MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC: Overeem vs. Volkov, Sandhagen vs. Edgar | Caleb Plant | Paige VanZant | Ep. 113

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Another week of MK gets started with episode 113 as the boys start to preview this weekend's upcoming MMA events, including a UFC fight night event with some great matchups. Luke and Brian look at the heavyweight matchup between Alistair Overeem and Alexander Volkov (6:15) & the co-main between Cory Sandhagen and Frankie Edgar in the bantamweight division (19:58). Plus, Caleb Plant thoroughly dominated Caleb Truax in a supper middleweight bout. What did we learn from the fight (32:08). Also, former UFC standout Paige VanZant makes her debut with bareknuckle boxing on Friday. What are our expectations for her (44:16)? ---------------------------- '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: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. We are officially in the second month already of 2021. Hello, donks. It is Monday, February 1st, 2021. Can you believe it? Where did January go? Wow. Hi, this is Morning Combat, and this is a show where we talk about combat sports and Brian's genitals. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. The man on the other side of the screen who will quickly tell you about his art and then also about what goes on below his waist is my brethren and yours, also from CBS Sports. It is Brian Campbell. Hi, BC. What do you think? This is Below the Belt with Brian Chobb. What are you doing here?

My name is the Big Beige Guy, Brian Campbell. Thank, BC. What do you think? It's below the belt with Brian Chobb. What are you doing here? My name is the big beige guy, Brian Campbell. Thank you. I'm very artistic. And, Luke, January was as fleeting as your youthful looks due to your refusal to dye your hair, but that's a personal issue, Luke, okay? I'd rather everything just go. I want the silver to just take over my face at this point

because I want to look forward, BC, not back. You know what I mean? It's this transition period that is just really, I look so stupid all the time, and I'm really kind of sick of it. What are you going to do? A wise person once said, your past is a reference, not a residence. So I'm with you on that. All right.

I like that Hallmark card you just told me about. We have a lot to get to today. There wasn't a lot that happened over the weekend, but BC, as you well know, things kick off into high gear starting this upcoming weekend. So we'll get to the pieces that did happen. A couple things here or there, and then we're going to start looking ahead to what's coming up down the road. Now, with that being said, please give the video a thumbs up

and hit the subscribe button, as I've been saying to everyone, because we've got a bunch of new subscribers through UFC 257. Welcome. This is our show. We do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 o'clock in the East. And yeah, so this is brought to you by Showtime. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly may. Go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, go pound sand. If you want to try some merch, want to get some merch in your hands, you can go to store.show.com. You can see the wonderful Brian Campbell modeling our winter hat, which will come in handy. BC, how much snow did you get over the weekend? Oh, it's still coming down. It's going to be coming down until midnight.

I'm probably at less than a foot now, but it's coming down fast. Luke, I'm going to be snow blowing all day. It's going to look like a Motley Crue hotel room in my front yard shortly. Okay. And also I want to keep up with this because I think it's part of the show now. Have you been sticking to your diet? Yo, so I lost eight pounds in three days on this wacky diet that my wife put me on. I have quit that. Is it called the starvation diet? Because eight pounds in three days is not healthy. I have quit that, but the foundational principles and the shock to my system has helped me. I'm doing fantastic, Luke. Okay, I'm down to 221 from 230, so we're making progress.

All right. I did a five-minute fade this morning. I look 10 minutes younger, Luke. What a time, right? What a freaking time. I have stuck so far to my diet. I'm doing something called flexible dieting if you guys don't know what you count your macros your proteins your carbs and your fats and you sort of have a math formula not really a formula just a benchmark

that you stay under and then you can arrange the food however you want provided it stays under those parameters so I've been doing it for the last since we got back so what tuesday so about a week or so um i've not i have to check in on the i have to have to weigh in later so we'll see how that goes but so far so good bc you're gonna hold the towel like dc or what yeah i might depending on depending on what the number shows up but bc and i are serious we we uh we have some we decided that like whenever we travel whenever that may be you, as long as we're on this program, we're going to be buddies with this and hold each other to the account and make sure that we stay on track, right?

Luke, Accountable Partners is the hallmark of a successful marriage. And a weight loss program. All right. So with that in mind- I am overflowing with art and wisdom today. This is one of the better days, Luke, of my quarantine right now. I mean, I haven't seen art. I've just seen, you know, you.

But I certainly feel like you're in the zone. With that being said, let's get this party started if we can, BC. So as I mentioned, we will get to some of the stuff that happened previously over the weekend. But I want to start here. The UFC gets back to action. They were off for a week, but they get back to action this coming Saturday. By the way, I think if I'm not mistaken, I have to double check this, but I think they've got like three heavyweight main events coming up here pretty soon. This, in any case, will be the first of them. Alistair Overeem taking on Alexander Volkov. Now, Overeem BC has been

pretty clear he wants to make one more push for the title, and if he got the title, he'd retire the very next day. This is a guy who held, by the way, the first major, maybe the only MMA fighter to hold a K-1 title. At the same time, he won a major MMA title, but he had the K-1 title, the Dream title, and of course was the Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion for a time. I think Dream as well. So BC, what is on the line when Overeem takes on the I would call it you know he had a bit of a setback against Curtis Blades but the surging Alexander Volkov look you know straight up the not the full completion of his goal which is one more run back to the title but a a monster step forward like we know Francis Ngannou's got next at the heavyweight

belt John Jones is obviously going to be shipped right in there, most likely against the winner. Curtis Blades is still in a very strong position, but Overeem can add himself to that list. You know, maybe not as easily for Volkov, but look, both guys are in a good spot right now. It's funny, you look at this card, and look, one week off, one weekend off of UFC felt like an eternity because, you know, they've been so ahead of the game through the quarantine and have loaded us up so well lately.

But even though you look at this card and Sanhagen Edgar, which we'll get into shortly, leaps off, right? And it starts to tickle the undercarriage there. This is a very good main event, a very good heavyweight fight. And I hate to give you the generic, you know, what's at stake, a possible title contender but I think um you know contention is at stake but for Overeem and we talked about this after that last victory over Sakai I mean he's really sort of figured out how to be efficient in his old age how to you know lean on his strengths avoid his pitfalls and deficiencies. And I really like the, you know, the fighter he's become. And it's a very poised guy. It's certainly not the, you know, demolition man who's going to come out here all flying

knees and wonder where USADA is. This is a guy who's sort of how to figure out, you know, not dissimilar in a lot of ways to maybe what Arlovsky has done in terms of staying around, but certainly doing it at a better, higher level. And Luke, at the end of the day, I like this matchup for him as a challenge. You're probably not going to see this fight go to the floor, but obviously Volkov is such an experienced striker, has great size, understands distance so well. This could be a pretty damn good chess match in a lot of ways

for as much as heavyweights in the UFC typically don't play chess so um no shortage of stuff at stake but I think for as a viewer you got to be excited about what you're going to see yeah no doubt about it if you look at the rankings it makes a lot of sense you've got Overeem sitting at five Volkov sitting at six someone wants to move up the ladder and that's the way that it goes I mean you mentioned Overeem look good against Sakai um and some other ones as well against Walt. Walt Harris kind of put it on him early, and he still... That was what was interesting to me. It was like, was it beating Walt Harris, who's a good heavyweight, but was that the most impressive win? Well, at age 40, after getting nearly stopped to then have the resilience to hang on and come back and then stop him,

yeah, that is actually extremely impressive. Then you mentioned against Augusto Sakai, not the most interesting fight, but he got it done late. In fact, since losing to Francis Ngannou and Curtis Blades, which you can understand, these are two of the guys who are basically at the top of the division, he's gone on what I'm going to call a five-fight winning streak. Now, of course, he didn't. He lost to Jairzinho Rosenstreich, but he was beating the shit out of that guy for four rounds and 59 seconds of the fifth, or I should say four rounds and then four minutes and 59 of

the fifth. And then, you know, the guy had the presence of mind to throw the punch. It landed. And so he won fair and square. But, you know, who was really winning that fight for the overwhelming majority of it? It was Alistair Overeem. And I would pick Overeem in a rematch. I suspect you probably would as well. So if you think about it, it's like, okay, he had setbacks against the very, very elite. And I'm not sure I've necessarily seen anything to make me believe that he can beat those guys at the very, very top. But number one, that doesn't mean he can't. Maybe he has retooled and he's going to show us something. Number two, there's an open question about whether Volkov is one of those guys.

So he might be able to beat these guys to continue the train of progress towards that goal. And I think three, the most important part is you're right. A lot of guys can have reinvention as a way to just kind of stay relevant. Now, I don't know exactly how far Overeem's going to go with this reinvention, which, by the way, has been in the works for a long time. To your point, he's sort of ironed out all the different pieces of it. But now that he has this sort of outside fighting style that really has been the calling card the last few years, he's done a lot more than stay relevant. He has pushed his way towards title contention a couple of times. It's just he's only willing

to give it one more run. The question for youBC is if he doesn't end up getting the UFC title, which, by the way, does seem like a bit of a long shot. I think there's a lot you have to do to get that. Well, look, it does, but he rocks Stipe. I mean, he also made Stipe tap, but that's probably for another, that's more of a room service diaries conversation, Luke. But it's not out of the question, obviously, in the heavyweight division, if you can do some things and he can do some things.

You were about to ask me a question, Luke. I want to hijack this show and spin it back to you and just basically say this. Overeem's been efficient and impressive. I think he should beat Volkov, although I expect a very good challenge, but it's going to be contested in an area that's comfortable for him. How good, in your mind, even during this evolution, is Overeem's ground game? Because he's going to need it most likely

to have a chance to fulfill this destiny. I don't know. I don't think he can win a title right now. But I think getting back to a title fight will be a very good victory and a stamp on the end of the story. He's probably going to have to go through Curtis Blades a second time to do that

because Blades seems to be the most elite guy on the outside looking in. Remember, he pissed off Dana White. He did it on a CBS Sports podcast, by the way. Remember the State of Combat, RIP. But do you like him in a rematch with Blades? Because I've got to believe that's what's coming if he wins here. What has to change?

I don't. I don't. Update me on where his ground game stands today because that's where you're going to end up against Curtis. He's never had a bad ground game. I don't think he's got a bad ground game. He's a little bit so big that he's not quite mobile from his back in the days when he was a light heavyweight in Pride, for example.

I thought he was a little bit more nimble in that sense. Now he's good at sort of covering up, finding a moment to hit an underhook and then standing rather than playing a bit of a bottom game in that way. So no, I don't, and by the way, that's going to be hard to do against Curtis Blades. He's going to sort of shut all that down and then hammer you with elbows. So he has skills everywhere, but he is not best suited, I think, in that position. What's kind of funny is if you look at his losses in the UFC to Silva, Brown, Rothwell, Miocic, and then at least Francis, not so much Curtis, they all happened on the feet. You know, he sort of lives and dies by the same sword that he wields here a little bit. So it's not like the ground game has been some kind of

place where, oh, that's not his best skill. That's where he loses. Well, in the Curtis Blades fight, yes. But the rest of them, he just kind of lost, you know, either focus or whatever the case may be. He fought good guys. He landed a nice punch. Here's the question I'm wrestling with. If he doesn't get it, what does it mean? Because he'll have wins over Frank Mir, Roy Nelson, Stefan Struve, JDS, Arlovsky. He'll have two wins over Fabricio Verdum.

One from Strikeforce. One from UFC. Mark Hunt. Right? Is that enough to get into the UFC Hall of Fame with that UFC resume, plus whatever he did in Strikeforce and in Dream and in Pride and everything else? I tend to think it probably won't be,

but I don't know. Well, look, as we talk about a lot, the standards are kind of all over the place in how UFC grades them. It's just hard to know. Do I think that's an incredible resume? Yes. I mean, Alistair is one of the most interesting,

unique, and accomplished heavyweights we've ever had. I just don't know how UFC is going to look at that. That's very Uncle Dana of you to go the full Alistair pronunciation. I like that. What I was really kind of setting up in that question is, Luke, yeah, you nailed it. Look, okay, Hall of Fame. He'll get in, mostly because of the things he accomplished at or around the UFC, meaning the strike force and all that, like you mentioned,

which is, at some point, did become quasi-UFC when they bought it, although that was before, but you get it. There's no real standards there. He'll get in. He's a star value. He gets paid a lot of money. He's a regular main eventer, all that. But, Luke, when he lost all those elite guys, look, I think it's two different eras for him in the UFC. I think the first one, he came in very arrogant,

right? Destroyed Brock Lesnar in the debut, lost a couple of fights. He shouldn't have Travis Brown, those types of fights, you know, Bigfoot Silva in, in situations where he was winning and kind of just fumbled and got too

cocky and arrogant. He's not that guy anymore. Sort of, sort of post lost to steep. Right? So he's, he's evolved to a point where we only see him lose, to your credit, what you said, via strikes against the super elite.

But we did see that change against Sakai, where he really had to almost sort of rally to control and put that fight away. And Luke, he did that by wrestling. Now, Sakai's not the same wrestler as Blades or a Jon Jones or even a Stipe. But I'm just wondering if he's going to show similar again to like a Glover to share a late career where he's focusing much more on his technique on the ground to stay around, to be relevant. Overeem, I believe, knows at this point he can't go chin-to-chin, strike-for-strike with the super elite. He's already been KO'd by all of them. So can he use what he showed against Sakai and mix in both and still have an avenue to victory against a guy like a Curtis Blades?

Because there's no ending to the story unless you can get through a guy like that. I think that's totally right. I think that's totally right. He knows. That's the part about Volkov. We'll talk about the X's and O's a little bit on Friday, but that's the part about Volkov that makes it very interesting. On the one hand, he's taller and longer than Overeem, right?

I mean, the guy's huge, nearly a seven-footer. And on the other side, you can take him down, as Blade showed, but he's surprisingly resilient on the ground. You would have to change up the way you attacked him there, maybe go for better passing or let him get to his knees and then go for the Dagestani wrist control, the handcuff. I don't know. I don't know what he's got planned.

Overeem's pretty smart. I mean, for a guy who can reinvent himself, he's going to have to really think about how to attack this guy. But Volkov has turned into a bit of a problem where he is beatable, but you got to be really pretty goddamn good to beat him. And even if you do, like Curtis Blades, that was a little bit skin of the teeth territory there by the time the whole fight was over so really looking forward to Saturday and by the way for Volkov maybe mention this if he wins BC he's sitting at six no doubt about it he's right back into the

top five almost assuredly I don't know if they'll give him a rematch against Blades because that doesn't seem quite right but at that point he's going to be having the pick of his litter maybe they'll do a rematch with uh Lewis, depending on how things shake out. So he would be in prime position for a ladder climbing opportunity as well. I also think, you know, it's obviously more likely that Jon Jones gets parachuted right into the winner of Ngannou Stipe. But we never know what's going to happen in any of these fights if they'll get delayed. Volkov, if he beats Overeem here, or even Overeem himself, if he beats Volkov, Luke, both would make excellent debuting opponents at heavyweight, I believe, for Jon Jones, right?

Style-wise, it makes a ton of sense because, you know, let's say somebody gets COVID. Let's say the rematch of Stipe and Francis just is insane and incredible and we need a third one. Whatever it could cause to delay, John against the winner of this fight on Saturday, not entirely out of the question. Probably more likely it would be Overeem with the star value. I mean, you know, we had some talk in the past about would that be the perfect John Jones-ing debut opponent at heavyweight.

So keep that in mind as well. And I do, again, want to give a shout-out to Overeem Luke because I didn't see this evolution coming. I didn't see this commitment to growth and change. you know again remember that run where he got knocked out by guys he shouldn't when he was super cocky outside of the cage sometimes he's been called an asshole for for right reasons i didn't see this type of commitment to growth to to linger and i want to you know you know what he has he's waiting for his michael bisping opportunity he's got that michael bisping toughness where I'm going to stick around.

I'm going to constantly work on my craft. In his case, reinvent it if necessary because I think he was around longer than Bisping. I think he started before Bisping and I think he's going to finish after him. But that same kind of thing where you're just waiting, plugging away, plugging away, plugging away, and then a change of fortune, not so much anything else, propels you to everything that you were looking for along the way. He's got that same mental resilience. I mean, you see guys get knocked out, you know,

and they don't come back the same or whatever. Dude, this guy has, and I'm going to say it in a good way, he's got that quarterback amnesia, BC. He'll throw a pick, and then he'll be like, all right, that sucked. And then when it comes time for the next drive, he goes in there and marches the team down the field and scores a touchdown. He's really got that. Him, Rafael dos Anjos, and Michael Bisping, to me,

three guys that can just get over losses and stay committed to the craft, learning, training, getting better through wars, through late age, better than anyone I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I mean, you probably could use a little bit of that in the whole Ronaldo situation, but more news at 11 on that. We should keep keep going i can't tell you how many emails i got

from portuguese and and brazilian uh people telling me i was right but you know well i can only take so many screenshots congratulating me all right let's move on to the second point same card co-main event pc and this to me first we look at the card this weekend it's actually excellent give the ufc credit when they do good stuff they're doing good stuff now again fight card subject to change but for now you've got cory sanhagen fresh off that win over marlon rice coming in against bump but a bump bump frankie edgar fresh off his win over who was it a sun i think he beat uh decision in a great in a very good performance, yes. No, it was Pedro Munoz. Excuse me, Pedro Munoz.

Yes, yes. Apologies. Yes, yes. Apologies to both those people. But it was still, you know, Frankie Edgar showing some life, I think you could say, at 135 pounds. I'll never forget years ago, years ago, this was even before UFC 200, I think, when the coach of Frankie Edgar, Mark Henry, was just listening to my

Sirius XM radio show and unsolicited called in and said, no, you know what, I think he was even still at 155 at the time, and saying, you know, Frankie can make 135, no problem, he just doesn't want to do it. Well, I would have liked to have seen him go down to 135 sooner than he did BC, but better late than never, and he did get a winning hard fought um w in uh in his in his forced foray there now he takes on cory sandhagen who bc had a setback against aljamain sterling but like sterling is considered to be one of those young guns who's the future of this division tell me in your mind what is at stake in this co-main event i mean look i can

generically say uh you know, a title shot. If Sanhagen wins here, I don't see how you can't put him in the title shot to face the winner of Peyotre, Jan, and Aljamain Sterling. If it was Sterling that beat Jan, I mean, it would be a great storyline with a rematch considering, look, let's be honest, Sanhagen is so much better than the performance he put out against Sterling. Obviously, double, double huge kudos here to Sterling to be able to finish a guy that great. But what we saw from Sanhagen in the

correction fight after that, Luke showed you exactly what he can do. Spinning, head kick, knockout. I mean, just command distance, so unique. There's so many incredible parts about him. This is a great fight for him as a final step before that title opportunity, because he's in there with a B-side who can carry the marquee in Frankie Edgar. I mean, look, this fight's certainly way more attractive than the main event for as good as the main event is, and this could be a pay-per-view co-main or a fight night main event any day of the week. Edgar obviously still good enough where this win would mean a lot. I mean, at 39, I can't believe Frankie Edgar is in this spot.

I can't believe the constant evolution, all the great things we just said about Overeem, right? You can almost double that for Edgar at this point. But for Edgar, I mean, he's going to get a big opportunity. I mean, look, a win over a guy this good and this highly ranked in Sanhagen, if Edgar gets this win, I don't know, Luke, what do you do with him? Do you fast track him to the title fight because of his name? Most likely given the Dana White game plan in a lot of ways. You can also, you know, TJ Dillashaw is going to be lingering depending on what UFC wants to do with his brand in his return. Do you give him a setup

fight against an older name or do you plug him right in but uh outside of title implications as great as we celebrated frankie edgar for beating pedro munoz and rallying and looking so strong and doing it in a new weight class and moving down in weight so late in your career which normally screams desperation only in this point as you mentioned it's sort of like a new found debate should he have been here all along Luke a win over Sanhagen for Edgar would be one of the greatest wins of his entire career I mean this is that much sort of a you know potentially at stake to him and yes another title opportunity and I'm not even sure if anybody has ever uh attempted to compete for titles in three divisions obviously no one's become a three division champion but if he gets

a chance to uh you know try to win one in a third-weight class, that's just another tip to the cap in his legendary career. But, Luke, as much as I don't like his chances in the style matchup against Sanhagen, there is so much at stake to just add to the legend of the great Frankie Edgar. I'd have to look up, BC, the actual numbers and the rankings at the time that they happened, but you have to look at something here. the actual numbers and the rankings at the time that they happened. But you have to look at something here.

Corey Sanhagen is sitting at two in the rankings, right? Whether he should or shouldn't be, he just is. I wonder. We talked about Conor McGregor, and folks oversold it because there has been several fighters who have done it, including Jared Cannoneer, where you get a KO across three divisions. But who has wins over top five opponents in three weight classes? To the point, who has wins over top three opponents in three weight classes? And I wonder, because he had the KO over Mendez at featherweight,

and obviously he was the champion at 155 pounds. You go and beat Sandhagen, is Frankie Icaro going to have wins if he does that over top three ranked opponents in three weight classes over the course of what nearly 15 years not quite but you have 12 years something like that UFC no how long did he make his UFC debut he made it all the way back in uh let's see back in 2007 so you're talking about a 14 year run and you can have wins over top three opponents in three different weight classes potentially I gotta gotta verify this. Dude, that's fucking incredible. That is incredible if he gets that. That is an outrageous achievement if he's able to put that together. And I have to

tell you, I think it's a little bit closer than folks might imagine for the following reason. Sanhagen's takedown defense is historically not great, which is to say, when he's moving and flowing, sometimes you can really take advantage of that. And he gets up pretty easily, and the Sterling fight notwithstanding doesn't tend to have submission issues against folks who are not just crazy good at that kind of a thing. And Edgar's more of a take your time, beat you over the rounds, rather than being an immediate guillotine or rear naked choke threat. So, you know, I think Sanhagen should be favored to win and probably will.

We'll talk about that on Friday. But just to sort of put it out there, it's a little bit more interesting than folks realize. So for Sanhagen, you get this sort of win over a legend. It elevates your name, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't think folks are realizing, man, Frankie Edgar's on the cusp of doing something here very, very special. The likes of which I don't know we've seen all that often or if at all and certainly won't for a very long time. Now, he's got to beat Sanhagen to do it.

But damn, dude, that would be pretty incredible. Look, like let's actually get into it for a second. I mean, if you beat Sanhagen under any circumstance, it's not controversial, right? Probably not better than the two wins over BJ Penn to win a championship. Obviously, you know, just getting a draw against Gray Madern in that type of fight is one of the all-time great performances. But would you put this win right kind of between those two? I mean, he's got other great wins, obviously.

Frankie's done it over so many eras. And, you know, I mean, I loved the win over Cub Swanson at that time. I love the damn win over Faber just for name value. If he beats No. 2 ranked Corey Sanagan, who's fresh off a spinning back kick KO of Marlon Marais, who outside of the hiccup against Sterling has looked sensational and is being groomed for the next title opportunity, which is why he's in there with a legend like this.

I might put it right behind the BJ Penn win. Ooh, that's it. Well, what about like beating, you know, uh, I mean, who were his title defenses against? Uh, he's 39, he's 39 moving down to weight divisions from where he won a championship. I mean, it's, it's. I mean, it's insane. It's really insane. I'm looking at some of these rankings here at LiveBC, and some places have Mendes at three.

Some have him at four. Yeah, so just to sort of be clear about that, it would kind of depend on where you look. But at a bare minimum, let's talk about the absolute minimum, he would have wins over opponents in the top five in three-way classes. That is ridiculous. To be that good that long into your career. And you can even say, even if Edgar gets the win,

what are you going to say, this is the very best Edgar? No, he's got all the miles, the game is advanced so much. But to be that future proof with your game that you'd be able to do that wow dude you got to tip your fucking hat to that that would be can i tip my can i tip my bag to edgar as you look up a dime he beat charles olivera he knocked out mendez as you said he stopped yair rodriguez i mean dude this is a freaking insane resume that we uh you know me the guy who's always making tears in the in the goat rankings and putting people at the the all-time table and all that shit that we do in our basements to kill time uh you know i don't know if we even come close to giving frankie edgar the love and that he

deserves look because to be able to sustain this at an age, I mean, it's great. Do I think he's going to beat Sanhagen? No, but this certainly raises the stakes and the interest level to Watson since Saturday. And also, it's just cool to have a UFC event where you've got two guys like Overeem, 40, Edgar, 39. And in the case of Edgar, he hasn't changed his style much. I mean, it's developed over time, but he didn't reinvent himself. He just reinvented his weight category, right?

He decided, I'm going to reinvent my size. I'm using the word reinvent here a little bit loosely, but you get the idea. I'm going to rejigger my career by dropping down multiple weight classes over time. In the case of Overeem, he went up from light heavyweight, but that was a long time ago. But the point is, as we talked about earlier, you look at his K-1 days, very much an inside fighter for the most part. Now very much an outside fighter thinking guys. Both guys are so smart and so talented, and when they were in their prime, you know, very far ahead of the game,

that they've been able to stay this long to the point where it's like, is it very plausible that Frankie Edgar could beat Corey Sanhagen? Maybe you don't think it's likely, but it's certainly quite plausible. Is it plausible that Overeem could beat Volkov? Again? Maybe you don't think it's likely, but it's certainly quite plausible. Is it plausible that Overeem could beat Volkov? Again, maybe you don't think it's likely. The odds makers have him as a slight underdog, but it certainly is possible. And I think of the two,

probably one of them might win. Dude, take my hat off to those guys, man. These old guys who are, and we just saw Wonderboy Thompson against Jeff Neal. Some of these old guys, man, they got future-proof games. They're smart. They're clever. They know how to stay on top. They stay in shape.

They know what their strengths are. They know what their weaknesses are. Would have liked to have seen Frankie make that move a little bit earlier, but still, the fact that he made it at all and is doing this well tells you these guys, man, they are not like their peers. They have a certain degree of an understanding about themselves and the game to stay relevant and it's really kind of exciting to see yeah yeah how about how's that how's that like you like you and me bc

like you and me we reinvented ourselves through this podcast you know what i'm saying this look this has been uh you know an island of resuscitation for you. I don't think that's quite right. But my career was hardly on life support before this. But what I would say is... All right, what about your Q rating with Joe Public? Your likability. Oh, I don't care. No, that's not what Q rating is.

Q rating is visibility and how well-known you are. Well, you dominated your P's and Q's. But, Luke, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and God darn it, people like you now. I love it. It's great. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I didn't, you didn't throw, this podcast did not throw me a life preserver.

I was doing just fine. I just wanted to change things up because I think reinvention is necessary, BC. You got to go from what you're comfortable in you got to I'm like I'm like Tiger Woods the swing you know maybe you might be winning majors but you got to switch shit up all the time that's what I was doing and what am

I Rachel you could take oh god that's a that's a reference I should know who was that of all of his many mistresses it was the one I believe that he made believe he was in love to her the most. Or made it bend. No, no, no.

You are just like me. You are also reinventing yourself. I was going to say that, like Vince McMahon, who the victor can retell history his own way, Luke, I'll do just fine rewriting your biography, however you feel right. You can write what you want. All right, now you're going to need to say what the truth is here though let's go to point number three holy shit this sucked uh let's just be absolutely honest about it caleb plant fought caleb truex and we talked about this oh god there's so much and everyone's like oh luke you want to bash

boxing i actually take no pleasure in it in fact it'd be better if boxing was a lot better than it is and it's not like you know i even hate saying the word boxing should be better it's the architecture and then the incentive structure that comes from it that makes it what it is i mean that's who is to blame here essentially right so just sort of pointing out that two guys with you know 12 ounce gloves on uh obeying a certain rule set is somehow by definition corrupted is not it it's the way that things are built around it but to that point caleb plant he dominated the shit out of caleb truax which he should have done considering truax was a plus 2200 fucking underdog um and now there was a point bc where apparently uh plant the far better of the two at super middleweight broke his hand early or at least

damaged it early and so he was a little bit conservative. But what ended up happening was, True Axe could almost do nothing. Almost. He had a couple of decent shots here or there, especially when Plant was against the ropes. But in general, this was a schooling, and you never saw Plant take it to the second or third gear. Again, maybe for reasons that were understandable.

But dude, this sucked, and I don't know what to say about it, so I'll just ask you, what the hell did you learn from this fight we didn't learn good things and i think that's the problem so let's get let's put a couple facts on the table here fact number one it was a dominant performance for caleb plant so uh you know there's only so much you can from a critical standpoint that you can uh you know shit on him for that you Punch numbers-wise, in terms of damage he took, he dominated, even with an injured left hand, so tip of the cap to that.

I got other problems. One more plus for Caleb Plant. This was a mandatory, his second in a row, and he chose to get those two back-to-back so that he can open himself up for the next year to chase unifications and big names. So in having to play boxing's, you know, twisted games in order to keep your belts,

he's doing the right thing. But my issues are more on a larger scale. First of all, as a Saturday Night Fox prime time slot main event, like this just doesn't cut it. I get the point of it. The point of it was to push Caleb Plant continually to the mainstream. A guy who can really box. A guy who's got an incredible backstory of overcoming. A guy who can talk. He's got a good look. All that stuff you already know. But, you know, no good undercard to pair with it. And when you do that and the main event isn't main event worthy and it turns into a dud, it's very easy to call this a shitfest and a stink show, and that's what it became. But a great deal of the blame for that

stinkfest and shit show, I think kind of has to go back to Caleb Plant. Not again that he didn't dominate, but on a larger macro scale, what was this fight supposed to be? An audition to allure Canelo Alvarez to get him to cross

the waters. He's got a two-fight deal with The Zone and Eddie Hearn. It's a mandatory against Yildirim up next. Then he wants to unify against Billy Joe Saunders in May. Then Canelo will be looking for a new suitor for the fall, who has the only super middleweight belt he wouldn't have if he beats Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant. So you really need to not only get the public to start banging the drum for you, but have Big Red, old Saul, sitting on the TV on Saturday night going,

that guy's impressive. And I don't want to hear any sort of things, well, maybe he played it safe on purpose to not look like a threat to Canelo. Canelo wants threats. Canelo wants to make the biggest fights possible. This is why I don't trash Canelo at the end of the day. He's looking to do what he should be doing in the power position in boxing, which is unify belts, take on difficult guys,

doesn't really care who you're promoted by or what network you're on. So it was up to Caleb Plant to look spectacular, to look the very best he ever has. And on top of that, if he was limited by the left hand fine it is double triple quadruple caleb plant's responsibility to grab the microphone afterwards whether you think this wwe bullshit is needed or not in boxing look into the camera and say canelo i got it for you come and get some of this i'm the only guy who can beat you i'm the only guy with fast hands and fast feet who can do this to you. Even if you don't believe he can, Luke, you need to put that message out there.

Not the humble message of, I'll fight whoever's ever out there. Whoever has a belt, I'll fight them. No, we know that already. You have to look into the screen and get the world or get America here in a primetime slot to say, okay, maybe that fight wasn't as exciting, but he did dominate. And good God, did he show me some personality afterwards? He just called out Canelo. He didn't do any of that, Luke.

So at the end of the day, it was a womp, womp in a lot of ways. It was an impressive title defense. It was moving the change. He's still unbeaten. He'll recover from the hand injury. But if you're Canelo or if you're Joe Public in America looking for somebody for Canelo to fight to give you a hard-on, you're flaccid, Luke. And that's the damn truth.

And I hate saying that because I'm Caleb Plent's drum guy. I'm the guy telling you this guy's way better than you think. He didn't really show it. He didn't really show all the tools. He played it safe. When he was boxing, I mean, you could tell he was a was a then you heard Sean Porter who was the commentator for it you could hear him talking about it he pretty like what if I had to describe Caleb Plant style he's very much a slick guy right he's he's leaning off to the side he's setting traps and you move one

way he goes the other and he drills you forward like he's clever he's very very clever boxer is what I would say technical fundamental all of that but he's a clever boxer and so for those reasons if his hand's not injured he's in the right zone he keeps developing I did not see a guy who could beat Canelo Alvarez but I also saw a guy who at 28 maybe in a couple of years might be ready to if he can really work on his craft and and elevate it beyond beating the Caleb Truax's of the world as dominant, as certainly as it was. Here's the problem for me. It's sort of a separate issue.

You're right. This is why I told you this, dude. This is why if you're a boxer in the position of Caleb Truax, yes, you have an incentive to call out the Canelo Alvarez of the world because if you get it, it could be life-changing money. Maybe you might even win, but certainly it does a lot for your career. But you also have a lot of incentive to not say anything you can just keep on cruising the way that you have been by virtue of the way matchmaking goes and in the case of this mandatories and whatever else i like the fighters like canelo who take on risks by going up weight classes and just

saying who's the best line them the fuck up and, and I'm going to march them down. I love that because he has no real incentive to necessarily do that. Same with Tyson Fury. Who are the toughest SOBs in this weight class? Line them up, and I'm going to go right through them and making a public lobbying campaign for it. That's the kind of thing you need from boxing right now. You need guys who go outside of the architecture and incentive structure to not make it work for you, but to push it aside so you can make the fights that you want to see. This is one thing that really bothers me about this idea of mandatories. You like the idea that if someone is unheralded and just wins enough, that they have the right to get a title shot. You don't want promoters getting in their way. I really appreciate that. That's a good thing.

But the problem with ABC, and I think you might agree, is if you've got the WBA and the IBF and the WBC and the WBO, and then a series of smaller ones, that IBO and NABF and everything else, you begin to get so many mandatories, and there's only four major ones, I understand. But even with the four, this becomes enough of a problem where you're giving shots to fighters who yes are somewhat unheralded that maybe you know otherwise wouldn't get them fine do you're recognizing achievement but you're also making fights that I mean they're anything but mandatory this was not a fight that needed to get made and we have all of this bullshit that we have to go through to get to the fights that we eventually want to see here's the problem the system is set up for exactly what you said to give you an mma reference for the john

fitches of the world who keep winning but aren't marketable maybe the promoter doesn't love them they're still going to get a title shot the problem is boxing is corrupt as bullshit it is in so many of these alphabet bodies you end up seeing guys ranked who have no business being there i love caleb truax he didn't deserve to be in this fight. Was I the guy last Friday or Monday's episode? Whatever episode it was, telling you, I'm kind of excited for the Caleb Bowl on Saturday. I was. Why? I like the two

fighters. We had another boxing fight to kick off the new year. Let's get it on. There's potential to build the bridge and get to the Canelo fight. None of that happens. So when none of that happens, you sort of look around as we're doing and going, well, I love Truax, but he's 37 and coming off a majority decision win over a 41 year old guy you never heard of probably didn't deserve to be in there no he didn't and luke i don't know the future of the matchmaking here but i see a fox commercial for former champion anthony durell

who's on the tail end of his career but still has name value fun guy fighting a guy you never heard of in a fox main event are we slow slow playing Caleb Plant against Anthony Durrell? The reality is this should have been Caleb Plant against Anthony Durrell, right? And then we should have had David Benavidez at ringside, you know what I mean? Talking crap into the microphone. There's ways you can get people excited rather than going, I hope maybe Plant can fight Canelo one day. I just don't think we're here right now.

The platform wasn't used effectively. A lot of issues here when a guy like me who friggin' loves boxing, trying to talk to all these MMA guys saying, hey, you might really like Caleb Plant. You should check it out. They do check it out. They watch somebody crap their pants on a larger scale. I think if Caleb Plant gets pushed, BC,

which I don't think Darrell would necessarily do, but let's imagine X opponent pushes Caleb Plant. Dude, I think you'd get something really special. BC, which I don't think Darrell would necessarily do, but let's imagine X opponent pushes Caleb plant, dude. I think you'd get something really special. I do. He didn't jump off the page as the guy to beat Canelo right now, but you can tell when you watch him, dude, he's, he's smart. He's slick and he's got tricks for days. And you know, he's obviously a sensational athlete. Do you see the trick he did? He's a dog.

I think it's called like the flag. I forget exactly what it's called when you can take a post and then grab it to athlete. Did you see the trick he did? He's a dog. Caleb Plant is a dog. I think it's called the flag. I forget exactly what it's called. When you can take a post and then grab it to the side and then make your body parallel to the ground. Dude, you've got to be strong as fuck to do that, especially at a super middleweight weight class. He's special. This was not a showcase of that. The thing that just gets me is

we're talking about are they going to make Joshua versus Fury and they have to do they have to pull all these tricks to get all of this shit out of the way to make it happen. It's like this has really made me rethink do we want the Ali act in MMA? I want

what is best for the fighters but I don't want this in MMA. I mean this would be a disaster for MMA and so i'm really rethinking having sanctioning bodies dilute the sport to the point where we have multiple titles where we have fights as main events that not only should it not be a main event that fight should not have been made bc there was no point to that fucking fight whatsoever and so you get to this point you're like why are we doing this shit let's put on the fights that people really want to pay money to see

and the architecture of boxing as it is currently constructed, it creates an incentive structure and bureaucracy, frankly, that gets in the way. And it's not fair to the fighters. It's not fair to the fans. No, it's not fair to the fans, especially if you're a fan of both sports like me. And obviously MMA is a totally different setup.

And Dana White and the UFC have so much more control for a lot of different reasons. Of course, it's not equivalent. You always get the bang there we'd like to even see a medium play set up for the bang on the box side and when it's unnecessarily slowed down like again plant benavidez is one of the best freaking fights you can have in the sport right now seriously we may see that this fall it's maybe some good news but it just seems insanely long of a build to get there yeah yeah listen a great boxing main event I think you would agree BC it can't be topped it's the maybe the best thing

in all of sports when you know your rounds four and it's up and around seven it's down and then there's a rally in around 12 there's nothing like that not even a five round MMA main event and I would and I would go to my grave arguing that it's just everything else golly it you know it's it's hard to attract a new fan base doing what they're doing all right well let's put that aside let's go to a different kind of boxing point number four BC and you talked to her so I'm very curious to get your perspective on this Paige Van Zandt will finally make her bare knuckle debut I don't know what the fuck she's doing but this is the thing she's doing now this will be on

Friday I believe the fifth not on Saturday pay-per-view through BKFC, so go look that up. But the point being is, she is making her first foray into a different kind of combat sport. Now, I kind of always thought, BC, that her talent lied in mixing it all up and the frenetic pace. BKFC has a frenetic pace, that part is true, but also you the jury's still out on whether it slices your face up a little bit um what are your expectations for Friday well I do expect a lot of people to care about it so I'll give you know BKFC a lot of credit on that and I'll even give Paige credit because that's sort of her intention here right she hasn't really hid from it a lot of her intention is to make money to get out of the UFC payment structure which

she didn't feel was a value on her star value and the things that she brought to the table from the outside in rather than that UFC created for her so in that regard and we said this you know initially after I interviewed her I will give her a tip to the cap and say you want to put your own career in your own hands and your own foot forward amen to that i though just like you and everyone else just don't see this as the logical step now we don't necessarily know what she's being paid it just may be so life-changing that that this is so important for her that's fine but when i hear her say the other side of the coin and talk about i just want to prove to people how tough i am page you got nothing to prove to us.

Like, we've seen you. First of all, you're a professional mixed martial artist. You're tough as hell. You went in there against, you know, Rosnami Unitas and got bloodied and beaten up and kept coming and didn't quit. You're tough as hell. You don't have to prove this to us. So there's a lot of, you know, illogic here.

If you care about her and you're on the outside looking in. Now, what does this mean for Friday? I think it means there's a lot of pressure on her, Luke, to look good, to win 1,000%. I mean, she's the face of this franchise. BKFC has, you know, smoke and mirrored it to get our interest. Some people like it. Some people are like, all right, I'll like it if you give me a name, right?

The Pauly fight with the GOAT was weird, but we were into the build. Some of these hillbilly-looking guys in the undercards excite you. I just don't see, with Paige's skill set, why she's in this. She's fighting Bretton Hart. We don't know a lot about her. She's got some bare-knuckle fights under her belt. I hope for Paige's sake, Luke, that she's been able to make the proper transition in practice at ATT. And she's talking about having Tiago Alves, who has experience in the bare-knuckle realm,

helping her train for this. Again, it just doesn't seem right or makes a lot of sense. But it's going to be up to her to come out and live up to the reason why you're going to tune into this. You're paying the money to see this. If she can win, if she can get cut open and hurt. She's got a lot of pressure on her, Luke, to do something that I don't

think is necessary and that might not be within her own skill set. Luke, I mean, what is this going to give her long term if her goals are still to come back to MMA, which it sounds as if it is? You know, is it really just all about the brand and the star at this point for her in terms of building that up yeah I mean

she really this is to me um it's crossroads but not in the way that is usually framed usually crossroads is like there'll be no success after this or to be a substantial decline if she doesn't win I don't mean it that way. I mean, even if she wins, she has a real choice to make about who are you going to be? Are you going to be somebody who wins at a reasonably high level and gets promoter favor ability to buoy that, right? Or are you going to be somebody who's kind of a curiosity who wins and loses, but then outside of the cage has to resort to increasingly dramatic things to gather and garner attention so you're still living in both worlds but the question is to what extent i think this fight is going to be

instructive in a future if i were advising her and again we don't know what bkfc paid my hunch is that they probably paid a lot they probably expect a big return for those reasons. So we'll see how things go. But to me, her best way to win, BC, as I mentioned, is when she mixes things up. You know, when she's out there doing jump switch kicks, and then someone falls, and then she jumps on the back, and blah, blah, blah. You know, MMA is much better suited for her. I thought she was a dead ringer for the kind of fighter that Scott Coker would have dollar signs in his eyeballs for when she was available. And maybe they did make her an offer. I don't know exactly how that went.

But he can do the kind of thing that I'm talking about, which is have her over there. And eventually, I think she might lose in Bellator just the same. But give her just the kind of right matchmaking to bring her along, keep her buoyed, and use her existing popularity in that space. I think if you're going to go to BKFC, it's not that losing is catastrophic, but it just pushes you down a path where you're like, okay, well, if I can't win here and then I can't win here, how seriously should I take this? Who am I really? Can I do things outside the cage or outside the ring to increase my visibility?

And then I'll mix and match that way. To me, this is going to be a real test of to what extent is she actually going to be an athlete who competes at a reasonably high level, or is she going to be some kind of an attraction who's an attraction in a sort of totalizing way? That, to me, is the stakes here on Friday. I will say she has said the right things in certain regards. Like, to be able to say, look, I have opportunities outside of the cage that I've created for myself, but I'm not looking to, and this was really the theme of the interview I had with

her. If you want to check it out on YouTube, I'm not looking to use fighting to go down those roads. Those things, the acting, the appearances, all that, those are extra. Those are ways to make money. Those are ways to, you know, show her creativity and her, her art, if you will. Right. And you know, show her creativity and her her art, if you will. Right. And, you know, I respect that.

I respect that that she's using this to to to kind of double down and say, no, I am a real fighter and you're going to see that. So, you know, at some point we all have to take a step back of all of our suspicions that this is a horrible idea. And, you know, see what happens on Friday. And that's what we're going to do. But, you know, look, even if you're going to look at her just from a fighting perspective do you think any of this is going to help her MMA game long term this this isn't going to round out her striking it's really a whole different animal in a lot of ways no no I mean I don't know how much it hurts if it listen if it's a one-off I don't really know how much it hurts. Listen, if it's a one-off, I don't really know how much it hurts. But, and you know, listen, she was never going to beat the Amanda He bosses of the world. That

was never going to happen, but she did beat, who was it? Ostovich, you know, with a bit of a back and forth kind of a fight in terms of not just how competitive it was, but the different phases of the MMA game. To me, that's really where she'll thrive. I think you need a promoter who understands that and can use that. And the fans, I think, will pay money for that. I think they would be interested, or at least pay attention dollars, right? How much time in your day and in your combat sports appetite do you have for watching something like that? I think in that kind of a world, there actually is a fair bit.

The question is what she wants, and the question is what path she will go down. And this Friday is, I think, a big lesson in the direction of that kind of thing. Luke, how does she make Friday? Because you're a critical eye looking at this, and rightfully so. But, you know, when this was announced, I made that statement, which I kind of hate making due to the larger picture that it says. But I've said, look, BKFC at this point is sort of kind of like the adult film of the fighting world. And we're sort of like, Paige, you don't need to do this, right this right you can act you don't need to go down this road why are you doing this

is there a way that she can impress you from a fighting standpoint i mean is it is it like go in there and bully and get the knockout where you're going to come out of there as a as a cynic going hey you know what she looked damn good i mean is there a win here yeah i mean listen what what is her style based off on speed um uh to an extent explosion fury right chaos to a degree overwhelming force is sort of what she does and so the ones who can get around that who can juke who can control her who can control her, who can slow her down. Those ones tend to do quite well, the Nama Yunuses or the Hibases or whatever laws she's had. It's the ones that kind of let her just do her thing.

Eventually, if she's just throwing an insane amount of punches in your face and she's fast, that tends to do well. So in many ways, she is kind of suited for Bare Knuckle in the way in which Bare Knuckle has constructed their rules where you start close up and almost, not first one who lands wins, that's overstating it, but there is a premium placed on activity and that kind of a thing.

So that will be good for her. And she's going up against Britton Hart who does not have the most exemplary record, although had a split decision with Beck Rawlings. So it's like, I don't know exactly what that will mean for her but um yeah you you would think that early this was something that if Paige can go in there and just blow her away I think that would be really good for her if it she ekes out something you're like uh I mean that's the win right the win is a dominant knockout because there's so many ways to lose in this sport even when you win like I thought

Paulie beat Artem and i don't even think that was a debate you're not only didn't lose on the scorecards he lost in some ways just for being in that and getting cut open and sort of entering in the circus and not dominating right if you go to this circus you gotta get in and out as quick as you can so you don't get the stain on you right i think that's right i think that's right um or you know here's the problem it's like you don't look at this and say wow this is a real long-term path for her she can do this for a while does anyone really believe that like you believe she's doing this because maybe they came with just a fuck ton of money you could probably do it with

the right opponent and not really get by, but look pretty good. But is anyone in there, and really any observer, not so much in her parties, but an observer, look at this and go, wow, man, she is built for this. Like, no one does that. No one's looking at it this way. Now, maybe she can surprise us. I guess we'll see. But it wasn't like, how many fights did she have in the UFC?

She had, you know, overall in MMA. She had, you know, she was eight and five bro she had fucking 13 fights like it wasn't like she was some unknown commodity um and we saw her in Invicta as well so it's like I don't know I don't know exactly what she's hoping to achieve here I a quick victory maybe move on I think that'd be the smart one but this is not a path for the future. This is a path for the next step, and that's okay. I guess we'll see what she wants to do. I'm just wondering what's going to be worse for her, a couple losses in BKFC or getting the same tattoo as her husband?

What would be a worse, you know? I've not looked at his tattoos. Are they bad? Dude, the damn Adam's apple. He's a great fighter. I mean, you know, good fighter. He has his neck blown out. He has the extreme eyeball on his throat.

I mean, it's extreme. Look, it's intense. Yeah, but you also think that really bad tattoos are good, so your judgment is suspect. Luke, can you just for once support a father who's loving on his daughter? I mean, what if your daughter looked at all your ink and was like, Dad, just get the damn duck for me. Please, Dad, please.

The quack quack? Yeah, give me the quack quack duck yeah give me the quack quack and you know come on I tell her you're grounded uh all right let's go to the fifth and final topic here of the day for the top five rundown let's talk over and under achievers as we mentioned bc not like in the combat sports world at least the mma world I should say there wasn't a ton happening but there were some highs there were some lows um who was an under or overachiever this past weekend dude uh damn James Vick got sent to hell coming off of four losses in the UFC and getting cut and then going to ex-MMA on the regional scene uh taking on Bellator veteran Andre Fialo in the main event, who himself was coming

in off three losses, Luke. And then in the first round, just getting the mouthpiece knocked out. And it was a typical James Vick loss, unfortunately. No head movement. He got bloodied. He got stopped on his feet. I don't know if there's like a broken face or a broken something. Luke, this was, I mean, uh luke this was i mean straight up

this was as disastrous as it could be and this is a young guy who at times you know had really shown some promise here uh especially in that initial lightweight run where he's just super tall for the division got some good skills tough boxer uh dude this is this is the bottom of the barrel i mean this is the bottom of the food chain this is, this is the bottom of the food chain. This is like, it's time. It's time. No, it's not that far. I mean, the guy who he fought was experienced, number one. Not the best fighter in the world, but not the worst.

Was experienced. And also, I mean, people don't appreciate this, but the difference between the middle or the bottom of a UFC card and the top of a decent regional card, there is no difference. It's almost identical. So I admit it's a very bad loss. I will grant you that. But calling it the bottom of the barrel is a bit of an exaggeration.

The way he lost to a guy that shouldn't have been able to do that to him, Luke, he lost in all the ways that we had fears for him during that UFC losing streak, which is if he doesn't figure out some head movement or add certain things to his game or just take some time off and reassess, his career is going to be over sooner than later. Then he went to the minors, Luke, and he got served by a guy who shouldn't be serving him in really the most catastrophic way possible,

like just exposing those same inefficiencies. This is bad, Luke. This is really bad. It's bad. That that part i think is totally you're right on the money there that was a bad loss being you're right i mean it was almost sad it was sad it was sad because you know i mean i don't know the guy personally but it'd be one thing if you like let's say threw a high kick we see and then slipped on the mat and then the other guy was like you know a one-trick pony with rear naked chokes then jumped on his back and he'd be like okay all right i mean it's bad luck but, but that wouldn't be the worst of it.

But he lost in this one for the same reasons he lost in the other one. And by the way, this is a guy who gave Paul Felder a very tough fight. I mean, that was a close fight right up until the end. Remember, punctured his fucking lung, and then he goes out here and just gets demolished. I had Vic in studio. There's obviously controversy anytime you have an association with team lloyd irvin but that aside i found to be a very nice guy and he made a real interesting point to me bc which was he's like you know i i not that he's old or had a ton of miles on him but he got started

in a lot of this stuff relatively late so he was always telling me he was going to extra boxing sessions and extra sparring sessions and extra seminars because he was always trying to make up for lost time. And I think that certainly that probably impacted his development. But at this point, I don't know what the problem is. Is he suffering some kind of psychological issue by virtue of the trauma from what had happened, not just the physical trauma, but the mental scars from it all.

That seems quite possible because you have to ask yourself, is James Vick better than this? And you keep thinking he is, and I do think that he is. But if you can't show it, it doesn't matter what you think or what I think or even what he thinks necessarily. You've got to get out there and make something happen. And so to your point, to not only only lose but then to lose specifically for the reasons that you've been losing previously like those issues are just lingering no matter what level you're at that's it's not great i mean

it's not great just to just to be really honest here this looked like a video game fight in the first round but not in the video game fight like we normally say where it's like an all-out war this was like a lot of spinny shit that went nowhere like it got blocked or it came up short i mean this just you know and then it ended like a schoolyard fight luke of one guy just repeatedly taking punishment till he was done um yeah luke i mean you know do you go into boxing now he's had pro boxing matches before did do you make that transition i i don't know you know do you start working at ups i don't know luke but this is this bad this is a fall from from grace wherever that grace was uh for my I won't call it overachieving because I don't think this was like

oh he did better than he normally is he just did really well I will be honest and folks got honest for it so I kind of paid attention a little bit over the weekend. Cedric Dumbé, and I believe I'm pronouncing that right, but if not, please don't kill me. I'm not trying to make any claims about French. Cedric Dumbé won, or I believe retained, I should say, his glory welterweight title, beating Myrtle Grunhardt. You can see right there, in spectacular fashion. Dumbé, all the folks who are really into kickboxing are telling me that this guy is sort of the present and the future of the sport. And years ago, I think 2017,

had lost to Grunhardt, who, you know, sort of a staple from the Surinamese, Dutch. I think he was with, for a time, Mike's Gym. He still might be. But that ilk was really, really good. And Doombay just absolutely sent him to fucking hell. And these guys had a very, very contentious weigh-in, a contentious build-up the whole nine yards.

And Doombay absolutely went in there and put it on him. So I will not pretend that I am some kind of expert in kickboxing, super far from it. But I will say that the folks who are, they all say that Doumbay is just an, or Doom, I hope I'm saying it right. This guy Cedric is supposed to be the absolute bee's fucking knees.

You can see he left Grunhardt there just folded after all this was over. So sick win by him and absolutely somebody to pay attention to going forward if you haven't already been doing that. Yeah, Cedric was quite the entertainer there. Todd grisham on the call shout out to that luke um a lot of people were saying hey bc and luke uh you know you filled your preview section for the weekend on mk talking about shitty boxing we didn't apparently didn't need why can't we talk

about glory when alex podeta is on the card rico verhohoeven, all these other guys. Luke, should we be lifting more of the eyeball to the old glory hole? So here's the thing. It's really a question about how you want to assign your coverage. We're trying to do something a little bit different here. Kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, to an extent amateur wrestling, they all kind of fit inside the MMA universe a little bit. There's much closer connectivity between the kickboxing and the MMA worlds. There's not that same kind of connectivity between MMA and boxing,

and we're trying to shoehorn that a little bit. By choice, we know we're sort of pushing the sled uphill on this one a little bit, but that's sort of the claim that we're trying to make because those are the two biggest combat sports, certainly in, I would say, most of the that's that's going to be largely true so you know I think probably BC we could carve out some time for kickboxing but you know listen I'm still learning all of the things that I had lost on that time away from boxing I'm trying to catch up on that there's only so many hours in a day i think we probably should have talked

about glory 77 over on friday but the idea that we're just going to start doing kickboxing coverage which by the way there's a very small audience for it's just you know it's just part of the mma family is the difference moving forward though if alex peretta peretta uh by the way he basically he beat beat Vokitov. He should not have. There was a lot of keen observers saying that Pereira, whatever, should have lost that contest.

Not only lost it, lost it handily. That was a very controversial decision. I was going to say, if he's fighting moving forward, I've got to be there. I've got to watch it. I've got to get in tune. Maybe I'll do that for the people, Luke, moving forward I didn't even watch the damn Royal Rumble last night, Luke You know what you missed?

Nothing Hey, shout out, first of all Shout out to my ex-colleague One of my favorite people in the world Peter Rosenberg Who is a WWE announcer and all that Luke, do you know he won the WWE 24-7 championship last night by rolling up? So it's a title that's a

gimmick and you can win it at any point. All you have to do is pin the champion, not in a ring. So some NBA players have won it. It's just an ongoing gimmick. Peter Rosenberg rolled up R-Truth last night by the announce desk and stole the title and now he's the champion, Luke. I remember

when he lost his job at WJFK here in D.C. and was broadcasting with a Mac on Icecast at the McDonald's at the top of the hill in Adams Morgan here in the nation's capital. To see how far he's come from that rock bottom? Holy shit. Pretty fucking amazing. GP, yep, that's my guy.

Thank you. All right. Okay, with that in mind, it's time for BC and I to not ask each other questions. It's time for you to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. Bop, bada, bop, bop, bop, bop. All right, BC, let's go first to Fitman Eats.

He asks, do you think Cejudo's potential yet unlikely return to fight will go similar to Conor vs Poirier he's been out of the cafe for a while and Figueredo seems to be peaking and battle tested leading into a potential bout what do you think? I don't think Cejudo's

going to come back a flyweight I think it would need Figueredo Luke to go on you know half the run that Mighty Mouse had and be calling out Cejudo at stupid levels and in the process become a star, right? Figueredo is a critical sensation. I have him in my pound-for-pound top five. He's blowing me away, Luke.

He's the fighter of the year. You really can't ask for him to do much more. But if he did much more, I think that's the only way to get suhudo back there i do believe with this absolutely loaded bantamweight division and the advantageous position that suhudo tries to put himself in with the whole idea of can he become a three division champion that's certainly a more likely avenue the the spirit of the question is the time away look some people are different where it doesn't affect them as much Dominic Cruz can we give him a shout out whenever he would come back Luke and act like he'd never been gone

I mean it depends on who you are it's not as easy as we said to do what somebody like Floyd Mayweather did in boxing comparison to what Conor McGregor attempted to do against Poirier but um is are there elements to his game Luke that you think would be potentially soured by inactivity? If he's going to lean on his wrestling and the timing of that, I mean, he obviously has... I mean, Conor was out for a long time, if you add up all of the departures since the Alvarez fight. And I know you have the Mayweather fight in there,

but even then, that's not MMA. I don't think he's been out long enough i mean dude he fought during the pandemic how late could it fucking have been i mean no i don't i don't necessarily think i mean that doesn't say he would win like oh he's the champ or he was the champ when he left he just picked right up where he left off i mean those are tough fights in those weight classes maybe those folks will beat him but will he look like uh you know like a devolved version of himself i tend to i tend to think that's exaggerated uh peter yan and him if yan keeps winning would be a hell hell i mean obviously pseudo against any of these guys at the load of bantamweight division would be insane but

um i do hope we see him in the next 18 months i i do hope he capitalizes on the ability to keep his brand strong and come parachuting in and get a big fight. But, you know, he has, he has certainly evolved the striking and you do never know how much a guy is working behind the scenes. And I wouldn't tend to, you know, Connor's game is so much more predicated on, on timing.

And, and, you know, and like you said, the larger body of being away doesn't help the overall evolution. If Cejudo's base is going to be wrestling, Luke, you can do that in his sleep, right? Yeah. No, certainly that's true. And I think, listen, I think it'd be better if he was, I agree with you, like, it'd be better if he was back. But he's not

been gone that long and, yeah, I don't know. I tend to think that we're overstating things here a little bit. Alright, let's move along if we can. From Billy Big Wheels, BC, Wheels don't know. I tend to think that we're overstating things here a little bit. All right, let's move along if we can. From Billy Big Wheels, BC, Wheels with a Z. What is your most anticipated MMA fight that is still to come this year? Ooh. I got one if you want me to go first.

Yeah, I do want it. What's the spirit of this question? Fights that could happen? Fights that have been announced? Anything? I think either announced or heavily anticipated based on you kind of know which way the wind's blowing.

So I'm going to go. To me, it doesn't matter who the opponent is because it's basically going to be one of two. I'm going to go Jon Jones at heavyweight. Whether it's Jon versus Francis or Jon versus Stipe or frankly even Jon versus Curtis Blades. To me, it doesn't matter. BC and I were talking. We did that Conor Connor resume thing we went fight by fight and talked about all

the different steps that the guy took in the UFC I think for John's return and this time his move up to heavyweight we should do one for those for that situation as well because you know John's that's this is this is long in the making man we've been waiting for this for a very long time there's still reason to think he might do really well. Curious. Very curious. What about you? Yeah, I think that would be my number two pick.

I'm going to stay with what I've been banging, right? The drum. And I'm going to keep banging it. Rose Namajunas challenging back for her former championship at strawweight against the great Zhang Weili. Luke, I love the shit out of that fight on paper the styles the fighting spirits of both the the contrast uh you know zhong has raised her profile a ton and her toughness and her reputation from that you want to fight never got a chance to get back

in there um you know i think rose went through the type of hell in that andrade rematch that she needed to to remind herself who she actually is on the inside i still think there's a there's a there's a window and there's going to be a title run for rose like you know i i think i'd favor her in that as close as that fight is on paper and as much as i love it i like her chances in that fight and i think it'd be spectacular both for you know how they match up and in the potential drama in it and you know i love women's straw weights but there's a reason why i do because they're so competitive uh they're so the the top 10 is so deep but i think these are the best in the show there at the at 115 and um i i need that i need that fight look i need the injection please i don't need us i don't need the cookie monster to get in the way can we just make

this fight now i hear you bro all right from greg leach 99 we kind of covered this a little bit before bc but i think it's asking slightly differently which is if overing were to somehow claim a ufc title where would he rank among the most decorated combat athletes of all time because as we mentioned he would have the dream title strike force k1 and then ufc so you have one from kickboxing the most prestigious at the time and then now you'd have you know not all of the belts from uh the the prestige of uh mma because you wouldn't he didn't have any belt uh pride belts but to get it especially to get it at fucking 40 or 41 however old he is when if and when he gets it man dude that would be that would

be something special it really would be because because of really like we said earlier the losses and the ability to come back from them and coming so close against steep a but then when he lost we wrote him off uh you had the totality of such a long career i mean this guy was fighting like chuck liddell and pride i mean look it's so ridiculous right i mean like so many chapters so many testing protocols so many uh so many things luke um yeah i i don't know where you know the the true spirit of this question again is is us trying to put that somewhere in some kind of ranking i think it's hard when you're sort of saying all-time combat athletes because most of them competed just in their own sport in one

organization right you know so it's not it but from the standpoint of being decorated the things that we sort of you know shout out for eddie alvarez a guy who's gone to so many organizations and won the championships there and it's been incredible uh it you know it's it's better than that i mean it's it'd be crazy uh where would i i like this question better where would it put him in the uh in the all-time great heavyweight rankings at mma it doesn't undo his losses um that's a tough one you're right because there's always a difference between resume and accomplishments versus like when you were at your palm for palm best right right right

and he's not at his pound for pound best now he would just be able to find a way to make it work at this late stage same with bisping like was bisping at his very best at the late end of his career i would argue not but he was just you know right place right time and made it work um you know i wouldn't put him as the very best heavyweight um and he never fought cane uh but he has wins over Dos Santos, but the version of Dos Santos he fought was a bit diminished. But he fought Verdum twice, beat him both times, and Verdum has wins over those other guys.

He puts him in the top five, probably. Yeah, top five, I think. I think it's probably top four, maybe. Something like that. What about this scenario? Let's say Overeem loses on Saturday. Let's say he never gets back to the title opportunity. This final run doesn't really go anywhere.

He's already a great guy, great career, right? He's a legend. But let's say, Luke, 15 years from now, you and I, we're on like a PTI run. We're still doing morning freaking combat, right? We've made good with Jay. He's back around in the mix um you know we're still doing this show and we're on top of the game no one's talking about canada they're talking about us luke okay and we get steepay on there the you know at that point

uh people are going to say hey let's bring on the second greatest heavyweight of all time steepay miochich here behind the great john jones after he goes on a run of never losing at heavyweight, Luke. And Stipe sits down with us and we talk and we're like, hey, Stipe, remember that time you fought Overeem? That was a fun fight. And he goes, hey, guys, I've been waiting years

to finally get this off my chest. Bro, I fucking tapped against Overeem, dude. From me to the fire pole let me tell you i tapped that motherfucker had me out bro i should have lost that night do you change your rankings and recalibrate allister postpartum right back into the top three all-time at heavyweight luke well considering what you're talking about is dude the hindenburg did not go up in flames that is just not a thing that happened yeah i guess i would if that happened but what

you're talking about is basically impossible still that's fucking hilarious that you brought that up though uh all right this one you'll love this is a great question from heavy dot falcon all right now this is this is interesting pick one menu item from each of the following mcdonald's burger king chick-fil-a taco bell and one other wild card to assemble your dream trash panda meal arby's does not count as food all right i got issue i got issue with heavy falcon uh saying because you know arby's curly fries would it would make this the perfect meal but uh i get where he's saying there can So just go down the line. Go down the line.

Maneach, can you put that graphic back on so I have it for a reference point, please, sir? God, can you imagine eating this way? I mean, what a fucking disaster that would be. The dream trash panda meal. This is a freaking spectacular question. Yeah, it's very good. Are we actually looking to assemble a meal

where it compliments each other? Because Chick-fil-A's got a lot of great things going on, Luke's very good. Are we actually looking to assemble a meal where it compliments each other? Because Chick-fil-A's got a lot of great things going on, Luke, for them. I don't know if I should build around their chicken sandwich or use them more for compliments. I'm just going to go down the list and say to myself, if I went to McDonald's or any of these places and I could get one item, what's the one item I would get? And I'm going to build a meal that way. But you can do it differently if you want. All right.

Luke, I'm getting the McDoubledouble from mcdonald's straight up right like like why do i need flavored crack when when the when the pipe just the basic one tastes so good right okay give me that um see we can't do arby's dude they've got a jamoke milkshake not jamoke uh yeah you're the fucking jamoke i bet you order that i think i'm the jamoke yeah it's something close to that name that's some kind of weird mix of banana and something else. Luke, I don't BK much in my life. Like, you know, I've been there, but I like the trash taste of McDonald's comparative to BK.

Do you have a favorite Burger King item? I mean, the chicken parm sandwich makes me feel great. Let me just go down the line, and then we'll use it this way. So if I went to McDonald's, my go-to is the double quarter pounder, or as us math nerds called it, the half pounder. Burger King, I haven't eaten at Burger King since I tried the Impossible Whopper one time with you in Brooklyn. So I don't know their menu too well, but I remember the last time I ate there,

I had the Double Whopper. So I'd have know their menu too well, but I remember the last time I ate there, I had the double Whopper. So I'd have the double Whopper there. Chick-fil-A, I get the spicy chicken sandwich, which I just fucking love. Taco Bell, that's a little bit of a tougher call for me. But I'm going to go... Five-layer beef burrito. Bro, I don't know how you understand

that the five-layer beef burrito is the perfect... I'm going to go... It's too much beef, so I'm going to go seven-layer burrito. And then I get to assemble one other item. I'd probably go with five guys, and I would get their fries, the kind you can put the malt on, you know? And then that's how I'd round it out. All right.

My bonus item would not be Cumberland Farms. You know what I would go to? You know Checkers, that chain they have down south? Yeah. Dude, are you kidding? I grew up in fucking Georgia. Those are Checkers across the street from my high school. All right.

They had one in Bristol, Connecticut about a decade ago for like a year. And then it just disappeared. Luke, they've got a you can mix flavors on the milkshake. Dude, the banana and chocolate together would, you know, it would, yeah. I could shit my pants just thinking about it, right? I'm going to get that, Luke. I don't know if I need a side here. You know, I mean, I'm getting the McDouble here.

See, I just hate traditional fries. They just don't move me, Luke, all right? So maybe I'm going to go with McDonald's. Let me ask you, did you have the Five Guys fries? Yeah. Fried in peanut oil. They're pretty fucking good. Nah, dude.

You get way too much. I hate saying that. This is a trash panda conversation. I'm telling you, you get way too much. Dude, they give you like, you can feed a family with those. I might call the mozzarella sticks from Burger King because you need like a side right here, Luke, okay? Chick-fil-A, I'm going to just go with the chicken sandwich.

I mean, dude, it tastes so good. It's like like a burger luke it tastes like a burger okay okay the five layer beef burrito give me that milkshake from checkers um i'm all into that this is great this is great i love this thank you all right and then last but not least by the way i mean i like how you're like we need to really you know mind her how much food we have as we go through the most fattening items imaginable. All right. But from Jim.more84BC, Luke loves ripping Big Beige Gamble for his music tastes. What is Luke's guilty pleasure song that he finds embarrassing? What's a guilty pleasure song?

Jesus. Or a band. You could do it, you know, or a guilty pleasure band. I don't consider Depeche Mode guilty pleasure. They're too elevated and too good to call that like, it's embarrassing to listen to them. Oh, you know what? I listen to them, and I'll tell you this,

it's guilty pleasure because I only use it during workouts. There's no other time where I just flip it on and I'm like, wow, this is fucking great. But for workouts, I will flip on the occasional skrillex which is terrible dubstep bullshit but when you're you know when you need to fucking pump yourself up they need to get through the the you know the lifting a little skrillex sometimes is that nice extra push i don't even know what that is squirrel squirrel squirrel You're missing nothing. If you listen to it, you'd be like, dude, this is just noise.

It's not good. And you'd be right. It is noise. It's not good. But if you're tired and you're trying to sell, because the problem is I never work out with a buddy or a partner. I have to self-motivate. So I'm always looking for something to get me to finish strong.

And sometimes loud, noisy music, as bad as it might be kind of fucking you know puts me over the hump a little bit you can't you can't listen to cat stevens you know on the fifth set of uh you know rpe9 fucking incline bench press it doesn't work you can't do that you have to something loud especially not in your front yard you got to scare people away i used to consider fleetwood mac a guilty pleasure until i just kind of you know got deeper into music and realized there's nothing guilty about it at all i mean john mcvee and mick fleetwood might be the greatest rhythm section combined uh together i've ever heard i always stand by dashboard confessional as a great guilty pleasure band if you like some some emo team angst once in

a while luke i'll hit you with that. Yeah. Yeah. Luke, I don't know if we should be having a music conversation since you support so much pro-abortion rock and prerequisite school shooting albums and stuff like that. But to each his own, Luke. That's pretty guilty as it is, right? Yes, that's right. Okay, with that out of the way, BC, speaking of ridiculous things like trash

plates and bad music we need to go look at the videos you have assembled for us take it away good sir all right you know what we do we scour the globe for the highs and lows the good and bad in the in between in combat sports and beyond luke have you actually seen this shit let's find out we start from one championship this past week you referenced it in friday's show senegalese heavyweight umar rugroo kane made his promotional debut and sent elen nagalani to hell tko1 luke were you impressed by this incredible strongman he appears to have a lot of physical ability we'll see how his skills come around but you know between the name and you know that he looks like a fucking just superhero maybe superhero villain i don't know but either way just looks like an absolute menace let's get this guy some skills see what he can do

uh his uh opponent is is like a old school like name right i don't know i don't know this oh all right i i feel like i should know this guy I thought you were gonna be like oh yeah that's that guy he fought here and there you're like I don't know no he has done some like viral marketing for one so maybe like you saw that or something I'm not entirely certain I don't watch a lot of one again not out of boycott just time constraints all right on the undercard Luke check out this sick ko and kickboxing from Babouled Isuayev. Isuayev.

Isuayev. Oh. You will not get fries with that. That is... wow. See what I mean, though? They're using boxing gloves in a cage. Like, I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but I like that they have the ability to experiment.

Yeah, somebody called tsa one bag it's gonna fly for free with uh on uh southwest here luke pack this guy up wow all right hey boxing for more of the weekend in moscow luke super middleweight pavel silyagin ko'd omar garcia uh shout out to tim boxale for the video here oh he's got him on queer street luke Garcia. Shout out to Tim Boxale for the video here. Oh, he's got him on Queer Street, Luke. Good action here in Russia. Wow.

Rapid fire with those right hands to end it. Face first, Luke. That's always bad when they go face first. Yeah, you don't have to count. You don't have to count. That's it. That's it. You go face first. All you don't have to count you don't have to count that's it that's it you go face first all right uh also in boxing this we had with the pbc on fox undercard from la great knockdown here from joey spencer the unbeaten middle eight against isaiah selden luke that looked like it ended the fight but it didn't luke well and also this dude had been this dude who just got floored had been doing rabbit punches, you know, like a motherfucker. And, you know, the ref kind of counts him out a little bit early, but he deserved it.

Yeah, he lost two points. This ref, I forgot the guy's name, just came out. Cantu. Jared Cantu. So this is Isaiah Seldon, who is the son, Luke, of Bruce S Selden, who lost to Mike Tyson in that heavyweight title unification about the same night Tupac was killed in Las Vegas. Remember Bruce Selden from Atlantic City? I think he took a fall in that fight,

Luke. You go back and watch that first round, it was just weird. It was an interesting backstory here on Isaiah. He's 31, he didn't want to get into boxing, and then he was purposely homeless, whatever that means, and then his dad's old trainer found him and they got him in the sport. And, Luke, I don't know if you saw the ending of this.

After he got up, he got dropped again. Cantu backed him up to the corner. Seldon's yelling at Cantu, and the ref yells at the corner, sit this guy down or I'm going to take his money. Is that legal? Can the ref pull your purse? Cantu's got some balls, man. He was giving pre-fight instructions in the main event,

and he was like, you will obey what the motherfucker I say, bitches. I was like, Jesus. Joey Spencer, I can't tell if he's for real yet, Luke, but PBC keeps putting him in there, and he's getting wins, all right? So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Also, Luke, fat heavyweights on the undercard.

Shout out to Michael Coffey, the ex-Marine. There is such a thing, Luke. Eight years in the Marines, and he sent this fat dude, Darmani Rock, on the undercard. Shout out to Michael Coffey, the ex-Marine. There is such a thing, Luke. Eight years in the Marines, and he sent this fat dude, Darmani Rock, to the basement floor of hell. Luke, check out this uppercut on the replay.

Semper Fi, never die, Luke, right? Yes, no such thing as an ex-Marine, but I appreciate the fact that this man's doing good work. Yes, can we see that one more time? Great work. Watch that slobber just go blah. Let's see. Is this the right one?

Oh, here it is. Watch this. Boop. Yikes, yikes. Well done. Luke, we talked about Glory 77. I've got a highlight here from the Glory Twitter account of Cedric Doombay as you set up here. This was spectacular, Luke. We talked about Glory 77. I've got a highlight here from the Glory Twitter account of Cedric Dumbay. As you set up here, this was spectacular, Luke.

Yeah, he's sick. Kicks out the post leg, goes to the body. Oh, son. Look at that. There's a murder. Wow. Wow. Yes.

All right. Woo. Luke, I got an update from the Perry family. Mike Perry and Coach Latorre took to the beach for a little postpartum workout in Miami, Luke. How about this? Right next to the ocean. And by ocean, I mean the actual water, not their sun, Luke.

Look, he was hitting the bag. is this is your wheelhouse luke right um god jesus lord help this child lord help this child yeah let's move on here luke uh street fight of the week time luke this one never quite got there as these two fast food combatants, instead of fighting, Luke. They broke out in song. Check this out. Is this one of those like Instagram accounts? Like, you know, fucking Instagram comedians?

I'm not saying it's not a little funny, but, you know, what are you going to do? Luke, very reminiscent of that famous Korean baseball. Can we show that footage, Luke? I'm not saying it's not a little funny, but, you know, what are you going to do? Luke, very reminiscent of that famous Korean baseball. Can we show that footage, Luke? This used to make the rounds in the ESPN newsroom back in the day. Oh, we're fighting. What the fuck? What the fuck are they doing?

People say, you know, you can't not love Risen. Come on. What is the bit here that these idiots are doing? I don't know, Luke. I just put the videos on the screen. It's up to you to decipher what's in the art. Okay, Luke, you want a real street fight, though? Check out this road rage incident.

Not sure what country it is, but these guys threw some hands right here, Luke. Whose heart is this? Wait, so is this Antifa versus Proud Boys? What is this? Oh, Antifa got the upper hand here. I don't know, but I got the guy in the jeans right now. Yeah.

Antifa's like, Trenchcoat Mafia, bitch, what? Wow. Wow. You want some fries with that pavement right there? Look at that. I think Antifa had some calf kicks early on there before he kicked it. He's like, Bernie Sanders, bitch. Fucking $2,000 checks, ho. Anti-racism, bitch, blah.

Yikes. All right. Wow. Luke, it's Buffalo Bills time. Let's bring out the mafia. We're a week late on this, but so many people sent it to me. I had to show it. After the Bills scored the first touchdown against the Chiefs.

We saw this live in my room, dude. They went tip to tip. Luke, is this ultimately the reason of their demise? Celebrating a little bit too early, a little bit too freaky? Well, it just goes to show that tip-to-tip is weird and stupid, but maybe. Also, everyone at this event got COVID, so there you go.

While we're here, Luke, why not check out this Bills Mafia member in the Bruce Smith throwback jersey? Worst fan base in America. I love that they painted the table first. This is art, Luke. This is art, right? Dude, I can watch Bill's Mafia fucking, you know, idiots take L's just all the time.

We can honestly change the name of this show from Morning Combat to Watch Bill's Mafia Take L's. And I would honestly be okay with that. God. Dude, that's some CTE right there shout out to Bruce Smith speaking of uh old Bruce Smith Luke remember that time he took a similar fall on live TV during an interview with Trev Roberts on uh on TNT or Trev Alberts sorry the linebacker I can't hear shout out to shout out to stoner mania for keeping this video alive in the ethos. Interviewing him about, you know, his Hall of Fame run. Oh, shit. Wow.

Trev Alberts just continues the interview like nothing happened, which was fantastic. Bruce was okay, by the way. He went on to deny that it was any, like, drunken thing or anything like that. I'm not sure of the deal there. But speaking of Bill's Mafia, Luke, how about this Cheeto Vera lookalike taking a hard fall on a boat? Luke, we're on a damn boat!

That's not Cheeto. Oh shit! Yikes. Oh damn. Damn, these girls are wearing not much. Yep. Is that Coach Latour? No, no, that's it.

Wow, yikes. This is like me when my in-laws ask me to dance when I go to Columbia. I'm like, you know what you're going to get here. You're going to get this. You're going to get Cheeto Vera through a table, yeah. All right, Luke. Hey, let's move on here. Scorpion King tryouts are back again for the sequel, Luke.

Let's check out this dude at the trampoline gym. I don't know how your gallbladder responds to that, Luke. I can't believe he's white. It seems so out of character. Luke, it's not often you can combine Scorpion King tryouts and Bill's Mafia in the same clip, but thanks to this youngster, Luke, here we go. Let's see. Oh, God. Wow.

All right, let's move on. Hey, how about this guy? That's a nice jellyfish costume you got for Halloween there, kid. A man after Luke Thomas' own heart. Luke, forget about working out in your front yard. How about walking around the neighborhood, Luke? I'll tell you what, no one's going to fuck with you, bro. Okay, but this is an actual exercise.

I know you don't think that it is. This is called farmer's carry. And he's got, he's doing it exactly right. You, he's got the trap bar, which is perfect for it. You see his posture is not hunched over.

He's keeping his shoulders back. This is a, this is a legitimate, I do this by the way, with the exact same bar. Around, around your neighborhood, around town?

Yes. Yes. Shirt off? No, not, it's too cold for that. And this guy's physique is nice for however old he is. But no.

But it's a real thing. It's a real thing. All right. All right. And by the way, you can tell it's New York City because there's giant fucking mounds of trash bags just parked in the middle of the fucking street. So I don't know where this is in New York. But it looks a little, I don't know, Brooklynlyn-ish soho-ish uh so there you go anyway luke people think all we do is

bullshit on the show and make fun of people they are wrong check out this amazing dad right here before i get home before i get dead wronged farmers walk not farmers carry i apologize all right uh luke check out this dad his daughter needed a cochlear implant so he got a tattoo on his own head to match to make her feel better no trolling here a shout out to the dads if you even think luke that you're going to critique the artist's rendering of this you are a bigger a hell than i thought i mean it's not the best tattoo in terms of technical application but in terms of sentimental application it's a 10 out of 10 it's a it's a mr he boss 10 out of 10 okay all right no that's a 7 out of 10 compared to this sorry speaking of hold on bc bc the motherfucker not only got a tattoo it's a smaller

tattoo he got it on his scalp infinitely more painful than where he boss's dad got it way more painful look i'm all about this this this parental support and love right here all right it touched me very deeply okay thank you very much luke speaking of dads we got a live shot of your dad rob thomas 80 year old on vacation in the caribbean right now oh shit dad living it up go dad go dad it's your birthday abs on this look at the abs on this hulk hogan wannabe luke Dad living it up. Go, Dad. Go, Dad. It's your birthday. Look at the abs on this Hulk Hogan wannabe, Luke. Dude, this guy is...

I can't tell if he's dying from some kind of disease. Like, it's wasting... It's like, have you ever seen someone that looks like they have HGH gut and ALS at the same time? Oh, God, Luke. Good Lord, Luke. All right, let's get out of this i'm just saying he's got he's got oh he's got a roid belly it looks like one and his legs are stick thin uh tip on tip time chad mendes doing a signed giveaway on his instagram account luke look at that you can receive this this hat from the uh the former featherweight sensation just the tip though though, Luke.

He promises. Would you pay for this? No. No, I don't wear shit like that. All right. All right. It moved me. I liked it.

Luke, did I ever show you that time Rocco Soffredi visited your hometown of Doha? Wow. Rocco yeah god look you just just just walking just hiking through the desert there Luke all right yeah wow yeah you know what he's easy to track all right finally Luke you asked me to show you my artwork last week and I refuse I can do that today if you want, but I know this is normally reserved for Wednesdays, but Scott M. Rizzo creeped me out in a big way. It's so weird I had to run it now, Luke. He's assuming this is my debut

painting and I'm just not comfortable with it. Wait, is that my fucking hog? Dude, this is you think my ALS joke is, this is disturbing. I don't know how this made it through the censors on our show, the producers, the people that run this. But this, I am not, I am not endorsing this. Luke, this is not, this is not, that's not my painting. That's not my art, Luke.

Did you, did you, did you, is this the thing that your artwork was last week that you didn't want to show us and now you're being forced to? This is fucking disgusting. Can you get this fucking dong off the screen, please? This is fucking gross. Luke, do you want to see my artwork? Yes, I want to see your artwork. As long as it's not that. No, no, it's not.

I did two over the weekend, Luke, okay? This one's called Progress, Luke, okay? So you can zoom in here and make fun of me all you want. Luke, it's very abstract. It's very busy. But, Luke, it's a lot of my feelings coming to life, okay, Luke? Is this the shirt that Parker Lewis can't lose used to wear? I'm not trained, Luke.

I'm just very emotional and abstract. And, you know, this is's i'm not trained luke i'm just very uh emotional and abstract and uh you know this is what was coming out of me luke okay how do you how do you feel after these are done when you're when you've painted them great luke i got this other one it's called a watcher of the skies luke after the great genesis song with the same name so uh you know let's Well, that's interesting. Yeah, that looks like a... What do you want to call it? That looks like a catfish sitting on... Yeah, I don't know.

It looks like shit. But I mean, if it makes you happy, that's the thing. Look, this is why I don't share art with you okay luke all right it's just you know it's a self-indulgence it's just a way for me to communicate the the uh you know the the the the feelings that that can't be can't be well tell you what when you come to dc for brian's visit here which we're going to make a documentary of i'll take you to the national gallery of art and you can walk me through what pieces move you and which ones don't well we'll start we'll start with the all nude up there we'll start with the all nude male gallery i mean yeah all right that's what i got

that's the shit of the week luke i will continue to hone my craft on my own time thank you all right uh time for odds and ends bc What do you got for odds and ends? We kind of shit on boxing earlier, and it deserved it, Luke. It deserved it last Friday. There's a reason we didn't preview this card. Don King came out of hiding, the 89-year-old legend, Luke, put on a pay-per-view card for $20 from an empty casino in Florida, South Florida there. Luke, this could not have been more bizarre. And so the deal was, you know those bootleg WBA titles? This is for one of the secondary heavyweight belts that kind of doesn't really matter, but sometimes we pretend it does.

And this card went through a lot of changes at the last minute. Trevor Bryan stayed in, but his last minute opponent in the main event was like 42 year old chubby bermain stuverne luke you may remember him from his series with deontay wilder the problem is stuverne was not ranked by the wba to receive to be able to receive this title opportunity until the day of luke when they needed an opponent how convenient right the fight actually wasn't full trash but the card was Don King who's normally a a hog for the camera didn't appear and Luke do you know what the big call was for this the big the big cherry on top if you're a boxing fan come watch a meaningless heavyweight fight for a secondary title and get three classic fights in the Don King library on the undercard, including De La Hoya, Trinidad. Yeah, Luke, uh, this is about as sad as boxing and pay-per-view

boxing gets. There's a reason why Don King has not been around in a while. And sometimes there are still fighters not smart enough to sign their life away to him, and inevitably they end up in court battles and unable to fight. There was some, it was supposed to be Manuel Char fighting in the main event. Officially, he couldn't fly over because of COVID. There's some conspiracy theories that King legally kept him from coming over. Luke, it's all a bunch of bullshit bonanza. But Bermudez-Stiverne was in a heavyweight title fight again on Friday,

and people paid money to watch this on pay-per-view. But hey, at least they got to watch De La Hoya Trinidad again, right? Classics that you can find on YouTube. So for my odds and ends, there's two shout-outs. We could have done these in the point number five on the rundown, but they were a little bit lower level. Let's see. On ex-MMA on Saturday night after a four-year suspension from USADA,

Francisco Rivera was back, and he got a thunderous KO win. Let's take a look at it here. I actually did that. Let me see. Uh-oh, I think it's a right hand. Rivera can fucking thump. He always could. Let's see, boys and girls.

Uh-oh, hard leg kick. Oh, he looks ready to go yeah he certainly does anyway it was nice to see him back pushing this guy around scores a brutal ko and um yeah i thought his career was donezo but not so he appears to have a little bit of life left in him and you know oh there it is wow and they pulled him off so shouts to uh to Francisco Rivera also the son on Friday of uh Conan Silvera longtime ATT trainer former MMA fighter himself is Joshua the guy we call Brazilian Shrek right yeah uh it's not that's not nice I've had him on my show he's a nice person but Josh Silvera Joshua Silvera he's the son of Conan and he looked good. He fought BJJ Black Belt and submitted him and he's still

only four fights into his career. By the way, shouts to both Laura Senko and who's the my brain is not working. The model. Who's the fighter? Alan Joban. Jesus, my brain doesn't work. Joban

and Senko make a great team along with Ron Kruk for the LFA commentary crew on Friday. And Rivera was at XMMA on Saturday, but on LFA on Friday, which you can see on Fight Pass, Josh Silvera, he looked really, really good, dialed in, you know, super early in his career. We'll see how things go, but might be a name to pay attention to down the road.

All right. Hey, dude, Josh Silvera. I mean, could you grow up in a better environment between his father's accolades and the ATT gym? Luke, I kind of expect big things from this guy, right? Yes. Yes. All right.

That's a well. Have you ever visited ATT? That is a well frigging oil machine down there. A lot of fun to go visit interview fighters and kind of just take in the scene. Yeah, I've not been there. I've been dying to go. It's on the bucket list for sure. Alright, BC.

Anything else we missed? You got big plans for the week? You have to take a dump or something? You look very uninterested and really just disappointed. No, I just think the show is over. Hey, when it's time to go, Luke, it's time to go. It's time to go, bro. Okay, if you want to go, Luke, it's time to go. It's time to go, bro. Okay.

If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com, free for 30 days. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, go fuck yourself. Also, we are all over social media. It's Morning Combat in the same name everywhere. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. Morning Combat on Insta.

Morning Combat on Twitter. The names for Brian and I differ a little bit from Twitter to Instagram, so take a look there. Also, if you have any submissions for fan submissions for Wednesday's show or Dead Wrong for Friday, morningcombat at gmail.com. That's the place to go. Send them there. Don't send them to me.

If you want to send them to Brian, I don't know, but send them there. Just don't send them to me. And, of course, if you want some of that merch you can go to store.show.com you can get hats you can get fucking you know beanies mugs cups shirts hoodies the whole nine yards but you can't get it if you don't live actually literally next door to the factory so not yet but but we are fighting for that all seriousness there's the merch conversation is moving so that's a good sign luke it's finally moving again okay merch 2.0 is coming it will be available internationally

hopefully fingers crossed that's the goal we're gonna get there we're gonna get these clothes on you thank you for also bit of programming note we're gonna do some nice previewing for the next ufc pay-per-view we're gonna start putting some of the things in motion this week. Also, I'm not going to say who it is until it's in the books, but I've got an interview with, I think, someone you're going to want to hear from later today. One of the 10 best fighters in the world? Yeah, I think you could probably say that. And so we'll talk to him a little bit later.

Fingers crossed everything works out, which we'll post today if it actually happens. So we'll see how things go. Anything else, BC? What happened? I'm sorry. Fingers crossed everything works out, which we'll post today if it actually happens. So we'll see how things go. Anything else, BC? What happened? I'm sorry. Somebody speaking in my ear? Yeah.

No, it's a documentary. It's a documentary. You've got to wait for the documentary, right? Yeah, yeah. Gaff, a great producer in our ear. The fans are very interested in Jay's future. You know, tune in. Look, I have heard that MK Donkey Mentory 2.0 is within two weeks of being ready.

Okay, you will get your answers then. So be on the lookout for that, bitches. All right. I want to thank everyone who watched today. Thumbs up, hit subscribe. Thanks to Malka. Thanks to Showtime thanks to CBS Sports

for Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas we'll be back with you on Wednesday and until that time, may all of your gains be loyal Thank you. We'll be right back. you