MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC on ESPN 31 | Bellator 272 | Davis-Cruz | UFC Quick Hitters | EP 235

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

The Boys are finally back together for Episode 235 of Morning Kombat. They kick off the show by discussing their favorite storylines from UFC on ESPN 31 and Bellator 272. Next the guys transition to boxing to break down Gervonta Davis vs. Isaac Cruz. The guys talk Teofimo Lopez Jr. and get Luke's takes on Triller Triad Combat. The boys close out the main topics with some UFC quick hitters (Dan Hooker, Kevin Lee, Dariush-Makhachev). (10:00) - MMA Weekend Storylines (35:30) - Gervonta Davis vs. Isaac Cruz (51:40) - Teofimo Lopez (61:00) - Triller Triad (78:50) - UFC Quick Hitters Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn 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. on this first day of December 2021 there there's no vacation, there's no third world stomach virus, it's just BC, LT, and MK. All that you can handle. Welcome everyone, how are you doing to this Wednesday edition of the show? My name is Luke Thomas, I am merely one half of your hosting duo, and I am live and in the flesh here in the capital of Los Estados Unidos in Washington, D.C., joined by the prince, not of Persia like Shaquille Majoree, but the prince of Connecticut, my friend and yours. He is Brian Campbell. We're both from CBS Sports. BC, how you doing, big friend?

I'm doing great. Hung over off of two drinks last night, but ready to party, ready to mingle, not single at all. But, Luke, don't call it a comeback. We've been here for years. This is one of the most anticipated reunions. While we appreciate our many great friends in the business, like Oscar Willis, Karen Mulvaney, Dan Canobio, the Persian French prince himself, Shaquille Majoree, there ain't nothing like you and me together. And as much as i'm trying to be cool here luke and look a lot like my new spirit animal bob marley i got kind of a young randy couture vibe

going right now don't i would you say uh i would say more like guy asking for loose change at the bus stop kind of vibe i mean i think i said it's better than 43 year old dad trying to retain some level of coolness on the way out did you buy this hat thinking like if i wear this hat i'll be cool well 10 that but really 90 i have a massive melon luke and most hats sit like a beanie on top of my head and this was one that the fine people in Jamaica made large enough that it actually fits the whole thing. So, you know, I got the same issue with condoms, but that's all right. Yeah, I bet. I bet.

Yeah, I'm the same way with buying hats. I'm like, this hat, everyone thinks my hats are just yarmulkes with bills on them because my head is so goddamn huge. So if I can find one that fits, even if it's stupid, I'll just wear it because I'm like, wow, this is comfortable. All right, man. You do look a bit orthodox with that beard, though. But anyway, Luke, as you mentioned off the top of the illness, great to have you back.

Dude, you had stuff shooting out of many orifices the last eight days. Yeah. So you guys might have remembered, and I think I mentioned something on the show at one point. My daughter got really sick like two, three weeks ago. Like really sick. We had to take her to the hospital sick. But she's fine now.

Everything is great. But then my wife got what she had. And I was like, oh, I'm money. Because if she got it and I didn't, I must have just not caught it. And then I got it third. And it was the worst stomach virus I've had since I went to Egypt as a kid and I drank mango juice from a street vendor and that just completely tore me apart.

Man, that was like a third world virus that ran through me. The difference is, Luke, the aftermath of that saw you squat over a hole in the ground, right? No, my dad was the diplomat, so we stayed at a really nice uh marriott in downtown cairo actually um so no i can't say it was quite like that although your impressions of egypt are both somewhat racist and vaguely ignorant but oh come on either in either case in either case i will say that uh the end result whether it is egypt or whether it is not it was

it was terrible dude i didn't have a thanksgiving i was so sick on thanksgiving i couldn't eat anything i ate i ate nothing um i had to travel to see my family so i didn't have a Thanksgiving. I was so sick on Thanksgiving, I couldn't eat anything. I ate nothing. I had to travel to see my family, so I didn't get to see them. But it was, dude, the last eight days have been terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Did your dad ask you at all about that rental property in Vegas, or did he focus more on the successes of your life and career? He did, in fact, ask about the rental property, yes. Because, you know, when my next travel is out there,

he wants to see what's happening with it. Although he did me about the show so i was like you fired yet buddy you know that kind of okay okay dad i see you all right all right all right uh well i i i we're back is the good news so i want to thank everyone for sticking around for some the holidays are always weird because you're kind of on vacation i'm on vacation things happen but here we are now point of order thumbs up on the video if you are watching on youtube subscribe on the video if you are watching on youtube if you are listening on the podcast give whatever platform you're on with the show a nice review including but not limited to apple give us a nice review on apple podcast give us a five-star review i do think we still have to hand out some of the gift cards we promised

for that but please help us scam whatever algorithm we need to get ahead in this world building a huge audio only army luke i believe we just set a record for most uh podcast downloads in mk history this month so uh yes back to back months back to y'all don't like seeing our our mugs that's fine you can listen to have you seen the shit audio version i'm sure it's breathtaking yeah it probably is great uh to listen to a video centered segment on audio only um all right so that's out of the way you can email us because today we will have fan subs friday we will do dead wrong bcu will by the way probably gonna have an avalanche of those since i had to go through my own gauntlet of them but we'll see bring that shit to me okay i'm ready let's go All right, morningcombat at gmail.com will, of course, be the email address for that.

And merch, merch, merch, merch. If you want to buy underwear with me and Brian going tip to tip on the ass of it, and by the way, that is a literal thing that is happening, you can go to morningcombat.store. I saw that on there. And I'm like, BC, I can't tell if we've made it or we're just parodies of ourselves at this point yes yes uh i don't think that code is active that just showed up on the screen but i have talked to our fine new merch man rj dunkelmaker and he told me luke the monday cyber monday deal that we had

is extended it's still going on right now so if you spend a hundo you get 10 off if you spend 150 you get 15 you spend you drop two bills on some mk okay you're gonna get you're gonna get 20 off so why don't you keep that going we gave out some free drug rugs on on monday to some of our most loyal p1s luke who not only watched us live but sat through that great 35 minute uh technical difficulty debacle when the internet at the Malka facility went out. But hey, we're back from that, Luke. People can get our merch.

Look, don't tell my dad, but I bought him that underwear. Well, okay, I didn't pay for it. Let's be fair here. But I got him that underwear for Christmas. You should get the same for Rob Thomas. I'm telling you, it'd be fun. It'd be a nice little heartwarming moment.

Look at that. Imagine us. He would complain about how much space it's taking up in his trash can. He may not have supported us a lot, but if he wears those, Luke, we'll be supporting his most delicate. You know what I'm saying? I'm looking at this and I'm like, dude, did we make it or are we absolute clown shoes?

Probably a little bit of both. Is this our best moment or our worst? I'm going to go with best, Luke, did we make it or are we absolute clown shoes? Probably a little bit of both. Is this our best moment or our worst? I'm going to go with best, Luke, really. I'm going to stay on brand with that. All right. Well, with that out of the way, we have a lot of show to get to today. As I mentioned, fan subs we'll do a little bit later. Plus, there's just a ton to get to. So if you are ready, Brian, I would like to begin here.

Okay. First things up. We know on Monday that Brianrian and shack and as well as with uh with with the brian connibio because how do you pronounce his last name connabio connobio well normally we call him dan connobio dan sorry dan my bad i apologize his dad his dad created compu box that i that i didn't know uh in either case i know you got to a lot of the mma storylines so let me reframe them as we head into the Friday's Bellator, Saturday's UFC event,

where basically the Bantamweight division in either case is on display. Let me ask you a question, BC. Maybe I should go first because I have one main event in mind. Yeah. But I wanted us to pick out three of the favorite, best, slash most interesting fights of the weekend. May I go first on this one only because I have one main event in there? Yeah, I dabbled a little on Monday.

I want to hear. You take the high road, Luke. How about I take the low road? And you give the fights that maybe the fans are going to be most excited to see. I'll give the fights that they don't know they need to see. All right? Okay. I like that.

I like that a lot. All right. First one up for me. This could be either UFC or Bellator or, frankly, anything else that's out there. We're going to center our discussion probably on the two major events there. Listen, you can pick Rob Font versus Aldo. It is clearly one of the best fights of the week

and, frankly, one of the most important fights of the weekend. That's an easy one to slot in. However, I'm going to look to the co-main event, BC. Let's talk about Brad Riddell taking on Rafael Fazaev. Two guys who were once training partners at Tiger Muay Thai. I think they were both the striking coach there at one point. I think one replaced the other one, if I'm not mistaken. But in either case, they do have familiarity with each other. Brad Riddell telling, I think, Submission Radio that, you know, he was going to, he texted Rafael, friends before, friends after, do you want to do this?

And everything was copacetic. This is an excellent contest because here you have two guys with an outstanding pedigree in kickboxing. And that's just not me saying it. That's me listening to what kickboxing fans and journalists are saying. And they're saying that these two guys have actual real kickboxing credentials. They're not some guys that are being hyped up as, oh, these are world-class strikers who are in MMA, and we're just saying that without there actually being any reality behind it.

No, we have two guys who are very good kickboxers and have familiarity with one another. My question for you about this one, BC, it's going to be a hell of a brawl, hell of an action fight. Do you see either of these guys as a dark horse potential lightweight contender that's not where we are right now this is a building fight for them but are there is there real championship potential in this contest i do that's why this has sort of one of those sneaky you know i my reference point is always john jones versus ryan bader right who's going to be the next guy you know let's have them fight each other. These two certainly aren't at that level of expectation, but when you look

at this great lightweight division, what are these guys ranked? 12 and 15 or 16, right around there. There's going to be, we're in the midst of a transition. I mean, look, Bantamweight in the UFC, in the men's side, sort of just passed lightweight recently in terms of our eyes of being

the deepest and best division in the game and obviously UFC so stocked there's a few different divisions there that are close lightweight was historically amazing the last few years but the guys are getting a little older a little washier Habib's gone Connor and Tony feel like they're going in the other direction it's time to find out who's got next and the winner of this is going to get that chance to really make a firm leap into that top 10 and fight the type of names you need to fight. Some of those RDA, some of those guys on the way out to prove that you're next,

the fact that they're fighting one another. I mean, that's just that, that these, these are what this type of fight that we're going to get between these two. Forget the fact that it's going to be all action because they're styles and they know each other well, but just what this fight represents two guys that have bright futures going get between these two. Forget the fact that it's going to be all action because of their styles and they know each other well. But just what this fight represents,

two guys that have bright futures going in the right direction, but we're not going to match them against an old guy to find out. We're going to match them against each other. This is one of my favorite type of fights as a fight, Van Luke. So I think this is can't miss across the board. And yes, the spirit of your original question, the winner's going to really make some noise moving forward because it's time to find out not only who's the best lightweight in the world,

and we're a week away from finding that out officially with Habib gone, but let's find out who's knocking on that door, who's coming in the next three to five years in this division. That's what this represents. I totally agree with you. And I think there's one other element to this fight that should kind of be noted here, which is both of these guys, as we've talked about ad nauseum at this point, I totally agree with you. And I think there's one other element to this fight that should kind of be noted here, which is both of these guys, as we've talked about ad nauseum at this point,

have decorated kickboxing backgrounds. But what's kind of interesting about it is they have not necessarily run over their opposition, either in totality or even necessarily with their kickboxing. Now, it has been formidable. And in fact, if you look at the case of Brad Riddell in his last fight against Drew Dober, he had to kind of rally in that fight a little bit late, which was both his kickboxing skill and his overall combat sports medal. And he showed a lot of it there in getting that win.

It was a hard-fought, gritty, tough win to get, and he got it. But what I mean to say is, look at his run to this point. He has a win over Jamie Malarkey. He had a split-decision win over Magomed Mustafaev, which I think he and Fazaev have a common opponent there. Fazaev lost to Mustafaev. He had a ho-hum or a decent win over Alex DeSilva Coelho, and then he had the really tough fight against Drew Dober.

So he has slowly, by the way, undefeated in UFC, but what I'm saying is he's had to kind of work at it the whole time to really show what he can do. In the case of Fazaev, it's something similar. He lost his UFC debut to Magomed Mustafaya, but since then, beaten Alex White, beaten Mark Giacchese, KO'd Hanaton Waikano. That was the big standout one.

But Bobby Green gave him a little bit of trouble as well. Now, we know Bobby Green's really good. What I mean to say is... He gives everybody trouble. Yeah, exactly. He gives everybody trouble for the most part. Maybe not Dustin Poirier, but that's about it. You get my point.

These guys have had to kind of still gut things out to get where they're going. So what I'm saying is, what I want to see out of this fight is not just who is the better of the two, who's coming, who's going, what is their potential championship future. I want to see them round some corners. I want to see them show the overall MMA progress that I know that they've been working on or probably are eager to show but this is one of those fights where someone's going to have to take a big step to really plant their flag as like a future person of interest in this division if you look at where

they're at they're outside of the top 10 they're inside the top 15 by the way so is Armin Saryukian so this is actually pretty good company but what I mean to say is they have had good moments they've had in the case of Fazai have one great moment but I don't think they is they have had good moments. They've had, in the case of Fazaev, one great moment, but I don't think they've had those standout moments, that standout win, that really kind of I'm here moment. This is an opportunity to not only get a win over a guy who people respect, in the case of Riddell or Fazaev, but to really show maturation,

and I am ready for the deeper waters of this division. Well, first of all, I love the way you say mustaev it's very you know palpatine of you go to the mustaev system um secondly luke the elephant in the room is that very large pipe you're holding your ckb your city kick boner will you be able to move that out of the way to properly handicap because this fight is not only so great but caesar sports book has it as a virtual pick-em with riddell plus 105 fizzy of minus 125. i'm sure on friday's show luke we're going to x's and o's the out of this but are you have you ever picked against a ckb in a big fight i don't think that's happened no i definitely have i think i ever picked against a CKB in a big fight? I don't think that's happened, Luke. No, I definitely have.

I think I've picked against Shane Young. I think I've picked against Kaikara France. I said in a big fight. I did hedge that one. Okay, Kaikara France has been in some big fights. I mean, when you say big, you mean like main events? This isn't even a main event. It's a big fight, though, Luke, okay?

It's a big fight. The odds currently, our friends over at Caesar Sportsbook have Fazaev as a minus 125, Riddell at plus 125. So they have Fazaev as a minus 125, Rudel at plus 125. So they have Fazaev. Is there any chance you heard me say that about eight seconds ago? Hold on. Hold on. So I would say that to answer your question, I would agree with that framing.

I would give Fazaev the slight edge. I think a little bit faster, a little bit more explosive. I think he takes more risks. So that could cause him trouble. And again, we will X's and O's this on Friday. But I think that speed and that explosivity, that could be a difference maker, especially early, well, really down. And also, it's only a three-round fight. That also, to me, could be kind of interesting as well. But I will also say in defense of Brad Riddell, think he is you know if it could be the equal part of Fazaev and then on

top of that I think some of the other parts of his game he's really worked on like the wrestling so that could be an interesting one I agree Fazaev should be slightly favored I think the odds makers are decent neither of us had the odds the betting odds in front of us though if anyone has those from Cesar Sportsbook, send them to us. Probably pretty close. Okay, fair enough. I'm just pointing out I like the way that that is sort of set up there where it's close to a pickup, but not quite one guy's got the edge.

Now, would you say this weekend, MMA-wise, that's the fight you're most looking forward to? No, that is not the fight I'm most looking forward to. To answer your question, the fight I am most looking forward to, and I know you guys discussed it a bit on Monday, so we don't have to rehash too much of it, but it's Horiguchi versus Pettis. That, to me, is the number one fight all weekend. That is Bellator

putting, quite literally, its best foot forward in terms of presenting the world with a world-class product between two world-class competitors in a serious bout of consequence. I know you guys got to it on Monday. Well, let me ask you something we didn't get to, Luke. We hit up already.

You know, could the winner of this be the best band on weight in the world? And you don't ask that to be cheeky, but you ask that because Horiguchi has been so unbelievable throughout this run, and he's very underrated, and, you know, they call him the best at ATT, and, you know, I know King Moe's been singing this praise forever. But, Luke, the one storyline we didn't hit on Monday, and I don't hear a lot of people talking about it, I want to know if you think it'll play a factor in this bout.

We know how great both of these guys are. We know that Horiguchi's a slight betting favorite, and we feel like Sergio's rising. You know, we want to find out if he can rise to that next, next level. But what about the fact that Horiguchi enters here, you know, on almost a one-year layoff following a fairly serious knee injury which forced him to essentially give up

both the Bellator and the Risen titles? Are we overlooking what that could potentially mean when you consider that Horiguchi is great, but he's 31 and Pettis is coming? And if you're going to come... Yeah, we know the rule um yeah I would say it's a great question there's just simply no way to know from the outside I would be more concerned if he was at bantamweight 34 35 36 then I would have serious questions about that. Because at bantamweight, in any weight class, a high degree of athleticism is going to be important.

At bantamweight, being nimble and fleet of foot is critical. But at 31, and with the kind of training that he has, with the kind of athlete that he is, there is still room for optimism about him retaining his athletic gifts, at least through this phase of his athletic career. We don't know. We'll have to see. I think it's an absolutely fair point to raise. And also, the other point is, and I'm sure you guys talked about it, dude, Pettis has

just improved dramatically in the last couple of years. He has really, really turned into something kind of special. I think he still lacks a little bit in terms of sticking it to opponents in the striking department, the kind of landing, the kinds of things with authority that get them to change their game. That part to me is still a little bit missing, although not as much as it used to be, but he can still, you know, play the dozens, so to speak, with anybody in that division, including Horiguchi, I think for some time. Pettis makes smart decisions. He's careful. He doesn't take a lot of unnecessary, stupid risks. Like, this is a tough fight either way. So your point is well taken, BC. I like how

you bring it up. We shouldn't lose sight of that. People brought up the fact that Teofimo was disclosing all kinds of crazy shit before his fight, and most of us just ignored it, including me and you. And then you see, oh shit, that actually stuff kind of matters. So we'll have to pay attention to it, but I would not say that it is automatically one of those things where I'm like, red flag, it's bad, you can't lose sight of this, this is first and foremost. It's real, but it may not be any kind of a deciding factor given his age and given some of the time off

and obviously some of the other pedigree that we know from him. Did you notice the weird symmetry combat-wise this weekend, Luke? We're going to get into the boxing in a second, but we got two lightweight boxing title main events on separate networks that really speak to where we are in the overall title picture, especially fresh off of the Teofimo Lopez upset. But then in MMA, we've got two different promotions on separate networks with two very big bantamweight bouts.

And the champion on one side, Sergio Pettis, who's won four in a row, just won the title in his speaking. His last loss came against Rob Fond, who's in the main event on the other side. So there's a lot of cross-pollination in here. There really is. Very West Virginia, mountain mama. John Denver, God bless him. At this point, when you've got

a friday and saturday night both being headlined in two different organizations in two different parts of the country and either of the winners has a claim to being the best bantamweight it tells you a lot about that strength that division and how just even more than that how important that division is for mma promoters at this. It's really quite an interesting showcase. For me though, BC, the last one on my list before we get to yours, again, we're not saying it's the one that you have to like the most or anybody else, but it's one I've got my eye on. So I mentioned Horiguchi and Pettis and Riddell versus Vazaev. Morino versus Gall. Alex Morino taking on Mickey Gall. This will be on the UFC card. I got to tell you, this is a really interesting one. Now Gall started the UFC three wins in a row, I think, over Punk, Northcutt,

and Mike Jackson. But since then, he's been up and down and all over the place, and he had the terrible loss to Diego Sanchez, and he had the kidney issues. And dude, you got to remember this. He's been in the UFC for five years. For five years. If you are going to show the kind of progress that you need to show where five years after your entrance, you're ready to beat the Alex Morneau types, yeah, this is quite literally the time to do that. In the case of Morneau, he has been a guy under the steady tutelage of Saif Saoud at a Fortis MMA where he has been kind of steadily knocking at the door, always making improvements, steadily knocking at the door of getting bigger and bigger wins. And he is finally beginning to do that. In the case of Mickey Gall, I actually think Morneau, I don't know what the odds are. I would imagine Morneau is favored to win this one.

Let's double check that here if I can. Yes, he is pretty considerably. Caesar Sportsbook has him as a minus 230 to a plus 190 for Mickey Gall. But Morneau has been one of those guys who hasn't had a lot of fanfare, who has been in the trenches, who has been working really hard, and has pieced together, I would actually argue, a pretty nice game at this point. But Mickey Gall, maybe he's finally ready to take off, and we're going to see, again, who's coming, who's going, who's got the better game at this point.

It's actually a pretty interesting little scrap there on the prelim card. Yeah, and it's buried out there on the prelims, and it does promise action and the potential for some desperation because they can both use a big win. I mean, I don't know where Gall is. I love watching him. You know, he's a little bit corny, but he's also from the very beginning had big balls

and sort of wanted big challenges. I think he was a victim of his own early success because it came against a pro wrestler a videographer and another guy who probably got a little bit too much attention and success too early in sage north cut that inevitably you know gall got a little bit probably too big for himself and but it's not like he's a a washout or a boss necessarily. I mean, he has alternated wins and losses in his last five since that original three-pack of wins that you mentioned. So it's like he's shown such equal good and bad in that stretch

that it's really hard to know. I know there's injuries that you referenced. It's really hard to know if he can still be that guy. He's still freaking young as crap, right, Luke? Who, Mickey Gall? Yeah. Mickey Gall, I think, is, I'm is i'm gonna say 29 let me see if i can verify yep 29 years of age alex warren oh he's getting there it's 31 it's time it's time to go

for him it's time to go and maria and look marotta brings it you know you're not you're only gonna get so much credit for for mopping up a wash cowboy although we tend to have give connor a lot of credit for that um but you know he's coming's coming too. So, yeah, let's see this, Luke. I'm interested in the three fights that you have targeted, certainly. And obviously, we want to watch the shit out of Font Aldo. You got anything to say about that? Yes, of course. I mean, I could have eased. I just didn't want to put two main

events on my list of three. One other note here, though, by the way, BC, before we transition to your list, Mickey Gall started fighting in the UFC in February of 2016, and Alex Morineau started fighting in the UFC in February of 2016, and Alex Morineau started fighting in the UFC in January of 2016, so a pretty close time. Since then, Morineau has had, I think, 14 or 15 fights in the UFC. Mickey Gall, just nine. So he's been more active, and in his last two fights, he beat Donald Cerrone and David Zawada, as you indicated.

So he's got two wins to his name. Every time he went up before against Pettis, Chaos Williams, Jordan Meehan, he lost. It looks like he's trying to actually be like, oh, no, I'm not the guy who every time he steps up, he loses. Now, I don't know if Mickey Gall qualifies in the same level of even a Walsh Cerrone in that sense. But you get what I'm saying. He's trying to turn this corner in his career, put three wins together in the UFC. He has one of those previously, but against some names that folks may not recognize, although Max Griffin would be one of them. But you get the idea.

They've been in the UFC almost the exact same amount of time. Who has done more with the time that they've been there? We're going to find out on Saturday. We're going to find out. What's the guy's new rap CD that's out there that Ariel's got a hard-on from here to Hanover about? You see that shit? I did not. Bryce Mitchell, is that the guy's name? Oh, didn't he have

some mixtape or something? I just said that. I know, but you said an album or something. Yeah, alright. It'll take us a while to get back into it. We've been gone for a while here. Just listen. Just lick my balls and we'll be fine. Yeah, we'll. It'll take us a while to get back into it. We've been gone for a while here. Just listen. Just lick my balls and we'll be fine.

Yeah, we'll keep doing that. All right, Luke. You know, usually when you go high, I ask if you have any extra. I can join you. But in this case, Luke, I try to go low to offset that. So here are maybe some under-the-radar ones that made me pop. Look, Bellator 272, of course, is Friday night only on Showtime. And we do have Sergio Pettis versus Gio Giorgucci.

Can't wait to see it. I like Emmanuel Sanchez also coming back in that co-main against Jeremy Kennedy. But Luke buried on this undercard. I don't know if we need to remember how Tommy Heinsohn had Tommy points. We need to call these BC specials. These prelim undercard bouts that have me tuning in early. Luke in a 160 pound catchweight bout. The

Alpha Ginger is back. Spike Carlisle will make his Bellator debut against a Dan Marat who's won two in a row. Beat Goichi Yamauchi coming in kind of hot there. Luke, you remember Spike Carlisle was one of the early stars of the pandemic for UFC.

He's got the red cornrows. He's in great physical shape, and he fights like he's on a shitload of Adderall. And, Luke, he's like those. Remember, like, playing pickup ball in your early 20s? And there'd be those guys who come on the court, and they can do flashy as shit crossovers, and they look like, oh, crap, this guy can ball. But then they have, like, no defense, and they can't shoot, and they're really just, you know.

Yeah, dude, he's an and-one MMA fighter. Exactly. He looks the part in every category, and he makes fun fights. He also typically gasses himself out. He had that war with our friend of the show billy q right here but luke i'm interested to see he's won three in a row in three separate regional organizations since being cut by the ufc you remember he won his ufc debut lost two in a row so this will be interesting because we always say if you're a colorful character and maybe you're a little

limited or maybe we don't know how good you are sometimes bellator is the right spot for you with the type of matchmaking you can get to find out how good you are while still showcasing the weirdness that you bring the must see that you bring and to be fair even valerie loretta's in this category to be fair luke right when she shows up on prelims we're like all right we've got to see it um i gotta see this spike carlisle return there all right yeah actually i saw i don't know which one of them i saw but i recently saw one of his fights since being bounced from the ufc i think it was one of his more recent ones and he looked a lot sharper he looked like he had made some improvements but it still looks like

that dna of his to just barbarian his way through a fight a lot of that is still in play you one time called him I think something that is pretty accurate which is it wasn't an insult it was actually a compliment of the way he fights which is you called him like the and this is what you would call someone in boxing and you called him a tv fighter right someone you know you can put on tv and it's just reliably action oriented you're going to get that probably with spark yeah I mean he's kind of like me in front of a microphone. Not only do we both hold it like a grudge, but he,

he comes to win. He goes for it, whether he belongs there or not, or whether he's making the right choices or not. He's common Luke. So that's fun to watch. Let's go over to the UFC fight night card. Another BC special,

the circle. And I know Luke, you're going to go, Oh BC, I know why you like this fighter. But Luke, tell me Cheyenne.aze is a must-see. Tell me Cheyenne Baze is a must-see TV every single time.

She just had a COVID setback, which knocked her out of that Loma-Luke Boonme fight. But she's back on this undercard, buried in the prelims, women's straw weights against Mallory Martin. And Luke, the two times that we've seen Cheyenne, she had that fight with Montserrat where she threatened to follow that bitch home, right? And then the second time, she gets a violent and aggressive, nasty win and then gets on the microphone and gets real with us about fighter pay and about the life that she had virtually doubled down on her finances. And it was win or go home. And she had got the 50k bonus that night um didn't somebody tweet that she that she petitioned the ufc to get her last name changed luke does that i think yeah i think i think did she split with her husband because her

name is now what her maiden name was which was like velias velias yeah i you know i don't want to i don't want to peddle uh you know, grocery store line tabloid type stuff here. I don't know their relationship. He hasn't shown up on her IG, they tell me, in a while, Luke. You know, I'm certainly not following her. Or am I? Oh, Vlismas. Vlismas.

She's fun to watch. I don't know how good she is because of the level of competition so far. She's, what, one-on-one in the UFC? But she's hungry and goes after it. And if I'm going to circle it on the calendar for a BC special, you better believe there's a fighter that's coming for it. She's one of those. Should be an interesting matchup against Mallory Martin.

And finally, Luke, you know I'm souring on my former taste for old guy fights. But it is a little bit interesting that on this UFC main card and lightweight bout, Clay Guida versus Leonardo Santos combined age in this one, Luke, 80. As the kids square off. Wow. Seriously? I knew Leonardo Santos

was old. He's 41. What? Do I want to see Clay Guida keep taking headshots? Maybe not, but Luke, he does come, right? He brings it it so uh you know if the veteran in the game only has a few more and he's fresh off that split decision loss to Marco Madsen in which he pushed the pace he's been competitive during this twilight of his career uh he is fun to watch Luke so I'll be circling those three come Friday and Saturday night. Dude, Leonardo Santos is an unbelievable guy.

He took the bronze at ADCC. Ready for this, BC? In 2001. In 2001, and this fucker's still out here. His resume is unbelievable, right? So, he beat William Macario back in whenever the fuck, 2013.

Norman Park, you had to draw with him in 2014. He beat Efrain Escudero. Then he beat Anthony Rocco Martin, who just got arrested for allegedly peeing on the floor of a casino in Vegas. Then, don't you remember this in 2015? Talk about falls from grace. Good Lord, Luke.

I don't know what happened there. And then, remember he knocked out Kevin Lee? Do you remember that in 2015? That came out of nowhere. You knew he had like sick jujitsu, right? Because he was like Aldo's coach for a time and longtime nowhere. You knew he had like sick jiu-jitsu, right? Because he was like Aldo's coach for a time and longtime friend. And then he beat Adriano Martins, then Stevie Ray.

And you're like, okay, but the Stevie Ray fight was three years after the Martins fight. He fought once in 2020. He beat Roman Bogatov, the dude who got kicked out of the UFC for kicking everyone in the balls forever. And then he lost to Grant Dawson in the third round of his return fight. 41, still out here doing it. He's got one UFC loss, and he's been competing since 2013 because it's been so infrequent due to injury and everything else that's going on. He's had a really unusual run in the UFC. Very unusual, yeah.

So it's a weird fight, but I'll be tuned in. I'll be watching it. Fun weekend plans here for MMA, Luke. I'm looking forward to it, even though I've got a wedding to go to to this weekend so I won't be on the ones and twos on Saturday okay um that's a shame but nevertheless real quickly on that one by the way do you see Diego Sanchez has like the worst bout of COVID and he's in the hospital I did not see that you did not see this yeah well I have to send you this stuff speaking of old guy fights because we had Clay Guida but Diego's been in the hospital for like 30 days at this point.

He has pneumonia, blood clots, like the whole nine yards. He got fucked up off of it. So I hope he's okay. Yeah, no, of course. I mean, who would want to wish anything bad on him? I hope he'll be okay, but Jesus. All right, topic number two, BC. This weekend is not just UFC.

It's not just Bellator. Boxing is back. In fact, Showtime pay-per-view boxing is back. Where Gervonta Davis, who was supposed to take on Rolando Romero before these terrible sexual assault allegations were lobbied, he gets removed, and they bring in Isak Cruz. Now, we have talked about this fight when it first got made, BC. We were, I think, at the Canelo fight, I think, when all of this went down.

Isak Cruz is an incredible guy. Come forward brawler, in in your face the whole nine yards. But he's only got a month to prepare. On the other side of things, this is where I want to start with you, BC. What do you make of Gervonta at 26 years of age? Not kicking out, but putting longtime trainer Calvin Ford to the side. Now, who he brought in, maybe one of the guys i respect most in boxing washington dc's own barry hunter and along with the the mitt holder their boogie patrice harris

they brought him in as well why did they do that and what do you make of it you know i i don't have the official story because when i did host for showtime in la the original press conference for this on the roof deck of the staple center both. Both Calvin Ford and Barry Hunter were there. Now, look, those are two OGs in the training game, one from Baltimore, one from D.C. You know, they've cross-pollinated before, but you did see in all access that there was the official change being made with Ford taking a step back and Hunter as the lead role.

Look, Hunter's resume is as good as anyone in this boxing game historically from the Peterson brothers beyond. In fact, he was just brought in by Sean Porter in the Terrence Crawford fight, and you can see how different and really, really, Luke, I didn't talk about this because I was away, but that performance by Sean Porter in a loss was some of the best stuff he's ever looked at. Some of the best he's ever looked at in his entire career. He looked awesome.

So that's just telling you what you need to know about Barry Hunter. Gervonta explained it away in the first episode of all excesses sort of being look we just want to keep adding on to what he's his you know his evolution as a fighter has been and it's smart in my eyes i don't know if there's any further detail hopefully that can get ironed out and fleshed out you know during fight week we can figure it out but this is a unique event it's a sunday night pay-per-view once again. It's becoming a unique event whenever Gervonta fights because, Luke, say what you will about him,

and yes, he's had multiple missteps outside the ring. He is becoming a true celebrity fan favorite, meaning when he fights, whether it's Atlanta, Baltimore, now Staples Center, wherever, the crowds show up, the celebrities line the front rows and he delivers big time knockouts. But I think lost in that Luke is he's a way better boxer and really complete fighter than he gets credit. Now, he's had a lot of things against him that I think is held back, giving him some

of the pound for pound credit that I think he lacks. Let's be honest here, Luke. When you come up and you're the star of the Floyd Mayweather promotion, you're going to get sort of snarled at. Oh, they think you're the next Floyd. You think you're the next Floyd. No one's the next Floyd. So that went against him. Let's be fair. He was young and immature. 2017, he's done the Maymack co-main event. He loses his title on the scales. He fights a maddingly frustrating fight before getting a light stoppage. He's had some of those hiccups, including some of the early matchmaking where he was only fighting smaller fighters moving up. We want to see him against the best. But look what he's done in the past year and a half, he's been in three title fights

in three different weight classes and had stoppage wins in all of them, including a knockout of the year against Leo Santa Cruz and a thrilling fight, which you see the pictures right there, against unbeaten Mario Barrios this spring in which Gervonta moved up to a weight class he'd never fought before. I think, Luke, there's a few different storylines at play here, and one of them is something we already established, that as much as Rolly Romero can maybe sell a fight with his mouth,

and we do know he has legit power, he's raw as shit, and they were not really taking him all that seriously. They know that Pitbull Cruz, Isak, is an upgrade. They know they need to take him seriously. This guy hasn't lost in 18 straight fights. He comes bull cruise isak is an upgrade they know they need to take him seriously this guy has is uh it hasn't lost in 18 straight fights he comes to fight he's durable he's tough he's also pretty

smart so this is a better fight than the first one and i'm wondering slash i don't want to say hoping but you know i want gervonta to get his due when he's in the police blotter it's going to set back the way people think and talk about him. But Luke, I just put out yesterday my updated boxing pound for pound list on CBS Sports, and I have my number 10. And I think sometimes, you know, the eye test can mean a little bit more than accomplishments or what have you. This guy's fighting in different weight classes all the time. He's knocking people the hell out, but he can really box. His head movement, his defense, his IQ.

I know he hasn't been pushed late too often, but the last few times we've seen it, man, he has thrived. Look, he's among the best fighters in this game, and I think he'll have a good chance against Isak Cruz to prove that because Cruz is coming, brother. You know that. He's coming.

Yeah, I mean, if you watch the all access Davis says and a lot of times fighters say this when this happens when their opponent falls out and they get a replacement like oh this one's even better but what he said was this guy's actually tougher than Romero let me be clear here Isak Cruz is a better fighter than Rolando Romero and by a considerable margin like if Cruz and Romero were fighting, I would pick Cruz to win 10 times out of 10. Um, he doesn't have some of the same open kind of flash that Romero does. And as BC indicated,

certainly is not going to be the kind of force on the microphone that Romero can sometimes be in his own weird way. But when it comes time to box, I actually think he would demolish Romero to be quite candid with you, dude. He's a tough out. He is a tough out. He has one loss early in his career. I think it was like eighth fight. He was still getting his feet under him. And since then, he's been an absolute bulldozer. He's really short for the weight class, even by a class that doesn't have big people. And you'll notice he has

this really weird tendency, BC. He gets super low, even though he is already short. And his opponents don't know what to do about it because they can't match his level when they try to lower he uppercuts them into the words of Ken Shamrock living death and then if they try to stand he has this endless series of overhands so it doesn't matter what elevation you pick he's in your face pushing you backwards and he has all kinds of really heavy weapons. He's heavy handed. He has good cardio. He has comfort dude. Like tank Davis has a fight on his hands, but to your point, if everything we're saying about tank Davis is true and we will see, but what we think about him as being true is not just heavy handed, but having a very high boxing IQ. The only thing I worry about BC, I wonder where you come down on this is if he's in shape and if he's well

trained these are ifs I think that Davis will win probably by stoppage and somewhere in the middle to late parts of that fight but what I do worry about is sometimes a guy like Davis has been accused of taking rounds off here or there or cruising in fights dude if he does that shit against Isak Cruz he is going to be in for a rude awakening true or false absolutely true and this is why this fight's more compelling and more interesting the the romero fight was going to be a car wreck somebody's going down it was probably going to be rolly but the hook was that he's going to come to win well isaac cruz as you mentioned comes to win in his own way look he's going to get inside on gervonta and he's got a awkward quasi unorthodox style,

but he makes it work for himself. You know, I've, I've, after his last fight, I said something that the fans got upset about saying, and then maybe the wording doesn't come off right. But I said, he saw Cruz fights like an asshole. And I mean that like he fights in a way that you're like, oh, no way this guy can pull this style off. But he does. Like you said, he ducks down very low. He could be busy and huge flurries of stretches to get inside on you. He's going to back Gervonta up. It obviously comes down to whether he can take Gervonta's power, but he's going to put that pressure on, which is really going to test Gervonta's gas tank. He's only been deep in fights twice. Look, really? Gervonta went 12 with Gamboa and finished him in the last round. Then he went, what, like 11 with Mario Barrios. He hasn't been pushed that

deep because of that power. Now he's fighting bigger, more durable guys. This is going to be an interesting test. Cruz can box enough to where if he can consistently back Gervonta up, and the key will be volume because Gervonta is one of those smart counter punchers. There's a little bit of Canelo in him. You wouldn't compare Gervonta and Canelo style across the board, but there's a little Canelo in them where he's a very efficient guy who picks his shots, doesn't waste shots. That can be a plus when you're landing. But what if he's not landing? What if Cruz is getting in, outworking him? That's where things can get interesting on the cards

especially if it can go that far but this is going to be a fun fight it's very rare very very rare you get an upgrade when somebody drops out you know the the one we always referenced is when uh Lennox Lewis in his last fight in 2003 who was he gonna fight Kevin Johnson I think he got sick or whatever they subbed in Vitaly Klitschko we We had one of the greatest, most batshit crazy heavyweight title fights of all time. It's rare that you get that upgrade. We got it here. But Luke, the larger title picture, because not, I was going to ask you about that. I was going to ask you about that.

Let me, let me, let me pitch it to you. Cause I really want to hear what you have to say about this. So there's a couple of things in motion. One Lopez lost to Cambosis. I'm sure you guys covered it in great detail on Monday, but that is now a thing. And so the division has been absolutely turned on its head. One of the other belt holders, the WBA holder, is Gervonta Davis.

That belt will, in fact, be on the line here against Eastside Cruz. The secondary title, the regular title. I can't keep track of this shit anymore, but there is a belt on the line. Just to quickly update, Cambosis has three titles, the IBF, the WBA, and the WBO. He has the franchise version of the WBC because the promotion bodies are a bunch of crooks. And Devin Haney, who's also in action, has the official WBC one. Gervonta has the WBA regular one. Okay, all right.

Let me ask this. Now, this may not happen. If Cruz wins, if Kambosis and Cruz win in consecutive weekends, the division is nothing what we thought it to be. We were talking about the Four Princes here. But assuming for just a second that Haney wins against JoJo

and assuming that Davis wins against Cruz, give me, in your sense, the lay of the land now that Kambosis did what he did. Yeah, I wrote a piece, again, a different piece yesterday for CBS Sports that was essentially looking at the biggest boxing storylines this weekend, which is essentially what we're doing right here. To me, the number one storyline, Luke, is who's going to win the George Kambosis Jr.

sweepstakes, and who would have ever thought we would have been saying that? But you mentioned the four princes, what our friend Kieran Mulvaney calls Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, Teofimo, and Gervonta, these four lightweight studs that aren't fighting each other because of politics. Yet here's this guy in Cambosos, formerly unheralded, who is a promotional free agent and network free agent. I'm sorry, our network free agent in the U.S. promoted by Ludabella, who's like now bridging the gap. He's the hot chick at the, who's like now bridging the gap.

He's the hot chick at the dance that everybody wants. He's got three of four belts. So you have to ask yourself, is Gervonta Davis versus Isak Cruz on Sunday and Devin Haney defending his WBC lightweight title in a very good fight on DAZN on Saturday against Joseph Diaz Jr., are they sort of auditioning for the chance to swoop in there and get that payday? It's going to be up to Cambosis in the end to choose. Everyone's going to load up the truck, right, and bring the big money offer. But you have to wonder who can look the best, who can come out of here. Cambosis has already said Haney has the slight edge.

And look, because he has the WBC title, I wonder if he does have the slight edge. Because if you're Cambosos and you have a chance to fight for like the Undisputed Championship, you may end up doing that. But I think it's going to come down to money. That's what this game is. Cambosos is an opportunist. He got his big opportunity with the performance of a lifetime.

Let's keep that in mind as these two fights come together this weekend to see who has a chance to sort of win that. Ryan Garcia, of course, tweeted that he wants Cambosos wants cambosis even my gosh stevenson said he's willing to move up and wait a third time in fight for those titles but um this is going to be a fun boxing weekend and in the in the storylines are connected to last week luke how fired up are you about seeing devin haney back because last time out which I think was around May or June, we saw him against former champion Jorge Linares. And that was supposed to be the big step up fight for this 23 year old phenom who has every skill you would want. He had fought Gamboa the fight before he

had won a boring decision. The pressure was on him to look good. And I had to kind of look this up to remember it because there's been so many great fights this year Haney dominated that fight against Linares for nine and a half rounds got rocked and then he was holding on for dear life until the final bell he left that arena to a trail of booze I can't figure out heading into this fight Luke is that an aberration was that him trying to be too offensive to make a statement or do we have potential chin issues on this can't miss five star you know prospect so to speak I I tend to think you know chin issues I don't I don't know yet I don't know yet I guess we'll see I had a similar feeling though which is I don't know if it's chin or I don't know if it's composure under fire, but something goes wrong when he gets hit,

when he gets hit Lopez to his credit, he fought the worst fight I've ever seen him fight, but he kind of stood in there a little bit for 12 rounds with George. I mean, George was, you can't say George Cambosis wasn't landing on Lopez. He was landing on him for 12 fucking, dropped them in the first for crying out loud.

So, uh, in that sense he would say he put Lopez underwater right is there some sort of joke there just stating the obvious keep it going the point I'm trying to make here is he's at least sort of proven to be a little bit more

durable when he has to be even in a losing contest Haney looks to me like he likes to be not so much the bully but I want to be the one in control which is fine allaney looks to me like he likes to be not so much the bully, but I want to be the one in control, which is fine. All fighters want to be that way if at all possible. But that when the control begins to slip, he goes into a near panic mode of control,

wrapping up, keeping distance, moving away, like not engaging the fight in the same way that he was previously with the same kind of risk assessment, which, again, some change is going to be in order, but it seems like an overcorrection every time. So, yeah, I do think there is at least a question in my mind. I don't have a declaration about it, but a question in my mind about how he handles composure

when the opponent has their way for different moments in a fight. I tend to think he still will beat Diaz. I don't think he'll lose. But I think you're onto something about a potential future opponent who, when they ring his bell, what happens? I rewatched the Lomachenko and Lopez fight. Dude, to Lomachenko's credit, Lopez stung him in the 12th round, and he did not lose his composure.

He was still kind of in there a little bit, and he didn't make a bunch of bad decisions afterwards to make it even worse. Haney seems to me like he's got a little bit of that to work on. So I guess we'll see. Yeah, it's going to be good. And if you don't know much about Joseph Diaz Jr., the Golden Boy Fighter,

he won a world title at the division below 130, beat Tevin Farmer for it. He's 29 years old. He's a southpaw. And, Luke, he sort of evolved his style. He was a little bit more of a pure boxer early in his game. He's more of a come-get-you guy now. So this should be a very fun fight because if I'm Joseph Diaz,

I realize that Haney is longer, stronger, faster than me. But I watched that Linares fight. I wonder if JoJo Diaz is going to come out going for that chin early and try to make this a brawl. It should be fun to watch. I do believe again, Devin Haney could have the upper hand in drafting Cambosis into an undisputed fight if he wins, but

I do want to see if Al Heyman, Steven Espinosa and company if Gervonta Davis wins to see if they want to back up that truck too and find out what happens here. It's a great time to be Lou DiBella, by the way, who usually hates boxing lately, wants to get out of it. Now he's got the lottery ticket sitting in front of him.

Good for Lou. I've always liked Lou. I've had a good report with Lou over the years. All right, let's go to topic number three. We'll stick with boxing for one more topic because this is something BC spotlighted and I'm glad he did. So we all saw Teofimo Lopez lose in this incredible shocking, well, shocking to us anyway, but not shocking to George Cambosis, I suppose. I'm glad he did. In this article, BC, a number of things are raised, namely just how seemingly out of it and erratic Lopez was prior to the contest due to any number of factors, mental health issues. He had a divorce with his wife, a whole host of things.

What was the crux of the article, BC, and what did you take from it in terms of understanding who Lopez was when he went into that bout? Yeah, we touched briefly on this on Monday and Dan Canobio had referenced this article. I had yet to really read it. It's written by Corey Erdman, an OG in this boxing game. So shout out to him. And Luke, specifically, it identifies some really weird behavior that only the people working for DAZN saw behind the scenes in the fighter interviews beforehand.

Just some, like you said, a wavering for, you know, Teo would be confident in one second talking trash, almost on the bit of tears a second later, saying the business had screwed him, just all over the place. And look, even that little tidbit after the fight, where we know he gave that almost disastrous post-fight interview in which he gave Kambosis no credit and almost sort of said there was a conspiracy theory against him and that's why he lost and that maybe the referee was part of it too. But, Luke, he waited until that interview was over, cleared some space in the ring,

and did his celebratory backflip, which is just sort of like mind-boggling when you come out and you lose in major upset fashion. And by the way, I do get that the scorecards were close, at least from the judges' standpoint. It was a split decision. But I had that one 16-11 Cambosis, which is eight rounds to four after you compute all the points.

I think it was much more an eight-to-four fight than it was anything resembling a close fight. I mean, Teo had as disastrous a performance strategically physically stamina wise that you could have asked for but I think when you package with that with some of the other rumors slash reports that have come out since this fight you don't want to compare this to Mike Tyson ahead of the Buster Douglas fight because it's not on the same level. Obviously, that's the biggest upset in boxing history, more or less. Tyson was a superstar on another planet to anything else in sports at that point. But Luke, Tyson was just a few months younger than the 24-year-old Lopez is now when he lost

to Douglas. And as we know, that Douglas fight wasn't one bad night at the office. It was essentially the consummation of a couple years of just a chaotic journey in which Tyson lost people close to him that he loved, lost direction, was not training hard anymore, marriage fell apart, had the disastrous interview with Barbara Walters that we all watched as kids, like really was just, you know, tried to crash his car into a tree to kill himself in a somewhat under-publicized story at the time. And why do I make those parallels to Teofimo? Do you remember that boxing scene article in October

when Teo was at the Fury Wilder fight and he did that scrum with the reporters? And he mentioned almost in passing that he had envisioned potentially killing himself three times in the past year. And we talked about it on here again in passing almost like hey man i hope he's okay but like i don't know if we didn't take it seriously because it's teo he's cocky we had him on the show in studio a month before that and he was great but luke when you look at the totality of a lot of things the soap opera of the triller purse bid thing playing out where this fight was rescheduled eight or nine times him fronting the money on all those training camps that never happened the dissolution we hear i don't know if it's full divorce but the dissolution of his marriage

he's got he had a child that was born 10 days before this fight that i don't think he's seen yet a lot of reports that he was out partying the last few months too much he stopped hiring joey gamach as the assistant trainer he got rid of that nutrition company that used to help him make weight cut all these corners this is uh this is a little bit scary here luke for a guy at 24 who looked like he had but you know the the world of boxing in the palm of his hand because not only did he beat lomachenko he leaped into the top 10 pound for pound, but he found a way to out slick his own promoter to get basically what, like five times the pay originally for that purse bid for this fight. I'm wondering, Luke, if this loss was more, you know, a consummation of a year gone lost. And it's not that Tao's life was really all that calm before that. We know those stories about how chaotic his camp has been.

The fact that his mom and sister never approved of his wife. And he almost lost that fight against Nakatani because they had a, the family had a fight backstage as he's about to leave to walk to the ring. I mean, it's always been chaos for Teo. It seems now that it's bubbled over. And I did like the tweet he had. You know, they had a couple of series of tweets yesterday after originally disabling his Twitter account, saying, you know, God's got this, all that stuff.

He even tweeted that Canelo called him, which, you know, strong move by Big Red there, to make sure that he's okay. We all wish he's okay, but, Luke, here's one key fact on the comparison to Tyson. Mike Tyson was never the same after that Buster Douglas loss. He may have won, you know, a piece of the world title again after he got out of jail, and he may have been in big fights. Never the same fighter by any stretch of the imagination. I really hope that's not the same scenario for Tao. He tweeted this morning a picture of him and his dad and said, dad's not going anywhere. We'll be here together. And I'm not saying kick

that out of the corner, but a lot of changes need to be made outside the ring, really, before we address what potentially is going to happen next inside the ring. I think you summarized it all quite well. I think you're right. We probably ignored or didn't pay sufficient attention to, because it was hard to understand what it means when the guy out of nowhere is talking about having these, I won't call them deranged, but certainly unhealthy thoughts about himself and everything else. I will just add to everything you put quite nicely, BC, that, you know, I did,

I was, people want to, they can't grasp nuance about this. They think that what we're trying to do is deny George Kambosis his rightful award, essentially. It's not what we're trying to do. If you are asking me, did George Kambosis fight well? Dude, he fought extremely well. In fact, I would argue that is, on tape anyway, the best performance he's ever had. Not just because of what ultimately happened, but if you just examine the boxing skill, he showed more in that fight than he did in any of his other previous fights, probably more than all of them combined, quite frankly. This is why I was asking for folks who

inside of boxing made a boxing case for George Kambosis. And the reality is George Kambosis in that fight went from a caterpillar into a butterfly. There was no other reference to see beforehand because this was the moment where he was showing how good he actually was. And fair play to him, dude. He boxed extremely well. However, if you go and re-watch the Lopez versus Lomachenko fight, that is not the same guy. That is not the same guy even a little bit. I went back and I did it. And I went over all the things

he was landing I looked at the CompuBox stats even just that 12th round that he had against Lomachenko BC that he put his foot on the gas and not just as I mentioned rung Lomachenko's bell on that one dude he won that round walking away that was clearly his round and if you look at the output in 11th and 12th round in the Kambosis fight versus the fight against Lomachenko, you see Lopez doing everything he can to win the fight against Lomachenko. He was like, fuck off about this in this fight. Now, what are the reasons for that? Partly because George Cambosis turned his face into hamburger meat. Let's give that guy credit. He did that. He did that fair and square, and he did it for 11 rounds prior to that moment. No doubt about it. On the other hand, dude, there was a terrible strategy. There was a terrible understanding of what was happening.

There was not nearly the same amount of effort. Something is plaguing that guy to the point where he doesn't resemble himself from just about a year, a year and a half ago. And I don't know what that answer is. Maybe it's the things that Boxing Scene reported or some of the more broad conclusions you're drawing there. I guess we'll have to see. What I will add is that, to your point, if he doesn't address what is actually hurting him, dude, he's in deep trouble.

He's in deep, deep trouble. Because it's not just George Kambosis that's going to beat him. That guy was, I won't say a shell of himself, but he was not recognizable to a pretty strong degree. And if Cambosis had his way with him, I would imagine some of the other top players in the division probably will as well. Yeah, absolutely. We wish him well beyond belief.

I also wish his career well because we were looking at a potentially special, you know, fighter who had the kind of skills that you just don't see too often but it's a it's a it's a mental game too look more probably more than physical so uh we wish tail the best on bouncing back from this for sure all right topic number four this is one brian wanted to put into the rundown um because i guess you find this super interesting i find it less so but i do think it's a good conversation to have, which is, over the past weekend, we saw Triller do something new. They tried their triad combat, which they had ultimately pitched as something of a bridge between MMA and boxing. And it was met with, I would argue, probably the best reviews that Triller has had since maybe their first event between the exhibition anyway, between Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson.

There was a lot of positive sentiment about it. BC, did Triller pull off a new sport that they had tried to proclaim as this new venture? Did they get there? Well, they want you to believe they did because Ryan Kavanaugh on those interviews on the pay-per-view was like, let's not even call it boxing. It's not. It's a new sport.

And, God, were they lining up on their knees to hail him as king? It's still boxing to me. Okay? I like the addition, you know, like BKFC also offers to a lesser degree of some of the dirty boxing and clinching that can allow an MMA fighter who's more natural at using that to his advantage. But again, on my review of Saturday's card, really only Matt Mitrione effectively and consistently used that to his advantage. I don't think they bridged that gap as much as they were smart in the matchmaking,

which I think is the key, Luke. If you get washed slash journeyman slash boxers who never really had great technique to begin with. And you put them in there with MMA guys who have good boxing backgrounds like an Albert Tumanov. That's how you level the playing field. But I've given my take. You were a little bit more cynical while we were watching this card separately and texting each other. In totality, Luke, I want to hear your answer more than mine on whether it bridges a gap and whether you think this does not mean the end of of triller do they

have life in sort of this bottom of the food chain area of combat sports where there is some money to be made bkfc's been doing it uh do you think this is really the the turn that could give them life i think there's a couple of things we need to keep in mind here. I should say, rather, two different ways you could potentially view it. And the truth is probably somewhere in the middle in this case. But understand something. I have been around the combat sports space, including when there was this giant MMA boom with every promoter getting quick TV deals to try and compete with UFC,

where we saw Elite XC eventually on Showtime for a while, ultimately became Strikeforce, which is a much better and more centered product. But you saw that, you saw IFL on, what was it, MyFoxTV, whatever the fuck their situation was. And you saw the team concept, you saw what Gary Shaw was doing. There was a lot of different things happening at that time to try and replicate what UFC was doing. And what you end up seeing over time is that those competitors couldn't get anything done. And one of the things that they would do towards the end of the last gasp of their life cycle was pivot in these weird directions where they would change the rules and change the fighting surface. IFL did that right

before they went out of business, for example, the International Fight League, for folks who may not remember. And so part of this feels to me a little bit in that tradition. We tried something on a business model that was extremely short-lived. It no longer has any viability whatsoever. Let's just pivot to something completely different, brand new, blah, blah, blah, and it seems kind of gimmicky and hokey and ad hoc to make it all work. That's one way to view it. The other way to view it, I think, is a little bit more fair.

Probably, maybe this is the better way to view it. But they've got Sean Wheelock over there now, who I have a great amount of respect for, not really as a commentator, but as a guy who has immersed himself in the rules of mixed martial arts and officiating in its history and its development. And what they have tried to do is just leave everything behind cleanly and develop something that they feel like is a newer product in the vein that you see today, BC, of this combat sports, not explosion per se, but this renewed interest in all the different permutations of combat sports that we can enjoy. I have said this is the best time to be a combat sports fan in history, and I mean it.

There might have been better golden eras of heavyweight boxing, for example, but in terms of what you can engage with as a fan day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year, in terms of the variety of product and your access to it, dude, there is simply no time like the present. And so you see this BKFC development. You see this new triad combat development. You might see some other ones as well, This sort of bare-knuckle MMA version that Jorge Masvidal has tried as well. This innovation, this wellspring of what other ways can we innovate combat sports to make a desirable product. So if that is really what they're doing, then I don't, in the second case, have much of an issue with it. My problem ends up being, one, you're trying to solve a problem that didn't really exist in one way,

which is, oh, it's the bridge between MMA and boxing. I don't even know what that means. Like, I could come up with a, I could take San Shao, which is like where Kung Lee comes from, where you could have like kickboxing, but then throws and takedowns. Wouldn't that be more of a bridge? And that's not what they do. Your point is, it's still like boxing. Yeah, it just looks like kind of boxing with a smaller weird ring and a little bit more aggressive rules with shorter rounds. They're calling it the bridge, but they haven't defined why it's the bridge at all. Also, was anyone looking for the bridge?

I think what they're trying to do, BC, this is my best read. I think that they realized that the product they had was just fucking radioactive and they wanted to do something new. They brought in a real person in Sean Wheelock to get some of those things going. I think he has tried to put his best foot forward. He has the team concept from the IFL and from other places that you have seen. He's been around for a long time, too. And what they're trying to do is MMA fighters and boxers want to make money off of each other.

But if they keep going into one or the other, neither has a real chance to do all that well. Is there an accommodated rule set where MMA fighters can fight boxers and we can make money off of that? What I would say is that is not a bad insight. That actually is an okay insight. How you get there is actually, I don't think they've figured that part out at all. I would say, I would actually argue that Sanchao is a lot better at getting you closer to that because it's so much more. You go look at old Kung Lee highlights, dude.

He was throwing motherfuckers over his head and it was wild to watch. It was amazing. Even though that's an ancient... There is no gap. There is no middle ground. Even though there's...

Well, Sanchao, I just want to point out, it's not new. It's an ancient martial art. But the point I'm trying to make here, BC, is listen, if they want to ride this out

to something and keep developing the product and iterating it, I actually think that's fine. This is the age of try something new, like figure it out. What I would argue though is, were it not for Metallica, who was going to be there to watch any of this? I don't think the rules they've figured out are all that great. And guess i would just argue like you know you said rampage being like you know ufc and bellator should be worried bkfc might want to be worried but ufc and bellator i think are doing just fine yeah i agree with that there really is no middle ground unless you're just taking kickboxing as the middle ground between boxing and mma and no boxer is going to sign up to be kicked that, you know, there's no question about that. So it's still a, let's take a, a more washed boxer against a younger guy and look to, to their credit, these were wars and Mike Perry fought his ass off. Mitrione fought his ass off

Alexander Flores. I mean, these guys came to fight. There were some fun fights. So maybe this allows Triller to pivot to delay their inevitable fall because there is going to be a want for faded names who have been cut by the elite promoters to make one more or two more or three more paydays. You saw Vitor Belfort, Tyron Woodley there rampaging. Shannon Briggs getting in each other's face. They hyped that fight all night.

I don't know if... Gaff, we can hear you. Gaff, we can hear you. Thank you. Oh, Jesus. They're having a party back there in the control room. I think somebody's ass hit the live button by accident. There's something going on there.

So, yeah, you know, if... I don't think the coaching... I think the coaching thing is gimmicky. I think it only works if you've got the right personalities. But what Triller has going for it right now is very high production value and a lot of money to throw at people. So you're right. BKFC, who is feasting on that same idea of taking the wash names

and giving them one last rest stop on the way out, that's who has to be worried in that regard. There's still a lot of cringe on this broadcast, Luke. Let me say one thing, though. That makes it really hard to stay. Let me say one thing, though. I believe it was Ryan Kavanaugh. If it wasn't, you can dead wrong me. Somebody said from Triller, a high-level executive, said,

you know, we're going to pay our athletes what we paid, what UFC pays their ushers, or something like that. No, sorry. UFC, what was the quote exactly? UFC pays their fighters like we pay our ushers. That's what they said. And I think it was reported Mike Perry made a quarter mil for his fight. And good for him, dude.

Here's the rule on that. You'll see it all the time, folks. If you watch combat sports long enough, you're going to see a bunch of promoters come through. They're going to chuck a shitload of money at the problem. They're going to burn through it. They're going to go. It works in the fighter's favor, usually, at least some of the fighter's favor, because they can get those big checks before the promoter bounces out of town.

But let me just say, dude, that statement, if it came from Kavanaugh or whoever else, it's going to backfire. That is one of those statements that is going to fucking backfire, because, dude, Gary Shaw, all the, dude, do do you do y'all think that this is the first guy to make these kinds of accusations about the ufc and how they treat their athletes and blah blah this has been going on forever and what happens every fucking time is that they overspend on this case metallica and everything i mean can you imagine how much it must cost to secure fucking metallica you're like hey you may have got metallica but you're still saying anger to me yeah the point i'm trying to make is what eventually will happen is that this train will fucking Metallica to play. You're like, hey, Kevin, you may have got Metallica, but you're still saying anger to me.

Yeah. The point I'm trying to make is what eventually will happen is that this train will probably come to a stop, right? Someone will decide you can no longer just spend profligate amounts of spending to get where you are. And then UFC will be like, aha, you see? They waste money on things like Metallica and then high fighter pay. Our fighter pay might look low to you,

but that's why we're still in business. When in fact, the reality is significantly more complicated, but you set yourself up to look like a jackass because we pay our fighters more. Dude, you worry about that shit after you're not in the red anymore. Then you begin to figure out how to do that. But I understand that Triller is trying to get the best names available. So is BKFC. So they have to pay a competitive wage, but they're also just going to hurt themselves in the long run by just not understanding how to make an MMA or a combat sports show profitable without these like larger gimmicks to go for. But along,

but to be fair, along with the production value and along with the fact that they can probably offer the most money of all of these, you know, sort of side promoters to do this type of carnival stuff. Um, the, the new setup with the ring, as long as they can take this get rid of this lawsuit from from byb uh it does promote action so uh what do i always say luke about the paul brothers they're only going to last as long as probably they win but also as long as they make fun fights

these fights are fun in this triad thing so that's the best thing they have going for them is that you have to fight in that ring it's really hard to have a boring fight so uh but in at the end of the day it's not about that what matters in combat sports and this will always be true this is why metallica was who's the biggest star on that card metallica metallica was the biggest star and the next one might be rampage jackson. That Joe said Gigliotti a hundred times. He was probably one of the biggest. Yeah, my point being is this, dude. Always remember, combat sports runs on the star model and who has access to them,

which is why the UFC's alleged monopolistic behaviors are so troubling because they have the vast majority of the world's elite talent under contract. And so, yes, you might be able to produce good action. Maybe that might be profitable on some level, but the point being is until you have and you have the ability to produce stars that people care about, it doesn't really matter. Dude, IFL had good at, name your favorite IFL fight, right? I can tell you mine, Ryan the Lion Schultz beating the shit with a gift wrap out of Chris

Horodeski. Who remembers that shit? Nothing. It doesn't matter how good your product is what matters is who are the stars that people want to pay money to see so they're gonna need they're gonna need the diaz brothers they're gonna need someone that's right more more than vitor belford and rampage jackson they're gonna need something big all right that's fair i'll quickly to close on topic four on fighter page did you see that pie graph that's been tweeted around by the John S. Nash types? Yes, the numbers come from Merrill Lynch, and it was produced by Sportico, yes. About UFC's income and that, you know,

obviously the giant chunk of that was what they get from ESPN in their international TV deals, and the pay-per-view sales was like that big. Would you agree with John Nash's sentiments on Twitter that this shows why the fighters have zero leverage and that if they don't form together soon, they never will because... Right. Let me break this down for you.

So here is... The numbers come from Merrill Lynch. Oh, excuse me, Morgan Stanley. What am I saying? Morgan Stanley. And what they have is... If you look at all of the revenue that UFC has in 2021, how does it break down piece by piece? The biggest one is core content rights for the USA,

like essentially the rights for their broadcast, ESPN rights, at $447 million. Core content rights international, same thing for international broadcasters, there's another $100 million. Sponsorship, consumer products, $184 million. Live events, $57 million in the USA. Live events international, $15 million. Fight Pass subs, $59 million. They're making $59 million off Fight Pass. That's incredible. And then pay-per-view sales, also $59 million. So understand that.

$59 million is how much they get for pay-per-view. Nearly $500 million is how much they get for basically the ESPN side of things for just the standard content deal. In other words, pay-per-view, while volatile, and when it was tied to star power, let's say 2009, 2010, the fighters had a little bit of leverage because if you had a lot of star power, you could say, hey, dude, I bring so much more to the table, right? Because pay-per-view sales were a much bigger chunk of how the UFC made money. Now it is a fraction of what it used to be.

By design, they have removed all volatility, and by removing the volatility, they have removed the ability for fighters to have leverage. The only leverage the fighters have is as a collective entity. Our entire product as we, not individually one. Dude, this is the biggest fucking wake-up call for anybody who says, oh, my manager gets me more money. How? How? What could they possibly say that matters in that pie chart to get the UFC to bump

up beyond anything they feel like giving someone nothing there is nothing in there dude it is either e pluribus unum out of many one or it is nothing that's it do you think if if a unified front stronger than the Bjorn Rebny one with GSP was let's say tomorrow every single UFC champion got together went on tv and were like we will not fight until this is resolved that it would be like the you know the 87 nfl strike ufc would just be like okay you guys are done stripped of your belts here's a whole nother busload of new guys coming in ready to make their name for peanuts and do you think it would get dirty and ufc would would offer a shitload of money people to jump the line essentially yes yes they the ufc would absolutely

not bow to this whatsoever the ufc would probably hire as many scabs uh somebody who crosses the picket line so to speak as they could and i don't think the fans would really care the only way to meaningfully affect change is if you had not only those champions but a big chunk of the roster like i made this point ryan jimmo rest in peace, I made a video about it. Do you understand the UFC product? The train is leaving the station all the time, which is why the pandemic was such a threat to their business model. Look at how much money comes from just churning out content

week after week after week. That's how they now, in the majority sense, make their wealth, and good for them. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that per se, but what it means is, if you can stop, and I'm not advocating for this per se, this is the fighters have to make this call, but if you can get in the way of the trains

leaving the station and it no longer operates, that's the way you can affect change. But a few holdouts, even important ones, that doesn't mean shit anymore. You have to change the way that that content change, but like a few holdouts, even important ones, that doesn't mean shit anymore. There's, you, you have to change the way that that content is meaningfully put together and distributed. Otherwise there is no threat to their business model whatsoever. So like these fighters been like, I'm going to sit out for more money. Well, I hope you don't get bed sores. Cause you're going to be in bed that long before they ever come knocking on your door it is not going to work so

i'm going to sit here and you know threaten to sit out for more money have fun sitting on your ass because they ain't gonna do shit so there you go all right i hope at least our mk approved fighters like billy q and sean brady get paid okay that's right listen i want all of them to get paid but like this is what i mean like, the media needs to spread more attention about these stories. Okay. We've spread all the attention we can possibly get at this point. We have turned over every rock balls in your court fighters. If you want something to the cavalry ain't coming, it ain't coming. You are the cavalry. So either you are going to do this or you will be perennially underpaid. And that will be the choice that you collectively made. Period. Alright.

Let's do some quick hitters. And then we'll get on to our fan subs here BC. Speaking of something that just breaks my heart a little bit. Kevin Lee was released from the Ultimate Fighting Championship this week. And let me just ask the question here BC. Because we have called him future world champion. We were both on board with this. I think even before we got together on MK. Obviously, listen, we got to eat the L here and we got to say it looks bad for us because it does look bad for us. I will say

that talent prospecting is very difficult. I will also say that I did see flashes of brilliance in Kevin Lee's game that really stood out to me, but there's just no denying that things have fallen apart. Let me just ask the question to you very basically, dude, where did shit go wrong for him? Game planning, not having a true weight class for that period, you know, bouncing around. Did we put too much pressure on him, Luke? Did he put too much pressure on himself? I don't really know. It seemed to be more mental than physical

because physically he's got all the tools, you know. The fighter he was going into that Ferguson, you know, opportunistic interim title bout, and, you know, and he fought well for a stretch in that before losing. That fighter only came back again once or twice in short bursts. So, you know, we did say during this most recent losing streak, including the most recent loss that, you know, this seemed inevitable, a cut, and maybe given that he's still on this side of 30, still somewhat young enough, maybe it is the best thing that could happen to him. Because, Luke, this puts him at that crossroads moment,

right? You know, where you're either going to be a journeyman the rest of the way and get as many checks as you can until you just can't win anymore, or you are going to go back in the lab, which the problem is I'm sure he's had a few lab moments in the past three years, but you've got to go back in that lab and say,

alright, no more bullshit. What the hell am I not doing? What kind of coach do I need to get through to me? What do I not know about this game that I need to? Is it my cardio? Like, what is it? For all we know, he's done that already. I don't know, Luke, but, you know, he's at that crossroads,

and very few take that road less traveled. Brandon Moreno got cut by the UFC and came back to win a world title. Now, I know every time I say that, people love to say it's because they were cutting that division. But, you know, people have been cut before and come back and had runs. It's still possible. He's physically talented. He's young enough. But something's missing.

There's a wiring problem there. I've never loved his game planning. I've always wanted to see, you know, he's been a guy who can get rocked and vulnerable easy. His defense hasn't always been top notch. I don't know what to say, Luke, because I don't know whether he's already had those moments yet. Truly, those rock bottom, I need to cut all corners and no stone left unturned.

I have not activated 100% of myself. It's time. If he hasn't, well, that's good news, Luke, because there's still time. If he has, maybe he's just a flashy skilled guy who was never that guy, and we were wrong. But it breaks my heart, Luke. Do I want to double down and say,

well, we said future champion Kevin Lee. You know, that could be cage warriors for all we know. No, I don't want to play those games, Luke. I want to see this guy fulfill his potential. He's a great fighter. I do. do i again i think if you look the mustafaya fight the gregor gillespie fight um there's some other ones where he's just looked fantastic those are not those are not fake those are real those are those are kevin lee at his finest now the problem of course he has not been consistent but he has shown a tremendous level of brilliance at various junctures of his career. I've done some digging around on

this. Listen, I would love to hear what Kevin has to say. Also, never forget he had two knee surgeries, which doesn't explain the problems before that, but could certainly explain if you did have problems before that, they could exacerbate them over time. So let's not lose sight of that fact either. But it's come to the things that like, you know, you talk to a few people, some of the stories are the same, two of them. One, you know, not listening to people. I mean, for example, how many times have you heard Kevin Lee go back to his corner, heard the advice of his corner, and then he goes out and just ignores it?

I mean, you've heard that a lot. Like, I don't even need to be inside the gym or wherever to just know that, like, I've seen that over and over and over from him. Not listening to his corners, telling him to do something, and just widely ignoring it. So that appears to be not just, when I say not listening to, you know, other people, I don't think it's just in the in-between rounds situation. It could be a lot of other situations as well, but there's a certain disconnect between authority, advice, and what he is exercising. And the other one I've heard is that there could be some preparatory issues. You know, like the weight cut stuff. I agree that a 165 would be perfect, but you know, did he cross every T and dot every I? That remains to, there's a question about that, about what he could have done heading into some of these contests. So I'm with you, man.

What I saw with my own eyes, and I've told Kevin this, we've had conversations about it early in his career, I thought he looked tremendous. At 29 years of age, I am simply, listen, if he bottoms out and we look like total assholes after this, then fine. We look like total assholes. I'm still a believer in the upside of Kevin Lee. But at this point, the only way for him to get back there, I think, is if he really has to humble himself.

And he really has to just kind of decide to reframe how he views his career. I think he needs to, I don't think he needs to change camps or anything like that. I think he's in a great place but i think he needs to um i think he has to accept that there is a building process that he never did that still has to happen before he can ultimately get to the place he wants to go yeah and until he does that he won't something structural and foundational was skipped along the way that that you know is it in him to repair that and go back and find that yeah We're going to find out. I wish him well.

I got, I don't know, Luke, 5,000 people tweeting at me after this news broke. It breaks my heart. Okay, at UFC Fight Night 203, this will be February 26, B.C., Benil Dariush is going to fight Islam Makachev. Your reaction? Wow, love this fight. Love this fight. Love this fight. Believe it's the right move for the UFC. Gaethje earned that shit, Luke.

He did, okay? I mean, did he? Did he? Say it. I think if you're in a title fight, listen, I love, listen, if he fights, can I say that Justin Gaethje is not the best lightweight

on the planet right now? I cannot say that. I cannot say he is not. He just might be. The only point I want to make is you were in a title fight against a B. He lost handily. I mean, I know what, you know. He lost handily.

Let's not forget. To be fair, Luke, I mean, seriously, be fair with it, okay? All right. He lost handily. Dustin lost handily. Dustin lost handily. Gaethje was working with it, okay? All right. He lost handily. Dustin lost handily. Dustin lost handily. Gaethje was working on something, okay? Okay, Gaethje had his moments, but he lost handily.

And then he gets one win after that, and you're back in the title picture? To me, that is insufficient just for title purposes. Really? But I can agree. Hold on. I can agree he might still be the best lightweight on the planet in which case keeping him in bouts where that's a relevant consideration is is the better thing to do but you know i thought the fight to make was was makachev versus gaethje but i guess not um bc dan hooker wants to drop to 145 and take on the Korean zombie. He's done a test cut down there already.

And we know he used to have real issues. Maybe he has ironed them all out. Do you like the idea of A, Hooker at 145, and B, against the Korean zombie? You know, I still look at combat sports through a boxing lens too often. And in boxing, when you cut weight, when you move down in weight, that's always a major sign of desperation and when you do it you know in the middle or second half of your career it it exasperates on that so i carry that mentality to wherever i hear this i i go oh boy but people have done it and done it consistently

and done it to some i don't think jose aldo was going to be able to pull it off at this level so there's still a lot of fight in this guy and you know i don't really hold that law last loss against him because he was doubling down he was going for it and he looked very good against uh nasdaq 500 luke uh uh nasrac hackperest has correct heck press i'm really working on it i swear um so yeah if he can pull this off lu Luke, look, you've got to give him credit. He is trying to be great. I mean, he knows it's in him. He's got to stop getting into wars.

I like the turn to be more of a wrestler. Okay. But, you know, who did you say he was going to fight? He wants, he's not booked, but he wants the Korean zombie. Oh, God, that's the deep end of the pool, Luke. Yeah. I mean, look at the smile on that. I'll say this.

I'm with you. When you go down and wait, Jose Aldo appears to have pulled it off a little bit. Although, you know, like you have to ask, did Jose Aldo pull it off? He pulled it off in the sense that he meaningfully extended his career and he got people excited about new title opportunities. But he didn't go down to bantamweight and beat a new class of opponents right he was losing to max and he lost to volkanovski both the champion or the guy who's right under him depending on how

you want to view the legitimacy of that he went to bantamweight that that situation hasn't changed he still can't beat the champion or the people right at it. So he extended longevity of his career, but he didn't change his fortunes exactly in that way. So, you know, I don't know what to expect. I'll say this. Listen, if Hooker can make the weight safely and be reasonably competitive, I certainly would not stand in the way. I just worry about his health. The guy takes a lot or has taken up to this point not in the makachev fight but has taken a lot of damage and the weight cut could potentially exacerbate that but i leave that to him and his nutritionist and the ufc and the commissions and we'll see our good friend rashad evans who had himself an unsuccessful more or less weight cut

you know and sort of a desperation point late in his career at a middle uh middleweight you know really always broke down how much more how much your punch resistance goes away you know when you really push yourself down to that last weight class that you believe your body can squeeze into look i'm trying to think you know who has had great success doing it frankie edgar went on to fight for titles in what two different divisions after cutting down or no he never fought for the bantamweight title but he you know he's been in big fights and uh leota machida had a second life at middleweight after cutting down? Or no, he never fought for the Bantamweight title. But he's been in big fights. Lyoto Machida had a second life at middleweight after cutting down from 205.

Am I forgetting anyone who's really pulled it off at a high level? Obviously, McGregor was at 145. No, that wouldn't count. You had to have huge success at one weight class, and then you moved down and established a certain level of like machida fought for a title at middleweight that was you know that's a pretty good run um i don't know offhand i don't know nothing stands out as like the quintessential example that i can think of most people it's they get a ton of success. And then I say, fuck it. Let's go up in weight.

Not down. But, all right. Last but certainly not least, BC. This was, I think this came out Monday, maybe. But Jan Blachowicz is set to fight on, let's see. Let's see. The 26th of March. Alexander Rakic for light heavyweight supremacy.

Now, we had thought that Rakic was going to fight Anthony Smith in a rematch, but no, Blachowicz's first fight after losing is against this hammer. What do you make of it? Well, I was going to ask you, mentioning Anthony Smith, since, look, we all have our fighters, Luke, and he's yours, okay? We all have them. I'm sorry, but he is. He's the only CKB guy who can light your fire on that level.

He had come out and said he was upset that Rakic got that fight considering he felt Rakic turned down a bunch of other opponents, including himself. Do you think that there's substance in that statement? I don't know the UFC matchmaking machinations. I would have liked to have seen Smith get another crack at it because I did not think that was his best performance. Frankly, I didn't think it was the best performance from Rakic either. He basically got top control the whole time and then couldn't pass Anthony's guard. They just kind of, you know, not exactly

stalemated, but nothing really happened for the duration of the bout. I'd like to see a little bit more dynamism, frankly, from both of them. But, you know, I can't hate on Blachowicz versus Rakic. I think it's a good fight for Rakic if he wants to get a title shot. I think Blachowicz could in the way that Gaethje rebounded after the Chandler win. I think if you beat a guy like Rakic and you are Blachowicz it's going to catapult you right back. There's nothing wrong with the fight.

I like it. I'm happy to see it. I kind of wish it would have gone a different way, but it's great. I can't complain. Dude, you know what's going to be a great fight the more I think about it? Glover versus Prochazka. That's going to be a very great fight the more i think about it glover versus prohotska that's gonna be a that's gonna be a very interesting fight for as long as it lasts for as long as it lasts i mean do you think the old man can expose yuri on the ground um yeah exposes a strong yeah it's possible i think it's on the table on the table it could

also be some violent young guy on old guy type of shit too i mean yeah it could possible i think it's on the table on the table it could also be some violent young guy on old guy type of shit too i mean yeah it could also be like why are you beating up this old man in the street kind of situation uh from bahashka exactly all right but i'll say this if he loses the belt you get to go back to being the king so that's fine i'll take that bring it apathy we should get apathy on the show i'm sure he probably lives near me. I mean, me, Chuck, and Apathy are the three most famous people in combat sports in this state right now, right? I guess so. I don't know if Apathy's famous in combat sports,

but he's certainly famous in underground rap. All right, BC. It's time for fan subs. Good, sir. All right. Morning Combat at gmail.com is your email address to find us for Wednesday fan subs. Friday's dead wrong.

And hopefully none of these fan subs will involve people wearing our new underwear. Luke. Okay. But here we go. Every Wednesday, we've got mail. All righty. From at average Joe art. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are my favorite days

since I get to start off my morning with my favorite combat show. Here's a shot of how I kicked off my Monday, November 15th, with BC and Luke while diving into my workload. Yes, this is actually what I do for a living. Please excuse my mess as we're still doing home renovations, but it hasn't stopped us from catching every episode of MK and going overboard with our Christmas decor as displayed by the nine pet stocking across the front of our mantle.

Seven cats, two dogs, all rescues. Shout out to this guy, Average Joe. I'm stuck sitting on the ground working at the coffee table until my office is complete. By the way, Luke, my girlfriend recently retired from 21 years in the Army, and my dad is a USMC veteran from Vietnam. They both told me, quote, it's a cover, definitely not a hat. Thank you for your service, Luke. Thank you, Brian, for being you.

Love the show. Keep up the good work. Luke, I was going to accuse this guy of doing this fan sub just to promote his own work, but he was very nice and funny, and he's got nine pet stockings up. Also, I mean, you got seven cats. Bro, who's got litter box duty in that house? Because their life sucks. Wow. How's his cable management here, Luke?

You good on this or no? It's hard to tell. He's got some wires hanging out the front like a jabroni, he's got cat shit everywhere but other than that nice house we appreciate you average joe thank you for watching us good shit you've sent in artwork before he's got the skills i think i know this dude i think this guy's he's good people all right this one's from dave pop quiz what do me brian and alec baldwin have in common we're all firings. They made me take it off for that cool robe, but I made sure to snap a pic with my Orchids of Combat shirt before they got me with the three needles.

Oh, my God. Are we already doing Alec Baldwin has killed people jokes? I mean, Jesus. Dude, this guy took a picture from the damn vasectomy table. Luke, this is Bobby Knuckles, AKA, or sorry, knobby buckles, AKA Dave. Wow. Well, Dave, that's dedication. That's dedication. Welcome to no libido for the rest of your life. You'll be, you'll, you'll thank me for it. But, uh, yeah. Wow. I mean, you know, snip, wait, did you get, did they cut your balls off or did you just get a vasectomy?

I'm trying to wonder what happened to you here. They opened the hatch, Luke, but as we talked about, the three needles weren't enough. I felt it all, Luke, okay? And that damn 73-year-old Vietnam veteran did not care about my pain, Luke. No, he didn't. Not at all. In fact, he's like, is his wife here?

Get his wife in here to take care of him. He was not happy with it. Wow. I'm still scarred from it. I'll show you one day. All right, Luke, this is from BM Bush. Luke in BC, despite all of the supply chain delays, I finally have my home office set up to accommodate the work-life balance.

Here's what a typical workday looks like for me as I try to squeeze in my MK consumption between video calls and spreadsheets. My fandom for MMA has risen to great new heights and my boxing fandom is under development thanks to you both. P1 for life. It's Bruce B. Your thoughts. It's a great little

setup. Not bad, right? Yeah, it's okay. He's got the mug. Can you zoom in, Gaff and Sally? Oh, he's got our mug there. All right. I guess he went to Rice University. Nice university.

Yep, yep. Yeah, it's good stuff. All right. It looks like he's going to watch The Godfather on Showtime. He got that 30-day free trial. Luke, the sand will not be pounded yet. Not yet. All right.

Let's go over to Fernando. What up, Donks? Last week, LT scolded me since I only sent a photo of the shirt I bought. I felt bad, so I gave you guys more of my money and bought two shirts for me and my old lady and a coffee mug that didn't come yet. Here's a pic of only the swag I bought just for you, LT. Just kidding. Here's a pic of me in my January 6 6th get up because the internet hashtag the internet

love the show and all your content i'll send more pics don't forget to not let bc punk out on the cannibal corp show yeah february bitch you're going but um hey he looks good in that hey you know we don't have enough of we don't have enough donk stuff in our merch it's just not everywhere we need it everywhere i've noticed our old merch guy just loved donks yeah i got i got united states donk army which are donk core or whatever the hell it is i always feel embarrassed wearing this in public look like some veterans are going to come up and knock me out uh can we zoom in on probably me look he's been in the gym he looks good in this raglan that's right that's right and And he's got the old camouflage mask, which, you know, good to break into Nancy Pelosi's office and take a shit on it.

And there you go. That's true. There you go. All right, let's go over to John G. He sends in the man in the hat. I don't know what this means. Oh, boy. Oh, get it?

Because it's Chuck, but it's a cover. Chuck's not going to like this at all. That's pretty funny. I like how it's droopy over one eye, like he's been drinking whiskey Chuck's not going to like this at all. That's pretty funny. I like how it's droopy over one eye, like he's been drinking whiskey in the back and not telling anybody. The man in the cover. I love it. Yes, it's got a nice ring to it.

All right, Jose R. has, After January 6th, my big booty Latino wife and I relocated to beautiful Puerto Rico, and luckily they haven't found us yet. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to see Luke attend a pro wrestling event with BC. Uh, yeah, blah,

blah, blah. It's, it's brainless entertainment, Luke, but it's entertainment nonetheless. MK all day, nearly every day.

This is Jose R. I think he has a second picture too. Doesn't yeah. Oh, nice. Let's zoom in here. BC's like, I want to look at your wife.

Yeah. Wow, this guy's, look at that Hawaiian shirt too, Luke. He's living the life out there. Yeah, yeah, he's doing well for himself. Well done there. He moved to Puerto Rico after January 6th. Some people had to, Luke. Yeah, he's got the old Hawaiian shirt.

He must be one of the Boogaloo boys who shoot federal authorities. Nice. Breaking two electric Boogaloo boys who shoot federal authorities. Nice. Breaking two electric Boogaloo, yeah. All right, Chewy is here from Murrieta, California. I made this meme in two seconds after seeing it online. It did say siblings as kids, siblings as adults, but I tailored it for MK. Can we zoom in?

I've got to see what it is. Yeah, can you blow it up i'm gonna read it yeah that's fair that is fairly accurate yeah it's very fair well done oh they should also have it luke and bc after a rooftop where it's you and me taking turns vomiting at a mexican restaurant and chuck laughing at us yes luke chewy has a question for you. Any chance we get a live show for UFC 270 in Anaheim next year? Does MK do California? We should. There's not any plans, right, that we currently have now, but we'll see. One never knows.

One never knows. Okay. I'd love to do LA, Luke. You know that's my favorite city in the world, right? You like LA the most? Love LA. Love. I like the food in LA.

I don't like much else. Wow, they got BBLs there too, Luke. They do. They do. But it's so sprawled out. Everyone sits in traffic and shit. Like, I don't... I hate that.

I don't think you have the same love for the Mexican-Latino that you do for the South American kind, Luke. I think you are... I think you are desperately wrong about that. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Wow.

All right. We're back. I... Off air, i'll told you one time my wife was like who is who's the most attractive starlet in hollywood this is several years ago and to me it's just never changed it's always been salma hayek i realize she's a little bit older now but salma hayek has always been my like yeah she's a car now for sure oh i mean it's i mean forget it and i'll tell you off air what my wife said about her you will laugh you will laugh okay uh alan w is back he says coming soon luke trt thomas oh i can't wait to get on fucking trt bro i have so many people write me and tell me

um to get on trt that it changed their life i'm'm going to. BC, I should have you know, I haven't really talked about it on the show because I'm trying to keep quiet about it, but I'm pretty happy with it. So I don't know how much of this, well, some of this will rebound, but obviously both of us, although me worse, put on some LBs during the pandemic. I'm down 35 now, 35 pounds.

Can you believe it? Yes, that is great, Luke. 35'm down 35 now. 35 pounds. Can you believe it? Yes. That is great, Luke. 35. Yeah, I'm on my way. So you might be asking, how much further do I have to go? Well, the good news is I'm down 35.

The bad news is I have a shitload more to go. Are you plus or minus 250? Plus. Plus. But the goal is to get... Here's the thing, dude. I haven't... Even when I was doing jiu-jitsu,

I was doing jiu-jitsu like four or five days a week, so I was burning all these calories, but I wasn't eating great, so I was in decent shape, but all of my ducks were not in a row. All of this is to say, I don't even know what my natural weight would be anymore. I think it's right around 240.

I think 240 is probably a pretty good set point, but we'll have to see. I don't know. Okay. All right. I put seven pounds on Jamaica, Luke. I got to get that back. Oh, fuck. You must have been eating cheese.

What were you doing? Well, I suspended my no beef and pork rule that I usually have to protect my liver. I suspended that a little bit. So I had a lot of jerk pork. Oh, it's so hot. Hot as shit. Luke, I mean. You know what?

If you're going to go on vacation, dude, there's no point in going on vacation and then just being miserable. Fucking eat. And then when you're done, lose the weight, you know? Yeah, die later. It's cool. All right. Jamal's here. He says, real talk, Luke.

BC is gone for two weeks. That means the show can now run properly. My first picture is what happens when you leave him to run the show, BC. Let's blow this up. When BC hosts the show by himself and decided to talk about the sappiest shit records to end the show for the last several minutes, this is what every Team Luke viewer thought and wished. With your pursed lips uh bc the second attachment is the pure and true thoughts of what happened afterwards from that show luke i'm a p1 day one of yours and about three or four shows into your original live stream with all your technical issues you were struggling for people writing

in question so that's when i started to write you MMA ones, and you answered pretty much everything I did. Also, thanks for sending me down a hip-hop rabbit hole of Jedi mind tricks. I've got love for you from the Peg City. It's Jamal, the Peg City boy from WPG. Luke, what the hell is the Peg City? I don't know. I don't know what that is.

Can we blow this meme up please i don't get this uh so this is supposed to be what happened after i reviewed records and went on vacation uh hashtag bcu ho hashtag replaced all Yeah, it's not very funny, but I appreciate the nice sentiment. Yeah. We got to find out where peg city is. All right. Uh, Russell says,

Oh, is it, is it, was it Winnipeg? It must be Winnipeg, right? Could be, could be.

All right. Uh, Russell's is coming in from the beautiful city of Woodstock, Georgia. We still love you here. I know where Woodstock is. Can't we just go down to Hughes are at Cobb place, play a few rounds. Wouldn't that be cool? Luke? I know where Woodstock is. Can't we just go down to Huzar at Cobb Place, play a few rounds? Wouldn't that be cool, Luke?

I know what he's talking about. That's a fucking hilarious reference. Can we blow this up? What do we got going on? It is. My man was, you know what? He should have said hi when he was here on January 6th. Can you please blow this up?

Let me see this fool yeah that's woodstock georgia you're looking at it right there yeah all right that guy's got a lot of shirts on there yeah i mean i know could you have five more shirts on jesus christ guy why don't you just use a jacket for crying out loud all right i'm just teasing what is Woodstock Georgia known for me wanting to get the fuck out of it every time I was in it okay all right there you go uh Alan W is back again wow I thought we just read his name this is uh the first one is BC's BDE personified Harold Howard he's coming on this only works if we take out a few of your teeth

look that's probably me and that's probably my best case scenario if i got in really good shape i'd probably look exactly like harold is about is about like semi-muscular fat trucker yeah exactly exactly wow i you know what i can't pull that look off. If I went for it, I probably could. The next is Brian as Street Fighter's Guile. You look like an island boy, only worse. Yes, that is very true. Brian's an island boy. You didn't see, Luke, on Have You Seen This Shit on Monday, we not only had a Lars Ulrich toilet in which you can sit on his lap,

we had Karate Hottie and holly holm dressed up as island boys it was painful to watch uh it sounds like it yeah all right connor f says what's up donks luke may have been excavate ex evacuating his bowels off the air but that didn't stop monday's mk from being a shit show as a wise man never met him once said nothing can be said to be certain except death taxes and technical difficulties keep up the mediocre work wow this guy sent us to hell luke yeah that's what our fans do i mean listen we send them to hell when they send in our pictures so it's only right that they roast us back i think this is hilarious this is hilarious isn't that the wrong meme? This is supposed to be from Connor F. Well, it's from Andrew, so there you go.

All right. I don't think the meme matches the message. Whatever. But, yeah, lifting gloves, we've seen that shit before. Okay, let's see Neil T. He's got four photos. Greetings from God's own country of South Yorkshire. Just a few memes for you guys.

If you want to just show the memes and ignore the text feel free. A couple are for Luke from his week in Vegas. First one showing his love for Carl from The Walking Dead. You're correct. Fuck this kid. Fuck this kid. I could not wait for this piece of shit to die.

The second meme showing us Luke shows us his dream way to end MK shows. Why is Brian black? Yeah. All right. See attached. Then a couple for our man from Connecticut. The first showing is daily struggles of MK.

I can't read the second one. Can you blow it up? Make a serious mma observation he hits the one on the left more times than he should but yeah that's fair and the last one is just bc being bc cheers for all you do guys dude this is a good one this is as good as the old stephen crowder meme yeah that's pretty good that's pretty good all right alan w again. All right, Alan W. again. Is this the same guy or do we just, what's going on here?

Thanks to MK, my crotch is now smooth. It's a look that says, hey, you can put your mouth here. Now here's a play on Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's Nothing But a G-Thang. Please blow it up. Is that the trimmer in our hands? Yeah, ain't nothing but shaved balls baby two washed out 40s so we're crazy yeah that's pretty good i know like what is your show about um it's me and another guy we're in our 40s and we're washed that's it that's that's the show

all right our final one from scott h i did some arting. This piece is called The Creation of Combat. If you think it's good enough to go on the fridge beside BC's macaroni art, I will send it to you, Donks. Let's see what we got here. Reveille, Reveille, Donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion passion That's the spirit we bring to this show I'm Luke Thomas

I'm Brian Campbell This is Morning Combat That is, dude, this is I might have to get that as a tattoo That is incredible That's pretty damn good Shout out to you, Scotty That's really, really really really good

morning combat at gmail.com if you've got some art or you want to send us wearing your merch whatever i don't care hey uh bill and jen by the way luke do you see they circled back and went to grand teton in wyoming the pictures were amazing and they said luke they'll be in the east coast this spring so we should get ready because you said when they drive by in jersey city you won't come out and say hi but you'll yell out the East Coast this spring. So we should get ready. Because you said when they drive by in Jersey City, you won't come out and say hi, but you'll yell out the window. That's what you said. Yeah, I'll just fart out the window and wave, but that's about it. No, no, I would love to meet them.

I think they're an unusual couple. And they'll probably poison us and throw us in the back of their van and take us on their journey with them. We should do a show from their camper. That'd be fantastic. We should do a podcast from there, we could do by the way that's very doable all right all right that's all i got luke i got this raging headache from from the two drinks i had i'm old what were the drinks they were like uh moscow mule in a can type deals you know it's my it my drink. You know what I mean, Luke? Man, you love that. Yeah, it was like ginger and something else. I don't know, Luke.

All right. As a reminder for folks, email us for Fridays, Dead Wrong, morningcombat at gmail.com. We will get to those. We'll, of course, preview all of the weekend's fights. Be on the lookout for that. Showtime is the label that pays us.

And you can see all of our socials down there as well if you want to give us a follow Morning Combat is the name everywhere BC and I have slightly different names between that and Instagram go to Showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not please pound sand

give us a five-star review if you're listening on whatever podcast platform in particular and not limited to though Apple if you're so inclined and don't forget the store MorningCombat.store all the merch is up tons of goodies for the holidays that you can get there bc any final thoughts before we call it a show no i don't care i don't care uh thanks to all the fan submissions thanks to

everyone who watched today see you guys on friday and then for malca for showtime for cbs all of your gains