MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Saskatoon, Fight Island, Blaydes vs. Volkov | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 47

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

Luke and Brian recap everything that happened this weekend in the UFC world on episode 47 of Morning Kombat. They also dive into the UFC Fight Island cards and talk about how fighter pay is affecting all of the combat sports world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Monday June 15th 2020 and it is time for Morning Combat. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. The other half is the gentleman on that side of the screen. He is the conspiracy to my theory, the peanut butter to my jelly. You know him from CBS Sports, among many other check-cashing opportunities. It's the one and only Brian Campbell.

Hi, Brian. How are you, friendo? Oh, fired up, Luke. I'm the S to your M indeed, bro. You know, it's a great time to be alive. The world's crazy, the world's changing, but there's one constant in your ear hole. It's morning combat, and it's coming for you, all right? Deep in that cokley eye, okay? Luke, you want to talk

about brand diversification right you know if you you may love the wild rough and tumble monday show but you know just like a prime ll cool j we got something for the ladies too right you want to get serious jump into dissected you want to get crazy hit us up on friday night's morning combat classics as we just did a few days ago. Take that, right? Competitors, take that. That's right. Something for everybody, BC. So let's remind some folks if we can a couple of housekeeping notes before the show gets

started. As always, please do your civic duty, as it were, here on Morning Combat. Give us a thumbs up on the video. Hit that subscribe button for all the things that Brian just mentioned. This Monday show, the Friday drinking show, my more serious breakdown show. There's a lot of stuff in between even just that. But, of course, Strike Force Classics, Luke.

On Thursdays, again, plenty of different things to choose from. So subscribe. Get all that coming into your email box. Click that notification bell as well. Plus, we always have to thank the good folks who make this possible, not just Malka Media, but of course, Showtime. So you want to try Showtime, you certainly may. You can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial.

You'll like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. But if you keep it, Brian mentioned it, on Thursdays we have a show, Morning Combat Strike Force Classics. We sit down with Mauro, Bernalos, Scott Coker, and we ham it up over some of our favorite Strike Force memories and then watch the fights that made those

possible. So it's actually pretty fun. I'm looking forward to Thursday's episode just the same. And then Brian, we got merch, baby. What should folks know about the merch? They should know to go to store.show.com and that's S-H-O,

to hit them up if you know what I'm talking about because it's time. This means that it's real, guys. It's time to consummate this. Be outfitted at your next summer cookout, at your next – I don't know what you're doing out there, okay? But be outfitted with the M to the K, Luke Thomas, Brian Campbell, hats, long sleeves, T-shirts. And folks, we have reached out on your behalf about our great, great international customers,

whether we're talking anywhere from Canada to India and in between. We're working on a solution to get you the merch that you deserve. And by the way, I had people write me being like, can we get the MK gear just without your names on it? I had several write me being like, can we get the MK gear just without your names on it? I had several of those. And I was like, I mean, I understand the sentiment, but I don't know. I'll tell you this much. If you start buying this gear, the next round, there'll be plenty of room for innovation changes, so to speak. So just buy what we have, will you, please, for crying out loud.

Hey, look, I don't see our competition dressed up in their own merch, all right? You know what I mean? So F them as a staff, record label, and as a crew. And if you want to be down with them, then F you too, all right? Chino XL, you know what I'm talking about here, okay? All of you can die. All right, let's get the show started if we can. Five major topics.

Let's start with the first one, which comes to us as a consequence of Saturday's UFC fight card. Now, on paper, it was not the best fight card. In general, I would say it over-delivered relative to its expectations, although even then some of the fights were a bit of a dud. But in the main event, Women's Flyweight Contest, Jessica Ai, Cynthia Calvillo. And as a, uh, the result, Cynthia emerges with a clear decision win in her first jump up to 125 pounds. The fight went the full distance. She looked pretty strong.

She looked pretty good to me. It was clearly her fight at the, by the time the fifth round had expired BC. Now that she has gone from one 15 115 to 125 pounds she beat a previous title contender in this weight class let's just ask the question is cynthia a clear flyweight title contender in your mind uh 100 percent luke and here's the the hard truth right this division it's shallow you can go as far as saying it blows right it's Valentina Shevchenko and everyone else until someone really defines themselves as a legitimate threat and by the way Saturday night was a very big night more on that to come in the women's flyweight division even if she hadn't looked this good you would say she's an instant contender because she's a name

she has a great record but you got to give her credit for what she did say what you will about Jessica Ai there's a lot of one step forward two steps back in her career but she's a name she has a great record but you got to give her credit for what she did say what you will about Jessica Ai there's a lot of one step forward two steps back in her career but she's a big flyweight she's a as tough and out as you can come and to see Calvillo have the success on the feet go five rounds for the first time and most importantly Luke mix in the wrestling in such opportune times the timing of the takedowns was perfect her ability to really just smother jessica i and come close to a couple potential fight ending submissions i mean it was a a dominant performance from start to finish pretty much after that somewhat close first round in which they you know traded jabs in in right hands um we need we need this division to create

whether somebody who is marketable somebody who is a threat or somebody that can be both we need players in this division not a not trying to do a full backhanded disrespect to the jessica eyes the caitlin chukagians of the world but luke they're not title threats even though they can be highly ranked title contenders i don't know if cynthia calvillo can be a threat for someone as great as Shevchenko, but I'm willing to find out because Calvillo's got a motor. She's tough. She seems to be pretty smart in there and how she broke down this fight. So it's a big win for Flyweight, and that's not even getting into Maria Maria, right?

It reminds me of a West Side Story indeed. Agapo may have stolen this entire night, Luke, and I know you believe that. Yes, like one of the members of the Jets and the Sharks, BC fell in love with a girl named Maria. But getting back to this particular case with Cynthia, you know, here's the funny thing. It's like when she won, to me, I was like, okay, she did everything that she was probably supposed to.

I mean, she didn't get the finish, I suppose, but she looked great. As you mentioned, 25 minutes, full motor for the whole thing. Obviously, up a weight class. The cut itself was not a particular challenge i had spoken to her earlier in the week she told me how much better she felt with a new team she was getting all of that worked out now over at aka previously a team alpha male so i think if you're cynthia you look at this and you say to yourself wow there's a lot of things that went right here i just also think we got to hold our horses i like the new fresh blood in that division. I like what she brings. To me, it's a much more interesting fight

potentially if she can get past Chukagian, which she may have to face her next, then Chukagian for Shevchenko. At the same time, did I really see anything that would tell me she's a real clear threat to Shevchenko? No, not really. I mean, here's the thing. It's like when Cynthia came into the UFC, dude, she was hitting gator rolls off anacondas. And then when the anaconda didn't work, she would use it to take the back or to flip people over. I mean, she was doing all kinds of really aggressive, interesting things in the grappling department. She's certainly much more well-rounded now, probably because she has to be.

But I don't know that her game is more dynamic, even if it is more well-rounded now probably because she has to be but i don't know that her game is more dynamic even if it is more well-rounded which sounds contradictory but when you think about it actually makes sense so i i respect what she's done in growing her overall skill set and the way she beat i which i'm you know fairly thoroughly to me tells you she can jump to the front of that division and create for a new and interesting challenge right away so you want to have real talk this is what luke thomas is saying you want to have real talk the real talk is that there is a ceiling for how good she can get and that ceiling as far as our eyes can tell us cannot touch valentina shevchenko that's kind of what you're saying and i don't disagree luke but i'm not saying it's so much the ceiling because

the ceiling would say that we kind of know either what the limit looks like or she's hit it. I'm a little bit pumping the brakes on that. I'm just saying what we saw with Ai was great. I'm not here to undercut it at all. I'm just saying given how good that is, and it seemed to be a pretty full-throated effort, what did you see there that told you that was going to be a tough challenge for Shevchenko? That's fair. Not necessarily anything. I think that's the point.

There's a natural transition there to Maria Agapova because what I saw there, Luke, and look, it's one fight. It's your UFC debut, right? Like, shout out to a great victory. But what I did see there was the potential at some of those next level things that you're going to need to eventually compete or have a chance of competing with somebody as Shevchenko. So to see Agapova, 23 years old, right from Kazakhstan, just come in there with so much damn swagger, Luke, just dripping swagger.

You made a great point on Twitter that there was a reminder of a young Ioana Janczyk from the fluidity of striking and the aggression. But I just saw not only a future star. I mean, I don't think I've seen someone that strong in the force in a long time. And it scared me then. And it scares me even more now. She had that thing that I saw in Conor McGregor's first two fights. That I saw in early Ronda Rousey in Strikeforce.

That thing where you're like, oh, my God, there's something here that's going to grow very large. And it's going to be fun to see, Luke, because this division has no identity beyond Valentina. I don't know if Maria's the real goods. Obviously, that's only going to be the proof inside the cage. But talk about somebody who gets me excited and not for the reasons that you think I'm getting excited, Luke.

There is a fighter with a style and a flash and an aura that we need to get on board with. Yeah, no doubt about it. She looked tremendous. And you mentioned the Conor McGregor sort of overlap starting super strong. Bell rings. She's already in range, already knows what to do, already letting her game fly. And I've always talked about this. In modern MMA, it's hard to take someone down and beat them up

and then pass and then take the back and choke them out and you can say well we see that every weekend right it's just difficult to do you have to get the takedown you have to hold them down you have to methodically pass you have to wait for them to make an error force them into one it gets done it's just a really labor intensive way to find a submission. You also find people, though, on the other side, BC, that will light you up, wait for the tiniest mistake, and then snatch submissions, leap into position, grab a hold of them. You saw that with Maria Agapova here,

jumping on the back immediately, firing into the choke, snatching Hannah Cyphers off of her base. Again, she seemed a little raw in other parts of her game. But as you mentioned, 23 years old, hungry. We could have a Kyrgyzstan versus Kazakhstan battle, BC. That's what I'm talking about here. These people, I'm telling you, women's MMA,

and it deserves to be mentioned here. How many times have you seen a top contender in the UFC that has some kind of Invicta FC background? Dude, it is constant. We don't say it enough, but I don't know where the women's MMA game would be were it not for what Invicta FC is doing. From recruiting talent, to grooming them, to showcasing them, all the levels in between. We really owe a major debt of gratitude to them. Of course, Maria Agapova is talented in her own right. I'm simply saying, every time you see someone who's like fresh contenders, whether it's strawweight or bantamweight

or flyweight, they all seem to have some background for crying out loud in Invicta FC. So I'm very grateful because they seem to have found her, got her ready for this stage, and she was shot out of a cannon on Saturday. And then just, you know, quickly, this is a testament to hard work. While a lot of what I liked out of Maria seemed to be like natural sort of, you know, movement in size and all that, you know, to hear her story of going to the Dana White Contender Series, losing, admitting she just wasn't ready and lost, going back to Invicta, getting fights in other organizations, and then coming back ready, right? Moving her life to ATT in South Florida and really committing. It's a, you know, a little inspiring story story there we'll see where the future brings us as you know luke you're pretty much one great win away from getting into the top five at any point at women's flyweight all right jay wants us to move on but before we do very quickly bc marvin vittori scored a win in the co-main event

a bit of a back and forth kind of scrambly fest at middleweight before vittori kind of put his stamp on things although i would say it wasn't all that back and forth ro of scrambly fest at middleweight before Vittori kind of put his stamp on things. Although I would say it wasn't all that back and forth. Roberson's athletic had a couple of decent escapes or moments where he got free. But really, the guy who was defining the tenor of the ground exchanges in general was Marvin Vittori. The question is, is he the dark horse at 185 pounds? I have to tell you, BC, I think that he is.

He's been off and inconsistent in terms of frequency of competition. And he had that loss to Adesanya but you go back and you watch that that was competitive like he's he actually did pretty well he wasn't as technically smooth obviously as Adesanya but he's a big strong kid his game is getting better he trains over at MMA Kings uh Kings MMA excuse me with Rafael Cordero he's he's a good fighter you know and he can he be great I don't know some time will tell but what I saw here was the things that he naturally does pretty well they got better he stuck to a game plan he must have had all the nerves in the world little flat-footed on the on his feet so I think he has to kind of move away from the aggression slash meatheadedness into a more cerebral posture, quite literally,

and then strategically. But does he have the goods to give people in the top five problems? I actually think that he does. I would like to see where he can go from here. Yeah, great tattoo game on top of that. You mentioned something interesting there about, you know, can he sort of calm himself down a bit to level out and round out his game? And I thought, by the way, that this performance offered him some of those opportunities, right? He didn't just walk through there and knock him out. He had to show his ground game. He had to show his patience. But he's one of those rare fighters, Luke, who seems to thrive on the idea of drama and emotions.

And we saw him attack Roberson in the hotel ahead of the falling out of their first schedule bout. And then to see him this whole week be fired the hell up at all times. You kind of wondered if he was going to go out there and maybe be a bit too jacked up, and he wasn't. This is a ferocious guy. Could he be the dark horse? It's very possible. But I want to see him now against an elite. He was talking about, you know, I think I'm ready for a top ten.

I almost want to put him in there with a top five because he has that performance against Adesanya. And yes, it was a loss. I'm not going to be a truther and say, you know, I did score that for him. It was a close but very competitive fight. I think he's shown you in small doses because he's been able to stay consistent out of things outside of his power that he does have the potential to be a top five fighter I kind of want to find out right now Luke if that's true because you know Adesanya showed you flashes right now he's a special different fighter I'm not comparing the two but once Adesanya showed you those legit top five flashes he got pushed to the forefront and got a chance to find out and you do have to wonder if you're Vittorio I'm sure this is something that fuels him how would the future be different right now had he gotten that decision over Adesanya I'm not saying he would have followed that same path and gotten the same chances and knocked out the same people but you do wonder how different things would be I want to find out right now if this

guy is the goods yeah everyone has their time and that was Adesanya's time but maybe Vittori's is coming up I'm not I'm not to say I'm not here to say that's not true. It seems very, very plausible. Okay, we go now to topic number two, BC. We know about Fight Island. It exists. It's Abu Dhabi. It's not much more complicated than that. It's Yaz Island on Abu Dhabi. It's not some beachfront affair in the middle of, you know, next to Guam or something. It's not Jeffrey Epstein's privatei. It's not some beachfront affair in the middle of, you know, next to Guam or something. It's not Jeffrey Epstein's private Island. It's not, it's not any of those things. It's just Yaz Island. They've been there twice. This will be a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time, I suppose. All right. So there's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with the crown jewel

of the slate of four cards are going to have in the span of three weeks, BC. Three title fights at UFC 251. For folks who may not know, welterweight title, up for grabs. Champion, Kamaru Usman taking on Gilbert Burns. Featherweight title, up for grabs. Champion, Volkanovski versus Holloway. This is the immediate rematch from their first bout. And last but not least, certainly Peter Yan fighting Jose Aldo for the vacant bantamweight title. What do you make of Fight Island?

What do you make of 251? What do you make of 251? What do you make of the UFC's push in July? Unpack all this for me, BC. That's a loaded question. A lot of angles here. Look, first and foremost, look, I'm sorry. I got to say it. High five to Dana on bringing it.

This is the international fight week week, right? July 11th when we expect loaded fight cards multiple title bouts and we're in the middle of a quarantine and like he always complains he's barely keeping the train on the track yet we're getting a freaking fantastic pay-per-view july 11th all things considered three title fights and by the way the other two fights on that main card are hot fire when you consider nama unis andrage too and also page Van Zandt taking a really hard fight against Amanda Hibis. So I love the crap out of that. I love that in a quarantine, Dana is not mailing it in.

Luke, I said from the very beginning, and I wasn't sure about it, I said when we were rightfully criticizing Dana for being so bold and almost reckless in Tai Chi Palace and all that, we've been through that, that there was potential that he comes out of this as a Robin Hood in the end. And Luke, I'm sorry, he is right now. I know there's a fighter pay argument. We're going to get into that again soon.

But he's keeping me employed and busy, you the same. And he's not only outpacing his competitors in boxing and in the team sports, he's putting out really great stuff. So I'm going to say shout out to that if last saturday's card the eye calvillo one was the worst that we'll see this year uh i'm sorry it ain't that bad okay but with that said luke this is an absolute bait and switch on fight island this is an absolute let me you know hype up something that really wasn't there not only is yaz island the same island as Manhattan being an island in New York,

they've already been there a few times on that same property. This is crap. And for Dana in interviews Saturday at the post-fight press conference in Vegas to sort of laugh at the media and be like, oh, well, there's new media covering us now, and they assumed we would have. We assumed that because of you, Dana. they assumed we would have you know we assume that because of you dana we assumed we were gonna have sharks with freaking laser beams and guys

with machine guns on the beach and bruce lee lingering in the ethos because of you go to ufc.com slash merch or whatever their site is there's a lot of fight island merch out there and it's pretty badass and it's all palm trees and islands because of you dana so luke i don't know if this was a they had a different island in mind they tried their best it didn't work out then they just followed the money to abu dhabi and if that's the case look it's it's a freaking quarantine right do what you can to survive but it's actually dana's cryptic nature that kept this illusion going in the end like who cares i wasn't gonna fly to fight island i'm not gonna fly to abu dhabi i'm grateful that this card is a badass as a fan i'm grateful

as a journalist all that but you can't blame any of us for going womp womp i mean this is you know come on you know this is this is pretty lame it's pretty lame luke it's pretty lame it's super it's super lame it's super lame. It's super lame. I mean, there's lots of... I remember years ago when they had like a press conference, and it was a conference call, but it was, you know, UFC teases huge announcement. We're like, wow, what is this going to be? And the announcement was, we've re-signed with Spike.

And we're like, okay, that's it? Like, you're just still going to be on what you've been on? That's the thing? And of course, if you think about it from UFC's perspective, that was a big deal at the time. They probably got more money from Spike at the time, or the deal had probably grown in some kind of way. It was worth, I think, $100 million or more. It was a big deal. But to the average fan, it just didn't feel that way. The thing about Fight Island was, I said this before, BC, you know me, I only cared about getting that Nevada Commission protocol in place because it not only allows UFC to come back,

it allows anybody who can follow that protocol to come back. And of course, we saw top rank, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes. And so that to me was a bigger deal because I'd seen Bodog fight. It's fine for five seconds when they're fighting on a beach. And then you're like, okay, but who's fighting and do I care? That's really what you always come back to in the end. It didn't matter to me. But you're right.

It is a bait and switch. You can still go, as you mentioned, to the UFC store. You can find Fight Island merchandise. You can go to UFCstore.com slash collection slash Fight-Island. They have shirts on there that say Fight Island location unknown. What? It's not Dr. Evil's lair in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. It's fucking Yaz Island. You've been there a few times. What are you talking about? So they clearly and quite literally, BC, quite literally oversold what Fight Island was all about. But to your point,

what are they bringing to the fans there? Which is really what I care about. What kind of fights are they bringing there? If you wanted to, if you really wanted to be a hard ass, you could go through, you should say, well, that should be Masvidal taking on Kamaru Usman, not Gilbert Burns. You could say, why is Aldo in this title fight? You could say, well, Max and Volkanovski, they're the two best featherweights, but shouldn't there be somebody else in the mix you can be a real hard ass about it but the totality of all three together on those cards plus by the way think about this speaking of yas island frankie edgar is going to make his bantamweight debut on this card against pedro munoz the last time he was here he won the title from bj penn talk about a a a

telling of the story of frankie ed Edgar's career between then and now. So there's a lot of things that you could really, really sink your teeth into, from storylines to great fights and everything in between. And then the week after that, by the way, the flyweight title is going to be up for grabs. There's a ton to like there. So from a commercial standpoint, they really got out in front of their skis here. From a quality standpoint, in terms of their skis here from a quality standpoint in terms of what they're giving the fans there's a lot to like and you have to acknowledge it and i

do and i'm not against them taking advantage you know merch wise and patent wise and all that but like dana you can't like then celebrate the fact that we all got fooled right you know it doesn't work that way but just to close luke since you're a uh covid 19 trumpeteer of all things safety we are doing fight island supposedly because international people can't fly to the u.s but isn't like alexander volkov fighting next week in vegas and didn't you know why are we sending u.s based fighters out to fight i don't know if does that really work that way i don't know so for example overeem when he fought in Jacksonville, he flew from Holland. He was in Denver before, but I talked to him that Monday after he had flown back to Holland. So remember, some fighters can come back and forth.

I think the problem is, and a big one is, a lot of the Brazilian fighters can't get here. A lot of, you know, from different places or that place, but they might be able to get as like a meeting in the middle to Abu Dhabi. Now, of course, Gilbert Burns and Kamaru could fight here, but they're trying to stack things over there. So that's my understanding. It's not a total restriction on who could be here, but it's enough that it's a problem in the end. So, so yeah, that's where we're at on that one. Okay. Let's move on here to the third of our topics here. Fighter pay is something that is just not a story that is going away. Even last night, BC, after we had already planned out the show, Jorge Masvidal took back to Twitter,

and I feel like we've discussed this sort of ad nauseum at this point, but it really is something we can't get away from because, BC, it's an issue in all of combat sports. Nay, it's an issue in sports more generally. Think about it this way. In the UFC side of things, we have everything we've discussed, Jon Jones, Henry Cejudo, and again, just even last night, Jorge Masvidal. On the boxing side, it's not so much people complaining about their pay as such. It's more that the model as it stands is insufficient to get the big draws back, at least for right now. And then even in the wider world of sports, BC, look what's happening in American baseball. These athletes there with their union are complaining about some of the offers that the owners are making in terms of what the pay should be for the number of games. And the question is, why is there this common thread of,

let's call it, in our case, in the combat sports world, fighter pay, but in the wider world, the sports world more generally, the sort of athlete pay. BC, I have a theory on this. I want to see what you think about it. Yeah, yeah. Don't just sing it, Luke. Bring it.

Here is my... Don't just sing it, Luke. Bring it. Here is my thought about this. If you look at any industry, entertainment, sports, whatever, the pandemic has accelerated either trends or really revealed big problems that have existed in everyone's business. So you take, for example, AMC movie theaters, right? There was this trend already of people using just Fandango Now and Apple iTunes and TV to just get movies when they came home. There's been a real decline in the use of American theaters. They make most of their money, by the way, from concessions.

Well, now this has turned into an existential crisis because it has exacerbated, the pandemic has exacerbated and exposed the trends. I think the same kind of thing is happening across pay in all sports in the ufc these guys have been wanting to get paid for a really long time they finally have information about it they've been speaking out here or there in general but now with the court information and the ufc's relatively weakened position so to speak they're speaking. On the combat sports side for boxing, right? They're not really complaining about the model per se, except they want money from the gate.

You're not going to get any of these fighters that make money off the gate until there is a gate or until some kind of rich, probably evil person, like a Saudi prince or something, just coughs up a bunch of extra money. And then on the athlete side, dude, the Major League Baseball and their players, they're supposed to have a renewed CBA negotiations next season. This is a foretelling of all the problems that are going to happen

if they can't even get this right. I don't know how we get out of this mess, BC, but that is my thought. The pandemic has accelerated trends and it has exposed problems fractures fault lines in all of the different sports and that's why you're seeing pay concerns everywhere uh it's exposed the fault lines in your own marriage and your you know relationship with your kids and in your business it's put a you know honestly a magnifying glass on everything because never in life do we press pause for this long and sort of take stock of what is in front of us.

But I mean, look, I get it. I get Jorge Masvidal, right? I mean, you know, he's a rider, but still, he's just a simple man. All he wants is money. F the fame. He's a simple man. The money's not there right now. And I thought it was interesting, Luke, from some reporting from uh era hawani of espn that

ufc did go back to the well ahead of the announcement of this 251 card and was like okay jorge you can get what we paid you for the diaz or for the nate diaz fight we'll double the original offer and he still was like no f off this is about principle so this is getting very interesting luke but you teased on something when you made the saudi prince joke when these fights get big fights are about to get made right like anthony joshua last year rematching andy ruiz and we're like man i want that crap back in madison square garden or put it in cowboy stadium in front of a hundred thousand or put it in wembley stadium where it belongs right and then it goes to saudi because they Anthony Joshua $80 million, right? It actually happened. And then we're like, oh, really?

Why is it going there? Luke, we've never needed these folks. And I'm not saying those people, but what I'm saying, these folks, I mean, foreigners. What do you mean, you people? Yeah, foreigners with a lot of money who may or may not be sketchy. And just like there's a lot of headlines coming out of Europe right now with, you know, the head of Tyson Fury's management team, Daniel Kinahan,

or whatever his name is put, you know, being at the forefront of trying to make this Anthony Joshua Tyson Fury series while he's, you know, got some blood money going around. I got a couple of things to say about this overall picture. We have never needed these people more.

And if you're worried about blood money in combat sports, that's, that's in about blood money in combat sports, that's in the veins of all combat sports forever, unfortunately. It is. How do you think people can afford to launch these streaming networks and do things? It's a sketchy industry. It just is what it is. And I never thought I'd be saying this, but part of the reason I'm not mad at UFC going to Abu Dhabi

and tricking us with this Fight Island thing is maybe that's the only way we can get three title fights on a card without a live gate, these exorbitant site fees. And we used to get mad when Bob Arum would take Manny Pacquiao to Macau and these pay-per-views would be on at weird times. But he was getting stupid site fee money to be able to pay for everything. We kind of need that right now, Luke. So if that Nigerian prince is emailing you you i would actually respond back and be like hey man can you you know any chance you can help us out getting these fights to happen because without a live gate that

is the only way it's going to work and i i may be in a spot where i'm just like i don't care where the money comes from yeah but here's the problem where it gets kind of complicated which is all right it's one thing to take somebody's money that's made a bunch of cash in the oil business right i mean as to your point we've all watched and partaken in some kind of way in combat sports that has shown a degree of moral relativism but you go back to abu dhabi you know dana white kept talking about the infrastructure being built now we don't know this to be the case for what is happening on fight island i want to be very clear about this however what we do know is the case on abu dhabi more generally and then specifically in other parts of that world for example with the upcoming 2022 world cup again this is not specific to abu

dhabi in this case but i'm just pointing out they are known uh for uh bringing in immigrants from southeast asia and putting them in absolutely horrific human rights conditions. Many of them are dying on the job to build infrastructure for things that need to be built, whether it's sports or otherwise. Again, I do not know if that's the case here, but if it wasn't, that would have to be like a pivot away from what they normally do. So it's like, where do you draw the line? It's one thing to take somebody's money who's rich and okay, well, whatever. But now we're beginning to get into this territory where, like, how many compromises do we want to make to get the exact same thing?

You talk about taking Saudi money. Saudi money also, remember what the Saudis are doing. They're being involved in essentially the destruction of Yemen and its blockade, which has led to easily, easily the worst humanitarian crisis right now on Earth. Millions, sort of with food insecurity and then hundreds of thousands starving to death. That's not an exaggeration. That's real. So it's like, how important is fights to you?

I mean, in the end, they're going to do what they're going to do if it's legal and if it's above board and they acknowledge it. Okay, well, it's just going to go forward. I just think as fight fans, you should know how the sausage is made and you should acknowledge it outright. I'm okay with taking Saudi money because I don't care about the Yemen blockade. Well, then say it out loud if that's how you feel. And I'm not saying there's an easy answer. I mean, we all have a line, right?

Last thing, last thing. I'm not saying there's an easy answer. I'm just saying you got to be honest with where you're at. I mean, if your boy, Uncle Ramsjan Khazdudan, you know that guy, Verdum's friend, if he was suddenly the bank roller, would you feel a little bit more? I mean, yeah, it is all sketchy,

but hey, did you enjoy the 2008 Olympics in Beijing? Did you enjoy that over-elaborate opening ceremony with the drums? You want to go and read the stories of how they practiced for that and how that whole thing was put together and that stadium was made? You're right, Luke.

All right, blood money's everywhere, okay? Jay's trying to get me off of this okay jay why don't you get off for once all right no it's a fair point it's a fair point you're right we talk about you know all these people are bad actors then we do all this business in china and then we come to find out you know they're horrific human rights abuses there whether they're uighur muslims or whether they're not so you're right we're all all, all of us are guilty, me included, you and certainly the viewers as well. All right. That takes us to the fourth point, BC. I want to pitch this one to you. Top rank is back.

As I mentioned, the one thing I was looking for was to get a major commission to establish some COVID protocol that everybody could follow. Well, UFC might've been the first in Nevada, but top rank was right behind. However, they had two cards on Tuesday and Thursday. We saw Shakur Stevenson back. He demolished somebody that they found for him. I forget the guy's name. And they put another card in on Thursday.

So does he, Luke. Yeah, they put another card in on Thursday. BC, I thought they looked great visually on TV. They left a lot to be desired. Give me the grade for the two first top-ranked events back on ESPN. I mean, the grade's not good. The grade's not good. I don't even know if I want to share it.

It involves a middle fight. No, just kidding. They got three fight cards this week, by the way, all on ESPN. Three this week. I got a larger issue. Look, just like UFC, somebody has to be first, right? So you're always going to criticize how they chose to do it. But we know, and they chose to do it.

But we know, and it's not like it's lost on me being an original boxing guy that, you know, they don't have the UFC's budget. They don't have the UFC's control over the whole sport. You're not going to see on week one of COVID boxing fights, them doing a joint pay-per-view with, you know, PBC. I get all of that. There were some things I didn't love though about this week that was really hard as as a true boxing guy right you know your beggars can't be true no beggars will be choosers here um maybe i've been spoiled by how hard the ufc has worked again a different

financial and matchmaking system but that was not really that watchable those last two cards yeah it was fun watching the um magdaleno main event and him getting punched in the balls 38 times but outside of that it's like great presentation do i need 20 minutes of patting ourselves on the back about covid testing in the bubble and not even mentioning that we wouldn't be here if the ufc didn't you know launch this and take that chance no i didn't love the announcers wearing suits in their living rooms separately, calling the broadcast, whatever, who cares? Presentation was great. Great that they're getting back out. Hopefully, just like UFC starting things out and everyone following,

maybe the other boxing promoters, if they can afford it, will start to do the same thing. But, Luke, there's already an inordinate amount of shitty boxing on national television because that's just how the sport works, right? There's so many separate individual business owners and they get a tv contract and they kind of for the most part keep it in their league but it does nothing to like bang the drums that boxing is back and put it on espn of all places for people to come on and see just awful matchmaking and see you know

that first card was like four hours and there was like four fights and three of them, you know, were done in the first round and you're just stretching it out with propaganda in between. It's just not a great representation of what the sport can do. So I'm not saying don't come back until you're ready to get it right. Okay. Maybe I'm saying that Luke, it just wasn't great. It may, it may, you know, I'm a boxing guy. It wasn't entertained.

I don't really, you know, not pumped up to tune in this week. Um, I'm a boxing guy. I wasn't entertained. I don't really, you know, not pumped up to tune in this week. I love my sport. I want to see everybody come back. But I really, you know, we would have the same exact criticism. And you know this, Luke, right? Just like people criticized the card last week, the UFC fight night. We would have the same exact criticism if UFC came out and just gave us horrifically, awfully matched fights that were, you know, not fun,

that you knew who was going to win and just tried to parade like hey we're back baby enjoy it you know here's the part about it that folks misunderstand when it comes to the criticism of like ufc saturday show on paper look the u modern mma is advanced enough and the ufc has enough control where they can pretty much put on any kind of fight card and the chances are you'll get some decent fights, maybe even some good ones along the way. It's going to be hard for a UFC card to just outright suck. It is possible they do happen, but it's fairly infrequent at this point.

And that Saturday's card is a testament to that. But here's the reality that both UFC and Top Rank have to face to varying degrees, I understand. Which is, the proof's going to be in the pudding. You and I can tell you a card is good or a card is bad. If folks don't know who the fighters are or the fights don't have some kind of connection to, or the fighters themselves don't have some kind of rivalry

or connection or folks don't have a way to get invested, the ratings are going to speak to that. The ratings for Saturday's fights, I guarantee you, they're not going to be very good. And as you heard Dana White talk about the top-ranked cards, the ratings for them were even worse. Granted, they were on a Tuesday and a Thursday as opposed to a Saturday, but the point still stands. We can say what we want about them, but fight fans know. They know what they're in for. They know what they're not in for. They're going to be very selective to that end. The UFC's problems are a little bit

easier to fix. One, because they have more of the best available fighters that are kind of under their control. I don't know how top rank gets out of this BC or really any promoter other than, as we indicated, somebody comes in and just absolutely unloads a wad of cash. But how do you get the in-between fighters? Okay, it's one thing to get your Wilders and your Furies back, and that's huge if you can actually do it at some point in 2020. At least we shouldn't underplay that. That is a big deal if you can get it. But how do you get your Bud Crawfords back? How do you get the guys who are very, very talented and get gate receipts but aren't necessarily the world's biggest draws?

How do you—we'll see how Showtime, for example, plays out, making fights with Gervonta Davis and other folks like that, right? These kind of people who are on the come up, who have a following that people care about, but are they the kind that are going to get Saudi princes to just chuck a bunch of money? It remains to be seen, right? So there's that middle space there. And I don't know how boxing's model is going to account for it. The reality is, and we've talked about it, BC, on the UFC side, the fact that it's not just that a lot of fighters in UFC need the money, although we should not discount that. Haven't you noticed, BC, that there's something inside the MMA fighter's mind that's a little bit different? I've had conversations with folks about this in the combat sports space. A lot of them say it probably comes from the wrestling background

being so ubiquitous inside MMA, which is that MMA fighters, they don't like to succumb to the challenge of outside intervening forces. Oh, your plane was delayed? Find a way. Oh, there's a pandemic? I'm going to compete no matter what. Oh, your opponent fell out last minute? I'll take the change no matter what.

They just have a certain accommodation for difficulty that a lot of other athletes, even inside combat sports, don't. And it really, I think, helps Dana White, keeps the train on the track. Is that a fair assessment, do you think? Or am I off a little bit? No, no, that's fair. They also get paid less on the overall. There's one specific promoter that's way above everybody else.

So there's a major league and minor league in some way although obviously bellator does very high level cards and and there are you know between one and pf i mean look there's more competitors than there's ever been but in some ways it's still like if i get cut from the ufc that may be the end in some ways for me so it's different i'm just a little bit like what can we do we can do better matchmaking than we saw even in-house promotion. Now, look, I don't know the financial numbers, so I'm kind of speaking out of turn in a way. But, you know, you said in the boxing financial, what's the solution?

Unfortunately, the solution may be something that you can't do, which is taking fights that would normally be on TV and putting them on pay-per-view. They might not be A-side versus A-side, but, you know, it may be close enough. But the problem is when you get somebody like a top rank who has an espn deal somewhat similar to the ufcs where you have to meet a certain amount of dates right then you're kind of challenged to put together a certain amount of sub-average cards and it's it's not great and no without a crazy site foreign site fee we're not going to get great fights right now unless it goes straight to pay-per-view and they believe that they can get the money i'm just saying that like boxing is unlike any other sport meaning where you know if it's game one of the world series they don't pause at the seventh

inning stretch to bring on some rookie leaguers or you know or single a guys and in boxing we do that all the time right we advertise that this great fight's gonna happen but first you much watch these three minor league fights um normally that doesn't stick out as much when the sporting world is going on as a whole because you can tune back into boxing when you know the main event's going to happen if you're not into the whole broadcast but now when you're propping these up as the only game in town it is even a worse time to put this forth as oh this is the best boxing has to offer give me a break that's what makes it hard all right we go on now to our fifth and final topic. You know, people can complain about Saturday's card, at least on paper.

Again, we know it over-delivered relative to expectations. But I got to tell you, I got high expectations for this upcoming Saturday card, BC. There are a ton of good fights on there. Shout-outs to Josh Emmett versus Shane Burgos, by the way, which should just be an absolute firecracker. But you can go up and down that card. I mean, there are a ton of good fights. The main event to me is really interesting. Curtis Blades is going to take on Alexander Volkov, BC. And I got to tell you, I was thinking about this. We'll pitch it to you here again one more time. What would you say are the stakes? Because here's the context. I think Blades is ranked third in the heavyweight division. The two ahead would be Cormier and Francis. And then you've got Volkov, I think, sitting just outside the top five

around seven. So you think to yourself, okay, if Volkov wins, he'll probably jump into the top five, some fresh blood, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah but what if blades wins where where does he go so break this down for me what does the winner really get here i mean you get some you know for future placement higher up the heavyweight rankings but it's a couple problems here one there's you know like a bit of a log jam we're gonna get dc steepy three steep a august 15th which by the way i'm fired the hell up that we're getting this during the quarantine too hell yeah um and by the way dana teased luke i know you're gonna be angry at this but he teased maybe we'll get a full arena by then i don't know if the covet numbers will back that up but you got that you got francis and gano waiting in the on deck circle we got the unknown element

of john jones moving up so the winner is not going to necessarily get anything outside of if you're Volkov, you better be careful you don't get a stay busy against Ngannou by winning this fight. Although obviously he's a competitor, he would want that. It's just a good main event between, you know, top five-ish guys, Luke. I'm not going to oversell it. Here's the thing. I actually like Curtis Blade's chances to win. It's a shame that he lost the rematch with Francis over in China however long ago. Because honestly, I think he'd be a really tough fight for Stipe.

People might laugh at that and tell me I'm crazy. I'm not saying he'd win. But again, would he be a tough fight? I think that he would. Against Cormier, it's a little bit harder to say. But Cormier's got one more against Stipe, and then he's out anyway. So it's not even really a relevant concern. The problem is if Blades wins, he just literally keeps exactly the same spot.

But what is he supposed to do? Just not take fights? He's got bills to pay. He's got a legacy to build. He's got a name that he is trying to grow here against as many opposition contemporaries as he can. And he wants to headline cards. These are all things that he wants to do. He's just in a really, really tough position to get a third fight with Francis, especially before Francis if when he gets a title. So it's a rough spot for him. But I like the fight. I like the matchup.

I like the test for both guys. I tend to favor Blades to win. But Volkov has dramatically improved since his days over in Bellator. This is a great fight. And I mentioned BC down the card. This is so much better than last weekend's card on paper. Listen to this. As I mentioned, Josh Emmett taking on Shane Burgos. This is your co-main event. Oh my God, it's so good. Raquel Pennington, Marion Reneau, Lyman Good versus Bilal Muhammad, Jim Miller against Roosevelt Roberts, who's back in action.

How about this on the prelim card, BC? Clay Guida, Bobby Green, Tisha Torres, Brianna Van Buren, Marc-Andre Berial versus Oscar Pajota. Okay, I can skip that one. Courtney Casey taking on Jillian Robertson. Frank Camacho against Matt Frivola. Roxanne Modafferi against Lauren Murphy. And then Austin Hubbard against late replacement Max Roscoff. I mean, this is a great, great card on Saturday on Saturday will it deliver I guess in the end we'll see but you know compare that to the top rank cards I'm not even sure I can name three fights that are happening on top rank this week I mean that's the thing I like about like you know you mentioned that Mata Furry fight that's buried on the early prelims yet that's kind of like a

top five contenders fight in that flyweight division and as much as you loved or didn't like on paper what calvillo i could have given you i mean that's basically to could you know to create a number one or two contender in that division as well so at least the fights have meaning and we're getting them a lot of people i want to see on this card would you think the winner of this fight would either get uh over him or derrick lewis which one would you prefer oh okay if it's volkov if it's volkov i'd want to see do you want to see the Volkov, if it's Volkov, I'd want to see... Do you want to see the Lewis rematch?

I'm not sure I do want to see the Lewis rematch because he kind of won in that Hail Mary. I guess maybe I would. If it's Blades, I wouldn't need to see the Overeem fight again. The Derek Lewis fight at that point. I guess Derek Lewis sort of bust at this point. I'm not sure where exactly Overeem goes from here, but of course, obviously he's a top contender as well.

What about you? Give me any of them. We're in a really good spot in the heavyweight, not just the higher-end stuff that I mentioned. I mean, there are times when you've got too many Czech Congos and Roy Nelsons in your heavyweight division, and we've been there before. Now is a good time.

So I kind of like where these fights are going. All right, well, with that in mind, those are our top five topics with plenty of show to go now let's get to the portion of the show where you ask us questions we always put an instagram post up uh at morning combat on instagram the day before people fill it up so without further ado let's go now to dms from donks thanks Jay good job on that Jay was busy texting us or chatting with us live on the show

to let us know that Lyman Good was also one of his senseis along with Uriah Hall I wonder if he hit a spinning back kick on Lyman Good though so you are a Tiger Schulmanman guy, Jay? Is that it? Sounds like it. All right, here we go. Let's get to these first questions that Jay messed up. All right. First BC from No Limit Cunningham. Do you think Gilbert Burns' sudden rise to a

title shot will encourage fighters in the future to stay active often and or take lots of fights on short notice? What do you think, BC? Yeah, I mean, I don't think this is a new theory, right? How do you become, I'm not calling Gilbert Burns a company man, but how do you become a man who the company likes to reward, right? You'd be willing to take on any challenge possible. You'd be willing to take on fights on short notice, and you'd be willing just to keep taking on taking on and that's what this guy has

done and obviously there's something to the idea of staying busy and and improving yourself in that regard we've seen you know angela hill turn around her entire career with that uh so there yeah you know this is opportunity i mean look leon edwards, Leon Edwards got the cold, hard shank hair. You know, maybe some of it travel-related or not, but Gilbert Burns was hot, he was available, and that's kind of what you need to be, Luke, and the phone will ring. I'll say this.

Listen, what's one of the most important traits you can have as a fighter to get the UFC's favor? It's your willingness to say yes yes to flying overseas yes to this particular matchup yes to being ready yes to whatever they say the door knocks and the door will knock often and early if you let it particularly in this moment where you're seeing lots of fighters recycled over time Roosevelt Roberts Ian Heinisch now there's a challenge to that because we saw over the weekend we mentioned maria agapova or agapova running through hannah cyphers she had two submission losses back to back in a span of weeks one to mckenzie dern here one to agapova so it doesn't mean that every fighter who just takes fights all the time is doing themselves a

favor but if i've heard one consistent complaint from fighters over time not in the pandemic pre pandemic Cerrone notwithstanding is that they wanted more opportunities they wanted to compete more they didn't want to fight twice a year three or maybe four times a year was really what they were looking for more if they could squeeze it in because when they're on the regional scene that's what they're doing you go look at people's records when they're coming up on the fighter circuit from LFA to CFFC they're competing five six, six times a year, very routinely. It's not uncommon at all. So they want to keep up, maybe not that level of consistency, but something not to where they're competing one or two times a year. So yes, Gilbert Burns absolutely took

advantage of the pandemic where that was supposed to be a Leon Edwards's opportunity. He came in there and beat Tyron Woodley and then said yes when another guy in Jorge Masvidal said no. So it won't benefit everyone all the time, but it will do a lot of favors for yourself, no doubt about it. Yeah, I think Tupac said it best about this. In and out, just like a robbery, I'll probably be a freak and let you get on top of me. UFC will do the same if you're willing. All right, this comes to us from JustMaze1ize one just maize how can fighters still pull off the towel trick at weigh-ins and the commission remain clueless and for folks who may not know bc he's of course referencing jessica i who apparently whose coach had texted uh cynthia saying uh hey jessica's gonna be three pounds over then you get over there and she's only a

quarter pound in the hoop your hands are supposed to be up it's supposed to be three pounds over. Then you get over there and she's only a quarter pound. In the hoop, your hands are supposed to be up. It's supposed to be manos arriba time. And instead, what happened was she may have been, the rumor, BC, the theory, is that she was grabbing onto the hoop to hold it so she could not be as heavy. What do you think? I mean, in this case, it didn't matter as much.

She still missed weight and couldn't fix that and had to pay. But I don't know if I actually saw as much evidence in this case as, you know, the awful Daniel Cormier-Buffalo situation ahead of the Rumble rematch. It is an old dirty trick. I'd like to avoid that altogether. Whatever. Whatever. I mean, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. If she had won, I would have cared. Listen, she took the fight on two and a half weeks notice. I'm going to be honest, BC in the middle of a pandemic, I'm going to be a little bit more lenient on fighters missing weight. Now I'm less lenient on Roberson, Roberson, because he had two chances for the exact same fight and he still was off even with the one-pound allowance

by almost four other pounds. So that, to me, I'm not going to forgive, but he lost. And so did Jessica Ai. It's like they lost, so they don't get half their purse. Then they have to get the fine on top of it, which I think in certain states goes to the fighter. So justice was served, if you ask me. Luke, I feel bad. i love jess guy but

she just can't seem to get it right you know well she well remember she got a title shot off three consecutive split decision wins which i don't think i've ever seen before but she got it so you know listen she took the fine two and a half weeks notice bro i'm not going to beat her up too bad i'm just not yeah uh all right from the drunken swan what's more weird bc eating bone in wings with silverware or eating boneless wings with your bare hands oh well first of all always shout out to the drunken swan one of our best have you seen this shit providers but uh it's i mean if you eat silverware with bone and like what is wrong with you that's the point the bone is the handle look it's I mean, if you eat silverware with bone and like what is wrong with you? That's the point. The bone is the handle. Look, it's not pretty. Right. Like combat sports. You can't lipstick up that pig. It's cage fighting, brother. Eat in wings with your hands and holding the damn bone. It's as carnivoric as you can get.

I'm glad that it's still a practice in polite society in 2020. But how dare you? Right. how dare you attempt to put a fork and knife i'm fine with boneless with bare hands i'm look i'm fine look these are hand foods okay i'm not ready to outlaw that i know like even when we go out to eat the wife sometimes it's like hey kids since we're out i know normally you'd eat that with your hands but since we're out can you use the fork i don't know you know whatever i think if you eat, you couldn't look more out of touch eating a bone-in wing with silverware if you tried. You're not exactly going to look like you belong at finishing school if you eat boneless wings with your hands. But can you imagine?

Who would eat a bone-in wing with silverware? Who would eat pizza with silverware? You've seen people do this. There must be communists. Who would eat pizza with silverware you've seen people do this there must be communists who would eat pizza with it's not communist it's out of touch rich folks that's who it would be that's the answer you want to talk about an out of touch rich folk you're gonna love this i have it on authority from two people that vince mcmahon the great wwe crazy man eats his steak well done and dips it in mustard do these people not understand the reason why you have to put mustard or barbecue or ketchup

or whatever it is, a wine that you put on your well-done steak, is because when you cook it well done, you cook out all the flavor, and that's why you're putting it back on top because there is none. Do they not understand this, BC? I don't understand why that's so hard about this. I also do want to say there are times for things. So the whole idea of boneless wings or i'm sorry the whole idea of wings in general it's like i said it's a messy concept don't do it on a date don't do it at like a corporate luncheon you know like there's there's times you want to avoid that altogether look

i was going to say this bc the only real acceptable way to have utensils and eat with your hands at the same time crab crab eating you get the you get the newspaper on the on the table you get a little bit of fork to like maybe crack open a little bit of the crab maybe the pinchers to pull out the meat but you still got to eat with your hands you got to dip it in the butter it's a whole mess that to me is when you can you can cross into both realms and it's okay i don't mess with crabs lobsters you know no you're not a shellfish not a shell uh you know crustacean kind of guy no no no no really crust keep all the crustaceans away from me you know i'll eat a white fish right you know but uh this is interesting you you don't eat lobster or crab no No. Well, I mean, I'll eat a crab cake, I guess.

Yeah, I'm not against crab. But I went to a wedding in Maine last summer and, you know, it was on the ocean and we ate, you know, the top shelf lobster. It's not, I don't like it. I mean, it's like, here's the deal. For me to like it, I got to eat a stick of butter with it. And it's like, well, I can go eat a stick of butter right now. You know, I mean, I could get, you know. I could stick my head down a steer's ass,

but I'd rather take the butcher's word. No, actually, it's your bowl. Boy, you tortured this one to death. Wow. It's your bowl, yeah. All right, this comes to us from our favorite here, TyloriansBC. Who's your favorite 90s porn star, female and male?

Oh, wow. Well, Luke, it's a loaded question to say male. I mean, let's not act like it. You know, come on. Luke, that's a loaded-ass question. You want it? Can you? I mean, come on.

It's the year of our Lord 2020. I'm just saying that's a loaded question. Okay? You want me to say Rocco? Is that what you want? Hell, Rocco Cifredi, boy. Yeah, I mean, I've seen police abuse videos that were less violent than some of his porn. You want me to say Rocco? Is that what you want? Hell, Rocco Sofretti, boy. Yeah, I mean, I've seen police abuse videos that were less violent than some of his porn.

I'm like, Rocco, she is peacefully protesting. Why are you doing that? You don't need to be hitting her with your nightstick. Oh, wait, it's not a nightstick. The answer to the other half of that is the goat, Chasey Lane. Thank you. Oh, well, the answer on the female side is sylvia saint and that is just you know i don't know how you could possibly compete with that the thing she could hide in her various orify is truly legendary can you keep this clean please there's uh for male you're right you're for male

you're right so freddie is probably the top of the list how about an honorable mention to the man who has tried to drown people, if you know what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Peter North, late model in the 90s, was still top shelf. I was a big Janine fan. Oh, I forgot about Janine. Wasn't she in that Blink-182 video for a time?

Yes. The album cover, yes, with the glove. Yeah. She was in the video too i think very briefly yes um have you seen how she turned out they they i i try not to see how any of them turn out because it's not money you know when the lights go up at the end of the night inside the club luke and you you see who you've been dancing with that's yeah that's where yeah not money uh all right last but not least son Sony Brown breakdown.

In the post-apocalyptic movie Idiocracy, citizens spend their time watching a TV show called Ow My Balls. Given the current state of the world, could that be the future of Have You Seen This Shit? I'm not woke to Ow My Balls. Do you know what's going on here, Luke? Wasn't Idiocracy made by the South Park Fellows, Trey Parker and Matt Stone? Am I wrong about that?

Because I read books. No, I think it was. Idiocracy, who made it? Oh, no, it was Mike Judge. Excuse me, Mike Judge. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. The esteemed Mike Judge, yes.

Yes, so the guy, I just finished watching Silicon Valley, by the way. He made that one. What do you think, BC? This is your brainchild. Is it on par with Owl My Balls? You know, I haven't seen Owl My Balls, Luke. So this is, you know. But I'm guessing the premise is not difficult to figure out, BC.

It's probably something on the order of. Well, look, too much of anything is not a good thing. So what I love about Have You Seen This Shit is we have a variety, Luke. We don't stay stuck in the dick trade because when you do, Luke, right, if it was all hit to the groins, it not only becomes tiresome, it gets gross after a while. Right. Like, you know what? The majority of people send me now. They're not sending me phallic anymore. They're sending me like protest fights.

And I'm sorry, I'm not going to celebrate on H.Y.T.S.T.S. You know, like a white guy and a black guy fighting on the streets in a protest like that's not my you know that's not fun and games to me so you can go too far in any direction luke well you're tired of the black guys winning or something is that a racial comment i mean i mean first of all how dare you luke okay all right i mean i think we know who probably wins most of those. All right. Jay, we got it. Jay, I'll just, I mean, it just broke. It's just live, Jay. That's fine, though.

Just plug it back in. What are you doing? Oh, the whole thing just broke? The whole thing broke. The laptop fell over. I mean, this is, yeah. What were you doing to make it break? Yeah.

Just hold the microphone up to your i mean your computer's all in the way just hold the microphone up to your face you're fine we're live guys okay yes just hold it to your face you still sound fine all right bc without further ado it's your turn to steer the ship my friend oh not right now as my world is falling apart here this is you can do it you can do it all right play the intro so here's what we do here we scour the globe for the good and bad what'd you say jay get going you sound fine go yeah say say to my face jay all right we we power the globe you know the good the bad the ugly the in-between in combat sports it is have you seen this isish. So here's where we're going to start this week.

Somebody getting sent to hell in real fighting, Luke. Let's do it. Load it up. It's Bama USA from 2015. Check out this hellbow murder, Luke. Have you seen this-ish? Wow. Oh.

God, do you see the way that guy's leg broke and snapped back? God. He had the back for a minute, too, and then it was up on a single. Hand not doing anything. Oh, he's underhooking. Oh, God. Oh, God. That is vicious.

I don't think we should celebrate that, actually. Let's move on. Hey, WGP Kickboxing. Look at this. Stairway to Heaven. Step up KO. Might be Stairway to Hell. Watch this, Luke. Oh, God. Look at this. Stairway to Heaven. Step up KO. Might be Stairway to Hell. Watch this, Luke.

Oh, God. That is... Wow. Oh, my God. Wow. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's a great celebration right there, right? Wow. The guy was just sitting there waiting on it.

Double switch knee. oh double double switch knee oh it was just a switch knee yes i think ben askren just rolled over in his grave wow all right hey we're gonna go to russia here this is called gromda fight club it's uh skinhead guys going uh bare knuckle on your hair watch the fall on this ko this is brutality 101 luke i love it oh face first that's when you know they're done boy these guys look like this is definitely usada approved huh they should have had a casket match have it open have them fall right into it and just close it luke undertaker where was this uh i'm guessing russia I mean, it could have been Poland. I got to look it up.

What's Gromda Fight Club? Gromda Fight Club. I don't know, but it looks like my new favorite promotion. Yeah, we may have to get into that. We may have to get into that. All right. Hey, we're going to go from Gromda to Walmart. Caught on camera, Luke.

Are you down with this tattooed lady and her choice of... Sometimes you just need a shot of love or a shot of mayo luke what is going on here i mean i do that luke i buy a bag of chips i open them before i even get to the car i've eaten a whole bag of chips on the drive home from grocery shopping but i'm trying i'm trying not to yak yeah i don't take shots of ranch dressing here i mean you know oh my god well you know, but to each their own. Well, you know what? It seems very out of character. She seems like she's in such good shape.

No, I mean, don't fat shame her, Luke. Come on. I mean, seriously. What are we doing here, right? Wow. Okay. Hey, we're going to move on here. Is this from people at Walmart?

What is this? Speaking of Walmart, check out this mullet guy. Look, everybody's trying to beat the twist top challenge, whatever you want to call it check out this guy using the party in the back so he can celebrate the business rubbin's racing luke yes all right this man is officially the the mascot of of mk look at this look at this is americana right there in turn four look at this guy yeah wow he looks like beautiful bobby eaton remember from pro wrestling in the 80s luke back when you had a soul no all right hey let's go to the hardwood let's do some ankle breaking check out this white dude just getting sent to hell get out the way yo

get out the way yo the white kid just got dropped. Oh, no. He was killing everybody there. I know. The problem is you've got to make the shot after that, right? You've got to get on the guy's air ball. Come on. He kills the white guy, kills the black guy. Oh, wow. How did he not take the shot there?

Who was defending him? I know. Hot Sauce would have shot that, right? Oh, man. That's a great crossover does it twice come on does it twice you gotta see michael jordan would have taken that shot i was gonna he's gotta dunk that luke you gotta you gotta dunk that thing right dude that is such a missed opportunity for coolness hey let's take ankle breaking into the lunchroom luke

oh stop it jay stop jay's all right here we go in the lunchroom check out this cross oh oh god take take a drink take a drink cool off here this is this is this is my entire and there is he air balling it like around the waist i don't know i i don't know what's happening. Yes, look. He like feigns like it's going between his legs and then around like that. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, this is my entire. I moved around a lot as a kid, so I was constantly the new kid. And so this is basically my entire schooling life here,

trying to make new friends right here. Oh, look, nice try. Nice try, buddy. Luke, what is the grandpa equivalent of abuela in Spanish? Abuelo. All right, somebody get abuelo out of the paint. When you reach a certain age, Luke, you can't hoop anymore, okay? You can't do it anymore.

Jake, can you fast forward to the next slide? Check out this guy. He's just getting teabagged into the deep, dark depths. Somebody scoop abuelo off the canvas there. Wow. Got to get a spatula for that one you know back in his day luke he could ball like you know what i'm saying back in it back in the aba he could ball but not anymore oh wow yeah he was he was used to playing when it was only white guys on the court he was dunking on on them. How the times have changed.

Hey, let's roll on. Look, you fat shamed that lady earlier, but fat people can do incredible things. Watch this and watch the people on the side just get him fired the heck. Oh, yeah, Luke. Yes. I mean, he'll never have children. I can't do that.

He'll never walk again or have children, but that's impressive, Luke. Wow. And they were sized. Is this some kind of CrossFit gym? I don't think he's a member, but this is very impressive, Luke. You know what? Old Biggins there, he's got some moves.

I'm not going to lie. Do you see Chub Rock's face at the end? Is that celebration or pain? Yeah, look at him. He like nods his head like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Look at that guy. He's like, I got to gonna lie. Do you see chub rocks face at the end? Is that celebration or pain? Yeah, look at him He like me like nods his head like yeah Yeah, yeah that look that guy's like I got a call 9-1-1. Well, you know what? He probably has to do this to pee All right, we got shut down after that Hey, let's roll on here your selfie of the what your hots your hot chick selfie of the week gone wrong Luke

Look at Karen hair with a glass of wine. She's trying to get the right poke. Oh, my God. Got a little on you there. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I did this one time. I got home one time, and I was drunk as a skunk, and I'm like, I'm going to have one more.

And I sat on the couch, and I put it here on my chest, and I remember I had fallen asleep, and I tried to catch it and I woke up and I just basically wore the entire thing. She did it. Her excuse is, I don't know, but mine, I was drunk. Yeah, I've seen movies where they had scenes like this, but it wasn't wine, Luke. Alright, let's roll on here. Luke, let's go to the gym.

You love gym videos, okay? Check out the, Luke, tell me, is this a viable way to work your triceps? It'd be your, this is a hammer curl. So that would be your brachialis and then your forearm. Is that T on T there, Luke? That's a little bit of T on T. I don't know if I'm into that.

The rock in the background. Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah, brother. All right. Of course, it's Russia, though. Yeah, this is about the worst way possible to do hammer curls. Could you curl me that way, Luke? You're a power lifter.

No, no. You'd be a little too heavy. This gentleman to our left here is a small fry. He's cut up from the butt up. I would wear a protective boxing cup as well, Luke. I don't want any kind of contact right now. I would have to wear it. No, if we did this, I'd have to wear that shield they give you when you go to the dentist

before you get into the x-ray machine i don't want to get anywhere near you look what's spanish for dog perro perro check out this perro take a bite out of crime i don't know if it's taco tuesday luke but check this thing out coming up right here wow Oh, that dog is the best. Yes, yes. See, I like when people are posting very selfies that are very vain, that are very look at me, I drink wine on a nice couch, I'm in shape, I got abs, look at me, and then the dog is just having none of it.

I'm scared to make the comment that I want to make for fear of cancellation, but I want you to know I'm thinking about that comment. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jay, don't throw to the next one yet. I got a little intro here. It is graduation season, Luke. Luke, in your yearbook, did you have a senior quote? I don't think so, but I can can't remember but i know what you're talking about so why do you bring it up well i wasn't allowed to class of 96 noggatuck high school because you remember that 1995 greenwich high debacle when all those white kids did like the two or three letters as their senior quote and you put it all together and it was something

hugely racist my high school was like no we can't can't do that. So what I missed out on doing ultimately was probably some shitty Beatles lyric or like, you know, some Led Zeppelin thing or something lame, right? It would have been lame in hindsight. But some people really put some time and energy. Luke, would yours have been some Winston Churchill quote about, you know, overcoming and war? What is it good for? Yeah, something stupid that I barely understood

but thought sounded smart. Yes, probably. All right, let's go around the horn and see what the kids are doing nowadays. Check out Connor Hart here to kick off. Happy graduation to him, Luke. Waking up is the second hardest thing in the morning. Yeah, it's going to be fun showing that to your kids.

Yeah, I wonder what the first is all right let's move on here i believe this is an older one probably from the 50s luke uh sebastian martin checking in with uh you have a lovely voice i'd love to hear it coming from my basement that's photoshopped yeah that's fake i mean put the lotion in the basket indeed it's fake uh let's go let's move on here what you got here what else you got jay anytime jay yeah i mean it's a live show the microphone fell apart but that's fine um oh apparently the the s is silent luke i know what you wanted to say right there right but shout out to perique shit just the same right great guy great guy let's roll and we want to recognize all different cultures on have you seen the shit this week luke you know i'm not sure you've seen that one luke

she played that one well well done some people put poetry but below their name shout out to uh nick jenkins here on the next one can you hit the button jay thank you uh roses are red violets are blue i'm black you know i mean say it loud and proud loud and proud i'm in on that all right hey let's go to max crankshawe he may he may have won this luke you want to read this one i like my coffee like i like my women I don't like coffee. All right, Max. Is Max... Oh, I see. Max is...

Max has a lot of pride, is what you're saying. I did follow up. He is a real person. And he does, in his Instagram bio, it says, I happen to drink coffee now. I'm not kidding. I'm 100%. Really? That's funny. Shout out to Max right there.

That is fun. Alright, we're going to close. I think this is the winner. Shout out to Dustin Katz. I mean, we've all thought about this, right, Luke? Two in the pink and one in the stink. Life is an adventure. Explore?

Yep. I think that's called the turkey, Luke. Dustin is not a smart man. Dustin has probably had a couple of DUIs in his life. I would, yeah. I mean, you can't look at somebody and say he choked a bitch, but you might want to in this case. Shout out to Dustin there, Luke.

You know, all right. Great. Hey, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose in this show. Luke, have you know, you might want to in this case. Shout out to Dustin there, Luke. You know, all right. They're great. Hey, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose in this show. Luke, have you seen all that shit? I have seen all of that shit, BC. Okay, my good friend. By the way, I looked up Grom to Fight Club. It looks like it's Polish.

It looks like it's Polish. Okay, with that in mind, we're now doing odds and ends, BC. Odds and ends. What do you got for us? Why don't you go first while i put the studio back together all right all right i will go first you had mentioned it earlier dana white was said that he had not given an announcement for an example for the august and then it was reported these september fights so that would be uh steepay and dc3 and then justin and khabib

he had not given a venue for now he said of he said, of course, if we have to, we can just give it, obviously, for the Apex. But he was going to have a wait-and-see approach on whether or not we could have fans. Now, depending on where he wants to put it, that is not as crazy as it might sound. There are countries that did not have a tremendous outbreak that appear to be now on the other side of things. So, for example, New Zealand hasn't had a positive COVID case in over three weeks. They appear to be, for now anyway, on the other side of it. If you wanted to go there, you could do that. But if you wanted to have it for a pay-per-view,

chances are they're going to have it in North American territory. Again, chances are. And if that's the case, I... Listen, nobody knows exactly where we're going to be next month or August or the fall or the winter or for, you know, we just, no one really actually knows. We just have our best guesses. But from South Carolina all the way to Texas and all the way to California, most of those states I just mentioned, including Florida, Texas, California, have had peak number of positive COVID

cases. Is it related to the reopening? Is it related to anything else? Again, these are all very debatable. Are they going to get worse than they are right now? I don't know. I'm just going to say, if you want to have fans, you got to go to a place that's already beat it, not a place that did not do a great job of addressing it,

which is this place. So that's my thought, BC. What about you? We heard this front page news last week, boxing, Eddie Hearn coming out. We've created a two-fight deal, Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua. A deal has been agreed.

We've agreed on the financials. It's bullshit, Luke. And it was irresponsibly spoken and produced and, sorry, reported on and headlines were made. And here's the deal. They may have gotten together and Tyson Fury in an Instagram video praised this controversial fella, Daniel Kinahan of MTK Global, his manager for, you know, being on the center of these negotiations. But this is basically like saying hey you know what would be a great nba finals right how about uh the lakers against uh the sixers but only if they both make it there and if they do we got it we got a deal for a seven fight seven game series it's going to be

fantastic um i'm sorry both have two mandatory opponents they need to face first Fury's got to fight Wilder again of all people and Dillian White and you know Joshua's got Kubrat Pulev and uh Alexander Usyk so not only are we looking at time we are looking at the potential of having to pay off which gets expensive for people to step aside and you got to win, you know, probably at least one, if not both of those to come out and say, summer 21, two fight series, 50, 50 split, like save me, spare me that. Okay. So then why, so then why did they do it? Um, couple of different things, attention. Um, you know, I'm sure it's boxing. So I'm sure there's some underlying pressure sinister element to it i'm i'm certainly not against obviously this fight happening it's the biggest heavyweight fight you can make it's one of the biggest in the whole sport it's the biggest in in british

history it's the potential of all four titles on the line and have an undisputed champion but like we are so far away from it even happen it's not like what we did in the fury wilder rematch where we were like okay well there's got to be ortiz first but if that happens we're good we're going to get this everything signed there's a lot that has to happen so it just seems very irresponsible for her and company to come out and flaunt and promote that when um you're you would do this fight because you have the potential of all four belts at stake there's no i mean we saw anthony joshua get knocked out there's you know we've seen tyson fury just disappear like to come out and announce that

as something that's rock solid is just ridiculous well uh leave it to boxing to do something ridiculous hey bc have you paid attention to any of this stuff related to the NBA and then college athletes? Here's what I mean. So some of these student athletes at these major universities for football are reporting to voluntary practice. I mean, you can ask whether it's voluntary or not, but they are. And I think, I forget what school it was.

It was a major D1 program that had six tests positive for COVID overnight. So they had to kind of like halt it for just a moment. And then on the other side, it wasn't so much a COVID concern, but you have like Kyrie Irving, our Showtime's own Steven Jackson saying, you know, there shouldn't be a season. How much sports are there going to be in the fall? For different reasons, all kinds of different things. On the COVID side, are they just going to roll through it?

Because they're making those student athletes sign those waivers, not dissimilar from what the UFC made people sign in Jacksonville. Like if you get it, it's on you kind of a thing. It's not the situation for the NBA, but like now they're saying, do we really want to do this? I got to tell you, I'm, and then baseball, we talked about earlier, they can't seem to work out a deal. I got to tell you, I don't know how many sports are going to be there in the fall.

I don't mean to be a doom is coming Luke Thomas type guy, but the whole idea of a second wave of COVID this fall, late fall during a flu season and the idea of everything that we've done successfully to reopen could get slammed shut and closed again. Yes, I want to win my bet of full arenas by February of 2021. And I certainly think it's possible. I don't know. And it's interesting here. It's something that you and I said when we's possible I don't know and it's interesting here it's something that you and I said when we originally talked about fighter pay the whole

idea of like what's right is for these guys to get paid well but there's potential that for that to happen you could see a lockout you could see you know fighters holding out you could see poor matchmaking in order to make this happen things that we don't want to see it kind of sucks that because of ufc's structure it's actually the best way for fans to see this stuff where we're seeing baseball you know it's so unionized and so uh set up to let the players have a voice that you know things can get in the way seasons can get canceled so um i don't know i don't know luke i don't know what's going to happen this fall i mean i kind of assumed from the beginning to be honest that fights would

continue to go on because fight people that fight are are you know sort of naturally reckless to begin with and it seems like you know when you don't have the the giant players associations you don't have this hold up but uh it's interesting because you know tying into the to the whole thing about unions and stuff we saw dana white on that first take interview where he was really challenged what was the name of the ex-nfl player who was uh dominique foxworth who did a great job in being honest and saying look i don't have all the details maybe this is a debate i can't win but you know why are you kind of dismissive and here's the thing about dana like say what you

will about the fighters rights and the whole idea of a potential, uh, fighters association. He doesn't, he rarely ever addressed as the actual topic. You bring up the, the disparity over fighter pair, the, you know, the anger of the fighters. And it's always sort of like, well, these guys got an eight fight deal. What do you want me to do? It's always deflect, deflect, deflect. It was good to see him in this one spot challenge but luke you heard his answer about you know fighter union well that's on them and good luck to them and you know there's a certain element to that but also um we are lucky in a in a sort of interesting way that we don't have that so these fights can go on ufc may still be the only game in town come august or, Luke. You just don't know. I got to tell you, when they made that deal for the NBA to go over to Disney World,

I was like, all right, well, there's going to be basketball. It'll be short-lived, but there'll be basketball. I don't know. And I don't know what the hell college sports are going to do. I'm guessing some of them will happen. Maybe all of them will happen. Again, I'm not making a declaration. It's just, I don't it's the good news about ufc and combat sports and boxing is it's it's strangely simpler and so because it's simpler it's just it's just much more ready-made for our current era when you have teams and student athletes and unions and everything else jesus it's gonna to be a show come the fall. Yeah, I don't know.

It's something to pay attention to, though, because the UFC might be the only game in town for a while, by the way. Alright, with that in mind, let's remind everyone, you can go to the, I think it's store.show.com. We got the merch. Sadly, I guess for some of you, it has our name on it, but

maybe you can get past that and purchase some. We would be grateful if you did. Of course, if you'd like to try Showtime, you certainly may do that as well. Free trial for 30 days. You can go to showtime.com to set all that up. And don't forget Thursday's Morning Combat Strikeforce Classics. Me, BC,

Scott Coker, and Mauro Ranallo and the fights that make Strikeforce what it was. So, that's a lot of fun and don't forget you can follow all of us on social media me and BC we've got Twitter we've got Insta and for Morning Combat we've got Insta and then YouTube

and BC they gotta give a thumbs up they gotta subscribe they gotta hit that notification bell I mean please you know what I mean it's like remember when I used to let you sleep on the couch beg your bitch to let me sleep in the house i mean come on can you guys support us in that way i shout out to everybody who's bought merch we really appreciate it but you know it's free supporting us by subscribing so please can carry on with that hey luke real quick uh you know we were conditioned now to to watch really interesting documentaries on sunday nights

from jordan to lance the undertaker thing had been going on. It's been pretty good. You see this McGuire Sosa crap. Why does Sammy Sosa look like he's a wax figure in a museum? Bro, I was saying this before. It's like he didn't just bleach his skin, which, by the way, to Jeremy Schaap, he did not deny. He acknowledged he had.

And then he asked him why, and his answer was, well, this was a previous interview, not the one from last night. And he had said, eh, it makes me happy. Okay, fair happy okay fair enough i mean that's his right no doubt about it but it didn't just like change his skin tone it like changed his skin he didn't he didn't look right and the documentary kind of sucked because they didn't get to the most interesting part about steroids till later and then they tried to bury bonds at the end and it it just didn't work to the most interesting part about steroids until later. And then they tried to bury Bonds at the end. And it just didn't work for me. It's like, dude, I remember I was a freshman.

I was in boot camp when all that was happening, BC. I went to boot camp on June 9th, and I graduated August 28th of 1998. That's summer. And I remember when I got home, they were nearing, what was it, the 50, 60, 70 mark in home runs for that year if you recall and that was one of the most exciting things to watch in sports i'll just say it out loud listen every sports athletes have to make their own choice every sport is different for me i didn't have any problem with steroids in baseball bob costas was crying in this documentary bob

grab a tissue buddy it ain't that serious uh loved it loved it nobody likes to see their their beloved baseball records broken okay i mean that's why i mean these baseball fans the religiosity that they impose on baseball like it's some kind of fucking sanctified game this is the game of ty cobb please let them do steroids and all the tobacco they want it what do i care the ball flies further over the head and makes exciting wow how am i going to sleep through the night you know what's the difference between steroids and baseball and mickey mantel staying out all night and then eating like a handful of amphetamines on the way into the clubhouse in the morning. Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Thank you. We should get some greenies, actually. Some greenies for this show, right? Maybe it'll boost ratings or something. You know what? It might. It absolutely might. All right, BC.

Well, appreciate everyone. You got another job, right? I do have another job, yes. Appreciate everybody watching. Again, thanks to everyone who has subscribed. If you haven't, please do it already. For Malka, for Showtime, for my man, Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.