MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Jacksonville | Smith vs. Teixeira | Overeem vs. Harris | MORNING KOMBAT Extra

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Luke and Brian are back with a special Morning Kombat Extra to break down everything that happened during last night's UFC event in Jacksonville. They also preview the upcoming event that will take place this Saturday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. 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. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm one half of this hosting duo. You know the gentleman on the other side of the screen. You probably have DM'd him very, very horrific things. It is the one and only Brian Campbell. Hold on, Brian. Why are we hearing the feed all of a sudden, 15 seconds later? This is more of a Jay problem than a me problem. Jay, we can hear the feed from 15 seconds ago. It's real bad. Yeah, maybe not do that. Yeah, we're live. Please don't do that yeah no i can't i can't do that

i can't hear it all right uh we wanted to we wanted to uh yeah luke it's actually on you this is great guys it's great why don't why don't we start over at the top oh we're live we're live all right well luke i'll take it from here uh yeah look morning combat's so good you know we wanted to to give you this taste a second time this week. Just get it on the lips. It's just, oh, man, you know. And the fight schedule helped us do that this week, Luke, as we're in the midst of UFC's ambitious eight crazy nights,

three fight cards from Jacksonville. How are you feeling? We stayed up late last night. We're up early this morning. I can still see some crust in your eye. I bet you're very ornery. How are you feeling? We stayed up late last night. We're up early this morning. I can still see some crust in your eye. I bet you're very ornery. How are you feeling, LT? I look like trash.

I look terrible. My daughter didn't sleep at all. She threw up in the middle of the night. I can't hear the guy. I mean, this is great. This is great theater. Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. Here we go.

There you can hear me now. You should be able to hear me just fine. We had two technical snafus, but we're okay. To answer your question, I feel like ass. My daughter threw up in the middle of the night and I didn't sleep, so it was a bit of a rough one. But I got to tell you, I did stay up. I did watch the fights.

I was going to do a post-fight show on my YouTube channel last night, and I just decided, you know what? I'm going to save all the goodness for this one. And so I didn't do it because I wanted to make sure I came fresh. Let me just explain what this's going to be like what this is going to be about today morning combat on Monday this is where we do like you know we have all the different graphics and we have the dms from donks and have you seen this shit everything else today we're going to have just a fight discussion sort of looser but we're going to recap everything that we saw we're going

to preview I guess the next UFC Jacksonville card I guess we're calling to recap everything that we saw. We're going to preview, I guess, the next UFC Jacksonville card. I guess we're calling them all UFC Jacksonville. So without further ado, BC, let's sort of get to it if we can out of the technical snafus behind us. And by the way, I have to apologize. That was my error. It wasn't Jay's. Thank you.

Thank you. At least somebody got the score right. Yes, it's MKUltra, bare-bones, stripped down. Luke, you can call this a power hour of fury remember you used to make those cassette tapes back in the day 60 minutes one minute of each song you know shot of beer you ever done a power hour damn right that gets you that gets you uh yeah tuned up you get you looking like anthony smith but uh Mark Montoya would still send you out to finish the tape. You ever done a century? No.

You never done 100 minutes? No, no, no. I thought that was... I've done that. You Marines, you get down, you know? Centuries, yep. Okay, let's start with this. I'll just go through the results here if we can, BC. Let's just start and work our way down. The main card I thought was more interesting than the

prelim card by a fairly wide margin, so we'll spend most of our time there. Let's get to the fight itself and then the controversy afterwards BC because otherwise we'll just spend the whole time talking about the lack of an early stoppage or a timely stoppage I should say. So Glover Teixeira defeats Anthony Smith at 104 of the fifth round. Okay so here was my read on this BC. I thought Smith came out on fire. He had a sort of a look in his eye. He was kind of mouth breathing a little bit when they introduced him, and he was sticking and moving. He was popping Teixeira. His takedown defense was on point, and he was always finding good angles, and he found his distance early. Ostensibly,

they both have a 76-inch reach. It looked to me like Smith was a little bit longer, and he was keeping Teixeira at the end of him, and he wouldn't crash into him and then miss opportunities. He was being real disciplined about his range management. But Gleiver Teixeira's a badass, dude. He's such a great fighter. He's such a talent. 40 years old.

I had said this before the fight had started. I looked it up. Smith is 31 years of age. He's nine years younger than Teixeira. Now, he's got double the losses of Teixeira, but heading into last night's fight, he also had two more wins than him. So, it's pretty impressive for the kind of wild career that Smith has had. But Teixeira, man, 40 years of age. We talk about it all the time, BC, which is at heavyweight, you've got a lot of older dudes up there because the young guys come up and they can't push them out.

Maybe Teixeira is the last of the Mohicans, but he's beaten Kutaylaba, Surkinov, he beat Smith. He's beaten a lot of younger guys trying to be that next foray into the next generation. He is a damn impressive 40-year-old man, is he not? Luke, yeah, come after him. He's a man, he's 40. But the key here is that I think he's lost the ego.

He never stopped trying to work and improve. And you heard him in that post-fight interview talk about, it was about the diet. It was about going to the Performance Institute in Vegas with the UFC and really trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. He ended up finding that he was overtraining. He said, you know, back in 2014, when he went the full distance with Jon Jones, he was young and dumb.

He didn't understand the game. This is a credit to a guy who came in in tremendous shape but was really humble enough to look at his career, look at that he was aging, starting to go in that other direction, becoming more of a gatekeeper, and he's figured out a way to reinvent himself. And, Luke, he had to walk through his own bit of fire you mentioned off the top how Lionheart really had the perfect attacking game plan not only was he relying on his speed and distance the feints were making him

look explosive off the start but as we know in this game you know one fight can change it completely one punch I'm sorry can change a fight completely ended up being two punches you know the left hook I'm sorry the the shot that seemed to irritate Smith's eye and then that left hook that dropped him and you know from the end of that second round on it was it was all Glover Teixeira and then of course you had that unfortunate car wreck which was the fact that Teixeira never quite committed to going to the finish for the finish and that Smith was too tough too able for his own good in that moment where guys normally get finished that he was able to elongate his time in there and I think you saw that tweet of what he

ended up texting ESPN's Ariel Hawane which was was a broken everything, Luke. I mean, teeth falling out, broken, orbitable nose on and on. I mean, the guy just took a shellacking. I think it's time to put coach Mark Montoya on trial, Luke, because this ain't one or twice. This is now three times, Luke, three times. Okay. So hold on. Just to clarify, Luke, the three, the three would be arguably,

it'd be Eric Anders versus Khalil Roundtree. It'd be this one. I didn't even consider that one. I didn't even have that on my list, Luke. I had Thomas Gifford getting sent to hell way unnecessarily. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Rocky Pennington on that list too? I thought that was Jason Lutz. I will correct myself if I was wrong on that.

But you adding another one in there, not one, not two, but three. MMA seems to be more apt to let fighters hang out there amidst trouble than boxing, maybe because boxing's got a history of deaths in the ring. So you see quicker stoppages, but come on, somebody had to be the adult in the room there. And I'm not even sure referee Jason Herzog isn't under some level of scrutiny to just be like, this this man's not coming back he's not going to win this fight

yeah I mean there's a lot to unpack here so the three that I'm aware of were Khalil Roundtree just absolutely demolishing Eric Anderson and him just being sent out there like no one really saying all right enough's enough now that was a three-round fight that was not you know I don't think the brain damage consideration was nearly as present. But, okay, so that would be one. The Pennington one, I'm pretty sure is Jason Lutz, or Lutz, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, former Lehigh wrestler. And then, obviously, last night was really bad.

And the Thomas Gifford one was really, I mean, Mike Davis was tuning him up. In fact, that loss was so bad, he got bounced from the organization as a consequence. And then last night was, I was shocked. I was legitimately shocked. I mean, there's so many angles to this, right? You know, did you ever watch the fight? We were in Baltimore together for the Gervonta Davis fight, maybe a week after Maxim Dadashev had died in the National Harbor in Prince George's County.

Did you actually watch the Dadashev fight? Yes. Dude, Dadashev was way more competitive than Smith was late, and they still threw the towel on that guy. And his corners tried to save him, and it was too little too late, it appeared. I honestly, you know, you listen to Mark Montoya, who I've had him on my show a million times.

I like, here's what's so funny about it, dude. You ever talk to Mark before, ever in your life? No. Dude, he is smart. He is kind. He is thoughtful. He is rational. You get a really warm vibe from the guy when he talks.

To me, I think everyone has the wrong idea. They want to string this guy up, and they want to string that that guy up and I'm not here to defend Mark's decision there I think he was I mean I mean crazy wrong but to me dude I don't know what they're looking for I don't know what they're waiting for and they do a lot of talking and generalities about like oh he was still in the fight what does that mean he was in the fight he was conscious you know he was you know uh look you do have to add that element that i mentioned that glover just didn't commit to going for the finish and if at any point especially the two times he had full mount but wasn't able to finish it he never committed to just going with 15 straight you know hammer shots to force herzog

to hook it now look that's easier said than done when you're on top and you can tell that anthony smith might still be in the fight might still be game Glover doesn't want to gas himself out he's aware that this is a five-round fight and he's 40 years old I get that I'm not blaming him for Smith getting you know more damage because as you saw in that little exchange they had which was interesting to hear the microphones pick up where Glover was like look I'm sorry this is you know this is the business basically this is this is happens, but you felt like he could have finished that in round three if he had really committed to it. And it's just, it's just unfortunate, Luke. I mean, in boxing, you tend to get now look, it's different. The gloves are padded more.

There's more long-term damage in boxing from taking so many shots, but you always sort of see the first time you see a guy really wobbly or on, you know, queer street, as they say, more often than not these days, the referees are jumping in. And I know that's angering certain fans, but you don't want to leave a guy sort of defenseless and half in the bag to get hurt more. I feel like in MMA, that's just part of it. You know, a guy will sit on your chest when you're in that mode and just swing away at you.

And, you know, you don't want to go too far in sanitizing the sport. Look at the NFL right now. Passing records getting broken left and right. The quarterbacks are staying healthy, though, but it's a totally different game. But that's got to be on the coach to just be like, even if he wins this, it's not going to be worth the damage he's going to take. And here's the other part about it.

Everyone's like, what about referee Jason Herzog? And I'm like, well, he could have stopped it. I mean, sending Smith out for that last round, I don't understand that at all. When he went back to that stool, that was the time to be like, sorry. And then it was the round before that where Herzog should have said to him, and you see this in boxing all the time, if a guy's getting tuned up and it was getting a little dicey, the referee, when the guy goes back to his corner, will say,

son, you need to show me something, or I'm going to wave this off. That's the official warning from the referee. You need to do something here. He should have said that to him, I guess, after the third. They sent him out to the fourth. I mean, the fight was stopped in the fifth, right? Yeah.

So after the fourth, he should have never gone back out there. This should have never happened. That fight was completely over. And this weird thing that happens where people are like, oh, he was still in the fight. There was a chance he could win. We've seen people come back. Like, dude, yeah.

At any point, even a guy badly rocked probably could conceivably come back. But you have two sort of scenarios you're facing. One is an extraordinarily unlikely but possible comeback. The other one is, and it is significantly more likely, they're going to take unnecessary abuse. And when I say more often than not, I mean virtually every time,

it is they're going to take unnecessary abuse. There is this holdout for, oh, well, it could happen. And it usually, and when I say usually, I mean almost always, never does. It is they are waiting for a ship that is not coming in, and as a consequence, they are making a calculation that ultimately ends up getting their fighter's shirt. You mentioned the tweet that Ariel Hawane had. Scott Smith ain't coming through that door, Luke, okay?

Yeah, well, you had mentioned the tweet that Ariel Hawane had put out. He had, according to Anthony Smith that texted him, he had a broken orbital, a broken nose, a cut under one of his eyes, and then two missing teeth. Initially, Montoya had told Berto Camodo it was just veneers, which still would not be great. But it was actually two teeth. They were real teeth, yeah.

Yeah, one in the back and one in the front. He lost two different kinds of teeth. And Luke, sorry to interrupt you, he told Montoya before round five I my teeth are getting knocked out and if you saw his body language which you did on the cameras and nobody had a closer view than Montoya that's a that's a hurt man and look there's sometimes that justification that well it's a title fight send Rocky Pennington back out there this may be the only chance in her career she can rally i understand having more of a hook right that's why brock lesnar was allowed to continue at the end of round one against uh shane carwood it's a title fight right josh rosenthal roll roll me up

one by the way um but this is look i get this fight is is pivotal you know smith wins this he's right back in title contention he lose it he goes back to the line well he he may have lost three years to his career in this fight, Luke. That's just the way it is, okay? Some things will never change. But come on, Montoya. You're on the hook right now. You're on the hook.

Yeah. We've said this before on the show. It's worth reiterating. Boxing is more sensitive to this because they've just seen the worst of it. I'm not saying it's going to happen when Mark Montoya is cornering someone. That's not what I'm saying. But eventually, with this kind of an attitude, someone's going to get

killed. Someone's going to get killed. Someone noteworthy, someone people like. He or she is going to come from a good team with a good coach that's well respected and successful, and they're going to either get killed or they're going to be put into a coma or they're going to have irreparable and significant life-altering brain damage. It it is just inevitable essentially at this point and

i mean look we we celebrated tony ferguson's uh toughness last saturday his ability to to not only take that damage but actually like stay in the game plan and still try to win but you know in hindsight luke that could have been one of those fights to be honest with you i know that's an interim title fight tony fergus Ferguson's got a track record all that I'm not saying that fight should have necessarily been stopped either although you easily could have and it would have been justified but um that's a fight that could have led to one of those scary moments that you're talking about it's it's it is what it is right I mean you can only put so much lipstick on this damn pig but you do have to be as smart as you possibly can because

unlike boxing with the way the fight is set up you don't get that 10 seconds to uh you know gain back your your your sense and and clear the cobwebs that 10 seconds is spent on your back with a guy sitting on your chest pounding you right the last thing on this um i suspect that you know smith works in serious xm i suspect, you know, he's a colleague. But I suspect when he finally does talk to the media, he will defend it. You know, they all do because they don't want to throw their coach under the bus unless they really feel like they were done wrong. But I want to say this is not like the COVID debate

where it's MMA media on one side and others on the other one. I'm not saying it was unanimous, but it was across all groups that you saw fans media fighters cormier wasn't sensed about it this was not one where it was different segments of mma society against each other it was a clear coalition being built there if you know what i mean you nailed it everyone on their timeline has like those super tough guys the just bleed guys they could be journalists they could be fans who are like, you know, don't change this sport. Let them go back out there.

Even those guys, Luke, were like, what the hell is happening here? All right, so let me ask you, where does Glover Teixeira go from here? What do you think? I think he's one big win away from a title shot. And this light heavyweight division, look, it's gotten really interesting out of nowhere, Luke. Jon Jones cleaned it out twice. I was pushing for him to go to heavyweight because there was nothing left.

Fulfill your destiny, Jon john it's your density no um but suddenly when you've got dom reyes who's deserving jan blahowitz who's deserving uh majeta is coming back he's going to be knocking on that door and now you got a refurbished clover to share it's fun i feel like you maybe give him a coming back tiago santos maybe if you're going to use the Reyes rematch next for John which we don't know yet then you give him Blahowicz either way he's one but he's in it Glover's one big win away and that's crazy uh a year ago because he had three of those four comeback wins in 2019 alone and in 2018 you never would have guessed this for Teixeira but Luke he's in this yeah when he lost to Corey Anderson, I thought, okay, you know, Corey Anderson, I went back and I rewatched that fight yesterday in preparation

for the main event. That was a phenomenal performance for Corey Anderson. But I thought, okay, here's the changing of the guard, right? This, this is new replacing old. Cause he was thoroughly controlled in that fight in every which way I was like, wow, okay, it's finally happening. And then he just comes claws his way back. So here's my answer. If they go with the Reyes rematch for Jones, Blachowicz to Shearer. If they go with Blachowicz-Jones, then you go Reyes to Shearer. Number one contender goes up there.

Because the thing about Tiago Santos is, I don't necessarily want to exclude him in the way that it makes it sound like I am, but he did have a devastating series of injuries. I'm just saying give the guy one more. To give it to Shara, having come on a four-fight win streak against the guy who's been off for probably well over a year at that point, to me seems a little bit much.

But okay. How about Corey Anderson-Maheta? That's some good-ass matchmaking. Love that one too. That's a great real contrast of styles there. All right, so Ben Rothwell defeats Ovin St. Preux. Split decision, 29-28. Any strong takeaways from this one? It was kind of a weird fight, yeah? It was. contrast of styles there all right so ben rothwell defeats oven st prue split decision 29 28 any strong takeaways from this one it's kind of a weird fight yeah it was i mean look at the end

of the day this was an experiment for osp at heavyweight i thought physically you know when he walked in the cage he looked good he looked rock he looked solid you had the belief that he could have speed and athleticism advantages that really might revitalize his career you might say well maybe he should have been a heavyweight the whole time. Not on this night, Luke. You know, I don't want to disrespect the guy because, you know, he did land some shots late. He was able to push this to a split decision.

But, you know, he's circling back and running the whole fight. And I don't doubt that he was surprised by Rothwell's hand speed and by just the overall craftiness of that absolute hairy weirdo. And I say that with love and respect. The guy's real weird, but he's also a really crafty fighter if you're going to leave the door open. And to see OSP essentially running the whole time, I know that's a filthy casual take to watch that fight and say, oh, he's running.

Well, he was running, Luke. That was not a good performance. I'm not saying you should close the door on the experiment as OSP's team was sort of doing a wait and see approach but you know you felt like there were times he could have dug in and made it a fight in a brawl and when you're matching weapons against rothwell he may have a bigger variety of weapons but i'm not sure he has any weapon to match the the type of strikes osp maybe could have landed now i'm asking a guy to stand in there and risk damage but I would have think that was a better outcome than to to run and lose a decision so I saw Ben Rothwell went on the ESPN plus post fight show and he spoke to Megan and Levy and you know you see all these articles come out being

like how the fighters are training with the pandemic and so many of them virtually all of them are putting on a happy face it's like, I've always wanted to train over Zoom with my coach as my brother-in-law held pads for me. This has always been the best scenario for me. And you're like, okay, I doubt that, but whatever. I mean, you know fighters, they're going to put on a happy face, and they're going to not give excuses because that's the way that they are. And then after a fight, especially when they lose, here they come.

So he won. But what he was saying was, and he has a gym in his own property, a full gym, like heavy bags and rolling mats and everything. And he was saying, he didn't give actual specifics, BC, but he said that April was the most challenging training environment or training month of his life. It had never been so chaotic. It had never been so difficult. And he said, that's even with all of the resources that I already have. He didn't go into detail about what that was. Maybe it was an injury or something too, that compounded problems, but he sort of suggested that was just not where he wanted to be. So he's,

he made it about a bigger picture from his UFC return, which we'll talk about in just a second. In terms of OSP, I don't even know what to make of this one. The guy's been in the game for a long time. He's got 40 fights, basically, and I actually called one of them when he fought in Washington, D.C. He's athletic. He's talented. He's a little bit older than people realize. OSP is sitting at 37, so a move to heavyweight in that sense makes sense. He's lost three of his last four, but he fought a bunch in 2018 and had some good wins, so it's like he still catches people who make mistakes with sort of interesting, sometimes silly stuff.

The win over Corey Anderson was beautiful. I don't read too much into it for him. For Rothwell, coming back... He played to his poor stereotypes of being a fighter that doesn't do enough in there. Yeah, but he also just like... Here's the thing. He always seems like off balance

with his footwork at times, you know? He's kind of like stumbling like a newborn deer a little bit. But when he has his moments, he's got good power. He's got good speed. He can put some combinations together. Like, those things are there.

It's just, there's just a lot of, I don't know, weirdness built into everything. And he also catches a lot of people when they make mistakes, like the armbar in Tyson Pedro or Devon Puget. Yeah, he dropped Rothwell briefly when it looked like he was falling out of the fight. He landed a big shot. And just to piggyback on what you mentioned about Rothwell being honest about how hard this was, you do want to understand that even me criticizing OSP here,

this could have been his absolute worst training camp ever given the situation. We talked a lot heading into these three fight cards, Luke, about what this unprecedented situation of the pandemic would do to the fights. Now, largely the fights have been really exciting and we've seen the truly elite guys be able to sort of get close or right there to what they're able to do. But obviously there's going to be guys who are just like, man, that that's not normal. What I went through and I had to take this fight because I had to pay the bills. So I do want to give that cushion in there that maybe OSP couldn't carry that heavyweight weight, and maybe his gas tank was troubled throughout.

Yeah, I just feel like Ben Roethlis had a really weird comeback. So he had that fight against Dos Santos where he was basically just, you know, Dos Santos was better that night in Croatia in 2016, three years away. He comes back and he fought Blagoje Ivanov. I thought he won that fight, but he lost it. Then he fought Orlovski, and it was just a... Gross. Not great.

And then he beat Stefan Struve, but the guy got kicked in the balls 75,000 times. And then he fought Ovin St. Preux, and he won. He deserved to win. When they announced the split, I was like, oh, here we go. He deserved to win. When they announced the split, I was like, oh, here we go. He deserved to win. But I just feel like Rothwell in this sort of last chapter here of the UFC run,

he's trying to get the car into third and fourth and fifth gear. And he's having moments where you can feel the transmission maybe getting you there, but he's having a little bit of problems with it as well. And him, let's see how old he is here. He is 38 years old. It's going to be kind kind of hard how sad is it though and by the way shout out to Rothwell for the win and shout out to what Alexi Olenek did against Fabricio Verdun but how

sad is it when you get a win in a co-main event you're like with all due respect I'd love to call out Alexi Olenek and you're like oh okay you can yeah sure you can have him you don't like that fight I mean I do and I actually really like Alexi Olenek and have been a fan of his rise. It's just sort of like that was like a wah, wah. No, I'm not saying, hey, you should have been like, Stipe, call me, but still, it was, yeah, okay. I like it because it's two old dudes, two old bears, you know,

wrestling for dominance of the campsite, and they're going to slug it out probably in inadvisable ways, and it's going to be great. Plus, both have a funny and unique capacity to be able to submit anyone. Olenek has submitted a lot of people, obviously, and Josh Barnett got submitted by Ben Rothwell. He almost had a 10-figure guillotine on OSP yesterday. So they're old, crafty vets, probably a little long,

well, definitely a little long in the tooth. Who are you going to call out? You're going to call out, you know, I don't know. You should have called out me. Let me make a matchup Monday for you, Luke. Drop me off at a gas station in Kenosha. Ben Rothwell and I looking at the rollers of tornadoes. Who's coming out of there standing with standing with the full belly i think i could

take him yeah i don't i think it'd be a very bad night for you uh so let's go to this one you take it away bc drew dober defeating alexander hernandez 425 of the second round i loved everything about it give me your biggest takeaway from the fight yeah drew dober is the biggest head the second biggest headline i'm sorry after glover to share of this fight card uh this was a rise up now look he's in the lightweight division it's it's all killer no filler so you're gonna need even more than three consecutive wins all by knockout to really crack that code but look hernandez is a tough out man you know i don't think he was as bad as the performance ultimately showed against cowboy i thought he was a little bit too cocky there. You look at his track record, he's a confident, tough out, and he was fairly game in this one, but Drew Dober's

evolution as a striker is so evident. He didn't have this type of pop and speed and relentlessly, like he's putting the full package together is what I'm saying, Luke, and he's got the quickness at southpaw. He punches and flurries, and it's just really where the confidence was what jumped out to me. He's looking like a guy who believes he's ready for big business and for him afterwards to respectfully say, look, give me some names now. Give me Paul Felder. And to see Felder sit in cage side, go, yeah, I think I'd do that.

I think I'd watch that, Luke. Drew Dober has a very interesting ceiling potential here. I mean, as a good-looking guy, can talk, but he's starting to put it together, and that's key. Drew Dober started out in the UFC and even for a while maintained kind of a reputation as a guy who definitely deserved to be here but was sort of the guy you would see at the beginning of cards or on the prelims on ESPN or Fox Sports, whatever the time frame was.

You might see him on European cards fighting their next up-and-coming guy. They're trying to see if they're good or not. And that was sort of, for a while, it seemed his ceiling. And that's not the worst place to be, but you just thought that might be as good as it gets for him. And slowly but surely, man, that guy has really improved. I put him up there for one of the most improved fighters currently right now in the UFC in terms of where they started to where they have arrived.

And there's plenty of time left for him to even get better than he already is. He is only 31 years of age and has not taken a ton of damage. He doesn't have a ton of losses, but the losses that he had were the kind where you're like, oh, you're not ready for this level. So, for example, the two that stand out, although there are some other ones, were

Olivier Aubin, Marcier, and then Benil Dariush. Funnily enough, those are guys that Alexander Hernandez had defeated. He had stopped, in fact, Benil Dariush, and he had out-wrestled Aubin-Morcier. And so you thought, wow, man, this is a really interesting matchup for virtue of that reason. And, yes, the Haq Parast win was nice, and the Polo Reyes win was nice,

but he hasn't really turned the corner. Wow, dude, he looked great yesterday. Unbelievable. And you know what really stuck out to me was he had a good game plan to start and it was working, and then he came out in the second round and he made an adjustment,

which was he really confined the space and he found the combinations that were working better and he was all over Hernandez, like white on rice, and it found the combinations that were working better, and he was all over Hernandez, like white on rice, and it didn't really matter where the fight went except when he was on his back, and even then, you saw him get taken to his back once and then get out. Hernandez tried again, and he immediately separated.

He was learning on the fly. He was making adaptations. He's already come all this way. He's a devastating puncher, very accurate. He uses southpaw really well to his effect. He makes good use of range. He wasn't afraid at all of the opportunity or the challenge. I was blown away by Drew Dober last night. He really has forced everybody. Two performances in a night, back-to-back fights. I think he has forced everyone to reconsider just how good he

is. I'm very happy for the guy because, I mean, here's who he was fighting. I mean, he beat Jamie Varner back in 2014, but that was when Varner was on the decline. He had a weird fight against Leandro Silva. He lost to Escudero. He got some wins over Jason Gonzalez and Josh Berkman. Those are nice. And John Tuck, but then he lost to Darius. You know what I mean?

Like, every time he was making some progress, he'd fall short when he went up against a really ranked or named guy. Unbelievable job by him. Now, it brings us to Hernandez. Man, what a weird spot for his career, right? He comes out of the gate storming BC, beating Dariush, beating Hernandez, beating some other ones, and then he goes up against Cowboy, and it blew up in his face because he called him Day Drinkin' Don.

He did get the rebound win against Francisco Trinaldo, but that was very controversial and he fought it backing up the whole time. He fought this one mostly backing up the whole time too. And he lost it. You could argue it should be three losses in a row. What's happened to Alexander Hernandez? You know, you wonder if it, if it is a confidence thing, I mentioned he was gaming here and there were moments he was able to absorb big moments from Dober and kind of make nice adjustments I thought you know his defensive jab was really at some point was able to let him get back into the fight leading up to the stoppage he started to land some combinations off of that he does hit hard he didn't have the speed of Dober and that ended up being a big part of his problem but you do have to wonder if uh you know when

you're rising up and you're entering into that cowboy fight and you're ready to make your splash and you're all invincible and all, you know, all veral, uh, and then you get, you get neutered in there, Luke, and it takes time. So, um, you know, he's lucky it's not three straight defeats, but he's still got to figure out who he is in there, but I think he's got the tools. I'm not ready to, um, commit to him. Like I, Kevin Lee, future UFC champion, and die on that hill. Not dead yet, by the way. But I believe in him.

Yeah, here's the thing for me and Hernandez. The Dariush win was a curse. Because all of a sudden, you're like, who's the guy who knocked out Benil Dariush? People don't just knock him out. Edson Barboza can knock him out. That kind of a fighter can knock him out. And then he beat Aubin Morse and you're like,

and he did it wrestling. It's a little bit different. You're like, wow, okay. Well, this kid came out of nowhere. 25 years old at the thing at the time and blah, blah, blah. And then you just realized as he's trying to get his game going and find his fight identity, as he went up to the competition, it was too much.

So he jumped forward too much. And now he's on the rebound backwards, and you're getting him to a more calibrated position. But at the same time, I don't want the losses to affect his confidence because it's part of who he is, whether people like it or not. And then the other part is he's just having, I think, a bit of difficulty, as you indicated. Like, what way do I want to fight? What way do I fight where it makes me happy and brings out the best in me?

I just don't think he's quite discovered that yet, or fully realized that yet, anyway. If I may slip in a question, if you don't mind, it was good to see referee Keith Peterson back in the fold after Dom Cruz's comments that we didn't even talk about on MK the other day, just how out of character and absurd that was. If I'm Keith Peterson, though, I'm spraying on the hoochies and bitches cologne every week and just embracing it, though.

Bitches and cigarettes, that's what I smell like. I'm Keith Peterson. I'm just doubling down on that. Glad you're here, BC. Ricky Simone defeated Ray Borg, split decision. The only thing that occurred to me in this one, BC was, I thought Borg had a pretty nice boxing and kickboxing game. Like he was giving Simone real problems there, but the size differential.

Yeah. It was just way too much. I thought it was, it should have been unanimous and not split. I respected that Borg had to really empty the tank and figure out new ways as that fight went on to stay in it. And, you know, you give him credit. He did land some big shots. The problem is he's landing big flyweight shots.

He doesn't seem to have what it takes to be an elite bantamweight. And this was the right win for Ricky Simone. I want to talk, though, you know, not to get biblical on you, Luke, because I know who you serve in the end. But normally under the precipice of the Samson and Delilah theory, when you get your hair cut off, you lose your power. Not only did he cut the mullet, he came out and fought great. And what'd you think of his excuse afterwards, which we all been there.

He said, you know, I've been on the couch lately. I want to start a family with my wife. I, you know, I had to, I had to, I had to do it. You know what I mean? Luke, I mean, you know, one day, Luke, your wife's going to be like, sorry, the beard's got to go. That spicy Latin woman's going to tell you like it is, Luke. And you're going to show up on MK Extra, you know, clean as a whistle.

Yeah, she usually does. But the beard is not one of her objections. Yeah, I mean, look, you got to outgrow your punk rock phase at some point if you, you know. That was his calling card, though, Luke. That was his thing. Dude, the mullet, people were pretending that they like mullets. Like, really?

We're going to pretend that we do this now? I mean, I didn't mind it. I didn't think one way or the other about it. But like this idea like, oh, mullets are so great. Sure they are. Name me how many of your friends have mullets who also have great jobs, right? Okay.

Mike Pyle, that's about it. Yeah, end of discussion. So that's why. Because polite society frowns on it. Joe Exotic. Yeah, Joe Ex it. Yeah, end of discussion. So that's why. Because polite society frowns on it. Joe Exotic. Yeah, Joe Exotic. Yeah, Joe Exotic. Where's he?

Prison. That's where you end up with a mullet, BC. Prison or the back of gas stations doing unspeakable acts for... Luke, you're dodging my attempts at comedy really well to keep us focused here. Well, dude, I slept maybe 30 minutes last night. Do you understand? Like, I'm hanging on. I took amphetamines before the show today just so I could be here.

Yeah, I'm hanging on by a goddamn thread. Do you understand that? This is the most comedy you're going to get out of me. Sorry about that. Wow. Yeah. Andre Arlovsky defeating Felipe Lenz. This was the most frustrating fight to watch.

30-27, 30-27, 29-28. And the reason why for me man it's like felipe lenz came out and at first like uh he was catching you know arlovsky at the end of his combinations and at the end of the first he was like bop bop bop bop like all of them were landing and i'm like okay man he found his range he's lighting them up he's got quick hands this guy came out i think he won the 2018 pfl heavyweight tourney and then arlovsky do that i thought i don't know who said it on the broadcast whether it was um cormier or whether it was Felder. They were like, Arlovsky, this is true.

Arlovsky, he's really good at taking a fight and bringing it down to his level. These older guys, man, they've got a little bit of pop left. So if he cracks you, you're going to feel it. He doesn't have a ton of speed. He probably has some decent timing. But what Arlovsky has that people just don't realize, and I'm going to compare him to Jon Jones in this sense. To me, Jon Jones, I've said this before, I think his offense has deteriorated.

But his defense is so good. Arlovsky has found ways to make everyone he fights win or lose. And by the way, some of those ones he was losing, like the Tuivasa fight, could have easily gone his way. He just slows the fight down he makes you exchange on his terms he doesn't stay in range and and get too caught up yeah when he fights the steep a's and the francis's and the jair's okay you know it's not going to work every time but if you're not one of the top tier heavyweights he's going to bring everything down

to a level that he finds manageable and he's going to find a way to win you got to give him credit for that yeah look i was the last decade john eddick said it great on the broadcast that we're like 11 years into talking bad about his chin and waiting for his own sort of liddell phase of knockout loss knockout loss knockout loss retirement problem is like those knockouts are actually fewer and far between even though i predicted linds would kind of make a statement and come here and get that knockout and like like you said, first couple of right hands, you're like, oh yeah, he's going to get there. The problem is you're right. We don't give Arlovsky enough for the intangibles that he still holds. And that's a good gas tank by the way. And that's

a big part about why he won this fight. Cause Linz seemed to gas in that third round when he really need to put something together. He didn't have have it and Arlovsky had enough volume to keep him away but I think Arlovsky has those veteran tricks to be able to make Felipe Felipe Lins realize I'm going to pay a price to try to knock him out and actively win that so when you like you said take him down a notch when suddenly Lins is not headhunting and he's trying to win a point fight instead well he's not as skilled or experienced and Arlovsky's ability at 41 to retain a lot of those skills still have confidence to go out there he does have a lot of this sneaky decision wins Luke in during this run that have certainly kept his career alive but um it's a good win man you know it was tough to see Lins who looked good in

the first 30 seconds kind of devolve but that's why we have these sort of gatekeepers. That's who Orlovsky is, but that's a good-ass win. Dude, I want you to point out here, twice in his career, he had a four-fight losing streak against Fedor, Brett Rogers, Silva, and Karatanov. His strike force run did not go well, and then he came back and won a bunch of fights.

He lost the Anthony Johnson one, but still he won a bunch, including beating Brendan Schaub, Antonio Silva, Frank Mir, and Travis Brown. Then he loses five in a row to Stipe, Overeem, Barnett, Francis, and then Marcin Tybura, and he still came back and won again. And then he lost to Tai Tuivasa, Shamil Abdur-Rakimov. The Walt Harris one was a no contest, but Walt had won. And then Augusto Sakai, and then he came back and won

on three different occasions in his career. He's had at least a four-fight losing streak in one case five, and he still found ways to get wins. I've never heard of something like that. I've never seen that before, to have those kinds of rough patches and then still find a way to persevere. And do you hear those man screams that he let out

after Linz went toe-on-tip there and kicked him really hard south of the equator? Without the crowd there, you got to really feel his pain and agony, Luke. I know you were going to focus in on that. I know you were thinking about Arlovsky's balls all night long. Stop it. He's a bully beatdown alumni. Shout out to that show, remember? I remember that.

That's right. So was Eddie Alvarez. Tiago Moises defeating Michael Johnson. This one kind of broke my heart, if I could be honest with you. 25 seconds into the second round. I mean, I have nothing against Tiago Moises, but I said this last night on Twitter.

Michael Johnson's had a weird career. He's got, he beat up Tony Ferguson. Like, you go watch that fight. Like, it was not close. Michael Johnson, Michael Johnson wasn't like destroying him, but it was clear who won. He knocked out Dustin Poirier in the first round. He's beaten Andre

Feely. He's got to stop, I think, Edson Barboza. He's beaten very good. Habib! He hurt Habib! He's beaten, or at least been very competitive with literally the division's best. And he now has his record, I think, is either 19-16

or 20-16. He's a nearly, according to is either 19-16 or 20-16. He's a nearly, according to Wikipedia, 19-16. He's almost a 500 fighter, and he was winning the first round, BC handily, until he just wasn't, and everything just collapsed in an instant. Yeah, shout out to Moises for being able to turn it around that quickly, but it's tough with Johnson. Because he has those wins that you mentioned. He always matches himself tough, but he's just short of, of being able to be elites on that regular level. I mean, look, you look great against Justin Gaethje in that war

and had big moments and also got stopped and lost that fight. So, uh, he doesn't take those filler fights too often in between that repad your record he seems to go for it every time out and when you do that and you're just shy of being great it's an unfortunate situation because he's much much much better than his resume well i mean then his record will ever tell you and we all know that in our hearts uh but you know it is what it is at the end of the day you check his wikipedia page if you don't know him and you go oh that guy sucks no he's he's really good but he found another way to lose luke it happens yeah why is he so inconsistent what's your theory there i don't know you know i don't know how he trains i don't know his mindset well enough you know i mean i think there is something to say about how hard he regularly matches himself in the fights he accepts um you know do we bite down too much on the fool's gold

of how good he actually is because he finds moments against elite guys like habib in that first round is he really not as good as we think he is well even i don't believe that i've seen him beat tony ferguson i've seen him beat poirier but there is something that stops him from getting over that hill i don't know what it is you know it's weird so last night you had uh moises drop down single leg x essentially uh well almost a single leg x sort of uh for the heel hook and then you see the it's on the it's on the right hip of um johnson and so it's the left foot of moises and he puts it in the hip and your your immediate responsibility in that moment is to hand fight right or or ankle fight I should say with your hands he doesn't grab it and push it

off he kind of is reaching for the elbow and like behind the head of Moises which is the wrong thing to do and then Moises completely reaps the knee and goes all the way across then puts the other one behind it so when what he eventually ends up doing is turning, essentially, Johnson away from him. But then the tricky part was you say, oh, well, the heel hook, you just roll with the heel hook. The problem is if you go back and you notice, he tries to turn, BC, and the other leg of Moises is blocking him from turning. If you don't block the turn, the heel hook doesn't mean –

and it wasn't a heel hook. It was an ankle lock. But the point being is he had used the other leg to stop him. And I went back and I watched. I was like, why didn't he hand fight? It's like if someone did a rear naked choke and they're coming around like this and they're setting this up, wouldn't that be the first thing that you do? I'm not lecturing a pro fighter how to fight better.

I'm simply saying they know that. He knows that. I guarantee you he has drilled that a thousand ten thousand times bc and that's the part that i can't quite get that was not a new position for him no chance that was a new position it's not obvious what his hole is i mean you broke down a situation there could he have done this should he have done this it was a quick tap and that's i guess what happens when you get caught that cleanly and you know in that type of twist.

But tough to see. Tough to see. But, hey, put some respect on Moises' name for that win, though. It was a nice adaptation. Last thing I'll say on this, Keith Peterson did a great job reffing that. So you had kind of like that one tap, but it wasn't really clear for Johnson. And so Keith Peterson went over and nearly stopped it but let it rock. And then the full tap came in later.

And that might have been a little bit more injury. But to me, you got a much cleaner finish. Keith Peterson's a good referee, dude. Well, you know, he likes a cleaner finish on a whiskey before the fight. So I think he went to the top shelf this time. You know, he saw that fight much more clear. Stop. What is Dom Cruz doing?

Here's the thing. I spent all last week being like, Dom Cruz is, you know, this mix between Tony Robbins and and a ted talk he's the most inspirational guy ever i'm sorry dom take the damn l what are you doing saying that that's not you yeah bro but there's no there's go on youtube and just type in dominant cruz trash talk there's like a library of videos of him just savaging people people forget about that i know he has that he's a hardcore he's he's gruff dude he's gruff no and look and even in this ahead of this fight on that conference call you know so who don't push his buttons and he did fire back with little man and those type of stuff but he devolved his

interview game luke you know this into being really about like i don't i don't dwell on losses i bounce back because i'm so mentally focused there's no such thing as cage rest i mean when he went on ariel's uh you know live thing the next day i thought he was gonna walk this back a thousand percent and look he like doubled down he was like oh no uh not only did he smell like uh hooch but uh he smelled like horse too it's like whoa bro come on i mean like really well if that's the case i want to party with keith peterson bro that's what i'm saying somebody get rosenthal on the horn we'll get a little, uh,

we'll go, you know, we'll pass the peace pipe here. Look, come on. Uh, you go now to the prelim card. Any major thoughts about Sejora Eubanks and Sarah Morris,

who, uh, Eubanks wins two 30, 27, one 30, 26. Morris is nicknames. Awful.

Uh, Eubanks physically looks stronger at one 35. You know, it was a good performance, but not great. I think she's still kind of figuring out, you know, who she could be at this weight class. Won't have the same advantages. She thought she had, you know, weight class lower, but I don't know, Luke, that was, that

was a kind of a rough fight to watch. Let's be really honest here, Luke. Okay. This is what we do. We bring the truth at MK extra. Okay. Um, women's straw weight, second best division in the whole sport. Seems to always bring it. Featherweight's not even a division.

Bantamweight division has not been deep or really good since the fallout of the post-Ronda and Misha run. Although, I mean, Nuna's clean house. She's great. But, like, it's not deep. It's not good. And flyweight, there's one fighter in there. It's kind of rough right now outside of 115. Luke, you know this, man.

Yeah, but I'll give Sajara Eubanks credit. I thought she fought a very clinical fight. I thought her decision-making was great about what kind of things I want to go for when they materialize. How do I deal with certain forms of pressure? How do I not get overwhelmed? How do I manage my cardio?

How do I advance position? She's a very talented grappler. She obviously trains now with a great team, the East Coast Super Friends, How do I manage my cardio? How do I advance position? She's a very talented grappler. She obviously trains now with a great team, the East Coast Super Friends, with Mark Henry and Eddie Alvarez and all those guys. She fought a very good fight. So to me, it's like if you knew her from her jiu-jitsu reputation, she had a pretty strong one.

She was a very, very high-level competitor. And then she came over to MMA, and she had some weight cut issues. She had a bunch of stuff going on. And I don't think she quite got onto the – she didn't quite get the lift off of the runway that was expected. Looks to me like now that she had some turbulence, but she's in a better place. So you probably get a clearer sense of where she's headed now that it seems like she's ironing out the different pieces.

I love that, Luke. Listen, I had to see how far I could push that. I think I took her pretty far. By the way, you know I'm right, Luke. Listen, I had to see how far I could push that. I think I took her pretty far. By the way, you know I'm right, Luke. When you watch a strawweight fight, even outside of the top 10, you're like, I see talent. These other divisions, it's not just that Mandy's dominating everybody. There's no talent after the top two or three in each of those divisions.

It's true, Luke. DC always made a great point. He was like, what you're looking for sometimes with these crossover athletes and when they come to mma is were they a lifelong athlete right so dc has been wrestling and playing football since you know however and not just like playing at a high level ronda rousey has been an international class judo player judoka since her single digit certainly early teens usually people who are lifelong athletes. So from a technical deficit, you couldn't really tell until she fought Holly Holm. You could tell that there were holes, but part of the reason why she won was because she had this skill mastery that was not a big

part of MMA generally, and especially in the women's game. And then also, dude, she was just a way better athlete than everybody, like way athlete i to me i see a better athletic pool not just a skill pool but a better athletic pool 115 than i currently see at 135 pounds more generally or 125 or 145 or adam weight maybe that's just the sweet spot for ladies in this game luke okay i'm not talking foul i'm being honest all right uh omar morales defeating gabriel benitez any strong thoughts about this one? No, no. Luke, you got other jobs.

We're running out of time. We got to get to it. How about the broadcast showing his cut open shin up close? You know, I know there's a lot of people that love MMA that love this stuff. I remember being in newsrooms at ESPN in like 2008 and 2009. And that dude, right? They'd be like, oh, hey, did you see that? I could see this guy's brain.

Or did you see that arm break in that Camara? Dude, I'm not into that crap. This was gross, Luke. You know what? I even said this last night. I think I'm dead inside because there was all these reactions last night. So most of them were like, gross, get that off the screen. And then other ones were like,

you know, the Jack Nicholson nodding Jeff. And then me, I felt nothing. I had no reaction to it. I was like, Oh, there's a man.

Shin. You could see his, you know, bone and vital organs and muscle tissue. That's great. I didn't even look, look, when you pass,

it's going to be the same thing as when, what happens when people pass, people will say nice things about you on Twitter they'll write a nice you know eulogy obituary but in their head they'll be keeping score and they'll be like you know he's actually a pretty nice guy he doesn't get respect great at his job but he did take his wife and unborn child to a cannibal corpse concert part of him I think was already dead before he actually passed you know sounds about right now this one this one I really enjoyed. Brian Kelleher defeating Hunter Azuri. I can never say his last name right.

Azur. 3.40 of the second round. Dude, that little dip, that little Hagler dip where it looks like I'm trying to set up for a body shot and then I whip around with the left hook, put him on his ass, and then finished him off with a hammer fist. Up a weight class BC.

I take my hat off to Brian Keller. And I saw your, your tweet that a former MMA beat panelists are bad asses, which, you know, historically hadn't really been the case. Who do you think's the toughest? The second toughest though,

former MMA beat who's coming out of that cage, you or Phoenix. Uh, I'll give Phoenix the nod. I'm old and broken. I'm a sad old goat tied to the barn. They should just put me to sleep, but they keep me on the property to eat all the beer cans.

I'm sad. But anyway, talking about Brian Keller. I'd hang with Wagon High outside the cage with a black light. Yeah, yeah. What did you make of the win? Pretty nice, right? Yeah, yeah. Pretty nice.

And moving up in weight. Look, he's rebounded nicely now two in a row. He's starting to put some things together. Great dude, too. So shout out to that. But look, you know, we're running out of minutes. We got a UFC Jacks Part 3 to preview here. I mean, what are you doing, bro?

And then lastly, hold on. Lastly, Chase Sherman had a nice win over Villanueva. I like what he said after the fight like what's it like to be back in the ufc he's like you ever order a 10 piece and then they bring you that extra wing it's like that bro i was like chase sherman i understand you sir i understand you what a great comparison and that was a fun little sloppy fight there i did enjoy that good to see chase sherman back he heard his backstory of uh the man just wants benefits right just wants medical benefits luke okay all right real quickly so we now go to saturday's card we can't get into all the different pieces some interesting ones

on the prelim card courtney casey is back against uh mara romero borella uh let's see kevin holland's on the card mike davis versus giga Chikadze is a great fight. Matt Brown versus Miguel Baeza is on that card, so there's a lot to like. But we'll talk about the main... Look, the damn damage is back. That absolute dirt hole with the bad tattoo. Yeah, I love that guy. Darren Elkins is back. That's right.

Okay, so let's go to the top. Alistair Overeem taking on Walt Harris. I'm dying to see this feature that they do on Walt Harris and obviously the tremendous struggle he's been through. What do you make of what's possible here obviously the tremendous struggle he's been through. What do you make of what's possible here, BC? Because here's the thing. If someone said to you,

what conditions should be in place for you to have the best camp? Having an unspeakable tragedy would probably not be near the top of the list. And yet, fighters are so crafty and determined that they can take a horrific scenario and they can use it to elevate themselves. What are you expecting out of Walt Harris on Saturday? I'm actually expecting the breakthrough performance that this opportunity offers him.

Now, he's what? Like, of his last five, he's like four wins, and then that one no contest against Arlovsky that we talked about which should have been a split decision win. This is the opportunity against Overeem, who's really that elite gatekeeper level right now, where if he wins this, I mean, he's in the conversation, the larger conversation, that's where he wants to be.

But to play into the mental side that you're talking about now, look, I'm not a fighter. I didn't lose a child there, but you know, I had a point in my career where my wife gave birth to twins, four months premature. They were in separate hospitals for almost a full year, back in and out of hospitals for a year. I remember at that time, Luke, working at ESPN,

just throwing myself into my career. And it was really a, it was therapy. It was the only way to sort of stay normal. Well, I can't control all this other stuff in my life, but I can control this one thing. So I'm just going to, I'm going to cling to this and go for it. And I think there's a reason why you have things like Brett Favre having that incredible Monday night football game after his father died, right?

Throwing all those touchdowns. When you have that type of hurt in that moment, sometimes you can bring out the best work. It's a crude comparison, but it's why the best rock albums typically come after, you know, these guys go through heartbreak and near heroin death. Luke, it's real. That's what happens. Okay. Sometimes the most beautiful art can come out of this chaos and i think walt harris does have this opportunity to prove exactly who he is he's got the size he's the big ticket but again there's one thing to beat the kind of guys he has beat and there's another thing to be

a still game 39 year old over him i do i don't um question that Harris will have every opportunity even with the uncertainty and all that we've been through to put on his best performance it's just up to him to do that yeah and then also Isaiah Thomas for the Celtics his uh sister had died in a car accident and then the next day he scored I forget how many I think almost like 50 points or something here one of the best games of his career responding to it. So you're right, it's a great point. Sometimes you just see these acts of heroism. Other times, though, people, you know, understandably can't quite function.

So it's going to be really interesting to see your co-main event, Claudia Gedelia, taking on Angela Hill. Angela Hill, dude, she's been on a tremendous run. But would you agree? And I think you would. Toughest test to date, by far. Oh, absolutely. And this is like, like,

Klaasje has been clawing and scratching to show us what her new thing is, right? She went to, she moved her camp to Jersey, training with Mark Henry. Yes, she had that win over Randa Marcos, but she was still trying things out. She thought she was going to get that close-up against Alexa Grasso a few months back.

Obviously, that fight fell apart, what, the day before when Grasso so badly missed weight. Klaas is trying to show us that in her early 30s, she has evolved. She's figured out, kind of like we were talking about with Teixeira, how to fix the things that went wrong, add some new tricks to her game. I'm really excited to see how good she looks because if you do follow her on Instagram, and no, I'm not going down the road you think i am although i i will if you want me to um physically she's in insane shape luke and she's really been working at it this is a good opportunity i would have favored claudia obviously before this run that angie's been on i still do though i think she's the better fighter but

women's straw weights they bring it luke they bring it i know you don't follow yoana on Instagram. Maybe you should. Maybe we can repair that relationship, but they're going to bring it on Saturday. You know, here's what I'm looking forward to in this one. I think Angela Hill has the better cardio, and Gedelia has been at the top of the division

significantly longer, but if you recall, she's trying to reform her style, which was just, you know, strike a little bit, but then be kind of wrestling-centric, and then hopefully you either put them away or you just don't gas in time for the bell to expire. And then she tried to have a much more reformed kind of deliberate boxing style where she was patient and took her time, and it worked.

It wasn't as exciting, but it worked. Angela Hill has made dramatic improvements, has better cardio, probably can't wrestle the same way that Gedalia can. But what I'm interested to see here is, one, what success does Angela Hill have? Two, if she does have success success does Gedalia revert back to being the wrestler does that even work at this point against how good Angela Hill has become super intriguing co-main event the other fight you know Mark Henry's got the codes he's got the number system I'm really looking forward to see if Klaja can can play in that style and look if

she wins this if Gedalia moves on I mean pick the fights you want to see her in. A trilogy with Joanna would bang. How about a rematch with Andrade? How about seeing her one day against Nama Yunus? There's some big fights ahead for her. Totally. And then you have Dan Ige taking on Edson Barboza. I love everything about this fight.

Barboza is a guy who, you know, we've talked about guys who just don't give up on themselves after difficulty and are trying to come back. You know, that guy, everyone I've ever talked to who trains with him, and even now, they're like, he just, I mean, he does not miss a practice, doesn't miss a minute of it. He is in there working his balls off every time. But Dan Ige is the same way. We were talking about Drew Dober making improvements.

Dan Ige came in, and I looked at him, and I certainly respected him. I was like, yeah, he's a good fighter. But I didn't know he was like a good fighter. Dude, he might actually be a very good fighter. This is his chance to prove to us, are you that next level guy? Got a new four fight deal with the UFC. He trains with Eric Nixick out of Extreme Couture

alongside of, well, he's the same coach who trains Francis Ngannou. And this is his chance. This is his chance to elevate himself to that next level. And then for Barboza, BC, this is his chance to say, wait a second, young fella, I still got some work to do in this division. I'm very excited about what's about to happen here.

Look, this is the best fight on the card, straight up. This is the most intriguing fight on the card. Ige's five-fight win streak, but never fought somebody of this level in danger. And you want to talk about Barboza as the master of violence. I was down at ATT last year to interview some fighters and in the middle of talking to one of them, I hear over my shoulder like,

like the most violent sounds you ever heard. You turn around, Barboza's in the center of the cage doing spinning back everything against the pads at vicious speeds and it's just like you get that reminder in real time about just how freaking dangerous this guy is. Yet, he's moving down in weight luke at 35 is it i think he's 35 years old and he's lost four of his last six this is either going to be new life or you know this could be some heavy desperation and you wonder if igay with

the wrestling and the the high volume style can can avoid damage but really just test test whether barbosa was able to make that cut cleanly. It's going to be really fun to watch. He's had some bad luck too. I thought he beat Paul Felder in the rematch. He didn't obviously in Abu Dhabi, but I thought he had. But still, we're going to see how much life is left in him. Eric Anders taking on Christoph Jotko. I don't have a strong opinion about it either way. The one that I've got my eye on is the opener to the card, BC, Song Yedong, taking on Marlon Vera.

Marlon Vera, another one of these guys who came in, and you're like, oh, he's one of these Latin American guys who the UFC is just sort of treating as a developmental project. But he said, you know what? I'm not going to settle for just what people expect from me. So he moves to California, trains with Colin Oyama, one of the greatest. To me, newer fans don't really know who Colin Oyama is, but he was the guy that made Rampage who Rampage was, or at least was certainly part of that process.

I mean, I want to give Rampage credit for his own efforts. But in terms of a coaching component, I'm going to say this. I believe that Colin Oyama might be the best guy to take undeveloped talent and then turn it into developed talent when they're young. He is so gifted at that. He does it all the time with fighters you may not recognize.

And I think Marlon Vera, Chito, has become something really special. Song Yedong, to me, is dangerous and athletic and powerful. But Vera went the distance trading with John Lineker. I like Vera's chances here to show us that he is a really, really serious contender in that featherweight division. Yeah, and he's on a hell of a quiet win streak, you know, which you just alluded to yourself, Vera. You have to love what Sadang brings, though.

22 years old. He hasn't lost in something like eight fights. He's like 7-0-1, and that one was that draw against Cody Stammen where, you know, he got docked a point. I thought he was the better fighter that night. He's one of Mr. Faber's boys. You know know I feel like Uriah has been talking about this guy forever get hit the kid's still only 22 Luke this is a hell of a good fight look I'm telling you of the three cards obviously 249 was so stacked and I think it actually exceeded our expectations for

a Wednesday night fight last night was really fun but Saturday has a lot of potential to really jump out jump out of uh jump out of the womb here. What am I saying here? Throw the baby out with the, yeah. Anyway, you quickly went over that, Christoph, Jotko, Eric, your boy, Anders. They're going to bang Luke. Yeah, it's a fine fight. I mean, again, I have nothing against it.

It just doesn't stand out among the rest of the card there. But as I mentioned, Matt Brown coming back against Miguel Baeza. I love that. Anthony Hernandez taking on Kevin Holland. Should be fine. On the undercard, the sleeper is Mike Davis is the guy that tuned up Thomas Gifford. And then Giga Chikadze, this international class kickboxer.

That should be a hell of a contest. Courtney Casey, Mauro Romero-Barella, Darren Elkins, as you mentioned, against Nate Landwehr, and then Rodrigo Nascimento taking on Dontale Mays. I think he's from the Contender Series, if memory serves. So, there you go. Any final thoughts, BC?

Just that it seems to be, you know, if UFC gets through this third card in eight days without anything catastrophic, well done by them. You know, they are bringing it back. You're seeing now arizona is opening up the doors florida a lot you know your pro sports is coming back you know love them or hate them dana was a big part of that so i'm i'm i'm happy to see it luke we need it our business needs it uh as long as it can be done right this has been so much fun this week it's been it's been crazy we're putting out shows left

and right oh speaking of that, Luke, can we drop a Barry Horowitz here on our fine folks at Morning Combat Showtime, Malka? We got a new show, Luke. We certainly do. It airs tonight. So if you're watching this, it's Thursday, May 14th. Tonight on Showtime Extreme,

I believe at 10 p.m. if memory serves, BC, you and I on the low have been doing episodes where you and I on the low have been doing episodes where you and I, we speak to Scott Coker and Mauro Ranallo about some of Strikeforce's biggest fights, biggest rivalries, biggest moments. We did Thompson Melendez. We did Cormier's run through the heavyweight Grand Prix. We did what made Frank Shamrock one of the bigger stars of the Strikeforce.

Think of who's in that archive vault. You're talking about guys like Nick Diaz, Kung Lee. I mean, there's some fun stuff coming in this series, Luke. It's been a lot of fun. Don't forget about Friday. This Friday night, 10pm Eastern, you want a little MK companion? How about when Showtime re-airs

Mayweather-McGregor? A little fun fight to go back and watch again. Mayweather-Maidana won. Really, arguably Floyd's most exciting fight, maybe outside of those Castillo fights. We're going to be there along with them, okay? Two beer minimum. It's going to be fun, Luke.

All right? You ready? We have lots of a broadcast today. You can check the one on Showtime Extreme tonight. And then, of course, we have the companion tomorrow and then Saturday of the fight. So we're keeping people locked on with plenty of content, plenty of analysis and insight.

And then we're back on Monday, B.C., for another round of the traditional morning combat show. What do you think for our first morning combat extra? I thought it went pretty good, except for my snafus that ruined things at the beginning. We didn't even hear from Jay once. I even made a Back to the Future reference, and this guy who made that Back in Time documentary,

he didn't even chirp in on there, so it was nice to hear, you know? Jay took the day off. It was great. The sound of silence when Jay is around is truly a joy. Okay, BC. Do they have any graphics for us to plug on social? I don't think that they do.

Let's see. You got any graphics for us to plug? No graphics. You got nothing. All right. Well, listen. You know where to follow us. Like the video.

Subscribe to the channel. Check us out 10 p.m. on Showtime Extreme tonight. And then tomorrow, join me and BC, check us out uh 10 p.m on showtime extreme tonight and then tomorrow join me nbc i think also at 10 p.m on regular showtime hey let's watch mayweather madonna and then relive mayweather mcgregor together bring a beer bring a glass of wine bring some booze and let's have a good time right let me put the last bit of pressure on you people now is the time to subscribe on youtube and tell your friends and tweet it out and say, hey, I really love this show. You should do the same because you hear our potential right now for expansion, right?

We're bulging at the seams here. So be a part of that. Get on board early. All you have to do is click subscribe, okay? I'm not asking you to get the emails or anything. Just click subscribe, okay? Do it, all right? Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I want to get out of or anything. Just click subscribe, okay? Do it, all right? Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. I want to get out of this basement one day. Yeah, I agree. All right, BC. Great stuff today. Hope everyone enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much for watching. We'll be back with you live on Friday night.

Check us out on Showtime Extreme tonight. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.