MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Sao Paulo Recap: Almeida-Lewis | Dalby-Bonfim | Caio Borralho | Morning Kombat Ep 511

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On Episode 511 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to UFC Sao Paulo. Luke and Brian break down Jailton Almeida's win over Derrick Lews, Nicholas Dalby vs. Gabriel Bonfim and Caio Barralho vs. Abus Magomedov. As always we close out monday's episode with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:00:00) - Intro (00:10:30) - Jailton Almeida (00:36:36) - Dalby vs. Bonfim (00:48:00) - Caio Borralho (00:55:10) - Rest of the Weekend (01:00:10) - UFC 297 Rumors (01:16:40) - Dm's from Donks (01:33:00) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It wouldn't be a Monday Morning Combat if it wasn't the 30th anniversary of the fan man. Hey everybody, let's party. It's time for Morning Combat, your monday edition here on this 6th of november 2023 my name is luke thomas i am merely one half of your hosting duo i join you from the

capital of status needles right here in washington dc joined by my friend by the way everyone i am proud to announce the brian campbell pre-show was back in full effect bc's back everybody that's brian campbell let me lower my chair a little bit. Look, I was doing a little bit of research on my life, and I wanted to provide you with my own personal Delta power rankings. Would you be okay with that? Oh, I'd be curious. Yes, please. All right.

At number four is The Airline. Sorry, sorry. That's number five. Number four is the 80s movie Delta Force. The Chuck Norris joint yes indeed indeed that franchise uh number three would be delta eights okay number two delta nine but your new pound for pound gas station old guy thrilling machine number one overall dude uh delta tens is is the new way to live apparently look you know what i mean okay all right i didn't

know you were getting busy like that. Yeah, not in my tummy now because I'm professional, but maybe another time. Yeah, yeah. Next time I see you, hopefully, we'll talk about it. All right, we got a lot to get to here. Appreciate those Delta Power rankings. As you guys know, we're off the weekend

with the UFC's return to Sao Paulo, Brazil. We'll talk about some of that. There is some news about some big pay-per-views. We'll get to that, plus your questions. And, of course, BC's Feces, a.k.a. Have You Seen This Shit? Thumbs up on the video if you have not already. Please do so. And, of course, there's all of our socials.

You can give us a follow there. BC, we had one of the videos that we did from our Francis reaction is at 1.2 million views on Instagram. And I think it's doing pretty well on Tik TOK too. So just everyone who follows us there. Yeah. All right. I'm into that.

I'm into that big time. Also, Luke, is there any coincidence that Gilton Almeida would soil himself so deeply into a lay and pray strategy the same weekend that you stepped foot inside of church? First of all, I had a suit on and I minded my manners uh it was a very

nice service my nephew got um he got baptized what kind of church is this catholic catholic church probably no no it was episcopalium it was episcopalium yeah it was that i'll just give him a shout out it was at saint george's episcopalian church in fredericksburg virginia we went there and all right lovely people everyone was very friendly right yeah all right let's shout out to that yeah it was great no it was great then we had a luncheon at my brother's place afterwards it was very very nice actually and the weather was i don't know how it was in connecticut but it was spectacular in virginia so we had it was dude it was a great weekend it was just i didn't get any free time because i was constantly doing stuff but you know so So, Luke, I have this thing that I keep riding, you know, with my riding mower.

I tear up the leaves like a true lazy American. Luke, I mow up all my leaves, but I keep driving over rocks and things, and then it breaks the machine, and then I got to have this big intervention with half the neighborhood to try to help me because I don't have any man skills. So I ended up without help I had to push the mower from the back corner of my yard up and down these many hills I have all the way to the front to my garage and I definitely pulled out my back so this is a great a great time to be 45 and wash Luke I'm sorry to hear that well although your situation is still better than the guy who I saw when I was leaving on Saturday to go down to Virginia he was cutting you know it's not your yard but then there's like the gravel walkway and

then there's that other little strip of grass you just kind of have to cut who owns that i don't know if the city owns that or not i've never really known but either way my man was trimming it and he had the mower but it's not really a mower it's just the rotating blades fred flintstone style yeah you got to roll back and forth my man was yeah struggling my dad had one of those yeah our first house is as kids luke we had a square of grass in the backyard so we had the non-electric mower that was great now i have a breaking news update for ubc uh related to okay bet would you like to hear it yeah how do we do this week what happened do you have this uh i got well i remember one of mine fell out so i went two and two i believe you went two and three if memory serves uh so i still have

i'm behind you on all these counts because all my fucking fights keep falling through but that's not that's not why i brought this up there is a metal podcast called vulgar display of podcast off the name vulgar display of power and uh dying fetus john gallagher uh of dying fetus was a guest on there and the folks from vulgar display of podcast asked him about this show and the wager yes and the wager that you and i have so here's what i'm going to do they sent me the video and they sent me the audio of them asking i have no idea what they ask and i have no idea what they say i'm going to forward it to gaff and luke nocita maybe later in the show if they clear it we can at least hear the audio of it is that how's that sound okay well this is interesting luke because tomorrow i will be a guest on the comes

the time podcast with otl burbridge and comedian mike finoya where we will definitely be talking about the jam band show that we have planned for you and uh after this okay bed is finished at the conclusion of this calendar year so this is going to be wow times are getting times are getting kind of hard on the boulevard i'm ready luke i will just say cannibal corpse guys already invited me backstage if the dying fetus guys ever invite me backstage i might have my britney moment you know what i'm saying i might just be able to die a happy man i don't know if that's possible, but... Well, Luke, although this isn't necessarily

jam bandy, a little bit more psychedelic rock, Portugal the Man I'm going to in February in New Haven, Luke. You know, if you lose, you might be there too, Luke. You know what I mean? You never know. You never know. I'm going to be on Delta 10 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 for that show.

Alright, let me forward this to uh mr nosita and then mr gaff and then we are gonna be on our way okay that is officially sent that they just sent that to me now so i'm curious yeah i'm really in line with this i'm really excited about this i caught a follow on instagram from the ryan, maybe. How'd you do that? I don't know. Maybe it's because we've had the Heartbreaker vinyl album cover on the shelf of the studio this whole time, maybe. Possible. Another man who loves New York, by the way, Ryan Adams.

Yeah, he still loves New York. Yeah, yeah, you're damn right about that. All right, so let's remind everyone as well, YouTube.com slash Morning Combat is, of course, all the places you can get all the extra stuff we're doing and i should note as soon as this show is over your boy is headed out to one of the local gyms here i'm going to interview cory sandhagen and ryan hall today so i'm looking forward to that i don't know if that'll be up this week because we have to get that edited but it'll be up either this week or next for sure and you see big work lately in the

interview space big work big work try and bro like you. Big work. Big work. Try them, bro. At times I let my foot off the gas, but when the foot's on it, I can do some fun stuff. Also should remind everyone, hey, everybody, it's UFC 295 Fight Week. It's not Jon Jones Fight Week, but it's still a UFC pay-per-view fight week. A lot of reasons to be excited. Not going to mention Showtime. What on earth would be the point?

But we can mention Morning Combat. No pregame preview for this weekend, Luke? What do you think? We don't have one. We never did it virtually before. What if we did it shirtless virtually? That would kind of mix it up a little bit. Who is the audience for that?

I mean, be serious. Divorced women. We're out of the country, obviously. Women whose breath smells like menthols and their house smells like cat piss. I'm good on that, friend. I'm good. Let's remind everyone, morningcombat.store to get BC's shirt, BC's hat. Tons of fun stuff there for you.

How about this? Morningcombat.store. How about this? We got a live 10 code for you right now. During this show only, you go to morningcombat.store. You order anything. 10% off right now. I know you've been coveting the Average Joe Art crossover collaboration. Now's your time to get it.

Little sprinkle of price off the top. Bam. Let's do it. Alright. There you go. BC, I also want to say shouts to the Commandant of the Marine Corps who had a heart attack apparently last week is in stable condition and is recovering. I bring that up to say, one, he's the Commandant, which is the top general in charge

of the entire Marine Corps. But more than that, BC, Friday, Friday friday 10 november of course dating back to 1775 is the birthday of the marine corps it's always one day before veterans day we'll have a fun day on friday as well what should i yell in reaction to that to celebrate like hoo-wah or or uh run a train like what should be my cry out i don't know if the marine corps would like us to say run a train. I don't know if they would be happy about that. But what I can say, you can say, you can say, you can say, you can say, something like that. All right.

I wish I could say the same Pat Tillman joke that caused us to meet Showtime Legal up on that time. But, you know, all right. Yeah. No. Does Showtime Legal still exist? Maybe now is the time to get those jokes in i don't even know anymore you know all right with that in mind we have a bit of a show to get to so if we can uh let's get this process started shall we all right bc we go

to topic number one here to kick things off on this monday show let's talk about the main event from ufc sao paulo not the best one I've ever seen. Not the worst one, but definitely not all that great. So here's what happened. Jalton Almeida gets the unanimous decision win, including a couple of ten-eights and different judges' scorecards along the way. But BC, here is the major question. Sure, Almeida beat Lewis, beat him one-sided, blah, blah, blah.

But did he really win any audition as a number one contender in your mind? No, Luke, two roads diverged in the, in the woods, right? Bobby Frost. And, um, this guy took not the road, less travel, Luke, he's going to take the longer look. There's a short road and long road to the top. And if you have ability, you're going to end up there. And what I mean by that is not, not, you know, trash talking is not going to be for everybody, which can be a shortcut to get to the top. Fighting in the most entertaining style possible, turns out, isn't always for everybody based on your skill set. Would I have loved, would his name have needed for Gialton Almeida to come out here and not

just almost desperately lean on his strengths, which he did in largely controlling, but really not dominating Derek Lewis, despite 50-44 scorecards, really just controlling. No, Luke, this was not a great performance. But to be fair, I gave a similarly cold reaction to the way that Jan Blachowicz played it safe against Jacare. Do you remember that five-round main event, which was supposed to be essentially Blachowicz's audition to find out, is he really a late 30s journeyman, or is he a legit title contender? Well, Luke, I had that same feeling coming out of there, that you had your chance to shine, to show the world, and you played it safe. In Blachowicz's case, it still led him to a title opportunity, and he still cashed in on that, defending against Adesanya, made some

big moments. For Almeida, the future is unknown in that regard. Is he a real, is he the real thing? Is he a sure thing as a potential title contender? I think it's still open for debate, Luke, because he leaned on his strengths. He barely got touched. He won this fight. But did he make it easy for himself to catapult to the top? No, this fight sucked. It was boring. It was awful. He had full mount for nearly half of it and did nothing with it. And I understand, Luke, that it seemed to be his strategy, win at all costs at home. But I didn't love when he comes out on the microphone afterwards and is like almost bragging about the sensational performance he delivered. You didn't. You dominated the fight, but you definitely made a choice that is going to put you on the outside looking in, in terms of your title contention. He may get there, but he's going to have to go through extra steps to get there. And I think that was disappointing. I'm not saying, hey, look, you've got to stand at the end of Derek Lewis's jab

in right hand and find out how tough you are. I'm saying we needed to see the evolution of his striking game. We needed to see him take chances when he was in points of advantageous control. He didn't do that, Luke. So did he look good and dominate? Yes. Is it going to help him advance in the rankings? As far as I'm concerned, no.

I thought the same thing for Blachowicz, but he still made it happen. But this was worse than that Blachowicz-Jacare fight. This fight blew, and I think you know that deep inside, Luke. Yeah, I don't really disagree. The fight sucked. I mean, if you've got a guy and you're in mount for minutes at a time mount for minutes in different rounds by the way easily achieving mount and you have difficulty setting up some kind of a finish in mixed martial arts i'm not you're just not ready for a title fight period you're just not ready for a title fight i don't

know how else to say it i mean here's the reality rightelton Almeida's wrestling from the outside, not great, but it was certainly serviceable in this fight. Of all the things to critique, I would not necessarily put this as, like, number one on the list. And obviously, when he gets down to the ground, passing to mount, passing to, at times he was sitting on top of the legs,

at times working from turtle, at times working from the back, I thought all of that was really great, like achieving those positions, holding those positions, and at times Lewis trying the back um i thought all of that was really great like achieving those positions holding those positions and at times louis trying to get up and whatever and he was for the most part able to re-scramble and get get the fight back to some kind of position where there was a whether it was a um you know from a from the dog fight position reshooting from the dog fight position he was doing half guard sweeps i mean there was a lot to like in that sense what

we would call mat wrestling or mat jiu-jitsu but bc you're talking about his striking evolution let's back up a step from that where the hell was the grounded pound the evolution dude come on where was where was the ground and pound it's like you're beating all these guys with like a little bit of ground and pound very good uh positional control i will say that very good positional control but you're waiting on these guys um you're waiting on these guys to like give you something and derrick lewis actually had a pretty interesting strategy and i want to say something as a heavyweight now now obviously i'm not um i'm not you know uh currently i haven't rolled in like seven years,

and, you know, I'm a 44-year-old man. But my number one training partner back when I rolled was well over 300 pounds. He was a really big guy. And I can tell you, it can be hard to do anything to them if they've got a real I'm-not-going-to-do-much attitude. It's hard to get them to roll. It's hard to get them to, it's hard to get underneath their throat for a choke, even for some kind of Matt Hughes palm-to-pal palm kind of choke. It's very, very difficult. And you saw that Alton Almeida

would get the neck and he just really couldn't do anything with it. Okay, fair enough. But that's sport jujitsu where you can't open them up with punches, man. You gotta be kidding me. You're going back and forth between Mount neon belly, the back turtle, and you can't find ways to open this guy up. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth round BC that he was throwing knees to the body to a grounded opponent. Dude, that should have been there in round two, if not round one. He achieved mount in round one. I looked at the clock at like 405 or 406. Took him less than a minute to get mount. Less than a minute BC. In sport jujitsu, you even heard Michael Bisping talking about it. Something he

encountered called corpse guard, where guys intentionally just don't do anything because if it's hard if someone's if someone's not trying to open up and they're trying to keep their elbows to their body and their hands inside and they're not letting you do anything it can be very hard in sport jiu-jitsu but you don't have any of those excuses in mma you can just blast them no problem and things begin to open up. And I want to say one more thing too, BC. I know that the natural instinct in jiu-jitsu, including MMA jiu-jitsu, is to get a control position and keep them there to get that going. But if you go back and look in this fight, where were the very best punches, or I should say strikes anyway,

that Almeida was able to land. It was when you had a moving Derek Lewis. When Derek Lewis is on the ground and he's kind of covering up, he's a little hard to hit, right? But when he's transitioning and turtling over and then trying to get to his hands, he was wide open. And those are the times you see Almeida really began to stick it to him. That's where he needed to do it he had to accept different scenarios to get Lewis to the finish line I'm impressed by his ground positioning I am but I gotta be honest BC not much else no it sucks and you use a term I hadn't heard before Luke corpse guard that's normally when a lead singer of a metal band stands in front of the claw machine and won't let

the little kids get a chance right but no no look it's like you know i said what i said about it'll be held against you this is not a marketable way to fight you're not even really although he leaned on his strengths to to secure and hold the position he's not even playing into that strength by raining down strikes i mean i understand being understand being afraid that Lewis could push him off with that extreme strength, but, like, there's, I don't know. I don't think Almeida understands it because of how happy and celebratory he was afterwards, Luke. And I'm not trying to downplay the fear of Lewis's power,

the fact that Lewis was openly trying to time him with uppercuts as Almeida would shoot, which is why Almeida was essentially diving to the ground to just sort of grab the ankle on one leg and work up that way. But the heavyweight division is arguably wide open right now with Jon Jones' injury and the delay of the Stipe fight. Yes, you've got sort of an interim title fight this weekend, which kind of, in a way, is almost like a No. one contender fight because we do expect Jon Jones to come back and he's been saying as much

in all of his recent videos. But if there was ever a time to make that decision between playing it safe and trying to shake things up and flip things upside down, if he had come out and forget the striking Luke, what if he had come out and focused exclusively on securing a submission and was constantly dangerous in his attempts to do so? Imagine if he does what he did here, but he also finishes and submits Derek Lewis in round four, let's say. We would not be talking about this bad taste in our mouths because at least he used the proceedings to set up his greatest strength, which is on the ground and went after it. In that case, no, he's not going to cut the line of Aspinall versus Pavlovich.

But for all we know, based on Jon Jones' recovery, he could be the No. 1 contender and could get a shot at the interim title before Jon Jones even comes back and is healthy. So all in all, I would say this was very much, excuse me, very much so a potential wasted opportunity for Almeida. Luke, am I crazy? Will UFC hold this against him? Will someone intervene and be like, look, we do expect more out of you at this level? That's a great question. I mean, partly you wonder how much with Jones and Stipe out. Stipe's been out for a long time. Obviously, Jones has in a sense as well. But you just wonder, could they need him just to keep the division moving? You know, like let's imagine that this fight on Saturday between Aspinall and Pavlovich is one-sided in either direction,

so there's no need for a rematch or something. You know, the question is really who is the next man up? I'll just say this. I'm so sad that Curtis Blades lost this opportunity because I gotta tell you man if that was a Curtis Blades fight I don't know I think you get a very different result to me BC Jalton Almeida is clearly athletic and again I'm gonna say it one more time he's very very good positional jiu-jitsu he very much does but to me he is like he's a creature of heavyweight like you can't really have the skills

that he has or I mean you can say what you want about Habib's ground game Habib had vicious ground and pound vicious and he used both to go back and forth between pounding guys out and then submissions and then back and forth right he was really very nimble at that he never really went one way or the other Islam has a patient ground game but he can do the exact same thing he is only a guy that you can have at heavyweight and get as far as he has where he has not much of a stand-up game not much of an outside wrestling game very good positional control and very mediocre ground and pound who what other division can you get main events and potential title opportunities off a skill set like that? It just doesn't exist.

Even at light heavyweight, you can't get that. My thing is this, Luke. I'm like this in basketball, too, or football, whatever. There are different ways to skin a cat. There are different ways to try to win fights. on your skill set you believe essentially the best and maybe only way you can win at a certain level is by leaning desperately exclusively into one trait that could bring down the entertainment value of the event think of a basketball team that holds the ball for the entirety of the shot clock and then shoots it or if they're you know they're different ways to do it and i've always

loved the belief that i like that. I like that there's variety. I like that you can try something that's looked at as a negative style. But again, you're not going to be rewarded for it. And look at John Fitch. You're almost going to be reluctantly awarded for it if you keep climbing the ladder and lingering. Yes, he got to the title level, but it was always like a scarlet letter stain against him.

This is bad of the timing of the situation, in my opinion, because it could have been an Almeida breakthrough moment at a time when there's openings for that. But to answer the question I just asked you of whether the UFC would step in, penalize him, I think here's the definition to answer that. How long is Curtis Blades out? Because if he's not out for long, and I'm still not sure if I even heard

what was the injury that caused him to pull out, shouldn't Almeida's real reward, given that there's an interim title fight next weekend, the real heavyweight title expected to be next spring, summer, whatever, would the real penalty for this be the UFC announcing, great job on the win, you got Curtis Blades next? Is that the real penalty here Luke it probably should be right yeah it should be it should be I was just thinking about this too like maybe Almeida can beat Pavlovich I'm not saying that but like you know Pavlovich

does have the one loss that came basically from Overeem's ground and pound so you think okay maybe there's a way Almeida beats him there and of course you couldn't rule out a situation where he would beat Tom Aspinall but I would pick Aspinall to win that one the Blades one to me seems absolutely necessary Blades has gone so far and we know he's falling short even against Derek Lewis but you know the kinds of opposition that he can provide is different than what Derek Lewis can show us and again credit to Derek Lewis short notice the whole nine yards he tried he tried to win he tried to win the fight yeah listen I actually feel like Derek Lewis had the right game plan you're not going to beat that guy on positional control why waste your time wait for the opportunity to strike strike him when he comes through and if you get a chance

to get to your feet go then and do that but like don't spend a lick of energy on the ground and also you know i think it was dominic cruz who said it for lewis to survive as long as he did and not get subbed is actually like pretty remarkable clearly he there's a there's a it looks very homer simpson when he's just laying there like that but no no no there's a method to the madness i'm saying he almost doesn't lose much from this loss even though there have been a lot of derrick lewis losses at the highest level in recent years but he does have this ability to just rebound with huge knockouts and we all love him and we all feel like to some degree even with his advancing age that he's maybe not always giving

himself the best chance in terms of training and all that I feel like his last knockout win over Rogerio de Lima was like a wake-up call of like okay if you're gonna have one more run at it you gotta take it serious you You got to go. He talked about this training camp running a lot for the first time in a long time, like actually committing to it. I think all that work just to survive and just to keep trying to find areas

where he could try to win. I think he showed you that the hunger is still there and that in a way, yeah, this loss knocks him down a peg, but he was filling in last minute and he did show hunger. My real question is, again, what does this say about Almeida? Because coming in, Luke, I thought he was the dark horse of this division. I thought he was the any given night against any given style. He could surprise.

And that still could be true if you find somebody like a Lewis who is so you know unable on the ground in that one great strength but to be an advantage advantageous position for that long and to not look to stamp and understand the situation dude you're only holding yourself back it's so it was really beyond oh you've effed with my entertainment on a Saturday night, which is normally how we sort of knee-jerk react in sort of a fan-type way. How about the journalist-type way? You had the chance to show us how good you can be, and you played it disturbingly safe. You know what I mean? Look, I learned this during the Mayweather era, where a lot of, and I understand understand a lot of non-boxing fans, casual fans that would

come in once a year, put their 60, 75, a hundred, whatever the price was down for the pay-per-view and say, okay, who's made with a fight in this year that I need to care about. And I understand given his style, think the post reaction to the Manny Pacquiao fight where we all were expecting this greatest thing of all time. And instead it was a clinical defensive technical win but i was the person writing the lead column the next morning on the front page of espn.com saying you know i understand that you may have missed that if you're not a boxing fan thinking and hoping this was going to be some haggler hearns brawl but we still need to celebrate the craft the ability and i mean that dude what mayweather did during some very boring fights to the casuals

was a certain level of ownership and technique and all this that you had to respect. And also, he was still late in these fights when his opponents were tiring, trying to walk them down and finish them and hurt them. Even that wasn't there in Almeida. There was just a contentment to control. Dude. But is it contentment? I mean mean here's the thing like mayweather

you're right sometimes mayweather would press the brakes in a way where you know uh it wasn't full action packed but he was kind of the one dictating the terms and guys just couldn't figure out a way around it that's especially true canelo and when he fought you know burto and everyone else along those lines but dude mayweather was it was a five, six-weight world champion. You know what I mean? He was the A-side here. It's like, dude, if you're Jelton Almeida, after Saturday, do you really look in the mirror and go,

I have the skill set right now to win a world title? Like, definitely you don't. Like, definitely you don't. Absolutely not the case. Mayweather had skill that he dialed back from using as a way of risk management. I think there was some of that for sure with Almeida, especially when he was in really advantageous terms on the ground. But the bigger lesson for me is like, dude, you don't have the skills. Not right now.

He could. He's obviously got a lot of ability. But like in terms of this being a showcase, which was the original question, right? Was this a showcase for number one contender? Dude, you don't have the, there's no ground and pound skills to make me believe you've got enough to beat like the very best guys in this division. You can't actually look at that and be like, okay, I've got this wrapped up. If you're Tom Aspinall, I can see how you might think you have it wrapped up.

Cyril Ghosn, I can see how you might think you have it wrapped up. Pavlovich, I can see how you might think you have it wrapped up. Even Curtis Blades, I can see how you think you might have a chance. Jonathan Almeida cannot possibly look in the mirror and say, not that he's not good, not that he's not talented, but that he's got enough skills to win a UFC world title. No, he does not. No, he does not. That is not, that would be a very disingenuous way of looking at it. That's crazy. Think about it. He came in as like my division dark horse and in a fight that he won 50 to 44, he is now exiting with you going, and I'm not

doubting you, I'm saying you're responding to what you saw, you going, you know what, you might not actually have the skills to go all the way. Do you think there's almost like a Yoel Romero comparison in some ways, whereas as destructively violent as Romero could be in the right moment, he could be just as equally frustrating in other fights when you're like that strategy that you're putting out there you know it's needle in a haystack that you're going to beat somebody sometimes with that strategy like like I don't know maybe the difference is that Romero's gamesmanship is always about setting you up for a big strike where Almeida's was let me hold you down for five more minutes and then we'll see where you're at next round and god I hate that I do I hate that i'm just gonna say this if he if you had his skill set at 155

he'd be just another guy now the reason why he is special is because a lot of heavyweights just physically can't even do what al made it does it's not to say there's nothing special or unique or interesting about him of course there is i'm simply trying to point out like the i mean you keep talking i mean not not keep but you had mentioned earlier striking it out on the feet we saw a little bit of that not really much i can forgive all of that i mean how good was habib stand up in the end it was a little bit better than we thought it was but you know that was habib stand up is not what won him world titles right that's not what happened yeah what won him that shit was when it got to the ground it was fucking curtains for you guys he doesn't have anything like that he's got very good

positional control he's got good submissions but good submissions in mma need to be set up often and routinely with vicious ground and pound and you're going against tough guys veteran guys like derrick lewis man and you couldn't open him up over 25 minutes you got to give me a break man you're just absolutely not ready for the title uh even in a relatively weak division a division like uh uh this one for for a title he doesn't speak great English so it was hard to get a full feel of where he was at and I mentioned he sort of celebrated the the dominant performance as if it was like our obviously elements like you said the gas tank the ability to hold that big man down for 25 minutes it says something about him but but

doesn't tell us everything that we wanted there so um yeah yeah you know luke i forgot which direction i was going it was a great question though the setup was there the emotion the timing the delivery but you know i guess i'll just i think we both agree he's got a couple things that catch your eye and he does have in certain ways a lead on the rest of that division yeah i do i do think once he gets it to the mat he's got things that a lot of that division doesn't have the problem is the things he also doesn't have are going to keep him from his ultimate achievement unless he gets better at them all right here's what i was going to say and i listened to the interview but again it's translation he's trying to play to the crowd if his excuse directly back to you if he saw this

was hey look you're tasking me on almost zero notice and it wasn't zero right it was a couple weeks but let's say you're tasking me on very short notice to face the most dangerous knockout threat in the history of this promotion i purposely did it this way to show you how dominant i can be and show you how non-scary that guy can be if you take away the the things that make him scared would that be a justifiable reaction or is it still the same equation i don't know i don't know um i kind of have a mixed view you seem like you have a stronger reaction than i do about this yeah he let me down he let me down big time yeah because i i don't feel as let down by you i I feel more concerned. I feel more concerned. Now, the other good news is, what is he, 32? So at heavyweight, he's a pup still.

The good news is, this is not, we're not, I hope everyone understands, we're not issuing a death sentence here. We're not saying, oh, he doesn't have what it takes, and that's, show's over, folks. That's not my point. My point is, he was looking to, like, maybe round the corner, first quarter of 2024 or something for a title shot and i'm like yeah dude that would be a waste of your time because it would go i think it would

go poorly in all likelihood i think it would go quite poorly luke how about this for almeida related tweet of the weekend from uh josh cohen you know jc the south florida radio host yes yes yes we love that guy pink suit guy from the UFC conferences with all that dry humping Derek Lewis and Almeida did they should have had a safe word we'll get a we'll get a bada bop bomb on that one right all right before we get to point number two BC let's talk about one of our sponsors here and of course if you're a long-time listener on MK you might know that BC and I've been drinking AG1 for what I think about about about years, right? I mean, I have. I'm healthy right now, Luke.

They've nicknamed you Newark Penn Station around here, okay? Hey, listen, when you go through Newark Penn Station, you're going to catch a couple strays along the way, quite literally. But if we're being serious, obviously, we started drinking this stuff almost daily, quite some time ago. And BC, there's a very simple reason why. Because AG1 is a foundational nutritional supplement that supports your body's universal needs like gut optimization stress management and immune support and bc you should know since 2010 ag1 has led the future of foundational nutrition continuously refining

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It's consistent. I'm on order refill. I don't think about it. It shows up at the front door, but every single morning I'm taking one scoop of the magic green powder, mixing it up with water. Sometimes I put it in my shakes, Luke, in this WrestleMania cup.

And I know that, yeah, I'm going to make some mistakes today with my health and fitness, but at least AG won't have my back in the beginning. It's like Cliff's notes, Luke, like that time sophomore year, you pretended to read A Tale of Two Cities just because you asked your brother to sum it up for you. That's what AG1 can be to your diet.

I've actually read A Tale of Two Cities. That's not true. But either way, BC, I don't take a multivitamin anymore. Why would I? I don't need to swallow a bunch of pills. I don't need to do any of that. I just need to have a cold cup of water, some AG1, and I'm good to go. BC, they've got prebiotics, probiotics, all kinds of different stuff that you would need.

So here's what you're going to do, folks. Here's what you're going to do. We need you to, if they would stop moving everything on this timeline here, and I can't see what the hell's going on. AG1, of course, is a supplement I trust to provide the support my body needs daily. That's why you've been a partner. That's why we've been a partner, excuse me, for so long. If you want to take ownership over your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get five free, excuse me, what am I saying? Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five

free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash morningcombat. BC, that's drinkag1.com slash morningcombat. Check it out. Luke, I'm sorry. I was in the rundown file thinking I was in my own file, and I'm just chopping off. Yeah, you were just deleting it while I'm literally reading it. I don't know what the hell you're doing.

I set myself up for the next fill to make it sound as natural as possible. Why? Because I use this stuff, Luke. Okay, that's why.'s why you absolutely do all right with that in mind bc let's get back to ufc sao paulo topic number two all right how about that unbelievable fight and won a performance bonus between nicholas dalby and gabrielle bonfim bc here is my question to you. What is the right takeaway about both Dalby and Bonfim after Dalby's basically kind of incredible comeback win? Yeah, Gabriel, he's a good boy, Luke, but in MMA especially, young, vibrant, dynamic, violent finishers. Look, you're going to catch some comeuppance.

You're going to find out a leveling off period. You're going to find the deep end of the pool one time. What can I say about both guys? Nicholas Dalby, veteran, late thirties experience. He came in here to win exactly the way he did, which is to raise the output of this fight, raise the intensity and the rabidness, but stand the test within the fire. He got taken down. He got pieced up, but Luke, he never stopped coming in the face. Wow.

That, that, wow. Let me, let's re let's, let's just edit that. I'll just get back to the beginning. Three, two, one. He never stopped attacking in the face of Bonfim. And here's why I give him so much credit. It's not just, he came in with his gas tank ready ready it's not just that he came in willing to bite down but I think the key he stayed in front of Bonfim when he realized that after the craziness they had the high pace the scrambles

on the ground he realized that the younger fighter was using up a lot of that gas and there could be an opening and you know how he filled that opening not with one big strike by standing in front of Bonfim and just touching him uppercutsercuts, touch, touch, touch. And I think the combination of that touching raised up almost like a mental fatigue in Bamfim because he just couldn't clear himself. He couldn't reset. He couldn't land something that would reset the stakes and bring some respect back. He was in a moment where he needed to get out of there. And to Dalby's credit, he bit down, he leaned on his experience, he leaned leaned on his guile and he got it done in exciting fashion I'm not here to tear up the Bonfim script and say you know everything we saw up to this point was a joke

no this sport's really really hard and we do need to tip our cap to the guys not that I'm necessarily throwing Dalby into this but the guys like a Matt Brown, like a Jim Miller, Diego Sanchez before he fell off where it's sort of like they had early moments, but they lingered with that tough experience. Look at Darren Elkins. He's still out here submitting guys at this level. It's really hard to evolve in this sport, to read your own headlines, to watch your own highlights of quick finishes and maybe not think, oh, this sport's easier than it actually looks.

No, it's actually way harder than it looks and way more ways to lose. Yes, Bonfim was lured into a brawl. Yes, he gassed out in the stoppage here. Even though there were some good knees to the face, again, these weren't heavy, big strikes. It was just constant strikes in succession, never allowing Bon bone theme to take that deep breath this is a rare time luke where i watch a young prospect that we were just talking

about coming into this fight as like potentially in that group that group of the bone nickels the homzats that sort of guys who are like ready right now to become champions maybe and take over the sport despite not having a long resume. I'm not ready to kick him out of that bed. I'm just going to say this might be the humbling loss he needed. It happens. He got caught in that back end of the pool where it's 12 feet and look, he couldn't get up. He couldn't get out. He couldn't breathe again. I think he'll bounce back. I think he'll be fine, but damn, considering his brother Ishmael missed weight by three and a half pounds, leading to the cancellation of his own fight, this is a really bad weekend for the popular Brazilian brothers who are still bright prospects in my mind.

They're going to have to learn from this, both of them in their own way. But I'm not here to tell you Gabriel Bonfim is done or never was supposed to be. You've got to learn these lessons the hard way, Luke. Man, I just want to say something about Nicholas Dalby if I can. I don't remember exactly the timeline, but I remember there was a while ago where I think he had a few losses in a row and he took some time off from the sport and even publicly acknowledged he was having a really severe battle with depression. And I wasn't sure if he was going to fight again. And if he did, what he was going to look like. I mean, this was a guy that absolutely went through it in some of the worst ways. Although in many ways, we see some of the most normal ways. I mean, depression isn't

easy or great. Anyone who's been through it can tell you, but we all do go through it. So when I say normal, I mean, normal in the, in the full range of the human experience. But of course, if you're doing that as an athlete where you have to have uber confidence and you're engaged in very dangerous activities, you know, any kind of normal bout with sadness and of course, depression is much more than that. But any kind of bout with that can really derail everything that you've put together, no matter how hard you've worked. You know, not only did the guy come back from that, but this is one of the better wins of his career and he's got some pretty good names on his career he's got wins over elizu zaleski dos santos um i think he's on like a four fight win streak at this derod he beat derod as well i mean i gotta tell you i couldn't i i don't know nicholas dalby to say that like i'm proud of

him that would almost sound weird but if you watch this guy's story and how it nearly got derailed and then he rescued himself to get back here and then at 38 years old went to this guy's country and did that to him man I gotta tell you whatever he did to recover himself both as a person and as a professional athlete, it worked. It worked. He had nothing but courage, athletically anyway, in this particular contest. And BC, I know you're so right about this. Listen, did my stock evaluation of Bonfim take a dramatic hit? No. A little bit of course correction, but not a dramatic hit. He was doing good things, right, BC? He was landing on the feet.

He looked good on the ground. He's talented. But Nicholas Dalby showed that, like, here's the thing. If you guys have never been to a regional MMA event, here's one thing you'll see. You'll see two guys of roughly commensurate experience go at it, and one guy is going to step on the gas much harder than the other guy. And ten times, I won't say that, nine times gas much harder than the other guy and 10 times i want to say that nine times out of 10 the other guy will just fold you can beat a lot of novice or

relatively inexperienced fighters simply with aggression you actually can do that i've seen it a million times it looked to me bc like bonfim who's significant was he 12 years the junior or something much younger it looked to me bc, that yes, he is very skilled. Very, very, very skilled. He's got a lot of skills. But he is not accustomed to someone still being there when he let his skills do the talking. He got audited a little bit that way.

And I think this will be very valuable to him long term in understanding exactly the kind of thing you're up against but I want to say it one more time for a guy like Nicholas Dalby to have that many doubts and that many things that could derail anybody much less a prize fighter and then to come back and be the mentally stronger guy in another guy's hometown who is very skilled in all dimensions of the game. Dude, dude, we should not look past that. That is remarkable. He was able to turn that in, and I got to say, I really hope Nicholas Dalby gets a big fight

and a big name based on this performance. He has more than earned it. He had suffered a draw and two defeats in a row back in 2016, which led to him getting cut by the UFC, resurfaced over about a 4-5 fight stretch in Cage Warriors and came back in. And, Luke, it's been a mixture. Like, yeah, there's one loss in there to Tim Means, a couple draws. But those sneaky wins we talked about and what you mentioned coming back from that depression.

And, I mean, you noticed right away the shape he was in, first of all, at 38. Great shape, yeah. Intense shape. But it really was like an NFW type of moment for him. There was no effing way he was going to let Bonfim do what he was supposed to do against him. This is why also I like to echo what you said. I don't panic on Bonfim because he was landing. There were times Bonfim was getting hit and getting tired, but he still tried to reset,

went down, came up with a couple combinations combinations and he would be landing stiff shots but you know Dalby just made that decision no effing way there's no effing way you're gonna get through me on this night and it I don't know it kind of levels off the playing field it reminds you that hype and flashy offensive skills and danger can get you so far, but you do have to have the complete game. You do have to have all the areas scratched. Let's see how Gabrielle Bonfim responds from this. Luke, does his brother have to switch weight classes? I mean, that was a pretty tough situation too, because that was going to be a big fight for him to make some noise.

Yeah, they both, in a different way, they both kind of missed out on a bigger opportunity here in Sao Paulo. So to the point you raised, I don't think either of us looked either of us looked at it wasn't like we looked at Almeida we had 25 minutes to do something in like super advantageous conditions and then just basically couldn't do it that's one thing but here you had Dalby who was at times up against it right up against it but I would not say overwhelmed BC would wouldn't even when he was Up against it. But I would not say overwhelmed, BC. Even when he was getting beat on from Mount, I would not say he was super overwhelmed.

You could see he was thinking through. This is a guy, man, who has been through it, who has seen all different kinds of stuff, and has come out the other side just better, just much more sturdy, much more understanding of what it takes. I just, you know, sometimes you see these guys be like, oh, you know, I, some NBA player, right? Because you and I watch all the smoke and they'll interview somebody who was like, oh, why didn't you guys win the championship that year?

And they'll say something like, you know, we just weren't ready. We didn't know what it took. And then you sit on the sidelines, you're like, not exactly sure what that means. Nicholas Dalby is showing you what that means. I'm not saying he's going to win the title BC but he understands what level of intensity commitment calmness uh thinking that you have to have but also urgency as well in order to last at this level Bonfim didn't know that he knows now he didn't know that before Saturday and I think that will make him better in the long term but Nicholas Dalby dude he deserves something big from this at 170 pounds i don't know

what the ufc will do maybe you have a better idea than me but i really really really hope he gets it he has very much earned it yeah i agree with you on that i agree with you and these are this is one of my favorite tropes with an mma where the aging 30s veteran who maybe never quite had their moment as a legitimate title contender can put together a streak. Look at what Tim Means has done lately. Why? You know, like they just can put together a run or a streak where it's like, OK, not

in their physical prime anymore, but this might actually be their prime where everything came together. Think of that run Jeremy Stevens had before the Aldo knockout loss where it looked like, oh, crap, at 33, he may have figured out how to tone down the recklessness put it down with the training and get in the best shape of his life and again have a no effing way attitude to come in there and push back um it was fun to see Luke it gets me out of bed hitting the weights a little bit harder the next morning you know what I'm saying I get it all right let's talk about topic number three here. BC, this was an interesting one as well. We had a middleweight contest between Kyle Bohalio and Abus Megamedov.

So let me ask you, based on this, which, of course, Bohalio won and looked pretty good. Pretty good. So BC, let me ask a similar question that I asked about Almeida, which is, to what extent did Bohalio emerge in your mind as a real deal middleweight contender based off of this win over Magomedov on Saturday it's it's weird it's kind of gray meaning that you have a 30 year old fighting in front of the home crowd exciting look exciting style he's 15 and 1 overall he's won all five of his UFC fights, won two Dana White Contender Series fights before that. Did this win over Abus Magomedov slow down his momentum in that regard?

No. Short of a finish, which there was in over 15 minutes, no. But, Luke, he looked good to very good, but never really great. So is that because I've got an unnecessarily low opinion of Abus Magomedov, who seemed to shut me up in the sense that he came out, he was sturdy, he was stubborn, he fought well from distance. It didn't look great, but he also didn't implode

in the ways I expected. Remember, I picked Bojai by knockout and okay bet and came up empty here. But I'm just here to say, Lukeke that i thought this might be the moment where kayo electrifies the crowd jumps over the fence goes like this to his chin a couple times right what does it say on his bicep luke no boxing no life fight or die something fight or die yeah vote or die i think he got it from yeah i think he did he transferred that over but luke did i feel like he's ready right now for like top 10 rising stud in this

division let's get him closer to the contention no i didn't i felt like he's progressing but it's going to take a little bit more time is that a is that a a nice way to compliment someone with the tinge of an insult around the so no i don't think it's insulting at all dude i think you're exactly i mean i can't believe i'm saying this. I think you're exactly, I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you're exactly correct, Brian Campbell, and I'm being dead serious. To me, it was like, okay, it was like, here's the thing. Did we get that performance, the one you're talking about, where the crowd is electrified, the person is slumped over,

and they've jumped, whatever reason, submitted or whatever, and they've jumped onto the top of the cage, and they're like, oh, and they're receiving this incredible moment, kind of like something akin to what Jose Aldo did the first time he beat Chad Mendes in Brazil. We were kind of hoping for that. Would this be the moment? You didn't get that.

You didn't get anything really even all that close to it. But I will say this, BC. This, to me, looked like Caio Bejalio knowing, listen, if I want to make this a ground battle, we can make this a ground battle. But I don't want to do that. I want to get better. I want to test myself and I want to move the chains to where I ultimately need to be in order to beat the very best guys in this division. So he chose, I think he went 0 for 1 on one takedown in the first. I don't know if he got or even attempted one in the second. And of course, he finished off the end of the third,

but he had already rocked Makomedov with his standing elbow before he did. This is, to me, not evidence, BC, that Behalio is already ready to be a top contender. But this was evidence to me that he understands what steps he needs to take in order to get there. And this was a good step towards that goal. So I think as long as we have a bit more patience with him, he is a guy who understands what he's up against and is clearly trying to go. Whereas Almeida just resorts back to what he already knows, Bojalio didn't. Bojalio is trying to lean into the things that can

carry him forward to different better opportunities in again, relative to heavyweight, a much deeper division. This to me was a great first, or not first step, but a great next step. Because when you asked this question in our rundown, I remember thinking in that moment like

you know, I watched that fight, I thought he looked good, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Let me go back in there. Maybe there's moments where he was too tentative. Maybe there's moments where he was too sloppy. No, he was pretty solid technically. And I think what you're saying is true, Luke. That probably was the plan to not come out here and do what we expected of a guy fighting

at home with an atrocious throat tat, luke and come out here and throw bombs and get that big finish he came out here controlled distance was technical was consistent i mean yeah you're right that's how you advance and grow in that regard and it wasn't as if doing that sucked all the entertainment oxygen out of the room no this was actually a a pretty decent fight for most of it i've been i'll boost won the first round on two of three scorecards, and I thought rounds two and three, even though it was clear Bojalio had enough, he was pushed a little bit.

He had to win the technical battle, and it seems that was his goal. So in that regard, it's kind of a subtle advancement forward without stealing the headlines in a lot of ways. Yeah, looking at the stats, he attempted one takedown in the first round, didn't get it't attempt one in the second didn't attempt one in the third but again he had been rocked with the elbow and then he was trying to polish him off and basically ended up on top and basically got two minutes and 17 seconds of control time from that he numerically outstruck

Abus numerically in all three rounds again I want to this. Bojalio is talented on the ground, but we already knew BC, he was talented on the ground. He needed somebody that he could test against his stand-up that was a reasonable... By the way, this was good matchmaking too because you know Magomedov fades down the stretch but can be very tough up front. And so Bojalio had to kind of, you know, wait a little bit. It forced him, I think, to be a little bit patient

and then he could really apply it. But the fact that he got stronger as the fight went on, technically, the fact that he won clearly at the end in a way that was very dominant, the fact that he was able to land big strikes on the feet, elbows, jabs, and some other stuff, this is what you want to see from a young, developing prospect. You want to see a guy work at,

if he doesn't have already the well-rounded skill set, like the Bonfim brothers have pretty well-rounded skill sets, but they might have to dial back some of the intensity. Well, Hollyo has a bit of a different problem where he's got a sort of a central skill set and he's trying to expand it so he can beat more guys in more different ways. And that is a difficult process.

It takes time to get there. This was a very, this was to me, BC, it wasn't a touchdown, but it was a throw down the field. He gets it, keeps two feet in bounds, brings it down. It's a catch.

First down, move the chains. Let's see what happens on the next play. That's what it was for me. Luke, Abus Magomedov, do you think he's related to Hasbulla Magomedov or is that name like Smith in Doggy? My understanding is Magomedov is just that name like Smith in Dagestan? My understanding is Magomedov is just Muhammad in Russian. That's it.

Who do you think is a better fighter? Magomed Magomedov or Magomed Magomed Karamov? Magomed Karamov is better. He's actually really good. Yeah. Do you think old Abus is going to be looking for a new ride out of here, Luke? Is he going to be employed anymore?

What do you make of his performance overall? Because it wasn't disastrous. It was kind of solid, dude. It was kind of solid. He'll hang around. He'll beat guys. He'll hang around. He's been useful for Sean Strickland.

It was a tune-up fight for a guy as good as Sean. That's what it was. It was a tune-up fight. And then for Kyle, it was a good test, which is a little bit different than a tune-up. He's got value on the roster. I don't know if, I mean, you have to win to kind of hold your place a little bit. But I don't think that, he's not like at the back of the line in terms of how good middleweights are. He's sort of in the middle of the pack, kind of.

Just not at the front. BC, let's go to topic number four, if we can, which is, let's take a bigger view. There was some boxing. There was some other MMA MMA there was some kickboxing that happened over the weekend so I'll pitch this one to you first who else shined over the weekend in all of combat sports well let me make one quick reference as a mea culpa because I got it wrong and okay bet I counted out Angela Hill again Luke and she came Denise A. Gomes fresh off that knockout of Horror Guy, she came out here and just put on a solid veteran unanimous decision, went over 15 minutes.

I don't know what my problem is. Every time I believe Angela Hill's about to break through, she gets controlled. Every time I write her off, she sneaks in there and gets a win, Luke. I have the same problem, yeah. Very well done. That's also showing that fighting spirit to keep her place and to continue to improve. I got to go to boxing, though.

And I didn't talk about this fight a lot. I mentioned it quickly on Friday's show. And, Luke, I've not been following the Joe Cordina experience on the same level as the super fans in UK who are getting excited about this 130-pound title holder who's brash. He's got a little bit of boxer, a little bit of puncher in him and he mixes it together. Nice. He defended this title on the zone over the weekend in Monaco of all places against Edward kid Vasquez, a show

box veteran who scored a really exciting win over missile Lopez in Topeka, Kansas last year with your boy on the call. I wasn't expecting a lot out of Kid Vasquez, out of Fort Worth, Texas in this one. And he pushed forth and made a really fun boxing match. It ends up being a close decision win for Joe Cordina, a disputed one at that. But Kid Vasquez, who is sort of one of those tweener boxers where he's young, he's game, he's skilled, not a ton of power though can fight you in the pocket can swivel with good defense it could kind of just make your life difficult dude he made cordina's life difficult i'm not here to scream robbery although i could have seen it as

a draw or even a close vasquez win but i think this was one of those moral of the story type of situations who won the night uh edward vasquez did and i don't know if this is definitely necessarily a editorial against joe cordina being that dude but cordina looked like hell on the scales seemed to have some weight issues on the way in some talk about whether he should move up to 135 himself he bit down he survived in advance but he landed the kind of shots that normally gets guys out of there and again edward vasquez had the no nfw mindset coming in that he was going to come in here and try to steal the night he came up empty he'll get another payday out of it but

that was a fun fight if you guys missed that into zone over the weekend you're a boxing fan it's definitely worth your time although you did hit on fa a jog but who i think won inside what four rounds something like that yeah he absolutely dominated Joe Goodall who's from Australia not from the UK like I said Luke whatever there's a white guy who's not from the US I always go oh he's from the UK probably right or Southern Ireland or something turns out he's Australian

Luke alright for me BC if I can like look around there were some other good winners on the UFC card gotta give a little love to the general himself how about Jonathan Haggerty, 26-year-old guy out of the UK. So in his last fight against Nong-O in Muay Thai, he wins that one inside the first round, which is kind of unbelievable. Then over the weekend, he fought Fabricio Andrade, who is the bantamweight, I think, MMA champion for one. So what they did was

one guy was from MMA, one guy was from Muay Thai. They were going to meet in the middle for a kickboxing fight and Hagerty stopped him inside the second round. Now to me, it's like saying that Hagerty is a two sport champion or a two sport athlete in the same way that Bo Jackson was a two sport athlete is a lie. That's not really the case. This is like your cousins all stay in indoor track and outdoor track it's cool but like did they really meet in the middle of the muay thai guy won the kickboxing match luke i don't know right so i mean i don't want to disrespect the sports in any way they are meaningfully different but they're not like so meaningfully different that it's like hey

you're good at swimming and also you know uh wrestling like two very different sports. Be that as it may, Hagerty at 26 is exciting as shit. He is brilliant to watch. He is vicious BC. He has excellent, I mean, obviously excellent standard, but I mean like it's fun to watch. He's not just a guy who can win rounds. He's a guy that puts people away. If you've not been watching Jonathan Hagerty, again, just 26 years old, out of one championship and they might rematch again in by the way against Andrade in MMA so we'll have to see how that goes but there you can see it with two of the belts there one of the most exciting how about this combat sports striking talents certainly that one has and I would argue really just any kind of guy that the

MMA fans have reasonable um access to if you didn't see that fight, it's not very long. Hagerty looks really, really good. Give that one a watch. Well, if you didn't watch it, you can watch the highlights on Have You Seen This Shit right around the corner, Luke, coming your way. Excellent. All right. With that in mind, BC, topic number five, very simple one.

Now, even since we put this rundown together, there's been some updates, but I believe it was Ariel Helwani reporting that at least from a preliminary standpoint they were going to have UFC 297 which we thought was going to be headlined by Volk and Teporia and then we thought maybe Max and Teporia we don't really know now because he reported again it was at least being I should say this being considered that they were going to do Islam versus Charles II at that date which of course would be the January one in Toronto, Canada. There was subsequent reporting from Brett Okamoto over the weekend that perhaps Islam won't be ready until March 9th. Okay, BC, two questions for this one. I did not see any reporting that what they were looking for was Islam versus Justin Gaethje. It does appear that Charles Oliveira is going to be that guy.

And if it's not going to be at UFC 297, does that mean they're actually going to go through with Volk versus Tepori in that time? Because the original suggestion by Ariel, again, was a preliminary consideration that they were going to move that fight back to February or March itself just a little bit past January, which I thought, I was like,

BC, this all sounds great to me. I wonder what you make of this news. Well, I like it when you don't have to rush guys back when they're not ready. You give them time to walk out an injury, to heal, get into the shape they need, and can we get away from the constant last minute replacing i know it happened in abu dhabi aggressively because they promised big fight cards there and even though this weekend's card luke is is you know fine as a replacement it doesn't have that msg feel how it plays into the fights you mentioned though did it feel like

uh ufc and ali ran back that news quickly as almost like a jab back at Ariel for reporting the opposite. Can't say that it was or that it wasn't, but it felt a little bit like that. I'd rather wait on it. If they want Charles, and there's no reason not to want Charles, even with Gaethje having won the BMF title. Gaethje versus Conor at 300. Not a bad idea still, even one week later. That's the one. I want Charles in this fight.

So let's do it when they're healthy. But, Luke, the problem is it seems for the UFC, despite having, as we always say, 80% of the roster of global MMA, of who matters, we've seen ridiculously watered-down cards this year, and we've seen an inability to find, to be very fair, even though the main events and co-main events across this year have been strong enough in terms of what they ended up being to make this a an okay year i've called it a down year people get on me i think it's an okay year overall for ufc but the undercards have been mixed matched in in all dana white contender

series graduates and we haven't seen an urgency to just to make sure that the main and co-mains are like, can't miss rock solid. So Luke, delaying this is fine, but I'm a little nervous at what could replace it in January in Toronto now that we find out what their co-main event is. And it turns out, waiting to announce the women's featherweight

or women's bantamweight uh vacant title bout wasn't necessarily it seems because they had these grand grand wah plans for rousey home two or rousey tate three both which by the way would have been unacceptable as title fights but we thought they would have done it anyway so what did they do here they went back into the meritocracy of it and they booked myra bueno silva versus raquel pennington for the vacant title in january which this is a uh which definitely means it's going to be the co-main on the toronto card first of all that's like the seventh best title bout you could produce in this already shit situation in already a shit division didn't mayra buenosilva just get her submission of holly holm turned into a no contest like just the other day luke yes like

what and then we got this tweet here it's a quote tweet from ariel quoting uh the venezuela vixen herself who we assumed juliana pena number one pound for pound in the world on kevin iowaly's countdown we assumed she'd be in this title fight. Here's her quote. I'm injured. I will fight the winner. My next fight will be for a title guaranteed. I feel bad, not for myself, but for the fans that are being force-fed this horrible fight.

What a disaster. End quote. Luke, I bring that horrible fight up into this discussion to say, yes, if you want it to be Charles, I'm fine with that. If it doesn't look like Makhachev can be ready in January and March makes more sense, I'm even more fine with that. Can we use the strength of this roster, which includes 80% of the world's best fighters, and actually make sure these main and co-mains on these pay-per-views are worth our time and decent?

Look, what in the damn hell are we doing with that women's title fight in the co-main not because they're women by the way but because this division is so weak and are these two really the best two bantamweights we can produce right now and number two what's going to be the main event now because that's what what's making me nervous pushing this off to march even though i think it's the right move. Let me ask a question. What was the last genuinely big UFC fight that was in Canada? And don't say the last one they had in Vancouver, which was, I would not count that. When I say big, I mean like over 400,000 buys on pay-per-view, four or 500,000 or more.

I honestly can't remember. What about when Max was doing the Ninth Island thing, Tenth Island? Was that against Edgar? That wasn't that big, no. It also wasn't that, was that Canada or was that detroit i can't even remember i thought it was aldo in detroit and i thought it was edgar in canada i could probably look it up but okay so i mean i would say i would say getting max there is pretty big but the edgar fight was not necessarily the

biggest one that they could have given them guys if you were around in the late 2000s in the early 2010s it's impossible to explain how big Canada was. You know how we all look at Brazil now where the crowds go bananas, and you're like, oh my God, Brazil is like this hotbed? That's what Canada was, and I think to an extent maybe even still is. Now granted, you've lost St. Pierre, you've lost Rory McDonald, you've lost a lot of names, and St. Pierre chief among them, obviously, where you can't really rally around the Canadians like you once did. But, dude, to watch a once great market with very good fans, and basically every Canadian I've ever met is as friendly as advertised,

in general, to go from where we were to this is shocking to watch. It is shocking to watch. I honestly can't believe it. To go from not mentioning the vacant title at all since nunes retired what late spring they haven't mentioned it once no one's asking about it to then drop this fight in our laps with no guarantee of a great main event i mean who's available what could be the main event for this card what should be the main event for this card where's poirier where are all these stars that you should be calling when you need to fill in and make these main and co-main events right okay so our boys in the back are saying

that Max Frankie was Edmonton Alberta Canada and UFC 240 and then Max Ortega was in Toronto UFC 231 okay but that was nearly 70 UFC pay-per-views ago I mean it's a long time it's a long time to answer your question it's because of covid and it's because of ontario in particular remember what bronstetter was telling us that long after we were already traveling the globe again he couldn't even leave ontario like they there's a reason why it's been so long but your point is if you're going to come back to a market toronto where they bang for mma yeah shouldn't you give them the bang for their buck right i mean yes absolutely fair that

the the covid uh lockdowns and everything else it really made any kind of shows in canada difficult if not outright impossible but dude that's been not the case for some time now and to the point you just raised i would have thought islam again if islam's not ready islam's not ready he just fought if he wants time he deserves time okay but it's like now i'm like well what are they gonna are, are they really going to stick with Volk in January? Which again, I think is just a cataclysmically risky idea. If they go Volk to Poria after he just got head kick KO'd, are you like, are you serious?

How bad as your business considerations, if you have to go to that title, this is not UFC in 2005 where it's like, is Tito Randy Shamrock or the other guy headlining every pay-per-view? Yes, they are. Every single time Tito fought, it seemed like from 01 to whatever, he was headlining pay-per-views. Dude, we have variety. We have a deep roster. Luke, where are all these people that normally make co-main in main events? Why are they not available? Who are we forgetting here? So here, let me just go through the roster. Does Pantoja have a signed fight yet against Raw Dog? I think he does, right? Yes, December 16th.

December 16th, yes. Okay, so he's accounted for. Sean O'Malley. I know he fought in August, but I don't think he has one accounted for yet. Think about it. It should be him in a title defense, right? He's a star.

He could sell. It should be him. 145 is Volk. We already know the story there. 55 is Islam. We know the sell. 145 is Volk. We already know the story there. 55 is Islam. We know the story. Edwards fighting at 296.

Strickland, I think it's probably too quick of a turnaround. Maybe. Okay, would you accept? I know I'm cutting into the line of your questioning here. Would you accept the kind of fights they used to put as pay-per-view main events when they need to fill time? What if they did Gaethje Holloway for the BMF belt and just made that a main event now? And both guys were like, yeah, you know what? I'll take main event money. I think that's fine.

I think that would be more than fine. You've got two guys, fans love, guaranteed action. You would probably favor Gaethje, but it's always foolish to look past Max. Sure. I think I would accept. I mean, listen, if you could do. Yes. Yes. I would would would you accept

it it seems very reasonable 100 100 yes okay yes so then very quickly very quickly up and down the rosters who else you got yeah so then we got leon 296 sean strickland i guess could be a maybe depending on what they want and whoever but you couldn't get it you couldn't get hams out to canada i'm guessing i mean maybe you could i don't know you'd have to do duplicy is he ready he's ready right probably uh you have i guess that you don't have one at 205 we're still trying to figure this shit the fuck out right that's we'll get that this weekend but we don't you can't turn around to january in all likelihood and then heavyweights john jones aka the interim one so then on the women's side you could have zhong wiley she could defend against i don't know yan xiao nan or tatiana

suarez or something right right couldn't she yeah yeah i guess she could she against, I don't know, Jan Schaunan or Tatiana Suarez or something, right? Right? Couldn't she? Yeah, yeah, I guess she could. She fought recently, though, Whaley did. She did fight recently. Grosso versus Shevchenko, three, or whatever it would be, three. Valentina's recovering from injury, correct?

Correct. And then you would have the one at 135, which they're going to have anyway. So your answers are basically, the best answer would be be if everyone's ready, Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley in Canada would be a big one, I think. But I don't know what the situation with that is.

Who is he going to fight next? I'm trying to remember off the top of my head here. So the people he could fight, Murab looks like he's going to fight Henry. Corey Sandhagen, who I'm going to talk to in about a couple of hours, I'll ask him to see what his situation is. Please do. Because it should be him and O'Malley in January, right?

That's a fine fight. Or Chito. Or what about Chito versus O'Malley? You know what? Do the Chito rematch because that's sexier. It probably gets people more attracted to it with the talk of it all and stuff. And yes, if you're Chito, you have that one card to play,

the whole you quit against me card, right? You claimed injury when I was beating your ass, that card. Play that card. Yeah, let's do it. Luke, that's the fight. cheeto you have that one card to play the whole you quit against me card right you were you claimed injury when i was beating your ass that card play that card yeah let's do it luke that's the fight but can you make any sense of the decision to make pennington versus silva when you've already waited with silence about what the future of this division is this is the fight you make look she just got stripped of a win well do we not care anymore? Oh, USADA's gone now? Like, what is this? I don't know what to say.

I mean, here's the thing. Her USADA issue was she had a medical proof of what she was taking, and it was diagnosed, and there was nothing in that sense where it was like, hey, how did this get in your system? Oh, I have no idea. No, she was like, I got a doctor prescription. So they bumped her suspension down to a very low-level version of what it would be.

So her infraction is not a very serious one, and I think for that reason they went this direction. I don't really mind that, but the optics aren't great, right? The optics look like we're just trying to figure out what to fill this stuff in, and we don't have much, and so enjoy, you know. Here's what I'm going to say. We talk all the time about how much money the UFC has.

And I get that. It's not just vaults full that they can pull at any time that because of endeavor, because of TKO, because of this, they're, they're leveraging their money all around to pay for everything. But when you're in this advantageous financial position and you go,

okay, Julianna's her, and we're not sure about these other big names do we just go with this fight or do we at least wait on juliana star power to come back it's the same decisions that that forced them to make nico montano against late replacement roxanne matafari for the inaugural title belt uh at 125 it's the same decision making uh that made that awful home gdr fight when in reality, Cyborg just wasn't ready yet. My point is this, Luke, when people just aren't ready yet,

why bastardize the situation? Shouldn't you have a roster? Shouldn't you be able to pull all of the big time name non-champions right now? The Robert Whitakers, the Max Holloways, like Poirier, Gaethje, all these guys that are huge names former champions or title contenders not currently in the mix can we make fun and creative fights to fill the gap i mean would you rather you know spend whatever they're going to charge in toronto for this title fight at 135 when the the truth is the whoever becomes champion this fight's probably not champion in the next fight. Probably not. Probably not. Is that ignorant of me?

Probably not. You wouldn't want him to be, would you? This is not a disrespect aimed at either of the fighters here. It's just sort of like, it's not always better to just rush it out under any circumstance, all right? Find a situation, find a replacement that will work. Hopefully they will. They haven't announced this yet. If it ends up being Vulcan, Teporia, damn, I'm going to question

them. But hopefully it's O'Malley. Hopefully it's the type of fights that warrant this. I mean, this isn't even good enough for a co-main event, this Bantamweight title fight. They could have closed the division, or they could have gone the other extreme and made Holm versus Tate for all I cared, or Holm versus Pena. Something! Something, dude!

Something! What is this? This is nothing! You know what it is this? There's nothing. You know what it is? It's calendar leftovers. It's just leftovers. Like, hey, what do we have leftover for what we're doing for the rest of the stuff? This is what we have. Again, unless they announce Sean O'Malley, in which case a different ballgame.

But if they basically leave it to Volk and then this. It's like being on a cruise, Luke, where the dinner was really good at night. But guess what? The next day, all the leftovers are going to be in your breakfast and your lunch. Okay? And if you're okay with that, then that's great. But it's whatever we had left over. All right.

That is it for our top five. Let's do this. Let's do the, before we do the DMs from Donks, BC, we got to remind everyone, you know, everyone knows that working out is full of positives, BC. Sleeping better, looking better, and just feeling better. I don't know if you have this in front of you, BC. But, of course, you know, keeping your momentum going and your progress positive with FitBod, the app creates personalized workouts based on your goals, abilities, and gym setup while helping you track and visualize your progress along the way. Isn't that right? BC. That is a hundred percent right, Luke. And everyone knows that working out as full as so many positive sleeping, better looking better. How about just feeling better? I feel great lately, Luke. Okay.

I feel great. But as you get stronger, sticking to that same old routine, it leads to those plateaus where you feel like man all the work i'm putting in is not getting me ahead anymore that's right uh so bc i love the app and i have been consistently using it the results are what keeps me coming back to the app fitbot has helped me push through moments i didn't want to work out fitbot's powerful technology understands your strength training ability studies your past workouts b, and then adapts to what your available gym equipment is. And look, I've got what I've got in my basement, but the app intelligently varies my intensity, my volume, tracks my muscle fatigue and recovery to design a well-balanced workout plan. And look,

the app keeps your gym sessions fresh and fun by mixing up your workouts with new exercises, rep schemes, supersets, and circuits. And Luke, I'm here to tell the people it's never been easier to get the results that all of our Morning Combat listeners have wanted. Hey, we got a secret for you. Check out FitBot. Get 25% off. Yes, you heard that correct. 25% off your subscription at fitbod.me slash combat. F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash combat. Combat with a K.

BC, let's do this. Let's do DMs from Donks. And then before we do have you seen this shit, they've got the video from the dying fetus. Oh, God. I want to see that. So we'll see how that goes. But first things first, let's get the DMs from Dawgs.

This is where they get to ask us questions. Hee-haw, hee-haw, roll the animation. There you have it. All right, BC. We've got angry males. Yes, go ahead. From Fahey.Liam, how would Rico Verhoeven do against the world's best heavyweights in MMA or boxing? He's younger than 35 and is still dominating in glory, which he won over the weekend.

What do you think, BC? I didn't watch it over the weekend, do you think bc i don't i didn't watch it over the weekend although i saw on ig stories that todd grisham was on the call there and met up with his brother and maybe maybe they even hit one of the the colored districts luke maybe the red one i'm not sure but uh in terms of lights i'm talking about not skin color was the fight in amsterdam probably i mean i'm really just winging it right now you're dead wrong everything i say right now so my answer is I don't know Luke I haven't been watching Rico lately why don't you answer that question I saw him in his one MMA fight obviously I've covered

a few Rico fights I don't really know how I mean the answer is probably pretty well he was a training partner for Francis for a time uh like you know but like not like just some random donk in the gym like they brought him in specifically to get good work in. The answer is BC would probably do really well. But would he win an MMA, a major MMA title? I don't think so. And would he win a major boxing title? He'd probably do really well.

The thing is, he's got more striking skill than Francis, but he doesn't have his physicality. He doesn't have the chin that Francis does. People sleep on how good francis's chin is it's fucking absurd fury hit him with that lead forearm elbow and he didn't even move it didn't it just barely budged him and he's got you know historic power so i think in that sense uh it was in anheim netherlands yeah i don't know if anheim and him does it has a any uh any red light districts, but certainly Amsterdam does. All right. Well, I want to ask you this.

Do you think the success in recent years of Adesanya Pereira, excuse me, and Dumbay will lead? Is it automatic now if you're somebody the status of Rico, the success that you've had, is it becoming expected that you will at the end of the line bring it I know he's already had an MMA fight but bring it to the UFC level Luke he's been he's been flirting with MMA for a long time I've spoken to Rico in person a few times nice guy smart guy um you know it's always been there for him but then you know to have a heavy

weight like him glory just doesn't want to let go of guys like that which you can understand because he's such a you know a unicorn to be that young and that good i would love to see it i again i just feel like people are always trying to make it like oh this guy's got more skill than francis guys lots of people have tyson fury has more skill pure skill boxing skill than francis but it you know francis is a fucking freak like he's not the same as everybody else so and turns out luke he has a big cory not just in those white pants but also in the ring his is look he the he stayed on fury he was always within punching distance the whole time dude never went away you know never like you he gets his news from the bbc you know what i'm saying yeah wow wow directly yeah yeah from the BBC. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Directly. Yeah. Yeah. From the World Tattoo. His favorite combo was Benzema, Bale, and Cristiano. The BBC was his favorite one. All right, BC. From Sherry Abasi 93, who are you favoring heading into Fury Uso? Good question.

If, when it takes place next year. Hey, that's our boy Sherry from the UK, Luke. I just was on his boxing show. Sherry's the man. Fantastic bloke right there. Top bloke. He wants to know, from the UK, Luke. Yeah, Sherry's the man. I just was on his boxing show. Sherry's the man. Fantastic bloke right there. Top bloke. He wants to know, heading into Fury, yeah, who are you favoring? Good question.

I think you still have to favor Fury for the size, skill aspects, but I do think that when this fight first became real, however long ago, what was that, a year and a half ago, to to now Usyk has closed that gap and it's not just the performances against Anthony Joshua that opened our eyes about what he would do against a bigger stronger guy Fury's different than Joshua because of the ball's chin and also the obvious skill and size I mean Fury's just a unique I mean that's why I still look if you ask me like like off the record BC BC, what really happened in, in Gano versus fury.

And I don't mean from a conspiracy stamp. I just mean like, what really happened? I could give you the same analysis I gave the Monday after, but look, I don't really know what really happened, but I do think it's enough to give you the idea, knowing how special Usyk is. Could he close that gap and make it a fight and give himself a chance? Yes, he could. He does have the daring to be great want. He's shown a huge chin in the past, whether it's against Murat Gassiev, whether it's against

Mary Spritus, I have cruiserweight or whether, you know, look, he had to kind of go through a little bit against Derek Chisora. Uh, it's styles made, made that fight closer maybe than it should have been, but he's got the chin he's got the willingness doesn't have the power but is Usyk smarter than Fury I think that's the key question that would decide for me not if I'm going to favor Usyk because I think you you do have to favor Fury at the end of the day in all the aspects but is is it is there a chance here that Usyk is smarter and more dynamic than him that he could create the ultimate game plan to neutralize the situation? Luke, is Usyk that smart and dynamic?

I think he is. I think he is. I still, unlike you, I still kind of favor Fury, just from the physicality of it all. Yeah. But it's a better fight. It's a better fight coming off of this. It's a much better fight.

If you're just asking from an IQ standpoint, Usyk might be top of the game. Not of everyone everyone but uh of all the heavyweights for sure yeah now i say it's a better fight that doesn't that doesn't hedge against what i had said that taking this in ghanu fight unnecessarily now for fury before the usic fight brings down the majesty of the usic fight in terms of the royalty regalness it also though might make it a better more competitive fight if Fury is either declining or just not in a great state I mean when you look at the 2023 for Tyson Fury he fought Derek Chisora unnecessarily for the third time in December then he starts the new year he's got the reality show he's playing touch butt in the park every

time someone asks him if he wants to actually fight Usyk and then he shows up woefully out of shape and I know Luke he's telling everybody I trained hard for 12 weeks and I know it's hard to properly gauge the fitness level of Fury when he is comically overweight a lot with the love handles in the belly I just don't think that was the real Fury but maybe that was the real Fury and maybe he is slipping a little and maybe the gap is, is, is closing Usyk, not getting any younger, but he does have all the intangibles needed to make this a fight.

Yep. If that was the real fury, he's in trouble. He's in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Question number three from Appy fat-a-thon.

That's it. That's David. I know. Is it remotely plausible for John Jones to see out his UFC contract career and fight Francis without needing Dana's approval? No, it is not possible. It is not possible. They've changed the rules.

Yeah. And he recently signed a new long-term deal. He'll retire with them. And that's that. I mean, unless, you know, who knows if the court case happens and what happens from that or whatever. But I'll put it this way, BC. You ever heard of force majeure?

Like when you have a contract with someone and you can only break it under the most insane things. Like if there's an earthquake, literally an act of God or something, it would take an act of God for that to happen. Well, some think the act of God could be the antitrust lawsuit, but then there's a lot of people in my DM saying,

hey guys, great segment the other day, but I am in the law field i am in the antitrust law field this court proceeding will not have a result anytime soon that you guys think it will no no again if they appeal a lawyer friend of mine over the weekend because i sent him all the information he hadn't heard of it and then he read up on it and he was like dude you have at least two to three more years of litigation and i was like oh okay all right well there you go all the fighters now will be out of their prime and out of the game yeah john jones will be 40 by then if some and again and that only assumes some kind of act of god so yeah that's not going to happen

all right from matt con sad siddini or however the fuck you say this name. Consadine? Consadine? What a dumb name. Just change your name. It's an Italian name, Luke. You got a problem with the Italians? I like the Italians, but it's a weird name.

All right, Luke, you mentioned that much of the middleweight division has Izzy's style in the game figured out. I don't know about much of the division, but I think some of the top contenders do. What necessary adjustments do you think he needs to make to have another reign? I mean, there's sort of two things that occur to me on this one BC the first one would be I think mixing up some of the other elements of the game as I mentioned before some of the stuff where you have you have Sean Strickland leaning and then on a single foot

you know you do that against Bo Nickel you're gonna be on your fucking back I'm not expecting him to be Bo Nickel but what I am saying is some level of unpredictability with the other dimensions of the game if he can safely weave that in i do think that we might open up some real opportunities for a guy because they're always going to be cautious about his striking no one is going to be cavalier about it the only time sean strickland got cavalier was like the last 30 seconds of round five that was it but the rest of the time you do have to be on your p's and q's i think that's one the other one is he's gotten to a lot of patterns a similar patterns about his fainting kind of all setting up in a way that folks have recognized i think you need to go back to the if you're going to stay with that kind of game and there are plenty of reasons to do that you got to change up some of

the setups you got to go back and like sort of really re-examine your own tape how much are you doing the same thing fight over fight to what extent can that be amended so it's broadening the scope of what your available weapons are and then going back to your your core weapons and then re-changing the look of them a little bit you know do you have any feeling we know what he said but how long do you think he really plans to take off is it like six to nine months that'll be enough to recharge the batteries or is it really he said what a couple years he was planning on taking off yeah i think at least a year i'd say a year uh is probably a safe estimate a year or more but i don't expect him to come back before a year i think and you know again dude he was competing like an insane clip like you know getting a little

bit of break i think is pretty critically important but but probably a year or more, I'm going to guess. You can be at your absolute best if you enter your prime and your peak earning period and you stay busy, but there's always a receipt at the end, right? Like, Conor won consecutive fights by being insanely busy, taking on big chances. I guess he lost to Nate, but then redeemed in the next fight. But, like, there's always a receipt at the end

if you run that ragged of a schedule. You've got to offset that with rest because you're just waiting for injuries or burnout or anything to happen. Or in his case, it's just getting after it, getting after it, getting after it, and there's just so much tape on him. So much tape on him.

And the good teams, Eric Nixick, dude, you can't. It's publicly available, dude. Like, those guys are going to see it. Like, you've got to give them something they haven't just think about it what's the common denominator between the two answers i just gave you stuff they haven't seen it's stuff they haven't seen they have to it has to be new it can't go be the old hits again it won't really and if he returns post usada i'd like to see the the left nipple get the same treatment that the right one i mean just you know just use all the juice then i mean man i'm kidding but all right last but not least uh you don't know tyler you're right i don't i don't uh whoever

wins the light heavyweight belt this week their first title defense should be against who jamal macramed yan what do you think bc well i think if he's healed it's got to be yan or sorry uh jamal i think the bad luck of this division, which saw a draw in the Blachowicz-Ankolayev title fight, will probably produce a stick kick in the opening second, similar to Mitrione, Karatanov, and Bellator, Luke, that just won't crown a champion at all. But let's say we get one.

Ankolayev, Luke? If Hill hill is ready it's got to be him but if it's not i would go yeah god are we really going to give a title shot to uncle live off that awful johnny walker performance is it worse than his awful blowfish performance yeah maybe you're right luke maybe we're not calling him anytime soon um yeah well I forgot the joke I had it was going to be so good too wow I don't know what the answer to that is uh okay all right with that in mind it's now time for BC's Feces but before we get that going so some folks from a podcast Vulgar Display I'm gonna get the name right here uh I don't want to mess it up for them the Vulgar Display of Podcast folks they had on um let me get the name right here. I don't want to mess it up for them. The Vulgar Display of Podcast, folks.

They had on... Let me get the details right here so I don't jack this up. They had on... Excuse me, I got the wrong email I'm looking at here. That's why it looked like ass. Sorry, they had John Gallagher of Dying Fetus on, and they told him about the morning combat wager and bets. I've not seen this, BC.

I've not seen this. Let's see what they say are you familiar with the mma show morning combat at all no no no no let me put it on your radar real quick if you don't mind there's actually two co-hosts and it's a ufc mma show that they do and they do it on youtube and they're great i'm a big fan of it. Well, one is a death metal fan. He waves the flag, Cannibal, Dying Fetus, Pantera, all these things. Then the other guy, BC, is kind of a fruity guy. He's into the fish and all these other kind of hippie, trippy bands. Well, they have a bet going right now on picking who wins fights, and one of them has to go to the other person's concert of choice.

And I think Luke Thomas, who's the the metal guy has picked you guys to come i wasn't sure if that was on your radar or not no i don't it's just like fighting you're talking about i don't know anything about i'm sorry for my ignorance but i'm stuck in a death metal world you know as you can tell but yeah but they're just fans and i wasn't sure if you're aware of it or not it's kind of a big deal a lot of people talk about it in that world. There you go, BC. He didn't know shit.

He didn't know shit, but he does now. He does now. Okay. Okay. This is the stakes are getting raised now. Cause you're going to have to make, if you win,

you're going to have to make some key important decisions. Same with me. It's like, do I go jam bandy? Do I go aggressive jazz fusion? i go i mean the indigo girls just played the other night luke couple of my friends went i'm sure they lost all their testosterone when they walked in the building but that'd be fun to get that on tape right with you right yeah that'd be great uh all of it's gonna be great i'll just say this uh if the boys from dying fetus are watching make them beg for

death a new album. Killer. Two thumbs up. There you go. All right. Would we be able to meet the bands if I had to do it? If I had to go do it? So what I can say is Cannibal Corpse has officially offered to let me come backstage. So that's a guarantee.

Yeah. That is incredible. Dying Fetus, it sounds like they don't really care. But I don't know if you know this. They're actually from Maryland. They're actually from the Maryland area so I'm hoping that there's some kind of like you know it's not really a DMV connection but you know I don't know I don't know what the answer is there if we get backstage and they're like hey we should kill a live animal just

for you know yeah for effect I'm out Lukeke okay i'm out all right i like how he described your music choices as fruity that's a nice word yeah well no he described me as fruity and then he went into my musical choices should i be offended at that luke or should i just realize that you know when you're an artist and you produce things like this luke that can't be explained maybe that is a little if that's not me and you wanting to put me in jail i don't know what it would be i don't know what it is look i think it's unfinished at the moment no that's me that's me and you wish i was under a pile of uh trash so you could leave me there that's what that looks like yeah yeah that's that's that was the four different sessions

uh this one was brought to you by delta tens look maybe that 10. Maybe that's altered my ability a little bit. Thank you very much. All right, it's time for BC's Feces. Let's hear it. Yeah, let's get into it here. I scoured the globe, the highs and lows. You know where I'm talking about here. It's a bunch of absolute bullshit,

and it's coming your way right now. Oh, God. Hey, Luke, UFC. Sapal was this Saturday. How about Elvis Brenner? Luke, I can't figure out if this was a nasty KO or if something medically bad happened to Krzyzewski, but a partial grazing punch sent him down face first, dude.

Yeah, when they go face first, that's even worse than when they go back down and uh i mean bc i mean if you get hit in the head that is a medical event yes it is it is uh that was nasty though it looked like he got hit and then his body just went in the other direction like took a dive almost like joanna when she ran into that whaley finishing shot and their rematch you. It was like her body just exploded and dove. It was kind of weird. It was kind of weird. I don't know. People do weird shit

when they get hit in the head, man. It's not good for you. People do weird shit when they win. Let's hear Angela Hill try to speak Portuguese. Brazil! Obrigada, São Paulo! Oh! Uso uma menina.

I don't know. Sorry. Forget that part. That's me. The first time I ordered by myself when I was in Columbia, I'm like, yo, Kiero. Yeah, man. Fuck this. I don't want none of this.

I'm just going to leave. Gringo Poppy, is that you? No, no, no. That's not. All right. Let's go to Nicholas Dalby. Here's the finish on this great upset dude nasty right yeah he was looking for a way out at this point when dalby was just kind of hunched over and then just covering up and then i don't think one strike hurt him luke i think it was an accumulation of

fatigue and and there was a couple of them that got through pretty clean but you're right there wasn't one that just sat him down like that. It was accumulation. But, man, what a win for Dalby, like we said earlier. Hey, we went head-to-head on Modestus Bukauskis in our long- Won that one, didn't I? For Lithuania. I lost this.

Vitor Petrino won it. Dude, this was nasty, right? Dude, this was really, really nice. Not only did he place it but if you don't watch his front foot he turns it out and does like what's called a step back check hook so you can change the angle as they come in like that and then he turns off the corner man that was textbook textbook yeah uh this crowd by the way was dialed in for certain fighters this was another wasn't a victory for you that were brazilian yes uh you you needed a certain type of finish for

eduardo mora against conejo luke moncero you didn't get that finish but look at the let's listen to the crowd reaction to the finish elbow dog dog is coming up any second now. Dunn's off his dress. And that'll do it. Good stuff. And right up, Mara sends this Brazilian crowd into a frenzy. Second round, TKO. Luke, I don't know if you could hear it. I couldn't hear it this time.

But if you hear that clip in real time like our viewers did, dude, the crowd went nuts. And there wasn't even that filled in there either, right? They did go nuts. Although, remember, she had missed weight by four pounds. Ah, boy. Yeah. All right. Elsewhere in combat sports, you mentioned F.A. Ajagba, top-ranked head on ESPN Boxing Show in Lake Tahoe.

Here is not the finish against Joe Goodall. Watch this back-to-back right uppercuts that he slipped in there. Ajagba's pretty talented, dude. He fell short against who? Frank Sanchez? Frank Sanchez. Yeah, he's not that technical. to back right uppercuts that he slipped in there a jog was pretty talented dude what like why he fell short against who frank sanchez sanchez yeah he's not that technical so against this level he he's a explosive dude you know he's powerful as shit too yeah indeed on that undercard lindolfo delgado check out this brutal multi-punch finish for the KO. And it's not over yet, dude. Poor Hernandez here. Just taking bombs.

Dude, hands. Let's see. Uppercut through the middle. Oh, my. Dude. Oh, my God. Catching at the end of his punches like that with the multiple right hooks. That was nasty.

All right. Let's go to one championship. Bangkok edition. Jonathan Haggerty becoming a two-sport champ with the KO of Fabricio Andrade. Here is friend of the program, Ray Flores, going sick. What do you think about Andrade's hair down? Not good at all. Awful.

Didn't really serve him well, did it? Dude, look at him. All over him, like right on the ice. Just straight hard punches, dude. As they say in Nashville, Georgia, he was all over him like a duck on a june ball exactly whatever the hell that was he tries to get up in the rough side yeah uh the celebration here was fantastic one always puts on a good show here is haggerty uh celebrating with i guess you can call it a golden shower luke shout out to

r kelly right did uh anyone else make snow piss angels in r kelly's piss i don't know i don't think so but uh do what do you think ray flores does in bangkok after the show ends uh so there's a district as i understand it i think it's called pat pong we've talked about this before i think i'm getting the name wrong it's something like that and you can go and you can see some shit there you know what i mean yeah maybe he went and saw the bears game there luke maybe it's possible right uh let's go over if you watch the bears game in bangkok thailand you deserve to just die like david carradine in some kind of hotel i mean let's just be honest luke here's ben tynan channeling his inner Hulk Hogan

by sleeping with, no, I'm kidding, by saying the N-word and sleeping with Bubba the Love Sponge's wife. Yes, did he bang Bubba the Love Sponge's wife before or after this? I'm into this, by the way. I'm into that. Well done there, Ben Tynan. All right, there was a Don King card from Miami. It was pretty sad.

But how about heavyweight prospect Cassius Chaney from Connecticut here sending Trevor Bryan to the deep, dark depths? Let's see. Oh, golly. I got to say, BC, this is not the best boxing I've ever seen. No, this is Don King playing out the string of what he's got. And there's 17 people in the audience. Let's just be honest about that.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Hey, wild weekend for BKFC, Luke. You can only see this here. Here's the weigh-in of BKFC 53 as let me bang, bro. Julian Lang getting into it with Murat Kazgan. Lane would go on to win, I believe, by decision. But here are the two of them.

Just let them bang already. Let the men bang. Dude, and they've got David Tua's son apparently as security. My man looks tough. They're wasting all this energy. Just let them bang already, all right? Yeah, just let them bang. Let them have sex, guys.

All right, let's go to BKFC Thailand 5. Here is the main event weigh-in. I'd like you to watch closely to the crotch area of the gentleman on the left, Luke. Oh, Jesus Christ. Is he about to get a boner? Yeah. He's, yeah. I mean, I don't know if we're allowed to show that, Luke, but it is on brand, okay?

He put his hand in his pocket and used his hand pretending it was his shaft to shake the cup on top. Like how robbers back in the day would hold up a liquor store and would just put their finger through the the sweatshirt or whatever yes all right let's go to the nhl game here luke check out this excited penguins fan just doing what he loves whoops sorry wrong wrong clip watch this guy at halloween yeah yeah just casual sexual assault you know yeah just you know shooters are gonna this guy, yeah, he got denied there by that nice mask. All right, let's get back on track. Here's this NHL fan, Luke. You know, when the camera comes on you, just do what you love, Luke, right?

I got to tell you, Penguins fans are revolting, but they're not as bad as Flyers fans. I know this because I've been to games, obviously, here with the Caps. The Flyers fans, that's when people are going to start talking about your mom. You know what I mean? Oh, God, yeah. That's a next level. Luke, you know that Chael Sonnen clip that's making the rounds this week and going viral against Ariel? I don't have that for you.

I have a different Chael Sonnen clip that I hope goes viral this week and going viral against Ariel. I don't have that for you. I have a different Chell Sonnen clip that I hope goes viral. Let's listen in to this. Luque makes love to Ian Gary. He's just making love. And then Ian Gary gets on top and they're both

just getting along so well. We're just getting along. I think Almeida. Chael, you know we love you on this show. That's a bit much, huh? A bit much. Chael taking the spirit of, what's that hotel he was at, Luke? The spirit that he brought to.

The Luxor. To the Luxor and just bringing it to the airwaves now. Also, was he doing the ball tickling or the butthole thing? I mean, I couldn't even tell, but either way, I was like, this is a lot. Yeah, hopefully both, Luke. Okay, let's get back on track. Here's your t-shirt of the week here.

Is this a disrespect to the flag, Luke? If this flag offends you, I'll jack you off. Alright, well, that's not what I'm looking for. Alright, it's time for some MMA fighters fighters in the wild here's johnny walker walking by this gyrating and cavorting he'll gyrate for sex he'll also gyrate for sex luke let's listen into this yep gyrating and cavorting. He just can't stop. My family and I are living for sex. It's like, okay, sir, this is a Wendy's.

What would you like to order? And it's just him doing this? In a fight kit outfit? Yeah, it's great. That's great. That's so good. All right. Hey, Luke, friend of the program, Chuck Mendenhall was out for dinner the other night in suburban

Connecticut and ran into this fella dressed in his Halloween best who do you think that is Luke it's Poetan it's Poetan well I gotta tell you that's a that's a that's a frightening thing for him to wear I gotta tell you yes yeah he's a very frightening dude that man that Pereira uh by the way Chuck is like legitimately friends with Glover Teixeira. Like they hang out and go out for beers, Luke. We need to crash this party, right? Yeah.

We also need Showtime to pay for us so we can crash that party. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Can we just bring the cameras and just hang out and drink beer in Halloween costumes with Poetan? That'd be great. Imagine like we getting someone to translate to him all my ridiculousness and see his reaction it'd be great right yeah you think though the waiters in washington dc showed you no no love wait do you see his stone face uh also conor mcgregor showed

up in the wild at this punch machine luke let's see what he scored He scored a one? Yeah, he's number one. That would mean he's number one, apparently. Oh. Not good. Not good for his future. Luke, will he ever fight again? Yeah, right?

One more time? Yeah, he'll fight one more time. All right. This week in Russian MMA, Luke, you know the crazy stuff goes on there. Check out this cornerman after the fight ended. Okay. Oh, boy. I mean, do they have rules in Russia on anything?

I don't know the answer to that. No. But, hey, if you ever get choked out during a fight, this is the best escape route. Let's watch this next video. Luke, will we ever see this in the UFC? That's pretty uh i think we have gotten pretty close to that not all the way over but pretty close to that yeah all right let's go to some chechen mma here watch the dance that this fella puts out during the move oh my man is just out there doing all the cultural dances too all right luke would you say growing up the best day of your life was in gym class when they

brought out that parachute balloon thing you know what i'm talking about the giant parachute and everybody gets under it you don't know what I'm talking about? All right, watch this. Watch this closely. And let go! Uh-oh. What the hell is he doing? Watching your children, Luke. Okay, entertaining them. That was great, right?

He just lets go of that thing and then just runs into glass what the fuck is wrong with him all right uh luke you ever have when you're a kid and somebody wants like the whole neighborhood to watch their performance and they put on a little song and dance everybody pretends it's good yeah my daughter does it every day all All right. Watch this future X gamer. Try the same thing. Oh, Oh my God. Yeah. I'd say that's YouTube. Yeah. He didn't do so great.

Huh? Yes. Yes. Luke, would you say you prefer BBL or BSH? Don't know what BSH is? Let's watch this video. That first meal we're going for post-fight. Sausage, if you feel me. Sausage? What kind of sausage? Like Italian sausage? African sausage? Oh, wow. Holy cow. so look I meant to say BHS big Hispanic sausage you into that or just

the other side of that no I'm good on that okay okay fam let's go to the next one here Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle time my daughter loves them she'll love this one oh sorry wrong one i already like this one

i was gonna say we saw some uh uh we saw some bhs and the other one here's some bbl uh ma'am we're at a public event here please come on come on all right yeah yeah yeah sir could you control your lady yes yeah this is my kind of show yeah all right luke this is a reckless event here let's keep it going uh keep it going here all right new food invention this one's called boy dinner okay what british person is so sad that they made this thing would you eat that that's tremendous right no no i'm not and they put and they put garnish on top of this piece of shit food no it's a hollowed out banana with baked beans cheese and what do you think that red sauce is ketchup oh that's gross okay if that's that's insanely gross all right all right back to

teenage mutant ninja turtles i'm all over the place here. Luke, we got a couple more for you. T, fight. Oh, so you want a fist bump. Okay. Oh, I want two fist bumps. I want a fisty, too. Well, that's an odd thing to say in public, Luke.

I got to say, I'm not a favor of people shooting each other in public, but when that YouTube dude over the Dulles Town Center complex got shot for harassing that guy, I was like... Play stupid games, right? All right, here's another stupid game. Winning stupid prizes. Yeah, yeah. You ever... You like milk, Luke?

Depends what kind of milk we're talking about bc all right yeah yeah all right well this is uh all right it might not be my best this is uh clearly disturbing uh okay uh look you told me wholeheartedly that while you do respect my music ears my ability to listen to fine music you said in hip-hop i am sorely lacking you have the worst you have you have a grandma in her 90s level of taste in hip-hop all right well there's a new rapper out here called j-rock that i am getting behind huge would you be willing to try out a sample of j-rock to see if let's see let's see j-Rock. All right. Hell yeah. You set it off. My boy DVS opened this motherfucker, you know what I'm saying? Come on.

This here's a story about some shit that happened to me today. Check it out. Come on. Here we go. One, two. Set it. But now you heard the story about how I got caught. Caught.

Playing with my shit. But hold that thought. Before you disrespect J-R-O-C, it could happen to you, because it happened to me. And T, check this shit out, check it out The situation broke out when I smoked too much butt Reached in my drawers, pulled out my butt Bust opened a jar of petroleum jelly Started thinking about Donna and Nikki

Her mind, I was hitting it, we was almost there Then the door bust opened and fuck, my balls was there Don't disrespect JROC, it could happen to you Cause it happened to me We were not feeling J-Rock? I was hoping the whole place was going to get set up in flames while they were on there. Long Island Luke says that's an excerpt from the show trailer park boys which i've never seen luke but i was a big j-rock fan right there thank you all right i'm sad he didn't die uh smoke him if you got him time luke here let's check out this bong oh nice rip right wow that was a good one jesus what the hell what happened what did we miss he shot up the

bong with a rifle luke maybe that was like his his girlfriend was like look i need you to quit the stuff i need you to quit there's one last gigantic hit you know what i mean and then just shot it up that was just like all right yeller all right one last time to play catch and then we got to put a bullet in your brain have you ever got high off a chopper bong this could be your first time let's see dude look at the rednecks putting their mouths on this thing. Would you try it once? Only after disinfecting this buffoon's bike, but yes. All right.

Well, maybe it's not my greatest batch ever. I do have one more for you, Luke Thomas, okay? So this final clip, you said time and again how bad you hate Philly sports fans. Yeah, they're awful. All right. What do you think about this guy? Dude, my man's got teeth going one way and eyeballs going the other. Yeah, there's a lot going on there.

By the way, best part about this is Phil's lost game seven. how about that they actually lost that fucking game yeah sir so why don't you go and find a uh well i don't know what he could find look i don't know what a dentist could do with that mouth yeah dentists would look at him and be like we're done here i mean you clearly don't need me at this point you know how do you get to that point though is it like meth extreme oh meth okay i was gonna say is it like well i had bad insurance opportunities and point you know how do you get to that point though is it like meth extreme oh meth okay i was gonna say is it like well i had bad insurance opportunities and then you know meth okay listen i'm as pro drug as the next guy but if you do a bunch of drugs and don't brush your teeth you'll be a phillies fan that's that's where you're heading you know what i'm saying that's all the

shit that fit maybe not my best batch luke but i'll come back strong next week. Like the UFC show in Sao Paulo, they can't all be winners, BC. They can't all be winners. I do have to get out of here, BC, because I have to go over to meet a couple gentlemen. I'm going to go interview Corey Sanhagen and Ryan Hall. Hopefully, I don't have any errors. I have to shoot this myself, so please send your prayers and well wishes. History is on your side here, Luke, right? Cue the Hasselhoff video, please. all right all right that was good i'll let i'll let that one slide because that was very funny uh reminder to everyone check this out right look

at look at what i some gave all to this show luke look at this right i mean that is just you know i was lamenting that we didn't have the Brian Campbell show back, and now we have it back, and I wish it was gone again. It's getting hot in here, Luke. Yes. Wow. We're back on Wednesday with a live show. We're going to lean into everything UFC 295 next week. Or, sorry, next show, I should say.

The show socials are all here below, morningcombat.store for the merch. Thanks to the folks. Huh? I showered before the show today. That's's disappointing as did i as did i i want to remind everyone uh thanks to the folks at cbs mikey more mile thanks to the folks at mulka with mr nosita gaff and everybody else involved with the crew thanks to showtime as well bc any final thoughts before we get out of here yeah if you want to get some live merch right now and 10% off, go to morningcombat.store. Live 10 is the code, L-I-V-E 1-0. Right now, go get some.

And then last but not least, you can email the show morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs, Friday's dead wrong. All right, we are out of here for today. Thank you guys so much for watching. We greatly appreciate it. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. We'll join you on Wednesday and until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.