MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen-Song | Canelo vs. GGG 3 | Top 5 MMA Fights | Ep 348

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

On Episode 348 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian kick off the show by discussing the biggest storylines heading into UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs. Song. Next up the boys discuss the biggest storylines of Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin 3. The guys also break down the news that Anthony Joshua's team has accepted the terms for a potential Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua fight in December. They close out the main topics with some MMA and Boxing Quick hitters before their Top 5 Can't Miss Fighters and fan submissions. (13:30) - UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen-Song (45:30) - Canelo Alvarez vs. GGG 3 (72:30) - Joshua Accepts Fury's Terms (79:00) - MMA Quick Hitters (88:30) - Boxing Quick Hitters (95:30) - Top 5 Favorite MMA Fights Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it's the 14th of September 2022 and it's time for morning combat hi everyone i am merely one half of your hosting duo my name is luke thomas i join you from the capital of estados unidos right here in washington dc joined by my friend and yours he's got shoe polish in his hair no i don't he's got i don't know what's coursing through his tummy right now. Probably things that are beyond reproach. I don't know. One way or the other, he's my friend and yours. It's the King of Connecticut. It's Brian Campbell.

What's up, BC? Luke, I'm not always there when you call, as evidenced by me showing up for this show about 10 seconds before it started. But I am always on time. And why we're late. And why we're late. And look, I just happened to be wearing, remember this? I could sell this one day.

This was a failed merch item attempt, right? Remember this, Luke? Yes, this is pre-RJ. So we got to give credit to rj it's pre-rj who we found by the way our our call out to nature for for a wellness check on rj brought huge dividends which we can get to shortly but luke it's wednesday it's hump day uh you know i'm as good as a guy can be who's an absolute piece of shit coming off a red eye yesterday right i mean you know not that good but i'm here luke i'm ready to bang i went to bed last night at 8 30 8 30 i went to bed and it was more just the red eye was sort of accumulative from several days of not sleeping but i hit my wall yesterday and went from 8 30 to 7 that's pretty good i think yeah meanwhile meanwhile anderson silver's out here dancing and fighting younger guys and you

and i can barely get out of bed in the morning. It's like, what did you do yesterday? I just sat around for a long time in different places, and I'm exhausted from it. But here we are, ready for today's show. A lot to get to. There's UFC this weekend. There's boxing this weekend. Big boxing, as a matter of fact.

Although kind of a lack of buzz, which we'll talk about here in just a minute. So first things first, thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Hit subscribe. If you are new here, one of our new subs that we've gotten in the last month or so, welcome. We do this three times a week live 11 a.m in the East plus a whole lot more beyond that including BC I think tomorrow the Chael Sonnen um interview we sat down red I always said red shoes excuse me room service Diaries room service Dyers of Chael Sonnen's out

tomorrow I believe so we tried to do a red shoe diaries episode after, but I wasn't into it. We got shot down pretty hard on that regard, but yeah, we look, we got great shit out there. Okay. We got interviews with Gennady Golovkin with trainer, Jonathan Banks.

I will be chatting later today with the one and only big red himself, Canelo Alvarez. So youtube.com slash morning combat, always willing to, to stick it where the sun don't shine. Right. And get you fired up for the world of combat sports. So youtube.com slash morning combat always willing to stick it where the sun don't shine right and get you fired up for the world of combat sports. All right. That's right. Maybe get tattooed there as well. One never knows.

All right. So here we are. There's the merch right there. You can go to morning combat dot store. You can't get what BC is wearing, but you can get a whole lot of other stuff. Tell them what they can get BC and also we have a little bit of a surprise for them. Do we not before we throw to this surprise as always folks what they can get, BC. And also, we have a little bit of a surprise for them, do we not? Before we throw to the surprise, as always, folks, you can get the finest merch of any award-winning podcast

at morningcombat.store. Ask for RJ, right? RJ Bumplemaker. But look, he made it big this week. He said bomber jackets are flying off the shelves so fast that we're down to our final load, and there's a handful left. So if you you this fall season want to be out at the old uh soccer pitch or wherever i don't know picking pumpkins whatever

you pick why don't you pick it with some mk we got great shit out there and we also luke tend to have the greatest you know supporters fan subs every wednesday is a big part of this show and i believe we've got a meme that ties into our merch in a very big way here that we're going to throw to where in the world is rj dunzel fucker so this was sent in by the one and only jay paquette aka jp from Mount Uniac, Nova Scotia. And Luke, we had put the call out on a wellness check on good old RJ, dunkle fucker, and JP answered that call. So do you know what RJ did in reciprocation, Luke? How about this for a reach around?

He wants our fans to be so excited about wearing our merch and so excited about what JP's done to our universe right here that if you want 15% off the entire morning combat store right now at morningcombat.store why don't you enter code JP15 for 15% look you don't even know the names of the camera guys in this show I don't expect you to know this Nova Scotian web screen we got growing over here. But shout out to Jay Paquette, just the same. This lasts till Friday. So if you want to get your deal in,

no time like the present, there you go. JP 15, 15% off everything store wide, starting right now. On top of that BC, of course, Showtime is a label that pays. You can go to showtime.com, get a 30 day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce.

As a reminder though, Jake Paul versus Anderson Silva will be on Showtime pay-per-view when that happens October 29th. On top of it, morningcombat at gmail.com. You want to reach the producers for Dead Wrong, for fan subs, or whatever else, they read that. So send them an email, morningcombat at gmail.com. One final time, that code is JP15.

15% off our fine merch. Luke, I am ready to get into gear. I really haven't looked at this rundown much, so me and Mikey are probably going to be feuding later, but I'm ready to deliver, okay? Well, I did because I'm a professional, but I've got to remind everyone, we have another final partner here on the MK Universe

that I want to make sure folks understand, I'm not merely the president of this health club, I'm also a client. AG1, BC, have you had your AG1 today? I did. Actually, I started the day with it, even though it's a show day. I started the day with it because I needed it. I needed to get that funk of flying off of me. And if you feel like we do most days is an absolute POS. How about taking a step to get ahead of that here's something i use every day luke one scoop with a green magic powder every morning it's giving me better gut health energy no more pills and vitamins dude you could take that shelf that you had all your bs like you know fake creatines and all that stuff you think that's keeping you alive all you need is the big green ag one that's it that's all you need by the Big Green AG1. That's it. That's all you need.

By the way, good for, as he indicated, energy, focus, recovery, immune system. And by the way, I've got it in my cup here, but I poured my little travel packet into it. You can travel with it as well, BC. Yeah, I mean, it's one delicious scoop that doesn't taste like medicine. It's got a really nice, soft, subtle citrus tropical taste. I like it a lot. It's got whole-sourced, whole-food, super-sourced...

Maybe I can get that right, Luke. You can just get to the actual green part. It's got high-quality minerals. It's got probiotics. It's got adaptogens. It's got all that good stuff that we really can't define, but you can take it with you. It's lifestyle-friendly on the road or wherever you are, whether you're keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free,

gluten-free, or an Ariel Helwani fan. It still could work for you because it's got one gram of sugar in it, non-GMOs, no nasty chemicals. It's clean like I'm trying to be right now, Luke. Cost you less than $3 a day that you're investing in your health cheaper than you cold brew habit. And again, don't just ask me. 5,000 reviews for Athletic Greens out there.

And you want to talk about leading health experts? I'm talking about Tim Ferriss and Michael Gervais giving a thumbs up to our partners. All right? Right now, time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially hitting into the flu and cold season. Just one scoop and a cup of water every day.

That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. Yeah, it doesn't even cost three bucks a day it's fantastic so here's the deal go to athleticgreens.com slash morning combat right now here's what you're going to get along with your first purchase the five free travel packs that luke sang how about that immune supporting vitamin d a one year supply little droplet just to sprinkle a little bit on the action athleticgreens.com slash morning combat on the action. AthleticGreens.com slash Morning Combat.

Let's consummate. Again, AthleticGreens.com slash Morning Combat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right. With that in mind, BC, let's start with topic number one. It is a busy, I should say, combat sports weekend this Saturday. We'll talk about Canelo versus Triple G, which is by far the biggest overall combat sports event in just a moment. But as is customary on this program, we do start with the

Ultimate Fighting Championship. We are back in Vegas, UFC Fight Night 60, BC, aka UFC Fight Night. Corey Sandhagen taking on Song Yedong. This is an interesting one, BC. And the reason why I say that is if you actually look at this matchup, Song Yong surging Corey Sandhagen surged to the top of the division and then found himself just a little bit wanting now I did think he deserved to beat TJ Dillashaw but it was very very close obviously Sterling had his way with him and so did Jan not quite exactly where he wanted to be he's 30 years old trying to reclaim think, a little bit of what he had achieved with the Ascension. But Song Yedong is absolutely on fire at this point, really coming into his own. How do you assess this matchup? Yeah, it ends up being like the perfect sort of

crossroads fight in what is right now the sports deepest and most exciting division of 135. But I want to, I almost don't want to frame it as that, even though it's true, because like you mentioned with Corey Sanhagen, you couldn't find two bigger fans of his UPL, UBL, Upward Bound Limits, or Luke, of just how many ways the variety of his striking and really how much he's an IQ fighter who thinks his way, and it just so happened that he's riding a two-fight losing streak against the very elite. And, Luke, every era of great fighters in any division certainly needs the faces, right, like the four kings we had in boxing in 160 pounds back in the day,

but you also need those really tough guys that give those guys great fights. We saw Dan Hooker live that reputation in the lightweight division the last few years, even though he really proved in a lot of his step-ups just how close he is to that level. I think Sanhagen's already there or even further. The luck hasn't gone his way. With a two-fight losing streak and with matching up against somebody who's rising so quickly in Song Yedong, inevitably that crossroads moniker will be there, and that's what this fight is. But this is also Corey Sanhagen's chance to kick the door back down and remind you that his name deserves to be in this mention of the best fighters in this division,

which is so outrageously deep from young guys, new guys, old guys, all that and in between. A lot of pressure on Sanhagen's shoulders for sure. But on the flip side, Luke, if Song Yedong can extend his win streak and beat a guy like this, we're talking now, not later, as a legitimate contender in this division. And for a guy so young,

long had Mr. Faber in his corner hyping him up, this fight's got some legitimate stakes. It may come in the hangover aftermath of a much-hyped pay-per-view, but you know you and I will be dialed in Saturday night and ready for this one. This is an interesting one. Corey Sanhagen sitting at fourth in the

rankings. Song Yudong sitting at ten. Fairly big split between them. With this, Song Yudong almost certainly, it's hard to say if he enters the top five because Aldo is currently sitting at six. Although if Sanhagen gets bumped out, that moves him up

a little bit, but he could probably find himself in the five to six mark depending on how things go marlin vera would find himself just behind marab the the wallace wheelie like a loss for sandhagen here bc isn't just devastating for i think his future although not permanent he's still 30 years old but it would kind of rearrange the top of that bantamweight ladder just a little bit by pushing some other guys close i mean i guess it would set up a marlon vera versus marab fight wouldn't it because if you look at the thing you got peter yan or peter yan taking on sean o'malley ufc 280 then you got dillashaw who's fighting sterling so that's the top three guys at bantamweight sterling yan and dillashaw after that it's dewallish wheelie and then and then Sandhagen so if Sandhagen gets

bumped out behind him is Marlon Vera it ends up kind of feeding into a potential number one contenders bout situation uh depending on how it goes that a fair read of the evidence you think yeah that's a fair read I and as much as you know it's such a big launching pad potential for Song Yedong and all the ways you've been saying. Luke, on the flip side, Sanhagen stops the losing streak and reminds us who he is against a guy this, you know, prized in terms of his future. We got to crash him right back into that title picture. I mean, wouldn't you like to see him fight Jose Aldo? I know he's coming off a loss here, Luke, but I mean, there's some royalty in the midst of this top 10.

Yeah, where big, big fights available to both. Dude, I mean, consider who he's around. Here's all the different fights you could make. You could make Sandhagen versus Marab. You could make Sandhagen versus Chito Vera, which by the way, sounds like heaven. And you could do Sandhagen versus Aldo. Any of those in that space all work

i love this fight i love this fight a lot in that regard luke um for the uninitiated what has been you think the difference in yadong the last three fights he always showed flash i mean didn't he have that very close disputed loss in his initial rise like he's had you know a couple step backs in that regard what have you seen specifically that has fueled i mean he's only 24 from china yet i feel like i've known about him for a while i think the fight i'm mentioning is his close decision loss to marlon vera in 2020 in which you really could have argued in his direction he also has the draw to cody stamen and then his first uh defeat in the ufc to kyler phillips but what do you think has has helped him turn the corner on this recent rise i'd have to go back and look at the Kyler Phillips win. I don't exactly recall what

the, and I cannot recall that fight from memory, but certainly in the last couple, and I think overall what you could say about him was, first of all, he's got big power. That's a big component. Like when he lands, he lands with authority. He's quick. He's super athletic, but really BC, it's not all that complicated. He has just developed the kind of striking where he's able to set traps, where he's able to initiate these traps. He doesn't just wait for something to happen, and then he's got a good kind of response or a good kind of combo that he goes to. The difference between the guys who are good and very good

is the ones who can create their own luck, the kinds who can assess the situation, make reads to stay out of it and then begin over time to lay traps for these people to walk into and he has been able to do that it's a next level of sophistication of striking as you pointed out he's not very old i don't know if he's yeah 24 years old he'll be 25 in december i mean he's got a long way to go before he's even really reached his prime, but the level at which he's been able to show thoughtfulness about his offense, intentionality about his offense. It's not just, I'm going to go in there and see what happens. Yes, you have to feel things out, but it's about what are the traps that I'm going to set?

Why would these traps work with this particular style, this particular approach, the length of this opponent, the stance of this opponent? He can just make these sort of diagnostic reads and then put together the kind of offense that works behind it and then you add in the athleticism you add in the fact that he can scramble really well you add in the fact he's got big power the results for the most part speak for themselves yeah he's skilled he he seems to be sort of a next level maturity to him that i've liked the last few fights i mean look he got marlon morice out of there in just over two minutes, which recent history has shown you that's what you're supposed to do.

But boy, did he look impressive in doing so. Do you echo what I say that you could go back two years and give him the edge against Vera in hindsight? It was that close? I mean, he did beat Vera. You mean like, do I agree? You're saying I have that flipped. You're saying that he beat Vera,

but the argument is that Vera could have or should have gotten the edge there. Do I have that backwards? The argument, and the thing is, like, for Vera against these top five guys, I think this is really true. He's much better off not taking a three-round fight. He's much better off taking a five-round fight because he takes over

much later in fighters wouldn't exactly call him a slow starter but he's just much more of a dynamic threat in rounds late rounds three four and five and so this one was a three-round contest remember that one was at featherweight this was the card the overeem harris card in jacksonville florida right in the middle of the pandemic i think that was in when was that may of 2020 yeah like we were barely you know along in that process. And so, you know, who knows what kind of factors played into that as a consequence. But for Vera, you know, would you like his chances in a rematch

in a five-round fight? I probably would. I don't know, I can't speak for you, but I probably would. Yeah, I mean, but it just goes to show the experience Yedong in a short window has been able to have, had that split decision win over Casey Kenney, starting to put the names together. I mentioned Marais.

Luke, on the flip side, back to one Corey Sanhagen. I mean, how much would you or should you change as a direct result of, you know, some very elite losses? I mean, he came back nicely, right, from that Sterling, the speed of that Sterling defeat, which was certainly shocking. Had the two-fight win streak, looked to be the same dude all over again.

Two decision losses against the very best in Jan and Dillashaw. There's really not much you can say negative about his performances, but what would you like to see changed from that? A couple of things that I've really noticed. One is that he put Edgar's lights out with that one single strike right but Edgar was kind of walking into him it was he was jumping into it like he was able to amass a lot of power in general I don't think it's fair to say that uh Edgar has excuse me that Sanhagen has poor power but you know in terms of just the amount

of strikes he has to put on guys he doesn't have a hugely high KO ratio by virtue of that at least not against the upper limits of this division so that's the first thing i'd say is that like there needs to be he has all the ability in the world but the two major problems are one his willingness to give up bad positions and grappling and then just stay there thinking that this is going to be like the judges are going to see things in his favor i think there's not enough urgency to either attack from the bottom or get up off the bottom or break the hands and then break contact and then reestablish the fight.

That's the first problem I think he's had. The second problem is that he's a little too willing to take damage. In fact, we'll go through this on Friday, but I'll put this one little piece of stat in here. He does have a positive striking differential BC like when he's dealing it's out there but he absorbs four and a half strikes per minute it's just high it's really high it's gonna be high to fight guys who have big power who have you know and again as you get up the ladder guys who can land with a lot of authority because they can thread that needle and they can find that window to me he's got this offense that's just cooking he's switching stances he's throwing this he's spinning that direction

and when he's on he's on he can do so much getting up off the bottom breaking contact re-establishing the fight priority number one priority number two being a little bit more edited and selective with what he's throwing so that he's not getting countered as often as he is i think it's a big feature that's a good tease for friday's breakdown where i'm gonna have a lot of questions about about uh let me ask you about sandhagen based on what you've seen at his best dude he's looked amazing are you at 30 years old so i know song yodong is much much younger but 30 is not old so he should be beginning to turn some corners if he's going to. Do you still believe in the idea of Corey Sanhagen as a potential title contender? I do. I do. It's not too late yet, even though back-to-back losses in,

I want to say, closest. Obviously, the Dillashaw one was a split decision, and there was a large population that thought he had done enough based on their interpretation of the scoring rules, which subsequently, Luke, I think we've debated, read the actual literature, and then threw our hands up in the air and said, look, it is the eye of the beholder. It's not damage, it's impact, however you want to gauge that.

The Jan fight was different. It was more of an action fight, and I think even though he was competitive and stubborn in that, you know, was he really in that? Was there points where I thought he could overtake it and win that fight no so something needs to change but i don't think we're at panic mode yet or the mode where we where we sort of brand him as being you know a tough out for the very best but right but three times now against the very best we've seen him come come up empty but we have in the in the in between as you as we mentioned with those two fights the edgar and the morice did see him bounce back um everything you

said about not taking as much damage certainly has to be a big part of it the ground situations definitely as well i don't know luke sometimes it comes down to like he can do so many things well it can be so smart and creative in the traps that he sets that is he being overly too cute at times. I'd like to see a workman-like performance here and a focus on what he does great and build that lead

and try to control this fight without having to make some... You lose this fight, Luke, it's going to be a different conversation in terms of what the tail end of his future could be like. Do go to another weight class you know do you alterly dramatically change your game we're not there yet but what makes the stakes of this fight so important is he's going to have to step up and perform because he has a very well-rounded and young and hungry fighter coming after him who's got a great corner and you know has shown us that

for all the talk we say luke about chinese Chinese MMA and Zhang Weili and the leech, dude, Song Yidong's coming the hell on. So the challenges only get harder in this division if they weren't hard enough for Sanhagen. So, you know, I'd like for his arc to see him to get a win here, Luke. It would be necessary, but I'm not panicking yet. I still got a lot of love and respect for what he can bring. One thing to keep in mind, part of the reason why he accepts so much damage

is he's got a really good chin, at least for now, right? I mean, obviously none of those hold up over time, but Corey Sanhagen can take a shot and certainly Song Yudong can deliver, but this will be an interesting one because five round contest, Sanhagen,

if he's going to, this is what I love about this fight, if he's going to get right, this is a great test for him to show what he needs to do to get right. And I think he has enough ability to either freeze at times, Yedong, or stick and move. But he's got to stick to something as a consequence. He has to be disciplined about the game plan in ways that i think in other fights that he's lost against the high level guys um he hasn't necessarily shown by the way like he's got these losses up here but if you look at the losses of sandhagen so his losses in the ufc

aljermaine sterling dillashaw and yan all guys who have held the belt all guys who have held the belt in the case of yadong who obviously is up and coming and you know has been a different place not that these mean the same things he's only got the one loss to Kyler Phillips and then the draw to Cody Stammen but like the thing I'm pointing out here is Sanhagen has already touched the top of division and found himself a little bit lacking and needing to make improvements to to reclaim that space you know if Yadong had been thrust up to the top of that division in the same way I think he'd have a you know similar potentially worse record so all I'm trying to point out here is Sandhagen is coming off of a bunch of losses but he's fighting the very most elite guys in the division which is why he has

them it's not like he's lost to rank and file in that division so keep something to keep in mind as well do you think he could have success in other divisions if it ever became a point where he would need to Luke he does have an interesting body where you could imagine adding adding certain you know muscle to that long frame i tend to think he's probably going to be his best at the weight class he's in yeah to me it's not a function of size that would fix anything it's a function of fight style um and his fight style is good i want to be clear i have a high opinion. I asked you, do you think he can still be a title contender? You said yes. I think so, too.

I think so, too. I perfectly agree that he can. He's got so much ability, but some of the other pieces kind of need to be there to get him to really get over that hump. BC, also on this card, the card itself, it's something, what would you call it? A hardcore fan's delight?

It doesn't have a ton of big names on it your co-main is Chidi Njikawane who has been on fire since he came through the contender series taking on Gregory Rodriguez this is a middleweight fight you gotta love this contest Gregory Rodriguez 30 years old uh has one has the loss to Armand Petrosian which was split came back and then demolished Julian Marquez uh Njikawani, man, I remember covering his career a long time ago, back when he was an RFA. Had a stint in Bellator that didn't go all that great, losing to Koreshkov, losing to John Salter,

getting submitted, by the way, by John Salter, getting finished off by Koreshkov, losing to Carvalho. But then he had the one rebound fight in LFA and then has looked awesome in UFC. Three fights, if you want to count contender series, three finishes, all by virtue of KO or TKO. and then has looked awesome in UFC. Three fights, if you want to count contender series, three finishes, all by virtue of KO or TKO. BC, what do you think about this one?

Do you like this? How do you assess this contest? Yeah, I like this a lot. You know, it's always the best story when somebody has had bouts of, you know, of losing on their journey of growth and have bounced around as Chidi has, as you just mentioned, that long history. But you look at those last four fights in particular that you mentioned, 4-0 with four stoppages, including two in the octagon.

I mean, he's making moves to get the co-main event slot here at middleweight, shows the potential for the 33-year-old to make it happen right now. Luke, he bangs, and that's the calling card on that. But you're going to need a lot more than that at this level. And I think the last few fights, we're seeing that maturity. We're seeing him add more. I want to see now.

I don't know a ton about Gregory Rodriguez. And I'd like for you to illustrate that, Luke, the 30-year-old from Brazil, and show me how good of a challenge this is. But I've enjoyed the Chidi journey up to this point since the, since the rebranding. This guy is, they call him RoboCop.

You have seen him. He's bald. He has a background in competitive jujitsu, a pretty high level one at that, or at least he's got a very good one. He's got a very good, like you would actually think that you would think that he would have a jujitsu game first,

but he actually has a bit of a striking game. He's got sort of a simplistic striking game, but I don't say that in an insulting way. He's got, like, remember, if you look at the game of Robert Whitaker, it's not simplistic, but he doesn't have a ton of weapons. Rodriguez is kind of like that. He's got a little bit more of a boxing game than a kickboxing game, although he has a little bit of both, but I would say a little bit more of that.

Black belt in jiu-jitsu, I think he has a black belt under Jacare on top of it. And he's got heavy hands. He's absolutely willing to get right in your face. He looks a little bit older than he is. You would think he might be like 37, 38 based on the weatheredness of his look. But he is a dynamic force. He's got a good clamp. Yeah, he knocked out Julian Marquez in the first round last fight.

I remember this guy completely. Okay, Luke. My casualness caught up with me. I'm back. I'm back in gear. All right. Yeah, Luke. My casualness caught up with me. I'm back. I'm back in gear. All right. Yeah, I'm glad you did a lot of prep for today's show. That's why the folks tune in is for the next level insight that you provide.

I wrote this massive feature on Triple G. Luke, don't read it, though. Please don't read it. Well, then we look forward to your Triple G breakdown. Also on this card, BC, I have to tell you, gentlemen, I'm enjoying more and more. Bill Algeo, Señor Perfecto, is taking on Andre Feely, the actor slash fighter, who's been in a rough run, BC. He had two wins in a row over Miles Jury and Shaman Maraich back in 2019. But since 2020, he fought Sadiq Youssef, who, by the way, is tough as shit.

So that's a loss or whatever. Comes back and rebounds against Charles Jourdan, but it was a split. Then loses to Bryce Mitchell, who got basically out-wrestled the whole time, although he was able to stand a little bit, had the no contest against Daniel Pineda, and then loses via TKO in 41 seconds against Joe Anderson Brito. This, of course, was back in April of 2020 at the Font vs. Veracard.

Bit of a rough stretch for Feely. Very rough stretch for Feely. Very rough stretch, and I think both of those wins in particular, you mentioned the knockout of Shaman Rice in 2019, and then that split decision win in a brawl against Air Jordan in 2020, look, it tricked me to the idea that he had turned that corner. He's always been an exciting guy who could package wins and losses together. You know, two wins and then a loss, two wins,

and then a loss had been a run for him. But, you know, you always hear Coach Mr. Faber, excuse me, talking about the upper bound limits. We loved him in Faber's weed thriller in terms of his acting. But that's, you know, and he's got a weird tattoo of Uriah on his leg. None of that stuff matters in terms of his growth as a fighter. Luke, I've been tricked twice in the last three years, but he's's 32 now it's not that he can't win any fight at any time but he can't get consistent and that has always been the problem here um this is not an easy matchup for him this

is going to be a referendum type matchup i could see him winning it and us getting tricked again but is he that type of guy luke who's never really gonna find it he seems like me and my commitment to exercise over the past decade here's the thing he's 32 he'll be 33 not till June so he just turned 32 or you know relatively recently turned 32 this is the thing for me so he's not too old and I do think highly of him as a fighter but two things I point out one he lost to Sadiq Yusuf and he lost to bryce mitchell that means he got outstruck and it means he got out grappled okay by guys who are sort of higher in that division at this point that's the first problem the second problem is so like in

other words it's not like he's like getting beat because he's got one sort of you know aspect of his game that hasn't come along far enough it's that no matter which way he goes there appear to be guys at featherweight who can really handle him. That's the first problem. The second problem is he's been in UFC. He made his debut in UFC in 2013 BC. He's been here for almost 10 years. Now,

granted he got here when he was about, about 23 or so. So he was very young when he got here. But I think if you're going to see the development at 32 years old, now you got to do it right now now is the time there's really not a lot if he doesn't turn a corner fairly quickly then I don't know if there's a corner to be turned to really go to the next level of his career is it more dramatic than that than we realize when you do consider the last five he's oh and three with a

I'm sorry last four he's I'm so what one and three with a no contest in his last five. I can't speak English today. So one, three, and one, basically. You extend that with another loss? I mean, you're talking job security issues at that point. It's tough for a guy that's flashy, can be fun, and when he is having success with aggressive striking, I thought I saw the rise of patience, of more technique, of more planning,

and some of that has gone out the window. A great opportunity for Bill Algeo, Luke, to raise his stock against a name we respect. But, yeah, it is referendum time. It is now or never for Touchy Feely. By the way, they both have a common opponent, Joe Anderson-Brito, who Bill Algeo beat. Bill Algeo, of course, lastly, you'll remember him from the ortega rodriguez card in long island beating herbert

burns herbert burns tried every submission he could along the way and couldn't get it done bill algeo very very talented fighter i think he's out of extreme couture i think um i met him when i went to go interview eric nixick at the at. Yeah, I heard that was great. I heard that went great. Well, I mean, someone was like, hey, fuck off, Luke. I don't want to ever spend time with you unless I have to. I was like, okay, I mean, I can make that happen if you want. I mean, that's not my call. For work, it's different, Luke.

For work, I'm a shower-upper and a deliverer. Luke, I did want to mention the odds on both the main and co-main, which are very close at this moment. In that main event, according to Caesar Sportsbook, minus 200 Corey Sanhagen, plus 170 for Song Yedong and in this co-main event,

I'm sorry, in this fight in particular, the third fight down on the card, minus 120 for Touchy Feely, plus 100 for Bill Algeo. The odds makers given respect to andre feely luke but there's gonna be a tough fight uh yeah it is gonna be a tough fight i actually you know i would expect that algeo would win based on current form but it's i think it's fairly close-ish um in that regard so that's a fun fight also as well bc there's a couple other sort of interesting ones the guy who i think it was week one or week two from the contender series one of the guys who

trains with sean brady uh joseph peiffer is on this car taking on alan amadovsky the card will open with the canadian lumberjack himself tanner bosser taking on rodrigo nasiamento also bc on the card yeah there's a lot of undercard magic luke there's a lot of reasons to tune in early yes damon jackson taking on pat sabatini pat sabatini might be one on the card. Yeah, there's a lot of undercard magic, Luke. There's a lot of reasons to tune in early, right? Yes, Damon Jackson taking on Pat Sabatini. Pat Sabatini might be one of the most underrated up-and-comers in all of the UFC. Aspen Ladd taking on Sarah McMahon at Bantamweight. Why don't you pause right there?

Okay? You ready? Why don't you pause right there? Luke, this is the second most interesting fight on the card. Aspen Ladd, Sarah McMahon, women's bantamweight. How many more chances does Aspen Ladd, Sarah McMahon, women's band Why? How many more chances does Aspen Ladd get to be well certainly the next big thing potentially

at Bantamweight but you know you put that with an asterisk because it's not going to take much in three of the four women's divisions in the UFC with you know Straw White being the only consistently deep one to become a title contender to make noise we have watched Aspen Ladd go through this before.

Oh, this is going to be the fight where we're not going to have weight issues and we're not going to experiment at featherweight. Oh, we're back at bandweight. Look, she just had that big close-up against Raquel Pennington and came away with another decision loss in which you exit that going, something's wrong here. Is it the trainer-fighter connection? I know that's further amplified by her and jim west having that relationship but you know the talent that

we've seen in her better moments which certainly you have to look back at her last win the 2019 stoppage of yana kunitskaya in which she went back to the corner after the second round got an earful and came out in 33 seconds and finished a very tough fighter and a former title challenger. That has been, though, the only bright spot in four fights. Okay, she loses to GDR in 16 seconds, questionable stoppage, whatever. But most recently, the loss by decision at featherweight to Norma Dumont and then this one to Raquel. You're not seeing those flashes of brilliance translate into consistency in the cage. I hear a lot of yelling out of Aspen Ladd when she sets up her strikes, those flashes of brilliance translate into consistency in the cage.

I hear a lot of yelling out of Aspen Ladd when she sets up her strikes, but she consistently comes up short, starting from too far out, and a lot of wasted movement and noise for somebody who's having a hard time channeling that version of her and maybe her greatest round there, as I mentioned, against Kunitskaya. She loses here. I mean, let's be honest about where she is coming in. In a division with very little depth, and I get that one of these fights was at 145, she's one and three in her last four.

If she had beaten Pennington, she's probably getting a title shot because that's just where we're at at Bantamweight. Sarah McMahon is, you know, over 40, but still as tough as nails, always going to be a tough out in the specific areas on the ground in which she shines. But, Luke, we're talking about put up or shut up for Touchy Feely, potentially, for Corey Sanhagen in terms of his title implications, maybe put up or shut up.

Dude, for Espen Ladd's future, it's now or never. And, Luke, you know you've seen her. She's aggressive. She can take you down. Her ground and pound when motivated is fantastic but there is a disconnect in the wiring between the talent and potential and the execution in the cage you know you don't want to just automatically point at the trainer and blow that thing up because of how some people don't like their relationship i don't care about that side of it luke i care about is she getting maximized as a fighter she's not so i won't call this the bc super sloppy wednesday special but am i wrong there's a lot of future

implications that's going to come out of this fight that are going to either be very good or very bad for aspen ladd i think you nailed it i don't have much to add but i would say even in that win she has over kunitskaya that was the one in dc was that not the one correct me if i'm wrong and i could be wrong about this was that not the one where her coaches had to kind of will her? And she had that late search. That's how I described it as a minute ago. Look, oh,

sorry. I missed that part of it, but I think that, I mean, even the one win, there was like, the fight was slipping away is sort of the point. Yeah.

To go over here. And then she, she captured it again. You're right. All of her fights through the Eubanks fight. I was like, dude, she's on fire.

Remember when she beats the Uubanks, that was fight of the night at that time and she was undefeated all the way through eight fights. And then here we are now. She went from 8-0 to now 9-3. Not a great run, as you indicated. By the way, McMahon, the interesting part is she's

insanely well-muscled. She has an enormously decorated background in wrestling but the truth about that is like she's been on the decline she's a lot older how old is Sarah McMahon she currently sits at I'll tell you right now dude she's 41 she's 41 years old she is not young so for Aspen Ladd you know you're not getting prime Sarah McMahon you're getting a very tough version of her but not the very best version of her. If you're going to get a win over her,

and this is a perfectly good time. By the way, Sarah McMahon is coming off of a win, I believe. Yes, she is, over Carol Rosa. And she looked very good in it. And I was always critical. Like, look, I never gave Juliana Pena a lot of credit for kind of barely beating McMahon in the fight before her title opportunity.

I didn't think that was the right setup. McMahon's won me over in her comeback fight, but isn't style-wise this the exact matchup in which Aspen Ladd's going to have to show us that she can be a beast on the feet? That's right. You got to have something for her a little bit extra. And, you know, the thing about, I was going to say about McMahon's is she's been up and down. She won against Rosa. She lost against Peña. She won against Landsberg. She had two in a row against Vieira and Renault that she lost. So it's not like she's been on a consistent hot streak either, but with that wrestling, with that athleticism and, you know, she's going to stick to a game plan. If nothing else, you need to have another gear ready to beat someone like that. They're beat a bull, but only if what you have, everything is lined up. You're

ready to go. You've got a good game plan, you are who you say you are, right? That's a winnable scenario for Aspen Lab. But if that's not in play, then there's nothing. By the way, BC, also on this card, maybe this will get you a super sloppy special award, I don't know, Maria Agapova taking on Jillian Robertson at Flyway. You like that one? I like that one a lot because technically agapovas lost two or three

i mean you know got subbed by marina maroche in a close competitive fight and then of course had the largest upset betting wise in ufc history when uh was it shana dobson she did that against liquid she was just so here's the deal i actually liked a lot of what i saw out of agapova before the loss to morose um i like to look look she's got some physical advantages the length the quickness of liked a lot of what I saw out of Agapova before the loss to Moroz. I liked... Look, she's got some physical advantages. The length, the quickness of that left cross. I mean, you know, there was sort of like early Ioana comparisons in her striking in terms

of the intention, the intensity, the fast rhythm of the combinations. I don't think all the air was let out of the balloon in the devastating loss to Dobson. I thought she rebounded well since then. But, you know, you lose here, you suddenly lost three or four. So this is a really good opportunity against a veteran and Jillian Robinson

for a Gopova to show us again, that next level thing that got us excited when she made the graduation from the contender series to, to the UFC during the pandemic, when, you know, the door was open for guys to make a big name or women to make a big opportunity out of it. I still believe, Luke, do you still believe in the upper-bottom limits of Maria Agapova? No. I've not seen anything that would lead me to indicate that she would be able to make

a run through that division. She's got an interesting style style and she can beat certain fighters in that division and i think probably have a respectable career but have i seen anything that leads me to believe that she can contend for the very best of what that division has to offer no not not i'm not okay all right hey luke luma luke boon me is back at women's strawweight against denise gomes and you know i just love her fun kickboxing style i know it doesn't move you that much but that's one of those fighters luma luke boomy is on the card i'm getting fired up luke i'm

i'm gonna set my alarm for 6 p.m she's with the uh she's with the hickman brothers out of bang tao i could be wrong about that but i believe that's right out in thailand um she's talented i think she has had ran into a few rough patches but i'm telling you the fighter to watch on that entire prelim card is pat sabatini that's the guy pat sabatini is a fucking hammer 31 years old he's got one loss from 2020 when he wasn't even ufc he's had four ufc fights he's won them all let's see he beat tristan connelly he beat jamal emmers he beat tucker lutz who is from this area who i like a lot and then he beat tj laramie like the dude is an absolute handful. So be on the lookout for that one.

All right, BC. That takes us now to topic number two, which is the biggest combat sports event of the weekend by a mile. Although I got to say, we were talking about this pre-show with the staff. The buzz on this has not been what I had expected it. But Canelo Alvarez will fight Gennady Golovkin for the third time. I believe this will be a super middleweight contest, at 168 pounds if memory serves for the MMA fans who are watching set this up a little bit they're fighting for the third time what do we need to know about the first

two what do we need to know about this matchup look short of Pacquiao Marquez this right here Golovkin against Canelo is the rivalry of this boxing era, right? It has been fantastic. They delivered in 2017 and 2018 two highly successful pay-per-view bouts that delivered in that mixture of having a classic title fight of technique and adaptability mixed with action, aggression, and great power punching. We know about the largely disputed nature. In 2017, they fought.

We all thought Triple G had done either just enough or, you know, ringside. I think I scored that 117-111, so I thought he did more than just enough. He comes away with a very disputed draw. We know about 118-110 for Adelaide Bird. The rematch the next year was delayed by Canelo Alvarez failing a steroid test for Clenbuterol, Triple G accusing him of having needle insertion marks all over his body in the first fight. I mean, it got soap opera-ish.

And look, that second fight was even better. One of the greatest fights I've ever been ringside for, I think, in this modern era, again, of a pay-per-view that delivers. I thought Triple G won seven rounds to five. I think this time people were split. You saw a lot of people, ringside media, scoring it for Canelo seven rounds to five. The difference in that rematch in 2018 was for the first time Canelo stopped committing to just being the boxer and he started to try to walk Triple G down. And what we got was incredible two-way action between two big punchers with historically great chins. But the theme heading into this third fight is like, what the hell has happened in the four years since? Well, what happened immediately after was HBO got out of boxing.

DAZN threw a shit ton of money at both Canelo and Golovkin to essentially set up this third fight to hang their hat on, to prove their business, right? Along with Anthony Joshua, who's been there since the beginning. It never happened. Canelo wasn't that interested, blah, blah, blah. Also, obviously Alvarez has moved up subsequently to 168 and 175 on basically a full-time basis. This will be the first fight of the trilogy at 168. All four of Canelo's belts are still on the line. And even though Golovkin is 40 years old, which has dramatically shifted the betting odds

with Golovkin being basically like a 4-1 underdog in this because of how great Canelo has rose in the four years since their second fight, became the pound-for-pound king, won titles in two more divisions, right? Became the undisputed champion. There is a feeling this time like it's partially a bit of a cash-in, partially a bit of like, well, finally DAZN got their shit together and got these two to finally make the fight. But Luke, you and I have talked about it in the last six months when this topic is brought up. Me, and I think a lot of the hardcore boxing audience, has actually turned back around.

Now, in reality, look, Triple G hasn't lost since that second Canelo fight, and again, that's a very disputed loss. Does he look his age now more than ever? Yes. He's slowed down. He takes more damage than ever, but he just knocked out Ryota Murata in Japan to unify middleweight titles. He's still doing big things.

There's not a lot of big buzz because neither guy is playing into the true nature of the fact that they don't like each other. In fact, Luke, they're going over the top to try to act like it's not a big deal. This fight is a major big deal for both of them in terms of they're each other's biggest rival. And for Golovkin, similar to Marquez against Pacquiao, there's this feeling like he's been screwed no matter what he does each step of the way, but now he gets this one gravy chance for revenge and redemption.

Luke, I think by the time they get in the ring on Saturday, the buzz will be back, the interest will be there, and whether it is Canelo knocking him out, like some people think, or whether we get a third straight competitive, you know, up in the air, flip a coin on on who won it's going to be a great fight there's no way it can't be they've slowed down just a bit Canelo has a much different fighter style wise and physically since that second fight I get it why you know and I think Luke to be honest Canelo losing to

Dimitri Bivol in May at 175, but against a fighter with a style that's very similar to what Golovkin does. I think it's kind of brought us back in. Now, if Canelo wasn't coming off a loss, would this fight be bigger? Maybe. Maybe that's part of the reason. But separate from the promotion's ability to yank in the casual fans, you cannot be anything, I think, but fired up about this. Could you have fear that it's too little too late for Triple G?

That he's just going to be set up to get stopped to the body here? Maybe. But look, neither one of these guys have been down as a pro. And you saw that second fight. They landed bombs on each other, and they just kept coming. It's one of the most incredible, manliest, high-technique, but action fights we've seen. It's hard not to drink the juice all over again

and get fired up for what this fight means, what it can deliver entertaining-wise, and also, Luke, legacy-wise. Dude, for both of these guys, this is a big deal. It really is. I'm fired up. Please don't misunderstand me, but I'm just trying to understand why there isn't a wider amount of buzz for it.

I think the fact that Canelo's coming off the loss is part of it. Also, Triple G's last fight, I'm not sure how many people saw it because it was in Japan, so keep that in mind. The other thing I would say, though, is is there anything to be said about Matchroom and their understanding of how to promote

in the American market? Is there anything to that? That's a fair point. I thought they've done good to very good at times with Anthony Joshua, particularly his U.S. debut, which was supposed to be that big deal, and then Andy Ruiz was the last-minute

replacement at MSG, and we saw what happened. But no, Luke, to be honest, I don't really think they've done over, above, and beyond with their more U.S.-based big-name fighters. Canelo obviously being top of that list because he fights basically exclusively in the U.S. No, I don't feel like they've done a great job.

And maybe they've been up against it for those reasons we mentioned, but I feel like everyone's just sort of going, this fight's this weekend? You kidding me? That's not a great thing, Luke. Will all the sales come in as we get closer because it's guaranteed to be a compelling fight? It might be, but no, I don't think

if you're going to point that finger directly, it's been I mean, look, Canelo loves being with Eddie Hearn. He purposely came back to him after the one-off on Showtime for the Caleb Plant fight, but I don't feel like this has kicked the doors in to get people excited in a way that maybe it deserves, even just on

legacy alone like even if you doubt that triple g can be that same guy this is still as big of a fight as you can make in the sport it really is all right so walk me through a world where triple g wins how does that shake up the boxing world you know for him it would be righting the wrong of not only his only defeat but the only person i mean look he's had close had close fights. I thought Danny Jacobs fought him to a draw. Even that win after the Canelo fights there against Sergey Derevyanchenko, you could argue... That was crazy close.

You could argue the other way, but look, Triple G's true Hall of Fame legacy is already established. Why? He had a 23-fight knockout streak in his prime. He broke the middleweight record that Bernard Hopkins had and seemed unbeatable, you know, of 20 middleweight title defenses. Just earlier this year, he unified middleweight titles. I mean, he's still going, but he is 40 now. This is about that other side of his legacy,

repairing the one loss, but the layers that come on top of that, the disputed judges' decisions, the steroids, the fact that he feels like the fresher-faced money fighter got the benefit of the doubt every time, more often than not, more than he should have. Dude, if Golovkin at 40 can beat the guy that

still gets my vote as pound-for-pound best in the game, even with that B-ball loss, I'm one of the only voters left keeping him there, and I think I'm right, by the way, at the end of the day. This would mean so much more than it would have meant in 2017 when Canelo was the smaller guy moving up in weight, and we had

doubts. Let's not forget, he made Triple G weight two years before the first fight, for really no reason, and they let him get old. But now, it's like things are flipped. Now Canelo's considered the bigger man. He fought at 68 and 75 and was walking dudes down and knocking them out.

He's no longer the boxer from the first Golovkin fight. It was really the second Golovkin fight that created the shift change of his style, where he started coming forward. It's been a big part of why he's so stinking dangerous, and I think he's the best fighter in the world. But for Golovkin, Luke, it would be

the ultimate sort of F.U. back at parts of the boxing business that people hate. And I think that's why Triple G, who's always been a fan favorite guy, he's got corny catchphrases, right? He knocks people out. I think people, fans, the hardcore fans have been behind this forever saying, I don't care if they're 50 when they

finally make it, Triple G deserves the chance to right the wrong. And Luke, I'm going to be fair. Was that first fight a robbery? Yes, including that I scored it, you know, nine rounds to three at ringside and subsequently seven to five. I thought it was a little closer than I realized. But here's the point.

It was closer than a lot of people realize. It's just that 118-110 for Adelaide Bird just made it a mockery. The reality is that, like, these guys are as close as you can get. At least they were in that window of 2017 and 2018. It's not as much of a robbery in that regard, but it's still going to mean something to Golovkin, who is a fighter's fighter. He's old school.

People love this guy. Now he's got a chance to go beat the machine and beat the guy. I mean, it's perfect setup for him to put a ginormous capstone on top of his already Hall of Fame legacy. All right, let's reverse the roles here. Now, as you indicated, Canelo is expected to win, and I do expect him to win. Walk me through a scenario where he wins and whatever,

but also walk me through a scenario where he stops Triple G. What is the narrative then? I think the narrative that not many people are talking about enough here, and I hope to ask Canelo about it later today when I interview him, is really what is the emotional reason to take this fight right now? I do feel like he's taking it because, not necessarily because he has to. Canelo is at a different point of leverage than any other fighter in the game to be fair right when you're pound for pound king and the the biggest star membership has its benefits but Luke Dazon's been on him for a

while he knows the fans really want this he's also not dumb he realizes by taking this fight it's going to be the biggest fight he's had in years I mean it is it really is because that's what this matchup means. So I think as you're looking at this from a betting standpoint and from a what-does-Triple-G-have-left standpoint, I think we also have to ask ourselves, what is the motivation for Canelo to find that next level? Luke, I saw their face-off yesterday, Monday, in Las Vegas, during the pay-per-view arrivals week.

It got me fired up, dude. It got me fired up, dude. It got me fired up, the intensity between them. Can Canelo still dial back into that? I think certainly. But on the surface, there's not a ton to gain with a second victory outside of shutting up people who think there was robbery or he got the benefit of the doubt. But you mentioned the knockout, the stoppage.

I think that's where the opening is to make this performance and what this would mean to his legacy something much bigger. Dude, Gennady Golovkin doesn't just have a great chin. He's got among one of the best, like, the best chins we've ever seen. He had 350 amateur fights, and now what? You know, off the top of my head, 40-something pro fights, almost 400 fights. Dude, it's not just that he's never been knocked down.

It's not just that every single interview I've ever had, going back to like 2012, I've always asked him, dude, I know you've never been down, but have you been buzzed? Have you been anything? And he always goes, nah. Didn't feel it. You know, not a big deal. Whatever. I mean, is that machismo? Maybe. But Luke, Danny Jacobs hit him with a combination

in the end of their fight at MSG that would have knocked anybody out cold. Canelo in round 9 of the second fight hit him with this right hand that was just ridiculous. And he took it and came back. Yes, he's 40. Yes, he's easier to hit. But he is

an all-time legend whose only loss came against the best fighter of this era. If Canelo can go in a third time, knowing that there's not a ton to really gain reputation-wise with a win, and knock this guy out, yeah, motherfucker, that's a how-you-like-me-now on a second half of his career that's had nothing but those moments time and time again.

So I do give Canelo respect that he never felt emotionally like there was a reason he wanted this. He was always upset at Golovkin for the steroid comments and never wanted to reward him with another fight. But just knowing what's expected of somebody as the star of the game and knowing the history between them, he has accepted this. Four years later, I get that. But he was doing other things in other divisions. It's not like he was sitting around. Yeah, Luke, I mean, what does the world look like Sunday morning for you

if Canelo goes in there and stops Triple G? That's crazy. I think he could undo a lot of the damage of the Bivol fight. Not that I think the Bivol fight necessarily, oh, Canelo's overrated, because to your point, he had unified completely super middleweight with that Caleb Plant victory that we were there for, I think it was in November of this past, or about a year ago at this point almost nearly um 10 months so I think it would undo a little bit of the damage in the Bivol fight where Canelo just you know he pretty clearly lost that

one but it was at 175 and so what can you say if he goes in there and stops triple g again very tall order which I'm not even sure I think he will do I'm pretty sure he'll win but I'm not sure what he'll do beyond that but if he actually is able to do that I think it would just end up coloring the entire trilogy where yes I thought Canelo lost the first one and he skated by because of some insane scorecards but the draw stays he won the second fight I thought fair and square and forever loved all the delays and whatever else in between and the bad blood to then go out there and then finally put put the guy away it would be as poetic a finish as Canelo could craft that there is there I don't know what else he could possibly do to shut the door on that rivalry get some of the mojo back from the fight against Bivol and BC correct me if I'm wrong he signed a two-fight deal with Eddie Hearn that

one being the Bivol fight and the Triple G fight wouldn't he be a contractual free agent yet again here after Saturday night yeah unless he's added to that in ways that we don't know which you know could make him I mean it's always going to make a big bidder for his services but you do look at he's got a couple divisions to pick from yeah there's this could be uh in that regard look I'm so damn i'm fired up for this fight let me ask one more question too about this now for folks i'll be asking how do i watch this it's going to be on the zone but it's going to be on the zone pay-per-view because the zones pitch that they were the answer to pay-per-view which is how they exclusively pitch themselves as pay-per-views dying worthy alternative to it one monthly fee you don't ever have to pay

again that turned out to be a big fucking lie instead you have to pay for it even on top of having a DAZN subscription the way it's going to work is if you don't have DAZN you can still get it I think for 85 bucks 84.99 if you are a subscriber I pulled it up here I am a DAZN subscriber you can get it for 65 dollars I gotta tell you not my favorite thing that the DAZN subscriber. You can get it for $65. I got to tell you, not my favorite thing, that the DAZN lie ended up costing consumers even more in the end. But of course it did. And they wanted to, as I said, use this trilogy fight four years ago as like a launching pad of what free boxing can look like.

It's not free, but you get my point. But yeah, look, but at the same time, Luke, you're not going to argue, is it deserving or the merits of it in that regard? No, no. If you're going to pay for a great boxing fight, this is one to pay for. Yes. Yeah.

And they have delivered throughout. And obviously, you know, we're going to get into our detailed X's and O's preview Friday and prediction. But, you know, there's a lot. I got a really good feature on Triple G about his mindset and game plan entering this one about whether, you know, there is a need for drastic change in terms of maybe seeking a knockout rather than trying to box or not based on some of the changes Canelo has made so a lot of interesting stuff there but

look we've also got some sound to sort of pepper in and once you set some of it up yeah so we talked to trainer Jonathan Banks uh he was not in Gennady's corner the first two Canelo fights. That was Abel Sanchez, who trained Gennady for the bulk of his championship career. But, Luke, you look at the punch numbers from the first two fights. You know what was the giant void for Canelo? It was to the body. And that was weird because under Abel Sanchez, you know, he had developed this Mexican style, so to speak. But he was a jab-hungry headhunter against Canelo,

and I think that's a big part in the second fight why Canelo crawled back in. He dropped that trainer. He brought in Jonathan Banks. You may know him as Vladimir Klitschko's trainer on the second half of his career after Emmanuel Stewart died. Kronk, Jim, all that, former fighter himself. Here's Jonathan Banks looking back at the first two fights

and his opinion of what happened and how that may play in to the changes they need to make for fight three um it's it's kind of weird because to get to really get into this trilogy you know you can't you kind of have to to delete the first two fights. The only reason I say that is because both fighters are different than the first two fights. Coming into the first fight, Canelo was known as the boxer. He was known as a mover as a boxer and um and after after what four years later he's not moving

he's not moving anymore he was the smaller guy coming in the first the first two fights he's the he's the he's the heavier guy coming into the third fight you know so when you got that big of a difference in the styles and matchups, then everything is different. So it's not going to be Canelo trying to move around no more. It's going to be Canelo trying to get face-to-face and trying to cause as much pain as possible. Can I ask a question, BC? These are good clips.

Are we going to go through all of them? No. Okay. I think he's right, by the way. I think he's right that they really have to treat this differently. Why do you think he went with this particular trainer as opposed to who he had? I did ask Triple G.

We won't throw to it, but essentially, you know, is he a different boxer under Jonathan Banks and sort of, you know, what was his interest there? He said it was more about wanting to get that Kronk style, wanting to really get a taste of that and a feel of that. You know, and things did break down to a certain degree, I think even financially with Abel Sanchez. Triple G hit a certain point, Luke. You know how a boxing fighter has to give a percentage of their purse to the manager and the trainer, but as they start to rise up, that purse rises a lot, you know what I mean? Some people thought that Triple G cut the cord with the trainer

and the manager at that time when he signed that $100 million deal with The Zone to basically say, hey, I had a great run with you guys, but I'm not raising that percentage up to this level. know i mean i get that i do want to hear from can we hear what the can i set up one of the triple g ones oh go for it luke take it take it i want to hear triple g it's the last one of the ones we have of all the clips triple g on um actually yes triple g on the scoring in the first two fights I would love to hear what he had to say. It's hard for me to say what needs to be changed, what needs to be changed,

because it does not depend on me. Of course, I know that I need to get in the ring and show the best of me, best of boxing, best of what I have. At the same time, we're talking about human factor here. We're talking about honesty, fairness, qualification of judges. And sometimes you need to be, you know, like head and shoulders over your opponent to be delivered like a victory or like by scoring as the last fight shown because you saw the scores and the scores did not reflect

what we saw in the ring it was not as close as the Shor's score so we're talking about human factor here 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. Okay, here's the thing about this, BC, and I get that they did it probably for financial reasons, for acclaim. There's a lot of good reasons why big fights, MMA or boxing, are in Las Vegas. T-Mobile Arena. In fact, all three fights will have been in T-Mobile Arena.

There's a nice, neat history package to all of that. But BC, you know this as well as I do. If a guy feels cheated from the first fight or even the second fight or however, in this case, he does feel like he won both of them, he's back in Las Vegas. Now, I'm sure he'll have some new judges here they're gonna do their best to rotate out but like some is the key i agree with you but this is my point it's like don't most guys who feel like they got fucked by the judges they don't go back uh twice much less three times here he is back to the scene of the crime i gotta say it's a bit of a sketch move on the part of triple g well it's weird because

some people called out triple g when he was bringing up the the needle marks you know between the first and second fight on canelo's body and saying the commission in vegas knew about that look it's right there and people like man this guy's being petty and ridiculous but the reality is as much as he's talked openly about parts of canelo's response and personality that he feels is not professional and not sportsman-like. He has, like you said, gone back into the same den and done it. Third time in T-Mobile Arena, third time in Las Vegas, despite the, I don't want to say questionable scoring in both, because that second fight is disputed. It's not questionable.

It's basically, who did you prefer? Yeah, and also if you listen to this extended interview luke there's a lot of me asking like do you have to alter your strategy dramatically do you have to say f you to the judges and maybe somewhat surprisingly his answer was more in the direction of no of almost like this is what i do and this is what i do very good and this is my best chance to win and you know the judges will be what they will be yet in the the same breath, a couple minutes later, he's basically saying, for whatever reason, they purposely chose not to give me the fight. So he's believing in the corruption, but to your point, in some ways not doing anything about that.

Now, would it work? What if he publicly paraded and said, I'll take the fight, but only in Los Angeles or only in wherever? Maybe, or maybe to him, Luke, it's not really about that he doesn't tend to make excuses he'll give you the truth about the corruption he feels is rampant but he never gives excuses necessarily about the loss which i respect so when you look at this third fight and you know in debate as we will on friday whether he should alter his strategy dude there is familiarity with the judges now the good news is that both dave more Moretti and Steve Weisfeld are two of the most respected judges in the game today,

which is why for Vegas super fights, you see them all the time. Weisfeld, of the six scorecards in this series, only one went to Golovkin. That's not Weisfeld. It's Dave Moretti. He scored it 115-113 Golovkin the first fight. He scored the second fight 115-113 in favor of Canelo. Now, Weisfeld also did the second fight. He scored it 115-113 in favor of Canelo.

The third judge, I forgot his name. It's not in front of me. He is first time for either guy. So, Luke, you could ask in that same regard. It's like the same guys. Russell Moore is going to be the ref first time in the series, but the refs haven't really played a monster role. You can criticize after the fact, especially if he goes in there

and loses another decision where you're like, okay, dude, is this the definition of what's the phrase, Luke? Insanity. Yeah, is this insanity in front of us playing out? I don't know. But, Luke, interestingly enough, both Moretti and Weisfeld, they judged also the Canelo-B-Vol fight,

and both of them scored it seven rounds to five in favor of B-Vol. So they've been fair. They've been consistent. Yeah, we'll get into it on Friday, what kind of changes Triple G has to make. But I do have one more interesting sound, Luke, if a lot of us are wondering,

what can Team Triple G glean from that B-Ball loss? Did they see holes in Canelo's game? Let's hear Jonathan Banks wrap that point up. Maybe. After seeing the two fights with G and canelo um what we've all did um g and bavar two completely different fighters completely different like night and day and um what bavar did i actually felt G did the first fight. That's my honest opinion. I said that's exactly how

I think Bavar took something from G. So G don't have to take nothing from Bavar. That's how I look at it. I think Bavar looked at the first fight. He said, shit, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use my jab because every time I use my jab, Canelo Head goes back.

The only difference is one guy scored for it and the other one didn't. Who's who? I'm not saying, but yeah, you get the point. I get it.

Right, but that's what I'm saying. That's why, you know, I can say I didn't get nothing from it. It's because he took what G did the first fight and just outboxed him. He just let his hands go and outworked him. It was a pretty simple task. Well, Luke, that clip was supposed to have a joke on the front of it that would have made it make a lot more sense.

But anyway, we got it. Those interviews are available at youtube.com slash morningcombat. I hope you caught that little throw in there, Luke, the idea of like, you know, whether he slowed down or not, the key to victory for Triple G against Golovkin has always been live and die behind that jab. That is what B-Vol did. So we'll see if they decide to stay in that lane one more time

and maybe live out the definition of insanity, as we're mentioning, as trying to outbox and outjab the number one fighter in this game. We'll see. All right, topic number three. I don't have a whole lot to say about this, but it is an interesting development, one I suppose I did not see coming.

Anthony Joshua apparently has agreed to Tyson Fury's terms, listen to this, from the 258 MGT account, which I guess is the promotional or the management company for Anthony Joshua. Quote, 258 and Matchroom Boxing can confirm on behalf of Anthony Joshua that we have accepted all terms presented to us by Fury's team for a December 3rd fight last Friday. Due to the Queen's passing, it was agreed to halt all communication. We are awaiting a response.

BC, is this something to actually get excited about, or is this some boxing bullshit? It sounds like it might be, because, you know, look, separate from my idea of, like, I love this fight. I've always wanted this fight. But I do want this fight to be for, you know, all the belts and make it as big as possible. I don't want it shoehorned in before Usyk's ready in March to have the dream fight we've been salivating over.

Separate from that, is it still a big event no matter what? Of course it is, although in this case it would be Anthony Joshua coming off consecutive losses, which again questions the motives here. I'm seeing publicly joshua saying we've accepted your terms so if money's not going to be an issue luke and we know that the promoters while they're not aligned with the same networks if joshua's going to fight fury then the zone and espn are going to get in the same room and make it work it's just what it is right yeah this makes me feel like it's going to happen luke um do you have any issues with it happening now like i do

i just don't want that. Why would you take that risk? Isn't this fight so much bigger after the Usyk fight? I think at this point, trying to get them to fight in just the right order or at just the right time seems like a waste. The events have played out how they have played out. God only knows how many more fights Tyson Fury has. I know he's flirted with retirement to come out of it a million times,

but at some point it will stick. And for Joshua coming off the Usyk loss, what other fight is he going to take to rebound that would be even remotely as interesting? You could say Deontay Wilder, but Wilder's got the fight against Hellenius. We don't know how that's going to go. I would agree that I would love to see also say Deontay Wilder but Wilder's got the fight against Hellenius we don't know how that's going to go I would agree that I would love to see also a Deontay Wilder taking on uh a Joshua fight you can't do Ruiz because I don't think Anthony would

take it he has the win over in the comeback on the rematch why risk for a third one there's no Luis Ortiz fight no Areola fight it could be a Luis Ortiz fight at this point Pulev I mean who you gonna do who could you could do a Luis Ort ortiz fight he's he's available that who wants to see that shit they're both coming off losses like he's he's you know come on dude do you really gonna tell me that's as exciting and interesting to you louis ortiz over certainly not fury so you're saying to me like stop being romantic about it like if we get it be fucking happy we get it okay i think and i think and i think what you're talking about is hey wouldn't it be better if it was structured in a certain kind of way to which i have no answer i think you're 100 right in that circumstance but in the messy world of boxing

it often seems to me more like if you can strike while the iron is hot do it just do it and it won't be neat it won't be clean Anthony Joshua could get a third loss consecutively he could get stopped in this fight God only knows but if you're going to do it I don't know when the better time is going to be given the set of circumstances and just a sort of political I guess I'm alone in this and when I say this I mean what's my fear well obviously that that if you take a fight like this dangerous right this this close before the idea of doing that undisputed fight next year it's like well you're risking injury you're risking loss you're risking a lot of things am i the only one who thinks given tyson fury's recent nature that he could go out there

and stop anthony joshua and then be like peace guys and it might not be like i'm leaving forever but it might be like gonna go take a long break gonna fight that mountain man gonna wrestle mountain man, going to wrestle again, going to try to get Ngannou in there. Yeah, maybe I'll do that undisputed thing down the road. Dude, down the road is not going to be there for us, knowing boxing. So I guess I'm the only one that has that fear, knowing the business avenues available to Fury and how quickly he does seem to bounce back and forth into being serious or walking away.

I mean, okay, what if Joshua upset him? And then we go to a rematch with them. I mean, I'm not, wouldn't be against that either. It's a great fight, but dude, we're so damn close. And the sport is always has these bullshit booby traps around every corner. Luke don't become a bullshit booby trap, right? Yeah. But it's hard to call anything. If they can do, here's what I, here's the only question I have.

How the fuck is this fight moving along? We don't have an announcement for Crawford and Spence. That's what I can't get around. Where the hell is that announcement, man? I am dying to see if they can make that fight. Still no news, still no news.

But no, I'm not, I don't nearly have the same concerns. I understand your concerns given your longevity in the sport and how important it would be to have it under a more ideal and frankly better set of conditions. It's a much better set of conditions

what you have offered. Also, Luke, we're in what? Mid-September right now? They're talking about doing this fight in the first week of December. Just over two months. This fight's too big to have a two-month promotion. It just is.

Wouldn't you want these two on a media tour where they're going back and forth at each other? Then wouldn't you want it to mean something, meaning Joshua had just knocked somebody out to reclaim his, you know? Yeah, but if they're going to put this in the UK, like Pacquiao, I mean, that's not the same thing as Pacquiao Mayweather. I understand that. It's not the same thing.

But for that UK market, it's fucking huge. Tyson Fury can't come over here anyway, however long that's going to be in play. It's not the same thing. But for that UK market, it's fucking huge. Tyson Fury can't come over here anyway, however long that's going to be in play. That's fair. And the other part, too, is, dude, if they miss this window, do you really believe there's going to be another great window in which to make this fight? I have to tell you, I don't think that there would be.

I think Tyson's got a little bit left in him, and that's it. If Fury still wants to fight, then you would fight. Essentially, this is what would happen. Fury would go in there against usic in like april he'd probably beat him i think he would and then you'd go what's the next big fight oh i know defending all making the first undisputed four belt title defense against the former champion and you know biggest star in the heavyweight game and anthony joshua and we're going to do it in a stadium and he will have just had knocked somebody out and he's back and dude yeah that's bigger it's bigger that's better but that's not in any way a guarantee there's nothing guaranteed in this business okay but it's like oh now you want to fight each other you guys could

have fought each other the last four or five years would have been great right like no i mean come on i agree with that i mean they fucked around and waited until a point where now we're dealing with suboptimal outcomes. But even those suboptimal outcomes are still pretty great. I still want to see this in ways that perhaps you don't, given the timeline anyway. All right, topic number four, we got some MMA quick hitters, BC. We'll go through these pretty quickly here. First up, the Nevada Athletic Commission is going to investigate

the UFC 279 press conference altercation. By the way, they're going to investigate the press conference. This is me taking the Nevada Athletic Commission very seriously. Yeah, look, I want to hit this up to you, because even though I played the simpleton role on Monday... Can I just read this quick quote from the

commissioner? Oh, I didn't know you had more. Why don't you go for it? Just a quick question. This is from the chairman, Steven Klubeck. quote if the nevada athletic commission determines that licensees acted improperly we will initiate appropriate disciplinary action against all involved although trash talking between competitive athletes is common any escalation into physical altercations may discredit the sport of unarmed combat oh yeah word and is wholly unacceptable they're not going to do fucking shit but okay yeah right and the ufc ain't gonna do shit either do you remember they rewarded mcgregor for the dolly incident

with the biggest fight of all time of course not luke when i played simpleton and said look i technically don't believe this was a conspiracy this past weekend and i know dana white is hammering shop up on on all the uh press conferences for believing that but like anyone with a podcast you know i out, hey, what if? The what if part that people- It wasn't like you were too far away from that worldview, by the way. Well, I wasn't under the belief- You were that worldview adjacent.

I wasn't under the belief that six or eight people were involved. I was just thinking, maybe they thought, hey, why are we going to do Nate Dirty here when we want him to come back in a year after a Jake Paul fight and fight Conor anyway? That's what I'm thinking. And then they go, you know, whatever. The thing that people got upset was that we weren't willing while in the conversation of conspiracies to go, hey, how about that

video package that came out? Remember, it was supposed to be a 50 on 30 brawl backstage that also included Diaz's team. Luke, that interview, that package they put out didn't show shit. It didn't show shit. I agree. Like, you're going to cancel a press conference because of that?

That happens on stage at almost every ceremonial weigh-in, and you love it. I don't know what happened and what didn't happen. It's the magic of editing and what they chose to even put in there. I did speak to three different people,

by the way, who all have different jobs that don't even work in the same industry for the same people. I mean, the same industry, but very different people and very different roles in the industry i should say and all three said it was a melee all three said it was a melee so take that for what it's worth so is this is this literally one of those rare moments where people did not have their cell phone out in time to capture the start of it um do we is it is it too much to ask if the if the mgm grand

garden arena had cameras back there luke the question is do we have access to them do we have access to them i mean did you see that uh did you see the the documentary on the the perceived conspiracy behind part of the uh country music fest las vegas shooting luke no they're the same question abounded about security footage by the way um all right so um they're not gonna do shit is the answer okay so but but there was the other conspiracy about hey did you see hamza and i can't quite tell exactly what the nature of the conspiracy is but that basically kevin holland was going remember they touched gloves before the fight yes and then they go to touch gloves and

you see chamaya go a high hand and then shoot low to me this is the absolute dumbest fucking controversy on earth exactly going high low is not only a common strategy and a common faint it's literally exactly what he did against the leech so i don't know if the argument is oh well he was doing it while his hand was high but like if you're already in motion for it you're already intending to do it it's coincidental and also they already touch gloves like what the fuck like no you nailed it the only people who are mad about this are simpletons they probably like laura thor love and thunder nobody hates this conversation more than espn's joe tessitura who had a very famous viral boxing soundbite on friday night fights where he's like you just touch gloves why do you gotta touch again

yeah i hate when when you touch gloves before every round or whatever look Look, even if Chemaev was being, you know, dirty here, dude, how many times we got to touch gloves? We're fighting. It's engaged to protect yourself at all times, which is why even if you, you know, got mad at Floyd Mayweather for knocking out Victor Ortiz that time with that sucker punch, it's like, what else do you want? That guy just led with his head and a headbutt. And now he's trying to hug the guy like it's a fight fight.

But I don't even think that was part of the idea because I think that's what chamaya was going to do anyway so that part is stupid to me luke but you know it's not stupid to me luke i mean like when the dolly shit happened they had all these camera angles and they used it as like the main centerpiece to sell that fight over and over again i i have to believe they have access to better footage that would have better sold the idea that jamaia and holland were in a war that was so crazy that other people got no i don't that's the thing i don't believe so i'm not gonna i'm don't put me don't alex jones me luke okay i'm just saying there's there are some unexplained holes in this plot that's all i have to say no i'd agree with that i think what they've shown doesn't show a melee but i've just there's enough corroborating evidence at this point for me to conclude that they're not doing a

fucking scam i mean would you what would you actually think if i was right a lot more to get to yeah but luke i i have this obsession with dynamic showmaking i know so then you should have done the look at the rundown ahead of time and been on the show on time but you weren't this is topical it's connected but keep it going luke okay because you have you have what they call a salty ass luke okay you know what i mean i mean you just want to do a show forever like you know the question is how'd all that salt get in there you know i mean luke okay here you go there it is hot sauce hot sauce all right uh dana white provides an update on ufc africa why are they calling ufc africa it's like because a fucking continent is there ufc europe but whatever uh not as an event obviously as an idea or a company uh dana ufc Why are they calling UFC Africa? It's like, Africa's a fucking continent. Is there a UFC Europe? But whatever.

Not as an event. Obviously, as an idea or a company. Dana at UFC 279 talking about it. Quote, we literally were just having a meeting the other day, and we're seriously talking about Africa now. We're starting to look at venues and cities to hold an event, so Africa is going to happen very soon. Yes, but what part? South Africa?

Sub-Saharan? The Arab North? Like, what part is it going to be? Kinshasa Zaire, Luke, how about that? Look, nothing will be bigger than Ali Foreman in Zaire there, but if you had to concoct a UFC fight, given that you've got three prominent names that were born in Africa and all that, but you wanted to have a fight that would, on paper,

is so potentially legendary that it would give you poor, poor man's rumble in the jungle feels, would you do Ngannou versus Jon Jones for the title as that fight to headline UFC Africa? Yeah, you could, but they'd probably put it in some place like Johannesburg, which would be, like,

technically Africa, but not really a related part in that sense. Hakeem Dermish, our colleague at CBS, he's from Libya. I'd like to see his home nation get a big opportunity here, okay? Yeah, I'm not sure if that's coming anytime soon, but we'll have to see. If you're easy to make laugh, this will be something that you care about.

Hasbulla has apparently inked a five-year contract with the UFC to promote events from Igor Lazorin, who I guess is related to him i didn't read this in the rundown i must have missed this part of the yeah i'm sure you did hasbulla has apparently signed a five-year contract with ufc so far in the plan attending tournament tournaments media tournaments are we sure this is real we will not talk about the amounts in detail but they are such that many fighters do not get that much. Wow. Is this real? Are we doing fake news here? This is a direct response to PFL flying Tiger King to Europe for all those fights, Luke.

Shouldn't the smart cage have realized it's not a good investment? Tiger King's in fucking jail. Who'd I say? Liver King. That's what I said. Liver King, yeah. Who'd I say? Tiger King.

Tiger King? Oh, yeah, that's Joe. That's, yeah yeah all right i still follow him on ig luke shout out to the tiger king uh yeah luke um if it's true it's it's not an it's not a not smart move i mean luke he's got cachet in this industry he's feuding with fighters you think he's got five years left of punching okay five years is asking a lot. He might die of something in five months. He's got five months left of that. I do think that when he's cage-side, Luke, yeah, kind of like, I don't hate it.

You know what I'm saying, Luke? He's mini-me. He's like central casting for Dana White to have a sidekick mini-me who won't take his shit or punch him in the balls. They should get a reality series, actually, Luke, and put it on UFC Fight Pass. This is just for people

who don't want to admit that they still find little people stuff funny. Luke, I guarantee you Hasbulla would have jumped off that cliff. You get away with it. You get away with it because Hasbulla is in on it

and he just acts like a jerk to everyone. Everyone's like, yay, this is funny, but it's not that funny. Put him and Dana in a reality show. Go to the Why Am I Bay, Luke. You'll find out who the real man is in there, okay?

I bet Hasbulla jumps. I bet he jumps uh all right we got a fight here booked for Bellator 289 Liz Karmouche will take on Juliana Velasquez in a title rematch which by the way is the right fight to make because Velasquez got stopped but to me it was way too early ref intervention I mean is it rude for me to say i don't recognize this title reign until i see her actually beat her because of the way that was stopped in the situation i completely agree it's no it's no disrespect to liz karmush no it's not her fault she didn't do anything wrong she and by the way she was winning in that moment and had some good moments in the fight but way too early way too early all right also yeah go ahead no you nailed it luke keep nailing all right sean strickland jared cannoneer was supposed to happen

then because but then his finger got infected so they had to rebook it this will be on the ufc fight night on december 17th so they are going to fight the two guys who fought at ufc 276 and then lost i believe what i think that's what it was. And then subsequent to that, here we are. All right, BC topic number five, we wrap up on this. Some boxing quick hitters. This one was a surprise to me. I got to tell you, I didn't really blow my skirt up. Lomachenko was back. Yeah, we talked about it on the show when it was being rumored.

Go ahead, Luke. Okay, but it's Lomachenko versus Jermaine Ortiz set for October 29th, same day as Jake Paul and Anderson Silva. This will be a 12-round main event at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden. I don't really care about this fight, BC. Am I wrong? Yes and no. So the reality is, considering he's been off for a year

and he's been actually in wartime, him coming back against an unbeaten guy who retired former champion Jamel Herring in his last fight, the fight before that, Luke, he headlined showboxing. It looked spectacular. So it's not that Jermaine Ortiz isn't at this level where he would deserve a comebacking fight where Lomachenko's trying to shake off the rust and then get back in a big title fight. It's just surprising because Lomachenko, he doesn't do stuff like this. Look, he's so willing to fight the best available. Or you remember the story, he wanted to fight for a title in his pro debut,

but no promoter could secure it. So he went with Bob Arum because Bob said, I'll do it in your second fight, which he lost, kind of got screwed, comes back, wins a title in his third fight. Then suddenly he's like a three-division champion through 12 fights. He doesn't do stuff like this. Jermaine Ortiz is a hungry young fighter. I've called this fight. He's good. But here's two parts I don't like about this,

Luke. Jermaine Ortiz did get dropped twice by Joseph Adorno in a draw in Showbox last year. And number two, these two were sparring partners like a year and a half ago. So doesn't it just optically doesn't it feel like Loma's purposely going a little bit

softer than normal, even though I'm not trying to say he doesn't deserve that like Loma's purposely going a little bit softer than normal even though I'm not trying to say he doesn't deserve that I'm saying that's not who he normally is right I think that's fair I think that's fair it's just I'm not even bashing Lomachenko I don't know what was available he wants to stay active I'm not mad at that I just don't find it a very compelling fight I agree with that but you know Lomachenko fighting anyone, Luke, still must see TV. Still matters to me. Yeah, for sure. And again, they're not putting it at the big MSG.

It's just the Hulu Theater. I'm sure it's going to air on ESPN regular, so no big deal. Devin Haney, by the way, BC, has called for a fight against Tank Davis. He told the boxing voice, quote, The fight has been built up for years. At the end of the day, if he wants to fight, he can have the fight. He's been the WBA fake champion. He has the Mickey Mouse belt.

If he wanted to become my mandatory, he can become my mandatory. All he got to do is go hit Gilberto and tell him, hey, we want to make this fight happen. He can become the mandatory whenever he wants. I mean, it all starts with George and how that plays out. But obviously, if it makes sense, then that's the much bigger fight. Then that's the fight we would really be focused on. But right now, George is the guy.

We can't look past him. Interest in a Devin Haney versus Tank Davis fight? Oh, of course. I would say Ryan Garcia I'm more interested in seeing, but Devin Haney right behind him. Well, look, if Devin Haney has all four lightweight world titles, which he does right now, and that's at stake in this, you might even put that right now to the top of the line. Look, I want to see Tank versus Ryan Garcia. There's so much star power, so much unknown, vulnerability, all that. Like

anybody. This is actually a better fight and probably the fight until Shakur Stevenson formally moves up to 135 that will decide who's the best fighter at this weight class. Because Teofimo's out, Ryan Garcia, we have more questions than we do these other guys. I'm happy that they're just

talking about it, Luke, because we know Haney has to get through with that mandatory rematch with Kambosis, which is looking like a money grab at this point. I hope Kambosis fights a different style and goes for it. But I think, Luke, if Haney wins and if Tank fights whoever he's hoping to fight in December, I'd love it, love it to be Ryan Garcia. These two next year for all four belts, regardless of what promoter or network they're with, it's got to happen.

So yeah, I want all these guys to talk about each other because let's be the new era that all fights each other regardless of the system behind us, Luke. Let's be that guy, okay? I think we got a few of that guy right now and I want to see them matched up together. All right.

And then last but not least, BC, how much do you care mayweather has reportedly been in talks to fight ksi's brother on november 13th i just don't give a shit is it on a helipad and i don't know luke i you know it it is by the way the staff is telling us that it's real that hasbulla has signed a deal with ufc so god bless him he's gonna make money and if you're a cheap laugh you're gonna continue to continue to do what you do. I wonder if that smart cage is actually a UFC spy operative underneath Luke. Like it's been programmed to sort of like, so anything they're talking about, and then, you know, Dana's like, fuck the liver King, but Hasbulla, we need it.

We got to get him. If the smart cage ain't that smart, he can't like double their ratings, which they could really use. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, but they both but both promotions fight on ESPN. I wonder if it's the same hourly union rig guy that Dana called in the office, gave him a Nelk Boys bag, and then was like, program that smart cage

to air all audio live in my office. It's possible. Unlikely, but certainly possible. That's it for us on this one. Although, BC, I've got to remind folks, we have more bills to pay. We want to turn back the clock bc for some it's vanity others just to relive relive those glory days for me i would love to wake up every morning with zero brain fog a clear mind and be as as energized as when i was younger and thanks to first person i can take a

more active role in my brain's overall health yeah i'm a big first person fan here luke it's an innovative precision targeted cognitive supplement system which uses the brain boosting medicinal benefits of mushrooms yes those to activate the full potential of human cognition and brain health and luke you know how much psychedelics are now being used for medicine in this era x fighters i mean this is the direction we're going to health, Luke. I've never taken this, but apparently first-person supplements made with functional mushrooms aim to stimulate the body's natural production of specific neurotransmitters that trigger activities like energy, mood, and my favorite, sleep.

Yeah, and first-person uses 100 100 grain-free organic mushrooms as well as highly highly curated blend of nutra pseudocals sourced from the best in-class vendors uh i this this is what it tells me i personally like the sunbeam supplement i've never had it to help with motivation and focus i have found myself to be much more productive on this thing i've never had and able to stay focused throughout a long day well i have had it and i can stand by it luke and you too mk viewer can start improving your brain health and cognition right now with first person so here's the deal get 15 off your first order by going to getfirstperson.com and use our code combat with a k again that's g-e-t-f-I-R-S-T-P-E-R-S-O-N.com, code COMBAT, 15% off your first order. Get firstperson.com, code COMBAT.

All right, BC, we have much more show to do. It's a long one today, so let's get to it. We're going to do, again, what we liked doing these before. It got some traction. We're going to try it again. Let's go to our top five segment this time we're going to do top five favorite mma fights now let's be clear about this we see if i'm getting any of this wrong tell me if i'm getting it wrong five top five these are just the five that either you like the most for your own reasons yes or i like

the most for my own reasons these are not the most for my own reasons. These are not the five biggest. These are not even me necessarily saying that they're the five best. Like if I had to rank the very best fights, where would I put these? These are just the ones that I like a lot, have sentimental value, rewatch value, just the ones that you really, really like. Thank you for nailing that because you and I didn't get into a long argument about this yesterday for nothing, Luke. I like to avoid the viewers not really having a clue of what we're ranking.

Oh, you guys think that's the best fight of all time no here's what happened you didn't like the topic that i had suggested and then you play this weird game like you don't you pretend to not get it as like a result i don't pretend to not get it luke i'm eliminating all questions dude you're full of shit but it's okay we move to one you like how am i full of shit luke it prevents situations like it going on social with the wrong heading and then people are going oh my god that was your favorite striker list would have been great 2012 it's like well this is the fucking list bro so social did fuck that up okay but like that's why i put in these safeguards luke all right i mean you were in the military you know a lot of standard operating procedures so bullshit

to not understand so we could do a different one, which is fine. No, I want to do the best show possible, and you're just like, I only work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That is so not what happened. But Luke is right. These are the sentimental values. Go first. We've got to go. All right.

Number five, you can argue, Luke, that I would fill my list with women's straw weights, but number five is my favorite women's straw weight fight of all time. With much love and respect to the Ioana Weili Zhang all-time great brawl, my number five took place at UFC 223, April of 2018. You can see the damn poster behind me. And this may surprise you. It was the five-round title rematch for the 115 belt between Ioana Young-Jaychek,

the former champion, and Rose Namajunas making the first title defense. This was high-speed chess at its finest, and I don't think people recognize this fight enough in this modern era of the best fights. No, it's not going to end up being in that top five because it's not this back-and- and forth all-time great brawl but in terms of a a high stakes technical masterpiece i love the fight that they showed why because in the first fight we got surprised when you want to young jay check was knocked down with the first strike that she that she faced and knocked out shortly after that there was a lot of talk about the bad weight cut and the the turmoil in her personal in her personal life that bled into her camp before that.

But if she was going to be the boogie woman, if Ioana was going to be the all-time great that she is today, she was going to have to man up, woman up, excuse me, and come back and show us longevity, a long game plan, and something different. And the way that she responded to this version of Rose, who is, you know, it may not be first round against Andrade's version of Rose, but it's as good as you'll find in her great career. They meshed so perfectly in ways we didn't find out in the first fight because of the all-action ending in round one. And that perfect mixture of skill, precision, adaptability, you know, high pace. I know this gets lost in the Habib-Dali situation, and I got a great Max Holloway poster here,

and it became Al Iaquinta in the end, but this fight could have main-evented Rose Ioana too and saved that card, and to me it did, in fact, at the end of the day, Luke. I love this fight. It's very rewatchable, and it's my favorite division, the two greatest fighters I've ever had at their very peak against one another.

Dig it. I'm glad you put that on there i struggled about whether i was going to put that on there or not again these are my favorite these are not me saying the very best just the ones i like the most i had the most fun with i think about often impactful so for number five i'm gonna go dan henderson versus shogun who a u UFC 139. This was a fight. I remember when they booked this fight. I remember thinking to myself, BC, I'm like, I'm not really sure how this is going to go. Dan Henderson had the H-bomb. You know, Shogun was battle tested. But even back then, this was all the way in 2011, we were wondering like, I don't know,

man, he looks like a little weathered. He looked weathered from the moment he went over to the UFC to begin with. And then, of course, he had the Forrest Griffin loss. He redeemed himself later. But you get the idea. Like, he was not the same as the guy who had fought in Pride. And sure enough, Denny Henderson goes in there and blows the fucking doors off of him for three rounds.

I couldn't believe Shogun Hua managed to hang on. I couldn't believe the fight got there. And then in the fourth round, Shogun Hua does what can only be described as something bordering on impossible, and then returns the favor for two more rounds achieving mount where he is pounding on Dan Henderson high in mount somehow it goes all the way to a decision and Dan Henderson gets his hand raised I thought fairly he had done more through the first three but if you want to look at like two at the time they weren't super old but there were you veterans in the fight game, to be very clear,

beat the living shit out of each other in ways you can't believe that one guy hangs on only for the tie to completely turn the other direction. This is one of the most underrated brawls in UFC history. It doesn't get labeled that way, but it really should. It doesn't get that way because it was Henderson and Shogun, these guys who were various champions and the most important you know organizations in that time through pride and

strike force and everything else ufc for shogun um super super sick fight that at least in terms of entertainment value bc holds up and i also think shogun who i didn't even think at this time had this kind of resiliency in him to take the H-bomb in the way that he did, and he did, and then to turn it around. Shogun Hua, in a losing effort, this is one of the most impressive performances you'll ever see in a losing effort,

if for no other reason than unbelievable resiliency from both guys. And the fact that Shogun was still fighting killers just like six months ago is crazy, but Luke, I think there's about three or four, maybe five at the most, where if you ask somebody what's the best fight in UFC history or MMA history, and they said that fight, you wouldn't have an argument. You wouldn't have a snarky response.

This is on that list. And if you have this as your number one, like, you might be right. You might be right. It might be. Luke, I think it might be the most brutal fight. You know what I mean? In terms of total accumulation of damage by both i mean the amount of see i'm being dead serious like the amount of brain damage that these two took in this fight is probably not great i mean it's it's got rory lawler levels of just brutality where you're like damn but uh you know it i'd love to say it took you know the rest of their careers off of

them but both went on to author you know know, not action fights better than this, but a ton more action fights because they're subhuman, you know, robots that are just, I mean, these are, this is probably, I'll close with this, the manliest fight, meaning man versus man, big reputation and then they both leaned on every ounce of that man in them to get to the finish line um it's raining men that night luke hallelujah all right what do you got for number four good bad cell job all right luke let's go to number four uh you and i have praised this up before when it came under the nick diaz resume review why Why do I want to be at least a part-time member of the Nick Diaz army and love and appreciate what they do for fights like this? UFC 49, August of 2004, Caro Parisian versus Nick Diaz. Luke, to me, there are different kinds of fights that are great, right? There's high-speed chess, technical fights, there's all-out wars.

But this is my favorite fight from the old UFC. The one that was finally, you know, getting traction and eventually through Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonner won and all that. They really started to gain traction. But that era of UFC, they were still street fights. The difference was you had what was becoming a generation of skilled street fighters but at the end of the day even if you're a technician you still had a fight through shit to win those fights carl parisian and nick diaz where both have action fights that may all you know go all time as better including paul daly against nick diaz and strike force but this fight when they matched up i caught it at the right time um in a lot of ways this fight

reinvigorated my love for ufc because i had fallen off you know came on early like everybody else on pay-per-view when it was faces of death and then slid off a little bit in those weaning years when it wasn't even on tv this was a i remember what it felt like i remember what i was you know where i was sitting and all that because it was gripping dynamic television because even though they're skilled and even though both made adjustments and they had to be bone tough to get there, and they were, what a just classic fight. If I'm going to UFC Fight Pass, which I often do when I'm killing time in row eight, Luke,

I've watched this fight without question more than any other over and over again I love it and I know you do too yeah none of your choices I hate I liked all of them I think all of them are great for number four for me I'm going to go with the very last fight in WEC history Benson Henderson versus Anthony Pettis WEC 51 this was in December of 2010 there's actually a lot of controlling grappling in this fight. If you look at the stats, particularly for the second and through the fourth rounds, there's not a lot of strikes thrown. There's a lot of control time that was amassed either against in the clinch

or someone having a dominant grappling position. Benson Henderson getting a lot of takedowns in the first round, but the fight kind of began, the tension certainly began to escalate over the course of this fight. And the reason why it was important is because it was really a dynamic contest throughout, but this is the famous Showtime kick fight. We're in the fifth round of the last WEC fight in the last WEC event. This is it. This is the last moment. And the words of Stefan Bonner, Anthony Pettis ran off the wall like a ninja, kicked Benson Henderson in the face, dropped him and then proceeded to,

you know, put an exclamation point on the fight and get the win. Stuffing enough takedowns where he didn't lose the contest, not giving up enough grappling positions to lose. Benson Henderson doing his kind of thing where he's, you know, gas pedal to the floor the entire time.

Again, this is before these guys ever even got to the UFC. They put on a fucking masterpiece of a closing show. You could argue about whether it's not, it's the best WEC fight. There are some other ones you could have picked along the way. Miguel Torres versus Takeo Mizugaki is a good one. Hiram Mitzumura versus Carlos Conde is another one. Hell, you could even do some of the Varner fights

that were pretty great along the way as well. But to me, this is one of the best and most important WEC fights. And what the WEC represented at the time was, yes, it had the 135ers and the 145ers, which UFC did not. So they had this WEC lightweight division. For a time, they had middleweight and light heavyweight too. They had welterweight.

They had some other guys. Shouts to Steve, the robot Cantwell. But in terms of that 155 and below what they had was just an excitement factor you felt like if I tune into UFC lightweights I'll get some good fights I might get some great ones if I tune into WEC fights am I going to get just action and you know just guaranteed excitement that's what WEC felt like at the time and for these two guys to do what they do with that punctuating moment at the end with the Showtime kick,

it just goes down in one of my minds as like a fight I can rewatch all the time. I love this contest. I love the way you played up the legacy of WEC because at that time when it was vying for your attention, I remember it feeling like ECW felt when we were watching wrestling in the 90s. You're like, oh my God, this is just different.

Like it's just everything about that. So for this fight to be the final fight in that promotion's history and to live up to it and then deliver that moment, Luke, I remember thinking like, damn. Let's put the camera on BC real quick. Sorry, put the camera on BC. That was an absolute perfect storm,

the Henderson-Pettis fight, of everything that was great about WBC but then shooting it forward because you knew these guys were going to the UFC the next day. I think like the fourth Marquez and Pacquiao fight, because that right hand Marquez delivered to knock Pacquiao out cold, sort of seems to overtake the fact that that fight is, you know, maybe the best fight since Corrales Castillo won, right? Like just insane.

I think this fight too, Henderson-Pettis never gets the you know it was back and forth and strategic changes it never gets the respect because the moment of this of the showtime kick was so insane and luke that was like i remember sitting in the basement newsroom at espn watching that as it happened and like wec already felt like a video game so like you know what I'm saying like it just felt was like ridiculous and then to have that moment was you you know your mind hadn't even thought of that in a real fight right it's like doing a and one basketball move like you know in the in the NBA finals I can't I still can't believe it happened it's one of those it was honestly you could you it's very hard to argue that they could have put another fight and gotten a better WEC send-off it was the perfect WEC send-off all right what

you got for number three uh number three Luke I'm gonna put up here as one of the hardest fights to watch as it was happening because it was so brutal but the bat shit and craziness that Mark Hunt and Antonio Bigfoot Silva showed in the first of their heavyweight rivalry UFC fight night in Australia, I think it was Brisbane, and it was December of 2013. I will never forget the way this fight made me feel when, you know, both were cut open, but they were cut open on like 1980s pro wrestling Ric Flair in Greenville, South Carolina with a razor blade. I mean, it was just ridiculous. At the end of round four, I did not believe that these two could produce more action. And I also did not believe that it would have been safe

for them to even go out there and continue. It was the first fight I remember fearing like death as it was happening. And I hate that feeling. And I felt that feeling and I felt that feeling briefly in Ioana and Whaley won which not everybody felt but I was cage side too but they went out for the fifth round and it was crazy all together and to see this fight surprise it's not that I didn't think this fight could end at a knockout right it's Mark Hunt right it's Bigfoot

Silva but to see this fight be a sustained batshit crazy constant momentum changes rolling over and one taking full mount and raining down punches near submission attempts I never thought these two could offer that over five rounds and I never thought that they could keep it going through round five so to see that end in a majority draw it was such a like a play on your emotions already that you're like, oh shit, it just accomplished nothing. They'll get a rematch. We'll be excited about it to a certain degree. Although I think Mark Hunt smoked him and knocked him out early in the rematch.

But Luke, please tell me that you were feeling some of what I was feeling. Maybe the blood made it seem worse than it was in the moment, which can happen. But in the moment, it felt like I was watching war play out on tv and i was like screaming for a ceasefire this is the first time i can remember i've ever done this i've done it a couple times i think i did this for like lawler and mcdonald too was when i had to watch through my fingers i was literally i could not believe the damage they were doing to each other. So I had to watch. I was like, oh my God, oh my fucking God.

How are they still doing this? I couldn't believe. This fight was in Australia, I think you mentioned. It was down under. It was, I was shocked at what I was looking at. When heavyweights hit each other this hard, the fight always gets stopped one way or the other. There's just no way you can hit each other this hard and the fight keeps going and it did it just kept

going an extraordinary amount of violence in this contest really in in many ways even you know one of bigfoot's better all-time performances to be honest with you losing or winning like this is he put up a phenomenal job in this contest and mark hunt did the same a unforgettable fight is the way i would put it unforgettable good shit all right with that in mind my number three speaking of nick diaz i'm gonna go nick diaz versus takanori gomi pride 33 this is this was on um I think, in February of 2007. Let me explain the circumstance of this one. This is the famous go-go plata that Nick Diaz hit, but there's more to the story. You have to understand where they were when they fought. Takanori Gomi had a couple of losses in Shuto, but that was long since forgotten. He was widely considered to be the best lightweight

in the world. He had lost to Marcus Aurelio in a non-title contest because Pride had done that, but he got the win back later. He had never lost a title, so there was all of that. So he was basically in this position where he was the guy in this weight class. Nick Diaz, by contrast, was well-respected but was in a very different spot.

Nick Diaz had lost to Diego Sanchez. He had lost to Joe Riggs. He had lost to Sean Shirk. He was bounced from UFC. He had fought previously. Then he came back and he beat Josh Nair and he beat Gleason Tebow. And those were nice wins. But I think the Tebow win at UFC 65 was on the preliminary card. Yes, it was. It was the headlining bout of the preliminary card. So then he goes into there and then takes on Takanori Gomi. He leaves the UFC again. He goes then takes on takanori gomi leaves the ufc again he goes and takes on takanori gomi and gomi again we're talking about a guy who could not have been more highly regarded at the time he's taking diaz down but diaz is going to work in the boxing in the first round but he gets hit you know i think he had to get 14 stitches on

that massive cut over his and in the second round he goes in there and begins to go to fucking work on gomi and the crowd is on their goddamn feet he eventually gets into the scenario where he was able to apply the go-go plots of which i mean dude this is the closest thing nick has to nate beating connor it's not the same for a lot of different reasons nate was on last minute notice and there's a whole there was a you had to go up a weight class and all this bullshit but in terms of a Diaz brother taking on a fight that you know his supporters believed he could do well in but the vast majority of the public thought that I think Gomi was going to win where this guy was like on a high couldn't have couldn't have been higher than what it was and then to go in there and have the whole thing flipped upside down by Nick Diaz and then

to do it with like that special jujitsu flair that the Diaz brothers have shown this was epic peak fucking Nick Diaz is by the way I don't I think at lightweight for them which was whatever her pride had at the time maybe 155 I can't remember anymore but you get the idea it was an unbelievable showcase. Remember, this was Pride trying to make their way into Las Vegas. So Pride was trying to take over at that time, or at least make a push into the American market. Yes, it sucked that Gomi lost for them, but for Diaz to just rise to the occasion in this way after getting hurt, after getting controlled, after getting cut, it's just one of the most epic things you'll ever fucking see.

And I don't know if a lot of folks really remember it, but I remember that fight very closely. An incredible, dynamic win, one of Diaz's best, and truly those brothers, boy, they got, you send them your promotional darling. I mean, maybe Hamza would have run them over, but in general, there's been times where you send those guys your promotional darling

and the Diaz brothers are going to send them home in a fucking body bag. This is a historic achievement for him. Or back then you send them your legends like, you know, Frank Shamrock, and he's just going to dismantle and take them apart. But, you know, we did talk about during that resume review, as you mentioned, how pivotal this was in Nick's career. And, yeah, that was a joy to watch, man. That was some intensity building up in that one.

Look, I do have a lot of respect for your list, all right? All right, very good. And I'm yours. But with that said, number two. Number two is the greatest fight in Bellator history, like with a bullet. And I think it's a way better all-time great modern action fight than it necessarily gets the respect it deserves.

And that happened at bellator 106 november of 2013 the rematch eddie alvarez versus defending lightweight champion michael chandler in some ways i mean eddie's fought everywhere all around the globe and has always been in great wars but i always felt like this fight in particular coming off of how good their first one was really made both of them on a on a much broader level than you know mma undergrounds and what i love about this fight most there's two reasons one is the constant play on our emotions we call in pro wrestling luke false finishes like why was ricky steamboat versus randy savage wrestlemania 3 so great because it was like an

early you know edition of like 21 false finishes where you constantly think you know the outcome or where we're going and then it gets pulled, the rug gets pulled out from under you. This one had batshit crazy dramatic momentum changes where you look like somebody was two punches away and, you know, the damage they each took, the times their lights got shut out only only to get turned right back on again, and they're in the middle of it. It's a credit to them being two of the greatest TV action fighters of all time, but also being great fighters on top of that. But I just never thought heading into this that they could beat their first fight when Chandler scored a very late submission. And it was such a great fight. And there was so much talk in the buildup to the second one where they both went on runs of stopping people, particularly Eddie knocking out Shinya Aoki in the first round and then head kicking Patriki Pitbull in the first round.

And it was like, oh crap, they're going to line up again. And Chandler was blowing people away just the same. But I just didn't think they were going to be able to up what I saw in that first fight with the entertainment level and the show of heart. I mean, they did it for five rounds and it was a split decision and Eddie got the nod. And I think in hindsight, you know, you could have argued either way. I liked Eddie in real time, but you know, three, four, five fights you would take with you to a deserted island and live alone for the rest of your day i think eddie alvarez and michael chan the part two has to be on

that list because it was all that and then some and and i i even wish bellator did more of like hey guys remember how awesome this fight was and just put it out there more often because it's deserving and correct me if i'm wrong i remember this fight week this was Eddie's last fight with Bellator correct he went on to UFC after this yes I believe that's correct we can double check if I'm not you can dead wrong me but I believe that I I recall covering this fight week and I let me talk about the year 11 months later he fought Donald Cerrone to make his uh UFC debut yeah you double check that yeah I remember I remember in this fight week, a big part of it was like, is he going to stay?

What's going to happen with Bellator? Did you like how you were treated by Bellator? Like, all that shit was a big part of it. Yeah, he beat Michael Cianni, went in to fight Don Cerrone. This was it. This was his last one, and they gave him the guy who had, A, previously beaten him, right? And then, B, the guy who was kind of like the guy in Bellator at the time,

at least Will Brooks was kind of floating around too. But it was their poster guy for a time. Michael Chandler was the poster guy for Bellator for a little while. And dude, you're right. I agree with you. I'm glad you put this on the list. One of the forgotten fights of the aughts that was fucking bananas. By the way, I believe that Chandler fighting Alvarez the first time

was the same day as Shogun versus Dan Henderson won. So kind of a little bit of a connection there. You know, I worked the ESPN newsroom that night, and I was the MMA guy. Yeah, man, I remember that exactly with split screens. It's rare when that happens that you get two no-hitters on the same night. You know what I mean? It's crazy. All right, so for my number two, I'm going to that happens that you get two no-hitters on the same night. You know what I mean? It's crazy. All right. So for my number two, I'm going to go all the way back to 2006.

I remember exactly where I was when I watched this fight. Carl Parisian versus Diego Sanchez. This is just one of my favorite fights in combat sports, period. I've got some favorite boxing fights, even jiu-jitsu matches that I really kind of go back to and think about a little bit. Carl Parisian taking on Diego Sanchez is just, it's it for me. I remember the lead up to this one. The odds were super close.

They had Carl as a slight favor, but you got to understand the reality here. Diego Sanchez had come off the ultimate fighter and was making a name for himself through the organization. He had beaten some good guys, but at the time there was, you know, the Brian Gastaways or whatever his name was. And I think he'd beaten even Joe Riggs for a time. But there was still questions like, how good are the Ultimate Fighter guys? Are they really all that great?

Caro was a guy who was sort of put in that air of, he's up there with the very best at welterweight. He'd kind of fallen short against St. Pierre and some other guys. Never got his Matt Hughes fight because it had fallen through, even though he had been set up for a title shot due to injury. But he was that guy who, you know know he was right there in that place and Diego was I think undefeated at the time rising through and they met and I was like man I did not know how this was going to go and I remember BC none of my friends watched MMA so I went to a bar that is now defunct it used to be in Clarendon Virginia called Summers famous sports bar in the area for a long time and I think the pandemic finally took it under but I watched by myself I remember getting pictures of beer watching this fight by myself on Spike TV

and I was just blown away and overjoyed at everything and one of the things I really love about this fight is it's fucking back and forth I mean Caro was throwing Diego all over this fucking octagon but Diego sticking it out finding ways to get the takedown heavy ground and pound pushing caro back you know caro doing everything he can to throw this guy off balance and to and to do what he can as well but diego just being a fucking dog when it mattered between them and the other part i like about it is sort of a historical note now in mma if a guy gets taken down particularly of a big judo throw and there's not a lot of control through the process into the final establishment or the takedown on the mat, you'll see that right away the job is to get back up.

People just want to get back up. But back in 2006, it wasn't really clear that that was the best strategy. So what you see here a lot of times is a lot of guard play. They're not even trying to necessarily get back to their feet. Oh, now we're on the ground? Okay, well, here's my jiu-jitsu. And so you get a very different kind of fight than you would get today and you know you could say maybe worse or better but it's fun to see some of those like when people like really had to focus on their guard how did their guard look you get a lot of that here this is a dynamic fight this is thrilling this is a moment of triumph

for Diego Sanchez in overcoming a lot of obstacles in reaching new heights and it's just maybe my it's maybe my favorite fight night fight ever in the history of all the fight nights I fucking love this contest it's by the way not surprised that Nick Diaz is on this list twice and Nate could have been on a million times but not surprised that Carl Parisian is on you should be because we don't talk about him enough but you look back at those dude he had a handful of fights like this Luke what I love best about Caro is he never respected his opponent. Like, it was just on him. It was dripping.

Whether he's facing GSP or the D.A., it's dripping on him that he has no respect, and his defense could be lagged, so he always had a lead on his chin, but he had the dynamic judo, which back then was like a superpower that he'd pull on, pull these drag throws on people that was ridiculous, but yeah yeah great to

see him show up here twice luke i hated seeing the second half of his career kind of fall apart because he was special he faded he faded fast yeah i mean really fast he was bloated in bellator for a while and it went bad luke that was a bad run but in his prime dude win or lose fucking caro was absolutely must see tv makes you proud to be Armenian, Luke. He does. He does make me proud. Damn right. All right, Luke, my number one favorite fight in MMA history.

You're not going to be surprised. I don't really care if you don't love it as much as I do because I was there. I felt it. I sniffed it. I drank it. I lived it. It was an interim middleweight title co-main event at UFC 236 in Atlanta, April 13th, 2019.

Shout out, Bogo. That's your birthday. I know that. This is one of the greatest fights in the modern era. And the intensity of this, along with Poirier Holloway that night, also for an interim belt that you could argue was just as good, and I don't think it'll ever get the recognition it deserves either because it followed this fight. There was something in the air that night,

and it may have actually been Dana White floating interim titles on two fights that didn't need them. It didn't call for it, but it raised the stakes and the intensity, and I think Kelvin Gastelum gets much maligned because he's unable to keep it together on the elite level, kind of like Darren Till, where there's a lot of hiccups. This was the

night, though, where Kelvin Gastelum was as great as he ever was. An interim title at stake, he was supposed to have fought Whitaker for the belt, but it fell apart last minute. This was sort of his prize for that, and for Adesanya at that point in his rise, you know, beating Derek Brunson the way he did at MSG, we stepped up a notch in our belief that he's going to monster places. But you're never going to believe someone that skilled is the guy until they have to prove it. And you only have to look further than the opening of the fifth round when Adesanya looks across at Gaslam and, you know, lip syncs

and you can kind of pick it up like, I'm ready to die here. He crossed a barrier the hard way, the old school way, to endure the damage in that fight and the back and forth momentum. And, you know, he got dropped. I mean, that was a crazy fight. Maybe it will never equal the Hendo Shogun 1 type of level of action fights because, you know, there was a good mixture of skill but it's the very best of two guys who refused to lose that night and just put on mayhem unscheduled mayhem in front of me and you know in hindsight luke it was also a pretty damn high skilled fight

the way that gasolam set up his punches uh was was look that's the best of him but i do look back and say gasolam had a moment where he hurt Adesanya late, I think it was round four, and he shot in for a takedown that was unsuccessful and he kind of missed the moment there momentum-wise that I think is going to kick him for a while. But this is just one of those special nights where

whatever that feeling was that the drug made you feel, you'll never be the same and you hope you can feel that way for the rest of your life. And I, every time I interview out of Sunday, by the way, I thank him for this fight and not in like a weird, you know, self way or anything like, no, it's thank you. Thank you for showing us what is inside of you. Cause you needed it that night. And it was beautiful. And Luke, this is what it's all about at the end of the day, not Twitter followers or the money we make to be on TV

or any of this other MMA awards. It's the reason why we want to do this for a living. Fights like this, bro, I don't think you felt what I felt, Luke, but you better damn right tell me it's one of the best fights you've ever seen. You better. You better. It's a phenomenal contest. Also, let me ask you this. Would you agree, now he's had some great wins,

but I got to tell you you in terms of the level of ability he showed this is probably gastelum's best fight and i don't say that all his best fight was one that he lost i don't even mean it that way i actually mean it the opposite way like dude he gave it to izzy that night like don't you feel like gastelum like the level of like for example like and one thing i pointed out was like the head movement in this fight his head movement in this contest is better than any other one he's ever had. Absolutely. The way he set up his shots, which is what I said. So yeah, to echo your point, I had

made that point twice during my long ramble. This is the best Gastelum there ever was. Interim title at stake. But he not only sold out in ways with his chin that was ridiculous, to your and my combined point, dude, there was a next level ability to get underneath Adesanya's guard using daring

darting head movement and upper trunk movement that you just don't see him do today, Luke. He went all in because the task demanded it. And he actually got inside on Adesanya and gave him a hell of a trouble in terms of the two-way striking. I mean, what a night.

What a freaking night. That was an incredible night. And so then again, followed by Max Holloway taking on uh dustin parry just fucking nuts that you were there in atlanta pretty great night um for me again it's by far not the best ufc fight definitely not that not even the best ufc heavyweight fight but for me the most let me explain something to you guys know i don't care for pro wrestling it's not for me but the guy who has done and i've said this before at least for a stage in my career more than anyone else was brock lesnar the brock lesnar era i cannot describe to you he he was a shot of adrenaline into mma is really the best way to put it and when he took

on shane carwin ufc 116 on january of 2010 i was just i could not wait for this contest i remember bc literally hyperventilating when Shane Carwin, because here's what you knew. Shane Carwin came out, and you know what he was going to do. He was going to lower the boom on anyone he fought. Say the run that Shane Carwin was on of first-round KOs over legends. It was ridiculous. Yeah, I don't have it in front of me, but here's a great one for you.

Here's a little piece of trivia for you if you want. Go watch Shane Carwin take on a guy by the name of Christian Wellish. Christian Wellish was out of AKA. He was a good fighter. This was UFC 84. In fact, this was Shane Carwin's debut. It only lasts 44 seconds. He hits fucking Wellish with a punch that launches his mouthpiece into outer fucking space

and just turns Wellish's head in ways that like remember how mike tyson mike tyson used to hit guys and when their hair would spin in like the opposite direction that their head was going or like it would follow that's what you would see with with shane carwood he was just fucking demolishing people so he beats christian wellish neil wayne gabriel gonzaga he knocks out in a minute and nine seconds frank meir he beats in 2010 and a ufc 211 and then follows it up with brock lesnar who he was giving an absolute fucking beating to i could not the i make a joke about my wife i one time went to this masseuse bc and it was this uh it was this elderly chinese lady bro she gave me the old shane carwin fucking ufc 116 ground and pound i couldn't

believe how much it fucking hurt when she was in there doing it. And I joke about it with my wife because I was like, I've never seen someone take punches like that. Take fucking strikes like that and find a way to hang on. And miraculously, Brock makes it to the second. I mean, easy 10-8 round score. I don't know if they were doing it at the time, but it should have been. 10-5.

How about 10-5? I mean, he was dog-walking Brock Lesnar. But fucking Brock Lesnar. That bastard. Second round comes out, changes the equation, gets a takedown on Shane Carwin, proceeds to start putting a beating

on him, and eventually locks up a head-and-arm triangle. And folks who may never train may never realize this. That head-and-arm triangle was not a very good one like it was not a very technical head and arm triangle Brock Lesnar put all of that Minnesota South Dakota squeeze into everything he had after getting demolished in the first round and choked that fucker out and and got the tap at uh 219 of the second round i mean dude bc there are not many fights when they are over where i even say to myself dude i need a cigarette i needed a fucking cigarette after that fight it was a movie it was insane i mean he is a pro wrestler who's fighting a guy who looks like a pro wrestler a guy who had never been out of the

first round in 13 pro fights up to that point. By the way, forget that Shane Carlin only had six total UFC fights and, you know, four of them were just first round demolitions. The way he beat Frank Mayer, this was like legit danger to Brock. It's actually the worst style matchup for Brock Lesnar, who was never loved getting punched in the face. And here you've got a guy, you know, who's just a badass who's demolishing people in round one. We don't even need to know if Carwin has a gas tank

or a jiu-jitsu game because no one's getting there. Luke, it's actually a crime that this isn't on my list or maybe isn't number one. I've got the poster right here. You can't overemphasize how different this fight felt, not just to your point of Brock being this adrenaline incision who had a handful of fights, not even that, but he won in the most extreme pro wrestling movie comeback sort of way. Yeah, Carwin's

dumped his cardio there at the end of that first round in legendary ways and Josh Rosenthal needs to be praised for watching close enough that Lesnar got cut open but by the second half of that he was weathering a lot of that storm it's the only fight that's felt, even the build it felt like Andre the Giant vs Hulk Hogan

at WrestleMania 3, it felt just this thing that's so different from actual sport, it was bizarre, I try to imagine that's what Joe Lewis in Max Schmeling Part 2 felt for people who were, like, tied into the war and listening by their radio, and it's not even about boxing, it's about

my country against yours fighting for freedom. For some reason, this fight felt different, dude. It's one of my favorite pay-per-view nights of all time, and I remember exiting going, you know what, it doesn't matter that Brock Lesnar doesn't have all these fight skills. He's got stupid heart. Like like you couldn't have doubted him in that moment dude he came back and beat the shit out of frank meir like amazing just amazing across the board and i i had a epic

night i was live at the time i was editor-in-chief of bloody elbow and i remember live blogging it that night just i could barely breathe watching that shit so i can can't, I can't, I've never had more fun than that. So that's my number one. All right, BC, we've got a very long show here. Time to wrap up. It's time for fan subs. Take it away. Yeah, let's do it quickly.

It's morningcombat at gmail.com. Send us your pics of you in tight t-shirts, or if you're Jay Paquette, send us email after email. And now you've got a code named after you. This one's called fan submissions you've got mail viewers we've got mail I just do the

fart noise now for everything viewers yes we do this one's from Nick he says good morning BC and Luke glad to have you both back in studio while Luke was on vacation BC made a few references to my morning jacket, the band saying he'd seen them eight or nine times.

I was actually lucky enough to accompany him to one of those shows in the summer of oh six, when they opened for Pearl jam at the Meadows in Hartford. That was a great show, dude. I got so drunk. I punched all my friends in the balls really hard. Look,

I feel bad about that in retrospect, right? I bet you don't actually feel that. I do. He says it was his first MMA MMJ show show and in commemoration of that event he's created art for this show this one i call my morning combat jacket and it is a watercolor mashup of the album cover z and the mk logo it may make a great first tattoo that's actually pretty badass luke if you say so yeah that's that's some art right there uh he wants me to get it as a tattoo luke i won't go that far all right that's a terrible idea for a tattoo your art

gentlemen and i will keep sending mine at dawn we ride by the way that wasn't a great my morning jacket show because there was nobody there you've seen better i'm sure let's go to danny who says dad life mk style it's danny from the uk oh snap oh snap yes that's what i'm talking about that's what i'm talking about look at you in that hostage room with isis yeah yeah i survived i had a i had to give a lot luke okay i survived though bro when they nap at that age and they're out for like three hours that's like the best feeling in the world it's so good it's so good oh yeah thank you danny for sharing your fatherhood with us look you've got

little moments during the day that the day sucks put on mk right do you know what they call stella artois in in the uk didn't you say they call it beer they call it wife beater you mean the shirt that jake paul was wearing at the press conference on monday yes yeah they call it wife beater interesting maybe they can change that all right in 2022 look i don't think they're trying but according to you all of europe is racist so let's continue luke let's go over there no they're not but they're no they're i Let's go over to... No, they're not. But they're not... I mean, they're as racist as anybody else.

They're just in denial about it. They're just like, oh, yeah, we're not racist, but we have this totally segregated society. Okay. Luke, you ever hear of JP from Mount Unike, Nova Scotia? He says, good day, guys. I was able to get a local metal sign fabricator to make this for me.

Morning Combat Metal Sign. How awesome is this? Holy shit. Wow, that's pretty badass. My wife and I are currently designing an outdoor kitchen on the lake side of our house. I plan on mounting this with some cool backlighting on the barn board wall.

Massive thanks and shout out to Mikey for sending the official MK logo so this could happen. Greatly appreciate it. Love you guys. Super fan for life. JP. Luke, that's badass. We should sell that in the damn store, right?

Yeah, I mean, as nice as it is that he's mounting this on his property, he should just send it to us instead. Maybe JP will invite us to the lake house, Luke. Yeah, or invite us to the lake house, at which point I will just steal it. We'll do MK in your house pay-per-view, okay? We'll bring Chef Kaz

to it. I don't understand. Go back to the slide, the last one with with the nature in the background i don't understand this it's a picture of like a dock on the bottom where combat and then it's like verdant hills on under morning it's like a split screen right like what am i looking at no combat is the water luke is the lake right and then the top oh i see and then the other side of the lake is the top where morning is. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that's all right, Luke. Yeah, I'm a jackass. Thank you, JP.

That's fantastic. Let's go to Kevin. He says, this is Brian versus Luke, the poster. They spelled my last name wrong, but that's fine, Luke. You wearing that Reebok gear?

Damn right I am, dude. You better you better believe it dude i can't believe you would back venom that's such bullshit you drink mickey's malt liquor too luke hey only when i want to get stung yeah uh let's go to uh i don't know this guy's name to mike or is that torn torn ikey i don't know what this is hello luke and brian I'm your fan from the Republic of Georgia. Yes! Since I've started following MK in 2012, I've been watching Luke's early PMLCs. Yes, Luke. I'm one of the fans who has been watching your face for hours without

getting any sound. And MMAB, and you have no idea how happy I was when your collaboration was formed. Thank you, Tornikey. Unfortunately, I've got no merch to pose, but here's some memes I've made. Keep your divine work going and never stop. Yes! That's true.

By the way, that's a very fair meme, but it's also true of BC. Yeah, that is true. What was the other one again? You got that? It was about your liver and then the organs going to the gas station. I'm tired, boss. Yeah, yeah. Well done there.

Alright, let's go to JP again. This guy's our new co-host, Luke. Good day, guys. During last Friday's show, BC introduced his new filler segment called Fill in the Blank. I found a couple pictures of Luke's unseen reaction as he struggled through the experience.

Show us how you really feel about this new segment called Blank. Don't worry, it's only 10 questions and we'll prolong the show plus 20 minutes as you pass away on us. Okay, it's a moderately okay meme. He says, he's got a second one Luke here.

Oh no, that's it. Keep up the amazing work. Thank you Jake. Oh, maybe he he does let's see it i thought fill in the blank was spectacular i mean is it you know over under no but it's it's we're getting some it's getting these memes are moderately passable there's not really a punch line to them so you know you gotta kind of have to oh here we go you're like you're like don't get too happy with that promo code jp uh This is Andri, Andrade, Andri B. Andrade. It's Demetrius Andrade. Greetings, fellow wash dads.

Andri, Mexican tattooer from Vegas over here. I can't count all the times you mofos made me laugh out loud, so I drew you guys a token of my appreciation for helping my Mexican ass build a better vocabulary by virtue of cynicism and good old bullshitting keep it up amigos i know as well that if you're in vegas and need a tattoo for a bit or whatever i got you guys covered uh a tattoo out of the rio at a reputable shop here's my goofy art page uh he's in at instagram he's uh into the abyss art on Instagram. This is amazing. Yeah, this is good work right here.

This guy. I love this. Send that to me, Mikey, who's watching this. I love this. I'm going to post that on social. Also, the thing with the fly is really we're shaking hands through our fly. That's really sad. It's a sad thing that we promoted.

Luke, should I trust this man to tattoo me one day if Sean Brady defeats Bilal? Remember the name Muhammad? Well, the people who do the artwork aren't necessarily the same people who do the tattooing, so you would need to find someone who's an excellent tattoo applicant. Oh, that's too separate. That's like writing the songs and writing the music.

Not necessarily. A lot of people do both, but they're not necessarily the same. Do you feel like a musician can't be truly great unless he writes his own lyrics and music, Luke? I'd say this much. There was controversy. I saw someone being like,

oh, Beck writes and produces his own songs. When we look at his songwriting credits, it's either just him or him and one other person. And then Beyonce's got like 25, and then people will defend Beyonce for that. I'm like, yeah, I mean, you could defend it for all kinds of reasons, but like, who's the better artist? Beck is the better artist. Sorry. I'm like, yeah, I mean, you could defend it for all kinds of reasons, but who's the better artist?

Beck is the better artist. Sorry. I don't even like Beck. Beck sucks, dude. Beck sucks, but in terms of actual command of the art, he's better. Yeah, and that's where it's at, Beck. You suck, all right? Okay.

Out in the back of chimpanzees, I was a monk. I'm like, get the fuck off. Yeah, I mean, get out. You know, he's only got to go to parties because he was famous. He's not cool, Luke. This is from JP of Nova Scotia. Dude, do we have a filter on the amount of JP on today's show? Good day, MK crew and fans.

Episode 346. We should all thank BC for taking one for the team with his dedication and commitment to service. Nothing said remote location coverage like morning combat live from the atlantic city isis bed bugs basement bunker ag1 and bed bugs what else do we really need love you guys super fan for life uh that can we blow that up again i didn't get to see it fully that's a good one that's a good one the bed bugs the lack of cable discipline anywhere in that fucking room and just the vast amount of insects is really yeah this guy's this guy's the canadian web scream luke he's making moves wow he's taking

everything web scream worked for i'll tell you that much and luke we've got another one from jp here all right what the fuck are we doing i mean uh good day crew it was b was BC versus Luke in an unofficial MK product sponsorship pissing contest. BC said on episode 347, why don't you vape with a tougher, more manly flavor? Forget about this watermelon buffalo. Be a factory town MMA OG like me and rock the pre-cancer flavor charcoal vape. Real vape charcoal like men do. And then it says more manly pre-cancer and then luke came back with i banged rainbow unicorn like anyone drinking bang energy drink gives two shits about the flavor

that's good shit yeah like dude like oh what flavor is it like who fucking cares you're drinking nonsense just get it get it done with all right jp you're back for that one you're back uh we close with danger mouse as we tend to do hey guys some of the terrible mistakes where stuff wasn't shown last week sorry about that or he says some kind of something happened yeah it did uh so i'm back with a vengeance let's see how many of these i can get past mikey let's start with the Monday show, but with a new thumbnail. ASMR edition. Did they hear us squeaking and shit like that in there? That's interesting.

Thank you. The next one is from something Luke revealed on his personal show. What show is that, Luke? I guess my live chat? Do a drunk stone. Oh, dude, people are desperate for us to do a uh room service diaries again like the old the old style kind they want us to get like fired and divorced yes they want us to get fired is they they're desperate for this show to go up in smoke they're desperate danger mouse says

as an englishman i can't miss the opportunity to call luke out on his comments about our former queen and also dead wrong to him on the pronunciation of Norwich. It's pronounced Norwich. The W is silent just as in Greenwich Village. Okay. Norwich is pronounced Norwich. You fuckers can drop letters if you want.

It's Norwich. I also don't care. Here's a modified movie poster from danger mouse to close what a marathon episode we gave the people today luke well i think you gave them one i wanted to go a little bit faster uh the men who stare at goats looks like bc i want you to go but i want you to only give like half of how good you can be look i don't think that's possible i think it is possible that's how you showed up at 10.58 for the Zoom. You're supposed to be on at 10.30. You gave us half of yourself.

Alright. Let's remind everyone. I gave you the best half, Luke, okay? Let's remind everyone. We are going to have, let's see, Friday's show. I think BC's going to do an instant reacts to the Canelo-Triple G fight on Saturday. We are going to have the Chael Sonnen room service diaries tomorrow.

We have a lot of content coming your way. So thumbs up, hit subscribe, all that stuff. Give us a follow on the socials. We're on TikTok, by the way. We're on the place where all the kids do what they do and then the BBLs shake their rear ends. And I don't know who looks at that kind of thing, but I'm told BC does.

Just take that for what it's worth. What else, BC? Morningcombat at gmail.com for Friday's Dead Wrongs. For the stuff we get wrong, you can hit us up there. My daughter is banging on the door here. Morningcombat.store. Right now, we'll get you our merch. But how about 15% off using our code

for today? What's the code again? JP15. J-A-Y-P-1-5. 15% off because of his great artwork. You can wear ours. All right.

How about that? Luke, some people want to buy my painting. Some MK fans. For what? Like a dollar? No. No, Luke. I mean, look.

Do you hate this one? I'm going places, Luke. Do I hate it? Yeah. No, I don't hate it. Okay. That's pretty don't hate it. Okay. That's pretty good for a kid. Okay.

I thought you were going to say it looks like an old vagine or something weird. No, no, no. Not every joke has to be about that. All right. Showtime is the label that pays. Go to Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial.

If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. We have been here way too fucking long. I don't want to be here anymore. Go to Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. We have been here way too fucking long. I don't want to be here anymore. So let's call it a day. So for CBS Sports, Malka, Showtime, Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. RSD tomorrow with Chael. We'll see you all Friday live at 11 in the East.

Until then, may all your gains be loyal.