MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Heavyweight Matchups | Dana White & Nick Diaz | UFC 262 | Ep 155

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

The boys are back. Luke and Brian discuss the latest fight news surrounding UFC heavyweight matchups. Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic? Francis vs. Derrick Lewis? Plus, Dana talks about the future of Cowboy Cerrone and Nick Diaz. Also, they look ahead to UFC 262.  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. Happy Hump Day to you. It's the 12th of may 2021 and it is time everybody for morning combat hello my name is luke thomas i'm one half of your hosting duo i'm from cbs sports and a gentleman who is also from cbs sports i can see he's just waiting waiting to unleash something there is no uh the thing in the background though i don't know't know. There's no chalkboard or whatever the fuck that thing is. I was running late today, Luke. It scared our staff a little bit.

I had to change my wife's oil outside the house. Oh, I bet you did. Not inside it, believe me. So, you know, I got caught in a line. So, you know, a lot of real professional stuff leading up to this. But, Luke, I made it. When you say change your wife's oil, do you mean drive it to Jiffy Lube, or do you mean you actually change the oil?

No, what do you think? I'm some kind of, you know. I may be from a factory town, Luke. My dad didn't teach me anything, though, okay? You know what I mean? What's the most handyman thing you've ever done? Like built or fixed or something like that? I mean, I regularly chop firewood.

That's fairly manly, Luke, okay? I would agree. That's fairly manly, Luke, okay? I would agree. That's actually pretty good. I got a big-ass chainsaw that I take down dead trees in the open lot next to me. Okay. You know, I got this professional-grade weed whacker that's like nine feet long, and sometimes I lose control of it because it's so powerful, and I just take out all the flowers, and then my marriage is on the rocks for a few months.

But besides that, Luke, not much man in the traditional sense. But I've watched fighting my whole life. That's pretty damn manly, Luke, okay? Watching fighting is not that manly, but I would agree. The chainsaw, the firewood, I think that definitely counts. I mean, I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom, RIP Shock G. All right, is that enough for you? That's enough for me that that

qualifies i'd say the most manly thing in terms of repairs i've ever done is i was able to effectively take out my alternator and change the timing belt on my old old chevy corsica and i talked about that's pre-youtube pre-youtube so you also repaired the direction of your career by joining forces with me so i'm very happy to be a part of that they weren't in disarray but i agree this was a this was i will say luke quickly as we close the rambling portion of this uh early pod um you know i've realized something this is an a part of your career journey you know the your obituary one day isn't going to say former host of MMA now, right?

Or once hosted the self-masturbatory Luke Thomas' live chat. People aren't going to give a shit about that when you're gone. They're going to say one half of morning combat.

So I hope you like the way this feels and looks because this is what you are, Luke. This is what you'll always be. I think you don't

understand my career very well. But that being not said, we have a lot of show to get to today. We have some Jon Jones, some Dana White. Dana White spoke to ESPN. We've got some Roundup stuff. We've got some looking ahead to UFC 262 and a whole lot more. So thumbs up on the video.

Hit subscribe. You want some merch? Store.show.com. Who cares? Dude, you have put the merch folks up on the firing line, and I haven't seen a reaction from them. Are they just going to... Exactly.

If I had ruffled feathers with what I said on Monday, I would have imagined I would have heard by now, but no one really challenged anything, which kind of tells me I was probably right. I got DM sliders going, you guys can start your own t-shirt store right here. I'm trying to go protocol here. BC, here's the deal.

If by my birthday merch 2.0 is not out, and my birthday is August 5th. Oh, that's a long time out. That's a long time. You say that, but that's just June and July and again, five days in August and then a little bit of whatever is left in this month.

That's actually not that long. Okay, that's soft, though. That's pretty soft. I'd rather you actually be a man. You talk about manly things and step up and look into that camera and say, Floyd Logan, June 6th. We don't have international merch available. We're walking.

I mean, you've got to give them a chance to get it out the door. Okay, okay, you can soft pedal back, but I just put the challenge out there. All right. All right, you gotta give them a chance to get it out the door. I mean, you know. Okay, you can soft pedal back, but I just put the challenge out there, all right? All right, well, that's BCs, but here's what I'm telling you from mine. If by August 5th they haven't done it, I've already got a Teespring store. We can just fire that bitch up and then split it 50-50 as far as I'm concerned, so keep that in mind. If you want to email the show, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to be on all of that. We'll do fan submissions today. We'll do Dead Wrong on Friday. And if you want to try Showtime, why wouldn't you? Showtime.com, 30-day free trial, and you're ready to take the

plunge. There's your URL right there, show.com slash bellatormm. If you sign up through that URL, you get all of Showtime. In the first six months, you get it for $5 a month. Again, that's live Showtime plus their entire catalog of everything they've done. I mean, where else? Where else are you going to watch Rumble Johnson's career? Where else are you going to watch your boy BC Saturday night at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California handle the in-ring interviews for Showtime Championship Boxing?

Where else? Big deal. Big deal. Where else? Big deal. What else? One other thing, Luke. Room Service Diaries went up belatedly late yesterday. While it seems like a fairly decent rousing critical success, you got a lot of splaining to do

on your fail-proof audio setup. I wore your stupid microphone and it sounds like we recorded from the lincoln tunnel luke i turned the volume down in the camera way too much it was the problem i fucked it up that's what happens when you you don't perform sober uh there might be something to be said for that i don't know what i don't i don't know under i don't know that the conditions under which we set things up, I was 100%.

That's a fair point. I just want to say, I got bleeped out, and also I had other jokes removed, for things that I didn't even think were borderline. And that bleep made me look like I was racially effataffing Danny Seguro. That was not the truth. Can't a man make a JonBenet joke in 2021? I guess not. The whole point of this rant, Luke,

is you tried to set me up to watch something foul and disgusting, and last night I looked up what you tried to set me up to watch. And all I have to say, Luke, is you're lucky we're still friends, all right? Did you actually watch? No, but I actually smartened up and was like, well, what the hell is this?

And read the Wikipedia description and was, I mean, Luke, I'm not sure I could think of something you could have offended me more with. You know what I mean? You could have disparaged the great name of JC and done a a lot of dirty shit but this would have been next next level for folks who's wondering what he's talking about i tried to get him to watch he's never seen it i tried to get him to watch two girls one cup and we were going to do the challenge where you know how long can you last before you projectile vomit based on what we're watching uh you still can do it bc however much you read all that tells you is what is like no that's a very abstract point in it but until you lived it you don't really know i i felt betrayed on the level that when my dad told me million dollar baby's gonna

win the oscar you gotta see it brah you love boxing no no preparation for how that movie went down went down the hill and took a left turn at the end i mean you kidding me all right you love boxing let's watch a movie where someone has a terrible injury that makes their life a catastrophic failure at the end and then we negotiate whether to whether to pull the plug i'm not i'm this is not what i sign up for okay come on all right fair enough well uh with that in mind we they put the plug for social up there. It's time to get this party started if we can, BC. So first up in the show, Dana White spoke to Brett Okamoto of ESPN, and there's a lot of different pieces there. The first part, of course, is what's going to happen at heavyweight. Here is what he said, BC.

They're looking, they don't have a date yet in mind, but they're looking at Derek Lewis contending against Francis Ngannou, which will be a rematch of course but that'll be for the UFC heavyweight title we kind of had expected that and had indicated that that was going to happen I think last week the part that got kind of interesting although I guess not as much as it could have been given what happened afterwards is he said Jon Jones could end up fighting Stipe Miocic now Jon Jones came out on Twitter and said relax it's not happening that he would fight him but what he wants next is a title shot, not just, you know,

that. Okay, BC, your reaction to Dana's matchmaking and where he's all headed at heavyweight? Yeah, sadly, I'm not surprised, mother effers. You know, I get what he's doing here. He doesn't want to pay John that money. He wants to push off the John Francis fight and let it build up and simmer a little bit more. He's probably also thinking, you know, let me also discipline John a little bit more. Oh, you think you're Conor? You want to make Conor money? You ain't Conor. And, you know, we've been up and down the road on that debate. And the whole idea of, you know, not many people are talking about whether my colleague Jack Crosby at CBS's favorite scenario playing out of what if Derek Lewis

knocks Francis out or what if Jon Jones loses? And, you know, part of you knowing Dana in this is sort of wondering, is this Dana just thinking, well, the best way to humble Jon is to put him in a non-title bout with Stipe and hope he loses. So there's a lot of different layers there. If they just want to run Francis back in a fight they believe he can and should win and that it would help build to John. I mean, we've seen promotional choices like this done in the past and it's not a major foul or a front. It's just that you've got Francis and John willing to fight each other. You're

making more money hand over fist than you ever have you just went public again make the freaking fight and to your point on the john jones tweets that followed he said don't get excited i'm not fighting steep a he wanted to say what you said well you know i'll fight him in a title fight but not now i'm 33 years old i'm i'm the i'm in a uh i'm a better athlete now than i've ever been and then he closed with this tweet luke i'm sick of hearing the same shit you're not a big enough star you don't bring enough pay-per-view i'm ready to fight the fights that will bring the pay-per-view the world needs to see some black on black crime right now and i'm ready to give it to them lol that was a john jones quote not a bc one just for the record but yeah i sympathize with john i like how you have to clarify that. Yeah, well, I've been contexted before. Context is king, Luke.

I've been contexted up the backside before from the show. But I will say, Luke, that I get it, but I hate it. Make the frickin' Jones fight, okay? Put in an Allegiant Stadium, 80,000 people. It's going to sell, brother, okay? Let's break this up here piece by piece. Be serious for a second. I'm not saying be cynical,

but be serious. Be fair, be open-minded, be reasonable, but draw whatever conclusion you want. I'll be true, I'll be useful, I'll be cavalier. I get what you're saying. Keep going.

Okay. Are you really of the belief in your heart of hearts that if they made the Derek Lewis, Francis Ngannou rematch that the fight would be even remotely as bad as the first one because I have to tell you I agree with you there's no doubt in my mind John should be fighting this but I don't think the rematch is gonna suck I really don't no it's gonna be great it's gonna be fantastic it's the opposite scenario

of what of what happened the first time where Francis wasn't of the right mind you know Derek had a bad back. Both were gun-shy. You can't be gun-shy in a pay-per-view main event for the heavyweight championship. So to your point, Luke, I get it. But that's also a gamble that the damn Black Beast could kill all the best laid plans. True or false?

Yes, he is certainly. I mean, we all know his power. By the way, he's got power late in a fight. You know, it doesn't go away. He is a constant threat. I mean, we all know his power. By the way, he's got power late in a fight. It doesn't go away. He is a constant threat. No doubt about it. I tend to think that the fight itself, I'm not complaining about the fight itself.

I'm complaining that, or at least I'm registering a criticism that I just don't think that's the fight to make. But is it a good fight to make? Yeah, I tend to think that it might be. Let me ask you this too. Jones and Stipe, how much of that is the UFC wanting? Let me put this out here. You can argue that Jon Jones is going to go to heavyweight and do more or less what he did at light heavyweight, or at a bare minimum, just be a consistent winning threat at the highest level over there. That's one interpretation. But I I do think as someone who's been watching him for a long long time and has been I think it's

fair to say he can say what he wants but I've been a pretty consistent supporter at least of his abilities and um you know a forgiver of his mistakes in ways that others have not been however I have to tell you I do think that the tape at light heavyweight shows some decline on his part. I've looked at the numbers. The game and the division caught up massively with him. He had a gigantic lead on it, but it did catch up. So the question is, BC, to what extent does the UFC want to kick the tires on Jones at heavyweight to kind of see what they got a little bit? Stipe serves that function if they can

make that fight before putting him in a title I mean this is a relevatory right we you know we've talked at length about that that the competition caught up with John which is why at this age right now this is the perfect time to go to heavyweight I just think that it's maybe unfair to John that because he hasn't fought in a while and because Ngannou just sort of reconfigured what we might imagine a modern heavyweight could look like. That it naturally we're going, oh, wait, whoa, whoa. Even people like me saying Jon Jones is going to win that heavyweight championship and he might not lose for some time.

Can he really do it against Ngannou? The answer is, I don't know. I need to see it. But again, the point is, I need to see it. I don't know why that would soft-toe the UFC from wanting to, you know, put him out there in a softer match first. I always said, unless he's making his heavyweight debut against a Brock Lesnar, which again, business-wise would actually make a lot of sense,

even today somehow, right? I used to be talking about this in 2012, where it's a fight you know he's going to win, but it's an event. You can pay him a lot, it'll sell, and it will announce him at heavyweight. Stipe is not the announcement fight at heavyweight, right? If they've got any issue of who John can be, then I'd almost rather say maybe the argument is to push him into the title fight first, because, you know, you're going to find out right away if he can sink or swim. And if he can sit, if he sinks, he could always go back to 205 and

try to reinvent himself and reimagine himself there. Um, but again, there's different ways to build the things. If they're confident Ngannou's going to beat Derek, or if they don't care necessarily of what happens if there's an upset, then business is still going to be big after that fight when Jon Jones fights the winner and when Stipe fights the guy after that and all that.

Dana and company know what they're doing, Luke, and I do want to stress again that I'm not going to sit here and be in the midst of riches galore, just like my Dustin Paulyway argument in light of Saturday's main event for the vacant lightweight title. Good Lord, Chandler and Oliveira is a fantastic fight. I did want to put that little asterisk in there that it should be Poirier, but it's the same thing, I think, with this debate overall. I want John to get paid. I want Jones and Gano now. It makes more sense than not. But if they if

they had doubts about john at heavyweight which is rightfully so in any situation about john jones as great as he is he's also still one of the biggest you know what ifs to some degree because of the you know what he's done and where he's been i i always want to try out a risk and a gamble at the highest level luke or in an easy fight steeping either of those though that's the thing so it doesn't make sense to me what is your current temperature on whether John Jones fights in 2021 I think he will I think he should and I think we're going to get John Jones against Francis Ngannou at the end of this year probably in a big stadium like it deserves probably make it feel like a big event I just think Dana and company are being really smart here even though it goes against everything I just said as a

fan and protector of fighters you can make Francis even more popular if he does what he just did to Stipe and then in theory does that to Derek Lewis in a pay-per-view main event then you're banging that drum even more so maybe this is a little bit of look at the end of the day Luke it's going to have to be a compromise to make that fight happen meaning Jones and Gano and we know that that compromise is going to be John will put out a large number on paper and say I want to get paid Conor numbers UFC will say you ain't Conor but bro we're not trying to kick you out of the negotiation rule here's a middle ground number and say, I want to get paid Conor numbers. UFC will say, you ain't Conor, but bro, we're not trying to kick you out of the negotiation rule. Here's a middle ground number, right? They may go back and forth once or twice,

but they're going to get there. That's going to be a compromise. They're going to get there. Maybe this is also part of that compromise with UFC going, okay, let's get Francis even more popular on the road there so that maybe when he beats John, it means even more and brings in even more money for us. I wonder, Luke.

I wonder. All right. Let's go to point number two. We stay with Dana on this one. This, to me, is the more interesting story of the few that have come out from the interview. And this one is about Nick Diaz. So if you guys don't know, UFC president Dana White sat down, it appears, face to face with Nick Diaz.

And I guess the two discussed business and how Nick is feeling and what he wants to do here are a couple of things that Dana White had said quote the meeting went well my whole thing with Nick Diaz is I just question how badly he really wants to fight Dana White said we got together we had a great conversation talked about a possible comeback for him I just don't know we'll see how it plays out this summer and the rest of the year and the issue apparently is the amount of time that he's taken off already. When you hear him talk about fighting, talking about Nick Diaz, when you hear him talk about the sport and I sit down daily or talk to hungry young savages that want to bring to the top 10, become world champions, all that

stuff. Nick Diaz has done it and seen it all. He's been in big fights. I just don't see that in him when we talk. Now here's the critical part. He's a grown man,. I just don't see that in him when we talk. Now, here's the critical part. He's a grown man, Dana White said. The guy says, I want to fight. We agreed to a fight, and doctors say he's fit. It has nothing to do with me. At this point in his career, I think that they'll come back and say, we want to fight this guy. So we'll see who they want, and we'll go from there. Now, it does sound that they're going to try and find the guy a fight that is suitable for Nick, for the opponent, and for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, in which case, fine.

But BC, I have to tell you, it's a weird thing to say the way he said it, which is if you don't see a guy who really has it in himself to compete, who doesn't, you think, want to do the things he says he wants to do, why is he under contract? That's a weird thing right like again i guess if you're going to figure out a way through it by making a fight that that is just you know he can still handle himself but you don't really believe the world championship talk okay but part of me is like dude do you want to be in business with a guy that you believe you sincerely believe

that about so i tend to think on one direction or the other there is some truth to this but it's also a little bit exaggerated it's hard to know where the exaggeration is because i think there's legitimate concern about time off age and all that even though to give nick credit i mean i've seen the pictures on instagram of him you know on the bicycle i mean he's in just ridiculously ripped shape so credit to him on that but i think one part look okay my cynical reaction knowing how dana operates is oh did did Nate come in and ask for stupid money, which the Diaz's tend to do at times. And Dana's just like, you don't want to fight. This means he doesn't want to fight. I'm going to go public and tell people I have questioned that he doesn't

want to fight. That's a Dana move that we've seen before. So let's not act like that's not potentially in play, but let's also add in the part that even at their prime and best, the Diazes are not easy to negotiate with, which is why Nate, following two fights against Conor in which he became a household name, took the next three years off because they never could come to any kind of agreement or terms on opponent and money and regular flowing conversation. So that also has to be a part of this. But to your point, Luke, if you are Dana and you do have questions about his credibility being in there at this point, then just let him go. Let's not delay this any longer. He's done business for you in the past, right? He's also just been lingering for a while. Cut him loose and let him see on the open market if he can make some fun old guy fights. We had Dan Hardy, the ex-UFC fighter and broadcaster who's trying to get out of his UFC deal, just tweeted out, I think this morning, that, you know, hey, Dana White and company, let Nick go, and I'd love to fight him in Risen if I can or whatever. You know, let Nick go, and if he's going to go to Bellator or PFL or anybody,

and just make a fun fight because he just, you know, he wants to do it again. He wants to end his career on his own terms. That's great. But we do have to understand as much as the other leagues have caught up with UFC to a certain degree, especially on the highest level, not necessarily depth though, top to bottom. I mean, the UFC is still the major leagues in a lot of ways for a reason. So if Nick's not major league worthy anymore and Dana knows that, maybe in light of other sad endings of late, then let the guy go. What are we doing here?

Are we still holding on to him so nobody else gets him? Let him go. Here's my theory on this. I think that they believe most of what they say, or at least a big part of what they say about Nick, but obviously they don't know for sure. I think they want to give him one, and if he looks super bad, then they'll be like oh we can

release this guy and maybe he has one or two big fights for somebody else in a very favorable matchup but we we don't really care or he comes out and looks way better than they think he does or he might and they're like okay all right this is this is absolutely something we can work with and and and find a way to um you know however many of these we can string together let's do it because dude this is let me let's be real about this how old is nick diaz 30 what 34 35 a little more than that maybe 36 i mean we do have wikipedia in front of us luke you can he's 37 and he'll be 38 in august okay dude at 170 pounds nick diaz has taken a lot of time off that's true he also had a lot of tough fights. He has shit tons of scar tissue on his face.

He's talked openly about how much he doesn't actually like to fight. It's just something he's good at and he can make some money at. Dude, at 38 years old, this is the last chapter to have big fights. This is it. Unless he does the celebrity exhibition thing. If that's even still around in a couple of years. So that's where I'm at on this one. I think the UFC will happily let him go once they realize

they can only squeeze out a couple of extra big fights from him somewhere else. Imagine if Nick ended up being the one to take Jake Paul's O. Like, imagine if, like, you know, somebody, we never knew it was going to be Seth Petruzzelli that was going to jab knockout Kimbo, right? Somebody's going to pop that Jake Paul cherry. I wonder if it's going to be Nick Diaz someday. But I think, look, Paul Semtex Daly, oh, by the way, in the last 12 hours, you know,

cool breaking news into the Morning Combat newsroom that he's going to fight, what, Jason Jackson in a key Bellator welterweight bout on the undercard of Lima Amasov. So that's like a good welterweight title bout. Who knows, Paul Daly at this aging point of his career could stumble into a title shot for all we know. But wouldn't you want to see Nick Diaz, Paul Daly too? Isn't that the perfect kind of fight? If you're telling me Nick maybe is only going to cash that check

one more time. I don't want to see it in the UFC against a riser, like a Hamzat or, or anyone. Right. And I know that's the end game a lot in, in the food cycle of combat sports, especially in promoting, right.

Somebody builds their name off of old guys. And then when they get old, they sell their name deal. I get that. But Nick has always, the Diaz is in general, Luke have always handled themselves in such a different way that I don't want to see it.

And like that, I want to see them on their own terms, go get a fun old guy fight and then walk away and cash that check. But isn't it interesting that whenever Dana speaks, as he did with that very handsome Brett Okamoto, it fills three quarters of our rundown, Luke. It makes headlines. You know what makes our job easy?

We can just mooch off their efforts. That's what I like. All right. And then topic number three three we kind of fucked this one up on monday so it's good to circle back although we now have a bit of an update cowboy serrani lost to alex morno last saturday at ufc and i lost like it was kind of one-sided to be quite honest with you uh it stopped him inside the first now that was at 170 pounds and morno took that fight on last minute notice so there's there's a question of, like, should Cerrone keep fighting?

Here's what Dana White told Brett Okamoto, BC. Cowboy, again, steps up. Diego falls out of the fight, and he steps up and takes a last-minute replacement, co-main event. He accepted the Diego fight because they both said they would fight at 170. He wants to move down to 155, and I'm going to let him do that.

Now, apparently, when he says he lets him move down to 155, my I'm going to let him do that. Now, apparently when he says he lets him move down to 155, my understanding is that it's for one more fight. Right call, wrong call. It's tough because, first of all, Morono, you're being soft and nice. Morono sent Cowboy to hell, and they know him there, unfortunately. He's got frequent flyer passes down south, and that's why this is an issue. He's been such a company guy and always doing everything for

them, but I mean, good God, he's lost so many in a row. I always tend, when this happens, to give every old fighter okay, you'll get one more on your terms. You're going to go out, like Diego was going to do here against Cowboy. It's obviously going to end bad. You're not that

guy anymore. We're going down the wrong road. But there's one more against another old name and everybody's going to celebrate you and it's going to be like your retirement party. If that's what Cowboy's getting, that's fine. And I know that he's 0-5 with a no contest in his last six. So this is really

bad territory. This is like BJ Penn territory. And I get a lot of people are going, man, Woodley just lost four in a row after being champion and he's cut and Cowboy gets to hang around. Well, Woodley lost very one-sidedly and lifeless in most of those. And Cowboy's a company man

and it's always had its privileges. Like, let's not act like this isn't true. So look, if it's a one-off, we'll celebrate you and you're going to, you know, don't go away mad. Just go away, Cowboy. That's great. But when I read the story, I don't know if it's the way it was framed. I think it was Junkie that had it. They almost made it seem like Dana was saying, we'll let him do what he wants to do and cut down to 155 and almost like, let's see where we go from

there. Almost like if he can go down to 155 and if he really has one more cowboy dad last stand let's give him the chance and if he goes there and he wins let's keep it going and that's just a that's just going to keep happening until you chuck Liddell this guy the question is how many more losses does this guy need before you're going to chuck Liddell this guy so I would like greatly if they found the perfect opponent and they even made it a co-main event or even a fight night main event and said let's celebrate cowboy he's gonna break jim miller and him who are tied for most appearances in ufc history cowboy's gonna retire as the winningest fighter in ufc history and the most active with most appearances fighter in ufc so for this short window of time as cowboy

steps away on his own terms, we will say, okay, he was never champion, but he's a Hall of Famer because he's a company guy, and he's a character, and he's a badass, and he represents everything we've always represented. So here's your go-home happy fight.

And for the next few weeks, we'll talk about all the records that you currently hold and all this stuff. But you know they ain't going to do that, Luke. They're going to put him in there with somebody, and he might F around and get a win. Okay you know they ain't gonna do that, Luke. They're gonna put him in there with somebody, and he might F around and get a win. Okay, what's your reward? We just booked you another trip to hell four months later.

You ready for it? How bad do you, I mean, I mean, hey, I got it for you. I got it. I'm a genius. I am the leaping Lanny Poffo of this podcast. Luke, Cowboy versus Nick Diaz at 170 how freaking hard is that it's perfect

it's freaking perfect we're done, that's it I don't know if Nick wants that it's a soft landing if he's got anything left it's a soft landing and you know that to be true Luke I know, he's not looking for soft landings he's got anything left. It's a soft landing, and you know that to be true, Luke. I know. He's not looking for soft landings. He's looking for fat paychecks.

Make it a pay-per-view co-main event. They love to be B-sides. They love it. All right. How about a Loser Leaves Town match, pay-per-view co-main event, BMF title at stake? Just make another one for me. Yeah, just – yeah. Yeah, dude dude let's talk about how he looked on Saturday

he looked bad it did not go well for Cowboy at all and we know he's a slow starter and we know we talked about this on Friday that Morineau coming out there against Pettis the way he did didn't work for him in the end but while he did it early blitzing him that way that actually did work and sure enough it did the job here I can't recall anything meaningful that Cerrone ever got off and like he didn't look bad in the sense of like he was an old man moving around he kind of looked like himself but he wasn't throwing a lot did you notice that like he just didn't have a lot of response in him and then Morano kept pouring it on and pouring it on to a point where you could see Cerrone didn't drop but he could see Morano coming

into him and then he's just waiting to cover up and then roll with the punches and then the referee Mark Goddard stepped in and stopped it it was just a I mean it was a lifeless performance and I know retirement must be hard and and and getting to that point has to be difficult. But I cannot imagine extending to the guy. I mean, I can imagine extending to Cowboy BC, to your point, the company man, red carpet a little bit. But Jesus, that red carpet better be short, dude. I mean, it's not like sending him to 155 is an easier division. They're smaller down there relative to 170, quite obviously.

But they're fucking hammers down there too, man. They're all hammers. I just don't. Who knows? Who knows who they're going to pair them with and what, but I just feel like you want to give a guy a leash because you like him. If you like him, make the leash short. That's really got to be the case here.

If you like him, give him that old school retirement job you used to give Matt Hughes and Liddell, right? Or maybe Hans Gruber of Monsters got a mascot fee he can pay Cowboy, and Cowboy can show up at UFC events and shake hands and smoke cigarettes and get tattoos and stuff. I mean, I don't know, Luke. Can we just, like, again, same Nick Diaz conversation. This is the major leagues here. And let's give Cowboy the proper exit, but are we under an illusion that he's going to go be a champion again?

Are we under the illusion that he's the perfect gatekeeper test for young guys? Neither are true. There's two things that go that give you that sign that it's time to end it. One's your chin, second's your failure to launch, right? Woodley had the failure to launch. Cowboy's already shown us the chin's gone. Cowboy's now got both of those things, okay? That's two strikes

The third strike is you don't wake up It is Luke I'm sorry so let's call let's end this Wow Jesus that was morbid Erase that in the JonBenet joke From Room Service Diaries too along with it I didn't edit that thing So topic number four here

Again we'll see what they do with Cowboy and when Here has been interesting I follow him on social media I don't follow a lot of fighters on social media Edit that thing. All right. So topic number four here. Again, we'll see what they do with Cowboy and when. Here has been interesting. I follow him on social media. I don't follow a lot of fighters on social media, but I follow the great Kevin Lee, who this show has been somewhat ridiculed for because you and I have both, BC, had what appears to be, to some anyway,

misguided belief in the upside of Kevin Lee. It's a throbbing phoner that we actually have because we can see the future. So put some respect on his name. It's future UFC champion, Kevin Lee, It's a throbbing phoner that we actually have because we can see the future. So put some respect on his name. It's future UFC champion Kevin Lee, Luke. I am a big believer in his upside but he's had some downsides. Tore his ACL and while he was repairing it

tore the other one. So he had to repair both of them. This of course comes on the heels of losing to Charles Oliveira back at the last UFC event that the UFC had before the cancellations and the pandemic and everything. Okay, so he says he is back. He's looking for a fight. Two conditions. One, 170 pounds. Second, he calls out Mike Perry. Let's go piece by piece on this, BC. I have to tell you

the welterweight thing. I understand Kevin Lee's advocacy for 165 pounds because I get that going to 155 for him is terrible. He doesn't want to do it. It absolutely depletes his performance. But, dude, he is not appropriately sized for 170 pounds. So maybe that's the best weight class for him just by default. But I don't like it, BC. Where are you on this? Well, let's talk about a couple facts here.

He's only 28, so I don't need to panic in are you on this well let's let's let's talk about a couple facts he's only 28 so we're not you know I don't need to panic in any regard okay he's five foot nine Luke I mean it's not like he's uh you know former golden boy MMA fighter Duran Wynn right I mean it's not like he's like Muggsy Bogues in it out there okay um can would the move up to welterweight increase his explosion ability and gas tank and allow him to lean more on his wrestling and and be a full-on grinder it might revive him in the way that moving up in weight when you've been stubborn to do so has revived many a fighter including current uh uh title contender michael chiesa in the same division i know chiesa is much taller longer different fighter altogether but you get my point I think it's worth this experiment.

He's come really close to showing us how great he can be. And he's had some hiccups. And, you know, it's the time in his life where he's ready, Luke, to, you know, to dare to be great in a lot of ways. I mean, that tattoo he got on the back of his skull. Luke, you don't get that unless you've got some serious plans to kick some doors in. So why not? Let's go to 170 and let's have no regrets and let's go for it kevin lee okay bro we're in your corner let's do this thing

um mike perry is a is a fun first matchup it would it you know would it teach us a ton that's a fight he should win meaning kevin lee but yeah we need to see him against against a viable contender there and find out if he can do it at this weight class let's see it you have to change his style a little bit luke but let's see it but he's been off for a while he had both literally both knees repaired to your point he's in his mid to late 20s so he's not any kind of dangerous territory of athletic athletic declines certainly not anytime soon um and i like the perry fight as a first comeback fight given all of the and again it's not just that he's been away all this time he's been away all this time with two serious injuries to the things that you know give you mobility quite frankly but I think as a comeback fight I really

like that one we've talked about it Mike Perry you know I don't say this necessarily with glee just I think it's a fact he's regressed I think Mike Perry has acknowledged that he's regressed by the way by the BC I went back and I watched some of his early UFC fights dude there's no denying he has regressed it is shocking to watch he'd be Paul Felder bro that was a great fight Felder was a little bit outsized in that one but even if you go back to like the Ellenberger fight dude he was hunting that guy he was throwing better combinations he wasn't waiting around for him like are you trying to say he's become too uh domesticated in his recent bliss listen there are some guys who are never going to be champions and um people think that the best way to fight is the scientific

you know rational way and the scientific rational way is the best for the very very very best but there are guys like i think mike perry as fighters i don't know about as humans i think he's become a lot better of a human uh you know the the dad thing has kind of brought him back to earth a little bit but war i'll say this bc There are some guys who are better fighters as feral animals, not as your coordinated, strategic, rational assassin. And I think he's one of those guys. I think that's a very fair statement there, Luke. By the way, I'd like Mike Perry against either Cowboy again or Nick Diaz.

So all these topics are kind of running together in a lot of ways. But Luke, to close on Kevin Lee, if you would have the temerity to look at Kevin Lee's upper bound limits at 170 without seeing it, I mean, you sound like you have some doubt. About where he, I mean, he's still young enough where you can't close the door on Mike Perry. But I mean, all of the signs. Kevin Lee, bro.

Oh, Kevin Lee. Sorry, I misunderstood. No, no, no, no. Dude, I've seen all of the sides. Kevin Lee, bro. Kevin Lee. Sorry, I misunderstood. No, no, no, no. Dude, I've seen what I've seen. Like, when he is on, he can fight with anybody in the world at the highest level. But dude, like, there's been issues about his cardio. There's been issues about some of his... There's been choices he's made in fights that, like, I don't think served him all that well in the long term.

And I think getting right with some of that really is where he's aired physically he's got all the tools he's got the right temperament for the game it's just decision making down the line that I think is costing him a little bit and and perhaps perhaps cardiovascular preparation I think that's been a big problem for him as well would you, if he had come to you after the last loss and said, I need a change, I need to reinvent myself, I'm going to give you three options. One, a tattoo of a soldier's mask on the back of my skull. Two, I will enter into the school of self-awareness. Or three, hey, Coastal Tories, one-on-one as a coach. Maybe I'll slide in those DMs and see where that takes me. Which one would you have gone with, Luke?

The skulltack? I wasn't listening to that just now. All right, that's great. It was an early preview into the wheel of death, the kind of bullshit you're used to dealing with. Luke, before we close the book on all things from that Dana White interview, and I'll just jump right in the middle of your own damn rundown, I know you saw what he said about Kayla Harrison,

and I am interested to see what you think. Dana White told Brett that he just doesn't, he's just not sure that Kayla Harrison is ready for the UFC level or that the PF and that the PFL knows that. And it was just kind of weird. The comments came out weird, Luke. And, you know, Dana did make comments about, you know, how she fights at 155 now, even though she has proven in her LFA one-offs that she can make 145. And we don't know what the future is of the UFC's 145 division a lot up in the air here but Kayla went on the aerial show I believe it was uh this morning

or late yesterday and she gave a very I'd say impassioned response that was in continuation of that post-fight interview from last week that we actually really liked where she was almost cutting you know wrestling promos and she said you know I'm sick of being Miss Congeniality. I'm going to be the greatest of all time, and I know that. So, you know, if PFL can't bring in the right free agents to allow me to show that, then something's going to happen here, Luke. I'm wondering if Dana's just trying to light her fire a little bit, and it worked. Dana's just trying to round up her marketability, and she took the bait and went after it.

Is this how she's going to get a potential Amanda fight at 145? And how freaking excited would you be for that? Because I know we've talked about it in the past, but now I'm actually thinking about it. Now I've got my sneaky blinders on, and I'm thinking about it. That's a freaking fight, Luke. It's a great fight.

I think, here's what I would say. Two things. One, how many times have we seen Dana say about somebody, a fighter, somebody, oh, they're X, Y, and Z. And it's not necessarily all that insulting, but it's a little bit dismissive, a little bit like, meh. And then that person comes roaring back, ready to prove them wrong. I mean, you see it almost every news cycle.

Someone's doing it because Dana you know gives his opinions about things like that and you're going to get the pushback but um to me you know if not intentional certainly I this is part of a theme we've seen throughout the course of of Dana White's career and and in terms of running the UFC so the very um echoes of this I've seen many times I'll say this if Dana had said it before Kayla's last fight, I'd frankly understand it. It's not that when he says ready for UFC, those are maybe not the right words. Could she go to the UFC and win and maybe even beat Amanda Nunes? Let's say not beat Amanda, but beat everyone else there at 145 pounds, right? Yeah, I think she probably could. So in

that sense, she's absolutely ready. But I think what he's talking about is there's been a little bit of a mean streak missing there's been a little bit of like if you're that good you should be kind of sticking it to them and I don't mean the ones that you know are the Hooters waitresses that sometimes get pulled off the shelf to to then you know take on someone like you know that what she did in her last fight just going there and just bodying them and then giving up the speech afterwards. To me, I think that's what he's looking for. If you're that good, if you're that transcendent a talent, it should reveal itself in a magnitude of ways.

And just winning sometimes careful fights a little bit, it's almost like the Brendan Loughnan thing where, dude, he's quite obviously, he won that fight at Contender Series. He can fight in UFC. But it was so safe, he won that fight at Contender Series. He can fight in UFC, but it was so safe. He was kind of turned off by it. It's that extra gear, I think, that she has now showed a little bit. He's looking for a little bit more of it. And I do like that she told Ariel that she petitioned to the PFL hardcore to sign Cyborg when she was a free agent.

Bellator obviously ended up getting the deal, and we don't know what happened in the negotiations, but I like that she was behind the scenes really pushing for that she wants to be great i just want to close on this and it's very early in this conversation but given kayla's uh lack of like immensely elite uh athletes around her to be able to fight like we've only seen her against a certain experience level on a consistent basis are we disrespecting the goat at all in the idea of talking about this fight and trying to say like i just did oh man this could be a fight you know

i mean i i love everything i'm seeing about kayla but there are levels to this and sometimes we don't really see those levels until they're right in front of our face is she on the level to compete with Amanda Nunes? Compete, yes. Have a shot at winning that fight. Be a threat to everything that the powerhouse that Mandy does. I would probably still pick Nunes, but I think she's a threat, yeah. I take her very seriously, sure.

Because of her ability to take the fight? I've seen them both in person, and Kayla, I think Kayla's the better athlete of the two i'll tell you that for sure do you think she has legitimate power i'm not trying to say does she have newness power that's otherworldly power maybe cyborg only on that level that we've seen in the women's game historically but do you think she's got legit power yes and with the elbow she would have in ufc i think she would absolutely just dice these people to like fucking they would she would julie in them you know like ingredients on the cutting board i i'm very dude she moves to mount she has

very good balance and she strikes hard from there she would absolutely fuck people up with that no doubt there's no doubt in my mind now whether she would do that to amanda i don't know but just about everyone else at 145 there yeah i think she would including a great personal story i'm not sure if you looked into it but great great personal story too yes uh when i told it tells me you're a big fan of my content uh bc i don't know what to say about this because first of all innocent until proven guilty and it's fucking weird apparently anthony rumble johnson was arrested and charged with identity theft and i looked at the arrest report did you see the actual arrest report no i only saw the uh greenwich post like online story in which they no sold the shit out of the fact this guy's like a famous

you know world famous athlete and it's like you know like florida man anthony johnson arrested yeah okay okay they were just like some dude from deerfield like florida man anthony johnson arrested yeah okay okay they were just like some dude from deerfield beach florida committed some crimes here we don't know who he is i'm like what the fuck um okay if you read the arrest report bc it says they cuffed him at around 11 on friday night at mohegan dude that means he fought, did the post-fight presser, and then they must have arrested him right after that. It happened all quietly, I guess, that no one had heard anything. I certainly didn't hear anything on Thursday night about it, or Friday night even.

If you check your credit card statement after reading that, you're an a-hole, Luke. Yeah, I know. New Canaan Police, am I pronouncing that word right, with the two A's like that? Yeah. Took a complaint regarding a victim having their credit card being used by a third party without permission. The illegal use of their credit card was used to purchase a round-trip airline ticket from Fort Lauderdale to Newark.

The name of the passenger was Anthony Johnson. A subsequent investigation determined Johnson used the illegally obtained credit card to purchase the airline ticket. An arrest warrant was obtained for Johnson for the above charges. Now, this happened in 2019, allegedly, and we don't know who the person was. It's weird because it was already national news that Johnson was coming to Connecticut for this fight. So it's just sort of weird. And the story didn't really let you know, like, did he steal the identity or did he just benefit from the purchase of the identity theft i can't really tell so i think if i took your card and i used it and i have to put

in your information some kind of way to get it to work then that might be identity theft even though i'm not like actually trying to assume in a complete way your identity. But I don't know what the rules are. Anyway, charged with identity theft after the alleged illegal use of the credit card and cited for spending less than $500 on a revoked payment card. I don't know what that is. He was later released on a $500 bond. In Connecticut, identity theft, B.C., is a third-degree Class D felony, punishable by up to five years in jail and $5,000 fine and probation.

He has to go back on June 8th. I asked Bellator for comment. They told me they don't comment on stuff like this, but they are aware of it. They did that same thing to me, Luke. It's company policy, apparently. All right, what do you want? Yeah, that's what they say. That's what they say.

BC, what the fuck is this crime? Alleged. This alleged crime. I don't even understand. It's like, why would you do that? You got money like yeah that looked it it needs to be explained and rumble needs to speak publicly on it because it's just weird like did he again did he you know identity theft someone did he benefit from somebody

else identity thefting someone or you know i don't know it's weird but i mean aj is a great dude i love to interview him he does have a some some missteps in his past there luke so this was this was you know not great to see but uh yeah it is what a friend of mine by the way just just a theory a buddy of mine who's an attorney in connecticut his theory or i should say not even theory because you have to have some evidence for it but his hypothesis is that uh maybe johnson had a girl he had a fling with and they maybe were using their cards in some kind of you know loose way because the the moment that it happened was in 2019 like bellator would book your travel for this you know i mean you don't have to pay for that bellator

books it um but then maybe there could have been some kind of romantic thing where you know you still thought you were in you know what i mean how that work can work when you're in relationships and spending money and then you kind of break up and they're like oh no wait I don't know that was his hypothesis I don't think it's all that well thought out but look I would do anything for love but I won't do you won't do that no no all right and then a couple of more notes here from um UFC I guess it's UFC 262. Hermansen and Shabazian versus Shabazian was supposed to be on that card. They're going to push it back one week. Do we know why they pushed it back a week, BC?

I don't have these kind of answers, so we'll have to wait another week for the Edmund and the Head Movements concert. Can't wait to see this in a lot of ways, Luke. But yeah, it does, that along obviously with the loss of Nate Diaz, excuse me, and Leon Edwards. It does take a little bit of the shine off of 262 on Saturday, unfortunately. You know what it did do, though, Luke? The Diaz one, I mean, especially,

that's jacked up, that June pay-per-view they're doing in Arizona with Adesanya on it and Figueredo and now Nate Diaz Nate DS. So jazzed for that, but no, I don't have the answer. Wasn't somebody sick and they pushed it off a week. Wasn't it Shabazzian? I don't know. You got the internet in front of you.

It's not like I, you know, what do you want me to do? Plan for the show and read shit. Yeah. The more important story though, is not that the more important one is, and I saw this,

uh, Zhang Wiley did an interview and had said that the boos that she got in Florida at UFC 261 they actually did affect her that they kind of threw off her game she wasn't she wasn't necessarily expecting it and it disoriented her because I guess she'd never experienced anything like that in her life before now BC is that a fair thing say, or is that an excuse for a loss? I have to see in the context of the interview and how it was portrayed. I mean, obviously, if she's leaning on it as an excuse, then it's an excuse, right? I mean, she won her title on home soil when Jessica Andrade went into quote-unquote enemy territory.

Now, Andrade didn't get, you know, ruefully booed from what I can remember, but you get the point. If you're a professional, you should be able to endure whatever the home crowd has given you. This has somewhat special connotation linked to the Rose Nami Yunus comments, which again, I mean, I believe Rose that, you know, I got the spirit of where she was coming from, even though they certainly can be framed in a very ignorant way. But, you know, I hope this wasn't fallout from that where American fans were like, yeah, F communism in the Chinese. Let's boo. I mean, you know, but at the end of the day, Luke, you know, it's sports. You're fighting wherever you fight.

You know, there's no guarantee anyone's going to, you know, love or hate you. So I'll give Zhang the hesitancy here until I would be able to somehow hear that interview in context. I don't assume it was in English, but, um you know if she's just mentioning it as a thing that affected her then that's a thing that affected her and it's unfortunate for someone at her professional level then it did that it did but i wouldn't think knowing her character from what i seen that she's sort of like leaning on it as a crush yeah i don't think she's leaning on it either i actually believe it like for a couple of reasons one you can actually go back and watch a bunch of her fights on youtube

there's there's never a situation where like she's getting actively booed out of nowhere or even booed really at all uh you just don't you i've not seen a strong example of it from any fight that i can find so i kind of believe her that she was like, what the fuck? Even I do. If we were like, what the fuck? We thought people liked her and we get it. You know, Rose, I mean, this is the, is the fan favorite and blah, blah, blah. Okay. We don't all know the whole story, but still even I was a little bit like, I get why they're doing it because they're Florida baboons and they don't know any better, but, um, you know, it's a little bit strange. And I think you can also say BC BC, dude, listen, Rose is your rightful champion. And maybe if they run it again, Rose beats her. I probably might like Rose to beat

her, in fact. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I would. But I don't think, like the Ioana fight, that the second one's going to look like the first. I think the second one's going to be a lot more competitive. There's going to be a lot more to show for it. And Rose, like the Ioana fight, might get her hand raised in the end. She's very, very special. Super special. But I think that there's reason to imagine a rematch could be a lot of fun. And if Zheng Weili can get back on the horse,

of course you want to see that again. And maybe this time, she might be a little bit more prepared for the grittier waters. She's lucky she wasn't in Philadelphia where they may have chucked batteries at her, BC. Yeah, they'll boo Santa Claus, Luke. They'll boo anybody

over there, those heathens in Philly. I got respect for Philly, though, Luke. I'm a northeast guy. I don't know if you know. Philly's got a little bit of that Factory Town vibe. They can register in my dojo, Factory Town MMA, anytime they want. All right, Luke? Well, I'll tell you, Vinny Pass, Jedi Mind Tricks, Army

of the Pharaoharaohs most of them are all from philly so reef the lost cause uh planetary crypt the war child all those guys yeah all my friends i guess i don't know if i'd get down with vinny pass luke i don't know if it's my why i gotta say why because he's muslim oh really really luke really we're going there i mean come on uh i hang out with you and you're that's it for me that's it for my stories bc what do you got no more i'm not putting my i'm not digging any more holes what do we got what's next luke what's next in this show that's it it's uh i think it's your wednesday wheel fuck face yeah it is all right f face yeah here we go so here's the deal we do every wednesday people really seem to love this

even though it's bizarre and weird um luke is kind of a filthy prick and doesn't let me ask the questions that I want to during this show, so we've created a segment built around that. The entire premise of this segment is ass. I want you to know that. I want you to know, though, Luke, you do mail in. I don't know if you get tired or bored, but you mail in two out of five of every questions each week. I need good faith

responses to decently faith questions. Okay, fair enough. I don't think you're wrong when you say i mail in two of these i do mail in two of these and i know it's your segment you want to run it your way but you got to meet me halfway a little bit dude the intros are too long yeah but they really frame a picture they really set a scene they frame a picture of where well then if you want to keep painting that picture then keep getting two out of five phoned in i mean i don't know what else to tell you wow such a dick though luke you know i do put a lot of time into this segment it may seem i know you do and i want to answer them wipe my balls and smell it you're reading me bedtime

stories before every fucking question okay luke maybe maybe i'm trying to maybe i'm trying to get you somewhere okay oh let's run the animation, please. All right, all right. There it is. Wheel of Death. All right. Ten categories. Luke will spin it metaphorically five times, and he gets what he gets.

Your categories this week are Brawl's Bonanza, Abuela's Favorite Paul Brother, Jazz Music and Other Puntang Catnip. Play that funky music. Jazz is not Puntang Catnip. Play that funky music. Jazz is not Puntang catnip. Grand Prix identity theft. Pound for Pound, still an asshole. Impossible meat curtains. Burying BC.

The legend of Baron Barau and Josh Thompson conspiracy theories. Well, impossible meat curtains. That is an interesting one. That is an interesting one. Lucas, on you, you get what you get. All right, let's spin this fucker.

Here we go. Let's see. Brawl's Bonanza. All right, this one's not so bad. This one sounds okay. All right, Luke, it goes without saying that our kids are growing up in a much softer society than you and I did for

better or worse, and that definitely extends down to pro sports watching. Luke, in our day, even pro athletes settled their beefs the old-fashioned way, grabbing hold of someone and punching them straight in the damn mouth. From the Palace Brawl to Yankees Orioles in 97 to Nolan Ryan

making Robin Ventura regret he ever thought he was tough enough to rush the mound. Heck, even the Redskins got involved, Luke, when Michael Westbrook sent Stephen Davis to the deep, dark depths. And every sports fan from our era seems to have that one fight they saw in real time. And it's their go-to reference when thinking back on the way sports used to be. Which fight is that for you what were the circumstances in which you watched it and what ways have you constantly referenced it or been reminded of it in the ensuing years well you kind of stole my thunder a little bit in the way that you set it up um well because i knew you would go well what are we talking about here bc so i gave you a few examples in the question no it's fair enough but I think the biggest one I'd be I mean there's been

some big ones for sure but the biggest one has got to be malice at the palace so I was living in New York City at the time and I was a bouncer and I bounced on the night at a sports bar on the Upper West Side not quite a sports bar but kind of a sports bar on the Upper West Side. Not quite a sports bar, but kind of a sports bar. On the Upper West Side off of Amsterdam Avenue. And I was outside. It was cold that day, if I remember. What was the exact day of Ballast of the Palace? I don't remember the day.

But it was at night. Obviously, I was bouncing. And I'll never forget because I heard some commotion. And I could see through the glass all the TVs inside. I actually could watch the game if there was no one November 19th 2004. So you can imagine November in New York is a little bit chilly and

I remember there was commotion and people were like yelling so I thought immediately something was going on in the bar and then I run in the bar to make sure everything's okay and everyone is watching this shit and i'll never forget i forgot jermaine o'neill punched somebody but it that wasn't the fat dude the fat dude in the fat dude with the jersey on laid him out people don't

understand it's like people don't know who jermaine o'neill is anymore that guy was like what like six nine six ten he was like a 6'11 center legit also dude I so I've never told the story my first job out of college this is a true story you see my very first job out of college was I was a waiter in Williamsburg just the summer after I graduated just you know I wanted I didn't want to move home before getting a job in a big city I just wanted to stay in Williamsburg so I got a job as a waiter at a steakhouse. I actually made pretty good money. And then I moved to New York city in that October. And, um, um, I forgot where I was going with this fucking story. Jesus. Um, anyway, long story short, BC, I forgot where I was going with the fucking story. Uh,

no, I don't remember long story short BC. I fucked this one up but that one is most notable for me because i jump inside to the bar everyone is looking and i just sat there and watched all of the replays over and over about fucking meta world peace or you know whatever his real name is anymore on our test run our test jumping into the audience oh this was my real story dude people don't understand how big nba players are so i moved to new york city i got a job as like the uh like daily manager of security at cartier on fifth avenue i actually worked at that bitch okay it was fucking crazy and rashid wallace came in one time now rashid wallace a guy who played for the Pistons, who was happy to fucking knuckle up with anybody. Dude, he's thin.

He was enormous. I couldn't believe how big he was. And I'm not a small guy. He was fucking enormous. So these guys rolling up on NBA players. Dude, everyone in the bar was either horrified or, like me, grinning ear to ear. Because I, too, have wanted to beat the fuck out of fans at sporting events for many, many years

and watching Jermaine O'Neal, who's like 260, fucking 6'10", bah, bah on some fat guy just thinking he is way more than he is. Honestly, I knew it was a black eye for the NBA. You could just watch that and be like, dude, this is fucking terrible if you're the NBA. And then me being like, dude, I have been waiting for players to turn on the fans for 20 plus years.

Some of these fans had it coming. Look, that one guy that threw the shit, he had it coming and he was trying to punch around. Yeah, but they beat up the one guy who didn't do anything. I know. So the guy you fear the most is that white dude in like five rows up that Steven Jackson of all the smoke jumped and went after and that fear on his face as, as Jacko was coming at him. But look,

the guy you talked about, the Jermaine O'Neal lined up, our producer was just like, he almost killed that guy. If you go back and watch that, if O'Neal didn't slip on the way to lining that guy up, I actually think he would have like Rudy Tomjanovich. I think he would have like,

might've just straight killed him. Because he slipped, he lost some leverage, but he still followed through with his seven-foot frame and just buried the guy. Wow, Maneet's saying his little brother. I remember. How about this one? I also remember. I don't know why it's the NBA ones I remember.

I remember when Jeff Van Gundy bit the ankles of Alonzo Mourning. I was going ape shit, like swinging at the TV going because it was LJ versus Zoe. They were teammates and brothers and they went after it. I gotta put the JoJo English Derek Harper fight from the 94 playoffs at Chicago Stadium in this one

because it went into the second row and David Stern was sitting right there and it was like oh my god, this shit's out of control. Nothing will beat the palace brawl. Luke, I was in a bar with two friends and we were sitting alone in the corner, looking at the TV and going crazy. We watched it in real time and just like,

because look, it was so surreal. It was like video, not even video game or movie. Like you just felt like you were on another planet that this, that the lines had been crossed. And then I turned around at one point and there was like 300 people around me watching it was like the whole bar just shifted over and they were directly behind me that was some intense shit and not everybody was gets off good in that

i mean the fans were out of control when they were dousing the players as they were going in the tunnel with like soda and they're just getting full-on facials i mean that was there was a there's a lot of blame on both sides but you know who I really think is the MVP in that? Remember that fat dude that came onto the court in the Pistons jersey? Not the one that got laid out, but he went toe-to-toe with Ron Artest. Like, if you come on the court, you're putting yourself in a position to get maimed. And he actually rolled with Artest's two-piece, right? He rolled with it and countered back.

Like, that dude was ready, all right? A little bit. Also, I forget who the—I think he was dominican the pitcher for the when he pitched for the red socks then he pitched yeah he pitched for the red socks and then the pitching coach of the yankees charged him don zimmer and he fucking olaid him on the field pedro martinez pedro martinez one of the outside great pitchers yeah yeah he's not that that Dominican guy where I come from, Luke. I know. Sorry, I forget his name because my memory doesn't work like it used to.

But when he O-laid him, I was there for that one as well. I remember that one being like, Jesus Christ, that one's pretty bad. And there was other brawls in that game too. Those were the good times, Luke. Those times are over. All right, Luke, spin number two coming your way. Oh, Jesus. hey all right luke hey man i know we aren't supposed to be talking about them damn paul brothers anymore on this show but they simply can't stop won't stop making headlines to the point luke that eventually your own damn abuela is going to take notice and know who they are. So that's how this thing works, Luke. But I want to do with you for this question is play

a little TV ratings experiment, if you will. We all expect the June 6th fight between Floyd and Logan Paul to do gangbusters on Showtime pay-per-view, especially after the gotcha hat episode in Miami last week. But let's imagine for a second, Luke, that ViacomCBS changed lanes and said, you know what? We want a different approach to gambling on how big this fight can be. We want to present this on the Tiffany Network for free. Floyd Logan on BigCBS in order to properly gauge, Luke, what that might do for peak viewership. Let's say they did that gamble. It's unaffordable to do that, but let's say they're going after the ad revenue and they're like, let's just do it. We need to sort of see how much that could actually sell. As you know, Luke, in the

cord cutting era, things are changing quick. The quarantine sports ratings are down. More people are watching Netflix streaming stuff than ever before. So it's all over the place right now. So as a point of reference, Luke, let me tell you this. Super Bowl 55 just did 96 million views, which was actually a 10-year, 13-year low. The Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah did 49 million views. College Football Championship, 18. College Hoops, 17. Academy Awards, 10 million. Masked Singer debut, 5 million holloway cater on abc luke

1.6 million what number could floyd and logan realistically do on sunday night june 6th if it were placed on free tv i think it would do and i'm glad you read those numbers for context because I'm familiar with them. I would say, promoted correctly on the Tiffany Network at the right time of day, I think you could probably do between $20 and $30 million. I think you could get about what you would get for a big NFL game.

That'd be more than twice what the NBA finals got this year. Although it was obviously a down year for a lot of different reasons. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, listen, sports ratings for the most part are down across the board.

And so, you know, there's things you have to, uh, not, not, it's not totally true, but there's been,

it's mostly true. And so, you know, you have to kind of amend things. Jesus Christ. But I would say that for me, um, yeah,

I think you could, I think it would beat think it would beat the college football national championship. But 40, 50 mil, that seems a little high. Okay, that's fair enough. Is that Steven Espinosa telling you that this will not be happening under any circumstances, Luke? Yeah, actually, that was him calling right now. We just got fired, it turns out. So we can just wrap up things. The JonBenet Patreon show will be on after this.

All right, Luke, third spin. Let's get through this thing. Let's do it. All right, spin this fucker. All right, here we go. Play that funky music, White Boar. Luke, I've tried and I've tried to have competent music discussions with you since we first became friends in MK Salesman together.

You fucking arrogant. Dude, you like the most sit down when you pee music I've ever heard from a man. This question is designed to give you the chance to rebut, okay, Luke? Because unless you and I are talking about 90s grunge or classic hip hop, there's sadly very little in which our musical tastes intersect i like a little bit of heavy metal but i'm not going down the road to abortion rock and school shooting playlists okay i love me some artsy stuff like jazz infusion but you know i'm a classic rock guy i'm an indie rock guy americana folk all that

good stuff luke you hate all things that are great apparently like jerry garcia's guitar tone but luke sucks i want to give you this chance like if we hung out it's i've been in the car with you we don't really have a middle ground luke okay when you're in my lilith fair mobile with me and you're like could i could i've programmed my phone to your radio so i can control this and put on some screaming shit um i worry lu Luke, sometimes that you have no idea how great music was from the late 60s and all of the 70s and very different genres and that you were raised in some kind of communist alternate music reality. So, Luke, I refuse to give up on you, though. Something inside of me knows you can have better taste.

So to prove that, share with me five different albums that you currently own in some physical form cassette cd vinyl that were made before 1985 that you and i could potentially put on together and rock out with and have some actually productive musical discussions about kill them all metallica okay uh ride the lightning metallica Kill Em All, Metallica. Okay. Ride the Lightning, Metallica. So you're hogging close to that 85 thing. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, BC. Hang on, hang on. Hang on. Ozzy.

No, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm trying to think here. Because the thing is, I mean, if I was just naming albums before 85, it's not that hard, but ones that I own. Yeah, man. That's where it gets a little challenging. I mean, do you have Led Zeppelin 1 on CD somewhere?

I mean, what are you holding, Luke? Is it all bullshit? Let's see. I've got all the Beatles. So, I mean, you could count any of those if you wanted. And you're an educated understander of what's going on there. I love the Beatles. You've never heard me once talk badly about the Beatles.

Have you ever heard me say anything bad about them? I'd love to do a Room Service Diaries Beatles edition with you one time. Dude, we could do that shit. I'm down. Trust me. That's not hard. So you could throw those in there. But if I was thinking, hold on.

I want to tell you, because I have all their albums, but I'm not sure of the date. So give me just a second here. Let me look up one of these and see what their discography does in terms of years. Because I'm not expecting you to get into my jazz fusion, Luke, but I've got to be able to talk about rock and roll with you that doesn't involve a flying V guitar sped up at thinking about Satan and shit. I mean, come on, Luke. So I have all of the albums ever made by Depeche Mode.

See, I'm very under-touched on that. So that's where I'm at. I've got a blind spot, Luke, okay? You don't like Depeche Mode? Depeche Mode is just to me incredible. So I would add Construction Time Again, A Broken Frame, maybe to those conversations. I'll throw in one more that I've got that I own.

What's the one from pre-84 that i own i mean you could jam you have like back in black by acdc do you have uh i used to i don't know if i have it anymore i mean for sure i haven't we meet luke do we meet at queen zeppelin hendrix i mean i don't know i don't know oh you know what we you know where we meet here's where we intersect stevie ray vaughn okay that's where we intersect yes yes okay that's okay i've got i don't know if i have all of his stuff but i've got most of it it's all upstairs i have to take a look but any of his work with double trouble i've got um so i'm not sure what album is pre-84 because i can't recall the top of my head most of his is pre-84, because I can't recall off the top of my head. Most of his are pre-84, including his debut, which is one of the best debuts in rock history.

There's no doubt about it. Yeah, so he had stuff from Flood, the Texas Flood. It was 83. There you go. That would be my fifth, Texas Flood. Okay. All right, Luke. I feel like I'm getting to know you a little bit more.

I like this side of you, okay? Yeah. Also, your taste in music, it does suck, just so you know. No, I'm just so evolved and so willing to take chances right now that I'm just, oh, I'm touching all the things. You're so evolved. Is that why you're listening to music from the 80s? Because you're evolved?

Classic Rock Radio lied to us, Luke. Anyway, you got two more spins. Let's take this thing home, Luke. All right, let's spin this bitch. You get what you get. That's how this works. All right, let's spin this bitch. You get what you get. That's how this works. All right, let's see. Still an asshole.

All right. Pound for pound. Still an asshole. Luke, I'm pretty sure you don't give a damn about anyone's pound for pound list on anything, including the newly updated CBS Sports boxing rankings, which have Canelo Alvarez number one with a bullet following his dismantling on Saturday. Luke, you're just not really a fun person who enjoys fruitful debate,

even though you're in the sports talk business. Fruitful debate. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I don't like debating dumb shit things. That's right. You don't like to debate things that can't be substantiated with science and facts.

You know, I get it. Yes, that's right, because you can't debate those. That's right. Well right you're an old bitch because of that but luckily for the fans we have the wheel of death luke so this week's good faith response to a decently faith pound for pound question centers upon those who work the microphone in the combat sports space i'm talking right now regardless of network affiliation connection to this, and regardless of whether they do play-by-play, color, sideline reporting, even studio host. Think about those jobs in your head. Who is Luke Thomas' top five pound-for-pound best combat sports announcers of right now, not all time, right now, counting down from five to one? I'll give you a minute to think about it, Luke, but again, not in all time, Just in this moment right now.

Are we counting both play-by-play and color? I believe I just said that, Luke. I believe I just friggin' said play-by-play colors. Okay, well, it's kind of dumb to have them on one list. Sideline reporting, studio hosts, Luke. Okay, I mean, this is not that hard. It's a bad idea to have them all on one list, but okay. Because we've got a lot of time here to kill, Luke.

I would say, let me think about that for a second. It's a bad idea to have them all on one list, but okay. Because we've got a lot of time here to kill, Luke. I mean, come on. I would say, let me think about that for a second. I mean, I also could be in your list, Luke. You know, I am eligible. Yeah, you're not on my list. I am eligible at a few different locations for this category. I mean, I'm eligible to be the president of mit i don't know i mean i'm on the ballot is what i'm saying luke okay yeah you're the

write-in name for governor you know how i voted for governor brian campbell that's what i mean i'm on the ballot a couple couple times luke so just you know so let me say the ones who i know are top five and then we can arrange them see you, you always do this. I want your top five in order. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. So there's Anik is in play. Mauro is in play.

Dominic Cruz is in play. Man, that's a tough one. Oh, I'll say Chiavello is in play for me. I like him a lot. I think he's very good. Above Andre Ward? Above... Oh, fuck the boxing guys.

Shit. Above... I mean, come on, man. Yeah, you know what? Okay, so I'll go Anik. I'll go Mauro. I'll go Cruz. I do like Andre Ward.

He is excellent. And I will like Andre Ward. He is excellent. And I will go See, some of the names I would have gone before are out. Like where would Kellerman, where would Roy Jones Jr. have gone? Fair. Lampley, yeah. I'll go Bernstein 5. I'll go Bernstein 5. I think he's very talented.

Very company safe move, but he did reinvent himself on Triller, so shout out to Uncle Al for that. So who's your number one right now, pound for pound, Luke? I think Anik. I think Anik's on a roll, you know? Wow. No, I'm not going to debate that.

I think people are realizing finally. I mean, dude, when he first started doing this, people were not a fan of his. I mean, that may sound insane to folks who are new to the sport. People didn't hate him exactly, but they were a little bit iffy about him. People loved Goldberg, which is something I've just never understood ever at any point in my life. But over time, I think Anik has slowly but surely won people over.

And now, to me, I think he's probably the gold standard of MMA broadcast. I think Mauro, to me me is more well-rounded by far he can do kickboxing he can do boxing he can do mma pro wrestling to me he's the most versatile and overall the most talented but locked on mma broadcasts dude annex hard to beat bro joe i like joe tessitore more than you too by the way you like what joe tessitore. I used to love Tessitore. He's got great energy for big moments. He's great in the big moment, and he's very smooth. It's just that that whole broadcast and somehow award has kind of stayed out of this, has become so much a cheerleader for their own product where it's gone a little too far.

And you could say that about a lot of entities right now, especially in boxing where you're so tied to one network. UFC is obviously pro-UFC up and down, right? like i mean it kind of comes with the territory in some regard but um it's been a little bit too much like oh bud crawford's on this week so he's our palm for pound king oh lomachenko's on next week he's now our palm for punk he's been a little bit of that too much you know yeah but that's not tessitore's call is it that's the producer's call i don't know i don't know but it's part of the deal i'm big sergio mora guy i love todd grisham think they might have the best chemistry.

Oh, they're good. Yeah, they're good. They're good. I mean, look, if you had top 10, top 15, there's a lot of really good ones you can name. I guess I just mean, you know, like, by the way, who would be your top three non-combat sports? Top three.

I can tell you mine right away. I don't watch pro sports on the regular anymore right now. I would have to go more like over the last 20 years luke okay he'll be brown um he'll be doc emmerich doc's insanely good yeah kirk herb street to me is about as flawless a broadcaster you're gonna find and then i'd add the guy who the the jeff van gundy fucking broadcasts with Mark Jackson or whatever. They're fucking terrible. I agree with you on that.

I agree fully on that, actually. Who's the third one that's really good? Dude, Hubie Brown, 15 years, 10 years ago. Insanely great. What's... Yeah, I just lost my mind. Who's the most underrated combat sports commentator ever? Tony Romo's pretty amazing right now, Luke.

You don't want to jump on that CBS turn. Romo's really good. If you guys have never seen the Pride that took place in Las Vegas, Pride 37 or whatever it was when Nick fought Takanori Gomi, it was commentated by Josh Barnett and a guy who has done a lot of other work. His name is Lon McCarron. It's spelled Lon McKeachern, but it's pronounced Lon McCarron. Dude, Lon McCarron is awesome. He did McKeachern, but it's pronounced Lon McCarron. Dude, Lon McCarron is awesome.

He did ISKA kickboxing forever on ESPN, and then he became the voice of ESPN's poker coverage during the boom. That's right. He was good at that, too. All right, Luke. Hey, Luke, you've got one more spin, and I hope to make your top five next year.

You've got one more spin, Luke. Go for it. All right, let's see. Spin. I don't know. Has this been a debacle this week? We'll let the people decide. Burying BC.

Boy, there is no one who will cry victim quicker than you. Unbelievable. Luke, my wife and I always try our best to have those important yet uncomfortable conversations together, even if one of us is hesitant about the subject matter for example her wish that is that if something happens to her i would remarry and seek happiness and companionship despite her tragic exit luke i hate when she when she has talks like that but you know it might be important so luke i had to have untimely and intense thoughts

of the same about our own editorial marriage. Remember that time in Backus Hospital waiting room a few months ago when your gallbladder nearly- When you left me? Your gallbladder nearly ended this MK experiment, and I had to come to terms in that moment that this could be the best thing that ever happened in my career, and it could be over, Luke. Okay? So keep that in mind.

This segment isn't about me. It's about you, Luke. Or maybe it's more about how I might plan to move on or how you might plan to move on in my absence. Yes, Luke. Let's flip the script. Imagine right now that I'm one gas station hot dog away from my own quick and painful exit. In fact, that could be in play. We don't really know, Luke. I don't let too many people see under the hood. But let's say I pass, Luke. 42. He had a good run.

Okay? For 48 hours, I'm sure that sadness takes over the combat sports headlines. Aspiring artist and broadcaster, BC, he's dead. You know, leaves behind a great family. Quote in the obituary from Luke, he had so many dreams

for global domination in this space he is a man who will be remembered for believing in the power of his own art and what it could do to others luke thomas said uh luke this morbid question surrounds how you following a time of necessary grieving would attempt to move on had your co-host gone the way of other rock stars in the respective fields who were gone too soon like hendrix cobain the kennedys bias former yankees pilot cory liddle how would you honor luke the memory of bc in the immediate aftermath and how might mk move forward if at all following such an untimely swerve to this show's history well i've got good news for you and bad news i'll start with the bad news the bad news is bc you can compare

yourself to fucking lynn bias or hendrix all you want your passing would be the saddest but yet the most mundane ever thing ever it'd be like oh hey this guy had a stroke taking a dump in the mcdonald's bathroom that's how they'd find you you understand that hey this guy was napping in his car in his lunch break and he got carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage that's that's what your death would be meanwhile like jody fucking whoever would be playing on your you know little affair uh cd on your car joni mitchell joni mitchell would be joni mitchell whoever the fuck uh she's talented but okay point being is this your death is not glamorous or otherwise interesting the good news so to speak is that if you were to pass untimely that would be it for any duos i would ever do i

don't have any plans to have another partnership after this one you would be editorially celibate for the rest of your life to honor me and what that's right well not to honor you just but bc because you are a detestable awful person but we work we just work and look is this because you honor what we have made together because you realize i'm the only one who could have put up with you at the highest level uh little column a little column b little little you know i like to i like to fish around on the menu when it's dim sum wednesdays um yeah listen i'm not interested in a lot of partnerships you know that bc i don't make a lot of friends i don't have a lot of acquaintances so when i do they're ones that really matter to me this one really matters to me so if you were to croak like my cat probably is about to um i'm not getting another cat i wouldn't get i'm not trying to get another bc

i'm not trying to do this over again i just go back to making solo content that's it okay all right luke that's that's a mundane sad ending but you know and i may or may not smoke reefer at your funeral i would i probably uh here's the key question, Luke. Would the episodes average more hits or less hits across the board? I mean, that's really the key equation. Probably more. That's like when you play the game Clue. You play the whole stupid game just to find out what's in that little envelope. Probably more.

Yeah, what are you going to do? All right. Oh, fuck. My headphones died. Hang on. I've got to switch them out. I can't hear anything. For great production, always try MK All right. Oh, fuck. My headphones died. Hang on. I've got to switch them out. I can't hear anything.

Another, you know, for great production, always try MK, right? No, never. There we go. No. So, Luke, that's the damn wheel this week. I don't know if it survives another week, but it's fun watching. When the wheel is in person, this one's iron, this one's steel. If this don't get you, this one wheel. I like it in person.

Okay. Okay. Okay. uh luke we got another segment each week we got an email address for it too called uh morningcombatgmail.com where you can send in your picks your suggestions your correction no corrections are friday but you get what i'm saying uh every week we got mail it's fan submissions, and it's from you, the people. All right, let's see what these jabronis got. All right, I just want to remind you, they don't send this in, but I love these people so much that I put this on the show. Shout out to at Bill and Jen's RV Adventure on Instagram.

Luke, they're continuing a tour of the great Southwest, and this is Bill and Jen at Hoover Dam, in which they are both rocking some fine mk 1.0 merch maybe because you know they're only they're only have room for a couple outfits in that in that camper or maybe because they love us luke but shout out just the same living the best american life i can possibly imagine yeah bill's bill's beard is getting like mine a little bit a little bit white in there you know yep he's getting washed too but he has a nice life all right we got another great listener luke you've heard of this guy before the great antoine of alaska he recently dropped everything in california moved north to alaska luke i've been trading dms with him this guy's a wild man he's

they say for 680 stood this is him rocking the Alaskan peaks wearing the green MK sweatshirt. Your thoughts? Is this what he wore when he went into Speaker Pelosi's office? Yes, Luke. And then he defecated on her desk. Thank you, Antoine. I heard about those guys. I love our people.

Dan Sillyfan from England, another guy who slides in a lot, shows off his cat. Luke, this is my favorite cat in Europe right now. Damn. That's Millie, and he's an old bastard. He's like 17 or whatever, 14, sorry. And he can't get enough of MK, so I always get some updates on Millie's life there.

Great-looking cat, Luke, right? Bro, that cat has the most cat face ever. Yeah, look at those two pussies on the screen. Oh, come on. And his face is a dick and balls, too. Look at that. Yeah, he's the best. Love that guy. All right. Hey, Average Joe Art is back showing us some home renovations,

but you already know he isn't missing some MK despite it, Luke. Can we zoom in on this? Check this out, Luke. Yeah, he's got us on bc which of the mk logos on that set was your favorite uh probably the one that said bell uh bellator yes yes that one yeah yeah that was my favorite mk logo you gotta love though the the i mean we got another dm from the guy who runs cte society the other day. Luke, I forgot to grab it, but he was on vacation, and he was still watching MK on the balcony.

So shout out to these people. And he was in some tropical, I don't know, but it looked nice where CTE Society was at. So shout out to that dude. He was probably spending some illegal offshore betting money to secure that. So well done on that regard. Luke Arthur slides in. He says, what's up luke and bbc rocking

some of the mk merch 1.0 at santa anita park in arcadia california the shirt is great and i'm happy to support the best combat sports show around thank you guys for all the hard work and great coverage mk all day nearly every day two words we out hey how about arthur he gets us there look he look at i think he's been in the gym too luke right you know what i was gonna say this is one of our more normal looking listeners and viewers i'm happy to see that uh not all of them look like they could have been um what was his face in that oh god what was his name jared leto in that creepy ass movie he just made yes yes uh i saw that creepy ass movie this was all right it

was all right it was all right yeah uh that's a beautiful backdrop if you've ever been to arcadia california absolutely gorgeous love that area uh all right luke tom p is here he says this is for bc not for luke you're on notice lucas that is fucking wow hilarious i am seeing this for the first time. That is awesome. Dude, I've been in this fucking subway stop a million times. Dude, that's well done. That's art. Super well done.

That's a piece of damn art there. You're damn right. You're damn right I got that thing we're talking about, too. So, well, wow. Yes, Luke. Yes. Yes. Yes. Josh M. says,

I put the pint glass to use tonight to test out a sour beer recipe. It's pretty solid if you like sours and you don't even taste the tequila so you can get fucked up. Next time I'd like to find crushed ice instead of the bag shit from the store. Think it would thicken up nicer

like a true fro-kazoo margarita. What the hell is this guy talking about? Usually I drink them on the rocks, not rocks not blended hey thanks for sending in your recipe and for using our mk glass but that's some long-winded bullshit right luke also he has the ninja blender i also have a ninja blender and i like it all right all right thank you for supporting our team there brother josh m i like that uh todd is here. He says, hey, guys, this might be getting into the meta fan fiction realm, but last week Scott M. had an interesting speed bag in his fan art. Cheers, Todd and SD.

I don't know if you could use that speed bag all that well, but at least one nut hangs lower than the other there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Scott Rizzo for that. That's a true 45-year-old man man's nutsack just leathery and imbalanced do you see that guy's balls they were gross yeah yeah luke indeed okay uh at johnny plasma four three two one luke i made the uh speedball brutal deluxe reference which only people who had a pc in the late 80s know.

And this man, Johnny Plasma, made a Speedball 2 poster, Luke, with you and I on the cover. Did you ever play either of those? Are we really on the cover? Yeah, I mean, it was poorly done. This ain't a Web Scream original here, right? Yeah, no, I've never played Speedball. It was a futuristic robot soccer mixed with other sports game

in which there's a metal ball and you're wearing armor and you can kill the other people and score goals it's fantastic luke okay what was your favorite game as a kid baseball stars on nintendo and uh nhl 94 on sega are tied for the best ever in my personal opinion yeah those are good you're you you um super mar Mario 3 was the real first one I ever just spent a ton of time on. It was amazing, Luke. Yes. Legend of Zelda. Because 2, Luke, Super Mario 2 was a little weird, right?

I mean, it was good, but it was weird. Yeah, 3 was like that first real innovative leap I thought that they had taken. Yeah. Obviously, after the first one. So that was a big one for me. Obviously, in the arcades one. So that was a big one for me. Obviously in the arcades, Mortal Kombat 2 was a big one for me. But at home, Battletoads was big in my house.

Dude, I've played so much fucking Duck Hunt. Oh my god, Duck Hunt for days. Duck Hunt's basic. That's white belt shit. Luke, Jerry Glanville's Pigskin Football. I had it on Sega. I've played it with friends as recently as four or five years ago. It's medieval football in which you can stab people and score and stuff.

I mean, it's an incredible game. It's like full-field rugby kill-em football. It's fantastic. So wait, it's like when Ray Lewis played for the Ravens? Oh, wow. I believe he was exonerated. He was an accessory at best. football it's fantastic so wait it's like when ray lewis played for the ravens oh wow i believe he was exonerated like he was an accessory at best all right we can't joke about murders now is that a thing no cancel culture jesus i got bleeped out for way less luke all right let's keep it rolling here mike n says day one subscriber huge fan keep doing everything you do. God. You guys are gassing up this zero.

I mean, I'll just say this. That Bo Jackson picture with the fucking football pads and the helmet. I'm sorry, the bat. That's maybe the coolest picture ever taken of an athlete. It's pretty fucking spectacular. The fact that they sullied it by putting your pasty country time pink lemonade swollen distended face on there really i gotta tell you i mean i was offended after after the first two then you just kept going with it oh that's i mean that's a face that that's a face that belongs in like a tackle

box before a deep sea fishing event i mean i am a little fat and pasty and a rock lobster some days. Who isn't? We're all fucking washed. Hey, we got one more. Let's bring back in the master, the legend, the greatest fan this show's ever known, Web Scream, who celebrated, I think it was a week and a half ago,

the debut of the morning combat movie with our faces on the poster. Luke, somebody else had run this a few weeks ago. Such a good job with this. But his work is incredible. Look at this, Luke. Yeah, dude, that's the real deal Holyfield right there. That looks amazing.

I could put that on my wall. I know I keep saying that. Let me ask you, would you rather be Scorpion or would you rather be Sub-Zero? Sub-Zero. I'm down with that. I'm down with that, Luke. But here's the thing.

See, I never know how you feel about this scorpion is from hell i think if i got the general the genesis of his story yeah i seek the light you know that already though yeah but like a he loses in the modern movie and then also isn't sub-zero supposed to have like a cold heart wouldn't i be that guy he's kind of like the villain you know that's true there's a little bit of both of the dastardly guys there in you which says a lot about you i like quickly you would move on what i'm saying i like that shit you know part of that question the wheel of death was how you would honor bc and you you didn't you didn't honor bc's death at all luke i mean that was just like how would i honor it i'd probably fart on the couch with my pants off

and eat Taco Bell. I mean. All right. All right. You could pour one out for me or something. I don't know. All right. I'd rub one out for boredom is really what I would do.

Wow. Please use the offhand next time. Luke, here's what I got to say. That is your fan submissions. Morning Combat at gmail.com is your future and always home if you want to send in that dead wrong will be friday uh you know you know how this works already here's the thing the ones we got we got you we love you we need more though so please tell your friends about this show like and subscribe to this video i can't stress it enough the next two months are going to be bat shit crazy for combat sports we'll see a lot of fun and wild fights from hardcore lovers to over-the-top Floyd and Logans, right?

And MK is going to be there at a lot of these places, a lot of these stops on the journey, Luke. This show is going to take off in the next two months like we will never have imagined before, Luke. If you think I'm intolerable now, either on screen or off, get ready for the future. In the, you know uh behind the music documentary luke we're right before the tip and then pretty soon we're going to get in the car with vince neal and razzle and one of us are not coming back so um get ready luke it's coming okay i mean eventually if you die i'm gonna do what van halen did i'm gonna replace you with sammy hagar we're just gonna see how that goes don't't Gary Cherone my ass. Luke, there's no replacing me, but I will say this, Luke.

I wonder if you and I will get Mike in the Mad Dog level at some point. We'll piss each other off on screen or I'll do an interview somewhere and I'll say something that went too far and then we'll no longer talk in real life. We'll take uh transportation to the events and you know the only converse we'll do is on this show one day luke will be there but until then luke i love you i love you too fuck face uh okay let's do this let's plug the merch that doesn't exist although this exists you can go to store.show.com you can get the old merch that definitely exists you just have to be within frisbee throwing distance of the actual manufacturer there in whatever place it's made um because they attach it to the frisbee

and they just throw it so if you can't catch it what are you gonna do um if you want to try show time 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not just go fuck yourself but if you want to really take the plunge show.com slash slash Bellator MMA. There's your URL right there. You can sign up. Get the first six months for five bucks a month. I mean, it's like a latte at Starbucks. What are you doing with your life? And let's see.

BC, when are you... Hold on a second. I got my live chat tomorrow. When are you traveling for folks who have been living under a rock? We talked about it at the beginning of the show and some other ones. BC is filling in for the legendary Jim Gray on Saturday's broadcast out in California. When do you travel for that? I'll be traveling tomorrow, Luke. And I'm going to bring it.

I'm going to get in your top five. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to absolutely bring it. Excited. Luis Neri and Brandon Figueroa for the 122 title with Stephen Fulton Jr. on deck. This is going to be some fun. Luke, you know already that the old StubHub Center,

they call it Dignity Health Sports Park now in Carson, California, right? The tennis arena there. Nothing but magic happens in that ring when two fighters show up there. And I do think Saturday's main event has a chance to be really special. Not in a Rio Salvarado fight

for your life, but in a high-paced fight with a lot at stake and two skilled guys coming after it, Luke. Talked to Neary yesterday. He said we don't need a referee or judges. It's going to be a knockout. So let's do this. Let's do this, Luke, okay? Neary, from what I've seen, big-time power.

Figueroa doesn't really use his size, but loves to fight on the inside. Both of them don't mind trading a little bit, so that one should be to your point. I don't know who's going to win, but it's got action written all over it. High pace. High pace. It's going to be fun.

Super high pace, yeah. High volume. His division's on fire, and Showtime's done a real nice job propping it up, so I'm happy about it. Yeah, it should be fun. So congrats on that gig. It should be a good time to watch as well. Let's see again.

Live chat tomorrow. BC, even though he is traveling tomorrow, he will be fun. So congrats on that gig. It should be a good time to watch as well. Let's see. Live chat tomorrow. BC, even though he is traveling tomorrow, he will be on Friday's show. So we'll get you ready for all the weekend's action on Friday. As is per usual, like the video, hit subscribe. That's it for us today. All right. So thank you to CBS Sports, Showtime, Malka, who make this possible. BC, safe travels.

I'll talk to you on Friday. And until everyone else, for everyone else, I should say, until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. you