MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC recap: Edwards vs Muhammad, Dan Ige | Benavidez Stops Ellis | Ep. 130

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Another week of MK is here. The boys breakdown the weekend in combat sports as they recap the UFC fight night action and big boxing events. Leon Edwards's return to the octagon ends with no winner and Belal Muhammad suffered a horrific eye poke. What is the UFC supposed to do with this? David Benavidez scores an 11th-round stoppage over Ronald Ellis. How far was Benavidez able to go to reintroduce himself as a top player in this division? Plus, Dan Ige made short work of Gavin Tucker. What can we say about the development of Ige and what should his next move be? --------------------------- '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

It is Monday, the 15th of March, 2021. And it is time. I think I guess for afternoon combat. Hello everyone. My name is Luke Thomas and all the way from Washington, DC. I say, hello, the gentleman on the other side of the screen. He is the Puerto to my Rico. He is the Dominican to my Republic.

He is the motel to S Rico. He is the Dominican to my Republic. He is the motel to SACE. Desde Motel SACE from Puerto Rico. It's BC. Hi, BC. It's a nice hotel you're staying in there. Luke, both you and the viewers

and the listeners are showing tremendous restraint from my situation. So I can just thank you for that. But, you know, all the tweets I've been getting as I've been swearing out Islanders over the past hour of Fire J. God doesn't even work here, people, okay? Put it on me. This is BC's fault. We're here, though, Luke.

Skyrocket's in flight. Afternoon. Afternoon delight. Delight. You know that song's about, you know? Is it getting high? No, it's about, like, Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, right? It's about, you know.

I'm glad your eye is on the prize, BC. As all the way up in Puerto Rico, you're still making jerk-off motions to our camera after being four and a half hours late. I'm glad you really seem to understand the gravity of the moment. Good job. Look, I have nothing but nice things to say about the people of Puerto Rico. They've been through a lot. Yeah, but Puerto Rico itself, you can just leave it, huh? Just sink it into the ocean?

BC is discovering what all of us who have traveled from Latin America have learned, which is they don't give a fuck about your American timelines at all, bro, at all. Reservations are at 7. They'll be there at 9. And you look at them like, dude, how is it you function? Isn't it just easier as a society to function where if you say you're going to be there at noon, you show up at noon and you do things in a way that, you know, you're not wasting any time.

You can go do something else. No, dude, they don't see it that way. And they never are going to see it that way. And that's fine, Luke. And luckily, like I said, you know, like the great drinking episode, you had no regard for grace or patience of my travel woes. I'm very happy. I thought I would be logging in right now to some Canadian guy sitting in my chair,

but I'm glad that we're still doing this. All the people at Malka and CBS and Showtime have waited on me. I'm here. I'm safe. Let's go. Okay, bro? Let's do this. Why don't you tell the viewers what you did to the poor gentleman who tried to get your car? Did he try, though, Luke?

Did he really try to get me a car? All right. He tried hard for that region. Yes. Did I tell him where he could stick it, Luke? That is, I don't know. I don't, you know, maybe one day I'll reveal that conversation. I do apologize for my actions.

As the producers and I were discussing before you got here, I bet he really took your lecture to heart. Like, you know what, that gringo, he's on to something about doing things quicker. We should listen to that. I'm sure that's exactly what he was telling himself. Good job. We've got a lot to get to. I hope to have a much better shot,

because that's the bathroom right there. So hopefully we'll get a better shot in the future. But you know we're putting this mcdonald's wi-fi together with a cut and paste uh glue and uh we're ready to go morning combat afternoon style yes all right so we have a lot to get to we have the ufc show that it was weird over the weekend david benavidez won which was nice had a fight of the year contender maybe uh and we've got some other fight of my lifetime contender okay can you stop underselling that underscoring it all right of your lifetime contender and then on top of that we had a death that we'll have to get to as well but let's start things off if we can't well before we get to that bc uh as you know this is a showtime product so if you want to try showtime although we are from cbs sports you certainly may showtime.com

get a 30-day free trial if you'd like it you you can keep it. If not, go do something else. $4.99 for the first six months if you sign up for Bellator. Let's see, what else? We got merch. I don't have any merch on me, I don't think. BC's got some, although you can't get that necessarily in our version of the merch store. But store.show.com if you want hats, shirtsugs beanies tumblers the whole nine yards it's a great place to go and uh yeah that's about it all right bc you want to get this party

started good sir yes yes thank you i'm ready i'm ready okay super super clean way to travel all you know dialed in emotionally let's get this party started. Topic number one, BC, from the weekend. Leon Edwards had a strange return to the octagon. It was about two years away, and it ends with, what was it, a first round eye poke? Just a complete and total disaster. BC, what is the UFC supposed to do with this division, with the title shot, with Leon Edwards? What do you say? Wow, does this mean Bilal Muhammad is your new UFC Bantamweight champion, Luke? I haven't done the math and connected the dots.

Not quite yet, no. Look, I think we do obviously have a larger problem with eye pokes and the whole idea of the pride gloves seem to have a better handle on that. The Trevor Whitman-inspired gloves that the UFC won't buy into because they have a deal with whoever's making these finger assault ones are. It's unfortunate, Luke. We wanted Leon Edwards after, what, a year and a half, two years, to finally get back in there.

We'd seen his fights with Chimaya fall apart multiple times for reasons beyond his control. And then good old Bilal Mohamed, Luke, just trying to stay busy and stay opportunistic and save a main event, and the guy gets a finger to the back of his soul. I mean, I don't really know what to say, Luke. You know, Edwards was warned, but it it seemed accidental it's part of the game it what happens i think long-term ufc is going to have to look into the equipment here and see if uh if they want to continue going this because this was

as brutal an eye poke as we've we've seen by far luke i mean bullah muhammad was letting out just screams of uh you know of just awful rage there for the pain. It just looked really bad. I hope he's going to be okay and that he's going to be able to see fine moving forward. But there's a lot of lament to this whole situation. Like what kind of born under a bad sign is Leon Edwards, Luke? We cannot get this guy into a fight that matters and get him into the actual title picture. Yet, you know, he shows up in great shape and shows up to fight and i loved the way he looked for a round plus in this

fight showed you that the layoff had meant meant nothing that you know screw the marketing side that we sort of always damn him about he comes to fight and he was looking good and now he's you know sort of the villain and this all falls apart and yeah you know i want to spin it back to you luke should we linger on the whole idea of should this been a no contest should this be a loss didn't peter yan take a loss when he was warned and then followed again shouldn't edwards i mean i don't even know if i have the right answer for those questions luke yeah the the problem with those questions is i mean just have a truthful moment here in terms of the situation itself as it was handled by the rules where it

was ended up being um uh no contest i've been watching the sport off and on since the 90s but in a dedicated like professional capacity for basically 15 plus years at this point okay on some level or another and every week i learned something new about the rules last week not so much but do you not feel like and dan hardy tweeted this on fight night like nobody knows the rules you can have two situations that um are certainly not the same, but they're not too far apart. You've got a main event. You have two very egregious fouls, both out of a fair amount of negligence because you had Leon Edwards warned specifically by referee Herb Dean to put his hands up, not forward, so have his fingernails, so to speak, face the sky.

And he still did this. Granted, it was earlier in the bout. It wasn't a championship level bout. But nevertheless, you have these wildly divergent situations that happen when you think there might be reason that they would want to go along the same track. And moreover, there seems to be all these different unknowns, or at least unknown to me, pockets of latitude that a referee can and sometimes does use, but doesn't always have to use, but if they want to, they can use.

And you end up getting these situations where you just have no idea what's going to happen when a fight is declared over due to some kind of injury as it relates to something that someone sustained from an accidental or I should say a foul through the course, an illegal blow, let's put it that way, through the course of the fight. There's no real consistency. There's no real way to roadmap it other than just wait and see, hey, let's see what obscure rule reference that they decide to bring in here

that creates some kind of unexpected answer. And that seems to me the much greater sense of the problem. We have way too much latitude way too much divergence way too much of i should say rules that allow the referee to you know make a best case assessment of things rather than sort of a clear what are we looking at set of guidelines uh and as a consequence you get this nonsense all the time where we have no idea what's coming or going, how it's going to end. And I don't think that by itself, BC, that ruins the sport, but it creates these difficulties in how to proceed from here. So BC, the question now would be, what should UFC do?

Should they let Leon go have somebody else, or do you run this back? That's the problem, because you don't want to say like ah screw bilal muhammad he took this fight on last minute to save it he's not really on leon's level in terms of rankings and i think maybe we learned for a round and a half although you really can't learn a lot that he really wasn't on leon edwards level here that he should not only lose maybe his sight luke but you know his opportunistic opportunity but at the same time what are we going to learn by running this back not a ton it became just to stay busy i've had bad luck i've been avoided i haven't gotten opportunities leon edwards just get

the frick back in their fight um i don't think leon should rewarded, let's say, with a title fight off of this. I mean, it's a foul. It's just a bad scenario. I think there are larger issues that need to be dealt with, not only the gloves I mentioned, but the rule sets that you mentioned. Why do we live in a sport here where every state commission is different and even the announcers and the fighters and the fans and journalists really have no clue to your point. Fight to fight, you know, what is really, what's, oh, we're going with the knees down,

one knee down, two knees down. You know, I don't know, Luke. I don't know this shit anymore. Can we get a unified rules, like an actual unified rules that every UFC sanctioned fight uses or every major organization uses? That would be step one. Step two is obviously figuring out what to do next. Could you run this back?

If Muhammad can come back fairly quick, Luke, and they're both going to stay in pretty decent shape, and you're saying to Leon Edwards, look, you had a lot of bad luck, you've been off for a while, but because of the way this one ended, you've got to go out there and beat this guy. Then you can get that title shot. I mean, maybe that's the most fair way, but luke would you actually be excited to see this fight no you

wouldn't be honest you wouldn't luke they're on different levels bro they're on you know i don't the answer is is this the most exciting fight you could put leon edwards in uh no i don't think that that's necessarily the case or you might get a better or more fun result depending on any other permutation you want to come up with whether it's Masvidal or Colby or title shot or whatever sure in that sense this is not the most intriguing fight but I don't see how you like Leon Edwards was like listen I'm done with this kind of thing he filled it on short notice it was what it was it didn't go well but I'm on to the next how are you on to the next the last win before this was July of 2019. It's like, I understand what his impulse

is. This wasn't even supposed to be what it is. It didn't go well. Let's just try something else. And again, to your point, if Muhammad can't come back soon, fine, but you're here now. This is a weird situation that was created. Certainly there's no argument for a title shot from this at all there's there's only an argument for number one contender if no one else is available you've got to do something in the positive realm you have to stack a win somewhere in a recent time frame in order to progress to the next step so i don't think that the muhammad fight is the one that is like the most intriguing or the one that is ultimately the most interesting to all the parties i actually do think you need to run this back provided according to your caveat there which i think is correct it can happen in

a reasonable time frame if it cannot find you can move on but you do have another caveat you do have to make you have to sort this before we can go on to sort in the next thing well look we both agree that leon shouldn't know, be rewarded and be pushed right to the front of the line and get a title shot here because, you know, Dana said, look, if you come out here and you win this fight, you know, I'd give you a title shot next. How about we go after the fight we're supposed to have to begin with? Hamzat Shemya versus Leon Edwards. We figure out what Hamzat's actual clearance and health situation is, and we go and do that fight. And Luke, for Leon Edwards, that still would serve as sort of a must-pass go before you get the fight you feel you really deserve,

which is either a title shot or a giant money grudge match against Masvidal. And obviously for Hamzat, it's the ultimate proving ground to cut everybody in line and say, I am that hyped up next big thing. So I'd rather wait on that fight, Luke, than figure out what's going on with Bilal Muhammad. And again, I hate saying that because what the hell did this guy do wrong? Nothing. He wanted to fight and look great against Lima, came back on short notice to try to save this card, tried to fight like a warrior, had a guy stick his finger through his soul.

I mean, you know, what are you going to do there, Luke? I mean, I'm sure he could still get another biggish fight for where he's ranked and where he's going off of this as sort of a reward for going through that kind of hell. But no, I don't want to see Edwards Muhammad again. Let's wait on Chamayev. I'm telling Leon Edwards, sorry, bro. Bad luck is bad luck. Let's wait on that actual fight which I think Luke offers

a lot of intriguing possibilities and scenarios within it it might but I that there's a risk involved there as well because we just have no clue when Shamayev is coming back and I think if you're Leon Edwards part of the beauty in getting Bilal Muhammad as an opponent is generally speaking he's pretty reliable about making it to fight night once the deal is signed uh granted this was short notice but you get the idea that that was there's some stability there there's not a lot of stability in being the first guy to fight Kamzat Shumayev after a terrible bout with COVID um although I agree that's a intriguing fight for a lot of reasons but a couple things I would say here I would say that that Leon Edwards, for what we saw, BC,

he looked to be physically more muscular, certainly leaner perhaps. He was seeing everything. He was making good reads. But I would say a couple things. I'm not at all convinced that the eye poke doesn't happen by virtue of, like I'm not willing to believe that ring rust is not involved there. Certainly, I mean, I couldn't guarantee that, but I wonder if some of those best practices about keeping yourself safe, they can happen to people who are active.

But I do wonder about the inactivity being a part of that. More to the point, here's the bigger thing. Did Leon Edwards look way better than Bilal early? Yes, he did. He certainly did. But I don't know what that means in terms of having someone's cardio tested. Leon has never had bad cardio before, but he had two years off. To me, it's like virtually no, there was a, it was like window shopping, BC.

We went to the window. We saw some pretty cool stuff in the window, but we never went in the store. You didn't try anything on. You certainly didn't buy any of it. There was just no real proofing to know exactly what you were getting was quality. I still think you need that from Leon Edwards.wards and again maybe the shimaya fight is a better idea i wouldn't go to the mat on the balal fight but i will i will say this bc absent a clearly ready better choice i still think you go back to that that's what i would say all right and

you don't look i didn't see anything bad from Leon. He did get hit with a pretty vicious elbow from Bilal, but Luke was now mind you, let's be, let's be fairly honest here. There's like three or four fight cards going on simultaneously on Saturday. So I was trying to be like everybody else and juggle multiple screens, but Luke, I saw, you know, Leon Edwards be sort of a class ahead of Bilal throughout this fight. Tell me if I'm wrong on that. Uh, it looked that way that. It looked that way early. It looked that way early, but we've seen that at times. Again, knowing everything we know about Leon Edwards, that was going to be a hard fight for Bilal to win.

If they rematch, it's going to be a hard fight for Bilal to win. But, dude, you've got to do something in the positive ledger to get there. Bilal Muhammad is actually, to me, a very good opponent. He's very battle-tested. He's gritty. He's tough. Again, it's not the best fight you can make, but it's a weird way to end this one.

He has no real way to move forward. Running it back is not the worst thing in the world, I would say. Fair? Fair, Luke. Very fair. What do you want to do? Do you want to do um do you have we kind of hit on this early but like what does this tell you about how last week's fight was sorted and ended where it was a dq because of intentionality and no points taken here obviously

you couldn't there was no way for below to continue but are there any lessons that we can infer from two ufc main events kind of ending in two different weeks in in sort of similar but different fashion well look I got an issue with intentionality like are you are you are you content with saying pay sorry let me get this right Piotr Jan intentionally kicked a down opponent we're really going to stay with that why the frick would a man defending his championship in a fight in which he was peaking and the guy kind of running away with it to a degree yon was was you know aljo slowing down yon coming on in a big way he's going to intentionally look he had a brain fart in the moment. Where the frick are we staying on with this intentional bullshit, Luke?

I don't understand it either as a real value way to decide what is and isn't more significant. To me, it's a question of is the strike legal or not. By itself, sometimes that can be difficult to kind of figure out. But in this case, it's not. It's straightforward. And now, how bad is it? How flagrant was the foul, BC? You know what I mean?

I'm not going to sit there and watch Tom Brady writhe in agony before I figure it out. I'm going to decide right away whether that was a rough shot that probably had a bad impact, and I'm going to go ahead and go with some kind of rule I prefer that sorts that for you right away. There's a clear path because intentionality, it's like what did Mark Smith mean by that? Did he intentionally try to cheat no did he intend to throw it yes but he intended to throw

it because he negligently did not understand the rules however as we know the rules change literally state to state it's a hard thing as a fighter in the moment to sometimes keep up with and so for those reasons we we have just this is what i mean about when the ufc went back to commissions and just handed them back the rules they probably needed to do that to make sure they could stay on television that the organization could continue we're talking late 90s early 2000s here that was a that was an important step that they had to take in order to continue the existence of mma but what it forever did was hand the keys back to the kingdom. Have you ever seen that movie Zootopia, BC? Yes.

Where they go to the DMV and it's sloths who run the entire DMV? That's what you've done to the rule set. You've got people who are, it's the people who gave you your car today. Yeah, I was going to say, I ran into those same folks at Hertz Rental Car at the San Juan Airport, Luke. So, yeah, I'm with you. They're not in a hurry to change anything, and they're not in a hurry at all. And so we are just kind of stuck with these really bad rules that need updating,

and we're not really in a position to get there. Yeah, and look, a little bit of the fallout from the Jan Sterling still lingering and people coming at us for our takes, and look, I get that. But there are a lot of people, Luke, who are trying to say that, A, Sterling has a part of blame in this because he sort of stayed down in a stalling tactic, knowing the rules,

knowing he couldn't get striked with the feet if he keeps one knee down. And that, you know, you mix that with the confusion of the rules, the moment, right? Sometimes there's a brain fart in the moment because you're in the midst of a fight that some of that is, you know, mixed with people believing Sterling acted. Do you think that there's enough there that we should readdress that rule, readdress the

whole kick of a, like I get if someone's laying on the ground, you can't soccer kick them in the face, but would you like to see a change, a foundational change in the rules so that there is no even hint of possibly stalling or, you know, of what we've seen in the past where somebody puts one hand or two hands down on the canvas based on which state they're in to sort of declare that they're downed. Is that an area of concern for you still in the rule set? I am less of the argument. I am less open to the argument that there is, if you're trying to argue that there is an inconsistency in the rules in terms of the kinds of damage that we allow

and the kinds of damage that we don't, and you can find two cases that side by side, there's no real meaningful difference. But in one case, the act of hitting someone there would be illegal versus the act of someone hitting someone in a very similar but slightly different case would not be illegal. And so you're like, why would we allow one and not the other?

This makes no sense. Plus we allow for X, Y, and Z and other situations that are equally, if not more damaging. The rule set will be inconsistent. That's going to be true of almost any rule set you go to. And people like to think that there are automatically ways that you could have a very obvious rule set. And for certain things you could, like eye gouging, making that prohibited, pulling the hair, that kind of a thing. But in general, it doesn't matter what rule set you construct,

you're going to find a series of inconsistencies whenever you create it to account for certain things. So am I open to the idea that we could maybe allow for, in the case where someone shoots, it's stuffed, they could get kneed in the head there so as not to stall the position? Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it. But even when you do that, you still create some contradictions about what kinds of things,

what ways you could word rules to define it. Like if you're on both your hands and knees, but your posture is up, you can be hit. But if your posture is down, even if you're on hands and knees, actually, and if you remove your hands, but your posture is down, can you be hit now,

but you're still with two knees down? You're going to have these problems no matter which way. You're just deciding how many more things do you want to allow. I don't mind having arbitrariness if most things are basically allowed. So not a hill for me to die on. That's fair. That's fair, Luke. I think hopefully the UFC, which has done an incredible job throughout its history of sort of getting ahead of some of these things and ironing them out and fixing them. They can't control the judges per se when there's bad judging, but we do kind of get on them to change the scoring structure long-term.

Hopefully long-term, Luke, we're going to get out of this eye poke business because that was – there's some – someone's going to – you'll shoot your eye out, Luke. Someone's going to lose an eyeball, I think, before we finally get this right. I will say one thing about the eye poke business. And obviously, if I said this to Bilal Muhammad, he would say, well, you've never been poked in the eye. I'm not here to say that what he suffered on Saturday wasn't one of the worst. Eye pokes might be the worst thing. You're watching someone like that who's that tough sit there and writhe in agony.

It must be terrible. And eye pokes are memorable because they do stop the action. There's a halt every time that happens, even if it starts right back up again, like with the warning. And I'm in favor of the UFC finding ways to have better glove technology such that it exists. Obviously, Trevor Whitman has made the claim that his gloves can do that. Certainly would be interesting to see. But my point is this. They don't happen so much that it's some kind of reckless scandal.

Like, they're bad. But if you actually added up the number of fights that are decided by an eye poke outcome, it's fairly low relative to the number of bouts that actually happen. So I'm in favor of changes. But this idea that it's some kind of national emergency, I'm a little bit more skeptical of that claim. Are you crushing your bills?

Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. I just feel like it's one of those fouls, Luke, that it's really hard to come back from.

I mean, a man can't see, can't fight. You know, Terry Silver once said that. No, that's true. I mean, in that sense, sometimes the numbers can be a little hard to understand again dude i'm i'm not in favor of just keeping what we're doing because fuck it why change no like dude even if you prevented one serious eye injury it's worth doing it i just want folks to understand we're talking about the proportion of things that negatively cause outcomes that we don't like this is on list. I don't know how high it is on the list relative to sometimes the perception that it's the most glaring emergency.

It's an important topic to take seriously. It's an important topic to address. I don't think it's the thing that I think about most when I worry about how MMA is adjudicated. Yeah, I'm worried much more about whether Hans Mollenkamp is taking advantage of fighters, Luke. By the way, have you noticed like every fighter fighter now has a Hans story that they're sharing on social? Yeah, it's near Weinstein levels of, you know, get away from this guy, Luke. Yeah.

All right, let's go to topic number two, if we can. Man, I can't bring up old Harv without you running, Luke, every time on this show. Is this an untouchable? Is this off limits? Would you prefer if I went Cosby with this, Luke? Where are we going? You know, I mean, you are two hours late. Can we just do the show three hours late?

All right. We'll come back to UFC card. Let's talk about one of BC's favorite fighters. David Benavidez scores an 11th round stoppage over Ronald Ellis, the Showtime main event BC. Okay, we all knew what the issue was. He was better than Ellis when he showed that. Although Ellis had his moments, but BC, the question that we had was, did he meaningfully move himself, could he meaningfully move himself closer to that Canelo, Plant, Saunders, Charlo, sweepstakes do you think he made some improvements in getting his name more in part of that

conversation yeah absolutely look this is a tremendous performance and you give Ellis credit like you mentioned for being tough and he came out and Ronald Ellis stole that first round with surprising pressure and success but it was all Benavidez from there. Here's where I'm going to give Benavidez a ton of credit, Luke. He's still the guy we flock to for a reason because he's punches and bunches. He's big for the weight class. He's exciting. He's got the Mexican machismo of coming after a guy, you know,

Mexican-American fighter. But at the same time, he's made really smart changes. He uses his jab as a weapon now very well and even though he's a big guy who can give up his height by being so willing to fight on the inside he's fairly responsible defensively it's something he said to me in my interview on morning combat heading into the fight that you see you hear that a lot you know i don't really get hit all that much for being a an action fighter you watch this closely look he didn't really get hit all that much for being an action fighter. You watch this closely, Luke, he didn't really get hit all that much. He's figured out a way to live and die in that danger zone and still, you know, be able to swivel, not get lit up. And as you're seeing in these highlights, throw beautiful

combinations, go to the body with hard left hooks. I thought that was a great stoppage by Connecticut's own Johnny Callis right there. And I think in the end, it's a shame that he lost his title twice the way he did. The drug issue the first time, and now just not making weight against Angulo. Because him against Canelo could be happening this year, Luke. And that is such an intriguing fight, given the Mexican heritage that would sell, given the styles of both, given that, you know, there's certain styles that, that we think maybe could give Canelo issues, you know, guys that are, that are quick. Well, how about a big guy with quick hands who can hit hard and has a lot of craft to his game,

despite being a straight ahead type guy. He is as good Luke as advertised. I think he's one of the best young fighters in the world here at age 24. I don't know, though, if Canelo is going to, you know, try to win out these belts and then figure out a new direction to go, right? Or who else is going to be around for Canelo if he fulfills his goals for 2021, which is to finish the year with all four super middleweight titles? Would Canelo be willing to go after a Benavidez when there isn't a title at stake? You hope he would. Traditionally, Canelo's been that guy, right? That he would. But at the very least, Benavidez

made a large statement. I love that he called everyone out. And Luke, he seems to believe that Jermall Charlo is going to come up to 68 sooner than later. And that is hella intriguing from that standpoint because they've had some trash talk back and forth

with Charlo saying, I'd knock that guy out. And Benavidez saying, well, come up and prove it, bro. Let's do this. And then, of course, Luke, we know the history between Plant and Benavidez. You don't need a title on the line for that to be a great matchup. He's going to get big fights, Luke.

I think he's completely evolving with with time he's really on that short list of must-see guys that uh regardless of opponent regardless of situation he'll entertain you yeah i mean the thing for me is the i don't know you know you need a big platform with a big fight to get out a big message and he had a big platform but this was not the biggest fight you could imagine certainly david benavidez is a guy we'll have to keep our eye on, but he wasn't fighting Charlo. He wasn't fighting Plant, right? So this was on the smaller end of things.

So in terms of using what he had to make as much noise as he could, given the circumstances, yes, I think he did do that. What's kind of funny is when you watch him in this fight, to your point, he can fight on the inside, but he can go to the outside too. The jab was doing work. His pressure against the ropes was tremendous. He has so many different gears. We talked about that on Friday as well.

I actually, from an interest standpoint, I have a higher degree of interest to watch him fight Canelo than some of the other ones I've been talking about. Caleb Plant will be interesting, but I've got to tell you, I'm a little bit more on this side of things with Benavidez. I just think Benavidez has more, I think he's got a little more gears. And I think when it comes down to it, he'll be a little bit more able to rely on durability in a long fight than someone like Plant might be able to. But, you know, we'll have to see how that thing goes.

But, you know, when you're in a situation where you have to sell yourself to your rivals, there's no real overarching matchmaking force. Yes, the sanctioning bodies wanted that for their own division, but really for the big fights, it's just very, very hard to proposition what you're offering as a reward to your opponent, which is really how the big boxers look at it. What do I get out it from this situation uh beyond just the win and beyond just you know big money what's in it for me besides blah blah blah and so dude he just doesn't have that i don't know what to say like he's doing everything he can but there's nothing getting him over that edge at the moment yeah i think he'd be an intriguing fight yeah he's got a great story yeah he's young but that's just not enough so he's gonna have to do what the charlots do which is

do they beef with everybody on social media i saw him beefing with jared heard the other day too he's gonna have to do something like that yeah an r.i.p to jared's father uh who just recently passed away but you know uh i really like what bermuda bermuda's good god benavidez said after the fight when he said luke uh you know he went back to Big Bear up in the mountains for this training camp three months away from his family, isolated himself the old school sort of Hagler-esque way, another RIP there that we'll get to later,

but he said he's going to do every fight in Big Bear moving forward, and you saw the kind of shape he was in for this fight, Luke. I like to see a young fighter with a lot of potential who had some public hiccups, figure out how to get past that and grow. And I think that's where David Benavidez is at now.

Weight issues in the past, maybe partying a little too much. Luke who hasn't right. Right. Luke, you know, the thing is I, I never did anything as cool as winning a world title, but I never did anything as dumb as losing it due to drugs either.

That's true. Well, at least it was the Bugar Shugar, Luke, and not the Roids, right? That retains a level of manliness, right? Yeah. We can care one way or the other. Okay, Luke. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. We will come back to some more boxing. Let's go back to UFC. Jesus Christ, BC. Point number three here. Dan back to UFC Jesus Christ BC uh point number three here Dan Ige Jesus Christ in that co-main making short work of Gavin Tucker 20 something seconds what was the number here I'll pull it up in just a second either way BC question goes to you about Dan Ige what can we say first about his development what is in your mind the story of how Dan Ige has arrived at a

position where he is this good this much of a relevant contender at 145 pounds well look you know I need he needed to prove to us that he still was you know he had sort of gotten to his ceiling position and the future fight not co-made event but we want to talk about just the same good for sure and and and you know and he suffered a big loss and it was sort of like okay so i think this is where he is what you love about this fight luke is he's reminding you know i still might be that guy i'm still getting better i'm still a future contender there i love the nickname 50k e-gay because he goes after it luke it's the same way in that barboza fight where he was so fun and exciting we know that's his style but if he's going to have that killer instinct and be this wired down and be able to walk in there same way in that Barboza fight where he was so fun and exciting. We know that's his style, but

if he's going to have that killer instinct and be this wired down and be able to walk in there and just send Gavin Tucker to the deep dark ones, Luke, he's a player. He's a player right now, Luke. So I like to see the, I like the comeback from the loss here and how he's put things back together. And he's also one of those stories that stories that you know he wasn't a highly touted guy from the beginning but look damn right he's getting better with each fight i love his personality i love his aggressiveness uh this was a very eye-opening he may have won the night luke and in a card in which you know you had a very ho-hum um unfortunate ending he he really was the star of the show dude here, here's what's interesting to me. If you look at his wins in the UFC, the three best are going to be Miroslav Bektic, Edson Barboza, and Gavin Tucker. He's got other wins.

Kevin Aguilar, Danny Henry, Jordan Griffin, Mike Santiago. Those are his wins. He's got one in a contender series. And his loss is Julio Arce, who's another good fighter, by the way. And then Calvin Cater, which is the one you referenced before. Gavin Tucker obviously was the last one. This was the one on Saturday. If you ask me, BC, the three best of those wins, as I mentioned, were Tucker, Barboza, and Bektich, but what's the difference? Barboza and Bektich were both split decisions. So he has two split decisions, and he

gets a fight against Calvin Cater, and he loses. He was competitive in that fight, but he lost. It was five rounds. It was on Fight Island. And so you say to yourself, okay, when he's really reaching, he can beat some of the upper tier, top 10-ish guys at 145 pounds. But beyond that, it's a little bit much. And yes, Gavin Tucker was coming in on short notice. But to me, for him to finish Gavin Tucker like this, no doubt about it, perfectly placed shot. There wasn't a thing lucky about that. That was absolutely muscle memory drilled right down into him. That was as instinctual to Dan Ige as breathing in and out was while just sitting down. He threw that right hand and sat Gavin Tucker down. To me, this is evidence of that, yes, he was good enough to beat Bechtich and Barboza barely, but that he is still

climbing. He is, how old is the guy? He's 20, what is he? 29 years old. He is still every fight forming the Voltron that is the totality of his game. And I don't want to overstate things. Do I, do I think he's going to contend or win a title? You know, I don't know. That's a tough division in which to do that. But do I think he's going to enter and beat guys inside the top five? I absolutely do think that. I think he is very much poised for that kind of success because he is a relentless worker. He has shown a consistent ability through his late 20s to get better and better well-roundedly. He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu. He finished this guy with a right hand. He's with a good team. They are good about preparation.

They're good about competition day. By the way, he lives in Las Vegas. He's fought in Las Vegas. He had a nice win there. I just feel like there's a lot of reasons to think this guy is going to be a troublemaker for a lot of top contenders in this division. And again, I'm not here to say he won't win a title BC or he won't win a fight that puts him in a title bout.

I don't know how that will go. That does seem like it's a lot given Volkanovski's up there and Ortega's up there and Max is still there. Hey, man, that's a hard place to find, you know, your footing. But people below that, you are on notice. You are very much on notice with Danny Gay. And I really like what he's done. I can't wait to see what he can do from here. Yeah, and if he can evolve into more of a finisher like this, Luke, and have that danger to go with his high motor and his aggressiveness, look, whether he is or isn't of the ability of a guy who can win a title,

he's going to have that puncher's chance going after it. You love to see it. Luke, what is it about Hawaiian fighters? I love them all, Luke. There's the passion, but there's the aggression and the intensity and the balls what's the hand thing or is that jimmy snooker i think jimmy snooker once killed the hooker luke oh this is the uh shaka no the shock is this shaka isn't that like a turkey that's like a like a sexual position luke i don't i don't really know where i'm going shocker is yeah this is what i meant yes luke okay so aloha beans goodbye thank you uh wow okay wow hey luke you know who else looked great on this card you know who was this who got the second

star of the night who angela hill tell me why i, those two defeats she had were close when she sort of stepped up and had her, like Ige, her close-up moment, am I a real contender or not? You know, we all remember when Angela Hill kind of was almost like a journeywoman to begin with, had losses to a lot of people. Look, the pace she put on Ashley Yoder and the finishing instincts, I've seen a percentage. Our brother at CBS Sports, Brandon Wise, shares it a lot. When it comes to betting, you know, there aren't a ton of finishes

in women's MMA compared to men's, and certainly in the strawweight division. My favorite one, you know, there's not a ton of finishes. I saw Angela Hill going for a finish there. And, you know, she's an athletic, aggressive, volume puncher. But to see her mix the kickboxing and the punching there, Luke, and really have Yoder at the edge there of going out a couple times, there's just an edge to her game that is only improving and increasing. And, you know, we've known her for her willingness to fight on short notice

and fight four or five times a year. But I think she's close to really figuring out how great she can be luke it's not different from the daniga conversation no i completely agree with you on angela hill she has looked phenomenal recently she has looked even when she lost you didn't think she looked bad in fact you thought her opponent got away with one you know not a scandal that they won but uh it could have been could have been could have been a bad night for them because Angela Hill was putting it on them through long stretches of those fights. Her game has gone from volume, as in busy, to now volume, as in mean, as in dangerous.

It has really turned a corner. The tenor of it just seems a lot more aggressive, a lot more in your face, a lot more bossy in terms of who wants to like push the other one around and define the terms of the fight and so i love seeing it i would have loved to have seen her get a finish over a yoder but yoder's tough for this one and so um you know that wasn't that wasn't to be but nevertheless i share we sound so excited we almost had to finish watching luke i thought you look great yeah uh okay well you kind of took it away from number four bc but i got some other ones on this card i'd like to get to question would be if you have anyone else if not let me

know but point number four who else when the card impressed you yes there were some duds on this card but every card at this point in the stage of mma has a couple of gems here or there we mentioned angela hill danny gay obviously at the top it was a disaster between below muhammad and leon edwards Anybody else though deserving of a shout out from this card? Yeah, dangerous Davey Grant Luke. Carries a whopper of

a right hand there. I mean that was a great knockout against Jonathan Martinez. We know that Grant has power in the past and he's 35 Luke. He's not knocking on anyone's door for a title shot but he's a fun ass fighter and I really enjoyed not just the finish there but the the joy in the post fight interview as well he's a guy that I don't when I look at a card hadn't been named previously that leaps out at me but uh shout out to the

Brit right there Luke that was a beautiful performance especially against the guy Martinez so I think we underrate a lot luke he was a performance of the night bonus winner uh mr davy grant was along with uh matthew semelsberger and then the gentleman who i would like to mention ryan span on this card now this was the co-main event against misha serkinov he won via a 111 into the first round bc just another one where he was able to reset lead foot positioning in a scramble and fire i think it was a right hand for him down the pipe and set cirkunov to the land of wind and ghost basically not quite took him a couple of times to do it but he

eventually got it done in fairly short order bc you know cirkunov's interesting guy he's a guy who's moved around camps a little bit obviously when he was breaking alex nicholson's jaw from a choke you thought i think that's who he was anyway. You're like, wow, this guy's got a hell of a squeeze. He might be the future at light heavyweight, but he just can't seem to get going. Yet Ryan Spann, who's had a couple of stumbles along the way as well, working with Saif Saoud out of Fortis MMA, just appears to be really maximizing. That's the one thing you get from these guys at Fortis, man. They just feel like they always come in well-prepared. They may win, they may lose, but they don't come in looking half-assed.

They don't come in looking like they didn't study for the test. They always come in looking like they really, you know, they were doing what they were supposed to be doing when they were supposed to do it. Look, if you would have bet me that Ryan Spann had won nine of his last ten and the only loss had been against some spinny Johnny Walker bullshit, dude, I would not have believed you, right? This guy is starting to open eyes as well as you.

I hope 4 to 7 may send you a sweatshirt, Luke. It's not city cuckboxing material, but you are loving this gym of late. All right? I respect that. Do you want me to say they do good work? They do good work. They produce a ton of people across a range of weight classes who win a lot so you have to kind of pay attention to their methods like why do they win as much as they do they win because they are well schooled among where is that gym located i think it's in dallas

i think it's maybe fort worth something like that. Do you have current power rankings of the gyms that you believe are the most elite, Luke? I mean, is it like CKB, ATT, AKA? I don't know that like City Kickboxing has all the best fighters. That's not why I'm a big fan of what they do. I think what they do is they, A, they do produce world-class talent, yes, but they produce it via some of the same old methods that everybody else does, but also some different methodology.

And it's that portion of the different methodology that I actually find the most interesting. It's not so much that I think that they're the best gym that ever was. Does that make sense? Okay. That does make sense. That does make sense. That does make sense.

Sorry, I came across a painfully frightening headline that said Colby Covington didn't fight Leon Edwards because, quote, I was balls deep in Pollyanna Viana. Luke, this journalism, Luke? It's MMA journalism. I mean, you would think I'd be all about that kind of stuff luke but that was a little can you imagine right there can you imagine it's like we asked larry fitzgerald you know why he's retired i'm gonna make up something why he's retiring from the

arizona cardinals and he told us it's because he's balls deep in carol g or something you're like what that was like when you texted me uh you know r.i.p haggler this this is really hurting me this is sad and i'm like can you imagine how many italian women he slayed in the 80s luke i mean come on you know i mean look at some point you got a great yeah okay it was like the the inquisition up in that bitch all right yeah there you go uh number five bc all right yes you had you had told us chocolate to astrata too it's happening and astrata wins but via split decision and immediately during the fight and then right after it so many people calling this one a fight of the year candidate why did Estrada win first secondly what made this fight so good well how about I jump the gun and say first above those two Luke I'm not here to say like oh I told

you to watch this fight and it was great I'm here to just say like this was boxing at its very best like thank you to these two 115 pound warriors uh nine years after their first fight for going out there and putting on an absolute uh i want to say war luke but i that almost demeans it this was a showcase of what is of when boxing can be the best theater. When I would say when boxing's at its best, it is the best theater in sports. I'm sorry. It's just I mean, it is. This fight was just 12 rounds of perfection because it was high paced savagery. Yes, but the craft and skill and adjustments and adaptions that these guys showed within that insane pace they were putting on. And then you add in the storyline, Luke, I'm trying to give an MMA equivalent of why

Chocolatito's run right now off of those two just damaging losses to Sri Sagesh Rungvisai three, four years ago. You know, that second one where he was knocked the hell out. What would be like an almost MMA equivalent of that? Look, it's almost like if Jose Aldo moved back to featherweight right now and went on a run and regained his title. Or, you know, like that. And if he went in there against Holloway for the belt a third time or Volkanovski. And, you know, this is what the feeling was like for us hardcore boxing fans

of Chocolatito. At an age in this division when you're ancient going back in there against a rival against a guy who's only improved since he fought him nine years ago in Estrada who's been top 10 pound for pound and fighting like like his life depended on it look this was like I mean take your hat off how about take your pants off? This was everything I love about this sport. This was the reason why you watch all them bullshit fights to get one of these every once in a while.

I was humbled. I was just, I mean, look, I was so high on life from this fight that even the shitty Texas judges could not take that feeling away from me, which is something I tweeted out, Luke, because yes, Street, Texas forever.

They will F you in the end. All boxing fans know that. So why did Estrada win? Well, look, I'm not here to crap on Estrada's performance. I scored it 115-113 for Chocolatito. I would, though, lean more in the Chocolatito direction. There were a couple close rounds that I gave to Estrada, but it was almost like my heart was saying, nah,'re a chocolatito super fan give it to him instead so what i'm trying to say is i thought this was seven five uh gonzalez or even eight four or even

worst case scenario a draw if you even had estrada winning by one round, here's what I'm going to tell you. These were close, savage, amazing rounds. The problem here, Luke, is that not only did Estrada win a split decision to effectively rob. You hate using rob when a fight is so close. But Chocolatito got jobbed here, specifically with that one scorecard by Carlos Sucre, 117-111 for Estrada. That's the reason why Estrada won, Luke. It's not fair. It's not a good scorecard by Carlos Sucre, 117-111 for Estrada. That's the reason why Estrada won, Luke. It's not fair. It's not a good scorecard. It's nine rounds to three Estrada, which was just not the fight we saw. I don't know if Carlos Sucre had some, some Bugar Sucre before this fight, Luke. I don't know where he was going with that, but even the WBA, the most abhorrent of the four sanctioning bodies in terms of just doing things that outright are bad for boxing,

they've gone out and suspended Judge Carlos Sucre for this scorecard. So it's unfortunate that we have here a fight in which most of us watched and said, oh, my God, the legend Chocolatito. And yes, Luke, he is a freaking legend. At this age to put on that kind of motor and savagery and fight. I thought he landed the heavier punches throughout, even though Estrada did sort of outwork him in certain moments, which again, why it was a close fight, but this should have been Chocolatito's win. And boy, did he handle it with such amazing class afterwards? Basically it was like, you know, you guys know I beat Estrada twice

already, but then gave credit to everyone and said, you know, this is what God wanted, so that's the outcome. It's not the end of the world from a boxing corruption standpoint because here's the deal. You know who's the mandatory for this fight? Srisaket Sorungvisai. The Thai badass

who beat Chocolatito twice, who split fights with Estrada. If we get Estrada versus Sorungvisai, the Thai badass who beat Chocolatito twice, who split fights with Estrada. If we get Estrada versus Rungvisai three next, and it sets up the possibility, let's say Rungvisai goes out there and wins, Luke. That means we're getting

a Chocolatito trilogy next. Let's say Estrada goes out there and wins. That means we're getting a Chocolatito trilogy next. So we're all going to win at the end of the day. But can you join me? And I haven't talked to you about this. I don't know if you took my advice and watched it.

I don't know if you even care about a Panamanian or maybe, no, Nicaraguan and a Mexican 115-pound gentleman who went in there and just did the business for us. But what a night at the office, Lukeke i love the shit out of this fight it's your fight of the year and i'm not effing around here this is one of the six seven eight best fights i've ever seen i loved it i am a chocolate cheeto lover but also a strata thank you jesus i'm not sure what to add to that, BC. Look, I'm not wearing pants right now, okay? The judges who got it fucked up, are they notoriously bad? Not necessarily. Really, Texas is notoriously bad, but, you know, it's not like these judges are from Texas, per se.

Texas has a shitty reputation. It's just, it's unfortunate, Luke. It's unfortunate that a man watched that fight and thought Estrada had won nine rounds to three. It's just, it's unfortunate, Luke. It's unfortunate that a man watched that fight and thought Estrada had won nine rounds to three. It's unfortunate. Well, I don't have much to add to that. I loved it. I watched it this morning in prep for the show,

thinking that the show was going to be in the morning. Silly. I could have watched it this afternoon and still had time. But no, it was reliably excellent excellent I did not score throughout I like you kind of thought like chocolate Tito had done enough in the end but that not through the least scientific process imaginable I would just say if you've not seen it DAZN is the place to be for this go check it out yeah I'm a DAZN customer and that's the only reason I ever opened DAZN is when you tell me

something is on the like a Jaime Munguia fight is on the radar you know and then i'll go check it out but this one was really really really really good i don't have the same soft spot because i missed some of the early parts of the two together and then with the tie fighter mixed in i don't i missed most of that in real time so i don't quite have that on my mind but now i'm excited to see them run all that back if they do and here's the cool part about this weight division and the guys in it you know the four kings luke right we're gonna talk about haggler in a second haggler herns leonard uh roberto duran we've we're talking about maybe the four kings of the of the young lightweight era right now we sort of had a, what, about 15 years ago around featherweight when it was Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Barrera, Morales.

Sometimes you get great fighters that are just historically joined together. What we have with Chocolatito, Juan Francisco Estrada, the aforementioned Sri Siket Sor Rungvisai from Thailand, and also Carlos Quadras, who Luke has had thrillers with all three of these guys that I just mentioned. We've almost had a four kings all over again of the lower weight classes.

It's crazy because Chocolatito was great and even all time great before he even made it to American television. What we've seen the last few years whether it be on Wealth TV or then HBO for a while is almost like Chocolatito on fumes, the end run of it.

But for him to come back and put forth a prime championship performance, it does remind you, Luke, that even though he's been fighting at the lowest possible weight classes, he's a four-division champion, he might be just behind, historically, in the modern era of boxing, that group of elites, which includes what? Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Roy Jones, Pernell Whitaker, whoever you have in that 3-4 of

the last 20 years of the post-Leonard Hagler era, of the guys who were the guys, Chuck Luchito's right there. So, damn. Damn, I love this fight. Please go check it out if you haven't seen it. Just, oh, man.

Look, I love, you know, I think, I love the DAZN guys, right? Grisham, Sergio Mora, Chris Maggs. I think they're one of the best boxing announced teams in the game. I don't even think they sold this to the level of the emotion and the theatrics that they could have or should have, Luke.

Okay? Thank you. This is just, thank you, boxing. That's all I got. All right. Thank you. All right. One more of these, and then we'll get to some of the questions that people have for us.

This is a sad one, BC. And when I texted you, boy, did I not fall into the arms of a loving friend that day. Marvelous Marvlyn Hagler died yesterday. We're talking about, as you mentioned, one of the four kings in the 1980s of the middleweight division. Here was a guy who was a champion with I think it was something like 12 consecutive

defenses over the course of seven years from 1980 to 1987. Amazing story, BC. He loses to Leonard very controversially. I still think he won that fight and then was looking for a rematch couldn't get one Leonard retires so uh Hagler says fuck it moves to Italy to get into movies in Italy years later about four years later or so uh Leonard decides to come out

of retirement but Hagler's like fuck that I moved on it's kind of weird BC he retired on a loss he retired on a very controversial loss you could maybe argue that he won and then just went to the next stage of his life you see so many fighters who are like I can't go out on a loss like I have to have some kind of positive thing to hang on to Hagler was is so interesting because he did so much we'll talk about just a second but I just want to talk about the ending of his career for just a second, BC. To me, I actually understand it now. He, to me, was greatly unappreciated. I went back and I rewatched his Mugabe fight,

which was the fight before the Leonard fight. Oh, God, that's a great fight. And the Mugabe fight, dude, Mugabe could just absolutely thump. I mean, terrifying power. And you can see Hagler wear it a little bit early, but Hagler comes out in orthodox, then switches to southpaw from the second round on for the most part, wears him down with his jab, fights with him on the inside,

and Mugabe, to his credit, man, tried to stand his ground but could not deal with the onslaught. And then at the end, in the 11th round, Hagler switches back to orthodox and then at the end in the 11th round Leonard excuse me not Leonard Hagler switches back to orthodox and then finishes him off with a series of right hooks Mugabe can't answer it here's why I bring all this up BC because this was a guy who to me never got credit for the how sophisticated a boxer that he was Leonard was kind of a little bit more of the national American hero for a lot of different reasons but he ended his career even with a loss

on his terms he was going to chase it if it was there he ended his career even with a loss on his terms. He was going to chase it if it was there. He wanted it badly. And then he went on to do something else with his life. He wasn't, he was, he was concerned about solving the task to him. He was not concerned about what the public was necessarily going to say about it one way or the other. A real authentic human, a man in terms of what it means to be a man he's going to be greatly missed yeah yeah he's a he's a real fucking man like that's straight up and that and like that's why that's such a big deal of why he's so beloved dan rayfield the the veteran boxing scribe had a great tweet uh luke where he basically said look you know i don't care who your favorite fighter is every

fighter has a pocket you know a loud minority of critics who your favorite fighter is. Every fighter has a pocket, you know, a loud minority of critics against them, whether you're Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, right? You've heard all those guys criticized. He's like, Marvin Hagler is the only fighter who never, ever is subject to any criticism. And I think, what, Luke? The only criticism you can ever give him was maybe the amends that he bowed down to to Leonard in that fight in 1987 just to let the fight happen right the larger ring the the heavier gloves just to just to finally get Leonard I mean look you remember 1982 when Leonard effed him so hard and they had that ceremony in Baltimore and in the ring and it was supposed to be where Leonard was going to tell

Hagler I'll finally fight you but instead Leonard's like and it'll never happen i mean like he got hurt how do you nail that haggler's whole career he's no different than us in a lot of ways right luke has been all about being underappreciated and not having the silver spoon and and fighting through i mean he wasn't the olympic hero he didn't make money in the sport for a long time he He suffered losses in the 70s early on, but when he became who he became, you talk about just a destroyer. You said it, from 80 to 87, he had 12 straight title defenses of the Undisputed Middleweight Championship, and I think, Luke, it was being looked over so many times as really the fuel, the spite became the fuel because his first title fight against Vito Antofarmo I think it was 1979 uh it was a split draw he felt he got robbed and then he

finally gets another chance a year later against Alan Minter and he stops Minter in London and the crowd pelts him with garbage and he's got to run out of the ring cover in his head doesn't even get to like celebrate winning the championship so he sort of always i know mentor took it from the guy who he had lost the split draw to so so like he had always been you know not the guy and he watched sugary leonard get you know millions off the top right off the start and yet what did haggler do he co-authored really like arguably the two most you know post important post muhammad ali fights in boxing history the war with thomas hearns luke which that happened in 1985 i actually think that along with the rocky movies was like the reason i became a boxing fan why do you remember being

like six seven years old that shit was replayed all the damn time. Everywhere. Everywhere, because it's the greatest three rounds of a hell-bent action. And the reason why that fight was so great, Luke, yes, because they had that insanely long press tour in which they hated each other, and Hagler famously wore the hat that said, Warren, you know, he's a badass. But when the bell rang, Hagler went right the hell after Hearns in a way that nobody did why because Tommy Hearns one of the most devastating knockout punchers in this sport's history at any weight division he's like Anthony Rumble Johnson and Hagler just went right at him

walked through everything Hearns had and stopped him in one of the greatest fights of all time and then like we mentioned, three years later, which actually is the fight that made me a super fan, the one with Leonard where Leonard comes out of retirement. You can still argue today on who won. I love that Hagler was like, F you. And he walked away for good, as you mentioned. Here's a guy who could switch stances, could box as good as he could punch,

but his ultimate calling card, Luke, was the chin. Dude, he never got stopped and he was only down one time in one fight and he still argued until his death that he slipped and it wasn't a knockdown i mean this is an old school freaking warrior and it's tough to see it because he's really a major reason why i got into the sport and i i actually enjoyed that he he wasn't a media whore in his retirement luke you You know, he did the right guard commercials. He'd show up at a fight and get interviewed once in a blue moon. It wasn't Sandy Koufax level of retired athlete recluse, but it was pretty damn close.

He sort of lived his life his own way. And good Lord, what a man that man was, right? One of the most important boxers of the 20th century. You know, that's where he belonged. One of the most important boxers of the 20th century you know that's that's that's where he was one of the most important boxers ever but certainly if you're talking about you know boxers in the 20th century who had significant impacts on the sport you know Ali is going to be number one but the number two through ten list is going to be pretty goddamn important as well and he's on that uh so for me it's kind of sad because I you know what I also

liked about NBC it's like you know what's true too as well to be true, which is to say look matters a lot. It's why certain fighters go for certain looks and certain boxers to that bald head. And he was for the eighties, bro. He was super fucking jacked, you know, and he had a high pace, aggressive style. You just felt like that was a dude that was in command of everything that was in front of him, even when he wasn't. You know, he had that kind of just real menacing, powerful look. He fit the bill.

But to your point, he didn't try and whore it up. And if there was social media today, which I'm saying, if he was a boxer like, you know, in his prime right now, he'd have the most boring fucking instagram he'd have the most boring twitter and then you go out there and light your shit on fire when you fought him that's the kind of the kind of guy he was and um he's gonna be missed man that's a that was a rough one for me i was like fuck really that i mean he beat he beat mugabe in a war like you mentioned he knocked out tommy hearns Durant. He beat Durant by decision. I mean, just an insanely great career. And by the way, his wife did come out today and dispel any notion that he died because of a COVID vaccine,

which was an error report that I think it came out on Tommy Hearns' Instagram. It came out, but that is not what happened. But yeah, tough to see, Luke. I'm glad we gave him the time in this show to really, you you know a true man's man and one of the greatest of all time i mean like he's on that short list of the one two three best middleweights who have ever ever put on the gloves and again we haven't talked about it one of my favorite guys um they're very different fighters they're very different boxers when they box max holloway has a couple of things he's done that are similar to some things that haggler has done and

i've talked about that i made some videos about it i call it the haggler switch no one else calls it i just call it that but um if he is famous for something that people do call which is the gazelle punch he was kind of famous for this leaping jab out of range and um which he dubbed the gazelle punch and it was highly effective and uh yeah man fucking shame that today's generation is not going to see a guy like that box you know but you can on youtube bc you can watch the mugabe fight which by the way uh steven espinosa the head of sports on showtime was saying that's the first ever boxing fight that aired on showtime and i watched it today as i mentioned bc on the call, Al Bernstein.

Al Bernstein was on the very first boxing fight on Showtime, still doing it to the David Benavidez fight from over the weekend. Unbelievable career that guy's had. You know, Al's like a professional crooner on the side, Luke. He's like a lounge singer. I love that man. Dude, some people like Al are born with talent, and then there's people like you and me.

Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah. With that in mind, it's time for what you get to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. Let's get to it. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Hey, haw. All right, Bizzle.

This comes to us from a verified account.'m gonna botch the name so please forgive me khaled beydoun says shouldn't the ufc award a dq win to the victim of an eye poke after a warning is issued to deter their incidents in future fights bc i don't know how much of a deterrent it would be if they pulled this death penalty, because there's not enough of them to really have people be worried about it. But I will say, in terms of justness and fairness, that should have been a DQ.

That was an egregious eye poke. Yeah, we teased around it to open the show, but didn't really hammer that home. I'm glad that this question was asked by DJ Khaled the way that it was, Luke, because, first of all, you played yourself there, Khaled Bidoyne. But I will say, Luke, it would be a deterrent. It really would.

And maybe there is something to the idea of, I mean, Luke, when does it come? Does it come from a defensive stance of keeping your hands up? It comes from when people are pawing with the jab, right, as a range but they could paw for any number of reasons you can paw to stop you can paw to like put a hand on something like i want to put a hand on a shoulder and what if i miss and i you know because it's you know it's a it's a fight it's fast paced and i accidentally hit your eye you could do it to like put your hand on their head and push them to the side you can do it to range fine there's a lot of reasons why you might do it yeah uh you know it's harsh but it it might end up being a deterrent luke we do need deterrence in life right like i mean there's no yeah but you understand like a deterrent

like people like oh the death penalty is a deterrent like you can be for the death penalty but the idea that it's a deterrent is pretty obviously not true there's no scholarship to defend that so if you're going to defend it you would defend it for other reasons my point being is uh why isn't that a deterrent because it doesn't happen at scale in a way they're not pulling people out of their homes marching them to the town square and then just hanging them en masse it's not happening it very happens very rarely in a faraway place you don't know about it takes 20 years to get there. There's no direct connection. Now, yes, this commission could be quicker about it than that.

My point being, though, is that, let's say, a tax on every time you buy something from the store, that would be a deterrent to a degree, right? Because it is something you do on a regular basis. Now, if you have to get that stuff, you're just going to get it regardless. But the idea is that something like taxation, this mass scale event, that tends to influence behavior more than these one-offs sort of distance away. All right, that's fair. Luke, I could really see you in your old ass age teaching community college. I'm not trying to turn you into like Robin Williams and Goodwill hunting, Luke. You know what I mean? I mean, it would be your fault in that case.

But, you know, and he was widowed as well. So I'm not saying anything ill there. I'm just saying I could see you, you know, you have that tone and that delivery, Luke. And that, you know, sub-academic posture to all your ideas. Yes. All right. Yes. Let's go to at telvin telvin kapapa who is

more disrespected look we've he's been sending a dm since we started this shit can you put some respect on that guy's name yeah i couldn't pick him out of the lineup more disrespected leon edwards this guy or jay can we have an honest talk about jay because it is getting a little out of control yes people don't understand first of all jay's employment has not been affected at all he works at the exact same company and he works at many many many many high profile um clients he just doesn't work on this program for now that's all all that it means. And by the way, you know, he shouldn't work on this program because of how much he had fucked around. But his paycheck still come.

He still drives in his Tesla asleep at the wheel. Everything's okay, people. Quit crying. I mean, there are people who are, like, legitimately concerned sending, like, letters to the show being like, you know, this is just not good form for these guys to still talk about this matter.

This is a greed, Jeff. How could you make fun of a man's employment? He's fine. The truth is, documentary weekend, Luke, right when Poirier had that big win. I don't even think the doc did an accurate job of compiling

all the screw-ups from our staff that weekend i mean it was it was it was pretty much a show so it's not like we said hey you know jay he's gotta go but somebody made that decision for now and you know it is what it is i still have love for that guy okay and also pennington james and also he's still collecting a paycheck chill he's fine same paycheck hasn't gone down at all he's it's it's okay he just got pulled off this project you know relax everybody all right from greg leach 99 david benavides called out big names like canelo plant charlo after his win on saturday night pc judging by his performance how likely is he gets one of those next two names, next two names, excuse me, or next names, I should say,

and how do you like his chances against those top guys? I'll ask, I'll rearrange this question a little bit differently, BC, which is to say, who exactly is David Benavidez going to fight next? If you had to guess, are there any, like, obvious contenders? Well, it's hard because everyone's sort of in line for Canelo who has a belt right so Saunders has Canelo next implant you know and the reports are out there that that Eddie Hearn and PBC are kind of uh already talking about the idea now Eddie Hearn only has Canelo through the through the Saunders fight right but but we don't know

what's going to happen after that could Canelo re-sign with Eddie Hearn and Matt Truman to the zone? It's possible. There's already talks of trying to line up this plant fight for the fall. So that takes away everyone with a title for now. If Jamal Charlo does not announce that he's going to move up this year, then we have to look up and down those rankings at 168 pounds and find a PBC-friendly guy. That's why it's sort of really hard for Benavidez right now

that the star of stars has arrived in this division, but at the same time, everyone's getting in line for him and Benavidez is on the outside looking in. So I don't know, Luke. I mean, look, I can create some other creative matchups at 168 for him involving guys like Gennady Golovkin or Danny Jacobs. Some of those are a little bit, though, difficult to make network-wise and representation-wise. But I'm sure the folks at PBC can come up with something creative.

I just hope that if he can't get a title fight, which he probably can't, then let's step it up. Let's get the toughest possible matchup available. It's not going to be Edgar Berlanga yet. That guy's still rising. But there are names you're going to be Edgar Berlanga yet. That guy's still rising, but there are names you're going to be able to find out there. I don't know. Zerdo Ramirez just signed with Golden Boy, I think. You sure it's Berlanga or is it Berlanga?

I mean, does it really matter at the end of the day, Luke? Turns out it does. All right, from at dip3886, you ought to respect that island you're on. And I believe he came from that island. Or is he Cuban? I can't remember. No, he's Puerto Rican, Luke.

Shout out, okay? There you go. All right, do you think Tony Ferguson from dip3886 says, do you think Tony Ferguson gets cut from UFC if he loses, not just loses, BC, loses badly to Benil Dariush? Yeah, that flick out made, didn't it? That's going to be an interesting fight. I was going to do that for my odds and ends,

but I'll just do it now. But yes, it did in fact get made. No, he's not going to get cut. How many losses is he riding now? He's riding a two-fight losing streak. No, he's not going to get cut. He's too big of a name. And I'm not acting like he's got a ton left in the tank. I don't think he's not gonna get cut he's too big of a name and i and i'm not acting like he's got a ton left

in the tank i don't think he's washed luke i also don't think he's gonna beat habib right so uh he's somewhere in between that but no he's not gonna get cut this is for ufc 262 on may 15th i don't know that we know the place for it yet could be fight island could be this is really the perfect fight luke because even though derriush is rising and i like the fighter he's becoming i still don't know if he can even be downgraded Tony Ferguson. So I really like this fight a lot. And he is wild. He can be wild.

So even if you think he's better than X or Y, you can argue he's not better than what's the Hernandez kid? Forget his name. Alexander? Alexander Hernandez, yes. Like, do I think Alexander Hernandez is better than Benil Dariush? No. But Dariush fights in a way where guys like that are going to win on occasion. Ferguson has some windows by virtue of what we think are some remaining abilities,

but also because Dariush just leaves openings. So that should be not just an interesting fight. That should be an action-packed fight, all action, all the time. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. All right. From at 10 underscore point underscore max. What a short name. It's a terrible name.

Right? If you were to compare Marvin Hagler's legendary yet underappreciated boxing career to any mma career which cage fighter would you choose and why what do you think well it's hard to call him underappreciated i mean he's a hall of famer he is by outsiders boxing insiders no he's fully appreciated but the casual fan doesn't really know him all that well he was voted box like boxer of the decade in the 80s by like a major magazine was it boxing weekly he was you know a two-time fighter of the year boxing weekly is that like filling up the news

stands these days boxing yeah not anymore luke but i'm talking about the 80s, bro. Yeah, did you catch my feature in defunct sport ink? Dude, you remember when, like, okay, so as a kid, you'd wait for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, obviously, Luke. I'm talking about like 87, 88, 89. But remember when like Inside Sport, or what was that other competing magazine? I don't know. Sport magazine. Both Inside Sports and Sport magazine.

Those were like bootleg SIs, you know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Remember them? Their swimsuit issue was like borderline erotic. Remember? Like they would be doing like no bikini, just a handful of boob. You know what I'm saying?

Right? Right, bro? Right. I mean, I could not have been the only one about me that i tied my fortunes to you um so who is the mma equivalent to that um i don't know so who would it be as someone who who achieved a lot was a champion super appreciated my shadow of somebody else i mean he lives in the shadow of leonard right still i mean not to me he doesn't but yeah he probably does um do you want to say like is he like a lawler kind of not exactly no uh now lawler wasn't sustainedly great he was great in a in a season there was a season when rob Robbie Lawler was freaking great, Luke, okay? Yeah, but he's been great for a long time in different ways.

He was good very early in his UFC run. He had moments, kind of had moments in Strikeforce, not totally. He had some moments in Elite XC, Super Brawl. What about Holloway, who's not a champion, who kind of lost to volkanovski very controversially loved by insiders not necessarily like the world's biggest star although has a name something like that yeah that's fair there's there's no clean comparison because you're partly comparing not merely eras as in the sport was different in the 1980s, but sport was generally different in the 1980s.

And I think you're trying to compare eras across two different sports, across two different times, across two different ways in which sport functioned. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard. Yeah, it is going to be hard. Wow, this is a fun show, Luke, for a shit show, right? I can't believe they pay us for this shit, but they do. All right.

BC, I've got to hand the show over to you. Is it going to take you an hour and a half to get through this segment? You're going to do it island style? Woo, here we go. We scour the globe, Luke. The good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between. I'm trying to find my emo here with the links. It's called Have You Seen This Shit?

Have you seen this shit? Wow, wow. Wow, wow. And we're back. All right, Luke, we start UFC Fight Night in Vegas on Saturday. Did you see Air Jordan jump off the cage to land that punch against Marcelo Rojo? Luke, I don't know if I've seen this shit before. It's borderline Michel Pareda.

Yeah, but didn't Rojo win this or no? Did he lose? No, I thought Jordan won that. Did he win this one? Yeah, you're right. He did. Yeah, he stopped him. You're not impressed by this performance? Yes.

I'm not sure I can remember. Did I see i see this one yeah he scored a knockout yes yes yes yes yes this weird showtime pettis bullshit isn't rojo the guy that did the the the t-rex compare like like celebratory dance and uh combate americas yes is that the same guy he looks like him yes i i did wrong me if i'm wrong but i think it's the same guy? He looks like him. Yes! Dead wrong me if I'm wrong, but I think it's the same guy. Dude, I love that guy. Alright. Hey, we mentioned Dan Ige getting the 50K. Why don't we just show it here? It only took 22 seconds for him to send

Gavin Tucker to the Pulp Fiction basement where Ving Rhames was waiting with a ball gag. Look! Yeah! Wow! To the land of wind and ghosts. Wow, boy. Yeah, i didn't even realize we were talking about eagay in the show i should read the rundown more often uh look you mentioned matt semelsberger also had a i literally send you the rundown before i send out the rundown

to the production staff where you can then see the other finished version of the rundown and you before i send it to the production staff, I ask you to overlook it and give me your thoughts. And you wrote, works for me, on the text yesterday. Yeah, well, I was at the store shopping for dress shirts, Luke. The early model rundown looked for me. I skimmed it. It looked good.

Hey, look, Matt Semelsberger needed just 15 seconds to take Jason Witt's lights out. Did you see this shit? Yeah, don't punch in kicking range. Damn. Can we see that one more? Wow, that guy's effed up. Sorry, the opposite. Don't kick in punching range.

Oh, God, that was great. All right. Hey, look, it's regional MMA time. You know anything can happen. You want to see the regional MMA KO of the year? Check out this shit. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

Luke, when they fall face first, you don't have to count. You do have to get the stretcher out, though. This guy's done. Wow. That guy was like, you see how you just stole on me by attacking me with his right hand right here? I'm going to let you do it again, player. Wow. Speaking of regional MMA, check out this slam, bro. attacking me with his right hand right here i'm gonna let you do it again player oh speaking of

regional mma check out this slam bro let's let the boys be boys on this one this is great theater is this mma what are they wearing kick pads shin pads oh pro mma what is this bullshit oh here comes the head toss that's when you know they're good grapplers i love regional mma luke oh god wow yikes that's what you know that's what you get for doing that shit rose just rolled over in a grave on that shit wow not way yes all right that was different that was off that was off the kimura grip but yeah luke you actually dm me something this week on ig that wasn't big booty latinas check this out here's me trying to explain to jmma that i was just joking about risen luke i love it i love that japanese shit luke i know this is me tweeting about anything controversial. Oh, that's great stuff. Dude, what is this shit where this lady is tied to this two fucking pieces of dental floss

and below her is a pit of fucking crocodiles? What is this shit? She's screaming for her life. It's got to be a Japanese game show. Look, they do amazing stuff over there. I love it. I guess so, dude. This shit is wild man those Crocs were hungry as fuck isn't this what our Davey wanted for the original UFC to have a

moat around the cage with like sharks with frickin laser beams in it yeah with crocodiles yeah mm-hmm all right shit real fights let's go to one championship look did you see this double crucifix stalemate that broke out I don't know if I've ever seen this before let's see that's a that's a tie Luke that's a tie I think you kiss at that point if that happens it's interesting I had never seen that yeah all right I'm sure 54 trillion people watch that to Luke all right hey are'm sure 54 trillion people watch that too, Luke. Hey, have you been keeping up with The Apprentice 1 Championship Edition, Luke? I would literally rather watch you do pornography, and I mean that.

Wow, all right, Luke, that's interesting. Hey, you know John Jones has really big brothers. Did you see Chandler Jones take on this blocking sled this week, Luke? So I actually was in Baltimore. Jesus Christ, that guy. Jesus. I was in Baltimore, and I went to the bathroom. And when I came back to wash my hands, Chandler Jones was like two sinks down from me.

Yes. John is about my height. You know, obviously he's got different proportions and he's an athlete. Chandler is like significantly bigger than me. Like two, three inches taller, you know, wide as a fucking wall, muscular beyond all.

Like, you ever seen those dudes who you see them in person you're like they don't have a normal job i don't know what exactly this large human does but it's he doesn't go to an office that's the feeling you get when you see chandler jones in person he's not a normal human in terms of his proportions whatever john's fight was uh i think it was the fight on the way into the arena his two brothers went up to the VIP window and it was like seeing the first time I saw Shaquille O'Neal in person to your point where you're just like oh my god that guy's just large just like holy crap I mean they're they're freak athletes Luke and also like Arthur to to like the point about

Chandler obviously football heads will tell us better because they follow this stuff more closely, but John, I think, is starting to slow down in his career a little bit. It doesn't mean he's going to lose. I'm just saying I think he's slowing down a little bit. Arthur, I think, is out of the league. Chandler is still just absolutely fucking balling in the NFL. He is a force to be reckoned with in that space. All right, Luke, let's go to the zone

boxing in Dallas on the undercard of Chocolatito. Do you see the superhero ring entrance from Raymond Ford? Is this Black Panther, Luke? I think that's Black Panther. Although I don't recall the Black Panther suit having that many abs.

Interesting. Alright, let's keep it going hey look this video gives new meaning to re-racking your weights is this a normal gym etiquette Dude, what the fuck did we just watch? Woo! All right, Luke. Now I have seen porn that you're in. My God. I mean, just a little love between friends, Luke. It's all good, all right?

Let's go back to the fights. Lion Fight 64, Luke had an incredible KO in the main event on ufc fight pass here's a fan video of it first spin he spins here bop oh god now let's see the uh traditional uh reverse angle on the uh broadcast luke i don't know what this guy's name was this is bad oh there they are right there all right yeah this is a 360. Good Lord. Steve Walker putting it on Brian Collette. Wow. Well done there.

All right. That's nice work. Back to the box in the UK over the weekend. Gary Cully with some crappy tattoos. But check out this left cross from Al Luke. Yes. Nothing bullshit about that left hand. Let me see his feet.

Go back to the beginning here. Let's see. Let's see if he takes the lead outside step. Steps on his foot just as good. Yeah, that's nice. That's so good. That way the most he can get, when you step on their feet like that, the most that they can do is like, A, it lets you know where they are, right?

So I know exactly how close you are. B, they can only anchor step at that point right because they're kind of locked into space and it gives you basically all the functionality of the angle that's that's good work that's good work gary cully rocking aggressive tattoos a la future ufc champion kevin lee there well that's interesting all right hey luke let's go over to the honky tonk bar where like regional mma anything can happen luke come for the bull, but stay for the scorpion here, Luke. Spoiler alert. I love the middle fingers at the beginning, Luke.

Oh, old spine buster. Yeah, that'll do it. Get her wheelchair. Yep, that is, wow. A couple, Luke, a couple Tito's and Soto will fix that. All right, Luke? Yeah.

All right there. Wow. Oh, good God. Hey, Luke, let's go on to your front lawn here. Luke, a lot of people believe that this will be what happens when you allow that homeless guy to just sit in with you and spot you for once. Luke, this guy could be doing your chores. Check it out it out by the way I figured out it's this guy let me answer this this guy is who Jake Paul is do you want me to explain what I mean by that sure sure so this guy who's doing this that's a safety squat bar which is

designed to bend you forward when you descend so you have to like really work on your posture and your knee travel to keep that up without you know hunching too far forward it's just a different and plus it puts the weight sometimes depending on how you have it puts the weight a little bit lower than being high on the bar but okay neither here nor there this guy's name is juju juju juju mu fu is his name I don't know his real name is but that's his youtube name and he's basically what i would call a stunt lifter he does more than lifting they do bodybuilding i would call him like a stunt strength sports kind of guy where he actually is pretty fucking strong he's got like a plus 600 deadlift um you know he's got

some other stuff that he does that is like for like circus feats pretty impressive that's so but he's not really like if he went to any actual meet he would get fucking smoked right like any like high level national meet he wouldn't win shit forget the international meet that's sort of like what jake paul is he's a stunt boxer and what i mean by that is dude doing stunts is hard it's not easy like you actually have to have a level of skill plus if you want the stunt to work hello you have to have a level of skill but like you wouldn't say that the stunt boxer is doing anything that the normal boxer could be or could be considered like equivalent tasks they're not one's a sort of a very strategic version of the other one i like to consider myself a stunt co-host Luke okay yeah traveling

through Latin America and finding out that it doesn't work like it does here all right hey did you see this video for Michael Chandler Luke's uh sending a special message to Dustin Poirier that he's ready for all the smoke you can drink it because of that canola oil that's in it I think the I think that's in it. I think that's his way of saying fight me. All right? And then he's, of course, singing... He's singing Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. He's basically recreating that Ocean Spray video.

You know the one I'm talking about, right? Oh, yeah. With the dude on the skateboard. I would rather see that than the third fight with Connor, but we all know that shit ain't happening, so... Yep, yep. Hey, Luke, this will be me one day when MK gets canceled and my family leaves me,

and it's just me and my homeless cats living our best life, going to P.F. Chang's. I mean, this is... Look at this guy. Let me explain something to you. This guy's missing teeth. He's got a fucking one-vehicle step-up from a rickshaw. His life is better than ours in every way imaginable.

I want you to. I love this. This is Reggie Jackson. Get ready. This is totally me, Luke. This is going to be great. By the way, those dogs are super chill. They love that shit.

That's good. This guy's the best, too. I love that man. I want to be a lot like him. Hey, Luke, it's time for some art to close out here. We're almost done here. Luke, is this art? Check out the close out here. We're almost done here. Luke, is this art? Check out the Burning Man here.

This is incredible shit. I'm telling you, Luke, you know, we all have different kinds of art. And this guy is tremendous. Look at the speed, too. This is my wife trying to scratch my back. I think it's an upside down horse. That guy's got a lot of free time, Luke, but that's really good. That's art, okay?

But is this art, Luke? Actor David Spade put out an interesting tweet with some light switch art this is art that i made in fifth grade all right hey luke remember that guy john wayne bobbitt from the 90s yeah the one who got his hog sliced oh what are we we doing, dude? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Dude, how did this?

I'm going to wake you up on camera at the next morning combat documentary just like that, Luke. Okay. Dude, that is some seriously disturbing shit. You need to see a doctor. All right. One more, Luke. This is that moment when you realize you have... Oh no, sorry, we got one more here. Luke, this is you in about 40 years at your local

bar when they decide to play Sweet Caroline? Am I going to be the old lady who gets bodied? Oh shit! You're going to be that guy. You're going to be Phil Spector in the red pants there. Dude, and then the old lady who gets bodied oh shit you're gonna be that guy you're gonna be phil specter in the red pants there and then the old lady gets on top good take down fuck your hi-hat hey mom fuck you mom more cowbell yes yes yo look at it look the bass player just said let me just tune my shit you see him he just he's like you know what let me just tune this shit we get e minor up in this bitch i ain't getting enough yeah it's a blues riff and g watch me for the changes he's the old

lady look at look at him he's like oh that bitch is dead as shit i'm gonna keep on playing though oh you know what man let me hit that g high note let me hit that g i think the drummer was playing the cymbals on the way down, too. All right, Luke, one more for you. This is that moment when you realize you're eating too many edibles each day. Luke, this is coming for you. Okay, bro? All right.

Yeah, yeah. All right there, Spicoli. What was the point of this game? Luke, that's the shit. That's all I got. Okay. But shout out to Broward versus data. Heck of a, you know, Danny Segura jumped to my DMS with this account.

You know, maybe he's running it. I'm not sure. But you know what? Florida is. I asked Danny. I talked to him today. I was like, Danny, how are you doing down there in Florida? He's like, Florida's Florida, bro.

You know? Yeah. I don't know how to navigate the space. All right, BC. let's get out of here while we still have our audience, what's left of it. Odds and ends, what do you got? Yeah, so we had a DM question the other week about the

Mount Rushmore guitarist, and I kind of bricked in the moment on it was caught off guard. I just wanted to repair that quick. Look, for me, it's Hendrix, it's Eddie Van Halen. It's Dickie Betts and Jerry Garcia. They play a similar style. But you know the most egregious one I left off, Luke?

Jeff Beck. And I think we've been misled on classic rock radio, right? Because of Jeff Beck's very eclectic career. Where, yes, he did, you know, especially with Rod Stewart fronting the Jeff Beck group very eclectic career where yes he did you know especially with Rod Stewart fronting the Jeff Beck group had some great rock hits but Luke what he did instrumentally in the 70s I'm talking about the albums uh Blow By Blow and Wired when he got into jazz and fusion and just next level shit Luke um I mean outside of Hendrix who's just an alien who's just a supernatural freak,

I think Jeff Beck might be the greatest guitarist of all time. And I think it's a shame that he's Hagler-esque in terms of the underrating of the great axemen in history. But really, he is the beginning reason, and this turned to vinyl, and this turned to full-on jazz fusion for me in the past few months of uh of how i got here he was that that gateway drug and that transition point so i wanted to close out my mush my rush more by putting the great jeff beck on there and saying uh you want a song for the day go go search on youtube nadia by jeff jeff beck so basically it's a it's a indian sung by a female, and he loved the sound of her voice so much that he figured out how to play it on guitar. It's exceptional.

It'll change your life, Luke, okay? Maybe not yours. You might be too far gone. But wow, I did want to put a ribbon on that. How long is this show? Three hours, Luke? Well, it's three hours late, I can tell you that. We should get going.

All right, my odds and ends was just Ferguson versus Dariusz. Yeah, who cares, right? Who the heck cares? Luke, I gave myself a haircut last night at midnight in the mirror. Let's see the damage. Let's see the damage. Probably not advised to do that. So this place I go where you get the $100 haircuts, they have a new thing, BC.

It might make you rethink the haircut. Oh, Jesus, that looks terrible. My Lord. Yeah, I got some holes here, Luke, right? I got to get back in the mirror and fix that shit. The place that I go to now, A, it doesn't have to be $100. It's actually less because they don't wash your hair anymore. So that takes off like $10 to $15.

But on top of it, if you go back within two weeks of getting your haircut, they'll trim it up to exactly how you had it for free how about that do that's bit that's remember that's badass I had a deal with my Portuguese barber Joe and then in the 2000s Luke where I'd come every Friday for an update right because because when you're single and you're trying to get chicks you get that fade updated every Friday you're gonna get chicks. It's a proven fact, all right? Hagler got updated every Friday. Was hammering out Italy, Luke, all right? Yeah.

Woo, yeah. I bet he was doing some hammering. All right, we got to get out of here. So first things first, if you want to try Showtime, you can. Showtime.com. You can try it free for 30 days. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand.

Again, $4.99 for the first six months when you sign up to get Old Bellator. Let's see. We've got some merch. Store.show.com is the place there if you'll be on the lookout for it. If you want to email the show for a dead wrong or a fan submission, anything, morningcombat at gmail.com. That is the place to go. Morningcombat at gmail.com.

Speaking of the name, Morning Combat, on social, it's the same name everywhere for YouTube, for Combat, on social, it's the same name everywhere for YouTube, for Instagram, for Twitter, but BC and I, our names differ between those two services, so take a screenshot,

then give us a follow a little bit later, and that's it, BC. Anything else before we let you go back to... No, thank you. Luke, thank you. Thank the listeners

for their flexibility. Thank everyone. Yeah, I'm sorry. I have another job like you, Luke, with SiriusXM. I'll be on NBC Sports the next two Thursdays covering some box A.O. So thank you for allowing me, Luke, to still do this show. And I saw Bill and Ted's, the new Bill and Ted movie on the airplane on the way here, Luke. No good?

Oh, my God. Oh the way here, Luke. Good God. No good? Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Luke. It's so bad, bro. It's so bad. Yeah. It actually got decent reviews. Now I'm disappointed. Shit, I plan to see that at some point.

No, no, no. Don't do that. Don't do it. Go see The Mauritanian. It's on demand. Go see that instead. Okay. All right.

You a big Schindler's List guy, Luke? It's not that sad. Jesus Christ, the guy's on demand. Go see that instead. Okay. All right. You a big Schindler's List guy, Luke? It's not that sad. Jesus Christ, the guy's still around. I once got to second base during watching that movie, and no, it wasn't a Seinfeld reference. It actually happened, Luke, all right? Okay, that's great. I don't care.

You're weird. Does that make me a bad person, Luke? Luke, does that make me a bad person here? Did we just get shut off? Can you, you know, I just, listen, listen sandusky i don't care about you know oh hey luke wait luke luke there's we didn't mention how did we not mention uh the anthony uh joshua tyson fury fight seems really close now that that there's word that the two fight deal is uh either finished they don't have a date or a site,

but it looks like we're really close financially to getting that twice this year. You believe it'll happen? I'll believe it when it happens. How about that? Okay. Boxing is a great sport, just not the beer crack. I wish that you had the same erection I had

watching Chuck Latito on Saturday you really undersold it Luke I did not undersell it I just let you tell the story because you're going to tell it better than me can I go? it's 3.30 motherfuckers I got shit to do I've been waiting on you all day I'm kind of lonely here