MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC San Antonio | David Benavidez vs. Caleb Plant | Khamzat Chimaev | Ep. 421

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

On episode 421 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell preview UFC Fight Night San Antonio. The guys break down Chito Vera vs. Cory Sandhagen, Holly Holm vs. Yana Santos and much more. The guys also break down Showtime's big grudge match between David Benavidez and Caleb Plant. What are the keys to victory for each fighter? Next up the preview a BKFC 39 and One Fight Night 8 before discussing Dana White's comments that Khamzat Chimaev will get a top-3 middleweight opponent for his next fight. As always we close out Wednesday's with fan submissions. (00:07:30) - UFC San Antonio: Vera vs. Sandhagen (00:43:30) - David Benavidez vs. Caleb Plant (01:15:00) - Rest of Weekend Preview (01:22:20) - Khamzat Chimaev (01:28:30) - Quick Hitters Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hello, hello, hello. Hi, it's Wednesday. You ain't got no job. you ain't got shit to do. Hi, it's Morning Combat, everyone. It is a midweek edition. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of the status unidos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by the king of Connecticut himself. Got a lot of names. I don't know what shirt he's wearing,

but I'm curious to find out. It's Brian Campbell. What's up, Brian Campbell? Hey, Luke Thomas. Great to be back at it on this hump day with you you know just a few hours from the two of us getting on this bird to head over to sin city right no not for the ncaa tournament not for taylor swift at allegiant right not for john mellencamp although i'd be interested luke you know we're talking about showtime boxing pay-per-view but you asked how i'm doing fired up uh dug deep into the drawer luke to pull out the old school wrestling t-shirt. I don't know if you remember Daniel Bryan's Yes Movement, Luke. You remember that bullshit, right?

It was good. It was good. I don't know who that is. Oh, yes, yes. Well, then, you know, Sammy Zane and Kevin Owens joined this Canadian conglomerate five years ago and created the Yep Movement. I mean, look, Luke, you got to be, you know, you got to be redacted to be all kinds into that but that's okay luke you know what i'm into bits although i do know luke as soon as you hit the ground in vegas you'll be looking for two things right addies and baddies baby right that's how we do it well i didn't even know i had the wrestlemania cup today that's that's interesting do you have a WrestleMania Cup? Let me see. Let me see.

Let me see the cup. Yeah, I got it in New Orleans, Luke. There's Ronda Rousey, as you would call her on there. Why is she? Oh, is it one of those cups that changes pictures or whatever? Yeah, I got it at Monday Night Raw in New Orleans the night after WrestleMania. But it kind of looks like the old ones you get at 7-Eleven when you get a Slurpee, like during the 92 Dream Team era, Luke, and you can get like the free poster with it.

Those were the days, right? All that bonus shit. Yeah. How many hand grenades did you have when you were in New Orleans? What are those? Is that a food local to there? I had a couple po'boys, Luke. No, I didn't have any.

Hand grenade is when they serve you this drink. It's a long, it's got a long, it looks like a bong, but at the bottom, it's shaped like a hand grenade. And they sell them in like windows everywhere on Bourbon Street and other places. Yeah, those were all over Vegas too, Luke, those hand grenades. Ah, I didn't know. Well, you know, the hurricane is a New Orleans special. Did you go at, was it Pat O'Brien's? Is that what it's called?

Did you get any hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's? No, I didn't. But, you know, I tried to be in my hotel room by 8 p.m because it gets a little rowdy out there in the uh in the french quarter you know i got bit by a police horse uh on bourbon street so oh wow did you feed it did you feed it sugar that would happen luke no i went i was drunk as shit and i went up to a cop and i was like can i pet the horse he goes i don't recommend it and i was like okay and then i pet the horse and he fucking bit my hand not super hard but enough to be like you'll get the fuck up off me yep i was like okay horse you win this time but i got my friends alistair over him and valentine over him here we're gonna you

think you can knock out a horse with one punch luke i don't think there's a chance no no no conan the barbarian did that to a camel i think but uh anyway all right we have a lot to get to today so we you just saw the ad for it let's remind everyone showtime pay-per-view is this weekend showtime.com slash ppv brian and i are going to be there david benavidez versus kayla plant super middleweight 168 cannot wait for this one check us out for let's see the presser tomorrow weigh-ins on friday we're doing the prelims on saturday and i believe we're doing a post-fight show for MK after

the fact. True or false? True. Damn right. Can't wait to call those prelims with you again. We got two very interesting fights featuring young prospects. Look, we're calling that from inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which, you know, I mean, I love me some T-Mobile, always love Mandalay Bay, but if it's

big-time boxing in Vegas, it's still real to me to walk inside that old MGM Grand Garden Arena, Luke. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I love me some T-Mobile, always love Mandalay Bay, but if it's big-time boxing in Vegas, it's still real to me to walk inside that old MGM Grand Garden Arena. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, the two biggest fights I've seen, well, that's not true because Conor and Floyd was bigger, but Floyd Pacquiao was there, and then Floyd Canelo was there, and those were fucking huge fights. Yeah. So anyway, can't wait to be there for that.

That's going to be a lot of fun, but if you want Showtime more generally and why wouldn't you, you can go to Showtime. Yeah. So anyway, can't wait to be there for that. That's going to be a lot of fun. But if you want Showtime more generally, and why wouldn't you, you can go to Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. BC, we've got merch. I think you're wearing an MK hat, if memory serves.

Yeah, I got the mug here, too. I mean, I got a lot of things going on here. But if you go to MorningCombat.store, so can you. I mean, look, did you see veronica hardy wife of the great dan hardy wearing our mk bomber jacket on instagram in the days leading up to her her comeback fight i mean we've seen rafi on stats rocking it bomber jacket season is still here right as winter makes the uh transition into spring uh check out what we got going on there i think you're gonna like the way you know it looks on you and feels. In fact, I guarantee it. And so does

RJ Ballbreaker too, Luke. You know that guy, right? He's a great guy. Old RJ Ballbreaker. So we have a lot to get to today. Fun show planned for you. So thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Hit subscribe if you are new here. You can give us a follow on the various socials. You can see them all right down there at the bottom of the screen for TikTok, for Instagram, Twitter twitter and everything else in between hey you think tiktok's gonna get shut down luke because of american chinese government dealings i don't know both parties actually seem like they have some sympathy for it which is like rare in washington and then also uh um i don't really know they said yesterday i think to to quell the thirst of regulators they

have 150 million american users at 100 million at the beginning of the pandemic so tiktok has blown the fuck up um yeah i always try to get off of what's hot and get on what is new and i'm thinking rumble might be it luke right are you gonna air some slap fighting over there what are you gonna do hell yeah i mean what if mk ends up on rumble one day i'll have to eat my words you know yeah which you know wouldn't be the first time we've had to do that uh or the last all right bc if you're ready to get things going let's get things going here with today's show so we start with a fun little bit of uh well i won't say it's been forgotten bc i mean obviously our attention has been on boxing given the proximity

to things but there's a big ufc event this week or at least a very good one anyway when in i believe san antonio texas ufc i called it vegas 72 i don't think that's right because it's in san antonio i have to redo my tweet but in any case ufc fight night uh chito vera taking on cory sandhagen bc as it stands at the moment and i I think I agree with these odds, they've got Marlon Vera at minus 170. They've got Corey Sanhagen at plus 145. Slight underdog for Sanhagen. Chito riding a nice wave of momentum, putting him in this spot.

We'll talk about what it means in the end. Do you agree with the odds? And do you think that, I don't know, this seems to me not as much a defining fight for Chito although hugely important it seems to me like a very important fight yes for Corey Sandhagen who's been tested against the top of the division more than Chito has and has come up a little bit short just about every time do you agree with that assessment I fully agree with it and it's not as if a loss here for Corey Sandhagen against a great opponent who's rising and Chito Vera would be the end of his, you know, his chances in the long run, but it would be a fairly

significant setback because it would continue that pattern you've talked about of when he steps up to the very highest level, he hasn't been able to get over that cliff. Now there's been, you know, quick disastrous moments like the submission loss early in the first round against sterling or there's been some some you know fun even great fights in which he showed out was just not able to get there now let's give cory sanhagan a lot of credit he comes back and gets that stoppage dr stoppage went against song yudong to re-establish himself but this does have that that that narrative that feeling of of are you coming or going? If you can't get by Chito Vera in this instance, you're going to have to go back in the pack.

Look, would you say Luke in an elite sense? And when we're talking about the band and weight division, we're talking about the deepest division in the game. It's almost like in EPL, where if you finish in last place, you get, what do you call that? Dereguligated. What do you, what do you call that word? Luke? Well, you get, what do you call that? Dereguligated? What do you call that word, Luke? Well, you get relegated.

I mean, he could get relegated from the elite core of Bantamweights right here, which isn't a death sentence, but it certainly shows you the stakes involved. Because if you defeat a Marlon Chido Rivera at this point, where, to be fair, Chido has done so much lately that if this fight was o'malley for the interim title you wouldn't have blinked an eye instead it's two high-ranked contenders hungry but if you get past cheetah vera right here you know all is forgotten and san hagen's going to be right back in that mix so no shortage of stakes and what do you feel about the actual style contrast here and i mean we know this is a great fight between two great fighters that we love to

watch, but what are you actually looking for here? So I looked at some of the numbers ahead of time, BC, and you know, if you compare their stats side by side, they're often very similar. I'll tell you what I mean by this, right? So their average fight time, 12 minutes for Chito Vera, 11 and a half minutes for Corey. It takes, they take about the same amount of time obviously they're both going to be around 135 pounds they both have a 70 inch reach they're both switch stances they were only born you know not too far apart about

seven or eight months apart like they're very young they both have a excuse me actually a correction Marlon has a negative striking differential Corey has a positive one but Corey still gets hit a lot as does Chito. Their defense is about the same. Their accuracy, Chito Vera, is slightly higher. They're not big takedown guys. Their accuracy is not very high. The takedown defense is about the same, 68% to Chito, 63%.

So on and on and on, you can kind of see they're just not statistically very different fighters. But, of course, stats are helpful up to a point. And I think when you look at this, there are some sort of numerical stats, BC, that kind of indicate if you watch Chito's five-round fights, they tend to crescendo a little bit. Like his output and his successful output kind of goes up over time.

Now, not linearly in the, or I should say not exponentially and not every single time, but there is a general pattern. Whereas by contrast, I think Sandhagen, again, not always, but tends to decline just a little bit over time. So we know Chito Rivera is the king of the five rounders. This is a five round contest, and he's got one of the most legendary chins, not merely in that division, but I think currently right now in the UFC. So what am I looking for? I know Corey is going to start hot. I know he is. I know he's probably going to take the, I shouldn't say I know. I'd say there's a good chance anyway. He'll take the first couple of rounds. None of that means a whole lot to me. The first couple of rounds, even if Corey wins them,

unless he's winning by like absolute devastation or something, but as long as they're reasonably close, I don't think that matters so much. What matters is the second half, or at least the back half of the championship, or I should say two-fifths of the championship rounds, the fourth and fifth round. That, I think, is going to be important. And what I'm looking for is obviously Chito to begin to really bear down on him. That's when he can really begin to corner. Obviously, that's when he's began to see what's coming

and can make some reads. He's got a dynamic kicking game. We saw that, obviously, against Dominic Cruz, but it's not just that. So if I'm Corey Sandhagen, it's not merely that I have to be able to deliver late, although that is huge. It's also that you've got to take away the conditions under which Chito fights well, which is going to be kicking range. So he's got to be inside boxing range to get it done. But here's the trick, BC. You get too close into boxing range, and now Chito can clinch, and he's an absolute handful there as well.

This is a tough fight for anyone in this division, and Corey Sanhagen can win this. But, dude, he has got to show growth. If the guy who fought Jan or Dillashaw shows up, I really don't like his chances. I think that's fair. I think that's fair indeed. And, you know, the,

you, you played out a scenario there, which could happen San Hagen outworking him early and building a lead, but Chito seems to wait patiently for that one moment when he can land the fight altering strike that starts to put you hurt and on the defensive. So that scenario, you know, still has a potentially over five rounds to be in play for San Hagen at any point. And Luke San Hagen got back, you know, put things back on the track, certainly with that win over Yadong. But when we're talking about this trend of him poking his head above at the very highest level and finding out that he's one step behind, do you see much need to alter his game? I mean, oh, we've talked about this before after each of these high-profile losses. Why? Because we believe in San Higgins' ability.

He's a great fighter. Great. He's about that life. You know, you couldn't love talking to him anymore to hear his, you know, philosophy on fighting. But something has to change, right? What do you think that is, will be, should be? A couple of things. I mean, here's why Chito's a really hard matchup in this way.

Even against John Lineker, it is very, very, very difficult to discipline Chito Vera with punishment, right? Like a lot of times you see it in boxing or striking or in MMA too, where a guy, someone's trying to bear down on them and they're able to either jab or leg kick or something. We saw it with Leon and Kamaru's timing, his forward step, landing the leg kick and then resetting. That was a real problem

for him. But, and of course that can ultimately, you know, uh, if it's a leg kick can reduce mobility over time or whatever, but you know, either it's a punch to the body, a strike to the body, a punch to the face face something that makes them second guess trying to corner trying to re-enter range it's just really really hard to do that against Chito Vera you're asking about what he can do uh Corey does he really need to change his game I think the answer is yes I mean if you taste at the top of the division you found yourself wanting by definition it has to change like you you need do more. It wasn't like he was terribly outside of their depth. Against Sterling, it didn't go well. But in general, against the other

guys, he was a worthy adversary. Again, I thought he beat TJ, to be quite fair. But just the same, yes, two things I would point to. You're not going to be able to really hurt Chito in any kind of meaningful way. I just don't buy that. That's going to be a realistic path you can land on him and score for the judges but you're not going to like steal on on Chito and then just put him out with one shot very very very very difficult to do that so two things I'm going to look at BC number one and this fight may not feature much of it by virtue of the way which Chito fights but to the extent there's any kind of ground battle you just cannot see Corey work from his back and he's trying De La Riva reverse De La Riva or something some kind of tricky guard play a little bit of that would be fine and then it's time to get back to the feet he's too willing

to accept underneath positions that have a low probability of meaningful offense that's a huge problem for me that has to go away. Again, how relevant it will be here, I don't know, but we'll see. The second one is, and I just think for this fight, BC, Corey is good from kicking range too, and he is faster. I think that's going to have to be a massive component of this. He's going to have to be able to land and go. How good are his exits? How good are his entries?

How much can he penalize um and damage which is not going to be easy a forward movement of a guy like Chito Vera so what I want to see is boxing range in movement out escapes constantly on your horse attacking wherever you can attacking at angles in combination and then getting the hell out of dodge because short of that I just don't unless unless BC you know he's been training with Ryan Hall here in Falls Church, Virginia, just outside D.C. Maybe he's working on some back takes of his own, in which case, totally different fight.

But if he fights the way we know him to have fought, I think those are things he's going to have to really work on. Well, I mean, he can do everything. He really can, for the most part, right? I mean, he's not – would you call him a dominant wrestler? No, right? No, no, not a dominant wrestler. But has the submission part, right? I mean, he's not, would you call him a dominant wrestler? No, right? But he's got submission. But has the submission game, has incredibly long limbs,

is so smart and well-studied. Yeah, this is a hell of a good matchup, Luke. The rankings will tell you that, of course, with Chito at number three and Sanhagen here at number five. Again, I always have to say this whenever we talk about the rankings, like when we debated the whole welterweight title picture during the last episode is, you know, you spent too much time trying to argue the merits of how the ufc does the rankings you'll just work yourself into a tizzy but they still have peyote or yan

at number four who has four defeats in five fights now is he there because he's the former champion and he did recently defeat in his only win in that stretch the guy who's right behind him at number five san hagen is that why yan still has to be there i mean that's one thing that just sticks out for me look even dom cruz at number seven it's like you got these guys coming on the umar namaga medoffs the adrian yanez is i feel like sometimes we linger too many names right around there um i don't understand how yan is still ranked four can you justify that at all uh probably can't i mean again i guess there's a way to look at it and be like, okay, well, you could say someone really believed that he beat Sean O'Malley.

So maybe you could say that. That would be, you know, whatever. But you're supposed to rank off the outcome, not like how you feel about the greatness of the judging. Let me ask you in accordance to these rankings in terms of what is truly at stake here if we mapped out the future aljo has an unranked challenger and henry suhudo marab is currently ranked number one o'malley ranked number two neither have a fight you've got three versus

five here of vera sanhagen yon at four just lost and then you have rob fawn at six by the way luke who just launched a new podcast with mike owens Media, which, you know, shout out to that one, right? Hey, shout out to those people. But I will tell you this. Is the winner of this fight going to fight Marab, which means O'Malley would be next for the winner of Aljo Cejudo, or is it potentially something different? Shit. That's a great question.

Man. I mean, it could be anything different if Aljo loses and that changes that whole Marab situation. So I get it's situation. Okay, so if Marab and Aljo stick to their guns and of course Aljo has to fight Henry, let's assume he wins, Aljo wins. He might not, but let's just assume for the sake of argument that he does. Now what do you do?

I think what the UFC is probably gonna to do is put the winner of this weekend's fight, so Corey or Chito, against Murab, and then the winner of Aljo and Henry probably has a date with Sugar Sean O'Malley at some point later in the year. That sound right to you? That's exactly it. The only switch up in that would be if Cejudo wins, but even if Cejudo wins, you'd still want to give him o'malley above marab right so i think either way we nailed it there luke so our work here is done you know i will say this if aljo loses by decision and it's even remotely close i think he's i don't think he's going to get it but he's going to ask for a uh immediate rematch i have to say

yeah they probably won't give it to him but at at the same time, I will say this. I am very tired of immediate rematches for title winners. Like this idea that you got to beat them twice. Like how is, how is it that the only reason boxing does that is because they have rematch clauses, like fucking clauses in the contract that they pull in MMA. We don't have any rematch clauses and yet we still have rematches all the time. I get it. I get it under certain circumstances i really do right but like and i'm just so glad we didn't do it with vulcan

islam it's too much it's too much okay it can be a situational thing where it makes a lot of sense long time reigning champion right which is rare so like when valentina suddenly loses you're like well well um maybe she should get an immediate crack. Although, to be fair, because she got submitted, it isn't necessarily. Exactly. It isn't necessary in that regard. The other way is if a fight's great or if a fight is disputed, which happens a lot, too. But, Luke, the wild card in this, when we're talking about the Dana White privilege and, you know, all the hullabaloo with Colby and all that, which I'm sure Colby will show up in this show later. Luke, if he doesn't show up at John Anik's doorstep doorstep and if he does he'll be seeing me right there luke waiting

for him i'll tell you this though yeah would you i hope somebody gets my back the way i just offered to get john annex back luke would i get your back in that regard i hope i would i really do all right show me your enemies luke i'll i'll double leg them i'll take them out my point is this the problem is i don't have very many worthy adversaries all my adversaries are just fucking buffoons. I mean, you did make Chael take the knee, even though we love the guy, right? Well, we all worked it out.

Chael and I are good. But Chael was a worthy adversary, but the rest of them are. That's true. That's true. My point is this, Luke. Sometimes it does come out to, well, sometimes it comes down to marketing, right? But sometimes it comes down to the Dana White privilege.

When I say Aljo's not going to get an immediate rematch no matter what unless it was the most egregious scorecard you've ever seen is because I don't think he's a Dana White guy. That plays into it to some degree, right? Yes, absolutely. It certainly does. There's just – look at Colby. We talked about it on Monday.

Colby's meritocratic argument for the title shot is non-existent, but that doesn't really seem to matter if you're a guy that the company views favorably for whatever reason that they might. Yes, that can play a role here in the Bantamweight division as well. Let me dead wrong myself quickly on that Colby thing. The only thing I said wrong that I won't back up in a court

of law is when I inferred that Colby will fight anybody at any time and I got killed for that. You're right. He won't, he'll strategically wait for the right opportunity. I was about to say, he just did the opposite. What I meant. And I said it wrong was his willingness to go over there on a day's

notice or whatever, and cut weight. He's willing to do the things that the company wants and needs of him to make himself a valuable company, man. That's what I should have said. I said it wrong. You guys were right. Moving on. Yeah. Yeah. I mean what I should have said. I said it wrong. You guys were right.

Moving on. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a point to be said for that. Like it's always the famous story where Joe Silva, when he was matchmaker, I forget which fight it was, but they wanted to Marquez Johnson to fill in to make weight for them. And he agreed. And this is a short notice, obviously. And he weighed in and he missed weight. And then they cut him from the organization. He was like, what the fuck? I was trying to do you guys a favor on short notice, obviously. And he weighed in and he missed weight. And then they cut him from the organization. He was like, what the fuck? I was trying to do you guys a favor on short notice.

And the way it was eventually explained to him is like, guy, if we ask you to fill in to make weight, like that's what we need you to do. You showing up and not making weight doesn't do us any favors. That's not actually what we want. Now you can agree with that rationale or not, but that's how they view the world.

So if you're Colby and you show up out of nowhere and you make championship weight and you're jibber-jabbering the whole time they're going to look on that favorably so to your point yes i think there was something to be said for that he just doesn't show up to fight everyone that's all did you see any proof i saw some people dming me this they said they saw in an instagram conversation with famous people and i didn't get the proof they're claiming that potentially here balal was offered the same opportunity first to do the role that colby played and he said only if i get to fight colby on that card and turn down the offer i don't have that i don't have proof of that but a lot of people have been dming me saying bc that could be the reason i'd have i'd have to hear

i'd have to know what the truth is yeah it's a bunch of bullshit hearsay all right yeah if that's the truth it changes the situation a little bit but we'll have to see uh okay in that in mind bc that in mind let me put one last question to you about this main event um if san hagen loses we have indicated it's not the end of the world in that cory san hagen just turned 30 i think how long ago yeah he turned 30 yesterday holy shit oh two days ago excuse me he turned 32 days ago but what does it mean if he loses here like this is losing in your 20s right we get it you fight good guys and you're not totally ready it's gonna show up right but by the time you begin to hit 30 now's the time where you really

got to be making a march how devastating would a loss here be it went obviously to be tremendous but how devastating would a loss well it'd be it would relegate him from the elite core of your top five or six or seven depending on the moment of guys who are essentially one win away from a title shot or already there and if we need a challenger we can call him up not the end of the world you still go back and you'll be fighting top 15 guys trying to put together a win streak. I think that in his favor is there's already been an establishment here that he is an elite fighter. That, you know, I mean, you know, he might have beat TJ.

And even though he lost, I thought fair and square to Jan, it was a fun-ass competitive fight in a lot of ways. That's been proven already. You just have to work a little bit harder to get it back and to get back in that position. But I think his name is strong. People know that he makes fun fights. You know that he, that he gives us all here. Uh, but it would remove them from the idea that you're one win or one phone call away from being right back in there. And that, that can matter when you're in a very

deep division that has even still active old guys, right. Who can still make big fun fights against anybody. You've got the former champion figure eight.o moving up. It's always going to be busy when a division is hot. People are going to go out of their way to jump into it and look at Cejudo's back right now when things are heating up. It's harder when it's this crowded and busy, but it's not a death sentence, Luke. I think that he's such a

student of the game that I almost expect multiple reinventions from him as a fighter, Luke. I've listened to the multiple interviews you did with him on this channel he's a really smart dude and understands it and is constantly working there but at the same time you gotta you gotta clear these hurdles when they come to you because you only you can only get that call so many times at this point um dude this would be a big win. I mean, he's the underdog for a reason. But he's facing a guy who's not only red hot here, but nasty and gnarly. You're not going to outpoint him.

You know what I mean? You got to bring something big here. So I'm asking a lot of Corey Sanhagen in this fight. And I think he can deliver. But if he doesn't, Luke, we're headed toward. I hate saying this out loud because it's mean and it's not fair. Are we headed toward Dan Hooker territory? We're headed toward Michael Johnson territory?

Yeah, I don't know about that. Those guys lost to guys – You know in the right setting could be a title winner, but they just can't put it together. I know, but he lost to TJ, title holder, or at least former title holder. Sure. He lost to Aljo, title holder. He lost to TJ, title holder, or at least former title holder. He lost to Aljo, title holder. He lost to Jan, title holder.

It wasn't like he was losing to fucking chumps out there, man. Same thing with Gastelum. When people want to say Gastelum's done and he sucks and all this, he only loses to the best, dude. No, he's lost to other guys sub-best. That's the problem. That's the problem. Like, he got worked over by Jack Hermanson.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I can't defend that one and also old weidman beat him too pre pre-leg injury that was the thing is the thing is like gaston was really hot for a time and then the here's the thing the fight he gave izzy even though he lost and you know i've talked about this a million times the fight he gave izzy was he lost but the effort he had and the ability he showed in that fight was fucking great. It was great. Well, dude, so was the Whitaker fight. While not an all-action fight, he pushed Robert Whitaker in that fight.

Like, it was a very highly technical battle. Yeah, he wasn't able to get over it. But I guess that's the point. Gastelum's still in this conversation. Guys that either for short seasons or they show that potential, you're like, man, if they could put it together, they could be that guy. Of course, Sander Hingen has everything at his disposal to be that guy.

But look, there's only so many seats at the table when you're talking about the upper core of elite title challengers in any given division. And somebody's got to be on the outside looking in. Somebody's got to be the one that loses to those guys. I want to say two more things quickly about Sander Hingen and then we'll move on. One, one of the smarter fighters I've ever interviewed.

I would also say his coach, his striking coach, Christian Allen, one of the more bright striking coaches and innovative thinkers in the striking department in MMA. So he's got a lot of brainpower. He's got a lot of willpower and he's got a great coaching. Obviously Ryan Hall has been, as what I understand, a great force for good in his development of his game. So, you know, he's got a lot of the things he needs. I do wonder about the physical durability

relative to either guy. Like, even if Corey is landing more, the sturdiness of Chito plus the... I don't know how heavy-handed he is, but his kicks are just... Yeah, he's punishing kicks. So that's something to watch as well. The last thing I'll say, BC, is if you think of

Spanish-speaking Latin America, or I think of Spanish-speaking Latin America, or I should say Spanish-speaking South America, so you take out Brazil, obviously Mexico is part of North America, Chito might be your top representative, top candidate, top fighter in the UFC in that sense, right? So all the way from Venezuela, all the way over Peru, and then all the way down, that sort of area that's been underdeveloped. Chito's a leading force in that sense and if he beats Corey Sanhagen then you

know maybe he has to have him rob next I don't know but it's worth paying attention to about where guys emerge from when they reach close to or at championship status and I think it'd be a great thing for Ecuador or even again Spanish-speaking South America to have someone who's like dude right fucking there right up there that's good for the game it already has been apparently he's a big hero in ecuador um would love to see more if that's that's his fate you know yeah i agree and he's got a gnarly side head tattoo these days with that what is that that's what i mean dude dude if he did that if he did that without like visacane or uh tkt, which are like numbing creams, holy shit, that's next level. RIPC also on this card, also on this card, at a minus 245 favor,

Holly Holm, who, by the way, 41 years old, reportedly, according to the Albuquerque, I think, news journal, whatever the local paper is there, signed a new six-fight deal, which means if she fights a couple times a year, she's going to be in there until she's, 44 45 whatever the math is um she's taking on previously known as yana kunitskaya now yana santos she sits at plus 205 bc we talk about age in all the divisions and how relevant they are here at 135 how relevant is age but also do you agree that holly should be the favorite she's fought

and beat better guys or better ladies, excuse me, better competition anyway. She was a previous title holder. And despite her age, she still is pretty damn physical for the weight class. Yeah. All those things you said are true. Should she be favored here by that much? Yes. Look, comparing skills, she's a better fighter than Yana Santos at this point. And Yana Kudetskaya Santos has had some good wins and loss to many people we know coming off, you know, giving birth. Congratulations to Maheta and the family there. But we're going to be asking a lot of her. It shouldn't be under normal circumstances when we're talking about a 41-year-old fighter. But let's be really honest here. Although Holly Holm has lived off that one great moment right

here, right? Holy crap. One of the greatest moments in UFC history. And I'm not saying she never accomplished anything again. She has, but she's lived off that moment for so long that sometimes that becomes how we look at it, the first thing we think of. I think she's changing her own legacy and narrative here with her longevity, because Luke, there's a reason why she's been like no worse than third ranked in, in, you know, one and sometimes two divisions for like five, six years now. Well, one of those reasons is because both of those divisions in

question are just painfully shallow. And I'm not even sure there still is a 145 pound division at the moment to be perfectly frank with you but there's been no need for a reinvention because she hasn't slipped has she slipped from the exact level she was in beating ronda rousey in 2015 and having that all-time classic with misha tate six months later yeah obviously to some degree but she's always working on getting better she's done great work in all to add to her ground game and her wrestling through the years yes she's had did have a recent defeat there luke was that against ketlin viera by split decision that threatened the idea that she's coming a little bit more down to earth but even if that's some proof of her you know age catching up and slipping just a little

dude she's not going anywhere she's going to stay right here. And it's remarkable at 41. I, you know, every year when we do these like advanced predictions where you take a big shot, we do it on this show. I show up on Bronstedters TSN show and do it. And I feel like every year I'm saying Holly Holm is not done fighting for a world title. And Luke, she's not you. She wins this fight against a good name and wins one more. I mean, what else is, what else is Amanda Nunes doing at 135 right now? It's not Shevchenko, right?

So what else is going on there? Everyone we thought might be coming on as sort of the next big challenger, you know, kind of falls apart or doesn't get there or they're just not there. So Holly Holm is not that many wins away from eventually getting another Amanda Nunes title shot fight. And it's a testament to how hard she's worked and i mean look she's been fighting for a very long time when you consider her initial boxing career of which she's in the international boxing hall of fame she's she's an active mma fighter who's in the boxing hall of fame already and like fully justified not

in there because there's nobody else and she has a name like fully justified, not in there because there's nobody else. And she has a name like fully justified for being in there. When you look at what she's accomplished and, you know, she's come back from like devastating knockout losses in both sports to be fair. But the point is Luke, when you're a student of the game, when you live your life in fighting shape, which, you know, she appears to be, and you know, also you got to have that something special about you. She's incredibly durable and always has been, you know and and it fills in with her hunger you don't see her setting up plans for

for a spin-off career you don't see her doing anything but getting back in the gym staying in the rankings and trying to get better and that's you know i mean you don't see that especially on the women's game which is still so young you don't see this a lot for somebody to stay somebody look we see fighters that have a big run early in their prime even like a matt brown at one point got you know one fight away it seemed from a title shot but then just never stopped getting better and he's lingered as a very respectable tough out in the division we see that a few times from guys okay they had they had their moment 10 years ago, but oh my God, they're still here and they're decent. Holly's still elite. And that's the truth.

I'm not going to overlook the lack of depth here. That matters in this. But a lot of these opponents she's coming in there against, she's just got the experience, the technique, the hours put in as an advantage in the toughness. And can she win this? Should she win this? Yes and yes to this heading into saturday luke and i

think sometimes we don't put enough respect on on the the totality of not just her extended combat resume and what she's accomplished across both sports but the fact that she's still here at a very high level and is not going anywhere by by the looks of that six fight deal no doubt about it it's a really interesting one also you, you kind of indicated it. It's a funny little stat. They both have fought Ketlin Vieira and Irene Aldana. In the particular case of Yana Santos, she lost to Aldana and then beat Vieira. It's the reverse for Holly Holm.

She lost to Vieira but beat Aldana. Of course, also beat Raquel Pennington relatively recently as well. It's a fun contest, BC. Yana Santos, a little bit more active. She lands 4.28 strikes per minute relative to Holly Holmes, 3.24. We knew Holly was a little bit judicious

with the offense. She's not a super high volume. Was she super high volume in boxing? Yeah, she didn't have a ton of power. She worked behind the jab you know she yeah yeah she was she was a very active puncher i'll say that yeah uh her striking a pure boxer though you know always looking to work behind the jab yeah yeah yeah and uh she's a little bit better about defense than uh yana santos and i think again has fought better competition the age

factor is going to be the interesting one but to your point at 41 if she can get it done man i i agree with you. Like, Juliana Pena wanted the rematch against Amanda, or should I say the trilogy against Amanda. I don't know if that's going to happen. We'll have to see what Holly Holm might have to fight for. But to your point, with the star power and whatever Amanda's up to, it's a great spot.

All right, also on this card, BC, there's a few other things. Andrea KGB Lee is back as a underdog, plus 230, against Macy Barber, minus 275. Barber has been, what do you want to say, BC? Something of a hot streak? Would you agree with that characterization? Let me, for the folks who may not be aware, in her last five fights, she did lose to Modaferri and then Grasso, but since then, beat Miranda Maverick, beat Montana De La Rosa,

and then beat Jessica Ive, whatever that is worth. By contrast, Andrea Lee comes in here with a lost, I'm going to fuck it all up, Araujo, Araujo, however you want to say it, to the Calvillo, that she has a win over Shevchenko, but that's the Antonina Shevchenko, and then a loss to Modaferri and Murphy. So you would imagine, yeah, it's a big one. You would imagine Macy Barber, you've got to like her chances here.

She's active. She has a positive striking differential. She can go for the takedown. She can mix it up. She's younger, right? So Lee, better striker. Barber, more well-rounded, I think is probably a better way to look at it. Yeah, this is subtly a big fight for Macy Barber. And, okay, look, I'll hedge everything I say by saying she's still just 24.

So, you know, any opinion you've got negative of her, you can throw that out the window because it's like day one-ish shit here right now. But her bounce back from the two defeats, the first one being insanely humbling against Modafari because she fell apart, you know, physically and her gas tank and everything there. And then to come back from that big injury, you know, and the, okay, the loss to Grasso may have,

may have happened at that point under any circumstance to come back from that big injury, you know, and the, okay, the loss to Grasso may have, may have happened at that point under any circumstance to come back from those two losses and the major injury and all that hype getting the balloon popped and put together a three fight win streak as she has, you know, fighting under Mr. Faber and showing a lot of improvements in heart, you know, mixed in with that, that rage that she seems to be fueled on. Look, it's been impressive. Okay. But I didn't think she actually beat Maverick. And the last two opponents, I and De La Rosa, good wins,

good decision wins. But I don't think she's been setting the world on fire where people are like, okay, how soon before we see her at the very top? I think this is a fight where A, she should win it, but B, maybe this will be the beginning because it would be a fourth straight defeat and start working her back into this larger title picture, which the good news right now is that it's fun. It's deep, and it's interesting, and there's a lot of cool names, and we just saw the belt change hands. Where Macy Barber fits in long-term at 125,

this fight may tell us a lot about that, that luke right this could be the fight that that really swings her momentum in the right direction but she's got to come out and look dominant which we've seen at times from her i mean look she fight does she fight on spite and a chip on her shoulder almost as good as any other in this game i mean it's just like you know it's just like damn but uh you know we heard favor remember we Faber on the couch and he really broke down her changes mentally and all that. I believe in it. I believe she's turning a right corner here. But you got to come out and show us here against a tough enough out.

I got respect for Lee as a fighter. Tough enough out, Luke. All right. Definitely. And they're sitting currently. Lee is sitting at 11. Barber sitting at 13 winner here could enter the top 10 so an important bout in that sense bc also on this card should be a fun

one daniel pineda taking on tucker lutz that's kind of an interesting little contest tucker lutz out of the baltimore area i think out of the ground control team uh also on this card bc kind of interesting chidi andrew kawane taking on albert daria boy chidi andrew kawane is so fun dude if you're like a really good striker i don't know what it is with the matchmakers because it's not just ufc you see this all the time you're like well it always happens but like andrew kawane if he fought in strike force 15 years ago whatever it is they would have never made this fight they would have never made it because daria is going to try and take him down the entire time and dry up from what I know folks who train with him tell me he has awesome ground

and pound like you just know what like he's not going to try and strike it out with Chidi why do they keep giving this fucking guy people like this rather than like another good striker he could have a fun bout with it's an interesting point I don't know and he does have to come back Luke from that loss to Robocop which came after a four fight win streak in which you know he ran right into it he felt the pain that that happened right there but yeah this does offer an interesting style contrast in that regard in a big hill to climb are you a long-term believer in Chidi outside of hey man he could beat anybody at any given time but but where do you stand on that so the only issue with Chidi Njokwani is not really his ability uh his ability

is pretty great uh but the problem is he's 34 like it took him a while to go from striker very he's always been a good striker or whatever in MMA but it took him a while to go from that to build up uh his ground game to build up his wrestling defenses and it's funny like his brother for a time had a much bigger profile Chidi I don I don't think, has ever quite reached the same height, although he's on the main card here. But he and his brother had the same kind of situation, like Anthony Njikawane. Dynamic strikers.

They train with good guys. One-kick Nick out of Las Vegas. Like they're talented dudes, but because of their style, because of their body type where they're long and rangy, they've just always had – they've always kind of run into roadblocks with guys who could who could wrestle them and not just that with anthony but um it seems to be just a consistent problem well i rank his nickname up there pretty high luke cheaty cheaty bang bang not only does it bang bang check my boxes in a few areas luke wherever

you spent most of your time as like a toddler at your grandma's or your babysitter's or whatever, it seems like whatever VHS Disney tapes they had in their collection in some ways built the foundation of who we are. Luke, when I went over my grandparents' house, you know, every afternoon and every weekend for most of my youth,

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang starring, starring one of the dicks. Was that Dick Van Dyke, Luke? Yes, Dick Van Dyke. It's just, you know, the songs, the catchphrases, it's still imprinted on the back of my brain, Luke. Have you ever had any experience with that classic children's flick? Oh, yeah.

I used to watch, I mean, we're doing some old guy shit here, but yeah, I used to watch Mary Poppins, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Yeah, but I'm asking you about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That's what I'm asking you about. Yes, I've seen that too. I've seen Dick Van Dyke's better works, whatever that is worth. I mean, I can't believe we're doing Dick Van Dyke material. Can we fucking move on?

I mean, I could go, I got material for Dick Van Patten too, if you want to pivot, but you know. Also on this card very quickly, Nate Landwehr taking on Austin Lingo. And then Alex Perez is back against Manel Kopp. That should be an interesting and fun one. That's an important fight in the flyweight division, Luke. Sure is, yes. Sure is.

Good one. With that in mind, PC, let's talk about where we're going to be at the end of today. We're going to be in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the one and only David Benavidez taking on Caleb Plant. Now listen, as we all know, boxing odds are always all over the place. Listen to this one. Minus 310 for David Benavidez, plus 240 for Caleb Plant. I got some highlights we're going to break down here in just a minute, but not right this second. First things first, in the minds of people who may have heard these names or understand what's the big deal, Canelo's got all the belts in this division anyway.

Who are these guys? Why does this fight matter? These are two former champions who have come back since losing their titles. Of course, for Caleb Plant, it's his only loss against Canelo Alvarez in a knockout in the undisputed title fight in a good effort. And for Benavidez, of course, we know the long history of missteps which took his titles away from him without losing they're gonna fight each other rather than waiting in line for canelo or what have you why it extra matters is this division 168 pounds is really poised this

year to be arguably the best in the entire game which is always going to be tough especially in a renaissance heavyweight area era and welterweight is always great although we're having some issue making those big fights of late um this division is on fire fantastic it's got one of the you know it's got the biggest star in the sport canelo and one of its best fighters as your undisputed champion but canelo last year didn't fight anybody in the 168 rankings right fought b vol and lost fought triple g at 168 but that was more of a of an event know, closing out a rivalry there. So Canelo comes back to this division, you know, against John Ryder on May 6th and against a mandatory.

But really, we're trying to find out who's next. Not just who's the next Canelo opponent, but at large, who's the man in this division? I never thought that would be a theme, Luke. I wrote a, like I always do ahead of big events yesterday for CBS sports.com. I wrote, you know, five biggest storylines entering plant Benavidez. And, you know, the last one was just that idea about the identity of this division and the unanswered questions, which is insane because Canelo Alvarez is still your undisputed champion.

And he became that with three straight knockout wins in unification fights against unbeaten champions, Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, and then Plant. So that should have decided everything. But with him stepping away for a year, with Benavidez never quite getting that true showdown on the elite level because of missing weight and losing his title, and of course the drug test that we talked about, if this was against Caleb Plant fresh off the loss to Canelo, even with the trash talk, it still wouldn't have been as big. But when you add in the Caleb plant has a new trainer in bread,

man Edwards on an even deeper connection to this self-belief, which is it's I, you know, it's insane, right? It's, it's either he has a secret that we don't know about, or he's got the biggest inflated balls in his reading his own headlines, but he's coming off the knockout of the year as a slick boxer. So you could not have these two come together in a style contrast way, in terms of both being red hot, and in terms of the hatred between them at any better point. This is the fight to make. You don't even

need a title. And yet it still is going to answer a lot of questions. Why? Because Caleb plant is riding so high that he might be actually better than we realize he is. And because David Benavidez is the only fighter at one 68, even with Demetrius Andrade moving up, even with the threat of Jamal Charlo moving up, even with David Morrell, who's unbeaten and looking good. There's one guy that the general public believes in this weight class can beat Canelo and can beat him straight up. And that's Benavidez. Who knows, this might be the last hurdle he would have to clear to get that chance. So really so many things are converging this weekend in Las Vegas. Luke has talked about from Taylor Swift to, you know, WWE SmackDown.

But what's really is this is a monster showdown in the best division of the sport. That's going to decide a lot of things moving forward. And whether you're here for the hate or whether you're here because you love the sport or whatever, you're going to be entertained on Saturday. I don't need to sell it for showtime. You know, in fact, they pay me to do that. But as a boxing fan, this is one of those like, oh yeah, okay, shit, we're getting the boys together. Let's go in on this pay-per-view. This is going to be one of those nights, Luke, and I can't wait. Now, before we get to the actual footage, I'm going to do a little bit of a mini dissected here on air. First things first, BC, I'm going to sort of set up what they're good at. You tell me if this is fair. David Benavidez, he is a come

forward monster. He marches his opponents down. He's tall for the weight class, rangy, but he has good power, I would say. I'd say he has ridiculous hand speed, great combination punching, dynamic finisher, in your face at all times, great chin, great timing. He can punch in all kinds of little narrow windows. He's excellent at that, true or false? All true, what you said right there

i'd say his power is very good some people are calling it great but you don't see a lot of one punch knockouts but when he goes downhill on you and corners you and puts the it's over it's really you know what his key and power is sometimes guys we call them powerful but they're not really powerful they're just fast and accurate i think for benavidez his key with the power is um he throws powerful combinations that other in the game i mean people look there's some great combination punchers canelo is one of them but this guy throws like four five six punch power combinations almost like a prime manny pacquiao in just that regard i think that's what ultimately makes his power so dangerous because he's coming

at you like a freight train and he's got that old school flair, Luke, that like he's not as he, not just as he willing to go through the hell to win. It's the only way he knows how. Right. It's the only way he knows how he, and you could see, he is such a dynamic physical force in this weight class. That's the first thing I'd say talking about Kayla plant. It's a little bit different, right? He is what we would call a slickster, right? BC. So you saw it against Canelo Alvarez. Yes. Canelo one, but he uses that Philly shell where he's just kind of rolling all the time and he's got great footwork and he's on the move.

That's one of his defensive strengths. Offensively. He can be dynamic as well. We took, we just saw the Anthony Darrell KO. I'd like to walk us through that if we can BC. So let's pull that up on the screen. I'm going to walk you guys through a mini, mini, mini, mini dissected here. So this is my screen. You can see here, I'm going to move it around. Oh, are they not moving on the screen? Well, that's a problem. Hold on. Look, you're the new czar of the telestrator. Yeah, it's not moving on the screen. That's a little weird. Hang on just one second and now it's kind of moving hang on there we go all right all right look at this here we go here we go okay let's do this ready here we go i

want you to pay attention to something what you're going to notice is caleb plant so you have two choices when you fight caleb plant you can do the canelo alvarez one where you try and corner him and walk him down which is what i think david david venavides is probably going to do at least for most of the fight. On the other side, you can do what Durrell decided to do, which was to stand here and let Caleb Plant circle and then try to find him. What Caleb Plant's going to do is he's going to get this foot.

Yes, he's going to get it to the outside first, right? So he has a blind corner, and then he's going to jump into position. What he's looking to do is go to the body once, and then upstairs to the head with a double left hook. So let's watch this in real time. You're going to watch him step. Here he is, sort of gauging, timing. He steps back, and he's waiting for Durrell, by the way.

So let's watch Durrell for just a second. So Durrell is actually stepping correctly. Actually, let me take a step back here on that one. So he is stepping. Yeah, he's doing it correctly. It's fine me take a step back here on that one. So he is stepping. Yeah, he's doing it correctly. It's fine. But he can get timed this way.

He can absolutely get timed this way. So when he gets to stepping, look, he's on the outside, but that's going to change here in an instant because when he lets, excuse me, when Plant lets the back foot go down, he's going to, right there, he's going to see the step. He's going to bring this foot in line with this one and this one in line with this one. Watch. As he flashes the jab, boom,

there he is. So now his feet are more in line. He has changed the angle. Next, what he's going to do is after he flashes the jab, he goes hook to the body, but you see he's already kind of coming up a little bit, right? Look at his head level here. When he throws the body hook, now it's here, and when he finishes, it's up here, and he gets greeted with the left hook for it. So that didn't work, and when you watch it in real time, BC, you can see he just kind of, I won't say rushes it, but he tried it, and it didn't fully work. Watch it in real time here. Bop, bop, bop. He comes up quickly and gets intercepted for it. He tries it again. We're in round two. He tries it again a little bit later in round five with a different approach. Right here.

He is waiting. Here comes Darrell landing. He's actually, actually he's moving. It looks like to me. Yeah, no, he's moving. He's getting the timing, right? So look, Darrell is bringing his feet together. And as soon as he's bringing his foot up, Caleb goes, right?

So he's not catching him on the beat. He's catching him in between it, splitting his timing. What's he going to do? He's going to not throw a jab this time. Notice there's no jab here. So he's trying to make it quicker. So he throws to the hook, a hook to the body. He's going to try and double it up. Now he brings his own defense up there, but it just doesn't really land because Darrell is expecting it. He knows. Just watch Durrell here.

Don't watch Caleb Plant. Soon as he sees Caleb Plant go, he brings it up, knowing that's going to be there, and then brings it back up when he throws. Right? Watch. Watch Durrell. Brings it up. Sees it's on the same side.

Lets it go down again, and then fires it back up top when he has it there. So your window is here. This is your window. Now, let's watch him do it again. And he's going to change the timing on this. By the way, I also want to point out, look at Darrell take a back step, just a little bit to kind of lean out of the way. Now, watch the finishing sequence, BC. Here he is, jabbing, circling, not jabbing, but hanging his glove out in the air, right? Now, watch the finishing sequence, BC. Here he is, jabbing, circling. Not jabbing, but hanging his glove out in the air. Now watch. I want you to pay attention to Darrell, too.

Pay attention to Darrell's footwork. Excuse me? His footwork, he's bringing back foot first. We talked about this. When you go back foot first and then your front foot second, it brings you into punching range front foot heavy, which makes it hard to get out or pivot. Caleb sees this, right?

And where's he before? He was on a line. He's going to step out. And this time, no jab like the second one. He goes right hook, excuse me, he goes hook to the body. Okay, so now what's the difference? The difference is he doesn't go bang, bang. He waits and rolls under and then peeks up and sees Durrell is there

and then lets it go. So he changed his initial approach from the first one with the jab, dropped the jab on the second one, but it was still bang, bang. This time waits and it lands fucking perfectly. And by the way, pay attention to the way the punch lands. Pay attention to the way the punch lands here. Watch this. So how do we get KO'd?

It's the whipping force, right? It's the chin getting whipped around, right? And so you have this punch coming as Darrell gets crashed into it because Darrell kind of is crouched too right durell is kind of crouched down so when he pops up bah there's your window he found the window taking away the jab altering the timing and got him dead to fucking rights let's look at it one more time look at this watch this as look at him as the foot is in the air pay attention to the feet as the foot is up he lands it he's already going plants already going steps out whips rolls under weights looks up there he

is looking up got you pow son what a shot that's such a brilliant adjustment by taking just a few, you know, miles per hour off that fastball after you, you know, perfectly showed us how he came close earlier, but then figured out if he just produces that delay. It's almost muscle memory at this point in the fight for Darrell to know how to deal with that and see it coming. Yet you alter that just enough. That's really Luke. Please tell me this is the future of morning combat

because this is Professor Salt-N-Pepa like in peak form right now. Yeah, I love this kind of stuff. And I want to point out, look at how he catches them. Even his shoulder is there to protect a little bit because he's got it kind of back. You ever seen guys pop their shoulders when they punch, right? But it doesn't matter. Boom, because look at what the punch's trajectory is, BC.

He's not punching this way he's punching this way watch watch watch watch watch boom so it sends his chin ready over his shoulder it's not this it's this it's a big difference, even though it looks subtle, and that's why it sends him fucking crashing to the mat. Now, David Benavidez, BC, listen, he's fighting David Lemieux here. David Lemieux is not Caleb Plant, okay? I think it's fair to say. Like, he's just not even remotely the same. But this gives you a sense of what makes David Benavidez so fucking dangerous, right? So let's just watch here. I want you to pay attention.

Now, listen, David Lemieux is hurt here, but you see how he gets square to his opponent? Again, it's a no-no, but if you're this guy and you're high level, you can kind of get away with it. It doesn't really matter, right? Right hook to the body. Uppercut. We should talk about this, BC. Fucking David Benavidez has amazing uppercut we should talk about this bc fucking david benavidez has amazing uppercuts he's got

him with both hands and because he stands square yes it makes him a bigger target but the hand speed and the location and the combinations with everything it just makes it really hard to deal with he works uppercuts into four punch combination sequences so it's insane what he can do when going downhill and you mentioning oh it's Lemieux and he's hurt. Dude, this is what he does to anyone he gets to. He corners you, starts going downhill, and he'll find your opening. That's the truth. He'll find your opening.

All right. So here we go. A little bit later, he uppercut, straight, hook, fires it again. Look, he's even catching him between his gloves. Look at the little lane he's got here. Boom. Still finds it, right right tiny little openings on combination and he'll double up to that same side he comes over and he hurts lemieux let's see what happens here a little bit later same thing kind of square right kind of square doesn't really matter though because he's got he times that left hook follows it with a short right pushes lem Lemieux over, gets out of the way.

Kind of does this a lot too, right, BC? He'll kind of march into you with his hands up and his guard up like that a little bit. He resets. Here comes that left hook. So I would imagine bang, bang. And look how short this right hand is. Look at it. Just that.

It's just this. Short little right hand catches him clean it's good work from him over there now watch this a little bit later right now he does walk into range that's gonna be something that's gonna be caleb plants we might be able to get him with right he kind of just walks in a la shopcott rolls back and then fires that left hook in between the punches right hand again just look at how much he can just split the guard like it's nothing let me say there's straight through the ropes there's times that we will call him like a brawler or call him you know i mentioned he's willing to go through hell meaning he has the the mindset and the

knowledge of his own chin that it doesn't matter like you said that he squares up in front of you because he's got skills to avoid it and hurt you more, but he's not, you know, a brawler in the limited sense. Look, I like to call him a technical brawler. Does that term make sense? Yeah, it can. It can. I think that's right. A guy who does have technique and there is a science to it, but they will put themselves at risk to have a close range, kind of a blood and guts fight. I mean, in an MMA sense, that's Justin Gaethje at that when, when he's at his best and not doing the full caveman routine that's exactly who he is but it shouldn't be a surprise because even though benavidez was you know very fat as a kid got they wanted him to get into boxing he didn't take to it he ended up you know i think he was like a heavyweight as an amateur

his brother his older brother jose jr who we remember at his highest point lost to terrence crawford in a welterweight title fight and just has a very good role in creed 3 as i mentioned the other day luke everybody should check it out he was shot in the leg his pro career never really figured itself out but he was a elite olympic level amateur for the u.s luke like very high he went pro at 17 the commission had to give him an exemption to do it yeah like his like his brother was top, top shelf. He beat Gary Russell, Luke, in the amateurs. I mean, top, top shelf, or Gary Allen Russell. So the point here is it's sort of the mixture.

It's the best of both worlds. Does David Benavidez have the quote-unquote Mexican style? Yeah, dude. He'll take a couple to give one. He's an incredible body give one. He's a credit, you know, an incredible body puncher. He'll walk you down, but there's nothing formulaic about his style, his Mexican style. It's the mixture of that technical knowledge. And you got to give his dad, Jose senior are a lot of credit too, in this regard for how he's trained

his two sons. And, uh, Luke, I love that breakdown, man. That was good shit to show what they're up almost done. Almost done. Almost done, almost done, almost done. I'll make it fast so we can get it one more. Let me just show you the timing on this left hook. Again, David Lemieux is not Caleb Plant, but watch him. He lowers his level and throws, and then as soon as he sees it, pop.

And this is what I'm talking about. This is where the movement catches the punch at the same time. Those are the ones that hurt the worst, but I want to show this finish. There he is. He hurts him here. Check out this finish, BC.

Tell me this isn't Porky Medina, but this is quite the finish. Watch this. Right hook to the body. Left to the body. Right upstairs. Now here's where it comes. Look at this combination. I'm going to play it in real time.

Just watch this. Look at this. Dude, nowhere to go. Look at the multiple left uppercuts and then he fires them over the right look the referee says yeah i've seen enough guy here's another angle watch this watch this watch this just da da da da da just there's a machine gun dude that's it we're good here david benavidez is a fucking gatling gun just rotate that fucking thing and it's just barrel after barrel of weapons of firing at you down range he's amazing dude he made it look like a schoolyard brawl but one of

those rare school yard you know like every school's got tough kids but like every school's got one kid who like actually you know has been to the gym and his dad spars or whatever and can actually skill and that guy can just light people up in in hallway fights look just with comedy i mean that's a that's what that brutal finish looked like uh great stuff to break that down but on the flip side though with with plant and you nailed it we know him for incredible defense very quick and smart feet and just a pure boxer you know i mean look telling people's backstories can be you know we've heard of the million times or whatever but like plant came from nothing in tennessee that's

not a boxing hotbed but he really did use the sport and the potential of where it could take him as his like only career path only life plan and look he has put in the hours to perfect his craft you see that even though he's a guy that's not known for big power. And, you know, we do question, does he have a chin elite enough where if this becomes an action fight, can he take it? His breakthrough win was winning the title against Jose Uzcategui a few years back, but he did have to hold on late when he got rocked a few times and it was getting a little gnarly. Here's the thing I want to say about Plant's skill and why the timing of this fight is so perfect.

Not just because of that Darrell knockout and the momentum, but Luke, I think you'll agree on the levels of coaching. This is not an indictment against his dad, Richie, who was his amateur coach and is still in his corner, or even Justin Gameber, who was his trainer for the Canelo fight and had been his pro trainer for a lot of it. But, you know, neither of those guys are known as elite world-class trainers look at what he did in one fight adding the tutelage of steven breadman edwards you know

what i mean this this sometimes you know look at when gaethje uh i'm sorry when usman moved to um gaethje's trainer there uh whitman whitman in that regard where it's just wow just that extra influence to what you already have what could it do i think we're finding out in real time here as is caleb plant what he can do because does he have one punch power not normally but if it's set up like that luke could he hurt benavidez you're damn right i mean it's possible here so he is carrying a level of cockiness and confidence that really has us asking a lot of questions entering this fight about Caleb, because Luke, he's poking the bear purposely. If you go to davidbenevitas.com, as we talked about, it's a Caleb Plant merch store with like, you know, pre-fight documentary videos.

You know what I mean? Like he is calling him names all the time. He even challenged, you know, during that press conference, talking shit to the dad, Jose senior, we've seen them in the gym actually come to blows. He was, you know, Caleb through the first punch in that long video. I played that one time that sort of started this back in 2018 when he tried to punch Jose jr, but he's poking the bear at Epic levels right now. So I got two clips. I want to play you from that fantastic Showtime all-Excess. It's the one episode.

It's only one episode, but you got to check this out. This is what we talked about when they had that press conference in February to announce this fight. The two teams almost got into some level of a fight before, during, and I've read multiple reports about even after backstage. Watch the body language from both fighters here in this, when they're getting out of the car ahead of the press conference back in February. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich.

McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. I don't got molasses. I still got more knockouts than you. Shut up. Shut up. You know, I got a lot of respect, but you don't look at me like that. Stop acting tough, man. Not like that. We're not like that. Man, you never had an issue. We're not like that.

We're not like that. You better calm the down, too. Like, you didn't get knocked out. You should be telling the family. You should be telling the family. You should be stating. Stop, man. You guys let me see what's up.

You didn't see what's up. You didn't see what's up. You're not scary. You're not scary to me. Let me see. A lot of yip-yap. What? What?

Can't fucking wait. That was Bretman Edwards, the black trainer there of Caleb Planteo. So I could show you that just to hype you up to want to buy the pay-per-view because we love this pro wrestling, but it's real kind of agitation. But Luke, here's how this might play into the fight. And the questions we have to ask for plant here, because would you, would you agree? You have to be impressed by how he's handling himself. You have to be, he's literally looking in the, in the face of the boogeyman of this division. And you could argue the sport and he's like, you're not scared to me. And he's not flinching. He's not posturing for

the sake of there's cameras around. Did you watch during the actual press conference, which was about 15 minutes after this, that moment was filmed. We're like Benavidez gets out and pushes him and Caleb's just got his hands in his pockets doing nothing. So this is certainly part of the game. This is mental warfare. Luke, if this is only to bring out the very best in Caleb and get his confidence. I mean, look, he has such high confidence right now that I really question the size of his ball bag. So because like, you know, is he crazy? Is he crazy? Like a Fox? Like what is really going on here? He is just so next up next level confident. If that's just to fire himself up, great. But I have to believe based on how he's doing this, that this is strategic.

And you could argue, he tried to do that with Canelo. They actually, he learned Canelo into an actual fist fight at their press conference. But the thing was, he never got Canelo in that fight to get off of his game plan. Stop being the sniper early before walking you down with technical shots. And,

you know, look, Caleb got hit with very accurate, hard shots. And he went down a couple, Caleb got hit with very accurate hard shots and he went down a couple of times and the fight was over. He never got Canelo off his game plan. My question to you is, is this gamble of potentially trying to get Benavidez knowing he is a hothead?

I mean, he lives and dies on emotions. I don't say that as an insult. I say that as Benavidez, what makes him great is that he pours so much of his emotions into it. That's what makes him dynamic and exciting and very dangerous. But we have seen people master the mental game. If he's luring Benavidez to, you know, square up, not cut corners, you know, cut corners defensively to just come at you and make you pay. Because is that the perfect contrast to what makes Caleb Plant good getting in and out with accurate hard shot, you know, cut corners defensively to just come at you and make you pay. Because is that the perfect contrast to what makes Caleb plant good getting in and out with accurate hard shot? You know, yes, that is. But Luke, we found this out in life.

The old F around and find out the old poke the bear thing. There's some people, you know, I play mind games all the time. And when I play basketball, people hate me for it, but I have to know right away who's because it is fight or flight Luke getting fucked with that either makes you incredibly better because you're able to get angry and you're able to focus even more on that. Or it takes you off your game and makes you emotional. I want to play one more video from the all access before I get your response to this long windwinded question here, Luke, of is this the wrong guy to poke at this level, or is this exactly the genius plan that Caleb has that actually could work?

Let's hear Benavidez's response to being called fat, and he's got man boobs and all that. This is interesting. You know what I mean? I still deal with it to this day. You see Caleb plans talking, saying fat boy this, fat boy that, but at the end of the day, it makes no sense. If these dudes are all cut up, they're all marked up,

they don't have no knockouts. And then you go to the opposite side, you got somebody that's a fat boy, supposedly. He has 26 fights and he has 23 knockouts. So you tell me who's doing it right. I don't care what people say. At the end of the day, they say I'm fat, they say I'm this, they say I'm that, they say I'm not dedicated. But at the end of the day. They say I'm fat. They say I'm this. They say I'm that.

They say I'm not dedicated. But at the end of the day, I'm doing my job. And when I get his ass in that ring, March 25th, I'm going to break his mouth. I'm going to make him regret everything he said. Did you see those eyes, Luke? Answer my question here. Is this the right strategy for Caleb? I'll say this.

You know what? And it lines up with bringing breadman and breadman is such a smart trainer such a student of boxing a lifelong student but now a coach and a brilliant mind in the sport i think it's he's trying like okay the defense wasn't enough against canelo but you would never look at caleb's defense and be like this is his shortcoming it's actually a strong suit what breadman looks like he's trying to give him is a little bit more firepower right give him a little bit more offense to match the defensive ability that he has make him more of a two-way fighter wasn't enough against canelo he didn't have him at the time here he is now and i just think it's changed caleb's mindset a little bit like i'm not

going to be defensive i'm not going to be um i'm not going to be you know trying to be out slicks or i'm going to be slicker than you but that's not why i'm going win. I'm going to be winning because I'm going to be hurting you more. And I think it's just giving him a new confidence in a way where poking the bear or not, he just sees it as that's the way he's going to carry himself. That's the way he feels. And we'll see if he can fight that way on March 25th. But look, if you ask yourself, can he break Benavidez physically? Now, look, if anybody gets hit with that combination that Darrell did in

that exact manner, they can be knocked down, knocked out or hurt badly, right? Benavidez has going for him a great chin, great sturdiness and size and the right kind of crazy mindset. The mindset that like, if I have to, I'll take that, but it's not even going to, it's not even going to rock me because I'm so determined and motivated on getting through it to get to you. So, no, I don't really think he's going to gas him or break him physically. But the real question is, can he break him mentally, Luke? Can he bend him mentally to play into what Caleb Plant does better as we both just broke down? I mean, some of it is we don't know but benavidez just might be too much that the risk

of trying that just could i mean you know is caleb plant known for his chin no he's also not known for being chinny or or vulnerable but you know he's not necessarily or getting hit a lot getting hit a lot so i do think you know c Caleb's got incredible mental, you know, drive and that, you know, and that, that, that actually plays into a chin. Seriously. I really believe that I believe your, your, your, your willingness to get through anything. You know, if your mind is as sharp as it can possibly be, I feel like your chin, you know, can almost double in strength. But if you get this guy, this mad, and even if you get him off his game that danger level still doesn't go down even if you're catching him with counters and darting in and out is 36 minutes enough for

benavides to catch up to him look that's the real question right that really is is that enough time for him to catch up to him and make him pay we are gonna find out i can't wait uh bc also on this card very briefly very briefly uh listen to these odds on a boxing card you just never see this minus 250 jesus alejandro ramos taking on joseph spencer he's a plus 190 now there is a big uh discrepancy here although even by boxing standards not that much minus 750 for cody crowley taking on a plus 475 abel ramos again and then how about this bc opening the card the return return of Chris Colbert at minus 145 against Jose Valenzuela at plus 115.

These odds are crazy close. Look, the trend in boxing in general, let's be very honest, the trend in boxing in general is pay-per-view undercards don't always kick your dorns, especially not on the level you know from like the UFC or if you're an old school boxing fan remember the Don King cards like this is a very good one the odds tell you that the hardcores online have told you that why here because these are guys that have made their name a bunch of them for a while on PBC undercards or in main events on smaller cards and now we're testing themselves

against one another Chris Colbert and Jose Valenzuela both had big losses on the highest level, yet still have a lot of ability and hunger and need to come back and prove themselves. So they're going to fight each other. Love it. The Ramos family, if you don't know, big power here. Abel Ramos is the uncle. Jesus Ramos is much younger, about 10 years younger, and he's the nephew. But he's like 22, and he's blood and guts but he's like 22 and he's blood and guts.

He throws big bombs. He's got big power. Uh, they're fighting some interesting prospects in themselves and Cody Walter weight, Cody Crowley, who, you know, PBC people believe can do some things, Luke. And the same thing with Joey Spencer, who we've seen before at this level, these are some very good fights with the potential for explosiveness and competitiveness. And to me, we don't always say that. We really don't when it comes to these boxing pay-per-view undercards. So it's good to see. Look, it's there.

Watch the all-access and then ask yourself, do you need to watch this fight? I mean, I'm serious. You know what I mean? If our preview right now didn't fire you up, I don't know what else will. But this is prime theater, regardless of your hardcore casual boxing fans.

All right. We got a lot to get through left here. So let's run through this here, BC. Topic number three, there is – so our focus has been UFC and boxing, obviously, with the San Hagen and Chito Vera fight, and now Benavidez and Plant. But there's a lot going on. BC, one of my old stomping grounds, Norfolk, Virginia,

on tomorrow will be BKFC 39 in the main event, Reginald Barrett Jr. taking on Frank Alvarez. I do not know these gentlemen, but Britton Hart. Friday, Luke. Friday night. I said Friday. Did I not say Saturday? 24th. You said tomorrow. You said tomorrow. That's okay. I apologize. Yes. The Barnett fight is a Bantamweight title fight.

Okay, but Britton Hart's taking on Jenny Savage. BC, you spoke to Britton Hart. Set up this fight for us, and what is going on with her that we should be paying attention to? Yeah, so look, Britton Hart, we know her as I'm an effing feeling to begin with, right? When she upset Paige Van Zandt and handled her in there and then became a personality for BKFC. Why? Because look, she fights so aggressively and goes after it. She always talks game in the microphone, talks crap about others, defends herself, all that.

But, you know, when she came off of that PVZ win, she then fought Jenny Savage, who she's rematching on Saturday. This was at 125. And, you know, I don't know if you remember the build to that, but it was wild, right? And, you know, they do not like each other one bit. Hart has gone on to win and lose. She lost a strawweight title about there

in her rematch with Christine Ferreira, which was her second defeat to her and it kind of you know you started to wonder did she kind of level out at this level well then they created a division south 125 i'm sorry 115 women's strawweight and it turns out for for uh britain heart that's you know the weight she would prefer to be at she won a championship in in the vacant one, and now we're heading into a rematch against Jenny Savage. Why it matters is look, Savage, to a degree, has reinvented herself as well. She believes 115 is her better weight class. She moved back down to chase Britton Hart, and she's got two wins in a row, including one by Spectacular Knockout. So interesting rematch here in the co-feature, and here is Britton Hart talking about this

evolution to her game because by moving down, Luke, she doesn't have to be as blood and guts. There's not as much of a size difference. She's able to be more of a mixture of boxer-puncher, and she's been able to figure out how to take less shots, actually. Let's see her talk about this reinvention. Yeah, absolutely, because you got to look at it. You know, when I was a boxer, I was fighting at 118.

My walk-around weight was 118. You know, when I was a boxer, I was fighting at 118. My walk around weight was 118. You know, maybe a couple of times I'd bounce up to 122. But when I started at BKFC and they had the 125 division, I was like gobbling food. Like, I mean, everybody knows me, knows the day of weigh-ins. I'm sitting there eating bagels and Starbucks lattes. Like, I don't have the experience of cutting weight. And I wasn't have the experience of cutting weight and I'm wasn't making an excuse. I knew what I was getting into with being a female and a lot of people saying,

well, you got to get what you get. And I made a really great name for myself, but it was kind of like, you know, sometimes when you have people that are more skillful or bigger, sometimes you have to get dirty and outbraw them because skill for skill it's going to go pound for pound and you know what I tell everybody when you hit somebody with a five pound weight yeah there's a difference when you hit somebody with a 20 pound weight so you know we put that in perspective with these girls that have weight on them so you know I got to get in there and do do the damage or out box and that was kind of what I was hearing from everybody else I don't think they really liked that brawler aspect of me even though you know now it looks

like I've done you know I am technical I feel like my boxing is beautiful now now people are kind of like whoa wait a minute you know Britain can't brawl and I'm like do we not like come on guys you know do we not remember the earlier britain levels like yeah watch the you know luke that's not that's that's an interview that's not going to get a lot of clicks but something her and i talked about in there i think she's she's fun personality and really a fun fighter and i think she's been a big part of that division as a whole when she was with 125 which you know had p, had PVZ coming in, had Rachel Ostevich, had, you know, sort of this crossover thing going on. They also have, you know, these pro wrestling style builds to these fights that feel like catfights.

Luke, she's kind of become the face of the operation. And she felt she was insulted when I think somebody asked, was it Dave Feldman or somebody high up who they thought the Mount Rushmore was of BKFC, which you can ask yourself if that's like being prom queen of my high school, Luke. But still, they didn't see her on there. I got to be honest, I kind of look at the undercards to see if she's on there because she brings a certain level that I think that I hope they value her in that regard. I'm sure you don't care either way, Luke. I definitely, like the rest of the audience, I definitely don't. Okay, BC. Also, I think this is going to be the same

day, March 24th. I don't have a lot to say about it because I just haven't prepped around it. One fight night eight, Superlek versus Rateng. Superlek, one of the best kickboxers in the world. Taking on Rateng, we always know his reputation precedes him. This will be a kickboxing, not an MMA contest. Some UFC vets on this card.

Sehi Ham is on this card. It's an MMA bout. There's a few other names, BC. Also, Tammy Musumechi is in this card as a grappling fight. Remember, she's a world champion, but she had her arm broken across her back in an arm bar by Michelle Nicolini. So she has been through it, certainly, as well. Any hot takes on one fight night eight?

Not a single one, Luke. Yeah, that's fair enough. All right, BC, on Saturday from Fresno, California, Jose Ramirez takes on Richard Comey. That's a decent contest. And then someone I know you've had your eye on for a little bit, Siniesa Estrada taking on Tina Rupert. I don't know how to say her last name, BC.

Any thoughts on Ramirez versus Comey? Yeah, there's a decent card here Any thoughts on Ramirez versus. Yeah, there's a decent card here. We know Ramirez packs the house there in Fresno and he's, you know, a pillar in the community, but you know that he's taken some extended time off Luke and turned down title fights with Rougarou.

And, you know, we, we haven't seen him in a real big one, of course, since that, uh, undisputed loss to Josh Taylor.

Although I think he rebounded with it, with a decent win there, but this is tough out against Colby. And it'll be an update on exactly where Jose Ramirez is right now. Luke, uh, when he's at his best, dude, he's tough, man, because he's a active fighter. There's a lot of punches, but, but doesn't have big power and it's very technical and, you know, sort of like we said, like a technical calculated brawler, um, whether he stays at 40 moves up to 47, he's going to be in big fights. This would be a nice sort of reset of where he's at because Comey's kind of become the

perennial tough out here in this area of this weight division. But, you know, he brings it. Sinisa Estrada is interesting. I thought it was a great signing by top rank. And, you know, she had to wait out the rest of her Golden Boy contract and they couldn't get her the fight she wanted. And they kind of just parted ways but you know i think she's a champion at 108 and she's easily you know from a pound for pound level top three in this world and that's saying a lot but super

bad can fight she can knock you out too but she's you know she's got the style and look i think she's engaged to uh to zones chris mannix too so congratulations to the happy couple in that regard but seriously i called the fight with the strata backrada back on that NBC series I used to do, and I think she does have a bright future as well on that side of things. Smart fighter. She's worth checking out there as she continues to try to add belts and make the biggest fights she can. That's all I've got to say about boxing, though, this weekend.

I don't have anything else to say. There's a little bit more. Any thoughts on, in England, Lawrence Okoli taking on David Light? Do we care? Yeah. Yeah, I care. I care. I mean, look, I'm waiting for Lawrence.

I always forget if it's Okoli or Okoli, Okoli, Dokoli, Luke, as Rafe used to say. But he's cruiserweight. He's got potential here. I don't know. I don't know a ton about what's at stake in this particular matchup. But I'll be, you know, you can get, you can, I handed him my hardcore card there for a second, Luke, but you know, it is what it is. All right.

All right. Fair enough. Let's get to topic number four, BC. We do have now some, some idea about where Hamzat is headed next. We didn't know, was it going to be welterweight? Was it going to be middleweight? He missed the weight cut real badly. Still ended up beating the shit out of a big mouth. What's his name? Kevin Holland, Kevin Holland. Kevin Holland gave him the old business.

But we were like, okay, where's his future at in the weight class? Well, it turns out, according to Dana White, UFC president, his future will be at middleweight. He said to reporters at UFC 286, quote, yeah, he'll fight at middleweight. He's in a position where he should be fighting the top three guys in the world. Now, of course, it currently stands as number one ranked contender is Izzy 2, Whitaker 3, Vittori 4, Kenanir 5, Paulo Costa. And, of course, Izzy and Pereira are going to be fighting at UFC 287 BC.

Do you like a middleweight push for Hamzat Shumayev? I mean, I don't dislike it because Hamzat Shumayev still, even with the weight miss situation, and as you mentioned, dude, he mopped up on Holland right after, is one of the most exciting fighters in this entire game and still one of the most sexy unanswered questions of how the freak good is this guy. Is he literally ready to take over?

Is he a trash-talking Habib in some ways, right? If that comparison makes any sense. But I would have loved to see what he could have done at the highest level of welterweight. I know there's the potential of the weight cutting there. Look, people are trying to say that maybe he can't fight in the States. I don't have proof, again, on that, but that seems to be a Twitter rumor that people try to throw around a lot for visa issues.

But if he has to go to middleweight, there's no shortage of huge names. It's going to be very interesting to find out exactly where he fits in on that level and i like that dana's basically saying look we're gonna have to push him in against big fights like it's going to be big fights from here on out but how much do you think the level of domination that he showed in that run at welterweight which included the one at middleweight too when he moved up and did the same thing but does that alter his game, his strategy, his effectiveness, his long-term potential at dominating? I mean, I think he's the type of overall skilled fighter that he could do it in either weight classes, but there was something really interesting about the welterweight

tank rolling in there and taking people out. Yeah. Here's the thing. It's like, I saw the wrestling match like everyone else did that he had with Jack Hermanson. And he was still very much in that. You could probably argue he won it, although it was an exhibition, so whatever. But, you know, he seemed to be holding his own and then some. So it's not like I don't think he can win at middleweight, but I just, I'm like you, I just remain unconvinced that this is the best place for him. Now, if he ends up winning a title, you know, egg on our face.

Obviously, if he stays at middleweight, a potential showdown with Bo Nickel seems like it could be a lot of good fun. And listen, it has been a while since middleweight has had a dominant wrestler kind of come through and challenge everyone in that way again, right? Like if you just look at that, we just mentioned all these guys, you know, Robert Whitaker has very good defensive wrestling, but he's not much of an offensive wrestler in that way. And then Vittori and Kananir and everyone else, like there's not really of an offensive wrestler in that way. And then Vittori and Cannoneer and everyone else, like there's not really a hard-nosed, in-your-face, wrestle grappler Habib type. Boy, it'd be great to have one of those at 185 pounds

to see what we can do. So I basically share your opinion, which is I'm excited to see it, I suppose, definitely. But until we can actually get a sense of like what he looks like against really good people in this weight class, because remember, he's fought and defeated really good guys at welterweight. He has not defeated really good guys at 185.

It's just a big question mark of, like, is this truly optimal? But if he can't cut the weight, you know, this is why those 15-pound jumps are a huge problem in MMA. True, but do you still feel like there's largely no closure on what really happened? And I'm not saying lean into the conspiracy, but something's weird there still. Well, didn't his coach say, and again, I'm not trying to dredge up old shit, but didn't his coach say that because he had the really bad bout with COVID

where he was tweeting coughing up blood and shit, that he just thinks that whatever happened to him, he just can't get the weight back down again I don't know if that's true I have no fucking idea but if it is true like if what the coach is saying if that's real it's it's an unsatisfying conclusion to his welterweight campaign but it may just be the one that we get you know and I don't bring that up to necessarily lean to the idea of like the conspiracy and did they want to keep Nate happy because they kind of, we found out they offered Connor the Nate trilogy for his comeback fight. It turned into Chandler, but like, you know,

you could go to the conspiracy room. I'm going more on. Was that a, a red flag moment? Look, he still fought and he's still dominated Holland, but how much of missing weight that badly was some level of reaction to the overwhelming amount of pressure of not only being in your first pay-per-view main event, but being a monster favorite against a legend that everybody loved and people talking about the fight shouldn't be happening. And these expectations

that, that, you know, if he doesn't whip up on him, then he loses, then he fails. Also, the potential of expectations of, I mean, I know what we say about Ramzan Kadyrov, Luke, and there are reasons why we should probably say more and reasons why I should call back Kamara Usman and be like, answer for this but there's a lot of pressure it seems on chemayev to live up to everything when you consider that he tried to retire after multiple bad cobalt covid battles even if that was an emotional social media response kadirov literally came out with like a press you know almost like a press release statement of like no no you're fine you're fine you're absolutely fine and you will continue to fight and that's's that, you know, like that's that there's something unanswered here, Luke, what does no matter whether it's questions of his mental mindset or questions of, you know, impropriety behind the scenes. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but there's

like, we're just going to move forward. Like that didn't happen. I mean, I guess had he struggled against Kevin Holland at all, it would be maybe a different story. Maybe the dominant win was enough for people to go, Oh yeah, he's too big for welterweight BC get off of it right it's middleweight time stop talking about it biatch yeah anyway so we'll see what happens there uh BC topic number five quick hitters so we are getting closer to a rematch date between Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko. So Grasso said to the MMA Hour, quote, and talking about having an immediate rematch, she says, I actually hope so. She asked for that, and I would love to fight her again.

I know that she's super competitive. I know she's a perfectionist like me. So imagine a second fight. Truly imagine. I'm wondering what she's going to do in the second fight, what she's going to try to do. Knowing the first one, knowing what I did. Also, I have a lot of things to do and improve and get better it's going to be like a chess match she continued September sounds great September sounds amazing but let's see of course before the end of this year I'd like to fight two times two fights

every year sounds good I truly hope that this can be in Mexico BCember or whatever i don't mind the rematch that seems fine by me but a mexico rematch at elevation i i actually feel like shevchenko should i mean it's ultimately ufc decision but i feel like shevchenko should honor that they should have it like they did for leon they had it back in england they should have this one for alexa back in mexico do you agree or not yeah i think that does that does change the equation because we were sort of in a debate after that, after that changing of the guard of whether Shevchenko had done enough as the longtime dominant champion, literally the most title defenses in UFC women's history to get the immediate rematch or because it was so decisive

and we have other people waiting in line, should we go in another direction? When you add the element of going to Mexico when it's this red hot and the champions are sort of the young and vibrant and ready to take over. Yeah. That makes sense from a commercial standpoint. It makes sense from an entertainment standpoint of watching the storylines play out in front of you. It makes sense in the standpoint of,

okay, Valentina has done enough to earn this. So we make it harder on her. And if you're the true champ, you're going to go into enemy territory and get it done that way. I kind of like all of that, but the more I think about this division as a whole, if you have to do the Shevchenko rematch, then yes, do it that way.

But wouldn't it be fun instead if it, if it was this, if it was Blanchfield and Grasso in the main event and Shevchenko against Tyler Santos, a remote rematch in the, in the, you know,atch in the co-main, or okay, maybe you had somebody else, maybe you had Yair or something, or whatever. There's different creations. It doesn't necessarily have to be in Mexico. But those two fights next, maybe that is the best answer. But you did sway me there, Luke.

You talked me into it with the Mexico thing. Well, I'll just say this. I mean, we started the show talking about how we don't love immediate rematches. I don't love immediate rematches. I don't love immediate rematches. I mean, if they didn't do the Shevchenko fight, I'd honestly be okay with it. And to your point, they could give her Grasso versus Menon Fioro. They could give her, who knows? And they could also give Blanchfield a title shot.

They could have a Blanchfield fight, whoever. There's a lot of different ways you could go. I'm just saying, if you go in there and you dethrone the long- long reigning champion the only champion that weight class up until this point that the weight class has ever seen and you do it there should be something to be said for like okay home field advantage for the person who took the title from you yes uh if you want it back if you want it back you got to go to that person's neck of the woods i i like that idea i think that part at least that part of it um that speaks that speaks to me for sure mexico city i would love to go to in september and i don't want to you having a day over there whatever everything all right yeah my chair's falling apart i'm trying to screw it back

together um i i don't want to be known as a guy who's always pushing for immediate rematches just think some of the recent circumstances you could argue and a lot of them it did make sense but don't get it to where it is in boxing like you said where it's always seemingly a part of the negotiation for the more popular fighter. And then that always means you got to beat a guy twice to actually beat him. That sucks.

Let's move it forward. Yeah. All right. Do you think they would ever actually make the thing you talked about, which is, you know, an idea of two super prospects, Bo nickel against Hamza.

Let's say they both, you know, establish themselves with, with dominant win next in this division. I don't think they'd actually make that do you no no no i think they'd have to have some kind of a more organic meeting down the road where it actually was like that's the one that makes the most sense not just forcing them together and again bo nickel you know obviously his future is extremely bright but there's no need to rush it either um bc how about this one colby covington threatens john

annick he did an interview with mike heck over at mma fighting and in the middle of it says a bunch of uh you know not the brightest things on earth and then adds you know i wouldn't want your kids to grow up without a dad you know you live frame it right i live in miami frame it right i mean i only cut you off to say this not that i think that colby's right here but the the reason why he got that angry and then ended up extending that rant to anik was that he was calling the quote tweet from balal muhammad of when someone asked him why would kobe get next and he says because he's white white he then he then called all racist and he said anybody who supports that racist blah blah

blah and that's why it extended to anik yeah i don't understand why you can call that racist i mean you can call that wrong right but balal's argument again you could say it's right or it's wrong but balal's argument is how do i explain that this person got a title shot when their merit when their merit for this claim is zero and he's right the merit for the claim is zero okay it's not zero we've been up and down it's not it's pretty it's pretty it's pretty close it's pretty close, but from the resume standpoint, anyway. And he said, you know, this guy's white. Like, he's getting it because he is more favored

by virtue of this. Now, you could say that that's wrong, but, like, he's not actually engaging in racism by saying that. He's, in his mind, in Bilal's mind, he's pointing out racism, right? So to call him racist off that you can say he's totally wrong but it's not there's nothing about it that's racist okay but that was your rant

but that one hold on that was the rant he gave to Mike Heck that led to that but Luke can you make the connection here to Anik what did Anik say beyond Anik's twin brother co-hosting a podcast with Bilal Muhammad on the regular which I guess you know by synergy does that does he he just think that John annexed a hater because his brother does the podcast with him? I think maybe there's something with that. He also kind of indicated in the interview he did with Submission Radio that, you know, he's like, oh, I saw John backstage. He was, in the words he used, were licking my balls. But, you know, I guess they had interacted and that John was maybe nice to him and then colby is like oh he was nice to my face and then he goes and backs ball all for

you know this and and and then when ball all said what he said it kind of all metastasized into some kind of right-wing grievance but um neither here nor there we have ball all's well first of all what do you make of colby like here's the thing everyone's like don't give him attention it's like well dude we try not to at not in the part where he doesn't deserve. He is a ranked welterweight. On that level alone, he will get attention. But I think what they mean is for his antics. And I do mostly ignore his antics. But at some point, people don't understand why is it wrong to do what he did.

In the end, I don't think UFC is going to sanction him. But number one, if you don't think when fighters do this kind of thing or anyone very famous who's very powerful in the MMA world does this, it ends up leading to the person who's the target of it getting harassed big time. Online getting harassed,

getting harassed in real life. It actually ends up being a bit of a real thing. That's the first thing I would say. The second part of it is, it's like, dude, on what level, even if, and by the way, people are like, oh, he's not going to do it. Yeah, of course he's not going to do it. It's all a bunch of bullshit. But when you ratchet up the rhetoric like this, when you're allowed to say things like, you know, I don't want your kids to grow up without a dad, and you're threatening to murder someone, at some point it's like, okay, are we just going to allow people to say whatever the fuck and that's like oh freedom of speech right but in the workplace the freedom of speech is whether or not the government uh can meaningfully prosecute you

for what you say this has nothing to do with it this is a question of like to what extent is it a reasonable course of action to engage in this behavior and the answer is of course it's not and the fact that there can be spillover violence to the target intended, it seems to me like, yeah, like you do want to intervene as the parent company here to minimize some of this particular kind of rhetoric. Yeah. Like I can't, I mean, a couple of things. First of all, I can't, again, I, John Anik has a twin brother. Not a lot of people know about it. Jason Anik, who does that podcast, you know, they're both, they've both been, they've both been day one in terms of gambling coverage and all that.

I don't know if Colby's just misunderstanding there or thinks he's a company guy in the wrong direction in that regard. Number two, it's hypocritical as shit, right? In the street code, if you press charges against Masvidal and now you're threatening here. But, you know, Mikey gave a point that I see. And sued Verdun for throwing a boomerang at him yeah exactly so Mikey put out a comment here in our in our chat you know could you imagine an NFL player saying they're going to kill Tony Romo

because he doesn't like his commentary and I saw a lot of people saying like the comparison of what if this was you know another sport it'd be much bigger news or be taken more seriously but because it's cage fighting and combat sports we just go yeah we expect it but i counter that to some degree because hey we didn't we just have like shannon sharp like almost fighting john morant and his dad like at a live game if we know and then didn't we have in the past even a smith like threatening kevin durant on the air as they go back and forth now in a lot of these cases you know with the shannon sharper here with romo i don't think we would look at this as closely if it was calling out an analyst who's an ex-fighter because let's say you know paul felder was critical of colby's fighting game on the air and then afterwards you're like yo f you man i could take you and

then that escalates you're like okay it's fighters it's it's going to this level this aggressively against you know a media member and john annick now unless there's things i don't know about behind the scenes it's like isn't john annick's job to kind of kiss everyone's ass because he's the play-by-play announcer of the brand of the company which is to be positive and to be a constant promotion for the game so it just seems like though that's a that's an aggressive leap dude that's a really aggressive leap and um yeah listen it's one thing to talk about someone who has signed a contract to fist fight you that's one thing right

yeah uh it's quite another to do this also people like what you would want the ufc to do dude frank meir lost his commentary gig because he said he hoped rock lesnar was the first death in the octagon they took that from him they took that from him if they granted that was a different climate and a different time when they were much more concerned about their public image. But at the same time, it's like, dude, there need to be some professional limits on not who is off limits. I don't think anyone is off limits. That seems a little bit much. the commentator for the brand heaping upon them this kind of vitriol which is utterly undeserved which could lead to real world and then other otherwise forms of harassment and intimidation

it's fucking bullshit it's bullshit and to sit there and just be like well this you know your guys are giving into it he's looking for this man i gotta tell you this is the reason why when i asked like yes is he more popular than bala muhammad sure he is more popular than bala muhammad i understand that i accept that but he's not popular than Bilal Muhammad. I understand that. I accept that. But he's not crazy popular. And the reason why I say that is shit like this. This is not the way you generate an audience other than like a very, very minor portion of maladjusted weirdos anyway.

The way you generate an audience is like you have to be, yes, you can be a guy that no one wants to see. But at the same time, there has to be a little bit of entertainment value in it. There has to be some kind of razzle-dazzle. This is just anger or whatever it is, schtick, schtick disguised as anger or vice versa, designed to not really appeal to any new audience. It's just a circle jerk of people who are already in on it, which is a minimal amount of people. Well, it shows the lack the lack of his to be fair whether this doesn't matter or not it shows the

lack of his creative evolution by playing this you know aggressive character that he's not necessarily as like this pro wrestling villain you know it's like i know dan lambert was the genius behind that originally but colby stick has not evolved or gone to any fun or cool levels, Luke. It's kind of just lame. And that's maybe why we ended up here in this end. But I do disagree when you say he's not a big star or even close to a crossover star. But I don't even think that's actually – I think he is. Well, I don't think – here's what I'm saying. I don't think that's actually the question here because that's not the role he plays the role he plays is as the chief agitator which is more about what can his when you plug him into a situation can it make

that a big thing i think it does luke i think for crossover fans that want to you know that buy two two ufc pay-per-views a year he's the perfect foil which is why he's in the spot to make you care about a kamaru usman or or someone else when you might not at a certain high level. I mean, there must be an audience for it, but that doesn't. He has the opposite effect. Dude, you can't act like he's not. I don't know. I don't want to rehash Monday's argument.

So there you go, Luke. That's that. But ultimately, I think, look, it's weird. We have a response from Bilal. Do you want to see the response from Bilal? I'll be in Miami in a couple of weeks. Keep that same energy. I hope the clown of Dada County shows his face.

I think he means Dade County, right? Dade County, yeah. I mean, he could be making fun of it. But, you know, when people say, look, like Mikey said, and the idea of, like, imagine this in another sport, I want to be frank with people. I love trash talk in combat sports. It one of the big reasons you know it's one of the things that I absolutely love about it I love when it's real I even love when it's you know

aggressively not aggressively made up but enhanced to that regard I don't when people say what if this happened in other sports I don't want that to change per se do I think that some of these things that happen at the highest level, often involving like Dana white and reaction to the things that pisses me off that the combat sports hasn't evolved to the level where they take certain things, they should be taking things much more seriously, but I don't want to clean it up.

Like I want people to say, to be able to have the ability to say really, really abhorrent things to each other, because this is a fight at the end of the day. And the fight game to me, it is what it is. You can only put so much lipstick on that. Hold on. I'm getting to a point.

You can only put so much lipstick on that pig. It is what it is. And I don't want to change that. But I think I found out specifically on the build to Conor Habib that there were extreme limits to that, that I do think you have to draw that line and i felt when connor was saying specific things about habib's wife mixed with the culture and religion you're going to levels that that ufc 229 post-fight brawl could have been something way way worse because of that so i do think there's limits here calling out a

broadcaster and telling him you know threatening that you know that i'll kill you and i know where you live and i live near you. I also agree. That's in that category, Luke. And it's a thin line, but when you go over it, you know,

it, you know, you, and this feels like in both cases, they did. It's such chicken shit to threaten a guy who doesn't fight. It's so chicken shit. And I want to point out something too.

Like, here's a reason why mma media are constantly cowed a little bit it's because they don't want to end up on the other end of one of these because if you end up on the other end of one of these or fighter completely blast you which by the way they have the right to do i certainly understand that uh again i've said they don't owe us anything but you definitely owe me not to have people knocking at my door and threatening me like i definitely i definitely am owed that uh or anyone is really owed that what the point i'm trying to make here is if you want people to be honest in combat sports dude in combat sports everyone is afraid of pissing off somebody else and so there's constant

eggshell walking and constant you know people biting their tongue and as a consequence bad actors get to go and just do whatever the fuck they want because we have such a well it's a this honor culture fucking primitive bullshit that like if you say i'm a clown when i gotta go i've got to go and get my manhood back just you know just fucking total total pre-civilization barbaric nonsense nonsense but if what ends up happening is when the people do shit like this is it creates this culture of silence it creates this culture of well I'm not going to rock the boat. Everyone's great. And I'm just going to keep on going. Dude, fuck that. Fuck that. Like you cannot be threatening physically people, even if you don't even mean it with just bullshit accusations for someone who's not even signed to fight you, who was doing a middle of the road job. If you have a criticism for it, and of course, no one fucking say so that's fine no no big deal but this this this this willingness to i'm the free speech guy then i'm gonna throw threats at you so i can tamp down speech utterly hypocritical fucking bullshit primitive to the nth degree and it's not even entertaining it's not even entertaining so you know i don't understand

what the point is i i really don't oh everyone, everyone wants, they hate to see Colby. Yeah, great. I could do without him at this point. Are you saying you're not hoping that Colby upsets Leon Edwards? Not upsets. He's the, he's the early favorite. Colby beats Leon Edwards and then Connor knocks out Chandler. And then we get Colby Connor at Jerry world.

That's not the direction you're looking to go. It's not even, I'm not even saying that dude. Again, the, if he got the fight, whether you agree or not, if he wins, he's the rightful winner. And if Conor wins and whatever, like again, the fight game is so difficult. Whatever your personal feelings about this guy or that guy, if they win the fights, they are entitled to the rewards they're in. And I accept that. So I'm not going to be mad at Colby if he turns in a great performance and wins, gets the belt and then wants to leverage out for whatever. I mean, I may not love the Connor fight, but you, you, you got to give it

to people who get the job done. And I won't take that away from him or anybody else. What I'm saying is I am so sick of the tough guy bullshit in this sport where everyone pretends to be the super strong one. And yet at the littlest words, even a minor job that John Anik is doing, he's getting however fake they are, essentially death threats. And this is done and designed so that no one ever criticizes him. No one ever speaks out against him again or whatever. You have this constant need from powerful actors in this space to silence their critics, to silence media, to silence everyone else. And everyone just goes along with it because everyone's afraid all the time.

Everyone in this business is afraid all the time. And I'm just real, real tired of the arm twisting of people who are not fighting in the arena. Knock that shit off, man. To be fair, though, there are reasons to be afraid covering the combat sports. Luke, I mean, this is a crazy business with crazy dangerous people that make crazy decisions even in corporate situations.

Yeah, but the UFC should not, and I'm not saying that, I don't know what they're doing in the back, how they view this. I mean, maybe they're calling him, maybe they're not. I don't know. I don't know what the situation is. But as a general rule, I agree. Like, you know, we do take, you have to have some discretion about what you say and how you say it. That's a professional discretion i think is in order uh but you can't tell me that anik didn't act with professional discretion like what do you want from him what

do you want from him um and the ufc has a decision to make about their employees getting threatened so you know also there you go yeah but these are things they typically don't address luke at all or at least not publicly no i don't expect them to but uh there you go uh last but not least bc b we should put it with bkfc uh ben rothwell is going to fight someone by the name of josh watson april he has tattoos on his head luke josh watson has tats on his head is that the one who knocked out greg hardy i believe that was yes yes yes yeah dude that dude was tough that dude was tough looking interesting look I'm not saying I'm completely coming around on BKFC Luke but you know sometimes they map out a good storyline in this territory and get you get you excited and then sometimes you see ridiculous KOs and you're like oh I want to see that guy from that ridiculous KO fight that guy and then

suddenly you're showing up on the fairgrounds in Florida and you're there you know what I mean hey you know who supports BKFC a lot? Does a lot of coverage? Mike Heck of MMA Fighting, one of my friends. Yeah, he likes him, I guess. Yeah, I like him. Yeah, definitely. Great guy.

Luke, you want to do these fan subs now? You want to get the people involved? Let's do them, bro. Let's do them. All right. MorningCombat at gmail.com. Mikey will be at the end of that rainbow, and he'll check out if your pot of gold is worthy to show up on our fridge. This one's called Fan Subm fan submissions you've got mail viewers yeah it looks like a lot of males again today luke nice nice side vape gig there i like that

is that is that a watermelon excursion for you no i think this is my new one this is uh strawberry mango oh yeah taste the rainbow i like that luke here we go this one i quit for like a month and a I think this is my new one. This is Strawberry Mango. Oh, yeah. Taste the rainbow. I like that, Luke. Here we go. I quit for like a month and a half, and I fell back in. So I got to keep trying. It's got its hooks in you. This is Phil sliding in.

He says, hey, y'all. I'm a day one MK Donk and an LT fan for over 10 years. But this is my first sub. Originally from Stockholm, I moved to LA in 2010. And somehow, a girl stationed here landed me in Montgomery, Alabama of all places. Even all Marietta, Georgia is heaven compared to anywhere in lower Alabama. Anyways, she left me for another dude.

But the silver lining is I can leave Alabama now. But jokes aside, y'all's podcast helped me through the darkest, loneliest times when all that was happening. So thank you. Now to the fun stuff. Luke, please rate my tat. This is the beginning of a sleeve I'm working on. Sorry, my skin is a little ashy. I should have used the lotion before taking the pic. And as y'all can see, I'm heavily addicted to the elf bars. Thanks to Dr. Salt and Pepper. I'm'm not joking i was smoking them religiously before luke started but i need a t-shirt with the vaping is for closers design asap yes rj get on that get on that seriously best regards it's phil luke can you speak to his larger life decisions before

this tattoo and then the actual ink here you know it's a little faded because it's old so i guess he's got like almost like a ninja turtle at the top right and he's got venom closer to his hand i you know i don't hate it i don't love it i don't love it okay here's what you're saying you're saying technically from a technique standpoint it's not bad but you're saying stylistically and choice wise. I mean, look, it's a, it's a divorce tat. I got to give this guy a little, little credence here. Yes. Some of the details. So here's the thing. Some of the details are pretty good, but it's a bit of a confused mixture. It feels like to me, like from a artistic theme.

Yeah. Maybe there's going to be more additions to fall out, fill out the sleeve. I don't know, but maybe we'll see, but you know, first of all, he left Sweden for this girl, Luke, and she left him in Alabama. So he could have very easily grown out the ponytail, bought a sports convertible, bought a Mazda Miata, Luke. He could be going through that grievance right now, but instead he put the ink to the arm. I mean, you know, I would have put maybe Emily Whitmire and,

uh, and he boss, you know what I mean? Luke just, you know, I mean, is there a bet large enough Luke that I could recreate that I'd be willing to,

to recreate Mr. He bosses tattoo on my forum in the same spot. I don't want to make that bet. Cause I don't want to do that to you. I mean, I might just be willing anyway. I'm big women's MMA fan. Luke love the competitiveness and the history between them.

Hey, let's go over to K speaking of ladies, Luke, you ready for this? Hey, this is K again with my third fan sub after the Colts game and my trip to Sydney, Australia.

I rocked the black bomber jacket this time for my photo op with my favorite artist, Korean hip hop group called Epic High at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Luke, it seems clear to me here that Kay is not a female, that it's that gentleman third from the left. Yes, that's him wearing the MoCo jacket there. Shouts to MoCo, my dead cat.

But hey, does the girl in the front have enough pockets? I can't tell. Yeah, I'd like to know what she's carrying in there, Luke. She's got Ryan Garcia's pants on. I don't know if she's with Kay or luke but she's got ryan garcia's pants on i don't know if she's with k or if she's a part of epic high the group luke yeah they look epically high though i'm gonna be trying to say that yes hey k we appreciate you man thank you for uh wearing our merch on those hot streets rubbing elbows with potential celebrities there luke i like that hey let's go over to sol he says the wife insisted we celebrate her people's

holiday this weekend saint patrick's day i got wasted on the most cliche drinks i could think of while repping the best mk mma show period mk all day my wife apologizes to luke for being a war let's watch the video from Saul. BC, you ever had an Irish Car Bomb? I have. I have. Yes. Yeah, I used to join senior year in high school. Senior year in college, I drank those by the dozen. Luke, Saul, no stranger to the show.

I called him Saul earlier. That's a different fella. Saul's like, you know, he's been wearing our shit in his personal life a long time, Luke. Do you have any thoughts on his woman's wooing ability? Yeah, better cowl, Saul. That's the old bit. There you go. There it is. Hey, let's go over to Tom.

He's got a photo for us. No description, though. He's got nothing. nothing asking fans to pay for the super chat asking business oh that's sick that's by the way cameos don't need an apostrophe they're just an s that's it you don't need there we go there's no possession there you just professor himself look my only pipes is going great, by the way. Cameo.com. How much money have you made cameoing? Cameo.com slash Brian Campbell.

I did three the first day, Luke, so I've been doing them pretty steadily. What's your rate? How much does it cost for a BC cameo? It costs $25 for a BC cameo. It's pretty cheap, dude. It's pretty cheap. I want to say something, Luke. People are coming at me and thinking I did this to do Reddit jokes on the regular and to take P.F. Chang's humor to the darkest, most disturbing pay-for-play, just trashy

way. No, Luke. I did this, Luke, because I love our fans. And it's actually a lot of fun. I mean, I don't know if you'd like it because you don't like people. Yeah, I mean, that's the real story here. It's not a profit motive or hypocrisy. It's really your generosity.

That's the true story here. Well, I don't mean it from a Robin Hood sense in that regard, but I'm already meeting really cool people, Luke, who are very successful, like this guy, Ben Dukes, this amazing painter. They got this guy, Anthony Weller, on guitar. Look, these are MK fans that are now becoming part of our universe and our family, and all they had to do was pay for it. Yeah, you're right. That's pretty hypocritical.

But what I'm trying to say ultimately here though, Luke, is that, uh, is I love our people and that's what this was all about. Uh, and also so I can buy more records and my wife won't kill me, but you know, you know, that's not a bad deal. Speaking of which let's move this along. Cause I gotta go get my kid. Yeah. I mean, you know, Luke, since you're actually a great dad, you don dad you don't you know really i only say the people that use the word kid are people that don't have children but you call your own child a kid that you know where i come from that's a little disrespectful yeah but i call her kid child nemia eha the whole bit all right you know you

wouldn't say like if it's your night to watch or you wouldn't be like i have to babysit tonight that you know because you don't you don't babysit your own no i would say i'd have to watch the tukester the tukester she's the best hey i got one more for you and it's from a true a true player in this area alan w he says the shogun of donkton and the washed samurai dude i love how i've got vape smoke he should have put a vape in my mouth oh everything else is so good yeah and look you got the hannya mask there that come off the bottom part bc yours is great mine's great too i love the smoke in the form of a dragon no more dongs bc i can make smoke in the shape of a dragon that's pretty good stuff alan thank you very much dude uh we're

that's morningcombat.gmail.com if you want to join more. You know what I told my wife I wanted for my birthday, which is not until August, because she's always like, I don't ever know what to get you, so I finally told her. I asked her to get me, I don't know if you saw this yesterday, Criterion Collection had a flash sale at 24 hour, 50% off sale, and I was trying to go look and see if

there's any Akira Kurosawa movies I was going to get, but they didn't have any of the ones I actually wanted the collection for, but I asked my wife for a original 1985 poster for the movie Ron, which is Kurosawa's classic in Japanese. That's the one that I want framed. Are you calling it Ron? How do you spell that?

R-A-N? R-A-N. It's spelled Ran, but it's a Japanese word. But it's pronounced Ron? Ron, yeah. I still haven't seen that. I should probably watch it you know i should probably it's king lear in japanese set in shogun era japan it's

awesome yeah i'll look tomorrow on um youtube.com morning combat will be my one hour deep dive on the history and ranking of the rocky and creed movies oh will you yes when will you see creed 3 luke i want to get your take on it once you do probably oh that's a great question so someone's gonna have to watch the tukester so not until uh some of my wife's family gets back in town so not till april all right you might just see it at your house at that point i saw that i'm i max dude i'm a i'm a sucker for i'm hold on don't tell me the ranking. Just tell me this. Two thumbs up, one thumb up, two thumbs down for Creed III.

A low two thumbs up. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Okay. No, no, no. No, I'll say it. Two thumbs up. Like, yeah, it's really good.

It's really good. I was asking a lot of it, Luke. I mean, you have to understand, like, as I do in the video, if anyone that watches it tomorrow, that's cool. But, you know, the Rocky movies played like an insane – you're my age. The Rocky movies played an insane role in our lives, right? I mean, it literally spawned because Rocky III was my entry point, my love of pro wrestling because Hogan was in there,

the A-team because, you know, Mr. T started that show directly after this movie and boxing and the Rocky movie culture in general the the last two weeks of showing my kids all nine movies I mean you know as a dad that's my dad did the same thing to me I got into Rocky 3 he's like oh there's two others we should sit down and watch them like 10 times each I mean it's one of the greatest you know connections we've ever had along with when Tyson got out of jail and my dad bought the illegal pay-per-view box and we watched every Tyson fight like it was the Super Bowl, Luke. And those are the moments, right? Like when your dad called and asked your opinion about that property in Vegas. That was a little blow.

I'm sorry. But comedically, it fit in. It worked. It worked. All right. On that note, can we go now that we're done insulting my dad? What I'm saying to close is I wanted it to be the most magical experience of all time it's a really good movie luke it didn't inject my my sactula like like some of the other ones did okay all right fair enough but

we'll get that tomorrow so youtube.com slash morning combat as we remind you folks showtime.com is the label that pays showtime.com get a 30- 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Showtime.com slash PPV. If you want to watch David Benavidez take on Caleb Plant. And as a reminder, BC and I will be in Vegas as of tonight. Tomorrow, there'll be the presser. Friday is the weigh-in. Saturday, the prelims, plus the fight, plus here back at MK for the post-fight show as well.

We have a lot to get to, BC, so I'm excited about it. My friend, I wish you good travels. I will see you probably not tonight, but I'll probably see you tomorrow morning. And yeah, it's going to be a great week. I have big hopes for our gains, Luke, this weekend. And I'm here to tell you, they're going to be loyal. You're going to be loyal as shit. All right.

So for Brian Campbell, you had, by the way, against this macho culture of anytime someone says anything then they got to fight you i mean do you ever hear a little nog say a bad thing about me no but he also doesn't speak english i don't think so that helps you a little bit you know what i'm saying uh all right bc gotta remind everyone uh everything we just said so thanks to brian campbell of course the steady partner uh thanks to mulca thanks to cbs sports mikey, the steady partner. Thanks to Malka. Thanks to CBS Sports. Mikey, who has been on the ones and twos today doing a phenomenal job. And of course, Showtime, we've given you all the promos for that. Do we have the thing to vote for us? We've got to get that here on the shows that Mikey runs. Yes, there it is. Vote for Morning Combat for the best sports podcast, www.sportspodcastgroup.com. Vote for us now. You can use the QR code on the screen,

or you can just go to sportspodcastgroup.com and vote for Old MK. Look, am I lame that I want to see 71-year-old John Cougar Mellencamp really bad, and I still call him Cougar, by the way, in Vegas on Friday, but equally lame that I'm not willing to pay $200 because I'm cheap? So I'm just like, forget it? Yeah, that would make you lame. Yes. Which side is more lame?

Probably, I don't know. Knowing, I know what you make, and so you not springing for that seems silly. But okay, neither here nor there. Do you have a favorite song? Fuck me, B-Seek. I love you so much, but we got to go. We got to go.

We really have to go. We have to go. All right, so for everyone involved, CBS Sports, Mikey, Showtime, the whole crew, Malka, everything else, thank you guys so much for watching. Check out BC Stuff tomorrow, back on Friday, of course, Thursday as well, for the Benavidez versus Plant Presser. I'm Luke Thomas, and until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.