MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night Recap: Santos vs. Walker | Bellator 267 | Fury-Wilder III | EP 211

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

On Episode 211 of MK, the guys recap all of the weekends big action in the MMA world, including Thiago Santos big win over Johnny Walker in the UFC. Plus, Michael 'Venom' Page scored the biggest win of his career in a rematch vs. Douglas Lima. Also, Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder III fight week is here. Luke and Brian break it down. 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  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion passion That's the spirit we bring to this show

I'm Luke Thomas I'm Brian Campbell This is Morning Combat That's the 4th of September, 2021 And we're back like a bad habit Hello everyone, my name is Luke Thomas This is Morning Combat. I am one half of your hosting duo from CBS Sports and Showtime and a couple

other places along the way. I am joined by the gentleman, I don't, I think he has a Betch Cohea shirt on. I could be wrong about that. I think that's right. On the other side of the screen, yes, there it is. The king of Connecticut royalty himself. It is Brian Campbell. Brian, top of the morning to you. How was your weekend? Thank you, Luke. I try to bring that same energy. You betcha.

A fantastic weekend, Luke. I was telling you off camera. I saw a local comedy show. Saw one man die on the vine. Actually, we all just gawked at his remaining carcass in front of the microphone and then saw this fella named Tom Cotter come in and just slay, bro. I mean, just slay. I mean, you know, get this guy a Showtime special, please.

So good shit, Luke. Fun weekend. Enjoyed the fights. You know, you may get on me for bringing out my French rapey voice on Fridays, but you definitely started with that substitute first grade teacher vibe coming. But, you know, just to say we're going to bring it. I never get off the starting block all that well. It's always a little awkward. first grade teacher vibe coming but uh you know just to say we're gonna bring it i never i never get off the starting block all that all that well it's always a little awkward um well appreciate

everyone tuning in today we do this every monday wednesday friday at 11 a.m in the east we both had like relatively fun weekends although the fights were a little they were not so great but the good news of course is we'll talk about it later in today's show we are now heading into fight week for fury wilder 3 so a lot to get to thumbs up on the video hit subscribe if you want to email the show for wednesday's fan subs or for friday's dead wrong you may do so at morningcombat at gmail.com but of course we are everywhere all over the social medias uh youtube.com slash morning combat morning combat on instagram morning combat on twitter if you notice there very quickly, BC and I have slightly different names between Instagram and Twitter. As well, you want to try Showtime. Only place to get it would be to go to Showtime.com right now.

Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you may keep it. If not, you can pounce in. And, of course, you don't have to have the trial. You can just go and sign up for Showtime. But if you want to try it out, there is your option. And, BC, I believe the Live 10 code is up for folks who want to try it out there is your option and bc i believe the live 10 code is up for folks who want to go to morningcombat.store and dream about buying bc drug rugs

yes yeah well that's coming luke we had a great talk with our merchandise expert rj grundlemaker uh some halloween items coming soon as well so check out our website and get your 10 off right now uh you want to you want to wear a Dunk Force bomber jacket? Why wouldn't you? You can get that. You know, a Factory Town MMA fanny pack? Why the hell not, all right? Support us because we support you by filling your ear holes filled with this fantastic bullshit.

So let's do it. Before we start, are the kids, do they massacre your house during Halloween? What's it like over there? I've got a decent neighborhood of family, so yeah, it's fine. It's not too crazy. It's not dead. It's whatever. I'm sure you get a lot of homeless folk walk by your lifting bench to come knock on the door.

We don't get the homeless folk, but we do get a lot of kids. And I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do this year because my daughter wants to go trick-or-treating and uh someone's got to be here someone's got a walker so it's going to be a little bit dicey we'll figure it out but just go dark luke just turn that shit off all right sorry guys you know i had a neighbor who would turn his lights off on halloween and then turn the sprinklers on i was like wow dude you're a real anti-social pos? Kind of admire it now. All right, with that out of the way, let's start the show if we can. Topic number one here on a Monday. We start with the UFC. Now, UFC had a light heavyweight main event between Brazilians

Johnny Walker and Thiago Santos. Thiago Santos ultimately gets the decision nod in what can only be described as a dud, really, of a main event. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. The question I have here is, in assessing the evidence, A, BC, was the nod for Tiago Santos deserved? And B, if so, why? All right. So first of all, Luke, just real quick, I heard that this fight sucked.

I kind of enjoyed it. It just was tactical and not tentacle as we thought it would be. I mean, Luke, this was a can't miss five round slobber knocker for as long as it lasted. Only you, wise soul, was like, hey, maybe this might go the distance. Somehow you saw the future and it did, Luke i did have mehetta winning three rounds to two i thought you could have even gone four to one although a lot of people like giving johnny walker that fourth round and why did he win well i think a lot of why he won is because of the development of johnny walker so i did you want to go right into that conversation luke because this was not yet i guess i guess i'm more looking for explanation of like did you think he did the more impactful striking and i guess also from a movement

standpoint because of his knees being so badly damaged previously how did he look to you i thought he looked good look he needed this win he was on a three fight losing skid all against elite opponents but because of that rackage fight that he's most fresh off of that just was a a ho-hum affair boy did he need to come back and remind us whether he's most fresh off of. That just was a ho-hum affair. Boy did he need to come back. And remind us whether he's elite. Well look neither guy looks sensational. But I liked the fight for what it was. Even though it was against what our expectations were. And I liked the fight.

My hat to the head. Look it's rare Luke. It's rare when two sluggers go in there. Sort of like when two elite wrestlers go in there. And sometimes the wrestling cancels each other. And you get a sneaky good action fight. You can get the opposite once in a while. When two sl wrestlers go in there and sometimes the wrestling cancels each other and you get, you know, a sneaky good action fight. You can get the opposite once in a while when two sluggers go in there and it's heavy on fainting. They taste each other's power and it sort of settles into a rhythm.

It became that fight. It became a tactical fight. Not Whitaker-Till level, but it was more like at the end of the day, I thought both fighters fought responsibly. Their defense was strong. Their setups were good. Maybe there was a bit of a failure launch from Walker that we'll get into. But I thought Maheta landed the bigger shots in the closer rounds. And Luke, in this type of fight, that's the difference.

He had hard leg kicks. He really was working on, in certain stretches, particularly those middle rounds after Johnny had a good first round, to make sure he started getting off first and having enough volume to have a shot at winning these rounds. Well, I thought his volume pulled the fights closer, and then his harder strikes overall really cemented it, including that big left cross in the fifth round, which was the biggest strike of the fight, in a crucial round that he needed. You saw the celebration from him, Luke.

It was unsure. It was a weird fight. It was two guys that can end it at any time that were a little bit too tentative and respectful of the other one's power. But I didn't have any trouble saying that Santos won this fight, that considering the circumstances, he did what he had to do to survive in advance. And when you are 37 and you're looking to stay around that title picture sometimes Luke these are the this is the way you have to win the fights yeah I think your analysis is right on point I don't really disagree with any of that he needed

this fight so him being a little bit more prudent and him being a little bit more careful I think made all the I mean both guys needed the win but he really needed the win so the prudence that you saw there from him I think was entirely justified but to that end and to your point he was also the one that landed the harder shots in the end including as they mentioned that heavy heavy punch in the fifth round but the body kicks he landed early to midway through were phenomenal as well once he went to that south pole position he just did a lot better work so I really like that from him I like the patience that he showed I like the discipline that he showed I like the discipline that he showed right because he can also get out in front of his skis sometimes trying to chase

things down and he didn't do that this time he really had a kind of a measured performance that I thought was just what the doctor ordered a given the opponent and b given the circumstances that he found himself in with some of the losses he was riding into this fight. Go ahead. Look, I thought he was willing to fight at a more hectic pace, and it was almost welcoming at times, but I think it was Walker who would taste Mejeta's power and then have second thoughts and doubts. I mean, Dean Thomas came on the air as the resident, you know, sort of coach analyst and made a mention of maybe Johnny

not having full confidence in his defense. I thought that was an interesting way to look at it. Obviously, we're talking about Johnny Walker in a new camp with SBG Ireland and going through a lot of changes to his style. But I think Mejeta would have thrown more volume and been more demonstrative had Walker been willing to enter into that fight. And let's just do a reminder, Johnny Walker went on the aerial show and said, you know, I'm ready to bleed. I'm ready to go to hell with this guy.

I don't know if he was as ready once he tasted that power because as you know, Luke, everything Tiago throws is hard, man. I mean, he's knocking people down, knocking up women. I mean, he is this guy. I mean, this guy's fantastic. He is amazing. So you're right about this. Really, the story about this comes down to not so much what Tiago did, although what we can observe was good, but it's really a big question about Johnny Walker here. Dude, I really don't understand this performance. And I got to tell you, I did not, and when I say this, listen to the words I'm saying, I don't understand,

because there's a lot of information we don't have. So when I say I don't understand, that's a little bit different from me saying, oh, I understand this more completely, and now let me make a more firm judgment about it. Because I'm lacking evidence, I don't know exactly what to say, except when he was getting corner advice between rounds, it looked like Johnny Walker was doing everything his coaches told him to do, which is a lot of feinting, a lot of movement, staying at kickboxing range, get the low kicks when you can, and get the hell out.

There was never, again, from what we could tell, there was never really a whole lot of effort at all beyond getting low-hanging fruit, let's say, in terms of the targeting, you know, at distance as far away as possible to use any other weapons. Like, I didn't hear any coaching about him getting inside punching range

and working to the body or trying to clinch or pressing Thiago Santos into the body or trying to clinch or pressing Thiago Santos into the fence or anything like that. It was just kick him as far away as you possibly can and then get the fuck out of there at that point. Which, by the way, I wouldn't even be mad at that strategy if he was a little bit more effective with it. Sometimes Adesanya wins bouts in close contest where the one thing that kind of separates them between the rounds is, you know, you're trying to add up the offense. What mattered?

Oh, well, Adesanya landed a lot of leg kicks, but even then he couldn't really get them going. They weren't that impactful. And then all Tiago Santos really had to do, this is simplifying it a bit, but if he landed one or two big body kicks, he would just take the round anyway. BC, what the hell was going on with Johnny Walker? So look, you know, before I even had a chance to watch this fight, because I actually had a rare Saturday night off, you know, I saw the funny

memes of, you know, SBG neutered one of our favorite, you know, sort of action heroes. Here's what happened. Look, they were out of sync because Johnny Walker is far from a finished product in what he's trying to do, which I think is ambitious, Luke. I think he's trying to figure out how to be

a complete fighter and take full advantage of his natural strength which is ridiculous size for the weight class and a freakish ability to finish in sometimes moments where you don't see that type of strike coming but Luke as we all know the higher you climb up the ranks into contention you're not going to have those same type of

oops excuse me knockout wins it's're not going to have those same type of, oops, excuse me, knockout wins. It's just not going to happen. You can go back and watch early John Jones and early Conor McGregor, and they did a lot of spinny shit and crazy stuff that got refined once they started climbing the ladder, because you just can't do it at this level. So I think that it was ambitious to a good degree, considering he's 29. It's early, but it's not too early. He's got to figure out how to be great.

It's just that this was the wrong opponent, and I think the wrong skill level of an opponent to not be where he needs to be to pull off this style. So I think there's rightful fingers being pointed at Johnny Walker for not pulling the trigger enough, and on his corner for not being you know not giving the the advice that would make sense given how close these rounds were and saying look I you know they should have told him you need to go out there in round five

and put a damn exclamation point on a close fight and instead it was more like go out there and be a point fighter you got this you're doing great no you're not you're not doing great but I'm not panicking like everybody else Luke where I'm I'm like, this was a horrible idea. What the hell is he doing? I think the early success he had transitioning from the Dana White Contender Series to the UFC, getting those ridiculous 15, 20-second knockouts, it was actually more harmful than it was helpful. It helped Johnny Walker build his name.

But again, Luke, you can't do that against a super elite competition. They will turn it into a five-round tactical fight. While I didn't like that Johnny Walker didn't have it all together yet, I think this is the road, Luke, that he has to go if he wants to compete for titles. And you can tell me I'm crazy, but if he stays down the road of being carnival circus slugger, okay, is he going to beat some dudes? Yeah. Is there a chance he could one day fight for a title? Maybe. But I think if he wants to be a sustained elite title contending fighter, this actually is the road to go with the right kind of coaches. Are these coaches the perfect fit? Time's going to tell. But these are the right kind of coaches to say, look, you know, we got to add some craft and patience. And even though this goes down as a loss for Johnny Walker and goes down as a little bit of a head scratcher, Luke, I thought his confidence, his confidence in some aspects of it, of his movement, of his defense, of the patience and poise, we'd never seen that in Johnny Walker

before. So why I say it's the wrong opponent to do it because you're fighting a guy where if he had beaten Tiago Santos here, I mean, you make a leap, right? As a former title contender, I think the style and the mindset that Johnny Walker brought out on Saturday night would have beaten a lot of guys

in the back end of the top 10 or the top 15 or top 20. It's just, he hasn't figured it out fully yet to beat somebody on Santos's level yeah I mean it was clear that we're trending wheels excuse me once you transition to a new style like that you're going to be a lot more hesitant to throw because you don't know what will work you don't know what kind of openings you might leave a guy like Santos for all the limitations you might have is explosive he is powerful you make a mistake against him and it will cost you quite dearly I understand that so I'm sympathetic to the argument

because if we see Johnny Walker the next time and he's beginning to add some wrinkles to it you're like oh okay well that last fight against Santos wasn't the best demonstration of the path that he's on but in range then he plays the accordion where he, another component that off, he's got the defensive component of fainting sort of baked in. He doesn't have the offense. And so let's see where he goes, but that's a great way to put it, Luke. And I was going to say that with that fainting style, if you're fighting somebody with far less knockout power, the idea of that fainting is to corner them disarm them and put them in a spot where they're going to make a mistake out of out of you know panic or fear you can't do that against meheta because he's he'll throw out spinning shit or he'll kick you

in the in the in the gut so hard that i think it it worked against walker's own style worked against him in the long run because of the quality of the opponent. Yeah, that's not a bad argument to make. The only problem that I have with the cornering is not so much that this is the beginning of a retooling process that will take time to develop. I think that is sympathetic. But again, I'll mention it one more time. We need to see that. Like, you can't just do this forever, right?

You have to do more than this eventually. And the second part is it didn't really, it just wasn't a good game plan to win this fight even if you want to say we have to be careful with the weapons that we have and you know it was three rounds to two one round a difference you know who's to say but like it just there was nothing in there was no ace in the hole there was no dynamism to it it was let's just see if we can kind of eke out round by round a path to victory. That's not going to get them very far. If they're going to do this style right away, there needs to be more potent offense built into it, even with the understanding that there's a longer-term rebuild process that's happening here. I just didn't like them being like, yeah, just keep kicking the leg, and if he faked the hands and then their hands come up you know kick the other outside of the leg it's

like dude we're not gonna do any body work here like we're not gonna do we're just that's not gonna be a part of it it just seemed like it was way way way too one note even if I grant um I mean like it almost like a developmental process he stuck to Johnny Walker stuck too close to the discipline needed to pull off that style because do you remember there was a couple times where mahetta almost got him into a flurry and they both threw dangerous shots at close range you wonder if there could have been an opening there for johnny if he started to let his hands go luke but you know back to dean thomas's point there's that same fear of getting countered and knocked out. So, look, there's a lot. Look, this is a tall drink of clay here to be molded,

speaking of Johnny Walker, at 6'6", with that type of athleticism. Obviously, you can't keep going down this road, particularly of, quote-unquote, neutering him and taking away what makes him great. But if you can help him build his setups better help him not overextend help train his mind to be as dangerous as his reaction speed is then yeah you've got a hell of a future title contending fighter right here i i don't think he's that far away though luke am i crazy i think yeah this is a bad night at the office you had to learn a tough lesson here but i think he showed me enough where dude he could have broke script so many times and went back to the johnny of old and while again short

term you can argue that may have been the best chance for him to win the fight long term he showed restraint look he never had restraint i mean i bet i bet you in this guy's personal life probably probably gets it done there's no restraint at all luke i will only grant we can oh it doesn't even matter me or anybody else we can only grant that that argument is true upon subsequent viewing of what else he does because if he gets changed to this and he can make modest developments but that's not really the style best suited for him or they don't equip him with enough weapons then what good is it it doesn't do him any good to change to a style where, okay, you are in less firefights, but you're not winning on any better of a better percentage.

So you save your brain a little. That's fine, I suppose. But you're not really getting any further along in the course of your career. So it really is incumbent upon him if this really is a new path to go somewhere. What's interesting is the, real quickly, just to talk of the light heavyweight division, BC. Obviously, we have Teixeira and Blachowicz coming up UFC 267 that leaves Prochocka, Rakic, Smith and Santos. Now Smith said he wanted Rakic, Rakic said, okay. And now Santos, I think wanted Prochocka, right? I got to tell you, I feel like it'd be a little bit better to

run Smith and Santos back and then do Rakic and Prochzka, winner of that gets the title shot, no? That's one way, Luke. That's not horrible. I mean, look, what Thiago has in his favor, obviously, is the fact that he's knocked out Jan Blachowicz before. So that can help you when there's a group of guys that are somewhat on even terms who want a title shot. You can go with the guy who's had that success in the past,

although Carla Esparza didn't get that same treatment for rose this time when we thought maybe she would have deserved it but he's not there yet meaning mahetta he just snapped a three fight win skid uh three fight losing skid excuse me he's going to need at least one more big win your scenario is not awful i mean look shouldn't we want to see though pro hotskachaska and Rakic right now? That's basically what you're saying, right? Those guys next to decide who's the next title challenger. Yeah. In an ideal world, yes. Yeah.

You know what? I tend to agree with you, all things considered on that. I don't know if I need the Anthony Smith rematch, though, Luke. Didn't we learn everything we needed to learn from the first one? Not necessarily. I think these guys are, again, once again, you just cannot imagine a world where Anthony Smith is better than your lowest expectation of him. I tend to think that's a different fight this time.

I tend to think it's a very different fight. All right. Let me ask you this. Um, will, will, will Maheta fight for the UFC light heavyweight title again in his career? No.

Okay. Will Johnny Walker? That's a tougher one. Probably not, but I can't say for sure. And could you see Johnny Walker, given the frame and how muscular he is, having speed advantages at heavyweight down the road? Thought about that, too. He's about the biggest you want to be for light heavyweight.

I would not imagine anyone wanted to be a whole lot bigger than that. Because it did look to me like Santos had a little bit of an explosion advantage on him, even with all of those knee surgeries. If someone has multiple knee reconstructions and they're still whipping shots at you quicker than you can get to them, there might be a question of whether or not this is the ultimate division for you. I just wonder in terms of strength, he's well-muscled,

but how does that translate into the core wrestling and control positions? I don't know the answer to that. So until we get a better sense of that. But is a future at heavyweight possible? I think so, it's possible. I had the crystal ball out the other night looking ahead to the future at 205, Luke.

And just to anyone wondering, both of these guys in Saturday night's main event will fight for the light heavyweight title in the future only for mojito it'll come against prohatsuka that should be wild luke okay interesting that would be very very fun i guess we'll have to see uh in either case all right we go to point number two here bc not a whole lot to say about this one except it was just weird, like everything Kevin Holland does. So this was what, the main event, co-main event for the night. Kevin Holland in a middleweight clash takes on Kyle Dawkus. Okay, BC, this is what killed me about the fight. It was exactly what we thought it was going to be up until it wasn't, which is you had Dawkus

going right for the takedown because you knew Kevin Holland had that weakness and Kevin Holland kind of showing much improved takedown defense at least along the fence line he got caught in a cow catcher which is sort of this sort of like you know Nelson type hold along the fence line he was talking to DC and he was being really annoying that way and not really concentrating on the job at hand but when he had to he was showing much improved takedown defense they separate there's a clash of heads he gets knocked out wakes up but eventually he gets choked out about a minute or so later maybe even less than that okay BC they called it a no contest do you agree with that ruling yeah because Dan Mergulata and I don't you know I, you can only crap on a referee for so much, Luke,

because they got to make split-second decisions, and I totally respect that. But he made the wrong call in the moment. Because he allowed this fight to keep playing out, and Dawkins had a clear advantage, given that that was a vicious headbutt, and Holland took the worst end of it. He was knocked out briefly, which, if you really think about it, should have just ended the fight. At the very least, Dan have just ended the fight. At the very least, Dan should have stopped the fight after the head clash. I know it was Holland's ability to bounce back from the flash knockdown and defend himself that gave Dan confidence that he was maybe okay.

But, Luke, obviously I think everybody watching at home was like, man, you should have just stopped the fight. Given Holland five minutes to recover. I mean, Luke, you know, they could have stopped the fight for a timeout looked at the replay saw that Holland's eyes roll back and he was kind of out and stopped it there with a no decision we would have been probably upset but at the very least if you're Kevin Holland I think you deserved because of how vicious that was for the action to be halted take a look at him five minutes to recover nobody's fault can you continue and had he been able to and i would assume he would luke because he's a he's a trooper this guy then you go on with

the fight just like if it was a low blow or something like that um i thought you know dan was wrong and then seeing herb dean afterwards put his arm around him and you know i talk i mean it's almost like you know if you're the UFC you don't want the cameras that close Luke Mark Ratner had that look like I don't know if you guys should be listening in on this I mean it wasn't a great look all together I understand referees are not UFC employees they are you know appointed by the state commission

and all that but UFC does have complete control of the broadcast I loved being that little little voyeur in there Luke but it's unfortunate the good news is that holland doesn't take an l and that we can run this back because it was an important fight because both were coming off of losing skids and i think particularly holland still has a bright ceiling and i thought this time around luke his his uh overly charismatic ways talking to DC during the broadcast.

I felt in the past it got in the way of what he was trying to do, meaning we rightfully clowned him during his past losses saying, look, dude, you're down on the scorecards and you're hamming it up. Like, what the hell are you doing? I think this time around he did it in a way that was firing him up, right? He could hear DC talking about how he's stuffing takedowns, and I think it was, it was, you know, I was entertained by it under that. Look, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting road to go down as a, as a performer, as an artiste. But I thought Kevin Holland was going to have a chance to really show us what he worked on.

And I thought, unfortunately, Mariglia, Maragli, Dan Marigliata. I mean, this wasn't quite a moment of, who are those two referees that Dana hates the most, Luke? Steve Mazzagati. Mazzagati, and then this guy. He hates that guy too, right? Oh, Mario Yamasaki, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't quite in their levels. But, Luke, I think this is a regrettabletable night the way that Dan handled it in the end. How did you feel about that?

Here's what I felt about it, which is, so I read what Big John McCarthy had to say. He's usually a really good source of wisdom on this one, and this was no exception. He basically argued, if you think about it rationally, what happened? You had the separation, then Kyle Dawkus' level changes, and then comes up looking for what appeared to be a takedown or some kind of body shot, depending on what you want to say there in the moment. And as he came up like that, that was what it was. The head that unintentionally was in no way intentional hit Kevin Holland. And Holland, like you can see the eyes roll back. He just his face glazes over and he goes face first.

He goes in a perfect scenario. The fight would have been stopped there or at least halted there. And as you indicated, doctors come in and check him out, see how he goes. If he can keep going, if the doctor clears him, by all means keep it going. And if not, it's a no contest because Kevin Holland shouldn't have to fight out of a deficit from an illegal strike. Again, not an advertent strike, but an illegal one just the same, and a pretty impactful one at that. So in the end, by having this team of referees and what you're what else these other members of the Athletic Commission who are all kind of looking at the instant replay, here was the big thing that I got. One, they got to the right answer. It

should have been a no contest. I feel bad for Kyle Dawkus, but I feel bad for Kevin Holland. Run it back if you want. And in fact, BC, I started the question this way, dude, like that fight was playing out exactly the way that it was supposed to. Dawkus was getting to the body, but he couldn't quite get the takedown. Would he have gotten it if he had kept going? Or would he have been knocked out because Hollowan would have stopped it? We don't know the answer to that, but we were getting exactly what we were looking for. So I really hope they run it back.

But dude, this was the lesson that I came to. And I cannot believe more people aren't saying this. Of course, of course instant replay is the hero here. But more than that, this is something I've been harping on for about a year now or more, maybe almost two. Dude, one referee cannot do that job well, period. On occasion, you can get referees, even in difficult scenarios, who are so locked on, who right in that moment, they can make a great call. There is no good reason, especially in your bigger states, Nevada, California, New Jersey,

where you have larger commissions, there is no reason why one referee is tasked with that job. The only reason we ended up getting a decent result is because A, you have instant replay, and B, the instant replay guy in the situation was Herb Dean. They were able to have a meeting of the minds, and some of the bad decision-making was able to be corrected. What more evidence do you need out there, folks who are skeptical of this? Because when I first introduced this idea a while ago, people were like, oh, we don't need that. That's excessive. No, it is not. The costs of getting it wrong are way too high and it's not necessary. Two people, two people need to do that job. Now, how you want

to adjudicate that, BC, there's plenty of debate. Do you want two in the cage? Hold on, let me finish. Two in the cage, probably not. One on top, I don't know. However you want to arrange it, arrange it. Or maybe keep it what it is. One referee in the cage, one on the replay machine, and we figure it out from there. But the idea that we can meaningfully handle that load of fights every night with one referee doing all of them, it's simply not true. That's fair, it's fair.

I was going to interrupt you to say let's adjudicate the potential efficiency of this, Luke. Wow. All right. That was like, can I have the origin word, please? Greek? Okay. Luke, what I'm saying is would you like, and let's use this scenario. Marik Liat is your referee.

Herb Dean is announced, so people know he's your replay official. He has a microphone that only Dan can hear because we can get instant replays instantly these days. If, you know, as soon as Holland gets hit with the head, but because look, you never know the angle of the referee in that moment. And that's why I give them that respect because we're watching at home full on zoomed in HD on our big screen. The referee's trying to move to see there's going to be times they're not going to see it. He may not have seen Holland's eyes roll back, for example, but Herb Dean, are you saying in the moment should have the ability to talk into the earpiece of dan and say oh headbutt stop the action let's let's figure this out and then we can go to the you

know to extended replay that but like you've got i want it to be able to be stopped in an instant if the referee missed it i don't know i don't know what the right answer to that is because I'm not saying that it's wrong, but I think we'd have to think about it for just a second because there can be all kinds of unintended consequences. Once you make a policy, you don't make a policy for how the best people in the space use it. You make a policy for how the people who are worst in the space might use it

because that's the scenario you're going to get to. What I've always thought was, one, the guy or the lady who's refereeing in the cage, when they're in that cage, they should be the only one in there. But in between rounds, one, I think another referee should be allowed to walk in there. And two, I think they should be able to have some kind of say that if they walk in there, the main referee is obligated to look at instant replay evidence. If they want to reject it at that point, they can reject it, but there has to be some kind of compulsory mechanism to make them look at it because I cannot tell you how many times we've seen a referee being like, hey, I looked at it in real

time. I didn't need a replay. Motherfucker, you needed a replay. Everyone needs a replay. No one has this omni-competence. Even for things you think you understand, you may not necessarily interpret it the right way. That's sort of the way I've been thinking of it. This scenario is the closest thing we've seen to that. It just seems like on some level, you have to ask yourself, can one person really, in the heat of battle, get all of these minute calls all the way right for a sport this diverse maybe in boxing you could argue that in mma i don't think you can argue that when you have wrestling combined with striking combined with submissions in this wide open space with wild action you need help give

them the help they need in the states that have the manpower and the resources to afford it which by the way happen to be the places where more meaningful MMA action happens. But to your to your fears, Texas will fuck it up. Oh, they will. Texas Forever Street. Is your fear that the the let's say it's Herb Dean working the replay, working the television monitor, having communication access to the referee in the moment? I mean, wouldn't that let's say there's a wrestling scenario against the cage and the referee can't see that the fighter's grabbing the cage. He can't see that the guy's digging a knuckle into the other guy's eye. And the replay official can and can communicate with the referee

to tell him to enforce it. Are you against that level of big brother jumping in here? I don't know. I don't know how that, I just don't know what the answer to that would be. My only worry is it would distract him. I don't want to further distract a referee. One thing you could think about doing was if the referee on the outside has an issue, is there a light they could hit where a red light would go off and just hold itself there so that they could recognize that when the round is over, there's going to be a

meeting that has to happen. I don't know if even that is a good idea. I don't know how some of this should play out. I'll be clear about that. I don't have all of the answers except to say it is hard for me to believe that adding technological tools to review decisions and bringing in other experienced professionals somehow makes refereeing decisions worse. I cannot imagine that that is true. It has to be exactly the opposite because it's so difficult.

As long as it doesn't slow it down, Luke, because, you know, in the NBA, I haven't been watching as much NBA in the last few years as normal, but when they were at the level where, you know, there'd be a potential third-quarter buzzer-beating jumper and they'd have to wait 15 to 20 minutes for three referees to watch the full video 14 times and you're slowing down the game and giving people extra timeouts like that's that's not efficient as long as it can be done instantaneous or to your point between rounds in ways that could

correct the scoring let's say there's a you know something that yeah i mean say there's a strike that in real time look clean and afterwards afterwards you find out it was illegal. I don't know. Can you do that afterwards, Luke, when stuff happens so fast in real time? Well, here's the thing. You can envision scenarios where having a second referee, including ones that are able to walk into the octagon and do whatever, still doesn't solve all of your problems.

There can be a bunch of them. I'm going to be very clear here. There are some of these problems, I don't know how the hell you solve them. Two, three, seven referees, I don't know what any good that does at that point. All I'm merely saying is Kyle Daukus and Kevin Holland were only, only, only able to be put in the right situation after the fact. However dissatisfying it may have been to be no contest if you're Kyle D dawkins versus a win but the right outcome was only reached because a referee error was corrected

by additional referee input and technological aids that should send a fucking wake-up call to people that this job one person doing it all the time you are not going to get good refereeing that way you're not it's not possible thunder dan lives another day though luke they got it right in the end and uh you know they did i don't know if dom cruz was there but i'm gonna assume merguliatus smells like uh hooch and hoes like like uh no nonsense keith peterson does uh-oh you can hear my daughter outside the door here you want to bring her on luke She could explain what she's upset about. Do I?

Hold on. Hold on. This is wholesome, Luke. This is wholesome entertainment. They don't do this on DC and Helwani, all right? I don't see RC bringing his kids on, all right? Hey, you're live on TV. Don't do this.

Why are you crying for? Who's that? Who's that? What are you crying for? Hey, Chucky. Hey, Chucky. Is that the face you make when you see Brian Campbell? Hey, Chucky, you want to see my glasses?

Okay, look at his glasses. No, see? See? Yeah, there we go this is where she had her big cut can you see the uh oh yeah oh she's a survivor yeah we have to keep it on there because it's gonna make it uh so that when she gets surgery gets a little better all right well listen i have to do a show which you are rudely interrupting my sweet little angel okay Okay? Okay, daddy has to work, okay? Yes. Say, como princesa. Okay. Alright, you have to go, okay? Te amo.

Okay. Alright, this is your idea. This is live TV, folks. Are we still live? We're live. Alright. Daddy has to work, okay? This is what I'm dealing with. I has to work, okay? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See?

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See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? See? we can BC we move on to Bellator after that totally awkward transition as my daughter screams bloody murder um so Douglas Lima loses his third in a row via split to MVP in the main event in

London BC there's a lot to say about this fight but I guess I'll ask it this way a how'd you score it and b what should be MVP's next move because he was talking about a third fight with Lima not so much going for a title uh two rounds to one for Douglas Lima I called the MVP victory here generous I'm not going to go the level of of robbery and competence and all that stuff because look look, Luke, it was a slow tactical fight with rounds that yet maybe, maybe somebody could have interpreted rounds one and two in favor of MVP. Not me. Maybe it's possible.

Obviously Lima's ability to, to wrestle in this fight, to smartly change the, the tempo, put MVP on his back at the ends of round one and three and have, you know, some offense on top, including to close this fight was enough on my scorecard to stamp it home i think the bigger problem here

for bellator luke in relation to this fight and in relation to the romero fight just a few weeks back why are we not doing five round main events for fights that have obvious title implications i've gone on record and said in the past, I don't believe every main event, no matter what, should be five rounds. There are times where we have fighters that just are not high enough in the rankings or are at that point in their career. But, with that said,

because of what the UFC has done in recent years, five rounds in a main event is expected. And if you're going to put two guys in the main event, and by the way, on paper, this was a fantastic main event, you'd need five rounds to tell the full story. These guys are too good, too close to the title to have it abruptly end after three without really much happening in the fight. And then all of us kind of go on, well, how'd you have it? Do you have it? I mean, look, I thought it was two to one Lima clear. I think MVP, I won't call it a hometown decision,

although the hometown crowd was strong in his favor. I won't call it a hometown decision, although the hometown crowd was strong in his favor. I'll just call it a fight in which neither guy really left their stamp. Again, Lima was the smarter fighter out here, but I've got more negative things to say overall about MVP's performance. Luke, we talked about the stocks of each guy. They fought two years ago. Lima won by knockout, but it was five wins in a row for MVP since then. And Lima taking two surprising losses in title bouts. This was MVP's opportunity to do something big in front of his home fans to cement that I am next in line for Yaroslav Amisov.

And even though, obviously, Amisov's skill in wrestling is going to be a problem I think MVP's unpredictable offense could be a problem for the champion so it's potentially a very interesting match fight problem here is I don't think MVP did enough to a win the fight or be really take advantage of the platform in the situation at age 34 where some people still doubt him as an elite fighter i think unfortunately luke he played into those doubts there was not nearly enough urgency around three especially when he's on his back so i want to i want to almost shame bellator and say hopefully this is the last time when you got two great fighters in a main event why why explain why this was three rounds i don't get it at all and lu Luke, for MVP, it just, it wasn't what it could have been.

It really wasn't. And maybe what it should have been. I'm surprised you're more mad at what Lima, well, hold on. How would you grade, give me a grade, like A, B, C, D, F, for Lima's performance. Okay, I thought Lima did what he had to do as a smart veteran to what i thought win the fight under the circumstances three rounds opponent's backyard and luke let's be clear i think douglas lima's lost a step i think he's not the same guy anymore that he was just two years ago so given those circumstances i think he fought a safe smart fight. I thought the onus was on MVP to leave no doubt,

and he didn't do it, Luke. Okay. I thought that, so I had two conclusions. Well, first of all, let me just echo you one more time. I won't belabor the point, but what is Bellator doing with these three-round fights? I mean, for these main events. It's just, MMA has outgrown this by leaps and bounds.

Bellator has outgrown this by leaps and bounds Bellator has outgrown this by leaps and bounds This is no longer acceptable Okay, number one, put that aside Number two, how did Lima look? I thought Lima did certain things in parts that I really, really liked His timing on the takedowns was great Not just in getting under the punch, but when it was in the round Not to steal the round, but to have enough time on top To do some meaningful work the problem was I didn't think he did a whole lot

of meaningful work on top it wasn't like he was passing or it was thrashing him with ground and pound or threatening with submissions he was just kind of controlling from that position I thought on the outside he was doing some nice things but I thought he was waiting around a lot too to be honest like this was not this was not a great performance from Douglas Lima. Even if I agree with you, I thought he should have won two rounds to one. On the other hand, with MVP, here's the problem with him. I thought he did some things while his timing on that right hand to dissuade some of the leg kicks was brilliant. He knocked Lima down a couple of times, even if they were like pushes more than like punches, but still some of them got through. was neither guy had enough of another offensive gear

to take the fight to. They had another defensive gear to retreat to. They didn't have a way to raise the stakes, so to speak. And so as a consequence, neither had the best performance, but you're right, dude, we called it. We said this was going to be a lot closer than the first time. Sure enough, it was. Although, there was that one leg kick uppercut combo that almost got MVP, I think, in the second round. But I don't think either guy had a great performance here, and I think

a trilogy is a must. Well, just real quick on this. Lima got dropped twice in the first round, in the first half of the first round, like you mentioned. Was it a slip-push combo? I don't know. He got dropped twice. the first round, in the first half of the first round, like you mentioned. Was it a slip-push combo? I don't know. He got dropped twice. So, Luke, he's in surviving advanced territory here as the 33-year-old three-time former champ who doesn't want to get a three-fight losing skid. So I'm, again, not as upset that he didn't do enough because you can question,

did he do enough on the top position? In the third round, he did. Third round, he's landing elbows from top position on the ground. He dropped MVP in the third round he did third round he's landing elbows from from top position on the ground he dropped uh mvp in the third round with that left hook i mean i thought luke seriously lima turned it on the final round when he needed to that's the only round that i think was clear across the board for lima it's mvp that you're like okay you had some great success in the first half of the first round but but you kind of didn't follow it up. You didn't follow up. I think the problem area is that second round for MVP, and especially the third.

I don't know, man. You've proven in this matchup that you can surprise this guy with big-time strikes, and I think MVP did a lot of things well on not overextending himself and getting caught, although to your point in that second round, he came close to a repeat finish of the first time around. But it's not like I want MVP to come out in the interview afterwards and be like, hey, guys, sorry, I effed up a little. But I also don't want him to come out afterwards and be like,

I told you so. No, this was not a great performance, and it wasn't a great win. He was lucky. What I said, this was a generous scoring that he would come out on top. So your question is, should he advance right to the title fight or should we do a trilogy? You know, given the circumstances of this fight, yeah, I would like to see MVP pass this test the right way. Yes. You know, before advancing.

But then again, Luke, he's got six wins in a row. Two of the three judges thought he just beat the former champion. How much more do you want and need from him when, when he's 34 years old and, and, and it's time and, you know, Amosov needs some big name opponents. Let's do this thing. Whichever way Bellator goes, it's fine, Luke. But I think MVP could have come into a title opportunity in a much better situation.

And I don't think Lima was putting up the type of offense, at least in the first two rounds, that would have warranted MVP being that passive in his offense. He's got to be busier. I said it from the beginning, Luke. I said this fight would go three rounds. I said MVP would probably win a decision. But I thought he would be landing his jab, landing those side push kicks, really leaving no doubt in his activity. He didn't do that. You can't

do that against this guy. I think that's fair. I think there's a lot of blame to go around here, but candidly, if I can be honest, for a guy like Lima, granted, he had fought Musashi up a weight class. Then he fought Amosov, who's a beast. And a wrestling beast. He's not striking on up a weight class. Then he fought Amosov, who's a beast, okay? We both, and a wrestling beast. Like, he's not striking on the outside with you.

He's just all over you like white on rice. Okay, fair enough. And MVP is a very different opponent in that regard. But tricky in his own way. I just kind of felt like Lima coming off those fights, needing this. You already beat this guy. Dude, this is not the time to press the brakes. And even if you wanted to give him sort of more credit for that third round push I wasn't really wowed by it um honestly I thought he would

be in much more of a position like there was just a lot of times man where he was kind of following MVP and looking at him and waiting for him to do something where whereas he wasn't fainting or doing something else to create openings he was just waiting for openings to be there. That was not what I was looking for from him. I was looking for some kind of a, like a, like a, you know, he got electrocuted a little bit. Like he realized this cannot go this way rather than I'm just going to do a little bit less of the thing I'd been doing previously at this time against a striker versus a grappler.

Didn't love that to be honest with you. And it tells me if the three losses in a row, again, should only be two and two to very, very credible opponents and very, very credible challenges. Like Douglas Lima is not like overnight shot. That's not what I'm saying. But it does seem to me, BC, and you acknowledge it, I'm going to acknowledge it too, he's lost a step.

And you can't deny it. I'd like to see him against Logan Storley. I think that'd be a good matchmaking, Luke. Hmm. That's a tough fight. Logan Storley. I think that'd be a good matchmaking, Luke. That's a tough fight. Logan Storley's a beast. It's a tough fight. Wait, MVP or Lima?

If you beat Logan Storley in that spot for Lima, then you could say, okay, first two losses, title bouts. You probably deserve the nod against MVP. You're right back in the title picture. But if you lose, that's four in a row. You're going that way. Logan Storley's coming up next for that Amasov rematch. I know we have Jason Jackson in between.

We've got MVP. We've got Koreshkov, who came back and looked fantastic, Luke. So things are looking up at Welterweight for Bellator. So maybe that means you don't need to rush MVP into the Amasov fight. So if you're not, here's the deal, Luke. Do you agree with me on this? If you're not going to do MVP Amas amasov next then you do mvp lima three at five rounds fact fact and yeah that dude that's the key dude what is bellator doing that fight needs to be five rounds especially yeah especially the trilogy and look both guys got to go after it too,

which we've both established. That crowd was waiting for a fight. That was a fantastic... Look, I give Bellator credit when they go to Europe and they get these great crowds and they make it a big event. Now, Luke, I thought the matchmaking on this card below the main event was just not up to standards. And I have no problem saying that out loud.

It was a regional fight card. It was a regional fight card. It was a regional fight card. That co-main event, I know it was a ranked fighter in Liam McCoy at Women's Featherweight, but that did not look like professional MMA. I needed a little bit more. I needed some better matchmaking there. It's unfortunate that the main event played out more tactical than fun in that it left us all at the end of three rounds going,

water, weed, dune, hair. I mean, come on. Come on, bro. Look at me, BC. I see you. I see you. I hope you do. I hope you do.

Come on the closet, Luke, please. No, no, it's funny. Okay, look, we'll see what happens, but I think you could do a trilogy, but you got to do it with five rounds. This three-round shit needs to go. All right, point number four, BC. So there was actually a lot we haven't even gotten to.

I want to remind folks, BC, we should take this moment to remind them, the extra podcast that I'm going to do on Mondays, it has a name, MK Extra Credit. MK Extra Credit will be out sometime later this afternoon. I want to tell people who this is for, okay? This is for all MK people. But if you are, look, there's Team Luke and there's Team BC in this game, okay? And the Team Luke people.

It's not really about that. I mean, if they hear one more creepy joke or one more, oh, you didn't think Nick Diaz looked quick, you casual fan, go to MK Extra Credit. You'll get all the shit you're looking for, okay? It's all serious breakdowns, no impersonality, nothing, okay? Just take it. Like my son.

Luke, my son's 13. His favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla. I'm like, bro, what is wrong with you? Well, you know, it depends. I mean, the vanilla can be fine. But to your point, it's designed to be 30 minutes or less, which doesn't give me a lot of time to do tap dancing. I'm trying to get through all the fights that matter.

If you like plain potato chips, check out MKX. No, it's not about that. It's just about making sure we cover all of the bases that we can with the amount of time that we have in the course of a day. We'll get into some of these bouts in much greater detail, but BC, as sort of an open-ended question, who else in the combat sports space this weekend, wherever that may be, either impressed you by how great they did

or impressed you by how bad things went? Look, I said coming in that this UFC Fight Night card was a sneaky card, and I thought it was a really fun rewatch, and it lived up to that. And, Luke, I've got to give Alexander Hernandez a lot of credit. Just 28 years old, he flipped wins and losses of late, and I know this was a late opponent switch what do you who was he preparing preparing for was it uh leandro santos did i make that name up is that the guy i think something like that yes so he gets mike breeden last minute and look

he sent mike breeden to hell in about 80 seconds knock the mouthpiece out and just walk through him but look i think i saw you know a spirit and energy of a guy who's really trying to put it together Hernandez comes in incredible shape at lightweight and Luke I think there's time for this guy to put the wrestling and the striking together and be something this was a great step in that direction

and real quickly Casey O'Neal the king Luke stays unbeaten at women's flyweight by putting it on Antonina. And Luke, you take Antonina Shevchenko to the ground, you're probably going to have some success, but more to come and have you seen this shit. She put

it on Valentina's big sister. It was... There was some white belt shit going on there, Luke. I mean, she put it on. King Casey O'Neal is someone to watch, Luke, at 125. Yes and no. Yes and no. I'm not quite as high on her as you might be.

Save it for extra credit, okay, bro? All right? Save it for extra credit. I will. The fight that I thought was going to be kind of interesting that never ended up happening was going to be Aspen Ladd. We talked about it on Friday, BC. Yeah.

Taking on Macy Chiasin, and it never happened because Aspen Ladd missed weight. But it never happened because Aspen Lab missed weight. But, dude, like, she didn't just miss weight. She missed weight terribly. I think she was, like, 141, and then she brought herself to what can only be described as the brink of death, basically. And she was able to make, what was it, 137, which would have put her one pound away from the extra one pound allowance. But to do it, they were like, she couldn't raise her. There was this big battle between her and the coaches

because the commission wanted her to raise her hands in the air. The coach is like, she can't raise her hands in the air because she'll fall. Well, dude, if she can't raise her hands in the air at the scale because she'll fall, you've got bigger questions to answer than just about whether or not she can put her hands in the air. So she makes the 137, but at that point, she looked like it was absolute death. And so they pulled it from the card completely, and so it never happened. And she comes out later on, BC, and says, you know, it's my fault. I had my period.

I just couldn't force it through. Where do you come down on a lad who has had weight had weight cutting issues previously in her career a number of times what do you say uh this is bad because luke she had a very bad moment on friday where they've got that curtain around her as you sort of alluded to and i mean the fact that they didn't cancel the bout right there i mean we should have a new look i hope day, and I know it happens in both sports, weight, extreme weight cutting. I've always said, someone's got, you know, a big name is going to have to die

before we make changes to this. Look, there's nothing about this that is healthy. Nothing at all. And I know people go, well, it's happened in amateur wrestling forever. It's part of the culture. It's what we do. I get it. But Luke, I mean, how many times have you seen these videos of them in the tobs with their, you know, coach or significant other next to them? Like, they are dying to cut these weights. And what it produces are these scary as hell moments like we

saw on Friday where Aspen Ladd's about to fall over and can't even stand. First of all, if that ever happens again, and it will, they need to wave off the fight right then and there. That's like when you see somebody knocked out for a split second in a fight, it's the rest job to end it, right? The problem for Ladd is this is twice, Luke, and I don't remember what fight it was, but it was before her injury. She had an equally really bad situation in which she almost passed out on the scale. That is your body telling you this is not the weight class for you anymore, and I know it's unfortunate because Ladd had the lung injury break. She was supposed to fight Macy a few months ago and chase on her leg,

and it pushed it out. But, you know, health is more important in the long run, Luke. I don't think it's a horrible thing to say, hey, Aspen Ladd, this is twice now. You need to go up to women's featherweight. First of all, it's an even quicker shot at a title, which is already pretty fast at bantamweight, because neither of these divisions for UFC on the women's side have any level of depth. And for the most part, if you're a ranked featherweight, you're going to be fighting blown-up Bantamweights.

You're going to be fighting Holly Holman, GDR, to get to the title anyway. So it doesn't seem to really matter, Luke. But I don't think we need to have a hard and fast rule, but I have my own rules. You do this twice to yourself, like, you got to go. You can't do this anymore. Luke, it's not going to change again until something really bad happens, but this is really, really, really not healthy. The science backs it up, going to the extreme level. No matter what the situation was, injury or menstrual cycle or whatever, Luke,

ahead of time, I really want to get away from this for fighters. I really want more of them to be looking at fighting at the most natural weight possible. It's me talking from my basement. I get it, Luke. But this is not healthy what we saw on Friday at all. No, it's not. And you're asking, like, where she missed. She missed previously in Invicta, and then she made it for her fight with Duran Dami but looked like I mean

it was you know google the results for Ladd versus Duran Dami weigh-ins and every headline has the word scary in there talking about Ladd trying to make weight and of course she got hit with one shot and spun around and then the fight was over it wasn't like even though she made it to the fight in that case BC it didn't do her any damn good because she got granted Duran Dami can crack but she got hit with one shot and who knows to what extent that weight cut may have contributed to it here she can't even make it to the fight without all this disaster misha tate called her out listen here's the thing dude i've had aspen lad in person in my studio she is very friendly she's a she was fun to talk to she marches to the beat of her own drum and i don't

want to get into i hope i'm being clear about this I'm not trying to get into any body shaming thing because she's obviously athletic and fit. But what I'm saying is I've seen people in that weight class who are bigger and leaner who make it no problem. I don't know what the right answer is. You might be right in saying she needs to go to 145. But I got to tell you from the layman's perspective, which is the only one i am giving here it doesn't look to me like she has fully maximized uh the pre-fight work that goes into getting the weight down in a way so that the cut can be more manageable i would like to see a nutritionist get control of the situation or what what appears to be what is necessary i'll leave it at that okay that's fair luke that's

fair you're not please don't bring up anyone's OnlyFans account in relation to this topic. Let's keep going. I won't, even though you just did. Alright, last for the five topics, but certainly not least, perhaps most important among them. Folks, we are here. Fury Wilder 3

is Saturday, and it wasn't the fight that we thought we were going to get. Last week wasn't the fight that we thought we were going to get. Last week wasn't the fight that we thought we were going to get. We thought we were going to get Joshua and Fury, and we all know the story and blah, blah, blah. Joshua already had his run with Usyk, which landed us in an upset territory with Usyk winning. BC, Fury Wilder 3 is here, whether we wanted it or not.

What storyline are you paying attention to most as we head into the rubber match? Look, I cannot wait for this fight. I mean, this fight is, under any circumstance, this fight is massive. 6'7", former champion with some of the most murderous punching you've ever seen in the sports history against one of the most dynamic heavyweights we've ever seen in the 6'9 Fury.

With a history of their controversial draw and the Fury knockout and walk down in the rematch. Obviously, Luke, the dominant storyline for me is all the time Deontay Wilder has had since their first fight, which came in early 2020, right before the pandemic. They did not expect to have a year and a half time break from that, but Wilder, as we have talked about, has seemingly done everything right. Proof will be in the pudding, as Floyd says on Saturday night. But seemingly everything right to re-examine his team, re-examine himself. Is he still making outrageous claims about Fury cheating and all this other stuff?

Yeah. But Luke, he is a motivated machine coming in here on Saturday, looking to do destructive things with a new team, a new focus. You saw the body punching videos. Why that matters is we just already saw Alexander Usyk upset the heavyweight apple cart by flipping it upside down and upsetting Joshua. Wilder is in play here as a very live dog. He would be anyway for his punching power. But I think you have to take into account this one thing, Luke.

Tyson Fury historically has played up or down to the level of his competition. That is a true fact. You can go back and resume review him and find that out, okay? He would get very heavy between fights before his long-term retirement from 2015 to 2018 when he had the drug problems and all that out, okay? He would get very heavy between fights before his long-term retirement from 2015 to 2018 when he had the drug problems and all that. He would balloon up between fights against lesser-known opponents

and not always look great. And then what happened, Luke? He fought Klitschko, and he was in amazing shape and had a boxing lesson of a lifetime. We've seen him go up or down. This fight wasn't supposed to happen. Tyson Fury doesn't need this fight for his legacy, but he does need this fight, Luke,

to keep his WBC title, to keep his lineal championship title, and to advance further toward us having, hopefully in 2022, an undisputed four-belt champion at heavyweight for the first time ever. You wonder if that plays into it, of will Fury be at that same level.

When he doesn't have all this stuff to prove. To the world Luke. I wondered that in their second fight. And it was one way traffic. When Fury brought in a new trainer. Javon Sugarhill Stewart. And he became an offensive force. At the very least.

Regardless of how this goes Luke. This is going to be some high level heavyweight theater. The first few rounds, I mean, it's going to be dramatic. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be tense as shit. That's what you want in heavyweight boxing. Heavyweight boxing is the gateway drug to this sport, right? Big heavyweights who talk trash are going to come out swinging. Luke, I cannot wait to see what this thing looks like. And as much as we all know, Fury is by far the better boxer, the better fighter. Nothing guaranteed about Saturday night. That's the lead story, Luke.

There's only going to be a winner when you see it live you cannot really handicap this one given all those other circumstances dude you know for all of the size in terms of the the significance really of the usic and joshua about that was like two guys very gentlemanly they didn't have a history the fight was kind of surprisingly made and it was really just about what happened in the ring for the most part. These two jabronis, this is heavyweight. I like the way you put it. It's heavyweight theater is really what it is. You're not going to get better heavyweight theater.

You might get better heavyweight theater maybe with Joshua and Fury, depending on how things go. But, dude, Fury and Wilder is, I mean, two guys larger than life personalities, different nationalities, different backgrounds, completely different ways of boxing. Everything about these two being contrasting polar opposites makes it so much fun, even if this is not what we had asked for. In terms of the question at hand, what storyline we're paying attention to, you kind of nailed it. I don't have much to add except to say that's the one I'm paying attention to too, which is there is no good reason, no boxing reason, so to speak, in terms of pure boxing skill, why Deontay Wilder should win. He should not win. He has an opponent in front of him who not only thoroughly outclassed him in the

last bout, he should thoroughly outclass him in this one. I think Tyson Fury is the king of the division, even if he remains somewhat uncrowned. Nevertheless, I don't know exactly if Fury has taken this bout as seriously as he should have given some of the circumstances. Not saying he hasn't, it just, there was a whole redemption story getting back into shape and blah, blah, blah about his return. That is not so much in play here here although maybe it's obviously is not as necessary because he has done a better job of maintaining his health still it's just sort of quiet around that kind of situation meanwhile whether he is benching with gloves and you know looking like he's getting electrocuted in terms of moving his feet everywhere you have a guy like Deontay Wilder who's been in the weight room who has changed changed his training up, who just looks possessed.

I mean, even a possessed Wilder shouldn't beat Fury. Again, you're asking me who I'm going to pick? This is not a hard pick. I'm going to pick Tyson Fury to win. Count of Monte Cristo vibe that Deontay Wilder has, where he not only got the L in the last fight and still believing some of the delusions, right? Because he's called Tess and Fury a cheater and blah, blah, blah, but is coming into this fight with a level of almost deranged singular track revenge fantasy that he wants to let out on the world where however much boxing skill he lacks bc he has historic power in that straight right he absolutely does you cannot take

that away from him if tyson fury is not on his game and deontay wilder is count of monto christy christo-ing it which is not a word but if he's doing it, dude, who the fuck knows what could happen on Saturday? It is highly intriguing. There's three ways it could go in my eyes in terms of our entertainment value. If it's a repeat of the first one, which I don't think it would be, where Tyson Fury tries to box for 12 rounds, then the tense theater of knowing that Wilder needs to be perfect, as he says, for one second, whereas Fury needs to be perfect for 36 minutes,

that's entertainment right there. Okay, well, what he says, for one second, whereas Fury needs to be perfect for 36 minutes. That's entertainment right there. Okay, well, what if it's the second one, where Fury goes into full offensive mode, and the fact that he's bigger, longer, faster, and a more accurate puncher, he just takes Wilder out of there. Well, that's pretty entertaining, too. But, Luke, the wild card is the third one.

If Wilder comes out and just says, F it, this is my career in one night. I'm not waiting until round eight or nine to counter you. I'm not waiting for you to, you know, jump all over me like you did in the second fight. We're going to war right now. Oh, you think you're big enough to stand with me and take my shots and fire back? Let's do it right freaking now. Look, we win.

We win in all three scenarios as fans so i don't want to underplay what this fight means for the current state of boxing for this week this you know this but like you can't understate what the potential of a giant fight like this with crossover implications actually living up to potential what that does if the sport backs it up with really good fights after each other and we're just coming off that AJ upset, we're probably going to see an Usyk rematch. The connective tissue, the storylines are building.

I mean, we live the Klitschko era. It was awful. We thought Vladimir Klitschko and David Hay in 2011 was finally going to be a fight, and that one sucked the horn, Luke? How many times are you like trying to, if you're a boxing fan, get your friends to care about a heavyweight fight?

We're in a different era now. These two guys have history. It's going to be violent, tense theater on Saturday. Get your popcorn ready, Luke, okay? You better bring your A-game Saturday. Neither of us have really explored this although we've you know we've given we've paid attention to it but we

haven't really dug into the details dude what would it mean for deontay wilder again i'm i am picking tyson fury to win but with a guy who is coming in like the count of monte cristo with the power that he does in his right hand deontay wilder should not be slept on let's's imagine a scenario, and even if they make a fourth fight and he gets crushed like he did in the second one, let's imagine he wins the third one. And he wins it like he's losing all six rounds, like he did the Luis Ortiz fight, and then he just comes out and bombs on with one shot, and there you go. That's not in any way inconceivable. Dude, the amount of in-your-face gloating and screaming and singing from the rooftops that the 40-pound instrument he carried on his body

and everything else. Deontay Wilder is going to rewrite boxing history a little bit, even if he scores something of a fluke win here. By virtue of the stakes, by virtue of the denial from the second fight he's carrying into the third one, no one has ever... Because after the second fight, he not only lost to BC, we all talked about how bad he handled it

by blaming it on Mark Breland and saying all these things, like, oh, it was the 40-pound costume that I wore. He never was like, yo, I got outboxed. And so we thought, oh, well, it's kind of over for him. It's not if he goes in there and scores a huge upset, which is what it would be in my mind, over Tyson Fury. Dude, he would change not just the landscape, but the heavyweight division.

He would redefine how everyone is supposed to have seen the last one, even if it's a little bit flukish. Be prepared for that. And I hope, Luke, if that happened, I hope he would win over some favor. He never became the star he could have been as an American for that and i hope luke if that happened i hope he would he would win over some favor he never became the star he could have been as an american with that kind of body and look and swagger and that ability to be a knockout artist which again is the one thing that cuts through the heart of anyone who doesn't pay attention to boxing they will when you can punch like that

we always said okay maybe he doesn't have that next level charisma or maybe the american sports scene is just so overcrowded in the team sports vein that it's hard to get behind this guy i still don't understand why people didn't get behind him luke when they was when they were putting him on fox in your living room and they was doing you know these pay-per-view fights um and i'm not saying he's he's an easily likable hero because he says what he feels, and he made a lot of excuses after that second fight. But that kind of storyline, I mean, that's some hero shit if he comes back and wins this back, Luke. There will be a big, I told you so, there will be a big type of moment.

And while athletes like Tiger Woods are key in bringing the crossover massive population of a niche sport to the forefront because you've got one dominant person. Think of Floyd Mayweather. One dominant person for so long that you're just tuning in for the greatness. I think people deep inside, they want rivalries even more, Luke. They want rivalries that go back and forth. I think the best rivalry of our modern era as boxing fans was Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Four classic fights. You do it at the heavyweight level.

You do some Ali Frazier, Holyfield, Bo type shit at the heavyweight level. Fight three times, maybe four. I mean, look, we need that. We want that. Let's do that. Please. And I'll also say this. I don't know how likely any of these fights are,

but let's imagine Fury goes in there in this one and does what he did in the second one. I don't know how likely a Fury-Usyk fight would be. Probably not very, given all the different circumstances in play, or even, for that matter, Wilder-Joshua. But I gotta tell you, BC, I wouldn't mind seeing any of those fights. Among these four, Usyk versus Wilder. Usyk would probably box circles around him, but all it takes is one fucking right

hand from that guy, and he can change the whole show. So, like, there's a lot of different permutations here with a win or a loss, where, again, I don't know what kind of fertile ground it creates for promoting and creating these bouts, but the potential could be there for some fun permutations. Absolutely. I mean, the four kings,

Hagler, Hearns, Durant, Leonard, they fought each other nine times in ten years. Imagine if the next five years, Luke, gives us the continuation of this round robin with all these guys. Come on. It writes itself, bro. But that's boxing. We probably won't get it because that's boxing, Luke.

That is boxing. You're right. We'll get something like, I keep calling him Andy Reid, dude. It's so fucking funny. Andy Ruiz versus, you know, I don't know. Something we didn't want. All right. With that out of the way, BC,

it is time for the viewers to ask us questions. We put up a post every Sunday on Instagram. I should say Instagram.com slash Morning Combat where you get to leave us questions. It's time for dms from the dogs here's my question how much money do i have to pay to not have children scream at my door i really wonder because i already pay a lot apparently it's not enough um okay what i mean i pay good money dude child care and you are paid handsomely, Luke. You haven't, since you've met me,

you haven't come into this much money since you had sex with an ATM machine in college, you know? Dude, this is a fact. D.C. has the most expensive child care of any city in the country. It's the most expensive. And I pay at about the bleeding edge of what even that costs.

What can I do to get children to not scream at my door? I don't know. All right. Chains. I need, I need like what they needed at that first UFC event where they had proposed, like having a moat full of gators or something.

Yeah. I don't know. She stopped crying when, when I, when I started doing tricks, Luke. Okay. I don't know.

I think she, I think she howled even worse. All right. From at mixed Marshall melon, just the worst name ever. Some kind of joke. BC, can you get Luke to be more candid with us? To be candid.

He never answers questions quite candidly. Luke, you have so many tropes that the fans love, hate. You had a clip on. What happened to that? Luke, you're doing a lot of this today. You're doing a lot uh the luke thomas special of no no i've i moved them back they're still on see i moved them back because they were hurting my ears so now i've got you've got to be quite candid with you you've got um i mean mixed marshall mellon this person obviously how many times has mixeded Marshall Mellon

ordered Taco Bell shirtless at a drive-thru and then sat in the parking lot and sad-ated by themselves? You worry less about my verbal tics and more about your life. How about that? Luke, you did have a run in that doc, the doc number five, which you can find right now on youtube.com slash morningcombat.

You did have a run in there where you were like, I think you said BC 17 times in a two sentence fragment. Luke, you were like, you know, BC likes Jake because BC loves BC and BC can be BC around John Bolton. That angry fan who thinks you say my name too much. He must've been rolling in his grave.

Luke. Yeah. You know how much I care? Not much. You know, my mom did call the other day and she's like, what's this? I see.

There's like a meme with you in a, a bed and you're upset um about your the future of your career is is everything okay it's like actually it's great it's actually great it's great it's like that's actually part of mom it's art it's art mom meatloaf it's all i didn't tell you what my dad said so i told my dad i was like yeah dad um you know the number one boxer both in terms of box office attraction and maybe skill is uh fighting on showtime and the first week of november i'm actually going to be going to las vegas for that you know and obviously you know i worked with showtime we're hoping to do some big things that week he's like oh if you're gonna be in las vegas uh i have a rental property

i'd like you to check out i'm like wait wait time out you're not gonna say anything about like this great opportunity for my career but you want me to go run you fucking errands and he's like hey dino you mind shaking them down they owe me another month please you know can you go serve a son uh a summons to my deadbeat tenants. All right, from at the MMA guy, the underscore MMA guy. If headbutts were legal in MMA, how frequently do you think they'd be used? Very. And how effective

of a technique do you think it would be? Very. Have you ever seen this guy, King LeDuc? He does this lightweight boxing, which is like Burmese kickboxing, which is kind of like Thai boxing, except part of the rules is headbutting. And so he'll do these combinations. To him, it's just another way to train.

And so he'll throw bop, bop, bop, spinning back this, and then he'll launch into a headbutt. It's not overly used. It's like any other weapon. But Mark Coleman used them. You can go back and look before they got rid of them. You could use headbutts early on, I think, in UFC, and Mark Coleman would smash into people in their guard um they can be quite effective yeah

i think maybe mark coleman was able to use them effectively i think in the very beginning they were very ineffective people tried to mix them in but it but didn't really have big moments with them but yeah look it'd be absolutely devastating come. Somebody would knock themselves out, though, going for it. If you've never seen King LeDuc, check him out. It's spelled L-E-D-U-C. King LeDuc on Instagram. He's an interesting guy. All right, from at Ryan W. Barker, BC.

MMA hardcore boxing casual here. I'm curious to know what strengths Caleb Plant brings to the fight with canelo that's a very you know what bc that's a perfectly good question that an mma fan should ask yes okay at the very least caleb plant brings the one skill that matches up the best with canelo's deficiency now the problem with saying canelo has a deficiency is one he's the pound for pound king of the sport the the number one with a bullet and two because Canelo has moved up in weight so dramatically and yet kept his durability and speed and power, when you move up in weight, your speed gets more accentuated because you're going against bigger, in theory, slower guys.

So what I mean by that was when Canelo for for a while, fought at 154, he was considered a technical counterpuncher, a big puncher, but he was considered to have had slow feet. And if you were a pure boxer, think Floyd Mayweather, think Eris Landilara, who both had considerable success against him, then you could do that. So Caleb Plant, at the very least, brings very good foot speed. He is a pure boxer, a 100% pure boxer, and very quick hands. Throws very good combinations on the inside. Obviously, the problem with that and why he's such a big underdog, even though this is an important fight that we need to see, obviously, for the undisputed notion and all that, is that Canelo, that speed deficiency is so less noticeable at this weight class at 168 pounds. And Canelo, to his credit, has worked on all of his weaknesses and rounded them out. But Caleb Plant doesn't have one-punch knockout ability,

but he is so quick with those combinations that he can hurt you. When he won the championship against Jose Uzcategui in 2019, he knocked him down twice, and then he had to bite down in the final rounds and they kind of went to war so what does caleb plant have most importantly boxing iq and ability and speed but let me add one more thing in there this is the thing that could lead to him getting knocked out by the way right but if you if you look at the history Canelo tends to knock all these guys out. Caleb Plant has a go-get-it. He has a spirit of going after it. Now, you wouldn't necessarily know that by his last fight against Caleb Truax,

the former champion, in which Caleb Plant won a wide, dominant decision. But Luke and I on the show, I think rightfully so, for a big Fox main event, we didn't love that Caleb Plant didn't leave a big statement. He didn't leave no... He won. There was no question about that. But he wasn't great that night. He was very good. He wasn't great. Caleb Plant has a go-get-it in him

to go after it. Meaning, if there is an opening there to have to stand up and fight Canelo in key spots and go for it, he's going to go for it. Again, Luke, that could lead to his exit but he has a fighting spirit he's had a crazy life to get to this point he came from nowhere all that stuff you've heard that story in boxing so many times you can you can think he's a clown you can say

whatever but Caleb Plant is coming to win this fight and I'm sorry you can't say that about every one of Canelo's big name opponents. I mean, I thought Danny Jacobs had the body and skillset to beat him. And I think Danny Jacobs is going to think about that loss for years where it was close, but he didn't do enough because he didn't go after it. I think Caleb Plant's going to go after it, whether that ends in him getting KO'd or not, Luke. So you bring that speed with a, I mean, look you what else do i need to say about caleb plant that you saw in that press conference okay you thought canelo won that press conference that's fine caleb stood up to the number one guy in the sport and didn't back down that's what he's

bringing to this fight luke that's the spirit i bring to this show you might as well be canelo and i'm caleb plant luke i'm coming bro all right i'm i i no i'm definitely not i'm i'm more andy ruiz in this whole equation i kid him i'm mostly looking in the mirror with that uh yeah also i mean you everything you said about caleb plant is true a couple other things out i would say one bc you know this as well as i do dude if you're gonna be a weight class holder and this is about unification but it's true for mma it's true for boxing if you're true for boxing. If you're going to be a weight class holder, you have a responsibility to defend it, and here is a case where, yes, this is sort of a different scenario, but it applies sort of in principle, which is, you know,

maybe Caleb Plant doesn't wow people, or maybe you're skeptical of his chances, which I don't think is necessarily wrong, but this is the fight that has to make an order for this progression and this division to happen, so let's just see what happens with it. That was the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is you may have said it, but it just remind people one more time. He's got great feet. He has good feet.

Caleb plan. He's got good footwork. He's got, he gets into positions quickly. He gets out of them quickly. He sets himself in a very balanced way, very quickly. Like he just sort of finds where he needs to be very often with his feet.

And, um, you know, he's not like super fleet of foot, but it's always on point. It's a really good talent of his. Canelo has very good foot speed at this weight class, but Canelo's skill is planting himself and swiveling.

He's so dynamic at avoiding shots and countering. If Caleb Plant can make it where Canelo's got to chase and Caleb is fast enough to land and get out of trouble that's where we're going to have a fight Luke that's going to be the fight right there but obviously that's asking a lot nobody nobody counters more cleanly effectively in terms of one punch to try to get you out of there whether it's a hook to the body or a right cross over the top than Canelo that's why he's the best in the game. Fair enough. Alright, so let's go to CubbiesFan80. I see this person

in our DMs all the time. If CBS Sports came to you with an offer to cover a non- combat sporting event, what would your dream pick be? Dream pick? Luke, what? So this is you covering it, meaning you're doing

the HQ pre and post on cams Luke you're writing a feature column afterwards I mean what I mean here's the thing there's a lot of sports I would like to cover that I could do well honestly but I wouldn't make any money um so if you want to make money then the answer is easy NFL right or NBA or something like that if you just want to do a passion project which I think is more what this person's asking yes it does air on CBS sports I would pick world's strongest man um I could do I could do I'm telling you I given who they normally have on that I could do a really good job I'm certain who's this guy my my son Isaac screensaver on his laptop is some

guy named the beast he's got the tattoo on his arms of the yes eddie hall eddie hall legit he's very legit he was world's strongest man a few years ago he was the first guy to deadlift ever 500 kilos that was the that was the record that was broken by thor at 501 or whatever it was kilos um he and thor were supposed to have a boxing match in september but thor excuse me eddie got injured he tore his his bicep, so he's on the mend. But he's a very, very, very, very legit guy. Yes. I would probably do something dream scenario. I guess I'd have to go Olympics, Luke.

Oh, that's not a bad one. Well, I would specifically love to cover Olympic basketball. Starting with the dream team in 92, well, even before that. Luke, I've always been a sucker for team usa basketball you know that that great final in 2012 you know obviously the dream team run in 92 and 96 and then of course the that faltering run they had in 04 to me that's that would be that would be something special luke okay uh we just have to live somewhere for like six years would you want to do that six years what are you talking about luke no i'm saying like you have to live in the olympic village for like

six weeks or more two months whatever but they have a lot of hot passionate things going on in that olympic village luke yeah with the athletes not with the donk losers like you i'm i'm taken luke thank you oh yeah okay that's the issue uh all right last but not least from spl adam do either of you decorate the outside of your houses for halloween that's a great question bc what do you say i don't know no i don't um i i think i've said it before in here i was i was um i loved hallow Halloween as a kid, loved scary movies. I went very anti Halloween. Luke,

uh, when my kids were younger, I just kind of, I kind of was done with the, the, I mean, there's an extreme side to Halloween. Look,

there's the fun and games dress your kids up, get candy. But then there's like the extreme dark side to it. I kind of got anti that for a while, maybe two fundamentalist anti that. And even when my kids were like three and four and five, we're like, nah, you don't, you don't need to go on trick or treat. We'll do something fun at home. I've softened on that. They've had the fun

experiences in life and I've realized my wrongdoings. But with that said, Luke, I'm not the guy who's going to put spiders and skeleton bones outside. You know, my wife loves Christmas decorating. So I, I do the best to do the minimum to satisfy that regard. And I keep pushing. I'm like, you love things. You know, you love Christmas. My holiday is Thanksgiving. Can we celebrate that? Can we put up some some some stuff regarding that? So we've been we've been compromising there, Luke. But no, no Halloween decorating. I could see you maybe even using your weight bench and your squatting rack. You should be able to hang things from there out in your front yard.

I could see you having one of those people that open their house up to kids and it's like a haunted house on their first floor and you scare them and then in the back door they get candy and then Coach Sandusky is there. It's like, oh, hey, you want to see my defensive schemes? And then your wife dresses up as Dr. Nassar. It's just twisted look it's just i think you really misunderstand people in the worst way imaginable no i don't really dress up my house either i have i'll be honest now that my kid's older i've kind of wanted

to do a little bit like some fun lighting or something or whatever but no in general i don't i don't do that all right and i haven't so there you go all right time for your bullshit look it's our bullshit first of all okay yes uh look at this what we do every monday we scour the globe for the good and bad the highs and lows the ugly the in between all that and combat sports and beyond it's called have you seen this shit all righty luke we got a lot of good stuff from ufc fight night in vegas hey luke johnny walker gave us the full gamut the fight may have lacked the fireworks we wanted but we got all the johnny walker weirdness we could have wanted this week here's the the stare down with my hat i know what is he doing weird That's what he does. He specializes in it.

No me gusta. I don't enjoy that. He has a master's degree in debauchery, Luke. Okay? Then it went to the walk-in at the UFC Apex. Luke, your thoughts on these dance moves? This is me every time the paycheck hits the account. Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow a that's some like dude can he dance without hip thrusts i don't know i don't know that's possible look the real real question is can he hit the prep point without sexual hip thrust let's go to the videotape on this one see we're putting the vaseline on. Oh, yeah, he's no stranger to Vaseline, Luke. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's like, dude, you got another man putting Vaseline on your face. Can you stop gyrating and cavorting for five seconds, please?

Yeah. He probably does this at the DMV. Yeah. Finally, Luke, in between rounds, when John Cavanaugh's trying to give him instructions, here's Walker breaking the fourth wall. Okay, less face-face, more punch-punch. All right.

Hey, let's keep it going at UFC Vegas. I mentioned Casey O'Neal, the king, improved to 8-0. Luke, look at this full mount she got on Antonina. Hey, Luke, can we be really harsh here? Is it time for Valentina's older sister to call it quits? Because anytime someone gets in this position against her which is every fight we're on a trend here luke i mean she doesn't have to quit in the sense that she's some kind of danger to herself or something but it's like i'm with you

after this fight i'm like oh right her upside is you've seen it i mean she's 36 she's a very good striker and she was piecing o'neill up at times luke but on the ground she's've seen it i mean she's 36 she's a very good striker and she was piecing o'neill up at times luke but on the ground she's she's bad i mean she's rough luke it was not good it was not good i agree with you on the the jury's in all right hopefully you'll mention this guy an extra credit later today here's lightweight jamie malarkey he was down earlier against davante smith and look at this comeback Luke this one surprised me because Smith was doing good work but this kid Malarkey he's the opposite of the Biden Malarkey he's the good Malarkey

Luke that was some like Anderson Silva Rich Franklin Muay Thai shit going on there to set that up right no not really it was more about sort of pressing the action, but he was getting pieced up a little bit at range. He just found a way to take over the fight. It was impressive. Look at that. Look at the replay. Wow, look at this, Luke. That is... Oh, wow. That's some plum control, Luke, all right? It was good, but to be Anderson Silva or Rich Franklin,

you'd have to pull him, turn him, reposition him, not just hit him and let him go. All right, Luke, here's your KO of the weekend. Douglas Silva de André against Gaetano Perillo. I mean, you could not script a better looking finish. Wow. Yeah, I didn't understand the choice of sort of like switch step kick there because he did it right in punching range,

so he just got clipped walking in. It was weird. This dude's athletic as fuck by the way yeah this this dude's this dude's back is like a fucking turtle shell of muscle i could not believe how bricked up he was it's very gleason t-ball like lucas it's rare you get that in motion in air knockout but let's get let's focus on the celebration luke is this disrespectful to try the backflip where you basically land on your opponent? Like, that's some, yeah. Yeah, I mean, these guys are, you know, what are you going to do?

I mean, if he would have torn his ACL there, you would have laughed, right? Well, here's my rule on this. If y'all want to go do the celebrations where you do flips and you want to get some clout for the gram, that's fine. But when you tear your fucking ACL and you're no longer the same after this, I don't feel bad for you. I'll put it that way. It's very Gus Farratt headbutting the wall at RFK, right?

You got that reference, right? I know that one, yes. All right, here's the celebration i can get behind middleweight christoph jocko following his split decision win over misha cirkunov luke this is like uh breaking two electric boogaloo style right here yeah this is some break dance b-boy shit right here good lord that's me that's me after the taco bell drive-thru right there all right hey luke let's put some closure on that aspen lad situation you mentioned misha Lord. That's me after the Taco Bell drive-thru right there. Whew. All right.

Hey, Luke, let's put some closure on that Aspen Ladd situation. You mentioned Misha Tate called her out. Can we blow this up, Maneach? It's one thing to misweigh. It's another thing to try and cheat the scale and use every excuse in the book to not weigh in properly. Everyone saw you cheat, and you still came in a pound over. I bet you were every bit of 139. Luke, that's some murking going

on right there damn she was harsh i was surprised at how harsh she was but yeah she let her have it i mean you're not pulling any punches there that's like here let me piss on and your open wound wow all right let's keep it going speaking of open wounds luke hey look i'm sorry this blew up the internet here's john jones's reaction kissing his his uh longtime girlfriend and then sticking his tongue out at the haters luke this was not received well by by by the mma twitter universe your thoughts i have more on this in odds and ends but for right now i'll just say i'll call it disturbing all right luke um here's the deal one of my favorite fighters she called it a career the great betch cohea luke unfortunately I'll just say I'll call it disturbing. All right. Luke, here's the deal. One of my favorite fighters, she called it a career.

The great Betch Koheya, Luke. Unfortunately, we did not see this dance after Carol Hossa badly pieced her up with knees. But, Luke, I'm going to pour one out for the great Betch Pitbull Koheya just the same. And let's relive some of her fantastic. This is the jai rating she did after beating sajar eubanks in mexico back in 2018 luke also also look there's a 1917 ad on the octagon that's that's my shit right there luke okay i mean that's great and do you remember her initial dance after beating eubanks in that same fight let's relive the memories here luke i, she's just

unabashedly herself. You know? Nobody puts that much love into what they do. I can respect that. I can get behind that. Hey, DC called her a pioneer, and then he pulled the microphone away from her after the fight when she was trying to say goodbye to the fans,

Luke. You see that? Yeah. i didn't know what she was a pioneer of but uh i mean i guess you could say women's brazilian mma to an extent she gave us a lot of weird moments in the cage and i and i salute her for that okay yes uh yes i would agree with that and lots of shaking her derriere yes which which in your household that that's, yeah, all right. It's accepted, and frankly, it's expected. Luke, celebrity boxing from South Florida. No Riddick Bowe, but Lamar Odom came out with his 9-inch reach advantage, and he put it on J-Lo's ex-husband.

No, not A-Rod. No, not Mark Anthony, that other guy, for however long this fight lasted. Unanim not Mark Anthony. That other guy. For however long this fight lasted. Unanimous decision, Luke. Your thoughts? Well, she clearly has great judgment in men. Born winners, all of them.

Paulie Malignaggi on the undercard, by the way, took a decision over Corey B., the TikToker and radio host who clowned him. And Paulie said afterwards, look, he impressed me. I had to work a lot harder than I thought I would have. I couldn't find any footage of that fight online, though. So this is what you get.

I won't talk shit because I love Paulie. But it's like, dude, if you're going up against decisions against TikTokers. That's fair. That's fair. You know. Yeah. All right. Hey, Luke, T-shirt of the week time.

Check out what they caught this guy wearing in the airport. Can we blow that up? Look at the kid behind him. He's like, what the fuck? Kid's like, mommy, was he there on January 6th? I think I saw this guy on TV. That's great. Wow.

This is the guy that put his feet up on Pelosi's desk for sure. Yes, it was. Luke, time for your favorite segment of the week, Rate My Tat. We start off with Errol Spence Jr., the unbeaten unified welterweight champion. Can we blow this up going full-on Lions-only Charlo style here? It's a well-done tattoo, and they got the good negative spacing there instead of using white to create color. I mean, I'll say this.

Again, if you're going to dislike tattoos, you have to dislike the artistic concept, which I don't like the artistic concept. But if you're asking about the application of the tattoo needle to the skin and the way in which it was brought to life, this is very high level. Think about it. In boxing or MMA, you don't really have a uniform short of your you know shorts or trunks but like using a tattoo as a uniform that's pretty badass luke also is his kid's name similar to mine go to the bottom i see a violette there bottom right look viola or violet violet call it in the states luke violet yeah violet you're turning violet

violet yeah okay all right luke number two uh check out this popeye tat your thoughts not a great tattoo i mean it's creative just this you know and why is his spinach the color of fucking slime like i mean what are we doing here i mean look what we don't as men like why do we even have these nipples right you might as well use it as part of your your tat gag right yeah why don't you get that how about that all right hey luke it's uh it's halloween time so head to your local spirit can we blow this up this looks a little x-rated to me you in on this luke that guy's got a halloween i have a halloween store just like this one look at the package on that guy if you look closer you'll see how gross this really is luke oh yeah i do see it

yeah he's got yeah he's got a hose in his pants is that halloween 14 is there a new halloween out there now new movie yes there is with jamie Lee Curtis. They just can't kill this fucking guy, huh? Will you go see that in the theater? In the theater? No. No, okay. All right. Hey, Luke, let's go over to the UK.

They had a sports festival, and GSP showed up to surprise Habib via Rear Naked. By the way, this sports festival was the Arnold, and it was the Arnold UK Sports Fest. It had Arnold and Sylvester Stallone there together with, of course, Habib, St. Pierre, and some other ones. By the way, Eddie Hall was one of the co-promoters along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the guy your kid is obsessed with.

Yes, my kids, one of my sons loves Arnold movies. Yeah, but Luke, did this, do you lament seeing this fun and games because we didn't get this fight a year and a half ago when we probably should have? No, I don't care about that. All right.

It's fun doing this with you. Hey, let's go to amateur kickboxing. Here's some spinny shit gone wrong. Check this out, Luke. Oh, no. Oh, God. Dude, this is what I'm telling you, man. If you're bored on a weekend, just see if there are some regional fights

and the amount of fucking donkery that you're going to see. We've said it before. If you go to a Bellator card, like at the Mohegan or whatever, they tend to have post limbs. They have local fighters come on after the main event ends, and, Luke, people get splattered, bro. I mean, they get knocked the hell out. Yeah, this is what regional MMA, in this case, Thai boxing, is all about.

I mean, this guy, Luke, you see the ghost come out of him when he hit? Wow. Hey, Luke, I know you're a bigger fan of testifying in front of the congregation, so let's go to a bare-knuckle circle in Russia. Watch this, Luke. Oh, God. He just gets timed right over the top of that jab.

Jesus. Oh, no. Wow. I think he saw the light. He's reaching for the Lord, Luke, right? This was me trying to ask a question to John Jones right here. That's how it went, right there. I did less reaching out to the sky, but everything else looks about the same. Actually, hold on.

Hold on. Watch this. Actually, I can walk you through this real quickly. He resets. He brings his feet together. And then as soon as he comes back out, you already know he's reset. Right? Resets.

Sticks it out. It gets parried and then comes right over the top. He just set himself up for it, basically. Luke, we decided to combine your two favorite things together in one clip. Strong man lifting and gender reveal. Your thoughts. God, just why? Can we blow this up? So he's got an Atlas stone.

I'm sure he's strong as fuck, but just why? There you go. And you broke your Atlas stone, you fucking dope. Yeah, but they're having a girl, Luke. Which, you know, great. I mean, I have a girl. It's amazing. But did you have to break your Atlas stone to do it?

Like Kobe and you, he's going to be a hashtag girl dad, so really, really excited about that. All right, Luke, diver downtime. Let's see some people take falls. First of all, this was a self-inflicted one. Check out this guy at the aquarium tank. What kind of store is this? It looks like Mohegan.

Oh, dude, that looks like one of those bass fisherman stores. You know, they got like the full set of them. I don't understand the significance of what we're looking at. He just jumps in water? Yeah, in the middle of the store, they have a giant aquarium. And he just said, fuck it, I'm going to get in? Yeah, that's interesting. I'm sure he got ejected instantly there, Luke.

But well done, just the same. Cops love it when you do that. They do, they do. Let's check out two drunk chicks near the water. That's always fun, Luke. Oh, God. Seven white claws deep. It's always fun, Luke. Oh, God. I mean, day drinking. Seven white claws deep.

Oh, God. Yeah. They consummated their friendship right there. Luke, that was great. Yeah. Wow. All right. Two more for you, Luke.

Let's head on down under to the rugby pitch. No words can describe this. Pow. I mean, he gets fucking leveled he got all of it luke he got all of it cte you can say oh they didn't target the head because the shoulder if you notice the shoulder kind of goes to the chest maybe a little bit above but dude he left his feet to do it like boom that is that is fucking brutal man that is i mean if that didn't break something in his chest i don't know how it didn't remember when uh steve atwater or the broncos stood

up christian okoye with one of these type of hits luke and it like kind of ended his career okoye was never the same after the dude this i mean you can get your whole shit caved in on this and by the way have you ever ever seen a rugby professional in person? They're not small people. They're large humans. Well, Volkanovski was one, Luke. I know you have a big city kicker. Dude, he was low-level rugby.

I'm talking high-level rugby. High level. All right, Luke, I got one more for you in the category of stupid human tricks. I call this the human bong. Bro, this is how they do haircuts in third world countries. I don't know if this guy's a star or this

was ill-advised, Luke, but I'm sure he got high regardless. This is who that's who buys, that's who who's gonna buy the drug rug yes yes yes luke yes yes that that is that you're asking like how many of those can we make probably like 10 you know not many there's a few meth lab operators who would like wearing it in a trailer park yeah Yeah. Well, can you imagine a doing this then be planning to film it filming it and then posting it?

What am I going to wear? Do I wear the white wife Peter or the gray one Luke? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. You should go as this guy for Halloween. That way you could just carry a bong through the neighborhood and hit it every five blocks, you know? All right. That's the shit Luke. Hope hope you enjoyed it thank you all right time for uh odds and ends

good sir what do you have for your odds and or ends luke this long triller soap opera with teofimo lopez jr and george cambosos jr finally officially came to an end when after Cambosos refused to really return Triller's phone calls or take a flight to Australia for the extra $400,000 that he was asking to do it after one date change after another, Triller has officially pulled out after winning this purse bid, Luke, and claiming it has lost upwards of $10 million in promotional money put forth already for this regrettable fight. So what happens next? I believe Eddie Hearn and Mattroom Sport, which was the second highest bidder, will have the opportunity to take the fight if they want and put it on DAZN, presumably. Obviously, top rank could jump in if Eddie Hearn says no and just make it an ESPN fight. Either way, Luke, I've said it before,

even if Teofimo gets more money in the long run, it's a bad look for everybody. And if this isn't the nail in the coffin for Triller after just some, I mean, just bizarre, ill-advised decision making and financial spending. And now, of course, new trailer head of boxing, Thurston Meyer, is telling everyone in interviews, you know, no more celebrity carnival circus fights. We want to do real fights, and we want to package them with the kind of entertainment that you don't see in the boxing game. And we're still going to put a fight at Barclays on October 16th.

Luke, for all intents and purposes, this has to be the end of this weird soap opera. It would not be the first time in boxing someone with money, whether it be 50 Cent, Jay-Z, thought they could just come in and take over. I cheered for them if they could do it right,

but they didn't. It's over. Teofimo Lopez is still, Luke, going to have to go on with some form of a Cambosos mandatory to keep his title but he came out an interview to Keith Idec of Boxing Scene this week and said I really want to fight Josh Taylor the undefeated undisputed champion at 140 pounds which Luke I think we all agree would be a fantastic fight but here's the interesting part lopez says why don't we do it at a catch weight maybe 137 maybe 139 since lopez is the unified champion at lightweight at 135 and his want luke is to put all eight world titles on the line in one fight meaning all four

at lightweight and all four at junior welterweight. There's a few problems here, Luke. You said he was inspired by what Leo Santa Cruz and Gervonta Davis did when they brought together their interim WBA secondary titles. The problems are you can't do a fight at a catchweight and have it be for the lightweight titles. You'd have to do a fight at lightweight and have it be for both the 135 and 140 titles. The other problem is because of the WBC's genius franchise champion, at lightweight and have it be for both the 135 and 140 titles. The other problem is because of the WBC's genius franchise champion,

Tao's really no longer considered the WBC champion in most people's eyes because that's the title belt that Devin Haney has. I know that Tao Fimo is the super franchise. Look, it's bullshit. It's all bullshit. Here's the deal, though. I don't think Josh Taylor can make anything below 140. He's a very large junior welterweight, and he's been talking for a while about moving up to 147

and going after Terrence Crawford, who has that very interesting fight coming up in November against Sean Porter. Really what Teofimo should do is get this Cambosos fight out of the way and then officially move up to 140. If Teo's not going to hang around and give Lomachenko the rematch, if he's not going to try to cross the street and make the Devin Haney or the Gervonta Davis or the Ryan Garcia fight happen, even though he told us on this show, Luke, that it's on them, okay.

I think in this landscape, though, both sides have to be willing to make amends, which is why, by the way, we're getting Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder on Saturday, even though they fight for different promoters and different networks. If you're going to, might as well just move up Teo to 140. If you fight Josh Taylor, we're going to give you a lot of credit, and you're going to have a chance in essentially

back-to-back-ish fights to become the undisputed champion in two divisions. That ain't bad. So, enough with this catchweight crap talk. Get through Kimbo. So, forget Triller ever happened. And Luke, your interest level on Lopez Taylor, it's got to be high. It's got to be. It's high.

But I'm with you. You still got to work it. You got a lot of work at 135. Like, I don't. Yeah. I'm not mad at 140. I mean, it's fine. But it just seems premature for me.

That's my only real complaint. But, dude, Triller has fucked this up. I mean, Jesus Christ. I mean, the fact is he should have had this fight already. He should be barreling down on a second fight by now, like well after that one. We should be already back to where we, you know, the Triller thing is done, back with top rank, whatever. They burned 10 million. They burned $10 million. They wasted everyone's time, and that comes on the heels

of trying to put a near 60-year-old Evander Holyfield in a fight. They couldn't even honestly tell the public whether it was an exhibition or professional. Dude, they're a disaster. Just get out. And, Luke, by the way, Dan Raphael, former ESPN boxing writer, has his own paid sub stack, so I didn't get to read the story, but he teased that he's got a letter that Triller is accusing

multiple networks and promoters of conspiring against them to make sure the Lopez fight didn't happen, which is weird, Luke, because top rank thought Triller conspired against them to try to get the fighters to not come to a deal so the purse bid would happen to begin with. It's just a bunch of boxing business bullshit. I know our non-boxing hardcore fans don't care, but hey, good riddance, Triller, where I come from, Luke, okay?

I'm done. That's it. Good. For mine, it's the Jon Jones thing. I don't have a lot to say about it other than I saw it didn't get a lot of attention, and I thought it would be worth just mentioning it here. I'm not a psychologist. I am not an expert on what these things mean, but there was a 911 call released. It was the call from the Las Vegas police. It was the 911 call from the hotel the night of, I should say, the alleged incident between

John Jones and his wife. You should hear this call. You should hear this call. In the call, the person who is relaying the information to the dispatch is saying things like the woman in question, this would be his fiance, refuses to go back upstairs and is visibly bloodied. It just takes the pretension and obviously we don't I don't know what happened in that room. No one does and John is innocent until proven

guilty. I want to be very clear about that but if you have not heard the 911 tape, it's available. MMA Fighting has it on their YouTube channel. You should hear it. You should hear what they have to say because then there's that thing you posted where John, or you shared on Have You Seen This Shit, where John is with his wife, or again, his fiance, excuse me. And they didn't allow, he didn't allow any comments on it.

I don't even think there's any caption to it. And he's in there, you know, obviously engaging what would ordinarily be quite normal marital behavior. And I'm not, I want to be very careful to like, there's a point where we're talking about a serious situation, and then there's a point where we're going to be getting into the nuts and bolts of their marriage or their relationship, the latter of which I have zero interest in. But dude, if you combine the contents of that call

plus the known police report that was out there, then with this behavior on social media, I got to tell you, dude dude i went from being like bothered before before to being legitimately disturbed by the whole thing it is was it the tongue when john stuck out the tongue at the camera like that was just sort of like like fuck y'all and if it's from the standpoint of like stay out of our business you know you don't know the details of our relationship. You're right. We shouldn't be in your business and we shouldn't really know the details. Unfortunately,

the details came out because of the law and a long standing downward slide. So when you're going to end that with like a tongue out at people that almost is just like, I'm the villain, I'm the bad guy. Look, I, you know, like it just that mixed with the workout video immediately after with no explanation at like, beyond like, you know, alcohol's the problem. Okay, well, I'll just eliminate the alcohol. See guys, I could be, you know,

it's just, it was the alcohol. It's a problem, you know? Just, what do we, you got to ask yourself, what do you want at the end of the day? If you're honest, if you're pundits paid to talk, what do you want? Do I want a press conference

where he cops to everything and comes? don't really want anything i don't want that though i'll tell you that luke i don't want that no i'm not dude like this whole redemption story shit you could take that to somebody else unless he actually checks himself into a place and gets real help under real circumstances everything else doesn't matter again what happened in that hotel room i suppose we'll never know I don't know what the answer is, but if it is at least conceivable that he put hands on her, which it is at least conceivable given the circumstances. And then less than a week later, he has a situation where he's kissing her on camera for social media fodder, where he doesn't allow comments. I got to tell you that should send a chill down people's spine put me on record as saying i don't know what it

means but i don't get a good feeling about it at all whatsoever so i fully agree with you luke okay that's it that's all i'm willing to say about it that's it that's all i can say i've said my piece that's all i can say about it until there's any further details okay bc uh let's remind the good folks hey you should give this video a thumbs up. Hey, you should subscribe. Hey, BC, you know what we haven't discussed with Showtime? Are we going back to the studio next week? There was some talk of that.

I'm going to need Matthew Snyder, our loving, trusted producer, who's right now, him and I, our friendship, we're getting along great, business-wise. There's no arguing behind the scenes at all. Luke, I would love to cement this because it's a big week next week, right? It's a big week. We got the Bellator Grand Prix Final Four. It is.

It's a big week. So I'll say this. Thumbs up on the video. Like and subscribe. We have tons of content coming your way. We are going to give you coverage all week of Wilder Fury 3, which, by the way, if you're an MMA fan, this is the boxing fight to watch, right? Like, Canelo's the one to watch.

This is the one to watch. These are the ones that you're going to enjoy no matter what. Amazing boxer versus historic power puncher in a rivalry. What's not to like about it? You should love it. We'll have plenty of coverage for that, but we're not going to lose sight of all the MMA stuff this week as well so pay attention forget uh Saturday thank you thankful I'm thankful for this the UFC fight night main card which of

course a main event of Mackenzie Dern versus Marina Rodriguez which is a very good fight at at uh women's strawweight it'll start at 4 p.m eastern thank you combat sporting gods thank you very much so So good. So good. So with that in mind, of course, if you want to try Showtime, you certainly may. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can pound sand. Shoot us an email for dead wrongs and fan subs. MorningCombat at gmail.com. Please consider giving a follow to me and BC on the old interwebs as well as MK. Again, MK is the same. Morning Combat everywhere. And then we got slightly different names for me and BC do have between Twitter and Instagram. One more reminder.

One more reminder, BC. MK Extra Credit will be out later today. It'll be in the late in the afternoon, whatnot. But for all the little detailed fights that we missed, we didn't get to on the show, I'll give you a quick rundown of that. For the hot course. The hot course mk extra credit and if you want to get excited for wednesday show 11 a.m eastern here back on these youtubes they've said it they want it they're going to get it not only is the wheel of death back for wednesday but your boy BC has cooked up for the second time ever a

celebrity wheel of death. That includes, Luke, some of the best in the world at what they do. You're not going to want to miss this. Thank you. All right. Good. I can't wait. BC, that's it for me. That's it for you. As you've been scratching

your face like someone who's got some kind of psoriasis of the skin. I almost said cirrhosis of the liver. I have psoriasis of the mind, Luke, of the spirit. Yes, yes. I want to thank all the good folks that we have. You can go to morningcombat.store if you want some merch and everything else for Mocha, for Showtime, for CBS Sports. That's Brian Campbell.

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