MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Recap: Volkov, Sandhagen Win | Paige VanZant BKFC Debut Loss | Ep. 116

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

MK is back to recap a big weekend of combat sports. Luke and Brian breakdown all the action from this weekend's UFC fight night event. Alexander Volkov impresses by stopping Alistair Overeem in round 2. What does this mean for the Heavyweight division (4:50) & is it time for Overeem to retire (16:00)? Plus, Cory Sandhagen scores a crazy knockout of Frankie Edgar. What's next for the impressive bantamweight (26:35) and what is Edgar's future (37:00). Also, Paige VanZant losses in her bare knuckle debut over the weekend. How damaging was this to her stock (45:27)? ---------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

This is Morning Combat. It is Monday, February 8th, 2021, and it is time, Docs, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo, joined by the gentleman who you would imagine might be in my room, because it looks pretty similar, but he is not. However, he is my co-worker from cbs sports he's the cue to my anon the conspiracy to my theory the one and only brian campbell hi brian hello luke we are uh in the same building not necessarily sharing the same bed but uh as as you know big announcement this week from bellator MMA. We are on site here at the Mohegan Sun to cover it.

Not our typical living rooms here, but we're here on business for CBS Sports and Morning Combat. So we got to keep the show moving. I would be sitting right next to you, Luke, if it wasn't for protocol and quarantining. So I want to make sure you and I are as safe as possible. Did you watch the Super Bowl last night? Yeah, Luke. I'm an American, right? I watched the damn Super Bowl last night, okay? What did you think?

It was not a fun game. It was alright. You know, this guy TV, making it look easy, right? A lot like us, Luke. You know, it was fine. Whatever. Alright, well, you know, you're fun to talk to. Let's get the business out of the way.

Is the guy on PEDs or what, Luke? Okay, how the hell is he doing this at 43? All right, you know, can you go on the record with this? Yeah, I mean, it must be all the asparagus and goodnight's rest he's getting that makes the difference. Okay, thumbs up on the video if you're so inclined. Please hit subscribe. We really appreciate that. Let's see. If you want to try Showtime, the people who make this show possible, you certainly may. You can go to Showtime.com,

get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go pound sand. I don't know if we have any merch on us, but we have merch available for sale. Store.show, S-H-O,.com. You can go there and get hats, shirts, mugs, tumblers, condoms. BC doesn't believe in condoms, so I don't know why that's a thing. But he does it. He told me he thinks they don't work. A lot of other things you can get on there. It'd be great.

So you can do that there as well. And we have a lot to talk about today, BC. We had a crazy UFC show over the weekend. We had BKFC on Friday. We had the Super Bowl yesterday. We're here in our stupid-ass hotel rooms. Should be a fun show. Yeah, yeah. Team pull-out in the house here, Luke, alright? Yeah, wow.

We're already there, alright. Team rhythm method. Never fail. No, I did watch the show. What do you want me to do, Luke? You want me to break down the ineptitude of the Kansas City offensive line? You think I care about that shit, Luke? I'm not to break down the ineptitude of the Kansas City offensive line? You think I care about that shit, Luke?

I'm not asking for X's and O's. I'm just asking, like, did you enjoy the experience? I did not. The game wasn't great. You know, as I blared on Twitter, I thought the halftime show was, you know, not a disaster, but just lifeless and boring. Not enough Latino booty for you, right? Not enough LBB for you on that one.

I will say the folks at CBS, fantastic job on the production, though. Fantastic. Yeah, production was high. And I was talking about this with our producer. I thought Tony Romo was a little bit weird. Not his best call. Okay, okay. All right, well, you're no-selling this.

We'll just get to the show. Okay, with that in mind, let's kick off all of the topics here to start things off. Topic number one, I want to see what I look like on the thing here. Oh, they did a good job with this. Okay, let's get to it, BC. Alexander Volkov defeats Alistair Overeem. And it was an impressive victory, not just because he stopped him and broke his nose in the first round, as we later found out. But more than that, BC, he took his time to do it.

He didn't rush in. He applied pressure when he could and then waited and just waited and took his time. And that, it turned out, was still good enough to get a fairly quick-ish kind of stoppage. I don't mean the stoppage was quick. I mean like, you know, get to that finish line, the appropriate finish line, pretty early. So the question to you is this, BC. How impressed are you by the win? And more importantly, what does Volkov's win do to shake up the heavyweight division?

Very impressed. And extremely impressed. We'd seen, obviously, flashes of this level of brilliance from Volkov in the past. But, you know, there were still some holes to his game. You know, he still had, look, he got stopped by Derek Lewis in a fight he was winning. There were still sort of some back doors left open. I felt like this was the performance where, certainly from a confidence standpoint, from a efficiency standpoint, and just from a frigging biting down and letting his hands go and showing

you how much power he has standpoint, this was as complete as we'd seen him we had questions we wanted answering coming in could the you know the aging legend over him uh carry out one more run at the title but we didn't talk enough uh really about what this kind of meant for Volkov I mean it's huge for the heavyweight division to add another legitimate player I think before this Volkov was a good heavyweight with potential for greatness I think this was the first time where you really start to take his chances seriously and start to think in your head what does this six foot seven guy who's very big hits very hard and the more he continues to work

on keeping himself off the ground what could he do against the very elite heavyweights this was that impressive of a performance Luke because he was never in trouble. He was patient, like you mentioned, and everything he hit seemed to do damage. I mean, Overeem thought he could hide behind the guard, thought maybe he could extend this fight a little bit, and Volkov didn't even think twice, looping in punches around the guard,

busting open Overeem's nose with uppercuts and straight shots. I mean, it was, in ways a clinical dismantling of a guy who is a lot better than we sort of say, but if he's going to lean away from his deficiencies, focus more on his strengths, and look this determined and focused, I think that's the difference in him being an also-ran and him beating possibly a dark horse title contender. This division's crowded enough where he's not going to get the next shot, but he's in play, Luke, whether, you know, should the promotion decide to give Jon Jones an entry fight to the division or whether he goes in there against Curtis Blades to sort of get in line for another title shot. This is going to be very interesting.

You know what's interesting to me, BC? In boxing, it's so common and so apparent that no one really thinks twice about it. Who's the guy we recently saw? They call him like the... He's like 135 pounds and he's like 6'4". What was his name? We saw him on a recent... The towering inferno, Sebastian Fundora, who's 6'7", yes. Yeah, exactly. He's a huge guy, but he's rail thin, but that's really not Volkov's thing. He's obviously much thicker. He has to make the weight to get to 265, but here's the point, BC.

We talk about reach advantages all the time in MMA, and I think folks generally understand that really means something, for the most part, at least it can, depending on the matchup or the guy with the reach advantage or the lady. And then certainly height advantages probably confer some benefits, but you don't really see that manifested a lot. Here's my point. There are a lot of tall fighters in MMA, especially in the heavyweight division,

and a lot of them don't fight very tall. Here you have a guy like Alexander Volkov, who is tall, who leverages all of that. He uses his wide, his long frame to get his legs split apart so that he's hard to take down along the fence line. He's good about keeping people at the end of his punches. He'll swarm you if he has to, but not in a way where he gets kind of wrapped up and thrown against the cage. So he's stumbling over his own distance. Here is a guy in MMA for once, we have a heavyweight, and Stefan Strube was really never this guy. He fights tall.

And when you see somebody tall who is big, you know, he's not like super bricked up, but you can tell he's well-muscled. And he uses all of these physical attributes, plus, you know, high fight IQ. He's obviously well-trained. He's really developed. It turns into a very formidable figure. I think a lot of folks, me included, you may have seen him fight Vitaly Minnikov in Bellator, and you thought, well, you know, he's probably good and he's tall, but someone's going to take him down, and that's just going to be that, and, you know, that'll be the end of the show. And certainly, Curtis Blades was able to do that, but he had a hard time passing guard. He had a hard time really doing a whole lot of damage on the ground.

And here you have a case where Volkov is continually able to beat really good, esteemed players in this heavyweight division and do it in ways that speak to his natural-born advantages. It's finally great to see somebody do that. To your point, though, what does it mean for the division? You're right, man. Here's another player in this business. He cannot be denied. Would you really say, BC, that if he had a rematch with Curtis Blades, there's no chance he could win? I would like his chances, you know, pretty decently, I suppose, against Curtis Blades. He may not have the same type of crushing one-punch knockout power as a Steve Bayer and Ngannou, but he's technical as all hell. And, you know, Luke, he's got to keep

the fight on his terms for the most part to have success but he's become really stubborn and in keeping it on those terms and i think that's the key so while this performance looked really startling to that idea of him making that transition from you know uh also ran tough out to maybe potential contender but i wonder if it happened really in that loss to blade against blades where he had gotten down on the cards early was ragdolled and wrestled all around but again his stubbornness he didn't quit he didn't fold mentally he ended up having a really nice comeback there and was a really hard out and suddenly Blades was the guy gassing sort of crawling to the finish line got a win he deserved for an overall performance but you saw Volkov in that fight maybe that was the moment he sort of figured out you know I'm better than I even

realized and I think you saw that in this Overeem fight. He was extremely confident. And, you know, the Fundora comparison, I don't see, because Fundora to me is a real thin praying mantis. This guy Volkov is almost Sofredian Luke. If I could pull Rocco's name back in here in terms of his girth and width, I mean, he's a big-ass, strong mother effer. I was not comparing them in that sense, merely to say that if you see a tall guy in boxing with a long range,

it's not going to be unusual to see them really make effective use of it. In MMA, you just don't see a lot of really tall 6'6", 6'7", guys who keep you at the end of their punches or use that wide frame to split apart along the fence line to defend the takedown. They're just not necessarily, they don't fight all that tall. Tall fighters in boxing, much better about fighting tall is the only thing I'll say in there. All good on that one, Luke. You know, we teased this before this fight, and I teased it again in my initial reaction.

Do you think UFC is going to wait and give Jon Jones the winner of Ngannou and Stipe? Is that the smartest marketing move? Or can you get a pay-per-view non-title main event about Jon Jones' heavyweight debut? And is Volkov potentially the perfect opponent for that? In some ways, dude, isn't he? You know, I'm not saying this is the fight I'm clamoring for. I'm not saying this is the fight that makes the most sense of all the possible ones that you could have out there. I'm not suggesting that to you.

But, dude, Volkov is tough. I mean, listen, he was sitting at six. Overeem was sitting at five. At a bare minimum, he's going to jump into that space. Then you have Francis, Curtis, Rosenstruck, Lewis, and probably now Volkov. Dude, Volkov, I'm not saying he will beat any of those guys, but would you really count him out in any of those fights? Like, I wouldn't. I would say he's competitive in any of those fights.

And to that point, you add in Jon Jones. Dude, here is a guy in Volkov, for all his strengths and for all his limitations, a true heavyweight like Jon. Has effective use of reach when he wants it. Less so with the hands, more with the feet. But still, he's pretty good about it. Not the athlete that I think Jon is, so that'll be interesting to see, but what better test case for a guy who is bigger than John, in many ways longer, I don't know if his reach is, but certainly his legs might be, to make really a good first attempt for John at heavyweight. And here's the deal, BC,

and I think you would agree with this. Let me explain something to you. If you can't beat Alexander Volkov, and I'm not saying it's easy, but just let's be clear about this. You're not going to beat anyone else in the top five. I mean, yes, styles make fights. I get the idea, but you know, this is a guy who is a top five material capable of being competitive in the top five. If you can't beat that, you know, you got big problems ahead. Yeah, you're damn right. You do Luke. I mean, this is, this is where this man, Alexander Volkov, is at. And I'm fired up. I'm fired up to add his name to that list that we mentioned of guys that you can say he's got a legitimate chance at being champion, you know?

And certainly in the heavyweight division, that's always multiplied and echoed by the idea that one punch can solve everything. But this guy's more technical than most in this division. And I think now that he's got the full sort of understanding of his strengths and weaknesses and that confidence level, Luke, we see this all the time. Guys get a certain level of success. Sometimes they're holding themselves back, but once they lock into that confidence and realize I can do this, I'm a player, all bets are off. You know what I mean? To some degree, Luke, that's happening to your career since I've been infused into it. We can accomplish anything together, Luke. Sort of, yes.

Certainly there's something to be said for that. But just lastly, Debra, see, one question before we move on to topic number two. Let's say they don't introduce Jones, right? So let's say Jones, for whatever reason, not in the picture, they want to get Volkov back out there. You got Volkov, Lewis, Rosenstruck, Blades, and then Francis. Do you run back the Lewis fight, or Blades and then and then Francis do you do you run back the Lewis fight or do you match him up with somebody else I think they would be not the

smartest to run them into blades that I mentioned earlier because they fought so recently I mean who does Derek Lewis have a fight schedule I feel like he does I thought he did and then maybe COVID happened or something I'm not entirely certain I mean that's the perfect fight in a lot of ways that's the perfect fight for him to redeem you know a strong performance that he didn't end up getting to uh celebrate because of that bomb that DL ended oh he's supposed to fight Curtis Blades Saturday February 20th in the main event that's on the books that's happening yeah all right well let's take him out of there Luke okay uh do you like him against a I don't know what we'll see I mean who's got who's coming off a win Rosenstruck's coming is Jair

Zeno coming off a win let's see that's a good question I believe he's fighting Cyril gone February 27th so you're gonna get some clarification after that yeah yeah I mean you could easily see the winner of that one against volkoff positioning and getting in line right behind basically Jon Jones to see who's got the next title opportunity after Ngannou takes it. That's going to be a fun month for the heavyweight division. This week and then the next, well not the next two, but certainly after UFC 258. You're going to have some real clarification about where that division is headed. Alright, let's move on to topic number two, but we're going to stay inside the heavyweight division. BC, you know, Alistair Overeem has been very clear. He's looking for one more opportunity to really make sense. He wants to be a UFC title holder, and he knows his days are numbered.

He knows his time in the sport is almost done, but he wants to see if he can make one more run at it. Here he is, and he loses to Volkov via stoppage. Now, we're heaping all this praise on Volkov, so certainly losing to him is not indicative of him being a terrible fighter or something far from it, but you've lost now to these guys who the Blades is. You lost to Rosenstruck, although he was winning that fight, and now you've lost to Volkov. It just seems like every time you're in that top five territory, you're running into problems. Question for you first. Should he retire?

It's hard, Luke. It's hard. I mean, like, you know, for safety and health purposes, he's 40 years old. He's been through a million wars. It could be a perfect time to walk away. I just feel, Luke, that even though for everything you just mentioned, when he does step up to that super elite level, and I think, look, again, this could be Volkov's way of proving that he's potentially in that super elite level, Overeem gets stopped. And the thing about, though, the heavyweight division is, Luke, you know, it's always a narrow path to the top.

The division's as loaded right now in terms of depth as we remember it in a while. Seriously. division's ass loaded right now as we in terms of depth as we remember it in a while seriously so it's hard to tell Overeem who still can do so many great things even though he just got surgically dismantled I mean he got his ass kicked straight up Volkov kicked Overeem's ass but I don't even know if I could go that level and go yeah yeah now now it's the time like it's my decision like I like my you know opinion matters I still think, Luke, he can come back and beat pretty much all of these guys that are on the level just below a Volkov and maybe work his way back into another sort of opportunity where if he wins that fight, he's suddenly a quasi-title contender again.

This division, you just never know. Things change so quickly with one punch. And also, when you are a name of oveream's level you get into that territory luke where the best thing you can do is stay in shape clear your schedule and sit near that phone because things happen and they call in people like oveream to save main events you could stumble into a title shot that way uh fairly quickly just on name value alone i don't think he has turned that washed corner where he's a problem for himself in there. I think a better fighter just walked him down,

fought through whatever game plans he had, and stopped him. If Overeem still believes that this last run could endure more than one defeat and that there's still a window, maybe one more year, I got nothing against him keeping on. Look, there's still a lot maybe one more year i got nothing against him keep you know keeping on luke there's still a lot of top guys that he can beat yeah it is a tough one it's like one of those stoppages in a fight where the guy has taken an enormous amount of abuse kind of like the caterer and holloway fight but he's still kind of active you know and he's still kind of throwing and he's still you know he's still making an account of himself. I mean, the analogy doesn't work in every way, but here's the point. He is losing to

only really top five guys, in many cases just top three. There's been a couple of examples maybe to the contrary, but in general, you know, this is who the more recent iteration of him has had trouble against. So on the one hand, you look at that and say, well, there might be a ceiling about what his current abilities are. On the other hand, you know, he's say, well, there might be a ceiling about what his current abilities are. On the other hand, he's not losing to chumps. He's not losing to guys that are not great. He's not unranked and then fighting tooth and nail with another unranked guy. This is the very best. He's obviously still very much a competitive top 10 fighter in the heavyweight division. So for those reasons, you're like, well,

does he need to retire because he can no longer do this at a high level? No, that is not true. He can still very much do this at a high level. And ultimately, it is of course his call, it's not ours. But the thing I do worry about a little bit, and everyone's different and brain science is evolving and, you know, and this argument even is not going to be very persuasive, you see, because if you're going to make the one I'm about to make, you probably could have made it a long time ago. But dude, Alistair Overeem has taken a metric ton of abuse. I mean, an extraordinary amount.

All the way dating back to his light heavyweight days in Holland and then in Pride through kickboxing. I mean, we are talking about just... God only knows with the gym wars. We are talking about a substantial, several times getting the lights put out. And I do worry about that. I really, really worry about that.

I worry about a guy who is this... I mean, this is almost the problem of Overeem. Like, we both agree, he is still competitive. What do you do with a guy who is very competitive, maybe not with the elite of the elite, but top 10, and then also has had

just an outrageous amount of damage? You know, what are you supposed to tell a guy like that? I don't know what the answer is. To me, it seems like we just don't have enough brain health through freefight screenings to make a determined call here. And he's not showing any issues of the damage.

So, Luke, I think those initial losses he took in the UFC, as I mentioned in last week's show, you know, the Travis Brown one, the Bigfoot Silva one, they were sort of arrogant losses, let his hands down, let the chin out there, got caught. Ever since that loss to Stipe, yeah, he's gotten stopped by the super elite, the top three or five guys that you mentioned when he fights them. But he's so competitive in these fights. His game is still evolving and he's taking damage during the fights. It's not like it was Liddell level where every time he gets touched, he's getting stopped. He's fighting through damage in a lot of these fights. So I just wonder, Luke, look, I mean, look, for

his absolute long-term health and safety, you're 40, you've accomplished almost everything but a UFC title. You're a legend. You're a hall of famer. Should he walk away now and, and, and, you know, keep the house, keep the money he's got left and all, you know, keep all yes. But when you're not showing, uh, obvious signs that you're done, there are some Keith Richards in this world, Luke. You know, the guitarist from the Rolling Stones, the guy who probably did more drugs than everybody combined and probably still doing them now. It looks fantastic, Luke. There are just, I mean, we are all built differently. There are just, you know, it's hard. Like, I look at a Shogun Hua, okay? It was hard watching him. Dude, that guy is going to have, and let's just be clear about it,

that dude is going to have severe issues later in life. Well, that's what I'm about to say. It was hard watching him win fights the last few years, right? He had a record of what? Like five and one going into his last loss. And you're like, but he took incredible damage in all those fights to eke out. I mean, he's just a punching bag in some degree, although still had some leftover experience and guile and toughness and all those fights to eke out the image, just a punching bag in some degree, although still had some leftover experience

and guile and toughness and all that. I think Overeem is in a much better place in terms of his competitive level in these fights. He's an actual contender. So he may just end up being one of these guys, Luke, who just doesn't show the damage. Doesn't mean it's not there. Doesn't mean long-term he's not in for a wealth of issues down the road.

But we are all built a little bit differently, and it is hard for me. And I'm typically the guy coming on here when Tyron Woodley lost those lifeless fights in a row. I'm like, get out. Walk away now. Do it. You're not trying as hard as you used to. You're a danger to yourself. Overeem's not a danger to himself, Luke.

I mean, look, if I told you I could see the future and in the next two years a fighter fell out and Overeem ended up with a title shot, you would not be surprised, Luke. You wouldn't. I know you. No, certainly. Who could argue with you about his competitive ability? You're right. The argument is clear. He is a very competitive fighter. Let me just do this exercise with you real quick. I'm about to read you are his knockout or TKO stoppages. Obviously from a ref intervention or with an injury or something or a submission. These are just from punches, strikes in any case. This does not include any damage he took in wins, like the Walt Harris fight.

And so it doesn't include any damage he took in sparring. But I want you to go through this here for just a second. He has been TKO'd by Errol Paris. He has been KO'd by Glabe Feitosa. This is just kickboxing. He has been TKO'd by Badr Hari. Then you go over to MMA. All the way back, starting in the year 2000, he got KO'd by Bobby Hoffman. He got KO'd in 2003 by Chuck Liddell. He got TKO'd in 2005 by Shogun. Then he got TKO'd by Rogerio Nogueira. Then he got TKO'd by Arona. TKO'd again by Mauricio. Excuse me, KO'd again by Mauricio. Then he got KO'd again by Sergei Haritonov, won on a crazy winning streak. Got KO'd by Bigfoot Silva. KO'd by Travis Brown. TKO'd by Ben Rothwell. KO'd by Stipe Miocic, KO'd by Francis,

TKO'd with elbows to Curtis Blades. He had the loss to Rosenstruck, which wasn't his worst one ever. And then he had the TKO loss to Volkov. Dude, I'm sorry. It is perfectly rational for someone to look at this and say, dude, that is a, I mean, I don't know if I've ever seen a resume with that kind of damage over that amount of time and someone still be that good. He is the Ironman of all Ironmen at the elite level, but that is a worrying BC, a worrying amount of damage. Yeah, you're damn right. But again, when you don't show the results of it, some guys would have had two of those devastating knockouts, Luke, and never been the same. We've seen it, right? I mean, good God, the knockout loss to Ngannou alone, Luke, should have just crushed him mentally where he wouldn't even be able to get back in

there and figure out how to have the confidence to fight like that again. Yet here he is again. He may be a special figure, a special case in that regard. Doesn't mean there's not going to be end-all problems, but we make, unfortunately, short-term decisions all the time in the fight game and not thinking about the long-term reason. I think that's how you sign up to be a fighter in the first case, Luke. You're thinking short-term. You're thinking prize. You're thinking championship.

You're thinking money, fame, and all that. That's the game we're in. So it's hard to say because you've had this you can't fight anymore. The guy's probably the fifth best heavyweight in the world right now. I'm not saying, I don't know if a commission is in a place to tell him no. The question we asked and what we're debating is should he retire?

I'm just saying if you are reflecting upon your own future of life, you have some serious questions to ask yourself when you have that much of a resume of damage. That's all. Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair, Luke. All right, let's talk about the winning side of things for some of our younger fighters. Wow, BC. What do you want to say about Corey Sanhagen? I mean, that was amazing. In less than 30 seconds, steers him into the direction he wanted him to go, and then completely iced him with a knee. Walk-off, no additional shots necessary.

Frankie Edgar doesn't get iced. Even the Ortega fight was not like this. There are some meaningful differences between them. Corey Sanhagen did to Frankie Edgar what doesn't happen to Frankie Edgar. What can you say about Corey Sanhagen and what this does for his stock and now his overall reputation in this division? After he did almost the same thing to Marlon Rice, we were like, he's a legitimate problem for anybody in this absolutely loaded 135-pound division.

Now that he does it again, and to your point, a guy that it doesn't happen to, he's beyond that. I mean, it's his time to figure out how great he can be. And, you know, I tweeted that, and some people were like, dude, what about the Aljo fight? What, did he just forget that ever happened? No, he needed it. He needed that Aljo loss, Luke.

He needed to go out there in a number one contender fight between two prime guys and lay a fat egg, get submitted early, get completely dominated, get completely dominated and really just humbled. And it unlocked something that is becoming really special. He has so many ways to win a fight. You can tell IQ wise, he's just a half step ahead of his opponents. Luke, I want to read you the quotes he had afterwards. UFC sends them out to media members. Typically these quotes are, you know, not filled with much substance. But check this out.

Quote, I know how to put myself in a place for war. Before, it was about being artistic. Go be technical, beautiful, and make fighting look cool. But it's not that anymore. It's hurt the person in a really smart way and make sure I'm going home safe. I'm not an arrogant guy. But if there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I can adapt. I can change my mind. Whatever I need to do in order to survive, I'll do it. I take that with me everywhere in life. In this sport, I need to be nasty.

I wasn't that before. Now I am, and now I'm knocking people out, end quote. Luke, you can hear it in those words. He flipped that switch, right? Some people think I'm a little bit too artsy in this show. I'm a little bit too artistic. Hey, BC, it's fun and games, right? Wear the funny t-shirts and act like an a-hole and drop 90s lyrics and give us jokes. But what we really want at the end of the day is you punch us in the eyes with some good ass analysis and passion and feeling. That's what Sanhagen realized, Luke. You can be that cutesy guy who can, you know, have the crazy movement and submit you from crazy angles and all that. Or you can figure out the most efficient way to get your opponents out of there. The fact that Sanhagen seems to have done

that makes him a freaking scary ass out for anyone from Sterling to Jan to Dillashaw to whoever else comes in front of him because Luke we don't know how great he can be some of these other guys we got a pretty good feeling right we may not have seen the best of Peyotre Jan yet who looks like a complete killer but I feel like we know how great he can be somebody like Sanhagen because he's a little bit abstract can do some different things when you add a a killer instinct to that and a focus on finishing people, dude, I don't know. This guy could be your champion for a long time. He's starting to look like that type of guy. Yeah, I mean, here was the one thing we talked about on Friday, BC.

This will hinge on whether, you know, on Friday's show we said the fight will hinge on whether or not Edgar can either establish a takedown or a reasonable takedown threat. Didn't really get an opportunity to witness that. So to me, it's like, I want to be very clear here, since the Aljo fight, he has not faced anyone who could put the pressure on him like Aljo in terms of, you know, a significant takedown threat in the sense that maybe Edgar could get kind of close-ish or something, but he didn't get the chance. But here's my point. You haven't seen him audited in that sense yet. You have not seen him reexamined, like that 30% takedown defense rate.

Where is it truly? Where does it lie? Okay? So there's still a bit of a mystery there. But to your point, BC, I am not so much worried about what the answer will be for Mr. Sanhagen. I think that this is an incredibly, incredibly special fighter. This is a guy who is levels ahead of his competition, certainly on the feet, understanding all the mechanics of how he needs to move, what people's tendencies will be.

You're talking next level fight IQ. I'm told, by the way, by folks who train with him and know him well, he doesn't, no booze, no, you know, he's not there womanizing. I mean, this guy lives a, you know, monastic existence, all focused around this. And then you add in what you brought up, you see, which I thought was a great point. Which was before, you know, it was a little artsy-fartsy the way he was fighting. I'm going to stance switch. I'm going to beat you this way. I'm going to dazzle you that way.

Okay, that's fine for a certain time. But Aljamain Sterling doesn't have time for none of that. And there's going to be other guys who don't have time for that. You can't fight them that way. It won't work. But if you can draw in a certain degree of sadism, quite frankly, and then apply all of that brain power and all of that art in a sadistic, strategic direction, dude, you are seeing the results of that. No one, even in his advanced age, no one has done that to

Frankie. Brian Ortega got pretty close, but even that wasn't the same. This was utterly shocking. And dude, I hope Frankie Edgar, we'll talk about him in just a second, I hope he's okay. That was, when someone makes you reimagine what is possible, not merely by virtue of them showing more of themselves, but then doing it against a known competitor, that is something special. I think this guy will eventually wear a belt around his waist. I'm not saying Aljamain won't. We'll have to see. But I think at some point in his existence in this bantamweight division, that guy's going to be a champion, and it should not be surprising to anybody when he does.

And I think to win this impressively at the division where it stands right now look the next i mean you know then we've said this about lightweight the last few years we're starting to say this about bantamweight now the next few years are going to be some killer fights when jan sterling san hagen dilla shaw maybe a returning henry suhudo all kind of round robin each other i well you know we can end up with three sterling uh Sanhagen fights I'm not sure if this is going to be a a hot potato belt like the great light heavyweight division of the you know Rashad Evans era of passing it one to another until John Jones came around I'm not sure if one of these guys are the John Jones of this group but I echo what you're saying I feel like Sanhagen's going to wear it eventually. If that might be sooner, maybe a little bit later,

but damn, Luke. I mean, look, this is so eye-opening that I wonder if you sit home at night and go, maybe BC should follow this. Where could morning combat be if BC ditched the art a little bit and went focused more on killing the competition, on crushing them, on saying,

nobody does what we do here at MK. I don't, you think I care that you're on saying nobody does what we do here at MK. I don't, you think I care that you're Canadian? Nobody does what we do here, all right? We will stomp you. We will stomp your show, okay? Luke, this is a wake-up call for me too, okay? The Sandman, right? All right, all right, BC, we're not too far apart in this ideal, Luke. This year's going to be massive for morning combat, okay? It may have taken Frankie Edgar's soul to get there, but, Luke, I'm ready. I'm ready, brother. All right?

Serious analysis works on this show, BC. It's why dissected is the most popular thing we've ever done. Right? Just consider that for a reason. Too bad it's dead, Luke. Yeah. Too bad it's dead, Luke. It's been aborted.

It has been. Late-term abortion. It has been killed off. Okay, but to the point, you know, I don't even care what's next. If he ends up fighting Jan, that'll be an incredible fight. If he ends up getting the rematch against Sterling, you know, that'll be the great test to see, did he learn the lesson, not merely mentally, BC, but has he worked on any of his skills as well to make sure that that kind of thing doesn't happen again.

Remember, he still does have, at least on the books, a 30% takedown defensive rate. So that will need to be something that's addressed down the line. Now, what do they do? Well, before you get to Frankie Edgar real quick, what are we going to do with Dillashaw? Because you already have Sanhagen, I think, making the right call publicly and being like, that's just not fair if Dillashaw cuts me in line and takes the winner of Jan Sterling. What do you think is going to happen? What is fair in this case? Because this is a unique situation with Dillashaw. Yeah.

I think, I mean, to me, this guy's the number one contender, that being Corey Sanhagen, right? No doubt about it. To me, and I think we talked about this on the show, T.J. Dillashaw versus Jose Aldo, to me, is just perfect. Because Aldo, like Overeem, a little bit longer in the tooth, not as old as Overeem, but relatively speaking, sort of an elder statesman of his, in the twilight-ish of his career, let's put it that way. But still, very much competitive. And maybe not the best, though, right? Because I don't think you could argue he's the best bantamweight. But he's a very, very, very good bantamweight. Let's see where T.J. Dillashaw is, because Aldo would be a fantastic

test. Great takedown defense, very different styles. You're going to have a mover and a shaker and a shimmier in somebody like T.J. Dillashaw. You're going to get a little bit more flat-footed, hard leg kicking, punching, very athletic still, very quick, and Muay Thai-ish kind of Jose Aldo. And it's a great test. It's the same kind of thing. If you can beat Aldo, you are right back in the thick of things. If you can't, you've got some adjustments to do.

Cody Garbrandt's still on ice, at least for the time being. I love that fight, BC. Do you have a better idea? I don't feel like Dillashaw should come back and fight for the title. I mean, the Sanhagen fight would be incredible, but I think I like the idea more of freshening TJ up with an older name. I mean, even if it was a Dominic Cruz rematch, I know Cruz got a fight coming up against Casey Kenney, but I like going that route more.

I think Sanhagen has locked up the next in line. It's all going to depend on how short it takes to get to that, meaning is there going to be a clear ending to Jan and Sterling? And if so, let's do the Sanhagen fight next, Luke. They're on almost the same time schedule, all right? Let's do it. Yeah, I agree, totally. All right, so that does take us now to Frankie Edgar.

This is a similar kind of conversation about Alistair. You have a guy, Alistair, I think 40-41. You have Frankie Edgar, I think 39. So not too far apart in age. You have a case here where he is going to another third division. Overeem has kind of been a heavyweight for a while, but you get the idea. The guy who fought originally a light heavyweight.

So there's been a weight class change there. Now he did beat Pedro Munoz and he was very competitive. Even if you think Munoz won, you would think that that was still a very, very close fight. I think I did score for Munoz, but I can't complain. So okay, competitive against a top five-ish kind of guy. And then he goes out there and he suffers this loss, which is he's never suffered a loss like this before again Ortega one was pretty close but not this bad should he retire BC what what do you make of the state of Frankie Edgar I don't I don't think he should have to retire if he doesn't want to but I think it's time to keep a very very

close eye obviously he's fighting as tough a competition as you could throughout his whole career and specifically right now in this window of trying to make things work at Bantamweight. I think it's, I mean, I think this was clear, Luke, that it's over for the idea of him fighting for a title, but he still has a name, and he's still so damn good that if you wanted, you know, if you're Frankie Edgar, and you still want to be, you know, a name and a main event player, This division is so overloaded with all kinds of different names. I mean, look, I'd love to see him against Dom Cruz. I'd love to see a third fight with Jose Aldo at Bantamweight. Really?

I'd love to see him. What on earth is the appeal of a third Jose Aldo fight? Okay, I wouldn't put it as my first one, but if we're six months from now and they're both coming off losses and that's just sort of a fun-ass fight night main event, that's what I'm talking about. If he wants to play out the string of the combination of his name and the fact that he still is really damn good, that's fine. But I think I may be, or no, I know I am. I'm done seeing him against the super elite where you're chasing a title shot, Luke. There's still some left in the tank. It's obvious. If he had another knockout loss, even close to this, you'd say, okay, that's it.

We had a great run. It's it. But I think there is a small window. If match makes carefully where we can still celebrate the legend, he could still make money and be a headliner. And we can make some fun fights because not only does this division have that unbelievable what, you know, depth at the top of it, the depth the rest of the way with a lot of these names is still pretty damn fun too.

So, I mean, look, would you hate Frankie Edgar against Cody Garbrandt? I'm not sure. You know, it's the same with Overeem. It's like, in Overeem, if Timmy was beating Rosenstreich, and Rosenstreich is sitting at three, so you could make a claim that he could be somewhere still in that top three space. You cannot make that claim for Edgar because you would imagine that he would not be able to get it done against Aljo. And if Aldo couldn't get it done against Peter Jan, it's hard to know exactly what Edgar would offer in that particular circumstance.

So to me, he's outside that top three. That doesn't even include Dillashaw or Garbrandt there in that space, right? So he might be even outside top five, depending on how you shake things out. But to me, it's like, what is this in service of? To me, Overeem saying, I want to give it one more go and go back to the gym. You lost to Volkov. You've had a style where you've been knocked down and you've been coming back for a long time. In some ways, you didn't see anything new, positive.

You didn't learn anything about Overeem in the Volkov fight that you didn't kind of already know a little bit. Maybe you were uncertain about his level. Could he beat Volkov? Could he not? But in terms of how he reacted and how he fought, that's kind of the Overeem you've been getting for a little bit, for better or for worse. Edgar is now breaching new territory. I mean, that's sort of the problem here. This was a guy who stood up to the punches of Gray Maynard,

and maybe that Frankie, if he was fighting this fresh, wouldn't have been knocked out by this shot. I don't know. But you have to wonder about that, and then all of the additional damage, and how it's gotten a little bit closer than Ortega put him in a way that no one had. And now it's even worse. I mean, get completely iced inside of 30 seconds by this guy who's got this, I mean, totally modern approach to striking that, you know, Edgar has been competitive for so long, BC, because he had a style that was kind of future-proof. You know, he had a way in which he could operate that would set him up for longevity. And that still isn't enough to tangle with somebody like Corey Sandhagen.

So the question that really, I think, anyone who cares about Edgar, and there's a lot of people I'm sure that do, is what is this in service of? Why would you take damage like this unless you were in service of something that kind of made it understandable? If the idea is bantamweight title shot, this is not defensible because it's not going to happen. It's not. It's just not going to happen. And if you try to get closer, you may take really serious damage. Yeah, you begin the retirement plan now.

Let me finish this real quickly. I'll turn it back. That was a very bad knockout. So if you can do the Rich Franklin thing where you just want to be in competitive big fights, I think that's a different conversation. If you're chasing something that is unattainable for this kind of damage, a recalibration is in order. Yeah, no, you're right. The title chasing is done. I mean, let's not forget the first round stoppage loss against Korean Zombie 2, which the picture just showed. We're done on that regard. You begin the retirement plan, which is exactly what you said, the Rich Franklin plan. He can float across three divisions really right now, Frankie Edgar can.

So let's make smart, fun, old guy fights that don't put him in position to take a lot of damage. But if he does take damage again, that's it. Like, you know, you've been here. We love you. Like, there's no reason to go on anymore. Let's do it. The dude is going to be in the Hall of Fame. He was a UFC champion. I know he's looking for another belt

and I know he has been for a long time and he has worked harder than maybe just about anybody. Nobody dislikes Frankie Edgar. Nobody thinks he's a bad guy. You've just never heard a bad word about him and I don't want to say one and we never will. We owe much of our fandom to

this guy, but what I don't want to see is that happen again for a goal of Icarus flying too close to the sun. I don't think we can stomach that. I don't want to see this happen to a cherished figure. I don't want to see it happen to any of these fighters, really, but especially somebody who has done this much for the sport and has already been this accomplished you know he's not some scrub this guy has done as I mentioned hall of fame worthy things uh it was hard to watch dude didn't you feel like a sense of dread watching him fall like a mannequin it did something felt off about it it felt not that I was mad at Corey Sanhagen but it felt troubling well I mean Corey Sanhagen, but it felt troubling. Well, I mean, Corey Sanhagen, to his credit, really didn't celebrate it at all and said,

you know, yeah, better him than me, but that was really hard to watch. Obviously, he has as much respect for Frankie as we do, if not more, being a fighter himself. So because of Sanhagen's sort of next level-ness, it's hard to pinpoint this on Frankie's now got a bad chin. He's a detriment to himself that's where i think he gets the pass for like let's change lanes let's let's let's set an end date but you know i'm not going to tell him to stop now if he wants to uh go out on his own terms i mean luke that does seem to matter if you've got something left in the tank and you found your ceiling i feel like you should be allowed to go out on your

own terms yeah i i don't think that's i think that's right it's what i just don't want to hear is you know i'm still chasing that title it's like no you're not they're gonna match you up with hammers yeah and yeah i'm not saying by the way i'm not saying frankie has a bad chin dude that shot would have laid out just about anybody in that weight class vicious that was a vicious shot and he didn't see it coming and the way it was set up and it was I mean he got super vertical with it like you know everything was crazy about it but you know you do have to wonder is the guy who withstood everything from Gray Maynard um you know is that level of sturdiness still around I I questioned that and I don't think that's crazy to do he's did a ton of abuse over the years

eventually do that Bill comes do for everybody, including legends that we revere and adore and who are facilitators of our own fandom. The Bill comes fucking do. Same for you and your diet, Luke, right? It's a wake-up call. Certainly true. Certainly true.

All right, BC. That takes us, speaking of diets and Cumberland Farms and the hot dog end of things, let's get now to point number five. So the BKFC was over the weekend, knuckle mania, as we had a lot of fun talking about. And sure enough, did I not say on Friday, BC, is anyone going to be surprised if Paige Van Zandt loses? Like, is that going to somehow shock the world? Sure enough, she did. In fact, you know, you could somewhat, if you want to fudge it a little bit, you could argue that the Malinagi and Artem Lobov fight, you know, it was back and forth, close-ish kind of a thing. If you really wanted to say that, this was inarguable. I mean, what, did Paige win a round,

like the last one? That was really about it. Your thoughts. What went wrong for Paige? And how much damage does this do to her stock? BC. BC making it look easy. Did he forget we're doing a show? Where's BC, Gaff? There he is. BC, making it look easy.

Are you back, Brian? I'm back, Luke. You all got that McDonald's Wi-Fi around here. I'm back, Luke, okay? All right. Your thoughts on Paige Van Zandt. This was a disastrous debut. not disastrous, a knockout with a

giant car to stoppage would have been disastrous this was a fun ass fight let's give BKFC credit Luke we look at it for a reason as the last stop in a lot of ways in people's combat sports careers, Chris Lieben, one of them who we'll get to later in the show David Feldman, the president

did come on afterwards and say, you know, we leveled up this time. This was a great event. In a lot of ways, it was a great event for them. Look, it always is going to be sort of like the circus, the gas station hot dog. But it's pretty damn fun. And I think this main event delivered from the standpoint of competitiveness, action. So it's not a full-on disastrous loss for Paige had she been stopped or had she been inept or cut open her response in

that final round was actually pretty strong she figured out how to adjust to what this sport really is she landed heavy shots but i think rightfully she lost this fight five rounds two minutes per round uh she lost this fight four to one, if we're being honest here. So it's disastrous that they paid a ton of money for her, and this was the response. But I do have to tip the hat to BKFC. They had a good weekend. They put this up, you know, the same weekend as the Super Bowl and more or less the same location. A lot of celebrities ringside. Shaq, along with Coach LaTorre and Mike Perry.

I mean, Shaq's talking about investing in this. This was pretty good. I think they can survive this page loss, meaning the investment they put in because it was competitive, because you do have a storyline for a rematch. But most importantly, Luke, because we just found a combat sports hero in the great Britain heart. Luke, I never knew I needed this feeling so badly. I'm hooked on a feeling that is Britain heart. Can we just cut the analysis and the reaction? Gaff, in our...

You said this would be life-changing. Is this living up to it? This is amazing for you. Yes! Oh, my God, this is the ocean! It's as big as you make it. It's as big as you make it. This is it. This is it. I'm not a person. I love Paige Vance. She was an idol to me because she was a pretty girl that could break the limits. I'm not a person, though. I'm not. I'm a fucking feeling.

And all of you guys are going to feel it when you meet me. Luke. Luke. I'm fucking feeling it right now, Luke. All right, all right. I feel like we just... Listen, BC, don't fear me. Fear the consequences.

You understand? I feel like we just dropped edibles. We're like, are you feeling it? Am I feeling it? I'm feeling it, Britt. Luke, she won the weekend. The weekend did not win the weekend at the Super Bowl halftime show. I think Tom Brady and Britt Hart won the damn...

Britt the Hitman Hart here. No, seriously, that was a 10 out of 10 in both hilariousness and kind of disturbing, but she kind of won the weekend. BKFC developed a quasi new star, somebody who will be appearing on Morning Combat later today, oh, by the way. And I came out of this pay-per-view entertained. So shout out to them. The question I have that I want to kind of spin back on you, and look, we've been critical of Paige Van Zandt a lot. Can she bounce back from this? Before I get your take here, Van Zandt didn't talk afterwards,

skipped the post-fight press conference, didn't get interviewed in the ring, almost had a Rousey-ian reaction. In fact, Gaff, we've got one more bit of sound. Can we throw to that right now, please? Someone, you need to tell Malachi that Paige needs to come back from the hotel and do her obligations. Luke, she never came back from the fucking hotel she didn't do her obligations what she did

was post an instagram post on uh early monday talking about the loss saying that initially afterwards she went to her husband fell into her middleweight austin vanderford and said i quit you know i'm never gonna fight again she since walked that back and recalibrated but does her reaction to this loss and the loss itself trouble your belief of page's fighting future i have to tell you i'm not especially invested in it one way or the other um just to be clear about that so do i like how much does this damage it in a, how much she wants it to. In a sense. One of the lessons, and I thought after, and this is a very different scenario, but I thought after Kimbo lost to Seth Petruzzelli that there would be a bubble that was popped.

And when that bubble popped, I even wrote a column on Shurdog, which I now look back on not so favorably, but I thought that this would be the evidence that folks just didn't understand that this guy could not fight at a high level and they would move on. And what you begin to realize is that's really not what Kimbo's appeal was. Yes, just losing constantly would have been bad, but really people were attached to Kimbo. They were attached to his personality, to his story, and he couldn't fight at the highest level. And I think in the end, most of his fans knew that, but they just wanted to see a guy go out there and do his thing and you know get a W if he could against an opponent that made enough sense and then intrigued enough attention sort of like

playing the levels there a little bit you know I think I'm not saying Paige Van Zandt has sunk to a level where she is indistinguishable you know from sort of Kimbo Slice's level of fighting skill what I'm saying is if she won I, I said this at the time she left UFC, I thought she'd been much more sense signing with a Scott Coker who understands how to star build, who takes a bit of a boxing approach, you know, sometimes with people who need that kind of nurturing. She probably would have, you know, got in front of her skis at some point and lost. But are people who like Paige Van Zandt,

are they just going to abandon ship now because she lost this? No. However, if you don't learn the lesson from this, which is if you don't have a... I mean, I'm not saying that David Feldman did her dirty. I think David Feldman probably thought she could win. But if you're not dialed into what the task is and what your appeal is, all the ways you can manipulate that and buoy it over time,

you can erode that. And something like this can potentially erode that. So if I'm her and I'm her team, I'm rethinking what the fuck we're doing here. I would get with a promoter who could, again, what were her skills? She could, she was, you know, sort of two cats in a bag going crazy, right? And just, you need a sport that caters to that. You need an opponent who you can, at least to get right, beat that. You know, she can beat somebody who's in front of her and then begin to build her brand a little bit. I

think this was not in service of her brand or why people are interested in seeing her. They need to fix that. Yeah, but BKFC, it's weird. They really benefited, I feel, from this because it was a competitive loss, because you can build off of this. You can do a rematch. I was concerned when Paige didn't talk afterwards. I was concerned to hear on her own Instagram that she was embarrassed enough to want to quit fighting right there.

That don't sound too good, but, Luke, it could have been incredibly disastrous in other ways. Like we mentioned, knockout, getting really cut. Here's what's interesting, as you said about the matchmaking, I don't feel they did her dirty, but there's an element of BKFC for those that choose to do it, whether they're choosing it out of desperation, which is largely what we've seen from MMA guys who have nowhere else to go, right? We've seen Hector Lombard, Tiago Alves, we've seen some names in there that we know, but they kind of don't have anywhere else to go.

Is that I don't really, here's the thing about PKFC, Luke. I don't really love the action and the sport itself so much. Do I like some of the wild brutality and the blood? I don't hate it. I kind of love just the whole circus atmosphere around it. The quasi WWE type type interviews the characters that

we see and most importantly that if you choose to sign up and do this which page did it kind of levels the playing field because of the way the sport is you can't go full flush into power on all the shots you have to have you know boxers don't tend to make this transition because it's different than boxing it's a different kind of setup. You can dirty box a lot more. You can clinch. But I think even just the foundational aspects of how to score and win with this, it really can level the playing field for somebody like Britton Hart, who coming in kind of had no business, you know, winning this fight, has had a, you know, more or less a 500 record as a pro boxer had lost more than she'd won in bkfc yet the way this sport is it kind of levels it out between some of these

caveman bar brawling also rands and a legitimate fighting you know experienced expert coming in because the sport's kind of wacky enough where even though i don't really love it i kind of love it luke i think all in all, big win for BKFC, and I think you have the best sober analysis here. It could be a win for Paige if she pivots in the right direction. If she learns from this, gets better at the craft, you can have a rematch here with Bretton Hart. You can have a fight with Beck Rawlings.

There are a couple names you can build off of. Humbling just the same, though, Luke. This wasn't what they would have wanted. Also, you have to ask yourself why you lost. Was it smart to pivot to another fight? To your point, BKFC is different enough with its rule set that you're not going to go in there and necessarily, oh, I can just train boxing and I'll just go in there and win. It's not boxing. They start closer, the ring space is different, as you indicated the rules are different. This is an example, one of the things that, I don't know if this is true anymore, before a time I remember some of the coaches arguing that some of the ties coming over to glory

would have an issue because you can only clinch with one hand and you have to like, so after one shot and then let it go. They may have changed the rules since, but that was at the time you could clinch with one hand, land a shot and then you had to, like, so after one shot, and then let it go. They may have changed the rule since, but that was at the time. You could clinch with one hand, land a shot, and then you had to let go. You could not do two-handed clinches, and you couldn't hold it. And they were saying that that might have an impact on some of the ties who cross over. It's not the same. Because you can call it kickboxing. You can call that kickboxing.

They're two very different rule sets. There's rugby, and then there's rugby sevens. They're not the same. They're very, very different. So, to me, this is kind of what you're getting here. I think there's some MMA fighters of some decent ability, and Paige has shown some decent ability along the way, that are losing sight of how much the rule set and then experience in that rule set, even by a fighter who doesn't necessarily impress you, can really make a difference in the end. They did not appear ready for that. She seemed to

adjust over time, so maybe a rematch might be in order. But you lose that, that's kind of disastrous too. Again, it's not like the brand goes away overnight. But you've got to ask yourself, if you're in this camp, what do we do to get right? How do we get right? Let's figure this out. Let's get on the winning side of things. And then let's pick a direction about how we can continue that to the extent

possible. Some losses are inevitable along the way. But just going out there and saying it doesn't matter if you lose one or two, no, even several. But that's not the thing that over time buoys the brand even if passions for celebrated figures like this, they die hard. You know, it takes a lot to make them go away, but they can, you can lose a lot by not being careful enough. And I don't think that she was careful enough. No. In closing, Luke, you know, a lot of people got moved by what Bretton Hart did, you know, because it was half inspirational.

It was half, it was half ridiculous. It was half troubling in a lot of ways. I see Ariel's wearing out her catchphrase already and trying to ruin it for us. It was half ridiculous. It was half troubling in a lot of ways. I see Ariel's wearing out her catchphrase already and trying to ruin it for us. But were you, do you like her? I mean, she's a, I feel like she's everybody I went to high school with. Maybe that's why I identified quickly there with her. But, you know, sort of like an ex-waitress who kind of is tough and went through some trouble in her life and kind of figured it out.

Here's my deal. When somebody has a chance to have their moment, no matter what the situation is, and went through some trouble in her life and kind of figured it out. Here's my deal. When somebody has a chance to have their moment, no matter what the situation is, and they go in there and they hit a fricking home run, which she did in winning this fight and then nailing that interview. It's hard for me not to sort of get on the underdog train and feel good for them. Did you and your highly education,

cultural elitist, asshole sense? Have any room in your black heart for this woman? I'll wait until he's done talking. Yeah, I think we lost him again. He asked me about Britton Hart. Here's what I'll say about Britton Hart. You know, I wasn't super invested in this fight and BKFC this time around.

I'm not super into BKFC generally. I had some concerns about the damage it did to faces because of that one fight, in particular the Lobov and was it Jason fight talking about how hard Paige Van Zandt hit. And she was saying that she hit harder than some of the men in her life that had abused her hit. You know, you can just tell this woman's had a hard life, man. She had a hard life. So it's nice to see somebody who has, you know, wasn't born with a silver spoon in their mouth. And never had a hand up for the most part finally get a real triumphant moment that frankly probably nobody but her and her team had expected.

So in that sense, absolutely. I'm not necessarily invested in the future per se, but for somebody who's been an underdog their whole life, a big W is a nice thing for them. Yeah. You there, BC? All right. Well, BC's got a potato he's tried to plug in.

Can we just get him to get on Zoom on his fucking phone? Because now we're supposed to do the questions, and I'm waiting on this idiot to fix his tech shit. And all I can see is a frozen screen of his stupid face. Let's just start this off, Gaff, if we can. And let's go to DMs from Donks. So if he joins us. BC, can you connect on your phone so this doesn't keep happening? Or what are we doing here?

Luke, I'm back, okay? Let's just keep the show going, okay? All right, if this happens again, please get on your phone because this is highly annoying. All right, time for DMs from Donks. Let's just keep the show going. If this happens again, please get on your phone because this is highly annoying. Time for DMs from dogs. Let's do it. I'm not sure if I got sent the questions. Why don't you just put them on the screen, Gaff? Did you?

Yeah. We'll do them live, Luke. First question there, BC. From Kansas underscore Kokomo. Did you? Yeah. Oh, he did. Yes, he did. We'll do a live, Luke. You don't check your email anyway. First question there, BC. All right. From Kansas underscore Kokomo. Any thoughts on DC and Cruz talking about how three-round fights are typically more exhausting than five rounds because of the urgent pace? BC, that's you. And his shit froze again. Can he please call back on his phone?

I am begging you for him to not get on that potato. I am begging. I am begging. BC, can you please call in on your phone? Call in on your phone, dude. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare. Please, I'm begging you.

Don't get on again on your fucking computer. It's not going to work, thank you Appreciate that While he does that, I'm going to answer this question here I don't know what to make of that actually I can imagine certain scenarios that's the case Where you have to kind of Play the hurry up game But this is a better question that only fighters can really answer

I've seen some examples Where fights at three rounds were fought, you know, there's less room for margin of error, and you could tell that strategies were adopted to accommodate that. Sometimes more aggressive, and sometimes more boring. Like, for example, the DC versus Silva fight, where Silva, and that's partly Silva's fault, because he was holding lockdown the entire time from underneath and from guard. And he didn't really do anything with the underhook. So in that sense, it slowed the fight down.

The reason why I'm not skeptical of it because they're talking about just the pace at the end of three rounds being exhausting. But guys seem to get much more injured after five. Obviously, that makes sense. There's ten more minutes. And the level of cardio prep appears to be different as well like your level of difficulty in camp and being able to go that extra 10 minutes certainly is higher so that could be part of it right like they go through so much intensive training to do five rounds that they kind of you know maybe over prepare versus for three rounds they're in shape but it might feel worse by

virtue of you know having a lesser kind of a prep all right Brian are we back yeah I'm here Luke I mean can you hear me yes Jesus Lord I mean you have to get all pissy about it exactly I'm not mad to act like... I'm not mad at you, but it's like, dude, how many times does your signal need to crap out before you realize continuing to use that device is probably not a good idea? Anyway, question for you, BC. Thoughts on DC and Cruz talking about how three-round fights

are more exhausting typically than five rounds because of urgent pace. That's interesting. I never would have guessed that, Luke. All right? That's a great answer. All right, glad you're here. Question number two from at Dodo Bard.

BC, what's the difference between boxing and bare-knuckle boxing? Paulie lost to Artem. PVZ lost to Britton. It would seem the former are better strikers, but they lost. So what happened? Oh, boy. strikers but they lost so what happened oh boy do you hear me yeah I created an echo hold on that's fun this is great it's just great hold on I still hear you just answer the question all right Luke okay I'm trying to make this work all right what's the difference here I will trying to make this work. All right. What's the

difference here? Well, look, in boxing, you can go full power a lot more. In BKFC, if you, look, you use a jab a lot in BKFC, but if you look to really land your shots flush, you're going to break your hand pretty quickly. Okay. So it's a little bit more about angles and setting up for the right shot that can hurt somebody and potentially knock them out. It's also a lot more physical in BKFC. You can clinch, you can headlock, you can do a lot of that crazy stuff that in boxing would quickly be broken up. So it's not, you know, there's not as much need for footwork in the same way.

Although, look, I thought Britt and Paige largely had a boxing match though. You know what I mean? This wasn't necessarily a BKFC type of, you know, scroungy brawl. They largely had a boxing match and Paige figured out in the third round how to step in and use her hooks and really land powerfully. I just think it took her a while to adjust to that. She's also, let's wake up, not a pro boxer, right? So even though Britton Hart didn't have the best record jumping out at you in terms of people she beat or even really a winning record uh she had more experience in that regard where page is is coming from an mma background so there are certain there's certainly differences i think that's the whole level the playing field thing is you know you may have certain strengths and in uh in boxing that that don't come into play the same way in bkfc it's look it's it's luke it's the damn carnival at the end of the day. It's turning out to be an entertaining one, though.

They have characters, Luke. They have freaking characters there. Yeah, I mean, BKFC is designed for maximum action. Two-minute rounds. You start close together instead of far apart. The place is enclosed. You can grip the back of the neck. You know, it just is designed for maximum foot on the gas, go type of action.

Whereas pure boxing, with three minute rounds, 12 rounds, A, you're going to get a better class of athlete generally, but more to the point, the gloves can be really blocked and used in certain ways. It's just harder to hit someone. People don't understand this.

In real boxing, if you ever sparred with a real boxer, a real professional, they're hard to hit someone. People don't understand this. In real boxing, if you ever sparred with a real boxer, a real professional, they're hard to hit. They're actually legitimately hard to hit because there's so much space in the ring. They have such good footwork. The gloves can block a lot. There's just a lot that's different. And this will go on and on and on if you don't put them away and you can not get put away yourself. BKFC, you're pushed together and you're just designed to go. I'm not saying there's no strategy. There's no footwork.

I'm not making that argument. We've seen that be there. But relative to normal boxing, it is go, go, go, go, go. It's like boxing with the intensity of college wrestling. Two-minute rounds and then three-minute round. You know, like just fucking pump out as much as you possibly can and that's the end of college wrestling. Two-minute rounds and then three-minute round, you know, like just fucking pump out as much as you possibly can, and that's the end of it.

And damage is scored, you know, far heavier. Like if you look at that Paulie Malignaggi-Ardam-Lobov fight, I thought Malignaggi easily beat him in terms of outboxing him, but, you know, he got cut up a lot, and the judges really favored that and scored that for Lobov. So, you know, it's set up, as you said,

to be a phone booth brawl. So your boxing skills don't come as much into play but even within that bar you know phone booth brawl you can only you can only throw so much before these hands get marked up so there's a there's a strategy there's a different sort of footwork in in the way you set up your angles too luke it's it's it's it's it's uh it's it's a it's mayhem, Luke. It's freaking mayhem. It certainly is. All right. From, let's see, who is this from? From St. John Kevin. Is Tom Brady the GOAT, BC? Yeah, by far. By far. And I'd always clung to, I'm a pretty good NFL historian, I'd always clung to Jim Brown just being walked away at the peak of his powers, just put up stupid numbers for a guy who largely played in 12 and 14 game seasons, just the greatest of all time. You know, there's always been arguments for

Joe Montana, you know, Jerry Rice, even Lawrence Taylor to some smaller degree. Just, dude, he's got more Super Bowl rings than any other franchise. And to be able to do that and get four of them between the ages of 36 and 43, I mean, he's 43 years old, Luke. I know the rule changes have allowed for quarterback longevity. It's undeniable. Look at the increase in passing yards in recent years and touchdowns. I mean, the game is set up so that the stars can be around longer, right? You kill ratings

when these guys get knocked out early in the season, but he has fit into that perfectly. And it's more schoolyard football these days. And he's got a quick release and he's a genius and his IQ is insane. And yes, Luke, he's probably got something in his bloodstream, but I can't even believe this happened. I cannot believe it happened. He's the damn goal. Luke, I don't even like the guy. I mean, it happened. He's the damn goal, Luke. I don't even like the guy. I mean, I don't know enough about American football to make these broad claims about who is and who isn't. I'm always a little skeptical. I mean, yes, he probably, certainly he's the best quarterback I've ever seen.

I think that's probably fair to say. And, you know, his record of achievement is extraordinary across two different teams now. I'm always just a little, just as a general rule, I'm just pointing this out. I'm not saying that I know better than people who know a lot about football, far from it, but I'm always just a little bit skeptical about like, oh, because Brady was such an excel, he excelled so well at quarterback that we can undercut what Jim Brown did. There's a question about what kind of achievements are possible at certain positions, although it's true in the quarterback position, they don't even have 20 good quarterbacks and you've got one who is so

far ahead of the pack it's just insane so you know that argument may not be the best either but it's also a team sport too you know I mean but Patrick Mahomes that poor bastard dude I mean he had he was on his fucking he put on his running shoes yesterday because he had no room. It's like, how well would Brady have done behind that offensive line? I always kind of wonder about that, too, because when you play for a team, it is a team effort. Half the time, he's not on the field. New England's defense or Tampa Bay's defense is on there, and part of your success is a huge function of what they do. So is he the best quarterback ever?

Almost certainly. Is he the best NFL player? Almost certainly. You know, is he the best NFL player ever? I leave that debate to people who know a lot more. I'm just a little bit, you know, maybe, maybe, but like, I saw someone be like, is he the greatest athlete ever? I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? No, he's certainly not that, but one country on the earth plays this. Fuck no, he's not the greatest athlete of all time. Because of his longevity, his career numbers are just stupid. And then when you add in that he's got more Super Bowl rings than any other team has had in history,

I don't see how you can have the debate that he's not anymore. I just don't see it. Yeah, maybe so. To that point, I tell Europeans this who watch this all the time. There's 32 teams in the NFL, 32. Dude, you have to understand something about the quarterback position. BC, tell me if I'm right or if I'm wrong, but you know I'm right. They can't find 32 elite quarterbacks.

They don't exist. They've got what? How many, okay, BC, how many quarterbacks would you say are good? 15? Yeah, yeah, that's fair. There's normally like six elite ones, right? Then there's another like four or five that kind of go up or down, but in any given year can be awesome.

And then you've got some solid guys from like 12 to 16. Yeah, and then the rest of them blow. And then the rest of them are just, and by the way, the rest of them will be guys who are like, Toby, this is wrong bc the rest of them let's say 17 to 32 these will be guys by and large who played at the premier division one level in college your lsus your alabamas you name it and may have won a national title put up stupid yardage the entire time they were there and then they got to the NFL and they fucking sucked.

Tim Tebow, do you remember his senior year at BC? I think this is right. They might have done wrongly for this. But I believe his last year playing for the University of Florida, he had 20 throwing touchdowns and 20 rushing touchdowns. I mean, this guy was untouchable in college, and he couldn't cut it in the NFL, ultimately in the end. Well, they kind of didn't give him't cut it in the nfl ultimately in the end well they kind of didn't give him a chance after that one miracle really that was the problem he didn't get

enough opportunity uh luke it's interesting though because uh comparing it to bill russell's 11 titles in 13 years oh by the way the last three years he was also the coach as a player coach i mean what he did is just insane yet for the the majority of that, and I'm a Celtics fan too, not that that changes this or anything, but like there were eight teams in the old NBA. And most of the guys were, you know, a lot of guys were fat white guys who were smoking cigarettes at halftime. And the Celtics just had the deepest,

most incredible coach team and a great franchise and all that. Yet still Bill Russell won 11 titles in 13 years and was so selfless. I feel like Brady's seven rings and, you know, 10 appearances in a Super Bowl are crazier than that when you consider how many teams there are and how much this sport evolves and just how hard it is physically, even with the rule changes, to keep your body in that situation. Now, maybe that's the advanced science, Luke. Maybe, maybe.

No, dude, that's nothing advanced uh science luke maybe maybe no dude that's that's nothing but a good night's rest a glass of water and asparagus everyone knows that's all you need to play well even with it's like it's like what was barry bonds yeah barry bonds had needles hanging out of his legs when he was in his late 30s and he had that four-year run of mvps that was just stupid where he's hitting like 370 and getting walked 200 times a year and all this stuff. Yet even with that, Luke, very few people could have done that, right? Very few could have done that.

I just don't know who else could do what Tom Brady's doing. Even if it's all science, who else could do that and be that accurate and be that tough, you know? It's crazy. Next, we have from atriggins32. You think it's John Riggins, BC? Could be. Favorite Super Bowl halftime show, in parentheses,

apart from Luke's obvious choice, of J-Lo and Shakira. I thought this one yesterday absolutely sucked. Here's my point about yesterday, BC. I'd like to get your opinion. Anything that is produced at the Super Bowl level, when you have, and apparently The Weeknd put in a bunch of his own money, $7 million apparently, to how it was spent, I don't know. But this is the point. In the world of production, if you want to be a producer, if you're executive producing the Super Bowl halftime show, you're like the very best in your field in terms of live event production. Like, it's going to be so good that even a bad version is just going to be, what, mediocre or boring in the end.

It would take a lot for a Super Bowl halftime show to be like a disaster. That's almost impossible given what goes into it. So it was not a disaster or anything like that. I just found it boring and lifeless and soulless. And we talked about this, or maybe I talked about with the dudes who came over to set up the cameras today. I'm like, dude, you know what I want from my music artists? I want you, like Sam Cooke was fucking murdered, you know, for all kinds of reasons, but probably not limited to infidelity. And, you know, Bill Hicks has a bit where I want my musicians to die in a pool of their own vomit from drug ODs and their snot bubbles coming out of their nose on their lifeless corpse.

I want Gigi Allen throwing and smearing feces at shows. Dude, I want somebody who is completely out there at the edge of the human experience creating art. You're not going to get that with the Pepsi halftime show. So it's like Prince is probably the answer because he was such a master of his craft and it rained and shit. I would probably go with Prince, you know. But I don't know how you could look at last night

and be like, wow, man, that really moved me. That moved you. You're a fucking librarian. I'm a 42-year-old white dad who is stuck in the 90s and has a vinyl record habit from the 1970s right now, so I'm certainly not the right guy to ever judge these. Typically, I'm not moved by any of these, but oddly enough, last night, I didn't think it sucked. I didn't think it was good. I was just sort of like, yeah, it is what it is almost every year to me. It's typically a band I love, like when they

trotted out old The Who and old Paul McCartney, but yet that's not the place for them either, right? And maybe Janet Jackson's boob ruined it for all of us. But there have been some good ones, Luke. I like the Michael Jackson one from like 93. Remember where he disappeared and then appeared on the top of the Rose Bowl?

Wasn't there a really good one with Aerosmith and Britney Spears about 10, 15 years ago, Luke? Maybe. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's like, I don't like J-Lo and Shakira. Here's the thing. I don't like J-Lo and Shakira's music. But here's one thing you could not say about that show. You couldn't say it was an upbeat, up-tempo, engaged

almost the entire time. If you don't know this, there was a dance challenge that came out of it called the Champeta Challenge. Champeta is a style of music from the coast of Colombia. And Shakira found a woman dancing on the coast. think either in santa marta or cartagena was so impressed by her made her her choreographer pulled her off the street and brought her and on a dance troupe behind her to do the champeta on the stage and it's like super upbeat dance music the whole time it's like dude if you're going, and I understand this was a COVID thing

and he was up against it, I get it. But if you're going to play Pepsi-approved corporate music, Visa loves this halftime show, you know, it's not going to be great music probably, but at a bare minimum, dude, put on a fucking show. Command the stage. This dude was just walking around fucking yelling at us. I was like, come on, dude.

There's got to be more than this. I didn't hate that Maroon 5 one a couple years back. That sucked, too. Look, I'm the wrong guy for this conversation. I do want to tell you, though, when you have time to research the conspiracies, to look up the Janet Jackson moment, the wardrobe malfunction, Luke, because there is a very deep satanic tie-in to both the holiday that they were celebrating and the item around her nipple that was there. So do your homework on that, Luke.

Get back to me. Then we can talk about the European banks. Yes, who just happened to be run by, you know, who, BC? What kind of people? I hate when you do this. Oh, that's where you don't want to go with the conspiracy theory does. No one can question. We can't question anything anymore, Luke, because of the far right.

They ruined it for all of us. No, you can't just ask. You can question whenever you want. But you shouldn't ask stupid questions. That's the difference. All right. At Abu Sasha Camila, looking for Brian Campbell. That's my guy.

That's my guy, Leo. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Here we go. Looking for Brian Campbell to explain the difference between meat sauce or chili on a hot dog. If he does, we can never question that he is from a factory town. What explain the difference between meat sauce or chili on a hot dog.

If he does, we can never question that he is from a factory town. What is the difference, BC, between chili on a hot dog and meat sauce? Well, a little back story. This is one of our passionate listeners. Remember the guy with the camel on the back of the truck from Abu Dhabi, Luke? This is this man. He recently moved to Connecticut. Real nice guy.

He was looking for food recommendations, so I sent him to the Great Capitol Lunch in New Britain, Connecticut. Hard hit in New Britain, which is a famous sort of chili dog place. But it's not chili. It's meat sauce, Luke, that they put on the hot dogs with the onions and all that stuff. So meat sauce is incredible. They have a very patented formula that they don't share with anybody why theirs tastes so good. But the difference between meat sauce and chili is really just a lack of beans and spices. It's a straight

ground meat sauce. You know, there's probably some mustard in there. There's probably a lot of other crazy things that'll kill, you know, give you a shorter lifespan. But if you're ever in the New Britain, Connecticut area, please check out Capital Lunch and then check out the all Polish section of Broad Street behind that. But that is the main difference, Luke. Chili dogs are fantastic, but I prefer a dog with some meat sauce on it, brother. I'm not trying to sound like old WWF star Virgil here, but give me the damn meat sauce all the way. Okay. You know what? I'm looking it up online. I don't know what the answer is, but from what I can pull up on the old Google machine, it appears you are correct, BC.

Chili without beans is not chili. It is meat sauce. Chili is short for chili con carne, which is Spanish for meat with chilies. It appears you are correct, BC. Yeah, with pepper. I mean, look, you get down with a, have you had, you know, you've had some souped up crazy hot dogs, right? With all the fixings on it? Yeah, yeah.

I was told, BC this. BC, one thing you got to do when you come to DC, I'll take you to this place. Obviously, the only way to really get a real thing is to go to Columbia. But Columbia, they make hot dogs that you eat with a fork and a knife. Like, I will say this to folks. My wife told me when we were dating, she was like, oh, Columbia has the best hot dogs. I was offended as an American, right? I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Americans own the hot dog. Fourth of July, I mean, this is ballparks. This is what we do. She's like,

you have no idea what you're talking about. So we went down there for my first visit, and she took me to a place, Perros Caliente, that's what they call them. And they take out the hot dog. They wrap the bun inside out, right, so I don't know if you know about that, certain places will put pineapple sauce in the middle, but that's not required, they put the dog in there, and then they put crushed up potato chips, quail eggs, you know, all this pink sauce in them, you know, I mean, and onions, like, the thing is stacked like a, I don't know how to explain it, It looks like, this isn't an edible comparison, but it looks like stacked laundry. I mean, it's just layer after layer after layer, cheese and the whole bit.

And you have to eat it with a fork and a knife. If you've never seen it, Google Colombian hot dog. I'm not making it up. So there is a place in D.C. that makes them, B.C. So when you come down, when we do the D.C. tour, I'll take you. B.C. and D.C. is going to be a heck of a documentary. This guy who sat in the question, oh, by the way, I believe his wife is Peruvian. So he's done the South American tour like you, Luke. He does praise the Colombian bakeries as being effing good. Can you confirm that?

The bread with the cheese and the ham in it. That's what he loves. Oh, I don't know about the ham, but there's buñuelos that are pretty good. That like cheese bread that's that's pretty delicious my wife makes those um all right enough of that bullshit bc take it over sir i'm told that before we pass to you for have you seen this shit i am told that today's episode today's slate of content it might be your best i'm i'm very excited it's some of the best some of the best shit we've ever encountered luke really excited to have you finally see it. You know what we do. We scour the globe. And real quickly, I'm looking down, not because I'm not looking at you.

I'm looking at the monitor on my screen so I can see it, just so that's clear for everyone. Thank you. The good and the bad, the highs and lows across combat sports and beyond, Luke. It is Have You Seen This Shit? Let's start out. UFC fight night in Las Vegas. Luke, did you see on the deep undercard featherweight?

Odie Osborne needed just 26 seconds to send Jerome Rivera to. Ew! Woo! Should we be looking out for this guy? I saw him on Contender Series. I thought he was okay. But obviously, this was an amazing performance. I think a lot of these guys on the undercard are fighting like last-minute opponents.

So it's an amazing win. Please don't misunderstand me. But more, I think, is warranted before I can say a whole lot. Yeah, very stiff shot that got him out of there. Well done. Oh, God. Left straight. Wow.

They talk about Brock as you see him roll with the kick. The guy threw the head kick, and he just kind of shuffled it. He like Philly shelled it. It came off of his back, and then he came around with the other side it was nice look at that see how he rolled it around that's slick that's really nice uh davante smith not the heisman trophy winner also had a nice performance against justin the guitar guitar hero james on this undercard look at him swatting away james like a fly luke bro this is this is uh these are the store owners at cumberland farms when you try to take the hot dogs off the roll you've been here for allah yeah that's an old

comedy bit not me being mean to age thank you okay all right luke let's keep going here uh you want to hear the sound heard around the world during saturday's broadcast gaff can we play up the volume here edwards also showed that you're not getting out of a fight with her without some sort of damage. That's for sure. It's not going to be easy. No way. Edwards also showed that you're not getting out of a fight with her without some sort of damage. That's for sure. It's not going to be easy. Luke, have you heard that shit? That was the Carol Rosa Jocelyn Edwards fight, but somebody on the UFC broadcast team

I'm calling out DC. I know it was you, brother. It had to be, Luke. I think DC broke some wind there during that experience. Dude, you understand? I also was farting through that show. I'm in no position to judge Daniel Korn here.

I love that so many of us, you know, either tweeted or texted each other. We're like, did you just hear that? Someone shit their pants on the air. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a fleece hair. I put in that chicken a choke. And remember when she shit her pants? This was gross, though. Shout out to whoever let that at least claim it.

Right. I mean, whoever smelt it, dealt it. Luke, right? Yeah. Whoever denied it. Supply right? Yeah. Whoever denied it supplied it? Yeah. All right. Hey, let's check out some Polish MMA.

Let's go over to KSW58. Shamil Musaev with the post-fight slam of Uros Jurysik. Luke, it was a unanimous decision defeat, and it turned into a post-fight brawl. Did you see this shit? I did not. I heard about it. I did not see it. It was a unanimous decision defeat, and it turned into a post-fight brawl. Did you see this shit? I did not. I heard about it.

I did not see it. KSW sent out some email afterwards being like, oh, these two dudes are suspended. So these guys had just fought? Yeah. One guy won by decision, and then he took it out on them. Guys, we're on live TV here. This is Strikeforce Nashville all over again, Luke. You know what? Sometimes these things happen in MMA, BC.

That is true. You get some savages together, that's what's going to happen. That's why we love it, Luke. Alright, rough and rowdy boxing pay-per-view on Friday night, Luke. Jose Canseco and Billy Football in an early and round one. Old Jose. He's

going down, Luke. The problem is, and this became a problem, he's going down Luke the problem is and this became a problem he's not getting up the 56 year old Luke who has had shenanigans in the past including one sending his twin brother Ozzy to fight for him in a celebrity bout claimed he pulled out his shoulder Billy football the 22 year old celebrating madly Luke look at the tape do you see him taking a dive or what yeah i mean you know he's doing the bob sap bit right just collecting checks while taking l's and not worrying about the shame of it anymore that's a dude that's not like a legitimate thing you can do if you're in the last legs of celebrity that is a viable way to make a last bit of a punch of money you know yeah i don't see many of those

shots landing clean uh there's an alternate angle that you're looking at the replay well uh you know this is run by dave portnoy the head of the you know the presidente of the old barstool sports luke he instantly took to twitter he was also an announcer on this card and did accuse kinseiko of taking a dive i i can't read this on my phone. It says, Jose 100% took a dive. We paid up front, and he got double if he won. Yeah, we thought that would ensure that he'd fight. We were wrong. Yeah, he might do that.

Would it surprise you, honestly? I mean, this is what you're going to get with Jose. And I heard he got paid a shitload of money, too, like a million bucks for that. Well, Dave Portnoy went back to Twitter to kind of update the situation, Luke. And here were the exact specifics of what Jose got. 50 to show and 50 to win. So he only got 50.

But as Portnoy says in there, he also had a rev share. If we broke our record for pay-per-view buys, we shattered it. Get ready to puke. Jose made over $1 million for five seconds last night. I don't feel bad for him

anymore. Luke, what do you do if you're Dave Portnoy here? I mean, you're benefiting from this. The attention. Yeah, listen. You made money in the end. You made money in the end. He can't cry either. He's bitter that he didn't get more out of Canseco.

But if you made that kind of money and you shattered your records, yeah, it's disappointing in the end. Okay, but you're not going to do business with him again. And it shows that this is a viable thing to make money from Barstool. So, yeah, I think he's probably a little bit pissed about how it turned out. Happy in the end. How would you not be? Yeah, I mean, but if you didn't expect this in your Dave Portnoy, I think he's probably a little bit pissed about how it turned out. Happy in the end. How would you not be?

Yeah, I mean, but if you didn't expect this in your Dave Portnoy, did you not see Jose Canseco against Hongman Choi, Luke? Remember when he brought a bat to the ring in Japan? He came out to that. He walked out to that fight with the baseball bat, too. It's like, oh. God, that guy took a quick L there. Yeah, all right.

Hey, there was some undercard shit worth watching on this rough and rowdy. Watch this guy get sent to hell. I don't have any names here, Luke, but good lord. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Oh, god. Get Kane and the Undertaker. Get the coffin ready. Wow. Dude. Look at his feet crossed, like he's just lounging

at the beach. Yeah, Rough and Rowdy is supposed to be fun drunk boxing, but sometimes you can get you can get hurt luke indeed all right hey you know these corn-fed white boys they'll put it on you if you let them that is true hey luke you remember former ufc fighter thomas gifford remember he got beat up really bad by mike davis because i saw this and the fight was stopped late or not at all whatever it was because referee andrew glenn let him get hung out to dry while thomas gifford resurfaced in pyramid fights, and he took a vicious regional KO right here. I hate to see this, Luke.

Yeah, I like how you're showing it from CTE Society. Yeah. At the end of the day, Luke, it is what it is, right? It is what it is. Yeah, this is bad. This is really bad. He walked into it, too. Yeah, he did. I don't know. He walked into it too. Yeah,

he did. I don't know if we'll see him again. Hey Luke, have you heard this shit? I got some audio for you. Check out this university of Pittsburgh college basketball press conference. The teams that we got too comfortable and relaxed with, they just busted in our mouth and we just had to eat that up and take it take it in

uh take it on our chin and bounce back from the teams that we got too comfortable and relaxed with they just bust it in our mouth and we just had to eat that up and take it kind of games they play at upm uh who's the announcer is it sean wheelock who got the job announcing porn luke is this Luke, what kind of games are they playing at UPMC? Who's the announcer? Is it Sean Wheelock who got the job announcing porn, Luke? Is this the post-fight interview from them? Yes, which I listened to, by the way. Which I listened to.

How was it? She's taken off her bra, and now her breasts are fully exposed. Let's go to the post-fight interview. They shot in our mouth, and we swallowed. What the hell is happening? Luke, that's not the craziest post-fight interview. They shot in our mouth and we swallowed. What the hell is happening? Luke, that's not the craziest audio of the week. Let's bring in Colin Cowherd, Luke. Let's check this out.

In Los Angeles. It's like we've got all the... Two titties... Two titties, excuse me. Two titties have glommed all the championships in Los Angeles. It's like weommed all the championships in Los Angeles. It's like we got all the – He's just looking at this woman who I'm sure is quite nice. He's just like, listen, darling, you know what's on my mind?

Two titties. That is his co-host, Joy Taylor. Luke, you know what moment this was? Chevy Chase Christmas vacation inside the department store telling the lingerie clerk, you know, it's getting a bit nipply in here. Nipple, nipple. No, no, nipple, nipple. Yeah.

Yeah. Hooters. Yeah. Wow. Wow, Luke. That's a slip of the old. What do you do, Luke? Let's say you were interviewing.

I'm not even going to say a name of who you could be interviewing, but let's say you were interviewing an MMA starlet and you accidentally were like, you know, you're, you know, to the temerity of the omerta of the upper bound limits of your takedown defense, you know, when I look at your game, I see a lot of titties. I mean, I mean, takedowns, what do you do to follow that, Luke? How do you erase that? Normally in a situation like that that if it was like a dude and I made some kind of weird off-color remark that I didn't necessarily intend to I'd actually stop and make fun of myself for it but with a woman I feel like you know there's like HR gets involved and it just gets a little weird so you just no way around it. Uh-oh, we lost the feed? What happened here?

Oh, we lost Brian's live view. That's awesome. Yes, I can hear you, but they lost your live view which is just perfect oh great well can i see the subway creature let's see oh 14th Street, too. 14th Street. Yeah, dude. Oh, that is absolutely... Yeah, this is like...

What is this? Union Square? That is hilarious. Golly. Bro, New York City subway. BC and I have to ride that every Monday, and it's just the worst. I hear you on Zoom, BC. Yeah, all right, I'm going to riff for a little bit here while we wait for BC.

Oh, I plugged it back in. The top part was not making it look easy as we fix his tech problem. I just want to point out on the show here, finally, it's not me having tech problems. Your boy, my laptop is plugged in. My live view is plugged in. For the record, Luke, I didn't set this up. Earbuds. I've got a nice microphone. It's plugged in to the record luke i didn't set this up ear right i've got a nice microphone it's

plugged in to xlr input i'm i'm okay i did just fine luke uh the the team set this up for me just so you know okay but i'll take the carpenters vc a poor carpenter blames his tools look at your ass cheeks here unlike jay i will take the blame for the team, Jay. Okay, okay, Luke. All right, yeah, assless chaps. There we go. That guy's a dirtball. Let's roll on here, Luke. Hey, Nebraska volleyball players have brought into the lexicon something they call the finger boop.

Luke, that looks a lot like the damn tip-on-tip that we do around these parts. What's going on here? We don't ever do that. I don't know why you tell folks that. All right. Did that get you aroused at all, the finger boop? We don't ever do that. I don't know why you tell folks that. All right. Does that get you aroused at all, the finger boop? You good with that? No.

No. Two titties. I mean, city. Oh, boy. All right. Hey, let's go to the old lifting gloves debate that Luke loves. Our friend Josh Nason tweeted that. It's not a debate.

It's not a debate. Yeah. Eminem. Could you, I mean, Eminem is like, I cannot believe people go out of their way to tell me he's great.

He's like, he's so fucking washed. It's unbelievable. I've seen video of you act like a school girl when Eminem walked by. Yeah, because I wanted clout for the gram.

You don't ever hear me say he's a great rapper, do you? The guy's insanely popular. I was trying to get some fucking followers. Dude, this dude sounds like he's putting out Christian rap these days with just maybe an F word thrown in here or there. It is so corporate and boring and uninteresting, and now he's lifting with gloves.

By the way, he with 20-pound weights, he's not even lifting anything, could not be a greater example of the truth of which I speak. All right, that is from that weird video with the UFC parts in it. Whatever, Luke. Also in lifting gloves business, would you ever wear these? Luke?

Where did you even find this that looks like a hoagie farts pickup i can't read that small on the phone because i'm not allowed to do this on my computer anymore it says mbec 210 whoever the hell that is the hand or pants all right there it is there it is okay let's keep it going here friend of the program sugar rashad evans posted a picture with his infant son, Solaris, wearing the daddy papoose. Luke, great dad moment? Or maybe you should have thought twice about posting the pic. You tell me. No, I like it.

I like it. I never had this, but I wish I did. I think it's a very sweet moment. And congrats to old Sugar. All right. I like that. Luke, your favorite topic is always the upcoming Ben Askren-Jake Paul fight. Check out the new custom punching bag that Just Ask Askren has secured.

You can get down with this, right? I don't care. I don't care. All right. Okay. Hey, Luke, remember 7'7 Manute Bull? You know his son Bull Bull plays for the Denver Nuggets? Check out this filthy dunk that the 7'2 Bullute Bull, you know his son Bull Bull plays for the Denver Nuggets. Check out this filthy dunk

that the 7'2 Bull Bull broke out. I mean, is it that impressive? The guy is the guy is, you know, this guy can hunt geese with a rake. I mean... That's the old Vince Carter from 2000

reverse against the grain 360 windmill That's impressive Luke He's a big dude I stole that joke from Nick DiPaolo I want to be clear about that But this guy can fucking hunt geese with a rake He's obviously athletic

Manu Bull played for the Bullets by the way Before they were the Wizards Not that great Hey Luke, Street Fight gone bad here Check this out. A little bad for one person. Alright, so someone's trying to get separated by his friends. He's obviously been drinking. Luke, when you throw the 18-pack of Bud Can, you gotta be careful who you're throwing it at. Oh, that poor chick took a hard L, Luke.

Wow. And you hit the lady, which was just, you know, innocent bystander. And then you give up the beer in the process? Yeah, then you spill the Sapporo all over the road. That is not good there, Luke. Wow. All right. Hey, Luke, there's a lot of reasons why you think Jay Aaron is an

asshole. One of those is because he says he drives his Tesla while sleeping. Check out this driver and passenger out cold, Luke, in the Tesla still safely driving. Your thoughts? This should be against the fucking law. I don't give a shit. Shouldn't there be a rule? It's like, if you're going to be in the car and you're in the driver's seat, don't give a shit. Shouldn't there be a rule, it's like, if you're gonna be in the car and you're in the driver's seat, shouldn't you be conscious? I feel like that is a bare minimum. Even in my 2020 bright orange Subaru Crosstrek,

there are some weird safety features where like, if it goes out of the lane, it'll bring you back in it. I can set the cruise control where it'll keep me two car lengths behind the car in front of me. And it will speed up and slow down on its own. But I would never, Luke, be that big of an asshole to where I'd be like, yeah, it's fine if I fall asleep. This Tesla is going to keep me safe. Like, what are we doing here?

Yeah, this is cars for people with bad drinking habits is basically the answer here. Yes, yes. It really is, Luke. You had referenced, Luke, your first date with the Radiant Mrs. Thomas earlier. We know it took place at a shooting range. We finally got CCTV footage of it, Luke. This was pretty close,

although it was indoors. Okay, okay. All right. And also, that barrel might get hot, which would do unspeakable things. So you might want to be careful with how much you're firing that. Look, that's just it. Look, I mean look, we all have weird backstories.

I met my wife on MySpace of all places, but your first date was really out of damn shooting range? Like, weren't you nervous that the lovely lady would be turned off by your overpowering masculinity? No. There's no such thing. If you've got it, BC, you've got it. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. If you've got it, better flaunt it. Let the liquor help you get up on it. You know what I'm saying there? I feel you, bro. Okay, hey, let's go over to the old golf game. Check out this fat guy about to take a hard L. You know this happens, Luke. You hit the ball to the fringe.

You set up your shot. Uhoh here goes fatty dude i hope i hope he doesn't get hit by any motorboats oh that's great that's great all right luke we got one more for you i didn't know the manatees wore shoes in florida uh yeah Yeah, well done there. One more. I don't know what video game this is, Luke, but this is nearly getting on brand to MK territory. Check out these two aliens. I'll tell you what, Luke. This batch of Have You Seen This Shit had a lot of potential,

but the tech issues kind of petered me out. All right. Hope you enjoyed it, though. Just the same. Yeah. With that in mind, BC, before we have another epic collapse of technology, what are your odds and ends for the week? Odds and ends.

Yeah. I want to let you say a tip of the cap in an RIP to a legend, Leon Spinks, who passed away, I believe, at 67 in the past few days. Luke, he had had prostate cancer, among other cancers, in recent years. And Leon's had such an interesting career, right? He's the older brother of Michael Spinks, who was a former light heavyweight and heavyweight champion. They both won Olympic gold in Montreal in 1976.

And then Leon Spinks did, like, the impossible, Luke, in his eighth pro fight. Good Lord, eighth! He fought Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas and upset him for the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship. And obviously the career never, never got back to the same level as that big moment. He had lost the rematch to Ali at the Superdome in New Orleans in front of like 63,000 a couple months later. Luke, that's a fight, by the way, that they claim 90 million people watch live on ABC, which is amazing, right? I mean, it was back in the day when you had three channels,

but 90 million people. The rest of Spinks' career was certainly marked by arrests, drug abuse. He did get back to the title level twice, losing to Larry Holmes at heavyweight and Dwight Muhammad Kawi at cruiserweight. But this guy was one of boxing's fun characters we all remember the sports illustrated cover of him missing his you know forefront teeth and smiling and celebrating they call them neon Leon there's a bunch of uh uh fun boxing brethren of mine who've had great times at the hall of fame weekend in Canistota singing karaoke with Leon he's always the life of the party love the cameras uh comes from a great lineage of fighters, obviously, and created one of his own. His son, Corey Spinks, was the undisputed welterweight champion in the 2000s and had a

nice career winning titles in two divisions. But, you know, one of those great names, Luke. You hear Leon Spinks, you know who he is right away. Fought Muhammad Ali, you know, Olympic champion, ex-Marine maybe? Or was it Air Force? Anyway, he served our country either way, Luke, even though there's no such thing as an ex-Marine. So Leon Spinks, wild, up and down, crazy career, but always had a smile on his face doing it. RIP at 67. For me, I will say happy trails and thanks for the career. And I mean that sincerely to Chris the Crippler Lieben, who won his bout over the week, or weekend, I should say Friday, really,

at BKFC. He went 3-1 in his time in BKFC, beating Phil Barone, Justin Baseman, losing to Dakota Cochran, then beat Quinton Henry, and then retired afterwards. I believe, Gaff, if I'm not mistaken, we have some of the audio from this?

If we do, let's hear it. You know, how many people get to say they get knocked out by Chris Lieben? You know, when I was 15, I would have gave my left nut to get knocked out by Chris Lieben. And shit, look at me now. Damn it. You know, but I appreciate it. You know, how many people get to say they get knocked out by Chris Lieben? You know, when I was 15, I would have gave my left nut to get knocked out. I would not give my left nut to get knocked out by Chris Lieben. But I will say... Look at him now,

Luke. Look at that guy now. I will say that Chris had a pretty great career, you know. Obviously, he never won a title and, you know, didn't climb the ranks in that sense, but he had that back-to-back fight sequence where it was three or so weeks apart where he beat Aaron Simpson

and Yoshihiro Akiyama. People were asking me on my live chat, you know, what's your favorite Chris Lieben moment? It was that two- or three-week period where he did that

because he wasn't, beating Aaron Simpson, I didn't think was that big of an upset. It may not have been an upset at all, but it was, you know, fairly non-controversial.

But to turn around and beat Akiyama the way he did submitting him, so he knocked out Aaron Simpson and submitted Akiyama, that was pretty special. He always was more talented than folks reputationally gave him credit. They gave him credit for being a brawler. He knocked out Vanderlei Silva as well. But he could fight a little bit just beyond that. And I think learned a lot of hard lessons from his life and his time in fighting. I think it's come out a lot healthier on the other end, at least mentally speaking. And I'm happy to see him call it a day. I think it's the right time, certainly. And congratulations on a great career, is what I would say. I like seeing him get to go out on his own terms at age 40, like Quentin Harry came, Quentin Henry, I'm sorry,

came at him and was just throwing bombs, Luke. That was a wild fight. It was fun to see, but you echoed everything about what Lieben was, a true warrior. People forget ahead of that Anderson Silva debut in which Lieben got torn up. He had won six in a row, Luke. I mean, he was a viable

fighter entering that fight. That was going to be a very tough test on paper to find out if Anderson Silva was for real. He had beaten, this is Lieben, he had beaten Patrick Cote, Jorge Rivera, Benji Roddick during that run. So, you know, there were some periods in his career where he was certainly much closer to contention than we sort of remember him as sort of a lovable brawler.

But nothing will be better than his performance at UFC 116, Luke. That was the Brock Lesnar-Shane Carwin card. It's one of my favorite main cards in pay-per-view history. And a big reason of that was this brawl with Sexayama, in which Lieben rallied in the third round to pull off the submission win by triangle choke. Just a fun fighter, a fun career, as you mentioned. His last win will go down. Luke, 2011 was his last MMA win when he knocked out Vonderlei Silva.

So it's been a long time. But I liked the post-fight press conference, aside from that weird comment we played from Quentin Henry, in which Liebman said he's looking to get into refereeing. He's looking to if BKFC will have him to be a trainer or an ambassador for what they do there. That'd be a really nice sort of evolution for him to now be able to give back to the sport. Just so much respect. You hear his name, you just, you know.

It speaks for itself in terms of a real, real tough guy in this game. So good to see as well, Luke, that he's not being carried out. He went out with a win and is able to uh say goodbye yeah yeah no doubt about it so yeah that's our show bc well we made it barely but we didn't make it how do you feel uh i have mixed reactions uh no the team did a great job they came in here and set it up i don't know maybe it's the wi-fi maybe it's whatever luke but we we gutted it out lu. That's what we do here on Morning Combat. So, Luke, we have an abnormal schedule this week. Yeah, so we're here for CBS Sports and MK.

We're going to cover whatever this Bellator stuff is tomorrow. Legitimately don't know. Yeah, all we know is Bellator is having a live announcement at 4 p.m. Eastern in some form. So we'll be here to react to it. There's some talk about us reacting live if we can get that going. We'll see. Fingers crossed. So look out

for coverage tomorrow, I guess is what I would say. Keep it locked here. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. Obviously, like the video, subscribe. Plenty of content coming your way as usual. But then, in particular, I guess tomorrow. So we'll see how things turn out for that you can see us everywhere on social media morning combat is consistent everywhere BC and I have slightly different names between Twitter and Instagram if you want to get anything in for fan submissions or dead wrong what we got wrong or any artwork

morningcombat at gmail.com that's going to be your place to be for all of that of course if you want to try Showtime you certainly can you can go to showtime.com for all of that. Of course, if you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, go fuck yourself. And we also have merch. Store.show.com. S-H-O for hats, shirts, mugs, cups.

BC's used condoms and everything else in between. Things he doesn't believe in. BC, anything else before we get out of here? No, I don't want to. I'm done. I'm done. believe in. BC, anything else before we get out of here? No, I don't want to. I'm done. I'm done. All right.

Yeah, there you go. All right, for Brian Campbell, for CBS Sports, for Malka, for Showtime, appreciate everybody tuning in today. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.