MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Macau Recap: Petr Yan is BACK, Conor McGregor Trial Reaction

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

A slow weekend in the world of combat sports, but it doesn't mean MK takes days off. On this episode of MORNING KOMBAT, Luke and BC start by recapping a fun UFC Macau event. In the main event, Petr Yan reclaims elite status with a thrilling five-round win over Deiveson Figueiredo. After 4 losses in previous 6 bouts, the 31-year-old Yan looked completely reborn. Was this performance strong enough for UFC brass to consider Yan leapfrogging Umar Nurmagomedov for next shot at Merab Dvalishvilli's title? On the undercard, Yan Xiaonan was absolutely dominant in cooling off a not-ready-for-primetime Tabatha Ricci in Saturday's co-main event. Was this performance more about Yan reclaiming her elite, title-contending status or Tabatha Ricci proving she's not ready for primetime in what amounted to a step-up fight?  In non-fight news, Conor McGregor's civil trial ended with the MMA start being 'found liable of rape'. How much do you expect the fallout of this trial to affect both McGregor's behavior and his reputation/brand power moving forward? The guys react to the news . Finally, Bellator fighters call out PFL's handling of 2024. What does it mean? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reveille Reveille Boys Look at us now tip to tip Oh Jesus Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Do you want a margarita? Yes! My God! Oh, yeah. Get out the cranberry, the stuffing, the gravy, maybe a fried turkey. It's Thanksgiving week here on Morning Combat, Monday, November 25th, 2024.

And we give thanks to you, MK Nation. Welcome on in to today's episode. My name is the BB, what am I again? I'm an alpha. I'll tell you that much. Are you? Yeah, the BBC with that BDE, Luke. How about that?

Hey, it's Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas, LT. Welcome to Metal Ark Studios in Manhattan. Welcome to the best damn combat sports show, period. Thanks, brah. Yeah. Are you fired up about life, or are you just admiring my one love, Bob Marley, midlife crisis vacation hat? Total cost of what you're wearing is three and a half uh cents i mean really i wouldn't even steal what you have that's a great bomber jacket too bad people can't really

find it yeah they only exist on me yeah that's it yes yes uh bc i have to give a shout out i was uh i was at one of my favorite places yesterday in dc uh getting a joseph Bank? That's the only one I got of shit. People always ask me for DC recommendations. Best toilet on M Street. Joseph A. Bank. 19th and M. That's a real place. Okay.

No. I was actually getting some late lunch, early dinner yesterday with the wife and the kid. It was great. We go to this place all the time. It's called La Cosecha. It's like a big market. That sounds very Spanish. Just means the harvest in Spanish. Oh, okay.

And this dude came up to me with his, I know it's his significant other. I cannot remember now if it was his wife or girlfriend. Okay, was she a BBL? She was a normal person. Maybe Ukrainian. And he came up to me and was like, you know, it took me a little while to work up the courage to come say hi, but big fan. And he told me he bought a BC Cameo.

Yes. That's right. Gave you a little cash. Five-star reviews. He was an MK fan, watches the live chat. Just the whole universe here was a big part of it. Main card minute fan? He didn't mention that.

Okay. But I have to say this. I could barely make conversation with him because I was hung over as shit yesterday. Because you're 45 and washed. I had three vodka Gatorades on saturday night like absolutely white trash piece of shit so were you like uh who wants a margarita style or what were you no not that banged up but definitely but i woke up feeling like oh what's this gentleman's name we should shout i believe his name was chris oh nice chris all right it was very very friendly

i wanted to make sure a lot of people come up to me and say hi. Most of them are very cool. Rarely are they with their significant other who also knows anybody from the extended MK universe, and she knew everybody. So they were very cool, and I feel very bad because I could barely make coherent conversation with them because your boy got whooped by Tito's vodka. Okay. Did Tukes get introduced too? She doesn't care. Yeah, she doesn't. I took her to school.

I did a morning radio interview in the city. I took her to school, and they, on the radio, going like, coming up in the next hour, Luke Thomas will be here. And she heard me. She's like, Daddy, is that you? I said, yes. Then when she came home, I tried to play her the interview. She listened to about three seconds before she was like,

get that shit out of my face. Yeah, that's it. That's it. We want your paycheck. We don't want your shit, though. Get it out of here. Okay. There you go.

We got a great show for you today, recapping UFC Macau, by the way, and looking at the fallout of Conor McGregor's trial for sexual assault. Also going to check in on the PFL, which is back this week, Luke. I'm going to be honest with you. Until today, I didn't know that the PFL finals are Friday, the championship. If you had told me, gun to your head, is there a PFL final, you know, a real gun to my head, there a pfl final you know a real gun to my head i would have had to have wished tukster and my wife goodbye are you doing the gun to the

head joke because it's in saudi or no that's more sword to the back of the neck okay okay just the same uh no i i had no effing clue yes for some, I thought it was on the same card as Hughes and Nurmagomedov. No, that's January. Right. A lot of Bellator champions quite mad about their inactivity. We'll talk about that today, too. We'll get into that today. Also, you wanted to, like, break down this Joe Rogan Ukraine thing, and I was like, I

don't want that in our show. I never. Actually, I never said that at all. In fact, I don't want to talk about it even a little. Good. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about DMs and other weird stuff. All right?

I just want to talk about fights. Okay? All right? That's the only thing I'm into at the end of the day. Not saucy details between exes. You sure about that? Yeah, we have, like I mentioned, a great show for you. You can follow us, by the way, on the social handles below. Not just at Morning Combat on all socials, but our respective YouTube accounts, which stay populated with fresh content. Also, we have a third member of the team, our producer, director, and resident betting and bong degenerate, Luke of Long Island fame, Noseda from the Main Card Minute. Long Island, how are you?

I'm doing good, guys. How are we? Old. Old. Yeah. Do you know Long Island Luke had a 6 a.m. live start to his Main Card Minute pod on Saturday? 6 a.m. Just start to his main card minute pod on Saturday? 6 a.m.

Just got nothing going on in his life. I woke up at 5 a.m. just in time for that Ming Shi head kick. That was pretty sick. That was nice. That was great. And then we watched the main card. We had a good time. I'll be live for PFL Friday, too.

How'd your betting go? Not great, Luke. I don't want to talk about it. Thank you. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. You got to take the Ls. We didn't do good.

Wang Tong definitely ruined my parlay. That was a one uh vulcan ozdemir looked okay against carlos olberg definitely didn't win that fight though and i had figgy as well i scored that fight five nothing yawn as well as the judges but it was close on some people's scorecards going into the fifth so i was a little optimistic but yeah the fight itself was reasonably close the scoring was not close. And people think scoring is always an indication of how close the fight is, but of course, that's not always true.

For sure. And that is a fine bomber jacket you're wearing. We're going to revamp merch for the new year. Yeah, I think 2025 we're going to do things a little differently. So hold your horses, keep your money, we'll be back with a bang in 2025. Also, morningcombat at gmail.com because why, BC, why? Because every Friday we handle your fan submissions, your dead wrongs.

Also, it's your opportunity to reach the show. Tell Mikey we said hi. Just please do not place a photo of your stick in the pic. But we are doing a mailbag episode on Friday as well. Yes, this week, Black Friday. So after you get into a fight at Best Buy and before you watch the fights on PFL, catch us, 11 a.m. Eastern

on Friday, a special mailbag holiday edition. How are we going to solicit these mailbag questions? Send them to us at morningcombat at gmail.com. So do that today. We will be recording this on Wednesday, airing it on Friday. Before Wednesday, hit us up with your questions.

Fun holiday mailbag, as we always give you. Maybe we'll set the stage for PFL, too, because people got to find out who's going to win DeCheva versus Talia. It's a good fight. That's a great fight. Tyler Santos and Dakota DeCheva is legitimately intriguing and fun and interesting. Yeah, I can't wait for that. I think Don Davis should add an extra end to his first name. It's not that the PFL, we talked about this before the show, right?

It's not that they don't have quality fights or quality fighters. They just don't have quality promotion or quality business strategy. What were you going to say? I was going to say the odds, despite that fight being close on paper, the odds are crazy in favor of Dakota. She's like minus 380. Oh, Tyler could take her down, right? I might take Talia plus 250.

Talia beat Shevchenko in front of my eyes, I thought. I mean, not according to the judges, but it was certainly close, yes. I mean, then again, I thought Whitaker beat Adesanya in the rematch, too. The match to make was obviously Whitaker John Jones. That was the one that got away. Yeah, it is. Luke, do you

have any fun Turkey Day plans that you're willing to share with the people? I have to take the train down to Richmond. I'm have to take the train down to Richmond. I'm going to take the train down to Richmond to go spend the day with my family down there. How long of a ride is that? Assuming there's no issues, less than two hours. Okay. Someone's cooking a turkey in your family?

My brother and my sister, remember, they had a restaurant together. So they're doing all the cooking. They were like, just go. They told me, I swear to God, this is how they have. I know they have no confidence in me. Rightly, rightly. They were like, can you just go buy some sides at Whole Foods? See, they're even giving you the location they want it from.

They're like, don't, you know, don't go to shop. Right. Don't make them. I wouldn't have done. I would have gone to Whole Foods anyway. But I was like, you know what, man? Fuck you. You should bring specific Colombian dishes to this event.

I've done that in the past, and sometimes it's a huge hit, and sometimes it's a huge miss. Sometimes it's a doom, if you will. Yeah, yeah. So this time I'm just going to get high and sit around. Okay, a lot of people, I'm sure, are waiting to see if we will react to AJ Buffumo's return to professional wrestling at AEW Full Gear over the weekend.

Did you not see a headline that they got into some white supremacist shit? I did not see that. Wow, that's aggressive. I did not see that. So they didn't do it on purpose. Someone bought a cameo, as I understand it, and made them talk in code, and they were none the wiser. I did not know about that. But we'll be seeing a little bit of that shit and have you seen it.

So we'll find out later in the show. Man, my nose is... Look at the shit that came out of my nose. I mean, really, we're doing this? I mean, can we get a live shot of your asshole while we're at it too? Please, I mean, come on. Dude, look at that. I got fucking pterodactyls coming out of my nose.

Please, leave that out so everyone else gets to see it. Dude, I want you to look at that. All right, hey, without that note. Honestly, it looks like I wiped my ass. It really, really does. Let's get fired up for today. Let's hit the topics that matter. And topic number one, of course, is that fan-frigging-tastic UFC Macau main event in the Bantamweight division.

Two former UFC champions facing off. But how about this? A rejuvenation of sorts for former title holder Peyoteur Jan as he reclaims his elite status with a thrilling five round unanimous decision victory over former flyweight King Devison Figueredo. So Luke four losses in his previous six bouts, but for the 31 year old Yon, he looked completely reborn as I mentioned. So was this performance strong enough in your opinion to do what we teased last week?

Should the UFC brass consider allowing pay Y or Jan, now two-fight win streak, former champion, to cut the line even ahead of Umar Nurmagomedov to get that next shot at Merab's title? I'm not so sure that they should. Now, you're saying cut the line. I'm saying, because we said, what if one of these guys on Saturday gets a huge knockout? Could they cut the line?

This dominant five-round performance in a very good fight. Is that enough? Probably not enough to cut the line in that sense. Now, you might be saying, well, again, overall resumes, and this was a very quality win by Jan. Jan obviously has done better work at Bantamweight. Hello,

he's been a former champion. Nurmagomedov only has really one high-quality win, which would be the Corey Sandhagen one. Jan would arguably get a maybe should in some people's minds get an opportunity to get a title shot but BC here's the problem if Murab is the champ that's what we're talking about here cutting the line we already saw this fight not too long ago which isn't to say it would be different but the first fight was not that great as a fun kind of exercise, and it was dominant in favor of Murab. Again, a second fight might be different, but we've at least seen this once, and it was kind of one-sided. You are probably looking for maybe a fresher matchup.

Also, what I would say is you do have some options at Bantamweight BC. Could I see an argument for Jan cutting the line? I don't think it's the craziest one. I just wouldn't make it. What I would say is let Nurmagomedov have a title shot, freshen it up. Jan could get the winner of that. Or how about this? Why don't we just run back Piotr Jan versus Sugar Sean O'Malley? Not a horrible idea. The first fight was

close. I thought Jan won that. By the way, on Friday, we did talk about the fact that those three losses that he had, I thought Figge might throw in an upset. Okay, wrong on that level. But on the other side, he had the two split decisions and then the loss to Marav. All three of those guys either were or are champions.

The burial of Jan is premature, so there's a lot of room for optimism that he could get a title shot again, that he could win a title again. But I do think rotating in some newer characters into the bantamweight universe is probably better for the division well jan and maybe it was opportunistic sort of brand management said afterwards he has nothing to prove a second

time against o'malley that he wants to go straight for that title against marab so we do have marab's reaction he did a live stream during the fight and was talking about it and then he did this video afterwards. If you don't mind hitting that up, let's hear from the champ. Great fight, Peter. I like your call out and I like your respect. Let's go again after two years. March 8th.

T-Mobile. Let's fucking go. Okay, champ. He's got a date. He's got a please send location. He's got that. But it really comes back to what we talked about with Umar. Like, he doesn't have enough prerequisite wins,

but he's got that big one against a streaking Sanhagen. So I kind of lean with you. I think Murab versus Umar is just that sexy ass hardcore fan delight fight that we kind of need to see right now. Are you getting the feeling that some on XR or most that Murab just doesn't want to lose the title to Umar when I think this fight is perfect 50-50 Murab Umar? He wants to fight anybody but Umar it seems. I don't know how a marab umar fight goes i think it's competitive in ways that some of his other ones have not been but i don't i don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about it but

i do i mean i don't i don't know how you can observe what he's doing and come to the conclusion that he has an equal amount of desire to fight both umar as well as yon or you know name any other contender who was available it seems pretty clear that there is a difference in how much he is seeking out some of these adventures over the other ones and again you sort of understand it your money goes up substantially when you have the title this is not a case like john jones i mean there's his own one but you know he's had the title the vast majority of his career. All of his bouts have a title in them one way or the other.

Murab has had a long journey to get here. He's trying to preserve that as long as possible, and I understand that. So I'm not one of these, like, buffoons who's like, Murab is scared of him. I don't—Murab doesn't seem afraid of very much at all, but maybe to his own detriment, to be quite honest with you, BC. However, he already beat Jan. He probably feels pretty confident he could at least do something similar a second time around.

Nurmagomedov is at a bare minimum, BC. A little bit more of a wild card in that respect. And I just don't think he wants that fight as much. I know. It's going to come down to what the UFC brass wants. Bringing the topic back to Peyotr Jan, where it belongs. You rightfully said in the build buildup that you can't hold, you know, it's four losses in six fights are obviously all beginning with that DQ

loss at the title level to Aljo. You can't necessarily hold that against Jan because he was so competitive during that stretch. He's always taking on elite competition. And at 31, Luke, he did come back here and remind us exactly who he is against a very stiff test in Figueredo who brought it,

who was the fresher fighter late, who was landing big bombs. Wasn't enough. You saw some 50, 45 scorecards. So when we look back at Jan during the stretch in which there were a lot of defeats, and then we compare it to that performance against Figgy,

what were the differences in your eyes? Partly just the matchup itself. I did not like Figueredoato's game plan the initial inside trip he had in the first round with the top control was really great he had the back for a little while but couldn't do necessarily a ton with it i did give him the first round but i don't think it's crazy for 50 45 yawn i totally understand that um so he had some things going well for him but the big problem was he just wasn't pressing yon backwards he was kind of relenting pressure that is just a hard thing what did we talk about on friday abc you had to make yon on unsure yes of what kind of attack was coming he was in total control of both

range and real estate that's a tough and even though he got takedowns outside of the first round where there was a sort of a lengthy sequence, Jan was getting right back up for the most part. Very much. And so he had to spend a lot of time holding for control, which did not allow him to put any abuse down there when he had an opportunity otherwise. And so partly it was just a matchup, but again, I feel like Jan

totally, totally was done wrong by some of the narrative about that. I thought he beat Sean O'Malley straight up. I did not think he beat Aljo. I thought Aljo, the second time around him, certainly beat him fair and square. What a very close fight. And then the Murab fight, I think Murab attempted something like 50 takedowns

in their first contest. Again, all former champions. Okay, you're not going to beat all the champions of your time in all likelihood unless you're just generationally special like Jon Jones at light heavyweight. Okay, you're not that. You're still great. There's still many levels to greatness beyond just being generationally set apart from

everyone else walking the earth at the exact same time. And we have a hard time differentiating that because there are different ways to measure greatness or measure at least elite quality. BC, is he generationally great no i don't think so but he's elite he has good skills everywhere he is hard to hold down he's hard to take down by the way how about some of those combos where he was hitting them making him move a direction and then intercepting them on the other side or the way he was setting up those those quick snatch takedowns where he was coming over with the overhand left and then pulling the trip at the same time you know soto gary whatever yeahoto-Gari, whatever it's called.

Yeah, I don't know those fancy words that Bisping was using. He used a lot of words, Bisping, on that broadcast. He tends to dominate every broadcast that he's on to a detrimental level. Not the most parsimonious. I don't know how he is at Power Slap because I would never watch that, but it wasn't great in that regard. I've never seen that either. Look, Jan was reborn.

He was completely well-rounded in this. The takedown defense, ability to scramble and get up so quickly. The meanness was back. That sort of edge that he brings to it. He always had an answer for pretty much anything Figge had. Now, Figge, to his credit, was in this fight. Even if he scored a 5-0, he was in this fight for big stretches. I forgot if it was round two or three,

but I edged it to Figge because he had a big rally at the end. Was it four? Not four, because then in four four he does get the knockdown. Yes. But I didn't love his work the rest of the way. Fair, yes. But we did find out from Piotr Jan afterwards that that punch in round four did impact him.

Let's listen to him. You know, when he landed this knockdown with his punch, you know, I thought, you know, it's not a new year yet but fireworks already started and uh maybe i was lost for a little second but then i was uh recovered pretty fast and knew what's going on you know it's a tough sport you know you can land tough punches you know it's anything can happen so you have to be ready you can be broken or you can keep going i just love the you can see it in his face. Like everything is back.

The mojo is back. You know what I'm saying? Like he's been, he's been battle tested. He's been through a tough stretch. Everyone was sort of, you know, kind of thinking this was maybe the end of him at the elite level, even though he's right around that 30 year old age mark. But it seemed like there was almost this relief in Jan to get this opportunity to come back and be himself again.

And it wasn't like he wasn't that far from himself in recent fights, but even separate from the results, they're just lacked an edge. I don't know. It seemed like that knee against Aljo really set him back for a while. Not completely, not making him wash, not making him wear those, even the addition of those losses didn't bring down completely what we think of him, but he just picked it all back up for this fight. And it was really refreshing to see, I thought.

He looked in flow state. He looked like they had a clear understanding of what they were up against, how Figge would react, and then how to build offense thereafter. By the way, Jan a characteristically slow start. Again, I think you could give Figge round one if you wanted to. I did in real time upon rewatch, maybe not as ironclad.

Nevertheless, he got right to work in challenging those positions. And then from there on out, yes, he got rocked in round four or whatever. But who won this fight for longer stretches? Obviously, Jan. And he, I think, got to work a little bit quicker despite having some of the grappling challenges in the first round than normal. And so, you know, you mentioned the confidence. He had to know how it had to be very frustrating to lose fights against guys this good this closely. And I wonder what it's done in the training room to make him sharpen up just a few different things because he was never that out of it.

So you don't need a big correction, but you might need the small right adjustment. And maybe Figueiredo doesn't tell us if he got all of those answers, but he's still obviously in the ballpark. He's still obviously, he hasn't dropped off to me in skill level in any discernible way. If anything, BC, he's still getting better. But he was kind of, kind of forgotten at the title level of late with the losses. So now to inject him right back in the mix in an already deep division,

we got some fun things ahead in the future. This fight did give us a bunch, by the way, of feel-good moments. How good did you feel when Jan and Figgy get up on the cage at the end after five rounds and just look at each other with that brotherly respect? Like, yeah, like, look at us. We fucking did it. Like, it wasn't fight of the year, but that was a really nice encapsulation of elite martial arts with two former champions coming together. Yeah, it wasn't one of the year, but that was a really nice encapsulation

of elite martial arts with two former champions coming together. Yeah, it wasn't one of these things where it was like, to your point, fight of the year or like, oh my God, that was, you know, exhausting to watch in a good way as a spectator,

but it was high level. It was thought, you know what it was? It was thoughtful the whole way through. Yeah. And it was at times nip and tuck, at times the action let loose a little bit more, but everyone was trying to build off of what had just happened and to see the challenge

to that and then the challenge to that and then the challenge to that it was fun it was dynamic it was smart it was saturday morning over a cup of coffee on the east coast it was great so it was really it was a really really thoughtful good fight again that wasn't even necessarily a number one contenders fight it was kind of close to that it may end up being that way but my point is it wasn't even a surefire number one contender battle and look at how high quality it was this division is just high level well i'll get there was an even better by the way wholesome moment we'll get to in a second but speaking of jan i'm trying to is there a correlation here historically or in recent memory where somebody was a champion then had even though

when four losses in six fights his performances didn't degrade he was still an elite fighter in those performances but i'm trying to remember have we seen a fighter lose that many times after losing the belt and then make another run another comeback because he looks like he's on the verge of another run here and at 31 you know he's not he's not past it someone taking that many losses and been counted out only to turn that around? I can't. Long Island Luke, you got anybody off the top of your head? No, I'm racking my brain.

I can't think of anyone. I mean, it's not the same. Aldo got smoked by McGregor and then got the interim title back by beating Frankie. But this is four losses in six fights, all in either title fights or very elite fights. Right, right. So that would be different. And obviously Couture had issues, but then would change divisions. Yes.

So that's not quite the same either because he's staying in the shark-infested waters. And then Max lost the title and got the BMF one up a weight class, but that's not what you're talking about here either. I mean, although going through the two stoppage losses to Max at about the same age and then turning it back around is maybe a decent comparison. Something close. But that's not as many losses in that sense. It's wild. It's crazy. It's very good to see. And it produced the moment I'm talking about.

This was during the post-fight interview. I hope UFC doesn't take down our show today for showing this, but I had to take the risk because it's a father and son moment that just had to touch you right in the feel zone. Let's watch it. I'm very happy that my dad won. Oh, God. Chris Weidman is still my boy, dude.

That was awesome, right? Yeah, it was nice to do the show with you today. It's now over. We had a good run. Seriously, dude, that's, come on. I just want to say this, too. I mean, the wholesome moments don't mean shit to me. Yeah, because you don't have a soul anymore.

I'm too old. Well, also, dude, they did that. We didn't even mention it. They did the wholesome moments don't mean shit to me yeah because you don't have a soul anymore i'm too old well also dude they did that we didn't even mention it they did the stipe miocic fucking in you know at 7 a.m in macau yeah i'm like you guys know we fought last week but okay neither here nor there i just want to point this out you know aljermaine sterling was a champion had a good run at it but it didn't last it only lasted so long. Sean O'Malley, similar kind of thing. And Jan, a similar kind of thing. It didn't last all that long.

How could it? It's very difficult. Murab is up against it. He's probably going to have to fight maybe Jan again or probably Nurmagomedov. I don't know how much longer his title run will be. This is what I mean. I don't know. Like, think about how good you have to be just to be a top contender in this division,

much less a champion, much less a champion who has multiple title defenses. And this is my point. People bagging on how he lost four of six, one of which was the DQ, and then we mentioned the other ones were all to champion. All four were all to champions. How good do you have to be to be better than all of those guys? Think about how massively, insanely good you have to be to be able to be like, I'm going to hold this belt for five title defenses at 135 pounds. You have to be exceptional beyond what we have known in history to be true to this point.

So anybody who can get that title is insane. If he can get back there and get another one, dude, recapturing a belt at 135. After that many losses? After that much time, too, has expired. That is insane. Well, he had his wife, his kids at the fight, and Jan caught up with Helen Yee Sports. I got to shout out Helen Yee.

She did a ton of interviews with fighters on this card heading in in Mander with subplotters. She did. Yes, it was very impressive to see. Here's Yee talking to Jan about this wholesome moment involving his son. Your family standing front row, your son came in there afterwards.

He was crying. He made a lot of grown men cry tonight. How special was that for you? I'm very happy that my dad won! It's cool. I think it will be a great example for him. A great example. I think for him it will be a great example for him. I think for him it will be a good example, a good lesson in life.

Well, he's very proud of you and he doesn't call you brother anymore, right? My son told me, brother, what the f**k. I'm very proud of you and I call you brother more often. I think he's proud, but yes. Yeah, I think he's proud. But I'm his father, brother, friend. But for him I'm a father, brother, and a friend. I think they've been watching too much Habib and Islam and everybody.

Brother. Brother, brother, brother. Great to see. Now, Figgy, on the other hand, 36 years old, incredible performance for sure. Couldn't get over the hump. It stops a three-fight win streak. I mean, it's weird to say,

how much more do you think he has left at this level? Because I didn't think he'd get to this level when he moved up in weight following the four fight series with brandon moreno what would be a good fight for him next and is he still a threat here lingering around this deep title run i think him versus san hagen is that's a hell of a fight that's a fun one does this style work he's a smaller he's small at this way enough to win a belt but everybody else probably yeah he's got like if his opponent has wrestling deficiency that certainly can buy him time in fights and he's such a good counter puncher and really loads up on his shots but was this his window that he needed to win here yeah i mean i think this is the kind of performance

again losing to peter yan is not some kind of mark of shame. Far from it. However, I am now skeptical of any chance he has to win a title in this weight class. One never knows. He could fill in last minute. And you certainly saw it to your point in round four. He's got dynamic power. Oh, he has so much better stamina at this weight class. So he was freshly. So there are many, many things to still like about Figge.

But saying to yourself, okay, there are things I like. Are those sufficient for claiming a weight class title? Probably not. Many, many things to still like about Figge, but saying to yourself, okay, there are things I like. Are those sufficient for claiming a weight class title? Probably not. And so for that reason, I still am high on him. There's a bunch of fun matchups. Dude, you know, honestly, he's kind of tailor-made for like a BMF at 135. I'm not calling for that.

I'm not begging them to make that. But if they were to say, hey, we have to make a bantamweight title fight for BMF, who are you putting in there? Top ten, who are you putting in there? So there's a BMF, but Max is the BMF champion. At 135. Oh, we're going to have a BMF title in each weight class? No, no, no, just hear me out. Just imagine they said that. Brian Campbell, we'll call you up, give us a, we'll go, Figgy versus who? Who would you make?

Bantamweight? Jose Aldo? You could do that. That's fun. That's some Brazilian crime. Who would you do? 135, Long Island Luke. Dude, I've been looking at the rankings and sitting on? Jose Aldo? You could do that. That's fun. That's some Brazilian crime. Who would you do? 135 Long Island Luke? I've been looking at the rankings and sitting on that Jose Aldo matchup for a minute now for when you guys ask me. I like that fight a lot. That'd be badass because it put Jose back in the biggish

fight with Stiggs. And again, no one has weight class title aspirations for Jose Aldo, so you can just let him let it bang. Do you think it's better if the BMF was handled by the UFC as a once a year fight? So like you could have a list of annual BMF champions rather than you win the belt and then you get to defend it, which was broken up by Jorge winning the belt from Diaz and then going

right into a title fight. So like people still think Kamaru is the lineal BMF champion, I guess, until he lost. I don't know what the best way to do that, to be honest to Leon. I don't know what the best way is to do that, to be honest with you. I don't know. Yeah, maybe once a year, like at the MSG card, for example,

we go, we're doing a BMF fight. So that means it could be open to men, women, whatever division. You know what they should do? Part of the problem was they made the prizes the same. Yes, it's a silver belt, but it's still a belt. Yes. They should have made them like one of those pride gigantic trophies. Or a robe or something

cool. It signifies something you won on that night, but obviously it expires on that night. Cinderella, her slippers, the pumpkin or the carrot turns back into a pumpkin. I want a red MAGA hat autographed by the president from outside the cage

after you win it. It comes off of his head and onto yours. Not for me per se. We're not that far away from that we're not that far but you understand what i'm saying i do making a trophy that signifies an achievement on that evening but no one has any expectations about defending it there's nothing to defend it was just a thing you win on that night yes yes i i'm with that i'm with that i i jacket would be like a cool like 80 satin jacket that says, Baddest Motherfucker in Person. A big old fucking check.

Make it like a $5 million prize. Oh, you mean like BKFC's $25 million tournament coming up? Something like that. And then do it pride style. You get a big trophy. They drop confetti from the sky. They give you a big check, an oversized check, and everyone has a great time.

And then you're like, oh, who was the big guy that night? Figgy, whatever. I didn't see a press release for Conor's situation from Endeavor, by the way, or TKO. Yeah, I wonder why that is. Well, he probably paid enough in legal fees. That's usually Data's response. He was penalized enough in legal fees. His penalty will be social ostracism.

There you go. We'll get to Conor, by the way. Let's keep going, though, on this card to topic number two, and that's the Macau undercard headline, of course, by two big results. Yan Xiaonan in the co-main event, making her claim for a second chance, potentially at the 115 title. And we'll get to Wang Tong coming in as one of the biggest betting favorites to get upset in UFC memory.

But Luke, let's start with Yan Xiaonan here. Tabitha Ricci, the opponent. Xiaonan was absolutely dominant in cooling off a version of Ricci who suddenly didn't look so ready for prime time. Was this performance in your eyes more about Jan reclaiming that elite status similar to Peyote Jan

in the main event? Not that Jan Schaunan really lost it despite losing a competitive five-round decision to Wei Li. Or is this more about Ricci proving that she still has a long way to go to be title-ready in these matches? I hate these answers, but it really is quite true. I found Ricci to be lacking, which was something we were a little bit worried about on Friday.

We said that there was a problem with having enough devastation in her game, but it's more than that. The reason why she can't engage in enough devastation with with damage is because she has trouble in this particular case closing the distance and when it's on the ground it's maintaining control position enough that you can open up there's a there's key fundamentals missing in the game doesn't have finishing power and has small limbs that's a problem unless you're light years faster also how do i navigate this distance in a way to do something meaningful? That is still an ongoing problem. She ran out of ideas. Yeah, and again, it was

up against somebody who was a former title contender in this division. She wasn't fighting some chump, but it also looked to me like Yan Xiaonan knew she had the upper hand and behaved in it. It was kind of, and I say this in a good way, kind of a bully in there at times, especially when it went late, kicking her in the face. Dude, her counter right hand, the same right hand

that put Jessica Andras to sleep, which is no joke in women's fighting, especially when it went late, kicking her in the face. Dude, her counter right hand, the same right hand that put Jessica Andras to sleep, which is no joke in women's fighting, especially against somebody that legendary, that every time Ricci tried to mount offense, right hand counter down the middle, end of discussion. She got disciplined and held at bay, and it was just a superior fighter against a less superior fighter. It was not that Ricci looked bad. We are not saying Ricci looked bad. We are not saying Ricci looked bad. That's not the argument we're making.

But she did look, BC, competent but limited. Limited is the right word. Competent but limited. And that's just not enough to earn a title shot in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Competent but limited is good. It can get you some things. It's certainly hard to do. Nothing we could ever do.

But it's not enough to what you were describing, which is to reach these kinds of lofty Heights. So I thought y'all look great. I thought Richie looked fine, but that's not enough. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure what the actual answer is. Like,

what is the, what does this fight more about what Yon did or what Richie didn't what Yon did though at 35 was come back and completely remind us who she is. And here's, what's crazy. Like this is actually kind of the perfect setting for this performance.

It's in Macau in China. They're young. Jungway Lee's in the crowd and Luke right away. I'm thinking, all right, good idea to have a great performance and call for an immediate title shot. But I'm kind of wondering now let's talk about one 15. Suddenly it was my favorite division forever.

It seemed forever deep. Like the top 10 was legitimate from the start in 2014. And it always felt like we had three or four or five potential champions on the roster. If you look at the rankings right now at strawweight, with Tatiana Suarez being injured, with Mackenzie Dern being inconsistent and really unable to put together like two or three fight win streaks to get, they've been waiting to give her a title shot, right?

Does it actually make sense that Yan Xiaonan getting a second chance is probably the fight to make? People are complaining that Whaley's been inactive. They just want to see her back in. We always said that when those two fought, it should have been in China. Instead, they put it on UFC 300 at a time that they needed another title fight there. I'm wondering if she didn't just perfectly audition in China with Whaley

their cage side where it actually makes the most sense. Let's do this and let's do it again somewhere over there. Maybe. I didn't necessarily get that vibe, although that's that division's a little strange. But it's like if it's not her, it's going to be Werner Jandjarova, who's on

a good run, but like, are you screaming she should be in the next title shot? No. There's not a huge amount of push for her to be in that position. Yeah, you make a good point. You can certainly go that direction. I hadn't given it much thought, to be perfectly honest with you, but...

How close do you think she was at 300? She was in that fight. There was, you know, it was a... I never felt like she was really all that it is. I mean, in this particular case... She knocked the champ down. Fine, she can thump, youump, which we knew, but I never felt like she really...

I never felt like that bout was in doubt about which way it would go once it really got started. In this particular case, I will say something that we thought, what's going to be the most relevant metric? The fact that Ricci is 29 and

Shonan is 35? Yes yes or is it going to be that Shonan was ranked two in this division Ricci was ranked 10 turns out it was the latter that was the most important one that was a big step up for Ricci and again performed competently but it was too big of a step up it turned out Jan Shonan holding serve essentially at the number two position, really showing us that there are qualities between one to five and then six to ten. For sure. And it's the limitations, as we said, limited the limitations of what Ricci couldn't do. So I see a lot of criticism.

Excuse me. I got soda burps that have to come out. I'm trying there. Wow. You are a disgusting barn animal. By the way, over the weekend with the family, I saw the new rock Christmas movie. The red one. Actually, it's actually pretty good.

My daughter in the backseat yesterday kept saying over and over when we left the park. I love farting. She kept going. I love farting. I love farting. She's a Thomas. She's a Thomas. Luke, back to.

Richie. A lot of criticism online that seemed to be echoed from the broadcast, by the way, that maybe it's not just what I'm talking about, like a lack of finishing power at this elite level. They talked about not as much of a variety of a kicking game than maybe she should have, maybe too much focus on boxing. And then even though she has success with takedowns from the clinch, she does not have the ability to shoot a double or single

or pull it that way. Do you see that for her to get over this hump, she's going to need major changes? Some people are saying a new camp. I mean, is there a way she fixes this? New camp, I don't know. Those are very big considerations. When people say, oh yeah, just get a new camp,

that often means leaving the state. Yeah. Are you saying more of a new focus, maybe? Yeah, let's get a new camp, that often means like leaving the state. Yeah. Are you saying more of a new focus maybe? Yeah, or something like leaving the country, depending on your perspective. These are a little bit harder to do than folks might imagine. I would say this. It's clearly whatever she's doing is not enough. It's not enough.

How that problem is solved, I kind of leave to her without understanding more of the specifics. But would you agree in theory that if there was the threat of a takedown, not just in the clinch, it would improve her striking so much more? Significantly. Significantly. But these are a series of problems. It's really not one or the other. It's not one thing that I think well, it could be something that one coach could fix but you'd really have to have the right one. Dude, it's hard. Like, Poiton has

no business having the takedown defense and ability on the ground that he has. He doesn't have great ability on the ground, but he also has not been submitted down there, right? Right. And he just seemed to adjust to it like that, working with Glover and just being a special freak. I'm never sure how realistic it is for us to say, well, if you just add your wrestling,

or if you just fix this in this part of the game, like if you're a great athlete and a willing student, and you have a good coach, is that a winning formula? It will work. You'll get better. You won't necessarily get across what the finish line is that you need to relevant to your goals. So, for example, BC, if I trained with Usain Bolt on sprinting, would I get faster sprinting than I would necessarily on my own or with a different coach? Yes.

Probably. But I'm not going to qualify for any Olympic trials. There's the difference. You will get better. But are you going to get better enough to match what your ambition is? That's a separate consideration altogether. I see that brain turning. I see those wheels turning.

No, I'm always conjuring up counter skits and bits. I just have to make the game-time decision. Am I going to derail the show for one that doesn't land? Can I be Sully Sullenberger or am I Corey Lytle instead? That's the question. You know what I mean? Wow. All right.

I mean, okay, let's keep it going here. Luke, also on this card, by the way, China's Wang Tong, who does the Joker bit, 35-year-old, has a win over Shevchenko in kickboxing, seemed to be on the fast track toward a flyweight title. No more, folks. Gabriela Gabi Fernandez from Brazil really just waited out all of the threat of Tong striking. And once they got deeper into that fight, turned one huge counter left hand that floored Tong into an instant back take and then almost an instant tap. So, Luke, this is the first pro defeat for Tong in seven fights.

It's a massive loss. How much cause for concern for Wang Tong, who was doing all the right things and telling us and the UFC brass that she's the next star. Look, she's ready. That bit she did at the weigh-in with the flip the coin and all that, it was brilliant. And it's not like she fought awful

here she was in control for a lot of it but when it went south the fight was over does this derail her plans or is this just a learning curve in this game that you can't fake i think i could be ready to forgive it you'll recall shevchenko lost to nunez the first time greater is very different she was losing and then rallied back strongly. But she did lose. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't necessarily the case that she had this impeccable run to the title. That was also in a number one contenders fight, though.

That wasn't in a... I understand. There's meaningful differences. I'm not trying to compare the two apples to apples. I understand that there's a lot that's different. I'm pointing out, just because she lost this one and lost it kind of badly in the end, does not... It's not, like, proof that she can't win a title. That's really not what I'm trying to say. However, what I think came across,

and I watched it again on the train ride up BC, which was she was buying her own hype a little bit here, right? That was, the red flag to me was, okay, getting knocked out is not great, but the way in which she just was very dismissive of anything Fernandez could do back to her. Standing very close to her, yes. Standing close to her, getting head kicked, and then not really trying to clinch, just standing back at range. The head kick is really what set her up for that punch.

That's what set her up. I remember it kind of spilled out over the top of her neck and knocked her over. She caught herself in her hands and stood back up immediately, and then she just ate that gigantic left hand, but she was rocked. She was kind of doing a little bit of the fish dance. It's like, I can forgive this because, A, we don't exactly know how good Fernandez is. We'll find out. Maybe we'll find out that Fernandez is actually amazing and has, like, super great power.

And, you know, okay, that's totally understandable. But it is very apparent on tape to me that Kong did not have respect for her opponent was very much just trying to let it go. Backing up in straight lines at times, like being a little bit undisciplined and dismissive on the defensive end. Not an accident that this happened, I guess in hindsight, she got put to sleep.

She like, that was quick, dude. That choke was in. And I didn't know anything about Fernandez watching this fight. And then I go and see what she was doing, and I was like, dude, Fernandez doesn't look bad. Remember, Fernandez landed a couple of big strikes in the first round, too. Now, that was a much better round for Kong.

I'm not saying that Kong lost that round. Kong won that round walking away. But it wasn't like Fernandez just wilted in the first round. No, she was so game. She was a plus 750 underdog coming in. We more or less dismissed her as, who, which, which fighter is this? I mean, we didn't have the info and now you find out, well, there was a picture

of her and Amanda Nunes that was recently taken to MMA Masters and you find out, like Amanda, who lived at the gym in MMA Masters for almost a year before eventually finding, you know, a place to live in Florida. Fernandez is doing the same thing, living at that gym. She mentioned in the post-fight interview that she'd just gone through the loss of her father, the loss of a sibling,

and she was severely injured coming in. She had a leg injury, yet she took the opportunity bit down and created a big moment. I'm excited. I mean, we don't have an answer for what's next for her, how good is she. This was day one, but we've seen origin stories kind of start like this before right where someone comes in under turmoil but it's just so driven gets an opportunity scores a big upset and then it's sort of like oh we should have seen that coming all along i wonder

if she turns into one of those stories again i mean again there's meaningful differences between this comparison but i remember when joe lazon fought um jen's pulver everyone's like oh pulver is gonna pulverize pulverize this guy and then lozon fucking viciously k.o's him in the first round i believe and you know you're just like oh well there's more to the story than i realized that there was again will that be the case here only time will tell but and the maze full of these kinds of oh actually the story is not about x the story's about y let's see how it plays out chuck mendenhall was right you know the izzy versus poiton story.

He was definitely right, but also Izzy reclaimed some of that by finishing him and then him moving on to the next division. If he had a full head of hair, would you not have questioned him there and said he was right? Full stop. Or are you still wounded by the Return of the Jedi vibes? I've seen the ball dome years before many people have. Yes, yes. All right.

I mentioned the fourth biggest dog to cash in UFC history. Fernandez was plus 750. Is she the biggest dog in UFC fight night history? No. The other ones that happened on. Because I thought the. So let's break it down. The number one biggest underdog cash out is plus 950.

Shana Dobson against Maria Agopova. It was after Agop i made her debut i think that was a fight night yes i guess it could have been on the undercard of a pay-per-view i don't remember let me double check it was promune hose versus frankie egger fight night so that was plus 950 was dobson the number two biggest one matt sarah plus 850 against gsp in their first pay-per-view and then of course holly Holm plus 830 betting underdog and taking down Rousey in Australia. So that's a big moment there for Gabby Fernandez.

We'll see what happens in the future. Luke, let's keep on going down this line here. The light heavyweight tilt between Carlos Olberg and Vulcan Uzdemir seemed to be putting somebody into contention and furthering up the rankings. It turned out to be Olberg. It was a three-round decision. Competitive fight,

but I think the speed, the accuracy of his counter shots continuously beat Volkan to the punch, although Ousamir did get some licks in. How impressive was that for Olberg? Because this continues that winning streak, but yet he's in competitive fights every single time, it seems, until he finishes these guys. He didn't get to finish here, but this was probably

his best win up to date on the paper. There paper simply no question it's his best win over his highest quality opponent in that sense you really have to give it to him commend him i thought he had really for the most part pretty excellent use of the long guard right where he kind of hangs that hand out here like this i thought his footwork in general not not totally but in general kept him out of some of the worst punishment that Uzdemir was trying, didn't make him a stationary target, and he couldn't polish him off, right, which is typically what Olberg does, fast, counter-striking. You saw him backing up and then hitting that check hook at times.

He's got a brilliant left hook. I mean, it's maybe his best weapon. And he has balls in there, too. He's not afraid to joust. Absolutely not afraid of contact. So here's what I thought. My read on Olberg prior to the fight BC was I felt like he was offensively good, but limited and not defensively strong. And I think in general, I still kind of believe that. However, with a pretty big difference, I thought his offense, like when he couldn't knock him out, do you have enough to maintain the kind of order between the two of you for 15 minutes? And he could, that is no small feat. I give him big

props for that. I do think that his style to the point you raised is spot on BC. His style is kind of always going to involve a little more contact than you would like. And that might limit his upside. But I also felt like his defensive awareness and responsibility, keeping his hand up on the exit, constantly in motion, was much better. How about the takedown defense? Not that Vulcan's a knockout wrestler. Takedown defense was great getting off the fence. He didn't spend a lot of time pinned up against the fence. There's a lot to like about Olberg.

You go back to, did you see somebody in there that can beat Poiton? Well, with his speed and his explosivity. Hold on, hold on. I didn't see someone that could beat Poetan well with his speed and his explosivity hold on I didn't see someone that could be hold on you don't see someone if they fought 10 times Poetan wins the majority of those yeah right they fought 10 times Poetan wins the majority of those does he win all 10 so you're saying there's a chance I'm just saying whenever you've got big guys like this who have fast hands and they're accurate counter punchers anything is possible and i've watched enough mma to be like bitch anytime you think someone's invincible that is when they go

crashing to the mat i would pick poet on to win please don't misunderstand me well i like the balls that olberg has seemed to show in the build-up to this fight saying that you know he's not afraid of poet on that's good to hear what did you think though of the immediate call out of coleo roundtree jr who's coming off the title level? That would tell us a lot. I love it. I think it's a great test for both guys. He may get knocked out trying, Olberg, though.

Both guys might. Both guys might. Both guys are probably not going to go for the takedown. So as a fan, you're going to get stand-up action. They do have contrasting styles to a degree, although they try to do some of the same things. But they've got contrasting body types. They fight at different ranges with different guards.

It's a fun fight, and Khalil, having earned a lot of respect in, I think, overperforming relative to expectations against Poets On, this would be a quality win for him to get right back on the horse. If you're Olberg and you defeat Volkan Uzdemir, previous title contender, a different era, but a previous title contender, and then you beat Khalil Roundtir, previous title contender, a different era, but a previous title contender, and then you beat Khalil Roundtree, previous title contender, you're doing some pretty awesome things. That would be nine wins in a row.

He's fresh blood. People seem to like him again. He's a good-looking guy. BC wants to have sex with him. Well, he's not. How much does BC want to have sex with Carlos Olberg? I've realized this weekend there's a lot of men who want to have sex with Carlos Olberg. A lot of you guys would like to have sex with Carlos Olberg. No, I just recognize it's a lot of men who want to have sex with Carlos Olberg. A lot of you guys would like to have sex

with Carlos Olberg. No, I just, real recognizes real, really, at the end of the day. Hey, speaking of our degenerate gambling analyst, if they were to make Roundtree versus Olberg next, what do you think the line should be? I don't know. I was just trying to actually think of that in my head. I'm going to say it'd be probably pretty close in the 100 range in either direction.

I don't know. I think Roundtree would get the edge because of the power. But what do you think? Minus 175 Roundtree? It'd be close either way. Because you could deem Olberg as hittable. And you can't take too many hits against a guy like that. And a guy like Roundtree is explosive, can cover distance. And the thing is, Olberg had the speed advantage

over Vulcan. Will he have that same speed advantage against Galil? Probably, but not nearly as much. Not nearly as much. Yes, there you go so that was interesting but Luke if we're talking about who blew up the undercard it's like you know who blew up the third stall at the Joseph A bank we know who did that but uh how about Ming Shi the Chinese so this was what are these official UFC fights they were road to UFC fights

uh they're they're officially sanctioned bouts so she she's a full-time doctor. Her family did not even know she was a fighter. She comes out in the red gloves for the Road to UFC setup and then delivers the boom against Fang Zhao Khan. And the referee has to gator roll her off of her opponent. First of all, you don't see that in women's fighting

for the most part. And then second of all, in one of the early fights of the night, I guess this accomplished what they wanted to. This is somebody I want to see again. Road to UFC has been one of the, everyone talks about contender series. I'm just here to tell you, Road to UFC has better fighters and better fights.

Pound for pound. Really? Yes. Dude. You wouldn't say that about the DWCS. It's not that contender series doesn't have great fighters. Of course they do. They have so many coming through that they inevitably will have a lot.

But they have a lot of just filler guys that are ass. Contender Series is great, but it's got the ass. What we need is the ass in titties. Ass, ass in titties. Ass, ass in titties, like DJ Assault once told us. Yes. But BC, I'm telling you, the the level of like elite prospect coming through, excuse me, road to UFC is like the biggest slept on thing from casual fans that the UFC does. It is high quality.

I don't know. I wake the F up. Bad segue here. But Luke Fang did get knocked out and was down for a while. They even brought in the stretcher. And somebody's trying to say, when was the last time we saw that? I don't even know what reference to make. I don't know when the last time we saw that was.

It turns out the recovery reports are what what would you say positive seems like she's going to be okay i think she'll be i mean it was a bad knockout that was a vicious knockout um it was kind of scary to see early on though to start the event with that with that yes but also the ufc sometimes you know this is years ago years ago someone would get knocked out and stretchered out and they wouldn't report it on the broadcast. I give them credit. They're much better about this now. They went back and they updated us, told us what had happened.

And folks take that for granted. You never should do that because a shady-ass promotion will hide that kind of a thing. But UFC kept it above board. I appreciate that. Thank you, UFC. Here's the champ, though.

Zhong Weili was in the crowd for this. Let's see her reaction to the KO. I'd like to see her back in the cage anytime soon. Dude, she was pumped. That's me when I see the shitters open. Oh, yeah. Let's go. Me when the Joseph A. Bank has no one in line.

I can go take a dump. I love Wei Li. She's got a cool personality. Everybody likes Wei Li. There's a few fighters. There's not many. There's a few fighters that are basically impossible to dislike. But still, I got to say it.

She's 0-2 against Rose. Styles make fights. Styles make fights. Also, timing makes fights. There it is. You got anything else to say about this card? No, there were some other good wins along the way. Oh, Muslim Salikov with the Spinny Shed.

There was a series of these that were pretty great. Card in general, delivered. Ron Allen, did you enjoy the undercard bouts of the Road 2? Yeah, I missed the first three or four fights because I woke up at 5 a.m., but overall, pretty good card. Did you ingest the THC during

the 6 a.m. broadcast? Oh, 100% BC. What did you smoke? Purple Wagyu, still Luke. I buy in bulk. Costco guy. That's a boom, right? Purple Wagyu. Still, Luke, I buy in bulk. Costco, guys. That's a boom, right? Yeah, wow. Okay. Hold on.

There's one more gentleman I want to shout out. I've got to pull up my notes here. Forgive me. Muslim Salikov obviously got a great win. You mentioned Carlos Olberg. If I may, Jesus Christ, my computer. You may, Luke. You have clearance.

My computer is. Let's come through with it. My computer is. You know what? Is it Ming Yang Zhang? No. He had a nice win. My computer is, you know what? Is it Ming Yang Zhang? No. He had a nice win.

My computer is ass. I'm due for an upgrade. I'm due for an upgrade. All right. All right, never mind. Fuck it. My computer froze. Okay, Luke, sorry about that.

Piece of shit. Oh, wow. All right, let's go to topic number three. Speaking of, editorial over. Topic number three, Conorcgregor doubling down on his innocence following the verdict in his civil trial for rape sexual assault in which he was found liable so luke thomas um there's a lot to talk about here and there's a lot in the fallout i want to touch back on something though that we ended when we reacted to this live on Friday show and just get your opinion. How much do you expect the fallout of this trial to affect McGregor's behavior and his reputation in the short term for as long as that short

term last? It's a great question. So let me say a couple of things up front. Number one, I was able to get an interview with a guy by the name of frank grainy who is a top crime reporter in ireland who's he worked for uh news talk and then he also did a podcast just for this trial for the irish times so you can check out all of that big thanks to by the way bc i got a lot of declines to speak to me about this one well you have a reputation

among irish crime reporters no but, from John Jones, basically. No, I don't think that's right. I think what actually happened here is that because I was coming from MMA media, I think a lot of these crime reporters were imagining that I wanted to just launder Connor's image. Yes, and talk about the parts of the case, which there are parts of the case that seem un...

She had inconsistencies. Yes, there's some gray areas in the case that she had to address there's no question about it but in any case i got a chance to speak to him i really encourage everyone you can make up your own mind after that but he thoroughly details the case and the points of evidence that matter both for the prosecution and the defense you're asking given the result what's going to happen well today the hitman video game yes they distanced themselves there have been calls in ireland to boycott any uh whiskey or liquor or rape crisis network

ireland the rcni is calling for a boycott of all mcgregor brands across ireland so something i talked to a bunch of irish mma journalists over the weekend many of which by the way are told me they're afraid to speak up can you believe that? Well, I can believe it when it was revealed after the result in this trial that Nikita Hand's house had been invaded by attackers and her significant other got stabbed. And although there's no direct link to McGregor in that, and the court didn't want to entertain a potential direct link because it wasn't about that for this trial, I guess.

They could not substantiate that McGregor was responsible. There was another McGregor was responsible. That's in there was somebody there was another McGregor accused of a woman who had accused him of sexual assault, had her car firebombed. That's correct. OK, so I can understand that during the journal. Some journalists have that part of what she was seeking. Nikita Hand was damages for 750 euro. That was for relocation because they had to leave their place of residence and find a new one because they no longer felt safe in that residence. Okay.

But you're asking again, fallout. Well, we've already seen some of it in Ireland. My understanding is BC, and you've kind of felt this a little bit when you went and called the Callum Walsh fight. Yes. You kind of got the sense and talking to Irish folks that like he was not at a bare minimum polarizing to the Irish before this. Well, they were past him in ways that a lot of us in the U.S. still hadn't fully been.

My understanding is the result of this is that in general, the Irish public has found Nikita Hand to be a sympathetic character, that they in general agree with her case, and that Conor's reputation in Ireland is in tatters. But there's a couple of factors out there that you really have to think about. One, the combat sports space, boxing or MMA, will launder anybody's image. It really doesn't matter what you've done. Unless you've done, BC, and I'm not even trying to be flippant about it, unless you've done Jerry Sandusky crimes for year after year after year. We're like, it's so radioactive that nobody can even be around you.

The combat sports space will try to rehabilitate. The most forgiving. They are the most forgiving world in space in the world. The second part is you have to ask yourself, what does this result do for him wanting to get back into the cage? I personally feel like his career as a meaningful contributor to MMA or somebody who can do really well is over. It's completely over.

And it's not just three years of inactivity mixed with rampant substance abuse. That's not even the core of it anymore. Right. Right. However, ask yourself this BC, if he declares a comeback and actually follows through now,

it would depend on this on the matchmaking to some degree about how this goes. The fastest way to get rehabilitated in MMA is to take a fight. No doubt. It is to do a media cycle where, by the way, he was on Twitter and other places declaring his displeasure with the, the jury's decision and was not shy about it intended to appeal he said we'll see how that goes i'm just pointing out i wonder if this result makes it more likely he tries to return as a way

to launder his image because of how bad it is i felt that as we were waiting for the verdict i think i we've i've mentioned that in the last show that i wonder if this gets him back sooner for a lot of reasons mostly because like if your life is out of control and you have a come-to-earth moment, so to speak, a lot of times you want to run back toward discipline and all the things that were pulling you away. But the laundering of his own reputation theory would make a lot of sense because that happened in the cowboy fight, which wasn't that in the immediate aftermath of the accusations of this exact incident?

No, this was following the Habib fight. Right, when it happened. Yes. But when he successfully rehabbed his image in the build to Cowboy Cerrone in early 2020, it was almost as a direct result because of those accusations. I mean, you can just watch. He was playing the elder statesman role and how happy he was. Just watch the Netflix documentary, which really tries to paint him as this ultimate family man and that that

build was all about just coming back and coming back away from the problems he had caused and just trying to be a great person again and they really laundered heavily that belief in that image i would have said yes this brings him back quicker and we'll see what can happen but this is rape whether or not the word guilty, because it was a civil trial, belongs in the same sentence or not, the public belief is guilty. The public belief may have already been that,

but now you actually have the verdict here. So my question to you, Luke, is how much will people care? Meaning it's still Conor McGregor under any circumstance, just like when Mike tyson came out of jail he was a bigger star than before under any circumstance people are going to want to see what he looks like see what he's up to all of that but will this like actively turn a large group of people away from that will the people still care anymore is my question about mcgregor yeah because of how serious this is meaning if he tried to come back and went into a training camp like three months from now, can you come back quickly from this, Luke?

Or does there need to be a period to let your brand air out? Would he get booed by everybody in the arena or no? No. To the extent he'll find a sympathetic audience, it will be one inside MMA for a couple of reasons. As I mentioned, people in combat sports just don't really care about ethical conduct very much. I don't think that's really an unfair statement at all. They like to pretend that they do. There's a lot of lip service that's mentioned about doing things the right way.

But in general, audiences and stakeholders don't seem to care that much about that. Also, the vast majority of MMA fans are young men. Statistically speaking, if you look at things like the National Crime Victimization Survey, they show that arguably as many as two out of three rapes go unreported, and the group least likely to believe women when they say that they have been a victim of sexual assault is, in fact, in particular, young men. So you're just talking about an audience that's going to be primed to be as a bare minimum less they just they're going to give a fuck less i mean i don't know how else to say it but those

are the hardcore fans though to be fair anyway mcgregor fans draw in those other fans from over the fence so again but you have to ask like what role will this rape, again, civilly liable judgment, to what extent will that affect the American audience? Because his reputation is disastrous in Ireland, as I understand it. I don't know how they're going to view him in the UK. I would imagine it's something similar-ish. But in the United States, I'm not sure how much this trial broke through. And again, I'm not sure how much the MMA community cares.

The thing I'm kind of interested is how Dana White's's going to respond to this because they don't respond to anything i know but they're going to be asked i would imagine at some point hey what did you think about connor being held civilly liable and i guess he'll probably say something like the justice system is going to do what it's going to do and he has to work that out and we'd have no response to it i'll say that i told you guys he's got so much money. But that itself will serve to soften attitudes about it. So I think that some level of controversy because of this will follow him. Well, they still have a trial coming up, correct me if I'm wrong, to determine who pays for the legal fees. That's right.

So people don't understand this. I didn't know this. They have a court case. They have to go back on Thursday because the way it works in civil court is the person who pays is typically the loser for all the lawyer costs. You'll recall that another gentleman who was involved in this was ultimately, I don't know, again, I don't know if the legal word is exonerated, James Lawrence, but was not found liable. Connor was for certain parts of it. So they're going to figure out who has to pay the lawyer costs because he did lose,

but she didn't win everything. So that will be happening on Thursday. But that's different than the appeal. This is still just related to this particular dimension of it. What do you think about the people that say Connor should be wary, even though there is some inconsistencies in this whole way this was handled in court, or a gray area at least? It wasn't perfect. It wasn't a perfect defense yeah or or uh in that regard what do you think about um people ultimately who think that connor could end

up trapping himself and bringing more eyes on his behavior by taking an appeal trial and really digging this back up and really fine-tooth combing uh aggressively going after i don't know i don't know what evidence he is referring to that would be exonerating. You'll recall that, to your point, the judge did not allow the jury to know about the guys in Balaclavas who were identified as McGregor supporters. It just wasn't clear that in any way McGregor was related to the incident. But nevertheless, it was an act of intimidation. Whoever decided to do it, it was an act of intimidation. They didn't know about it.

They will know about it in the appeal case you know what i mean yeah but just in theory like the more time you're in court the more you're exposing eyes to the story which is a greater chance it could become a criminal trial and my understanding is the lawyer who conor mcgregor hired is a famous criminal defense attorney in ireland who understands this whole system quite well and probably best practices but dude conor is erratic He makes bad decisions. He ended up in this particular moment because he makes questionable decisions. And probably in my judgment, cards on the table, I find the jury's decision. Just ask yourself this. The jury, were they right based on a preponderance of the evidence? Is it more likely than not that he did those things?

I agree with their assessment that he more likely than not, he absolutely did those things. So, you know, he has judgment issues at a bare minimum. And that's the nicest way I can put that. Maybe Dee does too, and I'm speaking out of school here, but maybe Dee Devlin does too. I mean, what the hell? I don't want to speak about their marriage or their relationship. I don't know what they have going on.

All I can say is I really encourage everybody, especially young guys to actually listen to what the facts of the case are you will of course come to your own conclusion i can't control that but don't do it until you understand what all the evidence is one way or the other well here's what mcgregor is going to face on the regular here's him exiting the courtroom and the paparazzi were aggressive mr mcgregor you're a rapist what do you think wow i don't know if you saw the full clip of that. Like, he gets bombarded into the car.

Dude, they were on his ass, like, white on rice. Well, he also went on a tear on Twitter and deleted a lot of the tweets. Here's a little sampling where it's basically him doubling down on his innocence, continuing to take shots at Nikita Hand, clearing that friend of his. And I think, you know, if you read in totality his stuff, he really believes that the truth will come through and he'll be cleared of this eventually. Yeah, I don't think that's right.

I don't think it will. Did you see that same Twitter account which updates us when the UFC roster has been updated? Yeah, he went full incel, huh? Yeah, he did. They updated Conor as innocent. That's interesting. Let's give Nikita Hanna a chance to speak.

This was her afterwards, which I think is important to add to the story. So much strength and courage over the last six years throughout this nightmare to keep on pushing forward for justice. I want to show Freya and every other girl and boy that you can stand up for yourself if something happens to you. No matter who the person is, and justice will be served. To all the victims of sexual assault, I hope my story is a reminder that no matter how afraid you might be, speak up, you have a voice, and keep on fighting for justice. I know this has impacted not only my life, my daughters, but my family and friends tremendously. I'll never forget for the rest of my life. Whenever justice has been served, I can now try and move on and look forward to the future with my family and friends and daughters.

What is it like for families to be believed? What is the alive cost of course? I'm trying so hard. Heavy stuff there. I mean, she took a big chance. She wasn't going to have to pay all the legal fees if she lost by the way you're asking what would those costs be if she had lost in excess of a million u.s dollars wow which she wouldn't have had i just want to be clear about something like

again i encourage everyone to hear what mcgregor's defense was to some of the inconsistencies that related to nikita han's story because there is a recording that her boyfriend made that night and some of the stories don't match other accounts and those things need to be understood. She's also cheating on her significant other at the time. Infidelity is, in either direction here, utterly irrelevant. Of course, from a law standpoint, I'm saying that's adding to the fuel. That's the only one I care about.

No, no, I'm saying that's adding to the fuel of people that are looking at some of the inconsistencies and saying, look, she's just a partier that was chasing money. Well, what about his infidelity? Oh, I'm not excusing. Like, they're both doing it. I'm not protecting or siding with him. I'm saying I think that played into a lot of people. Yeah, but to me, it's immaterial.

So, like, I want to mention this before we move on because I actually think it's pretty important. I was not in that courtroom. So, like, can I say Connor did it? I have no clue. I don't know. I answered the question a minute ago about, like, do I agree with the jury? More likely than not, granting that this sexual assault took place, I do. And the reason why is very, I would say a few data points very quickly, if I may. One is that, in talking to Frank Graney, they saw all the photos of the bruising after she went to the rape trauma

center in a hospital in Dublin. Right. And he described the photos as, quote, horrific, black and blue head to toe. And in fact, the intake nurse who evaluated her, who testified on the stand, had said in all of her years in rape crisis work, had never seen somebody as bruised and banged up viciously as she was she had literally never seen the extent of bruising and damage that nikita hand came with you then marry that with the reality that the doctor who also testified about this had to remove yeah a tampon from inside of her i'm going to put that as lightly as I possibly can.

With forceps, somebody roughed her up. Yes. And when you look at the McGregor defense account, their answer is, well, she went on a multi-day bender. It must have just been from that, which, of course, Occam's razor tells you is a very, very poor explanation for how someone gets to that level. Somebody really messed her up. Like, you have to have a theory for how that happened.

The likeliest, again, the preponderance of the evidence tells you that it was probably that interaction she had with McGregor. That's how I feel. Yeah, I could see that swaying the jury in comparison to the inconsistencies. I can certainly see that. At every single level, whether it was the doctors who evaluated her, the nurse at the rate crisis intake center, whether it was a psychiatrist or psychologist, all of which testified on the stand. At every single interval of a medical screening by a professional, all of them concluded that her either injuries, mental or physical, were all in alignment with what happens to sexual assault survivors. All of them. All of them. You never had one person on the forensic side say anything other than Nikita's hand account is in all

likelihood the correct one. Last, I would add the one you mentioned. If she had lost that trial, she would have been on the hook for six, excuse me, what I'm saying, on the hook for up to a million US dollars. To go through with that for six years when it could financially ruin you in the end, again, we weren't there that night in December in 2019. Do I know what happened? I don't know what happened. But a preponderance of the evidence quite obviously tells me it is more likely than not that he did that shit. Right.

And Conor is leaning on, you know, some of the inconsistencies with the timing or in the text messages to her significant other, which she lied about being there. But she was already sort of there lying to begin with. So it's, you know, I understand both sides. Who did that to her? Where did the bruises come from? They came from partying? No, they did not. That is obviously silly.

Well, the general reaction from fighters has been that Habib was right, Luke. That's what everyone keeps saying. Here's Islam Majev from Team Habib saying it was a matter of time until this filthy bastard be exposed, alcoholic, drug junkie, and rapist. Many more facts to come out. We have to ask the question that we always have to ask. Did Islam write this or did Ali write this? Well, Ali just got caught, right?

Speaking for Umar. For Umar, yeah. By the way, Ali admits to doing this. Yes. Not like, I don't know if he did this one. It's worth pointing out there. Was that him? Well, let's throw back to the original Habib tweet from 2019.

Wow. Yeah, so this was when the accusations first came out back in 2019 of this exact incident. And this was Habib. No, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. I could be wrong about this. So forgive me if I am, BC. This might predate that.

I think this might. You think it was from the build to their fight in 2018? Long Island Luke, can you look this up? I thought that this came from, because remember the incident in question was in December. Sure. This tweet is from 2019. I thought it came from April,

which was a different situation that he had already been dealing with. I mean, look, he's tied to a lot of, you know, situations. But I don't know. I could be wrong about that. Please forgive me if I get that wrong. Yeah. So interesting. I guess the final question

regarding his future like do you think because dana white and ufc have a history of not penalizing people for their outside the cage behavior like connor benefited from that rule if you will by getting the habib fight despite getting arrested back in 2019. What year was that? The tweet was April 2019. Told you. That predated him even doing this. No, he did it at the end of 2018 after the fight. You're right. I'm so sorry. Yes. 2019 was when it came to a head. That's right.

You're right. No problem. How willing will the UFC be to get him back in there? Because they're not going to like damn him publicly or suspend him or fine him they'll probably just say like you said the justice will you know he'll pay his fine whatever and they won't you know they don't make it about that they make it about what happens inside the cage so i think they booked remember when dana told us last week hey he'll come back late 2025

they just sort of booked a faraway date and said get in shape for that like let's go and also like we're gonna let the dust settle on this right because they knew this probably knew something bad at a bare minimum they had to know something bad could at least happen okay right like this won't affect connor's bkfc job in your eyes right i don't again if you're a bkfc fan if you're a bare knuckle fighting like how much do you really how much do the ethical behavior of people around you matter to you i'm going to guess it's going to be, relatively speaking, somewhat limited. All right. Well, we have a transition here with business ethics to topic number four, if you're complete on Connor.

And it's what's going on over there at PFLator, particularly the Bellator side and the frustration of many big-name fighters, some of the best in Bellator history, about their inactivity, and even further, the lack of communication. So Bellator fighters speaking out in unison against PFL's handling of this calendar year when many were promised up to three fights and only fought once. We heard how Chris Cyborg was outspoken against the PFL for a full year trying to get active and finally getting a fight. So Luke, let's start this. What incentive do you think,

if anything, these current Bellator fighters have in trying to stay with the PFL and not trying to get out under any circumstances possible because they're already, even though there's some of the best names on the combined PFL or roster, they're being out there held out in Siberia on these Bellator international cards. And even worse than that, they're not even being allowed to stay active and they're not

getting any updates. There's no dates on the calendar. Like as quick as they can just go, what reason should they have to not do that at this point? That the contracts have probably trapped them and they can't. People think that because UFC has bad contracts, PFL has good ones. Francis probably has a good contract. I believe that Francis does. Can we just pull an RDR and just go fight in another promotion anyway

and then sign with him? Not if you're U.S.-based, you can't. No, you'll be in deep trouble. You could lose your license to compete here. No, I get it. Believe me. You know the story. Sure. But PFL has very restrictive contracts.

One has very restrictive contracts. You cannot just get out of your contract so simply. This is a big problem for them do we have some of the can we throw some of these throw some of these up on the screen so the audience can have some context if they didn't get it before this is from patricia patricia pitbull who by the way is reacting to leandro ego also explaining frustration quote i haven't fought since february pitbull says i wanted to fight three times this year but i was told i'd have to wait until december 31st and found out online my opponent would fight someone else. Then they had a replacement. I bring people over, spend more

money with the camp, and there's no fight. He went on for other details. It was ego. It was patchy mix. I've been training my ass off for the last half of a year for nothing. This is frustrating in the prime of my career, and I've had my fight in November canceled. Then now again, I'm being told I'm off January's Dubai card. I'm the best in the world. I want to fight to prove it. Then again, Corey, Corey, overtime Anderson. Yeah, that's a rough picture that was posted, but he was posting it to show his dismay. He would go on to update that tweet, by the way. He had the same thing about just, you know, the, the, hey, PFL, give me a call.

Like, let's like have communication. So all the fighters and more have spoken out since then, but they all seem to have that same argument. It's not just the lack of dates. There's no one to even talk to or give me answers. When some of them, like Corey, came to this side of the fence to get a better situation and to make more money and to be treated better, but that's gone now. This ain't Scott Coker land anymore. So two basic problems that I think are to blame here.

There's more to the story, certainly. There's more than just two problems, but i would like to highlight two of them number one this confused branding that they're doing where they're splintering pfl mina pfl europe pfl super fight series pfl tournament system pfl whatever the fuck and a fake belt for each one dude and they're fake belt and then there's a then there's the bellator series which is on on top of that. You have all of these different brands that you're trying to make money off of, right? That's why they're splintering it. But the problem is actually a little bit more sinister.

While you might be able to monetize more by splitting it more, none of your brands have coherent identities to begin with, and you're actually having to create things because your tournament model doesn't really work. So you're having to, oh, we'll have a Super Fight series because that's actually how we can get the most amount of dollars with the biggest stars that'll work in the tournament system.

So you actually have to split your brand in ways to make more money. But all it actually does is undercut what the brand is supposed to be about. They have a final on Friday. We didn't even know about it, you and I, and we're in this space. And even though there are a couple matchups you would want, it's not representative of who they actually have as a roster. When Don Davis makes all those public claims that we have X amount of percentage of the top 30 fighters in the world in each division,

he loves to throw that stuff out. And I don't hate it because on paper they do have assets, but they're taking these Bellator assets and just leaving them out in the bullpen or throwing them to the side of the road or putting them on some random international card. These are actually some of your best and most marketable fighters. Why would Patricio Pitbull have to struggle to find dates? These are champions. Why don't you put this, like, obviously the thing to do is stop what they're doing,

combine all of their essence in one, stop building horizontally, and let's go vertically. Let's give your best chance to compete. Because you, Don Davis, said that we're here to compete for No. 1 in the UFC. I didn't say that. You said it. This ain't working, okay? These are actually some of your best assets, and what else would they want to do outside of,

let me get out of this contract as soon as I possibly can? Yes, and dude, the second problem here is, we go back to it, it manifests itself in a number of different ways, but when the leadership of your fight promotion aren't really fight fans, and they don't really watch the sport absent of their own product, and even then, I don't know how much they're really watching that, you are not going to have a coherent identity as a brand. You're not going to really fill the appropriate space in the fight game because you're just a financial instrument to be sold to a network or potential investors. Your product will be arranged to match their interests,

not necessarily the fans or more generally what the market itself actually needs. You're just splintering it, as I mentioned before, to get more money, but it ends up just hurting the identity of the brand and everything else. These are the two big problems that this organization has. And unless they're willing to meaningfully alter who they are this will only get worse i mean i imagine if friday's championship in which what six different championships and one million dollar prizes are given out it's not nothing it's something imagine how much more we'd watched if pitbull patchy mixed aaron pico aj mckee like all these other names were in there you know what i mean mean? Like Usman Nurmagomedov, like that would help you a lot.

How about this? So drop that tournament, regular season bullshit. Put out one title per division, not what we're doing now with supercard titles or whatever the hell that means. And put your best out there and let them show you if they can compete. Also, how about this? Here's a simple idea. And it would confuse the brand because that's what they love doing, but it would make sense. If you're going to keep the stupid-ass tournament model up

and the way that they do it again, you can do individual tournaments but just doing all tournaments all the time. Put Patchy Mix versus MegaMedMegaMadoff at the top of one of these cards. Put Leandro Ego versus Aaron Pico at the top of one of these cards. In other words, have your tournament, but then put a crown jewel at the top of it. Keep those guys busy. Give me your... I don't want to tune into your tournament. Give me a reason to tune in. Oh, you've got Aaron Pico on a Thursday night

in fucking Atlanta or whoever, but he's fighting like a good guy? I'm all in favor of that. But instead, they just keep them on ice because why? They want to splinter the brand. And now Patchy Mix can only fight on Bellator cards. And Leandro Eagle can only fight on Bellator cards. Yeahon that don't matter again it's the splintering of the brands which they think is going to give them more money and all it does is pull the bottom out on the concept and identity of what they're

supposed to be about well when don davis goes home though luke he doesn't talk about mmr watch it maybe that's the problem all right don uh here's a tweet from kaposa i'll read to you he nailed it he said pfl's bellator plans this year were a complete failure they prom they promised eight events in 24 and only pulled off five they touted two title fights per bellator card and that didn't happen on four out of five bellator cards canceled multiple events with zero explanation moved title bouts to different cards. What happened? Luke, what happened was they never planned on doing anything with Bellator, right? And they're just trying to milk the money off of whatever pre-existing TV deal they had

and they wanted to keep this alive. They also overvalue the actual names on their actual PFL regular season roster and thinking that this is a draw. It's not. You get some good stories once in a while or former UFC names on the way down, but damn, the biggest piece of this. i want to see bellator champions compete i don't give a shit

if it's in a bellator brand or some other place put those fucking guys in super fights at the top of your cards simplify your brand simplify your product look me. Put the camera on me. You're already dead. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Look at me. Nobody gives a flying fuck about the Champions League of MMA. It's a stupid concept. Fans don't want it. Stakeholders don't want it. Fighters don't give a shit. Give us as many good fights as you possibly can on a routine basis, and you will go a lot further than the Champions League of fucking MMA.

Wow. Let's go to Duke Rufus. He's the coach, of course, of Sergio Pettis, elite Bellator fighter. He kind of nailed the standpoint of why this is so frustrating. Hey, checking in from Ottawa, Canada, up here teaching some seminars,

some great people. That being said, I got to bring up the elephant in the room in the MMA world right now. What is going on with PFL and Bellator? As a former fighter, I have a different perspective than managers and or people who run it. Because I understand, being a former fighter and these guys I train, that time is of the essence. You can always make more money. You can't make more time in life. And time is of the essence for these guys to create their goals, legacies, and obviously

how they make a living. They don't get paid to train. They get paid to fight. Speaking of, my man, Sergio Pettis, has not fought for Bellator since November 17th of last year. He was given permission to fight for Risen in June 3rd. That was not on his contract and he was just offered a fight in Japan that we have heard through our Japanese contacts but that was for Risen. There's no date set in sight. This is very tough for these fighters. Communication would be great. Right now, the organizations are quiet. The managers are quiet while the fighters are sitting back waiting for scraps. I don't think it's fair. Can someone spit out some answers here? The UFC already has all their dates planned through March. I'm a small-time MMA promoter.

I've already got an April event in the books with a December. I'm nobody. I'm just a small-time guy who puts on local shows to build young talent. We've got all of our tournaments scheduled for everything we're doing. How can a major organization coming into the new year not have any dates on the books and no answers for these fighters? Please, somebody, if you know, let me know. He nailed it.

I can't add anything to that. Is there any chance that they have heard the criticisms of PFL and they are planning to combine everything for next year and the reason why they're so quiet to the fighters that are looking for dates is because they're going to get through this tournament final this Friday and be done with that. I do have some... Because that would make sense if that was the case,

or they're just making no sense at all. I talked to some folks, several folks. I hear that PFL definitely knows they need to do things differently. That, in fact, they're having internal conversations about changing what they do and how they do it. But, you know, they could go from one bad decision to another. That doesn't mean they're going to necessarily make good decisions going forward. They seem to know, to answer your question, BC, they seem to know that what they've done to this point has not worked

great and has caused a series of problems. I don't know if they're going to pick the right solutions, but like, can I tell you that internally there is definitely a movement inside PFL, including with like strong leadership to do the right thing, to do the product a different way. Yes. I have heard that from now several people internally, but it remains to be seen what path they take.

I've heard that the people have made some good pitches behind the scenes that could make a lot of sense, but they've got to say yes to it. That's exactly correct. You know what would help these really bad UFC fight nights? Pornography. Yeah, probably. But like imagine these Apex cards we shat on, but then next week you get Patchy Mix or you get Corey Anderson

or you get whoever. Like, I mean, let's keep these guys active, okay? If you can't keep, I mean, again, you could say, oh, well, Pitbull's old and expensive. We don't want to pay for him. First of all, let him go. Yeah. That's how you feel. Let him get a UFC run.

Second of all, Apache is probably not expensive and not old. So what's the excuse for not keeping him active? Like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. That's our topic for you. Let's go to number five and close right here.

Hey, it's Thanksgiving. It's the best damn holiday. No presents. Everyone comes home. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. That's our topic for you. Let's go to number five and close right here. Hey, it's Thanksgiving. It's the best damn holiday. No presents. Everyone comes home. Best meal of the year. You're tied to a high school football rivalry like Nog Tuck versus Ansonia. It's still real to you. Damn it. Okay. You know, the family football game in the backyard. I mean, it's just meat pie, the tortier. If you're of the French Canadian design like myself, the family football game in the backyard. I mean, it's just meat pie, the tortilla. If you're of the French Canadian design like myself, I do love me,

but Luke, it's also a chance to take stock of where we're at, to press pause on our hectic and ever anxiety inducing life journeys and give thanks for what we maybe don't shout out enough, Luke. So, you know, what do you got for me,

Luke? You don't have to go deep. You don't have to go crazy, You don't have to go crazy. But, like, what the hell are you thankful for in 2024 here as we close in on this great holiday? It's a tough one. It's been not my favorite year. 2024, not my favorite year.

I'll go with you on that. I've had some good years. I've had some bad years. I wouldn't put this in the good year pile. How about that? Not my worst year. Not my worst year. Yeah. But a tough one, tough one just to say i mean that year you shit your pants that was a rough year luke i didn't shit my pants i stepped in my own shit oh well that's

close you know this is pretty bad also um well first and foremost i mean this quite sincerely i know that some people have been underwhelmed by what we were able to offer them in 2024 and for that i am sorry but there have been also a ton by what we were able to offer them in 2024. And for that, I am sorry. But there have been also a ton of people who have stuck by us. And I think first and foremost, it would be awful of us to not stop and say, for the folks who stuck with us, and there's many, many of you, of course, I am so grateful.

I am so grateful that there's a lot of people who still gave us a chance and are giving us a chance. Who still want and feel like they need us in their lives in some form. I think first and foremost, on a professional level, what I think of first is I think of all of those people. Because by the way, I still run into them in the streets and they all have a lot of good things to say. So for that reason, I'm extremely, extremely grateful. That's the first thing I'd say. Second of all, man, look, we're talking about this before the show, dude. I don't know if being a dad is the right call for everybody and you know sometimes folks are like i don't want to be a parent and everyone accuses them of being selfish

it's not for everybody you know what i mean but it's definitely for me it's definitely for me yes it my daughter is now learning to read and learning to think through problems and like is asking questions about the world and And just has her own personality. And dude, I cannot tell you the level of joy this brings me. I showed her the, because it was Halloween, I showed her the Thriller video. The dancing. Where they do all the dances. And it blew her mind that she's been practicing the Thriller dance.

And to watch her work on this. And then to ask questions. And then just to assert her personhood has been some of the most rewarding feelings i've had maybe ever maybe it's fucking great like being a dad again it's not for everybody it's definitely for do you think honest question because i'm going through some of the same things do you think the back and forth up and down stress occupationally of this year of not always being actually never being in control and never knowing what's coming around the

corner has forced you to kind of enjoy even more what you have around you that is more valuable which i would for me it feels more that as her brain and you know it develops and she becomes more of a a thinking person you know it's just a marvel to watch it's like incredible to see this and again it's like oh she can't read certain words one week and then the next week she's reading words even more advanced or at the playground you know she has calluses over her hands working on the monkey bars like for there's gonna be people hearing this and thinking that this is the worst audio they've ever heard. I'm telling you, for the right person, it's going to be the best. It's been fucking great.

That has been the thing that has been great. My wife, obviously, too, has been amazing this year, but just being a dad has been great. I think last but not least, dude, you're horrendous. I have to pee really bad right now, too. I'm like, do I break up the speech? No, I think you're horrendous, but in general, I would say, dude, I don't take what we have for granted at all. I am still glad that we're in business together.

I think we still make a lot of sense being in business together. And, dude, something could go wrong at any point. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's much better for me that we have this partnership than don't. And I am grateful for you, dude. I really am. I mean that quite sincerely. Thank you.

That doesn't mean I don't want to fucking kick you in the balls half the time. Oh, I think I want to kick you twice as hard normally, but we survived these moments. There's obviously many more things I'm grateful for, you know, in general, but those stand out to me. Thank you, Luke Thomas. That was very nice of you. I can echo the same thing because it's weird. It's like sometimes this show is like that awesome extra thing we do in our career

portfolio and then sometimes you go wait this is like the backbone of it all you know what i mean and at times this show has been that so yeah i echo you on on saying thank you to you i'm being happy that we can press pause and give thanks that we're still going that we still got a now we're two day a week operation. I mean, it's not lost. I mean, we get to come to this beautiful studio in Manhattan and make a professional looking, I mean, we're not professional, but a professional looking show.

And that because that audience has stayed with us and stayed loyal and sometimes they're encouraging us to keep going as much as we might be encouraging them with a word or two here and there. They've kept us afloat as much as we may have them, but we're almost like doing something new here. And at first I was disappointed in it. Cause it's not the MK of old, the old structure,

the bomb shelter, the RSD, the, this pregame preview Chuck on the roof. Like we had something special there, but it doesn't mean we're not going to create something new and different. And I think we're on the way to that. I like what we've created with these Monday shows.

I'm proud of them. I think we're on a good run of late and I think we're making the, you know, we're taking the best swing we can with, with what we're given. And obviously I'm thankful to Brian Daly for carrying us through a very, very rough patch. Our old boss at Showtime who is doing great things with all the smoke and

all the smoke fight. And I'm thankful for Mikey who always has our back in this show's history and still to some degree has a role with us. Long Island Luke kind of came a blast from the past but he's blossomed

Luke into a valuable player for us. Would you agree with that? I'm thankful for him is what I'm trying to say. I'd wish he'd stop masturbating during the show, but other than that, he's pretty great. You guys are really distracting me. So yes,

I echo all of that. I mean, look, you know, the fans that they, we promised a lot. We thought we were getting a lot. A lot of things have happened.

It's not just this calendar year. It's like the last one too. It's like two years truncated in a long run and uh you know from how they support us on our solo efforts to how they support us when we get broadcasting opportunities to how they support us here and keeping the show going like it it means a lot thank you folks thank you we love you we do maybe this community is the greatest thing we've ever created together definitely one of the very best absolutely no question um because i see these same viewers and listeners that i've seen for years on your live chat show up for me show up for luke's main card minute live streams and like these are good folks you know what i mean some

of them end up playing roles like average joe with us you know what i mean or or you know i mean shout out to everybody appy you know what i mean shout out to or, or, you know, I mean, shout, shout out to everybody happy. You know what I mean? Shout out to Jay Paquette and web scream. And remember that guy, Damien. What was that guy's name? The second donk of the year. The guy who has a girl being hung. Yeah. I mean he had horrifically scary tattoos, but he was a nice guy. A single dad. No, we haven't heard from him in like four or five years. He may be incarcerated.

I think he ate someone's face after eating bath salts. Yeah that's that's probably where it went but yeah thankful to my family obviously they put through uh they they put they go through a lot to keep this guy in front of a microphone all right it's life you know it'll kick you right in the gut once in a while but uh man you talk about toques inspiring you my 16 year old uh twin sons they're juniors in high school these guys i mean that's my inspiration you know what I mean I watched my son Isaac who has CP and you know was running cross country times that nobody

was impressed with for a while despite how hard he worked and this year he made these huge goals and he cut 9 minutes off his time and before the championship race of the year he was like coach I'm gonna he threw out a time he wanted to get which was like 4 minutes faster than he ever ran and the coach was like I don'm gonna you know he threw out a time he wanted to get which was like four minutes faster than he ever ran and the coach is like no i don't think you should try that you know let's be let's be realistic and he came out and he crushed it and he delivered the time and he

collapsed the finish line and i picked him up and i carried him back and i was just like i can't celebrate that in front of me and inspired me to get through the ups and downs of the hard instances in life and my other son chris turning his ankle in the championship meet and breaking like a little part of that what connects your toe to your ankle and still running all conference and finishing the final two miles hurt and like that's what i'm talking about those are the moments that i'm most thankful for these guys are just out there you know fighting because that's all we can do luke okay let me tony robbins you we could just pick up the fist and fight. You know what I mean?

Fighting and farting, that's what it is. Occasionally fucking. And obviously I have the best wife in the world who puts up with me, so, you know, keeps me in line. So there we go. It's a great life if we stop once in a while and look around. We should ask Long Island Luke what's on the thankful radar. Marijuana.

I'm going to reiterate everything you guys said. You know, family, my girlfriend, all the donks out there who support Main Card Minute and MK, and yes, definitely marijuana as well. There you go. There you go. Shout out to Allen W., another real one out there. We've got a lot of good folks out there. There's a lot of them.

There's a lot of them. So are you thankful for anything in combat sports, Luke? That I have a job in it, you know? I mean, are you thankful for uncle turkey putting on these huge fights despite uncle turkey yes sir al-shik oh his empress yes um i'd rather the saudis not be involved okay okay i'm still excited for fury like you know did he make fights happen that probably would not have happened yes and so i'm thankful for that in that sense yes all right maybe we're thankful for dana white in some ways too maybe i'm grateful that we live in the

something approximating the golden age of combat sports i think that golden age has led to a little bit of less golden age but in general you know having been a fight fan when you didn't have access to fights hardly at all there was no like youtube or you know online catalog you could go just sift through and it wasn't you couldn't get it on your phone and now everything is at the touch of your fingertips again everyone already knows this but having lived through different eras i am very very grateful for that and i have to say one final thing i'm thankful for this media business largely sucks there's a lot of sharks in the water it's cutthroat it's whatever on both sides boxing and mma particularly

in mma i got a shout out like there's a brother and sisterhood that seems to have like be bubbling up lately i feel like yeah there's some aggressive folks and people that start a lot of trouble but there's a lot of people out there supporting each other those people have us on their shows a lot you know what i mean whether it's submission radio whether it's mike hack and jed over yeah fighting and uh and you know from mike bone who just got engaged. Shout out to Mike Bone. So congratulations on that. Oscar Willis.

I mean, you know, Island Dawson. We can go up and down and name a lot of people that we love, but there does seem to be like a good mood out there in this space of people trying to help each other out and lift each other up. So that's good. You know, I like to see that. There's still some good out there, Luke. You're like, I hate everybody in this business. No, no, I'm just tired.

All right. All right. Well, Luke, You're like, I hate everybody in this business. No, no, I'm just tired. All right. All right. Well, Luke, let's take it home with our final two segments. First and foremost, we give you the opportunity every Sunday night to reach out to us at Morning Combat on social media, respond to our DMs from Donks questions, to hear from you, the fans. We're going to answer your questions right now.

But if they're not good or you have a weird username, you're probably going to get roasted. Let's hear it. It's DMs from dongs bc as uh emblematic very quickly if i may about how this year has gone like they you know how they put the live clips during the show there was like a gigantic like misspelling in the actual tweet they wrote 2024 hasn't be our best but we are thankful for all you loyal dongs out there and i'm like that's quite emblematic. That is, that's very nice right there.

Uh, first and foremost, let's hear from Keating. And he says, she says, somebody saying, maybe they said is Yon. I think pay odor gone.

A top three box. Could be shouting on. Oh, that's interesting. Um, they both had great performances on Saturday. Let's start out with pay odor. Yon is,

do you think he's a top three boxer inside the MMA space? He's a fantastic striker, but pure boxer? No. Not even Giannis. Well, she's got a great right hand. I mean, that is the way she sets up what let's talk to. She's a good striker too, but also no. The answer is no, no matter what. You heard it right there. No. Let's hear from Flannels

and Jitsnitz. Flannels and Jitsnitz. He shows up on here a lot this guy's always dm on us where do you see more crazy shit vegas or newark penn station fuck out of here newark penn state newark train station it does trump vegas yeah it does i mean you i mean get the fuck out of here newark train station the i mean you get drunk people in vegas you don't get like terminally crazy yes high on meth people but would you say every time you enter the fucking venetian no you don't station which has some bad

moments is seems a lot safer than because it's emptier there's a lot of cops in penn station too today always well it's new york city yeah it's a good thing here but it's a good thing uh again i saw a homeless man shaving his fucking balls. Okay. And pubic hairs. I mean, Vegas, you can see a lot. In the sink at Penn Station. You can see a lot.

Like, how is this a conversation? Like, I mean. Luke, I got to pee my pants. Take the next one. All right, I'll do the next one. Go ahead. Let's put it up there. From Mike Heron, Shiren1995.

Which division is most shallow? Heavyweight, light heavyweight, or women's bantamweight? Muff. Fuck me, man. Long Island Luke, what do you think? Women's bantamweight by far. Tell me why. Because can you even name the top five of women's bantamweight right now?

No. Yeah, and I can name five heavyweights and five light heavyweights. That could just mean you're a sexist piece of shit. No, no. Women's bantamweight is, I'm pretty sure Chelsea Chandler is ranked in women's band and weight and she's like one in four i have the rankings up let's pull up well women's 135 now that you mentioned it porto hemplo all right women's 135 what we have is uh juliana pain is your champion so number one would be pennington two harrison three viera four macy uh and then

tied is norma dumont and then six because there's no five is aldana it's like yeah not great that's definitely the worst of the three yeah definitely dude light heavyweight is some shit i mean people don't want to say that 205 sucks poeton's great light heavyweight in the jones era was always shit too it always had like three guys floating in the top No that's so wrong DC, Rumble You could throw Gustafson in there and John Those were always the interchangeable top four

Dude he beat Shogun He beat Rampage That's his championship run What kind of a conversation is this No I'm saying the era when he was reigning Had a very weak division up top Not weak but it had the top four guys just chilling up there No, I'm saying the era when he was reigning had a very weak division up top. Not weak, but it had the top four guys just chilling up there.

It was kind of like Joseph Benavidez at Flyweight. I don't think that's quite right. All right, well. Why don't you suck my balls? Let's go to the next one. From Ergel Fitz. I'm going to guess this gentleman is Irish. With two Irish fighters having two big fights announced recently, Ian Gary versus Shavkat and Hughes versus Usman,

which of the two Irish fighters do you think has a better chance of winning? That's a good call. Good question. I don't know what the odds are. I personally, I mean, it's a tough fight either way. It's a tough fight either way. What do we have, Long Island Luke? I don't have them in front of me, but top of my head last I looked,

Shavkat was like minus three something and Ian Gary was plus two something. I don't know about Hughes and Usman. What's your read on who has a better... Ooh, what the fuck, dude? BC just hit something. We're good. You alright?

My read on which fight? I think Shavkat beats Ian Gary. And fuck, man. I'm favoring Usman against Paul Hughes. Usman should beat Paul Hughes. Yeah. But I feel like Hughes might have a better shot. Yeah, I can agree with that. What do you think?

Who's got a better shot as an Irish guy? Paul Hughes against Usman Nurmagomedov? Or Ian Gary against Shavkat Rakhmanov? Who's got a better shot? I think Paul Hughes, right? I think it's Paul Hughes. Yeah. Alright, is there a last one? One more? From Sticks

Playstime. What's the worst thing a professional fighter has personally said to you? I don't even know what that means. What's the nicest thing a professional fighter has personally said to you? How would you not know what that means? What's the worst thing a fighter said to you? I mean, probably Jon Jones dunking on you in public.

It was a dick move. But I didn't feel like it was. I mean, it made the rounds, but it didn't hurt my feelings. Right, but it was a total dick move from him. Okay, but would the worst thing be something that had the. I mean, yeah, I guess the biggest impact would be the worst. But I'm just saying, like, what's the thing that made me feel differently? Mike Perry told me he would kill me the next time.

Yeah, I mean, I've had them threaten me a couple times in private. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I didn't know about that. Oh, yeah. I've had a couple of those. They didn't do anything, but they, you know. How could they? You got body for days. Body for days. The best thing is I've had pro fighters ask me to do

tape study for them. That's pretty awesome. That's a pretty nice. I mean, it tells you they have a high opinion you know yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i've gotten i've had nice moments with fighters when you're talking real life stuff and they you know they're like a friend in a moment you know what i mean that's cool i don't try to befriend fighters but there's some good souls out there i think it's a bad idea to do that 100 as media anyway but uh you know it's nice to have a couple of professional alliances yes but inevitably i'm gonna say something critical because that's our job that's the job that's the job all right you know what my job is thank you to the dms from donks by the way that continue every sunday night hitting us up there we like hearing from you and morning combat at gmail.com

is our email address to hit us up for the friday segments fan subs and dead wrongs but we're on to the best segment of the show i don't know if this is the best batch ever luke okay i had a busy weekend i've tried hard. Sometimes you, you know, sometimes you have to be okay with a B cup, Luke. Okay, we might have to get that. They redid the tweet, by the way. Oh, that was nice of them.

I made fun of them before on air. I scoured the globe. You know the rest. Here's my shit. Enjoy it. Luke Thomas. Mike Perry's Dirty Boxing had a soft launch, I guess, over the weekend. So it wasn't televised.

They ended up putting the fights out after the fact. I don't know why. Are they on YouTube somewhere? Yeah, Ben the Bane Davis and Chris Algeria are the announcers. This is an interesting combo. I like both of those guys. Yeah, for sure. Let's go to Yoel Romero in the main event.

He got a new opponent last minute. It turned out to be Dwayne Crespo of power slap fame yeah and Crespo took it say you want to talk about body for days look at Yoel Romero so he's 47 he called out Jake Paul afterwards he kind of he feels he fits right into that you know who the type of guys Jake Paul fights but do you want to see Jake Paul on paper against anybody who's 47 I don't want to see Jake Paul against anybody who's not good enough. Although, you all can box. We thought Anderson might beat Jake. You don't think you all could beat Jake? Same age as Anderson when Anderson fought Jake.

No. I think Anderson was two years older. What did you think of how that event looked? Can I tell you my opinion on it? Here's my opinion on how it looked. Run the clip one more time. It's obviously you all knocking the guy out. You can punch on the ground too. A little bit, right?

There's some rules about that. Here's how my view of it is. Part of it is they were going for like an underground kind of old school aesthetic, which I actually feel like they kind of pulled off. I actually like the way it looks. Doesn't it look like in the beginning of Rocky 1 when Balboa fought Spider Rico? However, if I told you, does it look like they were in a basement somewhere in

Florida? It also looks that way. Yes. So I actually feel like I can't quite tell if I like it or not.

I think I do. I'm not sure. It could be. I mean, you can lead with like elbows. You can, you know,

fight in the clinch. I just met how it looked. No, I get that. I get the atmosphere. Ben Davis was

getting paid to work there, but he came out and was aggressive on Twitter and saying that the fight fans will fall in love with the style of it. It was like boutique fighting. You know what I mean? Small crowd, intimate venue right there. Well, let's look at this picture of Romero getting that punch.

Wow, just putting it right through Crespo. They also had celebrity clientele. Crespo means curl in Spanish. Oh, interesting. Big Ben Rothwell among them, but they got bony. I'm sorry, Johnny Meat was in the house and was doing the meat dance for everyone. Right.

Is this through the Kawas? This is how this was facilitated? I thought he broke up with the Kawas. When did he get back in good graces with them? I don't know if that means he's representing them, but maybe it's just like they turned around. I had a long phone call with Malky after they split. Yeah, I don don't know maybe this means there's a reunion i mean i don't talk to remember but remember when mike perry was training at jackson wink for a little bit and him and john

were kind of buddy buddy they might just be boys and he invited them but dude they were managed and they had a falling out and it was like a public falling out like when did they and by the way i haven't seen mulky i've seen his brother, Abraham, who I also know. I don't know. I don't know when that happened. I don't know. I mean, he doesn't talk to me that ever asks him these questions,

so we never get answers to anything. That's not true. Kevin Elliott would ask the question, but no one has. No one has. I think Jon Jones at your first event is not bad. Again, they have the same management.

All right, let's see this highlight. This is Rob Perez needing to be pulled off his opponent. As you can see, you can do some ground fighting, maybe when they go down. Yeah, I don't quite know the rules. And again, they have the same management. All right, let's see this highlight. This is Rob Perez needing to be pulled off his opponent. As you can see, you can do some ground fighting, maybe when they go down. Yeah, I don't quite know the rules, and again, they were kind of launching it, but I will say it looks...

Okay, referee, what the fuck are we waiting on? I like that he waves it off first before removing the opponent. All right, all right, all right. Cam Newton? You got a guy wearing a fucking... I love it, I love it i love the worst hat ever i love it jumping in the ring all right well luke sometimes there's a reality with spicy food

that you got to know your limits right i fucking love spicy food yeah bro i can handle my spicy food a few minutes later. Can I be honest? Yeah. That never happens to me. Oh, yeah, right. I have never had shit flames or burning in the butthole from eating spicy food. It has literally never happened. I want to chime in here to say I also...

Chime in on burning in the butthole face. I eat a lot of spicy food. Also never felt that. I did enter a hot wing eating contest once. And now I know what everyone's talking about. Oh, explain yourself. Pretty much the video we just watched. It's never happened to me.

Was it like uncontrollable? Like it took over your life for a day? Yeah, dude. It was bad. Like I literally was sitting there beingable, like it took over your life for a day? Yeah, dude. I literally was sitting there being like, this is what everyone talks about. Okay. So, yeah, you got to know your limits, Luke. Apparently. All right, let's keep it going.

Did you see this violence in Pickleball? Fuck yeah! Now we're going to do a longer replay here. The setup is the final point. You just kicked him in the face? Yes, he did. Dude, pickleball rules. Jay Aaron, I think, plays at semi-pro.

Oh, they knocked the racket out of his hand. I think it was my accident. Oh, wow. Jeepers, creepers. Bro, it gets real deal Holyfield up on that motherfucking court. I guess it does. Let's go to MMA homecomings. You know I pop when people go back to their home surroundings with the title.

How about Umar Khan, a.k.a. Rug Rug, showing up in Dakar? Luke, have you ever been to Dakar? I have not. That is in what, in the Senegal? Senegal. Look at this reception for your new one heavyweight champion. Good for him, man. Love this guy, yeah.

Again, I don't know him personally. Maybe he's got the world's worst views, but as a sympathetic character from afar, you certainly gotta feel good for him. Dude, this is a celebration. There's fire and stuff. Have you ever been greeted anywhere where people were setting things on fire on purpose as a good thing? No, usually when they want you out of town.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, alright. You know who else had a weird sort of second or third homecoming? How about Poetan? Alex Pereira went to South Korea. You may have seen a lot of the content that came out of it. Here's him entering the airport doing the Poetan dance. Yeah, I mean, like a fucking hero returning home.

Oh, my God. Dude, everywhere he goes, he's just. Good for him. He earned it. What are you going to say? He didn't earn it? No, of course he earned it, but maybe we need to realize he's a lot Good for him. He earned it. What are you going to say? He didn't earn it? No, of course he earned it, but maybe we need to realize he's a lot bigger of a

global star than we even like... He's definitely a big star, and he earned it. I mean, this is the thing. We can have a debate about fighter of the year, and it's fine. People can pick who they want, but I will say this. There's no question Poetan saving the brand as many times as he did this year is something Ilya obviously

did not come close to doing. You've got to give give him respect and all those short notice fights and he took them banged up dude good for him that people are responding this way good um back to conor mcgregor quickly this was his response to jake paul's attempt to dunk on i know what a fucking i mean he also put a pritchard cologne response you know the the fighter that was i mean you're you it's like you just got held liable for rape. And then the first thing you do is take to social media to lob homophobic insults at a perceived rival. Like, you're fucking warped. You know what we need from that tweet?

A palate cleanse. Something wholesome. Are you ready? All right, let's see it. Luke, the Costco-versed invaded AEW full gear. So this was like the featured prelim match before the pay-per-view. That's Big AJ in the corner. Big Justice with the spear!

That's his name, Big Justice? Yes. Did you hear that crowd? Okay, listen to the crowd pop on the pin coming up. Big Justice got a big belly. This is like 1980s territory. That's his dad? Yes, that's Big AJ.

Listen to this pop. Oh, he won. So this was in, I think, Newark, New Jersey. Correct me if I'm wrong. And, dude, he got a baby face pop like that was like Greensboro, North Carolina, Dusty Road's 1984 Ric Flair. Like, that's crazy. I literally just became a member of Costco in, like, the last two months.

Oh, did you get the chicken bake? I didn't. I haven't done that yet. I didn't know that they don't hand out bags when you buy shit. Oh, yeah. You got to bring your own fucking bags or whatever. I mean, people are starting to do that everywhere. But, yeah.

I didn't like that. Aldi's does that. You also have to rent. You have to rent the car at Aldi's. Oh, with, like, a nickel or whatever? Yeah, it's weird. Big AJ, by the way, who's 48 years old. I know there's a lot of criticism of AJ Bufumo.

He's certainly exploiting his children's youth for a failed career in celebrity. He put the kids, they're in like a special school, like with one-on-one teachers, because it got too out of control in their regular life. You know what I mean? I'm sure it's healthy for them. The principals actually asked them. They definitely won't grow up doing drugs. Okay.

Well, here's AJ at 48 against QT Marshall doing a superplex. Look at the double chunk chocolate cookies on the pad. I don't know what the superplex. That, dude. Off the top rope or whatever. That's not nothing, by the way. You know, that's crazy. So why did his career fail as a pro wrestler?

I think he just was like a regional guy. He claims it was the road schedule. He knew it wasn't for him, but it also could be maybe it wasn't good enough. Obviously, he overachieved in this match. He did well. People liked it. Yes, yes. It was old school style. He did well. People liked it. Yes, yes. It was old school style.

He did well. But the Rizzler was the guest timekeeper. The other fat kid? Yeah. He got introduced by Paul White here, aka the big show. Special guest timekeeper. Standing at 3 feet and 11 and a half inches tall.

He is the master of the riz face ladies and gentlemen he only has one move which is that 75 chips making his aew debut special guest time. It looks like that's the line. It does. Dude, they're over. The Costcoverse is over in pro wrestling. That's what I mean. That means the crowd loves them.

Does it matter? There were some cringe moments in that match, but they pulled it off. All right, there you go. Let's cleanse our palate again with the skateboard accident. Luke, you sent me this. Do we have no audio? Apparently.

I think there was commercial music. That's why we couldn't. Look at the homie at the top of the hill there just laying there fucking dead as shit. What is this? Nadir was saying it's in California. Yeah, it looks like some California like waterway tributary thing.

And there's look at homie. They're just laying there the whole time, bro. Yeah. Without the it doesn't oh you know what we didn't lose any road scholars there i'm sure i'm sure we didn't i keep running keep riding a fucking fucking uh my brain's not working oh the joke doesn't work skateboard there you go that's without a helmet on concrete keep doing that guys okay is it better than the people that chase the cheese down the hill in Europe and then they

like fall and get concussion? I mean, that's also bad, but that's at least like on like soil. It's not on like fucking concrete. They're probably drunk as shit before they do that, too. How would you do that? The equivalent of running with the bulls, right? Probably. That's a good question.

Although you can get gored like to death. You can get gored like a motherfucker with those damn pylona. Hey, do you see this amateur boxing post-fight skirmish that happened? Watch the kid in the green here. Tries to go for the hug. Gets pushed. What happened? Oh, shit!

The opposing coach told him to get out of the ring. Bro, this motherfucker's got a little spark to him. Yeah, he does. That guy will be incarcerated very shortly. Yes, wow. He'll be doing math soon. Let's he does. That guy will be incarcerated very shortly. Yes. Wow. Let's check in on the NFL, Luke, where crazy things happen. Watch this Rams fan on the left wearing the 99 jersey attempt to take out this entire row with one backhanded swipe as the ladies take for cover.

Some guys just want to fight the world that one time. I have not seen this. Let me see. What we're going to be looking for is. Now, most of the time, these fights take place in the shitty seats. Yeah. Oh, man. He caught five guys with that slap.

Five guys. What does the five fingers say to the face? He catches the burger and fries and the three-piece coming up. Yeah, bro. They're going after him. He's fighting well now, but once it gets five on one. Oh, yeah. They just start pounding. Oh, wow. I mean, they're hitting him in the gut. They're just hitting him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's fighting well now, but once it gets five on one, I mean. Oh, yeah, they just start pounding him.

Oh, wow. I mean, they're hitting him in the gut. They're just hitting him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was unwise. Also, why would you ever go to an NFL game? Yeah. Someone explain to me.

Parents, if you're out there, why would you? Why would you ever fucking go? Dude, I don't care what anybody says. NFL hardcore fans. Yes. The only thing that separates them from prisoners is the prison itself i love i know we like to point out philadelphia as being maybe the roughest i mean new york giants fans are rough but i don't think it compares to la to california philly is mean i don't know exactly

if they're as bad as like la when i feel like i know raiders aren't in california anymore but but it feels like the last few years raidersiders, Chargers, Rams, any of those will just... Also Dodgers, too, speaking of LA. You know what? Dirtbags. People in Southern California are ready to throw it on at any point. Dirtbags. Here's your NFL jerseys of the week, by the way.

Gay orgy. Gay orgy. All right, Luke, I got a new segment idea for you. It's called How Hard Is This? And it has to do with things you love. How hard is it for you to pronounce that? Luke, rate this one to ten. How hard is this move?

Ten being the hardest. It's a clean. Zombie clean. You're going to chug a beer in a fucking... Jesus, at the bottom of the fucking... That's pretty awesome. Seven out of ten hardness? I give that a of the fucking... That's pretty awesome. Seven out of ten hardness? I give that a seven or eight.

That's pretty good. Okay, you own almost a hard eight. Let's go to this one, Luke. Tell me how hard this is to do. What the fuck are you doing? This is... This requires you to be mentally deficient in order to even attempt it.

It looks like the Iron Sheik when he does those clubs and he like that could have gone so fucking bad. OK. Wow. OK. Let's go to your base brawl of the week. They get after it in baseball.

Watch this guy. Oh, this motherfucker threatened with the bat. Hit him with the bat. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, he threw the glove at him like a bitch. Well, it's the only weapon he had. He's got fists.

Oh, is this minor league? It has to be minor league i think so or college or no probably minor league yeah that's i mean these motherfuckers are getting paid like peanuts and cigarettes yeah uh let's head over to the bar luke where white women usually take falls let's see what's going on here happens oh there's a white man yeah get down get down you fucking prick let's keep the fun going fucking feet off the bar when the night when the night out takes a turn yeah why don't you crowd all right we got one more for you this is great right yeah hey get down Sarah fucking paralyzed bitch well I can't believe I left that hard well okay let's go to this restaurant you

never know what's above you Luke gotta be careful watch this seven a couple of There you go, mate. What the fuck? Oh, my God. Is that a wombat? What is that? You know, if this was Texas, they would have just shot it. And then ate it, right? Right there off the grill. Wow.

Okay. Be careful in parking lots. That's what I always tell my kids. Are you kidding me? What the fuck? Enjoy that. Enjoy that, you dumb piece of shit. Luke, who's your least favorite person in Have You Seen This Shit?

That's a recurring guest. Is it the Asian guy that does the weird... No, that dumb bitch who eats the cake. Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here. Get this monster. Put her in prison and throw away the key. Are you kind of turned on by this?

No, I want her to die. Her death would be, you asked what I was grateful for? Her death. All right. Would you ever wondered about Adrian Broner and the possibility that he ate ass? Or you don't think about something? I don't hold that against him. All right, let's hear from him.

That's your question we always ask. Do you eat ass, AB? I have before. Oh, okay. I have before. Fresh out the club or fresh out the tub? Sometimes I don't know. You know, I get lit.

I like to drink, bro. I get lit. I don't know. I'm an honest nigga. But I ain't ate no ass lately. I ain't ate no ass lately. Okay, all right. BC, have you eaten ass recently?

No, no, I have not. That is wild talk. All right, we're going to close with all Creed all the time. What's your favorite Creed song? None of them. I mean, you do have to admit, though, that the first album holds up. I mean, it does. I mean, you know, Stevie Ray Vaughan dying in a helicopter accident.

We got to get Creed into some more helicopters. All right, well, let's go to The Price is Right. Yeah, I'd like to say hi to Scott Sapp from the band Creed. Thank you for taking me higher, and hi, Mom. That's pretty solid. I hope he fucking dies. All right, we got one more Creed joke for you. Hold me now.

I'm six feet from the edge and I'm shitting. Okay. Alright. That was good. That's all the shit I got this week. Okay. Sometimes it overachieves. Watching those white ladies, and white guys, by the way, tumble.

Brings me joy. Go get paralyzed, you dumb bitch. I love that. Uh, thank you so much for tuning in this week, folks. And don't forget that a Friday we will be airing this Friday. Black Friday. We'll be airing a episode of morning combat,

11 a.m. Eastern. It's going to be a mailbag morning combat at gmail.com. Morning combat at gmail.com. Send in your questions. Now we're going to record it on Wednesday. We're going to answer your questions on Friday. So when you are done wrestling in the best byline,

trying to pick up that door buster, you can check out us. Then you can check out the PFL. So that's all we got for you this week. You can follow us on social. Please like and subscribe the video. If you've been watching some MK and you think you want to take the plunge, just subscribe. That's all you got to do, okay?

It keeps the ball, the chains moving for us. Thank you so much. Follow our YouTube channels. Check out our friend Luke Noseda's Main Card Minute podcast. Luke, Long Island, where are you going for Thanksgiving here? What's happening? We're doing the double dip. We'll go to my sister's

for the first half of the day and then go to my girlfriend's aunt's house later on. Okay. Will you be able to smoke paraphernalia inside any of these houses? Not inside, but they all know that I'll be smelling as I walk in the door. Wow.

So he's established that. He's just straight up established that. I'm going to be high as shit. There's going to be many adults who can watch my daughter. I will not be one of them. Okay. Hello, we're made of gang.

We're going to take the train now. As I game. We're going to take the train now. As I mentioned, we're going to take the train now. So I'm looking forward to that. Dukes is going to love that. We hope you guys have a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday. Thank you so much for what you do for us. We'll continue to do our best every Monday and Friday for you, to our sensational team, for our sensational team here at Metal Ark.

Thank you so much. Take care. That's Luke Thomas. I'm your boy, BC. Peace in the Middle East.