MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs. Rodriguez | Bellator 271 | Jorge Masvidal | EP 228

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

On episode 228 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian are back to preview a packed weekend in combat sports. The boys start off by previewing UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs. Rodriguez. Next up the guys break down the biggest matchups on the Bellator 271 card. Jorge Masvidal was forced to pull out of his upcoming fight with Leon Edwards due to an undisclosed injury. Who should Leon fight next? David Benavidez faces Kyrone Davis on Showtime this weekend. What can we expect from Benavidez? Finally the guys close out the topics with some quick hitters. (10:00) - UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs. Rodriguez Preview (31:10) - Bellator 271 Preview (48:15) - Jorge Masvidal Out of UFC 269 (59:15) - David Benavidez vs. Kyrone Davis Preivew (68:45) - Quick Hitters 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

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

Oh, yeah, right? Oh, my God. oh yeah right oh my god there's there's no other place i'd rather be than right here the best damn combat sports show period smell that smells a lot like mk morning combat yes the show that's both stupid and contagious but here we are now it's time to entertain you amulato in albino a mosquito my libido yeah hey friday november 12 2021 brian campbell your boy bc the american alpha on the ones and twos some people think though probably could have been like this the whole time but you know you know you know why you're here though right you do like of the sauce but you come for the meat the main course the angry man next to me he's a decorated veteran and i salute him caps or covers his name is luke thomas just covers not a cap i don't know why that's controversial ask anybody who ever served they'll

tell you the exact well look i don't know why that's controversial. Ask anybody who ever served. They'll tell you the exact same thing. Well, Luke, I don't know why that's controversial either. Are we good? Because I got a lot of fans sliding in saying, is this the beginning of the end? And, Luke, I don't want to be the bad guy, right? But I don't want to do your sleepwalk games anymore. So, you know, I'm for you, not against you. Yeah, I know.

We're fine. I don't know what people are talking about. I'm pumped for today's show, pumped for the fights. And, yeah, dude, shit's good. Okay. Good weekend of fights coming up. Everything from Bellator to Showtime Championship Boxing and beyond. We will have you covered today.

And boy, do we love long intros, Luke, don't we? Okay. That part I do want to strangle you about. But otherwise, yes, we're good. Okay. Okay, Luke. You know, I'm glad we're good. Oh, Yair Rodriguez made, we're good. Okay, okay, Luke. I'm glad we're good because at the end of the day. 21 seconds ago, Yair Rodriguez made weight, so there you go.

Sweet, sweet, because I don't care if you really care just as long as you don't go, Luke. Speaking of good times and great oldies, Luke, how about our friends over there at Manscaped? Luke, I received these fantastic body wash bottles in the mail of Gel-D'Aduce. I used it yesterday, dude. I used it yesterday. It's good.

It works well. It's nice. My wife liked it. It's both vegan and gluten-free. So can I put that on my French fries, Luke? That's fantastic. Yes, definitely eat the shampoo. That's good for you.

Yeah. Well, Luke, as you know, it's the holiday season, so our friends at Manscaped, the global leaders, by the way, and below the waist grooming, boy, do they have a performance package 4.0 if you're willing. I mean, you get a lawnmower 4.0 trimmer, a weed whacker air and nose receiver trimmer, a crop preserver ball deodorant, the crop reviver toner, the performance boxer beast, and a travel satchel to put it all in, Luke.

That's like a cornucopia for your ball bag, brother. Dude, have you, what was the last time you were trimming your ball bag and then you sliced it accidentally? Uh, you know, I don't, I, I, yeah, I've done it recently, Luke. Okay. Until I got, I did it. I did it. I did it the other day and nicked it and it bleeds like, like someone who has to go to the dentist who hasn't flossed in a while.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, your nicksick like an MMA coach. I got it. It just pours everywhere. Yeah, it's terrible. Oh, okay. Why don't you read your line, Luke? I don't have my line in front of me.

Why don't you go ahead? Well, Luke, you were going to say that the Lawn Mower 4.0 trimmer has got know the cutting edge blade to reduce the grooming accidents that you talk about luke that blade protector is really the future of clean shared balls i'm telling you right now with the advanced skin safe technology so uh it gives you the ability to turn on that 400 4000k led spotlight you can do it in the shower look if you're in the game guys you gotta be clean okay not all of us can perform like Peter North, but at least we can look like we can. Right, Luke? Well, Peter North also had the ability to, what do you want to call it, spray copious amounts of liquids, which I don't know that they're promising per se,

but you can save damage for not only your Bozak, but also your nose and the ears, BC. The Performance Package 4.0 includes the Weed Whacker, a nose and ear hair trimmer that uses 9,000 RPM motor power, 360 degree rotary dual blade system to provide proprietary skin safe technology, which helps prevent nicks, snags, tugs, and

those delicate holes, BC. Yeah, and Manscaped's got liquid formulations that are like the pumpkin pie and ice cream after Thanksgiving dinner. You can't live without the Crop Preserver Ball Deodorant, that Crop Reviver Toner Spray. You're going to smell good. You're going to look good.

It's time. It's time to enter, you know, healthy ball season. It's upon us, Luke. So there you go. It truly is. So here's what you can do. You can get 20 20 off free shipping with the code combat at manscaped.com 20 off plus free shipping with the code combat combat with a

k manscaped.com of course your balls will thank you and that little bag they gave us that's become my travel satchel du jour luke okay same same i use it as well it's it's it's comfy it's roomy it works like dude it's a great company i'm glad they're sponsoring us yeah big fan big fan uh look showtime.com a great company as well uh they put a lot of money in our pockets and if you want 30 days free you want to know what you're getting dude i just watched godfather one and two on that damn app billions how about tonight bellator 271 with the living legend Chris Cyborg how about tomorrow night Showtime Championship Boxing with David Benavidez is he in the

Canelo sweepstakes we'll find out get 30 days free at Showtime.com and also if you want to be wearing our merch I'm not wearing it at the moment I'm wearing this fantastic Thunder Lips t-shirt from our friends over there at the Contenders but we got better merch for you over there at MorningCombat.store you can get Luke's Face

which is a Halloween item that's sold so much, they made it a permanent fixture. So don't delay. Act now. Supplies are running out. Allow, if you're still alive, six to eight years to arrive. Either way, you'll probably be walking on the sun after wearing this good shit. Okay, Luke, anything else, or can we get into the business?

Yeah, I've noticed, was it four, now five 90s songs you've done without the counter? They really just don't care about the counter. Well, you know, Luke, as a wise man once said, it's not Gaffney Pierre's fault he was born in 1998, okay? I mean, you know, all right. Was he born in 98? I don't know. Gaff, what year were you born, brother? What year were you born, Gaff?

91. That's still pretty late. I think it's Maniche who's still waiting on that armpit hair. All right, Luke, I'm not going to do any more bullshit. I want to get you guys fired up for this weekend. And boy, boy, boy, do we have a hell of a UFC Fight Night main event from Las Vegas on Saturday. Hey, let's get a little heads up here. This is an afternoon card on the East Coast.

4 p.m. Eastern is a afternoon card on the east coast 4 p.m eastern is your main card start and a featherweight main event with not only title implications but the promise of violence drama excitement and all that when former champion max holloway takes on yair rodriguez luke we talked about the storylines what's at stake i really now want to talk about what the hell this fight is going to look like first and foremost given the stature of both number one in this division is holloway number three is rodriguez of course volkanovski is your champion are you surprised that our friends at caesars have max holloway as a minus 650 favorite and yair rodriguez who is eight and one with one no contest throughout his UFC run, plus 475.

I would say that the numbers should be looked at a little bit more carefully. The short answer is I agree with him. Short answer is I think they're actually quite accurate. I mean, you could quibble with the numbers a little bit, but in general, that wide of a disparity, I'm okay with. It's not so much a reflection about the difference between them, although there's some of that as well. It's also just a reflection of how the styles kind of match up. Like, in other words, Yair can probably beat a lot of really good guys in and around the top five, or at least be competitive with them. But against Max, I don't know that he can. Remember on Wednesday, BC,

you and I were talking about, like, this is the Max and Alex show and until one of them leaves I don't know what's really going to happen here here's why Max at some point I do think that the for every fighter if you stick around long enough the train is going to come off the tracks in terms of damage listen to these numbers dude now understand something we're not talking about someone with like four UFC fights. We're talking about someone who this weekend, BC, he could become the first UFC fighter to land 3,000 significant strikes in the course of a UFC run. That is astounding. And listen to this. Strikes landed per minute for Max Holloway. 7.26. I know what folks might say. Okay, but you're talking about the Cater fight that sort of warped the statistics a little bit, but he has this huge library before that. It couldn't even mathematically do all that much to it. Now, he does absorb some BC. 4.58 is how many he eats to

get there. That's higher than even the strikes landed per minute by Yair Rodriguez, so you might think, wow, Yair's going to land on him a lot. Here's the problem. What Max is ultimately probably going to do, BC, is work behind the jab as he always does, turn Yair, and then eventually corner him into a boxing fight to the point where then he just gets overwhelmed with volume and the way in which he attacks from those positions. The reason Max can do it is offensively, he's extremely's extremely dynamic as one of the best jabs in all of MMA and then behind it dude we don't talk about this enough Max will just take a shot to stay in the position I'm not saying he has bad defense but when he has to bite down on the mouthpiece just to maintain a position or kind of stick it to an opponent like he did with Jose

Aldo in both of their fights dude he just will just will. He just will. The X factor for Yair is that back elbow or the spinning or whatever. Catching Max with something he doesn't see. But Max's chin to this point has held up extremely well. His volume is super high. He has a dynamic ability to switch stance. Modular striking is the way I describe it. A phenomenal jab. A a high output and you know this as well as I do first round he starts slow and then it just gets warmer and warmer and warmer as the fight goes along for all of those reasons dude it is legitimately hard to see any case for Yair absent one of those finding their way you know in the way it did against the Korean zombie yeah I can't lie.

When I saw the betting odds, it is a bit startling. But I do think I end up getting the same place you do at the end of the day in terms of when you start doing the math. And just to mention on those max statistics, they are impressive and overwhelming. Some of that might be that although he's got some impressive stoppages, he's not a, you know, known as necessarily a as a, as necessarily a consistent finisher or a big knockout guy. So that can add up when you're regularly fighting in big fights or five round fights. He also turned, uh, he also joined the UFC. What is like a teenager and fought at a very

high level. Either way, both of these guys are 29. Max has already more than stamped a hall of fame career. And if that cater fight is any indication, he is not remotely done. Uh. When we talked about the stakes, which could be a title shot, I thought it was interesting that Max not only has been seizing the idea of a Conor McGregor fight, but real quickly, Luke, as an aside, did you hear his comments at the media day where he said, I'm the best boxer in the UFC, and if you look around at the climate right now, you can understand the type of opportunities that could be available to me. That's me paraphrasing. But it sounded like he was saying, given the crossover of MMA guys taking boxing matches,

that he could be in line for something. That doesn't make a ton of sense, given that he's not going to box a Paul brother. The UFC isn't in that business at the moment. Do you think he's just talking about a potential Conor McGcgregor mma fight or is there something deeper there hmm this is a tough one because could ufc do via zuva boxing or whatever the fuck could they do a max versus conor boxing match and would it sell well i I actually think it would. I don't know if it would sell as well as a full-on MMA fight as part of a full UFC event. I don't know about that. Hard to say.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But like, would it do well? I think it would do well. The question is like, does UFC want to get into that? And like, would they make that over making an MMA fight if they could? Or is the situation such that maybe they couldn't really get them to agree to an MMA fight, but they could, for whatever reason, get them to agree to a boxing fight? It's a strange one.

You're right. As long as he's locked under contract, and dude, not only that, Max is still in his prime, 29 years of age. I mean, Jesus Christ, this guy is young. But you're right, dude. That little switch, but here's the thing they could do that with nate and connor and they just don't ever seem to pull the trigger on it so i just don't know what kind of it doesn't make sense like it's not like max is going to go to the

triller trigon or whatever and start you know boxing boxers or i mean could the ufc like that's the thing zufa boxing never die is there still an idea in their head of bringing in a free agent boxer that can box their own mmg i don't know, but that seems to be extraneous to the actual conversation right now, which is who wins this fight and how, and in our conversation, Gaff says Teofimo, dude, Teofimo would do terrible things to UFC fighters. I don't know why. I'm not saying Gaff believes this. I think he's probably just having a bit with us, but for, I know folks from BC, real quickly as an aside, you answer this for me. Someone, or maybe we did it on the show.

Someone was like, how would Peter Yan do against relevantly sized boxers? And the answer is real fucking bad, man. They would annihilate him. I don't know why this is a thing. Yeah, yeah. It's not apples to apples in that regard. Yair Rodriguez is out a two-year layoff. We failed to mention on Wednesday that at least six months of that was the USADA suspension

for not declaring his whereabouts multiple times. He claims during the media day this week that he just isn't the type of guy that has his cell phone near him, so he had to learn the hard lesson of professionalism. You can believe that or not. It doesn't really matter at this point. He had a layoff due to injury. He had a COVID death in his family and then of course he had the extra delay of max holloway's undisclosed injury ahead of their july fight look i has max ever disclosed this injury i can't find any proof

right now no not that well not in full detail that i'm aware of right okay it's almost a bill belichickian like uh keeping this a secret either Either way, Max said his trainers forced him to do a mini camp ahead of accepting the second chance at Yair Rodriguez. Whatever injury it was, it passed the test. So Max says he's going to take out the frustration of having to do that on Yair this weekend. But when we look at Yair Rodriguez, it's a record that is a little bit more bloated than he has been

consistent. We talked about that why on Wednesday, there's been miraculous victories. There's been, you know, up and down performances. Is he in line? Is it possible that he could finish Max Holloway with some spinny shit? Yeah. Right. I mean, it's possible, but it's not likely. So Luke, if you're looking at Yair Rodriguez's game, he's a big underdog because of how well Max Holloway controls distance in the terms of the fight and puts it on you, and you can't take him down, and his chin doesn't crack. How does Yair Rodriguez prepare to potentially win a five-round fight here?

I think going the distance would be a terrible idea. I think you have to attack the legs of Max Holloway because he doesn't really... He does a little bit of kicking, but not much. But because he's so jab-heavy, you've got to take away the movement. I think that's a big part of it. I would also say getting, uh, uh, using his forward pressure against him, getting him to walk into something big, which he also at times does, but you got to really burn them up early because if he,

you don't get them out of there or really substantively hurt him. Like how was Dustin Poirier able to go five rounds? Poirier was not only an accurate boxer, but he was the much heavier handed of the two. So not round after round, but repeatedly through the course of the fight, including late, he was able to sting Max Holloway in a way to either rock him or get him to back up or to cover up or to do something that showed he was reacting to the power. Does Yair have that power? No, not the same as Dustin Poirier. I don't think anyone would really argue that. Plus, Poirier is upper weight class. But what he can do is, again, I think heavy leg attacks, heavy body attacks, a lot of push kicks, a lot of keeping a guy like Max away, away. And then

when he really tries to pressure, you have to land something of extraordinary significance on him, especially if you don't have natural punching power like Dustin Poirier does. So what are you going to do? You're going to take Max down and take his back? Good luck with that shit. They can't get this guy down for anything, and especially when they do, they don't get much out of it. You've got to strike with him, and that is just a hard proposition

because Max's chin is still pretty good. His jab is incredible. His volume is enormous, and he just gets better as the fight goes along. Attack early, attack hard, go to legs, go to the body, set a trap. That's it. I mean, it's weird that we see this matchup, we pop for it, we're going to get violence, we're going to get excitement. Good God, it's in the late afternoon.

It's like this treat. Yet the closer we get to breaking it down, the more we find it harder to Yair Rodriguez to find an avenue of success. So this fight does not hit the ground at all, correct? It could, especially if someone gets rocked or something. But, you know, I just feel like Yair is, you know, he lost the Frankie Edgar fight that way. He had, you know, dicey moments with Stephen, Jeremy Stevens by virtue of the ground. Max doesn't like going to the ground if he can at all avoid it.

Never say never, but like what would be the case where they would other than someone just getting completely rocked? I don't, I don't know what they would do. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm prepared to enjoy this fight and the stipulations are big. Now, if Max wins at the end of the day, despite all this boxing talk, look, I think the fight to make is the trilogy with Volkanovski. I really do. I know it's hard to say how do you fight a guy three times in two and a half years

when you haven't won the first two, but we know the situation here. Max did mention, hey, I've got to win over the 155-pound champ. So the only way I could see that mattering here, Luke, walk me through this. What if Max beats Rodriguez on Saturday? What if Charlie Olives beats Poirier in December? What if the UFC then says, look, here's the deal. Max deserves something, but you know what? I'm not sureander volkanovsky has to do this a third time we've got some other we could do the the fight you hate with so who

know we could do other things why don't re-reward max by giving him a title shot again at lightweight and then telling both islam mahachev and justin gaethje you're gonna have to fight each other in a number one contender fight to fight the winner. Is that probable in your vast world of potential outcomes here, Luke? Well, I got to say, the one about Islam and Justin Gaethje I actually feel like is the right fight to make. I don't know that they will or that it works out that way, but as a good fight to make for a number of

different purposes i love that fight so i don't have any issue with that and i don't know if the ufc by itself would hate that fight but like they're just going to give max a title shot at 155 no i well to be fair didn't lose to party it wasn't a close fight they gave him that interim title shot at a time where it it kind of didn't make a ton of sense either right yeah but for an interim title like for do interim titles or boxing titles to ufc they'll just do whatever they want with them oh hey fucking zero gone we'll make you versus derrick lewis for the interim title for no fucking reason and we'll just call it that uh you know you get the idea like, for a regular full-on title, I'd be shocked if they did that.

He almost had a regular full-on title right here. I know the stipulations were different, though, Luke, but that almost happened right there. Luke, what about Yair Rodriguez? Short of knocking Max out and making a stupidly large statement, could any victory send him to Volkanovski next? Yair? Yes.

I think, dude, he's been off for two years, but I just got to say, I feel like it wouldn't matter who was champion. If you beat Volkanovski and Max is champion, you deserve a title shot. Conversely, if you beat Max and alex is the champion you deserve dude who the fuck else are you gonna beat in that division aside from the champion himself that's even remotely on par at this point in time with max holloway there's just nobody even close so i get

that people would want to say well what else could he do? There should be more, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. If you're Jair Rodriguez and you beat Max, I have zero issue with him getting a title shot off of that, right? Yeah. I mean, you look at the top five or six, the only person with a win at the moment is Korean Zombie. You know? I mean, we want to see Josh Emmett come back, but it's been a while. And again, Giga Chikadze Giga Chikadze

is on his way but he still has some work to do I tend to forget that name in this larger discussion you can dead wrong me for that on Fridays uh Luke Max by decision that's the bet right you're not gonna make a ton of money there but that's the bet what's the bet this main event on Saturday the bet is Max Holloway by decision. Ooh, I actually think Max is going to stop him. Ooh, interesting. Yeah, I think Max is going to stop him late, fourth or fifth round. I think that volume is going to be way too much for him.

He's going to get overwhelmed, yeah. All right, I could see that happening. Yair has been impressive at times, but not that consistent across the board. Although this opportunity really gives him a big one to try to change that narrative. So we'll see that. Luke, when you look up and down this card, what's going to be the fight of the night here short of the main event? What is the best damn fight on this card? Well, the main event is by far the best one.

But you're asking fight of the night. Song Yudong versus Julio Arce could get us there. Miguel Baeza against Chaos Williams could get us there. I like that. I like... Luke, do you remember how freaking high... Yeah, I'll go with those two. How freaking high we were on Miguel Baeza two fights ago,

and then he lost the... What did he lose? The decision to Ponzinibbio? Yeah. I still am high on him. I still think he's great. By the way, out of MMA Masters, a phenomenal camp, we all know more about because of Colby, but they've been around for a long time

before all of that. He's a black belt, young, athletic, has set back against a more experienced opponent. That's fine. But I think there's still a lot of upside with him. I bet he's going to learn big time from that. But Chaos Williams, as we we all know can be a devastating puncher and striker when he needs to be so uh a difficult challenge for baeza but one i think he's got enough well-rounded skills to at least in theory get the dub but that's going to be a dangerous one for him should be a hell of a fight yeah i love that fight i love it i'm going to be watching song yedong i still think as i mentioned on wednesday that he's got a very bright future here at bantamweight uh the king of kenosha Ben Rothwell, in this heavyweight co-main event is a slight favorite, minus 160, over Marcos Ojerio de Lima. What are you looking at in this fight?

Are you not going to look at it at all, Luke? I don't have a super high impression of this fight. I'm not sure. I mean, let me look at the heavyweight. They love heavyweight co-main events, whether it's a good fight or not. They freaking love it. Yeah, they do. I mean, Ben Rothwell, certainly I wouldn't say, having heavyweight. They love heavyweight co-main events, whether it's a good fight or not. They freaking love it. Yeah, they do. I mean, Ben Rothwell, certainly I wouldn't say anything bad about him.

The guy's had a great career. IFL champion in the whole nine yards. Was important for affliction. Was important for UFC. And has extended his career in a pretty dramatic way. I think capable of beating most heavyweights outside the top five or seven or so uh which I think this covers Lima has had a bit of a resurgence later in his career he he had the win over Green the loss to Romanov but um well he's actually had the loss to Struve and Wiesorek too yeah I don't

know I I would say I would tend to like Ben Rothwell here but it's definitely two older fighters to be sure. Yeah, and we mentioned it on Wednesday. Good matchup here with number five at women's flyweight, Cynthia Calvillo against an Andrea KGB Lee, who, look, she's a little bit frantic at times, but she's had some good performances of late. She's a pretty damn good fighter. This would be the biggest win of her career without question.

Yes, if she gets this one. And again, we talked about it yesterday. This is five versus 12. You don't see a whole lot. I mean, it's not super rare, but it's not super common either. So, Lee, if she gets a win here, not only to your point, maybe the best opponent she would get a dub against, and this would absolutely catapult her to a place in the rankings.

I'm not sure she's ever held, not anytime recently anyway. So big, big step. Or conversely, if Cynthia Bottoms out here, God knows what's going to happen. So huge stakes for them. We are on the verge of Cynthia Calvillo full reformation time. Two losses in a row, albeit to absolute elites in this division in both Chukagian and Andrade.

But Luke, let's not forget that time when Calvillo won five fights in one year. And do you remember that now infamous promo where Dana White compared her to Ronda Rousey and said she's like the next big thing on the women's side? That feels decades ago. I remember when she was a waitress at Cheesecake Factory and she quit because she got signed to UFC. Remember that? Yeah, I do remember that, yeah. I don't remember Dana saying she was a waitress at Cheesecake Factory and she quit because she got signed to UFC. Remember that? Yeah, I do remember that, yeah.

I don't remember Dana saying she was the next big thing. But this is what I mean. Someone got on me being like, why doesn't Dana hype Hamzat more? And I have to wonder if Dana has, like, internalized. And by the way, I'm not even mad at Dana for this. Like, I get that prospecting is really fucking hard. You know, it's not easy to tell who's going to eventually be the biggest thing, except for the most obvious cases like a Jones or a Habib.

You can tell that they're going to be something special, but for everyone else, it's kind of hard. I think he's had a number of times. He was like, yo, Felipe Nova, that guy is going to be the next Anderson Silva.

And I was like, uh, not exactly. Maybe he's slow rolling it. Cause he doesn't want to look too silly. I wouldn't blame him yeah come on dana all right you got a tough job you're doing a great job just don't put me in any more of your videos around christmas time all right thank you by the way i someone told me why

he deleted it why i haven't had it i haven't had it independently verified but the reason why they told me is uh how do i say this he got overruled i'll put it that way by espn disney or by ari emmanuel not sure not interesting i thought it you know what i thought it was i thought it was to distance himself from trumpian type ways during that specific season. Are you kidding? He fucking thinks Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No. Left to his own devices. I think that thing would still be floating around, but there were some people

much more powerful than he who did not like it. Luke, I'm 48 hours into this Moderna booster. Doing well, okay? Yeah, feeling good? Your arms still sore? Life, not so much, but I'm doing well, Luke, okay? She got it, too? She's sick?

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's not doing well. She'll make it, though, okay? So all you January Sixers, thank you very much. Okay, Luke, let's keep rolling with tonight, Friday night, Showtime, 10 p.m. Eastern, Bellator 271 from Hollywood, Florida. And we have a women's featherweight title main event. Luke, I've got to be fair.

The closer I get to this thing, I'm kind of really starting to like this fight. In the beginning, I was like, kind of get this away from me. But look, any time Chris Cyborg's on your screen, the living legend, the 36-year-old, the champion in just about every promotion she's ever entered, you're going to want to see. She's a monster favorite here at minus 3,000 against Ireland's Sinead, say it correctly, Cavanaugh, at plus 1,300. Is it Sinead or is it Sinead?

I've heard many people, including Danny Segurha, pronounce it Sinead. So on CBS Sports HQ this week, I've been dropping some Sineads, Luke, okay? All right. All right. I did interview Chris Cyborg yesterday on CBS Sports HQ this week, I've been dropping some synades, Luke, okay? All right. All right. I did interview Chris Cyborg yesterday on CBS Sports HQ. So the closer I get to this, this is an interesting matchup. Why? Because all those people who've been hyping my DMs about Kavanaugh being better than her record

and more of a threat than we realize, and she's got a wartime haircut right there in that picture. Luke, you watch the tape on Kavanaugh. She brings it. She goes after it. And here's the deal. If you're going to beat Cyborg, and who has, right? Amanda Nunes and then that unnamed person who beat Chris Cyborg in a pro debut, you know, decades ago.

Nobody has. But if you're going to do that, I think your best shot is to try to get her into a war and land a big shot. She's so well-rounded in every other category. Kavanaugh comes to fight. Look at the tape. And, Luke, a lot of people got in my ear after we on Wednesday said, look, man, this is kind of another ho-hum, you know, move the chains along.

They're like, you don't realize Kavanaugh lost in that losing streak. One was on a cut in a fight she was well ahead. One was a bunk decision that no one cares to re-watch and remember what i didn't realize is cavanaugh comes from the irish amateur boxing system a teammate of katie taylor the unified boxing lightweight champion undisputed excuse me and luke she's aggressive she goes after it there's she's raw there's some holes there but if i'm gonna see somebody go up against the great Chris Cyborg I don't want somebody whose only chance is to you know take her down and try to win the clock I want to see

somebody guns blazing that's who Sinead Kavanaugh is her nickname is KO obviously this is a big hill to climb but this is uh become a little bit more interesting to me and Luke there's a little bit of a narrative here Kavanaugh during the media day this week is accusing Cyborg of playing mind games to try to get in her head by having her team plant all of these little playing cards that have Cyborg's face on it everywhere Kavanaugh goes this week, like in her hotel room at different events. There's just these cards. It's like a Squid Games type mind F I hear. I did ask Chris Cyborg about it and she laughed at it and scoffed and said look you know look at my credentials when have i ever had to or needed or or wanted to

try to get in someone's head she said these are these cards that are trying to get people to uh buy crypto and donate money i don't know luke whatever at the end of the day do you care about this fight at all that's what i'm leading into yeah i, I mean, listen, I take the pushback that we received on some of our initial analysis. I think that's somewhat fair, somewhat. But the question is, is Kavanaugh the equal or greater version of Cyborg, or is she a lesser version of Cyborg? And if you just look at who they have as common opponents, it's hard to draw any conclusion that she is equal to

or greater than Cyborg. Now that doesn't, you don't want to play MMA math. We all know that like, dude, you zig when you're supposed to zag in this sport and you end up looking at the lights and that's all she wrote. So the fact that Kavanaugh brings that kind of intensity to the fight should not be dismissed. Fair. Should be taken seriously as somebody who is there to win. Okay. Fair enough. And is a decent size as well. I like that part. There are things to like in this not be dismissed fair should be taken seriously as somebody who is there to win okay fair enough and is a decent size as well i like that part there are things to like in this featherweight contest to be sure and to your point cavanaugh is going to bring it so you have to ask yourself what is cyborg gonna do could she be baited into exchange because remember like cyborg lost to

amanda nunez but she also lost like not like she fights anymore. She threw out all of the science and all of the jab and all the tactics and then just kind of bit down the mouthpiece and just swung and she got lit up for it. Is she going to do that against an opponent that is probably overmatched but could bring moments of intensity? I think your read is correct. Kavanaugh's main goal here is you've got to pull Cyborg out and you've got to brawl with her. But, dude, that's hardly a fucking great way to fight Cyborg. You've got to have a chin. Dude, Cyborg landed bombs on Nunes before she got taken out.

I mean, you've got to have a chin. Nunes has just a granite chin, or at least a pretty good one anyway. Dude, if you were told, okay, you have to beat Cyborg by brawling with her, dude, that fucking sucks, man. You're going to get lit up one way or the other almost assuredly. So, you know, it's like, do I take that seriously as something that just can't be ignored? Definitely. But Cyborg can take it to the ground here, obviously.

She's quite good on there. You know, there's just a lot of ways for Cyborg. It's just not, I don't know what the argument would be to pick cavanaugh other than could she in the moment of a brawl land a big punch and get the dub yes that is certainly possible but i don't think that's the likeliest of outcomes yeah i agree with you on that uh it's got to be a big cyborg victory unless she shows up old unless uh as you mentioned that that cavanaugh can make this a brawl and just sort of have a moment you know can she gas cyborg out could she drop the bomb on her anything can happen obviously uh i'm a little bit more pumped to watch this given that i'm realizing cavanaugh's gonna go for broke and that seems to back it up in all

the comments that's her style she's coming for it good lord there are irish people in my dms telling me to to put the money on her. We'll see, okay? We'll see what happens tonight, 10 p.m. Eastern. I would argue that the odds probably don't fully reflect how much of a threat Kavanaugh is. At the same time, I think you would agree, you know, the rational pick here, given what we know, the rational pick is Cyborg. But we'll see, man.

MMA's fucking crazy. And by the way, if Cyborg was still the UFC women's featherweight champion, she'd still be mopping up in that division too. It's not like, oh, this is Bellator. There's no one for her to fight. First of all, there's no one for any women's featherweight to fight really, to be, to be brutally honest and fair here. But, uh, Cyborg's great. I mean, I don't, I don't look, I still don't think Cyborg ever really gets the full like credit for everything

she's accomplished I mean you know Scott Coker's still calling her the goat it's hard for me to say that seeing what Amanda's done and what she did to her but as much as

I would have loved to see that rematch but good god Cyborg what else do you want from her she's 36 she's always in perfect shape

she always comes to win she's evolved her game she wins championships everywhere she goes. She's incredibly polite and human. I mean, like, is it time now for us to, as she enters her twilight, which is still, you know, called a twilight, she's still the pound-for-pound best in Bellator, should we start giving her more flowers, Luke?

Who's we? I mean, MMA in general. I mean, it's like, I feel like sometimes people that just look at her as a relic from another era or say she hasn't fought anybody or just don't say anything at all when we are watching a living legend legend still in the midst of you know delivering knockouts and title defenses at a very high level i think that the fact that she got sideways with ufc from day one has hurt how some of the general public has viewed her also the fact that amanda nunez surged to the level that she did hurt her claim cyborg's claim

is the best ever and then obviously they fought and you know again i think cyborg would probably still lose if they rematched but the fact that cyborg fought so poorly in that contest you know didn't help her argument but and i also agree that like you know dude cyborg's been doing i mean i i saw gina carano at the fucking prudential center on the same card as Kimbo blowing up James Thompson's ear. She's still out here doing it. I hate to say this, but Kimbo is deceased and James Thompson isn't even in the sport anymore.

Nick Serra, I think, was on that card. Matt Serra's brother, who refused to stand after getting leg kicked. Folks, forget this. Nick Serra was called the Mad Monkey. He used to come out with a monkey mask and throw bananas and shit. She it was a whole I mean she is from an era of MMA that is you know one step away from the Yama pit so I do I do agree that like part of that longevity has actually worked a little bit against her but I don't know man I always often feel like

I try to be really fair to Cyborg if she's's not the best female fighter ever, I don't think she is, she's got one of the most incredible runs I've ever seen of any fighter, male or female. And dude, wisely picking a stage in her career where she's going to get the, you know, a decent set of threats that a promoter can give, but ones that are entirely manageable. She is managing her relative decline about as expertly as a prize fighter of her level is supposed to so when you say we i can understand how other audiences maybe haven't given her what she's owed but i've been around for the whole show man and i feel like our coverage of her has been pretty fair and and look some people still hold on to her positive steroid test you know a long ass time ago with strike force and you know it happened so that's the deal right there. Real quick to close on Cyborg, the fight, if she gets past Sinead Kavanaugh,

which the betting odds tell you she will, is obviously the one that could be in her silo that would make the most sense, that would get us jacked up, is Kayla Harrison, the free agent, the PFL champion, the multiple-time millionaire and two-time judo gold medalist. Kayla was on the punching in podcast this week Luke and she said this I heard someone's coming into my town I might have to roll through and check it out Cyborg tries to stay relevant I feel like anytime someone has any bit of press or anything Cyborg chimes in and says irrelevant things I'm pretty sure I'm going to be cage side

it's going to be fun I think I would dominate Cyborg I mean realistically every fight is tough you have to be smart you have to be calculated but I'm a cold dominate Cyborg. I mean, realistically, every fight is tough. You have to be smart. You have to be calculated, but I'm a cold killer in there. And I have the utmost faith in my coaches and them developing a game plan. I know I work harder than anybody else, including her. I think my career is going up. And I think she, meaning Cyborg, is at the end of her career, I would say. Now, look, I did ask Cyborg, as everyone else had this week, about Kayla Harrison. And she took, I don't want to say the high road, maybe the middle road of saying, all I'm focused on is Sinead Kavanaugh. That's up to Scott Coker if he wants to sign her.

Kayla's just out here trying to get a payday. Do these comments do anything to you? Do you believe in your heart that there's even a decent chance that Kayla ends up in Bellator, or has some way of making a one-off to make this fight a reality? I think there's a decent chance she ends up in Bellator. The UFC, I think, in a perfect world, BC, tell me if you agree

with this, in a perfect world, if things ever worked out the way that they wanted them to, I think UFC would be happy to take Kayla. But what I don't think folks have fully internalized is while I would like to see Kayla in the UFC and I would like to see Kayla fight who they can find for her and everything else. The UFC doesn't need her. They don't, sorry. They don't, they don't need it. They don't need, they don't need hardly anybody.

This is not just her. This is a, there's a wide array of fighters. They don't need hardly anybody. This is not just her. This is, there's a wide array of fighters they don't need that they could let someone else have. And if they can get Bellator to overpay for her, whatever that might mean, they would be happy to let that happen as well. So I think it's actually a decent chance. She ends up with Bellator over UFC, but in the end,

who knows? Cause I think what's happening is Kayla is, uh, she's going to want more than UFC is going to want to pay her and given who that that she might have there's probably a few big fights they can make for her but not many and they don't want to pay on that level so we'll see how this goes the biggest non-UFC win that she could get meaning Kayla to improve her credentials is obviously Cyborg I just feel like PFL's got to be the clubhouse leader with that one million

dollar prize with the way things work out there they added julia budd who knows if they're trying to get megan anderson but would i love her to go to bellator yes i would love to see this fight luke do you believe what kayla's saying that she would she would uh she'd stop you know cyborg that she's better than her i mean it's hard for us to know because of the level of competition kayla has fought but who would you give the the betting favorite edge to if that fight was made next year Kayla I think Kayla would beat her yeah wow I think Kayla can get her down and I think Kayla can keep her down and I think Kayla can hurt her there I think Kayla is if not the very best in the division number two at worst it's going to be interesting to see

if that develops uh quickly Luke here this co- event, we didn't mention much on Wednesday, but it does have heavyweight title implications. Tyrell Fortune is a very small under, I'm sorry, favorite coming in here against Linton Vassell at heavyweight. Fortune's won three in a row since that knockout loss to Timothy Johnson. I think he's looking like a title contender of late.

He kind of sent Matt Mitrione to Triller in the last fight. Do you think he gets a title shot, although it's a little bit complicated with Bader at the top and Valentin Moldavsky with the interim belt, if he gets by Litt and Vassell here? Yeah, I think, by the way, Vassell is the favorite, which I got to tell you, I'm a little bit surprised by it. Oh, did I screw that up? I may have screwed that up, Luke. Yeah.

I don't know if you did. I mean, let me double check that, because sometimes Mikey puts these these on here i'm like mikey uh that was me who put them on there though so uh yeah it should be fortune yes of course of course mikey got it wrong no it was it was me i put the no mikey didn't do the betting odds this week so i i put them in i typed it wrong luke all right i'll take that i apologize i apologize to mikey and then you are the fuck up because they've got tyrell Fortune as a minus 200. Linton Vassel, excuse me, at Caesar Sportsbook, they have Tyrell Fortune minus 170, Vassel at plus 145.

That, to me, makes much more sense because Tyrell Fortune, as you indicated, surging as a natural heavyweight and got a nice, well, a weird win, but it has looked much better of late. Linton Vassel, a very good light heavyweight who I think ran out, maximized his fortunes there, and so decided to move up to heavyweight and has had some success there as well. Strong, big,

but he's not a natural heavyweight. Tyrell Fortune, much better wrestler. That's already Vassil's, Vassil's sort of like claim to fame is he's a good, big, strong grappler. But Fortune should be able to resist most of that so if he plays his cards right he's i think the quicker of the two the naturally more athletic of the two um and the better wrestler fortune has already said uh basically daring uh vassal to

take him down he's like you know what's going to happen if you try to take me down so we'll see what happens there look obviously aaron pico we hit all the storylines big there. He's a minus 340 favorite against the unbeaten Justin Gonzalez, plus 270. That's a lot, dude. A lot of people saying, you know, put some respect on Gonzalez's name, and I agree with them. But here's what I think, Luke. I think in the past, if you go after Aaron Pico, you can open up mistakes and you can open up a little bit of that recklessness to come out.

I want to see Justin Gonzalez go after him because i think this pico 2.0 is going to show you the patience and he's going to commit to that wrestling and if he gets a win here luke this is exactly what he needs to move into legitimate title contention i like pico i think that's the bet here uh i think that justin gonzalez being a little bit underrated is going to bring out the best in Pico. I certainly hope, but I will say this. Again, we said it on Wednesday. Now, okay, Pico got his rebuild. And I don't know if he'd ever signed with UFC if he ever would have gotten it. I don't know how they would have even done it, right?

You have to be a bellator where you can pull up guys of certain levels and make it all work by virtue of how your organization operates. UFC just doesn't have that kind of a situation. So now is the time. This is the perfect opponent to transition into something a little bit higher level. But I mentioned something that I wanted to see from Pico on Wednesday about composure under fire. I think I also want to see BC beyond just standard composure, which I think is fine. Dude, I want to see some good fight IQ. I want to see great decisions being made. Here's a guy in Aaron Pico who will do well and then just make a cataclysmic error.

And then everything goes up in smoke. I want to see minimized errors. You should know where you're taking this position. You should know how you want to fight this fight. And if you can't get it, you should have where you're taking this position you should know how you want to fight this fight and if you can't get it you should have a plan b already in mind and ready to go to that one as well he's got enough tools to get there he just has to execute i love this fight this is the best this is this is the most telling fight for aaron pico's career since his last loss by far absolutely absolutely and i think and this is a big, big test he needs and can pass.

And obviously Valerie Lareda looking to bounce back from that first pro defeat against Hannah Guy. She's 3-1 overall. She's got a soccer mom in Taylor Turner. She'll be a big favorite here. But Turner's got some experience, as we mentioned the other day. So that'll be a fight to watch out for if Lareda can turn things back in the positive direction.

Luke, topic number three this Friday is big news for your December 11th loaded UFC 269 card in Las Vegas. Jorge Masvidal has pulled out, I believe with an undisclosed injury, although I'm sure we can conspiracy theory that a bit, he will no longer be fighting Leon Edwards. Here's what's interesting though, Luke. You know that guy Hamzat Chamayev who wants every single fiber of the smoke? A tweet from ESPN's Brett Okamoto says, spoke to Hamzat's manager too early to know what is going to happen, but Hamzat has been asking for

a fight every day since UFC 267, just texted him when he saw news of Masvidal's withdrawal, and he said, quote, call UFC now, we travel tomorrow. Luke, how do you receive this news? I did throw that conspiratorial tease. Why? Because when I hear this, do you know what I say? The better matchup anyway is Jorge versus Colby Covington, so why risk Jorge in a loss against Leon Edwards that won't lead him to a Kamaru trilogy anyway? So this kind of seems like a good development.

No? Question mark? And it opens up a lane for Hamzat versus Edwards, right? Yeah. Isn't that also on the table? It feels like correction, like a corrective move. That's what it feels like. I have to say, I don't know what happened, but I am skeptical of the idea that, like, I don't know what I believe.

But it just seems so convenient that it worked out this way. And, you know, listen, can you complain that it worked out this way? Even if it is 100% real and it's an injury and you legitimately can't make their scheduled date, you know know the avenues that it opens up for what they actually want and frankly what kind of the division to an extent might need is so readily available like what is your read bc how much of this is fugazi how much of it isn't i i'm not gonna lie to you here without proof but just what how do i read it i 100 100% read it as Fugazi. We're in an era of the pandemic and COVID, Luke, where we've already seen in both boxing and MMA,

these like pullouts with quasi undisclosed injuries. Dillian White getting out of that Otto Wallin fight conveniently after Tyson Fury wins the Wilder Trilogy and White's the potential mandatory. I mean, we get we get it right. Could Jorge really be injured? Well, look 50% of the time fighters seem to have some kind of nagging injury. So yeah,

I believe it could be both truthful and Fugazi at the same time, more or less. If you get my drift here, it's just a better fight for Jorge's brand to put him in there against Colby, who needs a big opponent and that's sellable and everybody wants to see it. Despite Jorge and Leon having legitimate beef with the three-piece in a soda backstage gimmick in 2019 no one really is aching for that they're not no one's really been pushing for it we want to see

Leon fight for a title he just can't seem to get any luck in getting that and it doesn't help that he's already lost to Kamaru back in the day and Kamaru has only been fighting rematches lately him against Hamzat is perfect Dana doesn't want to go with my bold action plan of putting Hamzat right into the title fight so why not do this with the winner getting Kamaru next year we also had top contender Gilbert Burns who is coming off a win tweeting what's up Leon Edwards you already on training camp let me know UFC 269 Luke do you you know sort of gun to your head here will Leon Edwards stay on this card as we're less than a month you know heading into this I think if they offered him Gilbert Burns maybe he would with the Hamzat one I don't know dude

if they offer you if you're Leon Edwards and they offer you Hamzat at UFC 269, do you take it? Now, I know we want him to take it. Forget about that. If you're Leon Edwards, you wake up and you're in his body, do you take that one? Dude, you know, I don't know if that's a fight that I would take if I was Leon Edwards. Which isn't to say you couldn't win it. But if you win, everyone's going to be like, oh, well, Hamzat was overblown. And then if you lose, everything you've been building for is gone.

Plus, you just served as this like feeder to a guy that they promotionally favored anyway. With Gilbert, even if you lose, but you perform well, you could still be in a place where you're relatively close to contention. With Hamzat, does it just drop you down in the rankings given how far away he is and how high? Well, he's not super far. I think he's like seven or so. But I don't know, man. If you're a Leon, do you take that? Seriously, do you take that fight if you're a Leon?

My knee-jerk answer is to say no you don't take that fight I just don't know if he could create the actual leverage with the UFC to make sure he gets uh you know Usman now here's the tweet from Leon Edwards says 10 comes out to 10 he says uh disappointed this is Leon Edwards talking but honestly I knew this fraud didn't want to fight me anyway he was just to stop off on the way to the title. The goal remains the same. Much needed family time now. Usman, we'll see you soon. I don't know. Look, let's be fair here. This is a big card, 269.

It's like their formerly their New Year's Eve closeout. It's the last pay-per-view of the calendar year. It's already pretty damn loaded with Poirier and Oliveira, Amanda Nunes coming back in the co-main. There's some really good main card fights here and prelim fights you don't really need it will the UFC though you know green light Edwards which they haven't done yet you know will they say okay no more you're the next contender I don't know dude they don't seem to love the guy nobody to be fair it's not it's not fair how Leon was treated but to be fair nobody seems to love this guy.

You know what I'm saying? Nobody seems to want to... We should have a conversation about Leon Edwards' career to this point. Now, it is distinguished in every way, so we're talking about someone who was an elite fighter. Let's be clear about that. So any criticism we make subsequent to this preamble should be taken with the idea that we're comparing him to other elites.

We're not comparing him to averages or even good. We're comparing him to elites. So with that in mind, he's got a few problems, BC. One is his style. I actually believe this, and I do maintain this. It's pretty innovative. I've talked about it before, these half positions that he constantly pursues where he's able to get ahead of his opponents, find a control position, or find some kind of, not stall, but some way to maintain that distance between himself, not the literal one, but in the who's winning battle. And then if something goes bad, he can just bail from it immediately. One hook in is sort of an example of that, up on the back or either on top of him, half

guard, right? All these half positions he constantly finds himself in. And so he's able to beat pretty good fighters doing that. But one, his biggest win, the Dos Anjoseles win came after a lot of other fighters already beat him same with serrani not it wasn't he didn't get like super washed serrani i don't think that's fair but he didn't get certainly didn't get prime serrani i think is also fair and also that happened in england on fight pass no one saw it the one against dos angeles i think was on fox was the main event but it wasn't it was like San Antonio. It wasn't a big one.

It was UFC on ESPN, to be fair. Yeah, on ESPN, whatever it was. But it still wasn't. It didn't blow people away, even though beating Dos Anjos, we realize, is a significant achievement. Then you have, which was not his fault, the pandemic happens, and he couldn't get to the country, and then he got sick, and then none of those are his fault.

But you have two basic problems. One, he does not have an exciting fight style um he has a he has an incredibly difficult one and i commend him for but it's not like action oriented even the one you saw against nate number one number two he just doesn't have a ton of popularity brand value now i think that's changing in the uk i think he could be a big star for them. So getting him out and building him into something could be really important for that market. But where is he as we speak today? He only started doing media recently. He spent years avoiding any kind of real spotlight. I don't know if by choice or by his management's choice, but it was a regrettable decision if ever there was one. So only now is he beginning to build his name. And a lot of it is controversy through what kind of fight they should or shouldn't make for him.

So this idea that he's like a foregone conclusion for the title by virtue of Masvidal dropping out, do they put Masvidal in there because he needed that Diaz-Masvidal push so that folks could know who he was and he could get a no BS claim to the title shot? I don't think they're going to let him just wait, bro. I really don't.

He's 9-0 with one no contest in the 10 fights since his Usman loss. But, I mean, is he deserving? Hell yes, he's deserving. But it is another Usman rematch. You know Usman. Look, although we don't have any tangible proof to try to pull the chalice on and then say, look, I don't think Usman's going to be around much longer. Hey, Luke, I'm not sure Usman's going to be around much longer. Hey, Luke, I'm not sure Usman's going to be around much longer. It's a recent trend with Habib and Cejudo to sort of walk away when you get to this point of stardom on top,

where your legacy is so intact. You've got money in the bank. You know, should I keep going down this road just to eventually take an L or do I walk away now i think usman's getting closer i really do so i don't think this this excites him at all and that does factor in because ultimately at the end of the day the ufc has the control it's not a they have rankings but it's not a merit-based system to get title shots it feels like the nate diaz fight was sort of the last hurdle Rocky Edwards had a clear, and he barely cleared it because of that hiccup lay, but he cleared it. I don't know, Luke. Speaking of Jorge, though, somewhat related to this situation, but not really, and I'm

sure you're going to cringe at this. Did you see the little back and forth between Conor and Jorge on Twitter? Do you care? No. What do they say? McGregor's kind of came out and said it's also jorge masvidal's birthday but he's a bitch for bottling the fight against leon f your injury you signed to fight you fight strip that belt from him that he never even won he the hoe is a house cat the fuck was

that about last season's versace house coat haha what the f jorge comes back with i guess you're off your meds again barking barking up the wrong tree. And don't be upset. Your client was about to be blessed with the biggest payday of his life. And now you don't get a dime off his whack ass. Too much man for you, little guy. Go back to fighting old dudes in bars. Well played here on this Social Justice Friday.

McGregor closed with, ye okay, sweetheart? Stick the kettle on for me in your little house coat there. Me and Hans have a meeting about your pity wage today. Luke, is that Hans Mollenkamp that he's talking about? I don't know. I don't know what other... Is there a Hans that works at UFC that we're not aware of? I don't know.

It's just talk between alpha males. Why don't they just make that fight? I don't know whatever to that shit luke anything else you gotta say about this no all right hey let's keep the train moving saturday night showtime championship boxing is back not only can you get a canelo alvarez caleb plant pay-per-view replay if you missed the historic action last saturday in las vegas But you're also going to get a very interesting fight in the same division, super middleweight, one unbeaten, two-time former champion, David Benavidez enjoys a Phoenix homecoming with his older brother, Jose, the welterweight, in the co-main event.

David Benavidez not going to fight Jose, who was caught to gi because of the failed drug test. He will fight Kyron Davis. Little bit of a journeyman, but let's give Davis credit. He did fight to an all-action draw as a no-hoper against Anthony Durrell. He is coming up, so to speak. Luke, we all know what this is, though. It's a showcase opportunity. David Benavidez is still just, what, 24?

I mean, he's been on the scene for a while. Sometimes his own worst enemy, either on the scales or with the white lines. But if, think about timing here. Timing is everything. Canelo Alvarez is going to have a replay of his fight this Saturday. Benavidez has been using Canelo's name. In fact, I had a phone call with Benavidez in the last week and he told me, look, Canelo's avoiding me. I'm not saying Canelo's scared because it's a risk reward thing and he said admittedly I don't bring a lot of reward at the moment I don't have a world title anymore but he said Canelo is avoiding me I'm the style

that will get him Luke if David Benavidez beats Kyron Davis which he should and let's say he looks fantastic doing it what percentage out of a hundred do you give that next may when canelo returns for cinco de mayo that big red's gonna pick showtime and that he's gonna pick david benavidez in what could end up being a blockbuster when you consider this luke you and i saw the reports from multiple boxing journalists yesterday yeah the caleb Plant Canelo Alvarez pay-per-view reportedly sold 800,000 buys. Unbelievable. In this era, head-to-head against a loaded UFC card, that is a monster win for the PBC, for Steven Espinoza,

maybe even for you and me at the end of the day, Luke, all right? Show me a little bit more of that cheddar, okay? Luke, that's a big deal, knowing that canelo is a big time free agent is this really what's at stake here for benavidez look great and you could be in the canelo sweepstakes i i i do i this one's a tough one right because you mean that super middle at 168 like what does canelo want to do at 168 right now the fucker just became the undisputed champion. And to your point, I understand something, what he did. 800,000 pay-per-view buys that were sold at $80 a pop.

So that's $64 million. Plus he did an $18 million gate. So dude, Canelo pulled $82 million roughly gross rev with this fight. Now that's big money and that's a big fight. But like, even with... Like dude, let me just be clear about this. Benavidez is going to beat the shit out of this fight. Now that's big money and that's a big fight, but like, even with like, dude, let me just be clear about this. Benavidez is going to beat the shit out of this guy. Like I think Benavidez is going to win. I would honestly be surprised if Davis lasts eight rounds. I would be shocked to be honest with you. I think, I think Benavidez is going to really hurt him.

Uh, so is he going to look good? Is he going to get, to your point, that audition moment? No doubt about it. But dude, with Canelo, he has options to stay at 168. And if Benavidez gets a nice win, that's important. But this was supposed to be Uzcategui, who is out because of EPO. He had much more of a name than the replacement here. So even if Benavidez wins and looks good, which I fully expect that he will, it doesn't do the same for him that it might. So it's a strong audition, but not against an opponent. And by the way, I think Luskitegi was going to get blown out too. But you see what I'm saying?

He had a name. That was the guy that Plant beat because he was the previous champion. Plant got the title from him, the IBF belt. Canelo's hard to predict, BC. I would love to see Benavidez versus Canelo, but if you've just unified all the major belts there and you have an opponent who has lost the title due to, technically, drugs and the scale,

even if he looks good, what is the incentive? Something else has to happen, BC, and i don't know what that is okay i'll tell you that's something else maybe you think it's bullshit but you got to get on the microphone and you got to go after canelo you got to insult him you're so look there's a history of people badly trying to insult canelo and getting what they asked for caleb plant got in his face and he got he got a big pay look Look, look, you're, this 800,000 buys, like this is about the four, I think the fourth biggest, uh, fourth or fifth biggest pay-per-view in Canelo's history. Now think about this. He did 2.2 million with Floyd. It's an

astronomical number. One of the top, you know, the third biggest fight ever. He did over a million on HBO twice with Gennady Golovkin but he did 900,000 with with Miguel Cotto for the middleweight title this is right short of that the last time we saw um Canelo on Showtime pay-per-view against Angulo against Lara he was doing around 350 there's a huge number I think that huge number was fueled by Canelo being a bigger star now and being the number one guy in the sport, of course. But also because you had history on the line and you had bad freaking blood. That is catnip to the crossover audience.

You know how many times we saw that replay of those two fighting at the press conference? It works. It's not contrived. They had legitimate beef that started from Plants' fight for respect, his comments about PEDs. But there's a history whether you're... Irresolendi Lara interrupting Canelo's post-fight press conference against Alfredo Angulo in asking for a fight. You disrespect Canelo publicly, he takes notice.

He gets offended by it. Here's the deal for David Benavidez. I would win spectacularly if I could. And I would insult the shit out of Canelo on the microphone and say you think you're the real Mexican? you know you think you're you know you find out meet me Cinco de Mayo in Las Vegas find out brother

maybe you say obesity that's bullshit it doesn't matter well here's what Canelo's dilemma is going to be Luke could he go up to 175 and fight B-Vol on DAZN or Archer Better B-Von ESPN top rank yeah but there's no marketable upside there isn't right now like B-Vol on DAZN or Archer Better Beave on ESPN Top Rank. Yeah, but there's no marketable upside. There isn't right now.

And there's also a high risk on that. Canelo, some people think Cherry picked Kovalev for the belt. Kovalev still had some danger, and he went there and knocked the guy freaking out. But he kind of already accomplished that. There are much more marketable names at the end of the day at 168. The potential problem for Showtime and Benavidez is, is Triple G the biggest name of them all? He is. He's with the zone. They could do a trilogy. Triple G will be back in December against Murata in a unification fight. But if Canelo wants to go that route, now he doesn't care about fighting Triple G again.

He's only heard the fans knocking on the door over and over. The problem is the casual fans don't realize Triple G's getting washed. He's not fully there, but he's getting washy. Okay, it's getting there. That's probably a big win for Canelo. Maybe even by knockout, unless Triple G can pour out whatever's left of him. Does that fight do the most? Probably.

But what if Benavidez looks great and Canelo says, I want to please my Mexican fan base. They are the backbone of that 800,000 pay-per-view I just sold. I just had a good run with PBC and Showtime. Why don't we take the unbeaten young Benavidez who, you know, you want to talk about selling a style that potentially could give Canelo fits. is a this is a fun sellable style Luke he's got an inside track at getting this fight but he's got to do something special on Saturday on the mic and in the ring tell me I'm crazy yeah no I think I think the way you're setting it up that's true but I would argue that this could fall apart quite easily so if he wins a 12 like if he wins on saturday in

the way that caleb plant beat caleb truax he ain't getting shit caleb plant got that fight because of the title he held not because of the performance itself was so dynamic that fight was not that great although he obviously performed quite ably against canelo even in a losing effort but like what i'll say that i'll say this benavidez has some of the wind at his back, but he has no margin for error if he wants a Canelo fight. You have to go out there and you have to fucking bludgeon Davis on Showtime. And to your point, you need to have a prepared, not speech exactly, but you need to know what you're going to say. You need to say it clearly, effectively, and affirmatively. And even then bc

it's no guarantee but without those ingredients it's not possible so let's see what he does on saturday i would use words like puta uh puto you mean any any any any pronoun on there luke wherever whichever way you want to go with that that's what i would do uh luke just real quick if anyone hasn't seen Benavidez before, you love this guy. I love this guy. Why do we love this guy? Benavidez?

Yeah. He's just sick talented. He's got incredible volume. He's just a really well-rounded boxer, right? He can be slick when he needs to. He can get in firefights at times. You can see it right here. He doesn't mind walking an opponent down.

He has a great jab um good chin durable he's got fucking balls luke yeah dude he'll fight and he has great combination punching fast hands there's just i mean he's just a phenomenally talented boxer he just has to get his shit together bc which we've been saying now for a long time but you just look at the tape the the guy can box his ass off. So let's see him put it all together. All right, Luke, let's close with topic five, quick hitters. We mentioned it on Wednesday,

DAZN's got a decent fight here with Jaime Munguia at middleweight against the well-traveled Gabe Rosado. Luke, we love Munguia because he comes forward like a cyborg, but your boy can be, he can be solved a bit if you're tough and you can be slick. Can a late-30s Rosado who's coming off an upset knockout of Beck the Bully be slick enough to have a shot at winning a decision here? No.

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. No. That's fair. That's fair.

Yeah. I think he can win rounds. I even think he could, like, do some damage to Munguia, but I don't think he can out-slick him on route to a victory. That part I don't see. Okay. It's going to be an exciting fight because gabriel's auto fights end up that way and we know haime munguia knows one speed right you know he's

coming for you so this should be a fun event also tonight luke bkfc back with a main event involving hector lombard and lorenzo haunt we've seen them brawl now at lombard's last fight at the press conference they pushed each other at the weigh-in, so this should be interesting. But, Luke, why do I care this Friday? Because MK's spirit animal, Britton Hart, is back. And she's calling out Pearl Gonzalez and anybody else who's trying to make money off OnlyFans with the, quote, fake breasts and fake ass and all that stuff.

She's saying you're going to find out what happens when you fight a real fighter. Luke, I'm majorly interested in this. Are you at least minorly interested? Nope. Oh, come on, Luke. Dude, if it wasn't for you, I honestly don't know if I would know anything about BKFC. I don't have anything against him,

but does it interest me? It doesn't really interest me. You love BKFC, and you especially love the trashier side of it. Dude, their women's division is aggressive as shit. It's a different kind of female fighter in there, but they're fun fights. I mean, even Rachel Ostovich jumping over and beating PVC. They've got an interesting group right now. We know Pearl Gonzalez is a name, but Britton Hart comes for that.

And, Luke, she's going to seek revenge because i don't know if you saw last weekend her husband joey beltran luck lost the bkfc heavyweight title by close decision in some podunk new york upstate town so uh yeah i don't think you care but uh i'll be following it closely they should hold all the fights for bkfcugatuck, Connecticut. Yeah, that's what my people do. And everyone can get paid in Four Loko and Funyuns. Naugie, Naugie. Luke, December 18th, UFC targeting a very interesting welterweight matchup. Does this move you? Steven Wonderboy Thompson versus Bilal, remember the name, Muhammad.

Love it. I think Bilal Muhammad has earned this kind of a fight. Wonderboy still trying to be relevant in that contender space. Has had some setbacks of late. This would be the best win, I would argue, for Bilal Muhammad if he could get it. I would also argue it's a very redemptive win if you're Wonderboy. So there is big stakes for their career. You gotta love the striker versus grappler matchup.

Hard to know what's not to like about this one. Love it. Yeah, love the striker versus grappler matchup hard to know what's not to like about this one love it yeah i love the style matchup the thing is wonder boy is almost our age now i thought his title hopes of getting back to that level were squashed in his last loss is there any chance a win over a highly ranked muhammad could create some new life since the only thing going for wonder boy beyond his name is he's never fought Usman yet. The thing is, let's say he starches Bilal Muhammad, which I'm in no way predicting per se, but let's just theoretically imagine a world where he headkicks him like he did.

Let's say he beats him like he beat Jake Ellenberger or something, right? I don't know if y'all can see. Yeah, there we go. Imagine if he beat him like he did Jake Ellenberger. What would you say? You would say that that was a great win. He beat a quality opponent. He's not done yet.

But it doesn't meaningfully move you to any kind of interesting title position at all. Like, the value of... If you're at Wonderboy Thompson, what's the value in beating a guy like the value is that hey I can still beat relevant guys who are not too far from the title you can't bury me yet that's that's the value but like does it move him close to a title shot not even not not at all he would have to beat a couple more guys I think look I don't mean to remove the fourth wall but that's the second time Gaff is asking you for your tip for the final segment of the show can you type it to him oh yeah i see it on the chat yeah i'll do it i don't mean to show the tiny people behind the curtain but that's how

we do it here uh luke uh you're interested in wonder boy muhammad are you interested in this fresh off his uh redemptive k over timothy johnson mma legendor Emelianenko, who we know is looking for one more MMA bout to go out on his own terms, is still interested in a big-time exhibition boxing bout against fellow Russian citizen Roy Jones Jr. Does this quasi-trailer bullshit even remotely touch your spot, Luke? You know, I'm not saying I'd rather be fucked to death by an eight-dicked walrus than watch that fight. But I'm not not saying. All right. By the way, that's a Patton Oswalt joke. I'm taking a line from Patton Oswalt so I

have to uh give him the uh mention here but no dude isn't Roy Jones Jr hold on isn't Roy Jones Jr technically a Russian citizen as well didn't he get like official citizenship didn't I just say that eight seconds ago Luke I don't know I wasn't listening because I had to type in my fucking thing to gaff so I couldn't hear you. Yeah, I mean, you know. No, no, I don't give a shit. Okay, let's keep it rolling right here, Luke. Habib Dermakomedov had an interesting Twitter rant against Justin Gaethje's demands for a title shot.

Here's Habib talking, quote, in last eight fights. Well, well, is it Habib talking, or is it a guy whose name rhymes with Shmali Abdelashmiz? I mean, which one is it? Wow. All right. In last eight fights, you got finished three times, Justin. You had an opportunity to become champion, but you fell asleep with a sleeping face emoji.

Continuing here, Islam is on a nine-win streak, three-fight in 2021, and all finishes. Just shut up and admit that Islam deserves this title shot, not you. Habib, I will remind you, this is both BC and Brendan Fitzgerald talking, that you were one leg strike away from entering peril in that last title defense. I don't know if that's Habib or not. It could be Habib's manager. He is known to take over their social media accounts and say things like that. So does Ali have a point, Luke?

Does Ali have a point? I mean, he's lobbying on behalf of his client. That's what he's doing. And dude, so much of the decision-making is just what's available and, like, what kind of power players can lean on for the promotion. Like, you know, is he right? Not cleanly. Is he wrong?

Not especially. It's just a matter of, like, what you can lobby for. So that's what he's doing. He's lobbying. Okay. Conor McGregor had a series. I think. I obviously cannot prove that.

I cannot prove that. Conor McGregor had a series of tweets which sparked I obviously cannot prove that. I cannot prove that. Conor McGregor had a series of tweets which sparked that debate or that battle we talked about with Jorge Masvidal in which he just kind of celebrated the five-year anniversary of his stoppage of Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205. Then he started throwing shots at all the people he believes he outboxed inside the MMA cage. And that led to one interim UFC Bantamweight champion,

Peyotre Yan, as the people like how I mispronounce it. You're a slob. I'm also a slob. Luke, here's what Peyotre... By the way, did you see the number one comment on our last video? Was there's going to be a Bellator fighter called... Yes. You're a slob.

It was right above all those comments about Luke's menstrual cycle. Yes, it was very great. Luke, here we go. Here's Peyotre Yan. Connor, we all know that you like to talk, but let's get straight to the point. If you really want to box or to fight, I don't care about the weight or the rule set. I bet you won't show up. Connor responded, LOL, no probably littler.

We will set up a spar or something in the near future. We'll host you and your team in Ireland for one of our shows at Crumlin Boxing Club. We will figure it out then. God bless you. Luke, I don't think Conor realized that Jan's saying, no, I want to fight you, bro. Not like come to my gym and we can spar in a wheelchair. You know, like he wants the smoke, it seems, Luke. I mean, Conor has bad-mouthed that little snake TJ Dillashaw before in the same division.

You think he's trying to punch down here, Luke? He could. He could punch down. I don't pay this much attention to this kind of stuff on Twitter for a reason, but you love it. Well, that's why Friday is BC's rules, you know? We get to talk about what I want to talk about. It is your rules. But you're asking me what I think about it.

I don't think much about it. All right. Two quick ones for you. DAZN did formally announce what i mentioned earlier triple g gannati golovkin will defend his ibf middleweight title against wba champion ryota murata december 29th in murata's home of japan do you care um this is probably his audition for a canelo fight right we know that the folks at DAZN won a third Canelo Triple G contest. Is he re-auditioning for that, you think?

It could be. You know, let's say he destroys Murata. Let's say DAZN goes, look, let's break. Because DAZN is supposed to be debuting pay-per-view early next year. Now, technically, even though they killed pay-per-view when they launched, technically they started offering pay-per-view the last few Canelo and Joshua fights because there's so many boxing fans that don't understand streaming that they still want to buy it the traditional way.

Which I cannot believe, but it is true. So, yeah. Look, seriously. Benavidez has an audition tomorrow night. Triple G has an audition in December. And obviously the financial numbers could be its own audition, but this is going to get interesting. Finally, Luke, this one also speaks to me.

Cheyenne Baze has COVID. So she has pulled out of her November 20th UFC fight night bout with Luma Lukbunmi of Thailand fame. But here's who's going to replace her. Lupita Godinia steps in. And, Luke, this will extend her UFC record. Her third fight in a 43-day span. That is Chris Lieben and Cowboy Cerrone on steroids right there, Luke.

Yeah. Although, you know, should she be taking this many fights in this close? I mean, I appreciate that from her. God damn it, that's great. But it's the same Cerrone thing. It's like you're going to win some of these that probably you might not have or you're going to get certain fights that you otherwise would not have gotten. That's the great part.

The bad part is you're going to fight so often you're probably going to lose some of these that you should have won because you're beaten down or injured or whatever the fuck. So God bless her if she wants to go this way. At least she'll have holiday money, Luke, gifts for a family well not i mean you know if you miss weight and then you lose not that much holiday money so you know you got to get out there and fucking win yeah if you don't win you're wrong you might even be dead wrong speaking of luke every friday morning combat at gmail.com is our email address wednesday fan subs friday dead wrong don't dm me don't try

to reach out mikey more mouth directly send it to that email address that you see right there what is this segment if you're new here this is luke and i you know taking one on the chin if we need to take it now okay a lot of people listen to us out of spite or hate you think we said something wrong send in the email. But you better back that shit up with a timestamp. You better be ready to defend yourself, alright? So here we go. Dead wrong.

Big me, call me Larry Hoover. Alright, Luke Andrew sliding in. At the 30 minute mark of the UFC 268 Rooftop Preview Show, Luke talked about Rose Namajunas having to fight three rematches in a row. He states, quote, we've never seen this when Luke talked about. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. At an elite level. Not that we've never seen it in MMA, and I was very specific to mention that.

Well, here's the elite level that they say you may have missed. The problem is we have seen it. In fact, Frankie Edgar, who was also on the 268 card, actually had six title fights in a row. Two against BJ Penn, two against Gray Maynard, and finally the fights with Benson Henderson. It's okay, Luke. We know you were distracted by the big booty porn going on next door. MK all day, every day. Much love from Northwest Georgia, even though Luke still hates all of us down here.

Luke, is he correct? Did Frankie really do? Let's verify. He might be. Let's see. So, say it again. He fought Maynard, and then he fought Henderson, and then he fought who? Two against BJ, two against Gray Maynard, and finally the fights with Benson Henderson.

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck. Oh, yeah, he did have, God, you're right, Jesus. So he had BJ Penn, UFC 112, BJ Penn, UFC 118. Following that, Gray Maynard split draw, UFC 125 Maynard UFC 136 and then the two losses to Benson Henderson although you know very controversial and UFC 144 and UFC 150 okay that's a good correction I will take that L wow well done Andrew is he correct in saying that you uh you hate everybody from Northwest Georgia I don't have anyone from Northwest Georgia but Northwest Georgia sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls people from Northwest Georgia? I don't have anyone from Northwest Georgia, but Northwest Georgia sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls.

People from Northwest Georgia don't know that, but once you leave it, you're like, wow, I will never come back here. You ever been to Woodstock, Georgia? No. You know what you're missing? Is that the start of the Appalachian Trail, Luke? It's not far.

Which, by the way, that part is nice, but you know what you're missing if you don't go to Woodstock, Georgia? What? Nothing. Well, I sincerely gave you my well wishes the other day for a happy Veterans Day, a happy Marines Day, birthday, whatever you want to call it. See, this is okay. So you get in trouble with a Showtime producer because you keep bringing up. Yeah, but it's not sincere if the whole thing is in jest.

It's a contradiction in terms. You can't say I sincerely wish you a Marine Day when you know you're trolling me on purpose and there is no such thing. Have you sincerely shat on my fine lord and saver by saying titty effing JC many times and making me want to throw up in my mouth, okay? But I don't Joan of Arc you for.

Yeah, but the difference is that's actually really funny. Yeah, right. Well, I was going to lead in to say, I don't know who said it, but shout out to that guy that wished you a happy Diwali for November 4th, Luke, because that is a fine celebration of your true homeland. Oh, yes, that's right. I mean, it's not, but yeah, I know what the joke is.

So nobody avoids North. The only place Luke disregards more than North Georgia is his home origin. Okay, Luke, this is Bisher sliding in. Hey, Luke in Big B.C., just wanted to point out that on Extra Credit Episode 7, Luke was teaching us some of the languages that he knows. When he said that, when talking about Nasur Din Imavav, quote, Dain means light in Arabic. Din, Din, Din.

And Nasur means faith. Well, Luke, you are dead wrong you got him switched up dean actually means my friend hold on my friend's name is my friend's dad's name is nora dean so dean i know because by the way it's not aladdin folks think it's pronounced aladdin it's aladdin so it's light of god so yes so nora dean is light of the faith. I did not know what Nasur meant. That part I wasn't clear. He says, this is what Bisher says, Din actually means religion and Nasur means winning or more like victory.

So yeah, I just wanted to point that out. Love the show. Shout out to BC. Din definitely has a couple meanings, but this one you can dead wrong me next week. I'm almost entirely sure one of the best interpretations is light. Okay. Like light of the faith. But there could be multiple meanings with that um we'll see i see you be sure thank you buddy i'm hoping but he is right about the nasaur part he

is right about that so i'll take that out okay uh both jordan and david sliding in here hey donks oh this is specifically jordan from hawaii at an hour and 28 into the episode 227. Wow, great sitcom in the 80s, right? Luke refers to the celebrity boxing match between Frank Gore of NFL fame and Deron Wynn when he clearly meant... And did just moments prior to that the surname of Williams, the former NBA star. Glad to hear batch two of the drug rug is in the works. Keep up the excellent content.

Luke, you're taking some L's today, but you're doing it with a smile. Taking some L's. Listen, sometimes you're the hammer and sometimes you're the nail. But that's just the way this goes, BC. That's fair. Right now the nail is Frankie Edgar. Did you hear him complaining about the referee stoppage, Luke? Can we tell him just to move on?

I don't know. What are you going to do? That's what made him great. It's also what's going to make the end hard. You're damn right about that. All right, Tariq slides in and says, MK, during the recent room service diaries, Luke and Brian called George Lucas a creative thief

for stealing the ideas of Dune. Wait a second. You called him a thief. I just went along with the ride. I didn't like ride or die with that idea. Okay. For stealing the ideas of the 1965 Dune novel for Star Wars. While he is in, a creative thief, it isn't necessarily only for his theft of Dune.

George Lucas has stated on many accounts that the plotline of Star Wars was heavily influenced and probably outright stolen from the Akira Kurosawa classic Japanese film Hidden Fortress. Yes, everything was stolen. The ideas of the droid C-3PO and R2-D2, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and even the quote cinematography were all stolen ideas. Honestly, I'm disappointed that Luke wasn't able to point this out as he has fancied himself a Kurosawa fan in past episodes. With all that said, I agree.

Fuck George Lucas. I present the evidence below for the crime of thievery of art. I didn't include this because it was long videos in an article. So yeah, Luke, it seems like George Lucas is not only a POS, an even bigger one than we thought

for just stealing from Dune, ruining the first three prequels, and many other sins, right? He's got some, you know, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, he has some splaining to do. You know what I'm saying? I'll give you that. Shout out to Tariq for pointing that out.

Thank you very much. Hey, Luke, speaking, I don't see this in our list of dead wrongs, but speaking of Dune and Star Wars, in our room service diaries debate, I had about 25 comments there dead wronging me for making the illusion out loud that the same person who did rogue one was the same person who did the new dune movie which kind of i i said connected it back to the star wars universe in more ways than i initially realized everyone dead wrong he said no bc it wasn't the same director you're wrong as shit

i don't think i ever actually said director. The reference I was making was the cinematographer. His name is Greg or Greg, probably pronounced Greg Fraser. Fraser, Fraser. He was the cinematographer on Rogue One, and he did a fantastic frigging job. And obviously, Dune, from a cinematography standpoint, is like an instant classic. It's a masterpiece. So shout out to Greg Frazier that's who I was referencing all you other people can um sit on a cactus and then turn sideways a little bit all right Luke we got a couple more

dead wrongs here uh or one more in fact partial dead wrong on Mikey and BC I put Josh and Joshua back to back as separate fan subs, but you read them as one and you mix them up. The first one was a photo. Y'all posted my message to some bearded dude's photo in a kitchen. Instead, please rectify this next week or a male masseuse will visit you specifically sent specifically by BC to Luke. So apparently we attributed, or Mikey wrongly attributed the fan submission. So Josh wants to clear that up. All right. There we go right there. And secondly, he says, resubmitting this is a dead wrong because BC said I was from Perth, Australia last week and didn't read any of this.

Quote, just got home from voting in Virginia for anyone that I hadn't researched. I wrote in Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas of the morning combat party. So cheers to you both. Yeah. For the launch of the official MK political party, free drug rugs and death to lifting gloves. P.S. For B.C.

Dustin probably weighs hot sauce is a great addition to a good shrimp sando if you're looking to try out shrimp again no shrimp is disgusting you can have that what is it let me actually i don't know the answer to this what is the difference between a shrimp sandwich and a po'boy i don't know is there a difference i don't know i did have a po-boy. I don't know. Is there a difference? I don't know. I did have a po-boy when I was in New Orleans for WrestleMania in 2018. It was good. It was an experience, Luke. Yeah. But, you know, am I looking to eat a shrimp hot on a hot dog?

No, I'm not looking to do that. So, Joshua, thank you for not being Australian. Thank you for not storming the Capitol, and thank you for sending in the dead wrongs and supporting us. All of our fans, good God, do we love you. MorningCombat at gmail.com. Luke, we close. If there was a Morning Combat party, what would our platform be? Oh, that's a great question.

Besides free marijuana for everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, here's the deal. When I was in my early 20ss I lived in an apartment in my hometown right on the town green right in the center of it all and there would be mayoral signs I was really close during my

up and smoke era of wanting to run for mayor just as a complete just to make fun of it and actually show up to debates and just completely attack the other candidates and have all my signs be like, like just like, cause there was this lady who was running.

Like Mike Smith is a fuck face. Don't vote for him. Like I don't want to sit. I don't want to talk about her name. So people don't look up, but there was this lady who was running for mayor at the time. And her last name, if you flipped it around backwards was an insult about her weight.

And I was like, going to like hold up the signs and like, and I, you know, it was a really bad idea, Luke, but it around backwards, was an insult about her weight. And I was going to hold up the signs. It was a really bad idea, Luke, but it would have been fun. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Any other things about our platform, Luke? The mayor of Marietta, who has since died since I was there, whose name I won't mention, but when she used to come to our school,

me and my friends, whenever she would be introduced to the lectern, we would all go, Our teachers didn't like that. Yeah, a little Valdosta humor for you, right? Yeah, little 18-year-olds, aren't we so clever humor. Was that your graduating high school valdosta high no i went to valdosta for my brother graduated from valdosta

but i went there for ninth and tenth grade then i did 11th and 12th at marietta marietta high school marietta high school okay and it was that i know you've talked about valdosta's football history what was marietta good at they're they're good at football as well but they just weren't like a national powerhouse but they were i mean it's another one of these schools that's like you know it's got a gazillion people in it and so by definition it's always going to have pretty good football but um it's not like valdosta luke shout out to nogatuck high school my alma mater class of 96 for uh naming me as an amazing alumni and uh putting up this nice social media post about me even though it has all my like community college accolades on there

i think how many people from your high school eventually major at a community college in bedpan technology oh many unfortunately in most of my friends we regularly talk about this because my look my town's not known for academics to begin with we're a factory town but my specific class class 96 you know who you are you people out there uh we've had more deaths drug problems arrests than like i mean look for example my freshman year home room had 27 people in it by senior year we were down to eight that's how many people what out that's how many people just like straight dropped out. And that doesn't count all the people in the years

that have had problems and died and arrested. So it's a bad, it's not a great look. But hey, I was happy to- Let me ask you this. What is the valedictorian of your class doing now? Do you know? Yes, I'm friends with her. She's a fantastic high school school teacher.

She was also the valedictorian at Seton Hall in her college years as well. Okay, all right. And a longtime friend of mine. Shout out to the Big C out there. But yeah, we didn't have like a fantastic race for the valedictorian with like, you know, 25 candidates. It was, you know, it was what it was, Luke.

So your valedictorian went to Seton Hall. Is that what I understand? Yeah, it's a good college. What do you got against that? For the valedictorian went to Seton Hall. Is that what I understand? Yeah, it's a good college. What do you got against that? For the valedictorian? It's where Eddie Griffin went before he masturbated in a car and then died, Luke. I mean, I'm not wrong, right? That's a noble ending.

How'd you die? What did you get to heaven? I was masturbating in a car. All right, but shout out to the Greyhounds, Noggy High. Thank you. I was happy to represent Luke can we close like we do every Friday with a little bit of advice a little bit of a shout out

something that we call just the tip tip to tip tip on tip we never know we just literally never know what this multiple tips tip to tip there we go alrighty Luke you want to take the floor sure I'll go first but I'll keep it nice and short

I just got this in the mail and already my daughter spilled coffee on it you gotta be fucking kidding me Jesus I won't say it because I'm trying to be nice to you BC, but that doesn't make me happy but here, I'll point it out this way see if you guys can see it, I'll hold it up

this is the new book that I'm reading I'm going to pull back a little bit because it's a little bright they called us lucky by ruben gallego um this is about a uh a a unit uh third battalion 25th marines um who i did not know but they this is the hardest hit unit of all the Marine units in the Iraq campaign. And it's a story of their battle where they just got decimated. They had more deaths than any other Marine Corps unit by a million miles. And it was how they survived.

If you don't want to read a book like this, because I don't know who would have interest in military battles told from the platoon sergeant's perspective. But I will say this, let me give people a little bit of advice where I get my books. Um, whatever you end up getting, you can get it from Amazon. Some of my books I get from Amazon. It's inevitable, but I try, and this one I got from there, I try to get them from bookshop.org. Um, because they are much better about buying from independent sellers rather than fucking amazon who just gets everything so i got it on bookshop.org and i have not read it yet but

the reviews early are extraordinary they called us lucky um there you go what's it about luke did i not say a thousand times i may have been in my own mind i'm not really sure luke it's about this unit 325 um third battalion 25th oh yeah i remember that now sorry sometimes i pull a luke on luke it happens okay i apologize but it's about how they did it and what the fuck it all but it's not just about the battle itself it's about how war entirely decimated them even afterwards it's kind of a sad tale but it's important to read just the same so this isn't my official tip luke i did want to do a tip of the cap, though, to two things. I don't know if you saw Oscar

Willis launched a new MacLife franchise where he drinks beer with Dan Hangman Hooker and talks fights and stuff. Shout out to Oscar, friend of the program, unlockable character in MK Doc No. 5. Have you seen this new vehicle? No, I've not.

Alright, two guys I like. So I was into that. Also, your boy, Danny Segura of MMA Junkie. I just want to shout him out. His interviews are great. He's been covering all the combat events going through South Florida. I was watching his Bellator once to prepare content for my stories and for this week. And Danny, you're doing a great job out there, bro. Okay.

All right. This is why I laugh when people in the military are like, I'm not going to get the vaccine here's a picture from i guess they're outside the tigris or the euphrates i'm not sure where they are and they all got vaxxed and then their arms all got infected from some bullshit one they gave them in the field probably anthrax because my arm got all fucked up when i got my anthrax vaccine yeah but uh to complain about the covid one you got to be a super bitch to complain about that. So there you go. I agree with you.

My real tip this week, Luke, I've been hesitant on going this direction because I've been waiting for this fad, this phase to run out. The problem is I'm not sick of this album, so I must talk about it. Luke, we all have rooms in our music listening for guilty pleasures, right?

Well, Luke, if I'm going to mention the name John Mayer, you're going to cringe. A lot of people look at him as a pop song only. Your body is a wonderland, all your daughters, all that bullshit. But the guys that know, know he can play a mean guitar. In fact, he's playing the Jerry Garcia role these days in Dead & Company. And boy, can he bring it. Well, Luke, we're seeing a lot of people come out of the pandemic

with new albums, having a lot of time on their hands. And John Mayer's new Sob Rock album, which is very much in the vein of a type of people come out of the pandemic with new albums having a lot of time on their hands and john mayer's new sob rock album which is very much in the vein of a type of music that isn't awesome is 80s sort of synth heavy rock and roll i was very not into the idea of listening to or liking this record problem is once i listen to it it's pretty freaking good. And it's catchy as shit. And it's John Mayer writing very sad love songs to the style of mid-80s Don Henley synth rock. Only it's really well done and layered and catchy. And I can't stop listening to it. I'm not going to sit here and claim this is the best stuff in the world.

We all have holes. We all have room for Dashboard Confessionalional or rumors by fleetwood mac or whatever you know whatever other guilty pleasure is on your ipod that's a dated reference but luke john mayer sob rock is a hell of a good ass album including the hit wild blue and just has a mood you like mood rock luke sometimes you just in a. This is pretty damn good mood rock, and to make it sound so 80s heavy... Help me understand. What is mood rock?

What do you mean by that? It's just a vibe. Any album could be a vibe, right? The whole album is a bit of a concept. It just has a consistent sound and feel all the way through. This is a mood. The lyrics are very melancholy,

but they're wrapped up in this somewhat sunny sort of vibe. The more you listen to this record, the more you realize the actual intention put in to create these vibes with the combination of keyboards and bass and guitar. I mean, it's a very good record. It's not five stars or anything, but it's a good ass listen. You know, Luke, how they say, you know, you don't have to always drink a 13% IPA. You can drink a session beer once in a while that's just like 3% or 4% just because this is one of those, and it's very well done. So if you like that sort of thing, check it out.

If not, pound the sand. I really don't care. That's my tip. Are you going to listen to this after you've gone through the drive-through at Arby's and you're sad about your order? Luke, did you hear about that Arby's 800-proof vodka they're coming out with that's French fry flavored? I did not make this up.

I'm sorry, what? I still can't figure out if it's a joke or a meme, but so many people sent it to me, I think it's real. Arby's is coming out with a vodka two different flavors, one regular French fry, one curly fry. Where would you even get this i don't know but that's you know you can you can would you try it would you try it on air to christen

our new studio luke yes i would try arby's vodka okay and then i would have a good cry in a shower i'm gonna tell our folks at malcolm so luke just to just keep people in the loop we have a new studio that's being built right now in the MK Bomb Show. Allegedly. You saw it. I didn't see shit. It's coming along very well. And I'm going to give Showtime and Malka a lot of credit here.

Luke, they put us at the front lines of the input of making this studio exactly what we wanted. You and I chose the chairs, the color schemes, what's on the walls, all that stuff. Luke, I'm very excited. I think this will not only raise the rent, so to speak, but it will be for the first time, no disrespect to the original bomb shelter or the Orchids of Combat Massage Parlor, but those weren't necessarily us, right, Luke? That's not us. Well, I i mean the initial set came together after like i'm not joking two weeks not not maybe not maybe 10 days yeah so if you're asking me this might be our first real set like starting from scratch we got a thing going here what do we build this i mean they're like what

posters do you want we'll order them what. What, you know, I'm like, can I get some, some vinyl records? Like, tell us what you want to buy. We'll order them. So I'm very excited that the investment in love shown, hopefully the studio will be a great representation of who we are. Luke, we are like a week or two away from, from breaking it in and doing some episodes from there. So I'm very, I'm super excited about this. You are super excited. I'm super excited too. I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm sure that will go away once I see everything. Well, everything in there is going to be able to,

we can move some stuff around, rotate posters, and it's going to be a great time. So look forward to the future of MK. We're moving up, okay? We're moving up in the world slowly but surely. Thank you to everybody for hitting like, for hitting subscribe, for telling your friends, for hitting us up with those five-star Apple reviews

to game the system, to following us on social we are nothing without you so thank you to the weird p1s luke somebody true or false last night somebody dm slid me on instagram what seemingly a nice couple although they could be black market organ salesmen offering you and i to come to their house for dinner in Jersey city. Next time we're there. I didn't get that. You got that. I texted you it last night,

a screenshot in my, I also wrote, Oh, I didn't see that because I was, I was putting my kid down. I didn't see that. Okay. I wrote,

expect us to be roofied, but this looks like an interesting offer. Wait, let me see what you wrote. That's fucking hilarious. Oh, here it is. Uh.

I think we should do it. Uh, 100% roofie potential here. Maybe an orgy. But, uh, shout out to this fine couple for offering it to us. Apparently the wife is from Italy, so she's offering a very well-cooked meal, Luke. I don't know if they'll be offering more than that. us uh apparently the the the wife is from italy so she's offering a very well-cooked meal luke i don't know if if they'll be offering more than that but um thank you to our fans for creeping us out at the very least yes thank you for the offer to harvest our organs while feeding

us you know ravioli how about we come babysit your kids and you guys get a date night how about that okay that's wholesome yeah Yeah, thank you very much. Luke, any instructions for the weekend? Any plans you got? What's going on? Don't text and drive. Are you going to do the post-fight reacts for Max? Are you going to be a hoe about it and make me do it,

even though I have to work the following week when you're on vacation as well? What are you going to do? Are you going to write the Bellator recap tonight for me? I mean, do you want to fuck? You signed up for that job, guy. I didn't. Are you going to really make me work you signed up for that job guy i didn't are you gonna really make me work both my saturdays you fucking i didn't make you do anything luke do we really need it by you neglecting to to to share the load here you

are going to make me do it either way we will have a reaction one way or the other for you for max's win or win max's maybe you and you and I could barter. Maybe we could trade. I remember you going away for two weeks, Luke and me hosting many, many equality solo show in which I was all fricking in Luke. Okay. Yeah. Well, the audience wasn't,

I can tell you that. Well, they were split Luke. They were split, which makes sense because we have two competing personalities going on here. But Luke, anytime you want to go head to head with a live chat, I know more, our, our show, Malcolm folks turned down my request for a monday night wars type thing but uh yeah

i'm ready for it okay uh i think you'd be surprised but either way we will have a reaction for you for the main event for ufc uh bc will have a recap for you and everything else for cbs sports for the bellator stuff tonight and uh so just be on the lookout for that. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Give me your heart. Make it real. Or else forget about it.

Are we going to go to Cannibal Corpse in February? Are you going to be a bitch? Well, what do I get in return for this, Luke? I mean, are the MK Docs going to be there? Okay, I'm glad you asked that. What would you like? I want you to no just uh uh i don't know luke we'll come up with something okay here's the thing here's the thing if you don't want this to be one-way traffic which i can totally understand i think that's fair name your price name your price do you think showtime would buy us like

front row aew tickets or something and i can give you a taste of it, Luke. Here's what I'll do, because Showtime is listening right now. If Showtime buys us front row AEW tickets, I will go. 100% I will go. Did you see Dan Lambert put Chris Jericho in the walls of Jericho on Wednesday, Luke? I don't know what that means. Okay. Okay.

Thank you very much. All right. That's it for a fine show this week. Thank you to Gaff Pierre on the ones and twos and our fantastic staff. Thank you to CBS Sports Showtime, Malka. Thank you to you, okay? It's great.

We love you. Look, I can't wait for doc number six. I don't know when we're filming it, but we're really building something special there. I cannot tell you how happy I was we did not do a doc in Vegas for the Canelo fight. Because it would have just been, wait, you guys at night just order Uber Eats and then cry in your beds? Yes.

That's what we do. Pretty much. Watch gangster movies. Yeah, okay. Just finished Godfather 2 last night. Wow, Luke. Going to watch Godfather 3 tonight, okay? All right.

Have fun. All right. Have fun. Be be safe don't text and drive thank you please take care of your mental health put yourself first in that regard uh big fans all you out there thanks for watching enjoy the fights this weekend Bellator tonight

on Showtime boxing tomorrow night catch the replay of Canelo Plant that's it I got nothing else to sell you but Manscaped stuff so buy that shit Morning Combat dot store is our merch site for all you out there. Be well. May all of your ex-lovers stay satisfied. We out.