MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC SAO PAOLO NO BUENO! NICK DIAZ? WILDER VS ORTIZ II! MMA VS BOXING IS FOR SUCKERS!

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

Luke and Brian back in the dungeon for another scintillating edition of Morning Kombat. We first get into the snooze-fest that was UFC Sao Paolo and what, if anything good we can take away from it. Turning our attention to the now infamous Nick Diaz interview and share our thoughts on that strange sit down. Does Luis Ortiz have a shot this Saturday vs Wilder? And guys, if you think a fighter can jump to or from MMA and boxing and be successful, we have a bridge we'd like to sell you.....suckers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, the 18th of November 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat, donks. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program next to my trusty seed and co-host from CBS Sports, as well as a bunch of podcasts that focus on professional wrestling, I'm sure. The one and only Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. Oh, I'm fired up.

I'm doing good. You didn't ask me, but I'm going to tell you right now. Guys, just a little disclaimer on how when we start this show, Luke, really an angry person to begin with. Not a lot of sleep going on for this new dad, so buckle up and get ready, all right? Have you been watching any of the new Disney Plus programs? Maybe a little The Mandalorian. I have friends who have pirated those episodes,

so I'm setting up a time with my sons to sit down and really have a bonding experience. I don't work for them anymore. There was a time, though. We had a good run. Who gives a shit? Just pay for the service. It's cheaper by the year.

Do you know how many services I'm paying for? How many services are you paying for? Many, many services. Let's hear it. Then we'll get a service order. WWE Network, DAZN, Showtime, YouTube TV, Netflix,

Hulu. You told me before the show you didn't have Netflix. Liar. I said I had it. I said I just watch too much wrestling. I don't have time. But look,

Luke can talk about my personal life. These people want to talk about MMA and boxing and they need to understand something. No, they don't. This show is realer than real deal. Hold it, field. So all your hookers and hoes know how we feel.

We bring it, unlike any other, Luke, okay? I like how you put them in normally in the conversation. Well, normally, as such as one can say that. I enjoy it. When you do the prep for the opening like this... Oh, it's right off the dome. Right off the top of the dome. No, I don't believe you. I'm trying to get people to hit that subscribe

button, Luke, okay? Because it's holiday season. You want to pay it forward. You want to spread it wide. It's the time, right? I think, in all seriousness, since the last episode, we've added about 1,000. So the goal is to get to 30,000 by January 1, 2020. We're not that far away. I'll tell you what.

If we can get to 50, Luke will take his top off. No, I won't. But that's interesting. In any event, if we can get to 30 by 30 K but you have to be fighting the Colombian women off of this bomb shelter here this be great but if the fact like the fact that even women work on this show to me is one of a minor miracle but okay seriously let's get the show started subscribe please subscribe to give the video a thumbs up subscribe

we really appreciate that when you do help us reach our goal we're not too far away but we need consistent subs week over week to get there. Especially, by the way, at this time in the calendar, as you know, the Thanksgiving, Christmas time in the calendar, there are some good shows in December, but we are in a very bad time for the calendar. Yes, and shout out to the Hanukkah viewers out there as well, like our producer Jay. So you've got to, you know, I don't know why you're... Has Hanukkah started? No, but it's coming up.

I mean, it's Hanukkah season. We haven't even reached Thanksgiving. I'm just saying. Are you one of those assholes who puts up a tree for Christmas before Thanksgiving? I don't want you to be inclusive. I want this to be a show for all people, okay? Are you one of those assholes who puts a tree up before Thanksgiving? So here's the story about me putting up my tree yesterday.

Last year, I didn't really give my family a Christmas. I was traveling for many different networks, covering a lot of fights. Dad of the year. I had a vacation planned like the week after Christmas. The tree barely made it up. The lights never made it up on the house. So I had to do a payback to the wife. So the tree's up, the lights are up, and it's barely November.

You are sick of it. See, I don't usually do that because Thanksgiving is the best holiday ever by far, hands down. While I love me some Christmas, I love me some Jesus Christ, too. Believe that. I want Thanksgiving to have its time. I need songs. I need decorations. I need really it to be a season. Well, I don't care about Jesus Christ, but the pagan rituals around him are interesting to me. Unbelievable. In any event, let's get to what happened over this weekend. We'll talk about subsequent weekends in just a moment. UFC Sao Paulo was over the weekend, and it sucked. It sucked a lot. It was a really, really bad card.

Like any card in the UFC, it had some gems. For example, I thought the win for the gentleman, Charles Oliveira, he looked phenomenal. Great win for him. Really appreciated him getting wins on the ground. We know about now getting wins on the feet. It's all fun and games. And look, in the end, guys are fighting other guys that are very good, which makes it very difficult, Brian Campbell.

But dude, this event, it was terrible. It was not fun at all to watch. I mean, we had to even watch a former pound-for-pound king go down to a seventh straight defeat. I mean, it was just, it was heartbreaking, you know? Well, not a defeat, it was a tie, right? It was a draw. Are you talking about Shogun? No, he was never the king.

Dana never called him the pound-for-pound king. Who was the king? The Baron era. It's still real to me he was never the king. Dana never called him the pound for pound king. Who was the king? The Baron era. It's still real to me. Oh, I forgot. I forgot he was pound for pound tops. In any event, we'll get to him a little bit later as well.

He hasn't won a fight in three years, it turns out. I think Aaron Bronsiter pointed out his first 14 years in MMA, he didn't have a loss. His last three, he hasn't had a win. Yeah. Uriah Faber once came on my show and said USADA is to blame for that, but that's his words, not mine. Well, you know what? Could be true.

In any event, let's get to this sort of – let's talk about the event overall. This is one of those events, Brian Campbell, where, like, the UFC basically looked at themselves and said, okay, we don't really have to make this event, but we probably need some kind of presence in the Brazilian market. They pulled 10,000 people to that. And you know what? It would be nice to have an event versus not if we can swing it.

And by the way, we owe these people fights. So we just got to keep it. Like that guy from Uruguay who is... We owe this network fights. It's really more... Yeah. Like we owe content and we owe... Also, if you don't make that guy a fight, you have to pay them anyway.

So it was just like, let's just do it as a way to satisfy those needs. Other than that, it had truly, truly no purpose. And I get that not every event can be exciting. But at the same time, beyond what I am articulating, what on earth was the value here? Well, I think there's three indisputable facts about MMA that we really have to get down to the bottom. Number one, Ioana was right. Brett Okamoto is the best-looking MMA journalist. And this card sucked the horn.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, the third one, Epstein didn't kill himself. But, I mean, this was just bad. That comes from fascist websites, by the way. Not only was it just a bad card, but really what the main event gave you was an opportunity for Jan Blachowicz to announce himself as a light heavyweight contender. Title contender is really what I'm saying there. And that sleepy victory over Ronaldo Souza-Jacquerie moving up in weight, unfortunately to me, hammered home what the UFC had said by booking him in this card.

What am I saying? Fresh off that knockout against Luke Rockhold, in which he had won five of his last six and really started to put it together, with this division being this shallow, it would not have been an issue to make Jan Blachowicz a title contender right now and putting him in there against Jon Jones next. What they said by booking him in this card is, you're Corey Anderson to us. You're not a title contender right now. So we'll reward you. We'll give you a main event. We'll give you some money. We'll do that. Unfortunately, with Jan's performance in the end, it kind of validated that. This was a sleepy performance in which he was afraid to pull the trigger

because of the potential of Jacare taking him down. And this is one of those where it's like, maybe every main event shouldn't be five rounds, like we said last week, because this was just a sparring session that didn't make anyone look good. Yes, Jacare did many good things to make Blahowicz fight that way, but he's sort of a guy that's going to look great if you walk into oncoming traffic, like Luke Rockhold didn't just throw punches and he could counter you. But if not, man, this certainly was not the performance that tells you we should do anything with him but stick him back further down the card. And I love the guy.

Great quote. Brings the pain if you make him. The thing that was painful was staying up to watch this card in the end. Yeah, so there are two points about this that I think matter relative to the main event. One is for Blachowicz. It was already an uphill climb to leapfrog Dom Reyes for the title shot against Jon Jones, which appears, we'll talk about that a little bit later, which appears to be a foregone conclusion at this moment.

So you already had to do a lot to get there. Possible, but uphill climb. This only cemented the fact that there is no chance Lance, that they're going to now bump him up the queue ahead of Dom Reyes. Worse, I don't know if they're going to give him the title shot no matter who wins there. Even if John goes in there and blows the doors off Dom, they're just going to shuffle Jan next in line. Why on earth?

John already is sort of hesitant about fighting Dominic Reyes. Now you're going to have to fight Jan Blachowicz after that. I mean, I appreciate the fact that this guy has been fighting some of the fights that people have called less than optimal in terms of making huge money and doing a good service for the division. But at some point, even I understand his concerns that he'd like a bigger fight. So that was a really bad spot for him, even though he got the W. The second part is for Jacare, it's like he was saying, Brian, all the right things in the week leading up to the fight. I'm not going to do the Luke Rockhold thing where I shoot off at the mouth

and then have to own it, especially against the guy who beat Luke Rockhold. He was living in the world where Chris Weidman had made that leap against Dom Reyes and fallen short. And in the end, it was like the other half of the Goldilocks situation, which we mentioned with Greg Hardy. Both Weidman and Rockhold came up full of gas, vinegar and piss, but it was all for naught against these guys at 205 for a lot of reasons we talked about, age, mileage, and so forth, which Jacare has all those. He's going to be 41 in December, so he tried to be cautious. But the onus isn't on him from a marketing wise to be anything. Fair enough.

Again, UFC probably would have been happy if he'd gone up there and looked pretty good. But the point being is he went up there to 205 in the shadow of what those guys had done and calibrated away from that. The problem is he had calibrated so far away from that, he didn't have enough offensive firepower to really make it count in the shadow of what those guys had done and calibrated away from that. The problem is he had calibrated so far away from that, he didn't have enough offensive firepower to really make it count in the end. And I know some folks dispute the decision, but it's like, in the end, how upset can you be if you thought Jacare really won that? And I thought Blahowich had moments where he looked really good.

The problem is, it's on you if you want to be a title contender and be a headliner, which gave him this opportunity to go out there and essentially finish the fight, or at least look great attempting to do so and coming up short. He essentially went out there and just rolled the dice and said, you know, we'll see what the judges say. And they favored him in the end, but it's rough, man. That's rough. It shows in the case of Tiago Santos, in the case of Anthony Smith, the reason why the weight cut changed things for them is because they were underperforming due to the physical tax of the weight cut.

It's not to say that Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman couldn't have benefited from that. They just couldn't benefit from it that late into their career with that many miles on their career. It just didn't enable them to really leverage it while those guys still had a little bit of gas left in the tank, so to speak. Did you notice how well that card actually was paced? It was incredibly well, and yet it felt like a nine-hour show in the end. Yeah, or UFC, whoever does the production for it, they did what they could to shuffle things along. I think it was four stoppages on the whole card, but it just didn't matter. One more thing about Shogun. How did you score that fight against Paul Craig?

It was one of those where I thought it would have been a gift to give it to Shogun. He really came as close as you can come in my mind to having a shot at winning it without really deserving it. So maybe I think the draw was fine in the end, but I think Craig had an opportunity to really show I'm the younger, fresher fighter and have those moments, and he just couldn't get over that. He had some moments on the feet, because I thought for sure he was going to drag this to the floor, which he did in the second and third rounds. Maybe a little bit in the first and third. But Shogun just leaning on his ability to take a punch as the only super weapon he has left. Right, and that, and also he was trying to do the trademark ground-to-pound shot from standing to ground, and Craig read it the whole time, so that really never went anywhere.

It didn't do a whole lot for him. In the end, I remember Brendan Fitzgerald, the commentator, was like, I think he said something to the effect of, and I like Brendan. Brendan's actually a bit of a revelation for the UFC. He is a phenomenal commentator. Nice hair part, will hide under a table in a riot. Who wouldn't, by the way? But I really like Brendan. This is not a critique of him

per se, except when he was like, people have been saying to Shogun, you should hang him up. Why would you do that? Brendan, he's taken a nuclear blast worth of damage, and he's still out there. Just watch the Jones fight again, by the way. He took the kind of beating that if he would have walked away from that and just been like, I'm done, you'd be like, well...

Yeah, I sort of get it. Dude, I'm telling you, when his career is over, I'm not a doctor, this is a guess, it's not a bold declaration of the truth. I think we're going to find out that that dude took damage years past the point it was advisable, including but not limited to this fight. The fact that he's

still competitive, A, speaks to what a legend he is, and B, that that division is not that awesome. I mean, he was slow out there, yet he was still really setting up his timing and landing some big shots to keep him in the fight. And you're like, Craig, if you're that guy, you kind of have to take care of him. You want to see the rematch in Scotland? No.

Yeah. I mean, make it, don't make it. I really, I don't. I didn't mean to open the show and be a hater, by the way. I didn't mean to do that, okay? You didn't mean to? That's in your blood. That's how, I mean, your middle name is hater.

I'm the nice guy of this pair. Are you? Of this duo, yeah. You're the nice guy of the duo, but you have that occasional moment where you get all Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on. I mean, the four right chords could make me cry. Look, you know what I'm saying? Please die. All right, let's move on to the next topic.

Nick Diaz is back, Brian Campbell. Sort of? Kind of? Not exactly sure. So he did an interview with Eric Helwani of ESPN's, or the ESPN MMA show that he does. And it was a long sit down. We're told that it was nearly two hours. They edited it down to 45 minutes.

I went over this in detail on my personal radio show. I made a video about it on YouTube. The video itself that I made kind of blew up a little bit. So let's get your take on this first. Because I want to go into the implications of what a return for Nick might mean. But first, your impressions of the interview. How is Nick the S.O. to you? I made the mistake, Luke,

and I didn't even realize it was two hours in the air to the town. Good God, I felt like two days watching it. I made the mistake of sort of skimming it and then commenting on my own podcast, The State of Combat, on CBS Sports. That's very thorough of you. And just being basically like,

oh my God, you know, he wants to come back against Masvidal, probably ill-advised. Well, let's roll the dice. Let's do this. Let's get him in there with Conor. Let's make freak fights. Let's have it happen. Then I went back on the long train ride in this morning and watched the entire thing start to finish.

Luke, unfortunately, in my younger days, I've been a part of many, many conversations just like the one Ariel and Nick had. Unfortunately, normally those involved a rolled-up dollar bill and a handgun. This man should not be anywhere near a fighting cage. And I know that there was sort of a back-and-forth, which you may have been a part of on your YouTube video. I didn't check it out. People just basically saying, maybe that interview shouldn't have aired.

Maybe, and then, you know, the flip side going, well, it didn't look that different than normal. He kind of always looks blown. No, there's issues. There's a lot of issues with Nick right there. Yeah, articulate him. Let him out. You know, to cut to the deep of it,

because it was almost an odd sort of psychotherapy session in a way with Nick just sort of talking in circles. But Rashad Evans, who I do a podcast with each week, just sort of painted a picture to me of, you know, he seems very jealous, very jealous of his brother's success, maybe sort of saying to himself, that was my jealous, very jealous of his brother's success, maybe sort of saying to himself, that's what, that was my end game. That's what I should have been all along.

The multiple comments of that title, that BMF title, that's my title. You know what I mean? And sort of to see that happen. But at the same time, I also think I saw a guy who's coming to terms with the idea that it is ending. Like the Diaz brothers have this incredible ability to sort of stand back and not fight when you want them to and play the business game and play the I'm going to do things on my own terms game. But eventually that finish line comes. And Nick certainly doesn't seem as active in the fitness lifestyle as Nate has been.

And he certainly doesn't seem maybe with some excess anywhere close to being ready to come back to the cage. And I think I saw a guy who's just sort of struggling with who he is after this. I know he's opening up gyms and that was a big part of what he's talked about. But the idea of flip-flopping back and forth, if I don't ever want to fight again, but really that's on them. I'll fight tomorrow. It's just sort of, it's very Diaz-like, but I felt it was much deeper and more disturbing than normal.

So I had people reach out to me. I generally agree with your sentiment, but I'd like to hear what you had to say about this. I had people reach out to me and say, and he put out a, I don't know if you saw this, he put out a subsequent photo thanking Ariel for the interview and then in addition it shows one one photo of them just talking to each other and then the other photo is him lighting up a blunt it appeared before the who knows when it was but it

appeared to be or the intimation was before the interview okay which wouldn't surprise anybody I don't think but I had to reach out to me and, you just don't know what you're looking at when the guy is high. I mean... That didn't look like somebody was high. I've been high. Okay, I've been high. I've been high for marijuana eight million times in my life. I have some idea about what it's like. Post-legal, of course. Not necessarily. But the point being is, certainly I don't want to say that that

didn't play a role. But for folks who say we're overreacting, you say what? I say we are reacting. Because it didn't look like a, but for folks who say we're overreacting, you say what? I say we are reacting because it didn't look like a man who was high. Pretty much could have been high. That's fine. But I saw a man who just doesn't seem right mentally, who just seems like, you know, has, look, a guy's been through the wars, been in a million fights at a very young age. I just didn't see a healthy person right there. And that's not somebody that I want to- Time out, time out, time out. Here's the thing that we keep doing, that we keep using euphemistic language. I want to pin this down a little bit if we can. I'll give it right back to you. We keep saying not right, didn't look well, seemed off.

In what way specifically? I saw a guy who the years of combat has piled up on him, who didn't seem like he had any sort of joy for the sport and the art anymore, who didn't seem like he had a healthy status quo right now. I did see some of that jealousy that Rashad spoke up about. I said, yeah, you know, you're right. I do see that in there. And that's fine. That's not anything overall that could be damaging. And look, he's 36. And even with the inactivity, could he get back into a camp and get into good shape and do well in a fight? Maybe. I just think overall, Luke, we're doing dime store psychology here or sort of, you know, pretending to be a doctor and prescribe and diagnosing here.

But what I saw there just mentally did not seem like a happy or healthy person, somebody who's in a good spot. So the idea of this spinning into, oh, he talked trash about Jorge and Jorge said, let's do it. I'm sort of like, let's not do it. He's been, Nick has been away from the game a very long time. And you look back and he really hasn't had a win since 2011. And it's only appeared, what, twice since 2013. And I think it looks like it's passed him by in many ways mentally. The jealousy thing, I think, is interesting. I hadn't given it much thought. I would say there was a, like, the Diaz brothers, here's the reality about their record. They are right, absolutely right.

I've said it on this show. I said it last week. I'll say it again this week. They are absolutely right, both of them, especially Nick, who was sort of a vanguard for leading the change on marijuana culture and acceptance. You remember when the Ivanov Commission wanted to ban him for life, and then it was five years, his insane punishments, among other problems. Remember, his win over Takanori Gomi had to get vacated, the whole bit.

They've had a series of real grievances about they had opportunities in life and sometimes they were given, but they were given with strings attached or the wins got vacated or they got made an example of just it didn't go as well as it should have had they been somebody a little bit cleaner cut. Those are all real grievances. The problem, it seems to me, as best I can tell, which you're right, we are only doing armchair psychology, is that they have turned those grievances into a worldview of pity. And that worldview of pity is now coloring everything.

And it just makes him hard to get out of first gear for whatever it is he's doing. It's sort of the endgame. I mean, we've partied with a lot of people like this, and it's fun for a while, and it always ends sad in the end. I'm not just going to sit here and say he looks like he bumped up, he was given, and he bumped again, and then he bumped again, but this looks like a guy who's dabbling outside in things maybe that aren't the healthiest.

And the idea, I just don't think I want to see him come back. And I instantly, to make that comparison, to not just sit here and sound like a bloviating a-hole and go, oh, wow, he looked bad to me, didn't he? No, I went back and, of course, compared to as recent as just last year or two years or three years or four years. And the difference is massive, Luke. And even if he had gotten high right before that interview, it was much more than that. It was really much more than that. It was problematic. And dude, none of us would even be remotely to sit here and try to bring up CTE and try to look at it. But look, there's a guy who's taking a lot of damage. He fought at a very, very, very young age, prolifically at a very high

level. I just don't see a lot of health there. So long-term, could he be a great business owner and live a productive life? I'm sure, yes. I just didn't come out of that after actually sitting down and really watching it, feeling like he's in a great spot personally or ever feeling like I need him to fight again. Okay. So I don't know what kind of spot he's in, but I certainly recognize, and this is what I said as well in reacting to it, to me, it's like, I don't know exactly what's up, but before we do anything, there needs to be additional screenings to determine if he's even in a space to fight, would it be a healthy thing for him?

I mean, fighting is never healthy, but under ordinary circumstances, what if, last thing on this, we'll move along because Jay is being awful. I'll fight him. I'll fight him right now. What if California or New Jersey did whatever they considered to be their due diligence, two of the tougher commissions, two of the better commissions in the country, and they gave him a license? Would that be sufficient for you to say he should fight? You mean the same state, California, that gave Chuck Liddell a license recently?

Okay, but Andy Foster and I talked about it. He suspended him indefinitely afterwards. Oh, that's great, after he got sent to hell, right? Right, but Andy, look, I don't think he should have been given a license either, but Andy Foster's point is, when you deny these guys a license in the way that you do for California, you're doing it nationwide, basically, and you're preventing them from making a living,

which I realize on some level is his job, but he agonizes over that. So I can disagree with him without thinking he's negligent. Yes. So what do you think? I don't think Nick is at a, despite everything we just said, is at a massive scare level where the idea of never fighting again is some sort of like we need to stand on the street corner and pick it and make sure he doesn't. I do think he needs to

find health and happiness first before jumping into any kind of training camp. Because I've heard people make jokes about that interview and be like, man, I needed a joint to be able to understand that. No, you didn't need a joint. You needed Final Cut Pro to be able to realize that he would start a question and then finish it 46 minutes later. It was all over the place. That was not under any circumstances, oh, that's the Diaz's way or that's the way they talk. No, this was a scrambled mess. Anxiety or anything, this was a train wreck. It was one you couldn't turn away from. This was, to me, a combination of Diaz-isms with some accumulated baggage and weight of life weighing down upon it. And it got to a weird spot in between. So we'll see what

happens next. Are you going to Waldo Ortiz too very quickly? I am not. I am not. Late scratch on that. So I guess it's the biggest boxing fight left on the calendar if I'm not mistaken. Well besides Anthony Joshua and your release. Oh that's right. Which is in December, but it's in Saudi Arabia. Certainly on this side of the world. Let's see. Deontay Wilder is going to put his WC belt up for grabs

when he takes on Luis Ortiz for the second time. Brian Campbell, I know you already know this, but for the audience's sake, they fought, what, a couple years ago? March 3rd, 2018. 2018. So then, let's see. Deontay had him rocked in the fifth. Deontay dropped him in the fifth. No, and then he had him rocked in the fifth. Deontay dropped him in the fifth.

No, and then he got himself rocked in the seventh and then polished him off in the tenth. Tenth. All right. I went back and I watched some of the highlights. Very, like an instant classic of a heavyweight title fight. It was amazing. Deontay Wilder was that one punch away. If Luis Ortiz had just connected, you felt like he would have been in there for the huge upset but he didn't and then of course Wilder had his way in the end. Now since then Wilder beat Breazeale and then Luis Ortiz has beaten three relative no-names. By the way, I went back and watched one of them, didn't look awesome even though he has

two decisions and one stoppage since then. Okay, so the question is what is really on the line here? Now we know what the deal is with Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. They both had to take two interim fights, essentially, before reconnecting. So we know that's... Well, they didn't have to, but they... That was in the contract, apparently. I guess they exercised that clause.

All right, so they did. This is the second of the two for Mr. Wilder. Beyond that, though, Brian, I've got to tell you how I'm coming at this, because you're somebody who's a little bit more embedded in boxing, certainly, than I am. On the one hand, I read people, and I went and I watched one of Ortiz's fights. I walked away not impressed at all. I'm like, dude, I think Deontay's going to blow through

this guy the second time. Right? And then you think about it, and you're like, well, wait a second. Otto Wallin, who fought Tyson Fury, was not even ranked at all. That dude was hand-picked. Now, I know, in the end, he ended up being much more competitive than they thought. He was largely unproven, rather than like Tom Schwartz, who fought Fury before. That was kind of a joke. Fair enough. But he was unheralded, certainly, one way or the other. We kind of know what we're getting with Ortiz. In fact,

one of the knocks against him is that he's a little bit long in the tooth, a little bit older. Maybe he might still have some power, but doesn't have the speed, doesn't have the movement anymore that maybe he once did for a bigger Cuban boxer. Oh, the power's the last thing to go. He's got the power. He's got the power. But here's what I would say. I can't decide if this is some kind of easy set-up rematch for Deontay or what some of the other folks are saying, which is, Valiant wasn't supposed to do anything and he did.

And unlike Valiant, Ortiz is ranked, what, sixth in this division, depending on where you look? Certainly a top 10 heavyweight. So which one is it, Brian Campbell? Is this the challenge that Deontay Wilder is overestimating or is he, he knows exactly what he's doing? It's crazy. As a boxing fan, we go through these weird sort of hamster wheel machinations from when a fight is announced until fight night. And when this one was announced, because we want the Fury rematch so bad for Wilder, it was sort of like, okay, you know, the first one was really exciting. This will be fun, but why are we doing this? And there's some unprecedented elements to this.

Deontay Wilder's taking this fight three months before the scheduled Fury rematch in February. So forget the idea of being able to lose it all if he should lose this rematch against Ortiz. How about the idea of an injured hand, any sort of thing that comes up in play three months before? Yet, because Wilder's the younger fighter with the bigger weapon overall and he's sort of rising where Ortiz is 40, we feel like we've seen the best of him and some people try to make that argument like they do about a lot of Cuban athletes that he's really 48

or 58 or 68. You see a lot of those jokes going around. The idea is that, okay, even though that first one was fun and competitive, in the end, Wilder's the younger prime guy. In most historic rematches, the younger prime guy comes back and gets an earlier knockout. And by the way, thater's the younger prime guy. In most historic rematches, the younger prime guy comes back and gets an earlier knockout. And by the way, that could be in play whether it's hell for Deontay Wilder early or he walks through him. He has that kind of one-punch power.

So in the recent weeks, I've really seen sort of this like the boxing public going, all right, we know how this is going to happen. It'll be fun, but this will be fine. I think we got to wake up to this, okay? Luis Ortiz, heavyweights age later, he is the best combination in the entire division of top-end power and that Cuban amateur background of being able to actual box. In fact, you go back and watch the first four and a half rounds of the first fight against Wilder, and every time Wilder threw out that jab, Ortiz had the quicker counter. The guy can box. It was also boring, the first five rounds were boring. Right, because Ortiz controlled it completely.

And you can make the case, and it's not a hipster argument, that Ortiz is the second most dangerous heavyweight alive right now. Maybe not second best. You've got Fury. You've got we don't know how good really Andy Ruiz is. You can say what you want, whether AJ was a fluke. But in terms of danger, a guy who can put his punches together and has fight-ending power in both hands, Luis Ortiz is an insane nobody stepping stone, a tough out under

any circumstance. So I think too many people looked at this matchup, sort of come to a certain conclusion, and you've got to realize, Deontay Wilder went through hell the first time around against Luis Ortiz. And Luke, ultimately, what was the difference in that first fight? You could say, okay, Wilder's got legendary power, and he was able to outlast him and put him down. The power played a part, but it was the conditioning difference in the end.

And Wilder's done this to many opponents, by the way. Lets them have success early. He's the fresher fighter. They fade. He gets them out of there. The difference in that fight was that Luis Ortiz kind of shot his load, if you will, although people don't like to use that statement. In round seven, emptied the tank, thought he had them out of there, never recovered conditioning-wise. I've talked to Luis Ortiz kind of shot his load, if you will, although people don't like to use that statement, in round seven, emptied the tank,

thought he had him out of there, never recovered conditioning-wise. I've talked to Luis Ortiz. I hosted the PBC face-to-face on Fox, spent some time with him off-camera. Cheap plug. And I sort of said, look, by the way, I'm also on PBC Countdown.

I know you are. I match up on Fox. I know you are. And look, he said, look, conditioning was the mistake that I made the first time around. I didn't realize what I would need for 12-round championship cardio against somebody

like this I have fixed that he's gone in brought in the controversial Victor Conte of snack went though the false he is caught up and ripped and he's ready so if you're asking a fighter to improve in a category like power or boxing ability in a span of a year and a half it's it's probably not gonna happen right we're asking this guy I know he's 40 years old, but we're asking this guy to improve on really what was the difference in that fight. Cardio. He's done that. I'm not saying he's going to win because of that,

but the idea that he could fix the one fatal flaw that he had in that fight, the fact that he gassed out late, and if you go back and watch round 10, when Wilder got him out of there, it wasn't so much that he hit him and he went down and was never the same. It was really the conditioning. He wore down, he got weakened, he got dropped a couple times, and he went down and was never the same. It was really the conditioning. He wore down. He got weakened. He got dropped a couple times.

Referee jumps in without a count at the end. I'm telling you, if this guy comes in conditioned and he's able to control the fight on his terms like he did for the first four and a half rounds the first time around, this is as tough a night as Deontay Wilder can have. Did I think Tyson Fury beat him? 100%. Tyson Fury's a boxer, though, and not a puncher.

Ortiz can do both. I'm not coming at you from the salesmanship side of raising up Fox's pay-per-view numbers. I'm saying this is as, you can say, dare to be great a move for Wilder to take this fight three months before a defining rematch against Fury. It's also kind of reckless.

You have to ask yourself, why are we doing this? Nobody wants to fight Ortiz. Outside of Brian Jennings, he's fought one big name. Deontay Wilder, nobody wants to fight him for a reason. And now Wilder's giving him a second chance. That sets the foundation, Luke, for what should be some insane theater on Saturday night. If you're telling me I can see the future and Wilder wins by knockout, he may end up getting there no matter what.

But this has the potential to be the toughest fight of his career. What's the best outcome for boxing fans? My hunch is, and thinking about it, and by that I mean, let's be real about it. Luis Ortiz upsetting Deontay Wilder would be an interesting note about the fight, which is to say it would be the same year where Joshua was upset by Ruiz, where Valine nearly upset Tyson Fury. Certainly could have if a referee had made a different decision about the cut.

And then, let's say, Wilder lost. That would be this note where the boxing giants either fell or were humiliated or at least brought down to earth a little bit. And that has some interesting narrative. But honestly, the best thing for boxing fans, I feel like, is you want Deontay

Wilder to not get too messed up and to win by flashing that impressive trademark Hulk smash KO power. He did it in the last fight against Deontay, excuse me, against Dominic Brazil and Tyson Fury and Luis Ortiz. He constantly has an ability to show it. To me, if you, by hook or by crook, somehow flash that, turn that into a highlight, here's what these guys did since then, it builds some drama. Do you agree or disagree? Or do you want him to match the struggles that Tyson Fury had? So then you could say both of these guys, they really kind of played a little bit loose with it here. They ended up here together,

but a lot of questions surround this matchup a second time around. Boxing always is to have the best face the best. The best thing for boxing always is to have the best face the best. The best thing for Saturday night is to have an entertaining fight in which both kind of get under some duress. But yes, Deontay Wilder is the unbeaten biggest sort of rocket-launching brand in the heavyweight division. If things go the way it should for the business, it would be Wilder getting an exciting win,

not compromising that Fury rematch. And I think you can have that same conversation, we probably will in a few weeks, about that December not compromising that Fury rematch. And I think you're going to have that same conversation, we probably will in a few weeks, about that December 7th Joshua Ruiz rematch because the way things work business-wise, should Andy Ruiz Jr. pull a second straight upset, he's a PBC fighter, not a DAZN fighter, right? He was a late replacement who sort of took an opportunity and did that. He could have a chance to come back should Deontay Wilder win against Luis Ortiz

and get all four belts for the first time in heavyweight history. We've had all three belt champions, but in the four belt era, we've never had somebody own all four. That's what we want. We want clarity. And the fact that Tyson Fury is still lingering with the lineal guy who beat the guy crowd, it's a fun time to be alive in heavyweight. So it wouldn't be the end of the world if Ortiz wins, because guess what? You get a trilogy out of it. But it would certainly, once again, turn it upside down. Now, the other part to this whole thing is not about Luis Ortiz or Deontay Wilder. It's about MMA fighter versus boxer, Brian Campbell, which brings us to our next topic.

This is a thing that I am just, I cannot believe is happening, but it's happening. If you read boxing websites, a little bit less so on the boxing side, although some of it. Certainly on the MMA side, there are a number of stories out now floating about Canelo versus Jorge or Tyson Fury versus Stipe

or, you'll bring this up a little later, Clarissa Shields. That's a little bit different, I think. And I'm sure I'm missing some other ones here that have been brought up to me. Oh, I remember this one. Remember the old Habib versus Mayweather one that got floated up there? Remember Floyd said he was going to come back and do it in the octagon? Okay, here's the thing about this. I want to know what your opinion is about all of these. I'm going to go first, if I may. I want to be very clear about this. There might

be the occasional situation where one fighter going over to the other side could be worth taking seriously. Like this one right here is a, not that one. Maymac is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. But even that wasn't real. That had other appeal, like let's just do strange shit and make money doing it. Yeah, but the idea of having two in the same sport at that level of stardom to cross paths. Okay, but in terms of a fight, people who thought it was competitive got finessed.

Let's just be real about that, okay? We're talking about Brendan Schaub or no? Did he actually ever pick Conor? Yes, he did. No, I don't think he did, actually. I think he did. I think he picked Mayweather. Can we phone a friend and get Brendan Schaub in here and make him stand up for his sins?

Jay is saying that Brendan picked Conor, in which case I have to have a talk with Brendan about that. All right, but here. We'll pour one with Brendan about that. Let me make a point if I may. I can scarcely think of any other type of story in media right now that shows how utterly bankrupt and frankly broken

the news gathering system is other than this one. Because while I can envision a situation, for example, the Ukrainian donk who is the Matrix, what's his name? My mind is... Lomachenko? Lomachenko. Lomachenko actually has a combat sports background.

He did wrestling as a kid, I believe some Sambo as well, some Judo. If he wanted to start off on a low level fight just to like, I don't know, for some reason he couldn't get a boxing fight or he just wanted to spread his combative wings, I would take that seriously depending on the circumstances. And I understand if you're Jorge Masvidal, for example, he might actually believe that he really could be competitive. It is, to me, possible that these guys who prop themselves up in their minds and want to take on the biggest challenges, they can actually build a bridge too far in their minds. So I take that kind of seriously as well.

But everybody else who is promoting this nonsense, they are taking the audience for suckers. Because only a sucker would ever look at a situation like Tyson Fury fighting Stipe and think in either direction that that is real. Only a sucker would think that Canelo, really at $35 million, would want to go and fight a UFC fighter who he probably doesn't know. It's not something he's thinking about.

It's not on his radar in any capacity. It's not where boxing fans are looking for. I've been looking to see what boxing fans say should be next for him across three different divisions. I never see any of the names for UFC fighters coming up. It is a clear indication that the news model in MMA and in boxing, to a degree, is broken. And that, like P.T. Barnum says, dude, there is a sucker born every minute because those stories keep getting clicked. Guess who set the modern blueprint on how to do this?

It was Floyd Mayweather, and then Conor McGregor kind of took that and ran with it. And what Tyson Fury is doing right now, which means putting out these headlines of saying, Conor McGregor said he'll train me, so I certainly would love to fight Stipe.

And Stipe even taking it and going public and saying, I don't even want DC right now. I want this boxing match with Fury. And Fury going the extra level of putting out that training video

with Darren Till, it's so blatantly from that Floyd playbook of Floyd was right in the one-year build to that Maymack fight. Floyd was a front-page headline on every MMA site every other week because he was constantly saying, I'm the biggest star in UFC, even though I've never stepped foot in there. And that's exactly what Tyson Fury is doing to the letter. Remember when Floyd was the main event of, or not the main event, but went for WrestleMania 24, had that quick boxing

retirement, spread his seed across WWE, then went for WrestleMania 24, had that quick boxing retirement. I don't. Spread his seed across WWE, then dancing with the stars to become a bigger crossover star. Exactly what Tyson Fury's doing just recently with the WWE and seems to be doing in voice now with these UFC headlines. But yeah, in these situations, it's not realistic. It shouldn't be realistic. I don't want it in my life. Get it away from me.

Stop. Editors, stop greenlighting these stories. People, stop retweeting it. Just stop. Okay? Stop asking. Under no circumstances, the boxing heavyweight champion of the world with no fighting background other than letting his hands go is going to go over and take a UFC fight.

And I get the idea because Maymac happened that somebody like Stipe would be like, yeah, of course I'd go over and do that, man. I'd take that payday. But Maymac has not had a long line of repetitors like we thought they might, right? Repetitors? Because they were such a perfect storm to get people to care that much. I'm not saying people wouldn't care about Stipe and Tyson Fury in a boxing match, but even to get UFC to, even to get Dana to get on Conor's side was like such a one-off

perfect storm. So much money in there that everybody's got to just sleep together and make it happen. And also the other part about it is two factors about Maymac that make it a little bit unusual. One was the extraordinary amount of money, even by Floyd Mayweather's standards. I mean, that was his biggest payday ever, I believe, right? That was Floyd who had a $40 million guaranteed against Canelo Floyd, right? So that was a lot of money there. That is not going to be repeated if there was a Tyson-Fiori versus Stipe fight, number one. Number two, look, you can say what you want about that fight. It

wasn't competitive in the sense that I don't think Floyd was carrying Conor, but I don't think he was trying all that hard. People in Floyd's camp who I'm close with said he did not train for that like at all. Like he got abs and that was it. And he knew exactly what was going to happen. Right. And he walked Conor down, marched him down and then stopped him with strikes. Okay.

So the reality is though that Conor had that early three round push that folks were like, wow, he's really doing it. So in other words, everyone made a ton of money and both sides kind of could declare moral victory or victory or moral victory in a way where like, dude, let me tell you something. If somebody goes from UFC and tries to box Tyson Fury, I mean, he's not much of a puncher. He would knock them the fuck out.

And you've got to understand the framing of what Maynard made it work so well. Outside of just the money and the star value, which, again, is such a perfect comment to hit each other, the fact that Floyd was old and out of the game for two years and that Conor was doing such it was on such an absurd run of calling a shot and just doing things that we didn't think were possible. Knocking Jose Aldo out with the first punch. Luring Eddie Alvarez

into this easy brawl and finishing him in a new weight class that it was easy to dupe the public into believing. Even us hardcore boxing journalists got to a certain point where we had to check ourselves and go, wait, he shouldn't be competitive in this at all. But Mystic, Matt keeps doing these freaking things that are just impossible

if anybody... That was the bubble beginning to pop. Right, if anybody could have a chance. And then you go, wait, what am I talking about? You don't have that in any other fight. Plus, you can really only fool the public on that level once. And they did it. And it was perfect. And it executed perfect and executed perfect and even me covering the fight live when connor had the success time by the way when connor had

success in the first four rounds i'm even going oh my god is floyd washed like is it over like is connor gonna like it everything about that execution was perfect you're not gonna get that again under any circumstance so outside of somebody like clarissa shields the unbeaten uh women's boxing champion many different weight, her saying after this next fight on Showtime, the rematch, or I'm sorry, they're going to run it back with Ivana Habizu. They were supposed to fight, they didn't. You know, she says, look, I'm going to cross over and get into MMA training. Someone like that, you can believe she's so young, there's more money in MMA.

Yes, the Stipe's and the Jorge's of the world realize the big money's in boxing because Canelo's making $35 million over on DAZN to fight, you know, to weigh classes up or whatever. But in the case of Clarissa Shields, it's like, it's not just that there's bigger paydays. No, really, there's ample opportunity, and there's not much of a barrier to entry. Whereas for someone like Jorge and Stipe, there's a major barrier to entry,

including but not limited to Dana White's Jon Hamm. And I don't think this is different from the whole YouTube debate that we had last week of Logan Paul and KSI, that rematch in DAZN may have set their own record for subs and all that, but how many more times are people going to care when you're going down the food chain of YouTube stars now, and it's Jake Paul next time, and it's Joe Blow the next time? We're going to get to a certain point where we're going to go like, okay, this isn't boxing. I don't care anymore.

Can we stop this? And I hope that moment is now, but I don't run networks. I just speak bad about them. Just pay attention to who in media keeps promoting this and realize they're doing that because they take you out of the audience for suckers. Now, that brings us to our last and final point here. That's the message you've been telling razor companies for years, right?

That's right. Get bent, losers. Okay, that brings us to our last one. We had talked about Jan Blachowicz at the top of the show, Brian Campbell. We now move on to the last one. No announcement has been made. Nothing appears to be imminent other than all indications are, at the moment we speak right now,

the next challenger for the UFC light heavyweight title currently claimed by Jon Jones will be Dominic Reyes. Dominic Reyes, of course, at UFC Boston. Brian Campbell had the, frankly, kind of easy win. I hate to put it in those terms, but it's kind of real. Over Chris Weidman, first round stoppage, the whole bit. I actually talked to him at a UFC 244 pre-fight party. He seemed to be all in it.

He had 10 yinglings. He loves yinglings, apparently. Oh, wow. He was tuned up. Black and tans with a lager. No, no, it wasn't black and tan. It was just the normal. If I've got to go down the yingling road,, you got to go black and tan. Apparently what he said was

you can't get Yingling on the West Coast. I'm not sure if that's true. No, when I grew up in Connecticut, you couldn't get it outside of Pennsylvania and New York. So when someone would be going out of state, you'd be like, oh man, can you get me a 12? So he said when in Rome, he had some Yinglings. In any event, but he said like, you know, there were some things cooking, but he couldn't tell me a whole lot. All right, let's assume for a second that they are going to make Dominic Reyes at the next fight. Maybe let's say UFC 246 or 247, something like that. One, is this the right call? Two, how much of a chance do you give him?

Absolutely the right call at this point, especially Jan Blachowicz just really put it right in your face. Johnny Walker just lost. Reyes has more sort of money on this side of the table than Corey Anderson at the moment. Here's a guy that you want to be good, that you've been pushing. They put him in the Toyota tires commercial. Luke, that says something. He had no speaking role, though. Does he have a chance on paper?

Yes, 100%. He's a volume striker. He's big. We haven't really seen his ceiling. If we can forget this somewhat lifeless performance against Vulcan, not lifeless, but I didn't think he deserved the decision, wasn't the best of him. But really, to answer this question, Luke,

you've got to ask yourself, what version of Jon Jones are we going to see? What we've seen of Jon Jones' return from the USADA suspension is that this is 1993 Michael Jordan. He's adding a fadeaway jump shot because he realizes I can't drive the hole and dunk on everybody for the rest of my life. I think against Tiago Santos, it was that to a negative degree.

John was passive in terms of going for takedowns consistently to control that fight. Wanted to play more of the checks and balances, X's and O's counter game. I mean, good God, Tiago Santos didn't have legs, and he somehow fought through and nearly got a backdoor victory there. If John wants to stay down that road and not lean on his wrestling, and by the way, Dom Reyes would have to give him a reason not to, would have to strike early and set that discipline level, and John just tries to straight up outpoint him in this,

I'm efficient, I'm growing into my Mayweather years, I believe in myself a little bit too much, like I thought he did against Santos almost to his downfall, then Reyes has a chance. But ability versus ability, if we're going to get the very best of John Jones, the old John Jones, the attacking one, the one who sees openings and closes those openings, it should be a fight that Dom Reyes loses in the end because he's not on the Jon Jones level. Right.

I mean, here's the thing. It's like the two problems actually intersect. So to answer the questions that I was asking, is this the right call? Yes. And it could be competitive. In the end, who really knows? But there could be reasons to think that. Here's my point, Brian.

Dominic Reyes is 12-0. He's only had three decisions. All the rest, all the other nine fights, they're all stoppages. You have an undefeated contender, I think right at 29, 30 years old. That not only makes him the most valuable person to put in that role, are we really telling his story? One of the things that came out to me that was sort of obvious when Jorge Masvidal ascended to the level that he has in this game was he'd been around this long, but no one had

really told us exactly who he was. Now, he was more of a known commodity. He'd been in the trenches for so long. He had a little bit more of a story to tell. Reyes is, I mean, he made his pro debut in 2014, so he's a little bit wet behind the ears, relatively speaking. But the point being is there's more to understand about this guy. There's point being is, there's more to understand about this guy. There's more to learn. There's more to appreciate about him. He is the younger one. He

does come in with a modern game. He seems utterly unafraid of John. And John, you mentioned against the Tiago Santos fight, he was maybe a little bit too much feeling himself or something. But I talked to his coaches. He was actually a little bit risk averse. He was worried about some of the linear attacks that Santos was so widely covering. Yeah, Santos was getting close. You've got to give him that credit. So John was kind of reserved there. Dominic Reyes is going to come in, in all likelihood, not with the exact same game plan,

but with the exact same fire, the exact same willingness to win. This is why what Anderson Silva and Demetrius Johnson, and now John Jones, what he's doing, is so difficult. Rather than jumping weight classes, letting somebody come up who's an undefeated contender, who is unheralded, who has all of the courage in the world, is not afraid of you, is not afraid of your resume, even as you age, as there's more tape on you to learn and study from, dude, that's a dangerous, difficult thing to do. So I give Jon credit for taking this fight, if in fact it gets announced.

And secondly, is there optimism for Dominic? Look, nothing jumps off the page exactly except to say his speed, his willingness to exchange. I think he's got good counter-punching. He's got a good gas tank. At his best, he's almost like a light heavyweight Tony Ferguson.

Every time I say that, people hate me. He doesn't have quite the same in-your-face violent tenacity. Or the angles and the variety. But he's got an engine. And also, Tony, he does have an engine. And Tony has all these weird attacks from guard. And he has the darts chokes.

It's more like in the stand-up, is he a little bit like Tony Ferguson? I suppose a little bit. Even then, though, I'd say he's a little bit cleaner. Look, did I think there was much of a case for Anthony Smith? Not in the way that the fight played out. Did I think there was much of a case for Thiago Smith? Not in the way that the fight played out. Did I think there was much of a case for Thiago Santos? Not in the way that the fight played out. But they did play out this way.

And Dominic Reyes, whatever you want to say about the Volkan Uzdemir fight, and I realize it's controversial, still has not tasted defeat. Here's the thing, though. Volkan took him down at will, which was a shocker to everybody. If John just goes, I'm John Jones. I'm going to take this MF-er down, right? But he didn't take Smith or Santos down at will. That's the whole point. I know. I need him I'm John Jones. I'm going to take this MF or down. Right? But he didn't take Smith or Santos down at will. That's the whole point.

I know. I need him to be John Jones. In that risk aversion, some of those willingness to launch into the attacks reduced him a little bit. If you play that kind of a game against Dominic Reyes, I don't know that that is optimal for winning. It still might get the job done. But, again, we're looking, is it competitive? Yeah, it might be competitive. And, again, who's better than the undefeated candidate who just previously stopped the middleweight champion?

Who's better than this $5 UFC 200 Brock Lesnar shirt? Why are you wearing a $5 shirt? I am not surprised. I'm wearing a shirt about my dog, too. How about that? All right, let's get to it now. It's time for, I believe, your questions, if I'm not mistaken. This is now the time we do DMs from donks.

Here we are. Make sure I get to my DMs. You can always do this. I used to post a photo. Now it just goes right to our Instagram account. So you can go to Morning Combat on Instagram. By the way, it's doing pretty well. Every time I check it, it's got a lot more people following it. So please follow us there. Leave a question there and we'll get to them. Okay, this comes

to us first from Sledge74. If Tony beats Habib in absolute dominant fashion, does he get an immediate rematch? I know he has undefeated Brian Campbell, but has only defended his belt twice. Does this really call for an immediate rematch? I think a dominant fashion would be less likely for a rematch.

I think if they put on the type of classic that we thought could happen four separate times in this fifth meeting and back and forth you see the strengths of both of their styles, but Tony got the win, I think that'd be natural to run it back and have a rematch. Here's the thing. It's the same with Jon Jones. I know he's got the loss to Matt Hamill, but he's really never been beaten in that sense. First person to beat him cleanly is going to have to do it twice. Even if it's a dominant, you know, short of a first round kind of flukish knockout, if it's a dominant beatdown. Dude, they're going to come out and they're going to say, I was sick.

I didn't take it seriously. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Yes, of course. Think about it when it happened to Anderson. You're telling me, I'm going to interrupt you. You're telling me, because we attack this from the marketing side a lot, because that's how UFC does.

They get in that damn war room in the back of Dana's office with the machine gun and the cocaine and the handle, and they've got everything on the board. You're telling me if Tony wins this, again, a great fight, they're going to run it back. But Tony wins it dominantly, they're not like Conor McGregor, line one. Did you not see what they did for Cody Garbrandt or Ioanni and Jacek or Anderson Silva, or I can just go on down the list?

Of course they're going to run it back. The first person... TJ Dillashaw didn't get the immediate rematch. Demetrius Johnson didn't get the immediate rematch. He got traded. His ass got traded. Well, he got traded. That's a little bit different. Cyborg didn't get the immediate rematch. But there's some that have it.

In fact, neither did Holly Holm, but that's because Ronda took time off. You mean if Ronda didn't clamor for it, she wouldn't have gotten it? Really? They wouldn't even show highlights while Ronda was in the UFC of her getting head kicked to that event because they were so sensitive to her needs. She absolutely would have did it. It's just that Holly went on about her day while Ronda took a lot of time off. Here's what I'm going to say. Okay, here's what I'll say.

I'll give a slight asterisk to it. Robert Whitaker did not ask for a rematch against Israel Adesanya, which I was very happy to see. However, if Habib says, I want a rematch, I don't see any way they don't give it to him. I don't see any way they don't give it to him. Really? You're asking me, am I in favor of that? All right, let's say in the meantime.

I'm not in favor of this. No, just put on your business hat. In the meantime, Conor comes back in January and stops Cowboy and looks good enough. Right. Conor is one billion percent getting that title shot against Tony with the idea that if he could win that, then they'd bring the beat back. The Conor part is different because he's the most famous

fighter. So that could change the equation. But like absent his marketing pull, would they do that? I think they would give... I absolutely think that the first person to beat him even has to do it twice. I just feel that way. Jason... Besides Gleason Tebow, by the way. Yeah, right.

Jason Desucado says, am I the only one who doesn't want to see OGs like Nick come back and get battered? It's good for a name, but there has to be an alternative. You ever see the UFC hosting exhibition matches or grappling matches? Maybe during broadcasts. I got this, Luke. Do you not watch Fight Pass? They have grappling matches all the time.

Here's my alternative. Tell me if you like this. Remember Vitor Belfort for years has been trying to get the idea of a senior fight league out there for older fighters? To a degree, Bellator, although they don't do it as much anymore, had become that, right? I mean, they still have a lot of old guys out there. But for that little short period, we had Shamrock, Gracie 3. We had some of these. We'll have that fight soon.

He's certainly a little bit longer, too. We had some of these almost freak-level fights with names. Can we just create a set of rules for seniors? That basically means a one-round fight. A one-round, you want to go seven minutes? A one-round, seven-minute fight. How about a one-round like Pride rules, like 10 minutes? 10 might be a little bit too long.

How about a one-round Legends rules, seven-minute fight? Because here's the deal. You don't want them to take sustained damage over a long period of time. Number two, do you remember Tito Ortiz versus Stefan Bonner under the Bellator banner? That three-round snooze. I'm waiting for that masked guy, Justin whatever's name is, to jump in the cage. Sometimes these old guy fights can just be bad. I mean, even Chael versus Vonderlei, which had pockets of action,

was sort of that like, oh, this is going to go on all that time. If you're telling me we can find some type of middle ground for an aging name that just wants to go out there and bang and get a paycheck and have fun, not the healthiest for their brain in the long term. But I think there's ways you can put a little padding around that with a quicker fight that just go out there and let your hands go. You don't have to worry about gas and late. Just go out there. It's going to remind people of early UFC. Luke, how often do you, when wife and daughter are in bed, and you've got a couple cold ones, you know, and you go down to the basement, you put on Fight Pass,

and you're just like, man, I'm just going to watch UFC 4 from start to finish. You get that raw feeling again of seeing fat guy against guy with a gi. The fights all last two and a half minutes, and it's all brutal. Can we go back to that? No, we actually can't. Also, because it literally is not possible also the other part why isn't it possible though luke you basically what you want is mma fighters who are good to not be involved and you want two charlatans to fuck each other up in short order right isn't that what 40 of the audience wants i'm just saying right oh yeah but i don't care what they want i mean i care what i want right

they don't care what i want so i don't care what they want. I mean, I care what I want, right? They don't care what I want, so I don't care what they want. Wow. It's the reality. For example, I tweeted... I know that you want it that way, but tell me why, right? I tweeted the other day that I said

I wanted Till versus Whitaker. And someone goes, why would you want that? That's a terrible fight for Till. And I'm like, well, first of all, A, he might win. Second of all, dude, I'm not promoting the fight. You're asking me as a fan, what do I want to see? I want to see Till versus Whitaker. Now, in fairness,

are there other fights besides the Whitaker fight you could make for Till that would be awesome? Of course, for sure. You don't have to make that one. But would I like to see it? And do I think it's great? Yeah. Why do I have to think like a promoter? I can understand why the promoter may or may not make it. But as a consumer, am I not allowed to advocate for what I want to see? So to your point, you want to see shitheads who can't fight, and I want to see the world's elite. That makes us different in that regard. Secondly, what I would say is look at the question.

UFC hosting exhibition matches or grappling matches. Dog, get a flow grappling thing. Yeah, but Luke, you know what? Or a UFC fight pass. UFC fight pass is literally picking, let's get a bunch of guys who are good at jiu-jitsu for MMA, and then let's put them in a grappling contest. Why would you watch that?

But grappling is very like, you know when you were in middle school and you know what you're going to get from Cinemax after 11 o'clock? If you're watching Red Shoe Diaries, you know what you're going to get from Showtime. But HBO, unless it's real sex, and that's a gamble too because there's some gross people on that show, you're getting basically, you know, it ain't what you're there for, Luke, okay? You're there to bang, all right? And so let these guys bang for one round.

Is that too much to ask? No, I like the grappling stuff. How about a reality show on UFC Fight Pass, Billy Madison style, where you go back to old Marietta and relive all the people that have hurt you and challenge them to grappling matches? I don't think about it. You think about them more than I think about them. That's the funny part about this relationship. All those old jocks that are changing oil now, we'll get them on the mat and roll with you? Actually, one of them, I don't want to grapple matches. I don't think about it. You think about them more than I think about them. That's the funny part about this. All those old jocks that are changing oil now,

we'll get them on the mat and roll with you? Actually, one of them's... I don't want to demean him, but yeah, he's not doing great. All right, let's go to Bap Shepherd. With all the new... I'm assuming this is bantamweights, fights coming up. Sandhagen Edgar, Aldo Moraes, Faber and Jan. How nervous should Al Jermaine be,

who was in studio with us not too long ago, that he will miss his well-deserved title shot with his time off for his injury? Well, first of all, Brian Campbell, it wasn't a title shot right away. He was offered and was going to accept the fight against Frankie Edgar to be at UFC 244, fourth Edgar's bantamweight debut, but he had a wrist and hand injury, so he had to withdraw from that, and now they're going to give it to Corey Sandhagen. So with that in mind, how nervous should Aljamain be?

He should be pretty nervous. Anytime you get a stacked division, it's really like who's the healthiest and who's the closest to the phone. That's what it can come down to. And this is just a bad time for him right now when he was hot, when he sort of, remember, he bounced back from some of those early losses when originally he was this bright prospect and he's put it all together. He's ready right now.

He looks good. And he's going to probably have to go not to the back of the line, but to the middle of the line, Luke, and nobody wants to be there. Yeah, I asked Sanhagen, like, if you beat Edgar, do you think you're going to get a title shot and be like, you know, are you at the point in your career where, okay, you're ready to have one? He said yes and yes. He's going to be a problem.

He's going to be a problem for this division. It's an interesting fight, too. It's a fun division, man. When you've got Peyote Yan, you don't know how good that guy's going to be, problem. He's going to be a problem for this division. It's an interesting fight, too. It's a fun division, man. When you've got Peyote Yan, you don't know how good that guy's going to be, too. He may send Mr. Faber, too. Hell!

I think it's Peter. It's Petra. It's whatever the... I mean, they've got about 40 pronunciations on air for that guy, you know? All right, so we go now to Beheleth Studios.

Which UFC fighter has been the best actor in a film so far? Oh, Jesus. Good Lord. Anyone who didn't have a speaking role. Randy Couture

in Expendables 3. And which do you think could be good at it? What type of film would you want to see him in? Oh, wasn't Paul Felder a stage thespian? I have no knowledge of this.

Yes, he did plays in college. All right. I don't know if he was a playwright. I don't think he wrote them. We can get him for Good Will Hunting 2. I one time asked him

his favorite acting performance and he named a play. He didn't name a movie. All right. So maybe Paul Felder who's got some acting chops. I could see Luke Rockhold playing the dick boyfriend in any movie you want to cook up. I don't know how good he'd be on the delivering of the lines though. He could do the look

with the popped polo shirt and the sunglasses. He'd be every 80s villain for a high school movie. If there's lines involved you could probably call Nick, right? Why do you have to be cruel? Why do you got to be cruel? Why do you got to be cruel? It's timing. It's timely.

You don't have to be cruel. Randy Couture was okay in Expendables. Again, had no lines. How many of those B movies have you seen these guys have been in? Like No Way Out or Justice for the Small. I know in pro wrestling

that WWE actually has their own studios where they have these B movies. That's a little different. Does UFC have this? No, but it's tapered off some, but there was a good 10-year period where I would get emails from PR flacks being like, we've got so-and-so UFC fighter. Hey, Boss Ruin was great in the Kevin James movie. Here Comes the Boom.

Yes. Maybe that's the best one. My kids love that movie. Here Comes the Boom? Probably because there are Paul Blart marks, which I don't understand, but there's two movies with the mall cop. Dude, are you raising idiots?

I'm not saying they are. Are you raising some? Yeah. No? They're getting to that age where they watch what they want now. It's not just,

but I'm bringing them back in. I watched Commando with one of my sons the other day. The other one was a little too scared of it. All right, good. That's good. I'm happy to hear that.

All right, we're going to get them on The Mandalorian with that illegal pirated stream soon. You know, good. That's good. I'm happy to hear that. All right, we're going to get him on The Mandalorian with that illegal pirated stream soon. You know what? I might have to buy you a subscription for your kids. Old Uncle Luke coming to the rescue. All right, all right. That's probably the best one.

But no, don't you remember there was a 10-year period where you would get emails being like, hey, here's the studio you've never heard of. Here's this movie. And it might have a random martial arts guy you might recognize from a poster. And then like four UFC fighters and the plot was they're breaking out of prison

but they've got to fight their way out and shit. I bet your GSP could be in some French films. Wasn't he in, he was Balrog in Captain America, wasn't he? Oh, wow. Jay's in my ear trying to let me know about some Verizon deal in the middle of the show for Disney Plus. Let's go.

Yeah. All right. So there you go. And then lastly, Divad HC Step says the answer everybody wants to know. Dude, you guys know this whole did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself, which probably he was murdered. I don't know. You're going to lean on probably? I mean, well, the one person who said he was murdered was that famous pathologist, forensic pathologist from the HBO series.

Look, I don't think you need the medical report. Time out, time out. Just so everybody knows this. Just so everyone on the show knows this. The did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself bit where people ask it and then introduce it into the answers and everything. It started, it has an origin on fascist websites. I want everyone to know that. We're repeating this back into the show and normalizing it.

You're always ruining a good thing. You're always like, well. We shouldn't be doing that. Do you know what that stuff does to you if you eat it? Let me eat it. I can choose where I want to eat my lunch. It might be a gas station. I don't need you to tell me that. I am glad he's dead. It's possible he killed himself. I don't know.

But if he was murdered... The only thing I don't like about it is it sort of made him like a de facto hero because people are gravitating to this because of the conspiracy element. He probably didn't kill himself because of all the secrets he had, but then it sort of makes him like this...

It makes him a martyr? For what cause? In a weird way, when people play out this joke, I feel like it's sort of leading that way. Without going, well, yeah, I mean, the idea is like, yes, people in prison

technically should not be murdered. They should be protected. Okay, I guess. But it's like, is anyone losing sleep over this fucker? I mean... He had secrets, bro. He had a lot of secrets. Was he going to tell them? Was he going to tell them, really?

I mean, this ended the way it was going to end, I kind of feel like, one way or the other. I feel like you're better than that take. What? That take right there. That take sucks. I feel like you're better than that. I think spending this amount of time... Remember that show you protected all these weird angles? I think spending this amount of time on something... Remember that show you set? You protected all these weird angles. You were like... No, no. I think spending this amount of time on a topic this idiotic is partly the brand of the show.

Luke, who shot JFK? That's really what I want to know from you right now. To the left and to the back. Right? The old JFK movie with Kevin Costner. No, we should not be normalizing stuff like this. Just so everybody knows. All right.

There you go. Also, I don't give a shit. Way to bring the show down. Luckily, we got a lot of shit to say. All right, and this is the portion on Sprockets where we do slapstick. Hey, slapstick time. Luke, have you seen this shit? I just want to get you prepared, Luke, okay, while I set this up right here.

This is a loaded version. There's so much that went down this weekend, so much good, bad, and ugly, that this is going to be our best and longest have you seen this shit ever. Are you ready? Buckle up, Luke, okay? All right, all right. All right, here's where we begin. We begin in London, Probellum 1.

I've had about 15 people send me this clip and ask me if I've seen this. Ross Pearson gets sent to hell by Rolling Thunder by Davey Gallen. Holy crap. Play that back, Jay, about 50 times in my ear hole. Can you see this again, Luke? Dude, this is what, I mean,

poor Ross Pearson was thinking to himself, you know. Ross Pearson went to bare knuckle for a while? I don't have to fight the best of the best if I'm not in the UFC, and then he gets hit with one of these. Oh, my God. It's just mill your soul ahead of time. Like, this guy's just taking, you look at his Wikipedia, it's bad. This is about as bad as it gets.

Shout out to Davey Gallen for nailing this. This is video game shit. This is video game shit. Holy crap. That's exactly what this is. Ross Pearson gave us a lot of fun fights, but there's a lot of L's in a row on his ledger now. And holy

crap right there. And that's one of those losses too where you can't tell if the person feels it and they say to themselves, wow, if I'm losing this bet, I should hang it up. Or that was so one in a million, I shouldn't hang it up. Alright, on the second one, we're going to go to Risen16. And I need you to tell me. Is it Risen or Risen to Risen 16, and I need you to tell me. Is it Risen or Risen?

Mojo Risen. I need you to tell me, is this lame or is this cool? Jake Hoon channeling apparently Chris Pratt and Guardians of the Galaxy, people are telling me. I'm not woke to that. To me, this is lame as a ball bag.

Luke, what is going on right now? Okay, but what song is playing? That's what I need to know. It's the damn, the one from the film. And I went and looked on YouTube, and Jay, you know. Jay, what song is playing? Jay but what song is playing? That's what I need to know. It's the damn, the one from the film. I went and looked on YouTube and, Jay, you know, Jay, what song is it? I don't get down with these weird

superhero movies. All I know is that this makes me want to start back in Michelle Pineda as cool after watching this. Now, did you not, did you see Guardians of the Galaxy

I did not see it. You didn't? I did not see it, no. Dude, that's so funny because Guardians of the Galaxy, do you watch Marvel movies at all? I don't.

I'm not saying I wouldn't be entertained, but I don't do it. You take your kids to Paul Blart Mall Cop, but you won't take them to see Marvel? No, I take them to Star Wars everything, okay? Okay, do your kids like this? They haven't seen that.

They've never seen the Marvel movies? No. They've never seen Avengers Infinity War or Endgame? They'll find a show on Netflix that they like and watch all eight seasons in a row in like a loop, just over and over and over again. I believe it. Okay. The Guardians of the Galaxy are, my wife can't stand the Marvel movies, except for Guardians of the Galaxy. I hear it's great.

What's his dude? Who's the pro wrestler who's in that? Dave Bautista? Shockingly funny in that one. The whole series is funny. They're telling me in my ear it's included with Disney Plus as well. And this guy, Star-Lord Quill, is hysterical. So you're saying this is cool, this is great,

this is one of the best moments I've ever seen this year. I would need to hear exactly which song it is. Jay, what song is it? I know everyone at home watching is screaming what song it is. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's okay, I'm all right with it. A lot of people saying in my ear that it looks like

our trusty social media producer over here, Derek King, that it's very prime DK right there. Derek, is that you, buddy? I'm considerably cooler than that. Are you cooler? Well, social media producer over here, Derek King, that it's very prime DK right there. I'm considerably cool with it. Are you cool? Well, I wouldn't say considerably, Derek. Former D1 football player right there. Scholarship athlete, all right?

Sort of. Sort of. Yeah. All right. All right. Let's get out of here. This is lame. I can't handle this anymore.

Hey, you remember that guy that Canelo folded up in a suitcase last December? Rocky Fueling? Rocky Fueling was back this weekend against Abdallah. Pazzi Wapazzi. Oh! Shit! Look at that little four-piece he just gave them there. That does not come with a soda, but it does come with a ticket to hell.

Dude, what was that? Pazzi Wapazzi. Wow! Rocky Fueling I had in studio. He was a nice guy. Very nice bloke. Very nice guy. He actually did a whole game on a Liverpool trivia.

Look at this. Unfortunately, he forfeited his soul to Canelo. Look at that combo right there. Wow. Back up. Pazzi. Well, Pazzi is sent down below. Where was he from?

I don't know. But that was a first-round knockout, I believe, there in Liverpool this weekend. Did you check out Showbox on Friday, Luke? On the undercard, there's a fellow named Amilcar Vidal. He's 10-0 with nine KOs. Fielding one more time. Oh, look at what he does here. Look at that package he put together on Ariel Prieto. This goes down as a first round TKO. Like I said, Vidal, 10-0, nine KOs. Look like Vidal Baboon in there dropping those bombs, right? Yes, he is. All Argentine fighters can punch,

Luke. It's a stereotype, but it's real, all right? They, he is. Yeah. All Argentine fighters can punch, Luke. It's a stereotype, but it's real, all right? They never let you forget that they're from Argentina. Damn right. Shout out to Lucas Matisse, the machine. The first knockdown

was a little bit more vicious, but that's good-looking-ish there over the weekend. Have you seen that shit? You should have on Showtime, Luke. He looks smooth. Luke, I want to take you to the links right now.

I told you I'd do a podcast with Rashad Evans. This weekend, he was at a golf tournament in Florida. Check out this tee shot. Hey, Charles Barkley. Bam! It hit a house. You got to go to his thing and check out the volume on that.

It hit a house. And look at the comments. Urkel is taking shots at him right there. Julio White, check it out. We got Kevin Aurelio, and we got Urkel. Bro, he is so... Check out this. Look at him in shape.

This guy's ready. He looks like he's in shape. That is the worst fucking swing I've ever seen. Shout out to the UFC Hall of Famer, earthquake survivor, by the way, Sugar Rashad Evans, during his speech. Remember? Hall of Fame over International Fight Week? He looks like a...

I mean, that is not graceful. Have you seen that shit? I want to take you to some... You know how they have the rule in MMA, Luke? If you can't do the spinny shit, then don't do it, because you're about to be Chris Weidman to hell. This is an ACA 101. Daniel Plonka badly screwing up some spinny-ish,

and Radoslaw Pojewski drops the Polish hammer on him. Look at how off-balance he is when he... on him. Look at how off balance he is. Good Lord. Look at this. Looks like prime Chris Washman right there. Oh, man. Dude, that looks like, I mean, honestly, you could ask. Look at that ref.

That ref's slipping and sliding over there to save his life. Is the opponent drunk? I mean, I've often said this. You know this to be true. In MMA, where guys are trying stuff they shouldn't be doing, some of their losses are like technique karma. Yes. It's like, this is why you don't throw shit you shouldn't be doing. Some of their losses are like technique karma. Yes.

It's like this is why you don't throw shit you shouldn't be throwing. This is why you don't try a jumping arm bar like that chick tried and have you seen this shit a few weeks ago. Right. It's technique karma is what it is. You ain't Demetrius Johnson, all right? If you do that, you're going to end up on this show in this ball bag segment, okay? It's slap balls, all right? I knew you were going to make a reference to male genitalia.

Hey, let's keep it going here. You know my new favorite fighter, Aviv Gozali on Bellator? Remember he had that 15-second, 4-second submission last time, Luke? Yeah. Luke, he's 4-0 with four subs. He's 18 years old. This was at Bellator 234 in Tel Aviv. He's from Israel.

Check out this first-round submission. How do you like the technique there? Great. Every time he fights, Luke, he makes our highlight reel. This guy's amazing. Aviv Gozali. I don't know much about the competition, but he's a showman. Remember that one where he went in, kind of faked the handshake,

and then did the M&R roll and got the instant tap? Yeah. You down with that move right there? Yeah, it's nice. I just don't have very, you know. Does it make your ADCC? I can't go to Israel because I've got a Lebanese passport stamp, so I don't want to lose that.

So you're going to hold it against this guy? He's out here tapping fools, right? No, it's a nice joke, but beyond that, I don't care. Says a guy who grew up in Qatar. All right, let's go here. I don't know if we should celebrate this knockout, but I had to show it to you, Luke. LFA 78 over the weekend. Jose Johnson

sends Rafael Costa to the deep, dark depths. And look at that reaction. This was so bad. Now, where did he hit? He hit him with a 12-6. I mean, I think even Matt Hamill started speaking after that. It looked like it wasn't straight down.

It looked like it was curved like that. Sorry, I blew the joke. Matt Hamill heard that. It was so loud. That was the joke, Luke. Sorry. Yeah, no, I heard your joke. What?

Did you not watch it? Have you ever seen a reaction like that? No, never. That's bad, man. I've seen twitching with the feet. I've never seen twitching with the head. That looks like Night at the Roxbury. I mean, that's just not good.

Dude, that is so bad. That is so bad. Wow. Oh, LFA just got signed to UFC Fight Pass. Yes, which, by the way, a little note on this. This is a true story. Now, because LFA is with Fight Pass, they're going to put the LFA library all on Fight Pass.

Wow, all the Phoenix Carnivale you can handle there. Or if someone like me has to go back and look at fights, it's a nice way to see someone's progression. All right, Ian Hynash, yeah. Luke, I got one more for you. I know you don't like this segment unless somebody gets hit in the nuts somewhere, Luke. Who stuck their balls in a bear trap this time? You know those lame gender reveals? This guy had it coming.

Check this out, Luke. I don't care about... Oh, my God! To the pills, Luke! Dude, that's what you get for having a gender reveal party to begin with. So, the good news is you're having a boy. The bad news is you'll never have him again because this guy just took him right to the boys. Check this out, Luke.

Luke, you want to put an ultrasound picture on your Facebook? That's fine. I celebrate. I commend you. The miracle of life that is birth. Your wife gave birth. It's amazing. I don't need this type of weird YouTube BS of people.

Did you or your wife ever do a gender reveal thing? Not negatory, good buddy. I want everyone to know I look down on everyone who does gender reveals. I'm not done watching this, Jay. Can we run that? I mean, check this. I mean, what do you think is going to happen? I think less of you as parents and people if you have a gender reveal party.

In the description, it said teen father. So he still may have a chance to produce kids. But I don't know. That was a pretty direct shot, Luke. Good. Wow. I would like to take my pants off to enjoy further this man's pain. Let me tell you something.

That was dark. This is just the wedding industry bleeding money from morons. Yes. I don't need creative prom asking videos. You just go up to a chick and ask her. I mean, come on. Did you ever see that one? It was a phone case where if you wanted to propose to your girl, you put the ring in the case,

and then as you flip open the phone, you can even do it on an iPhone, it would pop open the ring right in front of the camera so you could see her reaction as you're asking her with the ring in the picture. See, in my day, we would just bring a box up to a girl, step three, open the box, and... Where's a drive-by shooter when you need one? Wow. They're listening to your playlist right now, getting ready. I hope. Shit. I hope.

Wow. Hey, have you seen that shit, Luke? Best segment of the week by far. Come on, it touches you in all those places, right? It touches you in the right places. The people are getting behind it, though. Do you know how many pictures of Valentina Shevchenko are in my DMs right now? The people love this shit.

Well, that's because Shevchenko has super horned up fans for some reason. Have you noticed that? I've never noticed that at all. Shouts to Jack Slack, who constantly makes fun of him. Alright, so that leaves us to... That means we have like-minded people. Alright, they, you know... That leaves us left with the O&E segment.

The OE. Odds and ends. All right, Brian Campbell, what you got for us? It was BKFC979, one of them over the weekend, in Biloxi, Mississippi, the home of Mississippi Mean, Hick Diaz, Jason Knight. It was the rematch with Artem Lobov for the welterweight championship.

You remember in April, their first bout was a, it looked like a horror movie at the end. There were so many cuts. They ran it back and Jason Knight knocks out Lobov in the fifth round. It was a pretty impressive performance. He actually, where the first one was just a barroom brawl, the second one was a little more technical. And he was hurting Lobov from the first round on. How did Jason Knight knock out Artem and and Pauly couldn't do it? Pauly tried to actually box in this fight,

but Pauly also doesn't have the hands and all that. Yeah, I understand. But I don't think Lil' Bob deserved that decision, but he kind of became the face of the brand. Now Knight beat him. What do you got to do, run it back? I guess you got to run it back. I guess they could do it, but could you bare-knuckle box in Ireland?

Are they allowed to do that there? I think you grew up doing that, right? Yeah, but for money officially on television. Drink enough of that proper 12, you probably will. And also on the undercard, did you see our guy? You really are. What's his name? A felony.

Crazy horse. Oh, felony Charles Bennett. Charles Bennett was back, and he came out with his pants around his ankles, and he ended up succumbing to an injury. But Bennett was back, and he came out with his pants around his ankles, and he ended up succumbing to an injury. But I went back and watched the KJ Newton stuff all over again. That was just classic. You remember that?

Yeah, I certainly do. Did you catch this card? I mean, look, it's the kind of slop that sometimes moves me and sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't even know what to say about that. The same slop does that to you? either way well look the first Lobov night fight by the last round I'm sort of like

these guys will never be the same if they had done that twice I would be concerned but it wasn't the same so what should be the trilogy? a sword fight? what do you want? does there have to be a trilogy? that's a fair point when you're BKFC what what else do you have, Luke?

What else do you have to get the people in the arena? They got legalized in two extra states, first of all. Oh, that's great. What, North Dakota? Yeah, two places, just flyover country. And then lastly, I love saying flyover country because I know that tilts some people. Where's our footage? No footage of this bare knuckle crap?

No footage. Lastly, I'll stay on the BKFC thing because this guy popped up on my radar a while ago because I follow a lot of like bar bend accounts and you know, weightlifting accounts. In the Middle East, yeah. Yeah, well,

I don't know if you know this, the Iranians are excellent strength athletes. Like, they're very, very good. Speaking of Iranians, speaking of strength athletes, speaking of just weirdness. Speaking of have you seen this shit,

wow. BKFC has announced that this viral sensation, this dude who, how do I explain how he looks? He looks like Photoshop. Please tell me we have photos of him. Do we have photos of this Iranian Hulk, Jay? That could be on me. We don't have him. Google

Iranian Hulk, okay? His name is Sajad Gharibi. He basically looks like a mutant from another dimension. I don't know how this man defecates and cleans himself. I don't know really how he goes through most life events. I mean, look at that. Can you get that, Jake? Jake, can you come in on this, Jake? I can show it on the iPad. This is what he looks like. He's supposed to be 6'3".

He's supposed to be 6'3", and 390 pounds. He's going to gas after five seconds. Certainly, what I like about watching him fight is clean sport really matters to me, Brian Campbell, and there's nothing cleaner. He looks like Iranian Shrek. Look at this guy. This is a science experiment turned into a human. Dude, I mean, if he has the same amount of blood as he does anabolic steroids in his veins,

would you be surprised? Is that water in his underboob right there? What is that? Those are his lats. Wow. Those are his lats. Dude, he's going to gas walking to the ring. Honestly.

He's going to throw five punches. Who are they going to put him in there against? I mean, I don't know. A rhino? A chimpanzee? I don't honestly know. A chimpanzee would fuck him up. I got somebody for him.

Who? Pooja, brother. Pooja. Dude, Pooja would ruin him. You don't know Pooja's bare knuckle game. You don't know that. You're just, you know. Dude, he's the five times world's strongest man, and he's a legit MMA fighter.

He would fuck this dude up. But you're right. I would want to see it, though. I'd want to see it. This is what I'm talking about. Like, Jason Knight versus Artem Lobov is a fine thing to, okay, those guys, they put it out there, right? Good for them. But you want to capture my attention?

Yeah. I want to see some science experiments fight some fucking strongman. You like the back end of the show. I know you like the back end. Look, it gets wild here, you know? You don't want to see that? Of course. I live for that shit.

You think KSW would let him go fight in Bare Knuckle? You want to go to the Cumberland Farms after this? We'll check out the roads. By the way, you owe me beer, Welcher. You owe me beer. I think we need to actually set this up, right? Get a sponsor involved, get a brewery in here. No, stop being lazy and bring the beer in that you claim is life-changing.

It's very simple. It really is life-changing. Yeah, well, apparently because you're hoarding it. Can we get Dom Reyes in here and we'll drink a 12 of Yinger's? You know what we should do? This is a true story. We should do a show where we drink a beer for every segment. And so by the end of the show, we'll have eight or nine deep.

If we look to change the look of the show next year, maybe go from bomb shelter to bar. Maybe we'll get a bartender in here. That'd be nice, right? Yeah, I would do it. Mixologist from bomb shelter to bar. Maybe we'll get a bartender in here. That'd be nice, right? Yeah, I would do it. Mixologist? I would do it. Old mixologist. I would have that happen. Alright. A misogynist?

We've got one here with us. Alright, like we said before, please like and subscribe to the show, the channel. We really appreciate what you do. We need more of those. Gotta drive them, folks. Gotta drive them. We've got goals to hit. 30K I would like to see happen. There's no show like this, Luke. Just you, right? There really is not.

Can you cut a promo on our enemies, please? I mean, if you're not with us, you're against us. This is the show that's taking over combat sports, right? And if you want more of us on social, there's Brian Campbell and then B. Campbell CBS. Yeah, no stick picks. That rule still applies. And then Luke Thomas News on Insta and then L. Thomas News on Twitter. And then, again, Morning Combat on

Instagram as well. Hey, how excited are you for UFC 245, man? That card is yeah, you're going to be there? You've got to go. No, I'm not going to go. I'll tell you why after the show though. It was a good reason. Oh, something personal? Not for me. You're on the no-fly list? I wish. I wish I was on the fucking no-fly list. I hate getting on airplanes.

But no. Are you going to go? Damn right. It's the biggest card of the year, man. When was the last UFC show you went to? I didn't go to New York because that was Canelo. What was the one before that? I went to International Fight Week. I feel like there was one in between. Okay.

So there was 243, which was... Who the fuck was 243? 242 was Habib. So what was 243? And then there was Max and Frankie. I can't remember which one that one was. Was was 243? 242 was Habib. So what was 243? And then there was Max and Frankie. I can't remember which one that one was. Was that 243?

Yeah, this is a great show right now. Hold on. Yeah, we are. Well, certainly we are encyclopedic talent when it comes to this kind of thing. UFC 243. Maybe just pause the show right now and we'll get back to you in a second. No, it was Whitaker and Adesanya. Whitaker and Adesanya. Yeah, that was down under.

I didn't see any of that. So we go to that one. Did you go to the Nate Diaz one against Pettis with Cormier and Stipe? Yeah, yeah. It was July, right? That was August. That was the last one? Yeah, I was at that one. There we go. Good job.

It was a good show, Luke. Maybe this weekend you can find something that makes you happy? Sleep. Also hard for me to find. Thank you guys so much for watching. That's Brian Campbell. Follow him on social media. I'm Luke Thomas. Do the same.

And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. Outro Music