real good work from caleb plant that was really solid work and while this wasn't again as we said a great fight both had moments like look durell landed some stiff sort of counter shots throughout but overall the work plant's doing now with stephen breadman edwards as his new trainer his dad richie still in the corner they got rid of the last guy justin whatever his name was but uh no disrespect there but you get my point um this seemed like on paper a good relationship and you saw some new nuances i mean again a guy that's not a puncher but luke he's pinpoint accurate he's got speed and when you can

hit people with that type of combination late in a fight i mean did you like when he well let's start here luke you've seen the teeter ortiz uh impersonation a lot but yeah referee harvey doc wanted nothing to do with caleb pouring the dirt on top of the referee doing dude get the fuck out of here with that what is he doing yeah are you allowed as a i mean as a referee i do think you have some discretion over taunting or certainly you cannot interfere, for example, with any kind of medical personnel. That is a definite no-no. But, you know, everyone in boxing clutching their pearls.

Listen, to me, Deontay saying previously, he doesn't say it anymore it seems like, but previously saying he wanted to catch a body, I found it very off-putting and I didn't like it. But I didn't think he should be, like, fined for, but I didn't think he should be like fined for it. I didn't think he should have a point taken away. I didn't think he should be anything other than like dissuaded from saying or even thinking those kinds of things.

Now here, am I going to say that like this was a great display of sportsmanship from Caleb Plant? No, of course not. But dude, Caleb Plant, if you guys aren't paying attention, he does have a fair amount of supporters. That dude has to eat a lot of shit all the time. For for some reason he's also a magnet for a lot of people who just doubt him and talk bad about him including this opponent including lots of people on the internet and every other place and this is not a sport where necessarily sportsmanship always reigns

did i like the fact that he was doing the grave digger a la tito ortiz over anthony durell just laying there like that no i didn't like it do I think the referee should be interfering in this kind of way get the fuck out of here do these guys say mean things to each other you don't have to like it but you don't have to be so censorious about it either I bet look I'm sure Harvey Doc just wanted to keep him away from the hurt body I mean look if that escalated to like Caleb leaning over him and doing the DX chop while teabagging him, you're going to want to remove him from that in that moment. But, you know, Masvidal was able to dive on the canvas

next to Askren's fallen body and do a couple skits there. I mean, skits and bits. It happens. Luke, after he did the gravedigger, did you see Plant lean over the ropes, point to Jamal Charlo at ringside, and talk that shit? Luke, that got me.

No, I missed that. You did that, huh? That got me doing this while I was watching it. You know what I'm saying? Woo-hoo, let's go. Let's go. So, dude, we could do Plant. Let's talk about it.

We could do Plant versus Benavidez. We could do Plant versus Charlo. What is a likely next step for Caleb Plant? Because as you indicated, Darrell, not the biggest name, but as emphatic a win as he could get given the circumstances. Durrell's still a name in boxing. It just comes down to whether you thought he was too old coming in. You know what I mean?

Not an in-prime name. That's not the kind of name that he is. Former two-time champion, but not in his best anymore. Look, the two fights to target toward, whether they're next or you're building toward, sometimes I don't think they need to build toward it. Plant's currently not a champion, doesn't have any mandatories lined up. It's either road.

And let's hope the winners face each other after that. But it's either let's go the direction of Benavidez, which is a tougher fight on paper for Caleb Plant than Jermall Charlo, who would be moving up in weight. But also there is a, you thought the buildup for Durrell versus Plant was rough. Dude, Plant hates the Benavidez brothers and father way more. In fact, if you go on YouTube after the show and type up their history,

you'll see them almost get into brawls inside of gyms. A lot of trash talk going on back and forth. But, you know, how about Jamal Charlo, who, Luke, is coming off not a great performance, although we found out afterwards that the guy he fought, Juan Macias Montiel, is just a mule, a bull, whatever you want to call him. Not easy to handle that guy, although Carlos Adamas did. Carlos Adamas wants Jamal Charlo.

Charlo had been out for a bit with an injury. He was supposed to fight Maci Silecki. It didn't happen. If he's going to go up to 68 look the time might be now you know the time might be now and him versus kayla plant would be a hell of a fight but sometimes people covet belts or you know whatever more i mean look everyone's in the same stable pbc let's make it happen i don't i don't doubt that we're gonna see it but this has just got to get you excited for the future either road that plant could take

is is big money is fun let's do it let's do it because look that's a that's a that's a grown ass man performance there from caleb plant to finish it really was that was that was a great and again i want to be clear like he didn't have a whole lot for canelo necessarily offensively but he fought well in as much as one could given the circumstances and but he lost obviously got finished in the 11th and then to come back and then have this kind of a win i was like that's a great great comeback uh opportunity there for caleb would you sacrifice adamus germall to get germall and caleb plan on the same road to fight each other now yes yes okay okay because i don't want i don't want carlos adamus to miss his chance because he's coming on, okay? He certainly is.

All right, speaking of people who had standout weekends, how about the women of boxing? In many ways, they were the star of the show. I suppose Wilder took some of that. But here we go. Let's start with Clarissa Shields. She gets a win over Savannah Marshall. But BC, she indicated, first of all, was split, I believe, right?

No, maybe it was unanimous. No, it was unanimous. Sorry. Baumgartner and Michaela Mayer was split. It was unanimous. But, but, it was very close. And Shield said afterwards that was the toughest fight of her career. What did she prove with this victory?

Everything. I know that some people are tough on Clarissa. They don't like her personality. They don't like that she's edgy or she has a chip on her shoulder. She called herself the quote after about two or three pro fights. But what has she done as a pro? Take on every challenge possible, move up and down in weight. This was against the only person, pro or amateur that had beaten her. Marshall's been knocking people out left and right. So here's what Clarissa Shields decided to do in this fight, this grudge match, this historic first

all women's, you know, boxing card, not boxed from the outside, not, you know, not feather fist. She stood in the lion's den against a bigger puncher, took some heavy shots, including that straight right hand around two from Marshall that if Shields was going to have a problem with her power, it was going to be on that shot. And Luke, whether it was sound strategy or not, stood in front of a bigger, taller puncher the whole fight and just outclassed her. Now, it wasn't one-sided. This was not only a competitive fight. You had people online going, that's the best women's fight I've ever seen.

I mean, I don't think it was better or even bigger than Taylor Serrano, but that's apples and oranges. But it might be the second greatest women's fight we've seen in terms of stakes, both unification, both 12-0, 0-2 arena rocking, and look, Clarissa Shields won the weekend. I'm not lying. She stood at the strength of her opponent, and let's give Savannah Marshall some credit. She had Peter Fury in her corner, the uncle, of course, of Tyson and Huey Fury, the cousin, the former heavyweight contender, or maybe still in the corner. And I like the wrinkles Savannah Marshall has added to her game. She's able to use stance switching and shoulder movement to get off shots from weird ankles.

But Shields was just better in those angles. And she didn't back away from the danger. She went toward it. No, at the end of the day, with two-minute rounds and ten-round fights in the current women's game, Clarissa Shields is not a knockout puncher. But she's also not boring. She's not safe.

She went in there. I love the sportsmanship between them afterwards where Savannah said she is the greatest of all time. And, Luke, I think we really have to have this discussion. I mean, maybe not a permanent discussion, but as much as we may get annoyed by the marketing of this quote thing, greatest woman of all time, Clarissa Shields has two Olympic gold medals. She has 13 pro fights. She's won titles in three divisions, and she's been the four belt undisputed champion now three times. And it's not against people you've never heard of although in general in her weight area areas she doesn't have the same access to super elite fighters that maybe taylor and serrano have

at the moment but she seeks out who's ever tough and whoever can bring it and you're the undisputed champion now three separate times you went in there and waxed christina hammer who was unbeaten and a champion for a decade and now you went in here against an even more dangerous foe it turned out and you walked up to her porch and said let's do it right now on your terms if you want to put Taylor Serrano right now at the moment pound for pound number one above her that's you know there's arguments to be made but Clarissa Shields is the best fighter in the world right now in women's boxing in my opinion and I actually don't think she's that far from this idea of quote becoming an actual reality because there's not an ounce of smoke that she's not chasing down to try to get

at this moment how the hell can you watch this fight which was exciting as heck and not come away twice as impressed as you were about clarissa Shields in the beginning. Yeah, the only knock, seriously, and I think I mean this, the only knock on her game is she just doesn't have the power. That really is the limiting factor in what she offers. But to your point, dude, she is courageous in there. Now, I didn't love some of the tactical points in time where Marshall was backing her up and she was either against the ropes for too long or a couple times in the corner but even then she was finding shots to roll and then sneak in uppercuts or you know fire back and not let Marshall really take too much advantage of it and in general the strategy of trying to push into Marshall so she could kind of the words of Timothy Bradley smother some of that power dude Dude, that's not easy to do.

That is very difficult. And she pulled it off even while having sort of a power disadvantage. And by the way, Marshall just looked a lot bigger than her too, by the way. Like Marshall looked like she was in a different weight class when they were finally there competing. Dude, I will give Clarissa Shields all the credit in the world. She dares to be great. And I'm not going to say she's limited.

She's a very talented boxer, but she doesn't rely on the kinds of things that, for example, Deontay Wilder is able to. I don't begrudge him that either, but she just gets it done with skill, daring, and it seems like an incredible amount of determination. Where it puts her, BC, in the larger questions you're asking about greatest woman of all time currently top for pound best i don't really know i don't have a clear sense of it but this was as she indicated the toughest fight of her career you could see she had to really dig deep to do what she wanted to do and in the end she did it with a very hard game plan to pull off i think that was the part that was interesting to me. She wasn't jabbing and moving. She was going into the power, not away from it.

That is highly commendable. She won every statistical category in this fight, according to CompuBox, but I think what stood out to me was, again, against a bigger puncher, she landed 40% of her power shots. And Luke, you had people even like Ishe Smith, former world champion on Twitter,

going, find me another fighter, male or female, that's a better combination puncher than Clarissa Shields. And, you know, while that does seem like a large statement, she is so sharp. I mean, you know, for not having the power in a one punch variety, her shots are so crisp on the money, shortest distance, and when she's able to duck and come in and out and show you those angles and throw combinations, man, there are very few in this game who look exactly like that. And look at that corner at the moment right now, right? I mean, it's just John David Jackson's in there. I mean, there's...

She's only getting better, and she's only getting better. And she's only 27. She flirted with MMA. She had okay success for day one, just walking over into it. But I think she's going to walk away as the quote. I really do. And if this ends up being her toughest performance,

she passed this test with flying colors. Got a little on her, but that's expected at this level. I got a lot of respect for what T-Rex did. Does she still go by that name? No, right? No, I think it's a quote now. In fact, that's how they announced it when they announced the decision.

BC, would you like to see her continuing to try MMA? Yes and no. Do I think it's the best use of her time and talents, given how far ahead she is in boxing, to the other short of that punching power, as we mentioned. No, but it is. I mean, tell me, you're more of the pure MMA guy than me. I find her MMA fights fascinating, not only in the daring nature of them,

but the way that she tries to compensate for lack of true skills with just dogged determination, I think it's fun to watch if matched soberly. Yeah, even in MMA when she is in bad positions, she fights courageously there as well. She fights with determination to problem solve here and here, to borrow from Caleb Planton that way she she's overmatched sometimes against a grappler for example but she doesn't like you

always imagine a boxer being trying to be too safe like for example look at the way we had Demetrius Johnson I wasn't there for it when you guys had him for room service diaries when it was you and Chuck and he talked about how Rod Tang came out in the first round when it was striking and he was just you know all gusto and the talked about how Rod Tang came out in the first round when it was striking and he was just all gusto, and the second round was a totally different ball game. Like Shields, same energy. Same energy no matter whether she is the favorite, whether it's boxing, whether she's the underdog,

whether it's MMA. She fights with the same kind of courageousness everywhere. My answer to the question about whether she should try it is, you pointed out she's 27. I don't care which one she does, but needs to pick one and that's it because if she wants to keep going in boxing i think she can i think women's boxing is beginning to have something of a renaissance a little bit or wherever you want to call it um there are opportunities for her in mma but i do not want to see her go back and forth and back and forth. That's fun as like a one or two time.

Hey, I'll go and check this out. That's not, that's not really pursuing sustained greatness. And I would just like her to pick one and then go do that. And well, maybe, maybe there's going to be no need for the MMA side anymore.

She just headlined the first all women's card. And it was presented. Look, we'll see some of this and have you seen this shit, but do you see the entrances that each woman had Luke? It was like, Oh, each woman came out with dancers and choreographed moments i mean it was rock and roll i mean look first of all the uk is amazing at that we've seen that for anthony joshua fights but it was just presented as big taylor serrano just

happened at msg i don't think you know clarissa's gonna need this anymore but uh luke she's been through a lot in her life and she hasn't always told the full story. I don't know if you watch some of those pre-fight features about how she was raped at five years old by a family member and was at odds with her mom for years for siding with the wrong person. Her dad was in jail until she was 10. I mean, she's been through it.

Grew up in Flint. That's, you know, in our country, that's about as hard as it gets. And look where she is now. And look, you know, in our country, that's about as hard as it gets. And look where she is now. And look, you know, every other interview, she'll say shit that's probably bound to get you upset. But she's true to herself. And I've always respected that. And look at her now.

I mean, this is greatness. We're watching it. Now, for as great as that was, there was what was also great in the co-main, but it was a different kind of fight and a surprising one I think for us both of us thought that Michaela Mayer was going to get the win BC you could maybe make a case that she did I re-watched it today and I feel like the judges got it right Alicia Baumgartner gets the split decision win over Michaela Mayer so let me ask you first did the judges get it right? What can we say

about Bumgarner's performance? I think the fight was a draw. That's how I had it. I also tweeted out if you had it six, four, six rounds to four in either direction, I would have been fine with that. There was one judge that had it, what, seven rounds to three for Mayer that a lot of people didn't really love. But here's the deal at the end of the day. Was this fight fun to watch? To a degree, yes. I think both left a little on the table, though, meaning in the second half of this fight, when there was an opportunity,

I know they were very evenly matched, so maybe that's part of it, but I felt like neither one seized the moment. By the way, I got a couple things to say here. First, let's start with Tim Bradley. I love who Tim Bradley is becoming fully as an announcer. He's honest. He tells the truth, whether it's against the sort of narrative

of the network at the time. I will say ESPN's got things to fix regarding both of their fight cards, the Haney and this one, because of having announcers in different countries that delay. Christina Poncher, who was the female play-by-play announcer for this uh Shields and Baumgartner card kept like like us right now they kept stepping on each other it was awful and she was she was tweeting out during the fight that they've got a five second delay

because Ward's doing it from his house Bradley's doing it from his house Kriegel's doing it from his house that was clunky and it made this look amateur second separate from that I thought Tim Bradley kind of summed it up best and I agree with him it's like neither fighter I don't want to say neither fighter deserved to win this that's not what I'm saying but I'm saying neither fighter left no doubt so at the end of the day it is up to the judges it's either a draw or one of them wins closely but let's give Alicia Baumgartner credit for coming out with her hands on top something we didn't talk about leading into this fight Lucas she wasn't really supposed to be in this fight. She had upset Terry Harper and was somewhat an unknown and had leaped into that, you know, through the screen and that night on TV and made her statement.

In some ways, she did that against Mayer here. Look, even though the better moments for Baumgartner came early, the fact that she was able to, in some ways, disarm Michaela for long stretches by being so athletic and dangerous and finding a home for that looping right hand, which had some pop on it. Look, they both had ebbs and flows where either one took control. But I think she established something early. And in the women's game with 10 rounds, two minute rounds, you've got to establish something or you could risk losing, you know, even if you thought you won. I think she established enough danger early and then was competitive enough late where her getting her hand raised.

Nothing really wrong you can say about it. This was another breakthrough, gutsy performance from Bongartner, who's got an infectious personality. I mean, look, she had some kind of boxing trunks we've never seen, I don think before on a male or female I mean it was that was that was a little aggressive there Luke but uh she she has like this star value to her you got to win to make it matter she's winning it's it's mattering now I thought she won I thought Bumgarner won I thought that Michaela had like a good round four so some other rounds through the middle maybe like round eight or something like that but the speed of bum garner the power punching and just the trap she was setting every time mayor was trying to get on the inside she was just kind of overwhelming her and

flurrying her and and mayor just didn't seem to have a great answer if you look at the numbers bc the big difference is that mayor landed a lot more jabs and that bum garden landed a lot more power punches i'm not here to say that that that means that the person who throws power punches should always win there obviously can be very situationally dependent but in this case i actually do i actually do think that and it was like double digits more i think like 20 or 30 more as a matter of fact so for me it just seems like she was doing the more damaging work all the way not all the way the the majority of the way through although to your point i don't really disagree with the larger message which was did she affirmatively say that you know i'm the the queen bee so to speak with these three belts on the line no i didn't see that necessarily and

which is weird by the way bc because she poo-pooed talk of a rematch did she not oh yeah so all that saw here's what's interesting that was the sauciest of build-ups in terms of hatred and it got us all super excited the fight didn't didn't at all look like the build-up in fact they were both as tim bradley was saying give him credit again they were fighting very professional they put all the crap behind them. But even though they were cordial to each other afterwards, I kind of like seeing that Spice come back and Baumgartner, who was like, wait, you know, Baumgartner first, before we talk about Katie Taylor, she does want to unify completely.

There's another belt holder here at 130 pounds. She wants to become undisputed first. I almost kind of liked her spiting, knowing that, you know, there's a good chance she could see Mayer again, and it would be maybe a bigger deal if you wait a little bit and let them both go their separate paths. But Luke, I wanted to close talking about Baumgartner by bringing up the CompuBox numbers. Again, they don't always tell the story, but they certainly can be helpful in building

your argument and sustaining it. Even though we looked at this as Mayer the boxer versus Alicia the power puncher, Baumgartner did outland Mayer overall. 116 to 104, she landed a better percentage of her punches and she landed 40% of her power shots. So she really did do it across the board. I mean, is there anything negative in me saying neither fighter fully seized the day?

Was that more due to how competitive they were luke or do you feel like maybe they both held back a little bit too much i you know i don't really like the holding back argument if you have to fight technically because if you don't you'll lose what the fuck are you supposed to do like if you there was not a lot of room for error for either opponent in this way and what in the way in which they matched up and i think they realized that after a couple rounds in like you know you're gonna have to be very very careful this fight's gonna get away from you even though the fights are especially as you indicated with the fights being two minute rounds like yeah so that's around that should actually be our be the

answer to this question at the end like we're already well past the day about complaining about why this is still a thing. But this actually prevented this fight from really telling us who won, which again, you know, maybe that's why you started this this part of the conversation by teeing up. Should she want to rematch? Should there be a rematch? If you want to argue that there should be, you're going to use the 10 minute, the 10 rounds, two minutes, because we didn't really fully get the answers to all the questions. That's for sure. Yes, that is indisputable. Indisputable. We certainly did not.

And again, I think you can make a case for Mayer. It's not like I'm just saying I agreed with the judges, noting full well that it was very, very competitive all the way through. And that, by the way, I'll say this. At first, I was like, oh, she's not going to give a rematch. That sucks. But then I was like, you know what, man? Fuck all these rematches.

Go do something else. Go do something else. I agree. Like, if you guys are, or if you ladies are exactly who you say you are, and certainly Bumgarner is, you know, the preeminent talent in this weight class at the present moment, Mayer will find her down the line. Make it down the line. Do it a different time.

I don't need to see it right now, which, by the way, BC, leads me to point number five, if we can. Speaking of... Hold on. Before you go there, Luke, give me 10 seconds of your time. Humor me with this. Go ahead. Do either of these women, Michaela Mayer or Alicia Baumgartner,

if they move up to 135 and enter the Katie Taylor conversation are they a threat to Katie Taylor or Amanda Serrano either one we consider Taylor Serrano along with Shields at a level above the others in the pound for pound although Sunisa Estrada I'll give her my respect for sure

do you think either of these fighters can give an aging Katie Taylor I think is like these fighters can give an aging a katie taylor i think it's like 36 right can they give her trouble i'll say this gun to my head i would not pick either of them over katie taylor i would pick katie taylor to win but i'd be interested in seeing them i'd be because again i thought i thought mayor was going win. I thought she was going to win somewhat comfortably. Nope. Nope.

Still, it would be weird of me to not give Katie Taylor the benefit of the doubt, the confidence in her abilities and what she has shown. But I would like to see it. I would like to see it. Serrano, I actually think, is the worst matchup for both of them. You might be right. Isn't this crazy? I bet Serrano's

compiling belts right now at 126 these ladies were at 130 taylor's at 135 we already know serrano's won titles in almost every division that she could make wait for you know more decorated in some ways than even manny pacquiao i mean that'll that'll probably never get her the respect it actually deserves but like she fought at 118 and then four months later fought at, you know, 135 and then six months later came back. I mean, she's like, this is, I guess what you have to do if you want to be great while the women's boxing side is this fledgling right now at the moment. I mean, they've got momentum.

They're building, right? We're getting, we're getting, we're getting to a better place to be fair than even the Layla Ali and Wolf Christy Martin era era era that that era had you know some pay-per-view kind of attention grabbing stuff but this era has better more evolved fighters what serrano has done to get to get her greatness it's remarkable seriously i mean it's stupid i agree with that yeah completely all right but speaking of just utterly unnecessary rematches bc i checked to see what was trending on YouTube in the United States.

Now, again, people think that that will just naturally organize around your preferences. It does not. It is geo-located, so it's different for what's trending in the UK versus the United States. Think of it as top 40. Your top 40 chart here is not going to be the same as your top 40 chart there,

but it's not individually changed. So I looked at the trending videos. Of all the sports events, combat sports related over the weekend, there was a video for Wilder that trended. There was a video for Caleb Plant that trended. And I think there may have been one for Clarissa Shields. There was nothing for Devin Haney,

despite the fact that he ran over old George Kambosis better this time than he did the first time. BC, did we learn anything from this utterly unnecessary fight? We learned very little. Was it utterly unnecessary? Yes. This turned out to be the tax that Haney had to pay to gain control of his career, to move as a free agent from the zone and Matchroom to ESPN and Top Rank

because Kambosis was the power player coming off the Teofimo fight. We get it. He had to sign this. He's got one fight left on his Top Rank deal now, but it's weird. We weren't excited about this fight at all. At some points, this fight was competing

with fights on other cards. You had to have two screens up. And this was an even wider and almost in some, you know, on paper, easier win for Haney than this, than this,

than their first meeting. And the scores were wide this time around. Yet this flight was way more fun to watch than the first one. Cambosis, you know, was it effective for him to constantly switch stances and try all this wild shit? No,

but I give him credit for saying, I got to do something different because if I try to box this guy, I'm getting handled. If I rush this guy recklessly, I'm probably getting knocked out. He did find an in-between where he was able to get inside on Haney

at times, land shots. Was it enough to make an imprint on the scorecards? No. Was it enough to make this rematch viable or necessary? No. But I do give him credit for saving face the best he could. He gave Haney the toughest fight he was physically capable of. Would you agree that was more entertaining than the first?

Or did you just poo-poo this so badly you missed that, Luke? Because I almost missed it. I almost did. There are times I'm, you know. Yeah, I'll acknowledge it was a better fight than the first one. But the problem was like, okay okay the problem with that is that the first fight was boring as shit like Haney was just jabbing and clinching and again masterfully like I'm not saying like oh he was just you know phoning it in he was not phoning it in but he had

a certain thing that was working for him and he just wrote it out for the full 12 rounds and Cambosis either didn't want to do more or just elected not to or just couldn't either way and so the fight just ended up being what it was so the fact that it was better than the first one is is true but to me like also just fucking irrelevant man cambosis was just out of his depth like majorly out of his yes and this was not a fight that should have happened or needed to happen and i fucking hated it, to be honest. Well, I say, okay, hate is a strong word. I said we learned very little.

Here's what I did learn about Haney, who remarkably is still just 23 years old. If you don't know the backstory, he turned pro at 17 and was fighting in Mexico. I mean, like, it's just been, they knew from the jump that this guy was special. The first fight was boring because he made it boring largely by using his jab. And as you mentioned, the timed clinches. This time around, he felt, Devin felt, while strategizing with his dad, that the right hand was going to be there for him based on how they expected Kambosis to attack. Luke, that looping counter right hand was money all fight.

And even deeper, when Kambosis did cross that line and make this fight an actual fight haney's one two was perfect i mean that was sweet perfection so here's what i want to say about devin haney i think he's he deserves the pound for pound recognition right now and while with one fight left on his top rank in espn deal it does appear like the fight to make would be him against vasily lomachenko. If Lomachenko gets past his comeback get-well fight against Jermaine Ortiz, which, you know, could be, who knows? We'll see. Haney, Lomachenko, good God.

The old guard against the new, of course, your boy BC's going to be fired up. But this level of maturity and this performance again from Haney, do you know what it has me really wanting? Devin Haney, do you know what it has me really wanting? Devin Haney, Tank Davis right now. And I'm not saying I don't want Tank Davis, Ryan Garcia, something bad. I do. I hope there's a way that, I mean, there is a way that fight could be made, by the way. I hope that we could get there. Knowing boxing business practice is probably not right now. We'll see what happens. But if we could put networks and promoters to the side for a second, which we rarely get to do in boxing.

So shout out to the women, by the way, for making that happen, regardless of affiliation. Tell me right now, Devin Haney versus Tank Davis for all four belts at lightweight might not be one of the most important fights you can make right now in boxing. 23 years old against 27 years old, both unbeaten. Both pound for pound respected. Both have titles in and around this weight class. Obviously, Haney has the four real ones that truly matter. But Tank Davis is the star of this division

and in some ways the uncrowned king, right? He doesn't have the belts, but boy, does he have skills and talent and danger. These two against each other for the pure boxing fan might be as good as it gets right now. Luke, tell me I'm crazy. We want Sp spence crawford we want these wish list items i think this just became even more than lomachenko ron garcia even more than my boy shakur who's gonna have his stay his say against all these guys if if if you know if we get what we deserve in boxing tomorrow haney versus tank dude i don't know what that fight looks like. I have no fricking idea.

I, I need to know. I need this. Give it to me. Yeah. I mean, I love the idea, but like,

I don't take it seriously as a meaningful next step for, or I should say, uh, an, a possible next step for either of them. No, it's no, no.

Like they're not going to make that fight. They're not. I mean, look, look, look, to be fair for, for tank versus Ryan Garcia to happen in the near future,

it would involve people that don't want to work together to work together. Yes. Is there a chance in the bullshit world of boxing politics that it's easier? So basically, here's what I'm saying. If you're Bob Arum in ESPN, you're looking at what's available. We got one fight left with Haney. Will we resign him? We don't know. Of course, they want to go in-house, put him against Vasily.

But do you think there will be any conversations after this fight at least a conversation with the power brokers about that idea of haney versus tank because it would matter so much more than those other eye-catching matchups sure there might be some outreach i just don't take it seriously that we should in any way get our hopes up or playing around it whatsoever not not right now not right all right then indulge my fascination one more time by closing with this do you lean either way in that matchup based on two fights from Haney now against Cambosis in defense of these titles I would lean Haney I would lean Haney I think um I think the fact that Haney has been not that like Cambosis is like, he's a tough challenge,

but he's not like he's like the cream of the crop of the division. But, you know, going to Australia into hostile territory, looking for the smoke in the way that he has, I think that's probably prepared him for a big moment like this. Now Tank's been on pay-per-view and stuff, but I don't know, man. Like fighting the Roley Romeros and the Mario Barrios of the world, even up at 140 it's like again it's not that means it's saying it's not difficult it's it's difficult but I I don't know I feel like and Haney has like a style that you can scale for 12 rounds a little bit easier whereas uh Gervonta needs these moments of inspiration yeah I would I would probably pick Haney wow I don't know how long much longeraney can make 135. He looked like a zombie. Yeah, that's the issue.

He looked sucked out on the scale. That, to me, is the part where I'm like, ugh. And he's 23. There's no way he fights much longer in this weight class. That, I do think, is real. But we'll have to see how it goes. All right, BC. I want to remind everyone we got a new sponsor again.

They're back in the house, BC. This is UFC 280 Fight Week, and you can get closer to the octagon with DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. Right now, BC, here's how it works. New customers can bet $5 on UFC 280 and get $200 in free bets if your fighter wins. If you haven't tried DraftKings Sportsbook, today is the day, right?

Yeah, this would be the day. This week would be the time. UFC 280 is as stacked a pay-per-view card in recent memory as we've had. This is the goods right here. It's going to go down in Abu Dhabi this Saturday. I mean, if you just had the main event on that card, the lightweight title bout, former champ Charles Oliveira, up-and-coming potential future champion Islam Mahachev, on that card. The lightweight title bout, former champ Charles Oliveira, up and coming potential future champion Islam Mahachev. There's enough to get you fired enough and enough to bet about on

that fight alone. But we've got TJ Dillashaw against Aljamain Sterling for the bantamweight title. We've got a Sean Brady, Bala Muhammad. Remember that fight? That's not even on the pay-per-view card because this card is so stacked. So much to be focusing on. You want to get more action? You can double your winnings on DraftKings with the same game parlay, putting multiple fights together. You can play with the stipulations,

when the fight's going to end. This is fun, and it's so easy. Just download that DraftKings app today, Luke. Yeah, this is super simple. So as BC indicated, download the DraftKings Sportsbook app right now. You can see it on the screen here if you're watching on YouTube. Use the promo code COMBAT.

That's COMBAT with a K. You throw down $5 on UFC 280, you get $200 in free bets if your fighter wins. That's code COMBAT. Saturday at DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. And of course, minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. But as you also indicated, BC, tons of good bets you can make. That whole card is super stacked. Fun fights either way.

Parleys to go either way. You could go Sugar Sean. You could go TJ Dillashaw. You could do a parlay between them. Whatever you want. Here's my two cents, okay? You want to make money Saturday? Take that free $200.

Put it all on Sean o'malley to win it's up to you by the way you guys by the way if you want more information about 280 how about our ufc 280 pre-game preview with chuck mendenhall that's up now as well on the old youtube all right i'm not trying to hold this show up anymore but i got something to say about that shout out to draft kings we love you baby all right there it is luke people can go to youtube.com right now slash morning combat and check out our fantastic real talk right like only men do pre-game preview chuck mendenhall bclt luke i'm gonna make a statement that you're not ready to hear are you ready i just said you're not ready to hear it, but get ready anyway. Brian Campbell, Luke Thomas, and Chuck Mendenhall, maybe not in that order. This is not only MMA's new A-team.

It's the all-time greatest team that's ever been put together. And I know that's going to hit people pretty hard. There's going to be a few people that aren't going to be ready to hear that. Maybe you too, Luke, because you've had other dance partners and you've made magic with them. But the spice, the explosiveness, the back and forth, the creativity, the passion that's shown between BC, LT, and Sir Chuck, you just can't find that in MMA then, now, or maybe forever. You can like us or not like us, but sit down and enjoy because this is the best thing going today.

Woo! Your new MMA team. You're fucking looking at us. Okay. With that in mind, it's time for DMms from dogs let's get to it we got we got we put up a post on instagram every sunday you guys fill it up the producers pick the questions and then we answer them all right from flannels and jits is islam versus olivera actually a better version of what tony versus Habib could have been yeah actually there's a well it's hard to say until we see the fight but that's a great question

right even if it's not true it is possible yes it is possible that that could happen sure would you say that that main event is the fight you are most excited about on Saturday's loaded card or is there another it's the one I'm most excited about yeah Saturday's loaded card? Or is there another? It's the one I'm most excited about. Yeah, sometimes I try to be hipster about it and pick another fight on the card, but no, the main event is the crown jewel for sure. Aljo TJ is, you could make the hipster argument. You could, right?

That's a phenomenal fight. I wouldn't begrudge someone who went that way, but I just don't think that's as interesting as this one. Right, I think if you took the belts off, this is just a better matchup here, Charles against Islam. So let's do it, let's do it. don't think that's as interesting as this one right i think if you took the belts off this this this is just a better matchup here charles against islam so let's do it let's do it you see them walk back past each other in the hotel luke in the last 24 hours and no so charles was sitting with his back to the group islam walked by and just you know barely looked at him and was like i'm ready

to fight right now face which in some ways is the default, you know, holy hammer way to do it. Luke. Okay. Oh, that's that hashtag. That's, that's, that's going to catch on.

Right. I mean, holy hammer, holy hammer. Could you imagine some MK merch with hashtag holy hammer across the chest? Yeah. All right. Right over the crotch.

You mean? Yeah. Right over the Christian DeGaro spot. Right. Yeah. We're watching you. Shout out to that guy. Okay.

Yeah, indeed. Here's the thing. It could be better because Tony is wild and unorthodox in ways that Charles is not. Charles can be aggressive and offensive, but he's not as wild.

And if you go back and you watch like the Kevin Lee fight, it's like all the different guard entries he has and the leg entanglements that he uses. He's got that in just a way that Tony doesn't. So for that reason it could be better but i don't know we'll have to see is islam going to be the dominant takedown ground and pound force that habib was relatively speaking i don't know what the answer to that is either so obviously we didn't see any tony versus habib but we would have had some idea that habib would have it would have gone to the floor and i do think habib would

have controlled him um mostly so we'll have to see how this one goes we'll have to see yeah i mean just in comparison habib's probably better than islam but charlie's probably better than ferguson right that's right that's correct i think that's exactly well stated yes all right from checos 9750 worst name ever. Bella is training with Habib team. Do you think that's going to have any impact on the fight with Sean Brady? It should be Bilal, bro. It should be Bilal. Okay, they fixed it, but on the one that I'm reading, it says Bella.

I'm not doing a bit. It says Bella. I'm just reading it as it is. Do we think that's going to have any impact in the fight with Sean Brady? Thanks for the show. What do you think? Thank for the show. Okay, so what you're

saying is that Bilal Muhammad will have Habib in his corner. Yeah. I'm wondering what this looks like because if you're Bilal Muhammad and you're looking at Sean Brady, the challenge is keeping your back off the canvas. This guy is an explosive, aggressive wrestler who forces middle-aged white guys to tap themselves up if they score big wins, apparently Luke. So yes, I am wondering to see how this time in this camp. Now, it's potentially one camp or one fight with the guy in the corner, but look at the success Henry Cejudo has had as an example from joining an already established team ahead of a big fight

and whether it was, you know, although in a losing effort the first time, Zhongwei Li looked like there was more to what's going on there against Rose that second time. Same thing with Figueiredo upsetting More Moreno in their third meeting excuse me so yeah I am interested to see um you know if you're telling me this guy trained wrestling with Habib leading up to this fight let's see show me the putting right let's see I actually do think it will make a difference um hard to say exactly how much this far out but from the preparation standpoint to like i i watched a bunch of habib tutorials over the years and one thing i've noticed is he just has a very clear

sense for like what works and what doesn't and why and he makes sure guys just stick to the shit that works just do the high percentage stuff just get really good at the high percentage stuff and get good at some high percentage stuff that other people are not good at in terms of defense and just go with it and i think that kind of orientation if it if if in terms of prep and then guidance during the middle of the fight that seems like it could be quite beneficial actually so we'll have to see but i do think it will make a difference all right is hasbula gonna be in my chef's corner or is that a room i mean all right sorry look sorry i mean honestly who gives a shit i didn't mean to offend you in Mahachev's corner or is that a rumor? I mean... Alright, sorry Luke, sorry. Who cares? I mean, honestly, who gives a shit?

I didn't mean to offend you. It's not offending me, it's just like, are we going to devote time to that? I mean, really? Alright. From at Joey Dowsing. Joey Dowsing. How the fuck you say that? The pay-per-view portion of the Abu Dhabi card starts at 2pm Eastern

and the prelims obviously air even earlier. Do you think this will have any impact on sales in America? Yes, of course. It's great for us in the UK as for once I don't have to stay up all night. Yes, of course it does. The UFC is usually very reluctant to put pay-per-views on at this time for that very reason. They will make exceptions for it when there are other economic factors

they can use to balance it out. But yes, it will absolutely hurt sales. I'd love to see the site fee that they can use to balance it out um but yes it will absolutely hurt i'd love i'd love to see the site fee that they get right i'd love to see that number what's that fat ass number they get it's not just them i mean eddie hearn took joshua ruiz to to you know the same area and joshua got 80 million to show up for that rematch i mean they've that site fee must be sick bro yeah they're probably going to make up whatever the difference is i mean they've that site fee must be sick bro yeah they're probably going to make up whatever the difference is so yes it will hurt sales i don't know that it will hurt the bottom line when it's all said and done but for sure this is also i i live through the

ufc briefly putting their pay-per-view start times back at 9 p.m they experimented with it for a couple of them or whatever it was and then they went right back to 10 because i think they they were thinking well you know what we want to start an earlier time but that fucks with the west coast audience which is a massive audience and so they said just go back to 10 and the east coast folks can s a d all right at von beckel beck cow who's better on the barbecue bc or lt now what does he mean bc when he says who's better on the barbecue i think he means on the grill you know because because look like there's some great male chefs out there of course i'm one of those old school males who just can't cook worth a lick but it's still considered

that you know if you're a guy even if you have no skills in that area even if you're not chef kaz right you should be able to handle it yourselves on the grill so here's what i'll say about myself without knowing you but i'm going to guess because you're more cultured that you have more skills i can't cook for shit but i'm very competent on the grill can i can i make it dynamic and add a touch or or do like all the prep work no my wife does that i am a competent grill provider but i don't think i add anything much outside of replacement level i enjoy being out there with a drink and the stereo pumping um i think if i do one thing good luke i'm very good even though my liver can't take it anymore finding that balance with beef between red death too much

blood and the perfect amount of juice in it right you know i i can i can i can live on that line i could give you a juicy balls out burger without you fearing that that you know that it's yeah that it's the opening scene in carry or whatever but um i'm gonna guess that you're a better cook than me you're a better barbecuer than me that you have more ideas and nuances to step up your game unless you lean on colombian women and i'm okay if that's if that's the path you go all right no again i'm not going to sit here and claim I'm some grill master either that's really not the case I certainly know how to cook a steak pretty well

you know the standard fare burgers kielbasa even some I've done some barbecue chicken that which I did the marinade for as well I've done that and it came out pretty well smoked them up a little bit but I'm not some like I had a grill BC and then I had a house fire in like 2018 or 2019 I can't remember anymore and um the house fire ate up my grill I had a really nice grill and it ate the whole thing and I just never

wow for wait you haven't been grilling four years what the hell's wrong with you what happened so what I've done is I've done cast iron grilling that's what I've been switching over to because I don't have the grill outside I've been doing stuff in done cast iron grilling. That's what I've been switching over to because I don't have the grill outside. I've been doing stuff in the cast iron. So, for example, like getting filet mignon, buttering it up, constantly turning the butter on top, and then putting a little bit in the oven and taking it out, that kind of a thing. So that's what I've been doing. I have so many questions.

First of all, Brandon Wise of CBS Sports will tell us both that if you're not cooking over charcoal, you're not a real man. And while I don't disagree with the spirit of that luke i can't charcoal's really tough to manage dude it's like a three year old daughter right i mean it's just yeah i do a regular manly weber grill like everybody else but my whole point here's the other thing i mean i don't know what kind of charcoal that brandon wise uses but if you just use like the kingsford and then you put lighter fluid on top you're dub t i just want to be very clear about that like oh wise man you're trying take that wise take so take that south florida uh i did want to ask you about that fire i don't know about this fire what happened are you all right well are you yeah yeah we had a house fire we don't even know the cause of it we're not too

sure and it burned up like i'm facing the back of my house this way it burned up my deck and it burned up the whole back of the house and And luckily I have great insurance. And so everything was, was paid for. I lost a lot of stuff. Were you home? No, I was actually just about to go on air in New York city. And I got a call from,

I was at Sirius XM and I got a call from my wife being like, so we've had a house fire. That's so scary. She was like, everyone's okay. This is pre Tuki. And, um,

the dogs got out. We had a cat at the time the cat was able to get we put him in another house but uh the whole shit was completely torched so yeah it sucked i had to come right home it sucked it sucked i would first place i would check is you know that homeless guy who used to beg you to lift weights with you it was his dream in the front yard yeah he yelled at me the other day yeah that's why you you give those guys whatever they want so they don't burn your house down when you're in New York. Everybody knows that.

It's like rule number one. Don't accept a CD in Brooklyn on the street, right? No eye contact anywhere else. And give the homeless guy who wants to lift with you, give him his dream, Luke. Yeah, no, that dude yelled at me the other day. He came up asking me for money. I didn't have any, and he lost his shit.

He's like, fuck your mama. Yeah, he actually told me to go fuck myself. I was like, okay, well, you're the one asking for money so um and by the way i probably will later on anyway so take that yeah yes i have a cell phone with internet access don't mind if i do uh all right from at clp film hey king donks here we go with again with a halloween season question what is your favorite and least favorite candy this is controversial I bet BC pick something

low-t like Junior Mints or Laffy Taffy dude Laffy Taffy is my movie theater go-to that cherry stick oh it's a trash I was like no probably it sounds like it can be said with an accent much love yeah that's probably true.

I bet you like Toblerone. Let's start first. Favorite candy for Halloween. Favorite. All right. Okay, there are two categories in candy, of course. Chocolate-based and fruit-based. Luke, you agree with that, right?

Largely, yes. They're not independent of one another, but yes. The greatest candy bar is Fast Break. I mean, you're just so fucking wrong with this it's just like it is just drugs inside of an orange wrapper it is just mind-blowing second of all you can get blown bc is right here says mikey thank you mikey i love that yeah mikey who i'm sure is sober right now i'm sure he's very sober on the fruit side luke you gotta go mambas and i know that's going to be controversial there was a uh you know a mad cow disease outbreak related to these at some point in the 90s but i will tell you more communicable diseases when you eat candy fuck face the the gnarlier the gas station you go

to the more likely that they will not only have mambas but now sour and tropical mambas which have just changed the game those are my two on each side of the of the battle lines my go-to all right this is very easy on the chocolate side and anyone who says otherwise is a peasant undeserving of your attention all right the number one the king of all chocolate halloween candies is reese's peanut butter cups go fuck your mom i don't i mean i can't i can't argue that that's one of those things i can't argue against. Because that is just... It's not as like... It's a little conventional in how I am presenting it.

I understand. It's a little boring the way you're slinging that. But you're also... The chocolate and the peanut butter together and the way in which they present it with that little wrapper you have to peel off the ends and then you can eat half. I mean, it's your number one seed.

Fuck your mama. All right, that's the first thing I would say. Okay. For the non-steadily chocolate-based, I don't have as strong an opinion on this one. I usually avoid eating them all together. I will say, though, that I am as like, you know what?

I don't have as good a choice as yours. What I'll say, what I do, is to offset some of that chocolate i'm a starburst kind of guy i like the starburst i like the offset with a starburst it's all right you're going you're not going traditional yellow wrapper star so mikey says sour patch watermelon kids okay dude mikey like those as well those mikey's got a few skills in his tool bag right there's a few holes in there but he knows he knows he's on he's on to it right now listen my man probably listen he's probably got more gummies in his tummy right now that is medically advisable so he's like i actually have the thc infused watermelon ones at this moment that's

right that's right he's like and even with the thc they still taste bomb yeah all right least favorite what's the what's the lowest seed uh the score bar it's like a grandmother candy bar with the toffee that's that's bollocks luke um butterfinger is absolute trash if you eat butterfinger on the regular my wife does i'll have bad things to say about you but not to your face i'm not gonna piss her off luke i mean come on dude um we didn't mention p not peanut m&ms but peanut butter flavored m&ms are are fran friggin tastic they're in this conversation but um what okay as a hollow this is a Halloween question dude if you get Mary Jane's in your bag on Halloween and you're a kid or that fucking popcorn ball you should you should piss on the steps as they close the door behind yeah

I'll say I'll say two of the low seeds on the chocolate side milk Milk duds, kind of trife. Kind of trife. Yeah. And also, Three Musketeers, yo, just fuck your family. Three Musketeers is absolute feces. Okay, don't die on that hill. Three Musketeers is badass. That and Milky Way are the same thing.

Three Musketeers deserves three stabs in the face. No way. What a worthless piece of shit candy. Oh, get out of here. Who said that? Luke and Gaff? Come on. That Three Musketeers deserves three stabs in the face. No way. What a worthless piece of shit candy. Oh, get out of here. Who said that? Luke and Gaff? Come on. That Three Musketeers is bad.

It's fire. Long Island Luke. I'll say this. Long Island Luke's coming from Australia. Come on. I'll say this on the candy side. Like, shit I hate. You know, candy corn is always going to be something that people throw in there.

I'll eat a couple of them. I don't love them. I don't hate them. They're fine. Oh, they're so good until they spoil in your mouth? Yeah, exactly. Until that moment? But I'll say this. You them. I don't love them. I don't hate them. They're fine. They're so good until they spoil in your mouth. Until that moment. But I'll say this. You know what kind I used to love and now I'm like, man, get this shit out of my face.

Smarties. You know? They're too. Smarties. They taste like good tasting medicine. They don't taste like candy. If you want a one up from Smarties, go to Bottle Caps at least. That's solid.

That's a movie theater item. Okay, that's fine. Raising Nuts, badass. I mean, come on. You know, just don't. What are the ones that are like wafers, but they're candy? Necco wafers. Yeah, there's some.

Necco wafers. No, that's grandma territory. Feces. You come from a father who would give kids Arby's coupons on Halloween. I mean, come on. No, no, no, no. Get it right, asshole. How about Roygers coupons

dude my dad in 1980s marion berry crime infested dc is giving out roy rogers coupons at halloween i mean yeah what is more divorce dad energy than that nothing the only worst than that as a kid was when they put coins, they give you coins instead or you know, the damn popcorn. I told you we had a dentist who lived, not in my neighborhood, but my friend's neighborhood. We would go and trick or treat down there and they had a dentist who lived down the street and that motherfucker would always give out

toothbrushes, which, you know, mom and dad always thought was like a really cool thing. I'll be like, motherfucker, put some Snickers in this goddamn bag. Did your parents like look over every piece of candy for like pinholes that that like poison and drugs were put in i'd always be like no i let me let me try it you know if there's some good stuff in there let me let me be the guinea pig you know no but they would definitely my dad would definitely do the tax like let's lay it all out all right i'm

gonna take this one i'm gonna take this one i'll take this i'll take this yeah i'm like gee dad it's funny that i go to all the neighbors they don't give me coupons yet you seem to hand those out that's funny man your dad sucks lately i mean come on big rob come on all right look we gotta close the show because i gotta piss really bad with the best segment and one of my better batches let's do it one of my better fecal batches in a while i scoured the globe yesterday the high the low the good the bad the ugly the in between combat sports and beyond. We call this. Have you seen this shit? Shout out to

Gaff Pierre behind the scenes for going through my shit to find the colonels, Luke. And we start a UFC fight night in Vegas. I'm sorry, Mike Jackson, but Pete Rodriguez was for real. Wow. Luke never meant to make that videographer cry, but this was destructive, brother. By the way, they put early 2000s.

I guess that's right, but definitely not a 90s reference there. I think that was 99. Am I wrong? No? Maybe 2000. No, that's in the 2000s. All right. Luke, this was 01.

They're saying 01, dude. Yeah, not the 90s oh you're right i guess i got double crossed there my bad guys okay uh luke what do you think about this knockout um it's pretty pretty brutal right fucking super brutal i wonder if they're gonna give mike jackson another fight i don't think so but um no i don't think so but but that's a brutal way to go scumbag media mma media taking another hit here, Luke. Let's go to the Bantamweight division. Did you see Leo Mana Martinez?

He nearly finished Brandon Davis in this batshit crazy ending to round two. Look at this. By the way, did I hear James Krause in the corner say, I'm going to lose money on this? You're about to hear James Krause in a second, but Luke, did you see this? This was wild as shit, man. He was just hitting all the buttons on the controller.

Let's go to James Krause between rounds, talking up Martinez here. Here, take this. We're good. Do you understand what I'm saying? You're doing fucking around too much. This is your fight to win. You've hurt him like three times now and you fuck around. Let's go. Stay sharp here.

We'll take a quick 30-second break and be back with round three. Don't you fucking walk out of here tonight and let this motherfucker win this fight. This is your goddamn fight. Do you understand me? I don't care. It's five fucking minutes. When I tell you to press him, you fucking press him. Do you understand me? Don't you let him walk out of here with this goddamn fight.

This is too much. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Let's fucking go. Did he say listen, motherfucker, to his own fighter look? Damn. Actually, I like that speech. That was pretty great.

I wish somebody would give us that speech before MK each episode. That was great. By the way, Martinez. Our producers are always like, all our producers before every Monday show are like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Hey, everyone. It's another rainy day in Hoboken. Who am I talking about, BC?

Wow. You just did Matt Dirty right there. By the way, Martinez would go on to win a split decision over three rounds. So I'm not sure if this speech really hit the mark but he was verbally undressing him by the way i you know i coached fourth grade basketball a couple years ago luke damn it's not the same as it used to be so i will support this level of language to motivate a person i wish you could still swear out kids you know what i mean some people it works for some people it works it always did for me luke uh let's go to alonzo mennefield apparently

he killed misha serkinoff did you see this good lord i did i did poor misha sirkinoff man i mean it might be time to call it a day he's taking a lot of battles damn that's some brutal stuff right there yeah it's a terror when they bounce like that like crow cop when they fall on their leg and then their body bounces them off of it like when it ricochets, that's never a great sign. The shirt of the week goes to Cub Swanson exiting the bus on his way to the arena here. Luke, you and I could not pull this off, but what do you think? No, we could not pull it off,

but I'm still waiting for a fighter to roll out to one of these things that has a shirt on that says, I fuck on the first date. Okay, I'm sure many do, Luke. Let's go over to Jonathan Martinez. We mentioned Cub Swanson took the L by brutal leg kicks. This was just the 14th such stoppage in UFC history. And, dude, Cub is a tough guy, man. For him to be writhing in agony like that, it has to be bad.

Big win for Jonathan Martinez. And don't forget about Joe Anderson Brito also on this undercard he took out lucas alexander via submission and it was python like look at this yeah oh look at that oh tears him off of his baseball the back the pulling back pressure yeah yikes all right let's get grosser it's bkfc 31 time from denver so you want to be a bare knuckle fighter look at Courtney Cameron and Crystal Pittman one of those two a disgusting bloody mess wow damn good lord dude they get fucking mauled in this fucking sport yes that's why I'm saying if you're a star Pittman uh was advertising I saw this her only fans with what was she the bloody one I'm not sure. I can't quite tell.

I don't know these women well enough. But the weigh-ins. I saw the weigh-in photos. MMA junkie. Yeah, this is the last stop on the combat sports highway for sure. But how about Chris Camosi? Former UFC fighter. Made his BKFC debut on Saturday or Friday, whatever this was.

And he took Bubba McDaniel to the woodshed, Luke. Two UFC vets here. Two UFC vets. Nice win here for Chris. Chris Camosi is actually a pretty talented guy, actually. Yeah, he had that cup of coffee in PFL. He was decent, right? Yeah, even in UFC, he never had an amazing win,

but he always had pretty solid performances. Well, in the main event, Luke, Mike Richman had a wild come-from-behind knockout victory in the final round to win the vacant light heavyweight world title, but you know who has the full championship, right? Lorenzo Hunt, and they had to hold this guy

back. He wanted to have the unification right there, right now. Dude, in BKFC, don't you have to just let those guys like like illegally fight yeah i mean yeah it could be in the in the ring outside of it they're going to use bare knuckles just look at the lighting on the ring post there for bkfc that's new yeah yeah i mean dude we we clown but they're making moves right would you say they're alive are they alive they're doing something i give you say they're alive are they alive they're doing something i give them credit they're doing something for sure they're signing some decent

names and they definitely get on this fucking program a lot look are you willing to break down andrew yates 19 second knockout of nolan mclaughlin here also on this card oh god let's see bates him with the jab he tries to double up he just gets time yeah look at that bam look at that fall damn all right hey it's time for real to recognize some real you know this fires me up speaking of bkfc 31 former teammates rose nama unis and ben rothwell change exchanging pleasantries this fire you up luke Luke? Dude, look at Rothwell's fist. I mean, is that a Christmas ham? Look at that thing. Jesus Christ.

Real recognized real backstage at a MLS game as Mexican superstar Chicharito caught up with T-City Brian Ortega. I mean, here I am. I mean, I'm a total hypocrite. Let me be very clear about that. But you said Chicharito like you were ordering from a menu, for fuck's sake. Well, I didn't. I was excitedly pronouncing his name. This was not this.

Luke, it wasn't this, okay? You should know that Chicharito played for Real Madrid for a little while. Had a little spell there. Is he washy now? Is that why he's in the MLS? Yeah, he's a little washy now. He played with Bayern Leverkusen, or however the fuck you say it,

one of the German teams for a little while. Played with Real for a little while. I think it was with the Galaxy now, something like that. Do you think Chicharito's DMs can rival T-City at all? Oh, yeah. I mean, dude, for a while, he was a top Mexican star.

I think in some ways he still kind of is um yeah for sure he's he's beloved too he's always been like a real team guy and team first kind of guy so uh real also recognized real when former ufc lightweight champion charles olivera uh walked a lion yeah i mean mma fighters fighters love just parading abused animals for reasons I'll never understand. Is this Doc Antle's farm? Bhagavan, Luke? Is this Bhagavan's place? Yeah, the Bhagavad Gita.

No, I'm not sure. I think this is in Abu Dhabi, but I can't be sure. Also, does Charles walk weird or is that me? Are you saying he's bold-legged? Yeah, a little bold-legged there. He's got pigeon toes or whatever. Well, not pigeon toes. He's got the opposite of it.

He's got walks kind of like a duck. Yeah, that's how Mark McGuire used to walk, Luke, when he was taking all that creatine and shit. Yeah, wow. All right. Luke, let's go to the biggest sports story of the weekend. How about Tennessee upsetting Alabama? These end zone cam views of the ending with the celebration,

this is like Central American soccer in terms of how crazy it got afterwards. This was wild. Did you see this, Chet? And they stormed the field because they beat Bama, right? Yep. Yep, here they come. Most points Bama had given up since 1909 it was 52 to 49 finish and uh you see those bama players getting the fuck out of dodge do you see the refs

get mauled as they were running away i mean this was wild but bbc what it what would it be like the game was at home right so it was intended it was at the university of tennessee yeah what would it be like to be a player for that team that night in that town? Oh, dude, they took the goal. First of all, the fans ripped the goalposts out, carried them out of the stadium, brought them to a bar, and then dumped them in the river. So, like, you know, I've been at UConn after some crazy Big East tournament wins

and people lighting couches on fire, but this is, like, this is wild. Yeah, if you're a player, Luke, you're, oh, man, you're volunteering yourself to all the're oh man you're you're volunteering yourself to all the tennessee women you know what i'm saying it is just wow maybe they volunteered for some stds that night if you know what i mean uh what do you think about this intimidation move by tennessee left tackle jeremiah crawford who uh projectile vomited at alabama and then talked that shit. You like that? That's normal human behavior.

How about this human? College football also birthed a new, their own version of the just bleed guy. Luke, I don't really get the connection between cigars and Tennessee, but everybody had one after this game, and they don't have this. Oh, great. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much.

Well, it was that dude. Did you see that still picture that closed the CBS broadcast where that dude was like wiling out with the... All right. All right. There we go. Thank you. Okay. It's a good story.

Great show. Great show. All right, Luke. Brendan Schaub, very famous podcaster. He was a guest on somebody else's pod, he was showing out our boy rashad evans get ready for this luke our way um so brendan we know that you were a fighter in the ufc and that's incredible and we just want to ask you who has the biggest dick in the ufc rashad evans no facts i think so i mean be tough he talk about it out loud? No.

No, but he was a trained partner of mine, and he used to not wear a cup. And when you're grappling, it was just like all. Like, if there's only fans back then, he would make bangs. Oh. He would, like, transition over. I'm like, dude, get your big fucking dick out of here. I'm feeling the weight of a man's dick on your face

while you're trying to get him off you. Yeah, he's brutal. I don't know. He has a giant dick, though. Luke, we should probably consider bringing Rashad into our only Pipe's idea. I mean, this is potentially... From now on, I'm calling Rashad

Snuffleupagus, because that old elephant trunk is just a dangling. Does this mean Shob got dicked down, Luke, on the ground and pound i mean what happened here all right uh tiger thick indeed indeed luke wow all right oh you had that one set you had that one saved i know you i know your bitch ass uh oh that's it let's go to pbc on fox pay-per-view from brooklyn here is the ringside view of that knockout we talked about caleb plant finishing durell oh lord have mercy good lord that

is just a phenomenal way to settle a grudge match is it not yep you can't see the the finishing hook as cleanly from this view but you see that left hook downstairs and then he came right back up top. Damn. But again, he waits just a half beat. And the level change. He waits, he doesn't pop and pop. He waits and then he comes up and finishes. It's perfect. And here is the very controversial celebration afterwards. Can we go full screen on this, please?

Yeah, I know. Can you imagine being like, this is a place of sportsmanship. Get the fuck out of here. Luke, they asked Caleb Plant after the fight at the press conference being like, this is a place of sportsmanship. Get the fuck out of here. Luke, they asked Caleb Plant after the fight at the press conference about this very controversial moment. Here's his explanation.

I'm just burying the beef between us, that's all. Dude, he's cut you know what you know uh you know our boss at showtime brian daly great guy you know what he texted me in response to this natural heel like he could play that pro wrestling cool bad guy in boxing if he wanted to could he could he not luke i think the more interesting thing is that you talk to our bosses way more than i do that's that's that's the big takeaway there well you know the channels are open luke if you want to make friends or you could you know just be bitter but i don't know how to do that that's the problem all right stay with me i've gotten you pretty far in this run luke okay maybe that's not accurate history but here we go uh let's not uh

let's not do anything but celebrate deontay Wilder's knockout as well. Here's the ringside view of how he finished. Robert Hellenius. You can barely even see, and then look how stiff and buzzed out that Hellenius is. Good Lord, man. There were a lot of very gnarly photographs done of this finish. Here's one from ringside photographer Timothy Clary that I retweeted that was just insane. Yep.

Look at that. That is insane. In the membrane. Wow. Literally. Okay, literally. Wow. All right, Luke, we had a good fight in the MLB playoffs.

Indians fans took umbrage with this Yankees guy who had the higher ground, Anakin. You mean Guardians? Oh, sorry, Guardians, Redskins. Sorry about that. They're at Kashyyyk here, Luke. He has the higher ground, but it didn't work out for him as Vader gets him. Well, I mean, look at old big country there. Oh, just throws beer in his face.

Oh, he comes back for more. Look at that old guy mount a comeback. Oh, and then he fell even further down the stage. Yeah, he did. He did. Don't fight with younger guys in a crowd. Okay, how about just don't fight at the ballpark? How about that?

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I'm going to say this one more time. It's not hard to go to the ballpark and not get into a fistfight. It's very easy to just get in, watch the game, and leave. Okay, what about if you consume at least 10 pints of beer that were purchased for $22 each, Luke? Then you might. You know, that certainly changes the equation a little bit, but still.

Okay. Elsewhere in boxing, let's go to Haney Kambosis from down under. On this undercard, look at Cherneka Johnson. She overcame a cut that was just absurd to defend her IBF title versus Suzy Ramadan. Look, I think you could see bone some rounds. I'm not even kidding. This was gnarly as shit. Yeah, she actually, I checked this out.

She actually had a post up about it later. She took a picture with the cut man and thanked him for what good of a job he did. And he really did. He nailed it. What a phenomenal job by the cut man. And keeping that as closed as he possibly could. Right? Yeah.

We talked about Shields and Marshall being one of the best women's championship boxing fights in history. This was just in round one. This is where Shields really grabbed my attention for just going for it. Not everything landing clean, but they let their hands go. Yeah, I mean, she's not jabbing and trying to stay away. She's going after it. She's seizing the moment. You got to respect that.

The entrances, as I mentioned, were pretty damn awesome. Here is a quick snapshot of uh clarissa shields coming to the ring and by snapshot i mean video getting booed like a motherfucker too probably probably but look at we got dancers i mean this is like a pit bull concert. Yeah, I don't look. Yeah, I mean, well, do you now a few of the fighters did this exact type of routine? Do you worry about gassing out here on the stage? This is Michelle potato like here, Luke. Nah, it's still a little bit low key.

All right. If she had done the splits or something, that'd be terrible. hey let's go for some nfl weirdness uh here's the call of the week that came during the cards bangles game like when there's a guy coming right in your face and he just sits in there and delivers it uh really well uh you you do have to like when a guy just uh yeah yeah okay do you i don't know i said this last night collinsworth had a had a decent one about dick being rammed down your throat yeah hopefully we see that next week uh luke where i come from uh you know i grew up an hour and a half from new york city so i consider myself greater new york right do you no you're not just new york you're not you're not all right where i come from this is called a giant hando what do you call it luke

i call that the new york city subway all right i call that the two three at 1 a.m yeah uh luke what do you what do you, do you have any pet nicknames for a nasty curveball in baseball when you're watching, or do you just not watch? No, I don't give a shit. All right. Well, get ready to see a curveball that's got to have BDE. Check this out. Swing and a miss.

Just wiped him out with a big curveball. Man, the curveball has some serious dick to it right now. The curveball had dick to it? I don't know if he meant to say dig. Is that a term? Boy, that pitch had some dick to it.

Wow. Alright. Hey, Luke, I some dick to it. Wow. All right. Hey, Luke, I found a new restaurant. You're always looking for Zagat ratings, right? Unfortunately, the health standards are kind of shitty. Would you eat here, Luke? I'm only guessing this is from your family photo. This is your house after that grill got melted, Luke, unfortunately. But wow, okay.

That's one of the most horrendous things I've ever seen. Luke, we grew up with monumental two-sport athletes, Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson. How about Rod Tang? We know he can mix it up in the Muay Thai. Here's old Rod Tang on the soccer pitch. Yeah. Wearing number 10, no less.

That's the prestigious one. Look at that. i love it finishes dribbles around some uh you know cab driver and gets the gets the nod there didn't ronaldo wear number 10 luke brazil's ronaldo didn't he wear number 10 or was that nine i don't remember didn't he like didn't he have some episode with a woman that wasn't a woman i don't remember luke i don't i can't handle it all okay let's keep it going hey right that time joe rogan shared this on social media he's got some super fans what do you think of this uh design though so this would be uh new school uh portrait realism slash new school mostly new school uh it's well done it's a well done i mean i would never ever want to get it um. It's well done. It's a well done. I mean, I would never, ever want to get it.

And there's some line work that's a little fucked up. Go back to the first one. Look at the, you see the alien spaceship. You see how the lines are a little crooked through it. I like it, Luke. Okay. Don't he boss me. In general, it's well done.

In general, it's well done. Okay, thank you. Let's close with a couple more here. Did you know in the US weS. we had a visitor, the finance minister of Pakistan arrived on U.S. soil? Dude, this is in Dulles. This is my neck of the woods. I've been to this place a million times.

All right, let's go to the videotape. My wife's back. You are the job. You are the job. Hey, shut your mouth. Don't shout. I fuck you right here, motherfucker. You don't know me.

Don't motherfucker try to be smart ass. I fuck you right here. Motherfucker. Motherfucker. How much is it? $50? You motherfucker. You are the right.

You are the right. Respect yourself. You are the fucking Pakistan. Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself. I mean, at least take him out to dinner first, right? Yeah, BC, I will fuck you right here.

You understand me? Do you think that's the line that all the Tennessee players used at the bar after that game, Luke, after beating Bamu? All right. My earpiece died because the show was so long. Hang on. Luke, you are a master of the thc lately for your own health purposes i want to see you get creative though bring art to your smoke consumption let's check out these friends inside the studio dude i would just do that but with my rear end instead

bc i will fuck you right here i mean i i don't want to come back down from that cloud but if it's one of your ass clouds luke you know i don't i don't really i'm not really into that all right hey hockey's back it's back i which means Red Wings fans are out here throwing full octopuses onto the ice again. What the hell's wrong with these people? What's the significance? Yeah, that's normal. That's just normal human behavior.

Who brings a dead whole octopus to a game? I mean, what are we doing? This is, okay, so we've talked about, like, people who are, like, hardcore team NFL fans. Yeah. Right, and they we doing? This is. Okay. So we've talked about like people who are like hardcore team NFL fans. Yeah. Right. And they're just absolute dirt bags. Dude, this guy's car got repossessed in the lot.

I guarantee it. Long Island. Luke is letting us know that in Detroit, the tradition is that you need eight games to win in the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup, which represents the eight legs of the octopus. Can we not kill sentient animals to do this? Is that like a thing we can do? Yeah, okay. Sorry, Luke.

I mean, you were praising hunting the other day. I've eaten a few burgers in my time. Yeah, regulated hunting actually keeps disease down in populations and is good for the environment. Thank you. Let's close with this, though. Just fucking killing octopuses. What the fuck are you doing?

They say kids say the darndest things, Luke. They also do some pretty disturbing shit once in a while that ruins, you know, like when you're moving out of your apartment. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Dude, that kid just punched the dude in the balls. I'd be like, kid, the days of Coco Melon watching are motherfucking over. It's over.

You think you're sleeping in our bed now nope nope tuki sorry all right just dropping these fucking tvs i would i mean the kid would have the kid would be in some serious peril after that's the shit of the week look we gave these people two hours and 20 minutes of our life i hope it was the best two hours and 20 minutes they had probably more boxing than they cared for if we're being candid but that's the show you know that's what we do that's the show what do's what we do. That's the show. What do you want? You want morning combat or morning MMA? That's right.

I want to remind folks, speaking of MMA, the UFC 280 pregame preview with Chuck and BC and yours truly is up right now. We put it up yesterday, so go check that out. People seem to like it. They always love it when Chuck's on the show. We do too, so that should be a lot of fun. As a reminder. Say it, Luke. Say it yeah the new a team that's fine i don't mind i don't care um there's our socials you can follow us everywhere including tiktok i want to

remind everyone this will happen i will be doing a post fight show for ufc 280 right here on morning combat so stick around for that on saturday of course, we have two more shows before that, so we'll get you ready in that way. Let's see, Showtime.com is the label that pays. Go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Plus $3.99 a month for the three months after that. DraftKings.

Go download the DraftKings app, sportsbook app, and if you use the code COMB can bet five dollars if you're a i believe a first-time user or whatever on ufc 280 you can get 200 in free bets if your fighter wins so be sure to do that what else bc what am i forgetting what am i forgetting i got i got i got i got to take a whiz luke and you know that nobody beats it right nobody nobody beats no the effing whiz you can go to morningcombat.store for the merch. We're back on Wednesday. Watch the 280 preview and yeah, that'll be that.

So for Brian Campbell, for Malka, for CBS Sports, for Showtime, I'm LT, that's BC. We'll see you all Wednesday and until then, pay all of your gains. Be loyal.