MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Mexico | Cain Velasquez Sentenced | Pereira Injury Confirmed | Full Episode | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

The guys are back to kick off your weekend with the latest episode of Morning Kombat. First up, Luke and BC break down UFC Mexico and what’s at stake for both Brandon Moreno and Steve Erceg in the main event. They also preview the rest of the exciting card. Next, they react to the news that former UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez has been sentenced to five years in prison. However, due to time served, he will spend less than two years behind bars. Plus, Alex Pereira confirms a rumor on The Ariel Helwani Show that when he fought Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313, he was dealing with a broken hand and the norovirus. How much did these factors contribute to his loss, and what can we expect next time he steps in the octagon? Lastly, Ilia Topuria has a new nickname! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa card. Terms and conditions apply. 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 ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Oh, yeah, you know what that means, right? That sound, that feeling, that lifestyle, it's morning combat. It's back in your damn face hole. And you better believe it's Friday. So you ain't got shit to do but to sit here on March 28th, 2025 and stare at Luke's red microphone, Hey, it's the best damn combat sports show they ever

thought about putting together. And again, it's the one that just won't die. I'm that BBC with that, uh, alpha like quality. They call me Brian Campbell, the guy next to me though, to normally representing DC right now though, as the, as a hero of the Midwest, let's welcome in on location. Luke Franklin Thomas. That's me, buddy.

That's me, buddy. How are you? I'm doing great. But Luke, you have like huge news today. We're all fired up for you in team morning combat. I wouldn't say it's huge. Um, it's cool. Uh, I'm in Iowa BC.

I'm in, uh, I am in Iowa, which is, yeah, I got off the airport. I was a little shaky, little shaky waiting to welcome you. No, uh, got out of the airport. I was like, just a little bit nubs, but no, I'm in all, in all seriousness. I'm here in a Iowa city, which I'd never been to before. I've been to Des Moines before. in all seriousness, I'm here in Iowa City, which I'd never been to before. I've been to Des Moines before. And I'm here- Which college is in Iowa City?

I think University of Iowa's here. Okay. I mean, everybody's wearing Hawkeye stuff here. I mean, I can assure you. And I actually, when I got off the plane, there were the University of Iowa track and field team in all of their travel clothes, all getting on some other plane nearby. hot chicks. Anyway, I've been hired

to be a commentator for XFC in particular. The event is called XFC 52. It is here in Iowa City. Yeah, yeah, it'll be if you're asking where can I watch this? It'll be on be in sport, which if you're a La Liga fan before La Liga went to ESPN, they were on being sport for all those years. Yeah, being sport you should do a lot of boxing with they had Mikey Garcia as a commentator. I've watched a lot on there. Yeah, yeah.

So folks have been like, Oh, why don't you mention something sooner? And I'll just be completely honest with everyone. I am very nervous about this. If I can be honest, I'm trying to just keep everything, manage my emotions, manage expectations. It's only, I think, six fights that are even being aired. So it's not a long show, and I actually think some of these fights

are gonna go pretty quickly. The cage that they use is very small. But if I may, I got I got to the guy well I guess I should just pull back the curtain the guy who basically got me the job is Big E from WWE Big E was the one that basically got me this he he raised the coals on that guy right great got titties for days yeah I saw him yesterday I was like Jesus he's jacked We talked a long time yesterday. So Biggie was the one who was like, hey, I guess Biggie is an investor in the company and was like, hey,

do you are you interested in trying this? And I said, well, sure, I guess I am. So here we are. Here we are. Get some of that, dude. Look, when someone in this family wins, we all win. So we are fired up to see you doing what you were born to do. Dude, remember you called an this family wins, we all win. So we are fired up to see you doing what you were born to do Dude, remember you called an early Brendan shop fight back in the day at the ultimate warrior challenge He won he beat the fuck out of that guy. Actually, it was it's a true story So yeah, I don't know who the Brendan shop is on this particular card BC

Maybe there is one maybe there isn't but main event is real cool It's Kenny cross who I think is if he wins this one he might be UFC bound taking on an art well a Brazilian guy who lives in Argentina named Lucas Corbucci and I will tell you know you know what's kind of interesting BC I have to do a lot of tape study for this so I've been doing a lot of tape study there's a surprising amount will do look at that puss that's Zoe yeah she's alive look at that puss. That's Zoe. Yeah, she's alive. Look at that puss. There's a lot of tape of people who've never fought in the UFC on fight pass. It's a yeah, there's a surprising amount of it like Lucas Gourbasi has never fought in UFC. I think he's got like five fights on fight pass. It's crazy. So anyway, yeah, if you're if you're atme Arena in Iowa City tonight, come watch the fights.

Check it out. Shout out to your cohort on the broadcast, Johnny Loquasto, aka Habibi. What a great guy. Also, I'm calling it with Jessica Aguilar. Yes, yes. She's just a sweet person and Johnny's been amazing. So, dude, everyone's been real nice to me, you know? So hopefully I don't fuck it up too bad, you know? Hey, hey, break a leg, Luke. You got this. You got this.

And we have, by the way, a great show for you today. Of course we'll be setting the stage for UFC Mexico City, looking at the latest headlines involving the likes of Alex Pereira, Ilia Toptoria, and so much more. Did you see future president elect Conor McGregor spoke at the BKFC conference? It looks like Luke, he may never fight the BKFC conference and looks like, look, he may never fight again. That's what it looks like. He basically was like, yeah, I got something else

in my gut that I wanna do. And I'm like, take a dump? Cause. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, he looks done, bro. He looks fucking done. He totally looks done, you know? And he was like, oh, I've got other things in mind, which to be president, which, by the

way, as I understand it, is largely a ceremonial role in Ireland anyway, doesn't really confer like the Queen of England. I don't know if it's quite like royalty since you get elected. But nevertheless, he was like, Yeah, you know, I'm satisfied with what I've done the UFC. I was like, Oh, yeah, he's been that way since the I'm not saying that he's wrong to feel that way That's not my point. My point is if he's saying that out loud He's he is I would bet he you never see him again

He did counter that by saying that he wants to be the first sitting president to fight in the UFC and get announced as you Know Irish president so I don't know what you know I'd like to be the main judge in a dick sucking contest among, you know, biggest booty, Latino, you know what I mean? Like it's never gonna happen. So, you know, here we go. So a fantastic show coming your way, folks get fired up. We will close with our fan segments, dead wrongs, fan submissions and Luke, we do have to shout out both Dave Sandeen the the you know proprietor of today's modern sex trade and Danger Mouse for sending fan subs that we

can't air but did make us laugh until we cried only we'd love to stay employed you know what I mean? Let me let me just explain something to you all two fans subs, I am not joking when I said tears were streaming down my face at how good they were. They're absolutely amazing. But if we aired them, this would be the last MK show that you'd see. So I think in the interest of just keeping everything cool, we'll just say thank you, but we have to pass this time. There it is.

Whoop, there it is. Hey, why don't you follow us and like us and subscribe to everything we're doing right here. It helps a lot. It takes the show to the next level You can see our social handles right there. Please like and subscribe on YouTube. You can check out our YouTube channels Personal spin-off channels as well and don't forget the third member of our team today. He is a producer. He is a director He's a bong enthusiast. He was born from the nut bag of an Australian. They call him Luke no Sita of the main card minute What up gang? I don't know why my dad's Screwed him for lack of a better term is becoming my my go-to intro nowadays

But you know, it is what it is I guess guys weigh-ins are happening right now Moreno or seg both made weight drew Dober Manuel Torres both made weight So our main and co main are officially official. Okay, there you go. Nice to hear that. I'm having some technical difficulties here. Luke, anything you want to say to the fans while I fix this? I just want to watch you struggle. If I can be honest with you. Look at this motherfucker. Dude, do you just tape shit to your wall like a college student?

I don't need to talk to you about my practices and my methods. You just put a thumbtack in there? Dude, how old are you? Get a frame for this shit. Dude, I change stuff all the time, you know what I'm saying? Or you put duct tape on your car, you fucking white trash mook. Okay, alright. It's just the guy sitting in a hotel room in Iowa right now. Alright, yeah, that's great. Hey, I gotta tell you,

Iowa, let's let's talk about some good parts. Very friendly people, very friendly people. And as I mentioned, the downtown pretty pretty cool, actually, like very cool. The Mexican food here, real bad, super not good. Yeah, they're pulling a fast one on these gringos here. Let me tell you, I'm sure the pizza is worse. You know, I'm sure the pizza is worse. But, you know pizza is worse, but you know, you actually had one slice yesterday for catering. It was fine. It was fine. Okay.

There you go. There you go. Well, we reviewed food in Iowa. Now it's time to set the stage for what's coming to you this weekend. Let's transition folks into topic. Number one, UFC Mexico city is upon us this Saturday. It is a fight night card and it will be at high elevation. No sea level. Kane will be appearing based on the, Saturday. It is a fight night card and it will be at high elevation. No sea level

cane will be appearing based on the yeah. Okay. Cool. Let me start all over. Hey, USC Mexico City is this Saturday. And of course the main event will take us to a potential flyweight tilt that could have title implications of course from former champion Brandon Moreno welcomes Steve Erceg, the former title challenger. So Luke, Steve Ersegg kind of has his back against the wall here. A win would be massive for him, but a third loss in a row against the Division Elite, that could be permanent exile in a lot of ways. When you look at this matchup, do you think the storyline is really focused upon just that?

Steve Ersegg getting back in the win win column improving that he deserved that initial title shot and that pretty good performance he had against Pantosia? Flyweight is a really interesting division for this particular reason, which is on the one hand, there are divisions in the UFC where it just takes a long time to break through. in the UFC where it just takes a long time to break through. You have to beat so many quality opponents. It just, you know, there's a, there's a queue in front of you that has to get sorted. You really have to be patient and quite good. And then to an extent, obviously quite lucky. It's just hard slogging. But then there's Flyweight, which is really kind of the opposite. I'm not saying that they give title shots to just, you know, bozos, but they need contenders. They need guys because, you know, both on the way which it works now and then overall how thin it is, it's relatively speaking, easy to get a title shot. But that has created a real big problem for Steve Versaegh, which is he had a bunch of nice wins, then he gets a title shot probably a little too early in

his career. He performed quite well up until the last round and then he follows it up with a devastating knockout loss to Kai Kara France. Here he is and I think we have audio to this effect in video where he describes like how he was surprised they gave him the main event. BC this is the point I'm trying to make. What is so interesting about this is on the one hand you can get divisions where it's a hard slog on the other hand you can get to the front of the queue pretty consistently. But if you do it enough times and you bottom out enough times, and it wasn't like he fought badly

against Pantoja again, up until the very end. But to follow that up against Kaikour France, and then let's just hypothetically say, something bad goes happen against Moreno, where are you in this division at the on some level, you're close to the front, but they've given you now multiple tries to win a title, put yourself in a number one contender's position, get back to a number one contender's position. And if you bottom out on that,

they may not go back to you for a long time, but then it just leaves you in real limbo at that point. So, you know, I'm sure that most UFC fighters would say if the choice is, well, get a title shot early versus not at all, of course you would say early, but you also have to be careful what you wish for on the back end that can cause some problems Steve Erceg is trying to wrestle himself out of that here on Saturday night. Yeah I mean it's hard to

answer this question until we see what happens on Saturday night because look if he gets a super impressive victory over a multi-time former champion and a great dude by the way and Brandon Moreno I've had an interview with him on the BCX you can check that out right after this program Then it might change that but as we speak right now Luke when you look back and see he fought for a world title in The UFC in his third fight, and it's not like he necessarily went through killers to get there Maybe it's due to more of the effect that the top of the division had already fought each other a ton But do you lean more toward the feeling that it was a little bit too soon? I definitely think it was too soon.

I think the fact that he made such a poor decision in that fifth round against Pantojo is kind of evidence of it. Now I don't really know how to explain the Kikar France one, which is to say there could be a bunch of different ones. He took them lightly. It could be one. He just made a mistake and got caught, could be another one. He didn't necessarily make a mistake, that's just more of a reflection of the

actual level he's at. Like that's an explanation too. That's why this fight against Moreno, five rounds, Mexico City, you know it's a tough, as you mentioned, like one thing we just have to keep going back to that elevation in Mexico City is no fucking joke at all. So very difficult circumstances for Ersekgg here. You're gonna be getting a real good test of him, but now he's been in five round UFC main events, quite literally, right? He's been in five round UFC main events.

So this is a chance for him to kind of really set the level of where he is. Like we know how good Brendan Moreno is. On his best night, he could be the best in the division. If not, he's like a step behind it. But he's like right there, you know, but on the other hand with Ersegg, we never really, his, his something of his best performance was those first four rounds against Pantoja, you know what I mean, but in the end it's a

loss, we talked about it before, dude, there's no moral victories in this game, not really, the only question is who you beat, and to this point, he hasn't beaten an elite opponent even if he has performed at times quite elite against elite opposition. Well Luke IMG, Ian Machado Gary seemed to have a really nice moral victory in that loss to Shavkat notwithstanding here. Our Draft Kings odds at the moment for this UFC Mexico City main event is Brandon Moreno minus 258 your favorite Steve Ersegg plus 210. But Luke, you mentioned we've got some sound from Ersegg who was surprised that

he's going to get this opportunity, but it is a potential make or break fight. Let's see what he has to say. I was surprised that they gave me another main event spot and somebody so highly ranked, but I mean, all I want to do is fight the toughest dudes on the planet and yeah whether I have setbacks or whatever that doesn't doesn't bother me I mean obviously losing sucks but I want to yeah prove that I'm a I'm a tough guy and I would yeah never would think about turning down a fight especially of this magnitude. Have you thought about how bizarre your UFC run has been because it's only five fights but you've been in two main events counting this one one common co-main event, four pay-per-views. I mean

you fought for the title already. A lot of people go years without even coming close to doing something like that. Have you gotten a chance to process all that and did you expect your UFC run to be sort of this, I don't even know what to call it, like this fast, this intense maybe? I definitely wouldn't expect my UFC run to go like this. When you think about it, like five, six, seven fights and then you work your way to the title, get a shot. Yeah, I got thrown into the deep end, which I mean honestly, like I couldn't imagine a better outcome. I mean I think life's about experiences and I mean, I have some pretty amazing experiences so far. So, yeah, I'm maybe the luckiest guy in the world

at the moment. Real quick breaking news from Long Island Luke, Ronaldo lazy boy, Rodriguez missed weight. He came in at 127 pounds. We'll get more into the updates on the undercard as we keep going. You heard from Erseg right there. On the flip side, of course, Luke is the 31 year old Brandon Moreno, multi-time champion, co-author of that fantastic four pack of big time fights against Davidson Figueredo. Did bounce back to put aside a two fight losing streak when he won a decision over Amir Al-Bazi. But look, if you look at that two fight losing streak, yeah, he did lose the title to Pantoja in a dog fight, but it

was a split decision. Yes, he did follow that up with a split decision loss against Brandon Royvall. Where are you heading into this moment at the nearly three to one Moreno in terms of his current stock? I'm still pretty high. I mean, I don't know if that's crazy or you're clearly three to one Moreno in terms of his current stock. I'm still pretty high. I mean, I don't know if that's crazy or not, but I still have

a DHC or or I'm I wish I was high. No. Okay. I mean, maybe later. Maybe during the broadcast. Who knows? Okay. Okay. Um but in all seriousness, I'm not super down. I mean, like his three losses, as you mentioned, the Royville loss, which was a split, then the Pantoja one, which was also a split,

and then he lost to Figueredo back in, excuse me, January of 2022. These are hardly disreputable losses. These are hardly, you know, things that kind of tell you, well, we've sort of discovered the limit of him. He's really at the limit. There was a question about, you know, he was in some really, really, really tough ass fights

and like what that did to him in terms of, you know, the physical toll that it took, but he took some time off, I think appropriately and he looked pretty good against Amir Al-Bazi. Now, I think the Al-Bazi win, there's going to be a little bit of an asterisks there because folks are going to say, not unfairly, that Al-Bazi, you know, this was a guy who was not fully himself dealing with a variety of potentially long-term, well not long- term injuries, but long-term issues he had been struggling with and, and you know, trying to come back from that and it's very, very difficult to do, but okay fair enough, but this is a chance to really like, this is what I mean, this, the matchmaking here is kind of clever. It's not like it's the fight that you needed to see, like oh I need to see Ursegg against More clever. It's not like it's the fight that you needed to see,

like, oh, I need to see Ersegg against Moreno. It doesn't necessarily like blow your skirt up in that particular direction. However, both guys are kind of facing a little bit of questions. They're different ones, but they're important in nature. In the case of Ersegg, just exactly what is his level? We've seen flashes of it, as we indicated,

but we're really trying to figure this out and like who he's gonna be in this division. In the case of Moreno, we've already seen who he has been. He's been the champion. The question is whether he can get back to that after, you know, yesterday, as you pointed out some setbacks to me, not there were setbacks like in a way that you couldn't technically overcome them, but that they were kind of neck and neck with him and that there was this physical toll that was associated with it. I think he's still just 31 years of age. So for me, I'm still pretty high on him, but this is one of those fights where you're at least in theory could get great answers to some of these bigger questions about exactly where they are and where they, where they're likely to go from here. No doubt.

And we will hear from Marine on a second, but I forgot to mention the voice of friend of the program, Danny Segura. He made the trip to Mexico city to cover this. Hell yeah. Of course they sent the Spanish language reporter out there. Of course. Yeah. I know he's done some, remember he went to that Lobo gym and did that really nice video

feature out there in Mexico. So a well traveled gentleman, but let's hear from Brandon Marino who is looking to put the past away. And I wish he would also step back from that ledge. All right. Let's just hear from him. Let's's go when you got the call to fight here Was it like ah here? We go again, or was it like redeeming like yes? I want to go in there. I got to get a win in front of my people

I don't I don't even thinking about my my past you know I think that is something I had to avoid for this one because you know I I had to avoid for this one because you know, you guys always ask me about what is the pressure of your next fight and I always answer the same. Like there's a lot of pressure as always. But man, I can't put more on that, you know. I can't put more weight on my shoulders. So hey man, I just stopped the thing in the past.

I don't know nothing about my past. I graph all the lessons from that, but after that, right now I'm very focused on my present. I'm very focused on Steve Irzig, and I'm ready for the challenge. Fair points there. By the way, Luke, for all the toxicity in this sport, back to back times, you had Jan Blachowicz sound last time, now we got Brandon Moreno. Two of the true good people, it seems, in the sports. So shout out to those guys. Stylistically, Luke, we mentioned the betting favorite edge to Moreno.

He's got the higher level experience, of course, although Ersek did fight Pantosia and did fight well until that late mistake. How do these two match up in your mind? This is an interesting one. So definitely you would imagine if Ersegg can work behind the jab, he's going to have a fair amount of success. So you really have to question like what role is Ersegg's jab going to play because a lot of his offense flows through that. Someone like Moreno has a couple of answers to that. He has great lateral movement. He's probably going to fight more at kickboxing range, he'll fight at boxing range, of course, but he might try to keep it a little bit further away to stifle both the distance closing and to give himself additional weapons. I

mean, think about it, right? They both fought Kai Car France, Kai Car France was lightening Moreno up a little bit until what he tried to exit and then he got hit with the body kick on the exit and it folded him. You know, so you really have to be like, okay, Moreno's got difference. To me, BC, and maybe you disagree. I think Moreno's got difference. To me, BC, and maybe you disagree, I think Moreno has overall more weapons. I think the sharpness of Ersegg's boxing

is definitely better than the boxing of Moreno. I don't have any question about that. But I think Moreno's gonna try and mix it up a little bit. Maybe he goes for takedowns, you know what I mean? But like, it's hard to say exactly. There might be some clinch fighting, just kind of, you know, just trying to find different ways in which to make Erseg respond to what he's doing. But I really believe that this one is going to be at kickboxing

range and or some kind of, if he can get a dominant, you know, position through a scramble, he's going to be looking for that. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is I think he can, Moreno can probably, for the most part, at least for these short short bursts, I think he can hold his own in the boxing. If he does that too long, he's going to get, it's going to be trouble for him. But between that and then the lateral movement, the kicking range, I think he's going to go for the leg kicks a lot. Body kicks, I think are going to be another part of it. You know,

to what extent does Ersek bite on that to then go for the takedown, right? Because it's an easy way to go for a takedown. If you can grab the leg versus having to shoot, it's kind of like one of those natural things. So to me, I favor Moreno. I think Moreno's got a different distances he can win at Moreno. By the way, let's be clear about this. Moreno's beaten better guys, just flat out. He's beaten better guys. And I don't think he's washed yet. I really don't. But we're gonna see here. And Ersek, again, if Ersek is flowing behind that job, it's going to be a real problem for for Moreno. But I think Moreno should take this. Well, I mean, just on the surface, Moreno's got two wins over Brandon Roy. Yeah, one win over Brandon Roy of all two wins over Kai Kara, France. He beat guys like for me.

Go. He beat Al Bazzi. He's been the multi-time champion. The main problem for him, Luke, although he has victories on Mexican soil on the regional level, he's curiously 0-2-1 fighting for the UFC in Mexico, all three times it came in Mexico City. We're looking at a 2017 decision loss to Sergio Pettis,

a 2019 draw, split draw to my guy, Asgar Asgarov, and then of course, fast forward all the way to two fights ago, he loses that split decision over five rounds in the main event against Brandon Royval. So an opportunity of course for Moreno to exercise that demon. He comes in ranked number two, Steve Ersag ranked number eight. Now Luke, I asked Moreno when I interviewed him this week, are we looking at a title shot with a win?

And I think rightfully so, he was hesitant to lean in that direction. Not only is there a plan set up for the champion at the top, let's not forget he's now lost three times to the champion, Pantoja, one in the Ultimate Fighter, two in the regular UFC, and he did echo my concerns of whether the UFC would be willing to give him yet another chance. But he's in this fight in this space because he's a Mexican national, he's super popular, they know he's going to move tickets. What do you think is really at stake for each fighter in terms of a victory?

Ersegg is sitting at eight. So it's not like if he loses to the number two guy, he all of a sudden is in a terrible place in the division, but it's the bigger kind of concern. They thrust him to the front of the line. He accepted. And we, again, we understand that these are difficult calculations to make. Do I accept the UFC title shot? Who turns those down? You don't even know if you're ever going to get one again, but it did kind of rush him into a place where it's not really clear if

he's ready for it. Can he settle into some kind of elite space? Because he can get another title shot if he can beat a guy like Moreno. I'm not saying necessarily from just this win, but he can definitely put himself in position to get another one. He already had one and, you know, I don't know if they could sell a rematch, but they might try For Brano, it's about you know, maintaining relevancy at the top of this division. It's like, okay This was the once proud champion multiple times as you indicated. Okay got a nice one over Al Bazzi There are some questions about it, but you know, he definitely got the job done against a tough guy. Where do we go from here? He's somebody has to kind of stake a claim about the future. Who is the future of this, the next five years per se, but who's the future for the next year or two potentially of this

division. You're going to get a much better answer depending on what kind of fight you get and depending on who wins. But I think also like with the loss, Ersegg might get bounced, you know, I don't know if it'll get bounced out of the top 10, but it would just be a really kind of solidifying loss that it was too much too soon for him. And, you know, this is why you have to build guys up over time the right way. Maybe he'll rescue himself, BC, but he's up against it for these reasons. And then for Moreno, it's about recapturing what was once lost. So they're in different positions. But again but again, this, the matchmaking is cool, not because it's a rivalry, but because of how they match up and pretty big and important stakes for some real big questions surrounding two talented guys.

All right. Let's say Moreno wins. Here's the interesting debate about who really would be aligned for that next title shot, and obviously we do have to take into account what we both said. The fact that Moreno has lost three times, essentially, to Pantoja. Number one is Brandon Royvall. He got hurt, didn't get the cop fight. He's sitting out at the moment. Three is Albazi coming off that defeat.

Four is Khaykar France, and he's hot at the moment and very well could get the next title shot when you consider he knocked out Steve Ersig in round one last August. The con against France, right? The pro, the plus is that he hasn't fought for the full title yet. The con is that he had two consecutive losses before that. One was a split decision to Albazi,

who Moreno just beat. The other was a stoppage loss against Moreno for that interim title. Obviously the real red hot guy at the moment is Miguel Kopp, who is currently ranked number six. In your eyes, let's posit a scenario where Moreno wins. What is the order right there of those three fighters, Moreno, KKF, and Cop in terms of what you think UFC preference would be in

giving them a shot at Pantoja? Cop would probably be a fresh matchup and a really interesting one. I think that's number one. KKF would be number two because that's also a, that's a fresh one, right? They don't, they've not fought before. I'm trying to wreck my brain. I don't believe that they have fought. He would be a fresh title contender. Now I think Moreno would be three. Now I think you could move that around depending on what happens.

If Moreno gets like a absolute like thudding one punch shot, I mean, that's unlikely, but you know, something really electric, you know, you can move stuff around. But to me, Kopp has been the deserving guy. He's new, as I mean, new as a title contender, KKF, not new, but still quite deserving, or at least, you know, could also prove useful for promotional purposes if they want to go back to Australia or whatever.

And then on the back end, Moreno is kind of there if you need it, but because he's already been there before, he'll have to do something I think a little bit special to jump the queue. Okay, would you agree with what I thought was going to happen before they booked Royvault Cop? Let's say Moreno does win. He's going into a trilogy with Royvault, ain't he? Yeah, that's a possibility. Would they really do a trilogy? Is there a big market for that? I mean, they'd be two top contenders who probably don't have a stake to face Pantoja because they both lost to him multiple times, so you eliminate one of them by going through each other a third time. Yeah, that's a possibility. Yeah, I can't, I couldn't rule that out. Flyweight, this is what I mean. Dude, Flyweight is so weird. Where, you know, like the

rules were, okay, you know, we normally know it takes this long to get to this position for this kind of a title shot. And Flyweight, it's like, yeah, good enough. You know what I mean? Like, good enough, got the job done. You know, it's very weird so that creates weird matchmaking downstream not just from who gets the title fight but obviously what and how that affects the rest of the division so you might be right that they would do a trilogy I guess it's we have to we have to see what if it's one of these wins where it's like a Moreno one three you know Pantoja excuse me um or seg one two what does it all mean?

I don't know. We're kind of waiting for a mandate from one of these guys. We haven't had that yet. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I'm leaning Moreno as well. The elevation, the Mexico city factor. I do think he's the better fighter of the two.

He's coming off a win. Obviously, or six is going to have to answer for those defeats. The first round knockout loss that he suffered to KKF. I do want to bring in our betting expert, Long Luke Nocita who will be probably hot and heavy and high on the main card minute betting pod this weekend. Nocita, where are you leaning on this main event and where do you find the best value from a betting standpoint? Unfortunately, I'm agreeing with you guys and I'm also going Moreno. I say unfortunately because I always back the Aussies and I want to go Steve Erceg here, but I just I do think

Moreno has more ways to get it done. Also, I definitely think this fight goes the distance. That's where I think the value is. Take either guy by decision. I believe Moreno by decisions like plus 120. Erceg's like plus 250. So either of those I think are good bets. You notice in one breath, Nocita is like, I don't know why it's always going back to my dad's scrotum. then he's like you know I back every Aussie it's like you know dude it's obvious right I mean come on you know we still don't have to talk about his dad's balls though okay all right you think we'll ever get him on the show or am I trying too hard someone should just make like a paper maché set of balls and then like like put a mouth on it and then like hi I'm Luke's dad's balls you know what I mean we could just have an interview with that. I'm good on that, but you know,

that's going to be a fan sub next week. No. Yeah. Probably. Probably with some nine 11 connection and we can't play it. Thank you. So the balls will be driving a plane right into the towers. Yeah. Do we care about this co-main event at all as Manuel Torres

and fellow lightweight Drew Doper cross swords, Luke, obviously there's bigger names to talk about down the card, but are you moved at all is Manuel Torres and fellow lightweight Drew Dober cross swords Luke obviously there's bigger names to talk about down the card but are you moved at all by this matchup? I am a little bit Manuel Torres actually fell a little bit short obviously against Ignacio Balmondes at the sphere card but he is all action Drew Dober all action but you know kind of faced a little bit of a rough stretch more recently of late and you know it's a 155 bout like you know is there a title fight on the line? No. Is there a top five ranking? Not necessarily but is it a fun

action? You know what it is? BC. I'm going to use the BC expression. It's an awesome TV fight. Oh I thought you were going technical thriller. I didn't know what you were going with there. It's a technical thriller. I really do believe it'll be a really really fun TV fight and Manuel Torres is still an interesting question about how far he'll go, but we're not even close enough to really, to get there. It's a fun TV fight. I like it, I'm not bagging on it.

The 36 year old Dober looking to snap a run in which he's lost three of his last four. He can win or lose any fight. He goes big, handsome fella, just the same Luke. Let's look at the odds at the moment. According to DraftKings, a minus 120 is Drew Dober as your favorite. Manwell Torres plus 100, Luke. So you can get plus money on the younger, less established name who's on the rise there against the veteran Dober. Obviously he didn't do great against, uh, Bob Mondes, but should have more ways to win. But Dober is proven to be historically more sturdy, sturdier, but of late has been less so. So it's a real interesting.

Are we at the tipping point of, of drew Dober being able to beat like, you know, relevant guys at this level? Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I hope they go tip to tip. What do you got? No, Sita, you got something. I just wanted to say that the odds on this flip flopped because earlier I got Manuel Torres at like minus one 20 and now he's the underdog. So a lot of money's come in on drew Dover throughout the week. Maybe Jeff Molina and Derek Minner

got involved, you know, possibly. All right, there we go. Luke, let's talk about the fight that you know is heavy on my heart. One of my favorite fighters who just can't seem to put it all together is Kelvin Gastelum. He's back at middle weight. I mean, who could forget what he co-authored at UFC 236 some six years ago. Hall of Fame worthy, huh? Against Izzy Hall of Fame worthy.

He will be welcoming of course, be like 28 year old Joe Pfeiffer who bounced back from that decision loss to Jack Hermansen in February of last year, knocked out Marc Andre Berriot and of course Mr. Pfeiffer is going to come in here as a somewhat sizable betting favorite minus 298 to the plus 240 Gastelum. Luke, what's really at stake here? It feels like crossroads battle,

one guy coming on, one guy going. What do you like about this matchup? Piper's trying to get a win over a name. This is obviously his stable mate, Sean Brady already beat him, submitted him, but Sean Brady's got a very different game than Joe Piper in a different weight class. So it's a different fight. But to me, it's clear that like, you know, Joe Pfeiffer was

on his way, got a little bit of a setback, but he's still young. There's still a lot of room for growth and opportunity. And Kelvin Gastelum appears to me like, you know, I don't know if I would describe it as last legs of his career. I don't think that's necessarily exactly right. But you know, if you don't win this, it describe it as last legs of his career. I don't think that's necessarily exactly right, but You know if you don't win this it's hard to know how many more fights of any kind of relevance you would be in Right because by his own admission, I think we have audio of this by his own admission. He's never going back to welterweight So it's it's 185 robust. Yeah, he's still pretty young. What is Kelvin Gaslam 33? 33 yeah, so he's still pretty young which is pretty good Gaslam? 33? 33, yeah. So he's still pretty young, which is pretty good. But it's the middleweight thing. Yes, I completely

agree that what he turned in against Izzy in Atlanta is an all-timer performance, but he didn't win that one. And it's like, what can he actually win at at middleweight? Like, what is actually achievable here? And I think all of us probably have some questions. We know when he's on, he's good. We know when he wants to, you know, leverage some of that crisp boxing, he can do it. When he wants to show good wrestling, he can do it, but we're at elevation. It's one 85. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know what's going on, man. But you know, he's got mileage on him. He's never been stopped by strikes, which, you know, speaks to his chin, but he also gets beat up in a lot of fights, even once he's went, he's won and he's got mileage on him. He's never been stopped by strikes, which speaks to his chin, but he also gets beat up in a lot of fights even once he's won, and he's lost six of his last eight. If you go all the way back to that

Adesanya interim title fight. Maybe if there's a plus in this, he has won two of his last three. There was the loss at welterweight by submission to Sean Brady, but he won a decision over Chris Curtis, and most recently in his return to 185 last June, he won a three round decision

against Daniel D. Rod Rodriguez. Let's hear from Kelvin Gastelum about what is now going to be a permanent home at Middlewaite. Is 170 done? Can we say that like 185 is gonna be your home from now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 185 is my home. And you now on? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 185 is my home. And you know what, I feel good about it.

This is where I've had the best moments of my career. And this is where I'm staying. So I feel good here, I feel happy. And I feel strong. I put in a lot of muscle to be able to compete with these big guys. Yeah, I know. So when I was fighting for the title,

I just stayed at middleweight because I was doing well, right? I was winning fights, I fought for the title. I just stayed at middleweight because I was doing well, right? I was winning fights. I fought for the title. So I stayed at middleweight Where now I feel like okay, this is my actual home I feel good here and I'm ready to put on a good show against some of the best fighters in the world And I'm not undecided. I'm 100% sure that this is this is where I'm staying. Yeah Look we did see the picture. We don't have it at the moment, but that picture, all the fighters take the official UFC pictures

and their fight gear before each fight. It looked very dad bod like. I hate to say this out loud because I love this guy. He's an action fighter. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He goes out there and gets after it, but he's never been stopped Let's say he gets stopped here. Is he gonna be uh, making his gfl debut next He has been stopped he's just never been knocked out sorry Yeah, he got stopped by sean brady, but bbc was been mentioned. He was he was inferred or implying. Uh, you know to be the strikes

I think they hold on to him a little bit longer even if he loses they might you know I hate to say it do but this is the fight game like if he loses will they cut him potentially but what I think was more likely to happen is that they just try and use whatever's left of him against any kind of name on the come-up for as long as they can and then, you know, tell him to get to stepping. Uh, I, you know, it's, I don't think, I don't think that a loss here by itself sends him packing, but I think it would be, you know, like, again, you lose this one and you're the UFC matchmakers. What lesson are you supposed to draw about his future?

If you can't win this one at a weight class where, you know, we all kind of looked at it and it was like, can he perform at this weight class at times? He certainly has been able to, but it also looks like to me he's just better suited physically for one 70, but he has a real hard time making it. Where are you supposed to go? If this doesn't work, it just, I mean, I guess you could try Johnny Eblen on a PFL Dublin card or something. I guess you could go to BKFC where they seem to be paying well,

where you can go brawl like you want to. I I'm not trying to write the old bit already. He's, this is a big fight. And like, if he wins this, he's have, he would have won three of his last four. So I'm likely we should point out something to BC Piper faded down the stretch. Uh, and I don't know if his last fight, whatever the, whatever the, um, whenever that last loss was, I don't have to fight to go. Jack hermanson, the Jack, I don't have the date in front of me, but he faded down the stretch in that one.

And that was it. That was not an altitude. So it's like, that's a good point. Let's see. The altitude could be interesting. Let's hear from Piper who believes the scenario could be true. He believes he's the first one that could knock Castellum out. What did you think of Kelvin when they offered you the name? You fought like some obviously well known guys, Jack Hermansen and others. But when Kelvin came, he's also a veteran. What did you

think and did you like the matchup? Yeah, I loved the matchup. I thought it was very exciting. He's a guy that likes to bring it. He's entertaining to watch. I would say as of lately, his performances, I don't think, are of Kelvin of old. But I do believe that he did his best work at middleweight. So, you know, I know my teammate beat him in Sean Brady and dominated. But we're two completely different fighters. That's a question that's been popping up a bunch. But, you know, our styles are different. Sean's an amazing grappler.

I'm a good grappler. I'm a great striker, I think. And I want to be the first guy to not kill them out. So yeah, when I saw the matchup, I thought it was a great, great fight for me. Luke, the 28 year old Pfeiffer is four and one in the UFC. We mentioned that loss to Hermansen. Obviously he's going to have to test his gas tank

at elevation here against a veteran. Both of these guys unranked at middle weight. Do you think Piper has the type of game where he could make a run here into title contention with a few more wins? I think Mexico City is going to be a great test. It's amazing that they had a guy who kind of faded in a important contender fight. And they're like, you know what? Let's see what he does at elevation. Like, you know, could just almost compounding the misery. But it's important to see what the answer is there. Beating Kelvin

Gastelum by itself wouldn't necessarily portend a title future. Knocking him out potentially could, or dominating him over the course of three, or winning a convincing decision while clearly answering the question about, Could you get right at elevation for, you know, a challenging opponent? Like those kinds of things. Like what do you need to see to believe he could do it? I'll tell you, like what was missing in that loss to Hermansen? One, he went too hard too quickly, right? So he didn't manage his resources. So can he pace it out a little bit? This is a this is a three round fight, correct? Not five. it out a little bit. This is a three round fight, correct? Not five. Correct. Three round fight. So you know, it's a little bit different than a five round main event or whatever. So he can kind of be a little bit more, he has to be

somewhat judicious with it, but he can kind of step on the gas pedal as well. But the other one too, was he was just kind of lunging into attacks, you know? And so what I would like to see from him is like, okay, methodically set it up. Like, dude, if you put somebody who's like not that great or halfway decent in front of Joe Pfeiffer, he'll decapitate them quickly. You know what I mean? Like it's very, very, you know,

it's a crocodile eating a gazelle or something. Like it's very, very fast. But what we need to see is somebody who can more patiently over time apply it against a credible, experienced, and durable veteran. That's, that's, and again, at elevation. This is a much different kind of test. So I need to overcome the things that set him back previously, a one-note attack, and maybe fading with the cardio, again, different circumstances, but fading with the cardio

down the stretch, you, you adjust both of those in a meaningful way. And I think you're cooking with gas. Hell yeah. And obviously he's on rank. So this isn't about catapulting him. It's title contention. This is about the road to get there and getting bigger names moving into that top 10. This would be a good start. Obviously, Gaston still has a name. He still brings danger to the table of some level. We'll find out high up in the elevation of Mexico City. Hey, fan favorite, 20 year old, still maybe future phenom.

He's 10 and one overall. And of course his name is Raul Rosas Jr. And one thing you have to say about him, Luke, UFC crowds love this guy, especially when he's either in Las Vegas or in Mexico City. He'll be here matched up in this bantamweight bout against a Vince Morales who is riding a two fight skid.

And as we look at the odds at the moment, the odds makers love Rosas minus 485, the favorite to the plus 370 Morales. Does this feel like stay busy showcase fight, put another popular name on the card to you? Or do you still think because he's only 20, he really needs a lot more of these type of matchups to continue to round out his skillset. He's a lot more of these matchups. But I will tell you, I have a very different feeling about Rolero Suss in part because one, I think what you're seeing from his attacks are that they are slowly maturing in the right

direction. Like, things are headed in the right direction. But what I think is actually helping him, and hear me out on this, what I think is helping him be see is that people have kind of stopped with like, he's the grappling prodigy of the future. You know what I mean? Or he's, you know, Oh my God, he'll be a, he'll be a champion by 23, by the time he's 23, which by the way, you know, could still happen, but we're at 20, he's not really close to that yet at all, and doesn't need to be. I guess what I'm trying to say here is BC,

there was a bunch of hype around him about how good he was already and how fast this career was moving. And a lot of that has slowed down to what I think is a much more natural and frankly fair Level to him where you know, you've seen him kind of fade a little bit or have some weaknesses. He's slowly working on them They're giving him opponents piece by piece where he can kind of you know, just get right fine-tune everything along the way And we've said this before dude, you know

This is not the place ideally where you want to be fine-tuning your game Of course, you're always gonna to make improvements as a martial artist and a fighter over time, but you need to have be like much more foundationally set. He's trying to do this on the job in the UFC. That's a very, very difficult thing to do. But because the sensationalism around him has died down, I feel like this is a much better time for him. You know what I mean? Like, there's not this crazy ass hype about him that's not fair to him.

It's not fair to the situation. It's not fair to his development. You tone that down a little bit and everything becomes much more manageable, smart, iterative, all the right things. So I like this fight for him. I like this fight for the crowd. I like this opportunity for both guys,

but obviously for him in particular. And I'm glad that this nut, this completely crazy overhyping of him has come to earth a little bit. It's only going to make him better in the long run, not worse. Yeah, of course he had that April 2023 loss to Christian Rodriguez over three rounds, which kind of exposed the fact that he's, you know, can't even legally drink in the U S he's still developing despite having 11 pro fights. But the three fight win streak since then we've seen a lot. He stopped Terrence Mitchell inside of one round to close 23. And then he submitted Ricky Turkey, Turkey,

Turkey, excuse me, to open last year. And then he had that big win at the sphere over three rounds against the Chinese guy. How do you pronounce that guy? I already Kalang. Is that right or wrong? I always get this one wrong. Ricky Lang, a Ricky Lang, a Ricky Lang, a Richie something like that either way. I don't know if that's right either. Anyway, he had a nice viral moment at the sphere when he delivered that oh so famous catchy and viral catchphrase that the whole crowd repeated. And our own friend here, who's made a lot of appearances on today's show, Danny Segarra, gave the people what they wanted at media day. Let's listen.

Raul, how are you? I think there's only one proper way over here. I think there's only one proper way to start this media day. Any chance we can get a Chiwiwis to get things on the right foot? Chiwiwis! Awesome, there we go. Look, doesn't chihuahua sound like if you like accidentally crapped your pants

while sleeping and then woke up and found out about it and be like, oh shit, chihuahua again, right? You know what I mean? I'll see myself out. It was great. I'm going to let you hang. Okay. All right. Uh, Luke, what, what do we know about Vince Morales? What kind of tests could he give?

Um, you know, I think the odds kind of speak to this a little bit. As you mentioned, two fights, skid, um, not, not the worst take down defense I've ever seen, but not great. And I think, you know, people are going to say BC will Raul should really work on his hands. And of course, the answer to that is you have to yes, like that's obviously true. Million percent. But he should still be winning fights on the ground. In my opinion. Take the case of somebody like Aaron Pico. Yeah, when he finally started to get everything

integrated into his game and to get his confidence back and to get his his ground game on notice. Then they started letting him open up the hands a little bit more. You saw what happened. You know, everything was just working flawlessly, but they spent a bunch of fights where they were like, just went on the ground no matter what I still think he should be in that mode, not in desperation mode in that sense. But you know, this is where this is where the fight should be won and lost is right down here. And I think he has the ability to do that. So this is where the fight should be won and lost is right down here. Yeah. And I think he has the ability to do that. So this is one of those fights, BC where it's like, you know, if he trained hard and he's in shape and you know, he doesn't make stupid mistakes, it's his fight to

lose is the way I would put it. It's his fight to lose. So this is what I mean. This is better. This is iterative. This is a smart kind of matchmaking. Do the UFC like when they're doing him a favor, man, they're doing him if they're doing him a lot of favors. And

it looks to me like he might be taking advantage of him. Look, let's see how this goes. Well, I'm not going to criticize it a because he's 20 B because I like that they're bringing him back to Mexico City where they know he's going to get huge pops and see we criticize them for not putting in the time to make stars and instead taking people out of the contender series and throwing them in big fights dude sometimes you have to slow roll a guy and let him build it up so well done to sean shelby and uh mick and the crew over there all right great stuff uh luke let's continue to move down this mexico city card we know that there's got to be something on this undercard that's going to move down this Mexico City card. We know that there's gotta be something on this undercard that's gonna move ya.

Is it Lupi Godinez against Julia Polastri or not that at all? That's one you could do. Let's see, Long Island Luke and I were talking about this earlier. I would say, I mean, there's a couple of these. The, for me, the Chávez and Vergara fight is probably gonna be pretty action-packed

good flyweight fight there long Island Luke yours you were talking about which one the Costa and C-Rod fight that's the one that you like the most I think it will be a good fight and then I said Emmer's Miranda I feel like yes second fight of the night should be low-key banger dude if you actually look up and I also think the Rafa Garcia and the Vince Pichel fight depending how it goes could be kind of fun and interesting Along the way there's 13 fights on this card BC and none of them are exactly like oh my god This is the best banger I've ever seen in my life, but they've all got action fight potential

Well, at least for the most part they they all have action fight potential So for that reason it's like there's a this one of those this is one of those cards where the prelims could could end up being better than the main card in so far as, you know, which which which section of the card deliver the most exciting action in that sense, the prelim card really could over deliver here. But there's a there's a few different ones you could pick up and down this up and down this card. Long Island Luke, any final words about some good bets that people can look at? Well, you guys didn't ask me about Rosas Jr. but I wanted to say Luke was talking about

him getting a takedown. He's taking down four or five of his UFC opponents. The only one he didn't take down was that Terrence Mitchell win where he knocked him out in like 50s. That guy was so terrible. I mean that guy was on tough and he comes from Alaska Fighting Championship. If you guys have never watched Alaska Fighting Championship, don't, just don't. No, you're wrong. I actually like Alaska fighting championship. It is the worst shit I've ever seen, I gotta say. Like, yeah, Jared Kananir, I think came from,

they've never, Uros Medich, you know, they've had guys come from there, but the majority of them are terrible. Anyways, he's taking down four of his five UFC opponents. Morales was taken down in five of his seven UFC losses. So I feel like dude, Rosas just has to wrestle here. Easy win for him. What else I got on the main card? I got the over one and a half in Piper Gaslim. Gaslim hits it pretty much every single fight. Piper's only hit it three times though in 16 fights. So very risky there. I'm hoping the

elevation slows him down and maybe he learned from that hermanson loss. Take it easy this time a little bit, you know? But other than that, I already mentioned I got Manuel Torres. I got the over two and a half in the main I mean, dude, I'm doing a full card watch only if you guys want the full plays boy and boyfriend of the year right here Joey, you're right here. Let's go deep deep You should change the name of the main card minute to I ignore my girlfriend. Okay, that's I'm going to change the name of the main card minute to I ignore my girlfriend. Okay, that's that's you know that is yeah. Yeah. I got no comeback for that. I'm not. Alright, that is UFC Mexico City. It's just jokes everyone. It's just

jokes. Luke Thomas, will you be providing post fight content or or or during fight content? No, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to take a break. I have been getting slammed this week. I've barely kept up. I have a Corey Sandhagen interview. I haven't even had the chance to post yet. So, I I'll do I'll probably do a recap on Sundayay, but i'm not gonna go live on saturday I'm i'm gonna spend time with my my wife and kid. They deserve that as you're criticizing Nocita for just avoiding the women in his life. You know what I mean? It's crazy. Oh, let's go to topic number two

Former two-time ufc heavyweight champion. Kane Velasquez was officially sentenced to five years in prison for that shooting attempt. We remember the whole story of what went down, but that time will be mitigated by time served both in house arrest and the previous time that he was incarcerated after his initial arrest, meaning he's expected to serve less than two years total time coming forward in prison. Luke, we've seen a very polarizing mix of opinions upon this sentencing. The hashtag free Kane movement continues up and down the MMA landscape. In your opinion, was Kane Velasquez's sentencing fair for what was in a lot of ways a reckless car chase and shooting,

and he ultimately shot the wrong guy? Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting one to me. ways a reckless car chase and shooting and he ultimately shot the wrong guy. Yeah. I mean, this is an interesting one to me, BC, like pop quiz on this one. How long was the car chase that he went on? Do you remember it was over multiple towns, right? It was 11 miles. Okay. 11 miles, 11 miles.

And if you actually read the police report, they found shell casings at least seven miles apart, both at the initial spot in his car, at the next one. You can go and map this out. If you read the police report, you can see where he went. There were elementary schools operating at the time, ordinary businesses, pedestrians, I mean, you name it. Here's the thing, BC.

This is not one of those situations where I'm gonna get up here and be like, Kane deserves to rot in prison. I don't think he does. I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I'm pretty satisfied such as one can be with the outcome. I mean, when I say satisfied, I'm not happy about it. But I think the justice system

kind of worked out in his favor a little bit here. We should back up a step. People are like, oh, why is it that the state is hammering Kane and not doing anything to the guy who's alleged to have done stuff to his kid? Oh, no, no, that dude has a trial in June. So he's gonna see his day in court. Let's just start with that. Kane pled no contest, so he was able to move through this process a little bit more quickly,

which is why they could resolve it quicker. But like, make no mistake, that dude who was alleged to have done what can only be described as basically the most heinous, like one of the most heinous crimes a person could even engage in. He's got a court date in June. So let's be clear about that.

That's the first thing I'm gonna say. The second thing I'm gonna say is, I think that the justice, again, I'm not a career prosecutor and so like understanding what accounts for normal sentencing guidelines is beyond our purview, but I'm trying to understand the argument made by others that Kane has been done wrong by the justice system. Now, again,

we will see what happens to the court case of the guy who was alleged to have done unspeakable horrors to his kid. And I don't know how to weigh in on that until that happens, but that is going to happen. And in the case of Kane, I mean, you know, guys like, are we really making the argument that if you. Feel like it, you can go and chase people for 11 miles risk. You know, you could just endanger the public in this particular way, not even get the person you were looking to get, get somebody who is at least

legally speaking, totally innocent, at least legally speaking, totally innocent, again, legally speaking, totally innocent. And that like, this is a suitable way in which to operate like, this is obviously quite nonsensical. Now, do I understand and BC as a father, you understand this as a father, I understand this, like, someone said, What would you do if you know, this happened to you, if you were in Kane's position, dude, maybe I'd react the same way as Kane. Right, right. You know what I mean?

Like I'm not here to say, oh I would I would take a deep breath and sleep on it. I feel like I don't know that. I mean maybe you and I would do the maybe you and I would do the exact same thing. But the reality on top of it is he got time served. This was during busy traffic. Two eyewitnesses saw him ramming a truck. This was near schools. This was it went on for 11ewitnesses saw him ramming a truck. This was near schools. This was it went on for 11 miles. It was a 40 caliber pistol that he was using, which is not a small round. And didn't he wait for the accused to exit court or exit prison?

Like it was when that guy got released, right? He was showing up to get his ankle monitor because obviously he, you know, do the nature of he has the dude who is accused of doing this heinous shit has And we have to say that because that's where we're legally at and you know You have to describe it accurately as for the time present He had to get an ankle monitor because he pled not guilty. He has pled not guilty of this now again He's accused of doing the worst shit on earth. We'll get his day in court But the point I want to make is are we really saying that King was done wrong by the justice system? That like, dude, BC, just understand something. What

if he had hit another person and paralyzed them or killed them with his car or with a bullet? What if he had, what if one of these things had gone into a school? What if he had flipped his own car somehow or endangered himself and gotten injured. Like how is that a better outcome for his family? Is the state supposed to look at that and say yeah no big deal like we totally get it? Like as far as the state is concerned they have to they have to do something they can't just allow people to act in this way and I want to make one last point about this BC, like the person who makes the most compelling argument about Kane's actions, you know, while you can understand them certainly, but nevertheless being legally quite reckless, is Kane Velazquez. Kane Velazquez's statement to the court was total contrition. He totally understood it was reckless,

it was dangerous, and he was irresponsible. You only have to read what he says. So to me, if he had gone through with this and someone would have gotten injured, not only would unspeakable horrors have happened to his child, but then he would have had to gone away for life. And that doesn't serve anybody's interest either. Here is a case where the state says, okay, what you did was bad, but we understand the circumstances, a little bit more prison time, about a year and some change is required, and then you can go live your life. I think that that is all things being what they are, a tragic situation, but a reasonable outcome given the circumstances. I'm aligned with you. I don't think you can just easily say well he didn't shoot up accidentally, you know a kid or I know someone who received the accidental gunfire. Was it the the yeah well the I believe the stepfather who was in the vehicle and I think he

was driving if I'm not mistaken and and I and I think you know and it took place at a daycare which was owned by the accused's mother. I believe so like I get all this, but I don't think you can just say like well it didn't happen so he's free because obviously the intent was there. I agree with you if this happened to either of us I like you just really don't know what you would do. We may have done the same thing but I think I also would have understood what the penalty would be by doing that and I think a lot of us would accept that penalty in that situation if that rage was so real. So he got the most lenient sentencing possible. So I'm not against the MMA community supporting him and even saying to the level of,

well, I probably would have done the same thing because again, this is a heinous crime that was committed to his family. But the whole hashtag free cane movement just kind of supports a lawless eye for an eye for society. And that's what, you know, like he got off ultimately well. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's all that we said. Yeah, we don't have to go into detail. Like I said, dude, I'm not the only thing I want out of this is for Kane's family to find peace and happiness.

And I absolutely mean that with every fiber of my being. And what I will say is After he went on that rampage and again, like you said, maybe you and I would have done the exact same thing But after he went on it of all the ways that like once he did it, right of all the ways that could have gone in terms of that it's gone pretty well in the sense that Somebody didn't get killed which know, then would have just been like mandatory sentencing at that point, I believe. So like, you know, you would have just been screwed, it would have been nothing you could do. And he'll be with his family in about a year or so, give or take, right. And I do

think that Kane learned his lesson in the sense that like, he realizes that this is not a way you can go through your life. And you have to be there for your family, which I'm sure he will be. I have no question about that whatsoever. Like, I believe Kane will live a completely, and I mean this in a good way, ordinary, law-abiding life from here on out. I have zero concerns. So I just want everyone to be like, what do you know, you have to ask yourself, like, what do you want the state to do when somebody engages in this behavior? And even if we are totally sympathetic to the motivations about why he got into a blind rage, and we certainly are, there is, it's very easy to understand that part. Just being like nothing should happen in those cases seems to me a bit going overboard. It's a, it's a, it's a, of all the ways this could have gone, this was one of the,

in terms of his punishment and what he has to do This was one that I think this the you know more or less reached a suitable conclusion Let's see that statement from Kane's attorney to put a closure on this if you might Today's results are bittersweet. We had hoped mr. Velasquez would remain out of jail However, the facts remain clear Kane is a good man a devoted father respected member of the community what he and his family have endured Have been nothing short of a living nightmare, one they did not deserve. Throughout it all, Kane has shown courage and strength of character. He has taken responsibility for his actions, which is true, and has been held accountable. The sentence handed down today reflects the complexities of the situation and acknowledges the man behind the headlines. When he's released, he will continue to lead by example, protecting, contributing, and caring for the people around him. So there we go. That's what it is. Let's transition out of that, Luke. And we are talking right now about March Mania, about college basketball, about the idea that things are heating up right now. So if you are ready to win real money, this March, many attorney, and

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Voidware prohibited. One per new customer bonus awarded as non-withdrawable Pick6 credits that expire in 14 days, limited time offer, see terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. All right, Luke, let's transition into topic number three and a continuing trend here from the idea of UFC seeking to sign big name foreign free agents

that have established themselves in either other organizations or other sports, right? Think about the time that Alex Poetan Pereira came to the UFC because of that storied rivalry in kickboxing with Israel Adesanya. Well, let's flip that forward. We know the last person to defeat Pereira in kickboxing was glory champion, Artem Vakitov.

And he did go through the Dana White Contender Series and get a win. But when presented with a UFC contract, he ultimately passed. Let's first read Vakitov's statement. And it says the former glory champion no longer has UFC in his immediate plans despite that contract offer. And the quote is, according to UFC protocols, they were not able to offer me more than the standard contract offered to all fighters who progressed through the show, meaning the Contender Series. My team attempted to negotiate, Vakitov said, but the UFC rules were strict and no changes

were possible. Luke Thomas, interesting story here. Does the UFC need to sign free agents like this or is this hand-wringing from the bitter online fan base who like us tend to really focus on this whole idea of fighter pay? PC, what is the point of monopoly if we can't even get the fighters that make exciting noise that are easily affordable by the promotion? What is the point? I mean, because what folks will tell you is having everything vertically integrated, right? Which is more than just who you have on the roster, but you know, having this roster

where you have 80, 85, 90% of the world's best guys, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration now, maybe closer to 80, but you know, you've got the majority of them. What is the point of keeping some on the outside that you can easily afford that could be a big boost to your roster in really important ways? And in fact, you know, could be the next big superstar. Folks might note folks might know they're like well how do you know that the Bakhitov

thing would would work I don't I have no idea if that would work they might sign him and he could totally bottom out in which case great like you tried and it failed what about what about Cedric Doumbay maybe he would only be relevant for France and he couldn't beat anybody good here like maybe that would bottom out too I'm not really opposed to that idea but maybe also BC you signed those two guys and you signed Saladin Parnas right the guy who was trying to become the triple champ of KSW still the existing double champ and he hits and all of a sudden you've got the next exciting star in MMA. It didn't matter what you spent in part because it was never going

to be that much anyway, but whatever you spent on Vakitov and whatever you spent on Doumbay in this hypothetical is a penance of the kind of money you're going to make back on the next star that hits. Like it's not a question about whether they can afford it and if you can afford it and it makes your roster better, why wouldn't you do it? And the answer of course BC is what matters most is such that we can tell is that when there's a conflict between what a fighter wants and what the UFC is willing to pay in terms of you know keeping fighter compensation at 20% or below they have they penny-pinch they penny-pinch on this and again we're not making a case that you have to sign every free agent at every amount dollar amount that

they want you can pass on some of these guys but it's like how is this better for the consumer I know what folks might say oh well this keeps the UFC's you know finances in order I'm not I'm not talking about that I'm asking as a consumer make the argument that the UFC passing on guys like this is good for you. Make the argument that it's good for me. Make that up, make that argument because you really can't. And BC, funny little thing, I used to live in a world and it was called 2010, 2012, 2014, where the UFC was excited. Like, oh, there's somebody else out there making noise in another promotion. we're going

to get them. Exactly. We're gonna we're gonna get them. And there was like this hunt to go get them. And sometimes they might overpay not all not all of them paid off BC. But to go from that to like, Yeah, dude, just to be clear about something. Valky Tov is better than Izzy and Poetani kick boxing. He's better than both of them. And they're just like, no, I, I'll pitch it back to UBC, but I really don't understand what the consumer argument is for looking the other way on that. Well, look, like when Powhatan decided to come over from MMA, he didn't have to go through the Dana White Contender Series. They made Vokitov do that. Okay, that's fine, right? That's the newest trend. Everybody's got to do that got to do that he did that he got a win he was impressive and while we don't know about the figures offered i can't be like well who's going to sign for 12 and 12 when you've got a a name

elsewhere it seems like they lowballed the shit out of this guy and was like take it or leave it and obviously it seems like there's a larger trend of this continuing to happen and Luke i don't know if you read Kid Nate's piece in the MMA draw, but it feels like Endeavor going private just awarded Ari Emanuel upwards of over a hundred million and Patrick White sell himself. 174 million to be precise. Right, so we are seeing what the TKO era

of UFC ownership really means. The rich get richer as they continue to pull every single dollar and cent out of the promotion that they can, meaning raising ticket prices, charging out outrageous government contracts to bring their events to cities, which is within their right, of course. But when you're making year over year

financial record breaking gain and the matchmaking continues to suffer, the star power continues to suffer, the idea that UFC always makes the matchups that we want, starting, you know, in some big cases, continuing to suffer. And now you've got this opportunity of a free agent who wants to be there, has a name, has a resume, has a history with Poetton that's very comparable to the one that Poetton had with Izzy. Went through your Dana White Contender series, but you're like, yeah, but you got to come in on that low ball offer like everybody else, because that's what we do. I get when you're on top going, which we often hear said from UFC or even, you

know, the Vince McMahon led WWE previously that we don't offer a career, we offer an opportunity. I get that. But if somebody's already established elsewhere and they're deeper into their career and they're not some 20 something right out of the regionals, how are you going to get off making this much money and then offering this little? So you're right, Luke. I think that there is a general UFC apathy that started, of course, with journalists like us who were noticing trends and really not liking it, continuing on with the great kind of financial reporting from the likes of the MMA drawer, John S. Nash. But I think it's now catching up with the audiences as well. We saw what happened in London last week, a sparse crowd, a lot of complaints. That's the only way things are going to change when it affects their bottom line, when people are no longer buying tickets or no longer buying paper views.

But it really has to hurt if you're a hardcore fan and there's things you were just accustomed to getting in a monopoly, like the leading organization employing the leading fighters and putting on the biggest fights possible. And I don't know how you can still defend that they are. That's really the continuing trend here that's so troubling. And they can afford all of it. They can afford it. It's not a question of like, hey, it's the Oakland A's. Can they really afford, you know, Shohei Otani? Well, they can't. They can't.

But that's not this case. This is like the LA Dodgers and the New York Yankees all being and a bunch of other teams all in one being like, yeah, we're not going to pay. I'm not saying for show hand, I wouldn't call them put them on that level. But, you know, some kind of interesting prospect out of Japan, interesting prospect out of the minor. So you're like, wow, this would be really interesting. They can afford all of it. It's really not that very, it's not difficult for them to do at all. And you see like, what would be the reason why they would want to pass? Well, we said previously, it would be infielty to the business model or they would just, their athlete compensation is essentially capped. Also, you know, some of these guys, they just may not believe in, we should, you know, there's a, there's a fair way to reject them on that level. there's a fair way to reject them on that level. Right. Or maybe somebody said, look, maybe, I mean, do we know if Vakitov said you have to sign me at this number or I'm walking? I mean, there's a negotiation. But like whatever glory is paying him, like UFC could easily match. I mean, that's just, this is not even a thing. But the point I want to make is in regards to the situation is, you know, part of it is this fealty, as we mentioned to the business model. But the other part of it is like, for example, you mentioned TKO, there's a report late last night that the, that like Orlando's government, I'm not sure exactly which arm of it, but they're looking to raise or collect 18 million to give TKO for several different TKO events. I think many of them being pro wrestling for WWE, but like, you know, 18 million, like, like, they've got a the UFC has, like we talked about this before, like they never want to be leveraged. They don't want to be leveraged by sponsors, so they want sponsors who are, you know, politically aligned with them, and they, you know, they don't want to be leveraged by media. They don't want to be leveraged by fighters, but it looks to me like they don't even want to be leveraged by like fan demand at this point. They want to be able to sign guys on the cheap and then because you can't ever really gain full legitimacy without fighting in the UFC, you're kind of just if you're one of these free agents, you're left to just kind of roam out there. But to me, I'm just going to ask a very important question. Is it not better for the consumer when companies are forced to hustle for your dollar, when they're forced to pay competitive rates for at least what is perceived to be a

premier talent or interesting talent or the kind of talent that can meaningfully help the consumer experience. Like, if all, if the business is completely insulated from these pressures, are you actually getting what you deserve as a customer? And I would, I would humbly submit, I don't know if V Vakita would ever been anything good in MMA I have no idea if Dume is gonna be anything Parnas to me is already quite obviously good but you know how good would he be in the end I don't know I don't know how to answer these questions but I just feel like the reflex to like tell people like that to fuck off I just don't understand what the consumer argument is for that given the circumstances well we have a statement here from Parnas which couldn't further

this conversation along. He is a French UFC fighter. Morgan Cherrier told Ariel Hwani that the KSW two division champion Parnas didn't sign with the UFC because KSW is paying him very well. Also, Morgan says his teammate Tyler Lapilis didn't get released. His contract recently ended. Morgan thinks Taylor is talking with the UFC right now and looking to get more money and better

opportunities Luke what the hell does that mean so the point is that Parnass was like I'd love to go to UFC can you match what KSW is offering and they were like yeah we're not even gonna try it's like didn't that kind of happen with Kayla Harrison I mean like are we under the belief that she had to take a Lot less than PFL was paying her to go to the UFC and but she was at a point in her career where she wants to Be great and she yeah, and also like, you know getting on pay-per-view you mean you could still make more in UFC depending on the circumstance, right, but I do believe that there was you know, PFL was paying more for her than UFC is I don't know if it's substantial But you know again, it's like her circumstance is different because she was just willing to do it, but it's like this is this is

better for the average MMA fan. I would love to hear how that argument works because I can't even understand what that would even be. I think we have a statement from Cedric Doumbay as well here if you can post that. It's not a statement but if you just look here Doumbay was on his YouTube channel. This was some months ago. This was uh yeah this this was about a year ago, excuse me. Oh, actually even more than that. But he was saying when he first signed with the PFL, he was gonna get paid 140K per fight. This is not a huge sum, but he was only offered 20 and 20 to sign with the UFC.

And he was like, you know. Yeah, it's like, dude, 140 to fight. I mean, is that breaking the UFC's bank? Like, this is what I mean. Like they're not asking for princely sums It's just asking beyond what the business model typically affords final question on this Like when when tko is in the business room when they're having the big boy meetings Do they just not care are they looking to pull out every cent and then flip it and sell it?

Like or like like what is the mindset like oh the we have the fans where we want them. They'll they'll pay for anything. So F that like what I think it's I think it's I mean I don't I don't know if they have like an F the fans attitude exactly, but what I would say is they it appears to me they feel quite quite understandably very confident in a market position. You know this this is, this is, this is not the actions of an organization that feels like they have to compete. They're literally just like, Yeah, whatever. What

do you, what do you mean? You know, it doesn't matter to them. And it's not, you can't make the argument that like they're passing on these guys because they don't pass the, the test about ability. Like Saladin Parnas doesn't, I mean, what are we even talking about here? He doesn't pass the test of ability. He's better than, you know, half the guys in his division on the roster. Like, if not more than that, like it's crazy that you could even make an argument like that. It's just that they feel so secure that they don't have to compete for your dollars one more time.

What is the consumer argument for this arrangement? I just don't know what it could be. I just want the old UFC back. It was really fun covering it and watching it. Right. When they wanted to dominate and they really felt like hustling for your dollars, they were, they went white knuckle with everything and. I don't know what to say.

Meanwhile, Don Davis has tweeted, Hey, John Jones, if you want 50 million, come to the PFL and fighting Ghana as if that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for this. I mean, he's right, but as if that's possible. Yeah, yeah, all right. Thanks, Tom, thanks for this. I mean, he's right, but like also that's not gonna happen.

So. Yeah, so thank you very much. Let's transition to topic number four. And we're talking about, you know, previously maybe the biggest star in UFC, Alex Poetan Pereira, who's coming off of that title loss at UFC 313 to Magomed Ankaleyev. Joe Rogan put out a rumor that now Pereira has confirmed during an appearance on the

area of Hauwani show that he had both a broken hand and neurovirus entering that closer than people remember decision loss to Ankaleyev. bring in Cuervo's shots fired time to look at these quotes. Thank you very much, Cuervo. Here is the statement that Pereira made on the Errol Hoani show, quote, my hand is fine, but it did affect things. But I don't want to use that as an excuse. I don't want to make excuses.

I don't want to use that as an excuse. I don't want to make excuses. I don't want to use this as leverage for anything. Yes, I considered not fighting at UFC 313. It was one of the more complicated fight camps from everything that happened. I don't regret it." End quote. So, so Luke Thomas, interesting stuff here. He's not making an excuse, but it did happen. So did what, to what extent did those factors, in your opinion, contribute to the loss? And do we think it even matters in terms of whether the rematch will be any different? I'm pretty sympathetic to it, to be honest with you. I know that people hate excuses and I do too. I do too. So there's a little part of me that's like,

you know, you lost in a title fight, it better to just accept it, you know, but he wasn't the one that put the rumor out. I'm not, you know, I'm curious about like how that actually, I know that Joe Rogan said it, but I'm saying like, who told him and why he told the public is an interesting conversation. But I'll say this, did you know this BC,

these guys go into these fights, fucked up all the time all the time and I tell you what you know, it's probably true because he went and fought other guys in 2024 with broken ass toes on short notice saving events and he tried to do and he tried to pull another rabbit out of the hat and yeah against uncle I have at that time. It didn't work. You, he didn't look he did admit after the roundtree fight that he was ill heading into that camp as well Exactly, like these guys are always fucked up man. They're training is hard. Their bodies are beat up Especially if you want to stay in like, you know

Competitive frequency you were just constantly out there all the time So I got to tell you that Alone makes me like for a guy who saved a bunch of events and you knew he was fucked up before, like this is not a thing he's afraid to do, to then be like, you know, I was fucked up in this one too, I believe him. And second of all, BC, this is to me the litmus test about all of this. Did Poetan look like himself? That's a pretty strong argument to make that he didn't. Now of course, the flip side to that is, well, Magomed made him not look like himself. Okay, I'm absolutely sympathetic to that. I don't

think that's some kind of crazy thing. Like, oh you're just saying that because of this injury, Uncle I have just waltzed in and did what he did. No, Uncle I have's good. Uncle I have's very good. But I'll say this, if you can get a poet on who doesn't have a broken hand, what does that do then? Like where are we at at that point? Can he, can Uncle I have do it again against a guy like that? You want to see the rematch anyway. For a guy who you know will step in on those conditions

and for a guy who didn't quite seem himself, which is a complicated topic, but I'm just putting that out there. I don't like excuses. So it rubs me a little bit the wrong way, but I'm sympathetic to this guy, A, getting another shot, and B, do I expect the rematch to look a little different?

I absolutely do. Sure, I do too. You know what I'm saying? I think it adds some element of intrigue more to the rematch because he was compromised. I like that he didn't lean into it as an excuse. If you're gonna do that, you gotta take what comes with that.

But let's also not forget, even though I thought Ancolai performed better, round by round scoring I had at three to two Pereira, he was never taken down. He was certainly controlled and muted, but I think that's gonna make this rematch very, very interesting. And that was of course,

shots fired Brock to you by Cuervo, and now's a good time to enjoy the tequila that Invented tequila of course with Cuervo and we will be seeing more of Cuervo Luke Wednesday April 9th When we hit up live and direct from New York City that loaded UFC 314 pre-game preview So get ready for that one coming at you for that Miami card What do you think quickly about Pereira sending him to hell and Koliak on Twitter and basically being like well you couldn't take me down at all so let's see what happens in this

rematch. Complaining about the greasing too. I'm curious for the rematch. I'll just leave it that way. I'm curious about the rematch. I want to see how that looks. I believe that you should do it for a lot of reasons, not least of which is, can you reasonably expect that the second one could look different? Absolutely. With even on Kalei of winning in that one too, but that'd be different than the first one. Yes. I mean, I'd like to live in a world where injured fighters wouldn't fight because it changes everything, right? If you're flying to the fight and making a weekend out of it, and then the fighter you're expecting to see is compromised,

like TJ Dillashaw's shoulder that time, or if you put money down on the betting line, it seems unfair. It also seems really hard to police if people are gonna hide injuries. But I guess- But I mean, that's the other part too. It's like, dude, if all these guys didn't fight

when they were injured, I don't know how many events there'd be per year, to be perfectly honest. And like, you know, they need the money, you know, I mean, obviously, Poetown is not poor or anything, but a lot of these guys, we're talking about the grand total of who fights injured. There's a lot of these guys need the money. Also, BC, a lot of these guys, you know, this, they have to learn this the hard way, which is they'll fight with injuries, and then they'll win, and they'll be like, okay, well, I can just, I can fight with a lot of different injuries then. And then they'll fight with some kind of injury that was a bridge too far. And then they're like, oh right, there is a limit to this kind of a thing. But it takes them a while to figure that out. Like if you're gonna celebrate a guy

for stepping in and being injured, you know, and winning, and you know he's done it several times, when it ends up on the losing side, you don't have to like look the other way. But I think being a little bit forgiving about it is in order here. Yeah, I mean, think about what Prairie's done for this company and for us as fans, right?

Bailing out these big events and being great, so. See, what would 2024 have been if Pouitton didn't fight injured? It would have been the year that made Tultoria a living legend. And speaking, Luke, of a bridge too far, that's the perfect transition to topic number five. The former featherweight champion,

my number two pound for pound in the sport, Ilya Toptoria, held a press conference to announce he's changing his nickname from El Matador to La Lienda, AKA the legend. At a time when the UFC could really use star power, of course, to step up and energize the fan base. Is Toporia missing the moment, missing the point here? Luke, we softly criticized him when he changed his Twitter bio before ever winning the title

as the unbeaten champion. He also did that whole thank you to himself. Now, now, you know, mid career, he's calling himself the legend. We need stars. We need people like this, but I need you to take the stand here for your boy. Is this a little bit too pretentious? Let me make the case for this. If I may, let me make the case for this.

Okay. It goes something like this. All right. Let me make the case for this, if I may. Let me make the case for this, okay? It goes something like this. All right. There's three reasons why, I'm not gonna say I like this, because I think it's super fucking weird, okay? But I think it's a good thing. And here's the argument. First, as you mentioned,

he's done like super ballsy shit like this, I'm gonna be I'm gonna call myself the UFC champion Instagram before you even fought the guy, you know, before you won anything, which is like the ultimate jinx. And then he goes out there and he actually does it right. You're like, okay, all right. I mean, I wouldn't recommend anybody else do it, but he got away with it this time. Okay, there's certain kind of stakes in anticipation. So it's not like he's never done this before. He's done almost exactly this kind of thing before. That's the first thing I'm gonna say. The second thing I'm gonna say is, either way someone gets to feast here. So he changed his nickname to The Legend,

which is like, I mean, the kids say cringe we used to say deuce chills BC but either way you know the feeling that you get when you when you read this you're like you got to be fucking kidding me but if he wins let's say he fights Charles and then viciously KOs him I mean it doesn't exactly it's not the same thing as like I'm gonna call myself the champion then they can literally become the champion afterwards it doesn't like there's a there's a direct switch being flipped in that case. You don't get it.

You don't get that with beating Charles per se, but it certainly adds ammunition to whatever he's trying to do for himself. And so, you know, it's another way of like upping the anti here a little bit. Conversely, conversely, I think this is where you come in. Let's say he loses badly, but loses. you come in. Let's say he loses badly, but loses. Dude, the amount of fucking salt that is going, or not even salt, the amount of vitriol and absolute dancing on his grave that is going to happen is going to make it for an all-timer in the world of MMA social media, whether it's Twitter, whether it's IG, you name it, they're going to rake him over the coals like no one's been raked before.

So to which I say, BC, under these circumstances, I'm not saying it's like, you know, Conor McGregor and the three arena, like we're not here to take part, we're here to take over, like this incredibly charismatic moment. It's like, you know, Connor McGregor and the three arena like we're here to take when I hear to take part We're here to take over like this incredibly charismatic moment. It's not that But it's a way in which to stand out and either up the ante as I mentioned about like his identity and what he's attempting here and like the stakes and everything or You get a chance to dunk on him like shack on that white guy who he then

Put his junk in his face and then shoved him on the Jeff. I forget who it was. Chris Dudley. Yeah, the Knicks player. Who threw the ball at him because he had to. You have to in this suit. Yeah. So I mean, I feel like there's a lot of ways people win here. Fair or unfair?

What do you think? I get it. It will raise the entertainment quotient and all that, but it's lame as shit. It's a heel move and he was looking like the ultimate baby face the ultimate star and this is dude this is a heel move it really is I mean it's like he tilts the who who tilts the fan base more than him with this kind of self-promotion nobody right now outside of Poetton because they don't really have that those those disruptors those tilters of the fan base But if his next move is I have removed two of my ribs so I can fillate myself in the cage

Then I'll understand Luke. Okay, Marilyn Manson bit. Yeah. What the hell are we doing here? This will lead me to cheer for Mahachev to not move up to the to Welterweight and to take care of the business for the people. But Long Island Luke, Long Island Luke, you have to admit, if he, okay, so let's just, let me posit a scenario. We don't know what's gonna happen, but, if he goes out there and ices Islam,

before that calls himself, oh, look at that face. Motherfucker, you didn't predict either of the Volk or the Max Holloway wins. It's time to get a little bit of respect on this I thought he would beat max. I just didn't think he would knock him out. Yeah, well me neither but Neither here nor there if he does something like that the payoff is gonna be dramatic or if Islam goes in there and subs him or something that with that famous short-armed arse Dude, can you imagine the the memes that are gonna be produced

from this? Tell me how we lose in either case here. I mean, dude, people are gonna make fun of them hard no matter what. I put a poll in the chat, by the way. What should we call Ilya Toporia? I put El Matador, La Leyenda, Toptoria, and Hand Sanitizer Boy boy and overwhelming 43% picked hand sanitizer. Majority of people already trolling them with this, by the way, Lali and the least eight percent. So it's the worst. It's the worst nickname. Like it's terrible. I don't know. Dude, El Matador was fucking cool. You know what I mean? It was cool, dude. I mean, like when they were in the. Dude, remember the UFC did that bit where they had him in the bullfighting ring

I think they had him with with the Legos be the the Mexican ESPN reporter and like dude that they had the whole imagery around It I was like this is fucking this is sick. Like why would you pass on that? I don't get it did you see where he also came out publicly and said that he doesn't believe there will be a UFC Spain card until the end of the ESPN deal because he's unwilling. He said he fought at early in the morning Leon Edwards time in Abu Dhabi once and he won't do it again and he's unwilling to fight at four or five AM local Spain time, which ESPN would necessitate for it to be a prime time. So let me say this. We've never I did see that. I'm glad you brought it up. Let me just say this and

I think I speak for a lot of fans. I don't, we'll say that normally, but in this case I do. Whatever they do in their next broadcast deal, UFC, whether they stay with ESPN, whether they go to Netflix, whatever they do, I wish and I hope that they have the freedom to put on fights in primetimes in the markets that they're going to. Now we know that we do that in Saudi Arabia.

We know they do that in Abu Dhabi, but Europe gets fucked on this. And I just think it'd be, dude, I mean, let's think about this. Like Connor's often a different place in his career. We started the show talking about it and he did get to fight in Ireland, but he never got to fight in Croke park. And I do think that that was a miss by UFC and you know, it's hard to make all that work. And I understand it's not like the most important thing, but it would have been cool.

And it definitely would be cool if Deporti ends up winning and continues his rise, like getting him at the Bernabeu, which is like a really, really important game. Or look, Aspinal and Wembley Stadium, like this is the kind of shit we want and deserve. That's what I'm saying, to give them the freedom to put those in prime time so you can make that a little bit easier.

I really feel like, dude, the European market, we should just say, and we've talked about it before, the European market is fucking hot. If PFL can go over there and sell 15,000 tickets, it's hot, we should just say, and we've talked about it before, the European market is fucking hot. If PFL can go over there and sell 15,000 tickets, it's hot, bro, it's hot. Get those shows in prime time there so we can really do something about it, you know? I'm ready for the ESPN era to be over,

and I do get, we brought it up before, that part of our issues with the UFC could have been fueled by ESPN wanting a card every weekend and really wanting, in the terms of of that deal to have so many dates, which has completely watered down the product. But, you know, I'm secretly hoping that UFC doesn't get the money they thought they were going to get from this new TV deal and has to go in and maybe have a little bit less amount of content and dates and the motivation to come out and really shine. I mean, I don't know what that's going to look like.

I think they'll get paid no matter what. We still think Netflix or Prime will be, two of the big potential suitors here. But like what this has become at the tail end of the ESPN era is not what we wanted or signed up for. Especially it's such a departure from where they were during and post COVID. They were the heroes for being the only show in town, but like the momentum, they were on fire, man. And that's just not the case anymore.

Well, like I said, I think it'd be exciting if they can just, dude, putting events in primetime in the markets that they're in, and also not for nothing. I like it when they go to Europe and they do a show at European time, because we get, I don't have to go to bed at four in the morning you know and then get up at eight and then take tuky to gymnastics you know what I mean like it just makes my life a little bit easier too it's a smaller note but I'm just saying it there's so many positives to just doing that I really hope in the next deal they get the contractual freedom to try it. I also to close on Toporia I really hope he fights again soon right like we need him he's a star he's moved up to lightweight so let's figure it out is it going to be mahachif for the title is it going to be sarukhi and or dobronx we've got we've got audio to that we've got audio to that oh we do let's let's let's do that let's do it They are focused on Islam or Charles because I don't see any other opponent. I have those two names in mind.

None of them seem to dare. Then they have phrases that make their own that a champion fights with the one they tell him. And after that, I don't want to fight with him because he is small. Then I change my category and say, I'm small, now I'm in the anti-category. Then I say, I haven't want to fight him because he's small. Then I changed my category of Go, I'm not small. Now I'm in the category. Then I haven't won enough. They are symptoms of fear, we all know that. But it's normal, I would also be afraid. says, um, you know, he's looking to fight Charles or Charles Olivera or Islam Makachev and that those guys are making excuses to not fight him. And he goes, he understands because if they were him, or

sorry, if he were them, he'd be, he'd be afraid to. And I was like, I can't wait to see him fight. Like if we're a monopoly and we can't make the fights well, like, did you see that? I'm sure you saw that debate. I'll make a big fight for him. I mean, for all my complaints, don't make a big fight for him. Okay. But like you saw that debate. I'll make a big fight for him I mean for all my complaints don't make a big fight for okay But like you saw that debate when Terrence Crawford was on the Henry Segundo and Kamaru Usman podcast

I forgot what that part but it's the whole thing and basically they had an argument about fighter pay and Terrence Crawford's like man You know MMA just doesn't pay on the same levels across the board and then you had you know company men so who don't own Yeah But what about the pride of of never having to miss on opponents, which I get on the surface is a decent point, especially since Crawford was on the wrong side of the street business wise and wasn't able to fight the top guys for a long time, but it's like, I don't know if that's the right excuse in this moment. Guys, forget, yeah, yeah.

Forget any other purse. Like forget the Amir Khan purse. Forget the Madrimoff purse. Forget any other purse, like forget the Amir Khan purse, forget the Madrimoff purse, forget any of that. Just the Errol Spence purse was 25 million. Like what the fuck are we even talking about here? Yeah, yeah. You know, like what are we even talking about here? He could have fought for free

in literally every other fight he's ever been in and still made more than probably Kamaru and Henry combined in their careers. And I don't want to turn on bud, but there's another comment that came out of that sit down where he is like, yeah, right now, yeah, Errol Spence, not even a Hall of Famer. He never, you know, he only did the business in one division, blah, blah, blah. It's like, dude, bud, I love you, but that's your best win. That's your best try to far. And you're going to try to say that he's not a Hall of Famer when this guy unified three of the four titles in that star

studded division, beat a great run of fighters. And then Bud's like, well, he beat Kilbrook after he heard his eye against triple G. It's like, bud, you beat Kilbrook after he heard both eyes. You were the one that had to fight like Jeff Horn and all these guys because of the business issues in the sport. I'm not knocking Bud's resume. He's won titles in three divisions. He's undisputed and in Bud's resume. He's won titles in three divisions. He's undisputed in two of them, or maybe no, titles in four divisions now. And of course, he's beaten some,

a couple really good names, Sean Porter, obviously Spence. But dude, Errol Spence, if he never fights again, dude, his resume is immaculate almost outside of the one huge loss and the biggest fight of his career. The loss to Bud hurts him, but everything else definitely lifts him. I was a little surprised to hear that too.

Yeah. And I also didn't like Canelo in that fight hype interview set yesterday saying basically fuck Ben David Benavides because he's not even a champion and he not even in my division. Why would I have to fight him? Dude? I mean what BC he's ducking. I mean, there's nothing.

There's nothing. You can't get access to your belts because you're hijacking them. He left your division because you won't fight. Come on, Big Red, you're killing me, man. And I understand the point. He's like, oh, I'm in my point in my career where I can do whatever I want. That's true. But the sanctioning body should then take the belts from you. Yeah, then go fight William Skoll in Saudi. We don't care, dude. We don't care anymore. And I love Saul. You know I love Saul, but come on. Like I said, dude, after the win over Caleb Plant, if he had retired from

there and even still today, of course, like nothing changes. But just that alone would be a Hall of Fame resume. But since then, it's not been the most fun. Yeah. Before we transition to our fan topics, we do have a piece of content to throw to that I was very excited. I had a little breaking news here, if I may. Oh, Oh let's pause that what do you got for us Luke? It's nothing big but it's kind of sad if I may BC. Guess who has a fight allegedly booked on the boxing side? Oh not BJ Penn. Oh yeah Deontay Wilder dude. Deontay Wilder is going to be fighting on Friday June 27th on BLK Prime at the Charles Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas against Terrell Herndon. I don't know who that is BC. Like Journeyman Heavyweight, low low low level Journeyman Heavyweight. Yeah, I gotta tell you, I have a lot of respect

for Deontay Wilder. I don't know about this. I mean, they're trying to start from the bottom again, not from the bottom, but trying to like start a new chapter, right? He fought big competition and Big Bang Zhang and Joseph Parker and his comebacks for big money in Saudi. He clearly wasn't physically ready. He wasn't the same. I mean, more than likely, unfortunately, he's washed. I'm not against restarting a lower level of competition if you still feel like you can

do it, but is this off the radar? This is off the freaking reservation dude. Wichita, Kansas on BLK Prime? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Again, it's a better opponent given where he's at but. Remember Bud Crawford fought on BLK Prime when he initially didn't take the Spence fight? The Avinesian fight. Remember that? Yeah, because they gave him so much money. Yeah.

So transitioning here, let's, we're going to throw a really good piece of content. So you know what's going on in our friends on All the Smoke Fight and the Art of Ward podcast, which of course is Andre Ward, the unbeaten Hall of Famer sitting down with one big name boxer after another. Luke, they got Joe Kalzoggi, the former super middleweight and light heavyweight. I know you got a boner for that one. From one of my five favorite fighters of all time, retired 46 and 0, but he's really not in the spotlight anymore. He doesn't do a ton of interviews.

So Andre Ward recently sat down with the Pride of Wales, the boxing hall of famer Joe Calzaghe to discuss life after boxing, Calzaghe's illustrious but often underrated career and much more. Check out the full Art of Ward interview with the undefeated legend on the All the Smoke Fight YouTube channel

and we have a clip right now to with the palate. But I was in the position now where I wanted to fight against Hopkins. Hopkins was making the big shout now. He was like, come off some great wins. He was the ring magazine champion. So that was a natural fight, but he- How hard was it to make that fight?

Well, that's the thing. I had, yeah, how hard was it to make that fight? Well, that's the thing I had. Yeah. I was in the fight. Make that fight. I remember speaking to my opponent. He was making he mentioned the fight called Clinton Woods. You know, no disrespect. I love Clinton Woods, but I'm like, I want to fight Hopkins. He said that. And he said to me, Hopkins is not going to come to UK. I said, it doesn't matter. I go to America. So what I did, I bought my own ticket. This was a week after the Kessler fight. Ricky Hatton was boxing against Mayweather. So basically what I did, I paid my own flight. We had cheap seats at the back.

And I remember the main reason was to go over and for me personally, bombing out the Hawkins, you know? So that's what happened. I remember speaking with HBO I think it was Coco and she said yeah, he said Coco Right, she says Hawkins in the press room and I was like, yeah, let's go So I said Andrew Mcenally was with me and then that's it man We went to the press room and and the fight was made there if I didn't go to the state

I'd fight not be made. So I skipped everything else, the bullshit with the promotion. I went man to man. You made that happen. I came over. I went over. He made the comment, never gonna let a white boy beat me. Let's get in there. So he made the infamous comment, I'll

never let a white boy beat me. When he said that, what are you thinking? What can I say back? What can I say back, bro? How did you feel, though? I was a bit sort of taking the back shot but also I went into like Ivan Drago's if you fight me you will lose. I was pretty excited because I felt with that comment I saw at the time I remember ringing Frank Morrison that this these are men are men's company. You think in business.

I thought the fines make you not taking it personal. You think in business personal you got I got Hopkins attention now. Yeah. Look, I watched a lot of this so far. I can't wait to finish it a lot of great tidbits from a really underexposed legend. Remember when he's known for like they call this power patty cake, right? You know, cuz he's quick hands.

I didn't realize at the peak of his prime. He had an elbow injury that was so bad. He couldn't even extend his hand. So he had to alter his style to stay on top. And I don't think any of us will forget that 2007, a super middleweight unification Cardiff, Wales, Millennium Stadium, unbeaten, Kalzahagi against unbeaten, Mikkel Kessler. That was a moment in time and boxing and a great fight. Shout out to that legend. Master technician, master boxer, and BC you're a

master baiter, but all together it kind of works. Absolutely. One more boxing thing to throw out there. I just had published an interesting feature on CBS Sports. A lot of rumors out there that Jake Paul and Nekisa Bedarian and MVP are raising a lot of rumors out there that Jake Paul and Nekisa Baderian and MVP are raising a ton of capital and make a move to become a true power promoter in boxing. Maybe

even to the degree of taking on the TKO takeover. Uh I did an interview with Nekisa. A lot of interesting comments about that. Check that out right now on the boxing page at cbssports.com. We now transition to our final segments where we offer you an email address, morningcombat.gmail.com. We now transition into our final segments where we offer you an email address

MorningCombat at gmail.com and you return to us a piece of your own content. We start off with putting us on trial. We don't always get it right. Sometimes in fact we get it. Dead wrong. So now we're gonna stand up to you guys. You better have timestamps and you better come original. Let's hear it. This is Dead Wrong. Dead Wrong. All right, Luke, let's see if you continue to take L's from the pedantic- Ordinated hate campaign. I'm going to call the Human Rights Watch on you fucking bozos out there.

Yep. Our ombudsman's are here. He's Louis from Oregon and he says on Friday show March 22nd at one hour and 44 minutes during the Dead Wrong segment Luke arrogantly declares He understands that John Jones was doing an anime reference when talking about Avatar the last Airbender had Luke had any clue on what he was talking about He'd know that Avatar the last Airbender is not anime. The show was created in America by Nickelodeon Animation Studio. Anime is-

You hear this fucking nerd? Anime is from Japan, you dummy. Yes, referencing Dana White's rant on Floyd Mayweather, your lack of knowledge of cartoons from 2005 really reflects who you are as a person. Yes, it does. Do better. Yes, 2005 I was spending my time getting blown

by the opposite sex, not watching cartoons. Yeah. Hey Lewis, how many chigs you f**k, all right? Yeah, I was saying, right? Yeah, woo hoo! Oh, Luke, this- It's skits and bits. I mean, here's the deal.

Here's the deal though. It's all cartoons. All right, all the anime. Yeah, I know. That's what my point is. Like it's all the same to me. I mean, there's a little bit of obviously it's not, but like, yeah, I don't know enough about cartoons to a give a fuck and be making an important differentiation there. I mean, you know, one of our favorite listeners from Hawaii, big papa, Telvin key papa, you know him, right? He had me ask Brandon Moreno, who is favorite Dragon Ball Z character is, and I did it because I love the people. I

don't know what Dragon Ball Z is. Brandon Moreno thought I was 60 years old when I asked that. I'm going to be dragging my balls across your face here. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. All right. Did you hear from these? I'm going to be dragging my balls across your. Did a what's your name get you down? Who's that? I saw this I saw this Instagram bit where they were like this guy goes up to like a co-worker. He's like, hey You know, do you like that band imagine dragons and they're like, yeah he goes imagine dragging my balls across

I'm 45. I'm 45. You are, you're old and you probably have blown up the commode in your Iowa hotel room a few times. Only seven times, yeah. All right, our second one is from our second favorite Hawaiian listener, Mahalo from, sorry, Aloha from Daz. He says, hey, Donks, at one hour and 43 minutes of Monday's episode on March 24th, Luke, in discussing Gable

Steve sin's achievements said quote he had won three national titles LT maybe I misheard you but Steve sin has two national titles in 2021 and 2022 he was attempting to obtain the third in the most recent match and dad says this I apologize for my absence from the show, but you both have been doing a really good job regarding Dead Wrongs. And BC, that bare-knuckle fight with Telvin Kipapa outside the Lava Shack,

which would be the first card under MK Promotions, is never happening, though I appreciate your attempts to make it happen. What a bunch of wusses. Grateful for all the MK and personal channel content. I guess there was a graphic I had seen that I thought that he had three and then the last one ended up being the silver or you know, whatever. But I got that wrong. I'll take I'll take that

out. I'll take a look. Is that a perfectly fine request from Daz to say, look, I don't need to bare knuckle fight outside the lava shack. We can all just be friendly here. No, you need to fight motherfucker. We gotta fight. Keep up. We gotta find out. Somebody's gotta do it. Might as well do you, you know? I mean, I'll get the governor. I'll get BJ if you really want me to. All right. I mean, I love a BJ. Um, Luke, finally on Dead Wrong, we have, um,

a gentleman named Owain. O-W-A-I-N Owain. Hey, donks. It's that time of the week again to correct one of BC's many errors. Finally, you got a BC one. At one hour, 28 minutes, BC claims that Gilbert Burns was, quote, piecing up JDM until Madelena finished him, Della Madelena. While Gilbert looked good and was out wrestling Jack, it was actually JDM landing more significant strikes in the lead up to that

finish with Gilbert landing 2.7 per minute and Jack 3.9 per minute, respectively. Prior to that third round PS send me some of what you've been smoking BC much love it's Oh Wayne Luke. Do I take that L what do you remember from that fight? I mean, I think he's, I would say, I generally agree that your assessment of what happened is a little bit off. Um, I could kind of split the difference here a little bit. You just don't have confidence in JDM from that win. And I, I do. I,

I thought that was a pretty good win. Okay. All right. I didn't think he was winning that whole fight. I thought he pulled it out late. I got he pulled it out late. I got it. He did pull it out late but I mean, you know, he performed against a tough opponent quite ably. I think is the way I'm trying to

put it. Yeah. Remember that guy pulled it out late on that Zoom call and then how to apologize on the air after it was no, it was uh what's his name? Uh uh Jeff something. You've been right. Jeffrey Tubin. Yeah. Yeah. The former. The new wrote for the New Yorker. I think. Yeah, he's just cranking it on fucking on Skype, you know.

God. All right. Finally, we offer you an opportunity to send in your artwork, your memes, pictures of your significant other and tight MK t-shirts. Just don't send Mikey any pictures of your piece or we won't run it. It's called Fancy Missions. You've got mail. Viewers. That's a fact, Gaffney.

We have plenty of mail viewers coming in. And the first one is the best man in our MK wedding. He's from Louisville. He can fix your gutters if you ask kindly. His name is Saul. And he says, I went to a block party and got myself a $7 old fashioned from the bar Clayton and Crume. The building the bar is in is an old training location for Muhammad Ali.

On the way home, I saw an interesting intersection and I had to snap a pick. MK all day. Look, does that say Campbell street? Yep. It sure does. Dude, Saul is repping us. So wait, this one's hard to read, but it's Muhammad Ali and Campbell cross-section.

Two legends in the boxing game. Sick. Wow. Luke, what do you have to say about Saul's ability to always look cool and always be repping MK? Um, he could use a shower. Okay. That's just great. That's wonderful, all right.

But I think his fandom is maybe the best that we've got in the MK donkery. I'm starting to feel like if we had to bury a body, no questions asked, Saul would be there for us. Yeah, for sure. And BC, I know you wanna bang all of our listeners' wives. He might also be first up for that one too. Okay, I never said this out loud. I just want you to say that. But you know, was I thinking it that no, not at all. Not at all. Our second one comes from at Matt is in the zone. And he says for the MK content moderators, the context is from Luke's recent live chat. Watch along. Randy Cure age 43. Evander Holyfield age 46. Joel Romero age 47. Luke Thomas. There's a I mean okay granted I'm not built like those guys but there's a padded stomach in the actual costume that makes it worse you fucks. Wasn't this

about you saying how awesome it was that the late George Foreman won the heavyweight championship at 45? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean that's what I'm saying like he won it at 45 and I can tell you 45 is not an age of you know athletic achievement for most of us you know what I mean unless you're taking the 2013 trt that uh VTOR did then that's a different ball game I mean you're playing a different you're playing with a different deca or house or uh I should say a different hand of cards at that point you're like a different deca I heard you say that yeah that's a different ballgame. I mean you're playing a different you play with a different deck of our house Or I should say a different hand of cards at that point. You're like a different deca. I heard you say that Different wind straw some Stanis all on that ass. Thank you

Matt is in the zone our final fan sub comes from Dave s He says attached are some fan subs the guys might appreciate if they can't be shown though That's understandable and maybe 9-11 is off limits. He he says the Dave's burial service is me showing off my well-worn MK jacket that needs a replacement. Let's see it for us like you need to bury a body call Dave Sandeen. That's what my world literally.

Yeah, that's probably true. I would probably agree with that. Yeah. Thank you. All right, I guess we can call Saul and Sandeen. I thought Sandeen was more if we wanted to get deeper into the sex trade.

We should have those two fight to the death and then the winner has to bury the loser. That's great. Yeah, that's fantastic. And K promotions and I I'm going to guess that his 911 content was off limits. 911 was, but we do have one more from him. Oh, we have one more from Dave S. Let's see it. If there is one constant in this universe, death,

taxes, and UFC not wanting to be leveraged. It's not magic bro. I'm the genius. I'm some combat sports savant. I'm just a guy who spent a lot of my free time and professional time trying to understand the world around him. I don't get it. I guess he's trying to argue that like it's the it's the it's the old adage like death taxes and blah blah blah but that's three things but like it's kind of like the expression that like these are the constants but when I say one constant I meant I meant the one expression but fair enough you know it's more of a dead wrong than it is anything else, but I'll take that L and it's all right.

I'm in 50 50 on the joke. I mean, if only we could have shown Sandean's 9-11 one. Wow, that would have been the end of our lives, but that was great stuff. Dude, the 9-11 one is, I was in tears. I was in tears laughing so hard, but I also enjoy, you know, paying my bills. So there it is. There it is. That is our fan segments for the week. A reminder of morning combat at

gmail.com. You can send in dead wrongs fansubs. You can just email the show, but please no private parts. Thank you very much. Tell Mikey we said hi. All right. I mean, Mikey's doing the Lord's work, right? Gatekeeping for us, trying to keep us trying to protect, trying to protect trying to protect the brand. You know what I mean protect the brand is there it is we have have had a fantastic show Luke Thomas and I really want to wish you well is it XS XFC is the name of the promotion

XC 52 again be in sport. There's some other ways to win or watch women. There's some other ways to watch depending on where you're at, but I think the XFC website will have an answer to that, but the big one is being sport that they just signed a deal for it. So, uh, check us out. XFC 52, check it out tonight. Luke Thomas back in the booth where he belongs.

Shout out to the great biggie of WWE fame as well. Thanks to biggie. Big things. Yep. Long Island Luke. Can we hear from you one more time, sir? Hey, I hope you have a nice weekend. Yeah. Thanks. I hope you guys do too. Luke, good luck on the commentary this week. Guys, join me full card Saturday.

You'll see Mexico. Thank you. You know it, brother. We'll see you Monday too. We will be back in the studio Monday, 11 AM Eastern where we will belong at Metal Lark for Luke and Luke. I'm your boy BC. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the fights this weekend. Stay hard, stay hungry.