MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Vera KOs Cruz | Bellator 284 Recap | Teofimo Lopez Wins | Ep 336

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

On Episode 336 of Morning Kombat, Brian Campbell and Chuck Mindenhall are LIVE from the bunker to recap all the combat sports events from this weekend. At UFC San Diego, Chito Vera scored a crazy leg kick KO win over Dominick Cruz. What's next for Vera? Plus, the guys recap Bellator 284, the PFL Playoffs and Teofimo Lopez Jr. win over Pedro Campa. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

What do you say? What do you do when it all comes down? The myth is back at it. BC hitting you. It's MK all day, nearly every day. Back in the studio here Monday, August 15th, 2022. Loaded weekend of combat sports to break down for you. I'm Brian Campbell.

Welcome in. That BBC with that BDE. Chuck Mindenhall, the man filling in for Luke Thomas this week. But it's not really like filling in. It's like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. That's what it feels like, right? Where's Luke at? Where'd he go?

He's on vacation with his beautiful family. And you know he deserves it, all right? He does. He needed it. You saw him in here in studio last week. He needed it big time. Yeah, he's falling asleep on set. That's okay.

Chuck, love doing the show with you. Love doing it in person. You and I were just on this RSD couch right here with one Demetrius Johnson, which will be coming out in the next week. That was good bingo we had. It has been a long-ass time since I've sat on this set. Pre-pandemic, right? Pre-pandemic.

So I feel like it's been like three years, something like that. Since the damn bomb shelter. Yeah. Then we had the Orchids of Combat. Have we ever named this? It's upgraded quite a bit now, man. This is a great little set. I don't know if we've ever named it, but thank you so much.

Shout out to our great team from Malco here. We've got a fun show for you, not only looking back on all things UFC, Bellator, PFL, the return of Teofimo Lopez, also some breaking news on Adrian Broner and his scheduled return this weekend. And we're going to do some fun, Chuck. Mondays mean have you seen this shit so you ready to buckle up baby it's my favorite segment oh god uh mk superfan christian daguerreau uh repped us you got to tune in to have you seen this shit today repped us over the weekend in

the only spot where it's recutable right on the crotch okay so look forward to that you should have a crotch count too yeah crotch cam uh that'd Yeah, crotch cam. That'd be great. Crotch cam? You remember when ESPN NBA in, like, 2001 had that ingenious crotch cam in the floor that would show the guys jumping up to Doug? You're like, wow, that guy's bag is as big as I thought it would be. That's great. Thank you very much. Please, here's our handles. If you want to like us on this video on YouTube, subscribe to what we do.

Hit us up on social, Chuck Mendenhall's accounts right there. We thank you for getting us over these humps of subscriptions, of voting on the awards. In fact, Chuck, what do you think about this? We're back at it for the World MMA Awards nominee for Best MMA Programming. Can we beat Rogan? Can we beat Ariel? Hey, you did it last year.

Let's see if we can do it again. You can help right now by see that QR code at the bottom of the screen? Hit that up or go to worldmmawards.com slash nominees. Click down on that drop down. If you think we deserve it, give it to us once more. We'll be paying you back big time. Maybe a live show. Some talk about a live show. I can remember

when I used to get nominated. Those were good days, man. Did you win? No, I never did. Who'd you lose to? Ariel? I think it was Ariel. He had that award on lock. He still does, right? No, he still does. It's like nobody's ever gonna. They should just name the award after him and then let the rest of us compete. I would've won. I came in second each

of those years, so. Oh shit, you did? I'm just guessing, but I think so. So you're like the Joseph Benavidez to his Demetrius, right? Pretty much. I need a different racket, apparently. Yeah, well, Joe did well though. He married us. Shout out to Joe B. on that one. Chuck, also, Showtime, the label that pays us, 30-day free trial today.

Why wouldn't you? We got great Bellator Showtime Championship. Boxing is back this weekend. BC going to be back on the ones and twos. A show box early September. Go get your 30-day free trial right now if you like it. Hey, stay a subscriber. It's great content.

If you don't like it, as Luke would say, pound some sand. All right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. You big Portugal the Man fan?

Big time. I'm proud to display their fantastic 2011 album. They got a new one coming out. I think they can do it to us again. This is the subtle nod and wink. Yeah.

Touch the nose. Shout out to the boys there, John Gourley and company. We love you guys. Chuck, anything, what's new in your life before we get serious here about MMA, you know? Nothing, man.

Nothing new in my life. Okay. Yeah. You know, I'm not real prepared to even answer that question. But to be honest, nothing is really going on. Okay. It's the summer, man. You're just a man with a lot of hats.

Dog days of summer. Yeah. A man with a lot of hats. And that's about it. My wife thinks I look 55 in your hat that I bought. But it's so comfortable. And it's fitting the midlife crisis that I'm currently navigating. It just fits me right there.

You're a newsboy. You look good. Yeah, I'm dressed like an asshole right now, but shout out to All the Smoke for the fantastic merch. And, of course, we have our own merch house, morningcombat.store. Right now, RJ Dunkelmaker is an MVP behind that one, but you can go. New merch available right now. Wow.

I don't even know what that is. Go check it out right now, morningcombat.store. Tell them BC sent you. Chuck, we finally begin to outfit you a little bit, right? Yeah, you do. I have about five pieces. Did you get a drug rug? No, I have not got one of those.

Did you get a bomber jacket? They were sold out, man. They were sold out of that. Yeah. Yeah. You should have got a BC Hawaiian shirt. That's what you should have got. I have a Luke shirt. It's like got the have a luke shirt it's like at the little oh the dead yes i got that one that's fine i'm trying not to make my microphone an issue here i'm trying not to move a lot i want

to be very robotic all right uh we are happy to be here we're happy to break things down it was a loaded weekend this past one i like that transition uh How about UFC Fight Night in San Diego? Not the whale's vagina this time, but a must-see Bantamweight showdown. I can't believe people still want you to put a spoiler on things. What are you talking about? Marlon Veracito continued his most violent year.

Close fight, fun fight with Dom Cruz, strategic, contrasting style fight, but when it all came down, wow. You're contrasting style fight. But when it all came down, wow. You're doing it naturally now. It's natural. A little Gavin Rossdale there with Bush. Chuck, Dominic Cruz gets finished and sent.

I believe it was fourth round? Fourth round. Head kick. A close fight before that. But this was another step forward on this win streak for Marlon Vera. What did this say about his realistic chances in the sports deepest division of cracking this title picture sooner than later? Well, I thought that there's like a little Grand Prix going on, obviously with the bantamweight division being in the stack,

and all of those fights are happening within a month. So if this is the opening salvo, right, for a guy to come out and make his case, I don't think he could have made a better case. He was not being duped into a certain kind of fight with dominant cruz i think in the past dominant cruz has kind of bewildered opponents with his movement and doing all this stuff it was almost like he kind of knew the chances would be there because he was able to drop dom a couple of times and then that that head kick at the end was just perfectly timed came into contact right when he's leaning over to the side,

and it's just a brutal knockout. Now, if you're trying to put that on the highlight, we don't get ahead of all of the guys vying for that title shot, the next title shot, I think that's a pretty good foot forward. Would you say that because, and we're going to get to Dom Cruz in a second, what this performance said about him, but because Dom Cruz brought it,

this was a rejuvenated, intense, ready-to-go, title elite level Dom Cruz, that just raises what this victory says even more about where Vera's at. That because I don't know how you're watching, but I'm sitting there. The narrative is all about Dom Cruz through three rounds. You're thinking this is 2012, 2011 Dom Cruz. He's moving around. I mean, his movement was insane and he was mixing in the takedown threats.

He was changing stances. He was doing all that stuff he used to do. He was committed to power shots, too. Yes, and he was doing all of it. So it was like he really reminded me of the old Dom. I didn't think we'd see that again. Yeah. And to see it so effective, even through three rounds,

I know the momentum was swinging just a little bit in that third round, but I still felt it was his fight going into the fourth. Did you think it was 2-0 Dom at the big point? I did think it was 2-0 Dom, and then the third one was close. I know a lot of people right away were like, that's a Cheeto round. In real time, I was like, that felt like a toss-up to me, to be honest. Did we end up seeing where the cards were after? Because I felt like it was going to be...

It was 2-1 Dom going into all scorecards. Because it looked, if that knockout hadn't happened right there, I thought Cheeto was winning round four. It looked like it was going to be essentially up for grabs entering the fifth round. That's what... The momentum was swinging, but it would have been interesting to see what would have played out. I wouldn't have been surprised, obviously, if Dom got a 48-47 type of score on that. Swinging like an open marriage. Yes, just like that. Just like us right now. It's great.

It's great. I can swap partners very effectively. Marlon Vera is, there's something to it. We said it last week. There's a next level confidence with him right now that is fueling this violence. But, you know, I said, is it Masvidalian? Do you get a 2019, you know, I'm going to baptism type of feel? Maybe. But how about the poise? I would speak to the poise because it was almost as if Vera was never worried. Even as Dom Cruz would get off flurries, yeah, he dropped him in the first.

Like there were moments where Vera would show that he's in this fight. But he never pressed and was like, oh, crap, I'm losing this. I need to rush. He wasn't being. I feel like in the past, Dom Cruz has kind of freaked people out with his movement. And you would see them biting on a lot of his movement. You would see people kind of playing his game. I didn't feel like Chito was doing that.

Even through the rounds when he was getting worked a little bit the first couple of rounds, he was staying the course. He was not, you know, buying into every feint, every deke. He was just kind of waiting for his shots. And honestly, it was working because he had the bigger shots. He was just getting outvolumed through the first couple of rounds. But he was still landing the bigger shots, ultimately, all told. It was a very patient, very poised.

This is a guy who, at one point, was kind of an anonymous bantamweight. He was going through, he had some big fights, but I felt like he would lose in a crucial moment. He was just kind of buried, but he's coming into his own at the exact right time. He's great on the microphone. The crowd loved him. Yeah, I mean, he's got Ecuador behind him. Like, you see the heroes walking in Ecuador.

That's a Mexican-American backdrop, San Diego, right? Yeah, of course. And he had them. He had them, yeah, absolutely. And that's Dom's hometown. That's Dom's hometown, and yet it came fully around. Like, yeah, he is that bad. I mean, look, you walk into a cage with a scorpion tattoo on the side of your dome.

It's pretty badass. My daughter was into that. She was like, I like his tattoo. I mean, his combination of tats, the long beard, and then just that. I mean, he had great sound bites leading up to it. But I like that he spun it back around to respect to Dom on the mic. Of like, no, we talked our trash. But, I mean, look, he's fully putting it together.

He is very much in this title picture discussion. So I want to ask you the same question that I debated on Friday's episode with Rashad Evans is, look, in some ways it's wide open whoever may have the best performance of these coming up top 10 matchups that are so must-see across the board. I mean, there's a bunch of them that we need to see. But I think we all agree that if Sugar Sean O'Malley beats Piotr Jan, not only from his own words, but from his marketing value, from what he's saying, he's hearing that he could cut the line.

Is that fair, considering Chito stopped him? I know there's an injury involved, but we can't look back on that and be like, it was a stoppage loss, right? It wasn't a loss. I mean, fair, it's not going to be fair. But if O'Malley goes in there and does anything that's emphatic and wins that fight, he is guaranteed slam dunk to be the guy.

And are you okay with that? It doesn't matter. I get it. I get it. If you're putting him on the same card now, obviously he's got a new contract. He's getting paid. Now we see that he's like, okay, now I'll fight whoever you want to put in front of me.

So if he's taking this challenge and he's going against a guy, and he's already doing a remarkable job, by the way, of selling this fight. So, you know, kind of teasing that, you So if he's taking this challenge and he's going against a guy, and he's already doing a remarkable job, by the way, of selling this fight, so, you know, kind of teasing that, you know, he's the favorite and all this stuff. I love that sort of thing. But if he goes in there and actually does it on the same night as the Ashok Bantamweight title fight,

I'd be okay with it. I'd be like, all right, I get what they're doing. I get it. On the same night synergy, it's going to just... You know how it is. It's the recency thing. All right, so we have the champion Aljamain against Dillashaw on the same night,

as you're saying, as Sugar Sean against Peyote Yan. We've also got Corey Sanhagen against Song Yedong. Marav Davalish-Willey up against Jose Aldo. Which one of those winners would make the most sense for the next move for Chido Vera? I mean, it depends on who wins. Right. But what do you think?

This is tough. Maybe the Aldo Marab I don't know it's always very tough because there's also I guess this is a winner for Marab does it

maybe that would be the one but I also feel like then you might be cutting out one of the guys who has like that nice glean to them as they're going to the top I'm not sure the UFC

would want to saw one of them off before they get there so I don't know but Chido's responded well when asked about this type of stuff. I mean, he seems to be keeping it pretty realistic. Because as we talked about on Friday's show, we played some sound that Shaq Mujuri had interviewed him for CBS Sports.

And he was basically saying, this is Chito. I wasn't willing to wait for O'Malley or Jan. Or basically, I'm not waiting on anybody. He wanted to fight Jan. There was going to be a waiting process. By the way, how big would that fight be again? The first time it happened, I felt like everybody was like, oh, Chido's going to get killed by O'Malley. Comes out

different. Now you have a whole different setup. I think Chido's kind of like his star has shot up to a whole other level. That's why I said this may end up working out for Chido because if O'Malley beats Jan, which is not an automatic by any stretch of the imagination, and then if he wins the title, also not an automatic, you'd be looking at Chido as

the first title defense because it just makes sense, right? It's a storyline. It makes sense. He'd be right there. I wish MMA played out just like this. Yeah, it does. But it never does. It never does.

There's probably some 11th player out of those five matchups that you just don't know who's going to have the next title fight. That's how MMA works. That's how MMA works. Whoever's number 11 right now will be. Or whoever's the old guy closest to the phone when there's an injury. No, that's no joke, man. And then we're like, hey, Mr. Faber, can you fill in?

I mean, this happens. I would like to see him finally get a title shot. That'd be great. Despite the brutal... What's more likely, Holly Holm or Uriah Faber to get a title shot? Probably on the same night. Despite the brutal KO,

this was kind of a moral win for 37-year-old Dom Kruz. He fought like he had turned back the clock. Is it that much of a difference of what he brought to the table compared to his victory over Casey Kenney, his victory over Pedro Munoz? Was it that much in your eyes in escalation forward? Well, I think there are lingering questions, honestly, because he's gone through so many injuries and stuff. If he could even do the type of fight he was doing anymore.

I honestly didn't know. And how old is he? He's like 36, whatever it is. 37. I mean, obviously age does catch up to you too. I did not think he had that kind of fight still in him, to be honest. And to see his movement and everything he was doing in there. And, you know, he was carrying some power.

I think he was doing very well in the exchanges. And he hasn't really been knocked out. I mean, this was a knockout. I heard people saying, like, he should retire after this. I'm like, are you kidding me, man? This guy, like, was showing his full resurgence. It is weird that he's a commentator and he's a fighter, but he's still got a lot of fight left. He has a lot of fight. Now look, he's in the deepest division where

even, okay, if he had won this fight, yeah, we'd have to start thinking, thinking about how quickly can they throw his name into a title scenario. He would have been very up high on the list. This takes him out of the immediate title picture. It couldn't be more log jammed and deep of names old and young. But if he's just looking to still make high-level fights and be given a sort of, I always say the Rich Franklin plan, given an old guy sort of gravitas. Because, you know, UFC, as Luke always says,

doesn't do a good job of letting people exit an age, you know, from throwing Anderson Silva at Derek Brunson and Kananir, where you're just like, what are these fights leading to? Nothing. There's no graceful outs. There's old guy fights for Cruz if he wants to do it and they could be main events.

Well, the Aldo one eventually. Like, right? This is one that's been that legacy fight. Dillashaw rematch at some point? Dillashaw. I mean, you've got, you have those types of guys

depending on how their fights play out or when they themselves are kind of plucked from the running, at least momentarily. I could see any of those fights making sense. But the Aldo one I would love to see. You came up at the same time as me

watching those guys. They really held down those divisions for Alden one I would love to see. You came up at the same time as me watching those guys. They really held down those divisions for so long. You'd love to see it, man. The WEC guys. Shout out to WEC. We had Demetrius Johnson on here going, hey, I'm on a trilogy one day. Much harder nowadays. We were saying that more than him.

Yeah, he's like, I was never interested in that. I was very interested in that. Thank you very much. He wants to get into gardening. He's not even into MMA anymore. Big performance, though, all together from Chito. So looking forward to see

where he goes from here. Only up. He is really putting it all together from the confidence to the conditioning to the poise. It's incredible. But, Chuck, this card...

Did you see him coming? That's one of those guys. I never saw him coming. This current round? I mean, didn't you? Well, let's be fair. I thought he was coming on, but then the elbow fight, which was a fair, honest loss. But you're like, mean, didn't you, well, let's be fair. I thought he was coming on but then the Aldo fight,

which was a fair, honest loss, but you're like, okay, that makes sense, right? I just couldn't have seen, like, I did not think, especially after that, you know, the O'Malley

into Aldo, after Aldo, I was like, there's no way that he would be in this spot. It was a close fight with Song Yedong, too. It could have gone either way.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's a crazy meter. It shows you in MMA, like you can't, you know, a year's difference can mean everything. You catch that hot streak. It's you in MMA, like, you can't, you know, a year's difference can mean everything.

You catch that hot streak. It's not just being hot. It's putting your, you know, you catch that perfect thing where mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, it just all clicks. For him, I think that's true. And he's, it's sometimes... His interviews are different.

I mean, he's just... Look, the great ones can create multiple waves of that, right? They can reinvent themselves. Dom Cruz, Jose Aldo can reinvent themselves constantly. But right now, he's coming into all of his superpowers together. And it's great.

I don't know if it's because people are paying more attention to what he's talking about. But when he's on the mic now, it's must listen. I love hearing what he's saying. Dude, he looks like a gangster in like a Tony Montana movie.

He does. He's the part. Central casting completely. Chuck, this UFC San Diego card really overachieved to the point that I got nailed on social media going,

MK, how could you not do an instant reaction to this? Luke's on vacation. You guys dropping the ball. Oh, you're putting out boxing bullshit clips over the weekend? First of all, those are artsy clips. Me and Luke rewatching Joshua Usyk won. You should check that out. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat.

But, Chuck, there were plenty of storylines. Let's just throw it out like this. Who do you think stood out the most with their performance underneath that main event? I mean, it's got to be Nate Landwehr, right? The craziest thing is those two fights at the top ended up being the whole event. It just kind of made you forget everything

else. But the Landwehr fight, it was like, I said it was like an epic three-part miniseries because it played out in three different completely ridiculous segments. What made it so different? Because it felt like an awesome barn burner brawl, fight of the year contender, almost a street fight at times, but there was some other unique sort of weird feels to it that made it unique.

Because when Ama came in, and I think that he was a huge favorite, and I think people thought, not necessarily a showcase fight, he wasn't fighting a can, but I think people thought he would get by a kind of Berserker-like Landwehr. Yeah, I mean, this is Darren Elkins 2.0, right? This is the next breed of Berserker. Right, exactly. That's kind of the feel, and it actually is playing out just like that. I'm almost, I'm pretty convinced. I have not seen an interview yet

with Landwehr, but I feel like he was out for a second and then woke up on the next strike, and then he activates. How often does this happen where a guy actually comes to life after the initial knockdown? It wakes him up. It wakes him up, slowly starts to take over the fight. You see shades of it at the end of the first round.

But then the second round comes, and Onama's completely fatigued, can barely put together a punch. And you're like, how is he going to survive? It's a 10-8 round close to a 10-7. I mean, it's one of those type of things where it's so one-sided. You're like, this is insane. And then the showman comes out in the third, right? Landwehr has maybe three times where he could have finished it on the ground,

stands up, gets the crowd going. I've never seen anything like this. That's the weird part about it, that the end of that third round was almost as if we're not competing anymore. It was almost like Landwehr was kind of showboating so much, you're like, dude, he's right behind you. It's like the classic definition of playing with your food. But he was playing to the crowd.

But they were both simultaneously playing to the crowd, playing up this moment, being like, holy shit, we found ourselves as the lead actors in this epic play. But they were almost like... And even Onama's having his moments. It was like removal of the fourth wall. It was almost like looking at the camera and being like, we're all in on this together.

Isn't this awesome over here? Let's get some applause going on here. Wild. They both could have lost. I mean, to see... So essentially it looked like it was going to be one-sided out of nowhere for the train. And then Onama makes a comeback, but then the train steps on the throat.

But then Onama almost rallied back one more time. And then he does. It's wild. He's landing these shots. Now, the scenario that goes through your mind is, all right, this guy's playing with this move. Landwehr now has control of the fight, but now he's letting him fight back. He's putting his hands down.

And he takes a punch or two, and you're like, if he gets knocked out, this is going to be one of the most talked about, like, this is going to be ridiculous. And just a second, it goes to your mind. But the other thing that goes to your mind

is him not finishing, you're like, if this round goes to an armor, there's a very real chance this is a draw. And you'd be like, okay, that's sort of fitting given the way the fight went.

But you'd have to look at Landwehr at that point and be like, dude, what the hell are you thinking? Okay, so if you're Nate Landwehr, obviously you want to be the best. You want to get up in this title picture and climb the rankings.

And look, it's far away from that, but he's making noise. Do you just embrace, I'm a fucking TV fighter. I'm that dude. I'm that dude you plug in. I think he just did. I think he did. I think that was basically his moment. You know, there were always those guys.

Chris Lieben had a moment. You know, there's always the guys who they kind of make a declaration. Cowboy Cerrone was the ultimate of that, right? Even though he was elite, he was also the ultimate. UFC loves it, man. UFC loves it. If you can throw a wild man in there and you know it's going to be an action fight, you can plug that into any swing bout of a pay-per-view. He'll take a fight on eight days notice. 100%, man.

Yeah, that is Nate Landwehr. I want to shout out, in the battle of Yasmin's, it was Yasmin against Yasmin. Yeah. Yasasmine Horigay is that how I pronounce it I don't really know because DC was struggling

through that I know there was like nine different pronunciations yeah okay the Yasmine that won Chuck

look let's be honest in this battle of Yasmine's one of her opponent was what the youngest fighter in the UFC 20 years old

but had 17 pro fights up to that point but Yasmine Horigay is the one who gets the nod. They were talking like in this women's strawweight division, which is always top-level elite killers, that these two are going to be at the top one day.

But it was almost matter of fact. Did you get that feeling watching this fight? It was an eye-opener, man. I mean, they both were leaving it out there. Honestly, I thought this would be the fight of the night in the end. Did you? I mean, I was like, you're watching it. I was like, this is a pretty intense fight.

I love when they do find, like, obviously they haven't had a ton of publicity on either side. They're both very young. You love to see that, man. You love to see it where two people arrive at the same time and now all of a sudden it just keeps getting better. We arrived at the studio at the same time today and we just bring the magic.

I'm trying to think. What was the other Yasmeen's last name? I'm butchering this. Gaff in the back. I'm trying to look it up. Lucindo. That was it. Oh, actually. We did. Bring the magic. I'm trying to think. What was the other Yasmin's last name? I'm butchering this. Gaff in the back. I'm trying to look it up. Lucindo. That was it. Oh, yeah.

She showed out, too, for her effort and performance. Bam. But, you know, look, I agree with the broadcast. There was sort of a next-level control of the technique and the passion that they were fighting with at a young age with so little UFC experience. But, again, they seemed matter-of-fact that these two will see each other again down the road. You know, time will tell here, but it was an eye-opening performance. Nina Nunez, also on the undercard,

of course, the wife of Amanda Nunez, won, gets a split decision win, but then puts the gloves down. Yeah, I didn't see that coming. And walked away. I mean, I'm not going to be here, you know, what's her legacy? But, you know, to hear her afterwards say,

I want to have another baby, I want to continue building this family, then we could not support you more to know when it's your time. But where do we see that after a win, though, right? You like to see it, and it's nice in her situation. Obviously she's got a very rich partner who's still going to do it. And it's like if you can be the supporting part of that, and she has done an admirable job of coaching and helping teammates and also Amanda. So good for her, man.

I think, you know, she definitely, she said she started as a hobby. And she made the most of that hobby. You know what I mean? She got pretty far up there. What was the fight that she lost where had she won it, she was potentially going to be a title contender? Well, I remember the fight. I don't remember the event. But I remember her being right there.

We can't remember anything. We don't actually know who we're talking about right now. I did hear Nina say before the fight that even though Amanda started her own gym, Linus Studio, that she was going to stay with ATT and she'll be with them for the rest of her career. I didn't know if she knew that the rest of her career meant four or five more days, but

we congratulate her. It makes more sense now, doesn't it? Any other get-your-eyes, feel-good moments on this career? I mean, I like the Angela Hill. She was also a big-time underdog in this fight, and she was able to go in there and honestly look as good as she's looked. She's looked good in other fights and pockets,

but somehow would just lose a close fight. This one, you could tell she was not going to let that happen. There was a couple points in her career where you're like, oh, I see the intention of trying to finish. I think she's ready. And then, you know, she's had some close decision defeats, but always a gamer. You know, lately

making flashy Instagram pictures as well. You know what I mean? Getting people's attention. She's got her podcast rolling. She's a character. I want to see her long after her career's over. I was a little nervous if she lost this. She was set up to lose this fight. What that would mean for her UFC career. I think she may have preserved

her spot, honestly, or kept it going. She fights hard. She's very likable. It was a good win from her in that regard. A little bit more on this card will show up, of course, and have you seen this shit later in the show. No Luke extra credit this week. I know the people are going to be like, damn, what am I going to do with my time?

I just want to remind the folks that YouTube.com slash Morning Combat get all of our bonus stuff right now. You can catch that rewatch that Luke Thomas and I did of the first Anthony Joshua, Alexander Usyk heavyweight title bout. The rematch, of course, is this Saturday. This week, we'll also have a rewatch

of Kamaru Usman versus Leon Edwards part one. And also launching tomorrow, spoiler alert, this guy, Chuck, the man in the hat, Mendenhall, with us doing a little real talk. Nice. Like men do, right? That's coming out tomorrow? That's coming out tomorrow on UFC 278, correct?

Yes. All right, our second topic looking back at the weekend brought us to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and why wouldn't it? Bellator MMA landing down with a welterweight main event title contender here, and Neiman Gracie looking to bounce back from a stretch of alternating wins and losses against a rising Goichi Yamauchi. And Chuck, Goichi Yamauchi did exactly that.

He rose directly into this welterweight title conversation. This was his second fight in the new weight class, and he got a second straight stoppage. But the nature in which he did it, can we just go right to the video, Gaff? Do we have that in the back of this knockout? It was Yamauchi calling Gracie forward to hit him in the chin, almost putting his head out there. And then responding to the delay and then the uppercut. Everything about that was perfect. But on a more macro level, what did this say about Yamauchi's threat here in this title picture at 170? Well, I think he looks pretty good, man, right? I mean, especially because he's doing it with his hands.

It actually reminded me, like, as he did that, and he put his hands down, he clenched his jaw. It almost reminded me of the Roger Huerta way back when he was fighting Clay Guida. Remember that fight? Oh, yes. And it became like this thing entering that round. It's like he switched a gear there or something clicked,

and it was a very nice KO. And it became like this thing entering that round. It's like he switched a gear there or something clicked, and it was a very nice KO. The thing about it is he's in a new weight class. He did fairly well as a lightweight. He was doing fine, but he missed the weight against Kruk Shank. But you go into this division, you look at the top ten, and I'm like, you know, he's a player. He's a player in that top ten. I think he's going to be able to make some noise in there.

He's won now six and one in the seven fights since losing to Michael Chandler, I believe. So he's really turned it around. But now as a welterweight, you can see where the weight fits him well. He's comfortable. He's not cutting down. He's jacked. He can switch stances. We know he's got that sort of machete karate-like base.

We know he can do things on the ground. But to your point, to now having this variety on the feet to lure him in and then catch him with that uppercut, it was eye-opening, Chucky. And this division feels, I don't want to say it feels wide open because Yaroslav Amasov made a monster statement taking it over, but he hasn't been back yet. Logan Surley got a controversial win over MVP, who's now in the bare-knuckle circuit this Saturday. Check your local listings, but there seems to be an opening here for Yamauchi to make a run. He could. If you look at the broader, the bigger picture, I always like looking at these patterns of bigger

picture stuff. He wins. This has been going on for years. He'll win three, kind of get up there a little bit, and lose one. He'll win three, lose one, win three, lose one. He won three again. Like, this is the length of this pattern. Now he needs to get over this hurdle, right? His next fight has to break that pattern. So you're saying

he's scheduled to lose next? He's got a scheduled loss coming up. Okay, come on. No, but I do think that seriously, in a sense, he's built momentum

in the past. This is probably the most visible he's been because I feel like this was a little bit more viral. People were looking at this. Look at that.

Look at that shit over my shoulder. It's going to be a, his next fight will be a big one for him. Might be the biggest of his career and he needs to get

through that. They're popping off left and right with these sort of guys you have to watch. You know what I mean? And shout out to them for that. On this main card, former women's flyweight champion, excuse me, Alimalee McFarlane. Chuck, it looked like we were kind of questioning where she's going. She missed weight by four pounds, now three with the one pound extra limit.

But she went in there against Bruna Allen, and it was not an easy task, a split decision win, a gritty, I thought, earned win. But afterwards, to see her this emotional and say, like, I didn't even know if I still had it or if I was going to walk away. Does this give you confidence that she righted the wrong of a two-fight losing streak or that things are still kind of murky if she wasn't even sure she was going to still be- No, I think winning is a nice cure for this, right? There's a lot of it.

I think that she's one of those people who had some hype around her just being Hawaiian and a lot of the stuff that was going on around. I remember the promotional push for her was a little bigger than you might see elsewhere. She's 11-0. I think she's cruising along. She looks good, you know, champion. Loses, you know, and then loses again. And I think it's that second loss that then suddenly says, do I even have this?

Then you miss weight. That was Justin Kish, the second fight. Yes. And nobody even shit their pants. I mean, maybe a lemurs performance, that's it. Forgot about that. But, like, you know, I think that there's probably a lot of doubt. It shows you how much these, how people struggle to maintain and show up and do these things.

She misses weight. That was a bad look. I actually was sort of like, it's still a bad look. But you're like, you're like thinking in the way that she was talking. Like, this might be it. Like, she might not, she might be checked out. But to get the victory, I'm hoping, and I have the feeling, that the win will kind of get her rolling. She didn't fight badly.

No. I mean, she committed to her power shots. She was finding a target with the chin with the right hand. But, you know, it wasn't flawless. It wasn't, oh, let's fight for the title tomorrow. She still got work to do to get back in here. But it was just interesting to see. I mean, there's a thin line between greatness and it all falling apart when you get up high

up in these levels. And, you know, she said afterwards in regard to missing weight that badly, that she identifies the problem. She didn't admit what it was, but there was a major reason, it seems, in her camp why it was such a bad camp. Now, can she put it behind her? I mean, she's still a player in here. I still want to see a rematch with Velasquez. She's still fairly young.

She's what, 31? Yeah, she's only in her young 30s. Velasquez isn't even the champion anymore. Now you've got Liz Karmush who's slid in. I mean, honestly, you know, she should beat Liz. I'm just saying, like, she should beat

a person like Liz Karmush. Karmush is tough, but I'm like, I feel like a Lima Lucha fan. I appreciated McFarlane's honesty, though, afterwards. I always appreciate that to show, you know,

where exactly she was. She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure. She had to come out there and find out for herself. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, and she's back on track to some degree,

so we're happy for her. How much did we panic, though, about Mr. Van Zandt? Austin Vanderford lost his title opportunity to Mousasi badly in the first round. It fell apart. Now against the mulleted, one of three mulleteers on this card. Yeah, it was a mullet extravaganza. Four if you count Danny Brenner, by the way. Did you see the mullet?

Oh, my God, no, I did not. Whoa. Holy crap. He's got a mullet. Chuck, first round stoppage. Yeah. How eye-opening, how nervous should we be for Austin Vandiver? My first thought was these types of things.

You see these relationships. I remember when Ronda Rousey and Travis Brown start going out, right? Like all of a sudden both their careers start to tank. I don't know what the hell happens, but Travis Brown from that moment went one and five, and then Ronda Rousey, I think she had a victory, and then she went and had her two-fight skid, and she's out. Sometimes that's what happens.

So even though I'm proud of them for making a successful offspring, Jana Kunitskaya and Maheta have not been going in the right direction since joining up. Look into this. I feel like this is an actual thing. Rocky and Tisha? I mean, did it go south after that?

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, but it's sort of like that because there are other dynamics in play. Like, you know, obviously Paige Van Zandt has a different kind of career going on. It's an interesting thing. That's all. I actually thought— But these are two losses that are not indicative of his talent.

True. And this one was kind of surprising. The Musashi one, I mean, like, in that type of fight, you're like, well, I mean, he's going against a guy who's vastly more experienced. But in this one, you're like, I thought this was the rebound fight. So, yes, I do think there's some, I don't know if it's panic, but there's certainly some red flags associated to that.

Yeah, he's going to have to bounce back in a big way. And, look, I love interviewing him. Yeah, he's a cool guy. He's a hard worker. He's a good fighter. And it was eye-opening. Should we focus on Aaron Jeffrey moving forward? I mean, this was the biggest win to date by far for him.

He looks, I mean, look at these guys with the mullets. That's glorious, man. We're going to transition to another mullet man in a second, but that's a big win. He looked poised. He looked deadly. Well, I mean, that's kind of the way it should work. I don't know if we're in an age where, you know, I feel like guys now know how to do

the strut, do the look, win with it, and use the mic. I feel like we're seeing this more and more. But these dudes with the mullets, I don't know, they're just showing up and they're kind of controlling the night. You know what I mean? Let's talk about who maybe made the biggest impact of the whole night on the undercard. Pat Downey. If you don't know, Luke had been hyping up this guy's signing.

Wrestling's bad boy. Had been on the elite level with, elite level with national teams, with college, but has bounced around because what? He's a little bit of a wild card, a firecracker. Gets in fistfights outside of things. 32 years old, I believe, 33? But he said afterwards, first round submission, what, 20-something seconds.

It's not so much, Chuck, about what he did in this fight. It looked exceedingly easy, what he did. It looked very easy. What do you make, though, about what he did in this fight. It looked exceedingly easy what he did. It looked very easy. What do you make though of his cocksure? And I say that because look, Danny Sabatello seemed to come out of nowhere and be like, the screen demands that he show up and deliver. I know he lost, but Danny's like somebody to watch.

It's timely because I feel like, okay, so he lost in the Olympic trials to Bo Nickel, who just had his big moment in the know, in the Contender Series, and people were talking about him. Dude, you get the chance to go do this right on the heels of that. I'm like, take advantage of it. Isn't Bellator the perfect promotion for, like, finding these guys? 100%.

They're kind of TV fighters. I'm not sure if they can cross over and be, like, you know, super legit. 100%. I mean, I wish Bellator had made a bigger play for Bo Nickel. I don't think they made any play for Bo Nickel. But, I mean, that would have been, I feel like that was their wheelhouse, was to get a guy like Bo Nickel. But this is an awesome pickup for them,

and I'm anxious to see kind of how far he can take it, man. I mean, he's definitely a personality, and like you said, a wild card. I think he's, look at that. We're going to see some more of that. Have you seen the shit? He was 80s-centric all the way, but I enjoyed it. Love his trunks, man. I do want to dead wrong myself.

I had a Friday show. I butchered Friday. I don't know. My brain was in another landing strip, but I enjoyed it. Love his trunks, man. I do want to dead wrong myself. I had a Friday show. I butchered Friday. I don't know. My brain was in another landing strip, but it's coming up. It's going to be Usman Nurmagomedov fighting for the Bellator. Lightweight title against Patricio Pitbull. I had said it was Patricio at one division. Obviously, Patricio's got a fight coming up.

Patricio and Patricio, man. That's a tough one. Yeah, so I butchered that, and I sounded like a simpleton, and nobody on the show had my back to be like, hey, BC, just so you know, you got the wrong Pitbull. Oh, man. Fucking asshole. Just say Pitbull. That's a tough one. Yeah, so I butchered that. I sounded like a simpleton and nobody on this show had my back to be like, hey, BC, just so you know, you got the wrong Pitbull. Oh, man. Just say Pitbull. It's easy. Topic number three, Chuck, took us to

Cardiff, Wales. I hope you know that I'm an honorary Welsh resident, not by birthright or just by choice. They've welcomed me in, so I hope to reconvene with my people one day. PFL 8, and it was really, in the end, a showcase opportunity for What's left of Rory McDonald. And it turns out he went in that other direction

because late replacement Delano Taylor, who was coming off a defeat but a 9-2 record, replacing Ulamatov, who Luke said was going to plow through. Yes, well, he would have. This is the main event. It was a welterweight tournament semifinal. Chuck, we thought with the change in opponent, maybe this could open for Rory to have this glorious run.

Dude, first round TKO. Afterwards, Rory would go to IG and would retire. It's like, wow, at age 33, here we are. Is it the right move at the right time based on what we saw? I think so. You know, the promo material going into this, too, was Taylor basically saying, you know, I'm going to fight too was taylor basically saying you know i'm gonna fight a guy a legend a ufc guy who's made it you know he's a champion um in rory mcdonald

but he's like you know but the truth is he's he doesn't want to be in there anymore he doesn't want to fight that's a very weird thing to hear in a promo but this is literally the promo they're running and so like you're you're thinking well that's kind of funereal and up in the lead-up and then he goes in there. That's how he's been fighting. Yes, and that is true. So I think from a rose-colored lens thing, you're like, maybe we'll see the Rory McDowell.

Maybe he'll click it in. Maybe it matters more. He's getting this other opponent. And instead, he just looked like he was outclassed pretty quickly and slower and all that stuff. And then to get taken out like that. It was kind of a continuation of his loss to Sadabusi in the final regular season match.

It was just like, when's Rory going to turn the corner? I feel like we've all been stuck in that moment. He had some good showings in Bellator, but ultimately, since he left the UFC, I think his record is 5-6-1. Such a weird resume.

Look, true or false, he was supposed to be the next GSP, right? Yeah. That conversation was being had a lot when he was on his run. Coming through, what, same trainer, same gym in Montreal TriStar. Yeah, they were making way, right? Like, alright, here's our new guy. And he came very close

to the title level and fought in fights of the year, legendary brawls. Now, was he never the same from the Lawler fight? Probably. But would you go even further and say really the turning point was ahead of the John Fitch fight when he had the religious conversion and suddenly was against sort of the idea of hurting his opponent? I remember that, though. That was a major red flag because. Yeah. And even though we saw resurgence at various points in Bellator and PFL where it's like, OK, if he's can control a fight technically and go downhill the

whole time, he can do it. He can be the old warrior. But he's not going to fight. His whole career was just, it was a bizarre thing to cover, to be honest, because there were these ethical issues that he was having. And then sort of like he would turn into a wise man one minute and tell you like these things. And he had too much empathy sometimes where you're like, dude, you can't, where's all this coming from? But he's also a psychopath when he gets in a war.

I mean, he's a dude who after that, you know, after that Lawler brawl, the second thing, you know, UFC 189 was like, it was the happiest moment of my life. It was the craziest thing. You're like, do you enjoy having like your face caved in? I mean, you know what I mean? And he was like, he was sort of like, yeah, kind of, because it was, you know, it was that kind of fight.

Let me ask you an honest question. It was just a, it was a crazy career. Going back to UFC 111, or was it 131, 111? It was when he fought Carlos Conant, where he's winning the fight and he loses at the very end. Just, it's a bizarre career, too. It's weird, like the Stephen Thompson loss when he was ahead of his contract. And then that was like, I heard his nose again. The level, ability-wise and poise-wise, at his best of the championship level.

He's one of the greatest fighters. I don't think he'll be in the top five of the greatest fighters to never win a UFC title. But there were points where he was right there. So to look back at how it fell apart, it's mind-blowing, and how he was able to keep it afloat but not really, and never really knowing exactly where he was. I do have a key question to ask. Sure.

I did one interview in my time with him. It just happened to work out really. It was in person. It was for CBS Sports in New York City for Bellator. I sat down with him for 20 minutes. I largely was... Was it before the Lima fight? Before the Lima rematch. Okay, because I think I did an interview around that same time.

I think you were there, actually. I might have been there with you, because I remember they took him to some cafeteria. Yes, yes. That's where they were there that day. I think we did the MMA beat together that day. Anyway, I remember essentially failing. I had ideas about I'm going to open him up like nobody else has. I didn't feel the entire interview like I actually knew what was going on behind the eyeballs.

Meaning, is this guy like the, like he kind of comes across as a stone cold killer, but then he also comes across as this like church going family man who's like, have you ever gotten a real handle of who he was? He's got like a, I mean, no. Like he was the guy who was walking out to the UFC's music. Remember this? Without realizing he could pick his own walkout song. So what was he walking out to, Face the Thing?

He was walking out to weird shit, and he was like, wait, I get to pick this? And he came out to Tool after that. He came out to Tool. That's pretty badass. Yeah, it was actually a really badass moment. But he's like that. I interviewed him for a cover of Fight Magazine way back in the feature, and I went to his apartment in Montreal.

And I remember thinking he was very young, but remember, he was the kid who kind of came up under all the martial arts. So he was putting it all together at once rather than a certain discipline. He came in in that period when the guys were like, all right, now we're going to train everything. And here's this young, complete fighter with a brain who's also tough as shit. Right, he was tough. But he was also very weird because he would talk to him and he would talk very slow.

And you couldn't get engaged. I remember going in his car and he starts playing some hardcore rap music. And I was like, dude, I would not have pegged you to be listening to this. It's like everything was just a little different. Would you say you would agree you never quite got agreed? I could never really understand him. Hey, Jake, would you mind delivering our drinks? Did you just rip one as you got up or was that the okay... You never know with the staff, I got to be honest. Jake von

Amsterdam, everyone. Jake, don't be shy, getting us a little more caffeine. He's got his Jets hat. This would break a record for most caffeine consumed in one day of programming here. Wow, look at that. Ice cold, too, because the air conditioning has been shut off in here, by the way. Oh, yeah, that cools me down wonderfully. There we go. Okay, how do you sort of, you know, if your wife goes, Rory McDonald, who the hell is that? What did he mean to him? I mean, how do you describe that to him? That's going to be a tough one, too, because he wasn't even the penultimate guy. It wasn't like he was Michael Bisping, who lived on the cusp before he broke through.

Even if you, before Michael Bisping broke through, if you tried to describe his career, you'd be like, well, he was always the runner up. He was the, you know, he was the guy who never quite got. Rory was also, he was just weird. I think ultimately, I would point to the, he had one of the best fights I've ever watched and that would give you the idea of exactly who he is. And that would be that lull or two, even though he lost. He sold out for that fight.

He, I mean, he put it all. I feel like, you guys say they're willing to die. And I'm like, when they were staring at each other between the fourth and fifth rounds, goosebumps. It's like, it's crazy. But when they had that moment, it was like one of those moments where you're like,

no, these guys are willing to die. I mean, like, and I think they altered each other permanently. A hundred percent. I mean, who, was Lawler's next fight Tyron Woodley? I think he may have had one more in between there. But yes, it was like in that because he went through like multiple wars. He was personally altering guys. Like he had like three fights where I was like, he's changed that man, you know.

And of course, Robbie over the time too. But if you go, okay, who did he beat in his career? You're like, he's got wins over Nate Diaz, BJ Penn, Jake Ellenberger, Demian Maya, Tyron Woodley, Tariq Safedine, Paul Daly, Douglas Lima. I mean, that doesn't suck right there. No, it doesn't suck. Especially at the time when he's fighting. Sometimes you look at Woodley, I feel like people forget what a beast Woodley was. Stuff like that.

When he was fighting these guys, they were still very much up there. Why does Luke Thomas not understand that Lawler versus McDonald is a better fight than Lawler versus Condit? Why can't he get that through his thick skull? He doesn't really argue that, does he? Oh, he argues that all the time, vehemently. I don't know. To me, that was one of the greatest spectacle moments. Like, watching a fight.

Some people try to say, oh, it started too slow. It wasn't crazy until it got crazy. Well, it got fucking crazy, okay? Well, the fact that it gets crazy, you go back and watch it differently, don't you? Like, I don't know. Yeah. Some movies start slow. The Exorcist starts slow, but then pretty soon there's a girl like spinning her head around the bed.

Million Dollar Baby starts pretty decent and then goes fucking off the side of the road and people are dying. It's great. Where were we in? We were talking PFL. We were talking Red King. Yeah.

It's bittersweet, though. It's the right time to walk away, but it's like never quite. I wonder, too, because. Did he peak? I mean, did he never quite figure that? I don't know if he ever peaked. See, but it's like never quite. I wonder too. Did he peek? I mean, did he never quite figure that? I don't know if he ever peeked. See, this is what I'm saying.

I don't know how I'd fully describe him because he may walk away and be one of those guys that says, you know what? I figured something out and come back. Because honestly, I think he would have done the thing where he takes off his gloves. If it really occurred to him that if I get my ass kicked in this one, I'm done. I think it really occurred to him when he got backstage or whatever, and he allowed himself to think about it. And also, it could be somewhat of an emotional thing.

You don't know. My thing is, he hasn't looked very good. I really don't want to see him come back, but I'm saying he might be one of those candidates. He's not that old. In fighter years, he's old. He's been fighting since he was a teenager. And it's dangerous when you lose the killer instinct.

That's why back after the John Fitch fight, I was saying, look, like, we might be overlooking the fact that he should walk away because something monumental changed. Maybe it was Chuck, and we're being real Monday morning quarterback cycle analysis here, but maybe it was he knows how, he knows that version of him against Robbie Lawler, he knows that he can be that guy, but against Robbie Lawler, he knows that he can be that guy, but he doesn't probably necessarily love being that guy.

And he doesn't want to go to those depths. Those depths are pretty far. I remember talking about looking in the mirror after that, just his kind of fascination with looking at his own face in the mirror. Especially if you get deeper into your faith and you sort of, yeah, maybe that's not the person he wants to be, but talent allowed him to hang around. When you talked to him at the

Douglas Film, wasn't he talking a lot? He was very like, he had, he was very serene, almost zen-like. He's like, I found happiness, you know. He's speaking in low tones. But he didn't get any of my jokes or anything. I was like, man, you're a hard book to figure out. You're already, he goes, what are you talking about? Why do you say that? Nothing bothers you when you can't drag them out.

You need to drag them out. You want to see the raw version of themselves. Damn. The finals in the welterweight bracket, which has lost a lot of sex appeals. Now, Sadabusi, who got the win, a gritty win over Carlos Leal to get to this point. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned.

Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Already has a victory over Rory. I like a lot of Sadabusi can switch stances with that long jab from the outside. But there's times when you're like, man, you've got to throw more. He seems holstered. I mean, Leal was walking him down. The range, it always seems like he's got a major range. When he's at his best,

he's very good. And when Rory was the right dance partner for him to walk him down, he looked great. Leal was the one that was coming back on him. He gets a close win. Now we see if Delano Taylor can double down, which is weird. So let me ask you this. Anthony Pettis came in with Big Fanfare two seasons. Didn't have the success

we thought. Rory McDonald came in with Big Fanfare. Didn't have the success we thought two seasons. Jeremy Stephens big fanfare, didn't have the success we thought two seasons. Jeremy Stephens made the leap over, didn't have success. Is PFL the wrong place for a second half UFC free agent? Fairly lively dangling carrot they've got going on here with a million dollars. You know, you can come in the ideas, well, it's lesser competition, but in some cases it's not lesser competition. It's not, and I think that that's kind of the weird thing.

We were talking about Demetrius about this. Like sometimes you can't delude yourself. I think sometimes the guys in the UFC, they're like, you know, it'd be an easy, it's an easy million dollars I can go make. Not that easy. It has proven not to be that easy. And these guys are hungry, man. You know, these guys who don't have names, they have a chip on their shoulder, they're going against a guy

who now is their Super Bowl. You know what I mean? Like, Anthony Pesce, who's the cat who just beat him twice in a row? Steve Ray. Yeah, so it's like, I mean, I know he had a stint in the UFC, but this is his moment. He was going to walk away. He was almost done. Now he gets a chance to do this.

I mean, these guys have a major platform, and they're this close. So they're bringing it. I mean, they're not paying a million bucks at this point in the UFC when you're that age, you know? I mean, Taylor particularly is just such a house money thing, and it's like you're kind of rethrown into a lottery, man. It's like he's all of a sudden like, hey, I can make a million dollars, and I wasn't even playing, you know?

Indeed. The heavyweight division also saw a little bit of turnover. Bruno Capeloza, the defending champion, first he had a defeat to Marcus Scheffel that he pulled out of the tournament with injury. There was another pullout, so Juan Adams had to come in and face, I'm sorry, Mateus Scheffel. Ante Delia defeated the 6'8", Henning Ferreira. So now we've got a heavyweight final.

Ante Delia, who's 6'7", got Cro Cop in his corner. Big puncher, goes after. He lost in the finals last year to Capoloza. I love the Cro Cop. In arguably the best fight we've seen for PFL heavyweights. Now he's against the upset-minded Sheffield, who's looked good, man. He brought the fight to Bruno Capoloza. Brought the fight to Juan Adams, too, and knocked him the hell out.

Beat Capoloza, who also beat... Do you reverse? I know. It's like one of those math things. There's a lot of parity here. I have no idea. But it's actually not the worst. If Juan Adams had snuck in there and somehow did it, that would have been bad news, I think,

for the people. Didn't Greg Hardy knock him out? Well, my favorite column I ever wrote was after that fight because he went for the single leg and just got obliterated with elbows and then knocked out on the ground. Everyone knows if you're going to reach for the high crotch, you've got to run that pipe a little bit. Yes, you've got to run the pipe. Everybody knows that, man.

All right, PFL, thank you. We'll put you in the bag. Also, some boxing from over the weekend. Topic number four took us to Las Vegas. The takeover became the take back as former undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez Jr. moved up to 140. First fight in nine months, eight months eight months since a tumultuous,

not only the loss to George Cambosis, but the medical issues, the divorce, the issues with promoters and networks, the mental health challenges. I mean, Teofimo, for a guy who just turned 25, had been through it all. Nobody was believing that Pedro Campa was, per se, world-class competition. But, Chuck, not only did he go in there and did what he had to do in getting the late stoppage, Tao was the showman that we all knew. I have seen polarizing reactions from the boxing hardcore. People like, oh, he's back, baby.

Let's put him in there with Josh Taylor or Ryan Garcia. To people going, man, he got hit a lot against a guy who was big, was rugged, but can't really punch in Pedro Campa. From you, and I know you're not a diehard boxing guy, but you know what's going on in general. What did you see from Teo? Good, bad, a little of both? I mean, his new weight class coming back. He's only fought, what, once in, what, 22 months?

Yes. I mean, like, you think about that and also the medical issue you mentioned, which, you know, is actually crazy. I can't even think of the equivalent of that in an MMA fight. People are like, you could have died, man. I mean, it's just a bizarre thing. You should have died, actually, yeah. So given all of that, I thought he looked very good. You know what I mean?

I have to agree with you. It's like you're in a new weight class. It's funny, too. We were just talking about the PFL, the guys who are hungry. I don't know how boxing does this sometimes, but this guy, Campbell, was not even on any of the promo material. Like, all of the... It was like, you would think that it was just one guy showing up and, like, raising his

boxing normally. I mean, it was like, it was hilarious that the guy just had no share in the promotional material. And so, he's also, like, what, 34 and 1? Like, I know he's not fighting the best competition. Never fought outside of Mexico. Right. So it's like one of those situations you're like, I don't know, this guy could be better than you realize.

It wasn't a perfect night at the office meeting Teofimo. Let's give Kampa credit. He took a good punch. I think what we learned here is it's weird. Teofimo was considered a large lightweight

and he always had problems making weight, so him moving up was inevitable. Maybe he picked the right time just to put the lightweight happenings behind him and start a new chapter.

It wasn't perfect. He got hit. He got hit by a guy who was slow in Kampa but has a good chin and was big in there. But I think we realized, Chuck, that moving forward at 140, when Teofimo does face better competition, he's going to have to fight his way out of these fights, I think. Did you see that size difference was kind of legit? Size difference is there.

And, I mean, obviously, we were talking about this a little bit before. Some of the dudes he would have to encounter. I mean, look. It might be tempting. That chin is pretty tempting and all of that stuff if he's not carrying the same power. There were shots he hit Campo with that I'm like, you would expect the guy to go down,

and he wasn't going down. So was it just a... That's an interesting point. Was he fighting a zombie on the right night and finally figured out a way to stop him, or is his power really not going to make that leap? Although that first knockdown was pretty... The way he kind of sat

down and shook his head like, yeah. I mean, look, the reason why I thought Teofimo overall, this is a plus, because look, he conquered a major mental hurdle getting back here and doing this and winning it and taking punches and all that, but he was back to showman mode. And to me, that shows that

he was feeling, I know people are like, oh, the dad getting in the camera. Dude, that's who they are. That's who the fuck they are. They're crazy and they're not hiding. I feel like Teofimo on the rise up, Chuck, was trying so hard to show people that, yeah, my dad's crazy and out of control. But I'm young and I got this. Then we found out last year he doesn't got this anymore. I think him and his dad, whether you like it or not or whether you have confidence in their future, are pretty much going, this is who we are and we're just going to be who we are.

And maybe that's the best way. He's 25 years old. And at 25 years old, like you said, he's already lived enough life. I sometimes think with boxers, people in the fight game, they go through so much adversity early. Yeah. They can turn into something completely monstrous as they go forward because they have that wisdom.

They have that experience. They've already kind of dealt with, you know, the bullshit that they're going to have to deal with. It's an interesting situation he's in, man. I mean, he's still dynamic as shit, though. The future is so big for that kid. But did you see, I mean, he put together some punches and combinations that you're like, there are,

I asked Roy Jones Jr. on my old podcast, you know, who is the one fighter that reminds you of Roy Jones Jr.? He's like, maybe Teofimo and nobody else. How long ago would he say that? That was about three years ago. And it's like, that's the ultimate compliment because he can still do freak-like athletic things and surprise you with punches. I thought, you know, even in that Los Cambosas, he showed a warrior's mentality that he doesn't get credit for because of the comments he made about kind of sounding crazy afterwards.

If you could book him against anybody, who would you do next? What would you do? Let's talk about this because there's an elephant in that room in Las Vegas and that was Oscar De La Hoya, the Golden Boy promoter who promotes Ryan Garcia. It seemed like, so he was there

as a guest of Teofimo, which always shows, by the way, that Team Takeover, Teofimo Sr. and Jr. are always one step ahead setting up the next thing, so you got to give them

that credit. They're bringing in an out-of-network rival here, but I think everyone realizes this. Ryan Garcia is hungry to make a big fight. There's some talk, could it be Tank Davis on a crossover level? Could it now be Teofimo?

I think if you're Bob Arum and company, maybe that's the reason why he was interviewed. I was surprised on the ESPN broadcast that they brought the mic to De La Hoya, who I get is a Hall of Famer. He's also a rival promoter on another network. It's a complicated boxing match. What do you think?

Can we make a Ryan Garcia fight? So look, is it more likely that Teo stays in-house at 140? Yes. Top-ranking ESPN also have access to Josh Taylor,

who's still, even though he got stripped of two belts, is still the recognized champion. Jack Catterall, who almost upset him. You got Regis Progray, who you have easy access to.

You got former champion Jose Ramirez. You got Jose Zepeda, who's a big action fighter. There's plenty of fun fights to make. But sometimes you get these windows where a perfect two-network sexy crossover fight, if you can make it, you don't run from it.

If you're asking me, BC, how realistic is to close this year Teofimo versus Ryan Garcia? In theory, not realistic at all. We've got rival promoters, rival networks. And for there to be a two-network pay-per-view, it's typically got to be Mayweather Pacquiao, Klitschko Joshua, even Fury Wilder. But here's the deal. Ryan Garcia's got 7 to 8 million Instagram followers. Tao wants— That's what I'm saying.

Is it bigger than we realize? Like, I honestly think that both guys— because, you know, I'm an MMA guy who pays attention peripherally to this stuff, but I feel like both those guys have been hammered, like, media-wise, and I feel like a lot of people are paying attention to them. It feels like they're bigger than they've ever been to me. So I like that there seems to be an aggressive want for this next generation of young talent to not miss out,

to not have to do the Mayweather Pacquiao or Spence Crawford where we're waiting three, four, five years to make it happen now. I was thinking about this. Why would ESPN be so willing to entertain this? Because I think people still look at Ron Garcia and say, yes, he's dynamic. Yes, he's got a big fan base. He's offensively skilled. But people see the vulnerability.

They see a potential avenue to stop him if you get him into a war. I wonder if that would be worth before he gets that first loss to, you know, do a joint, a double. I mean, can the zone and ESPN work together? Crazier things have happened, you know? The zone don't work with people, man. Come on. Can Tank Davis get in this picture? I mean, how the zone and ESPN work together? Crazier things have happened, you know? Zone don't work with people, man. Come on. Can Tank Davis get in this picture?

I mean, how realistic is Garcia-Deos? I hope we see one combination to close this year, of course, of these young studs that are all seemingly moving up in weight at the same time to face each other. The fact that we – I think the best thing about this for Teofimo, it's a successful comeback. But it wasn't perfect. There's still questions to be answered about going to the next level.

So if it was Teofimo versus Ryan Garcia, the fact that we don't know more than we actually know about how good they are. And that's the best buildup for a great fight. And, dude, I don't know how you felt about this, but so many times when a Teofimo is fighting or something like this, it coincides. And if you have to choose, I mean, I have to watch MMA. This was perfect because you had that San Diego event, which ended just in time for the boxing card. I was able to watch all of that. And I think that that might have been a nice little push, ESPN.

You know what I mean? I felt like he was getting – I felt like a lot of people were watching it. I agree with that. I agree with that. And that shows you that there is certainly value in that connection with, you know, pushing the UFC but putting top rank right along with it and PFL and all that. I mean, interesting. On that co-main event, quickly, Chuck, 19-year-old Xander Zayas.

Rashad was on Friday's show. He said, look, I've been seeing this kid in South Florida gyms for a long time. He's 19 years old. He's from Puerto Rico. Now, look, I'm not going to ask you the type of intrinsic, deep knowledge questions that you may not know, but from watching him, does he look like future star to you? Yes. Yes, I mean, he looked like he was handling the situation just fine.

And honestly, man, he carries himself like somebody who's – he doesn't look 19. No. When a guy has that kind of, like, feel to him at 19 years old, yes, you're paying attention. Did you see the slow motion of some of these knockdowns and eventually the knockout that he had? It's just sort of next level where I'm putting this punch out here just to kind of move you in the direction of the one that's coming after it. This kid's really smart. Chuck, there is an opening

for a next great Puerto Rican superstar, and that's a position that That's a big time thing. That's such a tradition over there. That island will bang the drum for you globally. Let's see if he can get there. It was interesting to see. Alright, our fifth topic was supposed to be and still will be a look

ahead what is to be a loaded weekend coming attractions. This on paper is a crazy Saturday. Just a feel of what we got going on here. Anthony Joshua Alexander Usyk part two for the Unified Heavyweight title. A UFC 278 pay-per-view from Salt Lake City,

BKFC London with Michael Venom Page against Mike Perry, and also Showtime Championship Boxing, a quadruple header starting at 8 p.m. Eastern Saturday night from South Florida. That was supposed to be the return of Adrian Broner. Breaking news this morning. Per an Instagram post on Broner's own account, he has pulled himself from the fight citing mental health

reasons. We'll read that in a second. The fallout here is the card will go on. They're currently in the process of very shortly announcing the replacement opponent for Omar Figueroa Jr. who's making his own comeback from time away and his own mental health journey for this fight. It's still going to

happen, but this so close, Chuck, is certainly an eye-opener also because, look, Broner's been out of the ring a long time. There's always craziness about him. I don't know if you remember the start of this promotion. He was on a Zoom sort of press conference, and he swore off Al Heyman in Showtime and walked away from it and then ended up coming back the next day.

But it's been wild. Before we get a reaction here, can we throw to the post that Adrian put out just this morning? Can we blow it up, please? Man, I'm going through a lot at this moment. There we go. But I ain't going to give up. I set more goals, and I ain't stopping until I finish what I started.

Sorry to say this, but I'm not fighting August 20th. He would go on to say that the mental health battle is real. He's watched a lot of people die while playing with their boxing career, and that's something that he won't do. Pray for me. I'll be back. See you all soon, et cetera, et cetera. Well, Chuck, Omar Figueroa Jr., who I mentioned also having his own,

for the first time, publicized battle back for mental health, didn't take this excuse. Didn't seem to be buying it. Buying it. publicized battle back for mental health didn't take this excuse buying it can we go to that ig post where he's essentially saying hashtag show me the receipts here's omar in response as you know my fight against that mfr broner is off i don't mind because this is something we expected so we had plans in motion to mitigate but what really pisses me off now is this mfr wants to use mental health as a fucking excuse. That I have a problem with.

He would go on to essentially send him to hell and say, show us the proof that you've sought out professional help. Crazy, man. This is a crazy situation. I'm not going to ask you whether you think Omar's onto something here, but look, you know about Broner's highs and lows of his career. I guess we should be praising him, right? I mean, we do this when Danny Garcia two weeks ago comes out and cries afterwards and shows his mental

health. This is a real thing affecting a lot of these warriors. I'd rather have Broner know this ahead of time, but it's bizarre just the same. It is bizarre. It's so tough because I've said this before when we've heard of mental health. And obviously, there should be a complete understanding of people going through issues. Or if you have a history of that, it's the hardest thing. It's like your mind and like, you know what I mean? Like your mind and spirit and what you're doing with yourself and like your thoughts and how you're controlling that. You know, you just don't know, though. It's one of those things that like if you did have a bad camp or something like that, that you could just make this excuse, right?

I feel like that's the line. It's the skepticism. And you have a guy who's going against, actually hopefully make that fight at some point, because now this is an actual blood fight. Now there's a real feud going on here. But it's a tough situation. I personally don't want to blame Broner if he's going through something like that.

I don't want him going in there, man, because if he went in there and something really bad happened and he says it afterwards, that's a problem too. No doubt. Part of the disappointment of what has been the second half of his career when things have been so up and down in and outside the ring, a lot of arrests, a lot of bad headlines, was that some of these performances would be flat. You know, he'd go in there against Manny Pacquiao, and once he realized that he wasn't going to get over the top, or against Mikey Garcia, you sort of just see an autopilot, A.B.

That's the worst place for a combat sports athlete to be, where they don't want to be there. So, in this regard, I'm going to praise A.B., but with all the other stuff going on, I get the disappointment in Omar Figueroa, even if he was very harsh in that. I still don't know what to say. Look, Adrian Broner is the ultimate nine-lives fighter where the talent, whether you love him or hate him, the talent is still there. He's only 33 years old. He's shown a major league chin when he's committed.

He's shown even in the second half of his career. Think of the Jesse Vargas fight. He'll get in fun TV brawls and give it his all. He's tough, too, because we were talking about Rory McDonald, and we mentioned this before, too. But his four weight class, four championships, will he be a whole favorite? I mean, it's a little different.

Yeah, so he claimed in that post that I could never fight again. I was like, I read that part, and I'm like, I'm not sure. Yes, technically he's a four-division champion, but this is this era of vacant titles and floated belts. He only beat, he has a lot of vacant title victories. You know, the Paulie Malignaggi one was a split decision. Like, does he have a history? Yeah, it's not real definitive.

When he steps up, does he have a history of beating these guys? No, he doesn't. And that's the reality of sort of an underachieving career when you consider he was the next Floyd in every category for a season, right? Whether that's fair or not. I want what's best for A.B. For some reason, Chuck, I can't turn on him. He's entertaining.

I always know that there is talent in there that's waiting to jump out if he could find his why, find that reason to give it all. He hasn't had that reason in a while. Well, it'll be interesting now to see kind of what happens. I mean, honestly, you never know what goes on with people, man. That's a tough spot. It's a tough thing. It is. And we were talking about Lima you know, Lima earlier.

And you're like, I think people change over time. Rory, all these people. Like, over time, it becomes tougher and tougher to process, tougher and tougher to get up for something like this. Danny Garcia was saying, like, you know, he lost to Errol Spence on pay-per-view. And then he kind of went in this, like, who am I phase. Like, what am I? Like, I got this money. I'm doing well.

But, like, do I still have the money? When people lose that shit, like, you talk to fighters all the time, and when they start to lose that and they get in there anyway, it is usually not a good thing to happen. It's scary. So, look, nobody wants a card to fall apart. Luckily, the card's going to stay on. New opponent coming for Omar Figueroa Jr., still a four-fight card,

8 p.m. Eastern, Saturday from Hollywood, Florida, only on Showtime. Is he still going to be working this card? I think so, in some form. I'm supposed to be calling the prelims, but Brandon Lee is also on this main card, up-and-coming slugger who's had some big moments on his rise. Chuck, the whole point of this Topic 5 coming attractions, though, let's still look at it.

An absolutely loaded weekend. Give me one fight from BKFC to UFC pay-per-view to championship boxing. What's the one fight as a fan you're most dialed into and why? I mean, the heavyweight boxing fight is going to be up there. I love the heavyweight division. I love that we're watching heavyweights again.

It feels like the 1970s. It feels classic, yeah. It's like when you revisit and you look back at all that stuff, man, it feels awesome that way. But I would probably just go with the main event for the UFC. Okay.

I just think that the Kamaru Usman, I feel like he's this close to being that guy now of being like... You're talking about really goat ship almost? Goat. Okay. I just think that the Kamaru Usman, like, I feel like he's this close to being that guy now of being like, You're talking about really goat ship almost? Yeah. Like, where he's that close

and I think if he, you're going against a guy with, what, nine fights in a row in Edwards? Nine and one in the last ten. just to do it again

and I feel like that's what he's saying, you know, not only am I beating these guys, I'm beating them again. Yeah. Or sorry,

nine and oh with no contest in the last ten. Right. Yes. But, like, if he's able to do this again, I feel beating them again. Sorry, 9-0 with no contest. If he's able to do this again, I feel like we can start having that conversation for real. Ty's Anderson Silva. Also, if Leon's big chance, Salt Lake City, it doesn't get bigger than that. And it does set up

if he's going to have a chance to break that record of most consecutive wins, do you want him to come against Hamza Chamay, potentially, which is he's got to fight Nate Diaz first. What a huge fight that is. But isn't this looked at as the final mountain? It's like, Kamaru was already like, man, I want to move up. Maybe I'll go to 205, and that does intrigue me.

But you've got to climb this last mountain in front of you that's named Hamzat Chemaev. I think that that's what's great about it, though. Because if he gets that 16th win, now we're going to have that discussion. UFC will latch onto this. We'll be talking about it. But the fact that there's a killer behind that waiting. It's like when Chris Wyman was going to

fight Anderson Silva, he had that feeling. But this is like times five with Hamzad, right? Because the way he's looked. The buzz on this is... It's going to be amazing, man. Similarly, and to some degree, I'm going to pick obviously the heavyweight championship fight that's going to go down in, where is it, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia?

It's the Red River Battle, something like that. I don't know. I'm just shocked this even happened. But here's the deal. It's royalty. Okay, it's going to be a giant site fee. That's why they're going there for this rematch. But the royalty, the classic feel, a heavyweight championship,

these two feel like classic heavyweights. Yes, Usyk was masterful in that first fight. You can watch the rewatch Luke and I did and sort of go back and we try to break down what he was doing so beautifully. But here's the point. Anthony Joshua's always going to be vulnerable, but he's had an ability to bounce back. Did I love

Anthony Joshua's performance in the rematch with Andy Ruiz? No, he was a little bit too safe. But he's had this ability to get out of trouble or right the wrong, got up against Klitschko. The thing that has made Anthony Joshua so fun is that he's still a little bit raw and unfinished. He's got a new trainer in Robert Garcia. This could be a completely different fight if Joshua commits to being the aggressor, goes to the body, is willing to take big punches and throw back. Anything can happen in this fight.

And you talk about why you love the Usman Edwards rematch is because there's another guy behind that door. In this one, there's Tyson Fury, the other guy behind that door. He's gone. He walked the step away. Every other hour. I mean, come on. At this point, I remember when Ariel broke a year and a half ago, another one of these Fury on board today, so I retire.

I remember thinking, like, somebody needs to tell him this happens all the time. If you're an editor and you're still— I love how it was not even news this time. It was just a little thing. There's still some people that are greenlighting stories being written. Tyson Fury again retired today. It's like, okay, at what point do we... Anyway, the whole point is this. We've never had a four belt undisputed

heavyweight champion. There's some fear that if Usyk wins, would Fury be suddenly uninterested and want to be boxing against actors or doing WWE? It's possible. Fury's all over the place. But we are one step closer with this fight Saturday to having one face, one division, one name, one

champion at heavyweight, which is the dream if you're a fan that lived through the Klitschko era. Again, never a disrespect to the brothers. It's just that era was so barren of talent. There were no big fights. Did you think we'd see this? I mean, honestly, like Usyk with the whole Ukrainian, everything that was going down. No.

I did not think that we'd see this. So I picked the Usyk upset in the first one. I knew that could happen, but yeah, with everything going on in the conflict. I just didn't even think they'd get this. We're back. And this is going to be an uphill climb for Usyk, as was the first one.

And I can't wait for it. I mean, look, there's no, I mean, there's boxing and there's heavyweight boxing. That's an old idea. You're taking Joshua this time? But it's true. I haven't gone,

I'm back and forth. When is your, when did the, when did you guys do this replay? Is it already up. That's an old idiom. You're taking Joshua this time. But it's true. I haven't gone, I'm back and forth. When did you guys do this replay? Is it already up? It's already up, yeah. I have to check this out.

Oh, thanks, Chuck, for patronizing our content right there. But also, Jose Aldo, Marab Davilish, this division,

I'll fire it. You didn't mention Luke Rockhold. Well, I'm interested. Let's see if he likes the vino. He's going in there against a wine

provocateur. Should be Sideways Part 2 come Saturday evening. Alright, Chuck, that is it for our five topics this week. Let's get on to the fun shit now. Now we do some of the weird fun shit. We give our viewers every Sunday night a chance to ask the questions and get their voice heard. We put an Instagram post out at Morning Combat

asking for you, the listener, what do you want to hear us talk about? It's called DMs from Donks. Love this. Have you seen this shit? No, it's called DMs from Donks, guys. There we go.

All right. Yeehaw. Yeehaw. Yeehaw. Okay. I'm just, you know, just mixing drinks over here. It's great. It's great.

It's mostly ice there at this point, though. Yeah. All right. Our first question coming from who? Let's slide it here. It's great. It's great. It's mostly ice there at this point, though. Yeah. All right. Our first question coming from who? Let's slide it in. Let's see it. This is from at Pat McCann 34 with a recent retirement. Didn't we ditch this question?

What's going on in the back room? There's Delta 9s arrived yet? What's going on here? I mean, come on. Yeah, let's skip to the second one. Please. I don't have anybody in my ear. All right, I'll stop eating ice on camera.

From NyslyR91. Great handle. It just comes off the tongue so easily. What would have happened to the UFC if Hoyce Gracie would have lost at UFC 1? Would it have made a difference in the continuing of the sport? Chuck, I love asking this question, but about Ronda Rousey versus Vince Carmouche. If she had finished that face frame.

I said the same thing, and I actually think that they're fairly similar. I'm not sure. With Carmouche, her task was to bring down everything that the women had fought for to that point, right? Like if she wins, you destroy everything that the women have been trying to fight point, right? Like, if she wins, you destroy everything that the women have been trying to fight. So in some ways, it... Would she have, though, or would they have just rematched it and Ronda would have won?

Well, I'm sure they would have tried to do something like that. But it had that kind of feel, like, if Karmush wins, what a disaster for everyone. I don't know exactly, but I do believe that the Hoist Gracie, the way he did it now, it was captivating to the imagination jujitsu blew up in the 90s because of this everybody had a jujitsu school suddenly the martial arts when every anybody when anybody was referring to it you think well

jujitsu kind of trumps all of this stuff now it was created in a garage in torrance as far as i know and it's like yeah and you're like this is a guy who weighs you know 100 pounds less whatever it is than a 200 you know It didn't matter the size. He was able to do this. That was a huge impact. Because if you remember going into this, and not everybody was watching in 1993, but going into it, there was Chuck Norris movies or there was Van Damme movies. And people, they would kind of have the concept, what happens if this guy's playing these different styles,

Karate Kid, these different guys doing it. You weren't sure what would happen. I think he put the first definitive key, like this is what trumps everything right now. And it was huge. It's almost unquantifiable. So I don't know if a wrestler had went in there and just slammed him or if the karate guy had got over.

What would the world look like? I don't know what that would look like. It's weird on a couple phases. One, the current UFC posts, you know, Zufa doesn't tend to memorialize, romanticize the early SEG days. Maybe rightfully so, but they tend to just ignore it. They do steer clear.

Then within that, you have different camps, whether you're Art Davey or whoever, that think they founded it. But is the biggest narrative that we've come out of that the fact that UFC was created to showcase this jiu-jitsu? So this is a legitimate question of, you know, they purposely picked Hoist because he looked, you know, wiry. It's just like with Ronda. It's a good comparison because with Ronda,

I saw a stat once where it was like, they're talking about all the girls that then entered into classes and stuff across the country. That's a good point. You know what I mean? Across the world probably, but I'm like, it's just, it had that kind of impact. I think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu became a thing, and it's like, it's very difficult to imagine if he hadn't done that. I'm not

sure where the, I'm not sure there would be a UFC. I don't know. It shows you. So many of the early practitioners for the next decade were Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guys. They were still the dudes who perpetuated the whole thing, you know. King of the streets, Marco Huas. What a badass. Oh, man, yeah. God, what a badass. No, but it does beg the question, because like, the UFC's

story is already crazy enough. Even after the Zufa acquisition and their hemorrhaging money, it took Bonner, Griffin, one. I mean, there's so many key points that it needed to keep going and get to that point. That's wild. Let's go to the next question here, if we can, Gaff, from another donk. At CubbiesFan80, yes, what are the top three bands that you've seen the most in concert,

and what is the count on how many times for each? Chuck, because if you're a Phish fan or a Dead or even Dave Matthews, you tend to have a working number. This is my 34th show, you know? See, I never had one of those bands. I've never had a band that I've seen more than maybe a handful of times. I've never, I don't have double digits for any band. I've seen both Wilco and My Morning Jacket, this, you know, modern 2000s, what are we calling this? I mean, at first it kind of was born out of alternative country, but really it's just indie, indie music.

I've seen them each probably about seven or eight times all over the country. Wilco's an awesome show. Wilco's, and I've seen some incredible shows. The best concert I've ever seen, and I know this isn't exactly this question, I'm not even a huge Black Crows guy, but I saw them New Year's Eve 2004 at Madison Square Garden in the 18th row on the floor. Trey Anastasio of Fish opened. It was supposed to be my morning jacket, but they had to pull out.

And the Black Crows were reunited and happy for the first time. And they just, they did three Zeppelin covers. They just delivered. Do you have that one concert that jumps out where you're like, it shouldn't have been that good, but it was, you know? I kind of, I went to so many concerts, because I used to write about music. I went to so many concerts from about 99 until 2003.

Oh, we could have been hanging out back in the day. I went to so many to the point where I was like, I don't need to ever see a live show again. Like, literally, I was so burnt out. Were you the person that's writing down the set list and the crowd and reviewing it? No, no, no, I would just, I wrote for LA Weekly and some other, you know. Did that come with marijuana, or was it just intended are reviewing you. No, no, no. I would just, I wrote for LA Weekly and some other, you know.

Did that come with marijuana or was it just intended? Yeah, you brought your own, man. A lot like this studio. But, I mean, so I've seen some pretty cool acts in intimate settings, you know, like the Viper Room would always have these, you know, because I lived in Los Angeles. Give me a story. Give me one that popped for you. I saw The Cult at the Viper Room one time.

I don't know this band. Yeah, come on. She sells Sanctuary. Oh, shit, yeah. Oh, you're saying The Cult. The Cult at the Viper Room one time. I don't know this band. Yeah, come on. She sells Sanctuary. Oh, shit, yeah. Oh, you're saying The Cult. The Cult, yeah. I thought you said The Cult, like a 45. No, Cult, Cult.

Matt Sorum, The Cult. Yes, yeah. And it was an amazing show, man. I mean, I don't know if it's just because they were playing, it was like an amazing show. Like, that one always stands out. This was probably late 90s, like 99. Okay, I saw ACDC at the Garden in 01.

It was a fucking great show, by the way. Angus coming out in the middle of the crowd doing a solo on his back. I mean, it's incredible. Metallica never puts on a bad show. Have you seen them? I've never seen them live, no, no. I'm sure that...

Okay, but is there any band that you've seen at least three, four, five times? So there were bands, I don't know, have you heard of Remy Zero or some of those bands from back in the day? I saw them a bunch of times because I just liked them at the time. So I saw them in Los Angeles probably five or six times. There was just bands like that.

I mean, they're actually sort of local bands when I really think back on it. Some of them, I was seeing them. The bands you'd go see time and again. All right. I've probably seen the Dave Matthews band at different variations about six times. But some of those have been just for partying. Some of those have been, you know. I did see, there was a Halloween show at Dodger Stadium

that was Kiss with the Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, God, Chuck. Don't, I mean, just, you know, Kiss, really? It was actually pretty fun, man. I hate it when rock fans are like, no, BC, you really should try Kiss fucking rule. No, I'm not. Well, we're talking about live shows. I would not go buy their albums, but it was a live show. It was fun, man. I hate it when rock fans are like, no, BC, you really should try it. Kiss fucking rule. No, I'm not. Well, we're talking about live shows.

I would not go buy their albums, but it was a live show. It was fun. I may be the only person that could ever say this. In the fall of 98, I saw The Wallflowers three times in eight days in three separate states. Now, is that cool or is that lame in hindsight? The only problem was it was like the same show. Don't you hate when you go see a band and they play basically their album in order? Yeah.

No jamming, no variations. It's like, come on, you know? The late 90s, man. Like, some of those bands you're mentioning, they just were, they were fangless. They just didn't have a lot going on, man. Saw 311 a lot. 311. The late 90s, those were some badass shows.

Yeah. My buddy just sent me a photo that I get. I think it was 311 was playing like two nights ago. Dude, they're still touring. I'm like, huh, crazy. Long Island Luke in the back just went to the Third Eye Blind show at Jones Beach. Nice. That album still stands up.

The self-titled one? No, it was Third Eye Blind. That's funny that you bring that up. It was Third Eye Blind, yeah, that he was on. Anyways. Okay, there you go. A couple more of these DMs, a couple more of these zingers here from Rao Hiran. Rao H. Ryan?

Rao Ryan. If Jon Jones beats Stipe via spectacular finish, how does it affect his pound-for-pound ranking? Currently, he's number 10 with the UFC. If Jon wins the fight via a lackluster or split decision. So basically, they want to know, look, if he wins spectacularly, what would that do to his pound-for-pound? Or if he edges and just barely wins. Let me just say this, Chuck, that you've probably been a voter in various publications pound for pound through the years. There's sort of an unwritten rule

that if a fighter hasn't fought in one year and doesn't have a fight scheduled, he can't be in the list. So right now I think where John Jones is true pound for pound ranking actually is he's either unranked because he hasn't had a fight in a long time and doesn't have one scheduled, or if you have to rank him, how could he be 10th? No, there's no way. He's kind of got to be 3 or 4 or 5, right? He's still up there. He has to be until he loses. I think because he's to the eye, like in the building,

those last couple of fights, I've been at his fights, I think a large contingency thought he lost these fights. And I think that the fact that he didn't just go in there and blow the doors off these last couple of opponents has affected him. And now you get this long layoff. Now, does that take away? I don't think it really takes away because he's still got his hand raised in the end. If he's able to go in there, I keep saying this, the reason maybe one of the reasons he didn't perform against Reyes and who was the other guy? Part of the reason

is maybe they're more like the woodwork in terms of the guys he had to kind of face the meritocracy. Not up for those. If he's going up in weight and he's going against Miocic, I don't know what the line would be, but there would be a lot of doubt as to whether he'd even win. And I think if he goes in there and emphatically does that, the old Jon Jones would be right back. I feel like everybody

would be talking about him the same way they did. So what would, Monday morning, if Jon Jones head kicked KO's Stipe for the interim title, he's now a two-division champion, where would you put him considering right now I've got Usman 1, Adesanya 2, Volkanovski 3. Where does Jon Jones go? It's really tough on that. Because that list, dude, all the guys you're mentioning are so good now. Charles Oliveira right there as well.

I don't think I could put him ahead of Volk. Because he's your third. I don't think I could do that yet. Okay, if he edges a decision, wins the interim title, I mean, he's just somewhere in the top ten, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to be seen there. I mean, his move to heavyweight by itself,

even if he didn't have this long time off, would be intriguing. And it still retains its shape, but then going against... I just feel like there's a lot to be seen there. And I think his best-case scenario is to go in there and just obliterate. Not just take him out with a big shot, although that would speed volume. You're like, the best scenario

that could happen for him is to knock the man out. Yes, that is the best scenario. Well, I'm saying, but to show before that that he's controlling the fight. Like, just to show you he's outclassing him and then to knock him out out. Yes, that is the best way. Well, I'm saying but to show before that that he's controlling the fight. Like, just to show you he's outclassing him and then to knock him out, right? Like, so that you're kind of like, he's good all around, you know?

I still don't know what it's going to look like. The more we wait, the more doubt I have, but I still don't know. This is going to be must-see TV, though, when he comes back.

I'm looking forward to it. Oh, man, I've been waiting for so long. Honey, boo-boo, ya-ya. Could be Francis still. You never know. Could be Francis. Could be.

You never know. I think we've got a couple more. What do we got here? From at. Could be Francis. Could be. You never know. I think we've got a couple more. What do we got here? From at Ray V underscore artist. Oh, he likes the arts. Tatiana Suarez wants one fight at flyweight, then a return to strawweight. She got removed from being ranked.

Who should she fight in her flyweight return? Chuck, we've been waiting, as she has too, forever. Once we heard that she's moving up in weight to 125, we feel like she could be a day one contender, you know, in one of the rare where you're like, I kind of got to see what she looks like against Shevchenko. What would be the right introduction fight? Misha Tate just tried to get introduced at flyweight,

and Lauren Murphy got the best of her. I don't know. That's a tough one. Do you have something to spring to mind? Like, I'm thinking of her. She's actually sort of dog-eared in that way. Like, she'll be a champion. I thought she'd be a champion by now. Obviously, it has not gone that way.

And, in fact, she's almost going the way of Zabit, you know, like, where you're like, dude, is she going to be a what-if? If I'm her and I'm doing that, I would probably want to have, like, a little bit of a soft landing spot. I would not want to go against one of the beasts, but, again. So, would you want, like, a Joanne Wood? I mean, yeah, I would if I was her. Jessica Ai no longer coming from that team. Yeah, I was going to say Jessica Ai would have been ideal, right? Like, because she's always kind of up there,

but she's really not that fighter, so... Yeah. But Wood would probably be a very nice consolation. I would, yeah, somebody like that. That would be okay. Okay, what do you think about our idea, especially with, you know, some UFC fighters are selling things on OnlyFans and it's disgusting. Luke and I starting OnlyPipes.com and really trying to supplement our income.

Do you think there's an audience for that? Yes, I do actually believe there's an audience. I've been in contact with your rabid fan base, so yes, I do believe they'll go for anything. They want more dong, there's no question. Is that all the jams you got, Gaffer? You got one more for me. From Eli Sugata, do you think Dana secretly wants Charles Oliveira to be Islam Mahachev because that's the best chance of getting Habib to come out of retirement?

I've heard stuff like this quite a bit. Chuck, yes I do. Yes, I do think that would be best case scenario for the company. I mean, he's already been inducted into the Hall of Fame. There's no way he's coming back now, right? That's definitive. He can't. Okay, but what if- I'm just kidding.

Of course he can. Of course he can.. Of course he can't, but what if... Here's the... You need something to ante up. Now look, do I think Charles Oliveira would do a Conor McGregor, Dylan Danis type thing and call out Habib's family and get in his face? No. But what if Charles Oliveira kind of violently finished Islam Mahjab? That's the real

question. Now wait, what if Charles Oliveira does this and then gets on the mic and says, I'll be waiting for you, Habib, and just drops it. You know what I mean? Now that's the way you get that fight. That's how you do it. That's the way you get that fight. Habib seems to be... And if Oliveira went through both of those guys, I'd be like, slam dunk,

he's the best who's ever done it at that weight. Wow, wow. Alright, that's good debate talk here from the Donks. We appreciate your DMs from Donks. Every Sunday night, check out our Instagram feed and also, of course, morningcombat at gmail.com is the email. Wednesday's fan subs. Friday's dead wrong. Don't dead wrong me about that Bellator mix up with the pit bulls, okay?

All right? You said Patty Mix, Patrick Mix. That's what you said. I'm just kidding. Go ahead, man. Chuck, we've got one more segment for you. I hope you're ready for this, Chuck. You've done this.

You've navigated this before. Is it weird to do this? What does it feel like? No, it's just like everything else. Everything's equally weird with you, man. Go through my garbage with me and help me pick the crowds. And I would just do it like, oh, this is just what we do around BC. We scour the globe every weekend for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in-between in the worlds of combat sports and beyond.

Here's your shit. Have you seen it? Let's hit the intro. Oh, God. Oh, God. Here we go. It's already the midway point of the year, and it's already a close running for MK Donk of the Year in 2020. Chuck, there's a lot of worthy people.

David Appleton, there's a lot of worthy people out there. How about Christian Deguero? He showed up to our live show, told me about his fighting career. He showed up in our fan subs recently, said he's got an amateur fight coming up. Can he put the MK logo on, Chuck? And he put it in the exact right spot. Saturday night he put it right on the D, okay? This is a true fan of the show to do that.

He's in California. The promotion is called Spar Star MMA. We don't have actual fight footage. I don't know if they keep that off the web, but I was following his story on social media. He got the win. I think he's unbeaten as an amateur. Climbed the cage. But shout out to Christian DeGarro, this guy.

MK. Look at that. Balls across the nose, baby. He has nice plays to say right where it matters. That's classic, man. That at that. Balls across the nose, baby. As I used to say, right where it matters. Oh, that's classic, man. That is awesome. Christian, we are not only following your journey. We're appreciative of you. By the way, he was working out with Tony Ferguson while wearing MK clothes.

But if Luke is willing and our MK doc cameras are, I think we should corner Christian. Coach Latore style. You guys have to do that. Wait, where is he based? He's in California. Okay. That's a road trip.

Yeah, road trip. I love this guy. Shout out all the way. Big time Christian Deguero fans over here. Let's go to UFC Fight Night in San Diego. We got some stuff to show. Flyweight Tyson Nam. You see this brutal counter shot to finish Odie Osborne.

Good Lord, Chuck. Yeah, man. You were asking earlier about, like, you were asking earlier about who else stood out This absolutely stood out It was a night of underdogs, by the way There was a lot of that sort of thing, but dude, that punch, holy Dude, can we see that one more? Look at that, ooh, he's got a little O'Malley-like celebration

Look at that counter Alright, let's keep it going here Tucked an extra one in there, that was good Yeah, a little extra one for good notice Biz Pink style with Hendo Oh boy, so that's Jason Quinlan. Oh. I'm sorry, Josh Quinlan.

Excuse me. That's right. Jason wit the opponent. KO won the result. Chuck, this was good shit. Oh. Damn. You don't usually see that kind of quick piston, boom, jab, and then a guy go down like that.

That's great. It's very reminiscent of Bellator undercards, but specifically, have you ever been to a Bellator show where they do post-limb fights? Oh, yes, of course. Where the main event's over. Everybody leaves. All the local fans come close to the cage. And that is just like local guy versus local guy. People get in flatline. And then they drag them out and bring in the next person. Right.

The guy coming in steps over the dead body. Chuck, you had mentioned before that Nate the Train Landwehr kind of won the event with his co-main event performance. Well, how about here? Let's listen to his post-flight interview. Hey! Quiet down!

Hold on! Mama may raise no beach, baby! Did we have a technical problem there? There was a loud noise. It sounded like a train. All right, well, Nate the Train would say, Mama didn't raise no bitch and got a big pop from the crowd. But what I love, Chuck, is, I don't know if you realize,

that interview just fell apart so quickly, because every time DC would have to come up, he'd be like, Nate the Train in the UFC, baby! I mean, it was full on. I think he has fully shown that he's not like us, not like common people. He's going to go

like his whole thing, even from the fight itself to the post fight. I mean, what if God was really one of us? Just a slob, Chuck. Chuck, like one of us. Well, he'd look like Nate.

Yeah, he would. Shout out to your moment, Nate Lane, where I'd get him on this guy. Would you be a part of that? Oh, man. You have to. I feel like he's created

for the Room Service Diners. We should get him. We should get Big Tuna from Bellator. You know my guy? Ben Parrish. Love that guy. Shout out all the way. All right, Chuck, many celebrities showing up in San Diego, including Mackenzie Dern.

Oh, yeah. She's having a lot of fun in the furrow, which means we're having a lot of fun, Chuck. You know, I noticed this in real time. I'm not going to lie. I saw this in real time. I'm not going to lie. I saw this. And I was like, man, you know, it actually is sort of like the WWE divas, right? It's kind of like she's become something like that. I think it's great.

Hey, she should be herself. She literally is this person. That's who she should be, man. She's always had star power. And now her game is rounding out. I mean, Chuck, she's got a big fight. What is it, against Yon-Chon-On? Yes. And that will be the type of crossroads fight

that could push her right up to the title picture. So we shout her out. She was there to support her teammate, correct? Marlon Vera. I'm sorry, I got a little distracted. Yeah, sorry about that, Chuck. Okay. Hey, Chuck, real recognized, real backstage

after Chido Vera's knockout victory, Action Bronson. Action Bronson. That's his boy, right? Yeah, looking very Bray Wyatt these days. You don't speak wrestling? No, no, I do speak wrestling. I know Bray Wyatt. Come on, Action Bronson. Action Bronson. That's his boy, right? Yeah, looking very Bray Wyatt these days. You don't speak wrestling? No, no, I do speak wrestling. I know Bray Wyatt.

Come on, man. Come on. There's a lot of backstage work right there. That's what happens when... New York base, he went all the way out to San Diego to check out his pal. That's cool. Have you ever been to San Diego? Oh, yeah.

I've been to a fight at that arena. It's gorgeous, right? It's an awesome... That arena, though, is like this old, from the 60s, very old school. Rashad on Friday was trying to be like, you know, San Diego's nice, but I just love South Florida. And people are like, yo, what kind of drugs are you on? I'm like, the good ones. I've seen Rashad.

Yeah, the good ones. There's no doubt about it. Well, I want some of those good drugs. Yeah, exactly. Let's go to UFC superfan Steve-O, speaking of celebrities, Chuck, and doing Steve-O things at Cage Side. There we go. I was going to say, does he have an extra row of teeth? Oh, hey, that's Patty!

Who is that 400-pound guy looking at him? So Patty got a big pop from the San Diego crowd, but he's looking thick between the legs. He said he was 200 pounds. Do you think he really is? That's ridiculous. I think he's just got a chubby face. It's always going to be that way. They say this about me. Every fighter that meets me goes, oh, I thought you were going to be a lot shorter.

I think he does just have a round face. What are you going to, I thought you were going to be a lot shorter. Do I look like a... I think he does just have a... He's got a round face. What are you going to do? All right. What are you going to do? Fat face. When he comes in, I mean, he looks like he's cut, like he's fit, but his face is always

a little chubby looking. More shit from Bellator284 in South Dakota. Check out the step in elbow from Josh Hill. He didn't win the fight, Chuck, but look at that. Oh, man. Damn, right? That's really nice. What do you call that?

Name that move, Chuck. That's a 12 to 6. Sam Oh, man. Damn, right? That's really nice. What do you call that? Name that move, Chuck. That's a 12 to 6. Samurai, yeah. 6 to 12? The 6 to 12. How do you drive? Do you do 10 and 12? Are you like, I put one hand on the top and then the other hand to hold my snacks?

Yeah, I'm kind of like that. I'm a one-hand guy. Usually it's down here, though, on the steering wheel. Did you used to drive with your knees a lot when you were young? I did, too. My kids were appalled in the car. I'm like, no, no. It used to be the thing.

I'm glad I didn't know you when you were driving there. You were explaining on the way up here that you were like. He got up to 118 one time. BC, who were you in your first quarter of your adult life? Not somebody you'd like to know that much. All right. Let's go over to light heavyweight Sullivan Cauley, a teammate of Ryan Bader, getting a TKO1 of Tyson Jeffries.

And watch the celebration here, Chuck. Oh, man. Should we be? Look at the mustaches on these. I love it. What's that tattoo? Oh. Oh, shit.

Should we be looking out for this guy? Wait, what weight class is this? He's light heavyweight. Okay, because that's impressive. Yes. A big guy doing that? That's impressive. You see the little dudes flipping around.

I'm like, whatever. But that's a lot of weight. I think Bellator believes in this guy as a prospect. Somebody worth watching there. Good stoppage against Tyson Jeffries. These dudes who, I don't know what round this, was it in round one? Yes. Because I'm like, I see guys do flips after round three or something.

I'm like, I'd be dying at that point. Yeah, I'd be dead. I'd be dying at this point. Pat Downey, as we mentioned, had like a 30-second submission win, but afterwards, Chuck, this might have stolen the moment of the whole card. Oh, yeah. Is that Bob Ross? That's what I was wondering.

Is it him? No, he's too big. That dude's like nine foot. I don't think that's him. Is it, though? Is it? It is? Is it him?

They're saying it's definitely him. Okay. Either way, that's pretty – I'm down. Wow. I get? Is it? It is? It's him? They're saying it's definitely him. Okay. Either way, that's pretty, I'm down. Wow. I get down with this, you know? That's like, yeah. That's good for violent, what's his face? Luis, wait, what's his name?

Luis Pena. I don't think that's Luis Pena. Is that Gaff? Are you sure? They say it is. I believe he looks like him. I mean, come on. All right, he says 1,000.

It's a good re-entry. He's kind of, he has some taint on his name. We mentioned PFL from Wales gave us the end of Roy McDonald's great career. Let's shout out to Lano Taylor. Here's the footage of him delivering with that right hand. And it was over shortly after. Hey, we got to focus on Lano Taylor now. He took his opportunity.

Chuck, you can't take anything away from that guy, man. I mean, he came in there and did what he was supposed to do. He's going to fight for a million bucks. And I honestly, I'm sort of favoring him just because I feel like he's that hot roll ride. He's got hot dice. Let me ask you an important question. If you're a late replacement, do you still win a million bucks if you win the whole thing?

I think so. Okay. I think so. I don't know that for sure. All right. Top-ranked boxing from Las Vegas. Real recognizing, real backstage. Teofimo Lopez meet OBJ, Odell Beckham.

Teof's got some buddies, huh? Teofimo, does he have the Bud Light sponsorship too? Yeah. Dude, he's got it rolling on. 25 years old, he's hanging out. He's rolling. Does he have the Bud Light sponsorship, too? Yeah. Dude, he's got it rolling on. 25 years old. He's a star. He's a stud. I hope he can keep it together, because he's an absolute stud.

He's going to make great fights. You need to get him on the couch. I'm telling you, man. Yeah, no, you're right. We mentioned 19-year-old Xander Zayas blowing it up on the co-main event. Just check out the technique on these combinations. Just good, good stuff here, if we can. See, this is what's great about the slow-mo.

Oh, look. Like, in real time, you don't see just how good this stuff looks. And then you see it in slow motion in these boxers when they're that beautiful with their strikes. Oh, so look at that. Look at how he floats that left hook just to kind of turn the head to get that right hand behind it. I mean, that's just, phew.

On point, Chuck. On freaking point. I wonder what he's going to do there. Is he running in? T-bag him or something. Wow, look at that. I love... You think he wants to headline MSG

or Puerto Rico? Which happens first? I hope Puerto Rico. MSG's a ways off, I think. As much as we love when old guys make a run late in their career, like Glover to Sharon, you're just like, yeah, score one for the

old guys. I love it when someone's this young, this late. It's the bookends. If you get a guy very late, it's fun to root for him because you've seen their journey and then you're like, this is improbable. But if you get a new kid coming up, it just brings a fresh coat to everything. All the flowers in the garden, mama, in the

backyard. We always want new pussy. There, somebody said it. I've never heard of that. Yeah, what is that? Okay. Hey, Chuck, take me out to the ball game. Here's some baseball-related stuff. Let's go to this kid snagging a foul ball.

What a play here by this youngster. Not all casually, too. Look at it with the first baseman's glove, a softball, just protecting women. Oh, he saved somebody, yeah. Just protecting his mom or dad. Is that? It just takes a drink. Is that Gareth Davis? He just protected him. Who is that? That looks yeah. Just protecting his mom or dad. Is that... No, he just takes a drink. Is that Gareth Davis?

He just protected... Who is that? Who is that right there? Let's watch that one more time. Check out the warlock down there. Yeah, warlock showing up on PFL. I saw that. He's looking good, man.

He's trimmed up. Dude, he's... I love the warlock. People... Crazy. I think Luke's a little leery around the warlock. He doesn't know

what's going to happen. Warlock's put his hand down my pants before. I mean, that guy gets wild. Well, he does get wild. You've got to fight him off sometimes. All right. He's usually on a bunch of drugs.

You're Scorpion of the week, Luke. I'm sorry, Luke. Chuck took place in left field on this Little League game. Oh, God. Oh, ow. The bad news is he didn't make the play. The good news is he did walk off. I can't hold him.

Yeah, that is. Kids are flexible. I know. I was going to say it's good that he's, what, 11, 12 years old because that's. What's the statement? Oh, God, his head is all the way back. A bird in hand equals one in the pocket. Let's go over to this umpire with a heck of a play here.

Wow, man. Great catch, right in the heart, right? Did it go in his pocket? It did. Oh, my God. How do you find this stuff? Just sort of happened. Yeah, that's great.

Shout out to that umpire. I like how he's looking around like, where'd that ball go? Let's go back to the Little League field. This might be Babe Ruth level or Cal Ripken level, whatever you call this, Pony League baseball. Look at this guy running through, just running right through the sign. The umpire's like, stop, stop, stop. Hey, you're taught to do that, man.

I thought you said come forward and take my knees out. All right, that's great. That umpire's pissed off. You play until you hear the whistle. All right, let's go to the outfield. Major League Baseball, here's Tampa's Josh Lowe. Oh, shit. Yep, taking that right on the face.

In the face. Wow. That hurts two times, right? First, you let a fly ball, routine fly go by. Obviously, he couldn't see because he's putting the shades, but then to take it. Why don't you use the shades? I don't know why. Oh, wow.

That's great. That's an orbital. That's great. We'll stay with Major League Baseball. Here's an Oakland A's outfielder, Sky Bull, entering the game as a late defensive replacement in the outfield. And here's his reaction. Looks like me at midnight after drinking too much.

Well, there we go. There we go. Chuckie got it out. All right. They came in polo coast, though. We're taking down a Malbec in the palm house beforehand. But this is great. I got to know the back story of this now.

This is crazy. Was he out partying? He probably swallowed the dip. That's probably what happened. Been there. Chuck, been there. I've been there. Been there. Those little bandit packs. You ever been there? I love that. That's probably what happened. Ben there. Chuck, Ben there. I've been there. Those little bandit packs.

You ever been there? I love that the camera's on him as he does that. The difference is I've been there when I was 19. I'm a piece of shit. Not now as a professional podcaster, all right? Yeah. Let's go over to Russia. They give us wild things.

Here's a produce basher, but please just look at the reaction of his wife and cat throughout this. Oh. This man does not need a Vegemite. He's the human Vegemite. What the hell is going on here? He just shows you the power. If you want to prepare a salad... What is that, lettuce?

She just wears the lettuce afterward? You don't need... Wow, just... You just have to go to Gallagher to get a watermelon splash. Shout out to Look at This Russian, which always gives us gems on IG. They have Look at This American as well,

just to be fair. But look, you don't need... That's pretty impressive, I gotta say. Like, being able to... Come on. He'll toss your salad just like that, Chuck. What the hell is going on in this relationship? This is not good.

Let's keep it going. Something's being oppressed there. Let's go over the wedding. Remember that old tradition of throwing the bouquet and then some ex-college softball catcher knocks over your daughter and, you know, oh, boy. Seen it a thousand times.

Actually, that's true. There's violence in those. You ever been at like a nice wholesome family wedding And then they do the garter belt thing Where it's like you know the sexual music And they're like that's so like 80s isn't it That was very 80s And it's always some horny single guy like Uncle Billy Or somebody coming in

Alright let's go to the backyard This is the dad move of the week Watch this move here from this dad during the cookout. Oh, thanks, Nick. Oh, man. Come on. Let's watch it one more time. I feel like everybody just walks away like, get out of here.

Yeah, dude, that's a big win. Look at the kid. The kid just walks away from him. So many times I do cool stuff in the house and people are like, oh, just get away. Nothing humbles you quite like going home. My podcast? Yeah, nothing humbles you like people in your house not caring at all. No, I feel like Luke for a second.

You know, as far as pranks go, I don't know if Peter North did this prank, but this chick's not happy. Not happy at all. I mean, what are we doing here? What the hell? Chuck, what is that? I don't even know what that is, Peter North. Good God.

We're going to need a cleanup up on aisle Toyota Corolla. Foam insulation, I'm told. But it's not completely hardened. Wow. All right. Concert season is back.

We just ranked our bands. We've seen the most. This camera guy, unfortunately, this was his last show, Chuck. Oh. Ooh,

and then the camera. Yeah. Like the singer's like, oh shit. Who's that singer? Is that Daddy Yankee? I don't know. I don't really follow. Oh my God. That's one of those who are like, is that dude dead? Yeah, you got to. Like the singer's like, oh shit. Who's that singer? Is that Daddy Yankee? I don't know. I don't really follow.

Oh my God. That's one of those who are like, is that dude dead? Yeah. He had a good run there though. He was a good, good,

good, yeah, okay. It's time for some poor parenting. Sometimes, you know, you just got to do it for the gram, Chuck. No matter who you hurt, okay?

Sure. Oh. Oh boy, boy. Yeah, that's... Oh, look at those inner thigh tats. That was like Wild Kingdom or something. Something snapping them out of the water. That was very Jack Hanna, if you will. You know, poor Steve Irwin.

Look at this. It's like watching a cheetah go up into the water. Is Bendy Irwin hot or is it too soon? It's probably... Let's keep it going. Let's go over to poor parenting along this young boy

to play with this. What are we doing here? Oh, boy. Okay. Oh. The good news is it's Fourth of July. The bad news is

you won't have children. My God. That's okay. Yeah. All right. Look at his face, poor kid. More bad parenting continues here trying to distract

their kid. Wait for it, Chuck. Uh-oh. Nice blue tongue. Uh-oh. What's he running into? Oh! Right into a Camry.

That's good. Oh, my Lord. That is good stuff. Okay. Chuck, we have found, remember that old iPad game, the Fruit Ninja? We found the guy it was based after. Check this guy out. Whoa.

Damn, is that real? Just with his middle finger? That can't be real. This looks like my prostate exam, unfortunately. Wow. Still scarred emotionally from that. Wow. Yeah, all right.

Chuck, sometimes videos leave you wondering a lot of questions. Chuck, what's the back story on this, please? Oh, my lord. Lord, I'd be lying. I'm going to tell you. What? What in the hell? Yeah.

I feel like this might be old. I feel like I've seen this. Was there a back story attached to this? I don't know. We're going to need to... He's just trying to shake him off of the... Yeah. Somebody threw out a perfectly good white point.

See, that's... Rashad was mentioning something. That's what I expect from South Florida. That's Florida life right there. Right there. You've got to be prepared for anything. All right. Regional MMA highlight of the week.

The promotion is TNU 129. As you know, with regional MMA, anything can happen. Watch this flying knee from Desmond Manabat. Oh, good. Damn, man. Lord. Let's see this again. Shit's nasty, Chuck.

I just want to see it again. Yeah, just show it. There we go. Oh, man, that is nice. As Luke would say, hold this. Ouch. Wow. Okay. Yeah, just show it. Here we go. Oh, man, that is nice. As Luke would say, hold this. Yeah. Ouch. Wow. Okay. Finally, Chuck, we're going to close with two bits of sound.

Sounds of the season. First, NFL preseason. It's Cardinals at Bengals. All right. Let's get a piece of this. You have to like when there's a guy coming right in your face and he just sits in there and delivers it really well. You have to like. I mean, I don't think you have to like when there's a guy coming right in your face and he just sits in there and delivers it really well. You have to like.

I mean, I don't think you have to like it, Chuck. Is that an unwritten rule of football? Oh, my God. How do you even find this stuff? It finds me, Chuck. It finds me, okay? And finally, look. Oh, my God.

Pete Rose has not had a good week in the headlines with misogyny and things like that. But he did show up for the Phillies' anniversary of the 1980 World Series championship. This was a disastrous trip. They put him in the headlines with misogyny and things like that. But he did show up for the Phillies anniversary of the 1980 World Series. This was a disaster. They put him in the booth, John. Now you realize why you don't put Pete Rose on. My God. Here we go. I said, Tony, congratulations. What did you hit? And Tony says, Joe, I hit a cock high fastball. Joe didn't know what to say. Joe said, no shit.

That's looped out to right field. You change the subject real quick on that loop out to right field. I'm just describing the action. Pretty sure we don't have a seven second delay. John Kruk do damage controllable.

Oh, my God. Yeah, I was going to say, he was like the guy you had to edit back in the day. Yes. That is hilarious. Pete Rose is who he is. I've never really liked him, but that's a. You've never really liked him? I mean, I.

He was already in trouble from the same trip, and then he just doubled down. You've got to appreciate that. Also, in terms of the athlete Pete Rose, the character that he was, the all-time great player. But, I mean, what do you say about Pete Rose at this point? I don't know. I mean, hey, he's leading his best life. Tony, tell me about that cock-eye fastball. Oh, my God. Yikes.

That's the shit of the week. Hope you saw it. Hope you enjoyed it. All right. Thank you. All right, Chuck. That was our show for this week. We'll see what happens.

One more segment. We'll keep you posted on the Showtime Replacement Opponent for Omar Figueroa Jr. this Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern, a four-fight card, Hollywood, Florida Showtime. Obviously, a loaded weekend. Be on the lookout this week. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. Right now, you can watch Luke and I re-watching Usyk Joshua 1. I'll be checking that out.

We've got an Edwards Usman 1 re-watch coming out tomorrow. I'll skip that one. I'm just kidding. Come on. Tomorrow, we've got Chuck Mendenhall pre-game preview UFC 278. So there's the socials. Follow us.

Please like and subscribe. I know it's tedious. It's whatever. But you can mute the notifications. It just shows that you've joined this army. It helps us corporately to build and get to the next level, get more financial support, all that good stuff. So is these podcast awards.

Chuck, what's the real meaning if we are MMA best programming for the second straight year? I mean, what does it really mean? I don't know, but it does go a long way. Show you some of that paper, baby. Yeah, hopefully we get more of that paper. You can scan this QR code or go to worldmmawards.com slash nominees. We are up against Joe Rogan, the MMAR with Ariel Helwani, UFC Unbetted, UFC Dana White contenders.

I mean, it's all killer and no filler. We won last year because of you guys. In fact, we were told that we had record numbers for the voting in both this and the Sports Podcast Awards, which we won Best Sports Show. It's because of our rabid, rabid. It's a family, but it's a dysfunctional, weird one. And I'm happy to be a part of it. I'm happy to be a ringleader.

Chuck, you know what I appreciate? And I mean this. People have a lot going on in their life, you know? Health issues with their relatives, you know, financial issues, lose your job, gas prices through the roof. But they can turn on this show a couple times a week. Hear some shitty analysis and some worse jokes, and they can, you know, they can feel good, you know? Yes, they can. That matters to me.

And they do. That matters to me. It does. It should. All right, so I'd like to shout out all the divorced women watching, all the people in incarceration at the moment watching. Well, you've named almost the full demographic. BC and Chuck care, if don't nobody else care, you've named almost the full demographic. BC and Chuck care. If don't nobody else care, I'll tell you that much.

Chuck, where can we find you? Do you want to do that bit? Are you selling anything? What's going on? Well, I am selling my hats. Hey, man, you shouted it out last time. A bunch of hats sold. Dude, I was happy to hear that. Keep buying those hats, man. I'm getting new shipments. We've got more.

Let's plug it right. M-I-T-H dot com. The myth or is it the myth? The myth dot com. The myth dot com. With an M-I-T-H. It's Chuck Mendenhall's personal website. There's great writing on there, but even better hats. Brought to you by who?

Boston Scally? Boston Scally, yes. Boston Scally, yeah. They're my partner in this, and they've been great, man. They're great hats. Here we go. The good news on the hats, I have a big melon, just a weirdly shaped long. It's long in the back like Richard Hamilton's

has got this weird thing going on. So I need a long, wide hat. The hat fits perfectly. We can accommodate you. It's comfortable. It's high quality.

The only drawback is it 100% is a midlife crisis hat because my wife says I look 55 with it. Ah, your mistress says we'll like it. Trust me on this. Now, does your wife

heckle you on the same level? No. Well, maybe. I don't know. You were telling me a little bit about your wife heckle you on the same level? No. Well, maybe. I don't know. You were telling me a little bit about your wife's complaints with you. I feel like she's a little strong with you. But I do hear about it. My wife usually hate me for the same reasons.

They're usually very similar to you. Well, that's good. You're getting it both ways then. It doesn't matter where you're at. Studio, at home. Man of many seasons, he gets it both ways. There you go. Chuck, I hope you do too.

Anytime you're filling in, it's like family here, Chuck, okay? Thank you, man. We love having you. It's fun coming down. The staff, they don't talk much. They're always on their phones, but they love you. Let's not do three years again before I sit at this. You're damn right.

Damn back in the bombshell. It's going to be a big week. Even though Luke's on vacation, let him be. Let him enjoy his time with his family. Luke's going to come back energized, but we're going to have a lot of coverage for you this week ahead of UFC, ahead of Joshua. It's going to be a fun week, Chuck, okay? It'll be good.

It was great seeing you here. For our great staff here at Malka CBS Sports Showtime, we thank you. Gaff in the back, Long Island Luke. You got Jake on camera over here. Jake? Jake von Amsterdam. Go Jets. Doc Seven in production at the moment.

Thank you to all you out there okay tip your waitresses may all your ex-lovers stay satisfied never say goodbye PC never say goodbye

just keep talking we got two words we out