MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Vera-Cruz | Bellator 284 | PFL Playoffs | Teofimo Lopez Jr. | Ep 334

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

On Episode 334 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian are back in studio!!! The boys break down the biggest storylines for UFC Fight Night: Vera vs. Cruz, Bellator 284 and PFL Playoffs. The boys also preview Teofimo Lopez Jr. vs. Pedro Campa. They close out the show with some quick hitters and fan submissions. (11:20) - UFC Fight Night: Vera vs. Cruz (28:16) - Bellator 284 (43:50) - PFL Playoffs (62:20) - Teofimo Lopez Jr. vs. Pedro Campa (71:20) - Quick Hitters (87:00) - Fan Submissions Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, reveveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It is Wednesday, the 10th of August, 2022,

and we are back where we belong, in the studio. Welcome, everyone. It is time for Morning Combat here on this midweek hump day version. My name is Luke Thomas. You know me from... They know you. They know who the fuck I am. Who cares?

King of Connecticut, Brian Campbell. What's up, BC? Luke, it just feels better when you're back home, when you know that this is where you belong. You know what I mean? Like, you may not be happy with're back home, when you know that this is where you belong. You know what I mean? Like, you may not be happy with what it looks like, you know. The other show's feeling we have a condom on. This one just... All right, just like that.

Just like Brandon Royville, raw dog. You know what I'm saying? Wow. That's the kind of show we're going to... All me, Jai Herbert, the black country banger then, Luke, okay? Yes, thank you. We have a lot to get to today because, of course, it's a busy weekend of combat sports. When I say busy, I don't necessarily mean a great one, although it could be.

We'll have to see. Man, you're down on everything lately. That is true. I need a vacation. That's true. But I will say there is a UFC card. There is a PFL card. There is a Bellator card.

Plus, there is some boxing news. Teofimo Lopez is finally going to be back this weekend. BC is going to get us ready for that. Plus, we have fan subs as well. And I'm told we have a doozy of an addition this week. So that should be fun. If you're watching. How about that song I put on right before the show went live to pump you up?

You mean Finish Them by Cattle Decapitation? Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. I'm just going to get you like. You watch the 1999. We watched the 1999 Woodstock documentary. And I got to tell you, Gavin Rossdale comes off pretty good in that one, doesn't he? I mean, he's still pretty cool. Cooler than us.

You wonder if his DMs exploded as a consequence of social media or has it always been? No doubt. No doubt. Fair enough. If you're watching on YouTube, please give the video a thumbs up and hit subscribe. If you're listening to your favorite audio podcast, yeah, do something nice there as well. If you're listening to her favorite audio podcast yeah do something nice they're listening in prison do they hear podcasts in prison if you are BC cares don't nobody else care he's done that joke only 79,000 usually though usually to divorce moms I like to send

that offer out to you okay you're not alone out alone out there, okay? You're not alone. Well, Tupac cares. BC, we've been in the studio for about a day now. Yeah. We cut a bunch of content, probably inadvisably, yesterday. You know, yesterday was the type of day that I yearn for because... You came out of vacation just, you know, Samity Sam. Pop out. Why isn't shit getting done? Let's do all this.

You know, I like to fill the day, Lou. You do. That's true. You know what I mean? And we hey, do we we banged right? You know we get we get we got after it. Okay, Chuck was here for a few different views Yeah, Chuck Mendenhall was here. So you're gonna see him in some content coming up It was actually good to talk to him as well. We got him liquor up a little bit too. He gets Did he drive home? No, we took the train

I mean we have the conversation on air like the conversation on air. Was that the last time I saw Chuck? I don't know. I certainly hope not. That man's watched you puke in a sink once. Hey, listen, that's why your boy doesn't drink that much anymore. Trying to keep it light. Let's see. We have some, well, we can get you off the top or not here in just a minute, but I want to remind everyone, let's see, Showtime is the label that pays. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, when are you doing another Showbox?

What's the story on that? September 9th, officially. We'll be back in Atlantic City, so check that out. Also, Luke, I'm going to be in Florida. I had the Adrian Broner card. Yes, I'm sad I couldn't be there. And by the way, a little special MK that day, too, as well. Doing MK in Florida on the ground.

Maybe a little sugar shot. In studio. People like when you put the sugar in BC's coffee. You know what I'm saying? Two BBCs coming at you, and we're ready. We are ready. Yeah, no, that's not what that is. I work for my machine.

My machine is CBS Sports and Showtime, Luke, okay? So that's on the docket. Keep that in mind as well. Also, the merch. I haven't seen R.J. Dunklefucker one time. Not one time, bro. Okay? We've been here 48 hours, brother.

Where has he been? Eddie Murphy came by. Nick Nolte, no R.J. Where you at, brother? All right? You know who also hasn't been here? Jay. No, Jay showed up yesterday.

Did he? Probably because he knew we would be here. Maybe the doc cams. Did I not remember seeing him? Was Jay here what was J here coincidentally Pennington James was here to drop a new single he did do that he goes I don't know if you saw this on Friday but I painting James has a hot new singer I go like this I go what's it called he's like he goes I just just wrote it uh and I was like yeah that's that's something yeah that sounds like a great song, Jay, that I'll never fucking hear.

I'll play it at your funeral, just to spite you. You'll play nothing but Barbie Girl at my funeral and shit? All right, BC, we should remind everyone, and this is no joke, your boy is trying to get his digestive health in order. Buddy, how about our friends over at AG1, Athletic Greens? I love Athletic Greens because I know that in my situation, it's not easy to find the right motivation that I need to be working out and eating right all day, every day.

But Athletic Greens is almost like a cheat code, right? It's just that little one scoop of the green magic to start your day. It doesn't taste medicinal. It tastes kind of lightly tropical, but it tastes clean. I feel clean after I put on the green. It's my go-to-bed drink now. Get clean with green, Luke. Get clean with green.

I have it before I go to bed now every single night to help your boys' digestive issues. So you add it to that Molotov cocktail of over-the-counter sleep medications that you... Oh, you mean together? No, those go separately. Can you put AG1 in a vape stick?

We'll talk about that after. If they have it, I will inhale it. Yes. Let me tell you. I want to remind everyone, though, that it's lifestyle-friendly. Whether you eat keto, pale eat keto paleo oh you're not gonna do the verbatim thing at all are you i don't even have a script in front of me dairy free gluten free it contains less than one gram that's the difference you're acting i'm living the age you want experience okay

and trust me no gmos no nasty chemicals or artificial anything while still tasting good brian you know to take this a little bit further, you want to talk about the cost? You know what the thing I like best about it? The price. Less than $3 per day. Luke, I know what you spend. I mean, look at your necessities today on the table. I know what you spend and things that hurt you.

How about putting $3 a day and investing in your own health? AG1 gives you that opportunity. I feel like I'm at the first trailer show with crime faces. Did you all of a sudden start liking Kid Rock when I blew that vape in your face? Thanks, Pete Davidson. Sorry to hear about the ending of your relationship. His resume on that level is just insane. Taking athletic greens is a small micro habit with big benefits.

It's one thing you can do every single day. Don't just ask us. 7,000 people on the Internet can't be wrong giving five-star reviews to AG1 on that shit. I'm talking about people like Michael Gervais, people like Tim Ferriss, leading health experts, the people that know shit, Luke. They love this stuff. Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with a convenient daily nutrition, especially heading into the flu and cold season.

It's just one scoop. I mean, could you act like you live in this rather than your cup of water every day? That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your deranged friends and to make it even easier. You know, Athletic Greens is going to give you MK listener. How about a free one year supply of immune boosting vitamin D and five free travel packs if you it with your first purchase.

So how to do that? You see it on the screen. Please go to athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat. Tell them BC sent you. Let's do this, right? Let's two become one. Let's do this. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat to take ownership over your health.

Get clean with green. The ultimate daily nutritional insurance. We should also remind folks about the World MMA Awards. Actually, we have a couple of updates on that front. People's podcast awards, bro. The finalists in three categories. Hold on. Let's get to this one real quickly.

This is the World MMA Awards. Again, if you're listening on the audio platform, go to worldmmawards.com slash nominees. You can vote for Morning Combat. If you're watching on the YouTube, you can just use the QR code there. We also advanced in the round of the People's Choice Podcast Awards. We are in all three,

so best male hosted, best sports, and best overall. The best overall is like the People's Choice. Like the favorite, what's your favorite podcast? Is it MK? I don't know who can, so I think we're at the final round,

which I think only, I'm on the voting panel. I don't know if, I haven't think we're at the final round, which I think only I'm on the voting panel. I don't know. I haven't checked my work. I'm one of the respected podcasters. I think there's fans. There's a mix of everybody. But there's a select group of 500 people now, I think, who are going to vote on each award.

So OK, we'll see what happens. The people got us here. We didn't get us here. OK, that's right. People got us here because I'm going to do this show as good as we're doing it, whether you're watching or not. But if you want to be a part of this revolution, if you want to be on the ground at NYC at a live show,

well, let's see what they do with Spence versus Crawford first. Then keep putting these awards, okay? These awards that tell people what the hell we're all about, Luke, okay? You know what it's all about? It's not about this. It's about entertaining you it's about making you feel something

But it feels a lot better Luke when we can do shit like this to our to our rivals When we can wake people up and say even you can get out of bed this morning and do something with your life like we do with athletic greens All right, are you done with that stupid promo? Let's do it. There is a bevy of weekend cards and there's a little bit of gems

kind of all over the place but the cards themselves are not that great. We start with the UFC. Now the main event is good, BC. This will be the UFC. Let's see what number they're calling this one. Nobody cares. Just get to the good part. UFC on ESPN 41. This will be the UFC. Let's see what number they're calling this one. Nobody cares. Just get to the good part.

UFC on ESPN 41. This is going to be in San Diego at the Pechanga Arena. No. I know what you're about to say. I know what you're about to say. No, this is not the makeup to the Tachi Palace. But it's going to be in San Diego, California at the Pechanga Arena. Inside the whale's vagina.

Is that some kind of joke I'm supposed to get? San Diego. Oh, you haven't seen Anchorman. No, I've never seen Anchorman. Oh, that's like the low-fruit Anchorman joke that you would have. Oh, in a whale's vagina?

Santiago. Yeah, okay. I just spoiled it, dude. There's an E there, not an A. Marlon Vera, Chito Vera, in the main event

taking on Dominic Cruz. Interesting space where they both find themselves. Just to recap here, Chito Vera, by the way, just 29 years old. I think folks sleep on that because he's been around for a while. He's on a three-fight win streak over Davey Grant, Frankie Edgar,

who he stopped with that vicious front kick, and then kind of just had that amazing, brutal fight with Rob Font, but mostly brutal in the end in terms of what the damage was that Rob Font had to suffer. Dominic Cruz enters this contest 36 BC. He's also, however, on a bit of a win streak. He lost to Cody Garbrandt and Henry Cejudo. We know that in 2016 and then came back in 2020. But then since then, he's beaten Casey Kenney and Pedro Munoz.

They are ranked respectively at the current moment at the time of this recording at 5 for Chito Vera, at 8 for Dominic Cruz. BC, it feels like, I'm not going to say a setup fight for Chito, but at 29, the momentum's in his direction. Feels like the UFC is giving him a tough, good name. Yes. Tough opponent, but the kind of one he should be able to both defeat and then use that star power to advance.

Get the rub, as they would say in pro wrestling. I really like this fight. I believe either guy has a chance to win, certainly. I agree with you that Vera's not only the hotter stock at the moment, but gets an opportunity if he gets this done to really make a leap. Not necessarily to the front of the line and get into that title position,

but he ain't that far because Luke, shout out to a great actor, Oscar Isaac. You know him? I know the name. He was in Dune. Dude, I watched Dune again last night after a long DM exchange with Web Scream. Oh, he's the dude from... From the most violent year.

Because for Chido Veraluke, it has been a most violent year. But this is getting that cred, that name. You've got a name like a former champion, Dom Cruz, who still has it and has shown that on this two-fight win streak. I've been ready to retire him, not in a mean way, but in the last, the step-ups, the Casey Kenny. Who was the last fight for Dom? Dom's last win, I think.

I just had it up here. His last win was Pedro Munoz. Pedro Munoz. You know, each of those I thought he could lose, he came over the top. He's been able to sustain himself at this age, never had big power. Was that going to hurt him when the speed slowed down? Well, it hasn't yet. This is the matchup where it could,

and I think for Chido Vera, there's just been an extra spice to him. There's something electric about what he's doing right now. It's a next-level step up into confidence. He learned something from that Aldo loss, right? That was going to be potentially his moment, kind of like this, a little different. Aldo still had a lot left, and he showed that,

but the way he's bounced back, he looks ready to join that group in the title picture, Luke, going through Dom Cruz to get there. It won't be easy, but as we sort of laid out off the start, skill versus skill, stock versus stock where we're at. I like Chito's chances in this, but he's going to have to earn it, Luke. Okay? Dom's stubborn as shit right now. And tough.

Very, very tough. One of the things that's not talked about with Dominic Cruz is he's hard to, yes, Garbrandt obviously was able to style him a little bit. but in general, he's hard. He's a hard dude to consistently hurt, hard dude to stop. Even the time that Cejudo got away with it, there is, you know, I thought the stoppage was fine, but you know, Cruz was just that mindset he has where he was making fun of Keith Peterson for smelling like booze and cigarettes, which we have yet to confirm. And maybe cheap women too. I usually add that in at the end. I mean, the smells are close. Have you seen the video of Keith Peterson singing?

No. Is it? It's out there. It's out there. Was that nickname, No Nonsense, given to him by John Anik? Or did he just popularize it? No, I think that's an Anik creation, which is a fair one, but nevertheless, from him. Here's where it stands with me, BC.

I think Chito Vera, like, you know, you can really, he's at the foreground of this, I'm going to call it slowly emerging push from Spanish-speaking Latin America. Because the Brazilians are always been leaders of the pack. They're going to be a force to be reckoned with for generations to come. We already know about what they offer. By the way, UFC announcing today that they're going to go back to Rio, Rio de Janeiro. I've never heard you call it Rio. It's Rio.

But here's the thing. Like, you talk to the Brazilian dudes, they say it's Rio. So I don't even know how it's supposed to be pronounced anymore. The King of Rio? The King of Rio sounds a lot cooler. They're going to go back there. They haven't been back in a while. They're going to go back now.

So we already know what kind of role they play in mixed martial arts, both past, present, and potentially in the future as well. The Spanish-speaking side of it is slowly coming along. Chito, just 29 years old, has a ton of experience. And I feel like one thing we haven't talked about here just briefly is that he was with Colin Oyama for a long time, who I have a great respect for. Listen, sometimes the training relationships, they run their course, they don't work anymore, people are due for a change.

People go to Colin Oyama from other teams and they get lifted up. He went to Jason Perrillo, and it just seems like they made the things with his striking a little bit sharper. He's really devastating with his Muay Thai now. His kicks in particular, kicking range, he is brutal. And, dude, we say it all the time. It's not necessarily the thing you have to have in fighting Dominic Cruz per se. Chito Vera's durability is some of the best I've ever seen in all of MMA,

aided by the fact that he's in his 20s. But nevertheless, Rob Font was good until Chito Vera's overwhelming force was simply too much for him. I wonder if something similar, although Cruz is a very different game than Rob Font, might happen. It's not an apples to apples comparison,

and let's always put respect on what Jorge Masvidal did in that great comeback year and the spirit he carried, but there's a little bit of that edge that I feel with Chito right now. And maybe that just means I'm so confident, I've ironed out whatever I've identified as the things that slow me down and prevented me from getting over that hump in the big showdown against Aldo.

But it's just like, how do you identify what has changed? I mean, you won't know unless you're in his head, but... Just a little sharper, he seems like. Everything's a tick sharper. He understands his assignment more, he makes better decisions. I think they've made some of his... Again, I think the striking has been a little bit ironed out. He's mean, too.

He fights mean. He's fucking mean, too, in all the good ways of being mean. He is vicious now. And so, by the way, I think he also has, he always had good confidence. I think he's got, I think he really believes he can be a champion in his weight class, which leads me to this. Now, here's the thing. We've talked about this.

Gianna's going to be fighting O'Malley. That's one versus 13. Who the hell knows what's going to happen've talked about this. Jan is going to be fighting O'Malley. That's one versus 13. Who the hell knows what's going to happen there? Dillashaw is going to be fighting Sterling. Who the hell knows what's going to happen there? We have Aldo versus Marab, not this weekend, but the following. I love this division. Right. And so after that is where it kind of fought is, who

has already been beaten. I have a name for you. If he wins this. I have it. What do you think? Corey Sanhagen. So Sanhagen's got the fight against Yadong coming up. My dog? Oh, Song. Sorry, I just had a... Sorry, let's just rewind, okay?

Let's just, you know... Okay. Thank you. People think I don't like your humor. I actually like your humor. I'm just your best editor. I just take out the crap. Thank you.

That would have been a good matchup for him no he look he's in a great spot if he gets a win here especially with the close-up variety of being a main event here but um it's look this is the deepest division in the sport it's the hardest to make that leap it'd make a good leap here but he's gonna have to fight another hammer Luke to truly enter that title picture and whether that's a star coming down and a loss off of these fights or it's somebody that bumps up with a win I go how soon is the Sanhagen fight? I Don't have it in front of me

I mean it he's at the level where he would face the winner of that would you say or are you thinking? Are you thinking higher? Well, here's the thing. It's like with all that shuffling. It's hard to know what's gonna happen at bantamweight I would not think that beating the number eight guy would get you a title shot Especially when you're already sitting at five. No, we're not talking about that. We're talking about how long. So the question is, does it put you in a fight that if you win that one, does it get you there?

So Sanhagen's next fight is going to be September 17th, so that's coming right behind you. You're right. So if Sanhagen wins that one, Sanhagen versus Chito, again, we're kind of burying Dominic Cruz here. Cruz, I'm sure, has designs on winning, but I think I pulled the odds here. I'm going to imagine that Chito Vera is going to be your overwhelming favorite. How about a minus 275 favorite?

Close. Very close. Very good guess. Chito Vera sitting currently from our friends at Caesars at about a minus 240, plus 200 for Cruz. That sounds about right. Cruz is tough to put away. Five-round main event. Both guys have good cardio.

And it always stands in a division like this, like we were just at with Light Heavy, where one great performance out of all these great fights that are lined up. Maybe sometimes somebody who has the best performance can make that leap. I don't even think that's the case in the opportunity for either guy in this fight, but you're close enough to be knocking on that door. Damn, there's going to be great fights. I mean, the only

one who can really do that, I think, is O'Malley. If O'Malley beats Gian, it's like star-wise. It's time. It's time, Luke. Right? Is he going right to the top if he wins that? No one. Seems to me he would. And I'm not leaning in the direction of saying he's definitely going to win.

I don't know. It's another great fight. But what a time for this division. Since it's passed lightweight in the last year and a half as the best division in the sport, you know, people hate that. On podcasts, we always have to, like like quantify everything with its, you know, but like, would you call this historically deep at the moment? Yes. Yes.

It would go that far. It would go that far. This is, this is, we'll have to see what happens in the future, but we're just examining the history of Bantamweight. Certainly this is the very best version of it by a million miles. It's not even close. Even like the WEC versions, people romanticize, but no. People get mad that when we say the letters WEC, we don't bring up Miguel Torres because

he was a stud back then. He was a stud back then. Before that bad incident, he was a stud. Yeah, although the Brian Bowles fight didn't go his way. There's a couple times it didn't. BC, what about Cruz? What if he wins here? 36 years old. I think people are admiring what he's done. And again, we could all totally be wrong. I don't get the sense, though, that there's a lot of belief that he could really climb back to a title. And he would say, well, no one believed that. On my two previous absences from the ring and everything that happened due to injury, still, this is, it feels like a, he still had a lead on the division despite those long absences.

And then coming back and beating Takei Mizugaki in the way he did. Can we give him his props? What he's done? He's very competitive. Listen, these odds are not super far apart. I'm just pointing out. I think it's unlikely. However, if he did win, I wonder about that.

Commentator beating a top five guy. That would be a bit of a shakeup as well. That would be huge. But let's not forget also that Mr. Faber was, when he lost to Jan, he was like, you know, right there again to get another big title shot. So his name would get him very far, but this would be three wins in a row. This would be

easily the best on that list. It would just, I think, just be more sprinkling on top of this guy's legacy is going to age like a fine wine because, you know, he already was a champion. He was dominant in his first run, but the constant comebacks just show the metal. I mean, he is unnaturally tough and determined and disciplined.

Some of his interviews, like the long ones with Ariel, are some of the best MMA interviews I've ever seen. The guy is the most inspirational yet darkly stubborn. And I say darkly like it's the fuel, it produces the fuel that allows him to do this, which is keep coming back and staying relevant. Luke, he does not have a style that would age well. He's aging perfectly fine. If he gets this win,

it's just adding to that legend. I love everything about Dominic Cruz. I swear, you know, even when he's prickly, Luke, because man, he has taken his hand he was dealt and overachieved time and again. You'd have to admit that.

He's a magician. He did, but the thing is he invented a style of footwork that is unusual, and for a time it allowed him to have a lead on the game, and I think the game has caught up to the point where that style of fighting, it can still be winnable, but it doesn't represent what it used to, which was this he was a far-advanced guy. There's just a greater awareness about striking fundamentals and skill in a way that that doesn't translate over the same way. So to get a win even now would represent something kind of new

because to have this sort of weird style that the game doesn't really know what to do with now where everyone kind of seems like they do, that's going to be interesting. It's going to be an interesting interesting fight i'm curious to see how it goes you think he gets the respect he deserves overall dominic cruz yeah i i saw it on twitter the other day for whatever that is worth that people were talking about who the greatest all-time bantamweight was and most folks had cruz in that in that space but i don't know that like he occupies that title seemingly without the kind i think the nature of that title seemingly without the kind, I think to the nature of your question, seemingly without

the reverence that would be paid to someone who we can, like if you want to call St. Pierre the GOAT, everyone reveres him, or at 55 or whoever you want to pick. There's always like, wow, that's like, this is this very special fighter. We might think that about Cruz. I don't know that there's enough general sentiment in that way.

What's crazy is, he has a Grant Hill. We're talking about him off camera. Grant Hill, the great NBA star who, at the peak of his powers, had the devastating injury. Yeah, he found a way to make the rest of his career work and was a very good role player even in his late 30s. But that's Dom Cruise's legacy. But he's also arguably the best band in the world of all time. So it's like, no, he doesn't get the overall respect he deserves. I mean, look, the way his career fell apart, yet he wouldn't let it with all of those devastating injuries, most people walk away for good.

Sure. He's still freaking highly relevant at this point and still in the larger extended title picture at this age, fighting these killers who, to your point, have evolved their games past levels that we've seen from him. But he's so smart and so damn stubborn. He is. If I want someone's legacy, I kind of want his. I'm not kidding. I think that's, is that true currency?

I think it's the purest form of currency. When somebody's that tough and dogged, determined that they just make it work. Is this a way to talk about yourself? Yeah. Gotcha. Now here's where the card begins to kind of fall off a cliff. I may smell like Keith Peterson, but I think like Tom Cruise, all right? Here's where the card kind of falls apart a little bit.

There are interesting fights on it. For example, Danny Segura, shouts to him, has told me to look out for this women's strawweight fighter, Yasmin Huaragui, taking on Yasmin Lucindo. He tells me that Huaragui, of all of the rising female prospects out of space, speaking in Latin America, is by far the best. Apparently she's a fucking hammer. I've never heard of her. I'm not looking closely. I think she fought maybe in Compate. There's footage of her online.

The co-main event, such as you can call it that, is Nate Landwehr, who is certainly exciting. The train. Taking on David Onama, but it's like two unranked featherweights. So the fight could be fine, but when we talk about card quality, how many ranked fighters are there? What kind of stakes are there? Yes, in this particular case, you're

probably going to get an action fight between Landwehr and Onama, but not a lot of storyline per se behind that. Yeah, I'm looking up and down this card, Luke, and I don't like it. Yeah, it's not great. I'll be emotionally tied, though, to Cynthia Calvillo versus Nina Nunes at Women's Flyweight. That's an interesting one.

It's on the prelims, by the way. Both really need a win, would you say, right? Yeah. In terms of their future. And also, where are they going with all of this? It's hard to really know. Obviously, Nina Nunes became a mom, and Cynthia's had tons of issues and camp changes and weight class changes and a lot of other stuff. But we'll see.

You know what? We're going to have to wait and see. There's not a whole lot on this card. I mean, there's some other interesting ones that you could point to. You're lying. No, the Devin Clark versus Azamat Mirzakhanov fight is okay. Lipski versus Cachu which was supposed to be last week. They pushed it to this week.

Mirschardt versus Bruno Silva opens the card. That's a fun one. That's a fun one at middleweight. Angela Hill, by the way, we talked about this, taking on Lupita Godinez at a 120-pound Cachoeira fight. That will be the main event of the prelims. So there's fun fights here and there, but there's nothing like the main event is kind of the meaty one there.

I have a secret to tell you. Next week's pay-per-view is kind of the same thing, even though it's very top-heavy, and I can't wait for the top of it. It's a little bit more top-heavy than this one. I mean, this one is not like that. So is it correct to call Tuki, who we love, Tukito? Or is that incorrect? Well, it would be a female, so it would be Tukita. Tukita, okay.

Yes. Tell her Uncle Gringo is not calling her that. Yeah, I'm not going to tell her that. Alright. So that's that card. Keep her off TikTok, by the way. Don't let her go that way. No, we don't let her do that.

Any other? Ode Osborne taking on Tyson Nams on this card. Yusuf Zalal's a fun fighter. I don't think this is going to be boring. It'll end up being what it will be, and fights will surprise you. Fun fights, potentially, but not super relevant. And look, late land wear is always going to be my Wednesday super sloppy special when he's on the card, Luke. Because the fight's going to be a brawl. He's going to yell interesting things during it.

The post-fight interview's going to be out of control. Dude, he commits to the role as the train, Luke, okay? He really does. He's a TV fighter out of control. I mean, in that, dude, he commits to the role as the train, Luke, okay? He really does. He's a TV fighter, and I enjoy him. All right, let's also talk about what's going to be on TV. Showtime is going to be showing Bellator 284. Now, this will be Friday night. This will be at the Sanford Pentagon in your favorite state, South Dakota, right?

In Sioux Falls. How far away were you from Sioux Falls when you were in Deadwood, which they named after your genitalia? Can we fly into Sioux Falls. How far away were you from Sioux Falls when you were in Deadwood, which they named after your genitalia? Jake, did we fly into Sioux Falls? Where did we fly into? Yeah, we flew into... They're all small towns. I mean, you know, like Minneapolis surprisingly felt like Hartford heavy. That's sad.

Like, you know, like it was like Hartford plus a little bit more. And I was like, man, this ain't. Hartford is like, imagine if you had a city, but it was medium-sized in the wrong ways, and there was nothing interesting. Yeah, Minneapolis is like extra Hartford. So what is like Sioux Falls and Grand Rapids? Dude, they're what you would expect them to be. But shout out to Deadwood, because as we established, Luke, in my prime, probably on horseback, I would have cleaned up in Deadwood.

That's not saying much. That's not saying much. Would you have been prom king of Deadwood High School? Definitely. Who here would have been prom king? Look at this guy. Just plotting his next murder over there. We should close our segment today just looking at his tattoo selections with the animals because he's got some extra space.

He's starting to put together a nice little menagerie of animals there. Let's talk about this. So you have not been super enthusiastic about this card. I understand that. I don't know. Are you outing me? You do it to me all the time, and then you exaggerate. So why can't I do that?

Right? Oh, you don't like it when the tables have turned. Can you please keep the Asian? Are you going to be racist? Because I wasn't doing an Asian bit. There you go. All right, let's talk about it. Neiman Gracie taking on Goichi Yamauchi.

It's a welterweight fight. Now, you might know Yamauchi. Some folks have compared him to being Bellator's Charles Oliveira, which used to be truer than it is now, but he's definitely a guy who's got very good submissions, very good guard. He can strike a little bit. In fact, he's been doing much better of that recently.

Currently stands at 27-5. He's 29 years of age, BC. Coming in off two wins back-to-back, one of Chris Gonzalez and then one of LaVon Chokely. I forget how you pronounce his name. I saw that when he won the first round arm bar, but the one before that, first round ground-and-pound strikes.

Neiman Gracie has definitely improved over the years. He has gotten much, much better. But it seems like BC, every time he bumps up to that next level, Rory McDonald, Jason Jackson, Logan Storley, it's not like those guys just sit there and just completely beat the shit out of him, but he does find himself wanting in those contests. Would it be incorrect to frame this as a soft refterendum fight for who Neiman Gracie will be moving

forward? Meaning, he's gotten to the elite level, he's alternated wins and losses at the elite or sub-elite level, has definitely filled the role of dangerous title contender who could come through with that type of victory, but had that chance against Storlie and went to war with him.

Now, another main event, Luke, is this, you know, to stay at that level, he's got to win this fight, and he's got to look good doing it. I think that's right. This is a guy we're talking about in Yamauchi who is talented, who is dangerous. He's actually one of Bellator's more fun fighters to watch. But again, he's fought, for example, Chandler in the past. This is a guy who was a 155-er who has now, a little bit later in his 20s, decided to go to 170.

And it's like, Neiman Gracie on the ground, you would think if Yamauchi wants to put it there, that would be a place he could do well. On the feet, it's not like Yamauchi is Bellator's best striker, but he's dramatically improved. This isn't a guy who can wrestle fuck him the whole way. If you're Neiman Gracie,

you're not going to get wrestle controlled the whole time, so you don't have to worry about that. If he wants to go to the ground, which is a big part of Yamauchi's game, he can follow him there. It's the striking where things might get weird. And again, last thing, talking about a guy from 155 to 170, you know, if Neiman Gracie's going to really

turn into something that I think he had hoped to turn into, it's not an easy fight, but these are the ones he should be able to win in theory. Let me ask you the key question about Neiman Gracie's potential elite future if he wins this fight and stays on that road. Would you like to see less commitment to the striking? I know everyone that has a dominant skill like he has on the ground, you want to round out your game, and there's been fights where we're saying,

okay, maybe this is the fight where he stands and shows us that. Have we seen enough to know that it may be okay for him to really lean on his strength moving forward as a submission? He has come a long way with it, even though it's still definitely not even close to his A game. What I would say is it just needs more there. It's not like a matter of more or less in terms of how much of it you use. It's getting enough skills to make it valuable.

And so then apportioning it in the right manner is sort of what you're saying. I'm still saying like there needs to be more development and then the apportionment conversation becomes a little bit more relevant. Oh, it should be noted, BC, our friends at Caesars have Neiman Gracie as a minus 180 to Yamauchi's plus 155. That's an interesting one. That tells you how tight that contest is. Dude, Yamauchi is a very live dog. How recently did Yamauchi move up in weight? So his last one was definitely at welterweight, for sure. So he's definitely had a couple of these. I'll tell you. He had the Chris Gonzalez win at Bellator 263.

That was the Pitbull McKee two card. Yamauchi fought that one at a catch weight of 160. So that one, the last fight he's had, and then this one, two clear 175-pound fights. Or 170-pound fights, excuse me. Do you think Bellator is trying to make South Dakota the next Thackerville, Oklahoma? I really hope not. I really hope not. I like the co-main event, by the way, a lot.

Of this card? Yes. Yes, so on the co-main, of course, again, this will be, I think, what time does it start in the East? 9 p. Yes. So on the co-main, of course, again, this will be, I think, what time does it start in the East? 9 p.m. Valentin Modovsky is back after losing to Ryan Bader in a very bad fight. Why was that very bad?

Remind us. It wasn't a bad fight in the sense that, like, it was low level. That's not what I mean. But it was boring. I mean, I think that's very fair to say. Ryan Bader just did whatever he could to control it, and that's fine. He's still trying to be as relevant as he can, even up a division. God bless him. It wasn't thrilling.

I think it's a very fair way to put that. Would you say it was a little bit surprising because there's a bunch of fighters, and they're all from relatively the same area, who are coming on, particularly in the Bellator under the banner. When you see Vadim Nemkov, you see Yaroslav Amosov, it looked like Moldavsky was of that group when he captured the interim title, Luke. The Bayer loss turned out to be a little bit of a humbling setback. And now he's got an unbeaten guy who's trying to find out how good he is.

I really like this matchmaking. Yeah, and by the way, so he's taking on an undefeated fighter, as BC indicated. 10-0 Steve Mowry, who is very good with the Kimura. Very, very good with the Kimura. Very, very good with the Kimura. Big Steve, they call him. Big Steve? Yeah, because Brandon Wise, our brethren at CBS Sports, our combat sports senior editor,

he used to spar over at Hard Knocks 365 before it made the Stanford Kill Cliff transition with old Big Steve. Well, get this. He has a 79-inch reach. He's 6'8", undefeated, age 30. And he's looked good each step of the way. Dude, I'm telling you, he's got a nasty, nasty Kimura that he goes to from a lot of different positions, which, by the way, is really interesting because when you can lock up that grip,

the double wrist, do they call it double wrist locking catch wrestling? I can't remember anymore. But essentially, it's a wrist-on-wrist grip. And when you can do that, you can turn people, you can submit people, you can stall out fights. People don't talk about the importance of grips. I go over all the time. It's a grip that you can do so much with. And when you're that tall and you have that kind of leverage, you can lean into it in ways other guys can't.

Interesting fight. I wonder if Moldovsky might get the takedown and if he does what Mowry does with the Kimura from a bottom position. This fight is designed to show us the things that Steve Mowry, the positions he hasn't been in yet. That's right. He hasn't fought anybody. Again, the fight with Bader and Moldovsky was not fun. But Moldovsky is a talented fighter to the point you're raising. Mowry so far, Mowry, excuse me, looks like the real deal.

But he's not fought anybody this big. Did you put some respect on Team Fedor? Did I not? No, in general, you never talk about them in the rising teams, but Fedor's built a little stable there. Dude, Nemkov is their lead guy, right? But Moldavsky ain't bad. Yeah, but he ain't as good as Nemkov.

Nemkov's much better. But anyway, you get the idea. This is a tough test for Mallory that will be interesting to see if he can navigate, given the size and sort of the wrestling acumen, generally, of him. By the way, also on this fight, and this is a big fight for, oh, this car, excuse me, a big fight. Ilema Leigh McFarlane is back.

Dude, she has not been herself, or what we thought was her, in quite some time. So she beat Kate Jackson back in 2019. She fought once in 2020 to Juliana Velasquez. Velasquez was better. That's fine. And by the way, I know Velasquez lost to the Gorilla. Is it bad stoppage?

Right. There was a question about the stoppage there, Liz Carmouche. So then she comes back. Okay, so she lost to Velasquez. Elima Leigh McFarlane did. No harm, no foul. She was just better that night. But then the fight to Justine Kish at Bellator 279 in this year,

she didn't look great. I don't know if she had an injury or kish is just massively improved or what it was something was off so you did not see what i would call a former championship caliber performance no and that's why the the onus is on this fight for her to come back against a tough opponent here and really remind us that she's of the title level i love when she's in a big fight in hawaii lu, that's been some of the greatest walkouts we've seen. But Alimaleh can fight, and she's been consistent.

And even though, like you said, Velasquez isn't even the champion anymore, I'd still like to see a rematch between Velasquez and McFarlane to see if she can kind of fix what went wrong. I mean, she was competitive and somewhat close at times in that fight. I know both have lost since then, but a little bit of referendum time,

the same here for Ali Malek, who they used a lot on the booth. I like her energy. She was on the MMA beat for it with us a couple times. She was? Really? Mm-hmm. In New York. In New York. She came by.

We had her on set. It was great. She's a great person. She's a wonderful person, in fact, a great ambassador. Pineapple princess. Huh? The pineapple princess. Okay.

I don't know how racist that is. I'm going to let the. That's her nickname. Is it? Really? Because you haven't heard it? It's racist? Because you said it.

I can't be sure. How about that? But here's what I was going to say. She has, at times, she's really shined. But in that last performance, man, it was. It was shit. It was not great. It was a bad performance. All right, BC. This guy is back. And I only said that because it's you, fuck, K was... It was shit. It was not great. It was a bad performance.

All right, BC, this guy is back. And I only said that because it's you, Falkish. I was trying to connect the dots. It wasn't shit. You get the point. You know, you work hard for the joke sometimes. You work hard, right? You don't...

Sometimes these planes land. They don't go back in the offering plane all the time, but I worked hard for that. BC, Austin Vanderford is back. He is back. Your guy. After a terrible showing against... Another guy who's got some explaining to do, for sure. Right, dude, because, okay, the pick that I had for him over Musashi clearly was premature.

But the way he lost it to Johnny Edlin in his last contest did tell you that if some guy has good wrestling and good ground control at this stage of Musashi's career. That's another something was off fight. I want to talk to Austin. He just completely imploded. Was it an injury? Was it something that made a bad camp? Something was not right in the way that he imploded. He was unbeaten, but he was unbeaten, Luke, with what, 10 fights at that point? 11. He was 11 and 0. So there was still potential to be green in big moments. And it's not that he, it's weird.

I still don't know how he imploded or why, but it happened. So referendum time to a degree to come back, but it doesn't seem like, Luke, that he's going to be that far from getting back into a position to fight for that title if he can win this and put a couple together. He's young, hungry, aggressive. Mr. Van Zandt, he plays the joke well, but he's a good-ass fighter. He's a good fighter. He's a good wrestler. He's a good athlete. He's taking on Aaron Jeffrey, who has two losses on the contender series, one to Brendan Allen back when it was only his seventh fight or sixth fight.

He lost via rear naked choke. He rematched Kyle Bohaglio. That's the guy that has the tattoos on his throat. He was really good. Oh, yeah. And he lost via decision, so he was able to actually last the whole time. And since then, he's had a couple of wins on some smaller shows. Well, he had one at CFFC and then one in Bellator in his last contest,

which he won via stoppage. Vanderford should win this contest. Let's see what the oddsmakers have to say. Yeah, but they have it as a slight favorite. Minus 190, our friends at Caesars, to a plus 160 at Aaron Jeffery. Jesus. What do they know, Luke? By the way, dude, I'm looking at this main card for Bellator.

Every single fighter except for one is either a plus or minus 100. The only one that's not, Valentin Moldavsky sitting at minus 210, and then they have Mallory at plus 175. Everything else is plus or minus in the 100s. A very, very, very, at a bare minimum, competitive card. Any prelim magic that we would mention. Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. Do you remember that crazy guy who did, like, the weird grappling match

with Gordon Ryan where they did freestyle then they did regular ones? You must be talking about middleweight Pat Downey. Pat Downey is finally going to make his pro MMA debut. The Lizard King, yes. Dude, this guy is out there. He is a sensational athlete. He can wrestle his ass off.

He's got a big mouth and I mean that as a compliment. He can do a lot. Self-marketer, self-promoter in all the ways. Almost the pro wrestling spirit in him, right? 100%. That's exactly what he brings to MMA, but he actually has real elite wrestling credentials. He's very, very

good. He's finally making his way to pro MMA. We're going to talk about Bo Nickel in just a second, but he's not on the level of Bo Nickel, but when you see guys who can wrestle really well in the elite systems and then come over to MMA, there's obviously a lot of intrigue. He would be at the top of that list.

How come Dylan Danis doesn't fight anymore? I'm so glad you asked that. I was texting a guy who works at Bellator recently and I asked him, hey, where the fuck is Dylan Danis? Because my man won't stop chirping on Twitter and isn't doing shit. By the way, DAZN weirdly constantly promotes Dylan Danis, which I don't understand.

I think they want him in one of these KSI boxing matches. That's what I think. Which is, I don't even know what to make about that. But okay, neither here nor there. And they gave me the same answer, that like, he's still under contract, and it's just been a series of knee injury issues and rehab. So it's not like indifference or whatever?

No, I knew he had had knee surgeries, and I knew there was plural of them. I thought he was closer to being on the mend and be ready to be back. I don't know where he is with any of that shit. That's a great question. Like, that momentum has kind of completely— Would you like to see him against Spike Carlyle one day? I don't know if I care to see him back at all.

I mean, I don't know what he's doing. Right? How many fights does he have? Two? Three? Something like that? Two, I think. Yeah.

You know, he fought the guy who worked at the butcher shop, I think, or some shit. You know, sometimes it's key if the guy you fight is also the Uber driver, so at least you get a ride home after. You know what I mean? Dude, that's your favorite club boxing joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. Where the fuck is Dylan?

I don't have deep material. I just stretch it out a lot, Luke, right? God, his nickname is El Jefe. Oh, okay. What does that stand for? The Joker? The boss? The boss?

Yeah, the boss. Oh, Gaff reporting through my ear hole that Logan Paul and Dylan Danis talking some E-ish. Yeah, he has two wins. One over Kyle Walker. That took place in 2018. And the number one, Max Humphrey, that took place in 2019. That's it. That's it.

Haven't seen shit since then. Except that one bouncer who choked him out. Did you see that? I did. And then also, wasn't that an inside job? Do you think Brendan Schaub set up that Jake Paul situation at the West Studios where they threw the ice at him? I don't know.

Jake Paul, does he? Maybe. Who knows? Sounds like an inside job to me. You think so you know, I don't know. Jake Paul, does he, maybe who knows? It sounds like an inside job. I think so. Yeah. I hadn't thought about that, but maybe so, maybe so.

Anyway, that's not, there's, there's, there's interesting things up and down this car. If there's anything else besides Pat Downey worth paying attention to, where's Mandel Nalo when you need them? Yeah.

Where is, where is old rat garbage? All right, BC, which finally brings us to the last, but perhaps certainly not the least of these things. PFL 8, whatever version of it it is, is going to be back. What's the venue?

This will be at the, let's see, this is going to be at the Cardiff Motor Point Arena in Cardiff, Wales. My people. Not by blood, by choice. My people. It's going to be on ESPN. The prelims will be on ESPN+. I think it has a 12 p.m. start time, East Coast time. So you've got two different sets of semis going on.

You have the 170-pound tournament semis, and you have the heavyweight semis. So your semis for Welter are Rory McDonald versus Magomed Umalatov, who is, if you don't know who he is, you're about to find out. How good is he? I want to find out from you. 12-0 from Russia. His last name is Umalatov. So by cabinet, I can add another. You better add another one up there. That motherfucker is a hammer.

When is this crew going to build me my Russian cabinet? They're too busy looking at TikTok. Put all the hammers in there. We'll just take them out one by one. They will literally practice TikTok dances during our show rather than... I always have great ideas that would involve all the people here that just didn't look on their phones. Look at Ashley. She's just over there just buying NFTs. Oh, she...

I mean, she gave you the smile. She sold it, but she didn't enjoy it at all. Alright, so hold on. So Rory McDonald taking on Megamed Umalata. We'll talk about that in a second. The other one, of course, is going to be... The guy who just beat Rory. And read him convincingly. Pronounce it for me. It's Carlos Leal taking on Sadabusi.

Sadabusi was the guy that during our live show while you were in Margaritaville. Playing on the TV in the Brewhouse. Don't you besmirch Jimmy Buffett. In the Brewhouse was Rory. Because we all looked up. We're like, is that live? Is that Rory McDonald? And Luke, he got. Yes. I mean, he had some moments early, but then he got handled.

And we have, he's still only 33. Yeah, but he's an old 33. No, no, no. Let's just say it. He's an old 33. But it's been so up and down, not just from the damage to make him an old 33. Is he mentally and emotionally an old 33? Meaning every couple fights, it seems like the spirit of the old Rory is back, right?

What was the last time he had two wins strong back-to-back? Do you have to go back to the Woodley with the... You tell me. I would guess it would be leading up to the Stephen Thompson loss. So post-Stephen Thompson, he beat Paul Daly, Bjarne Kacok in 2017. Oh, post, you're saying. You're saying post. So his start in Bellator.

The last time he put two wins together. It would have to be leading up to winning the Bellator title. That's right. So he beat Douglas Lima in 2018. And that first fight was great, and it was a good-ass fight. Since then, he lost to Musassi, which, okay, that was an ill-advised fight. Then he had the draw against Fitch.

He had the win over Neiman. Then the loss to Douglas, the win over Curtis Millinder. And then since he went to PFL. You just proved the point I was trying to make, that he'll come up, the Millinder fight, the one against Brett Cooper to start this PFL season, to remind you that the old warrior, at least a good version of the old warrior, is still there, but then there will be lifeless performances, Luke. He's lost three of his last four.

He lost to Gleason Tebow. He lost to Ray Cooper III. He got screwed on the cards now. Okay, fine, but he lost to Ray Cooper III, who's a good fighter. Fine. He beat Brett Cooper easily, and then he lost to Sadamu Si, who's not a bad fighter, but these are the kinds of guys you would have thought Rory McDonald would be. He's in still what I call a dangerous spot. When you're young enough and still physically able enough to control fights against certain level of competition, and look, when he's training, I bet you he still feels it Luke he still

Feels that he can do this, but there's still some form of stumbling block in front of him That's preventing him from being that the old red king or what is he the red dragon? What the hell was he Luke the red king? I don't fucking know Prince of Persia. Whatever the fuck I don't know I mean, I certainly don't think that guy's coming through the door anymore But I don't even think the guy who was elite as the Bellator welterweight champion, that version of him, right, before the second Lima loss, yeah, that run also had the Fitch fight, which still, you know, you really question whether he has the

heart for this anymore. He's never fully recovered from that battle either, Luke, that mental and emotional and spiritual battle either. I don't know. I don't know, Luke. If it's a lifeless defeat, you may want to talk about what are your options moving forward. If it is, right? If it's a lifeless defeat. If he gets handled by decision, doesn't get beat up, but just doesn't win, right? That's right.

But the guy he's facing is just a fucking nightmare. Could this be the end of the... I mean, he's still too young to say go... He's had a lot of the... I mean, is he still too young to say, go, you know... No, he's not. He's had a lot of miles put on him, dude. Those fights against Robbie, or the fight against Robbie and some of the other ones he's had,

dude, like... He's gonna have one of the craziest legacies in the fact that there were a handful of moments where he was truly elite, or at least on the verge of... He had the elite skills. That was never the issue. And elite athleticism, or at least good enough certainly to winning. He had the elite skills. That was never the issue. And elite athleticism or at least good enough certainly to do well. But dude, he took

so much fucking damage. It was just way too much. What are his three or four biggest wins? Rory? Yeah, because you could put those against most people. I mean, he beat a prime Maya. He beat Nate Diaz, right? I mean, he beat... That's actually a great question. He beat a very prime Douglas Lima. What are Rory McDonald's

three best wins? So let's look that up. So if we get to, let's see, once he gets to UFC, he beats Mike Guymon, who was good, but not like on that level. So this was a win streak he had. Listen to this. Nate Diaz, Mike Pyle, Shea Mills, who was an okay striker, BJ Penn, then Jake Ellenberger. Those were nice.

And then he loses to Lawler, right? He loses to Lawler, comes back, and he beats Maya, Woodley, and Tarek Safedine. That's a nice three-fight win streak right there. And then he lost to Lawler again. And then the loss to Thompson was the contract fight, and he just didn't look like himself. No. And then he's been, dude, the Lawler,

well, the first Lawler fight was not some brutal fight. It was a split decision anyway. But the second one fucked him up, dude. I don't think he ever really recovered from that. Would you feel good almost like watching, you know, an old NBA player come out and score 30 like Paul Pierce banking it in? In the big three. Banking it in for the Wizards.

Would you feel good if Roy McDonald won this championship? Sure. Yes. Provided he called it quits. Yes. Take your money and go. Yeah. Not in an insulting way, dude. These guys... I can't explain this to you. Like, if, God forbid, like, no car accident or cancer happens, you will see age 40. You will see age 50.

When you're a 25-year-old guy, even 32, 33-year-old guy, it's hard to imagine. We're reading an AG1 ad read right now. Well, hold on. Let me be serious for just one moment. Dude, you have to think about what kind of quality of life you want to have when your body begins to not function properly anymore. And it's hard to tell a young man, even one who's athletic and gifted in the way that Rory is, despite all the damage he's had, it's hard to explain to them, like, dude, all of the things you take for granted in terms of your cognitive abilities, even without the damage, they will decline. Your body will fail you. You have to understand you have to feather a nest, not just commercially and financially for yourself.

You have to ask yourself, do you want to be able to play with your fucking kids? Do you want to be able to go run if you want to go run? Do you want to be able to go any number of normal life activities that are no longer granted if you've had so many surgeries and so many injuries and so much damage? I'm telling you, like even for me, dude, at 33, I didn't have nearly as many issues as I'm having these days, and I don't have all the damage that a guy like Rory has taken.

It's a much harder slog to maintain health in your 40s, forget 50s, and everything else. I don't think there's a lot of planning or consideration put into mind about what quality of life will look like at another stage of their life, which will happen. They will get to. That's why folks are always like, what about fighter pay? It's like all these guys in the road, they're just bitter. Yeah, dude, because they realize that they're broken at that point.

They didn't make the money they wanted to make. They're not going to make the money that they want to make in general. And this is it. And now you have to inherit all of your ACL tears and all of your ankle breaks and all of your concussions. You have to now carry that with you into your 40s and it's not the same ball game anymore. So yes, if he wins the

fucking tournament, I would love for him to see the call today. I would love for him to see that. Now, BC, you asked about the hammer that he's fighting. Meghamed Umalatov, listen to this shit, dude. This is his run through MMA, right? First win, first fight, triangle choke round one. Second one, rear naked choke round one. Third one, KO round one. Fourth one, KO wherever it was. Fifth, KO. Sixth, KO. Seven, KO round one. KO round one. KO round three. KO round 3. KO round 2.

He has one decision win over against Leandro Silva, who's a tough fighter. Then he got right back to it in his last PFL fight. KO round 1. This guy is a fucking hammer, dude. And Rory McDonald, let me see what the odds are for this one. I would love to see. I'm going to guess... If I played that speech you just gave every morning,

I would work out and eat better. I don't believe that. You're talking to me. I don't believe that. I feel like you're talking to me. I don't believe that, Mitch. I felt, like, guilty while you were saying that. So here is what the odds makers have. Oh, yeah, Caesars has odds on this. They have Umalatov as a minus 300, McDonald at plus 240.

Dude, he's up against it in this one. Damn. He is up against it. Okay. In the heavyweight bracket, unfortunately, Bruno Capolosi, defending champion last year, suffered that rough defeat, got injured and pulled out of the tournament. That's right.

So he's no longer in it. So your semis in this particular case, as we briefly kind of mentioned, would be Ante Dalia, who's a good fighter, taking on Henan Fajeda, who is surprising, folks, here and there. 6'7". I know he lost that last fight. Well, his last one didn't go great, yeah. And then Denis Goldstaff taking on Mateusz Sheffel.

Mateusz Sheffel also a bit of an upset game. So Sheffel's the one that beat Hennep Ferrer by wrestling, right? I believe that's right. I'm playing pull-up his record here. I can't keep it. I feel like I watched that fight. Yes. No, he beat Bruno Cappelloza.

Okay, exactly. Yeah. Who beat Ferreira? And then D'Elia. Why don't I ask the smart cage? I bet he knows. Look, right? You know what I'm saying?

Ante D'Elia beat Mateusz Sheffel. That's the case. And so Ante D'Elia's in the other bracket. Do you think the smart cage. I bet he knows. Ante D'Elia beat Mateusz Scheffel. That's the case. And so Ante D'Elia is in the other bracket. Do you think the smart cage has a sex? Or is it like non... Do I think it practices celibacy? No, do you think it's male or female? Because I just referred to him as him, the smart cage.

My wife always refers to her car as Sheila. Automatically. Like, who the hell is Sheila? Well, don't people name boats after women? Yeah, I think that's misogynistic. Boats can be named after a man, too. You want the BC boat? That thing just sinks.

I got a pop from the crowd. Yeah, yeah. It's becoming easier and easier to pop the back room where I no longer get confidence from it. I almost feel bad. Any thoughts on the heavyweight? I think it's wide open right now. Antedilita taking on Hena Fajeda, which should be fun. I think it's wide open.

Somebody's going to make a name for themselves like Capoloza did last year with this draw. I think the fights are going to be fun. Look, I'm going to be watching. They're entertaining me. Yeah, Umalatov, 12-0, dude. 12-0 he sits in this thing. That's a tough fight for McDonald, bro. He might get hurt in this one.

We'll see. Okay, so those are our top five, well, our weekend headlines here very quickly. We're forgetting about another weekend headline. Topic number four. Oh, we'll get to that in just a second. Do you want to, before we get to boxing, well, I guess we could, do you want to put the Bo Nickel stuff in

Quick Hitters? Yeah, let's talk Bo Nickel right now. You want to talk Bo Nickel right now? Yeah, let's. So last night on Contender Series, Bo Nickel debuted and just beat the shit out of some poor kid who they were like his story was he was 3-0 and he was like oh he started training during the pandemic

it's like oh fuck me. He grew up in a martial arts gym. I know I know but dude you're talking about a guy who was a three time national champion at fucking Penn State. It was butter, knife you know. He just here's what stood out to me. Now, there was a debate about two things.

One, should he have gotten a contract? We'll talk about that in a second. And then two, how ready is he? Let's start with the second one first because I had a little back and forth with some folks on social media about it. They disagreed. They're like, oh, this guy's ready.

Sign him now. We'll just talk about it in just a second. He's ready to fight guys in the UFC. BC, I agree that he is ready to beat certain guys in the UFC. He is that good. But, but, you cannot overestimate what lessons you can infer from this.

Does he have the wrestling, and it looks like the grappling ability, like his transitions were so fucking smooth, and he's so quick, and it's so effortless for him. Yes, he can beat guys. We haven't even seen him punched in the face. You have no idea how he'll react. What's his cardio look like in the third round?

It's probably good. We've not seen it. Before you get too far, for anybody that didn't watch it, he won by submission in lightning-fast time. Like it was nothing. And then instead of being offered a UFC contract, he was offered a UFC developmental contract with the kicker that he would come back on the contender series, and if he wins,

then he'd get the full contract. Yes, yes. And the initial sort of cynical reaction on MMA Twitter was of like, oh, this song and dance pro wrestling routine, he's obviously good enough, give him the contract. But if we're also going to sit here and fill podcast hours saying, hey, in hindsight, you know, Sage Northcutt, Paige Van Zandt, maybe they were rushed to it.

You know what I mean? That whole argument, if you're going to do that. Well, he's a much better athlete than all of us. But if you're going to do that argument, it Van Zandt, maybe they were rushed to her. You know what I mean? That whole argument. If you're going to do that. Well, he's a much better athlete than all of them. But if you're going to do that argument, it kind of makes sense. Even though Dana White may be looking at this from a rating standpoint. Look, this guy is something. He's hot. Let's put him on the contender series one more time.

But you also still need to see him in these situations. So intangibly, he looks to be a 10 out of 10 in terms of confidence, poise, in terms of transitions. He's electric. He's electric. He's electric. He's electric. I'm sure he's tough as shit and all that. Is he going to go

from 2-0 to be fighting a top 15 middleweight? No. Here's the truth. Even if he fought in the regional scene, would you get all those questions answered? No. No, you wouldn't. You're not going to get all the answers to your questions. But for a guy who has faced literally no resistance, does he look like he's the real deal Holyfield?

I mean, without question. He looks—he's cool as shit. Can we be honest? He's got a cool vibe. Dude, and when he beat the guy, he beat him like this was a fucking—like he beat up you and me or something. Like it didn't mean shit to him. Cool as ginger since Canelo? Or are you more—

Oh, that's a good question. He's got a little blonde to him, though. He's a little strawberry blonde. Okay? Oh, that's a good question. He's got a little blonde to him, though. He's a little strawberry blonde. Yes, he's obviously good enough. I actually agree with Dana on this one. I agree that he needs a little bit more, not because I don't think he's ready, but because you just need to make sure as best you can that they've got a couple of T's crossed, a couple of I's dotted.

Let's see what it's like if he gets punched. Let's see what it's like if he takes one leg kick and it blows out the nerve in his leg and he has to then wobble around. Like, you just don't know how they're going to respond to any of these things. Because I have seen, by the way, I've seen the Division I national champions. There have been some that have come out. They start taking punches to the face and there's no mas with them.

I'm not saying that's Bo Nickel. I'm saying just being like, oh, yeah, he can go fight UFC guys. Yeah, he can. That's not the fucking point. Now, there was some debate about should they have given him a deal? It's like, dude, we're talking about a company that is being sued by ex-fighters for allegedly predatory practices. Do you really think, and I don't know this to be a fact, but do you think they let him go without putting him on some developmental deal so Bellator could sign him today? I know books were like, if I was him, I would go deal so Bellator could sign him today. It said...

If I was him, I would go sign with Bellator tomorrow. It's like, I don't think that's in the books. I think that they have him on ice. What they're doing is slow rolling him because he's obviously extremely good. The way he reacted, look, I think them doing that is also a little bit of a test to see how he responds, and I thought he responded great, meaning he said

okay, I thought that might happen. I mean, if that's all he has to do, who gives a shit, right? But you would believe that him and his team and management team had an inkling this could happen. They knew this was going to happen. They knew it was a possibility. He is not a free agent. I guarantee you he is not a free agent. By the way, they've done this in other ways before Contender Series was a big thing.

When Mackenzie Dern was fighting in LFA, she had a developmental deal. They do developmental deals all the different times. Guys, he obviously can beat UFC-level fighters, and he probably is going to be a, you know... Do you like the ending of the Contender Series where it does get reality TV-like, where the fighters are sitting in their chair, they're sweating, and Dana

doesn't really give you an inkling of which direction he's going. He says good and bad about them. It's almost like a Simon Cowell situation. Well, dude, the opening fight on last night's card was dreadful. Right, but do you like that is what I'm asking you. Do you like that suspense of not knowing and is it justified? I kind of like it. I think it works for a TV

show. The question is, you know, is it great to subject the fighters to it? Do you think Dana needs a you're fired type of punchline? Maybe like they could do like the Nickelodeon thing and he pulls a lever and then they get slimed with the green slime. I look at your beard a lot while we film these in person. That's why I stare at it.

You know what I've developed, what it looks like with its mix of colors? It looks like the aftermath of a house fire. Right? Like the next morning when, like, it kind of does. Like, this is the part of the wood that didn't get burned, and this is all the sin. This is all the sadness underneath. Yeah.

I mean, just look at this. Look at the gray just taking my face. Some people say, Luke, and I'm saying this legitimately, they said this would work better if you were all one color. So if you're all gray, top to bottom, maybe drapes, carpet too. Like if you're all gray, it's like that. You want to see my balls? No, it's like that.

You want to see my smart balls? Silver Fox. Silver Fox, yeah. You could be a Silver Fox. Yeah, I'm almost there. I mean, put it on me real quickly. The only parts that are really any kind of color left is just like, look, you can see even here it's starting to take it. You have a silver fox. Yeah, I'm almost there. I mean, put it on me real quickly. The only parts that are really any kind of color left is just, like, you can see even here it's starting to take it. You have a decent tan.

Is that the Armenian in you coming out? It's taking Tukey to the piscina. Oh, wow. You know what the piscina is? The splash pad. That's the pool. That's the pool. The piscina.

Oh, speaking of that, I know that we both agree that, you know, pissing in pools is like, you know, a male dog just knows he's going to come piss on your mailbox to let you know that he both agree that you know pissing in pools is it's like it's like you know a Male dog just knows he's gonna come piss on your mailbox to let you know that he was here Yeah, do you what do you think that that that when you extend that to the human side like yell piss in your pool? What are you gonna do about it? That's why you got that chlorine thing in there. Is it okay in hot tubs? If I'm getting out of it You mean do I mean if we were in a hot tub together And you're here. Should I be cool with you urinating all over me? No, I don't think I would be I Like those shirts or hats to say I'd be in pools

What about if I just peed on you directly just right here really in the wake of the R Kelly trial You're just gonna flippantly throw out jokes like that. They're so insensitive like you did yesterday and I had to remind you He'd be just been arrested. All over you, all over me. The sun, the feel, the sky. Let's pee. Let's urinate. Those Argentines, they come back to the pool.

I'm going to pee in it again. All right. BC. Wait, what? I told you that story when I was in Columbia once. And the Argentines came up and they had loud-ass music. And they were, I mean, what I call wildly racist. I mean, super racist.

And I hated them. I hated them. And so before I left the pool, I walked the pool backwards and just urinated the entire perimeter. Do you self-identify Colombian? No. I self-identified as fuck those racist ass Colombian? No, I self-identified as fuck those racist assholes. That's what I self-identified. I'm not supporting them,

although I do like the Argentinian swagger. Yeah, well, theirs was a little bit on the... Edgy side. Yeah, edge-lowered side, I'd say. All right, with that in mind, BC, let's go to topic number four. This is one you are very excited about. In fact, you interviewed this gentleman

just this week or the end of last week. Teofimo Lopez is back. Now, you might remember this dude hasn't fought since Cambosis tuned him up a little bit or at least upset him. What? They said, hold on before you throw it at anything because probably because they're going to turn

the volume up on the TV so we can hear it along. Oh, right, right, right. Okay, I didn't know if they were going to do that. But set the table for us here. He's taking on Pedro Campa. It's not at 135. It's at 140. What is your assessment of Teo now? We'll get some audio in just a minute.

But what is your assessment of him now? This is a talk about a referendum moment. He just turned 25. It's nine months since he lost the titles to George Campos Jr. in that war, but surprising war. But the whole thing is, you know, then, it's been nothing but tumult. That's a good word, right? That is a good word.

Tumult. And if you're really being honest, it's two months shy of two years since the Lomachenko fight. It's really been two years of tumult since he won the biggest fight of his life, beat the pound-for-pound king, took the three or four belts, depending on what you look at. But Luke, I think most importantly, you have to look at how he lost to Cambosis. We find out afterwards that health-wise there was an esophageal tear. He could have died. An esophageal tear.

He could have potentially died, I guess. But yet we've even talked about top-ranked matchmakers are retweeting conspiracy theorists against that. I mean, it's weird. There was him calling out possibly DAZN for paying off the judges. I mean, look, there's a lot of comments made by Teo in the aftermath of that. And by the way, that also

included him getting divorced shortly after giving birth to his first son. So, like, there's a lot going on. He didn't have Joey Gamache, the old trainer, but as everyone's telling him, maybe you should get rid of your dad. He's now doubling down, and it's him and his dad, ride or die, which I'm not against as well. But you talk about questions needed to be answered coming back to this comeback.

Now, look, he's not beating a world beater, but he's facing an unbeaten guy on Pedro Campa on Saturday. It's going to be on ESPN. It's going to take place in Las Vegas. You want to see what he looks like in the new weight class. But, Luke, we really have to see, was that fight just the aberration that it was? And just to put in people's mind, like, I think he felt crazy reckless in that first round in hindsight because physically he felt like he had to. He felt like he couldn't pull out of the fight with this injury because, remember,

he went from top rank to the zone and the fight was rescheduled a million times and Traylor was in the middle of that. It was chaos. His name was getting slandered. It seemed like his promoter was against him. There was a lot going on, Luke. And guess what, Luke? He fought his ass off but came up empty. He may have been majorly

physically compromised. Where the hell is he going to be at emotionally coming into this? Because he has always done an incredible job at keeping it together amid the chaos around him, which seems, I don't want to say it, Luke, but it seems natural. There's natural chaos around him and his family and his boxing life. Would you say that's true? It's always there. It seems like an abnormally high amount of chaos. He's been able to, we always said that he's mature beyond his years. He's always been able to, and the reason why I love him is he wears his heart on his sleeve. I love interviewing because you can challenge him and he's real.

But here's how I'll describe my interview with him. And I did that on social media. It was candid, but it was cautious. You know what I'm saying? We have a couple cuts. I had questions of whether he's still doing the conspiracy theorist thing of what we called him out for or really exactly where he's at. I think the results of this interview were inconclusive, Luke. Let's throw to what we have.

But I'm not exactly sure right now where Teofimo is at. Here's me chatting with him earlier this week. On fighting Hurt. Listen, Brian, you're not as dumb as you look, right? So it's like... I'm sweaty. I'm in my basement right now, but I'm not that dumb. Yeah.

You're not as dumb as you look. You know how the sport is. You've seen it. You've seen it. You know, you've been around from the UFC to boxing. So it's all about like, you know what it is. When it comes to that gun blazing in the first round and stuff like that

it was just pushing that to to finish the fight knowing i was well i was very ill it was very ill you know and um but no one's gonna understand it because they're not in there they don't know how it feels to have asthma they don't know how it feels to have um bronchitis bronchitis and then early stages of pneumonia they don't know what that feels like. Fighting 12 rounds hard in a championship fight that is defending all your five titles. You know, they don't know that feeling. They don't know the fact that when they postponed eight, nine times for no X reasons, other than one time that I got COVID, that's the only reason they postponed my fight, to be honest. That's the only real true reason that they should, they had one example of why they postponed it.

Other than that, those other six, seven times were were all baloney it was something that was being fixed because he felt like everything was against him including his own health in that moment here's where it's hard to figure out exactly where he's at and i want to ask you a sound that we don't have uh that we that we don't have that we, that maybe we could have that is I asked him straight up. Look, tail. I've been,

I love you. I've been, I've been always, you know, I cheer for you in the sense of, I want to see you go out there and do your best. Right. But those comments you made about the network,

his own, the judges, like that's next level conspiracy. Like that does it like try to help me to understand that. And he did a no comment which leads me to believe based on multiple references he made after that this whole you know thing of the business against him like he really believes he was punished for forcing the purse bid and taking the money and leaving top rank for that nespn for that one fight he was

ultimately punished and he thinks that's why he lost the belts. In light of that, Luke, should we be more fair to him for how tough he did fight with potentially a legitimate health scare that could have killed him rather than looking back and poking at the chaos in his life and should his dad be his trainer? Is he a distraction and all this stuff? Did we kind of miss praising the warrior in him? Or are you legitimately scared that he's a conspiracy theorist who can't see the truth in his own situation? I think I'm willing to say that we probably weren't sufficiently either aware or appreciative of the struggles he was facing to have the, to do as well as he did against Cambosis, all things being what they were. However, however, like whenever you see someone who's just got constant problems surrounding

them, a lot of times it's bad luck. A lot of times it's their own individual levels of mismanagement and poor, just otherwise poor decision making. And I have a question, not so much about his ability. When he shines, he's pretty great. I do have a question about whether or not he has fully gathered the reasons why his performance was bad, not just because he had COVID or a cold or some kind of trauma to his— Tear.

He had a tear to his esophageal area or whatever. So I'm expecting a much better performance this time, but am I fully convinced that troubles are behind him? That's interesting. I'm not sure after watching it. There were people, and I checked the comments, see what are the fans thinking? Half the people are like, man, he still sounds crazy and doesn't realize what really happened.

The other half are going, no, man, he seems dialed in. He seems ready. I would say in some degrees both of that are true, which is why this comeback fight is sort of a must watch. But Luke, him getting out of 135 now, not making as hard of a cut, officially moving to 140. The question you might have, Luke,

is who could he be chasing? Who could he be fighting? I asked him that in the future if he gets by Pedro Camp on Saturday. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75

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Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180 plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at AirCanada.com. Conditions apply. I will say this. Honestly, it's just all about becoming a two-time undisputed world champion, you know, fighting for all those belts and whoever has them and claim them. You know, it's all about whoever they put in front of me, whether it's Regis Progress,

whether it's Jose Cepeda, whether it's Josh Taylor, Jack Cantero. I don't care. I don't care. I love those fights, brother. I'll tell you that. I love them more than you love them. Because I'll be the one beating their faces okay what if what if there was an offer of an insane amount of money in titles

to make 135 one more time is that door closed i don't sell my i don't sell myself for the riches my man i sell my i sell myself for the for the glory what does that mean because he kind of sold himself for the riches when he pushed the purse bid, and I'm not hating him for it. He made a lot of money in that fight. I don't know what to do with this. So, Luke, since then, both Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya, and Ryan Garcia have said, look, they claim they tried to make a fight with Tank Davis, meaning Ryan Garcia's team. They claim that it's falling apart.

It's not going to happen. They now want Teo. Ryan Garcia versus Teo Fimo at 140. Now, that's not an easy fight It's not going to happen. They now want Teo. Ryan Garcia versus Teo Fimo at 140. Now, that's not an easy fight to make. I would need to see how he looks. Multiple promoters, multiple networks, not an easy fight to make, but if what he said is true, look, you look at that roster. Yeah,

he may have access to Progre. You got Josh Taylor, the champion, Cattarall, who we all thought beat him. Jose Ramirez still around there, Jose Zepeda. There's fun fights that are easily made at home here at ESPN and top rank for him if they keep moving forward. But you're right. It's all going to come. Can he still get back to that guy?

I mean, at that age, should do what he did to Lomachenko? Seriously. Damn, man. So we'll see. We'll see. That'll be on, where is it going to be on? ESPN Saturday night. ESPN Saturday night.

Okay, there you go. All right, topic number five, some quick hitters. I'll start this one off. We don't have it on the rundown, but I'll put it here very quickly. Uriah Hall has retired, BC. I don't know if you saw this. It came just before the show. He put out a statement.

I won't read the whole thing, but basically he says that he's stepping away and he's going to miss everyone. Of course, he's coming off that loss. I saw him at the airport. Did I tell you that? I think I did tell you that. When we left, when was the last time we were in Vegas? We all had the Rona.

It was for Fight Week. So the cab drops me off on the middle. There's sort of three lanes. Keep going, stop, and then there's like the other cab lane. I was in the middle one, and I was crossing the crosswalk, and there's this Mercedes that pulls up. It had like a G-wagon. It was a nice car, yeah.

And I had noticed it was him, but, you know, I don't really bother celebrities or fighters in public. I only do when intoxicated. Yeah, only when I'm intoxicated, which I was not at the time. But I had to wait because there were cars passing in between me and where he was. And as I'm walking, he kind of leans his head out the car. He's like, hey. I'm like, yeah.

He goes, you're that MMA guy. And I go, yeah. He goes, okay. And that was it. Remember I had him on MK and he was like, oh, I know you guy. And I go, yeah. He goes, okay. And that was it. Remember I had him on MK, and he was like, oh, I know you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have we talked a bunch of shit about him? I don't feel like we have.

No, I don't feel like we have. He was, by the way, Pennington James' sensei for a while. Remember, Jake claims he did that spinning kick, and I asked Uriah about it, and he's like, I don't recall that man. He finishes with a record of 17 and 11 in MMA, 10 and 9 in the UFC. He's 38 years old. Of course, 10-9 in the UFC. He's 38 years old. Of course, competed 19 times under the UFC banner.

Was a contender, 85 pounds for a long time. Had one of the best knockouts on The Ultimate Fighter ever. And would you say he never quite lived up to the buzz, whether it was fair or not, that came from that? And he had a really good career. I mean, although there's some asterisks to some of these wins, he did beat Anderson Silva, Gegard Mousasi, and Chris Wyman. Okay, the Wyman one, he really counted.

It was an old Anderson. I mean, you know what I'm saying? But, like, he's beaten some legitimate guys. He's always been a warrior and tough and always been a knockout threat. But at times had, like, can he get to this image of where we think he can be from that one highlight, right? It was maybe unfair, and he never lived up to it. But especially in that most recent run, he seemed to really be close to the title level and always seemed to be fighting for a purpose, you know, whether it was his family or something inspirational.

I've always really loved what Uriah Hall stands for and who he is. But it has been unfair that he was spinning back at the championship level. He obviously had gotten with Saif Saoud at a 4-7 MA. His last fight was against Andre Muniz, and Muniz was just kind of all over him. He didn't take a beating or anything, but it was just a tough fight for him. So he called it a day. I would say he had a good career and was a very talented fighter, and I wish him the best in the next chapter.

Okay, BC. You were like, let's get to the next topic. Well, these are quick hitters, not like BC filibusters. I would just, you know, he beat a young Maheta. Don't forget that as well. That's true. Tony Ferguson has apparently relocated to Jackson Wink. Now, following his KO loss to Michael Chandler, which was a bad one,

he said he needs to get back with the team. Quote, I put myself away from the teams thinking I could do this by myself, and I did it. He's right. He actually did do it. But I've done this by myself for a very long time with the help of a few select individuals, and I've been very fortunate to have that,

but I'm ready to be a part of a team again. It was only when my team broke up that I felt really hurt that I had moved areas, that I had moved situations, switched management and all of the above. I have to open myself up again to being coached at a high level, especially in my sport. What do you think about the switch? I mean, I wish him well.

Getting a new set of strategic minds, could that help him? It really comes down to, sorry for covering my mic, it really comes down to how much is really in the tank? And we don't know, and I don't even know if he does, Luke, how much is really in the tank? What's the safe amount left in the tank to pour out there? Because he's a guy who is always all in at all times.

I don't know. 37, 38 years old, it's a tough spot to be. I mean, if he could be the comeback opponent for Conner and we can make this a big deal, I'd love it. Outside of that, I don't really know what the future's going to look like for him. I'll say this. I don't know what it means and what it will do for him, but probably doing what he had been doing was not the best idea.

So getting with a team, getting with Brandon Gibson, I know folks have sort of said that the stock of Jackson Week is not what it once was, which is true. But they still do have capable trainers there. And I do think that team environment will be better for him, all things being what they are. So we'll see what happens. They got Arlene Blanco there. Your favorite, to be clear. All right.

So we have Fury wants the Chisora fight, but it's all bullshit, right? So here's the deal. Tyson Fury came out through a series of videos in the last 24 hours online saying, I'm coming out of retirement. I want a trilogy fight with Derek Tresor. Now here's the deal. He fought Derek Tresor twice. Won a clear decision win for Tyson where he boxed very well. The second one, I think he knocked him out late. Tresor just beat Kubot Pulev and he's a noted warrior, but there's no- A malcontent. What or anything for a third fight.

And why would you think Fury would want one? Yet Fury has always talked about when he said, what fights do I want to finish my career with? He's always linked to Sawyer in there, oddly. He also claimed he was changing trainers in a, I believe, a lightweight fighter in his own stable. I forgot the guy's name. He suddenly named him as trainer.

Even Sugarhill Stewart, his current trainer, right from the Kronk Gym, responded on Instagram with, like, good luck with that, buddy. So we're all like, is this a joke? What is it? Well, Dan Rayfield of Fight Freaks Unite caught up with Bob Arum. And in their extended interview, Arum basically said, yeah, this is just Tyson Fury bored today, knowing he could mess with the media, knowing he could get in the headlines. And he stirred it up. We have no plans for Chisora.

And the last time I talked to Tyson, he wants to fight the winner of WusSick Joshua 2, which is about, what, a week and a half away. It's going to be absolutely massive. All right, so now we go to Rose Namajunas, who is not ruling out BC, a move to 125 pounds. What do you think about that? Because I'm too much of a Rose superfan to talk fair on this one. I don't know what it's going to mean for her physically. I have also thought 115 was where she could optimize that lean frame.

But I think the last time I spoke to her, I do recall her saying she was getting bigger, putting on more muscle. And so maybe she's kind of, and also like, you know, where is she going to go 115? Because her career has been kind of up and down in the sense of like in title fights,

out of title fights, in title fights. Maybe it's a fresh start. But here's what she says. She told this to MMA Fighting, quote, the thing I do know for a fact, and I don't know when exactly I might fight again, but I do know that I want to do a grappling match of some sort. I want to really rack up some experience in that department.

Also, once I get my other things in order, I'll be lifting lots of weights and maybe put in a little more muscle and just kind of see what happens from there. She goes, I really don't know. Like I said, just one more step at a time. The UFC has given me some offers for things and I just need time to, to just not think about fighting at all. And then in the fall, I'll kind of lay out everything and see what makes sense, talking about a move to flyweight.

Interesting. We always say it, and it's true, it's a shorter path potentially to the top, but how would you see that frame against a Tyler Santos, who's the big sort of who, by the way, isn't she opting out of surgery? Tyler Santos? I don't know if I saw that or not. Oh, for her eye, you mean? Yeah.

So, we'll see. I mean, look, historically, if she goes to second division and can compete for a title, can really do a lot. And she's still young enough, Luke. And, yeah, I'm intrigued by this. Intrigued is the word I would use as well. I don't think she lost her last fight, but it was the weirdest fight ever against Carla, right? I mean, it was just so freaking weird.

It was a terrible, terrible fight. All right. Cyborg is finalizing, apparently, a plan for her boxing debut. She told something called The Catch-Up. Forgive me for not knowing what it is. Quote, my team already received the contract. We've been back and forth working on the contract. I believe soon we'll finish it and I'll sign.

Then you guys are going to know who and where is going to be my next fight. I'm very excited to do my first fight in boxing. Very, very excited. It's one of my dreams. Now, of course, I saw her kickboxing fight live against Yarina Bars. And Bars whooped her. I mean, that's the best way to put it. Demolished her.

Although Cyborg stood in there for the whole fight, which is pretty fucking incredible. Did Bars look like Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse? Just kicking some ass. It's a good transition to another quick hitter. Conor McGregor going to star in a roadhouse. We've already been over that one. All right, sorry. When you were on vacation for the 70s.

I'm always building connective tissue and bridges for you to enter my... So part of the deal with her leaving UFC and signing with Bellator, I think, was to get, you know, she wanted a promoter who liked her, was one part. But the other one was a little bit more freedom to do stuff like this. What is your level of enthusiasm for... Because I'll say this. She can't... Do I think she could beat somebody very good in boxing? Probably not.

But if you had to pick out a MMA fighter who could probably do okay in boxing, Cyborg's on that list, right? No, certainly. I believe she could potentially make the transition in her boxing. What is she, 38 now? I mean, it is getting late, but this would be the time to make that move. It really comes down to this for me. Now, she claims she's a free agent, yet she claims she's talking with Scott Coker, potentially being her co-promoter in any boxing in Denver, which is interesting. If it's about her fighting the biggest star possible that's closest to her weight in, like, an event, a super fight, you'd think that'd be Katie Taylor, the Undisputed Champion at 135, right, Luke?

Yes. And Cyborg fights at 145, so if that's a special fight. The question I want to ask you is, would it be better to enter a fight like that without having seen what Cyborg can do as a boxer to help the sale value potentially? Or to see Cyborg in a potentially winnable crossover fight like this might be? I don't know the level of opponent or who it would be, but to just try to feel out the waters to see what she can do Well, the question is this is she gonna headline? Because I don't think these questions are as important to figure out if she's not headlining Okay, if she's another fighter or not another fighter Let's say a co-main or something like that where the biggest questions about who can sell and what's the what's the important?

Promotional package together. They don't make that as relevant. Well, they're doing ESPN and Top Rank is what's doing an all-female boxing card coming up. And it's going to be what the Clarissa Shields fight against Savannah Marshall for the four belts. Michaela Mayer is going to be on. So many fighters are going to be on this. Denise Estrada just signed with Top Rank. If it was something where it could show up on that event, it could be an introduction, that would be good. Would you have any interest for her boxing against Holly Holm?

A little. Yeah, sure. A little. Okay. The winner gets Katie Taylor. Oh, that's, no. That's, you're just getting. Look, I want Cyborg to do what's going to make her happy.

And she could potentially be marketable in this for sure. Can she make the crossover? Hey, let's find out, you know? Khrushchev just tried it the other way, and she had moderate success. Yeah, sprinkles of success. This takes us now to UFC Fight Night 211. Not 311, but 211. Oh, 311 would be so good, right?

Omaha, Stiley. Is the top part of your beard amber, or is that just the color of your energy, Luke? Why don't you dye your hair like shoe polish again, fuckface? Oh, you know, you mentioned MMA fighting earlier before you moved forward. Do you know who's a real nice guy? I finally got to meet him. Mike Heck. Yeah, he's a very nice guy.

I want to shout out Mike Heck. Really nice guy. Very nice guy. And I like his work, too, by the way. Yes, good guy. UFC 211, they have added Cody Garbrandt at Bantamweight, taking on Hani Yaya. Now, this card will be headlined by McKenzie Dern versus Jan Schoenon. I love that fight. UFC 211, they have added Cody Garbrandt at Bantamweight, taking on Hany Yaya. Now, this card will be headlined by McKenzie Dern versus Jan Schoenon.

I love that fight. Again, October 1st, we do it with venue and location TBDBC. Cody Garbrandt, just 31 years of age in a rough patch of his career. It is hard to know what the match is like. He has lost five of his last six, including two in a row, the last one via stoppage back in 2021. Taking on Hany Yaya, who is just, I mean, old as dirt. 37 years old. He's going to be 38 in September, so he'll be 38 before the fight.

No Hany Yaya slander will be accepted. But, dude, he's on a two-fight win streak. Now, he's not fighting the same quality of opponents, but he's on a two-fight win streak. He had two losses or one loss to Ricky Simone, which was a decision and a draw against Barzola. And since then, he's beaten a couple guys. That guy was fighting in the fucking

WEC. He's still out there trying to get it done. I have no idea what the future looks like for Cody Garbrandt. I'm a little nervous, but I have no idea. Yeah, I don't know either. Bantamweight, obviously, I think is the right move. Let's go back there. Let's reset. I would offer... He's got to change something massive.

I'm sure he's already changed a lot during this win streak, but I don't know. Lick a toad or something, Luke. Change something foundationally, right? Yeah. If I could get Rashad, show the Showtime doc cameras, and maybe, like, a lot of peyote, I would go out to, like, Joshua Tree, and we can, you know, would you be the shaman?

The what? Shaman for, like, Doc 8 if we went out to, to like Joshua Tree at night and licked toads with Rashad. And like I think it could. Why can't I lick the toads? Oh, yeah. You need the healing. Actually, the internal healing. Yeah.

I think it could change you. Maybe you should be the shaman. You can just do Delta 8s while we lick toads. And you can watch Dune on your phone. Dude. Dude. Ready? Cinematic classic.

It's pretty good. It's a masterpiece, Dune. It's pretty good. I told you I don't read, and I'm going to take the book out at the library and read it. You're not going to go to the library. When was the last time you went to the library? I couldn't even tell you. On purpose. Couldn't even tell you, okay?

But, you know, Web Screams has been in my ear about this. Good old Christos Christoforos. You never shout out his son Pietro. Shout him out, dude. Was I supposed to? Petey Pete. He's growing. Good kid, man. You never shout out his son Pietro. Shout him out, dude. Was I supposed to? PDP. He's growing. He's a good kid, man.

Yeah. Web screams offspring. We cheer for this guy, all right? BC, I don't know what to make of this one. I think it's going to be a Fox pay-per-view. Deontay Wilder versus Robert Heleneas, October 15th at the Barclays Center. Heleneas was the guy that beat the shit out of Kovnatsky twice.

Twice. Big old Finnish dude, right? Six foot seven. He's like a Nordic pirate. He looks the part. Taking on old Deontay. I thought Deontay might have been done. Got to tell you.

I don't know why he's fighting on Fox. It's a little weird. But glad to see him back. This is supposedly the last year. It was the bonus year in the contract for the PBC and Fox. And Fox has shown a commitment to heavyweight pay-per-views. You know, putting on basically the heavyweight division. They put on an Andy Ruiz.

Andy Ruiz is going to be fighting Luis Ortiz on pay-per-view. Now, if this is going to be on Fox pay-per-view, and if this Wilder-Helenius fight leads to maybe like a Final Four and the winners, I mean, I think ideally everybody would want a Deontay Wilder-Andy Ruiz pay-per-view fight. Would you be still interested at this point? I know we talked about that like two years ago. Would you still be interested in it? Yes. I would too. So at the end of the day, this is not an easy assignment. Robert Hellenius, you may forget Luke, when he originally

came on was like, oh God, is this the next heavyweight champion? He had that vibe. Then he kind of hit a couple patches and had some performances that didn't inspire. Even though Adam Kovnatsky doesn't have fight ending power, the way he walked through him twice, still got it. You know, he's still tough it. He's still tough out. He's still got that knockout power. We don't know what Deontay Wilder's going to look like. He went all in on that Tyson Fury rematch. What did he retire after?

It was still up in the air. Wilder's going to make big fights from here on out. I don't know if he's going to win them all. I don't know if he'll win this one, but it'll be a fun-ass shootout, Luke. Brooke, Barclays, it's going to be a good, it's going to be a fun night. It'll be fun. That will be your super sloppy special, I feel like. That won't be just two

big dudes trading heavy, heavy punches. Will Wilder, before he retires, fight Joshua and Fury? Will he get those two? Because both would be still massive. It's still. The Fury one, I think that ship is safe. I mean, not Fury. I'm sorry. Joshua and... I guess

Joshua would be the number one, but if Usyk ends up winning that too... Usyk, I don't know, but I could see... What about... The ones I'd be interested in would be AJ, obviously, Joshua. Andy Ruiz is the one I would love to see. I spoke indirectly when I said Fury. We've already seen it three times. We've seen it enough.

Ruiz would be fun. I mean, if Usyk is still the champion looking for a fight, it would always be fun. But him versus AJ, I still think is a stadium fight, Luke. And heavyweights can reinvent themselves. I agree. I still think that's down the road. I agree.

That could be good. Yeah. That's it for our topics. It's time for fan subs. Yeah. Every Wednesday in these parts, what we offer you as a fan is an opportunity to join the party. MorningCombat at gmail.com is your email address. Mikey Morms, our producer, waiting happily to read your shit

and deem whether it was inappropriate or not to play on this show. It's your artwork. It's you in tight t-shirts that we produce. It's called Fan Submissions. You've got mail. Viewers. Hold on. Oh, here it is. I found it. Okay.

I'm good now. We're going to start with Nicolette. Luke, we have female viewers. Oh, my God. Dear Donks, this is a Bulgarian living in Belgium wearing your pretty faces at the O2 for the London fight card. I still don't know what to tell people what they ask me who these are on my shirt. If you care to know how the event was from the audience's perspective, here it is. Described as a forgettable card, being there was absolutely mad and maybe naive.

But I can't imagine that Paris or the U.S. could compare to the way London does it. There were fights erupting in one of the sections around us. And by the end, it was cleared empty. A person next to us stepped in on the seat and show his bare ass because why not? People were doing lines like it was nothing. Lines? The guy behind me vomited all over the place, including on my purse, which I kept under the seat. Fear and loathing all the way. Even my husband, who is not a fight fan, couldn't believe all that was going on. The

Patty chants were going on even when other people were fighting. The UK being a stand-up nation, though, was a few seconds late to react to the grappling exchanges. I imagine had Craig Paul been a Scott, he would have been booed. A match that broke my jujitsu-loving heart. Are we only letting her ramble because she's a female? Yes. Patty, of course, delivered, and the bears started flying from all directions. This was the high and end point, and it was absolutely enough. Much love from Europe.

You're a loyal and loving fan. Nicolette. We don't deserve her, Luke. She looks surprisingly normal. Go back to the other one where she was next to the other guy. You know what she looks like in those glasses? A British Carolina. She does. I'll say this. She looks surprisingly normal and well put together.

The guy next to her looks like he is heavy into crypto. That's her husband, dude. Come on. He may have failed with the Doge, but he's a very nice guy. He definitely is big into NFTs. Okay. Nicolette, we appreciate you. Thank you for repping us.

I'm glad you enjoyed the London card. Do you think people were really showing their ass and doing lines? The Brits are crazy. I mean, maybe. White lightning! David says, good day, Donks. It's David Ryan from Liverpool, UK, checking in to show you MK's newest and possibly youngest fan.

Wow. Here is my six-day-old son, Harrison James Ryan, sleeping through the UFC 277 pregame preview on his first day home. My wife and I even watched UFC London live from the maternity ward before Harrison made his grand entrance. I promised to raise him like a true MK donk who enjoys petrol station hot dogs, BBLs, and shoe polish hair dye. Love everything you guys do. And please let me know if you have, if you wash pieces of shit,

have any dad advice for every year since David Ryan. Yeah, it's hard. That's my advice. There you go. Come on, give him something. A beautiful baby. And I like the picture in the back of the three of us where you two are pointing at me like I'm some fucking gorilla trapped in a fucking cage.

David, 90% of it is just showing up, brother. And I don't say that to make light of it. I say that just be there. Don't think about it. Just be there. Give. Keep giving. Unlike BCNR right now with our families.

It's not fair. All right. I'm paying for that basketball travel camp all right uh this is this guy calls himself donk from dubai hey guys on holiday and then remembered i had that means vacation right in british time yeah i had mk to catch up with the only recommended viewing while in thailand had the best time ever and glad you guys came along it's the donk from dubai in thailand Thailand. Luke, he brought us to his vacation over there in Bangkok. Bangkok? Great name. He's got an iPad from 2001, by the way. It's the oldest iPad on Earth.

Come on, you've got to roast them. That's the bit. They roast us. Daniel slides in and says, I was browsing the aisles of TJ Maxx and happened to find a back scrubber with a logo of a man that looks oddly familiar to a Washington decrepit, 40-year-something old MMA media member. Good to know Luke has a sure-file modeling gig to fall back on if he ever gets sent to the land of winning ghosts by Jon Jones at a press conference again and decides to hang it up.

Nothing but love. I've watched the show from the first episode. I couldn't imagine what the MMA space would be without you guys. It'd be boring as shit. Look at that rustic man right there. Cleanse and exfoliate. It's the Luke Thomas Baxter. My look is just sort of sadness warmed over.

The other guy is kind of like Brooklyn hipster. There's a little bit of a difference. No name on this entry, but before Luke says something like, could your hairline be any worse, BC comments on my biceps and says, maybe I fuck. But, brother, believe me, I don't. I've got less game than Luke on Margarita Night. Send both pictures looking equally as stupid as the other

so you can roast appropriately. MK all day, almost every day. Yeah, but he's factory town approved, right? I mean, look, my man's out here hauling shit. Put him full screen, please. He says, BC, you're funnier than Luke gives you credit for. I love both of you. Just so you know, you're not.

Dude, this guy looks like he's a grunt worker. He's an American grunt worker, right? And I respect him. I don't like that shirt on him, though. But, oh, look at that. I'm going to guess that his... Is that his O-face? I don't know what's happening right now.

I bet his profile picture on Tinder is him holding up a fish. Is that him with an owl in his hands? Is that owl going somewhere? What's going on here? He's out there doing... Dude, he does yard work like a real man. I think he's been in the gym. Or maybe that's just natural.

Just natural. Bro, you're out there hauling them barrels of hay and shit. He looks like he's staying at... What's-her-name's trailer in Ozark, right on the edge of the water? I don't know the names of anyone on staff. Ruthie, thank you. Ruth, yeah, thank you. Ruth, thank you very much.

I don't know their names. They literally put no name at the top. She's a brilliant actress. Ruthie? Julia Garner. You're not into the rise of the next great artiste? Was she in Showgirls? By the way, Webscream emailed me about the first Dune movie

and he's like, yeah, the guy from Showgirls is in it. I was like, that's what we're calling Kyle McLaughlin? Okay, I'll get down with that. Alright, yeah. Tyler P says, hey BC and LT and the whole MK team, I just wanted to share some pics from a great weekend in Dallas for UFC 277. My girlfriend surprised me with tickets

for my 24th birthday and it was her first UFC event. We got to meet Figueredo, who ignored me, for my girl. I like to hear that. That's funny. And Coach Albert Acid. Oh, he met the captain. Wow.

Dude, look at how Coach dresses. I mean. The captain. Dude, he dresses like someone. He constantly loses bets to friends. We got to get him on our couch, I'm telling you. He saw a banger of a fight card. He ran into Uriah Hall while he was in line at the bathroom,

but didn't want to get head kicked for asking for a photo going tip to tip. Oh, look at Figueredo. Look at Figueredo. Yeah, look at that. Dude, you could meme the shit out of this picture. Wow. Love the show. Keep up the content.

It's Tyler P. That's funny. Dude, I notice a lot of the dudes who watch the show, Keep up the content. It's Tyler P. That's funny. Dude, I noticed a lot of the dudes who watch the show, they take their significant others with them. They do. They do. Tyler's been in the gym too, right?

Yeah, doing all right. Doing all right. Okay. Shout out to his lady too. Okay. Thank you. I'll stop there. Tanger Mouse.

Luke, we know this guy, right? He's like their closer. He's like, let's bring in Hoffman. Let's go to the bullpen. Okay. Hey, BC, back from holiday and feeling refreshed and happy? I am.

Thank you. Good. Let the abuse begin. And let's start with your fashion sense. How BC thinks he looks without socks. How he actually looks. Okay, Danger Mouse. I'll take that on the chin.

And the next one is based on Luke's observations from Monday's show. Okay. Nail BC for attacking Luke. Ream Luke for attacking BC. Morning Combat fans, yes. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. And finally, the chat room was loving Luke on his high chair during the pregame preview. I mean, it's the worst chair on earth.

This is the first You Cannot Be Serious series. This is you as McEnroe and me with the 49 times. That's actually a very good. That's pretty damn good. That's a really good. The fucking situation is... We're a little post-mid-year. Is Danger Mouse in the finalist

discussion for Donk of the Year? I think so. With David Appleton, Russell from Georgia, and his wife, lovely wife, the Elvis couple. Who are we missing? Web Scream's kind of always floating out there. He did the Buzz Lightyear one of you. Just to remind, just to remind.

That one was pretty good. That was pretty good. Damien the Donk, is he MIA or is he an Ariel fan now? He probably left us. Because Punch Drunk Pete has taken everything Damien the Donk worked for. Punch Drunk Pete messages me all the time now. Showed up at your house. Not quite that yet, you know, but I don't, you know.

I like that kid. Yeah, I like him too, but you leave a little milk. The stray cats keep coming back. We got one more. This is JP. You know Jay Paquette from Mount Uniac, Nova Scotia, right? We may need to enter. You always act like you've never heard of my French Canadian brethren.

Luke, we may need to enter him. This is. Directly in the dunk of the year running after this one. I can't believe how good this is. God, this is our MK meme of the year, probably. We referenced the movie Alive. Luke, I have offered you the opportunity upon my death or to prevent yours of eating my ass flesh, Luke. You're like Cartman when he got left ass cancer.

Remember that? Luke, if I'm only reason, I mean, can you write in English? Okay. If I'm the only reason left that you can live, dude, you can eat the shit out of me. I will put that on my donor card. I will donate to you any ass

flesh that I have. The vape and then Chuck as the Sherpa. I almost feel bad. You, me, and Mikey texted this to each other and laughed. I laughed for five straight minutes until tears were dripping down. Can we full screen it again? The brilliance of this is not only the donor card in the corner which says, I would like to help

someone to live after my death. Please help yourself to all of my ass flesh. The faces of our extended MK universe. Look at Chuck as a Sherpa on the far right. Yeah. That's incredible, right? And by the way, Danny and Aaron

just can't look away from the disaster. Meanwhile, Rashad is like, what am I doing with these fucking... Rashad's like, I'm not eating any of these asses. I will not toss a salad on this mountain. Nope. That will not happen. Nope.

James, here's what Jay said. On Monday's show, episode 333, BC revealed that the true level of love and sacrifice to the Professor Salt-N-Pepa would be the alive post-plane crash. Quote, Luke, okay, we read that already. Don't know what to say, gents, other than keep the plane fueled

and out of the Arctic storm airspace for all future off-site MK events. Love you guys. Keep up the amazing work. Fan for life, it's Jay Paquette. Will you put some respect on his name now? Respect for some Jay. You hate Jay Paquette. Will you put some respect on his name now? Respect for some Jay. You hate Jay Paquette. Anyone associated with the name Jay because of Jay.

Aaron. Those are our fan subs of the week. Morningcombat at gmail.com for those for Friday's Dead Wrong. Thank you, JP. On fire right now, JP. Wow. David Appleton, I think you got next. Okay, we'll see what he got for us.

Luke, do you want to remind the people about the podcast awards? Yeah, Morning Combat is up for the World MMA Awards, and you can send us back to Vegas, and we can give awkward award speeches. You can either use the QR code right there, or if you're listening on the audio platform, it's worldmmawards.com slash nominees. Pause. Look, I don't pretend to act like these mean more or are worth more than they are. We got a great documentary out of it. Our friends in the business gave us love when we won. It felt good. We got a trophy out of it. We got a live show because of it. What does it say about Morning Combat if we win this two years in a row? World MMA Awards, best MMA programming. That would be big, dude. Honestly, winning one, I never thought we would get.

Winning two, back-to-back, would be like... Ariel with the reformed MMA hour. Joel Rogan. Heavy hitters, bro. Two UFC programs which have won this award in the past, Dana White Contender Series and UFC Embedded. Not easy. Not easy to do, but you can help us.

You can help us, for sure. That would be very big for us. Really, really big for us. People's Choice Podcast Awards. You can help us for sure. That would be very big for us, really, really big for us. People's Choice Podcast Awards. You guys got us to the final round in three categories, Best Male Podcast, Best Sports Podcast, and the People's Choice Award for Best Overall. See what happens.

We are up against, by the way, in our own company, some fantasy shows. That's who I really want to beat is our CBS brethren. Some powerhouse CBS podcasts that do big-time numbers, and we respect that. It's not to stick it to them in that way, but to stick it to them in perhaps different ways. You know what I'm saying? The little engine, the little train that goes. Oh, I didn't know if you meant the back way. Remember when Sarah Michelle Gellar was like, you can put it anywhere.

It was like, okay, wow, cruel indeed, those intentions, Luke. It's a great scene, right? Can you go back on vacation? Okay, real quick. I need you to watch Dune again. I'll watch Dune. I like Dune. It's a freaking classic.

How many Delta 8s do I have to have for you? Two to three. Okay. Luke, it's everything. It's the bee's knees. It might be better than 1917. That's not saying much. Stop that.

It's not saying that much. It might be better than 1917. It's a great movie, but it's not that good. It's one of my gems. Want to own part of the airline you flew with on your last vacation? Or part of the company that makes your favorite triple shot latte with extra foam? What about owning part of a company that one day could send you on a tour of outer space? Now you can.

With partial shares from TD Direct Investing, you can own part of your favorite companies. Just pick a stock and decide how much to spend on the share. It's a piece of cake. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD. Ready for you. I can't believe you still haven't seen Black Hawk Down. Like, Black Hawk Down smokes all that. Well, Uncut Gems is a different

movie, but in terms of... Good Time with Robert Pattinson? That's pretty good, too. That's another Safdie brother. Yeah, it's dark. But their direction style is so frenetic. I love it. Did you watch 13 Lives yet? Not yet, but every one of our listeners didn't say, BC, you need to watch it. Okay, so they agree with me. They co-signed.

Okay, well, then there you go. Some of our- 401 shots. That's what I think about every time you say that. Well, I mean, some of them were like, no, dude, Thor's good. These are people you never have to listen to again. But this one- Luke, I won't fight to the death on Thor because it's a superhero movie.

It made me laugh. It was entertaining. My son loved it. I saw it at IMAX. It ruled. I'm not trying to say it was a five-star classic, so I don't fight that, but people are like, Luke is so off. I'm not off. I'm super not off.

To try to act like it was just a debacle that it ever appeared. Yes, that's exactly. I'm surprised that it made it to theaters. It's not The Phantom Menace, dude. Phantom Menace is bad as well. It's not Jar Jar and Watto, okay? Yeah, but that was the first of the prequels. You know, come on.

It's not as bad as, again, I'll say this. The Jurassic Park, was it World Dominion or Dominion or whatever the fuck it's called? Jurassic World Dominion Park, whatever the fuck it was called, that was worse. That was actually one. Them being dead serious for a moment, I was honestly surprised that it made it to theaters. It's that fucking bad. Thor is just like a regular old bad movie.

So back to Dune, just quickly. I mean, it's just, I mean, it won six Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Picture. Did it win any,

like, did it win for like, cinematography and shit like that? Mostly sound and cinematography, but there was also Best Adapted Screenplay as well. Okay. Denny Villanueva, I've got, I'm learning from Matt Snyder and Web Scream that I need to now watch his entire catalog.

He did the new Blade Runner. That's actually also pretty good. Did you not see that? I have not seen it yet. Have you seen the original? No, with Harrison Ford, no, I haven't. I didn't see the original. You've seen a lot of bad movies.

Again, you throw stones from the house of cannibal corpse. Like, it's hard to, you know, it's hard to. What movies have I told you were good that ended up being bad? Answer that part. You're just an extremist. You like the most extreme music, the most extremely violent movies. I don't like extremely violent. I like all kinds of movies.

Extremely curvy women. I do like that. The most, you know, extremely highbrow words to try to show everyone that you're better than them. No, you just have, you have an inferiority complex. I'm just a regular guy who looks into the camera and looks back at regular people. And I, you know, if I could. Dude, you are. If I could, if I could humpty dumpty around.

You make more money than me. This whole fucking populist act that you're playing is bullshit. It's genius. It's expertly delivered. Just so you know, it's an act. It's expertly delivered. No, because I bleed blue. I don't back the blue. I bleed the blue

collar because that's where I'm from, okay? You know what I mean? That's what I'm about, alright? Son of a plumber, you know what I mean? You're not the son of a plumber. Son of a fireman, alright? Do you ever do anything like fireman work? I took the fireman test when I was 28, the physical test.

Did you pass? I did. I had the fourth fastest time in the whole group. There was 300 people. I watched guys in front of me because you start off on the stair lift, stair master, you know, that thing. Yeah. But with like a 75-pound vest on. Yeah.

I watched these guys that were like, you know, jacked, 250-pound guys. They just fell off of it and collapsed because you had to be on there so long. The hardest part was dragging the dummy. It was a 160-pound dummy. You had to drag it all the way across the parking lot. There's this dude I follow on Instagram. His name is Rugged Fitness Lifestyle. He's a fireman, and he works out in his fireman gear at the fire station, and he films it with Instagram.

One of the things he does that I'm kind of curious about is along those lines, he buys 100, 200, and 250-pound sandbags and then carries them everywhere and shit like that. It's pretty fucking awesome. Rugged fitness lifestyle. The other hard part was when you're crawling in the pitch black dark and you're knocking your head on things and you've got to try to find the opening and then crawl through it. I got claustrophobic issues. Getting back to 13 Lives, they do a bunch of that under fucking water. It's kind of like in Dune when Paul Atreides had to put his hand in the box of pain to prove that he was like... Yo, he withstood that shit.

Fucking, he turned the corner on that old witch, too, and he showed her the real power. He was like, yo, fuck you, bitch. Of the Bene Gesserit, that fake Jedi shit they got going on. Yeah, yeah. Well, the Jedi shit's the fake shit they ripped off of this one. Real stuff that they ripped off. Don't you... Dude, the George Lucas ripping off Dune thing, which he didn't realize before, drives him nuts, and I understand it.

Once you watch it, you're like, dude, they really did a bad job. I just want people to understand that if you haven't seen Dune, you haven't seen R. Lady Jessica, kind of hot. Kind of sticking out, right? Kind of sticking out, right? No? You know my type. All right. I'm going to, yeah, we're going to get out of hot. You're kind of sticking out, right? You're kind of sticking out, right? No? You know my type. All right.

I'm going to, yeah, we're going to get out of here. Oh, dude, can we close with Tristan's zoo that he's building? Only if he cares to. I'm not going to make a decision. I don't think he's into that. All right. Jake's like, we don't, you know. Tristan's like, I've got murders to do.

You know, our camera guy, Tristan, has like, he's got like a polar bear, a grizzly bear. There's like a wolf. Yeah, brozzly bear. There's a wolf. Yeah, bro. My man of the forest, bro. He's about it. Yeah. In MK terms, he could be our Chewbacca. We have to.

Hold on. Not at your back. In MK terms, right? Speaking of this, the folks reminded me. We made a pledge to Sean Brady. So Sean Brady has a fight coming up with Bilal Muhammad. We made a pledge that if he wins that fight, we're going to go to Philly

and get tattooed. Now, I'm not going to make you get tattooed. We put it under the auspices that Showtime would pay for not only the tacos that we said we were going to eat, because you shit on all the Philly cheesesteaks, but I'm going to get my first tattoo. I think you should talk about this with your wife. I'm not going to make you do something that complicates your marriage, but I'm going to go through with it.

I'm going to go through with it. You don't think I am the master of my own domain of this flesh? No, I don't think at all. You don't think I own this space right here, Luke? I don't think you own shit. Luke, it all comes down to whether I could withstand the pain. Because you know I hate four things in life, right? Needles, needles, needles, me, needles.

Black licorice, needles, and chicks me, needles. Black licorice, needles, and chicks who smoke cigarettes. I mean, it's just gross. Dude, chicks who smoke cigarettes is your wheelhouse. It's just gross. Chicks with bad tattoos is fifth, but I only had four spots for that. There's a lot of overlap there. But needles, dude, I don't like them.

You know, I don't... Stop being a pussy. You can do that. That's a choice you can make. See, here's the deal. Am I physically tough? You know, I'm not a coward. I've just never been tested. Dude, it's not.

I like to think that if I was, I would pass. What would you say, Tristan? But, Luke, I'm mentally tough. That's the difference. We'll find out about that. How much do the tattoos hurt in the forearm there? Not that much, right? Yo, can Tristan come out here?

I mean, why are we talking to him? Just don't. We don't need a microphone. Just fucking. You got one? Oh, we got one. Tristan, could you come out, please? No, no, no. He doesn't have? We don't need a microphone. Just fucking, you got one? Oh, we got one. Tristan, could you come out, please? No, no, no.

He doesn't have to. Don't make him come out. He can just talk off. I think he can. He's an adult. Okay, he can make his own choice. Say in the first, like, 25 minutes, there's pain, but after that. You're pretty good.

How long did that one on the forearm take? Three hours. That's not that bad. Yeah. What's the longest you've sat? It would probably be this one here. Three hours. Yo, can you show the people this

one here now what are we doing here two hours he doesn't want to dude okay doesn't want to all right I'm just you know just yeah come over here I guess they're gonna take a look here's BC just improv this is good I hung with Tristan in Minneapolis yo good hang, good hang. Bro, good hang, okay? Yo, Tristan, you gotta... There we go. Oh, shit, man. How much did the middle bear hurt? This one? Yeah. I'd say it must go from like

one to ten, probably. Seven. Yeah, because it's soft flesh there. Yo, Luke, I think... Oh, how about the wolf? Jesus. He should build a dream catcher to connect all the tattoos together. No, he should not. That's a really bad idea. It would be a sleeve. This motherfucker just has a straight-up menagerie of woodland animals.

That one didn't hurt, right? The one on the deer? Not that bad. That's my boy, Tristan. Just think about it. Anytime where there's soft flesh, so like on here would be really painful. Any part where it's just underexposed would be kind of painful. Anything that's towards the extremities, so anything kind of in the center. The center tends to hurt less.

Look, if I'm going to get it, and so Sean Brady has to just defeat. There's no caveats, right? I think what we told him was if he wins his next fight, that was it. Okay, I would get it right here on my left bicep, right here. But it would have to be colorful and it would have to pop, Luke. You could get a New School tattoo of something. Those are the ones with like almost like neon colors. It would have to be orange

and almost like a tropical blue mixed in there, you know what I mean? I wouldn't get that logo right there, but maybe that color scheme. You get two guys whose dicks are holding each other? I can't believe Sean Brady's an Aztec guy. I mean, come on, dude. Yo, Sean, I thought you were cool.

And Chiesa. Yeah, what's up with that? It turns out all the guys tougher than you all seem to think it's a much better idea than you do. Isn't that funny? I mean, Luke, how often are you going to be walking around to show that off? So you sat through that pain. I'm not going to get anything like that. You're not going to get your ass cheeks done?

I'm probably going to get a leg sleeve done at some point, but I don't have any designs on that, no. If you go ass cheeks, what would stop you from full grundle? What the fuck would I get my grundle tattoo for? Why the fuck would you get your ass tatted up? Because it scales the tattoo to a different dimension that makes it different. We talked about this. How close to the actual, like, speaking of that logo, how close

to the rim? I mean, like... Do you want to do it? No, I don't even want you to think about it. I'm concerned. These are not things I give a lot of thought to. Obviously. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to finish up this arm and then this arm. I'd like to thank our camera guy, Tristan, for being a great

supporter. Yeah, thanks, Tristan. Now he's going to slit your throat. I hope he kills me second. That's what I'm going to do. Alright, we still have more stuff to do today. We're going to record it and put it in the can for you, and then we're going to release it in due time. So, I want to thank the Malka crew, who's been here for the last couple of days, did a great job. We'll see how the stuff

came out. I'll work for my machine! Right? Yep. And let's see, we have to thank CBS Sports, Showtime. You want to take us out with your singing? Yep. And let's see. We have to think. CBS Sports, Showtime. You want to take us out with your singing? No. I mean, you have the floor. Come on, showman.

Take us out. Is it showman or is it shaman? That's the question. All right. For Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. This is MK. Breathing, breathing, breathing.