MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Noche: Grasso-Shevchenko 2 Scoring | Jack Della Maddalena | Rosas Jr. | Morning Kombat Ep 490

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

On Episode 490 of Morning Kombat Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas break down UFC Noche. How did the guys score Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko 2? Should there be an immediate rematch or a fresh contender? Did Jack Della Maddalena prove he's ready for a top 10 opponent? How should we evaluate Raul Rosas JR's win? As always the boys close out Monday's with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:13:00) - Grasso vs. Shevchenko 2 (00:40:00) - Who’s Next for Alexa Grasso? (00:55:50) - Jack Della Maddalena (01:05:00) - Raul Rosas Jr. (01:17:00) - Grading UFC Noche (01:27:00) - Dm's from Donks (01:39:00) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. If you've got a case of the Mondays, we got a case of the MK, and BC's got a case of chlamydia. Hi, everyone. It is Morning Combat right here on this 18th day of September, 2023. My name is Luke Thomas.

I am one half of your host. And do I join you from the capital of the status of news right here in Washington, D.C. Joined by my friend on that side of the screen. He is a B.C. He was at a wedding last night, folks. So here's my question. On a scale of I have a headache to why did I wake up and find my pants all wet? How hungover are you?

I'd say the hangover out of 10 is only a four, which was nice. I mean, I had three drinks, but the washed, exhausted feeling, because by the way, it was like a barbecue buffet wedding, which is really the greatest of all time. Shout out to Cousin Morgan. Fantastic. So, yeah, I'm just washed and old. But, you know, a couple of donks in the wild at the wedding, Luke. It was very happy to see that.

My cousin Connor's life partner, Jesse, was there. And it was really nice to see the love out there. But, yeah, good times, great oldies with the family. I caught up on the fights, though, Luke. And I am wearing a belated gift in the mail that came to me because the package was damaged. And I'm talking about the average Joe Art crossover,

the super washed dad shirt, the one love hat on here. Luke, I just want to say that there ain't nothing average about this design or the way this shirt looks and feels on me, but I don't think even my shirt is the story here. Our staff, Luke, true or false, could not believe that you owned a red shirt, let alone our wearing one.

This was basically the equivalent of you showing up with your underwear outside your pants like Appy at a London live show, you know? Well, I'll show it here very quickly if I can. On Friday, there it is. You can kind of see. Hold on, let me get the tour on the back. Yeah, it has the tour dates on the back. On Friday, your boy went to see Pantera. I saw Pantera at the Jiffy Lube Pavilion in Virginia.

By the way, that drive, I mean, I cannot believe people live out there, but they do. All right, either way, neither here nor there. Damn, dude. I went in there. I even live out there, but they do. All right. Either way, you need to hear it over there. Damn, dude. I went in there. I even told my wife before we got there. I was like, I'm not going to have low expectations for this. I mean, half the band is dead, and I don't really know what to make of it.

The genre is dying. The genre has been dead. I mean, the genre is very dead. So are the lyrics, Luke, about death and despair. No, no, not Pantera. Pantera is not like that at all. But, dude, they were unbelievable. I was shocked at how good they were.

Okay, what role did Zach Wilde play in this being just a kick-ass and tremendous event? Major hero. Major hero. First of all, the sound was so good. Dude, Zach Wilde. Again, I had low expectations. I was like you know it's gonna be what it's gonna be dude he hit every note and then would kind of zach wild it up a little bit what he kind of you know he plays with you know the strings along the front line or whatever and he gets that very unique kind of squealy sound that he makes he kind of introduced that over time but like i mean everything was on point

the drummer i forget his name dude he was a fucking megastar i will say this all right phil anselmo can still sing he can still sing he cannot move he cannot move anything he's barefoot the whole time and just kind of like you know sheepishly moving around who looks more like they should be working the graveyard cumberland farm shift at cashier phil anselmo or jed mishu at this moment look no well jed mishu looks like the world's biggest dirt bag i mean he looks like he vapes 24 7 and spends all of his disposable income on only fan subscriptions and he really is the worst so he wasn't that bad it wasn't that bad but i will say this last thing i saw rage against the machine not too long ago and now i saw pantera these bands from the 90s who have been popular enough to like have a second life at touring

they've got it down pat dude they've got it down pat because i saw lamb of god they're pretty good too but not you still want to do big arenas or or do big you know big cities and stuff you got to bring it i i was similarly blown away when i saw Pearl Jam on the 06 Avocado Tour, Luke, and I was like, oh, they got better over the years. They got way better. The only thing I was bitter at, dude, they didn't play some of my favorite songs. I was a little bit bitter about that, but other than that, it was great. Okay, okay.

Well, you look great in that shirt, Luke. It's nice to add that to the rotation. The staff was happy. And this great merch crossover, by the way, which includes this hat, this mug. I mean, tell them about it, Luke, right? Fantastic. Yes. You can go to morningcombat.store, of course, for more.

The entire Average Joe art line is available. If you don't want to get that, of course, we still have other stuff. But the requests for this have been pretty tremendous. So I want folks to know it's up there. Selling like hotcakes. Morningcombat.store. Let's go through the rundown if we can here a little bit. If you want to get Showtime, you certainly can. Showtime.com, 30-day free trial if you'd like it. You can keep it if

not. Feel free to bounce. And then of course, morningcombat at gmail.com will be the email du jour to reach the show. Last but not least, BC, we want to remind everyone voting is almost over. Vote for MK on the World MMAma awards i believe we have a graphic for that there it is you can put your phone up to the screen you can use the qr code right there or you can just go to world mma awards.com and vote for us in bc we always say that this one is the most important but really it actually is yeah yeah we're gonna be honest with you i mean we're gonna be here our show's still gonna be here well we could use this at the moment we actually could use this at the moment it could be valuable we're going to be here. Our show's still going to be here.

Well, we could use this at the moment. We actually could use this at the moment. It could be valuable for us. It could be, okay? More news to come, but it could be very valuable for us. So vote with your heart. Or don't vote at all. I mean, do you think I like Luke?

Not to steal Dennis Leary's bit, who he probably stole from Bill Hicks, but do you think I like when, you know, Joe Walsh is telling me how to vote or Puff Daddy? No, but, you know. Vote or die. How about is telling me how to vote or Puff Daddy? No, but Vote or die. How about that? How about that? If you want to back us, you want to back the blue balls of Aaron Bronstad

then do that too with Best MMA Journalist there, but thank you. Alright, with that out of the way BC, oh, very quickly do you want to check in on OKBet? Because there's big news there. This is huge news. Maybe the first time this segment went from struggling to front page news.

I received an intense amount of tweets after my prediction of Raul Rojas Jr. by TKO came to incredible uh accurate uh anyway here's the here it is here it is let's see it mikey let's put the graphic up of this i think we've got what here okay so these were bc's picks the main event as we all saw did not go to a winner it went to a draw so that's a push for me and bc because i also had grasso but he wins on jack de la metalena he whiffed on the jasmine one which I did think was a good bet. Yeah, but I still won watching that, Luke, just so you're aware. Probably the Zepeda-Hesta fight, as I understand it, was a beatdown. Dude, it was one-sided.

I got that dead wrong. One-sided traffic for Zepeda. But you nailed the Rosas Jr. Mitchell fight ending in a KO, so you get 2-2 and 1. And if they got my picks, just, I mean, the worst fucking array of picks. Push on Grasso. Fernando Padilla fucking lost. He was expected,

and the commentary team was talking him up the whole time. I do regret my Kevin Holland pick, because he just, he is very, very talented, and we'll talk about this more, but he doesn't always fight to win as much as you might imagine. Godinez beat the living dog shit out of Elise Reed. It did not go the distance.

And, of course, we all knew that the Rosas-Mitchell fight was going to end early, which is the question of sub or KO. BC got that one. I love that. You tried to cherry pick on the other side of the court with Godinez. I paid for it. I paid for it. I will say this.

I did do well in my betting on NFL games over the weekend. I went 2-0, so I'll take that. So eat shit. All right. Do we have the updated standings? What are the updated standings? Because I think BC is now in the lead once and for all. I think you hear me knocking, Luke.

I think I'm coming in. Can you see this? No, that shouldn't be right because I think BC has more wins than that. I think BC is tied with wins now. No, I think I have one more win because I had two. I don't have the new one. Dagger.

Okay. You know, they told me math wasn't a part of this, Luke, but I believe that I am one win higher than you and then you have like three more ties than I do. That might be right. That might be right. I don't know. So now it's on, dude.

Now it's on. It's on. I let you worm your way back in like the unworthy piece of shit that you are and here now i've created problems for myself now you let me in the house luke you let me in the house and suddenly there was you know coins missing off the dresser and you know there's uh all these buns but no dogs you know what i mean like nothing matches up anymore luke it's gonna turn bad for you so hey o'teal get up in the bullpen with that bass brother you know what i'm

saying let's get this guy loose. You're still going to see gore guts with me, motherfucker. That's still going to happen. So I guess I'm still – no, no, BC's in the lead because he's got one more win, although you do have an upside-down record. So I'm 65-65-4, literally no better than flipping a coin. BC is 66, but then 67-1. So he's got two more losses, more win and then one draw so technically

who's in the lead at the moment i don't know i i don't you actually know how this would work i would think your brother's a doctor 500 record but can we phone a friend how mad would your brother be if we put him on speaker right now just to use his doctorate in math to to figure this out oh so bc has the higher win percentage because I have more draws, even though you have one more loss than you do a win. So it really will depend by how we measure it,

but I'd be fine with that if that's how you want to do it. Can you call your brother to get an accurate? He would hang up immediately. He would hang up immediately. All right. With that in mind,

we have a lot to get to. So let's set the table here. Let's get to topic number one. So over the weekend, you can check it out if you hadn't seen it already. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat a lot we have a lot to get to so let's set the table here let's get to topic number one so over the weekend you can check it out if you hadn't seen it already youtube.com slash morning combat for my noche ufc post fight show that is available to watch but of course that means we did not get bc's opinion on something the main event goes to a split draw so alexa grasso retains her title because she didn't get it taken from her but she she did not win the fight, nor did she lose.

No one won or lost, as I mentioned. No, she said she won. I don't know if you heard her after. She said she won. I heard her, but I mean, there's no official record that she won. It's the draw. Okay. But the scores are kind of interesting.

BC, before I throw it to you, I want to put them up on the screen. I sent the graphic to Gaff before the show. I believe we have it. It's just a picture of the scores. Here we go. We'll talk about all of them in on the screen. I sent the graphic to Gaff before the show. I believe we have it. It's just a picture of the scores. Here we go. We'll talk about all of them in just a minute. Judge Mike Bell had it 47-47. That's the one that set the internet ablaze.

Sal Di Amato had it 48-47 for Shevchenko, giving her rounds one, three, and four. And then Junichiro Kamijo had it for 48-47 for Grasso, which is, of course, how I had it as well. Thank you, Gaff. I appreciate that. All right, BC, let me ask you the question. I know it's a draw, but who won that fight? It should have been Valentina Shevchenko, and it does, in a lot of ways,

come down to that swing fourth round. Luke, did you just say you scored it 3-2 for Grasso? Yes, but I do recognize 3-2 Shev is completely understandable. So I think that's what it is. It comes down to that fourth round. Obviously, it's the 10-8 fifth round that made this a draw, which, look, who got done wrong in the end?

I think it was Valentina. Not a robbery, although certainly not the correct score. If you had it 3-2 Grasso, I got no problem with that. I scored it three rounds to 2 Shevchenko. I gave her the very close fourth round based on the damage of landing the elbow that led to that cut. And I think her jab was just more consistent to try to offset those knees to the not nearly grounded opponent and the takedown that Grasso did early. But Luke, while I said sort of like, damn the stats in the first fight, here's what my eyes saw. Grasso was

the better fighter. I think that was actually flipped over this time around this rematch was so hotly contested just a beautiful fight in so many ways to see the adjustments from both and obviously Grasso for the second straight fight was able to capitalize on not an error or mistake from from Shevchenko but was able to sort of turn that trip takedown defense into taking her back and having the grounds for a 10-8 that, again, just doesn't feel right at all. But Shevchenko closed the gaps, in my opinion, in the key areas in which I felt she was overwhelmed on the feet with the boxing, particularly when Grosso went to the southpaw stance in their first fight. This time around, Shevchenko was busier.

Her counter left hand right over the top was perfect accurate throughout she mixed in the good body kicks and she leaned on that wrestling to win rounds without pouring out the gas tank in the end like the first time not you know not an egregious pour out but i think that was the difference in that first fight grasso was fresh or late i thought the opening of round four shevchenko might have looked like she was slowing down a bit like maybe the taxing nature of rounds two and three and all that ground action uh caught up to her but it didn't look she fought fantastic yes Grasso peaked late yes she had a beautiful finish to steal around that was probably going to go Shevchenko's way and that's ultimately the argument against that 10-8 everyone's going to go well there wasn't enough damage for a 10-8 and I do think you're

right but I think what makes that 10-8 so much more egregious is the fact that Shevchenko was winning a close and not that exciting round leading up to that change, which meant that should have been enough for 10-9 and nothing more. And then, again, you can certainly add in the key glaring factor that there just wasn't enough damage being done. Beautiful fight. Sucks that the 10-8 had to cost it. But even if that 10-8 didn't happen, Luke,

is there an argument for Grasso 3-2? Yes, there certainly is. Round four, you really, I do believe, could go either way. But I think snapshot as a whole, Shevchenko was the better fighter. Grasso was not able to figure out the takedown issue. She was able to work out of some bad positions and stay alive and allow room

for that fifth round rally. And you got to give her so much credit. That's the big thing she brings to this matchup against this legend is the fact that Grasso is sturdy, strong, never gives up. In so many ways, she was the perfect fighter to be in the main event in this Noche closeup, reaching out so aggressively to the Mexican fan base.

But did she win the fight? That's the key question. No. And I think unlike the first, I don't even think she won the story of the fight. This is a 35-year-old, all-time great in Shevchenko, who went back to the lab, got in even better shape, got even more focused, and made the right adjustments to, I think, as a whole, perform good enough to get her hand raised. Unfortunately, this Mike Bell situation, Luke, we're not even coming down really to that debate of who won the fourth round because that scorecard from him kind of ruined it.

Kind of ruined it. You know? Hate it. Hated it. So just to clarify, what rounds did you have? 1-3-4 or 1-3-5 for Shevchenko? I have 1-3-5 for Shevchenko? I have 1-3-4 for Shevchenko. Grasso bounced back cleanly in round two,

similar to the first fight where Grasso won the first one. Shevchenko came right back to take it. But I think round three was a Shevchenko round, and then Luke comes down to that round four. So you scored round four for Grasso. Again, I have no issue with that. But damn, does it suck that this one rogue 10-8 scorecard literally was the decider

I hate that shit I want to talk more about Shevchenko's performance because I dug deeper into the numbers and they were actually very surprising at first they were not on my first glance at them when I was doing the post-fight show because you know I'm trying to post and look at numbers at the same time I didn't catch this detail but I caught some other ones but first let's talk about that 10-8 now I have another graphic that I sent to Mikey. This comes from Eric McGracken, combat sports lawyer, or just a lawyer, but combat sports law, I think, is his website. This is the Nevada criteria for 10-8.

And I can't go through all of it. We kind of know what we're looking for. But they say a result is referred to as 10-8 when it meets the following principles. A round has to be scored. The winning unarmed combatant must have dominated the action of the round, had duration of the dominance, and impacted his or her opponent with effective strikes, effective grappling maneuvers, or both that diminish their abilities of their opponent.

A score of 10-8 round is not the most common score for a round, but essential, of course. Then they go on a little bit, and they say a score of 10-8 does not require an unarmed combatant to dominate or impact his opponent for the entire round, which we knew. And, of course, the judge can use it in certain cases. Flip to the other one.

There's a second page to this. Very quickly, if we can. Let's see here. There we go. And with respect to what dominance and effective aggressiveness and effective grappling means, we can't go into reading all of this.

Folks can take a screenshot, or they can go and look up this, these bylaws for themselves. BC, I did read them and I encourage other folks to do the same. I don't know what someone could see in there and then look at what happened in round five as a 10-8 round I mean to your point Shevchenko was basically winning a close but you know I thought relatively clear round in the fifth until about 90 seconds left now the tie turned dramatically after that so that's why I gave it to Grasso I thought she did the more impactful work when it mattered but there was at least some debate some debate about who even won that round the the notion just on that it could be 10-8 sort of is inherently contradictory.

And more to the point, like Chris Bell apparently, excuse me, Mike Bell, what am I saying? Mike Bell scored a few of the rounds that he judged over the course of the evening 10-8, many of them very good. I'm actually glad he's willing to use one when he feels it's appropriate. I would just say this is a simply a clear-cut case of a good officiant.

Mike Bell actually is a pretty good judge, but I literally don't even know what it could be. If she got the back, BC, and held it for the duration, which she did mostly but not entirely, but also really landed heavy blows that were causing her to constantly thrash and writhe in agony or cut her or like did some you know substantial damage combined with submission or just getting absolutely chicken winged out with a half nelson or something you know some kind of really aggressive mean level of control that'd be one thing and it was good but it wasn't even close to that honestly it's one more baffling 10-8s i think i've ever seen

so i think he got caught up unfortunately so the after grasso took the back took advantage of what shevchenko was trying to do countered it so quickly so beautifully full level of urgency you have to love everything about that had a submission threat then she i'm sorry right before the submission threat this is what set up her being able to lay Shevchenko back and try the choke. It was a flurry of ground and pound. That was the best stuff, you know, Grasso landed all fight outside of that beautiful three-punch combination that dropped Shevchenko in round two. And I think Bell got locked up in this part, Luke, for about five seconds. Those are the type of sequences of strikes that leads to stoppage.

I was holding my breath, even though when I rewatched it, I knew the outcome already because I'm like, oh, crap, like she's on the verge of getting stopped. Yes. In that moment that, you know, Val had a bite down. She had to move quickly to get out of that. And to her credit, she did. I just think that Bell took the image of that, how close it did appear that she looked to getting stopped, combined it with the legitimate submission attempt,

which followed, but didn't go anywhere. But what he forgot about, unfortunately, Luke, was not only the entire round before that, as we just talked about, but you got to give Shevchenko this credit, understanding the situation, knowing how to win close fights or put herself in that spot.

In that final minute, after fighting off the choke attempt, she was busier from the bottom with Grasso on her back. I'm not saying these are great strikes. I'm not saying these strikes are landing that final minute after fighting off the choke attempt she was busier from the bottom with with Grasso on her back I'm not saying these are great strikes I'm not saying these strikes are landing or even hurting but she's showing the judges I'm fighting this entire time to get out of this I'm almost going even with her throwing punches over my head at the very least Luke that's grounds for fighting off any form of a 10-8 that shouldn't have been there to begin with. I just think he got caught up in that.

You mentioned his history. John Morgan had done the research. Mike Bell did five 10-8 rounds over the entire evening. One was that first round of Lupe Godinez's win over Reid. Rewatched it. Seemed perfectly fine. Totally fine. And he gave three 10-8 rounds and the Knudsen victory over man and those score

cards were like 30 to 24 30 to 25 so yeah that that makes a ton of sense there so he's not a judge with a bad reputation who had a horrible night he just scored the most important sequence in round of the fight completely incorrectly in a way that, you know, I'm obviously, let's be honest here. He doesn't know what everybody else is scoring. He doesn't know the temperature around this. This is a real pressure on this job, but how many more times in the big moments are we just going to go, Hey man, that's because MMA uses the boxing 10, nine system or Hey man man that's because the rules are the rule set is so vaguely written and some people are oh you know using the word damage which isn't even in there i know big john wanted it to be but it's not other people are taking the loose definition of impact and yes you can impact

somebody with with grappling control but no this was not a 10-8 round and it's it's we're past the point of hey luke what's this week's rant on how MMA judging should be changed? We're using a completely wrong system, which is setting these people up to fail. And it's not a shock that they're failing, because it's not like all these guys have great reputations from commissions with great reputations. This kind of feels like a shit show, but it plays into the idea of what Dana always says and what the company message is, Take it into your own hands. Finish your opponent.

Don't take that chance. Well, that's not modern day MMA. We're going to go to the cards a lot in modern day MMA. And Luke, it's like, unless the commissions are going to put their heads together and make a change, this is what you're going to get. Okay. This right here. And this wasn't a, could have gone either way. That 10-8 was an error of a score but it affected the entire arc

potentially of where these two fighters are going and it's like if you're fine with that UFC and state commissions then we'll just sit here and keep explaining it to the people but that's where it's at I mean I just have to accept basically that the entire commission structure in North America other places too but certainly in North America US other places too, but certainly in North America, U.S. and Canada, and I guess Mexico now too, at least as far as MMA is concerned. But in any case, the commission structure has basically decided that they have a judging system that for the vast majority of any pro MMA bouts, which can include UFC and everything else

underneath it as a pro contest, for the vast majority of those bouts, this judging system is pretty good. It actually is. Like for the vast majority of the bouts that exist and take place in a calendar year, it's fine. The problem is it's uniquely shitty for adjudicating close fights. It's just so bad at it. It's so not designed to give you the actual nuance that you need to get these right.

And so we've given these guys tools in a retrofitted structure that don't really work all that well. And so you get shit like this. But, you know, what can you do? BC, let's, if we can, focus in on that Shevchenko performance. Because in real time, up until that fifth round rally and again you can still make a very clear case for Shevchenko I did notice she had more offensive urgency I kind of felt like you did anecdotally that like she did more to kind of hustle her way through this fight and that she had maybe been a bit of a again with that if she hadn't done that head and arm throw

which was just so fucking ill-advised but neither here nor there that she kind of looked much improved but you know what was funny about this so I went back and I looked at the numbers, and I love that here's one thing I love about this rivalry. We didn't get a full five rounds the last time. Well, we got three plus, nearly four. And then in this one, we did get five. So we've got a lot of different data that mirrors itself across two different fights. Here is what shows up in the data for this one. Shevchenko pushed close to what I've seen her max numbers be in five-round decision contests, but came up short just a little bit everywhere.

She landed a little bit less per round than she normally does. She actually attempted fewer than she normally does at her high water mark. She's normally attempting 50 strikes a round. She never reached that mark once in this fight. She got close. She got like 48 or 49 one time, but she never actually reached over the 50 threshold. There's a lot of control time.

Round three was on the ground the entire round. For sure. For sure. She had control time in the first fight, too, for two rounds. So, like, you know, I mean, there's something to be said for that too uh again someone had a fifth round the last one did not have a fifth round so there's something to be you know mentioned there as well but even then bc like in terms of the amount of strikes she had that were significant strikes over her total that declined nearly 20 in this fight

if you look at what she was able to land to the head that was pretty similar but there was a drop off in a lot of the other categories in other words and by the way she got the same amount of takedowns but she had to get it with one more attempt so she was actually less efficient with the takedown with the takedowns although as you can tell she was attacking my point being is i i think you can make an argument that she was trying so many different things that it kind of muddled her numbers a little bit relative to the first one. However, what I think you can also say is if you look at the proportions of what she was doing, right, in terms of her targeting, in terms of the output, the basic contours stay the same.

So my takeaway from this is that was the best you were going to get from Shevchenko. That was the best you were going to get. She was trying at maximum ability in terms of, you know, volume output, mixing of things, really trying to make a steady attack when it was reasonable while taking away the more dynamic features of her game that got her in trouble. Like for example, the spinning attacks. I honestly, if they make another one and we'll get to this in a minute, I honestly don't know what more adjustments she has to go to, whereas I feel like Grosso actually has still some things that she could lean on that could make a difference. I guess I'm trying to point out what makes it,

if you're a Shevchenko fan who scored the fight for her, to me what makes it extra kind of awful, aside from the fact that the judging was bad, was that was a great performance by her and i actually don't think it can get better i really don't i know like the story of this fight the reality is regardless of how it got scored the story of this fight was that the great aging champion went back to the lab and came out even more efficient and like i said an even better shape i mean you could see it and then obviously the way she was dialed in, but it was a lot of leaning on whatever strengths were there.

I mean, Grasso's good enough on the ground where she's not, you know, I know there was that sequence in the first fight in the second round or the third round, wherever, where Shevchenko, you know, looked like she was close to finish her, had a lot of dominant ground and pound. You don't really get a lot of top-time ground and pound on Grasso, but just leaning on that control time and those strengths that she had in that area and leaning on, I thought she did such a good job to take away the advantages that Grasso had in Southpaw in that first fight with that boxing stance

where she darts in and out. And she did that with the timing of catching her with those left crosses and really making that jab work. That all got taken away. That is the story. Now, you do have an interesting argument on if they go forward in the series, can she do better? That's going to always be a problem when you're more or less a finished product

and you have a young riser who just keeps getting better. And Grasso does look like she keeps getting better, even if this performance, in my vision, was a little bit less effective than it was the first time around. But that's also because of exactly that, the adjustments that Shevchenko, the great champion, made. I mean, look, she told, even though she didn't win this fight, probably should have or could have, right? Because I had it 3-2, so could have. She should have won by only losing a 10-9 round, which means she could have, or should have in that case. But despite that, the younger fighter's going to have more chances

or more opportunities to make those adjustments and rise. But doesn't this speak to Shevchenko's greatness? And she basically telling that stat, you know, of the 35 and over to GFY? I mean, this was, you don't often see the aging, you know what I mean? History tells you that more often than not, the aging champion loses the rematch again, sometimes even easier. And look,

I thought she had a better performance and maybe the, the, the strike totals don't compare to what she's used to. I don't think she's fought an opponent in this division who has the combination of clean striking and great striking defense as Grasso does. But look at how Shevchenko adjusted to that and still found a path to victory. She still might be the best fighter in this division, Luke, right now.

She still might be the best overall. Yeah, but even if she is, the sands in the hourglass are starting to move. I mean, let me ask you about this, because it's something I brought up on Saturday night. I would love to get your response. And this, to me, remains eternally surprising. What I said on Saturday night was there is not always a clean connection between someone being much stronger as a physical athlete and then also having more punching power. There often is a correlation,

but they're not totally tied together. And why I bring that up is BC, you know where I'm going with this. When they lock up physically, Valentina is simply much stronger. She just is like, there's just no denying it. the other hand dude the punching power of Grasso really set her on fire in this fight now she was so much better about rolling with it when she had to she had some good defenses I'm just saying when it did land wow dropping her taking her off of her feet in the second round is it that we just didn't realize that Grasso is such a dynamic puncher or is Father Time starting to dwindle the punch resilience of someone like Valentina Shevchenko? No, I think it's a combination of all the factors,

finding the right division that doesn't diminish some of her potential greatness because of how taxing that weight cut was. And then the evolution of not just her body filling out. So maybe putting more weight down on the shots, but Luke, she has evolved. She used to be a, you know, especially at, at Stroh, she was a good boxer, had some of the best pure skills, but that didn't always equate to danger. Now her ability to sit down on punches

and throw perfect technical three-punch combos that the great Valentina with pull the sword of 30 years of experience in 17 kickboxing championships, just both times she got dropped, right? First fight and second, they were on beautiful combinations that she just didn't see coming. Luke, show me on one hand

how many elite female MMA fighters at this point in the sports evolution have that striking ability. I'm not talking about a big right hand off the jab like Amanda Nunes has. And, you know, she's got great technique. She also has next level power, sort of cyborg. Cyborg's a very technical fighter.

She's evolved. But I mean, Grasso is is like she's like a boxer in there luke so in that regard i don't think it comes down to shevchenko's punch resistance changing she hasn't gotten beaten up a lot in her career or put in precarious situations right the fight she's lost have been to newness in the ufc on that level and a lot of times it comes down to just a mistake or strategy change or maybe she was physically outgunned just a bit at 135 or maybe the judges got it wrong in the shift in the Nunes rematch I don't know but no she I mean Luke well I mean she thought Nunes at 135 this is at 125 there might be something to be said for what the weight cut does at age 35 to her absolutely but but let me ask you this question did Shevchenko show you anything

in this rematch that suggests she's going in the either direction at all in terms of going you know getting old I didn't see anything dude I mean I thought she came back and was better than ever she's just fighting a great fighter this is a lot about the fact that Alexa Grasso is a great freaking fighter and a and a worthy champion despite that 10-8 round. 100%. The broad strokes of that, I fully agree with. And again, I'm not declaring what state she's in. She looked to be in tremendous physical condition.

Maybe Grosso is just a really incredible puncher. But I go back to it one more time, and we'll spin this forward in a minute. I want to make one last point on the fight but I do just feel like when you look at this effort it was so comprehensively well done from Shevchenko where she was a lot of times check hooking her way around that one two that was so valuable the first time from Grasso she had you know she was threatening off of her back at times when she needed to she did make that tragic mistake for herself in round five but you know in general I thought had a very sharp like what do we need to get rid of what do we need to focus on where does this fight need to be contested and again she got dropped in the second and got in her back taken in the fifth

but other than that really put on a very I guess a tough opponent a great performance I just go back to like I really don't know what else she could reasonably add at this point. All right, I got two questions for you. Then we can close on these beautiful ladies in this part of the conversation. Who would have won this fight, Pride Rules? I think that decides it. I know you had a 3-2 Grosso without the 10-8 round, but who would have won this fight, Pride Rules? Who was the better fighter on this night, Luke?

I probably would have—well, that's tough. Shevchenko might have gotten it. I agree with you. I agree with you. That's the story of it. She was better for longer stretches, which is, again, not how it's scored. It's scored based on different ways. But I can see why that might favor her.

But again, it would be close because there would be people who would be like, oh, well, you know what? When it mattered, Grasso was better. I can see that case, too. All right. There's one other thing. Ethan Chan was an MK donk who jumped in my DMs and a couple other people had something similar to this but I want to get your question maybe I overplayed the idea that it was a huge Shevchenko

mistake on the spinning backstrike that led to her getting submitted in the first fight but again I think there were other factors in there I thought Shevchenko was fading just a bit but what these people are saying Luke Ethan in particular is okay However you want to frame that, that's still a mistake that was countered and led to her defeat. She also had a mistake on this trip takedown effect that led to her defeat. And he's claiming in the second Nunes fight that Shevchenko had a similar mistake on a trip takedown attempt in round five, which led to her being on her back, which may have played into the visual of the judges down the stretch.

Is there any truth to the idea that as absolutely brilliant and historic and amazing as Bulla is, that maybe a couple times, you know, there's a fumble or two in the biggest key drive of the game, you know, in the playoffs here, a couple times, you know? There's more than a few fumbles.

She's done this on a number of occasions. I don't think it's in any way unfair to bring up that. I mean, first of all, like the head and arm throw is such a fucking scourge of women's MMA. Now, the great news about it is you got fighters who, by the way, I mean, some of the men do it too, of course, but like, you know, for example, like one of the guys who does it is,

he didn't win his last contest, but Sergei Spivak, when he does score with the head and arm throw and he lands in scarf hold he's actually pretty good from it like there can be Ronda Rousey stopped Alexis Davis from there from scarf hold like you can do good things there but what ends up happening is they don't have good enough wrestling typically although she does but she just has bad habits and she just goes for this like you know throw which is kind of like you know just amateur hour for somebody who's trying to wrestle back a UFC title it's not a very effective throw you have to have the sequence after the throw really well understood you have to have that positioning

locked up there's just better ways to go about fighting this contest and she has fumbled this a few times yeah it's you can absolutely question not her I guess her overall fight IQ was quite good and her talent is obviously very, very high. But in some of these presence of mind moments, she does make categorical errors. And there are people online, I don't really share the schadenfreude, but people online being like, yeah, if you're going to go for head and arm throws in round five, you deserve to lose. I don't think that's quite true. But I understand why they look at this and they're like dude stop fucking doing these techniques that are from 2009 and don't you know

women's mma should be in terms of the wrestling much more advanced and again the better fighters in general much are there so much better in terms of wrestling than they once were it's just this weird anachronistic kind of bug that's stuck around in the women's game a little bit yeah do we explain the shevchenko loss in the first Nunes fight at 196 as kind of just running out of time or figuring it out too late? Figuring it out too late. Because also Nunes, I think, really faded down the stretch in that one a little bit, if memory serves.

And it was also a three-round versus five. But she definitely, and she got whooped early in that fight too, but she stormed later on in the contest anyway there's a few different things but um she has made that mistake uh many times all right before we go to number two last thing i just want to say dude what a wonderful rivalry for this division yeah this is not one i ever expected to get two maybe three fights from i think you share my appreciation for this this is well matched uh it's fun to debate these results. I mean, I feel bad for both of them in the sense that there wasn't any clarity.

But, dude, what a great way to lift and magnify this division to the masses. And we'll talk about UFC Noche or Noche UFC later. But do you share my enthusiasm for what this kind of fight and this rivalry can do? I mean, this is the best division in female MMA. And that was one of the best title fights in terms of ability countering you know stamina i mean it was just beautiful to watch and to see these two now kind of oddly linked together yeah we didn't see this coming and it kind of fuels the the key question here entering into topic two luke all right so let's do it topic

number two this is very easy i'm going to spin it right back to you bc very simple question we stay with the fight but we do in fact move it forward so my question to you is bc what makes the most sense now at women's flyweight should they run it back and do a trilogy fight between these two back to back to back or should grasso defend against a fresh contender i want to have a knee-jerk hot take. This is the way, right? Let's do it, Mandalorian. But Luke, I really think the arguments on both sides are very compelling, okay? This matchup rules.

Valentina was winning the first fight but cleanly lost it, right? And then I feel like she won the second one. Do you show respect to this great champion and do you try to maximize the momentum built here on Noche UFC of this great fight and not only go another time because it's sort of like

it is unfinished business between them I mean this does change it I thought I actually was on that side for the Holloway Volkanovski argument of let's do a third one there because I recognize that these are two great fighters. And I felt that Max won the second one. You know, maybe over time that argument feels less and less passionate. But I was kind of okay with that.

I think there's some level of that argument in here for Valentina. And then what's your worst case scenario if you went that way, even though there is a bottleneck atop of this division of potentially marketable and breakout fighters, would it be awful if you had to do Manon Farrell versus Aaron Blanchfield in a true number one contender fight? Not the end of the world, Luke, but you would be taking the two of them and putting them against each other. And, you know, one go one way, one go the other. You can I think you can argue just the same due to the popularity particularly in ferro and then obviously the fact that blanchard does look title ready right now in saying okay let's not do it next but let's do it soon like a you know two fights from now

would it hurt would it kill i don't know i think you might just look at this and if you're the ufc and go we love the rub that Grasso is getting from matching herself against this all-time great fighter, and it's a little bit unfinished, and it just busted through the roof of Noche UFC in this main event fight delivered. Luke, would it kill them to go to Mexico City with this trilogy? That's the thing. When you have an opportunity to do something big and crazy like that, I don't want to see Blanchfield and Farrell have to fight each other necessarily.

You know what I mean? There's a lot of contenders right around there. I want to see the future. Same argument we just had at middleweight. I don't want to see Izzy next right now in another immediate rematch. There's different circumstances with that. But I do think in this case, I mean, Shevchenko, not a raw deal, not a robbery i mean shevchenko not a raw deal not a robbery well but yeah kind of a raw deal luke shevchenko might deserve the respect to run this

back another time and just the fact that these two put on two really really good fights that are like the best representation of of this division and in this sport on the female side sometimes you do have to capitalize on timing luke what would be a bigger fight this in mexico or anything else i mean that's the argument right anything else you like anything else but this in mexico i don't think folks understand the economics of what it would be in mexico first of all like our producers bringing this up but of course we all heard when valentina was asked i went back and i was like how quickly did she go to oh it was because it was a mexican independence day thing how quickly did she go to that to blame that on the judge's decision and it

was almost immediate it was very very that's a fair point so it was in the post-fight interview and then again in the press conference yes she doubled down on it and i was like okay all right that's one way to look at it. Fair point, okay. All right, so that's one part. But it would just be basic economics. Like, again, if you're trying... Like, the predominant pay-per-view buying audience is the U.S., followed by Canada, right?

If you're trying to sell pay-per-views to those people who are going to buy the pay-per-view, I'm assuming it would be on pay-per-view. If not, that does change economics a little bit. But if you're going to put it on pay-per-view, you have to sell in an arena which can afford it. The ticket prices in Mexico are going to be significantly lower because the dollar is so strong. And then you wouldn't be able to really marshal the kind of media attention from indigenous media. That would be U.S.-based media for the pay-per-view buying audience to Mexico to let them know about it. So it would have to be another fight night card, which again, you could do, but then

it goes back to the other side of things. Like it just, it doesn't, I would, I would love to see it in Mexico. I'm not going to hold my breath. I think is the way I would put that. But also I would just say this, and this is why I went, I made that point as explicitly I did in the first topic BC. I think you can really make a case that Shevchenko was the better fighter overall on Saturday night. Again, I thought Grasso won, but I can see this bigger argument that you have made,

and others as well, and that the draw is unfair. And then also maybe you can look at this and say, right, but that was her window. That was it. That was the window right there to get it. Because now you're only going to get older there's not many more adjustments she can really go to to like i mean what what meaningfully else she could tighten up certain things right but now you're again you're stripping away pieces of her offense as she does this having to get rid of the spinning back pass having to get rid of the spinning kick

having to like really change some of your offense to minimize any potential counters. If you do even more of that, you're really dieting out your offense at that point. I don't know what else she could reasonably do except for a couple of small adjustments. Meanwhile, I do think Rosso has a chance to add even more to the repertoire. And this is my other point. BC, you don't just have a number one contender right now at women's flyweight. You've got two of them. You've got two of them sitting there waiting.

It'd be one thing if there was like, oh, Aaron Blanchfield is waiting for this. You could say, well, maybe hold on. Dude, we haven't even figured that out. I know what folks are going to say. We'll have them fight. But then you're just cannibalizing one contender for the other. No, I think if Shevchenko wanted to sit out and let Grosso defend,

winner of that gets Shevchenko. I'd be totally okay with that. I think a fresh matchup is exactly what this division needs. I don't really care about that. They need to move this along. It's not an easy decision. Would you admit it's not an easy decision? Now, the Mexico factor with Shevchenko's comments does change that.

And what I also forgot about was what we talked about last week, Luke. We have no movement on this Bantamweight title. And if you do want to maximize your time left and try to make a big historical move, then yeah, Valentina going up to 35 and fighting, you know, Giuliana Pena or Holly for the vacant belt or whatever,

Pennington, whatever they want to do there, that would give her a chance right now after such a strong performance to potentially win a title in the second weight class. And then you're always going to have the window open. Could Grasso and Shevchenko meet a third time, you know, a little bit down the road before Shevchenko's done. That's why I said off the top, Luke, it's a really hard decision.

It is a really hard decision right now. So then let me ask you this. If the way you lean is correct, that we we do move the division forward and what's what's to support that argument the fact that the mexican champion is still the champion yeah that supports it very well by the way um who next then do you take do you try to capitalize on the on the commercial promise in france of what faro is or do you go right to Blanchfield knowing that belt could change hands for all we know? You know what I'm saying? Especially with the wrestling troubles Grasso

has had with Valentina. Blanchfield. Blanchfield. Her case for being number one contender to me is stronger than Fioro's by a considerable margin. I think it's very close, Luke, because I was doing this in my pound-for-pound rankings of who should be higher. I have Blanchfield and Farrow at four and five and I'm like who should be the one

that's in front if I think if you look at who they beat in the timing it's pretty damn close yeah I mean they're both number one contenders but to me I think what Blanchfield has done has been a little bit more hard-nosed and in your face and therefore not merely more intriguing but somewhat more respectable. So I think they should go with her. And people might say, well, then you lose the fight between, the third fight between Shevchenko and Grasso. No, you don't. You can just do it again.

You can make it for five rounds. You don't, like, you don't, yes, you would lose the impact of the potential title. But guys, there's a fucking division that has to be taken care of. We can't, I mean, I will admit this. There are certain times, like for example, after UFC 293, people being like, oh, immediate, you know, immediate,

that would be the rematch between Sean and Izzy. And I'm like, dude, there's not much of a case. Like the guy lost cleanly. Here, you do have that case. You do have the ability to have a conversation like, is this the kind of fight that qualifies for another do-over immediately again? It is that kind of fight that qualifies for another do-over immediately again?

It is that kind of fight. I recognize that. However, I just feel like we're doing a massive disservice to the rest of the division in order to indulge a rivalry that we don't need to see necessarily indulged on the terms that would be more ideal, but hardly necessary. Move the division along. It was a draw. She's 35 years old she had two shots to retain her title she couldn't do it move it along have Aaron Blanchfield fight and

let's see what happens all right yeah again you make a great compelling case but then let me ask you this if it's not 30 or let me ask you this what what should be next for Valentina? What should be? Should it be 35? Should it be rematch with Tyler Santos? Should it be her and Manon Farrow? How about, I mean, there are a couple different ways. How about Rose and Valentina, two former champions? That'd be a heck of a main event somewhere on a fight night. I mean, what do you do, Luke?

If I'm her, I'm taking whatever path is closest to the title. So if that's 135 against Holly Holm, who, you know, they've got history, obviously, that went Shevchenko's way, I would take that. If it's, hey, sit out, you'll get the next one after there's a defense, I would take that. You know, she is a, you know, a decorated champion in this organization. And again, if she had lost cleanly, I would say to what I would have said

about Izzy last week, which was, you know, you do need to fight another one. Again, I can understand if they wanted to have him sit out and then wait, but fighting another one would be great. I don't think she has to fight anybody else. I mean, to get back into the title queue. I don't think that. But I do believe that they've got to start rotating this through a little bit because, you know, they're going to make the logjam even more difficult,

and then they're going to create suboptimal matchmaking behind these two by forcing people into competitions that don't do them any favors down the road the time to move the division forward is right now you can always revisit this fight for a third time that's what i think bitches i heard you say that yeah i heard it i heard it a few times yeah well here a better question. What do you think the UFC is going to do? Unless they're folding that 35 division, this opens up a life raft for them. The best matchup you can do for, I think, the combination of commercial appeal,

also with we're not really sure what it's going to look like or who's going to win in my opinion is Valentina and Juliana Pena because you know Pena hasn't fought since losing the title to Nunes in the rematch and I think it's yeah comical that Yahoo Sports would have her number one pound for pound but I do think in the two fights with Nunes she showed that she's star ready that she wants to smoke all of that so she actually would be the perfect foil to seeing Valentina. If this is, you know,

an option, if this is what she wants in the UFC wants to go do that above even a Holly home rematch or, or bringing Rocky Pennington. And I think that's suddenly a big fight. You got the historical nature of the two division champion possibility. Pena could be in the, you know,

can be a star again, could talk trash, can do all that stuff. I think that's the direction, Luke. And look, even with that division being barren as is all hell right now, you can't discount what that means to a to a resume, right? You know, she walks away to, OK, you never beat Nunes, but two division champion have a big argument in the Nunes rivalry.

That's not nothing. Even with a shitty division, Luke um that's not nothing even with a shitty division luke that's something big right that's big you could still you could still fight grasso a third time to echo luke thomas's point you could and also like i mean here's the top five right now at women's 135 let's just go through it five is holly holm who she already beat four is ketlyn vieira that would be a fresh matchup three is is Myra Bueno Silva, although I think she has a modest suspension related to some kind of anti-doping violation. Two would be Raquel Pennington.

And then one would be Juliana Pena. Guys, I got to tell you, I mean, you know, if you're a Shevchenko fan, which one of those is like the death matchup? I can see a couple of difficult ones, but I don't see anyone where I would clearly pick them over her. That's the entire top five. So like there's all she got. She has options,

dude. She did. She did not in any way perform poorly except for the end of that fifth round, which I thought was just, you know, awful. But OK, they're not going to make her fight for real, right? That's not happening. If I were her, I would just be like, what are you doing? I know I would not take that fight. I would not for a fucking what? What are you going to get out of it? You're going to beat someone you probably can't already beat to hold your spot? I mean, you know, I just don't even. Now, Luke, Mikey believes she would smoke Manal.

Do you echo that? And let's assume he's right. That would make it even worse. Yeah. She goes and just blows the doors off of her. Now you've ruined a contender's chances to have a fresh fight and also she just keeps her place by by a fight that didn't need to happen it's like why the fuck would you do that okay what if i told you that over the next year this would become the third best division in the entire sport what

if i told you that what would you say would you be telling me that with your pants around your ankles that's so unfair there's no documented history there's no paper trail would you say? Would you be telling me that with your pants around your ankles? That's so unfair. There's no documented history. There's no paper trail to prove that. Would you tell me that on a date with Lauren Boebert at a Beetlejuice showing in Colorado and she's touching you? I don't understand this reference, Luke. It's insulting to me because of that. I mean, you know, yeah, there you go.

You don't follow the news cycle at all, do you? No, I live in the news cycle of my own mind, Luke, which is always taking me back to 1970s, okay? I made such a good joke about public groping that I thought you would really get behind, and you just hung me high and dry. I did. Because you have the reading stamina of a five-year-old,

really is the... I'm going to get to the end of Dune. Don't worry, I got a five-year plan here set up, okay? I'm going to read all 800 pages believe me we'll get your your pledge to read dune is like on par with like your home mortgage amortization schedule so it's like you know two pages every month for the next 30 years is really the way you're doing this um all right let's go to topic number three if we can move the chains on this show here. How about the co-main event, BC?

Jack D'Alema-Metalena defeats Kevin Holland. Kevin Holland. And, you know, there's a sort of few different takes on... By the way, some people thought Holland won, but this is the way I'd like to ask the question for you, BC. Did Jack D'Alema-Metalena prove with this win that he's ready for the top 10? I think he did. I think he did.

Not in an overwhelming, exciting way, but I don't call this fight boring. I think he was basically like setting up shop on the outside, having success winning the technical battle, although let's give Holland credit, he made some adjustments. There were some times he landed some big shots. I think if anything, I'm like, hey, Kevin Holland, where were the takedown attempts to do something? I mean, obviously, I guess he could have been confident enough that he had it.

I, you know, I gave rounds one and three to Jack. I admit that two of these three rounds are pretty damn close. But I do feel like Holland winning cleanly wasn't the fight that I saw. I would have liked to have seen what happened if Holland had shot that the wrestling has been a big part of his reinvention at welterweight. But in the striking battle, which was competitive, Jack set the terms and Kevin went along with the dance and the better technical fighter won. And I thought he landed a couple of big shots. He had the threat of kicks, as you see in that picture right there. But overall, did he regress at all coming off of a weird sort of close fight in the last minute replacement last time?

No, I think he still showed you that skills-wise. I mean, Luke, what are we seeing again from Strickland to the Grasso upset in the first Shevchenko fight to Jack in this fight? Striking defense is the new thing, Luke. Jack is fighting under some legitimately responsible and effective striking defense that allowed him to get off his shots and for the most part land the better strikes than Holland. No, there was no exclamation point on this, but Holland, we talked about it coming in. Holland was a real wild card for the top end of this division. And maybe this was close, yeah, but it should be close against somebody of Holland's ability.

Outside of the lack of a ground attempt at all from Kevin Holland, Jack took another step forward, and I was impressed by it. So I definitely feel like he looked top 10 ready with this one. And you mentioned striking defense. I had a whole rant on this on Saturday night. Dude, I got to tell you, for the better strikers in MMA, you're starting to see significantly better defense, and it's comprehensive. It's partly the way in which they are manipulating range. It's partly the way in which they implement their guard and then strategically how they use that guard and in what circumstances.

Also, there's just starting to be better footwork and guys using lateral movement and then getting in on strikes, exiting, that kind of stuff. They're just putting themselves in the right positions at the right time, then exiting defensively at the right time as well. Kyle Nelson also on this card had a strong performance related to that,

not quite as sharp as JDM with the higher-end talent he's facing, but nevertheless, very commendable. And it's something that is noteworthy. For folks who have never trained, offense is always the first thing that people go to and learn, and it's actually defense that kind of catches up later, with some exceptions here or there. But it's good to see that defense is making its way more responsibly and more thoroughly into MMA striking. Now, the fight itself, I disagree with your recitation of it.

First round I thought was good. Second round I thought was okay. Third round I thought was just sparring. It didn't look to me like either guy, I'm not saying they weren't stepping on the gas, but they were a little bit out of ideas and then just didn't change a whole lot in the end now it was more on Kevin Holland to change and I did think he took the third

as a consequence but it was a little bit too little too late and the fight kind of stalled out a little bit by the end of that now that's not their responsibility people think they're entertainers they're not explicitly in that way but they were getting booed by the audience, which I didn't agree with. But I understand relative to the promise of what that fight represented,

it kind of stalled out and was boring by the end of the third. All right. But in terms of how Jack de la Maddalena looked, dude, he looked good. You know what the difference was between him and Kevin Holland, BC? He was just way more focused and disciplined with how he was fighting. He was not going to strike on Kevin Holland's terms if he could avoid it.

He was maintaining stout defensive guard structure and choices about when to go. He was clever with his setups. He would throw multi-punch combinations. He had an answer to at least some extent for that kind of Philly shell, that leaning Philly shell that Kevin Holland was using that that also did pretty well for kevin in terms of you know blocking some shots but even then jdm was able to get through and it looked to me like he was definitely ready for a step up in competition however it also just kind of

bought you know the thing about kevin holland it's like he's got all the ability in the world, and he has been very explicit that he's not hunting the title. And so you can't begrudge a guy like that. Nate Diaz is the exact same way. They have figured out a lane where they feel like they can probably maximize wealth with the time that they have and opportunity just by staying active and then kind of being that gunslinger hero, and that's

better than trying to literally be the guy who can beat everybody else and i i understand that um at the same time though i just didn't feel like i got the best out of kevin holland in this fight which is partly credit to jdm of course but i don't know it's like how specific was the training around jdm in this fight because it looked like once he was able to get going with more volume in the third, he was able to do a little bit more. But again, it was too little too late. I don't know. I agree that the fight got worse as it progressed.

I wasn't bored per se, but I disagree on your scoring of the third round. All three judges and myself gave the third round to Jack Della Maddalena. All three judges gave the second round to Holland, which I did. And then two of the three gave round one to Jack, the third judge who scored it for Holland, two to one, had round one for Holland.

But yeah, I mean, look, the onus was on Holland to change his fortunes in the fight. And he never stepped on the gas to do that. Now, again, did he feel like he was leading in the fight or felt like if he took more

chances, Jack was going to be there to counter? It's hard to say, but I do agree overall for all those questions we've kind of had about Holland's true focus and direction through this walk. This was not the fight where I wanted this performance, meaning he left a little bit too much in the gunsling, you know, and didn't bring it all Luke in the holster because he was just coming off a victory that really kind of opened our eyes to, is this guy a title contender here? Is this guy moving in that direction? You want to see him leave no doubt. And I don't, even with the split decision finish, I think there wasn't doubt to me who

was the better fighter in this case. And that turned out to be Jack. So credit to Jack for bouncing back from an up and down performance last time. But yeah, Luke, if you're not in it to win it all, I don't know. I mean, I know you can be in it to entertain. You can be in it for money. Derek Lewis has laid out that plan a lot. But, come on, Kevin Holland, get after it, dude.

You're really freaking good. I mean, Luke, he's long as shit. He was splitting the guard of Jack's very tight defense in key moments, particularly in that second round, which I thought he won. I don't know you know he might have had success on the ground if he would have if he would have not not spam the takedowns but make it a credible threat in there you know what here's the thing to me again i i i don't know about the takedowns i feel like de la metalina's takedown defense is pretty good so i don't know about that but maybe from the clinch that would be a little bit you gotta find out don't you have to find out luke yeah i also feel like kevin

holland's got these long ass arms he should be using them for like body lock stuff a little bit more regularly to like mix things up but the thing that gets me on with the kevin holland stuff is it's you're right it's like i again i'm gonna say one more time i don't mind the guys who are like i just don't think it's worth my time to be like, I'm going to be able to beat everybody. But that isn't a get out of like jail free card. That isn't, you know, you don't have to, you know, maximally try every single time. That's not quite what it means. It means you got to like target how you take fights and against who and then, you know, what kind of frequency and everything else.

And I just felt like I don't begrudge him being like i don't want to chase something that you know it just doesn't interest me i want to keep this competition schedule fine but then in a case like this i still don't think i got everything kevin holland could have brought to the table i think he's more talented than what he showed credit to jdm for taking a lot of that away but i don't think he's the sole reason a lot of that was gone i thought there were some other things that could have what'd you think about the talking between them, Luke? A couple times it got a little spicy in there. Fucking hated it.

Hated it. Apparently he was saying stuff to him like, hey, we should train together. It's like, dude, that's just the, I mean, you know, look, I'm just an asshole sitting in my fucking desk chair in my office. Like, what do I know? But I just know that the ones who are like the most insanely competitive don't do that. That's what I know. You know what my guy Anthony Smith does? You're stealing from my children.

Remember he told Johnny Walker that business? That was wild, right? Yeah, Johnny Walker's like, what the fuck? Yeah, he's like, wait, did I sleep with your wife in Scotland? I'm not sure. Wait, who are you again? Yeah, that was the only, that was the, yeah, okay. In any case, well, I guess we'll see what happens.

I don't think, by the way, I don't think Kevin Holland's stock dropped some significant amount or anything like that. And I don't think by the way I don't think Kevin Holland's stock dropped you know some significant amount or anything like that and I don't think JDM's like exploded but I do think this was a meaningful step up and I'm excited to see him against the top 10 I think it will be by the way a Vicente Luque fight count me in yeah that'd be magic I'd be into it let's do it okay all right topic number uh four BC let's let's quickly touch on the Raul Rosas phenomenon so we both thought he was going to get a win and he did turned out to be by KO versus via sub but he got it just the same inside of a minute

in the first round now this was a fight he was widely expected to win BC and he does the job so I'm trying to figure out what's a fair way to give a guy a grade for winning a fight in the UFC that he was expected to win but of course is still as everyone is very quick to remind us just 18 years old give me a fair and appropriate

grade for his performance how about an a because I mean when when you finish somebody so quickly which can happen when you have a you know a bone nickel level hyped young prospect and Rosas has his own lane in terms of hype because of the age. You're not going to always learn a ton. Who knows, right? Until this guy's in there against legitimately someone with a pulse, even beyond the guy that he fought last time, which created all this doubt. But he went in there and showed us explicitly that he's adding to his game. I know he made all the comments of, you know, I fixed the holes.

I figured it out. And yes, young fighters of any kind, 18 years old or not, tend to need the wake-up call that an early loss gives you. I know his situation is different with the age and level of hype, but he responded to that perfectly. He went in there and didn't just take the guy down, submit him in a second, be like, well, this is what I do better than anybody else. He showed offensive intention to come in there with a high pace and land big shots.

That was an absolutely beautiful looping bomb that scored the knockdown that led to the finish. It was really good ground and pound, really good intention, confidence, ferociousness. It helps, of course. It's Mexican Independence Day weekend. It's Noche and, you know, it comes out in the sombrero. Dude, what else would you have wanted from him here? This was an absolute perfect comeback to restore the confidence. Again, it doesn't answer all the questions, but it never does unless you keep beating one bigger name after another in all different kinds of fights. He has a long time to get there. For what we're trying now with the 18-year-old version of him, I feel like this sealed the hole.

Remember on Full House when Michelle and DJ accidentally, and Stephanie, they were playing around with the dad's closet thing, and they put the thing through the hole, and they had to cover it up quick with a really poorly done plaster job? Luke, this was better than that. I never saw that. I never saw that. All right. I don't know what to say about that.

You remember they had that song, Dad, Dad, Dad. You remember that? I don't. You're really washed right now. But in all seriousness, I think I'd give him probably, I'd give him maybe an A-. I don't think A is a little strong. Yeah, because you're a hater.

Admit it. You're a Rojas. I mean, I might be a Rojas hater because I've been saying his name wrong all day. Yeah, you say Rojas. I mean, at least I know his name. You're a Rojas hater from the day one of, I ain't going to let this teenager be good. I'm a Rojas hype mean at least I know his name you're a Rojas hater from the day one of I ain't gonna let this teenager be good I'm a Rojas hype skeptic big difference I don't have anything personal against I don't know the kid how the fuck can I have anything the only person you

hate worse than Rojas Luke is every white person all right which would include me which would include me but in all seriousness again I think it's an A- because let's talk about the good part, which is what you identified. You know, he had less than one significant strike per minute. Granted, he didn't have a lot of minutes. But, dude, do you know how many strikes he landed, not in this fight, but the one previous over the course of three rounds? Do you know how many? Mm-mm.

How many did he actually land? Two? Two punches in 15 minutes. He landed fucking two. So then he does this performance you can't give him an a dude he was tremendous a minus a minus no dude you got to learn to read between the lines here a little bit or teach me here professor salt and pepper well okay i will i will i ask you questions about boxing all the time i don't pretend to know everything i don't know everything about mma but i do know what i'm about to say, which is, so look, him opening up and going for the striking on the

ground is obviously just a much better choice. And it's good to see that I consider meaningful progress. That's one. Two, he dropped the guy on the feet, which was, he had to kind of punch across his body to do it because his positioning was a little bit off. But again, we're talking about UFC striking. So on that level, I think I'd give him two thumbs up as well. So those are great things that I think you should take from it. I just think that you need to stop there. Here's the problem. People can't just say he's a good prospect who made a couple of meaningful changes that

will set him up for the future. That is, to me, the appropriate takeaway. That's not what they do. What they do is they go, oh, here we go. He's back. He's the future of MMA, blah, blah, blah. Guys, let me ask you a question. Do you think he's the only 18-year-old in America right now who could have beaten Terrence Mitchell on Saturday and done it inside of a minute? Because I don't think that. I don't think that at all. I think there's probably several that could have done it. Here is the problem that I have. He had made better decisions with his offensive weapons.

All good. All good. But he's raging in fights still. He was swinging wildly as shit. And he overwhelmed a guy who just didn't have much ability to be there, which was fine. That was his job. But my point is you can't look at that and then declare this is an elite prospect who is destined for great things.

What you can say is he's a obviously green fighter who is starting to round the corner a little bit on some of his more known deficiencies. But he is very green. How do people not see this? He is so clearly green on everywhere. Look, I don't think people are fighting this battle that you're creating. I think the loss last time. Are you shitting me? Took all of that, like, a lot of that air out of the balloon.

Why is he popular? Why is he popular? Now, he put a lot of the air back in the balloon with the performance, but I don't think people are saying this guy should be fighting a top 10 guy or fight for the title next. I mean, the kid's 18. No, nor am I suggesting people have said that. Where did I say people said that?

I didn't say that. Then who are you fighting against right now? I definitely saw multiple people saying, oh, my God, he's the future of the sport on Saturday night. I absolutely saw that numerous times. That's insane to say. And it's not for me to declare that that's not true, but my point is how on earth could you declare that based on everything we have?

Well, I don't think they're saying that. Last point. No, I'm trying to define what they're saying. I don't think they're saying he's going to win a championship in a year. I think they're saying at 18, he looks this good. He is the future of the sport. Dude, if he doesn't fail, he will be the future of the sport. Look at what he's doing.

Nothing about what he is doing tells you he's going to win in the future. And I'm sure all Uber drivers are decent people, but you got to give it a chance here, you know? Dude, okay, you have to give it a chance. I understand. What I'm trying to get everyone to wrap their head around is he's green. Like, really green. Not like a little green. Majorly green. Like where he has to be in a year,

we're not even like bordering on the idea of anyone in the top 15. That's only fair to his development. I'm just trying to get like people, they want to heap praise on him and say, look how good he is at 18. You could find someone else in the United States at 18 to win that fight as quickly as he did in the United States. You could do that. That's not some like, is not bo nickel a three or four time division one champion pulled into mma and they

just literally can't find a guy to stand in front of him long enough they literally that's not what this is rojas t-shirt luke you're making me want to buy one now wear it on the show every day because everyone wants to just buy into the hype and not the actual tape and what it says. And then when I come along, I'm like, well, the tape doesn't say that. Oh, you're a fucking hater. No, no, no. He's the next best thing. You are being a hater right now.

I mean, he already had the humbling moment of it's not going to be perfect. You're not going to win a championship by the time you get armpit hair. What are we doing grading people like this? It's the UFC. When Jon Jones came around, we only noticed his age after he started beating the shit out of people that's what i'm talking about you beat the shit out of the good people first and then we'll note your age it doesn't work the other way around and as long as people keep inverting that relationship they're going to keep getting the analysis of this totally

fucking people okay real question are these people educated or are these the same people that you tell me their opinion doesn't matter generally? I don't know how pervasive the views are about him relative to his actual upside. I am obviously speaking somewhat anecdotally, but I just want folks to be like, be happy for what it was. He has, his back-taking ability is great. Like, it's legitimately very good right he is very very good at that um he's strong he's physical right that's these are all good signs but the

way you'll know he's really turned a corner is not by raging through a guy who he's overmatched against it's by methodically beating someone who can offer intelligent resistance and we're not even close to that fight that's what I'm talking about. Luke, I don't think they're trying to match him to get him a championship in a year. I think they're just like, this kid's really good. He can connect with this market. I don't think the UFC is.

That's right. Hold on. Hold on. I'm trying to get to a point here before you cut me off. Then you can have it. My point is, him in motion at every level will be a reality show. Because it's like oh that's that really young kid let's see what he does i saw him lose one time i don't believe him oh he's getting

better he's getting better that's what this is going to be it's going to be incremental updates no one's talking about him bo nickel's different he's 27 he's married it's different please stop pretending please stop pretending that this is not a partly a conversation oh god my fucking siri showed up on my screen. God damn it. Hold on one second. Please tell me that this is, you understand that what's partly happening here is, like it's the same,

it's not quite the same thing. This is not quite true. In any kind of style of promotion, the promoter, when they have a prospect that is interesting, sometimes they will end up turning into somebody really special. That does happen time to time. It's pretty rare, but it can happen. Pick your favorite example of such. that is interesting sometimes they will end up turning into somebody really special that does happen time to time it's pretty rare but it can happen pick your favorite example of such but what

they want to do in the interim before it's clear is lean on the suggestive side that it will happen i'm merely trying to promotion that's promotion you have to get people to so why am i obligated to indulge that because nobody's fighting the argument that you're fighting against unless it's you're so wrong dude they're obviously some nerds that have that are trying to like rile you up luke but nobody's trying to say like he's not saying in the post-fight interview i got this many days left before i beat john jones's record to become the youngest champion he wants to be the youngest champion he still said that was but he's also 18 like it's going to be each fight is going to be be its own chapter in this reality show. You think he can be, let me ask you seriously.

You think he's good enough now that within two years, it is at least conceivable that he could challenge for a title? I mean, if he turns out that he's great and he starts climbing it really fast. But I think we learned from the last fight that it's going to take some time. And I think the UFC got enough of a scare there that they're going to realize, let's just keep raising the bar a little bit, fight by fight. And he could still be a constant growing brand for them. I mean, they lowered the bar from the last one pretty substantially. Yeah, they had to.

They had to make sure this wasn't a train wreck. And he passed that test with an A, Luke. So don't be an A-hole. A-minus, A-minus, A-minus. You're making me want to pronounce his name right every time. I'm telling you that Luke. Well, listen,

if that's what it takes to get you to do it, then I'm here to help. But I just want, you know, you're just sitting here and be like, trying to be like, Oh, we should feel good about the promotion of how he,

this guy is being marketed and then sort of like talked about in the wider community. And then I'm like, well, that's not really based in reality. And like, Oh, you're a hater guys.

I'm not a hater for not indulging promotional fictions. That's not, I mean, you're a hater when you have something personally against a kid. He's good for 18. Let's see what happens. I wish you had the same passion in our Building 7 debates, Luke. I really wish you did. How was that like a crime? I don't understand how that's a crime.

All right. Neither here nor there. He looked, he's going to get another good fight and he should win the next one. We'll see what happens. All right but not least bc it does bring us overall to the event at large the noche ufc event and bc i don't know if you were able to watch the entire broadcast but dude they were doing all kinds of fun stuff where they're playing different music of like you know mexican origin for the tale of the tape graphic and then they had the weight classes all in spanish and then they had all these different graphic packages.

And of course the Mexican American fans, or even the Mexican fans more generally showed up big time at the T-Mobile. This felt really big. It was aided as we discussed by a fantastic main event, but I just want to get your thoughts. Did you feel like Noche UFC was a success as a branded and marketed event? Yeah, I felt it was huge. I felt they hit perfect.

I love that there was this badass title fight, not on free TV, but as close as you can. I mean, did it air on regular ESPN or just the Plus? I watched it on the Plus, but I do believe it did air on ESPN. So, I mean, it got such prime placement. Look, here's the deal. I love all fight fans of all race creed or whatever. But I really love Mexican fight fans. They make the boxing amazing and fun. And they showed out to this.

This worked. This was huge. The Mexican champion won, even though it was a draw. Great moment, by the way, between her and DC. You know, I won the, well, you didn't actually win. But no, they won the whole thing, I felt. Look, is it a little hard a little hard cheesy lean into some degree and it's certainly strategic don't ever overlook that it's a financially strategic move

but i felt they did it very well and if and look i've always loved the idea of majors of of feeling like certain pay-per-views are different from the others that it just means more madison square garden means more right the december one more. They were already talking on the broadcast, almost like it was matter of fact, like, man, we should do this every year. Yeah, you should. I don't care what it's on pay-per-view free TV or not. Um, it's a great way to continue to grow that fan base and look at how, look at the dividends of how quickly, how quickly we're getting Mexican complete fighters that are coming out of there in this first generation of, first generation of ones that have grown up and said, okay, we can go either way here, boxing or MMA.

And I really had nothing negative about it, Luke, even though it was very aggressive and purposeful in that regard. That crowd was amazing. If we're going to play up how incredible the London and Paris crowds feel on the TV, this was right up there. This was a pay-per-view feel, and it was the right fight, the right matchup, the right face of Grasso, who is a warrior,

who's constantly getting better, who has star power. She fought her ass off in an incredible fight that you could do an immediate rematch if that's the decision that the company wants. Everything won on this night, and that's why I lobbed in the Rosas comeback win because, I mean, his embracing the crowd and to see their, you know, I mean, look, that's what it's more about, the Rosas thing than anything else.

Every fight for this guy is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger because, man, I mean, if you want, what else could you want if you're the UFC to have a core of elite Mexican stars, which you have, and the ex-champion Moreno, and we just saw Aldana fight irregardless of that big egg, Luke. And now you've got Grasso, who's a decorated, battle-tested champion. And then you've got this 18-year-old prospect, Mexican-American. Like, this could be, this is, everything hit. Everything freaking hit on Saturday, and it was fun to see.

I would say not everything hit, but, broad strokes of that I very much agree with. I mean, dude, don't you feel like two things sort of really occurred to me. MMA fans got a taste of what it's like for the Mexican-American fans to be here and what it's like to watch boxing. Didn't you feel that way? It was like, dude, this is what you get when you watch boxing. You get this kind of shit. It's the mexican the mexican and mexican-american fan base i just folks they're as rock ribbed fight fans as you're ever gonna see oh dude it's i was in san antonio

for showbox on the highway there every regional show that's coming up has its own like billboard not video screen billboard but like full bill billboard. This guy versus this guy, Saturday night. I mean, like the appetite in general is just amazing. Right, it's so great. So we got a chance to see that. But also, I just feel like, BC, UFC fans in particular, they're looking for something to feel a little bit different. They're looking for something to be remixed for the UFC to try something new. And again, they're kind of just borrowing what boxing does.

They had a mariachi band playing outside the T-Mobile. We're going to be seeing the Canelo fight probably in a couple of weeks, and you're going to see something like that there for that event. I mean, it's a staple of what a big Canelo fight or a Mexican-American or Mexican fight is in Las Vegas. So they didn't reinvent the wheel, but they're bringing some of these really important workable elements from boxing and then just applying it to MMA at a time where now it makes so much more sense because again it

is the full package it was Alexa Grasso it was all the other Mexicans on the prelim card it was I certainly agree Raul Rosas Jr. it was all of these different things coming together adding a little festivity adding a little pomp and circumstance to it promoting and I think it turned out great i would say that you know not everything they tried was a home run i don't know if you heard like they had uh brendan moreno in english joining the dominic cruz dc and john in a commentary table i don't know how much that worked poor brendan work that didn't work but i but i don't hate the effort i don't absolutely no that at all. No, no, 100%. I'm glad that they tried it. It was a great attempt. And again, he does commentary in Spanish. It must be very difficult to do commentary

in a second language. So I certainly applaud his effort, but I don't know how well it worked for English-speaking audiences. But short of a couple of things like that, two thumbs up from me. I thought this was a home-run event. It's just crazy, BC,

that a 10-8 round five from mike bell almost ended that whole mexican revolution where they all had the belts it almost undid all of it okay what do you say though in response to valentina's comments that we referenced earlier and the double down and the whole idea that i would have won this fight if it was, you know, she's basically looping Mike Bell's 10-8 scorecard into he fell into the romance of UFC Noche. Is that bitter competitor? Is there any value there? What do we do with that? It seems pretty salty to me. Could it be true that the spirit and festivities of the moment

had some kind of subconscious effect on the judging to make it go in the direction that it did? That is certainly plausible. But A, there's no way to prove that or to really understand that. We don't have any way of knowing. And more to the point, a Grasso scorecard is totally fair. So I understand why she doesn't like the 10-8. You don't like the 10-8.

I don't like the 10-8. I get that part. But then attributing it to, like, Mexican fan enthusiasm, that just reeks of saltiness to me. It doesn't strike me as a very compelling argument. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. There was, you know, Bell had shown himself earlier in the night

with enough 10-8s that weren't wrong, so get it um closing with this i i shared my fears and fears in previous episodes about the tko ww let's not wwe-ify this ufc too much but i i wouldn't hate if raul rosas jr took on the the legend killer gimmick that was probably best done in the wwe by randy orton where it's just like you got this young guy who could be something special so what they do one after another is call out the old former champions and just mercilessly beat them.

If they started a legends tour where like Hennenbrough could get back in the bullpen for another fight and then you gotta fight Faber, you gotta fight Dom Cruz, you gotta fight TJ, Cody, I mean, would you be down for that, Luke? Come on. Actually, you know what?

I tell you what. If he can go there and do that and he can win, yeah, I'd be down. But, you know, let's get him to the winning part, and then we'll have those conversations. You know what I'm saying? Sure, sure. All right. There you go.

That's our top five here. Before we get to the DMs, let's quickly tell everyone about, you know, our next partner, AG1, the daily foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole body health. Right, BC? Yeah, I mean, I just poured a glass and drank it during the show. You were watching me, and I do this every morning. One scoop of that green magic powder.

It's kind of got a lot of what I'm missing in my own breakdown, in my own diet, my daily walk. It's got the vitamins. It's got all that stuff, Luke, that cleans me up, makes me feel good. And you know what the thing I love about it? Most of that tropical, you know, just perfect, subtle, clean taste. Yeah, no doubt about it. Listen, I drink it every day. AG1, I love it. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night, if I want to make sure that before I go to bed, I've got all of the nutrients that I need. And like you, the mild tropical taste, it makes it super easy to do.

Yeah, put it in my shakes. You know, little, little, little. I mean, look, they say how you start your day is how you're going to end it, right? You eat cake for breakfast. It's going to be a long day for you. I start my day with AG1. And Luke, look at me now. Okay, maybe I, you know what?

I had Luke at dinner the other the other night out in San Antonio. I had Wagyu lasagna. I mean, that'll change your life, dude. That'll add some of this. That'll change your life in a lot of ways. But you know what I did the next morning? I drank me some AG1. First thing.

There you go. Okay, first things first. 75 high-quality ingredients, daily nutrients, of course, that support energy focus and clarity. It's a microhabit, BC, that delivers macro benefits and helps everyone take care of their health every day. OK, BC, if a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try AG1 and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Yep. The vitamin D is in drop form. I add that to my AG1 every day, just a little bit extra.

And those travel packs come in clutch on the road when it's hard to eat clean, it's hard to feel clean, jet lagged. Hey, AG1's a nice help, a nice little boost in that regard. So why don't you go to athleticcreens.com slash morningcombat and get that extra for your first order. Let's do it. Join the team here of AG one, Amanda,

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That's AG. Then the number one drink, AG one.com slash morning combat drink, AG one.com slash morning combat. All right. With that in mind, BC, it's time for the viewers to ask us questions.

It's time for DMs from dogs. Yeehaw. All right. Here we have it. From Osoaldako. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be pronounced or written. Who is the female the they put who? Okay. Yeah.

Who is the female fighter of the year? Grosso Blanchfield. Izawa Saika. I'm not sure who Izawa Saika is, but yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't have this information. Are we being set up or is this legit Luke? I don't probably I probably just said some kind of racial slur in another language that I don't know.

All right. All right. I'll I'll have your back on that. Look, they're asking right now who's on pace to be the fighter of the year. Well. If Grasso had won cleanly, it would be her. But because it's a draw, I don't know. I really don't know.

I mean, just that upset alone. And then to come back in the rematch and not lose. I mean, for all we can joke about then to come back in the rematch and not lose. I mean, for all we can joke about her saying I won and DC correcting her, she did win, Luke. You're the champion. You draw. You hold the title. Now we're talking about what should be next.

I mean, that's the champion's advantage right there. Do you like the idea of ever giving fighter of the year to a non-champion? I always feel like they've got to do something huge to be in that in that conversation has this been enough from blanchfield to to be in this convo and you're again they want us to give a fight of the year it's fucking september like there's time left so let's see what happens but i'll say this even if she has to fight and she wins i think she would be a top candidate. I really would. She's coming on, dude. She's coming on. All right, from the Double D. Oh, they have an explanation on Izawa here, Luke. Oh, is the Ryzen Atomweight Champion.

I know, but I haven't paid attention to Ryzen. I apologize. So that's on me. Why don't you just karate chop your hand in the air, Luke, and get us in trouble? I mean, you know. That's your favorite maneuver, guy. That's your favorite maneuver.

All right. The Doubled Official or Avivial. They spell it weird. Okay. your favorite maneuver guy that's your favorite maneuver all right the doubled official or of vivial they spell it weird uh okay what are the best fights booked between now and the end of the year outside of the main events it's got to be hamza versus paulo costa right ufc 294 that's a great one um whoever patty fights especially if it's our boy for vola who you could check out the room service diaries episode that we did last week with him that went live um that would be a big one i mean there's a lot of this weekend this weekend gamrot and uh rafael fazeev that's a sick fight yeah that's that's a that's a good one that's a good ass one yeah it's a great question trying to think of who's the problem here's the problem

bc we got a couple of big ones but like i don't give a fuck. We're going to cover and have fun with Tyson Fury and Francis, but it's just a fight to get money. It's not any more than that. Yeah, I really care about Blades Almeida and Heavyweight Luke. Good call. Great call. Great call. I love that fight.

Yeah, so there's a few good ones, although that might be a main event, so this is non-main event edition. But okay. But I'm saying, like, even those big fights, they're just kind of weird. So I guess we'll see. All right. From Campbell Parish, in honor of what? Country, oh, country fair season.

What is your favorite fair food? This motherfucker's just writing gibberish on here. Yeah, he is, he is. Okay, so look, there's a great question. And we've all gorged ourselves at the fall fairs just going from truck to truck. Corn dogs are for animals. I'm sorry. They are, but in my old days, Luke, I'd get down with that.

I think the best thing, especially in New England fairs, is the Thanksgiving burrito, I guess. Or no, Thanksgiving. So it's a wrap, Luke, that has all the Thanksgiving fixings in it, including cranberry sauce. So it's basically a hot turkey, but it's got gravy, mashed potatoes. It's got everything in it. Dude, that thing is tremendous. I mean, because there's no better meal in life than the Thanksgiving meal,

and you can get that in a one-stop shop in my hand type of, like, just beauty. Yeah, that's my favorite. You just know whatever county fair is selling Thanksgiving in a wrap is selling you the Boston Market version of that. Absolute fucking feces loaded to the gills in that wrap. No chance. Dude, how was the answer not funnel cake? Funnel cake with powdered sugar on top. How was that not the answer?

Dude, no, don cake with powdered sugar on top how was that well dude no don't get powdered sugar you got if you have a chance to do the the funnel cake with the marinara on top you got to go there and the cheese you can't sorry i'm sorry what fried dough i've never even heard of that it's called fried dough are you kidding me but it's the funnel cake, but instead of sugar, you put tomato sauce on, you cover that shit in Parmesan cheese, and you have yourself sex in your hands. I mean, are you kidding me right now? You're just an ape. That's not a classic.

That's some remixed Guy Fieri thing to get fast. No, no. That's how we get down in Connecticut, Luke, on the regular, okay? By the way, I meant to tell you this is true. Like, some place opened up in D.C. next time you come, which will be never, but next time you do. Oh, yeah. It's a place here, and it's like, I forget the name, but it's got, like, Connecticut pizza in the title.

It's already, everyone I know who's been has been like, dude, it's the best pizza in the city. I have to go. You missed a lot on Connecticut, because you haven't seen great views of it. I mean, you're at, like, a motel. I've seen most of Connecticut, and it looks like my bum hole. I mean, you've seen the emergency room in norwich yeah you've seen some awful spots but

you you were wrong we got great food including pizza we got great schools luke we got extremely high taxes and um and you have the rudest service workers ever so no i will not be checking that place out luke um once again b BC tried the BC Comedy Hour on the servers here, and because they rebuffed his comedy, they're now bad servers. That's a very interesting way of looking at it. Well, the price is also insane for any of them. The price is insane, yes. You are right about that.

All right, from House12Damien. Don't know who the fuck that is. What was the most carny moment in MMA history? Ooh, Jesus. So I saw this tweet from this fellow. I don't know. Is that Damien the Donk? I don't know.

Is he still incarcerated? I don't know the answer to this. Yeah, is he tweeting from prison? I can't tell. But I saw somebody respond with the answer. Dada 5000 versus Kimbo. A heart attack match. Cage side for that.

Cage side. I mean I mean okay the other moment most of the moments in my opinion would come in the first couple years like Joe San getting punched in the balls by what's his name until Keith Hackney it was TKO via ball punch like that's literally the fight that sparked my

fandom because I was at a family get together in like the middle of nowhere in pennsylvania and my grandfather would not stop talking about this and laughing until he was crying that i was just like oh this new ufc thing everybody's talking about now i gotta watch it after that that's as corny as it gets luke but the dot of the dot of heart attack was i mean that's that's peak uh yeah what do you so i was there for that if you guys want to go check it out i think it's probably still on the mma fighting youtube page i did a post fight show with sean el shadi we were there for that and our post fight show was we were me and him looking at

each other being like what the fuck are we supposed to say about what was the main event was that hoist versus shamrock three i believe that's 3? I believe that's right. Yeah, I believe that's right. Dude, in hindsight, Shamrock, like, that fight was real weird, right? What, did Hoist hit him with a knee to the stomach and he knocked him out? That was weird. I don't even remember that detail, but I still, I always tell folks this. Kimbo is still the most popular fighter in Bellator history. No doubt.

And not by a little bit, but like a lot. But like, it's like the number two is not even in the same stratosphere as him. Yeah. Yeah. I did a big feature for ESPN that week about the slop of that fight card. And you retweeted it, Luke. You wrote essential reading. Oh, there you go. I've always known you were full of shit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last. By the way, for folks who didn't see it the um moosen was a show that had all kinds of weird fuckers on it and then uh the the one with the lip on it like the weird lip on the cage what the fuck was the name of that the yama pit yama pit fighting was oh yeah

that was weird do we put justine kish's moment in this at all look was that no that's like gross but not carny but the just bleed guy that's pretty carny yeah that's as carny as it gets do you know that todd grisham was in the crowd for one of the early ufcs that was in like alabama i wonder if it was the just bleed guy crowd i gotta talk to him about this he was like he went when he was like 16 or something imagine going i had a friend luke who saw andrew dice clay in his prime run when he was like like 10 years old his parents let him go imagine that coming of age in that moment maybe todd came of age next to the just bleed guy or that guy behind him that was smoking that joint

you see so the guy whose parents let him see peak andrew dice clay at 10 years old what does he do in prison now oh wow wow i think he's a landscaper i love that guy that's my guy by the way bobby bruce yeah but uh, there you go. Is that it? We got to get to this. No, we got one more. We actually got one more, and this one's pretty interesting. And we verified this.

What I'm about to read to you is true from Platinum Mike Perry. What are your thoughts on media, Mike Perry, and is there podcast protocol? So Mike Perry, I think he Instagrammed us today. Yes, he responded to our accounts DM question. Yes. BC, I don't know how you feel about it. I'm ready for Mike Perry to be on that RSD couch.

I'm ready. Mike, can our people call your people? Can we make the travel work and make this work and figure this out? And because what is the protocol? What are the rules? First of all, on that couch where many a hooker has perished mike there are no rules but when it's involving mike perry my favorite fighter right uh ocean's daddy if you will yeah i mean look it goes without saying that that would be our highest rated room service diaries couch episode but by far right like that would he

would he do drugs with us i I think the answer is yes. Maybe, maybe. But the stories that he's going to be able to pull, dude, I mean, Mike is an incredible storyteller to begin with. But, you know, remember in that bar when he took that old guy out? Look, I mean, Mike's been through the wars, Luke. Dylan Danis tapped. All right, he tapped to that security guard. You know what's funny?

I always check the trending videos on YouTube. That one, the face-off between he and Logan Paul has been trending for like days. And I don't know where it's at now, but last I checked was like Friday. It was at 4 million views. I mean, that thing took off like a fucking rocket. Will they sell pay-per-views? Because that doubleheader's not, it doesn't sell. So, by the way, on my live chat, I should bring this up to you because you were requested.

And I think they made a good point, actually. We talked talked about it but we should really have like a moment here we need to do a fight companion for danis versus paul dude we do yeah we need to like have fun with that so if the producers are watching or whatever you're like hey what's something we could do i think that fights in october we need to have a fight companion that'll be pretty carny our fight companion for that carny card that'd be great yeah. Yeah, I'm into it. And also, Mike, if you're watching this, we'd love to get you on the RSD couch. I don't know. He lives in North Florida, right? Not South Florida?

No, I think that's right. He lives in Greater Miami, I think. Does he? He moved down to Miami? No, we're being told it's possibly the Orlando area. Orlando. I don't know where we're going to be in Orlando next. Yeah.

We'll have to figure something out. But yes, the answer is yes, Mike. We do want you on the show. Look, we have a home office only in Fort Lauderdale. What's that? Two hours away from Orlando? Oh. Oh, they said we were in contact with his manager on his last trip.

Okay, yeah, yeah. We'll figure something out with Mike Perry. We'll get him. We'll get him. We'll figure something out. All right, and that's it for DMs from Donks. BC, I want to see your feces. All right, I scoured the globe for the highs and lows,

the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between, combat sports beyond. There's going to be some elder abuse, too, so get ready. Buckle up. It's BC's feces coming at you. I mean, that's just the greatest intro that man has ever made. And we've definitely got male viewers. Luke, let's go to Noche UFC Las Vegas.

Lupita Godinez. Slam, slam, Luke. Annalise Reed. Let the boys be boys on this one. It's Godinez because there's no Enya over the end. But to your point, look at this, dude. Teeing off on her. High amplitude throw. She beat the... there's no enya over the end but to your point look at this dude teeing off on her high amplitude

throw she beat the dude we didn't even talk about the arm bar sequence in the first fucking round yes yes that's like a that's like a wwe spike slam maybe this tko influence is rubbing off luke she does she puts her flat on her back but just the strength to do something like that god damn dang all right now let's listen in on lightweight char lightweight Charlie Campbell as he does his best Dwayne the Rock Johnson impression. What did you think about my boxing? It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter what you think.

Shout out to Dwayne Johnson, the Rock. I'm a huge fan. Put me in a movie or something. You know I love a good WWE reference, so I'm going to let you live in the octagon tonight. That felt a little like, hey, TKO group, recognize me, brother. I can speak it. When pro wrestling bits fail in public, it makes me horny.

I just don't know. I don't think it failed pretty miserably. Are you kidding? DC was like, I'm going to let you live. It failed miserably. Yeah, it did. miserably. Are you kidding? DC was like, I'm going to let you live. It failed miserably. Yeah, it did. All right. All right.

We mentioned Raul Rosas Jr. bounced back with a bang. Here's a little look at that finish. Just sliced right through the mount. And this is so much better. Keeping the mount, turning the guy over, and then just going to work. Yeah, poor guy just had to get saved. Yeah, it was good work. Once he got to that position, it was toast. All right, now you're coming around on him here we go he's the future

i give him fair coverage not promotional fiction uh tracy cortez and jasmine jazz davisius luke had probably the the fight we were most focused on the prelim card with cortez by the way continuing her unbeat unbeaten run. That's a nice victory. But did you see the – it got a little hairy in there. Let's listen in on this. Grabbing the hair, right? Watch this. Nice.

Chaz Divizious may want to knock short road and fight. Just over a minute to go. Talking instead of fighting. Talking that ish, Luke. Jump out and fight. Just over a minute to go. Talking instead of fighting. Running out. Talking that ish, Luke. Did that get you fired up or what? Yeah, well, they showed the replay. She did grab a fistful there.

It's hard to know how intentional it was. People think it looks that way, but it can be reactive and just kind of instinct. But she grabbed some, no doubt about it. Yeah. Did you see Cortez dedicated the win to Henry Cejudo's sister who just passed away after a long illness? I know, which is really quite terrible. I'm sorry to hear about all of that.

But, yeah, and I will say this. Here was the interesting part about this, BC. Cortez looked amazing in the first round, definitely faded in the second. So now it's 1-1 heading into the third, and it was gut check time. She still has issues fading, but she answered the call this time and was defensively sound enough and still put out enough offense to take the third. It was a great performance by her.

Still some things to work on, but she looked really good. Quick hands, was an accurate punch. We'll see in that first round where she did look the best of the three. Yeah, I agree with you there. It was a really nice win to show that she's ready for the next level. Luke, Sean Strickland's been champion for like two two days and he's i think he's already broken the title let's let's check back in at the home of strickland here i don't think he has enough guns yeah that that wow that's a that's just a bonus to the what's what else is going on in this by the way

the ammunition's on the wall in case you want to break in and uh arm yourself yeah that's a deterrent uh but there we go duct tape on the title you know he's he's playing the blue collar everyman role except for all the artillery behind him uh he's playing it well luke playing it well there people seem to be buying it that's not uh the ufc wasn't where the best fight of the week took place luke the truck stop was though don't mess you you f around with some 18 wheelers you're about to find out luke okay let's see let's see let's see he's chirping he's chirping backing up oh shit balls my man came out with like a like a fucking what like a croquet club or something like a like a like a like a kid's cricket bat what the fuck is this guy doing looks like he's being electrocuted uh the gift the audio on that was great the guy in the truck who filmed this was going sick but

yeah i mean you know you you messed with the mess with the bowl luke you're gonna get the the bat there's no question stupid games win stupid prizes uh i mentioned I was in Showbox, Luke San Antonio. Hometown boy Ramon Cardenas in the main event, although he's the underdog, improved to 10-0 in his home city with this second-round stoppage of Rafael Pedrosa, who was unbeaten, coming in. Let's listen in on the action that finished it off. What is he doing right now?

And there's a left-handed drop. Pedrosa. Perfect shot. Now that's a wake-up call. This is a household wake-up call. I am so excited about 9-11. We'll see you in Septemberember yes i can't wait here's a karate chop in the air for all of our asian viewers

harley what do you think of uh cardinals his uh rat tail here beautifully with this left hook coming out i gotta say the boxing is tremendous the haircut you got five of them i don't know which one is there is he just ate the right hand i'm sorry excuse me you can box the ass off that left that left hook this guy had nothing no answer for it at all sits him down again what a shot something about cardinals in san antonio 10 and 0 as a professional in his home city yeah luke i had a McGregor-sized rope there from the Mayweather way and was just loving live boxing. You had a frozen steak in your dungarees. It was great. I was also happy to see you.

There's no question about it. All right, we move on from there. It's time for Real Recognizing Real, which we can get behind. We can respect. How about Jermall Charlo? Do you know that he moved i don't know if this is full-time or temporary from texas to pensacola and he's now working on the regular with roy jones jr uh preparing for an eventual return from this two month two

year absence excuse me um what do you think about this this pairing of roy jones and germall i don't know about the pairing i don't know i mean i guess we'll haveall? I don't know about the pairing. I don't know. I mean, I guess we'll have to see. I don't know. I don't know what Roy's training skills and record look like. You could probably tell me better. But what I will say is this.

I think getting out of Texas is probably a good idea, right? I think separating himself, being around just a training environment, other people who care about him in that way, and just living there like that a little bit, I think can only benefit him. So I'm actually really glad to see that.

I don't know if he's cut, if he's broken up with Ronnie Shields. I think they might be still together, but I think this is more of just like a one-on-one mentorship with Roy. I mean, Roy's become a trainer. It's been hit or miss. He tends to try to go with athletes

that he can teach certain tricks to and better themselves. I mean, sometimes, I don't know. It's been hit or miss. He tends to try to go with athletes that he can teach, you know, certain tricks to and better themselves. It, I mean, sometimes, I don't know. It's tough. It's, it's tough when you're that great in, in such a natural sense that Roy was, I mean, I mean, obviously Roy put in the work, but he was just the quickest. Do you know his corner, his chief corner, Roy's chief corner, Tommy on Kello.

I don't know that name. I follow Tommy onkello on Instagram. Dude, this guy is a fucking encyclopedia of boxing knowledge. Roy's been taking some of these fights lately. Tom trains a bunch of guys, but he has been training and cornering, I guess, Roy in his late stage

or whatever his version of his career is. Tom's the man. If you ever see any of his stuff on YouTube or on social media, it's all high quality. I will definitely look out for it. Let's keep the real, real trend here. Kazakhstan forever.

My guy, Triple G, and your guy, Shavkat Rachmanov, Luke, right? I'm sorry, what's his last name? Shavkat Rachmanov, yeah. Rachmanov, there you go. Yeah, dude. Love to see it. This is a power duo if ever there was one. They've beaten the shit out of a lot of guys between those two.

Yeah, yeah, heavy hands indeed across the board love love me some triple g even though i mean he's washed luke it's i mean he had a great run but uh it's it's you know hey so are we so are we uh also real recognizing real this was moments before aaron rogers found out that he'd never walk again luke but at the jets home opener there, it's Jake Paul. Hey. Hey. What is Jake Paul doing there? Do we blame Jake for the ensuing injury or no? I'd probably blame the turf, but Jake probably doesn't help. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, probably not. And your wholesome video of the week. This gives new meaning to the term dog sledding. Is this dog dumb as shit or something no he's a genius watch this you know this dog is like way smarter than tuki is right now yeah yeah he's awesome look at this guy yeah this dog rules yeah i started off so negative and now i'm like no this dog is this is the leonardo da vinci of dogs i Yes. All right, time for your regional roundup, Luke. Remember, regional MMA.

Anything can happen. Here is Rashad Evans' godson, Devin Smith, in his comeback fight, getting the spinning back kick KO. Damn. If they can show it again, watch him step out. He's going to maneuver the guy to his own left, and then he's going to watch him step across. Boom.

Great shot. really well set up well timed congratulations young man that was extremely impressive i believe that was lfa the promotion there luke let's keep it going to karate combat we all remember sam alvey right he beat rashad evans he also just knocked this guy straight out here in karate combat dude jack slack talks about this all the time and i didn't pay attention to it because i just you know i don't have bandwidth for karate combat but apparently one of the big things that they're seeing in karate combat is someone will just go in there be like a karate master and a karate champion and get viciously knocked out by anyone who can throw a good hooking punch yeah usually it's the left hook here it was show it

one more time uh luke nocita here there are just watch it's just a right hook Usually it's the left hook. Here it was. Show it one more time, Luke Noseda. Here there are just, watch, it's just a right hook, and it's not a big one, hands down, just pops them with it. Apparently hooking punches beat karate. You know how like jiu-jitsu is not real? Apparently karate isn't either if you can throw a hooking punch. Yep. Let's go to CFFC.

Here's Travis Miller with your head kick KO of the week. There it is. Oh, man. Now, eat that. Send it back like a mannequin. Right to the mouth, right? I thought it was going to go to the body. I mean, look at their difference in physiques.

Whenever you see that, you're like, dude, some promoter just tricked this guy. We got one more head kick. It comes in the world of kickboxing. Fucking hell. What? Actually, that might be the best head kick KO of in the world of kickboxing fucking hell what yo actually that might be the best head kick ko of the week damn i gotta tell you dude head kick ko's from heavyweights when they land like what gonzaga did to crow cop and then his foot went backwards and shit they are i mean head kick ko's are devastating but at heavyweight they feel like extra lethal indeed i always tell my kids luke that everything in the 80s was just so much

weirder they wouldn't believe it check out this birthday invite actual birthday invite from the 80s and 90s chicks dig guys that eat out oh that is fucking awesome yeah i mean they're not wrong but also true turns out yeah hey rough week for women and tables here's the younger version first oh no okay okay happy birthday to you there you go and no and let's bring on abuela for an older version of this tragedy. Oh, no. She's just going, oh, here we go. In the yoga pants?

This is going to go so bad. This is going to go so bad. Maybe not, right? Oh, okay. Dude, this is the exact same kind of lady who, when she gets on Amtrak, is looking at me being like, can you help me put my bag overhead? And I'm like, no, lady. Eat that table. Fuck off.

I'm telling you, here is the dude i want to say this to all of america the world watching if you can't take your bag the kind you would ordinarily check in at a flight if you can't lift that overhead you're a piece of shit i want you to know oh come on i mean you know there's a lot of people that can't you're saying they should check it that's what you're saying check the damn bag right i'm saying people don't realize because so what's the what's the limit on flights like you can't be more than 50 pounds a little something like that right that's how much a bag can be before they go it's oh yeah the ones that you check yeah unless you're first class and so what i'm saying is when you take a

train they don't have a place for you to put bags like that at least not very much so you might have to take that same kind of bag and put it overhead and they always come to me on the train car and they're like yo can you help me out and i'm like lady if you're like 65 i'll help you you're 45 you're just fucking weak well okay but i mean you're a large man look with big muscles okay it's not their fault no i'm a man who needs his privacy that's what i am i'm a man who respect i have here here's me on the train ready here's me on the train okay bc this is international sign for leave me the fuck alone that's also you during our meetings by the way just so the public gets a little a little intel on that yeah there you go hey college football is back in full gear, Luke.

I'm not talking about Colorado being 3-0 with Coach Prime. How about this sideline catch at the OU game? Watch this. Oh! He did the Alfred Pouponou. Remember that guy with the Chargers tie? Oh, that is so great. Yes, yes.

By the way, I'm a big Coach Prime fan. Are you? Well, he was like my favorite player of all time in the NFL. So, yeah, yeah. I still have an old sign somewhere. I'd have to find it when I went to go see him at Fulton County Stadium, which was two Brave Stadiums ago when they handed out signs that said Neon Dion for when he was playing.

Oh, you still have that? That's badass. I love that. Yes, I kept it. I kept it. So it's somewhere. I have to dig it up. Got my toe spacers.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm used to my toe spacers. Let's go to college game day. Look over Stanford Steve's shoulder here, Luke. You'll see your sign of the week. Chicks get rammed by our... By our Gamecocks, apparently.

Yes, that's what they were. Ah, yes, by Gamecocks. Yes, yes, yes. There it is right there. Okay. And, Luke, let's listen in on this Iowa quarterback. Johnny, come lately, I'll call him. You know, really, everyone, just being on the same page,

because we know these guys are going to come a lot. I mean, there's – that was – but, I mean, we have to be on key with our hots. We've got to be on key with our protection. Damn it. I was not expecting that. Yeah, we'll be back. Well, Luke. I mean, football is homoerotic there's really no two ways guys are just talking

about coming on each other not that there's anything wrong with that no no it's fine but it is what it is but speaking of football uh time for your football jersey of the week i don't think you've seen this one out at the commander's game i mean it's kind of direct it's direct it, it's kind of direct. It's direct. It's in your face. Wait, wait, wait. But what team is that? Is that like a Seahawks jersey? Like, what is that? I don't know.

Is Detroit's what's a Lions jersey? I don't know. That's Team E-Jack. But yeah, there he is. Number 69 in your score books. There's Team LoJack for your car and Team E-Jack for your... Yeah, let's go to the Packers game. Here's your T-shirt of the week in the NFL.

I'm not saying I like it. I mean, this lady... I honestly would rather get castrated than fulfill the message of this shirt. And here's your runner-up for T-shirt of the week. You could probably catch this guy at any gas station in the uh dude look at this toothless meth addled zero oh come on he bought that at the minnesota state fair luke he probably had this guy would wear this to a court date that's what makes him awesome yeah you know i'm

saying sir how do you plead to using meth on public school elementary school grounds lady i do pedicures on camel toes all right i gotta get out of here look let's go to the next one here's your uh boxing knockout of the week yes indeed this is a pretty good ko it's a great ko but people were acting like it's an amazing ko i don't think it's an amazing one no i mean he was you know he was dead out on his feet and he got yeah he ate two more shots yeah that's what it is all right uh luke um this is a couple weeks old but i never got your reaction to uh coked up creepy connor in the uh banana hammock on the exercise bike i mean luke are we doing this again no this is not from the mayweather weigh-in, but...

Dude, this guy is so in love with his own bulge. With his own bump, Luke. He takes many, many bumps, actually, he's into, it appears. He's on a boat, huh? I mean, is he going to fight in December, Luke? No? Doesn't look like it. Doesn't look like it.

All right. Let's go to your best bumper sticker we've got this week. You ever see one of these tell your rides, Luke? I can tell you ride dick. Got him. Yeah, there it is. All right. Hey, time to rate that tat, Luke.

What do you think about full sleeves, like full black sleeves? So I don't. They're called it's called blackout, I believe. They're actually harder to do than you might imagine. This is not that. This is like some combination of geometric and mandalia, whatever the fucking word is. But it's not. They're actually in reality.

They're actually really hard to do. But this is not it's not a poorly done tattoo, but it's not my favorite. Okay. What about this one, this UFC-inspired tattoo next? It's probably bad. Wow, UFC fans know good ink. Yeah, I mean, this is...

Wait, is that Ray Flores' arm, Luke? Yeah, I mean, this is not a very good one um you know the look look at the line work on the belt it's kind of all over the place so yeah it's not that great all right all right um let's see what we got to close here uh you ever see a guy like this in a bar luke a a slick mover oh yeah oh yeah my man yeah slick mover. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My man. That's pretty good.

He probably got like half a beer in there. Yeah, slick moves right there, X-Lex. And our final one, Luke, I promised elder abuse. Listen in. Let's watch it. Where is it? Hey, watch out out it's slippery yeah man motherfucking trail look at this shit what's this i just hey watch out.

It's slippery. Got him. I'm sorry. Yeah, man. Oh, that's great. That guy is so nonchalant. The other guy just completely broke his back, and he's like, yeah, man, it really is slick out here. All right, Luke, I got to go.

I got an interview I got to do, so why don't you just take it home? It's been great doing this show with you, okay? Thanks so much. Yeah, welcome back. Nice to see you. Glad you make it back from San Antonio in one piece. All right.

Nice to see you. Let's set this up for everybody here if we can very quickly. Of course, thumbs up, subscribe, all that fun stuff. If you haven't already, there's our socials. You can follow us there. Very quickly, one more time, morningcombat.store for all of the merch that's available for you you can go check that out uh let's see showtime is the label that pays showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you'd like it you can keep it if not feel free to bounce morningcombat at gmail.com back on wednesday interviews in between lots of

stuff going on this week keep it locked thank you for watching the show today we greatly appreciate it we're out of here and until next time may all of your gains be loyal