MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Riyadh Recap: Imavov KOs Adesanya | Benavidez Outlasts Morrell | FULL EPISODE

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Luke and BC are back with another episode of Morning Kombat, recapping a thrilling weekend of combat sports action. In MMA, UFC Riyadh delivered a shocker as Nassourdine Imavov stunned Israel Adesanya with a TKO in Round 2. With just one win in his last five fights and three stoppage losses since 2022, is it time for the 35-year-old Adesanya to consider walking away from MMA? On the undercard, Michael "Venom" Page dominated Shara "Bullet" Magomedov in a one-sided decision victory. In boxing, the guys break down David Benavidez’s hard-fought win over David Morrell in an exciting PBC on Prime main event. After 12 action-packed rounds, Benavidez earned a shot at the undisputed light heavyweight title, setting up a potential clash with the winner of Beterbiev-Bivol II. What does his performance mean for his chances against either champion? Plus, Stephen Fulton and Isaac Cruz both picked up impressive victories on the undercard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Reveille Reveille Boys Look at us now tip to tip Oh Jesus Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho Do you want a margarita? Yes! Fire! Do you want a margarita? Yes!

Fire! It's us doing what we love. It's time to bang. Oh, yeah. Hey, we're back, right? Can you feel me? Can you feel what I'm saying right now? No? All right. Hey, we're back, right? Can you feel me? Can you feel what I'm saying right now? No?

All right. Hey, it's Monday, February 3rd, 2025. Don't you go dying on me. Live and direct from the NYC. It's the M to the K Morning Combat, the best damn combat sports show they ever frigging created. Welcome on in. Let us penetrate your face hole, too, because it is time to bang.

BC, BBC, that BDE, Brian Campbell right here. That's Luke Thomas from the nation's capital. And Luke, we've got a hell of a fight weekend to break down on this Monday morning. I gotta say, if I may take command here of this. Like Washington football? That's right.

Take command. Hashtag raise hail. Hey, can we get a hip-hop horn and a round of applause for Brian Campbell, everybody? Hey, yeah. Thank you. You see, I got to say, it's no surprise to me when you do well. You know what I mean? It's no surprise to me.

But for folks who didn't see it, there was. Of course, we're going to talk about it at the Benavidez and Morrell PBC pay-per-view over the weekend. You were on the call. Boy, they had you working. Prelims. Yes. Main card. Yes. Post-fight interviews. All were on the call. Boy, they had you working. Prelims. Yes. Main card.

Yes. Post-fight interviews. All for the same price. Not bad. We're going to get that three-for-one Brian Campbell deal. The BOGO deal. I got to tell you, dude, you fucking killed it. It was super smooth the entire time.

And I'm just going to say this out loud. First of all, I'm very grateful that PBC gave you this opportunity. I don't know what the future holds, but I just want to say it's bullshit that you don't have a more consistent gig like this. Thank you. Because nobody can listen to how well you did on that broadcast and say that there are people who get jobs in the industry like this because they're more talented. Know the fuck they are not. You're just as good, if not better, than any of them and you did a fucking great job. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

I mean, you're still a fucking licensed shithead. Yes, I still have CT. But when it came time on Saturday night to do the job, you did the fucking job, bro. Thank you. Back in a drug rug like I belong on Monday morning. But seriously, it's not about me, but thank you everybody for reaching out. Really appreciate it. Highlight moment of my career, no doubt about it.

And a great fight card. It wasn't hard to call that. Shout out to Maura Ronell, Ebner Morris, and the rest of the crew. You also did great. Thank you very much. We have a fantastic show for you today, as I mentioned, and a reminder that Morning Combat

brought to you by DraftKings, right? DraftKings, the crown is yours. Thank you very much. A little update, as we may have teased a little bit this Friday. In this studio, Luke, 11 a.m. Eastern, the normal morning combat time, it's going to be you, me, and the man in the damn hat, Chuck Mendenhall, doing what? Having sex.

How about pregame preview, UFC 312 edition brought to you by Cuervo. Cannot freaking wait, okay? Yes. Last time we'll do it in the studio, then we'll do it like at a brothel. I don't want to make any promises, but we're definitely going to have Chuck here. We're going to do it like we did when Jed Mishu was here. And listen, I know the 312 card is not the strongest UFC offering. It's a little nubs, to say the least.

We'll say this. I think if you dig a little bit, there's some value there. A lot of Jake Matthews on it. A lot of guys with the Australian flag in their bio. I'm just going to say it that way. Shout out to Mr. Noseda. You can like the show. In fact, if you could like this episode, subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already.

You can follow us on the socials there, including our YouTube channels. And also, please, excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm very filled with fluids. Follow as well the third member of our team, the main card minute host, Bong Island, Luke Noseda. You can only hear him on Mondays, but here he is from the studio. Long Island, Luke, how the hell are you? I'm doing good. Great job this weekend, BC. Thank you, sir. Well, I joined your podcast live this weekend and checked it out. I enjoyed that much. So hopefully you had some great streams. Hopefully you were streaming like a prime R. Kelly.

You know what I'm saying? We did. We had to intervene on Luke's stream, let him know he was muted. They really did. Can I defend myself here publicly? Don't hassle the Hoff, please. I was muted on my stream for like fucking almost, not quite, but maybe like close to 10 minutes. I blame Tukey. Huh?

I blame Tukey. No. Tukey's not involved. Godzilla came through before you were there. She does come stomping through. That is true. Long Island Luke, what am I supposed to do about this? I have a mixing board that is not battery powered.

It is plugged into the PC. Nothing was ever disturbed about it. It just conked out in the middle of the broadcast and i didn't see it until i didn't see the levels moving and that's when it was how am i supposed to like you know what i mean like everything was because for example my camera has shut off at various times because i forgot to plug it in nothing was unplugged what am i supposed to do about that shit bro i mean there's nothing you can technically do about it except maybe keep an eye on the mixer see that the lights

The other thing Luke is keep an eye on your live chat because everyone was paying money to tell you you I've received Dms in the moment when you're in when you're in like a Thursday live chat some crisis You just please tell Luke this one thing for me, please, you know I'm sorry to everyone but the good news is it was only between the co-main and the main. Yes. So it didn't actually fuck up the broadcast that bad. But sorry about that.

No problem. No problem at all. Anything else you want to talk about, Luke, before we get into the meat of this show? Maybe the end of the road for Adesanya. I mean, what a weekend we saw. Everything good at home? How's the life doing?

Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. I took Tukey and the wife to a Lego exhibit. There was a lawyer-turned-artist who just makes amazing objects out of Legos. And it sounds kind of silly, like how good could it be? Yeah. It's...

It's way more impressive than I ever anticipated. They had a life-size recreation of the giant heads from Easter Island. Like the ones at the Shama ones. Yeah, Poetan said. Yeah, yeah. And it was like taller than me.

And I was like, I couldn't. And it was brilliantly detailed. A T-Rex skeleton. Like, I just couldn't fucking believe how good it was. Yeah. It's a touring exhibit. So if it comes to your town, seriously go see it. Speaking of T-Rex, real quick, shout out to Clarissa Shields

becoming the Undisputed heavyweight champion on Sunday night. Unbelievable. Three divisions undisputed. Did you see in one of those fights the two heavyweights went through the ring? They got counted out outside. I did see. Also that slip counter she used to drop the – Yeah, big punch late.

And then last but not least, how about Luka Doncic going to the Lakers? I mean, I don't really care that much. I just can't fucking believe Dallas did that. That was one of the biggest sports stories that wasn't like arrest or death related in a long time. Right. You know, like that was like,

Holy crap. All right. That is all that we're going to get into the meat of this show though. Right. Frigging now. And let's go topic. Number one, we all saw it Saturday afternoon in Riyadh.

It was UFC fight night card, but even bigger, it was the return of Israel out of Sonanya looking to put the recent pass behind him against the rising Nasruddin Imavov, but in the end, a stunning second round TKO win for Imavov, despite a strong start for Izzy. So Luke, we got to

be blunt. We got to be real. We got to be honest. Four losses in his last five fights, three of them by stoppage. Izzy's 35 years old and all of these defeats of course are since 2022 is it time for one of the greatest champions in this sports history to walk away from mma for good i think that it is yeah wow i think that it is we're not talking about downgrading your matchmaking we're not talking about take a year off we're saying

this could be the end right here so what i would say to that is a couple of things. You asked a question, is now a good time to close it? Now is a good time to close it. Whether or not he will remain something different, whether or not they agree is something different. Also, could you imagine a scenario where to the point you just raised, they downgrade the

matchmaking, he pulls some kind of Jim Miller-ish scenario? Yes, of course, you don't have to retire in that case. It's not a claim that he can never win fights again. I hope people understand that. But I really want folks to take a look. They note that he's lost four of his last five and then three of those via

stoppage, two in a row via stoppage. But I really want to focus in on the last three. He beats Poiton, which was it appears to be the high-water mark of his career. That's one of the best singular victories in terms of what was at stake. He had just been stopped before, but it may have been him pouring out the jug. I think it was him pouring out the jug because then he loses to Strickland. Granted, he was somewhat compromised for it, but it was pretty thorough.

But here's the point I want to make. You lose a five-round decision to Strickland in September of 2023. Then in August of 2024, you get stopped in the fourth round. And then here against Nasrudini-Malvov, you get stopped via strikes in the second round. One of the telltale signs that something is headed very much in the wrong direction to the point we're saying out loud, maybe I'm not saying intervention from teammates is needed, but rather a personal sense of what's actually happening, inventorying your circumstances is when you're an elite fighter and there is no other way to describe Izzy than an elite fighter and you're

losing consecutive bouts. That's not necessarily a big deal, but if you're 35 you've never lost three in a row before and each time it is getting quicker and each time it is getting worse you are headed to a place where you are going to risk not merely losing but severe beatings that could be in your way the diminishing returns become dramatic this is where this is where this train is headed yeah so i'm not saying fight, no matter who it is, he's going to lose and he'll lose in the first round. It's really not that claim. But the claim is between you have three fights dating back to September of 2023 that all speak to a and inexorable decline and also speak to the direction the subway train is moving. It is moving to a place. And this is what I want to avoid, BC. It is moving to a place where he is going to risk getting absolutely walloped in the process,

affecting his quality of life, affecting, I mean, less to his legacy, but really personal damage to himself that is absolutely unnecessary, especially since he's now at this point, no longer really in relevant conversations about getting back to a title place to meaningfully add to the legacy. And it's crazy because if he would have won this fight, I mean, you could have literally put him back in there against Poetano Light Heavyweight for the title.

And now we have the exact opposite conversation. And it is because of those three fights you mentioned it was lifeless against strickland maybe we wrote that off as how do you how does he get up for that fight after he got up for the for the poet on one but to see the last two fights ddp in this one where he looks really good he looks like the guy of old and then when it's over luke it's over like that remember ddp was like that it went from oh he's on the ground oh he's tapped out same thing here one big shot i think what makes us even worse is this was the training camp that i got the feeling from following his pre-fight stuff that there was no stone left unturned they went back to the basics uh you know got off social media like that kind of stuff like completely sequestered

himself and went all and he came in an incredible shape you saw some variety to his striking and switching stances that you're like, okay, they're trying, you know, when you go to that level and then seemingly the first time you take a big strike, which he did, it was over. That's a huge sign. But I do want to say he was poked in the eye about 10 seconds before the stoppage. And he made the decision, which in hindsight seems to be a bad one to not take time.

He wanted to do the warrior thing and go, no, I'm fine. Let's keep fighting. Kind of like what Poiton did to Jamal Hill. And then he finished him. Only it was Izzy that got finished right after. Does that play a role in this at all? Or obviously the totality of the run Izzy's on, we have to have these tough conversations right now.

But do you think that right hand that landed had something to do with compromised vision off of coming back too quick from an eye book? All of these things have some kind of role to play. I'm less convinced that it explains exactly what happened. And also if you're in the middle of a fight and there is some video of Izzy saying he didn't want to let the guy take the break because he didn't want him to catch his wind. Fair enough. He wants to keep a high pace. And you saw that from the first round.

He was coming out aggressive, which I thought was a good idea. If you stuck to that strategy and you elected to make that call in the middle of the fight, then you accept the consequences of it. So in a sense, I'm not saying it's irrelevant, but it's not the defining factor of how you understand this contest. Not to me. To me, this is a guy, BC, who, again, more than 100 pro fights, tons of damage already. He's slowing down all natural things that happen at this stage of a career.

But more to the point, we should actually have a bit of a moment to reflect on the kind of striking that he has. In later subsequent fights in his career, the Cannoneer, the second Whitaker, the Vittori fight, a lot of his striking, again, early early on this is not the case but in the latter portion of his championship run he had the kind of striking to essentially diffuse bombs and manage rounds less to get over on a guy point good point and as the fighters get younger as he gets older and they get better because they have better best practices and they understand things that the previous generation did not you can't get by being older and managing rounds and then diffusing bombs. You actually have to lay bombs on these other guys.

And that of course declines as you get older. Again, these are all natural things. It's not an insult, but, but he didn't, he didn't evolve to a certain degree. He is the evolution.

I mean, his takedown defense was nasty in this fight. This is what everyone gets wrong about. Is he, is he, is the evolution. I mean, his takedown defense was nasty in this fight. This is what everyone gets wrong about Izzy. Izzy is the evolution. Izzy helped raise the level of striking, not merely in that division, but overall in the sport. But that's the problem. You made every, well, I mean, again, I'm not saying you made everyone better in that, like, one by one. But the sport got better by virtue of him and his team's participation and the way in which they focused on certain elements of striking that were heretofore not really all that uh incorporated so the point i'm trying to make is if everyone is

now getting younger and they already know all of your trade secrets and again there's already a shit ton of tape on the guy and the best you can hope for is managing and diffusing these are not circumstances that are going to lead to consciousness through 25 minutes. And when you're seeing, like we said, these two big fights end as soon as he's in trouble, it's over. That's a huge sign. I didn't have any problem with the stoppage. I mean, he got lit up by those shots. I would like to ask Long Island Luke about that.

Long Island Luke, here's my read on that stoppage. A little early, but I don't have a problem with it. I told BC when I first saw it in real time, I was kind of complaining. I thought it was early, but on replay, he was definitely out with those first two shots. It's just the timing in which they chose to stop it after that seemed a little weird.

But that left hand when he was down, that's enough. That was bad. So when he hit him with the right, that was bad. The left one was really bad because then he bellies out. He goes like that. And then you can see him trying to get to his base a little bit, and then he's getting bombed on, and that's when Goddard stopped it. But then as soon as Goddard stopped it, he had his knees under him.

It was a bit of a weird thing, but I mean, this is MMA. What do you want me to say? It is. It is. So look, it was a shocking result. It was shocking to see that. I happen to be driving to T-Mobile Arena sitting behind Mauro and Brian Custer who were watching

on a feed that was 10 seconds ahead of mine. So I heard the reaction and then I looked down on the phone and kind of waited for it to happen. It brought a lot of reaction. In fact, it fueled YouTube content for Izzy. I'm surprised he did this, but he sat down and rewatched it shortly afterwards and here's the result of his reaction.

Adesanya. Chopping the legs early in round two. Oh. Because he already just wrestled from the thing. Yeah. Oh. Fair. Fair game. oh fair game fair game fuck

I mean that's all that's all though yeah I do give Izzy credit for doing that but there's not much more there's not much else you can say right now.

I mean, it is what it is of late, and that's his reaction. Fuck. You know, like all that. But did you see Mighty Mouse? Mighty Mouse seemed to take this harder than everyone. I did not see this. Let's watch this reaction. Brought to you.

Everybody kick. Oh! No! Fuck! Get up, Izzy! Get up Izzy get up nigga Fuck Fuck God damn it Did he have money on Izzy or did he just love the guy

Fuck God damn it Fuck God damn it, man! Ugh. Fuck. Is he drinking wine? Massive respect for Izzy, man.

To go over there and shake the hand. Shake the hand of the man who just knocked him out. Fuck, man. Now I got a fucking headache. Luke, I don't, I mean, I just think. I don't think you did the, sorry, the Pauly Way reaction. Were you live when this happened? I had a very muted reaction.

Being honest here, as a fan and you respect Izzy and you've been a champion of what he's accomplished, it was hard to watch. I, yes, but yes and no. Like, again, I know there's that meme where I'm like, I'm not playing with the toys anymore. But it's like, dude, when we talked on Friday, the worrying suspicions that I had had, which was he has reached the inexorable decline stage of his elite career. And the reality is, dude, if you're this kind of a fighter and you're in this kind of a stage, the best thing to do is, from what I've seen over the course of time, it's just to stop the bleeding. And even if that means 18 months from now you get the itch again, that's fine.

But sometimes you just got to stop the train. Maybe he comes back in the year and they have a fun 2055. Fine, fine, whatever. But I just want to point out, like, having watched Habib, having watched GSP cut out before this part happens, there's no way to stop this other than to just call the whole thing off. Yeah. Because this is where this is where

we are now we are in the stage where harm is going to be done to him routinely i don't have great appetite for this i don't i got to see dude we got to see the very best of him yes we are no longer there in fact we're pretty far from it what is the attachment at this point let him let him don't do bkf okay don't do bkfc point? Let him take care of his health. Don't do BKFC. But let him take care of his fucking health. I mean, if he was free, he'd probably box Jake Palmex, but that's not going to happen. Let me ask you the two of us, BC, because I know we have been

closer to fan experiences in our life than we are these days. But I got to tell you, when I see fans hold on to a guy and they're just getting beat and then beat and then beat and like, oh, this really depresses me. I've lived that. So I completely understand it.

But I'm definitely now in a place where that's not the case anymore. I'm now in a place where I'm like, I like it. I like it when they call it off early. I like it when they get out early. It actually makes me feel much better. And I don't I have who pines to see legends get whooped who pines for that

GFL does to be fair you did mention GSP GSP was in the crowd and even though it was a Frenchman the adopted Frenchman and Imouvov getting the win here's GSP's reaction you can see it Luke on his face it's hard you know I mean we have so much respect for Izzy.

You saw DJ's respect. Why is he dressed like a blackjack dealer in 1973? Yeah, he looks like Leisure Shoot Larry right there. I love that shit. I mean, no one has put their collar outside of their jacket, honestly, since 1994. That clip goes on and it's just a sad face from GSP. Alright, we've said a lot about Izzy

22 minutes into the show. How about we talk about Nasruddin Imhovov? Four consecutive wins in the middleweight division, all against good names, including Deleuze, Brendan Allen, and now stoppages of Jared Kananir and former champion Adesanya. Luke, how big of a win? Because if you would have told me in advance, Izzy's going to lose and it might be the end of his career.

I'm not thinking second round TKO off of a two-punch clean combination. This was shockingly big for a guy that doesn't talk trash, speaks a different language, doesn't have a high profile, but a move off can fight. How big of a win is this? I think we have to be a little bit careful about assigning huge value to it. It's definitely very good. It is definitely extremely helpful in terms of what it does for his stock,

standing, all-time place. As we indicated, the run he's on more recently with these four wins in a row, and they're getting faster and faster. By the way, to speak of that, we just talked about how in the case of Izzy's wins, excuse me, Izzy's losses, they're happening quicker and quicker. How about this, BC? He decisions Roman Delidze, Imalvov does. He TKOs Jared Kananier in the fourth.

He goes to a three-round decision with Brendan Allen and now two. Five, four, three, two, one. It gets faster and faster and faster for him as he ascends the ladder. This is exactly what somebody at 28 years old who is now entering their physical prime, if they're going to be elite and they want to contend for a title, it has to look like this. So on that sense and then on that

level, I absolutely give him an enormous amount of credit. He's legit. He's at worst number four in this division as far as I can tell, right? Because it's going to be DDP, Sean, Hamzat, and him. Those are the guys now. It's those four. tell right because it's going to be DDP Sean Hamzat and him those are the guys now it's those four DDP and Sean are going to fight for a second time on Saturday Dana already said Chimaev's got next more or less I think he said it publicly so would Imavov need

another big win over a top five I absolutely think he needs another top win over another another top guy and the reason why I say that is because twofold one I don't think the loss is fluky I don't think that but this is not Izzy from two three years ago yeah and so he is going to get caught a lot more easily than he once did and the second thing I'm going to say is he lost the first round Imalvov did that doesn't that's not like some scathing indictment but Izzy did look pretty good and for a moment there Imalvov looked slightly bewildered. What I would like to see is a fight against one more top guy. And again, if it ends up in 30 seconds, what can you do?

But I would argue engineer matchmaking so that you can maybe trust that whoever Imovov fights will push him, give you a decent chance anyway, of pushing him into later rounds so you can really see what it looks like when he has to problem solve over the course of time. That's what I would hope to see. Is that Robert Whitaker? Could he get back out in time? I don't know. That's a good, that's an interesting offering right there.

A name that people brought up as well, and I would love to get Bonga and Luke on this one. What do you think about Nasurdine Imavov taking on Kyle Bohalio? I like that, but that's also like two surging prospects. I almost feel like they should have done that. Sorry, I feel like they should have done that instead of this Izzy fight right now.

Well, Imovov's currently number five. I don't know if these UFC rings are updated. Okay, Whitaker at four. Yeah. But remember, his whole jaw got fucked up. Kyle is six, Vittoria at seven, and then you go Kananir and Allen, who are Kananir, Allen, and Delize, who heoria at seven, and then you go Kananir and Allen, who are...

Kananir, Allen, and Deleuze, who he's already beaten, and then Paolo Costa and Fluffy Hernandez. You wouldn't do... You wouldn't do Bo Nickel. No, he's well beyond this. Whitaker or Caio Bejaleo, to be in the most sense.

Fluffy's fighting Brendan Allen, I think, like, next month. Yes, if he wins... He's a dark horse. Yeah, I like that. I like that. That's a good point. That would be a good matchup

if he wins two streaking guys right there. But somebody like that, somebody, Whitaker you would imagine could probably, a little bit older, but can probably push him. Bojalio you definitely would imagine can push him, and certainly I would also argue Fluffy can push him as well. That's what we need to see. But if he answers that, you've got to give him a title shot. I mean, that's just simply where he is at this place.

So, again, 28 years old. That's when the prime starts, and that's just that that's just simply where he is at this place. So again, 28 years old, that's when the prime starts. And that's what he did on Saturday. Pretty impressive. It was weird because even though Izzy was knocked out, he was kind of right back up afterwards and it looked like, oh crap, it happened and it's over.

It wasn't like he was, you know, laid out for a long time and we were worried about him, but it happens that quickly on the sport. May I make a point? It just, may I make a point if I can, I had tweeted over the weekend that,

um, Izzy is inarguably the second best middleweight of all time. And there's definitely a few reasons why you can say that, but I would actually like to read a list of fighters and BC. I would love for you to tell me what they all have in common. Okay. I'm only going to read to you 15 names. Let me guess. Flat earth. It'd be a lot more than 15. Okay. I'm only going to read to you 15 names. Let me guess.

Flat Earth? It'd be a lot more than 15. Okay. All right. Tito Ortiz. John Jones. Daniel Cormier. Izzy.

Anderson Silva. GSP. Kamaru Usman. Habib. Jose Aldo. Volk. Dominic Cruz. DJ.

And then on the women's side, Rousey Nunez and Shevchenko. Is there any way to figure out? I mean, they're all UFC champions, of course. But beyond that, what do they have in common? Because the list I just read you, they're the only 15 in UFC history who have this. I was going to say win streak, but that doesn't fit that perfectly. Certain level of title defenses? No, although there probably will be some correlation.

It's not the one that I'm making. The answer is these are the only fighters whose championship reign lasted 1,000 days or more. It's the only ones. And there's only really three of them who went over 2,000. It was, excuse me, four of them that went over 2,000. DJ, Aldo, if you have to count his second reign, so you can skip that one. But DJ, GSP, and Anderson Silva. count his second reign, so you can skip that one, but DJ, GSP, and Anderson Silva.

They're the only ones who went over 2. Now, you might be asking who is left off of that list. Great question. The answer is this. Consider some of these names who are around the 900 mark. Max Holloway, Tyron Woodley, Pat Miletic, Matt Hughes is over 1,000 if you count both of his reigns,

but he doesn't have a single one that's 1,000. John Jones is probably over 3,000 if you count both of his reigns, but he doesn't have a single one that's 1,000. Jon Jones is probably over 3,000 if you count both of his reigns. Jon Jones is over two if you count both title reigns, but he's not over three. And then Ioannis Janjic is only at 900. Understand the level of what we are talking about here. Izzy is in that club. I had people trying to suggest on the timeline that Chris We weidman deserves a shot as number two that is only true if you've been hit in the head with a fucking hammer okay but it's not that see how we

did a during the pandemic at cbs sports we did a division by division all-time ranking and i remember at that point we had weidman number two and it was a little surprising for me but when he went over the history and this absolute peak that stretch of wins are very impressive and very few he's a very good champion. So would you put him at three? I'd probably put him at three, yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be Mene, it wouldn't be Bustamante, it wouldn't be Rockhold.

It would probably be Weidman. He'd be at three. But to me, it's something of a distant three. And the reason why is it's not every title defense that Izzy has is beyond reproach. The Yoel Romero one was not super authoritative. But two things I would say. One, here's his three title defenses for Chris Weidman.

Anderson Silva breaking his leg. That's not his fault, but it just doesn't mean much. That's the first thing I'd say. Second of all, it was the Lyoto Machida win. That's a pretty good one. Damn good win. Okay, but that's also Machida who got washed out of 205, cut weight to 185, and only got it off of two wins.

True, but... No, no, it's a good win. It's a good win. Of all the wins he's got in his title defenses, that's the best one. And then Vitor Belfort, fresh off of TRT, looking like he had been a deflated balloon. Yes, that's true. He had absolutely nothing. This is better than five consecutive title defenses, which, by the way, no other middleweight

even has four, and he's got... Oh, besides Silva. and he's got five. People want you to imagine that you can like magic eye and then you can squint and you can see a case for Weidman. You cannot. You cannot. There has been pervasive, pervasive denial about how good Izzy has been since he got to the UFC and what he's done since he's been here. He's the second best middleweight of all time. It's not up for debate. I am sorry to be the one to tell you that, but it is in fact true.

All right, all you haters out there, Luke has spoken. Take that, bitches. I mean, he's in the most elite clubs that exist for title dominance. Do you think if Izzy doesn't fight again in the UFC, I mean, it's always going to be hard if you still have fights under contract. Look at GSP couldn't even get out of his deal, you know, in the recent years of trying some type of idea.

Do we ever see him again in combat in any form? My hunch is that Izzy's not going to retire off of this. Sure. But I do think he realizes now that the end is probably much closer than he expected. And he's probably trying to manage whatever time he has left. I think he'll fight again. I hope if they go to a UFC Africa card at some point, he's on that card. Yeah, I mean, people say UFC Africa.

That's a continent. I mean, we're— No, I'm well aware of that, yeah. I know, but, like, they're all, like, radically different parts. Yeah, there's more than one country in Africa, yeah. I know, but it's like, oh, we're going to go—like, we have a guy from Croatia. Oh, we're going to do UFC Europe in Portugal. It's like, okay. It's still the unconquered territory.

Yeah, it would be. Listen, it would be great to have them there. I'm simply saying we have to be a little more focused than that. Let's bring Francis back for it, too. Francis? They're not. I mean, dude, they will sooner hold an event on Mars before they fucking have him back. But in any case, I do think he'll fight again.

I just don't know what that's all going to look like, and I hope for the best. Me too. Me too. It was tough to see that. But big win for Imovov. We'll see where he goes next. Let's go to topic number two, and it's your UFC Riyadh undercard. In particular, that co-main event, it was Michael Venom Page moving up from welterweight for what he called a one-off,

although it seems like that story might have changed after he scores a fairly wide unanimous decision over red-hot Shara Bullitt-Magomedov. Two 30-27s, one judge giving Shara Bullitt the third round. So, Luke, Shara Bullitt's performance. Does it say more about this being a tough style matchup for him? Are the realities of his now-dis disclosed medical conditions more of the reason but either way how much did this victory from mvp deflate if not outright pop the hype of shara bullet coming

into this matchup i mean i went into the petrosian fight telling everybody on this show and you remember me saying this that i was not sold on him sure and then against petrosian he turns in like one of the most amazing sensational ko's certainly not divisions history but really in mma like the double spinning back fist that's crazy right that's amazing he's obviously quite good i am as always willing to believe that the illness he is describing is not manufactured and absolutely played we have the IG post if we can go read that right now. Hold on, Luke. He says, the pirate goes to the harbor. Okay, the pirate gimmick?

Arr, mateys, there be gold in them hills. Arr. But I'll be back. I knew all the risks coming out in such a nightmare state of health, and with such preparation, I felt that with all this, I could win. But it didn't work out, that's all, thanks to the organization for such a chance and everyone involved that wanted to wrap up the spectacle and justify the expectations without breaking up the fight. Salute to everyone who was with me, blah, blah, blah.

So Luke, I mean, here's the deal. It's always going to be a poor style matchup for a guy who's a power striker, but doesn't have a ton of craft and technique. He's not a reckless brawler, but we had questions coming in. What medical condition could he be talked about? I kind of need to know more on that. Is it the one I think? Do you remember, Luke?

It sounded to me something like digestive or some kind of organ-related issue. I'm not sure. I joked to BC earlier, was it the eye? I don't actually know. Because he said he was worried about throwing up as a consequence. So it had to be some kind of. I mean, I did see, even though one judge gave him round three, and even though round three was the most he sort of pressed,

because his corner, you know, it just didn't, he didn't have that upper room level of urgency to turn on. He didn't have that higher gear to really, either that or it was just, it's hard to throw when you've got a guy that's that quick, that unorthodox that elusive who can dive in i mean mvp hit him with some creative strikes that you know shara was like i haven't seen shit like this before i just feel like the story is less about bullet to be honest

with you i again i think he probably was ill it probably made a role i think that we'll get to the mvp side because i actually think that's the much more interesting side of this conversation but as relates to the short ball, this is one point I've made previously with guys and I'm going to make it again here. It's okay to have lopsided skills in the UFC, but if you're going to do that, then the part that is lopsided has to be lights out.

Yeah. If you're going to have Habib level striking, you better have Habib level wrestling. Conversely, if you're going to have, you know, Anderson Silva level striking, right. You got to, you have to have something going on in the wrestling game or excuse me you don't but like you obviously you have to be Anderson Silva level good on the striking

and he is good striking but he's not he I think benefits from a certain kind of style more than others and there is no B game he has no ability to shoot for takedowns, get on top and then find another way to win. I have to tell you, there's nothing about what I see in him that portends championship futures. I would agree with you. And that's why I think that that was the lead off topic because of the hype that was around him and the idea that he wasn't close to a finished product. But do you think this loss separate from whatever realities of health

conditions he mentioned? And I give him respect that that's true. Fighters deal with a lot of stuff to get themselves into the cage. Is this more about his inabilities, or is this about Michael Venom Page moving up in weight in his late 30s and putting forth a pretty damn good performance? I really think MVP is the story here. MVP, I've seen it so many times where guys come from another organization and they are the sum total of whatever that person's sense of that organization's reputation is.

Oh, Bellator is the B league. This can only be a B league guy. And then no one is necessarily saying he's going to go win a title. I think he was ranked 14th or 15th at 170. He'll be ranked around that mark here for this win. But, you know, he came into the UFC, fought Kevin Holland, looked better than him fought MVP excuse me fought uh Ian Gary turned him into a wrestler I thought he beat Ian Gary it's debatable it was

close but I thought he won and then here he is he just had bullet flummoxed the reality is one MVP was suffering from a sense about Bellator's upside and what they could reasonably confer in terms of matriculating talent people just assume because he was bellator he just can't be that good and it turns out at 37 up at 185 his game is still crafty he is still hard to deal with he has really found a way to make that game work even at this late stage of his career and sharp bullet may have been sick absolutely but he also just had no answers no inkling of a direction to go other than the leg kicks but it didn't really do enough in the end and it looked to me like mvp had a lot figured out and that was really the difference between them

well here's the crazy part coming in mvp had explicitly said this is a one-off it was a good opportunity for him he took it you know what he's saying now, Luke? I want to get your take on this. He's now saying, I think I can go up one division higher to light heavyweight, and he welcomes a fight with Yuri Prohotska. So before you say, holy shit, that's a

crazy idea. He's in his late 30s. He's a welterweight. His speed advantages in terms of reaction time, quickness, all the unorthodox stuff he does, that only, that looks even more dramatic the higher he moves up in weight. Obviously, there's the questions about the physicality. Can he take the punching power?

Would you sign up for an MVP Yuri Prohaska shootout at 205? I mean, what is he saying? This is wild. Sure. Sure. He's making the most out of taking on people that the fans like fans like kevin holland ian gary's less a fan favorite but that's an important fight that needed to be had and now you're taking on he took on shore a bullet to great effect

yuri also a fan oh jesus i'm trying my thing up a lot yuri also a fan favorite god damn this fucking thing sorry sorry here we go yuri also a fan favorite so to me it's like dude he's not gonna win a title again he is he gonna beat anthony hernandez i just i just don't see something like that likely but if you can find ways to stay relevant big cards big names remember the run kong lee went on across strike force and ufc when kong lee just made fun fights against other big names and it was never really about him being in title contention too much anywhere. I'd like to see that from MVP. So I kind of support this if he feels like he can pull it off.

Do you think he would give Yuri troubles trying to chase him and trying to catch up with the movement? Yuri's a little less hittable than he once was. He's something he's working on, but he has been hittable. He's durable, though. I think that would be a problem for MVP. Obviously, he's going to be much bigger than him naturally. I mean, this ain't Douglas Lima across from you if you take a Yuri Prochazka shot at 205,

but that is interesting. The other storyline surrounding MVP was no flag on his graphic on the walk to the cage, which wasn't about any, you know, Ukraine-Russia war like we've sometimes seen in the past. Here's MVP talking about that after the fight. You were the only fighter today on the entire card that did not have a little flag next to your name when you were coming out on the screen. Mm-hmm. Why?

Um, I feel like everyone's always trying to find their group, and it, it, it, all it does for me is it builds more separation where one race, human race, and I live by that though i'm i don't care where you come from what job you do you could be a king you could be a pauper i will show you the same respect i don't care where it's for me just constant labels that are attached to people i just don't like luke we heard a lot of labels from conor mcgregor and bryce mitchell recently this is actually kind of refreshing. What did you think about this?

I mean, I don't know what to make of anything in MMA anymore, but it was nice to hear that he didn't think Hitler was a good guy to go fishing with pre-math. Okay, there we go with that. Pre-math, that's the demarcation line, pre-math. Luke, the other big-ish, at least on paper, fight on this card came in the heavyweight division as Sergey Pavlovich took on Jair Rosenstreich. And despite Long Island Luke trying to talk us into plus money on Rosenstreich ahead of time. Yeah, you fucking dumbass.

Wow, that was slow. Dude, that fight sucked. Also, I did cash Pavlovich to get a takedown, plus 700. Oh, shit. Well, this fight blew hard. Hard enough for Tom Aspinall to hit the IG LIL, if we can see that. He's right. These heavyweight fights lately absolutely stink.

Let's get some excitement and stop holding it up. Maybe that's him also saying, hey, UFC and Jon Jones, can we sign this big-ass fight? Luke, what do we say here? Because the argument I had on why Rosenstruik was not going to win this fight was that we know it's a steep decline after the elite heavyweights. Let's be honest here. Who are the elite heavyweights? Jon Jones, Tom Aspinall, Curtis Blade? He's elite adjacent, certainly.

Alexander Volkov? Same. Am I missing anyone else? Oh, Cyril Ghosn. Cyril Ghosn. Cyril Ghosn. Sorry, Cyril Ghosn. Cyril Ghosn.

Cyril Ghosn. Okay, so that's five sergey palovich is is either the worst of that or i should say that about volkov but it's true here either the worst of that or the best of that next level of crap this fight was terrible what is this uh is this about these two fighters or is this about the division at large at the little of both dude this fight sucked so much ass it's unbelievable i. I mean, Sergey can't. Okay, Sergey had trouble finding openings. He had some. He was fading off to that right hand.

That was nice. But Biggie Boy was just waiting around because he couldn't create any openings. He was just waiting for Sergey to go. So there was just a lot of inactivity. He had single-digit strikes landed, I think, in multiple rounds. And then he had to go for takedowns or, you know, falling on top of a guy who fell over. And he couldn't pass and couldn't get any ground and pound going on a guy who was merely holding on to half guard for dear life. This was fucking miserable, miserable ass fight.

This division is cooked. It's so fucking terrible. I think Sergei is better than what he showed. I do believe that but it it seemed to me in fairness to him if we can say that he was just looking for what you like to call survive in advance right the tournaments kind of thing he was just looking i think to get right and he did that's not nothing and it could be very valuable for him down the road but this fight was butt cheeks.

Wow. Big butt cheeks. Oh, wow. Big old butt cheeks. I got to shout out, although they continue to put her as deep on the undercard as they possibly can, Jasmine Drezdavisius at 125 takes on former title challenger at Bantamweight, Myra Bueno Silva, who moved back down to 125. And even though it's a third straight defeat for Silva and it's certainly a damning turn of events for somebody that we thought,

or at least I thought, was going to easily beat Rocky Pennington for that title. Look, this is four straight wins for Jasmine at 125. She has turned it around. She's added the striking to her takedown game. Like, she seems to be putting it together. How impressed are you? Pretty impressed.

I mean, there's competition. I think, you know,'s mma right now is really not super but this division is the best by far of women's mma yes and i think jazz davisius is really she seems to be headed towards a peak or peaking she really has turned a corner and stays ready stays active gets after it she's not without faults but she's with lots of pluses as well. Well, she's 35, so it's a good time to get to it right now. I think the women tend to age a little bit later, so I don't think that's as much of a...

They're like male heavyweights. Kind of. So this is the time for her to really step on the gas, and she is. And so I think for those reasons, it's good to see what she's doing. That moved me. Anything else move you on this undercard? Long Island Luke was talking about Saeed Nurmagomedov's spinny shit that he was spamming. That fight

was also not great from what I could see of it. Ferez Zion beating Mike Davis. Wait, wait, wait. That was fight of the night. Saeed Nurmagomedov, Vinicius Oliveira. I missed a round. I missed the last round. But it was fight of the night because they just award donkery. They were just donks donking it up. Well, I do think Ferez Zion, Mike

Davis should have been fight of the night, but both of those fights were great. Your mileage may vary. The Zayam-Davis fight was interesting. The only thing that was weird was Davis, 10 seconds into the fight, just pulls guard. And I'm like, what the fuck? I think he was hurt. There was something weird about that. I thought so, too.

It just didn't make sense. However, I will say this. People are like, oh, well, you're saying Zayam didn't look good. No, no, no, no, no. Ziam looked really good. Some of his striking, very accurate, great timing, great shot selection. I think Ziam is awesome. It was just strange from Mike Davis. On the prelim card, BC, you know, Gazieva. Oh, Terrence McKinney looked pretty good.

The fourth straight fight, McKinney either finished someone in the first round or was finished in the first round. Yeah. Second round, no. No. Not someone in the first round or was finished in the first round. Second round, no. No. Not doing it. First round, win or lose. I kind of like that approach.

But that was a pretty damn nub's card for the most part. It'll only get worse at 312 this Saturday outside of the top two fights. I keep saying this. I don't think 312 is in any way worse. I just don't agree with that. Long Island Luke, can you put this man to the test, please? You need to really dissect both of these cards. I mean, come on.

Saudi is so much better on paper. I'm not saying 312 is going to be bad. The two title fights are fantastic. There's no denying that. You get your head around the cards. Justin Taffer versus Taliesin Teixeira is not my favorite. Take the tour of Taffer. Jimmy Crute versus Bellator is going to be madness for as long as that lasts.

Jake Matthews Prado is interesting-ish. That's not interesting. Jack Jenkins on the prelim card is interesting. Jack Jenkins on the prelim card is interesting. Wang Tong on the prelim card is interesting. Yeah, she's got to bounce back, yeah. Alexander Teporia on the prelim card is interesting. Also, you add in a few more of these guys. I think it's two fights in Teporia.

Corey Steele on the early prelims, a huge BJJ phenom, finally getting some run in the UFC. That is a big-ass fight. No, you're just wrong. Saudi was not a better card. Absolutely not. Long Island, can you put a poll in the UFC. That is a big-ass fight. No, you're just wrong. Saudi was not a better card. Absolutely not. Long Island, can you put a poll in the racist chat, please, to get the people to give us the— Because what they're going to do is they're going to vote on vibes.

They don't feel like it's—listen. Hey, vibes won me a dead concert last year. It's so true. It's so true. But the point I want to make is people are going to say, relative to what they expect from pay-per-view, this is a letdown, which they're right. It is. But all I'm saying is card for card, Saudiper-view, this is a letdown, which they're right. It is. But all I'm saying is card for card, Saudi versus this one. No, the Saudi card's not better.

Sorry, you're wrong. BKFC, by the way, had a card in Connecticut over the weekend. Not only did Brennan Ward, former Bellator star, win his debut. Waterbury, Connecticut. No, New London, Connecticut. New London, I'm sorry, you're right. How about Connecticut's own Parker Porter winning in the BKFC debut? Yeah, man.

Yeah. He's a big man. Yeah. Also, Let Me Bang Bro won in the main event. Julian Land. He's still fighting? Yeah, he's the main eventer for Bellator, right? Wow.

No, for BKFC. For BKFC. I'm sorry. Yeah, there you go. Luke, have you ever heard of Gold Belly by any chance? I have heard of Gold Belly, yes. Well, I'm hoping our listeners wake up to this because it's the amazing site that I have now gotten a hold of and want to order from all the time. You want to know why, Luke? Because you can get the most iconic, famous foods from restaurants all across the U.S., only they will ship it to you for free to your door anywhere in the country.

Luke, you know what I got shipped to me? What did you get? Guy Fieri's famous trash can nachos. When it arrived, both of my sons, who by the way turned 17 yesterday, shout out to my twins Chris and Isaac, and they were like, oh dad, did you know about these

trash can nachos? I'm like, I heard of them. They're like, cook them now. This is all, let them cook. We had a hell of a feast right there. Okay, that's funny you mention that. So I actually got something from Buffalo, New York, Anchor Bar. Anchor Bar, famous for many things, including but not limited to buffalo wings. Oh, yeah, baby.

They came in the mail, and I was like, how good can it be? You know, I don't know about this. Bill's Mafia, baby. And then we heated them up, and they were sensational. The blue cheese that they had as well was freaking awesome. It was a home run with the wings. My trash can nachos had barbecue chicken, but you can get pork. You can get beef.

There's a lot of options on there. You can get Philly cheesesteaks from Jim's or Pat's. I mean, you can get the wings, Kansas City's most legendary barbecue. The options are endless. It also extends to pizza. Luke, if you're looking to get some of that, the kind of food you can typically only get on vacation but deliver for free to your doorstep and have it taste as delicious as you thought it could be,

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The delivery that they sent me, this is how many wings they sent me. It was nine pounds. Nine pounds. And they threw in some blue cheese. They threw in some buffalo sauce as well. All the fixings come. Perfect. It was a huge bag.

Guys, you can't go wrong. Goldbelly.com use the code combat with a k and by the way it's a super bowl sunday this weekend so not a bad time to get on board goldbelly.com slash combat with a k get 20 off your first order thank you very much all right it's time to get over to topic number three on today's show i was there i was on the call this weekend it went down saturday t-mobile arena in las vegas pbc on prime pay-per-view and an Topic number three on today's show. I was there. I was on the call this weekend. It went down Saturday. T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

PBC on Prime. Pay-Per-View. And an undefeated light heavyweight summit to produce, in theory, the next challenger for the Undisputed Championship that will be rematched February 22nd when Beterbiev and Bivol face off. But this was about the two Davids. It's Benavidez and Morel and Luke after a red hot build to this fight. So much bad blood between them. So much good stuff going on.

They put on a mini classic. Some people are talking about multiple fight of the year contenders coming off this card on Saturday. But after what we saw from Benavidez scoring unanimous decision over 12 rounds. What did that performance in your eyes say about what could happen next and his chances of winning the undisputed title against the winner of Better BFB Vol 2? In some ways, the performance made me more confident in his chances. In other ways, it made me less confident.

Healthy hands, though, unlike the Vazdik debut at Light Heavyweight, you see what you get now from him. Yes, you got just relentless punishment. Let's talk about the good part first, because I want to tell you about one thing that really kind of stood out to me, but let's talk about the good first from David Benavidez. First of all, I think

he landed 47.9% of his power shots, according to CompuVox. Ridiculous. Which is an absurd number. In a close back-and-forth fight between elite guys, that's ridiculous. And we'll talk about Morel in a minute because I also think he showed fantastic heart, but let's talk about the good part of Benavidez. The body work was absolutely tremendous. He

found so many openings for BC. How about the guard peels and then coming around the corner? Dude, every fight Benavidez is adding more offensively to the creativity. You're seeing little sidearm shots to get around the guard. You mentioned pulling the glove down and whacking him, the uppercuts, the combinations.

And he does that standing right in front of you squared up. I mean, it's ridiculous. He has so many ways of getting you to defend and then builds offense around that, that you just can't, you're just going to get rained on. It doesn't matter where you put the umbrella.

It just finds ways to get inside. And that's really what he was so effective at. The jab wasn't his most potent weapon, but it was very, very important, again, to get the gloves up. And then he could work around the sides and do the peels and everything else. So the body work, the creativity, the overall work rate, it's just hard to keep up with Benavidez because he's just nonstop. He's always in your face. And I want to say this to BC. I don't want to overstate the case of Benavidez's defense.

In fact, there was a couple times he got hit with some big shots and got his legs wobbled just for a moment. Round four, that right hand off the ropes. And then in 11, obviously he had his touch to gloves, which is partly a trip, but he got hit with some big shots. I mean, there's no denying it. I'm not making the claim that he's some kind of defensive slickster. Far from it. I'm not making the claim that he's some kind of defensive slickster. Far from it. However, for a guy who is always throwing and squared up in front of you,

his defense, given those contexts, is actually pretty good. Dude, can I tell you something? Please. Heading into the fight, according to CompuBox, he had the third best plus minus in all of boxing. It's remarkable. We're talking about Shakur Stevenson level. That's normally boxing technicians.

This is a monster. This is a stalking bully who fights mean at every turn which means he's always looking to add that extra power shot in and yet it's hard to hit this guy and overtake him. And I think to the extent he got hit at all in this fight with some of those big shots, it's only because Morel showed incredible gumption, which

a lot of opponents I don't think necessarily would have, especially late in that fight. But, you know, his ability to step out at angles now, close range on his terms, he's just doing a bunch of stuff that, and also, let's just be honest, part of his defense is his offense. No question. Because he's just throwing, throwing, throwing, throwing. So the guys just can't get going. But he complements that now with better defense along the way. And I have to say, through all of that, I'm like, dude, if he can just have a high work rate, he can beat anybody in that division. That's just the reality. And if you want to try and discipline him like Morel did, it wasn't enough.

He's got a great chin, too. He has a phenomenal chin. And by the way, his cardiovascular conditioning, I'm not going to call it Mer't enough. He's got a great chin, too. He has a phenomenal chin. And by the way, his cardiovascular conditioning, I'm not going to call it Merab level, but... Well, it used to be a potential problem. Remember, when he was stripped of the title for the failed drug test, then missing weight, the narrative was, this guy doesn't have the discipline to be an elite fighter.

He turned that around in the Caleb Plant win. He's only gotten better in those areas, because I rewatched this fight, and it's like every time Morel had success, Benavidez dug into a deeper gear and came back even more more aggressive more volume constantly putting on him he's a tsunami i don't think we've seen someone his size even if his power hasn't fully carried up to 75 on like a one punch level right it's still more about i want to talk about accumulation beating you down he He is all over you. It is hard for anybody to... I'm actually surprised, ultimately,

and it's a credit to Morel that he went the distance because the version of Benavidez that he fought on Saturday was the prime, best we've ever seen of him. So for Morel to go the distance there and even have a couple moments late, it speaks, as we said, to how great he may be one day because remember how young, and he's only had 12 pro fights now.

Let me add to that, if I may. BC, don't you find it really interesting that both in MMA and boxing now, you're seeing guys emerge who don't necessarily have, at this weight class, we're talking about Benavidez, not 68 and below. They don't have lights out power. They don't have lights out finishing ability. But they have this insane capacity for work. Yes.

And people just can't deal with it. You have to hurt them to change them. It works in MMA and it works in boxing. Again, there's differences between them, obviously, but I find that very noteworthy. He's the least likely guy a couple years ago that we would think could weaponize cardio the way he does. Obviously, he's weaponizing it through the vehicle of a mean,

hard-hitting, creative offensive force, but you're right. To some degree, he's weaponizing this cardio because it's not just can your backbone hold up like Demetrius Andrade looked good for a couple rounds and then just faded and you know all we always talk about is oh Benavidez like the great slow starter you know takes time to adjust but once he makes that adjustment it's downhill he was almost downhill in round one I asked him about after the fight and his his response was he it was easier to hit Morel than he thought it would be. And I think some of that is due to the decision Morel made

to actually kind of back up his words and trade a mano-a-mano. Morel didn't make this a boring fight by trying to circle away and use his legs. He stood and fought. But the fact that Benavidez started high pace from round one, dude, when he's dialed in like this, you know, I had questions coming in too. Could he beat B-Vol or better BF based on what we saw against Vazdik?

Dude, when he's healthy, he can beat anybody. He can beat anybody. Let me tell you what concerns I have. You called him hard hitting. I am not convinced of that. At 175, I have real questions about his power. From a one punch standpoint, yes, I'll give you that. He overwhelms you clearly.

I'm not suggesting, I mean, look, he just beat a really quality opponent in a really quality way. But now we're talking about Beterbiev and Bivol. Very different ballgame. If you can't hurt those guys, that's a tough fight to win, just matter-of-factly. And a guy like Beterbiev is interesting

because he's going to meet him head-on, and a guy like bival is also interesting because his ring craft is the best in the entire division yes so the two next fights for him are are very very different but also much more interesting than even this one was already but i just have to say one the power problem i think is going to be a real limiting factor at the very very top end of this division for him second right, right now he is, I mean, flying high with good reason. He looks so fucking good. But this style is going to age poorly.

Now, that's not really relevant for the next fight or the one after that or really even for the foreseeable future. But it will age out quickly. It will age out quickly if your whole premise is I'm going to outwork you but not with dominating power when you begin to decline in age that's going to catch up rapidly. It wasn't a topic

this week but when we remember we went out last year to those PBC events we talked to Jim Lampley a couple times we interviewed him. One of those interviews I remember him telling me maybe it was the time that we were at that tank in Benavidez co-feature that he had talked to Benavidez and he thinks down the line that Benavidez could move up to heavyweight and has the size to do it. To do that, to go up to cruiser and then heavy, it's going to have to be more about boxing.

And he's probably going to be able to. I mean, his speed. I thought Morel was going to have a distinct speed advantage over him. And Benavidez's hand speed was right there with him. Right. I wonder if he's going the higher he goes if he's going to still be that bully or if it will be more of a mix of boxing I don't know I don't know how to answer that I don't know what to say but I just feel like

there is so much enthusiasm about what he turned in on Saturday and with very good reason but we should not we should not be blind to how the next set of matchups are both more difficult and directly challenge the way in which he wins fights by some of the most skilled power punchers and or technicians anywhere in boxing. Different ballgame. There were a few rounds. I mean, this will, it feels like this is a fight of the year contender. I don't know if it ends up being the top three or four. Very good fight. Fight of the year, I don't know.

There were a couple sequences round four obviously was the big one where i mean especially those first four rounds were so tense so so much back those back and forth exchanges the atmosphere in t-mobile on fire yeah during the main event particularly we talked about it during well during the people cruise fight it was on fire that people cruise fiero fight was like we're gonna get to that yeah it was it was it was on fire it was all mexico people cruz fierro fight was like we're gonna get to that yeah it was it was it was fishing with hitler pre-bath i mean it was it was great it was unbelievable can we stop referencing that please god okay the point i want to make was did you heard it a little bit on the broadcast did morel have a noticeable contingent of fans in attendance

there was a brief moment early in the fight where you heard Cuba, Cuba. Yes. And then the majority of the crowd started to boo in response. Yes, yes. Which was kind of funny. I mean, dude, they didn't sell out, but they had over 12,000 in there, and those were Benavidez fans, and they were Pitbull fans. Let's be honest, Pitbull brings a big crowd wherever he goes.

But yeah, they were pro-Mexican fans, and I mean, look, Benavidez, say it like this. I already had him number 10 pound for pound. This is the fight, though. I think everybody's going to put him in pound for pound. Look at the run he's on. Look at the difficulty of the opponents.

Look at the style difference going from power puncher Lemieux to Caleb Plant as a boxer to the creative in size and southpaw of Andrade, who's tough to beat and was unbeaten coming in, to Vazdik with the Ukrainian background, the former champion at 175. now to david morel who we didn't know how great he was right he only had 11 pro fights we can only know at a certain level of competition but morel fought his ass off and rightfully lost dude the run he's on he's pound for pound now he's pound for pound he's he's an attraction dude the the the ability of David Benavidez is so remarkable that you mentioned,

like, oh, he's beating all these different body types, sizes, and now weight classes too. His style is a very unique one. It reminds me, again, for MMA fans, it's a little Habib-like where it's like, oh, Habib has to go against this guy and this guy and this guy, but it ends up just being a case where they just pave over everything. It doesn't really matter. They're just going to lay the cement down and crush it all.

If you try to run on him, he'll cut off the ring and make it, you know? It just smothers everything in the end. And that's why, again, that's why the Better Beavis and Bilbo fights are going to be so interesting. We had Benavidez after the fight at the Presser. We have sound of him talking about the power of Morel. He gave Morel a lot of respect afterwards, which I like to see after the week they had here's benavidez how you doing david

this is naji from cigar talk congratulations on your victory tonight um you fought a bunch of elite opponents you know throughout your career um between you know caleb plan and andre and of course now morel can you talk about where he ranks just as far as difficulty, you know, between your past opponents? He is harder than everybody I've faced. He's obviously because he's 175, so he's a good fighter, but I think just my experience alone, I've seen so much different styles. You know, I've seen Kayla Plant, Demetrius Andre, Bosick, Anthony Durrell. Who else?

So, I mean, I kind of, like, I'm just getting better and better, but his do was good. He fucking brought it until the 12th round, you know what I mean? So he's a good fighter. He's a good fighter, but, you know what I mean? I think, like I said, I just show him what level I'm on.

Yeah, for sure. So, Luke, we said experience was the major difference between them coming in, and I think you saw that. Like, I think you saw that in there. There were moments that Morel, especially in round 11 with that hit after the bell, and he was. And I think you saw that. Like, I think you saw that in there. There were moments that Morell, especially in round 11 with that hit after the bell and he was kind of mentally rattled from that. Morell did rally and stay in the fight during the periods that you thought

maybe he was going to get overwhelmed. I was, though, largely, largely impressed by what Morell did here, even in defeat. To the point that I got to say something hot. I think he's problems for Canelo Morel. Okay, let me back up a step, because I think that's an interesting thing to say. Aside from resiliency, which he had inarguably,

what else did you like from the performance? Because he didn't do what we thought he might, which was use his foot speed and some of that elusiveness to avoid Benavidez, he came right at Benavidez. Kind of backed up the words that he said. And he actually, in the first half of the fight, was able to avoid Benavidez, he came right at Benavidez. Kind of backed up the words that he said. And he actually, in the first half of the fight, was able to hurt Benavidez. Stand close enough. I mean, they operated at such close difference for two elite guys. It was a beautiful

fight to watch from ringside. The creativity and explosiveness of his shots, the head movement, the baiting Benavidez in and then countering him with big shots. Look, he's an offensive machine in there. He's a very good fighter. I think, you know, Canelo's always had issues with people

with hand speed and foot speed. I think you add in that power, and I think he's bringing that explosiveness with him to 75. I was impressed. Were you not? So I'll say this. I was absolutely impressed by him. But I'm going to say the following, and I really would know, I really am curious what you have to say about it, which is if you had never

seen David Morrell before, you didn't really get the David Morrell experience. Now... No, I think he fought Benavidez's fight to a fault, to some degree. Right. So what I'm going to say is, on one level, that's actually a good thing, because he never had to show this kind of heart before. I didn't know if he had it. Yes. He's got it. He's got a chin, too.

He's got a chin. So those are great things that we learned. But we had described him and I do think if you look at the body of work, this is fair. We had described him as a slick boxer puncher. Didn't get a lot of that. He didn't commit to that style and that's the thing you can argue. I think that was a big problem and I think you're asking like

that's why I was asking like what did you like about it? Because if I wanted to show someone David Morrell that's not the fight I would show them. So let's say and they're not going to do it, but let's say they had an immediate rematch. I think Morel would box so much more. I think he tried to back up everything he said. I think he tried to back up everything he said, and he tried to beat Morel mano a mano. I'm sorry, but he tried to beat Benavidez.

Head to head. And not just in like a brawl, but like an explosive close range, let's tit for tat. I think you would see him box more. I think you would see a better version of him if he mixed a little bit of that in. Now he went with what he, he played his cards and he, and he played it. So there's an argument. It's weird. I thought it was scoring wise.

I had an eight, four. One of those judges had 11 to one, but you know, Dan Rayfield, a guy who I respect a lot, had it wide. He said, look, it was a competitive, fun, close fight, but scoring wise, he had it very wide. Did you agree with that? I did not have the scoring wide. He said, look, it was a competitive, fun, close fight, but scoring-wise, he had it very wide. Did you agree with that? I did not have the scoring wide, no. Because there's arguments that people are trying to make online that Morel rallied enough in the second half

that it actually should have been a closer decision. I do kind of disagree. I thought 8-4 was solid. I could go 8-4, 7-5. I don't know if that's considered wide or not. 7-5 is not. 7-5 is as close as you can get. I don't know if 8-4 was solid. I could go 8-4, 7-5. I don't know if that's considered wide or not. 7-5 is not. I don't know if 8-4 is considered wide. 7-5 is as close as you can get.

I don't know if 8-4 is considered wide. 2-1. I don't know how that goes. But to me, it was not really a mystery who won at the end. And I think trying to find rounds for Morell is cope. It's cope. I'm with you on that. So here's the interesting thing.

But you've got to tell me. Okay. Morell Canelo. I don't think Canelo is going to go anywhere near him. I mean, it's interesting. Canelo wasn't there. His trainer, though, Eddie Reynoso, was in the crowd. Yes, he was.

And although Eddie just signed to train a big prospect, I think he's from Mexico, who's going to debut on the PBC Tank pay-per-view coming up. That's like a big get for Eddie. So I don't know if it had more to do with that, or maybe he's scouting. But it's interesting. We didn't talk a lot about Canelo coming in.

I didn't even ask Benavidez about Canelo afterwards, because this isn't about Canelo. Canelo's at 68. He doesn't want to fight these guys. I think Morel would be an issue for him. I really do. I thought, even though we critiquing some of the parts of Morel's game,

I thought the poise he showed in a tough fight at the highest level, not giving up was key. The backbone, the, all that he can move dynamically he's with a foot and hand speed and you add in that he's a big dude with power and explosiveness this version of Canelo I don't think he wants to fight guys like this I don't I don't think he wants this type of smoke yeah I mean I do think it would be competitive between Morel and Canelo

but I think that people who watch this fight that that's what I mean, they didn't quite get a sense of how slick and deft and clever he can be as a puncher. And I think against a more stationary Canelo who's, he'll walk you down, but he's a lot more trunk movement based. Morel might feast. That's a strong word, but I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, Benavidez said he would not go down to 68 ever again. He said this before the fight. He said even if Canelo asked him, and by the way, Benavidez revealed, I don't know, man. I don't know. I mean, Benavidez said he would not go down to 68 ever again. He said this before the fight. He said even if Canelo asked him. By the way, Benavidez revealed. I don't know if you saw this podcast that I think was last year. He revealed that Al Heyman presented Canelo with a guaranteed $60 million offer to fight Benavidez at 68. Plus getting huge pay-per-view upside. And Benavidez was only going to get $5 million.

And he was going to only take home like 3.5 of that after paying everybody pre-tax and Benavidez still said yes and Canelo said no so that's very interesting. Benavidez is like, I'm not going down to 68 even if Canelo wants to anymore. If they fought at 175 tomorrow, Canelo, Benavidez, what does it look like? What happens?

Because Canelo did not look bad against Bivol at 75, but he got overwhelmed by a more skinny... I don't think Benavidez stops him. I think Canelo's chin is legendary. He is crafty. He would find ways to survive. But would he get him off of him? He couldn't get Benavidez off of him.

People are thinking, like, Canelo's power would discipline him, and I am very, very suspect about that. I think you look at a fight like Saturday, Benavidez doesn't stop him. Canelo's going to be really hard to stop. He's going to beat him up. I think he's going to beat him up like Bivol. You know, Bivol did it in a different way. Remember there was times where Bivol was like landing

and then kept landing and then you're like, okay, he'll stop now. And then he kept landing. Canelo tried that rope-a-dope against Bivol and he just got lit up. I think Benavidez would have him up on the ropes. I think he'd fuck him up real proper. Interesting stuff. So here's what's also interesting. So this makes now Benavidez the mandatory, like we said, to face the winner of Better BFB Vol 2.

But Luke, you could argue that with everything going on Saudi-wise in boxing, which is a lot, they're almost taking over all of boxing to a certain degree, that we talk a lot about, well, what about the North American market? What about the U.S.? What about Las Vegas? I mean, Benavidez planting his flag back in Las Vegas this weekend and getting $12,000 at T-Mobile is not a small thing.

I felt like this was a big win for American boxing to some degree. And then Benavidez says this afterwards about the idea of fighting in Saudi compared to Vegas. To be honest with you, that's the one thing. They talk about Turkey out of the sheet. And they tell you, would you ever fight with him, with them over there in Riyadh? But at the end of the day, my fan base is here in Las Vegas. I'm a Las Vegas fighter, you know what I mean?

I would love to go over there and fight, but this is my market right here. And I feel like we're doing really well. We just sold out T-Mobile Arena. You know what I mean? It's one of my dreams come true. You know what I mean? It's one of my, it's a dream come true to me. You know what I mean? And I just want to, I want to take advantage of this market because I've been, I've worked 11 years to, this is my first time having a freaking crowd like that.

So I just, I want to stay here. He also would say that he made- American boxing owes David Benavidez such a fucking debt of gratitude. Yes. Do you know who was saying this over the weekend? He said something slightly different. Who was the guy that got sideways with Turkey for a bit, the reporter?

Jake Donovan. Jake Donovan. I mean, I know they patched it up. And Jake was like, dude, American boxing needed tonight badly. Yes, it did. It did. And it was great to see, separate from my involvement on there, and it was great to see PBC come back and have a great night like that.

But those are interesting comments. Does that, in your eyes, because Benavidez in other interviews this week said, look, I made a lot of money the last nine years, but he's also trying to say it's not just about the money. Like he was willing to take small money against Canelo, very small, just to get that on his resume because he wants to be great. Did his voice at all tell you that he may turn down an opportunity to go to Saudi and face the winner?

I believe that if the money is enough and the opponent is right, that any boxer would sell their services to the Saudis. I think it's important to really understand. And he has said in the past that he'd be willing to work with Turkey. Yeah, it didn't sound to me like he was precluding the opportunity. He was just saying it wasn't super interesting to him at the present moment. But, you know, let's be clear. It could obviously happen at some point. But what I will say is I think that the guys, I think maybe I'm making an overgeneralization here,

but the Mexican fighters in this country, either from here or second generation or Canelo comes here, whatever, who take their Mexican boxing fans seriously. Yeah. They have a bond with them that makes them internally say, I have to be here present in front of them. And they travel from Mexico to Vegas for these fights. They fucking travel. It's not enough to be like, okay, I'll make something up. $50, $100 million fighting in Riyadh.

It didn't sound to me like David Benavidez was poo-pooing the notion of that yeah but it did sound to me like he took the idea that he has a responsibility to american boxing to his mexican or latino fans fans more generally based here and that can that that relationship can only be fulfilled from his end by competing here a lot of guys are just like, fuck it. I'll just compete wherever. And I understand that too. Boxing short, get money while you can. I get it.

But when you've got time on your side, when you've got the sport on your side, when you've got the fans on your side, it is a different calculation. And honestly, he's not the only one making it. Inouye does it in Japan all the fucking time. But of course, he'll compete here this year as well. So we could see Benavidez on the road. But I really can't say it enough. Guys like him, guys like Tank Davis, also Canelo Alvarez,

not an American guy, but obviously competing here. They're doing a lot for the market in ways that nobody else is. We have to be grateful for that if you're an American. And all the, by the way, it wasn't picked up a lot, but Benavidez did say last week that he's also not against the idea of moving up to cruiserweight and challenging Zerto Ramirez, a Mexican national, for a title there. That's interesting. Which is also... I think it's going to be real.

Well, Zerto's a blown up, you know, 68, 75. It's just that Zerto looks the best at cruiserweight of any division, maybe because he brings that speed with him, so would benavidez that's an interesting thought i'd obviously as a fan you want him now to face the winner of better bf people you want it you know i i no other fight i mean canelo is in the rear view for me in terms of the benavidez experience and honestly just say it out loud a benavidez versus canelo fight is bigger and might be fun in different ways, but a better fight is Benavidez-Bivol or Benavidez-Betterbiev. I would agree with that, especially when you consider Benavidez claims he has dropped in her Bivol and sparring.

Those are the fights to make. Those are the fights to make. One final thing. Did you see the pre-fight press conference when Morel's advisor, Louie DeCuba Sr., which is interesting because Louie Jr. is an advisor for Benavidez. Or Louie. Both. Both.

They had like crazy words at the press conference before the fight, which was surprising, where Sr. was like, you're going to get knocked out, blah, blah, blah. And he was very animated ringside. He sat behind us at the announcing booth. They had more at the post-fight presser watch this it was wild he called me a thief, man. And I'm back in city. Are you a thief? Hey, I wish I could trade checks with you guys.

I wish I could trade checks with both of you. I'm not afraid of you. You keep talking shit. I'm not afraid of you. All right, let's... We're going to go. We're going to go. Let's get a picture. You get a picture. I'm going to put you in a picture. So what was interesting, they ejected him from that press conference.

And what was interesting is right before that, Benavidez and Morel were friendly. They took pictures together. Benavidez actually gave the title belt back to Morel because, you know, you take his belt, but then you give it back and you get mailed a new one. And they were real nice. But then Senior really took umbrage about the comments about him taking money out of Morel's check and panavia was like i'll slap you right now but the old man said bring it luke that was that was kind of wild you don't see that so often boxing bro boxing so boxing is wild all right let's go to topic number four which was hey a loaded undercard and one that ultimately

delivered in that co-main event even though it was a rematch of the 2021 fight of the year and even though it didn't necessarily live up to the action expectations which is probably why the crowd booed at times in the second half it lived up to the storyline expectations because boxing had effectively counted out former unified 122 champion and pound for pound top tenor Stephen Fulton Jr. and when he entered this rematch with Figueroa, I mean, I saw everyone picking Figueroa by late stoppage. In the end, Luke, it goes down as a redemptive, unanimous decision win as Fulton turned Figueroa, who at 26 had looked like more of a refined puncher

than spamming offensive force. He turned him back into that version. He also did crazy style things that we'll get to in a second. But Luke, considering how badly that boxing Twitter basically said Fulton's washed at 31, and reportedly even members of Fulton's inner circle pulled out after the Inouye loss, how big of a statement did he make

in his first fight with new trainer Bozianis to go in there and disarm Figueroa the way that he did? Blown away. I thought after the Castro fight, which was the one he took after the Inouye fight, where he looked like... He got dropped. He got dropped.

It was on a prelim card. You thought, okay, Inouye destroyed this guy. And Fig had knocked Castro out in his featherweight debut, too. Right, I mean, you just thought, wow, this is terrible. This has really gone off the rails. And then he shows up ahead of time wearing jeans and modified Tims. And I'm like, by the way, an epic look if ever there was one.

Okay, so here it is right here. By the way, people think those are real Tims. I actually zoomed in on them. They're designer boxing. Yeah, they're modified. Jordan Plant reported on it during the show. But, dude, so he's now going full time with the name Scooter. He showed up on a scooter at the weigh-ins.

But he was speaking monotone all week. We didn't expect any of this. And then he came out with the mouthpiece that said, fuck you on it. Can we see that long outlook? Let's take a look at this. Yeah, look at that, bro. I've got to say, the reason why I found this so interesting was because it looked to me like he knew that the world had counted him out. And he refused to give in to the narrative.

And honestly, people were disappointed in this fight relative to the first one. The first one was a fight of the year contender and winner in certain ways. The second one was still exciting, and the crowd was booing the shit out of it. It was high-paced, at least. It was high-paced, and it looked like the first one by the time it got to the end with Figueroa just kind of smothering everything. But the reason why this fight was not as good as the first one is because Fulton made changes to the way he fought,

put Figueroa at distance, certainly through the first four rounds and then pretty continuously in spots through the rest of the fight, clinched when he needed to, fought well on the inside when he needed to. Figueroa seemed to, at the end of the fight, show us the thing with his mouthpiece again. Look at this photo. seemed to, at the end of the fight, show us the thing with his mouthpiece again.

Look at this photo. This is close to the end of the fight. There's Mary a mark on his face, and Figueroa was all over him. He turned Figueroa into a spammer. He wasn't sitting down on his punches because he couldn't land anything. He couldn't land anything. Dude, this was great by Fulton. This is why, I don't think people were

picking Fulton to beat Inouye, but he was in pound-for-pound discussions heading into the Inouye fight, and that all collapsed. I'm not saying this brings him back, BC, but it does bring him back from the place that he was, which was being considered a bust and a washout. He is now a champion, up-a-weight class.

Holy fucking shit. This was big for the kid from Philadelphia. It was. I thought he was going to dunk on people more, but he was very humble afterwards, and you see the hard work he put in to dunk on people more, but he was very humble afterwards. And you see the hard work he put in the Bozy factor. He didn't replace his trainer. He still has his dad in there and the original team, but they added Bozy and you saw the difference, Luke,

there was much more class countering so stiffly against figure, which was a big part of the success Fulton had early in rounds the first time, but you know what may have been the unreported difference. Luke Fulton told the sister in the fighter meetings, he said his weight cut to one 22 was so hard in the first time, but you know what may have been the unreported difference, Luke? Fulton told the sister in the fighter meetings. He said his weight cut to 122 was so hard in the first Figueroa fight that he didn't have the energy to fight for all three minutes of each round that he had to, quote,

I think he said ghetto it out or gangster it out in terms of just biting down. And that also, I think that fight was an action fight and tricked us. Maybe that's true. Although it was also obviously a hard cut to 22 for Figueroa, but fully formed at 26. He not only had the better gas tank, it seemed,

he was physically moving Figueroa around in the clinch, too. He was not allowing himself to get overwhelmed. Pushing him off constantly. Now, again, that kind of faded the longer the fight went, but he did it long enough, often enough, and successfully enough where Figueroa was... Figueroa had no real meaningful adjustments at all.

It was only Fulton who had the adjustments, and he was the clear winner in my mind when it was over. He was wearing jorts. Wearing fucking jorts. That's insane. Actually, I don't even think they were jorts. I think they even looked like jorts. What did they look like up close?

Look at, they looked, I mean. So he's got, they're torn at the bottom, but at the top, it's like an elastic waistband yeah so ultimately they are boxing shorts they're customized obviously but they look very denim jorts in person it looks like when i was a kid it was a total 80s thing my dad would always get thrown out of water parks or told he had to leave because he never owned a pair of uh swim trunks he would just take jeans and cut them off at the at the thigh right and they'd be like the pocket hanging out, but they got like those buckles on it that scrape against the

water slides, you know what I mean? He kind of looked like my dad in 1983. All he needed was like a cigarette rolled up in his t-shirt right there. I mean, I know that Tim's are very popular in Philly, but I've kind of always associated Tim's with like New York City. I don't know if that's fair or not. Could it just be an East Coast thing?

Tim's are not that big in D.C. They're big, but they're not that big. Well, maybe part of why the crowd was booing because how could they top what we saw in the second fight of the four-fight pay-per-view card? And that was Pitbull Cruz looking to bounce back from that loss in the 140 title bout to Jose Valenzuela coming back in the same division.

And I told you guys that this guy was a live dog. Angel Fierro of Tijuana, Mexico, who I had seen on ring city a few years back coming on six days notice, get dropped twice, get up and knock out former champion, Alberto Machado, Luke Thomas Fiero turned in a performance that was worthy of the hype that

this fight got, meaning that the WBC created a, a special commemorative like Mexican-action brawl title. They had the family of the late Israel Vasquez come in and present that belt. It was everyone's talking about 25th anniversary of Morales Barrera. Luke, these two came in and poured the damn jug out from the opening bell, gave us 12 incredible rounds of action. Cruz wins a close decision.

I did see some narrative out there that Fierro may have exposed Cruz. The limitations of his offensive game. Is it that true, or is this more about Pitbull maybe having 140 limitations as opposed to maybe 35, which is a better weight class for him? I think Pitbull has stylistic limitations, but Fierro just looked to me ungodly tough I mean there were times like Pitbull's got a Pitbull can crack yeah like tanks even said people there were some early right hands where Fiero was rocked there were times to fuck the first few rounds throughout all was it 10 or

12 whatever it was yeah maybe there were times when Fiero was getting cracked and I was like surely he's going to stumble here and he just kept cracked, and I was like, surely he's going to stumble here. And he just kept pressing on. And I was like, okay, this is an unusual level of toughness. Ryo, I thought, beat him with toughness and skill. Obviously, Pitbull got his hand raised here. But what I'm trying to point out was I thought Fiyero made it very competitive in certain ways. But he didn't do it with as much skill. So what I'm going to say is it's not like i have a huge change in opinion on what pitbull

can and can't do it does to me seem somewhat class dependent but really opponent dependent but i just thought what fierro was able to do in withstanding it i'm telling you i was watching with my wife and i was like okay he's gonna fall here and he just kept going oh he's gonna fall here he's gonna fall here and he just kept going and then putting it on cruise at certain points and turning the tide rounds three and nine or round of the year contenders yes they were just round three was mayhem yes yes yes so let's show the uh the love you i don't think we have the audio but here's fiero walking out so this was a dominant cruise mexican crowd and obviously fiero's from Mexico too, but they gave him so much love on the way out. Luke, to be honest, Fierro was considered

more of a journeyman type coming in, but a plus journeyman because he's got balls and he doesn't have a bad record, only two defeats coming in. This is as good of a moral win as you can get. Do you think he should kind of be added to the celebrity mix at 140 with the elite names, whether it's in PBC?

I'm not sure his promotional status. I know he was briefly signed with Eddie Hearn for a little bit a few years ago. Do you think he's, could he do this again against these other big players at 140, you think? I didn't see enough skill to make me believe he could do that, but, you know, throw up the bat signal, we need a fun fight.

Yeah. I mean, he is your fucking guy. Well, he was so much bigger than Pitbull. He had a seven-inch reach advantage. Okay, everyone's bigger than Pitbull, though. Okay, will we see this again? Ooh. I'd say the chances are greater than 50%, yeah.

And is this a legitimate fight of the year contender in your mind? Yes. I will say, though, watching this fight, they were talking about Ryan Garcia versus Pitbull, and obviously I have no clue what condition Ryan Garcia is in mentally or physically. Yes. But if Ryan is halfway sober and halfway himself, I think he smokes Pitbull.

I think he smokes him. That's going to be a long-reach advantage. He's hittable, man. Super hittable. He's durable and he's tough. Please don't misunderstand me, but we're talking about Ryan Garcia's speed and accuracy. Well, it's interesting.

I slept on Ryan. I had a Devon Haney fight. I'm not going to do it again. It's as if the loss to Tank made pitbull because he took him the distance because he turned tank into a boxer really but we know tank hurt his hand in that fight and it really only had the use of his right hand but also that was just took that fight on late notice after they pulled roly from it so if they had a rematch how do do you think Pitbull versus Tank 2 would go? Same way it went the first time.

I think Tank is underrated as a boxer. I broke down that footage for CBS and Showtime. And that fight is a big on check hooks, pivoting, circling out, great footwork, great ring generalship. Pitbull walks forward, but he – dude, in that fight, I have to go back and look at the exact round, but by round eight, I believe, in a 12-round contest, Tank had already figured him out, and Pitbull was just kind of in cruise control

the last few rounds because he couldn't get ahead. I don't see any reason why that would be any different this time. Yeah, but what a hell of a fight. A joy to call. Shout out to those two gentlemen for bringing it. I mean, that's a lot of pressure when they make a commemorative bell and everybody's talking about Barrera, Morales, and those two

go out there and give us that. Is your audio good? I just lost you in my ear. Whatever. Yeah, Luke, I don't know what you hit. Yeah, you hit something. You turned yourself off. Once again, I didn't do nothing! Let's bring in Ken. Here we go. There we go. We're back.

You see what I mean? You see what I mean? What am I? I didn't touch anything. You should fist fight Ken or something. Here we go. There we go. We're back. You see what I mean? You see what I mean? Fucking, what am I? I'm not even touching anything. You should fist fight Ken or something. Likely story. Let's go to topic number five. Wait, BC, real quick. Can you explain what happened with the gloves before this fight?

What was that all about? I didn't end up getting the final story, but it was during the prelims, an issue, and they had the cameras backstage. It looked like whatever gloves people was planning to use either weren't approved by the commission or weren't approved by the opponent. They figured it out. They ultimately got it. I don't know if it was a situation like, remember Mayweather-Maidana where Maidana wanted to use the puncher's gloves from Mexico, the Reyes gloves, the horse hide gloves.

And Floyd ended up paying him a huge chunk of money not to use those. So I'm not sure the situation in the end, but it's a good question long on, Luke. I never got a clarification on that. I was only a commentator in the end of the day all right appreciate you clearing it up thank you i will say that they had that main event running by like 11 oh it was quick it was a that was a quick broadcast i was so happy with the speed of that dude when they start those pay-per-views at eight ufc is that we can't start pay-per-views till 10 i'm like dude i don't know about that dude i love that al hayman doesn't allow them to do the the uh i don't know if it's his call i assume like the the uh national anthems yeah because that could have been i saw people tweeting that could have been a three national

anthem main event and they ultimately uh fuck you're right they ultimately didn't which is great thank god yeah yeah i don't need to hear them yeah uh let's go to topic number five as mentioned we will be back this friday 11 a.m. Eastern in this studio with Chuck Mendenhall, giving you the full pregame preview brought to you by Cuervo. But it is UFC 312 this Saturday in Australia. What city is it in Australia? Sydney. In Sydney, Australia. At the Kudos Bank Arena.

Not the home of Mr. Noseda of Melbourne fame. But, Luke, it is a card, okay? I believe it's pronounced Melbourne. No, it's pronounced Melbourne. I know, I know. They're like, listen, I know what the letters say. Fucking ignore it. Yeah.

That's how you pronounce Melbourne. Caseras. Now feels like a good time to bring up the results of the poll. Okay. So we have 650 plus votes. Four. Which card is better? Yeah, 61% are saying UFC Saudi is saudi is better than just just clowns just

i think they're right i think they're right you're both wrong and you're gonna see that you're both wrong wow wow all right so luke thomas as it goes down this weekend main event of course a middleweight title rematch between dracus duplicy and sean strickland what storyline surrounding ufc 312 and obviously we're going to break this shit down intensifyingly on Friday. But from a distance, which one has you most interested? Can I tell you there's a million ways to go. As I mentioned, Cody Steele being on the prelims, I think

is a big deal. I would say from a storyline standpoint, I'm paying most attention to Tatiana Suarez. This seems like a very do or die moment. But can I pick something a little bit different? You can pick whatever you want, but we'll put a poll out to prove you wrong. Okay. Yeah, fair.

I'm sure you would. Listen, you guys are all wrong about this card. I don't know what to tell you. Okay. There is something interesting about the main event. Now, the first main event, I rewatched it. It's not very fun. Fair to say.

It's high skill and it's tense. High skill tense, but not super thrilling. Yes. Okay. I have called the thriller in the past. I'm probably wrong. Let me rewatch it. But certainly not crap.

I'm not saying it's crap. Yeah. In real time, I thought DDP won. Second time, I thought Sean Strickland won. I watched it again. I definitely thought Sean Strickland won. Okay. It's not about that or the implications,

but Sean Strickland has made an alteration to his style that I thought was made bare in the first fight. Sean Strickland has decided that he's going to do a lot of, he does sort of a square Philly shell, picks up the lead leg to counteract leg kicks, parries, kind of leans out of the way, all that stuff. But what really happens is that when DDP blitzes, and this happens not just with DDP,

but you saw it in this fight a lot, he would retreat, cross-stepping out of the way, leaning his head all the way back. If you look on the camera here, if my hips are in front and my head is back, this is a mechanically not advantageous position from which to throw anything. In fact, he typically does not. Sometimes he will get guys off of him,

but he doesn't throw. Something happened in the Paulo Costa fight, the one in between this one, where you saw him issue these retreats. He would stop and then try and throw. He didn't do it all that successfully, but it was clear he was tired of losing five-round fights when these wars of attrition,

where it's kind of hard to tell who's winning and he's coming up razor close. So they decided if you're just going to retreat like that, you will lose these fights. It's too much you're giving up. You're forced to reset. You, you will lose these fights. It's too much. You're giving up. You're forced to reset. You can't throw from this position. There's no counterattack.

So they're trying to change his style. Interesting. They're trying to make him sit down, retreat some retreat in a certain way that enables you to throw back. Because I think if he goes back to what he did the first time, coin flip, I don't know how it's going to go. They're trying to put more muscle into his defensively oriented style. This is the time to make that work.

And they're bringing in Poetan. And I saw, well, can we play the clip? Because I actually think this is a really interesting edition. Mike Hecke of MMA Fighting caught up with Eric Nixick, friend of the show. Friend of the show. Why is Poetan in the corner if he doesn't speak English? I actually think Nixick has a great answer to this. How did this all come together to get Alex in the corner for this one?

He was going to be out there. And it was just one of those things where we're looking at the corner and I knew he's going to be out there. And, you know, Johnny, Johnny Ebblin couldn't make it out. I was hoping to have him in the corner. Myself and Danny Davis will be there. And it was just a matter of convenience. And these are two guys that really trust one another, you know,

Sean went out there to help him get ready for a clear round tree. And you know, this, what people don't really understand. And I see some people thinking it's like a publicity thing. It's more about the comfortability in your corner. And not only that, what Alex is going to bring to the locker room. And Sean warms up very very hard sean basically fights in the back to get his eyes and his rhythm and his timing on point who better to be back there to help you warm up than alex freaking peyote right like that guy's

going to help so i see you know i've seen a couple comments here and there about he doesn't speak english he was in our corner for the last Drikus fight. He sat right behind me and he told me everything in my ear. Hey, make sure he teeps more, make sure he jabs more. We speak MMA, right? There's enough for him to be able to say to help, to be a resource for us. And look, if we're going to battle, who better to have in your corner than Alex Fajeda. So I'll take him in any capacity that we can get, but there's, there's a lot of deeper levels and layers of having in the corner than just him, just there looking looking uh scary you know so um he's gonna help us a ton okay here's why this is important and relevant i mentioned they're trying to reform

strickland's style and you're bringing in now a guy like poet on who i think they're getting him ready in the back all of the prep all of the maybe some advice he might get between rounds but the point i want to make was, remember what Drick has said about how he beat Sean Strickland? And his answer was volume. I just kept throwing. I just kept going. They're going to try and meet fire with fire.

I'm not declaring to you. I'm not declaring to you that the fight is going to be a barn burner. What I am saying is it's going to be a test case about whether they can fight fire with fire by trying to turbo charge some of the offense that has been missing from his style to me okay this has me excited this is why when people were shitting on this main event i'm like again i cannot declare to you what's going to happen but the pessimism around it to me is a little strong i agree with that and i and like i said

i thought the first fight was interesting to watch i want to see the second one my my biggest storyline was going to be poet on but my question biggest storyline was going to be Poetan, but my question was, is it going to be more ceremonial? That is an interesting breakdown of the ways that it actually could affect. At first, I was like, are they trying to set up DDP moving up to 205? So it has nothing to do with that, right? It's just sort of like Strickland gets on with Chama. They're good, which is a weird, weird partnership, but it works, right?

This is going to be interesting come Saturday night. I'm really excited about that. You know what? They had Pereira showing video of him cheering for Izzy in this fight. Did you see that? Yes, they've become friendly and had, like, they shared that they've shared DMs. I think so.

And, like, you know, dude, these guys are like, once the battle's done, man, there's no reason to. Yuri and Jamal throwing down shots in the bar. Exactly. I actually prefer to see it that way. We didn't see it under the cap there, but Nick Six Hair has made a comeback, right? You know what?

My man took that flight to Istanbul. Dude, what about Danny Rube getting on that? Is he going to be bitter about this? Because I love Danny. He's my favorite manager in the game. You know what I mean? Dude, he texts me when he sees this shit. He's like, why does Brian Campbell keep doing this?

He's a great wrestler at OU. D1, baby. Okay, big time D1. Listen, he's not the tallest man I've ever seen. No, but he's connected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he is connected.

Isn't he Shafkat's guy? He is Shafkat's guy. Who else does he have? Armin. DDP. Yes. He's got a lot of guys. Yes.

Yes, there we go. All right, those are our five topics. Unless no seed. You got anything to say about 312, or we'll save it for Friday? We'll hit it on Friday. All right, thank you very much. That's the best. That's why we have him here.

Those are our five topics. Thank you for playing. Now we the best. That's why we have them here. Those are our five topics. Thank you for playing. Now we move on to our first fan related segment of the week. And it is the call that we put out every Sunday night on social media at morning combat. And obviously you can see our email address, morning combat at gmail.com, which is reserved for the Friday elements.

You won't see them this week, but fan subs. What's the other one dead wrong. This one though, is about you having questions that need answers this one's called dms from dogs that's just so like gross and offensive that's yeah i mean this is the worst thing i've ever heard okay what do we got here let's hit it let's hit it and let's hit it hard this is from flannels and jits luke which you

know it sounds like a christ Christmas vacation from high school, watching Cinemax the whole time, right? What are the top three fights to make for Izzy after this defeat? I don't. There's nothing I wish to see. My dream, and I mean this sincerely, dude, you saw the best of him. I have no desire to see him clobbered.

Trilogy with his buddy Whitaker? Nothing, nothing. No, I don't want to see any of it. Dude, I don't pine for watching aging legends perform in the ageist part of their career. I don't understand. Does this extend to the adult film industry too?

Some examples that I can think of might get an exception. I mean, fucking, fighting, it's all the same. It's all the same really, but I'm being serious. I'm not even thinking about top three.'m not thinking about anything i recognize that like there might be some more on the way but but this is the part of the show where we stop being serious well i'm just i mean like i just it seemed i again i understand the fan impulse to not let aging

fighters who you had a strong attachment to go. I get it. It's totally normal. But at some point, you have to reckon with the fact that you get to a place, dude, the fight game is not a fucking joke. Okay, well, what about this? People get really hurt. What about this? It's over. What about this? Izzy versus MVP.

No. I don't have it in. That's not crazy. A lot of people were saying that in my live chat. They're like super friendly, like really good friends. I don't think they'd fight each other. But I will say the Gastelum rematch. Come on. That's always on the table. They're like super friendly. Like really good friends. I don't think they'd fight each other. But I will say Gastelum rematch. Come on. That's always on the table.

Come on. Come on. It's like a one more. And what about Shara Bullitt? Shara Bullitt is he? He called him out the fight before. That's an interesting fight. First of all, our matey Steve. Steve, just please turn in your Excel spreadsheet reports, please. What the fuck are you doing? No one has ever been in real life. Pirates are dangerous

and shit, but like who has ever been intimidated by a pirate gimmick ever in your life like it's the least intimidating thing ever the the closest you can get to it is like i don't know like it's who is intimidated by fucking pirate shit he's wearing a rag like rag like an old wash woman somewhere in the middle of nowhere just cleaning clothes on a fucking clothesline and shit. It's the lamest fucking gimmick. You know what he should walk out to? That Creed song, With Eye Wide Open. Sorry, that was forced.

All right, let's go to the next one. Just mocking his disability. Let's go to the next one, please. From Fahey.Liam, Luke's favorite first name. Definitely not American. Who is seen as the better striker in all of MMA? Izzy or Alex? Both have a win over each other.

Alex is a two-weight champion. Izzy has more title defenses. So they want to know who's the better pure MMA striker of the two. It's got to be Izzy, right? Well, that's complicated because certainly, well, let's be clear. Alex did way more in kickboxing. He was a double champ. Izzy was never a champ in the highest level.

He was good at the highest level, but he was never great, and Poiton was great. So there's one big difference there. In MMA, that's tough. Izzy has, despite getting knocked out in the first fight, has dominated more of the action against him but he mixed it up

there was takedowns in that fight too I mean certainly you can say this the difference we talked about where Izzy is managing guys and defusing bombs that's not what Poetan does Poetan just goes and just fucking you know lays it down he lowers the boom on you and that makes it

a very different proposition. I will say that Izzy has seemingly more tools. I do think that is true. He uses a lot more to make his product work. But there's a certain brutal simplicity to what Poetan does that is fucking magic.

Is it crazy that the two biggest catchphrases in MMA begin with the letter CH? Shama and... Chee-wee-wees! I forgot about Chee-wee-wees. Next one, please, Long Island. Thank you. From at YouDon'tKnowTyler. You're right, I don't.

Assuming Canelo beats Bud and collects the loan belt from William Scull, is the likelihood that Canelo goes up to face the winner of Benavidez B-Vol. Oh, my God. Give up on this motherfucker. Undisputed versus undisputed. I don't think he wants it, but is there a scenario where Canelo goes,

all right, I've done my money, gets. Yeah. And now I want one more huge one that will bring. He'll cash out with Turkey. So you think Bud is the cash out then? No. He's saying the scenario that he posited was what happens if Bud, like, so he beats Bud, right?

That's the scenario. So now we're talking in a post-Bud world. I think when he's ready to be done, he might go and say, I'll just give one more go at Bivol, and if I lose, I'm done, have a huge check. But, like, dude, I don't know what delusional world people are living in where people think Canelo is hunting down tough fights. He's been doing the opposite for literally years at this point.

But he's such a, the rest of his career has been badass, so it's so hard to just act like this is just who he's become. I'm like, is he waiting Benavidez out in some level of damage or something? That's absolutely not who he was. What he did up to 2020, When did he beat Caleb Plant? 2021? Yeah. So like up to that point, he was a fucking Terminator.

But since that point, since the Bivol loss anyway, it's been the exact opposite. I mean, he did want to get Bivol a second time. Bivol at 75 and he couldn't. So I mean, I'll give him the credit for wanting it. But there's like whispers that he might fight Jake Paul this year. There's like whispers out there. I think it's. I really hope.

I don't know if I would say that it's likely. I just really hope not, people. Please, can we just stop with this BS? Okay, let's go to the next question from the folks, from the people here. Oh, look, from Hawaii's finest, right? Telvin Kipapa. Yeah. Take that, Daz, right?

Who do you guys have winning the Super Bowl? The Eagles or the Chiefs? I mean, this is truly a—this is the Sophie's Choice, really, of Super Bowls. It's like the Kansas City Chiefs, who basically everyone outside of Kansas City is fucking sick of, versus the worst fan base in American pro sports and the Philadelphia Eagles, who, by the way, I don't know if you saw all the videos of, like, you know, the commanders got whooped when they played at the link, and they're all leaving, and all the Philly fans are just fucking harassing

and quite literally physically attacking them. Those are Sean Brady's people. I like Sean Brady a lot, but, you know, I don't think Sean would do that, but I agree Sean is associated with them, and, you know, they are dirtbags. I mean, you're right. I have a rule that if my team loses and they lose thoroughly, I actually cheer for the team that beat them because they won fair and square. Philly won fair and square.

Philly does have nicer service workers than D.C. How do you know that's true? I've been to Philly. I've been to Philly, too. I mean, you can get stabbed in Philly pretty quickly, but they'll sell your jokes at the register at least. You know what I mean? I'm going to cheer for Philly.

Again, it's Sophie's choice. The Nazis are asking you which kid you want to give up. I don't know what the right answer to that one, but. I don't really care. Let me be fair. I'll watch passively. You got a beat on the Super Bowl? I don't really care either, but you're right about Philly fans being insufferable, so I'll go Chiefs.

Dude, I saw these Commanders fans being like, no, I got harassed at the link. And I'm like, why the fuck would you go to Philadelphia head to toe in whatever team's gear? You saw that. You see the guy who lost his job? Yes. Who attacked the girl with the Green Bay Packers gear at the same fucking stadium? These fan bases, they act like they're

gangs. Yeah. I mean, why would you ever go to an NFL game ever? It's the worst experience known to demand, but then more to that, like why would you go to fucking Philly? Dude, I told you this. I took my wife. She had never been to an NFL game before. I didn't take her to one. I didn't take her to Philly, but I took her to, this was when the RG three season. And I took her to see him play the giants at what's the middle lands.

Yeah. Middle lands. Right. Yeah. Or it's met life. No, but that life, whatever. And we go through the turn style and immediately in front of us a fistfight broke out and she was like it's just like columbia just less bbls just uh do we have more questions from these people this is from at fran underscore 607 not really a question but bc you did great yes i'm very happy for you i get nervous when you post more than three motivational quotes a day. Yeah. People are always like, what's going on in your life?

I'm like, I'm trying to share hope and optimism with others. You post more motivational quotes than like the dumbest Barbie girl on Instagram ever. That is, you know, but that's me, you know? Yeah. That's who I am. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Obviously appreciate all the feedback. Not, not corporately, but from. Thank you. I appreciate that. I obviously appreciate all the people. Did you get any feedback? Not corporately, but from the people. From the donks, from the people. It was very, a lot of love. How did you feel when it was over? I felt tired, but I felt like we did very well. Yeah. I mean, I can improve in certain areas for sure, but I feel like for day one chemistry,

Abner, Morrow, and I, we did pretty damn well. We talked about this before the show. Dude, you know, I've not been the biggest fan of Abner oh this was his best show by far he fucking killed it and I know

we talked about this before I want to say this I know people were saying that he was not necessarily given the most accurate translations I'm not going to name names I'm just going to say

I know a lot of the people who do those translations typically and Abner's was as good or better than most of them so I can't comment on that because I don't speak so he's commentating and doing translation the people who do those translations typically, and Abner's was as good or better than most of them. I can't comment on that because I don't speak it. So he's commentating and doing translation.

You were doing, again, prelim card, main card, and post-fight interviews. It was smooth, brother. It was smooth. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Is that it, Long Island Luke, for the people? Thank you so much for your questions.

A reminder for next week's show, morningcombat at gmail.com. We'll give you access to fan subs, Dead Wrong, and potentially showing your package to Mikey, but do not do that. Thank you so much. Please do that. Please don't. It's so disgusting. Please absolutely do that. Our final segment of the week involves me

surfing the globe on Sundays to find the highs and lows, the good and bad. Only I was traveling this week, so Luke, this is like my B-Squad. You know like when your favorite band can't put an album together because they're doing heroin. So the record company is like, here's an odds and sods B sides collection, right? Yeah. This is a bunch of shit. Have you seen it? Let's see if my JV team can still entertain you, Luke. Did you hear about the big GFL signing over the weekend?

Did they sign somebody who's dead and they just dug up his corpse? Kind of. Let's see it. Oh, they're doing bits now. Too soon. Too soon. See, this is what I mean, dude. Stop disrespecting the fucking legends.

Too soon. This is what I mean. I mean, they're making this guy seem like he's old. Luke, you know what they should do with old people? Take virtual reality toys away from them. Push your right finger into it. There you go. Okay, when you hike the ball, you got to hold the right trigger down.

Blue 42. Blue 42. You got to keep the head down. And then. Don't move. He's going to. Luke, RIP Kobe, but people are still out here asking you how your ass tastes. Check this out. I support this.

That's not pro soccer, right? That looks like weekend warrior stuff. This looks like pro soccer in the third division in some very poor place. Oh, my God. That's not a teabag. That's a rim job right there. That is. Listen, you know, how do you combat flopping in soccer?

Teabags. Butthole. That is incredible. There you go. Yeah, so let's watch this video. What is Sherbertbert spelled like that? All right, you're done. Get out of here.

Double check that. I did. What the f*** is happening? Luke. So this guy. We can call it Sherbert. It's fine. Okay.

It's not like when people say. You can call it Sherbert. It's called Sherbert. People say February all the time and often. They say February. No, they don't. Or they say. You're right. doobity. It's called Sherbet. People say February all the time and often. They say February. No, they don't. Or they say. You're right, they don't.

But, you know, it is Sherbet. I'm right. If you say Sherbet, you're an asshole. I know you're trying to do the pedantic, I'm educated thing. Can I tell you why I know it's Sherbet and not Sherbert? Can I tell you? And I'm being dead serious. Okay, I'm being dead.

Ready? I lost in the fourth grade spelling bee because I got this wrong. Was that the town spelling bee? It was. No, it was. You know what? I went to. Was that the town spelling bee? It was high. You know what? I was, I went to, they changed the name. I forgot what the name of the school is. It was Thomas Jefferson elementary.

That was where I went. That's a different school name now. I don't know what it's called now. It was my first year there. I just moved there when my mom got divorced with my dad and they, it was the spelling bee and they were like, spell Sherbert. And I thought my mind, Oh, sure. Bert B E R T. And they're like, I would have done the same thing. Yeah. It's bet B E T. And I thought in my mind, oh, Sherbert, B-E-R-T.

I would have done the same thing, yeah. It's bet, B-E-T. And I was like, there's no fucking way it's bet. And then I went home, and I looked in the dictionary, and for sure it was Sherbet. And I was sad. Did you know that I won the town spelling bee in fifth grade? No, you didn't. And I went to the state championship, and I finished 14th.

Wow, did you really? Yeah. How did you become so fucking inept? Marijuana. Exhibit A. So that's the only reason I know that is because I got fucking lost in the goddamn thing. Also, whippets behind the

Arbisa. Yeah, that'll do it. Hey, vote for Tito, right? Let's check this out. I take a lot of slack from people saying that you're a sellout. You know what? I'm not a sellout you know what i'm not a sellout i'm an american and at the end of the day united we stand and divided we will not fall that's not how that quote goes look don't tread on him please even dana got in the comments on that post and was like oh my god people are still giving you a microphone in 2025.

He was like, my boy. I thought, you know, isn't, hold on. Tito was on the season of The Apprentice with Trump, right? Possibly. Yes. I think he was on Celebrity Apprentice. I used to love Celebrity Apprentice, by the way. I watched The Apprentice.

I'm not going to lie. I used to love the shit out of that show. I only lasted, like most shows, I only lasted a season or two. Don Jr. was great in that show. They weren't, I mean, obviously I didn't know he was a, you know, ketamine addled fucking idiot, but I'll say this. I thought that Trump and like Tito were like, you know, not close or something, but they had a positive relationship.

I don't think you can be friends with Tito and Dana. I think Dana makes you. Yeah, that's right. I think that's right. I mean, it feels like he's been iced out a little bit, right? Yeah, I think life is icing to some degree. But Luke, it's time to play a game we haven't played in a long time.

It's time to rate that tat, dude. Oh, let's do it. One to 10. 10 being, you know, perfect. Perfect, okay? Here we go. Let's start off. This comes to us from the artist Pablo Esquiel Frias.

Esquiel, I'm sure you said that correct. And it took 18 hours. Luke, give me a rating one to 10 on this. This is a 10. This is about as good as this style of tattoo gettings. Look at the saturation on the color. The shading is perfect. The placement on the body is absolutely. I've never seen colors pop like that, dude. So you know what's interesting is I got a tattoo years ago, the one that's got the flag on my arm and um i remember that when i got these newer ones they looked at that one and i was asking like you know why is this one fading and what they told me is recently i guess in the last like five to seven years there's been an advancement in tattoo coloring ink it's gotten both safer and better uh quality and i asked him i was like oh how long will these ones last

and his answer was because these are so new, they actually don't even know. They expect that it will last longer. But the point I'm trying to make is, that is skill. For sure that is skill. But it might be just also a product of, like, really good new material, too. So that's a 10.

Mr. HeBoss's tattoo was, like, a what? Negative $75,000. Oh, my God. Let's go to the next tat that Luke can rate. Titty, go here. Luke, can we get a score, please? It's a 10 for effort. Yes.

The taste buds look like he has some kind of disease. Looks like rib cage. Also, it's just really unappealing. I'm going to go three. Okay, let's go to the next one, Luke. This is a real touching romantic one with a heart. It's a certain kind of minimalist tattoo. Again, line work, not terrible.

Saturation, good. Artistic expression, a little questionable. Okay. Okay. Four. Four? Okay, let's go to this NFL fan, Luke. I think you can give him a zero, but what about his Niner gang back of the head?

Why don't you get more acne on the back of your head, you absolute zero? I mean, look at this. Is this a zero, but what about his Niner gang back of the head? Why don't you get more acne on the back of your head, you absolute zero? Look at this. What is the difference between being an NFL fan and a goddamn prison gang? I don't know. Except, I guess they use red coloring on the tattoos as opposed to just black and gray. This is terrible. This is zero.

Do you think tattoos on the back of the head are more often than not always terrible? More often than not, yes, but there certainly are exceptions. What about political ones on the back of the head are more often than not always terrible? More often than not, yes. But there certainly are exceptions. What about political ones on the back of the head? Oh, fuck me. What do we got here? Oh, my God.

What line is this fucking hero standing in? Oh, 7-Eleven, obviously. Okay, that's good shit right there. All right, hey, I got a new toy idea, Luke, for Tukes. What do you think? Oh, God. Dude.

That is a little mean. All right. A little on the mean side. Have you ever seen the longest bowling strike before? Watch this. Well, that's a 10 out of 10. That's pretty awesome. I i mean off the carpet yeah come on that is pretty that is pretty awesome luke we all love those uh zoom you know after uh covid we love those zoom videos where someone doesn't realize their camera's still on and they're like getting the

jerkins out you know what i mean check out this little thing jeffrey tubin yeah okay so if you have a question on meet yourself and shout away. Yeah, Teach, this shit is reggie, dude. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do, dude. This shit is garbage. What do I say to the plug? Oh, shit. The guy, the teacher ended the...

Ball, look, we are two assholes in their 40s. What does it mean that the weed is Reggie? Regs, like shit, like brick weed that you would get. I've heard of Regs before. Like dirt weed. Like the worst weed from the 70s. Like the weed that we would buy in Waterbury, Connecticut in the 90s that had oregano in it. It was just called Reggie?

We never called it Reggie. It's called Regs, Regular, Reggie, Reggie Bush. Reggie Bush? Yeah, there's a bunch of names. Reggie Jackson. Reggie Jackson. I love that cat. By the way, he missed me a lot. He slept under my chin.

Cat's going to fucking murder you, bro. Yeah, like a python choking me. I love that guy so much. All right, you know those how it started, how it ended things that happened? Luke, watch this guy at this wedding. This is how it started. That's aggressive. I believe that's vodka.

See, that's the lesson the kids out there. I told this story before. There is a famous place in Colombia. Anyone who's been there, you've heard of it. They've opened up a version of it in Miami, but it's a bullshit version. It's called Andres de Carne de Res. Andres, for short. It's this most incredible thing. It's like a steampunk restaurant that does anything you could imagine.

It's just ridiculous. And I was in line for the bathroom when it was closing this is the real one for folks who know this is not the one in bogota this is the one in chia very different that's the original one and i was in line for the bathroom as it was closing there was all these brits that were in line with me and this guy took a bottle of aguada diente dude this is like taking tequila like that's how strong it is and i'll never never fucking forget this. He was already shithoused. He cracks this motherfucker and goes to the face with it. We're talking like a leader of this fucking thing. Dude, if he lived to make it home, I would be shocked.

I'm talking alcohol poisoning on the best of circumstances. Dude, I went to Jamaica in 03 and in the lobby bar after midnight one night two uh armed forces gentlemen challenged each other to a vodka shot oh my god uh whatever you call it uh you know they were already drunk they got up to 18 shots and on the 18th one this guy did the shot celebrated and then fell face forward and hit his face on the bar and was out cold dude oh my god i'm like what do you win if you win that? The worst hangover ever and alcohol poisoning. Your IQ lowered by 15 points.

Can you imagine drinking that much? I mean, you know because it takes you 55 beers to get drunk, but only three margaritas, folks. Okay. Listen, listen. At my peak, at my peak, I could drink. All right, let's head over to the barber shop here. You can't drink for shit either.

I never said I could. All right. Luke, what do you think of this little creation? I mean, just where is the drive-by shooter when you need one? I mean, what are we doing? Okay, you can rate that tat or haircut. Your choice. Luke, this next barbershop creation gives new meaning to the term dickhead.

I don't know if this is a prank. They did. As the kids say online, they did unk dirty. They definitely did. Have you ever heard of a drive-through barber? That's a decent idea, right? I've not heard of this. All right.

What the fuck is the story there? I don't know, but that's intense right there. You know Shawn Michaels finishing move in WWE, the sweet chin music? He kicked him in the face? Yeah, yeah. This one's called sweet kid music. Bah! Oh, boy.

I'll give that one five big booms, right? Wow, yeah. That is good stuff right there. All right, let's hit to the basketball court. Somebody tell the janitor we got a live game going on here. What the fuck? What is he doing? You know, bringing one of the benches across the floor in the middle of a game.

Not, you know, not a problem. Not a problem there, you know, good old, that's great stuff. Hey, it's time for a new segment. It's called Hats of the Week, Luke. Old coochie is better than no coochie. That's wisdom. Words to live by. That is wisdom.

Let's keep it going. Less nagging, more gagging. And here's our producer, Matt's favorite person in the world. Luigi Mangione. Oh, shit. They've made this guy into a hero. They really have. And one more.

Check out this old bastard. These are great hats. Strip club veteran. Hell yeah, brother. So you get mad at me for wearing my NWO wrestling T-shirt with the stars and stripes on the shoulders there. These colors don't bleed. Yeah. And this guy's got, like, military badges on a strip club hat. They're called ribbons.

Yeah. I mean, it's all pretty bad. It's just the difference is there's actually rules about flag code. Well, there's ribbon code, but it's only for uniformed personnel. All right. Different. Speaking of strippers, we would probably celebrate anyone on the show if they overcame drugs and turned their life around, right?

Sure. Except Long Island, Luke. Even strippers, right? The reason why I'm so emotional, because this is my first time that I've ever performed without any cocaine, without any pill, without any ecstasy. I mean, Luke, you got to give it up to her, right? We can't even claim we've done that on MK.

She kicked the habit. Now her career can really take off like her clothing. All right. Luke, you remember those Jersey Shore people introduce us to GTL? I think that stood for gym fight sleep. Let's watch this. Watch the bottom of your screen. The guy doing curls and mean mugging everybody?

Yep. With his belt on? Why are you doing curls with your belt on, you fucking puss? Take him off. He's talking trash to this dude sitting next to him. What happened here? Are they pushing and shoving? Oh, he fucking triangled him.

Yep. Good, good. That guy looks like a dumbass. Tap or nap, bitch. Let me just say this. If you're walking around the gym with a belt and you're doing hammer curls, you're a bitch. That guy got the hell out of there. You're a bitch.

Wow. All right. A couple more for you, Luke. Here's your t-shirt of the week. You may see this at the Super Bowl. Taylor Swift swallows. Well, you know what? She's not my type, BC, but that might make her one.

You know what I'm saying? Wow. One more for you, Luke. Well, you know what? She's not my type, BC, but that might make her one. You know what I'm saying? Wow. One more for you, Luke. Do you ever dress up? I mean, I hate to bring this up after RIP Barbas, but were you big on dressing up the animals and clothes? Maybe like on Christmas or something like that. Yeah, because my dog Molly loves wearing outfits, hats, sunglasses, the big brown German shepherd. Check out this dog dressing up.

Bagel, is that a note in your pocket? Oh, my God. What does it say what the fuck what does it say they just hit the second tower that's the shit of the week luke hope you saw it all right All right. That's all we got. We're fresh off of BBC. Of BBC, Jesus Christ. We're fresh off of BC having the call of his life. Yes.

Right? I'm like, he should get this gig more consistently. And the first thing he does when he gets back on the air is tell 9-11 jokes. Yeah. All right. That's all we got. I'm going to pee my pants. But, folks, we would like you to remember morning morning combat at gmail.com to reach the show

like, and subscribe, help us continue to build what we're doing here, including our YouTube channels, which are like accompaniments, accomplices compliments of what we do. And don't forget this Friday in the normal episode slot, 11 a.m. Eastern in this studio, it's Chuck Mendenhall returning with the boys. Yeah. To hit us with a pregame preview UFC 312 edition

brought to you by Cuervo. Our friends at Cuervo, for sure. Shout out to our new sponsor, Luke. Goldbelly. Yes, goldbelly.com slash combat with a K. Well, at Combat, use the code. To get 20% off there.

Man, those trash can nachos, baby. And DraftKings. What about DraftKings? DraftKings, you know, that's a great place to do phenomenal sports betting. The crown is yours. There it is. Right there. All right.

Long Island Luke, thank you for your service in the show today. No problem, guys. You'll be here Friday, right? Yep. Looking forward to it. All right. Hopefully we'll hear from your dad, maybe, because the card's in Australia. I actually told him that yesterday.

I saw him this weekend, and he had zero interest. Your dad is from where in australia melbourne melbourne melbourne yeah yeah yeah um for ken our sound guy we love ken right when he's sober which is rare uh shout out to everybody nadir everybody working on the show and shout out this is a true story would not stop farting in the elevator. We had to have an intervention. We're like, Nadir, please stop farting in the elevator. So the non-shitting bathroom, which is still out of order. Yeah. And, you know, anytime an executive around here is like, you guys got a hunch.

And I'm like, Luke Thomas, you think it could be Nadir? Could it be Nadir? Nadir was daring me. He was like, would you go take a dump in the sink? And I'm like, Nadir, this is not appropriate conversation. Mr. Schaub, please. All right. Worst pain of everyone's life.

All right. That's it. We can't do it anymore. Thanks so much, guys. We'll be back on Friday. Check us out this week on our own channels and take care of yourselves. Peace. We out of here.