MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Mexico Recap, Horiguchi Back to UFC & Top Rank x PBC? | Full Episode | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Luke and BC are back in studio, breaking down all the action from UFC Mexico and beyond. Brandon Moreno secured a unanimous decision win over Steve Erceg, but did he do enough to leap Manel Kape or Kai Kara-France in the title picture? Was fast-tracking Erceg a mistake for his development? With five finishes on the card, which performance will have the biggest impact on the division? Kyoji Horiguchi is relinquishing his Rizin title to return to the UFC. What does this move mean for the flyweight division and for Rizin’s future? In boxing, Bob Arum has hinted that Top Rank could work with PBC to challenge the growing influence of Turki Al-Shakh and TKO. Could this shift reshape the sport? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Two, three, two, three. It's time to bang. Oh, yeah, you know that sound, right? This show's got more Riz than a chubby Italian kid. It's Morning Combat. It's back in your face hole. Monday, March 31st, 2025. You're looking at the BBC with that BD E Brian Campbell. Thank you for joining us. The cohost, the man in charge fresh off the bird from Iowa City and X F C 52. It's Luke Thomas in the house and Luke, we got a great show.

We got a great attitude. Yeah. We're ready to kick some arse right now. Slept to the alarm. I slept to the alarm. That almost never happens. That almost never happens. I noticed you didn't enter with a monster pink energy drink.

Oh, I almost did. Don't think I didn't go in there. And I was like, you know what? Let me get a coffee. It's better for me, but I did sleep to the alarm today. All right. Hey, congratulations on a fantastic call. Yeah on Friday night's XFC car. I enjoyed those highlights maybe we'll

catch a few on have you seen this shit how did it feel for you? I was as I told everybody on the lead-up to it I was nervous as balls for that gig because you know what we had done a fair amount of boxing commentary on the prelims for Showtime which was great I'd be happy to do that again but I actually was trying to think about this but prior to Friday I've obviously called a lot of MMA but I could not remember the last time that I actually did. Was it like riding a bike in the end did you feel like you had it again? They let us so here's one thing that I didn't share they let us call an

amateur fight up front. Oh, nice. So I got to get some of the, you know, I got to get the gears moving. And then the first fight that I called for the broadcast that aired wasn't a knockout of the year contender. It was insane. And I'm gonna say this again, I'm sure we'll have it. And have you seen this shit?

It was the guy's pro debut. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. So it actually ended up being a great night. BC was insanely supportive. I mean, there's a lot of people that are actually really supportive, so I have to be very thankful about that. Um, thanks to XFC. Thanks to Biggie. Thanks to Christofendis. Everybody there at the staff, Johnny LaQuasto. Oh, that's, I call him Habibi.

I think he has a Saudi wife, right? And then, um, obviously Jessica Aguilar and everybody else on that whole staff it was man that was um I you know a really fun night I'll tell you that we're really fun and some big stuff and obviously if you didn't know already this episode draft of morning combat excuse me is brought to you by the fine folks at DraftKings and as you already know DraftKings the crown is yours shout out to everybody watching on YouTube listening I don't know when you're cutting the lawn. Maybe we're almost at that time of the year or watching on the Draft Kings network. Going to be nice and warm today.

And then when I see I need this spring to hit us, let's go spring. All right. We need to do the shoe off. We do. We do the shoe off. We do. So BC and I today are wearing the ugliest motherfucking shoes on the planet. So my kids we've we've we've talked about these free shoes I received from CBS Sports as ugly dad wannabe Jordan bowling shoes. Put them up here. Put them up on this side. All right. Here we go. Long Island Luke, get a nice...

Let's see how flexible I can be. We need the fans to go, I think, on YouTube and then vote. Who's got the worst shoes? Get them a little more sideways. Look at that. Look at those POSs. Oh, these are great I mean on the back they say CBS Sports right there

Okay, and then these are these ones you guys have seen but just for comparison sake I Don't have a good lighting on this one. I mean could we look at this is these are our like bad fucking positions like Barely move MK's turning into a bad porno apparently but I guess who's got the worst shoes my CBS sports shoes they're um I have to say I have to say I when you when they were over here I was like oh BC was rocking the new the way I think they call those the dunk lows from Nike yeah and then check check this check this out show them the CBS sports logo to the back there

Look at that bro. Oh, yeah, baby. That's what I'm talking about alright I'm repping my team right now Barefoot the rest of the show let's get let's do it. Let's know those We got a great show for you today of course we can recapping UFC Mexico City Looking at some interesting news involving the likes of Kyoji Horiguchi, maybe Top Rank and PBC gonna work together, a lot of interesting stuff in the combat sports space. Maybe Luke will drop a Chiwiwi's biatch.

Yeah, Chiwiwi's. Here you go. Let's say hi to the third member of our team. He's a producer, director, bong enthusiast, and yes, he is here by way of an Australian man's Australian man's ball back. Wow, I can't talk today. Hey, it's Luke Nocita of the Main Card Minute.

What's up guys? How are we? How are you? How are you, dude? I checked in on the on the Main Card Minute over the weekend and a lot of smoke, a lot of smoke being. Was it a solemn occasion now that Erceg lost? No, I didn't have a bet on Erceg.

I had the over two and a half so we cashed the only bet I actually missed on the main card was lazy boy Other than that yeah, he didn't perform that great. Yeah, now he looked like I don't hear an echo I Don't know I don't hear one. It could just be your settings. You have to kind of get those right There we go. Chiggy ding ding chiggy ding ding Enough nonsense. I think to start the day. Oh, yeah, you can like this broadcast. You can subscribe on YouTube or wherever you are listening at the moment. We love your support. You can support us on social as long, along with our individual YouTube channels. Do we want to talk about this GFL news real quickly?

Yeah, so let's hit it over the top. The GFL has announced their debut We want to talk about this GFL news real quickly. Yeah, so let's hit it over the top. The GFL has announced their debut weekend, two cards, back to back days. And some people in the comments, Luke Thomas, are saying, even though these are a little bit morbid matchups of old fighters against one another, some people have more interest than most UFC cards for this. Do you think that's a little overblown? What do you think about it?

I think it's going to be the same thing we saw with the Bellator guys where it's like, oh, I'm kind of intrigued by this. And then you actually see the fighting quality and you're like, yeah, I'm not intrigued by this. I mean, I'm not going to lie. There's a part of, you know, the gas station hot dog in me that sees Faber, Burrow three. And I'm like, yep, I'm in very quickly. Saturday, May 22nd.

This is day one, by the way, a 430 PM start on this Fab favor versus Burrow, Chad Mendez versus, I don't know who my May I key Lin areas. I don't know who that is. Anthony Pettis taken on Benson Henderson, Holly home versus Julia bud, Marlon Marais taken on Ray Borg and then Alexa Connors versus Katz and Gano. By the way, as BC kind of pointed out to me before the show, this is not one team versus another that's LA versus Sal Paulo, New York versus London, and then Miami versus Dubai. That's so convoluted. It's so ridiculous. It makes no goddamn sense. Then

Sunday, same thing, LA, New York, New York, London, Miami, Dubai, whatever. But you got Tony Ferguson, Dylan, Dennis, Uriah Hall, Douglas Lima. It's actually not bad. I don't hate those. That's not bad. Elima Lea McFarland versus Vivianne Pereira, Alexander Gustafson versus Owen St. Prude. That is a disaster. Allen Belcher versus Stuart, Stuart Austin, Paige Van Zandt versus Randy field. And then Luis Gilsman versus Abu Nurmiga Madoff.

Your mileage, your mileage may vary. Your mileage may have to say for a opening statement, there's some morbid matchups I want to see there. But I have to say the only thing worse than team MMA is Convoluted multiple team MMA on the same car Yeah, by the way, so it's LA versus New York in the main event and then New York versus London with Gustafson st Peru and then Belcher Stewart Austin, so that makes no goddamn sense But I will say there there are some there's definitely a lot of name value to these cards

That main event between Ferguson and Danis. Dude, you gotta watch it. I'm gonna watch it. Dude, I mean, people are always like, are you gonna watch? Guys, the bar for me to watch is quite low. It's quite low. Two crickets could be fucking scrapping in the middle of traffic crossing the road and I would watch. But I will say, Danis, I thought for sure was a goner after his last disastrous bout. Was that the Logan Paul one? The boxing match. Yeah, where he just looked like absolute butthole in that one. But he has managed to like, he's got a KSI one coming up.

No, they can't. Well, they both, because KSI was sick. To Danis' credit, he didn't pull out and then he's got this Ferguson bout. man, for a guy who hasn't done anything in MMA, he has managed to, he's managed to have a little bit of a career here. Did you see Ryan Bader told Submission Radio that he'd love to fight Daniel Cormier in GFL? I don't, did you see Daniel Cormier teach a seminar over the weekend?

No, was he wearing the WWE referee shirt? First of all, let me just say this. Daniel Cormier, as a commentator for the National Wrestling Championship, Was awesome. Was 10 out of 10 good was 10 out of 10 good. 10 out of 10 good. And I actually thought with Laura Senko, he was also really good this weekend.

He might be the fattest man alive right now. Wow. And I'm not even hating. I love Daniel Cormier. He's like us prime COVID. Yeah, no, plus 20. Oh boy. Plus 20.

Oh boy. So like prime COVID with a little bit extra. I love Daniel. I'm not hating, but he, listen, he must be enjoying life because he looks like he's enjoying life. Let him do it. Hey, let's enjoy our show and we'll get into it right off the top here with topic number one, UFC Mexico City, a fight night card, but I really loved it on paper.

I liked it even better the way it played out. We had finishes. We had excitement. We had an electric crowd. It was basically the antithesis of UFC London from a week before. And in the main event, a very important flyweight tilt with title implications as former two-time champion Brandon Moreno took on former title challenger, Steve Ursegg, who was riding a two-fight losing streak coming in.

But as we talked about, there was a lot at stake for the winner. And that winner in the end would be Brandon Moreno four rounds to one on all three scorecards or at least two of the three. Was it two of the three or all three? Well, I didn't see the actual score. It's all three, 49, 46 and all three judges gave Ersegg round three. Yeah, none of them gave him round two which I thought was kind of weird. So four to one for Moreno, a unanimous decision overall. He challenged Hunter Campbell. We'll talk about in the post fight interview he wants to make a huge turnaround and comeback. And even more important for Moreno, it snapped his losing streak in the post fight interview. He wants to make a huge turnaround and come back and even more important for Moreno.

It snapped his losing streak in the octagon in Mexico City where he was 0-2-1 coming in the big fan favorite. So Luke, did this win give Moreno, here's the key question, did it give him enough reason to leap Manel Kopp or Kai Car France who's most recently been rumored for the next title shot against champion Alexand Alexandria Pantoja or Will it be held against him ultimately that he's got a total of three losses against the current champion. I Saw some of your tweets about the fight which I thought was kind of interesting because I believe correct me if I'm wrong I believe you had said and I'm not sure during what round you had said this that

Moreno versus ur seg was heading towards technical thriller territory. Yeah, I was trying to troll my catchphrase, but I really enjoyed this fight. I wouldn't say I really enjoyed it. I'm not saying fight of the year. I'm not saying Barnburner, but I'm saying high skill, technical, close, even though 4-1 on the scorecards, the rounds were close. What am I missing here? I would say that I generally agree with that characterization. I think the part where I would separate is there was really not a lot of punctuated moments,

say for that one right hand that landed in the first, that kind of rocked Ersak. There was a couple other ones. He dropped him. He dropped him with that right cross. Sort of, it stumbled him. I mean, he didn't go fully to his ass or whatever, but I would say it does not make him leapfrog, but no cop.

And it's not that you couldn't do that. He was already sitting at number two. He beat a very good guy in Earths. Say whatever his ranking was, I think, heading into this contest, seven or eight. And so for that reason, if we're just talking about the meritocracy of it all, could you make an argument for him to be right back in a title fight against Pantoja? I suppose you could, but I'm not gonna he lost to him in 2016 I believe 2018 and then 2024 whatever was 25 whatever the 2023 maybe okay one was the ultimate fighter

Yes, one was a non title bout but ultimately legit fine and the third one was a title bout but was an absolute war Yeah, and a split decision, so I just want to put that out there. Fair enough, but that's also 0 for 3. And by the way, it's one thing if you fight a guy and then six months later it's the same. Even a year later, you had five, you had, oh, I think almost five years between fights in certain cases,

and he still couldn't quite get the job done. To me, he's gonna have to wait a little bit longer. Cop, as we indicated, is still a fresh face as a title contender in this division, and I think also would match up with Pantoja, at least we think, in some kind of an interesting way. To me, this was- Even though Cop lost to Pantoja as well in their one meeting?

Fine, but that's just one. Also, we'll have a conversation here in a minute about Moreno, but Pantoja is, we all kind of thought in terms of UFC flyweights that obviously DJ was number one and then Joseph Benavides kind of held a role as like the unofficial number two for some time and I don't think that's really fair anymore. He didn't capture the full weight class title. Obviously lost it badly to Devinson Figueredo granted at the end of his run. Twice. Right. But I mean the last one was like devastating. And you know now you have Pantoja doing what he's doing. He is the second best flyweight I think certainly in UFC history and maybe of all time. Is that because Henry Cejudo's reign was too short?

Way too short. Way too short. Good, but just short. It was grand opening, grand closing is kind of what it was there. So if we're talking about Moreno, for me BC what this one was is now he's got two wins back to back. Amir Al-Bazi and now Steve Ursek getting a win as you indicated finally in Mexico while in the UFC, there was something that was kind of missing. This was, this was to me, not any kind of win you're going to look at as like some kind of turning point, some kind of mandate, some kind of moment where you're like, this is the time that everything changed. It is not that kind of a win.

It was frankly heading in not really that kind of a bout in all likelihood. Ersegg I know got flatlined by Kaikara France but in general has as you saw in this bout a pretty good chin and an overall pretty good defense. He's kind of hard to hurt when he's when he's fighting up to his highest ability but this was to me a guy who is clearly, we know where he has resumed position. He's a top three guy in this division. And this was to me solidifying that anything you might have thought that was going to derail him, perhaps some of the miles and some of these tough fights that that was something you'd have to think about somebody who was very technical with the

jab, who if you're not up to par would snuff that out or, know some other kind of factor the pressure of fighting at home none of those things really materialized to me I was kind of worried about Moreno and following those two losses to Pantoja and Royville about the bottom falling out on him and to me this win solidified that it has not Yeah I mean didn't he prove that he's still of the true elite of this division. Didn't he prove that on the right day his head movement? He was more creative with those looping

right hands that kept scoring over the top. Yes, the looping right hands were good. Again, he didn't take a lot of damage in this fight. Safe Saud I think has been a good partnership for him in getting, you know, getting right after a couple of tough losses. So to me this was was not about, did he climb necessarily to a new place?

No, not really. Not exactly. I mean, a little bit, but not exactly. It was more about if you had concerns that some part of this process had gone a little bit wrong and he hadn't addressed it. I think to me that, that this one, this is one of those wins that not by itself completely dispels it, but now you have enough accumulated evidence to say he is still quite fresh. He is still getting better. He is still quite good. And I think on his best night BC, he could be champion again.

I agree. He revived himself with this fight. Not that he had fallen too far back. I mean, we talked about it too. Back toback split decision losses against super elite guys. Here's the deal though. Coming into this fight, I didn't think there was a scenario where I would come out of it saying, maybe Moreno should get the next title shot. Obviously, if he had waxed their second one round, maybe that could have changed that equation. And you might say to yourself, well, then why am I bringing this up? Did that performance show me? I think something about the passion in his speech, tell me if I'm crazy, something about the passion in the post-fight speech

where he didn't say Dana 50 G's, he specifically said Hunter Campbell and specifically pointed to the fan base that he has, the reaction to the arena, and the fact that they just announced that UFC Noche this September would be a card in Mexico in Guadalajara as they pronounce it. So you can say the G in Guadalajara. Well, I'm trying to be more more cultured. Guatemala, Guapo, Guadalajara. You can say the G. All right. What I'm saying here is, is there an argument based on the star power and the fact that we're complaining about lack of star power, we're complaining about not enough fights

in big arenas with huge audiences going nuts? They're doing the right move by putting Noche on Mexican soil here. No gimmicks like the Sphere, even though I understand it was a big project, it was probably a one and done. I'm wondering if there is an argument there, but then here's the problem. That fight card won't be so September. So are you going to make Pantoja sit out? No, I'm seeing rumors in the last 24 hours that KKF could

be next. Do I love KKF standing? He came off a two-fight losing skid to win one fight. Granted that one fight was a knockout of Earthseq. It was impressive. Can we have it all at once though? Here's what I'm going to offer you. Okay, we do get KKF Pantoja next. If Pantoja, actually if either guy wins, is there a case for Moreno to leapfrog cop and fight the winner of that at UFC Noche?

And I'm telling you it's mostly because of the location and the commercial value in having Moreno fight for the title again on Mexican soil in such a big card, or are we completely disrespecting Cop here? Where do you stand on this? Because I'm almost trying to make the argument that Moreno should be next, because I did think that performance was redemptive. You did see the impact of his brand, the first-born Mexican UFC champion. I would want him headlining a Noche card against Pantosha, considering the all-action quality of their last fight. It was a split decision. It was back and forth. Somebody's gonna get screwed here.

Is there a way around this to make everybody happy? I mean, should, should Cop have to fight Moreno next? And we have a final four and that figures it out? Or you could try and run back Manel Cop versus KKF. Remember they were scheduled to fight and then KKF had to pull out due to concussion issues. But then you'd be keeping the title inactive until September if that's the case. Yes, which I don't know if that's necessarily. So I'm asking you, what's the best case scenario for the UFC right now?

Okay, first of all, I definitely agree with the analysis that putting Moreno in Mexico City and as well putting Noche UFC in Guadalajara, these are all great calls. Like a guy in front of, or a woman, whoever, a fighter in front of their people rarely misses. I have seen people in Newark walk out on Shakur Stevenson. Yes.

But short of that. And you'll agree, Pantoja Marino III for the title was a gnarly fight. It was insane. It was completely insane. And again, I thought that fight was gonna kill both of them in terms of any career prospects after because it was such a just brutal ass fight.

Man, that's a great question. What do you do here? Okay, if you don't have Moreno to headline Noche UFC, what Mexican fighter can headline for them in that role? I'm not sure what the answer is because you actually looked at this if you looked at this card you clearly have a nice roster of Mexican fighters but the headlining sort is somewhat in short supply long on look what do you think? I was gonna say I hope this

doesn't happen but if Diego Lopez beats Volk I mean he does represent Mexico I mean he's fighting out of Mexico now But he's Brazilian, but he's If I'm not mistaken, I don't be dual citizen But like I do think that the Mexican people and the fight fans there and the community has embraced him You need a title fight if it's gonna be a pay-per-view I was gonna say yeah year at first but yeah year unless he's fighting for a belt isn't gonna Grasso's not on the title level at the exact second. Yeah, yeah, you could do Yair

You could do Yair But I mean he also has a pitbull fight coming up and God only knows what's gonna happen there win lose Devastating loss devastating win like there's a lot of just unpredictability there. Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question I mean could they do an Alexa Grosso fight headlining there? I suppose you could. She's not in the title picture at the moment I mean The question is how big they want to make it if you going to put a non title fight in there just to force a Mexican fighter in the main event, then will that card feel big? It's not a fight night.

It's a numbered pay-per-view. Yeah. I mean, I just feel like the UFC for a flyweight title shot has to, I think cop would be the best choice, but I do think KKF has a good claim on it as well. Moreno to me would come in third. So to me, Moreno would have to stay busy, but then like, who would that be against? He already beat KKF himself, by the way.

Remember he stopped him with strikes. You got Tetsuro Taira, but he kind of was overwhelmed by Brandon Royville. You could run the Royville fight back. It was a split decision loss the first time. Oh, so you're saying doing the non title not title of Roy Volver. Here's the thing about Moreno. He said he was champion.

He's had title shots. Some of these other guys haven't had any of them. Cop has not had one. KKF has not had one. You can do a non title main event of a pay-per-view with those guys. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,view? It's a numbered event, is it not? Yeah, it's UFC 320 320, okay So, alright, what if I add this element into it and I don't like doing this?

I don't like doing this, but what if we do KKF vs. Kop next in a grudge match and we put an interim title at stake just so you can put it up as like the co-main event of one of the next pay-per-views and then you tell Pantoja you're gonna wait until September you're gonna fight Moreno in Guadalajara for the title. I don't love that. I don't love that either. It sounds too complicated. How do we get around this? What are we gonna do here? I don't know how. Tell if it's not Moreno in the main event September who the hell is it? It's gonna have to be for a title. It's gonna have to be. You're I mean the top names that could headline in That role you're right Diego Lopez is one of them That's that's an unorthodox call, but I think a doable call especially if he beats Volk if he beats Volk then

Well, dude if he beats Volk then I absolutely think you can do that sure you could do that and again I mean Brian Otega is not walking through that. I was gonna say if Yair beats Pitbull. I was just about to say Yeah, Yair Diego, so if Yair beats Pitbull which by the way, I suspect that he will we'll see why I suspect that he will and if Diego Lopez beats Volk that's a showdown there. You got the Would that sell as a pay-per-view main event I understand that if it's gonna sell it's gonna be in that market I get why yeah, but I'm saying would that sell as a paper by itself that that's the jewel of the card No, okay No market. I get why. But I'm saying would that sell as a pay-per-view? By itself? If that's the jewel of the card? No. Okay. No. But I mean this is what the UFC's got to work with these days. I just feel like Moreno is becoming or already is like the face of Mexican MMA. Like you know what I mean?

Like he is that dude. He's the blood and guts warrior in the same way that Mexico has long processed combat sports heroes through boxing. He's that blood and guts hero only we saw it in this fight. He's kind of evolving in the second half of his career. He's back at the title level. I just feel like you need him in that main event, but whatever on that regard, okay? We can keep rolling on forward. We're gonna get to Ersec in a second, but let's hear some sound from Moreno

on being what I just said. Such a huge fan favorite, such a ambassador of the Mexican fighting and MMA brand. Let's hear him right now. Right after the win, you go to a hunter and you're like, I won a title shot, I moved a needle. Let's go to Guadalajara and put the championship fight there. How confident are you that maybe your self-spitch went through and you're going to be getting that title shot? How confident I am? Man, I don't even know. I don't know

nothing right now. I'm just happy, enjoying the moment. But let's see what happens. You know, I saw Hunter and he looked very happy with the people, with the crowd. Like, the only, that's the thing. Like, who knows how much I moved the needle? Maybe not too much, right? Flyway, it's always with the same problem. That's crazy.

But I really believe like every single time I step in that octagon, the people goes crazy. That's a fact. So let's see what happens. I mean, you had 20,000 people cheering in an arena. I don't think that's the same. I'm just saying. Yeah.

So, but for sure what you want next is a title shot. That's what you want. That's the goal, for sure. Well, I had, I mean, I think it's perfect. I think it's perfect for the pro, even for the UFC, for the promotion, you know? Like if they want to get a pay-per-view event in Notch at WFSA in September in Guadalajara, I think I'm the right choice. Yeah.

Pantojo's yet to be booked, so you think they just wait till September? Bro, I don't even know, who knows? Tell me to, you tell me. I don't even know, man. There's too many questions, like, I don't know. And who knows? Tell me to, you tell me. I don't even know, man. There's too many questions, like, I don't know. And for sure, this time around, a Mexican has to headline

the Mexican Independence Day event, right? The last time we had O'Malley and Morat, which was a great fight, but it just feels like in Guadalajara now, eh? I feel today I have enough arguments to raise my hand and say, hey, I can be the main event, the pay-per-view, in Guadal I had in September.

So he's right. If public negotiation is like a chess or a game of poker, that's kind of a sneaky all and move by putting the pressure on UFC and Hunter by saying, I moved the needle, look at this crowd. That's a very smart move that he made right there. Did they announce the gate receipt for this one? And obviously in US dollars,

it's probably gonna be a lot less than what 20,000 would sell in New York City let's say do it today did they release any numbers that you're aware of long I don't look I'm not aware I'll Google it right now okay making him calling out hunter and not Dana I think everything about that was calculated and perfect hunter was there Dana wasn't that's the future that's the definition Dana listen Dana is a very busy guy. Whatever else you want to say about him, he's got a lot on his plate. Hunter seems almost exclusively. I'm not sure if that's quite true, but mostly, let's say, focused on UFC. He seems to be the guy that's doing most of the deals. He's

at most of these events. He's sort of the de facto guy at this point. He's not the face per se, but you know, these fighters know which side their bread is buttered on and who they're dealing with. And by the way, he did look, he was headlining this card. He pulled out, I think it was sold out or pretty close to it. He's right. He's right about who can sell in that market. Let me pause for the sake of pedanticness. Normally you call me non-cultured swine food racist. I attempt to pronounce it the right way. Wadalahara, which both Danny Segarha and Brandon Moreno did.

No, your ears aren't working. And then you corrected me and said I could pronounce the G even though they both didn't. No, your ears aren't working. So here's one lesson I had to learn in Spanish that was quite hard. Listen to me, trust me, trust me, I've made this mistake a million times. There are certain ways in which they'll pronounce letters that are so soft that to your ear are imperceptible and then I'll be like, no, trust me, I've had this conversation around this because there are other G words that, that you don't pronounce like this. So for example,

exclusive to Mexico or all of, uh, it depends on the accent. But like, for example, like in Columbia, they'll, they'll have words that start with the letter B And they'll say it and you will swear on your life that they are not saying the letter B And I would ask my wife Why aren't you guys pronouncing the letter B and they'll be like we are pronouncing the letter B like it's you know So when they when they say itch instead of bitch or what no so for example So for example, she'll even say it's an American word

But she'll say it borrowing from the way which they say the letter B She'll be like taco. And you'd be like no no, it's taco bell. They'll be like yeah, I said bell I'd be like no no, no, you said taco. All right. All right, they're speaking so she's saying it He's saying it softly, but it is guadalajara. They're killing me. So I got the numbers for you guys Uh, the live gate was 2.5 mil. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty fucking good. And that market? That's really good. To quote Joe Pfeiffer in that shithole with those swine. Good lord. I was like, if you can't live in paradise in Mexico on American dollars,

I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you either. We also have Brandon Moreno talking about this, what you teased earlier. He this victory put him number one on the list of most flyweight wins in company history. Uh, we don't have sound. We have the, just the stats, just the stats here. And you can see it right here, Todd. Oh, so this puts him above all of them, right?

It puts them at 11. So you've got Pantoja at 13, DJ at 13, Benavides at 13. This is the conversation we were having. Okay. I thought that he eclipsed it. I'm, I wasn't reading it. No, no, no. Moreno sitting at 11. So is the conversation we were having. Okay. I thought that he eclipsed it. I wasn't reading it. No, no, no. Moreno's sitting at 11. So obviously he's not quite there. I mean, Benavides, this is what I mean. Benavides has kind of been like this de facto number two.

Yes. Clearly Pantoja now occupies that place, but it creates for an interesting conversation exactly where Moreno is. So, you know, this is what I mean. You were asking about Cejudo. Cejudo obviously did great at flyweight, but he just doesn't have a very long tenure there. It's almost like Conor at featherweight, in a sense, even though Conor was there longer. Like a shooting star, but then he was gone. You know what I

mean? So it's just very, very hard to judge who's what. But I think after a win like this, he beat another really relevant guy in a tough contest. He's now accumulated enough of a resume. You want him in the main event for a title in Wadalahara. I know you do. I know you do. Okay, you're just gonna do it now on purpose like pronouncing with a W.

That's what Danny Cigurro did. He's saying it softly. I'm telling you. You're killing me softly. I'm telling you. Let's talk about Steve Ersing. Unfortunately for the fella from Australia who fought for a UFC title

and what his fourth UFC fight is now three consecutive losses. The very close title loss to Pantoja, the first round knockout loss to KKF. And now this. Yes, it was four rounds to one on most scorecards, including mine. Yes, I thought Erceg performed like an elite. His technique was fantastic. His defense, the knock obviously is that he did not do enough offensively to have a greater argument for it. But Luke, Bill Parcell said it.

You are what your record says you are. And at the moment, this guy's an elite fighter on a three-fight losing skid. Is it time to admit that the company, I don't want to say failed in fast tracking him because he got fast tracked because everyone in the division had fought each other so many times. But do you do should should they regret it? Should Steve Ersteig regret it in hindsight, considering the lot he's in right now? Yeah, I think he should. And I think the UFC, this is why the UFC, we'll talk about it later, but it's signing Kyoji Horiguchi. This is why they brought over a Kaya Sakura. This

is why there's something of a renewed emphasis on not just flyweights more generally, but you know, flyweights they can put in, you know, headlining roles, either for pay per views or big fight night cards too. Right? This is, this is why, because our seg was available when they needed it. And again, it's very, very easy to be like, Oh, you shouldn't take a UFC title shot when we have no skin in the game that way. But the reality is also now three fights in a row. It's not like he lost to bums. And I want to be clear. It's not like this was a devastating loss where he got beat up and defeated.

He didn't really get beat up in this way. He took some big shots here and there, but it wasn't. It wasn't a drubbing in that way, but it now sets him into a place kind of firmly where you're like you're not top five you're just you're just not top five and you might not be top five for sometime.

It's hard to say with the nature of the division, but if you don't take the right fights at the right time promotionally, it's true. You get left behind, But at the same time, if you take fights promotionally as your primary reason for taking it, and again, the UFC exerts some pressure on these guys to take it, although he's his own man, he can say no, you also will mess up your development. And one of the things that I took away from this fight

BC, did it not look to you? We knew this going in, but it was really, I thought we were reminded of this. Ersik just didn't have enough weapons. He had a nice jab, he was fundamentally sound, but he did not have an especially threatening, well-rounded attack. He was kind of at the mercy of like, I have to fire everything behind the jab, and if that works great and if that doesn't, I don't really know where else to go with this. Whereas Moreno might be a little bit more frenetic and kind of all over the place at times, but he's got a wide swath of different offensive opportunities to go to. And I think that played a role. If you're constantly getting ready for very, very tough guys, back to back to back, you are not putting in the kind of work necessary. You don't have time to put in the kind of work necessary just to build your game. If I were in charge of her second, of course I am not. And again, I don't have skin in

the game, BC, but to the extent that I did, that's three fights in a row where he doesn't get his win bonus, just to show I would take a big step back. I would take a giant step back. So we're not going to fight Kyasaura next? That's what you're saying. I would fight somebody outside the top 10, to be perfectly honest with you. You need a get-right fight. That's what you need. And those are hard to come by in the UFC. If I'm the UFC, I might be kind of like trying to give him something of a soft landing after this

because not only did he fight in Brazil and Mexico, where was the KKF fight? That was in the hometown. But two of those, he had to fly across the goddamn Earth to be the B side to some other dude and that was a tough opportunity. He's kind of earned one. I think a little bit on the backside,

but you just have to be careful if you're so. If you're always getting ready for this. This is why BC for example. We'll talk about it in a minute, but Raul Rosas Junior hit. This was a 6 UFC fight. I actually went and I looked. George St. Pierre's 6 UFC fight with Shawn Shirk.

Yeah. And I bring this all up to say there comes a point where if you become the champion, at that point you don't really have a lot of time to work on your game. But the theory is that you've already done enough of that where you can just kind of sharpen at the margins. But if you've not sharpened at the margins and you are thrust to the front of the line, it fucks up everything in the end. This is a cautionary tale.

Not one that there's no happy ending to necessarily, but as it stands, this was avoidable, this was a difficult circumstance, but I think a change is in order, a big one. I mean, one of the three is a devastating loss, meaning the first round, I'd get blown away by KKF. Yeah, that order a big one I mean one of the three is a devastating loss meaning the first round that he got blown. Yeah, that was about a KF Long I'll read in a sense in a sense even though he lost me see I'm sorry to cut you off in a sense He did rebound from that in this fight by showing resiliency through 25 minutes looks like he has top five ability

This is sort of a bad luck worst-case scenario No seat on bringing you in of main card minute fame because you're the son of an Australian Can this gentleman be rebuilt? Are you worried about him? I am worried about him depending on how they match make them I'd like what Luke said he needs someone even out of the top 15, dude Just give him a get-right fight and it's not to say he can't hang with the top five at flyweight I think he can he just you can't be on a four fight losing streak Yeah, he's got to figure out how to be more dangerous. Take a little more chance or not. Not take reckless chances, but. Inflict damage or or bring the fight to the ground and try to advance that way.

I mean, Moreno is doing that at 31. You see him sitting down on his punches more. You see him committing to power that right cross that knocked down. Erseg was was good stuff. Just hand to foot combos. Think about how many Moreno threw. Some that landed, some that didn't, but at least they've got Ersegg on the run, blocking this, landing that.

Whereas Ersegg is kind of just trying to fire one, one, two, maybe a one, two, three at most. Yeah. It's just, it's just not enough. There has to be a further development of his game and that doesn't happen until you have time to go, wait a second, timeout. Let me just work on that. There we go.

Topic number two. If we can transition, we're staying with UFC Mexico City, but let's talk fireworks because this card certainly produced that you had an electric crowd and you had some hungry MFers looking for big time finishes. Overall, there was action. Overall, there was fun. So Luke, there were five finishes on this card, and I think pretty much all of them stood out in a big way How about a little little rank here?

Can you rank your three favorite finishes on this card not counting mine when I was watching? I'm just kidding I don't want to play that joke again. I'm sorry. Let's rewind and remove that Rank your three favorite finishes and then explain how you arrived at that order because I'm gonna say it I shit on the UFC when they deserve it this fight card was awesome, and I loved it Did you not did you were you not entertained? I was entertained I was entertained long Luke was kind of poopoo in it a little bit. How was the hardcore capture? I was not poo-pooing it. I said it was fun not great. It was fun That's that's fair. Yeah, that's fair

But then there's a pack shithole cards that he's like I actually enjoyed myself. Yeah, I know you love the apex Can we just we just quietly admit that that you love the apex? I wouldn't say that if you guys looked at this weekend's card I mean, it's kind of rough the main event is sick Sorry, then is sick and Josh Emmett is a huge dog sneak peek probably taking okay. All right my three favorites Here we go ready number one for me number oneba Gautier, taking on Jose Medina. 22 year old prospect at middleweight. When was the last time we had a 22 year old prospect at middleweight who by the way, looks like he's chiseled out of fucking stone. I was so excited about this one. That was number one for me with a bullet

He looked awesome. And by the way menacing and he was like I'm single. I ain't got shit to do book me another fight I'm here to bang by the way poor Jose Medina who got lit up then called him on and then got that Ridiculous need of the face. It's just oh, I mean careful what you wish for. Yes. Yes No, number two for me is to be Manuel Torres stopping Drew Dober. I know we're going to talk about the stoppage here in just a minute, but just as a win and a finish, brutal, devastating, quick, authoritative under two minutes, under two minutes, his best win, co-main event slot. Give me that one all day from there.

I think there's a couple of different ways you could go. I kind of, I have two choices for the last one. I'll give it to, I'll go Jamal Emmer, stopping Gabriel Miranda, especially since his cornerman wanted to fist fight as soon as it was over. Dude, what was up with that? I couldn't, I would love to show it, but they would copyright us. What was the reason behind that? The best assessment that I could find was that there was disagreement about what Jamal should have been doing.

The gentleman on the left was screaming I told I fucking told you yes So I think they wanted him to strike versus the other guy wanted him to do something else maybe wrestle yeah And so he was like in your face kind of a thing But then he did the double wrist control a bit you know what you have to do to tookie sometimes when she's going bananas So those are my top three. There's a couple different ways obviously you could go if you wanted, but those are my favorite How many of those do you share? Uh, the first two, but I got to add, even though it wasn't a knockout and I was moved

emotionally. How about Edgar Shires? My pronouncement Edgar Shires. Yeah, dude. I mean, first of all, separate from the post fight interview and the story and the late fuck, what was the late grandfather selling his truck so Chires can get the surgery, which just, I mean, your boy, Fabiano Busquet, is that how you say it? He was even writing on Twitter that he had tears in his eyes before that even happened because it was already such an emotional moment right there. But dude, how about the, almost the ease in which he got himself into that submission

and then that face crank was just kind of broken. The reason I didn't include that was because Vergara's sub defense was like true. He wasn't even he wasn't even hand fighting and I was like, don't you love the chyres when they announced me does that like little gun motif thing and you just kind of acts gangster. Chakra introduced another form of fist fighting to the Mexican people and they make it awesome. This is this is hardly some surprise. You know what I mean? What do you think about him in terms of his like total stocking capability? I think he's

good I Love the look. I love the swagger. I love you. I don't know if he's great He's definitely gonna beat up on this level of opponent. You know why wait we need guys like that Okay, who would I tell you which one? I didn't pick in a minute if you don't pick him who else did you have? No, well, what do you got? What do you oh the David Martinez and the Simon Olivera fight? Yes, David Martinez looked like an interesting prospect lightning fucking speed Able to change angles and punching lanes the whole way He looks the knee and then the brutal punches when he was down. Yeah, he looks interesting to me

Yeah, and that was also a first-round finish. We got a lot of those on this one long I'll look anyone jump out to you from a finish standpoint? Not from a finish. You guys kind of nailed them all. I want to just give a shout out to a loopy. Go Dean. Yes. Julie. That was a fun fight. Okay. Unfortunately, poopy go Dean. Yes, but she didn't have a justine Kish moment. I wish we can show it, but in between rounds telling her coach, I have to poop. That's just, that's me between stops on the train. My colleague, my colleague, Brent Brookhouse of CBS Sports was like, can't we normalize this relatable behavior here? It was a funny moment. So was the video she put out afterwards. I was

like, Don't worry, everybody. I took care of it. Everything's good. But have you ever heard that before? I don't think I have. I've not heard it very often. I have to say I've watched fights for a long time. That doesn't happen too regularly. I'm glad you brought that up Long Island because we've been bagging on women's MMA. It's in a bad stretch. It's a bad era right now for women's MMA. My beloved strawweight division is not, you know, one through 10 could contend

for a title like it used to be. But that performance against Brazil's Poulostri, they both fricking brought it. Yes. When was the last time you saw a three round women's fight that was all action from start to finish, got gnarlier as the fight progressed. They both laid it out on the line to see Lupi get hurt in round three and have to hang through there. Dude, that was prime entertainment. Yeah, you won't hear me complain from this. I know a lot of times like, oh, I went to a decision again when we talk about the women's fights. But as long as they're scrapping, I really don't care. And they were scrapping. And so Lupi was coming off a two fight losing streak To Janja Roba and Mackenzie Dern, but before that she had she had put together a nice stretch of wins four in a row

Beating Calvio do Cody Tabitha Retrie among those four her boxing look crisp in this fight She also I mean she always does but she looked to be in very very good physical condition as well No, see it didn't it look like she's kind of amping up for a run in a division that needs these new There's new breath of fresh air for sure and like you said losing to Virna and Mackenzie. Those aren't bad losses at all She's got time to turn it around 31. She should be in her athletic prime still for MMA as well So I loves her too. So that was a nice moment I thought to somebody who kind of stuck their head up and said I'm here. I'm ready. I've turned things around Let's see what happens right there

So fun stuff on this book Can we show the tweet there of the difference between the feeling coming out of London and the feeling coming out of Mexico City? This is how a card is done boy indeed right there. I even saw Brits being like Jesus. What did we? Aspen all was complaining about that, you know, listen and he's right sometimes just matchmaking's It's just dude half of matchmaking is engineering and the other half is just luck. And it wasn't like that card in London was filled with some bullshit fights on paper. Just you didn't get you didn't you didn't fulfill its potential. This one to me, I think over delivered relative to what it could have done.

Let's dig back into a couple of those fun finishes we mentioned from the storyline purpose. Drew Dober, Mike Beltran got criticized for the amount of punishment Dober took after he got dropped. Particularly the idea that there was some, not some, all rabbit punches. I mean, was it about 75% rabbit punches that looked like? I didn't know if they were rabbit punches. It looked like it was close in that regard. The first one or second one maybe, but after that no. The complaints were about the amount of punishment he received.

Although Dober would pop up and kind of, you know, he's out of it. He didn't realize the fight was ending. He was still kind of posturing up to fight. Bad stoppage from Belcher? How do you judge that? I mean, certainly a late one. I don't know how you can argue that that one was on time. And I know what everybody says. Oh, he gave him every opportunity to right himself. And I'm like, yeah, every opportunity. And then all the opportunities he didn't actually need anymore because it was pretty clear he wasn't moving.

I mean, that's the point, right? Like the whole, it's one thing if you're like grabbing a leg, but if somebody is getting drilled, they don't necessarily go all the way limp, they might just stay static. It's not like he's moving or like trying to like, you know, lunge a shoulder behind the knee or pick it up or stand on his feet. He's just sitting there absorbing punishment. And then it was getting kind of looser and looser and he just was watching it.

I appreciate referees who try to not intervene too early because that, I think, is the worst thing that they feel like they can do. Except for if there's an eye poke involved. Can you intervene already? Yeah, in which case if there's an eye poke, in which case they don't wanna do a damn thing. It's nice to not be talking about eye pokes for once right now. Or bad judging. Yes, yes, thank you.

We did have questionable judging in the first fight of the night. I thought Austin Hubbard won that. Yeah, fine, fine, but I mean, you know, at the main corridor where it counted, you didn't get bullshit. Luke's saying it didn't count on the curtain jerker. No, no, no, I said what I mean,

but I mean like the most consequential bouts did not have. Even if you're not saying that, you're right. We've got sound from Manny Torres talking about this stoppage against Drew Dober. Let's listen in. I have to ask you about the stoppage. A lot of people on the internet are criticizing referee Mike Boatron for allowing that fight to continue. I believe Drew Dober took about 15 unanswered shots.

What'd you think about the stoppage and how do you feel about it? I have to do my job, I kept going, until the referee of course, I feel that my opponent was a little down even before the stoppage. Yeah. That wasn't quite an accurate translation. I don't know who that translator was. He omitted some details. Nothing too much, but it's always kind of funny when they like give you the Cliff Notes version. Whereas Fabio Nabuskay gives you almost word-for-word what they say and he's kind of Suave and classy and delivery like you know PBC's of course, you know, Martin Batur of people of those translate You would call him the wow Joe, yeah The thing I love about the last last wow Joe is that

It's almost like he's acting as he translates right like he gets into the same emotional state that the that the person saying it is so like if they're being snarky or they're being a dick he'll he'll he'll change his voice to that which I love you know yes he does he gets he gets a little spicy with it yes I mean I want to say this translating is fucking hard oh it's hard having to do it's hard hard. So when you get someone like Fabio Nobuske, you get spoiled? Yes. So let's talk about Gautier, who is 22 years old. Somebody that I used to know.

Right! The silent assassin. He's what? He's only got like 6 pro fights, right? I'm a little more than that. I think he's got 8 or 9. And he put it on Medina. Let's hear him speak about it. How did you feel about the stoppage and uh... did you feel like the fight was done when

no i feel like the roofie did his job you know like if he let me continue like something bad could happen you know so the roofie saved him i just want to be busy you know just wants to keep fighting as you say like i'm only 22 years or so you know my body recover very fast very quick so now I just want to be keep being busy busy that keep fighting fighting I'm still young I have nothing

else to do so that's that's what I like to do and I want to do that you know as much as I can thank you you have to say man he's obviously from Cameroon as well and people are making the Ngandu comparisons, which is fine. But what I would say is, you just realize, man, there's so much global talent that gets crushed by poverty or difficult circumstances or a war-torn country where you just don't have access to all of the different special athletes that exist in one place or the other. And so when a couple of them break through, you're like, dude, how many more of these guys are there?

Probably a shit ton. Probably a shit ton. Let's talk about Ronaldo, lazy boy, Rodriguez, who came in there missing weight by a pound and then loses a unanimous decision to Kevin Borjas? Yeah, Borjas. Including two scorecards that were three zip. Couldn't have gone any worse outside of getting knocked out. What were your thoughts on that? People were asking me ahead of time. What do you expect for this one? And you're always expecting chaos with lazy boy, but he looked This interest is not the word he looked

Unfocused should we talk about is it could it be altitude effect? I mean like normally a couple fights whether it's Salt Lake City or Mexico City There's that or Denver. There's that effect. I didn't necessarily see outside of Joe Pfeiffer that we'll talk about I didn't necessarily see that on this card. No, I don't think that I don't I don't first of all He is more popular. We just say this because we're speaking in English here. I think for the Mexican audience. They love him a lot He's more popular than he is good. Can we say that? I don't know if that's unfair. I used to say that about our show. Yeah. Now it's the opposite. Yeah. Now we're really good. It's we can't get any more

viewers. Yeah. Yeah, he's more popular than good. And I'm just sort of wondering if that is starting to get noticed more rather than like, oh, there was something really aberrant this camp. Maybe there was. I don't know, but I just feel like he's coming back to earth a little bit. Let's hear from lazy boy on this defeat. We'll translate. Not upset at all. No, he's like, I'm laughing.

We lost, you know, you know, he's riding shirtless in the car mouth bloodied, but that's the life of a fighter. Yeah, he didn't look too bothered. Again, he is quite popular in Mexico, like wildly popular, which is great. But you know, this is this is this is the business of winning. That's just the reality and you have to do that to be a star here. All right, we're going to get into Raul Rosas in the next topic in a second, but let's talk about the Joe Pfeiffer Kelvin Gastelum fight that did not happen.

Pfeiffer on Friday, didn't interview with Megan O'Levy after the weigh-in where he said, I'm I'm feeling great. I'm in the best shape my life, which you know seems to be the truth. He came into this camp ready assumed. He was going to dominate was going to be an all-action matchup and then overnight went out to dinner with the team claims he never drank the tap water at all slept in a tent for months to try to prepare himself for the altitude the climate ization of the word for BC right there Wow but then would pull out of the fight was ill said he

should shit 10 to 12 times and we're not gonna That's an average morning for me. I can just be honest the video He ended up put it out was multiple minutes long. So we're not gonna show it but a part of that video He was like, I'm not a negative person. I don't want the negativity but fuck y'all if you have a problem with it I think that country's a shithole blah blah blah blah blah. I'll never step foot in it again blah blah What? Yeah It was like a complete heel turn I think that country's a shithole, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll never step foot in it again, blah, blah, blah. What? Yeah. It was like a complete heel turn. Yeah, I mean, I can understand certainly being disappointed because remember,

one thing I try to like you have to understand the fighter's position a little bit here, which is that this is how he gets paid. He was a who knows what expenses he has. He said he flew out his friends, family and whole team. So and then the whole team fell apart because he got sick in another country. And he's not getting paid. That's the job. And so, if I may, I do have sympathy for somebody who is expecting... Like, when we... Have you ever been in a situation in your life

where you were expecting a paycheck and it was like, just for whatever reason, you lost a job or something happened at that job or... Yeah, when they were like, we're going to fold Showtime Sports. Yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? Like where you're accounting on something and then it just evaporates in an instant by what appears to be no fault of your own. Again, I don't know the real circumstances, but based on what he's saying, it just kind

of happened. And so for that reason, I do have a degree of sympathy. However, like using that as a basis to attack the entire country of Mexico, which, you know, is a fucking awesome place to the best of my understanding, which has a deep and rich history and most people are able to go through there without getting sick. Again, I'm not denying that he did. It was an unfortunate circumstance. I think it'd be one thing if he was like really disappointed and said, you know, I want some,

I want more manageable circumstances next time. I think most people would be quite sympathetic to that. But then to then take a shot at Mexico. Not a shot, he took a shit on Mexico. Well, to do that, to just go after Mexico more broadly, which by the way, like Mexico city is in the mountains, but parts of Mexico are on the coast or in the jungle or there's desert plains. Like Mexico was a vast different place. I'm sorry that his experience didn't go well. Again, I understand that frustration, but using that as a cause to go after a country

of 130 million plus people that has vast different climates, vast different terrains, vast different experiences. And I'm going to say one more time, if you're on American dollars and you're in Mexico, you should be living real nice. It seems to me a totally unwarranted shot and quite regrettable. Yeah, a quick mention on two other fights. Milky Costa and C-Rod had a somewhat entertaining

featherweight scrap that would go 29, 28 across all three. But it didn't feel like Costa necessarily elevated themselves in that performance. What did you think about it? Yeah, it wasn't C rod was coming in with some hype and you thought oh if this guy could get a win he could Snatch a little bit of that, but it just didn't feel like that Transfer took place exactly because if if you beat up the guy that's kind of surprisingly beating up on everybody else You kind of get this look like okay I'm the real deal Holyfield and I don't mean that beating up on C rod doesn't mean anything it actually does But it just didn't happen in a way where you could you could you could ride that momentum a little yes

And then that lightweight we had Rafa Garcia and Vince Pichel having a pretty damn fun three round fight But then two scorecards going three nothing in favor of Garcia. Yeah, and Pichel straight-up says on Twitter. He got robbed did he uh Mmm, I could see a different scorecard, but I think the wreck. I won alright this is what I mean about the judges like man, it wasn't necessarily the best one, but I Didn't think the wrong guy got you know ahead here. I like that card fun time Yeah, that was. For 13 fights it had a lot to offer. Let's go to topic number three and it's probably the biggest storyline of that card we haven't mentioned yet Raul Rosas Jr. He continued his many winning ways

here at UFC Mexico City climbing to four straight wins as he defeated Vince Morales in a three round unanimous decision. Luke it wasn't't without, you know, the need, I guess, for some criticism. In fact, it was Rojas himself who said afterwards it wasn't his best performance. Do you believe he's showing the signs of proper development, as this would be the fourth straight win after that loss to C-Rod, or, or, is the criticism right that he got trapped into some dangerous submissions against somebody maybe not a master at that, that there's more room for improvement moving forward? Okay, so here's what I would say about Rosas.

When I watched this fight, and I went back and I watched it twice just to make sure, I absolutely see two things that I think are very much playing in his favor the right way. One, I don't know how you can watch him fight versus six fights ago, five fights ago whatever, and then not come away with the conclusion that clearly he's getting better. Especially in the stand-up. Now it's not very useful stand-up over the course of 15 minutes, but early in the stand up. Now it's not very useful stand up over the course of 15 minutes, but early in the first or as a means to an end, it's cleaner. The entries are cleaner. The exits are cleaner. The defense is typically a little better. He was getting pop with the jab a little bit, but in general, pretty

good that that part is all pretty good to me. Also on the back, he's still chasing positions a little too strongly, but not nearly as bad as he once did. Sure. So I don't know how you can watch him and say, he hasn't cleaned up a lot. He's cleaned up a lot. They're really just, just matter of fact, he's cleaned up a lot. And then the second part is like overall,

there's a certain kind of calmness to what he's trying, where if he gets drilled, he's not doing the same kind of tip for tat thing as he did, or at least not as badly. He's not going as wildly. There's a certain kind of thoughtfulness all the way through. And you saw him initially kind of striking,

and then it was just a grappling game. And I think that's also the right call. We said it on Friday's MK. It still should look something like the rebuild of Aaron Pico, where could he win on the feet? Maybe, but it's better right now to use your strengths, continue to lean into them, and he's doing all of that like the plus says He got into trouble, but he got out of it for the most part

He had to put the thumbs up though when he was the last one I mean the thing you have to ask that this is the point though, and this is kind of where I'm at I Have there's it's simply not arguable that he's not getting better. He is getting better. It's only 20 only only 20 So again, we're so far away from a point where we have to be like, what are we doing here? But at the same time, I don't necessarily see anything that tells me we're headed towards championship territory. Now to the point you raise, you might say, but it's so early. Yes, it is. I cannot declare to you that I here it is on March 31st, 2025.

I'm saying he'll never fight for a title. That's really not what I'm saying. Yeah, you were saying that three fights ago, actually. You were like, his growth is stunted. He'll never... Well, he's getting better, but like, I don't... People were calling him prodigy. Yes.

What is the evidence for that? Okay, that's a fair point. That's a fair point. So I'm not denying he's not making the right kinds of incremental What is the evidence for that? Okay, that's a fair point. That's a fair point. So I'm not denying he's not making the right kinds of incremental progress that you should see for somebody at 20. I just don't know what that has to do with him within, you know, I'm going to be the youngest champion or youngest bantamweight champion or whatever. We seem very far removed from that. And so, again, it's kind of step by step and iterative. But this is what I said on Friday, ABC, like we're kind of removing a little bit of that.

That part of the conversation I think has died, not died, but it has significantly shrunk around him, which I think is to his benefit. That conversation right now is poison for his career. It was poison for Macy Barber too at that time, right? And she finally is turning a corner, it appears, and she has this fight coming up against Ariana Blanchett. We'll see how that goes.

But for Rosas at 20, dude, we shouldn't even be contemplating a title fight right now in his defense. So I guess what I would say, BC, is I do like what I am seeing. Let's see how it goes, but I'm going to continue to ask for restraint about where this all leads. We're not even at that point of the conversation where we need to even have to worry about that yet. The crowd loves him though.

They're building something, so I think they have the motivation, they should have the motivation to continue this slow build. We saw signs on the ground where he's not fully there. I mean, I don't know enough about the grappling Jiu-Jitsu game to try to speak on this, but was he in, was he almost, was he put in dangerous situations in? Choke attempts that shouldn't have put him there So the guy he was going up against is an interesting kind of grappler because he has something that particular kind of choke series He goes for to me is a little gimmicky

But gimmicky doesn't necessarily mean bad. There's the McKenzie teen was unstoppable until it wasn't. Right. So for example, I think that that his opponent should have tried to wrap the legs rather than trying to wrap behind the head. He was trying to recapture the mechanics of what he does for that shin in like almost Peruvian necktie slash guillotine setup that he has. And I think that at the point where he was transitioning, he should have moved away from that and he didn't and so that to me is like he was going for a choke that probably works really well in the room and has a certain amount of fights but against resisting good opponents at the UFC level and again you know this is an opponent who is there that sense it's

just gonna be low percentage which I think is what the evidence showed you so you have to ask yourself if someone else had gone for a guillotine then switch to a Darce or an anaconda or whatever depending on the setup like is an anaconda in this case I have to go back and look and then wrap the legs That's a different scenario. That's when you're gonna begin to crunch them like an accordion Widely lost that final round and two of the three rounds in the fight He was saved by the bell right the choke on so this is and to me to me at something else. I'm noticing saved by the bell with the choke on. So this is, to me, that's something else I'm noticing. Him not tapping to those kinds of things,

he got a little bit lucky with that, okay. But whatever, guys get lucky in fights for things. And he did good defense where he would roll on top of his opponent, where you're just kind of, you have to use the arms for the squeeze, and unless you're just like insanely strong, that's very, very difficult to secure. The thing that's more interesting to me is,

he comes out in the first round a lot of times, and he gets like these takedowns, and then he'll get to the back, and you'll be like, wow dude, like he's gonna build from here. And he gets there quick, it's seamless, right? Okay, but then by the second and third rounds, what you begin to notice is,

sometimes he gets to these positions, but they actually become less and less effective as the rounds were on, versus more effective against more advanced grapplers because the advanced grappler will kind of test that to see what you're gonna give them and then they're like oh you have I have now audited your defense and now I know how to beat it he doesn't seem to know how to beat it yet and again I want to say it one more time he's fucking 20 this is why these

conversations about where it's all going are a little silly but that is something to pay attention to for somebody who can score that quickly in the first, he should be able to build off of that. Again, you might say, well, what about Bilal against Leon? Okay, but that's two title fucking winners, basically. That's a different level of conversation. At the prelim stage, if you can get to someone's back almost instantly, you should be able to build off of that. And to me, he rides positions better. He didn't fall off and go forward the same time, the same way he did. He was able, he was much better about going off to the side or pulling his opponent off of the base. But the fact that it continues to get less effective over time to me is a, is a bit of an issue. Yeah. He's 20 and he hasn't learned how to beat it. I learned that

in high school. Okay. Hey, let's hear from Rose. Don't, don't, don't reward that. Okay. Let't don't don't reward that okay let's hear don't reward that let's hear from Rose that's grading his performance now let's talk about your performance overall how would you grade it went to a decision you looked good in the striking obviously your grappling has always been strong how would you grade it and how do you feel is Dennis Agar the only I don't watch, but for now rated 8 out of 10. I feel like I got a lot to improve. And I'm proud of myself in a way that I managed to stay calm, patient throughout hard positions.

I felt like I connected him in the first round, but then he slipped other punches, and then I went for the takedown. I just would have liked to finish, but these fights gave me more experience. I'm just 20 years old, still growing and evolving and getting a step closer to the belt. Now that the fight's over, is it safe to say that your next fight has to be against a ranked opponent?

I think so. I mean, or whoever the UFC wants to put me me to be honest, more than anything, I'm just focused on the belt. That's all. It doesn't matter if I'm 10 fights away, 15 fights away, I'll get them over with. That's my ultimate goal and more than anything, I'm able to provide for my family every single fight more and more. And, uh, I'm just happy that now, uh, God willing, I'm going to be able to go back right now and talk about buying a house for my mother, my family, and, uh, keep supporting them and myself. So I'm, I'm happy at the moment and excited to be back hopefully

against the top 15 opponent. It was a largely sober response from him. I liked it. Interesting though that he scored himself an 8 out of 10 when in the cage he seemed much more down about the performance. 8 out of 10 seems a little strong but it depends what he's grading. What did we work on in camp and to what extent did we execute? In that sense it might be 8 out of 10. I don't know what the grade is. The one thing I will say is giving him a ranked bantamweight next would be a tragic mistake.

Don't do that. Long Island Luke, I don't know about, I'm not going to go as far as tragic mistake, but development wise, where are we at with him? I mean, I do think Vince Morales is someone who's kind of hard to look good against, so I don't judge him too much for this performance, but I also don't think he needs a ranked opponent yet.

I don't think it'll be tragic, but I think he needs one more before getting a top pick. All right. I like what he said that if it's 10 to 15 fights before the title, I mean, he's being sober and honest. So that's not bad. Yes. That part I thought was good. And in fact, it might actually be that long. So fine. All right. Hey, now is a good time, by the way,

to remember where Tequila's story truly began in 1795. Cuervo invented tequila. Since then, Cuervo has stayed true to its roots. It's the same family, the same land, and that same passion. 230 years later, they are still here in every pour, in every margarita, and in every celebration. So enjoy the tequila that started it all. Cuervo, the tequila that invented tequila. ProximoCuervo.com. Please drink responsibly. And, Luke, another reminder to the people that we are closing in on the loaded UFC 314 card, which means next Wednesday, not this Wednesday, next Wednesday, April 7th, 9th?

9th, April 9th. 9th I think. Right here. Manhattan. Cuervo. Me, you, MK, pregame preview, UFC 314. Condoms, mayonnaise. What about the person in this chair? Uh, what about him? Who's it gonna be?

An unshowered piece of shit. Okay, here we go, there it is, alright. Let's keep this show on the tracks and we'll keep it going, So tune into that one. Thank you very much, Cuervo. Topic number four. Hey, for all the crap we've been giving UFC of late of not signing Vakitov or Paul Hughes or what have you in the larger European scene, they did sign Kai Asakara recently and now the UFC has added once again, former flyweight title challenger, Kyoji Horiguchi. Horiguchi

announced he has relinquished the Ryzen or Rizin. Man, I can't figure that out. That one I don't know. I don't know. I never got a good answer on that. He is relinquishing his title to rejoin the UFC. So, Luke, at this stage of his career, what would Horiguchi add to the flyweight division? And on other side of it? What is what is rising get out of this? So on the rise inside I have to be honest I don't quite understand the talent sharing now now they had a talent sharing proposition with Bellator that made a little bit more sense because They would send one our chaletta over there, but then they would get you know

They would get people on the on the back end Horiguchi you name it they put Horiguchi into the tournament for the Bantamweight tournament, which was great. So that part I get, but I haven't seen any UFC people go over to Ryzen yet. Now, maybe Ryzen is just trying to be on good terms with UFC. Maybe there'll be a future opportunity to partner on some kind of card when they go back to Japan. And somewhat related to this is Juan Archuleta, the former Bellator champion who's been fighting in Ryzen. He came out yesterday and said he wants to fight on the Guadalajara card. He wants to make his UFC debut there. So that could be well as the as El Conquistador. I'm not sure how much the

Mexicans will appreciate that. But nevertheless, you know, I will see. But this is what I mean. I'll be honest. I've been looking for some English language coverage about how Ryzen is performing in Japan and what exactly not so much. What do they get out of a talent sharing partnership? What do they get out of this language coverage about how Ryzen is performing in Japan and what exactly, not so much what do they get out of a talent sharing partnership? What do they get out of this partnership? The Bellator one to me was a little bit more straightforward, but on the UFC side, you're getting somebody who, what, 10 years ago almost, basically I think fought for a UFC title,

only losing at the last second of the fifth round to the all time best guy to ever do it. And I know Horiguchi has suffered losses. He lost to Kaio Sakura, but he avenged it. He lost to Sergio Pettis and in Ryzen he avenged it. It was the patchy mix as well. He did. There hasn't been a chance to avenge it. And he only really lost because of back control. He didn't get beat up or something. And you know,

patchy mix who went through the bantamweight tournament is one of the best bantamweight. That guy was one of the best bantam weight tournament performers I'd seen in quite some time. But in this particular case, you're getting clear quality and depth. And what I mean by that is BC, I actually don't think he's gonna win the title. He has said his goal is to become the first Japanese fighter to win a UFC title, which you have to say that's wild. It's unbelievable that no Japanese fighter has won a UFC title. If you're new to MMA, that might not sound crazy. You have to understand in the aughts when Pride was at its hottest,

the Japanese, it wasn't just that Pride was the biggest show. The entire Japanese apparatus of MMA was enormous. Where you had all these different shows, you had pancreas, you had pride, smack girl, jewels, deep. You had shooto. You mean just endless amounts of shows. You had tons of gyms. You had, I mean, you couldn't swing a dead cat and not hit some kind of top level Japanese fighter.

A lot of that went away when pride went away. But nevertheless, there's been great, you know, Japanese UFC fighters Yuki Kondo, Hayato Sakurai, I could go on and on somehow. None of them have ever won a title. So do you? Sakuraba. Sakuraba fought in the UFC. That's right. The Gracie killer. Yes, but he became that through pride You know what I mean? But the one I'm trying to make is it would be a huge deal for somebody to be a Japanese fighter and then win the UFC title. I find that unlikely. Horiguchi 34 either at flyweight or bans and weight. That's still pretty old, but BC if he stays at flyweight,

it is quality and depth to the rest of the roster where guys like Ersegg don't have to get thrust to the front of the division over and over and over again because you've got more kind of mid to high level ranking quality that you can call upon to fill some of these slots. And I think that's going to relieve a lot of pressure on guys like Ersegg and the UFC more broadly to say nothing of the fact that yes, he in fact could win a title on top of it. Oh, definitely he could. He has a history with Asakura.

Would they fight twice? I think so. And they split him, right? Yeah, he got knocked out the first time, but then he came back and beat him the second time. So are we going to be looking at a trilogy potentially in Japanese soil or the UFC won't do that? Ooh, that's a great question. That'd be big. Here's the thing. You could book that fight in the US.

Would the US audience even appreciate it? Not on the same level, no. No. But this is what I mean. Maybe the UFC has designs also on going back to Japan to do a show. And if they do now you've got a stable of some of the better, more known, well known guys. And in the case you're mentioning something of a rivalry that you could also plug in to headline or put put onto the card. Has he fought anybody that's in like the UFC top 15 right now? So let's look at the rankings as it stands. So you've got Pantoja

I don't think he's fought him. You've got Royville Moreno Al Bazzi KKF Tyra. He fought the older generation That's out at the Tyra cop Perez or seg Ambalaya Let's hear let's see from how this occurs at 15. So yeah, let's hear Horiguchi statement We'll translate. We'll translate. You're listening on the audio. He says he's happy to report that people are happy for his new challenge in going to the UFC. He says he's getting strength from it to Yeah, I'm a kid Yamamoto was unable to win a belt that's so true Says he wants to carry the people's feelings on his shoulders as he goes into his fight Yeah, interesting very interesting stuff. I'm looking up and down his record So it would be a lot of fresh matchups here, which which could get fun

He fought yeah, you mentioned he fought Sergio Pettis in belts or you think Sergio Pettis ends up back in the UFC at all He's still he's still kind of got it right. I don't know where he's headed. That's a great question. I don't know All right You guys think who Ruguichi fights at flyweight or Bannon weight or what because he's boys with Pantoja So they're not gonna fight each other for the belt bullshit I mean they might fight each other they're like forget that they train at ATT I know a lot of people train there they're like direct training partners oh yeah before a belt you think he's do he's literally coming here to be a champion I'm asking what you think I

don't know I think he's I think he's gonna be what you know like a dual citizen right if there's a big opportunity at bantamweight he'll take it yeah there's a big opportunity at 125 that's where he'll be and can we get patchy mix in here and we'll just rematch them a battle I'm telling you and can we get Corey Anderson out of PFL jail too and pico yeah pico by the way PFL starts this week interest did you see it did you see for their bantamweight tournament attorney I think they only have three of the original names. Everybody else fell out. I know.

I mean, that's what happens when you have tournaments that are worthless and meaningless that are going nowhere. Hey, can we have this tweet here from Horiguchi? Luke, what is going on here? So obviously you can see the Japanese has been translated. This was him at Ryzen. If you could take that lower third off there. Thanks.

That's him standing next to Sakakibara, who's basically like the mastermind of all of Japanese MMA for the last you mean sake kabara that's what I said oh you said Sakaki and added kind of a vacation in there I didn't mean to I mean I meant Sakaki Barra that's that's how you say it sake kabara sake wait where is the fucking look that up am I saying it wrong you're saying Sakaki it's sake kabara I thought suck look he that up, Nobuyuki? There's no looking up, that's how you say it. Do we have to ask your wife again?

What is going on here, Luke? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,ara. Yeah, no, it's Sakakabara. You're saying Sakaki. Why did we turn, why did the show turn into- Well, I don't know how to pronounce Japanese, but it's S-A-K-A-K-I-B-A-R-A, Sakakibara. There's no cocky. Sakakibara. Stop cocky, that's no more cocky. Sakakibara. Sakakibara.

Sakakibara. Sakakibara. Okay, I'm just putting emphasis in different places, but I'm not introducing wrong letters. Either way, put the tweet up very quickly if you can sorry about that long on Luke, so it's him It's it's Horiguchi standing next to him, and he's basically saying you know I'm I'm announcing I'm going to the UFC I want to thank president UFC president Dana White and I'm going for Sokka Kibara yes for encouraging me and then the fans are all the support as the Ryzen champion

Which by the way he had to relinquish his rise in flyweight title to do it I'll be going for the belt for the p of the first Japanese to do so Japanese fighter And then he thanks everyone as well He announced it formally to the audience there in Japan which which they seemed receptive to you mentioned. There's a partnership so is Rising getting paid to release him. This is what I'm trying to understand again the Bellator one night with Scott Coker I really understood I don't quite get the terms of this one at is what I'm trying to understand. Again, the Bellator one with Scott Coker, I really understood. I don't quite get the terms of this one at all. But I'm happy for it.

You have to be happy for it. This is a great pickup by the UFC. I think more integration with UFC and other shows can only be good for consumers. Yeah, can you integrate with PFL so we can get through these fighters in more than a little bit of a long? Seriously.

All right, let's transition to topic number five right here. We're gonna go into the sport of boxing. There were a bunch of fights that were kind of interesting over the weekend. Shut up, by the way, to Michaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan and that all action rematch, but this one's about the future. We know that the TKO takeover is coming. Turkey, Alashik, Dana White, Nick Khan, all that and then some. But what about the remaining powers that be?

Well, if you talk to top ranked chairman Bob Aram, there could be a future where two of the five traditional boxing powers could be teaming up in the future. And that's top rank and that's Al Heyman's PBC. Let's hear from Bob Aram first about the intentions. But, uh, you know, as far as Hank Davis is concerned, I think that more and more we're talking with BBC and we'll be making fights with them. Is part of, you know, Turkey, Al-Ashik, and the new...

Is part of that prompting you guys to work together more when in the past you may not have that is correct. So that's this competition in the marketplace is a good thing kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So this is where I question how early this TKO thing was announced because it was a middle finger to all those promoters who are taking the the turkey money right now and putting on, you know, Riyadh's and our Ring Champ or Ring magazine cards.

But they all now have to fight for their own future. And you're seeing that I had a feature this past week on CBS Sports about Jake Paul's most valuable promotions and the fact that they're raising a ton of capital and are willing to work with some of these other promoters. Look, I will say this. The next 12 to, you know, 18 months in boxing, which have already been on fire because of the Saudi Arabia money, we have to give them credit for that. There's been big matchup after big matchup.

But competition is ultimately what fuels the best fights to happen and the fans to be excited. I always point back to 2013 when Floyd Mayweather, Al Heyman and all the fighters that would eventually make up PBC a few years later left the traditional power in the states of HBO, went over to Showtime and those two networks dueled in that 2013 calendar year with show after show that was just delight to the fans. I think there could be that future here, especially if these old guard are now saying,

look, we want to keep American boxing strong, we might have to work together to do this. So, there's some rumors out there that if Tank rematches Roach in June, that we could end up seeing, for example, Stephen Fulton Jr. and Oshaki Foster on that undercard, which is a PBC fighter against a top-rank fighter. Let's have a fun little breakdown here. You and I both put together. If the future of TKO and PBC and top-rank working together means there could be some really fun matchups for fans,

you and I separate, we didn't show each other our list, put together the top five fights we would want to see as boxing fans. Why don't you introduce yours, Luke? I don't know how good mine's gonna be, and one of these guys I'm not entirely sure is a PBC guy. I know that they have been a PBC guy, I'm not sure what their current status is. How do you want to do this, Long Island Luke? Because I know we have a full onscreen list. Let's just reveal them

all and then you can talk through. All right, here we go. Let's let's take a look at my list if we can. So here's mine, BC. So the number one fight introducing. So I'll start five to one. Sure. So number five, Mark Magsio taking on Oshaki Foster. Now Foster used to be a PBC guy is now a top ranked guy. guy but Mark Maxcio has been a PBC guy so that's that's more than I was a former title holder at 26 Foster has a belt right now at 130 so okay but I feel like but it could happen it could happen yes next Xander Zayas taking on Sebastian Fundora which there's already been rumors Zayas is the mandatory for one of the doors to titles at 54 and it does

seem like there might be some institutional will to make this one happen. A few different directions you could go from here. This, but I'm gonna go Emmanuel Navarrete taking on Stephen Fulton Jr. Which would just be an absolute motherfucking better. So the idea of Fulton fighting Foster would suggest that Fulton's willing to go up to 30 even though he has a title at 26. Navarrete, long time, or current title holder at 130. That would be an interesting matchup. Then Easy Call BC, Tank Davis taking on Keyshawn Davis.

Oh my god. That would probably be number one on most people's list. Yeah, it's egregious that you have that number one fight above this. This is John Jones Robert Whitaker level. Oh, it's not that bad. Come on now. It's not that bad. I love Caleb Plant. I have I I I initially was like Kayla plant versus time Oh, excuse me, not how many Mungia Edgar Berlonga, which is the one I really want to see

But as I understand it BC Berlonga is a promotional free agent as it stands today, right? Yes Do you have any sense about where he might sign? Like if you have a feature about it? I interviewed him last week and wrote a feature about his future He said he's willing to talk to Turkey willing to talk to Jake Paul's MVP But he identified three matchups that he wants most. One is Jaime Mangia. Okay. Two is Kayla Plant,

three is Jermall Charlo, but I think the Plant one supersedes that because of the trash talk. Now in the last 24 hours, Burlanga put out a video ripping Plant and saying, you're not the A side, I'm the A side, send me a contract, blah, blah, blah, and Plant responded at the fights on Saturday

and kind of was just like, if you want to fight me, let's fight. Like, I'm not going to do send me a contract, blah, blah, blah. And Plant responded at the fights on Saturday and kind of was just like, if you want to fight me, let's fight. Like, I'm not going to do this back and forth dancing. So it would probably need Berlanga to sign with PBC, but if you think about it, he could get the Charlo and the Plant fight, and maybe Benevita if he's willing to move up to 75, or David Morrell.

So I think PBC would give him the most amount of options for a multi-fight deal. So, Caleb Plant versus Jaime Munguia We would just I just can't believe you like that better than Davis versus David. I definitely I can't say that I actually do but I just love the idea of Kayla plants Options I suppose it's a weird way to describe that I definitely am not like stupid enough to be like, oh, it's smaller than you know, it's a weird way to describe that I definitely am not like stupid enough to be like oh, it's smaller than You know it's bigger. Excuse me than Davis versus uh well Keishon Davis versus Gervonta Davis, but

That's obviously the biggest one you could make I think on any weight class But I was a little bit tough on this one because I was like Where do we go with like can I use FAA Jogba against any PBC heavyweight? I don't know who that would be or even yeah the problem is you have to see Torres I don't know if that makes be or even. Yeah, the problem is you have Torez. I don't know if that makes sense either Tyson Fury on top rank, but there's no huge PBC heavyweight at the moment. You have Nio in a way on top rank, but there's no huge PBC and there

used to be a bunch of heavyweights at the moment. So Gary Russell Jr. said that he would be willing to fight in a way at 130, but he also said he may never fight again because of the shoulder injury and also in a way apparently is close to signing up with Mirajan Akhmedov. I saw that this morning. Yes. Yes. All right, so independent of the ranking itself the five fights that I listed plant Munguia Davis Davis Navarrete Fulton Zayas fundora Maxile Foster. What do you think? I'll give you a Seven out of ten. I like a lot of these matchups I think you let a little left a little bit on the table then you'll go

I expect your list your list your list should be better than mine. Well, let's see what I came up with. There's no In A Way and no Fury, but check this out. Number five is Stephen Fulton Jr. Shushu Carrington? So Bruce Shushu Carrington scored a big knockout on Saturday and called out three of the champions in his division, Rafael Espinoza, Stephen Fulton Jr., and Nick Ball from the UK.

And he says he's ready. And that would indicate that he's ready to fight for a title. Fulton Carrington, even though it feels too early for Shushu, would be a very... I'll be honest, it feels way too early for me. But he's the one who's saying that. So that's number five. Number four would be Vasily Lomachenko defending his IBF lightweight title against Pitbull Crews. I did not include Lomachenko because I thought he was fucking retired.

No, there's rumors that that he want that or not rumors. There's the feeling that after some time off he'd be willing now They haven't stripped him of the title. So there's some feeling that after time off he'd be willing to come back. Okay, alright I know that Pippen Cruz fought his last two at 140 But would you not agree after him losing to El Rio Vansweil at 140 and then being in that shootout with the next with the what's the guy's name? Uh on hell Fiero mm-hmm that 135 is a better division. It's a much better division Would you not would you not be entertained by Pipple versus Loma? That's my number four. I'm not hating on dude I love your list. I just I didn't know we had Lomachenko at the ready number three Teo Fimo Lopez and Gary Antoine Russell in a 140 pound title unification.

Lopez has got one fight left on his deal, doesn't he? Okay, but he's a current top ranked fighter, so I think that's legal, right? Oh, you went with a list I didn't know we had access to. He says he has one fight left, top ranked believes he has multi, so there's a debate there. Oh, okay, I wasn't aware of that. I mean, let me be clear, Lopez versus Russell, fucking love it. I think Lopez is too athletic for him right now It'd be interesting number two no title at stake at the moment

But top-rank promotes Arthur better be of David Benavides is an interim title at 175 great call There is a situation where obviously turkey wants the b-ball better be of travel trilogy And now Eddie her and the promoter of b-ball and his manager are both saying that they're willing to drop one of the four titles In order to make that trilogy Imagine if that title becomes vacant and then you have Ben Aveda's fight Callum Smith for it and then imagine Win or lose in the trilogy if better be having Ben Aveda's fight dude that is must see Pay-per-view TV totally agree and then number one I said coming into this year that the fight I wanted above all in boxing was Tank Davis versus Shakur Stevenson.

But after what Keyshawn Davis did to win the title against Borinshchik and the run he's on, I said I'd be willing to sub in Keyshawn if he's willing. Imagine Davis versus Davis. It's funny, Bob Arum also was quoted this weekend and saying, I need to talk to Tank. He needs to keep fighting. He needs to get refocused. That leads me to believe that they want to do big business together. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I'm glad we only had one overlapped. I definitely see BC's list one more time. So number five, I don't like number four. I like yes. Number three to me. Number three is badass. Teo Fimo gets Gary Russell. Russell fights so infrequently. No, that's Gary Russell Jr. This is Gary Antoine Russell, the one who I believe this is Ant Russell Jr. This is Gary Antoine Russell. Wait, this is Antoine Russell?

This is his brother. No his brother hasn't fought in forever and is a 126 fighter. This is two 140 pound champions doing a unification. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so this is the younger brother. The one who just put on that clinic against Balanso. Okay, now I'm all in. Love that one. I mean what can I even say about the top two? I mean the second one's the biggest fight you can make between them mate in terms of your number one and your number two are Definitely the two biggest fights they can make I don't even know what else would I'm okay? If you if you could make tank in a way, but in a way he's not jumping up to lightweight you know, let me ask a question how big of a fight not like I'm not saying it's better than better be of and Benevides but like give me your sense of

imagine somehow they sign, whoever, top rank. I know he was, I know Munguio, I'm sorry. I know Brelanga used to be with them, but let's say he just went back for whatever. How big of a fight is Kayla Plant versus Edgar Brelanga? I think it's pretty big for boxing hard cores. It's huge because it's a grudge match. There's then that's that fuels it so much.

It's an interesting clash in terms of their styles and abilities. I don't think it would be commercial through the roof. But could you make it a pay-per-view main event with a good undercard? I think you could. Okay. You could. Okay. Your list is better than mine for sure.

But I had a couple little bangers in there. There you go. Couple little bangers. Definitely did what I want plant. Mungia hell to the yeah. Three of the three that we differed well There's four we differed above the three other ones Navarrete Fulton Zayas from Dora McSio Foster Which one do you like those the most?

Say the three Navarrete Fulton Zayas from Dora McSio Foster Zayas from Dora that was my number six on this. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, that is a hell of a fight I tried to get creative and find a fight for Errol Spence, you know, maybe against Teofimo. I mean, there's a couple things you can do, right? Teofimo has been talking about going to 54 Forever, even though he's a title holder at 40. So that's interesting. All right, with our five topics behind us here, what we do every Sunday night is we put a call to action on social media. I have a quick correction, not correction, but a update.

Yes. Our friend of the show, Rodrigo Del Campo Gonzalez, I'm saying that like a quick correction, not correction, but a, but a update. Our friend of the show, Rodrigo Del Campo Gonzalez. I'm saying that like a gringo. He tagged us and he says, Hey, Luke, NBC, Diego Lopez, 100. But I don't know if you know who Rodrigo Del Campo Gonzalez is. He's maybe one of the foremost Mexican, uh, broadcasters for being played by playing whatnot. And obviously he has covered MMA extensively. He says Diego Lopez 100% represents Mexico,

has lived and trained here for a decade, fought most of his career here, owns a gym and trains fighters here, beloved by most fans here, and has ties with Guadalajara since he's been coaching Grasso and Aldana. Excellent, excellent. There you go. The roots do go deep right there.

Would he be okay in a title fight headlining? No, Che. Yeah, yeah, I think you would. I think you'd be fine, especially against the I.A. Good Lord on that one. I'd be a sick. We want to hear from you. So every Sunday night at morning combat on X on Instagram, we put out the call to hear your questions,

but they better be good and you better not have some weird user tag that we can make fun of. This one's called DMs from dogs. Oh God. That's gross. Booty Eater 69 says, all right, let's get the first one here from Henry Osean. What annoys Luke more when people in the crowd of UFC are wooing Ric Flair style or when people are chowding shouting

And by the way the willing by the way Luke ESPN had like a full feature about chewy ways before the Raul Rosas That's that hard-hitting journalism we come to expect I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Hi look There's there's cringe potential for that thing to get old fast. Are we there yet on chewy ways? I know you hate Wu more than anything. I hate Wu more than anything. Where are we at? Because I love Chuiwis, but then when I watched that feature, then when I saw Rosas kind of force it in the post fight interview of doing the one two three, like At the sphere it was awesome. Is it jumping the shark already or we still have time?

Um, I'm fairly neutral on Chuiwis. I don't love or hate it. It's, it's whatever. What does it sound like to you? Like do you think he we shouldn't voice stuff like this? But do you think that's his call to action on the on the finish in real life, too? Well, you think he busts a nut and goes gee we we Willing is the worst and people who woo at MMA events should be beaten with batons and then tased. I'm not as bad as the wave. The wave is the worst thing ever. I don't mind. I don't do the wave, but I don't mind the wave. How could you not mind the wave?

Because I just fucking ignore it. Can't you ignore the wooing? No. No. These low-level primates throwing their feces like howler monkeys at the zoo. It's like just them taking part of the excitement. No.

It's them making it all about themselves. That's different. Totally different Obviously, you don't have experience watching pro wrestling because that's what the crowd does and the only good thing about that No, I feel like the crowd works in unison with the art with the performer The good thing about the only good thing about pro wrestling crowds is they will voice Critically like if the company's pushing someone that they don't want they will boo the whole time They will put on the chance that are negative and that is telling the company, we do not stand for this.

Yeah, but no, no, no. I've seen, I've definitely seen clips where Stone Cold was like, and I had one beer, what? Yeah, that's- And then I had two beers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's better. But it's like a call. The what chance is there? That's like a call and response.

Everyone's working together. That's different than, I'm just a dumb piece of shit who sat in a seat and I'm gonna make it all about me by fucking screaming in an arena. These are losers. These are fucking losers who do. Okay. Thank you very much. Let's go to our second question from Z period firm, FRM period, ESP, whatever that that means.

Would you rather see Joaquin Buckley or Ian Machado Gary step up with Jeff Neal being out of his fight against Carlos Procter? So if anyone doesn't know that loaded 314 card in Miami still loaded Carlos Procter's fight. Who was his original? Jeff Neal. Neal's what injured or sick? I'm not sure exactly what he pulled out. And protest basically teased that the UFC is gonna take care of him. He's gonna have a bigger announcement. So if that bigger announcement was either Ian Gary or Joaquin Buckley, which one would you want it to be? Um, cuz that'd be they'd be a banger fight either way. I would be it would be great either way. I

Would prefer Buckley. I Prefer Buckley. Okay. He's a little bit more advanced in his career. He did take a fight on relatively I mean on of them the Colby fight came together relatively short, right? Because he was supposed to fight Gary himself and then the whole thing. But he won. And Gary had to take that Rachmanoff fight on short notice and it didn't, we obviously performed well enough but- It was the biggest win of Gary's career.

I mean, and a loss. It was. It was. Tell me it wasn't. Tell me it wasn't. I just did. It's an L. Okay.

But the point is, here's the difference. Can you put some respect on the number three pump for Paul Walter way on my list? Well, here's the thing. He's not he's 27 years old I don't want him taking a bunch of short notice fights. Sorry number two. Yeah, you know what I mean I don't want to take in a bunch of short notice fights let him he took he took the opponent short notice and Now it's time to kind of retool a little bit Whereas I feel like Buckley can step on the gas at this stage of his career I'd prefer Buckley isn't practice out of the top ten and these are two guys in it? Shouldn't Gary fight Buckley, which was an original matchup that almost happened?

I'd be happy with that too. Long Outlook, do you have any opinion on this? I agree. I'd rather see Buckley just because I think Ian Gary actually has his way with Proctis, where I feel like Buckley's a way more competitive fight. And I like Carlos Proctis. I want him to win, so I'd rather go more competitive. What about Proctis Morales? Or would you be eliminating two potential future guys? One of the houses fighting Gilbert Burns and like Michael Morales. Yes, right, which is a sick-ass fight

That is a sick-ass fight. All right interesting stuff right there. It's not gonna be wonder boy, right or something like that Please no, I don't know. I don't know what they're gonna do with it. All right. There we go. Let's go to number three This is from AZ Ray videos our guy Arturo by the way Luke from Mexico We got in the UK and he was in our receiving line at the London live. Yeah sick All right out to that guy right there. Who is your favorite Mexican fighter in both boxing and MMA? He doesn't say all-time or current, but if we're going all-time for me in boxing El Torre Blay Eric Morales, you're a Morales fucking guy. I will say dude. It's cool to see JCC at these MMA events. Yes.

Like, and he's received like a fucking hero, which of course he should be. Damn right. It's cool. Like, don't get me wrong, sometimes I like boxing and MMA rivalry, but then I like it when the boxing greats like kind of pay respect by showing up to UFC events and then like the crowd loves them. So cool to see JCC. Do you have a Mexican boxing hero, whether it be Marco Antonio Barrera one man? Well Marquez I can go on it's probably one ma

Can you know it's probably Marquez because I remember what do when Marquez flatline Pacquiao? I couldn't believe it I think Chavez would duck Benavides No, probably not Chavez would fight better You know what's kind of crazy is Chavez has to like navigate this minefield because every time he does Media they're always asking him is do you think Canelo's ducking and has to be like well So definitely I would say that on the MMA side That's a tough one. I mean it's still early ish Of course you're still dealing with basically the first big generation of

Mexican fighters And are we just qualifying Mexican American fighters from this conversation? I don't know how to answer that question like how do you just this game count Ryan Ortega or Kane? Yeah, like this day. Yeah, do those guys count? I mean they certainly are Mexican, but they're also Americans I think you're talking like direct Mexican nationals probably Moreno probably Moreno. He's so Lovable yeah, I think it's the right word. But if we're counting Mexican Americans, then I'm gonna count Kane. For sure I'm gonna count Kane.

Yeah, absolutely. Still, at the peak for peak, the best heavyweight I've ever seen still. Or would Prime and Gano crush him? I still say no, Prime and Gano does not crush him. I think Prime Kane is maybe the most terrifying I've ever seen. Yes, thank you. Thank you, and on the streets, potentially.

Well, I mean, that's a whole different story. OK, let's go to the fourth one here from Sticks Plays Time. What or when is the most excited you've been watching combat sports? So I would assume I'm going to assume this question is like coming in pre fight. Or is it in the moment or what is it? Because if it's coming in pre fight, you have C 116 Brock versus Carwin Was just it just that build was Hogan Andre Yeah, and like and Brock getting the shit out of him in that first round was and then rallying back

although Carwin's gas tank just That's a big one Silva son in two do the song so was on in one for me coming in to really Yeah one. Silva Sonnen too dude. Silva Sonnen won for me. Coming in too really? Yeah because he had picked that fight and you know Sonnen you kind of thought was like oh he might perform well but he'll fade you know like everybody else does against Silva and then you're like four and a half rounds in you're like oh fuck he's gonna do this then he doesn't do it. Dude he beat Habib Connor the biggest fight in my history. You know dude how about Connor Porre where I was like oh my god. You know the MK Highline? post result. That's that's your number one. That's a big one. I'm heading into it. Okay, so head a fight week Spence Crawford was like I mean pins and needles bro pins and needles on that one Triple G Canelo the the lead-in that's a coming out of there. It's a big one John Jones Cormier, too. Yeah So, John Jones Cormier too? Yeah, yes, huge. One of the best promos ever.

Great call, totally great call. And by the way, Kane's comeback did not feel that way. Like by the time Kane was getting to Francis and Ghani, I was like, I don't know how this is gonna go. But also, in the moment, Fador getting triangle choked by Ferrucio Verduum was like, earth shattering. Absolutely. Was there a moment of a fight heading in that you were the most excited you ever were? Was it Jones Cormier? It's Jones Cormier too. I say that all the time. Okay. Literally the promo for that fight is the best MMA promo I've ever seen.

Right. Connor205, Rousey's UFC debut. These are all pretty fucking big moments, man. I don't know, even though again, I wasn't in the MGM Grand at UFC 196. I was in the press room next to it because we already had enough ESPN people in the arena the sound I heard the feeling Of the ground shaking when Connor tapped is it actually before car tap You remember when you noticed that he was gassed remember that when he shot that moment when it turned That rumble of like yeah was something.'ll never forget. That feeling was just insane. Can you imagine being Nate in that moment?

It's fucking hard to imagine like what that must be like. Finally from a guy who's here every damn week flannels and jits. I mean, do you think this guy is employed? No, this guy's off, you know, this guy is we need guys. He's on somebody's watch list. All right, the neighborhood watch list or somebody else. We're not going to rank 10.

But what are the go-to fights? Luke? If answer for the new fan said pride strike force or WEC era non UFC fights What's the go-to here? I think there are three events You should watch in pride and there's other ways to go he's saying fights. He's saying right, but so so he kind of tense So let me get through this and I'll show you what how you get to 10 One is you should watch fador versus croc out which I think was like final conflict 2004 one of the best heavyweight 2005 one of the best heavyweight title fights still to this day and the and the Anticipation leading. Yes, 20 years later. It still holds up. That's rare in MMA. That's the first thing I'd say But here's real easy if you've never seen it, you should watch Shoguns march through the middleweight. They call it middleweight, but it's light heavyweight. It's one of the it's no,

it's the best performance by an MMA fighter in any tournament in MMA history. Watch the whole tournament and watch him just mow these motherfuckers down. And then my recommendation, watch pride body blow. So this is when Fador fought Noguera for the first time. He was a big underdog. This was a huge shock, but this is also Rampage Jackson versus Kevin Randleman. This was, I think it was, was it Oyama versus Silva? I think that's, no, no, yeah I think that's right. I'll have to look here, hold on, let me pull up the card. Pride body blow. Yes, Pride 25. So here's on who's on that card as I mentioned top fador versus no Gara rampage versus Kevin Randleman which was a fucking awesome fight you guys won't know who Nino Shambri is but Nino

Shambri versus Kazushi Sakuraba Nino Shambri won which was a gigantic upset is this more Ranallo and Bas Rutten on all these calls I think I might have been quadros at this point but it was Boz Dan Henderson versus shungo Ayama, which is a cool fight Oh this this is right. How about Anderson Silva? Absolutely fucking icing Carlos Newton That's a big one on this one as well And then there's some other ones Akira Shoji beating Alex Stiebling Stiebling had called himself the Brazilian killer that didn't do him any favors He didn't do great after that and then also little nog was on this one against Kazuhiro Yaka. Excuse me, Kazuhiro Nakamura.

But the top of that card Jackson Randleman, a million ankle no Gera Henderson, Oyama and then Silva Carlos Newton. Holy fucking shit. Watch the go to strike force ones are very easy. Okay, Paul Daly versus Nick Diaz. Then you got Dan Hendo versus fator. Don't all-time Strikeforce?

Yeah, they wanted to know the Strikeforce from that era of Pride, Strikeforce and WEC. Okay. That new fans haven't seen. These are the fights you need to watch. You need to watch for Doom tapping Fador in the Grand Prix tournament. How about this? The Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Watch Cormier's run through that. I was there when Fador got bodied by Bigfoot Silva, which nobody was expecting at that point. That was a huge one.

Watch a couple of those Scott Smith comebacks, like the first Kung Lee fight. That's a great one. If you've never seen Kung Lee versus Frank Shamrock, or more to the point, if you've never seen Cormier versus Josh Barnett, Cormier versus Josh Barnett, I dare you to watch that and tell me

what UFC heavyweight fight has been better than that one recently. And we're talking, these are fights that aired a quite a long time ago. Also on Strikeforce, of course, Rousey versus Tate. Oh, the first one. So many reversals on the ground. Which was a big one there as well. If you're looking for WEC, if you've never seen the title run of Mike Thomas Brown, Mike Brown, who now is a famous coach. Dude, Mike Brown, when he hit Leonard Garcia, it's one of my favorite knockouts. He hits Leonard Garcia with, I believe a left hand that is so hard. You can watch Garcia leave his feet. He's this diminutive coach that they call Mikey yet Mike Thomas Brown was a killer. He iced Faber just iced the shit out of him.

When people look at like Jose Aldo beating Brown. It looks pretty straightforward You're like well, how good was Brown dude Brown was fucking awesome And then Aldo goes in there and just smokes him. Yeah, you couldn't believe it But Kenya no Gara by the way, obviously was one of I think Aldo's debut If you had to pick one WEC fight wouldn't you pick Pettis Henderson one you pick Pettis Henderson one? I got a deep cut for you Carlos Conde versus Hiramitsu Miura, which was an absolute Dog fight from beginning to end to WEC had some fucking bad. This was good on that back who Todd Harris

Frank Meier was pretty good too as a commentator and then Frank Meier says he wanted to be the first guy to have a kill In the octagon and they removed him from that Thank you for your questions folks. You really got Luke excited and that's the goal on this. So thank you very much. We've got one more segment for you. It's called Ass and Titties. It's a segment designed to make Luke Thomas emo in very uncomfortable ways as I scour the globe every Sunday for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly in the worlds of combat sports and beyond. This one's called, have you seen this? Have you seen this? I think I shit my pants on the last.

That's a Dennis Larry. Buttered sausage. Why are we talking about buttered sausage? Get it out of my face. That was a Dennis Larry bit about Elvis, which he probably stole from Bill Hicks. All right, Luke, let's go to XFC 52 in Iowa City. This is you on the call Jaren Lathrop. Did I say that right? Jaren Lathrop. Jaren Lathrop. This is the dude's pro debut. Pro fucking debut. Listen and watch this Jaren Lathrop throwing a high volume

But Shinkarevsky for the most part has had an answer But Shinkarevsky for the most part has had an answer. Oh, caught the kick once again. Damn! And by the way, prior to this, let me just say this. Don't bury your own clothes. Dude, great call. What a beautiful highlight! What a moment, great call.

Everyone's screaming over each other, but then it laid out, Luke delivered the sound bike, great moment. Thank you so much. Also, that guy has an interesting story. Lathrop lost his amateur debut, then rattled off 12 wins in a row. This was his pro debut. And I was like, dude, I've watched a lot of pro debuts. They don't go that well.

That's unbelievable. But the other part too is that kid, uh, Shinkarevsky, you can't see it from this highlight. He was doing awesome. He had hurt Lathrop twice to the body in this fight. He is a, by the, 2-1, or he was 2-1, I was 2-1-1. He is over at fight ready. He got Henry Sahudo ready for Song Yedong. He was cruising in this fight and then let his guard down for a fucking instance. And so you said you called an amateur fight off camera to kind of get ready. That's the first fight you called officially in XFCE history. That's the first one. What a moment. It must have just like kickcharged the whole night.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it dude. I was so happy. You told me in the main event to watch out for a gentleman named Kenny Cross who could be a future UFC fighter if he continues on the direction he's on. He only needed 14 seconds. Yeah, watch this. Now performances for XFC in 2024. And now he has that opportunity. We are underway in the main event of XFC 52. Open stance fight. So pay attention. There could be head clashes. Yeah, pay attention.

Here it comes. Yeah, I just talked about the lead foot positioning. But! Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Just nailed him to the wall. Look at the hair too. And the boss! Crosses out yet another.

How was that crowd? I thought it was a great crowd, man. I mean, they showed up early. They were there the whole time. I was saying, I don't have the numbers. It's regional MMA. You know, you have to understand it for what it is. But I thought it would do that.

I thought it worked. Those people in Iowa, man, they were ready for it. I have a feeling that UFC when they go there, it's going to be a Des Moines. This was Iowa City. It will be amateur wrestling heaven. But dude, that kid, Kenny Cross, he's so fucking ready for the next level that kid that guy he beat was Lucas Corbagy who's a Brazilian who lives out of Argentina who's a good fighter and he got smoked in 14 seconds. I really hope the UFC pulls up Kenny Cross

he's ready. Well it was great to hear you in that chair you did a fantastic job. Luke Real did recognize Real as we mentioned earlier at UFC Mexico City. Check out the great one Julio Sevar Chavez Senior with Chama. Alex Pereira. I mean the shorts and the black shoes combo is interesting, but when you're a badass you can wear whatever you want. To see these two give each other love, like this is what we want. What I do. Anybody who's ever like been a real fight fan knows what's up with JCC here. And I love that JCC loves MMA, dude. I really do. It actually, you know, it's because everyone's like, oh, Mike Tyson likes MMA. That's cool. Yeah. But a lot of boxers just don't fuck with it at all. So to see a one who's like a fucking national icon freaking like it is

so awesome. By the way, I saw JCC Junior. at the Fundora card ringside, and I have to say he looked healthy, looked in shape. I know he's talking about he wants a Canelo rematch, but... Yeah, I'm good on that. Okay, let's keep this fun segment going. How about some elder abuse? Yes, that's what we do here.

Throwback to 2023. This is at Country Box in Nashville, Tennessee. Mark Abrams, my boy, on the call. 58-year-old Scott England was making his pro debut in boxing with the bell rings This man will set the Guinness world record 58 Boxer to make his pro debut in this historic fight. He looks ready to welcome this Gotta say looks like he's a pretty good shape Oh never mind he's got some you got some saggy

Hendersonville, Tennessee, I don't know how this is legal by the way. Yeah, this is gonna go bad, right? in the black Let's jab By the way, he got knocked out 47 seconds, uh, director of our six. Nice job. And oh my God. That by the way, he got knocked out 47 seconds. It looked like it was two seconds, but it actually was 47. Didn't it remind you of that guy from early UFC Fred? Was it Fred Eddish or something like that? Yeah, Fred Eddish.

Where he would like last minute he filled in. He was like an old karate master and then he just got whooped like a bit beat like bloody to a bloody pulp. That's hilarious. Yeah. This is why a 60 year old mention. I'd be fighting alright. We got more elder abuse This is why old people should not go to college dorms and drink Hey, you can then slip in your own puke you you're white trash All right, let's keep the elder abuse going. Put it on. Tell me what you hear. Dogs.

Cat. Motherfucker. And Luke, speaking of elders, this old time weatherman might want to get his prostate checked. Work full time in Newcastle County. My man is just jittery. Look at him. Look at my man just ejaculating everywhere. This is the best. Hell yeah bro, he's not moving at all. Look at Jim Lampley, he's not moving at all. Yeah, there it is right there. Alright. Hey, Luca Wise Woman once said that all you need in life is a BBC. Do you agree with that? If somebody come to you, don't. Cock block. If somebody trying to steal your car.

Cock block. So be and remember all you need to be and protect yourself. It's a big black cock. But never be and choke your chicken. Just kiss and you cock. BC, if I brought my cock in, would you kiss it? All right, Street Fights of the Week. They call this clip not mixed martial arts, mixed

partial arts, Luke. Two drunks? Yeah, well three drunks. Watch this. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I like how three of all three of them lost to the ground. Oh, this wasn't a street fight But it was a weigh-in fight check out what happened to BKFC

Can't be doing that. Scale. Oh, he's gonna get the scale. BKFC has the roughest characters, bro. Look at Feldman, he's panicking right for the silver. Who won? I don't know, but I think we all won just for watching that. Yeah, fair enough. Luke, don't kids say and do this darnedest things I got one that does

It's so cute he's got a little town Me To be fair. I didn't see a building seven there Luke, but let's continue on to the show before we lose our sponsors Hey, here's Devon Haney. Oh, it's true or not, but I just heard that if you chew gum like it makes you like jaw stronger So it's my theory is you can be able to take punches better Yeah, I don't think the gum does that okay. All right. I think we disprove the gum Luke let's go to the women's rugby pitch where they're always just dropping bodies. You got some big birth. Oh, ice box. Look at her. Yo, yo, she lowered the fucking boom on this. No, see that Lord. Yo, God, I don't know. Is that legal in that sport? I dude, uh, that is,

you know, I mean, I don't want to weigh in onto the trans controversy. I'm just saying you might need a trans person in there to compete with her. Luke, one of my favorite follows on IG, you know, that Boston be a man guy. Yeah. He's like, take a dump on your pants. Be a man. Yeah. Let's watch this. If your girl's having a period and she asks you to go to the store to get tampons, never come back. Be a man. at Tampons, never come back. Be a man.

His every one of those be a man things is like how to be an abusive alcoholics. Absolutely. Uh, Luke, it's March madness time. So let's hit the hardwood. We have a new spawn. It's bill lame bear 2.0. Watch this breakaway. Okay.

Let's see if he can get it. Oh dude, what the fuck? What the fuck was that? How is it, how are the other guys not swinging on him? If you're a teammate and you don't instantly go and fight him, like what is going on here? What are you doing? They sent that other kid, they gave him like frequent flyer miles with that. I think gave him CTE on top of that.

Let's go to the youth basketball game. Hey, grandma, can you walk around? Damn, she looks barely mobile. I gotta tell you, there's a lot of parts of middle America where people move like, oh, get the **** up. Get the **** **** damn bro. They didn't even stop the game. She doesn't give a **** about your game. Hey, Luke, have you ever seen? By the way, gotta say a lot of buffets in the Midwest. Yeah. Also, I had Mexican food twice

in Iowa. Let me just say something. Put the camera had Mexican food twice in Iowa. Let me just say something. Put the camera on me for just a second. Oh, let me say the Mexican restaurants in Iowa. Yo, they're pulling a fast one on the gringos. Worst Mexican food. Worst taco L taco L was a major upgrade. I didn't hear the B. I didn't hear that time. All right. You, you're making fun of me. I'm telling you it's true. They say certain letters softly. Look, remember in the little league world series where sometimes there's like this fat kid that's six foot two and you're like how is he 13 years old? Yeah? Well check out this seven foot three 13 year old from Montreal this fucking freak who drinks out shower

But this is not fair someone needs to youth and this is eighth grade dude come on He said I'm just some prison camp and get your money's worth You can't stop this stop him. This is bullshit, dude. This is bullshit. You got some genetic freak who drinks out of the shower here playing. Imagine if he was Danny Alamante style. He was really like 26. Yeah, and he's acting like he's a baller. You're just a big ass oaf. All right. Let's also go to your three pointer of the week. From this fireman, Luke.

Oh. And the house is on fire fire you piece of shit. All right Luke, new segment. It's called Would You Eat? Let's go to your native country of India. You skipped the car one. Oh thank you Long Island Luke. Where's the car one? Oh you're right. Here's your Dunk of the Week. Sorry, thank you Nocitaita, for saving me. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Maybe a little bit of a Darwin award. Hey, you know what? Here's three needles to the bag right here. Yeah, I've had that. It took away my manhood.

Thank you, Nocita. Let's now go to Would You Eat, Luke? This is your home country street food culture in India. This is called a Monster Omelette. Would you eat? That's. Monster energy with a with an egg. Yeah, would you try it? I'm intrigued. Okay. Okay enough eggs Okay, a lot of hands being used told this guy there's a wave Oh shortage in the u.s. At the moment He didn't give a fuck You try that right? Um, I don't know if I try it off the street

You try that right um I don't know if I try it off the street But I'm tempted by the idea. Let's go to the next one here. Would you eat this flavor of Doritos? I don't know how to answer that without losing my job Okay, hey tip on tip alert way in boner of the week. We got some hard boys here. Yeah, touch them dicks. This looks like the Mayweather McGregor weigh-in, right? Dude, sometimes look fighting or fucking same thing. Look at the frozen rope on this Brit. Wow.

Yo, I mean that guy in the sweatpants must be like, what is this? Question. Yeah, what was the last time you got a wayward boner? Like not in any way intended to get remember, we would get those in high school, like you'd be sitting in history class and you'd be like looking at a girl in the front with it. Like, and then the bell rings and you're like, yeah, what am I going to do? I got to carry the trapper keeper. Yeah, I don't get what to do.

It's been about 30 years. I mean, I'm 46. So it's less likely to happen by the day. All right. Yeah, there you go. Hey, let's check back in on regional MMA where you already know Luke. Anything can happen. All right. Yeah, there you go. Hey, let's check back in on regional MMA where you already know Luke anything Anything can happen. All right, check out this ref

What the fuck? Yo, you know this ref doesn't give Lord no, you know, what are the rules of this? Well, there's a lot of fighters in there. This could be one of those gimmick ones where, like, in Poland where they do like eight on eight or something. It was weird. I don't know. Yeah, they do, they do like gang bangs. Alright, uh, first time ever. KO via cage fence. Watch this. Okay. Okay. Who is this? What commission? The same one that booked Paul Tyson.

Oh, God. Oh, gee-nocka, too wild a solo. Okay. Let's go to the Muay Thai ring. This regional KO is wild, Luke. Oh! Did you see a soul come out of its body? God, please! All right. Hey, let's go to the outdoor concert. I got more injuries for you.

Oh, God! Yeah, you wanted front row? You got it. It's part of the experience. Yeah, it's like going to a Gallagher show. Yeah, damn right. How dated am I for referencing that? Good one. The audience doesn't even know what that is. Alright, your clothing items of the week. Here's your best hat I can find. Here for the big titties and tight kitties.

That's a, I'm going to wear that at the family reunion. Would you wear this next shirt, Luke? I don't play basketball, but I do have a magic Johnson. Okay. All right. Here's your- I'd probably skip that one. Let's go to the dress clothes. Here's your suit of the week. What is this what the fuck is this

What about I mean, I'm all for subversive fashion it looks like he got bullied by other kids would you date his lady? No comment, okay, okay Luke we got a couple more to close here. This is an English Premier League watch this fan celebrating the win Did you see it he took his piece out do it again By the way no lie I saw a guy take his piece out today on the subway. Not even lying. Yeah, I mean the New York City subway.

Not even lying, I did see it. I did see it, yes. And finally, Luke, this one's for the boys. Let's check it out. Only the boys will appreciate this one. Oh my god, dude. Dude, that's bad. Okay. Ha ha ha! That's all the shit I got! That's the end, thank you. You're the best. Okay. That's all the shit I got. That's the end. Thank you.

Okay. Yes. Grand opening, grand closing. There it is. Woohoo. I have liked doing this show. I don't know if today is the last one. Even Mikey responded after uploading the shit.

Two of them, he was like, I'm not sure I could be friends with you anymore basically. I don't know if this is the last one, but if it is, I- We went out in a blaze we had it we had a good time But you have the results to the poll. Oh, who's show? What how exactly did you word the question? I wrote which shoes are worse? Okay option a was Luke's bear barrack shoes. Okay, very good and option two was BC's CBS shoes Okay, I think I'm probably gonna win but let's see Yeah, Luke you had 58% of the votes for worse almost a thousand see my my my poor man dad Jordan slash bowling shoes are actually

Kind of hip they're not hip they look like they'll fall apart as soon as you step down on them. Yes, that's true They're kind they're kind of hip and I'm repping the brand right The tip that one is kind of interesting I have to admit. That's why I picked him the problem for me You know it is there's no logo on the side, so it's hard, like it's, it feels like something's missing. Well, it was like an end of the year company, like gift you can pick if you wanted, like the winter coat or the, you know, whatever.

And I was like, when am I ever gonna be offered sneakers by my employer with the company name on? Do you think we can get MK shoes on our still not yet ready for prime time new merch site? We, oh my God, I've got some ideas. We, no, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna spoil it. I got some ideas. Okay. We should sell some MK shoes.

All right, all right. Hey, a reminder, morningcombatatgmail.com will allow you to reach the show. We'll be back Friday for a remote episode, and we need you. Let's get some fansubs, let's get some Dead Wrongs in there if you wanna play. Thank you very much, and also,

a week from Wednesday, April 9th in the studio. Yeah, we're going to do it. UFC 314 Pre Game Preview brought to you by Cuervo. So don't miss it. It's not a traditional day. We're not going to go that Friday because I'm leaving for vacation. Sorry folks, but we're going to go live Wednesday right here. Special guest as well. So you don't want to miss all of that. Luke, anything else you want to say to these fine people for staying with us? Yeah, just one more time. Thanks to these fine people for staying with us? Yeah, just one more time, thanks to everybody

who tuned in on Friday for XFC. You're asking when's the next one of those? I think there's supposed to be one in July. Hell yeah. So we'll see how that goes. But obviously thanks to everyone for the support. Thanks to everyone who watched the show today. And we'll see you guys Friday.

Long Island Luke, you have anything else to say? No, great great show enjoyed it Well, he's the best that's the best in the world right there for Long Island Luke the regular Luke and your boy BC with that BDE that you just can't get enough of thank you for tuning in take Care of yourself. We'll be back on Friday 11 a.m. Eastern and until then we got two words for you Ass and titties