MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Noche Picks | UFC x WWE | Fight Announcements | MMA Pension | Morning Kombat Ep 489

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

On Episode 489 of Morning Kombat Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas give their picks for UFC Noche. Next up the guys discuss the UFC and WWE Merger. What could this mean for UFC? The guys also break down some recent fight announcements and play matchmaker for the middleweight division. As always on friday we close the show with Dead Wrong. (00:10:00) - Ok, Bet (00:37:40) - UFC & WWE Merger (00:48:30) - Fight News and Announcements (01:03:20) - Matchmaking the Middleweight division (01:32:40) - What We missed (01:46:30) - Dead Wrong 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

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Reveley, reveley, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. yeah it's Friday September 15th, and I know you. You ain't got shit to do. That's why you're tuning in right here, right now to the Best Damn Combat Sports Show. I don't know, ever? It's Morning Combat back with a bang, folks. Yes, the show that's much harder to get off than it is to get on. And although some of that equation, Luke, has to do with our old washedness, to be fair. I have put the lotion in the basket here,

although I'm not sitting in this underground bunker via gunpoint. But I am Brian Campbell, of course, that BBC with that BDE, live and direct right now. San Antonio, tonight's Showbox, the new generation card, which they are calling, by the way,

Fiesta Mexicana. Okay, so don't miss that 9.30 p.m. Eastern. But I don't think you're here for that preview, although I'll do plenty of it. You're probably here for my co-host. I mean, he's already, right? Stream Showtime, 30 days free right now, right? Why not? My co-host, already the most decorated non-fighting fight analyst in the game today, okay? There he is right there. It's Luke Thomas. Luke, we got OK Bet. We got Noche UFC to finalize.

We got some fun and games coming. Let's bang on Fridays, too. You ready? You ready for this? Let's bang, Tui Vassa. Let's bang. Yes, there's actually, you know, I will tell you what, man. People don't really care that much about this card, which was, I don't know if surprising is the word.

Maybe disappointing is a little bit more like it. I didn't think there'd be huge interest in it, but there's less than what I thought there would be. And I got to tell you, this main event, we talked about it on Wednesday, and I know we're going to do some betting around the card today. I don't know how you feel, BC. I kind of feel like people are sleeping on what an interesting technical battle actually the. Actually, the main event kind of really is. I mean, if I admitted... It's a little disappointing, if I can be honest. Yeah, if I admitted even me on my last show

was sort of misframing what really happened potentially in that first fight, all you have to do is go rewatch it. It was so competitive to see Shevchenko up on the cards as we talked about at the time of her being submitted. This rematch matters in ways that go well beyond Mexican Independence Day weekend and UFC doing, you know, what I think is a solid, a title fight on a regular fight night card on ESPN Plus in Las Vegas,

trying to attract that crowd. Even separate from that fanfare, Luke, this fight rules. And it's going to be a very important result in the future of this division because guess who's in that bullpen? Aaron Blanchfield, Manon Farrow. I mean, mean they're coming luke they are on their way here right now no it's uh i certainly echo everything you're saying and um and the best part is dude it's a division where we just know your pants are around your ankles the entire time we're talking about it i just you know i just first of all i don't think that's appropriate there are there are women that work on this show and watch this show apparently, Luke. I agree that your behavior

is inappropriate, but I've seen you at the bus stop and that's just who you are. Remember who cares if no one else does. But no, no, we're happy to be here. We're happy to bang. I mentioned the labels that pay us. Of course, Showtime.com, we can get you 30 free days. I also want to mention MorningCombat.store, Luke, right?

We're streaming Showtime all day, Boxing MMA and Bill Cosby but luke how about showtimes uh morning combat.store what am i even talking about are there words i know there's sounds coming out of my mouth look we're talking about the people don't realize this you actually get paid to do this yeah we're talking about the average joe r limited edition collaboration if you haven't gone to morning combat.storestore, guys, check it out. Look at those designs. All right? It is one love across the board. Luke, true or false, they're moving product.

They're moving it. It's going. Yeah, it's that scene from The Wire when Stringer Bell's like, put the word out on the street that we're back. Yeah. I didn't quite say it. He was much cooler than me. But, yeah, something kind of like that, dude. Those things are selling like hotcakes.

Apparently, like, I don't know if this is true, i i think i heard those that like of any collection we've ever done this is the best selling so um that's saying something because we've actually moved some merch in ways i've never moved before so yeah dude it's they're flying off the shelves but i think they're sharing the stringer bell quote of we back up luke is what we should where you should have gone with that okay driselda famous. Famous Baltimorean. I prefer to go the we back. Trust me. We back, baby. We are. We're back to bang. It's going to be a good show today

and Luke, it's quickly we're going to transition into OK, Beth, but I just want to remind you I'm about one-ish behind you, so this week is going to matter if you care about this. If you want to see me inside of a claw machine with George Corpsegrinder trying to pull out what's left of my dignity after attending an abortion rock festival, Luke, then they better

hope you win here, right? BC, I don't know if you'd call this abortion rock, but first of all, today is my wedding anniversary, which is always kind of fun. How many? How many you got here? How many years? 11. 11 years, yeah. Dude, that's not nothing. That is something right there. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah. We're on the second part of the second decade here. We're going to see Pantera tonight. Neither of us have seen them before.

I mean, I don't want to judge your marriage, Luke, but on such a beautiful anniversary, you're going to go see what's left of Pantera? I mean, Mrs. Thomas is a renaissance woman, Luke. Why does she fall for this side of you? She's not a big Pantera fan, but she does like Zach Wild, and he is the guy filling in. He's badass. I keep forgetting he's on him now.

Dude, when I saw him with Ozzy in 01, dude, he just tore my face off, Luke. I've never seen him. Have I seen him? No, I've never seen him live either, so could be a fun one. I guess we'll see. He does an extended solo where he works in like Eruption from Van Halen and really just kind of plays around a little bit, Luke.

It gets awesome. You know what I mean? All right. Well, as long as, you know, I mean, I guess we'll see how it goes. But yeah, it should be good. All right. You can follow us at the social handles that you'll probably be seeing below. Oh, Luke, what's the gasoline of choice today? Are you going to make it rain there with that energy drink?

No. And again, they're not a sponsor of us. I've never had it before. I was in Target. I knew I was going to need one on Friday. Sure enough, I was right. It's a tropical mango flavored of ghost energy drink, zero sugar, about five calories for the whole thing, and an early

death sentence. So I'm excited. Well, Luke, what would you say to the growing legion of MK fans who, on one side of their heart, care about you, but on the other side of their heart, they just love to critique you and they say, hey, Luke, thanks for sharing your sleeping troubles with us. Maybe you should stop energy drink consumption. So this is the first one I've had all week, number one. I have cut back.

I don't have caffeine past two. And that has actually helped quite a bit. My issue, again, I can fall. First of all, it's gotten a lot better. So to all of the haters who are like, oh, your demise is coming. You're right. It probably isn't far. But it's delayed a little bit because I'm sleeping much better these days.

But even like last night, BC, I got up at 5 and I couldn't quite fall back asleep. The alarm doesn't go off in my house until about 6.30, sometimes 7. And so I just said fuck it and got up. But I had vivid dreams and this is true, that I was rapping at a wedding. Wow, that's very white of you.

Super, all the most. Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Luke, I got high school kids so we get up at 6 in this house. And I didn't get up at 6 today in this San Antonio slumber party I got going on here by myself, Luke. But just the same, we're here to bang. Let's have a great show. Was there anything else I had to sweep up before we moved on? You look like an Instagram filter with the sepia-toned camera shot there.

Oh, we went out for a lengthy team dinner last night luke and i did the ultra classy finish of uh falling asleep with all the lights on on top of the covers fully clothed that that's uh that trifecta when you score that trifecta you know you had a good night yeah and that means you didn't brush your teeth either. You're damn right, Luke. Yes, you are. Okay. Absolute dirt hole on this side of the equation. All right. Let's transition forward to a fantastic show coming your way,

and it begins. Mikey Mormile, CBS Sports on the ones and twos, by the way. Shout out to Janita, our director back there at the Fort Lauderdale studio. Yeah, yeah. Let's keep this ship moving. We start off what we do often on Fridays, right? It's OK Bet time. Noche UFC, and the race could not be tighter.

We go head-to-head, five picks versus five picks. Who is going to end up at the concert that they don't want to be? It's time for OK Bet. All right, Luke. The updated standings based on last weekend's results. Luke Thomas went 2-3 overall. I got lucky with that Olberg correct tap out before the horn to go 3-2. Mikey, the updated standings. Oh, you see them already.

65-61- 3 is Luke Thomas 64 and 65 Luke I could become Like they could I could become a legit I can go over 500 this week For the first time all season The fact that a fraud like me

Let a fraud like you get it this close Really is quite embarrassing I have done myself a major disservice By not taking this seriously. Fuck you. Well, you are representing your home nation there, as you can see with the flag, Luke. Which again, I'm not saying it is racist

because I can't say that it is, but I wonder. I wonder. You know, I'm... Okay, okay. Luke Thomas, as the defending champion, you're going to get to go first or second here, but obviously we're going to start off

with the biggest fight of the weekend. And there were a couple bits of sound over the past 48 hours that I'm interested in hearing your reaction as to whether this adjusted your pick in which direction you're going. So let's begin with this. There was a UFC fighter Q&A on Thursday hosted by Gilbert Melendez. And both Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso, who were in the main event of Saturday's flyweight title rematch were there and it turned into like a de facto kind of point punk point counterpoint press conference but look without the ridiculous theatrics of like what strain of weed are you smoking now you know what I'm saying like it actually was about the business let's listen in here's Gilbert Gilbert teed them up on sort of like what we learned from the first fight.

How is that going to affect who wins the second one? Let's listen. Alexa, you're saying like you was doing pretty well, but I say not enough for the victory. It's kind of like good point because if you could see the fight, it was all four rounds like winning the fight for my side before the of course what happened in the fight But it's kind of like the moment when it put you Work double hard Work like remember what you did like it's a very very beginning and it's kind of like yes Everyone's speaking about the lost or something like that But I want to remind to everyone 17 time world muay thai champion seven title defense and you cannot re get rid of this

it's gonna stay in you forever it's gonna like you can be better you can be like what you adjustment whatever you want to do but the power but the confidence and experience it's still here and it's gonna like explode on Saturday Alexa do you agree with that assessment do you think what do you think about the scorecard what was the scorecard leading up to your fight what did you think about the scorecard well round one was definitely mine I mean round one was my second second round you know even like being a Muay Thai champion I thought you wanted to be on striking with me but you decided to go to the ground so it's fine I mean fourth round I made a lot of adjustments and I think it was 2-2 for

me it was 2-2. For me, it was 2-2. Luke, a couple points. I love the passive aggressiveness there from Grosso in response. The pettiness was. Yeah, and by the way, I also love that Valentina's almost doing an Iron Sheik-like pulling of the sword. That's what the old wrestlers used to say, that any time you talk to Sheiky, it would be, you know, less than a minute before he would pull out the sword

and mention that he was former WWE World Heavyweight Champion. She pulls out the 30 years of martial arts experience and 17-time World Kickboxing Champion on like a just-in-case-you-forgot. But look, this is the central tension of this argument. A very competitive first fight. You're either on what I presented the other day that hey Grasso yes down on the scorecards entering that fourth round where the finish happened but I think she figured out Valentina and was on her way to peaking to winning no matter what or had the old guard the old

champion now 35 neutralized what Grasso did great and made that championship adjustment yes she got submitted she got tapped out she's got to deal with that in the argument but there's a good argument for both coming in that lets you know it's a great fight right well valentina saying it was 4-0 i was like no no it was 2-2 but that that is your point that is your point is like both people had had uh both competitors had had success um grasso rightly notes it's like well you were a 17 time which anti-champion the first time we fought as well and you were still wrestling I mean that that was that was quite the comeback I enjoyed that but in all seriousness that was what won her the second and third rounds like the third round was you know a little bit closer in the sense that um

she didn't take a lot of damage she got put in crucifix in the second round but she had a lot of riding time in the in our control time Shevchenko did in the third nevertheless she did win the second and the third rounds but I thought that it was Grosso who was winning the fourth before the stoppage came now of course the we didn't see the rest of the round play out but you know this idea that it wasn't competitive because that's what Valentina was trying to suggest is just in no way at all true and you know I don't know if I necessarily see it as a red flag. I think some people might. I don't.

I think she has just a lot of confidence. But she's wrong. It was competitive as shit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to love it. The more we talk about this fight, the more fired up I get. Is it the rising young champion who has figured out how to become the best of herself in Grosso

and giving that tease that the best is actually yet to come? She's going to get better and better in this rise. Or does the old champion not only have the tricks left up her sleeve, Luke, but that experience and that nastiness. We'll get to Valentina's one more sound in a second. What do you got, Luke? I was just going to say, I do think we should point it out when people try. Like, Grosso's English is super good.

Yes. Like, she's gotten's English is super good. Yes. Like, she's gotten way better with it. She was kind of functional with it before, and now she's got real command of some of the subtleties. She should be proud of herself. That's hard to do. Yeah. It's like if somebody had to be the face of Mexican MMA

in this specific iteration of UFC, looking to expand it and make it big, she may not at the moment have the commercial crossover success, but she's got the critical respect because she submitted Valentina. And like you said, she looks the part, she talks the part, and her fighting game, Luke, and her evolution. Dude, she's a tank. She's a physical presence in there. It's going to be interesting.

I wanted, though, I was teasing a setup here. Valentina gave an interview with ESPN's Mark Raimondi before this Q&A. And I've got to say, Luke, if you were on the fence about this fight and you might have needed extra fuel to go in one direction let's say the direction of the champion listen in to this absolute cold-blooded killer talk about her mindset entering this rematch what's the mindset going into this one? It's easy, everything. It's my mindset. I've been training like I had training camp so strong, so intense, so much sweat in there. So mindset is pretty clear.

Go there, destroy, go back home, celebrate. Look, they cut off the sound a little bit early from what I was looking for. She continued when Raimonde asked her what's with the hat and the earrings? Like, the hat looks almost like a military gesture. Are you basically predicting war? And, you know, Shevchenko gave a straight-ahead, direct answer and said, yeah, I'm wearing these bullet earrings for a reason.

Luke, the whole point of that— Actually, no, they're knives. They're not bullets. They're knives. I'm sorry. They're knives. And that matches well with the midriff bullet tattoo. Look, the whole point of showing that video and sharing that quote is, let's put some respect back on her name, Luke. Does it matter ahead of the rematch how freaking dialed in and ready? Because if anyone looks ready for war, will that translate?

Are we looking at a Valentina that's actually going for the stoppage more aggressively than normal entering this fight? Yeah, I don't give a shit about any of these theatrics. Wasn't it Yoel Romero right before the Izzy fight where he did the go thing where he, you know, the one that you mocked him for when we had him on stage? Well, I didn't mock him. I celebrated it. Yeah, but yeah, okay, go ahead. Okay, whatever. You know what I'm saying?

He used it against him, and then he ended up losing the fight. I don't, I mean, the theatrics are for the donks, right? That's what it's for. So, yeah, I don't have an opinion about it. I know I'm absolutely no-selling your point, but I don't know what to tell you. I'm telling you the truth. It's for the donks.

It's for the donks. We had the wrong sound. If we had that extended sound, I mean, she hammered it home in a scary way with the look. What does that matter? I don't know. Hey, let's find out right now. Let's kick off OK Bet, Luke.

You on first or second? Obviously, our main event look at for the biggest fight of the weekend is this one. I seem to lose either way these days, so I guess I'll go first. So main event pick. BC, I don't think waffled quite as hard as I did on this one. I actually really kind of struggled. Even with this pick, I'm not really all that confident. The odds are close in the main event in either direction.

So I think the reality is people are unsure exactly how this one is going to go. But I saw a stat that I shared on social media yesterday. I guess for any women's title fight where the competitors are 35 and above, they're 1 and 11. And that 1 is Amanda Nunes getting it back from Juliana Pena. That is it. Otherwise, they have never won at the age of 35 or more, and certainly Shevchenko qualifies for that.

That's not great. I also feel like while she did hold physical advantages in the first and she will in the second, I think that Grasso's probably going to work on them or have some better answers about how to handle some of the grappling control because she didn't have ground-to-pound behind it, which meant she was using all of her grappling resources to just control position.

So if you can challenge that, you can really take away basically any part of it that makes it dangerous, and she was already really good on the feet. Give me Alexa Grasso. I struggle with it. I struggled with it, but I'm going to take her in this one.

Let's see what happens. Okay, you're almost making me want to go against my own heart and pick Valentina just for the entertainment levels of this segment but Luke I got it back with you here I'm not it's not like I'm not torn and I know people thought I went overboard and looking at all the great stuff Grasso did and like you said not looking at this fight stats or not looking at certain elements of yes the success Shevchenko did have on the ground but I want to reiterate what my eyes saw the fact that it cost her to win round two and three with grappling.

That was not the same Shevchenko in round four. Can she repair that at 35? Or is this the most key question coming out of this fight in directing where you should pick? What if Grasso shuts that door on the takedowns? If not fully, I mean, I already said that. Outside of that second round where she had Grasso's arm trapped on the ground with Valentina in top position,

any takedown was not leading to big-time offense for Valentina. If Grasso can physically shut that down with technique and her strength, and this is a five-round kickboxing match more or less, Luke, can Valentina dig back into the bag of tricks in the 17-time champion and 30 years of martial arts experience? Or did I see what I saw that Grasso had her largely figured out on the feet? For that reason I've got to stick Grasso and it's not just because Val went from 34 to 35 and it fits a couple different stats, it's

the idea that when we have these rematches, look, the Nunes one, again, we can explain it. I know people think that I'm giving Juliana Peña no credit for that first fight, I'm not. She had to be willing to go down a dark road to win that, take all the shots, outlast it. But we know what happened to Amanda, she fixed the glitch. Just like GSP fixed the glitch in the rematch.

I'm wondering, Luke, if this fight is going to end up being a little bit more like, let's say, Ioana Rose 2, where the first time there was that stoppage that kind of surprised you, but then the second time, the younger champion who can match the aging former champion in some of the key metrics and reasons why she wins fights. Is she the rising force that's going to break through and win this easier this time? Yeah, I got to back Rosso in this case. Look, I believe in her. She's made huge strides. I don't believe those strides are going to stop, even though this is the ultimate challenge. Go defend your title on Mexican Independence Day weekend in a more or less

free fight in which you're trying to launch that brand. Let's forget about that egg, that Aldonale. Let's forget about all this other stuff. Go do that and go do that against one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport, regardless of gender, who's fired up and wearing knife earrings, Luke. I mean, this is a fight. I don't know what this is going to look like, but I do think if you're playing this as if it's a stock market, Luke, and you are looking at the odds, the odds, I can get plus money on Grasso in this situation coming off of a finish, and I think she can do it again. Yeah, I like that pick, Luke

Thomas. Alright, very good. That means we're probably wrong then, if we both pick the same one, so that's going to be fun. Let me just read the odds on this fight one final time from our friends at Caesars, Luke. As we sit right now, minus 180 Shevchenko, plus 155 for Grasso. So there you see

where Vegas is leaning. Great fight. I hope the metrics pick up in the interest level, Luke, as we get closer to Saturday night, because this will be something fun. And also, as a reminder, I'll be doing a post-fight show. Post-fight show, you can catch me after the main event on Saturday night. I'll be here talking about the results. But in any case BC if you want to move on move along I can give you my favorite pick if you're ready for it I was I was born ready I was born for this uh okay so there's a bunch of different fights on this card you could have gone with but I'm gonna take Fernando Padilla Padilla over Kyle Nelson uh our guy Fernando coming into this contest Fernando Fernando, having just stopped Julian Arosa.

That's definitely his best win by far. And before that, he was on Fury FC. And then before that, LFA. He does have a loss to Spike Carlisle, who was like the, as BC calls him, maybe MMA's greatest TV fighter. But that was all the way back in 2019. By contrast, Kyle Nelson enters this contest in a bit of a different predicament. Kyle Nelson has a slightly different record, a little bit, one more loss, one less win, 14-5,

but enters this contest having beaten Blake Builder, who you guys might have seen went viral this past week for beating up some street fighter who came to his gym, but before that has lost to Billy Quarantillo and Jai Herbert. I know one of the Quarantillo wins was in 2020, but nevertheless, there you go. It has a draw against Duho Choi. So to me, I think that

Fernando's in a pretty good spot to get the job done a little bit more. I just think his ceiling is a lot higher and he's improving much more quickly. So I'll take him. He is a minus two favorite, 50 favorite. He'll be my favorite pick of the card. All right, Luke, I'm going to my favorite. I'm going to that co-main event of Noche UFC. Love this welterweight title fight. We told you all the reasons why. Jack Della Maddalena, minus 155 against a plus 130 Kevin Holland. I do think in the end it does come down to what you echoed about your favorite pick. That I do think, what are we calling this guy? JDM, Luke?

Is that the appropriate one? Like we went to DDP? All right. Look, JDM, I believe, does have a brighter ceiling. It's not discounting the changes Kevin Holland has made and the fact that I do believe Kevin Holland's at this sort of turning point that he might just start elevating from here. It seems like he's taking it extra serious. He's in the right weight class. He seems to have the right demeanor. This is a great fight. I still believe in the stand-up of Jack Della Maddalena. You're going to have to keep yourself off the ground against Holland, but Luke, Holland does take big chances in big spots.

I think Jack Della Maddalena can win this with his striking. I feel safer at minus 155. He's got to bounce back from that last performance. There were elements of the performance that are explainable. The late replacement staying in the States an additional week. I get it. I'm going to give him that hall pass. Luke, you used the term smash pass on this show before.

Are you going to give him the smash pass from that performance, please? Can you? What is a smash pass, BC? Well, I'd interpret it as your significant other allowing you to congregate outside of marriage, Luke. But, you know. That's not what that is. Or is that a hall pass? Yeah, yeah.

There's mobile passing and then there's smash passing. It's just two different styles of guard passing. I mean, there's many more, but those are sort of two general categories. Here's what I was thinking about this fight, BC, because I actually don't mind the pick for JDM on this one as the favorite. I actually, and this is going to give away my next pick, but it's an interesting way to talk about this fight. So the next pick I have is the underdog pick, and I took Kevin Holland

because in relation to your last pick BC, you can only use a fight one time in this segment. You can't pick it for several different fights. So you have to decide which fighter or which fight you're going to pick and what category and then that's it. So I said to myself, I'd rather take Kevin Holland as my underdog when looking at the card rather than taking JDM as my best favorite pick. What do you think of that? Yeah. Okay. But do you actually believe this man's going to win? That's the key question here. My underdog picks suck ass. I mean, that's the category I do consistently the worst. So when you say, do I believe it? I mean,

is that even really relevant? I do agree that there came a point in this in this charade that we do where we pretend that we're betting experts that um picking with my heart was leading me to such a last place deficit luke that i started to pick against my heart and be a little bit more safe but nothing hits better than hitting a pick that you also believed in, Luke. So do you believe JDM gets his hand raised here separate from making the Kevin Holland strategic pick? I'm really not sure. So let me answer that. So for that reason, I do think, as it stands right now, I like the Kevin Holland upset a little bit more.

I do think it's winnable for him. And, you know, I mean, again, I'm banking on information I don't have. What has JDM looked like in the last camp? How representative was the last fight? These are things we just don't know the answer to. So I'm making an educated guess. But I think, you know, Kevin Holland will overperform and then underperform. That's the problem.

So you're just like, which one is this? I like Kevin Holland will overperform and then underperform. That's the problem. So you're just like, which one is this? I like Kevin Holland's experience. I like his power. I like his range. I think that those things might end up making a difference. Okay. Well, Luke, I just want to remind you that in a betting segment, you do not need the disclaimer of just so people know I cannot see the future.

Nobody actually knows. We know that. And also, when talking about Uber drivers, you don't need to put the disclaimer that they're probably still great people and it's still a career path. I mean, that's not what I was doing, but okay. You're allowed to bad faith remix it however you like.

Luke, I'm one of the best bad faith actors in all of mixed martial arts, okay? I just want to let you know that. Oh, I know. All right, let's go to my underdog pick. Luke, I've got this fight circled for reasons that go well beyond what your default low-hanging fruit responses for comedic purposes might be.

You know what? You also might be right. But here's the deal, Luke. Jasmine Jazdavichius is going to take on Tracy Cortez. And this is a big fight for 125's future in terms of who's coming out of that backpack. And what I mean by that backpack, or let me tell you how I look at it, Luke. There's a top five core right now of people that may end up winning a title. It's the champion, of course, it's Blanchfield, it's Shevchenko, it's Manon Farrow, it's, you know, maybe Rose, but that's a wild card.

You know, there's a couple people in there. Then you have the middle of the top ten, in my opinion, which is, you know, middle to back end, which is the old guard, Chikagian, Maya, you know what I'm talking about there. But then there's that new group behind them, Luke, that we're trying to figure out who's coming or who's going. We're talking about Macy Barber, that level of fighter, right? This is going to be a good one in that regard. And I'm getting Jasmine Jazz-DeVicious at plus 105 as my underdog pick, fresh off the dismantling of Miranda Maverick. I get that Tracy Cortez is coming in with an unbeaten record

and a different level of momentum. But, Luke, if what we saw last fight from Jasmine, which was a leveling up, by the way, if that's going to be true in this matchup, where she's going to be able to use that jab as a weapon and own that space and be able to build off of that with big right hands, I don't think she's going to get dominated on the ground, although Tracyez is going to have to find ways if my scenario plays out true to win this fight I just think Jazz DeVitius is bigger sturdier and she's starting to figure out how to

be a power puncher and how to use that jab to set up at plus 105 here money this is a good underdog pick I'm going to take the hot hand of the moment um I like that pick. I think it's a good one. The Cortez one, that one's, I don't know, like Jazz DeVisius coming in like a shot out of a cannon. And Cortez has a higher pedigree, but we don't really exactly know what level she's at right now. Yeah, and she's been injured. She's been kind of floating, right? Yes, exactly.

Totally. Is she progressing? We don't know. We don't know. But picking Jazz DeVisius because she is so red hot right now at plus 105 that's a good bet i like that bet um for my over under you know i don't even need to explain this one lupita godinez versus elise reed i i have it going the over i just want to point out here that luke thomas is so nervous about me being like one and a half games back or whatever. I don't know how to work in those ties that you've had,

but that you are now cherry picking openly and obviously and saying, yes, I'm not going to get back on defense. I mean, listen, fuck face. You did it last week and it blew up in your face. So, I mean, we are where we are with this. I don't want to go see some guy on the sitar just strumming for 45 fucking hours at whatever drug-addled concert with

losers in drug rugs. Wow. This is heavy-handed calling those concert participants losers. Now, some of them are. Look, I get down. I've been at fish concerts. I've been at spin-offs of Bob Ware, Rat Dog concerts.

There are what I consider regular hippies and then creatures, Luke. And then creatures do the creature dancing. Those are not necessarily my people, but I do look, they're having a good time. Leave them alone. I'd rather congregate with those people than all the people that are going to be at the pissing blood concert with you. Okay. Listen, I've been to two Cannibal Corpse shows, okay?

I have seen the Garbage Pail kids in person. It's like MMA Twitter right in your face. It's the worst. It's the absolute worst. It is. It is. I'm just, I'm not, you know, I'm not expecting to see any Fields medal winners tonight at the Pantera concert, but... You know, that's like the it's like the

Nobel Peace Prize, but they give it out every four years for math. Is that the Goodwill Hunting quote I'm trying to pull here, Luke? Remember that? Yeah, but you fucked it up, I think. Okay, that's alright. Great movie, though, right? Still stands out as maybe the best movie of the 90s. Wow. That's a little much, but it's good. Okay, I just want to reiterate, Luke, it's not your fault. But I'm going to tell you this, my over-under, I'm going to take a little bit of a chance here. I'm going to go to this Golden Boy Boxing main event. That's a little bit under the radar. It's going to go down on this weekend, Luke. William Zepeda on the main event against

35-year-old Mercido Hesta. Both have recently scored wins, though, over Jojo Diaz, and now they're matched up against each other. I think they're going to end up evening out pretty well. Zepeda's going to win this, but I think it's going to be by decision and not stoppage. Hesta's only been stopped once. He's not the next Manny Pacquiao. We're well past that, but he's still lingering. Give me Zepeda, Hesta to go the distance. Yes. Alright. Alright. That's an interesting

one. I don't have any comment about it because I don't know shit about that fight, but we shall see. Alright. Last but not least, KO or sub? Listen, people say, oh, you're doubting Raul Rosas Jr. For the record, I'm picking this fucking guy to win. I think he should win this one. He's taking on Terrence Mitchell.

So my prediction is that he should. I'll say this. If he can't beat this guy, you know, he just can't beat people in the UFC, more or less. I mean, if he can't beat him. So he should be able to win. So give me Rosas versus Mitchell ending via sub. In particular, I think Rosas will win,

but Mitchell also kind of hunts for chokes from the back at times, too. Who's to say? Alright, Luke, this is where I'm going to roll the dice a little bit, Luke, right? Dude, what is this? You're like, all your gestures, you were doing this before.

You're like, we got to talk about the two ways this story really gets cut. Where's my shake weight, Luke? Here's what it is. I'm going to try to mix it up a little and get fun with you. When I win with a pick, I want it also to get you in the back end, Luke. So I'm going to go with Rojas by TKO or KO, Luke. Raul Rosas Jr. I do believe he'll bounce back,

but I wanted to play the decision road on here. But you know what? He's going to bounce back in a big way. But let's get a ground-and-pound stoppage when he can't get the submission. How about that? Okay, how about that? See, here's the thing.

I thought about that, too, and then, again, I think that would be a good sign, right? If he goes for the ground-to-pound finish, you know, with controlling posture, I'd be like, this is great. This is definitely in the right direction. Yeah. But, like, both guys are averaging less than one strike landed a minute. Oh, boy.

So I was like, eh, I don't know. I don't know about that one. All right. That is what it is. That's your okay. Bet picks for the weekend. Five versus five here. Luke to close.

Do you have any other further comments about this weekend's no chair? Are you all good? I'm excited about it. Catch me after the main event. I'll be right back here. YouTube.com slash morning combat for your official UFC, no chair, no chair,

UFC post fight show. Cash him inside. How about that? All right, Luke, are you, uh, UFC post-fight show. Cash him inside. How about that? How about that? Luke, are you oddly attracted to her in like a weird morbid circus way or no? Bad Bobby? No, she's not my type. She's also probably still like 14, Luke.

I don't know. People get famous off of weird things these days, right? Did you buy Octomom's rap album? I mean, of all the candidates to be like, who would stab you in the neck in your sleep? You'd be like, oh, her. I mean. Her and most of our P1s, to be very fair. Look, yeah, it's all right. Only after eating their land, Jaeger.

Okay. Luke, we're going to go hit our topics right now. And how about topic number one? A little bit of a hangover from the TKO merger of WWE and UFC coming together, going public, the evaluation of, what, $21 billion plus and all that. We don't need to relitigate a lot of stuff, but there was a couple fallout and reactions to it. How about Dana White's comments?

He was at the Dana White Contender Series press conference Tuesday night, and somebody presented to him the Lawrence Epstein quote, who is the, what, CFO or so of the UFC, whatever his title is, in saying what Epstein said was, Our goal with TKO, our hope, is that every WWE fan becomes a UFC fan and every vice versa. Look, Luke, we may dunk on Dana when we feel necessary, but how about this from our old friend here?

Quote, Lawrence, I love you. That's one of the dumbest statements of all time. White said of Epstein, who formerly served as the chief legal counsel for UFC before taking a broader role with the company, I don't know why he said that. I don't even know what to say to that. No, there's some crossover. Some people like WWE. Some people like UFC.

Some people like both. I don't think there's ever going to be a day where we turn every UFC fan into a WWE fan or every WWE fan, vice versa, end quote. Luke, that's the response we kind of want, right? It's more realistic. Like, hold on. There has to be some separation here. Yeah. I definitely agree with the broads. Well, I'm not sure if I agree with Dana fully, to be honest with you. I mean, he is right that the audiences are, to an extent, distinct. There are definitely MMA or UFC fans who don't watch pro wrestling or vice versa. That is real.

But like of any two entities, they're combined together in this financial holdings TKO company, and they're together as a unit because there is significant audience overlap. It is not in every way possible or necessary, but the union of these two organizations around a, not just from a demographically similar pool, but again, people who identify openly as both and consume both, they're trying to not just leverage them, but they're trying to leverage both organizations

for maximal audience retention or growth because they all kind of hover in the same spaces. This is not an accidental pairing. It's a direct and strategic one. So I understand why he's putting a firewall up there, and Lawrence Epstein might have gone a little bit too far over. So it's nice to hear Dana do that. I would agree, but I think we need to be realistic.

Like, they're going to try some overlap. What that's going to look like, I don't really know yet, but it is certainly coming. Well, we hit the overlap debate or fears on Wednesday, and just to add to that, Nick Khan, the former super agent who's now running WWE, he doubled down on that whole idea of joining forces for big weekends. Obviously not. The goal

here isn't every weekend, but Nick Khan said he could see a future where on big weekends, let's say, you know, majors, we have both UFC and WWE going to the big city for big events. Friday night would be live SmackDown on Fox. Saturday night would be the big UFC pay-per-view. Sunday night would be the big WWE pay-per-view. But the belief based on his comments is if it's going to happen, it's going to be like SummerSlam weekend or WrestleMania weekend, although that gets difficult because WrestleMania is now a two-day event. Luke, if it was once a year where they did that, are you okay with that? I mean, do you fear that?

Is there any problem with that? Dude, I mean, I don't know how to answer that question. It depends on the crossover, right? It really depends on how aggressive they are. And also, you know, again, you're asking, how do I feel about it? The question is like, what's going to happen to the product? What's going to happen to the market for that product?

Who is that designed to attract? And who do they not care about losing? They probably don't care about losing someone closer to my preference itemization, given what they want to do but at the same time it's like do I think it's great that there's this frankly homogeneity to a degree between the two organizations no I don't think that's great I don't think that really actually I would prefer the MMA brand leader this is my personal preference so take this analysis for what it is worth it is my personal belief that they should remain much more independent and carve their own identity.

That's really what the UFC did for a long stretch. Now, of course, they have leaned on pro wrestling before to great effect in ways that I thought was awesome. Again, if you didn't live through the Brock Lesnar era, it was an injection of electricity into the sport. That was just, you know, people were like, oh, Conor did it. Dude, before Conor did it, fucking Brock Lesnar did it. Maybe not the same level, but pretty close. He's an alien, dude. I know Rousey has done both at the highest level, but he is really an alien to himself.

I'm just saying there have been ways the crossover has worked that really lifted everything, to be quite honest with you. No doubt. Who would be against something like that i'm just saying if forced integration and whatnot is like deeply uh nauseating to me um so you know we'll see all right one other factoid is that uh vince mcmahon who previously you know held over 50 share of wwe even though it's gone public and now lost that with this sale he holds somewhere around 30 of final control as a stockholder. But the new power structure, so Vince is set to collect a $111 million dividend from TKO Group Holdings on Wednesday. But Luke, that Dana quote plays into that other fear that we didn't really

talk about a lot, and that's the power structure. So what might decide the level of crossover is the power structure. And how it sits is Nick Khan runs WWE with Triple H, Paul Levesque running the creative along with him. Dana runs UFC with, you know, Epstein and Hunter Campbell below him. They both, though, report now to Vince McMahon with key majority shareholder leader Ari Emanuel of Endeavor above them as the final stamp. And why that is important to bring up is Dana's quotes of saying, hold on a second. And also this technically under the way it's set up,

Vince McMahon has power to veto all UFC and WWE decisions, which means he could have a final say in big effort decisions surrounding the UFC. Now the reports coming out of that. Well, hold on the reports coming out of that, well, hold on. The reports coming out of that were sort of like, quote, based on people that are there, we don't expect him to take an active role in there. But one thing we do have to say, he's 78 years old, but he's still that same maverick

that broke the way pro wrestling mold used to be, brought it to the highest level ever, and is still, to this day day still responsible for so many things in wwe where it has to go through him maybe not where it was two years ago but certainly big luke the idea that there would be no issue with this guy having this control is a little naive considering his history right it is naive considering his history but i think we need to be very careful here so what you're saying is, but also you can't overstate it. And what I mean by that is if I'm understanding the corporate structure, and this is sort of a question of like how they are creating organizational hierarchy,

but my understanding is the veto power that Vince McMahon enjoys is by virtue of the place he holds on the board. He is one vote among the whole board but he's not okay the deciding factor he just has a vote among the other members so yes he does in that sense have veto power but it's not the buck doesn't stop with him in that particular sense he just sits in a place that can act as a body a decision maker over some of the smaller entities yeah i mean do i expect it to be a major problem? No, but I do think it's interesting the way the hierarchy is set up. And obviously Ari

was asked about this when this idea first launched months ago and he played it politically correct publicly. Do you remember that weird interview where he was there with Vince and he, and it was almost like, you know, we forced Vince into this spot. We wanted him in this role. You know, is it too many? here's my honest question here is it potentially too many cooks in the kitchen or will it be separated in your eyes moving forward i know you don't know i know you don't know i think there's i think some integration is absolutely inevitable the contours of which as we've kind of discussed are very difficult to note but just understand something do we're talking about a TKO, the combined UFC and the financial holdings between the UFC and WWE of what you had indicated earlier, in all kinds of ways, both financial and otherwise,

similar fan bases because there's a lot of them. That's what they're trying to do at this point. And again, that's a business. They're going to run it however they see fit. But I just think looking at this like this is anything other than a financial play for like really well capitalized financial organization or I should say organizations that have huge control over their respective industries that are related in demographic profile. That's what this, that's what this is about. That's what this

is about. So any decision that runs along those value lines is going to, is the one that's probably going to get made. All right. I am fear mongeringering mongering for the point of conversation but i do think it's worth thinking about right because man this is i never thought we'd be here i never thought we'd be exactly here just like this and it is odd the way the power structure is set up right it's showing respect to the to the longtime maverick but that maverick luke is like in some ways out of touch like there's things that have happened in wwe storytelling on a regular basis in recent years where you're, you're as a viewer, you're, you're almost like that's a Vince choice. Cause it's so weird and it doesn't really make sense. I just wonder if we start seeing things show up on UFC television. We're like, oh, that's a Vince choice right there.

If I've ever seen it, you know, all I can ask for is I don't have the integration. Like I said, there are ways I'm not like completely insane I realize that there's could be interesting ways in which you can combine the the IP or the brands or the rosters or whatever and some kind of creative and or at least in a way non you know not not horrible for me I just don't care one way or the other but like if they don't as long as they don't like power slap us which is just you know yeah like human centipede forced rectal feeding like as long as it's not that, I'll live. And why I bring up the that's a Vince move comment is,

are they going to have to throw him a bone? That's my point, Luke. Is there going to become points where he's going to be having creative ideas and there's going to have to be a certain level where, because of his job title, they have to throw him a bone and say, okay, that's Vince's pet project. I know you guys hate it, but all I'm saying, okay, Luke, all I'm saying, didn't think we'd be here.

Let's see how it stirs out. Yeah, I mean, this is my worst nightmare. So, you know. It is. Another great day in my life. And I'm your local weatherman telling you to go to the store now because the hurricane's coming. No, I'm kidding.

All right, topic number two, Luke, I want to get your reaction to these recent fight announcements. How about this development? Kayla Harrison, whose PFL contract we believe is set to expire at the end of this year, she was not included in a tournament this year because of hopes that they had to make a super fight with Cyborg. That fell through. But she will appear in the cage, the smart cage, one more time, Luke, at the November 24th PFL Championships pay-per-view card that will air in your city of Washington, D.C. She's going to take on former Bellator champion Julia Budd, who really, if you think about it,

was a free agent pickup for PFL a couple years ago just to find solid, active opponents who were legitimate for Kayla. Luke, do you like this move to possibly close out her PFL career? I say possibly because let's not forget, there will be a lot of money in the PFL pay-per-view division next year. They got a hundred million from Saudi. There's, there's money to play with here. What do you think this fight means to Kayla's future? And do you like it? Yeah, this is probably an audition for whatever is next, which could include staying with PFL. We, you know, if they purchased Bellator, I don't really know what she would do or where she would go. That would meaningfully be different. Um, I guess you could go there and get a Cyborg fight, but again, if PFL owns both rosters,

I would imagine they would want to keep the better fights for themselves. I don't know. I don't know how that all might work. But in any case, it is an auditioning for whatever could come next. They were supposed to fight these two, or they were linked briefly anyway in 2022. Fight never happened. It was canceled. And so now they finally meet at the end here. Julia Budd's been kind of a mainstay at 145 for a long time. Do we know the weight class of this about as a 155 or 145? I don't know. Mikey, do you have that? That's interesting.

I would like to see. I think I can get the answer to that. I think if I'm not mistaken, that is a here. Give me one second. That is a 145 pound fight. So that's going to be great. I think that's a great weight class for Kayla to be at. I want the 135 thing to me is ridiculous. So let's see what she can do. And, um, I'm, I, I, I'm like reasonably intrigued by it. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It is. I like to see her back. It was a good fight. So I like to see it a lot. Kayla's a player, Luke. I don't know about that argument she had to herself publicly about cutting down to 35 if that's the only path for her to go um but interesting interesting where she's going to go i mean look do you think ufc in 2024 is a player for kayla or will they remain passive and go we don't really have a division for you if you want to come in to the contender series and do

a bo nickel tryout maybe i mean is will they hear from her? I honestly feel like, I know she's got, what, 15, 16 fights. I honestly feel like this final audition could be one of those things where the reason they haven't closed it out is, let's see what she looks like, let's see how it goes. You know, one last kind of kick in the tires idea thing. And then if she looks, you know, tremendous, they might say, all right, let's see what we can do with her. Maybe give her a couple of fights, see how it goes, and then, you know, call it a day or however they want to treat it. But I think if she goes in there and it's ho-hum and she gets a lot of control time with that much ground and pound, they might just pass. And, Luke, the industry's belief does seem to be that PFL is done with ESPN at the end of this year and will be looking for a major suitor.

If they bought Bellator and got a major suitor, knowing that they're going to be able to produce pay-per-views that will draw your eyes, whether it's sustainable or not. If Jake Paul debuts in MMA or Francis fights in any form, it's going to draw your eyeballs, right? Cyborg versus Kayla, if you can make it happen, it's going to draw your eyeballs. Dude, this is going to get interesting. This is kind of what we want. Swing big, Smart Cage.

This is what we want. Let's see if they can get a big deal. I need to ask Jeeves Cage to really level it up here just a bit. But in all seriousness, yes, if they're going to go for it, go big. What is the fucking point? If you're making a move this large, you've got to go chips in the middle and see

what happens. I love that. I love to live your life like that, Luke. Bet on yourself. That's what this show's all about. That's why you're in a hotel room in an Al Qaeda hostage video. Wow. October 21st is a UFC 294 card in Abu Dhabi. So this card

already rules. We talked about it on Wednesday. Is this the added fifth fight for the main card? Oh wait, no, I got confused here, Luke. Wrong Nurmagomedov. Sorry. This is Saeed Nurmagomedov against Muin Ghaffarov. I don't know why I read Umar in my mind, Luke. I'm like, we got

Umar on this card, too? Can you adjust the size of my excitement level for this hammer? Yeah, it's a fine fight, but this is not one of the inside Nurmagomedov types. Yeah, okay. This is not it. These are not the droids you are looking

for. Junior Dos Santos says he's fighting. This is what we kind of thought. Junior beat, by the way, Fabricio Verdum under the GameBread Bare Knuckle MMA banner. Alan Belcher and Roy Nelson, Belcher coming fresh off of a BKFC run, are going to fight for the inaugural GameBread Bare Knuckle heavyweight title. JDS wants the winner. Luke, I don't think you care about this, right? You probably don't care. I mean, I'm not going to hate on these guys, but I don't know what the, you know, I don't quite get who the fan is of that. But isn't JDS choosing this fight over the possibility of Ngannou? That's what it feels like. Yeah, I don't quite get that either.

And honestly, the fight against Verdun, like, he looked fine, but if that was an audition, it didn't that was an audition, his physique looked great, but his game didn't look transformed. So many supplements, Luke. Let's go to UFC Sao Paulo. Can you pronounce that for me? Luke, you're a South American. I think it's Sao Paulo.

Sao Paulo, November 4th. Your boy, one half of the Bone Femme Bros, Ishmael, going to take on Vince Pichelle. You fired up for this? Yeah, dude, that's actually an action fight, big time. Ismael of the two, him between he and Gabriel, I mean, I think he's a little bit more of a risk taker on the feet. That's somewhat debatable, but I think he's more of an action fighter in that way. Although both of them are fantastic action fighters.

And Vince Pichelle, dude, win win or lose he brings that fight hardcore that looks to me like it's going to be an absolute banger and a fight that could take place in a lot of different phases of the game all of which be very scrambly and fun big heavy damage I love that match making great great job look are the bone themes on a Charlo level where they're generally generally equal in both ability and accomplishments although jermell has certainly exceeded jermall's accomplishments in the two years there's a big gap between those two now now there is but in terms of ability we've always said that they're pretty damn close do you think that's the same case here yeah they're pretty close i mean there are some noteworthy differences in a couple different directions when these guys i get

different weight classes too uh of course the charlo brothers are and but you know they haven't been far apart like you know one apart um in boxing which of course would be like half a division apart in in mma in certain cases anyway um there are some differences between them but they're both they're both very very skilled very talented they're both of their successes are are their their collective successes and not in any way accidental and it's not like the pitbull brothers where i like i do think Petrick is a good fighter, but his brother is historically the best guy ever in Bellator. I don't think there's quite the same gap at all in the Bonfim brothers.

Now, his brother did win a title, but let's also be fair. He needed his brother to give up the title, and he lost to Queely the first time and then wins the rematch for the title. He got the fightatch for the title. He got the fight to win the belt because his brother was a double champ. I mean, this is what I mean. Like, there's a gap between them. Luke, so this bit of news started small and is now getting bigger. So it started small when Roman DeLidze went on social media

and said that Derek Brunson is out of their scheduled middleweight fight and that he's looking for a big opponent. Then that led to roster watch. Derek Brunson is out of their scheduled middleweight fight and that he's looking for a big opponent. Then that led to roster watch. Derek Brunson has been removed. And then that led to a Jake Paul quote tweet or no, sorry. And no, his manager confirmed it. Derek Brunson Instagram post this morning, which uses a 2021 quote tweet from Jake Paul talking to Dana saying, Dana admitted this morning that I would destroy the 170 pound Masvidal. So Dana, will you give me Brunson by permission to make some real money? Luke, that's a quote from two years ago. So is Derek Brunson, did he pull out of the lead day fight because he thinks he's getting Jake Paul? What is really happening here? Do you have any

inside intel? Yeah. So Ali Abdelaziz is the manager of Derek Brunson, and he issued a statement to either Damon Martin or MMA Fighting or both. This is what he wrote. Quote, Derek Brunson has been under the UFC umbrella for 11 years. He had an amazing career there. The last seven, he's been in the top 10 rankings. The UFC was amazing to him there, helped shape who he is today, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity he was given.

He has to move on. And looking forward to what comes next for him. So he basically. Ali is basically as I understand it. Confirming that Derek Brunson has parted ways with UFC. Under what circumstance? I don't know. Because the Delize fight was reported to have been scheduled.

And then it just kind of all fell apart. And then to your point. He puts out a post sort of referencing an old tweet that Jake Paul had about fighting Derek Brunson. So he parted ways with UFC. It's official. He's gone. And I guess we'll have to see where he ends up. Well, Luke, he's 39 years old. I don't think we think he's done. Do we think he's done competing at the higher end of the UFC middleweight division? Yes, coming off of two stoppage losses in a row to Kananir and DDP.

But do you think this is a power play, not for Jake Paul despite that tweet, but for potentially a PFL Bellator like 2024, let's get after it and add as many recognizable names as we can and use this free agency ball of money from Saudi Arabia to try to get some people that you know? Could we be seeing the Cisco Thong haircut inside the smart cage? It's possible. Remember, Brunson fought for Strikeforce first.

That's how he got acquired by UFC. He was a Strikeforce fighter, if memory serves. So maybe he reunites with Scott Coker. I guess we'll see. And wasn't Ali a former World Series of Fighting matchmaker? For a time, yes. Is he still embedded in the PFL relationship-wise as he used to be? So there's some questions about that.

Remember, the commission made him give up because he was being both manager and matchmaker at the same time, which was a conflict of interest. And then in Nevada, they made him split that up but obviously he still has a lot of fighters in that organization so i don't know exactly to what extent he is influencing any decision making in that regard um certainly in bellator he doesn't hold that kind of influence from what i know i don't think that's quite right but in any case um i think the dude's just looking to see what opportunities but the question is like why the ufc like What happened with the Delize fight, and why did they ultimately part ways?

That part to me is kind of interesting. I'd like to know what the story is there. All right. How about this, Luke? Bellator 301 is going to go down November 17th. There's some things on here we have to see about. I mean, I'm fired up for this card. So the main event is unbeaten welterweight champion Yaroslav Amisov

taking on the ass-kicking machine Jason Jackson, who has been sort of long-deserving the last couple years of getting his big title shot. The co-main event is the best fight on this card. Sergio Pettis versus Patchy Mix, the $1 million interim champion, tournament champion mix. Red Hot going against a returning Sergio Pettis here for the full defense unification of the title.

Then you got Patrycki Pitbull against Alexander Chablis. Raffi on Stotts, Danny Sabatello, part two. Daniel James is back. A couple other things worth seeing, Luke. What do you think here? Mixed bag or are you all in? No, I mean, dude, they got Islam Mamadov on the prelim card. Denise Kielholtz on the prelim card denise kilhote's on the prelim

card um tyrell fortune marcelo gum that one may not be that great but okay to your point there's a bunch of good ones on there i'll just say this out loud sergio pettis versus patchy mix is easily one of the best fights that bellator can make uh it's for the it's the winner of the bantamweight tournament versus the bantamweight champion who just came off that Pitbull win, which was incredible, some of the best he's ever looked. And I got to tell you, Apache Mix, I don't care what organization he fights in, he's one of the most electric talents in all of MMA. There are some guys in Bellator that we recommend you watch because they're really good,

like Vadim Nemkov I think is really good. Certainly I'm very high on Usman Nurmagomedov. I think he's absolutely dynamite talent as well. But guys, Pachi Mix might be the most exciting fighter in all of Bellator. His improvement is extraordinary. The way he's winning now is just so dominantly. Started out as a backpack kind of grappler, and now can do way more than that.

Clearly has a natural aptitude for the game but as i just indicated sergio pettis has looked the best he's ever looked as he is moving now into his 30s uh i think we're getting pretty close to it i really begin to peak physically and then technically what a fight pettis versus mixes love that's a great fight this is the win trust arena in chicago november 17th uh amosov. That's a great fight. This is the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, November 17th. Amosov-Jackson's a great fight. I want to continue to see Amosov's rise in title reign here. Tough to see how Jackson wins that one, though.

True, but he's hungry. He's going to go after it. It'll be fun to see Amosov deal with that. But, Luke, I got an important question about this fight because everybody seems to be groaning about Stott Sabatello 2 only because the first fight was slap butt in the park and a lot of wrestling and not a lot of, I'm about to kill you, like the pre-fight build. Here's the problem, Luke. Every man has his own line and standards of what he's

willing to allow, right? I've allowed a lot of bullshit into my diet, Luke, and that's why I have a black liver. But what I've developed through that is sometimes there's some fights that are just so gas station hot dog that you got to be honest and say look i can't turn away look stotts and sabatello just being in the same arena just has this pro wrestling cringe level of magic that i can't get away from and i need to see i'm actually in on this rematch i'm down for it they both need a big bounce back win i know sabatello's already been back since this loss but they both need a big moment let's do

it against each other again. It can't be as bad as the first one. It can't be, right? Well, this one's going to be three rounds instead of five. So it's going to be less painful at a bare minimum. Okay, okay. There you go. I guess you're not into it, Luke. Is that what you're saying? No, no. I saw the first one. Didn't need to see the sequel. Do you remember

we had them in the Morning Combat studio, Luke? You produced some of the greatest... Yeah, they're the greatest. I mean, I like kind of... I mean, I to see the sequel. Do you remember we had them in the Morning Combat studio, Luke? It produced some of the greatest. I mean, I like kind of, I mean, I don't even know who, you know, I don't even know who Danny really is as a person. I know the character he plays, but. Danny Brenner? Ralphie Stotts is a great guy. I like Ralphie a lot.

It's just that fight is just a weird matchup, you know. Oh, Danny Sabatello. I thought you were talking about Danny Brenner, Luke. He plays a character, too. I wanted to say that. Do you remember when we talked to Sabatello about fight boners? He was a little put off by that, Luke. It was a curveball he didn't expect.

Do you remember that? You're like, have you ever seen a man that you want to beat up so bad you just had an erection? And I'm like, okay. I don't think I necessarily said that. What are we doing here? This is not okay. All right, Luke.

UFC Vegas 80. Here's a news update. How do you pronounce his name? Hussein Ashkabov? I'm not going to do much better. Let's say that. Scratched from the fight card after reported arrest for alleged kidnapping, torture, and extortion. That's assault, brother, where I come from.

Wow, dude. Wow, right? Yeah. So both, well, he got scrapped, but both brothers got arrested. Now, they're alleged to not be the three dudes. According to the report, the Ashkabov brothers had met this Italian guy at some cafe or bar some time ago and had a relationship, a business or friendship or whatever with the guy.

And then eventually he got robbed by three other dudes, not the two brothers. But the report states that the brothers were in on it either, I guess. They didn't say exactly how, so either on the planning or whatever, targeting the whole nine yards. They've got them involved in this. And so the UFC was like, yeah, we're just going to, I don't think we're going to let this guy fight. And there's pictures of the dude with his ankles taped and shit.

I mean, they really did a number on him. So whoever did the alleged torturing and kidnapping and all that kind of stuff. Fun story. Fun story. MMA really, you know, a palace of heroes is really the best way to look at it. Yeah, tough break for Pat Milicic, too. I saw that bit of news. Yeah, so he spent the morning in jail and then did a press conference

about the fight that he has this weekend with Mike Jackson. And I don't know what kind of media attended such an event, but no one asked him about being in jail that morning. Luke, in some circles, he's an American hero. So let's keep that respect on his name, Luke. A Jan 6 survivor. I'm not insulting him. I'm just sort of stating what the facts were. He was in jail that morning.

I was just stating facts. He was there on the steps, Luke. Okay, that's all I was saying. Topic number three. It's been one week since you looked at me. Oh, God. I mean, if anyone comes into your life singing One Week by Barenaked Ladies, when that comes on the radio, my wife's like, I love that

song, Luke. I will punch the radio screen to turn that off. It's Ben, right? Isn't that the worst and most annoying pop song of all time? Yeah, I mean, that song playing, turning the volume up on the car is grounds for getting electrocuted. I mean, there really is no defense of it whatsoever. Like Kurosawa, I make mad films, Luke.

But it has been one week since Strickland upset the middleweight world and took the title from Adesanya. There's a lot of fallout, a lot of interviews, a lot of soundbites, and a lot of matchmaking to be done about the future. Before we get that and sort of look at what has been said and what that applies to former matchups luke i gotta be honest i do the uh at least the pound for pound rankings for ufc for cbs sports.com and i would it's been interesting on how we react to this upset win it wasn't a fluke it was a thorough beating but it

was a monster surprise adesanya if he gets the immediate rematch, which we'll talk about, we're not exactly sure anymore, he'll probably be the betting favorite. You know, Shevchenko's the betting favorite here after getting finished against Grasso. But Luke, what do you do pound-for-pound rankings-wise with Sean Strickland? I ended up leaving him out of my top 10, basically at 11, moving Adesanya from 3 to 10 with the loss. I saw that Kevin Aioli did the same. I saw that the UFC put Strickland at the back half of the top 10 around number 8. And ESPN, who does their own divisional rankings, still have Adesanya as the number one ranked

middleweight. I don't even know how that's possible. Have Strickland at number 5, which is wild. But it goes to show you that there is some level of course correction, even if somebody beats somebody, that, like, it doesn't necessarily, like, when Islam beat Alex, I still have Alex number one pound for pound. I think it's one of those unique scenarios when you can do that. What do you think should be done rankings-wise following a fight like that?

I haven't give, okay, so I was talking to Breadman when I did that commentary gig. Not about anything in MMA, but just sort of pound-for-pound rankings in boxing. Because they do work with very similar principles in terms of how you assign value in that way. And he made a point about where Spence should rank after what Crawford did to him. Yes. And what he argued to me, and I think quite I think quite correctly is like dude I'm not like he and I both agreed that like my our view of Spence as how good he was didn't really change it's just the it's the view of what Crawford did was so extraordinary his stock really went up however however let's start with pound forfor-pound lists. Guys, how can you lose and take a beating the way that Spence did

and even think you're going to stay in the top pound-for-pound list? You cannot. You cannot get your ass beat the way that he did on that night. Whether or not there's a rematch and how that looks, for this moment in time, if you want to be on pound-for-pound lists, you cannot get beat up like that. Now, Izzy did not get beat up like that. Not even anything even close to that. And of course, Errol Spence got stopped. So these are very different in that sense. But to the point that you raised, it was

thorough. I think there is a case to leave Izzy in the top 10, depending on how some of the other ones shake out. I don't think, again, it's not nearly like the Errol Spence case in terms of the degree of severity, but Sean Strickland unheralded as a real threat, beating Izzy, who was near the top of that list, doing so cleanly without controversy. Dude, there should be a major disruption in anyone's number who suffers a loss under those conditions. And I say that as somebody, everybody accuses me of like the all-time bias for Izzy. I'm the one saying there should be a substantial penalty for that loss in terms of like the division itself. How can the guy with the belt be ranked below or than the guy without the belt?

When the guy with the belt just beat the guy who had the belt. Can I give you two recent scenarios? When Leon Edwards had kicked Usman, who was right at the top of the power for pound, either one or two or three, I forget like, but like could have been your number one at that time I put I put Leon into the back half of the top 10 kept Usman even though he lost cleanly head kick ahead of him and then when they had the rematch and that figured out Usman out of the top 10 Edwards

permanently in there are you okay with that pound for pound though yes okay because in my understanding of who leon was in that moment i felt a little bit of a fluke variety usman had accomplished everything leading into that it was almost like usman here's your smash pass for one more fight so i thought you were saying that espn at middleweight had izzy at one and sean which are which have a different criteria than pound for pound but i was just illustrating the large debate we all have. So I can understand how you can actually get two different places between how two different fighters rank in their division and then how they rank on pound for pound list

because you're having different criteria and, of course, a very different set of fighters in pound for pound. Nevertheless, if we're just talking about middleweight, how is it fucking possible that Izzy could rank over Sean Strickland right now? Again, on the rematch, who's to say? Again, I think people are sleeping on him because he did lose so decisively. They're like, oh, well, how's the rematch going to go? That's a very winnable fight for Izzy.

But for this moment in time, right now, the 15th of September, 2023, it's not possible to rank Izzy above Sean. It makes no sense to do that. That's crazy. Not pound for pound, though. I got Izzy at 10, Sean at 11. Fine. Pound for pound, I admit, because you have a different lens by which you're measuring it. Look, Dan Raphael, who used to write for ESPN, always took these parts of it super serious,

and he sort of set a tone for the boxing business. He always believed that divisional rankings are about accomplishments only. Pound for pound is about more of a combination of accomplishments with in the moment, how great are you, mythical matchups, all that, right? So I get that. There's this idea that on the pound for pound level, is he still the better fighter, more accomplished? Let's see what happens if they fight again. Do you also agree when I put a little controversial choice when Canelo lost to B-Vol, I did not remove him from number one pound for pound. Even though he lost cleanly, it was 115-113 on all three scorecards,

and I was like, he's daring to be great in a division above against a guy he's probably not going to be able to beat. Is that okay if a smash pass in that scenario under the way you look at it? So that's a little bit weird too because that was not 175 I know he had beaten Kovalev there but that was not Canelo like Canelo unified at 168 so when at 175 it was like you know this is an interesting test he's going up in weight but that's not his natural weight class like 175 is not so again with pound for pound the penalties can be different but and he did lose that one again not so much on the scorecards decisively.

But again, 49-46 on all three judges' scorecards. Guys, like, I don't know. You can like whoever you like as people. You can dislike whoever you dislike as people. You have to honor that. You have to honor that in the penalty, in the drop that Izzy would suffer in the pound-for-pound. And for sure, on the middleweight rankings he has to occupy a spot lower than Shawn as it stands today

you can't have rankings that make sense without it, it just has to be that way final note on this before we get into the matchmaking are you okay with Kevin Aioli of Yahoo Sports currently having Juliana Pena as his number one pound for pound female fighter.

Is he just doing, like, rankings Mad Libs or something? Is this a skit or a bit? Is that what you're asking, Luca? No, I'm just saying, like, I don't even understand how that's possible. I don't get it. I literally don't get that. I don't even want to try to understand it. I don't get it.

He also has Hamzat number four in the male side pound-for-pound, which I think is a very... Is Kevin Holland the only ranked fighter he's beaten? No, Gilbert Burns. That's an aggressive move. He also has Usman at six. There's a lot of aggressive moves going on here, okay?

Here we go. I don't understand some of those moves. Let's get into it. So we all remember Dana immediately after Strickland's upset saying that when asked does the rematch, does Adesanya deserve a rematch he said that feels like the fight to make. He did clarify his comments Tuesday night at the Dana White Contender Series

press conference. He said, if you remember that night, people said, well, what do you think? You think there's a rematch? I was like, yeah, the rematch sounds great. I saw the stupid fucking shit that was written by all these stupid fucking websites. Never once did I say, yes, we're going to fucking do this rematch.

I said, yeah, rematch sounds, you know, we'll see what happens. There's obviously a lot of options out there and we'll see what happens. But yes, I'm still not opposed to an Israel rematch. We'll see how it goes. End quote. Luke, is that him? I mean, obviously he's got to realize that he's the mouthpiece for UFC. So when he speaks, obviously every media site is going to interpret it, put it in the headline, try to do it. Dude, sorry, Dana. It did sound like you were saying, yeah, the rematch is next.

Commercialism and popularity wins, okay? But are you happy with this course correction? Does this open up the idea to you that it could be a number of people being considered for who's next? I mean, I just don't understand what he wants he's like how dare you quote me and post the video it's like what do you what do you want us to do man like we can't hit you up individually for clarification and it didn't even sound like we needed it so but okay in terms of the merits of it in terms of like the course correction yeah I think he's going in the right direction. Now listen, we all have to be realistic. On some level, what does best commercially is probably going to be the chief driver of

any decision making. And on that night, he said he wanted to see it again. I don't think stating his preference such as you want to say that's what he did is any kind of crime. It just seemed like he normally is like, hey, what's next for so-and-so? What he'll usually say is, you guys can't ask me to matchmake on the night. So when he says something like, yeah, it's like the rematch makes sense or however exactly how he worded it,

it seemed like a pretty clear endorsement given how he normally does it. Dana, you speak like a politician, okay, bro? Most of the stuff you say is aggressive lies to try to publicly negotiate. So we're going to critique everything you said. This didn't seem critiquable. It seemed like you were telling us. Dude, people literally posted the question

and then him answering the entire question. Like, what else do you want us to fucking add to that? But in the end, BC, he's right. There are more options. There are other places they can go. I do think that Izzy-Sean 2 or I should say Sean-Izzy 2

is the biggest commercial fight they can make among the other options. Obviously, Izzy versus Drickus without a title doesn't do well, but maybe with a title it would do better. Among the available permutations that exist today, that's still your number one commercial choice.

So I think that will probably win out. But it is good to hear Dana say that there were some other choices. They've got some options. Fair enough. Look, appease my cynical ass. Did he see the negative reaction from journalists and fans and then realize, hey, maybe this isn't as instant a cash register cha-ching as I thought. Yeah, I mean, even Daniel Cormier, you know, who I would say, you know, is diligent about supporting the UFC brand.

I like Daniel a lot, but that's just the reality of his job these days. Even he came out and said, yeah, Izzy doesn't deserve a rematch. I mean, I think when you've got guys who are, you know, Even he came out and said, yeah, Izzy doesn't deserve a rematch. I mean, I think when you've got guys who are, you know, they work directly with the company. He was there when they unveiled TKO at the New York Stock Exchange. When even he's coming out and being like, yeah, I don't think this makes sense. They're probably, listen, can I declare to you that Dana White, you know, just wanted to kill the media for it and didn't like the backlash? I cannot in any way prove that. But, you know, there's no penalty to blaming the media for it and didn't like the backlash. I cannot in any way prove that. But there's no penalty to blaming MMA media for anything.

There's never a penalty for it. That's a fair point. So why not do it? All right, let's get into some of the players' opinions here. Drikus Duplessis, who could be in the number one contender's chair, let's say the bullpen, for whom would have the best chance of being next if it's not Izzy. These are quotes put together by The Middle Easy.

I'm not sure who he gave the interview to. He says, for me right now, Strickland is the target. That's how it is for me. I'm not number one contender in the world to fight Adesanya. I'm number one contender in the world to fight Sean Strickland. Number one contender in the world to fight for the belt. I don't care who has the belt. It's about getting that title.

He was then asked about Adesanya, and he said, the big fight with me and Adesanya is still on the table. It's still there. We can still capitalize on that because he does deserve a hiding. He does deserve what's coming to him from me. How I see it in my mind is I fight Strickland because the middleweight champion in the first title defense, sorry, he's saying how he sees it is he fights Strickland and wins, and then he defends against Adesanya at UFC 300. DDP would say, in a perfect world, that's how I would like it to play out. Luke, do you think that's a scenario the UFC could be into?

Is he, I'm sorry, DDP, Strickland next, and whoever that winner is, by the way, is going to be marketable in a rematch with Adesanya with a lot of trash talking and theatrics. And damn, if it's UFC 300 and we can put Islam Volk 2 on that card next to it, we may be doing some big time business here, right? You could do it that way. I think the winner of Sean, I think it should be.

So here's how I think it should go. I think it should go. Sean versus Drickus. Winner fights Izzy. That's how I think it actually should go. I think it should go Sean versus Drikus, winner fights Izzy. That's how I think it actually should go. Or Izzy fights someone else between now and then, and winner of that fights the winner of Sean versus Drikus. Either of those permutations, basically, I think I could live with. But the reality is that's not the best permutation the UFC could come up with. So I think that what he is proposing is reasonable. I do believe that. However, if the UFC goes Shawn-Izzy

2, winner of that fight's Drikus at UFC 300, you don't get as big of a fight at UFC 300 necessarily, but Shawn with two, if he gets it, Shawn with two wins over Izzy would be riding an all-time high into that Drikus fight in a pretty substantial way. Conversely, if it is Izzy going into UFC 300 with Drikus, do I need to say any more about what it would mean to get his title back and then go against this dude who he's had a budding rivalry with? So I think they'll go with the latter rather than the former. All right, let's not forget about Jared Cannoneer. He's won four of five, save for that.

Dude, I like Jared, but come on, man. That first fight was boring as shit. They're not going to run that back. But when you weigh in as the backup, that does speak to where you are for the company. Here's Jared's comments on Instagram. If you're a true hand-to-hand combat fan like me and not in it for the clown-ass actors and their theatrics,

then you know this is the fight to make. I beat the champ, meaning Strickland, and got two checks to prove it. He wasn't walking me down screaming in my face either. Nobody does that to me. The only other middleweight to beat him has ascended. He fought him differently than he fought me as well. On top of that, he said it himself that he fought like a bitch. So there's your chance to redeem your man card

strickland let's actually do the man dance brother p.s i was high as hell on that poster what is he talking about here look the when they shot the the art for that i wish we had we should have had the graphic because you can see he like where this was left on instagram i believe with like the the the photo he used it's like like Cannoneer like this. He's like high as balls, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. He literally just like inhaled a face full of bong. Okay, but Luke, there's not a scenario,

at least marketing commercial-wise, where this would make sense, right? As a last minute, as somebody got hurt, Cannoneer's in a good spot to get that phone call, but this ain't happening, even though he beat Strickland, right? No chance. No chance they're going to run this back as any kind of first priority zero none okay then let me ask you more

about this picture if your working theory right now is what we kind of settled on hey i don't hate ddp strickland next winner fights is he at 300 where does hamza chamaya fit in if he destroys paulo costa so that that's a game changer too. So let's see, that would be in October if he gets that done, right? And this fight was in September, so the timelines are not far apart. Number one, he could leapfrog everybody. You just have to admit that. I don't think that's the likeliest scenario, I don't.

But if he goes in there and absolutely just dummies Paulo Costa, which I don't think is going to happen either but you're that's what you're positing he could leapfrog every single person that's number one uh if he that that if that's not the direction they go they're going to make some other first fight for sean and hamzah could get the winner of that is he would have to go fight cannonier or somebody else again i could see that too but if he just gets a a win, and it's like the Gilbert Burns win where it's exciting and amazing, but kind of back and forth, and you're like, dude, you took some big punches in that one. That was kind of crazy. They're going to slow roll him a little bit,

and then they're going to have him either fight one more person or at least at a bare minimum move Izzy and Dracus directly into that pipeline. So he could play a major spoiler, but he has to do something outrageous to get there. Is it more likely, because there's another big player in here, and that's obviously Robert Whitaker, who is fresh off a surprising finish loss to DDP, but is a former world champion. Is it more likely that we would see Kananir versus Whitaker next, Kananir versus Costa if they go in the direction of DDP,

or Robert Whitaker versus, I'm sorry, not Costa, Kananir versus Hamzat, if Hamzat wins, but they don't go in his direction. Or what about Robert Whitaker versus the Hamzat-Costa winner? I mean, there are a few different things you can do here, Luke. The Whitaker-Kananir would be a rematch

of a decent fight the first time around. Actually, a good fight. That fight was actually pretty good. So that wouldn't be the end of the world. But, Jesus, Robert Whitaker versus Hamzat Shumayev. I mean, take my money. Take my money immediately. I'd rather do Jon Jones at 205 with Whitaker, obviously. Listen, there's no better fight to make in the sport than Robert Whitaker at 205 versus Jon Jones.

Everybody knows this. Many people are saying. Yeah. Luke, let me also ask you because, you know, you protect certain level of social justicing and let's say the right things here. Some of our fans have said, okay, Luke, we heard your bit about the dog thing.

It was weird. But what about this? You guys can celebrate your good friend, coach, calling Izzy a cocksucker when he's firing up strickland in the corner but all these ufc fighters can't say the other f word on the microphone afterwards look can you deal with that please i don't yeah i admit i mean you know i i admit that they he probably should not do that i can certainly say that however um suggesting that those things are equivalent is just intentionally stupid i'm not even going to dignify that you know dare to remember that old weird owl song dare to be stupid

all right uh the other the other bit we have luke is the fallout of dog gate well here's the deal you remember izzy are we still doing this shit okay i'm not gonna ask you to comment on the dog gate anymore but i do think it's relevant now that the UFC has released the audio from the microphone picking up of what was actually, I don't know if UFC, I don't actually know how it got released, Luke, but Izzy and Strickland had that exchange after the upset win where Izzy raised Strickland's arm. Here's the actual dialogue between them.

Let's listen. I mean, look, it's emotional after a defeat, but his first move was to stand up for his late dog and just be like, don't you ever say that again. That was a little weird. That was a little weird, Luke. No, I mean, okay, guys, we've already talked about this. Like, you know, doing what he did and then posting it. Like, yeah, don't do that.

It's a little weird. It's a little gross. We've been over this. Can people stop acting like this is an episode of Law & Order SVU and these are like jeffrey epstein level sex crimes don't you think this is on par with connor when the microphone picked up connor in the cage going hey habib it's just business it's just business it's kind of on par with that right in a weird way it's like letting us on the inside seeing i know it's

different like circumstances and terms there but that was weird to see connor be like i was only doing all that stuff for marketing don't you know don't don't go that was yeah i mean listen i mean can we be surprised i mean i don't dude this is my number one rule right about all fighters all fighters you got to give them a little bit of a leash after their fights when especially if they've been taking a lot of punches which is he didn't necessarily take a bunch but more than normal you know he got rocked that could that could matter luke he got knocked down and rocked that got knocked down around one dude these guys there was an article years ago written on suredog.com by a medical doctor talking about the kinds of chemicals that go through a fighter's brain that they're trying to deal with and how

it affects their chemistry and everything and he was just basically arguing like expecting from them you know what you would consider to be level-headed rational clarity after a fight like that is like really unfair some will be there of course many most but a lot of them won't so like i just let guys be who they're gonna be after fights and it's the post-fight press conference where i expect them to have a little bit more of a clarified sense of things at least a little bit but like right after a fight is over dude let the fucking well you guys jesus let this story go it's not that interesting or important i swear it's not it's not so you don't think rogan should have sat next to connor after his leg broke when he was calling out dustin poirier's wife after the second straight tko defeat i don't know what the right answer was. I think he was doing his best in that moment. I mean, it's a different moment.

You know what the greatest example to this day still of why you probably shouldn't interview a guy that's been KO'd, although again, as he wasn't KO'd, I wish he would have talked at the press conference, although I understand it, but I wish he would have talked more, was do you remember when Juan Manuel Lopez, the boxer, fought Orlando Salido on Showtime that night and they had that brawl, their first of two consecutive. And after Lopez got stopped in Puerto Rico in the interview, remember Felix De Jesus, who does the translating? He had to reluctantly translate,

yeah, I only lost this fight, this is Juanma talking, because the referee has gambling problems and his whole family has gambling problems and it's obvious that he stopped the fight to allow me. And De Jesus had to deliver that and he delivered it in such a way that was like I didn't say this he said it it was sort of like yeah maybe we shouldn't talk to guys right after they got you know knock the hell out I get that but whatever I mean I'm trying to push your Izzy buttons but Luke I don't know if I'm not saying they shouldn't be talked to I'm just saying

like right after a fight sometimes they might have have, you know, beautiful things to say. Like after Izzy beat, um, potato the second time he was like, you know, really in there. I'm just sort of pointing out people's fascination with this to me is like, I mean,

I mean guys, yes, it was weird and gross. Okay, fine. We said it like, you know, we're not trying to change the story,

but like move the fuck on. Please stop asking Luke in the middle of morning combat about this dog shit. Just move the fuck on. Just move along, move along. Luke, I gotta whiz my pants, but topic number four, I mismanaged my fluids here, I'm a mess. I gotta ask you about this John McDessie situation.

Could you explain it while I go hit the head? Okay, thank you. Yeah, very quickly. I mean, do we have the graphic for it? I hope we do. I don't know if we do or not. I would like to... Oh, shit.

I guess we should have had it. I didn't i didn't set it up ah dagger we don't mikey can you find it as we set this up here it shouldn't be too hard uh to dig it up he says no one responded when i i don't remember that but you might be right it doesn't matter it doesn't matter uh if there's any way to dig that up from one of the various tweets uh i'd appreciate that'd be cool thank you can. In any case, here's what John McDessie did. He just fought at that UFC 293 card in Australia. I believe he lost. And so his purse was something like 58K, but then he posted basically a payout of what

ultimately he earned from that check. And what it ended up looking like was he had lost not just a couple of bucks along the way for an extra corn. I mean, because remember, the UFC will pay you for at least one corn. A lot of these guys have two to three. So it was the flights for all of them. I think his flight as well. I have to double check what the paperwork says specifically. But then the taxes on top of it were, get this, 45%.

Whoa. 45% was what the Australian government took. Now, a couple notes on that. A lot of countries will tax you up to a certain point to match what you got from another one. So it's not at all clear that he'll have to pay even more on top of what Canada owes by virtue of just how heavy the financial penalty is for this. On the other side, I have seen some Australians say if you actually file a tax return, they will lower that tax burden down to 32.5%. Now, that would still be a substantial amount, but that would be a lot. You'd actually be getting back a fair amount of money from the 45 that you had lost. However, what it goes to show is just how precarious some of these guys

are. Now, John McDessie has never gotten all that close to a UFC title, but he has been in the UFC for more than a decade at this point. And he was still in a place where he could have gone to Australia and gotten 58. And I'm guessing if he'd won another 58, and then let's say it was a bonus, another 50, like there was a potential to get nearly $170,000 or so from this haul, which would have been probably a decent amount of money. But instead, there was no bonus to be had. On top of that, it was $58,000 that he didn't get because it was obviously show and then win.

But we really know it's purse and bonus. So all he got was the 58. So then he got taxed on top of that to an absolutely aggressive degree. And now I understand, you know, why the UFC wants to do business in Australia and whatnot. I don't know what, there it is. Thank you, Mikey, for getting that. You're a lifesaver. Appreciate it. There you can see the numbers. So he ends up with about a little bit less than 25,000, assuming that he doesn't end up filing a tax return and getting some of that back BC a little bit later.

It just goes to show, A, the financial precarity even of senior talent for some of these guys in the UFC. There is money to be made in fighting, but it's predominantly at the pay-per-view end or the Chris Lytle or the Donald Cerrone types who can have a different kind of financial model, but there's not a lot of financial models that get you a lot of money. And also, you just have to ask yourself as a fighter, what would you rather do? Would you rather take a fight as somebody who's not from Australia

and face significant tax penalty, or would you just rather say, I'm declining the fight, you can just extend my contract at the very end? It's a difficult situation for some of these guys. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's like another hurdle, in the fight, you can just extend my contract at the very end. It's a difficult situation for some of these guys. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that dude, it's like another, another hurdle, another hill you have to climb.

You're already making peanuts, Luke. They're already taking the project rock tax from you, right? You know, you can't put anything on your shorts or hold up the poster during the ring announcements. And now you got to deal with this on top of it. But, you know, Luke, luckily already told the top of it but you know luke luckily already told the media that the you know fighter pay has gone up luke so you can shut the hell up okay has talked about he fought in australia once and then when he got the same payout when it was like ready to to get it out he said when he saw the tax burden he almost cried he was like i'll never

ever ever ever fight in australia Like, I just can't tolerate that. And I understand that. That's why they have OnlyFans, Luke. That's why they have OnlyFans. I'm sorry, Mr. McDessie, you're gonna have to show that bait and tackle, alright? That's the world we live in. Let's go to topic number five,

Luke. How about a little round, a little fun roundup of what we missed this week. Stories that have been lingering at the periphery that we almost bid on. But how about a little round a little fun roundup of what we missed this week stories that have been lingering at the periphery that we almost bid on but how about this we all got excited at the at the possibility of that vacant lightweight title purse bid situation wbc shaker stevenson and frank the tank the ghost martin unfortunately after al haiman from pbc signed off the report was that frank martin pulled out of that fight shakerur Stevenson went on a run telling everyone that Frank Martin demanded a 50-50 financial split. And that's why he pulled out. There's a lot of, you know, anti-fans on boxing saying this is

Martin and PBC being scared. Just as many people saying, no, this is maybe a setup for Frank Martin to fight Gervonta Davis later this year. There's a lot to deal with, but here's some of the reactions on social media. I don't believe Frank Martin has given any interview since this decision, but he's gone to Twitter saying, I ain't duck shit. He also said to my fans, I want this fight just like y'all, and no, I never asked for no 50-50 split. Luke, here's the deal. Shakur Stevenson has a new opponent,

so the new vacant title fight will be November 16th. It's an ESPN fight. It's actually a weeknight. I think it's a Wednesday, the same week that I guess the F1 debut is happening in Las Vegas that weekend. And it's going to be Edwin De Los Santos. And there's a little bit of a connection there where Dos Santos has been recently fighting on Showtime. He lost on Showbox, by the way, three fights ago. Upset decision against unbeaten William Foster III. But he's a 23-year-old Southpaw power puncher from the Dominican,

and he's bounced back with three straight wins, including a major upset of 12-0 Jose Valenzuela by third-round knockout in September of this year. I'm sorry, of last year. And then he came back in July of this year, and he beat former top prospect Joseph Adorno and did it to him good over 10 rounds. So as a replacement fight, I do have to say, this is not the worst-case scenario.

Top Rank did decent bringing in De Los Santos. But, Luke, we are lamenting here the loss of Shakur versus Frank. How do you sort of read this whole situation? The problem is we don't know the details, right? No one's actually giving us the truth. It's just a lot of whispers. So we haven't heard frank's side of the story so i think because of that we have to reserve at least some judgment uh because we've been very clear like you know again i don't think tyson fury is in any way afraid of alexander usik and by the way talks have apparently resumed

and there is some now some renewed hope that fight could be made which is great but like when he's like i don't have an interest in him i'm like, well, I don't know what you're supposed to call that, except not fulfilling your championship obligations. Taking a fight, not taking a fight you're supposed to take. So you call that ducking. I don't know what this was, because Frank has not given us his side of the story yet as affirmatively. But it doesn't look great.

It doesn't look great. I don't know what exactly is the circumstance. And I would agree, if he ends up keeping like inside the PBC family and fights Tank, that's a great fight. Like, dude, Frank Martin versus Shakur or Frank Martin versus Tank. I'll take either of those. I'm happy to take either of those. Please don't misunderstand me.

So I guess we need to hear from Frank, like what actually happened with all of this and then see what he says. So because there could be some interpretation I'm not aware of. So given that, I think some judgment should be reserved But I hope he takes the tank fight because I hope it's just not a case of you know Just changed his mind last minute. That would not be great. Yeah. No, I mean, this is a big opportunity Shakur is one of the tough I mean look we the best thing you can say about Shakur I love saying it because it might be true

He might be the best boxer in the world right now doesn't have the pump on number one slot Even though he's won titles in two divisions But I think he's gonna end up there and I think he actually might be the best. And that's crazy. But I still like this fight. Dude, I've got to get Frank versus Tank, though. Even with Frank Martin coming off a win where he didn't light everybody on fire, because the guy he was fighting was elusive and kind of fought a negative style.

But, look, Frank Martin's a problem in that southpaw slot, ducking in and out, throwing big shots. That'd be interesting against Gervonta coming out of prison and looking to get back into a big fight. That'd be very interesting, very interesting. I want to get your take on this Terrence Crawford rant earlier this week on Twitter. It appeared that he was responding to comments made by former welterweight champions Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman, who may have been responding to questions during interviews

talking about the possibility of a big fight against Crawford. Well, Crawford didn't like that sound. Here's him going to Twitter and said, my, how the tables have turned. Danny Swift and Keith Thurman, you will never, and I mean never, get a shot at the top dog, and that's me. Y'all whole asses didn't want no smoke when I wanted to fight. Remember?

Now y'all want to fight so bad. Go keep fighting each other like before. This would continue on here for Big Bad Bud, who understandably feeling himself after that big win in the star turn, he said, he said, it's funny how all these fighters want to fight now, but back then all they could say is I haven't fought nobody. Now they're begging, looking for a check. You can't make this up.

And I think there's one final, some Bud slander here. Y'all created the whole term, he on the wrong side of the street. When in boxing, have you ever heard some shit like that till I moved up? Luke, do you have a take on Bud? And also he said,

responding, I guess, to Thurman saying, did me dirty, had all these people that didn't know anything about boxing all trying to discredit my accomplishments. He haven't fought nobody lies, but no one wanted to be that. So they called somebody though. I don't necessarily fully understand that, but Luke, what's your take on this? Well, I mean, like people brought, cause I was tweeting about this and people brought up, like, didn't you say that like, you know, initially Bud was ducking or at least, you know,

not taking the fight as aggressively as he could with Spence. What are you supposed to call what he did with BLK Prime? He was negotiating with Spence at that time, and he went somewhere else. So does Bud deserve some blame for some of these fights not getting made in the appropriate timeline? Of course he does. However, what's also different now is his popularity has changed, which was always the dominant factor around decision-making.

They only want to fight Bud now because his stock is at an all-time high. Rightfully so, it should be. It just wasn't then. And that's a lot of, you know, you could say Bob Arum's fault. You could say some of his own fault. You know, there's a lot of different factors in play. Pacquiao was there at the time, and he was still kind of popular in top rank as an attraction for, you know, the right kind of opponent. So there's just a lot of things that held him back.

But at the same time, I think that Bud has a right to speak exactly how he feels about it. And there's also no denying that guys who once before wanted nothing to do with him have overnight changed their tune. And he's ready to gloat about it. And he's earned the right to gloat about it. So, you know, the blame to go around is multifactorial. But Bud has also earned the right to kind of point out how everyone's preferences have changed and uh he's not really any mood to do them any favors i think what you're saying is fair and it's fair for him to take this stance and especially if he feels like both of these two fighters talk bad about him and discredited him then it's like yeah he's in the power position

he's the kid going back to the high school a reunion saying look at me now but i I think we have to factor into one thing. Top Rank was consistently overpaying Bud to keep him there, to keep him happy as a star, even though the reality was that it was going to be hard to make big time fights against fighters from the PBC in the same division, unless it was so big enough, like a Crawford Spence type fight, that it made sense. And Crawford never really helped himself back then, like by really not caring about becoming a media crossover sensation. And now it's been a little bit easier because so many people watch the Spence fight, and obviously his true greatness is finally getting the flowers it deserves. I mean, he's on Rogan, he's on Good Morning America, he's on everything, rightfully so.

But back then, Luke, he did accept, you know, big money from top rank to take extensions when he could have said, hold on, I got to go over and fight those guys. So the whole other side of the street thing, it was real, Luke. Those fights are hard to make unless people are going out of their way to make them. Now, we were lucky we got Tank versus Ryan, and we're hoping this is a larger trend. And obviously, we still got it on the heavyweight level. They still made Fury versus Wilder, even though it was two companies coming together. There was that time that PBC allowed Sean Porter

to go over to top rank and fight Terrence Crawford, and that was a big part of Crawford getting that critical respect at welterweight. But some of what happened, Luke, Crawford also played into that, right? Yeah, that's fair. That's a good point. He also was the guy who was telling us for years that if I don't fight Spence, I'm content with that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, listen, you're right. You know this better than I do. And I'm not even disagreeing with you. I think on the merits, there's plenty of blame to go around that also Terrence has to look in the mirror. And just on the delay of the Crawford fight, excuse me, the delay of the Spence fight, for when it could have happened when he was free from top rank

and then when it actually didn't, he went and fought David at Evanisa. And of of course we know that maybe that tune-up probably helped him competitively but that fight could have taken place then too and he just walked away from it he bears some responsibility my only point is if you are in the power position and you probably didn't like how your rivals were talking about you this is as popular as he's ever been he's going to make use of this time to redefine the narrative. Whether it's true or not, anyone can debate. They can agree or disagree, sure. But I'm just saying it makes sense that he would want to use this time

to lash out at rivals who had been what he felt was undermining him. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I get him just stiff-arming them and saying, no, you're not on my level anymore. I mean, that's fine because he has big fights he could take. Got to take the Spencer rematch. We know he wants to fight Charlo for the belts, and now we were entertaining the idea of Canelo.

So those are bigger fish to fry, Luke, if we're still playing that fishing, smoking bud game. Let's go over to the UFC 5. It's coming, the new video game. And, of course, we were debating the cover curse because one cover has Adesanya, who lost. Another cover has Valentina and Alex Volkanovsky, and Valentina recently lost, although she can redeem it this weekend.

But, Luke, part of the downloads under the original, or I'm sorry, under what's called the Origins bundle, is you can download six alter egos, you know, different versions of current characters, current fighters. Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya both get earlier forms of themselves, while Connor gets a 2013 featherweight version from the Marcus Brimage fight. And Leon Edwards, you can specifically use the 2015 version of him who knocked out Seth Pachinski in eight seconds. There's a pre-UFC Valentina that shows her days as a Muay Thai and kickboxing competitor. You can

use that version of her. There's also a rugby player version of Volkanovski who has huge shoulders, a yellow and blue jersey. And Luke, you already knew it. Did you know that he once weighed in at 205 pounds as a rugby player? I don't know if you knew that. Did you know Jerome Bettis was from Detroit? I don't know if you knew that too. Luke, here's a great question Mikey cooked up here. Which alter egos would you add to this idea? Because this is no different than when you play NBA Live 2024 or whatever they call it nowadays. You can get like rookie year version of Michael Jordan, right?

So, Luke, are there any versions of certain fighters? Like I'll give you one. 2013 Vitor. Come on. Give me TRT Mohawk Vitor. If I can download him, he'll probably play him. How about 2005 era Shogun? When he was the best light heavyweight in the world,

he won the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix, which for folks who don't know, When he was the best light heavyweight in the world He won the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix Which for folks who don't know Pride's middleweight was light heavyweight Mikey's writing C-level cane Motivated BJ You could do a bunch of them You could do the meme ones for sure You could also do the Chuck Liddell

Who beat Randy Couture and Tito You could do that version of him old old vanderlay prime vanderlay uh how about the dan henderson who was the champ champ when he knocked out vanderlay dude just getting guys how about 2016 connor from the eddie alvarez fight that guy's not gonna that's like when remember michael vick's first season on madden when there were certain people that you couldn't he they could make him dance in and out of defenders and not even get touched, Luke, with that stick. You know that stick?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, you know, Rampage from Pride, the guy who was calling them, everyone called him Slampage at the time, you know? All kinds of stuff you could do, yeah. Megumi Fujumi, Luke? Fujii, yeah. Fujii, yes.

You're always big on her. No other funny? I know you want to just memory hole her entire, you're like, you know what? It never happened. Because I didn't watch it, it therefore has no value. It didn't happen. Come on, there's got to be something on the C-Level Kane variety that we're missing here.

There's got to be something good here, right? C-Level Kane's a big one. Motivated BJ's another one. Oh, Divorce Dern. How about that? Divorce Dern is a problem, Luke, okay? Right? I don't know that framing it on those terms is what you would love.

Okay, okay, there you go. Let's keep this going. Yeah, TRT. Oh, Mikey had a great one, yes. Oh, 170-pound rumble. Yeah, but the weight cut thing. The weight cut thing. All right, all right.

You know, no, no, no, no. No one needs a credit card joke, RIP, Luke. Okay, let's keep the life going here in a positive direction. Let's go to Mike Perry. Yeah, let's not do that. He's revealing the details of his new BKFC contract, talking to Ariel Hawani of MMA Fighting, saying,

I have to say, they put about $8 million on contract. I'll just go ahead and put that out there because fuck them. They've got to fight me now because I'm ready to make this money. Luke Perry would also basically say that it would be a financially bad move for him to go back to the UFC because he's being paid like the face of the franchise here for BKFC. Do you believe him? Is he really getting $8 million on contract? What does that mean?

A total for multiple bouts? He's not getting $8 million per, right? No, I bet it's a bunch of escalators in the contract. So if you do this, and if you do that, that and if you achieve this and if you achieve that, each one of those successive W's, not just victories, but other things, if you sell a certain amount of pay-per-views or do media or however they're structuring it, then if you fulfill all of the obligations and get all of the different escalators, probably you could get $8 million, I think is what he's saying.

That might be a little bit high, but if they structured it in an unattainable way, it doesn't matter what the full retaining value is. The point I'm trying to make is I have heard that they pay extraordinarily well, and if you're Mike Perry, simple equation, prize fighting. Get the biggest bag, end of story. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Luke. I hear you. Let's close here with our good friend Craig Jones of No Spears fame, Luke, of the...

What's the name of that group he's in? What are they called? The B Team. The B Team. Yeah, Luke. So here's the deal. He's selling an OnlyFans singlet. Have you seen this, Luke?

Have you seen this? It's like $74. Yeah. Okay, there's the joke. Oh, there we go. Would you subscribe, Luke? I don't know. I don't know if he can guarantee buttholes, but it Okay, there's the joke. Oh, there we go. Uh, would you subscribe, Luke? I don't know if you can guarantee buttholes, but it might be a good party channel.

Uh, I don't think I'm the target audience for this, so... Okay, well, I believe we have a bonus video here somewhat related to this, Mikey. Can we go to that? Okay. Fry. Hey! You got a shot? Look, I don't think that's legal in sumo wrestling. No, I don't think it is. But I got to tell you, dude, those guys from B-Team, they're consistently entertaining. Most of the people in Jiu-Jitsu's personalities are just

boring as shit. The B-Team guys are really fun. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't love grappling, but I do like the personalities that come out of it. And they do drugs. Apparently. They don't just do drugs, Luke. They openly do drugs.

Oh, we got a couple minutes left. Mikey, are we going to hit dead wrong? Are we going to finish the fan subs from the other day? What do you subscribe to us here, Dr. Mike? Not the real Dr. Mike, Luke. Believe that. That guy's a sexy doctor, right? I mean, or just a doctor, you know? All right.

Mike, let's speed through some dead wrong here. So I don't want to be rude to our fans. We didn't have time for fan subs. We'll bang fan subs hard. We'll bang the bell to close next week. Mikey, let's run through these quick, some pedantic closings to our show here. Closings.

Dead wrong here. We stand trial every week. You know that. You email us, morningcombat at gmail.com. And we, you know, we're dead wrong or not. There you go. You better have a receipt. Let's hear from Dave.

He says, Hi Luke and BC. As always, I've thoroughly enjoyed your coverage of 293, except for one thing. On behalf of all your Australian fans who die a little on the inside every time you get it wrong, the word Aussie, A-U-S-S-I-E, is actually pronounced Aussie

like Aussie Osborne. Get it right for the next event in Oz. We'll make you both honorary citizens. All the best from down under, Dave. So when I'd say Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, I should be saying O-Z-Z-Y. Aussie, or maybe I-E. I don't know, Luke. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. What the Aussies don't understand is, I'm not saying that they're not right.

They're right, but the problem is, if is, to another American, I'm like, oh, let's go to the... There's the Australian embassy downtown. Oh, let's go to the Aussie embassy. They're going to be like, okay, asshole. Can you just say Aussie? I mean, what are we doing? They're going to get accused of being pretentious here doing that. Okay, you're going to make the anti-pedantic claim here, Luke?

Really? I'm just telling you the social... You've got to pick what social costs you want to pay on what battlefronts. I think the obvious way to figure this one out, Luke, this Aussie-Aussie debate, is to ask your wife. That's the obvious way to figure this out.

Okay? That's a good joke. I like that joke. That is. It's a good one. Yeah, slip that in. Hey, let's hear from Dez. He's in Cork, Ireland.

He says, Top of the morning to you. At 106 of Monday's show, BC's favorite date of the year, 9-11, Soup said the following regarding is he not having an in-cage post-fight interview. Quote, here's BC talking. I don't see why they couldn't have interviewed him in the cage afterwards. I don't see why he couldn't have answered two questions from Rogan. This is dead wrong.

It was DC who did the in-cage interviews, not Rogan as he did not travel. It pains me to submit a dead wrong as I always thought you were a good guy, BC, but your lack of respect for the facts is troubling. To be quite candid with you and while remembering to let he is who without sin cast the first stone, I forgive you. Let's bring that three in a row.

All the best from Des in Cork, Ireland. I think that's Des Berry. That's the guy who sent us that Christmas card, remember, at our drinking episode? That guy's the best, Luke. Yes. So, yeah, apparently it was Rogan and not DC, but Rogan was hosting the original Fight Companion team, Luke, down there in Austin, Texas.

I did not see it, but I'm sure it was well watched. All right. There were probably a few spinoff skits and bits, but you know, Luke, we don't do that because we're respectful, okay? Yeah, you're so respectful with that, you know? You're very unlike that. Let's hear from our final dead wrong.

It's Dazz, D-A-Z-Z. He says, Aloha, Donks. During episode 487 at an hour and 27 minutes, BC recalls the cornering of Raquel Pennington. Yes, you were right and I was wrong here, Luke. I apologize. During her title loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 224,

BC thought it was Mark Montoya as coach who essentially forced her to go back out for round five after she wanted to quit. Luke was correct. It was not Montoya. In fact, the coach's name was Jason Kutz. K-U-T-Z. Is that Kutz?

Kutz? I don't know, actually. Out of Koitsa? Also, I am excitedly awaiting my order from the Average Joe MK collab. I got the TMNT and Superwash Dad shirts. Mahalo for the awesome content. Yeah, I'm sorry to Mark Montoya, Luke. I got that wrong. He was involved at the time during other Corner Controversies,

and I think some websites lumped it together, but I was incorrect. The slander was unnecessary. That's your dead wrong. Email us at morningcombat at gmail.com. Luke Thomas, tonight here in San Antone, it is what they are calling Fiesta Mexicana for Mexican Independence Day weekend in Showbox, the new generation, 9.30 p.m. Eastern time tonight

from the Boeing Center at Techport here in San Antone. We got a fantastic tripleheader coming your way. Raul Marquez, Barry Tompkins, Steve Farahood, myself. Don't miss it, okay, folks? Don't freaking miss it. But Luke, you have been populating our bonus stuff over there

at youtube.com slash morningcombat. There's a fantastic interview with trainer Eric Nixick, looking back on how Sean Strickland upset Israel Adesanya. Pre-game preview for Noche, if you missed it. How about room service diaries with the steamroller Matt Frivola? Great, great shit. Catch me Saturday night after the main event right here, youtube.com slash morningcombat, UFC Noche post-fight show.

There it is, right there. Thank you to Mikey mile and the fantastic cbs sports crew for having our back guys enjoy the fights this weekend okay the dead wrong thing i'm sorry the okay bet thing is head to head balls to balls tip to tip we'll see who comes out on top have a great weekend and uh you know let's hope those hoes are you know i don't know i mean look what am i supposed to say in this